The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  At the burial waters—on the sloping banks of which a silent throng had gathered—we landed. And following us, the other vessels of the cortege came along and stopped beside us. The pond was dotted with white markers for the graves. The whole scene unlighted, save for the stars, and the red and purple aural lights of the Venus heavens, which mounted the sky at this midnight hour. A great, glowing arc—the reflected glow from a myriad cluster of tiny moons and moon-dust, encircling Venus. The soft light from it flooded the water and the tombs with a flush of red and purple.

  As we lay there against the bank, with that silent throng breathlessly watching, from down the river came the last vessel of our cortege. It made a scene I shall never forget. The bier. Draped in purple. A single, half-naked slaan propelling it with a sweep from its stern. The body of Wolfgar lying on its raised prow—his dead, white face, with peace upon it. Beside the body, the lone figure of Maida, kneeling at Wolfgar’s head, with her white, braided hair falling down over her shoulders. Kneeling and staring, almost expressionless; but I knew that with her whole heart she was speeding the soul of Wolfgar to its eternal peace.

  CHAPTER XX

  Unseen Menace

  That day following the burial of Wolfgar, there was nothing of importance occurred. No news from the Earth could get in. I felt that the Earth might be planning an attack. Probably was, since war had been declared. Yet that of course was months away.

  Tarrano apparently was engaged in the pleasurable triumph of the coming Water Festival. All day he seemed engaged in planning it. But I knew that he was engaged secretly with far sterner things concerning the Cold Country, which lay a day’s journey from us. But what they were, I did not know.

  The Water Festival was all we talked of. That afternoon, Tarrano describing it, said smilingly:

  “They say it is for me. But, Lady Elza—it is I who plan it—for you. You have not seen the Red Woman.” A gleam of amusement played upon his lips; but as he regarded Elza, I saw another look—of speculation, as though he were gauging her.

  “The Red Woman, Lady Elza. She will preside tonight. You will find her—very interesting. We will watch her together, you and I.”

  I did not know then what he meant; but I remembered the words later, and understood only too well.

  Just after sundown, when I chanced to be in a small boat alone, near the palace, the first of two significant incidents occurred. From the shadows beneath a house, the head of a swimming man emerged. A slaan, and he gripped the sides of my boat as I drifted.

  “Wait, Earth man.” He spoke in the quaint universal language, which I understood, though imperfectly.

  I gazed at him. A bullet-like head, with sullen, blazing eyes. He added: “We do not blame you—or your woman, Elza—or the Princess Maida. Have no fear, but guard yourself well tonight.”

  Before I could speak he had sunk into the water, swimming beneath it. I could see the phosphorescence of his moving body as he swam away into the shadows beyond my line of vision.

  The other incident came a moment later. As I was gazing down into the water I saw a moving metal shape. A triangular metal head, as of a diver’s cap. More than that, it turned upward; and behind its pane was a man’s face. Unfamiliar to me—yet the face of an Anglo-Saxon man of Earth! Unmistakable! It stared at me a moment—no more than three or four feet below my boat. And then it moved away and vanished.

  I had no opportunity to speak alone with Elza, or Georg or Maida that entire evening. Always Tarrano was with us. We sat upon the palace balcony, we men smoking our arrant-cylinders. Tarrano talked and joked like a care-free youth. He was very courteous to Elza, with a holiday spirit upon him. But his eyes never relaxed; and often I could see him measuring her.

  The aural lights mounted the sky. The holiday spirit which was on Tarrano was spreading everywhere throughout the city. Boats gayly bedecked—in such contrast to the funeral cortege of poor Wolfgar just the night before—began passing the palace on their way to the festival waters. Men and laughing girls thronged them. All with red masks covering their faces. The men in grey tight-fitting garments, with conical caps and flowing plumes; the girls in bright-colored, flowing robes, and tresses dangling with flowers entwined in them.

  The balcony upon which we sat was close above the water level. The barges, of every size and kind, glided past. Sometimes the girls would shower us with flower petals. One small boat paused before us. A girl stood up to wave at me. Her hand, held up with the loose robe falling back from her slim white arm, offered me a huge scarlet blossom. The love offering. As I hesitated, her laughter rippled out. She tore the mask from her face. Her red mouth was smiling; her eyes, provocative, were dancing with mischief. She tossed the flower into my face as her escort, with a shout of mock anger, pulled her back to him.

