Rhapsody in Black

Copyright © 1973, 2011 by Brian Stableford

Published by Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidebooks.com

For Jack Spratling

I spent two long years on a bleak world circling a cold sun on the edge of the Halcyon Drift. I was lucky. There was air, and water, and the local vegetation was digestible enough to keep me alive—just. I was also unlucky. My ship was smashed and my partner was dead and even with a bleep sending out a perpetual cry for help the situation had a hint of the hopeless about it. Those two years did me more harm than the half-a-lifetime I had spent in space. A spaceman's expectancy of life is not so grand that two years can go missing and not matter.

I had little to occupy my time on the rock except survival and standing up the cross on Lapthorn's grave every time the wind blew it down—which was often. I had memories, but I'm not a man to derive much warmth from memories, and they were more like ghosts that haunted me.

Ultimately, the wind began to talk to me. I listened. I was picked up by a ramrod which was searching for the legendary
Lost Star
and had homed in on the wrong bleep. The wind still talked to me—I had picked up a parasite, and acquired a companion for all time. I didn't like him (I thought of it as ‘him'). He took some getting used to.

I felt bad enough after two years on the rock (I called it Lapthorn's Grave) but the Caradoc Company, who owned the ramrod which lifted me, were intent on making things worse. They claimed a salvage fee. The court sided with them, and before I knew where I was I'd been dumped on Earth with a debt of twenty thousand hanging over the rest of my life like the Sword of Damocles. It's a hard life.

I went to look up some people. The man who'd taught me to fly was dead. All that remained of my distant past was an empty workshop and Herault's grandson. Lapthorn's family were alive and well and interested, but I wanted nothing to do with them. I'd had my fill of ghosts and I wanted to forget poor Lapthorn. Even that was not to be. I had to get work, and the only work that was offered to me was a job flying the
Hooded Swan
for a New Alexandrian scientist/politician named Titus Charlot. The job was worth twenty thousand over two years but the contract I signed virtually sold my soul to Charlot. Charlot figured himself as puppet-master to the galaxy—alien races as welt as human. I didn't see it that way, and neither did the galaxy. I knew as soon as I saw him that I was in for a rough spell.

The
Swan
was a great ship—the best—but her crew was makeshift. In the beginning she had a good engineer in Rothgar, but he soon figured out what was what and quit like a sensible man. The ones who stayed were all people I'd rather not have had around. Nick delArco was the captain—he'd built the ship and he was a very pleasant and gentle man, but he wasn't competent to take charge of a perambulator. Eve Lapthorn was reserve pilot. Johnny Socoro—Herault's grandson—was reserve engineer, and he got quick promotion, which made him big-headed as well as hot-headed.

Job number one was a crazy jaunt in pursuit of the good old legendary
Lost Star
bleep. It was a fashionable way of committing suicide just then. We won the race for our little-loved but much-respected owner, but nobody reaped much of a harvest from the affair. People got killed, including a friend of mine named Alachakh. People do get killed, I know, but I'm not a violent man and I don't like to be around when it happens. The better I got to know Charlot the better I understood the fact that I was liable to be around when some more people got killed. The Companies, including Caradoc, were expanding at a phenomenal rate, and the commercial subjugation of the galaxy was well under way. New Alexandria and New Rome were the only forces trying to keep the lid on, and I was just one of the recruits to their cause. I didn't know how long the balance of power would stay balanced, but I knew I didn't want to be around when it tipped. Trouble and strife were on the way, and I didn't like the prospect of being a pawn in the game.

I handled the
Lost Star
affair brilliantly. But that was only the beginning.

Calm down, urged the whisper.

I stopped, breathing heavily, to take stock of myself and of the situation. I was ankle-deep in cold, slimy water, and my flashlight was noticeably weaker. Perhaps I had every right to a touch of panic in my movements, but the wind obviously thought that I was overdoing it.

You can't go much farther at this pace, he said. You'll drive yourself to prostration. And there's no point. They gave up chasing you twenty minutes ago. They've got better sense than to lose themselves down here.

He was only trying to be helpful. In his fashion, he was always trying to be helpful. I found his eternal vigilance and limitless fount of common sense to be overly patronising and rather irritating. I had not yet conceded him the right to be as concerned for my welfare as I was, despite the fact that he had a similarly considerable stake in it. (But there was one important difference, of course. He could always find new lodgings if his present slum was condemned. I couldn't.)

‘This light,' I told him, ‘is going to go out before we've covered many more miles.'

So? The locals don't carry flashlights. They manage in the dark.

‘All very well if you know where you're going, and have been walking blindfold around these caves since you were two years old.'

You're not afraid of the dark, are you?

‘Yes.'

In that case, why did you ever start out on this idiot's crusade?

‘You know damn well. You were there, remember? I didn't start the thing. I didn't want any part of it. It was Sampson and Johnny.'

They didn't force you to leave your comfortable jail cell.

‘No, but with the door standing open like that, squatting in the cage till doomsday suddenly seemed to be a most unattractive prospect'

And so you ran. Well now, here you are. On the run and soon to be in the dark. We can go back, you know, and ask them to lock you up again. If that's what you want, decide now and turn round. If that's not what you want, then start thinking about where we're going, and why.

