by Larry Niven
She jumped suddenly to her feet. “Come to the orgy room, Corbell. You need cheering up. Is it displacement from your tribe that bothers you? Or fear of the ancient dikt and her cane?”
“All of the above. Right, I need cheering up.”
If he thought to be alone with Charibil, he was wrong. She called to three friends as they passed, and one joined them; and then a small golden-haired woman invited herself into the group; and four women presently reached the bedroom complex with Corbel. Others were there: a man and a single woman who seemed to want to be alone. Charibil and the other women suddenly picked Corbell up by arms and legs, swung him wide and slung him through the air, laughing at his startled “Hey!”
The surface surged as he splashed down, surged again as they joined him. He laughed with them. For a moment, the laugh caught in his throat.
There was a mirror over the bed.
He couldn’t have missed that last night…and he hadn’t. The others had those mobile sculptures over them. Had the women noticed anything? Corbell pulled Charibil against him, rolled onto his back with her on top…and looked up at himself.
Long, thinning white hair sprang from a military haircut in chestnut brown, in the damndest hairdo Corbell had ever seen. In the face there were frown lines around the mouth and eyes. He saw a lean, well-muscled, middle-aged version of one well known to him: a certain brain-wiped State criminal.
They’d noticed his tension. They turned him over and massaged it away. The kneading of muscles gradually became eight hands caressing him…and Corbell was seduced twice, to his own amazement. He felt that he was falling in love with four women: an impossible thing for CORBELL Mark I. In post-coital sadness Corbell knew at last that Corbell was dead…
He distracted himself with questions.
“No, all nights are not like last night,” Charibil told him. “The men would tire of us. Last night was special. We stayed away from this place for five short days. We like to give the Boys something to watch.”
“Why?”
“Why? They rule us, and they live forever, but there is one joy they can’t know!” she gloated.
You can live forever! It was on the tip of his tongue…but instead he said, “What do the men do when they’re not up here? I mean, if they don’t work—”
“They make decisions. And, let me see: Privatht is perhaps our finest cook. Gording deals with the Boys in all matters; in fact he is with them now. Charloop makes things to teach and entertain children—”
“Gording is in the Boy camp?”
“Yes, he and the Boys had some important secret to discuss. They wouldn’t—”
“I’ve got to be there.” Corbell rolled off the bed. If Gording and the cat-tails had come together, then Corbell had to be there too. “I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but this is more important than I can tell you.” He left. Behind him he heard tinkling laughter.
III
It was near sunset. Boys and boy-children were roasting a tremendous fish over coals. Ktollisp was telling them a tale. The children were making much of a pair of indolent furred snakes. Corbell looked for Gording’s white hair.
He found Gording and Krayhayft and Skatholtz a good distance from the main group. They were spitting Boyish too fast for Corbell’s understanding. He caught the word for Girls, and his own word Ganymede. And he saw the third cat-tail curled in an orange spiral on a rock almost behind Skatholtz.
They saw him. Gording said, “Good! Corbell’s sources of knowledge are different from ours.”
Krayhayft scoffed. “He did not even see the implications.”
Skatholtz said, “Gording is right. Corbell, in one of our tales there is a line with no meaning. The tale tells of the war between Girls and Boys. The line tells that each side destroyed the other.”
Corbell sat down cross-legged next to Skatholtz. “Could this have something to do with our strayed planet?”
“Yes, with the mere fleck of light that grows brighter but does not move against the background of fixed stars. Do you understand what that might mean?”
He’d been assuming that that dot of light was the banded gas giant Peerssa had shown him; but that didn’t have to be true. If something in the sky grew brighter without moving…grew closer, with no shift sideways?
“It’s coming down our throats!”
“Well phrased,” said Skatholtz.
But it was monstrously unfair that Corbell should have found eternal youth just before the end of the world! “You’re guessing,” he said.
“Of course. But the Girls ruled the sky,” Krayhayft said. “When the Girls knew they had lost, they may have aimed your missing Ganymede on a long path to smash the world.”
