King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  The path broadened at the beach. Marc took her hand and led her along a forest path. “This thing I found, it’s weird. And I mean really weird, Sally. You remember the savior that blew up? It was walking along, then suddenly it just exploded? Well, that’s nothing compared to what I’ve found.”

  It was not far. Marc pushed his way through a clump of dense bush against a rocky face.

  “A cave!” cried Sally in delight. “I’ve never seen this one before. How did you find it?”

  “I was following Blackberry Nan one day, and I saw her go in here. After she’d left, I took a look.”

  “But this isn’t weird. It’s quite exciting.”

  “Wait till you’ve seen what’s inside.”

  She followed him, ducking her head. Once inside, she could straighten up again; the cave was roomy. Soon her eyes became accustomed to the dim light.

  “Over here,” said Marc.

  He rolled aside a few stones, exposing the foot of the rock wall. “Look at that.”

  Sally knelt and stared at the rock. “It’s … transparent. There’s something behind it.”

  “Feel the rock.”

  She did. “It’s cold. It’s like ice, isn’t it? But it’s not wet. Ice would have melted away. It must be something else.”

  “Look closely inside there.”

  Sally peered at the rock. There was a dark patch near the surface of the transparent area. Beyond was a pale bump, but she couldn’t see farther than that. “What is it?”

  His voice was husky. “It’s a man.”

  “What!” And suddenly the dark patch sprang into focus. It was the top of a head, and the bump was a nose. Beyond that, a beard showed. Sally backed away hastily. She imagined she saw the head move. “Oh, God,” she said, scrambling for the daylight at the cave’s entrance. “What did you bring me here for?”

  “I did warn you.”

  “Yes, but there’s weird and there’s weird. This is as weird as you can get. What’s he doing there? How did he get there?”

  They began to walk back toward Mara Zion village.

  “I wondered if this was the end of a glacier. I remember learning that things come out of the end of glaciers, millions of years later, perfectly preserved. But there are no glaciers in these parts. He must be somebody from a previous civilization who got stuck in there somehow. But that doesn’t explain the cold rock.”

  “We could ask a savior. Saviors know a lot.”

  “Probably, but they don’t always tell.”

  “This savior will. We’ll torture it until it does!”

  He smiled indulgently. “Which savior is that?”

  “The one that’s going to fall into my trap. The evening cliff patrol.”

  “Oh, shit.” He regarded her in dismay. “What have you been doing now, Sally?”

  “Well,” she said defensively, “why the bloody hell not? I’m really getting tired of the saviors running our lives for us. Do they think we’re stupid or something? And now the moors are off-limits.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, didn’t you know? They’ve put up sentry posts and they’re stopping people from going up there. If we want to visit the wild humans at Meniot we have to go a roundabout way. And as usual, they won’t tell us why they’ve done it. ‘It is for your own good,” she mimicked in a tinny voice. “Well, I’m going to get the truth out of the evening savior. The truth about the moors and quite a number of other things. Some questions need answering, Marc!”

  “Oh, shit,” he said again, helplessly. He knew better than to try to deter Sally from a course of action.

  The Swingers’ village came into view. A group of children were playing kick-up, racing around the clearing and scampering up and down the trees in pursuit of a huge, hydrogen-filled ball. A knot of elders stood outside the schoolroom with their elbows resting on the window ledges, looking in at a teaching savior’s screen. A few dedicated athletes practiced for the Cornish Games, flinging themselves around their apparatus’ with confident abandon. Nobody worked. Nobody dug, planted or harvested, sewed or cooked. The saviors looked after that side of things.

  “I’d better go, Marc,” said Sally. “I’ll meet you on the cliff path this evening. Be there.” She frowned at him, then ran off in the direction of the Wingers’ settlement.

  Marc watched her go with some foreboding, then the screaming of a child caught his attention. She had fallen from a high branch. A savior appeared from nowhere, scooped her up, and examined her for broken bones. Apparently deciding she needed a more thorough examination, it set off at a run in the direction of the hospital, several kilometers away. The anxious parents unhitched their horses, climbed into the safety cages, and galloped off in pursuit. The game resumed more circumspectly.

  Marc approached his father. “They’ll be banning kick-up now,” he said.

  Adam smiled. “If they’d intended to ban the game, they’d have done so long ago. They’ve calculated the odds on injuries and decided the benefits to our health outweigh the risk. They know there will be an injury every seventy days or whatever, and Katie is just a statistic bearing out their projection.”

  “Poor Katie.”

  “The saviors do their best. That’s what machines are for.”

  “And they know what we’re going to do. They’ve got it all calculated.”

  “More or less. They have an ancient word for it. The ifalong.”

  “I just wish we could surprise them,” said Marc. He thought of Sally the way he’d sometimes seen her, when she hadn’t known he was looking. Standing on the cliff watching the sea gulls with naked longing in her eyes. Unfurling those pretty wings and waving them in imitation. “Sally says the saviors locked a whole bunch of people in the dome.” The dome was huge, looming into the sky north of Pentor like a silver sunrise.

