Tvrdy hated the thought of meeting the repulsive nonbeing alone in unfamiliar territory, but he was desperate. He would see Giloon, find out what his help would cost, and, with luck, estimate what that aid would be worth. The fact that Giloon had replied at all was a good sign; the crude map he’d sent was a better one. The Dhog wanted something, or he would not have responded at all.
Tvrdy came to a place where the tunnel ended, opening onto a deserted plaza lined with the charred stumps of once graceful feng trees. He consulted the Dhog’s drawing and confirmed what he already guessed, that this was the entrance to Isedon, center of one of the original clusters of long ago; the only one still remaining. The dwelling-blocks on either side of the square—those still somewhat intact, at any rate—were smaller than in Hage, and were built in the ancient style: straight lines and flat surfaces. Tvrdy much admired the style and had copied it in his own kraam. The decrepit structures were dark and empty now. At least he supposed they were empty. The feeling of invisible eyes observing him intensified as he moved hesitantly to stand in the center of the plaza, overgrown with wireweeds and squatty lofo bushes that had insinuated themselves into crevices between the broken paving stones.
Tvrdy stopped when he reached the center and drew a shaky breath to calm himself. The air smelled foul and old, rank with decay. He shivered involuntarily; the place was a pest hole. He looked furtively around, imagining all sorts of crawling vermin creeping in the rubble of the tumbled buildings, and pulled his coat more tightly around him. The stiffness in his left arm reminded him of why he had come.
He and Cejka had had Cynetics’ own luck that day when the Invisibles found them in the Archives. In the confusion of the travelers’ escape, he and Cejka had—he still didn’t know precisely how—convinced the savage Mrukk, Commander of the Mors Ultima Invisibles and Jamrog’s personal lackey, that killing two Directors outright and without proof of treason would be a mistake that would be paid in blood.
Mrukk, his face rigid with hot frustration at seeing his quarry racing away on Fieri skimmers, had made the decision to try to stop them, leaving Tvrdy and Cejka behind as he turned his attention to the fleeing spies. Cejka’s men had attacked the small security force as soon as the shooting started on the landing platform.
Cejka lost several good men that day—Tvrdy himself had been wounded—but the Directors had escaped.
Then followed one demoralizing setback after another as all their careful plans failed or were neutralized by some evasive tactic of Jamrog’s. The Saecaraz Subdirector seemed always to be one step ahead of them as the rebel Cabal scrambled for leverage to force events their way. So far, success had proven as elusive as a Hage priest’s blessing, and as costly. They had lost many followers, and their network of agents and informants lay in ashes.
Tvrdy was startled out of his morose inventory by the appearance of a short, thick-limbed figure scuttling toward him over the slanting stones of the deserted plaza. The man wore a long cloak that dragged at his heels and held a short bhuj in his right hand; the wide, flat blade glimmered dully in the murky light as its owner scrambled forward on stump legs.
The Dhog leader came to stand before Tvrdy, his face begrimed, the hair of his beard virulent, matted, and greasy. A vicious purple scar divided his low forehead like a jagged lightning bolt, parting his hair and plunging diagonally down to the left cheek, warping the left eye so that it looked upward askance, as if Giloon were continually watching the sky-shell of Dome for a sign.
“So, Tanais!” he said, his round face splitting like an overripe fruit. Ocher teeth shone through the mat of hair, and his pudgy nose wrinkled in wry good humor. His voice was coarse gravel grating on glass, a sound to inspire abhorrence. An odor like that of rotting meat came off the Dhog’s filth-encrusted clothes—actually, rags patched with rags—offending the nostrils as much as their appearance assaulted the eyes. On his chest he wore the medallion of a Jamuna Hage priest: a double-ended arrow bent into a circle.
Tvrdy took this in with a grimace of disgust, almost gagging, but forcing a sickly smile of greeting. Why had he come? There was no point. The odious creature could do nothing for him. His heart shrank in despair, but he reached into an inner fold of his yos and brought out a packet which he offered.
