I woke up to soft, silvery light filtering through the window-slit.
It seemed only normal and natural in the first few seconds, until I remembered that I was in the caverns of Rhapsody, and then—for a moment or two—what was normal became horribly abnormal. Almost immediately, of course, I made the connection between the light and the luminescent organisms of Bayon’s village. But that single moment of fear caused by the slowness of my reactions after waking up was strangely disturbing, as though I were adapting myself to the black reality of Rhapsody. That was something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to remain separate—a part of an entirely different world. To a large extent, what we are depends on what we perceive, and I had no wish for my senses to be rebalanced to accommodate the whims of Rhapsody’s culture.
There are three senses associated with what we call sight: dark/light perception, depth perception and colour perception. On Rhapsody, which chose always to dress in dimness, the last two were obliterated almost to the point of extinction, even under the conditions of illumination extant in the towns, because neither can function properly except in bright light. This threw emphasis on the primary sense of dark/light separation, which was even further emphasised by the fact that the people of Rhapsody chose to live a large fraction of their lives in the shadow rather than the light. In addition, of course, the inhibition of the overall sense-category of sight put a heavier responsibility on hearing (or, to be strictly accurate, on loudness perception—hearing, also, is a compound sense).
The reordering of the usefulness of my senses was an inevitability, while I was forced to operate within this environment. But changes in one’s sensory orientation can sometimes result in changes in one’s personality—even in one’s identity. It was not so much that I feared a permanent change—I would have to spend a considerable period on Rhapsody before I became irrevocably colour-blind—but that I was worried about Grainger-on-Rhapsody behaving in a manner which might be considered aberrant by Grainger-off-Rhapsody. It was a syndrome I had encountered before on many of the worlds to which Lapthorn and I had taken the Fire-Eater and the Javelin. I had always fought such effects tooth and nail, but I had also been able to study the total subjection to them by their expression in Lapthorn, who believed in the whole experience of alien worlds. On dark worlds, he became a dark Lapthorn, on odorous worlds, an odorous Lapthorn. He changed, from world to world. It was not insanity, although several of his multiple forms behaved in a manner which would have been grossly out of place everywhere else. The syndrome is purely a matter of adaptation, but if it begins to come easily and naturally, then eventually one adaptation or another will claim one’s soul, and one is trapped in an alien (alien, that is, to other men) environment for the rest of one’s days.
It happens to a lot of spacemen. It would have happened to Lapthorn, in time, had not the crash ended his life. But it wasn’t going to happen to me. I was determined never to surrender myself to alien worlds, alien ways, alien points of view.
And not to alien parasites, either.
I got up, and went out of the shack. The light was still steady and silver, and I was grateful for having found it. There was nobody around except for the lanky man—Tob—who had helped to bring me here. He was sitting just outside the door of Bayon’s house, reclining with his head and shoulders supported by a cushion or rock, looking suspiciously like a jailer. He was cleaning his fingernails with a sheath-knife and he didn’t bother to look up as I emerged.
“Bout time,’ he murmured.
‘Where is everybody?’ I asked.
‘We got a living to earn,’ he said. ‘Just ‘cause you sleep till evening is no reason for us to do the same. A free life is no easy life. We have to eat. Food supply has to be kept up. That means taking stuff from the converters. It also means putting stuff back in. Them machines is about clapped. As it is, we got to get regular supplies of green-stuff from outside. Muck that grows here is no good at all. Jellied rock and glued-up dirt. We daren’t just steal from the converters without putting nothing back.’
‘I’m sure that your sense of social responsibility is both highly developed and highly commendable,’ I said. ‘Why aren’t you out earning your living?’
‘I’m baby-sitting.’
‘Alpart was worried in case I woke up crying? He thought I might need something?’
‘Bayon always worries.’
‘That’s no doubt why he boasts about his optimism. Did he think I was likely to run away?’
He looked up from his manicure, for the first time. He had a very unhandsome face, but it wasn’t unfriendly. His paleness and his wispy, stunted beard made him grotesque to my eyes, but it was a face with definite humanity. So many of the faces here were white masks, with as much in-built capacity for expression as the faces of reptiles.
‘You ain’t very pretty,’ he said, ‘but we love you anyway. You mean a lot to us and we’re going to look after you as well as we can.’
‘Very kind of you. But you don’t need to keep me a prisoner. I’m on your side.’
