Damon Knight - Orbit 21

Ares approached her where she sat gazing upon the sun as it cleared the distant hills. “Well, do you agree with what I said? Should we go and try to hide?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Then what, Hera?”

“We’ll go back. To the cliffs, the valley.”

They stopped at the edge of the plateau, with the cliffs dropping below them to the green valley beneath. Hera said, “It’s too dark to go farther. We’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”

Ares shook his head. “I still don’t see any point to this,”

“Can you suggest an alternative?”

“No. No, I suppose not.”

“Then go help the others inflate the tent.”

She sighed and watched him limp away. All these last days, the beast had stalked them, but it had never drawn near. The cave was close now. Whatever was hidden there would provide the final clue she needed to solve the riddle, and for that reason she was certain she would not be allowed to reach it. The beast, despite its own deep fear, would surely kill tonight. She bowed her head. Was she ready?

She did not stir until a fire was burning; then she rose and sat down beside Ares, a little apart from the other children. She saw the scars his hoofs had made in the soft ground. “Well, so far, so good,” he said. “The thing hasn’t touched us yet.”

She nodded. “Yes, but it’s there.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “The others feel it, too.”

“Are they afraid, do you think?”

“They don’t want to die.”

“Them?” She felt herself losing control. “Why do you always speak of them? Why not us, Ares?”

“You?”

“Or you. What makes you so sure the beast won’t kill us, too?”

He stared at her, then suddenly tried to get up. “Don’t say that, Hera. Don’t twist my words.”

She pulled him down with one powerful hand, then threw her arms around him. “Ares,” she whispered in his ear, “please tell me now. The beast—it is real, isn’t it?”

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” He squirmed in her grasp.

“I’ve felt it. I’ve known it. And it’s you, isn’t it, Ares? You are the beast.”

“No, no!” he cried.

“There was no alien cave. That was a dream you made me have. No cave and no beast. It’s just you, Ares. You and your father—Latone. You’ve come to kill my children.”

“No!”

The beast rose into the air. She sensed it beating against the high sky. “You killed them,” she said. “Horace, Samuel, Cady. You killed them and you know why.”

“No, it’s not me. It—it’s you. I knew it all along. It’s you, Hera.”

She slapped him as hard as she could. He fell back and she stood over him. His nose was bleeding. “You hated them, but most of all you hate me. Why? Because I let him die? Because I let them kill him for the act of bringing you into this universe?”

“Stop it. Don’t say it.” He hugged his ears with his palms. “Please don’t.”

“Why?” She pulled his hands away and shouted. “Because you don’t already know it’s true? Yes, I’m your mother, goddamn it! Yes, I let him do it! Yes, it was the only time in my life! I wanted him to. I liked it. I loved him. And you knew that. You knew all along and you killed them for it!”

“Stop it. No.” His words came in tired spasms. “Make her stop it. Please.” Tears ran with the blood upon his cheek. “Come and please stop—” He sprang to his feet, his eyes widening in shock. “No, no, don’t do that! No!”

She embraced him. “It’s too late, Ares. You’ve told it what to do. That’s what you wanted all along. It was me you wanted dead —never them.”

“Don’t, Hera,” he begged.

But the beast had risen. It plunged toward them, a black charging shadow. Ares squirmed free and rushed toward the forest. Waving his arms, he cried at the beast to go back.

Hera sprinted after him. “Kill me!” Ares screamed. “It’s me you want—me!”

The beast came down upon them.

At the last moment, Hera drew her knife from her belt and drove the blade upward. Ares howled. She dropped the knife and put her arms around him. Their faces touched and she could see nothing. The beast—the beast engulfed them.

She kissed her son. Her lips smothered his and her tongue plunged inside his wet mouth. She felt his hard, bestial thighs.

Then he twisted away. “No, not me,” he said. “You thought it was me, Hera, but it wasn’t. It was him. The one who made me. It was that beast all along. It was Father, Mother, Father. We found him in that cave. We woke him up. Oh, God, please take me. “

And Hera watched as the beast took and tore the child apart. She saw his organs burst and his bones crack. It was over in a moment; then the beast rose into the sky and was gone forever.

You think you know about the cravies. The dregs of human society, you say. There is no lower form of life. What do you know? Do you know about the cursed Kestan drug melsedrine? Do you know what draws them to it? Are they lured by the brief peak, when the drug acts as one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs the human species has ever known? Or the rumor that it can induce telepathic powers? Can anything be worth the plunge, the monumental depression, during which the body functions slow down and eventually reach the freeze stage: a deathlike coma? If they survive the freeze, the cycle begins again: the need building up until they must have the drug or die, then peak, plunge and freeze. The effect of the drug on the body is cumulative, and eventually fatal. They die with it or without it.

My first sight of Dr. Robert Fraser was a shock. I had expected my hero to be a giant, not a small, frail man of seventy. In his most recent tapes, he had seemed at least twenty years younger. I supposed the tapes had been retouched.

He had silky white hair that sparsely screened his pink scalp. His face was dominated by bushy eyebrows and a long mustache. His eyes were washed-out blue, but alert.

“I’m pleased to have you with us, Ms. Carson,” he said, extending his hand.

“My pleasure.” He led me to one of four metal desks. There was a computer post, with keyboard as well as microphone.

He spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable. “Every department of the University of United Earth is participating in the cultural exchange program. Our department is responsible for the translations.” He explained how the material was being processed and reorganized for translation into other languages. I liked him immediately. I’m sure that it was the man I liked, and not the reputation.

Fraser had been ill, and did his work at home for two days. When he returned to the office, he seemed to be in better health, more cheerful, and not as slow-moving, although he did seem to be in pain. The pain seemed to bother him more each day. He would wince, and sit very still with his eyes closed. Then I would see him straighten up, draw a shaking breath, and return to the work before him. He would work awhile, then pull into himself again. There were tremors along the left side of his body. The others in the office pretended not to notice. One day, after he left, I asked.

A woman at the desk across from me answered. “He has a neurological disease that he picked up on Deneb Three.”

“Yeah, and that’s not all he picked up on Deneb Three,” added the associate xenologist, Ed Jacobs. “Freak-lover.”

“What?” I asked, looking from one to the other.

The woman looked at Jacobs coldly. “Dr. Fraser is an exceptional person. He has no prejudices toward other life-forms.”

“No prejudices, sure,” returned Jacobs. “I’m not prejudiced either, but I wouldn’t have sex with an alien, and neither would any other normal human being.”