Pock's World Read online

  Chapter 2

  The day was hazy and even stuffier than the night had been, with a colorless sky and a flat light from what he assumed was east. It felt like rain. It always felt like rain on Pock’s, Brother Andre said. Ratty remarked that the air seemed less stinky that it had earlier. Partial paralysis of the nasal membranes, explained the friar. The visitors were assigned cabins and the others went off to rest for a while, but Ratty was a reporter with a need to record; besides, his implant-initiated sleep on Pock’s Station had reset his circadian rhythm to morning. He set off to explore; no one stopped or questioned him.

  The inn stood at the edge of a wide clearing, perhaps a kilometer across, and this was clearly an ancient lava bed, a plain of black rock, sharp and ropy. So now he knew why his sandals had such thick soles. He could see no reason for the lava to be there, no volcanic vent or cone, although there was a snow-capped peak in the distance. An expanse of bare rock like that was a ready-made landing ground, and the ugly shuttle still stood in the center, beside the lonely blockhouse. The inn itself comprised a dozen or so wooden buildings, all of them on skids as if they had been brought from elsewhere. Or was that in case they might have to be moved out in a hurry? He inspected the wagon and a paddock containing four of the antlered things, massive slabs of muscle with short legs. He had seen similar brutes before, so their species had been imported from some other world. Edible, likely.

  Now what? All around the landing stood dark green jungle, dense, menacing, and impenetrable, but a cleared trail led off from the inn and disappeared around a bend. He set off at a leisurely stroll, which was as fast as he wanted to move in the muggy heat, despite his strange new buoyancy.

  The roadway was natural and sloped slightly uphill, the original flow that had flooded the area where the inn now stood; it was ancient, though, being colonized by weeds. Things hiding in them scuttled away from his feet. He wondered if he was being foolhardy in wandering around without a guide. Were tree octopuses dangerous? He decided he would go as far as the bend and then turn back, but when he reached it he saw the view opened up to a wide green meadow. He carried on to inspect that.

  There he found a steaming natural pool with a diving board. To swim or not to swim? No one would set up a diving board where man-eating scaly things lurked, would there? He couldn’t be any wetter than he was already. A cluster of roofs in the distance must be a town or small village, probably Elaterin itself. There were benches beside the pool, and he sat down gratefully. What the picture needed were some children splashing and laughing: A World About to Die, by Ratty Turnsole.

  He didn’t want to think about that. Reporters must stay objective. He sat and pondered a problem that had been growing on him: Why was STARS so bloody-minded about cuckoos? Granted that they might be dangerous, obviously quarantine would be a workable solution, at least for a few years. Why the frantic haste to destroy an entire world?

  Something buzzed high overhead, two somethings. They wheeled around, changed their note to a deeper hum, circled lower. After a couple of circuits they sank down vertically, landing alongside the pool. Intrigued, he rose and walked over to see.

  At first glance they looked—and had certainly sounded—like giant insects, but he soon saw that they were non-metallic machines of whimsically insectile design. Each had four transparent wings and six thin legs sprouting from its central thorax, which was furry and doubled as a seat for the rider. The head sported two thin antennae curled backward to serve as handlebars, and two shiny, globular things resembling insect eyes. Behind the thorax, the black, chitinous abdomen was longer than the head and thorax together.

  The two riders wore one-shoulder capes, like Treddle’s, which suggested that Pock’s society was hierarchal, with low-tech wagons for the poor and hi-tech gizmos for the rich.

  The drivers had dismounted. They wore the usual leathery shorts, but goggles instead of visors. The gownsman had declared that his cape was a symbol of office, but these two aeronauts were too young to be government officials. Children of the ruling elite? The girl was slender and juvenile, unashamedly displaying conical breasts. The boy was a year or two older and hefty, regarding Ratty with a suspicious scowl and keeping one hand on a nasty-looking device at his waist that was certainly a weapon. His cape was a rusty red; hers was white.

  “You’re one of the off-worlders,” the girl announced. She had pushed her goggles up on her forehead. Her skin was nearer an Ayne folk brown color than a Pocosin red.

