As they watched, the figure in the room down below stood up and began to move around.
Her movements were initially slow and graceful, and obviously part of a long practiced program of maneuvers that went from arm circles and leg raises to a kind of stately slow dance on the spot, the arms sweeping out and back and around behind. And then to Simona's amazement the figure bounced forward on her feet and did a perfect forward somersault hands tucked in, legs straight, head over heels and back on her feet again with her arms outstretched.
Simona felt her heart skip a beat at the indescribably fluent nature of the move. She looked to the Emperor and saw him watching intently, blind to all else.
The show continued as the mor down below performed somersaults in both directions, plus other tumbles and rolls that took her back and forth across the stone floor at a dizzying pace. Then finally she tired, drew herself up with her arms raised above her head, and came down to a resting position. A moment later she had left the room through a narrow door.
The Emperor turned to Simona.
"Well, child, what do you think?"
In the darkness Simona could not see his eyes, but his voice was husked by something akin to desire. The mor acrobat had an astonishing grace and beauty, something quite transcendent, and he had responded.
"She is amazing to see, Your Majesty."
"Isn't she? Well, here's what I want you to do. Either way it's going to be very hard. You can speak their language, can't you?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Exactly. So I want you to teach this divinely beautiful creature to speak Shashti."
Simona felt her jaw drop for a moment, but he had not noticed.
"Otherwise," he went on, "you'll have to teach me the monkey talk."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The door to the cell opened again. They never knocked, of course. Nuza looked up but remained sitting and fought to maintain a calm appearance. She succeeded. She looked away from the door and calmed her breathing and slowed her pulse. Thru would be proud of her, she was keeping an iron grip on her emotions, no longer jumping at every sound.
On the voyage it had been easier. She hadn't been alone for one thing. And for another the stone walls of this place unnerved her. Harsh sounds echoed in the passages outside the door and the armed men terrified her.
Someone came through the door. When Nuza turned to look, her eyebrows flashed up and down involuntarily. Instead of the huge, heavily armed guards a single figure, wrapped in black cloth entered. When the door shut, the figure bowed to her. The person in the black robe was scarcely any bigger than Nuza herself.
Nuza rose slowly to her feet, pushing back the wooden chair, struggling to keep her composure. What did this sinister figure portend? Was this to be her death? She wondered for the hundredth time whether they were finally going to kill her and get it over with.
To tell the truth she was tired of waiting. Death would be a release.
The black robe was pulled open, then removed, and Nuza felt her jaw drop. The figure revealed was not a man, it was undoubtedly female from the hips to the breasts, but it was no mor. It was "wo-man," as Thru had named it, or rather, her.
It was the first woman that Nuza had ever seen.
Nuza studied her carefully. The wo-man was a little taller than herself, but was not as muscular. It was strange to see a face so naked, so exposed without beard or helmet. The pale colored hair was pulled back behind the head exposing the pale skin of the forehead. The lips were thick, heavier even than those of men, and similarly reddish. The eyes seemed set too close together, the characteristic of men.
No fur. That was the thing that stood out the most in her mind. Were the full young breasts of wo-man as naked as the rest of her? Nuza felt a twinge of something like competitiveness for a moment. Then she felt chagrin at such pettiness.
The wo-man was smiling, she carried no weapon. Nuza concluded that she was not about to die.
"D'thaam," said the wo-man quite clearly. "Greetings, my name is Simona," she continued in a slightly halting speech, the tongue of the Land.
Nuza had to sit down again to absorb this. Not since she had been torn from her companions on the ship had she heard the sweet sounds of the tongue of the Land. All around her had been nothing but the harsh babble of Shasht.
The wo-man came closer and reached out. Nuza gave a little shriek and sat farther back.
"I will not hurt you," said the wo-man.
Nuza knew that either she was hearing this for real or she was losing her mind at last. This was an incredible hallucination if that's what it was.
At times during the lonely days of the long voyage, she had thought she was falling into insanity, but nothing had been quite so "real" as this.
"No, really, do not be afraid. I am a friend. Listen."
It was astonishing. Nuza had her hands over her mouth. A friend? What could this mean?
The woman came closer.
"Listen to me please, I speak some of your language. You understand me, yes?"
Nuza could not immediately formulate a response to this. She still wondered if she was hallucinating, or dreaming, and might soon wake up. Since that dread moment when she'd first been taken captive, all she had known was the harsh terror of men. And now this wo-man spoke the sweet language of the Land. The accent was strange, but the meanings could be heard clearly. "You understand me? I think you understand. I know I speak the right words. I know because I was taught by a mot who befriended me. His name was Thru Gillo."
Nuza jerked up with a start. "Thru?" she whispered.
"Yes, Thru Gillo. Who has scars on face."
Nuza felt a little scream escape her lips.
"You know Thru?"
Simona's face shook.
"Yes, indeed. Thru Gillo saved my life. He came to rescue me when I first landed."
Nuza's eyes widened again. "Thru told me about you. You are Sim-o-na. I am Nuza."
Simona shook her head in amazement. By some inexplicable twist of fate, she had found Nuza, lost in Shasht, just as Thru had found her, when she was lost in the Land.
