Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10 (4 page)

 
          
"Yes,"
said de Cogo vaguely. It scarcely occurred to him to make the association. It
was as if "Earth" was two different words that sounded the same.
"What has that got to do with anything?"

 
          
"Everything,"
Nascimento told him airily. "This is the forgotten original world, a total
backwater. Nobody ever comes here, so what makes you think the rebels will,
even if they do win? And as the governing council you claim to represent is
almost as impotent as Diadem herself, what I'm saying is I can do anything I
like, really. So stop moaning at me, Lopo!"

 
          
With
those words Nascimento rose to his feet, and adopting the manner of one who has
disposed of a troublesome importuner, sauntered from the room.

 
          
The
curator's words of that afternoon had struck terror into Pout. It comforted him
not at all that the visitor had tried to come to his aid: Pout knew that
Nascimento would not be stopped by anyone else's opinion. His only hope of
survival appeared to be for the curator to forget his decision.

 
          
He
felt extra terror, but also surprise, therefore, when de Cogo once again
appeared before him that evening. The inspector looked him over, compassion in
his pale blue eyes.

 
          
"Poor
half-monkey," he murmured.
"No mother, no
father—what a substitute Torth has made!
Try not to blame him—I think
his reason went a long time ago. Well, at least I can do something to alleviate
your
suffering."

 
          
Stepping
to the wall, he slid back a panel Pout had never known existed. In the ceiling
the signal light went out.

 
          
"Come.
Your bars are gone."

 
          
Pout
cringed. He could not believe what this man seemed to be offering him; it was a
trick. Looking at the woebegone creature, de Cogo was suddenly reminded of
another experiment of Nascimento's, the birdman. Lacking voice, unable to
articulate language in either spoken or written form, this unfortunate knew
only one mode of expression: the C melody saxophone. He played it like an angel
whenever he wanted to communicate, uttering tunes and brilliant cascades of
notes instead of sentences, trills and arpeggios instead of words. Nascimento
had claimed this was a sophisticated form of birdsong, and that the musician
was a man-blackbird he had (illegally but unrepentantly) fused. Suspicious at
the lack of any physical chimeric signs (though the birdman was rather gawky),
de Cogo had discovered the truth. The "birdman" was a pure human
Nascimento had
raised
from birth, using accelerative
growth hormones. The reason why he was speechless was that he had been
systematically denied any opportunity to learn language. Music, in which he received
intensive training, had been his only permitted form of communication.
Nascimento had even resorted to putting the growing child in deep freeze
between music lessons, to guard against non-melodic imprinting. He regarded the
experiment as a resounding success: the speech centre, a left hemisphere brain
function, became untrainable. The left hemisphere, the site of intuitive
abilities including music, emerged as the only channel for meaning.

 
          
Indignant
at seeing a first-class citizen imprisoned, de Cogo had obtained his freedom.
Presumably he still wandered the Earth somewhere, as a tormented minstrel, able
to convey the most rarefied feelings but not a single fact.

 
          
But
he doubted if he could persuade Nascimento, in his present mood, to see reason
in the case of Pout. He beckoned. "I am your friend. I will help you to
freedom."

 
          
Pout
recalled the way de Cogo had spoken for him earlier. Cautiously, hopefully, he
allowed himself to be wheedled from the corner. He passed through where the
invisible bars had been. There was no pain.

 
          
He
was standing on a different part of the floor!

 
          
His
blood raced. It had been so long!

 
          
"Put
this on," de Cogo told him gently, holding out a yellow garment with a
bib-like front attached to short trousers. Pout pawed at it. Eventually, at de
Cogo's instructions, he managed to fasten it on him. Then he stood awkwardly,
shoulders bowed, swivelling his eyes from side to side, wondering what to do.
He would have liked to be able to hurt his rescuer, to injure him or even to
kill him somehow, but he was not physically strong and he was afraid to attack
him.

 
          
"Follow
me," said de Cogo crisply. Pout shuffled after the inspector; who led him
through a long corridor, and then through a low-roofed gallery he vaguely
remembered.

 
          
Then
he turned left and they emerged onto a timber veranda. A warm breeze blew on
Pout. Ahead of him, savannah-like grassland stretched to the horizon. The sun
was mellow, hanging over the scene like a burnished lamp.

 
          
Though
he was unreceptive to the beauty of the landscape, it stirred something in him:
a yearning common to creatures, whether base or noble.

 
          
Freedom!
Freedom to live! To enjoy!

 
          
De
Cogo, even while edging away slightly from the rank-smelling creature beside
him, sensed this yearning. "You must make your own way now," he
muttered quickly, "for I have done all I can. You are at liberty, as a
second-class citizen of the Empire, if you know what that means."

 
          
He
paused. "The galaxy is wide, but hazardous, of course. You must make of
life what you will. I wish you luck—now go, before the curator discovers what I
have done."

 
          
Pout
stared blankly, until given a shove towards the steps leading to the ground. He
stumbled down them, nearly falling, wondering if this was some trick.

