by Tanith Lee
“Why do I mention it?” Dina Sirrid asked. “Because we Slum dwellers like the chase to be prolonged. Kill your lover, and then steal his princely chariot and run. Run for the Fading Lands, little aristo. See if you can get there.”
Vel Thaidis’ face had not altered. Her eyes were sightless. Dina Sirrid hit her lightly, stingingly, across the cheek.
“Your feet are almost walked to the bone. Can you still reach him?”
“Yes,” Vel Thaidis whispered. With one hand she smoothed her cheek, again glad at the reality of her own body.
“Flirt with some man on a sled. He might give you carriage. You won’t care what he does, will you? It won’t concern you long.” Dina Sirrid waved at the gun. “Employ the nozzle to strike me. Strike here,” she touched the base of her skull under the white scarf. “Strike as hard as you care to. It should seem genuine to those who’ll come to investigate me. You see, I turned to leave you, scornful, and you flew at me. I was lax, but innocent of abetting your crime. Take the right-hand passages—there’ll be three—and out of the hind exit onto the path by the road.” Dina Sirrid turned and walked toward the door. “Come,” she invited, “you must do it now.”
Restraint left Vel Thaidis as dry plaster a wall. She moved forward, the gun raised. She hammered the woman across the head with the whole force of her arm. Only when the impact jolted her was she horrified.
Dina Sirrid plunged straight down as though her limbs had disintegrated.
Vel Thaidis sprang over her (Nesh had done the same thing with the tumbled woman in the square) and through three passages, and through the door which opened, and out under the white-green fever of the sky.
* * *
• • •
A quarter down the road leading to the buildings of the Slumopolis, she heard the clocks shrieking the seventeenth hour.
It was Maram. In another hour, Seta would light its yellow beacon. Ceedres could stroll onto the pier.
How slowly she moved. Had the Jate gone from her? The last Jate of her life.
Perhaps she had misheard the voices of the thousand clocks.
The agony in her feet had mounted into her stomach, her ribs, her breasts, and droned thickly in her ears. Yet she knew the agony, was accustomed to it. The occasional heightening of agony—a stone trodden, or a patch of rougher ground—penetrated the ambience of the hurt like a dull cry, making her start, but that was all. The deep lakes of dust glazed the amber wounds. She did not imagine Ceedres’ death, or her own. Or Velday saved. Or Hirz, or honor, or despair. All she visualized at last was the mansion of black and gold, its steps, its entrance: an end to walking.
A minute after she had thought she heard Maram struck, she made out, vague and nearly irrelevant, a noise behind her on the road.
The noise was one of wheels, not the runners of a sled. Wheels which rotated at colossal speed, and the thud of metallic animals bounding.
Vel Thaidis paused, looked over her shoulder listlessly.
Over the crest of the ridges, winged by two huge foamings of gilded dust, came a brazen shape, leaping formless upon her.
It was a chariot, burnished bronze, the two robot lion-dogs hurtling before it, its velocity a hundred staeds an hour. And all the once the speed strained back, the mechanical beasts upreared and static.
Ceedres, she thought. Her knees buckling, heart stopped.
But it was not Ceedres.
A white parasol with a three-tiered fringe of gold nodded its flower-shade above two young princes. Their faces were merry. And known.
“In order not to collide with her,” one said to the other, “having sensed her, the chariot nearly somersaulted. Why didn’t she get from the way as they usually do?”
“Recompense,” said the other, “for the near-somersault. You, girl, keep J’ara with us.”
“Oh really, Du, there’s better at any of the mansions.”
“No, no,” Du—Darvu Yune Chure—answered stubbornly. “I fancy this one’s looks.”
The other, his cousin Kewel, whined in feigned revulsion.
Darvu himself leaned over the rail and grabbed her hair in a cruel and biting grip. “Up, zenena. Think of the robot service credits you might get out of me.”
She did not consider saying to them: Do you not know me? Plainly they did not. How often had she met with them? Perhaps thirty times during the years of her childhood and young womanhood. She had always thought them stupid. She had not foreseen they could be brutish and dangerous. But then, never before had she encountered them as a girl of the Slumopolis.