"By the Pure Skin of God, this is amazing..." she whispered in Shashti. Nuza's big bushy eyebrows rose up and down.
"You are Nuza?" She went back to the tongue of the Land. It was coming back to her, but there were still lapses and things she'd forgotten.
"Thru told me that he loved you."
"I love Thru. We met before..." Nuza fell silent. How could she tell wo-man what she had seen? How could she describe the horror perpetrated by Man? She hesitated, then said simply, "Thru may be dead. He did not come back from battle. But his body was never found, so it is also possible he was captured. We will probably never know."
Both of them knew the likely fate of prisoners in the hands of men. Simona pressed her hands to her mouth and sobbed.
"They call this war a holy war," she ground out. "They fight for the Great God. But I cannot imagine any true god wanting the death of Thru Gillo."
Nuza's gaze had hardened. "I have seen the works of your Great God."
The piles of skulls left on the dock at Bilauk would never leave her. She still woke up screaming.
Simona could not meet the mor's eyes.
"I hate what my people have done. I feel shame every time I think of it. I hate the Great God, and I give him no worship."
Nuza's gaze softened slightly.
"You are not like Man."
"I belong to them, but I do not think like them."
"Yes, I think I understand. You are wo-man, Thru told me."
Simona tried not to cringe as memories arose. The horrible memory of those platters of meat was hard to dismiss. How could she confess to Nuza, that her first introduction to the folk of the Land was when she ate rib chops cut from their flesh.
"I have been sent by our..." Simona searched her memory, there was no word for Emperor in the language Thru had taught her. "Our Great King," she concluded. "He wants me to speak with you."
"Well, let me explain. The Emperor rules by the terror his reputation inspires, do you understand?"
"Everyone fears him."
"But he is more than that. I have spoken many times with him. He is wise, and he wants to end the war in the Land."
Nuza's eyebrows flashed up and down again. "Thanks to the Spirit for this! When?"
"It is not quite as simple as that. The Emperor is not the sole power here. And the colony is far away. It will take time for him to bring it under control. The priests will oppose him when they discover his plans, and the priests have great power still. Indeed I would hardly dare say these words to you in my own tongue in case they were heard by an agent of the priests."
Nuza's quick mind had jumped ahead.
"What do they want of me? How can I help?"
"They want you to learn the language of Men."
Nuza was shocked.
"After killing my people, after burning our cities, after burning my family's home, after killing my love, my Thru. Now one of them wants me to learn their harsh, bullying tongue?"
"Yes."
"I will not."
"The Emperor has fallen in love with your beauty, Nuza. I have seen him. He comes to watch you when you exercise. I think he is obsessed."
"Watched me?" Nuza was angered further. "Ah, in the dark space, where there is a gallery. I thought I saw a face there once."
"It would have been him."
"Why does he not show himself? Why does he hide in the shadow?"
"He does not want anyone to know what he does. The priests would kill you if they could."
"Why should I entertain him?"
"Because he will help your people."
"Then, I will continue. But were it not for that, I would not."
—|—
Across the great city, down near the harbor, Filek Biswas opened the door of the carriage as it came to a halt at the hospital gate. It was cold, the fifth day of Ribrack. He wore his winter cloak and stout boots. Living way out in the imperial city had lengthened his trip to the hospital enormously. His walk from West Court had only been a few blocks; now he had to ride four miles down the long avenue.
He knocked and the doors opened. He was ushered in by Spinx. Removing his cloak in the sudden warmth Filek enjoyed the familiar smells of alcohol spirit, of turpentine and hot brine, the sounds of distant trolleys thundering along stone corridors. It was all like home to him. His spirits rose at once. He who had been cast into exile had returned in triumph to resume his life here.
He hurried up the broad stone staircase, accepting greetings from surgeons and administrators as he passed. On the third floor he entered his own realm. He had taken over one whole end of the building. He nodded to an assistant in the outer office, waved to Balbu, who was overseeing the carpenters working on the project, and slid into his private office then closed the door.
This was not his old office, all cramped and filled with boxes of papers. He'd left that and his old position in the hands of Mushuq Balembo, a young relative of Klegg's. This new office was twice the size and had a desk and a wide table with a built-in drain for autopsies and dissections.
Old Klegg had been overjoyed that Filek had left Mushuq in charge, and Filek had made sure that no corruption was going on with the hospital accounts. Mushuq, it turned out, was a scrupulous young man.
Filek hung his cloak on a hook, put on a jacket he kept for indoor wear, and sat down at the desk to look at the new drawings. New lenses were arriving every day from the grinders. Once polished, they were being tested by Balbu and his crew.
Together they were exploring Filek's first great idea, the micro-scope. Two or even three lenses of just the right focal point and magnifying power were being combined in a tube a foot long. The lenses had to be adjustable, but when tuned correctly and looked at through one end of the tube, they produced an enormous magnification of anything placed under the lens. Already they'd made astonishing progress. They saw things now that were completely invisible to the naked eye. Hints of tiny life-forms could be seen.
Someone knocked on the door.
It was Mushuq.
