The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum Part 13

'To find me?' echoed the voice that was Dan's.

'Leucon, who is called the Gray Weaver, told me,' she explained smiling. 'He said you will stay with us until the second noon from this.' She cast a quick slanting glance at the pale sun now full above the clearing, then stepped closer. 'What are you called?'

'Dan,' he muttered. His voice sounded oddly different.

'What a strange name!' said the girl. She stretched out her bare arm. 'Come,' she smiled.

Dan touched her extended hand, feeling without any surprise the living warmth of her fingers. He had forgotten the paradoxes of illusion; this was no longer illusion to him, but reality itself. It seemed to him that he followed her, walking over the shadowed turf that gave with springy crunch beneath his tread, though Galatea left hardly an imprint. He glanced down, noting that he himself wore a silver garment, and that his feet were bare; with the glance he felt a feathery breeze on his body and a sense of mossy earth on his feet.

'Galatea,' said his voice. 'Galatea, what place is this? What language do you speak?'

She glanced back laughing. 'Why, this is Paracosma, of course, and this is our language.'

'Paracosma,' muttered Dan. 'Paracosma!' A fragment of Greek that had survived somehow from a soph.o.m.ore course a decade in the past came strangely back to him. Paracosma!

Land-beyond-the-world!

Galatea cast a smiling glance at him. 'Does the real world seem strange,' she queried, 'after that shadow land of yours?'

'Shadow land?' echoed Dan, bewildered. 'This is shadow, not my world.'

The girl's smile turned quizzical. 'Poof!' she retorted with an impudently lovely pout. 'And I suppose, then, that I am the phantom instead of you!' She laughed. 'Do I seem ghostlike?'

Dan made no reply; he was puzzling over unanswerable questions as he trod behind the lithe figure of his guide. The aisle between the unearthly trees widened, and the giants were fewer. It seemed a mile, perhaps, before a sound of tinkling water obscured that other strange music; they emerged on the bank of a little river, swift and crystalline, that rippled and gurgled its way from glowing pool to flashing rapids, sparkling under the pale sun. Galatea bent over the brink and cupped her hands, raising a few mouthfuls of water to her lips; Dan followed her example, finding the liquid stinging cold.

'How do we cross?' he asked.'You can wade up there'-the dryad who led him gestured to a sun-lit shallows above a tiny falls-' but I always cross here.' She poised herself for a moment on the green bank, then dove like a silver arrow into the pool. Dan followed; the water stung his body like champagne, but a stroke or two carried him across to where Galatea had already emerged with a glistening of creamy bare limbs. Her garment clung tight as a metal sheath to her wet body; he felt a breathtaking thrill at the sight of her. And then, miraculously, the silver cloth was dry, the droplets rolled off as if from oiled silk, and they moved briskly on.

The incredible forest had ended with the river; they walked over a meadow studded with little, many-hued, starshaped flowers, whose fronds underfoot were soft as a lawn. Yet still the sweet pipings followed them, now loud, now whisper-soft, in a tenuous web of melody.

'Galatea!' said Dan suddenly. 'Where is the music coming from?'

She looked back amazed. 'You silly one!' she laughed. 'From the flowers, of course. See!' she plucked a purple star and held it to his ear; true enough, a faint and plaintive melody hummed out of the blossom. She tossed it in his startled face and skipped on.

A little copse appeared ahead, not of the gigantic forest trees, but of lesser growths, bearing flowers and fruits of iridescent colors, and a tiny brook bubbled through. And there stood the objective of their journey-a building of white, marble-like stone, single-storied and vine-covered, with broad gla.s.sless windows. They trod upon a path of bright pebbles to the arched entrance, and here, on an intricate stone bench, sat a gray-bearded patriarchal individual. Galatea addressed him in a liquid language that reminded Dan of the flowerpipings; then she turned. 'This is Leucon,' she said, as the ancient rose from his seat and spoke in English.

'We are happy, Galatea and I, to welcome you, since visitors are a rare pleasure here, and those from your shadowy country most rare.'

Dan uttered puzzled words of thanks, and the old man nodded, resealing himself on the carven bench; Galatea skipped through the arched entrance, and Dan, after an irresolute moment, dropped to the remaining bench. Once more his thoughts were whirling in perplexed turbulence. Was all this indeed but illusion? Was he sitting, in actuality, in a prosaic hotel room, peering through magic spectacles that pictured this world about him, or was he, transported by some miracle, really sitting here in this land of loveliness? He touched the bench; stone, hard and unyielding, met his fingers.

'Leucon,' said his voice, 'how did you know I was coming?'

'I was told,' said the other.

'By whom?'

'By no one.'

' Why- someone must have told you!'

The Gray Weaver shook his solemn head. 'I was just told.'

