Biting the Sun Read online

  “You must be Danor!”

  “Danor?” I said. “This isn’t Danor. Danor is the nice little thing in pink.”

  Danor remained silent.

  Zirk floundered and his pectorals deflated uncertainly.

  “Well, I did reckon the one in pink was…But then, who’s this?”

  “Does it matter?” I said. “You look after your interests and I’ll take care of mine.” I craned to his ear. “After all, I gave up the Danor idea when I saw you and Hergal getting to work. I should watch Hergal,” I added.

  Zirk spun round, registered Hergal’s position, and then galloped boatward to envelop the pink girl with Four BEE gallantry. How surprised she was going to be. Kley and Thinta were gawping at me, and Kley’s golden eyes had a leopardine gleam.

  “Danor,” I said, “there is a robot bird-plane for hire about ten paces to our left. You didn’t protest a moment ago, so I assume you won’t now.” And I took her hand, and she, I, and the swan ran for the plane and leaped inside. The swan landed on the dashboard, its beak making a merry rattling sound and its wings smiting left and right. I depressed the “PAY ON LANDING” button, closed the ignition switch, and we were sailing into the velvet upper air of the city. The swan also erupted into flight and whizzed about our heads.

  Danor giggled, hauling on the sapphire chain. The swan settled abruptly and the bird-plane plunged to port.

  “How silly,” said Danor. “Be calm,” she murmured to the swan, and to me: “It was a genetic mistake. The flashes in BAA reported it. It came out of the tank wrong and they were going to dismantle it. But I asked Kam if I couldn’t have it, and he said yes and arranged it.”

  “How splendid of Kam,” I said.

  “Kam was an Older Person,” said Danor. She folded her hands in her lap on top of the swan. Very serenely she said: “We lived together for eight vreks. Yes, ooma, a Jang girl with an older male. Watch the buttons,” she said softly as I inadvertently spun us into a Hergal-type dive—the old Hergal. “The Committee finally got around to suggesting we part company. They told us, very kindly, that it was not done, not good for us, not healthy. They told Kam that he was ruining my life, so he made me go.”

  The swan began to sing in a high-pitched inappropriate voice:

  “I only want to have love with you, for you are so derisann.”

  * * *

  —

  We changed to a bubble, and got along Peridot Waterway and so home. I didn’t pay for the bird-plane—I seldom did when I could avoid it—but I felt I had to for the bubble, since the swan, obviously a creature of irregular habits, crapped lethargically all over it. Danor did not apologize for the swan, for which I admired her.

  At home, we went into the suite of rooms I still occasionally used. An immediate machine came crawling out of the wall and sidled up to Danor, imploring her to let it get her some topaz meringue or crushed fire-apple. Danor declined, which intrigued me; once she had adored food at any hour of night or day. She inquired instead if the swan could have some syntho fruit juice. I acquiesced with mixed feelings.

  We sat together in the garden by the pool under the huge artificial stars of Four BEE—Danor, the swan, and I.

  “Can it swim at all?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Danor. The swan was apparently a total failure, which was why she loved it.

  We had said no more about Kam. At least, I had asked nothing and Danor had volunteered no more. But now, reflectively, she began to talk again. I could tell from her voice, so level and unbitter, that the story caused her great pain, but it was a pain she had mastered. She was informing me, not because she needed to, but out of a sense of fairness. Because to her, as to me, the brief weird trouble between us in the past had achieved importance over the vreks which followed. Danor and I had never been close. In those days Hergal was nearer to me, even Thinta, in her irritating way. But now, under the monotonous starlight, we might have been the offspring of the same makers, brother and sister.

