The hands lifted the picture until she could see it. “Jimmy!” she repeated.
From below, there was the sound of a door closing weakly, and steps moving across the lower floor. They took the stairs, two steps at a time, but quickly now, without need of the banister. They crossed the landing. The door remained closed, but there was the sound of a knob turning, a faint squeak of hinges, then another sound of a door closing. Young footsteps moved across the rug, invisible, a sound that seemed to make all other sounds fade to silence. The steps reached the bed and stopped.
Mother turned her eyes, and the smile quickened again. One hand lifted. Then she dropped back and her breathing stopped.
The silence was broken by the sound of feet again—heavier, surer feet that seemed to be planted on the floor beside the bed. Two sets of footsteps sounded. One might have been those of a small boy. The others were the quick, sharp sounds that only a young woman can make as she hurries along with her first-born beside her. They moved across the room.
There was no hesitation at the door this time, nor any sound of opening or closing. The steps went on, across the landing and down the stairs. As Matthews and I followed into the hall, they seemed to pick up speed toward the back door. Now finally there was a soft, deliberate sound of a door closing, and then silence.
I jerked my gaze back, to see the eyes of all the others riveted on the back entrance, while emotions I had never seen washed over the slack faces. Agnes rose slowly, her eyes turned upward. Her thin lips opened, hesitated, and closed into a tight line. She sat down like a stick woman folding, glancing about to see whether the others had noticed.
From below, her daughter came running up the stairs. “Mother! Mother, who was the little boy I heard?”
I didn’t wait for the answer, nor the thick words with which Matthews confirmed the news of Mother’s death. I was back beside the poor old body, taking the picture from the clasped hands.
Liza had followed me in, with the color just beginning to return to her face. “Ghosts,” she said thickly. Then she shook her head, and her voice softened. “Mother and one of the babies, come back to get her. I always thought…”
“No,” I told her. “Not one of my sisters who died too young. Nothing that easy, Liza. Nothing that good. It was a boy. A boy who had measles when he was six, who took the stairs two at a time—a boy named Jimmy…”
She stared at me doubtfully, then down at the picture I held—the picture of me when I was six. “But you—” she began. Then she turned away without finishing, while the others began straggling in.
We had to stay for the ceremony, of course, though I guess Mother didn’t need me at the funeral. She already had her Jimmy.
She’d wanted to name me James for her father, and Dad had insisted on Andrew for his. He’d won, and Andrew came first. But until I was ten, I’d always been called Jimmy by Mother. Jimmy, Andy, Andrew, A. J.
A man’s name was part of his soul, I remembered, in the old beliefs.
But it didn’t niake sense, no matter how I figured it out by myself. I tried to talk it over with Matthews, but he wouldn’t comment. I made another effort with Liza when we were on the plane going back.
“I can believe in Mother’s spirit,” I finished. I’d been over it all so often hi my own mind that I had accepted that finally. “But who was Jimmy? We all heard him—even Agnes’ daughter heard him from downstairs. So he wasn’t a delusion. But he can’t be a ghost. A ghost is a returned spirit—the soul of a man who has died!”
“Well?” Liza asked coldly. I waited, but she went on staring out of the plane window, not saying another word.
I used to think meeting a ghost would offer reassurance to a man. Now I don’t know. If I could only explain little Jimmy…
The Seat of Judgment
Night had fallen, but the city gleamed with the angry red of dying fires, and the crowds still fought back and forth across the streets, howling in sorrow and rage. But in front of the barracks beyond the Earth palace, the fighting seemed spent, and the mob had thinned to a scattering of huddled, dazed figures.
Lorg, one of the Ludh mercenaries, broke from a side street in an exhausted attempt to run. Two of his arms hung useless, his clothing was ripped to shreds, his bow was gone, and his body was covered with wounds; he no longer felt them—his mind was filled only with the need for a weapon.
He hesitated, listening for pursuit. Then, with a final staggering run, he burst through the barracks door and headed for the bow racks.
Light hit his eyes, jerking him to a stop. They’d guessed his destination and beaten him here. There were a dozen of them, headed by the renegade, Pars, whose bow was already pulled taut.
