Dark of the Woods

I

The first bit of trouble came even as they were leaving the starship on Demos's port field; it was a harbinger of worse times ahead.

Stauffer Davis walked down the corrugated ramp with his protection robot, Proteus, at his side. After a tedious flight out from the Alliance central worlds, he was so on edge that the gurgling of plasti-plasma with the robot's spherical, force-capped body ground hard on his nerves and made him somewhat nauseous. Proteus was ignorant of his master's irritation, for every ounce of his being, every drop of his quasi-liquid circuitry was concentrated on maintaining an optimum efficiency watch to detect even the slightest minim of hostile life before it could do damage to his human charge. As he floated on his grav plates, his tiny sensor nodes gleamed in the bright sun — some of them alive with color that radiated from within: amber, crimson, and a soft, pulsing blue. His two chief sight receptors were cataracted white screens — but as watchful as eyes could ever be.

When they were halfway to the minibus that would carry them to the main port terminal, a spiderbat swept low from the east, wings fluffed, claws extended to rip open Davis's scalp…

Inside Proteus, the card taped index of this planet held the information that the spiderbat was a particularly vicious little predator that had been known to go for a three-horned buffalo when it only wanted a snack, leaving better than 99 % of the corpse for the eaters-of-dead-meat. Its wingspread was but eleven inches of leathery membrane; its weight seldom more than two pounds. The only things it had going for it — aside from its maniacal determination and total lack of fear — were its teeth and its long brittle claws which it honed constantly on the limestone outcroppings of its native foothills. The claws could gut a man in moments.

Proteus snapped alert, the force-cap over his main manipulation barrel dissolving as he turned to take aim. A tentacle of plasti-plasma shot out of the casing, wrapped around the spiderbat and throttled it in a shapeless hand of warm goo. Proteus dropped the body on the concrete where it wriggled a moment and was, finally, utterly still and dead.

Later, Davis could not remember whether he heard the wings of the second beast or whether it had called in sympathy to the last spasm of its dying mate. But something registered as ominous… He moved swiftly, fell to his knees and rolled sideways, his hands flung over his head to ward off the second spiderbat. It was always wise to remember that the gods who had made other worlds were the same gods who had made Earth and that one of their prime rules was that all things traveled in pairs…

Fortunately, Proteus had not forgotten.

The dead bat's mate aborted its dive and skidded across the hard port floor. It came for Davis, wings flapping, claws rattling against concrete, eyes bright with rabid madness. It got within six feet of him before Proteus snapped it up and mangled it. He dropped the thing beside the body of its mate.

They boarded the bus.

At the terminal building, the minibus drew to a halt before a small cluster of people who were holding up a banner which declared: WELCOME, STAUFFER DAVIS. He sighed, looked to Proteus and wished that the robot could understand, could listen and discuss and do more than protect. He would have liked to tell Proteus, something then: that fans of historical novels made him want to retch.

They were the last off the bus, the robot floating ahead, his microminiaturized brain weeding the bad from the good and destroying the former. If the world were as black and white for men, Davis thought, things would be a damn sight easier. The insects the machine killed seemed harmless enough, and he decided he might not have properly taped the card indices of Demos's flora and fauna into the thing's memory banks. Proteus's retention cells had experienced hundreds of recordings, erasures, and rerecordings and needed an entire new set of spools. That could be taken care of when they returned to the central worlds; for the present, Davis knew he would have to take the first opportunity to rerelate his mechanical compatriot to the planet and hope that would be sufficient.

“Mr. Davis!” a curly haired, cowish woman gasped, shuffling out of the knot of bookworms. She offered him her white-gloved hand.

He wondered how long it would be necessary to endure their little tribute. Damn, he was tired! “This is flattering,” he managed to say with a smile, though he thought it amazing they could not seem to tell that his teeth were gritted.

Proteus finally decided that the white-gloved woman's live beetle brooch could prove a danger. He flashed a pseudopod out and crushed it against her pink lapel.

“He's apparently not correctly carded to Demos,” Davis said, barely able to suppress his laughter at the dripping mess.

