Watson, Ian - Novel 06 (11 page)

 
 
          
Over islands in
a peacock sea ...

 
          
One
is a cone, thickly carpeted in dark green, with a black shoreline bordered by
white surf.

 
          
A
second: a steep green crescent cupping a lagoon; perhaps a long-dead volcano
has slipped sideways underwater.

 
          
And
now a triple razorback. In one of its deep twin valleys rushes a thin silver
river ...

 
          
Small
islands. Uninhabited islands. But
alive.

 
          
Where
the flocky clouds shadow the ocean, rafts of mauve and violet water drift
across the blue: ghost islands.

 
          
The
pull of this new world’s gravity is a welcome ache. How familiar is it? Is it
really weaker? My body doesn’t know. Not yet. When we step outside: ah, then.

 
          
Soon
a much larger island smudges the horizon. Clouds blur its inland mountain peaks
and drift down across its coastal plain.

 
          
Over
narrow coppery beaches, tight-pressed by umbrella- fronded tree shapes, we fly
inland. Rain whips the windows. Ritchie takes us up above the rain. Now we spy
only rifts of forest until hills march out from the central range, bisecting
the island seawards. Beyond is clear weather, green rolling forests, broad
valleys with faint mist clinging to the slopes.

 
          
“Fields!
” points Ren6.

 
          
Carpeting
the very next valley is a checkerboard of jade and bean-green, chartreuse and
salmon-pink. A river winds through the patchwork. A road runs through it too.
Tiny shapes pause, upon tiny shadows. Rene swings his binoculars about, trying
to catch them.

 
          
This
river runs into a lake. Milky patches on the water fragment, scattering into
the air at the rumble of our approach, flashing electric blue. A thousand
wings. At the far end of the lake stands a small white pyramid, and a large
village of brown buildings with upturned eaves.

           
“Agrarian-with-temple,” exclaims Wu.

 
          
“Perhaps.”

 
          
The
road snakes further east. Lanky stilted beasts step along it, tiny from our
height, some carrying riders, a few pulling carts. They are a blend of camel
and giraffe. As for the riders . . .

 
          
“Bipeds?
Yes.” Ren6 stares.

 
          
“It
sure is pretty,” grins Ritchie. “I’d just like to see some mechanised
transport.”

 
          
“The
Incas built fine roads and they didn’t even have the wheel,” says Zoe.

 
          
“No,
and they didn’t transmit thought-images and hyperspatial drives across several
light years, either. Can these . . . farmers do that?” Ritchie sounds
resentful, yet nostalgic. “We should be attracting some attention.”

 
          
We
chase the road east through valleys and forest. Smaller villages lie scattered
along it, fringed by plantations and orchards: regular ranks of brick-red
angular trees, others like bubbles of malachite, enveloped by thick forest. The
river cuts through the forest, too, broader since it passed through the lake.

 
          
“A
boat!” Square-rigged, a Chinese junk.

 
          
“They
still use sails! ” cries Ritchie.

 
          
“So
do we,” Wu reminds him. “The wind is free, if fickle.”

 
          
“Maybe
it isn’t so fickle here,” thinks Ren6. “Small axial tilt, little seasonal
change, little real variation in the amount of sunlight. Well, wind patterns
and ocean currents must be fairly locked, and more miniature than Earth’s,
except for coriolis winds—and even there the rotation’s only two-fifths the
rate of Earth’s. All the ocean in the one hemisphere will stabilise winds too.”

 
          
We
spot a small number of junk-like craft plying the river, sporting yellow
mat-sails. We pass three small riverside towns— in the course of perhaps a
hundred kilometres—with cultivated patches backing into the forest. Several
slender windmills turn— and are those fish ponds there, or solar panels?

 
          
“It
isn’t very heavily populated, is it?” If this was Earth . . . No, don’t think
of Earth!

 
          
The
third town—the largest—is peculiar. It’s a double town, a mirror town set on
both sides of the river, which now flows broad and slow. On one side of the
water, behind a pharos-like pyramid, are relatively bustling streets—a
spiderweb of intersecting arcs, with smoke hazing up from some large
buildings. But on the other side is laid out a purely schematic town: a smaller
double of what lies across the water—a maze-like pattern of walls wide open to
the sky. No one is there. The ghost town looks clean and fresh, not ruined or
abandoned; it’s merely empty. Enclosed courts and pathways sparkle in the
sunlight, as we circle. At the centre rises a pyramid. There’s no room for any
other buildings as such—only roads and walls. In the small harbour of this mock
town a junk with furled sails floats, vermilion fingers athwart its masts.

