HARM (14 page)

Essanits glanced at Fremant, sighed, nodded.

“We get on our way tomorrow.”

T
HE MORNING WAS GRAY,
with small scudding shreds of cloud traversing a more general cloud cover. Men and horses cast no shadows. Early though it was, a number of Haven denizens had turned out to watch the small expedition depart.

Essanits was seated on his old black stallion, Hengriss, waiting in silence as the others assembled. Chankey, Tragonn, and Klarnort were armed and each had rolls of bedding strapped to their backs, thus appearing like victims of some strange deformity. Fremant had provided himself with one of Utrersin’s guns, but was otherwise unencumbered. Bellamia had lashed a box of kitchen utensils to the rear of her saddle.

As well as these six horses, there were three more, two being packhorses, loaded with canvas shelter, food, fodder, and other necessaries, while the third horse was ridden by the person in charge of the packhorses—Wellmod, now of the age of puberty and defying Utrersin. All these horses were humped, the humps containing their air-tubes. Behind the packhorses came a string of young goats, one tied behind the next, to provide meat on the long journey.

The goats could produce milk and cheese of a low order, and in this way had acquired the name “goat,” though in appearance they more resembled something between a beetle and a spider on a large scale. Each creature was long enough to accommodate ten dainty legs. Six of these goats had been rounded up and tethered.

Several people gave advice to Essanits, which he acknowledged loftily. His response was to curl his ample lip, his large face unlit. Liddley came up, to try to persuade Fremant and Bellamia not to leave Haven. Fremant sadly shook his head. He reached down from the saddle to shake her hand in a gesture of farewell.

Elder Deselden looked on from a distance, content to see Essanits leave, but saying nothing.

When Essanits gave the signal, the group moved off in single file. A pale beam of sun penetrated over the hill to encourage them on their way.

For the first kilometer or two, they followed a trail and moved among fields of rydall and peppy dirdist and other vegetables. Solitary men or women stood like scarecrows along the way, armed with sticks to ward off marauding dacoims.

They had almost reached the top of the incline when one of these human scarecrows approached the group. It was a woman, raggedly dressed. It proved to be Aster, who pulled away her customary hood as she seized the bridle of Fremant’s horse. She shook it as if in a nervous attack, but spoke in a low voice.

“Fremant, I ask nothing of you. I know you to be a callous brute. I know you care nothing for me. I know you to be a murderer and a rapist. Nevertheless, I ask you, I beg you, to take me with you wherever you go. I must escape this bondage.”

He did not dismount. He asked her what she meant by bondage.

“Bluggeration! Did you not hear? Do you know nothing? I was sold in the market to this farmer, son of Citrane—all thanks to you! Take me! I will abase myself. I will be no trouble, make no trouble, not even speak to this wench of yours you seem so keen on. All I ask—”

At these words, Bellamia kicked her horse forward and struck out at Aster with a stick. “Get out of our way, you little troublemaker! You can die here better than ’flict yourself on us!”

Aster took the blow on her raised forearm. She screamed and waved her arms about over her head. Fremant restrained Bellamia, saying to Aster, “You have no claim on me. I regret the wrong I did you, but this is a military expedition. You can’t come with us.”

As if to reinforce his words, Essanits shouted to them not to fall behind.

When Fremant put spur to flank, Aster seized his leg and began screaming as she ran, half-dragged, beside him. He tried to shake her off, eventually striking her on the side of her head. She fell away. Staggering backward, she fell and lay on the ground, crying and calling. Bellamia, departing from the scene, raised a finger at her.

The cortege reached the brow of the incline, then crossed over it, out of Aster’s sight.

They rode through the day, stopping only once to eat unleavened bread and a sliver of insect meat. They were now in wilder country, where the endeavors of mankind did not prevail. At sunset they made camp. They sat around a small fire to eat, but had little to say—except, of course, for Essanits, who spoke gravely of God’s plan, which had surely conveyed them across light-years of space to spread his word on Stygia. Nobody agreed with him, nobody disagreed.

Fremant and Bellamia slept together that night nearby the others, although he had not forgotten his earlier habit of climbing a tree for safety during the hours of darkness. He lay against her generous sleeping body, staring up at the sky, where the six Brothers hastened by, one chasing the other. Shadows faintly followed them on the ground. In his mind were other shadows, as he reflected on his treatment of Aster.

