Perilous Planets

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘If you are trying to do me a kindness, forget it,’ he said stiffly.‘I am strong enough: choose someone weak or old who needs what help you can give him. I can find many such for you.’

  Her green eyes were searching his face again. ‘Korul,’ she said smiling, ‘you are learning more secrets than are good for you, but I will tell you another. There will be changes in the law of blood-giving—you know that, but what you have heard is only part of the truth. After Autumn Night the periods between givings will no longer be the same for everyone. You will come to our Searchers and be tested, your strength measured, every Spring Night. Those like you, Korul, who have blood to spare, will give it as often as it is needed—the sick and the old, never again.’

  Her eyes were shining. She put her hand on his bare arm. ‘We must work together in this plan, Korul—Masters and Givers together again! You will have to make a new work plan for your people, for now the whole burden of blood-giving will be on your young men and women. And it will help us to change. We aren’t all fools and parasites, Korul—there are some of us, many of us, who know the story of the past and how we have made ourselves into a race of blood-sucking vermin.

  ‘But we are one blood, Korul! We are one flesh. We can be one race again! Will you help?’

  He turned the words slowly on his tongue. ‘One race? One blood? What then?’

  ‘Show me your people. Help me to understand them. If we are to be one kind, Korul, we must know each other. The Pit is open to both races: will you meet me there—tomorrow?

  Will you teach me the things a Master must know, if he is to be a man?’

  The words came with difficulty. ‘If you are telling the truth, Thorana, it seems one of the Masters is already a man. I will be in the Pit at mid-morning.’

  ==========

  Karak

  The cities of Mur clung to the sides of their gorges like a dry crust of rock-weed to the desert ledges. Along the terraced lips of the great clefts were crumbling walls of laid-up native stone, their roofs open to the sky, their halls deep in dust. Not all the power of the Pit would drive warmth so high.

  Lower the city was carved out of the living rock, level after level of it reaching down and down into the perpetual mists of the deep. Below the abandoned levels were storehouses, libraries, the strange laboratories of the Searchers. Deeper still were the levels of the Masters, and under them in turn the warrens of the Blood-Givers in the dank, grumbling bowels of the city.

  Deepest of all was the Pit. Circling up from it on every side were the sheer walls and retreating terraces of the city. The cages were there, penning up the strange beasts that were still to be found in forsaken wastelands of the planet, or that had roamed those wastes in the forgotten generations when Masters and Givers were one people. There were creatures in the Pit, one of the Searchers had said, whose pedigrees ran back father and straighter than man’s. Like the Blood-Givers they had been bred for strength, down through the centuries. Like Masters, they could no longer live outside their cages.

  For a few hours each day during the Murian summer the sun rose clear of the gorges’ rim, moved across the narrow strip of sky, and disappeared beyond the farther wall. Before its hot light cut through the mists of the gorge, Korul was hurrying through the lower corridors, surprising an occasional Giver. Thorana was there before him in a very small tlornak which could wheel silently through the narrowest passage of the Under-City.

  So it began. They made an odd pair—the slim girl in her wheeled carriage, the bronzed Giver striding beside her. No Master had come into those levels in generations: no Master had a right there! Their faces spoke their distrust and hatred, but under the law—their law—Korul was First of their men and what he did and said was not to be questioned to his face unless the questioner was ready to try for his throat.

  Korul knew the city as he knew the back of his spread hand. With him Thorana went into the very vitals of the city-the city within the city, where the great conduits rose like twisted entrails out of the bowels of the planet, where dynamos three levels high purred through the gloom, where the air machines hissed and bubbled, pumping warmed and perfumed breezes into the quarters of the Masters and cool, invigorating blasts into the shops and cells of the Givers.

  She saw the shops of the Makers where tlornaks were built; the kitchens where the food of the Under-people was prepared; the hospitals where the weak and old came to recover from their blood-letting, where children were born and Givers died and she saw the dead fed into the furnaces which would burn away the semblence of life and leave a puff of clean ashes.

