by C. L. Moore
"I've forgotten the polite formulas of Earth that cover every possible situation. They've got a tight little society there and I won't fit into it anywhere."
Jamie was silent, and for a long moment no one spoke. Jamie's mind went on:
"Not that it matters how Earth accepts any of us colonials. I have an idea we've seen the last of our little play-paradises with their formal rules. They don't tell us much here on Venus, but the last news I heard was of barbarian bases spotted through Earth like a plague, and barbarian invaders pouring down out of the sky in ships we taught them how to build, with weapons we put into their hands many years ago."
He couldn't say it aloud, not even to Morgan. Certainly not to an outworld trader, however well he knew Ghej. He couldn't say what had burned in his mind for so many months now, the terrible fear that had come to him and to the civilized world generations too late to save it.
For the era of civilized man was ending. Jamie almost wished he hadn't had the leisure to see it coming. He wished he hadn't read the old books, for he could see the cycle closing as it had closed for other cultures long ago.
"They say we're 'temporarily consolidating'," he thought, staring out at the great cloud-marbled mountains. "I know better. I've got a perspective here they don't have at home, or won't admit having. I know the signs of rottenness, and the signs are plain on Earth. It'll take a better race than modern man to win back what we're letting go.
"And there is no such race. The Venusians might have done it—but they won't now. Another few centuries and we might have instilled some conception of what idealism means into those slippery quicksilver minds. I don't know. We'll never do it now. And the Venusians were our last hope.
"No other race remains. The barbarians who are conquering Earth are decadent barbarians. The other worlds of the empire are either old civilizations, more tired even than we, or subhuman tribes which no amount of teaching could lift much above apehood.
"And so the greatest empire that mankind ever knew is crumbling from within, without a hope of rebirth."
The strong fragrance of coffee entering the room like a tangible presence broke the little silence that had fallen upon the three men. Quanna came in smiling, followed by servants with trays. Her deep, quiet eyes saw everything readable on the faces before her, though no eyes caught her looking. She poured the coffee deftly.
When she handed Ghej his cup she set a small silver platter of bread at his elbow, according to the ceremonious Venusian custom, observed even among outworld people on Venus. There, as on Earth, bread symbolizes the staff of life, and guests are served with it whenever food is served and whether they intend to taste it or not.
Ghej's horny-lidded eyes flickered at the plate and then slanted a glance up at Quanna. She caught it wonderingly. Something was afoot, then. Something concerning Jamie, for in the elaborate symbolism which governs all Venusian living, bread is the emblem for leader or head of the household.
"I think you misunderstand Vastari, commander," said Ghej, sipping his coffee. "It's true that no Venusian seems to comprehend what other worlds call idealism. But, in his own mind, Vastari is probably quite sure of his rightness. He talks of freedom, you know."
"Freedom to loot and burn, and starve afterward!"
"Perhaps," Ghej nodded, and began to toy with the silver knife that lay across the bread platter. "I think so. But then I represent the past, gentlemen. My world died millenniums ago. You yourselves are the present; your world is passing. Vastari is the future. What he does with it only the future can show. You and I will not be here to see." He shook his crested head and picking up the knife, drove it idly halfway through the loaf of bread beside him. Under the horny lids he flickered a glance up at Quanna.
"As a trader among the mountain tribes, commander," he remarked irrelevantly, "it has been my business for many years to fathom Venusian mentalities as nearly as any outworlder can. I've seen a hillman, for instance, take revenge for a blow by striking not at his attacker but at his attacker's enemy, in the dead of night. None but a Venusian could clearly understand the tangle of motives behind such a revenge—
"Excellent coffee, my dear Quanna. May I have another cup?"
-
In the blue twilight of Jamie's bedroom nothing moved but the softly blowing curtains. Jamie's bedroom nothing moved but the softly blowing curtains. Jamie's regular, hoarse breathing was the only sound except for an occasional, far-away thunder of rockslide and the receding footsteps of the sentry who paced outside the commander's quarters.
