The Venging (15 page)

get into a polis?" Nod.

(100 of 197) "Named Mandala. Can you get back there, take me with you?" Shake, no. Smile. "Secret?" "No secret. Dey big machee machine dat tell dis me neba retourn. Put dis on my bod." He touched his

chest. "Tro me out." "How did you find your way in?" "Dur? Dis big polis, it creep afta exhaus'sorry, moob afta run outta soil das good to lib on, many lee fro'

'ere, an' squat on top ob place where tube ope' ri' middle ob undaside. I know dat way, so dis me go in, an'

out soon afta after. On my" He slapped his butt. "Coupla bounce, too." The collapsed ceilingor skyling, as the boy called itof the anteroom formed a convenient staircase from the far wall to the surface. They climbed and stood on the edge, looking each other over uncertainly. Jeshua was covered with dark green mud. He picked at the caked rings with his hands, but the mud clung to his skin fiercely.

"Maybe, come fine a bod ob wet to slosh in." A branch of the Hebron River, flowing out of the Arat range, showed itself by a clump of green reeds a half mile from the tunnel exit. Jeshua drew its muddy water up in handfuls and poured it over his head.

The boy dipped and wallowed and spumed it from puffed cheeks, then grinned like a terrier at the Ibreemite, mud streaming down his face. "Comes off slow," Jeshua said, scraping at his skin with clumped silkreeds. "Why you interest' in place no man come?" Jeshua shook his head and didn't answer. He finished with his torso and kneeled to let his legs soak. The

bottom of the stream was rocky and sandy and cool. He looked up and let his eyes follow the spine of a peak in Arat, outlined in sunset glow. "Where is Mandala?" "No," the boy said. "My polis."

"It kicked you out," Jeshua said. "Why not let somebody else try?" "Somebod alread' tried," the boy informed him with a narrowed glance. "Dat dey tried, and got in, but dey didna t'rough my dur go. Deysheeone gol, dat's allgot in widout de troub' we aw ekspek. Mandala

(101 of 197) The Venging didna sto' 'er." 'I'd like to try that." "Dat gol, she special, she up an' down legen' now. Was a year ago she went and permissed to pass was.

You t'ink special you might be?" "No," Jeshua admitted. "Mesa Canaan's city wouldn't let me in." "One it wander has, just early yes'day?" "Hm?" "Wander, moob. Dis Mase Cain' you mumbur 'bout." "I know." "So't don' let dis you in, why Mandala an' differs?" Jeshua climbed from the river, frowning. "Appel?" he asked. "Me, m'appel, not true appel or you got like hair by demon grab, m'appel for you is Thinner." "Thinner, where do you come from?" "Same as de gol, we follow the polis." "City chasers?" By Ibreem's estimation, that made Thinner a ruthless savage. "Thinner, you don't want to

go back to Mandala, do you? You're afraid." "Cumsay, afraid? Like terrafy?" "Like tremble in your bare feet in the dirtafy." "No' possible for Thinner. Lead'er like, snake-skin, poke an' I bounce, no' go t'rough." "Thinner, you're a faker." Jeshua reached out and lifted him from the water. "Now stop with the nonsense

and give me straight English. You speak itout!" "No!" the boy protested.

(102 of 197) "Then why do you drop all 'thu's' but in your name and change the word order every other sentence? I'm

no fool. You're a fake." "If Thinner lie, feet may curl up an' blow! Born to spek dis odd inflek, an' I spek differs by your ask! Dis me, no fake! Drop!" Thinner kicked Jeshua on the shin but only bent his toe. He squalled, and Jeshua threw him back like a fingerling. Then he turned to pick up his clothes and lumbered up the bank to leave.