Dan ceased his questioning, content for the moment to drink in the beauty about him, and then Galatea returned bearing a crystal bowl of the strange fruits. They were piled in colorful disorder, red, purple, orange and yellow, pear-shaped, egg-shaped, and cl.u.s.tered spheroids- fantastic, unearthly. He selected a pale, transparent ovoid, bit into it, and was deluged by a flood of sweet liquid, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the girl. She laughed and chose a similar morsel; biting a tiny puncture in the end, she squeezed the contents into her mouth. Dan took a different sort, purple and tart as Rhenish wine, and then another, filled with edible, almond-like seeds. Galatea laughed delightedly at his surprises, and even Leucon smiled a gray smile. Finally Dan tossed the last husk into the brook beside them, where it danced briskly toward the river.

'Galatea,' he said, 'do you ever go to a city? What cities are in Paracosma?'

'Cities? What are cities?'

'Places where many people live close together.'

'Oh,' said the girl frowning. 'No. There are no cities here.'

'Then where are the people of Paracosma? You must have neighbors.'

The girl looked puzzled. 'A man and a woman live off there,' she said, gesturing toward a distant blue range of hills dim on the horizon. 'Far away over there. I went there once, but Leucon and I prefer thevalley.'

'But Galatea!' protested Dan. 'Are you and Leucon alone in this valley? Where-what happened to your parents-your father and mother?'

'They went away. That way-toward the sunrise. They'll return some day.'

'And if they don't?'

'Why, foolish one! What could hinder them?'

'Wild beasts,' said Dan. 'Poisonous insects, disease, flood, storm, lawless people, death!'

'I never heard those words,' said Galatea. 'There are no such things here.' She sniffed contemptuously. 'Lawless people!'

'Not-death?'

'What is death?'

'It's-' Dan paused helplessly. 'It's like falling asleep and never waking. It's what happens to everyone at the end of life.'

'I never heard of such a thing as the end of life!' said the girl decidedly. 'There isn't such a thing.'

'What happens, then,' queried Dan desperately, 'when one grows old?'

'Nothing, silly! No one grows old unless he wants to, like Leucon. A person grows to the age he likes best and then stops. It's a law!'

Dan gathered his chaotic thoughts. He stared into Galatea's dark, lovely eyes. 'Have you stopped yet?'

The dark eyes dropped; he was amazed to see a deep, embarra.s.sed flush spread over her cheeks.

She looked at Leucon nodding reflectively on his bench, then back to Dan, meeting his gaze.

'Not yet,' she said.

'And when will you, Galatea?'

'When I have had the one child permitted me. You see-' she stared down at her dainty toes-'one cannot-bear children-afterwards.'

'Permitted? Permitted by whom?'

'By a law.'

'Laws! Is everything here governed by laws? What of chance and accidents?'

'What are those-chance and accidents?'

'Things unexpected-things unforeseen.'

'Nothing is unforeseen,' said Galatea, still soberly. She repeated slowly, 'Nothing is unforeseen.' He fancied her voice was wistful.

Leucon looked up. 'Enough of this,' he said abruptly. He turned to Dan, 'I know these words of yours-chance, disease, death. They are not for Paracosma. Keep them in your unreal country.'

'Where did you hear them, then?'

'From Galatea's mother,' said the Gray Weaver, 'who had them from your predecessors phantom who visited here before Galatea was born.'

Dan had a vision of Ludwig's face. 'What was he like?'

'Much like you.'

'But his name?'

The old man's mouth was suddenly grim. 'We do not speak of him,' he said and rose, entering the dwelling in cold silence.

'He goes to weave,' said Galatea after a moment. Her lovely piquant face was still troubled.

'What does he weave?'

'This.' She fingered the silver cloth of her gown. 'He weaves it out of metal bars on a very clever machine. I do not know the method.'

'Who made the machine?'

'It was here.'

'But-Galatea! Who built the house? Who planted these fruit trees?'

'They were here. The house and trees were always here,' She lifted her eyes. 'I told you everything had been foreseen, from the beginning until eternity-everything. The house and trees and machine wereready for Leucon and my parents and me. There is a place for my child, who will be a girl, and a place for her child-and so on forever.'

Dan thought a moment. 'Were you born here?'

'I don't know.' He noted in sudden concern that her eyes were glistening with tears.

'Galatea, dear! Why are you unhappy? What's wrong?'

'Why, nothing!' She shook her black curls, sniffed suddenly at him. 'What could be wrong? How can one be unhappy in Paracosma?' She sprang erect and seized his hand. 'Come! Let's gather fruit for tomorrow.'

She darted off in a whirl of flashing silver, and Dan followed her around the wing of the edifice.

Graceful as a dancer she leaped for a branch above her head, caught it laughingly, and tossed a great golden globe to him. She loaded his arms with the bright prizes and sent him back to the bench, and when he returned, she piled it so full of fruit that a deluge of colorful spheres dropped around him. She laughed again, and sent them spinning into the brook with thrusts of her rosy toes, while Dan watched her with an aching wistfulness. Then suddenly she was facing him; for a long, tense instant they stood motionless, eyes upon eyes, and then she turned away and walked slowly around to the arched portal.

