Chthon

7

Hastings plumped down beside Aton, his huge body steaming. “I tried,” he said sadly. “I tried—but I simply cannot pry a garnet out of that vacant wall in one piece. I’m jinxed.”

“You’re fat,” Framy muttered helpfully from the other side. “Your stomach always beats you to it. Lucky you can even see a garnet, let ’lone reach it.”

“I could reach it if I were able to see through the sweat,” Hastings said, smudging the moisture from his eyes. If Framy’s jibes bothered him, he never showed it. “I’m quick with my hands, but that heat—sometimes I long for a bout of the chill.”

“The chill! I heard of that. You don’t get no stone from me this time, Hasty. The chill’d kill you.”

Hastings’ eyes narrowed. Aton sat tight, knowing that the man would never have attempted to mine a garnet on his own unless his supply was low, and that he smelled a profitable encounter. Entertainment broke up the monotony of prison life when Hastings got hungry—and perhaps Framy, subdued for several chows after the disappointment of the blue garnet, was ready to play again. “Are you certain you know enough about the chill?” Hastings asked gently.

“What’s there to know?” Framy picked at a broken toenail. “My buddy died of it, back on—never mind. He stopped over to settle a score on some planet and didn’t know the chill was going around. Didn’t know he had it himself, until it was too late. I thought sure I’d catch it from him, and I couldn’t no more go to the doc’n he could. He just got colder and colder and he died.”

“There was an epidemic on Hvee—that’s my home—back in ’305,” Aton said, since he saw the signs that Framy had already been hooked and would pay the toll. “It came in the first month of the year. My great-grandfather Five was orphaned by it. Wiped out a third of the planet.”

“Pandemic, not epidemic,” Hastings said. “Did you know that it occurs in regular cycles just over 98 years apart, and that just about half the worlds of the human sector have been struck by it at one time or another? That it is not contagious? That Earth itself is being struck right now?!

Framy’s silence in the face of each artfully posed question had been determined but his resistance broke at last. His weakness was that he couldn’t bear to have anybody know something that he didn’t, even if the subject had no inherent interest for him. “You been here longer’n me!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know nothing about Earth.”

Hastings settled back comfortably. “But it seems that I know something about the chill.” And waited smugly.

“I already know about the chill. My buddy died of it. If there’d been a doc who’d keep his mouth shut—”

“There is no cure for the chill,” Hastings said. Aton frowned at this.

“You’re lying,” Framy said without conviction. “Lots of people been saved. They got to catch it in two days, though.”

“Even then, there is no cure.”

Inevitably, after desperate rear-guard action, Framy lost his garnet, the others gathered around to swell the audience, and the flow of news began.

“Man,” Hastings said, adopting the tone that made the standing listeners find seats, “leapfrogged light to plant colonies hundreds and thousands of light-years from his home. But he was caught unprepared for the chill. In §25 a brand-new colony almost 700 light-years toward the galactic center (no point in going into proper galactic coordinates here: that will be saved for another garnet) reported the first case. A young laborer on the cultivating squad stopped at the clinic with a complaint of sudden shakes. They had lasted only a minute or two, he admitted, but surely he was coming down with something. The medic aimed a thermal gauge at him, found no fever, and packed him back to the field. Colonization was rough work and the indolent were not to be coddled. The matter was duly entered in the record and forgotten.

“Five days later (Earth-time, naturally—this garnet doesn’t cover comparative chronology) he was back, with a slip from the foreman: his efficiency was low and he was too cheerful about failures. What was the matter? The medic gestured again with the gauge, found no fever—on the contrary the man’s body temperature was several degrees on the safe side—and referred him to the disciplinary squad.

“Three more days passed. A friend brought the victim in this time. It was impossible to rouse him sufficiently for useful performance. The man was in an amiable stupor, and it was known that he had drunk no bootleg in two days. He no longer ate at all. And as long as he was here, the friend mentioned, he’d felt cold for a moment himself, a couple of days ago. As though a cold wash of air had descended on him, making him shiver, though no one else had felt it. It had passed in a minute and he felt fine now, better than ever, as a matter of fact, but… The medic automatically played the gauge over him, found no fever, dismissed him, made another entry in the record (for he was a good medic), and took the slack laborer in charge.

The man’s body temperature was 297°K and dropping. This was an unusual departure from the human norm of about 310°K, and the medic was intrigued. The man had no symptoms that could not be accounted for by the chill itself; what caused the chill was a mystery. In due course the patient died and the fact was properly noted. A report was sent routinely to Earth where it was lost in clerical tape and forgotten.

“Meanwhile three more men, including the friend, were down with it. They were not sick—that is, they had no fever—but the medic, catching a glimmer of a problem requiring a technique for which he was not competent—that is, serious thought—held two for observation and shipped the third directly to Earth for study. That one was intercepted by the efficient quarantine station and retained for proper dispensation. He was dead by the time the medic Officer of the Day had been notified, but Standard Operating Procedure had been upheld to the letter of the death certificate. Autopsy revealed the cause: malfunction of vital tissues owing to insufficient temperature. The body’s natural regulatory mechanism had lapsed. No cause for that had been determined.

“A month later over half of the colony’s 2,000 person complement was dead, and more were dying. The planet was quarantined. Earth shipped supply capsules, charging their cost against the colony’s Earthside performance bond, but refused to accept any person or anything from the settlement itself. Thirty-six days after the onset—officially fixed at the moment of the first victim’s initial shakes—ten additional men and women suffered the warning siege and set their affairs in order, each in the manner befitting himself and his religion. On the following day no new cases were reported; nor were any on the days thereafter. The ten recovered, and the epidemic (for so it was then regarded) was over, as mysteriously as it had commenced. The colony was held in quarantine for five years, during which time it accumulated a debt it would take a century to exonerate, but there was no recurrence, either there or anywhere else.

“Fifteen years later the chill broke out again, however, at a colony twenty-five light-years distant from the first. The pattern was identical, with the exception that the authorities alertly slapped on the quarantine within hours of the first death. Half the pioneers had been fatally infected within thirty-six days; the rest lived. Humanity breathed a collective sigh of relief when no contagion was detected.

“Now the debate of the first century § raged hotly over the chill. What was it? How did it spread? For the first question there was no satisfactory answer. For the second there were several. One vociferous group held that the chill propagated by etheric waves traveling at the speed of light, a kind of death ray engulfing entire planets and moving on after a suitable interval to others. This was quickly labeled the Wave theory. Another leading group claimed that the contamination spread by personal contact, transmitted by some short-lived virus that rapidly mutated into impotence: specifically in thirty-six days. This was known as the Particle theory.

