West Of The Sun

  1

  _Argo IV_ answered Dunin's brown hand at the tiller, sliding southunder a following breeze. Her chief designer Paul Mason liked to callher a sloop, admitting that on no planet would any sloop have cared tobe found dead with a pair of twelve-foot oars amidships. She wasthirty-six feet fore and aft. Without a sawmill, shaping boards forher strakes had been harder than trimming and placing the single treetrunk that was her keel. Much of her joining was with wooden pegs;there was iron in her too, from the single deposit of ore on theisland of Adelphi. Her building had started seventeen months ago inthe Year Nine. One month ago Paul's daughter Helen had cracked acrossher bow an earthen flask of wine brought to maturity by Nisana and_Argo IV_ had slipped out of the mouth of the Whitebeach River for amaiden voyage--a forty-mile circuit of the island, including thepassage of a strait where a current from open ocean ran formidablybetween Adelphi and a small nameless island in the south. Since thenshe had journeyed short distances up and down the coast, learning herown fussy ways and teaching them to her makers.

  _Argo II_ had been a clumsy oared raft of heroic history. Nine Luciferyears ago, roughly the equivalent of twelve Earth years, _Argo II_ hadnot only brought fifteen survivors of a war to the island, she hadalso, broadened and repaired, returned to the mainland over theten-mile channel to pick up a sixteenth survivor, Abara, and thegentle white beasts he had refused to abandon. He had guided themsouth, through seventy miles of unknown terrors, and ten miles furtheralong the beach, until it came to an end at sheer cliffs; here _ArgoII_ found him. One by one--probably no one but Abara could havecoaxed them aboard--_Argo II_ had ferried all five of the olifantsacross. During the rains that came for a dark ending of Year Two, theswollen Whitebeach River had torn _Argo II_ from her moorings and shehad been swept away down the channel. Now she would be driftwoodscattered over the infinity of the unexplored; she was remembered.

  _Argo III_, still in existence and more often called Betsy, was only aboxed platform with outriggers and two pairs of oars. With four giantsat the oars and a favorable current she could approximate three milesan hour and carry several tons. She had been built in the Year Fourand was still busily bringing slabs of building stone from the base ofthe coastal range. The stone was red and black or sometimes purple,heavy, already smoother than marble without polishing; unlike anycommon stone of Earth, it was so hard that wind and sun and water overthe centuries had done little with it. Wright believed that was whythe coastal range could rise to such heights from a narrow base. Whilethe years in their millions had turned other mountains to levelground, the glassy rock remained: it could be broken for use butdefied erosion like a diamond.

  _Argo IV_ was unequivocally a ship; after her trial Paul had carvedfor her bow a figurehead with the dreaming face of Pakriaa.

  "Maybe," Dunin said, "with a few more like this the first explorationscould be around the coast instead of overland? If we had two or threemore ships when Kris-Mijok is old enough to go?"

  Paul knew Dorothy had winced, though her face was turned to theevening-reddened field of water. "If he still wants it, when he's oldenough to go...."

  Kris-Mijok Wright, her third-born child and only son, had been born inthe Year Three; in Earth years he was only nine. His hunger for thelong journeying might be mainly a reflection of his devotion to Dunin,herself full of visions and not yet a woman. A tentative half joke, ameans of channeling a child's fantasy into patience, had somehowbecome a sober adult plan: that the first major explorations wouldbegin when Kris-Mijok would have a man's strength to take part inthem.

  "We might have such ships by then." Paul tried to sound judicial. "Saythe Year Eighteen or Nineteen. Yes, a coastal exploration might bebetter than trying to cross the continent. Not a circumnavigationthough, at first."

  Dunin's big face blossomed in a grin. "Only about thirty-six thousandmiles by the old map made from the air. Open water at north and southpoles, plenty of it. Could do it in less than a year."

  "More like fifty thousand, allowing for deflections, tacking, pull ofcurrents we don't know. Storms, flat calms, contrary winds, repairs,expeditions ashore for provisions. You pull your horns in just a bit,my girl. Do you remember a desert plateau the map shows in thesouthern hemisphere? Solid cliff rising out of the sea for over sevenhundred miles, and on top of it roasting sand all the way across thecontinent--and that plateau is only a small part of the coastaldesolation down there. From the equator to the 30th parallel I don'tthink you'd have a chance to go ashore--and nothing to help you if youdid."

