Iduna

Chapter Five

The wind was too strong creating turbulences which caught the raft and forced her to grip the rails to maintain her balance. From the thick mass of clouds lightning stabbed at the peaks, illuminating the mountains with bursts of savage radiance; electronic fire which gave the scene an unreal appearance as if it were a painting made by an insane artist. A harsh and brutal panorama yet one holding a raw beauty Kathryn could appreciate. For too long she had remained cooped behind walls. It was good to get out and feel the surge of elemental forces stirring her blood.

"My lady!" Shamarre lifted her voice above the wind. "We should drop. Drop!" She frowned as Kathryn shook her head.

The driver made the decision, dropping the raft and sending it heading away from the mountains and the dangerous air. An act she justified with a lifted hand pointing to a cluster of rafts high above.

Tamiras at work.

The vehicles were the largest available, cargo-carriers now filled with equipment and bales of prepared chemicals. Even as she watched they separated to climb high into the cloud, there to spray their loads of minute crystals which would trigger the reaction for the masses to release their water content in rain which would do little harm here over the mountains.

A hope and one he hadn't bolstered, shaking his head even as accepting the commission.

"We can try," he said bluntly, "All it will take is money for chemicals, but it could be money wasted. The formations are wrong. My other idea holds more promise."

To create energy fields in the atmosphere and use them as sweeps to push the clouds from sensitive areas. Brooms in the sky to brush away storms. If nothing else the man had audacity.

Kathryn glanced to where he had vanished in the clouds with his team. Men who followed him with a blind faith she could envy. Now they were willing to risk their lives because he led the way. Women would have been a little more cautious. They would have wanted safeguards and an assessment of the odds and would base their decisions on calculated probabilities. A trait which was regarded as admirable but which lacked a certain romance. Would she have been willing to ride into the nexus of a brewing storm knowing that, at any moment, naked fury could blast her into drifting atoms?

"My lady!" Shamarre was uneasy. Her broad face was lined with anxiety and her eyes were never at rest as they scanned earth and sky for signs of danger. Never comfortable in the air, she longed for dirt beneath her feet. "The storm-"

"Will break when it breaks and if Tamiras is lucky will do no harm."

"To the crops, no. But to us?"

Rain wouldn't hurt them though some had been drowned in storms, but hail could pound them to a jelly and the lightning could sear them with the fury of lasers. Yet still she hesitated to order the return. If mere men could brave the elements how could she do less?

And, out here, could be found a little, relative peace of mind.

"Look!" The driver lifted her arm. "The raft-look!"

It dropped from the clouds, turning, bales falling from the open body, bundles which jerked to a halt at the end of ropes as other shapes, also lashed, swung and grappled with the swinging loads. One of the fleet which had run into trouble, caught by opposing blasts, the driver taken by surprise or unable to maintain control. But he was skilled. Even as she watched, Kathryn saw the vehicle veer and swing, the crew shortening the ropes and heaving bales back where they belonged, the movements of the raft aiding their efforts.

From the carrier fell a shower of glinting crystals as one of the bales split open. A fall which spread in the wind to stream a swirl toward and above her. And, suddenly, the immediate area was drenched with rain.

It pounded on the raft, the housing, the people it contained, adding a fresh glisten to metal accoutrements and plastic fabrics. Rain which wet her face and hair and ran down her neck to send moisture seeping over her torso.

"He was wrong!" Shamarre was yelling her pleasure at this proof of the fallibility of men. "Tamiras was wrong!"

Seeding could make the clouds shed their water; the accident had proved it-or had it been a coincidence? And even if it had not it could have been a matter of luck. The more massive formations could be of a different "ripeness" and resistant to the primitive method which had seemed to work. Yet the man would try. No matter what, he would try.

Men, she thought. Weak, romantic fools for the most part. Illogical and immature even when nearing the end of their natural span. Who else would risk seemingly inevitable madness for the sake of an ideal? After the first few volunteers no other women had offered to go in search of Iduna. But men? Always there had been a man who, for some mysterious reason of his own, had agreed to take the chance. Was it their fault they had proved to be weak? If weakness had anything to do with it. What had Dumarest said?

She frowned, trying to remember and wondering why she couldn't. All connected with Iduna was crystal clear-her smile, the way she used to lift her hands, the pressure of her lips against her cheek when, without fail, she had gone to bid her good night. And, more than anything else, that dreadful moment she had seen her lying, apparently dead, the cursed bulk of the Tau lying beside her.

Iduna, her only child, why did slave women breed like vermin when she had been so denied?

"My lady, your pleasure?" The gust of rain had ceased and Shamarre, wet and chilled, wanted to get back to the palace. "You need a hot bath and change of clothing."

