by Brian Aldiss
He passed an entranceway where a figure lurked. It called his name. He turned. Through the dusk, he saw a woman wrapped in furs.
“You are almost there. Aren’t you excited?” she said.
He went to her, clutched her, felt her narrow body under the furs.
“Insil! You waited.”
“Only partly for you. The fish seller has something I need. I am sick after that performance in there, with the silly drama and speeches. They think they have conquered nature when they wrap a few words round it. And of course mv sherb of a husband mouthing the word Sibornal as if it were a mouthwash… I’m sick, I need to drug myself against them. What is that filthy curse which the commoners use, meaning to commit irrumation on both suns? The forbidden oath? Tell me.”
“You mean, ‘Abro Hakmo Astab’?”
She repeated it with relish. Then she screamed it.
Hearing her say it excited him. He held her tight and forced his mouth against hers. They struggled. He heard his own voice saying, “Let me biwack you here, Insil, as I’ve always longed to do. You’re not really frigid. I know it. You’re really a whore, just a whore, and I want you.”
“You’re drunk, get away, get away. Toress Lahl is awaiting you.”
“I care nothing for her. You and I are meant for each other. That’s been the case ever since we were children. Let’s fulfill ourselves. You once promised me. Now’s the time, Insil, now!”
Her great eyes were close to his.
“You frighten me. What’s come over you? Let me be.”
“No, no, I don’t have to let you be now. Insil—Asperamanka is dead. The phagors killed him. We can be married now, anything, only let me have you, please, please!”
She wrenched herself away from him.
“He’s dead? Dead? No. It can’t be. Oh, the cur!” She started screaming and ran down the street, holding up her trailing skirt above the trodden snow.
Luterin followed in horror at her distress.
He tried to detain her but she said something which he at first could not understand. She was crying for a pipe of occhara.
The fish seller was, as she had said, at the end of the street. A short passage had been constructed beyond the original shop front, allowing passengers to enter without bringing the cold in with them. Above the door was a sign saying ODIM’S FINEST FISH.
Tliey entered a dim parlour where several men stood, warmly wrapped, all of them metamorphosed winter shapes. Seals and large fish hung on hooks. Smaller fish, crabs, and eels were bedded in ice on a counter. Luterin took little notice of his surroundings, so concerned was he for Insil, who was now almost hysterical.
But the men recognized her. “We know what she wants,” one said, grinning. He led her into a rear room.
One of the other men came forward and said, “I remember you, sir.”
He was youthful and had a vaguely foreign look about him.
“My name is Kenigg Odim,” he said. “I sailed with you on that journey from Koriantura to Rivenjk. I was just a lad then, but you may recollect my father, Eedap Odim.”
“Of course, of course,” said Luterin distractedly. “A dealer in something. Ivory, was it?”
“Porcelain, sir. My father still lives in Rivenjk, and organises supplies of good fish to come up here every week. It’s a paying business, and there’s no demand for porcelain these days. Life’s better down in Rivenjk, sir, I must say. Fine feelings is about as much good as fine porcelain up here.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s so.”
“We also do a trade in occhara, sir, if you would care for a free pipe. Your lady friend is a regular customer.”
“Yes, bring me a pipe, man, thank you, and what of a lady called Toress Lahl? Is she here?” “She’s expected.”
“All right.” He went through into the rear room. Insil Esikananzi was resting on a couch, smoking a long-stemmed pipe. She looked perfectly calm, and regarded Luterin without speaking.
He sat by her without a word, and presently the young Odim brought him a lighted pipe. He inhaled with pleasure and immediately felt a mood strangely compounded of resignation and determination steal over him. He felt he was equal to anything. He understood now Insil’s expanded irises, and held her hand.
“My husband is dead,” she announced. “Did you know that? Did I tell you what he did to me on our wedding night?”
“Insil, I’ve had enough confidences from you for one day. That episode in your life is over. We are still young. We can marry, can make one another happy or miserable, as the case may be.”
Wreathing herself in smoke, she said from the centre of it, “You are a fugitive. I need a home. I need care. I no longer need love. What I need is occhara. I want someone who can protect me. I want you to get Asperamanka back.”
“That’s impossible. He’s dead.”
“If you find it impossible, Luterin, then please be quiet and leave me to my thoughts. I am a widow. Widows never last long in winter…” He sat by her, sucking on the occhara, letting his thoughts die. “If you could also kill my father, the Keeper, this remote community could revert to nature. The Wheel would stop. The plague could come and go. The survivors would see the Weyr-Winter through.” “There will always be survivors. It’s a law of nature.” “My husband showed me the laws of nature, thank you. I do not wish for another husband.”
