by Ian Wallace
All right: to the Murky Pit with Ariel and his whole crew. Dhurk would now pick up the pace. . . .
“I wouldn’t try it,” said invisible Ariel.
Angrily Dhurk countered: “Go away, you bore me, you are trivial.”
“The reason I wouldn’t try it,” implacable Ariel told him, “is not a mere matter of my playing for time. The reason is that if you now markedly increase acceleration, you will again throw the star into jolting motion; and this will probably break up your precious ladiolis—and then where will you be with your Great Dragon and your princess?”
Deeply disturbed, Dhurk told him: “We’ll talk in my cabin. Can you keep pace with my swimming?”
‘Test me.”
Dhurk departed in a gassy swirl, entered his cabin seconds later, slammed shut the retinal door. “I’m here,” said Ariel; impudently he had perched himself on the captain’s worktable.
Dhurk settled onto his bunk. “I have been putting some things together. I accuse you, Ariel, of having put into my mind the dreams in which Hréda and Hedrik urged me to give you creatures freedom of the ship, and the subsequent subconscious suggestion that these were images of my own true intuition. True or false?”
‘True, sir.”
“And I have frequently observed you seeming to listen to someone beyond yourself who was not me. Were you listening to Carr, perhaps?”
“Again true.”
“Carr is your action-counselor?”
"Carr is even my intellect.”
“Are you then a robot?”
“No, I am human. But Carr is human-human.”
“I had already learned that I could not trust Jensen or Cavell. Now it seems that I cannot trust any of you; in advance, I should have known this.”
“Sir, please make an exception of our fifth colleague Haley. He has been semicomatose,” he remains veritably unconscious. He is on all counts innocent.”
“All right, provisionally I will except this Haley. Nevertheless, Ariel, we seem to have come to the following contretemps: even if you give me advice that seems wise, wisely I must act otherwise.”
“Sir, Carr and I have deceived you only in the dreams and the suggestion. I do not hear you ask me what I know about Hréda and Hedrik, or how I know about them.”
Dhurk ruminated on that. Then heavily Dhurk demanded: “What do you know about them—and how?”
“As to the how, sir, it is that somehow I am a seer, and I have mentally watched and listened to many fairly recent events on your planet. As to the what—may I entertain you with a few flashbacks?”
During the next few minutes, the mind of Dhurk was possessed by a swift complete run-through of all but one of the Collins Dhorn-visions: having been present in all instances, Dhurk had painfully to recognize their accuracy. “Stop!” he cried once; but Collins would not let him alone until the end.
When it was done, the captain breathed heavily for a moment, then began to swim-pace his cabin in high agitation, so that Collins had to hang tightly to a dragon-shaped flake-scanner to keep from being swept off the table by the swirling. After a bit, Dhurk noticed the plight of diminutive Collins. He paused, stared, and began to laugh, and the fluid vibrations of his laughter set Collins vibrating uncontrollably. “Mayday, Captain!” thought-cried the sprite. “Control yourself, you are murdering me!”
Dhurk settled down, although chuckles kept spasming through. “I have known your kind on my planet,” he remarked, “although clairvoyance at intergalactic distance is new to me.” A thought struck him: “But perhaps it was I who went spontaneously through those memories—and of course you read my mind and know now what they were. It might be difficult for you to prove that you knew them previously.”
“It might indeed,” Collins admitted, “except for one bit of evidence. If you will have Carr brought here, bringing a certain machine that he has, he will project on your wall precisely the same sequence of images and sounds. I recorded them before you picked us up.”
“Carr,” Dhurk countered, “will make a pretense of projecting these images, while you hallucinate them into my mind. We would be wasting time here, if it were not that you amuse me.”
“If my comrades Jensen and Cavell die in your dungeon, I will cease to be amusing.”
“How will they die? Of course, I do not want that. But I no longer dare imprison them in your capsule, their technical potential is too high, in your ship they might still find a way to damage us.”