The Dhog spat and looked at the packet. “Giloon don’t needs it. Giloon be knowing you, Tanais, withouts it.”
Tvrdy replaced the packet, actually relieved not to have the Dhog paw through his personal documents. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me. You took a chance, giving me directions.”
Giloon tilted his face up and laughed. The sun had risen, but the weak light filtering in through the stained crystal panels overhead remained dusky. Very likely Old Section residents knew only two variations: twilight and deep night; their days were spent in the dim half-light of eternal gloom.
Giloon’s laugh died. “What Tanais wants of Giloon Bogney?”
“Is that who you are?”
The Dhog raised the bhuj and laid the flat of the blade against his cheek and rubbed. “Who else? Anyway, as Giloon a nonbeing it matters no big much, seh?”
“I want your help,” Tvrdy said simply. He had been prepared to use elaborate persuasion and rhetoric to state his case, but decided to cut the interview as short as possible so that he could get away. There was no point in drawing out the hopeless affair.
“Help!” Giloon spat, dribbling spittle over his chin. “Help he wants!” He spun the bhuj in his hands and leaned on the haft, looking at Tvrdy with wild amusement on his dirty face.
He’s insane, thought Tvrdy. I never should have come. “Help, yes.”
“And what you be giving in return? You slicing Giloon’s throat, seh?” He drew the blade tip of the bhuj across his neck.
Tvrdy took a deep breath and said, “If you help us remove Jamrog from power, we will grant the Old Section stent—you will become a Hage.”
“And Giloon being a Director?”
Tvrdy grimaced, swallowed his revulsion, and said, “Yes, you would become a Director.”
The Dhog squirmed—whether with delight or torment Tvrdy couldn’t tell—raised his face once more, and laughed deep in his warty throat. “Giloon liking a man who lies big and fearless! You eating the night soil with both hands, Tanais, but Giloon liking you. That is why he not killing you now. Directors must be talking, seh? We talking.”
The two women walked along the shore of the glimmering quicksilver sea, Prindahl. Chattering rakkes strafed the shallows for the quick yellow fish, scattering diamonds among the waves with every plunge. It was still early morning, but the day was warm and fair; a seaward breeze flipped the wavetops and swept the hair from their foreheads as the two ambled along, steeped in the comfort of each other’s company.
Presently Ianni stopped, finding a place to spread her fishing net. Already barefoot, she lightly doffed the saffron knee-length trousers she wore beneath the belted tunic and waded out into the water.
Yarden Talazac watched for a moment and then sat down on a large flat rock nearby and let Prindahl’s cool waters lap over her feet. Face turned toward the small white disk of Empyrion’s sun, she let the rays warm her skin and allowed her mind to drift as she listened to the shimmering beauty of Ianni’s song.
Ianni, like most Fieri, had the gift of song in her soul. She could spin a melody as easily as she cast the light net in her hands while wading the crystalline shoals. Ianni’s songs were webs of fragile, sparkling beauty: fine and delicate and intricate, possessed of a poignance that made Yarden yearn for places she’d never been, for things she’d never seen and did not know.
Fierra itself, the shining city of the Fieri, came very close to fulfilling Yarden’s nameless longing. It was all she could have dreamed of and more: a spacious, gracious city filled with gentle, loving people; an entire civilization whose highest aim was the pursuit of truth and the nurture of beauty in all its varied forms.
In Fierra there was no want, no trouble, no pain, no viole
nce of any kind. In fact, none of the noxious weeds that had poisoned other societies had taken root in Fierra. It was a charmed, enchanted place. Charmed and enchanted by the Presence, the all-infusing Spirit of the Infinite Father, whom the Fieri worshipped in nearly every word and deed. Here in Fierra, among these inspired people, it was easy to believe in their God, easy to feel His relentless, questing spirit drawing the faith of all men and women to Himself.
