Ardor on Aros (7 page)

I chewed on that. (I have to; I’m built that way. I can’t just
accept,
like a standard brainlessly brawny hero. Besides, I wasn’t brawny then, anyhow.)

Maybe…maybe Burroughs’ novels, and those amazingly similar ones of Otis A. Kline’s, and others that seemed pieces of clothe loomed the same day—maybe they ARE true. Maybe there was or is a John Carter somewhere, a Carson Napier, a Miles Cabot, or the new Cabot, Tarl. Not on Mars or Venus. But somewhere else, as I am. (I should say as I
was,
since I am recording my thinking
at that time,
now long ago.)

Perhaps I’d find others here from Earth, some of those thousands of famous disappearances that have puzzled our planet for centuries. Maybe that famous story about the gentleman—in England, wasn’t it?—who walked around his carriage one night and vanished—maybe it’s the story of a man who lived and died on Aros, or Andor (which certain DOES exist), or someplace else.

Maybe Burroughs and Kline and those other writers got the facts bollixed. Or maybe they deliberately placed their stores on planets in the system of the sun Sol, in Earth’s celestial backyard, to make their stories—homier. Mars and Venus, after all, are the worlds next door. Aros—well, I don’t know. I looked up that day, and I shook my head. I didn’t remember that either of the Centaurii was
orange!

My stolid mount and I plodded along, a hundred feet or so out from where the forest dribbled out to become this perdurable plain—why? Why the suddenness: desert, bang, forest, just like that? It didn’t seem possible. The line of demarcation was minuscule. Dust and rocks here, a tiny twilight zone of scraggly grass, and: rich greenery and foliage. I didn’t have an explanation, but again I chewed on it, because I
like
explanations. I’d asked why all my life, and I saw no reason to stop just because I was someplace other than Earth.

The dense jungles of Africa and the Sahara Desert are on the same continent, yes. And in California there are floods, snows, vineyards, earthquakes, and deserts. And what else, along with the desert: the world’s champion trees! And Aros is certainly bigger than California, or America either. The curvature would be much more pronounced, the horizon a lot closer, the day a lot shorter, otherwise.

But that wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t sell myself. Deserts don’t just become jungles like that—snap!

Things are not what they seem, Hank.

Yeah, well, look Hank
₂
, that ain’t no explanation. This world seems more and more the product of a diseased mind!

ERB and Kline and I had by now worked out a pretty decent sleeping arrangement. They seemed able to sleep forever or for a short time, until awakened, and without moving more than a little. For the past several nights I had curled close to ERB, sleeping on his saddle blanket with my removed
stoba
(read “burnūs;” burnous, if you don’t know any better) serving as a coverlet. We slept that way that first night of paralleling the jungle or forest. It was somewhat warmer at night, although seemingly a bit cooler by day. More impossibility.

Our sleep was disturbed. ERB woke me; I lurched up to a sitting position to see a pair of yellow eyes glowing at us out of the darkness. ERB growled. The eyes blinked. I called. There was no answer. I fitted an arrow to my bow and tried to aim between and just below the eyes. But I had not replaced the cover that slid off as I sat up. I shivered just as I loosed my long Vardor shaft, and neither roar nor scream of pain greeted my shot. The eyes, however, left, apparently having got the message.

One thing I noticed: ERB had, for the first time, growled. He WAS closer to the lupine or canine family than to the equine one then, even though his phytophagous nature was obvious: the way he stripped those trees of their leaves!

I took a long time going back to sleep. ERB dropped off instantly.

In the morning I went out to examine the tracks. There were lots: man-tracks. Barefooted. My arrow was imbedded in the ground just in front of the foremost of one set. I must have fair wiped his nose for him. A man, emerging from the jungle to stare at me, in silence. But—a man with
glowing yellow eyes?

I retrieved the arrow and went back to make breakfast. I let the slooks over to the jungle and tethered them where they could make their own salad.

Using my sword, I chopped firewood from a fallen tree. God bless the Vardors: their flint-and-steel worked beautifully, and the meat from their supply tasted a lot better cooked. I ate, sitting on the thin growth of grass that trickled out from the forest, as if it were trying to fight off the desert—or being driven back by it. I wondered if there were animals in that forest. And what about the spy I’d shat at last night? Big golden eyes that left man-tracks?

They looked like bird eyes, or cat eyes. I glanced at the silent forest. (Why no bird noises?) A cat?
Just what I need,
I thought:
a lion or something.
Very deadly and, as I remember, also fast. I’ve seen lions only on TV, in movies, and in the Cincinnati Zoo. Mangy looking beasts, like overgrown housecats who still haven’t grown into their too-loose skin.

