Helliconia Winter h-3

by Brian Aldiss

  Squadrons of auxiliary satellites accompanied the Avernus through space, or dived off in all directions, like sparks from a fire. They crossed and recrossed in their orbits, some no bigger than an eyeball, others complex in shape and design, coming and going about their automatic business, the gathering of information. Their metaphorical throats were parched for an ever flowing stream of data. When one of them malfunctioned, or was silenced by a passing speck of cosmic debris, a replacement floated free from the service hatches of the Avernus and took its place. Like the crabs, the sparklike satellites had proved untiring.

  And inside the Avernus. Behind its smooth plastic partitioning lay the equivalent of an endomorphic skeleton or, to use a more suitably dynamic comparison, a nervous system. This nervous system was infinitely more complex than that of any human. It possessed the inorganic equivalent of its own brains, its own kidneys, lungs, bowels. It was to a large extent independent of the body it served. It resolved all problems connected with overheating, overcooling, condensation, micro-weather, wastes, lighting, intercommunication, illusionism, and hundreds of other factors designed to make life tolerable physiologically for the human beings on the ship. Like the crabs and the satellites, the nervous system had proved untiring.

  The human race had tired. Every member of the eight families-later reduced to six, and now reduced to two—was dedicated, through whatever speciality he or she pursued, to one sole aim: to beam as much information about the planet Helliconia as possible back to distant Earth.

  The goal was too rarified, too abstract, too divorced from the bloodstream.

  Gradually, the families had fallen victim to a sort of neurasthenia of the senses and had lost touch with reality. Earth, the living globe, had ceased to be. There was Earth the Obligation only, a weight on the consciousness, an anchor on the spirit.

  Even the planet before their view, the glorious and changing balloon of Helliconia, burning in the light of its two suns and trailing its cone of darkness like a wind sock behind it, even Helliconia became an abstract. Helliconia could not be visited. To visit it meant death. Although the human beings on its surface, scrutinised so devotedly from above, appeared identical to Earthlings, they were protected from external contact by a complex virus mechanism as untiring as the mechanisms of the Avernus. That virus, the helico virus, was lethal to the inhabitants of the Avernus at all seasons. Some men and women had gone down to the planet’s surface. They had walked there for a few days, marveling at the experience. And then they had died.

  On the Avernus, a defeated minimalism had long prevailed. The attenuation of the spirit had been embraced.

  With the slow crawl of autumn across the planet below, as Freyr receded day by day and decade by decade from Helliconia and its sister planets—as the 236 astronomical units of periastron between Batalix and Freyr lengthened to the formidable 710 of apastron—the young on the Observation Station rose up in despair and overthrew their masters. What though their masters were themselves slaves? The era of asceticism was gone. The old were slain. Minimalism was slain. Eudaemonism ruled in its stead. Earth had turned its back on the Avernus. Very well, then Avernus would turn its back on Helliconia.

  At first, blind indulgence in sensuality had been sufficient. Just to have broken the sterile bonds of duty was glory enough. But—and in that “but” lies possibly the fate of the human race—hedonism proved in- sufficient. Promiscuity proved as much of a dead end as abstention.

  Cruel perversions grew from the sullied beds of the Avernus. Wound-ings, slashings, cannibalism, pederasty, paedophilia, intestinal rape, sadistic penetrations of infants and the ageing became commonplace. Flayings, public mass fornications, buggery, irrumation, mutilation— such was the daily diet. Libido waxed, intellect waned.

  Everything depraved flourished. The laboratories were encouraged to bring forth more and more grotesque mutations. Dwarfs with enlarged sex organs were succeeded by hybrid sex organs imbued with life. These “pudendolls” moved with legs of their own; later models progressed by labile or preputial musculature. These reproductive leviathans publicly aroused and engulfed each other, or overwhelmed the humans thrown into their path. The organs became more elaborate, more aposematic. They proliferated, reared and tumbled, sucked, slimed, and reproduced. Both those forms resembling priapic fungi and those resembling labyrinthiform ooecia were ceaselessly active, their colours flaring and fading according to their flaccidity or engorgement. In their later stages of evolution, these autonomous genitalia grew enormous; a few became violent, battering like multicoloured slugs at the walls of the glass tanks wherein they spent their somewhat holobenthic existence.

