Day by Night Page 10

  Now it is in my power to save you, Casrus, Vitra thought. Her lips parted, but Vyen came nearer and she did not speak. And now he was like a shadow at Casrus’ shoulder, the shadow of her anger and her spite. The black velvet arm of her brother swung up, the onyx box clutched firmly, ready for the paralyzing blow—

  And Casrus, spinning about with a terrifying, cat-like agility of his own, sent the box flying with one sweep of his fist, Vyen with another. Casrus trained for exercise in the art of combat—the two plotters, perhaps, had not been clever in reckoning they could best him.

  The male heir of ruined Klovez fell with a small thud and a jingle of ornaments. Vyen’s gray eyes were glazed, his head seeming disjointed and his body loose. Casrus, immobile, the dagger yet in his left hand, observed him with an astonishing impartiality. Only Vitra let out a squeak of affront and fear. This was not as they had planned, the brother and sister, when they brooded together in the dome of the Fabulism, Vitra’s fantasy replayed before them, and Casrus’ indictment in the offing.

  Eventually, Casrus said, “I see I was in error. This has been but another of Klovez’ dubious jokes. Your aims I don’t attempt to guess at, nor what pleasure you derive from such an enterprise. Your jaw will heal, Vyen. I doubt if your wits will improve so much. I assume your technology is as sound as ever it was, and this has been merely a secondary trick of your masquerade. Well, you misled me. I’m happy for you. It will make your friends laugh.”

  He laid the dagger on one of the tables and began to leave.

  Vitra opened her mouth to call after him, but Vyen, floundering on the rugs, somehow was shaking his disjointed head at her. Nonplussed, Vitra attended to this dumb show, and Casrus was gone from the room.

  Vitra hurried to her brother, and cradled him protectively. Vyen rested against her, soothed by the contact. Each derived abrupt solace from the proximity of the other. They would scratch each other with their claws, but the link between them was genuine and indissoluble, unlike all other links they formed, or strove to form, with the rest of their kind.

  “Our plan has failed,” said Vitra.

  “The reverse,” Vyen mumbled through a swelling lip. “I should never voluntarily have included my discomfort in the strategy, but really, it’s much the nicer outcome. Even that silly slicing you gave yourself will be useful. Our injuries, added to his patterns on the blade—what better? Now help me up. I must stagger to the window and give the alarm.”

  “Are they there?”

  “Oh, yes. Would they miss a drama? Casrus will have quite a surprise when he emerges. I think you should tear your dress now. That vase and that figurine must go—and the drape there—pull it off its rings.”

  Vitra ran to comply. Her heart thudded leadenly as she did so. Anger, embarrassment and confusion were mingled in her. As the gauze drapery, with its glints of metallic threads, piled around her feet, as her nails (lacquered the shade of the pink-mauve blossoms of another world), rent open the shoulder and bodice of her garment, a peculiar sadness and regret filmed the surface of her emotions, not mixed, not altering them, yet inexorably there, like oil on water.

  Then Vyen was leaning from an opened window, shouting in a thin, cracked voice at the groves of green fungyra trees below.

  “Casrus! I’ll kill you for this—Shedri—Ensid—take hold of him. Don’t let him get by you. My sister—”

  A muffled noise rose from the trees.

  When Vyen had watched her Fabulism through to its most recent point, where Vel Thaidis, wrongfully accused, flung from her the file of the Law, Vyen had said, “And what comes next? Do you know?”

  “I think I do. I will know when I return here and activate the machines. My inspiration—”

  “Yes, Vitra, yes. Obviously your Ceedres-Casrus has some extra trick to aid him. What?”

  Vitra outlined her story, the developments which she had gradually deduced would be revealed, though only when Vel Thaidis confronted her human judges.

  “Very well. We’ve nothing like that at our disposal. Once your invented tragedy is complete, I suggest you make a new story, and erase the mechanical tapes of this one, everything to do with Vel Thaidis and Ceedres Yune Thar. The worker-worms don’t positively remember what they see, or have the acumen to connect your adventure with the truth. Besides which, the machines have no connections with the computers. But, to be sure. . . . You’ll do it, Vitra?”

  “Yes,” she said. Furtively they had glanced at each other beneath their lashes, and an odd gnawing had registered for a moment under her ribs. That was when she had insisted that first she must try to win Casrus over to her, ensnare him, trap him as a woman but not as a foe.

  Then, so much settled, Vyen had elaborated on their plan.

  It was a simple one, and old as the history of mankind, in whatever clime or planet they found themselves.