They fell silent. Young Odim entered and announced to Luterin that Toress Lahl awaited him in an upper room. He cursed and stumbled after the man up a rickety stair without a backward look at Insil, certain that she would remain where she was for some while.
Luterin was shown into a small cabin, before which a curtain did duty for a door. Inside, a bed served as the only furniture. Beside the bed stood Toress Lahl. He was astonished at her girth until he remem- bered that he was much the same size.
She had certainly grown older. There was grey in her hair, although she still dressed it as she had done ten years ago. Her cheeks were rough and florid with the abrasion of frost. Her eyes were heavier, although they lit as she smiled with recognition. In every way, she seemed unlike Insil, not least in the kind of calm stoicism with which she presented herself for his inspection.
She wore boots. Her dress was poor and patched. Unexpectedly, she removed her fur hat—whether in welcome or respect he could not tell.
He took a step towards her. She immediately came forward and embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“I saw you yesterday. I was waiting outside the Wheel when they let you free. I called to you but you did not look my way.”
“It was so bright.” Still confused by the occhara, he could think of nothing to say. He wanted her to make jokes like Insil. When she did not, he asked, “Do you know Insil Esikananzi?”
“She has become a good friend of mine. We’ve supported each other in many ways. The years have been long, Luterin… What plans do you have?”
“Plans? The sun’s gone down.”
“For the future.”
“This innocent is again a fugitive… They may even try to blame me for Asperamanka’s death.” He sat down heavily on the bed.
“That man is dead? It’s a mercy…” She thought and then said, “If you can trust me, Luterin, I could take you to my little hideout.”
“I would only be a source of danger.”
“That’s not what our relationship is based on. I’m still yours, Luterin, if you will have me.” When he hesitated, she said pleadingly, “I need you, Luterin. You loved me once, I believe. What choices do you have here, surrounded by enemies?”
“There’s always defiance,” he said. He laughed.
They went down the narrow stairs together, taking care in the dark. At the bottom, Luterin looked into the rear room. To his surprise, the couch was empty and Insil had gone.
They bid good-bye to young Odim and made their way into the night.
In the gathering darkness, the Avernus passed overhead, maki
ng its swift transit of the sky. It was now a dead eye.
At last the splendid machine had run down. Its surveillance system was only partly functional. Many other systems—but not the vital ones—were still operational. Air still circulated. Cleaning machines still crawled through walkways. Here and there, computers still exchanged information. Coffee machines still regularly brought coffee to the boil.
Stabilisers kept the Earth Observation Station automatically on course. In the port departure lounge, a toilet regularly flushed itself, like a creature unable to suppress weeping fits.
But no signals were returning to Earth.
And Earth no longer had need of them, although there were many who regretted the termination of that unfolding story from another world. For Earth was moving beyond its compulsive stage, where civil- isation was measured by the quantity of possessions, into a new phase of being where the magic of individual experience was to be shared, not stored; awarded, not hoarded. The human character became involuntarily more like that of Gaia herself: diffuse, ever changing, ever open to the adventures of the day.
As they went through the dusk, leaving the village behind them, Toress Lahl tried to talk of superficial things. Snow fell, blowing in from the north.
Luterin did not reply. After a silence, she told him how she had borne him a son, now almost ten years old, and offered Luterin Anecdotes about him.
“I wonder if he will grow up to kill his father,” was all Luterin said.
“He is metamorphosed, as we are. A true son, Luterin. So he will survive and breed survivors, we hope.”
He trudged behind her, still with nothing to say. They passed a deserted hut and were heading for a belt of trees. He glanced back now and again.
She was following her own train of thought. “Still your hated Oligarchy is killing off all the phagors. If only they understood the real workings of the Fat Death, they would know that they are killing off their own kind too.”
“They know well enough what they’re doing.”
“No, Luterin. You generously gave me the key to JandolAnganol’s chapel, and I’ve lived there ever since. One evening, a knock came at the door and there was Insil Esikananzi.”
He looked interested. “How did Insil know you were there?”
“It was an accident. She had run away from Asperamanka. They were then newly married. He had brutally sodomised her, and she was in pain and despair. She remembered the chapel as a refuge—your brother Favin had taken her there once, in happier days. I looked after her and we became close friends.”
“Well… I’m glad she had a friend.”
“I showed her the records left by JandolAnganol and the woman Muntras, with the explanations of how there was a tick which travelled from phagors to mankind carrying the plagues necessary to mankind’s survival in the extreme seasons. That knowledge Insil took back with her, to explain to the Keeper and the Master, but they would take no notice.”
