His half-naked body was covered with moles and swellings. Gland trouble, I guessed.
I had thought I was the tallest man on the planet, but he was seven feet tall and overweight. Now I knew where my giant bed had come from!
"Go back," he said. "She may enter. You may not."
"I must get my books and things."
He raised a huge left arm. I followed it. All my belonging lay neatly stacked in the corner.
"I must go in. I must talk with M'Cwyie and the Mothers."
"You may not."
"The lives of your people depend on it."
"Go back," he boomed. "Go home to your people, Gallinger. Leave us!"
My name sounded so different on his lips, like someone else's. How old was he? I wondered. Three hundred? Four? Had he been a Temple guardian all his life? Why? Who was there to guard against? I didn't like the way he moved. I had seen men who moved like that before.
"Go back," he repeated.
If they had refined their martial arts as far as they had their dances, or worse yet, if their fighting arts were a part of the dance, I was in for trouble.
"Go on in," I said to Braxa. "Give the rose to M'Cwyie. Tell her that I sent it. Tell her I'll be there shortly."
"I will do as you ask. Remember me on Earth, Gallinger. Good-bye."
I did not answer her, and she walked past Ontro and into the next room, bearing her rose.
"Now will you leave?" he asked. "If you like, I will tell her that we fought and you almost beat me, but I knocked you unconscious and carried you back to your ship."
"No," I said, "either I go around you or go over you, but I am going through."
He dropped into a crouch, arms extended.
"It is a sin to lay hands on a holy man," he rumbled, "but I will stop you, Gallinger."
My memory was a fogged window, suddenly exposed to fresh air. Things cleared. I looked back six years.
I was a student of the Oriental Languages at the University of Tokyo. It was my twice-weekly night of recreation. I stood in a thirty-foot circle in the Kodokan, the judogi lashed about my high hips by a brown belt. I was Ik-kyu, one notch below the lowest degree of expert. A brown diamond above my right breast said "Jiu-Jitsu" in Japanese, and it meant atemiwaza, really, because of the one striking-technique I had worked out, found unbelievably suitable to my size, and won matches with.
But I had never used it on a man, and it was five years since I had practiced. I was out of shape, I knew, but I tried hard to force my mind tsuki no kokoro, like the moon, reflecting the all of Ontro.
Somewhere, out of the past, a voice said "Hajime, let it begin."
I snapped into my neko-ashi-dachi cat-stance, and his eyes burned strangely. He hurried to correct his own position--and I threw it at him!
My one trick!
My long left leg lashed up like a broken spring. Seven feet off the ground my foot connected with his jaw as he tried to leap backward.
His head snapped back and he fell. A soft moan escaped his lips. That's all there is to it, I thought. Sorry, old fellow.
And as I stepped over him, somehow, groggily, he tripped me, and I fell across his body. I couldn't believe he had strength enough to remain conscious after that blow, let alone move. I hated to punish him any more.
But he found my throat and slipped a forearm across it before I realized there was a purpose to his action.
No! Don't let it end like this!
It was a bar of steel across my windpipe, my carotids. Then I realized that he was still unconscious, and that this was a reflex instilled by countless years of training. I had seen it happen once, in shiai. The man had died because he had been choked unconscious and still fought on, and his opponent thought he had not been applying the choke properly. He tried harder.
But it was rare, so very rare!
I jammed my elbow into his ribs and threw my head back in his face. The grip eased, but not enough. I hated to do it, but I reached up and broke his little finger.
The arm went loose and I twisted free.
He lay there panting, face contorted. My heart went out to the fallen giant, defending his people, his religion, following his orders. I cursed myself as I had never cursed before, for walking over him, instead of around.
I staggered across the room to my little heap of possessions. I sat on the projector case and lit a cigarette.
I couldn't go into the Temple until I got my breath back, until I thought of something to say.
How do you talk a race out of killing itself?
Suddenly--
--Could it happen! Would it work that way? If I read them the Book of Ecclesiastes--if I read them a greater piece of literature than any Locar ever wrote--and as somber--and as pessimistic--and showed them that our race had gone on despite one man's condemning all of life in the highest poetry--showed them that the vanity he had mocked had borne us to the Heavens--would they believe it--would they change their minds?
I ground out my cigarette on the beautiful floor, and found my notebook. A strange fury rose within me as I stood.
And I walked into the Temple to preach the Black Gospel according to Gallinger, from the Book of Life.
There was silence all about me.
M'Cwyie had been reading Locar, the rose set at her right hand, target of all eyes.
Until I entered.
Hundreds of people were seated on the floor, barefoot. The few men were as small as the women, I noted.
I had my boots on.
Go all the way, I figured. You either lose or you win--everything!
A dozen crones sat in a semicircle behind M'Cwyie. The Mothers.
The barren earth, the dry wombs, the fire-touched.
I moved to the table.
"Dying yourselves, you would condemn your people," I addressed them, "that they may not know the life you have known--the joys, the sorrows, the fullness. --But it is not true that you all must die." I addressed the multitude now. "Those who say this lie. Braxa knows, for she will bear a child--"
They sat there, like rows of Buddhas. M'Cwyie drew back into the semicircle.
