X
Vykor half expected a torrent of indignant counter-argument from the two archeologists, and in fact they looked at each other for a moment, their expressions suggesting that they were on the point of uttering some such retort.
But it didn’t come. They relaxed slowly, and Ligmer was the first to speak—almost shamefacedly.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “this really is the obvious answer, isn’t it? Only there are obstacles. This theory has been put forward a dozen times over the past few centuries, since Waystation was first discovered, and each time it has foundered on some obstacle that seemed insuperable.” He gave Usri a brief glance. “And I don’t think Pagr has ever given it serious thought.”
“Don’t you?” said Usri wryly. “I hope no monitors are listening, because this is highly subversive and could cost me my rank and my right to visit Waystation—but I spent half the time I was in school arguing the pros and cons of what- we call the Bringer theory. The main objections—leaving out matters of planetary pride—were that no one had claimed discovery of prehistoric space-flight relics on any other world than Pagr—and if they were there, no one would be likely to hush them up, would they?—and the fact that the peoples of the different worlds of the Arm are so different physically. Their cultures are also widely different, their ways of thinking, even. And an argument advanced against this theory of the Bringer, also, was the fact that the male-dominated social order of all the other worlds of the Arm coincided with what tradition declared to be the condition obtaining on Pagr before our modern society evolved.”
Lang nodded. “And so what is the presently accepted theory concerning the origin of man, here in the Arm?”
Ligmer and Usri looked at each other again. “Depends which planet you’re talking about,” said Ligmer, grunting. “On Cathrodyne there’s no generally accepted theory; some people support the Bringer theory, as Usri calls it, but rather few. Since human beings are pretty widespread through the galaxy, the opinion is that on oxygen-high worlds with seas and the right temperature man is statistically the most likely being to evolve."
Lang shook his head, without saying anything; Ligmer, however, chose to interpret it as a disdainful comment, and went on hotly, “Whereas on Pagr, of course, they give out that man first evolved there and then infected the whole galaxy!” “And on Lubarria they still say what they were saying on Cathrodyne a mere century or so ago!” snapped Usri. “That man was created by some mystical dual principle—the stars male and the planets female, or the other way round—which he reflects in his own being. I must say that the priests of this cult certainly act as though the only principle they have is a sexual one—”
“You won’t find a Cathrodyne above the level of a moron who takes that rubbish seriously today!” Ligmer broke in. They were practically shouting at each other when Lang coughed, and they calmed down sheepishly.
“Well, there are one or two supposedly insuperable obstacles to the Bringer theory which don’t seem to me to be so hard to overcome,” Lang said in judicious tones. “The fact that space-flight relics have only been found on Pagr, for instance. Pagr is right out towards the end of the Arm, isn’t it? Doesn’t that suggest that it might be the last world on which Waystation—which wouldn’t have been a station at all, but an interstellar vessel, on this theory—the last world on which colonists were deposited? Naturally relics occur there; that’s where the ships, no longer wanted, were dumped. They were probably first cannibalized, then left to decay.”
59
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Usri grudgingly. Ligmer confirmed with a nod.
“What do they say about the origin of man on Majkosi, by the way?” Lang glanced at Vykor, who stared down at his wine.
“We are not permitted to speculate so far,” he mumbled. "We are forbidden to have universities, observatories, laboratories, schools higher than mere technical colleges where one learns routine mechanical tasks, or in fact any of the centers where people talk about such matters.”
He met Ligmer’s glance with a defiant stare and relapsed into silence.
“But if you were asked to give your own opinion?” Lang pressed gently. Ligmer scowled; in his view, too much attention paid to subject races was dangerous. Still, Lang was an outsider; it wasn’t as bad as if he himself had been doing it.
“All right,” said Vykor. “I’d say that man must have started somewhere, once. I don’t believe he could have grown up on all these different worlds—not just along the Arm, but all over the galaxy—by pure coincidence. Take mating, for instance.” He was surprised to find himself warming to his thesis.