  Dunin still grinned. "Just sail past it."

  "Yes--well out to sea, with the equatorial sun at work on you. Veryfew islands in that region, some of them bare rock." And he thought:_If I might go myself...! I am fifty now, in Earth years, a youngfifty...._

  He knew also that Dorothy would not prevent him. She would not goherself: she would remain at Adelphi, faithful to the daily things,undramatic labors and loyalties that make civilization something morethan a vision. She was a young thirty-eight, though she had alreadyborne five children. If he went away, she would mind the watch fireson the beaches, as she had done nine years ago; she would work in theschool, the house, the gardens, stand by Christopher Wright during thedepressions that sometimes overcame him. She would grow old waiting.Therefore, Paul knew, he would never leave her. "The explorations willcome in good time, Dunin," he said. "You'll have 150 years to watchand take part. I think you'll live to see the other continent too, andthe great islands in the southwest. In the meantime--there's so muchexploring to be done right here!" He watched the water too, aware ofDorothy's face turned to him, sober and appraising. "You know,Dunin--that island we visited today--that could hold a community of athousand between its two little hills. And I'm remembering the oneforty miles north of us. _Argo II_ was swept ashore there: get Doc totell you that story sometime. I was sick for a week and laid up in oneof the limestone caves while the others repaired the raft. A roundisland less than five miles across. We might sail there next trip."

  "The other continent," Dunin murmured, and she watched the risingblue-green mound of Adelphi in the south. "The islands of thesouthwest...."

  Dorothy leaned against the hand-hewn rail, looking northeast, sayinglightly, "There he is...." The stone figure in the coastal range grewvisible as the channel current pressed them a little too far eastward.The vast features were not clear; one could find the line of shoulder."And Sears said, 'He looks west of the sun.' Was it long ago you toldme that, Paul?"

  "In a way it was.... Penny for 'em, Dorothy?"

  "Oh----" Her brown face crinkled in the way he hoped for. "I wasclimbing down off philosophy with my usual bump--wondering what hellthe twins have been raising while we're away. Brodaa's patience withthem passes belief. With her own three sets of twins she's hadpractice. I wish Pak could have had children. Twenty-nine--late middleage for her people.... Helen's going to make a better med student thanever I was--don't you think, Paul? Seems like more than just a kid'senthusiasm."

  "I think so." And Sears' plump daughter Teddy (Theodora-Pakriaa) wouldno doubt find herself too, sometime: there was no hurry. EvenChristopher Wright no longer seemed to feel that time was houndinghim, though his years by the Earth calendar were sixty-five, his hairand beard were white, his wiry thinness moved deliberately to save thestrength he had once been able to spend like unconsidered gold...."Look!"

  Dorothy said carefully, "But that is impossible." A column of smoke onthe flank of the coastal range, above one of the beaches wherebuilding stone was found. Blue-gray against the red and black, it rosestraight in untroubled air. "They weren't taking Betsy out till we gotback."

  "Too high anyway," Dunin said. "No need to climb so high for thestone."

  Dorothy whispered, "I have _never_ quite believed that Ed and Ann----"

  "Oh, Dorothy! Well, we----"

  "Yes, I saw the lifeboat go down on the channel. It didn't sink." Sheshut her eyes. "It was a misty evening, lover, more ways than one.Remember, Dunin?"

  "I'l
l always remember."

  "Paul, I know that when the open-sea current below the island took thelifeboat it must have been smashed against the cliffs--oh, ofcourse--and for nine years the sea spiders will have used the piecesof it for their little castles and hideaways. All the same--Ed and Anncould have managed to swim ashore. Cross the range somehow or goaround it."

  "Nothing to eat. Barren rock straight up from the beaches, where thereare any beaches, for ninety miles south of the only place where theycould have landed and for twenty miles north of it."

  "But no kaksmas in the coast range either; no omasha, this side. There_are_ beaches here and there. They might have found--shellfish--blueseaweed."

  "Nine years----"

  "It _is_ smoke. Our people wouldn't be up there...."

  "You've never wanted to talk much about that day."

