Galactic Pot-Healer (21 page)

Suddenly Glimmung halted. Something rose from Heldscalla and confronted him, a dim figure. Glimmung’s mice-scurrying thoughts poured over Joe, drenching him. From the thoughts Joe understood why Glimmung had ceased to move; he knew what the dim figure was.

A Fog-Thing. From antiquity. Which still lived. And it stood between Glimmung and Heldscalla.

Physically, literally, the Fog-Thing blocked the way.

“Questobar,” Glimmung said. “You are dead.”

The Fog-Thing said, “And, like everything else on this planet which is dead I live here, now. In Mare Nostrum. Nothing on the planet completely dies.” The Fog-Thing raised its arm, then pointed directly at Glimmung. “If you raise Heldscalla from out of the depths to dry land, you will
bring back to life the worship of Amalita and, indirectly, Borel. Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes,” Glimmung said.

“And with it ourselves? As we were before?”

Glimmung said, “Yes.”

“You no longer will be the dominant species on the planet.”

“Yes,” Glimmung said. “I know.” Through him rapid thoughts traveled, but they were thoughts of tension, not of fear.

“And you still intend to raise the cathedral? Knowing this?”

“It must be put on dry ground,” Glimmung said. “Back again where it belongs. Not down here in a world of decay.”

The Fog-Thing stepped aside. “I will not stop you,” it said.

Joy filled Glimmung; he rushed forward to seize Heldscalla, and with him they all plunged, too. All of them reached with Glimmung. All of them grasped the cathedral together. And, as they did so, Glimmung began to change. He devolved, rushing backward into time, becoming once more what he had long since ceased to be. He became powerful, wild, and wise. And then, as he lifted the cathedral, he changed again.

Glimmung became an enormous female creature.

Now the devolution reached the cathedral; it changed, too. In Glimmung’s arms it became an encased fetus, a small, sleeping child-creature wrapped tightly in the cocoon whose strands enveloped it. Without effort, Glimmung raised it to the surface; all of them cried out in delight as, in a glimmering instant, the cathedral broke through into the cold late-afternoon sun.

Why the change? Joe wondered.

Glimmung answered. Because, she thought back to Joe, at one time we were bisexual. This part of me has been suppressed throughout the years. Until I obtained it again I could not make the cathedral my child. As it has to be.

Under the weight of the child-creature the dry ground sagged and failed; Joe felt the ground sink away under the majestic weight. But Glimmung did not seem alarmed; gradually, she released the cathedral, unwilling to let it go, to let it once again be separate from her. I am it, she thought, and it is part of me.

A clap of thunder sounded and rain began to fall. Quietly, heavily, the rain soaked into everything; water gushed from the cathedral and wound a tortuous route back to Mare Nostrum. Now, by degrees, the cathedral regained its customary form. The child-creature gave way to concrete and rock and basalt, to flying buttresses and a soaring Gothic arch. Once again the red-stained glass, derived from gold, shone in the erratic light of a rain-clouded sunfall.

It is done, Glimmung thought. Now I can rest. The great fisherman of the night has received its victory. Everything has been set in order once again.

Let us go, Joe thought. That ever yet remains.

“Yes!” others of them dinned. “Release us!”

Glimmung hesitated; Joe felt her conflicting thoughts ebb back and forth. No, she thought. Because of you I have great authority; if I release you I will sink again, dwindle into smallness.

You must, Joe thought. That was our compact.

True, Glimmung thought. But you have so much to gain as portions of me. We can function for a thousand years,
and none of us will be alone
.

“A vote,” Mali Yojez said.

Yes, Glimmung thought. A vote among you, to see who wishes to remain within me and who chooses to separate into an individual entity.

I’ll stay, Nurb K’ohl Dáq thought.

So will I, the quasiarachnid thought.

The vote continued; Joe listened to them, some of them electing to remain, some of them electing to break free. I want to be released, he said, when his time came to vote. At
this Glimmung shuddered with dismay. Joe Fernwright, Glimmung thought. You are the best of them; won’t you remain?

No, Joe thought.

He walked a shadowy shore with dark shapes looming, a dense and permanent swamp somewhere in the wilds of Plowman’s Planet. How long had he been here? He did not know. Sometime before, he had been within Glimmung, and now he trudged painfully, the sharp sand lancing his feet as he struggled on.

Am I alone? he wondered. Halting, he peered into the twilight, trying to make out another life-form in his proximity.

The multilegged gastropod wriggled toward him. “I left with you,” the gastropod said.

“Anyone else?” Joe asked.

The gastropod said, “In the final vote only the two of us. All the others remained. I consider it incredible, but it is so—they remained.”

“Including Mali Yojez?”

