Rhapsody in Black

by Brian Stableford

  I caught the second transfer—just—and got the bird into a groove with a minimum of manoeuvring, but I could still feel my temper fraying. I’d been building up a current of resentment ever since the lift from New Alexandria, but it was that missed transfer which really set the edge on me. After all, I’d lately piloted a ship in and out of the heart of the Halcyon Drift at tremendous speed, without a mishap, and I couldn’t be blamed for yielding a little to the legend of my own infallibility. It may seem strange that such a small thing could upset me so much, but I honestly think that if there was one single incident which could have sparked off the whole chain of events which followed in the caves of Rhapsody, then that was it. A fractional slip by mind and hand, and maybe three or four minutes lost forever.

  We were well under way, and going very fast indeed—forty thou or more—when I finally abandoned her wholly to the groove and sank back into the cradle. I lifted the hood from my eyes, but didn’t push it all the way back.

  ‘ETA?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Three hours and a few minutes,’ I told him. I couldn’t be bothered giving him the standardised time. By standard it might be mid-afternoon, but as far as I was concerned it was still one o’clock in the morning plus thirty or forty standard minutes. Like most spacemen, I didn’t use a wristwatch. If you keep standard time, it doesn’t tell you anything, and if you keep local time you have to adjust the watch every time you make a drop. Lapthorn had carried one, and laboriously altered its time and setting every landfall, but I could never be bothered, Besides, Lapthorn had always been around so that I could ask him.

  Eve came into the control room with Charlot. ‘All settled now,’ she said. Neither she nor Charlot made any mention of the poor take-off. That didn’t make me feel any better about it. A sarcastic comment would at least have allowed me to expend a little vitriol in a reply.

  ‘They’re a peculiar crowd,’ said Nick idly.

  ‘You can’t expect them to act like tourists,’ said Charlot. ‘They’re exiles. They don’t know what sort of a welcome or lack of it they’re going back to. They’ve only my word. I think only Mavra believes there’s anything actually to be gained. And the white girl, perhaps.’

  ‘Do the rest of the people on Rhapsody look like her?’ asked Eve.

  I interrupted with a brusque laugh. ‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘Just as pale but as ugly as sin.’

  I didn’t look around, but I could imagine the sharp glance which Eve would have thrown in my direction.

  ‘They’ll be pale,’ said Charlot. ‘What else would you expect? Some members of the Church hierarchy might be able to get cosmetics, but I can’t really think that they’d take much trouble over them. The Order of the Exclusive Reward is somewhat ascetic. Self-decoration would undoubtedly be frowned upon.’

  Which didn’t really add much to what I’d said.

  ‘Are they all members of the priesthood?’ Nick wanted to know.

  ‘They’re all members of the priestly caste,’ replied Charlot. ‘None of them is actually ordained. But I don’t believe the Church maintains a great many ordained ministers. The whole caste seems to bear a collective responsibility for the maintenance and dissemination of the dogma, but the actual part played by any one of them might be any of half a dozen things. Political, philosophical, clerical, or simply advisory.’

  ‘In other words,’ I put in, ‘the Churchmen are a hereditary aristocracy who maintain their privilege by saying that God meant it to be that way. They have all the plum jobs and give all the orders.’

  ‘True enough,’ said Charlot. ‘I’m not trying to make these people out to be any better than they are, so there’s no need to be derisory. You’re not scoring off me. I only want to deal with these people—to buy whatever they have to sell with whatever they want in return. I’m as critical of this type of faith as you are, but it’s not going to advance my cause if I say so in your kind of terms. I’d be obliged if you would limit your insults and your mockery once we’re landed, as well.’

  ‘I’ll say what I like,’ I said.

  ‘No doubt. But I’d appreciate it nevertheless if you didn’t go out of your way to be unpleasant. And I’d be even more grateful if you could bring yourself to exercise a little self-restraint.’

  The content of the words was sarcastic, but the tone in which they were delivered was not. Charlot was occasionally very difficult to fathom.

  In the course of the trip Mavra and two of his companions—Capra and Khemis—appeared in the control room for a look around. If it had been up to me, I’d have locked them out, and I think Captain delArco was of the same mind. But Charlot was sparing no possible effort to make friends. They didn’t ask questions and they didn’t look impressed. They prowled around for a while, with the same hangdog expressions on their faces that they’d worn during embarkation. Eve spoke to them, and so did Charlot, but their attempts at communication met with blank-wall indifference. Capra answered, but flatly. Khemis merely grunted. Mavra made an effort, but it was obvious that he was keeping his opinions and his goodwill under strict guard. I didn’t envy Charlot having to trade with such people.

  Eve, who had most contact with the ones who stayed below all the time, later complained of their aloofness and unreasoning distaste for her efforts. I reminded her that these were a people who had made a faith out of collective and individual alienation. They were effectively disbarred from being nice people, and also from appreciating the efforts of nice people on their behalf.

  They were, in short, quite unlikable.