Pars’ voice was sick as he stared at his fellow Ludh, nodding to the others. “He’s one of the butchers,” he said heavily. The bowstring stretched tighter.
“Renegade! Adominist!” Lorg screamed the words, knowing it was too late for words. “When Earth catches you—!”
Pars’ head shook more firmly. “Earth!” He spat the word out harshly. “The men of Earth are dead a hundred years, Lorg. Only the weaklings are left. They’ll never a&i until they have to—and then too late. Pray to your own false gods, Lorg, not to Earth!”
Lorg leaped, but the arrow was already in flight. It was a sliver, a wand, a lance—then a stake driving toward him.
Pors dropped the bow and leaned against the wall, sobbing harshly—but not for the death of Lorg.
Beyond the high walls of the spaceport, Sayon seemed almost unchanged by the thirty years since Eli Judson had last seen the planet. Time might have ceased to exist here, though it had dealt heavily enough with him. The grayish-blue uniform of the Colonial Service hung slackly on his sinewy, old man’s body. The black was almost gone from his hair, bitter lines had been etched across his hollow-cheeked face, and his sight was almost useless without his glasses. In a few more years, it would be too late for even the geriatric treatments back on Earth to help him.
He grunted uncomfortably as the llamalike beast he rode jolted up the rough road to the top of a hill, then held up his hand to stop his escort. “It looks peaceful enough,” he observed.
“So does a fusion bomb until it goes off,” Dupont answered hi his irritatingly high-pitched voice. His stout face was sweating profusely, and he made nervously futile gestures with a handkerchief.
Earth must be hard up to pick such a man for planet administrator, even on a backwater world like this, Judson thought. He shrugged and reached for his binoculars to survey the valley below.
The air was crystal clear in the aftermath of one of the seasonal storms. Groves of dense-fruited faya berries and pastures dotted with flocks of green-wooled theom covered the hillsides. Downtrail, a caravan was meandering upward, loaded with precious spices, perfumes, and uranium ore for the space trade, and he could hear the faint tinkle of bells as the beasts moved. Other caravans were winding through a pass in the opposite hills to the north, and the eastern harbor was crowded with galleys and gaudy with their multi-colored sails.
He shifted to study the city beyond the quays. Kalva had grown until its maze of low buildings and twisting little streets now stretched far beyond the old walls. Judson knew that most of the city was filled with squalor and filth, but distance softened that. The yellow bricks and dark tile roofs seemed to sparkle serenely in the afternoon sunlight with a hint of patterns that never became fixed.
Over the center of the city, the great temple reared its seven marble tiers, capped by a flattened dome of burnished gold plate. Judson shifted to higher magnification to study the square in front of the building. The crowds seemed thick there, but hardly anyone was going up the great steps. With the festival of Mesea due to begin tomorrow evening, that was a jarringly false note.
Dupont coughed nervously. “We’d better get going. If there’s any trouble…”
“From one Sdyonese?” Judson asked.
“Mohammet was only one man, and a sick one,” Dupont pointed ou
t. “Besides, these people have a lot of legends of human gods.”
“Goddesses,” Judson corrected him. Then he grimaced as memories came pouring back. Meia was thirty years in his past and should have been forgotten. He stiffened in the saddle and motioned them on.
This time two of the bowmen of Ludh moved in front. They were the usual mercenaries in this section of the galaxy—yellow, hairless apes with wolf muzzles. As soldiers, they were so good that one should have been guard enough, instead of the six Dupont had brought.
They came to the caravan he had seen, drawn aside to let them pass. There seemed nothing wrong in the attitude of the woman leader, though he saw Dupont frown at an odd sign she made; it was probably religious, though he didn’t recognize it.
The Sayonese were more nearly human than most races, but still alien enough. The women’s chests were flat under their brief halters—naturally, since they were marsupials—and feeif pouches showed clearly above the slit skirts both “gexes wore. Both their wrinkled skin and coarse hair were green, while their ears and noses were grotesquely large. With their squat, heavy bodies they might have been trolls from Earth’s mythology. But after the snakes of Tarshi or the bowmen of Ludh, they looked amazingly manlike.
