The realms of tartarus t.., p.26
The Realms of Tartarus, Trilogy, page 26
“Were you surprised to discover that there were men in the Underworld?” asked Sisyr.
“At first,” said the human. “But when I thought about it, why not? I was surprised when I first met the rumor that the Underworld was a living, starlit world, but it wasn’t nonsense, by any means. We didn’t all come up from the surface in a long line, like the animals into Noah’s Ark. The platform was raised from below—it didn’t fall from Heaven. Of course there are lights in the Underworld. And why not leave them on, when the Overworld was sealed? If there were men still on the ground, it would be a gesture of common humanity.
“While I thought about Magner’s book it occurred to me that there was almost inevitably a living world on the old surface. We left it wrecked, because it could support civilization no longer, but once we were gone from it the situation was vastly different, was it not? A ruined world, from our point of view, would not have to be a dead world, or a destroyed world. We came out of it into our new Heaven not because we desperately wanted life, but because we desperately wanted our descendants to live the kind of life the Planners thought was appropriate to humanity.
“It suddenly occurred to me while I read Magner’s book how utterly absurd it was that we—the Euchronians—should have taken it so readily for granted that what we left behind was dead and gone for all time. Absurd…but how predictable! How typical of the Euchronian way of thinking. The Planners built their wonderful new world—thanks to you. They fulfilled their ambition of making their children into parasites, completely helpless apart from their custom-designed host. That was their ideal mode of life—the parasitic. Mechanical, undemanding, comfortable, assured not by human effort but by the endeavor—the ceaseless, ultimately reliable endeavor—of the machine. That’s the Overworld: a gigantic, living machine, upon which we humans are content to be parasitic. Of course we forget the world which we left behind—the harsh and hostile real world. What do we care where the monster rests its belly? What do we care how the host has to work to make its living, just so long as it lives well enough for us to supply our own needs from its excesses? That’s why we don’t look up into the sky, either. That’s why there’s been a spaceship and a starman on Earth for ten thousand years, and yet no human has ever been into interstellar space, and no human has ever tried to build his own spaceship.
“I’m sorry. You asked me whether I was surprised to discover that there were men in the Underworld. No. Not at all. It would be more surprising, if you like, to discover that there are men in the Overworld.”
Sisyr completely ignored the content of Warnet’s carefully calculated outburst. He had nothing to say about the image of man as a parasite within the metal monster which he had brought into being.
“Knowledge,” said the alien, apparently speaking with some care, for he spoke slowly, “is always adapted to need. One learns what one needs to know. Forgetfulness is a useful talent, as you must know. You live ephemeral lives. It is necessary that you should have a world which is…to some extent…forgettable. It is simply not possible for you to live in awhole world. Because of what you are, you are less than what you want to be.”
“And what about you?” demanded Warnet.
“It is the same.”
“You’re not ephemeral. You’re immortal.”
“There are other limits,” said Sisyr.
“Let’s return to simpler matters,” said Warnet. “I seem to be reaching no better understanding this way. May I, perhaps, be permitted to recall some of the things that Euchronia has found it…necessary…to forget?”
“I will answer your questions.”
“You supply the Underworld?”
“I do. It has been going on for so long…it is almost a ritual now, with us—certainly with them.”
“You also study the Underworld?”
“Not closely. My agents bring me their books, their work. It helps me to understand. But there is no direct study. I do not know everything about the Underworld—perhaps very little more than you have already guessed.”
Warnet came to his big question. “Does the Council know that you are doing these things?”
“No,” said the alien.
“Is it part of the Plan?”
“Perhaps. As you say, some of the Planning was mine. It would not be unrealistic to say that my actions were in accordance with the Plan, that they helped to ensure its completion without too much strife and bloodshed.”
“You know that I intend to exploit this information in trying to bring down the Council?”
“Yes.”
“Then why give it to me? You don’t favor the Euchronians, obviously. Are you against them? Do you disapprove of them?”
“No.”
“Then why help me? Why tell me this?”
“I have no secrets. Had the Council wanted to know…knowledge is adapted to need.”
Warnet had finished his wine some time ago. Now he took the time to put the glass down, pausing for thought. He reminded himself that he could not make assumptions about the alien. The understanding which he had was inevitably an illusion of his own senses, only real in a limited context.
“This is your world, too,” said Warnet. “Have you no interest in how it is run?”
“This is my world,” said Sisyr, “but it is your society. No, I have no interest in your politics. They are a purely ephemeral concern. I do not want that to sound critical…you understand that I am not decrying your motives and your actions. But I think you can see that what is important to you is virtually meaningless to me. The society which you live in will change…is changing. Perhaps you, as an individual, will play a part in that change. That would be good…for you. But the Euchronian Millennium will die, and whatever follows it will die. Ideas will change, the labels will change, humanity will change…and I will be here, as I am. I will not say that I have no interest in change—I am most interested—but it would be pointless for me to involve myself in any way with change. In a sense, I cannot. I am immune to it. I could never be a part of it.”