  Only an hour passed before I had to put the hood back on and negotiate us into the system. This was, the time-consuming element of the trip. The deep space was of no concern at all, but the blue giant warranted a lot of respect, and I had to approach tentatively while I located Rhapsody, plotted an approach which gave me the best chance to avoid trouble on account of the radiation levels, and began a slow approach.

  I didn’t make any more mistakes.

  Not aboard the Hooded Swan, anyhow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Well now,’ I said to myself, and to the wind, ‘there are two kinds of people who might be useful. Ones who know what’s going on and can tell me. And ones who don’t know what’s going on and therefore couldn’t possibly have anything against me.’

  The whisper agreed.

  ‘I think for the moment I’ll be content with the latter.’

  He agreed with that as well.

  I was standing in black shadow, looking out into the dull-lit street. The town was built in a gigantic cavern—even in places like Rhapsody, people prefer to make their homes in the wide-open spaces. Because of the woeful inadequacy of the lighting, I couldn’t gauge the size of the cave or guess how many houses there might be. But the ones I could see were laid out in blocks about ten or eleven dwellings long. The fact that they had used a block layout suggested that the town was a good size. It seemed reasonable to assume that it would serve as a dormitory area for the miners, would also contain such social and economic units as coexisted with the miners, and would also have its fair share of Churchmen/aristocrats. Presumably the elite would live in the good parts of town, and even by the standards of Rhapsody that wasn’t where I was standing now. It wasn’t simply that the streets were dim, or the houses small and grubby. It was the atmosphere of poverty. The aristocrats might not be well-endowed by galactic standards, but the reality of poverty is always relative. There was no mistaking that this was the wrong side of the non-existent tracks.

  A few people had passed by while I hid in my alley and watched. They hadn’t glanced sideways, or even looked up. They’d merely ambled on about their business, hiding their eyes from the faint light which helped them on their way. I didn’t know enough about local habits to judge whether it was local ‘night’ or the middle of the rush hour.

  I’d had ideas about passing for a native, but even a casual glance at one of the locals assured me that it simply wasn’t possible. Apart from their maggoty whiteness, the
y were all thin and moved in a peculiar stooping shuffle which obviously required long practice to perfect. I was too dark, too big and I walked like a surface-dweller.

  I stuck out like a black spider in a termite nest.

  Even with clean clothes on, I would only be a somewhat less hairy spider. And if I were to acquire clean clothes they would have to come out of a cupboard or off a body. Nobody here hung out the washing to dry in the sun. I didn’t really fancy mugging some poor innocent and stripping him, and it certainly wouldn’t endear me to the local populace if the indiscretion were discovered. It seemed preferable to adopt the ancient but not very honourable profession of sneak thievery.

  In my long and arduous career as a trader and general bum, I have often had cause to appropriate articles to which I did not have clear legal title. But I have never regarded myself as a talented or accomplished thief, and I have never made a very serious study of the science of removing other people’s property without attracting their attention.

  Ergo, I was in some doubt as to how to go about the task of changing my clothes. And I was therefore doing what I always did when I was in doubt.

  Hesitating.

  You’ll get caught, prophesied the whisper gloomily.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ I conceded. ‘But what has to be done has to be did.’

  He was considerate enough not to remind me that even if I succeeded, I’d accomplish nothing but the opportunity to hesitate further while I faced more and more difficult problems. He probably would have, had I not been already bearing it in mind.

  I waited until the street was clear, then oozed out of my protective alleyway into the main thoroughfare, and sidled up to the nearest door.

  It was locked.

  I kept going, trying each door in turn, determined that the first one that opened would define my target for me.

  I think it was the sixth door which actually yielded to my touch, and opened noiselessly. I slipped quietly inside, and eased the door shut behind me. It closed with the faintest of clicks, and I congratulated the lightness of my touch.

  The slender hallway was dark and silent except for a weak line of light which was visible in the crack under a door that was directly in front of me, some three metres away.

  I reached out with my foot to search for the stairway that I knew must be there. I guessed that it would be on the right-hand side of the hallway, and I was right. I took the flashlight from my belt, and flicked it on momentarily just to be sure that I had the layout correctly deduced. Everything looked quite ordinary. A house is a house, on Penaflor or in the warrens of Rhapsody. I didn’t leave the flash on while I went upstairs, not because I was afraid that it might attract attention but because I was desperately afraid for the future of the charge it held. A hundred times I had vowed to myself that I would never again step out into alien territory without belting a full charge into the thing.

  The stairs were made of stone (naturally) and didn’t creak. I took great care not to shuffle my feet, and to test the height of each step individually. So far as I could detect, I was as quiet as the proverbial mouse. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that people who live in perpetual near-darkness, liberally spiced with absolute pitch-blackness, tend to develop an unusually acute sense of hearing. Burglars must have a very difficult time on Rhapsody. Amateur though I was, the ease with which I was detected suggests that there must be easier ways to make a living.

  The door with the sliver of light beneath it suddenly opened wide, and a woman came out. She brought no light with her, and she was stepping from an illuminated room into darkness. But she saw me immediately.

