The Space Guardian (10 page)

“Stoat,” she said sharply, tearing her eyes from a bulbous object that sprouted what appeared to be lavender feathers on one curve and pale pink spikes with shocking green, loose tentacles on another, “there is danger here.”

“No,” he replied, his thin lips slightly curved, “I am sure neither crab nor silverfish will be found here. This is akin to the cups in that. It is defended by . . . by something.”

Desperately, Lahks strove to keep her attention on Stoat. Just beyond his left ear the pattern that was no pattern stuck out an impossible blood-red zigzag from which spheres of yellow festooned with gray-green arrows and polka dots seemed to dangle, beguiling her into laughter. Somewhere deep inside a bubbling desire to be different, to shift as the structures shifted to laugh, dance, sing, and play awoke in her. Shom was laughing again. She caught sight of him whirling about, making little dashes toward one building and then toward another.

“Come live with me and be my love/And we will all the pleasures prove,” Stoat said suddenly.

Lahks tore her attention from a triangle perched on its apex, the points of its base supported on one side by what appeared to be striped pink-and-orange sausage curls and on the other by an electric-blue girder too thin to support anything. Stoat’s expression gave her so sharp a pang of fear that her laughter died. She was not afraid because he looked amorous; at another time and place Lahks would welcome the sexuality that fulled his thin lips and brought a tinge of color to his dark face. It was his eyes; the feral light had all but left them. The lithe, hunting and hunted beast was turning into a lap dog.

“Look at me!” Lahks shrieked, and she raised her arms so that her hands acted as blinders for him while her upper arms blocked her own side vision. “We will die here, all of us, still laughing!” she cried.

Awareness flooded back, accompanied by a soul-wrenching misery that, made Lahks gasp with empathetic pain. Heartbeat-brief, that misery was followed by a wave of red hate.

“A trap,” Stoat snarled. “A trap millennia old, and I . . . I fell into it.”

“No, no, it is no trap—at least it was not meant to be by those who built it. When we were hungry we would have eaten, slept when we were sleepy, and. . .”—a regretful smile—“. . . loved and laughed. But when our food ran out or the chemicals built up too high in our body water and poisoned us, we would die, but only because it would be too late to go, and perhaps, even then, we would be unwilling to leave this. The desert was almost certainly no barrier to those who lived here. Perhaps this was even fertile then. Who knows?”

“Meant or not, it is still a trap to us.”

“Perhaps not. I have broken the compulsion and you are free of it.”

“Only so long as I do not look. And I can feel it draw me.” His mouth twisted. “I am hungry for laughter.”

Lahks nodded. She had guessed that. “Then laugh. This was made to give pleasure. I do not think it will hold us now that we know and are afraid. I can think of a safe test. Call Shom.” Stoat raised his voice. At first there was no reply and fear grew in them, but after a few minutes they heard the idiot’s laughter as he approached. Despite their anxiety, both had to smile. It was good to hear a sound of happiness from Shom. Stoat told him firmly, insistently, to fetch a coil of rope from the packs in the flyer. Then they waited again, wondering if the joy would prove truly false, beguiling them into forgetfulness.

It seemed very long, but perhaps it was only fear stretching the secs into amin. Still, he did return with the rope, and Lahks gained confidence and dared to peer under her arm. The nonpattern exerted its influence; her lips curved, and laughter gurgled in her throat. Nonetheless, she did not forget her purpose. She told Stoat to take the rope from Shom and to fasten it around his waist.

“Now,” she said, closing her eyes and dropping her hands from his face, “look. Go to the nearest . . . er . . . thing and search. I will wait a reasonable time, at least as long as it took us to be affected. Then I will call. If you come, if you have employed your time to good purpose, we will know we are safe.”

