Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

The busy things men did were nothing to her. She tucked the glossy between her arm and her shallow bosom and turned downhill towards the distant towers.

When she heard the sound of someone running to catch her up, she said to herself, Well, he’s too late now, but it was Laintal Ay.

“I’ll walk down with you, Vry,” he said. As she remarked, he seemed in a carefree mood.

“I thought you were having trouble with Aoz Roon.”

“Oh, he’s always a bit touchy after a brush with Shay Tal. He’s a great man, really. I’m pleased about the stungebag, too. Now that the weather is warming up, they’re harder to find.”

The children were still romping by the geysers. Laintal Ay admired her glossy, and burst into a snatch of hunter’s song:

“You are in a good humour! Is Oyre being nice to you?”

“Oyre’s always nice.”

They went their different ways, Vry heading for her ruined tower, where she showed her present to Shay Tal. Shay Tal examined the little crystalline animal.

“It’s not good to eat at this stage of its life. The flesh may be poisonous.”

“I don’t plan to eat it. I want to guard it till it wakes.”

“Life is serious, my dear. We may have to go hungry if Aoz Roon sets himself firmly against us.” She contemplated Vry for a while without speaking, as was increasingly her habit. “I shall fast and defy him. I need no material things. I can be as ruthless with myself as he can be with me.”

“But really he …” Words failed Vry. She could utter no reassurance to the older woman, who continued determinedly.

“As I told you, I have two immediate intentions. First, I shall conduct a scientific experiment to determine my powers. Then I shall descend into the world of the gossies, to hold concourse with Loilanun. She must now know much that I don’t. Depending on what I learn from these things, I may decide to leave Oldorando entirely.”

“Oh, don’t leave, please, ma’am. Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? I’ll go with you if you go, I swear!”

“We’ll see about that. Leave me now, please.”

Feeling deflated, Vry climbed the ladder to her ruinous room. She flung herself down on her couch.

“I want a lover, that’s what I want. A lover … Life’s so empty…”

But after a while, she roused herself and looked out of the window at the sky, where clouds and birds sailed. At least it was better to be here than in the world below, where Shay Tal planned to go.

She recalled Laintal Ay’s song. The woman who had written the song—if it was a woman—had known that the snow would eventually disappear and that flowers and animals would emerge. Perhaps it would happen.

From her nighttime observations, she knew that there were changes in the sky. The stars were not fessups but fires, fires burning not in rock but air. Imagine a great fire burning in outer darkness. As it came nearer, its warmth would be felt. Perhaps the two sentinels would draw nearer, and warm the world.

Then the glossies would come back to life, turning into hoxneys with high- stepping tread, just as the song had it.

She determined to concentrate on her astronomy. The stars knew more than the gossies, for all that Shay Tal said, though it was shocking to find that one disagreed with such a majestic person.

She tucked the glossy into a warm corner by her couch, wrapping the pathetic little thing in fur so that only its face showed. Day by day, she willed it to come alive. She whispered to it and encouraged it. She longed to see it grow and skip about her room. But after a few days, the gleam in the glossy’s eyes dimmed and went out; the creature had expired with never a blink.

Despairingly, Vry took it to the crumbling top of the tower and flung the bundle away. It was still wrapped in furs, as if it were a dead baby.

A passion of restlessness seized Shay Tal. More and more, her statements became preachments. Though the other women brought her food, she preferred to starve herself, preparing to go into deep pauk to confer with the illustrious dead. If wisdom was not found there, then she would look farther afield, beyond the farmyard.

First, she determined to test out her own powers of sorcery. A few miles away to the east lay Fish Lake, scene of her “miracle.” While she teased herself as to the true nature of what had happened there, the citizens of Oldorando were in no doubt. Throughout that cold spring, they made pilgrimages to gaze upon the spectacle in the ice, and to tremble with fear not unmixed with pride. The pilgrims encountered numbers of Borlienians who also came to marvel. Once, two phagors were seen, cowbirds perched with folded wings upon their shoulders, standing mute upon the far shore, regarding their crystalline dead.

As warmth returned to the world, the tableau began to slip. What was awesome turned grotesque. One morning, the ice was gone, the statuary became a heap of decomposing flesh. Visitors encountered nothing more impressive than a floating eyeball or a mop of hide. Fish Lake itself drained and disappeared almost as rapidly as it had formed. All that remained to mark the miracle was a pile of bones and curving kaidaw horns. But the memory remained, enlarging through the lenses of reminiscence. And Shay Tal’s doubts remained.

She went down into the square in the afternoon, at an hour when milder weather tempted people to walk out and talk in a way once foreign to them. Women and daughters, men and sons, hunters and corpsmen, young and old, strolled forth to pass the time of day. Almost anyone would put himself or herself at Shay Tal’s beck and call; almost no one wanted to talk to her.

Laintal Ay and Dathka were standing with their friends, laughing. Laintal Ay caught Shay Tal’s glance, and came over to her reluctantly when she beckoned.

“I’m about to conduct an experiment, Laintal Ay. I want you with me as a reliable witness. I won’t get you into further trouble with Aoz Roon.”

“I’m on good terms with him.”

She explained that the experiment was taking place by the Voral; first, she had a mind to explore the old temple. They walked together through the crowd, Laintal Ay saying nothing.

“Are you embarrassed to be with me?”

“I always take pleasure in your company, Shay Tal.”

“You need not be polite. Do you think I am a sorceress?”

“You are an unusual woman. I revere you for that.”

“Do you love me?”

At that, he was embarrassed. Instead of answering directly, he cast his gaze down to the mud, muttering, “You are like a mother to me, since my mother died. Why ask such questions?”

“I wish I were your mother. Then I could be proud. Laintal Ay, you also have an inwardness to your nature. I feel it. That inwardness will distress you, yet it gives you life, it is life. Don’t ignore it, cultivate it. Most of these people jostling us have no inwardness.”

“Is inwardness the same as conflict?”

She gave a sharp laugh, gripping her body with her forearms.

“Listen, we are trapped in this wretched hamlet among meagre personalities. A whole series of greater realities can be happening elsewhere. So much must be done. I may leave Oldorando.”

“Where will you go?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes I feel that the mere crush of dull people will cause us to explode, and we’ll all scatter from here across the world. You note how many babies have been born of recent years.”

He looked round at all the friendly familiar faces in the lane, and suspected that she was talking for effect, though there were more children.