"Ah, Mushuq, how are things?"
"Very good, Surgeon Biswas. I just wanted to let you know that I have received an imperial drawdown of four thousand silver pieces."
"Excellent news. Come in, come in. I want to show you this."
Filek indicated the drawings.
"See, we are going to use two different lenses to make a superior lens, and with that we will be able to see very small things. Very small."
Mushuq understood. Although he knew the priests opposed the research, he understood that Filek was doing something very important—and with the Emperor's support.
"Have you seen the 'small seed' that you spoke of?"
"Not yet, but we have seen things that are not ordinarily visible. It is a fantastically complicated world, the world of the very small. I think we are on the verge of great discoveries."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Within moments of the ship coming to rest, their peaceful, if tedious, existence came to an end. The doors were flung open, and the men with shaved heads painted red cracked whips and screamed at the top of their lungs.
Thru got to his feet without his coat and had to reach down at the last moment to pick it up. A Red Top seized his arm, jerking him forward.
"Move, animal!" He brandished a short whip.
Thru held his ground and pulled his arm free with a stare into the man's eyes. The Red Top looked down, then screamed again and cracked his whip on the wall. Thru shrugged and turned to follow the others out of the hold.
Blinking against the bright sun, shivering in the cold air he came up on deck.
"What?" muttered Juf Goost, "they're calling us, 'animals'?"
Thru patted Juf on the shoulder. Good old Goost, always seeing the absurd in the presence of the terrifying.
The scene before them both amazed and appalled them. A great cityscape of stone was filled with tens of thousands of people. The docks, the streets behind were jammed solid. Every rooftop, every window, every balcony was packed. Apparently there was enormous curiosity about this ship's cargo.
At the sight of the captive monkeys on the deck, the huge crowd broke into a roar that broke over them like surf. Fanatic groups began chanting short slogans over and over. For the small group of captives, the prospect was dismal.
"By the Spirit, they make a lot of noise," said Juf.
"And I'm cold," muttered Ter-Saab.
No one else could even speak. The dense hatred roared unceasingly. Thru heard a group to their left chanting simply "Kill them, kill them, kill them, kill them," over and over.
And above it all loomed the immense buildings of white stone. Thru had never seen structures so huge. Pillars as tall as trees held up vast pediments. Walls of white stone rose on every side. Every window was crammed with black gesticulating figures.
Then the whips cracked over them again, and the Red Tops screamed threats and insults. Thru heard the words clearly. The mots were the damned, the condemned, the abomination, the thing that could not be allowed to exist. The Great God would eat them. On the morrow he would eat their hearts!
Thru shivered inside. It was hard to be the focus of such hate. He stared at the huge throngs and realized that the population of all Dronned would be lost in this great mass like a drop in a barrel.
The Red Tops drove them onto the ramp leading down to the dockside. Now the noise reached a new crescendo.
The hordes surged forward and had to be held back by the Black Tops, enormous men who usually guarded the high priests. The movement forward of thousands of men with hate in their eyes was terrifying. The mots quailed, hesitant to move. Red Tops cursed and struck them with whips. Still they stood there, frozen.
And then Thru broke the spell by walking down the lane opened in the mob by the bullnecked Red Tops. A squad of drummers fell in behind them and began to
hammer out a steady roar of noise. The crowds redoubled their screaming. Only men, nothing but men; no females existed in the world of Shasht, or so it seemed.
They walked beneath the giant buildings while the crowds chanted phrases about blood and hate over and over. Again and again Thru heard the phrase "He will eat your heart!"
They turned past a ten-story building and entered a wider space. At the far end it opened onto an avenue that ran straight out to a vast shape, a hulking pyramid that loomed above the city like a great spider of stone.
Step by step they walked closer to the pyramid, a line of small figures bent before a frenzied gale of insults. Thundering drummers followed and behind them a wedge of Red Tops lead the huge crowd from the dockside.
As they drew closer, the sheer bulk of the pyramid weakened their spirits. It was enormous, dominating even the great buildings of the city itself. Every step forward was a step toward certain death, for the pyramid held the altar where their hearts would be torn from their bodies.
As they approached the steps leading up to the pyramid the pressure became too much for Jev Turn and Jev Ummim, who both suddenly dropped to their hands and knees and rolled over on the stone, weeping.
The line was forced to halt. The Red Tops shrieked invective and cracked their whips.
The roaring crowds worked to unman the victims, to lead them to beg for life as castrates, anything but death on the altar. By the time they were killed, the captives were supposed to have lost their own will. By becoming unmanned they would thus leave their very souls behind in the hands of the priests of Shasht.
The two Jevs were pulled back to their feet and beaten some more. They were lost to the terror, their brains fogged by the overpowering fear, their eyes rolling up into their heads. Thru pushed aside the Red Tops and leaned forward to embrace them.
For this he was struck with the whips, too. Juf Goost looked around with defiance in his eyes.
"Now would be a good time to sing, I think," said Thru.
Juf was quick to try a note. It could barely be heard above the snarl of the mob. Ter-Saab came in, then Thru and the rest of them.
The Shasht War Page 20