They couldn’t do. that,” Monteyiller said. “Not to us. Are you trying to frighten me?”
The man raised his eyebrows. “They wouldn’t like it, to be sure,” he said, “but I can promise you they wouldn’t hesitate to destroy you if they had to. The gods of Man are a jealous lot, you should know that—they would never tolerate rebellion. You would put up a fight, of course, but you can’t hurt any of your ancient gods with your weapons, because you created them cruel and immortal and invincible. It would be the Götterdämmerung, the Ragnarök, the final war—don’t you think Man dreamed about that? The fables of Man are abundant with tales of cruel gods destroying Mankind, and every one of these gods are here on Earth with their celestial or subterranean armies—ghouls and trolls and angels and devils, Valkyries, gnomes, ghosts, witches—everything that two thousand generations of Man dreamed up in their most unspeakable, blackest dreams. Do you think that the goddess Nammu would have compassion with the sin of hubris? Or Zeus? Or Loki or Mithra or Seth or Horus or Demeter or any other of the thousands of omnipotent avenging gods of Man?” He shook his head, smiling tiredly. “It is the curse of Man that he always creates his cruel gods to be omnipotent, while the good gods become small and powerless. There’s no way out.”
He went around Monteyiller and stopped, leaning on the back of the chair. “There’s no way out,” he repeated.
Monteyiller stared vacantly at the distant wall. He felt the old fear rising again, the fear of the enemy that couldn’t be fought; the old, old nightmare coming back again. The haven turned into a deadly trap. Finished.
“This is our world,” he said, “and we’ll have it, no matter what.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” The man’s voice was calm, disinterested.
“Give us Earth!”
“I have already told you. I can’t And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“We can’t back out now,” Monteyiller said bitterly. “We have to go on, whatever you say.”
“You will regret it,” the man said.
“Perhaps. But it might be worth the risk.” Monteyiller hesitated. Then he suddenly remembered. Martha.
“There was a woman on the first ship,” he said slowly. “They were attacked, and she escaped. Where is she?”
“She’s happy, as you would be happy if you let Earth have its will. She’s in a world of her own making; she’s loved by someone she thought dead. She’s happy for the first time in many years, perhaps for the first time in her life. She needs Earth, the beings feel it, and they are doing anything that she asks. She’ll never let you take her away.”
“Fantasies,” Monteyiller said. “Drugs. Hallucinations. And she had a shock. You can’t fool her forever. We’ll get her back.”
The man said, “You have been down the path to the kingdom of Death, you have met Heracles, you have met Alice, you have been in Nautilus and in a city of your own making. You have been in Megacity. They weren’t hallucinations, they were real. People have written about them, dreamed about them; they are yours if you want them. Earth wants you to have it. Your Martha was the first of you to find out. You will do the same.”
“We are speaking of different things,” Monteyiller said.
“Perhaps,” the man admitted.
“You could be destroyed.”
“Not by man.”
“If you turn against us,” Monteyiller said, “well have to destroy you, one way or another.”
“You might find it harder than you think.”
“The beings that you talk about, they would help us, wouldn’t they?”
“No doubt”—the man smiled coolly—“but there would be a high price to pay for the help. I don’t think you are that foolish, after all.”
Monteyiller rose from his chair. “Well find a way,” he said.
The man didn’t answer. Monteyiller walked back to the door. It opened with a soft sighing sound before him. The space inside was black and hostile. He went in, feeling tired and hollow. When he looked back into the hall, the man had disappeared. He shrugged, and let the door close behind him. A pale light flickered in the darkness, and a moment later the door opened again. Megapolis had disappeared; there was soft grass outside, and’ a vague scent of flowers. There were fallen pillars, gleaming ghostly white in the moonlight. There were crickets.
He stepped out from the dusk of the crumbling temple and found without surprise that he wasn’t alone. He straightened and faced the girl who waited for him under the trees. She was rather small and slender, with long yellow hair falling down around a soft beautiful face. The body was that of a woman, but the eyes were those of the child, Alice. She was dressed in a pale blue shimmering garment that fell down to her feet An ornamented golden belt girdled her slim waist. She was strangely enticing, desirable, and she stood unmovingly with one hand on her hip, gazing steadily at him.
17
In the Argine Dianeum.
She disappeared in the shadows and returned a moment later.
“I brought you breakfast,” she said. “You look tired.”
She lay bread and fruits before him, and poured red wine from an earthenware amphora.
He ate hungrily, conscious of her watchful eyes.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Monteyiller. And you?”
“Nausicaä.”
“Only Nausicaä?”
She smiled. “They used to call me ‘Nausicaä with the white arms.’ My father is Alkinoos, king of Phaiakia.”
“So I’m in royal company, then. Should I bow or something?”
She seated herself cross-legged before him. “What are you doing here?”
He told her.
“The machine is of the same nature as everything else,” she said, looking away. “It gives yon the truth you want, not the truth that is.”
“But it said that it would resist us, that there would be wars. I don’t want wars.”