 
          
“Are
those the ruins of a palace?” wonders Ren6. “No . . . it’s too well-kept, too
tidy for that.”

 
          
“A
graveyard city?” supposes Wu. “A town of tombs, open to Heaven?”

 
          
“A
holy place of some sort?” Peter makes shapes with his hands. “It’s so dense
with
shape
—with the shaping spirit
itself. Those coiling lanes ... the sense of geometry laid bare. Whereas across
the water the plan is masked by all those buildings. It’s like the naked scheme
of the town they actually inhabit, isn’t it? A ceremonial town-planning matrix.
Only they built it rather than drew it? It’s an ideal mirror of the hotchpotch
reality they live in over there . . .”

 
          
“Shall
I set us down in it? There’s room for a landing beside that pyramid. We can
look around.”

 
          
“No,”
says Zoe. “Not if it’s any kind of ceremonial place. Let’s fly on. Let’s learn
more.”

 
          
“Okay.”
Ritchie brings us round again, on course downriver. He sounds tired, though.

 
          
Swamps
spread inland from the banks. Tall tree-forms with great arching roots march,
tangling, through them, girding lesser creeks and bayous, though the main
course of the river stays wide and clear. I catch a glimpse (I think) of huts
on stilts or rafts, moored among the greatest of the arching roots, but no
other major settlements are possible any longer. Presently the river thrusts a
long green tongue out into the peacock sea. We fly on.

*
 
* *

 
          
Another
green coastline approaches us. Forested hills and valleys undulate away: a
softly ridged green baize cupping emerald lakes in its pockets. Again,
mountains of the hinterland smoke with cloud ...

 
          
Inland,
ahead, an isolated
cuesta
of rock
bulks up—a bald pate amid the forest’s rolling locks. The scarp side falls
steeply into a large lake fed by several rivers. In that lake is the flat
lozenge of an island. And on that island glints another white pyramid and
another empty schematic town. On the shore opposite, between two of the feeder
rivers, spreads the largest settlement yet, ringed by fields, with its own
second pyramid down on the waterfront.

 
          
“The
same pattern! The empty ideal town across the water, facing the living city.”

 
          
Wu
raises an eyebrow at Peter. “City?”

 
          
“Oh,
I agree it isn’t
Paris
or
Peking
, but even so! A few hours ago we were
staring down from space wondering if there was even anybody here.”

 
          
Ritchie
clucks his tongue. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to find any airports, does
it, though? We can easily set down on top of that bluff and take a look at them
from a safe distance. We could still lift off again if we had to and fly for,
oh, another hour or so.”

 
          
Why
should we? “This island, another island! What does it matter? We’re
here
—wherever ‘here’ is. If there are
any more advanced centres, we’ll hear about them. Or else they’ll hear about
us. Anyway, why shouldn’t this place be advanced? It looks in balance with
nature, at peace with itself. They might have a . . . mental technology. Yes,
associated with those pyramids! Something strong has to hold those insect
things at bay. It isn’t just hoes and rakes. And where did our pyramid drive
come from? We’re looking at the answer, and we aren’t seeing it!”

 
          
Wu
touches Ritchie on the arm. “The dove’s right. We shall land here. To be a
trifle banal, the journey of a thousand miles—”

 
          
“—begins
with one step, yeah. Let’s hope we don’t need to walk a thousand miles to get
some answers.”

 
          
Alpha
sits creaking
faintly on the stone apron. Some dark green bushes
with leathery, spade-shaped leaves sprout along the lines of cracks. In rock
hollows, where a little stagnant water lies, bloom waxy crimson cups the size
of footballs, open globes of fire dotting the stone pools like
midday
lanterns. City and lake are both hidden
from view by a lip of stone. Down the gentler slope of the
cuesta
to the south glossy bushes cascade into the ceiling of a
forest where lily-pad leaves dip on a sea of air.

 
          
“—about
eighty hours of canned air left, before we’re breathing local. Honestly, I
don’t see much point in wearing the suits. If we get ill, we get ill.”

 
          
“But
we're
importing alien
micro-organisms.”

 
          
“Look,
Rene, I’ve brought the shuttle down, I’ve been flying it all this time, I’m
tired, I want to take a look at them before they take a look at us. Hell, the
air’s breathable. Whether we go out in suits or in our underpants isn’t going
to make a bit of difference by next week. If they catch cold off us, they did
invite us here. Invite us? Hell, they ordered us to come.”

 
          
“Impetuous,
but right,” judges Wu. “We’ve been victims long enough. It’s high time we took
the initiative.”

