Pallahaxi

by Michael Coney

  May led him away sniveling and we resumed a more rational discussion.

  Charm said, “I don’t think the lorin will come here for us. That’s not how they work. They didn’t come for the people last time. It was the ones left outside like Browneyes who were saved, and the ones who went outside of their own accord, like Drove. You know what the lorin think? If people are fool enough to hole up in here and die, then they’re not the kind of people the next world needs. We have to prove we have some sense.”

  “Maybe there are other cave-cows closer than Arrow Forest,” suggested Lonessa. “I don’t know this area. You’ve stardreamed it, Charm.”

  “I didn’t stardream any cave-cows except the one Browneyes woke up in. By the time the lorin came for her, she was unconscious. They could have carried her all the way to Arrow Forest, for all I know.” She looked at me unhappily. “I’m sorry, Hardy. I’m not much help.”

  “There must be cave-cows near Pallahaxi,” I said. “I saw plenty of lorin around there in my stardream. But Drove was unconscious when they came for him, too… . Wait a minute. Mister McNeil says the cave-cow lives off trees whose sap flows downward. Cuptrees and anemones.So there’s always going to be a forest where there’s a cave-cow.”

  “There’s lots of forests around Pallahaxi,” said Cuff. “How do we know which have cave-cows under them? We can’t search them all, not now it’s snowing.” He was descending into pessimism.

  Silly May joined us, leaving Trigger in his corner, staring fiercely at the walls as he tried to come to grips with himself. At least he was trying.

  “There has to be something different about the trees,” she said.

  “One cuptree looks much like the next,” said Cuff gloomily. “I should know. I’ve planted enough of them.”

  May’s eyes widened. “So have I!” she said with suppressed excitement. “Why did you plant them, Cuff?”

  “Because my dad made me. He was too lame to plant them himself toward the end, and he made me plant his share as well as my own.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Lonessa couldn’t understand what she was getting at. “We have to keep replanting the sacred forests, you know that. Otherwise they would die out. You grow cuptrees and anemones from cuttings. They don’t drop seeds like ordinary trees. You’re the Yam arborist. You should know that.”

  “But why does it matter if the forest dies out?” said Silly May. “There are plenty of other forests.”

  “Yes, but we’re talking about the sacred forests, you fool.” Lonessa’s patience was dwindling.

  “Why are they sacred?”

  “Why are they sacred?” It was not the kind of question Lonessa appreciated. “They just are, of course. They always have been. You have no memories, you wouldn’t know. But Noss people have been replanting their forest for generations. It’s a thanksgiving. It’s putting something back in return for the blessings we’ve received. It honors the goatparent.”

  “All right, all right.” Now it was Silly May who was losing patience. “Just bear with me a moment. Just imagine the forests are sacred because there’s a reason. Now let’s go a step further. Maybe the reason is, they’re needed to feed the cave-cows.”

  There was a dead silence.

  At last Spring said faintly, “But that means… . We’ve been compelled to plant, in some way?”

  “Programmed,” said Mister McNeil. “Given an instinct. It’s possible.”

  “I can’t see that,” said Lonessa. “I don’t feel compelled to attend the thanksgiving replanting.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” said Mister McNeil. “That’s the point. It’s like an inherited memory. It’s just there. Inside you. The need to plant, like the need to have children.”

  “But why?”

  “To feed the cave-cows. May’s right. It all fits together.”

  “Fits together with what?”

  “Never mind what!” Silly May was becoming exasperated. “We can talk all that out another time. The point is, Arrow Forest is Totney’s sacred forest and Hardy found a cave-cow under it. We’ll find another cave-cow under Pallahaxi’s sacred forest. Now, does anyone know where the forest is?”

  “It would have died out long ago,” said Cuff gloomily. “There are no people living here. Pallahaxi’s dead.”

  Charm said, “The town may be dead, but the pilgrims kept the forest alive. I know where it is. I’ve stardreamed them replanting it.”

