Last night the calibans came close. We could hear them moving around the shelter. When we went outside they retreated. We are using all due caution.
xiii
189 CR, day 24
The Base Director's office
"Genley," McGee said, "is in danger. I would remind you, sir, the Base has fallen before. And there were warnings of it. Take the calibans seriously."
"They're far from Base, Dr. McGee." The Director leaned back, arms locked across his middle. The windows looked out on the concrete buildings, on fog. "But this time I do agree with you. There's a possibility of a problem out there."
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"There's more than a possibility. The rainy season seems to act on the calibans, and everything's stirred up on Styxside."
"What about your assessment of the calibans as a culture? Doesn't this weather-triggered behavior belong to something more primitive?"
"Do we sunbathe in winter?"
"We're talking about aggression."
"Early humans preferred summer for their wars."
"Then what does this season do for calibans?"
"I wouldn't venture an answer. We can only observe that it does something."
"Genley's aware of the problem."
"Not of the hazards. He won't listen to those."
The Director thought a moment. "We'll take that under advisement. We know where you stand."
"My request—"
"Also under advisement."
xiv
189 CR, day 25
R. Genley to Base Director
…I have made a contact. A band of Stygians riding calibans has shown up facing our camp on our own side of the Styx this foggy morning. There was no furtiveness in their approach. They stopped a moment and 261
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observed us, then retreated and camped nearby. Mist makes observation difficult, but we can see them faintly at present.
189 CR, day 25
Base Director to R. Genley
Proceed with caution. Weather forecast indicates clearing tonight and tomorrow, winds SW/1015.
Drs. McGee, Mannin, and Galliano are on their way afoot to reach your position with 10 security personnel. Please extend all professional cooperation and courtesy. Use your discretion regarding face to face contact.
xv
189 CR, day 26
Styxside Base
They reached the camp by morning, staggering-tired and glad enough of the breakfast they walked in on, with hot tea and biscuits.
"Hardly necessary for you to trek out here," Genley said to McGee. He was a huge florid-faced man, solid, monument-like in the khaki coldsuit that was the uniform out here. McGee filled out her own with deskbound weight-gain. Her legs ached and her sides hurt. The smell of the Styx came to them here, got into everything, odor of reeds and mud and wet and cold, permeating even the biscuits and the coffee. It was freedom. She savored it, ignoring Genley.
"I expect," Genley went on, "that you'll follow our lead out here. The last thing we need is interference."
"I only give advice," she said, deliberately bland. "Don't worry about your credit on the report."
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"I think they're stirring about out there," said Mannin from the doorway.
"They had to have seen us come in."
"Weather report's wrong as usual," Genley said. "Fog's not going to clear."
"I think we'd better get out there," McGee said.
"Have your breakfast," Genley said. "We'll see to it."
McGee frowned, stuffed her mouth, washed the biscuit down, and trailed him out the door.
* * *
The sun made an attempt at breaking through the mist. It was all pinks and golds, with black reeds thrusting up in clumps of spiky shadow and the fog lying on the Styx like a dawn-tinted blanket. Every surface was wet. Standing or crouching, one felt one's boots begin to sink. Moisture gathered on hair and face and intensified the chill. But they stood, a little out from their camp, facing the Stygians' camp, the humped shapes of calibans moving restlessly in the dawn.
Then human figures appeared among the calibans.
"They're coming," McGee said.
"We just stand," said Genley, "and see what they do."
The Stygians drew closer, afoot, more distinct in the morning mist. The calibans walked behind them, like a living wall, five, six of them.
Closer and closer.
"Let's walk out halfway," said Genley.
"Not sure about that," said Mannin.
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Genley walked. McGee trod after him, her eyes on the calibans as much as the humans. Mannin followed. The Security Fieldmen were watching them. No one had guns. None were permitted. If they were attacked, they might die here. It was Security's task simply to escape and report the fact.
Features became clear. There were three older men among the Stygians, three younger, and the one foremost was youngest of the lot. His long hair was gathered back at the crown; his dark beard was cut close, his leather garments clean, ornamented with strings of river-polished stones and bone beads. He was not so tall as some. He looked scarcely twenty. He might be a herald of some kind, McGee thought to herself, but there was something— the spring-tension way he moved, the assurance— that said that of all the six they saw, this was the one to watch out for.
Young man. About eighteen.
"Might be Jin himself," she said beneath her breath. "Right age. Watch it with this one."
"Quiet," Genley said. He crouched down, let a stone slip from his clenched hand to the mud, let fall another pebble by that one.
The Stygians stopped. The Calibans crouched belly to the ground behind them, excepting the biggest, which was poised well up on its four legs.
"They're not going to listen," McGee said. "I'd stand up, Genley. They're not interested."