Yarden wanted to believe. In the last weeks she had felt the prickly, fidgety squirm that signaled an inner awakening. This stirring in her soul she knew to be, in part, a deepening desire of hers to actually become a Fieri. In believing in the Fieri’s God, she would be like them in a most fundamental way. There was more to it than that, but the rest remained inarticulate and unformed. Her heart had its reasons that her head could never know. She was content to let the matter rest there for the moment, to let belief come to her in its own time and in its own way—if it would.
As for the rest—a whole realm of thought and feeling she was ignoring, holding back, and denying, most of it having to do with the disturbing person of Orion Treet—she simply refused to entertain even the smallest fragment of a thought or emotion. She had shut him out of her life the moment she turned her back on him at the airfield and had maintained her stoic decision ever since.
Ianni’s song stopped and Yarden shifted her thoughts, focusing her sympathetic awareness on her friend. The two women had grown so close in their months together that it was easy for Yarden to receive Ianni’s thought impressions—they came through clear and strong. In fact, Ianni had developed a habit of mindspeaking whenever she thought Yarden might be listening to her.
Bohm returns this morning. The balon will arrive soon. We could go to the field if you wished.
Yarden opened her eyes and looked at Ianni, who was still standing with her net in her hands, gazing into the water. No, she thought, and wondered if Ianni would receive her answer. I don’t want to speak to Bohm about … the trip.
You cannot forget him, Yarden. He will need our prayers.
I mean to forget him, thought Yarden. That’s exactly what I intend doing—as quickly as possible. He made his choice, and I have made mine. I will have nothing more to do with him.
She closed her eyes once more and lay back on the rock, feeling its sun-soaked warmth seep into her. She would forget him.
THREE
Asquith Pizzle let the rudder line go slack in his hand as the sleek sailboat turned itself into the wind, scarlet sail flapping. He gazed at the Fieri woman sitting across from him, now regarding him with a quizzical expression.
“I feel like letting it drift for a while,” he explained.
“Are you hungry?” asked Jaire, reaching for the bundle riding in the sling between them, her henna hair flaring red-gold in the bright sunlight.
“Starved.”
“You’re always starved.” She laughed lightly. “What an odd word.”
“I’m still a growing boy.” It was true—spending every waking moment with Jaire made him feel like a youngster whose fondest birthday wish had come true. “I could look at you forever,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. Never in his life had a woman as beautiful as Jaire allowed him within fifty meters; most hung out “Forget it, Buster!” signs the second they saw him coming. Jaire was different. And despite the fact that she was, technically, an alien—or maybe because of it—he was ankles over elbows in love with her.
Jaire favored him with one of the dazzling smiles she gave so effortlessly, bent her head, the lights off the water filling her eyes, and with deft fingers tugged open the bundle in her lap, bringing out the sweet fruitbread she had prepared. “I am going to the hospital tonight,” she said, passing a thick slice, over which was spread a soft nut-flavored cheese.
“Is someone sick?” He took a bite and savored it.
“No …” Jaire shook her head. “It is my—what is your word for it?”
“Shift. Your work time is called a shift.” He had been teaching her Earth English, as she had been teaching him Fieri.
“It is my shift.” Jaire worked at the Fieri’s single central medical facility—a hospital devoted mostly to the care of expectant mothers and the delivery of babies. There was little disease among the Fieri; so being a physician meant obstetrics and pediatrics almost exclusively.
Also, since disease had long been in decline, the medical profession among the Fieri ranked about the same as the position of computer operator back on Earth, as far as Pizzle could tell. Not that the Fieri worked all that hard at any particular occupation. Theirs was a culture wholly given to job-sharing. No one, apparently, held down a single career. Each of those tasks necessary to the maintenance and functioning of society was divided among any number of people.
And since there was no such thing as wages—they simply had no concept of money—it didn’t really matter who did what. People tended to do what they liked to do, receiving training in several different occupations and then pursuing them most casually. This had the effect of removing such societal ills as avarice, ambition, and stress from the work environment. The Fieri ascribed no status to what a person did; they were more concerned with the quality of the life being led.
“How long?” Fieri work schedules bewildered Pizzle; he didn’t see how they kept all their various tasks and commitments straight.
