by James Morrow
A ghastly awareness grew in Francis: Luther had fallen behind. Francis stopped, and he turned. And he saw.
Finally, fully, Luther’s age worked its betrayal. He stumbled, colliding with the soft sand. The neurovores fell upon him.
“Burne!” Francis thought his larynx would pop out. “Burne, the gun!” But Burne, far ahead, ears dulled by his own footfalls, did not respond.
The neurovores feasted greedily, quickly. They raised high Luther’s violated body and tossed it like garbage into the moat.
Francis stood and wailed. “You’ll all die for this!”
By now Burne had paused, observed, reacted. Drawn too late, the yeastgun flashed impotently in his hand. “The bridge, Lostwax!”
The cries cut through to Francis’s genes, igniting the ancient need to save oneself first and mourn the dead second. He took off.
Perfect timing. The moment the bridge smacked the river’s far bank, Burne was ready to cross. He had reached the middle of the moat when Francis’s foot touched wood.
Like a sprung trap the bridge leaped up, drawn by woven cables. Francis tumbled forward, smashing into Burne and knocking him down. Neither minded; they were falling to sanctuary.
Sprawled in the arching gateway, Francis cranked his head forward and saw that two fearsomely armed neurovores—one male, one female—had together gained the far bank, jumped for the edge of the rising bridge, grabbed it, pulled themselves athwart. He saw that the monsters would now be fated with one of several deaths. They would either tumble forward, hitting the hinge of the bridge with concussive force, or they would tumble backward, dissolving in the moat, or they would stay put, getting mashed between the edge of the bridge and the ponderous stone lintel that jutted from the wall, crowning the portcullis.
But neurovores, Francis guessed, do not leave their evolution to natural selection. They act, quickly, with ferret guile and monkey moves. Jump, said their primal minds, their springwound muscles. Jump for the top of the wall.
The neurovores shot skyward, disappearing behind the lintel.
Francis and Burne staggered through the gateway and collapsed in weary heaps. The bridge was fully upright now, shutting out the desert and its horrors. Burne unstrapped his pack, eyed it dully. He had completely forgotten about throwing it into the moat.
Their rescuer, the gatekeeper, approached timidly. He was a frail man, middle-aged, with bounteous gray hair and a face that looked partially deflated. He had raised the bridge and its companion portcullis only with help from an elaborate arrangement of windlasses, pulleys, weights, and cords.
“Praised be Iztac,” he said in a creaky voice. “I thought for certain you were doomed.”
“Let me try to thank you,” said Francis, his panting head supported by his pack.
“You’ve lost a friend,” said the gatekeeper.
Burne gagged. “It happened, didn’t it?” Slowly he pulled himself upright, brushing sand from his jacket with one hand, gripping his yeastgun with the other.
“We owe you our lives,” Francis mumbled, blowing tears off his cheeks. He kept thinking how Luther would never discover what was in the moat.
“I only did the moral thing. After all, you are civilized.”
Francis sensed traces of a question in the gatekeeper’s voice. “Yes,” he croaked, “we are civilized.” The relief on the gatekeeper’s face: Francis had seen it only minutes before, on the man who called himself Zamanta.
“Forgive my piety,” said the gatekeeper, “but in Quetzalia we try to—” His gaze drifted aimlessly to the wall. “No!”
Never before had Francis heard such a No!, this No! that went beyond any kind of personal anguish—even the kind he was feeling about Luther—to say that all hope and light were now ripped from the world. He looked up, saw a stone stairway leading from the ground to the summit, and brought his popping eyes to rest on the two neurovores who had jumped. They were shambling toward the children.
Seeing an escape, Zamanta’s daughter ran for the stairway. Neurovore breath warmed her neck. She had descended ten steps when her pursuer, the male, drove his spear forward, catching her sash, hooking her like a fish. He yanked her back for the kill.
Overhead, the female lunged cruelly for Zamanta’s son. She shook her spear, raised her ax high. The boy did not cry out.
