Phthor (7 page)

“At least there are hardly any harmful microbes here,” Aton murmured. “Wounds don’t suppurate here, and there are no contagious diseases. Outside, even a scratch could kill you, or the air exhaled by a sick man.”

“A scratch by the salamander kills,” Arlo said. “And the breath of a dragon, too.”

“Something like that,” Aton agreed, with an obscure smile.

“I bargained with Chthon,” Arlo ventured. “I threatened to kill myself if it didn’t stop the myxo.”

Aton looked up at him, eye widening. “You experienced the myxo?”

“It was trying to take over Ex, and she was crusted with white, so I put the spear to myself and—”

“And so you bargained with the nether god, because it had either to make you a zombie or let you die. And you won!”

“I guess so. But when I left Ex, the wolf attacked—”

Aton put his hand on Arlo’s shoulder. “Son, you are a man. You fought Chthon itself to save your girl, as I did. But you did not go far enough.”

Arlo was immensely flattered by his father’s statement. But he looked down at the bound body, still slowly leaking blood, and knew that he had lost what he had fought for. “I guess not.”

“You stopped Chthon from using the myxo. But so long as it controls the animals of the caverns, it can kill the girl. You cannot save her without coming to terms with Chthon.”

Arlo shivered despite the warmth of the gardens. “Should I try to kill myself again?”

Aton closed his eye. “Son, I have neglected you. Aesir was my son, and when he died it was as though I had no child. You were there, later, but you were hardly real to me. It is the same mistake I made when I clung to the minionette in preference to your mother. But now you are a man, and I know that though you came second, you are every bit as much mine as is Coquina. The second is not inferior to the first! I would not have you die.”

Again, Arlo was amazed. This was the strongest expression of affinity he had ever heard from his father. And now he had heard the name of his lost brother: Aesir. And he had Aton’s admission that he had loved the minionette. But Arlo kept his voice steady. “I am glad. But how can I protect Ex from Chthon?”

“Only as I protect Coquina. Tell Chthon you will not oppose it so long as your girl lives. Really lives, not a zombie! Chthon wants your cooperation, even as it wanted mine. In fact—” Aton paused momentarily, a strange expression passing across his face—”In fact, I suspect Chthon only wanted me here in the caverns so that I could beget a child. A human creature conceived, birthed, and wholly enclosed by the caverns. It is possible Chthon killed Aesir because he was not suitable for its purpose. Now you are here—and Chthon wants you whole. I don’t know why. But I think you can bargain. It would take many years to produce another like you—and I doubt Chthon wants to wait that long.”

“Chthon wants me...” Arlo echoed. “It must be true. Chthon has always been my friend. Until Ex came.”

Aton smiled. “Evidently Chthon wants no child from you! And certainly no corruption of your mind by any outsider. There is your bargaining point, perhaps. Tell it you will have no child by Ex and will cooperate as before no matter what she may tell you, so long as Chthon makes no further move against her. And repairs the damage already done.”

“But I don’t know how to have a child—or how not to!” Arlo protested.

“You’ll find out how. And Chthon can prevent conception, so long as the two of you remain here. I think it’s a fair bargain. See if Chthon agrees.”

Arlo turned inward—and Chthon was there, his friend, as before. “Chthon agrees,” he said, wonderingly.

Aton raised the eyebrow above his good eye. “Just like that!” He had no direct contact with Chthon and wanted none.

Arlo looked at Ex, who seemed to be resting easier now. “What is conception?” he asked, suspecting it had something to do with the curious crease between her legs.

Aton turned toward Sleipnir. “The girl is young yet. Do not force her. Let her recover, let her grow a couple of years. Get to know her well. If she is good, she will fill your life as Coquina fills mine. She will convert the animal into a man.” He climbed onto his steed.

It came to Arlo that his father had to have known that Ex was coming: company for a boy who had not realized he was lonely. But Chthon had not agreed to the arrangement, and here was the consequence: the wolf’s attack.

