Gods of the Greataway (31 page)

Zozula and Selena arrived and stood looking at the Girl for a long time. Brutus blinked and scratched, wondering how to tell them his news.

Eventually he spoke in a rush. “I added a sample of the Bale Wolf’s venom to a True Human gene culture, but I had to destroy it. For a while it grew fast and I thought there was an embryo developing. But then …” He gulped. “It wasn’t anything like a human embryo. It was a crawling thing, and it began to move about too soon. I recycled it quickly.”

“How about tissue samples?” asked Selena.

“I tried that, too. The result was the same.”

Zozula was regarding the Girl. “She’s become so thin, so quickly. She won’t last much longer.” His eyes were unnaturally bright when he turned back to Brutus. “We’ve failed. Everything was for nothing. I don’t understand it …” A vision of an old woman came to him, and the way she had described Time and the quest of the Triad. “Maybe it’s just that we’re on the wrong happentrack,” he said. “But I was so
sure
. I suppose it was simply my arrogance again. I was assuming everything we did was important, when in fact it had no significance at all. And now I’ve killed the Girl.”

“You did everything you could, Zo.” said Selena. “You had to try to cure the neotenites. And at least you know now why they’re dying.”

“But I can’t do anything about it. The fireman on the Celestial Steam Locomotive is Death himself. He’s inevitable, and we can’t fight him. Like the Locomotive itself, he’ll always exist. And that stupid smallwish Silver will always introduce people to him. Nobody is truly immortal, because even if their bodies receive the best of care, there comes the time when their minds decide to call it quits.”

“I
suppose so.” Selena took Zozula’s hand. “Thank God you didn’t get scratched, Zo. And at least Manuel isn’t here to see the Girl die. What happened to him, anyway?”

“I sent him home.” Zozula’s tone was short.

“Why? Wouldn’t he have wanted to stay with the Girl?”

“He did, but I wouldn’t let him. Don’t you understand? All of this is my fault. I couldn’t stand his watching the Girl die. He was very fond of her, you know. He was beginning to blame me, and he was right.”

Selena regarded the Girl. “I wouldn’t have believed a person could change so quickly. That venom is pure poison — she’s no heavier than me, now. In an hour or two she’ll be little more than a skeleton. Even her face has changed.”

“And she’s grown eyelashes,” said Zozula. “Her hair is much thicker, too.”

“If you forget the way she ought to look,” said Selena slowly, “she’s really quite attractive. What a pity she can’t stay just like this.”

“I think she might!” Brutus suddenly swung round to face them, and there was a blazing light in his eyes. “The Bale Wolf’s venom would have killed you, Zozula — my tests proved that. You’re a True Human. But the Girl isn’t; she lacks something. What she lacks is what the Bale Wolves took away with them, all those thousands of years ago. And now … I think this Bale Wolf has given it back to her, in its venom. Look at her!”

The Girl was breathing easily now, slim and pretty.

“She’s going to be all right,” said Brutus.

*

Selena and Zozula returned to Lord Shout’s room. It seemed to be an appropriate place to consider the future, up here where the land was spread before them.

After a while Zozula said, “We’re close to the time when our duty is done. I should be feeling pleased about this. So why don’t I, Selena? Why do I feel scared?”

She
laid a hand on his sleeve. “We’ve lived a long time. It isn’t easy to face change. And you’re wrong about our duty being done. We’ll be spending the rest of our lives organizing the release of the New People. We can’t just turn them loose to starve. We have to build a new society Outside. We and our children. Our True Human children.”

“Except that they won’t be True Humans for long,” said Zozula. “Ironic, isn’t it? In generations to come, they’ll evolve and adapt. They’ll develop big lungs to cope with the thin air, and there will be other changes. They’ll turn into Wild Humans.”

“And there’s another factor.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“You remember what the saybaby told us about the Macrobes and the Everlings?”

“Yes. The Everlings were a failed experiment, weren’t they?”

“That’s right. Now Brutus has found out they weren’t the only experiment that took place in those days. Listen to this.”