Darvu was wrenching her into the chariot, hauling her over the rail, by her hair, her arm. She screamed with the pain, but her mind worked separately, still striving with this problem. Her dilapidated condition, her bloody feet, stimulated the cousins. Psychologically, they were powerless ever to recognize her, or of being consciously willing to recognize her. She had passed beyond the pale, and was fair game. And maybe a subconscious glimpse of this stimulated them more than anything else.
And so, detached, she pressed the gas-gun to Darvu’s chest. She knew another thing these two did not, that this gun could only fire once.
Darvu dropped back, letting go of her.
“Out,” she said. “Out, handsome aristos. Out, or I kill you both.”
I have caught the argot, she thought. But that was good. Under her feet, the rugs of Chure were downy and yet gravel to her ruined soles. Darvu and Kewel were blundering from the vehicle. As Kewel went, she lifted the driver-box from his grip, and the long reins.
“Pathetic zenena,” Kewel blustered. “This is against the Law.”
“And the Law’s already on your bleeding heels, bitch,” Darvu added frantically.
Then she felt the talons of destiny close on her for sure. She understood Darvu spoke a fact, and glanced behind her, and saw about ten staeds down the road into the city, sunlight fire on copper.
Dina Sirrid had been afraid and gambled for her life. Under her white scarf—the shock and the jar—might have been any skull-protective covering. She had acted her concussion. She had alerted the Law as soon as Vel Thaidis was from the building. This time, Vel Thaidis’ avowed intention to become a murderess would be enough to send her to execution.
For a second, everything was clear, and bright, and terrible before her. Then only panic ruled Vel Thaidis, and panic was her teacher.
A chariot of the princely houses could match, perhaps outrun, the Lawguards on their jets of air. Who had ever tried? And she had seen Velday, and others, motivate the chariots.
She spun the dial on the driver-box. The chariot flung itself about, animate, febrile, away from the Zenith and the Slum. As quite recently she had seen Ceedres do, she thrust the speedometer to its maximum.
The guiding reins unreeled and braced like solid steel in her hands.
The world cracked in fragments, swirled, became fluid, became smoke. Green smoke and gold and white, it was smashed before the chariot and burst away on either side.
She did not think at all. Of the electric barrier about the estates which would open for such a chariot, though for no human traffic of the Slums, of the roads to which the chariot would adhere, the faults and spurs it would jump, of the estates themselves, the hunting lands and their temples, the cliffs, defiles and outer places, of the Fading Lands. Of Dina Sirrid’s soliloquy, the sun a coal, the sky a Maram-chamber shade.
A face steamed away through her mind, Ceedres’ face, growing distant. She had accomplished nothing, would die for her intent alone.
She ran, as Nesh had run, but better able.
After her, informed of her schemes, programmed to punish them, the copper rockets of justice, that none had ever escaped.
And overhead, eternal, pitiless and unmoved, the sun, the sun.
Part Two
Dorte the Upperling slumped in his chair aboa
rd the transport. Now and then, as he ran his eyes across the gang of men, he smoothed the festive red and blue drape, or toyed, aristo-like, with the metal nuggets on his cloak. Presently, the transport would arrive in the pressurized plastomil chamber which opened to the surface of the planet. The men sat or sprawled, expressionless, almost mindless, at the prospect. After a Tenjate’s labor, they would be awarded one Jate of rest, so the machine of the Klave stipulated, for surface work required, if not invention, at least precision. Long before the Tenjate was reached, however, men began to slacken. Grayly they hung there before Dorte, who reveled in their grayness and in his freedom from it. The only irritant was the aristocrat, Klarn. Klarn alone showed no sign of moral or physical collapse. Indeed, the rumors of the Subterior had altered, become sympathetic to the exiled prince. Dorte, every time he glanced in Klarn’s direction, felt a stab of uncontrollable yet unusable hatred. Klarn, who should have come to his knees, succumbed to the poison-drink, to turpitude, abjection, suicide, had remained the same. His face was weary and its hollows and young lines deep-carved, but the basic resolution and strength of the face were not dissipated. In fact, Dorte detected in squirming frustration, a new interest in something seemed somberly flickering there.