“You asked about the minionette,” Aton said. “When you go home, ask your mother. She will tell you as much as you care to know.” Then, to Sleipnir: “Any route home. I believe Chthon will protect us this one time.” And he was gone.

Arlo felt Chthon’s confirmation. The god had known what Aton would say and do, and thus had permitted his visit to the gardens. This once.

He sat beside Ex for a long time, mulling over what his father had said, watching to see if the girl got better.

Finally Doc Bedside came. “So you have made peace with Chthon,” he observed. “Let me see to the child.”

Now it was all right. Arlo let the man remove the vines and leaves and explore the great wound. “She has astonishing vitality,” Bedside remarked. “And marvelous good fortune. No internal organs ruptured, bleeding minimal, considering. A few stitches and Chthon’s beneficence will see her through, I suspect.”

“But why did Chthon want to kill her?” Arlo asked. Aton had suggested a reason, but now the notion of sacrificing a living human being merely to prevent her from being a companion seemed less credible. Surely there were less strenuous ways!

“Chthon’s ways are inscrutable. But you have made your bargain; Chthon will honor it. No creature of the caverns will harm her so long as you and Chthon are one.”

“What does Chthon want with me?” Arlo cried.

Bedside studied him in his disquieting fashion. “I am mad. By that I mean I do not conform to the norms of your society, though I can approximate them when necessary. Your father is half-mad. You are sane. You are Chthon’s chosen. Your destiny is huge.”

“Chosen for what?”

But Bedside only smiled.

Ex recovered. It was amazingly rapid, considering the severity of her injury, but it did take time. Arlo brought her food that Coquina made: glow-bread, fermented vine sap, dried chipper meat. He carried her regularly jo a narrow, deep crack above flowing water so that she could defecate cleanly. He supported her as she practiced walking. And he talked with her.

Arlo told her all about the caverns: the rivers, the potwhales, the ice tunnels, the caterpillars, the forests, the chimera, and Chthon. He told her how his father mined gold and precious garnets and other stones to make beautiful rings that Doc Bedside took outside to trade for civilized goods: clothing, tools, books.

She in turn told him of the great outside world. How the wonderful § spaceships traveled from Earth all over the human sector of the galaxy and even traded with sentient” alien species: the Xests, Lfa and EeoO. (She had to pronounce those strange names several times for him: zzest, fla only with the L and F reversed, one syllable, and EE-e-o0 with accents on the first and last syllables, the whole run together so that it sounded more like an exclamation than a name.) How mankind had fragmented into planetary subspecies, each adapted for its particular world in subtle ways though all looked completely human and could interbreed. (Interbreed? Arlo inquired, interested. How is that done? But she seemed not to hear him.) How the stars came out at night, just as described in LOE: pinpoints of light too numerous to count, especially in the “Milky Way’’ region of the planetary sky. How there were rocks floating in orbit about individual stars, called “planetoids”—some only a few miles in diameter, so that a visitor could hardly cling to their surfaces. “But excellent for mining rare ores,” she said. “Because the deep strata are all exposed and accessible. Gold, iridium—all sorts of things just there for the taking, and almost no energy required to get them into space. Ore-shuttling is a big space business.”

“It must be,” Arlo agreed, entranced with this vision. LOE had nothing like this!

“And some of them are made into holiday stopovers. Spotels. Sealed in, completely private, with all the comforts of home.” She winked confidentially. “ I was conceived in a spotel.”

“But how—?”

“My father’s dead now. So’s my mother. Must’ve been some romance, though, while it lasted!”

That balked further questions about the nature of human breeding. But the two became intertwined in Arlo’s imagination: ore-mining, planetoids, and romance.

They didn’t talk all the time. They played games ranging from hot-hands to chess. Ex was good at all of them, as she had excellent physical and mental coordination. For a young girl, she knew a surprising amount.