  Holding Korul’s arm, she went on her own feet down into the Pit beneath the Pit where the eternal fires of Mur smouldered, and sweating men tended the huge heat-pumps which kept the city alive.

  What impressed her most, Korul thought, was his intimacy with his people. As leader of the Givers he knew hundreds of his folk by sight and name, and they knew and welcomed him. It startled her.

  But what was most marked was the reception she had from them. Dressed quietly and unobtrusively, as she was from the first, and except for occasional traits of speech or attitude, Thorana might have been one of them—slight, weak-looking, finer than any of them in features and carriage, yet—human. She tried to fit into the life of the places Korul took her, to make friends with the people she saw there, but—she was a Master. Even the children in the great public nurseries shrank from her, as if by instinct.

  ==========

  They did not always explore the city. There were times when she had duties of her own, or when Korul had work of his own. Then they would come to the Pit at night, and talk.

  Usually it was of the old times, when the races were one people. He forgot, then, that they were Master and Giver. Together, man and woman, they lived over the life of those old, good times. They remade the universe in their own pattern, like children, and in that made-over world, where the two races were again one blood and one flesh, they too would be one like their peoples. It was a pretty dream.

  Korul had forgotten the Elders, and his pledge to them. They knew he had forgotten. That knowledge was in the whispers that followed them through the levels of the Under-City, in the eyes that watched their trysts in the Pit. It was in work hidden when he appeared.

  All over Mur the preparations were under way. In the hidden shops men and women both were beating out slashing blades of steel and building ugly little bows that hurled steel bolts with deadly accuracy.

  He should have seen. That was why he was First Man of all the Blood-Givers of Mur. The pulse and timbre of his people should have been his pulse, should have tightened his nerves. But—Korul was in love.

  On the surface, everything was normal. Even before the Plan there had been muttered resentment and rebellious talk: the Masters expected it. Little overt acts of contempt—mocking slowness in obeying an order—scrawled obscenities in the dust or on a wall—catch-words in the jargon of the Givers. The Masters expected it; their spies and supervisors saw it and reported it as usual. But now it was planned as carefully as the secret arsenals the Givers were building in every city of Mur. Now it was a screen for the soberer thoughts behind it.

  Behind the screen, behind the secret bustle, was Karak.

  Except in name, Korul was no longer First of his people. They let him keep the title as part of the screen. But it was Karak who carried the Elders’ orders, who planned with them, who called the secret meetings and named their lieutenants. It was he who forged the lies which would keep the People’s hate at fever-pitch, and who thundered out his warcry in the Hall of the Elders while men and women and half-grown children flung it back in savage frenzy:

  ‘Death to the Masters ! Death !’

  Korul should have sat on the dais beside Turun at that meeting of his people. He sat in the Pit with Thorana, mooning over her fragile beauty, listening to her low, sweet voice, thinking her thoughts.

  ==========

  At another time Korul might have read a good deal in
the strained attitude of the woman who brought him a summons from the Elders. As it was, he strode into the hall to see Karak standing in his place on the dais, beside Turun—and beside the banked controls of a transmitter which, Korul knew, would carry every detail of what happened to every corner of the city. There was an empty space before Turun’s throne. It was the place decreed by the law of his people for those who came on trial before their Elders. And he stood there.

  Old Turun looked down at him with pity behind the sadness in his eyes. ‘You have not been helpful, Korul,’ he said bitterly, ‘but the People have been strong without you. Tell him, Karak.’

  Karak swaggered forward to the edge of the dais. ‘You’ve been so busy with—things—Korul,’ he sneered, ‘that I was glad to help the Elders. I’ve cleared up some of the little details of organization that you’d have taken care of if you’d have the time.’

  The blusterer had to be deflated. ‘What details?’ Korul demanded. ‘What have you accomplished, that is so important?’