“The Wavists were challenged to demonstrate just how a wave traveling at lightspeed could traverse twenty-five lightyears in just twenty years. But they rationalized that the inclining beam emanated from some third point, twenty years closer to the first afflicted colony than to the second. They waited eagerly for a third colony to be struck, so that triangulation could locate the origin. And in turn they challenged the Particlists to explain why no member of the moon-based quarantine party had contracted the illness, since many had been exposed before the full danger was understood. And why the chill showed no abatement whatever prior to its fixed termination, if it were really mutating its steady way into oblivion. The reply was that the quarantine experts had been exceedingly careful at all times, as proven by their ability to avoid contagion by the chill; and that the chill itself abated even though the symptoms displayed by man did not. When the causative virus weakened so that it dropped below the threshold of effectiveness, the body’s natural defenses were able to repel it.

“Five years later both theories had their trials. A third colony was struck—but because its medic had been too busy publishing the learned tracts required for tenure and promotion to keep up with the medical literature, he failed to recognize the chill until several deaths had occurred. Infected colonists by this time had visited five other planets, including Earth itself. Moon station had been bypassed. Yet not a single case appeared outside the stricken colony, though the sick travelers cooled and died in public hospitals. The Particlists strained to explain the paradoxes, and could not. One of the victims had happened to be a popular call girl who continued her practice until her clientele complained of her literal frigidity. She died; the clients lived. The particle theory had been exploded.

“The Wavists pounced on the third coordinate with enthusiasm and triangulated for the fabled source. The third point was seventy-three light-years from the first; location was elementary. A ship of experts was dispatched. It found only empty space. If there had been a source, it had departed long since. And the disgruntled Particlists were quick to point out that a number of unaffected colonies lay between that so-called source point and the affected planets. How had those other colonies been missed? Was the wave discriminating? But in any event, the particular beam to strike the third colony could now be extrapolated. Volunteers planted themselves squarely in it—and were not affected. There was no beam, and the Wavists had been swamped.

“Time passed and the mystery deepened. Additional colonies were devastated, yet any victim removed within a day of the first symptom recovered promptly. If the chill were a contagious disease, why did time and location set such capricious limits? If it were a wave, why did so many escape?

“Gradually the unwilling answers appeared. Compromise gained the day. The chill did travel in lightspeed wave formation—but that wave was neither singular nor local. There were many waves, approximately a light-month in depth and ninety-eight light-years apart. The intersection of any wave with any colony meant pandemic until it passed. But within that wave there seemed to be random particles of infection that struck solely by the law of averages. Presumably there was a nutrient ether that guaranteed the progress of the illness unless the victim was promptly removed from its field. As with the ether of yore, none of this was detectable by instrument of man. He understood its presence by dying.

“The source was simply the center of the galaxy. There were other intelligent forms of life between man and that center, forms that also suffered variants of the illness, and it was rapidly understood that investigation was useless. The larger band of the chill impulse was twenty thousand light-years deep, and the source had been demolished long ago by a species now defunct. Yes, the chill was of artificial origin; no more was known.

“Meanwhile the waves were locally charted and schedules set up. The rich saved themselves by vacationing elsewhere during the critical month, while the majority simply waited and ferried the stricken out of range, if they found them in time. Great numbers were discovered too late.

“And Earth,” Hastings finished, “populous Earth, with far too many billions to transport, could do nothing but wait for the first of the waves to strike. This is the time: the year §400. I’m glad I’m not there.”

The crowd drifted off. Hastings had made light of the threat, but the chill was frightening, deep inside, to all of them. For no prisoner knew where Chthon was located.

The chill could strike tomorrow.

8

“Hey Fiver, pal—know what Garnet just done to me?” Framy was bursting with news.

“I can guess.” Aton halted his chipping and sat down.

Framy rushed right on. “She gimme a whole chow for free. I held out my garnet and she never took it. Just handed over my meal and went away, sort of dreamy. She ain’t never been so careless before.”

Aton reclined against the wall, rubbing grit off his forearms as Framy ate. “It wasn’t carelessness.”

Framy spoke around a mouthful. “But she never took the—you mean she done it on purpose?”

Aton nodded.

“She’d be crazy to do a thing Eke that. She hates me ’most as much as she hates you.”

“Does she?” said Aton. Hate is such an interesting thing. I hate the minionette…

Garnet appeared, interrupting their discussion. “Got your stone?” she gruffly asked Aton. Wordlessly he held it out. She took it and dropped the package on the floor.

Framy stared after her until she was gone. “God of the Pit! I never seen it before. She soft on you, Five.”

Aton opened his package.

But the little man was still puzzled. “That ain’t no cause for her to be doing me no favors. I ain’t no woman’s idol. Why don’t she give you no chow for free?”

Aton explained carefully so that the other would understand. Framy was incredulous. “You mean she don’t want to show how she’s soft on you, so she takes it out on me? ’Cause I’m your pal and don’t know nothing anyway?”

“Close enough.”

“It just don’t make no sense. No sense at all.”

They brought the half-eaten corpse in for everyone to see. A man had wandered too far out alone, downwind. He might have been searching for superior garnets, or perhaps for an exit from the lower caverns. The chimera had come. Help had come ten minutes after his agonized scream—but he had been dead ten minutes. Stomach and intestines had been ripped open and eaten; eyes and tongue were gone. Long dark streaks showed on the cavern floor, they said, where he had been found, where the blood had flowed and been licked up.

“Remind me never to go on the Hard Trek,” Hastings said sickly. “I’m too tender a morsel to be exposed to that.”

The black-haired beauty gave him a sidelong glance. “I hear there’s worse ’n that downwind on the Hard Trek,” she said. “Ain’t no one ever made it out. You can hear the howls of the beast-men that once were people like us, before they got caught.”

“They live?” Hastings asked, obligingly setting up her punch line.

“Naw—but they howl.”

There was general laughter. It was an old joke, and not without a suspicion of accuracy.

This is my opportunity, Aton thought. Now—while it seems natural. Feign uncertainty, but get it out.

“I’m not sure, but it seems to me I heard about someone getting through,” he said.

Framy took him up immediately. “Somebody got out? Somebody made the Hard Trek?”

“There must be a way out,” Hastings said. “If we could only find it. The chimera had to get in somewhere.”

“Maybe them animals never did get in,” the black-haired woman said. Aton had never picked up her name. She had been subtly interested in him since that first discussion, but refused to make an overt play. Possibly she was afraid of Garnet or just smarter. She certainly interested him more; she was able to fling her hair about in a kind of dress that hinted at the sensuality of clothing. Nothing, he had discovered here, is quite so sexless as complete nudity. “Maybe there ain’t no animals,” she continued. “We never see none.”

“I seen a salamander—” Framy began, then cut himself off.

