A Star Above It and Other Stories

by Chad Oliver

  Arthur Canady stood surveying the scene, his long legs wide apart, his work-roughened hands on his hips. There was a respectable black beard on his face and he had let his hair grow long. He shivered a little in the cold and tried to determine his next move. There was no doubt that they had failed utterly in their mission to date; the natives had shown no interest at all in the fancy gadgets they had brought from Earth. This didn’t bother Canady—in fact it gave him a secret satisfaction—but what did bother him was the fact that after months with The People he was still a stranger. He felt a keen sense of not belonging, of being an outsider. He had made no friends and this had never happened to him before. The People were not hostile and they treated him with every courtesy, but they did not accept him.

  That hurt.

  He walked along the line of tipis, smelling the rich odors of yedoma steaks broiling over the cook-fires. He saw Lerrie, the wife of Rownar, washing her face in the cold waters of the mountain stream. She looked up at him and smiled. She looked radiantly beautiful as though filled with an inner joy that stamped itself upon her every feature. Her eyes sparkled in the morning sunlight. She shook the water from her face and began to comb out her long black hair.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “It is a lovely morning, Ar-thur.” It was odd to hear his name on her lips and the sound of his name took on a strange music.

  “The Old Ones have been kind,” he said, following the formula. “I rejoice for you.”

  She smiled again. “I am to be a mother,” she said, as though this were the most wonderful thing in the world. “I, Lerrie, am to have a child!”

  “That is good.” Canady hesitated, searching for the right words. “It is your first?” he asked.

  She stared at him and then laughed aloud. “My first! Surely you are joking with me? Of course it is my first. How could it be otherwise?”

  “Forgive me; many of your customs are still strange to me. Lerrie, in my world it is sometimes dangerous to ask a woman how old she is. Do you mind if I ask you? How old are you, Lerrie?”

  She frowned as though puzzled. “How … old?”

  “How many seasons have you lived?”

  She shook her head. “I do not know,” she said simply. “We do not count such things. I am alive. That is all.”

  “Many seasons?” Canady persisted.

  “Yes, Ar-thur. Many seasons.”

  “Do you remember when you were a child, Lerrie?”

  She pursed her lips. “It was long ago. I remember little.” Her face brightened. “I do remember the Coming of Age, when I became one of The People. I will never forget that. I was so frightened. I had heard stories of the Long Walk, even then.” She paused. “My child will be a good child, Ar-thur. He will have a good heart.”

  “I’m sure he will, Lerrie.” He looked at the woman before him. She was hardly more than a girl. By Earthly standards she could not have been more than twenty-five years old. And yet she could not remember her childhood?

  She had lived—how long?

  Many seasons.

  “I rejoice for you,” he said again, and walked on to find Plavgar, the headman of The People. He found him sitting cross-legged in his tipi while his wife busied herself mending clothing. Canady was invited inside and seated himself on Plavgar’s right, which he knew was proper etiquette for a guest. He said nothing until Plavgar’s comely wife had served him a wooden bowlful of stew, which he dutifully sampled.

  “Please smoke if you wish,” Plavgar said. “I have noticed that it makes you more comfortable.”

  Canady pulled out his pipe, filled it, and lit it with a burning stick from the fire. The inside of the tipi was surprisingly roomy and spotlessly clean. The ground was covered with yedoma skins and the air smelled sweet and fresh. Canady took his time, puffing on his pipe. Plavgar sat quietly, watching him. He was a man of great dignity but except for the blue comb in his hair there was nothing about him to show his office of leader. He was still a young man in the prime of life, and yet his bearing was that of a man who had lived long and thought of many things.

  “May I ask you some questions?” Canady said slowly.

  Plavgar smiled. “That is your custom.”

  Canady flushed faintly. “I am sincere in wanting to know about The People. There are many things that I do not understand. As I stay with you longer, I find that I know less and less.”

  “That is the beginning of wisdom, my son.” It was first time that Plavgar had ever called him son and it pleased Canady. Of course, he himself was thirty-five, older than Plavgar looked, but the term seemed fitting.

  “Do I have your permission to ask you anything I wish?”

  Plavgar nodded, a faint twinkle in his eyes. “We have no secrets. I will help you all I can.”

  Canady leaned forward. “What happens to the children of The People?” he asked.

  Playgar frowned. “What happens to them? Why, they grow up into adult members of the tribe.”

  “They always grow up into adult members of the tribe?”

  “Almost always. When a child is born he must learn many things. He must live among The People and learn their ways. If he has a good heart, he is sent out alone to Thunder Rock, high in the mountains. There he fasts for four days and there the Old Ones send a guardian spirit to him. He sees the guardian spirit and they become one. Then he goes through the Coming of Age, and he is one of The People forever.”

  “And if he does not have a good heart?”

  “That does not often happen, my son. If he does not have a good heart, if he does not believe in the ways of The People, then the Old Ones are sad and will not accept him. His guardian spirit does not come to Thunder Rock and he is alone. If he has no guardian spirit, it would be unthinkable for him to take part in the Coming of Age.”

  “What happens to him?”

  “He takes the Long Walk.”