“Yes,” the gastropod said.

So that was that. He felt the weight of centuries on him; the task of raising the cathedral and now the loss of Mali were too much. “Do you know where we are?” he asked the gastropod. “I can’t walk much farther.”

“Neither can I,” the gastropod said. “But there is a light to the north; I have drawn a paralactic fix on it and we are peregrinating in that direction. In another hour we should reach it, if I have computed our velocity correctly.”

“I can’t see the light,” Joe said.

“My vision is superior to yours. You will see it in another twenty minutes. It winks almost out; it is very fragile. Probably a spiddle colony, I would guess.”

“Spiddles,” Joe said. “Are we going to live the rest of our life with spiddles? Is that how we wind up after leaving all the others and Glimmung?”

The gastropod said, “From there we can go by hovercar to the Olympia Hotel, where our possessions can be found. And then we can return to our own planets. We did a good job; we did what we came here for. We should rejoice.”

“Yes,” Joe said somberly. “We should rejoice.”

“It was a great feat,” the gastropod insisted. “You can see that the legends which maintain that Faust must fail are not only false in relation to reality, but in addition—”

“Let’s talk about it,” Joe broke in, “when we get back to the Olympia Hotel.” He trudged on. After a moment of hesitation the multilegged creature followed after him.

“Is it very bad on your planet?” the gastropod inquired. “On Earth, as you call it?”

“‘On Earth,’” Joe said. “As it is in heaven.”

“It is bad, then.”

“Yes,” Joe said.

The gastropod said, “Why don’t you come with me to my world? I can get you a task…you’re a pot-healer, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Joe said.

“We have many ceramics on Betelgeuse two,” the gastropod said. “Your services would be in great demand.”

“Mali,” he said, half to himself.

Perceptively, the gastropod said, “I understand. But she’s not coming; she’s staying within Glimmung. Because, like the others, she is afraid to return to failure.”

“I think I’ll go to her planet,” Joe said. “From what she said about it—” He ceased speaking, continued to trudge. “Anyhow,” he said presently, “it would be better than Earth.” And, he thought, I’d still be among humanoids. Maybe, he thought, I’ll meet someone like Mali there. There is at least a chance.

In silence, the two of them continued on. Toward the far-off spiddle colony which, with each exhausted, halting, meager step, grew nearer.

“You know what I think your problem is?” the gastropod
said. “I think you ought to create a new pot, rather than merely patching up old ones.”

“But,” Joe said, “my father was a pot-healer before me.”

“Observe the success of Glimmung’s aspirations. Emulate him, who in his Undertaking fought and destroyed the Book of the Kalends and thus the tyrannic rule of fate itself. Be creative. Work against fate. Try.”

Joe said, “‘Try.’” He had never thought about it, a new pot of his own creation. Technically, he knew how; he understood exactly how a ceramic piece was made.

“In the workshop Glimmung provided you,” the gastropod said. “You have all the equipment and materials. With your knowledge and ability it should be a good pot.”

“Okay,” Joe said harshly. “Okay I will. I’ll try.”

In the new, gleaming workshop he stood, the overhead lights flooding down on him. He studied the major workbench, the three sets of waldoes, the self-focusing magnifying glasses, the ten separate heat-needles, and—every glaze: every tint, shade, and hue. The weightless area; he inspected that. The kiln. Jars of wet clay. And the potter’s wheel, electrically driven.

Hope welled up within him. He had all he needed. Wheel, clay, glazes, kiln.

Opening a jar he got out of it a dripping lump of gray clay; he carried the clay to the potter’s wheel, started it turning, and plopped the clay down dead center. And on my first try, he said to himself, feeling pleased. Using his strong thumbs he began to dig into the lump, meanwhile, with his fingers, drawing the lump into something high. And virtually symmetric. Higher and higher the mound grew, and deeper and deeper his thumbs sank into it, hollowing out the center.

At last it was done.

He dried the clay in an infrared oven and then, taking a simple glaze, he ornamented the pot. One more color? He
selected a second glaze, and that was enough. Time to go into the kiln.

He placed it in the already hot kiln, bolted the door, and seated himself at the workbench to wait. He had plenty of time. A lifetime, if necessary.

An hour later the kiln’s timer pinged. The kiln had shut off; the pot was done.

With an asbestos glove, he tremblingly reached into the still-hot kiln and brought out the tall, now blue-and-white pot. His first pot. Taking it to a table, under direct light, he set it down and took a good look at it. He professionally appraised its artistic worth. He appraised what he had done, and, within it, what he would do, what later pots would be like, the future of them lying before him. And his justification, in a sense, for leaving Glimmung and all the others. Mali most of all. Mali whom he loved.

The pot was awful.