by Brian Aldiss
Muntras laughed heartily. ‘She’d probably prefer you to me. I know how you’re set on the queen, Billish, but don’t let that put you off. Use a little imagination, and Abath will be equal to the queen in every way.’
Billy’s face was a study in red. ‘Earth, what an experience … What can I say? Yes, send her in, please, and let’s see if it works …’
As the traders went out, Pallos laughed, rubbing his hands together, and said, ‘He certainly shows an experimental spirit. Will you charge him for the girl?’
Knowing Pallos’s mercenary nature, Muntras ignored this question. Perhaps catching the snub, Pallos asked hastily, ‘All his talk of dying – do you think he comes from another world? Is that possible?’
‘Let’s have a drink, and I’ll show you something he gave me.’ He summoned up Abath, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and sent her in to see Billish.
The evening shadows were taking on a velvet intensity. Batalix was in the western sky. The two men sat companionably on Pallos’s verandah with a bottle and a lantern between them. Muntras brought up his heavy fist, placed it on the table, and opened it.
In his palm lay Billy’s watch, with its three dials, where small figures flickered busily:
11 : 49 : 2 19 : 06 : 52 23 : 15 : 43
‘It’s a beauty. How much is it worth? Did he sell it to you?’ Pallos prodded it.
Muntras said, ‘It’s unique. According to Billish, it tells the time here in Borlien – this centre dial – and the time on the world he comes from, and the time on another world he does not come from. In other words, you could say this jewel is proof of his farfetched tale. To make a complicated watch like this, you’d need to be really clever. Not mad. More like a god … Not but what I can’t rid my mind of the notion he is mad. Billish says the world which made this timepiece, the world he comes from, rides above us, looking down on the stupidity of the natives. And it’s a world made entirely by men like us. No gods involved.’
Pallos took a sip of Exaggerator and shook his head. ‘I hope they can’t read my trading figures.’
A mist was creeping in from the river. A mother was calling her small boy home, warning him that greebs would crawl out of the water and eat him in a single gulp.
‘King JandolAnganol had this elegant timepiece in his hand. He took it for an evil omen, that was plain. Pannoval, Oldorando, and Borlien have to unite, and it’s only their hrattocking religion that unites them. The king is committed on such a course that he can’t allow one element of religious doubt …’
He tapped the timepiece with a plump finger. ‘This amazing jewel is an element of doubt, right enough. A message of hope or fear, depending who you are.’ He tapped his breast pocket. ‘Like other messages I have entrusted to me. The world’s changing, Grengo, I tell you, and not before time.’
Pallos sighed and took a sip from his tumbler.
‘Do you want to see my books, Krillio? I warn you takings are down on last year.’
The Ice Captain looked across the top of the lantern at Pallos, whose face the light made cadaverous.
‘I’m going to ask you a personal question, Grengo. Have you any curiosity? I show this timepiece, I tell you it came from another world. There’s this odd feller Billish, getting his first ever rumbo on this earth – what could be going through his harneys? Doesn’t all this waken your sense of mystery? Don’t you want to know more? Isn’t there something beyond your ledgers?’
Pallos scratched his cheek and then worked down to his chin, setting his head to one side to do so. ‘All those stories we listened to as kids … You heard that woman call to her son that a greeb would get him? There’s not been a greeb seen at Osoilima since I came here, and that’s getting on for eight years. All killed for their skins. I wish I could trap one. The skins are worth a good price. No, Billish is telling you a story, boss. How would men go about making a world? Even if it was true, what then? It wouldn’t help my figures, would it now?’
Muntras sighed, shuffling his chair round so as to be able to peer down into the mist, perhaps hoping that a greeb would emerge to prove Pallos wrong.
‘When young Billish comes off the kooni, I think I’ll take him up to the top of the Stone, if he’s strong enough. Ask your old woman to get us some supper, will you?’
Muntras sat where he was when the local manager had gone. He lit a veronikane and remained smoking contentedly, absently watching the smoke ascend to the rafters. He did not even wonder where his son was, for he knew: Div would be in the local bazaar. Muntras’s thoughts were much further away.
