Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter

by Brian Aldiss

  The rules declared that two meals were served per day, at twenty minutes past four and at nineteen, that prayers were held every hour (voluntary) in the church on the top floor, that the garden was open during dimday for relaxed walking and meditation, that instructions (whatever they were) might be had at all times, and that permission was needed before visitors left the establishment.

  Sighing, he washed himself and settled down on the bed, letting gloom overcome him. But Uskutoshkan hospitality, like most things Uskutoshkan, was brisk, and in no time came a brisk rap at his door and he was conducted along a corridor to a banquet.

  The banqueting hall was long and low, lit by slit windows, from which the activities of the street could be glimpsed in small vertical sections. The floor was uncarpeted, yet a touch of luxury, even grandeur, was added to the chamber by an enormous tapestry on the rear wall which depicted, upon a scarlet background, a great wheel being rowed through the heavens by oarsmen in cerulean garments, each smiling blissfully, towards an astonishing maternal figure from whose mouth, nostrils, and breasts sprang the stars in the scarlet sky.

  So struck was SartoriIrvrash by the details of this tapestry that he itched to make a note or even a sketch; but he was thrust forward and introduced to twelve personages who stood waiting to receive him. Each was named for him in turn by Madame Dienu Pasharatid. None shook his proffered hand: it was not the habit in that country to touch the hands of anyone outside one’s own family or clan.

  He tried to grasp the complex names, but the only one to remain in his head was Odi Jeseratabhar, and that because it belonged to a Priest-Militant Admiral who wore a blue-and-grey striped uniform and was female. And moreover was beautiful in an austere way, with two fair tresses plaited and wound about her head to finish as two blond horns sticking forward with an impressive yet comical air.

  All concerned smiled in an affable way upon their guest from Campannlat, and assembled themselves at the table with great noise of metal chairs scraping on the bare floor. As soon as they were seated, silence fell, and the greyest member of the dozen rose to say grace. The rest placed their forefingers on foreheads in the attitude of prayer. SartoriIrvrash did the same. The grace began, intoned in dense Sibish, with dextrous use of continuous present, conditional-eternal, past-into-present, transferential, and other tenses, to carry the message of thanks all the way to the Azoiaxic One. The length of the prayer was perhaps intended to be proportional to the distance.

  It was over at last, and a meal of many minute courses, mainly vegetarian except for fish, and relying heavily on assorted raw and steamed seaweeds, was served by slave wenches. Fruit juices and an alcoholic drink called yoodhl, with a seaweed base, were served.

  The one exceptional course, the only one which SartoriIrvrash could say he really enjoyed, was a spitted creature brought on with ceremony, which he guessed to be a pig. It was presented still on its spit and covered with a creamy sauce. Of this, he was given a small portion of breast. He was told it was ‘treebries’. Only some days later did he discover that treebries was roast Nondad. It was a prized Uskutoshki delicacy, rarely served except to distinguished visitors.

  While the banquet was still in progress, Dienu Pasharatid came round behind SartoriIrvrash’s chair and spoke to him.

  ‘Soon, the Priest-Militant Admiral will address us. What she says may alarm you. Do not be alarmed. I know you are not given to fear. Equally, I know you are not given to malice, so do not think ill of me because of my part in this.’

  The ex-chancellor was immediately alarmed and dropped his knife. ‘What is going to be said?’

  ‘An important announcement which will affect your country’s destiny and mine. Odi Jeseratabhar will give you the details. Just remember, I was forced to bring you here in order to clear my name of any stain shed on it by my husband’s actions. Remember that you hate JandolAnganol and all will be well.’

  She left him and returned to her seat. He found himself unable to take another mouthful of food.

  Once the complex meal was finished and spirit served, the speeches began.

  First came a welcoming speech from a local panjandrum, couched in almost comprehensible terminology. Then Madame Dienu arose.

  After a brief preliminary, she came to her point Making an oblique reference to her husband, she said she felt she had to atone for his departure from diplomatic procedures. Therefore, she had rescued Chancellor SartoriIrvrash from the melancholy position in which he found himself and had brought him here.