Even their customs and religions resembled some Earth had once known, though their god was a righteous, demanding Mother-Principle. Earth had expected easy conquest, counting on their legends of incarnate goddesses who were practically perfect images of human women, but only drastic action and the burning of half the temple had overcome that mistake a century ago. Since then, however, the priestesses had maintained peace well enough—at least until now.
“Have you seen this prophet you reported?” he asked Dupont.
The man shook his head, reaching for his kerchief again. “Only films from a distance. He came out of the desert a year ago and stuck to the provinces, picking up converts. It wasn’t until last week he moved to’Kalva for the holidays. And you can’t believe all the reports. They’re a mess of lies about miracles.”
“You haven’t picked him up for questioning?”
“I’m not supposed to mix in with local religion. You know that!” Dupont’s voice was petulant. “It’s up to you and the high priestess, the Fas Kaia. She’s the one who asked the Sector Governor for a warship and a company of Earth guards to keep peace.”
Judson grimaced again. The Sector Governor had a warship, but no adequate crew of fighting men for it. The youth of Earth was too busy enjoying the luxuries from a thousand worlds to bother controlling the planets now, it seemed. So he’d been sent instead, over his protests. As a mere vice-governor, he was expendable.
They were entering Kalva now, heading toward the temple and the Earth Administration palace beyond. Judson studied the crowds, realizing time had brought changes. Poverty was worse and the slaves looked ill fed. The temple taxes must be murderous. The streets were jammed with people and more pilgrims were arriving with every caravan, many wearing swords in defiance of Mesea custom. The old market was solid with skin tents and crude shelters, filling the air with stench and clamor. One skin-rotter could infect the whole area.
“Converts to Oe Athon,” Dupont commented, making a mispronounced mockery of the title. “It thins out beyond the temple. There’ll be time for a bath before the Fas Kaia reaches the palace, I guess.”
The huddled ranks of unwashed Sayonese made way for them reluctantly. Their green faces stared at the humans and Ludh without seeming to see them, filled with a curious, expectant ecstasy. They might have been drug addicts, except that the drugs Earth shipped were too expensive for the masses. They seemed peaceful enough—but fanatics could seek peace one minute and start a jehad the next.
Now the street swept around the huge temple, and the crowd grew thinner. Ahead lay the palace, the Ludh barracks, and the ugly, barren cemetery hill at the end of the street. Judson glanced at the forbidding mound, then began yanking out his binoculars, cursing.
Near the top of the cemetery hill, four thin posts carried the rotting flesh of Sayonese bodies. Nearby, another wretch was still alive, sitting on the sharpened point of a stake. It had been greased until his straining hands couldn’t hold his weight, and his feet rested on a mound of sand that sifted away with each writhing, tortured movement. Slowly but steadily, his body was sinking lower around the point.
At a tune like this, the fools had revived the Seat!
Judson swung out of the saddle to the ground, shaking his head as Dupont slowed. “Go on, damn it. I’ll handle this my way,” he shouted. The huddles of Sayonese parted to let him through, until he was past them, climbing up the steep steps to the temple.
The priestesses must have been watching. There was a shout, and two of them trotted down to help him. To his surprise, he was in need of their assistance; his age was showing in the labor of his breathing. “Tell the Fas Kaia I’m here,” he jjanted.
“The Fas Kaia-greets the Oe Eli,” a heavy alto voice answered from the top of the steps, speaking in pure high Saydnese.
He caught his breath while they studied each other. She was an old woman, so fat that her skin was stretched to paleness, and her bloated body was loaded with jewels. But there was a firmness about her as she waved the lesser priestesses away. She nodded at last. “You’re a strong man and a realist, I think. Thank Her for that.”
“Realist enough to know you’can’t tax people to starvation and hold them by torture,” he told her sharply. He gestured toward the hill. “Did you think I was too stupid to see that?”
She sighed, turning one ear toward the screams of the dying man that came faintly over the noise from the streets.
