The Face of Heaven

by Brian Stableford

  They fed him broth made from gray meat and the flesh of various beasts. At first his stomach rejected them all, and whatever they made him swallow he would instantly vomit back. But they made him take water to replace what he sweated off, and gradually they were able to enrich the water with some kind of sustenance. The period of adjustment was long, but in due time Joth became accustomed to the food of the Underworld and he recovered from those diseases which took hold of him. Occasionally he would speak or cry out, and there were many occasions when tears would flood from his eyes as he sobbed helplessly. In the early time his skin swelled and broke out into rashes perpetually as his exposure to alien proteins caused reactions in his flesh.

  Gradually, however, the sharp smell which marked his body as alien dwindled and was lost, and his body adapted to the new environment.

  The adaptation of his mind made some progress over the same period, but long after he was taking food regularly and sleeping without fever his consciousness retained the alien-ness that his body had rejected.

  The time was hard for Camlak, Huldi and Nita, because what they were doing was, in a sense, just as alien as Joth. It was not the way that life was lived among the Children of the Voice. It was not Yami’s way. In a different time, perhaps Camlak would not have been given the opportunity to defy convention and opinion, but Yami was old and ageing faster all the time.

  But if it was hard for Camlak to bring something alien into his world, it was ten times as hard for Joth to accept that he had come into that world. He found it difficult to locate himself, almost impossible to rediscover himself. Physiologically, he only had to be rehabituated. Mentally—perhaps spiritually—he had to be reshaped.

  Joth was born again in Stalhelm. The world of Euchronia’s Millennium, in which he had lived for more than twenty years, faded away as if it had been a dream. It retreated into his memory so far that it became almost unreal. It remained his world, insofar as he knew he had come from there, and it remained his insofar as he was determined that he should return to it if he could, but as a real and living world it was largely replaced by a whole new set of precepts and contexts.

  The hold which Joth had on his own world—and the hold which it had on him—were naturally slight and superficial. Joth had no instincts.

  He was lost, for a time, inside himself. He spent a period of time in nowhere. The people who tended him understood and accepted that, and they allowed him to come back in his own time. The people of the Underworld did not count, weigh and trade in time as did the people of Heaven, who were ruled by the metrication of days and nights. They had a better understanding of time and a more amicable relationship with it than did the people of the Overworld.

  When Joth awoke, in the real sense of the word, he found himself occupied by fear. Not panic, but fear. He had found himself a balance. For a long time—subjective time—after his rebirth, Joth could find nothing in his past but insanity. But he was in something of a privileged position. He did know what a nightmare was. He had a label to apply, and a context into which his experiences could be set. It was a good start.

  He remembered Ermold—just—but could make no sense of that particular encounter. He remembered the warriors finding and carrying him, too, and could make no sense of that either. But he could also remember Huldi and Nita and Camlak feeding him, tending him, cleaning him and cooling him. This he could make sense of. This he understood. These three individual beings he accepted as his friends, his relatives, his kindred of the new birth. He began to love them without being conscious of the fact, and he continued to love them likewise.

  Two worlds met by Joth’s bedside, and became caught up with one another.

  When Joth finally knew for sure that he was alive, awake and real, Nita was beside him. He looked at her, trying to decide exactly what manner of being she might be. A dwarf. A child of a dwarf-people. A face like an animal, but too human to be anything but the face of a man—a girl, a child.

  He searched his mind for something to say, and could find absolutely nothing. He knew that his failure must be written in his face, along with his fear. He looked around, and saw that they were alone in a small room. One lamp burned on a bracket in the wall. The walls seemed to be made of clay or crude plaster, but here and there the surface had crumbled to reveal the infrastructure, which consisted of bricks and square stones cemented together. The ceiling—also, presumably, the roof—slanted gently away from him, and was made of wood with the cracks sealed by the same plaster/clay.

  He sighed and relaxed, letting his head sink back. The girl looked at him curiously, and reached out a hand to touch him. His face—the flesh beneath the metal hood—was hot, but not wet. There was sweat on his neck, though.

  “The face,” she murmured, trying to prompt him to speak.

  “I was hurt,” he said. “They repaired me. A long time ago.”

  She accepted that. “The eyes,” she said, very quietly. “The eyes can see. But they are only bowls of metal. Metal lids, metal eyes.”

  “Yes,” he said, finding words and glad of the opportunity to use them. “They replaced my eyes. The eyes work well. Better than real eyes.” He whispered, as she did, not sure whether it was necessary.

  “Better than mine?” she asked. Her eyes were small, wide-set but mobile and keen.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “Your chin,” she said. “Your ears, your head.”

  “Some is plastic flesh, not metal,” he said. “They did what they could. But the plastic needs a base of real flesh. Where they had to cut to the bone, they had to use metal. The rest of me is real. All save a few scars of plastic. Quite human.”

  “Are there men in your world who are all metal?” she asked.

  He wanted to answer, to reinforce his friendship for the child, but he was by no means sure what answer to give. There were robots in the old world—Euchronia’s world—but were they men, by her definition? He decided not, in the end. The robots were never wholly humanoid.

