Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail flotd-4

by Jack L. Chalker

  Dr. Hsiu realized that the new generation would be born in the bush, and that they would be culturally far removed from their own children, and so she set about creating a society that would allow the Wild Ones to grow and develop as a native culture, free of all past cultural pollutants. In many ways, it was the greatest task, experiment, and opportunity for an anthropologist in history.

  The greater family, or tribal system, seemed the only logical way to go. Groups would have to be large enough to support one another, yet small enough to move with the weather and the food and still not attract Ypsir’s attention. A simple system, based primarily on age, was developed and taught—the younger would respect and follow the elder’s lead, and eventually, if they lived long enough, they, too, would run things. Originally intended just to keep the first generation in guiding control as long as possible, the tradition became quickly institutionalized in the harsh land.

  Since political unity beyond the tribal system was impossible, the only basic overlay that would unite the tribes in any way would be a religious one. So the few centers of refuge became holy shrines, and a system of simple belief based on many religions was established.

  Early on, though, the religion had taken an odd turn. Instead of worshiping some anthropomorphic god, the religion turned inward, to planet worship, of all things. God lived not in the heavens but inside the earth itself, one god for each world. This seemed logical to the young ones, for did not the Elders say that the heavens were filled with stars and planets and that humans went between them? If God was not in space, then, where was she?

  The original Elders went along with the theory because it worked; Dr. Hsiu herself noted that similar faiths in one form or another existed on all three of the other Warden worlds. Later Elders came to believe in it, and most, but not all, now did.

  By the second generation in the wild, things had become pretty institutionalized. The Free Tribes everywhere prayed in the direction of the Mount of God, a particularly high peak in the frozen north said to be the backbone of God the Mother Medusa Herself. This explained both the ritualized prayers and the sacrifice of the animal remains back into the pool—a return to Mother Medusa.

  The religious centers became retreats for study and meditation, as well as old-age homes for the most elderly, and also places where those who were pregnant came to give birth, if they could. This explained the pregnant woman with the hunting party, and as well why so many in the courtyard had been pregnant.

  As to why the Mount of God was chosen, that particularly piqued my interest. It was said that a hunting party had stumbled upon it shortly after the pogrom was in full swing and the hunt was on, and had battled “fierce demons who seemed to besiege the mount but could not climb upon it; demons more horrible to behold than the human mind can comprehend.” These “demons” got a number of the party, but the rest took refuge on the mountain where they had what can only be described as a classic religious experience. They claimed that somehow they had actually touched the mind of God, and as a result of that experience they had found themselves able to change their shape, form, or gender at will. This was apparently the beginning of the change toward planet-worship, and their experience was borne out by others who made the journey in their footsteps.

  Here was God, then, in a tangible but not easily accessible form, under constant attack by terrible demons who wanted to destroy Her but could not climb the mountain to do so. The demons were terrible enough in taking a fearsome toll of the curious, the pilgrims, and all others; but the experience of anyone able to make it to the mountain and then back off again was the same—a sense that they had talked with God, and had acquired the power to control every damned cell in their bodies by sheer force of will. I could certainly see why the revolution of malleables would be a real pain today for other than cultural reasons. Whatever those animals or creatures were that the accounts called demons, they were terrible and deadly—and very real. I felt sure of that. It would be tough getting enough people to that mountain, and back. Still, that mountain had something, some strange power that not only conferred this ability for life but also convinced a lot of hard-headed scientific materialists of the claptrap of this silly religion.

  I knew then where I had to go next. Surprisingly, the Elders agreed.

  “Yes, you must go!’ said the first woman, who I thought might well have been Dr. Hsiu. “You alone are the key to your family’s salvation. Without your drive and relentless will the other three would settle down and accept this culture. They dream your dreams because they love you. If, then, you make the Great Pilgrimage, and survive the demon trial, you will come mind to mind with God and you will know. Then will your life picture and world picture be irrevocably changed, as ours was. And, if you must still dream your ambitions after that, you will at least find the power that you seek.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I think, though, that we should have more training in the use of the primitive weapons here first. I don’t want anybody killed out of ignorance.”

  “We?”

  “Why, yes. All four of us. We are together in this, one.”

  “No.”

  I looked puzzled and felt angry. “Why not? Give me one good reason for it!”

  “I will give you two. Your wife Angi is four months with child. Your wife Bura is three months with child. They must remain here for the term.”

  “Well I’ll be damned!” I said, genuinely surprised and shocked. “It never occurred to me. It really didn’t.” Even after all this time on Medusa, the idea of natural birth as opposed to scientifically controlled laboratory birth was simply not connected in my mind. “But why didn’t they tell me?”

  “They did not want you to know as long as you were bent on your killing mission. Pregnancy does not show as much on us as on normal humans at this stage, nor does it produce any of the negative symptoms that normal human first-trimester gestation does.” She paused for a moment. “They were going to tell you and I stopped them. But now you know, and now you must make your decision. Go to the Mount of Gods, or remain to raise your children with those who love you.”

