Bob Shaw: The Ragged Astronauts

Gesalla was slowly shaking her head and her eyes were magnified by the first tears he had ever seen there. “It’s all unreal, isn’t it? It’s all just a dream.”

“Flying to Overland was just a dream — once — but now we’re here, and in spite of everything we’re still alive.” He drew her down to lie beside him, her head cushioned on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, Gesalla. All I can promise is that…how did you put it?… that we are not going to surrender life to the butchers. That has to be enough for us. Now, why don’t you rest and let me watch over you, just for a change?”

“All right, Toller.” Gesalla made herself comfortable, fitting her body to his whilst being careful of his injuries, and in an amazingly short time she was asleep. Her transition from anxious wakefulness to the tranquillity of sleep was announced by the faintest of snores, and Toller smiled as he stored the event in his memory for use in future bantering. The only home they were likely to know on Overland would be built of such insubstantial timbers.

He tried to stay awake, to watch over her, but the vapours of an insidious weariness were coiling in his head — and the last Overlander’s lantern was again glowing in the rock pile.

The only way to escape from it was to close his eyes.… The soldier standing over him was holding a sword.

Toller tried to moves to take some defensive action in spite of his weakness and the encumbrance of Gesalla’s body draped across his own, then he saw that the sword in the soldier’s hand was Leddravohr’s, and even in his befuddled state he was able to assess the situation correctly.

It was too late to do anything, anything at all — because his little domain had already been surrounded, conquered and overrun.

Further evidence came from the shifting of the light as other soldiers moved around beyond the immediate area of the cave mouth. There were the sounds of men beginning to talk as they realised that silence was no longer required, and from somewhere nearby came the snorting and slithering of a bluehorn as it made its way down the bill. Toller squeezed Gesalla’s shoulder to bring her awake, and although she remained immobile he felt her spasm of alarm.

The soldier with the sword moved away and his place was taken by a slit-eyed major, whose head was in near-silhouette against the sky as he looked down at Toller. “Can you stand up?”

“No — he’s too ill,” Gesalla said, rising to a kneeling position.

“I can stand.” Toller caught her arm. “Help me, Gesalla — I prefer to be on my feet at this time.” With her assistance he achieved a standing position and faced the major. He was dully surprised to find that, when he should have been oppressed by failure and prospects of death, he was discomfited by the trivial fact that he was naked.

“Well, major,” he said, “what is it you want of me?”

The major’s face was professionally impassive. “The King will speak to you now.”

He moved aside and Toller saw the paunchy figure of Chakkell approaching. His dress was subdued and plain, suitable for cross-country riding, but suspended from his neck was a huge blue jewel which Toller had seen only once before, when it had been worn by Prad. Chakkell had retrieved Leddravohr’s sword from the first soldier and was carrying it with the blade leaning on his right shoulder, a neutral position which could quickly become one of attack. His swarthy well-padded face and brown scalp were gleaming in the equatorial heat.

He came within two paces of Toller and surveyed him from head to toe. “Well, Maraquine, I promised I would remember you.”

“Majesty, I daresay I have given you and your loved ones good cause to remember me.” Toller was aware of Gesalla drawing closer to him, and for her sake he went on to rid his words of any possible ambiguity. “A fall of a thousand miles would have.…”

“Don’t start rhyming at me again,” Chakkell cut in. “And lie down, man, before you fall down!”

He nodded to Gesalla, ordering her to ease Toller down on to the quilts, and signalled for the major and the rest of his escort to withdraw. When they had retreated out of earshot he squatted in the dirt and, unexpectedly, lobbed the black sword over Toller and into the dimness of the cave.

“We are going to have a brief conversation,” he said, “and not a word of it is to be repeated. Is that clear?”

Toller nodded uncertainly, wondering if he dared introduce hope to the confusion of his thoughts and emotions.

“There is a certain amount of ill-feeling towards you among the nobility and among the military who completed the crossing,” Chakkell said comfortably. “After all, not many men have committed regicide twice in the space of three days. It can be dealt with, however. There is a great air of practicality in our new statelet — and the settlers appreciate that loyalty to one living king is more beneficial to the health than a similar regard for two dead kings. Are you wondering about Pouche?”

“Does he live?”

“He lives, but he was quick to see that the subtleties of his kind of statesmanship would be inappropriate to the situation we have here. He is more than happy to relinquish his claims to the throne — if a chair made from old gondola parts can be dignified with that name.”

It came to Toller that he was seeing Chakkell as he had never seen him before — cheerful, loquacious, at ease with his environment. Was it simply that he preferred supremacy for himself and his offspring in a seedling society to preordained secondary role in the long-established and static Kolcorron? Or was it that he possessed an adventurous spirit which had been liberated by the unique circumstances of the great migration? Looking closely at Chakkell, encouraged by his instincts, Toller experienced a sudden upwelling of relief and the purest kind of joy.

Gesalla and I are going to have children, he thought. And it doesn’t matter that she and I will have to die some day, because our children will have children, and the future stretches out before us… on and on… on and on, except that…

One reality dissolved around Toller and he found himself standing on a rocky outcrop to the west of Ro-Atabri. He was gazing through his telescope at the sprawled body of his brother, reading that last communication which had nothing to do with revenge or personal regrets, but which — as befitted Lain’s compassionate intellect — addressed itself to the welfare of millions as yet unborn.

“Prince… Majesty.…” Toller raised himself on one elbow the better to confront Chakkell with the truth which had been placed in his keeping, but the incautious torsion of his body lanced him with an agony which stilled his voice and dropped him back into his bedding.

“Leddravohr came very near to killing you, didn’t he?” Chakkell’s voice had lost all of its lightness.

“That doesn’t matter,” Toller said, smoothing Gesalla’s hair as she bent over the renewed fire of the wounds in his side. “You knew my brother and what he was?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Forget all about me — my brother lives in my body, and he is speaking to you through my mouth.…“Toller went on, battling through riptides of nausea and weakness to paint a word-picture of the tortured triangular relationship involving humankind, the brakka tree and the ptertha. He described the symbiotic partnership between brakka and ptertha, using inspiration and informed imagination where real knowledge failed.

As in all cases of true symbiosis, both parties derived benefit from the association. The ptertha bred in high levels of the atmosphere, nourished — in all probability — by minute traces of pikon and halvell, or miglign gas, or brakka pollen, or by some derivation from the four. In return, the ptertha sought out all organisms who threatened the welfare of the brakka. Employing the blind forces of random mutation, they varied their internal composition until they chanced on an effective toxin, at which point — the path having been signposted — they concentrated and refined and aimed it to create a weapon capable of scourging the scourge, of removing from existence all traces of that which did not deserve to exist.