 
          
“One
thing I sure am taking,” adds Ritchie, “is an L-27. And you’ll do the same.
We’ve been jumped once already. I don’t intend for history to repeat itself.”

 
          
“History?”
I don’t understand him. It’s all new—entirely new. “Ritchie, I can’t go out
armed.” For an instant I see again— as in the hanger—Jacobik’s face
superimposed on Ritchie’s. It’s a devil face—the lust for death. That swollen
face haunts me still, even after the terrible deaths of the others. Those, of
course, I did not
see.
Only heard.
But nor did I witness Jacobik’s death!

           
“Okay, three of us will. Shit, we’ve
only got three guns on board.”

 
          
“Wait,”
says Peter, pointing out of the window, along the rock.

 
          
Two
figures stand, watching
Alpha.
Their
heads . . . !

 
          
Humanoid
certainly, with two arms and legs apiece— distinctly tall and skinny. Wearing
brief tunics and cloven boots. Their arms and legs are covered in a rich golden
down. Angel-monkeys they seem, with that halo of hairs gilding their bodies...

 
          
But
the heads . . . The heads are blanks. Smooth white skulls without any eyes or
mouths. Only a hint of contoured features. They are heads by Brancusi or Hans
Arp, contoured geometry fused to the flesh and bone below.

 
          
“Masks!”
I realize. “They’re wearing masks. We can’t see their faces. Why should they
wear masks?”

 
          
“Primitives!
” whistles Ritchie.

 
          
“How
do they
seel”

 
          
“Maybe
those masks are one-way transparent.”

 
          
“Sure.
High technology masks. So they won’t catch cold off their space visitors. Don’t
be dumb, they just popped out of the bushes.”

 
          
“I
think I can see breathing slits,” says Ren6.

 
          
Slowly
one of them raises thin hands to its head—and lifts off its mask.

 
          
The
face underneath is long, tapering, prim-mouthed, milk and honey eyed. Its nose
is slender, with a single central nostril. All the face, except for the eyes,
is covered with the same rich nap of coppery down.

 
          
The
effect is gentle and intent. Yet the intentness has an intensity about it which
belies the apparent softness, the caress- able attractiveness of the being. It
makes of its beauty an ache, something unreachable, androgynous. (I can’t tell
whether the being is male or female, both or neither.) The coppery down, in the
sunlight, is an aura. It is something outside itself, protecting it, caressing
it so that no other hand can reach it.

 
          
“Angels,”
whispers Zoe. “Before they became the avatars. Before they became fully human
to our eyes . . .”

 
          
The
unmasked alien walks towards
Alpha
,
then squats down on the stone some way away and taps the ground with its palms a
couple of times. Patiently it waits. Its hand has only three long fingers (and
a thumb).

           
“That takes courage.”

 
          
“Or
knowledge. Experience.”

 
          
“He’s
waiting for us,” says Zoe.

 
          
“She’s
waiting,” Peter corrects her.

 
          
I’m
puzzled. Him or her. “There’s something
extra
there. Something additional. I don’t know, I can’t pin it down . . . Surely our
rifles aren’t necessary, Ritchie. He can see us. He makes himself vulnerable by
sitting down. He understands.”

 
          
“We
need not advertise our weapons,” Wu half-agrees. “Let’s empty one of the
trek-packs and put the three lasers inside it.” “Right,” nods Ritchie. “See to
it, Zoe, please. Okay, we’ll play it this way. I’ll over-ride the airlock
safety so we can give cover from inside, um, discreetly. Amy, Peter, Ren6: you
three are to make the contact. Oh, and Zoe, while you’re at it haul out the
other three trek-packs. Don’t bother redistributing what you dump. We’ll be
living off the land soon enough in any case.” “Surely two of us should make the
contact? Two of them, two of us.”

 
          
“Amy,
a slight psychological advantage will do us no harm at all. This isn’t exactly
an unsolicited contact.”

 
          
“With
those two it may be.”

 
          
“They
don’t look entirely blown over, do they?”

 
          
I
can hear Ritchie panting shallowly as he fiddles with the safety catches, as
though to keep too much air from reaching the bottom of his lungs—as though a
reservoir of true Earth air will always remain there and be the real air that
he breathes.

 
          
The
inner hatch cycles, and the outer one too. Steel steps unfold.

 
          
And
we three go down.

 
          
The
air smells wet and fruity like spilt cider, sweet, moist, clean and heady.

