He said aloud, “Glimmung.”
There was no answer.
It’s heading toward the spaceport, he said to himself. They will never leave this planet. Going that way—he sensed the determination in its exhausted straining. Glimmung had damaged it but not destroyed it. And Glimmung lay at the bottom of Mare Nostrum, probably—almost certainly—dying.
I’ve got to go below, Joe realized. I have to dive once more, to see if there’s anything I can do for him. Frantically, he began collecting his previous diving gear; he found oxygen tanks, the transparent mask, flippers, his torch; he located weights to fix his belt…feverishly he worked. And, as he crept into the skintight suit, he realized that it didn’t matter. He was too late.
And, he thought, even if I find him I have no way of grappling him; I have no hoist by which to bring him up. And who can heal him? Not me. Not anyone.
He gave up. He began stripping the suit and weighted belt from him. His half-paralyzed fingers plucked at the zipper—the job of desuiting lay almost beyond his capacity.
A disaster of a trade, he thought. Glimmung now on the ocean bottom; the Black Glimmung, the false Glimmung, in charge of the sky. Everything has been reversed, and a dangerous situation has become a catastrophe.
But at least, he thought, it didn’t try to get me. It flapped on past … in search of greater prey.
He gazed out across the water; he shone his torch on the spot where Glimmung and his antithesis had sunk. What appeared to be bits of hide and broken clumps of feathers shone pale and sticky in the light of the torch. And a deep stain eddying out in greater and greater circles like oil. Blood, he thought. The thing is hurt, all right. Unless that’s Glimmung’s blood.
Stiffly, his arms shaking, he managed to creep down into the moored power boat. Presently he had put-putted out to the spot; the blood slick glistened on all sides of his boat as he shut off the power to the engine and merely drifted. The flotsam told him nothing. Even so, he remained there, listening to the sound of waves flopping blindly against a dark coastline somewhere behind him. Experimentally, he reached his hand down into the water and brought it out. The slime, in torch light, looked black. But it was blood. Fresh blood and lots of it. Blood from something which had been permanently maimed. Beyond hope of recovery.
It—whoever lost this blood—will die in a matter of days, he decided. Or possibly hours.
From the depths of the ocean a bottle floated up. At once he spotted it with his torch, snapped the power on to the engine, and put-putted toward it; reaching, he lifted the bottle into the boat.
A note. He uncorked the bottle, shook the note out into his waiting hand. By torch light he read it.
Good news! I have routed the opposition and am presently recuperating.
In disbelief he reread the words. Is it a gag? he wondered. Fake bravado at a time like this? And that was exactly what the pot had called Glimmung: a fake. And, by extension, the note itself a forgery, not really from Glimmung; like the words on the pot, this could be a product of the cathedral—not the Black counterpart but by the Heldscalla which Glimmung intended—or had intended—to raise. “I have routed the opposition,” he echoed in his mind as he reread the note once again. There is a credibility gap here, he decided. The enemy, as it thrashed its way out of the water and into the air, had seemed damaged but not mortally so. It was Glimmung, unable to ascend from the ocean floor, who seemed to Joe to be mortally damaged, despite this note.
A second bottle, smaller than the previous two, floated to the surface. He sequestered it, unscrewed the lid, and read the brief note within.
The previous communiqué is not a forgery. I am in good
health and hope you are the same. G.
P.S. It will no longer be necessary for anyone to leave the
planet. Notify them that I am all right, and tell them to
stay in their living areas for the time being. G.
“But it’s too late,” Joe said aloud. They’re leaving right now. Glimmung, you waited too long. I am the only one left. I and the robots; in particular Willis. And we are not much. Nothing at all compared with the gigantic and varied crew which you assembled for the task of raising Heldscalla. Your Project has come to an end.
And what was more this note could be a forgery, too. An attempt by the cathedral to hold onto everyone, to keep them from leaving the planet as Miss Reiss had ordered. However, the note had the authentic ring of Glimmung’s style. If the notes were forgeries, they were good ones.