“In their spacesuits, they soon will be damaged irreparably by exhaustion of our proper atmosphere—which would be poisonous to you, as yours is poisonous to us.”
“By damn, I didn’t think of that! Well. In your capsule, is there a long-time supply of your atmosphere?”
“We recirculate there, with reserve tank supplementation. It will last until this mission is ended—one way or another.”
“I think you meant something subtle when you said ‘one way or another.* ”
“Sir, would you mind deferring discussion of that while you issue orders to save the lives of my comrades?”
Our forcible return to the Mazda was unexpected; and of course, they sealed us in. Once we were out of our suits, Sven flat-voiced: “Helen, while I go check on Bill’s condition, why don’t you go get Wel to join us for a war conference.” Nodding curtly, I departed Sven and entered Wel's cubicle—by the easy, floating method, now that artigrav was restored.
Wel was seated crouched over his worktable in concentration so tense that it looked painful. I laid an affectionate hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Starting like a shocked-awake somnambulist, he looked up at me—angrily, by God! Only twice had I seen him angry. He blurted: “What the hell, Hel?”
Wary now, I took his shoulders with both hands, saying: “Honey, they caught us out there—”
“I know that! So?”
“You know that?”
“Please get to the point, Hel, you’re interrupting a terribly critical thing.”
Irritated now, I released him and stepped back. “I was only going to tell you that they finally sprung us from their stir and brought us back here, so we’re here now and safe, and Sven thinks you ought to join us now for a war conference—”
His face was a study in strain. “Helen, I love you like a sweetheart, but I can not leave here now, I can not, and you must! Go, Helen! Go!” Turning back to the table, he made what looked like a great show of ignoring me, closing me out: the taut concentration resumed, his hands were covering his face.
I departed, hurting. All of a sudden, both my men. . . . Going to the bar, I made myself a stiff one, slugged down half of it, and leaned on the bar brooding.
Behind me, Sven: “Hey, Hel! Look who’s ambulatory again! Now we can operate. . . . Where’s Wel?”
Deliberately I turned to see a grinning Sven standing there with a gaunt Bill Haley who had hold of a Jensen shoulder to steady himself. Ignoring Sven, I went to Bill, kissed his cheek, and gave him the rest of my drink; returning to the bar, I made myself a new one, leaving Sven to fend for himself.
If both my men were letting me down, them I didn’t need by God! I’d made it on my own alone after the poop-out of my first marriage, and I could do it again____
Only, wasn’t Wel in there concentrating very hard? Hadn’t I interrupted that, and hadn’t he gone back to it? And hadn’t Wel been entertaining some plan of action that he couldn’t bring himself to tell us about?
And where was Collins?
Sven was talking, I’d been aware of it without really listening. . . .
“—exhausted every other possibility. Hel, Bill, we have got to do it. The only remaining answer is—Hoolihan.”
That brought me up pretty short, and Bill was beginning to tremble. Angering, I reminded Sven: “Captain Dhurk said they had deactivated Hoolihan—”
“That was a bluff, Hel, and you know it. Properly directed, Hoolihan will perforate these bulkheads and explode on the bridge, destroying the guidance system and pr
obably the whole prime computer plexus. Now look, crew, we all agreed that it had to be Hoolihan as a final resort, and this is final resort. I’m going forward now to punch in directions; excuse me, Bill—”
Sven vanished into the control room. Bill collapsed. No time now for Bill. Leaving him on the floor, I hurried to Wel's cubicle and shook the shoulders of my entranced husband. “Wel, Wel, don’t brush me off, now listen! Sven has gone bonkers, he’s getting ready to fire Hoolihan! Wel!"
“Hoolihan,” Wel muttered,-“has been deactivated.”
“Wel, do we know that?”
“Yes, we know that! Now please, my dearest love, get out!"
Distrusting him, I departed and hurried to the bridge. “Sven, for the love of—”
“—five, four, three, two, one—activation.” He pressed the button.
