A Circus of Hells df-2 Read online

  Checked out, the party set down its vehicle and stepped forth. At this altitude, relay to base continued automatically.

  Flandry’s first awareness was of weight, enclosure, chuttering pump, cooled dried air blown at his nostrils. Being otherwise unprocessed, the atmosphere bore odors—growth, decay, flower and animal exudations, volcanic fumes—that stirred obscure memories at the back of his brain. He dismissed them and concentrated on his surroundings.

  The river boomed past a broad meadow, casting spray and steam over its banks. Above and on every side loomed the jungle. Trees grew high, brush grew wide, leaf crowding serrated blue leaf until the eye soon lost itself in dripping murk. But the stems looked frail, pulpy, and the leaves were drying out; they rattled against each other, the fallen ones scrittled before a breeze, the short life of summer’s forest drew near to an end.

  Sturdier on open ground was that vegetable family the Merseians called wair: as widespread, variegated, and ecologically fundamental as grass on Terra. In spring it grew from a tough-hulled seed, rapidly building a cluster of foliage and a root that resembled a tuber without being one. The leaves of the dominant local species were ankle height and lacy. They too were withering, the wair was going dormant; but soon, in fall, it would consume its root and sprout seeds, and when frost cracked their pods, the seeds would fall to earth.

  Darkling over treetops could be glimpsed Mt. Thunderbelow. A slight shudder went through Flandry’s shins, he heard a rumble, the volcano had cleared its throat. Smoke puffed forth.

  But the Domrath were coming. He focused on them.

  Life on Talwin had followed the same general course as on most terrestroid planets. Differences existed. It would have been surprising were there none. Thus, while tissues were principally built of L-amino proteins in water solution like Flandry’s or Cnif’s, here they normally metabolized levo sugars. A man could live on native food, if he avoided the poisonous varieties; but he must take the dietary capsules the Merseians had prepared.

  Still, the standard division into photosynthetic vegetable and oxygen-breathing animal had occurred, and the larger animals were structurally familiar with their interior skeletons, four limbs, paired eyes and ears. Set beside many sophonts, the Domrath would have looked homelike.

  They were bipeds with four-fingered hands, their outline roughly anthropoid except for the proportionately longer legs and huge, clawed, thickly soled feet necessary to negotiate springtime swamps and summer hardpan. The skin was glabrous, bluish, with brown and black mottlings that were beginning to turn gaudy colors as mating season approached. The heads were faintly suggestive of elephants’, round, with beady eyes, large erect ears that doubled as cooling surfaces, a short trunk that was a chemosensor and a floodtime snorkel, small down-curving tusks on the males. The people wore only loincloths, loosely woven straw cloaks to help keep off “insects,” necklaces and other ornaments of bone, shell, horn, teeth, tinted clay. Some of their tools and weapons were bronze, some—incongruously—paleolithic.

  That much was easily grasped. And while their size was considerable, adult males standing over two meters and massing a hundred or more kilos, females even larger, it was not overwhelming. They were bisexual and viviparous. Granted, they were not mammals. A mother fed her infants by régurgitation. Bodies were poikilothermic, though now functioning at a higher rate than any Terran reptile. That was not unheard of either.

  Nonetheless, Flandry thought, it marked the foundation of their uniqueness. For when your energy, your very intelligence was a function of temperature; when you not only slept at night, but spent two-thirds of your life among the ghostly half-dreams of hibernation—

  About a score had come to meet the xenologists, with numerous young tagging after. The grownups walked in ponderous stateliness. But several had burdens strapped on their backs; and behind them Flandry saw others continue work, packing, loading bundles onto carrier poles, sweeping and garnishing soon-to-be-deserted houses.

  The greeting committee stopped a few meters off. Its leader elevated his trunk while dipping his ax. Sounds that a human palate could not reproduce came from his mouth. Flandry heard the computer’s voice in his radio unit. “Here is Seething Springs. I am”—no translation available, but the name sounded like “G’ung”—“who speaks this year for our tribe.” An intonation noted, in effect, that “tribe” (Eriau “maddeuth,” itself not too close an equivalent of the Anglic word by which Flandry rendered it) was a debatable interpretation of the sound G’ung made, but must serve until further studies had deepened comprehension of his society. “Why have you come?”

