Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

After a while in silence, he led Lapwing past the stump of the parent rajabaral, as black as an extinct volcano. Ahead stood the wooden palisade which barred entry to the quarry. No one challenged him. He pushed his way in.

All was untended in the forecourt. Weeds thrived. The lodge was in disrepair; a short neglect was leading it to a long decay. An old man with a straggling white beard came forward and bowed low to his majesty.

“Where’s the guard? Why isn’t the gate locked?” But there was carelessness in his challenge, which he uttered over one shoulder, in the act of approaching the cages ahead.

The old man, accustomed to the king’s moods, was too wise to adopt a matching carelessness, and followed with a lengthy explanation of how all but he were withdrawn from the quarry once the chancellor was disgraced. He was alone and still tended the captives, hoping thereby to incur the king’s pleasure.

Far from showing pleasure, the king clasped his hands behind his back and assumed a melancholy face. Four large cages had been built against the cliffs of the quarry, each divided into various compartments for the greater comfort of its prisoners. Into these cages JandolAnganol sent his dark regard.

The first cage contained Others. They had been swinging there by hands, feet or tails as a way of passing time; when the king moved towards their prison, they dropped down and came running to the bars, thrusting out their handlike paws, oblivious to the exalted status of their visitor.

The occupants of the second cage shrank away at the stranger’s approach. Most of them flitted into their compartments, out of sight. Their prison was built on rock, so that they could not tunnel into the earth. Two of their number came forward and stood against the bars, looking up into JandolAnganol’s face. These protognostics were Nondads, small elusive creatures often confused with Others, to whom they bore a resemblance. They stood waist-high to a human and their faces, with protruding muzzles, resembled Others. Scanty loincloths covered their genitals; their bodies were covered with light sandy hair.

The two Nondads who came forward addressed the king, flitting nervously about as they did so. A strange amalgam of whistles, clicks, and snorts served them for language. The king regarded them with an expression between contempt and sympathy before passing on to the third cage.

Here were imprisoned the more advanced form of protognostic, the Madis. Unlike the occupants of the first two cages, the Madis did not move when the king approached. Robbed of their migratory existence, they had nowhere to go; neither the settings of the suns nor the comings and goings of kings held meaning for them. They tried to hide their faces in their armpits as JandolAnganol regarded them.

The fourth cage was built of stone, rough-hewn from the quarry, as a tribute to the greater firmness of will of its occupants, which were human—mainly men and women of Mordriat or Thribriatan tribes. The women slunk back into the shadows. Most of the men pressed forward and began eloquently to implore the king to release them, or at worst to allow no more experiments on them.

“There’s nothing for it now,” said the king to himself, moving about as restlessly as those imprisoned.

“Sir, the indignities we have suffered…”

Ash from Rustyjonnik still lay in odd corners, where weeds thrust from it, but the eruptions had ceased as suddenly as they began. The king kicked at the ash, raising a small dust storm with his boots.

Although he was most interested in the Madis and studied them from all angles, sometimes squatting to do so, he was too restless to remain in one place. Madi males struggled forward with one of their females, naked, and offered her to him as a condition of their release.

JandolAnganol broke away in disgust, his face working.

Bursting from behind the stone cage into the sunlight, he came face to face with RobaydayAnganol. Both became rigid like two cats, until Roba began to gesticulate, arms and fingers spread. Behind him came the white-haired old guard, shuffling his feet and complaining.

“Imprisoning them for the good of their sanity, mighty king,” said Roba.

But JandolAnganol moved swiftly forward, flung an arm about his son’s neck, and kissed him on the lips, as though he had decided on this approach a while ago.

“Where have you been, my son? Why so wild?”

“Can a boy not grieve among leaves, but must come to court to do so?” His Words were indistinct as he backed away from his father, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. As he bumped into the third cage, his other hand went behind him to support himself.

Immediately, one Madi reached out and grasped his forearm. The naked female who had been offered to the king bit him savagely in the ball of his thumb. Roba screamed with pain. The king was at once at the cage with his sword drawn. The Madis fell back and Roba was released.

“They’re as hungry for royal blood as Simoda Tal,” said Roba, hopping about with his hands clutched between his legs. “You saw how she bit me in the balls! What a stepmotherly act was there!”

The king laughed as he sheathed his sword.

“You see what happens when you put your hand in other people’s affairs.”

“They’re very vicious, sir, and certain they’ve been wronged,” said the old guard from a safe distance.

“Your nature inclines towards captivity as frogs incline towards pools,” Roba told his father, still skipping. “But free these wretched beings! They were Rushven’s folly, not yours—you had greater follies afoot.”

“My son, I have a phagor runt I care for, and perhaps he cares for me. He follows me for affection. Why do you follow me for abuse? Cease it, and live a sane life with me. I will not harm you. If I have wounded you, then I regret it, as you have long given me cause to regret it. Accept what I say.”

“Boys are particularly difficult to bring up, sir,” commented the guard.

Father and son stood apart, regarding each other. JandolAnganol had hooded his eagle gaze, and appeared calm. On Roba’s smooth face was a smouldering rage.

“You need another runt following you? Haven’t you captives enough in this infamous quarry? Why did you come up here to gloat over them?”

“Not to gloat. To learn. I should have learned from Rushven. I need to know—what Madis do… I understand, boy, that you fear my love. You fear responsibility. You always have. Being a king is all responsibility…”

“Being a butterfly is a butterfly’s responsibility.”

Irritated by this remark, the king again took to pacing before the cages. “Here was all SartoriIrvrash’s responsibility. Maybe he was cruel. He made the occupants of these four cages mate with each other in prescribed combinations in order to see what resulted. He wrote all down, as was his fashion. I burnt it all—as is my fashion, you will add. So, then.

“By his experiments, Rushven found a rule which he called a cline. He proved that the Others in Cage One could sometimes produce progeny when mated with Nondads. Those progeny were infertile. No, the progeny of the Nondads breeding with Madis were infertile. I forget details. Madis could produce progeny when mated with the humans in Cage Four. Some of those progeny are fertile.

“He carried on his experiments for many years. If Others and Madis were forced to copulate, no issue resulted. Humans mating with Nondads produce no issue. There is a grading, a cline. These facts he discovered. Rushven was a gentle person. He did what he did for the sake of knowledge.

“You probably blame him, as you blame everyone but yourself. But Rushven paid for his knowledge. One day, two years ago—you were absent then, in the wilds as usual—his wife came to the quarry to feed the captives, and the Others broke out of their cage. They tore her to pieces. This old guard will tell you…”