She reached to wipe the bloody splotch from her suit and merely succeeded in smearing her glove as well. “A harmless beetle,” she said. “There's very little that is harmful on Demos, Mr. Davis. Demos is the next thing to Paradise.”

Wasn't the next thing to Paradise — Purgatory? Yes, perhaps this had been a paradise before the Alliance arrived, coating the plains with concrete to berth their giant ships. And it wouldn't have been so bad if only the landscape had been destroyed — but they had obliterated Demos's people as well. Such a small population, the winged people, yet the Alliance had killed rather than make concessions. The Demosians, after all, had been so insolent as to offer resistance to the Alliance's annexation of their world. So the Alliance had shut them up. Permanently… The motto of every ruthless government: Never go around, go over. And, of course, these winged people had been aliens — which word could be translated as “animals” as far as Alliance government was concerned. Forget that the Demosians were intelligent with a culture and heritage that was rich and ancient. To the Alliance, that was irrelevent. The provincial policy-making board of the Earth-centered government considered all alien lifeforms inferior to mankind. Therefore, if an alien was less than a human, he did not require humane treatment. The logic of megalomaniacs; but such were the types in power. The Supremacy of Man coalition still ruled the Alliance as the major party, and they understood only the voice of the gun. Did this dumpy, self-important woman not understand that his next novel would have to be about the slaughter that took place here, about a hundred and seventy million winged men and women who had been murdered in the Alliance's colonization of Demos, with condemning details on the sterilizing effects of the mutant mustard gas that had eventually spelled GENOCIDE in dark letters across the face of an entire race? Paradise…

She interrupted his reverie to request that he address their book club before leaving Demos. That he sign a handful, just a few, not many mind you — will take only a moment — of his first editions which they had brought with them…

There's really little need for one of those here,” the Alliance representative said, motioning toward the bobbling form of Proteus as Davis slouched into a seat before the heavy metal desk.

“He killed a spiderbat just after we got off the ship.”

“Oh, most of those have been exterminated. They're rare anymore.”

“It only takes one.”

The rep frowned.

“I believe you'll be pleased to know you'll be living right in one of the aviaries. It was used by a research team, sociologists, a few years back and is all decked out for human habitation. Working right in there, you'll be better able to get an idea of how they lived.” The last three words were said with an undertone of disgust, as if the winged people had been unimaginably barbaric.

“The Sanctuary is only a mile and a half from where you'll be staying,” the rep continued, pulling at the comers of his mustache with his thin, nervous hands, as if he thought the ordering of that patch of brush would bring a corresponding order to his thoughts. “They'll supply you with food and provisions.”

“Sanctuary?” Davis asked.

“Where they keep the last of the winged people.”

“Keep them?”

“Yes. Until they — well, die.” The rep looked uncomfortable and did not meet Davis's gaze. “We have a car waiting to take you up there right now. If you'll just follow me… your luggage has been collected and loaded already.”

They left the office by a rear door, walked a long, bleak corridor, through a metal firedoor and into the pleasant breeze of the early autumn afternoon. The fresh air was a welcome relief from the sterile, chilly air-conditioned tomb of the Alliance headquarters. A sleek, black grav car rested on its rubber cushion before them, its doors open like gaping mouths.

“By the way,” the rep said, fidgeting a bit, “the wife wondered if you might— Well, I have a first edition of this book here, Lilian Girl and…”

Davis autographed the book, climbed inside the car, waited for Proteus to enter through the other side, then cycled the doors shut with the proper toggle on the console. All the while, the Alliance man stood by, uncertain if they were parting on friendly or antagonistic terms. Since Davis was supposed to be writing a pro-Alliance novel, he wanted to be as gracious as possible. Pro-Alliance novelists were rare in the creative community. When the book appeared, Davis thought, the little bureaucrat would hate himself for being so gracious now. They'd send Davis a bill, surely, for all the cooperation they were offering freely now. But it was essential to delude them into believing his book was going to take a favorable view of genocide in order to get into the preserves of the winged people and do first-hand research on their architecture and probable lifestyle. He punched to put the car on its own recognizance, leaned back, and relaxed as the car lifted off the ground and purred away from the port city, away from the rep and the square, gray building of Alliance headquarters.

