Piers Anthony - Chthon

“I don’t follow—”

“Get your index and read off the named planets of Point.”

Baffled, 14 opened the book. “The first two are unnamed fireballs; then Excelsior, Diamond, Pearl—why, I recognize these! They’re type sizes!”

“Go on.”

“Pearl, Nonpareil, Brevier, Bourgeois, Elite. That’s all.”

Partner’s gaze was bright. “Sure you aren’t missing one?”

“Why, the type we use here—”

“Minion!” Anton exclaimed. “Seven point! ”

“The seventh planet,” Partner whispered.

“One has to allow for an explorer’s sense of identity,” Partner said. “And his humor. Jonathan R. Point probably had a private contract signed for settlement of the first few good worlds he found, and anticipated trouble when Earth caught on. He had no intention of letting a little thing like a proscription obliterate one of his planets.”

Minion reminded him of Hvee, with its gentle green mountains, its absence of industry, its innocence. The ship, nestled in an isolated clearing, seemed an imposition on the virginity of the planet.

Aton cut cross-country until he struck a dusty road that brief aerial reconnaissance indicated led to the nearest native village.

Partner allowed him to travel alone, here—there was no way he could escape a proscribed planet, except the way he came. Minion was backward, of course: the inhabitants would certainly know of galactic technology, but be unable to partake of it themselves. The penalty was cruel.

The first primitive huts came into view. They were fashioned of rustic thatch and clay, but looked comfortable, and the odor characteristic of bucolic habitation was not strong. That meant the natives were clean. People walked about, human rather than humanoid, paying the stranger no attention. Modification, at least, had taken no objectionable turns—not visible ones, at any rate. The men were small, garbed in short cloths and deep frowns; the women were tall, veiled, clad in all-concealing togas.

A couple came toward him, up the road. The man was a full six inches shorter than his companion, but seemed comfortable enough in his loincloth and neatly rounded beard. The woman stumbled under the weight of an enormous parcel that, combined with the meshes of her toga, threatened at any moment to bring her to the ground.

Aton stepped aside to let them pass. It seemed to him that an intolerable heat must be trapped inside the heavy wrappings of the woman, and indeed, she swayed as she walked. Her foot caught on a projecting stone in the rough road and she stumbled and almost fell. The heavy package in her arms brushed the man as she struggled for balance.

The little man spoke sharply in a dialect incomprehensible to Aton, but it was easy for him to identify well-turned invective. The man wheeled in wrath and struck her full in the veil. The woman fell, the package spinning from her arms and rolling across the road almost to Aton’s feet.

As the woman scrambled to get up, the man cursed again and kicked her violently. Aton had never seen so vile a temper. The woman made no sound, but moved quickly on hands and knees to recover the package. Reeling, she stood up, grasping the heavy object once more. From the far side of the road the man spouted a steady stream of monosyllabic vitriol.

They went on, never acknowledging Aton’s presence at all.

As he passed through the village he noticed that none of the men were doing work of any kind. Only the women labored—and strenuously.

One old man leaned against a tree at the edge of a central square, alone. Aton addressed himself to this man in Galactic sign language. “Where may a stranger stay?”

The oldster eyed him. He gestured lackadaisically. “Have you a woman?” The symbol actually used was “female chattel.”

Aton thought of Malice. “No.”

“You have come at a favorable time, then. You may take Pink Rock’s house and woman this evening.”

Aton hesitated. Customs varied widely in the galaxy, but it was best to understand the situation completely before committing oneself. “Is Pink Rock going somewhere?”

The man gestured at the square. Aton saw what he had overlooked before: a man bound to a great vertical stone, sinister instruments ranged on a platform before him.

“Executed? A criminal?”

“No.”

“A sacrifice?”

“No.”

“Why is he bound, then?”

“He was careless.”

“?” (The signal for perplexity.)

“He fell in love with his woman.”

(Perplexity.) “For that he is to be tortured?”

The old man stared him in the eyes. “It is merciful.”

Aton did not stay to witness the rites for the careless Pink Rock. Instead he promised to return after the ceremony, and wandered around the neighborhood, trying to reason out the mystery of these people. Monsters they might be branded, officially and in folklore—but where was the terror that held the galaxy at bay? Why the inviolate strictures against commerce and communication? All he had seen so far was an incredibly patriarchal society, with the women reduced to such absolute subjugation that it was a crime for a man even to love one.

But doubt remained. Swathed in their drapes and veils as these women of Minion were—he could not think of them as “minionettes”—it was impossible for him to make out face or feature. Still there was a quality about them that was distressingly familiar.

He shrugged it off. Of course there was familiarity. Malice had been generated here.

At the village well a solitary woman was filling a large leather bucket. She closed it with a cord looped around the top and slung it over her shoulder, staggering with the weight.

Aton stepped into her path, offering to take the bucket. He did not do it from any particular chivalry, but because he saw an opportunity to learn more about her. She shied away.

“But I only wish to help,” he signaled. He reached for the bucket, catching the strap, but she arched back so quickly that a corner of her veil was trapped. It slid off her face.

Aton stared. It was Malice.

He let her go. He knew, intellectually, that Malice could not be on the planet. Even if she were, the odds against encountering her in such coincidental fashion were prohibitive—and after the thing he had attempted so long ago, and almost suppressed from memory, she would not again tempt him with a well. He remembered also the seeming change that had come over the face of the daughter of Four, and the picture he had seen later in a huge gas crevasse in Chthon. He could not always trust his vision.

But in case this were not another fevered fragment—

Another woman came down the path. He stepped up to her, offered to assist, and clumsily caught loose her veil. Again the face of Malice. No—the eyes were not so deep, the hair less flamed. This was a faded Malice. What did it mean?

Until this point he had hesitated, careful of native proprieties, but now he had to know. Which was mad—himself or the planet?

Two women walked together down the road, carrying their inevitable burdens. Aton blocked them off and, in an agony of anticipation, tore free both veils.

Identical faces returned his stare. On each the fire hair flowed long, and deep green eyes looked out. Twin reflections of his love.

“Who are you?” he cried, aloud and with the signs.

Twin smiles of devastating beauty answered him. “I am Torment,” one signaled. “Horror is my name,” signaled the other.

At last Aton understood.

Evening, and the errand of mercy was done. The gutted corpse hung silent now, the stink of burning entrails slowly dissipating. Pink Rock’s empty sockets surveyed the gathered friends sitting in the sweet grass of the square, relaxing after their service to him.