A Circus of Hells

Chapter XIII

The airbus was sturdier and more powerful than most, to withstand violent weather. But the sky simmered quiet beneath its high gray cloud deck when Flandry went to the Domrath.

That was several of Talwin’s eighteen-hour days after he had arrived. Ydwyr had assigned the humans a room in the building that housed his scientific team. They shared the mess there. The Merseian civilians were cordial and interested in them. The two species ate each other’s food and drank each other’s ale with, usually, enjoyment as well as nutrition. Flandry spent the bulk of his time getting back into physical shape and oriented about this planet. Reasonably reconciled with Djana—who’d been caught in the fortunes of war, he thought, and who now did everything she could to mollify her solitary fellow human—she made his nights remarkably pleasant. In general, aside from being a captive whose fate was uncertain and from having run out of tobacco, he found his stay diverting.

Nor was she badly off. She had little to fear, perhaps much to gain. If she never returned to the Empire, well, that was no particular loss when other humans lived under the Roidhunate. Like a cat that has landed on its feet, she set about studying her new environment. This involved long conversations with the thirty-plus members of Ydwyr’s group. She had no Merseian language except for the standard loan words, and none of her hosts had more than the sketchiest Anglic. But they kept a translating computer for use with the natives. The memory bank of such a device regularly included the major tongues of known space.

She’ll make out, Flandry decided. Her kind always does, right up to the hour of the asp.

Then Ydwyr offered him a chance to accompany a party bound for Seething Springs. He jumped at it, both from curiosity and from pragmatism. If he was to be a quasi-slave, he might have a worse master; he must therefore see about pleasing the better one. Moreover, he had not inwardly surrendered hope of gaining his freedom, to which end anything he learned might prove useful.

Half a dozen Merseians were in the expedition. “It’s fairly ordinary procedure, but should be stimulating,” said Cnif hu Vanden, xenophysiologist, who had gotten friendliest with him. “The Domrath are staging their fall move to hibernating grounds—in the case of this particular group, from Seething Springs to Mt. Thunderbelow. We’ve never observed it among them, and they do have summertime customs that don’t occur elsewhere, so maybe their migration has special features too.” He gusted a sigh. “This pouchful of us…to fathom an entire world!”

“I know,” Flandry answered. “I’ve heard my own scholarly acquaintances groan about getting funds.” He spread his hands. “Well, what do you expect? As you say: an entire world. It took our races till practically yesterday to begin to understand their home planets. And now, when we have I don’t know how many to walk on if we know the way—”

Cnif was typical of the problem, crossed his mind. The stout, yellowish, slightly flat-faced male belonged to no Vach; his ancestors before unification had lived in the southern hemisphere of Merseia, in the Republic of Lafdigu, and to this day their descendants maintained peculiarities of dress and custom, their old language and many of their old laws. But Cnif was born in a colony; he had not seen the mother world until he came there for advanced education, and many of its ways were strange to him.

The bus glided forward. The first valve of the hangar heatlock closed behind it, the second opened, and it climbed with a purr of motor and whistle of wind. At 5000 meters it leveled off and bore north-northeast. That course by and large followed the river. Mainly the passengers sat mute, preparing their kits or thinking their thoughts. Merseians never chattered like humans. But Cnif pointed out landmarks through the windows.

“See, behind us, at the estuary, what we call Barrier Bay. In early winter it becomes choked with icebergs and floes, left by the receding waters. When they melt in spring, the turbulance and flooding is unbelievable.”

The stream wound like a somnolent snake through the myriad blues of jungle. “We call it the Golden River in spite of its being silt-brown. Auriferous sands, you see, washed down from the mountains. Most of the place names are unavoidably ours. Some are crude translations from Domrath terms. The Ruadrath don’t have place names in our sense, which is why we seldom borrow from them.”

Cnif’s words for the aborigine were artificial. They had to be. “Dom” did represent an attempt at pronouncing what one of the first communities encountered called themselves; but “-rath” was an Eriau root meaning, approximately, “folk,” and “Ruadrath” had originally referred to a class of nocturnal supernatural beings in a Merseian mythology—“elves.”

The forested plain gave way to ever steeper foothills. The shadowless gray light made contours hard to judge, but Flandry could see how the Golden ran here through a series of deep canyons. “Those are full to the brim when the glaciers melt,” Cnif said. “But we’ve since had so much evaporation that the level is well down; and we’ll soon stop getting rain, it’ll become first fog, later snow and hail. We are at the end of the summer.”

