The Best of Margaret St. Clair

by Margaret St. Clair

  “They have but few professed members. Your friend was right about that. But everybody on Mars knows about them and, very quietly, believes in them. Even if they are illogical. Pluto was originally a Martian colony, and the ambassador knows how our minds work. That is why it would be of great advantage to someone to have the pig.”

  They had reached a stately quarter now. Nobly-framed buildings stood among big trees so crowded with blossoms that they were arboreal bouquets. Vines twisted among their branches and dropped long starry racemes of flowers to the ground. The air was rich with the scent of them. “I don’t know just how we’re going to get the pig back from him,” Blixa said thoughtfully. “But we’ll have to try.”

  George slowed down and looked at her. “Why us?” he demanded practically. “If the pig means as much to Martian life as you say, it’s clearly a matter for the government.”

  “Government?” Blixa echoed. She looked almost shocked. “Certainly not. Government is a logical activity. If I went to an official with this, he would laugh at me, and if I persisted there would be punishment. You don’t understand. I should be making him ashamed.”

  Logical… reasonable… George felt dizzy with the words. His head still hurt where he had been hit. On the other hand, Blixa did seem to know what she was talking about, and for the first time that evening she impressed him as being sincere.

  “O.K.,” he said.

  A few steps farther on Blixa indicated a large building with a broad flat roof. “This is the embassy,” she said in a low voice. “I imagine they still have it, because it’s so hard to get about in Marsport during the festival. Probably they’ll try to get it to a Plutonian ship when people are off the streets. Once it’s aboard, there won’t be anything we can do.”

  They walked past the embassy slowly, George making a deliberate effort to look casual and unconcerned. The street was still crowded with revellers. When he and Blixa reached the corner they turned and came back again. From an upper window of the embassy, very faint through the scent of the flowers, a trace of a familiar smell came to George. He would never have noticed it if he had not been expecting it, and even then he could not be sure. He looked enquiringly at Blixa, and she gave him a tiny nod.

  Before he realized what she was doing, Blixa led him over to the soma font. “We’ll have to drink and act like the others,” she said in a low voice. “We’d be conspicuous, just hanging about.” She slipped lithely through the crowd, George following her. From the double-spouted fountain she caught soma between her hands and held them up for George to drink. As he awkwardly sipped at the liquid, his lips, unavoidably, brushed the soft flesh of her palms.

  Laughing at his clumsiness, Blixa helped herself from the founta in and then held up her hands again for him to drink. It was good soma, though not especially strong; George could feel it warming him, relaxing his tension, washing away his headaches and his fatigue. “Let’s have some more,” he said.

  Blixa had turned back to the fountain for more soma when a tall blond Drylander who was standing beside her ran his hands possessively over her shoulders and whirled her off in the first steps of a complicated dance.

  George began to frown. It was, of course, none of his business whom Blixa saw fit to dance with, but they were here on business. She ought to remember it. And besides, he could have danced himself if she had taken the trouble to show him how. When a little dark girl came up to him and said challengingly, “Dance with me, Earthman!” he accepted with alacrity.

  “Is this one of the DruDehar dances?” he asked after they had moved a few steps. The DruDehar dances (Old Martian for “Golden Garden”) were known all over the system as the Mating Cycle.

  “Yes, they all are,” the girl replied. “You Earthmen aren’t very good at dancing, are you? Too stiff. When I come forward, you come forward too. Don’t pull away from me! There, that’s better. Much better. You’re doing fine.”

  The dance ended with a wild swoop of anzidar strings. Smiling at him, the small dark girl stood on tiptoe and threw her arms around his neck. She kissed him several times, affectionately if muzzily. “For an Earthman,” she said, “you’re rather nice, I think.” George was not altogether sorry when her grinning escort whirled the little dark girl away in another dance.

  The crowd began to grow thin. Couples disappeared into doorways, around corners, under the shadows of trees. Blixa, flushed and smiling and redolent of perfume, came up and she and George drank more soma together. In a surprisingly short time there was no one left in the street but themselves and a man with wrinkled limbs and thin gray hair who snored happily as he lay upon the pave.