I ate my dried-meat breakfast, wondering about the possibility of edible fruits over in those trees—
and
lions, tigers, boa constrictors, etc. etc. etc. My eating was not so exuberant as they way my slooks went ate those fresh tree leaves, snaffling them up with enough noised for sixteen animals.

I finished breakfast, got things together and packed, stamped my fire out—dead out, Smokey—and mounted up.

“Dammit ERB,” I told my mount, and he put back one ear. “I’m lonely! Not that you aren’t a good ole buddy-pal, but I’d sure like to
exchange
remarks with somebody.”

ERB plodded unconcernedly and silently on. But of course I had my opportunity to converse mighty soon. Remember the man-tracks and the golden eyes? Well—

They wore longish white garments that flapped about their shins, ridiculously, anachronistically resembling lab smocks. With boots. And belts, and broad swords like machetes. They were all dark men, none bearded, none with as much as a mustache. But with straight black hair to the shoulders.

Each man had a bird on his head. Yeah, that’s what I said: a bird on his head. A large, green, yoke-footed, yellow-faced bird with a downcurved beak that gave him a severe, disapproving expression. And pop eyes. Parrots. One rode the head of each man—each attacker. They came swarming out of the jungle, deployed intelligently to surround me, and halted. They had blowguns.

I got the message: I lowered my bow and let he arrow slide toe ground.

“Do you surrender?”

A raucous voice, an ear-tearing, head-knifing voice: a parrot’s harsh voice. I looked at him. He looked like all the rest. They appeared to be ordinary
Psittacidâe,
Amazon brand, all of them looking just like Dr. Blakey’s foul fowl, Pope Borgia.

“You spoke?”

“Of course I spoke, man. You think it was one of these human yoyos? Here: speak for the stranger, Jummy!” He flapped his shiny green wings, buffeting the long-haired head of the man he rode. The fellow lowered his blowgun from his lips and opened his mouth and spoke:

“Jummy wants a cracker?”

Before I could begin to assimilate that, me and my weak knees and spinning head—much less react with more than a dropped jaw—he added:

“E equals em-see-squared, probably, but who the hell can prove it?”

He spoke in English. Accent: Dr. Blakey’s. And I’d heard Blakey say that more than once; he’d taught it to Pope Borgia.

Staring, I managed to firm my lips and most of the rest of my facial muscles. I lifted my chin.

“Great,” I said, in English, with asperity. “Is he your—pet?”

Sure it sounded ridiculous. It is a ridiculous concept. But it was there in my mind, and I knew the answer before the green monstrosity replied:

“What else? I asked if you surrender?”

I looked around. I was surrounded by blowguns, most of them leveled at me. I nodded. “Kamerad. I mean—I surrender. You don’t speak German too, do you?” I decided against adding “ugly.” One should be careful about insulting one’s future—master.

“Blakey, you and Hank take charge of those beasts of his. Mishay, bring his weapons. All right you, come along with us.”

I couldn’t take it seriously. It wasn’t possible. The men said nothing—except Jummy, when prompted, as one prompts a pet or a child to do its thing. (No, I don’t equate them—you do. Did you have your child do
its
thing today, for Gramma or Uncle Charlie or Mr. Roberts?) But I looked around, and what I saw was a circle of Amazon headhunters complete with blowguns—and lab smocks. I tried to ignore the latter. It was the former made me nod.

“OK. Where we going?”

“To the Master. Come along.”

I went along. Some of the parrot-ridden zombies preceded me, others followed. We went into the jungle. That’s what it was, a jungle, not a forest. I’ve never seen a South American jungle, only movies But I had the feeling that if I could see an Amazon basin jungle, it would look like this. Trees, vines, undergrowth, extravagant flowers, funny noises, all of it. No—not quite. I saw no snakes, I saw no beasts, and every tree was heavy with fruit, most of it hyper ripe; the clichéd word, I think, is “lush.” I didn’t see a single fruit that wasn’t ready to eat—yesterday. Perfect parrot food.

So we went through that jungle, and we didn’t see any snakes or jaguars or even guinea pigs. I felt as if I were on a Hollywood set, like those false-front Western towns. I felt as if I were maybe a little crazy—or more than a little. I wanted to sit down, I wanted to go to sleep, I wanted to go someplace and have a long solo skull session.

I had an unsane thought as to who/what I was going to face, and of course I was right. The silent men with the green birds surmounting their stringy-haired heads took me to their leader, their Master, and he and I started at each other.

“Hi, Pope Borgia.”

