by John Norman
“But he is a Matok,” said one.
“That is true,” said the other.
I was glad that the tunic I wore was not of the Ubar’s purple which would proclaim me as a slave of Priest-Kings.
“Perhaps if you are very zealous,” said one, “you can become a Mul.”
“Yes,” said the other, “then you would be not only in the Nest but of the Nest.”
I did not respond.
“That is best,” said one.
“Yes,” said the other.
I leaned back against the portal of the Hall of Processing, my eyes closed, and took several slow, deep breaths.
“You have been assigned quarters,” said one of the two slaves, “a case in the chamber of Misk.”
I opened my eyes.
“We will take you there,” said the other.
I looked at them blankly. “A case?” I asked.
“He is not well,” said one of the slaves.
“It is quite confortable,” said the other, “with fungus and water.”
I closed my eyes again and shook my head. I could feel them gently take my arms and I accompanied them slowly down the hall.
“You will feel much better,” said one of them, “when you have had a bit of fungus.”
“Yes,” said the other.
***
It is not hard to get used to Mul-Fungus, for it has almost no taste, being an extremely bland, pale, whitish, fibrous vegetablelike matter. I know of no one who is moved much in one direction or the other by its taste. Even the Muls, many of whom have been bred in the Nest, do not particularly like it, nor despise it. It is eaten with much the same lack of attention that we normally breathe air.
Muls feed four times a day. In the first meal, Mul-Fungus is ground and mixed with water, forming a porridge of sorts; for the second meal it is chopped into rough two-inch cubes; for the third meal it is minced with Mul-Pellets and served as a sort of cold hash; the Mul-Pellets are undoubtedly some type of dietary supplement; at the final meal Mul-Fungus is pressed into a large, flat cake and sprinkled with a few grains of salt.
Misk told me, and I believe him, that Muls had occasionally slain one another for a handful of salt.
The Mul-Fungus, as far as I can tell, is not much different from the fungus, raised under ideal conditions from specially selected spores, which graces the feed troughs of the Priest – Kings themselves, a tiny sample of which was once given me by Misk. It was perhaps a bit less coarse than Mul-Fungus. Misk was much annoyed that I could not detect the difference.
I was much annoyed when I found out later that the major difference between high-quality fungus and the lower-grade Mul-Fungus was simply the smell. I was in the Nest, incidentally, for more than five weeks before I could even vaguely detect the odour difference which seemed so significant to Misk. And then it did not strike me as being better or worse than that of the low-grade Mul-Fungus.
The longer I stayed in the Nest the more acute became my sense of smell, and it was an embarrassing revelation to me to discover how unaware I had become of these varied, rich sensory cues so abundantly available in my environment. I was given a translator by Misk and I would utter Gorean expressions into it and then wait for the translation into the language of the Priest-Kings, and in this way, after a timw, I became capable of recognising numerous meaningful odours. The first odour I came to recognise was Misk’s name, and it was delightful to discover, as I became more practiced and sensitive, that the odour was the same as his own.
One of the things I did was run the translator over the red plastic tunic I had been issued and listen to the information which had been recorded on it. There was not much save my name and city, that I was a Matok under the supervision of Misk, that I had no record-scars and that I might be dangerous.
I smiled at the latter caution.
I did not even have a sword, and I was sure that, in any battle with Priest-Kings, I would constitute but a moment’s work for their fierce mandibles and the bladed, hornlike projections on their forelegs.
The case which I was to occupy in Misk’s chamber was not as bad as I had anticipated.
Indeed, it seemed to me far more luxurious than the appointments in Misk’s own chamber, which seemed utterly bare except for the feed trough and numerous compartments, dials, switches and plugs mounted in one wall. The Priest-Kings eat and sleep standing and never lie down, except perhaps it be to die.
The bareness of Misk’s chambers was, however, as it turned out, only an apparent bareness to a visually oriented organism such as myself. Actually the walls, ceilings and floor were covered with what, to a Priest-King, were excruciatingly beautiful scent-patterns. Indeed, Misk informed me that the patterns in his chamber had been laid down by some of the greatest artists in the Nest.
My case was a transparent plastic cube of perhaps eight feet square, with ventilation holes and a sliding plastic door. There was no lock on the door and thus I could come and go as I pleased.
Inside the cube there were canisters of Mul-Fungus, a bowl, a ladle, a wooden-bladed Fungus-Knife; a wooden-headed Fungus – Mallet; a convenient tube of Mul-Pellets, which discharged its contents one at a time following my depressing a lever in the bottom of the tube; and a large, inverted jar of water, by means of which an attached, somewhat shallow, watering pan was kept filled.
In one corner of the case there was a large, circular padding a few inches deep of soft, rough-cut, reddish moss which was not uncomfortable and was changed daily.
Adjoining the cube, reached from the cube by sliding plastic panels, were a lavatory facility and a washing-booth.
The washing-booth was remarkably like the showers with which we are familiar except that one may not regulate the flow of fluid. One turns on the fluid by stepping into the booth and its amount and temperature are controlled automatically. I had naturally supposed the fluid to be simply water which it closely resembled in appearance, and once had tried to fill my bowl for the morning meal there, rather than ladling the water out of the water pan. Choking, my mouth burning, I spat it out in the booth.