“That’s not true,” said Warnet. “You involved yourself with the Plan. If it were not for your involvement, the Overworld would never have been built. Even now, you are involved in the determination of change in the Underworld.”
“I’m sorry. You misunderstand. It is my use of the words. When I speak of involvement, I speak from my own standpoint—you, of course speak from yours. I helped the Planners—because they asked me to help. I accepted a contract to supply the men on the ground—again, because they asked me for such an undertaking. Men have involved me in what they do. But I do not involve myself. Nor do I involve men in what I do.”
“Suppose,” said Warnet, “that you were asked to uninvolve yourself with the Underworld. To stop supplying the ground with materials. Would you do that?”
“If the men on the ground did not want any further aid.”
“And the Council? Suppose they ordered you to stop?”
“The Council do not order me to do anything. I am not a part of your society.”
“There may come a day when the Council does not see it that way.”
“Then my actions will depend on the way that they see it then.”
Warnet looked at the alien pensively. “The Euchronians have remembered the Underworld. They’re going to remember you, too. You know that, of course. Maybe from your point of view you don’t have any part to play in our near future. But from our standpoint…you see what I mean?”
“I understand.”
“I wonder if you do.”
The imitation of a smile played across Sisyr’s face yet again. “I understand,” he said, “according to my understanding.”
“I can’t keep your name out of it,” said the Eupsychian. “I don’t want to cause you any embarrassment. I don’t want to involve you against your wishes. But there’s no way you can stay buried here. Not now.”
“I know,” said the alien. “There is always change. Nothing lasts forever.”
CHAPTER 21
Iorga declared that it was finished.
Joth, for that moment, couldn’t meet the cat’s eyes, but Nita and Huldi took the information as calmly as it was offered.
The hellkin had been fighting for his mate’s life for a time which he knew no way to measure. He would have been prepared to continue the contest for twice as long or ten times as long. He had no real consciousness of what elapsed time meant. There was only the present in his scheme of things, and the possibilities of the present. He did not involve himself with his memory, save when it was pertinent to the moment, and he had no ambitions or intentions beyond that moment.
Just as Nita and Huldi had helped in his fight, so he had helped in theirs. Had they come earlier, they might have turned the fight for him. As it was, he had turned the fight for them, and that was all. The wound in Joth’s back had not healed, but it was not so dangerous now. There was no infection—all that kept him from recovery was the fact that his capacity for bodily self-repair was not quite adequate to the conditions which prevailed in the Swithering Waste.
Now that Aelite was dead Iorga naturally transferred his purpose from the dead to the living. He had united his aims and his efforts with those of the other travelers, and now there were only their aims and purposes remaining. They remained his. Iorga was simply bound into the unitary existence of Joth, Nita and Huldi. He was absorbed into their bond of love. They were four people of four different races, and the circumstances which had conspired to combine them were unusual, but the bond was no less strong for any of that. For man and his satellite species to have survived in the Underworld at all, evolution had been necessary. Natural selection operates two ways: it favors the effective as well as eliminating the ineffective. Love is a force which is favored by natural selection because it leads to unity of purpose, collaboration, and the effective protection of offspring from the rigors of the environment. Evolution in the Underworld had favored love—a kind of love that the people of the Overworld would not have recognized, but love nevertheless. Factors which evolve for one purpose may often serve others, and perhaps the capacity for love which the people of the Underworld had inherited was not evolved to create ties of the specific kind which held Nita and Huldi and Iorga together with the man from Heaven, but such ties could and did form, and such ties could and did work.
Joth felt obliged to speak, when Aelite died, although he knew that the others were possessed of a fatalism which would not allow them to grieve. The same feeling which would not let him meet Iorga’s eyes made him try to exercize his emotion in words.
“The smoke-cloak didn’t kill her,” he said. “You held that in check. You stopped it spreading.”
“She was weak,” said Iorga. “Too weak. All her strength was gone. We could not put it back.”
“It was time,” said Huldi. “Time for her to die.”
The hellkin said nothing.
“Time was against her,” said Joth. “But it wasn’t just time. It was entropy. She just couldn’t hold on to the sense of unity that held her together. Iorga wouldn’t let her die, the smoke-cloak wouldn’t let her live. In the end, she just evaporated. When neither side in a contest will give way, the rope they’re pulling simply breaks. That’s what happened.”
They didn’t answer. For one thing, they didn’t understand. On top of that, it didn’t really matter to them what had killed her. They did not have to explain how and why she had died. It was not necessary to their understanding. But they let Joth talk, because he did need to understand, in his own way. Joth, condemned to confine much of his being to remembrance, belief and introspection, had been the battlefield in a fight for life before, and he could not help but associate this moment with that one. When his face had been destroyed in the explosion, Carl Magner had fought for days, with the only weapons he had—more words—to make them repair him instead of ending his life quietly and mercifully. That battle had ended in life. This one had not—not for Aelite.
“What now?” asked Joth.