Genley stood, a careful straightening, his Patterning-effort abandoned.
"I'm Genley," he said to the Stygians.
"Jin," said the youth.
"The one who gives orders on the Styx."
"That Jin. Yes." The youth set his hands on hips, walked carelessly off to riverward, walked back again a few paces. The calibans had all stood up.
"Genley."
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"McGee," McGee said tautly. "He's Mannin."
" MaGee. Yes." Another few paces, not looking at them, and then a look at Genley. "This place is ours."
"We came to meet you in it," said Genley. "To talk."
The young man looked about him, casually curious, walking back to his companions.
This is an insult, McGee suspected without any means to be sure. He's provoking us. But the young face never changed.
"Jin," McGee said aloud and deliberately and Jin looked straight at her, his face hard. "You want something?" McGee asked.
"I have it," Jin said, and ignored her to look at Genley and Mannin. "You want to talk. You have more questions. Ask."
No, McGee thought, sensing that civility was the wrong tack to take with this youth. "Not interested," she said. "Genley, Mannin. Come on. "
The others did not move. "We'll talk," Genley said.
McGee walked off, back to the camp. It was all she had left herself to do.
She did not look back. But Genley was hard on her heels before she had gotten to the tent.
"McGee!"
She looked about, at anger congested in Genley's face. At anger in Mannin's.
"He walked off, did he?" she asked.
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xvi
189 CR, day 27
Main Base, the Director's office
She expected the summons, stood there weary and dirty as she was, hands folded. She had come back to Base with three of the security personnel.
She had not slept. Sh
e wanted a chair.
There was no offer. The Director stared at her hard-eyed from behind his desk. "Botched contact," he said. "What was it, McGee, sabotage? Could you carry it that far?"
"No, sir. I did the right thing."
"Sit down."
She pulled the chair over, sank down and caught her breath.
"Well?"
"He was laughing at us. At Genley. He was provoking Genley and Genley was blind to all of it. He was getting points off us."
"The sound tape doesn't show it. It shows rather that he knows you. "
"Maybe he does. Rumors doubtless travel."
"And you picked this up too, of course."
"Absolutely."
"You lowered Genley's credibility."
"Genley didn't need help in that. This Jin is dangerous."
"Might there be some bias, McGee?"
"No. Not on my side."
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There was silence. The Director sat glaring, twisting a stylus in his hands.
Behind him was the window, the concrete buildings of the Base. Safety behind the wire. Beneath them detectors protected the underground, listened for undermining. Man on Gehenna had learned.
"You've created a situation," the Director said.
"In my professional judgement, sir, it had to be done. If the Styx doesn't respect us—"
"Do you think respect has to matter, one way or another? We're not in this for points, McGee, or personal pride."
"I know we've got a mission out there on the Styx with their lives riding on that respect. I think maybe I made them doubt their calculations about us. I hope it's good enough to keep Genley alive out there."
"You keep assuming hostility exists."
"Based on what the Cloudsiders think."
"On a ten year old girl's opinion."
"This Jin— every move he made was a provocation. That caliban of his, the way it was set, everything was aggression."
"Theories, McGee."
"I'd like to renew the Cloudside contact. Pursue it for all it's worth."
"The same way you turned your back on the Styxsiders?"
"It's the same gesture, yes, sir."
"What about your concern for the Styxside mission? Aren't you afraid that would precipitate some trouble?"
"If Genley's right, it won't. If I'm right, it would send a wrong signal not to. Not doing it might signal that we're weak. And that could equally well endanger Genley."
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"You seriously think these Styxsiders could look at this Base and think we're without resources."
"This base has fallen before. Despite all its resources. I think it could be a very reasonable conclusion on their part. But I wouldn't venture to say just what they think. Their minds are at an angle to ours. And there's the possibility that we're not dealing just with human instinct."
"Calibans again."
"The Gehennans take them seriously, however the matter seems to us. I think we have to bear that in mind. The Gehennans think the calibans have an opinion. That's one thing I'm tolerably sure of."
"Your proposal?"
"What I said. To take all our avenues."
The Director frowned, leaned forward and pushed a button on the recorder.
xvii
Report from field: R. Genley
The Stygians remain, watching us as we watch them. Today there was at least a minor breakthrough: one of the Stygians approached our shelter and looked us over quite openly. When we came toward him he walked off at a leisurely pace. We reciprocated and were ignored.
xviii
Styxside
"Sit," said Jin; and Genley did so, carefully, in the firelit circle. They took the chance, he and Mannin together— a wild chance, when one of the young Stygians had come a second time to beckon them. They walked alone into the camp, among the calibans, unarmed, and there was the waft of alcohol about the place. There were cups passed. Quickly one came their way as they settled by the fire.
