Lucifer Comet (2464 CE) Page 17

  At a sign from Farragut, Methuen asked his committee, “Does anybody need any special equipment other than what you can get released from your own laboratories?”

  Glaciologist Green said, “Let me answer later”; but the others all negated, being eager to get started.

  “Then,” Methuen told them, “I will ask each of you, between now and tomorrow morning, to list the items that you will bring aboard, and to make arrangements with your institutions for immediate shipment by the fastest safe method.” He followed by securing permission from the admiral for the task force to visit the ship next day in order to make space dispositions and discuss installations. Whereafter they all looked at Farragut.

  Said the Secretary, “I’m for it in principle. A major question will be, where in the budget we can find one or two million credits without going to Erthworld Council for a special appropriation. I’ll bring this to the Norwestian President this afternoon, with a favorable recommendation and a request for speed; and I’ll remind him that Erthworld Chairman Evans has expressed her interest in this project.

  “Gentlepeople, I thank you.”

  Standing quickly, Methuen responded, “And we thank you, madam Secretary.”

  A great variety of scientific instrumentation would be needed; but as it turned out, most of the equipment already on hand in the institution labs of the individual scientists was portable (some massively portable despite pattern-laser microcircuitry) and adaptable to self-contained nuclear-pellet power. Liana Green specified the only exception: she claimed to need some systems whose roots were firmly embedded in Antarctic glacial ice or in sub-ice bedrock. Methuen headed off a delay of many months by pointing out that similar anchorages could hardly be attained on Dora in time to pay off during a hundred-day stay (the revised figure). After some consultation with her stratogeologist colleague and with the ESC chief of interplanetary geology, she huffily compromised on substitute nuclear-powered and portable systems which operated on the sonar principle and were locally available.

  The frigate Farragut was lean-mean impressive, torpedoshaped to get her through atmospheres in a hurry en route to and from space; length half a kilometer, beam behind her nose eighty meters tapering back to ten. Preliminary exploration revealed a disappointing paucity of private cabins, and they were tiny; but the storage space was beautiful, and the engines and differential mass frightening.

  At the end of a tour, they met in the captain’s mess over cocktails; there the task force members, carefully avoiding the subject of their personal discomfort, complained bitterly about having to deploy their instruments along with their bodies in such cubicles. Methuen inquired which ones among them would need to use their instruments while in space-transit. It developed that the only one was Astrophysicist Sari. The captain then observed that there was excellent storage space for instruments which would not be in space use; and he added that a special lab for Dr. Sari could be set aside within the storage area. That silenced the task force; and Methuen wickedly drove home the needle by remarking that the officers who normally would enjoy single privacy in these cubicles would have to double up to make room for the scientists.

  At that, Olga surprisingly moved (a) that Captain Methuen and Executive Officer Zorbin should not be displaced from the cabins they would normally occupy, and (b) that Captain Methuen be authorized to make all cabin assignments subject to appeal only to himself. Sari seconded.

  Methuen as chairman asked and secured permission to introduce an amendment, namely, that he and Zorbin would co-bunk in the captain’s cabin, thus releasing an additional cabin for assignment. Olga seconded, hoping for assignment with her instruments to the slightly enlarged space of the executive officer’s cabin.

  The motion as amended passed. “Thank you,” Methuen remarked; “the amendment will allow me to assign the executive officer’s cabin to my second and third officers who together will find the space barely adequate for their operational needs.” Olga knew better than to comment.

  The urgency within Methuen was close to frantic; objectively, though, he seemed a systematic iceberg as, during ten hectic days, he drove to completion the complex preparations for departure… .

  On the evening before take off, weary Methuen looked about him for dinner companions and did not immediately find any; Zorbin was away overnight, and various scientists were beginning to pair a bit. While he considered the question, he felt a female hand on his shoulder and heard the voice of Sita Sari: “If the captain has no other plans, I would love to buy both of us a good dinner.”

  Gratefully he reached back and patted the hand, gazing into her face, whose look was mischievous. He told her firmly: “I buy.”

  “Compromise? Dutch treat?”

  He picked a little-known small-great place; and during more than two hours they wallowed in goodies the best of which was rich conversation—no, that was second-best; the best was camaraderie. He was more than half inclined to suggest that they make a night of it; but over after-dinner liqueur she remarked: “This has been very good, B.J. And now I think we both need to sleep-up our energies for takeoff tomorrow. And I stipulate that we are to part now and sleep separately.”

  He let her have a gentle grin. “You are psychic, Sita?”

  “I am female. You are male. But I eschew that. Even if I were otherwise inclined, I am too full of tomorrow’s departure to be distracted by my senses.”

  He leaned forward. “You are enthusiastic, Sita?”

  Her low voice told the ceiling: “ ‘Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong flaming down from th'ethereal sky, with hideous ruin and combustion—’ ”

  Methuen soberly responded. “Milton, Paradise Lost, Book One. God hurling Lucifer out of Heaven.”

  “Right,” she told table-knife. “Do you catch my reference, B.J.?”

  “The overhead star-demon, with the mizdorf hurtling down. Only, you are converting the demon to God and the mizdorf to Lucifer.”