  Their distinguished visitor was in a position to do them, and Uskutoshk, and indeed the entire northern continent, a service which would go down in history and secure for his name a place in their annals. What that service was, their loved and respected Priest-Militant Admiral, Madame Odi Jeseratabhar, would now announce.

  Premonitions of bad things made SartoriIrvrash feel even worse than the yoodhl had done. He longed for a veronikane but, seeing that nobody else at the table smoked, was smoking, was about to smoke, or was even employing the conditional-eternal to smoke, desisted, and gripped the table instead, as the Admiral rose.

  Since she was making a speech, she employed a kind of Mandarin Priest-Militant Sibish.

  ‘Priests-Militant, War Commissions members, friends, and our new ally,’ began the lady imposingly, tossing her blond horns, ‘time is always short, so I will / am cut my speech accordingly. In only eighty-three years, Freyr will be / is at its strongest, and in consequence the Savage Continent and its barbarous nations are / should in dire array, prophesying doom for themselves. They are / were incapable of being the future as we in Uskutoshk – rightly, to my mind – pride ourselves in doing / done / continuing.

  ‘Of the chief nations of that unhappy continent, Borlien in particular is / will in trouble. Unfortunately, our old enemy, Pannoval, continues / grows strong. A random factor not calculated has recently / now become apparent, with our arms trading growing beyond control, owing to delinquent ambassadors. We shall not dwell on that incident.

  ‘Soon, the warlike nations of the Savage Continent will be making imitations of our weapons. We must / can act before that is allowed to happen to any great extent while we have supremacy.

  ‘As those of my friends on the War Commission already know, our plan is nothing less than to take over Borlien.’

  Her words struck the banqueters to silence. Then a great murmur of acclamation arose. Many eyes turned towards where SartoriIrvrash sat white-faced.

  ‘We have not / will not enough troops to hold down all of Borlien by force. Our plan is to annex and subdue by means provided unwittingly by the Borlienese king, JandolAnganol. Once we subdue Borlien, we can strike at Pannoval from the south as well as the north.’

  The banqueters began clapping before the fair Admiral had finished. They smiled first at each other and then at SartoriIrvrash, who kept his gaze firmly on the finely turned lips of the Admiral.

  ‘We have a fleet ready to sail,’ said those lips. ‘We anticipate that Chancellor SartoriIrvrash will sail with it to play his vital role. His reward will be great.’

  Again applause, rationed to a few hand claps.

  ‘The fleet will sail westward. I shall be in command aboard the Golden Friendship. We intend / shall sail round the coast of Campannlat finally approaching the Bay of Gravabagalinien, where Queen MyrdemInggala is / will exiled, from the west. The chancellor and I will stop to conduct the queen from that place of exile, while the rest of the fleet intend / will sail on to bombard Ottassol, Borlien’s largest port, until it capitulates / has capitulated.

  ‘The queen is / was / will well-loved by her people. SartoriIrvrash will proclaim a new government for Ottassol under the queen, with himself as prime minister. No battle need be fought.

  ‘You will / should appreciate the feasibility of this plan. Our distinguished ally and the barbarian queen, descended from the Thribriat Shannana, are both united in a hatred of King JandolAnganol. The queen will be happy to be reinstated. She will of course be u
nder our supervision.

  ‘Once Ottassol is / can secure, our boats and soldiery will move upriver to take over the capital, Matrassyl. My understanding, based on agents’ reports, is that we shall / can find allies there, notably the queen’s old father and his faction. The king’s insecure rule will be easily ended. His life the same. The world can do without such phagor lovers.

  ‘With Borlien fallen into our hands, we execute a sabre slash northwards, right across the Savage Continent, from Ottassol in the south to Rungobandryaskosh.

  ‘We are hastening matters forward now that you are here. Rest, friends, for action lies ahead, action of a most glorious sort. We plan that a good part of the fleet will / can / should sail at Freyr-rise, two days from now, God willing.

  ‘A great future dawns / will dawn.’

  This time, the applause was unrationed.