“It is fortunate,” said Misk, “that you did not swallow it for the washing fluid contains a cleansing additive that is highly toxic to human physiology.”
Misk and I got on rather well together after a few small initial frictions, particularly having to do with the salt ration and the number of times a day the washing-booth was to be used. If I had been a Mul I would have received a record – scar for each day on which I had not washed completely twelve times. Washing-booths, incidentally, are found in all Mul – cases and often, for convenience, along the tunnels and in public places, such as plazas, shaving-parlours, pellet – dispensaries, and fungus commissaries. Since I was a Matok I insisted that I should be exempted from the Duty of the Twelve Joys, as it is known. In the beginning I held out for one shower a day as quite sufficient but poor Misk seemed so upset that I agreed to up my proposal to two. He would still hear nothing of this and seemed firm that I should not fall below ten. At last, feeling that I perhaps owed something to Misk’s acceptance of me in his chamber, I suggested a compromise at five, and, for an extra salt packet, six on alternate days. At last Misk threw in two extra salt packets a day and I agreed to six washings. He himself, of course, did not use a washing-booth but groomed and cleaned himself in the age-old fashion of Priest-Kings, with his cleaning hooks and mouth. Occasionally after we got to know one another better, he would even allow me to groom him, and the first time he allowed me, with the small grooming fork used by favoured Muls, to comb his antennae I knew that he trusted me, and liked me, though for what reason I could not tell.
I myself grew rather fond of Misk.
“Did you know,” said Misk once to me, “that humans are among the most intelligent of the lower orders?”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said.
Misk was quiet and his antennae waved nostalgically.
“I once had a pet Mul,” he said.
I looked at
my case.
“No,” said Misk, “when a pet Mul dies the case is always destroyed, lest there be contamination.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“It was a small female,” said Misk. “It was slain by Sarm.”
I felt a tension in the foreleg of Misk which I was grooming as though it were involuntarily prepared to invert, bringing out the bladelike projection.
“Why?” I asked.
Misk said nothing for a long time, and then he dejectedly lowered his head, delicately extending his antennae to me for grooming. After I had combed them for a bit, I sensed he was ready to speak.
“It was my fault,” said Misk. “She wanted to let the threadlike growths on her head emerge, for she was not bred in the Nest.” Misk’s voice came from the translator as consecutively and mechanically as ever, but his whole body trembled. I removed the grooming fork from his antennae in order that the sensory hairs not be injured. “I was indulgent,” said Misk, straightening up so that his long body now loomed over me, inclined forward slightly from the vertical in the characteristic stance of Priest-Kings. “So that it was actually I who killed her.”
“I think not,” I said. “You tried to be kind.”
“And it occurred on the day on which she saved my life,” said Misk.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“I was on an errand for Sarm,” said Misk, “which took me to unfrequented tunnels and for company I took the girl with me.
We came upon a Golden Beetle though none had ever been seen in that place and I wanted to go to the Beetle and I put my head down and approached it but the girl seized my antennae and dragged me away, thus saving my life.”
Misk lowered his head again and extended his antennae for grooming.
“The pain was excruciating,” said Misk, “and I could not but follow her in spite of the fact that I wanted to go to the Golden Beetle. In an Ahn of course I no longer wanted to go to the Beetle and I knew then she had saved my life. It was the same day that Sarm ordered her given five record-scars for the growths on her head and had her destroyed.”
“Is it always five record-scars for such an offense?” I asked.
“No,” said Misk. “I do not know why Sarm acted as he did.”
“It seems to me,” I said, “that you should not blame yourself for the girl’s death, but Sarm.”
“No,” said Misk. “I was too indulgent.”
“Is it not possible,” I asked, “that Sarm wished you to die by the Golden Beetle?”
“Of course,” said Misk. “It was undoubtedly his intention.”
I puzzled to myself why Sarm might want Misk to be killed. Undoubtedly there was some type of rivalry or political division between them. To my human mind, used to the cruelties with which selfish men can implement their schemes, I saw nothing incomprehensible in the fact that Sarm would have attempted to engineer Misk’s death. I would learn later however that this simple fact was indeed almost incomprehensible to Priest-Kings, and that Misk, though he readily accepted it as a fact in his mind, could not bring himself, so to speak, in the furthest reaches of his heart to acknowledge it as true, for were not both he and Sarm of the Nest, and would not such an action be a violation of Nest Trust?
“Sarm is the First Born,” said Misk, “whereas I am the Fifth Born. The first five born of the Mother are the High Council of the Nest. The Second, Third and Fourth Born, in the long ages, have, one by one, succumbed to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle. Only Sarm and I are left of the Five.”
“Then,” I suggested, “he wants you to die so that he will be the only remaining member of the Council and thus have absolute power.”
“The Mother is greater than he,” said Misk.
“Still,” I suggested, “his power would be considerably augmented.”
