Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [220]
The faces tipped upwards, opening in the middle almost in unison, like a shoal of fish. They roared and jibbered.
Before that noise, he dropped his fist and shrank back, not meaning to be quelled but quelled nevertheless. He leaned against the wall and examined his rough hands, with blood still moist in the nails.
Only when he heard Vry’s voice below did he realise she had left the room. She had flung open the door of the tower and was standing on the platform, addressing the people. The mob surged forward as those at the rear pressed in to hear what she said. Some called out mockingly, but were silenced by others. Her voice, clear and sharp, flew above their tousled heads.
‘Why don’t you stop and think what you’re doing? You’re not animals. Try to be human. If we are to die, let us die with human dignity, and not with our hands round one another’s throats.
‘You are aware of suffering. Both the suffering and the awareness are your badges of humanity. Be proud, rot you – die with that knowledge. Remember the waiting world of the gossies below, where there is only gnashing of teeth because the dead feel disgust for their own lives. Isn’t that a terrible thing? Doesn’t it seem to you a terrible thing, to feel disgust – disgust and contempt – for your own lives? Transform your own life from within. Never mind external weather, if it snows or rains or shines, never mind that, accept it, but work to transform your inner self. Create calm in your soul. Take thought. Would Dathka or his murder have the power to cure your personal predicament? Only you have that.
‘You think things are going badly. I must warn you that more challenges are to come. I tell you this with the full weight of the academy behind me. Tomorrow, tomorrow at noon, the third and worst of the Twenty Blindnesses is due. Nothing can stop it. Mankind has no power over the skies. What will you do then? Will you run madly through the streets, cutting throats, smashing things, firing what your betters built – as if you were worse than phagors? Decide now how filthy, how low, you will be tomorrow!’
They looked at one another and murmured. No one shouted. She waited, instinctively seizing on the right moment at which to launch in again on a new tack.
‘Years ago, the sorceress Shay Tal addressed the inhabitants of Oldorando. I remember her words clearly, for I revered everything she said. She offered us the treasure of knowledge. That treasure can be yours if only you will be humble and dare to reach out your hands for it.
‘Understand what I tell you. Tomorrow’s blindness is no supernatural event. What is it? It is merely the two sentinels passing one another, those two suns you have known since birth. This world of ours is round as they are round. Imagine how large a ball our world must be for us not to fall off it – yet it is small compared with the sentinels. They look small merely because they are so far away.
‘Shay Tal, when she spoke, said that there was a disaster in the past. I believe that is not the case. We have added to her knowledge. Wutra has disposed of his world so that everything works through continuous action in all the parts. Your hair grows on your head and body as the suns rise and set. These are not separate actions but one in Wutra’s eyes. Our world travels in a circle round Batalix, and there are other worlds like ours which behave likewise. At the same time, Batalix travels in a greater circle round about Freyr. You have to accept that our farmyard is not at the centre of the universe.’
Their murmurs of protest grew louder. Vry overrode them by pitching her voice higher.
‘Do you understand that? Understanding is harder than slitting throats, isn’t it? To comprehend fully what I tell you, you must first understand and then grasp the understanding with your imagination, so that the facts live. Our