  The question was not hostile, nor was the omission of a spoken welcome. The Domrath were gregarious, unwarlike although valiant fighters at need, accustomed to organizing themselves in nomadic bands. And, while omnivorous, they didn’t make hunting a major occupation. Their near ancestors had doubtless lived entirely off the superabundant plant life of summer. Accordingly, they had no special territorial instincts. Except for their winter dens, it did not occur to them that anyone might not have a perfect right to be anywhere.

  The Seething Springs folk were unusual in returning annually to permanent buildings, instead of constructing temporary shelters wherever they chanced to be. And this custom had grown up among them only because their hibernation site was not too far from this village. No one had challenged their occupation of it.

  Quite simply and amiably, G’ung wondered what had brought the Merseians.

  “We explained our reasons when last we visited you…with gifts,” their leader reminded. His colleagues bore trade goods, metal tools and the like, which had hitherto delighted all recipients. “We wish to learn about your tribe.”

  “Is understood.” Neither G’ung nor his group acted wildly enthusiastic.

  No Domrath had shown fear of the Merseians. Being formidable animals, they had never developed either timidity or undue aggressiveness; being at an early prescientific stage, they lived among too many marvels and mysteries to see anything terrifyingly strange about spaceships bearing extraplanetarians; and Yowyr had enforced strict correctness in every dealing with them. So why did these hesitate?

  The answer was manifest as G’ung continued: “But you came before in high summer. Fastbreaking Festival was past, the tribes had dispersed, food was ample and wit was keen. Now we labor to bring the season’s gatherings to our hibernation place. When we are there, we shall feast and mate until we drowse off. We have no time or desire for sharing self with outsiders.”

  “Is understood, G’ung,” the Merseian said. “We do not wish to hamper or interfere. We do wish to observe. Other tribes have we watched as fall drew nigh, but not yours, and we know your ways differ from the Towlanders’ in more than one regard. For this privilege we bid gifts and, can happen, the help of our flying house to transport your stores.”

  The Domrath snorted among themselves. They must be tempted but unsure. Against assistance in the hard job of moving stuff up toward Mt. Thunderbelow must be balanced a change in immemorial practice, a possible angering of gods…yes, it was known the Domrath were a religious race…

  “Your words shall be shared and chewed on,” G’ung decided. “We shall assemble tonight. Meanwhile is much to do while light remains.” The darkness of Talwin’s clouded summer was pitchy; and in this dry period, fires were restricted and torches tabooed: He issued no spoken invitation, that not being the custom of his folk, but headed back. The Merseians followed with Flandry.

  The village was carefully laid out in a spiderweb pattern of streets—for defense? Buildings varied in size and function, from hut to storage shed, but were all of stone, beautifully dressed, dry-laid, and chinked. Massive wooden beams supported steeply pitched sod roots. Both workmanship and dimensions—low ceilings, narrow doorways, slit windows with heavy shutters—showed that, while the Domrath used this place, they had not erected it.

  They boiled about, a hundred or so of every age; doubtless more were on the trail to the dens. Voic
es and footfalls surged around. In spite of obvious curiosity, no one halted work above a minute to stare at the visitors. Autumn was too close.

  At a central plaza, where the old cooked a communal meal over a firepit, G’ung showed the Merseians some benches. “I will speak among the people,” he said. “Come day’s end, you shall receive us here and we shall share self on the matter you broach. Tell me first: would the Ruadrath hold with your plan?”

  “I assure you the Ruadrath have nothing against it,” Cnif said.

  From what I’ve studied, Flandry thought, I’m not quite sure that’s true, once they find out.

  “I have glimpsed a Ruad—I think—when I was small and spring came early,” said an aged female. “That you see them each year—” She wandered off, shaking her head.