Eventually, Billy and Abath appeared, holding hands. Billy’s face was only just wide enough to accommodate his grin. They sat down at the table without speaking. Without speaking, Muntras offered the Exaggerator bottle. Billy shook his head.
It was easy to see that he had undergone an emotional experience. Abath looked as composed as if she had just returned from church with her mother. Her features resembled a younger Metty’s, but there was a lustre about her which Metty had lacked for many a day. Her gaze was bold, where Metty’s was slightly furtive, but there was, thought Muntras, who considered himself a judge of human nature, the same kind of reserve to her as to her mother. She was escaping some kind of trouble in Matrassyl, which might account for her guarded manner. Muntras was content just to admire her in her light dress, which emphasised her generous young breasts and echoed the chestnut brown of her hair.
Perhaps there was a god. Perhaps he kept the world going, despite its idiocy, because of beauty like Abath’s …
At length, Muntras exhaled smoke and said, ‘So, don’t they go in for trittoming between man and woman on your world, Billish?’
‘We are taught to trittom, as you call it, from the age of eight. It’s a discipline. But down here – I mean with Abath – it’s … the reverse of discipline … it’s real … Oh, Abathy …’ Exhaling her name as Muntras exhaled smoke, he seized her and began to kiss her passionately, breaking off only to utter endearments. She responded in a minor key.
Billy shook Muntras’s hand. ‘You were right, my friend, she is the equal of the queen in every way. Better.’
The captain said, ‘Perhaps all women are equal and it is only in the imagination of men that differences lie. Remember the old saying, “Every rumbo romps home to the same rhythm …” You have a very vivid imagination, so I imagine that you found her a very good trittom in consequence … Are koonis in our world as deep as in yours?’
‘Deeper, softer, richer …’ He fell to kissing the girl again.
The captain sighed. ‘Enough of that. Passion is as boring as drunkenness in other men. Go away, Abath. I want some sense out of this young man, if possible … Billish, if you have managed to see over the top of your own prodo since we landed, you may have noticed the Osoilima Stone. You and I are going to ascend it. If you are well enough to mount Abath, you are well enough to mount the Stone.’
‘Very well, if Abath can come too.’
Mantras gazed at him with an expression at once a scowl and a grin. ‘Tell me, Billish boy – you’re really from Pegovin in Hespagorat, aren’t you? They’re great jokers there.’
‘Look.’ He sat down facing the captain. ‘I’m what I say – from another world. Born and brought up there, recently landed in the space-vehicle I described to you between fever fits. I would not lie to you, Krillio, because I owe you too much. I feel I owe you more than life.’
A dismissive gesture. ‘You owe me nothing. People shouldn’t owe others anything. Remember, I was a beggar. Don’t think too much of me.’
‘You’ve worked with devotion and built up a great enterprise. Now you are the friend of a king …’
Filtering a little smoke between pursed lips, Muntras said stonily, ‘That’s what you think, is it?’
‘King JandolAnganol? You are a friend of his, aren’t you?’
‘I have dealings with his majesty, let’s say.’
Billy looked at him with a half-grin. ‘But you do
n’t like him greatly?’
The Ice Captain shook his head, smoked, and said, ‘Billish, you don’t care much for religion, no more than I. But I must warn you that religion is strong in Campannlat. Take the way his majesty threw your timepiece back at you. He is very superstitious and that’s the king of the land. If you showed that object to the peasants of Osoilima, they would riot if you caught them at the wrong moment. They might make you a saint or they might kill you with pitchforks.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s the irrational. People hate things they don’t understand. One madman can change the world. I tell you this only for your own good. Now. Come on.’ He stood up, sweeping his lecture away and laying a hand on Billy’s shoulder. ‘The girl, the meal, my manager, the Stone. Practicalities.’
What he demanded was done, and soon they were ready for the climb. Muntras discovered that Pellos had never been to the top of the Stone, despite living at the bottom of it for eight years. He was laughed into coming along as escort and marched beside them with a Sibornalese matchlock over one shoulder.
