Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (27 page)

“You, too, Brek?” Noren snapped. “I’m keeping up the pretense for her sake, not yours. You’re scientist enough to be realistic.”

“I suppose so.”

There’d be no idiot child anyway, Noren thought. The doctors would see to that if further medical tests showed any chromosome damage, for in such cases the High Law permitted sterilization. He would, of course, break off the betrothal at once if he alone was affected, since Talyra would feel disgraced if she bore no babies, and she should marry someone who could give them to her. But what point was there in considering that? Reason told him that under no circumstances could either of them stay alive.

Before leaving the wreckage they combed it thoroughly for materials that might somehow be of use. Though none were found, not even anything shiny enough to reflect sunlight upward as a signal, both Talyra and Brek were adamant about taking along all the metal they possibly could. “It would be sacrilege to leave it!” exclaimed Talyra when Noren objected to the idea of loading themselves down unnecessarily. In this Brek supported her, despite the fact that whatever he carried would add to his pain. Metal was sacred, and to sacrifice any was unthinkable; Noren could produce no argument other than the one he had decided not to use. It would make no difference in the end whether that irreplaceable metal was lost at the site of the crash or elsewhere, but to say so would be defeatism in Talyra’s eyes. Moreover, she seemed to look upon it as a sort of talisman. Once, as a village girl, she had possessed a silver wristband—a holy thing passed down to her by an aunt to whom she had been kind. She had sold it for money to aid in his escape and had never expected to touch a metal object again; although as a Technician she’d often done so, she still treated such objects with reverence. Perhaps, Noren thought ruefully, she felt that the spirit of the Mother Star was more likely to protect people who were guarding metal than those who were not.

By the time they were ready, with all detachable wire and other metal parts tied in makeshift packs devised from the material of the seat cushions, it was almost noon and the heat was increasing rapidly. Their thirst was already intense, and as Noren looked up at the whitish cliff to the east that seemed to offer their only chance of ascent, he decided that perhaps the effort, arduous though it would be, would prove wise in that it would hasten the inevitable finish. They would be more likely to find water if they circled the canyon, searching for passages between the cliffs, but they could not be seen from the air there; even Talyra realized that such a course would serve merely to prolong their suffering. He was glad that a more rapid end was in view.

The cliff’s surface was rough and steep, and it was hard to find footholds. Their shoes were not designed for traversing country like this, although they were the kind worn by villagers, made from the thicker parts of work-beast hides and bound together with heavy thongs. Again and again Talyra almost slipped and fell, and Noren too had trouble keeping his balance, so that the hand he held out to her was not always firm.

They spoke little, for their dry mouths burned with a fire greater than the scorching sun that struck their shoulders. Brek, forced by the exertion to breathe deeply, swayed and clutched his ribs, his face contorted with agony. It would not be possible to reach the top, Noren felt, not if there were many places where progress required one to cling to protruding rocks. Their strength would give out. He found himself moving not by will, but automatically, simply because to stop would demand a decision he lacked the energy to make.

At last, after five or six hours, they stumbled up the final stretch of sun-baked slope onto a wide plateau, blocked on one side by still higher cliffs but otherwise surrounded by a gaping abyss. Talyra, daunted by its barrenness despite her courage, began to tremble both with physical fatigue and with the fear she had earlier suppressed. “I—I don’t know what I expected to see,” she murmured.

There was nothing to be seen—nothing but more rocks, more dead ground, and stretching everywhere into the visible distance, more jagged mountains. The plateau was infinitesimal compared to all that wasteland. If a low-flying aircar were to pass directly over it, they might be spotted, but aircars did not fly low over such terrain, not if their pilots’ minds were on the job. Already the City had lost one; to risk another would be to risk the sustenance of villagers yet unborn. No car would come without an unmistakable signal, a signal that could not be sent.

Noren dropped his pack and sprawled on the stony ground, heedless of the heat that scorched his skin, not noticing that his feet were raw and blistered and that what remained of his left shoe was stained with blood. After a moment or two the others did likewise. For a long time they lay there, and though in the back of his mind he knew that if he did not rouse himself soon, he might never do so, it did not seem to matter.

The air was very still. It was thinner at this altitude than in the settled lands; that was why the sky was so blue, he thought idly. Blue… and still farther up, it was black. At night it would be black here. He feared the blackness still, and the bright stars, and the other darkness that was death; he feared them because they were past all understanding. Yet he could no longer hope to understand. He was too weary even to try.
No
, something inside him kept protesting,
no, that’s a betrayal of truth… truth’s the one thing I’ll never abandon
. . . And suddenly it did matter. He was going to die; he could not expect to understand it beforehand—but whatever it was, was
true
. It was wrong to fear the truth, whether one understood it or not. And it was wrong not to care whether one lived… .

“Noren!” Talyra was shaking him urgently. “Noren, listen! Don’t you hear something?”

He sat up, dazed, analyzing the stillness; and then, as from a long distance, he heard his own voice ask. “Water?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m sure it is—somewhere behind us.”

She clutched his hand and he went with her, not stopping to reason, not questioning the instinctive impulses of his body. Brek followed. Instinct led them to the tall cliff behind, where from a small cleft a thin, swift stream cascaded; instinct made them thrust their faces into the cool foam and gulp enough to damp the fire that was consuming them. But something more than instinct made Talyra stop.

“You said there’s a limit,” she declared, backing away. “We can’t drink more than we need; it’s sinful—and besides, we don’t know how many days we’ll be here.”

Noren, his thirst far from quenched, drew back also, revived by the moisture and by its extraordinary coldness. He saw no real value in stopping, but he could hardly indulge himself while she remained thirsty, and Talyra still had her irrepressible hope.