"Nobod dey neba treat Thinner dis way!" the boy howled. "You're lying to me," Jeshua said. "No! Stop." Thinner stood in the river and held up his hands. "You're right." "I know I am." "But not completely. I'm from Winston, and I'm speaking like a city chaser for a mason. And speaking

accurately, mind you." Jeshua frowned. The boy no longer seemed a boy. "Why fool me, or try to?" he asked. "I'm a free-lance tracker. I'm trying to keep tabs on the chasers. They've been making raids on the

farmlands outside of Winston. I was almost caught by a few of them, and I was trying to convince them I was part of a clan. When they were buried, I thought you might have been another, and after speaking to you like thatwell, I have an instinct to keep a cover in a tight spot." "No Winstoner has a tattoo like yours." "That part's the truth, too. I did find a way into the city, and it did kick me out." "Do you still object to taking me there?" Thinner sighed and crawled out of the stream. "It's not part of my trip. I'm heading back for Winston." Jeshua watched him cautiously as he dried himself. "You don't think it's odd that you even got into a city

at all?" "No. I did it by trick." "Men smarter than you or I tried for centuries before they all gave up. Now you've succeeded, and you

don't even feel special?"

(103 of 197) The Venging Thinner put on his scrappy clothes. "Why do you want to go?" "I've got reasons." "Are you a criminal in Ibreem?" Jeshua shook his head. "I'm sick," he said. "Nothing contagious. But I was told a city might cure me, if I

could find a way in." "I've met your kind before," Thinner said. "But they've never made it. A few years ago Winston sent a

whole pilgrimage of sick and wounded to a city. Bristled its barbs like a fighting cat. No mercy there, you can believe." "But you have a way, now." "Okay," Thinner said. "We can go back. It's on the other side of Arat. You've got me a little curious now.

And besides, I think I might like you. You look like you should be dumb as a creeper, but you're smart. Sharp. And besides, you've still got that club. Are you desperate enough to kill?" Jeshua thought about that for a moment, then shook his head.

"It's almost dark," Thinner said. "Let's camp and start in the morning." In the far valley at the middle of Arat, the Mesa Canaan citynow probably to be called the Arat citywas warm and sunset-pretty, like a diadem. Jeshua made a bed from the reeds and watched Thinner as he hollowed out the ground and made his own nest. Jeshua slept lightly that evening and came awake with dawn. He opened his eyes to a small insect on his chest, inquiring its way with finger-long antennae. He flicked it off and cleared his throat.

Thinner jack-in-the-boxed from his nest, rubbed his eyes and stood. "I'm amazed," he said. "You didn't cut my throat." "Wouldn't do me any good." "Work like this rubs down a man's trust." Jeshua returned to the river and soaked himself again, pouring the chill water on his face and back in