  XII

  The Downstream Passenger Trade

  ‘The brute, unchanging ignorance of the people … They labour and do not improve their lot. Or they don’t labour. It makes no difference. They’re interested in nothing beyond their own village – no, beyond their own belly buttons. Look at them, idle lot! If I were that stupid, I’d still be a pedlar in Oldorando City Park …’

  The philosopher making these comments was sprawling among cushions, with cushions behind his head and another under his bare feet. By his right hand, he had a glass of his favourite Exaggerator, to which crushed ice and lemon had been added, while his left arm was wrapped about a young woman with whose left breast he was idly toying.

  The audience to whom he was making these comments – excluding the young woman, whose eyes were closed – were two in number. His son leaned against the rail of the boat on which they were travelling, his eyes half closed and his mouth half open. This youth had a bunch of yellow-blue gwing-gwings by his side to eat and occasionally spat a gwing-gwing stone at other river traffic.

  Propped up against the fo’c’sle where he was shaded from the sun lay a pallid young man who sweated a good deal and muttered still more. He was covered by a striped sheet, beneath which he moved his legs restlessly; he was running a fever and had been ever since the boat left Matrassyl on its journey south. This being one of his less lucid intervals, he scarcely seemed any more capable than the gwing-gwing eater of receiving the older man’s wisdom.

  This did not deter the older man.

  ‘At that last stop we made, I asked one old fool who was leaning against a tree if he thought it was getting hotter, year by year. All he said was, “It’s always been hot, skipper, since the day the world was made.” “And what day might that be?” I asked him. “In the Ice Age, as I heard tell.” That was his reply. In the Ice Age! They’ve no sense. Nothing gets through to them. Take religion. I live in a religious country, but I don’t believe in Akhanaba. I don’t believe in Akhanaba because I have reasoned things out. These natives in these villages, they don’t believe in Akhanaba – not because they have reasoned things out as I have, because they don’t reason …’

  He interrupted himself to take a firmer grasp on the left breast and a long drink of the Exaggerator.

  ‘… They don’t believe in Akhanaba because they’re too stupid to believe. They worship all kinds of demons, Others, Nondads, dragons. They still believe in dragons … They worship MyrdemInggala. I asked my manager to show me round the village. In almost every hut, there hung a print of MyrdemInggala. No more like her than I am, but intended for her … But, as I say, they’re interested in nothing beyond their own belly buttons.’

  ‘You’re hurting my bips,’ the young lady said.

  He yawned and covered his mouth with his right hand, wondering absently why he enjoyed the company of strangers so much more than that of his own family: not just his rather stupid son, but his uninteresting wife and overbearing daughter. It would suit him to sail for ever down the river with this girl and this youth who claimed to come from another world.

  ‘It’s soothing, the sound of the river. I like it. I’ll miss it when I’m retired. There’s proof that Akhanaba doesn’t exist. To make a complicated world like ours, with a steady supply of living people coming and going – rather like a supply of precious stones dug from the earth, polished, and sold off to customers – you would need to be really clever, god or no god. Isn’t that so? Isn’t it?’

  He pinched with his left finger and thumb, so that the girl squealed and said, ‘Yes, if you say so.’

  ‘I do say so. Well, if you were so clever, what pleasure would it give you to sit up above the world and look down at the stupidity of these natives? You’d go out of your mind with the monotony of it, generation after generation, getting no better. “In the Ice Age …” By the beholder …’

  Yawning, he let his eyelids close.

  She jabbed him in the ribs. ‘All right, then. If you’re so clever, tell me who did make the world. If it wasn’t Akhanaba, who was it?’

  ‘You ask too many questions,’ he said.

  Ice Captain Muntras fell asleep. He woke only when the Lordryardry Lady was preparing to moor for the night at Osoilima, where he was to enjoy the hospitality of the local branch of the Lordryardry Ice Trading Co. He had been enjoying the hospitality of each of his trading posts in turn, so that the journey downriver from Matrassyl had taken longer than was usually the case – almost as long as the upriver journey, when the boats of his ice-trading fleet were towed against the stream by teams of hoxneys.