“I expected you to see it,” she said quietly. “These are bad times, Oe Eli—so bad that those rogues dared to try looting the temple. I may have lied in calling them followers of Athon, but their sentence was legal. As for the tax—I get what I can, but I don’t starve my people. They do that themselves. Every fool on Say6n is in Kalva, to see this Athon or watch what I do to him. I’ve emptied my own stores, and there still isn’t enough food for afl.”
Slowly the anger ran out of him. Even under the codex Earth had drafted, the Seat was approved for anyone who profaned the temple. Such stupidity deserved whatever it got. “My apologies, Kaia.”
“There was no offense, Eli,” she told him, smiling quickly at the ritual of names. “Now, if you’ll consent, we can talk better in my quarters.”
In the little room behind the great gold and jade statue of Her, she waved the slaves aside and served him mild faya wine and some of the matchless Kalvan cheese. Then she sank back gratefully onto her cushions, setting up a tinkling of ornaments.
“‘A wise man has many swords’,” she quoted. “I am glad your Governor sent you instead of the warship the administrator requested—which could have done no good. Perhaps together you and I can find a solution. Eh’, when you were here before, how much did you learn of Her incarnations and their power?”
He could feel the muscles of his face tense, but he forced himself to remain calm. “I met one of your goddesses and saw what she could do,” he answered.
“Meia!” Kaia’s eyes seemed to gleam suddenly, as if a light had been turned on behind them. Then she relaxed again. “I heard rumors, though I was only serving in the temple brothel at the time. Well, at least you know that a child can be born to our race who looks something like one of you—and who can grow up to work miracles. This Athon claims to be one of them.”
“A man?” Judson asked in surprise, though he should have expected it.
She nodded. “All were girls, except the first, who founded our religion in a series of bloody holy wars. Some legends make it seem that he was fertile, unlike the girls, and that they may all have been seed from his loins. But the people believe they are incarnations of the Goddess, and they don’t disturb the temple too much. Athon does.”
“Yet you didn’t have him assassinated when he first appeared?” Judson asked. He was trying to adju
st his thinking to the new facts. Some kind of strange mutation, recessive and with linked genes, carrying the ability of mental healing? It was possible. Earth had found and developed a few minds with some of the same ability; they were the ones who handled the expensive geriatric rejuvenation treatments.
“I tried,” she admitted. “More than once. But he converted my assassins and my spies. Then I tried to persuade the administrator to proclaim him a human, pretending to be Sayonese. There was the missionary woman before my time, you know. She tried it, until Earth found her here.”
Judson had some memory from his reading. He frowned over the idea. It would make things easier, certainly. The Sayonese took the mysterious word “Science” as the unimpressive answer to anything humans might do, and they’d “regard any alien race dabbling in their religion as “the ultimate abomination. Damn Du-pont! The man could have used his brains instead of the rule book once in his life; instead, he’d played it safe until the last possible minute and then yelled for help.
“I suppose Dupont took it under advisement and warned you not to touch the man until it could be proved he wasn’t human?” he guessed. At her nod, he swore softly. It fitted too well. “Do you think this Athon is human?”
She shrugged, glancing bitterly at a framed copy of the Earth-Sayon covenant. “Who knows what a male incarnation would be like? And how can I tell about Earthmen when every one I have seen is different in size, shape—and even color? My hands are bound. If he is human, I can do nothing. If he is of Sdyon, he is beyond my power as an incarnation! Yet he must be stopped, for the good of both your world and mine. Here!”
She pulled a jewel-studded box to her and began removing papers from it, written in the native script. “Can you read these?” she asked. At his nod, she passed them over to him. “Take them with you. You’ll see he preaches both a Father-Principle and a Mother-Principle. He wants the riches of the temple stripped away and divided among everyone. He claims all races are equal. Eli, consider what that would do to Earth’s position! Or think how little you could deal with Sayon without the temple—as the temple cannot do without Earth now. Is Earth strong enough in this Sector today to conquer Sayon against a fanatic people—or to hold the other worlds if this planet breaks away?”
The Best of Lester del Rey Page 32