double hand-loads. The pressure in his groin was lighter this morning than most, but it still made him grit his teeth. He wanted to roll in the reeds and groan, rut the earth, but it would do him no good. Only the impulse existed. (104 of 197) They agreed on which pass to take through the Arat peaks and set out. Jeshua had spent most of his life within sight of the villages of the Expolis Ibreem and found himself increasingly nervous the farther he hiked. They crawled up the slope, and Thinner's statement about having tough soles proved itself. He walked barefoot over all manner of jagged rocks without complaining. At the crest of a ridge, Jeshua looked back and saw the plain of reeds and the jungle beyond. With some squinting and hand-shading, he could make out the major clusters of huts in two villages and the Temple Josiah on Mount Miriam. All else was hidden. In two days they crossed Arat and a rilled terrain of foothills beyond. They walked through fields of wild oats. "This used to be called Agripolis," Thinner said. "If you dig deep enough here, you'll come across irrigation systems, automatic fertilizing machines, harvesters, storage binsthe whole works. It's all useless now. For nine hundred years it wouldn't let any human cross these fields. It finally broke down, and those parts that could move, did. Most died." Jeshua knew a little concerning the history of the cities around Arat and told Thinner about the complex known as Tripolis. Three cities had been grouped on one side of Arat, about twenty miles north of where they were standing. After the Exiling, one had fragmented and died. Another had moved successfully and had left the area. The third had tried to cross the Arat range and failed. The major bulk of its wreckage lay in a disorganized mute clump not far from them. They found scattered pieces of it on the plain of Agripolis. As they walked, they saw bulkheads and buttresses, most hardy of a city's large members, still supported by desiccated legs. Some were fifty to sixty yards long and twenty feet across, mounted on organic wheel movements. Their metal parts had corroded badly. The organic parts had disappeared, except for an occasional span of silicate wall or internal skeleton of colloid. "They're not all dead, though," Thinner said. "I've been across here before. Some made the walk a little difficult." In the glare of afternoon they hid from a wheeled beast armored like a great translucent tank. "That's something from deep inside a citya mover or loader," Thinner said. "I don't know anything about the temper of a feral city part, but I'm not going to aggravate it." When the tank thing passed, they continued. There were creatures less threatening, more shy, which they ignored. Most of them Jeshua couldn't fit into a picture of ancient city functions. They were queer, dreamy creatures: spinning tops, many-legged browsers, things with bushes on their backs, bowls built like dogs but carrying waterinsane, confusing fragments. By day's end they stood on the outskirts of Mandala. Jeshua sat on a stone to look at the city. "It's (105 of 197) different," he said. "It isn't as pretty." Mandala was more square, less free and fluid. It had an ungainly ziggurat-like pear shape. The colors that were scattered along its walls and light-bannersblack and orangedidn't match well with the delicate blues and greens of the city substance. "It's older," Thinner said. "One of the first, I think. It's an old tree, a bit scabrous, not like a young sprout." Jeshua looped his belt more tightly about his club and shaded his eyes against the sun. The young of Ibreem had been taught enough about cities to identify their parts and functions. The sunlight-absorbing banners that rippled near Mandala's peak were like the leaves of a tree and also like flags. Designs on their surfaces formed a language conveying the city's purpose and attitude. Silvery reflectors cast shadows below the banners. By squinting, he could see the gardens and fountains and crystalline recreation buildings of the uppermost promenade, a mile above them. Sunlight illuminated the green walls and showed their mottled innards, pierced the dragonfly buttresses whose wings with slow in-out beats kept air moving, and crept back and forth through the halls, light wells, and living quarters, giving all of Mandala an interior luminosity. Despite the orange and black of the