  “When I went to BAA,” she said, “I was male again for a little while. A couple of other-circle Jang had followed me; I did it to shake them off, and it worked. One unit I met this older male in the Weather Gardens—you know the place in BAA where they have special weather effects, thunderstorms and snow and everything. I was with a crowd watching an avalanche—they only lay it on twice a unit and it was rather impressive. Then this male came up to me, and he said reproachfully: ‘If you were going to be here, why didn’t you signal me?’ I said I didn’t know what he meant. Then he stared very hard, and he blushed. How often do people blush? It was sort of unusual and rather attractive. He’d designed himself very handsomely, and he didn’t have that pompous, anti-Jang look either. He said: ‘I am sorry. I thought you were my child. He’s predominantly male, and his last body did look very like yours. But how stupid of me. What must you think.’ I said I thought it was quite natural, and I didn’t mind, and was he the guardian? He gave a little smile, the sort of smile that isn’t really a smile. ‘No, the other maker is his guardian. I don’t often see either of them.’ By this time the avalanche was finished. When he had looked at it, his eyes were really far away, unfocused. He didn’t seem happy or enthusiastic. Have you noticed, ooma, I expect you have, how nearly everyone is always happy and enthusiastic, and rushing about, and laughing and screaming? He was very restful, and I suppose he thought I was restful, because we were both very silent and sad-eyed. Presently he said he was called Kam, and would I care for a glass of opal wine or some Joyousness or something. Just then I think he wanted to make believe I was his child and I’d come to visit him. It eased out, bit by bit, how he and the other maker didn’t get along well now, and the other maker, predominantly female, had insisted she be guardian to the child, and it rather seemed she might have turned him against Kam. Kam didn’t actually say this. He was trying to be impartial, simply because he felt angry about it, and knew he might not be. I liked him. I said I wished he were my maker, I hadn’t seen my two since hypno-school ended.

  “That was the start of it. We began to go about on a maker-child basis. I was still male then. He was so very nice to me. He paid for everything, and he took me to see the sights—things I hadn’t even heard of. And he introduced me to his friends, though most of them were fairly anti as usual, and even had me meet a Jang circle or two, the children of his contemporaries. One day there were these two gorgeous Jang girls in his palace. They’d seen me and liked me, apparently, and Kam had encouraged them. He came in, being jolly and maker-ish. He expected I’d want to get married to one of them for the unit, but of course I didn’t. And it wasn’t just the old thing—the having love thing—either. It made me realize. When I didn’t bite, the two girls eventually flounced out. I told Kam I was predominantly female, and due for a change. He looked slightly taken aback. He looked something else, too—nervous, and not only that, somehow glad. I knew then, and I think he did. I went to Limbo that night. He didn’t go with me. This was the body I came out with. I wouldn’t change it now, and if I had to, I’d replicate—fortunately that’s a successful fashion that you started, ooma. I ordered it in these soft colors because I’d seen he liked them. His home was all blues and mauves like evening skies. Am I making him sound floopy, ooma? He wasn’t. But he was very kind. I came back at dawn, and I wondered if he was still asleep. But he’d been up the whole night. He was walking about on the roof, and he saw me and came down. To begin with, I felt scared, he seemed so flabbergasted. He just stared at me. And then he apologized and mumbled something about you never knew with Jang, I might have turned up the shade of a fireball, with a knife on each hip. I simply took his hand. I didn’t know what I wanted, really. I wasn’t analyzing or being rational, and I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t even remember the idea that Jang never have liaisons with older people. I mean, they never do, do they? I suppose, maybe, it must have happened once or twice, but only for a unit, and all hushed up and hidden afterw
ard, with everyone ashamed and rushing off to suicide or something.

  “He said, ‘Darling, I’m at least half a rorl older than you, and you know I can’t follow Jang custom and marry you—there’s no provision for older people to marry. You do realize that?” I said, ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He looked troubled, for me, because I was a Jang and breaking the unwritten law—though probably it is written, too. So I kissed him. I hadn’t planned to. I’d resigned myself anyway, ages before, that having love, for me, was a nonevent and always would be. You see, I hadn’t imagined it would be any different with him. I just wanted to make him happy, because he was so special to me. I was ready to play and pretend anything.” Danor’s eyes sparkled. Sublimely, majestically, she made a particularly unequivocal Jang sexual gesture. “Well, well, wasn’t I due for a surprise?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’d had a couple of ideas about that too.”

