Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [637]
‘There’s always defiance,’ he said. He laughed.
They went down the narrow stairs together, taking care in the dark. At the bottom, Luterin looked into the rear room. To his surprise, the couch was empty and Insil had gone.
They bid good-bye to young Odim and made their way into the night.
In the gathering darkness, the Avernus passed overhead, making its swift transit of the sky. It was now a dead eye.
At last the splendid machine had run down. Its surveillance system was only partly functional. Many other systems – but not the vital ones – were still operational. Air still circulated. Cleaning machines still crawled through walkways. Here and there, computers still exchanged information. Coffee machines still regularly brought coffee to the boil. Stabilisers kept the Earth Observation Station automatically on course. In the port departure lounge, a toilet regularly flushed itself, like a creature unable to suppress weeping fits.
But no signals were returning to Earth.
And Earth no longer had need of them, although there were many who regretted the termination of that unfolding story from another world. For Earth was moving beyond its compulsive stage, where civilisation was measured by the quantity of possessions, into a new phase of being where the magic of individual experience was to be shared, not stored; awarded, not hoarded. The human character became involuntarily more like that of Gaia herself: diffuse, ever changing, ever open to the adventures of the day.
As they went through the dusk, leaving the village behind them, Toress Lahl tried to talk of superficial things. Snow fell, blowing in from the north.
Luterin did not reply. After a silence, she told him how she had borne him a son, now almost ten years old, and offered Luterin anecdotes about him.
‘I wonder if he will grow up to kill his father,’ was all Luterin said.
‘He is metamorphosed, as we are. A true son, Luterin. So he will survive and breed survivors, we hope.’
He trudged behind her, still with nothing to say. They passed a deserted hut and were heading for a belt of trees. He glanced back now and again.
She was following her own train of thought. ‘Still your hated Oligarchy is killing off all the phagors. If only they understood the real workings of the Fat Death, they would know that they are killing off their own kind too.’
‘They know well enough what they’re doing.’
‘No, Luterin. You generously gave me the key to JandolAnganol’s chapel, and I’ve lived there ever since. One evening, a knock came at the door and there was Insil Esikananzi.’
He looked interested. ‘How did Insil know you were there?’
‘It was an accident. She had run away from Asperamanka. They were then newly married. He had brutally sodomised her, and she was in pain and despair. She remembered the chapel as a refuge – your brother Favin had taken her there once, in happier days. I looked after her and we became close friends.’
‘Well … I’m glad she had a friend.’
‘I showed her the records left by JandolAnganol and the woman Muntras, with the explanations of how there was a tick which travelled from phagors to mankind carrying the plagues necessary to mankind’s survival in the extreme seasons. That knowledge Insil took back with her, to explain to the Keeper and the Master, but they would take no notice.’
He gave a curt laugh. ‘They took no notice because they already knew. They would not want Insil’s interference. They run the system, don’t they? They knew. My father knew. Do you imagine those old church papers were secret? Their knowledge became common knowledge.’
The ground sloped. They picked their way more carefully toward where the caspiarn forest began.
Toress Lahl said, ‘The Oligarch knew that killing off all phagors meant ultimately killing the humans – yet still he passed his orders? That’s incredible.’
‘I can’t defend what my father did – or Asperamanka. But the knowledge did not suit them. Simply that. They felt they had to act, despite their knowledge.’
He caught the scent of the caspiarns, inhaled the slight vinegary tang of their