colored surfaces, the city had an innate glory that made Jeshua's chest ache with desire. "How do we get in?" he asked. "Through a tunnel, about a mile from here." "You mentioned a girl. Was that part of the cover?" "No. She's here. I met her. She has the liberty of the city. I don't think she has to worry about anything, except loneliness.'' He looked at Jeshua with an uncharacteristic wry grin. "At least she doesn't have to worry about where the next meal comes from." "How did she get in? Why does the city let her stay?" "Who can judge the ways of a city?" Jeshua nodded thoughtfully. "Let's go." Thinner's grin froze and he stiffened, staring over Jeshua's shoulder. Jeshua looked around and surreptitiously loosened his club in his belt. "Who are they?" he asked. "The city chasers. They usually stay in the shadow. Something must be upsetting them today." At a run through the grass, twenty men dressed in rough orange-and-black rags advanced on them. Jeshua saw another group coming from the other side of the city perimeter. "We'll have to take a stand," he said. "We can't outrun them." (106 of 197) Thinner looked distressed. "Friend," he said. "It's time I dropped another ruse. We can get into the city here, but they can't." Jeshua ignored the non sequitur. "Stand to my rear," he said. Jeshua swung his club up and took a stance, baring his teeth and hunkering low as his father had taught him to do when facing wild beasts. The bluff was the thing, especially when backed by his bulk. Thinner pranced on his bandy legs, panic tightening his face. "Follow me, or they'll kill us," he said. He broke for the glassy gardens within the perimeter. Jeshua mined and saw the polis chasers were forming a circle, concentrating on him, aiming spears for a throw. He ducked and lay flat as the metal-tipped shafts flew over, thunking into the grass. He rose, and a second flight shot by, one grazing him painfully on the shoulder. He heard Thinner rasp and curse. A chaser held him at arm's length, repeatedly slashing his chest with a knife. Jeshua stood tall and ran for the circle, club held out before him. Swords came up and out, dull grey steel spotted with blood-rust. He blocked a thrust and cut it aside with the club, then killed the man with a downward swing. "Stop it, you goddamn idiots!" someone shouted. One of the chasers shrieked, and the others backed away from Jeshua. Thinner's attacker held a head, severed from the boy's body. It trailed green. Though decapitated, Thinner shouted invective in several languages, including Hebrew and Chaser English. The attackers abandoned their weapons before the oracular monster and ran pale and stumbling. The petrified man who held the head dropped it and fell over. Jeshua stood his ground, bloody club trembling in his loosening hand. "Hey," said the muffled voice in the grass. "Come here and help!" Jeshua spotted six points on his forehead and drew two meshed triangles between. He walked slowly through the grass. "El and hell," Thinner's head cried out. "I'm chewing grass. Pick me up." He found the boy's body first. He bent over and saw the red, bleeding skin on the chest, pulpy green below that, and the pale colloid ribs that supported. Deeper still, glassy machinery and pale blue fluids in filigree tubes surrounded glints of organic circuit and metal. The chaser nearby had fainted from shock. He found Thinner's head facedown, jaw working and hair standing on end. "Lift me out," the head said. "By the hair, if you're squeamish, but lift me out." Jeshua reached down and picked the head up by the hair. Thinner stared at him above green-leaking nose and frothing mouth. The eyes blinked. "Wipe my mouth with something." Jeshua picked up a clump of grass and did so, leaving bits of dirt behind, but getting most of the face clean. His stomach squirmed, but Thinner was obviously no mammal, nor a natural beast of any form, so he kept his reactions in check. (107 of 197) The Venging "I wish you'd listen to me," the head said. "You're from the city," Jeshua said, twisting it this way and that. "Stop thatI'm getting dizzy. Take me inside Mandala." "Will it let me in?" "Yes, dammit, I'll be your passkey." "If you' re from the city, why would you want me or anyone else to go inside?" "Take me in, and you'll discover." Jeshua held the head at arm's length and inspected it with half-closed eyes. Then, slowly, he lowered it,

