West Of The Sun

  8

  Abro Pakriaa motioned her guests to be seated before a large building;the fibers of this structure were dyed the blue of her skirt. Thesoldiers stalked about in a show of nonchalance. Young men and nakedchildren had come timidly from the houses. The youngest children weredisproportionately tiny, large-headed but no bigger than house cats.Perhaps childbirth for this race was no more than a passinginconvenience. There were many pairs of obviously identical twins. Thechildren stayed near the protective men, all but the older girls, whoventured somewhat closer.

  It was a village without laughter. No scampering, no horseplay, noevidence of any tenderness except between the men and the smallestchildren. Curiosity burned in all of them, but its overt expressionwas limited to the dead-pan stare.

  Pakriaa entered her blue building alone, greeted by a flutter ofvoices from within, and she was gone several minutes. When Pakriaa hadseated her guests, most of the ancient painted males had shuffledacross the clearing--even the fat horror whose walking must have beenpain--to settle in the shadows on the other side and continue theirbaleful watching. Paul noticed that even the spear-carrying womenskipped clear to give them elbow-room and never looked directly atthem. The fat witch found a place to squat that gave him a clear viewof all three visitors; as he gazed he sucked toothlessly at the knobof his thighbone club.

  The houses were lightly framed of wood, with walls of interwoven fibertwo thirds of the way to the eaves, joints bound and roofs thatchedwith the same material, a design similar to what Paul remembered froma year spent in the Republic of Oceania. The modern citizens of thatmany-islanded republic, Paul recollected, still preferred theancestral savage building pattern to stone or plastic; it suited theclimate and the friendly, unpretentious way of life. But none of thebuildings here was raised on supports: snakes and vicious insects wereevidently no problem. There were no domestic animals, apparently noparasites nor self-evident diseases; except for wounds and the dirt ofthe old men, the pygmy skins looked clear and healthy. There were noteven any bad smells except the mildly disagreeable oil the males usedto anoint their bodies.

  Pakriaa returned, with her make-up on. She had flowers behind bothears, and one tied by its stem to Dorothy's locket. Heavy whitecircles were drawn about the lady's eyes and breasts and navel; bluebracelets dangled at her wrists; her skirt had been replaced by aninnocently unconcealing fringe of shells--similar to snail shells,Paul thought. Pakriaa's anklets of wooden beads were orange. The topof her bald head was robin's-egg blue. Two males, with the brand marksthat must mean slavery, followed her with a seat--a block of wood,cleverly carved with stylized animal figures. It brought her face on alevel with Ann's. Ann said politely, "Why the hell can't I be handsometoo?" And Pakriaa inclined her head. A boy without the slave brandcame with a wooden bowl; Pakriaa sipped the greenish liquid andoffered the bowl to Ann. Spearman rumbled. Paul said, "Protocol. Yougotta, Nan, but don't offer us any--we're meek males."

  Ann swallowed some; her eyes watered; she repressed choking."Alcoholic, I do mean...."

  Feasting followed--a laborious hour of it, as food arrived withoutpause in the hands of branded men from the other side of thesheltering trees. Wood smoke drifted from that direction, and a hum ofvoices. All the dishes included meat cut in tiny cubes--stewed, fried,boiled, or smothered in unknown vegetables. Only one course wasaggressively horrid, carrion swimming in peppery sauce, clearly afavorite of Pakriaa's, for she belched wonderfully and patted herstomach in self-applause. Ann remarked, "Another go at that and Istart looking for another planet."

  In time even Pakriaa had had enough. She clapped her broad hands.Greasy-mouthed and bulging, the soldiers formed a swaying, stampingline. Spearman burped helplessly. "All that inside, and they candance?"

  Ann suggested: "Maybe it helps...."

  It was an hour-long narrative dance, vastly monotonous, a picture ofwar. Some of those most cruelly wounded pranced into solo pantomimesbragging of how the injuries had been received. In climax, a strawfigure of a woman was dragged to the center of the clearing: an imagecarefully made, brightly painted, the face hideous, the sexualfeatures grossly exaggerated. Shrilling what seemed to be a name("Lantis! Lantis!"), the soldiers swarmed on this effigy, squealing,stabbing, defiling, tearing it into shreds, which they carried away astreasures or mementos.

