Thorns

by Robert Silverberg

  “I’m going back alone. To look for Lona.”

  “You don’t need her. Stop trying to annoy me.” She tugged at him. “Lie down beside me. I want to look at Saturn again while you have me.”

  He ran his hand along the silkiness of her. Her eyes glittered. He whispered, “Let’s get out of the sled. Let’s run naked to that lake and swim in it.”

  Methane clouds puffed about them. The temperature outside would make Antarctica in winter seem tropical. Would they die first from freezing, or from the poison in their lungs? They’d never reach the lake. He saw them sprawled on the snowy dune, white on white, rigid as marble. He’d last longer than she would, holding his breath as she toppled and fell, as she flopped about, flesh caressed by the hydrocarbon bath. But he wouldn’t last long.

  “Yes!” she cried. “We’ll swim! And afterward we’ll make love beside the lake!”

  She reached for the control that would lift the transparent roof of the sled. Burris admired the tension and play of her muscles as her arm stretched toward it, as her hand extended itself, as ligaments and tendons functioned beautifully under the smooth skin from wrist to ankle. One leg was folded up underneath her, the other nicely thrust forward to echo the line of her arm. Her breasts were drawn upward; her throat, which had a tendency toward loose flesh, was now taut. Altogether she was a handsome sight. She needed only to twist a lever and the roof would spring back, exposing them to the virulent atmosphere of Titan. Her slender fingers were on the lever. Burris ceased to contemplate her. He clamped his hand on her arm even as her muscles were tensing, pulled her away, hurled her back on the couch. She landed in a wanton way. As she sat up, he slapped her across the lips. Blood trickled to her chin and her eyes sparkled in pleasure. He hit her again, chopping blows that made the flesh of her leap about. She panted. She clutched at him. The odor of lust assailed his nostrils.

  He hit her one more time. Then, realizing he was giving her only what she wanted, he moved away from her and tossed her her discarded breathing-suit.

  “Put it on. We’re going back to the dome.”

  She was the incarnation of raw hunger. She writhed in what could have been self-parody of desire. She called hoarsely to him.

  “We’re going back,” he said. “And we aren’t going back naked.”

  Reluctantly she dressed herself.

  She would have opened the roof, he told himself. She would have gone swimming with me in the methane lake.

  He started the sled and sped back to the hotel.

  “Are you really leaving for Earth tomorrow?”

  “Yes. I’ve booked passage.”

  “Without me?”

  “Without you.”

  “What if I followed you again?”

  “I can’t stop you. But it won’t do you any good.”

  The sled came to the airlock of the dome. He drove in and returned the sled at the rental desk. Elise looked rumpled and sweaty within her breathing-suit.

  Burris, going to his room, closed the door quickly and locked it. Elise knocked a few times. He made no reply, and she went away. He rested his head in his hands. The fatigue was coming back, the utter weariness that he had not felt since the final quarrel with Lona. But it passed after a few minutes.

  An hour later the hotel management came for him. Three men, grim-faced, saying very little. Burris donned the breathing-suit they gave him and went out into the open with them.

  “She’s under the blanket. We’d like you to identify her before we bring her in.”

  Subtle crystals of ammonia snow had fallen on the blanket. They blew aside as Burris peeled it back. Elise, naked, seemed to be hugging the ice. The spots on her breast where his fingertips had dug in had turned deep purple. He touched her. Like marble she was.

  “She died instantly,” said a voice at his elbow.

  Burris looked up. “She had a great deal to drink this afternoon. Perhaps that explains it.”

  He stayed in his room the rest of that evening and through the morning that followed. At midday he was summoned for the ride to the spaceport, and within four hours he was aloft, bound for Earth via Ganymede. He said little to anyone all the while.

  TWENTY-NINE

  DONA NOBIS PACEM

  ■

  ■ She had come, washed up by the tides, to the Martlet Towers. There she lived in a single room, rarely going out, changing her clothes infrequently, speaking to no one. She knew the truth now, and the truth had imprisoned her.

  …and then he found her.

  She stood bird-like, ready for flight “Who’s there?”

  “Minner.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Let me in, Lona. Please.”

  “How did you find me here?”

  “Some guesswork. Some bribery. Open the door, Lona.”

  She opened it for him. He looked unchanged over the weeks since she had last seen him. He stepped through, not smiling his equivalent of a smile, not touching her, not kissing. The room was almost in darkness. She moved to light it, but he cut her off with a brusque gesture.

  “I’m sorry it’s so shabby,” she said.

  “It looks fine. It looks just like the room I lived in. But that was two buildings over.”

  “When did you get back to Earth, Minner?”

  “Several weeks ago. I’ve been searching hard.”

  “Have you seen Chalk?”

  Burris nodded. “I didn’t get much from him.”

  “Neither did I.” Lona turned to the food conduit. “Something to drink?”

  “Thanks, no.”

  He sat down. There was something blessedly familiar about the elaborate way he coiled himself into her chair, moving all his extra joints so carefully. Just the sight of it made her pulse-rate climb.

