Shiva and Other Stories Read online

  It was as if in my focusing of the weapon I had panicked them, made them show their true aspect. Ringing me on all sides, almost offhandedly, they attacked. I could feel the imminence of their horror and then, once again, the darkness.

  “They are treacherous,” one said.

  “No,” I offered. “Listen to this. We are not treacherous. We are driven. You gave us no choice, you gave us at the end no dignity.” But having spoken, knew it was unheard, knew that there was no way in which connection could be made, was locked once again in that place so well known to K 19 from which there was no emergence.

  * * *

  “Using their other two to send out crylon vibrations,” the ape said, and this time I could see, in the flooding light I could see the bowl of roof, beyond that transparency the stricken and venomous sun, and I tried to move but found myself locked into place. At the edge of vision the ape was talking to something else, oblivious. “They die,” one said, “they die and they die and it is not enough.”

  “Of course it’s enough,” I said, as if they could hear me. “It’s always enough, it was a sufficiency when we began,” and tried to wave, tried to show them through the intensity of movement the thorough nature of my distress, but they wouldn’t acknowledge me, I might have indeed been dead and they large solemn demons, blank devil and primate, assessing larger goals. “It wasn’t enough for Google,” it said again, “and it’s not enough for you.”

  The strangulation, as if an arm were laid across my throat. The pressure was almost unbearable but the heat bar was there, they still had not taken it through all their insistence. Somehow, yanked to a seated position, I felt the pain seize me like a fist but I caught the range on my wrist computer and said, “Listen here! Listen to me! You must not turn away from this, we suspire, we are creatures, we live and suffer.” Through the transparent cysicites of the atmosphere I felt as if I had caught their attention, told myself that I had their attention at last, could somehow break through.

  “You’ve broken us,” I said. “You’ve done it now.”

  “It’s never enough—” The gorilla moved deliberately, its companion turning now.

  The Brylls were coming.

  I pressed the trigger.

  * * *

  “Now what?” K 19 said.

  She lay against me in terrain like knives, ice and slice sending tender, necessary slivers of pain, the two of us stretched one by one on heavy mesh like metal. We were in an enclosure, the air stale and heavy, and the thin violet glow was ice-cold against the rust-colored mountains in the distance.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Her skin lay damp and open under my fingers, rising in small response as I clutched. “We’re somewhere else now. We’ve been taken away.”

  “What did we do?”

  “We were taken. They turned our breath into pink pretzels.”

  “Yes, but what did we do?” Once we had lain together in transaction, hovering, mild connection, but now, even as I felt her stillness, it was as if this had not happened. Far from me, distilling loss with every breath, K 19 said, “You have destroyed us.”

  “We were already destroyed.”

  “My name is Linda. Call me that, give me my name.”

  “It was over, Linda. Wherever we are, whatever has been done, it was over.”

  I could feel the stirring and then there were many sounds, perspective cleared, breath again began to pretzel. Looking toward the sounds, I could see the little forms, could see them scuttle, could see the Brylls shrank to half an inch long, hopping, scuttling. They ringed us with the eagerness of their necessity, showed us their incessancy.

  “What is it?” Linda said. “Where are they?”

  I pointed, drew the line of her attention, and then with her breath, her first frozen and intense knowledge, I reacted instinctively, did what some of us had tried at the beginning, and I worked fast stepping on them, lunging somehow to a standing position. Linda screamed as she saw what I was doing, pointed at the rust-colored sky, and I ignored the heat bars, consigned them to darkness along with the rest of my life, no transaction left now, and began to fight with the poltext; the small rubber flange opening like a petal as I beat at them. If this was to be the final battle (and it was, my time was over, I knew that now), it would be as deprived of dignity as the rest but at least I could right the balance, struggle on. Even as Linda tried pathetically to crawl away, I found myself pitched against them, grunting, heaving with that sole weapon left, seeing them pulp, listening to their brisk and intermittent cries as some—but not too many—of them died.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The sudden brightness swung me around and Linda, the mask clamped tightly, was holding the heat bar, aiming at me, maniacal and concentrated laughter pouring through.

  Pouring through as fuel of my destruction.

  And it was at that moment, then, and not an instant earlier nor a flash later, that I came to understand what had happened, the true nature of the Brylls, the deadly and insistent nature of their circumstance and plans.

  “And the Fourth Moon had already risen,” the thing in the mask said, “and it was time then, time for us if not for you and it would always in that extreme be enough.”

  If I had understood what was happening, I might have had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator of the heat bar.

  But even then—

  “And Google had told me it wasn’t enough,” I said. I believe I had lost control. I believe I had really lost control. That flush of abandonment, the surge of separation, the conviction of utter disaster—

  “Not for you,” the thing that had been Linda K 19 said. “Not for you, perhaps. But it is for us.”

  He was right.

