A Wreath of Stars

Chapter Fourteen

The room was about ten metres square, but seemed smaller because of the amount of equipment it contained—and because of the presence of the Avernians.

Snook looked at them in silence, without trying to move, while his body recovered from the sensation of having been jolted. He was breathing normally, and his physical functions seemed to be continuing as they always did, but his nerves felt as though they were vibrating in the aftermath of a paralysing shock, like tunnels in which there lingered the echoes of a scream.

The Avernians stared back at him with brooding concentration, also in silence, their eyes watchful. Snook discovered that his growing familiarity with their general appearance as seen from Earth, the sketches in luminous mist, had not prepared him for the solid, three-dimensional reality. In previous encounters he had been impressed by their similarity to human beings; now he was in a room with them, breathing the same air, and his overwhelming impression was one of alienation.

One part of his mind felt a numb gratitude over the fact that he was alive, but with each passing second that consideration seemed less and less important, or even relevant. The only truth which retained any significance was that he was alone in a world peopled by unknown and unknowable beings whose eyes and noses were clustered too close to the tops of their heads, and whose mouths twitched and pursed and flowed with frightening mobility. The skin of the Avernians shaded from a pale yellow around the eyes and mouths to a coppery brown at the hands and feet, and had a waxy sheen to it. They were surrounded by an unnameable odour, suggestive of formaldehyde and perhaps cardamom, which added to their strangeness and caused an upward lift of Snook’s stomach muscles.

Five seconds gone—thirty years to go, he thought, and with the thought came claustrophobic panic. Why doesn’t Felleth speak? Why doesn’t he help me?

“I have been…talking to you, Equal Gil,” Felleth said in a laboured, husking voice. “We have an unfortunate situation ‘…we have access to your mind…but we are screened from yours…and you would not wish for me…to come closer.”

“No!” Snook jumped to his feet and stood swaying. His shoulder struck an open-fronted cabinet which had been enclosing him on three sides and it rolled backwards on castors. He looked down and saw that the wooden box on which he had been sitting was itself resting on an irregularly shaped section of wet timber which contrasted with the polished white floor beneath it. The words, JENNINGS ALES, stencilled on the side of the box might have been chosen for their homeliness, as a reminder that everything he knew had been left on the far side of infinity.

“I have to go back,” he said. “Send me back Felleth. Anywhere on Earth.”

“That is not possible…energy relationships not favourable…no receiving station for you.” Felleth’s chest heaved, apparently from the strain of reproducing human speech. “You need time…to adjust.”

“I can’t adjust. You don’t know…”

“We do know…we have access…we know that we are…repellent to you.”

“I can’t help that.”

“Try to remember…you impose greater strain on us…we have access…and you have killed.”

Snook looked at the robed figures of the Avernians, and there came a glimmer of understanding of the fact that they had needed courage to remain in the same room with him. The Avernians, he recalled, were a gentle, pacific race, and this particular group were bound to feel that they had conjured up a dangerous primitive. He glanced instinctively at his right hand and saw that it still bore traces of George Murphy’s blood. His xenophobia began to be swept aside by a sense of shame.

“I’m sorry,” Snook said.

“I think it is important that you should rest…to recover from the mental and physical effects…of the transfer.” The breath whistled and sighed in Felleth’s throat as he vocalised the words being taken from Snook’s mind. “This is not a dwelling place…but we have prepared a bed…in the adjoining apartment…follow me.” Felleth walked with a stately gliding movement to a doorless opening which was narrower at the top than at the floor level.

Snook gazed after him for a few seconds without stirring. The notion of falling asleep was ludicrous, then he understood he was being given the chance to be alone. He started after Felleth, then turned, picked up the beer crate and took it with him. Felleth led the way along a short corridor which, at the far end, had a window giving a view of grey sky and grey ocean growing lighter with dawn. Snook followed his guide into a small room containing nothing but a simple couch. The room had a single window and the walls were decorated with horizontal strips of neutral colour, seemingly in a random pattern.