  Blixa linked her fingers with George’s and led him into the shadow of the basalt statue of Chou Kleor. Chou Kleor was the greatest of the poets of Mars. His works, perhaps, were not much read nowadays, but every Martian schoolchild knew him as the writer who first spoke of “scented Mars”. His statue was a monumental thing, and the shadow it cast was correspondingly large.

  “We’ll wait here,” Blixa breathed. “If they happen to be watching from the embassy, they’ll think we couldn’t be paying any attention to them.” She sat down on the turf and drew George down by her side.

  “Have you any plan for getting the pig?” he asked softly.

  “Yes. I imagine they’ll just send one man with it, because the fewer people who know about a thing like this, the better it is. When he comes out I’ll walk toward him and pretend to stumble. He’ll come toward me and start to help me up. And then you hit him—hit him hard—and get the pig away from him.”

  It sounded O.K. George nodded. It occurred to him that he was going to a great deal of trouble to get his half of Bill’s bonus and marry Darken. If anything went wrong, he’d be in a nasty mess. He hoped Darleen would appreciate it. But Darken—funny, he’d never thought of it before—Darken wasn’t what you’d call a very appreciative girl.

  The city was utterly quiet now. Blixa yawned and in the most natural manner in the world rested her head for a moment against George’s chest. He was still trying to decide whether he ought, in simple politeness, to put his arm around her, when she sat up alertly again. “I might go to sleep that way,” she explained.

  The sky was growing lighter; it would not be long until the first signs of day. George bit back a yawn, and then another one. Suddenly he leaned forward, transfixed. The embassy door was opening.

  Blixa had leaped to her feet. As the door opened wider and a small dark man (the tzintz, George thought with a thrill of recognition, the tzintz who had knocked him out at the drainage pits) slipped out of it, she started across the pavement to him.

  She was wobbling a little, in a skillful simulation of drunkenness, and crooning softly as if to herself.

  As she came abreast of the tzintz she stumbled and pitched forward on one knee. It was so well done that George watching, was afraid she had really hurt herself. She tried to get up, grimaced. “My knee,” she said plaintively, “my knee.”

  The tzintz hesitated. He was carrying in one hand a case that could be nothing but the pig’s. Then he made up his mind. He walked toward Blixa, put his hand under her armpit, and began solicitously helping her to her feet.

  George pounded up to him, his long legs putting out a very creditable burst of speed. He hit the tzintz on the point of the chin. He gave the pig’s carrying case a mighty tug.

  It was then that the flaw in Blixa’s plan became apparent. The pig was chained to the tzintz’s wrist.

  The three began whirling about in an impromptu saraband. Blixa, popping up, was tugging at the tail of the tzintz’s tunic. George, on the other end, was pulling for all he was worth on the carrying case. And the tzintz, in the middle, was uttering shrill cries.

  This state of affairs could not continue. Window irises in the embassy opened. I leads popped out. People began yelling at each other. Even the inebriated old man who had been sleeping on the pave was sitting up and looking around him bewilderedly.

  Blixa abandoned h
er enterprise suddenly. Yelling “Run!” at George, she let go her hold on the tzintz so abruptly that George almost fell over backward. She shouted “Run!” once more in warning and then whirled around and darted off into the darkness of a side street.

  George decided to follow her advice. He dropped the carrying case. He turned. He ran straight into the arms of two big Plutonians.

  And after that, of course, it was only a matter of minutes until the police carts came.

  It was hot in the jail. George had a black eye, two loose front teeth, and a fair hangover from the soma he had drunk.

  The jailer (George was the only prisoner at the moment) was morose and intractable. George surmised correctly that the man resented his incarceration because it meant that the jailer wouldn’t get enough sleep to let him celebrate the Anagetalia adequately.