The big robo-car eventually left the concrete nothingness of the port and pulled onto a badly paved road which required the grav plate distance compensators to work overtime. They twisted through rolling hills and green-blue grass. Once, a carnivorous bird, much less menacing than the spiderbats, dove at the windscreen. Proteus flung out a psuedopod, slapped it against the glass before he realized Davis was already shielded. He retracted the plasti-plasma and brooded quietly the rest of the way.

Davis sincerely hoped he would not have to listen to yet another Alliance employee tell him that Demos was safe and heavenly. Was their reassurance about this “paradise” simply a psychological tool to help them justify the extermination of the native Demosians?

The car broke through into sparsely treed foothills and confronted the first of the Demosian houses. The dark stones seemed fitted together without, benefit of mortar, jutting to form a ninety foot tower, fifty feet in diameter. There were several round “doors” on the ground and at seemingly random intervals up the sides. Winged people would be entering, after all, while in flight. Davis turned to stare after the marvelous structure as their car fled onward.

At the thirty-sixth tower, the car pulled onto a dirt track and stopped, flung its doors open as the grav plates shut down and the body settled onto its rubber rim. Proteus was the first out, nervously patrolling the immediate area.

But there was nothing for him to kill.

Davis carried the first of the bags inside, Proteus still in the lead. The exterior of the place had been interesting — but the interior was stunning. The core of the building, which they had reached through a wide passage leading from the entrance, shot directly to the open-beam ceiling ninety feet above. Leading from this small core were portholes to rooms around the “rim” of the tube-within-a-tube structure. The architecture was one of bold sweeps and graceful curves, denying the ancient facade: the lines of men unbound by gravity, spoiled only by a set of rickety homemade stairs. He decided these must have been added by the sociological research team the rep had informed him of. What possible reason would winged men have had for stairs…?

When he had all of his luggage unloaded, he investigated the alien chambers. There were recreation rooms with game-boards pegged to the walls. He took down a few of these, well aware that he would have to decipher their rules in order to include them in his book. Other chambers were Demosian equivalents of kitchens, baths, lounges, and libraries. The bedrooms were hung with lavish tapestries and handwoven grass nets whose fibers formed pictures in the manner of embroidery; the beds were too low and wide, the mattresses thick and a bit too soft by human standards.

When he had explored only half of the forty rooms, he recorded his first impressions on his tapewriter in order not to forget the initial awe that possessed him at the start of this project. He also felt a heavy, restful air of peace, as if no harm could ever come to him in a place built by those long-dead people. Later, he tried all the kitchen devices, found them in working order as the rep had promised. There was apparently a grav plate stress generator somewhere in the building, tucked away where the sight of it would not destroy the naturalness of the house. The only thing missing was food.

Until she came…

He had flopped on the bed to ponder the scene, his mind ablaze with images of alien art and structure. Her voice came on the hollow echo of the still, late afternoon air. At first, he thought it was a dream voice, for he hung on the edge of sleep. Then he realized it was calling his name. He pushed off the bed and went to the inner portal, stared down the well of the central core.

She was about to call him again, then saw him out of the corner of her eye and looked up…

He realized, as if he had stepped outside of his body and looked back at himself, that his mouth was hanging open rather stupidly. Yet he could not summon the willpower to close it.

Her ebony mane of hair spread about her cherubic face, which was further highlighted by the pitch of her eyes, the cunningly crafted sweep of her graceful neck. The hair curled down her light toga garment and encircled her small breasts.

“I brought food,” she said, holding up a paper bag and a thermos. “From the Keepers at the Sanctuary; Shall I bring it up?”

“Yes,” he said, finally able to move his mouth and speak.

She took three small steps on her toes as if beginning a ballet twirl, and she was airborne, rising toward him on soft blue wings. Amber light filtered through the membrane, softened into violet, and made each panel of the thin flesh into a flower petal glued between the fine struts of cartilage. There was a heavy flapping noise as the membranes folded, spread, folded — and she stood before him on the platform. She offered the food and thermos.

Proteus hummed beside him, gurgling frantically as he searched his flora and fauna banks to be certain she was not of a deadly species. Davis was glad he had taken time to rerelate the robot to Demos on the drive up from the port. Otherwise, the machine might already have disposed of her in a most unpleasant manner.

