by Brian Aldiss
To SartoriIrvrash, the rumble suggested only a distant glacier breaking. He dismissed it in his pleasure at having ground beneath his feet again. The women, however, looked gravely at each other and climbed without speaking to stand on top of the boulder. They scanned the landscape and gave cries of alarm.
“You, brutes, draw the sledge close under the rock,” Odi Jeseratabhar called in Hurdhu to the phagors.
The rumble became a thunder. The thunder rose from the earth, from everywhere. Something was happening to the low slopes to the west. They were in motion. With the terror of someone faced with a natural event beyond the scope of his imagination, SartoriIrvrash ran to the rock and began to climb. Io Pasharatid helped him scramble to a shoulder where there was room for all four of them. The phagors stood against the boulder, milts flickering up their nose slots.
“We’ll be safe here till they pass,” said Odi Jeseratabhar. Her voice shook.
“What is it?” SartoriIrvrash asked.
Through a thin haze, the distance was rolling itself up like a rug and tumbling towards them. They could only watch in silence. The rug resolved itself into an avalanche of flambreg, advancing on a wide front.
SartoriIrvrash tried to count them. Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred—it was impossible. The front of the advance was a mile wide—two, five miles wide, and comprised herd after herd of animals. Endless ranks of yelk and flambreg were converging on the plain where the boulder stood.
The ground, the rock, the very air, vibrated.
Necks extended, eyes glaring, saliva flowing free from open mouths, the herds came on. They wove their living streams about the boulder, joined them at its far side, and passed on. White cowbirds sailed above them, keeping pace with no more than an occasional dip of a wing.
In their excitement, the four humans stretched out their arms, screamed, waved, cheered with exhilaration.
Beneath them was a sea of hoofed life stretching back to and beyond the horizon. Not a single beast looked up at the gesticulating humans; each knew that to miss its footing meant death.
The human exhilaration soon faded. The four sat down, huddling close. They looked about with increasing listlessness. Still the herd passed. Batalix rose, Batalix set in concentric aurioles of light. Still there was no sign of the end of the herd. The animals continued to flow by in their thousands.
Some flambreg detached themselves from the stampede to mill about by the bay. Others plunged straight into the sea. Still others galloped in a trance over the cliffs to their death. The main body of animals thundered down into the dip and up the other side, heading towards the northeast. Hours passed. The animals continued with their monotonous drumbeats of noise.
Overhead, magnificent curtains of light unfolded, and flashed, rising to the zenith. But the humans became despondent: the life which had exhilarated them earlier now depressed them. They huddled together on their ledge. The four phagors stood pressed against the wall of rock, the sledge before them for protection.
Freyr sloped shallowly towards the horizon. Rain began to fall, at first uncertainly. The lights overhead were extinguished as the fall became heavier, soaking the ground and changing the sound of the hoof-beats.
Icy rain fell for hours. Once it had established itself, it prevailed like the herd, with no variation to its monotony.
The darkness and noise isolated SartoriIrvrash and Odi Jeseratabhar slightly from the others. They clung together for protection.
The hammer of animals and elements penetrated him. He crouched with his brow against the rib cage of the admiral, expecting death, reviewing his life.
It was the loneliness that did it, he thought. A deliberate loneliness, lifelong. I allowed myself to drift away from my brothers. I neglected my wife. Because I was so lonely. My learning sprang from that awful sense of loneliness: by my learning I set myself further apart from my fellows. Why? What possessed me?
And why did I tolerate JandolAnganol for so long? Did I recognize a torment in him similar to mine? I admire JandolAnganol—he lets the pain come to the surface. But when he took hold of me, it was like a rape. I can’t forgive that, or the deliberate wanton accursed burning of my books. He burnt my defences. He’d burn the world down if he could…
I’m different now. Severed from my loneliness. I will be different, if we escape. I like this woman Odi. I’ll show it.