  Several generations of Avernians venerated these strange polymorphs almost as if they were the gods which had been banished from the station long ago. The next generation would not tolerate them.

  A civil war, a war between generations, broke out. The station became a battleground. The mutated organs broke free; many were destroyed.

  The fighting continued over several years and lifetimes. Many people died. The old structure of families, stable for so long, based on patterns of long endurance on Earth, broke down. The two sides became known as the Tans and the Pins, but the labels had little reference to what had once existed.

  The Avernus, haven of technology, temple of all that was positive and enquiring in mankind’s intellect, was reduced to a tumbled arena, in which savages ran from ambush at intervals to break each other’s skulls.

  V

  A FEW MORE REGULATIONS

  Asystem of raised dykes covered the marshlands between Koriantura and Chalce like a network of veins. Here and there, the dykes intersected. The intersections were sometimes marked by crude gates, which prevented domestic cattle from wandering. The tops of the dykes were flattened where animals and men had worn paths; the sides of the dykes were covered in rough lush grass that merged into reeds bearding the lips of ditches which ran with black water. The land divided by these features squelched when walked upon. Heavy domestic cattle crossed it with slow deliberation. They paused occasionally to drink from dark open pools.

  Luterin Shokerandit and his captive woman were the only human figures to be seen for miles. Their progress occasionally disturbed flocks of birds, which rose up with a clatter, flew low, and suddenly folded up the fan of their winged cloud to sink in unison back to earth.

  As the man drew nearer to the sea and the distance between him and the following woman increased, so the little streams which flowed became more subject to the sea and their waters more brackish. The slight babble they made was a pleasant accompaniment to the plod-plod of the yelk’s hoofs.

  Shokerandit halted and waited for Toress Lahl to catch up. He intended to shout to her, but something stopped him.

  He was certain that the strange Captain Fashnalgid was lying about the reception which awaited Asperamanka on the Koriantura ridge. To believe Fashnalgid was to cast doubt on the integrity of the system by which Shokerandit lived. All the same, a certain sincerity about the man made Shokerandit cautious. Shokerandit’s duty was to bear Aspera-manka’s message to Koriantura, to the army headquarters there. It was therefore his duty also to avoid possible ambush. The wisest course seemed to be to pretend to believe Fashnalgid’s story, and to escape from Chalce by boat.

  The light over the marshes was deceptive. Fashnalgid’s figure had disappeared. Shokerandit was not making the progress he wished. Though his mount followed the trail along the top of the dykes, every step seemed sluggish and mired in marsh.

  “Keep close to me,” he called to Toress Lahl. His voice sounded thickly in his head. He jerked the yelk forward again.

  The brownish rain had threatened earlier to turn into a regular Uskuti up-and-downer, as the old phrase had it. Its shawls had now trailed away to the south, leaving confused light patterns over the marshes. To some, the scene might appear dismal; yet even in this marginal land, processes were at work which were vital to the health of those species which contended for the maste
r}’ of Helliconia, the ancipitals and the humans.

  In the tidal waters which fed the pools to either side of the dykes, marine algae flourished. They were similar to laminaria, and concentrated the iodine in the water in their narrow brown fingers. The algae dissipated this chemical into the air in the form of iodine compounds, notably methyl iodine. As the methyl iodine decomposed back into iodine in the atmosphere, the circulation of the winds carried it to every last corner of the globe.

  The ancipitals and humans could not live without iodine. Their thyroid glands harvested it in order to regulate their metabolisms with iodine-bearing hormones.

  At this time of the Great Year, after the trigger time of the Seven Eclipses, some of those hormones were ensuring that the human species was more susceptible than usual to the depredations of the helico virus.