  He had walked into Karak’s trap. ‘Perhaps not important to you, or your new friends, Korul—but we have the sluices at both poles. Torkul is in command in the North, and Tatokin the South. I have found leaders in every city—strong leaders, without other distractions on their minds. And the People have weapons now, Korul.’

  ‘By the gods, Karak,’ he cried, ‘do you have a plan? Speak it out!’

  The mockery went out of Karak’s broad face. ‘It’s very simple, Korul—and soon done. In two days the sluices will open, and the autumn flow begin. The Masters will be our equals again for one night. It’s to be the last, they tell me—and it will be the last, but we will make it so! Every man has been drilled in his part until he dreams it. Every woman knows her duty. In three breaths they will be cut down to the last one, and there will be no blood-giving on Mur.’

  ‘And my part, Karak? You’ve said nothing about that.’

  He was being sly again. ‘Oh, no, Korul!’ he protested. ‘You are our First Man—you’ll give the word that frees us. You will be at the feasting, I’m sure—in a very prominent place, no doubt. When you are quite ready, and have made your farewells to the old days, you will rise and give us the word.’

  He was holding out something that glistened: a knife, hammered out of steel, sharpened to a needle point and razor edge, with a handle of carved bone. ‘Take it, Karul—and strike the first blow for your people. The blood of the First Master and all his breed will drip from this blade when you’re done.’

  And Turun’s croak goaded him on. ‘Take it, Korul. Hold it up for the People to see. Then speak to them.’

  Slowly Korul’s fingers closed over the carved hilt. It was a sweetly, wickedly made thing—and it would kill as quickly in Karak’s hand as in his. If he refused now—if he hesitated in any way—the allegiance of the Givers would be lost. Karak would be First, then—and no woman’s face swam before his eyes.

  If he agreed, then he must smile and whisper and murmur love-words to Thorana and with his next breath slit her lovely throat—or see Karak do it for him.

  At least, there were two days.

  Every eye in the hall was on Korul as he stepped up on the dais beside Turun, in his rightful place, where the transmitter would carry face and voice to every city of Mur.

  ‘People of Mur,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I will give you the word. The word is—Death!’

  Behind him he heard Karak chuckling.

  ==========

  In The Pit

  She was waiting for him there in the shadow of the great open cage of the Star-Beast, as she had waited so often. She rose as she heard his footsteps and stood slim and wonderful in the soft light that sifted down through the mists of the gorge.

  Korul took her hands. He could not speak, or look at her. The knife, in its secret sheath at his side, seemed to burn into his flesh. In two nights that knife must slash across this lovely throat—must slip into this warm soft breast.

  The warmth in his hands was suddenly the sticky warmth of fresh blood. Korul stepped quickly back; rubbed his open palms down his thighs.

  Thorana reached out and drew him close again. ‘Tell me, Korul—what is it? I will not blame you.’

  It came pouring out then, in a flood of broken words—how he loved her—how he had betrayed her—how all her race were to be butchered at his word.

  ‘Warn them!’ he pleaded ‘Tell them everything. There must be some stronghold—one of the abandoned cities, perhaps—where they can hide and give me time to reason with the People.’

  ‘It is too late for reasoning, Korul,’ she told him. ‘We could not live without your people Who would tend the heat engines? Who would prepare our food? What should we do for blood? No—some of them have known it would come. We hoped, as we have always hoped, that it would be a little later—not in our own lifetime, but later. Instead, it is now.’

  Her fingers tightened on his arms. ‘Be true to them, Korul. Use the knife they gave you, and be quick and kind. Then they will trust you again; they will follow you as they used to. You can lead them in the way we’ve dreamed here so often, and keep it all from happening again in a thousand years or two thousand when the Givers of today have in their turn become Masters, and some other crushed-down race strikes back.’

  He stared at her. Kill her—that was what she was asking him. Drink her blood, as she had drunk his there in the desert. ‘I’ll go with you—now,’ he insisted. ‘We’ll use the secret lifts. There are places in the upper city that not even the Elders know. They don’t need me now—they’ve proved that. Let the Elders care for the People.’