Jamie's sleep was deep. Quanna had seen to that with the nightcap she had served him. Now she sat in the farthest corner of the room, where the shadows hung as blue as if in some submarine cavern, far down under Venusian seas. She sat in perfect stillness, unwinking eyes fixed upon the window beyond which the shadow and the footsteps of the sentry passed and repassed.
She was grateful to Ghej. She was not sure how he could have guessed about her feeling for the commander, but she knew he had guessed. He was fit, almost, to be a Venusian in his sensitive perception of nuances. She knew, too, how it had amused him to tell her by symbolism and indirection under the very noses of an oblivious audience that Ystri planned to murder Jamie. Yes, Ghej had lived long enough on Venus to think almost like a Venusian himself.
As she waited here in the twilight for the assassin she was not unduly perturbed. She knew enough of her race in general and Ystri in particular to be sure he would come alone. He could not wholly trust an coplotter not to betray him to Vastari, and he would want the glory alone if he succeeded.
The sentry's feet gritted up and down on the pavement outside; Jamie's heavy breathing measured the silence in the room. Quanna sat unwinking and waited.
She could not have said what warned her when the time came. Certainly no sound. But when the sentry's tread approached the far end of his beat and a shadow slid up to the thin grille that masked the windows, Quanna was at the grille and crouching low against it before the shadow itself was aware of her. It must have been something of a shock to the newcomer to find a second figure six inches away just inside the screen. The shadow started back with a muffled gasp.
Quanna breathed, "Ystri—look!" and let the light from the gateway shine for an instant on the snub-nosed gun she held.
"Quick!" whispered Ystri, speaking indistinctly because of his injured nose. "Let me in! The sentry—"
"No." Quanna's voice was flat. "I know what you want. Not tonight, Ystri."
"Let me in," Ystri demanded fiercely, "or the commander will know tomorrow that you are a spy."
Quanna thought he meant that. His prestige had been severely damaged by Vastari's blow; he might do anything to discredit her and Vastari through her.
"Not tonight," she temporized. "I have plans—Afterward, you may kill him."
"I don't trust you!"
"Tomorrow—"
"Traitress!" hissed Ystri. "Let me in! With him dead, there'll be confusion enough to steal weapons, even take the town! In Vastari's name, let me in!"
"Not tonight! Tomorrow I'll prove myself—kill him if you can, then. But not here."
"Where then? You're lying."
"It's the truth. Tomorrow I'll bring him into a trap for you. The mangrove forest, say? At cloud-ebb tomorrow?"
Ystri peered at her doubtfully in the blue dimness through the grille. The sentry's returning feet grew louder on the pavement, but Ystri hesitated for one last mistrustful moment.
"Is this the truth? Do you swear it by Vastari?"
"I swear. I'll bring him into the mangrove forest tomorrow, to kill if you can."
Ystri scowled at her in the twilight, seeing a certain sincerity upon her face that made him accept the promise reluctantly. That, and the gun gleaming dully in reflected light.
"Tomorrow at cloud-ebb, then—or you both die," he growled, and his shadow melted from the grille without a sound. Quanna sat back on her heels and looked after him, her eyes deep and expressionless.
-
"The mangrove forest?" Jamie's voice was doubtful, but he turned his horse toward the upward path. "That gloomy place? Sure you want to ride that way?"
Quanna smiled at him under her hood of emerald velvet. "You said I could choose—and it's our last ride together on Venus, Jamie dear."
"Oh, all right. I always get my feet wet there, but—have it your way."
"I think it's a lovely place, Jamie. Listen, Jamie, I'll sing to you—a going-away song."
The Martian monochord harp hung at her saddle. She laid it across her green velvet knee and began a soft Venusian chant with a ringing call at the end of each stanza. Partly it was to amuse Jamie, partly to warn the hiding Ystri of their coming. It would amuse Ystri, too, in a grim sort of way, for this was a going-away song indeed, a Venusian dirge for a man about to die.