  As if caught in a maze, his thoughts travelled round and round in familiar patterns. Time and again, he recalled his celebrated exploits at Isturiacha—but no longer with pride. His companions had admired him for his courage; each bullet he had fired, each thrust of his sword which had broken an enemy body now had a legendary glamour attached to it. Yet he shrank in horror from what he had done, and from the exultation he had felt while doing it.

  And with the woman. On their lonely journey north, he had possessed Toress Lahl. She had lain unresisting while he had his way. He still rejoiced in the feel of her flesh, and in his power over it. Yet he thought with remorse of his intended wife, Insil Esikananzi, waiting back in Kharnabhar. What would she think if she saw him lying with this foreign woman from the heart of the Savage Continent?

  These thoughts returned in distorted and fugitive shape until his skull ached. He had a sudden memory of intruding on his mother when a child. He had run thoughtlessly into her chamber. There stood that dim figure, closeted so frequently in her own room (and more so since Favin’s death). She was being dressed by her handmaid, watching the process in her misty silver mirror in which the cluster of her bottles of perfume and unguents was reflected like the spires and domes of a distant city.

  His mother had turned to confront him, without reproach, without animation, without—as far as he could remember—a word. She was being helped into her gown in preparation for some special grand reception. The gown was one that learned associations of the Wheel had given her, embroidered all over with a map of Helliconia. The countries and islands were depicted in silver, the sea in a bright blue. His mother’s hair, as yet undressed, hung down darkly, a waterfall that flowed from the Northern Pole to the High Nyktryhk and beyond. The gown buttoned down the back. He noticed as she stood there and the maid stooped to do up the buttons that the city of Oldorando in the Savage Continent marked the site of his mother’s private parts. He had always been ashamed of this observation.

  He saw the thick clumps of marsh grass underfoot like coarse body hair. The grass was getting closer in a puzzling way. He saw small amphibians hop away into hair-fringed clefts, heard the tinkle of water travelling, watched tiny pied daisies fall beneath the hoofs of the yelk as if they were stars going into eclipse. The universe came to him. He was slipping from his saddle.

  At the last moment, he managed to pull himself upright and land on two feet. His legs felt unfamiliar.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Toress Lahl asked, riding up.

  Shokerandit found difficulty in moving his neck to look up at her. Her eyes were shielded by her hat. Mistrusting her, he reached for his gun, then remembered it was stashed in his saddle. He fell forward, burying his face in the wet fur on his yelk’s rump. He sank to the ground and felt himself sliding down the side of the dyke.

  A rigidity had seized him. A disconnection between will and ability had taken place. Yet he heard Toress Lahl dismount and come squelching down to where he lay sprawled.

  He was conscious of her arm about him, of her voice, anxious, seeking out his sense. She was helping him up. His bones ached. He tried to cry out in pain, but no noise emerged. The bone ache, the limb pain, crept into his skull. His body twisted and contorted. He saw the sky swing on a hinge.

  “You’re ill,” Toress Lahl said. She could not bring herself to mention the dread name of the disease.

  She dropped him and let him lie in the wet grasses. She stood looking round at the vacancy of the marshes and at the distant bald hills from which they had come. There were still moving banners of rain in the southern sky. Tiny crabs ran in the streamlets at her feet.

  She could escape. Her captor lay powerless at her feet. She could shoot him with his own gun as he lay. A return to Campannlat overland would be too perilous, with an army approaching somewhere over the steppe. Koriantura was only a few miles away to the northwest; the escarpment which marked the frontier could be discerned as a smudge on the horizon. But that was enemy territory. The light was fading.

  Toress Lahl walked a few paces back and forth in her indecision. Then she returned to the prone figure of Luterin Shokerandit.

  “Come on, let’s see what can be done,” she said.

  She managed to get him back in the saddle with a struggle, climbing up behind him and kicking the yelk into action. Her yelk followed in fits and starts, as if preferring company to a night alone on the marshes.