As if disturbed in her sleep by his troubled thoughts, Bellamia awoke and sighed voluptuously.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Just thinking things over.”

Snuggling against him, she gazed up at the great canopy of stars glistening in impressive disorder overhead.

“Where’s Earth?” she asked. “The solar system?”

“No one knows. Somewhere up there…”

“And did God own the Earth?”

“It’s just a legend. God or the Devil…”

D
AYS FOLLOWED
during which they progressed steadily. For two days they made their way through a sparse forest where the trees were scarcely taller than they. Every tree seemed to present a remarkable uniformity, each with only a certain number of branches, even a certain number of leaves, in a sinister form of duplication. Those trees, as they passed, immediately turned their leaves from green to yellow to brown, as if offended by the trekkers; so that they inadvertently left behind them a trail of dead leaves.

The forest fell away. For three more days they traveled, and for part of the time followed a shallow river in which the men wallowed and the horses drank. The landscape here was empty of foliage and broken, while mountains loomed ahead. Moving farther, they found salack growing in a clump on the riverbank; farther on, the herb spread over the stony banks. A little farther still, the river plunged over a cliff.

Bellamia was the first to pluck some of the leaves and begin chewing.

“Lovely! Lovely! Extra strong!” she exclaimed. Soon all were chewing it. At first, it had a positive effect on their mood.

“Ah, I could ride right up that mountain and then some!” shouted Tragonn, standing up in his stirrups, and a minute later he had tumbled off his mount.

“How fortunate we are to be here where Jesus once trod!” cried Essanits, sitting in the midst of a green patch and letting his horse wander. “He found no humans here and so he left. But this blessed herb he left behind for us, to cheer us on our way!”

“There’s Jesus!” cried Wellmod, pointing. “Come join us! Jesus, yoo-hoo!”

None of the others could see Jesus.

They heard the sound of a waterfall. Following the river, they came to the edge of an immense cliff. It seemed to their distorted senses that at this point Jesus or someone as strong as Jesus had taken a mighty ax and cleaved the world in two. The water fell in an arc, plunging down into the gulf below. It was impossible to see how far it fell, for the great cloud of spray arising concealed everything below it. A rainbow played amid the cloud of countless water drops.

Fremant and Bellamia lay on the edge of the cliff, staring down, amazed at the grandeur of the sight. They chewed as they stared, as moisture scattered up to wet their faces.

Tragonn and Klarnort had also chewed quantities of the herb, not bothering even to gather it, eating it where it grew, faces close to the ground. Suddenly as one, they jumped to their feet and sprang into the saddles of their horses.

Lashing the poor brutes on, they galloped toward the fall, shouting, “Jesus, man! We’re coming! Coming!”

To the brink they drove, almost trampling Bellamia, never hesitating, on, on, leaping into the great gulf, to fall together with the falling waters.

Fremant watched it all in shock. Men and animals were digested into the all-enveloping mist, never to be seen again. The rainbow effect flickered, the great endless orgasm of water never faltered.

Sick with horror, he staggered to his feet.

“You and your stupid talk of Jesus!” he bellowed at their leader.

Bellamia tried to hush him. “I have known this stuff, so I’m immune, but these others…”

Essanits made no answer.

“It is God’s will” was all he uttered, pronouncing the words in thick tones.

“It’s nothing of the sort! Why didn’t you stop them?”

For answer, Essanits swung an arm over his head in a gesture commanding them to move on. At his third attempt, he managed to haul himself into the saddle and kick Hengriss to action.

T
HE GASH IN THE WORLD
marked a change in the landscape. Plains and lowlands were left behind. The way became steeper and more broken. Crumbling cliffs arose. Vegetation, sparse at the best of times, became even rarer. They traveled over re-golith. The hooves of the horses stirred up dust, even as their sounds echoed against the rock face. The cliffs closed in on either side. Heat climbed with altitude. Rider became more separated from rider. Wellmod and his livestock fell far behind the rest of the group. Fremant found his thoughts transfixed by the terrible afterimage of the two men on their horses, galloping into the gulf to their death.

