Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [347]
Billy regarded him quizzically, and his cheeks grew red. ‘I told you I am of completely different stock from you, not being born on Helliconia … Would it work? Well, we’re identical physically. Would the young lady mind …?’
Muntras laughed heartily. ‘She’d probably prefer you to me. I know how you’re set on the queen, Billish, but don’t let that put you off. Use a little imagination, and Abath will be equal to the queen in every way.’
Billy’s face was a study in red. ‘Earth, what an experience … What can I say? Yes, send her in, please, and let’s see if it works …’
As the traders went out, Pallos laughed, rubbing his hands together, and said, ‘He certainly shows an experimental spirit. Will you charge him for the girl?’
Knowing Pallos’s mercenary nature, Muntras ignored this question. Perhaps catching the snub, Pallos asked hastily, ‘All his talk of dying – do you think he comes from another world? Is that possible?’
‘Let’s have a drink, and I’ll show you something he gave me.’ He summoned up Abath, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and sent her in to see Billish.
The evening shadows were taking on a velvet intensity. Batalix was in the western sky. The two men sat companionably on Pallos’s verandah with a bottle and a lantern between them. Muntras brought up his heavy fist, placed it on the table, and opened it.
In his palm lay Billy’s watch, with its three dials, where small figures flickered busily:
11 : 49 : 2 19 : 06 : 52 23 : 15 : 43
‘It’s a beauty. How much is it worth? Did he sell it to you?’ Pallos prodded it.
Muntras said, ‘It’s unique. According to Billish, it tells the time here in Borlien – this centre dial – and the time on the world he comes from, and the time on another world he does not come from. In other words, you could say this jewel is proof of his farfetched tale. To make a complicated watch like this, you’d need to be really clever. Not mad. More like a god … Not but what I can’t rid my mind of the notion he is mad. Billish says the world which made this timepiece, the world he comes from, rides above us, looking down on the stupidity of the natives. And it’s a world made entirely by men like us. No gods involved.’
Pallos took a sip of Exaggerator and shook his head. ‘I hope they can’t read my trading figures.’
A mist was creeping in from the river. A mother was calling her small boy home, warning him that greebs would crawl out of the water and eat him in a single gulp.
‘King JandolAnganol had this elegant timepiece in his hand. He took it for an evil omen, that was plain. Pannoval, Oldorando, and Borlien have to unite, and it’s only their hrattocking religion that unites them. The king is committed on such a course that he can’t allow one element of religious doubt …’
He tapped the timepiece with a plump finger. ‘This amazing jewel is an element of doubt, right enough. A message of hope or fear, depending who you are.’ He tapped his breast pocket. ‘Like other messages I have entrusted to me. The world’s changing, Grengo, I tell you, and not before time.’
Pallos sighed and took a sip from his tumbler.
‘Do you want to see my books, Krillio? I warn you takings are down on last year.’
The Ice Captain looked across the top of the lantern at Pallos, whose face the light made cadaverous.
‘I’m going to ask you a personal question, Grengo. Have you any curiosity? I show this timepiece, I tell you it came from another world. There’s this odd feller Billish, getting his first ever rumbo on this earth – what could be going through his harneys? Doesn’t all this waken your sense of mystery? Don’t you want to know more? Isn’t there something beyond your ledgers?’
Pallos scratched his cheek and then worked down to his chin, setting his head to one side to do so. ‘All those stories we listened to as kids … You heard that woman call to her son that a greeb would get him? There’s not been a greeb seen at Osoilima since I came here, and that’s getting on for eight years. All killed for their skins. I wish I could trap one. The skins are worth