HARM (8 page)

After the meal, Fremant and Ragundy took a walk about the village. Fremant tried to shake off the hollow feeling that he was not really here. “I must be sick,” he told himself. A large cross stood on one side of the square, to which Ragundy drew their attention. “That’s Essanits’s sign,” he said. “You must know by now he’s a bit cracked about this feller Jesus. Who was Jesus, do you know? I don’t remember him from the ship.”

“So much has been lost.”

“But do we want it back? Present’s bad enough without Jesus.”

“He was assassinated, that’s all I know, or care.” He sighed, thinking of his vow to kill Astaroth.

They had reason to learn more that evening. Haven was quiet during the day. Late in the afternoon, the villagers returned wearily from the fields, some bringing livestock with them. Their faces were worn. Many went straight to lie down awhile. They congregated in the square as the sun was setting behind the shoulder of a distant mountain, and Elder Deselden addressed them.

“‘Why did we come this long way from our home planet?’ That is a question often on our lips, the big question we often ask ourselves. ‘Why did we come this long way?’ Is it not like the case of old age, when we see we have come a long way from our childhood? We have with us visitors who have come just a short way, from Stygia City. But Stygia City is a long way distant where the spirit is concerned. There in that city, the laws of wicked men, Astaroth and his party, rule. Here in Haven, we submit to the rule of none other than Jesus Christ.

“At the least, we
try
to submit to Christ’s rule, because his rule is spiritual freedom, and spiritual freedom is hard to win. We must always strive for it, as best we can.

“There is honor in being poor, not least because Christ Jesus was poor. Christ never came to this world. He never set foot on Stygia. We eke out our existence on unhallowed ground. For that very reason God looks down on us all with contempt, and we must humble ourselves. If we do so, sincerely, with all our hearts, we shall in the end be with Christ to live in a glory very different from how we live now.

“Brother Essanits, the great saint of our order, will pray for our salvation.”

At these words, all present bowed their heads, or all but Ragundy, who whispered to Fremant, “No offense, but I’m off…” He disappeared.

Essanits said in a loud voice, “Lord God, I do not believe, as our brother, Deselden, does, that you look down upon us in contempt, nor even with loving judgment. I do not believe you look upon us at all, having decided that we have all sinned by killing off the native people of Stygia, the Dogovers. In that, I am the most guilty. I was a slave to the will of the people, and of Astaroth. When I saw all those dead bodies, for which I must bear responsibility, I cried—and then, O God, then you saw my tears.

“I believe that Jesus walked on this planet, looking for us, and did not find us.

“Cast your eyes upon us, Lord God, and bless us and this planet we have inherited, so that we may live in peace with ourselves, and not in eternal torment. Amen.”

“Amen,” said the crowd, uplifted. They then looked about themselves as if coming out of a daze. A woman with a small child clutched to her breast knelt and kissed Essanits’s hand, but most people appeared not to know what to do next, drifting off to their various cottages.

Elder Deselden took Essanits aside. Four disciples came with him, humble and anxious. Deselden spoke controlledly, but his look was one of hate. “Brother, you contradict my teachings and you speak heresy. Jesus never walked here. This is a heathen place, filled with alien life without a god. You blaspheme to say that Jesus ever set foot here. You think insects have a god? I forbid you to address my people again.”

Essanits controlled his anger; but later he said to the gray-haired woman, Liddley, who attended him, that he understood Elder Deselden to lay claim of ownership to much of the land thereabouts, which was an unholy thing to do.

Liddley said in response, “Land should be free, as air and water are free. But the land is overrun by little dacoims, which spoil the crops. By promising to rid us of dacoims, so Master Deselden took control of the land. Still the dacoims come and multiply, so Deselden keeps a hold on the land.”

Having listened carefully, Essanits was puzzled. “How is that?” he asked.

The woman looked around her nervously. “Once a year he holds a shooting party, to kill the dacoims by the dozen. Only he can afford the guns and the bullets.”

He frowned at her. “Where does he get guns and bullets from?”

She gestured helplessly. “They’re made locally. A gunsmith by name Utrersin. A good man in a bad trade.”