The throats and maws of black holes went by. The rock itself, frosted, catching the transport’s gleam, returned it spasmodically in blue and white refractions. Occasionally, ice rods like glass, or pipes of rock, dully boomed or whistled at the air blasts of the vehicle’s elevating motors.
Dorte turned from these uninspiring vistas—the sub-planet, Klarn—to Zuse the ganger. Nauseated by another Maram’s drinking, the man crumpled on his bench, too wise to groan.
“Zuse,” said Dorte, “I see you kept J’ara.”
“Yes, Dorte.”
“You were misguided, were you not?”
“I was.”
“If you get sick, I must dispense with you from my gangs, eh, Zuse?”
“I won’t get sick, Dorte.”
“You’re sick now.”
“No, Dorte—”
“Don’t interrupt, Zuse. Never interrupt me. I had not finished.”
Zuse waited. This was a game Dorte sometimes played. If the victim pleaded and groveled sufficiently, as a rule, Dorte gave over, and left the unfortunate his place as ganger. To be ill or drunk was not necessary for the game to begin. If there were no weakness evident, Dorte would guess one, devise one. There were genuine weaknesses enough to be hazarded on, or prophesied.
“I think,” said Dorte, “I think, I will award Zuse one Jate’s grace. See how he does his work. There are,” said Dorte, “many men in the Subterior hungry for your luck, Zuse. Recall Hejerdi—laid off by his elegance here, our aristo friend. Still sharing wages with him, Klarn? He won’t get back on my gangs now. Unless you’d care to exchange your place with his. I hear you give up a lot—clothing, coal. Though one Maram, a fine aristo lady came to celebrate a J’ara with you. Or is that a lie? Eh, Klarn? Eh?” Casrus was expected to reply, but he did not. Dorte rose from his chair, and strode to where Casrus sat still on his bench. “Stand up,” Dorte said. Casrus did so. “There are no Stare-Eyes here,” said Dorte. “Like to duel with me, would you? I never gave you the chance before.”
“If I touched you,” said Casrus, “I would lose my employment.”
“Just so,” said Dorte. “But if I beat you across the face, what would you say then?”
One of the men said, fiercely, anxious for the fight, for difference of any sort: “Hit him, Dorte!”
Casrus’ eyes were steady and unreadable to Dorte, who could divine only the most basic optic emotions. Nevertheless, the blueness, the very construction of them unnerved the Upperling, so that, not meaning to, he swung forward his clenched hand to deliver a blow across the aristocrat’s mouth. But the features, eyes, mouth, blurred over and were gone. Without apparent effort or forethought, Casrus had moved aside. Dorte’s hand lashed against the padded wall of the transport, bouncing back to him, his own blow recoiling, catching him in the chest. Too wise to laugh as too wise to groan, the gang of men watched acidly from under their lids.
Dorte, at a loss, did nothing, but his face set in an almost lifeless rigor.
Exactly then, the transport grounded. A curious suspension in time seemed to afflict the Upperling. The light of the pressurized chamber doused the windows; the door was already opening, and already the men were scrambling in silence for their air-suits. And Dorte remained rigid, doing nothing, suspended. Suits donned, the men began to file to the flier exit and drop down into the chamber. Casrus, too, had passed Dorte, and was suited, leaving.
Then Dorte recovered himself, and spoke.
“Zuse. Here.”
Zuse turned. His invalid’s face, trapped in its milky bubble of inflated air, had strangely distorted with foreboding.
As the others trod on their heavy soles to the surface doors, Zuse stood in a pear-shaped cage of oxygen, nausea and cringing, before the gang-master. Dorte’s voice came through a little speaker attachment, and so through the knob on Zuse’s shoulder. He could not avoid hearing every word, nor avoid rendering audible replies.
