Marune: Alastor 933 (5 page)

Pardero inspected the two figures. Both were represented to be tall, spare, dark-haired, and fair of complexion. The man wore a complicated costume of dark red cloth, a vest of black metal strips, a ceremonial helmet contrived of black metal and black fabric. The woman wore garments somewhat simpler: a long shapeless gown of gray gauze, white slippers, a loose black cap which framed the white starkly modeled features.

“Typical Rhunes,” said Ollave. “They totally reject cosmopolitan standards and styles. Notice them as they stand there. Observe the cool and dispassionate expressions. Notice also, their garments have no elements in common, a clear signal that in the Rhune society male and female roles differ. Each is a mystery to the other; they might be members of different races!” He glanced sharply at Pardero. “Do they suggest anything to you?”

“They are not strange, no more than the language was strange at Carfaunge.”

“Just so.” Crossing the chamber to a projection screen, Ollave touched buttons.

“Here is Port Mar, on the edge of the highlands.”

A voice from the screen supplied a commentary to the scene. “You view the city Port Mar as you might from an aircar approaching from the south. The time is aud, which is to say, full daylight, with Furad, Maddar, Osmo, and Cirse in the sky.”

The screen displayed a panorama of small residences half-concealed by foliage: structures built of dark timber and pink-tan stucco. The roofs rose at steep pitches, joining in all manner of irregular angles and eccentric gables: a style quaint and unusual. In many cases the houses had been extended and enlarged, the additions growing casually from the old structures like crystals growing from crystals. Other structures, abandoned, had fallen into ruins. “These houses were built by Majars, the original inhabitants of Marune. Very few pure-blooded Majars remain; the race is almost extinct, and Majartown is falling into disuse.

The Majars, with the Rhunes, named the planet, which originally was known as ‘Majar-Rhune’. The Rhunes, arriving upon Marune, decimated the Majars, but were expelled by the Whelm into the eastern mountains, where to this day they are allowed no weapons of energy or attack.”

The angle of view shifted to a hostelry of stately proportions. The commentator spoke: “Here you see the Royal Rhune Hotel, invariably patronized by those Rhunes who must visit Port Mar. The management is attentive to the special and particular Rhune needs.”

The view shifted across a river to a district somewhat more modern. “You now observe the New Town,” said the commentator. “The Port Mar College of Arts and Technics, situated nearby, claims a distinguished faculty and almost ten thousand students, deriving both from Port Mar and from the agricultural tracts to the south and west. There are no Rhunes in attendance at the college.”

Pardero asked Ollave, “And why is that?”

“The Rhunes prefer their own educational processes.”

“They seem an unusual people.”

“In many respects.”

“And I am one of these remarkable persons.”

“So it would seem. Let us look into the Mountain Realms.” Ollave consulted an index. “First I’ll show you one of the autochthones: the Fwai-chi, as they are called.” He touched a button, to reveal a high mountainside patched with snow and sparsely forested with gnarled black trees. The view expanded toward one of these trees, to center upon the rugose brown-black trunk, which stirred and moved. Away from the tree shambled a bulky brown-black biped with a loose pelt, all shags and tatters. The commentator spoke: “Here you see a Fwai-chi. These creatures, after their own fashion, are intelligent, and as such they are protected by the Connatic. The shags of its skin are not merely camouflage against the snow bears; they are organs for the production of hormones and the reproductive stimule. Occasionally the Fwai-chi will be seen nibbling each other; they are ingesting a stuff which reacts with a bud on the wall of their stomachs. The bud develops into an infant, which in due course is vomited into the world. Along the trailing fringes of other shags other semivital stimules are produced.

“The Fwai-chi are placid, but not helpless if provoked too far; indeed they are said to possess important parapsychic competence, and no one dares molest them.”

The view shifted, down the mountainside to the valley floor. A village of fifty stone houses occupied a meadow beside the river; from a bluff a tall mansion, or castle, overlooked the valley. To Kolodin’s eye, the mansion, or castle, evinced an archaic overelaboration of shape and detail; additionally the proportions appeared cramped, the construction disproportionately heavy, the windows too few, too tall and narrow. He put to Pardero a question: “What do you think of this?”