‘At this moment,' I said, ‘I'm not in a very good spot for sitting down to work out a strategy. Besides which, I'm in the dark in more ways than one.'

To this, he made no verbal reply. He held his peace, allowing me to go the way of my choice without further delay. I could sense neither approval nor disapproval when I went forward again. In all probability, he couldn't make up his mind what he wanted us to do either.

I stumbled on along the tunnel. My right hand balanced me against the wall which I was following, while the left held the flashlight, swinging it in steady arcs to show me as much as possible of the way I had chosen to go. There was just black water and black stone, but it meant a lot just to be able to see it. The tunnel was wide here, and a comfortable height, and the flash couldn't do a very efficient job of highlighting the far wall. There was a circular yellow blur, and that was all.

I tried to run, but running through shallow water is just not practicable where any sort of distance is involved, and I had to settle for slow, purposeful wading. But I still concentrated all my effort on progress, and spared no part of my mind for contemplating destinations.

We can't just run, said the whisper, trying to prompt me. Not in a place like this. You can run until you drop, and still be nowhere. You've got to have some kind of a pattern in mind. You've got to decide the sort of hand you're trying to play. It's not enough simply to be down here. We have to have a reason. Now you're here, you have to try to cut yourself some kind of slice of the action. It's not enough just to wander around and get lost. There must be thousands of miles of cave and shaft in this honeycomb. You could die and your bones need never be discovered. You've got to have
something
in your mind.

‘I have,' I said. ‘You.'

This is no time for indulging your ridiculous sense of humour.

‘On the contrary. This is exactly the sort of time to which my sense of humour is tailored'

Be reasonable!

There should have been a thousand reasons why the wind and I were incompatible. But that was the only one that really bugged
him
.

‘Look,' I said. ‘For the time being, there's only one way to go. We're in a tunnel, right? When I get offered alternatives, that's the time I begin making choices. And even then it won't be too difficult. I don't want to be any farther up, because it's too damn cold where I am. Ergo I want to go down. And, if I remember correctly, the way to navigate to the lower strata of an alveolar system is to follow the current of cold air.'

You don't know anything about navigation in alveolar systems.

‘I know enough of the jargon to provide excuses for anything I choose to do. And I know that hot air rises and cold air falls. That's all that's relevant at present.'

It's not as simple as that, he said darkly.

I was slowing down. The water was creeping up my calves. The bitter cold was numbing my feet and sending shooting pains up my legs. The hand which I was using to support myself was suffering, too. Except where it was encrusted with lichenous growths, the rock was like sandpaper. It spoke well for the constancy and stability of the system that the water had never come up far enough to erode the surface smooth, but it was hell on my fingertips. The cold was beginning to soak into my insides, as well. I'd had to come up rather than going down in order to avoid the initial pursuit. Being linked to the surface lock, the reception area where we'd been imprisoned was above the capital and the highways. Hence, to go down would be to play into the hands of the enemy. But I'd shaken off the nasties some time back, and I'd covered enough sideways ground to be fairly certain that I wouldn't drop back into the streets of the capital.

The problem was what to do when I did get back down to the inhabited strata. Before the breakout, Johnny had been rambling about some vague and ridiculous scheme to steal surface suits and win our way back to the
Hooded Swan
. No doubt he had some even vaguer idea of mustering the
Swan
's considerable artillery and taking the entire world by force. But the whole thing was a joke. There was no chance whatsoever of reaching the
Swan
. That was one hole the miners would have well and truly stoppered.

Ergo, I had to play a different sort of hand altogether. I had to do whatever I was going to do down here, in the caves. And the obvious immediate aim was to find out what the hell was going on. This endless secrecy was getting on my nerves. At least two people—Charlot and Sampson—knew more than they were letting on, or they wouldn't be here. I was grossly offended by the fact that they staunchly refused to let me in on their idiot schemes. Although I didn't actually make any sort of firm resolution, I already had it in the back of my mind to do my level best to make a thorough mess of any plans either of them might have.

The first step in working my way back into the pattern of events seemed to necessitate making new contacts in the Rhapsody culture. The miners seemed to have suddenly become the police force, so that let them out. The Hierarchy of the Church I wouldn't approach in an asbestos suit. But even considering the paucity of opportunity on Rhapsody, that still left a goodly proportion of the population which might be approachable and where I might be able to find friends.

It was not going to be easy, though. I knew virtually nothing about the culture beyond my contempt for its
raison d'être
. My prospects seemed very dubious indeed.

‘It
would
have been a great deal simpler not to get involved in this mess at all,' I conceded.

Too late now, he said.

‘In fact,' I went on, ‘it would have been even simpler to have stayed at home. The further this contract with Charlot goes, the more trouble I get into. At this rate, the odds against my surviving the two years look somewhat considerable.'

This is your mess, said the wind. You can't blame Charlot for this.

‘I can and I do,' I replied, perversely. ‘If it wasn't for him, I'd likely be on Penaflor, in a nice, safe job.'