  My mind was racing at all this, and I felt a little angry and betrayed that they hadn’t told me straight off—but, then, they had been behaving a little odd lately and I’d simply passed it off.

  “What about Ching?” I asked. “If the other two are pregnant, then she sure should be. We’ve been together a lot longer.”

  “As far as we can tell, no, but on Medusa a pregnancy usually has to be fairly well along before we know for certain. We believe she is determined to go where you go, do what you do, no matter what; being with child would prevent that. On Medusa, a solid mind-set not to get pregnant is sufficient to leave it that way.”

  I thought it all out, trying to decide if the new situation really made a difference. It did, dammit, but I also had my own responsibilities to consider beyond the family. What good would it do to remain and have lots of kids and then look up one day to see a Confederacy world destroyer bearing down on Medusa, wiping out all of us and our futures? If anything, I thought, this made it even more urgent that I find the means to get to Talant Ypsir.

  Or was I just kidding myself?

  “How long will it take to get to the mountain?” I asked her.

  “Seven weeks—and it is in the north and east.”

  Fourteen weeks round trip. It was possible, anyway, to get there and back in the period before Angi was due. “Weapons?”

  “Do you know how to use the sword?”

  I almost laughed out loud. Considering Tarin Bul’s background, the question was a joke. But I wasn’t really Tarin Bul. “I’ve fenced for sport,” I told her, “but not with swords.”

  “That’s the best I can do. We have no pistols or rifles. The swords are hand-made, melted,down and remolded from some useless metal artifacts we found here.”

  “I can handle it,” I assured her. I was pretty sure I could handle any weapon, and I’d have weeks to get used to it. “And Ching?
”

  “Are you sure she will go with you?”

  “You are,” I. pointed out.

  She chuckled. “Yes, I am. She may choose what she wishes or feels comfortable with. You will go with a small group of sincere pilgrims, including a doubter or two going to see for themselves, and these will include experienced spear and bow masters.”

  “These… demons. What are they like?”

  “They are almost impossible to describe. But to reach the Mount you must cross an ever-frozen inlet of the ocean. There is no other way that is practical. They live there, in the waters under the ice, and can break through and grab you and drag you down as you cross. Their tentacles are tenacious, and their great mouths are on top of their heads. They are terrifying, and deadly, but remember this—hurt them and they will retreat They do not h’ke being hurt. But it is difficult to hurt them through their armor.”

  I frowned… “They have shells?”

  “No. Armor. They wear some sort of hard protective suit that is impervious to our weapons. Aim for the tentacles, eyes, and mouth. It is the only way.”

  Armor? On a creature living in the frozen sea? Or a tough suit that would act like armor, perhaps…

  Now I knew for certain that my choice was made. I would have to go. Unless I was completely and utterly wrong, the challenge was irresistible.

  I was going to meet our damned, elusive aliens—and find out just what the hell they were doing up there that started a religion.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Goddess Medusa

  “What’re you mad about?” Bura wanted to know. “You’re the one who’s leaving.”

  “Well, at least I expected you to try and talk me out of it,” I retorted.

  Angi looked me right in the eyes. “Would it matter? Would you not go if we cried and pleaded?”

  I sighed. “Probably not. I have to go.”

  “And we understand that,” Bura said. “We don’t like it, but we know you well enough by now. There’s something inside you, something eating away, that just isn’t going to go away. It’s just. …” Her voice trailed off and she turned away.

  I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. “I know. The children to come. You can’t believe how rotten I feel leaving you now—but, with luck, I’ll be back in fourteen weeks. If it was much longer I’d wait until after, you know that.”

  “You probably would,” Angi agreed, “and you’d slowly go nuts. You know it and we know it So—go. But… come back to us, Tari.”

  I admit I was starting to feel a little teary myself, and I hugged and kissed them both, and they hugged and kissed Ching. I turned to my original pair-mate. “I still wish you wouldn’t come. They need you here. Particularly if—”

  “I go where you go,” she said once again. “I’m not going to sit here and not know.”

  “All right, then,” I sighed, “let’s get going.”

  We walked out to the courtyard, where the rest of the party was gathering. With Ching and myself it was a group of fourteen, led by an experienced northerner named Hono. Like the others, she’d been born in the wild; the Free Tribes tended to keep to one name if doing so didn’t lead to confusion. We had been practicing with the group for several days, and I had to admit that Ching seemed to have a better handle on spear and bow than I did. Yet using my increased muscle power and some of my fencing steps and moves, I could wield the sword very effectively in close quarters. It was a close quarters weapon only, though, and I sorely missed those two laser rifles at the bottom of the slag. pit.