  Their boats glided on.

  Other boats passed; some with girls gayly strumming instruments of music. One boat with a man strumming, and a girl on a small dais, dancing with a whirl of black veils. As they came opposite to us another man in the boat reached up and pushed the girl overboard. She fell into the water with a scream of laughter; came up like a mermaid and they pulled her aboard, the veils and her hair clinging to her.

  At last Tarrano signified that we must go. It was upon me then to make an effort to draw back, to keep Elza and Maida at the palace with Georg and me. My heart was heavy with foreboding. Amid all this laughter and music—pleasure of the senses reigning supreme here in the Great City tonight—I could not miss a sense of impending evil. The slaans propelling the boats were stolid and grim. Not for them, this dalliance. Not for their women, this music and laughter, these daring costumes to display their beauty. The slaan women, drab with work, were slinking about unnoticed. Often I would see a boat of them slip by, furtively, in the shadows. Drab women, watching these beauties, resentful, sullen—and with what purpose smouldering in their hearts I could only guess.

  The very air—to me at least—seemed pregnant with impending evil. I know that Georg felt it too. Often I had caught his eye as he regarded me. Once he started to whisper to me aside, but like a flash, Tarrano with his microphonic ear, turned to interrupt us.

  I wanted to stay with Elza at the palace. Suddenly I was afraid of Tarrano, more afraid for Elza than I had ever been. And who, and what was this Red Woman? Maida knew, of course. Maida had been very solemn for hours; thoughtful, almost grim.

  And the slaan in the water who said he did not blame us. He had warned us to guard ourselves. But how? There were no weapons. On this night of pleasure nothing would have been more incongruous.

  And that metal cap in the water with a man’s face behind it? An Earth man of my own race! What did it mean?

  I was perturbed—frightened. But I did not demur when Tarrano led us to his flower-bedecked barge. Of what use?

  We were paired. Georg with Maida; Elza with Tarrano. And I? Tarrano told me curtly—and with a smile of ironic amusement—that when we reached the festival so handsome a man as I would have no trouble engaging the attention of some Venus maiden.

  On cushions in the barge we reclined while our slaans poled us along the streets. Tarrano was feeding sweets to Elza as though they were gay young lovers. Poor little Elza! She was frightened. Her face was a trifle pale, her lips set. But she, too, knew that we were wholly in Tarrano’s power, and she made the best of the situation. Sometimes she would laugh gayly; but I could not miss the note of fear in it.

  The progress of our barge was slow. Boats clustered around us, their occupants pelting us with flowers. A deluge spray of perfume was turned on us—a heavy, exotic scent, almost cloying. It lay redolent on our garments for hours.

  Presently Tarrano gave us masks. And long robes for Maida and Elza to cover the gay holiday dresses they were wearing.

  At the edge of the city a canal had been dug through the hillside. We passed slowly through it, under archways of dangling colored lights, around a sharp bend and came upon the Water Festival. And—with impending tragedy for the
moment forgotten—I gazed for this first time at such a scene of pleasure and beauty as I had never even imagined.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Love, Music—and a Warning

  The Water Festival! As our barge rounded a bend in the canal, under the archways of dangling colored lights, the festival spread before us. Involuntarily I stood up to gaze. The canal opened into an artificial lake—a broad circular sheet of water some 800 helans17 in diameter. Sloping hillsides enclosed the lake—hillsides which I saw were terraced with huge banks of seats in tiers one above the other.

  The seats were crowded with people. White ribbons of roads gave access from the neighboring countryside for land-surface vehicles, and there were stages for the accommodation of aircraft. The rural populace, and people from the nearby smaller cities, had gathered to view this national spectacle—a million or more of them probably, with their individual electrical telescopes for direct distant vision, and small pocket mirrors for that which otherwise would be hidden. A million people at least, seated here on these gigantic spreading tiers.