And somewhere in this ghastly wilderness of life I will find the means to bring JandolAnganol low. For years, I swallowed insults, ate bitterness. Now—I’m not too old—I’ll see to it for everyone’s sake that he is brought low. He brought me low. I’ll bring him low. It’s not noble, but my nobility has gone. Nobility’s for scum.
He laughed and the cold froze his front teeth.
He discovered that Odi Jeseratabhar was weeping, and possibly had been for some while. Boldly, he clutched her to him, inching his way across their perch until his rough cheek was against hers. Every inch was accompanied by the limitless drumming of hoofs across a dark void.
He whispered almost random words of consolation.
She turned so that their mouths were almost touching. “To me falls blame for this. I should have foreseen it might happen…”
Something else she said, snatched away by the storm. He kissed her. It was almost the last voluntary gesture left him. Warmth lit inside him.
The journey away from JandolAnganol had changed him. He kissed her again. She responded. They tasted a mutual rain on their lips.
Despite their discomfort, the humans slipped into a sort of coma. When they woke, the rain had faded to no more than a drizzle. The herd was still passing the rock. Still it stretched to the far horizon on either side. They were forced to relieve their bladders by crouching at one edge of the boulder. The phagors and the sledge had been swept away while they were asleep. Nothing remained.
What caused them to rouse was an invasion of flies which arrived with the herd. As there was more than one kind of animal in the great stampede, so there was more than one kind of animal among the flying invasion; all kinds were capable of drawing blood. They settled in their thousands on the humans, who were forced to fold themselves into a small huddle and cover themselves with cloaks and keedrants. Any skin exposed was instantly settled on and sucked till it bled.
They lay in stifling misery, while beneath them the great boulder shook as if still travelling on the glacier which had deposited it on the plain. Another day went by. Another dimday, another night.
Batalix rose again to a scene of rain and mist. At last the force of the herd slackened. The main body had gone by. Stragglers still passed, often mother flambreg with yearlings. The torment of flies lessened. Towards the northeast, the thunder of the disappearing herd still sounded. Many flambregs still milled about along the coastline.
Trembling and stiff, the humans climbed and slid to the ground. There was nothing for it but to make their way back to the shore on foot. With the stench of animal in their nostrils, they staggered forward, assailed by flies every inch of the way. Not a word passed between them.
The ship sailed on. They left Persecution Bay. The four who had been stranded in the midst of the stampede lay below decks in a fever induced by exposure and the bites of the flies.
Through SartoriIrvrash’s delirious brain travelled the herd, ever on, covering the world. The reality of that mass presence would not go away, struggle against it as he would. It remained even when he recovered.
As soon as he was strong enough, he went without ceremony to talk to Odi Jeseratabhar. The Priest-Militant Admiral was pleased to see him. She greeted him in a friendly fashion and even extended a hand, which he took.
She sat in her bunk covered only by a red sheet, her fair hair wild about her shoulders. Out of uniform, she looked gaunter than ever, but more approachable.
“All ships sailing long distances call in at Persecution Bay,” she said. They pick up new victuals, meat chiefly. The Priest-Sailors Guild contains few vegetarians. Fish. Seal. Crabs. I have seen
the flambreg stampedes before. I should have been more alert. They draw me. What do you think of them?”
He had noticed this habit in her before. While weaving a spell of Sibish tenses about herself, she would suddenly break out with a question to disconcert the listener.
“I never knew there were so many animals in the world…”
“There are more than you can imagine. More than anyone can/should imagine. They live all around the skirts of the great ice cap, in the bleak Circumpolar lands. Millions of them. Millions and millions.”
She smiled in her excitement. He liked that. He realized how lonely he was when she smiled.
“I assume they were migrating.”
“Not that, to the best of my knowledge. They come down to the water, but do not stay. They travel at all times of the year, not just in spring. They may simply be driven by desperation. They have only one enemy.”
“Wolves?”