  Ratty offered a half bow, trying not to stare at her delicious rosy nipples. “I am Ratty Turnsole from Ayne, at your service.”

  “Of course!” She grinned. “I’m Joy.” She did not introduce her pouting companion.

  “And a joy to look at.”

  The boy snarled, “Mind your manners!” He was a full-blooded redskin, in the large economy size. All Pocosin men were tall; add breadth and you got life-threatening beef.

  Ratty had made the pun without thinking, but evidently her name translated. It meant what it said. “Are you an off-worlder, too, Friend Joy?”

  “Me?” Joy laughed. “No, I’m a throwback.” She gave him a solemn little-girl pout. “Are you going to let STARS burn Pock’s World?”

  “Not if I can help it. We haven’t seen any evidence yet. We haven’t even heard what the evidence is, but Gownsman Treddle told us there is some.”

  “Yes, there is. We caught one of them at Hederal!” She turned to her companion. “This is as good a place for me to wait as any. Go and fill up the tanks.”

  The boy turned his pout into a glower. “I won’t leave you with him.”

  “Yes, you will! I’ve had quite enough of you and your fast mouth, Scrob, and if I get one more word of backtalk out of you, I’ll send you back to the farm and you’ll never see me again. Now go and do as you’re told!” If that wasn’t high dudgeon, it was getting up there.

  She shoved him. She could probably have pummeled him with her dainty fists for an hour without producing any effect at all, but he yielded without argument. Glaring over his shoulder at Ratty, he went back to the two bug-like flying machines and threw a meaty leg over one of them.

  “You behave yourself, off-worlder!” he shouted. “Or I’ll come after you and kill you!”

  Joy yelled, “Grow up, Scrob!”

  Scrob manipulated something on the insectile head. Both machines sprang into life, their wings a sudden blur of motion, blowing the grass flat. Then both lifted and flew off, low over the meadow, heading for the village.

  Joy took Ratty’s hand and pulled him to the nearest bench. “Come and sit over here and tell me about Ayne, Ratty. That’s right, isn’t it? I call you Ratty, not whatever the other bit was? We get by with one name at a time.”

  “Yes, call me Ratty. I thought scrob was something one ate.”

  Joy plumped down on the bench and pulled him down beside her. She sniggered. “A scrob is a tasteless dumpling. I named him that.” She pulled off her goggles and shook her springy mop of curls, half of them bleached white and the rest a sort of reddish brown to match her cape. The result should have been absurd and was spectacular. “Do you think he’s beautiful?”

  “I can’t judge boys. I know a beautiful girl when I see one.” And the temptation to put an arm around this one was sorely testing his self-control. It had been a very long time since Rose, Robyn, or Patience.

  Joy pulled a face of exasperation. “Mother thinks he is. Once—just once!—I told her I liked boys with muscles and she’s been throwing them at me ever since. He does have nice shoulders, I suppose.”

  “And his calves go up and down when he walks,” Ratty said helpfully.

  She nodded. “And his buns go in and out. But he’s a bit short of head jelly, don’t you think?”

  This was a wonderful conversation and Ratty was recording it all. By Ayne standards she was certainly overdoing the ingénue, but here on Pock’s it might be genuine.

  “That can be important. Head jelly, I mean.”


  She shrugged. “Not really. I mean I don’t want anything permanent yet.”

  “Does he? Do you know what Scrob wants?”

  “Oh, yes, he wants to make me have a baby.”

  A magnificent, classic, prize-winning conversation! “Then he doesn’t sound very stupid to me.”

  She sighed. “I don’t want all that work quite yet. And I’m worried about getting addicted. Mother’s always so bitchy when Bedel is away more than one night. Scrob might be all right, I suppose. If I don’t take him, she’ll probably just find me someone even worse.”

  “Your Mother will? Is Scrob your bodyguard? Or is your mother trying to, er, match-make?”

  “Both,” Joy said. “No one would hurt me, but sometimes a mirbane will attack a flyer, so Scrob carries a zapper to stun it. Stun the mirbane, I mean. He can’t hit a blockhouse at arm’s length.”

  Ratty needed a moment to analyze all that, and he was interrupted by a sudden vibration and a strange noise. The pool lapped at its banks. “Earthquake!”

