Centaurus Changling, Page 2

  “Try one. Bet',” Cassiana suggested kindly. “They are really delicious."

  “N-no, thank you,” Beth said weakly—and suddenly disgraced herself and all her conditioning by turning aside and being very completely and excruciatingly sick on the shimmering floor. She barely heard Cassiana's cry of distress, although she was conscious of a prim offended murmur, and knew she had outraged custom beyond all credibility. Through helpless spasms of retching, she was conscious of hands and voices. Then she was picked up in strong familiar arms, and heard Matt's worried “Honey, are you all right?"

  She knew she was being carried across the skycourt and into a lower room, and opened her eyes sickly to see Cassiana and Matt standing over her. “I'm—I'm so sorry—” she whispered. Cassiana's thin hand patted hers, comfortingly. “Do not think of it,” she reassured, “Legate Furr-ga-soon, your wife will be well enough, you may return to the other guests,” she said, gently, but in a tone that unmistakably dismissed him. There was no polite way to protest. Matt went, looking back doubtfully. Cassiana's strange eyes looked rather pitying. “Don't try to talk,” she admonished.

  Beth felt too sick and weak to move and being alone with Cassiana terrified her. She lay quiet on the big divan, tears slipping weakly down her face. Cassiana's hand still clasped hers; in a kind of childish petulance, Beth pulled her hand away, but the slender fingers only closed more tightly around Beth's wrist. “Be still,” said Cassiana, not unkindly, but in a tone of absolute command, and she sat there, looking down at Beth with a staring intensity, for some minutes. Finally she sighed and freed Beth's hand.

  “Do you feel better now?"

  “Why—yes!” said Beth, surprised. Quite suddenly, the nausea and the pain in her head were altogether gone.

  Cassiana smiled. “I am glad. No—lie quiet. Bet', I think you should not ride in cariole tonight, why not stay here? You can visit Nethle—she has missed you since she went into seclusion."

  Beth almost cried out with surprise. This was rare—for an outsider to be invited into a Centaurian house any further than the skycourt and penthouse reserved for social affairs. Then, with a stab of frightened memory, she recalled the reason for Nethle's seclusion—and her own fears. Nethle was her friend, even Cassiana had shown her kindness. Perhaps in a less formal atmosphere she might be able to ask something about the curious taboo which surrounded the birth of children on Megaera, perhaps learn some way of averting her own danger ... she closed her eyes and leaned against the cushions for a moment. If nothing else, it meant reprieve. For a little while she need not face Matt's gallantly concealed fear, his reproach....

  Matt, returning with Cassiana, quickly gave consent. “If that's what you really want, honey,” he said gently. As she looked up into his tense face, Beth's impulse suddenly changed. She wanted to cry out “No—don't leave me here, take me home—” a night here in this strange place, alone with Centaurian women who were, however friendly they might be, entirely alien, seemed a thing too fearful to contemplate. She felt inclined to cry. But Cassiana's eyes on her proved rather steadying, and Beth's long conditioning in the ceremonial life necessary on Megaera triumphed over emotions she knew to be irrational.

  Her husband bent and kissed her lightly. “I'll send a cariole for you tomorrow,” he promised.

  * * * *

  The lower portions of a Centaurian home were especially designed for a polygamous society in harmony with itself. They were carefully compartmented, and the only entrance from one to the other was from the great common stairway which led to the roof and skycourt. Roughly a third of the house was sectioned off for the habitation of Rai Jeth-san and his seasonal consort. The remainder was women's quarters, and the Archon himself might not enter them without specific invitation. In effect, Megaera's polygamous society was a rotational monogamy, for although Rai Jeth-san had three wives—the legal maximum was five—he had only one at a time and their alteration was strictly regulated by tradition. The surplus women lived together, always on terms of the most cordial friendship. Cassiana took precedence over the others, by custom, but there was the closest affection among all three—which had surprised Beth at first, especially when she found out that this was by no means rare; the bond between the wives of one man was traditionally the strongest family tie in existence, far stronger than the tie between natural sisters.

