Phthor (15 page)

The killchill would actually be a modification of the chill. It could not be initiated until triggered by the arrival of the chill at Chthon in §426, since the extragalactic entities were more advanced in radiation technology than Chthon. The code for its magnification into completely killing intensity was buried within the chill wave itself, and Chthon could not anticipate that secret. So it prepared its basic circuits and waited for the formula.

But somehow the forces of Life, perhaps alerted by Benjamin, had fathomed this threat, and mounted an invasion of the caverns just before the chill wave arrived. This caught Chthon by surprise; never before had life-forms come voluntarily to the caverns. Deprived of most power weapons, the invaders had adapted other hand instruments—and sent as shock troops the subspecies most resistant to Chthon’s internal weapon. Thus the army of minionettes, who perceived the myxo siege as the utmost delight. It was a savage, sophisticated campaign, with an advance agent whose mission was to subvert the human element of Chthon’s defense.
 
“Vex!” Arlo exclaimed, aware now how well she had succeeded.

A disturbance developed as he spoke that name. “What’s happening?” he demanded, seeking the return tunnel.

An encounter between Chthon’s minion and Life’s, Chthon explained mentally.
 
Arlo grasped the references immediately. “Bedside and Vex! She must have tuned in on me when I thought of her, and come—” For he still loved his minionette, desiring her beyond all else. If she should return to him—

What she offers is not for you, Chthon warned.

“I’ll judge for myself!” And Arlo wrenched himself back to his physical body. With great effort, he cracked open his eyes.

Bedside and Vex were fighting, literally, physically. Bedside had a scalpel in one hand, its point orienting steadily on the girl, but he did not attack. Vex seemed not to watch the blade, but she stalked him carefully, never laying herself open for a thrust.

Vex made a feint to her right, then suddenly whirled left, grabbing the knife-wrist with her left hand while her right came across to catch under his right shoulder. Her knees bent as she continued her turn, and she heaved the man up and over her shoulder.

Arlo recognized the maneuver. It was one of the throws his father knew, part of the spaceman’s judo, which skill derived from older martial arts of Earth. No doubt there existed a volume somewhere, similar to LOE, but instead of covering the Literature of Old Earth, this would be COA: Combat of Old Earth. If it were as rich as LOE, it would be a devastating text!

For a moment he saw Bedside flipping over her shoulder, his feet flying up as his body came down face-up on the cavern floor. A bruising landing! But Arlo’s anticipation deceived him, for Bedside did not take the fall. Instead he jerked to his left, stepping forward, his right elbow looping over her head—and Vex was left straining at nothing.

Instantly she attacked again, and he whirled to face her, the knife on guard. Her attempted throw had been very pretty— but it was as if he had expected it, so readily had he foiled it.

Perhaps Chthon had read her intent and guided the doctor’s response. No—Chthon could not enter the mind of a minionette! Bedside, though he talked rationally, was actually largely directed by Chthon. Surely Vex had been well trained in combat, and had accepted Arlo’s first blow, back at their first meeting, merely to instill in him that initial guilt and remorse that had so undermined him. But her antagonist was not a normal man. Bedside was more and less than human, and under Chthon’s directive he could accomplish things that the man alone could not.

Yet Bedside, however directed, did not seem to be trying to kill her. Arlo realized that the key lay not with Vex but with him, Arlo: because of the contract he had made with Chthon. No direct attack on the minionette. The man was merely balking her; Vex was doing the attacking.

Why? She had gone to Aton, her father, in the minionette fashion. Or would, eventually, inevitably. Why should she come here to Arlo, however much he might long for her? Not to kill him, certainly; his hvee still rested in her hair, glowing brightly blue, distinct from all other plants. Had she changed her mind, renounced the compelling call of her ancestry, returned to her brother? Or had Aton rejected her, absolutely? It hardly mattered, so long as she did return!

Vex moved toward Arlo. Bedside blocked her way with the scalpel, warningly. That was his mistake. She knocked the arm out, then caught the wrist and shoved him back with a twisting motion. Bedside scuttled back and to the side, regaining his balance—but she shoved him into the cavern wall, half stunning him before Chthon could guide his defense. Because she had reacted to his thrust, instead of initiating a planned attack, Chthon had been unable to anticipate her. She had reflexes like those of a salamander: a dangerous opponent, especially when mindless.

Vex clubbed Bedside on the wrist, jarring loose the blade. Then she jammed her fingers into his neck, interrupting the supply of blood to his brain. Even Chthon could not reanimate him immediately—and seconds were all she needed to win through to Arlo.

“Arlo, beloved—I know you can hear me,” she said.

Her telepathy informed her he was conscious, of course. He didn’t move. He could see her also, but deemed it inexpedient to let her know if he didn’t have to. She had fought her way to him; what was her intent?

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, kneeling beside him so that her breasts were almost above him. “You know my mother—your grandmother Malice—is dead. I am destined to take her place, in the minion fashion. It isn’t that I don’t love you—it’s that I can’t go against my nature. Arlo, believe me, I didn’t know my father was still alive...”

Arlo waited. She certainly hadn’t offered him much of an inducement to respond; she had only confirmed what Chthon had warned. Nothing for him here.

“I came to subvert you, as you know. But they did not tell me who you were, that you were my father’s son. I thought you were a stranger until you talked of Malice. And even then, though I had met Aton, I did not realize that he was the Aton Five, whom I thought dead. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I accepted you as my brother without following the obvious reasoning through, perhaps because it was obvious that Coquina, your mother, was no minionette. Until Bedside forced it on me. On Minion there is never a brother and sister; our minds simply do not work that way. So I erred and made you a promise I could not keep; therein is my crime.”

