Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

“Why, I—uh…”

“Stories like this have been around for years,” Krill added. “I never believed any of them. Wish fulfillment.”

“Believe this one. The data sent checks out,” the old diva told her.

“But—if this is true, then it’s the possible salvation of the human race!” the mathematician pressed. “Nobody could or should keep this to themselves, or market it!”

Colonel N’Gana snorted. “Um, yeah, Professor. You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Huh?”

“This Dutchman’s a pirate and a killer. I doubt if he cares if humanity is mostly stamped out, and the allied races with them, if he can be the survivor, maybe with a few like-minded freebooters. Besides, even if he did suddenly turn into this great altruist and savior of all The Confederacy, just how do you propose he go about it? Mail a copy of this report to the nearest Naval Intelligence district? Pop up in full view like several of you seemed to think he’d do back at that joint? No, I do think maybe he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t want it to get out, but he’s doing it his way, the safe, sure, and possibly profitable way as well. At least now I can see the sense of this expedition. The only thing I want to know is, if we’re just buying information, why do you need all of us? I can see the physicist and the mathematician. You want people who can test the data, and know how to interface with computers that can really test it. Even Krill, both for security, such as it was, here aboard ship, and to check out the inevitable codes if this is an old security device. But why two old fighting men like Sergeant Mogutu and myself? And, for that matter, why a cultural anthropologist? Unless you want to figure out what kind of culture these freebooters have built out there? And for God’s sake why the Pooka, who’s still asleep somewhere down below?”

“We were asked to bring people with combat knowledge and experience, if you must know,” Father Chicanis answered. “You know the simulations we’ve been running, which were also at least partly suggested by our yet absent ally. He also suggested the Quadulan, or Pooka as you call him. There is also the matter of the cargo.”

“Eh?”

“Just judging from it and the evidence otherwise,” the priest responded, “I would say that the Dutchman intends that at least some of us go down there and retrieve or do something he wants or needs done. Something he doesn’t want to do himself, or have any of his other people do, if he has any.”

“Down there. On Helena.” N’Gana thought it over, but didn’t seem totally put off by the idea so long as he thought there was a way out.

“Yes, on Helena. And we’ve invited Doctor Socolov, an expert on primitive and tribal cultures, to come along and keep us from getting speared and maybe eaten by our own grandchildren.”

Littlefeet only improved so much until they brought Spotty to him.

Something in him was convinced that she carried his child, and she did nothing to dissuade him. In fact, she thought for sure it was his, too, and she very much wanted it to be.

Her company was like strong medicine to him; he recognized her and remembered her name almost immediately. She was concerned, then pleased by his reaction, and took to calling him “Feetie,” a name he accepted be-cause it was from her.

Having her with him was very much against Mother Paulista’s strict rules, but Father Alex, who not only felt guilty but also felt a sense of almost true parentship over the boy after so long, stood firm. The old lady wasn’t used to defiance, but in the hierarchy he did technically outrank her, and he simply put his foot down. All the others could go as before, but, until Littlefeet was totally back to normal, he and Spotty would be a couple.

His verbal skills started to come along nicely as well, and, although there were gaps, he was becoming more like his old self as the days passed.

Now, as Spotty prepared a small meal for him, Father Alex was able to sit down with the boy and get some information.

“You looked at the demon city, didn’t you?” he asked the boy. “And it did something to you.”

“Yes, Father. It took something. A part of me. I don’t know any way to say it but that.”

“I know. Up there you are particularly open to it because it is in the direct line of sight. I, too, have been up there, when I was younger, my son, and I, too, looked at the city. In my case, it was God’s intervention, or perhaps chance, that I did not suffer as you did. Just as it was taking hold of me, some snow loosened and came down in back of me, pushing some gravel, and it knocked me off my feet. It took all my will not to stand back up and look at it again, but God was with me and I did not. I had hoped He would be with you, but for whatever reason He allowed it to go further.”

“What would happen to someone who never could look away?”

He became grim. “I have seen them. They were in many ways as you were when you came down the mountain, but we could never get them back. All of their reason, their memories, their very sense of being human, was drained, leaving them no more than mindless animals. Eventually, all were killed lest their souls, now in demon hands, be used against us. I am truly not sure if that is the case, but it was believed so, and it was probably the best for them, as they were truly lost.”

“I—there is a tiny part of me, particularly when I sleep, or when the storms rise in the early night, that is there as well as here. Is that an evil thing, Father? Am I cursed?”

“I—I don’t know, my son. I truly do not. I think you might have been, but for your lady here. Your love of her, and hers of you, has shut them out. They may call, but they cannot come to you so long as this blocks their way. This way—one man, one woman, in love and union—is God’s way. The way we are now is not. It is a plan devised by material humans. Survival!” He spat. “What good is survival if one is always to live like this?”

“I do not understand you when you speak like this,” Littlefeet responded, “but I know you are speaking wisdom from the words of God and so I listen.”

Father Alex smiled. “It is not necessary that you understand. It is only necessary that you let an old man, tired and aching and not much longer for this world, say old man things even if they mean nothing.”

How could Littlefeet, or Spotty, or most of the current generation know and understand? How much did he understand, he who was steps closer to when people had ruled and all the magic was theirs?

“You say they come to you in dreams,” he continued, shifting back to his original focus. “What sort of dreams? What happens? Are they the same dream or different dreams?”

“The same one, which is why I know it is not just a normal dream, Father. We are here. The Families are here. And we dance. We dance around in circles, round and round, round and round, then we dance up to another Family who dance in the other direction and we bump and then we dance back. I am dancing, too, but at some time I look up, and I see shining things above and they have vines made of lightning and they are spinning them and making us do the dances.”

The priest had heard all this before, he knew, yet he could not keep it in his head, not for long. Why couldn’t he? Why didn’t the Elders remember talking of this very thing the next time they met? And why did Littlefeet seem to be the only one who remembered for any longer?

The priest had the context, which might make sense of it if someone could find a prophet or seer, but he couldn’t keep the puzzle around, real, in his head. Littlefeet kept seeing the vision, but only from the point of view of one who knew only this life and could imagine little else. “Father?”