Misk looked at me and his antennae had a certain lack of resilience and the golden hairs had seemed to lose some of their sheen.
“You are sad,” I said.
Misk bent down until his long body was horizontal and then inclined downward yet more towards me. He laid his antennae gently on my shoulders, almost as though a man might have put his hands on them.
“Youmust not understand these things,” said Misk, “in terms of what you know of men. It is different.”
“It seems no different to me,” I said.
“These things,” said Misk, “are deeper and greater than you know, than you can now understand.”
“They seem simple enough to me,” I remarked.
“No,” said Misk. “You do not understand.” Misk’s antennae pressed a bit on my shoulders. “But you will understand,” he said.
The Priest-King then straightened and stalked to my case. With his two forelegs he gently lifted it and moved it aside.
The ease with which he did this astonished me for I am sure its weight must have been several pounds. Beneath the case I saw a flat stone with a recessed ring. Misk bent down and lifted this ring.
“I dug this chamber myself,” he said, “and day by day over the lifetimes of many Muls I took a bit of rock dust away and scattered it here and there unobserved in the tunnels.”
I looked down into the cavern which was now revealed.
“I requisitioned as little as possible,” you see,” said Misk.
“Even the portal must be moved by mechanical force.”
He then went to a compartment in the wall and withdrew a slender black rod. He broke the end of the rod off and it began to burn with a bluish flame.
“This is a Mul-Torch,” said Misk, “used by Muls who raise fungus in darkened chambers. You will need it to see.”
I knew that the Priest-King had no need of the torch.
“Please,” said Misk, gesturing toward the opening.
Chapter Fifteen
IN THE SECRET CHAMBER
Holding the slender Mul-Torch over my head I peered into the cavern now revealed in the floor of Misk’s chamber. From a ring on the underside of the floor, the ceiling of the chamber, there dangled a knotted rope.
There seemed to be very little heat from the bluish flame of the Mul-Torch but, considering the size of the flame, a surprising amount of light.
“The workers of the Fungus-Trays,” said Misk, “break off both ends of the torch and climb about on the trays with the torch in their teeth.”
I had no mind to do this, but I did grasp the torch in my teeth with one end lit and, hand over hand, lower myself down the knotted rope.
One side of my face began to sweat. I closed my right eye.
A circle of eerie, blue, descending light flickered on the walls of the passage down which I lowered myself. The walls a few feet below the level of Misk’s compartment became damp.
The temperature fell several degrees. I could see the discolourations of slime molds, probably white, but seeming blue in the light, on the walls. I sensed a film of moisture forming on the plastic of my tunic. Here and there a trickle of water traced its dark pattern downward to the floor where it crept along the wall and, continuing its journey, disappeared into one crevice or another.
When I arrived at the bottom of the rope, some forty feet below, I held the torch over my head and found myself in a bare, simple chamber.
Looking up I saw Misk, disdaining the rope, bend himself backwards through the aperture in the ceiling and, step by dainty step, walk across the ceiling upside down and then back himself nimbly down the side of the wall.
In a moment he stood beside me.
“You must never speak of what I am going to show you,” said Misk.
I said nothing.
Misk hesitated.
“Let there be Nest Trust between us,” I said.
“But you are not of the Nest,” said Misk.
“Nonetheless,” I said, “let there be Nest Trust between us.”
“Very well,” said Misk, and he bent forward, extending his antennae towards me.
I wondered for a moment what was to be done but then it seem
ed I sensed what he wanted. I thrust the torch I carried into a crevice in the wall and, standing before Misk, I raised my arms over my head, extending them towards him.
With extreme gentleness, almost tenderness, the Priest-King touched the palms of my hands with his antennae.
“Let there be Nest Trust between us.”
It was the nearest I could come to locking antennae.
***
Briskly Misk straightened up.
“Somewhere here,” he said, “but unscented and toward the floor, where a Priest-King would not be likely to find it, is a small knob which will look much like a pebble. Find this knob and twist it.”
It was but a moment’s work to locate the knob of which he spoke though I gathered from what he said that it might have been well concealed from the typical sensory awareness of a Priest-King.
I turned the knob and a portion of the wall swung back.
“Enter,” said Misk, and I did so.
Scarcely were we inside when Misk touched a button I could not see several feet over my head and the door swung smoothly closed.
The only light in the chamber was from my bluish torch.
I gazed about myself with wonder.
The room was apparently large, for portions of it were lost in the shadows from the torch. What I could see suggested paneling and instrumentation, banks of scent-needles and guages, numerous tiered decks of wiring and copper plating. There were on one side of the room, racks of scent-tapes, some of which were spinning slowly, unwinding their tapes through slowly rotating translucent, glowing spheres. These spheres in turn were connected by slender, woven cables of wire to a large, heavy boxlike assembly, made of steel and rather squarish, which was set on wheels. In front of this assembly, one by one, thin metal disks would snap into place, a light would flash as some energy transaction occurred, and then the disk would snap aside, immediately to be replaced by another. Eight wires led from this box into the body of a Priest-King which lay on its back, inert, in the centre of the room on a moss-softened stone table.