[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  "It's scared of us," Brian chuckled.

  He found another, larger stone and hurled it with all of his strength before Maia, pulling futilely at his sweater, could stop him. They both watched breathlessly as the missile traced a high arc and headed downward. It was descending safely behind the creature when the strange figure swerved abruptly, turned back, and was stuck squarely on the head. It toppled without a sound.

  "You hit it!" Maia whispered awesomely.

  "I meant to hit it," Brian said, affecting heroic indifference. "Is it dead?"

  "Naw. A little stone like that wouldn't kill anything. It's just knocked out."

  "It'll be plenty mad when it wakes up," Maia said. "We better go."

  "I'm not afraid of any old monkey. Maybe it's just pretending so we'll go away."

  He fished another stone from the water and threw it at the still form on the opposite bank. The stone struck nearby, but the creature did not move. Before Brian could repeat the experiment, their mother's voice floated down to them.

  "Brian! Maia!"

  Brian hurriedly pulled on his wet sock and shoe, and then he caught up with the running Maia and passed her. Halfway up the hill, he turned and waited.

  He said soberly, "I guess we better not say anything about the monkey."

  "I guess not," Maia agreed.

  Minutes later, the little flyer floated skyward for the brief return journey to the mart. As it cleared the hill, both children risked cautious downward glances to see if the monkey was still there. Even though the clustering yellow vegetation of the strange plants partially concealed it, the white form stood out starkly against the purple ground cover.

  So did the forms of the two monkeys who bent over it.

  12

  After she'd seen the children off to bed, Malina went to the common room. At any hour of the day or night some of E-Wusk's assistants could be found at work there, fussing with records or interviewing customers. E-Wusk was alone in the cubicle he used for an office, his limbs drawn up in meditation, but he unfolded himself courteously when she approached.

  "How was your expedition?" he asked.

  "A huge success," she told him. "For once they tired themselves out. They haven't been so quiet in weeks. They even lost their appetites, but that could be the result of overdoing the sandwiches and cider. Anyway, they went to bed without an argument for the first time since We left Earth. Where is Gula Schlu?"

  "I couldn't say. I haven't seen her since morning."

  "We were supposed to have a conference this evening with Arluklo."

  "No doubt her business has detained her," E-Wusk said. "It seems to be a remarkably complicated business. She tried to explain it to me, but I told her I'd rather not know. Oh, ho! Ho!" His laughter seemed to reverberate inside him, and he sounded like a grotesque parody of a Santa Claus. "If I knew how to run her business, she'd soon have me working for her. Oh, ho! Ho! I know Gula SchIu too well!"

  Malina agreed that Gula Schlu was exceedingly capable. She tried to question E-Wusk about the practice of medicine in general, and dermatology in particular, on his native world and other worlds he had experienced, but the old trader was interested in diseases only when he could sell a shipload of something or other as a remedy. Malina left him, finally, and went looking for Miss Schlupe.«

  At the manufacturing headquarters, all was bustling activity. Because the arena never closed, Miss Schlupe's assembly lines rolled all twenty-six hours of the Monturan day. Miss Schlupe was not there. Using the transmitter, Malina stepped through to Miss SchIupe's office on the third level above the column refreshment stand. It contained only the transmitter frame, a circular hassock-like desk, and an equally large hassock used for a chair. Malina climbed one flight and found an unattended storeroom jammed with crates of sandwiches and cider kegs. On the two levels below the office were centered the frenzied activity of keeping the sales personnel on the ground level supplied. No one had seen Gula Schlu recently.

  By way of Miss Schlupe's transmitters, Malina visited the bakery - also in full operation - and the main storage rooms. No one had seen Miss Schlupe.

  She went down to the arena. Subtle shifts in the kinds of life forms encountered there could be noted as the planet revolved. Now night was at hand. Only the dimmest of indirect lighting was used, and a preponderance of large-eyed nocturnals could be found among those thronging the aisles. Even in the dim light, more of them seemed afflicted with serious problems of the epidermis than the daylight traders. If MaIina had encountered such cases on Earth, she would have hospitalized the lot of them in isolation.

  At the Kloa Common, the mention of Arluklo's name brought unintelligible commentary but no Arluklo. Again there was no sign of Miss Schlupe. Malina watched the kloatraz for a time, marveling at the intriguing display of lights. Then she attempted to cross the arena to the refreshment stand, but after edging along a crowded aisle for a short distance, she turned back. She slipped into a side aisle, found her way back to the kurog twanlaft, and made the double transmitter trip to the Prime Common.

  Miss Schlupe hurried toward her as she stepped from the transmitter. "Thank God! Where have you been?"

  "I was looking for you," Malina said. "I thought our appointment - why, what's wrong?"

  "Where are the children?"

  "In bed," Malina said. Then the tidal wave of alarm enveloped her. She gasped, "Aren't they?"

  Miss Schlupe gravely shook her head.

