And The Devil Will Drag You Under (1979) (7 page)

Still, it was easy. The mud, the sun, and a little time made her a truly pitiful-looking sight. Even worse was when she had to go to the bathroom and discov-ered that buildings had lime-filled pit toilets in the back most of the time and that toilet paper hadn't been invented. The working and well-to-do had their special cloths, but you brought them and took them back for washing out.

The poor just endured the smell and sometimes more until they could get to a river or other water source.

Looking pitiful, you then spotted a mark-a likely giver-and went to work, running out to him, plead-ing with him, telling him that you were dependent on his kind generosity for the smallest things and lacked everything, all in the most pitiful, miserable voice and with the most desperate expression you could muster. Most of the time they'd just say something like, "I am sorry, but I have nothing I can give you but the bless-ings of me and my house to the Holy Spirit," which was easily the Zolkarian equivalent of "I gave at the office." Still, she got coins-more than she expected, much more, obviously, than the boy had expected.

Shadow of the City would stay in the background, watching her follow and beg and plead with a mark. If the mark was inclined to give, then he would toss one or more coins on the ground-never hand them to the girl. That was the cue for Shadow of the City to emerge, slowly, walk over and pick them up and stuff them into his robe as if he had just been walking down the street minding his own business and happened to see them.

It was a cultural charade, true, one of those social rituals of an alien society, but the system worked and preserved the boy's dignity. Women, of course, were assumed not to have any dignity to begin with.

And then it was midday.

She had just finished with a mark and gotten a small coin when she heard, behind her, the blast of what sounded like an enormous combo of air horns. She jumped, turned, and looked up. From where she stood she could see two of the doorways high up. Inside men were blowing on what looked like giant shells of some kind, making the tones that carried over the whole city.

The boy was immediately at her side. "Enough business," he told her. "We have a day's worth plus here, anyway. Now we must pray." He looked at her, a serious expression on his face. "Now, at the first horn, you must stop. In a moment a second will sound, and with that you fall completely down on your stomach, face to the ground. Then just repeat what everybody says and do what they do. Don't do anything else-this is required by Holy Covenant!"

The last was a real warning here, she knew.

Then came a second set of blasts, and she was aware of everyone around her, in the street and in the square, dropping down, lying on the ground face down. Shadow of the City went down in front of her, facing her, so she could both see and hear him.

A new voice took over, obviously with a great deal of amplification. She couldn't imagine the source of that amplification, though; it sounded almost electronic.

"I praise the Holy Spirit, who is with me always," the voice chanted, and the crowd repeated it.

She fol-lowed along. The phrase was repeated several more times.

"I am the property of the Holy Spirit, who is my Lord and master, be I Lord or slave," came the voice.

Again the litany was repeated, not once but several times.

"I exist only to do His will," came the next line, and so it went. Basically the whole chant was a total pledge of submission. Its only saving grace was that it was rhythmically quite beautiful; in Zolkarian it rhymed and was perfectly metered poetry.

"Praise be to the Holy Spirit, whose will is my will," came the chant.

She started to repeat it, then stopped and gasped. She recognized that voice now, even if it was reverber-ating unnaturally all over the town. Of course!

It sounded like Asmodeus Mogart!

"Complete the chant!" the boy murmured. "Hurry! Before the next line! You must catch up!"

"But you don't understand," she whispered back. "That's-"

"Too late," sighed the boy, and a new line came.

3

It was over now, over for everyone else, anyway. She was still excited and started to get up, but couldn't. Instead, inside her head, that unearthly, inhuman voice intoned, "CONTRITION!"

She couldn't move out of the prayer position. "Shadow of the City! What's wrong? What must I do?" she called, her voice slightly panicky.

The boy, who had already gotten up, squatted down in front of her. "Your people sure are dumb," he sighed. "The simplest little thing there is and you can't repeat a few words without fouling up."

"Never mind the insults," she shot back. "What do I do now?"

He sighed again. "I don't know. The general rule is that you keep saying the prayers over and over until you believe them, obey them, and are genuinely re-pentant. Even for one of us that could take days; I'm not sure it'd ever work for you. Could you ever be-lieve in and fully accept the Holy Covenant?"