  DEPARTURE

  You humans, I’m sure you’ll come back. I don’t know how many generations from now; but you will. And when you come, look for a fellow with a gold ring around his thumb; Mister McNeil gave it me and it was too big for my finger. I’m passing it to my last son on his coming-of-age, and down the manline. So when you meet this fellow— he may have brown eyes unusual in a stilk—he’ll tell you the story.

  Some came with us, some stayed behind and died.

  Stance’s huntsmen stayed behind. They crouched in a group around their little fire, jabbing at the flames with their spears. Soon enough, the spears themselves would be sacrificed as fuel. I saw Patch glance at me several times, as though trying to make up his mind. Many Yam residents had decided to stay, possibly out of loyalty to the memory of Stance, but more likely fear of the unknown. Caunter stayed, the fool. As we were getting ready for departure Faun joined us.

  “I’d like to come,” she said quietly. “Mom’s staying.”

  Wand scuttled up at that moment, a wrinkled bundle of anxiety. “You can’t go, Faun. I forbid it!”

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  Her voice took on a pleading tone. “You’re really going out there? You must be mad. You’ll all go runabout.”

  We left her to her own delusions and the company of the lost.

  I never went back to Pallahaxi cannery. I’d seen enough death in there already. We wrapped ourselves in furs and loaded ourselves with hot bricks. We opened the door and tramped outside, leaving the small silent groups squatting round their fires, making two-fingered signs, waiting for the Great Lox. The snow was already up to our ankles. It had drifted over all the wonderful machinery so that we had to pick our way carefully around little white hills with black spikes jutting out at all angles. Charm and I led the way south.

  Our bricks were still warm when we met the first lorin. He waded out from under a dormant anemone as though he’d been waiting for us. Maybe he had. He took Charm’s heavily-mittened hand in his furry paw, and led her to a tree with a vertical fissure in its trunk.

  We climbed through, and climbed down.

  Later, five of us lay on the warm floor of the cave-cow close together; Mister McNeil, Charm, Crane, Spring and I. The others were scattered all over the floor, dim shapes in the light of the fungus. Some had already taken the nipples into their mouths and were beginning to fall asleep. Others had dozed off, so the lorin were placing the nipples for them.

  It was a time for reflection; for sorting out memories and getting things straight.

  I said to Mister McNeil, “This is what I think. You say the kikihuahuas created us. Perhaps they didn’t like the way we turned out. You say they don’t believe in killing things or working metal — well, we did both those. So maybe they saw the last Great Freeze as a chance to improve us. They gave us genetic memories while we were asleep, hoping it would help us to learn by our mistakes.

  “Maybe it’s gone wrong again. We’ve killed animals and one another and we’ve worked metal and some of us have even wanted human technology. We haven’t revisited our memories enough. We’ve substituted religion for the facts. We’ve failed.”

  Mister McNeil said, “You haven’t failed, believe me. You don’t know the whole story, that’s all.”

  “Are you going to tell us?”

  He hesitated, then came to a decision. “I may not come through this alive. It’s likely that the milk won’t suit my metabolism, so I’ll tell you what I know before we sleep. You may find i
t discouraging. That’s why I couldn’t tell you before. You needed all the encouragement you could get, just to survive… .

  “Visualize the kikihuahuas arriving. This planet is what we call Earth-type. The kikihuahuas like a slightly different environment, so they need a creature to get it ready for them. Well, there’s one life form that’s evolved to suit Earth-type worlds, and that the human being. No need for trial and error. The kikihuahuas get the goatparent to produce a creature very similar to a human. I expect they even obtained some human genes to use in the mix they fed to the goatparent. So they set this creature down, programmed to get started making the world more suitable.”

  My heart was suddenly pounding. “More suitable for what?”

  “For a second, more preferable life form. In order to do this, the kikihuahuas accept that — in the short term — it might be necessary for their new creature to kill, and to work metal. But its successor will conform to the kikihuahua ideals. It will be a gentle creature living off the land, friendly and gregarious, parthenogenetic, with no likelihood of suffering from overpopulation.”

