Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 47

She was hardly conscious of making the decision. Veg, Orn, and her baby were on Paleo -- but if any of them survived the onslaught of the two remaining agents, it would not be as free ent.i.ties. And the projector must have fallen to the deck as she phased through, either breaking or fouling up its setting.

Better for her to accept the inevitable. She could not return and would not want to, and no one would fetch her. She would have to make a new life for herself here, wherever this was. Even if it should be Earth.

But her eyes were full of tears. Consciously she was desperate to return to her baby, to retreat into the warm jungle valley with Veg. Perhaps Circe had survived; she had crashed into the deck but might not be dead. At any rate, there would soon be new mantas, as the freed spores drifted and mated and grew. Maybe Orn managed to haul eggs and baby to safety. Oh, yes, she longed to go there... but surely Orn would not escape, the eggs would be lost, and her baby Cave...

Her baby -- conceived in the cave. Suddenly, a year after the fact, the truth struck her: Cal, from an alternate world, had been projected to hers. For one day and a night. Her Cal had died; it was the alternate who had fathered her child. He had been summoned, somehow, in the hour of her greatest need.

"Thank G.o.d for that one day..." she whispered.

Now she was in another alternate herself. Perhaps she would help some other person, as she had been helped. Would that redeem the double wreckage of her life?

Meanwhile, her eyes were taking in her surroundings, and she was reacting with growing excitement. In a manner, she had died, for she had been irrevocably removed from her world -- and surely this one was akin to heaven. She had studied art like this before. She recognized it. Prehistoric man -- neolithic -- Anatolia, somewhere around 6000 B.C.

"catal Huyuk!" she exclaimed, p.r.o.nouncing it with the soft c: Satal.

The study of art necessarily led to an appreciation of history, and she had absorbed a fair background incidentally. Now she stood still, concentrating, bringing it back from long-idle mental channels.

catal Huyuk was a mound in south-central Turkey -- the ancient Anatolian peninsula -- on the highland plateau, about three thousand feet above sea level. For many years archaeologists had thought there was no neolithic occupation of the Anatolian plateau and no real art or organized religion there. The excavation of catal Huyuk had completely changed that, for here was a flouris.h.i.+ng, religious, artistic, peaceful city demonstrating an advanced ancient culture. A substantial segment of prehistory had had to be rewritten.

Of course this might not be the catal Huyuk. There had been similar cities in Anatolia, and it could be a modern replica. But it was certainly of this type.

Excited, Aquilon moved about, inspecting the room in detail, using it as a diversion from the horrors she dared not dwell on back in Paleo. The plaster on the walls was actually a thin layer of white clay. Solid timbers supported the roof. The floor was neatly segmented into several levels, as though the intent was merely to indicate distinct areas, like lines on a playing field. This would be a sleeping platform, with its reed matting; this the kitchen area. Here was the hearth, under which the family's dead would be buried. Here was the storage bin, empty at the moment.

The walls were painted in panels. Some were solid red; others had geometric designs bordered by representations of human hands and feet. One wall was dominated by a protruding sculpture: the stylized head of a bull, the two horns projecting up and out, surrounded by pillars and ledges that showed the shrine-like nature of this section.

She climbed the ladder cautiously and poked her head over the top. She saw the rooftops of a city, each a different level, each with its entrance hole.

There were people. Suddenly Aquilon was conscious of her nakedness; she had never had a chance to dress and had never antic.i.p.ated -- this.

They stared at her. In moments they had her ringed. All were women; the few men who showed their heads had been sent scurrying with a few peremptory words. There was no question which s.e.x was in control.

Aquilon did not resist. The people were not hostile, only curious. They took her to another room and tried to talk to her, but their language was completely alien to her experience. Yet she was fortunate, for this relieved her of the problem of explaining her presence.

They took care of her. She was, it seemed, something of a phenomenon: a tall blonde woman in a land in which all women were short and dark-haired. They regarded her as an aspect of the G.o.ddess-mother and she did not go out of her way to deny it. She was, after all, a recent mother (ah, there was grief: Did they marvel at her sadness?), and it showed. On religious festivals -- of which there were a considerable number -- she was expected to parade naked through the city, an object not of l.u.s.t but of feminine presence. She had come to them naked, and that set the system; when she wished to move among them without reference to her G.o.ddess-head, she donned an elegant robe and slippers. They were able to accept this dual aspect; the dichotomy between G.o.ddess and woman was inherent in their religion. It was a pragmatic system.

If she had not already known it, the art of the city would have told her this was a matriarchy. There were paintings and sculptures and tapestries in splendid array. These people were indefatigable artists; pictures and designs were on walls, pots, clay statuettes, wood, baskets, pottery, weapons, and even skeletons. The eyebrows, cheeks, and lips of the women were also painted. A fine subindustry for making pigments existed -- black from soot; blue and green from copper ores; red, brown, and yellow from iron oxides, and so on. Aquilon was already familiar with the technique and of course was a superior artist in her own right, which tended to confirm her status.

But in all this art there was not a single s.e.xual symbol. No female b.r.e.a.s.t.s, no phallic representations, no suggestive postures. A male-dominated society would have abounded with artistic expressions of l.u.s.t; in her own day the "nude" always meant a young, voluptuous woman. Here, nothing: Women were not motivated in this direction, and though many of the artists were male, they painted under direction of the priestesses.

She learned the language, and painted, and it was a rather good life. Gradually her grief for what she had left behind faded. The people were disciplined and courteous and not without humor and song. The men were out much of the day hunting. Many women wove cloth, prepared hides, and fas.h.i.+oned rather sophisticated clothing; others cleaned their homes and supervised repairs. The houses were scrupulously clean, with all the rubbish being dumped in the scattered courtyards. These people were primitive in that they could not write and lacked machine technology -- but in all other respects they were civilized. More so, really, than those of her own day.