“We wait for Camlak,” said Nita.
Joth tried to estimate, in his mind, how long it must have been since Iorga met Camlak. But he could not even make a guess at how much time had elapsed since Iorga had saved them from the crocodilean. There was no standard for comparison, no way to make a yardstick. It might have been days or weeks. The vital question was: where was Camlak now? Where might he have gone? If he were to return here, when would he arrive? Or when should he have arrived?
“He may wait for us, at the wall,” said Joth.
“No,” said Nita. She knew. She was sure.
“He might not be able to find us. In the Waste, he might cross our way again, and never know. We can’t know that he will ever return here.”
“We should go to Shairn,” said Huldi, who obviously had no faith in Camlak’s imminent arrival either.
“We are at the place where he met Iorga,” said Nita. “He will come here. When he discovers that we have come back this way. He will come to this place.”
“Why?” Joth protested. But no one answered.
CHAPTER 22
Camlak never came.
Even so, they did not wait in vain. What would have happened if no one had come, Joth could not tell. In time, perhaps, Huldi’s conviction that no one would come would have outweighed Nita’s dwindling assurance that Camlak would return. But how long might that have taken? Joth did not know. There was no way for anyone to know. Events in the Underworld took as long as it took them to happen. That was all.
But their waiting came to an end when Chemec came into their camp and asked if he might share their food.
They had taken Aelite away from the resting place and abandoned her to the scavengers at a safe distance. It did not matter that they should have her. Joth had buried his father, but that was his way. He said nothing about what Iorga did with Aelite. That was his way. Chemec came to them just as they returned. He was tired and hungry. He was glad to find them, because they had warmth and food. It could not be said that they were equally glad to see him.
“What happened?” demanded Nita.
“We reached the wall—almost. There were Heaven-born. Many of them. Camlak tried to speak to them. Then he fell. I stayed in hiding. I saw them come to take him. They tied his arms—he was still, but I don’t think he was dead. They carried him away. I followed them to the wall. They live there in houses like mushroom caps. They have metal—much metal. Big machines. They took Camlak into a house. The men who took him in came out again, one by one, but there were always others who went in. There were too many. I came away.”
“You were going back to Shairn,” said Nita.
“Yes.”
“You left him to die.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think they’ll kill him,” Joth intervened. “If they tied him before they took him…they must have come down after my father, looking for the truth. Perhaps it’s the men who shot him. I don’t know. But they won’t kill Camlak if they took him alive. He can tell them the truth. Everything they want to know about the Underworld. With his help, they can make the people in the world above believe in the Underworld. But….” He trailed off. But they wouldn’t understand. That was his thought. There was no point in saying it. They couldn’t understand either. Not even Nita, who understood perhaps more fully than Camlak. How could anyone understand?
What would happen when Camlak talked to the men from Heaven? Would they think that the substance of Carl Magner’s dream was true? Would they want to do what Carl Magner had demanded of them? What would happen to Camlak?
“I’ve got to go back,” said Joth. “I’ve got to go back, this time.”
“For Camlak?” said Nita.
“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll try to return Camlak to you. With all my heart, I promise you. I’ll get Camlak back if I can. Perhaps I can do that first. If I go back instead of him, I can tell them. They won’t want to release him, but perhaps I can make them let him go. I will make them let him go. I might need help. Will you help?”
“Yes,” said Nita, immediately. But Joth wasn’t looking at Nita. He was looking at Iorga. If it came to a fight, Nita would be little enough use. Joth was thinking, at that moment, of rescuing Camlak first and going back to the Overworld afterwards. He needed a fighting man to help him—someone who could take care of trouble. He needed Iorga, who was as big as any man, and as strong. Even Huldi was too small.
“I’ll help you,” said the hellkin.
“And you?” Joth stared at Chemec, who was avoiding his eyes carefully while eating steadily. The cripple looked at Joth, and then at Nita.
“Will you show us where he is?” said Joth. “That’s all. You’re no match for a full-grown man—I won’t ask you to go into the camp. But you have to show us where Camlak was taken.”
Chemec nodded. For a fleeting instant, he smiled—a smile of pure joy. He had killed a Heaven-man, once. Bent-legged as he was, he had taken the skull of a Heaven-born.
It had been a good moment. That was in the days of Yami’s way.
The image in his mind faded almost as it was recalled. The smile was born and died, in a fraction of a second.
“I’ll show you,” he said. “But I sleep first.”
“We all sleep,” said Joth, suddenly taking it upon himself to assume leadership. “Then we go get Camlak back.”
He felt a strange satisfaction at the making of the decision. Underworld ways were infecting him. It was good to have a destination and a purpose. It was good to be committed, to know where—and when—he was. The why of the matter tended to get lost, but he was not so committed to the Underworld as not to know. He did know why. He had any number of reasons. The simplest of all was that Camlak had been good to him. Camlak was his friend. He owed it to the Old Man of Stalhelm to deliver him from his enemies, from those who would inevitably abuse him.