  When the soldier women had finished in yawning exhaustion, a crowd ofdainty men performed another sort of dance, purely an erotic show,indicating that the role of the male was seductive, half infantile,submissive all the way. Occasionally a soldier pulled a dancer out ofthe line, slapping his face until he stopped the squealing that wasevidently required of him, and wandered away with him; but most of thesoldiers were too tired, gorged, or wounded to be interested. Later,some twenty soldiers formed a group, and men brought them babies to benursed, morsels of humanity, quite silent, far smaller in proportionthan Earth's newborn. The mothers' arms were careful and competent,without tenderness; they held the infants two at a time, examiningthem shrewdly, often exchanging them with other soldiers. There were afew cooing demonstrations of affection by the men toward theseinfants, demonstrations which the soldiers ignored. Ann whispered, "Icould spend a lot of time hating these little devils."

  "Try not to."

  "I know, Paul, but--"

  "At least they have a civilization." Spearman was arguing withhimself. "A potential technology. That's good gardening. Good tools,weapons."

  "Nan, see if you can ask Mrs. President to show us the town."

  Pakriaa caught on swiftly and was delighted....

  The first of the tree-sheltered areas contained all the dwellinghouses, dulled by the splendor of Pakriaa's. Ann was invited to enterthis blue palace, Pakriaa making it clear that the men must notfollow. Ann emerged, red-faced. Later, when it would not be so patentthat she was talking of Pakriaa's house, Ann said, "Couldn't make outmuch detail. Dim, and no lamps burning, though I think I saw some claythings like old Roman lamps. Clean, funny perfume smells. I met--hermother maybe. Incredibly old anyway, and almost black. Their skin mustchange color with age."

  "Dirt more likely," Spearman said.

  "Not a bit of it. Very clean. Just a dry little ghost in a fancy roomof her own, with a--a male slave manicuring her toenails. We haven'tseen any old women out in the open."

  "Sheltered and reverenced, maybe," Paul said. "Natural."

  "Her Highness has a--I suppose you'd have to call it a harem. Tenlittle husbands, or maybe eleven."

  "What a girl!" said Spearman.

  Ann was amused, though her cheeks were flaming. "I was offered one."

  "Hope you explained the rejection implied no lack of merit."

  "Tried to, Paul. I think I got over the idea that there was a tabooinvolved--something like that. Her Majesty didn't insist...."

  The ditch enclosed the village. One side of its square paralleled theriver, not more than thirty feet from it but making no connection. Itwould have been easy to flood the ditch, but that was evidently notthe intention. When Ann conveyed curiosity, Pakriaa was astonishedthat anyone could be ignorant of its function. "_Kaksma!_" she said,and pointed west. "Kaksma...!" Convinced at last that Ann's puzzlementwas genuine, she drew a picture on the earth, with such vigorous artthat she herself feared the image and drew back. It was a profile viewof an animal larger than a rat, long-headed with a hump on the back.She had given it a tiny eye and a forward-thrusting tooth nothing likea rodent's; the forefoot was broad and flattened, a digger's foot.Giving Ann only a brief time to study it, Pakriaa spat on the imageand wiped it out with a violent heel. She muttered an angryincantation and pointed to the dry wood heaped by the ditch, while herdancing fingers told of flames that would defend the village....

  In the second tree-sheltered area were the industries. Men, notslaves, glanced up from the shaping of earthenware vessels. They hadno potter's wheel, only their hands, but there was a kiln of bakedearth. Pakriaa called a favorite over, hugged him, and sent him backwith a pat on the rump. He was quite old, too
thless, and giggling.They passed a row of dye pots, three women braiding fiber into flatsheets, a square of ground with part-finished spearheads, arrowpoints, other devices, a rack where deerlike hides were stretched insome curing process. "They sleep on those," Ann said, "and use 'em forrugs. The palace was full of 'em...."

  In the rear of the village was a stockade of stripped logs, guarded bytwo soldier women. In the space before it, but facing away from it sothat the painted eyes brooded over the village, stood a monstrouswooden idol, eight feet tall, raised on a low platform. Pakriaa ledher guests before the image and knelt. It was necessary to do thesame, and Ann imitated her gracefully enough. As he knelt himself,Paul saw in a backward glance that three gangling male witches hadfollowed and were observing every motion with a rigid malevolence. Itwas difficult to kneel with his back to them; Spearman, he hoped, hadnot seen them.

  The idol was exaggeratedly female, with huge carnivorous teethindicated in white paint. A slot representing the left hand carried anine-foot spear upright. The right arm, a natural branch of the log,reached forward and spread into a rugged table; more wood had beenneatly joined to make the table five feet long, but the whole gave theeffect of a swollen accepting hand, and it was foul with bloodstainsold and new. Pakriaa's long murmured prayer repeated the name Ismarmany times. At the end she seemed satisfied; her glance at Ann wasalmost a smile. Paul saw that the witches had drifted away, but thepressure of their watching remained.