looked at the tiled gardens within the perimeter, and took his first step. He stopped, shaking. "Hurry," the head said. "I'm dripping." At any moment Jeshua expected the outskirts to splinter and bristle, but no such thing happened. "Will I

meet the girl?" he asked. "Walk, no questions." Eyes wide and stomach tense as rock, Jeshua entered the city of Mandala. "There, that came more easily than you expected, didn't it?" the head asked. Jeshua stood in a cyclopean green mall, light bright but filtered, like the bottom of a shallow sea,

surrounded by the green of thick glass and botanic fluids. Tetrahedral pylons and slender arches rose all

around and met high above in a circular design of orange and black, similar to the markings on Thinner's

chest. The pylons supported four floors opening onto the court. The galleries were empty. "You can put me down here," Thinner said. "I'm broken. Something will come along to fix me. Wander for a while if you want. Nothing will hurt you. Perhaps you'll meet the girl." Jeshua looked around apprehensively. "Would do neither of us any good," he said. "I'm afraid." "Why, because you're not a whole man?" Jeshua dropped the head roughly on the hard floor, and it bounced, screeching.

(108 of 197) "How did you know?" he asked loudly, desperately. "Now you've made me confused," the head said. "What did I say?" It stopped talking, and its eyes closed. Jeshua touched it tentatively with his boot. It did nothing. He straightened up and looked for a place to run. The best way would be out. He was a sinner now, a sinner by anger and shame. The city would throw him out violently. Perhaps it would brand him, as Thinner had hinted earlier. Jeshua wanted the familiarity of the grasslands and tangible enemies like the city chasers. The sunlight through the entrance arch guided him. He ran for the glassy walkway and found it rising to keep him in. Furious with panic, he raised his club and struck at the spines. They sang with the blows but did not break. "Please," he begged. "Let me out, let me out!" He heard a noise behind him and turned. A small wheeled cart gripped Thinner's head with gentle mandibles and lifted its segmented arms to send the oracle down a chute into its back. It rolled from the mall into a corridor. Jeshua lifted his slumped shoulders and expanded his chest. "I'm afraid!" he shouted at the city. "I'm a sinner! You don't want me, so let me go!" He squatted on the pavement with club in hand, trembling. The hatred of the cities for man had been deeply impressed in him. His breathing slowed until he could think again, and the fear subsided. Why had the city let him in, even with Thinner? He stood and slung the club in his belt. There was an answer someplace. He had little to loseat most, a life he wasn't particularly enjoying. And in a city there was the possibility of healing arts now lost to the expolitans. "Okay," he said. "I'm staying. Prepare for the worst." He walked across the mall and took a corridor beyond. Empty rooms with hexagonal doors waited silent on either side. He found a fountain of refreshing water in a broad cathedral-nave room and drank from it. Then he spent some time studying the jointing of the arches that supported the vault above, running his fingers over the grooves. A small anteroom had a soft couchlike protrusion, and he rested there, staring blankly at the ceiling. For a short while he slept. When he awoke, both he and his clothes were clean. A new pair had been laid out for himstandard Ibreem khaki shirt and short pants and a twine belt, more delicately knitted than the one he was wearing. His club hadn't been removed. He lifted it. It had been tampered withand improved. It fitted his grip better now and was weighted for balance. A table was set with dishes of fruit and what looked like bread-gruel. He had been accommodated in all ways, more than he deserved from any city. It (109 of 197) almost gave him the courage to be bold. He took off his ragged clothes and tried on the new set. They fit admirably, and he felt less disreputable. His sandals had been stitched up but not replaced. They were comfortable, as always, but sturdier. "How can I fix myself here?" he asked the walls. No answer came. He drank water from the fountain again and went to explore further. The ground plan of Mandala's lowest level was relatively simple. It consisted mostly of trade and commerce facilities, with spacious corridors for vehicle traffic, large warehouse areas, and dozens of conference rooms. Computing facilities were also provided. He knew a little about computersthe trade office in Bethel-Japhet still had an ancient pocket model taken from a city during the Exiling. The access terminals in Mandala were larger and clumsier, but recognizable. He came across a room filled with them. Centuries of neglect had made them irregular in shape, their plastic and thin metal parts warping. He wondered what portions of them, if any, were alive. Most of the rooms on the lowest level maintained the sea-floor green motif. The uniformity added to Jeshua's confusion, but after several hours of wandering, he found the clue that provided guidance. Though nothing existed in the way of written directions or graphic signs or maps, by keeping to the left he found he tended to the center; and to the right, the exterior. A Mandalan of ten centuries ago would have known the organization of each floor by education, and perhaps by portable guidebooks or signalers. Somewhere, he knew, there had to be a central elevator system. He followed all left-turning hallways. Avoiding obvious dead ends, he soon reached the base of a hollow shaft. The floor was tiled with a changing design of greens and blues, advancing and flowing beneath his feet like a cryptic chronometer. He craned his neck back and looked up through the center of Mandala. High above he saw a bluish circle, the waning daytime sky. Wind whistled down the shaft. Jeshua heard a faint hum from above. A speck blocked out part of the skylight and grew as it fell, spiraling like a dropped leaf. It had wings, a thick body for passengers, and an insect head, like the dragonfly buttresses that provided ventilation on Mandala's exterior. Slowing its descent, it lifted its nose and came to a stop in front of him, still several feet above the floor. The bottoms of its unmoving transparent wings reflected the changing design of the floor. Then he saw that the floor was coming to a conclusion, like an assembled puzzle. It formed a mosaic triskelion, a three-winged symbol outlined in red. The glider waited for him. In its back there was room for at least