Chthon (25 page)

“I ain’t smart,” Bossman said. “I don’t know what goes on in people’s minds, and I take a long time to figure things out. But I know that Framy wouldn’t’ve fingered his only friend. He didn’t work that way. He’d’ve named his worst enemy, to save a guilty friend.

“But he didn’t
know
who got the other half of that garnet. He figured you were innocent, because
he
was. He expected you to alibi him. But you didn’t, and that was the end of him. You only had one reason to frame him like that, and that was because you knew we wouldn’t get no one else to confess, because no one else had done it—because
you
were the one who picked up the other half-garnet and slipped it into the basket for Tally. You were the traitor.”

And Bossman, slow to catch on, had executed Framy before figuring out the truth—and now had to stand by that mistake.

“Too bad,” Aton said sympathetically. “You also hold me responsible for Hastings’ death?”

“You’re smart.” Bossman had missed the ironic note. “You knew we’d wind up on the Hard Trek, and that’s what you wanted all the time. So other people would die instead of you. You couldn’t chance it alone. Everyone that’s died here, is dead because of you.”

“Even the victims of the chimera?”

“I looked when we heard Framy scream, and I didn’t see you. That’s when I began thinking. You came up from the other side of the tunnel. The chimera had to go right past you to get away. But you said nothing. You wanted Framy dead, so he couldn’t talk any more and maybe have someone believe him—”

“Sure. I have the hysterical strength vested in me by the sorcery of the minionette. I can kill instantly with my bare hands. I can take hold of the mass of cords in the front of a man’s neck and rip it out, or jab my fingertips in under his ribs and tear loose the entire rib cage. I can use my unkempt human nails in the feline trick of hooking the nose of my prey and breaking its neck by pulling the head around. I can neatly duplicate the cut and tear marks, the parallel lines left by animal claws, and the distinctive half-chewed, half-slashed look of the fang attack. I can do this because I have a secret cache of specialized appliances designed for the specific purpose of imitating the marks of the phantom chimera, and accomplishing this in a matter of seconds. I made these tools, since I forgot to smuggle them in, in my hidden laboratory in Chthon, where I have a serviceable metal press and a small blast furnace to smelt my crude iron. Stone is too awkward, you see. I had to cut a hole to the surface of the planet for the smoke and fumes to escape through unnoticed. Every so often I have to go up there and shoo the tourists away from my chimney, because this is very private business and I don’t want any interference. My lab is soundproofed so that no one can overhear the noise of its operation, and I have a private railway paralleling our course on the Hard Trek, so that I can fetch my implements every time I feel the need for another execution. I have special equipment to erase my bloody tracks, and of course I wear an all-enveloping covering, a form-fitting suit similar to those used in space, that takes the brunt of the spattering blood, and that I can peel out of and hide immediately so that my person retains no more than its natural grime, and no one can tell what I’ve been doing. For, you see, I have to be ready to rejoin the group at once, so that no one realizes that I’m missing when the sound of the first scream comes. I was a little slow with Framy, I must admit; but I’ve been practicing diligently. Oh, it takes the finest split-second timing. A real challenge. I can’t tell you how much fun it has been—”

Bossman continued, unmoved by Aton’s too-elaborate sarcasm. “I seen what you done to Garnet, too. She’s a rough gal—but she don’t deserve what you give her. I can’t do nothing about the rest of it. But I’m telling you now, you’re going to make it up to her.”

Yes—the time for a settlement had come. “You quite sure of that?”

“I’m sure,” Bossman asserted. “That’s one thing this farmer can do. She’s got to die, but she’ll die happy. You’re going to ask her real nice, and bring her in here where nobody can see you, and tell her those lies you know the gals go for, and make up to her like you meant it. She deserves that much, and she’s going to get it. The rest of them’ll take a break and get ready for the crossing.”

Aton studied him. The man was serious. “You expect her to believe it?” He shifted position slightly.