  "No, I--haven't. I didn't behave too well myself. Yes, there arethings I've never told.... Paul, Ed Spearman was like somebody Ididn't know. He did say in so many words that he planned to go toVestoia, not to--to throw himself on the mercy of Lantis, but to 'giveher civilization'--he said. We tried, Ann and I, tried to reason withhim against that. I think he had some alternative plan--maybe flyingsouth of Vestoia as far as the fuel would take him and starting acommunity of his own--with Ann and me, you know, and himself the oldman of the tribe."

  "And without us," said Dunin mildly.

  "Yes, dear, I recall that. He put that in words...." In a way, Pauldid not want her to go on, living it over again, but she had a need tospeak of it. "I suppose his plans made a kind of sense if you acceptedthe premise. As I couldn't, of course. When he said you were alllost, I believed (I had to believe) that he was--not lying perhaps,but telling something he hadn't truly seen. I know that was where Ilet go--I raged and screamed, and when he grabbed my arm (probablyjust wanting to quiet me down)--well, if he's living he'll have two orthree white scars down his cheek. Uh-huh: the Dope comes clean. I everthink I was trying to get hold of my pistol when Arek took it away,and took his away too. After that she forced him to give a preciseaccount of everything that had happened, every detail. She made himtell it five or six times, watching for contradictions. Shewas--justice embodied. I was afraid of her myself even while I lovedher for it. I knew what he told us then was the truth: the fuel waslow, he'd come direct to the island with no real knowledge of what hadhappened to you. He was saner after the telling. He lost a--a certainlook of exalted listening, as if somebody behind Arek's shoulder weretelling him what to do. Arek never gave back his pistol. We were onthe beach. The giants had been bringing wood all day for a beaconfire. I remember the exact shape of a big shell at my feet, the lookof a bit of driftwood tossed in by the channel breakers...."

  "And Ann--"

  "Oh, Ann! Tom two or three ways as usual. She was very much in lovewith him, you know, from our first days on Lucifer. But her mind was abattleground with no armistice. I think Ed always knew that. When hepleaded with her--reasonably too--she couldn't think, she could onlycry and say: 'I won't go with you--I won't go.' He stoppedtrying--suddenly, as if he'd knowingly turned off a light insidehimself--unsteady light and the only one he had, I reckon. He said,'So much for the human race: but I'll see what one man can do herebefore I'm dead without issue.' And he walked off to the lifeboat,while Arek let his pistol dangle from her finger--and, Paul, I shallalways think he knew Ann would run after him. I saw her tugging,trying to pull him out of the boat--but she was pulled in and it wasgone."

  "And I remember," said Dunin, "what you did after we lost sight ofit."

  "What I did...? What was that, Dunin? I'm blank there."

  "You went to the beacon fire and put on more wood."

  "Well," she said vaguely, "of course. We all did.... That _is_ smoke,Paul. Lantis' pygmies or the wild giants couldn't be there on thecliffs."

  Dunin said, "Oh, there are no giants in that country, Dorothy. Thoselow hills I remember west of the first camp--those kaksma hills werean impassable boundary in the old days. The country west ofthem--nobody went there, ever. And south of them--Vestoia. My wildkindred are all very far north of here...."

  _Argo IV_ eased up to the wharf, where Elis and Arek handled her likea toy, making her fast with ropes of a fabric as good as linen. Wrightwas there with them, and Tejron, and Pakriaa and Nisana, who wereinseparable. "Too far," said Wright, and handed Paul the fieldglasses. "Just smoke."

  Elis grumbled, "What's up there to burn? No vegetation. Rock."

  The smoke seemed to be thinning. "How long since our last trip over?"

  "Eight days, Paul," Tejron recalled. "My impatient eldest wanted tosee if he could handle Betsy's oars, remember?"

  "He could, too." Paul remembered. "Sears-Danik pulled his weight, mylady. Yes, that was the last time. And we saw nothing unusual."

  Only Nisana thought to ask, "Good voyage today, Paul?"

  "Fine, darling. You should have come."

  Wright was carefully calm. "I'll go over, with Paul, Elis--and--"

  "And me," said Dorothy, not smiling.

  "Well.... Okay, Dope."

