The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (19 page)

They passed through the dreadful hallway and down the stairs to a small office on the other side of the barbican. Felice Landry was waiting alone, seated in an ordinary cushioned chair beside a table that held a metal sculpture all studded with jewels. The two men conducted Amerie inside and withdrew, closing the door.

"Felice! Stein has..." "I know," the athlete interrupted in a whisper. She put one gloved finger to her lips, then sat silent, holding her emerald-plumed leather helmet demurely in her lap. With her hair standing out from her head and her enormous brown eyes wide, she looked like a pretty child waiting to be forced onstage for some sinister theatrical performance.

The door opened and Epone glided in. Amerie stared at the immensely tall figure in astonishment.

"Another sentient race?" the nun blurted out. "Here?"

Epone inclined her majestic head. "I will explain it to you shortly, Sister. Everything will be clarified in good time. For now, I require your assistance in gaining the confidence of your young companion for a simple test of mental abilities." She picked up a silver coronet from the table and approached Felice with it.

"No! No! I told you, I won't let you!" the girl shrieked. "And if you try to force me, it won't register. I know all about these rotten mind tricks!"

Epone appealed to Amerie. "Her fears are irrational. All of the newly arrived timefarers consent to the test for latent met-abilities. If we discover that you possess them, we have the technology to bring them up to operancy so that you and all of the community may enjoy their benefits."

"You want to probe me," Felice spat out. "Certainly not. The test is a simple calibration."

Amerie suggested, "Perhaps if you tested me first I'm quite sure that my own MP latencies are minimal. But it would probably reassure Felice if she could see just what happens in the test."

"An excellent idea," Epone said, smiling.

Amerie took Felice's hand and raised her from the chair. She could feel the trembling fingers even through the leather glove, but the emotion hidden in those unfathomable eyes was something much different from fear. The nun spoke soothingly. "Stand there, Felice. You can watch while I go through this, and then if the idea still distresses you, I'm sure this lady will respect your personal convictions." She turned to Epone. "Won't you?"

"I assure you, I mean you no harm," the Tanu woman replied. "And as Felice has said, the test will not give proper results unless the subject cooperates. Please be seated, Sister."

Amerie unfastened the pin that held her black veil, then slipped off the soft white wimple that had covered her hair. Epone set the silver coronet on the nun's brown curls.

"First we will test the farsensing function. If you would. Sister, without speaking, attempt to tell me greetings."

Amerie squeezed her eyes shut. One point of the coronet acquired a faint violet spark.

"Minus seven. Very weak. Now for the coercive faculty. Sister, exert all of your willpower upon me. Force me to close my eyes."

Amerie glowered in concentration. Another point of the coronet grew a somewhat more intense bluish spark.

"Minus three. Stronger, but still far below the potentially useful range. Now let us test psychokinesis. Try very hard, Sister. Levitate yourself in your chair just one centimeter above the floor."

The resultant rosy-gold spark was hardly visible and the chair stayed firmly on the flagstones.

"Ah, a pity. Minus eight. Relax now, Sister. In testing the creative function, we will ask you to spin an illusion for us. dose your eyes and visualize a common object, perhaps your shoe!, suspended in midair before you. Will this object to appear before us. Try hard!"

A greenish spark like a miniature star. And, was it really there?, the faintest phantasm of a hiking boot.

"Do you see, Felice?" the Tanu exclaimed. "Plus three point five!"

Amerie's eyes popped open and the illusion vanished. "Do you mean I actually did it? "

"The coronet artificially enhances your natural creativity, converting it from latent to operant Unfortunately, your psychic potential in the faculty is so low as to be virtually useless, even with maximum gain."

"It figures," said the nun. "Veni creator spiritus. Don't call me, I'll call you."

"There is one more test, for the MP function that is to us most important of all." Epone manipulated the crystalline device, which had begun to flicker. When the glow in the jewels had steadied, she said, "Look into my eyes, Sister. Look beneath them, into my mind if you are able to. Can you perceive what is hidden there? Can you analyze it? Collate its scattered bits back to coherency? Heal its wounds and scars and voids of pain? Try. Try!"

