A Voyage To Dari Page 11

  “Free enough,” Djeel insisted, “to be traveling at more G’s and C’s than I can shake a stick at, broken clear free of Sol Galaxy and even free of our metagalaxy, traveling in a few days across a metagalactic fissure, shortcutting the seventeen hundred million years that even light would take. And that’s pretty free!”

  Croyd said, “Tannen?”

  I inquired, “Princess, can you do it all by yourself?”

  She frowned at me.

  “Djeel, are you even doing it for a reason determined by yourself?”

  Her frown settled down hard. “In a way, no, I admit; but in another way, yes.”

  “Even Croyd or I—are we doing it for individually determined reasons?”

  “Well, but you are leader servants of your galaxy.”

  “The treaty that we are going to conclude is the upshot of negotiations resulting from half a decade of hostilities vis-à-vis Djinn. Now, Djeel, there’s hardly anything more individual than a pirate captain. Tell me, Djeel, to what extent could those Djinn pirates have operated at supra-C velocities across metaspace apart from their Moudjinn society? Or backing it up to a primitive level, to what extent could prehistoric pirates on Erth or on Dari have built and outfitted and sailed their ships apart from their societies? And apart from their societies, would they even have wanted to?”

  Djeel swung on Croyd. “Governor, defend me! Your mind is known to have achieved freedom even from its brain, and you yourself contend that any well-educated human can learn the same freedoms if he works at it. So if you are free, people can be; and if you are not free, nobody can be. Tell me straight: are you free?”

  But his reply seemed to temporize. “I have to say that the mind-brain relationship is most subtle. The total nervous system is organized in a very tight command-response hierarchy, whereas the behavior of the highest brain centers at times is almost feudal—and yet ultimately even the forecenters are a hierarchy dominated by custom. Curiously, it happens that the minds generated by these brains are able to project among themselves a vast number of different kinds of societies. But when you analyze all these varieties of societies, they all turn out to be essentially hierarchical or feudal; and even feudalism, with its arrant bully-brawl, is in spirit hierarchical. So societies projected by human minds turn out to be crude copies of >human brains, rather as mechanical tools projected by human brains turn out to be copies of body parts and body mechanisms. Even your Dari at its best was benignly feudal in its interplay of clans and chieftains. So the mind learns from its own brain and from other minds, and in turn it influences its brain, but it has only its brain to use. I think that humans are freer than lower animals, and educated humans freer than ignorant humans; but what is that index of high freedom? Maybe one-tenth of one percent free? That’s pretty free, though, relatively speaking.”

  ‘‘Wait, Croyd, you are double-talking. Let me give you a firming for-instance. Suppose that a brained mind were to take possession of an unminded brain and be the mind for this second brain. Even if that mind were meanwhile dominated by its own brain, could it maybe free itself, using the second brain?”

  I blinked and admired.

  Croyd met her head-on. “You stipulate that the second brain is unminded before the new brained mind gets to it. That is to say, the new mind can use the second brain in any way it wishes, without influence from the second brain?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  “And you specify that the unminded second brain is totally responsive to the new mind and is complex enough to limit the new mind in no way whatsoever?”

  “That is what I mean, Croyd. With the aid of such a second brain, could you be free?”

  Croyd chewed it; and into his premonitory alert stole hazily a new ingredient—a foggy sense that Djeel unawares had somehow begun to put an uncertain finger at once on the threat that he sensed and on the Dari piracy phenomenon. Not quite seeing it, he responded presently, slowly, “I will say that in my opinion the new mind would use the second brain according to the old lights that it had already arrived at with its own brain as modified by the new powers that it would find in the second brain. I would say that the mind would get freedom out of the second brain only as the mind wanted it and sought it; and if the idea of using the second brain for freedom did not occur to the mind, the second brain would come to be merely a power expansion of the original brain.”

  “Croyd! You are capable of using such a second brain. Are you free?”

  It collapsed his nebulous thought. He leaned back on his ottoman, clasping a raised knee with both hands. Presently he remarked, “Tannen, she’s the protocol head of Dari. She has to know.”