Working for nothing, the rest of your life.

‘True, but there'd be a lot of the rest of my life. With Charlot, I'm not so sure.'

This is just wasted effort, said the whisper. Regret is a waste of time. Keep your mind on the issue at hand.

The tunnel curved to the left, and I felt the water speed up abruptly as it flowed around my legs. I knew there had to be an imminent declivity, and I tested the rock carefully with my boot. The water was uncomfortably fast, and I had to stand carefully to avoid being dragged from my feet. I had no wish to try swimming in the stream.

The flashlight showed me the drop, and it didn't seem to slope so steeply as to be unnegotiable. But visibility was only a few metres.

‘The principle of Let Well Alone,' I said idly, while I contemplated the prospect, ‘is unusually good sense, to say that it came out of New Rome. If Titus Charlot had the sense to follow the principle, we wouldn't be in this mess. Let Well Alone isn't ethics or diplomacy, you know. It's simple self-protection.'

A breach of the principle isn't against the law, said the wind, drawn into the argument against his will. You can't sue him for it.

‘Pity.'

I began picking my way down the slope. Very slowly. Very carefully.

The water dwindled from my calves to my ankles again, but it was no less treacherous for that. I hugged the wall as close as I could, and I had to use my left arm for balancing purposes, which meant that when I wanted to use the flash, I had to stop.

In the meantime, my thoughts rambled on.

‘If I ever take a Christian name,' I said, ‘I think Job would suit me best. Job with the built-in comforter. Very apt. Poetic justice, even. You have no real appreciation for the sadness of my situation. How any parasite of mine could possibly take Charlot's part against me is quite beyond me. It smacks of disloyalty and a total lack of sympathy.'

Are you getting hysterical? he asked.

‘Don't be ridiculous. I have never been hysterical in my life. I am merely indulging my twisted sense of humour, in order to keep my mind from direr thoughts, such as the possibility of slipping, and what might happen to me if I do. It is quite deliberate, conscious and controlled, I've lived in this body a lot longer than you have, and I wish you'd let me handle it in the manner to which it is accustomed rather than the manner to which you'd like it to become accustomed. You cannot teach old bodies new tricks. If you're going to live here, you'd better get used to the intellectual climate. We never have storms, but it isn't a South Sea vacation paradise, for all that. Worry not, old friend. If this hill ever comes to sane, safe ground again, then I shall be off once again in pursuit of the plan which has burst from my head like Athene, in full armour—a stroke of genuine inspiration.'

What plan? he interrupted.

I didn't like being interrupted. It wasn't safe.

‘To play by ear, of course,' I told him. ‘To take each moment as it comes, and to follow my feelings. To do as I see fit, at each and every juncture, and not to concern myself with how each action might fit into the grandiose plans of fate and fortune. I always have bad luck anyway.
Ah!
I apologise most sincerely to fate and fortune both. I'll never say a bad word about them again.'

I'd found a ledge. Gratefully, I stepped out of the water. The ledge ran along the right-hand wall, and was just wide enough to accommodate me. The tunnel still sloped downward, though, and quite steeply. A few feet away, there was a crevice in the rock which wandered away at right angles to the lateral direction in which I was travelling. Had it been an upright passage, I might have followed it, but it slanted at fifty degrees or less from the horizontal, and looked even less comfortable than my present course. So I went on.

The wind seemed relieved that I'd broken off my uneasy monologue, and I suspected that he wanted to start up a more satisfactory (from his point of view) conversation, but couldn't think of anything appropriate to say.

It was not often that he was tongue-tied, and I wasn't sorry to get an extra moment's rest from him. I suppose that some people might consider it a great convenience to be sharing their skull with another mind, on the grounds that two points of view are better than one. They might even consider it to be especially convenient that the alien mind couldn't stay alien, but had to organise itself along lines similar to their own—become human, in fact. It means, after all, that one need never be alone. It means that one never need be completely isolated from one's own kind. It means the everpresence of a friend, which might be necessary in times of dire need—such as when I blacked out at a most inconvenient moment in a hyoplasmic lesion surrounding a star in the Halcyon Drift. It means an extra force with which to oppose the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and illimitable seas of troubles, and an extra chance to end such troubles.

But as well as all that, it is also a bloody nuisance. There are times when one requires total peace, not simply as a concession on the part of a companion but as a private slice of one's own existence. And that was what I didn't have. Not any more. And since disadvantages are always more irritating than advantages are soothing, I was distinctly unappreciative of the alien commensalism. (I say commensalism because he claimed to be a
symbiote
, not a parasite.) He understood, and he wasn't bitter about it, or overly impatient. After all, compatibility was very much in his interests. Indeed, it was
his
way of life. My way of life, previously, had consisted of wilful isolation, and even alienation. I was a loner, a confirmed outsider. It was difficult adjusting to the enforced change, but there was no point in resisting it. I couldn't get rid of the whisper. No way. We were together until death us did part. I couldn't afford to hate him, but I couldn't help resenting him. We weren't ever going to be soulmates.