“We will meet again,” Felleth said. “And you will feel better.”

Snook nodded, still holding the crate, and waited until Felleth withdrew. The doorway was of the same trapezoid shape as the first, but vertical leaves slid from recesses in the wall to seal it. Snook went to the window and looked out at the world which was to be his home. There was a descending vista of brown-tiled roofs, with occasional views of alleys and squares in which the People could be seen going about their unhurried, enigmatic affairs. They wore flowing, draped garments of white or blue, and from a distance they resembled citizens of ancient Greece. There were no vehicles in sight, no light standards or telephone poles, no antennae.

The ocean began without intervention of open land, stretching to the horizon, and a hundred islands were ranged across it like ships at anchor. Most of the islands rose to central low peaks, creating—with their reflections—elongated diamond-shapes, but in the middle distance a pair were made into one by a massive double-spanned arch. Snook had seen it before, in a vision implanted by Felleth.

He turned away from the window, his mind sated with strangeness, and went to the couch. He placed the orange-dyed wooden crate beside it, then took off his wrist watch and set it on top, establishing his own little island of the commonplace. Next, he removed his blue raincoat—which was still spattered with the moisture of Earth—rolled it up and placed it beside the crate. When he lay down he discovered an unutterable weariness coiling through his limbs, but it was a long time before he escaped into sleep.

Snook had a dream that he was with Prudence Devonald, and that they were shopping for coffee and cheese in a small-town store. Beyond the gold-lettered store windows was a busy high street, with red buses, a church spire and leaves scattering in an October breeze. The gem-like clarity of the dream made it very real, the simple happiness he felt was very real, and when it began to slip away he fought to hold on, because the tiny part of him which was not deceived told him the awakening would be bad.

It was.

He sat on the edge of the couch, with head lowered, then the mental habits of a lifetime began to reassert themselves. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, he thought. Boy has to find out if there’s any plumbing in this place.

He stood up, looked around the bare room and picked up his watch, which told him it was past noon. The increased brightness from the single window confirmed what he already knew, that Avernian time kept pace with that of Earth. He went to the door and tried to slide the two leaves apart, but they refused to move, and the central crack was too narrow to give his fingers any purchase. The idea that he had been locked in did not cross his mind—he was certain the door could be opened easily by anyone who knew what to do, and therefore he was reluctant to call for help. He tried moving around on the floor near the threshold, testing for pressure switches, then a tentative solution occurred to him. Blanking everything else from his thoughts, he walked steadily and confidently towards the door, expecting it to open.

The leaves parted at once and, before he had time to think about what was happening, he was outside in the corridor. He looked back at the opening in appreciative wonderment, revising his ideas about Avernian technology. Remarks passed by Ambrose had told him that Felleth and his co-workers were ahead of Earth in their understanding of nuclear physics, but Snook had formed an opinion that on Avernus advanced knowledge was stored rather than applied. His one view of the island he was on had reinforced his notion of a non-technical culture, but his judgements as a newcomer obviously were not valid, his eyes not adequate. Perhaps a patch of colour on a wall could be the equivalent of a heating system; perhaps a wall stone that was rounded instead of squared was a power receiver and distributor.

Snook walked to the end of the corridor and went down a short flight of stairs which had awkward proportions and sloping treads which gave him the feeling he was going to pitch forward. At the bottom was a much larger room than any he had been in, though—like the one in which he had slept—it was devoid of furnishings. The windows along two walls were of obscured glass, but the movement of shrub-like vegetation beyond them told him he was at ground level. There were patches of lighter colour on the greenish stone floor which suggested that objects had recently been removed and he recalled Felleth’s statement that the building was not a dwelling. Questions began to well up in Snook’s mind. Was it a store? A library? What had the Avernian upstairs thought when he had first seen Snook appear in the little room a week earlier?

A door opened in one of the end walls and Felleth entered the room, his large pale eyes fixed on Snook. For an instant, superimposed on his normal vision, Snook seemed to glimpse the rise and sparkling fall of a translucent green wave, and -without speaking—he tried to coax the image into sharp focus, thinking of the ocean as a symbol of tranquillity and endless power.