“Salamanders, yes,” Hastings said. “But that’s about the only one a man can see and survive. That’s why we speak of the ‘chimera’—that’s what the word means. Imaginary monster. But we sure as Chthon didn’t imagine that.” His eyes flicked toward the corpse.

“It was a doctor,” Aton said judiciously. “He was quite mad—but free.”

Heads turned in his direction. Conversation stopped.

“A doctor?” Hastings breathed.

Aton held out his hand for a garnet, and everyone laughed. “About five years ago, I think. They never found out how he managed to escape. They had to put him in a mental hospital.”

“Bedside!” someone cried.

“He swore he’d get out.”

“That means there is a trail.”

“You sure about that?” Hastings asked Aton. “You remember the name?”

Do I remember the name I pried so carefully from the prison librarian, knowing that this was the word that might free me? “It wasn’t Bedside,” he said. “Something like Charles Bedecker, M.D. Of course he lost his license when they sent him down.”

“Yeah,” Framy agreed. “They defrocked him.”

“I knew him,” Hastings said. “I had almost forgotten. We never called him by his real name, of course. He stayed about a month; then he set out with hardly more than his doctor’s bag. He said he’d make a trail for the rest of us, if we had guts enough to follow. But he was such a small, mild character. We knew he’d never get far.”

“How come you let him go?” the woman asked. “Him a doctor—”

“No sickness down here,” Hastings pointed out. “We’re sterilized—by the heat, perhaps. And death is usually too sudden. And he was a bad man to offend. Small, but what he could do—”

“That’s not surprising,” Aton said. “Didn’t you know what he got sent down for?”

Hastings put him off. “You remember a lot, all of a sudden. We never ask that question here. That’s none of our business.”

“But there’s a trail,” Framy said, savoring it.

“A trail to madness,” Hastings pointed out. “That’s as bad as death.”

“But a trail…”

The magic word was out. Aton knew that it would spread like the hot wind through the caverns. Proof—proof of a way out. They could never be fully satisfied now, until they found it.

9

Ten chows later Bossman called the meeting. Since the meals were distributed every twelve hours or so, governed roughly by the schedule of delivery through the elevator above, this meant five days, outside time. Aton found the distinction pointless; short intervals were measured in chows. Seven hundred chows came to about a year.

“Must be something big,” Framy said as they gathered. “Awful big. We never had no blowout like this before.”

Aton ignored him, observing for the first time the full complement of lower Chthon. There seemed to be hundreds of people, and many more women than men. Most were from other garnet mines—people he had never seen before. Tall, short, hirsute, scarred, handsome, old—every one an individual, every one condemned both by his society and by his fellow prisoners. Here was the ultimate concentration of evil.

Every person was unique. Aton had become adjusted to a smaller circle, as though this were all there was to know of cavern society—but the people he knew had been selected by circumstance and not decision, and were representative. Bossman, Garnet, Framy, Hastings, and the black-haired one—bitter and violent, yes. But evil?

If there is evil here, he thought, I have not seen it. The evil is in the minionette. The evil is in me.

Bossman strode to the center of the spacious cavern, double-bitted axe over his shoulder. He stood on top of a small mountain of talus. Above him the intersection of a half-dozen ancient, gigantic tubes traced the history of the formation of this violent nexus. How many times had the rock been rent to form this jumble? As many times as human sensitivity had been rent to form this group. The wind eddied from several tunnels, now and again stirring up little dust devils which were in turn sucked screaming into the mouths of others. This room reflected the essence of subterranean power. It was a fitting meeting place.

Bossman hallooed, establishing his claim for the attention due the leader. The call reverberated across the passages and mixed with the sound of the wind. Once more, cynically, Aton sized up the man. The chatter stopped.

“They’re giving us a hard time upstairs,” Bossman said without further preamble. “They want more garnets.”

There was a general bellow of laughter. “We’ll give the bastards all they want!” someone shouted derisively.

“All they have to do is trot down and fetch ’em!” a woman finished.

Bossman did not laugh. “They mean it. They’re cutting down our rations.”

Now the murmur was angry. “They can’t do that.”

“They can,” Bossman said. “They are. Each one of us got to give three stones for two meals to keep up the pace.”

“They ain’t that many stones!”

Aton looked around and saw faces suddenly haggard with fear. There would be hunger.

“Why?” Hastings called out. A few snickered bitterly; he would be the first to suffer from a tight market. “What set them off?”

“Because they gone crazy,” Bossman said. “They got some fool notion we got a blue garnet down here—”

“Tally knows there’s no such thing. What’s the matter with him?”

“Tally swears he’s got proof.”

Framy looked at Aton and leaned over. “You didn’t tell nobody—”

Aton shook his head. “Never said a word.” The evil is in me, he thought.

“Me neither. I went back after the salamander was gone and found one of them pieces. It must’ve ate the other. But I thought about what you ’n Hasty said, and I didn’t say nothing.”

Bossman was speaking. “Tally says they’re going to clamp down until they get that garnet. Ten chows from now it’ll be two stones per…”

“Great Chthon! They’d kill me for sure if they knew I had a piece,” Framy whispered, his body tense and shaking. “Somebody must’ve found the other.”

Aton thought, The chimera is the enemy you don’t see.

“…Ain’t going to take it!” Bossman was roaring. “I don’t like it no better’n you do. They think they got us by the—” He paused. His voice dropped. “But I got a plan.”

The cavern quieted. “We’re through trying to talk with those Laza-lovin’ weaklings,” he continued. “They been lording it over us too long. We been the ones doing the work. Now we’re going to put the callus on the other foot.

“We’re going to take over!”

He paused for the shocked commotion to subside. Revolution! Never before had such a thing been seriously conceived.

“First thing to do is bribe the guard at the hole. Now we got to pool our information, figure what’ll move him. Maybe there’s a woman, above or below”—his eye fell briefly on the black tresses provocatively draped over one breast of the woman Aton knew—“or maybe we can soften him a little some other way. We got to form a committee, take care of that. Next thing is the plan of attack. I figure we got to get five, six good men up there first, to hold off the softies in case they get wind before we’re ready. Once they’re stationed, quiet-like, we’ll haul up the rest in the basket fast as we can. No one stays below. When we move out, first thing we got to take is their ’denser. They’ll fall in pretty quick without water. Next objective is the ’vator; they might try to bust it and make us all starve. We don’t worry about them freaks in the private cells; just leave ’em be and they won’t notice the difference. Once we got control, we ship all the softies down here and let them mine the garnets—and if they can find any blue ones…”

Bossman went on, detailing plans in an atmosphere of growing excitement. He showed the qualities that made him a leader: no mere physical strength, but organization, practicality, enthusiasm, and ruthlessness. “But remember—this revolt is dangerous. If we try it and don’t make it, they’ll starve us out. Every one of us. It’ll mean the Hard Trek…”

“After the revolt,” Framy said, again almost dancing with excitement, “after we take over, know what I’m going to do?” The others gave him their attention, enjoying the discussion of grandiose plans. There were a dozen or so gathered at the mine, unable to concentrate on the work. Revolt day was coming; the decisive variable lay in the assignment of the Bribe Committee.

