The Sinners of Erspia

EIGHT The Mansion of Pleasure

Laedo couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought about this before. He distinctly remembered the moment when, with a mental shrug, he had pulled the lever which switched off the ‘good’ Ormazdian beam. Since then he had experienced not one flicker of conscience or remorse.

How could a Class CCC cargo carrier, with a corresponding ethical rating, have done such a thing?

Then, too, he had locked Histrina in the radiation safe while he went exploring on Erspia-4, without adequate provision for her plight should he fail to return.

Only one explanation occurred to him. Despite his precautions, the thought beams had affected him.

Without his being aware of it, he had become mentally confused.

It was, he conceded ruefully, yet one more confirmation of the human condition so belittled by ‘Klystar’.

Could a thought beam affect Klystar himself? Presumably not. It was a question of individuality. Social insects such as ants, bees and termites had none. They could not distinguish one another as individuals, only as members of a caste: worker, drone or warrior. Klystar stood at the other extreme: he was pure individual, able to achieve unaided what would take an entire society of human beings. He had no need of companionship or co-operation.

Mankind stood midway between the two: a social being with some level of intelligence. For that reason human beings were susceptible to thought-moulding.

Laedo asked himself what he could do to remedy his dreadful act. Return the projector station to Erspia-1 and switch the beam back on? He didn’t yet know how to do the first. In fact ‘Klystar’ had made it sound as though he never would be able to take control of the station.

Return to Erspia-1 and remove the Ahrimanic beam? A similar problem presented itself there. His cargo ship had a protective beam weapon, but the manoeuvring engine would not take it to Erspia-1.

Despondently Laedo trudged the rest of the way to his cargo ship. Histrina was still in the lounge, looking at the viewscreen.

“What was that monstrous thing that came walking by?” she asked breathlessly. “That’s not a person, is it?”

“That’s Klystar. Sort of.”

He sat down and became lost in his thoughts.

“Klystar? Who the station keeps chasing? Now it’s found him, can we go to Harkio if we want?”

Laedo didn’t answer. He had his head in his hands.

Histrina was oblivious of his mood. Her eyes were gleaming. “Let’s not go there straight away. Pleasure palaces ! Let’s try those first!”

She jumped to her feet. “Let’s go now!”

Laedo raised his heed and looked at the tops of the domes and pavilions which showed over the horizon.

There seemed little danger in visiting the palaces. Both Garo and ‘Klystar’ apparently assumed Laedo would take up residence there of his own accord sooner or later.

Also, he was curious to see the heart of Klystar’s operation.

“All right.”

They left the station together. The walk to the complex took only a few minutes. It was like approaching a theme park or amusement centre. There was a light, airy elegance to the prospect which opened up and expanded the nearer one came. They made for the largest of the palaces and stopped before a grandiloquent entrance flanked by Doric pillars. They cautiously entered a spacious hall with a gleaming tiled floor. People crossed the hall on enigmatic errands, appearing and disappearing through various doorways. All were dressed in loose flowing robes and bore an air of calm.

A tall, slim young man accosted them. “You are strangers,” he said in a friendly voice. “Are you from below?”

“That’s right,” Laedo answered.

“Ah. It is rare for us receive adults.” He paused. “You will wish to find places here.”

“That depends,” Laedo said. “We were not brought here. We came under our own power. If we don’t like it we can go back.”

The slim man looked puzzled at this statement. Then his face cleared as he dismissed the conundrum.

“Oh, you will certainly like it here! No one could prefer the drab world below. It is nearly time for the evening banquet, which I urge you to attend. Such food!”

“Well, can we have a look round?”

“By all means. Later I will assign you quarters and we can discuss your role here.”

Still smiling, their host touched two fingers to his brow in a casual gesture of farewell, and went on his way.

Histrina sighed. The great sunny entrance hall, the palace staff quietly going about its business, all had a reassuring quality. It was easy to imagine that life here could be pleasant indeed.

* Then something happened which reminded Laedo of what Garo had said. A group of children ran into the hall, aged perhaps eight to ten, laughing, playing a game of tag. They were completely naked, which made a bizarre contrast with the fact that their faces were heavily made up with lipstick, rouge and eye shadow, both girls and boys.

The group swirled around the two and then were off, disappearing through one of the doorways. A gleeful leer came over Histrina as she realized the import of the children’s unclothed cosmetics. She started off towards the way they had gone, only to be restrained by Laedo.

“Later,” he placated, sadly aware that he would not be able to deflect Histrina from her lustful nature if they stayed here any length of time.

By now little Helsey Fong was probably running around naked somewhere not far away, available to the older staff members.