The mangrove forest lay high in a narrow canyon above Darva. Jamie and Quanna had ridden here more than once before, for the pleasure of walking the narrow mossy ways that wound over the water. The forest filled a valley between peaks veined with waterfalls whose music tinkled all around the canyon. It was half swamp, half lake of clear dark water out of which gigantic mangroves rose in arches and columns and long green aisles. The labyrinthine paths wound intricately over the great gnarled roots which stood above the water.
The glassy surfaces gave back such faithful reflections that the forest seemed double, suspended in green space. It was like walking in a dream to stroll along the winding, mossy ways and watch one's own reflection swimming dimly underfoot.
Not even the padding Venusian horses could walk these paths. Jamie and Quanna dismounted at the mouth of the canyon and entered the glassy forest in silence except for the music Quanna stroked now and again from her harp. She was watching for Ystri. He would not be easy to see, she knew. It was not for nothing that she had worn her green cloak today, and he was certain to be green-clad, too, and almost invisible in the bewildering reaches of the forest.
They had strolled a long way into the mirrory labyrinth before a sliding motion among the trees caught Quanna's eyes. She had been sure he would come alone, and she could see now that she had not been mistaken. She had been sure, too, that he would not use a gun. He wanted Jamie dead for many reasons. The chiefest was to forestall Vastari of the glory of that murder, and Ystri would want to use the long Venusian dagger for that pleasure. And so he would have to creep close enough to stab Jamie in the back, and there was no danger of a random shot across the water.
But Ystri was wary. Jamie had an evil reputation among the outlaws and Ystri was not one to risk having this particular quarry turn to face him before his blow drove home. Quanna had to lead the way deeper and deeper into the forest, where the great mangrove roots made paths broad enough so that no reflections showed in the water, before the green moving shadow that was Ystri drew near.
If Quanna's heart was beating harder under her emerald robe, no hint of it showed in her face when she decided the time was near to do what must be done.
"I've a surprise for you, Jamie dear," she said, pausing to face him under a great vaulting arch of green. "Will you wait for me a moment here? I'll be back in five minutes." And then, because the danger was near and great just then, she tip-toed and took his dark face between her hands kissed him quickly on the mouth.
-
Venusians are not demonstrative people. Jamie stared after her as she turned swiftly away, the green robe swirling. Her long, dark look and the unexpected kiss had carried an air of foreboding that made him loosen the gu in his belt and watch the forest around him with vague uneasiness, for no tangible reason. And that result, perhaps, Quanna had foreseen, too, when she kissed him. There are double motives behind most of the things Venusians do.
Quanna went swiftly, on soundless feet, along a pathway that twisted out of sight. Her green reflection went with her in the water, smooth and stealthy. She was making a circle as directly as possible in these winding ways, and in a few moments she saw ahead of her another green and stealthy figure moving forward from tree to tree. Quanna smiled.
Jamie had lighted a cigarette. In the glassy stillness the click of his lighter was audible from far away, and the pungency of the smoke spread through the heavy fragrances of the water jungle. She could see his dark head down an aisle of greenness; he had set his back to a tree and was smoking desultorily, flicking ashes into the water and watching the spreading circles that they made.
Ahead of her the green shadow of Ystri slipped forward with a sudden rush, quick and deadly. A knife caught the light and glinted.
Quanna covered the distance at a soft-footed run which the moss hushed. Her green cloak unfolded like a hover of wings behind her and the flash from beneath it rose an instant before the glimmer of steel in Ystri's fist rose.
There is no sound quite like the solid thud of a dagger driven hilt-deep into flesh, hard, with a full-armed swing. Jamie knew it from all other sounds and had spun with his gun in his hand before Ystri himself knew quite what had happened to him. Ystri must at first have felt only the heaviness of the blow which even from behind was hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. He gasped once for air, and whirled to face Quanna, open-mouthed.