‘Your figures can’t be too bad if you can afford such artillery,’ Muntras said suspiciously. He trusted his managers no more than he trusted the king.
‘Bought to protect your property, Krillio, and every roon of it hard earned. It isn’t as though the pay’s good, even when trade’s good.’
Their way lay along a track that ran back from the wharf to the small town of Osoilima. The mist was less thick here, and the few lights round the central square gave a semblance of cheer. Many people were about, attracted by a cooler breeze that had sprung up with sunset. Stalls selling souvenirs, sweets, or savoury waffles were doing fair business. Pallos pointed out one or two houses where pilgrims lodged which ordered Lordryardry ice regularly. He explained that most of the people wandering about, throwing their money away, were pilgrims. Some came here, drawn by a local tradition, to free slaves, human or phagor, because they had grown to believe it wrong to own another life. ‘Fancy giving away a valuable possession like that!’ he exclaimed, disgusted with the foolishness of his fellow men.
The base of the Osoilima Stone was just by the square – or rather, the town and its square had been built close against the Stone. Closest of all was a hostelry, bearing the name The Freed Slave, where the Ice Captain bought four candles for the party. They went through its garden and began the ascent. Talipots grew by the Stone; they had to push away the stiff leaves in order to climb. Summer lightning flickered round them.
Others were already ascending. Their whispers sounded from above. The steps had been carved in the stone a long while ago. They spiralled round and round the rock, with never a hint of railing for security. The guiding lights of their candles flickered before their faces.
‘I’m too old for this sort of thing,’ Muntras grunted.
But their slow progress led eventually to a level platform, and an arch led them into the top of the rock, where a dome had been hollowed. They could rest their elbows on the parapet and gaze in safety at the spread of mist-shrouded forest all round.
The sounds of the town reached them and the continuous noise of the Takissa. Music was playing somewhere – a double-clouth or, more likely hereabouts, binnaduria, and drums. And all about the forest, where rolls of mist allowed, they could make out dim lights.
‘That’s what they say,’ Abath chirped up. ‘“Not an acre habitable, not an acre uninhabited.”’
‘True pilgrims stay up here all night to watch the dawns,’ Muntras told Billy. ‘In these latitudes, there’s never a day of the year when both suns aren’t visible at some time. Different from where I come from.’
‘On the Avernus, Krillio, people are very scientific,’ said Billy, hugging Abath. ‘We have ways of imitating reality with video, 3D tactiles and so on, just as a portrait imitates a real face. As a result, our generation doubts reality, doubts if it exists. We even doubt if Helliconia is real. I don’t suppose you understand what I mean …’
‘Billish, I’ve travelled most of Campannlat, as a trader and before that as a beggar and pedlar. I’ve even been right far to the west, to a country called Ponipot beyond Randonan and Radado, where the continent ends. Ponipot is perfectly real, even if no one in Osoilima believes in its existence.’
‘Where is this Avernus world of yours then, Billish?’ Abath asked him, impatient with the way the men talked. ‘Is it above us somewhere?’
‘Mm …’ The sky above was fairly clear of cloud. ‘There’s Ipocrene, that bright star. It’s a gas giant. No, Avernus is not risen yet. It is below us somewhere.’
‘Below us!’ the girl gave a smothered laugh. ‘You are mad, Billish. You ought to stick to your story. Below! Is it a sort of fessup?’
‘Where’s this other world, Earth? Can you see that one, Billish?’
‘It’s too far away to see. Besides, Earth doesn’t give out light like a sun.’
‘But Avernus does?’
‘We see Avernus by light reflected from Batalix and Freyr.’
Muntras thought.
‘So why can’t we see Earth by light reflected from Batalix and Freyr?’
‘Well, it’s too far away. It’s difficult to explain. If Helliconia had a moon, it would be easier to explain – but in that case, Helliconian astronomy would be much more advanced than it is. Moons draw men’s eyes to the sky better than suns. Earth reflects the light of its own sun, Sol.’
‘I suppose Sol is too far away to see. My eyes are not what they were anyway.’
Billy shook his head and searched the northeastern sky. ‘It’s somewhere over there – Sol and Earth, and Sol’s other planets. What do you call that long straggly constellation, with all the faint stars at the top?’