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Genley drank first, trying not to taste it. It was something like beer, but it numbed the mouth. He passed the wooden cup on to Mannin and looked up at Jin.
"Good," said Jin— a figure that belonged in firelight, a figure out of human past, leather-clad, his young face sweating in the light and smoke, his eyes shining with small firesparks. "Good. Genley. Mannin."
"Jin."
The face broke into a grin. The eyes danced. Jin took the cup again. "You want to talk to me."
"Yes," Genley said.
"On what?"
"There's a lot of things." Whatever was in the drink numbed the fingers.
Distantly Genley was afraid. "Like what this drink is?"
"Beer," Jin said, amused. "You think something else, Gen-ley?" He drank from the same cup, and the next man filled it again. They were all men, twelve of them, all told. Three fiftyish. Most young, but none so young as Jin. "Could be bluefish in a cup. You die that way. But you walk in here, you bring no guns."
"The Base wants to talk. About a lot of things."
"What do you pay?"
"Maybe it's just good for everyone, that you and the Base know each other."
"Maybe it's not."
"We've been here a long time," Mannin said, "living next to each other."
"Yes," said Jin.
"Things look a lot better for the Styx recently."
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Jin's shoulders straightened. He looked at Mannin, at them both, with appraising eyes. "Watch us, do you?"
"Why not?" Genley asked.
"I speak for the Styx," Jin said.
"We'd like to come and go in safety," Genley said.
"Where?"
"Around the river. To talk to your people. To be friends."
Jin thought this over. Perhaps, Genley thought, sweating, the whole line of approach had been wrong.
"Friends," Jin said, seeming to taste the word. He looked at them askance.
"With starmen." He held out his hand for the cup, a line between his brows as he studied them. "We talk about talking," Jin said.
189 CR, day 30
Message, R. Genley to Base Director
I have finally secured a face to face meeting with the Stygians. After consistently refusing all approach since the incident with Dr. McGee, Jin has permitted the entry of Dr. Mannin and myself into his camp.
Apparently their pride has been salved by this prolonged silence and by our approach to them.
Finding no further cause for offense, they were hospitable and offered us food and drink. The young Stygian leader, while reserved and maintaining an attitude of dignity, began to show both humor and ease in our presence, altogether different than the difficult encounter of four days ago.
I would strongly urge, with no professional criticism implied, that Dr.
McGee avoid contact with the Styxsiders in any capacity. The name McGee is known to them, and disliked, which evidences, perhaps, both contact between Styx and Cloud, and possibly some hostility, but I take nothing for granted.
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xix
189 CR, day 35
Cloud Towers
There was surprisingly little difficulty getting to the Towers of the Cloud.
There looked to be, even more surprising, only slightly more difficulty walking among them.
McGee came alone, in the dawning, with only the recorder secreted on her person and her kit slung from her shoulder, from the landing she had made upriver. She was afraid, with a different kind of fear than Jin had roused in her. This fear had something of embarrassment, of shame, remembering Elai, who would not, perhaps, understand. And now she did not know any other way but simply to walk until that walking drew some reaction.
There would be a caliban, she had hoped, on this rare clear winter day: a girl
on a caliban would come to meet her, frowning at her a bit at first, but forgiving her MaGee for her lapse of courtesy.
But none had come.
Now before her loomed the great bulk of the Towers themselves, clustered together in their improbable size. City, one had to think. A city of earth and tile, slantwalled, irregular towers the color of the earth, spirals that began in a maze of mounds.
She knew First Tower, nearest the river: so Elai had said. She passed the lower mounds, through eerie quiet, past folk who refused to notice her.
She passed the windowed mounds of ordinary dwellings, children playing with ariels, calibans lazing in the sun, potters and woodworkers about their business in sunlit niches in the mounds, sheltered from the slight nip of the wind, walked to the very door of First Tower itself.
A trio of calibans kept the inner hall. Her heart froze when they got up on their legs and made a circle about her, when one of them investigated her with a blunt shove of its nose and flicked a thick tongue at her face.
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But that one left then, and the others did, scrambling up the entry into the Tower.
She was not certain it was prudent to follow, but she hitched up her kit strap and ventured it, into a cool earthen corridor clawed and worn along the floor and walls by generations of caliban bodies. Dark— quite dark, as if this was a way the Cloudsiders went on touch alone. Only now and again was there a touch of light from some tiny shaft piercing the walls and coming through some depth of the earthen construction. It was a place for atavistic fears, bogies, creatures in the dark. The Cloudsiders called it home.
In the dim light from such a shaft a human shape appeared, around the dark winding of the core. McGee stopped. Abruptly.
"To see Ellai," she said when she got her breath.
The shadow just turned and walked up the incline and around the turn.
McGee sucked in another breath and decided to try following.