  Owl-eyed, I commented, “Probably so.” I turned sharply to Djeel. “Princess, what Croyd is about to reveal, he would reveal only because of his confidence that you are one who will recognize and respect its top secrecy. Absolutely secret, Princess Djeelian of the house of Faleen!”

  Pale, alert, she answered, direct, “Understood. Affirmative.” And both of us correctly believed her.

  She and I turned to Croyd.

  Eyes closed, he stated, “Every special power that I have ever developed has been my entirely human mind analyzing and utilizing my entirely human brain as an objective tool, vehicle, and dwelling place. And every one of those special powers is now . . . gone.”

  Silence.

  Djeel’s hand flashed out and gripped Croyd’s wrist.

  I sat brooding. I then observed, “Our galaxy is affected.”

  “But not,” Croyd amended, eyes open, “defenseless.”

  Less lazily I expanded. “Because of your powers, our galaxy has felt secure on any issue in which you were involved—and, not incidentally, we have been confident that the defensive action taken would be humane to the enemy. Without your powers, we have our potent defenses, but when we are attacked, now, we won’t be able to fool around with humanism: we shall have to destroy. I consider this a significant minus.”

  Silence, while each of us pondered the implications in his own way.

  “I think,” he finally suggested, “that we all require another round of drinks.”

  Djeel, starting for the bar, comprehended that this man needed a buck-up taunt, and over a shoulder she threw it. “Don’t forget that you are suddenly impotent. Are you sure that another zac won’t put you to sleep?”

  Solemnly he returned, “It’s cut with benzedrine.”

  Djeel stopped dead.

  “Forget me,” I volunteered, smiling heavily. “I’m going away.”

  Djeel whirled.

  Standing, I added, “You don’t have to go when I go, Princess. I am getting old, and I have some diplomacy to plan; but I think maybe Croyd could use your company for a while: he thinks a lot, he shouldn’t now be thinking much, maybe you can put a temporary quietus on that.”

  Croyd was at my side, but Djeel hung back, unmistakably flagging her staying intentions. For Croyd the resulting problem had its points of difficulty transcending metascience. My departure would leave him alone with Djeel. By the standards of some eras, the voluntary remaining of Djeel could mean only one thing in terms of Djeel desire; and for this one thing he was turgidly ready. But by the standards of our era, not so: male-female isolation might be merely work or asexual companionship—all was free and easy, and therefore ambiguous. But he wanted her. But he did not know her mind, and he had lost his ability to delicately sample it. If he should even hint at a pass, he might wreck a friendship; but if he should fail to pass, equally he might wreck a friendship.

  And then, there was this ambiguity about Hanoku.

  Shoot crap—but delicately!

  “Then hail and farewell, my friend.” Gravely he saluted me. “You heard what Gorsky said, if we get a lifeboat call.”

  I said, low, “Will you respect this, Croyd?”

  He answered, “I will board the lifeboat; and I will take off when you are aboard, but not before.”

  I said, “Then I will come aboard. Cheers.” I d
eparted.

  Into H-Hour:

  CROYD SAT, STUDIOUS, chin on a fist, arousedly conscious of Djeel’s presence, knowing what he wanted, humane coordinates uncertain. Croyd could attack decisively, but it was a situational question: when the interpersonal relationship is valuable, what is best for it? And there was no cue that she was giving him.

  Hesitantly, from across the room, Djeel ventured, “I would like to comfort you for the loss of your powers. But I don’t know just exactly how to go about doing that.”

  Normally he might have helped her learn; but Hanoku was a human complication—not in point of timidity deterrent, but in point of ethics—and in view of Hanoku, her remark was probably friendly-innocent and no cue at all. And rape was not his cup of zac. His mouth twisted into a grin somewhat distorted by the knuckles under it. “I’m glad you stayed,” he told her. “That is a comforting.”

  “Shall I be quiet?”

  “Not necessarily.” He stared at his own feet.

  The look that she threw at him then was a look of longing which he didn’t see; swiftly she came to him and knelt back on her heels before him, looking up at him, softly asking, “Do you mind if I say frankly that I like you?”

