Wellmod had been caught stealing busk jelly from a nearby shop. After the beating, his mother led him away.
Now Fremant understood why the children of Haven were so well behaved. They feared punishment.
When the Shawl brought Dimoff again to Haven, a fire was lit in the little square and sacred songs were sung. Elder Deselden preached that the Shawl was passing over them to express God’s contempt for his people, and that they should repent their sins.
Since the doctrinal disagreement between Deselden and Essanits, their relationship had become frosty. Essanits still preached on the fringes of Haven, and some came to listen. He claimed that God loved all his children and the Shawl was an expression of his sorrow. Meanwhile, Elder Deselden ordained that a long melancholy dance was to be performed about the central fire.
After this ceremony, Fremant ventured to argue with Essanits. “You merely confuse people’s minds, saying that the Shawl is somehow an expression of your god. The Shawl is merely an astronomical fact, like the Sun, like Stygia. It’s a physical law. There are only physical laws.”
“Fremant, my son, I grieve that you do not let God into your heart. Who do you think ordains the physical laws, if not God?”
They argued for a while. Both Ragundy and Bellamia came and told Fremant to be quiet. Essanits was patient, if disdainful, appearing prepared to argue forever. He said, “My friends, you cling to your foolish ways if you must. God will accept sinners who repent. I have a disagreement with Deselden, so I shall leave Haven and return to Stygia City.”
Fremant spoke respectfully but firmly. “It is obvious that the Shawl and the six broken Brothers are the remains of some kind of cosmic collision. Why do you need to bring God into it?”
Essanits frowned down at the ground before he spoke.
“Remember, God is in everything—even in your disbelief. Remember how we came here. The great voyage here took many many years. We were contained in molecular form in the vats. Only in the last years of that voyage were we reconstituted from the LPRs. Many persons failed to reconstitute properly and died. Time had taken its toll.
“In those years before we hit Stygia, there was much turmoil. Many factions grew up. It was not only weapons that were destroyed. So was much equipment. Captain Calex was powerless to stop the destruction. I was fortunate enough to salvage a disc which explained to me the omnipresence of Almighty God in the universe.”
Sighing, Fremant said that there was no proof God existed.
“Not so. You and I, Fremant, are that proof, with our immortal souls.” He stood up, thereby signaling an end to the discussion.
“I am needed in Stygia City and have much to do. I shall see how poor, frightened Hazelmarr fares. I shall slip away while the Shawl is still overhead.”
Ragundy cursed. “Essanits, you are a fool! You let Hazelmarr go free after you had told him we were going to come here. He probably went straight to the All-Powerful, to curry favor. Even now, Astaroth’s army will be preparing to attack us. You will be spared because you are powerful, but we shall be killed.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Essanits. “You unbelievers are always afraid of something—something that may never happen.” And he strode away.
Fremant and Ragundy got drunk that night. “I can never understand how people think as they do,” complained Fremant.
With a sweeping gesture, Ragundy said, “You didn’t come here by the ship. You’re a supernational—a what?—a supernatural entity!”
“I’m as real as you are. Want me to prove it?”
“Why bother?” said his friend. “Action’s what we should bother about, not thinking.” He took another drink.
Eventually, both of them fell into a troubled slumber.
He was working in a shirtmaker’s shop. There was no denying it. The atmosphere was steamy and obscure. Shirts were hanging from lines like giant birds, some red, some black. The owner of the shop was a big fat man with huge side-whiskers and a black beard. His head was bald and shining, as if the hair there had tumbled down to form a sub-chin proliferation of whiskers.
This man held up a shirt dripping from the dyeworks and addressed his staff.
“See this short? We make the tails too long. From now on, make them a hundred and thirty millimeters shorter. Then I make more profit every short we sell.”
Fremant heard himself say, “But the Waabees tuck their shirts into their trousers. If you cut our shirts short, they will not stay put in the trousers.”