“She’ll believe what she wants to believe. I know her well enough for that. And you’re going to make it easy for her. You’re a good enough talker when you want to be.” Here Bossman permitted himself a slight smile. “Why she fixed on you I can’t figure. But she’s ready for anything you put on the line. You make it good, and you carry it all the way through—or
you’ll
be decoy this time, not here. If you don’t believe
that
—”

Aton didn’t. Trained to give no warning, he twisted over, a bare foot lashing out with all the deadly skill of his fighting art. The krell farmer was overdue for a lesson.

The edge of an iron hand brushed the kick aside. So fast he hardly seemed to move, Bossman was inside the thrust of the leg. His calloused foot kicked Aton’s other leg from under him. The bruising slam of his body against the stone floor was doubled by that of Bossman’s weight on top of him. Under what little fat was left, the farmer was hard as a cavern wall. An unyielding arm clamped Aton’s head; a powerful hand locked his own arm in an unbreakable grip. Fingers probed under his jawline.

Aton thrashed wildly. He screamed. An explosion of intolerable agony in the throat, an involuntary and useless recoil against the restraining arms, a howling darkness on the world.

The world came back, oddly unreal except for the light touch of those steely fingertips on a buried nerve center. A voice said softly, “Baby wants to play?”

Bossman let him up, on guard. “Tell her we fought for her, and you won,” he advised. “I don’t want you to look roughed up, spaceman—yet.” Bossman had made his point.

And so they played it out, the three of them, setting the scene for Garnet’s sacrifice—

—while Bossman waited with corded fist, knowing the sounds of love were false, when his compassion would willingly have made them true.

—while Aton found, obscurely, that the knowledge of death brought the melody, and the melody brought a passion astonishingly real.

—while Garnet accepted a willing death as the only way to bring that passion, and perhaps a hidden moment of genuine love, to end her misery.

…And the white wake waited…

VI. Chthon

§403

Sixteen

Aton recovered slowly. The calendar on the wall across the room opened on the face of Second Month, §403—almost a year after the horror he remembered. He had kissed the minionette, and… almost a year!

Where have I been? What have I done, in that vanished interim?

He looked about. The first substantial feature of the comfortable room that his attention fixed upon was the hard-backed wooden chair: the mighty chair of Aurelius, guarding the exit. Across the floor was the plush couch, also too familiar—the couch he had always thought of as his mother’s. Above it still was the framed picture of the daughter of Ten, evoking no guilt now. Beside that—

Beside that was the webwork of Xest artistry: mother and son.

He blotted the room from his mind and studied himself. He was wearing a light shirt and clean farming overalls and the soft heavy footwear of the hvee farmer; whoever had dressed him had known how. Could he have done it himself, in some amnesiac state?

There was a stirring in the adjacent room. Aurelius? No, he was dead, as the nymph of the wood was dead, as everyone who had cared for him was dead. Who occupied this house of Five? The tread was light, familiar.

“Theme of the shell!” he exclaimed, suddenly glad, very glad. He had thought of her, too, as dead, if she had existed at all outside his dreams. He had killed her—but it had been a symbolic execution, a denial of his second love, and now the symbolism was gone.

She stepped into view, her hair longer than that of his four-year memory, glowing silver against the green hvee in the afternoon sunlight. Her fair features were set; her wrist was bare.

There was no physical death on Idyllia, and they both had known it. Yet he had pushed her off the mountain at the moment of rapture. She had no telepathy; she could not have known that his action represented denial, not of her, but of the minionette. To Coquina it was his second rejection… and the vibrant hvee she still wore showed that her love for him had never faltered.

To be worthy of such a woman.

“Daughter of Four,” he said, “I love you.”

She looked up. “Aton?”

Nonplussed, he stood up. His body felt strong—he had not spent the past year in bed. “Coquina—don’t you know me?”

She studied him carefully. “Aton,” she repeated, smiling at last.

He strode toward her. She retreated. “Please do not touch me, Aton.”

“Coquina—what
is
it?”

She stood behind the large-boned chair of Aurelius. “Things may not be as you remember them, Aton.”

He returned to his own chair and sat down. “Were my dreams mistaken, pretty shell?
Did
something die on Idyllia?”

“No, Aton, no—not that. But you have been—gone—a long time. I must be sure.”