  Pakriaa's thin wrinkled face turned to him. "Nisana and I?Miniaan--she would remember the Vestoian dialect--but she is at thecity. It would need an hour to send for her, and then it would begetting dark."

  "Yes, come with us...."

  The site of Jensen City was not where Wright and Paul had originallydreamed of it but two miles south, where the radiance of Sears Lakehung in the hills. A gap in the west admitted ocean winds; the outletof the lake ran for a mile to the edge of a red stone cliff andtumbled over in a waterfall five hundred feet high. There would oneday be houses along that mile of river. Already, near the waterfall,there was a temple of red and black stone devoted to quiet withoutritual, thought of sometimes as a memorial to Sears and to the otherdead, more often simply as a place to go for the satisfactions ofsilence. It had no name; Paul hoped it would never have one.

  Miniaan of Vestoia was an eager citizen. The old wound had left oneside of her head cruelly scarred; from the other side she wasbeautiful, by Charin as well as pygmy standards. Younger than Pakriaa,she was the mother of four, by Kajana--the archer whom Mijok had oncecarried on his shield, who would never walk again nor live a daywithout pain, and who was more cheerful as a permanent habit of mindthan any of the other pygmy survivors of that war. The fifty-fourpygmy children of Jensen City were all fathered by Abara and Kajana--afact which caused old Abara to draw dead-pan comparisons betweenhimself and Mister Johnson and to grow darkly desperate when Kajanawistfully asked him to explain why it was a joke....

  Elis shipped the oars; Paul let down the anchor, a heavy block ofstone, in two fathoms of blackening water; Elis lifted the dugout overthe side and held it for them. He himself swam the short distance tothe beach and eased the canoe through the shallows. Even now at lowtide there was barely a quarter mile of gray sand between water andcliffs. Chipping away of building stone had created a fair path ahundred feet up; beyond, natural irregularities made it possible toclimb another two hundred to the first setback of the great seawall--a ledge which ran only as far as the next patch of beach, fivemiles south. Sunset had been ending when _Argo IV_ came home; herethere was a depth of evening quiet, no sign of smoke or life, no soundbut the long hiss and moaning of small waves. "We might make a firehere," Wright said. "But there's enough light. They--they?--must haveseen _Argo_."

  "There," Dorothy said, and ran up the sand.

  The others watched in frozen helplessness as the woman came down thecrude cliff path, gaunt, seeming tall only because of thegauntness--flaring ribs, thighs fallen in, every arm bone visible. Herhair was black disorder to her waist, her body a battleground ofbruises, dirt, scars old and new, and she winced away from Dorothywith protesting hands. "You mustn't touch me because I'm very dirty,but I know who you are. Besides, I had to burn the last of my clothes.My baby died. I know who you are. You see, my milk stopped. You'reDorothy Leeds. I left him on the cliff. Matron would not approve. Yousee----"

>   "Ann--Ann----"

  "I have two other sons, but this one died. On the cliff. I used toknow a man who called me Miss Sarasate, but that was just his way oftalking--I don't happen to be in practice." Still trying to fend offDorothy's arms, Ann fell on her face....

  Pakriaa was speaking softly, in the room where Ann wassleeping--Wright's room. "She will be healed," Pakriaa said. "I canremember--and you remember it too, Paul--how my own mind refused to bemy servant for a while." Since Ann had been brought to Jensen City,Pakriaa and Nisana had never left her: the little women, both now farfrom youth, took on the duties of nursing with a fierceprotectiveness, so that there was little for even Dorothy to do. Annhad slept heavily all night and morning. At noon the stone-walledhouse remained cool; mild air entered at the screenless windowopenings, stirring the wall map of Adelphi and the three of Paul'spaintings which were the only decorations Wright allowed in thisascetic shelter. There was glass-making now, but in such a climate,with no serious insect pests, it seemed a waste of effort to makewindows; a long overhang of the eaves was sufficient against therains. The house was large, U-shaped around a garden courtyard opentoward Sears Lake; the walls were of black stone, the roof of amaterial indistinguishable from slate, carried by hardwood timbers.Wright shared this house with Mijok and Arek, Pakriaa, Nisana,Miniaan, and their children and Arek's. There were five other suchcommunal houses overlooking the lake; a seventh was building. Thechildren were everywhere: it was, and would be for many years, a cityof the young. Rak had died in the Year Four, a matter of fallingasleep without waking, but Kamon lived, sharing a house with Tejron,Paul and Dorothy, Brodaa and Kajana. Lately Sears' daughter had takenover the task of caring for Kajana in his helplessness, lifting him toand from a wheel chair that Paul and Mijok had contrived or carryinghim to a hammock slung near the waterfall, where he could watch theocean and its changes. In middle age, Kajana had taught himself towrite, and kept a journal of the colony with a sober passion fordetail.