“They will stay tucked in for half an hour.” He brought out a huge watch, which he set ticking. “In half an hour these fool buyers are out of the shop.” Already people were leaving. The shop itself was changing.
“But, sir, they will never buy another of our shirts!”
“Short loyalty, are you saying? Who ever heard of short loyalty?
You buy a short here one day, the next day another short somewhere else. Short loyalty is for the birds.” Such loyalty would not last long. It was confusing that in the dream shirts were “shorts.”
“I, for instance, always buy our shirts.” But he could not see any.
“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but you work here—which you won’t do if you keep on arguing with me. Let me make it clear, I’m the boss.”
“I’m speaking in your interest, boss.”
“Look, we cut off a hundred thirty millimeters like I say, maybe we start a new fashion. Maybe everyone wants our shorts what are a hundred thirty millimeters shorter than an ordinary short. Like it’s the style. Like it’s more hygienic. Also it needs one less button per short. That’s all told a savings of…” He brought out a huge calculator, wound it up, and began doing sums. The figures fell and covered the floor. Fremant kicked them aside. They spelled something, possibly “Astaroth.”
“So I make a profit of ten, maybe eleven stigs on each short, We sell a hundred shorts like a week, that’s—um, eleven hundred stigs. So maybe I raise also your wages—those of you I haven’t sacked.” The hanging shirts were shaking with what he thought was laughter.
But someone was shaking him. “Get up,” said Ragundy. “There’s trouble!”
Fremant struggled to his feet, groaning.
The window of the room in which they slept looked south toward distant Stygia City. What immediately met Fremant’s gaze was the frowsy head and shoulders of the gunmaker, Utrersin, who had been tapping on the window from outside. More distantly, more alarmingly, a troop of horsemen was approaching, galloping in the gloom cast by the departing Shawl. In the gray light, it was hard to make out any detail.
Ragundy looked terrified. “It’s Astaroth. He’s come to kill us, like I said,” he cried. “What are we going to do, Fremant?”
Fremant was equally alarmed. Without answering, he ran outside to Utrersin, who stood clutching Wellmod’s hand.
Wellmod seemed none the worse for his beating, and was jumping up and down. “Isn’t it exciting?” he said.
“More than that.” Fremant stared ahead. The horsemen were no nearer, although they were galloping furiously. Some men carried banners. It was impossible to make out the insignia on the banners. Indeed, the whole scene was oddly blurred, perhaps, Fremant thought, because of the departing Shawl.
“They’re coming to get you,” said Utrersin with a chuckle. “Yer in for it!”
Fremant narrowed his eyes, staring ahead, trying to make out what was happening. The approaching group of men and animals was oddly unclear. As furiously as they galloped, they were not advancing. Nor did a sound come from them, no shouts, no drumming of hooves.
He looked anxiously at Ragundy.
“They’re…why, they’re ghosts!” Ragundy exclaimed.
“No, they’re not,” said Wellmod. “They’re ’lusions.”
Utrersin smote his thigh and roared with laughter. “Had you scared, didn’t we? Like the kid says, they’re ’lusions. They’ll fade in a moment, you’ll see.”
“I could kill you, you bastard,” said Ragundy.
“You had me really scared.”
“I like to see them,” said Wellmod. “They’re fun.”
“You was scared once, but not no more, are you?” said Utrersin.
“I like to see them. First they come, then they don’t come.”
As he spoke, the cavalry began to fade. In the breath of a moment, the countryside was empty and the charging horsemen were no more.
Fremant plunged his fists into his pockets. He stared at the ground by his feet. He was mystified.
“It’s something to do with the Shawl,” said Utrersin. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s not,” said Wellmod. “It’s them magic dogs hanging about in the valley.”
When Fremant asked the obvious question, Wellmod said that when the Dogovers had been slaughtered, some of their dogs had escaped. They were magic dogs. They projected the ’lusion to scare people.
“How could dogs do that?” Ragundy asked contemptuously.
“I don’t know, ’cos I’m not a dog.”
