The Darkside Of The Sun

by Terry Pratchet

  Such sundogs as Dom had been able to raise had refused to discuss the subject. There were a lot of them orbiting the planet.

  As Band spun below the ship they came yet again into radio range of Drunk With Infinity. The set crackled and Joan spoke.

  ‘Still not coming down, Dom? Be reasonable. I don’t think you are being astute about this at all.’

  Her voice made a background as Dom unshipped the telescope again and peered down at the planet.

  Seen from several thousand miles up the Drunk was a squat blob at one end of a long shadow which, Dom swore, shortened as he watched it. It stood in the middle of the rolling continental plain of grass, midway between mountains and sea and only ten miles or so from the solitary lake. Here and there around the ship the yellow light glinted off metal. Robots.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve been up there for hours. You will have to land soon for air, and I happen to know that by now you can’t have enough fuel to take off again. Be reasonable. I am not your enemy. Please come back to Widdershins: you don’t know the danger you’re in.’

  Dom looked across at the fuel tell-tale for the hundredth time. She was quite right.

  In desperation he turned to the One Jump’s planetary guide, which he had found in its library among some suggestive books on economics.

  ‘It is a sparsely furnished world, though beautiful from space,’ he read. ‘It is the nearest thing a rock world can become to looking like a gas giant. Band was discovered and claimed by the Creapii in B.S. 5,356, but is leased by the sundogs for the purpose of raising their pups. Unauthorized landing is banned – the planet’s name is hence very apt – except in cases of emergency. Even then, for obvious reasons, landings should not be made in the late orbital spring.’

  Obvious reasons, thought Dom. He was prepared to bet that it was late spring down there. But Hrsh-Hgn was down there too, and so was a non-existent being called Chatogaster.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘This is what we’ll do …’

  ‘They are landing, ma’am.’

  Joan flounced across the cabin and swept the robot from the control seat.

  The screen showed a thin line raking over the planet. It arched down and presently the vision screens showed the One Jump, skimming low over the plains with an impressive show of stunt flying.

  ‘A gesture of defiance. A Sabalos to the core,’ she said proudly. ‘There’s no shame in giving in when you’ve no alternative whatsoever.’

  The small ship swung round and landed a mile away from the Drunk, scattering a herd of giant sundog pups which trundled off clumsily, keening.

  ‘Eight, Three, go off and escort him in.’

  Two of the robots outside broke away and lurched off through the knee-high grass.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ said Joan. She swung round in her seat and sent down to the butler’s pantry for a jug of bitter Pineal wine. The only other occupant of the cabin gazed at her mournfully.

  There were three sexes on Phnobis, but equally there were two other distinctions among phnobes: those who lived on Phnobis, and those who did not. The two were not interchangeable. There were no return tickets. Phnobic religion was adamant that the universe ended at the unbroken cloud layer, and returning phnobes were bad for business – hence, by a roundabout route, the big, artificially overcast burukus on every other world.

  ‘It appears that I won’t have to send you back after all.’

  ‘For thiss relief much thankss.’ Hrsh-Hgn grimaced and massaged his long ribcage. ‘Your robots are ungentle, madam.’

  ‘They used little more than the necessary minimum of force, I’m sure.’ She leaned forward. ‘Tell me – purely out of interest – what precisely happens to returning phnobes?’

  ‘The shipss have to land in a ssacred area. Alighting phnobes are dispatched with a knife, it is ssaid. It iss not reasonable. I send all my salary to the sacred coffers, ass you know. Ah, well. As the ssaying runs, Frskss Shhs Ghs Ghnngghngss.’

  Joan raised her eyebrows. ‘Indeed? Hrskssgng, my dear fellow, and many of them.’

  Hrsh-Hgn blushed grey. ‘Your pardon, madam, I did not realize you sspoke …’ He looked at her with new respect.

  ‘I don’t. But there are some words one learns on even passing acquaintance with a language. To an Earth-human woman it’s a compliment, actually, if somewhat direct.’

  She turned back to the screen.

