One day when he had gone straight from fantasy into sleep, he woke with a sense of alarm. He knew immediately what had caused it: a change in the background noises of the Avalon. It took him a minute longer to realize that the ship had stopped. He went into the corridor with dread. Ta and Bakti huddled in a dark corner and talked in low voices. They fell silent when he came close.
“What happened?” he said.
It was Bakti who answered. “We’re there.”
“Where?”—for a minute he thought they meant Gad-rah. That was how little he wanted to go to Uskos.
“Alien country,” Ta said.
Gaaf went to the flight deck. He had been there frequently throughout the flight, and so had all the others; on this trip it did not appear to be, as Bakti had said of other journeys, forbidden. Castillo and Wales and Suarez were there. Castillo talked. His voice was strange and what he said was a rasping gabble. Then Gaaf saw the transparent shield of an automatic translator in front of his mouth, which damped the vibrations of his voice, twisted them around, and turned them into another language.
Almost as soon as Gaaf came in, Castillo switched off the translator and looked around. “We’re landing,” he said.
* * *
The Avalon was guided to a city of great stone buildings, all identical and so massive they seemed monolithic. Gaaf was on the flight deck for the landing. The Avalon, accompanied by (or strategically surrounded by) an escort, glided over the city for a long time. It went on and on, the truncated tops of stepped piles of masonry all alike ticking away beneath them. This was the City of the Center, by which was meant it was treaty ground, and here came the beings of Ell and Sa, of Ree and Naa and other lands, to settle their differences and have peace. Gaaf looked out on the City of the Center with blank eyes. Before the landing Castillo turned off the translator again. He said, “We’ll be traveling a lot. I told them we want to. Look out for what we need.”
Gaaf thought that meant there had been a promise, and whatever was asked for would be given. So maybe the crazy scheme would work and Castillo would get what he wanted from the ignorant aliens. He trembled with relief, hoping no one would notice. Quite apart from other dreadful suspicions, after what had happened to the aliens and Hanna, Gaaf had come to understand that Castillo dealt out death casually and apparently without fear. It meant nothing. It only meant something had gotten in his way. Gaaf did not want to see any more of it. He had never thought himself a violent man, and now he knew he could not strike or wound or risk his life even to save someone else’s more valuable life. That was why, when they needed him to wake up Hanna, they had had to come and get him after his flight from what the others did, and why his hands had trembled when he lifted her bleeding head.
There was a great commotion at landing. There were translators enough to go around, both ear- and mouthpieces and the processing modules for the hand or belt. What was the Avalon doing with all these translator units?—nobody used them in human space, they were only used by people who had business in places where Standard was unknown. No one on the Avalon asked Castillo about that, but Ta said, “How’d we get the program?”
Castillo gave him an amused look, but he did not answer. It was Suarez who said, “Got it soon as we decided. Hook into any relay and tie in with D’neera. Ask for D’vornan library. That’s all.”
“They just give it to you?”
“Anything you want.”
They came off the ship all together. They were armed. Just before they went out Castillo said, “Don’t answer any questions. Not now, not later. I answer the questions.”
Outside the air was stunning in its brightness and clarity. Gaaf was blinded; he put his hands to his eyes, shielding them from the light of the star. Nothing shielded him from the heat. Yet he was only in the sub-tropics, and they were only a little more hot and more brilliant than comparable latitudes of Earth. But the Avalon had been very dark, and Gaaf had sprung from a cool climate.
Finally he took his hands from his face. Eyes blinking and watering, he saw Castillo hand the golden cylinder to the aliens. He called it a token of faith. He said Rubee and Awnlee of Ell would not return, but men who would have been their friends, though too late to save them from beings alien to humans as well as Uskosians, had made this journey in their place and come to initiate friendship. After that they climbed into wheeled vehicles and were taken through the towering city. But Gaaf’s eyes kept watering, so that he did not see anything.
* * *
It was not so bright in the chambers of Norsa. Norsa, a personage of indeterminate position and age, appeared to be in charge. Gaaf knew that was his name because he said “I am Norsa,” but his description of his function was beyond the capability of the translator. He wore a garment that looked like a brilliant, lavishly embroidered blue barrel. Other Uskosians were there also. They talked with Castillo. At first Gaaf did not listen, but looked in horror at the aliens. They were unutterably ugly. Their skin was dank and leathery, in color a dirty brown. The depressions of their eyespots were filled with an unstable colloid that made him want to retch, and the agitated cilia round their mouths made his skin crawl. Their hands were variable and blunt; he looked for the long thin strings of fingers that had been wrapped around Hanna ril-Koroth’s small human hands, but he did not see any. And they stank. The whole place stank. The walls of Norsa’s chambers were golden, except where they were streaked with bands of other colors, some bright and some subtle. The bands were horizontal and strapped them into the room, which seemed to shrink.
Gaaf began to hear the conversation. Norsa said: “It is a strange tale you tell.”
“Your emissaries indeed met with misfortune,” Castillo answered.
“Is it possible to obtain their bodies?”
“We could not find them. They were put into the sea.”
Gaaf’s eyes wandered to a sweeping window on the city. It was as impressive from here as it had been from the air. The gleaming towers marched away into the sky, making him small.