  Vyen would send messages to Klastu, Klur and two or three other neighbors. He would tell of Klovez’ collapse, and plead that they come to his palace. Since the doors were outwardly unmovable, the princes must wait outside, and he would presently come down to them and let them in. He would ask them to be discreet and quiet—they were his friends, but he did not wish the entire Residencia to learn the plight of Klovez. Appended to his message would be the fact that he had also sent to Casrus Klarn, who, though a stony man and no friend, might offer sound counsel.

  That done, Vyen would hide himself in Vitra’s bedchamber, until the cue of the acted self-wounding, when he would come out. Once Casrus had laid hold of the dagger, Vyen would stun him, thereafter rushing to the window to summon the mob below.

  It would see that Casrus, taking diabolical advantage of Vitra’s presence in the empty palace of her distrait manner, had attempted to assault her. Stone, apparently, might crack, given sufficient stimulus. Like many another enigma before him, Casrus would discover his unsociability explained as a locking away of perversity and brutishness. Do this and this with me, and I will save you from the demise of Klovez, the brutish Casrus had declared to the panic-stricken girl, alone, unprotected by kindred or machine. When she resisted, a blade had been picked up and employed to threaten her—the hot humor roused, the stone changed to lava, it must have satisfaction. When Vyen (fictitiously returning to the house that moment) came upon them, he had been forced to strike Casrus unconscious with an onyx box snatched from a table.

  This, the plan. Yet the unforeseen had not undone it. The story required few alterations. It was indeed improved, made more credible.

  In his frenzy, Casrus had inflicted the cut to Vitra’s arm—a token of worse disfigurement if she did not surrender. Vyen, a child of peace rather than a fighter, had been easily slung aside. But by this time, Casrus’ fire had cooled from so much argument. He strode out on to the rock hill that led from Klovez, his face set in displeasure, his clothing somewhat disarranged, a smear of Vitra’s blood upon his sleeve, the pattern of his hand left behind on the incriminating dagger.

  And now, in reality, Casrus stood among the green-white fungyra trees, among the pale snarling faces of the sons of Klur, Klastu, Klinn, and heard the accusation rendered shrill and furious from the upper window.

  He knew no protestation was just then possible. He was an outcast of the dully brilliant world of the Klave, shunning its social concourse, frowning at its sports, a thorn in the side of its buried conscience. Like dogga, hunting a clockwork toy so the princes might gamble on the outcome, they had wanted simply a chance to pull him down. A single stumble, they would have him. And he had stumbled. There was no denying that.

  * * *

  • • •

  House Klur took them in, the two wronged destitutes.

  Shedri Klur was passionate in Vitra’s defense. White-lipped and silent, he had wrapped about her a rug of smooth synthetic fur.

  As Vitra entered the portals of Klur, the central salon with its frescoes and silverwork, Shedri
’s hand guiding her, his intense eyes blazing, it occurred to her that there was a prince who, despite youth, Law and any number of mistresses, with the slightest of urgings would gladly have made her his wife. True, it would have been a sharing rather than an assumption of sole rights, and for Vyen something less. Klur had twenty heirs in all; the place was a sprawling conglomerate of many apartments, libraries, inner courts, a ceaseless coming and going of robots and men. But need that little crowding really have proved so distressful? Certainly, Vitra had no feelings of love for Shedri, yet neither had she any feelings of hate. Nor did Vyen hate him. They would have been three of one kind. And Shedri, with Vyen’s help, she could have ruled.

  Why then had it been spontaneously necessary to them to destroy Casrus in order to gain his goods for their own losses—an exchange, indeed, not even legally sure? Were vengeance and spite so vehement in them?

  And when she was permitted to escape the Klurs, she lay upon a divan in the palace of Klur, and regret and fear lay down beside her. What had they done? What would be done to them?

  It was not exactly the process of the Law which she dreaded. Jurisdiction in the Klave had none of the awesome intransigence of the make-believe Yunean variety. Penalties were seldom as harsh; where they were, appeal was possible. But this in itself made her uneasy, for suppose Casrus were to defend himself ably enough so that the fabrication of lies was deciphered? And if judged guilty, what penalty would be imposed on him? How had she and Vyen dared rely upon mere chance that it must be the same penalty that Vel Thaidis would presently endure? And if it were, how should she, Vitra, endure the knowledge that she had brought Casrus to it, blameless?