‘Them as plays it safe,’ he said, ‘is the ones who manage to get by down here.’
‘Them as plays it safe,’ I mimicked, ‘don’t get kicked out of the holy flock to begin with.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ he said, without rancour. ‘It makes us extra careful about making any more. The first mistake we made cost us our chance to live like worms. If we make the mistake of losing you it could cost us our chance to live like people.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘I can see that Bayon’s got you all convinced. I know it would be no good my telling you that you probably wouldn’t find the star-worlds any more accommodating than this hell-hole, and it would make me very unpopular if I did. But you don’t know what the star-worlds are like. They’re wonderful—but for star people.’
‘Once a worm, always a worm,’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
‘No, Tob, definitely not that. You’re no worm or you wouldn’t be here. You’d be in the mines or at the bottom of a hotshaft pretending to be charcoal. You can find a life in the star-worlds—I’m as sure as you are of that. What I’m trying to tell you is that it won’t be easy. It won’t descend upon you automatically, the minute you step onto alien soil. There will be no miracles. It’ll require just the same effort and determination you put into living down here.’
‘I know,’ he said. Just that, without protest or emphasis. He did know. I had to stop assuming that the people of Rhapsody were ignorant savages. They were something weird all right, but it was something a lot different from naiveté and barbarity.
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘you know. And I can’t really blame you for keeping eyes on me all the time.’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘you can’t. We need you, spaceman, a hell of a lot more than you need us.’
‘My name’s Grainger,’ I said.
‘Grainger,’ he said tonelessly. ‘You told us. Ain’t much different from “spaceman”, is it? Bayon is Bayon and I’m Tob. What’s your real name?’
I sighed. ‘I haven’t got another name. I was born an orphan. Grainger’s as real a name as I’ve got.’
He looked at me steadily. ‘Nobody gets born an orphan,’ he said, accurately, but missing the meaning of what I’d said. ‘In any case, even the orphans round here got names. They’re easy to come by.’
‘I don’t come from around here,’ I pointed out. ‘It doesn’t matter anyhow. I’m sorry, but I haven’t got another name. I’m just Grainger, that’s all.’
‘Difficult to be friendly then,’ he commented.
‘I won’t take it to be unfriendly if you call me by my name,’ I assured him.
He shrugged.
‘I will get you off if I can,’ I told him. ‘I meant what I said. If it’s humanly possible, I won’t leave you to die down here.’
‘And this Charlot,’ he said. ‘The one you have to ask. What about him? Does he feel the same way?’
That was a very difficult question. I didn’t like Charlot and he didn’t like me. He didn’t owe me any favours. I could hardly make promises on his behalf. On the other hand, if I expressed any doubt, or even evaded the question, I would destroy any faith which Tob might place in me. I was reasonably sure that I could get Bayon’s sixteen men onto the Hooded Swan, but reasonably sure wasn’t nearly enough for Tob and Bayon. They’d been offered the carrot, and nothing was going to stand in their way.
‘Whether Charlot gets what he wants or not,’ I told him, ‘he’ll have lots of empty space on the ship. He’s a human being, like the rest of us. He couldn’t possibly elect to leave you here.’
All of which must have sounded to Tob like: ‘I’m not sure.’
‘It’s not impossible to get off the world,’ I said. ‘Rion Mavra and six others left.’
‘Churchmen,’ he said. ‘Just arguers, not throwouts.’
‘Yes, but ships do arrive and take off. Not just the Splinter ships, but ships to and from Attalus. Not often, I know. But there are ships. If the locals ignore you, and refuse to recognise your presence, you shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting to the offworlders.’
‘Do you honestly think we ain’t tried?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I imagined you had. What goes wrong?’
‘The ships that come here from outside come to deal with the Churchmen. And that isn’t easy. They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t have to. But from time to time, Attalus wants something and only our prices are low enough. The Church wouldn’t deal either, but they have to, as well. We couldn’t live here without support. Things break. Things have to be repaired and replaced. But the Church has a choice and Attalus doesn’t. Attalus needs the Church more than the Church needs Attalus. We can always trade with the companies, because we have metal we don’t want, and can pay their prices.