He could accept that much. Aton had legally died when he was sent to Chthon—and the minionette only birthed one child at a time. Aton’s connection with two minionettes and a human woman was extraordinary, in Minion terms. There would naturally be much resistance to these concepts, to one raised on Minion. And it would not be easy to change one’s concept of a man legally dead to actually alive, unless a specific issue were made of it.

There were tears on her face, evidence that Vex was suffering in exactly the way a normal girl would. She was not receiving his emotion, which was deadened at the moment; she was experiencing her own, and it did her credit. “But I know this hurts you, Arlo, and though I am what I am, I would not hurt you voluntarily, because you were my betrothed...”

Were...

“But we have forgotten that another person will be hurt, too. I don’t want to hurt anybody—not that way. Minionettes have feelings just like yours—you’re quarter-minion so you know that’s true—only the telepathy inverts them. Your mother Coquina would be left out, and she has nothing because she can’t even leave her cave. She needs to be considered; it isn’t right to take Aton away and leave her nothing. She’s not a minionette, not part of the scheme.”

So Vex had a human conscience, too! Would she renounce her minion heritage? She was right about Coquina; the shell did not deserve this treatment!

“So I’ve worked out a compromise,” Vex said, “and I wanted you to know. There is no need for anyone to suffer further.”

Doc Bedside stood up, but did not interfere. What point? Arlo loved Vex; if she were his, Chthon could retreat into its rock and be forgotten—if that were the price of it. If she were really his. It would hurt him to renounce Chthon—but that very hurt would attract her more strongly to him.

Minion logic and custom differed from normal human, but the logic of the situation forced a common answer. Two could not steal their happiness at the expense of two others.

Arlo gathered his forces, preparing to step out of his trance the moment she said the word.

“When I go with Aton,” Vex said brightly, “you go with your mother Coquina. That will establish two legitimate genetic ladders, and no one will be excluded.”

Arlo retreated to the world of LOE, the garden of his mind. He shied away from the Oedipus/Electra mythologies, seeking something less painful, yet applicable. A framework for his situation, buried in the massed Human wisdom of the book.

Interior °°

Yggdrasil
  
Sentience

Great World Tree
           
Galactic Habitats

Whose roots extend
       
Heaven/Purgatory/Hell

Into three realms
      
Idyllia/Prison/Caverns
 
The Gods
  
Aesir—Vanir

The Giants
           
Zombies

The Dead
 
Chthon

History of Aton Five’s mergence with Chthon

Shape of a Hexagon

Garnet-faceted

Grafted by mineral intellect

History of Arlo’s divergence from Chthon

Shape of a Y

Antennae marking bifurcate futures:

Victory of Chthon
          
Victory of Life

Center marking the decision.

00

And found himself in Norseland.

Aesir—his dead brother. In the Norse mythos, the Aesir were gods who resided in Asgard, the great walled city that was the divine residence. Chief among these gods was Odin, he of the single eye, maker of golden rings.

Arlo paused, feeling a shock of recognition. He knew that figure! It was his father Aton.

Odin possessed an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir. Sleipnir had come about when the friend/enemy god Loki took the form of a mare to distract the remarkable stallion of a giant—and had subsequently birthed Sleipnir. As Bedside had fashioned Aton’s steed, by merging with the caterpillar. So Loki was—Doc Bedside. How well it fit!

Odin had two wives. The first was Freyja, a Valkyrie or warrior maiden, in one of her aspects. Malice the Minionette!

With climbing excitement, Arlo explored the other parallels available. Odin’s second wife was Frigga, the mother of his two sons—though he seemed to have had other children on a less legitimate basis (Morning Haze)—and a somewhat less extravagant female than Freyja. This was Coquina, of course.

And the first legitimate son was—Balder. Balder was beautiful. But as Balder grew older, he became disturbed by nightmares. These gave him a premonition of impending doom and colored his whole outlook, making him melancholy.

Alarmed, Odin made a trek to the world of the dead to inquire about his son’s prospects. He rode his eight-legged steed (Arlo paused: an anachronism here—but time was fluid and the parallels inexact) along the rough and dangerous road, crossing the bridge that spanned the river marking the boundary of the underworld.

Everywhere he saw preparations being made for a great celebration. When he inquired, he was told that the Underworld was making ready to welcome Balder. He inquired further about the manner of his son’s death, but could learn no more.

But Frigga was determined to save her son from his fate. She set out to obtain a pledge from all things of the world that none would harm Balder. All promised—except one she overlooked, a sprig of mistletoe.

Now Balder seemed safe. The other gods made a game of throwing a great variety of things at him, knowing that none would hurt him. But Loki fashioned a dart from the mistletoe and got a blind god to throw that. It struck and killed Balder.

So that was how Bedside had killed Aesir!

Frigga sent an emissary to Hel, the goddess of the Underworld, to plead for the return of Balder. “All nature mourns for him,” he said.

Hel told the emissary that if not even one thing did not weep for Balder, then she would have to release him. So they made a survey-and Loki changed himself into the likeness of an old woman and refused to weep. And so Balder was lost.

This was the signal of the beginning of the end, for the gods had been unable to preserve their most cherished one. It portended the extinction of the gods at Ragnarok, the final battle between Good and Evil.

(Again Arlo paused: In the old Norse framework, the entire pantheon of gods, giants and dead had been “good” in that it was the established way of belief. All of it had fallen— to Christianity. In that sense, Christianity was the Evil that had triumphed—yet had the Christians seen it that way? How could any person really know Good from Evil?)

But the gods had discovered what Loki had done, and they punished him severely by binding him in a deep cave under dripping poison. He remained in that torture until Ragnarok.

Arlo worked it out. Benjamin’s revenge had confined Bedside to the caverns. Chthon had put him into the caterpillar. He had paid for his crime both intellectually and physically!