  “You mean—he is expelled from the tribe?”

  “He was never one of The People. He takes the Long Walk alone. He is alone forever or until his heart is good. A man cannot be a man until his heart is good.”

  Canady kept his face expressionless. His profession had taught him patience, if nothing else. It was always like this: the answers freely given that explained nothing. The guardian spirit complex was a familiar one, of course; it was the idea of a personal vision that came after fasting, a contact with the supernatural that gave a man a kind of personal phantom ally that accompanied him through life. If you were told throughout your childhood that you would see a spirit on zzzzzzzzzthunder Rock, and if you went without eating for four days alone in the mountains, you would see a spirit right enough. Particularly if you could not gain admission into adult status in the tribe if you did not see a spirit. Still—

  “I have heard much of the Old Ones. Can you tell me about them?”

  “The Old Ones lived in the world before men came,” Plavgar said, as though instructing a small child. “They were mighty beings and they live still in the high places. We cannot see them in our day-to-day life, but they are always there. They show themselves to us on Thunder Rock if we have a good heart. The Old Ones watch over our people and protect us from harm. The lives of the Old Ones and those of The People are one. We live together in harmony, and each is a part of the other.”

  That tells me exactly nothing, Canady thought.

  He tried to bring the conversation down to a more concrete level. “Why is it that I have seen no children among The People?” he asked.

  Plavgar smiled. “They have all grown up. The children are The People now.”

  Swell.

  “And Lerrie?”

  “The Old Ones have been kind. We rejoice for her, and we are thankful to Mewenta.” Plavgar eyed him shrewdly. “You will stay with us long, my son?”

  “Perhaps.” The mother ship was due to pick them up twenty-two terrestrial months from now.

  “Then you shall see for yourself what happens to the children of The People.” Pla
vgar’s face glowed. It seemed to be impossible for any native to refer to the coming child without a kind of inner ecstasy. “The Old Ones have been kind!”

  “I rejoice with you,” Canady said politely. There was a question nagging at him, something about what Plavgar had said. He tried to put his finger on it and failed. There were so many strange things—

  He stood up. “I thank you for your time, Plavgar.”

  “I hope I have helped you,” the headman said.

  I hope so too, Canady thought, feeling far from certain.

  He took his leave and went back to the sphere to dictate the text of his conversations with Plavgar and Lerrie.

  All that afternoon, while Frank was busy trying to interest someone in his sewing machines, Canady puzzled over the data he had obtained. He felt that he had at least made some progress: he could pinpoint the areas in the culture that were causing the trouble. He could ask the right questions, and he knew that the answers were only a matter of time.

  He smoked his pipe thoughtfully and as he worked he sensed a growing excitement within him. Approached solely as a puzzle, The People were more intriguing than any culture he had ever encountered. And if his hunch was right—

  Looked at on a superficial level there was nothing at all extraordinary about The People. They formed a small hunting society based on the yedoma, they lived in tipis, they told stories about the Old Ones and believed in personal guardian spirits. There was nothing obviously wrong. But—

  Item: None of the Earth’s techniques for manipulating the culture had had the slightest effect. The culture was stable beyond belief. They not only had no interest in technology as such—they actively opposed any technological change. They wanted to keep their way of life the way it was. This was frequently the case in areas like social organization and religion, but Canady had never heard of a group that would not take to firearms and sewing machines like ducks to water. It was as though The People knew that the introduction of new technological elements would inevitably change their total way of life.

  Item: Lerrie looked like a young girl. Yet she could not remember her childhood. She had no idea how old she was. And the notion of having more than one child had struck her as being ridiculous.

  Item: There were no old individuals among The People. Canady had not seen a single person who looked over thirty. Even the leaders like Plavgar were young men.

  Item: There were no children among The People. At first, Canady could hardly credit this, but there could be no doubt of it now. There were no babies, no adolescent boys and girls. Lerrie’s pregnancy was a great event. Her child would be the only one in the tribe….

  Item: There were no shamans. There were no techniques for dealing with sickness.

  What did it all add up to?

  Suddenly, Canady remembered the phrase of Plavgar’s that had troubled him when he first heard it. What had Plavgar said?

  “We rejoice for her, and we are thankful to Mewenta.”

  Mewenta? But the husband of Lerrie was named Rownar. Who was Mewenta, and what did he have to do with the coming birth of Lerrie’s child?

  Canady snapped his fingers. Of course! He knew who Mewenta had to be, and that meant—

  He got to his feet, the blood racing in his veins. He hurried outside into the twilight shadows. He knew the question now. It was time to get an answer.

  Canady soon found that it was easier to determine upon a course of action than to carry it out. He had worked over his data longer than he had thought and twilight was already deepening into night when he tried to find Plavgar for another conference.

  He found him quickly enough but Plavgar was busy.

  The hunters had all come in, loaded down with yedoma meat, and smooth firm-fleshed fish had been taken from the mountain streams. The women had prepared the evening meal and built up the fires against the night. The People had gathered in knots around the fires and Canady saw at once that there was some kind of ceremony going on.

  It was not the sort of thing that a man could interrupt gracefully. Canady stayed in the shadows and watched.