  With Cnif’s assent, Flandry peeked into a house fronting on the square. He saw a clay floor, a hearth and smokehole, daises along two sides with shelves above. Bright unhuman patterns glowed on walls and intricately carved timbers. In one corner stood a loaded rack, ready to go. But from the rafters, with ingenious guards against animals, hung dried fruits and cured meat—though the Domrath were rarely eaters of flesh. A male sat carefully cleaning and greasing bronze utensils, knifes, bowls, an ax, a saw. His female directed her young in tidying the single room while she spread the daises with new straw mats.

  Flandry greeted the family. “Is this to be left?” he asked. It seemed like quite a bit for these impoverished savages.

  “In lightness, what else?” the male replied. He didn’t stop his work, nor appear to notice that Flandry was not a Merseian. In his eyes, the differences were probably negligible. “The metal is of the Ruadrath, as is the house. For use we give payment, that they may be well pleased with us when they come out of the sea.” He did pause then, to make a sign that might be avertive or might be reverent—or both or neither, but surely reflected the universal sense of a mortal creature confronting the unknown. “Such is the law, by which our forebears lived while others died. Thch ra’a.”

  Ruadrath: elves, gods, winter ghosts.

  Chapter XIV

  More and more, as the weeks of Flandry’s absence passed, her existence took on for Djana an unreality. Or was it that she began slowly to enter a higher truth, which muted the winds outside and made the walls around her shadowy?

  Not that she thought about it in that way, save perhaps when the magician wove her into a spell. Otherwise she lived in everydayness. She woke in the chamber that the man had shared with her. She exercised and groomed herself out of habit, because her living had hitherto depended on her body. At mess she stood respectfully aside while the Merseians went through brief rituals religious, familial, and patriotic—oddly impressive and stirring, those big forms and deep voices, drawn steel and talking drums—and afterward joined in coarse bread, raw vegetables, gwydh-msk cheese, and the Terran-descended tea which they raised throughout the Roidhunate. There followed study, talk, sometimes a special interview, sometimes recreation for a while; a simple lunch; a nap in deference to her human circadian rhythm; more study, until evening’s meat and ale. (Since Merseia rotated at about half the rate of Talwin, a night had already gone over the land.) Later she might have further conversation, or attend a concert or recorded show or amateur performance of something traditional; or she might retire alone with a tape. In any event, she was early abed.

  Talk, like perusal of a textreel or watching of a projection, was via the linguistic computer. It had plenty of spare channels, and could throw out a visual translation as easily as a sonic one. However, she was methodically being given a working knowledge of Eriau, along with an introduction to Merseian history and culture.

  She cooperated willingly. Final disposition of her case lay with superiors who had not yet been heard from. At worst, though, she wasn’t likely to suffer harm—given a prince of the blood on her side—and at best…well, who dared predict? Anyway, her education gave her something to do. And as it advanced, it started interesting, at last entrancing her.

  Merseia, rival, aggressor, troublemaker, menace lairing out beyond Betelgeuse; she’d accepted the slogans like everybody else, never stopping to think about them. Oh, yes, the Merseians were terrible, but they lived far off and the Navy was supposed to keep them there while the diplomatic corps maintained an uneasy peace, and she had troubles of her own.

  Here she dwelt among beings who treated her with gruff kindness. Once you got to know them, she thought, they were…they had homes and kin the same as people, that they missed the same as people; they had arts, melodies, sports, games, jokes, minor vices, though of course you had to learn their conventions, their whole style of thinking, before you could appreciate it…They didn’t want war with Terra, they only saw the Empire as a bloated sick monstrosity which had long outlived its usefulness but with senile cunning contrived to hinder and threaten them…No, they did not dream of conquering the galaxy, that was absurd on the face of it, they simply wanted freedom to range and rule without bound, and “rule” did not mean tyranny over others, it meant just that others should not stand in the way of the full outfolding of that spirit which lay in the Race…

  A spirit often hard and harsh, perhaps, but bone-honest with itself; possessed of an astringency that was like a sea breeze after the psychic stench of what Djana had known; not jaded or rootless, but reaching for infinity and for a God beyond infinity, while planted deep in the consciousness of kinship, heroic ancestral memories, symbols of courage, pride, sacrifice…Djana felt it betokened much that the chief of a Vach—not quite a clan—was called not its Head but its Hand.