  He said, “Elise is dead. She killed herself on Titan.”

  Lona made no response.

  He said, “I didn’t ask her to come to me. She was a very confused person. Now she’s at rest.”

  “She’s better at suicide than I am,” Lona said.

  “You haven’t—”

  “No. Not again. I’ve been living quietly, Minner. Should I admit the truth? I’ve been waiting for you to come to me.”

  “All you had to do was let somebody know where you were!”

  “It was more complicated than that. I couldn’t advertise myself. But I’m glad you’re here. I have so much to tell you!”

  “Such as?”

  “Chalk isn’t going to have any of my children transferred to me. I’ve been checking. He couldn’t do it if he wanted to, and he doesn’t want to. It was just a convenient lie to get me to work for him.”

  Burris’s eyes flickered. “You mean, to get you to keep company with me?”

  “That’s it. I won’t hide anything now, Minner. You already know, more or less. There had to be a price before I’d go with you. Getting the children was the price. I kept my end of the bargain, but Chalk isn’t keeping his.”

  “I knew that you’d been bought, Lona. I was bought, too. Chalk found my price to come out of hiding and conduct an interplanetary romance with a certain girl.”

  “Transplant into a new body?”

  “Yes,” Burris said.

  “You aren’t going to get that, any more than I’m going to get my babies,” she said flatly. “Am I killing any of your illusions? Chalk cheated you the way he cheated me.”

  “I’ve been discovering that,” Burris said, “since my return. The body-transfer project is at least twenty years away. Not five years. They may never solve some of the problems. They can switch a brain into a new body and keep it alive, but the—what shall I say—soul goes. They get a zombi. Chalk knew all that when he offered me his deal.”

  “He got his romance out of us. And we got nothing out of him.” Rising, Lona walked around the room. She came to the tiny potted cactus that she had once given to Burris and rubbed the tip of one finger idly over its bristly surface. Burris seemed to notice the cactus for the first
time. He looked pleased.

  Lona said, “Do you know why he brought us together, Minner?”

  “To make money on the publicity. He picks two used-up people and tricks them into coming part way back to life, and tells the world about it, and—”

  “No. Chalk has enough money. He didn’t give a damn about the profit.”

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “An idiot told me the real thing. An idiot named Melangio, who does a trick with calendars. Perhaps you’ve seen him on vid. Chalk used him in some shows.”

  “No.”

  “I met him at Chalk’s place. Sometimes a fool speaks truth. He said Chalk’s a drinker of emotion. He lives on fear, pain, envy, grief. Chalk sets up situations that he can exploit. Bring two people together who are so battered that they can’t possibly allow happiness to take hold of them, and watch them suffer. And feed. And drain them.”

  Burris looked startled. “Even at long range? He could feed even when we were at Luna Tivoli? Or on Titan?”

  “Each time we quarreled…we felt so tired afterward. As if we’d lost blood. As if we were hundreds of years old.”

  “Yes!”

  “That was Chalk,” she said. “Getting fatter on our suffering. He knew we’d hate each other, and that was what he wanted. Can there be a vampire of emotion?”

  “So all the promises were false,” he whispered. “We were puppets. If it’s true.”

  “I know it’s true.”

  “Because an idiot told you so?”

  “A very wise idiot, Minner. Besides, work it all out for yourself. Think of everything Chalk ever said to you. Think of all that happened. Why was Elise always waiting in the wings to throw her arms around you? Don’t you think it was deliberate, part of a campaign to infuriate me? We were tied together by our strangeness…by our hatred. And Chalk loved it.”

  Burris stared at her quietly a long moment. Then, without a word, he went to the door, opened it, stepped out into the hall, and pounced on something. Lona could not see what he was doing until he returned with a struggling, squirming Aoudad.

  “I thought you’d be out there somewhere,” Burris said. “Come in. Come in. We’d like to talk with you.”

  “Minner, don’t hurt him,” Lona said. “He’s only a tool.”

  “He can answer some questions. Won’t you, Bart?”

  Aoudad moistened his lips. His eyes flicked warily from face to face.

  Burris hit him.

  The hand came up with blinding speed. Lona didn’t see it, and neither did Aoudad, but the man’s head shot back and he thumped heavily into the wall. Burris gave him no chance to defend himself. Aoudad clung blearily to the wall as the blows landed. Finally he sagged, eyes still open, face bloody.

  “Talk to us,” Burris said. “Talk to us about Duncan Chalk.”

  Later they left her room. Aoudad remained behind, sleeping peacefully. In the street below they found his car, waiting on an uptake ramp. Burris started it and headed it toward Chalk’s office building.

  “We were making a mistake,” he said, “trying to change ourselves back to what we once were. We are our own essences. I am the mutilated starman. You are the girl with a hundred babies. It’s a mistake to try to flee.”

  “Even if we could flee.”

  “Even if we could. They could give me a different body someday, yes, and where would that put me? I’d have lost what I am now, and I’d have gained nothing. I’d lose myself. And they could give you two of your babies, perhaps, but what about the other ninety-eight? What’s done is done. The fact of your essence has absorbed you. And mine me. Is that too cloudy for you?”

