Jack Chalker - Lilith - A Snake in the Grass

Father Bronz, the only one of us who had been here before, took the lead, and we followed him to one of the nearby stairwells.

“I have to say that they don’t seem at all worried or even curious about us,” I noted to him. “It’s almost as if we were expected.”

“We probably are,” he replied. “Remember, these people know all we’ve been able to find out about this crazy world. Their grandparents were the original colonists, and they and their children discovered the Warden organism, the Warden powers, the various drugs and potions we all use. They designed and perfected the methods by which anything can be done here.” He glanced over at Sumiko O’Higgins. “They’re unassailable and they know it. Even from you, my dear, I think.”

She just looked at him expressionlessly and didn’t reply. Even though I owed my life and my existence here to her I would never feel comfortable around her and would certainly never completely trust her.

We were met at the bottom of the long, winding stone stairs by a woman in flowing pure-white robes. She didn’t look very old, but her billowing hair was snow white and her eyes a deep blue, while her complexion showed that she just about never ventured out into the sunlight. It was an odd appearance, sort of like one of Fattier Bronx’s angels.

“I bid you greetings, Father Bronz, you and your —friends,” she said, her voice soft and musical.

Bronz gave a slight bow. “My lady, I am happy to see that I am remembered,” he responded somewhat formally. “May I present my companions to you?”

She turned and looked at us, not critically, but not curiously, either. “I already know them all. I am Director Komu. I will see you all to quarters that have already been prepared for you where you may rest and refresh yourselves. Later on today I will arrange for a tour of the Institute, and tomorrow is soon enough to get down to business.”

I looked at her, then at Ti. “Lady Komu, I thank you for your hospitality,” I said, trying to be as politely formal as seemed required here, “but my own young lady here has need of medical assistance. She’s already been feeling particularly sleepy and numb.”

The director went over to Ti and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, not touching or doing anything we could see. Finally she said, “Yes, I see. Please don’t worry about it—we will fix you up in no time at all.” She turned. “Now, if you will follow me.”

The place inside was, if anything, more impressive than outside. The walls and floors were all tiled in light, mica like panels that seemed slightly translucent and behind which some light source glowed. It wasn’t electrical, of course, but neither was it the kind of localized and flickering light that oil lanterns would give off. In fact the place looked as if it were back in the Outside. I was about to ask about it when Sumiko O’Higgins beat me to it.

“This is most impressive, particularly the lighting,’’ she noted. “How do you do it?”

“Oh, a simple matter, really,” the director responded airily. “The light source is a lumen distilled from various self-illuminating insects common to Lilith. The power source is somewhat complex, but based very much on. the same principle the insects themselves use to brighten the material. The basis of the power is friction, fed by water power. Whoever told you such things were impossible on Lilith, dear?”

There was no reply to that, and I was beginning to see that I would have to revise my world picture once again. There certainly wasn’t anything in the rules governing Lilith to prohibit a lot of classical power sources; the limitation was that there were very few people who could talk the Warden organism into holding in new shapes of waterwheels and the like.

Our rooms were luxurious, furnished with fine hand-carved wood and a large bed that was as close to a stuffed mattress as I had seen on Lilith. The common baths were similar to those at the Castle, large tile-lined troughs filled with very hot, bubbly water that soothed as well as cleaned. I felt both more human and totally relaxed at the finish, and Ti had quite a tune with the first bath she’d ever experienced other than those in pools of rainwater or rivers. She was tired, though, and I just about had to carry her back to the room. She was awake enough to find the bed too soft and strange for her liking and for a while considered sleeping on the floor, which she finally did. As soon as she was asleep, though, I placed her on the satiny sheets and stretched out beside her. I hadn’t realized what sort of tension I’d been under the past almost two weeks, though, and I was soon out cold.

We toured the huge Institute, as they called it, as evening fell. Not Ti—she was still tired and her body was continuing to fight Dr. Pohn’s handiwork, so I decided to let her sleep. Everyone at the Institute seemed to live well, in Lilith terms. They seemed bright, alive, highly civilized, and happy. We saw the laboratories used by plant and animal experts to study all they could, revealing cleverly fashioned if primitive tools of the trade, including wooden microscopes whose lenses were actually quite good, and to my surprise, even a limited number of metal tools that looked like they’d been manufactured in major factories. I remarked on them, and was reminded that Lords such as Kreegan could actually stabilize a limited amount of alien matter, making it resistant to the Warden organism’s attack. The intra-system shuttlecraft, for example, that had landed me on Lilith and carried me to Zeis Keep was one such example, and a pretty hairy and delicate one at that.

The food prepared for us was also excellent, although I recognized almost nothing except the melons. I was told that the meat was from certain kinds of domesticated large insects; specially bred types of plants and plant products provided many of the other dishes and a variety of beverages that, if not really beer and wine, served as excellent substitutes.

It seemed to me that the full potential of Lilith was exercised only here, at the Institute. Comfort, civilization, worthwhile work—all were possible here. This world didn’t need to be the horror house it primarily was, not if those with the power were to use it more wisely and well.

Why, I began to wonder, wasn’t it, then?

The next morning Ti was taken down to their Medical Section, which was a much more complex setup than Dr. Pohn’s, although the doctors there used some of the same techniques for a lot of the routine measurements. The doctor, a woman named Telar who frankly didn’t look much older than Ti, let alone old enough to be a doctor, placed Ti on a comfortable but rigid table, felt key points all over her body, then touched her patient’s forehead in that classic manner and closed her eyes briefly. Less than thirty seconds later she nodded, opened her eyes again, and smiled.

Ti, who was neither drugged nor instructed to do anything more than lie still, looked puzzled. “When will you start?” she asked nervously.

Telar laughed. “I’ve finished. That’s it.”

We both stared. “That’s it?” I echoed.

She nodded. “Oh, I’d like to take a quick look at you as well. You never know.”

“That’s all right,” I told her. “I’m fine.” I started making all sorts of excuses at that point, since I was just reminded that there was something extra up there somewhere in my brain, an organic transmitter I might not have worried about if it had been anywhere else —but this doctor would spot it for sure.

Frankly, I hadn’t really thought of it much since the early days. I don’t even know why I didn’t take advantage at that point of the opportunity to have it removed, to make myself a totally free and private agent. Perhaps, after thinking of you up there for a while as an enemy, I was now reluctant to cut this last umbilical to my former life and self. To cast it out, and you with it, would be the final and absolute rejection of everything I’d lived for all my life, and I wasn’t quite willing to do that as yet. Not yet. If the information went directly to Intelligence, that would be one thing, but it went to me—that other me sitting up there somewhere, looking in. My Siamese twin.