Then she discovered the projector. It was in a disused chamber beneath a new residence. It had been closed off because it had been damaged by fire and was considered unsafe; it could not be demolished because that would have interfered with the neighboring residences. There was also an element of religion, as there was in almost every aspect of life in this city: A revered old woman had lived in it once, and it would have been an affront to her spirit to destroy it entirely. So it had been vacated and forgotten for many years. But Aquilon was privileged to explore where she liked; how could the woman's spirit be insulted by the visit of a G.o.ddess?

In this chamber was a device very like the one she had found aboard the s.h.i.+p -- but more advanced, for it had a television screen.

She experimented. The thing was self-powered but alien. She did not know how to operate it and hardly wanted to find herself in yet another alternate. Yet she was fascinated. In the course of days she worked it out: The screen showed which alternate it was attuned to, and a separate key enabled the operator to return to his point of origin: here. Other controls s.h.i.+fted the focus, making the images on the screen change dizzily.

There were an infinite number of alternates available. In the nearest, she actually saw herself bending over the projector, a few seconds behind or ahead of her. Once she exchanged a smile and wave with the other Aquilon who happened to be focusing on her. It was no replay of her own acts; these were separate Aquilons, individuals in their own right yet still very much her.

In farther alternates there were other scenes. Some were bizarre: walking plants, a huge machine hive, or perpetual blizzard. Others were tempting, such as a placid forest or a near-human farm fas.h.i.+oned from solidified fog.

She went further. She took the key, set the screen on the quiet forest, and activated the projector.

And she stood in the forest. It was real. The air was sweet and cool.

Nervous, she squeezed the key -- and she was back in catal Huyuk, her heart thudding, her whole body shaking with the release of tension. She really could go and return!

One alternate was a desert. On it an Aquilon carried one of Orn's eggs.

Orn's egg! Suddenly it occurred to her that this alternate of catal Huyuk, with its lush surrounding plains filled with game and vegetation, was ideal for a flightless, five-foot-tall hunting bird: an avian Garden of Eden. There were aurochs -- European bison, somewhat like the American "buffalo"; gigantic pigs, deer in great herds. Sheep and dogs were domesticated, and the men hunted wild a.s.s, wild sheep, deer, foxes, wolves, leopards, and bear. There were many varieties of birds and fish. How Orn would have loved it here: abundant prey but no dinosaurs!

Orn: She had never been able to locate Paleo with Orn on it, or Veg, or the agents. She could not rescue her real friends. But that egg the alternate Aquilon carried contained a living ornisapiens chick. Suppose she fetched it, then went to another alternate and got another? One male and one female. Re-establis.h.i.+ng a marvelous species... what a wonderful project! Perhaps she could make similar forays for mantas.

She watched the other Aquilon moving about, holding that precious egg. The woman cradled it in the crook of her arm as she stooped to touch the sand. There were tread marks there, as of a machine.

Machine! Aquilon knew about the self-willed machines. She had watched them consuming... everything. If they were cruising on that world, the humans had little chance, and the egg, none. And of course there was no game to speak of there. Even if hatched, the Orn-chick would inevitably die.

Aquilon decided: She would save that egg now.

Without further thought -- for that might cause her to lose her nerve -- she removed her elegant white G.o.ddess-incarnate robe, too valuable to soil. She took up the key (must never forget that!) and put it in her mouth for safekeeping. She took a deep breath and activated the projector.

The desert world formed about her.

For a moment she oriented, checking the desert and the alternate Aquilon. All was in order.

The girl saw her. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Aquilon realized that to this woman she was the original Aquilon, having no knowledge of the alternate framework. How to explain the past year and make her believe it -- when at any time a machine could come upon them? "Pointless to go into all that now," Aquilon said. "Please give me the egg."

The girl stepped back, clutching it. "No!"

Aquilon hadn't antic.i.p.ated resistance. The merit of her plan was so obvious! Too late she realized that what made sense to her would not necessarily make sense to her uninformed alternate. The girl was evidently younger than she and had borne no child; this alternate was a year or more divergent from her own. Poor planning on her part -- but she had run this sort of risk by acting on impulse. Best to go ahead now.

"You must. You can't preserve it any longer. Not here in the desert, with the awful machines." But the girl didn't know about those yet, either. She had a lot to learn! All the more reason to salvage the egg from her incompetent hands. "I have found a new Garden of Eden, a paradise for birds. When it hatches there -- "

The girl's face became sullen, resistive. "No one else can -- " She halted, amazement spreading over her comely features. "You're me!"

"And you're me, close enough," Aquilon said impatiently. She should have explained about that at the outset! So many mistakes -- she was fouling it up appallingly. "We're aspects of the same person. Alternates. So you know you can trust me. You -- "

"But you -- you're more -- "

Was the girl accepting it? Good. "I bore a child -- that's why. I nursed my son until two months ago. But -- " Too complicated, and it hurt to remember. How she longed for Cave! "I lost mine. You'll keep yours. But you can't keep the egg."

The girl retreated. "A baby? I -- "

Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned that. This girl had not had her baby. A whole different situation, for Aquilon herself had been transported to catal Huyuk, not this machine-desert world. For a moment Aquilon was tempted to stop and question this girl, to find out all the details of her life. Had she made love to Cal -- or to Veg? Or an agent? What had happened to the Orn-birds of her Paleo that she should be left with the egg? Had she found a projector?