Francis lay staring in boggled disbelief. The incredible thing was not the ruthlessness of the neurovores, nor even the courage of their prey. The incredible thing was that Zamanta made no move to help his children. He simply stood, white with horror, wet with tears: a man watching his house burn down.
There was a noise like raw meat hitting hot metal. A bright gold bead divided the air and flawlessly found its target. The female neurovore staggered backward, a purple hole growing in her neck. Her weapons fell, clattering on the stones.
Seconds later, the neurovore’s throat burst open like a ripe tomato left in the sun.
Blood rained copiously on the boy. Soaring in pain, the monster fell backward toward the river. The splash of the corpse was deep-voiced and conclusive.
The gatekeeper shivered with amazement. “You said you were civilized!” he shouted. “I don’t believe what I see!”
“Stay around and you’ll see it again,” said Burne quietly. He did not lower the yeastgun, but merely pivoted until the second neurovore, the male, entered its sights. Coolly Burne squeezed the trigger…to no effect. VVVSSSSS came the dull electronic whimper, the same kind that had attended Kappie’s slaughter. “Dammit to hell!”
The male bristled, all senses on the alert. He tore his spear from the girl’s sash, raised it aloft, and dashed to the bottom of the stairs. His other hand wielded an ax, a beveled granite brute, and this he used first, swinging it in crazed circles, launching it with a numbing shriek. Burne felt the air part by his cheek. The ax plowed into the sand, a meter from where Francis rested wild-eyed against his pack.
The girl ascended the stairs and joined her gory brother. Zamanta scooped them up. Trembling, he held them tight.
The monster drew back his spear, aimed it for Burne’s brain. Nearthling eyes and neurovore eyes met, locked gazes, mingled enmities. Burne’s attacker had horrid nostrils, deep and gaping like bullet holes. Not far below, a stinking mouth displayed broken teeth, bloody gums, abundant drool, and a saw-edged tongue.
Burne dove for the spongy ground. The spearhead whistled past the nape of his neck, its shaft glancing off his shoulder. Slowed, the spear stayed in flight. Francis saw it coming, could not evade it.
A sharp nut-cracking sound told Francis the spear had hit—had entered—his cranium. The pain was immediate but not extreme. Fear pressed intolerably upon his heart.
He slumped over, and the spear dislodged itself. Wetness rushed down his temples. Gazing across the sandy field, he saw that the neurovore had broken into a run and was heading south, straight for where the forest was thickest.
And then the sun vanished.
7
A DISORGANIZED GALAXY. A pounding soreness. Slowly the jots of light threw themselves into focus, became a face. Francis blinked twice. The face was male, human, nonneurovorean, old. Its features were craggy and pitted, a bombed landscape.
“Welcome to the Hospital of Chimec,” said the face. Its owner crouched over Francis like a winter coat, frayed and protective. “I am Tixo Mool, in charge of your case.”
“Chimec?” moaned Francis. “I thought I was dead.” Somebody had been playing blasterball with his head. “No, it doesn’t smell right. Death should smell like formaldehyde. And there shouldn’t be any hunger. I’m hungry.”
“I hope so. You’ve been unconscious for two days.” Francis coughed and rolled over, crisp linen slipping noiselessly across his skin. He found himself looking through an open window into labyrinthian gardens. Breezes drifted down blossomed footpaths, swirled around marble benches holding convalescents. Here and there, brilliant white arm-slings flapped like flags of surrender.
“Luther lost his b
rain, didn’t he?” asked Francis. “The neurovores took it.”
Mool bit his lip, grumbled. He proffered a mug filled with something hot and pungent. “Drink this.”
“Soup?”
“Cuiclo tea. Finish it up. Leave only a tear’s worth.”
“How much?”
“We always leave a tear’s worth.” Mool’s voice assumed a quoting tone. “Never forget the tears of war-bereaved parents.”
Francis, trusting, took the mug and drank deeply. The tea was sour, chalky, and altogether awful.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Mool said in answer to Francis’s grimace.
“I hope I never do.”
“You’re not drinking it for pleasure. It will blot out your pain.”
“Burne’s brain wasn’t eaten,” said Francis dully, as if this were a common expression.