“I’m going to catch ol’ man Chessy by his white goat’s beard and I’m going to twist his head off until he learns me how to play that game.”

“You might have better luck with that li’l Prenty,” someone joked. “Bet she’d teach you a game.”

“No.” Framy was firm. “It’s got to be Chessy himself. Nobody else. We’re going to lay out the pieces and play in front of the whole Chthon, and when I beat him a game the whole Chthon’ll know I’m a brain and never did nothing wrong.”

They had the courtesy not to laugh. Each man had his secret desire, and many would look foolish in the open.

Hastings took his turn. “I don’t think I’ll fit through that hole any more,” he burbled, and the others smiled with him. The hole was a yard in diameter. “But if the rope doesn’t break when they haul me up, and the floor above doesn’t sink, why then—”

“I know!” someone put in. “He’s going to get himself ’pointed grinder on the ’denser!”

“To reduce.”

“Ma Skinflint’ll love that.”

“Love what?”

Hastings patiently waited for these to subside. “Why then I’ll go to Laza’s cave. I’m quick with my hands, you know”—they knew—“and when she comes at me with that stone knife, why I’ll just pluck it out of her hand, and then…”

The others leaned forward.

“Then…”

“Get on with it, Hasty!”

“Then I’ll give her what she’s been craving so long, so she won’t ever forget!”

“What’s that, Hasty?”

“I’ll pay admission to see that. Hasty!”

“Don’t worry—you will,” another person said. “One garnet per throw.” More laughter.

Framy turned to Aton. “How about you, Fiver? What’s your piece?”

Aton looked around. He had been expecting a surprise twist from Hastings, and wondered what had become of it. The man had let them down with an unclever climax.

Garnet was standing quietly at the fringe. She too, it appeared, had misgivings about the future of the revolt. He felt the need to hurt her.

“Tally’s got a girl, Silly Selene,” he said. “Know her? She made a play for me once, but I had other business. This time I think it will be different.” They gathered in for the telling. “Pretty, yes. You never saw such beauty. A creature of perfection. Her hair takes life when she loves; her eyes become black and green as the deep oceans. As with the hvee, she blooms only when—” He saw their glances of puzzlement. What was wrong? Did they find this fantasy of a simple cavern girl so confusing? He shrugged it off, not caring what they thought. The revolt would never come to pass. “I found her at last. She had been masquerading as human, but once I unveiled her she had to hide from man. I took her to an asteroid cabin—”

“Not human?” Framy asked, puzzle-lines between his eyes. “Silly?”

“I suppose her kind evolved from human stock. Genetic modification—but she looked human, divinely so. The legends attribute strange powers, and some… are true. She can’t be immortal, but I think she is semi-telepathic.”

“She can read minds?”

“I don’t know. That would explain a lot of things. But it also makes her actions more paradoxical. She made me do terrible things. I loved her when I searched for her, but I hated her when I found her. She was destroying me. I did not dare to give her the hvee—”

“Ain’t that the little green flower them people wear? I never seen one.”

“Finally I left her and went home. I told Aurelius that I would marry his daughter of Four if only I could be cured of—of Malice. He was so happy he nearly expired. He was nearly dead from the blight, only holding on until I should return. He shipped me to a famous retreat planet.”

Aton looked up and saw Garnet listening intently. He had forgotten her entirely. For a moment he had self-doubt. Do I have any right to torture this woman? Don’t I owe her a warning, at least? Malice, Malice—you have made me a monster. You make me implement your name, and there is no escape.

Yet Garnet did not look disturbed as much as thoughtful, and there was not a sound from any of the others. What had happened?

A clamor rose above the sound of the wind. Men came running. “It’s time! It’s time! They’ve softened the guard! We got to gather for the revolt! It’s time! The revolt is on. It’s on!”

The passages adjoining the transfer cavern were packed with suppressed excitement. All eyes were fixed on the tiny hole in the ceiling thirty feet above. This was the only known connection between the two worlds. Everywhere else the stone was firm and deep, impossible to attack without heavy tools.

The upper caverns were sealed off, but the seal had one weak spot, and that was the guard on the “night” shift. Aton didn’t know what they had had to promise him, but Bossman’s given word was good, and the man would be secure for life. He had only to let down the rope and stand aside.

Slowly, slowly, the heavy slab crunched over. The dark hole lightened invitingly, a green glow from the far side, the doorway to success. No face appeared. No sound came from above except for the too-loud scraping of the stone.

A pause; then the rope appeared, spinning out from its coil, swinging free of its basket and undulating as it came. The ragged end dropped just clear of the floor and hung in limp invitation.

Bossman gave a grunt of satisfaction. The selected invasion squad moved to the center, Aton second in the line. The most important thing here was the ability to climb swiftly and silently, with strength left over for immediate combat, if necessary.

The first man, short and game in the legs but with arms of immense power, stepped up and jerked the rope. It gave slightly, but held; it was anchored. Like a tug on a teenage braid, Aton thought.

The man took hold and skillfully hauled himself into the air. Aton saw Bossman watching the operation closely, shaking his head. Are you worried, Krell farmer? he thought. You also remember Tally’s intelligence?

The man climbed swiftly to the top, hoisting himself with both hands and hooking a leg in a bend of rope for occasional pauses. He caught the edge of the hole with his hands and flexed the muscles, raising head and shoulders above it. Aton held the rope, making no motion to follow yet.

A muffled cry came from above. The high legs kicked; the man struggled and lost his grip just as he seemed about to complete his climb. He slid down, back through the hole, and fell heavily to the floor below.

Bossman lifted him immediately, but it did not matter. His throat had been neatly slit.

The rope slackened. A second body fell.

It was the softened guard. The rope had been knotted around his neck. He had served as the anchor, and the climbing weight of the first invader had throttled the traitor.

The revolt had come as no surprise to Tally.

You should have known, Aton thought, that Tally would anticipate such a move. That he is neither sadistic nor a fool, and that he had sufficient reason for his pressure and was prepared for any consequence. You will know, at last, that there had to be a traitor, and you will assume that one of your own crew has been softened. You will suspect, now that you know that Tally’s mind is after all as sharp as ever, that there really is evidence of a blue garnet. You will search and question relentlessly, every man and every woman—and in the bottom of Framy’s water-skin you will find the blue fragment.