  “A lorin,” whispered Charm. “They come next.”

  “I’m afraid so. You’ve never felt any curiosity about them, have you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Because you’re programmed that way.”

  We thought about it. The lorin? They just are. How can one be curious about them?

  “How do you know all this?” asked Charm. “You’ve only been here a few generations.”

  “We know the kikihuahuas. This is the way they operate. You’re what we call First Colonists. Your job is to survive as best you can: hunting, fishing, farming, whatever, in a potentially hostile environment. So you have to be strong and ruthless, by their standards. While you are surviving, you plant anemones and cuptrees to provide food and drink for infant cave-cows put in place by the first generation.”

  Crane chuckled grimly. “So that’s all we are. Deep down, we’re all just arborists. The despised job we give to our least worthy people. Well, so be it. The grume will still come; the grume will still go.”

  We thought about it. I’d often wondered what our real purpose was; now I knew. The Nowhere Man had been right; I felt no better for the knowledge. We were temporary and we were expendable. “You’re really saying our only purpose is to plant trees?”

  “Yes. Until the cave-cows have grown sufficiently big to support an optimum lorin population.”

  “And when will that be?” I couldn’t help but glance across the cave-cow. It looked huge. Lorin strolled to and fro on desultory errands, popping nipples into people’s mouths.

  “I have no idea.”

  “But this could be it. We could have served our purpose now. The cave-cows could be fully developed.”

  “There’s no way of telling. Only the lorin will know that.”

  “And what will they do then?”

  “My guess is, they’ll just leave you to sleep forever. They can’t kill you. It’s against their law.”

  We were silent. I felt a deep sadness. I’d always liked the lorin because I felt they were supremely good, and they helped us out from time to time because they liked us. Now, it seemed, it was because they needed a healthy workforce. It would take a long time for me to get used to that idea.

  So I revisited old memories and I’m sure Charm was doing the same. I was glad we couldn’t remember back to the very beginning because then we’d have known too much and it would have discouraged us. So I decided to revisit a few good memories instead of brooding; the memory of Dad, for example. He must always have known I would be chief one day; he couldn’t let down his brother, but he knew the bonds between cousins were not so strong, and sooner or later Trigger, the fool, would be found out. But the best memories were very recent, and I hardly liked to think about them because they would be cruelly cut off so soon… .

  Charm hugged me tight. “Let’s not go to sleep, Hardy. Let’s stay awake for the rest of our lives. Think how many times we could make love.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, I saw Crane was already dozing against the curve of the cave-cow. As I watched, a lorin approached and gently placed a nipple between his lips.

  “Wake up, Hardy!”

  Charm, propped up on one elbow, was poking me gently in the ribs. I must have dozed off. I sat up quickly, blinking, puzzled.

  I didn’t feel tired any more. My last memory was making love with Charm, then struggling to keep awake while those around me slept. And now, suddenly, I was wide awake.

  All around, people were stirring. Glowing fungi had been placed in heaps. Lorin bustled to and fro, more briskly than usual, removing nipples from mouths.

  I said, hardly daring, “We’ve come through it, haven’t we? Forty years?”

  “I can hardly believe it.” She was crying with quiet joy, tears dripping from her round chin, watching me.

  I heard Crane whisper, “Another chance, by Phu! We’ll see the grume yet.”

  I rolled over to awaken Mister McNeil and came into contact with something brittle that crumbled under my shoulder. I stared for a moment, considered geas, then decided not. I didn’t want to forget anything about Mister McNeil; not even this. He must live in the memories of my descendants; everything he’d done, every word he’d said, until the lorin decided the First Colonists should call it quits.

  But that was not yet.

  The lorin were helping us to our feet, ushering us along the cave-cow with gentle shoves. Soon we were blinking in bright sunlight. Phu was back, Rax was gone.