  Ann had not waked when Dorothy and Nisana washed her and clipped thedreadful tangle of her hair. "She will be healed," Pakriaa insisted."Maybe in the next waking." And when Ann's gray eyes came open an hourlater, they did show a measuring sanity, recognizing Dorothy and Paul,but wincing away when Nisana smiled and touched her.

  "Do not be afraid of us," Pakriaa whispered. "We are still proud. Butour pride now is that no one is afraid of us.... You came to my housein the old old days, remember? My blue house, and I thinking I wouldbe Queen of the World? I laugh at that now. Do not look at what I was,Ann."

  "Pakriaa.... Paul, you haven't changed much."

  "One of our other friends is about to bring a man-sized meal----"

  "Why, Paul, you must be----"

  "Fifty, Earth calendar----"

  Dorothy said, "We measure it in Lucifer years, pretty please."

  "Nicer," Paul admitted. "That way I'm around thirty-seven. Ann,you--let's see: one Earth year, one point three eight--damn mentalarithmetic--let's call you half past twenty-seven."

  "Imagine that." Ann achieved a smile. "And--Pakriaa?"

  "Twenty-nine. See--already I am an old woman and ugly."

  "Don't be absurd, Pak," Dorothy said. "And this lady----"

  "You would not remember me," said Nisana.

  "Oh, but I do, I do. You--voted for Paul----"

  Pakriaa chuckled with unforced gaiety. "Politics," Nisana chirped."P.S., I got the job." Paul pinched her tiny ear lobe and stepped outto the kitchen, where he found Wright with Arek. The children were atschool, with Brodaa, Mijok, and Miniaan: ordinarily Wright would havebeen there too. When the youngest of this house were through withlessons they would go wandering in the hills with Mijok and Muson, sothat Ann might have quiet, with only distant sounds of the laughterand playing in sunlight. "She's awake," Paul said, and Wright hurriedto the bedroom, but Arek lingered, filling a tray.

  Arek had grown almost to Mijok's height, filling out, a red mothergoddess still bemused by inner discoveries. Her fine soft-furredfingers fussed at the earthen dishes on the wooden tray. "No ambition,no achievement--nothing, I think, could be worth the price of what'shappened to her. Whether she recovers completely or not. There's humanright and wrong. I think sometimes, Paul, it's not necessary to domuch wondering. You can look straight at a thing and say: 'This oughtnot to be.'"

  "Granted," Paul said, watching the garden through the broad kitchenwindow. His eldest, Helen, must have elected to do a little work afterschool instead of strolling away with the others. She was weeding, herbrown head sheltered from the sun by an improvised hat of leaves; butfor that she was prettily naked as the day she was born, and thoughshe was humming to herself, she restrained the sound so that Paulcould hardly hear it. She saw him in the window and grinned and waved.She had most of Dorothy's warm coloring, with Paul's long-leggedslimness.

  Arek saw her too and smiled. "What Ann should have had too.... Paul, Itold you once, we love you. All the good new things we have--yourwork. All the same there's a devil in--some of you. As in us too, ofcourse. Need of the laws is obvious. If Spearman is responsible--theVestoians too, maybe?--then I think we live in too much seclusionhere." She took up the tray. "Too easy to live all the time inParadise and--leave things undone."

  "Yes. Vestoia is big, Arek--or was, when it almost destroyed us."

  "True. But you tell me that over there on the beach she said, 'I havetwo other sons.' Living, did she mean? We must find them, and Spearmantoo."

  "I believe she can tell us about it soon."

  "Understood that I go with you when you find them."

  "Yes. Yes, Arek...."