Framy will scream out the entire story of the discovery and loss of the garnet. He will appeal to me for verification, but I will admit only to an affair with Garnet during the time in question. She will agree, telling herself that she will be suspect otherwise, and wanting the black-haired one to be jealous. Framy is known as a great liar, but you will let him take you to the place he says he found it, and there will be nothing there, and he will not know that his proof lies very near at hand.

“I never done it,” he will cry at last. “I was framed! I was framed!” And you have heard this before.

The upper cavern people will not relent. They must discover for themselves where that first fragment came from, and learn whether there is indeed a mine for it. Because you refused to deal with Tally honestly, he will now starve you out and make the lower caverns safe for exploration from above. And we shall take the Hard Trek.

Oh, yes, we will!

Seven

Idyllia: sunny planet of retreat. Palms and firs grew side by side as the discreet touch of genetic modification brushed nature and made her smile. Blue waters sparkled beside gray mountains; soft white clouds traced their shadows over rustic villages.

Aton performed the registration routine mechanically, his thoughts on the woman he had come to forget. He ignored the indoctrination program. The conceits of a self-styled paradise were no concern of his. Thus he came to find himself ensconced in a beautiful villa, a cabin surrounded by flower gardens and labyrinthine hedge, with no clear idea of how it had come about.

Lovely planet, he thought bitterly. But never as lovely as Malice. Malice—I should have been warned by your name. But I blinded myself to everything but your beauty; I deafened myself to my father’s words. I obsessed myself with a childhood longing. And when I found you…

He surveyed the gardens. Never strong on the merits of cultivation, aside from the special art of hvee, Aton felt he was off to a poor start. It did not matter; even the best of starts would have had little effect on his destructive passion for the minionette.

Minionette. When I found you at last, after the games with the Captain, with the Xests… no wonder those amiable aliens were confused. They saw that you were the minionette, that strange offshoot of man, no imitation, while I tried to fix my ignorance on them. And they showed me what they could, and I took you away, to a hidden spotel, and there divined the monstrous evil of your nature.

Left to his own devices at this resort, he discovered that life did go on. Idly he explored the gardens, solving the simple riddle of the shrubbery, and turning finally to the bright cottage. The descending sun was a raised outline on the floating cloudlets, too round to be natural. The smell of cooking was in the air.

Then, broken, I listened to you, Aurelius. But you told me nothing, only sent me here to Idyllia, to rest, to forget. To forget Malice.

Entering the cabin at last, Aton found ancient-type botanic prints along the hall, a floor of pseudopine, and antique turn-type knobs on hinged doors. Such a house must Wordsworth keep! he thought. Cheerful fire blazing in the main-room hearth; shadows from ornamental andirons flickering against the rough stone segment of the floor. Wholesome noises from what he took to be the kitchen. Another person was in the house.

He stepped through the arch. Arch? This was not, then, intended to be any historic replica. And he saw her: petite, blonde, efficient. “What are you doing here?” he said. What do you care, Aton?

She turned, sparkling. “I belong.”

“But they told me this was my house,” he said querulously.

“Yes.” She came to him and held up her left wrist, showing the silver band on it. “It is the custom of Idyllia to provide slaves for the service of its patrons. For the duration of your stay I belong to you, and in the name of the planet, I welcome you.” She made a little curtsy.

Aton was not convinced. “Something was mentioned. But I thought it was to be a caretaker. A—a manservant.”

“They are reserved for our female patrons.”

“Oh.” Too blatant, Idyllia.

She took his arm and guided him back to the fireplace with that gentle command that is the prerogative of the slave, and settled him for the afternoon meal. Aton accepted the situation with equivocal pleasure. No woman had ever taken care of him in quite this way before, and his attitude was ambiguous before becoming positive. It was, after all, a worthwhile adjustment to make.

“What would one call a female slave?” he inquired.

“By her name,” she said pertly. “Coquina.”

Aton researched in the sturdy intellectual files implanted by his childhood tutor. “The coral building stone? Is that your theme—the hardness and sharpness of—?”

“On Earth,” she said, “there once were tiny clams with shells so colorful that they became collectors’ items. They were called—”

“I see. And what would the pretty shell recommend for a troubled heart tonight?” he said. And he thought, She is trying to oblige—why fence with her, Aton?

“There is a country dance this evening,” she said, apparently missing the implication in his question. “If it pleases you—”

“Nothing pleases me, Coquina.” But he smiled.

The dance was colorful. It happened in a warm brown barn, the smell of hay in the corners, the nests of swallows in the rafters. Tissue banners festooned the hewn beams; soft cider flowed from the central press. People wandered in and out, shepherded by their knowledgeable slaves, smiling desperately. Too often, Aton felt, the striving inner torment shone through the glad masks.

But he drank of the cider and found it potent. It was not soft, despite the evident freshness; it was turning, pungent—and perhaps the natural fermentation had been artfully augmented. Or the apple-stock itself had been modified. He conjured a picture of tiny trees birthing megalocarpous fruit, each huge apple bearing the legend “80 Proof.” His mind became uncommonly clear and he saw that there was laughter even in sadness.

“Sets in order!” Two whiskered stereotypes struck up the music, one playing fiddle, the other a magnificent three-deckered accordion. The room was filled with merriment. Couples formed from the fringe melee and eddied toward the main floor and formed into crude squares. Women flounced their full-circle skirts and took the proud elbows of solemn gentlemen.

Aton spoke aside to Coquina. “How may one obtain a partner for this affair?” The music ascended as busy fingers leaped over white and black accordion keys, strutted against the chord panel, pumped the bellows harder.

“One crosses the room toward one of the seated ladies, bows gallantly, requests the pleasure of her company for the dance.”

“How does one make a choice?” he asked, gesturing at the array. White petticoats fluttered above crossed thighs, making interesting shadows.

Coquina arched an eyebrow. “Unaccustomed as I am to judging the tastes of male clientele… however, I understand that the third damsel from the right is attractive to certain types, and is an excellent dancer—”

Aton studied the woman as she chatted gaily with a neighbor and leaned to tap one elevated slipper and laugh at some private joke. Her décolletage showed fine cleavage and her feet were small. Her hair was long and loose.

“No!” he said, more forcefully than he meant. “Red hair is out.”

Coquina obligingly pointed out an alternate. This time the hair was brown and not too long. She was standing to the side with a cup of cider in her hand, bouncing gently to the music. At the end of the refrain she came down on both heels firmly, breasts and buttocks jumping in sudden sex appeal.

“No—she has green eyes.” It was a bleak reminder; sorrow struck him heavily, his emotion amplified by the liquor.

Coquina looked at him, uncertain whether he were serious. Her eyes were blue. “Come,” he said, unable to explain his mood. “I prefer my slave.”