A hint as to what she herself longed for but she could wait. Perversity kept Kathryn from giving the order to return. Glancing up and back at the sky above the mountains she saw the dancing interplay of lightning; blasts which tore stone and sent rolling thunder to echo like a monstrous voice through shrouded valleys and jagged passes.

Surely the seeding must have been completed by now?

A vaggary of wind and the raft tilted a little to steady as the driver adjusted the controls, rising a little to meet another gust, to veer again, to spin beneath the impact of a sudden shower of hail.

"The storm!" Her voice rose in sudden terror. "The storm-it's breaking!"

Wind caught the raft as savage lightning ripped through clouds now venting showers of hail. Ice drummed on the metal and piled in heaps within the body of the vehicle, striking like hammers, stinging as if each pellet were a vicious insect. Head crouched, Kathryn felt Shamarre come to her, a thick cloak thrown as a shield over them both, the fabric supported by brawny arms.

Over the roar of the storm Kathryn shouted, "The driver! Tell her-"

"She has her orders." Shamarre was brusque. "And she isn't such a fool as to linger where there is danger just for the fun of it."

A reproof? Kathryn felt the shift of the raft as it headed back and down away from the storm and shifted beneath the cloak to maintain her balance. Shamarre, at times was outspoken but she had earned the right by long years of dedicated service and, anyway, the moment was too pleasurable to spoil by her taking umbrage at what could have been an emotive slip of the tongue.

Impatiently Kathryn pushed aside the cloak and looked back toward the mountains, seeing the dance of lightning, the mist of swirling rain, the sheets of ice which dropped to plaster the rocks with a crust of white. Hammers which no longer threatened the crops. Tamiras had won-but other problems remained.

The church was a flimsy construction of plastic spread over poles, mottled, stained, divorced of all pretension and aspirations of beauty; a strictly functional construct which occupied most of the space granted by the Matriarch and provided living quarters for the monks, a dispensary, a space in which a few could sit and rest while meditating or receiving instruction, a smaller space where a supplicant could find ease.

A cubicle in which Brother Remick sat behind the benediction light and watched the woman kneeling before him.

Once she had been young and still held a measure of attraction but now her face in the glowing, ever-shifting light from the instrument was taut, ugly with self-contempt as she babbled a list of minor sins. As she paused, the monk said quietly, "Is there nothing more, sister?"

"Nothing! I-"

"Can find contentment only in confession, my child. Admit to yourself the wrong you have done to others and accept the punishment which will give ease and peace of mind. Guilt is corrosive and will eat into your mental and physical well-being. Rid yourself of it. Give voice to it. Nothing you say here before me will be repeated. It will be as if you spoke to yourself alone."

But by voicing the guilt she would ease it and, hypnotized by the swirling colors of the benediction light, she would respond to his suggestions and suffer a subjective penance before being wakened and given the scrap of concentrates which form the bread of forgiveness. Many came for that alone, confessing minor sins and accepting the mild penances for the sake of the food. A fair exchange-once under the influence of the light each was indoctrinated with the command never to kill.

Others followed, at times it seemed as if the suppliants were endless, but finally the monk was able to rise from his chair and ease the ache of bone and muscle. Outside the air held a peculiar dampness and the late afternoon sun was tinged with swirls of lambent emerald which traced deeper patterns of green against the sky. The residue of the distant storm which was either dying or moving deeper into the mountains. In the slanting light the town was a trap for shadows, patches of relative gloom accentuating the high-flung grace of tower and spire and pinnacle. The triple arches of the palace soared like challenging fingers against the bowl of the firmament.

Beauty-why did it have to be sullied?

A question the monk had asked often before and had yet to gain a satisfying answer.

Worlds circled their suns like jewels caught in the web of space and each held its own, unique charm. Yet each, once touched by man, grew the vicious cancers of greed and hate and domination. Forests destroyed for the cellulose they contained, the ground ravaged for minerals, the seas spoiled for fish, the land for game. Man was a blight, a disease, a thing of terror. An animal which had learned to think and build but which had never developed the capacity for compassion.

"Brother?" Echo was at his side, the old monk's face masked by his cowl. "If I intrude-"

"You do not. Juba?"

The monk was within the living quarters, lying supine on his narrow cot, his eyes closed in a waxen face, his thin hands resting on his stomach. For a moment Remick stood looking down at him, noting the sunken cheeks, the darkly circled eyes, the flaccidity of the skin at jaw and throat. Touching the wrist he felt a barely discernible pulse. The skin itself was febrile.

"How long?"