Holding tight to the memory potto, she told Zozula a story. It is a story that, in later years, assumed the quality of a legend, and is sometimes heard in the Song of Earth under the title of “The Giant of Buenos.” The final version, polished by the minstrels, goes like this:

Once there was a tiny creature called a Macrobe that lived within a larger creature, called an Everling. It was the Macrobe’s sworn duty to spread his kind throughout the Galaxy, and this he had done in many ways, but now he was trapped in the Everling because this creature could not reproduce.

Then the great god Starquin, scanning the Ifalong, found that this Macrobe was important in the scheme of things and must be taken back to Earth, because it would soon be needed there. So one night, while the Everling was asleep, Starquin sent a bat to suck his blood. When the bat had finished, it flew to a Rock, where an old woman caught it and, by mysterious means, dispatched it to Earth. And the Macrobe went, too, having passed into the bat with the Everling’s blood.

Now, the bat was a dull, stupid creature, but the Macrobe was very clever — and moreover, the Macrobe had a very strong sense of self-preservation. Arriving on Earth, it caused the bat to seek out the most powerful creature around. This creature was a huge Wild Human who for years had terrorized a village of Earth known as Buenos. And this giant, annoyed by the bat fluttering around his head, caught it in his great paw and ate it. Now the Macrobe had a very powerful host.

The giant
then went out on one of his periodic rampages. He strode into the village of Buenos and kicked down several huts. Then, as was his custom, he demanded a ransom.

“Otherwise,” he roared, “I will lay waste the entire region!” And, within the giant, the Macrobe was sad because it seemed to the little parasite that the giant was asking for trouble.

As it happened, the Macrobe need not have worried, because the villagers were under the influence of the Kikihuahua Examples. They used no metal or fire, they didn’t kill anything and they were generally peaceable. The Macrobe, however, did not know this.

Now the giant seized Asesina, the beautiful daughter of the village chief and bore her to his cave. She lay there unresisting all that night, and he possessed her many times.

In the morning a deputation from Buenos approached the cave entrance, and the chief called timidly for the release of his daughter. “She has served you well,” he cried, “and the ransom is now as good as paid.” But at the first rustlings within the cave he backed off, and behind him his companions fled. “Mind you,” he called quickly, “I am a reasonable man and am willing to negotiate.”

But it was his daughter, Asesina, who appeared. Her clothes hung in tatters and she was drenched in blood.

“My darling!” called the chief. “What has he done to you?”

“It’s what I’ve done to him,” replied Asesina, brandishing a huge knife. “I’ve killed the bastard. And now,” she added, as smoke billowed from the cave. “I’ve set fire to his body.”

“But what about the Kikihuahua Examples?” cried her father.

“They were not relevant to the situation, Father. This came to me as a vision when I was lying beneath the weight of the giant. It seemed that I was possessed with an entirely new outlook, wherein the Examples had no place. My own safety became paramount, so as soon as I was able, I took the giant’s knife and drove it into his heart.”

“I cannot condone what you have done,” said her father. “But it’s good to have you back.”

Life in the
village of Buenos continued as before, except that Asesina had changed. She became stronger and fiercely loving and more than a little violent. The young men sought her out and loved her back such loving had not been known for centuries in the slow pace of the village. Asesina’s children grew up strong and loving, too. Even on his deathbed, however, her father lamented the change that had come over Asesina since that night with the giant.

“I can’t think what got into her,” he said.

*

This was substantially the story that Selena told Zozula, although the Rainbow’s version was less colorful, more factual.

“It’s interesting …” said Zozula. “So there used to be Macrobes out there.” He gazed at the panorama. Wisps of smoke rose from the village, where the Wild Humans were preparing for their annual festival.

“There still are,” said Selena. “I had the saybaby check out the local population. We may not be the only people who use the Inner Think, for instance. There are all kinds of things happening Outside that we know nothing about.”

“We have a lot of learning to do, and it’s ironic to think that the Wild Humans will be our teachers, after all I’ve said about them in the past. But I’ll get used to the idea.”

“The Macrobes will spread again, through us and the neotenites — the New People, that is. That will help.”

“I still find the idea of Macrobes a little unsettling, Lena. I always thought the Inner Think was just a knack.”