  “You’re saying that we have to face up squarely to what we are, Minner.”

  “That’s it. That’s it. No more running away. No more brooding. No more hatred.”

  “But the world—the normal people—”

  “It’s us against them. They want to devour us. They want to put us in the freak show. We have to fight back, Lona!”

  The car halted. There was the low, windowless building. They entered, and, yes, Chalk would see them, if they would only wait awhile in an outer room. They waited. They sat side by side, scarcely looking at each other. In her hands Lona held the potted cactus. It was the only possession she had taken from her room. They were welcome to the rest.

  Burris said quietly, “Turn the anguish outward. There’s no other way we can fight.”

  Leontes d’Amore appeared. “Chalk will see you now,” he said.

  Up the crystal rungs. Toward the immense figure in the high throne.

  “Lona? Burris? Together again?” Chalk asked. He laughed boomingly and tapped his belly. He clapped his hands on the columns of his thighs.

  “You dined well on us, didn’t you, Chalk?” Burris asked.

  The laughter died away. Abruptly Chalk was sitting up, tense, wary. He seemed almost to be a thin man now, ready to take to his heels.

  Lona said, “It’s nearly evening. We’ve brought you your dinner, Duncan.”

  They stood facing him. Burris slipped his arm around her slender waist. Chalk’s lips moved. No sounds came out, and his hand did not quite reach the alarm lever on his desk. The pudgy fingers fanned wide. Chalk contemplated them.

  “For you,” Burris said. “With our compliments. Our love.”

  Shared emotion flooded from them in shining waves.

  It was a torrent Chalk could not withstand. He moved from side to side, buffeted by the furious stream, one side of his mouth quirking upward, then the other. A trail of spittle appeared on his chin. His head jerked sharply three times. Robot-like, he crossed and uncrossed his thick arms.

  Burris clung so tightly to Lona that her ribs protested.

  Did flames dance crackling along Chalk’s desk? Did rivers of raw electrons become visible and glow green before him? He writhed, unable to move, as they gave him their souls in passionate intensity. He fed. But he could not digest. He grew more bloated. His face was bright-with sweat.

  No word was spoken.

  Sink, white whale! Lash your mighty flukes and go down!

  Retro me, Satanas!

  Here’s fire; come, Faustus, set it on.

  Glad tidings from great Lucifer.

  Chalk moved now. He spun in his chair, breaking from stasis, slamming his fleshy arms again and again onto the desk. He was bathed in the blood of the Albatross. He quivered, jerked, quivered again. The scream that left his lips was no more than a thin, feeble whine delivered by a gaping maw. Now he was strung taut, now he twanged with the rhythms of destruction…

  And then came slackness.

  The eyeballs rolled. The lips drooped. The massive shoulders slumped. The cheeks sagged.

  Consummatum est; this bill is ended.

  All three figures were motionless: those who had hurled their souls, and he who had received them. One of the three would never move again.

  Burris was the first to recover. It was an effort even to draw breath. To give power to his lips and tongue was a colossal task. He swung around, recovering the knowledge of his limbs, and put his hands on Lona. She was death-pale, frozen in her place. As he touched her, the strength seemed to flow swiftly back into her.

  “We can’t stay here any longer,” he said gently.

  They left, slowly, dwelling now in extreme old age, but growing younger as they descended the crystal rungs. Vitality returned. It would be many days before they had fully replenished themselves, but at least there would be no further drain.

  No one interfered with them as they left the building.

  Night had fallen. Winter was past, and the gray haze of a spring evening covered the city. The stars were barely visible. A faint chill still lingered, but neither of them shivered in the coolness.

  “This world has no place for us,” Burris said.

  “It would only try to eat us. As he tried.”

  “We defeated him. But we can’t defeat a whole world.”

  “Where will we go?”

>   Burris looked upward. “Come with me to Manipool. We’ll visit the demons for Sunday tea.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Will you go there with me?”

  “Yes.”

  They walked toward the car.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Very tired. So tired I can scarcely move. But I feel alive. More alive with every step. For the first time, Minner, I feel really alive.”

  “As do I.”

  “Your body—does it hurt you now?”

  “I love my body,” he said.

  “Despite the pain?”

  “Because of the pain,” he said. “It shows that I live. That I feel.” He turned to her and took the cactus from her hands. The clouds parted. The thorns gleamed by starlight. “To be alive—to feel, even to feel pain—how important that is, Lona!”

  He broke a small limb from the plant and pressed it into the flesh of her hand. The thorns sank deep. She flinched only for a moment. Tiny droplets of blood appeared. From the cactus she took a second limb, and pressed it to him. It was difficult, breaking through that impervious skin of his, but the thorns did penetrate at last. He smiled as the blood began to flow. He touched her wounded hand to his lips, and she his hand to hers.

  “We bleed,” she said. “We feel. We live.”

  “Pain is instructive,” said Burris, and they walked more quickly.