Alone Against Tomorrow Part 17

"We go together, friend Pederson. The Gray Man comes to all races. Why do you expect me to go alone? Each need is a great one.

"I am here, Gray Man. Here. I am not alone." Oddly, Pederson knew the Jilkite's claw had been offered, and taken in the clasp.

He closed his blind eyes.

After a great while, the sound of the harp crickets thrummed high once more, and on the porch before the hutch, there was the silence of peace.

Night had come to the lonely lands; night, but not darkness.

Eyes of Dust

IT WAS INEVITABLE they should marry. She with the mole on her right cheek, he blind in the presence of light. There should have been no reason for tolerating them on Topaz; on a world dedicated to beauty, imperfection could not be endured. Yet, they lived, and were avoided, and mated. As it should have been. Beauty seeks its level, as does ugliness. As do pariahs.

So they married, and they managed to live, and soon, she was with child.

The terrible thing began.

The city of Light on the planet Topaz rose five thousand feet into the pearl sky. Its towers glowed with an aura imprisoned in the matter itself. All pastels: all blues and pinks and soft greens, that blended into one wonderful impression of flow and swirl. The towers were of three heights. Sweeping giants that rose five thousand feet to the fraction of an inch, medium-sized towers that were mere pauses at thirteen hundred feet, before the giants hurled past them, and midget towers, delicate and impertinent in their hundred-foot rise.

Glistening, s.h.i.+ning, run out and diving, then rising and arching into a hold at another tower, the flying bridges and roadways were marvels of construction. At the various levels, clear layers of substance provided risers and dividers, giving the city the look of a fairy empire, set away from an ugly world, swathed in its own beauty.

And the people.

Each man, woman, child was a note in a great symphony of perfection. Both simplicity and flamboyance were there, but so intermingled and integrated that nothing coa.r.s.e or cra.s.s could be discerned.

Their faces were not blank, nor vapid, nor coa.r.s.e. They held beauty in their eyes, and in the clearness of their complexions, and the rhythm of their stride.

There was nothing but beauty on Topaz. In the city of Light there was nothing but the glorious presentation of perfection and elegance. No sinking into racial senility, no nirvana, no ennui. This was a vital culture, rich in thought, complex in design, but dedicated to the beauty of life, and the reflection of that beauty in all things material.

The blind man and his wife, the moley woman, lived in the small units outside the city, where the farmers tilled their symmetrical fields with equipment that was handsome in its construction, efficient in its labors.

They lived in a split-level home that boasted all modem robotic conveniences. The lights dimmed or shone according to palmed instructions; heat radiated from those walls at the touch of a stud; food was prepared on elaborate and gorgeous robochefs; snits hummed from wall-cubbys to clean up instantly; and it was good there In the machine cellar, where the servomechanisms were housed, where the nerve center of the house was located, the blind man and the moley woman had constructed an extra room, set off from the light, for a special purpose. In the room, soft walls shrouded sound, protected the inhabitant from outside distractions. In the room, no light penetrated, and the bed was a palette of downyness.

The inhabitant was a Person.

Person, for no other name had ever been dispensed. Not like the blind man, who was Broomall, or the moley woman, who was Ordak. They had names, for they went abroad onto Topaz occasionally, and had to deal with others. But no such intercourse was practiced by the Person. He never saw the light, and he never strolled, for the room was his home, and his parents had insured he would never venture from it.

In the machine cellar of the split-level out beyond the city of Light, the Person sat in stolid silence, hands folded delicately in lap, feet turned inward and at rest.

Eyes of dust turned to not-colors that moved.

For the Person could not have been endured on Topaz. On a world of beauty, all beauty, ugliness was a known but despised factor. Broomall and Ordak were malformed...a mole and blindness...but they had been in the community long, and they were intelligent enough to keep to themselves. But their offspring was another matter.

With eyes of dust, who could tolerate such a thing?

Broomall unpalmed the door, and entered.

"Father..." Person murmured, a tongue as sweet as brook water, with tones like b.u.t.terflys' wings.

"Yes. How are you today? Have you had another vision?" The Person nodded, his gray sockets turning toward the blind man. "It came earlier, Father.

Deepest black, with bright shoots of red thrusting up. It reminded me of the mouth of a volcano, Father."

The blind man felt his way to the palette, lowered his body, and shook his head slowly. "But you have never seen a volcano, my son."

Person took a step away from the wall, and his great hands hung loosely below his knees. "I know."

"Then, how-"

"The way I saw the gulls dipping over the green spit of land. The way I saw the deep river of orange mud that bubbled its way to the swamp. It is all one, Father. I see."