  “No,” he said. “All men are flesh and blood. I was hurt. I have only been repaired. You understand? The top of my face was burned away.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t repair men,” she said. “Who burned you?”

  “No one,” he told her. He felt no impulse to laugh at her assumption that he had been burned deliberately. He knew that the question was serious. “It was an accident,” he explained.

  She said nothing for a few moments, looking pensive.

  Then she said: “I knew, really.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “That the men of the world above aren’t made of metal. Some of the children have been saying so. The women say so. And worse things. It’s the old women making up things. I knew better. All the time.”

  Again, no impulse to laugh. Had this been a human child...a child of the Overworld.... But it was a human child, though not of the Overworld. Joth felt a moment of confusion. Was it...she?...human? Of course, he decided. But in that case, what, precisely, did the word “human” mean?

  “How did you know?” he asked. He was not humoring her. He wanted to know. She could help him find out...everything....She could be his teacher.

  “I can read,” she said. She said it flatly, not proudly. It was not a boast. Reading, to her, was part of the pattern of life. She could read, therefore she knew. Others, presumably, were not so fortunate.

  “Burstone,” he murmured. “He brings you books. In the suitcase. That’s what he was carrying. But why?”

  She didn’t reply. She didn’t know what he was talking about.

  He knew that he ought to begin to question her, to begin the long business of learning about his new world, but he was tired, and he hardly knew where to start. And he was still afraid. Very much afraid. His fear inhibited clear thinking. There was another priority, above that of learning. He had to know whether there was a way out, a way back. If not....

  He faced the thought of death. Ryan had died in the Underworld. Somewhere.
/>   He said: “The lights in the sky...,” and paused. He had spoken loudly. She looked around quickly.

  “We have no sky,” she said, swiftly, as though time might be running short. “We have a roof. Some of them call it the sky, but they cannot read. The stars are set in the roof. The roof of the world. The sky is beyond that. I do not know how far.” There was a dullness, almost a sadness, in the words as she spoke them.

  He tried hard to see the special significance in what she said, but he could not.

  “The lights in the roof,” he said. “Do they always shine?”

  “Always,” she said.

  “They have always been there?” he asked.

  “Always,” she said, patiently.

  “We didn’t know,” he muttered, feeling that some kind of explanation was due. “I didn’t believe him. I didn’t really believe in the stars. But he was right.”

  Suddenly, before his mind had time to frame another question, she was gone. She had heard something outside. He looked at the curtain which hung over the doorway, which stirred slightly after her withdrawal.

  He waited. He lay quite still. Wondering. Helpless.

  Chapter 33

  Porcel was counting his blessings. There didn’t seem to be very many. But time was on his side. He had not been forgiven for bringing back Joth instead of Ermold’s head, and naturally enough the rumor that he had been frightened out of his wits by his first sight of the man with the metal face had been aired all over the village. But it would die, given time.

  Porcel had ambition. He wanted to be Old Man. He didn’t think much of Camlak’s chances, and in open competition he had a better chance than most of imposing his will. He was a strong man, and a fierce fighter. The Communion of Souls was about due—an attack by Ermold was expected any time. So Porcel was estimating his chances, and thinking of ways to improve them. He had the time to think. Camlak was not in the village, nor were the warriors, for the most part. They were out in the fields, planning and organizing defenses. He had been detailed to stand guard at the long house. Apart from a handful of warriors at the gate there were only women and elders and children within the wall.

  Porcel knew that there was no point in standing guard at the long house. It was a purely ceremonial duty. Hence he was bored, and thinking hard. Could he provoke a fight with Camlak? Could he arrange things so that Camlak would have to fight him, and on his own terms?

  While he was thinking, he saw Nita slip through the skull-gate and make for Camlak’s house. He watched her, knowing that she was going to the man with the metal face. Porcel had decided that he hated the man with the metal face, and that it would have been sensible to have lopped off his head while the opportunity was there. He would hardly have been able to claim much credit for lopping a head of a quiescent body, but to have settled the matter there and then would have meant that subsequent trouble could have been avoided entirely. Yami was at odds with his son for taking the alien in, but he was also at odds with Porcel for having brought him in in the first place.

  Porcel decided that he would take Nita as a wife. Such a marriage would be desirable if he were to become Old Man, as some sense of kinship between rulers seemed proper. In addition, Camlak would hate the idea and Porcel would enjoy taking some of his hatred for Camlak out on the child. Further to these very good reasons was the ambition of simple carnal lust.

  The warrior’s eyes dwelt on the doorway to Camlak’s house while these thoughts ran round his idle mind, and he began to feel resentment and determination rise within him.

  Sada passed him by then, and shot him a quick glance as she did so. She muttered something about there not being a man left in the village, maliciously, just loud enough for him to catch the general drift of her meaning. He lost his temper and stepped quickly toward her. Sada ran away, past Camlak’s house and in between two others. Rather than run to catch up with her, Porcel kept walking, straight through Camlak’s threshold and into his house. The woman Ayria was there, having taken over the household duties from the disespoused Sada. She looked up in surprise as Porcel strode in.