Oh, poor one. You want to let me, don't you? But... strong, too strong. Looking out at me beating on transparent walls so strong and now darkening. Black.

A red spark had flared for a brief moment, a microscopic nova. It dimmed to near invisibility. Epone sighed.

"Minus seven ultimate redact. I would have given much, but enough" She removed the coronet and turned to Felice with a kindly expression. "Will you permit me to test you now, child?"

Felice whispered, "I can't Please don't make me do it."

"We can wait unI'll later, in Finiah," Epone said. "Very likely you are a normal human woman, as your friend is. But even for you, without metafaculties, we can offer a world of happiness and fulfillment. All women enjoy a privileged position in the Many-Colored-Land because so few pass through the time-portal. You will be cherished."

Amerie paused in the act of restoring her headdress and said, "You should know from a study of our customs that some of our priests are consecrated virgins. I'm one. And Felice is not heterosexually oriented."

Epone said, "That is a pity. But given time, you will adjust to the new status and be happy."

Felice stepped forward and spoke very quietly. "Do you mean to tell us that women are sexually subservient to men here in Exile?"

Epone's lips curved upward "What is subservience and what is fulfillment? It is feminine nature to be the vessel yearning to be ruled, to be the nurturer and sustainer, to spend the self in giving care to the beloved other. When that destiny is denied, there can only be a void, weeping rage ... as I and so many other women of my race know only too well. We of the Tanu came here long ago from a galaxy at the farthest limits of Earth's visibility, exiles driven forth because we refused to modify our lifestyle according to principles abhorrent to us. In many ways, this planet has been an ideal refuge. But its atmosphere fails to screen out certain particles that are detrimental to our reproductive capacity. Tanu women produce healthy children rarely and with great difficulty. Nevertheless we are vowed to racial survival. We prayed through the hopeless centuries and at length Mother Tana answered us."

A dawning realization came to Amerie. Felice showed no emotion. The nun said, "All of the human women going through the time-gate have been sterilized."

"By reversible salpingotomy," said the serene exotic.

Amerie sprang to her feet. "Even if you undo it, the genetics ", are compatible. Our Ship, who brought us here (blessed be its memory), chose this galaxy and this world for the perfect compatibility of the germ plasm. It was expected that aeons would have to ensue before we achieved full reproductive potential, even using the native life-form you call ramapithicine as a nurturer of the zygote. But we live so very long! And we have such power! So we endured unI'll the miracle occurred and the time-portal opened and began sending you to us. Sister, you and Felice are young and healthy. You will cooperate, as others of your sex have done, because the rewards are great and the punishments insupportable."

"Fuck you!" said the nun.

Epone walked to the door. "The interview is at an end. You will both prepare for the caravan journey to Finiah. It is a beautiful city on the Proto-Rhine, near the site of your future Freiburg. Humans of goodwill live happily there, served by our good little ramas so that they are relieved of all drudgery. You will learn contentment, believe me." She went out and softly closed the door.

Amerie turned to Felice. "The bastards! The rotten bastards!"

"Don't worry, Amerie," said the athlete. "She didn't test me. That's the important thing. I kept smearing pathetic whinings over my thoughts all of the time that she was near me, so if she could read me at all, she probably believes I'm nothing but a poor little leather gal."

"What are you going to do? Try to escape?"

Felice's dark eyes glowed and she laughed out loud. "More. I'm going to take 'em. The whole goddamned lot."

CHAPTER SIX

There were benches under the trees of the walled compound, but Claude Majewski chose to sit on the pavement in the shade of the animal-pen partition where he could watch the living-fossil beasts and brood. He turned the carved Zakopane box over and over in his big hands.

A fine end to your frivolity, Old Man. Sold down the river in your one hundred and thirty-third year! And all because of a crazy whimsical gesture. Oh, you Polacks always were romantic fools!

Is that why you loved me, Black Girl?