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“In the southern jungles somewhere, on a—how shall I put it?—a mission of mercy. He’s going to track down that male neurovore for us, the one that came over the wall, and he’s going to…kill it.” His voice skipped on “kill.”
“The neurovore has a good lead, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, regrettably. You won’t see your friend for at least three opochs.”
“Opochs?” Francis slurped his tea.
“Our calendar is flawless. Twenty-five hours to the day, twenty-five days to the opoch, twenty-five opochs to the year. But the runners will tell us where he is.”
“Oh,” said Francis feebly. Blood-borne, the tea was in his brain now. Why the hell did they send Burne to do it? “Runners?”
“Yes. Does that sound crude to you? Well, the truth is that Quetzalia has no mass communication. But don’t let our apparent backwardness cast a shadow on this afternoon’s ablation. It won’t hurt.”
“Ablation?”
“On Earth they were called operations. Ablation is better. We’re going to ablate the stone in your head.”
“But the spear fell out!”
“A chip stayed behind, poised above your laughter site. Odd as it sounds, you’re in danger of losing your ability to laugh.”
Francis shrugged. “The way my life is going, I won’t be needing it.” He knew from his biology training that the laughter site existed. It was discovered by an Earthling surgeon named Richard Hassler in a year named A.D. 1955.
“This ablation is quite necessary. The laughter site is in the thalamus.”
Francis walked his fingers up the side of his head. They ascended his jaw, traversed his ear, forded a wet bandage covering the spear hole, and eventually touched smooth, drum-tight flesh, whereupon he realized he was bald as a clam. “You’re not going in through the wound?”
“Think of the chip as a trapped miner. You don’t necessarily open up the old shaft to reach him. Often it’s best to dig a new one.”
“Just remember that this time it’s the mine that’s alive and the miner who’s made of rock.” Francis elevated himself slightly, as if trying to see nipples at a kinepic marathon. “Burne had a live insect specimen in his pack, a Cortexclavus areteus. It must be fed.”
“All the curiosities Dr. Newman brought into Quetzalia—the nontechnological curiosities—were taken to the Library of Iztac. I think he had a dried fish and a rock sample. Your bug must be there too. I’ll see to its needs.”
Francis didn’t understand what “nontechnological” was doing in that reply, but he was infinitely relieved to hear of Ollie’s apparent rescue.
Mool began to indulge his habit of answering unasked questions. “You’re lucky they brought you here and not to one of Nazra’s bureaucrats. Nazra governs out of Aca, but he’s got a bunch of toadies—a swamp of toadies, does that amuse you?—here in Tepec.” Mool snickered. “I said, does that amuse you?”
“I don’t laugh these days,” Francis replied. “It’s the rock in my brain.”
“Neither do Nazra’s bureaucrats. Yesterday they barged in, clung to me like burrs. ‘The hemorrhaging has stopped,’ they said. ‘Don’t do the ablation yet. First find out his intentions.’ Two hours later Nazra sends word down, tells us your coming is a religious matter, and so the bureaucrats move out and the goddam clergy moves in, and they, too, want to know your ‘intentions.’ But then the high priestess herself shows up, and she says, ‘I’ll get them off your back, just save this man’s life, it’s the moral course.’”
Stepping toward the open window, Mool inflated himself with morning air. “That’s enough about you. Let me tell you about me. I’m sixty-three years old and hearty as a Cuz year-rounder. I have a son who…”
Without particularly meaning to, Francis let Mool’s words blur into meaningless vocables. He found himself staring across the room at a tall and uncompromisingly avant-garde oil painting. When he tuned in again, he heard, “If you yourself find me authoritarian, don’t fret, for the actual ministration of your case is the responsibility of our young resident, Dr. Tez Yon, who is both modest and competent, and whose sunshine disposition I envy.”
By now Mool had left the window, was grasping a leather thong that dangled from one side of the oil painting. When he yanked the thong, the painting pivoted on its opposite edge, proving itself to be a door. “One more thing. I’m afraid I must ask for your machines.”
“My what?”
“Did you bring anything technological into Quetzalia?”