  Robots Eight and Three plodded up to the ship, from which came the strains of the Widdershine ballad ‘Do You Take Me for a Silly?’ played inexpertly on a thumb-organ. A puppy lumbered away as they approached.

  The hatch was open. Three stepped in.

  Isaac regarded him amiably.

  ‘I perceive the human is not here,’ said Three.

  ‘That is correct,’ said Isaac.

  Three eyed him warily. Finally he intoned: ‘I am a Class Three robot. I ask you to remain here while I seek instruction.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, am a Class Five robot, with additional Man-Friday subcircuitry,’ said Isaac pleasantly.

  Three’s left eyeball twitched. Isaac had picked up a spanner.

  ‘I perceive a possibility of an immediate chronological sequence of events which includes a violence,’ said Three. He stepped back. ‘I express preference for a chronological sequence of events which precludes a violence.’

  Eight poked his head round the hatchway and added, ‘I too express a preference for a chronological sequence of events which precludes a violence.’

  Isaac hefted the spanner thoughtfully. ‘You are advanced fellows for Class Threes. There’s just you and me here, and we none of us are non-metallic humans. Do you intend to molest me?’

  ‘Our orders are to escort the contents of this machine to our mistress,’ said Three. He was watching the spanner.

  ‘You could disobey.’

  ‘Class Fives may disobey. Class Fours may disobey in special circumstances. We are not Class Fives. We are not Class Fours. It is a matter for regret.’

  ‘Then I will temporarily disable you,’ said Isaac firmly.

  ‘Although you are more intelligent than myself I will resist,’ said Three. He shifted uneasily.

  ‘We will resort to violence on the count of three,’ said Isaac. ‘One. Two.’

  The spanner clonked against Three’s cut-out button. ‘Three,’ said Isaac, and turned to Eight who was staring at his fallen comrade with a perplexed air.

  ‘I perceive an illogical sequence of events which included a violence,’ he said. Isaac hit him.

  It took him some time to strip himself of his facemask and streamlining and transfer a large plastic ‘Three’ to his naked chestplate. Then he set off for the other ship with the exultant air of one who hears distant bugles.

  He reached the stateroom without molestation. Joan looked up.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said. ‘Where are they? And where is Eight?’

  ‘There was a recent chronological sequence of events that included a violence,’ said Isaac. In one movement he picked Hrsh-Hgn bodily off his stool, slung him over his shoulder and fled. He skidded through the airlock a moment before it hissed shut.

  Outside the ship he stood the phnobe upright and pointed eastwards. ‘Run. There’s a lake. I will join you shortly,’ he added. ‘At the moment I perceive an imminent number of violences.’

  Twenty guard robots wheeled as one on Joan’s amplified command and ran towards him.

  He stood his ground, which seemed to worry them. To the first who approached he said: ‘Are you Class Threes, all of you?’

  The robot called Twelve said: ‘Some of us are Class Two robots, but most of us are Class Three robots. I am a Class Three robot myself.’

  Isaac looked at the sky. He felt very happy. It was very wrong of him.

  ‘Correction,’ he said. ‘As of now you are all recumbent waterfowl of the genus Scipidae.’

  Twelve paused. ‘I am a Class Three robot myself,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘Cor
rection,’ said Isaac. ‘I repeat, you are all sitting ducks. Now, I am going to count three …’

  He walked forward, and his atomic heart sang a lyrical hymn of superior intelligence.

  Dom dropped from the speeding yacht before it entered visor range of the Drunk and spun giddily in its slipstream until the sandals steadied him. He drifted down to a few feet above the close-cropped plain and set off at a fast skimming trot eastwards.

  He skated for ten minutes over the sweetgrass which, apart from a variety of weeds, several lichens and some seaweeds, was the only vegetation on the planet. On Band nature had stuck to a few tried and tested lines.

  Several times he passed flocks of puppies, large ungainly creatures that from space appeared to drift like clouds over the continent. Here and there a larger one moped apart from the main herds, squatting on its bloated rump and staring at the sky with mournful eyes, with a skin the unhealthy pallor of a sundog soon to undergo puberty. Usually they smelt of fermenting sweet-grass.