“Not wolves.” She gave a wolflike grin, glad to have caught him out. “Flies. One fly in particular. That fly is as big as the top joint of my thumb. It has yellow stripes—you can’t mistake it. It lays its eggs in the skin of the wretched bovidae. When the larvae hatch, they burrow through the hide, enter the bloodstream, and eventually lie in pockets under the skin on the back. There the grubs grow big, in a sore the size of a large fruit, until eventually they burst out of their crater and fall to the ground to begin the life cycle again. Almost every flambreg we kill has such a parasite—often several.
“I have seen individual animals run in torment till they dropped, or cast themselves off tall cliffs, to escape that yellow-striped fly.”
She regarded him benevolently, as if this account gave her some inward satisfaction.
“Madame, I was shocked when your men shot a few cows on the shore. Yet it was nothing, I see now. Nothing.”
She nodded.
“The flambreg are a force of nature. Endless. Endless. They make humanity appear as nothing. The estimated population of Sibornal is twenty-five million at present.
There are many times—perhaps a thousand times—that number of flambreg on the continent. As many flambreg as there are trees. It is my belief that once all Helliconia consisted only of those cattle and those flies, ceaselessly coming and going throughout the continents, the bovidae perpetually suffering a torment they perpetually tried to escape.”
Before this vision, both parties fell silent. SartoriIrvrash returned to his cabin. But a few hours later, Odi Jeseratabhar sought him out. He was embarrassed to receive her in his stinking cubbyhole.
“Did my talk of unlimited flambreg make you gloomy?” There was coquetry in her question, surely.
“On the contrary. I am delighted to meet with someone like you, so interested in the processes of this world. I wish they were more clearly understood.”
“They are better understood in Sibornal than elsewhere.” Then she decided to soften the boast by adding, “Perhaps because we experience more seasonal change than you do in Campannlat. You Borlienese can forget the Great Winter in Summer. One sometimes fears/fearing when alone that, if next Weyr-Winter becomes just a few degrees colder, then there will be no humans left. Only phagors, and the myriad mindless flambreg. Perhaps mankind is—a temporary accident.”
SartoriIrvrash contemplated her. She had brushed her hair free to her shoulders. “I have thought the same myself. I hate phagors, but they are more stable than we. Well, at least the fate of mankind is better than that of the ceaselessly driven flambreg. Though we certainly have our equivalents of the yellow-striped fly…” He hesitated, wanted to hear more from her, to test her intelligence and sensibilities. “When I first saw the flambreg, I thought how closely they resembled ancipitals.”
“Closely, in many respects. Well, my friend, you pass for learned. What do you make of that resemblance?” She was testing him, as her pleasantly teasing manner indicated. By common consent, they sat down side by side on his bunk.
“The Madis resemble us. So do Nondads and Others, though more remotely. There seems to be no family connection between humans and Madis, though Madi-human matings are sometimes fertile of offspring. Princess Simoda Tal is one such sport. I never heard that phagors mate with flambreg.” He gave a dry laugh at his uncertainty.
“Supposing that the genethic divinities who shape us have made a family connection, as you call it, between humankind and Madikind? Would you then accept that there was a connection between flambreg and phagors?”
“That would have to be determined by experiment.” He was on the brink of explaining his breeding experiments in Matrassyl, then decided to reserve that topic for another time. “A genetic relationship implies outward similarities. Phagors and flambreg have had golden blood as a protection against cold.”
“There is proof without experiment. I do not believe as most people do that every species is created separately by God the Azoiaxic.” She lowered her voice as she said this. “I believe the boundaries blur with time, as the boundary between human and Madi will blur again when your JandolAnganol weds Simoda Tal. You see where I lead?”
Was she secretly an atheist, as he was? To SartoriIrvrash’s amazement, the thought gave him an erection. Tell me.”
“I have not heard of phagors and flambreg mating, that’s true. However, I have good reason to believe that once this world held nothing but flambreg and flies—both in countless and mindless millions. Through genetic change, ancipitals developed from flambreg. They’re a refined version. What do you think? Is it possible?”
