The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Seven: We Are for the Dark

by Robert Silverberg

  He switched on the light, wincing as it flooded the room. Now Thimiroi could no longer see that mocking, beckoning image of Laliene, but he still felt her presence all around him, the heat of her body, the pungency of her fragrance, the strength of her urgent summons.

  Somehow he managed to find the card with Christine’s telephone number on it, and dialed it with tense, quivering fingers. The phone rang endlessly until, finally, he heard her sleepy voice, barely focused, saying, “Yes? Hello?”

  “Christine? Christine, it’s me, Thimiroi.”

  “What? Who? Don’t you know it’s four in the morn—” Then her tone changed. The sleepiness left it, and the irritation. “What’s wrong, Thimiroi? What’s happening?”

  “I’ll be all right. I need you to talk to me, that’s all. I’m having a kind of an attack.”

  “No, Thimiroi!” He could feel the intensity of her concern. “What can I do? Shall I come over?”

  “No. That’s not necessary. Just talk to me. I need to stir up—cerebral activity. Do you understand? It’s just an—an electrochemical imbalance. But if I talk—even if I listen to something—speak to me, say anything, recite poetry—”

  “Poetry,” she said. “All right. Let me think. ‘Four score and seven years ago—’” she began.

  “Good,” he said. “Even if I don’t understand it, that’s all right. Say anything. Just keep talking.”

  Already Laliene’s aura was ebbing from the room. Christine continued to speak; and he broke in from time to time, simply to keep his mental level up. In a few minutes Thimiroi knew that he had defeated Laliene’s plan. He slumped forward, breathing hard, letting his stiff, anguished muscles uncoil.

  He still could feel the waves of mental force sweeping through the room. But they were pallid now, they were almost comical, they no longer were capable of arousing in him the obsessive obedience that they had been able to conjure into his sleeping mind.

  Christine, troubled, still wanted to come to him; but Thimiroi told her that everything was fine, now, that she should go back to sleep, that he was sorry to have disturbed her. He would explain, he promised. Later. Later.

  Fury overtook him the moment he put the receiver down.

  Damn Laliene. Damn her! What did she think she was doing?

  He searched through the sitting room, and then the bedroom, and the third room of the suite. But it was almost dawn before he found what he was looking for: the tiny silvery pellet, the minute erotic broadcaster, that she had hidden beneath one of his Sipulva tables. He pulled it loose and crushed it against the wall, and the last faint vestige of Laliene’s presence went from the room like water swirling down a drain. Slowly Thimiroi’s anger receded. He put on some music, one of Cenbe’s early pieces, and listened quietly to it until he saw the first pale light of morning streaking the sky.

  Casually, easily, with a wonderful recklessness he had not known he had in him, he said to Christine, “We go anywhere we want. Anywhen. They run tours for us, you see. We were in Canterbury in Chaucer’s time, to make the pilgrimage. We went to Rome and then to Emperor Augustus’ summer palace on the island of Capri, and he invited us to a grand banquet, thinking we were visitors from a great kingdom near India.”

  Christine was staring at him in a wide-eyed gaze, as though she were a child and he were telling her some fabulous tale of dragons and princes.

  He had gone to her at midday, when the late May sun was immense overhead and the sky seemed like a great curving plate of burnished blue steel. She had let him in without a word, and for a long while they looked at each other in silence, their hands barely touching. She was very pale and her eyes were reddened from sleeplessness, with dark crescents beneath them. Thimiroi embraced her, and assured her that he was in no danger, that with her help he had been able to fight off the demon that had assailed him in the night. Then she took him upstairs, to the room on the second floor where they had made love the day before, and drew him down with her on the bed, almost shyly at first, and then, casting all reserve aside, seizing him eagerly, hungrily.

  When finally they lay back, side by side, all passion slaked for the moment, Christine turned toward him and said, “Tell me now where your country is, Thimiroi.”

  And at last he began—calmly, unhesitatingly—to tell her about The Travel.

