Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 6

Cordice dropped his eyes. Damn his insolence! Still... Leo could testify Andries forced it... he’d still be clear....

“I’ll go along, to ensure minimizing,” he said. “Under protest—Leo, you’re witness to that. But slag this lodge right now!”

Minutes later Leo hovered the flyer outside while Cordice played the flame jet on the rock face. Rock steamed, spilled away, fused and sank into a bubbling, smoking cavity. Under it the dead youth, with his smooth, muscular limbs, was only a smear of carbon. Cordice felt better.

Half an hour later, lower on the same mountain, Leo hovered the flyer above the meadow. The Robadurians all ran wildly into the forest and Jim didn’t need to use the flame jet. Leo grounded and the men piled out and Cordice felt his stomach relax. They ran toward the women. Allie Andries was smiling but Martha was shouting something from an angry face. As he stooped to untie Martha the blue horde came back out of the forest. They came yelling and leaping and slashing with wet, leafy branches and the sharp smell....

Cordice came out of it sick with the awareness that he was tied to a stake like an animal and that it was his life, not his career, he had to save now. He feigned sleep and peered from eye-corners. Martha looked haggard and angry and he dreaded facing her. He couldn’t see the others, except Allie Andries and she was smiling faintly—at Jim, no doubt.

Those two kids must escape, Cordice thought.

He must have been unconscious quite a while because sunset flamed in red and gold down-valley and the pit looked finished. It was elliptical, perhaps thirty feet long and three deep. Robadurians were still mounding black earth along the sides and others were piling brush into a circumscribed thicket, roughly triangular. They chattered, but Cordice knew it was only a mood-sharing noise. That was what made it so horrible. They were asymbolic, without speech and prior to good and evil, a natural force like falling water. He couldn’t threaten, bribe or even plead. Despite his snub nose and full lips he could present an impressive face—at home on Earth. But not to such as these.

Beside the pit, the devil masker stood like a tall sentry. Abruptly he turned and strode toward Cordice, trailing his wooden spear. Cordice tensed and felt a scream shape itself in him. Then the devil towered lean and muscular-above him. He had no little finger on his spear hand. Keen gray eyes peered down through feathers and twigs.

“Cordice, you fool, why did you bring the women?” the devil asked in fluent English. “Now all your lives are forfeit.”

The scream collapsed in a grateful gasp. With speech Cordice felt armed again, almost free. But Martha spoke first. “Men need women to inspire them and give them courage!” she said. “Walto! Tell him who you are! Make him let us go!”

Walto meant she was angry. In affection she called him Wally Toes. But as usual she was right. He firmed his jowls and turned a cool stat-7 stare on the devil mask.

“Look here, if you know our speech you must know we never land on a hominid planet,” he said pleasantly. “There are plenty of other planets. For technical reasons we had to do a job here. It’s done. We have stores and tools to leave behind.” He laughed easily. ‘Take them and let us go. You’ll never see another of us.”

The devil shook his head. “It’s not what we might see, it’s what your women have already seen,” he said. “They know a holy secret and the god Robadur demands your deaths.”

Cordice paled but spoke smoothly. “I and Andries have been out of touch with the others for two months. I don’t know any secret. While we were isolated Brumm built the women a spy screen and rescued that boy—”

“Who was forfeit to Robadur. Robadur eats his children.”

“Arthur was being tortured when he broke free and ran,” Martha said. “I saw you there!”

“On your strictly unethical spy screen.”

“Why not? You’re only brute animals with your things hanging out!”

The devil pressed his spear to her throat. “Shut up or I’ll spear you now!” he said. Martha’s eyes blazed defiance.

“No! Quiet, Martha!” Cordice choked. His front collapsed. “Brumm did it all. Kill him and let us go!” He twisted in his bonds.

Leo spoke from behind. “Yes, I did it. Take me and let them go.” His voice was high and shaky too.

“No! Oh please, no!” That was Willa, sobbing.

“Stop that!” Jim Andries roared. “All of us or none! Listen, you behind the feathers, I know your secret. You’re a renegade playing god among the asymbolics. But we’re here on clearance from the Institute of Man and they’ll come looking for us. Your game’s up. Let us go and you’ll only be charged with causing culture shock.”

The devil grounded his spear and cocked his head. Robadurians around the pit stood up to watch. Martha shrilled into the hush. “My own brother is with the Institute of Man!”

“I told you shut up!” The devil slapped her with his spear butt. “I know your brother. Tom Brennan would kill you himself, to keep the secret.”

“What secret, Featherface? That you’re a god?” Jim asked.

“The secret that man created himself and what man has done, .man can do,” the devil said. “I’m not Robadur, An-dries, but I’m sealed to him from the Institute of Man. The Institute will cover for your deaths. It’s done the same on hundreds of other hominid planets, to keep the secret.”

“Roland Krebs! Rollo! You struck a lady—”

Like a snake striking, the spear leaped to her throat. She strained her head back and said, “Ah... ah... ah...” her face suddenly white and her eyes unbelieving.

“Don’t hurt her!” Cordice screamed. “We’ll swear to forget, if you let us go!”

The devil withdrew his spear and laughed. “Swear on what, Cordice? Your honor? Your soul?” He spat. “What man has done, man can undo. You’re the living proof!”

“We’ll swear by Robadur,” Cordice pleaded.

The devil looked off into the sunset. “You know, you might. You just might,” he said thoughtfully. “We seal a class of boys to Light Robadur tonight; you could go with them.” He turned back. “You’re the leader, Andries. What about it?”

“What’s it amount to?” Jim asked.

“It’s a ritual that turns animals into humans,” the devil said. “There are certain ordeals to eliminate the animals. If you’re really men you’ll be all right.”

“What about the women?” Jim’s voice was edgy.

“They have no souls. Robadur will hold you to account for them.”

“You have great faith in Robadur,” Jim said.

“Not faith, Andries, a scientist’s knowledge as hard as your own,” the devil said. “If you put a Robadurian into a barbering machine he wouldn’t need faith to get a haircut. Well, a living ritual is a kind of psychic machine. You’ll see.”

“All right, we agree,” Jim said. “But we’ll want our wives unhurt. Understand that, Featherface?”

The devil didn’t answer. He shouted and natives swarmed around the stakes. Hands untied Cordice and jerked him erect and his heart was pounding so hard he felt dizzy.

“Don’t let them hurt you, Wally Toes!”

Fleetingly in Martha’s shattered face he saw the ghost of the girl he had married thirty years ago. She had a touch of the living beauty that lighted the face Allie Andries turned on Jim. Cordice said good-by to the ghost, numb with fear.

Cordice slogged up the dark ravine like a wounded bull. He knew the priests chasing him would spear him like the hunted animal he was unless he reached sanctuary by a sacred pool somewhere ahead. Long since Jim and Leo and the terrified Robadurian youths had gone ahead of him. Stones cut his feet and thorns ripped his skin. Leo and Jim were to blame and they were young and they’d live. He was innocent and he was old and he’d die. Not fair. Let them die too. His lungs flamed with agony and at the base of a steep cascade his knees gave way.