“I believe you will learn to hear and speak,” Felleth said in, his laboured whisper.

“Thank you.” Snook felt gratified, then realised his acceptance of his new situation must be growing if he could respond with positive emotion towards a vaguely saurian biped in classical Mediterranean dress.

“Toilet facilities have been prepared for you.” Felleth indicated a second door with a gesture of a webbed hand. “They are self-enclosed…and therefore not of the highest standard…but it is only for a short period.”

Snook was baffled for a moment, then understanding came. “Of course,” he said, “I’m in quarantine.”

“Only for a short period.”

It dawned on Snook that, in his urgent need to get out of Barandi alive, he had unthinkingly accepted a great many things about conditions on Avernus. The atmosphere, for instance, could have been of a mix which was totally unacceptable for human beings, and its micro-organisms could already be setting up deadly colonies in his lungs. Presumably, he could represent a medical risk to the Avernians, which might explain why the building he was in had a scoured-out feel to it.

“I would not have brought you here…if I had not been satisfied you would live,” Felleth responded to his thought. “In any case, I could have provided…breathing gases and a mask.”

“You think of everything.” Snook was reminded of the fact that Felleth was the Avernian equivalent of a leading philosopher/scientist.

“Not everything. There are important matters we must discuss…while you are eating.”

After Snook had made use of the receptacles and water supply provided for him within a polished metal cubicle, he joined Felleth in another room containing a table and a simple stool which seemed to have been newly made from close-grained wood. On the table were ceramic platters of vegetables, cereals and fruit, plus a flask of water. Snook sat down at once, suddenly conscious that he had not eaten for a long time, and tried the food. The flavours were strange, though not unpleasant, his main criticism being that everything -even the fruit and green vegetables—had a tang of iodine and salt.

“I have to advise you, Equal Gil,” Felleth began, “that in bringing you here I miscalculated in certain matters . . , and failed to consider others at all.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Felleth.” Snook had considered simply thinking his replies to the Avernian’s remarks, but he found that speaking aloud called for less mental effort.

“At present I am not in good standing…with my fellow Responders…nor with the People…because I gave them advice in an important matter…without investigating all the evidence available to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“For example…I accepted, uncritically, everything I learned about astronomy…from your mind.”

Snook looked up at the enigmatic, robed figure. “That doesn’t seem like a blunder to me. After all, you’d only just heard of the subject, and on Earth they’ve had astronomy for thousands of years.”

“On Earth—that is precisely the point…your astronomers study a different universe.”

“I still don’t get it.” Snook pushed his food aside, sensing that something important was coming.

“The picture they presented of my universe…contained only those elements of which they had become aware…a sun, this world…and the rogue world you call Thornton’s Planet.”

“So?”

“The orbit they calculated for Thornton’s Planet…was based on this simplistic universe-picture.”

“I’m sorry, Felleth—I’m not an astronomer and I still don’t see what you are getting at.”

Felleth came closer to the table. “You are not an astronomer…but you understand that all bodies in a planetary system…are influenced in their movements…by all other bodies in that system.”

“That’s elementary,” Snook said. “But if there aren’t any other bodies in the…” He stopped speaking as the full implications of Felleth’s words dawned on him. “Have they begun to look?”

“A radio telescope has been designed…and at least twenty will be built.”

“But this is good.” Snook stood up to face Felleth. “This gives you hope, doesn’t it? I mean, if you can find just one other planet prowling around out there, it could pull Thornton’s Planet off the collision course…”

“That is what I should have appreciated…at once.”

“How could you?”

“The People demand the highest standards of a Responder…it is their right.”

“But…”

“Equal Gil, your memory is imperfect by our standards…but it may contain information which would enable me to make restitution to the People…for my failure…please permit me to touch you.”

Snook hesitated only briefly before stepping closer to Felleth. He inclined his head forward, and kept his eyes open while Felleth closed with him and their foreheads touched. The contact lasted only a second, then Felleth stepped back.