  “We went to Canterbury in the autumn of 1347,” he said. “Actually Chaucer was still only a boy, then. The poem was many years away. Of course we read him before we set out. We even looked at the original Old English text. I suppose the language would be strange even to you. ‘When that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.’ I suppose we really should have gone in April ourselves, to be more authentic; but April was wet that year, as it usually is at that time in England, and the autumn was warm and brilliant, a season much like the one you are having here, a true vintage season. We are very fond of warm, dry weather, and rain depresses us.”

  “You could have gone in another year, then, and found a warmer, drier April,” Christine said.

  “No. The year had to be 1347. It isn’t important why. And so we went in autumn, in beautiful October.”

  “Ah.”

  “We began in London, gathering in an inn on the south side of the river, just as Chaucer’s pilgrims did, and we set out with a band of pilgrims that must have been much like his, even one who played a bagpipe the way his Miller did, and a woman who might almost have been the Wife of Bath—” Thimiroi closed his eyes a moment, letting the journey come rushing back from memory, sights and sounds, laughter, barking dogs, cool bitter ale, embroidered gowns, the mounds of straw in the stable, falling leaves, warm dry breezes. “And then, before that, first-century Capri. In the time of Augustus. In high summer, a perfect Mediterranean summer, still another vintage season. How splendid Capri is. Do you know it? No? An island off Italy, very steep, a mountaintop in the water, with strange grottos at its base and huge rocks all about. There comes a time every evening when the sky and the sea are the same color, a pale blue-gray, so that it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and you stand by the edge of the high cliff, looking outward into that gray haze, and it seems to you that all the world is completely still, that time is not moving at all.”

  “The—first century—?” Christine murmured.

  “The reign of the Emperor Augustus, yes. A surprisingly short man, and very gentle and witty, extremely likable, although you can feel the ruthlessness of him just behind the gentleness. He has amazing eyes, utterly penetrating, with a kind of light coming from them. You look at him and you see Rome: the Empire embodied in one man, its beginning and its end, its greatness and its power.”

  “You speak of him as though he is still alive. ‘He has amazing eyes,’ you said.”

  “I saw him only a few months ago,” said Thimiroi. “He handed me a cup of sweet red wine with his own hands, and recommended it, saying there certainly was nothing like it in my own land. He has a palace on Capri, nothing very grand—his stepson Tiberius, who was there also, would build a much greater one later on, so our guide told us—and he was there for the summer. We were guests under false pretenses, I suppose, ambassadors from a distant land, though he never would have guessed how distant. The year was—let me think—no, not the first century, not your first century, it was what you call B.C., the last century before the first century—I think the year was 19, the 19 before—such a muddle, these dating systems—”

  “And in your country?” Christine asked. “What year is it now in your country, Thimiroi? 2600? 3100?”

  He pondered that a moment. “We use a different system of reckoning. It is not at all analogous. The term would be meaningless to you.”

  “You can’t tell me what year it is there?”

  “Not in your kind of numbers, no. There was—a break in the pattern of numbering, long before our time. I could ask Kadro. He is our tour guide, Kadro. He knows how to compute the equivalencies.”

  She
stared at him. “Couldn’t you guess? Five hundred years? A thousand?”

  “Perhaps it is something like that. But even if I knew, I would not tell you the exact span, Christine. It would be wrong. It is forbidden, absolutely forbidden.” Thimiroi laughed. “Everything I have just told you is absolutely forbidden, do you know that? We must conceal the truth about ourselves to those we meet when we undertake The Travel. That is the rule. Of course, you don’t believe a thing I’ve just been telling you, do you?”

  Color flared in her cheeks. “Don’t you think I do?” she cried.

  Tenderly Thimiroi said, “There are two things they tell us about The Travel, Christine, before we set out for the first time. The first, they say, is that sooner or later you will feel some compulsion to reveal to a person of ancient times that you are a visitor from a future time. The second thing is that you will not be believed.”

