by Julian May
Bryan frowned. "What unusual talents?"
In some haste, Tully said, "Our society is quite different from that of the Galactic Milieu, Bryan. Our needs are special. All of this will be made clear to you later, when you get a more complete overview from people in the capital. From a professional standpoint, you have some intriguing investigations awaiting you."
Tully rose. "Have a little more refreshment now. Another person would like to interview you in a short while, and then you can rejoin your companions. I'll come for you in about half an hour, shall I?"
Smiling again, he slipped out the door. Bryan waited for a few moments, then got up and tried the latch. It wouldn't budge. He was locked in.
He looked around the room for his iron-shod walking stick. It was nowhere to be found. He rolled up his sleeve to check on the little throwing knife in its scabbard. He was not surprised to find that the leather sheath was empty. Had his introductory "vacuum cleaning" been a frisk with a metal detector?
Well, well, he said to himself. So this is the Pliocene!
He sat down again to wait.
Chapter Two
Richard Voorhees had recognized the psychic disorientation of the time-portal as a variant of that experienced by humans every time that starships passed from the normal universe into the quasi-dimensional gray subspace during superluminal travel. However, the "snap" of temporal translation was prolonged many times longer than that of hyper-space crossover. Richard had also noted peculiar differences in the texture of the gray limbo. There was a dimly perceived rotation about consecutive axes; a compression (was everything, every atom in the universe, subtly smaller 6 million years in the past?); a quality to the gray that was less fluid and more frangible (did one swim through space and smash through time?); a sense of diminishing life-force all about him that would fit in nicely with certain philosophers' notions of the essence of the Milieu.
When Richard dropped through the air a short distance and landed on the granite outcropping of Exile, he was in control of himself almost immediately, as every starship's master had to be after spatial translation. Pushing aside the eager hands of a guardian, he exited from the tau-field under his own power and did a fast eyeball scan while the guide murmured inanities.
Just as Counselor Mishima had promised, the Pliocene Rhône Valley was much more narrow, and the country on this western flank, where the auberge would one day stand on a wooded hillside, was now flatter and less dissected by streams. It was, in fact, a plateau, rising slightly to the south. He spotted the castle. On the skyline behind it, smoking in the early sunlight, were two titanic snow-clad volcanoes. The northerly one would be Mont-Dore; the larger cone to the south, the Cantal.
There was grass. There were rabbity critters crouching motionless, pretending to be rocks. Off in a hollow was a grove of trees. Did the little apelike ramapithecines roam those woods?
Guardians were leading Bryan, Stein, and Felice up the path toward the castle. Other men in white helped the second group from the time-gate area. Who was in charge of the place? Some Pliocene baron? Was there an aristocracy here? Would he, Richard, be able to elbow his way into it? His mind tossed up question after question, fizzing with a youthful enthusiasm that astounded and delighted him. He recognized what was happening. It was a belated reprise of the spacer's favorite malady, the New Planetfall Eagers. Anyone who ranged widely throughout the galaxy and endured the boredom of sub-space gray was likely (if not too jaded) to work himself into a lather of anticipation over the imminent landing upon a hitherto unvisited world. Would the air smell good? Would the ions vitalize or poop? Would the vegetation and animals delight or disgust the eye? Would the local food ditto the tastebuds? Would the people be successful and sprightly or beaten down by hardship? Would the ladies screw if you asked them to?
He whistled a few notes of the bawdy old ballad through his teeth. Only then did he become aware of the anxious voice and the plucking at his sleeve.
"Come along, sir. Your friends have gone on to Castle Gateway. We've gotta get along, too. You'll want to rest and refresh yourself and like as not ask some questions."
The guardian was a dark-haired man, well built but rather raw-boned, with the spurious youthfulness and overwise eyes of a fairly recent rejuvenate. Richard took in the dark metal necklet and the white tunic that was probably a lot more comfortable in this tropical climate than Richard's own black velvet and heavy broadcloth.
"Just let me look around a little, guy," Richard said, but the man kept tugging at him. To avoid argument, Richard began to move along the path leading to the castle.