The blind man continued to nod and shake his head with bewilderment. There were answers here, to questions he had never asked.

"Where is Mother? She has not been to see me in several times."

The blind man sighed. "She must work, son, if we wish to fill up our food bins. She has taken labor in the wafting center."

"Ah." The Person conjured up a vision of the sense centers, where smells and sounds and feelings of beauty were poured out on the air of Topaz, for the inhabitants to enjoy. "She must like it there. So near to the scent of orchids."

"She says it's a job."

The Person nodded. His great head bowed slightly, and pits of shadow marked his eyes of grayness.

"Is there anything you want?"

The Person slid down the wall, into the cool darkness, and answered softly, for he knew his father was without sight; even devoid the sight he possessed. "No, Father. I lack for nothing. I have my meal cakes and my ale. I have my shadows and my colors. And there is the smell of the time pa.s.sing. I need nothing more."

"How strange you are, my son," the blind man said enigmatically, for it was no enigma at all. The Person gave off the soft musky chuckle of tender amus.e.m.e.nt.

"How strange I am indeed, Father."

The blind man got slowly to his feet, the bones of his legs cracking faintly. "Soon, my son," he said finally.

"Go sweetly, my Father," the Person said, using the terms of the people of Topaz.

"Stay softly," replied the father, traditionally.

Then he went out, carefully palmlocking the door, and setting it to a fresh combination. Caution could not be too deep in this matter. Twenty years had shown that. Twenty years, during which time their son had remained alive, to roam at will in his world of strange blind-sight.

The blind man climbed the ramp to the living floor, and sat cross-legged on his low platform, sending soft pipings flickering from a helix-shaped flute.

He played without break for some time, until the porter glowed pinkly, cast out a tremulous warning note, and Ordak took form in the bowl.

"Wheeew!" she stepped out of the bowl and sank onto a nest of foamettes. "What a day. If I never smell another orchid, it'll be too soon. Good evening, dear. How was he today?"

The blind man laid aside his flute, and extended his arms to the woman. He took her into their enfolding circle and held her dark hair against his neck, so smooth, so warm. His answer was a grunt. She understood.

"How will it be, Broomall? Tell me," she pleaded.

He put her from him gently, and sighed with deep contemplation. "Ordak, how can I say it'll be good, when it gets worse each day? You know he can't go out, and you know we must live here...they would never tolerate him outside, even to the s.p.a.ceport and off. We're trapped here, my darling."

She stood up and smoothed down the front of her sweepspun tunic and skirt. Her hair was coiffed in such a way that the mole on her right cheek was covered. They knew of her deformity, of course, but not seeing it made it easier for them.

She was standing there, wondering what would come from the future, her blind husband at her feet, when the future dropped from the sky. It was as it was! Not the good thing, nor the bad, but merely the way of it. The unflinching trampling of life over its parts. The way of it, the truth of it.

As she stood there, silent, and wondering, the force-bead drive of a cross-continent copter ruptured-product of an imperfectly directed drive beam, cool and unnoticed-and the ponderous vehicle plunged down from its cruising level of twenty-five hundred feet. It fell two hundred yards from the split- level, demolis.h.i.+ng the aboveground sections of the house without warning. Smas.h.i.+ng the building to the ground, saving only the machine cellar by a fluke of impact; saved for the searchmecks and a.n.a.lyzers who came later, to estimate the damage, and to extricate those left alive.

Aboveground, no one was left alive. The last two known imperfects on Topaz had gone to a companionable rest; where beauty and non-beauty had no meaning. Where all was soft grays and the clinging warmth of the nearness of each other.

For such was the way it must be thought about.

But below ground...

There the terrible thing began in earnest. What had lain in wait for twenty years, now snarled, leaped, and threw itself at the throat of beauty on Topaz.

Meditating he was. They found him meditating.

They came down through the rubble with forcepak beams that melted the twisted metal and fused plastic into solid, attractive walls of pastel, between which they picked their delicate way. When they came to the secret room-whose door was not in the least pleasing to the eye-they stopped, perplexed, and considered what to do.

There were three of them. Handsome men, in the extreme. One was blond, with wide-set blue eyes and the air of an executive. He carried himself within his gold and copperthread tunic with the calmed a.s.surance of a man who knows he is competent and handsome. In the extreme. The second was only a few inches shorter than the first man's six feet, and his dark, tightly curled head of hair swooped down across a white, white forehead with the dexterity of a panther a-leap over lambs. His arms seemed shorter than they should be, but it was the trick of the plasurgeon, who had calculated the imperfection that makes for perfection-coupling the arms with a long torso and shorter legs-and who had brought it off resoundingly.