His face contorted with fury when he realized what had happened and his second gasp was for the breath to betray her, but she had struck deftly and a gush of bright blood, startlingly bright, smothered the words on his lips.
There was no need for explanations. Jamie holstered his gun slowly, seeing that he would not need it. Quanna's expressionless eyes watched Ystri fall, the glare of fury in his eyes to the last as he mouthed futilely against the torrent of blood frothing over the apricot velvet tunic which his green robe fell back to reveal. There were old bloodstains there, too. It was the same tunic he had worn in the cavern. She thought briefly that the blood-letting which her brother had begun two days ago the sister had finished here.
Jamie was staring at her questioningly over the body. It lay with one arm dragging in the water; Quanna put out her foot and rolled it over without emotion. It slid into the water with scarcely a splash and the mirrory surface closed over the brilliant colors of apricot and green, bright fresh scarlet and the brown of old blood. Above the spreading circles Quanna looked up at Jamie and smiled.
"I have saved your life, Jamie," she said.
He bit his lip. Lives are not saved gratuitously on Venus. It is a matter of investment, done deliberately with a specific price in mind, and among Venusians if the price is refused the life is forfeit, then and there or at any time thereafter, without penalty of a blood-feud from the victim's relatives. This relentless code is as near, perhaps, as Venusians come to maintaining an abstract ideal about anything at all.
"I suppose there's no use asking what's behind all this," said Jamie, nodding at the water which had closed over Ystri's body.
Quanna lifted a brow. "Oh, that. I saw him—I had a favor to ask of you. Is there a better way to buy it than this?"
He knew he would never be told any more of the story than that. No use asking. He lifted his shoulders resignedly.
"You saved my life," he acknowledged. "What do you want?"
"To go back to Earth with you," she told him promptly. "You'll take me, Jamie?"
He squinted a curious glance at her. She might have asked for money, weapons, anything but an intangible like this. An intangible he could not give her.
"Quanna," he said gently, "don't you think I'd take you if I could?"
"You are commander. What can stop you?"
"Look, dear." He stepped forward over the bloodstains on the moss and laid his hands on her shoulders. "Earth's a ... an armed camp. No one's safe there now. You never saw cities bombed—you can't imagine the life you'd have to lead if you came back with me."
"I'm not a child, Jamie." She lifted unfathomable dark eyes to his.
"I know—I know." He tried helplessly to make her understand. "But I'm not going home for pleasure, Quanna. I'm going to fight.
I think we'll have to go on fighting there as long as ... as long as we can. If I took you along, you'd be in constant danger. There'd be forced march after forced march, front-line duty—life under siege at the very best. And at worst—without me, what would become of you?"
"I'm willing to risk all that, Jamie dear."
He let his hands fall. "I can't, Quanna. Even if I could let you risk it, I'm not free to handicap myself with a woman. I'm going home to fight, my dear. Don't you understand? Earth is calling us back because of desperate need. I'm a soldier of the Imperial Planet—I have no right to divide my efficiency in half because I've a woman to look out for everywhere I go—"
"But why must you go at all, Jamie?" She said it very gently. "What can one man mean among so many? Why not stay here on Venus, with me?"
His black brows met above the crooked nose.
"If I could make you understand that, my dear," he said wryly, "I wouldn't half so much mind going."
And so it went on, for a long while. To Quanna the words that Jamie used were often as meaningless as the motives behind them. She wondered afterward that she had not used the dagger which tradition gave her the right to use, upon this dark and stubborn Terrestrial who was so intent upon destroying her happiness and his own.
Long and hotly they debated, standing over the bloodstain on the moss with the forest glassily quivering all around them. When they turned home at last along the reflecting pathways, Quanna went submissively, her hooded head bent at the angle suitable to a Venusian woman in the presence of her lord, but she had not surrendered.
She would have to change her plan; that was all. If he could not take her of his free will, then she would force him to it. She would find some lever stronger than the one which had just failed her. For he knew and she knew that she would not take the life she had saved. She had not killed Ystri for that.