  One reason had caused the shrewd Ice Captain, in his younger days, to establish an outpost at Osoilima, and that reason loomed over them as the Lady tied up. It towered three hundred feet above the crests of the brassims which flourished hereabouts. It dominated the surrounding jungle, it lorded it over the wide river, it pondered on its reflection in the water. And it drew pilgrims from the fourteen corners of Campannlat, eager for reverence – and ice. It was the Osoilima Stone.

  The local manager, a grey-haired man with a broad Dimariam accent, by name Grengo Pallos, came aboard and shook his employer’s hand warmly. He helped Div Muntras supervise passenger disembarkation. As phagors unloaded some bales of goods marked OSOILIMA, Pallos returned to the Ice Captain.

  ‘Only three passengers?’

  ‘Pilgrims. How’s trade?’

  ‘Not good. Have you nothing more for me?’

  ‘Nothing. They’ve grown lazy in Matrassyl. Upheavals at court. Bad for trade.’

  ‘So I hear. Spears and money never rattle together. Bad about the queen. Still, if we unite with Oldorando, it may encourage more pilgrims here. Hard times, Krillio, when even the devout say it’s too hot to travel. Where will it all end, I ask myself. You’re retiring at the right time.’

  The Ice Captain drew Pallos aside. ‘I’ve got a special case here, and I don’t know what to make of him. He’s sick, his name’s BillishOwpin. He claims to have come from another world. Maybe he’s mad, but what he has to say is very interesting, if you can take it in. He thinks he’s dying. But I say he’s not. Could your old woman give him some special attention?’

  ‘As good as done. We’ll discuss the cost of accommodation in the morning.’

  So Billy Xiao Pin was helped ashore. Also ashore went the young lady, by name AbathVasidol, who was getting a free cruise down to Ottassol. Her mother, an old friend of the captain’s, by name of Metty-Vasidol, kept a house on the outskirts of Matrassyl.

  After the two traders had had a drink, they went to see Billy, now installed in the modest establishment ruled over by Pallos’s wife.

  He was feeling better. He had been scrubbed down the backbone with a block of Lordryardry ice, a sovereign remedy for all ills. The fever had gone, he was no longer coughing or sneezing – as they left Matrassyl, his allergy vanished. The captain told him he was not going to die.

  ‘I shall die soon. Captain, but I am grateful for your kindness, all the same,’ said Billy. After the horrors of Matrassyl, it was bliss to be in the care of the Ice Captain.

  ‘You won’t die. It was
that filthy volcano, Mount Rustyjonnick, pouring out its poison. Everyone in Matrassyl fell sick. Same symptoms as you – weepy eyes, sore throat, fever. You are fine now, fit to be on your feet. Never give in.’

  Billy coughed weakly. ‘You might be right. My life may have been prolonged by sickness. I shall surely die of helico virus, since I have no immunity to it, but the volcano may have postponed that fate for a week or two. So I must make the most of life and freedom. Help me to stand up.’

  In no time, he was walking about the room, laughing, stretching his arms.

  Muntras and the manager’s wife stood by, smiling at him. ‘What a relief, what a relief!’ said Billy, ‘I was beginning to hate your world, Captain. I thought Matrassyl was going to be the death of me.’

  ‘It’s not a bad place when you get to know it.’

  ‘But religious!’

  Muntras said, ‘Where you have mankind and phagors together, you will have religion. The clash of two unknowns generates that kind of thing.’

  The wisdom of this remark impressed Billy, but Pallos’s wife ignored it and took a firm grip on his upper arm.

  ‘Why, you’re fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll wash you, and you’ll feel completely fit again. Then we’ll get some scoff into you, that’s what you need.’

  Muntras said, ‘Yes, and I’ve another remedy for you, Billyish. I’ll send in this pleasant young lady, Abath, daughter of an old friend of mine. Very nice willing girl. Half an hour of her company will do you a power of good.’

  Billy regarded him quizzically, and his cheeks grew red. ‘I told you I am of completely different stock from you, not being born on Helliconia … Would it work? Well, we’re identical physically. Would the young lady mind …?’