He followed her with his burden of fruit; his mind was once more in a turmoil of doubt and perplexity.

The little sun was losing itself behind the trees of that colossal forest to the west, and a coolness stirred among long shadows. The brook was purple-hued in the dusk, but its cheery notes mingled still with the flower music. Then the sun was hidden; the shadow fingers darkened the meadow; of a sudden the flowers were still, and the brook gurgled alone in a world of silence. In silence too, Dan entered the doorway.

The chamber within was a s.p.a.cious one, flooded with large black and white squares; exquisite benches of carved marble were here and there. Old Leucon, in a far corner, bent over an intricate, glistening mechanism, and as Dan entered he drew a shining length of silver cloth from it, folded it, and placed it carefully aside. There was a curious, unearthly fact that Dan noted; despite windows open to the evening, no night insects circled the globes that glowed at intervals from niches in the walls.

Galatea stood in a doorway to his left, leaning half-wearily against the frame; he placed the bowl of fruit on a bench at the entrance and moved to her side.

'This is yours,' she said, indicating the room beyond. He looked in upon a pleasant, smaller chamber; a window framed a starry square, and a thin, swift, nearly silent stream of water gushed from the mouth of a carved human head on the left wall, curving into a six-foot basin sunk in the floor. Another of the graceful benches covered with the silver cloth completed the furnishings; a single glowing sphere, pendant by a chain from the ceiling, illuminated the room. Dan turned to the girl, whose eyes were still unwontedly serious.

'This is ideal,' he said, 'but, Galatea, how am I to turn out the light?'

'Turn it out?' she said. 'You must cap it-so!' A faint smile showed again on her lips as she dropped a metal covering over the shining sphere. They stood tense in the darkness; Dan sensed her nearness achingly, and then the light was on once more. She moved toward the door, and there paused, taking his hand.

'Dear shadow,' she said softly, 'I hope your dreams are music.' She was gone.

Dan stood irresolute in his chamber; he glanced into the large room where Leucon still bent over his work, and the Gray Weaver raised a hand in a solemn salutation, but said nothing. He felt no urge for the old man's silent company and turned back into his room to prepare for slumber.

Almost instantly, it seemed, the dawn was upon him and bright elfin pipings were all about him, while the odd ruddy sun sent a broad slanting plane of light across the room. He rose as fully aware of his surroundings as if he had not slept at all; the pool tempted him and he bathed in stinging water. Thereafter he emerged into the central chamber, noting curiously that the globes still glowed in dim rivalry to the daylight. He touched one casually; it was cool as metal to his fingers, and lifted freely from its standard.

For a moment he held the cold flaming thing in his hands, then replaced it and wandered into the dawn Galatea was dancing up the path, eating a strange fruit as rosy as her lips. She was merry again, once more the happy nymph who had greeted him, and she gave him a bright smile as he chose a sweet greenovoid for his breakfast.

'Come on!' she called. 'To the river!'

She skipped away toward the unbelievable forest; Dan followed, marveling that her lithe speed was so easy a match for his stronger muscles. Then they were laughing in the pool, splashing about until Galatea drew herself to the bank, glowing and panting. He followed her as she lay relaxed; strangely, he was neither tired nor breathless, with no sense of exertion. A question recurred to him, as yet unasked.

'Galatea,' said his voice, 'whom will you take as mate?'

Her eyes went serious. 'I don't know,' she said. 'At the proper time he will come. That is a law.'

'And will you be happy?'

'Of course.' She seemed troubled. 'Isn't everyone happy?'

'Not where I live, Galatea.'

'Then that must be a strange place-that ghostly world of yours. A rather terrible place.'

'It is, often enough,' Dan agreed. 'I wish-' He paused. What did he wish? Was he not talking to an illusion, a dream, an apparition? He looked at the girl, at her glistening black hair, her eyes, her soft white skin, and then, for a tragic moment, he tried to feel the arms of that drab hotel chair beneath his hands-and failed. He smiled; he reached out his fingers to touch her bare arm, and for an instant she looked back at him with startled, sober eyes, and sprang to her feet.

'Come on! I want to show you my country.' She set off down the stream, and Dan rose reluctantly to follow.

What a day that was! They traced the little river from still pool to singing rapids, and ever about them were the strange twitterings and pipings that were the voices of the flowers. Every turn brought a new vista of beauty; every moment brought a new sense of delight. They talked or were silent; when they were thirsty, the cool river was at hand; when they were hungry, fruit offered itself. When they were tired, there was always a deep pool and a mossy bank; and when they were rested, a new beauty beckoned.

The incredible trees towered in numberless forms of fantasy, but on their own side of the river was still the flower-starred meadow. Galatea twisted him a bright-blossomed garland for his head, and thereafter he moved always with a sweet singing about him. But little by little the red sun slanted toward the forest, and the hours dripped away. It was Dan who pointed it out, and reluctantly they turned homeward.