"--my child!" I continued, wondering what my father would have thought of this sermon.
"...And all the women young enough may bear children. It is only your men who are sterile. --And if you permit the doctors of the next expedition to examine you, perhaps even the men may be helped. But if they cannot, you can mate with the men of Earth.
"And ours is not an insignificant people, an insignificant place," I went on. "Thousands of years ago, the Locar of our world wrote a book saying that it was. He spoke as Locar did, but we did not lie down, despite plagues, wars, and famines. We did not die. One by one we beat down the diseases, we fed the hungry, we fought the wars, and, recently, have gone a long time without them. We may finally have conquered them. I do not know.
"But we have crossed millions of miles of nothingness. We have visited another world. And our Locar had said `Why bother? What is the worth of it? It is all vanity, anyhow.'
"And the secret is," I lowered my voice, as at a poetry reading, "he was right! It is vanity, it is pride! It is the hubris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us. --All the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!"
I was working up a sweat. I paused dizzily.
"Here is the Book of Ecclesiastes," I announced, and began:
"`Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all if vanity. What profit hath a man...'"
I spotted Braxa in the back, mute, rapt.
I wondered what she was thinking.
And I wound the hours of the night about me, like black thread on a spool.
Oh, it was late! I had spoken till day came, and still I spoke. I finished Ecclesiastes and continued Gallinger.
And when I finished there was still only a silence.
The Bu
ddhas, all in a row, had not stirred through the night. And after a long while M'Cwyie raised her right hand. One by one the Mothers did the same.
And I knew what that meant.
It meant, no, do not, cease, and stop.
It meant that I had failed.
I walked slowly from the room and slumped beside my baggage.
Ontro was gone. Good that I had not killed him....
After a thousand years M'Cwyie entered.
She said, "Your job is finished."
I did not move.
"The prophecy is fulfilled," she said. "My people are rejoicing. You have won, holy man. Now leave us quickly."
My mind was a deflated balloon. I pumped a little air back into it.
"I'm not a holy man," I said, "just a second-rate poet with a bad case of hubris."
I lit my last cigarette.
Finally, "All right, what prophecy?"
"The Promise of Locar," she replied, as though the explaining were unnecessary, "that a holy man would come from the Heavens to save us in our last hours, if all the dances of Locar were completed. He would defeat the Fist of Malann and bring us life."
"How?"
"As with Braxa, and as the example in the Temple."
"Example?"
"You read us his words, as great as Locar's. You read to us how there is `nothing new under the sun.' And you mocked his words as you read them--showing us a new thing.
"There has never been a flower on Mars," she said, "but we will learn to grow them.
"You are the Sacred Scoffer," she finished. "He-Who-Must-Mock-in-the-Temple--you go shod on holy ground."
"But you voted `no,'" I said.
"I voted not to carry out our original plan, and to let Braxa's child live instead."
"Oh." The cigarette fell from my fingers. How close it had been! How little I had known!
"And Braxa?"
"She was chosen half a Process ago to do the dances--to wait for you."
"But she said that Ontro would stop me."
M'Cwyie stood there for a long time.
"She had never believed the prophecy herself. Things are not well with her now. She ran away, fearing it was true. When you completed it, and we voted, she knew."
"Then she does not love me? Never did?"
"I am sorry, Gallinger. It was the one part of her duty she never managed."
"Duty," I said flatly....Dutydutyduty! Tra-la!
"She has said good-bye, she does wish to see you again.
"...and we will never forget your teachings," she added.
"Don't," I said automatically, suddenly knowing the great paradox which lies at the heart of all miracles. I did not believe a word of my own gospel, never had.
I stood, like a drunken man, and muttered "M'narra."
I went outside, into my last day on Mars.
I have conquered thee, Malann--and the victory is thine! Rest easy on thy starry bed. God damned!
I left the jeepster there and walked back to the Aspic, leaving the burden of life so many footsteps behind me. I went to my cabin, locked the door, and took forty-four sleeping pills.
But when I awakened I was in the dispensary, and alive.
I felt the throb of engines as I slowly stood up and somehow made it to the port.
Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it dissolved, brimmed over, and streamed down my face.
The Monster and the Maiden
A great unrest was among the people, for the time of decision was again at hand. The Elders voted upon the candidates and the sacrifice was affirmed over the objections of Ryllik, the oldest.
"It is wrong to capitulate thus," he argued.
But they did not answer him, and the young virgin was taken to the grotto of smokes and fed the leaves of drowsiness.
Ryllik watched with disapproval.
"It should not be so," he stated. "It is wrong."
"It has always been so," said the others, "in the spring of the year, and in the fall. It has always been so." And they cast worried glances down the trail to where the sun was pouring morning upon the world.
The god was already traveling through the great-leafed forest.
"Let us go now," they said.
"Did you ever think of staying? Of watching to see what the monster god does?" asked Ryllik bitterly.
"Enough of your blasphemies! Come along!"
Ryllik followed them.
"We grow fewer every year," he said. "One day we shall no longer have any sacrifices left to offer."