"An hour after you took your station, Brother. I thought he was sleeping and did what I could before attending the dispensary. A short while ago I checked and found him as you see." The calmness of his voice faltered a little. "Is there hope?"

There was always hope-but not for Brother Juba. He was dying and they both knew it. Soon now he would be dead and a life of absolute dedication would be over. And what was there to show for it? What mark would he have left? The sacrifice of personal comforts, of a wife and children, of the chance of wealth and the relinquishing of all self-pride and all self-determination-what had it achieved? Worlds still were ruled by terror, men and women were still slaves, hatred and cruelty still held domination. Men still looked on each other as things less than human. There was still pain.

And, always, there would be death.

A part of the Natural Cycle which ruled all things. To be born, to grow and then to die. The old making way for the young and the young growing to build for those who would come after. And all passing into the Great Unknown and all, at the end, truly equal.

As Echo left the cramped quarters Remick settled down to his vigil. Perhaps he should have let the other do it, the monks had been close, but it was his duty and it would have been no kindness to force the other to witness a preview of his own end. Soon he too would be making the last journey and then would be time enough for him to be involved with thoughts of extinction. Now the living, those waiting for medical aid, would occupy his mind and turn his thoughts from the still figure on the cot.

Again Remick touched the hand, his fingers searching automatically for the pulse. Drugs could restore the flush to the sunken cheeks but it would be a temporary illusion and only a momentary staving off of the inevitable end. And a man should be allowed to die in dignity, not hooked and incorporated into a machine, a part of devices which pumped blood and air and adjusted the endocrine balance and turned the body of man into a thing of mechanics.

A respite gained at what cost?

Remick had seen such things in the big hospitals on wealthier worlds and had seen, too often, the fear and greed and envy such things induced. To live! To last another day, another hour! To stave off death. To linger no matter what the cost. To squander the accumulated wealth of years and rob the young of their patronage. To glory in the cult of self. To yearn for immortality.

Madness!

Death was a part of life. An ending. A closing. Something to be accepted with calmness and equanimity. The end of an episode and the beginning of another. Birth, growth, death- the sum total of life and of existence.

"Brother!" On the cot Juba stirred, tongue touched dried lips. As Remick fed him water his voice strengthened a little yet still remained detached. "Don't leave me, Brother. How am I to manage? I know so little and must accomplish so much. Brother!"

An appeal to some long-dead monk who had been his guide and mentor when young. Remick knew the feeling well, the awesome sense of responsibility when, filled with zeal, he had set out to change the universe. An ambition all monks shared and one which slowly lost its luster as the realization was accepted that one man could do only so much and to change human nature was to attempt the near impossible.

"No!" Juba turned, twisting, sweat dewing his face and neck. "No! For the love of God, don't! Don't!"

A revived fragment of memory surfacing like a bubble on a pond, to burst and release agony. To make the past real and immediate again, a time when, still young, Juba had been taken by regressed primitives and subjected to their torture of fire. Beneath his robe his body showed the scars; savage wounds reaching to his waist, burned areas mottled in purple and angry red. They could be clearly displayed, but the other scars, those on his mind, had been buried deep.

Now to rise and produce screams and writhings, then a panting submission as Remick touched major nerves and spoke soothing words to diminish the impact with hypnotic skill.

A kindness and the reason why no monk was ever allowed to die alone if it was possible to attend him. A reassurance that he was not alone, that he would never be alone, that always there would be someone who cared. The final seal of a fellowship which embraced them all in a common cause.

"Brother!" Remick closed his fingers on those in his hand. "Rest easy, Brother, all will be well. Peace will be yours. Now rest and dream of scented fields on which shines the warm light of a brilliant sun. See how the flowers stir to the breeze and how the butterflies lift to soar and wheel in flashes of glowing color. Rest, Brother. Rest."

Juba sighed but the weight on his mind was too great to be so easily banished. When he next spoke his voice was that of a child, thin, detached, impersonal. Remick listened, his face intent, unsurprised at what he heard. Men were not angels and no man, not even a monk, could live a life free of sin. Always were temptations of the flesh, of ambition, of anger and irritation. The sin of pride was always close as were the sins of arrogance and impatience. Of rage and hate and intolerance. Things absolved by confession and subjective penance to be committed again perhaps, but the monks were men not robots, to err was human.

And Juba had lived a long time.

It was dark when Remick left the shack and stepped into the open. Far in the distance lightning still flickered over the mountains but the air was clearer now and stars could be seen glittering in the dark bowl of the sky. At the gate men clustered, talking, casual as they guarded the field and the field itself was almost deserted. A trader from Logaris and a vessel on its way to Klandah. A man was working on its lowered ramp.