 
          
The
squatting alien (no, the
native
—of
his own world!) takes in this stout, lardy-limbed person, me (yes, to him I’m
surely that), with the horsey double-nostrilled nose and fat-lipped mouth, this
odd creature whose only visible hair curls blackly from her scalp. Then the
shorter, skinnier, dapple-skinned figure beside me, with his roan freckling and
red curls—a mere child perhaps?

 
          
Or
else Peter is the woman of us two, if females tend to be smaller than males.
Its eyes pass on to Rene: dark and portly, with the oddity of a bushy black
Nietzschean moustache. Ah, Rene is the father, sporting display plumage over
his mouth— thus Peter is indeed our child. How distinct from his parents,
though! Skinny, larval form, he must lose the red spots of childhood and
become pasty, stout and black-maned as he matures . . . (If I was the alien, I
might think these thoughts.)

 
          
The
native’s eyes flicker. For Ritchie lurks, half in view: rangy, snub-nosed,
blue-eyed, with a cropped blond thatch. How does he fit in? (Or perhaps we all
look indistinguishable, after all?)

 
          
The
native rises: gracious, supple, golden,
tall.
Oh, tall. Two and a half metres. Maybe it’s merely the sunlight on his down,
but it seems that wings—angelic wings—fold tightly around him, wings which I
cannot see but sense nevertheless. Somehow I don’t have this same feeling about
his masked companion.

 
          
And
the native speaks to us, for perhaps a whole minute . . .

 
          
The
sounds of the words have a peremptory quality, brooking no argument, yet in no
way are they staccato. They roll like labial surf about to break, or like
velvety distant thunder. They repeat themselves reflexively, shifting slightly,
reinforcing the unknowable message. They have a dramatic, mimetic, persuasive
tone to them. Could he be intentionally demonstrating language, the act of
speech itself, perfectly aware that its literal meaning passes us by? Thus he
does not speak too slowly or overemphatically, as to a child or a
foreigner—for this is not a lesson, not yet. He simply encloses us in his
universe of discourse. Only towards the very end is there a rising, hesitant
note. Not the hesitation of doubt, but a compelling hesitation: insisting that
we seize hold and continue—in any way. That I continue. He looks at me. Perhaps
since I seem to be the bodily average of Peter and Rene, and so the more
representative.

 
          
Whatever
does one say? I point a finger at the sky. (A few small white fluffy clouds
hang, hardly moving.)

 
          
“We
have come from the world of another star. We have come to find God’s World.”

 
          
The
words sound absurd, rampant with delusion, a schizophrenic’s private speech.
Try again.

           
“We have come on a quest, to ask
questions.”

 
          
Just
as in High Space, latent puns drift unbidden to the surface, mocking meaning,
leaching words into one another. I’ve uttered twenty words or so, and they’re
all simply variations on the theme ‘we’ve come’, which is self-evident. Faced
by the ‘Other’— no longer in books and antique photographs—I find that I’m
struck dumb, embarrassed by any agony of speechlessness before this strange,
thin, downy beauty and conviction. The avatars spoke English, Hebrew, Hindi,
whatever the mind heard; but here...

 
          
I
spread my hands. I mumble, “Sorry.”

 
          
Rene
speaks up, in lilting cadenced French:

 
          
“A noir, E blanc, / rouge, U vert, O bleu:
voyelles,

 
          
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances
latentes:

 
          
A, noir corset velu des mouches eclat antes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

 
          
Golfes d'ombre; E, candeurs des vapeurs et
des tentes,

 
          
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs,
frissons d’ombelles
. . .” A poem. I almost understand it all. It seems as
though, suddenly and miraculously, I have understood alien speech through some
secret, latent channel! ‘A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, one
day I shall speak of your secret origins. A is a black velvet bodice of
sparkling flies that buzz round painful stenches . . .’ What does
ombelles
mean?

 
          
“It’s
a sonnet of Rimbaud’s,” Rene murmurs. “Why not commence our alien intercourse
with some beauty, since we have nothing else to say? We should sing, Amy—
amie.
.”

 
          
The
native’s little lips purse. It is almost a pout. The expression has no flavour
of a smile to me. (But do we threaten it when we flash our teeth? Is a toothy
grin merely a snarl, averted and parodied? Is mouth-humour merely defused
aggression?) Its eyes seem to smile, instead. They’re a thinly-glazed milky
white like translucent porcelain, with pale honey irises like human cataracts.
The pupils are dark and small. Abruptly these dilate, to black deep-drinking
wells—consciously so? Is this its smile? They ‘drink’ Rene’s recitation, then
they shrink again.