Robert Silverberg - The Outbreeders

“You’re not going, Ryly. I won’t let you.”

Davud grabbed Ryly’s collar, but he pulled away. “Don’t try to stop me, Davud.”

Without replying, Davud gripped the fleshy part of his arm. Calmly Ryly pivoted and smashed his fist into the face that was so much like his own. Davud blinked, half believing, and started to mutter something. Ryly quickly jerked his arm free and hit Davud a second time. Davud sagged to the floor.

Ryly stood poised indecisively for a second, watching with some astonishment the flow of blood from his phenotype-brother’s broken nose. Then he turned and dashed through the doorway, out into the dark courtyard, and ran as hard as he could for the forest road.

He listened for the shouts of pursuers but could hear none yet. He wondered if perhaps he had hit Davud too hard.

Ryly spent an uneasy night in the forest not too far from the edge of the Baille territory; when morning came, he struck out at a rapid pace for the Baille-Clingert border. Joanne would be at the waterfall by Dorisrise—he hoped. For an instant he considered what would become of him if she had been playing him false, but he reached no answer. Could he return to the Bailles and marry Hella after all? He didn’t think so.

The day grew warmer as he half trotted through the forest, following the series of trail-marks he had left to guide himself. When he reached the trysting place, it was not yet Dorisrise; Thomas alone was in the sky. Ryly sat by the water’s edge and splashed himself to clean away the sweat of travel.

He heard footsteps. He looked up, hoping it might be Joanne. But it was Davud who appeared.

“So you followed me?”

Davud nodded. “I had to, Ryly.”

“And I suppose you brought the whole tribe behind you, all of them foaming at the mouth and ready to stone me.” Ryly sighed. “I guess I didn’t hit you hard enough, then. You woke up too soon.”

Davud’s nose was swollen and slightly askew. He said, “I came alone. I want to try to talk you out of this crazy thing, Ryly. Nobody else knows about it yet.”

“Good. Now you go back and forget anything I said to you last night.”

“I can’t do that,” Davud said. “I can’t let you mate with a—a Clingert. I came to bring you back to Baille land with me.”

Ryly clenched his fists. He had no desire to fight with his phenotype-brother a second time, but if Davud was going to insist—

“Get away from me, Davud. Go back alone.”

It was almost Dorisrise time, now. Ryly hoped he would be able to get Davud out of the way before Joanne reached their rendezvous. But Davud was shaking his head stubbornly. “Baille and Clingert shall not breed. Thomas set that law down for us in the beginning, and it can never be broken. It is—”

He stopped, jaw sagging, and pointed. Slowly Ryly turned. The first rays of Doris glinted blue in the flowing waterfall, and Joanne stood behind him.

“Which of you is Ryly?” she asked plaintively.

Ryly unfroze first. “I am,” he said. “This is my phenotype-brother Davud. He came with me to—meet you. Davud, this is Joanne.”

“Is this a Clingert?” Davud asked slowly. “But—but—Clanfather always said they were ugly! And—”

Joanne laughed, her special Clingert sort of laugh that Ryly had already grown to love. “He seems stunned. Just as stunned as you were, three days ago. Do all of you Bailles think we’re ogres?”

Davud sat down heavily on a rotting stump. His face was very pale by the light of the double suns; he was shaking his head reflectively and seemed to be talking quietly to himself. At length he said, “All right. I apologize, Ryly. Now I see what you were talking about. Now I see!”

There was an overenthusiastic note in Davud’s tone of voice that irked Ryly, but he refrained from voicing any annoyance. “What about Thomas and his laws now, Davud?” he said. “Now that you’ve seen a Clingert?”

“I take everything back,” Davud murmured. “Everything.”

Ryly glanced from his phenotype-brother to Joanne. “I guess we have his blessing; then. If—if you’re willing to become an outcast from the Clingerts, that is.”

Now it was Joanne’s turn to look startled. “Outcast? For fulfilling the aim of the first Clingert?”

“What’s that?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

Ryly shook his head. “I don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.”

“When it all started,” she said patiently. “When the spaceship exploded and the Clingerts and Bailles were thrown free and landed on The World, hundreds of years ago, Jarl Clingert wanted to interbreed, but Thomas Baille wouldn’t have any of it. He wanted to keep his line pure. So there hasn’t been very much contact between Clingert and Baille since then, ever since the time the first Baille threatened without provocation to kill Jarl Clingert if he came within ten miles of—”

“Hold it,” Ryly said. “It was Clingert who tried to kill Thomas Baille and marry Doris, but Thomas drove him off and—”

“No,” said Joanne. “You’ve got it all backward. It was Baille’s fault that—”

“Let’s discuss ancient history some other time,” Davud interjected suddenly. There was a curiously pained expression on his face. “Ryly, do you mind if I talk to you alone a moment?”

“Why—all right,” Ryly said, surprised.

They drew a few feet farther away, and Ryly said, “Well? What do you think of her?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Davud whispered harshly. “I think she’s far and away above the Baille women. She’s so— different. Gentle but not weak, small but not flimsy—”

“I knew you’d like her, Davud.”

“Not like,” Davud groaned. “Love. I love her too, Ryly.”

It came like a blow across the face. Ryly’s eyes widened and stared into the equally blue ones of his phenotype-brother. The Baille genes had been duplicated perfectly among them, it seemed. In every respect.

“You can’t mean that,” Ryly said.

“I do. Dammit, I do. How can I help it?”

“We can’t both have her, Davud. And I think I have priority. I—”

Davud gasped and seized him suddenly, spinning him around. Ryly looked, shut his eyes, touched his fingers lightly to his eyelids, and looked again. The mirage was still there. It was no illusion.

He saw two Joannes.

“Ryly? Davud? Meet Melena. Melena Clingert.”

“Is she—your sister?” Ryly asked hoarsely. The two Clingerts were, at this distance, identical.

“My cousin,” Joanne said. “I don’t have any sisters.” She grinned. “Melena was hiding near the far side of the waterfall. I brought her along to have a peek at Ryly.”

Ryly and his phenotype-brother exchanged astonished glances.

“Of course,” Ryly said softly. “We Bailles all look alike; why shouldn’t the Clingerts? Three hundred years of inbreeding. Lord, they must all be identical!”

“More or less,” Joanne said. “There are some minor variations but not many. Most of the unfixed genes in the clan were lost generations ago. As probably happened in your clan too. This was the thing that Jarl Clingert wanted to avoid, but when Thomas Baille refused to—”

“It was Clingert’s treacherous ways that caused the whole thing,” Ryly snapped. “Let’s get that straight right now. Why, it’s common knowledge!”

“Among whom? Among the Bailles, that’s who—whom!” Joanne’s eyes were blazing again, with the fury Ryly loved so much to see. “But why don’t you listen to the Clingert side of the story for a change? You Bailles were always like that, shutting your ears to anything important. You—” She stopped in mid-breath. Very quietly she said, “I’m sorry, Ryly.”