Christopher Priest - The Inverted World

“No, I don’t.”

“You haven’t heard about us?”

“No.”

“We’ve been here for thousands of miles… many years. Nearly two hundred.”

“Where is the city?”

He waved his arm in the direction of the north-east. “Down there. About twenty-five miles to the south.”

She didn’t react to the contradiction of direction, assumed he had made a mistake.

“Can I see the city?” she said.

“Of course!” He took her hand excitedly, and placed it on the rein of her horse. “We’ll go now!”

“Wait… How do you spell the name of your city?”

He spelt it for her.

“Why is it called that?”

“I don’t know. Because we are from the planet Earth, I suppose.”

“Why do you differentiate between the two?”

“Because… isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

She realized she was humouring him as if he were a maniac, but it was only excitement that shone in his eyes, not mania. Her instinct, though, on which she had been so dependent recently, warned her to be careful. She could not be sure of anything now.

“But this is not Earth!”

She said: “Helward… meet me here tomorrow. By the stream.”

“I thought you wanted to see our city.”

“Yes… but not today. If it is twenty-five miles away, I would have to get a fresh horse, tell my superiors.” She was making excuses.

He looked at her uncertainly.

“You think I’m making it up,” he said.

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong? I tell you, as long as I can remember, and for many years before I was born, the city has survived in the hope that help would come from Earth. Now you are here and you think I am mad!”

“You are on Earth.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again.

“Why do you say that?” he said.

“Why should I say otherwise?”

He took her arm again, and whirled her round. He pointed upwards.

“What do you see?”

She shielded her eyes against the glare. “The sun.”

“The sun! The sun! What about the sun?”

“Nothing. Let go of my arm… you’re hurting me!”

He released her, and scrambled over to the discarded drawings. He took the top one, held it out for her to see.

“That is the sun!” he shouted, pointing at the weird shape that was drawn at the top right of the picture, a few inches away from the spindly figure that he said was her. “There is the sun!”

Heart beating furiously, she tore the rein away from the tree around which it was tied, climbed up into the saddle, and kicked in her heels. The horse wheeled round, and she galloped it away from the river.

Behind her, Helward stood, still holding out his drawing.

It was evening by the time Elizabeth reached the village, and she judged it already too late to set out for headquarters. She had no will to return there anyway, and there was somewhere she could sleep in the village.

The main street was empty of people; unusual, for this time of day was a popular one with the people for sitting in the dust outside their houses and talking idly while they drank the strong, resinous wine that was all they could ferment round here.

There was a noise coming from the church, and she headed that way. Inside, most of the men of the village were gathered, and a few of the women. One or two of these were crying.

“What’s going on?” Elizabeth said to Father dos Santos.

“Those men came back,” he said. “They’ve offered a deal.”

He was standing well to one side, obviously incapable of influencing the people in any way.

Elizabeth tried to catch the gist of the discussion, but there was much shouting, and even Luiz, who stood prominently near the wrecked altar, could not make himself heard over the hubbub. Elizabeth caught his eye, and at once he came over.

“Well?”

“The men came today, Menina Khan. We are agreeing to their terms.”

“It doesn’t sound like there’s much agreement. What are their terms?”

“Fair.”

He started to head back towards the altar, but Elizabeth caught his arm.

“What did they want?” she said.

“They will give us many medicines, and a lot of food. There is more of the fertilizer, and they say they will help repair the church, though that is not wished by us.”

He was looking at her evasively, his gaze flickering up to her eyes, then away, then back again.

“And in return?”

“Only a little.”

“Come on, Luiz. What did they want?”

“Ten of our women. Is nothing.”

She stared at him in amazement. “What did you — ?”

“They will be well looked after. They will make them healthy, and when they return to us they will bring more food.”

“And what do the women say to that?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “They are not happy.”

“I’ll bet they’re not.” She looked over at the six women who were present. They stood in a small group, and the men nearest to them were already looking sheepish. “What do they want them for?”

“We do not ask.”

“Because you think you know.” She turned to dos Santos. “What’s going to happen?”

“They’ve already made up their minds,” he said.

“But why? Surely they can’t seriously consider trading their wives and daughters for a few sacks of grain?”

Luiz said: “We need what they offer.”

“But we have already promised you food. There is a doctor on his way now.”

“Yes… and so you have promised. Two months you have been here and very little food, no doctor. These men are honourable, because we can tell.”

He turned his back on her, and returned to the front of the crowd. In a moment he called for a vote by show of hands. The deal was confirmed, and none of the women voted.

Elizabeth passed a restless night, although by the time she rose in the morning she knew what she was going to do.

The day had produced a volume of unexpected developments. Ironically, the one development of which she had felt instinctively confident had not materialized. Now that the encounter with Helward had taken on a new perspective, she could put words to what she had expected: the stirring inside her had been a physical restlessness, and she had ridden down to the river in full expectation of being seduced by him. It could still have happened until that moment the fanatical expression had taken his eyes; even now she still experienced stirrings of that sensation — not fear, not amazement, somewhere between — whenever she recalled the shouted conversation under the trees.

“What about the sun?” still echoed.

Undoubtedly there was more to the scene than had appeared. Helward’s behaviour the day before had been different; she had tapped then a hidden sensitivity, and he had responded the way any man would. There was no sign of the presumed mania then. And not until she talked to him about his life, or her life, had he reacted that way.

And there was the mystery about the computer paper. There was only one computer within a thousand miles of here, and she knew where it was and what it was used for. It didn’t use paper print-outs, and it certainly wasn’t an IBM. She knew of IBMs; anyone who was trained in the basics of computers had heard of them, but no machine had been made by them since the Crash. Certainly the only ones intact, if not working, were in museums.

Finally, the deal proposed by the men who had visited the village had been wholly unanticipated, at least by her, although when she remembered Luiz’s expression after he had first spoken to the men she felt sure that he had had at least an inkling of what had been expected by way of payment.

Somehow, all must be connected. She knew the men who had come to the village were from the same place as Helward, and that his behaviour was linked in some way with this deal.