  “But I believe you, Thimiroi!”

  “Do you? Do you really?”

  “Of course it all sounds so terribly strange, so fantastic—”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “But I want to believe you. And so I do believe you. The way you speak—the way you dress—the way you look—everything about you is foreign, Thimiroi, totally foreign beyond any ordinary kind of foreignness. It isn’t Iran or India or Afghanistan that you come from, it has to be some other world, or some other time. Yes. Yes. Everything about you. The way you played the piano yesterday.” She paused a moment. “The way you touch me in bed. You are like no man I have ever—like no man—” She faltered, reddened fiercely, looked away from him a moment. “Of course I believe that you are what you say you are. Of course I do!”

  When he returned to the Montgomery House late that afternoon he went down the hall to Laliene’s suite and rapped angrily at the door. Denvin opened it and peered out at him. He was dressed in peacock splendor, an outfit exceptional even for Denvin, a shirt with brilliant red stripes and golden epaulets, tight green trousers flecked with scarlet checks.

  He gave Thimiroi a long cool malevolent glance and exclaimed, “Well! The prodigal returns!”

  “How good to see you, Denvin. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Only a quiet little chat.” Denvin turned. “Laliene! Our wandering poet is here!”

  Laliene emerged from deeper within. Like Denvin she was elaborately clothed, wearing a pale topaz-hued gown fashioned of a myriad shimmering mirrors, shining metallic eye-shadow, gossamer finger-gloves. She looked magnificent. But for an instant, as her eyes met Thimiroi’s, her matchless poise appeared to desert her, and she seemed startled, flustered, almost frightened. Then, regaining her equilibrium with a superb show of control, she gave him a cool smile and said, “So there you are. We tried to reach you before, but of course there was no finding you. Maitira, Antilimoin, and Fevra are here. We’ve just been with them. They’ve been holding open house all afternoon, and you were invited. I suppose it’s still going on. Lesentru is due to arrive in about an hour, and Kuiane, and they say that Broyal and Hammin will be getting here tonight also.”

  “The whole clan,” Thimiroi said. “That will be delightful. Laliene, may I speak with you privately?”

  Again a flicker of distress from her. She glanced almost apologetically at Denvin.

  “Well, excuse me!” Denvin said theatrically.

  “Please,” Laliene said. “For just a moment, Denvin.”

  “Certainly. Certainly, Laliene.” He favored Thimiroi with a strange grimace as he went out.

  “Very well,” said Laliene, turning to face Thimiroi squarely. Her expression had hardened; she looked steely, now, and prepared for any sort of attack. “What is it, Thimiroi?”

  He drew forth the little silvery pellet that he had found attached to the underside of the Sipulva table, and held it out to her in the palm of his hand.

  “Do you know what this is, Laliene?”

  “Some little broken toy, I assume. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s an erotic,” he said. “I found it in my rooms, where someone had hidden it. It began broadcasting when I went to sleep last night. Sending out practically irresistible waves of sexual desire.”

  “How fascinating. I hope you were able to find someone to satisfy them with.”

  “The images I was getting, Laliene, were images of you. Standing naked next to my bed, whispering to me, inviting me to come down the hall and make love to you.”

  She smiled icily. “I had no idea you were still interested, Thimiroi!”

  “Don’t play games with me. Why did you plant this thing in my room, Laliene?”

  “I?”

  “I said, don’t play games. You were in my room the other day. No one else of our group has been. The erotic was specifically broadcasting your image. How can there be any doubt that you planted it yourself, for the particular purpose of luring me into your bed?”