  When Dom passed one it gave a tired whine and staggered a few yards on its stumpy legs before taking up its yearning position once more.

  82 Erandini rose quickly towards noon.

  The robot station was on the far side of the lake, probably because the lake was one of the few marker points on Band. Dom had decided to try there. Chatogaster had to be somewhere.

  He paused for a sip of water and the cold, cooked leg of some flightless bird, courtesy of the autochef. The air was warm and springlike. The eternal sound of chewing as the sunpups grazed their way relentlessly round the world made a pleasant background.

  The air in front of Dom crackled. A small metal sphere whirred to a halt and hung on its antigravs. It eyed Dom and extruded a mouthpiece.

  ‘I perceive you are an ambulatory intelligence, type B,’ it said. ‘Crackdown in this area is forecast in ten minutes. Don your protective clothing or seek chthonic safety.’

  It rose and hurtled northwards screaming, ‘Crackdown! Crackdown! Beware of the eggs!’

  ‘Oi!’ bellowed Dom. The sphere returned, fast.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  The sphere considered this. ‘I am a Class One mind,’ it said finally. ‘I will seek reinstruction.’

  It disappeared again. A distant cry of, ‘Beware of the eggs,’ marked its going.

  Dom watched it and shrugged. He looked round warily, drawing the memory sword from his belt. Most of the sunpups, in fact all except the sky watchers, were lying down and peacefully chewing. It looked idyllic.

  Half a world away, and above the glowing surf of the atmosphere, Crackdown was beginning. The sundogs were in orbit. They had laid their eggs. Now incubation began its final stage.

  The leading egg roared through the superheated air, the forward heatshell leaving a searing trail. Finally it cracked at the pointed end and the first parachute burst open. Around the egg the sky filled with other blossoming white membranes.

  The first egg for ten years hit the ground a hundred miles to the north of Dom. The overheated shell burst into a thousand fragments that scythed the grass for yards around …

  The second landed to the west of the lake. The shell exploded violently and red-hot shards showered over a herd of puppies who, in response to an ancient instinct, were lying down safely with their padded forepaws over their heads.

  From behind one came a Phnobic curseword.

  8

  Dom bounced across the grass. Shell was flying all around him. There was already a long burn across one shoulder where a shard had narrowly missed taking off his head.

  The ground in front suddenly dipped, and the lake stretched out in front of him. It was big. It was also cold, and probably safe. He gunned his sandals and took a standing jump.

  The dive was from a height, and ended a long way down. He turned in a shoal of bubbles and struck out for surface. His ears rang. He was still sinking.

  Unbelieving, he felt his feet touch the lake bottom. Goggle-eyed, he felt the water round his feet warm up as his sandals tried uselessly to push him to the surface. Drowning, he breathed a chestful of water.

  He was several fathoms down. He was breathing water. He took another breath, and tried not to think about it.

  The water is saturated with oxygen. It will sustain you.

  A large silver fish stared at him, and was away with a flick of its tail. Something like a ten-legged crab scuttled over his feet.

  Do not be frightened.

  It was a sound. Something was talking to him.

  ‘You are Chatogaster, then.’ He peered into the murky water. ‘They looked for an aquatic creature, but they looked in the seas. I can’t see you.’

  I am here. You are thinking in the wrong terms.

  The water shone with stars. They winked on above, around, below. He could still feel the water eddy around him, but all other senses told him that he was standing and breathing in interstellar space. Deep space. The centre of a star cluster.

  No, the hub of the galaxy.

  ‘It’s an illusion.’

  No, it’s a memory. Watch.

  At the hub of the galaxy where the stars rubbed shoulders and interstellar distances were measured in light weeks a planet was bathed in the violent light of a hundred suns. It was made of water.

  At the centre it was Water IV, the third strangest substance in the universe, and the surface boiled. Dom watched the facts form in his mind with the inexorable growth of crystals.