He couldn’t let this moon thing distract him. When his chance came he had to be ready. But did it matter? What if Don Juan had brought him home just in time to face impact with a lost moon!
“Wait a minute. Why not a short path?”
Krayhayft shrugged. Skatholtz said, “Who can know the mind of a Girl? They are long dead.”
“They weren’t stupid. The longer the path, the more chance the moon would miss the world. It’s been—” Divide by twelve. “—a hundred thousand years, after all.”
“We do not know how they moved worlds. How can we know what difficulties they faced? Perhaps the long path was their only choice.”
Corbell stood up. He stretched, then sat down on the smooth rock behind him: a big boulder with a cat-tail sleeping on top, well behind his head. He braced his feet against a smaller, half-buried boulder.
“I don’t like it. I don’t like my place in it. Any minor design change in Don Juan and I could have been back a hundred thousand years sooner or later. What are the odds I’d get here just in time for all the excitement?”
Gording laughed at him. “What an odd bit of luck, that I should be alive at this time!”
“And I!” Skatholtz cried.
Corbell flushed. “Could the tale have meant something else?”
“Of course. No detail is given,” Skatholtz said.
“Okay. The Girls knew they’d had it. They were looking for revenge…but why in the sky? They must have lost control of the sky already. Otherwise they would have put the Earth back where it belonged, further from Jupiter, where it wouldn’t get too much heat. So they couldn’t have thrown a moon at Earth, long path or short path.”
“The moon is coming anyway,” said Krayhayft.
But Skatholtz said, “Let him speak.”
“Did I tell you what Mirelly-Lyra told me? She—” he tripped on the Boyish phrases, then, “she left zero-time with a thousand prisoners. Some of them lived to reach this place. She says the Boys took them, but she escaped.”
“You’ve lost the thread of thought,” Krayhayft reproved him.
“No, it fits in. Look, if the Girls were that close to ruined, there wasn’t much they could do. But if the Boys were keeping all the dikta in the same place, the Girls could wipe them out.”
And as he said it he knew he was right. They all saw it…and their minds were better than his. Without the dikta there would be no more Boys. Only a dwindling population of immortals dying one by one, by accident and boredom and act of God.
“Your Mirelly-Lyra escaped,” said Skatholtz, “because there were too few Boys left to hunt her down. The new dikta became pampered pets, they who had been criminals in pre-history.” He barked bitter laughter. “But the moon still comes. If it is a random result of the Girls’ loss of control, still it could destroy us. Even a near miss—” His Boyish went into high gear…and the others joined in…faster and faster…excluding Corbell. Suddenly the Boys got to their feet and left. They had excluded Gording, too.
For an instant Gording let his fury show…and then he relaxed. And Corbell tested his footing. Butt on smooth rock, feet in front of him against rock that seemed steady…and he dared not look behind him.
“It would not do,” Gording said bitterly, “for Boys to discuss such important matters w
ith a dikt.”
“What was that about?”
“They must choose, you see. If the moon strikes the world, time ends. But if the moon comes by mischance, it may still pass close by the world. Tides. Earthquakes.”
“Oh. Dikta City’s right on the ocean. They’ll have to move you.”
“Move us how? Where? They can’t let us go free. We are their treasure, their source, their valued property.” Gording was angry already: almost angry enough to strike out at the nearest target.
Now: “Maybe they’ll just take some women, the best they can find. Mate them with the boy-children. There’s no scarcity of Boys. They can wait till the stock builds up again. After all, they have to be fairly careful with their breeding, considering that their original stock was a bunch of rejects from—”
Unexpectedly soon, unexpectedly fast, Gording leapt for his throat.
Corbell pushed hard against the rock, kicked himself out from under Gording’s leap. He reached over his head.
Startled from sleep, the cat-tail tried to leap away. Corbell’s hand closed on its tail.