She collapsed and sighed as tears of frustration rose within her. No, she had to admit to herself, she couldn't. This God or Holy Spirit or whatever was as inflexible as a computer-it probably was some kind of cosmic computer. It would accept nothing less than total submission because it could do nothing else, and it could see into her mind.

"Then I'm stuck here, in the middle of the street, in the praying position?" she moaned.

The boy thought it over. "Well, there's one way. Every once in a while people run into problems like yours-not for being this dumb, though. Sometimes you just get caught in the system whether you want to or not, and it's hard to feel guilty when the whole thing wasn't your fault. Then we take them to somebody with the power."

"The power?"

He nodded, although she couldn't see. "Yeah. We sit you there and they look at you and give you a po-tion to drink that makes you kinda sleepy, and then they tell you how you gotta feel and you do."

A hypnotist,
she thought. Maybe that would work long enough to get her out of this!

"Look," she said. "Maybe that's the way. Then it'll be all right, it'll wear off, and we'll-"

"No good," he responded, cutting her off. "It doesn't wear off. If it did you'd be back on the ground. Oh, sure, if he just looks at you, to get rid of a headache or something, the effect wears off-but this problem would take the potion, and that doesn't wear off."

And that wouldn't do at all, she understood. If the hypnotist made her believe not only in the system but in its rightness and naturalness, she'd accept it, even want to live in it. She'd be a good Zolkarian girl and wait anxiously to be taken into a household and have babies.

No way.

"There's no other way?" she moaned.

He thought for a moment. "You gotta understand, this wouldn't even be a problem if you was one of us. No, I guess the only thing you can do is take The Risk."

"The Risk?" she repeated, then recalled that that meant petitioning the Holy Spirit directly-but not knowing what would be done about your problem. "What would I tell Him?" she asked, a little frightened.

The boy shrugged. "Tell Him the truth. He might excuse your ignorance. Then again, His ways are not for folks to understand. He might just make you Zolkarian, and that would solve the problem."

This problem, and this world's problem,
she thought glumly. Not hers. "There is no other way?"

"Nope. That's about it. You can think on it a little."

She did, and grew increasingly uncomfortable, while drawing the same blank as he.

"There's really no choice, is there?" she said at last, and he admitted ruefully that there wasn't.

Ever since she was a little girl, religion had played little or no role in her life. A nominal Catholic, her less-than-pious father seldom got, her to church or catechism classes-too much time out from gymnastics practice. Later there were the meets themselves, and the training. She went to church, usually, at Easter and Christmas time, and the most religious she had been in recent years was a few blasphemous oaths and little prayers before a meet. And now here she was, stuck, having to pray to a God she knew was there but somehow couldn't take seriously.

She waited a little, composing in her own mind what she must say, then took a deep breath and decided she was as ready as she'd ever be. She felt the same way she had before big and important meets, standing there at the starting line, only a good deal more helpless since the result here did not depend on her effort alone. "Here goes," she thought aloud, and plunged in.

"Oh, Holy Spirit, hear my prayer," she began, closing her eyes. "Please-I need your help. I am a stranger here, a spirit from another world, inside this body from your world. My name is Jill McCulloch, and my world is close to its end from a great moon that is going to hit it." She paused a second, hoping that flattery would work. "We cannot stop the Moon alone. We need the aid of your Holy Elder to save us. I was sent here to get that aid, and I have not been able to figure out how to reach him. It was this desperation that caused me to miss the ending of the prayers, for when I heard his voice I could think only of my own home in terrible danger and that this was the man who could save my people. Can you excuse a poor foreigner whose desperation to save the lives of her people is foremost in her mind? Only you, Holy Spirit, can ex-cuse and help me now.

I seek and plead for your help."

She stopped, anxiously waiting for something-movement, the voice, anything-to happen; but noth-ing did and she began to worry. In a closed system like this one, might anything from outside that system be accepted, let alone understood?

Suddenly she became conscious that all was different. She felt a burning sensation across her back and saw that the area immediately around her was lit up in an almost intolerably bright golden glow, while beyond was darkness.