“Thank you,” Felleth said. “The evidence is valuable.”

“I didn’t feel anything—what evidence?”

“When you first heard of Thornton’s Planet…it was expected to pass through your world…but it missed by many planetary diameters…and the divergence from the predicted course…was attributed to observational error.”

“I do seem to remember something about…” Snook’s excitement increased. “That’s evidence, isn’t it? It shows there are other planets in your own system.”

“Not conclusive evidence.”

“It seems conclusive to me.”

“The only positive conclusion,” Felleth said, “is that I am unworthy of the People’s trust.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Snook almost shouted. “They owe you everything.”

The long slit of Felleth’s mouth rippled in an emotional signal which Snook could not interpret. “The People have different mental attributes To those of your race…but they are not superior, as you believe…we have successfully rid ourselves of the great destructive passions…but it is more difficult to eradicate the trivial and the petty…the fact that I am using the words indicates that I, too…” Felleth broke off from the painful manufacture of speech sounds, his pale eyes locked on Snook’s in an oddly human display of helplessness. Snook stared at him in silence, then ideas began to crystallise and dissolve far back in his consciousness.

“Felleth/ he said, “is there something you have to tell me?”

Each day passed like a month; each month like a year.

Snook found that the small island allocated to him was sufficient for his needs, provided he worked hard with the simple agricultural tools which had been supplied, and regularly culled the shallows for edible sea plants. He had no tobacco or alcohol—the processes of fermentation were not used on Avernus outside science laboratories—but he had learned to live without them. The Avernians themselves, he knew, sometimes inhaled the vapours released from the pods of certain marine plants, claiming they had the power to elevate the spirit and enrich the vision. In the beginning. Snook had experimented with the pods, but always with negative results, and had concluded that his metabolism was wrong. “It may be a universal law,” he had written on a scrap of paper, “that you can only get high at home.”

When he was not busy with the growing of food, Snook had enough work of other kinds with which to occupy his time. The island’s only house had to be kept in repair—especially the roof—and he also had to mend his own clothes and shoes. Heating was no problem, because the stone slabs of the floor grew warm at night, apparently spontaneously. Snook almost wished that the heating was of a more primitive nature—a log fire would have given him companionship of a kind. It would have been especially appreciated in the dark evenings when he had been incautious enough to start thinking of Prudence, and the lights of the other islands reminded him that the life of the planet was continuing without his aid.

There is no apartment so lonely, he recalled his own thought, as the one in which can be heard faint sounds of a party next door,

Being a prisoner on a small uninhabited island added little to the tribulations of being a prisoner in an alien universe, Snook had learned, even though the People had proved themselves much more human than he had expected. With Felleth as his sole model, he formed an idealised impression of the Avernians—the super-intelligent beings who were rebuilding their civilisation after one planet-wide disaster, and were stoically preparing themselves for the ultimate calamity.

It had come as a shock to him to discover that the race of reason-guided beings resented his presence on their world as a representative of a sister planet which was refusing them a helping hand. And he had been both saddened and angered to

learn that Felleth had been permanently censured for having failed, as the Avemians saw it, in his duty as a Responder. They had also criticised Felleth for his unilateral action in transferring Snook into their world.

“It is more difficult,” Felleth had said, on the first day, “to eradicate the trivial and the petty.”

These were things which Snook tried not to think about as he struggled with his own burden—that of enduring from one day to the next, then repeating the process over and over again. Living in a world where nobody wanted to kill him was one thing; but the reverse of the coin was that he existed in a universe in which nobody had given him life and where there was no prospect of his passing life on to others. The thoughts were painful for a man with his particular history, for a human neutrino, but then he had realised his mistake the day he had walked into a hotel in Kisumu and had seen…

At that point in the evening Snook always went through the ritual of taking off his wrist watch and placing it on the orange-dyed crate beside his bed. And—if he had worked hard enough that day—he was blessed with sleep, sometimes with dreams.

Each day passed like a month; each month like a year.