She smiled. “The Macrobes can only make things better. They’ve learned from their mistakes, too. By the way, the say-baby identified two people in Pu’este who have the Macrobes in their genes. One of them is an old priest; but he’s of no consequence.”

“And the other?”

“Manuel.”

T
he
Cuidadors showed Manuel out of the Dome, kindly but firmly. The quest was over. The Bale Wolf had been caught and the rest was up to the scientists. Zozula shook his hand and said he’d drop by in a couple of days and let him know how the Girl was, but that meanwhile there was no point in his hanging around.

Grieving for the Girl and angry at his dismissal, Manuel returned to Pu’este. By now it was midafternoon and the sun was hot overhead. He looked in at his shack and found everything in order, but the place didn’t seem to be his home anymore. His depression deepening, he climbed the bank and took the road inland. Wise Ana was not at home. Her little shop was closed, the wares all stacked inside, out of the sun. Barra the herdsman, strolling by with a baby vicuna in his arms, said he hadn’t seen Ana for days. Manuel walked on to the village.

He met a scene of frenzied activity. Women sat before their cottages working busily with thread and bright raffia. Men brought armfuls of straw, stirred vats of dye and built a great mountain of combustibles in the middle of the but circle. Children ran about, squealing with excitement, getting in the way and earning the sharp disapproval of their elders. Only old Insel was unaffected, lying flat on his back as usual, cloud-gazing and muttering prophesies.

Chine bustled
up. “You, Manuel. Go over to the north slope and bring in the animals. Quickly, now.”

It was a poor task for Manuel, Space rider and conqueror of the Bale Wolves, so he ignored the old chief, instead wandering away among the huts.

Today was Horse Day. Tonight would be a time of feasting and celebration, culminating in the huge bonfire, the great Dance when the Horse would vanquish the Snake, the ceremonial Pouring-on-of-Waters and the blessing from Dad Ose.

After his initial annoyance — Manuel hated Horse Day, with its aftermath of drinking and sex and outbursts of violence — he decided that maybe it was no bad thing. He needed some activity to take his mind off the Girl and the Dome and his empty feeling that somehow things had ended before they’d begun. So he helped the women spin their flossy balls of cottonweed that would represent horse clouds in the coming pageant. The young men glanced at him in scorn as they passed by Manuel had become even more weird during his traveling.

Later, as darkness fell, the village became quieter. People retired to their cottages to dress up. On the far side of the meadows the dancers prepared the Horse and the Snake, their shadowy, secretive movements revealed in flashes of light from their lanterns. Manuel wondered whether to go and see how they were getting along, then decided instead to see if Wise Ana had returned.

Her shop was still closed, however. Standing in the darkness, he toyed with the idea of walking to the Dome, but decided against it. He went home instead and turned on his Simulator and began to fashion a mind-painting from his memories of Polysitia: the grass, the heaving shoreline, the whales.

In his introspective mood he did well, and the shapes that swirled within the box were subtle and evocative — and presently, without his consciously willing it, a face began to form in the background. At first he thought it was Belinda coming through again, and he almost switched the machine off because he could not bear to relive the terrible moment of her death — and that was his most prominent memory of Belinda now Somehow the tenderness had faded, leaving violence and a flying body, twisted and broken, disappearing into the ocean and lost forever. He didn’t want to go through that again. But something stopped his hand as he reached for the knob.

This face
wasn’t Belinda.

It is not always possible to
recognize
a face in a Simulator. Sometimes there is only an impression, a feeling and a movement and a few touches of light and color that somehow suggest a person. Now Manuel looked at the mind-painting and wondered who the person could be. Two things were certain: She was nice, and she was pretty. He rather thought she had dark hair and an elfin appearance, with mischievous brown eyes, like that oil painting in Selena’s quarters. She was fun, and she cheered him up.

He added a few touches, then switched off the Simulator and made his way back to the village, feeling much better.

*

A girl danced toward him, covered with puffy white cotton-balls that glowed pink in the firelight. She danced with a swaying movement that was meant to be seductive, and under the cottonballs she was naked. Manuel watched her and smiled. A certain side of a girl’s character could be gauged by the number of cottonballs she wore. This girl showed more skin than cotton, and what few balls she wore were not placed to conceal anything much except her face.