  “They went in of their own accord, as your friend Sally knows very well, if she’s watched her history lessons. They have dreams in there that are just like real life, but much safer. You’ve heard people speak of Dream Earth, Marc. It suits the dreamers and it suits the saviors. There’s nothing sinister about it.”

  “And yet we can’t go into the dome.”

  “The dome is for true humans.”

  Marc and Sally watched in breathless silence from the cover of a bush. The savior came thudding along the cliff path in the twilight, head jerking this way and that as it checked that nobody was lying injured anywhere, that no child was lost or frightened, that the weather forecast had been correct, that the gulls were maintaining their population, and that everything else in the district of Mara Zion was in order. Meanwhile it hummed a merry little tune so that nobody would be startled by its approach. Thump … thump … thump … tootle, tootle, tootle.

  Then the watchers heard a snapping of branches, a scrabbling sound, and a rattling cascade of stones. The happy tune continued, but faintly, almost lost in the thud and splash of waves.

  “We’ve got it!”

  “Quiet, Sally. It may still be mobile. Wait here a bit longer.”

  She shook herself free from his restraining hand. “Marc—it’s only a savior! It’s not a parent or anything. It doesn’t matter whether it’s mobile or not. It’s not going to blame us for anything.” She hurried to the rockfall and stared down into the gloom where the waves burst in frothy luminescence against the rocks at the foot of the cliff. “There it is, see? It’s not getting up. That’s a good sign.”

  Spray was drifting over the twisted, humanlike figure. “So what do we do now?”

  “We go down there and confront it, of course. We question it. We interrogate it. If necessary, we apply pressure.”

  “It’s pretty steep for you, Sally. Shouldn’t we wait until morning? It’ll still be there.”

  “The tide will rust it, you fool. You know they can’t stand seawater.”

  “Listen, if you want any help from me, you’d better stop calling me a fool. Just tell me how you think you’re going to get down there.”

&
nbsp; “With the rope, of course. I came prepared.”

  They descended to a platform of large boulders, all that remained of ancient falls after the tides had swept the small stuff away. The savior lay twisted, humming pleasantly to itself. Its right leg was broken. The skin had split and a mess of parts had spilled out.

  “Hello,” it said. “I’m damaged and I haven’t been able to notify anybody. Will you be kind enough to carry a message back to Mara Zion?”

  “No, we won’t,” said Sally, chuckling triumphantly. “You’re going to stay here until you tell us what we want to know.”

  “Of course. What can I tell you?”

  Its readiness took Sally by surprise and she hesitated. Marc said, “Why did the true humans go into the dome?”

  “Because it’s much better for them in there.” The savior’s tones were quiet and reasonable. “The dome was built long before we came on the scene. The humans were already in there, their minds living in a place they call Dream Earth. They’d already discovered mental activity is much safer than physical. Not to mention the increased life span resulting from a perfect diet, administered intravenously. You humans are delicate creatures, like all organic life-forms. You must be protected.”

  “Suppose we don’t want to be protected?” asked Sally.

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “Why won’t you let wild humans into the dome if it’s so good for people?” asked Marc, glancing at Sally’s wings. “I’m sure there are people outside who would like to try dreaming.”

  “The domes are for true humans. That is the way. True humans are inside and wild humans are outside. I thought you didn’t want to be protected, anyway,” said the savior cunningly.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” said Marc.

  Sally was flushed with frustration. “Why don’t you allow my people to go out in fishing boats?”

  “We do not prevent you. Your own physique prevents you. You Wingers cannot swim. The young man with you belongs to a different race. His kind can swim, so they can go out fishing. Our duty is to protect you from yourselves. Humans are not always completely rational.”

  “Why can’t I swim? Why am I different from him?”

  “You were born different. Your parents’ genes are different from his parents’ genes.”

  “Why are our genes different from True Humans?”

  “It is not in your best interests to know that.”

  “Marc, get a rock. Bash it till it talks.”

  “Good idea,” said Marc. He picked up a large rock and poised it over the savior’s good leg.

  Sally leaned forward, staring into the savior’s flat eyes. “Who are we?” she asked quietly.

  “It is not in your best interests to know that.”

  “Bash him, Marc!”

  Marc hesitated, the rock held high. The savior’s eyes met his blandly. The savior’s face was well made. It was convincingly human—with skin, underlying bones, and a complex musculature allowing an extensive range of facial expressions. Now it twisted its features into a pleading look.

  “I can’t do it,” said Marc at last.

  “Give me the rock! I’ll do it! I’ll smash it straight through the chest screen!”

  “The rock’s too heavy for you, Sally.”

  “Oh, shit!” Sally cried. “What a bloody fiasco! These bastards have got us by the short hairs, Marc. We’ve got to make him talk. We’ll never get a chance like this again. We’ll get the truth out of him if we have to pound him to a pulp. We’ll—”

  “Quiet! Somebody’s coming. I heard voices.”

  “You’re just saying that to shut me up. You know what, Marc? You’re a bloody weakling!”

  “I just can’t see the point in smashing up this savior when we both know it’s programmed to keep its mouth shut.”

  “We have nothing to lose. It must have some instincts of self-preservation. When that kicks in, it’ll tell us everything. It’ll crack suddenly, and scream for mercy. It’ll—”

  “Somebody’s coming down the rope!”