 
          
When
his bare feet touched the ground, the sensation was like nothing he had known
before. The grass tickled, and unable to restrain himself, he flung himself
down in it and rolled from side to side.

 
 
          
When
he paused from this luxury to look up, the man was gone.

 
          
If
he lay down, the grass seemed to cover him. Pout began to think. To get away
from here quickly was good advice. And
yet ...

 
          
He
felt frightened and helpless. What he needed was a weapon. A hand scangun he
could hide in his new garment and use if he was threatened (or, he thought
excitedly, on anyone he didn't like). Then he would feel less defenceless.

 
          
The
pale green buildings of the museum stood scattered all around him. Pout, in a
partial and confused way, was familiar with the layout. He had peeked into the
data files when in the care of the robots, who had presumed that museum
administration was the only thing anyone could be interested in. That
hangar-like structure, with the grey metallic tinge, was the weapons house. He
clearly remembered it was the weapons house.

 
          
The
museum rarely had casual visitors, but in theory was supposed to be open to all
comers. Nascimento had taken a precaution with the weapons house: its entrance
was from the house of ancient-style footwear, a small and dusty gallery which
gave the peruser no idea that the unprepossessing door led not to a cleaning
closet but to a complete and treasured armoury . . .

 
          
Crawling
through the grass, Pout made his way by degrees to where he felt he could run
upright without being seen. Soon he had slipped through the vine-wreathed door
of the ancient footwear house.

 
          
Stacked
all around him were cases of shoes of every description—boots, clogs, slippers,
in an endless but boring series, each pair carefully displayed and described.
Pout did not glance at them. He satisfied himself he was alone, then slipped to
the half-hidden door that led to a bare, square corridor, whose length he
sprinted.

 
          
Then through the other door at the far end, an imposing and heavy
door, needing all his strength to push it open.

 
          
Guns!
Guns of every type!

 
          
In
pride of place in the centre of the hangar was a huge feetol
cannon
such as were used by fighting starships. Pout experienced no curiosity as to
how Nascimento could have acquired so impressive a weapon, for he did not know
what it was apart from the fact that it was a very big gun, nor that
it was
impossible to make it work unless installed in a
starship. He just stood, glorying in its sense of power.

 
          
Nervously
he coughed. The sound echoed around the building, but for the moment he was not
worried. Even the robots rarely came here. Usually the only time the heavy door
opened was when a new exhibit was to be put on display.

 
          
He
began to stroll past the cases, unsure as to how the exhibition was organised.
He peered at weapon after weapon, but being unable to read could make no sense
of descriptive plates. Finally he leaned against a case to stare at a long
rifle with stock of mother-of-pearl and a golden barrel. Suddenly a soft voice
spoke out of the air, startling him.

 
          
"Force rifle, thirty-first century.
This weapon projects a radiant beam whose main effect is pressure. It will
punch a hole in ten-point titanium at a range of . .
." Pout continued
listening in fascination as the voice went on to detail specification and
history of usage. Most of it, however, was incomprehensible to him, and the
gun was bigger than he wanted.

 
          
He
passed on. All the guns in the section were of the long sort, and they all
seemed to be old. Where were the scanguns? Scanguns were really the only kind
he had heard about. When with the robots, he had seen something on the data
files.
,Though
he didn't quite realize it, what he had
seen was a fragment of an animated drama with psych-dimension—that is, it used
a set of subliminal signals to manipulate the feelings of the watcher and make
him feel a part of the action. In the fragment, there had been a shoot-out
between people using scanguns. It was the most thrilling thing Pout had ever
participated in.
Because, of course, the
watcher-identification was with the victor.

 
          
Rounding
a corner, he came to a new section. Here the cases were smaller. Handguns!

 
          
But
they seemed very old. He peered at the first one, and pressed against the side
of the case to evoke the explanatory voice as he had just learned to do.

 
          
"Colt forty-five, nineteenth century.
This weapon
projects lead bullets at a velocity
of .
.

 
          
He
heard no more than the first few words. Nineteenth century! What century was it
now? He wasn't sure, but it was a lot more than the nineteenth.

 
          
Quickly
he walked up the aisle past a long line of variegated handguns, hoping he
would at last come to the modern scangun section. He could not, however, resist
a look at some of the guns of the past, with their strange handgrips, their
barrels that sometimes were fluted, sometimes snub-nosed, or square, or
slitted—or no barrel at all—and their variously shaped triggers, studs and
slides. In his ignorance it did not occur to
Pout
that
in all probability not a single weapon in the collection would be complete with
ammunition or charge, and many would not even be in working order. His idea of
a gun was something he could simply pick up and shoot people with.

 
          
He
thought he heard a sudden noise and stopped in fright. There was nothing. But
then his eye lit on the case nearest to him, and he lingered to inspect its
contents.

 
          
The
gun was unprepossessing. Its handgrip and shaft seemed to be made mostly of
wood or some grainy material. It was light in colour, as if the wood had been
carved with a knife and then left untreated. Indeed, it could have been a toy.