  In the bedroom Arek's manner was altogether changed. "Observe: this isasonis _roti a la mode Versailles_, whatever that means. All I did wasroast it. These are (Paul says) lima beans Munchausen, and here wehave could-be asparagus. And by the way, the cheese tastes better'n itsmells."

  "Cheese----"

  "Asonis milk," said Wright. "They moo, too."

  "Oh, you've tamed them." Pain fought with interest in the haggardface. "Yes, Ed wanted to do that, but we--somehow we never----"

  "If you're good," Arek said, "and eat all that, there's cake."

  "You found something for sugar?"

  "Can't tell it from terrestrial," Dorothy chattered, "only it's pink.From a tree fruit sort of like a plum. We have a plantation of 'emacross the lake. You boil it down to nothing and the sugarcrystallizes out. We make another kind from sap, not as good as maple.Flour--that's from the same old wheat that came from Earth.Miniaan--oh, you don't know her yet--Miniaan and Paul haveexperimented around with the local grass grains--nothing yet thatmeasures up to wheat." Ann picked at the food, crying weakly at thefirst mouthful. "Ah, don't do that," said Dorothy, looking away. "Youcame home, that's all."

  Later she ate ravenously. "I want to tell you----"

  It took a long time in telling. Once she fell asleep but woke an hourlater, obsessed with a need to continue....

  The lifeboat drifted south, its last remnant of fuel gone in a madeffort to leap the coastal range. Water sneaked in at the seal of thefloor window, damaged in an earlier landing, and Ed Spearman talked tohimself. "Fugitives from a Sunday school--we'll live." Like a hurt boyhe said, "We'll show 'em...." When the current beyond the island sweptthem toward the cliffs, he opened the door and pulled Ann into thewater, dragging her, forgetting that she was herself a strong swimmer.Later, on the beach, he was tender, trying to comfort and reassure herwith a vision of the future abundantly real to him. They had no food,no way to light a fire of driftwood. They would go to Vestoia, hesaid, convince Lantis that they were friends, with something to offerher empire; they would "bring her civilization."

  From this beach there seemed to be no passage north. They could havefound one by climbing high into the range--Ann did so, nine yearslater. But Spearman found a ledge of sorts running south: it mighttake them the eighty-odd miles to the lower end of the range or giveout at any point, trapping them. It did give out twice; both times,rather than cla
mber higher on the cliffs, Spearman hurled his famishedbody through the breakers and swam south, aided by the current untilit was possible to continue along the rocks. Ann followed, not quitewishing for the death the ocean could have given easily. They keptalive with shellfish and seaweed washed ashore and small crustaceansthat hid in the tide lines and in crannies of wet rock; there werepools of rain water and violent small streams plunging down the range.It took them fifty days to cover the eighty miles. ("I think I spent ahundred coming back," Ann said. "Couldn't swim, with the baby. Itwould have been against the current anyway. Climbed--sometimes wentback miles from a dead end to try again.") In the afternoons the sunpressed on them with total fury; then they could only crawl into whatshadow the rocks gave and wait for the torture to cease.

  But at last there were trees. Level ground. In a few miles, a rapidfriendly river. ("Are there rivers here? I've forgotten. Nothingprettier in the world. I let that one close over me. Ed pulled meout--we had to go on.")

  There were five more of those bright leaping coastal streams in ajourney of another fifty miles southeast through good country, wherethe great range thinned out into rolling jungle and meadowland. Therewere asonis and small game. Spearman made himself weapons. Ann couldremember these days almost with pleasure. They had, she said,something the flavor of a delayed childhood, a glimpse of Eden.Spearman was for a time simply a strong and intelligent man measuringhimself against nature for survival, master of a simple environmentwith none to question his decisions and no social complexities to warpthem. ("I wished we could settle in that country, the two of us. Ieven begged for it. He had to go on.")

  From the remembered map, Spearman knew there was an obscure pygmysettlement south of the end of the range, some fifty miles belowVestoia: merely a cluster of parallel lines that had appeared in thephotographs, it might or might not be a part of the empire of Lantis.It was near the headwaters of a seventh river, which flowed, not tothe coast, but eastward, into the deep, wide, violent outlet of LakeArgo. ("He never told me why he was following that river socautiously, until we reached the villages. And history repeateditself.")