“Ten days.”
“Every night?”
She laughed, “Yes, every night. You will have to ask Preben to take you to the concerts instead of me.”
“But I don’t want to go with Preben—I want to go with you. I’ll miss you.”
Jaire passed him another slice of fruitbread and looked at him in that mysterious, enigmatic way Pizzle regarded as her Mona Lisa look—a look she had begun giving him a great deal in the last few days. It hinted at both humor and high seriousness, combined with several other elements he couldn’t decipher. Something completely female, and therefore foreign to him. He had no idea what it meant.
Pizzle continued, changing the subject. “I’ve decided what I want to do with my life here. I want to learn all I can about your people—every single thing.”
“That will not take long.” Jaire lifted the sweet bread to her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “There is not much to learn.”
“I disagree! There’s everything to learn.” He held up the half-eaten slice of bread. “For example, I don’t have the slightest idea how or where you grow your food, or where you go to get it, or how you divide it up. Or how you get along without money, or anything like that. Where I come from, everything’s money! Without money you can’t live.”
“You have told me about money before. Forgive me, but I still don’t understand it.”
“Never mind. But you see what I mean? There’s a whole world to learn.” He waved his bread in an arc that took in the whole of the Empyrion horizon, glittering with the sun off the distant pavilions.
“And what will you do when you learn everything?”
“I don’t know. Write it down, maybe. It doesn’t matter. I want to know all about you.” Pizzle tucked the last morsel of bread into his mouth, lay back, and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift in the glory of the day. He felt positively reborn. Nothing else mattered but that he was here and that he would always stay here, just like this, now and forever. He felt his shriveled soul expand, shaking out folds and wrinkles he’d thought were permanently impressed.
He breathed a long sigh of profound contentment and let the gentle waves rock him to sleep as Jaire composed a nursery song she would sing to her infant charges later that night. Yes, thought Pizzle dreamily, this was the life. Heaven itself could not be sweeter. A man would be a fool to leave—for any reason.
Treet hung on the metal ladder in an agony of indecision. Should he go back and wait until whatever was happening up there in the Archives was over, or should he risk discovery to find out what was going on? This debate raged for several minutes, and would have gone on lon
ger, but his fingers grew tired. Rather than drop back down, it was easier to go up—which he did with utmost caution, inching up the ladder, watching the hole overhead for any sign of discovery, ready to let go and fall the instant he saw anything suspicious.
He saw no reason for retreat, however, though the clangor and rumble grew perceptibly louder the higher up the ladder he went. At last, clinging to the top rung, he pushed his head up just above floor level to see that nothing had been touched near his secluded hole. The sounds he had heard came from a point midway between him and the inner doors of the enormous circular room. A quick check confirmed what he already guessed—that the outer doors were now sealed tight once more. Whoever was running the machine stood between Treet and his only exit.
Wasting no time, Treet pulled himself the rest of the way out of the manhole and darted to a nearby stack of electrostatic filter frames, crouched, and peered cautiously around. He saw no one nearby, so began threading his way through the mazework of discarded machines and obsolete junk, creeping with all the stealth he could muster.
The din grew as the incessant clang began to include other sounds as well: the screech of rending metal, the groan and pop of fibersteel breaking, the crash and clatter of objects being thrown and smashed against one another. Treet worked his way toward the activity, pausing frequently to look over his shoulder. If he were caught now, it would be over before it began. Fortunately, the noise of the wreckage covered any inadvertent sounds he made, allowing him to get closer than he might have otherwise.
What he saw when, crouching behind a plastic water tank, he peeped out across a cleared expanse of Archive floor was a huge orange machine lumbering across the floor and stirring up the fine gray powder into a thick haze. The thing was little more than an engine on treads, with a flat metal plate hung on the front for banging a pathway through the accumulated jumble. A half-dozen Saecaraz stood watching the mayhem as the improvised bulldozer rammed the circle larger, punching the perimeter outward from the center. The heavy metal plate smacking against the treads created the deafening clang that he’d first heard.
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 2