"JUDGMENT!" Came the voice-only now it seemed a real, if no less powerful and inhuman, sound. "WOMAN, I HAVE HEARD YOUR PLEA!" the voice told her. Now she felt tension rising in her; from what the boy had said, anything was possible.

"I HAVE LOOKED INTO YOUR MIND AND FOUND IT INDEED STRANGE," the Holy Spirit told her. "YOU ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH MY UNIVERSE! THIS MUST

CHANGE!"

She experienced a sinking feeling.
I've lost,
she thought,
but I'll never know.

"SO HEAR THE JUDGMENT. YOU ARE FREED OF PEN-ANCE. YOU MAY ALSO SEEK

HIM WHOM YOU NEED. BUT WHILE YOU ARE IN THIS PLANE, YOU MUST OBEY

ALL THE MANDATES OF THE HOLY COVENANT! ALL! YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO

DO OTHERWISE. ALSO, IT IS A WRONGNESS FOR YOU TO INHABIT THE BODY OF

MY SERVANT. YOU SHALL HAVE A SIMULACRUM OF YOUR OWN! I HAVE SPOKEN!

"

The experience was kind of awesome and frightening in spite of her rationalism. "Please!" she pleaded. "Will you help me in my mission? The Holy Elder might not go along, and I cannot take what is not freely given." She considered her own statement briefly; it didn't sound like her.

"THERE IS A WAY TO ACCOMPLISH ALL GOOD WORKS," the Holy Spirit told her. "

THAT WAY, HOWEVER, IS TO BE FOUND IN STUDY OF THE HOLY COVENANT."

And, suddenly, it was over. Jill felt normal space and light return, and knew that she could move again. She looked up to see the boy gaping in surprise. She looked to one side where she saw movement, then at herself.

The girl, Bright Star of the Night Skies, was getting dizzily to her feet. Jill was in her own familiar twenty--five-year-old body, still naked.

The boy recovered fast and looked at her. "You're the woman who was in the body?" he guessed.

She nodded. He glanced around almost fearfully. "Come on!" he said urgently. "We have to get you off the streets quick!"

"What do you . . . ?" she began, then suddenly realized what he meant. She was nude, reasonably attractive, and out in an open square during peak hours, and she was now bound by the Holy Covenant. Any man could come up to her, tell her to go with him, and she'd be stuck.

"Where?" she asked anxiously.

He looked around. "In back of the buildings over there. There's an alleyway mostly blocked with trash. Follow me!"

He took off on a run; the still-dazed girl followed him, and the new/old Jill McCulloch kept up.

Her black hair had always been cut short; now, she discovered, it hung down almost to the ground and she had to struggle against the almost two-kilogram weight -nothing for her if she'd been used to it, but a dead weight on her neck because she wasn't.

They reached the alley and took a minute to catch their breath.

"We'll have to stay hidden here until dark," the boy told her. "Can't risk you on the street like that. You're built pretty well, and your skin and features are exotic. Even if nobody grabs you for a wife, you are bound to obey any command except sex from any adult."

She now understood his meaning. Any woman still nude at her age would be considered under some kind of divine punishment; her exotic looks-normal Caucasian, but these people were related to American Indians-would confirm that fact to some. No one would feel in the least guilty, and a lot would feel tempted, about making her a domestic slave; and since The Risk, she was bound to do as the natives did-she'd have to obey.

"But where will we go?" she asked him.

"Back to the house, for now," he replied.

She shook her head. "That's not where the job is. I'd just be a prisoner there. No, my answer's in that temple."

"You think there is an answer?" the boy asked her skeptically. "If our Holy Elder doesn't like your Holy Elder, then that's that."

She sighed and sat back down. "Maybe, but there
is
an answer. The Holy Spirit as much as told me there was. He said I could solve my problem by studying the Holy Covenant."

The boy and girl both chuckled. "But that's the standard answer to anybody with problems," he told her.

"Maybe it is," she admitted, "but I got the feeling that there really is an answer, if I can just figure it out."

They mulled over the possibilities. Stealing was out, of course. She had to be pure as the driven snow-she couldn't violate the Holy Covenant now even if she were willing to accept the consequences. And even if someone else did, the act of stealing itself would mean immediate divine punishment; they might lose their arms after the theft, and their legs if they tried to get away.