“Oh shit! It’s that damned Hank!”

“Pope Borgia, on this planet you may be a bigheaded big-ike, with a bunch of parrots riding on your human pets. But I’m not one of them. I’m an alien to Aros as much as you are. For all I know we’re the only people from Earth here.”

He regarded me from his round, staring eyes, his head cocked. He blinked (or nictitated, whatever the phrase is for yellow-faced, green parrots).

“You calling me a people, Hank?”

“Pope Borgia, it is obvious to me that you are a people. You are in charge here, and you and I are conversing. I don’t know
how,
but we are. Sure, I’m calling you people And I’ll tell you this: I’m really glad to see you.”

Another long, silent scrutiny: popeyed. “Hank, you make me want to cry,” Dr. Blakey’s lovely parrot said. “Really. But I can’t. I watched Evelyn, and I tried, but I can’t do it. I’ll tell
you
this: I’m glad to see you, too. You call me people. Hank, I’ll be oxidized if I don’t make you an official parrot, I swear I will.”

“Well I’ll be oxidized”—a favorite Dr. Blakey expression.

“I’ll be honored,” I said. “And I am now going to sit down.”

I did. It wasn’t my idea; my legs just didn’t feel like standing up any more. There I Stood, on a planet called Aros, in an Amazonian jungle, surrounded by Amazonian headhunters—in lab smocks—with blowguns in their hands and parrots on their heads, telling them what to do. I was conversing with a parrot who could converse. A perfectly normal Earthside parrot who (that?—he’s a “who” to me!) the last time I had seen him had possessed a vocabulary (constantly extolled by his owner) of forty-seven words. That is if you count “E equals em-see-squared” as five, which I’d felt was cheating a little.

And I had called him a people, and meant it, and he had promised to make me an official parrot, and I had said I was honored, and I meant that, too.

It was too much. I sat.

“This is my friend,” Pope Borgia said. “His name is Hank Ardor, he is from my hometown, and he’s an OK guy. As a matter of fact, regardless of appearance: he is a parrot. Treat him as such.”

Every parrot nodded. Every parrot-topped head nodded.

I was accepted.

I was a parrot.

“Did he send you too?” Pope Borgia asked later, as we messed about, sampling assorted fruits. He had given me a little something he’d found and brought here with him: Dr. Blakey’s chiming watch. Reversed. It must have been mighty heavy for a parrot to carry while flying. He’d gripped the chain.

“No,” I said. “I, uh, it was an accident.”

“Swell. Where d’you think we are, Hank?”

“Pope, I haven’t the faintest. It’s called Aros. It’s another world, another sun, different moon—moons. You understand
planet?
”

“Sure.” He raised one wing a little, which I took for a shrug. “I understand about all of it.”

“Can you account for that?”

“Beg pardon?”

I sprawled on the grass at the base of an enormous black-trunked tree. It wasn’t a banana tree, but that’s what it bore. Bananas. “Pope, I don’t want to insult you or anything like that, but let’s face it: parrots are bright birds. They can imitate human speech, even words. Some of them can be taught to repeat simple sentences, especially cockatoos and—“

Pope Borgia made an ugly noise and I stopped and started again. I’d already asked him how come no cockatoos or macaws or toucans, all members of the parrot family. He had advised me quiet positively that green is a beautiful color and he hated showoffs in fancy clothes.

“—Amazon parrots, the lovely green ones,” I finished with a trace of dissembling, and he preened. You realize that I use that verb literally, for once. “But—there’s never been a
conversing
parrot. I mean, you’re thinking, and we’re talking just like two—people, back on Earth.”

“Sure.”

“Well, let’s face it, Pope, you couldn’t do that back on Earth. How come you can here?”

He stared at me out of those big round eyes. “Never thought about it. Dr. Blakey and pigeon chest—Evelyn, I mean—“

“—I recognize the description—“

“—popped me into that bell thing of his. Suddenly I was very sick and in darkness. Then I was outside, in the bright sunshine. All I could see was a lot of yellow ground and some mountains. I don’t like mountains. I don’t like dust. I started flying. I didn’t know where I was going. But I flew—what else was there to do?”

“Nothing at all,” I replied; after all, he’d done precisely what I’d done, save that he came by air.

“Right. So after awhile I began to worry about all that yellow ground and no trees and everything. I thought how nice it was to be free. But what I wanted was a nice jungle. Just like home, with plenty of fruits and more parrots. Well, I kept thinking about it. And I kept flying—on and on. All of a sudden here was the jungle: home. Only better: none of those nasty snakes and stupid, noisy monkeys. No jaguars and things.