“Sure of
what?
” he demanded. “The minionette is dead and I love you. I loved you from the first, but until I conquered the minionette—”

“Aton, please let me talk. Things will be hard for you, and there is not much time.” Her formality amazed him.

“Coquina!”

She ignored his cry and began talking, a trifle rapidly, as though reading a lecture. “I went to the forest before you were released from Chthon and I talked with the minionette. I talked with Malice. I showed her the hvee I wore, and she took it and showed me that she loved you, even as I.”

“She did, in her way,” Aton said.

“She was lovely. I could see the family resemblance. She told me those things about you that I had to know, so that I could care for you during your recovery, and she warned me about the evil one that would come from Chthon, so that I could protect you from him. She said—she said that she would be gone, soon, and so she left me the song.”

“The song!”

“She wanted you to be happy, Aton, and she saw that your minion blood was destroying you, while the evil one waited for the remainder. She gave you to me. You did not conquer her, Aton. Not that magnificent woman.”

Comprehension appalled him. “All this—
before
I escaped from Chthon?”

“We loved you, Aton.”

“Malice
knew
she was going to die?”

“Yes. Her name, by the terms of her culture, means ‘Compassion,’ and she loved your father enough to leave him, and you enough to die for you. When Aurelius saw you pass the fields, with her, he understood, and he gave up his long fight against the swamp blight. She died soon after. The cousin of Five came, and we buried Aurelius beside her in the forest.”

“The song,” Aton said, unable to concentrate.

Coquina glanced at him. “I had to wake you… early,” she said. “The song—” She came to a decision. “This is the song.”

She sang, then, and it was the melody of his childhood. Her voice lacked the splendor of that of the minionette; but no voice, he realized, could compete on such a level. It was the song.

She followed it through to its conclusion, but the magic was gone. “It isn’t broken any more,” he said, understanding only now that the true appeal of it had not been the melody itself, but the fact that it was incomplete—as had been his whole relationship with the minionette. Not the song, but the
break
had been his compulsion. Why had he never seen this before?

Coquina watched him closely. “It means nothing to you, now, Aton?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, finding the expression inept. “You might as well have spared yourself the trouble.”

“No, no,” she said, smiling more warmly. “That is good. It means that the minion in you is gone. You will be well again, if only—”

The repeated references to mysterious things irritated him. “If only
what?
What is all this about my ‘recovery,’ and the ‘evil one’? Where have I been; what have I been doing, this past year? Why won’t you let me near you? Why did you have to ‘wake’ me at all, early or not? Have I been asleep?”

“I can tell you now.” She came around the chair and sat down, keeping her distance from him. “Half minion, half man, you could not live on either world. She warned me about the terrible consequences, if you went free before that conflict was resolved. But after she sacrificed herself you were a madman, roaming the forest in a terrible, blind rage. Your cousin of Five—Benjamin—roped you from the aircar and brought you to me. We put you on drugs. We could not notify the authorities because they would have extradited you to Chthon. We kept your mind blank while it healed. The minionette warned me that it might take two years before the shock of her death purged your mind and set you free, a normal man. We knew we would have to keep you passive all that time. But—”

“Drugs! A whole year?”

“It was the only way. In your food. Benjamin ran the farm, and I helped him with the hvee and took care of you. You have been a vegetable, Aton—that is why I’m not used to you now. I took you for walks outside, for exercise—”

“An animal on a leash.”

“The dog-walking detail!” she snapped. “Please let me finish. We kept your presence a secret, but there was one who seemed to know: the evil one of Chthon. His god is telepathic, more even than the minionette. This man came for you, claiming that you belonged to Chthon, now. He knew—a great deal. He said that only in Chthon could you live safely, that only that god of Chthon could make your mind whole. He tried to take you away from me.”

“An emissary from Chthon?” Aton was perplexed.

“The hvee did not like him,” she said, as though that finished the matter—as perhaps it did. “I—I hurt him, and he went away. Now he sits in his spaceship, waiting for you to wake. He says you will come to him, when you have the choice. I’m afraid of him. And now you must face him before you are ready, because I had to stop the drugs too soon.”