"That's a nice commanding position you've got there, guy. Is that mound artificial? What do you do for a water supply up here? How far to the nearest town?"
"Easy on, traveler! Just you come along with me. The interview committeeman will be able to answer your questions better than I can."
"Well, at least tell me the prospects for local gash. I mean, back in the present, or the future or whatever the hell you call it here, we were told that the male-female ratio here was about four to one. I wanta tell you that almost turned me off from coming over! If it wasn't for certain pressing circumstances, I might not have come to Exile at all! So how is it really? You have women up at the castle?"
The man replied austerely, "We're hosting a number of female travelers, and the Lady Epone is temporarily in residence. No women live permanently at Castle Gateway."
"So where do you guys get it? Is there a village or a town for weekend passes or whatever?"
In a matter-of-fact manner the man said, "Many of the castle staff are homophilic or autoerotic. The rest are serviced by traveling entertainers from Roniah or Burask. There are no small villages in this area, only widely separated cities and plantations. Those of us who serve at the castle are happy to remain there. We're well rewarded for our work." He fingered his necklet with a small smile, then redoubled his effort to rush the new arrival along.
"Sounds like a real organized setup," said Richard in a dubious tone.
"You've come into a wonderful world You're going to be very happy here once you've learned a little about our ways . . . Don't mind the bear-dogs. We keep them for security. They can't get at us."
They hurried through the outer ward and into the barbican, where the guardian tried to steer Richard up the stairway. But the ex-spacer pulled away, saying, "Be right back! Gotta take a look at this fascinating place!"
"But you can't . . ." exclaimed the guardian.
But he did. Clutching his plumed hat, Richard broke into a run that was only slightly slowed by the weight of his backpack. He went clattering over the flagstones into the deep interior of the gatehouse, dodging around corners at random until he emerged into the large inner courtyard of the castle. This early in the morning, the area was deeply shadowed, surrounded on four sides by the two-storey hollow wall with its corner towers and battlements. The courtyard was nearly eighty meters square. At its center was a fountain with trees planted around it in stone boxes. More trees grew at regular intervals around the perimeter. One entire side of the yard was taken up by a large double corral neatly walled in perforated stone. Half of it contained several score large quadruped animals of a type Richard had never seen before. The other half of the corral seemed to be empty.
Hearing the voices of pursuers, Richard dodged into a kind of cloister that ran around the other three sides of the inner ward. He ran for a short distance, then turned into a side corridor. It was a dead end. But on either side were doors leading into apartments within the great hollow wall.
He opened the first right-hand door, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him.
The room was black. He stood perfectly still, catching his breath, gratified to hear the sound of running feet grow louder, then fade away. For the moment, he had escaped. He fumbled in one pocket of his backpack for a light. Before he could switch it on, he heard a faint sound. He stood immobile. A line of radiance had sprung into being across the darkened
room. Someone was opening another door with infinite slowness and the illlumination from the inner chamber swept toward him in a widening beam until he was caught. Silhouetted in the doorway was a very tall woman. She was dressed in a filmy sleeveless gown that seemed almost invisible. Richard could not see her face but he knew she had to be beautiful.
"Lady Epone," he said, not knowing why.
"You may come in."
He had never heard such a voice. Its musical sweetness held an unmistakable promise that set him on fire. He dropped his pack and came toward her, a figure dressed entirely in black drawn by her bright allure. As she went slowly into the inner chamber, he followed. Dozens of lamps hung from the ceiling, reflecting off draperies of shimmering gold and white gauze that curtained a vast bed.
The woman held out her arms. Her loose gown was of pale blue, unbelted, with long yellow panels floating from the shoulders like misty wings. She wore a golden circlet about her neck and a golden diadem on her blonde hair. The hair hung nearly to her waist and so, if Richard's eyes didn't deceive him, did her incredibly pendulous breasts beneath the gossamer fabric.
She stood nearly half a meter taller than he did. Looking down with inhuman glowing eyes, she said, "Come closer."
He felt the room turn. And the eyes shone more brilliantly and soft skin caressed him until he was drawn into an abyss of joy so intense that it must destroy him. She cried, "Can you? Can you?"