“But how does this holy man afford such things?”

She sighed heavily. “We who work on the land pay Deselden a small tithe of our earnings. It’s little enough, but it keeps most of us in poverty.”

He laid his hands on her head and looked with sorrow into her gray eyes. He blessed her.

As a result of Essanits’s display of holiness, Fremant was afraid to speak to him. He sought out the company of Bellamia, and her usual good sense.

Bellamia was up to her elbows in flour in a large bowl. “This flour, such as it is, I can turn into a crust for a pie. It will be quite diff’rent. I can’t see how Essanits can turn folk into something quite diff’rent. If God had wanted us to be decent people, he could have made us decent. Why not?”

“We do try to be decent, Bellamia.”

“Some do, some don’t. But why make it so hard? So damned hard…The whole setup of life is against us. You have to grab what you can get, don’t you? I mean, to survive. Just to survive.”

Fremant did not agree. The long journey from Earth had been made in the hope of finding a better place. It was just a pity that various factions had sprung up on the ship after Reconstitution. But you could claim, he said, that life was better, if harder, in Haven than in the city they had left.

“No, that ain’t so. We were sheltered in Stygia City. These folk here live like beasts, scraping a living from the land, and they’ve got this cult thing to plague them. Who’s this Jesus they’re on about, I’d like to know?”

“Well, the children appear happy and content, on the whole.”

“Appear?
Appear?
All sorts of things
appear,
don’t they, dear?”

Privately, Fremant thought to himself that Bellamia’s mind was not likely to open up to new ideas. He saw that Essanits was a tormented man, and that the idea of a benevolent god looking down from space was calming to his spirit. For the present, his thoughts went no further than that.

He awoke on the following morning to the realization he was free. There was nothing he had to do, no questions he had to answer, no duties to perform for a harsh master. He found it an uneasy sensation, as if he had suddenly ceased to have a function. He asked himself if he should not be unrestrainedly glad to be free. Yet there was a shadow behind his thought.

He ventured to say as much, rather jokingly, to Essanits, over breakfast.

“Only in the service of God are we truly free.”

Essanits’s statement irritated Fremant.

“That’s not what I mean by free.”

Essanits looked at him with a half-smile on his broad face. “Doubtless. What you mean by ‘free’ is to be at the mercy of your own random desires. What
I
mean by being free is free to travel down a straight road toward the perfect life of Christ.”

He thought Essanits was mad. Essanits smiled and nodded, well in agreement with himself.

“How can you know about this ‘perfect life of Christ’?”

“Happily, certain important discs survived the havoc of those final years on the ship.”

Fremant looked for Bellamia but she was nowhere to be seen. He inquired of Liddley, who said she had seen her going to work with a local man who made clothes.

“It’s none of your business what she does,” said Liddley, with a smile.

Fremant eyed her challengingly. “You have a certain air of independence about you. How’s that?”

Liddley made a dismissive gesture. “I have escaped from the land. My man works there but I have little in common with him. He does not think. I earn a pittance looking after people and children. That forces you to think…”

She pulled aside a sort of cape which covered her torso, to reveal a small child cradled there.

Fremant stared at it aghast. It was yellow of flesh. Its little arms were showing, clutching the cloth which supported it; they were thin as chicken legs. It did not move.

“This is the way I get my living,” said Liddley. “Apart from my teaching work, for which parents pay me what little they can.”

The mite at her breast had an overlarge hairless skull. Its body was withered, seemingly age-old. It stared unblinkingly at Fremant with opaque eyes, mouth drawn into a smile of queer meditative mirth.

“What is it?” he asked.

“She’s dying,” said Liddley, without emotion. She restored the cape over the baby. “Stygia doesn’t suit her. Sleep now, poor little love…”

F
REMANT WAS TIRED OF SORROW
and of sorrowing people. He needed something—he knew not what. At least he could be free to enjoy a little solitude.

He roamed out on the nearby hillsides, enjoying the fresh air, the songs of the various insects, the color and life of everything in his view. Sometimes he lay on the small, brittle herbs that grew here, stretched out, staring into the sky, gazing into its depths as into the depths of a clear pool.