  Figures loomed in the background: E-Wusk, Rok Wllon, a group of strange life forms. "We thought they were with you," Miss Schlupe said.

  "I put them to bed before I left," Malina said. "They wouldn't - " Miss Schlupe's worried expression told her that they would and had. Malina dashed to her apartment. The pallets lay as she had left them, robes tucked in at their sides and feet because the temperature dropped noticeably at night. The comfortable cocoons contained no children.

  Numbly she turned to Miss Schlupe, who had followed her into the room. The others filled the passageway behind her: E-Wusk, Rok Wllon, some of the strangers.

  "We've got ourselves one whopper of a problem," Miss Schlupe said in English. "These unsavory-looking characters are secretaries of the gesardl, and they claim your children murdered a native in the park today."

  "Murdered?"

  E-Wusk and Rok Wllon were displaying stark consternation. The strangers showed no emotion at all but kept their multiple pairs of eyes fixed steadily on MaIina. "It's impossible!" she protested. "It can't be!"

  "It certainly sounded that way on two counts when I first heard about it," Miss Schlupe said. "Murdered, and native. But it seems that there are natives, though I still haven't been able to find out where they keep themselves. That park is a kind of botanical research station, and your children were seen to throw stones at one of the native scientists. He was hit and killed."

  Malina started to say, "They wouldn't - "

  The multiple pairs of eyes remained fixed on her. Dimly she took in other features - double pairs of arms and legs. There should have been two noses and two mouths, but she saw none at all. Double pairs of eyes stared at her out of oversized blank faces.

  What mother knew her own children? She could not imagine Brian and Maia deliberately injuring anyone or anything, or even making a threatening gesture; but the native probably looked nothing like a fellow human. More than likely its appearance had been monstrous and seemed to threaten them. Could they have been defending themselves?

  Maia wouldn't. She would have fled. Brian? Malina could envision him on Earth throwing a stone to frighten away a threatening dog. A thrown stone is - a gesture. Even if the story were true, surely he had meant no more than that. But why had they run away? If Brian had thrown the stone as an act of bravery, he would have bragged about it.

  The strange lassitude after the outing suddenly seemed sinister.

  They knew. They had guilty knowledge of what had happened.

  She said aloud,
"But where could they have gone? Would they try to leave the building?" It was a frightening thought. Except for the park, there was nothing outside but bleak landscape; and why would they want to return to the park?

  Miss Schlupe clapped her hand to her forehead. "My God! We thought they were with you. It never occurred to me that they might run off on their own."

  She turned and spoke rapidly to one of the strangers, who left at once. "Now they won't be able to leave the mart," Miss Schlupe said grimly. "The next step is to start looking for them."

  They hurried toward the transmitter. Looking back, Malina saw most of the congregation of gesardl secretaries following on their heels. E-Wusk was trailing along uncertainly. Rok Wllon was no longer in sight.

  "Have you any idea where they'd go?" Miss Schlupe asked.

  Malina shook her head. "I suppose there are a million hiding places."

  "A billion," Miss Schlupe said grimly. "But I'm hoping they're too young to do improbable things like find a perch on the roof. Even so, we'll need lots of help."

  They first visited the bakery and the sandwich assembly rooms.

  Malina followed on Miss Schlupe's heels; the gesardl secretaries followed Malina. E-Wusk had fallen out, perhaps to confer with Rok Wllon. Miss Schlupe questioned her employees. No one remembered seeing the children that evening, but then - everyone was so busy they easily could have passed through the place unnoticed.

  Miss Schlupe spoke orders. Assembly line and bakery were closed, and the employees hurried off to look for the children. "If we run out of submarines tonight," Miss Schlupe said, "so be it."

  With the gesardl delegation still marching on Malina's heels, they went next to the Kloa Common. Arluklo had returned. The spidery little klo listened to Miss Schlupe and then scurried away for a consultation. They waited, with the kloatraz winking mockingly in the background. Finally Arluklo came back with an affirmative answer, and while he was delivering it, the kloa began to leave their cubicles and head out into the arena to join the search.

  "My people don't know the languages," Miss Schlupe explained.

  "The kloa do, and they can describe the children and find out whether anyone has seen them. If we don't alert the whole mart, they could walk around in the arena for days without being noticed. Or they could walk through a transmitter and hide in someone's living quarters. And think of all the crates and baskets and containers in the area, not to mention the four storage levels below it. Those kids picked quite a place to get lost in."

  She turned and spoke at length to the gesardl secretaries, who listened politely but said nothing. Malina still was hearing crashing reverberations - your children murdered a native - and when Miss Schlupe spoke again she didn't respond until the question was repeated.

  "Did you have any idea that anything was wrong?" Miss Schlupe asked.