  There was one more round of emotional good-byes, and attempts on all parts to pretend that things were really just fine and normal, but both Ching and I were glad when we left the compound and our people behind. It wasn’t a question of out of sight out of mind, but, rather, a strong feeling inside me that if I didn’t get out of there soon I would be unable to leave. Having found a closeness and an emotional bond I had never before even conceived of, I was now turning my back on it and going back to work for a system in which I no longer had any faith. I liked to tell myself, and Ching, that we were doing this for ourselves and for the planet’s protection and not for any outside force or government. But there was still both the love of challenge which was part of my personality and the uneasy sense that three more of me—one each on Charon, Lilith, and Cerberus—were leading different lives with similar objectives. It would be intolerable for me to fail if any one of them were to succeed. I wished I knew more about them and their fates.

  At least we didn’t have to walk all the way. Four sleds pulled by tame vettas awaited, large enough to carry us and our weapons, tools, and portable shelters. The vettas raised their odd-looking heads and snapped their wide, fiat bills at us as we approched, but that was just their form of recognition.

  The sleds proved efficient, though neither comfortable nor fast, since we were traveling long ways over grass and rocks and the vettas, restrained in their harness, could use their power but not their speed and grace. The trip was bumpy as hell, but it beat walking and carrying the stuff.

  Ching remained pretty tense and quiet—clearly she disapproved of the trip, of leaving the others, and of most everything concerning my objectives. She wanted to sit back, meld into one or another of the Free Tribes, and just live out her life. The war, the aliens, the Four Lords themselves seemed at best distant, at worst unreal or incomprehensible to her. But she did understand that she had a family and, away from TMS and the guilds and modern Medusan society in general, was enjoying a sense of personal freedom she had never known before. The primitiveness of her new life style really didn’t bother her. The sense of oppression—a sense she’d been born and raised with—had lifted from her, giving her what she wanted; Bura, Angi, and I gave her what she needed… And yet, here she was.

  The Elders had spoken of a cultural gap between the Free Tribes and me that might never be bridged; here, too, I felt, was another gap that remained despite all our closeness and intimacy. Ching could never understand why I had to go; I could never understand why she had to follow—but I could no more stand in the way of what she had to do than I could allow her and the others to stand in my way. In that sense, as the days passed out in the bush and the air grew colder with the northern journey, we did more or less affect a practical sort of thaw. We did not understand each other, and we knew it; but we respected each other, and, for that time and place, that would have to be enough.

  We fell in with a small hunting group backed by the trip leader, Hono, and also including Quart, Sitzter, and Tyne. Neither Ching nor I were very good or effective hunters, needless to say, and I doubt if Ching could bring herself to kill for food—although she had grown used to the idea enough to be able to eat an animal when it was no longer recognizable as what it was—so we were dependent on our little group for our nourishment. The four hunters were easy, likable, and outgoing people with a feel for life, but, as the Elders had warned, they were of and from a different world, space, and time from me. Medusa had made the stone age not only possible but somewhat antiseptic—and how very easily humans had reverted to that primitive state.

  Ching was aware of the gap between us and them as I was. They plied us both with honest questions about our former lives and worlds, but they accepted only little bits of it. The trains they saw from time to time, and because they understood natural magnetism in its basic form they could stretch their minds at least to accept the idea that great magnets could pull trains from point to point. Of course that wasn’t the way the trains worked or used magnetism, but it didn’t really matter. Of monitors, psychs, computers, and long-range communications, though, they had no real understanding or grasp, and they accepted stories of such things with a grain of salt. As to how and why large numbers of people would willingly seal themselves in cities and never hunt or explore or live in the bush—that was really beyond them.

  I began to understand the problem the Elders had posed for me, as much as I hated to admit it. Although intelligent and resourc
eful, these people were in many ways like small children on the frontier. You could make one look like a city dweller, but he would find it impossible to cope with the simple, everyday things of modern technological living. By the time he learned, assuming he wasn’t run over by a bus first, he’d have long since exposed himself to the authorities.

  By the end of our journey, I was more than willing to give up my dream of an army of malleables infiltrating and destroying the Medusan cities. It just wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to overthrow the system by that means, and perhaps not at all—that task would have to be left to others. Certainly there were others, I had to remind myself. Krega had never said I’d be the only agent, and it would be foolish for them to have put all their eggs in my lone basket. Somebody had trained and equipped the Opposition; so even if its members were now ineffectual, the leadership was more than competent. They would try again, and again, until they came up with the right combination. At least, I had to hope so. This planet was too well organized and the system too tight for it to be so easily overthrown by just one man.

  But that did not diminish the other objectives. Whatever we were going toward was very much connected to all that had happened before, to all the reasons I was here to begin with, and, most certainly, it was connected to the ultimate fate of me and my family—and of Medusa itself. This knowledge simply had to be acquired, no matter what the cost.

  We were in sight of the mountains when we had to abandon the sleds and really get to work ourselves. That mountain view was deceptive. Three days of hard, dangerous walking remained, the last day over pack ice. The last hunt had been tough, and still we had left little to toss back to Mother Medusa. From here on in, any food we might find would be sheer luck.