  Joy looked at him oddly. “Don’t you have those on Ayne?” She had to shout over the noise. The trees were flailing wildly. It stopped.

  “Not very often.”

  She shrugged. “We get one or two a day.”

  That would explain why the inn buildings looked so portable. Better to bounce than collapse or be overrun by lava. Low-tech might have some advantages.

  “We don’t have anything like those flyers! I bet they’re marvelous fun.”

  “You don’t?” Her eyes went out of focus for a moment. “Ah, lower gravity! And a denser atmosphere, it says. Here comes Scrob now, see. Would you like a ride, just to try one?”

  Ratty distrusted Joy’s innocently raised eyebrow, but he wasn’t going to spoil the Elysian mood by saying so. He would love to take a flyer on a flyer, he said.

  The boy set the machines down on the sward nearby and scowled at Ratty when he and Joy arrived. Scrob looked more barroom-brawlish than saintly, but Joy’s mother must have chosen him because he had a Brother-Andre-type conscience. At his age Ratty would have bedded this addle-witted young miss on the first attempt. Even now he was tempted, although it would be far too easy to be sporting.

  “Get off!” Joy said. “I’m going to let Ratty try.”

  “And leave me here?”

  “Of course not, dummy. You just sit on that one, Ratty darling, and I’ll drive them both.”

  The unfortunate Scrob yielded his seat to Joy and his goggles to Ratty. Ratty straddled the flyer. The seat was surprisingly comfortable, and the faceted eyes were obviously control panels, displaying indicators and buttons labeled in an unfamiliar script. The veined transparent wings howled into life. He just had time to grab the antennae before the ground rushed away beneath him.

  “Isn’t this fun?” Joy yelled, barely audible over the almighty buzz. “Put your feet on the pedals!”

  The pedals were the flyer’s two front legs, conveniently placed for resting sandals on. Yes, it was fun, tremendous fun. There was the inn, and the landing field, and the hamlet of a dozen or so houses. Joy increased the power and conversation became totally impossible.

  The flyers rose steadily, heading for a sinister-looking thunderhead on the horizon. The world spread out below him, the wind blew scrumptiously cool on his chest and face, and Joy’s white cape streamed out behind her. Why was she not turning? How far were they going? Ratty twisted around to look back and could just make out poor Scrob racing across the meadow to the village.

  Running in that heat! Why? What was alarming the big lad?

  Then Ratty registered the triumphant grin under Joy’s goggles and remembered that it was only Ayne implants that did not work on Pock’s World. Joy and Scrob could chatter as much as they liked.

  He was not going back. Joy had other plans.

  Chapter 3

  “Did he leave no clue at all where he was going?”

  Athena looked around the table, and the others all shook their heads. Gownsman Treddle was back, the commissioners had assembled in the dining room, but Ratty was missing. His bed had not been slept in. To Athena that felt like a bad omen. The foul air was making her nauseated and headachy; she had been unable to rest for worrying about the task ahead of her. Treddle’s ready admission that there were Diallelon monsters loose had shocked her to the marrow. She had been in denial all along, convinced that STARS was promoting a giant political scam. Now cruel reality had stripped away her blinkers—the locals believed.

  “The only place he could have gone is the village,” the gownsman said for the third or fourth time. “Elaterin. The reeve has not seen him, but he’ll ask around.”

  “Are there dangers in the jungle?” Backet asked.

  “Oh, yes. Nothing that would deliberately harm him, but if he stepped on a snake or a tenfoot it would attack. I am sure he will turn up safe and sound. It is to nobody’s advantage to hamper your work or injure any of you. He may have just twisted an ankle.”

  “Let’s hope he’s broken his neck,” Linn Lazuline said cheerfully. “If you find out who did it, I’ll be happy to pay his legal bills. Meanwhile I suggest we get down to business. What do you have for us, Gownsman?”

  Treddle closed his eyes for a moment. “The ship is just tying up. It has brought Gownsmen Oxindole and Skerry. Gownsman Oxindole is consort and chief advisor to Her Holiness. Gownsman Skerry is her senior advisor on technical matters. In your terms, they are roughly Monody’s prime minister and minister of science. You cannot go higher on Pock’s World than them, honored friends, except to Her Holiness herself, and I am sure she will grant you an audience.”