And so they danced, the girl light on her feet and easy to hold, and for a time the weight upon his mind lightened, retreated half a step. They danced, they swung, they spun, her skirts rising alluringly; but the weight danced with them. The living lines parted and re-formed; men marched to meet their partners in the center, bowed, retreated, marched again, and swung into shuffle-step and grand right-and-left. Right hand to right hand, left to left, meeting each girl with music and a flair of the hip and passing her on to the rear, smiling. Oh, brightening glance! What a miracle such movement makes of the routine figure! What capricious delight, sharpened by irony—for these are smiles and motions only, in the absence of love, intriguing but empty.

Malice, oh Malice, oh Malice, why did you betray me?

It was midnight at the cottage when Aton, subdued, prepared to retire. The vision had grown, and now it pounded in the shell of his head, tearing his mind apart, dominant in his fatigue. It was the face and form of Malice, smiling, devastating, at once more lovely and more terrible than any spectral phantasm. The flame rippled through her hair, and he wanted her.

“Coquina!” he called, and she came, clad in nightgown, demure. “I cannot sleep tonight. Will you talk to me?”

“I understand,” she said.

“I wonder…” He studied her innocence. But the awful vision was fading as he talked. “Have you ever been in love, Coquina?”

“No.”

“People think of love as something romantic as delight, wonder. It is supposed to uplift a man, make him strong, make him good. Have you seen this LOE text?” She nodded slightly. “But, oh, they’re wrong. Love is the most awful weapon known to the human race. It can twist a man, wring him up into a tight wad until his blood spills out upon the stone reality, until he shrivels, and is a dry husk. If you ever search for evil, begin with love… I shouldn’t talk this way to a woman.”

“I am a slave,” she said.

He studied her once more, speculatively. “You say you are a slave. But how much of a slave? Is there not a little bit of woman in you, too? When you move in the dance, pretty shell… If I were to tell you to strip naked before me here…”

“Idyllia must protect its property,” she said. “I will not strip.”

Aton smiled. “It was only an example, a case in point. You are not so much a slave. But tell me, Coquina, are you for sale? Could I purchase you and carry you away with me wherever I wished to roam?”

“The slaves are not for sale. They are loaned to the patrons, to serve within certain limits.”

“Certain limits. I see the shell is closed,” said Aton. “Too bad—but only fair. I wish more women were slaves, more slaves were women…”

Eight

Aton went to parties, danced, saw wholesome theatrical productions, and flirted with meaningless women. By day he swam, participated in antique group sports, took picnics in the sunshine; at night Coquina took care of him and rubbed his back with oil. He talked to her at such times, easing his mind and finding, to his surprise, surcease from the memory of Malice by talking about—Malice. He told Coquina as much as he could remember, more than he had told any human being before, because he had come to regard her not as human but as slave.

It was not enough. Malice came back to his mind at every unguarded moment, arousing unquenchable desire, measureless pain. He could hide from her for an hour, but he could not escape.

“This is getting me frankly nowhere,” he said at last. “I’ve got to find something that will take up my whole attention for more than a tiny span.”

And Coquina, as always, had a suggestion. “Have you tried mountain climbing?” she asked. “It is a vigorous sport that takes many days and uses a great deal of energy. It is not dangerous, here, and it has special merits.”

“You are telling me, gentle shell, that the answer to doubt is work,” Aton said. “This is the very finest Victorian sentiment from LOE. But if you recommend it, I’ll try it. You’ve been taking good care of me so far.”

“I will arrange for a guide,” she said.

“You will arrange to be the guide,” he replied. “Do you think I mean to have you corrupted by some other patron in my absence?”

She smiled, and the following afternoon saw the two of them tramping along the intermittently wooded base of a local mountain. Curling bracken rose on either side, tall as a man already; scented pink lady’s-slipper flowers could have been worn by a lady with an evanescent tread. Volcano-like, the giant puffballs spouted smoky haze at the slightest touch. Farther along, milkweed mixed with dwarf sequoia. Great and small, blooming and fruiting, natural and modified, the plants of Idyllia presented themselves for approval.

Aton stopped to look at a lizard, slim and red, perched on a boulder. It eyed him with seeming intelligence. “We will meet again, your kind and mine,” it seemed to say, and Aton laughed and slapped at it, making it scramble for safety.

Coquina, delicate though she might appear, carried a full pack and sleeping bag and kept a man’s pace. Aton was amazed at her stamina.

They camped early, before the mountainside obscured itself in shadow, and she fixed a meal. Aton stared into the somber water of the stream they washed in, and saw huge red salmon.

He moved to flick a twig off his arm, stopped just in time: it was an insect, a three inch walking stick, so still it might be dead. He was tempted to drop it in the water to see if the fish would take it; but he saw Coquina glance at him, and felt ashamed. Why did he have this urge to hurt, to torture, an innocent insect? He transferred it to a leaf and watched it tread carefully away.

No biting creatures infested the night air. They slept side by side in twin bags on an aromatic bed of fern. Aton half-awoke, briefly, to the call of an owl, and saw his slave in slumber, a light strand of hair over her face. The beauty of her features was classic, even so. It struck him that he could appreciate it without untoward thought, and this was new, for him.

Daylight, sunny and bright in sections as they tramped among mixed fir and palm and hardwood. This was a forest to enjoy at leisure; but Aton drove himself hard, trying to banish his problems by sheer physical effort. Coquina kept pace without complaint as the way grew steeper.

Great mossy roots tied down the twisting trail. He doubled his effort, pushing up the mountain, an energumen, until the muscles of his legs were weary and his head grew faint. The slave followed, saying nothing but never falling back.

Aton became genuinely curious. His youth on Hvee, in gravity possibly fifteen per cent greater than Earth-normal, had guaranteed his strength. Genetics in the laboratory had strengthened his body generations before he was born. In ordinary gravity he could perform feats that would astound the uninitiate, and the years in space had only slightly impaired his stamina. For this was where it showed: no normal man could match the endurance of the modified, and among the women only the strange minionette had shown comparable power. Certainly a soft pleasure-world such as this was not the place to find a really durable woman.

That second evening, far up the slope where the gusting wind was cold, he feigned a greater weariness than he felt. He threw himself down and pretended to sleep. He watched Coquina.

She went about the preparation of the meal without sign of undue fatigue, though the bounce was gone. A glance in his direction apparently convinced her that he was sleeping soundly; she came and rolled him into a more comfortable position and placed a pad of moss under his head. She did not try to wake him.

What made the girl so strong? She should have dropped from exhaustion long ago. But not only did she stay with him, she handled the routine chores as well. Did she also stem from modified stock? Did a slave on Idyllia really conform to the ancient virtue of the species: having the advantages of wife and work-horse combined, without the liabilities?