  Every time the jailer brought him food or came to see how-he was doing, George asked to see a lawyer or somebody from the Terrestrial embassy. The jailer only grunted and went away again. It occurred to George that for a Terrestrial to assault a Plutonian on Martian soil might constitute an interplanetary incident. Perhaps he was being held without bail.

  The day passed slowly. George spent most of it pacing around his cell or sitting on his bunk and cursing Blixa mentally. Blast the girl; it was all her fault. From the moment he had seen her she had ordered him around, pushed him from one situation into the next, told him what to do. And this was the result. The Cyniscus was taking off for Terra day after tomorrow; if he wasn’t there, he’d be blacklisted for the rest of his life. It was the kind of a mess he’d spent his existence up till now trying to avoid. Blast the girl. Maybe it wasn’t entirely her fault. Blast her anyhow. If he ever saw her again, he’d give her a piece of his mind.

  By the middle of the second day in clink George was down to his last fingernail. Late in the afternoon the jailer came to his cell and grunted that he had a visitor. Visions of liberty began to float through George’s mind. He followed the man eagerly.

  It was Blixa. After his first surprise George advanced to the grating with fire in his eye. He was going to tell her what he thought of her.

  Blixa beat him to it. “Listen, gesell,” she said in a cold voice, “why didn’t you tell me you were pushing the groot?” Her level eyebrows had drawn together, and even her green shari looked indignant.

  “Groot?” George repeated. He didn’t know the word.

  “Groot, meema, alaphronein,” the girl answered impatiently. “I’d never have bothered with you if I’d known what kind of man you were.”

  George knew what alaphronein was. It would have been hard to find anyone on the Three Plane ts who did not. It was a highly dangerous drug, with a rotting effect on the nervous system, which reduced its victims to scabrous husks. It originated on Venus, was sent to Earth to be processed, and Mars was the center of its illicit distribution. The Martian government had been making an all-out effort to repress the traffic in it.

  “I’m not pushing it,” George said weakly. The accusation was so big it was difficult to deny.

  “They found nearly a hundred grams of it on you.”

  “They couldn’t have.”

  “They did, though. It was inside the image in a lucite disk you were carrying.”

  A great light dawned on George. Farnsworth! He had forgotten all about him. Hastily he told Blixa how he had got the disk and what he had been supposed to do with it.

  As she listened the girl’s face cleared, “My, I’m glad to hear that,” she said when he had finished. “I couldn’t bear to think I’d been mistaken in you like that. It wasn’t reasonable.

  “It’s a mess, though. Farnsworth must be in open space by now, and it’s hard to get people off a ship. Anyhow, it’s just your word against his. And the government hates the alaphronein traffic so much I wouldn’t be surprised if they hung you up by your thumbs or burned you alive in Ares Square. You have no idea the trouble I had getting in to see you.”

  “I’m darned glad you came,” George said sincerely. He had forgotten all about how angry he was at her.

  Blixa beamed for an instant and then grew sober again. “It’s still a mess,” she said ruefully. “They never give bail in drug cases. You’ll have to escape.”

  Out of the corner of his eye George saw that the jailer, who had been hovering discreetly in the background, was coming closer to them. He gave Blixa a warning wink.

  The girl raised her chin infinitesimally to show she had understood. “Do you know how much I’ve cried, thinking about you?” she went on, leaning forward intimately. Her voice was a tone or two higher than it usually was. “Why, my pillow’s been sopping wet. My shari was all wet too. I know it wasn’t reasonable to cry so much, like one of Vulcan’s weeping dolls, but I couldn’t help it. I cried and cried, until everything was all wet.”

  What the devil—? George felt a tickling sensation in his wrist. He looked down and perceived that Blixa, in a series of tiny mo vements, was passing something no thicker than a hair through the grating to him. It was too small to set off the matter-detector built into the grating, being very nearly invisible. George clamped it against his hand with his thumb and began winding it around his wrist. A shade of relief passed over Blixa’s face.

  “Do you ever think about me, George?” she asked, leaning forward again. She was still speaking in that rather unnatural voice.