He tried. And he could not.
The sweet breath of light turned into a whirlwind then, screeching and cursing and tearing at him, not at his body but at something cringing apologetically behind his eyes, worthless and deserving to be punished. Torn out, held up to ridicule, flung down and trodden upon, hammered by blasts of hatred, the shapeless thing shrank into a smaller and smaller mass until it was a blot of utter insignificance, finally vanishing in the white blaze of pain.
Richard woke.
A man in a blue tunic knelt at his feet, fumbling with his ankles. Richard was clamped into a heavy chair, seated in a small room with walls of unadorned gray limestone blocks. The Lady Epone was standing in front of him, her eyes flat and jade colored, her mouth curved in a smile of contempt.
"He's ready, Lady."
"Thank you, Jean-Paul. The headpiece, if you please."
The man brought a simple silver coronet with five points and placed it on Richard's head. Epone turned to a construction on a table beside the chair, which Richard had mistaken for some kind of elaborate jeweled metallic sculpture. The apparatus glowed faintly in its crystalline parts, the multicolored lights waxing and waning in what was evidently some malfunction. Epone gave the largest prism, a pinkish thing the size of a fist, an impatient flick with thumb and forefinger.
"Ah, bah! Will nothing function in this cursed place? There! Now we will begin."
She folded her arms and inclined her gaze on Richard. "What is your given name?"
"Go to hell," he muttered.
A tremendous throb of agony seemed to lift the top of his skull.
"Please speak only to answer my questions. Obey my orders at once. Do you understand?"
Sagging against the chair clamps, he whispered, "Yes."
What is your given name?"
"Richard."
"Close your eyes, Richard. Without speaking, I wish you to send out the word help."
Sweet Jesus, that was an easy one! Help!
A man's voice said, "Minus six farspeak."
"Open your eyes, Richard," commanded Epone. "Now I want you to listen carefully. Here is a dagger." She drew a silver blade from somewhere within her draperies and held it toward him on both open hands. The palms had only a few faint lines in their milky softness. "Force me to plunge the dagger into my heart, Richard. Revenge yourself on me. Destroy me by my own hand. Kill me, Richard."
He tried! He willed the death of the monstrous bitch. He tried.
"Minus two point five coerce," said the minion standing behind the chair.
Epone said, "Concentrate on what I am saying to you, Richard. Your life and your future here in Exile depend upon what you do in this room." She cast the dagger down onto the table, less than a meter away from his pinioned right arm. "Make the knife rise up, Richard. Send it at me! Drive it into my eyes! Do it, Richard!"
There was a terrible eagerness in her tone this time, and he tried desperately to oblige her. He knew now what was happening. They were testing him for latent metafunctions, this one psychokinesis. But he could have told them . . .
"Minus seven PK."
She leaned close to him, fragrant, lovely. "Burn me, Richard. Bring up flames from your mind and let them blacken and cook and turn to ash this body that you will never know because you are not a man but a poor worm without sex or sensibility. Burn me!"
But he was the one who burned. Tears coursed down his cheeks and caught in his mustache. He tried to spit at her but his mouth was clotted and his tongue swollen. He twisted his head because his eyes would not close to shut out the blue and primrose coolness of her cruelty.
"Plus two point five create."
"Interesting, but not good enough, of course. Rest for a moment now, Richard. Think of your companions upstairs. One by one they will come to this room as so many others have come, and I will get to know them as I know you. And some will serve the Tanu in this way and others in that, but all will serve, save a few blessed ones who will find that the gate into Exile is the door into paradise after all . . . You have one last chance. Come into my mind. Feel me. Probe me, take me to bits and reassemble me in a more compliant image." She bent closer toward him until the flawless skin of her face was only a few hands-breadth from his own. No pores, no creases on that face. Only pinpoint pupils in the nephrite eyes. But beauty! Vile and tantalizing beauty of incredible age.
Richard strained against the damps of the chair. His mind screamed.
I hate you and violate you and diminish you and cover you with excrement and I call you dead! I call you rotted! I call you writhing in pain everlasting, stretched on the rack of the superficies until the exhalation of the universe dies and space falls in upon itself . . .