“It was all just what I wanted. I mean, me in charge. Humans as pets. Everybody talking to everybody but the humans just staying shut up till they’re told to speak or asked a question. They aren’t too bright. We take care of them. They make good pets. They can clean up after themselves, too.”

“They look just like the headhunters you must’ve seen in the jungles back home,” I said.

“Yes, they do. It was a gang of guys just like these that captured me. About twenty years ago or so. That’s how I wound up in America. Blakey bought me in a pet shop. He worked alone for years, you know. Talked to me all the time, teaching me to talk. I heard everything he said. After awhile I was understanding most of it. But I couldn’t seem to
say
all of it. I always though how nice it would be if I could talk, you know, conversation. Just like people. But I couldn’t seem to do it—until I got here.”

“Maybe this is a dream,” I said. “Maybe we’re dreaming? Hm, maybe we’re both having
your
dream.”

Pope Borgia looked about at the surrounding, goody-laden trees.

“Blakey used to talk about parallel worlds. Parallel universes. Said there was an infinite number of possibilities. It seemed likely to him that every possibility was a reality, somewhere. What the hell’s ‘infinite,’ Hank?”

“Too many and too much to think about. It’s a phrase people invented. We don’t understand it any more than you do; it means endless. Anyhow… you think—” YOU THINK! I paused to ponder that a moment. Yes, he sure did. Pope Borgia
thought.
“You think that this is one of those infinitely possible worlds, huh?”

He bobbed his head. “Sure. What else? This is the world where parrots run the show and humans are dummies. Except you, of course.”

“Well, that would explain some odd stuff—like those parrots of yours, and their pets, speaking English,” I said, thinking, frowning at an enormous yellow fruit swaying in a little breeze. “But—it leaves some holes.” I told him about Kro Kodres, and Jadiriyah, and the Vardors, and slooks. He listened, staring popeyed at me.

“Wow. Weird. Us parrots talk parrot talk and English. Our pets talk English, period. Give us some Kro Kodres talk.”

I did; he didn’t understand it. “Damn! I’m out of it again! Another lousy human language to learn—excuse me, Hank. So what’s your theory?
I
wouldn’t be dreaming any of the stuff you’ve been talking about. You?”

“Hm.” I watched the yellow fruit, swaying, swaying. I glanced at big-eyed Pope Borgia, perched on a low limb, looking hunched-up, his head cocked on one side, staring at me, waiting for the Word. I finally shook my head, fingering the backward-faced pocket watch.

“Maybe…but uh-uh. I wouldn’t have dreamed about a gal who didn’t bother to thank me and left me stranded on the desert. That’s not wish-fulfillment, that’s for sure!” I am a firm believer in Freudian dream interpretation. “Besides, I’d have dreamed her looking like Sophia Loren, not Elizabeth Taylor.”

Pope Borgia wagged his head. “Pigeon-chests, both of them.” He puffed his chest. “You should’ve been born a bird, Hank. ALL of us are chesty! But her name was…what?”

“Cor Jadiriyah.”

“What’s that mean?”

I frowned. It wasn’t a name, of course, I knew that. That’s why Kro Kodres had always put the
“cor”
in front of it: “the Jadiriyah.” A title, obviously. But I hadn’t tried to work out a meaning. What does “colonel” mean, or “janitor”? Besides, I’d had entirely too many mindblowing things to think about, and I’d just set that one aside. Now Pope Borgia prompted me to dope out what I should have done long ago.

Jadirn
is a ring, in this language.

Riyah? Iyah?
Nothing.

But wait—this was a pretty young language, pretty simple. Not overdeveloped and synchretistic, like English, from lifting pieces and patches from a dozen and more other tongues. Here words still retain their original meanings. “Reeyek,” then (spelled r-i-y-e-k). It means “to wear, to put on.” I nodded slowly.

“I’ll bet Jadiriyah means ring-wearer,” I mused aloud. “And it’s a title. From what I saw, it must mean ‘sorceress.’ Evidently she didn’t have the power to vanish, without the ring. With it—poof! So…a ring-wearer is a sorceress. A ring-wearer,
the
ring-wearer, the jadiriyah. Sure!”

“Maybe,” Pope Borgia suggested, “her name’s Elizabeth Taylor.”

I looked at him. He’d goosed me to dope out ring-wearer; now he gave me another thought. A tenuous wraith of a thought that drifted about the corridors of my mind like a tendril of fog—or maybe a tendril of light,
in
the fog.

“Oh God, Pope Borgia, I hope not! It’s all insane enough and mixed up as it is. But—oh lord!”