Robert Silverberg - The Queen of Springtime

Chevkija Aim said, “I think we could close the Basilica, sir. No one came yesterday when Puit Kjai was here, and I think no one will come today. And you’d be able to pay your respects to Boldirinthe before it’s too late.”

“Boldirinthe,” Husathirn Mueri said. “Yes. I ought go to her.” He rose from the justiciary throne. “Very well. The court is adjourned, Chevkija Aim.”

Ascending the spiral path from the Queen-chamber should have been more taxing than the descent; but to his surprise Hresh found himself oddly vigorous, almost buoyant, and he strode briskly along behind Nest-thinker, easily keeping pace step for step as they rose from that deep well of mysteries toward the by now familiar domain of the upper Nest.

Strange exaltation lingered in him after his meeting with the Queen of Queens.

A formidable creature, yes. That pallid gigantic thing, that quivering continent of monstrously ancient flesh. Hundreds of years old, was She? Thousands? He couldn’t begin to guess. That She had survived from the time of the Great World he doubted, though it was possible. Anything was possible here. He saw now more deeply than ever before how alien the hjjks were, how little like his own kind in nearly every respect.

And yet they were “human,” he thought, human in that peculiar special sense that he had long ago conceived: they maintained a sense of past and future, they understood life as a process, an unfolding, they were capable of the conscious transmission of historical tradition from generation to generation. The little flitting garaboons gibbering in the forest added nothing to nothing, and ended with nothing. That was true of all the beasts below the human level, the gorynths wallowing in their oozy swamps, the angry chattering samarangs, the jewel-eyed khut-flies, and the rest. They might as well be stones. To be human, Hresh thought, is to be aware of time and seasons, to gather and store knowledge and to transmit it, above all to build and to maintain. In that sense the People were human; even the caviandis were human; and in that sense the hjjks were human too. Human didn’t simply mean one who belonged to that mysterious ancient race of pale tailless creatures. It was something broader, something far more universal. And it included the hjjks.

To Nest-thinker he said, “That was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I thank the gods I could live long enough to reach this day.”

The hjjk made no reply.

“Will I be summoned to Her again, do you think?” Hresh asked.

“You will be if you are,” said Nest-thinker. “That is when you will know.”

There seemed to be a surliness to Nest-thinker’s tone. Hresh wondered if the hjjk envied the depth of the communion he had achieved with the Queen. But there was danger in attributing People emotions to things that hjjks might say.

They were near the upper level now. Hresh recognized certain artifacts set in niches in the wall, a smooth white stone that looked almost like a huge egg, and a plaited star like the one Nialli had had, but much larger, and a small red jewel that burned with a brilliant inner flame. He had noticed them when he began his descent. Holy hjjk talismans, perhaps. Or perhaps mere decorations.

Since coming to the Nest Hresh had lived in an austere cubicle in an outlying corridor, structure — a kind of isolation ward, perhaps, for strangers from outside. It was a round chamber with a low flat ceiling and a thin scatter of dried reeds on its hard-packed earthen floor to serve him as a bed; but it was comfortable enough for his undemanding needs. He looked forward to it now. A time to rest, a time to think about what he’d just undergone. Perhaps later they’d bring him a meal of some sort, the dried fruit and bits of sun-parched meat that seemed to be the only fare in this place and to which he had adapted without difficulty.

Now they had reached the head of the spiral ramp, the place where they re-entered the upper level. Nest-thinker turned here, not to the left where Hresh’s cubicle was, but in the other direction entirely. Hresh lingered behind, wondering if his sense of direction had misled him again, as it had so many times during his stay here. This time he was sure, though. His chamber lay to the left. Nest-thinker, by now a dozen paces away, swung about and looked back, and gestured brusquely to him.

“You will follow.”

“I’d like to go to my sleeping-place. I think it’s that way.”

“You will follow,” said Nest-thinker again.

In the Nest disobedience was simply not an option: if he persisted in going to his chamber, Hresh knew, Nest-thinker wouldn’t be angered so much as mystified, but in any case Hresh would end up going where Nest-thinker wanted him to go. He followed. The path ramped gently upward. After a time he saw what seemed surely to be the glow of daylight ahead. They were approaching one of the surface mouths of the Nest. Five or six Militaries were waiting there. Nest-thinker delivered Hresh to them and turned away without a word.

To the Militaries Hresh said, “I’d be grateful if you’d take me to my sleeping-place, now. This isn’t where I wanted Nest-thinker to bring me.”

The hjjks stared blandly at him as if he hadn’t said a thing.

“Come,” one said, pointing toward the daylight.

His wagon was waiting out there, and his xlendi, looking rested and well fed. The implication was clear enough. He had seen the Queen, and the Queen had seen him, and so the Queen’s needs had been served. Which was all that mattered here. His time in the Nest was over; now he was to be expelled.

A quiver of shock and dismay ran through him. He didn’t want to leave. He had been living easily and happily here according to the rhythm of the Nest, strange as it was. It had become his home. He had supposed that he would end his days in the warmth and the silence and the sweetness of this place, dwelling here until at last the Destroyer came to take him to his final rest, which very likely would be soon. The outside world held nothing more for him. He wanted only to be allowed to penetrate ever more deeply into the way of the hjjks in whatever time might remain to him.

“Please,” Hresh said. “I want to stay.”

He could just as well have been speaking to creatures of stone. They leaned on their spears and stared at him, motionless, impassive. They hardly even seemed alive, but for the rippling of the orange breathing-tubes that dangled from the sides of their heads as air passed through the tubes’ segmented coils.

The xlendi made a soft whickering sound. It had had its orders; it was impatient to set forth.

“Don’t you understand?” Hresh told the hjjks. “I don’t want to leave.”

Silence.

“I ask for sanctuary among you.”

Silence, icy, impenetrable.

“In the name of the Queen, I beg you—”

That, at least, brought a response. The two hjjks nearest him drew themselves up tall, and a brightness that might have been anger passed swiftly across the many facets of their huge eyes. They brought their spears up and held them out horizontally, as though they meant to push Hresh forward with them.

A silent voice said, “It is the Queen’s wish that you continue your pilgrimage now. In the name of the Queen, then, go. Go. ”

He understood that there was no hope of further appeal. They stared at him inexorably. The horizontal spears formed an impenetrable gate, cutting him off from the Nest.

“Yes,” he said sadly. “Very well.”

He clambered into the wagon. Immediately the xlendi set out almost at a canter across the barren gray plain. He was startled by that. The beast had been so unhurried during the journey up here from Dawinno. But Hresh suspected that the xlendi was being guided, and even propelled, by some force within the Nest, and he thought that he knew what that force was. He sat passively, letting the wagon run; and when the xlendi halted for water and forage, he sipped a little water himself and ate a little of the dried meat that the hjjks had put into his wagon, and waited for the ride to resume. And so it went, day after day, a long quiet time, almost like a dreamless sleep, first through a zone of strange flat-topped sand-colored pyramidal hills, and then into a region of eerie erosion where the fiery crimson rocks had been cut into fantastic arches and colonnades, and after that through a landscape of rough sedge and occasional stubby trees and scattered herds of some dark-striped grazing animal Hresh had never seen before, which did not even look up as his wagon went by.