NOT A DOG BUT HARDLY A MAN. The statement hounded him in his sleep that night. He had been beaten like a dog. Once more, he was imprisoned in the rundown edifice, once more questioned and abused. He was moved to a room upstairs, where another prisoner had died. His body had not been discovered for some days; the room still stank of his death and decomposition.
Paul felt he was nearing the end of his tether. Looking about the room, he saw pale rectangular patches on the grubby, embroidered wallpaper where framed canvases had once hung. A picture, doubtless a contributor to one of the light patches of wallpaper, and one of the last treasures of an earlier day, lay among the rubbish in one corner of the chamber.
Summoning up his energies, the prisoner made himself, after some time, go over to examine the picture. He could see from the back of it that it had been damaged. One side of its ornate gilt frame was missing. As he moved the painting to turn it over, a pair of rats rushed out and disappeared into a nearby hole in the skirting.
The canvas had been slashed, so that a strip of canvas hung down. It depicted a sturdy middle-aged woman in an apron. She was holding out her bare arms to welcome home a tired laborer in a smock, evidently trudging back to their cottage. The cottage was beehive-shaped and thatched. Behind the male figure were little plump hills, shapely trees, a small flock of woolly sheep grazing.
It was evening. The spire of a church showed from behind one of the hills. The sun was about to set behind the hill, spilling a golden radiance over a gospel-generated landscape.
The scene was a vision of pious tranquillity which represented an England as the artist wished it had once been.
The prisoner stared at it with open mouth. He began to sob uncontrollably.
WHEN NOT WORKING, Fremant returned to wandering. He was drawn to the very territory where he believed the phantom cavalry had ridden. Sometimes he crawled on all fours, sniffing the ground. This was where the herb salack grew. He studied it with interest, to find that its tiny purple flower blossomed only for two days, and only one flower per plant showed at a time; then a bud on a nearby plant would burst into flower. In time, the nature of flowering was such that the first plant would receive another turn. During a Dimoff, no flower appeared.
This odd behavior Fremant ascribed to the scarcity of pollinators. The pollinator was more like a beetle than a bee, and a slow flier. It gave an almost inaudible click as it flew.
He buried his face in the low growth, lying full length, and inhaled its fragrance. Lurking in the minty-sweet scent was something oddly pungent, almost a sexual smell. He felt the mystic connection between all life and the soil of a planet. Yet the patch of salack covered only a small area before dying out. Just as there were few pollinators, so there were few microorganisms in the soil to make it viable. From that it followed that life was sparse and strange.
A soft chattering returned his attention back to his surroundings.
Still prone, he looked up to stare into a pair of deep-set eyes, a dark muzzle, and a row of small, sharp teeth set in an open jaw. The face was furry and sharp. Two ears at the back of the skull were raised in an alert manner.
Fremant froze. It was a kind of dog, most likely hostile, and he was in a most vulnerable position.
“Good boy,” he said, almost by instinct. “I won’t hurt you.”
The jaws moved as if in speech and the gentle chattering noises came again. At the same time, the head was cocked to one side as if in interrogation.
It’s trying to talk, Fremant thought in surprise. He tried to flick away a curious occlusion of sight. It was as if he experienced a sudden glaucoma. His sight remained clouded.
Tentatively, the creature stretched a leg forward and placed a paw on the man’s shoulder. Fremant tried to wriggle backward. It was then he became aware that a second animal stood at his feet. It uttered something that sounded like a command. Fremant stopped wriggling.
“Well? What are you up to? Are you going to attack me?”
He could not understand, staring through the cloud in his sight into that strange face—animal, yet also, in the concentration of its stare, aligned to human and to insect. He struggled against its chatter, becoming confused.
Slowly, a white shelf unrolled itself before his vision. It was made of an indeterminate material, featureless and flat, dull and matte. As he watched it extend, he saw small stones appear to dimple its surface, each immeasurably distant from the other.
In his bafflement, he knew he was experiencing synesthesia. If this doglike thing was attempting to communicate with him, he could perceive the stimulus received by one sensory system only in a different sensory mode. In the extreme incompatibility of systems, sound became transformed to vision. It was an ultimate in alienation.