She looked at him. “Your ships are armed; you have a weapon at your thigh. Death hovers over you like a black cloud. Where Man goes, death follows him; you know that.”
Monteyiller looked thoughtfully at her. In the dancing light of the fire, she was beautiful. Time passed. She rose gracefully; the dress made a soft rustling sound. The fire painted her white arms red.
18
In the sactum sanctorum and Ophelia.
The air was dry and tinged with incense, and there was a shrine in the dusk, gleaming. Monteyiller glanced at it and frowned.
She said, “Wants thou to lie in my lap?”
He said, “Why not?”
“I mean, your head upon my lap.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I meant country matters?”
He sighed. “I think nothing.”
“That’s a fair thought,” she said, “to lie between maids’ legs.”
She smiled, her lips red and moist. He could feel her heart beating through the gossamer folds of her dress. “What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She smiled.
“You’re merry.”
“Why shouldn’t I be merry, at such a place and such a time?” She leaned over him. “Your ship is far away. You could stay here.”
He sat up. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
“Sweet Prince.” She laughed. “I pray you to be silent, because my honesty admits no discourse to my beauty.”
She snuggled closer to him, her face hidden in his tunic.
“Tell me more,” she whispered.
She slept, golden hair streaming down over her face. She slept huddled up in fetal position, like a child. Her breathing was slow and even. The fire cast a golden shimmer over her skin. Monteyiller sat crouched before the shrine. He whistled between his teeth as he touched the gleaming dials. It was a rather curious shrine, far removed from the religious artifacts that could be expected in a place like this.
It was a subspace communicator.
The design was unfamiliar and archaic, and the t
exts on scales and dials were in some incredibly ancient language. But there was no mistaking what was in the transparent glassite dome, filled with myriads of oscillating pinpoints of light, that crowned the gleaming cube: a direction-finder, and a highly advanced one too. The Confederation could not have matched it. It was a magnificent piece of machinery.
It was also brand-new.
The temple filled with the familiar low whine of the subspace seeker-beam, abruptly ceasing as the communicator locked in on the fleets frequency. The starry night in the dome dissolved into the face of a tired-looking officer with a cup held halfway to his mouth. He looked up, eyes widening.
“Captain Monteyiller!” he exclaimed. “I—”
“The First Officer,” Monteyiller said, “if you please.”
The officer’s face dissolved into whirling iridescent mists that after a moment contracted and solidified into the image of a mustached, middle-aged man with dark, brooding eyes and a nervous twitch.
“Don’t shout,” Monteyiller said amicably. “You might disturb someone.”
The First Officer leaned closer to his visor screen. “We’ve been calling you for the past ten hours—why haven’t you kept in touch? Cat told me that—” He stopped and did something outside the communicator’s field of vision. “You aren’t in the ship!” he said, returning to his former place. “What‘s going on down there?” He was perspiring, Monteyiller observed, and he had obviously not shaved for some time. He felt a sudden pang of remorse for the man.
“I’m in some bloody temple somewhere,” he said, “dedicated to the goddess Diana. And don’t shout at me, because this place is a sanctuary and Diana disapproves violently of rough talk.” He paused to shoot a quick glance over his shoulder at the sleeping girl. Satisfied, he turned back to the communicator. “What about Cat? Is she in the scout-ship?”
“Well, yes_____ “
“Tell Cat to lock herself in, if she hasn’t done that yet, and to stay where she is until she gets picked up. We’re moving in.”
“Sir—”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Monteyiller grinned wryly at the astounded officer. “Look, Stephen, we’ve got to do it sooner or later, and we’re late as it is. This place isn’t as innocent as it looks. I know…. what do you think they use this bloody communicator for? Scrambled eggs? They have an advanced civilization, Stephen, and that means trouble in capital letters. They’ve tried to break Cat and me down physically ever since we landed, and I just had a charming bribe in the form of a girl, in order to make me give in. If they don’t want to contact us in a civilized way, we have to use other means.” He glanced down at his watch. “Prepare for landing procedure, red alert with every bloody gun ready for immediate use. You have a position fix on me, haven’t you?”
He didn’t wait for the affirmative, but went on, “You will follow plan B-three, three cruisers down to where I am and the rest of the fleet takes position in extended order, ready to move in if necessary. If you meet anything that acts hostilely, shoot. If you meet anything that might be hostile, shoot. If one of those bloody cathedrals or caverns or what-have-you starts to materialize around you, blast it apart and get out of it. Everything that acts funny is your goddamn enemy, no matter how improbable it seems. They look like hallucinations, but they aren’t. I’ve been right in the middle of some of them. The plan goes in effect twenty minutes from now.”
He cast another quick glance at the sleeping girl. She murmured in her sleep. He hurried on, “Get a position fix on Martha; you should be able to locate her by the stray radiation from her power-pack or something. Well get her out from wherever she is, the first thing we do, and then well start talking business with the local authorities, whoever they might be. I’ve been kicked around enough; I don’t intend to have any more of that.” He paused thoughtfully.
“And remember this is alien territory. It might be Earth, but don’t let that fool you. Nothing, absolutely nothing is what you expect it to be. I’ve learned it the hard way; see to it that you don’t have to do the same.”