Nothing.
“That,” Sven declared, arising, “leaves only another kind of suicide. Mazda herself. Our booster just might drive her through these bulkheads—”
I floored him with a neck-chop. Whatever my husband was doing, probably it was futile, but at least he deserved the chance to try.
“Your friends are safely home now, Ariel,” Dhurk announced, stretching himself on his bunk. “You and your friends broke my sleep, and I won’t get back to it. So be good enough to amuse me some more, before I throw you out and hit duty station.”
Again Ariel seemed to be listening. The captain broke in: “Why don’t you forget Carr and listen to me?” Collins, always on tabletop, held up a little hand as though he were commanding the captain-giant to be silent. Surprising himself, Dhurk waited.
Turning to Dhurk, Collins soberly said: “Good sir, I am a sprite; and sprites, it seems, must listen to their masters. Mine is Prospero.”
“That would be Carr?”
“It would."
“Why Carr? I thought that Jensen was your master."
“In one sense, yes, good Captain; but remember that mastery and clarity are opposites, not necessarily do they juxtapose."
“I said, amuse; I did not say bemuse me."
“My Prospero would relish your demarches."
“The subject should be changed. So tell me, Ariel, why did you call my mission trivial?"
“Consider, Dhurk. Across all space you fly to pluck a star, and bring it to your princess with all its planets trailing in its wake. But what sky-shaking motive does she have? What humanism powers her resolve? What scientific purpose will it answer? In what way will it honor your Great Dragon? Or, for your Horn, find some political value, when he now governs all the stars nearby. Find me a value, Captain! There is none, except the serving of a woman’s whim. Our people she enslaves, just for caprice, to own a star and all its planets, thus exhibiting her power to your people. I tell you, Captain, this is trivial, a status-play, an urgency for glory, with precious little mercy hidden in it!"
Dhurk was writhing on his couch. He ground out: “I could crush you in my fist."
“If you could catch me."
“I could try. Shall I?"
“I pray you not. I hold with what I said."
“Just by the bye, Ariel—what are you doing without ai spacesuit?"
“Flying."
“And breathing?"
“No. I can’t abide your atmosphere."
‘Then why are you alive?"
“I take my chances.”
Dhurk sat up and gripped the edge of his bunk. "My amusement is flagging. What are you getting at?"
“Sir, do you find this conversation worthy?”
“Great Dragon damn it, yes; and I should not." i
“I take it that you base your mission’s worth upon the;! priestly worth of Princess Hréda."
“I do that!"
“I shudder when I think of what I know."
"What do you know, that throws you into shudder?"
“Shall I tell you?”
“Is it about Hréda?”
“Aye.”
Lashing off his couch, Dhurk cupped Collins in both hands and snarled down at him: “Before I squeeze your blood out of your veins, tell me the measure of your viciousness!”
Then, slowly, Dhurk relaxed his hands and sank back upon his couch, hand-hiding his face, while Collins poured into him the vision that Collins had withheld from all of us except Wel. So powerful was the Collins projection that it expanded back to our capsule, freezing our tactical squabble, catching us up into itself, transporting us along with Dhurk through spacetime to his planet Dhorn, depositing us with Dhurk on the museum balcony where once he had watched Hréda dancing for him. Invisibly we watched the fatefulness unfold....
31
This time it was the Horn, not Dhurk, who lolled at the rail of the museum balcony watching ineffable Hréda dancing for him through her toy and its toys: swinging on lofty spars of metal sculpture, diving with dolphin grace through the vibrant-live electronic rings of gigantic atoms, undulating on the rampant trunk of a stuffed elephantoid and then wriggling mock-terrorized on her back beneath his forever-upraised hoof, playing dead in a megalithic sarcophagus from ancient Thanosere and then arising like Amaterasu out of the sea to walk the sarcophagus-edge on her hands with legs lithely writhing aloft and tunic-skirt down over her little breasts. . . .