  Coursing

  THERE WAS THIS WOMAN AND HER NAME WAS MARIA. She lived in a console of the great ship Broadway and whispered to Hawkins in the night, promises of love and fealty, warmth and connection. Hawkins could not touch her, could not consummate the promise because she was a simulacrum, a collection of electrons and impulses in the bottle but she made dark periods lively indeed and they had promised that at the end of the voyage, if Hawkins were to do what he meant to, she would be waiting for him, the real Maria; and she would make all these things true. Hawkins did not really believe this, did not believe any of it but the light years were vast, the ship was vacant and full of the stink of antiseptic, and if he were not able to converse with Maria there would have been nothing at all. So he thanked them in his heart for their time and trouble, their cruelty and their manipulativeness, and let it go by. He let everything go by. The twenty-fourth century was all accommodation.

  Hawkins, a felon interred on Titan, had been given a conditional release to go to the Pleiades System and negotiate with the King of the Universe. The King of the Universe, through pulsar, had advised the inner clusters that he would destroy them greatly unless every knee bent and every tongue did give homage. The King of the Universe might have been insane, but very little was known of the Pleiades Cluster and it was assumed that any culture with technology advanced enough to make possible this kind of communication could not be dismissed out of hand. Half a hand yes—send them a felon to do the negotiating—but the last time an alien threat had been entirely ignored brought about the Slaughtering Hutch of a hundred years. The King might have been a child given access to powerful communications matériel or a lunatic acting out for therapy; on the other hand he might be exactly what he said, in which case the inner clusters had a problem. Hawkins, a failure, was half a hedge against riot. Keep a civil tongue, the Advisors had said, evaluate the situation, and try to buy him off; if he refuses to negotiate or turns out to be what he seems then you know where the self-destructs are. Try to get near enough to take the King down. There’s enough armament on the Broadway to take down the Pleiades themselves. And have a good time; after all, the Advisors concluded, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Thirty-three Earth days is nothing for a man who has done half a lifetime; think of it
as front-loading.

  Hawkins lay in the ship’s abscess, just inside the probes, and said to Maria, “This isn’t going to work. They’ll wipe me out as errata; we’re an unidentified flying object.”

  “I love you,” Maria said softly; “I want to hold you against me. You are the gentlest and most wonderful man that I have ever known and I want you to be mine, all mine.”

  “I have to get serious,” Hawkins said; “there’s no time for passion here.”

  “Don’t put me off, you dark fool,” Maria said. “Closer and closer. Touching in the night. You will pacify the King and return; we will meet on Ganymede and in the silence and the density we will hold one another. Oh, if we had only met earlier; none of this would ever have happened to you.”

  Hawkins said, “I don’t want to think about what it would have been like if we had met earlier. I don’t want to talk about that now.” He reached for the volume switch and lowered Maria’s voice to a soothing burble. For reasons which were quite sufficient the technicians had made it impossible for him to cut off Maria completely, but he was able at least to modulate; this made it possible for him to find some periods of sleep. In the intricate alleys of metal and wire he could still hear her voice, extract the shape of words. Lover. Apposite. Breasts. Hawkins felt a regret which verged on pity, but he urged himself to be strong. He could not listen to her now. He was scheduled for a confrontation with the King of the Universe shortly. The King had scheduled it all. Hawkins would be brought before him in the dock of an artificial satellite and explain his condition, offer his terms. The King had stated that he had not been surprised; he knew that it would only be a matter of time until the Inner Cluster sued for mercy. The Broadway had been tracked all the way with farsighted devices, had been under the King’s mighty surveillance since it had torn free of the sun outside the orbit of Jupiter.

  Hawkins huddled in the ship and awaited judgment. He thought of all the alleys and corridors of his life which, like the alleys and corridors of the ship, seemed to work endlessly and musically against one another, bringing him to this tight and difficult center. If he had done this then he might not, instead, have done that; if he had served his time penitentially rather than with defiance they might have sought someone else to deal with the King. But then again defiance was good because they needed a man who would take a position and most felons got broken within the early months of their confinement. Then too there was Maria who had been given to inflame and console but with whom, instead, he had fallen into a difficult kind of love. It was not her corporeality but the electron impulses themselves, the cleverness and sophistication of the device, which had hooked him in. Someday, if he lived through this, he would try to explain it all to the technicians. He doubted if they would listen; creating their wonderful devices they had come only to hate themselves because they could not be part of them. If the twenty-fourth century was for accommodation, then it was also for paradox. It was a paradoxical age. The Broadway veered and the gray abscesses colored to flame; the King of the Universe materialized before him in holographic outline. “I thought this would be easier,” the King said. “Of course I am at a good distance from this image so don’t think of anything foolish.”

  Hawkins was thinking of nothing foolish, concentrating instead upon the holograph. The King was a wondrous creature; the form was avian but like no bird that Hawkins had ever seen, and the beak was set of fierce design. The King half-turned, seemed to preen, displayed feathers. “Do you like this?” he said. “I wanted an imposing design in which to appear.”

  “Then this isn’t how you look?”

  “This is exactly how I look,” the King said, “and this is no time for conundrums. Can you give me any reason why I should not sack and destroy the Inner Cluster?”

  “I have brought priceless gems,” Hawkins said; “if you sack and destroy there will be none of them left. Also, as a creature of some sensitivity you would not want to destroy ten trillion sentient and vulnerable souls, would you?”