Muntras said, ‘In Dimariam, we call that the Night Worm. Bless me, I don’t see it very clear. Round these parts, they call it Wutra’s Worm. Isn’t that right, Grengo?’
‘It’s no good asking me the names of the stars,’ Pallos said, and sniggered as if to say, ‘But show me a gold ten-roon piece and I’ll identify it for you.’
‘Sol is one of the faint stars in Wutra’s Worm, about where its gills are.’
Billy spoke jokingly, being slightly uneasy in the role of lecturer after his years as one of the lectured. As he spoke, the lightning was there again, laying them out momentarily for examination. The pretty girl, her mouth slightly open, staring vaguely where he was pointing. The local manager, bored, gazing into blackness, thumb tucked comfortably into the muzzle of his matchlock. The burly old Ice Captain, flattened hand up to his receding hairline, peering toward infinity with determination written over his countenance.
They were real enough – Billy was becoming used now, since he had been with Muntras and Abathy, to the idea of a real reality, abhorrent though it might have been to his Advisor on the Avernus, caught in an unreal Reality. His nervous system had been jarred into life by new experiences, textures, stinks, colours, sounds. For the first time, he lived fully. Those who looked down on him would consider him in hell; but the freedom moving throughout his frame told him he was in paradise.
The lightning was gone, sunk to nothing, leaving a moment of pitch before the mild night world returned to existence.
Billy wondered, Can I convince them about Avernus, about Earth? But they’ll never convince me about their gods. We inhabit two different thought-umwelts.
And then came a questioning of darker tone. What if Earth was a figment of Avernian imagination, the god Avernus otherwise lacked? The devastating effects of Akhanaba and his battles against sin were apparent everywhere. What evidence was there for Earth’s existence – anything more than that fuzzy patch where Sol glimmered in the Worm to the northeast?
He postponed the uncomfortable question for some future time to listen to what Muntras was saying.
‘If Earth is so far, Billish, how can the people there be watching us?’
‘That’s one of the miracles of science. Communication over very long distances
.’
‘Could you write down for me how you do it, when we get to Lordryardry?’
‘Do you mean to say that people out there – real people like us—’ said Abath, ‘could be watching us even now? Seeing us big-like, not down the gullet of a worm?’
‘It’s more than possible, my darling Abath. Your face and your name may already be known to millions of people on Earth – or rather, that is to say will be known when a thousand years have passed, for that’s how long it takes communications to get from Avernus to Earth.’
Unimpressed by figures, she could think of only one thing. Putting her hand to her mouth, she moved her mouth closer to Billy’s ear. ‘You don’t suppose they will see us having a go on the bed, do you?’
Overhearing the remark, Pallos laughed and pinched her bottom. ‘You charge extra for anyone watching, don’t you, girl?’
‘You mind your own scumbing business,’ Billy told him.
Muntras pursed his lips. ‘What possible pleasure can they get, watching us in all our native stupidity?’
‘What distinguishes Helliconia from thousands of other worlds,’ said Billy, returning to something like a dry lecturer’s tone, ‘is the presence here of living organisms.’
As they were digesting his remark, a noise reached them from the mist and the jungle, a prolonged shrilling, distant but clear.
‘Was that an animal?’ asked the girl.
‘I believe it was a long horn blown by phagors,’ said Muntras. ‘Often a danger sign. Are there many free phagors hereabouts, Grengo?’
‘There could be. The freed phagor slaves have learned men’s ways and live quite comfortably in their own jungle settlements, I hear tell,’ said Pallos. ‘They never get very bright in the harneys, though – you can charge them a good high price for broken ice.’
‘They buy ice off you, phagors?’ asked Abath, in surprise. ‘I thought it was only King JandolAnganol’s Phagorian Guard that got treated to ice!’
‘Well, they bring in things to Osoilima to trade – gwing-gwing stone necklaces, skins, and suchlike, so then they’ve the money to pay me for ice. They crunch it straightaway, standing in my store. Disgusting! Like a man drinking liquor.’