“Now we know that people from different planets can mate and have children. On Lubarria, where a lot of the priests are Cathrodynes who can’t make a go of it on Cathrodyne itself, and where the fake religion that the Cathrodynes stuck there compels women to give in to priests when they’re asked to—on Lubarria there you can see lots of kids of mixed blood. There are some mixed Lubarrian-Cathrodynes right here on Waystation, in the Lubarrian section; Cathrodynes won’t accept them, Lubarrians hate their exalted opinion of themselves, so they make do here, if they can.
“Likewise between Alchmids and Pags. I’ve heard how, when your people, Scholar Usri”—he boldly looked the Pag straight in the face—"have a male they can’t quiet down or satisfy themselves, they’ll turn it loose among a crowd of Alchmid women. And pretty often there are kids born that way, too. Only you kill them off at birth.”
“True enough,” said Usri dispassionately. “You have a sharp mind, fellow.”
“Too sharp, I’d say,” Ligmer snapped. “A Majko has a very good reason to put about such theories;- these would imply that all men ought to be on equal footing, and that Majkosi and Lubarria are oppressed unjusdy.”
There was a sudden tension in the air; Usri was aware of it, Lang was aware of it, even the little animal which Lang called Sunny raised its head inquiringly and snuffed. And Vykor grew aware of it also. But too late. Because by then he could hear the fatal words ringing in his memory. He had said—had actually said to the face of a Cathrodyne in the presence of a Pag—had said:
“And they are! Monstrously oppressed, and without a shred of justice for it!”
There was a long, frozen silence. Or rather, a period when none of them said anything; there was noise from everywhere, music from the dancing floor, talk from beyond the bushes that ringed the clearing, even very faint thunder from the storm still raging in the Mountains.
Outcast! Outcast! The word hammered at Vykor’s imagination. He looked at Usri’s frozen face, at Ligmer’s which was purpling with indignation, at Lang’s which wore a quizzical half-smile. Suddenly he felt unreasonably angry with Lang. He had never dreamed he could do such a stupid thing! He had thrown away his life, his freedom to come and go between Waystation and home, his value as a courier for the revolutionary movement on Majkosi, through a moment’s loss of control over his tongue. And somehow Lang was responsible. He felt it in his bones, he knew it—and at the same time knew that nothing Lang had said or done could explain his idiotic lapse.
He got to his feet with unsteady dignity, set down his half-full glass of wine with a hurt look at Lang, and walked away among the bushes.
“Well!” said Usri after a further pause.. “I’m surprised you let him get away with that. If an Alchmid had said such a thing to me, I’d have broken his teeth in and sent him to be food for the males.”
“Oh, he won’t get away with it, don’t worry,” said Ligmer through clenched teeth. “There’s not much anyone can do to him here on Waystation; he’ll just hide among his fellow Majkos here and the Glaithes will prevent us from dragging him out. But he won’t be able to leave the station again unless he has it in mind to commit suicide. I’ll have instructions given to the purser of his ship, just in case he tries to brazen it out and pretend nothing happened.”
He turned to Lang and half rose to give a sort of bow. “I must thank you, disting
uished sir,” he said. “I did not see what you were driving at when you pressed him for his opinion; I see now that you were cunningly provoking him into voicing subversive views. It is a service we Cathrodynes will appreciate.”
“You have nothing to thank me for,” said Lang, and his gaze was dispassionate and hard. “I am neutral. As it were, I am a citizen of Waystation, and your national disputes are none of my concern.”
He raised his glass and emptied it. When he set it down again, his manner had-changed completely.
“I have been wandering through what I gather you call the tourist circuit,” he said. “It is impressive.”
“And damnably difficult to find your way around,” said Usri shortly. “Forever changing places with itself. Yesterday I came down Chute Number Radium to the City; today I had to come right through the Caves to get here, and cross a bit of the Ocean. That I don’t mind so much—the weird juice they have in it instead of water dries like magic once you come ashore again. But going through the Caves was a nuisance.”