  I tried not to sound sullen. Kam had stolen my thunder, but never mind, at least her story was original.

  “All that marrying business,” Danor said, glinting. “All that delay. Part of me always knew I’m spontaneous. He taught me that. Oh, ooma,” she said suddenly, the light fading from her face, “I loved him. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes, I know about love,” I said. “Like God, it doesn’t seem to function anymore.”

  “They won’t let it function. Do you know what happened? One night his child arrived—how ironical. He was a sort of amber male with cold eyes. He took one look at me and ran off to his guardian, and about three splits later there was a messenger baa in the house from the Committee. They spoke to both of us, together and individually. They were very kind, that was what made it so silly. They explained that the age and experience difference simply wouldn’t work. That Kam was a maker-figure for me and I was a child-figure for him. I said, what did it matter if we were happy? But they convinced Kam, and that unit he said I must go. He was very firm. He ordered me out, and his eyes were full of tears.”

  I glanced at her. She was still calm, wholly in command of herself. She looked very beautiful, very desirable in the cool starlight, which, despite its artificial idiocy, is effective. But what can you do with a friend who sits grieving stoically by your pool for a lost lover that isn’t you?

  Just then, the swan tottered—probably drunk on its syntho-juice—to the water’s edge, and tumbled in.

  I had a moment’s wild hope it would regain a lost instinct and begin to swim, but it sank like a stone, only its beak protruding for an instant, honking out a snatch of song—“You are the wonderful sun of my sky!”—which was presumably the only way it could cry for help.

  I suspect the swan had reminded me somewhat of the pet, though the pet’s intelligence had been razor-sharp, for all its zaradannity, while the swan was manifestly a mental deficient.

  Not stopping to calculate, I plunged straight into the pool after the bloody thing, and swiftly emerged with its struggling, wet-feather body, which I deposited on the bank, against great opposition from the swan itself. It promptly puked the water it had swallowed into half the silk-flowers and then sat down on the other half with a look of mild self-congratulation.

  I rose from the pool, my poet’s gear of black cactus-velvet plastered to my skin, and my loosely curling hair matted to a consistency guaranteed to shred my skull when next I came to brush it.

  Danor had begun to cry, almost unobtrusively.

  “Poor swan,” she whispered, but I knew who she meant.

  I knelt by her and, regardless of my saturated condition, she clung to me. I was familiar with this scene, had acted in it with myself as Danor. I held her close, and presently picked her up and carried her inside. At the door I paused to tie up the swan and send some house machines with towels and things to look after it. Danor thanked me between her sobs.

  I set her on the larger, goldwork couch.

  “We haven’t married,” she said flatly. “Jang tradition.”

  “Vixaxn Jang tradition,” I said quietly, and her mouth was tearfully laughing as I found it.

  4

  Danor lay sleeping like an azure dream, but outside in the sunny garden the swan, having snapped its leash, was plodding about and sneezing like a vivacious klaxon. Though it was the pop-pop of the porch signal which had waked me.

  I switched on the signal image.

  There stood a three-dimensional of Zirk, flexing and unflexing his deltoids grimly, and almost purple in the face.

  “Attlevey, Zirk,” I cheerfully greeted him.

  “Attlevey!” roared Zirk. “Attlevey! You lying, double-crossing, maladjusted thalldrap! You regurgitated, to sky, maker-making promok! You—”

  “Attlevey again, Zirk. Let’s start all over, shall we? What do you want?”

  “You’ve got Danor,” Zirk accused.

  “Danor’s here, yes.”

  “So it was a filthy trick, deliberately perpetrated. The whole circle standing there like fools, howling at the wrong female ‘Welcome, Danor!’ And you’d dragged her off. And she’s been here the entire night, and you never married. Listen,” he growled, “Jang get cut out of circles for doing half of what you’ve done.”

  “Piss off, Zirk,” I cordially invited him, and flipped the recluse switch.