“That's just for tonight,” she said. “Matron Salsbury will send me in a grav car with provisions for a week. Tomorrow morning, if that suits you.”

“Yes, fine.” He stared a moment, unable to avert his eyes from her, then said, “Will you join me?”

“No thank you. I've eaten, Mr. Davis.” She smiled, amused by his confusion.

“Stauffer.”

She frowned. “I don't know that name, though I had thought I had mastered your language quite well.”

“You have. It's not a real first name, but a family name. A sadistic mother who was sorry she ever married my father. She managed to saddle me with her bitterness by labeling me with her maiden name.”

“Your people don't sound happy.”

“They're dead anyway,” he said. “And don't look sorry about that!”

They stood, eyes dark to dark in the amber light, her wings drawn back and folded like velvet cloth so that they almost ceased to exist. “Well,” she said, “I have to go.”

Impulsively, he said, “I'm unfamiliar with Demos. Would you ask Matron Salsbury if you might be my guide for a few days — until I become acquainted?”

She hesitated. “Ill ask. But now I have to go, or she'll be angry.” She turned, stepped into the air, fluffed her wings and drifted down. Moments later, she was gone from the core, even the distant sound of her wings faded altogether.

Removed from her bewitching presence, his common sense returned like a tidal wave crashing across the beach of his mind, and he cursed himself for his stupidity. Certainly she attracted him, for she was undeniably beautiful. But he should never have made his interest so evident. To imagine her as his lover (as he had been doing) was sheer madness — sheer, deadly, stupid madness. The Supremacy of Man coalition had designed and enforced the strictest imaginable miscegenation laws; Earthmen who loved those of other races were made impotent, and the minimum prison sentence was twelve years. Once in prison, there would be little chance of eventual freedom, even if he were given the minimum sentence.

The Supremacy-hired, Supremacy-sympathizing guards would see to that with a joyous, savage brutality…

He could not allow himself such dangerous dreams. It was a silly thing for any man to think of, let alone a, man with so much to lose as he.

He must consider her only a friend. How could affection have arisen so swiftly anyway? He surely wasn't going to try to argue love-at-first-sight, was he? It could only be lust he felt. And lust could be conquered. He would think of her only as a friend, and he would not allow himself to love her.

He hoped…

Later that night, there were dreams:

“Love in its essence is spiritual fire": Swendenborg…

Stauffer Davis tossed through flames. They licked at him but did not consume him. Instead, they exhilarated, shot his flesh through with a contained burning that flowered in him with glowing ash and phoenixed his ancient soul…

“The only victory over love is flight": Napoleon…

But he didn't mean— Oh, well, a Freudian quote. Davis FLEW in his illicit dreams. Still, there were flames all about, all-deep, all-high, all-wide and full. And he flew through them, dancing on the hot air, flying beside her…

“Oh my luve's like a dark-haired rose": Burns and Stauffer Davis…

He flew through the flames beside her, tangling their wings, singing love songs in the crackling air…

But everything abruptly mutated into nightmare. The flames suddenly stung. His wings caught fire, flashed white. He saw hers catch too …

He saw her falling…

And he was falling beside her — down to where thousands of winged men and women waited accusingly. They knew he was not one of them. And standing on the horizon were Supremacy guards with scalpels of steel and diagrams for impotency…

He woke screaming.

Proteus hit the lights, plasti-plasma slopping about in his silvered husk, and restlessly searched the room.

There was nothing, only the ghosts of a thousand winged men and women etched in the ether from another day long gone.

Davis sat on the edge of the bed, head cradled in his hands, thinking of the stupidity of allowing this silly infatuation to grow into something more serious. Impotency under Supremacy surgeons' hands… imprisonment… almost certain death…

But none of these ugly possibilities seemed able to drive out the picture of her ebony hair or the perfect geometrical design of her wings which had been imprinted on the soft gray flesh of his brain. God damn it, he thought. I'm not making the artist's error of falling in love with the symbol of my sympathies, am I?

Infatuation. Nothing more. Please.

Proteus roamed the far corners of the room, searching…