five people. He chose the front seat. The glider trembled and moved forward. The insect-head tilted back, cocked sideways, and inspected its ascent. Metallic antennae emerged from the front of the body. A tingling filled the air. And he began to fly. The glider slowed some distance above the floor and came to a stop at a gallery landing. Jeshua felt his (110 of 197) heartbeat race as he looked over the black railing, down the thousand feet or so to the bottom of the shaft. "This way, please." He turned, expecting to see Thinner again. Instead there waited a device like a walking coat-tree, with a simple vibration speaker mounted on its thin neck, a rod for a body, and three appendages jointed like a mantis's front legs. He followed it. Transparent pipes overhead pumped bubbling fluids like exposed arteries. He wondered whether dissenting citizens in the past could have severed a city's lifelines by cutting such pipesor were these mere ornaments, symbolic of deeper activities? The coat-tree clicked along in front of him, then stopped at a closed hexagonal door and tapped its round head on a metal plate. The door opened. "In here." Jeshua entered. Arranged in racks and rows in endless aisles throughout the huge room were thousands of constructions like Thinner. Some were incomplete, with their machinery and sealed-off organic connections hanging loose from trunks, handless arms, headless necks. Some had gaping slashes, broken limbs, squashed torsos. The coat-tree hurried off before he could speak, and the door closed behind. He was beyond anything but the most rudimentary anxiety now. He walked down the central aisle, unable to decide whether this was a workshop or a charnel house. If Thinner was here, it might take hours to find him. He stared straight ahead and stopped. There was someone not on the racks. At the far end of the room, it stood alone, too distant to be discerned in detail. Jeshua waited, but the figure did not move. It was a stalemate. He made the first step. The figure darted to one side like a deer. He automatically ran after it, but by the time he'd reached the end of the aisle, it was nowhere to be seen. "Hide and seek," he murmured. "For God's sake, hide and seek." He rubbed his groin abstractedly, trying to still the flood of excitement rushing into his stomach and chest. His fantasies multiplied, and he bent over double, grunting. He forced himself to straighten up, held out his arms, and concentrated on something distracting. He saw a head that looked very much like Thinner's. It was wired to a board behind the rack, and fluids pulsed up tubes into its neck. The eyes were open but glazed, and the flesh was ghostly. Jeshua reached out to touch it. It was cold, lifeless. He examined other bodies more closely. Most were naked, complete in every detail. He hesitated, then reached down to touch the genitals of a male. The flesh was soft and flaccid. He shuddered. His fingers, as if working on their own, went to the pubic mound of a female figure. He grimaced and straightened, (111 of 197) rubbing his hand on his pants with automatic distaste. A tremor jerked up his back. He was spooked now, having touched the lifeless forms, feeling what seemed dead flesh. What were they doing here? Why was Mandala manufacturing thousands of surrogates? He peered around the racks of bodies, this way and behind, and saw open doors far beyond. Perhaps the girlit must have been the girlhad gone into one of those. He walked past the rows. The air smelled like cut grass and broken reed stems, with sap leaking. Now and then it smelled like fresh slaughtered meat, or like oil and metal. Something made a noise. He stopped. One of the racks. He walked slowly down one aisle, looking carefully, seeing nothing but stillness, hearing only the pumping of fluids in thin pipes and the clicks of small valves. Perhaps the girl was pretending to be a cyborg. He mouthed the word over again. Cyborg. He knew it from his schooling. The cities themselves were cybernetic organisms. He heard someone running away from him, slap of bare feet on floor. He paced evenly past the rows, looking down each aisle, nothing, nothing, stillness, there! The girl was at the opposite end, laughing at him. An arm waved. Then she vanished. He decided it was wise not to chase anyone who knew the city better than he did. Best to let her come to him. He left the room through an open door. A gallery outside adjoined a smaller shaft. This one was red and only fifty or sixty feet in diameter. Rectangular doors opened off the galleries, closed but unlocked. He tested the three doors on his level, opening them one at a time with a push. Each room held much the same thinga closet filled with dust, rotting and collapsed furniture, emptiness and the smell of old tombs. Dust drifted into his nostrils, and he sneezed. He went back to the gallery and the hexagonal door. Looking down, he swayed and felt sweat start. The view was dizzying and claustrophobic. A singing voice came down to him from above. It was feminine, sweet and young, a song in words he did not completely catch. They resembled Thinner's chaser dialect, but echoes broke the meaning. He leaned out over the railing as far as he dared and looked up. It was definitely the girlfive, six, seven levels up. The voice sounded almost childish. Some of the words reached him clearly with a puff of direct breeze: "Dis em, in solit lib, dis em Clo'ed in clo'es ob dead" The red shaft vanished to a point without skylight. The unfamiliar glare hurt his eyes. He shaded them to see more clearly. The girl backed away from the railing and stopped singing. He knew by rights he should be angry, that he was being teased. But he wasn't. Instead he felt a loneliness too sharp to sustain. He turned away from the shaft and looked back at the door to the room of cyborgs. (112 of 197) Thinner stared back at him, grinning crookedly. "Didn't have chance to welcome," he said in Hebrew. His head was mounted on a metal snake two feet long; his body was a rolling green car with three wheels, a yard long and half a yard wide. It moved silently. "Have any difficulty?" Jeshua looked him over slowly, then grinned. "It doesn't suit you," he said. "Are you the same Thinner?" "Doesn't matter, but yes, to make you comfortable." "If it doesn't matter, then who am I talking to? The city computers?" "No, no. They can't talk. Too concerned with maintaining. You're talking with what's left of the architect." Jeshua nodded slowly, though he didn't understand. "It's a bit complicated," Thinner said. "Go into it with you later. You saw the girl, and she ran away from