Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

“The phagorian ability to walk upright and use language came after the two bloodlines divided. Imagine that phagors developed from a group of flambreg which… which found an alternative to ceaseless flight as a way of dealing with the fly problem.”

They were gazing at each other with excitement. He longed to tell Odi of his discovery regarding hoxneys.

“What alternative?”

“Hiding in caves, for instance. Going underground. Free of the fly torment, they developed intelligence. Stood upright to see further and then had forefeet free to use tools. In the dark, language developed as a substitute for sight. I’ll show you my essay on the subject one day. Nobody else has seen it.”

He laughed to think of flambreg performing such tricks.

“Not over one generation, dear friend. Over many. Endless generations. The cleverer ones would win. Don’t laugh.” She tapped his hand. “If this did not happen in past time, then let me ask you this. How is it that the gestation period for gillots is one Batalix-year—while the gestation period for a flambreg cow is exactly the same length of time? Doesn’t that prove a genetic relationship?”

Sailing on, the two ships passed the lowly ports of the southernmost coast of Loraj, which lay inside the tropics.

From the port of Ijivibir, a caravel of 600 tons named the Good Hope sailed out to join the Golden Friendship and the Union. It made a brave sight, with its sails painted in vertical stripes. Cannon were fired from the flagship in greeting, and the sailors gave a cheer. On an empty ocean, three vessels were many more than two.

Another occasion was marked when they had reached the most westerly point of their course at a longitude of 29° East. The time was ten to twenty-five. Freyr was below the horizon, trawling an apricot glow above. The glow dissolving the horizon seemed to radiate from the hazy water. It marked the grave from which the great sun would presently rise. Somewhere concealed in that glow lay the sacred country of Shivenink; somewhere in Shivenink, high in the mountains that ran all the way from sea to North Pole, was the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar.

A bugle sounded All Hands. The three ships clustered. Prayers were said, music played, all stood to pray with finger to forehead.

Out of the apricot haze came a sail. By a trick of light, it appeared and disappeared like a vision. Birds screamed about its masts, newly away from land.

It was an all-white ship, sails white, hull fresh with whitewash. As it drew nearer, firing a gun in salute, those aboard the other ships saw that it was a caravel, no bigger than the Good Hope; but on its mainsail stood the great hierogram representing the Wheel itself, inner and outer circles connected by wavy lines. This was the Vajabhar Prayer named after Shivenink’s chief port.

The four ships tacked close, like four pigeons nestling together on a branch. A bark of orders from the Priest-Militant Admiral herself. Bowsprits turned, cordage creaked, artemons filled. The little fleet began to sail southwards.

Colours in the water changed to a deeper blue. The ships were leaving the Pannoval Sea astern and entering the northern margins of the vast Climent Ocean. Immediately, they struck rough weather. They had a hard time of it, combating mountainous seas and hazardous storms, in which they were bombarded by gigantic hailstones. For days, they saw neither sun.

When at last they reached calmer waters, Freyr’s zenith was lower than before, and Batalix’s somewhat higher. To port lay the cliffs of Campannlat’s westernmost redoubt, Cape Findowel. Once they had rounded Findowel they sailed into the nearest anchorage along the coast of the tropical continent, there to rest for two days. The carpenters repaired the storm damage, the members of the Priest-Sailors Guild stitched sails or else swam in a warm lagoon. So welcome was the sight of men and women disporting themselves naked in the water—the puritanical Sibornalese were curiously unprudish on this occasion—that even SartoriIrvrash ventured into the water in a pair of silken underpants.

When he rested afterwards on the beach, sheltering from the power of both suns, he watched the swimmers climb out one by one. Many of the Good Hope’s crew were women, and sturdily built. He sighed for his youth. Io Pasharatid climbed out beside him and said to him quietly, “If only that beautiful queen of queens were here, eh?”

“What then?” He kept watching the water, hoping that Odi would emerge naked.

Pasharatid dug him in the ribs in an un-Sibornalese way.

“What then, you say? Why, then this seeming paradise would be paradise indeed.”

“Do you suppose that this expedition can possibly conquer Borlien?”

“Given the fortune of war, I’m sure of it. We are organized and armed, in a way JandolAnganol’s forces will never be.”

“Why, then the queen will come under your supervision.”

“That reflection had not escaped me. Why else do you think I have this sudden enthusiasm for war? I don’t want Ottassol you old goat. I want Queen MyrdemInggala. And I intend to have her.”

A man was walking with a pack slung over one shoulder. He wore the tattered remains of a uniform. Both suns beat down on him. Streams of sweat ran down into his tunic. He walked blindly, rarely looking up.

He was traversing a destroyed area of jungle in the Chwart Heights in eastern Randonan. All round were blackened and broken stumps of trees, many still smouldering. On the few occasions when the man looked about him, he could see nothing but the trail and blackened landscape all round. Palls of grey smoke rose in the distance. It was possible that tropical heat had started the blaze. Or perhaps a spark from a matchlock had been the cause of the death of a million trees. For many tenners battles had been fought over the area. Now soldiers and cannon were gone, and the vegetation likewise.

Everything about the man’s posture expressed weariness and defeat. But he kept on. Once he faltered, when one of his shadows faded and disappeared. Black cloud, rolling up, had blotted out Freyr. A few minutes later, Batalix too was swallowed. Then the rain came down. The man bowed his head and continued to walk. There was nowhere he could shelter, nothing he could do but submit to nature.

The downpour continued, increasing in ferocity by sudden fits. The ashes hissed. More and more of the resources of the heavens were called in, like reserves being brought into a battle.

Bombardment by hail was the next tactic. The hailstones stung the weary man into a run. He took what refuge he could in a hollow tree stump. Falling back against the crumbling wood, he exposed a stronghold of rickybacks. Deprived of their little fortress, the crustaceans climbed through veritable Takissas of liquid ash, seeking refuge with their puny antennae waving.

Unaware of this catastrophe, the man stared forth from under the brim of his hat, panting. Several bent figures staggered through the murk. They were the remnants of his army, the once celebrated Borlienese Second Army. One man passed obliviously within inches of the tree stump, dragging a terrible wound which bled afresh under the hailstones. The shelterer wept. He had no wound, except for a bruise on his temple. He had no right to be alive.

Like an uncomforted child, his weeping turned to exhaustion; he slept despite the hail.

The dreams that terminated sleep were full of hail. He felt their smart on his cheek, woke, saw that the sky was again clear. He started up, yet still the stones struck his face, his neck. As he gasped with vexation, a stone flew into his mouth. He spat it out, turning in bewilderment.