“The spirit of the Mother Star is with us,” she reflected, tilting her head to gaze up into the deep sky that for her held no terrors. “We have been led to this place; shall we not receive further blessings? It would be a sin to drink impure water without believing that we’re doing it to preserve our lives.”

He watched her, the love he’d restrained so long suddenly overwhelming him. Deluded, foolish, unreasonable… she might be all those things; but she was untouched by the grim fate awaiting her. The life in her was strong, and he was stirred by it in a way he had not been during the past weeks when so many problems and questions had weighed him down. Those worries were far away now, the burden of them dissolved. Life was what mattered… life, and truth, which were one and the same… and they need not be understood to remain valid. Could love be understood, and was not love a form of truth? He had loved Talyra through all the time when he’d considered truth the only thing of importance to him. Yet he’d been blind.

We are soon to die
, he thought,
but now we are alive. As long as we’re alive, life will go on
. “Darling,” he began, holding out his arms to her. “Talyra, darling—”

They embraced, and he kissed her with more ardor than he’d previously dared to release; but the sun, hovering over the western crags, was glaring down, and though Brek had walked away, the plateau was bare of outcroppings or shrubs. It did not seem decent. Noren and Talyra followed the rivulet that trickled along the base of the cliff from the place where the cascade splashed, seeking shelter.

There was an archway, an opening in the rock wider than the stream, leading through into a shallow canyon. They stooped under, well shaded from sunlight although the sky was bright beyond. Noren’s arms tightened around Talyra—and to his dismay the joy in her face gave way to stark terror.

She was looking through the arch, where, some distance down the slope, the stream joined a larger one bordered by clumps of reeds. “Noren,” she gasped, “There are
people
there!”

He glanced over his shoulder, disbelieving; then cold terror struck him also. What he saw was no less horrifying because he had greater knowledge of it than she. It was in fact a good deal worse than anyone but a Scholar could realize. “No, darling,” he whispered, motioning her to be still. “Those aren’t people. Those are savages.”

*
 
*
 
*

Eight or nine of the creatures squatted by the stream, though they did not appear to have ever washed themselves in it. They were, of course, completely naked. That in itself did not seem shocking, for although they had human form, their brains were not human; Noren knew that they were incapable of speech, much less rational thought. Their ancestry was of the Six Worlds, but they were as drastically changed as the work-beasts, and they were not much brighter.

Talyra knew their origin, for the basic facts were taught in every village school: how at the time of the Founding a few people had defied the High Law, drunk too much impure water, and then fled in fear to the mountains, thereby losing all trace of their heritage. They (in reality their offspring) had become idiots that lived like beasts. These and other gruesome details, such as a story about savages eating slithery things that swam in streams, were commonly used to frighten disobedient children, as was quite necessary if a repetition of the incident was to be avoided. “Were it not for our obedience to the High Law we would be as they are, Talyra,” Noren murmured.

“Yes,” she agreed soberly. “Once you wouldn’t have thought so, though—” She stopped, remembering that it was not proper to speak of his past heresies; and Noren flushed with the recollection of the night he’d tried to convince her that their own remote ancestors had been like the savages. He’d had it backwards. On the mother world human beings had indeed evolved from savagery, but these were not “savages” of that sort. These were mutants, the product of damaged genes rather than evolution, and had no future potential. In them no vestige of human spirit remained.

He cringed as the largest mutant, a male, stood half-erect, revealing the filthiness of its body and the absence of mind behind its vacant stare. If the Founders had not controlled the City—if the Scholars did not continue to do so—all humankind would be like that… and it would be “humankind” no longer. It was as justifiable to prevent such degradation as for a starship captain to take full command of his ship to safeguard its passengers’ lives.

Yet if there could be no prevention? If control of people’s inheritance was useless because in spite of it, their descendants would inevitably become mutants like these that crouched and gibbered beside the stream?

Talyra pressed close to him. The big male and two smaller ones had snatched up something and moved toward them, upstream. Noren’s stomach lurched; they were now close enough for him to see what they carried. “Talyra,” he said firmly, “go back to the plateau—”

“Without
you
?”

“Go back and tell Brek to come here—he won’t hunt for us, and I don’t dare shout. Tell him to come, but don’t come with him.”

“I won’t leave you, Noren!”

“You must,” he insisted. If he retreated from the archway, the mutants might follow, whether or not he and Talyra had been seen; only from that vantage point could he hope to defend the plateau. But he could not do it alone, and Brek, unaware, would not approach until morning.

Talyra sensed his desperation, knowing nothing of its cause, and slipped away. Noren gripped the largest rock he could find and held it in readiness, knowing the gesture a feeble one. If the mutants came before Brek did, he had no chance. Still, there were only the three males—the females probably were not dangerous—and at the moment all were well occupied. It would be twilight soon; perhaps they’d sleep.

He could not take his eyes from the loathsome scene before him.
Not this
, he pleaded inwardly. Death he could face, but not this death, certainly not for Talyra. A lingering one, however painful, would be better. It might even be better if they jumped from the cliff.

At a sound behind him, he froze, but it was Brek. Talyra had returned too, as Noren had known she would. “What are they doing?” she asked in a low voice.

There was no point in evading a fact that was clearly evident. “Eating,” Noren replied tersely.

Talyra peered ahead into the dusk. “Noren,” she exclaimed, “they’re eating
flesh
! It’s not fowl’s flesh, the bones are too big. It must be a work-beast’s—”

He had wondered, briefly, that she could be so composed; now he realized that she hadn’t noticed the shape of the bones, nor was she aware that there were no work-beasts in the mountains. She had no way of guessing what all Scholars knew about the ghastlier habits of these creatures. “They are animals,” he reminded her, “without intelligence or speech. The High Law does not apply to them.”