“No!” he cried, his dream of freedom blasted. He put his hand against the specter, covering the liquid eyes. He shoved it away with a convulsion of horror.
And stood alone on the mountain, wrapped in the melody…
Interlog:
These are not our people.
The universe was clean in its conception:
Bright pure suns swept up the swirling dust,
Nebulae drifted eternally—until one fell from grace.
Our galaxy is ilclass="underline"
It rots at the core, dissolves into decay, festers with putrid stench,
Diseased by the ultimate horror:
Life.
From this morass rises an unthinkable caricature of intellect,
Dedicating itself to the greater decimation of order,
Contaminating every particle.
Its guises are several, but our concern is with the nearest:
Man.
These are not our people.
The enemy is man.
This evil must be expunged, our galaxy sterilized.
No vestige of slime may remain.
Yet—the malady is far advanced;
The infection has greater resource than we.
Prematurity is defeat.
We control our revulsion; we study and are subtle.
We recruit the envoys of man’s doom from his own ranks.
We select an individual and tame him to fit our purpose.
This creature is less than sane
(His culture says),
He is ideaclass="underline"
Aton.
Aton has a dream of union
Aton longs to embrace beauty
Aton seeks to murder evil…
Aton, Aton, child of illusion,
“Fair and foul are near of kin.”
Your strength rises from evil.
Look to your excrement;
Smear your face in truth
Forget ambition;
Return.
For these are not your people—
And we are not their god.
IV. Minion
§401
Ten
It was bright, blindingly bright, even in the heavy shade. Aton had forgotten how much natural incandescence was wasted in the open. The smell of the outdoors was everywhere, rich and ecstatic. It was day and it was warm, not with the arid blast of the caverns, but with sweetness, with splendor.
Freedom! Nightmare was behind him now, his long trial over. The insane evil of the caverns could fade into the past, leaving only the Aton who had won free—the purged Aton, the clean Aton.
There were trees and grasses and open ground. The man who had conquered Chthon and kept his sanity dropped to his knees, not in any prayer of thanks, but to grasp physically at the renewed wonder of it all. His pale fingers dug into the soft turf, pleasure running up his arms; he brought a handful to his mouth, tasting the torn green of it and the fresh decay.
There is no filth in nature, he thought. There is no horror that does not originate in man’s own mind.
He rolled on the ground, transported by the joys of familiarity. He knew this planet—it was as though there had been no dark interlude between his murder of Coquina’s love and the present wonder, as though all of Chthon had not intervened to avenge that crime.
I loved you, pretty shell. But it was my second love, smaller than the first. And so I freed you.
A noise in the afternoon brought him out of his reverie. It had been morning when he emerged. His attention focused: the sound had been the report from the activation of an ancient projectile mechanism. A—shot. As a boy, he had once heard… someone was—hunting.
The associations were promising. A man who could indulge such antique tastes could also afford a private ship. He was likely to be eccentric, a loner.
But if this were a private game preserve, as seemed likely now, Aton himself could be in immediate danger. A number of exotic predators could have been stocked. He had been very foolish to let down his guard merely because he was free.
It would be best to overpower the hunter immediately and take his ship. That would solve his problem of transportation, since he could take off without having to conceal his identity from local officials.
He made his way toward the original sound, moving as quietly as possible. He was used to the rigid rock floor of the caverns, and his feet were calloused and insensitive from the eternal twilight marches. Brittle twigs seemed to project themselves magically under his toes, breaking vociferously. Surely his approach was audible for a mile or more!
He would have to wait for the man instead, hoping that his wanderings brought him within range.
In range of what? Aton had no weapon, and chance would scarcely bring the man within arms’ reach. He was still thinking in cavern terms.
Quietly he felt for fragments of stone, collecting them in a little pile at his ankles. He stood behind a slender red tree, sidewise: it would appear to be too small to conceal a man, and his position for throwing was good. There had been only one shot—the man must have fired for practice, or at a mistaken target. Nervous, perhaps. Good.
Aton threw his largest stone in a high arc that intercepted no branches during its ascent. It came down noisily fifty yards from his tree—away from the hunter. The man should pass very near, on his way to investigate. The first stone would have to be accurate, even so; a projectile weapon, properly used, could be as deadly as a knife.
The quarry began to whistle tunelessly, approaching. Did the fool expect to stalk an animal that way? There would be no point in reasoning with such an idiot. Best simply to kill him and backtrack to the ship. Aton could handle any conventional model.
The whistling grew louder. Aton raised his arm, flexing his wrist comfortably. He would have to expose himself momentarily; it was too risky to aim by the sound alone.
The whistling stopped. “I should advise you,” a scratchy voice said, “that my old-fashioned rifle has an old-fashioned heat perceptor. If you are sapient, act accordingly.”
The tree would protect him somewhat. The hunter would not dare to approach too close, and could not gain anything by circling. But neither could Aton hope to overcome him, since he had lost the advantage of surprise. He would have to parley.
“Sapient,” he called. “Truce.”
“I’ll hold my fire,” the voice agreed, “as long as I think it wise. I’m not a very good shot, anyway—more likely to hit the stomach than the heart.” The warning was plain enough: this man would shoot to maim rather than to kill.
Aton accepted the warning and put down his stones before stepping into view. He had no desire to experience the niceties of “poor” marksmanship. The hunter was less foolish than anticipated.
The hunter was short, slightly built, and middle-aged. Small, very bright eyes peered out from a deeply creased and sallow face. The hands, too, were yellow, the flesh sunken between tendons, the nails coarse and too long. But the vintage rifle those hands held was absolutely steady, and it bore unwaveringly upon Aton’s midsection. This was no pampered sportsman.
The hunter was giving Aton a similar perusal. “When you return to nature, you certainly go all out,” he said at last. Aton suddenly remembered: they wore clothing outside, and he was naked from being in the caverns. His hair was filthy and inches long on every side; his beard was matted over chin and chest, tangled with bits of grass. His own skin was deathly pale, except where the dirt encrusted it.