“Why?” said Lang, raising an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen them.”
“You will, if you’re normal.” Usri gave a sound halfway between a grunt and a laugh. “Even if you’re not. By non- Pag standards, that is. Other people seem to think we’re pretty peculiar because we won’t give in to any male until he’s proven he’s worth it by beating us in single combat— but it’s all a matter of attitude. So we don’t go there for fun, the way most people do.”
“It’s a—shall we say—place of exotic amusements?”
“More of them than anything else. One thing that does tend to support our historico-geneticists when they say that the people of other planets are degenerate culls of a primal Pagr stock is that we like our matings to be straight—Pag to Pag. In the Caves over yonder most visitors from other planets seem to go for a stock different from their own. You get Cathrodynes wanting Glaithes, Alchmids mucking around with Lubarrians—ugh!” She made a disgusted face. “Degenerate!”
“Yet your own males will take Alchmid women, as you admitted a little while ago,” said Lang curtly. “So your males are of a degenerate stock and your females aren’t?” Before Usri could muster an answer to that, he had leaned forward on the table to look again at the picture of the ship embalmed on Pagr in solidified lava.
“How many ships are known to have been preserved on Pagr?” he said. Usri hesitated, as though she had been going to say something totally different, and a small frown creased her red-brown forehead. But so completely had Lang the attitude of one who has forgotten the previous subject that she let it pass and answered his new question instead.
“We’ve found fifteen—possibly. All in strata laid down about the same time, at approximately the spot from whereas ordinary archeological studies suggest—our people spread across the planet.”
“Fifteen.” Lang felt in a pouch at his waist and took out a Glaithe-prepared map which he had been given in the reception hall on arriving. “There are a total of sixteen ship- locks on Waystation,” he said. “Not counting four small ones with only a third of the capacity of the main locks. That’s a fairly close match, Scholar Usri. You are welcome to the data and any conclusions you care to draw from them.”
He lifted his pet onto his shoulder again, stood up, and nodded to each of them before walking off among the bushes. "Who is he?” said Usri in astonishment when he had gone. Ligmer shook his head. “An extraordinarily wealthy tourist —officially,” he said. “Traveling to see the galaxy. Heard rumors of Waystation, came to see if it was real, will go away again afterwards.”
“Gas-clouds,” Usri said positively. “That’s a dangerous man,
Ligmer. He gives me the impression that without having been on Waystation before in his life he knows more about it —and us—than you or I could learn in a century’s work.” Amazingly, uncharacteristically, she shuddered, and huge ripples moved down her sleek flanks under her black blouse.
“I don’t like him!” she said fiercely. “I don’t like him at all!”
XI
Carrying his mask, Vykor walked with head downcast for what seemed to be ages. Echoes of his words rang in his head, beat at the edges of his consciousness like waves eroding a rocky shore. His brain throbbed to the crazy pounding of his heart; his breath came arid went in racking gasps.
His lips moved in a senseless repetition of a self-condemning sentence: you must have been out of your mind, you must have been out of your mind, you must have been out of your mind . . .
At length he sat down on a rocky slope among the foothills of the Mountains and stared back across an inlet of the Ocean towards the City. But it was an unseeing stare. Behind his eyes there were pictures of other things—of his world, Majkosi, of its people, of the past which should also have been his future and which he had thrown away in a fit of anger.
There was nothing he could do about it. He could not go to the Cathrodyne authorities and plead for forgiveness— the stem-faced Cathrodynes did not forgive such behavior. He would suffer, first, and then die. And dying did not seem to be worth it.
Somehow, he would cling to life. But his life would be here, at Waystation.
Maybe—he caught at a fugitive gleam of hope—maybe he could still be of some use. Maybe he could become like Larwik, agent of a disease gnawing at Cathrodyne supremacy, although the foul nature of Larwik’s work had revolted him.