He heard a name he recognized and his attention sharpened:
“—and this creature of another people, to whom this gift was made—this Hanna ril-Koroth—betrayed honored Rubee and his steadfast selfing?”
“That is what we learned.”
“But why?” Norsa said, and even in the mechanical impersonality of the Standard words fed into Gaaf’s ears, there was a tone of perplexity.
“Zeigans are not like humans,” Castillo said. “They hate those of other species, even humans. Humans do not often go there. Humans went there this time only because there was word of your envoys landing there. But we were too late for anything except vengeance.”
When Castillo finished talking there was silence. But after a time Norsa said, “Your people will have the gratitude of mine for the vengeance you took. Also we must have gratitude that it is you, the human beings, who have come to seek us; rather than those others who would wish us only to die. It was too much to think that we would find only peace in the stars. Yet that was our hope.”
They were given a spacious place to stay, which, however, was well guarded. Surrounding it was a garden. Many of the flowers were tall, coming higher than Gaaf’s waist; they had great blossoms made of flat petals; they were in color bright yellow, deep gold, and vivid pink, and glowed so brightly, and were so perfect, that at first he thought they were artificial. Before the first evening was over there would be more meetings, but for a short while they were alone. They left the house and went to the garden, “In case the walls have ears,” Castillo said, and they walked among the flowers.
“All of you listen,” Castillo said. He looked around, shepherding them with his eyes. Some of them were nervous. The reality of their presence on an alien world getting its first sight of humans was sinking in.
“Don’t answer any questions unless you have to,” Castillo said. “If you have to, say as little as you can. Don’t even talk about it among yourselves, in case they’re listening. If you hav
e to talk, keep the story straight. Their envoys first made contact with Zeig-Daru. They got killed there, Fleet heard about it, that’s how we got the course and why we’re here. They were killed by Zeigans. Remember that.”
“What about the D’neeran woman?” Ta said.
“The name’s right on the course module, says she was their friend. I had to bring it up. They think she was a Zeigan and we executed her for what they did.”
“They won’t swallow it,” Ta said, “the Zeigans are telepaths, they can’t pretend to make friends first and kill you later, they just kill you right away.”
Castillo said, “They don’t know that here. So forget you ever knew it.”
Later there was a banquet at which the food looked terrible and tasted worse. Suarez and Wales went back to the Avalon and returned with real food, but Gaaf did not eat; the drinks had been all right, and he was asleep. Only in his dreams Hanna protested bitterly, as she had not protested, not once, aboard the Avalon.
* * *
They began traveling at once. Despite Castillo’s strictures the men talked among themselves. “He said we don’t have much time before the Polity comes,” Bakti told Gaaf.
“He told them that?”
“No, no, I don’t know what he told them. That’s what he told Suarez.”
“You heard Suarez say that?”
“No, that’s what Ta said Suarez said.”
So it was impossible to know what could be believed. That did not stop the men from talking, and it did not keep Gaaf from listening.
They did their traveling in the Avalon, though transport was courteously offered. What explanation could Castillo have given the aliens for this? How did he explain their going armed—and why did he want them to be armed? How did he justify keeping their hosts off the Avalon? Why did he keep them off?—Gaaf did not hear all the lies and so he never knew if a lie were at issue, or an omission. It crossed his mind that the same thing was precisely true of what Castillo told/lied about/did not tell the men of the Avalon. There was no use listening to words at all. The range of certainties shrank from hour to hour. To: food and drink to go into the mouth. A smelly cubicle on the Avalon. The physical existence of the other men of Castillo’s crew. Gaaf’s own body was less certain than it ought to be; it had tics, twitches, moments when it seemed to fade. As for the outside world, the alien world, it was all a single shining piece, like a peculiar dream to the meaning of which there was no point of entry.
Two beings were assigned to him, him personally, to assist him (or maybe to watch him or both). He was nearly afraid to speak to them at all. Their names were Biru and Brinee, and whenever the Avalon landed in its travels they were there, like personal demons. Gaaf dreaded stepping off the ship and seeing them, inescapable. The other members of the crew had their personal devils, too, and Castillo had several. But Castillo’s face, unlike Gaaf’s, never altered at the sight of them. In their presence he was impassive, and at other times he never spoke of them except to make coarse jokes about the presumed sexual practices of this species.
All time was a single piece to Gaaf, a seamless tissue. There were events, but it did not seem to him that they marked a progression. The events might as well have coexisted all together: until the very end.
There was:
A day of rain like the rain Gaaf remembered from the poor fields of Tarim on Co-op, the water coming down in a curtain like a solid substance. Without being able to see anything because of this cataract, he entered, with the others, a building that grew out of the rain. The water poured down with such power that inside it could be heard pounding the structure’s roof, though the building was substantial. Gaaf was dizzy with the stench of the aliens. There were hundreds of them here, spots of gaudy color in their overdecorated garments, though they sat in shadow on long benches. Only the foremost portion of the great chamber was brightly lit, and there, set well to the back of a deep platform, were two black cubes. The human beings were taken to the front of the hall and given cushioned seats. A being dressed in scarlet came to the edge of the platform.