"Minus one redact." Richard fell forward. The coronet dropped from ms head to strike the stone flags with a bell tone of finality.
"You've failed again, Richard," Epone said in a bored voice. "Inventory his possessions, Jean-Paul. Then put him in with the others for the northern caravan to Finiah."
Chapter Three
Elizabeth Orme was so dazed by the shock of the translation that she scarcely felt the guiding hands that urged her up the pathway toward the castle. Someone relieved her of her pack and she was glad. The soothing mumble of the guide's voice carried her back to another time of pain and fear long ago. She had felt herself awakening in a cushioning womb of warm solution where she had been regenerating for nine months in a web of tubes and wires and monitoring devices. Her eyes blinded, her skin deprived of tactile sensation by the long immersion in amniotic fluid, she could nevertheless hear a gentle human voice that calmed her fear, told her she was whole again and shortly to be freed.
"Lawrence?" she whimpered. "Are you all right?"
"Come along now, missy. Just come along. You're safe now and you're among friends. We're all going up to Castle Gateway and you'll be able to relax there. Just keep on walking like a good girl."
Strange howls of maddened animals. Open the eyes in horror and shut them again. Where is this place?
"Castle Gateway, in the world you call Exile. Take it easy, missy. The amphicyons can't get us. Just up these stairs now and well have you lying down for a nice rest. Here we go."
Opening doors and a small room with, what? Hands were pressing her to sit down, to lie down. Someone lifted her feet and arranged a pillow under her head.
Don't go away! Don't leave me here alone!
"I'll be back in just a few minutes with the healer, missy. We won't let anything happen to you, bank on that! You're a very special lady. Relax now while I get somebod
y to help you. Washroom behind that curtain."
When the door closed she lay motionless until a surge of nausea rose in her gorge. Struggling up, she lurched into the washroom and vomited into the basin. An excruciating pain lanced her brain and she nearly collapsed. Leaning against the whitened stone wall, she gasped for breath. The nausea receded and so, more slowly, did the agony in her head. She became aware of someone else entering the room, two persons speaking, arms supporting her, the rim of a thick cup pressed to her lips.
I don't want anything.
"Drink this, Elizabeth. It will help you."
Open. Swallow. There. Good. Now sit again.
A voice, deep and honey-rich. "Thank you, Kosta. I'll take care of her now. You may leave us."
"Yes, Lord." Sound of door closing.
Elizabeth clutched the arms of her chair, waiting for the pain to come back. When it didn't, she let herself relax and slowly opened her eyes. She was sitting at a low table that held a few dishes of food and drink. Across from her, standing beside a high window, was an extraordinary man. He was robed in white and scarlet and wore a heavy belt of linked squares of gold set with red and milk-white gemstones. Around his neck was a golden torc, thick twisted strands with an ornamented catch in front. His fingers, holding a stoneware cup with the medicine, were oddly long, with prominent joints. She wondered vaguely how he had managed to slip on the many rings that gleamed in the morning sunlight. The man had blond shoulder-length hair cut in a fringe above his eyes, which were very pale blue, seemingly without pupils, and sunken deep into bony orbits. His face was beautiful despite the fine web-work of lines at the corners of his smiling mouth.
He was nearly two and a half meters tall.
Oh, God. Who are you? What is this place? I thought I was going back in time to Pliocene Earth. But this is not . . . this can't be . . .
"Oh, but it is." His voice, with a musical lilt, was kind. "My name is Creyn. You are indeed in the time-epoch known as Pliocene and on the planet Earth, which some call Exile and others the Many-Colored Land. You've been disoriented by your passage through the time-portal, perhaps more seriously than the rest of your companions. But that's understandable. I've given you a mild strengthening draft that will restore you. In a few minutes, if you please, we'll talk. Your friends are being interviewed now by people of our staff who welcome all new arrivals. They're resting in rooms like this one, having a bit of food and drink and asking questions that we're doing our best to answer. The guardians of the gate alerted me to your distress. They were also able to perceive that you are a most unusual traveler, which is why I am interviewing you myself . . ."