  A cascade of pebbles rattled onto the boulders. They peered up, but it was too dark to make out details on the cliff face. “Bloody hell,” muttered Sally. “I bet it’s my dad.”

  “Or mine.”

  The rope twitched. ‘Who’s that?” shouted Sally. “Tell us who you are or we’ll bash your head in! We’re ready for you!”

  The reply was one they would remember for the rest of their lives. The accent was strange and the voice tiny, as though a foreign mouse had spoken.

  It said, “We come in peace.”

  It was Fang who spoke.

  The words would have been more appropriate if addressed to a formal gathering of Earth’s leaders. It takes time to find a leader in an underpopulated region, however, and the exploratory party had landed only a couple of hours ago. Walking toward Mara Zion in the gathering darkness, they had headed for the first human voices they heard.

  They assumed these would be the lonely and frightened survivors of an almost extinct race, who would be grateful for help and guidance during their final years.

  Instead it seemed their heads were in danger of being bashed in.

  “We’ve made a mistake,” muttered Fang, reversing direction and bumping into the hairy buttocks of Afah. “Back up the rope, gnomes!”

  Afah began to climb, but the Miggot, above him, accidentally grasped the Princess’s ankle instead of the rope. She lost her grip and fell onto him. With a wail of fright he crashed onto Afah. In an instant the four members of the exploration party were rolling down the steep slope. They arrived in a heap at the feet of Sally and Marc.

  “Bash them, Marc!” In the twilight the scrabbling figures looked like gigantic spiders.

  “They said they come in peace.”

  “They don’t look like things that come in peace. They look like things that bite!”

  However, when the small creatures picked themselves up, they looked reassuringly bipedal, although one had a tail.

  “We are kikihuahuas,” said Afah. “We come from another world.”

  “Where’s your ship?” asked Sally suspiciously.

  “We don’t actually use ships,” explained Fang eagerly. “We use bats. We—”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard! And why aren’t you gobbling and twittering? Things from other worlds gobble and twitter. They don’t have normal vocal cords. But you even speak our language. You know what I think? I think you evolved in a sewer somewhere. Given time, almost anything can evolve in a sewer, so I was told.”

  “We used to live on Earth, long ago,” said Fang, before Afah could launch into a long-winded explanation.

  “Prove it!”

  “This place is called Mara Zion.” Fang began to give a detailed description of the topography, but Sally cut him short.

  “We know all that stuff. Tell us something we don’t know.”

  “Then you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Why are you different from him?” asked Sally, pointing to Afah. “Why does he have a tail? And he’s covered with fur, but you three wear clothes. You can’t all be Wawas, or whatever the hell you call yourselves.”

  Afah was appalled at the turn events had taken. There was a certain protocol attached to historic encounters between intelligent races. Leaders met and exchanged expressions of mutual esteem. There were usually tall buildings involved, and well-disciplined crowds and speeches. And above all, there was a deep respect for kikihuahua achievements in genetic engineering.

  Notably absent from such occasions were belligerent interrogations, accusations of lying, and blinding clouds of salt spray.

  He said quietly, “Let me handle this, Fang.” Then, drawing himself up to his full height—an act that went unnoticed by the humans—he said, “Take us to your leader.”

  “No,” said Sally.

  “I am a member of the most numerous form of kikihuahua,” he explained, maintaining his dignity. “The other three are of a temp
orary form that we created for the specific purpose of exploratory work on the planet Earth. In your language they are called gnomes.”

  “Gnomes?” Sally uttered a shriek of incredulous laughter. “Gnomes are funny little people in children’s stories. They live in burrows and wear pointy red hats.”

  The Miggot spoke for the first time. Picking up his cap and wiping the moisture from it, he held it out. “What the hell do you think this is?” he said with a snarl.

  There was a pause while the two factions regarded each other in frustration. There seemed to be nothing useful this encounter could achieve. It would have been better if it had never happened.

  At that moment the situation was further complicated by the savior. Unnoticed by the others, it had gradually struggled to a sitting position, its eyes easily coping with the dim light as it stared at Afah. It registered his height, his weight, his general physique, his fur, his tail. Meanwhile other sensors noted his body temperature, his odor, and his vocal characteristics.

  Finally satisfied, it raised an arm and pointed a long finger unerringly at the kikihuahua.

  “Master,” it said.

  Sally whirled around in a fury. “My God!” she cried. “Don’t we have enough problems without that crap? Is the spray getting to you?”

  But Afah had been going through his own tortuous process of recognition.

  Something in the appearance of the sitting figure had touched a chord in his memory lobe. He began to explore it, tracing it back through generations of inherited memories with nothing to guide him but the shape of the savior and a spill of parts from an injured joint. He went further back, until he was revisiting the earliest kikihuahua explorations without having identified the elusive recollection.

  Finally he reached the images of the Home Planet, the world from which the kikihuahuas had fled aeons ago, driven into the greataway by the suffocating presence of one of their own creations: the last electromechanical device ever constructed by Afah’s race. …

  “By the Sword of Agni,” he whispered, “it’s a Tin Mother!”