Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

Boards creaked in the corridor. A dim lamp appeared, behind it a man’s face floating as if on a stream of darkness. The Ice Captain, breathing heavily. Fumes of Exaggerator entered the room with him.

“Are you all right? I’d have to throw you out if you weren’t dying, Billish.” He steadied himself, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry it’s come to this… I know you’re some kind of angel from a better world, Billish, even when you bite like a devil. A man’s got to believe there’s a better world somewhere. Better than this one, where no one cares about you. Avernus… I would take you back there, if I could. I’d like to see it.”

Billy was back in his tree, his limbs part and parcel of its agonized branches.

“Better.”

“That’s right, better. I’m going to sit in the courtyard, Billish, just outside your window. Have a drink. Think about things. It’ll soon enough be time to pay the men. If you want me, just give a call.”

He was sorry that Billish was dying, and the Exaggerator made him sorry for himself. It was puzzling the way he always felt more comfortable with strangers, even with the queen of queens, than he did with his own family. With them he was constantly at a disadvantage.

He settled himself down outside the window, placing a jug and glass on the bench beside him. In the milky light, the stones resembled sleeping animals. The albic climbing the walls of the house opened its blooms, the blooms opened their beaks like parrots; a tranquil scent floated on the air.

After his plan to bring Billish here in secrecy had succeeded, he found himself unable to proceed further. He wanted to tell everyone that there was more to life than they knew, that Billish was a living example of that truth. It was not just that Billish was dying; Muntras suspected, somewhere in a cold corner of his being, that there might be less to life than he knew. He wished he had remained a wanderer. Now he was back home for good…

After a while, sighing, the Ice Captain pulled himself to his feet and peered through the open window. “Billish, are you awake? Have you seen Div?”

A gurgle in response.

“Poor lad, he’s not really fit for the job, that’s the truth…” He sat down again on the bench, groaning. He took up his glass and drank. Too bad Billish didn’t like Exaggerator.

The milky light thickened. Dusk-moths purred among the albic. In the sleeping house at his back boards creaked.

“There must be a better world somewhere…’Muntras said, and fell asleep with an unlit veronikane between his lips.

The sound of voices. Muntras roused. He saw his men gathering in the court to be paid. It was daylight. Dead calm prevailed.

Muntras stood and stretched. He looked in through the window at Billish’s contorted form, motionless on the couch.

“This is assatassi day, Billish—I’d forgotten, with you here. The monsoon high tide. You ought to see this. It’s quite a local event. There’ll be celebrations tonight, and no half measures.”

From the couch came a single word, forced from a locked jaw. “Celebrations.”

The workmen were rough, dressed in rough overalls. They cast their gaze down on the worn paving stones in case their master took offence at being discovered asleep. But that was not Muntras’s way.

“Come on, men. I’ll not be paying you out much longer. It’ll be Master Div’s turn. Let’s get it over with promptly, and then we’ll prepare for the festivities. Where’s my pay clerk?”

A small man with a high collar and hair brushed in the opposite direction to anyone else’s came darting forward. He had a ledger under his arm and was followed by a stallun carrying a safe. The clerk made a great business of pushing through the workers. This he did with his eyes constantly on his employer and his lips working as if he was already calculating what each man should be paid. His arrival caused the men to shuffle into a line to await their modest remuneration. In the unusual light, their features were without animation.

“You lot are going to collect your wages, and then you’re going to hand it over to your wives or get drunk as usual,” Muntras said. He addressed the men near him, among whom he saw only common-hire labourers and none of his master craftsmen. But at once a mixture of indignation and pity seized him and he spoke louder, so that all could hear. “Your lives are going by. Here you’re stuck. You’ve been nowhere. You know of the legends of Pegovin, but have you ever been there? Who’s been there? Who’s been to Pegovin?”

They leaned back against the rounded stones, muttering.

“I’ve been all over the world, I’ve seen it all. I’ve been to Uskutoshk, I’ve visited the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar. I’ve seen old ruined cities and sold junk in the bazaars of Pannoval and Oldorando. I’ve spoken with kings and queens as fair as flowers. It’s all out there, waiting for the man who dares. Friends everywhere. Men and women. It’s wonderful. I’ve loved every minute of it.

“It’s bigger than you can ever imagine, stuck here at Lordryardry. This last voyage, I met a man who came from another world. There’s more than just this world, Helliconia. There’s another circling around us, Avernus. And others beyond that, worlds to be visited. Earth, for instance.”

All the while he was speaking, the little clerk was laying out his effects on a table under one of the barren apricot trees and removing the key to the safe from an inner pocket. And the phagor was setting the safe down just where needed and flicking an ear as it did so. And the men were shuffling forward to the edge of the table and making their line more definite by moving closer to each other. And other men were coming up, directing suspicious looks at their boss, and joining the rear of the line. And the comfortable seriality of the world was being maintained under the purple clouds.

“I tell you there are other worlds. Use your imagination.” Muntras struck the table. “Don’t you feel the wanderlust occasionally? I did when I was a young ’un, I tell you. Inside my house even now I have a young man from one of these other worlds. He’s ill or he’d come out and speak to you. He can tell you miraculous things that happen lifetimes away.”

“Does he drink Exaggerator?”

The voice came from within the ranks of the waiting men. It stopped Muntras in full burst. He paced up and down the line, red of face. Not an eye met his.

“I’ll prove what I’m saying,” Muntras shouted. “You’ll have to believe me then.”

He turned and stamped into the house. Only the clerk showed some impatience, drumming his little fingers on the plank table, staring about, pulling his sharp nose, and looking up at the heavy sky.

Muntras ran in to where Billy was, terribly distorted, without motion. He seized Billy’s petrified wrist, only to find that the watch had gone.

“Billish,” he said. He went over to the invalid, looked down at him, called his name more gently. He felt the cold skin, tested the twisted flesh.

“Billish,” he said again, but now it was merely a statement. He knew that Billish was dead—and he knew who had stolen the watch, that three-faced timepiece which JandolAnganol had once held. There was only one person who would do such a thing.

“You’ll never miss your timepiece now, Billy,” Muntras said aloud.

He covered his face with a slab of hand and uttered something between a prayer and a curse.

For a moment more, the Ice Captain stood in the room, looking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. Then, recalling his duties, he walked over to the window and gave his clerk a sign to start paying out the men’s wages.

His wife entered the. room with Immya, her shoulder bandaged.

“Our Billish is dead,” he said flatly.