  Moment by moment, more precarious. Nevertheless his face broke into a delighted smile, his hand left his chin. “Why, good, Djeel! Because I like you, very much!”

  She whispered, “This is an odd end-up to the metascience.”

  He set his self-timer: Two more ambiguities, dear Djeel, and I leap . . . His face sobered, although the smile was latent. “It’s all part of life, Djeel: metascience, science, personal intuitive living—I change keys quite readily.”

  She frowned slightly. “I left Dari years ago, I am twenty-six, I thought that I was quite thoroughly Westernized by Moudjinn and by Erth. But there are good things about Dari that keep coming back—mostly in connection with personal intuitive living.”

  That’s one! His smile latency dissolved. “Your Dari must be beautiful.”

  Her face had gone cool-beautiful. “Croyd, I want to say something . . . ”

  He waited, agape-enthralled, eros-vital.

  She frowned down. She wet lips with a tiny tongue tip. She said dryly, “Hanoku and I are to be married on Dari. We two are the highest houses on Dari, and properly we should be married by the elected protocol chief of all Dari. But the Moudjinn have abolished the protocol chief. And therefore we want you to marry us, Governor Croyd.”

  After a silent moment, uncertainly she looked up at him. He was looking down at her curiously, biting a lip. Impulsively she laid hands on his wrists, and the soles of his feet felt the touch.

  In trouble, he temporized: “I suppose I can. But I do not know how.”

  Instantly delighted, she came up high on her knees and hugged his neck, pressing her cheek hard against his cheek, aggravating his difficulty. Embracing her perforce, he concentrated on fatherly agape, but found of it only the minimal touch that makes eros all the more treacherously piquant. Had he still thought that she might be wanting him, it would have been explosion; but now quite apparently that had not been her direction, and so his control held for the moment.

  Dropping away, she stood and stepped back, smiling down at him; and he required himself to smile in return, as freely as might be. “Dear Croyd,” she told him, “don’t worry about how to do it: Hanoku and I will teach you the ritual, and we are certain that when you know it you will bring it off with incomparable power. Indeed . . . ” She took another step backward, looking all about her, up and around. “Now, here you have provided for me a perfect seaside Dari nocturne; and even though Hanoku is not here, we could rehearse it. Would you like that?”

  He was beginning to be amused; the die having cast itself, he rolled with it (certain, though, that tomorrow or tonight he must go ship-prowling, now that one power had been tempestuously released by the failure of others). “It would be fun,” he declared, “but you must lead.”

  “It is all very simple,” she assured, “very easy—nothing elaborate, nothing like Western ritual, and even the small symbolism is as straightforward as it can possibly be. Let me see . . . you stand over there, Croyd, with your back to the bar; pretend it is the Holy of Holies.” Smiling now, caught up in it, he stood and went toward the bar. She asked his back, “You wouldn’t have a flake of Darian music?” Well, he did; he bent to the bar-panel console that controlled his cabin environment, the instrument panel wherewith he had fabricated the Darian moonlight and the surf susurrus and the eight-tenths gravity; and when he straightened, the room was mutedly filled with primitive strings and bongo drums in a teasing hula rhythm. And he turned to her in triumph and caught breath. At the far end of the room she faced him, radiantly nude except for a lemon-yellow lua-lua and a necklace of artificial yellow flowers.

  Wetting lips, he essayed, “You seem luckily to have brought your own music.”

  “It is my bridal costume!” she cried. “Do you like it? I made it myself!” Then her smile hesitated. “And yet I feel difficult, seeing you there in your Western clothing. Do you suppose that you could . . . ?”

  Suddenly he grinned; what a devil of a child-innocent lark this was! “What would I wear?” he demanded; “a boy-type lua-lua?” She nodded, eager. “One moment,” he cautioned with an upraised finger; he went behind the bar, poured a short one, downed it, stripped off his shirt, and (screened to the midriff by the bar) got rid of his other things; then he reached down to get something beneath the bar, and worked on himself, and emerged. Flaming crimson his gigantic bar-towel lua-lua was! Djeel applauded, screaming with laughter.

