Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [366]
Billy Xiao Pin was by no means the only male among the inhabitants of Avernus to dream of Queen MyrdemInggala. Such private things were seldom admitted even to friends. They emerged only indirectly in that evasive society – for instance, in a general execration of King JaridolAnganol’s latest behaviour.
The sight of the Thribriatan warlord’s head on JandolAnganol’s gatepost was enough to provoke a howl of protest from this faction.
One of its spokesmen said, ‘This monster tasted blood with the death of the Myrdolators. Now he is accumulating the weapons for which he traded the queen of queens. Where will he stop? Plainly, we should check him now, before he plunges all Campannlat into war.’
Just as JandolAnganol was enjoying some of the popularity he hoped for in Borlien, he roused unusual opprobrium on the Avernus.
The complaints brought against him had been heard before of other tyrants. It was more convenient to blame the leader than the led; the illogic of that position was seldom remarked. Shifting conditions, shortages of foodstuffs and materials, guaranteed that Helliconian history was a constant series of bids for power, of dictators gaining wide support.
The suggestion that Avernus should move in to put an end to one particular oppression or another was also far from new. Nor was intervention an entirely idle threat.
When Earth’s colonising starship entered the Freyr-Batalix system in 3600 A.D., it established a base on Aganip, the inner planet closest to Helliconia. On Aganip, 512 colonists were landed. They had been hatched aboard the starship during the final years of its voyage. The information encoded in the DNA of fertilised human egg cells had been stored in computers during the voyage. It was transferred into 512 artificial wombs. The resultant babies – the first human beings to walk the ship during its one-and-a-half millennium flight – were reared by surrogate mothers in several large families.
The young humans ranged in age from fifteen to twenty-one Earth years old when they landed on Aganip. The construction of the Avernus was already in process. Automation and local materials were used.
Owing to more than one near-disaster, the ambitious construction programme had taken eight years. During that hazardous period, Aganip was used as a base. When the job was complete, the young colonists were ferried aboard their new home.
The starship then left the system. The inhabitants of the Avernus were alone – more alone than any humans had ever been before.
Now, 3269 Earth years later, the old base was a shrine, occasionally visited by the enlightened. It had become part of Avernian mythology.
There were minerals on Aganip. It would not be impossible to shuttle to the planet and there construct a number of ships with which to invade Helliconia. Not impossible. But unlikely, for there were no technicians trained for such a project.
The hotheads who whispered of such things had to work against the whole ethos of the Earth Observation Station, which was strictly non-interventionist.
Also, the hotheads were male. They had to contend with the female half of the population, who admired the troubled king. The women watched JandolAnganol defeat Darvlish. It was a great victory. JandolAnganol was a hero who suffered much for his country, shortsighted though that aim might be. He was a tragic figure.
The sort of intervention this female faction dreamed of was to descend to Borlien and be by JandolAnganol’s side, day and night.
And when these events at last reached Earth?
There would be much nodding of approval at JandolAnganol’s choice of which piece of Darvlish’s anatomy to exhibit. Not the Skull’s feet, which had carried the man into skirmish after skirmish. Not his genitals, which had fathered so many bastards to create future trouble. Not his hands, which had silenced many a foe. But his head, where all the other mischief had been co-ordinated.
XIV
Where Flambreg Live
White