  She ducked the first blow he threw, but was too completely off her guard to dodge the second—a wild, backhanded smash with no real malicious intent but quite some power. It caught the side of her head and knocked her over. She whimpered, completely bewildered by the warrior’s behaviour.

  Porcel paused, realizing that there was no point in taking out his vindictiveness on Ayria, who had done no one any harm, but the rage of his bitterness carried him away for a few moments more. He looked around, clenching his fist convulsively. Nita came out of the back room to find out what was happening.

  She tried to get round Porcel to the door and failed. He grabbed her and lifted her off the ground, his eyes flaring suddenly as his anger found a real target. He lost all thought of consequence and gave way to the full force of his inner fury. He hurled the child to the ground, flat on her back, and ripped her ragged skirt apart. She had no other garment underneath.

  Porcel dropped heavily on top of her, pinning her securely before reaching down to dispose of his own skirt.

  Ayria backed away into a corner, totally bewildered and settled into immobility, watching without understanding.

  But someone understood. Sada, curious as to why Porcel had gone into Camlak’s house, had come back to find out. She lifted a corner of the cloth which covered the door and began to laugh. She was delighted by the thought of what was happening.

  Nita could not find the breath to scream. The sudden and unexpected assault had left her completely winded. The weight of Porcel’s body crushing her seemed to preclude the possibility of any air even reaching her lungs again, and she was convinced that she was dying. She felt Porcel fumbling at her groin but she experienced no pain at all as he tried to thrust into her. All the pain was locked into her chest and head, and she was terror-stricken because it would not come out and let her draw breath.

  Even when Porcel’s weight was summarily snatched away she could not suck air into her lungs and she had no idea of what was happening. She was simply alone with her terror.

  Joth kicked Porcel clear out of the door, sending Sada bounding backwards out of the way. He followed up, and kicked the warrior again, as hard as he could. He felt a quick wave of satisfaction as the blow had similarly spectacular results. Joth weighed more than twice as much as Porcel, and he had long legs. He was not back to peak fitness by any means, but he had power enough.

  By the time Porcel realized what was happening to him he was half naked and sprawling in the mud halfway back to the portal of the long house. The first time he tried to rise he slipped and fell back into the glutinous filth of the street At first, he realized only that he had been hit and hit hard, and his actions were purely reflexive. But then he realized who had hit him, and how. He also realized that he was in full view of half the village. Sada was whooping and an audience would not be long in gathering.

  He made a noise that was pure animal, and reached for his weapon. Joth hung back momentarily, unsure of himself, and Porcel found the time to come to his feet and take the long knife from its scabbard. While Joth still hesitated, the warrior launched himself murderously into the attack.

  Joth had not expected the little man he had kicked so effectively to transform himself into a ferocious—and very fearsome—beast with a vicious instrument of murder and a clear intention of using it.

  In the split second that Joth saw Porcel coming he remembered that he was still exhausted, very stiff, and had never indulged in any form of violence in the whole of his active life.

  He would have been stone dead within a second if Porcel had not been so completely driven by mad hatred. The warrior was far, far faster than the man from the world above, and Joth’s clumsy attempt to get out of the way would have availed him nothing if Porcel had not been so utterly determined to ram home his point with every last vestige of strength he could muster.

  But sheer inertia carried Porcel’s point a frac
tion of an inch past Joth’s swerving waist. The same inertia took Porcel the way of the blade.

  The two bodies collided, but Joth remained unhurt and more or less unmoved. The relative masses of the two men made it inevitable that it was Porcel who was thrown off balance to sprawl once again in the dirt. Joth won a precious second or so to scramble away. He made the best possible use of it.

  But there was no possibility of escape. Joth couldn’t run. Porcel whirled as he rolled right back to the doorway of Camlak’s house, and then he stopped deliberately, allowing himself the luxury of two seconds to collect himself and to control and discipline his anger. He decided in that brief space of time exactly how he was going to begin carving Joth into small slices.

  There was one instant in which Joth met his murderer’s eyes, and read all the malice and the hate therein. Somewhere at the back of his mind he noted, with some wonder, the intense humanness of Porcel’s registered emotions.

  Then Porcel’s mind went absolutely blank. He collapsed silently in a ragged heap. He fell on top of his knife, but it did not pierce him.

  Huldi stepped out of the doorway, still holding the cooking pot she had hit him with. She looked round, fearfully, at the circle of eager faces.

  Sada was laughing.

  Chapter 34

  Eliot Rypeck was a small, excitable man with an unusual combination of mental proclivities. On the one hand he was a man who could pay excessive attention to trivia (something of a collector’s quirk) and on the other he was one of the few men who had a genuine understanding of the way in which man and the cybernet were potentially capable of establishing a quasi-symbiotic collaborative relationship within the context of mechanized society. Because of this, he was something of a two-sided coin. His determined opposition to the perpetuation of the i-minus project beyond the Plan and into the Millennial society itself reflects the second side of the coin—the basis of this particular conviction was the belief that man should be allowed full scope to adapt himself wholly to the new environment of the cybernet. While the instinct-suppressor was in use, he believed that this could not be achieved.