Flandry reviewed what he had read and heard at the base. Talwin went about Siekh in an eccentric ellipse which, of course, had the sun at one focus. You could define summer arbitrarily as follows: Draw a line through that focus, normal to the major axis, intersecting the curve at two points. Then summer was the six-month period during which Talwin passed from one of those points, through periastron, to the other end of the line segment. Fall was the six weeks or so which it took to get from the latter point to the nearest intersection of the minor axis with the ellipse. Winter occupied the fifteen months wherein Talwin swung out to its remotest distance and back again to the opposite minor-axis intersection. Thereafter spring took another six weeks, until the point was reached again which defined the beginning of summer.

In practice, things were nowhere near that simple. There were three degrees of axial tilt; there were climatic zones; there were topographical vibrations; above all, there was the thermal inertia of soil, rock, air, and water. Seasons lagged planetary positions by an amount depending on where you were and on any number of other factors, not every one of which the Merseians had unraveled. Nonetheless, once weather started to change, it changed with astonishing speed. Cnif had spoken in practical rather than theoretical terms.

Vague through haze, the awesome peaks of the Hell-kettle Mountains came to view beyond their foothills. Several plumes of smoke drifted into gloomy heaven. An isolated titan stood closer, lifting scarred black flanks in cliffs and talus slopes and grotesquely congealed lava beds, up to a cone that was quiet now but only for now. “Mt. Thunderbelow.” The bus banked left and descended on a long slant, above a tributary of the Golden. Vapors roiled white on those waters. “The Neverfreeze River. Almost all streams, even the biggest, go stiff in winter; but this is fed by hot springs, that draw their energy from the volcanic depths. That’s why the Ruadrath—of Wirrda’s, I mean—have prospered so well in these parts. Aquatic life remains active and furnishes a large part of their food.”

Fuming rapids dashed off a plateau. In the distance, forest gave way to sulfur beds, geysers, and steaming pools. The bus halted near the plateau edge. Flandry spied a clearing and what appeared to be a village, though seeing was poor through the tall trees. While the bus hovered, the expedition chief spoke through its outercom. “We’ve distributed miniature transceivers,” Cnif explained to Flandry. “It’s best to ask leave before landing. Not that we have anything to fear from them, but we don’t want to make them shy. We lean backwards. Why…do you know, a few years past, a newcomer to our group blundered into a hibernation den before the males were awake. He thought they would be, but they weren’t; that was an especially cold spring. Two of them were aroused. They tore him to shreds. And we refrained from punishment. They weren’t really conscious; instinct was ruling them.”

His tone—insofar as a human could interpret—was not unkindly but did imply: Poor animals, they aren’t capable of behaving better.

You gatortails get a lot of dynamism out of taking for granted you’re the natural future lords of the galaxy, the man thought, but your attitude has its disadvantages. Not that you deliberately antagonize any other races, provided they give you no trouble. But you don’t use their talents as fully as you might. Ydwyr seems to understand this. He mentioned that I could be valuable as a non-Merseian—which suggests he’d like to have team members from among the Eoidhunate’s client species—but I imagine he had woes enough pushing his project through a reluctant government, without bucking attitudes so ingrained that the typical Merseian isn’t even conscious of them.

Given a radio link to the base, the expedition leader didn’t bother with a vocalizer. He spoke Eriau directly to the computer back there. It rendered his phrases into the dialect spoken here at Ktha-g-klek, to the limited extent that the latter was “known” to its memory bank. Grunting, clicking noises emerged from the minisets of whatever beings listened in the village. The reverse process operated, via relay by the bus. An artificial Merseian voice said: “Be welcome. We are in a torrent of toil, but can happen a sharing of self is possible.”

“The more if we can help you with your transportation,” the leader offered.

The Dom hesitated. A primitive’s conservatism, Flandry recognized. He can’t be sure airlifts aren’t unlucky, or whatever. Finally: “Come to us.”

That was not quickly done. First everybody aboard must get into his heat suit. One had been modified for Flandry. It amounted to a white coverall bedecked with pockets and sheaths; boots; gauntlets—everything insulated around a web of thermoconductor strands. A fish-bowl helmet was equipped with chowlock, mechanical wipers, two-way sonic amplification, and short-range radio. A heat pump, hooked to the thermoconductors and run off accumulators, was carried on a backpack frame. Though heavy, the rig was less awkward than might have been expected. Its weight was well distributed; the gloves were thick and stiff, but apparatus was designed with that in mind, and plectrum-like extensions could be slipped over the fingers for the finer work. Anyway, Flandry thought, consider the alternative.