Taking the last sheet of paper, Joe wrote an answer on the back of it in block letters.
If you are in good health why are you staying down below?
Signed Worried Employee.
He stuffed the note in one of the bottles, put in a weight from his belt, screwed tight the lid, and dropped the bottle over the side of the boat. It sank immediately. And, almost immediately, came bobbing back up. He fished it in and opened it.
I am currently dispatching the Black Cathedral. Will return to the dry land when that has been done. Signed Confident Employer.
P.S. Get the others. They will be needed. G.
Obediently, but without conviction, Joe put-putted back to the lit-up staging area. He located a vidphone—there were several—and when connected asked the autonomic phone system to connect him with the tower at the planet’s sole spaceport.
“When did the last major ship take off?” he asked the tower.
“Yesterday.”
“Then you have an intersystem ship on your pad right now?”
“Yes, we do.”
Good news, and yet, in a sense, ominous news, too. Joe said, “Glimmung wants it halted and the passengers dispersed so that they can come here.”
“You have authority to speak for Mr. Glimmung?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
“Trove it.”
“He told me orally.”
“Prove it.”
“If you let the ship go,” Joe said, “then Heldscalla will never be raised. And Glimmung will destroy you.”
“Let’s see you verify that.”
“Let me talk to Miss Reiss,” Joe said.
“Who is Miss Reiss?”
“Aboard the ship. Glimmung’s private secretary.”
“I can’t take orders from her either. I’m autonomic.”
“Did a huge flapping thing, completely black, come your way?”
“No.”
“Well,” Joe said, “it’s heading there. It should show up any time. Everyone on board the ship will die because you won’t tell them to disperse.”
“Neurotic panic alarms cannot dissuade me,” the tower said, but it sounded uneasy, now. There was a pause; Joe sensed it straining to see and hear at the farthest reach of its sensory apparatus. “I—” the tower said haltingly. “I think I see it.”
“Disperse the ship’s passengers,” Joe said. “Before it’s too late.”
“But they’ll be sitting hens,” the tower said.
“Ducks,” Joe corrected.
“My point is clear though the metaphor be wrong,” the tower said. But now it sounded uncertain of itself. “Perhaps I could put you through to someone aboard the ship.”
“Hurry,” Joe said.
The phone’s screen showed a variety of unnatural colors, and then upon it there appeared the rugged, gray, massive head of Harper Baldwin. “Yes, Mr. Fernwright?” He, like the tower, showed acute nervousness. “We’re just leaving. I understand a false Glimmung is headed this way. Unless we take off immediately—”
“The orders are changed,” Joe said. “Glimmung is alive and well and wants you all here at the aquatic staging center. As soon as possible.”
A cool, practical, competent face appeared on the vidscreen. A near-female face. “This is Hilda Reiss. In a situation like this our only viable alternative is to evacuate Plowman’s Planet; I thought you understood that. I told Miss Yojez—”
“But Glimmung wants you here,” Joe said. The red tape; the
damn red tape. He held the note from Glimmung before the vidscreen. “You recognize his writing? As his personal, private secretary you should.”
She peered, forehead wrinkled. “‘It will no longer be necessary for anyone to leave the planet,’” she read aloud. “‘Notify them that I am all right. And tell them—’”
Joe held the next note before the screen.
“‘Get the others,’” Miss Reiss read. “I see. Well, that is certainly quite distinct.” She eyed Joe. “All right, Mr. Fernwright. We will hire werj drivers and vehicles and come to the staging center posthaste. You can expect us in ten or fifteen minutes. For a number of reasons I hope that the false Glimmung let loose will not destroy us on the way. Bye.” She rang off, then. The screen became dark, the receiver silent.
Ten minutes, Joe thought. And with the Black Glimmung over their heads. They’ll be lucky if they can get any werjes to drive them. Even the autonomic tower, a synthetic construct, had been worried.
The hope of their arriving at the aquatic staging center seemed dim.