There was a sound behind him, a soft rustle and bare feet approaching.
“Over,” he said, “and out”
19
In the end—the Medusa.
As the image in the communicator’s dome faded away, he caught her reflection in the curved glassite. The gargoyle face was distorted by hate, the hair was a mass of writhing snakes.
“You lied!” she screamed. “You lied!” The piercing voice filled the temple as she came toward him.
“The Medusa,” Cat told him once, “was one of the ancient Greeks’ most imaginative inventions. It isn’t just that she was ugly—she meant death. Those who saw her face were turned into stone. A real beauty, that one. The Greeks had a beastly imagination.”
He threw himself on the floor, covering his eyes with his hand and fired, fired until the temple blossomed with white dazzling death.
Later, careful to avoid looking at the scarred thing on the floor, he returned to the communicator. Whoever had put it there must have had reasons for it.
Never give the enemy an even break, Monteyiller thought grimly. Better make it unusable.
He unscrewed the back of the communicator. He stared into the opening, his mouth working wordlessly.
The machine was empty.
A Potemkin coulisse, a joke, an impossibility.
He rose slowly, staring out through the small door of the temple to the green landscape outside.
Everything here is out of some bloody book or other.
They’re doing anything that she asks.
It gives you the truth that you want, not the truth that is.
Ali-
He looks at the scarred form on the floor.
The forgotten writer who had envisaged the communicator hadn’t bothered to describe the complicated machinery inside the gleaming shell; but, then, why should he? He had meant it to work. In his novel, it did.
On Earth, where the fables ruled, it did.
Monteyiller aimed the disrupter at the communicator and fired. It crumpled and disappeared in a sphere of fire.
No machines were invincible. Not even in a writer’s dreams.
Monteyiller left the temple, wondering if he really believed that.
20
Monteyiller stood at the edge of the pine forest, watching the last of the three Gargantuan ships descend to the ground. It loomed black and deadly before him, blotting out the morning sun, throwing a long black shadow far into the forest. Ports opened slowly in the hull; there were shouts and the sound of metal against metal; then men and vehicles began pouring out. Monteyiller watched it absently, failing to perceive the hard-drilled efficiency of the troops. They made a good show, and a lot of noise, but they were pitiably few. And none of them had been, to his knowledge, in actual combat before.
Cannon-fodder, he thought grimly. Poor devils. Armed vehicles came rumbling down the embarkation ramp; three low-slung beetles of black metal slowly made their way toward the other two beetles that had emerged from the other ships. They left deep scars in the ground, winding between the groups of troopers and technical personnel that stood or sat in the grass, savoring the sights and smells of the morning. A group of veterans sat huddled together in a tight group at a distance, playing cards.
More vehicles came into view, bulky half-tracks that were built for exploration trips. Their usefulness in warfare could be disputed, but they were strong and reliable and had some light armaments. Eight of them came out in file and joined the beetles at a respectful distance. Farther away, four scoutships hovered two feet over the ground. The expedition, a small-scale affair by any reckoning, was about ready to start. Monteyiller turned to Cat, who stood behind him in the shade of the trees, silently looking at the preparations.
“Well… what do you say about it?”
She glanced up at him. “You’re going out strong, aren’t you?”
“Have to.” He stood broad-legged, hands on his hips, gazing approvin
gly at the activity. “These…people are against us, have been ever since we came. I don’t intend to give them the upper hand, now or ever. Martha is in that forest, probably surrounded by every devilish trick in the book and then some. They’ve got her, and they intend to keep her. Our only chance is to move in with so much force that they can’t stop us, whatever they do. We’re going to go in there, get her, and then back again. And after that…” He smiled. “After that we’ll start talking business with them.”
“At gun-point,” Cat said.
“We tried to contact them peacefully, didn’t we?” He grimaced. “And what good did that do us? Jocelyn is dead, torn to pieces by one of their creatures, and Martha is held as hostage. And the trip we were treated to—that one was not an accident. They knew bloody well what they did. First, intimidation, then violence, then bribery. They’re cunning, the bastards. I’ve been playing along with them too long already, and it hasn’t helped us a bit. Now well do this my way.”
Cat shrugged. “I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
Monteyiller was gazing through a field glass at a shimmering structure that rose up over the forest far away. Pale mist clung to shimmering towers, alternately hiding and exposing them to view. They looked like frozen fires in the red light of the morning sun. They were beautiful. They were growing.
“You bet,” he said.
It was a brisk, clear morning with a tinge of chill in the air. The fragrance of verdure and fermenting soil was mellow and rich, almost tangible. The column moved on, spearheaded by the five low-slung beetles. The pines fell wailingly to the ground as they pressed on. Sometimes they used the disrupters to burn them off, sometimes they just drove on, pushing them down. The result was the same. The column moved on. Behind it, a thirty-foot wide gash stretched through the forest all the way back to the ships, straight as an arrow. Soldiers sat on the roofs of the vehicles, cradling their guns.
Alice's World Page 9