Phthor (11 page)

“Beautiful!” Misery said. “Such love...”

The minion looked up from his project. He was trying to blind the minionette by poking out her eyeballs with his fingers, but she seemed invulnerable. “So that was the true manner of our meeting! I had supposed you were merely recruiting competent personnel for the campaign against the mineral entity—”

“I was, I was!” Benjamin agreed.

“So I became the commander of the backup forces. But you returned to tell me that the battle was lost, and to withdraw immediately, because the killchill was starting. Only that timely warning saved me and my complement; we escaped ahead of that wave—”

“The wave we are now returning to,” the Xest signaled. “I was the pilot of your ship—and now I, also, understand.”

“Ragnarok,” Morning Have repeated. “The great encounter between the forces of good and evil—and good lost, as it was fated to.”

“Yet to Chthon, life was the evil,” the Xest signaled. “And it may have been correct. Much of life it knows only through Dr. Bedeker. Are we not now unified in seeking death?”

Benjamin looked at the Xest, in order to read the signals. He blinked and looked again, temporarily sober. “Minion!” he whispered.

Morning Haze paused, and Misery also looked. All three people were astonished.

The Taphid grubs had emerged from their frozen hibernation and now swarmed around the Xest, who stood balanced on the deck. At each foot the shiny white bodies clustered, their sandpaper tongues rasping avidly. They were consuming the Xest’s legs.

“You asked to be notified of the time,” the Xest signaled with the stump of one leg. “It is a fraction early, but one may not be able to—”

“So I did,” Morning Haze replied. “No need to worry— my wife agreed to remind me. I thank you nevertheless.” His eyes remained fixed on the Xest. “Are you aware—?”

“One is being consumed,” the Xest said. “After one, the Taphid will come for you. However—”

“You import the Taphid at great expense to consume you?” Benjamin demanded.

“Of course. This guarantees eradication of debt.”

“But suicide—death by torture—”

“Beautiful!” the minionette said.

The Xest settled another notch as its legs were shortened. It was now only half its original height, and signaling was becoming awkward. “We knew... would comprehend.”

“I don’t comprehend!” Benjamin said.

Now the minionette turned to him. “Ordinary death is impossible for this creature. Were it to be cut in half, both portions would regenerate into complete entities, doubling its societal debt. Were it sundered by an explosion, every fragment would regenerate, even single-cell debris, multiplying its debt a hundred- or a thousandfold. The only certain way to terminate potential debt is to undergo complete consumption.”

Morning Haze shook his head. “Bitch, how do you know this?”

“She... telepathic... as one,” the Xest signaled with difficulty. “Receives... pain of demolition .. . appreciates properly.”

Benjamin dispensed with his glass and tilted the bottle to his mouth. He choked, but got a good swig down.

“You... killing self,” the Xest pointed out. “You... coming... comprehend.”

“Yes,” Benjamin agreed. “I comprehend at last.”

“Come, love,” the minion said. “It is time.” He kissed her.

Suddenly the minionette writhed in pain. “No!” she cried.

“I have waited fifty-eight years to love you,” Morning Haze said. “Now that we are all about to die, what difference can it make to you?” He kissed her again and ran his hand across her shoulder and over her breast: not roughly, but delicately. “Your very presence thrills me. Your aspect is beyond description, mother mine. Never have I known a creature so lovely—”

“Causing pain,” the Xest signaled. “She... mercy!”

“Let me possess you truly,” the minion said, ignoring all else. “Not with sadism, but with utter joy and respect. I love you!”

The minionette screamed. She twisted violently, trying to free herself from his embrace. “Xest, help me! “she cried as if deranged.

Now the Taphid had reached the Xest’s globular body. Yet the creature managed one more series of signals with the last short stump of one leg. “One transmits... agony... you.”

And the minionette relaxed. “What bliss you send! Now I can endure...”

The hunger of the Taphids seemed to grow as the body of the Xest shrank. The last of the leg-stump diminished and disappeared, and the globe of the body ground into the collective maw of the voracious grubs. The Xest, facing certain death anyway, still preferred to utilize its familiar mechanism, canceling all potential debt.

Morning Haze clasped Misery to him in an expression of passion that would surely have been fatal to her in other circumstances. But the Xest was dying as the Taphids ate out its innards, transmitting exquisite agony, and the smile on the face of the minionette was beatific.

