Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

“Is she really a woman, Doctor? You seemed doubtful in the meeting.”

“I am more than doubtful, but to speak of her we must call her one or the other. Woman is closer. There is no reason my opinion should interest you, but it is that she was once female and human.”

“He can do that? The Storm King can?”

Dr. Schoonveld shrugged. “There is one other patient that has asked of you. This is one of ours, a woman your husband sent to spy. Will you see her? Afterward?”

“If you want me to, yes.”

“Good.” (It was nearly goot .) “I want it.”

They had stopped before a door that appeared more solid than most. Dr. Schoonveld unlocked and opened it. “Alone you wish?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I stand by.”

Cassie went in. The slender figure chained to the bed appeared asleep. Its face was less white than the sheet drawn up to its waist. Its free arm lay at its side; above it, a flask dripped pale yellowish fluid into its veins through a slender tube.

“Do you hear me?” Cassie asked. “I’ll keep talking until you wake and talk to me, but you’re not to sit up.”

Eyes too nearly colorless to be labeled “brown” or “blue” flew open. “That’s not exact, but you’re close.” The voice was dark still.

“I’m a quick study. Should I call you Diana?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I will. You hunted me.”

“No...”

“Of course you did, you wanted to catch me. Now we’ve caught you. You people were all over Great Takanga and two or three other islands. That’s what I’ve heard.”

The figure in the bed said nothing.

“My husband came here and brought soldiers. They — ”

“Mercenaries...”

“You mean they were paid. Of course they were. They hunted you down and killed most of you. Isn’t that right?”

“Not all.”

“I said most. They also captured a few of your people who were badly wounded. Dr. Schoonveld here patched them up so they could be questioned. After that, they were shot. That’s what I was told.”

The wounded woman’s eyes were closed again; there was no sound but her breathing, and her breathing was scarcely audible.

“A friend told me once that my husband was a murderer. I think that’s probably what he meant. I understand why he did it, but I still don’t like it. So I’m offering you a deal. If you’ll cooperate with me and answer my questions fully and honestly, I’ll do everything I can to save your life. I can’t promise I’ll be able to, but I’ll try, and try hard. What do you say?”

There was a long silence. At last the quiet figure said, “He’s here. The doctor...”

“Yes. He is.”

“I’ll have to whisper. Bend down.”

Cassie did, and the still figure in the bed spat in her face.

THE saliva, thick and faintly green, was off Cassie’s face now, and that face had been thoroughly washed twice. “I still feel dirty,” she told Dr. Schoonveld as they sat at a small table in the lounge.

“I understand.”

She flipped open the red plastic compact she had bought at a chain drugstore in a time that now seemed infinitely remote. “She ever do that to you?”

“No.”

“I feel like somebody who started school in the fourth grade.” Cassie inspected her face in the compact’s powder-dusty mirror. “I know the advanced stuff, but I don’t know the basic stuff. How do I look?”

“Most lovely, Your Majesty. You are an astonishingly beautiful woman.”

“Thanks, but this mirror doesn’t believe you. I need eye makeup. It’s all gone, every bit of it.”

“Your eyes are most beautiful.”

“Thanks again, but you can’t see my eyelashes from a foot away.” She got out mascara. “She worships the Storm King?”

Dr. Schoonveld nodded.

“Why? Why would anyone want to? What draws them to him?”

“Three things.” Dr. Schoonveld pursed his lips. “Three at least. Three I know. First to be accepted and welcomed. They are outlanders, you see, those their own folk will not have. A man is born in China. Let us say this. His parents are Chinese. His brothers and sisters, also. Yet all look upon him and say, ‘This is not one of us.’ In your country and mine, the same. Once these were called changelings. For witches they are burned sometimes. The Storm King welcomes them, and these qualities that make others say no, no! he treasures.”

Reluctantly, Cassie nodded.

“That is the first. Here is the second. They are made to feel a secret superiority, most strong. They are the masters of the hidden knowledge which turn the world. They have a friend — a patron — greater than any had by those who reject them. A queen? They spit in her face. What is a queen to them? What is any queen next to them? Dust and rubbish.”

“When I was a little girl” — Cassie spoke mostly to herself — “he said that pride was the greatest sin, but that I could be proud of good grades and new clothes, that there was no sin in that. I knew from what he said that there was another kind of pride, but I don’t think I ever really knew what it was...”

“It is that, Your Majesty. You are most correct. There is a third reason. Would you hear it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“They are given power. They may take life at their discretion. They are taught how to do it, how to do it without being taken. How to escape if they are taken. They are given a thousand comrades who will rescue them from any menace of law.”

“She hasn’t escaped.”

Dr. Schoonveld shrugged; he had an expressive shrug. “I advised His Majesty to cut off her feet, and when he would not I offered to do this. He would not permit it. Perhaps he was right, but I think me.”

“There must be some middle ground. I’ll talk to him.”

“That is good. Do you comprehend why the Storm King’s worshippers come?”

“No. He’s a monster. At least he sounds like one.”

“He is an immigrant from the farthest stars. He comes before the flood.” Dr. Schoonveld paused, and cleared his throat. “In all our history, we have found but one race of intelligence.”

“The Wolders?”

“This is correct. Many such have found us, however. Many have made Earth their home, though in small numbers always. Why do they not make themselves known to us?”

Cassie had finished work on her right eye and was starting on her left. “Because they’re intelligent, I suppose.”

Dr. Schoonveld smiled. “This is wise, what you say. Yet think. So many races, and all to the same conclusion? We think ourselves knowing, too. We find Woldercan, and a knowing folk there. We make ourselves known to them, and trade with them. We teach them, too, and learn from them. These things I have read. I have not been there.”

“Neither have I.”

“So. There is a difference. You agree, Your Majesty? We do not act there as others act here. Why?”

“You’re a lot smarter than I am, Doctor. You tell me.”

“I can say what I think. Only that.” Dr. Schoonveld paused to glance around the room. There was no one in it save themselves. “He is the difference. The Storm King. He comes first, before all the rest. He is mightier than they, so they fear him. We are his, his cattle, and have been his since we came to be. They live here as mice in his barn. He was here before the first man stood erect to look up at the Host of Heaven...”

“You’re afraid of him?” Cassie was studying her own eyes in her little mirror.

“Him I have never seen,” Dr. Schoonveld whispered. “But, yes. I am.”

“So am I.”

Dr. Schoonveld nodded. “You have more right than I. He has sent no one for me.”

“My husband sent a woman for him. That’s what you said.”