It’s not that man or Merseian can’t survive awhile in this sauna. I expect we could, if the while be fairly short. It’s that we wouldn’t particularly want to survive.

Checked out, the party set down its vehicle and stepped forth. At this altitude, relay to base continued automatically.

Flandry’s first awareness was of weight, enclosure, chuttering pump, cooled dried air blown at his nostrils. Being otherwise unprocessed, the atmosphere bore odors—growth, decay, flower and animal exudations, volcanic fumes—that stirred obscure memories at the back of his brain. He dismissed them and concentrated on his surroundings.

The river boomed past a broad meadow, casting spray and steam over its banks. Above and on every side loomed the jungle. Trees grew high, brush grew wide, leaf crowding serrated blue leaf until the eye soon lost itself in dripping murk. But the stems looked frail, pulpy, and the leaves were drying out; they rattled against each other, the fallen ones scrittled before a breeze, the short life of summer’s forest drew near to an end.

Sturdier on open ground was that vegetable family the Merseians called wair: as widespread, variegated, and ecologically fundamental as grass on Terra. In spring it grew from a tough-hulled seed, rapidly building a cluster of foliage and a root that resembled a tuber without being one. The leaves of the dominant local species were ankle height and lacy. They too were withering, the wair was going dormant; but soon, in fall, it would consume its root and sprout seeds, and when frost cracked their pods, the seeds would fall to earth.

Darkling over treetops could be glimpsed Mt. Thunderbelow. A slight shudder went through Flandry’s shins, he heard a rumble, the volcano had cleared its throat. Smoke puffed forth.

But the Domrath were coming. He focused on them.

Life on Talwin had followed the same general course as on most terrestroid planets. Differences existed. It would have been surprising were there none. Thus, while tissues were principally built of L-amino proteins in water solution like Flandry’s or Cnif’s, here they normally metabolized levo sugars. A man could live on native food, if he avoided the poisonous varieties; but he must take the dietary capsules the Merseians had prepared.

Still, the standard division into photosynthetic vegetable and oxygen-breathing animal had occurred, and the larger animals were structurally familiar with their interior skeletons, four limbs, paired eyes and ears. Set beside many sophonts, the Domrath would have looked homelike.

They were bipeds with four-fingered hands, their outline roughly anthropoid except for the proportionately longer legs and huge, clawed, thickly soled feet necessary to negotiate springtime swamps and summer hardpan. The skin was glabrous, bluish, with brown and black mottlings that were beginning to turn gaudy colors as mating season approached. The heads were faintly suggestive of elephants’, round, with beady eyes, large erect ears that doubled as cooling surfaces, a short trunk that was a chemosensor and a floodtime snorkel, small down-curving tusks on the males. The people wore only loincloths, loosely woven straw cloaks to help keep off “insects,” necklaces and other ornaments of bone, shell, horn, teeth, tinted clay. Some of their tools and weapons were bronze, some—incongruously—paleolithic.

That much was easily grasped. And while their size was considerable, adult males standing over two meters and massing a hundred or more kilos, females even larger, it was not overwhelming. They were bisexual and viviparous. Granted, they were not mammals. A mother fed her infants by régurgitation. Bodies were poikilothermic, though now functioning at a higher rate than any Terran reptile. That was not unheard of either.

Nonetheless, Flandry thought, it marked the foundation of their uniqueness. For when your energy, your very intelligence was a function of temperature; when you not only slept at night, but spent two-thirds of your life among the ghostly half-dreams of hibernation—

About a score had come to meet the xenologists, with numerous young tagging after. The grownups walked in ponderous stateliness. But several had burdens strapped on their backs; and behind them Flandry saw others continue work, packing, loading bundles onto carrier poles, sweeping and garnishing soon-to-be-deserted houses.

The greeting committee stopped a few meters off. Its leader elevated his trunk while dipping his ax. Sounds that a human palate could not reproduce came from his mouth. Flandry heard the computer’s voice in his radio unit. “Here is Seething Springs. I am”—no translation available, but the name sounded like “G’ung”—“who speaks this year for our tribe.” An intonation noted, in effect, that “tribe” (Eriau “maddeuth,” itself not too close an equivalent of the Anglic word by which Flandry rendered it) was a debatable interpretation of the sound G’ung made, but must serve until further studies had deepened comprehension of his society. “Why have you come?”

The question was not hostile, nor was the omission of a spoken welcome. The Domrath were gregarious, unwarlike although valiant fighters at need, accustomed to organizing themselves in nomadic bands. And, while omnivorous, they didn’t make hunting a major occupation. Their near ancestors had doubtless lived entirely off the superabundant plant life of summer. Accordingly, they had no special territorial instincts. Except for their winter dens, it did not occur to them that anyone might not have a perfect right to be anywhere.