The city was not a trap. They had no more trouble, even though the buildings—they had to call the wild constructions something—were as irrational inside as out. Here and there a pile of discolored dust indicated that a piece of furniture had yielded to time. In a few cases, however, other, more durable, pieces remained. Occasionally Lahks and Stoat could assign a possible use for the odd-shaped items. Sometimes they could only laugh. They searched every building in the town that had a readily accessible entrance, but they found no stones.

Just before dark they set up the tent and ate. It was not easy to induce Shom to come away from the town, but once inside the tent he lapsed into his usual state of vacuous passivity. For Lahks and Stoat the effect did not wear off so quickly. Lahks was quieter than usual. Although she had not the ability, she had the strangest urge to grow a nose like a trunk, turn her hair into snakes, or sprout wings.

Stoat, on the other hand, was more talkative, describing other worlds he had lived on and adventures he had lived through. Although she was interested, Lahks at first listened with only half an ear. Attending to adventure stories does not need deep concentration. In a little while, however, a certain inconsistency struck her. She began to make mental notes, and soon it became very clear that no single lifetime could encompass the tales Stoat told.

Yet Stoat was no mere boaster seeking to enhance his own importance. Lahks watched him. His eyes stared steadily into the distance, lit by the passing emotion of each tale. Not once did they flicker to her to check on the impression he was making. The day-long laughter had tired—no, loosened—him. Even the underlying wariness of his most relaxed moments was gone now. He was speaking only the truth, Lahks decided. But what a truth!

A legend herself, Lahks had less difficu4ty than most in believing in the reality of other legends. And here, unless her deductions were wildly wrong—a most unusual situation for a Guardian—was another legend come to life. There were many names for it: the twice-born, the flying Dutchman, the wandering Jew—those accursed beings who lived life after life and remembered. Much fell into place. The skills and knowledge that were too much for a simple adventurer, the seemingly needless isolation on a planet where solitary wandering need not be explained, the depth of longing for a resting place exhibited in the cup of the little house, the ternble hunger for laughter—all could be explained by the curse of immortality. Not, of course, that these “immortals” could not die. Any fatal accident or disease could carry them off as easily as any other being. Simply, they did not die of old age.

The knowledge confirmed Lahks’ desire to tell Stoat the truth, and she stretched luxuriously. She could tell it all now. By the pressure of necessity the—Lahks examined Stoat’s dark face and chose the most appropriate legendary name—wandering Jew was a well of silence. Certainly for the period of time needed to find Ghrey, she would have the ideal companion. As soon as they found a stone, she would show him what Lahks Mhoss could be. She leaned forward as became to the end of a tale and touched his hand.

“Let us sleep,” she murmured. “Tomorrow we must try the impossible buildings.”

That next day they worked as Lahks, who thought that she had experienced every physical effort a being could make, and Stoat, who had labored through many lifetimes, had never worked before. They shinnied up slipping ropes to gain entrances fit only for enormous birds. They crept along swaying spans a spider monkey would avoid to leap to shivering excrescences and enter by windows where no doors existed. They wriggled belly-flat through passages that were the only opening into immense halls seemingly suitable for giants. But they found no stones.

Nor did the city’s effect wear off. When they should have been rubbed raw by frustration and anxiety, as well as shaken with fatigue, they remained in high spirits. It was true that occasionally they burst into laughter at dangerously unsuitable times, but they did not become so irrational that the danger did not check them. And in the evening, although both felt relaxed and joyful, as if they had spent the day in idle pleasure, they were able to discuss the situation logically, if not seriously.

“Perhaps there are none,” Stoat said, voicing the worst at once. “I am sorry for your sake, Trader’s daughter, but I am content for myself. I have stored laughter enough for . . . for a long time.”

“If there were stones at the sites of other ruins. . .”

“I did not say there were. I said only that it seemed possible to me. Besides, from what I have read, these ruins are nothing at all like the others. Perhaps more than one race lived on this planet. I know that cultures differed widely. Here in the equatorial East, stone was much used, or, at least, it looks like stone.” He hesitated, then said, “I have seen three blocks of building material said to be from ruins. Trader’s daughter, there were no tool marks on that material. It was too big to be cast, and it was not cut or worked.”