Alighting, Hréda turned, looked up, saw her grandfather, emitted a squeal of delight, launched herself from the floor, and floated up to his balcony. There he caught her, encircling her thighs with his left arm; he swung her aloft and around; he carried her out onto an unrailed exterior balcony at whose edge he stood holding her while they looked across an abyss through their blue atmosphere at artifically illuminated mountains beyond, and downward thousands of meters into the valley, and upward at stars.
After silence, the Horn queried low: “How is it with you, now that your lover has gone across space to fetch back your ladiolis?”
She giggled and stroked his check. “When you are here, who’d miss that stick?”
“And yet you wanted to marry him—”
“And you know why, my Grandfather. It will be best for my temple and your dynasty. But when he is away, I have you.”
They gazed upon each other; the character of their gazing was unmistakable. Then silently the Horn swept his right arm and hand across the sky toward the stars which shimmered as though they were seen from an underwater place because of the atmospheric density even far above the watchers. Obediently she surveyed the stars, adoring the stars. He pointed to a black space among stars, and he told her: “Right there, my sweet, is our star.”
“I know, Grandfather. I remember all your stories. Long long ago that invisible star was a bright shining star like the others, and it brought life and warmth to this world. But then for some reason our star grew discouraged, it flared out and collapsed into itself. It did not die, it is only sleeping, but it will not awake, the sleep is forever.”
“The star is not really asleep, my Hréda. It has only changed. It is technically invisible to us only because it is now so tiny and so distant; but its X-ray emanations do come to our eyes, and they stimulate the plants that sustain other animals and ourselves.”
“I know, Grandfather; I admire so much that you know and all that you have *done. For instance, you have spread and universalized the doctrine that you and my dear grandmother came in a spaceship to this planet, filled it with atmosphere, animated it. But of course, now that I am high priestess, I know that this planet was yours originally, and that by devious means you took possession of it.”
“Hush, Hréda. Take care that you do not leak this high secret to others—”
“Don’t worry, dear Grandfather, I am high priestess, I am faithful to religious secrets. Besides, I admire your wonderful devious cleverness as much as I admire all the other great things about you!”
“Really, darkling Hréda? You think your Gramps is clever?”
“Oh, Grandfather! Clever, clever—but fundamentally strong in your Great Dragon faith in the face of a world of bitter adv
ersaries—but oh, so clever in your faith! The way you brought all your adversaries together in your castle on a pretext of hospitality and religious debate, and then you filled your castle with atmosphere from which all the hydrogen had been removed, so that all of them suffocated there while you and your family survived in a room with good atmosphere—” “You understand that I confided this to you in absolute secrecy? You have not spoken of it?”
“Some things, Grandfather, are the private knowledge of those who count on this planet: the Horn, and the high priestess. Oho, but how you went about consolidating your conquest! hunting out all those others who did not come to your guesting, exterminating them one by one, making devoutly sure that the One True Religion of the Great Dragon would survive for your noble posterity—”
“Even to Dhurk, you have not spoken of this?”
“Dhurk? Him, ha! Least of all to him! This is a most holy mystery, fit to be comprehended only by the Horn and the high priestess. It is a lovely mystery, a heavenly tale of beauty.” The cheeks of Hréda were water-wet.
There was silence. Then the Horn spoke low: “But, Hréda, our time of loving is not forever. My body is beginning to dwindle. My own time of rest is foreseeable.”
Hréda straightened in his arms. “I understand that, dear Grandfather; and of course it was another reason for me to take Dhurk. But as of now, I do not think that you are totally debilitated.”
He murmured, “Shall we test it?”
She whispered, “Your place, or mine?”
“Yours,” he answered, swinging her around, returning into the museum, closing the door behind them. He vaulted with her into the blue fluidity, swam powerfully upward, until he paused with her on a little platform at the great door of the Holy of Holies. There they knelt with bowed heads and clasped arms between effigies of the culminative pair: the Horn and his consort, Hréda’s grandmother.