He remembered Majkosi in an agony of sorrow—remembered the dull industrial town where he had been born and grown up; remembered the people who wore drab clothing and had to step aside into the gutter when arrogant Cathrodyne officials came down the sidewalk, and who still managed to preserve a spark of independence; remembered the face of his father and the pride it had shown when he learned that his son was acting as a courier for the revolutionary movement in which he had himself for years taken part. . .
Majkosi, he found himself thinking, was a grey world— not of its nature, but because Cathrodyne domination cast a shadow over even the brightest day.
He would not see it again.
The chill finality of what had happened finally froze the pain in his mind to a mere ache. He debated with himself what he should do. Was it worth the risk to go back to his ship and get his belongings? He thought not; Ligmer had been so angry he had probably already notified the Cathrodyne authorities, and if he stepped outside Glaithe protection even for a moment he would be seized and jailed.
A group of Cathrodyne youths emerged from the Ocean within a short distance of him, laughing and spluttering, and began to play tag up the slopes of the foothills. Their gaiety mocked him, and by contrast his misery seemed that much more insupportable. He wished he could shout to them, tell them what he was suffering—but even if he did, they would not understand; they would don their Cathrodyne sneers and say that it served him right, if they condescended to answer a member of a subject race at all.
There was, though, somebody he could tell, who he was sure would understand—and whom he ought to tell, soon. He got up and plodded, head bowed more than ever under his burden of regret, toward a chute out of the tourist circuit.
He found his way as though in a dream to the familiar redlit corridor on the level at which the elevator car never ordinarily stopped; he pressed the admission button on the door of the little office, and went in.
He was thinking: of course, she may not be here just now; she may be out at work in the reception halls or somewhere —when he belatedly understood what he was seeing and began to stammer apologies.
The strange red soft plastic material which usually had the form of two chairs, and which seemed to be the sole furniture of the cabin, was flat on the floor like a kind of thick mattress. The featureless bulkheads had changed; there on his left a hidden cupboard door had been slid back to show a row of clothing hanging up and some shoes and sandals in a rack, while opposite it a similar door was open to disclose a collection of printed and taped books. There were other similar changes.
They had not at first registered on his mind because the cabin was as dim as the corridor outside, the usual lighting turned down to a pale twilight glow. And in that glow Raige was starting awake, sleepy-eyed, under a shiny silk coverlet, lying on the thick soft plastic that served her as a bed.
She collected herself in a moment, and cut short his babble of excuses. “No matter, Vykor—you must have a reason, and you look so miserable! What is wrong?”
She sat up, contriving to wrap the coverlet around her so that Vykor caught no more than a glimpse of bare shoulder and a tantalizing curve of breast, and switched on the lights. She looked as tiny and fragile as a porcelain ornament with her bare toes peeping out from under the coverlet. Vykor licked his lips.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said. “I don’t think it was all my fault, but—”
She indicated that he should squat down on the- plastic mat, and he did so awkwardly, trying not to look at her too directly. In abrupt, staccato phrases he recounted what had happened and why he was no longer going to be a free man. Raige listened in utter stillness, her small head tilted a little to one side.
“And that’s it,” said Vykor bitterly at the end. “I’ve been driven into throwing away my whole life on a stupid burst of annoyance!”
“Poor Vykor,” said Raige, and laid a soft little hand on his his arm. The touch was like a trigger; he bent his head down and felt his belly-muscles tighten in the first of many racking sobs.
He was only vaguely aware of Raige rising lithely to her feet behind him and moving at the edge of his tear-blurred vision. There was a hushing sound as the coverlet fell in a silken pile beside him. When he could raise his head and see clearly again, Raige was standing before him knotting the girdle of a plain white floor-length gown, her face more full of emotion than he could ever remember seeing it before.
“Come now,” she said quietly, and gentled him to his feet with a brush of her hand. She bent down to the soft plastic mat and did something he could not quite follow, and it split in two. From each part she deftly formed one of the familiar chairs he had seen on his other visits, and made him sit down in the nearer.