Their eyes met and Lahks sucked in her breath. “It was grown?”

Stoat shrugged. “I cannot prove it. I have never been able to master emotion enough to examine the little house, but. . .”

“Yes. Yes. It has the . . . the charisma of a thing once alive, like a pearl. Perhaps that is what twists the heart so.”

He twitched away from that topic, as one twitches a sore away from a groping hand. “Far to the North, where the everlasting snow lies, there is an intact settlement. I have not seen this, only read of it. There the buildings were made completely of the crab carapaces. Some interior walls had been stained to provide privacy, I suppose . . . but what a people who have no conflict between id and ego need privacy for. . .”

“So far north, perhaps they needed dark to sleep in the summer.”

Surprise lit Stoat’s eyes, and then laughter. “The most commonplace idea is usually right. Well, but what is important is that no historical reference or legend ever even hints that there was anything to provoke mirth in the ruins. In fact, I believe their shape, when it could be determined, was well within the normal conventions for buildings. That is why I say we may have come on a fool’s errand.”

Lahks shook her head. “Stones or not, what we have found here is of infinite value.” Her eyes lit. “Stoat, is there room for a ship to make planetfall within the quiet area? Think what a recreation area this would make if it could be exploited.”

“Trader’s daughter!” For the first time there was a hint of scorn in Stoat’s voice when he used those words.

Again Lahks shook her head, but she laughed this time. “I was not thinking of the profit although, of course, it would be there. But think of the joy of making a profit and of being a public benefactor all at once.” Then she grew more serious. “Nonetheless, I am not ready to give up. If the stones were precious, would they not be hidden?”

“I cannot even guess where. Buried? Surely we cannot hope to find them if that is true.”

“Not unless we have some clue. Stoat, can you think of any rational use for any building we have seen?”

He burst into laughter. “No. Can you?”

“If you could vary your size and shape, even your body structure, wouldn’t those buildings be fun? If you could be a tiny little creature running through those small passages and swell to a giant as you reached the great hall, would it tickle your fancy? If you could put forth wings and fly to the high doors, soar off the spans that end nowhere, dangle like a spider from a thread of your own spinning from the swaying, hanging bulbs, would it give you pleasure?”

“Changelings?” Stoat stared. “You think this is the home of the Changelings?”

“Home? No, they have no home.” Lahks was perfectly positive, although she could not tell why.

“Have?” The question hissed. “You know that they still are?”

A brief terror washed through Lahks. For a heartbeat of time the city lost its humorous quality; its abandonment threatened the death of her people. Reassurance came from the pure application of common sense. Her mother had been alive a short while ago. It was too much of a coincidence that Zuhema should have been the last of her species.

“They are,” she replied surely. Then she grinned slyly and said with mock innocence, “Legends cannot die.”

For once Stoat was too taken up with an idea to be sensitive to the fear of exposure. Avidity was clear in his eyes. “The people with no conflict between id and ego? The Changelings?”

“No,” Lahks answered slowly, “I do not think so, although they must have been kindred spirits. The Changelings never build anything permanent according to the legends. But if they touched here, if the people who built the indestructible drom liked them and built for them . . . isn’t this what they would build?”

“Certainly it is possible. But if the stones were of the native race, then there will not be any here.”

“Can you believe that? Having done so much, would this kind of people withhold their greatest pleasure-giving device?”

“Device?”

“It must be a device. No natural object could display such characteristics. In the universe strange things have been found, but anything that grew from the bones of a planet or was spewed from the heart of a sun displays a certain range of characteristics. Only devices made by beings defy the elementary patterns.”

“So, even so if some cataclysm that did not touch the Changelings took this race, and the Changelings fled, would they not take their stones with them?”

“That I cannot answer, but I am not yet ready to give up the search.”