“I never thought I’d see the like!” Benjamin said, his head swiveling from one event to the other. “It is now thirty seconds until—” Then he clasped his chest.”Oh-oh—one of my gimcracks failed at last—”

Benjamin staggered forward, tripped over the boiling mass of the Xest, and fell. He landed on one desperately outflung arm, and the brittle bone snapped instantly. But this was the lesser horror. The Taphids swarmed eagerly over him. The effect was so stimulating that he was able to function without the defunct pacer. He wrenched himself out—but now there was no escape.

The old man crawled on three limbs across the deck, slapping feebly at the rasping grubs with his dangling arm. He lost his fragile balance and rolled into the vibrant minionette. The Taphids spread out to attack this new, delicious prey.

“Aahhh!” Misery cried in renewed ecstasy, as Benjamin’s death agony joined that of the Xest, and the minion’s climax was augmented by the devastating appetite of the Taphids. Her outflung arm convulsed, bringing Benjamin’s staring face into her breast. Taphids fell wriggling from his punctured eyes and began their demolition of her mammary. The minionette had found paradise at last.

Then the killchill struck. There was no immediate effect on the metallic or ceramic parts of the ship, but everything either living or of organic origin began to disintegrate. The wood paneling sagged and powdered out; the plastic fixtures melted.

All life dissolved. Human, Xest and Taphid melted into a common goo, its liquids flowing across the deck, its gases bubbling out. Then a kind of flame played over it, as the fundamental proteins that made life possible were destroyed.

The husk of the ship continued, truly dead—as was all the galaxy where the wave had passed. The remainder of the galaxy was following at the speed of light. The ramifications of the forced interaction between fluorine and oxygen made the process inevitable.

Chthon had won.

Chapter III:
   
War

Arlo snapped awake. Beside him, Ex sat up too. She was more beautiful than ever, despite the rather sadistic turns their love seemed to take. He had found himself striking her, reviling her, despite all his efforts to suppress his quarterminion sadism. Yet she accepted it with singular grace, making him ashamed, angry at himself.

“What is it?” she asked, stretching languorously.

“I had a dream...”

“A lovely one...” she said. “Was it of me?”

“A nightmare!” Then he had to fend her off as she bashed him with a fistful of moss. “But that isn’t what woke me. Something’s in the caverns.” He looked about, seeing beyond the bright garden. “I sense tremendous conflict.”

He had told her about his minion blood that made him partially telepathic. It was that ability, he realized now, that had enabled him to communicate with Chthon. The cavern god was virtually omnipotent within its sphere, but the ordinary human mind was deaf to that power. Coquina could not perceive Chthon at all, and Aton would not; but Arlo had associated with Chthon from the time he was conceived, and developed this ability right along with his human speech.

In fact, it was Chthon who had awakened him.”Stay here, Ex,” Arlo said. “I have to go investigate.”

“C’mon, stay,” she said, taking his hand and holding it against her body.

Arlo was torn by indecision. Was she offering cooperation, a really willing liaison? That was too good to turn down!

But Chthon had called, and he had agreed to cooperate with Chthon. What should he do?

Now the summons became more urgent. Chthon was really concerned! But Ex spread her legs, invoking his masculine reaction in the way she knew so well how to do. Such an invitation was compulsive.

A warning mood came from Chthon. Arlo had a brief vision of Ex suffering from the myxo, or torn open by some great wolflike beast, and decided: he could not risk breaking the contract. “Chthon summons; I have to go.”

“If you do, I’ll make you sorry,” Ex said.

“Not as sorry as Chthon can make me,” he said. Better her bitchiness for a few days, than Chthon’s ire! He went.

He ran easily through the caverns, following Chthon’s call. It was a long way. He left the cool, scented passages of the garden region and entered the extensive, sloping tunnels that conveyed air to the gas crevasse. But he moved upwind, away from the crevasse. Though these tubes gradually descended, the wind became stronger, requiring increased output of energy to maintain his pace. He would have slowed, but Chthon infused strength into him, alleviating his fatigue. Gradually the air became hot, and the sweat of his exertion made him thirsty. He had to detour briefly to seek a river. It was sucker-infested, but Chthon held the leeches back while Arlo drank deeply. Then onward.

As he approached the prison region, he became cautious, warned by his friend. He slowed, then concealed himself in a cave aperture.

None too soon. People were marching down a passage, bracing themselves against the stiff hot wind. At first he thought they were prisoners, for they wore the waterbags; then he saw that they were clothed.

In fact, they were women, strange not only in their apparel. They were all young, quite pretty, and disturbingly familiar. They carried what he recognized as weapons: spears, clubs, and others he recognized only from descriptions in LOE: swords and bows. Much of it was incomprehensible to him, however.