  Pakriaa now took them into the stockade. It seemed to Paul that theguards were scarcely needed....

  These naked men, women, and children had no danger in them. No life.They moved and functioned as if in life: walked, spat, scratched,yawned; a woman nursed a baby mechanically; a man strolled to a troughin the center of the compound and ate a handful of damp stuff likepoultry mash, then rubbed his side against the wooden edge as a pigmight. Beyond such elemental motions there was no life. A womanfollowed a man for several paces; both flight and pursuit were dull,unfinished, a fumbling response to a sluggish stimulus. They paid noattention to Pakriaa and the strangers. The slack emptiness of theirfaces denied the possibility of any thought more than a flurry inresponse to physical need. They were all over-plump; some of thefemales were scarred, but the wounds were old and healed. Paul couldsee no anatomical differences between them and their lively freekindred. A drug...?

  Pakriaa walked among them like a farmer in a flock of chickens. Shelifted a young girl, who made no effort to escape, and showed her toAnn with contented pride, pinching a fat thigh and middle. The childwas limp, unexcited, mumbling a mouthful of the mash. Fighting back aretching, Ann muttered, "Paul, when can we get out of here?"

  Abro Pakriaa caught the tone. She tossed the little girl away and led themout of the stockade. She seemed hurt rather than angry--disappointed thather important friends had shown no admiration at this thriving industry....

  The soldiers had gathered again in the clearing, but now there was awaiting, a tension with the descent of twilight, and a gloom. A longfire had been built; Pakriaa's wave at her guests appeared to meanthat they should sit where they pleased. Ann had not been able toconvey the wish for an escort home, and Pakriaa's mind was plainlyfilled with some other, graver concern, having no more time forhospitality. Pakriaa entered her blue house. While she was gone, thesoldiers seated beyond the fire scattered handfuls of earth insynchronized motions and the witches grouped behind them set up amonotone of chanting. Pakriaa returned wearing a white skirt, bare ofall her paint and jewelry; she walked back and forth along the line ofthe fire, praying, until daylight was wholly gone. At her call, oldmen, neither painted nor grotesque, carried out burdened hides andlaid them open beside the fire: white bones, broken weapons, skirts,loincloths, necklaces, arrows, little earthen pots and wooden bowls,many images of clay. The soldiers threw themselves face down, theirforeheads on their arms, and wailed.

  Spearman's voice was tortured with perplexity: "Eat some, mourn forothers. Murder them and love them--"

  "Yes, they're human."

  "Oh, shut up, Paul. What do you mean, human? These animals?"

  "Human mourning, isn't it? Listen to it."

  Ann spoke with held-in fury: "At least we're not cannibals. There maystill be war back on Earth, but after all--"

  "Better to murder in groups of a thousand at long distance? Justlisten to it, Ann...."

  It was music, becoming after a time the only thing existing under thered moon and the delicate unceasing dance of blue fireflies. It wasthe music they had heard on the first night in the jungle, a pouringforth of lamentation, wonder, supplication, whatever the spirit mayfeel in the contemplation of death and its troubling counterpart. Amusic that was meant to go on unchanging as the song of tree frogs forthe thirteen hours of a night of Lucifer.... Pakriaa took no vocalpart in the ritual, but sat alone, guarding the relics of the fallen.From time to time small man shapes carried new fuel to the fire. Andthere were stern sidelong glances from the princess: she had notforgotten her guests. Once or twice Paul caught himself dozing off,dragged into a partial hypnosis by the endless lamentation....

  "Paul?"

  "Yes, Nan. I'm awake." He saw Spearman's head jerk upright.

  "Doc asked me yesterday--if I would bear him a child."

  Spearman's arm sought for her gently. "Why bring that up now? Can'tthink with all this damn caterwauling."

  "I--did get to thinking.... Everything we used to live by--it's sofar away. Paul, you're close to Doc. You understand him, I guess."

  Two troubled faces were turned to Paul in the mystery of firelight. Aglance from Pakriaa conveyed annoyance at the sound of voices."Dorothy told me she wants Sears to be the father of her second. Itwon't take her away from me. Not natural perhaps, but right under thecircumstances. Some of the most important laws and customs can't bestarted by us. They'll be established by our grandchildren, if we canhave them."

  "I know." But her upward look at Spearman's worried, half-angry facesaid that her decision would be made by him, no other.

  "He mustn't talk. The queen no like...."