No, she could not completely be equated to a wife, though she would make a good one. Aton gave up the game, sat up, stretched, rubbed away imaginary fog. There was no point in missing supper. Tomorrow he would discover just how tough she was.

The path became steep and quite irregular. Aton paid no attention to the expanding view below the mountain or to the fleeting wildlife—a beaver, mountain goats, tortoise—that surveyed his passing. He chose the most difficult ascent and climbed with utmost speed. Coquina had become a challenge; he was determined to discover her breaking point. He did not stop to wonder just what it was he was competing with, or to marvel at his rivalry with a woman who was bound only to do his will.

As the day wore on, drenching him in perspiration, it began to seem that his own breaking point was likely to be the one measured. The girl made no comment, no suggestions. She was versed in the art of climbing; her motions were economical, conserving of energy, and she expended far less of it than he. She must, he thought, have escorted many a prior gentleman up these same slopes. That bothered him.

At length they came to an overhanging ledge, where the outcropping rock ascended jaggedly for the better part of fifty feet before retreating beneath its cover of shrubbery. The area was not wide and would have been easy to circle—but Aton had no such intention. This was ideal. His years as a Navy enlistee had familiarized him with the rigors of rope handling; such a hoist would be difficult enough, but within his means. For a woman, however, necessarily lacking the sheer musculature and practice required, it would be the supreme test.

He lassoed a low rock that stood twenty feet above the base. It would be large enough to stand on, and to serve as a take-off for the major portion of the climb. He hauled himself up quickly, his feet walking the almost vertical cliff face. The familiar exertion was good to feel.

He cleared the top, checked the rope, and waited for Coquina to climb. And climb she did, coming hand over hand and walking up the side of the mountain as he had done. The pack on her back obviously threw her off-balance and made it hard, but she said nothing.

He hooked the cord around the uppermost projection and pulled it tight. This would be a longer haul—twenty-five feet at least, with the rock angling out so that the rope hung free. There would be no wall-walking this time.

Aton went up. The climb this time was not so simple. He realized belatedly that there was a difference between swinging on a line at half-gravity in spacecraft, and facing full gravity with a pack on. The strength he had expended so generously of the prior climb was in demand now; he had been wasteful. He should have towed the packs up separately—and he should have secured a safety line, to prevent an accidental fall. His spare rope was coiled at his belt, useless.

But the girl was watching below, and he was strong. He achieved the higher projection and clambered over, very glad for the release. This ledge was secure, and there was space for a second line. He uncoiled his extra and made a loop.

Coquina had already begun her climb. Lying flat with his head and one shoulder over the edge, he could see that he had guessed correctly. She was not used to this particular type of exercise, and did not know the little tricks of rope facility. This was not a woman’s sport. She swung out against a backdrop of brush and trees falling precipitously away, and swung in almost to strike the concavity of stone. She was tiring rapidly, but she kept coming.

About fifteen feet up she slowed and stopped. She had come to her limit at last. Aton, obscurely gratified, was about to shout to her, to tell her to let herself down and choose another route.

Then he saw how really tired she was. Her small hands, hanging numbly to the rope, began to slip. The view of distant and rocky terrain spun slowly behind her dropping form; the landing below was death.

Without thinking, Aton flipped his loop over the outcropping and flung himself over. It was the spaceman’s reflex: immediate action, thoughtless of personal danger. He dropped, the pack he still wore tugging upward against his armpits. Halfway down the sheer face the taut rope he gripped yanked him to a halt with a violence that smashed skin from fingers and palms and almost tore loose his grip. There were muscles in arms and shoulders that would cause him severe regret on the morrow.

He was dangling a little below the girl. As her hold finally gave way he spread one arm and caught her around the waist, pulling her body clumsily to him. She clung to him weakly, nearly unconscious with her own fatigue.

Preoccupied as he was, trying to handle a double load augmented by the weight of the packs, with a single straining hand on his rope, he nevertheless noted with nightmare irrelevance how lithe and sweet her body was against his. Except for the time that first evening at the country dance, he had never held her; it came somehow as a surprise now that she was very much a woman.

Meanwhile reflex took over again. His hand loosened, permitting a controlled slide down the rope, burning fearfully. But he landed roughly on the lower ledge and let Coquina down on the widest portion, where she could lie safely. As he kneeled beside her, her arm came around his neck, hugging him.

“You are strong, strong,” she whispered, eyes closed. “Stronger than I.” Then her hand fell away and she was unconscious.

Her words left him elated. He knew they were sincere. Whatever had passed before, she saw him now as a man and not as a pampered patron. That, perhaps, had been the thing he was warring against. With profound pleasure he set about doing the things that she had done before, for him. He made her comfortable, foraged in the packs for food, and brought it to her. Later he wrapped gauze around and around his clotted hand and lowered the packs to the foot of the cliff, and climbed down himself to arrange a nearby campsite.

Only after they were both down did he allow her to put salve on his hand and rebandage it. She was taking over again, and he liked it still—and he realized with a pleasant shock that Malice had been driven completely out of his mind for some time, and that there were far more immediate things for his concern.

Nine

Coquina’s first words that evening, as a solitary cricket chirruped from somewhere, were of apology. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay with you, Mr. Five. I did not mean to—”

“Never call me that again,” he said, cutting her off. “I am a man, not a title—a foolish man who almost killed you.”

“Yes, Aton,” she said. “But no one dies on Idyllia.” She got up. “I have work to do.”

Aton grabbed her by the ankle and brought her down again. “Do it tomorrow. Right now you are going to rest quietly if I have to sit on you. Why didn’t you tell me how tired you were getting?”

Her smile was rueful. “A slave does not consider personal problems. The patrons usually have more than enough of their own.”

Aton blanched inwardly at the reference to patrons. Things had not really changed between them. “Have you been a slave here all your life?”

Another wan smile. “Of course not. No one is born to slavery. There are conventions… I came here the only way anyone can. I volunteered.”

“Volunteered!”

“It is a good situation. There’s a long waiting list. The standards are high.”

“So I noticed,” Aton said, appraising her figure.

She put her hands in front of her, unconsciously defensive. “I’m not that kind of slave, and I wouldn’t care to be judged on such terms.”

“Forgive me,” Aton said contritely, “for being male. I value you very much on whatever terms you consider to be applicable. But surely you sometimes have trouble with men in lonely places like this?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But we are trained to protect ourselves.”

Aton thought of some of the tricks he knew. “Even against spacemen?”

“Especially against spacemen.”

He laughed. “My pride will not let me believe that, but I like you very well as you are.” She laughed with him, and he felt a warm glow. But the Malice image hovered in the background, undead.