  The gesardl secretaries seemed to be leaning forward to catch every word, which disturbed Malina even though she knew they couldn't possibly understand English. "I read a book and let them play by themselves," she said stonily. "Then - afterward - they weren't hungry and they did act strangely, but I thought it was because they'd tired themselves out. It was the first time they'd had a chance to play - "

  Miss Schlupe snapped her fingers. "They weren't hungry. By now, maybe they are."

  She spoke to the secretaries and dashed away. Malina, the secretaries and Arluklo followed in her wake as she determinedly pushed through the slow-moving arena traffic. Wherever anyone blocked her path, she snapped something that included the word "gesardl" and a way opened miraculously.

  At the refreshment stand, none of the workers selling food had seen the children. Neither had those working on the upper levels. Miss Schlupe led her procession up the stairs to her fourth-level office, tiredly flopped onto her enormous hassock chair, and motioned Malina to join her.

  "It's almost big enough to lie down on," she said tiredly. "I wish I could."

  Arluklo and two gesardl secretaries stood waiting by the stairway opening. The remainder of the secretaries were scattered along three flights of stairs.

  Miss Schlupe said, "There's no one in my storage rooms at night. If they managed to find their way there, they could have used the transmitter to come here."

  Malina tried to visualize Brian and Maia, in their pajamas, making their way invisibly through the mart to the storage rooms and coolly punching this destination on the transmitter board. She couldn't.

  "They would be seen somewhere," she said.

  "Maybe they were," Miss Schlupe said. "We haven't asked everyone in the mart. Once they got this far, no one would see them. There wasn't anyone here, and there's no one working above this level."

  "You mean - they came here - and climbed - "

  Your children murdered a native. No, she did not know her own children.

  "I mean they could have," Miss Schlupe said. "They're bright kids. I brought them here by transmitter several times. I'm betting they could have managed it themselves. Just a moment."

  She went to the stairway opening and shouted down an order. A moment later, two of her employees squeezed past the gesardl secretaries still waiting on the stairs. Miss Schlupe spoke orders in large-talk, and they turned obediently and started to climb.

  Then, in the mart language, Miss Schlupe spoke to the gesardl secretaries, and two of them followed the workers. Miss Schlupe returned to the hassock, sat down, and kicked off her shoes. "Whether or not they're up there, it's got to be done," she said.

  Malina said uncertainly, "Should I go with them?"

  Miss Schlupe shook her head. "It's a long, long climb to the top, and they'll have to check every level and every possible hiding place. If they find them, they'll bring them down. You'd be tiring yourself out to no purpose, and you may be needed somewhere else."

  She sighed and retrieved her shoes again. "Got to see how my skeleton staff is keeping up with the demand for sandwiches. Back in a minute."

  She disappeared down the stairway. There was only one gesardl secretary in sight. He stood by the stairway keeping his multiple eyes fixed on Malina. The unblinking stare seemed accusatory: Your children murdered a native. Arluklo stood beside him, head and legs drooping in the queer way the kloa had when they were motionless. Malina said, in large-talk, "Arluklo, what laws apply to those attending the mart?"

  Arluklo straightened up and piped mechanically, "The laws formulated by the gesardl."

  She meditated that for a moment and decided she'd asked the wrong question. "If someone attending the mart commits an offense against a citizen of Montura, what laws apply?"

  "The laws of Montura," Arluklo answered.

  "And - " She faltered and then forced herself to continue. "What distinction do those laws make for minor offenders?"

  Arluklo did not understand. She knew no word in large-talk for minor, so she had rendered it as small. She tried again, rephrasing the thought. "Do the laws make any distinction according to the age of the 'offender’?”.

  Arluklo answered politely that the laws made no such distinction.

  "In other words," MaIina began. Again she faltered and had to force herself to continue. "In other words, the punishment is the same no matter how old or how young - the offender is."

  Arluklo quietly agreed.

  "And - what distinction is made between causing a victim's death accidentally and causing it intentionally?"

  For a moment Arluklo seemed uncertain. He pondered the question.

  The gesardl secretary kept his eyes fixed on Malina - all of them. "There is no distinction in the result," Arluklo said finally, "so there is no distinction."

  "And - what punishment do the laws permit for causing death?" She heard the answer quite distinctly, but she asked the question again, and she was asking it a third time when Miss Schlupe returned. Miss Schlupe, with Arluklo's surprisingly firm assistance, moved her through transmitters and walked her along corridors and finally got her back to the Prime C
ommon and her apartment, where Miss Schlupe rummaged through the medical supplies to find a sedative for her.

  Then Malina fell asleep or fainted, and her last conscious awareness was of the stare of the gesardl secretary, who followed her to the very door of her bedroom, and of Arluklo's thin, piping voice and its maddeningly precise reply.

  The staring, accusative eyes - your children murdered a native those eyes chased her in a nightmarish, drugged flight through a feverish sleep's endless corridors while she sought over and over to escape the terrifying reverberations of Arluklo's spoken word.

  The punishment for causing a death, whether accidentally or intentionally, and whether the offender was a mere child or a mature adult, was death.