  Prompted by anxiety, she urged increased speed out of her animal. As dusk closed in, she caught a glimpse of Fashnalgid ahead, his figure silhouetted against the distant sea. Raising Shokerandit’s revolver, she fired it in the air. Birds rose in flocks from the surrounding land, screaming as they escaped.

  In another half hour, night or its half-brother lay over the land, although shimmering pools here and there picked up a reflection from the southwestern horizon, just below which Freyr lurked. Fashnalgid could no longer be seen.

  She spurred on the yelk, supporting Shokerandit’s body against hers.

  Water flooded in on either side of the raised path. Its noise was greater now, which Toress Lahl believed indicated that the tide was rising. She had never seen the sea before, and feared it. In the decep- tive light, she came on a small jetty before she knew it. A boat was moored there.

  The sallow sea lapped with a greedy sound on the mud. Glumaceous grasses and sedges set up a ghostly rustle. Small waves slapped against the side of the dinghy. There was no sign of any human being.

  Toress Lahl climbed from the yelk and eased Shokerandit down on a bank. Cautiously she ventured onto the creaking jetty to which the dinghy was moored.

  “Got you, then! Hold still!”

  She gave a small scream as the shout came from beneath her feet. A man jumped out from under the jetty and pointed his gun at her head.

  She smelled the spirits on his breath, saw his luxuriant moustache, and recognised Captain Fashnalgid with relief. He gave a grunt of recognition, expressing not so much pleasure or displeasure as an admis- sion that life was full of tiresome incidents, each demanding to be dealt with.

  “Why did you follow? Are you leading Gardeterark after you?”

  “Shokerandit is ill. Will you help me?”

  He turned and called towards the boat.

  “Besi! Come out. It’s safe.”

  Besi Besamitikahl, wrapped in her furs, emerged from under a tarpaulin where she had been sheltering and came forward. She had listened almost without astonishment as the captain, in one of his ranting moods, had outlined his scheme to snatch Asperamanka from the wrath of the Oligarch—as he dramatically put it. He would go such and such a way to meet the Priest-Militant, and would ride with him to the coast, where Besi would have a boat waiting. This boat would be lent by courtesy of Eedap Mun Odim. She must not fail him. Life and honour were at stake.

  Odim had listened to this plan, as the girl related it, with delight. Once Fashnalgid became involved in an illegal enterprise, he would be in Odim’s power. By all means he should have a little boat, with a boatman to crew her, and Besi should sail round the bay and meet him and his holy companion.

  Even while these arrangements had been made, the la
ws of the Oligarch were pressing down harder on the population. Day by day, street by street, Koriantura was falling under military control. Odim saw all, said nothing, worried for his herd of relations, and made his own plans.

  Besi now helped Toress Lahl to carry the stiff body of Luterin Shokerandit into the boat. “Do we have to take these two?” she asked Fashnalgid, staring down with disfavour at the sick man. “They are probably infectious.”

  “We can’t leave them here,” Fashnalgid said.

  “I suppose you want us to take the yelks too.”

  The captain ignored this remark and motioned to the boatman to cast off. The yelks stood on the shore, watching them depart. One ventured forward into the mud, slipped, and withdrew. They remained staring at the small boat as it faded away over the water in the direction of Koriantura.

  It was cold on the water. While the boatman sat by the tiller, the triers crouched below the tarpaulin, out of the wind. Toress Lahl was isinclined to talk, but Besi plied her with questions.

  “Where are you from? I can tell by your accent that you’re not from .ere. Is this man your husband?”

  Reluctantly, Toress Lahl admitted that she was Shokerandit’s slave.

  “Well, there are ways out of slavery,” said Besi feelingly. “Not many. ;’m sorry for you. You could be worse off if your master dies.”

  “Perhaps I could find a boat in Koriantura which would take me back to Campannlat—once Lieutenant Shokerandit is safe, I mean. Would you help me?”

  Fashnalgid said, “Lady, there will be trouble enough for us when we get back to Koriantura, without helping a slave to escape. You’re a good-looking woman—you should find a good billet.”

  Ignoring this last remark, Toress Lahl said, “What kind of trouble?”