  She looked up, sparkling with mischief. “Let me lead up to this by pairing Milton with a modern poet who shall be nameless. We spent an early spring in northern Italy, basing ourselves in Strese on Lake Maggiore; and one day we drove to the Italian side of the Matterhorn. Afterward, he uncorked this:

  “ ‘Go penetrate the country, alternating

  toy village streets thick-lined by grocery shops

  with paddies worked by peasants rice-awaiting,

  or feudal castles haunting mountaintops.

  In cosmic wonder, we two pilgrims eyed,

  breathless, the snowbound heights of Matterhorn’s

  backside.’

  “Well, Captain? Do you see the composite picture?”

  He regarded her with new interest. Almost in a breath, four personal revelations: Milton, mythology, quasi-Byronic whimsy, and just an ankle-flash of personal history….

  He inquired, “Doctor, is it not that you are burning with eagerness to see the backside of Lucifer?”

  22

  Day Two through Day Eleven

  Dorita, coming partially out of fiendish and prolonged delirium, opened her eyes and recoiled from the hideous face that bent over her. The face chittered and patted her gently; at length she calmed and drowsed.

  Again she awakened: same face, but it smiled and offered her a gourd filled with liquid. Laboriously she managed to sip a little: water. She lay back and appraised the face, thrusting herself into orientation: it was that of a mature big-breasted plump woman, Neanderthaloid and blue-green of course. With the recognition, Dorita stiffened back on the cot, clenching eyes and fists and jaws, beginning to comprehend that her nightmare had been no dream.

  She roused: now the one bending over her was Narfar. He chittered soothingly, but neither her comprehension of his language nor her telepathy had returned yet. Apathetically she examined him, wanting to hate him, not quite succeeding.

  Narfar reached out to somewhere and brought back something like a banana which he peeled and offered to her. She negated. Delicately he bit off
a piece with his front teeth and brought it to her mouth with his fingers. Surrendering, she took it and laboriously toothed it like an old woman gumming with arthritic jaws. She felt no pain, but her lower jawbone simply was not operating right.

  He gave her another morsel, then coaxed her to sip from the gourd. Standing, he chittered something and vanished. The woman came back into view, offering the food and drink; Dorita refused, but she felt an urge and pointed to her crotch. The woman lifted her-and carried her outside to a midden where Dorita relieved herself quickly, repelled by the potent odors; then she was returned to the cot, and she fell asleep immediately.

  Awakening next morning, she felt barely strong enough to get her legs off the cot and sit on its edge, giddily supporting herself with her hands. The woman ran in, helped her up, assisted her to the midden and back. Having resumed the cot with the woman’s help, she was fed and watered; clutching the gourd, she water-washed her sleep-glued eyes, then felt for something to dry them with—and noticed for the first time that she was naked. The woman, equally naked, did not seem to understand Dorita’s need; so Dorita semi-dried herself with her own long tangled hair and examined her nurse.

  The point of the examination was, not so much to know the nurse, as to comprehend how she herself must appear, having no mirror. The woman was a female version of Nar-far, only sloppy rather than muscular-lean; she was all-over black-hairy, her legs were bowed, her jaw was heavy, her nose was flat, her chin and forehead receded, her post-orbital ridge was massive. No need to be delicate in front of her: Dorita went about checking herself—her own bowed legs (but her body still was relatively hairless except as to scalp and armpits and pubis), the feel of her nose (flattened so that she would have to get used to a new breathing-feel), the slope of her forehead (receding and heavily eye-ridged), the form of her lower jaw (not heavy, but with chin receding). It was a done thing, then; she scarcely needed a mirror.

  She surveyed the hut-interior: thatched roof, withe-walls, doorless door, no windows; two other cots, no other furniture. A few pertinent words of the local tongue returned to her, and she inquired, “How long I here?” Even her voice was deformed, a sinus-resonant nasal.

  The woman held up three fingers: “That many suns.”

  Holding up three fingers of her own, Dorita tested, touching fingers: “One sun—two suns—this third sun now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I Dorita. Who you?”

  “I Merli. Woman to Narfar. He put me here for you.”

  “You here all time, Merli?”

  “No. Yesterday my afternoon, last night my night, today my morning. This afternoon come other woman to Narfar, name Lari; tomorrow other woman, name Kosa; next day I come again.”

  “You good, Merli. Narfar have three women?”

  “Now he have four women.”

  Dorita grimaced, then queried: “I see Narfar here yesterday?”

  “Yes. He come every morning and evening to see you. He like you very much. He sorry for you.”

  As always, she was catching meanings by telepathy when she did not understand some words; recognition of this talent-in-progress reminded her that she had it.

  She said, “You nice, Merli. You have things to do, maybe?”

  “Yes, but I watch you—”

  “I all right. You go do things. Go now, good Merli. Come back when your next turn come.”

  The woman shrugged, smiled, and departed—leaving Dorita to the solitude she needed so that she could meditate the meanings of her misery.