The really humiliating aspect was that it had taken Claude so long to figure the thing out. Didn't he welcome the first friendly contact, the attractive sitting room with the food (and the John), all nicely calculated to soothe the frightened old poop after the stress of translation? Wasn't Tully genial and harmless, drawing him out and flattering him and dishing the cods wallop about the great life of peace and happiness they would all enjoy in Exile? (All right, Tully had overdone it just a little.) And the first sight of Epone had all but stupefied him, the unexpected presence of an exotic on Pliocene Earth numbing his natural prudence while she measured him, found him wanting and dismissed him.

Even when the armed guards led him politely across the courtyard he had been docile as a lamb... unI'll the last minute when they took away his pack, opened the gate, and pushed him into the people pen.

"Easy does it, traveler," one guard had said. "You'll get your pack back later if you behave yourself. Make trouble, and we have the means to subdue you. Try to escape and you join the bear-dogs for dinner."

Claude had stood there with his mouth open unI'll a sane-looking fellow prisoner in Alpine climbing kit came over and led him into the shade. After an hour or so, Claude's pack was returned by a guard. Any equipment that might have aided in escape bad been removed. He was told that the vitredur woodworking tools would be returned to him when he was "safe" in Finiah. After the first shock had passed off, Claude explored the people pen. It was actually a large and well-shaded yard with ornamental walls of pierced stonework more than three meters high, patrolled by guards. An indoor extension led to a fairly comfortable dormitory and a washroom. The compound held eight women and thirty-three men. Claude recognized most of them from having watched their early morning march through the auberge gardens to the Guderian cottage. They represented approximately one week's bag of timefarers, with the missing ones presumed to have been sorted out by Epone's test and shunted to some alternate destiny.

Claude soon discovered that the only one of his comrades from Group Green in the pen was Richard. He lay in an ominous sleep on one of the dormitory bunks. He would not awaken when the old man shook him by the shoulder.

"We've a few others like him," said the Alpine climber. His face was long, weathered, and finely wrinkled with the indeterminate middle-aged look of decaying rejuvenation. He bad humorous gray eyes and ash-coloured hair beneath his Tyrolean hat. "Some people just seem to drop out of it, poor devils. Still, they're better off than the Lizzy who hanged herself day before yesterday. You lot today are the last of the week's consignment. Tonight we'll move out. Just be glad you haven't had to stick it out here for six days like some of us."

"Did any try to escape?" Claude asked.

"A few before I came. A Cossack named Prischchepa from my group. Three Polynesians yesterday. The bear-dogs even ate their feathered cloaks. Pity. Do you like recorder music? I feel like a bit of Purcell. Name's Basil Wimborne, by the way."

He sat down on a vacant bunk, took out a wooden flute, and began to play a plaintive melody. The old man recalled that Bryan had often whistled snatches of it. Claude listened for a few minutes, then wandered back outside.

Other time-travelers were reacting to their imprisonment according to their individual psychology. An aging artist bent over a sketch pad. Side by side under a tree sat a young couple dressed as Yankee pioneers, caressing one another in oblivious passion. Five Gypsy men argued conspiratorially and practiced close-combat lunges with invisible knives. A perspiring middle-aged male in a rabbit-trimmed toga and kidskin domino kept demanding that the guards give him back his discipline. Two Japanese ronin, sans swords but otherwise attired in handsome fourteenth-century armor, were playing goban with a decamole board. A lovely woman veiled in rainbow chiffon resolved her tensions in dance; the guards outside had to keep discouraging her from climbing up the walls and leaping into space like a billowy butterfly, crying, "Paris, adieu!" In a shady spot sat an Australoid black man in a crisp white shirt, riding breeches, and elastic-sided boots; the four tiny speakers of his music library were arranged about him, endlessly alternating "Der Erlkönig" with an antique cut of Will Bradley's "Celery Stalks at Midnight." A fellow dressed in jester's motley juggled three silver balls with persistent lack of skill before an audience of an elderly woman and her Shih-Tzu puppy, which never tired of chasing the balls. Perhaps the most pathetic of the prisoners was a tall robust man with a ginger beard and hollow eyes, beautifully accoutered in imitation chainmail and a medieval knight's silken surtout emblazoned with a golden lion. He strode about the compound in a frenzy of agitation, peering through the holes in the wall and crying, "Aslan! Aslan! Where are you now that we need you? Save us from la belle dame sans merril"