  The light that was behind her made her snow-white hair gleam. Her hand rested on the side of the door, pale and skeletal, like the hand of a corpse. Her face was shadowed, but somehow I could sense the deathly whiteness of that, too. It was as if that door had been opened by someone six weeks dead.

  I didn’t wait to find out whether she was going to scream—I shot back down the stairs and out into the street. It was flat panic—reflex action. Sure, I knew what the people of Rhapsody looked like—neither the gang I’d ferried back nor the miners who’d grabbed us after we landed had scared me or nauseated me in the least. But this was different—I was a fugitive in a world of darkness, lost in a labyrinth of cold stone. This was alien territory—truly alien, for all that it was a world of men. I just hadn’t been ready for that door to be opened by something which didn’t look human. I hadn’t adjusted. Maybe I should have stopped to think, and come out with some prize comment like: ‘Hello, I’m a burglar.’ But my reactions didn’t give me time to stop and think.

  The street was still empty. I ran back the way I had come, heading for the entrance to the tunnel, some vague idea forming in my mind about re-thinking the whole operation. But I never got there. I paused at the corner of a small alley, looking out towards the slash of shadow that marked the way out. I could hear footsteps behind me, moving fast but not running. I could also hear voices—but they were coming from the tunnel. The way out was blocked.

  I had only one clear way to go—out of the alley, but away from the tunnel mouth—and I wasted no time. I tried to run quietly, but on the stone pavements it was impossible to stop my footfalls making a fair amount of noise. There was no shout to indicate that I had been seen, but I knew that if the alarm was given, and people began to search, it would only be a matter of minutes before I was found. I had to hide. But the houses had no back yards, no garages. There seemed to be no small niche into which I could dive with a respectable chance of waiting until the fuss died down and silence reigned supreme once more.

  I rounded a corner and cannoned into someone who was trying to round it the other way. We both stumbled but I managed to regain my feet almost immediately. The man I’d collided with was bowled right over—he was younger and much lighter than I. He came to rest in a pool of light cast by one of the street-lanterns. There were at least three other people on the street, and they all looked my way. I knew that I was both clearly visible and obviously an intruder. I ran across the street, aiming for the darkest alley in sight. No one ran towards me, there was no shouting. I crossed two more streets into two more alleys, and then I paused. The moment the echoes of my own footsteps died, silence fell. I didn’t believe that I could have shaken them off, but they weren’t running after me.

  I was confused.

  What now, hey? said the wind, with just a trace of sarcasm.

  ‘Okay,’ I muttered, ‘you suggest something.’

  Let’s go home, he said.

  ‘Home to where?’ I wanted to know.

  Home to jail, he said. We were safe there. It’s not our concern.

  ‘I don’t like being in jail,’ I told him. ‘It’s not civilised.’

  We can’t run away for ever, he pointed out. We’ve got to make contact with somebody.

  There was a door beside me. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. I groped for a moment or two, and then my hand settled on the handle. Almost automatically, I turned it. The door gave way. It was just as dark inside as out. I slipped inside, and closed the door behind me, very quietly.

  I stood for a moment in absolute darkness, and then I flicked on the flashlight. I was in a short, narrow corridor. There were doors to either side, and one door at the far end, about twenty feet in front of me. I tiptoed down the corridor, straining my ears to catch the faintest sound. I could hear something beyond the end door, and when I pressed my ear to the plastic I could make out the sound of a voice. I switched off the flash and carefully eased the handle of the door, pulling it open just a fraction of an inch.

  I looked out into a large—by Rhapsody standards—room with a high arched ceiling. The only illumination came from a series of small flickering flames set in a row against the back wall. In front of the flames, with his back to them, was a man in jet black robes and a tiny black cap. He was talking in a low drone, obviously reciting something he knew by heart. I knew that he just had to be a priest.r />
  He hadn’t much of a congregation—it must have been an offpeak service. There were less than a dozen of them, all kneeling on a bare stone floor, with their heads tilted forward so that they almost—but not quite—touched their foreheads to the floor. It looked very uncomfortable.

  The wind didn’t bother to ask, What now? He knew I was already wondering. I knew that in the old movies when the hero hides in the church the priest never gives him away. But the movie-makers never heard of the Church of the Exclusive Reward, and the priesthood of Rhapsody had sure as hell never seen a movie.

  I was just about to go back and investigate the other doors when one of them opened. Silently, I heaped a few curses on my luck, which seemed determined to get me caught. Someone came out into the corridor. He didn’t bring a light. I couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see me, but he knew I was there.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked. His voice was thin and sharp.

  I switched on the flash, and directed the weak beam at his eyes. He looked like a vulture, with a bald head and à big hooked nose. He was dressed in the same black robes and cap as the man conducting the service. I saw his white face for just an instant before he protected his eyes with his loose sleeve.

  ‘You can’t bring that in here,’ he said harshly. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It’s mine,’ I said.

  ‘You’re an outworlder,’ he said, moving his head sideways to try and get a glimpse of me behind the glare of the flash. ‘You’ve no business here. How did you get here?’

  ‘I just came to see the sights,’ I said drily.