  “You’re being absurd, Thimiroi. Anyone could have planted it. Anyone. Do you think it’s hard to get into these rooms? These people have no idea of security. You ask a chambermaid in the right way and you can enter anywhere. As for the images of me that were being broadcast to you, why, you know as well as I do that erotics don’t broadcast images of specific individuals. They send out generalized waves of feeling, and the recipient supplies whatever image seems appropriate to him. In your case evidently it was my image that came up from your unconscious when—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Laliene.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I’m not lying. I deny planting anything in your room. Why on earth would I, anyway? Could going to bed with you, or anyone else, for that matter, possibly be that important to me that I would connive and sneak around and make use of some kind of mechanical amplifying device in order to achieve my purpose? Is that plausible, Thimiroi?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that what happened to me during the night happened to me, and that I found this when I searched my rooms.” He thought for a moment to add, And that you’ve been pressing yourself upon me ever since we began this trip, in the most embarrassing and irritating fashion. But he did not have the heart to say that to her. “I believe that you hid this when you visited me for tea. What your reason may have been is something I can’t begin to imagine.”

  “Of course you can’t. Because I had no reason. And I didn’t do it.”

  Thimiroi made no reply. Laliene’s face was firmly set. Her gaze met his unwaveringly. She was certainly lying: he knew that beyond any question. But they were at an impasse. All he could do was accuse; he could not prove anything; he was stymied by her denial, and there was no way of carrying this further. She appeared to know that also. There was a long tense moment of silence between them, and then she said, “Are you finished with this, Thimiroi? Because there are more important things we should be discussing.”

  “Go ahead. What important things?”

  “The plans for Friday night.”

  “Friday night,” Thimiroi said, not understanding.

  She looked at him scornfully. “Friday—tomorrow—is the last day of May. Or have you forgotten that?”

  He felt a chill. “The meteor,” he said.

  “The meteor, yes. The event which we came to this place to see,” Laliene said. “Do you recall?”

  “So soon,” Thimiroi said dully. “Tomorrow night.”

  “We will all assemble about midnight, or a little before, at the Sanciscos’ house. The view will be best from there, according to Kadro. From their front rooms, upstairs. Kleph, Omerie, and Klia have invited everyone—everyone except Hollia and Hara, that is: Omerie is adamant about their not coming, because of something slippery that Hollia tried to do to him. Kleph would not discuss it, but I assume it had to do with trying to get the Sanciscos evicted, so that they could have the Wilson house for themselves. But all the rest of us will be there. And you are particularly included, Thimiroi. Kleph made a point of telling me that. Unless you have other plans for the evening, naturally.”

  “Is that what Kl
eph said? Or are you adding that part of it yourself, about my having other plans?”

  “That is what Kleph said.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you have other plans?”

  “What other plans could I possibly have, do you think? Where? With whom?”

  Christine seemed startled to see him again so soon. She was still wearing an old pink robe that she had thrown on as he was leaving her house two hours before, and she looked rumpled and drowsy and confused. Behind him the sky held the pearl-gray of early twilight on this late spring evening, but she stood in the half-opened doorway blinking at him as though he had awakened her once again in the middle of the night.

  “Thimiroi? You’re back?”

  “Let me in. Quickly, please.”

  “Is there something wrong? Are you in trouble?”

  “Please.”

  He stepped past her into the vestibule and hastily pushed the door shut behind him. She gave him a baffled look. “I was just napping,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be coming back this evening, and I had so little sleep last night, you know—”

  “I know. We need to talk. This is urgent, Christine.”

  “Go into the parlor. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  She pointed to Thimiroi’s left and vanished into the dim recesses at the rear of the entrance hall. Thimiroi went into the room she had indicated, a long, oppressively narrow chamber hung with heavy brocaded draperies and furnished with the sort of low-slung clumsy-looking couches and chairs, probably out of some even earlier era, that were everywhere in the house. He paced restlessly about the room. It was like being in a museum of forgotten styles. There was something eerie and almost hieratic about this mysterious furniture: the dark wood, the heavy legs jutting at curious angles, the coarse, intricately worked fabrics, the strange brass buttons running along the edges. Someone like Denvin would probably think it hideous. To him it was merely strange, powerful, haunting, wonderful in its way.