“I don’t remember it.” Pardero raised his hands to his temples, pressed and rubbed. “I feel pressure; I want to see no more.”

“Certainly not,” declared Ollave jauntily. “We’ll go at once.” And he added: “Come up to my office; I’ll pour you a sedative, and you’ll feel less perturbation.”

Returning to the Connatic’s Hospital, Pardero sat silently for most of the trip.

At last he asked Kolodin: “How soon can I go to Marune?”

“Whenever you like,” said, Kolodin, and then added, in the tentative voice of a person hoping to persuade a captious child: “But why hurry? Is the hospital so dreary? Take a few weeks to study and learn, and to make some careful plans.”

“I want to learn two names: my own and that of my enemy.”

Kolodin blinked. He had miscalculated the intensity of Pardero’s emotions.

“Perhaps no enemy exists,” stated Kolodin somewhat ponderously. “He is not absolutely necessary to your condition.”

Pardero managed a small sour smile. “When I arrived at the Carfaunge spaceport, my hair had been hacked short. I considered it a mystery until I saw the simulated Rhune eiodark. Did you notice his hair?”

“It was combed straight over the scalp and down across the neck.”

“And this is a distinctive style?”

“Well - it’s hardly common, though not bizarre or unique. It is distinctive enough to facilitate identification.”

Pardero nodded gloomily. “My enemy intended that no one should identify me as a Rhune. He cut my hair, dressed me in a clown’s suit, then put me on a spaceship and sent me across the Cluster, hoping I would never return.”

“So it would seem. Still, why did he not simply kill you and roll you into a ditch? How much more decisive!”

“Rhunes fear killing, except in war: this I have learned from Ollave.”

Kolodin surreptitiously studied Pardero who sat brooding across the landscape.

Remarkable the alteration! In a few hours, from a person uninformed, vague, and confused, Pardero had become a man purposeful and integrated; a man, so Kolodin would guess, of strong passions under stern control, and after all was not this the way of the Rhunes? “For the sake of argument, let us assume that this enemy exists,” said Kolodin laboriously. “He knows you; you do not know him. You will arrive at Port Mar at a disadvantage, and perhaps at considerable risk.”

Pardero seemed almost amused. “So then, must I avoid Port Mar? I reckon on this risk; I intend to prepare against it.”

“And how will you so prepare?”

“First I want to learn as much as possible about the Rhunes.”

“Simple enough,” said Kolodin. “The knowledge is in Chamber 933. What next?”

“I have not decided.”

Sensing evasion, Kolodin pursed his lips. “The Connatic’s law is exact: Rhunes are allowed neither energy weapons nor airvehicles.”

Pardero grinned. “I am no Rhune until I learn my identity.”

“In a technical sense, this is true,” said Kolodin cautiously.

Something over a month later Kolodin accompanied Pardero to the Central Spaceport at Commarice, and out across the field to the Dylas Extranuator. The two said goodbye at the embarkation ramp. “I probably will never see you again,” said Kolodin, and much as I would like to know the outcome of your quest, I probably will never learn.”

Pardero replied in a flat voice, “I thank you for your help and for your personal kindness.”

From a Rhune, thought Kolodin, even an occluded Rhune, this was almost effusiveness. He spoke in a guarded voice: “A month ago you hinted at your need for a weapon. Have you obtained such an item?”

“No,” said Pardero. “I thought to wait until I was beyond the range of the Connatic’s immediate attention, so to speak.”

With furtive glances to left and right Kolodin tucked a small carton into Pardero’s pocket. “You are now carrying a Dys Model G Skull-splitter.

Instructions are included in the package. Don’t flourish it about; the laws are explicit. Good-by, good luck, and communicate with me if possible.”

“Again, thank you.” Pardero clasped Kolodin’s shoulders, then turned away and boarded the ship.

Kolodin returned to the terminal and ascended to the observation deck. Half an hour later he watched the black, red and gold spaceship loft into the air, slide off and away from Numenes.

During the month previous to his departure, Pardero spent many hours in Chamber 933 along the Ring of Worlds. Kolodin occasionally kept him company; Oswen Ollave, as often, came down from his offices to discuss the perplexing habits of the Rhunes.

