Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

“On the Avernus, Krillio, people are very scientific,” said Billy, hugging Abath. “We have ways of imitating reality with video, 3D tactiles and so on, just as a portrait imitates a real face. As a result, our generation doubts reality, doubts if it exists. We even doubt if Helliconia is real. I don’t suppose you understand what I mean…”

“Billish, I’ve travelled most of Campannlat, as a trader and before that as a beggar and pedlar. I’ve even been right far to the west, to a country called Ponipot beyond Randonan and Radado, where the continent ends. Ponipot is perfectly real, even if no one in Osoilima believes in its existence.”

“Where is this Avernus world of yours then, Billish?” Abath asked him, impatient with the way the men talked. “Is it above us somewhere?”

“Mm…” The sky above was fairly clear of cloud. “There’s Ipocrene, that bright star. It’s a gas giant. No, Avernus is not risen yet. It is below us somewhere.”

“Below us!” the girl gave a smothered laugh. “You are mad, Billish. You ought to stick to your story. Below! Is it a sort of fessup?”

“Where’s this other world, Earth? Can you see that one, Billish?”

“It’s too far away to see. Besides, Earth doesn’t give out light like a sun.”

“But Avernus does?”

“We see Avernus by light reflected from Batalix and Freyr.”

Muntras thought.

“So why can’t we see Earth by light reflected from Batalix and Freyr?”

“Well, it’s too far away. It’s difficult to explain. If Helliconia had a moon, it would be easier to explain—but in that case, Helliconian astronomy would be much more advanced than it is. Moons draw men’s eyes to the sky better than suns. Earth reflects the light of its own sun, Sol.”

“I suppose Sol is too far away to see. My eyes are not what they were anyway.”

Billy shook his head and searched the northeastern sky. “It’s somewhere over there—Sol and Earth, and Sol’s other planets. What do you call that long straggly constellation, with all the faint stars at the top?”

Muntras said, “In Dimariam, we call that the Night Worm. Bless me, I don’t see it very clear. Round these parts, they call it Wutra’s Worm. Isn’t that right, Grengo?”

“It’s no good asking me the names of the stars,” Pallos said, and sniggered as if to say, “But show me a gold ten-roon piece and I’ll identify it for you.”

“Sol is one of the faint stars in Wutra’s Worm, about where its gills are.”

Billy spoke jokingly, being slightly uneasy in the role of lecturer after his years as one of the lectured. As he spoke, the lightning was there again, laying them out momentarily for examination. The pretty girl, her mouth slightly open, staring vaguely where he was pointing. The local manager, bored, gazing into blackness, thumb tucked comfortably into the muzzle of his matchlock. The burly old Ice Captain, flattened hand up to his receding hairline, peering toward infinity with determination written over his countenance.

They were real enough—Billy was becoming used now, since he had been with Muntras and Abathy, to the idea of a real reality, abhorrent though it might have been to his Advisor on the Avernus, caught in an unreal Reality. His nervous system had been jarred into life by new experiences, textures, stinks, colours, sounds. For the first time, he lived fully. Those who looked down on him would consider him in hell; but the freedom moving throughout his frame told him he was in paradise.

The lightning was gone, sunk to nothing, leaving a moment of pitch before the mild night world returned to existence.

Billy wondered, Can I convince them about Avernus, about Earth? But they’ll never convince me about their gods. We inhabit two different thought- umwelts.

And then came a questioning of darker tone. What if Earth was a figment of Avernian imagination, the god Avernus otherwise lacked? The devastating effects of Akhanaba and his battles against sin were apparent everywhere. What evidence was there for Earth’s existence—anything more than that fuzzy patch where Sol glimmered in the Worm to the northeast?

He postponed the uncomfortable question for some future time to listen to what Muntras was saying.

“If Earth is so far, Billish, how can the people there be watching us?”

“That’s one of the miracles of science. Communication over very long distances.”

“Could you write down for me how you do it, when we get to Lordryardry?”

“Do you mean to say that people out there—real people like us—” said Abath, “could be watching us even now? Seeing us big-like, not down the gullet of a worm?”

“It’s more than possible, my darling Abath. Your face and your name may already be known to millions of people on Earth—or rather, that is to say will be known when a thousand years have passed, for that’s how long it takes communications to get from Avernus to Earth.”

Unimpressed by figures, she could think of only one thing. Putting her hand to her mouth, she moved her mouth closer to Billy’s ear. “You don’t suppose they will see us having a go on the bed, do you?”

Overhearing the remark, Pallos laughed and pinched her bottom. “You charge extra for anyone watching, don’t you, girl?”

“You mind your own scumbing business,” Billy told him.

Muntras pursed his lips. “What possible pleasure can they get, watching us in all our native stupidity?”

“What distinguishes Helliconia from thousands of other worlds,” said Billy, returning to something like a dry lecturer’s tone, “is the presence here of living organisms.”

As they were digesting his remark, a noise reached them from the mist and the jungle, a prolonged shrilling, distant but clear.

“Was that an animal?” asked the girl.

“I believe it was a long horn blown by phagors,” said Muntras. “Often a danger sign. Are there many free phagors hereabouts, Grengo?”

“There could be. The freed phagor slaves have learned men’s ways and live quite comfortably in their own jungle settlements, I hear tell,” said Pallos. “They never get very bright in the harneys, though—you can charge them a good high price for broken ice.”

“They buy ice off you, phagors?” asked Abath, in surprise. “I thought it was only King JandolAnganol’s Phagorian Guard that got treated to ice!”

“Well, they bring in things to Osoilima to trade—gwing-gwing stone necklaces, skins, and suchlike, so then they’ve the money to pay me for ice. They crunch it straightaway, standing in my store. Disgusting! Like a man drinking liquor.”

Silence descended on them. They stood quiet, peering out at the night, under the limitless vault of stars. To their imaginations, the wilderness seemed almost as limitless, and it was from there that the occasional sound came—once a cry, as if even those rejoicing in newfound freedom suffered. From the stars came only the uninsistent signals of light and, from the great Stone below them, darkness.

“Well, the phagors won’t worry us,” said Muntras, curtly, breaking in on their speculations. “Billish, over where Sol is, over in that direction somewhere lies the Eastern Range, what people call the High Nktryhk. Very few people visit it. It’s almost inaccessible, and only phagors live there, legend has it. When you have been riding on your Avernus, have you ever seen the High Nktryhk?”

“Yes, Krillio, often. And we have simultations of it in our recreation centres. The Nktryhk peaks are generally wreathed in cloud, so that we watch through infrared. Its highest plateau—which covers the top of the range like a roof—is over nine miles high, and protrudes into the stratosphere. It is a most impressive sight—awesome, to be true. Nothing lives on the very highest slopes, not even phagors. I wish I had brought a photograph to show you, but such things are heavily discouraged.”