He banished that thought. “You are surprisingly strong for a woman, Coquina. Where are you from?”

“I shouldn’t tell you…”

Suddenly she didn’t need to. “Hvee’ he exclaimed. “They don’t grow women like you anywhere else in the galaxy. Only on my home world.” With this discovery his interest in her blossomed. His interest was no longer idle—if idle it had been. “Name your Family.”

“Please don’t.”

Aton snapped his fingers. “Four?” he demanded, and she had to nod. “I should have known. Aurelius’ judgment was always impeccable. He swore he had arranged the finest match—and he had, oh, he certainly had—I would have loved you.”

Her expression did not change, but he sensed the hurt in her immediately. “I was speaking of the past,” he said lamely, but the damage had been done. “It was the song, the broken song. It was driving me, and I could not turn aside. Now I am suspended, a fish on a hook; I can only acknowledge what might have been.”

“You have mentioned this before.”

Yes, of course—I have been telling her everything, not knowing to whom I spoke. Not knowing!

“How did you come here?” he asked, trying to hide his embarrassment.

“I never saw the man I was to marry, or knew his name,” she said, almost inaudibly. “But I—I hated him, when he brought the shame upon my Family. To be refused sight unseen… and the Families would not annul the liaison. I couldn’t stay.”

Aton tried to take her hands, but she eluded him. “I did not know. ‘Third daughter of Eldest Four’—it was only a designation, not a person.”

“Slaves, too, have pasts,” she said. “But they do not matter.”

“But you must have known. We were not thrown together by coincidence.”

“No. You were my assignment. Your face and your name were not familiar. Until you talked about your past, and I began to understand. The Families could not introduce us formally—”

“And you never said a word. Never a word!” He was not hungry, but he nervously took one of the self-heating food canisters from his pack and began to eat from it. She followed his example, except that hers was a refrigerant package. He knew the symbolism was accidental, but it spurred him to another effort.

“Let’s forget what has happened between us,” he said. “It—there is too much to overcome. Too much of shame. Let’s wipe the slate clean and begin from this point. I want to know about you.” She did not respond. “Please.”

She demurred. “A slave may not—”

“Damn slavery! You’re the woman I should have married, and I want to know.”

She was shaking her head mutely.

Aton looked at her with embarrassed exasperation. She had never seemed recalcitrant before—but of course he had not questioned her about herself before. Surely the circumstances negated any token convention. Unless—

“I have it,” he said. “You told me that no one dies on Idyllia. That’s not rhetorical, is it? That must mean that the clients are watched all the time—and not only by their faithful slaves. Are we under observation now?”

She lowered her eyes.

“And if I had not caught you, there at the cliff, some contraption would have popped out of the stone, thumbed its mechanical nose at me, and whisked you away…Answer me!”

“Something like that.”

“And you’ll be demoted to dog-walking detail if you say a word.”

“Some of them are very nice dogs.”

“Well, if you persist in this foolishness, I’ll just have to clamber up that cliff again, jump off, and force that thing to nab me in midair before I splatter. Then where would your precious job be?”

“Please,” she whispered.

“I should have brought LOE,” he remonstrated dolefully. “ ‘Had we but world enough, and time’—”

“I may be coy,” Coquina said, this time with some spirit, “but I’m not your…”

She was lying in the leaves, her hair matted in them. Aton lay down beside her, propped on one elbow. He picked away the bits in her hair. “I was too quick to set aside convention. I did not appreciate the enormous wisdom of the elders’ choice.”

“No,” she said. “That shame is forgotten now.”

“I will redeem it. I promised to marry the daughter of Four—”

“No!”

The shell was closed.

The pace was more leisurely after that. Magnificent vistas spread out below as they toiled near the summit. Aton had to admit that he felt better than he had in some time. Coquina’s cheerful mien and quiet strength of character collaborated with the beauty of the scenery to make life once more a worthwhile experience.

He was almost sorry when they reached the top. He would have preferred to go on climbing as they had been, never stopping, never thinking, never facing the complex problems of life beyond this mountain; just breathing the scented breeze and listening to the crackle of dry debris underfoot. Malice, for the moment, was little more than a sinister shadow. So much stronger, now, was the living vision of Coquina—pert without affectation, asking nothing, her short curls bobbing as she walked.

On impulse, Aton put his arm around her. She frowned but did not withdraw. Together they mounted the final incline to the summit.

Aton had been expecting a special view, but the scene that met his eyes here exceeded his anticipation. The mountain turned out to be not single but double; a massive split separated the halves, plunging down half a mile to become a narrow crevice between them. The walls on either side were sheer. He retreated a step, repelled by his own attraction to the chasm.

“This,” Coquina said, poised alarmingly near the brink, “was once a field and rill—”

“Rill?”

“Stream. And a field is a flat clearing.”

“I won’t interrupt again,” he agreed.

“Long ago the mountain rose out of the ground. But the rill was older, and it would not move aside. It cut through the rising mass. After a little while—an eon or two—the mountain became annoyed. It ascended more rapidly, until the river could not keep up. The water gave up and went around the mountain after all. Now we have the river bed a mile above the river, and the mountain has two peaks.”

“If I had been that river,” Aton said, “I would have tunneled through that upstart hillock.”

“You would have been sorry. The river did try that, and there is a hole at the edge of a pond, leading into the base of the mountain. But the water that goes in one side never comes out the other. So most of the river backs up and stays away from that area.”

“I don’t blame it. It’s a good thing you warned me; you may have kept me out of bad trouble.” He stood behind her, watching the wind from the cleft fluff back her hair and catch at her hiking skirt.

“The song is gone,” he said.

Coquina turned slowly to face him. “Aton.”

The shell is open, he thought. All it takes is the touch of genuine love.

Gravely he removed the hvee from his hair and tucked it in hers. She smiled quizzically, her eyes shining. They stood at arm’s length, gazing at each other in silence, waiting for the hvee.

Then she was in his arms, sobbing against his shoulder. “Aton, Aton, hold me. You are the first…”

He pressed her close, savoring an emotion that was real, that had not been contaminated.

She stepped back from him, once more silhouetted against the midmorning sky. She was radiant. “So new,” she said. “So beautiful. Kiss me, Aton, so I can believe…”

He put his two hands on her shoulders, bringing her close slowly. As her face approached a cloud seemed to pass before it. A shimmering, a fading…

…And it was the face of the minionette. Hair the color of the living flame surrounded it, twining in serpentine splendor, in and out. Black-green eyes stared into his. The red lips parted. “Kiss me, Aton…”

“No!” he cried, his dream of freedom blasted. He put his hand against the specter, covering the liquid eyes. He shoved it away with a convulsion of horror.

And stood alone on the mountain, wrapped in the melody…