  The villages were a furtive, chronically frightened community. Theyknew of Vestoia but believed, correctly, that the groping tentacles ofempire had not yet found them. Lantis' drive was mainly to the east,where the country was easier and pygmy settlements were numerous; evenher war against Pakriaa's people had been a diversion, more a matterof hurt pride than gainful conquest. Between these hidden villages andVestoia there were meadows, dangerous with omasha, and some swampland;below the two small Vestoian lakes the current of the river Argo wastoo fierce for the flimsy boats of Lantis. So the villages of theseventh river, under a sly but feeble queen, waited like a rabbit in ahedge. With sharply calculated drama--but smiling this time, Ann said,like a pleased teacher at a blackboard--Ed Spearman overturned anotheridol and became a god.

  At the end of two years, when Spearman's goddess had borne him twin sons,there was industry in the villages. There was an army of a thousand spears,bladed with iron from certain small hills in the north between Vestoia andSpearman City. These hills were dangerous with burrows, but workers of aparticular kind could be made to go there. The soldiers overcame theirdistaste for the bow when they had watched the course of arrows properlyvaned and tipped with iron or bronze. They did not need to be taught how tohate Vestoia--nevertheless they relished it when Spearman decided thatpolitical realities demanded he should tell them an epic tale, the tale ofa war he and companion gods had waged against that place. Vengeance, divineor human, was a thing the pygmies had understood from the first biting andscratching of infancy.

  Ann had been bewildered by that first gust of oratory against Vestoia.Spearman had neglected to prepare her for it during the long two yearsspent in teaching the pygmies a limited English and the beginnings ofindustry: it might not have been clear to himself that such a movewould be necessary in order to hold his people's enthusiasm anddevotion. Ann wondered. "You had thought once of going to Vestoia----"Spearman turned on her with an anger partly cynical humor: "They hurtus, didn't they? Oh, I might have toyed with the idea as a choice ofevils before we found our real friends. They killed Doc, didn't they?And Paul and Sears and those milky giant friends of ours."

  "But you didn't see----"

  "_What?_"

  Spearman believed now that he had seen the full end of that war. Anngot it through her head after a while. When he said that Vestoia mustbe punished for past wrongs, there was a smiling half admission ofdisingenuous policy. "It'll work," he said. "We can get away with it."But the death of all the others except Dorothy had become for himsomething like an article of faith, not to be examined. At thismoment, Ann said, she had begun to think of a northward journey, butthe odds were darkly against it. The twins were still nursing andsickly; the demands of mere daily living are heavy on a goddess whomust also supervise housekeeping. There was, for instance, the endlesssquabbling treachery of the household slaves. At that time also, Annhoped to soften or divert some changes that seemed to be taking placein Spearman himself. ("I wonder if they were really changes....")

  Spearman detested slavery, he said. But in a primitive economy howelse could you get the work done? Even in daylight, when the kaksmaswere half helpless, only the bravest soldiers would go into thosehills--not to work, but only as guards for the chained lines oflaborers, guards who could run fast if the kaksmas came out for aday-blind attack and leave the slaves to be consumed. Bad: Spearmanwas sorry such things had to be. Still, the slaves were poor orsometimes dangerous material at best; besides that, they hatedresponsibility and were therefore really happier in slavery andreceived better care than they could otherwise have had. So you had tosee it as almost a eugenic, even a humanitarian measure as well as anunavoidable transitional phase, and in any case you can't make anomelette without breaking eggs. At the use of meat slaves for thepalace household, Spearman had to draw the line, and he institutedlaws against the custom for the rest of his little kingdom, but theywere difficult to enforce without compromising matters of greaterpolitical importance. "Transitional" became a somewhat sacred word forSpearman over the years, a sustaining conception when things wentbadly and when his ingrained sensitivities brought from Earth wereviolated by the brisk egg-breaking of a Neolithic culture.

  Even the first war against Vestoia, in the third year of Spearman'sdeification, was part of a transitional phase, although Spearman didnot feel that his pygmies were advanced enough to be troubled withfine distinctions. It is better for a god to resist pressures forexplanation.