  The King winked. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “You think that only a lunatic would address you over the light years, threaten destruction, call himself the King of the Universe.”

  “On the contrary,” Hawkins said, “we take you very seriously or why would I be here?”

  “I can’t answer that,” the King said. “I merely run things, not try to account for them; and I must tell you that I am sore displeased. I think I’ll appropriate your gems and dematerialize you.”

  “Don’t do it so quickly,” Hawkins said. It was impossible for him to tell whether the King was serious or capable of such action, but the entire mission had been predicated on the fact that he might be, and his own condition was humbling. “Don’t do it,” he said again, pleadingly. “We’re not without a history. There are elements of our tradition which are honorable. If not science, art; if not art a certain damaged religiosity.” Why am I defending us? he thought; this was the civilization, those were the technicians who first imprisoned me and then sent me out with the simulacrum of a woman to tantalize and to die. Truly, the situation is indefensible. Perceiving this, knowing that his thoughts were moving toward hopelessness and failure, Hawkins reached out and moved the volume switch. “Tell him,” he said. “Tell him the things that you tell me, Maria.”

  “He is a good man,” Maria said. “I love him desperately. We talk in the night; he tells me many things. When he returns to Titan I will dwell with him in holiness and fealty forever.”

  The King fluttered. “Who are you?” he said.

  “My name is Maria and I am the lover of this man, Hawkins. He is a good man.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I walk on this ship and to and fro upon it. Where are you?”

  The King said, “That is not the issue.” His speech had slurred; he seemed to have lost that edge of high confidence with which he had threatened destruction. “Show me yourself.”

  “That is not necessary,” Maria said. “I am faithful to this one man.”

  “Abandon him,” the King said, “and come to me instead. Perhaps we can work out something.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “Maybe something can be worked out,” Hawkins said carefully. “It isn’t absolutely necessary—”

  “Offer him the diamonds, but don’t offer him me.”

  “I don’t want the diamonds,” the King said. He sounded petulant. “I can have the diamonds anyway.”

  She is a simulacrum, Hawkins thought, a memory, an instance, unpurchasable. But instead he said, “If you return with me to the Inner Cluster you can have her.”

  “Why return? I want her here.”

  “Love is impossible in space,” Hawkins said quietly. “The eternal vacuum, the interposition of organism upon the void makes love impossible. Accept my assurances on that.”

  “I cannot return with you,” the King said after some silence. “I would burn in the vastnesses of space. I am unprepared for a journey of any sort, confined to my castle. Leave her here.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Hawkins said. “She would perish.”

  “Yes, I would perish,” Maria said coldly. “I would most surely perish, Hawkins, if I could not have you. I am not property; I am your lover, I cannot be treated in this fashion.”

  “You can be treated in any way I want,” Hawkins said. “Remember the conditions. You were delivered to give me solace, not argument.

  “Nonetheless,” he said to the King, “as you see, it is quite impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” the bird said, “not to the King of the Universe,” and the bird turned, opened both impenetrable eyes and clawed at the floor. “That is my demand,” he said, “leave her here and the diamonds and you may go. The Inner Cluster will be spared. Take the diamonds, in fact. I don’t need them.”

  Hawkins said, “For the greater good, Maria, for all circumstances, I ask you—”

  “I love you,” the simulacrum said. “I know that I was made part of the
equipment merely to convenience, to give you solace, but I am quite out of control and it’s you I love. I don’t want to deal with any bird.”

  “I’m not really a bird,” the King said, “this is merely a form which I project. Actually, I can be anything at all. You would be most pleasantly surprised.”

  “Appearances mean nothing to me,” Maria said. “I’m sorry but it’s quite impossible. This wasn’t how the situation was supposed to be but it’s how matters have turned out, I’m afraid. No, Hawkins, I will not yield.”

  “Then neither will I,” the King said. “I am not a paranoid Pleiadan but the true and invincible King of the Universe, and I will make good on my threats. I tracked you from Jovian orbit, Hawkins; I had hoped that it would be for better outcome.”

  Hawkins looked at the figure of the bird, the eyes and figures glinting in the tight spaces of the cabin; he listened to the continued murmuring of Maria, now plaintive as she explained why she could not leave him. Hawkins looked at one simulacra and listened to the other as the Broadway ebbed and dipped in station, thinking I am man, I am twenty-fourth-century man, era of accommodation and paradox, felon of the twelfth order; you are in a Hell of a spot now. A Hell of a spot, for she cares.

  But he wasn’t. He really wasn’t, after all. As he heard Maria begin to shriek in passion, as he heard her say Oh, King o King o King he came to understand that for some dilemmas there is, after all, resolution; if not flesh, then steel is all. Oh Kingokingoking Maria cried, and as the Broadway grandly broke stasis he began to see the light of eternity open up to him. He’s wonderful! Maria cried, O King!

  There was this woman and her name was Maria; she loved Hawkins, she said, and first refused the impossible embraces of a mad Pleiadan but there was a grander design and she saw it saw it saw it okingoking.

  Hawkins felt the tumble of paradox.

  Just before the blankness, he mumbled, faithless bitch.