Moved by a xenophobic impulse, he sprang up onto his knees and hit the dog-thing on the jaw. It gave a yelp and fled. Its companion ran off with it. Slowly the illusion of endless white shelf faded from Fremant’s brain. Slowly, he could see normally again.
From that moment on, his fear of the unexplored planet became submerged in the wonder of it.
HE COULD NOT STOP TALKING about this experience, mainly to young Wellmod. Ragundy was mocking. Utrersin could merely scratch his head and say, “We know what we know. We do what we do.” It was Wellmod who said, with a sigh, “These dogs have drawn something from their long insistence—no, I mean existence—here. If only we could unnerstand their commucations, we might learn something.”
“You say ‘drawn something.’ So you think they have intelligence of a kind?”
“Unless what they perjected on you was a kind of dream. That doesn’t mean intelly gents, does it?”
“Well, intelligence at least of a basic kind. Anyhow, it wasn’t like a dream. At least not the kind of dreams we have. It was—what’s the word?—it kept on being the same. Sustained. Not like a dream is…”
Utrersin said, “It’s no use going on talking like this. It don’t help.”
“But we have to know,” said Fremant.
“Why, when the thing has buggered off?” said Ragundy in his jeering way.
Fremant rounded on him.
“It’s important, you fool! Why can’t you see that? This alien thing was trying to get in touch with me. To speak to me. So I believe. We’re stuck here on this planet and we know almost nothing about it. It has a long prehistory, it has a biomass—about which we know nothing. What are we doing but fooling around, fighting one another? We should be trying to come to terms, to an understanding, with the planet we live on.”
Ragundy jeered. “Okay, wise guy, so you sock this animal on the jaw! You’re as bad as the rest of us.”
FREMANT AND BELLAMIA lived uncomfortably in one partitioned room, with Ragundy living next door. They had a low-ceilinged attic room over the forge, where Wellmod also lived, in a few square feet allocated by Frereshin, the owner of the building.
“I can’t think why you go on about this vision business,” Bellamia told Fremant ove
r their meager supper. “I reckon it was nothing to do with this dog-thing, nothing at all. I reckon you had a sort of an attack. You know, a stroke. A seizure.”
“That’s rubbish, my dear. It was the dog, a Dogover’s dog. Maybe not a dog at all.”
“So what was it if it weren’t a dog?”
“That’s exactly what I want to find out. I regret I hit it. I was so startled, I just struck out.”
She waved her spoon at him. “You know that Astaroth had all the Dogovers wiped out, wiped right out. You seem to have forgotten that.”
“Yes, yes…But one or two dogs ran off and escaped.”
Bellamia threw up her arms in despair. “Oh, you’d argue the hind leg off a jackrat!”
Then silence fell. Having finished the meal, Fremant rose to leave the table. Bellamia, who had been frowning, lifted a cautionary finger. “Yes, two dogs! All them horsemen galloping, spread out. So they dogs was comm—comm—what’s that word you use, Fremant, love?—commpunicating with each other.”
He was impressed. “You’re right. Yes! They were communicating together. Their version of talking. If only we could understand…”
He bedded down on his straw-filled mattress and was immediately asleep. He was in another world, undergoing torture. Someone was crawling over him.
“Come on, Free, love, wake up.” She was thrusting herself against him. “You’d need a dog at each end, like you need two people to hold a long banner, two at least.”
He felt her warmth and her aroma. He remained only half-awake. “But the horsemen…”
“I dunno. Maybe they got them from your mind. Since they got this mental power?”
“Oh, this bruddy planet…” He turned on his side, away from her. She seized her opportunity and more than that. His response was immediate.
“Get into me, will you?” she whispered. “I’m not that old, am I? Besides, it’s dark, so you can’t tell.” She still smelled of salack, and something darker.
“Bluggeration, Bellamia, get off me! I’m tired.”