  Were those humans who served Merseia really traitors…to anything worth their loyalty?

  But it was not this slow wondering that made the solid world recede from her. It was Ydwyr the Seeker and his spells; and belike they had first roused the questions in her.

  To start with, he too had merely talked. His interest in her background, experiences, habits, and attitudes appeared strictly scientific. As a rule they met à deux in his office. “Thus I need not be a nephew of the Roidhun,” he explained wryly. Fear stabbed her for a second. He gave her a shrewd regard and added, “No one is monitoring our translator channel.”

  She garnered nerve to say, “The qanryf—”

  “We have had our differences,” Ydwyr replied, “but Morioch is a male of honor.”

  She thought: How many Imperial officers in this kind of setup would dare skip precautions against snooping and blackmail?

  He had a human-type chair built for her, and poured her a glass of arthberry wine at each colloquy. Before long she was looking forward to the sessions and wishing he were less busy elsewhere, coordinating his workers in the field and the data they brought back. He didn’t press her for answers, he relaxed and let conversation ramble and opened for her the hoard of his reminiscences about adventures on distant planets.

  She gathered that xenology had always fascinated him and that he was seldom home. Almost absent-mindedly, in obligation to his Vach, he had married and begotten; but he took his sons with him from the time they were old enough to leave the gynaeceum until they were ready for their Navy hitches. Yet he did not lack warmth. His subordinates adored him. When he chanced to speak of the estate where he was born and raised, his parents and siblings, the staff whose fathers had served his fathers for generations, she came to recognize tenderness.

  Then finally—it was dark outside, the hot still dark of summer’s end, heat lightning aflicker beyond stockade and skeletal trees—he summoned her; but when she entered the office, he rose and said: “Let us go to my private quarters.”

  For a space she was again frightened. He bulked so big, so gaunt and impassive in his gray robe, and they were so alone together. A fluoro glowed cold, and the air that slid and whispered across her skin had likewise gone chill.

  He smiled his Merseian smile, which she had learned to read as amicable. Crinkles radiated through the tiny scales of his skin, from eyes and mouth. “I wa
nt to show you something I keep from most of my fellows,” he said. “You might understand where they cannot.”

  The little voicebox hung around his neck, like the one around hers, spoke with the computer’s flat Anglic. She filled that out with his Eriau. No longer did the language sound rough and guttural; it was, in truth, rather soft, and rich in tones. She could pick out individual words by now. She heard nothing in his invitation except—

  —the father I never knew.

  Abruptly she despised herself for what she had feared. How must she look to him? Face: hag-thin, wax-white, save for the bizarrely thick and red lips; behind it, two twisted flaps of cartilage. Body: dwarfish, scrawny, bulge-breasted, pinch-waisted, fat-bottomed, tailless, feet outright deformed. Skin: no intricate pattern of delicate flexible overlap; a rubberiness relieved only by lines and coarse pores; and hair, everywhere hair in ridiculous bunches and tufts, like fungus on a corpse. Odor: what? Sour? Whatever it was, no lure for a natural taste.

  Men! she thought. God, I don’t mean to condemn your work, but You also made the dogs men keep, and don’t You agree they’re alike, those two breeds? Dirty, smelly, noisy, lazy, thievish, quick to attack when you aren’t watching, quick to run or cringe when you are; they’re useless, they create nothing, you have to wait on them, listen to their boastful bayings, prop up their silly little egos till they’re ready to slobber over you again…

  I’m sorry. Jesus wore the shape of a man, didn’t he?

  But he wore it—in pity—because we needed him—and what’ve we done with his gift?

  Before her flashed the image of a Merseian Christ, armed and shining, neither compassionate nor cruel but the Messiah of a new day…She hadn’t heard of any such belief among them. Maybe they had no need of redemption; maybe they were God’s chosen…

  Ydwyr caught her hands between his, which were cool and dry. “Djana, are you well?”