"Then that day we die," said the others.
"So why prolong it?" he asked. "Let us fight them--now, before we are no more!"
But the others shook their heads, a summary of that resignation Ryllik had watched grow as the centuries passed. They all respected Ryllik's age, but they did not approve of his thoughts. They cast one last look back, just as the sun caught the clanking god upon his gilt-caparisoned mount, his death-lance slung at his side. Within the place where the smokes were born the maiden thrashed her tail from side to side, rolling wild eyes beneath her youthful browplates. She sensed the divine presence and began to bellow.
They turned away and lumbered across the plains.
As they neared the forest Ryllik paused and raised a scaly forelimb, groping after a thought. Finally, he spoke.
"I seem to have memory," said he, "of a time when things were different."
Collector's Fever
"What are you doing there, human?"
"It's a long story."
"Good, I like long stories. Sit down and talk. No--not on me!"
"Sorry. Well, it's all because of my uncle, the fabulously wealthy--"
"Stop. What does 'wealthy' mean?"
"Well, like rich."
"And 'rich'?"
"Hm. Lots of money."
"What's money?"
"You want to hear this story or don't you?"
"Yes, but I'd like to understand it too."
"Sorry, Rock, I'm afraid I don't understand it all myself."
"The name is Stone."
"Okay, Stone. My uncle, who is a very important man, was supposed to send me to the Space Academy, but he didn't. He decided a liberal education was a better thing. So he sent me to his old spinster alma mater to major in nonhuman humanities. You with me, so far?"
"No, but understanding is not necessarily an adjunct to appreciation."
"That's what I say. I'll never understand Uncle Sidney, but I appreciate his outrageous tastes, his magpie instinct and his gross meddling in other people's affairs. I appreciate them till I'm sick to the stomach. There's nothing else I can do. He's a carnivorous old family monument, and fond of having his own way. Unfortunately, he also has all the money in the family--so it follows, like a _xxt_ after a _zzn_, that he always _does_ have his own way."
"This money must be pretty important stuff."
"Important enough to send me across ten thousand light-years to an unnamed world, which, incidentally, I've just named Dunghill."
"The low-flying _zatt_ is a heavy eater, which accounts for its low flying..."
"So I've noted. That _is_ moss though, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Good, then crating will be less of a problem."
"What's 'crating'?"
"It means to put something in a box to take it somewhere else."
"Like moving around?"
"Yes."
"What are you planning on crating?"
"Yourself, Stone."
"I've never been the rolling sort..."
"Listen, Stone, my uncle is a rock collector, see? You are the only species of intelligent mineral in the galaxy. You are also the largest specimen I've spotted so far. Do you follow me?"
"Yes, but I don't want to."
"Why not? You'd be lord of his rock collection. Sort of a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind, if I may venture an inappropriate metaphor."
"Please don't do that, whatever it is. It sounds awful. Tell me, how
did your uncle learn of our world?"
"One of my instructors read about this place in an old space log. _He_ was an old space log collector. The log had belonged to a Captain Fairhill, who landed here several centuries ago and held lengthy discourses with your people."
"Good old Foul Weather Fairhill! How is he these days? Give him my regards--"
"He's dead."
"What?"
"Dead. Kaput. Blooey. Gone. Deeble."
"Oh my! When did it happen? I trust it was an esthetic occurrence of major import--"
"I couldn't really say. But I passed the information on to my uncle, who decided to collect you. That's why I'm here--he sent me."
"Really, as much as I appreciate the compliment, I can't accompany you. It's almost deeble time--"
"I know, I read all about deebling in the Fairhill log before I showed it to Uncle Sidney. I tore those pages out. I want him to be around when you do it. Then I can inherit his money and console myself in all manner of expensive ways for never having gone to the Space Academy. First I'll become an alcoholic, then I'll take up wenching--or maybe I'd better do it the other way around..."
"But I want to deeble here, among the things I've become attached to!"
"This is a crowbar. I'm going to unattach you."
"If you try it, I'll deeble right now."
"You can't. I measured your mass before we struck up this conversation. It will take at least eight months, under Earth conditions, for you to reach deebling proportions."
"Okay, I was bluffing. But have you no compassion? I've rested here for centuries, ever since I was a small pebble, as did my fathers before me. I've added so carefully to my atom collection, building up the finest molecular structure in the neighborhood. And now, to be snatched away right before deebling time, it's--it's quite unrock of you."
"It's not that bad. I promise you'll collect the finest Earth atoms available. You'll go places no other Stone has ever been before."
"Small consolation. I want my friends to see."
"I'm afraid that's out of the question."
"You are a very cruel human. I hope you're around when I deeble."
"I intend to be far away and on the eve of prodigious debaucheries when that occurs."
Under Dunghill's sub-E gravitation Stone was easily rolled to the side of the space sedan, crated, and, with the help of a winch, installed in the compartment beside the atomic pile. The fact that it was a short-jaunt sport model sedan, customized by its owner, who had removed much of the shielding, was the reason Stone felt a sudden flush of volcanic drunkenness, rapidly added select items to his collection and deebled on the spot.
The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories Page 12