Ollave prepared a chart which he insisted that Pardero memorize.

                          FURAD                  OSMO            MADDAR              CIRCE

AUD                      X                            X                        X *                         X *       *either or both

ISP                                                       X                        X                            X*        *with or without

CHILL ISP                                           X

UMBER                 X

LORN UMBER     X

ROWAN                                                                            X                          X

RED ROWAN                                                                   X

GREEN ROWAN                                                                                          X

MIRK

“The chart indicates Marune’s ordinary conditions of daylight
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, during which the character of the landscape changes profoundly. The population is naturally affected, and most especially the Rhunes.” Ollave’s voice had taken on a pedantic suavity, and he enunciated his words with precision. “Port Mar is hardly notable for sophistication. The Rhunes, however, consider Port Mar a most worldly place, characterized by shameless alimentation, slackness, laxity, and a kind of bestial lasciviousness to which they apply the term ‘sebalism.’

“In the Old Town at Port Mar a handful of exiles live - young Rhunes who have rebelled against their society, or who have been ejected for lapses of conduct.

They are a demoralized, miserable, and bitter group; all criticize their parents, who, so they claim, have withheld counsel and guidance. To a certain extent this is true; Rhunes feel that their precepts are self-evident even to the understanding of a child - which of course they are not; nowhere in the Cluster are conventions more arbitrary. For instance, the process of ingesting food is considered as deplorable as the final outcome of digestion, and eating is done as privately as possible. The child is supposed to arrive at this viewpoint as well as other Rhune conventions automatically. He is expected to excel in arcane and impractical skills; he must quell his sebalism.”

Pardero stirred restlessly. “You have used this word before; I do not understand it.”

“It is the special Rhune concept for sexuality, which the Rhunes find disgusting. How then do they procreate? It is cause for wonder. But they have solved the problem with elegance and ingenuity. During mirk, in the dark of the suns, they undergo a remarkable transformation. Do you wish to hear about it? If so, you must allow me a measure of discursiveness, as the subject is most wonderful!

“About once a month, the land grows dark, and the Rhunes become restless. Some lock themselves into their homes; others array themselves in odd costumes and go forth into the night where they perform the most astonishing deeds. The baron whose rectitude is unquestioned robs and beats one of his tenants. A staid matron commits daring acts of unmentionable depravity. No one who allows himself to be accessible is safe. What a mystery then! How to reconcile such conduct with the decorum of daylight? No one tries to do so; night-deeds are considered hardships for which no one is held responsible, like nightmares. Mirk is a time of unreality. Events during mirk are unreal, and guilt has no basis.

“During mirk, sebalism is rampant. Indeed, sexual activity occurs only as a night-deed, only in the guise of rape. Marriage - ‘trisme,’ as it is called - is never considered a sexual pairing, but rather an alliance - a joining of economic or political forces. Sexual acts, if they occur, will be night-deeds - acts of purported rape. The male participant wears a black garment over his shoulders, arms, and upper chest, and boots of black cloth. Over his head he wears a man-mask. His torso is naked. He is purposely grotesque, an abstraction of male sexuality. His costume depersonalizes him and maximizes the fantasy or unreal elements. The man enters the chamber where the woman sleeps, or pretends to sleep; and in utter silence copulation occurs. Neither virginity nor its absence is significant, nor are either so much as a subject for speculation. The Rhune dialect contains no such word.

“So there you have the state of ‘trisme.’ Between trismetics friendship may exist, but the two address each other formally. Intimacy between any two people is rare. Rooms are large, so that folk need not huddle together, nor even approach. No person purposely touches another; in fact the occupations which require physical contact, such as barbering, doctoring, clothes-fitting, are considered pariah trades. For such services the Rhunes journey into Port Mar. A parent neither strikes nor caresses his child; a warrior attempts to kill his enemy at a distance, and weapons such as swords and daggers have only ceremonial function.

“Now allow me to describe the act of eating. On those rare occasions when a Rhune is forced to dine in the company of others he ingests his food behind a napkin, or at the back of a device unique to Marune: a screen on a metal pedestal, placed before the diner’s face. At formal banquets no food is served - only wafts of varied and complicated odors, the selection and presentation being considered a creative skill.