“I am Balee of Ell,” he said, and began to speak or to declaim, and presently Gaaf realized that he was attending some kind of memorial service for Rubee and Awnlee of Ell. When Balee was done, music began: a kind of irregular drone punctuated by scrapes and squawks. More beings came onto the platform, until it was filled with them. They were masked, and they glittered and dripped with jewels.
Suarez sat at Gaaf’s right, and Castillo beyond Suarez. Gaaf heard Suarez whisper, “Those stones real?”
Castillo breathed, “Find out.”
Balee of Ell said, “And this is the story of the Fate of Relell.”
Gongs sounded, setting up vibrations in the walls, the furnishings, the bones. The beings on the platform moved in the stately ritual of the Fate of Relell.
“On a day,” said Balee, “Relell of the tribe of Relell in the land of Ell set forth with his selfings and all his kinsmen to settle on the far shore of the land of Naa. For in that time the coast of Ell was torn by great storms, and against those storms the Master of Chaos aided none, but watched.
“And Relell and his selfings and all the people went forth in fair ships well made, yet scarcely were they out of sight of land when the ship of Relell’s selfing Uprell foundered, and all who traveled in it were lost. Yet when the people looked behind they saw that the storms were worse than before, and so they could not go back; yet when they looked before them they saw the Master of Chaos. Therefore they went on.”
There was a good deal of noise on the platform-stage. Balee’s voice was amplified, the stiff robes of the players crackled and swished, they chanted and cried out, and the droning went on, too, interrupted by other raucous noises. Under cover of all this Castillo and Suarez talked softly together. Gaaf leaned toward them, trying to appear as if he did not.
“Where do they keep it?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Find out where it is from the air.”
“It won’t be enough.”
“Mark one, though.”
“And they came after great peril and loss to the shore of the land of Naa, and it was summer. Yet the Master of Chaos had caused the season to sicken, and though summer it was cold, and nothing grew in all that fair land. And so when the people sought to plant the seeds they had brought, the seeds died in the ground, and nothing lived and all the land was barren. And there was an end to the food that had come on the ships, and there was great suffering. And the Master of Chaos walked among the people of Relell and watched, yet he did not signify amusement, but was grim and did not answer those who cried to him.
“The winter came, and Relell, though starving, was gravid, and his time came upon him and he brought forth a selfing whom he named Senu; for he wished the Master to be unaware that the youngling was of the land of Ell or the tribe of Relell or that he was the selfing of Relell, and thus he hoped that Senu would be spared. But the Master came to him as he suckled the babe, and it died at Relell’s teat, and the Master watched. And Relell cried out to him, but the Master did not answer, and disappeared.
“At length the winter passed and spring came, and of those who had set forth from the land of Ell, only the twentieth part remained, and they had scarcely strength to hunt or fish. Yet they did, for they said to one another, ‘Now at last the winter is past, and surely now the Master will cease to discourage our endeavor.’ And they grew stronger; but one day there came storms and wind. The wind blew down their huts and blew away their ships and weapons, and they ran from the waves that came onto the shore. And Relell with his last strength tied himself to a tree so that he might not be washed away.
“But then he looked out to sea, and on the sea he saw a wave as big as a mountain, and he knew that his end had come. And in the wave he saw the lineaments of the Master of Chaos, and he cried out to the Master of Chaos, ‘Why? It was a brave undertaking done correctly. What is the reason for these things?’
“But the
wave overcame him and he was swept away and drowned, along with all the people. And when all of them were gone the Master of Chaos looked down and said, ‘There was no reason.’ Yet he did not signify amusement.
“And so,” said Balee abruptly, “it is until this moment,” and everything stopped.
After that the players went one by one to the black cubes and took off their jewels and laid them on the cubes. They grew into blazing heaps which Castillo watched with concentration; Suarez’s mouth was open. Then it was over.
* * *
There was:
One more standardized tour of a manufacturing facility. Gaaf was on the flight deck again when the Avalon landed near it. Castillo and Suarez talked. Gaaf listened, and as he listened there filtered into his comprehension, too slowly for alarm, the reasons Castillo used the Avalon for local transport rather than accept the transportation the aliens offered. One reason was that here they could talk among themselves. Another was that this way they could build up detailed maps of where they had been so that, if they wished, they could come back to a place quickly.
Gaaf was not sure what that meant.
They got off the ship and there were greetings. Here were Biru and Brinee, and here also were the other beings of the official party of escorts, the devils who shadowed Castillo and the others. Here were the beings who managed this particular facility, and at their heels something else: a small furred bright-eyed creature on all fours, with a kind of embroidered saddle on its back. It made ambiguous noises the translator could not render into Standard.
The factory was built in a brown countryside. There was warmth in the sunlight, and Gaaf did not know if this country was always brown, or if it was only not the season of growth. The factory made no pretense of fitting into its surroundings. It had cupolas, and its enameled facade was indigo and maroon. Gaaf’s bitter youth on Co-op had convinced him that all factories ought to be underground. The Uskosians were proud of this one, though; it pleased them; they talked as if they were amused by its effrontery.
The D’neeran Factor Page 66