Histrina tailed after him as he began the task of exploring the palace. The banqueting hall, already being laid out for the evening repast, was nearby. There were salons, fountained arcades, a huge kitchen, sumptuous boudoirs obviously not designed simply for sleeping, and contrarywise, sleeping quarters.

The question of where the food came from was answered: all the palace’s wastes were recycled in sealed biological chambers which cultivated edible tissues directly, both vegetable and animal. Once again Klystar’s technology was excellent. The produce was gourmet class.

Mounting a staircase, they emerged on to a balcony giving a view of the surrounding moonscape. The other palaces lay in the light of the low sun, imparted an odd canted appearance by the small moon’s curvature.

Turning to quit the balcony, Laedo noticed a long narrow corridor leading to the right. So far he had only been able to see the ground floor of the palace. Obviously there were more floors above it, but this was time he had found access to any of them.

Histrina in tow, he paced the length of the corridor. At its end he found a narrow stairway spiralling upwards. The stairwell was dim as he climbed, having no lights of its own. He and Histrina reached the top and entered a long, windowless gallery. Ceiling strips provided lighting. Arranged along the middle of the room were six low tanks or vats, oval in shape. Laedo stepped to the nearest and looked into it. A thick, yellow fluid filled it to just below the rim, pus or vomit-like and gleaming slightly.

The odour which came off the stuff seemed to shift as Laedo tried to identify it. Now it smelled like hot plastic, now like blood, now like toffee. He glanced to the other tanks. Something was happening in the adjacent one. The fluid rippled, swirled, smoothed out, then humped up. A form emerged, like a naiad rising from a pond. A little girl, looking wanly about her.

It was Helsey Fong. She was bare of the cosmetics worn by the children running about below, but she was just as naked. The vision persisted only for a few seconds. Her substance melted and flowed back into the vat.

Laedo put together what Garo had said about Klystar’s special project, and what ‘Klystar’ had said about the ancient alien’s need for a new body. So this was the special project. This was what happened to those children who were not ‘the lucky ones’. They were melted down to provide living substance from which to make a new body for the returning Klystar.

Garo was right. Klystar was a monster.

At the far end of the gallery a very tall door slid open with a click. ‘Klystar’ strode through, head rotating rapidly from side to side, bringing each of his eyes to the fore in turn.

Histrina scurried for the stairway. Laedo, on the contrary, stood his ground as the discarded body of Klystar bore down on him.

‘Klystar’ halted. “You should not be here,” he said curtly. “You are not one of the body servitors.”

“You should not be here!” Laedo shouted at him. “You are committing atrocities! You are murdering children! So much for your ‘superiority’!”

“One might as well listen to the arguments of ants,” ‘Klystar’ retorted, “as to your maundering protests about ‘morality’. Your ‘ethics’ has no objective basis. It is simply a species-survival strategy. Klystar’s intelligence, on the other hand, is aligned with objective reality.”

His voice rose. “To be the instrument of Klystar is high fortune for one such as you. Go, my friend, and become part of Klystar!”

Without warning the Klystar body lashed out with an arm which was surprisingly strong. Laedo was tumbled and tipped into the nearest vat.

The fleshy odour overwhelmed him. The thick yellow fluid closed over his head. He tried to raise himself, only to discover that there was nothing to push up against. The bottom of the vat lay far below the level of the gallery floor. He realized that the six vats were in fact openings of a single larger tank.

He was sinking, but there was no sense of suffocation. He felt no need to breathe. Neither was there complete darkness: a flesh-coloured glow surrounded him. But there was nothing to see apart from vague shadows which might have been faces, bodies, or anything. What there was, quite distinctly, was flickering presences. Helsey Fong was somewhere nearby, feebly protesting. The process of absorption into the fluid was slow. Individuals briefly and sketchily reconstituted themselves. The pus-like yellow muck was a turmoil of bewildered children—they were mostly children—being mixed together as if in some cooking process.

Laedo made swimming motions in an attempt to reach the surface. It was impossible. The more he struggled, the more the custard of melted life resisted. At length he despaired, and was on the point of letting himself sink to the bottom of the tank, when he felt a hand seize his. A slender hand, without a great deal of strength, but with its aid he was able to break free, pushing upward and lifting his head clear.

To his astonishment he had not been more than a foot or two below the surface all the time. The fluid was somehow able to restrain its victims. But now it let him go. It had no wetness, no ability to cling. Instead it poured from him as he gripped the side of the tank and clambered over it. Not a drop of the flesh-stuff remained on him.

“What happened?” he gasped.

“I hid on the stairs till the monster went,” Histrina said in hushed tones. “Since then I’ve been feeling about in the tank looking for you.”

“Thanks.”

Laedo embraced Histrina in genuine gratitude.

“Where did he go?”

“Through that door at the other end.”

“Let’s get away from here.”

Like scared mice they scuttled to the stairway.