These were Amazons: fabled female warriors. What were they doing here? Never in his memory had humans from Outside invaded the caverns. They could not be prisoners; they were an army.

Chthon surely knew what this meant, but Chthon could not convey such a concept directly. Arlo waited until the troops were past, then did some stalking of his own. He could locate Doc Bedside and ask him—but Bedside was far away, and anyway Arlo preferred to do his own research. If he could isolate and capture one of these intruders...

He followed the detachment down the wind passage. He knew the caverns as evidently they did not; some of these women were bound to get lost. For one thing, this passage terminated in a river—and down the river was a potwhale. A large one. That would disrupt their formation!

Sure enough: in the next hour they found the river and followed it down.

And when they came to the potwhale pool, they set out to swim across it, like total fools. He ascended to a passage crossing above the dome, located in a crack in the floor, and peered down into the pool from directly above.

They stripped, laying their uniforms, weapons, and water bags carefully on the surrounding ledge, showing their marvelously voluptuous torsos. In a reaction that was becoming so frequent as to be an embarrassment, Arlo’s member stiffened. The sight of any female body had an effect on him, but these were exceptionally stimulating bodies!

Naturally the potwhale came up and started taking them in. Its bulk filled the pool—for of course the potwhale itself had widened the pool over the centuries to accommodate its slow growth—and its ropelike tongue slapped about, coiling around any swimmer it touched, hauling her into its maw. Such a waste of beauty!

The Amazons tried to fight, but they were at a disadvantage in the water. Nevertheless they performed creditably. They stabbed their spears into the blubber of the potwhale and hacked off its tongue. After a while it had had enough. It submerged.

One of the Amazons had fled into a confusing tunnel-loop. Rather, she was exploring, for she did not rush. She had a queenly bearing, and evidently had some authority over the detachment. Perhaps she was looking for other dangers, so that the women would not fall into any more such traps. That was an intelligent thing to do. Already Arlo heard the measured tread of the caterpillar of this territory, and he knew other predators would soon converge.

Meanwhile, this was his chance. Arlo dropped silently into the tunnel and cut her off in a pocket, holding his spear ready. He had no doubt of his ability to subdue her, for he was a man, she a woman.

“Why are you here?” he demanded in verbal Galactic.

She whirled, seeing him in the green stone-glow. “Why hello, Arlo,” she said.

He paused, startled. How could this stranger Amazon, new to the caverns, know him so readily?

“Of course we know you,” she said. “You are the only independent cave-boy in Chthon. I spotted you back in the wind tunnel as we marched by, and saw you following us, and then I glimpsed your face in the ceiling fault. I hoped I could finally approach you if I came alone. I did not wish to frighten you.”

“I am not frightened!” he said indignantly.

“True. Forgive my ill choice of words. We know you will help us. As you have seen, we desperately need help, for we do not know the dangers of the caverns.”

“You are telepathic!” he cried.

“I am a minionette,” she said, standing straight.

The minionette! The word conjured a confused host of images, angry and enticing. Now he saw how beautiful she was despite her clothing; lovelier than Ex or Coquina or Verthandi, lovelier even than her nude companions of the Amazon detachment. Her hair was like a living flame as it billowed about her face and shoulders, and her eyes were deep garden pools.

So this was a living, semitelepathic minionette, like that of his recent dream. It was suddenly very easy to appreciate why his human grandfather and half-human father had loved one. She was so absolutely gorgeous it almost hurt his eyes to look at her.

Arlo felt a tinge of guilt, for he was betrothed to Ex and thought he had set aside casual lust. Not at all, he now knew!

“You are handsome yourself,” she said. “Your guilt pleases me.”

It was true! Not only could she read his emotion, she received it inverted. She liked his self-condemnation, the bitch!

“Yes, she agreed. “That is why Planet Minion was proscribed, until this mission. Normal humans did not want us among them, though we are really quite human ourselves.”

“Who are you?” It was all he could think of at the moment.

“I am Torment. Once I met your father Aton. What a rare lover he was!”

Baffled rage flooded him. “My father never loved you!”

“No. He loved my sister Misery—but all of us felt the rampant emanations of it. Lovely!”

“It was Malice he loved!” Arlo cried. “His—mother.”

“He loved us all.”

Oh—he had allowed himself to be confused. She meant Aton had hated them all. But who was this Misery she mentioned? It was as though he knew her... from his dream?