“You comprehend,” said Dorte. “I’m not meaning you should harm him. That’s murder. We don’t want that.”
“No, Dorte.”
“So you must be subtle. Careful. You’re sure of the spot? Of course you are, you saw it first. Clever. Just a lesson to him. It’s a kindness. No hurt. Just an aristocratic jest. You and someone else do it. I don’t mind who. But he’s tricky. You’ve seen how tricky. Do it pleasingly and there’ll be a few chips in it for you. Remember, though, I’ve not told you to do anything. Smear me in your muck, and the whole three gangs will suffer. No one will like that.”
“No, Dorte.”
“Out you go, then.” Paternally, Dorte smiled Zuse toward the exit, and Zuse obeyed.
* * *
• • •
Vyen Klovez, a male doll dressed in black velvet, with one dull silver streak running from his left temple the length of his black hair, placed a burnished silver urn on the Klarn robot’s extended carrying attachment.
“Take Temal, with my compliments, to Casrus in the Subterior.” The robot acquiesced and turned to go. “Wait. You have yet to find out from the computers where Casrus is.”
“It is already known,” announced the robot.
Vyen paused. Curiously he inquired: “How? Because you’re Klarn property?”
“Because the exact location of Casrus Klarn was formerly ascertained at the request of your sister.”
Vyen’s face molded into ice.
“Why would she want to know?”
“Vitra Klovez was taken to the Subterior by a transport.”
The ice grew icier.
“When?”
The robot stated Jate and hour.
“I was informed she was riding the Klovez car about the city.”
“We were programmed to tell you so.”
The ice splintered into a very bestial, dogga-like grin. Vyen for a moment savored Vitra’s unawareness, priming the robots temporarily to conceal her activity, but neither to conceal the concealment nor any subsequent anomalies. Brother and sister generally greeted each other’s errors with peculiar minglings of fascinated delight and protective alarm. On this occasion, fury and fear were added.
“Where is Vitra now?”
“Rise Iu chamber of Fabulism.”
In the minimum of time, Vyen had joined her there.
The chamber of the dome was closed, Vitra the Fabulast safely ensconced to weave dreams for the Subterine worms. Vyen waited two or three minutes, and then began to rain violent blows upon the polished doors. A glow appeared in the wall, and a machine vocalized.
“Please desist.”
“No. And don’t instruct me to again. My sister must be called, and must
come out at once.”
“This is unusual.”
Soaring into a pale and mad-eyed animosity, Vyen altered his tone to become a scream: “Don’t argue with me! Do as I say!”
“Please wait. Vitra Klovez will be called.”
Vyen paced, a ring of white showing all about his gray irises, and his dogga-white teeth bared. A fiddle-toy of thin plastivory snapped between his fingers, and as he snarled and kicked it aside, the dome chamber doors slid apart and Vitra came out.
Her face was quite desperate, even before she confronted him. Without any attempt at evasion or bluff, she spread her arms and wailed, “Oh Vyen—something dreadful!”
The instant he saw her, the normal reactions took hold of her brother. His basic security was reaffirmed and his spitefulness flared up. In harmony, this spite became a consortium between them, a weapon honed for others. With no outsider to use it on, a special phase was entered, more intriguing and more unnerving, a desire to wound her coupled with an aversion to wounding.
For a few moments, Vyen lapsed into an enraged tirade. Its substance was Vitra’s visit to Casrus, and the borders of the substance hinted at plans revealed, strangleholds offered to enemies. Its epilogue was the inference that Vitra was a slut, who ran after a man who had no care for her.
Throughout all this, Vitra seemed to hang there, virtually in midair. Vyen, ranting, waited for the narrow hand to smash against his cheek, the nails to rake his neck, the reedy musical voice to rise into a howl capable of insults worse than his own. And even in doubt and anxiety he half enjoyed this preface to a vast impending conflict between them. Then, as Vitra, unresponsive, only gazed at him with wild dilated eyes, Vyen’s clockwork diatribe ran down.