Life and vessels which spanned the void, work and idle talk and, even as he took a deep breath of the air, the sudden spurt of laughter.

And, behind him, death.

Echo came toward him, eyes questioning in the lines of his face, the face itself framed by his thrown-back cowl.

"Juba?"

"Is gone. He died in peace." Remick rested his hand on the other's shoulder. "You knew him well?"

"Almost from the beginning. We learned in the same seminary and undertook our first mission together. On Flagre. I fell sick there and almost died. He saved me but I had to return to Pace for extensive treatment. I heard from him from time to time after that but it wasn't until now we worked together." Pausing Echo said, "A good man. I shall miss him."

"We shall all miss him." Remick again drew air deep into his lungs. "Now I must inform the Matriarch of his passing."

Tamiras said, "Dead? A monk dead? How droll." Wine swirled in the goblet he supported with slender fingers. "But why tell you? Surely the Matriarch of Esslin has better things to occupy her attention?"

Before Kathryn could answer, Gustav said, "A matter of courtesy, I imagine. The church is here by sufferance and must know it."

"And could want more land? More privileges?" Tamiras reached for a bowl of nuts and, holding a pair in one hand, cracked them by a sudden pressure. "Don't make the mistake of underestimating the monks. There had been a scuffle, right? The old man had got hurt in some way. Now he is dead and it could be thought that you might feel guilty."

"Guilty?"

"Responsible then." Tamiras shrugged. "The men who did the hurt were your guards. You might feel moved to grant a further tract of land or give financial support or something like that in recompense." He ended dryly, "Little do they know the ruler of this happy world."

Sarcasm, the man was full of it. Watching him, Kathryn noted the deeply lined face, the thin, pursed lips, the straggle of hair he affected around lips and chin. A beard which verged on the grotesque and added to his monkey-like appearance. An aging man trying to emulate youth with his gaudy finery, his jewels, his laces and pomades, the curled hair which ringed his high, balding brow. But not a fool.

A vicious, spitefully stinging wasp perhaps, but never a fool.

Gustav said slowly, "You could be wrong, Tamiras. Brother Remick didn't strike me as being a greedy man. He made no demands."

"And so proved his cleverness."

"How?"

"By leaving the matter in question. A demand could meet with acceptance or refusal-either way the matter is ended. As it is you are left with doubt. Should you be generous or not? If not then you feel a touch of guilt and-"

"Guilt!" Kathryn's goblet slammed hard on the table. "You use the word too often for my liking, Tamiras. Why should I feel guilty?"

"What we do we pay for. Sooner or later we pay."

Was the man insane? Staring at him Kathryn began to regret the impulse which had made her invite him to dinner. He had done well, true, but his prickly qualities alienated any true regard. And his innuendoes were becoming irksome. Now, it seemed, he was talking in riddles.

Gustav said sharply, "We pay, Tamiras. One way or another we pay. How true. With tears, perhaps. With lost opportunities. Even with pain. That received from impalement, for example."

"A statutory lesson." Tamiras picked at his crushed nuts, fingers selecting fragments of kernel, lips moving busily as he thrust them into his mouth. "But what does it teach? The warning to obey is wasted on a man who is never given the chance to rebel."

"But not on those watching." Kathryn lifted her goblet to be refilled by the servant standing behind her chair. "They remember."

"Who? The nobles? The rick ladies who have time to enjoy the fun? What do they need with such lessons? The workers, perhaps? Those too busy to stand and wait and make bets on how long the victim will last? The slaves?" He picked at his nuts not looking at her. "A pity," he mused. "I used too much force. The husk was driven into the meat."

With a sudden blaze of anger she understood.

Not his concern over the punishment but his manner of letting her know how useless he thought it to be. And the rest? The earlier talk of guilt? She remembered his mother back in the early days of her rule. The woman had joined a cabal and fled when the rebellion had been thwarted. Together they had lived in exile and Tamiras had only returned to Esslin after her death. Would he still bear a grudge?

He had been old then, fully grown and studying on an industrial world. A whim of his mother's, but Vaada had been a stupidly ambitious woman. And had there been a marriage of some kind? An alliance with a low-born family? She must remember to ask Gustav about it.

Now she said, "We are bound by custom, Tamiras, as you well know. Impalement is legal execution for certain crimes. And why feel sorry for those who deserve it? Did anyone force them to break the law?"

"In certain circumstances that could be the case."

"Explain!"

"A slave is property," he said carefully. "He or she must obey the owner. Now, suppose that owner were to order the slave to commit a crime-who would be to blame?"

"The owner."

"And who would testify against him? Who but the slave." He smiled as she remained silent. "You see how it could be?"