  Outside, the swan had sneezed down a couple of miniature copper arbors, and seemed set for the pool again. I went out and got it and brought it in. A machine bustled from under the bed and tied up the swan, and gave it a plate of something, who knows what, but it tucked into it with enthusiasm. Danor had woken. She looked as though she might have heard my chat with Zirk, but she only said:

  “Do you think we should signal anyone, Hergal or Kley? Or Thinta?”

  “I have a feeling we won’t need to,” I said.

  However, it was Hatta who communicated next, though not from the porch.

  Danor and I were in the bathing unit, not precisely bathing. Some houseproud machine or other, trying to anticipate my needs, had deactivated the recluse switch. Heralded only by the signal light, scarlet, balloonlike Hatta materialized in our midst.

  “Er,” said Hatta. Maybe he flushed, no one could tell. The image winked out, but around thirty splits later, at a more appropriate moment, he reappeared.

  “Sorry,” said Hatta. He cleared his throat and said, “Hello, Danor.”

  “Attlevey, Hatta,” said Danor. “How are you?”

  “Oh, mustn’t grumble,” said Hatta.

  “Why not?” I demanded. “Looking as you do, I’d say you have every right.”

  He peered at me sorrowfully.

  “You haven’t been very ethical,” he said, “and to involve Danor—”

  “I involved myself,” said Danor.

  “They want you out of the circle.”

  “Splendid,” I said. “And don’t expect any tears.”

  “Zirk’s been going to the History Tower,” said Hatta carefully to me. “Did you know? He’s been there all night. You recall that foolish joke you had with Hergal—about a dwull.”

  “A what? A duel?”

  “Duel, then. Yes. Well. I think Zirk’s been looking them up.”

  Close by, the swan sneezed. Hatta blinked uneasily.

  “Don’t say that,” he warned. “It’s no laughing matter.”

  * * *

  —

  I met Zirk outside Silver Mountain two units later. Danor was inside, buying some pet vitamins for the swan, and a pet-maintenance Q-R was giving it an injection to stop it sneezing. Zirk came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and, when I turned around, knocked me about six blocks down the street. I don’t really remember it particularly. I woke up flat on my back, or nearly, since some unknown Jang girl had cradled my head on her lap. The sky was full of robot planes in midswoop, thinking someone had suicided as people were always doing every second of the day. A small cro
wd had gathered, as usual when anything vaguely out of the ordinary occurs, and Zirk stood, arms akimbo, grinning his great white teeth.

  “OK,” he announced, “I’ve challenged you. Are you going to accept?”

  The Jang girl gazed down at me over her glamorous breasts, and stroked my brow.

  “There, there,” she soothed.

  I smiled at her, but Zirk shouted:

  “Don’t you waste a split on him. He’s going to be cut up and cut out in that order. He’s had love with half the circle without marrying them.”

  The Jang girl looked shocked. So did the crowd, and the robots milling from the planes. I got up and my head rang, and I staggered, but no one helped me this time.

  “Well, do you accept?”

  I’d cottoned on to the general idea by then.

  “All right, loudmouth, I accept.”

  Zirk beamed. I might have known the History Records would have a worse effect on him than on me. He was all thick-brained swashbuckle and teeth.

  “I’ll mince you,” he promised. “Do you accept swords?”

  People round about, mostly the Older Ones, asked each other what “swords” were. Some of the Jang knew from their Dream Room fantasies and the Adventure Palace.

  “Been practicing?” I inquired.

  “Do you accept swords?” he grated.

  “If it will shut you up.”

  Zirk looked about at the crowd, and flexed everything he had.

  “Since my body is a good foot taller than yours,” he said, “I’m willing to permit you to get a new one on a larger scale.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” I drooled.

  “The time is tomorrow at dawn, Ilex Park, west corner.”

  I could see the crowd making a mental note. We should attract quite an audience.

  Just then Danor and the swan came out of Silver Mountain. The swan had stopped sneezing but, judging from the disinfectant aroma, it had done a few other things instead.