  It was all so beautiful and so new and bright, and I heard cries of wonder and thanksgiving from those around me.

  “You can see why it’s easy to believe in the Great Lox and all that nonsense,” Charm murmured.

  “I don’t want that to happen. I wanted the new world to be based on truth.” I looked around at the people of Noss and Yam. “I want to teach them everything Mister McNeil taught me.”

  “It’s up to us, my love. But won’t they find it a bit disheartening?”

  “That probably depends on the person. We have one life each; plenty of people will want to make the most of it. But I want them to know they’re part of a greater scheme. When they’re planting the trees I want them to know why, instead of being led by their instincts the way you might lead a brainless lox. It’s just too degrading, all this superstition. It plays us for fools. We’re part of the whole process and we should be proud of it. I know I am, for Phu’s sake!”

  “Nothing wrong in having a purpose,” agreed Charm.

  “In a way I pity the humans, just vaguely going forth and multiplying.”

  She smiled, and I knew everything was going to be fine. “So what shall we do next, Hardy? Reality will set in soon enough. I’m hungry already. Of course,” she gave me a sideways glance, “I’m fairly sure I have to eat for two these days.”

  “Fairly sure?” I stared at her. A great joy grew within me. Joy was in plentiful supply, today.

  “Well, almost certain.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Anyway, it’s one of those things we must gloat over in private, not here. It’s time for us to show leadership qualities. We can’t stand around looking at the scenery all day. What do you think?”

  “I think we should rebuild Pallahaxi and settle in there for a few generations. It worked before and it’ll work again. Particularly if we can get Smith and Smitha to join us. Wilt will have made sure they came through all right.” I looked at the angle of the sun. “The grume will be arriving soon, so there’ll be plenty to eat. We’ll fish the grume and we’ll sow in the spring, all of us together, none of this nonsense about grubbers and flounders.”

  Silly May and Cuff had strolled up; she was looking at me speculatively. “You said we’ll fish and we’ll sow. As though you meant men and women together, as well as grubbers and flounders. Interesting concept, Hardy. I wondered if anyone would ever suggest it. What do you say, C
uff?” Cuff looked highly discomfited by this.

  “I’ll take it further,” I said. “We’ll live together, too. Separate memory lines don’t have to mean separate cultures or separate men’s and women’s villages. I’m not going to be looked on as a freak because I love Charm and want to live with her. If she and I are in charge here, then by Phu why shouldn’t we wield a bit of power!”

  “Good luck to you,” said Cuff. There was to be no leadership battle. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed.

  Spring was nearby with Lonessa, and they’d overheard. Trigger and Faun were chatting and Trigger, free of his father, looked almost normal. They laughed too. It could have been the fine weather and what Mister McNeil called joie de vivre, but I did notice people all around hugging one another with scant regard for gender. An encouraging start.

  “To Pallahaxi!” I shouted, drunk with power. “We have a civilization to build!

  The words would embarrass my descendants mightily, but at that moment they were the right words to shout, and people cheered their approval.

  BIO OF THE AUTHOR

  Michael Coney established himself in the mid-1970s as one of the leading British science-fiction writers of his day, with a string of novels distinctive for their combination of light readability on the surface and much darker inner depths. Hello Summer, Goodbye first appeared in 1975 while Mike was managing an Antiguan hotel called the Jabberwock, a beachfront nightclub with a few guest rooms. He had left Britain in 1969, after the sort of disengaged career attempts that characterised the early years of so many writers. But Britain was never far from Mike’s work and the atmosphere of the west country provided a strong flavour in his novels and stories. It was particularly noticeable in Hello Summer, Goodbye.

  When his cancer was discovered, Mike made four of his last books available as free internet downloads, including the unpublished I Remember Pallahaxi, the sequel to Hello Summer, Goodbye. That book now appears in print for the first time as a uniform volume with Hello Summer, Goodbye from PS Publishing. Mike died in 2005.