"We have procedures for such cases."

"The irons? The rack? The tools with which our ancestors wrung the truth from stubborn lips? But who was put to the questions? The slaves, naturally, for it was obvious they must be lying."

"And what is your suggestion for eliminating this abuse of power if any such abuse exists?" Gustav leaned forward from where he sat. "Your polygraphs?"

"What else?" Tamiras became alive now that his subject had been touched on, his eyes gaining a brighter fire. "Lie-detectors for all. An accusation is made, the one making it is tested as to veracity, those denying the charge also probed. A fast and efficient method of arriving at the truth and one used on a multitude of worlds. No judge, no jury, no defense counsels. Just a machine and an arbitrator."

"Souless perfection," said Kathryn. "It would never be permitted on Esslin."

"Because too many women wish to cling to their positions of power. To sit in judgment and claim infallibility. What else to expect in a culture which tolerates slavery?" Shrugging, he added, "I'll give the monks their due on that. They hate it."

"Slavery?" Kathryn changed the subject. "What do they really believe in? Not just their credo but the rest. Why do they suffer so much privation without real need?"

"As an example." Tamiras looked at the wine in his goblet and now his tone was free of mocking inflections. "They help the poor and are poor as anyone can see. No fine clothing, no jewels, no luxurious quarters. No monk is ever better dressed or better fed than his followers. This is true on all worlds I have visited."

"They love poverty?"

"They hate it. To them it is a disease. They fight it in every way they can. There is no virtue in suffering. There is no grace to be found in pain. But as for what they believe, well-"

"They believe that all living things are the parts of a whole," said Gustav quietly. "That the intelligences which reside in the multiplicity of brains are akin to the individual cells of a body. All is one and one is all. Death is a rejoining of the individually aware scrap of consciousness with the great, common pool. You, I, all of us are as the fingers of a hand. We do not know we are simply the extensions of a far more complex being. If you choose to call that common pool God, then you are as correct as any other."

"You know about these things?" Tamiras sounded astonished. "Gustav, you amaze me!"

"Because I have read and studied and arrived at certain conclusions? You, a student of science, to find that strange?"

"Hardly a student," said Tamiras dryly. "My school days are far behind me and yet I will admit there is always something new to learn. The behavior of the storm, for example. I would have sworn that seeding the clouds was a waste of time and yet, somehow, we succeeded. Why? A shift in the electromagnetic potential of the area? A minute alteration in water content? Something which affected the ionization of the clouds? Who can tell?"

"Can't you find out?" The information could be important and urgency edged her voice as Kathryn fired the question. "Surely your instruments would have yielded the information?"

"Instruments?" His ironic smile made her remember the raft she had seen, the men swinging from their ropes, "What instruments? We carried chemicals and little else. We were lucky, that's all."

"So you don't think that similar precautions would work again? Or rather you cannot guarantee they would?" Gustav pursed his lips as Tamiras shook his head. "So it comes back to your fields. But how are you going to brace them against the thrust of moving masses of air?"

"It is all in my report. Towers must be set at regular intervals along the line of the foothills. They must be strongly braced and equipped with balancing fields in order to lock the entire installation into the planetary crust." China rattled as Tamiras, suddenly vibrant, pushed aside the table furnishing in order to clear a space. "See?" He set items on the cloth; knives, spoons, trails of salt, patches of spice. "Lock a field here and another here and we have a buttress which will withstand any storm threatening this area. Power could be supplied from installations built here and here with double compensators and automatic feedback relays." His finger rapped at the table. "By cross-linking we shall be able to utilize all generated energy at any one point as needed. Once built the installations will protect the crops against snow and hail and anything the mountains can develop. Yields will increase and we could even gain an extra planting a year."

"'But at a price." Gustav mused over the rough plans. "What if portable installations could be built? Massed rafts to bear the heavy equipment which could be sent out as the need became manifest? Power could also be supplied from mobile sources and would only be used to give protection when actually needed. At other times they could serve factories and remote areas. You see my point? It would be less expensive and more versatile."

"But less efficient."

"Only relatively so. If…"

Kathryn leaned back in her chair as the discussion continued. Her head ached a little and it was a relief to close her eyes but darkness brought no consolation. Against her lids she could see the pale beauty of Iduna, the Tau, the face of Dumarest now lying in an apparent coma.

Heard again the voice of the technician who attended him.

"No response as yet, my lady, but that is all to the good. As far as we can determine his normal processes are unimpaired." Then she'd added, spoiling it all, "Of course it's early to tell yet. For all we know his mind could have gone as did the others."

Damn the stupid bitch! Couldn't she at least have left her with hope? If Dumarest failed what else did she have?