The Seething Springs folk were unusual in returning annually to permanent buildings, instead of constructing temporary shelters wherever they chanced to be. And this custom had grown up among them only because their hibernation site was not too far from this village. No one had challenged their occupation of it.

Quite simply and amiably, G’ung wondered what had brought the Merseians.

“We explained our reasons when last we visited you…with gifts,” their leader reminded. His colleagues bore trade goods, metal tools and the like, which had hitherto delighted all recipients. “We wish to learn about your tribe.”

“Is understood.” Neither G’ung nor his group acted wildly enthusiastic.

No Domrath had shown fear of the Merseians. Being formidable animals, they had never developed either timidity or undue aggressiveness; being at an early prescientific stage, they lived among too many marvels and mysteries to see anything terrifyingly strange about spaceships bearing extraplanetarians; and Yowyr had enforced strict correctness in every dealing with them. So why did these hesitate?

The answer was manifest as G’ung continued: “But you came before in high summer. Fastbreaking Festival was past, the tribes had dispersed, food was ample and wit was keen. Now we labor to bring the season’s gatherings to our hibernation place. When we are there, we shall feast and mate until we drowse off. We have no time or desire for sharing self with outsiders.”

“Is understood, G’ung,” the Merseian said. “We do not wish to hamper or interfere. We do wish to observe. Other tribes have we watched as fall drew nigh, but not yours, and we know your ways differ from the Towlanders’ in more than one regard. For this privilege we bid gifts and, can happen, the help of our flying house to transport your stores.”

The Domrath snorted among themselves. They must be tempted but unsure. Against assistance in the hard job of moving stuff up toward Mt. Thunderbelow must be balanced a change in immemorial practice, a possible angering of gods…yes, it was known the Domrath were a religious race…

“Your words shall be shared and chewed on,” G’ung decided. “We shall assemble tonight. Meanwhile is much to do while light remains.” The darkness of Talwin’s clouded summer was pitchy; and in this dry period, fires were restricted and torches tabooed: He issued no spoken invitation, that not being the custom of his folk, but headed back. The Merseians followed with Flandry.

The village was carefully laid out in a spiderweb pattern of streets—for defense? Buildings varied in size and function, from hut to storage shed, but were all of stone, beautifully dressed, dry-laid, and chinked. Massive wooden beams supported steeply pitched sod roots. Both workmanship and dimensions—low ceilings, narrow doorways, slit windows with heavy shutters—showed that, while the Domrath used this place, they had not erected it.

They boiled about, a hundred or so of every age; doubtless more were on the trail to the dens. Voices and footfalls surged around. In spite of obvious curiosity, no one halted work above a minute to stare at the visitors. Autumn was too close.

At a central plaza, where the old cooked a communal meal over a firepit, G’ung showed the Merseians some benches. “I will speak among the people,” he said. “Come day’s end, you shall receive us here and we shall share self on the matter you broach. Tell me first: would the Ruadrath hold with your plan?”

“I assure you the Ruadrath have nothing against it,” Cnif said.

From what I’ve studied, Flandry thought, I’m not quite sure that’s true, once they find out.

“I have glimpsed a Ruad—I think—when I was small and spring came early,” said an aged female. “That you see them each year—” She wandered off, shaking her head.

With Cnif’s assent, Flandry peeked into a house fronting on the square. He saw a clay floor, a hearth and smokehole, daises along two sides with shelves above. Bright unhuman patterns glowed on walls and intricately carved timbers. In one corner stood a loaded rack, ready to go. But from the rafters, with ingenious guards against animals, hung dried fruits and cured meat—though the Domrath were rarely eaters of flesh. A male sat carefully cleaning and greasing bronze utensils, knifes, bowls, an ax, a saw. His female directed her young in tidying the single room while she spread the daises with new straw mats.

Flandry greeted the family. “Is this to be left?” he asked. It seemed like quite a bit for these impoverished savages.

“In lightness, what else?” the male replied. He didn’t stop his work, nor appear to notice that Flandry was not a Merseian. In his eyes, the differences were probably negligible. “The metal is of the Ruadrath, as is the house. For use we give payment, that they may be well pleased with us when they come out of the sea.” He did pause then, to make a sign that might be avertive or might be reverent—or both or neither, but surely reflected the universal sense of a mortal creature confronting the unknown. “Such is the law, by which our forebears lived while others died. Thch ra’a.”

Ruadrath: elves, gods, winter ghosts.