As she grew stronger, a strange thing happened. Her body, thinned drastically by the rigor of the injury, filled out to more than its original form. Her legs grew rounder, especially in the upper thighs. Her chest swelled into two humps. Hair grew under her arms and between her legs, concealing that cleft that had so intrigued Arlo. Her body came to resemble, to some degree, that of Verthandi the Norn. And her face changed subtly, becoming less childlike. She was, in short, a golden-haired little beauty.

But her manner changed most of all. She remained highly irritating, but she also became highly suggestive. And, oddly, it was when she was most infuriating that she was most intriguing.

“Where do these lead?” Ex asked, gesturing toward an irregular series of openings in the wall. She was almost better now, and eager to go everywhere.

“Only to the big gas crevasse,” Arlo said. “No way to pass that. It’s the largest canyon in the caverns, hundreds of miles long.”

“Oh, let me see!” she cried, and ran for the nearest hole.

“Wait!” Arlo exclaimed, pursuing her twinkling bottom. Part of his mind noted how much fuller her buttocks were than they had been; perhaps it was because she had sat for so long, recovering. “It isn’t safe!”

But she scurried on through, bending over to clear the low tunnel ceiling. This had the effect of thrusting out her posterior further, making it an object of increasing interest to Arlo, though he was aware that there really was nothing there. Still, the immediate danger alarmed him.

“There’s a dropoff!” he called. “No safe way down, from here—and the gas would choke you anyway.”

She scooted on around a bend. He followed. Beyond it was another turn, and here the passage narrowed so far that her hips caught against the sides. He knew the drop was close ahead, so he grabbed her where he could. One hand passed inside her legs, catching the front of one thigh, his fingers sinking into the smooth flesh. “Stop!” he cried.

“You’re doing it!” her voice came back. “Goosing me!” She wriggled, and her hips slid through the constriction.

He tried to hold her, but first her thighs pressed tightly against his hand, then spread wide, and his fingers slid out. Again he experienced that mixed excitement and alarm, wanting to hold that thigh because it excited him, and to protect Ex from danger—and losing that hold despite everything.

He dived after her—but now his own hips caught in the constriction. He ripped free, scraping skin on both sides, for the rock was very rough. Annoyed by the burning pain, and by her escape, he accelerated again.

“Oh!” she cried ahead, and for a moment he feared she had plunged into the chasm. But she had stopped in time, and now was sitting on the cliff edge, dangling her legs down.

“Why didn’t you wait?” he demanded angrily. “You could’ve gotten killed that way! I told you it was dangerous!’’

She looked out into the mist before them as though nothing had happened. “What is it, Arlo? I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“It’s the gas crevasse, as I said,” he said tightly. “The gas vapors drop down from the ceiling, there.’’ He pointed to the distant, lofty roof, not actually visible from this vantage. “They drift into the bottom, maybe a mile down, maybe more—I don’t know how to judge it—and get sucked into tubes. At the other end, way across the caverns, there’s fire. It blows into the passages and makes the hot upwind tunnels where the prison is. The wind finally expands and cools and slows and comes back here, to pick up more gas and repeat the cycle.”

She peered down. “I can’t see anything.”

“ ‘Course you can’t. There’s no glow down there.”

“Then how do you know about the gas?”

“My father told me.” On one of those few prior occasions when Aton had talked freely. He was more apt to tell about things than about people.

“How does he know?”

“Fat Hasty must have explained it to him, when they were on the Hard Trek.”

She sniffed. “That’s a myth.”

“What?”

“The Hard Trek. It’s just a prison story. There never was any such thing.”

“My father was on it!” Arlo protested hotly. “They had nothing to eat, so they ate their own dead. The chimera stalked them, and the myxo, and—”

“It’s a lovely story, anyway,” she said. “And you’re lovely too.” She leaned over to him where he squatted beside her and kissed him on the mouth.

She had not done that before. The effect was potent. Arlo’s whole being seemed to funnel into that meeting of their lips, and he felt as if he were turning, around and around and end over end. It was sheer, confusing bliss. LOE had described kissing many times, often shortly before the ellipses that annoyingly concealed the mechanics of reproduction—but the reality was beyond his expectations.