Gording hit ground and came at him again, face calm, hands outstretched for murder. He wasn’t quick enough. Corbell swung the cat-tail into his face. The beast’s teeth closed in Gording’s neck. In that moment of distraction Corbell swung a haymaker at his jaw.
Gording jerked aside. The cat-tail was a tight fur collar, its teeth were still in his neck, but he hadn’t been as distracted as Corbell had thought. Hopelessly off balance himself, Corbell watched the old man set himself and lash out.
The hard fist sank into his solar plexus. Corbell doubled over. Lightning exploded at the nape of his neck.
His belly hurt…his neck hurt…he was curled on his side in crushed strawberries. He tried to uncurl.
They were standing around him, a lot of Boys looking down. Skatholtz was shaking his head and smiling. “Magnificent, Corbell!”
“Then,” said Corbell, “why am I lying on the ground hurting? Never mind.” He uncurled a little more. Gording stood relaxed, his hand covering the flesh torn by cat-tail teeth. He showed no inclination to resume hostilities.
Corbell said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe it’s jealousy. You’re all like…you’re all smarter than I am, and it shows.”
There was blood beneath the hand Gording held to his neck. He breathed heavily. He said, “I understand. You were careless with an unfamiliar language. I should not have taken offense. It will be best if I rejoin the dikta for tonight.” He turned away and took two stumbling steps before hands closed on his arms.
Krayhayft was smiling. His hands made a wiping motion. “That won’t serve. You can’t go back to them, Gording. What would they think when your hair changed color?”
Gording laughed. “It was worth trying.”
Corbell said, “Shit!”
“No, no, Corbell, you did a fine job of acting. It was the set of your muscles that betrayed you everywhere. I couldn’t know why you wanted me to attack you, and I had to find out.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way. I still don’t know…”
Krayhayft said, “We’ll know soon enough. The logic holds. A cat-tail bit you some days before we found you. We saw the mark. Our tradition is that the dikta may not enjoy the company of cat-tails. We know that long ago it was possible to change the nature of a living thing, and we know that it was done to cat-tails. Why should they not make dikta immortality as Boys make spit? But we’ll watch you as we go, Gording, to see if you grow young.
“And as we go, Corbell, we will think of some useful punishment for your deception. Already I have an idea.
“And we go now.”
IV
By dead of night the tribe moved along the shore. They carried neither food nor water. Jupiter showed a bright gibbous disk above the dark sea. The mystery planet showed too, near Jupiter. Corbell picked out other moons, and a moon shadow on Jupiter’s banded face.
One of the children had gone to sleep and was being carried. The others asked a thousand questions of laughing Boys. Corbell listened to the answers. Details of the march ahead…other bands of Boys…wondrous machines…the gathering in Sarash-Zillish…nothing he hadn’t heard or guessed.
He waited his chance to talk to Gording alone. It never came. Gording marched at the head of the line, under escort. When Corbell tried to catch up he was barred with spear butts.
By morning they were thirsty.
By noon they were very thirsty, and loud were the complaints of the boy-children. Gording was showing the strain of unaccustomed hiking, but he showed it silently, in the slight weave to his walk and the occasional stumble.
In the afternoon they reached a river. The splashing was loud as Boys and boys drank and then swam. Here they camped. Corbell and others caught fish with makeshift hooks and lines of thread that might have come from Dikta City. Corbell was not allowed to clean his fish; he was not allowed a knife.
And this was the thread that would make wonderful strangler’s cord, if it didn’t cut the strangler’s fingers. As he considered his fishline he caught Krayhayft grinning at him. Krayhayft held out his hand. Corbell put the fishline in it.
The river had cut a deep gorge into the former sea bottom, leaving high, sheer cliffs of layered sandstone. All day they followed the twisting, beautifully colored walls. At sunset, where the cliffs constricted and took a sharp turn, they came on a hidden village. The village occupied both sides of the river, joined by a wide bridge. Beyond the village the desolation continued to the horizon.