  Thorana pointed to the archway through which he had come into the Pit. There were shadows there, and as one moved he caught the glint of light on bare metal. Slowly he looked around him. Every entry was guarded.

  Remembering, he heard Karak’s mocking chuckle.

  The girl drew him down beside her on the stone bench that ran across the front of the Star-Beast’s cage. ‘We’ve been watched from the beginning, Korul: I thought you knew that. They know how it is with us. They knew you would betray them, to me. Karak has never intended that we would live out this night.”

  Korul went down on his knees at her side. How could he have been so stupid? This was Karak’s real plan—to strike tonight. Everything was ready—the sluices taken—weapons distributed—only a word was needed, and why should that word wait for Autumn Night? No—his death, and Thorana’s, here in the Pit, would be the signal for massacre.

  Out of the darkness above him came a thundering voice, hoarse, savage, rasping!

  ‘ Korul!’

  Korul’s heart stood still. Was this some other mockery of Karak’s? Gently he slipped the knife out of its hiding place and balanced it in his hand. Then it came again:

  ‘Korul!’

  ==========

  Sweeping Thorana behind him, he leaped back into the open Pit. Above them, huge and repulsive, the Star-Beast clung to the bars of its cage and glared down at them with little, glittering eyes.

  The thing’s head and body were shaggy with tangled reddish hair. It’s legs and arms were thick and crooked; its body squat and brutish. It had narrow, club-like feet and stubby fingers. There were little, crumpled ears half-hidden in its matted hair—flabby, slobbering lips—a nose which was a bulbous snout set between two tiny bloodshot eyes that glared palely out of the darkness. A foul animal reek came from the filth of its cage.

  The Beast had come out of the desert, twenty years and more before. Thandar, Korul’s father and First Man in his time, had trapped it among the high levels. They netted it, like any of the great carnivores in the Pit, and chained it—but it burst its chains and crushed its captors in its mighty arms. It ran wild in the upper city and broke into the Hall of the Masters, trampling them underfoot in its efforts to escape, beating off its pursuers with a metal shaft that it swung like a club.

  Some how the thing had found its way into the maze of corridors deep under the city where the
water-conduits ran. It had lurked there for ten days, eluding the search parties with animal cunning, fighting savagely when cornered. Then it burst out into the secret cells of the Searchers, and with their cunning they made a gas that brought it down.

  The thing was senseless when they brought it into the Pit and built this cage around it. They found it would eat flesh, and there they left it, raging and beating at its bars and bellowing its bestial gibberish at the stars.

  Star-Beast they named it. When it had grown quiet and people came to look at it, it would mouth and mutter and gesture with its fore-paws at the mists above the Pit”—and when they laughed, or shrank away, it would fly into a furry and shake the bars of its cage and roar. Then the novelty wore off, and only occasional visitors came to see it—children, for the most part. When it roared and gibbered, they would mock and gibber back, and run off laughing.

  The Beast grew sullen. Time and again it tried to leap on its keeper when he came with food, or to clean its cage. Finally no one would go into the cage, and it lay in its filth staring up through the mists of the gorge at the dim, haloed stars.

  It had been docile enough during all the nights they had been meeting on the bench under its cage. It would pace to and fro as caged beasts do, or squat against the bars above them, staring down, listening, watching, mumbling or whining to itself. Thorana had grown fond of the thing; often she would bring food for it from the Masters’ kitchens. It showed no inclination to harm her, but growled in pleasure and made halfhearted efforts to groom itself as other beasts do. Now it clung against the bars, huge, shaggy, monstrous, yet no longer repulsive. They were growing tolerant of life and its many forms, Korul thought, now that death was so near.

  Thorana clutched his arm. ‘ What was it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Up there, I think.’ Korul pointed to the lowest terrace, above them in the dark. Perhaps there are some who still consider Korul their First Man, he thought grimly. ‘Korul!’ It came again, close to them. ‘Here!’