  She scarcely slept, dreamed murkily when she did. The twittering, fascinated princesses of Klur, Shedri’s companions and sisters, would be upon her next Jate, eager for details of the failed ravishment. Perhaps she could escape them by nobly resuming her duty at the chamber of Fabulism. True, Vitra would now suffer with Vel Thaidis in earnest. The narrative would take on a fresh dimension of misery.

  I wish I had not. If it were to do again, I would not. Klovez might have righted itself. The computers might have rescued us, as Casrus tole me. It is Vyen’s fault.

  All at once it seemed to Vitra that, rather than invent a story to entrance the rabble of the Subterior, she had woven her own self into it. She had created a situation which was in turn creating her, coercing her. She had become the slave of a mirage.

  The long Maram faded, the Jate lay in wait outside her new Klur apartment. And caught in the Jate, a golden young woman seemed to be calling to her of anguish and pride.

  This Jate, Vitra would send Vel Thaidis to hell.

  To what hell was she sending herself?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Part One

  Vel Thaidis heard them arrive and seem to fill the house, their sounds blowing like vapors through its chambers and along its colonnades, its passages.

  They would assemble in the lower salon, where blinds of golden vitreous had been lowered across the oval window spaces. In a thick gold light, the machines would offer their knowledge and their judgment and the princes of the Yunea would deliberate and pronounce sentence. On her.

  A murderous act. What punishment for that? In the Slumopolis, those found out in a killing were themselves slain, in the way of immemorial tradition. Not a hand was raised against them, and no machine dealt them any blow, for logical justice utilized the logical means. The condemned were taken over the perimeter of the Yunea, into the central desert, the inner lands of the Zenith. There, the sun boiled their blood, soon frying them alive, a prolonged and harrowing execution.

  But Vel Thaidis was not accused of murder, merely of a murderous attempt. Her aristocratic felony invited a human council and a human decision.

  Were their murmurings, their solemn noises, concerned only with Vel Thaidis, as they filed into the palace of Hirz? Or did they grudge the time they might have spent on sport and music, on the esoteric literature of their class, or its contests of physical skill?

  She had sent a message to Velday with one of her attendants. If you have already determined I am to blame and hate me for it, stay away from this council, for both our sakes. The robot had returned: “I have left the message in the panel of Velday’s apartment. But Velday was not there to receive it.”

  She knew these were her final hours of life, as she had known life. If death was imminent she could not ascertain. Some sort of death, even if she were spared the extreme penalty, was inevitable. She grasped everything, and yet could not grasp it. She had only her pride left.

  So, she dressed to befit her pride as the daughter of Hirz. She put on a dark green dress, richly fringed and embroidered, bracelets of green metal and a collar of sunseyes, the yellow diamonds of her planet. The black tint of her hair had been retouched. Her lids were charcoaled and her mouth painted a delicate translucent red. Her entire concentration settled upon her dignity. She must govern her distress. Somehow the process of Law had been suborned. Helpless, she would not pointlessly struggle or fight any longer, and she would say nothing.

  The door to her apartment opened.

  The Voice Robot was in the doorway.

  “They are waiting, Vel Thaidis.”

  “Tell them I’m coming, Voice.”

  As the heel of each sandal met the floor it gave a small bell-like note. The perfume special to her house had been woven in her hair, her garments, dropped into the palms of her hands.

  There was no strength in any of her limbs, but she walked fluidly between the pillars, trained walk of the princess, straight into the lower salon of the palace. Straight into the golden glare of the spoiled verdict, the scorn or pity of the eight houses who had been her neighbors and were therefore selected to judge her. She glanced at none of them. At nothing. She went to the chair, set out on its own, unmistakably hers—the outcast’s. She sat there. In the stillness, she was the stillest thing of all. Stone, she thought. Steel, she was the stillest thing of all. Stone, she thought. Steel, she thought. And is he here? Of course, Ceedres must be present. But I won’t look for him or at him. Stone, steel. This is all I have and all I am and all I can be.

  A man was speaking, the head of house Domm. In his one hundred and fiftieth year, tall and well-built, he was a typical example of his kind, and arrogant as his kind (her kind) were, so she thought, now. Yune Domm. She knew him. She knew every one of them, though not well. Never so well as now.

  “Vel Thaidis Yune Hirz,” he interpolated in his oration occasionally, to identify her, or to attract her attention. No, she would not turn to him, to any of them.

  “Vel Thaidis, it’s hard to believe in this deed of yours. But the Law has verified your transgression. It will be proven before us. We will be fair to you. But expect no favors.”