  He stood erect before the bar, mock-solemn, intoning, “If there be here two young people who because of misinformation wish marriage, let them come forward.”

  Djeel too straightened and sobered as well as she could, although she kept blurping out little giggles, looking at his lua-lua. He kept his face straight, groin appreciating her bared beauty. And gradually she sobered entirely and stood proud, facing him at the far end of the room. And she said quietly, in a voice just audible above the drums, “We will have to teach you the ritual . . . later, but for now you can just get the feel of it. I feel better now, Croyd. I am no longer laughing at your lua-lua; you are dressed right for Dari now; I am scarcely self-conscious at all now. Look, Governor, just stand there with the drums in your heart, and imagine that brown Hanoku stands here at my right, as tall and splendid as . . . as yourself, Croyd. See, I will have my right hand placed on his left forearm; no man will give me away, Croyd. I am a high princess, the last of my family, and he is a high prince, as you are a high prince. Now, catch the drum rhythm; to this rhythm Hanoku and I will advance toward you, like this.”

  With mounting pulse rate he watched her deliberately semihula toward him, lua-lua swinging, vital breasts rippling in delicate counterpoint, until she stood motionless not a meter away from him, gravely considering his hard-set face. She told him serenely, “We are approaching climax now, Croyd. You must say, quote, ‘According to the customs of your people, before you can be married, Djeelian must be deflowered by the chief of her clan. But her clan is all Dari, and under our new treaty the Governor of Dari is chief of all Dari. So it is I who must deflower her. Onu Hanoku, do you assent to this necessity?’ End of quote for you, Croyd. And then Onu Hanoku will answer, ‘I do!’ For he and I both want our marriage to be thoroughly right, in accordance with the old customs of our people.”

  And then, for some reason her head went slowly down, and her wide-eyed gaze fastened on the subvoluntary selfassertiveness of his improvised lua-lua. Above her, his voice was harsh. “You and your Hanoku—both of you are honestly asking me to do this?”

  Her face came slowly up to his; her face was all filled with concern. “Croyd, Onu and I have talked fully about this; we agree that you must be the co-father of our first child for his strengthening. But we realize that you are a Westerner; it would trouble you to deflower me in his presence and in the presence of others. But
that will not be necessary, dear Croyd, if you can manage to marry us publicly tomorrow; the timing would be precarious but acceptable. Here I stand, we are alone at the rehearsal; what you do now with me before the gods will be valid for Hanoku and for all when Princess Djeelian reports it to Hanoku publicly for our people.”

  He cleared his throat loudly; nevertheless, his voice stayed harsh. “Believe that I want you; even with pirates, you never stood closer to ravishment. But I have to tell you what is true. As Governor of Dari, I am no more than a public servant reporting to President Tannen.”

  He waited, using all his human power, but only that power, to restrain his lua-lua and his heart.

  She began to tremble. Slowly she sank to her knees and trembled at his feet, staring at his big bare feet.

  She whispered, "Tannen?"

  Her arms crossed themselves; her hands clutched her shoulders.

  She told his feet, “You need not repeat it, I heard, I comprehend it; Hanoku and I faced this fact, we know it; only, we hoped that you would not think of this, or having thought of it, would choose not to mention it, and perhaps our gods would take it as merely an honest mistake and bless it. But you are one who has to be honest, Croyd, even at your own cost. And even this is a strengthening that our first child should have. But let this go, it has been said, now; this is what it must be, then: Tannen it must be.”

  Silence. He gazed melancholy down upon her, his lua-lua somnolent.

  Presently her arms dropped, and her eyes came up to his. Gravely she informed him, “Nevertheless, I love you enough. We love you enough. Tannen be damned.”

  He stared down upon her, hands hanging loose, while her words penetrated his blood.

  She caught breath; his lua-lua had catapulted itself away. Reaching behind him, he twisted a bar dial, killing the gravity; bending, he seized her upper arms, toe-thrust the floor, and rose with her into moonlit Dari midair.