  “No one from STARS?” Linn scowled.

  Treddle shrugged. “STARS informed Gownsman Oxindole where you landed and told him to show you the evidence. STARS is beholden to no man, or woman. I urge you to proceed with your inquiry, honored friends, and leave the problem of your missing commissioner to us. We will find him for you, I promise, and send him on.”

  Athena said, “We shall not be conferring with the gownsmen here?”

  “Oh, no, Senator. They have come to escort you to view the evidence.” Treddle smiled faintly. “I do not know where it is kept, or even exactly what it is, because obviously such matters must be closely guarded. If you are ready, you may board now. They will answer your questions on the journey.”

  Athena felt foolish, but obviously the others had misunderstood the program as much as she had. No translation could ever be perfect. She left the room with Millie Backet. They climbed into the waiting wagon.

  “Airships are favored by the low gravity, I assume,” Athena said.

  “No, Senator, although that is an easy misconception.” Evidently Millie had been listening to more of her briefing files. “The lifting capability of helium or hydrogen is not affected by gravity, because the air also loses weight in the same proportion. Nor is it affected by pressure, which is quite high because Pock’s formed far enough from its sun to capture a lot of volatiles and so has a thick atmosphere. Airships do have a slight advantage here only because average wind velocity is less. The world’s slow rotation does not produce cyclonic storms.”

  Athena wished she had not asked.

  The wagon rocked and rattled across the landing ground to where the airship was moored above the blockhouse, shiny, greenish, and enormous, filling the sky. The moment the wagon stopped, Millie scrambled down and practically ran to the staircase. Athena let Treddle disembark next and accepted his helping hand.

  He said, “It has been an honor to meet you, Senator.”

  “And we are grateful for your help. You did say ‘consort’? Gownsman Oxindole—you called him ‘consort’ to the High Priestess?”

  “Is that remarkable?” Treddle asked blandly, although there was a twinkle in his eye.

  “Your religion is not one of those that require priestesses to remain virginal?”

  He laughed aloud. “Of course not! How could she incarnate the Mother for us then?” He touc
hed one knee to the ground. “Live and die happy.”

  “And you also, Gownsman. Believe me, we shall do everything we can to save your world.” She started up the stairs, with Linn and Brother Andre following.

  * * *

  The front of the gondola was a small flight deck, occupied by a crew of two gangly young men. The center portion held the motors, a tiny galley, and a toilet. A passenger cabin made up the rear third, but its horseshoe of padded bench was hard put to hold seven people. The walls were all window, offering a soaring panoramic view that was hard to ignore, even when the topic being discussed was the fate of a world. A screen beside the door showed a forward view. Athena’s feet only just reached the floor, on this planet of giants.

  Gownsman Oxindole was impressive—big and slow-spoken, with silver patches at his temples and more body fat than would be regarded as decent on Ayne; his breasts and neck were flabby. He was courteous to Millie, while seeming unimpressed by her hints that she was in charge of the mission. He queried each of them carefully about their qualifications, pronouncing deliberate, penetrating questions, and his steady stare implied that his impressions were being recorded. That was only to be expected. It was possible, even likely, that the effective ruler of this theocratic world was currently watching the proceedings through her consort’s eyes.

  The science minister, Gownsman Skerry, was small and scrawny, with every rib showing. He tried to keep his hands clasped on his lap, but when he was talking he would forget and start gesturing, and then they trembled. He was certainly not a well man. Even when silent he tended to move his mouth all the time, and Athena suspected he was in pain. His mini-cape of office was green with fine white stripes, whereas Oxindole’s was a rusty red, not far off the color of his skin. She wondered how many varieties there were.

  The seventh person present was a boy of nine or ten, introduced as Skerry’s son, Solan. He sat beside his father and watched him anxiously, not even paying much attention to the scenery, although at least three volcanoes were visible over the curve of the world and one of them was vomiting red lava. Most Ayne boys would have been staring at that.