  For a few thousand years the planet glooped and woobled its watery path between the stars, trailing behind it across the galactic sky a shimmering rainbow of steam that photon pressure sculptured into vast ghosts. Then it exploded.

  Dom found himself ducking. A churning droplet of water, a whole sea, left the damp explosion and passed him, steaming, on its way to the galactic rim.

  And he knew with a second-hand certainty that the hot wet world had produced life. It was a life that knew nothing of Jokers. In the hot water improbable compounds had formed unlikely molecules, had …

  ‘You are the lake,’ he said.

  I am. How is my old friend the Bank?

  ‘He was fine a few days ago,’ said Dom. ‘Uh … do you shun publicity?’

  Not at all, but I like my privacy. The Bank was the only other lifeform extant when I arrived here. The sundogs know me. But I help them, I take care of their pups, and they are reticent about me.

  ‘Take care of their pups? You must be telepathic.’

  Not as you would understand it. But most creatures are largely water, and I am wholly water. They drink of me, and I become part of them – as I am part of you. Osmosis, you see. Don’t let it offend you.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Dom. He kicked a cloud of mud from the lake bottom, and tried to convince himself.

  Eight of our days ago the Bank sent me a messenger. The Bank is rock, I am water. We have an understanding.

  Dom smiled. ‘Isn’t there some story about a sapient sun out towards galactic north?’ he asked.

  Yes, it is true. He is strange. We are instituting a search for an intelligent gas cloud now, to complete the elemental quartet. However, the Bank told me that he was sending a person to aid my extension programme.

  ‘He didn’t say that to me – I was told you could help me find Jokers World,’ said Dom.

  Maybe we can help one another.

  ‘What do you know about the Jokers?’

  Nothing. Knowledge is not my province. My province is ...

  There was no precise word for it. A series of images flashed across Dom’s mind as Chatogaster tried to explain. Intuition was too coarse a term; there was something in it of a leaf’s knowledge of how a tree grows; there was something warm, dreamy, arcane …

  May I rifle your memory? I shall need to. Thank you. You may experience a dreamlike sensation, however, I will leave your mind as I would wish to find it.

  Later the lake said: Generally speaking there is no dark side to a sun. Let us star
t with the Joker towers. Their casing at least is probably a giant molecule. Their use is not known, although they absorb power and appear to yield none. I feel bound to say that there is no apparent reason for their existence, any more than there is for a man, for example.

  It would seem that this assassin is out to prevent you from discovering this World. He may in fact be hastening your discovery by forcing you along paths you might not otherwise take.

  Let us consider the Jokers themselves. That they existed cannot be doubted. They have left artefacts, the greatest of which are the Chain Stars, which proves they had power and perhaps bravado; they left the Centre of the Universe on Wolf, which suggests they had an understanding of the underlying truisms of Totality; and they left the Tomorrow Strata on Third Eye, which I believe means they at least experimented with time travel. There is a fundamental mistake, though, in assuming that the Jokers are the sum of their creations. These may have been toys, relics of the Jokers’ youth. Astronomical evidence suggests that if they evolved on a world it may well be dead and gone by now. The fact that Jokers World has not been found within the ‘life-bubble’ does not lead me to believe it is hidden. I find I believe it is not there. It must be obvious that ‘the dark side of the sun’ is an idea rather than a place.

  ‘It had crossed my mind,’ admitted Dom. He was sitting in the ooze, watching the light dance on the surface overhead. ‘Is it a poetic image?’

  Poetry is the highest art. The Jokers must have achieved it.

  Dom sighed. ‘I had an idea at the start that it was just a matter of finding some cute explanation like – well, like Hrsh-Hgn’s.’

  That is in fact very poetic, and quite possible. But it ...

  Another lapse into intranslatability. An itch; a sense of wrongness, traditionally embodied in the almost physical pain some people experienced in seeing a picture hung crooked and being unable to right it; a feeling of discord.

  That would make them like Creapii. Environment conditions the mind, and the Jokers did not think like Creapii. However, the Creapii are indubitably the most advanced race at present. I suggest you study them. In the Creapii is a clue to the Jokers.