  “You bet I do.” George answered heartily. He was bewildered, but still game.

  Blixa sighed. “I think about you so much at night,” she said. “One always feels so alone at night, doesn’t one? It’s not so bad during the day, but at night one feels so alone.”

  The jailer came up. “Time to leave, lalania,” he said courteou sly. (“Lalania”—Old Martian for “perfumedness”—was politely used in addressing ladies.) Blixa got up to go. “I don’t know when they’ll let me see you again,” she said. “Soon, I hope.” She blew him a kiss, smiled and was gone.

  George was taken back to his cell. He spent the rest of the day in concentrated thought.

  By one o’clock that night he was ready to try his escape. He had constructed a reasonably realistic dummy in his bunk. It would, he thought, fool the night jailer when he made his infrequent rounds.

  Much reflection had convinced George that the key words in what Blixa had said to him were “wet,” “Vulcan’s workshop,” “one” and “at night.” Also, she had said that she hoped to see him soon. One o’clock, therefore, was the time, and water the means.

  He had, consequently, put the long hair she had passed him through the grating into his drinking cup to soak. Incredibly, amazingly, as it took up water it had shortened and grown thick. It turned eventually into a largish egg, glossy pink, with a knob at the larger end. The surface had a most peculiar feel, something between plastic and living flesh, and it was faintly warm to the touch. The transformation was so surprising that George saw why Blixa had prepared him for it by the reference to Vulcan’s workshop.

  Vulcan’s workshop, in Martian folklore, was an artificial planetoid at the far end of our galaxy on which an immortal artificer lived. Half divinity, half scientist, he was supposed to spend his days in the creation of objects of incredible workmanship. Martians called him master of life and half-life, and they ascribed any particular subtle and cunning device to him. Once or twice before George had run across things whose construction he had been hard put to understand; but this was the first time he had seriously wondered whether the legends might be right.

  His cell was windowless, with walls of translucent brick. A little nervously, for he was not quite sure what it would do, George held the broad end of the egg against the lower cour se of brick and pressed the knob. Nothing happened. He bit his lip. Then, in a burst of sheer inspiration, he twisted the knob.

  The egg quivered in his left hand. He held it steady. After a moment it began to bite into the brick. Dust showered down and lay in a glittering trail on the floor. Quietly and steadily the egg continued
to eat, growing a little thicker. It reminded George of some blindly hungering animal.

  In less than half an hour he had cut a circle in the outer wall large enough for him to get through. He reduced the egg to quiescence by twisting its knob in the other direction. Carefully he pulled the cut-out section of translucent brick into his cell and leaned it against the wall. Then he slid into the opening.

  His cell was only on the second floor, and Martian gravity was less than Earth’s. George hesitated all the same, deliberately relaxing his muscles, before he let go. It would be the height of irony to break an ankle at this stage. He landed with a thump that took the breath out of him. Blixa detached herself from the shadows and glided up while he was still checking over his anatomy.

  “Pharol be praised,” she said in a low voice, “you did get the idea. I was afraid you might not. No broken bones?”

  “I’m O.K.”

  “Hurry, then. I gassed the guard, but pretty soon he’ll come to.” Blixa set off at what was almost a run through the shadows. George hurried after her.

  “Hadn’t we better take an abrotanon car?” he asked when he had caught up.

  Blixa shook her dark red curls. “We’re safer on foot. As soon as they miss you, the alarm will go out, and they’ll alert all the cars. Wait a minute, though.”

  She steered him under a light, untied the end of her shari, and with the cosmetics it contained began deftly making up his face. His black eye was hidden, his cheek bones heightened. She drew a frown between his eyes and added lines around his mouth. With tiny bits of plastic she even changed the set of his ears.

  “That’s better,” she said, “but—” She rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned his tunic, tied up its hanging tail. “And don’t walk so straight. Slump, sort of. No, not like that. Relax more. Pretend you’re drunk.—Say, have you got the egg?”