‘So do you really think that any ship from Attalus would dare to carry back renegades from Rhapsody or any other of the Splinters? They take the exiles, sure, because that’s where the Church reckons its exiles ought to go. But we’re dead. We don’t exist, but we can’t be allowed to escape from our non-existence. If we could get back our existence, the threat of excommunication would be only a tenth of what it is. The Churchmen would kill us, whether we exist or not. And the ships from Attalus wouldn’t carry us. They wouldn’t dare.’
I could see his point. Attalus did need its tenuous connection with the Splinters more than the Splinters did. It was apparent nonsense to think of Attalus being poorer than the Splinters, but that was the reality. Rhapsody had a minimum of wealth, but what it had was surplus to requirements. It could be used, in time of need. But all the wealth which Attalus possessed was tied up in maintaining a reasonable standard of living. They had much more in the way of resources, but they needed every last gram. Wealth and poverty are both determined by what is enough. The standard of everyday life on Rhapsody would be intolerable by the standards of Attalus.
There must be company ships as well—few and far between but I knew better than to ask Tob about that. Company men were company men. If you couldn’t pay the fare, you didn’t get the ride. That had been brought home to me so hard that I’d never ever forget it. Bayon, Tob and the rest were trapped—caught in the Church’s web and condemned to the Church’s version of hell. A living hell, where they served as terrible reminders to the faithful. The imaginary non-existence was cruel and brilliant. The people knew, but they could not admit that they knew. They lived alongside their hell, and it was an act of faith not to see it. It was even an act of faith not to be a part of it, for life on Rhapsody couldn’t be objectively much different for the faithful and the condemned. I never found out what kind of Exclusive Reward the people were promised for their suffering—in all probability they weren’t allowed to know the details, but had to take it on trust that it would be good—but they earned every bit of it.
They deserved it all. Their life, their heaven, and their hell. The only ones who didn’t deserve it were the ones who had to suffer most—the hellbound themselves.
I meant to get them out. I really was absolutely determined. How much could I blame them for a lack of trust? Not at all, then. Later events cast a different shadow, though.
And what are you going to get out of it? demanded the wind.
I didn’t bother with the question. His speaking had just reminded me of something.
‘Last night,’ I subvocalised, ‘did you knock me out?’
How could I do that?
‘I didn’t ask how.’
You went to sleep.
‘I don’t usually go to sleep like somebody handed me a piledriver on the back of the head.’
You said yourself that you were tired.
He was taunting me deliberately. So many times before, he’d assured me that he couldn’t take command of my body unless I let him. But how much control did he really have? Was he really unable to act, or was he simply trying to attain his ends by guile instead of force? After all, he had to live with me. Diplomacy made a lot of sense.
I didn’t knock you out, he said suddenly.
I couldn’t tell whether it was because the joke was over, or whether it was because he didn’t like the way my train of thought was taking me.
‘I don’t believe you,’ I said.
It’s true. I cannot render you unconscious by any direct action. I cannot subvert any voluntary control which you have over your body. I did not knock you unconscious last night.
There was nothing to be gained by further argument. I had to accept what he said, or else reject it outright without any real evidence. I accepted it, but retained my doubts. I returned my attention to Tob.
‘What happens when they get back? And when is that likely to be?’
‘Pretty soon,’ he said. ‘You slept most of the day anyway. And when they come back we’ll be eating. After that, I guess we’ll be moving. Bayon won’t want to waste any more time. Once we’ve laid in the supplies, we’ll be on our way.’
‘Revolution time,’ I said. ‘All sixteen of you.’
‘Ain’t no law against it,’ he said.
‘True,’ I conceded. And it was true, in more than a metaphorical sense. Fomenting revolution was against the Law of New Rome. If I had been on any planet other than an LWA I’d be risking twenty years (despite the fact that I wasn’t actually fomenting anything—you know what the Law’s like).
The prospect of action gladdened me. I wasn’t really in favour of the tough line, although I admitted its potential, but I really did need something to do. Another time, another place, I could maybe have sat down and waited forever, lying in a hammock drowsing in the sunlight. But Rhapsody dressed exclusively in black, and sitting here was far too much like sitting in a coffin. Lying down was a declaration of intent to die. I needed something to occupy me, body and soul.
Something other than the wind.
A life of my own. I’d already had a taste of eternal death two years of it on Lapthorn’s Grave, where there was nothing to do except stand that bloody cross up two or three times a day. Well, the cross was down now, no doubt, and it would stay down forever.
And that’s how and why I became Rhapsody’s public enemy number one.