  Narfar exploded into the hut. “Hi, Dorita! Up! Up! We go flying, I show you city—”

  He paused as, with a wan smile, she raised a restraining hand. “Narfar, I weak, I no fly, I fall off your back.”

  His jaw dropped, his head went down. “You mad at me because I do this to you.”

  Having worked out that emotive issue within herself, she patted the side of her cot. “Come sit here.” She felt him go faint inside, he was remembering their first meeting.

  He sat beside her, stroked her forehead with a finger, stroked her nose and chin, saying, “You pretty now, Dorita. You always pretty inside, but now you pretty outside too. You glad?”

  Smiling broadly because it was so comical-ironic, she struggled up to a sitting position (she wasn’t pushing very expertly with her new-bent legs) and clutched his shoulders with both hands, looking into his face. With severity: Narfar, l said I would let you do this so I could stay with you—but l didn’t know you had three other women.

  He pressed one of her hands on a shoulder. You be queen of all three, now. They be just extras. You my goddess. Tomorrow we go to bed.

  Perhaps the other three would accept her preeminence, perhaps not; she anticipated problems, but they weren’t important in view of the secret transience of her stay here. Once back on Erth, plastic surgery would quickly rearrange her. But she did have to get her special status defined.

  Forlorn she looked up at him, her still-blue eyes pleading. But Narfar, first we have to get married.

  Married? What that?

  It is Erth custom, it has to happen first. We have big ceremony, all leaders there, many other people there. Holy man say words over us, make us man and wife. Then we go to bed. Not before.

  He barked aloud: “We get married then! How do?”

  She told him sweetly, “You my god. You say how marriage will go. I help you plan. But I have to get strong for marriage.”

  Narfar hugged her tightly to him, exclaiming: “Marriage new thing, but Narfar say good new thing. Maybe good just for us, maybe good for all. I dunno, we see. I gotta go now, but Lari come soon, Kosa tomorrow; both young and strong, you work hard with them, you be strong real quick. Dorita, you do!”

  This time, when he vanished, it was the natural way: walking out through the door. Presumably he had gone the same way yesterday.

  Lari who was young-rangy and Kosa who was young-petite-strong were distant at first; but Dorita turned on everything she had including affirmative suggestion; and they became such great pals that one or the other of the young women would come every day to the hut to help their patient get quickly strong for Narfar. Dorita had a feeling that none of these three had ever looked upon herself as more than a concubine; so that if this Dorita was to become his queen-goddess and rule over them, the best thing to do was to win Dorita’s favor—and quite without jealousy.

  She went walking with Lari the same afternoon; and while mastery of her new-bowed legs came slowly, fatigue diminished as mastery progressed.

  Regularly during their probings of the hut-city, Lari or Kosa would pause to yatter with townsfolk, first presenting them to Dorita. Because Narfar’s leaders had passed the word, the opening routine was always the same: both men and women would drop to their knees and bow their heads; Dorita would encourage them with a few words; immediately they would resume their feet, lose stiffness, and gossip with her in quite an ordinary way. Leadership-followership went easily in Narfar City.

  The women were invariably naked, except for instances when the time of month made a breechclout needful: a bulky affair of long leaves interwoven with vines and stuffed with moss. Men, to her surprise, were not ordinarily naked entirely; rather, they wore slim breechclouts (perhaps mainly for self-support) in any situation outside the throne room; and whenever she saw a man who wore some additional garment, usually the pelt of some animal, she came to recognize him as a leader. Only Narfar among men went always god-naked. Family arrangements appeared roughly patriarchal: men seemed clearly in the ascendancy; the same woman was usually with the same man, but this was not always the case, and Dorita suspected that roving diversion was easy for both sexes.

  After three days of in-city activity, she invaded Jungle edge with Kosa; and over a period of days, regularly she jungle-roved with one or the other of the young women. It was more than a matter of strength-gaining: Dorita felt a practical need to learn jungle ways, and both her teachers were excellent at this. They showed her which snakes were
venomous and which weren’t; which vines were toxic or even aggressively carnivorous; which beasts were docile and which dangerous; which insects were noxious and which merely friendly-annoying; how to distinguish edible fruits and berries and fungi.

  At the first pond they encountered, Lari gave instruction about dangerous reptilian swimmers and about quicksand. But after a little of that, it penetrated Lari’s awareness that kneeling Dorita was staring at the water surface without paying much attention to her tutor. “What matter?” Lari wanted to know. Laughing a little, Dorita stood quite easily; her strength was returning, her legs were behaving well. “I look at my new face,” she told Lari.

  “You like?” her friend asked.

  Dorita spread her hands. “It a face.” Her new appearance had not shocked her as much as she had anticipated; she had formed a pretty good idea of it from self-touching.

  She learned that the hut where she was staying had been commandeered for her by Narfar. It was adjacent to the palace, and he had been keeping his other three women there; but them he had relocated by bumping a family in the next hut farther downstreet to a hut recently vacated by old-age death. It was a signal to Dorita that she was indeed his favorite; and since it had been equally a signal to the other women long before her awakening, she understood that they were prepared to accept her, that their friendliness was genuine. She thought a lot about that: she hadn’t really felt friendship before.