The villagers made them welcome and fed them. Corbell entertained with a medley of advertising jingles. Afterward Krayhayft began a tale while Corbell made himself comfortable against a convenient boulder.
It seemed to him that the village was a well-placed trap.
If dikta followed a band of Boys from Dikta City, they would have to go around the village, climbing cliffs to do it and leaving traces of themselves, and into more desolation. Unless they wanted to risk raiding the village…
There was a “phone booth” at one end of the bridge. The bridge was a wide arch of prestressed concrete or something better, its lines singularly beautiful. It was the only sign of advanced technology among basic and primitive structures.
There had been bread and corn with tonight’s fish. There must be a working “phone booth” here to bring them. But was that a working booth? It was too blatant. It might be a trap.
A voice behind Corbel’s ear whispered, “We will not let you use the prilatsil.”
Corbell turned to stare rudely at the intruder. He had not been watching the booth.
The Boy was of the village: a pink-eyed, golden-haired albino with a narrow ferret face. He almost lost his footing as he squatted next to Corbell. His loincloth was animal skin.
He was young, then. Corbell had learned to tell. The older Boys were never awkward, and they did not brag of their kills by wearing the skins. He grinned and said, “Try it if you like. We would bruise you.”
“I think they’ll bruise me anyway,” Corbell said. He’d been wondering about Krayhayft’s “punishment.” Damn Krayhayft. Corbell would be a bag of nerve ends before the blade fell.
“Yes. You lied,” said the golden Boy. “I am to be there when punishment comes.”
“Sadist,” Corbell said in English.
“I can guess the meaning. No. We do not make pain for pleasure, only for instruction. Your pain will be instructive to you and to us.” The Boy chuckled gloatingly, making a liar of himself, and got up.
Now, what was that all about? Corbell expected to die as soon as Gording began to grow young. He knew too much. Or would they only wipe his memory? He shivered. It would still be death, though it would let them use the ancient felon’s genes.
They left carrying provisions. One of the boy-children stayed behind. Half a dozen villagers came with them, including the young albino.
The continental shelf had been wider in
this area. It was still barren. The day was nearly over before they reached, first fruit trees, then cornfields. They camped in the corn.
They passed a larger tribe on the third day. For a time Krayhayft’s tribe mingled with Tsilliwheep’s tribe, exchanging news. Tsilliwheep was a strange one: large, pudgy, sullen-faced, a classic schoolyard bully with pure white hair. He issued no orders and he mingled with nobody. When his tribe veered away it took two of Krayhayft’s tribe and two boy-children.
They passed single human beings at a distance. “Loners,” Skatholtz told Corbell. “They tire of others around them. For a time they go alone. Krayhayft has done it six times.”
“Why?”
“Maybe to know if they still love themselves. Maybe to know that they can live without help. Maybe they want to give up talking. Tsilliwheep will be a loner soon, I think. He had the look. Corbell, it is very bad manners to speak to a loner, or interfere with him, or offer him help.”
Through waist-high corn they marched. In early afternoon a herd of dwarf buffalo passed, tens of thousands of them, blackening the land and raising continuous rolling thunder. The trampled path was a quarter hour’s march across: corn churned into the dirt along with the corpses of aged buffalo unable to keep up. For the first time Corbell saw vultures. Vultures had survived unchanged.
Skatholtz bent their path to take them through a ruined city. An earthquake, or Girl weaponry, had shattered most of the buildings, and time had weathered all the sharp edges. Corbell saw sandblasted public prilatsil; he ignored them. He’d seen no evidence that power was still coming to this ruin.
Boys had made a semi-permanent camp at the far edge of the ruined city. Krayhayft’s tribe joined them, and contributed ears of corn to their dinner. Corbell saw what they were using for cooking.
What the locals had mounted on rocks above their fireplace was a piece of clear glass seven feet across, curved like an enormous wok: a good enough frying pan except for the dangerous jagged edges. It had to be a piece of a bubble-car.