  That first war was well planned, with limited objective. Six hundredspearwomen and archers crossed the Argo below Vestoia and fell on thecity from the east, so that there was no clue to their southernorigin; they set afire a mile of the lake settlement, took threehundred captives, and vanished--again eastward, leaving a few crippleddefenders to convey the message that they would come again. It had thedesired effect: the armies of Lantis foamed eastward like crazedhornets, while Spearman's force slipped home across the Argo without atrace. In the following year they struck again, again from the east,but with a larger force, laying waste nearly a third of that part ofthe city on the eastern shores of the Vestoian lakes. The palace ofLantis, nerve center of empire, was on the west shore. Probably thequeen knew nothing of what had happened until she saw the far shoreburied in smoke, and by the time she crossed over, she would havelearned only that Spearman's army had promised to come a third timeand take Lantis herself and assume command of the empire.

  They did, just six years after that lonely journey along the rocks.Ann's twin sons were five years old, five Lucifer years. In the firsttwo campaigns, Spearman had not shown himself in person to theVestoians. In this third battle he was at the head of his army,massive and tall; with a cold, unhappy precision, he was using a longhardwood stick with a razor-edge semicircular blade. And this time hislegion had driven in out of the west, directly against the palace andthe temples and sacred places of the Queen of the World. br />
  Lantis was aging then, and sick, and bewildered; she probably neverunderstood that it was merely a question of her own methods being usedagainst her. Even when her city was in flames around her and herpeople were scattering into forest and swamp and lake, she couldneither yield nor destroy herself; thus it was her misfortune to betaken alive.

  A week later Ann and the children were brought by litter from SpearmanCity; Spearman recognized the political advantage, almost necessity,of their presence at the triumph. Lantis was ceremonially draggedthrough the still-smoldering and stinking streets and forced to drinkan infusion of the green-flower weed that destroyed the self: this waspygmy custom, which Spearman watched in regretful disgust, anxiousthat his small sons should preserve the impassive dignity proper togods. "They're far from human, you know--they don't feel things as wedo...." The boys were puzzled and curious.

  So far as Ann knew, however, Lantis was not eaten at the festival. "Hetold me she was mercifully put away after the excitement died down,and another meat slave was sacrificed, made up to look likeLantis--not deception, but ritual substitution; Ed felt he'd achievedquite a step in progress there. It showed, he said, they werebeginning to accept ritual for reality under the influence of----Oh,the devil with it.... He moved his capital to Vestoia. The palace wasrestored--modernized. I lived there--two and a half years. That'swhere I bore him another son. I'll never know how I came to allowit--a kind of madness, hate close to love--something.... He didn'twant me any more, you know. He had some ideas about--asceticdiscipline--purity--I don't know what exactly--and he didn't try toexplain it to me. I'd hated him with all my mind for years--before theVestoian wars--but I'm not a good hater. I even still imagined Icould influence him a little--until the baby was born and he was inblack despair because it wasn't a daughter. I had to escape. I couldfeel my mind, my self, rotting away--dissolving, as the Vestoianempire was dissolving, for that matter. He couldn't hold them. Itbegan to fall apart right away. They were terrified of him and of hisSpearman City bodyguards--weasels.... They simply drifted away intothe woods and didn't come back. I doubt if they've organized anywhereelse. Lantis must have had a rare sort of skill--the city was allhers: she built it out of Stone Age villagers, and it died with her.Ed tried everything to keep them--bribes, threats, endless spying andpublic executions by his guard. Bread and circuses, meaninglessoffices for favorites with fancy clothes and no duties. It didn'twork. At the time I escaped, the population was down to--he'd nevertell me, but my guess is under ten thousand for the whole city. Therewas an epidemic--rather like flu. I used that as a reason to take thebaby back to Spearman City, knowing Ed would need to stay and go ontrying to hold things together. I thought he would let me take thetwins--John--David----"

  "Rest awhile," said Arek. "We're going to bring them home too." Anncould not speak. "How would you like to bathe again in our lake? I'llhold you up. Water's warm with the sun--best part of the day----"

  "I'd like it. It's so pretty. What do you call it?"

  "Sears Lake."

  "Sears.... What am I made of? I haven't thought or asked----"

  "It was a Vestoian arrow," Wright said. "At the end he enjoyedremembering Earth."