Eventually, Essanits called a halt by a place where collapsing rock had created a spacious cave. It was early afternoon. He sat on the dark, enduring Hengriss, looking back down the trail, with Chankey beside him.

As the others came slowly up, Essanits directed them to tether their horses against the rock, where long grass grew, then to go into the cave.

“Ha, Dimoff’s due,” said Bellamia.

“So Chankey informs me,” said Essanits. “We will weather it here.” He shouted to Wellmod as the lad arrived that he should tie up the packhorses with the other horses and drive the goats into the cave. So they all assembled, rather uncomfortably.

Bellamia and Chankey started a fire from pieces of deadwood. Soon, she was smoking the place out as she prepared a meal. Essanits settled down uncomplainingly, closing his eyes without relaxing his stern expression.

When Fremant came in from watering the horses, Bellamia told him to stake a place for them at the rear of the cave. He looked into the uninviting dark, scarcely illuminated by the fire’s glow.

“We don’t know what may be back there.”

“Don’t be cowardly. Cold will enter with the coming of the Shawl. It’s warmer at the back.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was bid. She joined him when they had eaten their meal.

“I’m hot now, Free. Feel me! Someone has left an old sack here. It’s comfortable to rest yourself against.”

“A sack? No one has been here before.”

“How about Essanits?” She lowered her voice. “He may have come this way on his killing expedition, before he found God or Jesus.”

Fremant felt behind him. There was certainly a plump thing, like a well-stuffed bag, lying at their backs, covered by fur. He prodded it, afraid it might somehow be alive, but there was no movement in response.

It was still golden afternoon. The heat shimmered in the canyon. But in the eastern sky, already the Shawl began to spread its folds. Chankey left the cave to stare up at it, and crossed himself.

Wellmod, speaking to no one in particular, asked, “Did Jesus put the Shawl up there, do you think?”

“Maybe he did,” Essanits said. “If he found the Dogovers were not behaving as he had hoped.”

“What about us, then? We’re behaving nicely, aren’t we? Why don’t he cancel it?”

Essanits made no response.

Gradually, the day became overcast. The great black mass of dust and debris poured between Stygia and the Sun. A chill shadow soon prevailed, turning rapidly into cold night. All felt impressed and oppressed by the eclipse. They huddled together in silence, while the goats bleated in dismay.

Essanits spoke from the darkness. “We will sleep as much as possible for the next two days, sleep and rest. Bellamia, see that the goats provide us with sufficient milk.”

“They can’t yield if they can’t feed, can they now?”

“Do your best.”

A long silence ensued before Essanits spoke again. “I shall take this opportunity to make you all better informed. While I am an intellectual, as you are not, I still believe you will find knowledge helpful, not least because we are on the quest for an alien race.

“Once the tyrant Astaroth was overthrown, we found in his quarters many records taken from the ship—which you recall was named
New Worlds.
These records make clear the sorry state of affairs on Earth which led to the development and launch of the ship.

“The section of the world known as ‘Thewest’ was the most technologically advanced region, and had been for several centuries. There, the population lived well on the whole. They had hygiene in their homes, food on their shelves, and freedom to believe what they would. Science and the arts were respected—or, at worst, paid lip service. It was the most desirable part of the world in which to live.

“One of the things that made it desirable was that the soils were, in general, good—unlike on this planet—and that the inhabitants had learned the processes of irrigation and good husbandry, here unknown, or impossible…

“There were, however, other regions besides Thewest. They—in reaction against or imitation of Thewest—slowly gained power. In the East was a great and remarkable civilization, its roots established many centuries before those of the nations making up Thewest. It had frequently suffered disruptions but was not warlike and, in its increasing prosperity, became more like Thewest, espousing many Western values. Its peoples were intelligent, its social systems orderly.

“A third sector lay between these two sectors, the East and Thewest. This sector had deep divisions within it and was, on the whole, ruled by despots, ruined by corruption. Hunger, the subjugation of women, torture, disease—all these were commonplace. A religion which once had elements of benevolence became twisted into a creed of vengeance and hatred—its malevolence aimed in the main against Thewest. With its extreme poverty went extreme wealth for a very few. These elements, together combined with ruthlessness, mounted an effective onslaught against Thewest—Brothers above!” he exclaimed.