Dacoims were abundant. He watched them. They were frisky little things, armor-plated, with large baby eyes—presumably, he guessed, so that they could see during Dimoff.

For many days he walked, entranced by what he thought of as the emptiness of the country. He came to a small pool, fed by a stream and shaded by an old tree. The sweet sound of flowing water detained him. He stripped off his few clothes, to search his body for signs of torture, the scars that tyranny had left, like markings on a map. He found nothing. Since he was naked, he plunged into the pool. The cold of the water made him gasp.

He struck out vigorously, kicking the water into a foam with his legs and feet.

Something else was swimming there. It came up from the depths at him, curious, or perhaps hungry. In sudden alarm, he grasped it and flung it onto the bank. It lay thrashing. He climbed out after it.

The creature was two feet long, clad in chitin scales which the water had smoothed against its body. It was certainly not a fish, having no fins or gills. There were four clawlike appendages, which reached up to grasp Fremant. The head, attached to an ungainly body, appeared only slightly similar to a human’s, while its protruding jaws suggested something like a bird’s beak. He stood over it. It stared up at him with four multifaceted eyes, making low continuous noises.

He shivered to look at it, was frightened of it; taking up a stone, he smashed its skull, which delivered forth a foaming, creamy mass. Then he regretted doing so. Had the creature been hostile? he asked himself. Perhaps it had been merely curious, as he was curious.

He knelt by it to examine it and its sexual quarters. The longing for a woman came upon him—for a woman’s embrace, for her ardor and pleasure; for her love.

He remained, thinking, on the bank, the sound of the water unheeded. Here was this miraculous world of Stygia, almost unexplored, little understood. Why did men not explore it, instead of dividing into factions and quarreling, one group against another group? Did they fear it so much? Maybe if they ventured into the interior they would find this Jesus walking there, robed in purity.

At length he stood up. He gazed into the water, wondering if the dead creature had a mate lurking in its depths. He did not venture into the pool again.

After days of wandering, he came to a small valley where salack grew profusely, low to the ground. It flowered with a little blue-and-white flower, very sweet smelling. He gathered handfuls of it and made himself a bed. The scent had a dizzying effect, not unpleasant. He made no attempt to eat it.

As he was lying there, a flying creature, with wings that might have been cut from colored paper, and a long stalklike tail, settled on his chest. Alarmed, Fremant, in one quick movement, seized it in his fist and crushed it to death. He sat up in fear and revulsion, shaking its sappy remains from his hand. He was in an alien land. He did not know whether or not such insects were harmless.

And he thought of himself, Always this impulse to kill…

Nor did he know what beasts might roam the country, which consisted of savannah, scrub, and small trees. In the region where he now found himself, small twittering things like grasshoppers, walking on long legs, often came near him in the daytime. They scampered off when he tried to approach. In the day, they seemed playful; but as the sun set and dusk drew on, these creatures sought refuge in the branches of small trees, weaving webs for cradles, to become silent and huddle together, clutching one another.

Fremant inferred from this that there must be large predators on the prowl by night. He also took to a safe tree, driving off the grasshopper-things in order to have the upper branches to himself. It was chillier there than on the ground but, he was sure, safer. He, too, wished he had someone to huddle with. He slept badly, unsure of what might lurk below, at ground level.

Sometimes he seemed to be freezing, sometimes floating.

Rousing one night, he saw the Brothers trailing overhead. They shed a fugitive light on the world below. He watched them with a sort of longing. In the LPR for centuries of space travel, the mortals preserved there had lost all personal characteristics, all history of personal relationships. Men had no wives, women no mothers. Only overhead remained the symbolic relationship of brotherhood. The future was everyone’s dubious bride.

In his exhaustion, as he turned restlessly, he thought he heard the tread of predators. All was confusion. Was it two—or was it three—days since they had allowed him to sleep? He was made to stand in a corridor by a closed door. A guard watched over him. He was weak. He had stood there shivering for an hour, two hours. He fought against the tears of weakness that threatened.