“I confess I listened to your conversation via a hidden microphone,” he piped. “My admiration for your cleverness increases apace. Your remarks were most ingenious. His mental anguish will intensify during the next few days as he relives the past.” He gave a silvery snigger. “But come — we have prepared entertainments in your honour.”
He took me out of the dungeon, through the maze of corridors that riddled the rock of Merame, and to one of the elevators that slid ceaselessly up and down the inner wall of the crater.
We sank to the bottom. No sunlight penetrated down here, though its horizontal rays could be seen flashing above. Through them, stars shone vividly like a carpet of gems in the sky. The crater floor was clothed in a kind of luminous gloom, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the muffled rattle of drums. Towards this sound we set off across the springy turf.
We walked for a good mile or more. A large number of buildings and fenced-off areas littered the crater floor: the Rotrox apparently used it as a recreation area. Shortly before we reached our destination I saw in one of the many glades a prime example of a stomach-churning Rotrox diversion.
On a piece of earth about fifty yards across, and fringed with drooping trees, a score or more of Rheattite people stood planted in the ground. That’s right: planted people. It was obvious that they couldn’t move their feet from where they were standing. Some were moaning, rocking gently to and fro; others wailed loudly, waving their arms imploringly at the sky.
Imnitrin smirked to see my amazement. “This is Tinikimni’s Garden of the Vegetable People. I chanced to joke to him, one day, that as on Earth plants are green, so the green Rheattite people ought to be plants. It pleased Tinikimni’s sense of the humorous to make a pleasant little spot stocked with such planted people. On to their feet are grafted composite animal-vegetable placentae which put down roots deep into the soil. From the soil they draw nutrients which they convert into blood. The blood is then infused through the plant-people’s feet, giving them adequate nutrition. A pretty conceit, is it not? Quite inadvertently the transfusion process causes some agony, thus adding pain to their despair.”
Imnitrin’s understanding of me seemed to be that I could not fail to be amused and delighted by all this.
A few minutes later we came to a large compound where the dark liqueur the Rotrox drank flowed plentifully and warriors performed frenzied tribal dances to pulsing drums. For the first time since we had encountered the Rotrox I began to wonder what we had got into by teaming up with them and whether it was all worth it. I felt physically ill.
But what was I complaining about, I told myself? A mobster knows only one way of life and that is to find someone to intimidate, threaten and finally take a piece of. When we burst through to Earth we had gone ranging about like a torpedo, like parasites seeking a host or viruses seeking healthy gene machinery to take over and remake. We had found that host and it had worked for us, as Bec had always said it would: we had found the lever that moved vast forces in our favour. We were only doing what we had been doing all along, on a smaller scale, in Klittmann.
So what was bothering me?
Thirteen
The first thing I did on getting back to Rheatt, after reporting to Bec, was to go and see Palramara.
It had been a long time. The elevator took me up and I stepped into the once-familiar top room where she was waiting for me.
Rheattite women wear well: she hadn’t changed much. “You wanted to see me,” she said, sitting down and staring at me calmly.
Up to that point my mind hadn’t been quite made up about whether to deliver Dalgo’s message complete. I decided then that she deserved not to be told any lies. At the same time I realised that I could be brutal if I wanted. A part of me would have liked to hurt her because of what had happened. But I had to recognise that it hadn’t been her fault: she had been a chattel, a spoil of war.
“I’ve been up on Merame,” I told her. “I saw your husband. He asked me to give you a message.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes?”
I hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it. He wanted me to tell you he was dead. For your sake.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “That would be like him. It is a long time now since they showed him to me. Is he …?”
“He’s all right,” I said quickly. “Rotrox prisons aren’t exactly pleasant places, but they leave him in peace now.”
I wanted to ask her if Bec still called on her, but the words wouldn’t come out. She rose and paced to the window, looking out blankly. Suddenly she turned, looking at me pleadingly.
“Couldn’t you help him? Couldn’t Becmath help him? He is on good terms with the Rotrox. They might release him for him.”
At that, I reflected, I could probably have tricked Imnitrin into sending Dalgo back to Rheatt with me. I could have told him I wanted him for myself. But I also knew that Bec would never stand for such a stunt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Even if the Rotrox were willing — which they never will be — you’d never get Becmath to agree to it. You’ve tried, haven’t you?”
She made a hopeless gesture. “Yes, I’ve tried, but not for a long time.” She stood there, gazing at me sidelong, her eyes luminous. “How I hate that man! I don’t understand you, Klein. You are a strong man. You are a born leader. Yet with Becmath you are weak. Why do you follow him like a pet animal? Why do you not defy him? I cannot believe that you fear him.”
“There’s no mystery,” I said. “We both believe in the same things. That’s why I follow him.”
“He is evil, like the Rotrox.”
I shook my head. “He’s not evil,” I said defensively. “He’s a genius. Rheatt would be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for him.”
“Little he cares for Rheatt!”
There would be no point, I told myself, in trying to explain to her that Becmath worked not for himself, but for a higher ideal. Neither did I confess the doubts and anxieties that were beginning, despite myself, to eat into my guts.