  The lake itself was thus the stage as it were, of a tremendous arena. Tiny artificial islands dotted the lake—a hundred of them. Islands, some no more than a few feet broad; some larger, and in the center of the lake, one quite large. All the islands were covered with luxuriant vegetation. The tiny ones were no more than shadowed nooks of leaves and flowers.

  Between the islands, crooked lanes of the placid water wended their way in and out, broadening into occasional lagoons. Bridges crossed the lanes; archways of lights spanned them at intervals.

  From this distance the whole scene was a riot of color and great red and purple auroral lights of Venus, which at this midnight hour rode the upper sky, tinged everything vividly. The archway lights were soft rose, silver and gold. Some of the tiny islands, from sources hidden were bathed in bright silver. Others darker, in deep purple and red; still others, quite unlighted, dim and shadowed, touched only by the reflected glow from those near them.

  From the main island lights were flashing into the sky; occasional color bombs mounted and burst, painting the heavens.

  A riot of color. And then as we approached, I became aware of sound and movement as well. Music from scores of unseen sources. Music from single isolated instruments floating softly over the water—lovers playing accompaniment to their pleading voices; or again, groups of voices—the curiously mellow voices of young girls—and, on an island apart, music from an aerial carrying strains from the public concelan.18

  It was all music of a type unfamiliar to me of Earth. The intellectuality of our Earth music was missing. This music of Venus was built upon queer minor strains; unfinished cadences; a rhythm of the sort we of Earth could never encompass. I listened, and felt the appeal of my senses. The lavish, abandoned music of barbarism? I had almost thought it that. Yet it was not. Rather was it decadent. This whole scene; the color, the music, the heavy cloying scents with which the night air was redolent; the warm, sensuous abandonment, felt rather than made obvious—it was not barbarism, but decadence. And I realized then how close are the two extremes. A reversion to type, merely. And I knew, then, that from the pinnacle of civilization which we of Earth had reached, naught lay before us but this.

  Music everywhere throughout the festival. And movement. As we floated out of the canal, passing slowly along one of the broader waterways, boats and barges slipped past us. Barges crowded with revelers. And the small boats, generally with but a man and a girl—fugitive couples with the holiday spirit upon them, seeking the shadowed nooks of islands for their love-making.

  In one lagoon we came upon such a boat. The man in it—a gay youth in red and black motley, with the mask fallen from his laughing, perspiring face—was in its stern, manipulating it with a long, thin paddle. The girl was lying face down on cushions in its prow. She was facing forward, with her long white hair tumbling about her. Around the boat were clustered a number of other boats. Each was small, with only a man in it. A ring of boats, besieging the girl. Our barge paused to watch. A boat would dash forward, its occupant standing up to thrust it on. But the girl, swung to meet it by the efforts of her escort, would turn her cylinder of alcholite19 upon the attacker. Befuddled, her adversary would retreat; or another, momentarily drunk, would fall into the water to be sobered.

  All with gay shouts of laughter; until at last the couple were victorious and scurried away to their island.

  We passed on. There were mimic battles often on the islands. A hidden couple found out and dragged back. A lone man attacked and pelted with flowers by a band of marauding girls. A diving platform at one end of an oval lagoon. Girls mounting it to dive into the red-shimmering water, where waiting youths were swimming, and by their prowess in downing other contenders would seize upon the girls and carry them off to where a barge was loading its passengers for the main island.

  To this main island we came at last. It was heavily wooded, and indented with shallow, placid waterways. In one of them we landed; and amid a sudden quiet and awe at the presence of Tarrano, we went ashore. Georg walking with Maida; Tarrano forcing Elza to hold his arm; and I, beside Elza until Tarrano sternly bade me walk behind.

  We were masked, but the revelers knew us. Amid the throng with which the island was packed, we moved slowly forward toward a gay pavilion which was in the center of the grove. Music came from it—a broad, roofed-over pavilion with a dancing floor in the depression of its center space, and tiers of balconies above it.

  Within the pavilion, where the air was heavy with the smell of wine, arrant-smoke, intoxicating whiffs of surreptitiously used alcholite-cylinders and sensuous perfumes upon the garments of the women—in here, the throng pressed around us; the dancers stopped to gaze; the music momentarily hushed; the spectators on the balconies—girls reclining on cushions with young gallants seated beside them with trays of food and drink—all turned to crane down at us.