“You possess the secrets of Chthon,” Torment said. “Chthon is wonderful; Chthon loves us all. Help us win Chthon.”

Translation: Chthon hated them all with a mighty hate. Thus they all became bright and beautiful and sought to come closer to the cavern god. What a devastating army!

Chthon! he cried inwardly. What do I do now?

And Chthon replied: Leave her.

Arlo jumped. He had comprehended the words—as words! Always before it had been a general, nonverbal comprehension. His linkage with Chthon had abruptly improved.

“So you are in direct contact with the cavern entity,” Torment said. “Excellent. Take us to its home base.”

“So you can destroy Chthon?” Arlo asked angrily. “Get out of here!”

She looked at him, unafraid. “Arlo, you are of us. You are human—and minion. Chthon is out to kill us all—and you, too, when it no longer needs you. Its promises are worthless, for it is the ultimate enemy. Chthon means to wipe out all life in the galaxy.”

“Chthon is my friend!” Arlo cried, stabbing his spear at her. If there were evil in beauty, or beauty in evil, the minionette personified it. Surely Chthon had brought him here to show him this!

Torment parried the thrust easily, smiling. “Better learn to fight, young man.”

Enraged, Arlo struck at her with his fist. She took the blow on her shoulder, unflinching, unaffected. “Very nice, Arlo. You are strong. But you pulled your punch, and you did not aim for a vital spot. Try it again.”

The bitch was right. His misadventure with Ex, that had almost killed her before he really knew her, had made him cautious. But now he was beyond caring. He struck Torment on the cheek as hard as he could.

The blow rocked her back against the wall. But she smiled dazzlingly, still unhurt. “You are not the man your father was—but you have good potential.”

Arlo struck at her again. This time she caught his hand, spun about, and threw him over her hip. But he did not land hard on the rock floor, for she held him up. She leaned over and kissed him on the nose. “Tempting as it is, I may not dally with you, cave-boy. Take me to Chthon.”

“Chthon is here,” he said.

“I don’t see it.”

Then she stiffened. Chthon was applying the myxo siege on her. This time Arlo had no objection. “You wanted to meet Chthon,” he told her mockingly. “How do you like it?” And while she was struggling, he took her weapons: the short sword, a bright metal knife at her hip, and a tube of some sort that was lodged in the front of her uniform, vertically between her remarkable breasts. He sighted down it, but the tube was blocked: evidently not a weapon after all.

The white slime was forming on Torment’s face, arms and legs, staining her uniform. Arlo pulled up her brief metallic skirt to verify that the myxo extended all over her body. He discovered that even under the awful white coating, her torso was exquisitely shaped. Apparently this was the heritage of every minionette: incomparable figure that no coating or clothing could make repulsive. She would become a zombie—but an extremely attractive one. Verthandi would be jealous!

He had to smile at that. Jealousy in zombies?

Then Torment smiled. The myxo flaked off, a very shallow layer. “Love me some more, Chthon!” she cried. “I am in ecstasy!”

And abruptly the myxo siege halted.

Arlo stared. The minionette had fought off Chthon!

Torment opened her eyes. She spat out a lump of yellowish pus. “We believed we would be effective against the cavern entity because of our nature. Obviously it used telepathy, and we—” she shrugged. “This is the reason Life’s army has been largely recruited from Planet Minion. It is good to have this confirmation. It would be sad to destroy so loving a sentience.”

“You must not!” Arlo cried.

“It is either us or it,” she said. “We are of the living, it is of the dead—and Ragnarok is at hand. All living sentients support our effort, human and nonhuman alike. The Xests and Lfa and—”

“Not Hvee!” Arlo cried. “Not the Family of Five!”

“Your granduncle Benjamin commands this task force,” she said. “And your brother Morning Haze pilots our ship.”

“I have no brother!”

“You have more than you know,” she said. She paused momentarily. “Actually, I misremember. A Xest is the pilot; Morning Haze commands the backup troops.”

Her very mismemory argued strongly for her sincerity— yet she was speaking nonsense!

“Please return to me my weapons,” she said.

Numbly, Arlo handed back her sword and knife. Again parts of his dream haunted him, for it had involved Benjamin and Morning Haze. Had it really been a dream, or was it in fact a vision? Could Torment have read his mind and fed his fancies back to him as supposed facts? Yet his vision had indicated that Ragnarok was long over, and that Chthon had been victorious. If it were false, she should hardly have advertised it; if it reflected truth, why should he be concerned?