He tried to match her manner of argument.
“The similarities may be several, but they are mainly surface ones, apart from blood colour. You might as well say men and phagors are alike because both species talk. Phagors stand erect like us. They have their own cast of intelligence. Flambreg have nothing of the kind—unless galloping madly back and forth across a continent is intelligent.”
“The phagorian ability to walk upright and use language came after the two bloodlines divided. Imagine that phagors developed from a group of flambreg which… which found an alternative to ceaseless flight as a way of dealing with the fly problem.”
They were gazing at each other with excitement. He longed to tell Odi of his discovery regarding hoxneys.
“What alternative?”
“Hiding in caves, for instance. Going underground. Free of the fly torment, they developed intelligence. Stood upright to see further and then had forefeet free to use tools. In the dark, language developed as a substitute for sight. I’ll show you my essay on the subject one day. Nobody else has seen it.”
He laughed to think of flambreg performing such tricks.
“Not over one generation, dear friend. Over many. Endless generations. The cleverer ones would win. Don’t laugh.” She tapped his hand. “If this did not happen in past time, then let me ask you this. How is it that the gestation period for gillots is one Batalix-year—while the gestation period for a flambreg cow is exactly the same length of time? Doesn’t that prove a genetic relationship?”
Sailing on, the two ships passed the lowly ports of the southernmost coast of Loraj, which lay inside the tropics.
From the port of Ijivibir, a caravel of 600 tons named the Good Hope sailed out to join the Golden Friendship and the Union. It made a brave sight, with its sails painted in vertical stripes. Cannon were fired from the flagship in greeting, and the sailors gave a cheer. On an empty ocean, three vessels were many more than two.
Another occasion was marked when they had reached the most westerly point of their course at a longitude of 29° East. The time was ten to twenty-five. Freyr was below the horizon, trawling an apricot glow above. The glow dissolving the horizon seemed to radiate from the hazy water. It marked the grave from which the great sun would presently rise. Somewhere concealed in that glow lay the sacred country of Shivenink; somewhere in Shivenink, high in the mountains that ran all the way from sea to North Pole, was the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar.
A bugle so
unded All Hands. The three ships clustered. Prayers were said, music played, all stood to pray with finger to forehead.
Out of the apricot haze came a sail. By a trick of light, it appeared and disappeared like a vision. Birds screamed about its masts, newly away from land.
It was an all-white ship, sails white, hull fresh with whitewash. As it drew nearer, firing a gun in salute, those aboard the other ships saw that it was a caravel, no bigger than the Good Hope; but on its mainsail stood the great hierogram representing the Wheel itself, inner and outer circles connected by wavy lines. This was the Vajabhar Prayer named after Shivenink’s chief port.
The four ships tacked close, like four pigeons nestling together on a branch. A bark of orders from the Priest-Militant Admiral herself. Bowsprits turned, cordage creaked, artemons filled. The little fleet began to sail southwards.
Colours in the water changed to a deeper blue. The ships were leaving the Pannoval Sea astern and entering the northern margins of the vast Climent Ocean. Immediately, they struck rough weather. They had a hard time of it, combating mountainous seas and hazardous storms, in which they were bombarded by gigantic hailstones. For days, they saw neither sun.
When at last they reached calmer waters, Freyr’s zenith was lower than before, and Batalix’s somewhat higher. To port lay the cliffs of Campannlat’s westernmost redoubt, Cape Findowel. Once they had rounded Findowel they sailed into the nearest anchorage along the coast of the tropical continent, there to rest for two days. The carpenters repaired the storm damage, the members of the Priest-Sailors Guild stitched sails or else swam in a warm lagoon. So welcome was the sight of men and women disporting themselves naked in the water—the puritanical Sibornalese were curiously unprudish on this occasion—that even SartoriIrvrash ventured into the water in a pair of silken underpants.