Even before my trip to Merame we had begun setting up a baseline camp on the other side of the gateway. Most of our main equipment was already parked there: landsloops for street fighting inside Klittmann, big wagons for transporting food, fuel and ammunition, and a fleet of aircraft adapted for carrying heavy bombs so we could blast our way inside.
Bec planned a big role for aircraft in the new Killibol. He was quick to recognise that they could furnish the speedy communications the Dark World (to give it its ancient name) had so far lacked. City isolationism, as Bec called it, would shortly be at an end.
The two Rotrox legions were not long in coming. We pushed them through the gateway straight away to get them acclimatised. We didn’t interfere with them in any way, but our own Rheattite forces were organised along different lines — in small units, Klittmann fashion, gangster fashion. We’d already taught them what to expect when they got inside the city.
I spent all my time on the other side getting things straightened out for the big drive. A few days later Bec and the others joined me. They were all eager for action.
The scene was vivid. Brilliant searchlight lit up everything. Neither the Rotrox nor the Rheattites could see too well in what was to them unrelieved gloom. During the time we spent at the base camp we were forced to wear our goggles just as if we had been on Earth.
The Rotrox, arrogant as usual, wished to be in the vanguard. I issued them with maps and they set off in their troop carriers with us following a few hours behind.
We crossed the river by the bridge we had built and set off across the dead landscape. The landsloops went first, in convoy, followed by the wagons and our own troop carriers. The command sloop, with me, Bec, Grale, Reeth and Hassmann in it, was the same one we had journeyed to Earth in; it was the only one that was atom-powered and it was larger than the others. During the rest period, when we camped, we slept in tents.
Usually we ate an evening meal with the top Rheattite officers headed by Heer
law, our top man in the League of Rheatt. On our second day out a row blew up at one of these meals. The others had elected to eat on their own; neither Reeth, Grale nor Hassmann had ever become socially familiar with the Rheattites. Bec and myself sat with Heerlaw and half a dozen other officers comprising the effective leadership of their part of the campaign.
Earlier that day we had come across the remains of the handiwork of the Rotrox legions ahead of us. Evidently the Rotrox had stumbled on a band of nomads. The wagons and protein tanks were smashed open and strewn all over the place. Bodies were everywhere. It didn’t look as if the Rotrox had left a single one of them alive.
“Is this the kind of civilisation we are bringing to Killibol?” one of the Rheattites denounced angrily. “Ever since I was a boy I have been hearing of the new vigour and freedom our work will bring to mankind. Is this what it means?”
This was strong stuff indeed. All the officers were young, belonging to the new generation we had raised. As he said, he’d been indoctrinated since he was a boy. To some extent they’d been quarantined from the real unpleasantness of Rheatt’s position, or rather it had been played down to them. This was their testing time, their first exposure to nasty reality.
“From the Rotrox we must always expect brutality,” Heerlaw answered, glancing at Bec. He was a man who wouldn’t deviate no matter what he saw. He had been closest to us and he had the kind of toughness that’s bred in Klittmann itself.
“We must co-operate with them for the sake of the task,” he continued. “The end justifies the means.”
Another officer broke in, slamming his knife on the table. “I say it was an atrocious act. It should be punished.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Heerlaw told him. “How could the Rotrox have done otherwise? What if the people they found had sent word to the city we are about to attack?”
Throughout all this argument Bec sat silent. Suddenly I found myself speaking.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s sickening. If this is how we’re going to behave it would be better if we had never set out. The Rotrox are monsters and it’s not easy to imagine what will happen when they get inside Klittmann.”
Bec glared at me fiercely. A brooding silence followed, in which the Rheattites continued to eat uneasily. Shortly afterwards we left for our respective tents.
Bec spoke to me warningly as we entered our own tent. “I don’t want any disaffection in our ranks, Klein,” he said, lowering himself into a comfortable chair and pouring us both goblets of hwura. “I think you spoke out of turn there.”
“Maybe.” I accepted the goblet. “But that guy had a point. Our Rheattites still aren’t too hard-bitten. We’ve led them to believe they’re going to build an empire worth building. Instead they see that mess we saw today. Frankly I’d be happier if the Rotrox were well out of this.”
Bec snorted contemptuously. “I can remember when you wouldn’t have turned a hair. Anyway, the Rotrox put us where we are. I’ll handle them when the right time comes. Heerlaw has the right idea: the end justifies the means.”
I knocked back the goblet and reached for the jug. “You haven’t seen the things I saw on Merame.”
We drank for a while. Bec was thoughtful. Finally he looked at me curiously and said: “I think you’d better make a trip back to Rheatt for a day or so, Klein.”
The goblet stopped midway to my mouth. “Why?” I said in surprise.
“Those klugs were shooting their mouths off back there. I’ve had one or two indications back home — in Rheatt, that is — too. It could be there’s an independence movement growing. Now would be the time for it to come into the open, when we’re not around to stop it.”
“But we’ll soon be at Klittmann! I don’t want to miss that.”