  “Honor to the Master Tarrano!”

  A girl shouted it. A murmur of applause swept about us.

  Abruptly Tarrano removed his mask. His face, which had been concealed, showed with the flush of pleasure and his lips were parted with a smile of gratification and triumph. But, as the red silk mask was doffed, another took its place—the mask of imperturbability—that grave, inscrutable look with which he always masked his real emotions.

  “Honor to the Master Tarrano!”

  Tarrano raised his hand; his quiet, calm voice carried throughout the silent room.

  “There is no Master here tonight. No Master—only the Mistress of Love. Let us honor her. Let her rule us all—tonight.”

  For just an instant his gaze seemed to linger upon Elza; then he gravely replaced his red mask. Applause swept the room; the music started again. The lights overhead began whirling their kaleidoscope of colors down upon the dancers.

  We took our places in a canopied enclosure upon the first balcony, some twenty feet above the dance floor. Tarrano refused the cushions; he placed Elza deferentially upon them, and spread food and drink and sweet-meats before her. Near them sat Georg and Maida. I would have sat between Elza and Georg, but Tarrano pulled me away from them.

  “You are wanted below.” He said it very softly, for my ears alone; but through his mask I could see his eyes blazing at me.

  “They are diving into the pool outside—cannot you hear them, Jac Hallen?” Impatience came to his voice; in truth, I must have been staring at him witless. “Maidens out there, Jac Hallen, who are seeking handsome youths like yourself for escort. Must I speak plainly? You are not wanted here. Go!”

  “I—”

  “Another word will be your last.” His voice was still almost emotionless, but I did not miss the gesture of his hand to his belt. “You had best obey, Jac Hallen.”

  I was hardly so witless as not to realize the truth of his admonition. I turned away; and with all the laughter and movement around us, I think that Georg, Maida and Elza did not see me go.

  For the space o
f an hour or more, I stood alone on the lower floor of the pavilion, watching the balcony where Tarrano and the others sat. Stood there alone, feeling helpless and with my heart heavy with foreboding. Beneath my grey robe I was dressed in holiday fashion of the Great City—beribboned and gartered, with feathers at my scarlet shoulders for all the world like a male nada.20 My red mask I kept on, and folded my cloak around me.

  The dance floor was crowded. I saw now that it was cut into small circles marked with black—circles in diameter about the length of a man. At intervals—perhaps five minutes apart—a signal in the music caused each of the dancing couples to select a circle and to dance wholly within it. And then one of the circles, by mechanical device, was raised into the air above all the others. The couple on it, thus prominent, danced at their best, to be judged by Tarrano for a prize.

  For an hour I stood there. I could see Elza plainly. She had removed her mask. Her face was flushed, her lips laughing. Once, in a chance silence, her shout of applause rang out. The quality of abandonment in it turned me cold. Did I see Tarrano’s hand move back to his belt? Was he intoxicating her? Then I saw Maida make a gesture—wave something from beneath her cloak at Elza. A scent to sober her? It seemed so, for Elza looked confused; and I saw Maida flash her a look of warning.

  Abruptly, from an alcove near me, a group of girls rushed out. Their cloaks and white veils fell from them as they came my way—laughing as they ran for the doorway leading outside to the pool. I was in their way and they bumped into me; one of them gripped me. I tried to jerk loose, but she clung. A slim girl, enveloped in her long, white tresses. Her eyes laughed at me; her red mouth went up alluringly to my face.

  “I love you—you, Jac Hallen.” Her arms wound about my neck as she clung. I was trying to cast her off when her fingers lifted a corner of my mask.

  “I was afraid you were not Jac Hallen.” Her whisper was relieved, and it had suddenly turned swift and vehement. “I am sister to Maida—my name, Alda. I am to warn you. When Tarrano dances with the Red Woman—when they go up on the raised circle—you drop to the floor! You understand? Keep down, or the rays might strike you! But be here, inside, and watch. And afterward, go quickly to join the Princess and your Elza. You understand?”