• • •
Half an hour passed. There was no sign of a hovercraft, no manifestation of the group. It got them, Joe Fernwright said to himself. They are finished. And, meanwhile, Glimmung battles the Black Cathedral at the bottom of Mare Nostrum. Everything is being decided right now.
Why don’t they come? he asked himself violently. Did it get them? Are they corpses floating in the water or drying to bleached teeth and bones on the land? And Glimmung. What about him? Even if they get here, everything still depends on Glimmung’s victory over the Black Cathedral. If he dies then they have come here for nothing; we will all leave, leave here, leave the planet. Back to overcrowded Earth for me, with phony money, the vets’ dole, the empty cubicle where nothing happens. And The Game, the goddam Game. For the remainder of my life.
I’m not going to leave here, he said to himself. Even if Glimmung dies. But—what would this world be like without Glimmung? Ruled by the Book of the Kalends … a mechanistic world, each day cranked out by The Book; a world without freedom. The Book will tell us each day what we are going to do, and we will do it. And, eventually, The Book will tell us we are going to die, and we will—
Die. He thought, The Book was wrong; it said what I found down below the surface of the ocean would cause me to kill Glimmung. And it didn’t.
But Glimmung could still die; the prophecy could still come true. Two battles remain: the battle to destroy the Black Cathedral, and the battle, the terrible task, of lifting Heldscalla to the surface. Glimmung could die during either; he could be dying right now. And all our hopes with him.
He turned on the radio to see if there was any news.
“Impotent?” the radio said. “Unable to achieve an orgasm? Hardovax will turn disappointment into joy.” Another voice, then, that of a miserable male. “Gosh, Sally, I don’t know what’s been the matter with me. I know you’ve noticed that I’m completely flaccid of late. Gosh, everyone’s noticed.” A female voice, then. “Henry, what you need is a simple pill called Hardovax. And in days you’ll be a real man.” “‘Hardovax’?” Henry echoed. “Gosh, maybe I should try it.” Then the announcer’s voice again. “At your nearby drugstore or write direct to—” Joe shut it off, at that point. Now I know what Willis meant, he said to himself.
A large hovercar landed at the miniature field of the staging center. He heard it arrive; he felt the building quiver and vibrate. So they made it, he said to himself, and hurried toward the field to meet them. His legs felt like heated thermoplastic; he could barely support himself.
Harper Baldwin, tall and stern, emerged first. “There you are, Fernwright.” Harper Baldwin shook hands cordially with Joe; he seemed relaxed, now. “It was quite a battle.”
“What happened?” Joe said, as the sharp-faced middle-aged woman stepped out. Chrissakes, he thought. Don’t just stand there; tell me. “How did you get away from it?” he asked as the reddish, heavyset man emerged, then the matronly woman, and, after her, the timid little fellow.
Mali Yojez, appearing, said, “Calm down, Joe. You get so agitated.”
Now the nonhumanoid life-forms made their way from the hovercraft onto the small field. The multilegged gastropod, the immense dragonfly, the furry ice cube, the red jelly supported by its metal frame, the univalvular cephalopod, the kindly looking bivalve Nurb K’ohl Dáq, the quasiarachnid, its chitinous shell gleaming, its many legs drumming…and then the portly, rope-tailed werj driver himself. The various forms scuttled, wiggled, walked, and haltingly slithered under the protection of the three hermetically sealed domes of the staging center, getting themselves out of the nocturnal cold. Mali, alone, remained with Joe—except for the werj driver, who loitered nearby, smoking some peculiar form of native grass. It looked pleased with itself.
“Was it that bad?” Joe asked Mali.
Still pale and tense, but, like Harper Baldwin, beginning to unwind, Mali said, “It was awful, Joe.”
“And no one is going to talk about it,” Joe said.