“Oh, you won’t, with any luck. Just nose around Parkland and see if everything’s quiet. If there’s nothing up you can fly out to Klittmann. Otherwise, you know what to do.”
I was disappointed, but Bec was adamant. I had to go.
When I got to Parkland I soon got the feeling that Bec had given me a bum steer. Everything was as usual. The supply routes to the gateway were functioning perfectly. All the League of Rheatt organisations were waiting expectantly for news of the first victory.
Bec had told me to stay for at least two days, maybe three, I hung around, feeling moody and uncertain. There was no real need for me here. My mind was with those columns millions of light years away, pushing their way forward with headlights blazing.
Suddenly I thought of Harmen, the old alk. Bec and he had been close, in a way. Bec had got a lot of his ideas from him. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to Harmen, I thought.
His laboratory was some distance from Parkland so I flew there in a small aircraft I piloted myself. I found Harmen sitting in a spacious study. In a small bookcase were the precious books he had managed to bring from Klittmann so many years ago.
On the way in I had noticed that the building was full of his assistants, or apprentices as he called them, wearing purple smocks. Harmen kept the house well lit for their benefit and wore dark goggles all the time. Otherwise he was the same crazy alk I had known before. His hair straggled down his shoulders and his big hooked nose poked out beneath the goggles, making him look like some weird animal.
I told him he’d soon be able to move back into Klittmann if he wanted to. He was non-committal. The move would be difficult, he said. Some of his equipment was heavy and conditions might not be stable in Klittmann for a while.
I got up and started pacing the room. Something was eating me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“It’s crazy!” I blurted suddenly. “When we got driven out of Klittmann you’d have sworn we didn’t have a chance in hell. But Bec got us through the gateway and here to Earth — with your help, that is. Even then, you’d think we still didn’t have a chance, except maybe just to stay alive. We were jumping into the dark. Yet here we are moving back to Klittmann with an army. In a few days we’ll own the place. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Harmen nodded. He seemed to know what I was trying to say.
“Becmath is a man of destiny. That’s why it happened. A lesser man taking such a chance would have landed in the middle of a desert. There would have been nothing for him. A man like Becmath lands in the middle of a whirlpool of events, of which he can take advantage. The universe denies him nothing.”
I stared at him. “Why, you crazy loon. …” I shook my head. “All that philosophising is just junk. It doesn’t mean anything.”
The alk’s mouth creased in a tolerant smile. “Indeed? And yet that is how the universe works. I know. I am close to the preparation of the Tincture.”
I waved my hand. “Junk,” I repeated.
“And the gateway — is that junk?”
He had me there. Then, too, I remembered the frightening little homunculus that had appeared in the retort under the garage in Klittmann. Harmen had proved he knew what he was talking about. If it was junk, then it was junk that worked.
“I can see that you are confused,” Harmen said, his voice becoming confidential. “Becmath’s ambitions do not interest me except insofar as they help or hinder my work. But I can see what shape they take. Even when we were travelling over the barrenness of Killibol I knew that something was ahead that would enable Becmath to rise to power. I did not know what it would be, but I knew there would be something.”
“But how could you know?” I said, fascinated now. “Did you have a premonition? A vision?”
He shook his head, smiling again. “I had merely studied the patterns events make. They are not what we take them to be: sometimes the effect draws on the cause.”
He paused. “My life’s work is the preparation of the Tincture. The Tincture, or the Primordial Hyle, is the basic material of existence of which all other elements and forms are corruptions or superficial appearances. Hence it is the goal of all alchemical work. It is indivisible, subtle and fugitive; it is not ruled by t
he laws of space and time. The ancient texts say that a man who possesses it can know all, can travel anywhere through space and time.”
I remembered him making similar claims years before. Then, the meaning of what he said had been lost on me. Now I seemed to understand it better.
“You speak of visions,” he continued. “I can give you visions. Come with me.”
He rose and led me out of the study and into the laboratories beyond. Purple-smocked apprentices made way for us. We passed through one workshop filled with a confusion of electronic valves, retorts, and other stuff I couldn’t begin to describe. Some of it was glowing and buzzing. Then, at the far end, big wooden doors swung open for us. We passed through and they closed again.
The chamber facing us was like a long hall, deathly quiet. It was empty except for electrode-like devices protruding from the walls, floors and ceiling at the far end.
“Preparation of the Tincture is the primary aim of alchemy,” Harmen explained, “but there is another related, subsidiary aim: the creation of artificial beings. This apparatus goes a short way towards both.”
He stepped to a control board and activated it with a loud snap, then adjusted certain controls. The chamber began to hum.
“Do not be frightened by anything you see,” he warned me. “Theoretically the Tincture is everywhere, at the basis of everything. All forms and creatures are derived from it — to obtain it, one merely has to make it manifest itself.”
A sense of frightful tension between the electrodes began to make itself felt. My muscles began to tighten up. Instinctively I backed towards the door.
“Easy,” Harmen murmured. “No harm will come to you.”
Suddenly there was a sound like the clap of a giant electric spark. The space between the electrodes became a riot of colour. Then the spark coalesced into a tall figure — that of a man, dressed in bizarre, coloured clothes!
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