“There was a luminon around my neck. My pack contains an electrostylus, a kelvinsleeve, things like that.”
“They must all be taken to the Temple of Tolca and burned. This is required.”
Despite his numbness, a sudden unease shot through Francis. Who are these people? Romantics who believe machines breed godless rationality? Terrible news, if it’s true. They won’t want to help us get Darwin back.
“You’ve banned all machines from Quetzalia?”
“The word is forbidden,” Mool replied. “In Quetzalia machines are forbidden.”
“Did Burne play along?”
“His wristmeter, luminon, and yeastgun are nothing but ashes and molten blobs.”
“Even his gun?”
“Dr. Newman is an archeologist. He knows that playing along, as you put it, is a reliable way to ingratiate yourself with the natives. Will you, too, indulge us on this point?”
“How can Burne kill the neurovore? You’ve disarmed him!”
Mool grunted. “He said that if a neurovore didn’t need a yeastgun, then he didn’t either.”
“Melt the luminon, the kelvinsleeve, everything. But there’s a metal box in my jacket—it contains an insulin flask and two hypodermic syringes.”
“We know about diabetes, Dr. Lostwax.”
“My health is not touched. Nearth has the plastic pancreas now.”
“Quetzalia has the cure now, and I don’t use the word lightly. Until you take the cure, we’ll grant you your syringes. But don’t show them around.” Mool crossed the threshold.
“A detail,” Francis called after him. “That kelvinsleeve won’t melt. It’s crysanium.”
“Then we’ll dissolve it in noctus.”
“In what?”
“Noctus fills the river.”
“The river that follows the wall?”
“Yes, the river made of hate.”
“But what is noctus? What does it consist of?”
“It consists of hate,” said Mool with a narrow smile, and briskly he closed the door.
THE CUICLO TEA not only freed Francis of his pain, it made him deliciously drowsy, so that when the two adolescent orderlies came they had to shake him six times before his eyes opened. Together they lifted Francis, deposited him on a wheeled table, and pushed him into a glassy corridor muted by pale afternoon sunlight.
Frescoes of astonishing impact glided by, not one of them bowing to the unimaginative, noncommittal style with which Nearthlings felt obligated to embalm their institutions. There were sagas full of hairbreadth escapes from monsters and cataclysm
s, fantasies featuring ghosts and potions, and sexual transactions stimulating enough to rehabilitate a eunuch.
There were moments of comedic truth so self-evident that Francis found himself giggling.
If the corridor could have doubled as a small art museum, the operating room could have doubled as a gigantic funnel. The orderlies wheeled Francis through an archway into the broad circular spout. Its center was a padded table, onto which he soon found himself painstakingly transferred. A nearby cart bristled with surgical instruments. Above, fanning outward and sloping upward, rows of seats held a scant dozen medical students. They hunched forward expectantly, and their smooth startling youthfulness made Francis feel extinct. Higher still, sunlight spread across a glass ceiling and rolled into the funnel’s mouth.
On the circumference of the spout, every sixty degrees, a floor lamp flared merrily, its wick soggy with perfumed oil. Between the lamps hung tall and uncompromisingly avant-garde oil paintings. One painting pivoted forward, revealing a small woman and two men, one rangy, the other a gnome. The orderlies took the cue and backed away.
WITH COLOSSAL RELUCTANCE Tez Yon entered the operating theater, stewing in her hatred of the coming job. If I succeed, she thought, Mool gives the glory to “my crack surgical team,” by which he means himself. But if the Nearthling dies on the table, all the blame falls on me, and everybody goes around shedding big juicy tears—crocodile tears, since nobody wants him to live.
The sight of the helpless patient ended her bout of self-pity. She realized that her nurses had already started circumscribing his cranium with kuskdye, daubing his scalp with the local anesthetic called lethewort, and wrapping his arm with tendrils from a kardiovine, that wondrous plant whose color shifts warned of dangerous fluctuations in blood pressure. She reached the table, seized her scalpel, and held it like a dart. Addressing her audience, she jabbed repeatedly in the direction of Francis’s brain.