  Ceedres, she thought. His eyes are scorching me, his malevolent interest and contempt. But I won’t look about for him. They love him, as Velday loves him, and they care nothing for me. Why should they? He’s taken trouble, for many years, to amuse them, to make them wise, generous, honorable and lordly in their own eyes. And I have shunned them, hidden from them, by which they knew they were unnecessary to me. They would always put Ceedres before me.

  “A young girl, you are yet the head of the house of Hirz. . . . ”

  Velday, I’m certain, has kept away. I thank the gods—if there are gods—for that.

  Yune Domm, the spokesman, had finished. Yune Chure would be seated near, Kewel’s father. The heads of Ket and Ond would be present, of Lail, and the old lady of Tu, and the sad younger woman who ruled Zem and whose husband had recently died on a lionag hunt. For sure, princess Yune Zem would have no sympathy to spare. But Vel Thaidis would not search for her tear stains or her corrosive sneer.

  From the corner of her eye, Vel Thaidis caught the movement of a Lawguard, and heard the brush of its jets across the mosaic.

  The
obnoxious, unbreathing, monotonous voice began.

  I must listen to this, she thought. Then: Why? I can alter nothing.

  But she listened.

  “The testimonies of Ceedres Yune Thar and of Vel Thaidis Yune Hirz have been mechanically impressed and will now be broadcast to you please attend carefully.”

  Then the tone came, as she had heard it in the main salon, yesterjate.

  She schooled herself, and did not start as Ceedres spoke from the recording machine.

  “I have no desire to make this statement,” Ceedres said within the copper tube of the Lawguard. There was a pause, during which, presumably, the recorder had reasoned with him. Again the tone, and next: “Then I will make the statement in the interests of the Law, but under protest. Nor have I any wish to reveal the whole matter. Subject to assurance that I must, I comply. But this procedure isn’t of my choosing.”

  So clever, she thought. Yes, you have genius. Not to protest before the tone of the impression, but after it. So we should all hear your recorded forbearance, your noble rejections.

  “For some years I have considered Vel Thaidis as kindred,” Ceedres’ voice continued. “This was an error on my part, but not perhaps inexcusable. Her brother, Velday, and I have been close since childhood. But in the error of my assumption, I’ve been lax in my treatment of Vel Thaidis, discourteous and rough, forgetting myself. To which, I might add, the lady generally replied quickly and saw I smarted for it. One Jate I made an ill-conceived remark, a jest that she should marry me and so rescue the Thar estate from its ruin. I should not have done so, and I regretted it. I later strove to make amends. This was on a J’ara hunt, when Vel Thaidis was my companion in the chariot. I apologized to her at once, and asked that our relations be less abusive in the future. Vel Thaidis agreed to this. I had slowed the chariot in order to talk to her. She disliked hunting—I was surprised she’d come—and now suggested we enter the temple in the valley instead of going on with the rest. I was determined to fall in with her whims, to end, any way I could, the bad feeling that had festered between us. We went into the temple, and there she told me she had taken my joke of marriage seriously, hence her confusion and anger. Must I explain all this?” Another pause. The tone. Ceedres resumed. His voice was clipped as if with embarrassment and reluctance. “Vel Thaidis swore she loved me. She frankly demanded I should marry her and thereby take half the Hirz estate. She’s beautiful, and knows, as who does not, the condition of my fortunes. The proposal could have tempted me, though I’ll admit such bluntness from her amazed me. It wasn’t the Vel Thaidis I recalled. But I put her off at once. How could I, for the sake of my honor, marry her? Thar’s decline and my resultant poverty precluded such a match. Despite her loveliness, who would suppose that I’d wed her for love? I’ve lived by courtesy of the kindness of my friends some while. But to marry one of them for her property, which is what such a joining would seem, what indeed she seemed to hold as her premise, that road was not for me. And so I informed her. At which—she begged me. At which, once more, I put her off. The situation was now inflammable between us. Worse than ever in the past. At first she was quiet and I persuaded her to return to the chariot. I was preoccupied. She would have sold herself so very cheap to me. I’d had foolish ideas concerning her, which had been undermined. Then, in the chariot, the words flew. I’d never had to handle such a display in a woman of my own class. I made no move to guard myself when she took up the knife. Partly in order not to hurt her, partly because I still reckoned her incapable of such crude barbarism. My mistake, for which I paid. She missed my heart by a finger’s breadth. That minute, she must have wanted my death very much. But—may I say one other thing—her hysteria possessed her. The creature in the chariot was not Vel Thaidis. On my side, I want no recriminations, no insane sentences passed on a woman who temporarily forgot herself.”