“I’ll talk,” Mali said. “Just give me a moment.” Holding out her hand to the werj she said, “Just give me a moment.” She trembled, then got out a cigarette, smoked rapidly, passed the cigarette to Joe. “When Ralf and I were here we got to using this. I find it helpful.” He shook his head no, and Mali nodded. “Let’s see.” She ruminated. “After your call we got out of the ship. As we were leaving the ship the Black Glimmung approached and began to circle the ship. We hailed this werj and—”
“I took off,” the werj said, proudly.
“Yes, it took off,” Mali continued. “It was told the situation, fully and completely, in case it didn’t want to take us, and it flew almost touching the ground; it flew I would say on an average of ten feet above the nearby buildings and then the open country. And, most important of all, it took a route it was familiar with.” To the werj she said, “I forget why you developed that strange anabasis. Explain again.”
The werj removed the cigarette from its gray lips and said, “Income-tax violators.”
“Yes,” Mali said to Joe, nodding. “Plowman’s Planet has a huge income tax, roughly seventy percent of earned gross income, as an average … it varies, of course, depending on the bracket. You see, the werjes usually drive that route the other way; that is, starting in a distant residential spot and zigzagging, et cetera, to the spaceport, avoiding the native police and tax agents and getting the passenger aboard a ship before he’s caught. Once on the ship he’s safe, because the ship is recognized as extranational territory, like an embassy.”
“I can always get them there,” the werj said sleekly. “Onto a ship, before they’re caught. No police cruiser, even with radar, can spot me as I zero in on the spaceport. In ten years I’ve only been stopped once, and that time I was clean.” It grinned as it puffed on its cigarette.
Joe said, “You mean the Black Glimmung took off after you?”
“No,” Mali said. “It crashed into the ship, a few minutes after we vacated it. The ship was totally destroyed, according to what we heard over the air, and the Black Glimmung was injured.”
“Then why did you need an elaborate escape route?” Joe asked, bewildered.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Mali said. “I understand from Hilda Reiss that Glimmung is currently attacking the Black Cathedral. Have you heard any further word, since the note Miss Reiss saw over the vidphone?”
“No,” Joe said. “I haven’t looked; I was waiting for all of you to show up.”
“One more minute,” Mali said, “aboard that ship, sitting there, waiting for takeoff, and we would have been killed. It was too close, Joe. I wouldn’t want to live through it again. I think it thought the ship was alive because the ship was so large. And we were too small; it apparently never saw the hovercar.”
“Funny things happen on this planet,” the werj said. Now it was picking its teeth with its elongated thumbnail. It all at once held out its hand.
“What do you want?” Joe said. “To shake hands?”
“No,” the werj said. “I want .85 of a crumble. They said you’d pay the bill for me bringing them here over my extra-good escape type route.”
“Bill Glimmung,” Joe said.
“You don’t have .85 of a crumble?” the werj asked.
“No,” Joe said.
“Do you?” the werj said to Mali.
“None of us has been paid,” Mali said. “We’ll pay you when Glimmung pays us.”
“I could call in the police,” the werj said, but fundamentally it appeared to be reconciled. Basically, Joe decided, it’s a humble creature. It will let us pay later.
Mali took his arm and led him indoors; the werj remained behind, glowering fruitlessly. But it did not try to halt them. “I think,” Mali said, “that we’ve gained a great victory. I mean by our escape from the Black Glimmung, and its injury; I understand that it’s still there at the spaceport, and the authorities are trying to decide what to do with it. They’ll wait until Glimmung tells them what they should do. That’s the way they’ve worked for decades, in fact since Glimmung came here. At least that’s what Ralf used to say. He was very interested in the way Glimmung ran this planet; he used to say—”
“What if Glimmung does die?” Joe said.
“Then the werj won’t get paid,” Mali said.
“I’m not thinking about that,” Joe said. “I mean this: if Glimmung dies, will the Black Glimmung be patched up and allowed to rule this planet? In his place? As the next best substitute?”
“Lord knows,” Mali said. She joined the group, the variegated life-forms from a variety of planets; arms folded, she stood listening to what Harper Baldwin was saying to the kindly bivalve.