The second man gave an immediate impression of Adonislike proportions.

The third man was the cla.s.sic Greek ideal of virility and competence. His deep-set gray eyes snapped back and forth with authority and compa.s.sion. His walk was the walk of the legionnaire, his speech the measured pace of the wise man. He would never go bald, his smile did not fade.

"I've never seen anything like this, before," said the curly haired a.n.a.lyzer, whose name was Roul.

"This isn't standard in machine cellars, is it?" asked the leader, whose name was Prathe.

The third man, Hold, shook his head with wise and faintly tinged humor. "No, and I must admit it's an unpleasant arrangement. Unsprayed. Crude." He gave a soft, womanlike shudder. But it was in character, and neither of the companions noticed, despite its un-beautiful nature.

"Well, let's open it," suggested Prathe, hefting his forcepak.

The other two did not answer, and that was a perfect sign of agreement, so he applied the beam. A wide arc of delicious fruit-green streamed out and washed the door. In a few seconds it had fused along the sides, and run together in excellent symmetry. They stared through into the thrusting darkness.

Meditating he was. They found him meditating.

When first the light filtered through from behind them, they could not discern that it was human. It was a gray heap hulked close to the angle of floor and wall, its great head hung down, and hands turned into the lap.

Then, as the particulars became clear, each in turn drew a shocked breath. Prathe was first into the room, and his voice was an almost-unpleasant mixture of wonder and revulsion.

Roul followed, and as the form of the Person grew specific, he emitted a round, pear-shaped, long and boxlike then shattered cry of terror. "How vile!" and his face was unhandsome. In the extreme.

Hold shone his light down into the corner, and away as quickly. In its wild travels, the beam covered the room in its entirety: palette, bare walls, small dish with gruel still in it, and mat on the floor.

Then back to the Person again, but this time, the pool of brilliance was directed at the floor and the edge of the Person's b.u.t.tocks, so the full light did not fall on that face, oh that face!

The great head with its high unkempt crown of nearly-white hair...spread out and in two huge tufts at either temple. The heavy-jowled face, with the mouth that was a wicked, slanting slash through the pale white flesh. The ears that hugged close and round to the head.

Then the eyes...

The eyes of dust...

Two deep-nestled pockets, where gray swirled. The gray of decaying bodies. The gray of storm clouds. The gray of feelings most unhappy, and of death. The eyes that seemed to see so deeply, yet could see nothing. Ugly eyes.

They raised their forcepaks, and the Person stirred, moved, and there was great agitation.

First there was light, and then there was no-light. First there was heat, and then there was no-heat.

And- First there was love, so deep it made a tiny whirlpool in his bowels, swirling and whipping and turning, like a woman in a warm bath. Savoring the being, enjoying the luxury of sliding down ever down into complacency and no pain at all. With deep thoughts; with thinking of wonders and everydays.

Thoughts of how wide it was, and where it was, and how far might it stretch out to the farthest places. All that. Then there was no-love. But in its place did not come the absence of love, the emptiness that the going of light and heat had left. Another moved in to take its place.

In its place came don't come must come it came Hate!

Much later, when the suns had set, and the moons had come up to mourn balefully in silence over the world of beauty, Topaz, others came. They found the three bodies, so ugly in death, so pitiful in crushed and battered death.

Then they took him. They took him out, saying, " All this, all this." And there was such reviling and such cursing. The hatred for him was there, too, and the knowing that he was anathema. Pariah.

Terrible! He was ugliness amidst all this beauty and, "What will we do with him? How can we kill him?"

Then one came forward. A poet whose meters were correct, and whose images were gorgeous. He was slim and well-mannered and it fell to him to envision the right way of it. To create beauty from ugliness, good from evil.

So they rigged the well-holed pole, and it rose straight and true to the quartet of moons, and they tied him to it, and set the f.a.ggots about. And they lit him.

Watching him burn.

But it was the bad thing, once again.

For the Person had eyes of dust, and the eyes of dust saw what could not be seen, and the soul within was the sweet and sick soul of the visionary.

He had the audacity to weep and cry as he burned, wailing, "Oh don't kill me. Oh don't! There is so much for me to see, so much I don't know." He longed and pleaded and yearned for the knowledge and the visions he would never glimpse.

But they burned him, all the same.

And it was good. The fire. The beauty of it. It was beauty. If only he had been wise enough not to scream.