  It was a curious ritual, a mixture of wild abandon and solemn, highly stylized movements that were as old as time and performed with an immemorial artistry. There was a definite rhythm to the ritual, but it was a rhythm of motion rather than of music; no instruments were used and the only sound came from cadenced human voices.

  The women sat in groups of four around the fires. In the center of the camp, dressed in a long blue tunic, Lerrie stood on a low platform of logs. Her skin gleamed like gold in the firelight and her long black hair glistened around her shoulders. She turned slowly on the platform, facing each group of women in turn. There was a happiness in her eyes that was good to see.

  The men danced in a great circle around Lerrie, their deep voices chanting a song that was old when the very mountains were young. Every few minutes one man would detach himself from the circle and visit each of the woman-fires. At each fire he would raise his bare arms and address the women in a ritual speech. He would tell of the events of his life, taking care to mention the incidents he had shared with each woman, and then give an account of his personal exploits: coups he had counted on raiding parties, his moment of contact with his guardian spirit, stories of Long Walks and Old Ones. When he had completed the circle of the fires, he would choose one woman for his ceremonial mate and take her into the trees beside the mountain stream. After a time, the two of them would come back to the fires, the woman would seat herself in her group of four, and the man would resume his place in the circle. As far as Canady could determine, the only rule was that a man could not choose his own wife.

  Canady watched in silence, feeling far more than a scientific interest in the proceedings. He felt desperately alone, desperately out of things, like a penniless child with his face pressed tight against the cold window of a toy shop. He stood in the shadows of the firelight, half in darkness and half in light, and he chewed on the stem of his pipe with a longing and bitterness that racked his soul. The stars were frozen above him, the night was chill, and he had been long without a woman….

  The tireless chant continued and The People filled the darkness with their rejoicing. Only Lerrie was alone, and no man touched her. She stood smiling on the log platform, radiantly lovely with the new life that was stirring within her. Canady felt a strange kinship with her, the kinship of the outsiders, but he resented her too. She was the center of everything, and he simply did not count.

  He shook his head. This was a hell of a time for self-pity.

  He waited until dawn streaked the sky with gray, waited until he could sense the great red sun hovering beneath the mountain horizon. When the ceremony was over and The People were laughing and talking together in normal voices, he sought out Plavgar.

  Plavgar smiled and touched his shoulder with something like pity. “Welcome, my son. I thank you for your courtesy in waiting. It has been a long night for you.”

  Canady nodded. “The longest of my life, I think. May I ask you one more question, Plavgar?”

  “We have no secrets, my son.”

  “You told me earlier that you rejoiced for Lerrie, and that you were thankful to Mewenta. Who is Mewenta?”

  Canady tensed. He knew the answer to the question but he had to ask, had to be sure. He listened to Plavgar’s words with a thrill of confirmation.

  “Mewenta was a great man of The People. On the night before you came to visit us, Ar-thur, he did a wonderful thing for The People. He walked into the fire and his spirit now lives here in the mountains. Because of his deed, the Old Ones smiled. That is why Lerrie now will have a child.”

  Canady remembered that night. They had hidden in a clump of bushes, looking down on a scene, of wild magnificence. A thousand natives had gathered around a roaring fire and the tipis had shone in the moonlight. A naked man bowed to the four directions, gave a last farewell look out into the night and the moons and the stars. His face had been supremely peaceful, the face
of a man who had reached the end of a long, long journey.

  He walked into the roaring flames….

  Mewenta.

  Canady turned and walked back to the sphere. He should have been tired but nothing was further from his mind than sleep. He felt an electric excitement in his muscles, an almost supernatural clearness in his mind.

  He shook Frank’s shoulder.

  “Frank, wake up.”

  Frank sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. “What’s the matter? What time is it?”

  “Frank, I’ve got it. I know about The People now.”

  Frank Landis groped for a cigarette, eyeing his companion sleepily. “Know what about The People? What is there to know?”

  Canady laughed. “God, and we tried to impress them with sewing machines!”

  Frank waited, puffing on his cigarette. “Well?”

  “Frank, don’t you see? We’ve walked right smack into the middle of the biggest discovery ever made by man. Frank, The People don’t die.”

  “What?”

  “They don’t die, at least not naturally. They’re immortal, Frank. They live forever.”

  Frank stared at him, the cigarette forgotten in his hand.

  “Immortal,” Canady said again.

  He walked over to the port and looked out at the red splendor of the morning sun.

  IV

  Two hours later, while the camp slept around them and the warmth of the day inched up toward the mountain snows, the men from Earth were still at it. The sphere was blue with stale tobacco smoke and the coffee dregs had turned gummy in the cups.

  “I did not say you were crazy, Arthur,” Frank said.” That’s not fair.”

  Canady watched him and had to smile. Despite the words that tumbled from his lips, Frank obviously thought he was trapped with a lunatic—or at best with a man on the thin edge of sanity. And Canady was finding it very difficult to talk to Frank. Frank’s eager, friendly personality and his guileless blue eyes just didn’t belong in the same room with talk about immortality. It was like trying to explain to a three-year-old child that the Earth wasn’t really flat but only looked that way.