  It might have been an hour later that Paul saw Spearman's head sagdown on his chest. Ann leaned against him, but his arm around her hadgone slack. Paul searched for the cause of a sense of danger thatprickled his skin. Not the witches: they were grouped as before,chanting a faint counterpoint to the soldiers' wailing. No--it was EdSpearman himself, and Paul came broad awake in a certainty of whatwould happen. Too late. Spearman's head twitched, and his unconsciousthroat let loose a resonant, uncompromising snore, a snore that hadbeen famous on the great ship _Argo_. Sears Oliphant had alwaysclaimed that if only Ed could be harnessed in sleep to the reactionchamber.... But this was not going to be funny....

  Pakriaa leaped up and shrieked a raging order. The wailing ceased. Thesoldiers were staggering upright, grabbing spears, forming a circle ofviolence around the guests before Spearman could even rise. He gasped,"Wha's matter?" and ten pygmy women were hauling him away by wristsand ankles, clear of the ground.

  Paul shouted. "Don't fight 'em, Ed! Keep quiet!" Two soldiers wereclinging to each of his own arms, there was a ring of shivering spearsaround him, and others had dragged Ann out of sight, but she wasscreaming as if they could understand: "Don't hurt him! He didn't doanything! Let him go!"

  Without twitching his hampered arms, Paul moved slowly against thecircle of spears. They had no quarrel with him, he sensed, but onlymeant to restrain him: it was at least the only action worth a gamble.The spearwomen stepped backward away from him. The whole circle movedin slow motion, following where Spearman had been carried--through thetree shelter, on across the next clearing, and into the space beforethe looming god.

  Ed had not been able to snatch his rifle; he still had his holsteredautomatic. Paul could not see Ann, nor Pakriaa. He could seeSpearman's face, a concentration of craft and fighting fury. The pygmywomen lifted him and flung him on the table before the idol. He wasready. He bounced like a great cat, gained his feet, and twitched outth
e pistol, which banged once--at the huge blade of the idol's spear.The stone blade crumbled; the crash of the little gun made his captorswince back in shocked reaction. Then Ed Spearman stooped, grasped thereaching wrist of the idol, and heaved upward with the whole of hisstrength.

  The god swayed, groaned like a thing of life, and toppled over,squashing one of the howling witches--a blind one--like a red bug.

  The village dropped into total silence. Paul could see Ann now. Thepygmies had let her go. The whiteness of her face had more than terrorin it: it had exultation, a glory of excitement and wrath. Paul's owncaptors had lurched away; his automatic had slipped into his handwithout conscious effort; he searched in desperation for somethingthat might restore his friends to steadier sanity. "Walk," he said."Walk, don't run, to the nearest exit...."

  The pygmies allowed it. The god had fallen. They even stood back, tooprofoundly dazed for any thought or protest.... At the edge of thevillage Spearman jumped in the ditch, reached for Ann, swung her up onthe other side. "Did anyone bring a flashlight?"

  "Oh, I--I did," said Ann, and began to cry. "Broughtflashlight--'stead of gun...."

  Paul stayed in the rear. "They won't follow, I think. Not for awhile."

  The stooping passageway was hard to find. But when they won clear ofit there was the guiding sound of the stream. Paul held theflashlight on the line of stepping stones until the others hadcrossed. Ann was still weeping in reaction. "We'll never win. It's allmadness--the ship, everything. All human beings are crazy, crazy--"

  "Hush, dear," Spearman said. "We got out, didn't we?"

  Now, where was the trail? A madness of groping, blundering, wherethere was no path, no guidance, and even their little thread of lighta mockery and confusion.

  Abruptly, ahead of them, there were other lights, then voices--Mijok'ssoft rumbling, Wright's clear outcry: "There they are! All three,Mijok--"

  Paul ran to him. "The others--Dorothy? Sears?"

  "Right as rain, son," Wright mumbled. "Except Dot's been frantic aboutyou since we heard the shot. We left Sears practically sitting onher--well, figuratively. Women are odd, you know: they don't likeshots in the night when the best boy friend is out on the tiles."

  "Had a little trouble. They may come after us--don't know...."

  Ann was quiet. Paul saw her white hands starfished on the gray ofMijok's chest. She said, "Mijok, I'm tired and sick. Will you carryme?"

  Spearman groaned: "Ann, what--Use your head...."

  But Mijok knelt at once to make a cradle of his arms, and ChristopherWright said, "Why not? Why shouldn't we need each other?" Mijok wentahead with her on the blind trail.

  Paul heard Spearman choke: "I would have carried her." It was notmeant to be heard. Paul looked away, hearing also the deep precisionof the giant's voice exploring the mystery of words: "You are mypeople. I will not ever be much time far from you."

  Part Two

  The Year One