“Nor I—at least not until we have covered every building. Tomorrow we must try again to get into that low thing. It may have been a storage depot of some sort. It is the only one that has no windows and a shut door. Silly of us. We should have tried harder there first.”

“Perhaps,” Lahks said, smiling, “we did not wish to find what we sought too quickly.”

Stoat looked startled, then laughed. “I think you may be right. Logic pointed its finger and we turned our backs.” He reached out and touched the lamp to bring darkness to the tent. “I think we have had our fill of laughter. Logic rules tomorrow.”

They came directly to the low, featureless rectangle the next morning prepared to force open the door. It was not necessary. Stoat set a crowbar into one crack and leaned back, and the door swung quietly open. Both drew breath sharply. A soft golden glow had sprung up in the small antechamber that faced them.

Incredulously, Stoat said, “There is still a source of power alive after all these years?”

“The sun,” Lahks replied, mastering her own surprise. “The droms are sun-powered. Why not this?”

“But the cells would be. . .” He left that unfinished. If the droms were indestructible, why not cells?

They entered on hands and knees, rounded a screen that blocked the light from the inner area, and stopped, hoping their eyes would adjust to the darkness. The absolute black, however, could not be compensated for by any widening of human pupils, and Lahks groped sideways to make room for Stoat to pull his torch from his belt. Her hand touched the wall, slid. Where her fingers ran, light sprang up. Again both drew sharp breaths. Lahks crawled forward, sweeping her hand widely over the panel. More light showed, a delicate pink to contrast with the pale green previously displayed. Lahks giggled, then poked a finger sharply at the wall. Blue, bright, more intense, as if to indicate the greater force of her stroke, glowed in a point where her finger touched.

Stoat backed out, crossed to the other side of the screen, swept his hand across the wall. Pearly white looped and curled in the pattern he made. Lahks heard him chuckle, then saw the basic symbols for his name appear in mauve. He rose to his knees and swept his hands from the top to the bottom of the wall in a continuous motion. A soft yellow radiance followed, blending into a large block all aglow. Stoat moved squarely in front of the light. Lahks saw his silhouette narrow, then broaden. He had turned to face her.

“Can you see me?” he asked. “Because I can’t see you—only when you cross the light. To me, the center of the room is as dark as ever.”

“So it is. Well, then, these panels are not made for lighting. In fact they are designed not to light the room. Why?”

“Could this be an art gallery? The attention of anyone in the room must surely be fixed on the walls.”

Before she replied, Lahks drew her finger across one of the pink lines. Where she touched, it winked out. She lifted her hand, touched the area again, and pale pink glowed. Without lifting her hand she pressed harder; the color intensified.

“It may be, but why so small? On your knees, you reach the ceiling.”

“Could that matter to people who can be whatever size they like?”

Lahks was not sure. Her own changes in size had always been minimal. “I don’t know,” she answered, “but I have a feeling that they must have had a standard form and size, and that size was fairly constant. Many, in fact, most of the rooms were quite compatible with our size—which, again, is very common for dominant oxygen-breathing creatures.”

“And why did the door open today? I swear I pushed, pulled, and hammered hard enough two days ago.”

“Because you were not ready?”

“You say the building is sentient?” Stoat snapped.

Lahks laughed. “It was you who told me that the cups were defended by magic. I suspect, though, that when you forced the crowbar into the crack, you loosened something. Probably all that pushing had its effect, too. Well, an art gallery is as good a place as any to keep treasures. Turn on the torch and let us look.”

The white light reduced the glow of the panels from a delicate miracle that commanded attention to insignificance. Lahks’ eye was caught at once by a structure centered in the room. For once, its purpose was perfectly obvious. It stood on legs to about sixty centimeters high, ran about two-thirds the length of the room, and had tiers, three high, of the most ordinary drawers with ordinary drawer pulls for opening. Aligned in front of this cabinet were chairs, again perfectly ordinary, except that they were very small, suitable for children about six to twelve years of age. The cabinet was about one meter deep and double.