He gave a curt laugh. “They took no notice because they already knew. They would not want Insil’s interference. They run the system, don’t they? They knew. My father knew. Do you imagine those old church papers were secret? Their knowledge became common knowledge.”
The ground sloped. They picked their way more carefully toward where the caspiarn forest began.
Toress Lahl said, “The Oligarch knew that killing off all phagors meant ultimately killing the humans— yet still he passed his orders? That’s incredible.”
“I can’t defend what my father did—or Asperamanka. But the knowledge did not suit them. Simply that. They felt they had to act, despite their knowledge.”
He caught the scent of the caspiams, inhaled the slight vinegary tang of their foliage. It came like the memory of another world. He drew it gratefully into his lungs. Toress Lahl had two yelk tethered in the shelter of the trees. She went forward and fondled their muzzles as he spoke.
“My father did not know what would happen if Sibornal was rid of phagors for ever. He just believed that it was something necessary to do, whatever the consequences. We don’t know what will happen either, despite what it may say in some fusty old documents…” More to himself, he said, “I think he felt some drastic break with the past was needed, no matter what the cost. An act of defiance, if you like. Perhaps he will one day be proved right. Nature will take care of us. Then they’ll make a saint of him, like your wicked saint JandolAnganol.
“An act of defiance… that’s mankind’s nature. It’s no good just sitting back and smoking occhara. Otherwise we should never progress. The key to the future must lie with the future, not the past.”
The wind was getting up again; the snow came faster.
“Beholder!” she said. She put a hand up to her rough face. “You’ve grown hard. Are you going to come with me?” she asked.
“I need you,” she said, when he did not answer.
He swung himself up into the saddle, relishing the familiarity of the act, and the response of the animal beneath him. He patted the yelk’s warm flank.
He was an exile in his own land. That would have to change. Asperamanka was done for. The obscene Ebstok Esikananzi would have to be brought to an accounting. He did not wish for what Esikananzi had; he wanted justice. His face was grim as he gazed down at the yelk’s mane.
“Luterin, are you ready? Our son is waiting for us in the chapel.”
He stared across at the blur of her face and nodded. Snowflakes settled on his eyelids. As they nudged their mounts down among the trees, a wind cut through the forest, slicing down from the slopes of Mount Shivenink. Snow cascaded across their shoulders from branches overhead. The ground sloped towards the hidden chapel. They wound by what had once been a waterfall and was now a pillar of ice.
At the last moment, Luterin turned in the saddle to catch a last glimpse of the village. The light of its fires was reflected on the low cloud cover blowing in.
Holding the reins more firmly, he urged the yelk faster down the slope and into the thickening murk. The woman called to him with anxiety in her voice, but Luterin felt exhilaration rising in his arteries.
He raised a fist above his head.
“Abro Hakmo Astab!” he shouted, hurling his voice into the distances of the forest.
The wind took the sound and smothered it in the weight of falling snow.
THE END
For the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. Everything must pass through successive phases. Nothing remains for ever what it was. Everything is on the move. Everything is transformed by nature and forced into new paths. One thing, withered by time, decays and dwindles. Another emerges from ignominy, and waxes strong. So the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. The Earth passes through successive phases, so that it can no longer bear what it could, and it can now what it could not before.
Lucretius: De Rerum Natura
55 DC
My dear Clive,
There you have it. Seven years have passed since I began to consider these matters. This volume will achieve first publication in a year when Vie. both reach a new decade, and when my age will be exactly double yours.
As I walk in Hilary’s garden wondering what form of words to use, it occurs to me that the question to ask is, Why do individuals of the human race long for close community with each other, and yet remain so often apart? Could it be that the isolating factor is similar to that which makes us feel, as a species, apart from the rest of nature? Perhaps the Earth mother you meet in these pages has proved less than perfect. Like a real mother, she has had her troubles—on a cosmic scale.
So the fault is not all ours, or hers. We must accept a lack of perfection in the scheme of things, accept the yellow-striped fly. Time, in which the whole drama is staged, is, as J. T. Fraser puts it, “a hierarchy of unresolved conflicts.” We must accept that limitation with the equanimity of Lucretius, and be angry only at those things against which one can be effectively angry, like the madness of making and deploying nuclear weapons.
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Such matters are not generally the subject of literature. But I felt the necessity, as you see, to have a shot at incorporating them.
Now at last I have done. The rambling edifice of Helliconia is before you, with my hopes that you will enjoy the results.
Your affectionate
Father
Boars Hill
Oxford
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