  Beth had discovered long ago that she was not alone in her awe of Cassiana, who was one of the peculiar patriciate of the planet. Men and women fought for the privilege of serving the rhu'ads; Beth, relaxing into the almost sybaritic luxury of the women's quarters, wondered again—what was Cassiana's strange power over the Centaurians? She knew Cassiana was one of the rare telepaths who were found in the Darkovan planets, but that alone would not have explained it, nor would Cassiana's odd beauty. On Megaera there were perhaps 10,000 women like Cassiana: curiously beautiful, more curiously revered. There were no male rhu'ad. Beth had seen both men and women throw themselves to the ground in a burst of spontaneous emotion as one of the small, pearl-colored women passed, but had never understood, or dared to ask. Cassiana asked her, “Would you like to see Nethle before you sleep—and our children?"

  This was, indeed, a strange relaxation of tradition; Beth knew no Terran had ever seen a Centaurian child. Astonished, she followed Cassiana into a lower room.

  It seemed full of children. Beth counted; there were nine, the youngest only a baby in arms, the oldest about ten. They were pale, pretty children, like hothouse flowers reared in secret. Seeing the stranger, they clustered together, whispering to each other timidly, staring with wide eyes at her strange hair and curious garments.

  “Come here, my darlings,” said Cassiana in her soft pleasant voice. “Don't stare.” She was speaking in Centaurian, a further gesture of friendliness. One little boy—the rest of the children were all girls—piped up valiantly, “Is she another mother for us?"

  Cassiana laughed. “No, my son. Aren't three mothers enough?"

  Nethle rose from a cushiony chair and came to Beth, her hands outstretched in welcome. “I thought you had forgotten me! Of course, you poor Terran women, only one wife to look after a husband, I cannot see how you ever have time for anything!"

  Beth blushed—Nethle's outspoken references to Beth's “unhappy” state as a solitary wife, always embarrassed her. But she returned Nethle's greeting with genuine pleasure—Nethle Jeth-san was perhaps the only Centaurian whom Beth could tolerate without that sense of uneasy dislike.

  She said, “I've missed you, Nethle,” but secretly she was dismayed at the change in her friend. Since Nethle had gone into seclusion, months ago, she had changed frighteningly. In spite of the distortion of pregnancy, Nethle seemed to have lost weight, her small face looked haggard, and her skin was a ghastly color. She walked shakily, and sat down almost at once after greeting Beth, but her gay manner and brilliant joyous eyes belied her illness. She and Beth talked quietly, about inconsequential things—Centaurian custom almost outlawed serious conversation—while Cassiana curled up, kittenlike, in a nest of soft pillows, picking up the littlest baby.

  Two toddlers came and tried to crawl up on her knees at once, so Cassiana laughed and slid down on the floor, letting the children climb all over her, snuggle against her shoulder, tug at her garments and her elaborately arranged hair. She was so tiny that she looked like a little girl with a lapful of dolls. Beth asked her—hesitantly, for she did not know if it was polite to ask—"Which are your children, Cassiana?"

  Cassiana glanced up. “In a way, all, and in another way, none,” she said curtly and Beth thought she had trespassed on courtesy; but Nethle put her hand on the solitary boy's head. “Cassiana has no children, Beth. She is rhu'ad, and rhu'ad women do not bear children. This is my son, and the oldest girl, and the girl with long hair. Those,” she indicated the twin toddlers and the baby in Cassiana's lap, “are Wilidh's. The rest are Clotine's. Clotine was our sister, who died many cycles ago."

  Cassiana gently put the chil
dren aside and came to Beth. She looked at one of the little girls playing in the corner. She made no sound, but the child turned and suddenly ran to Cassiana, flinging her arms around the rhu'ad. Cassiana hugged her, then let her go, and—to Beth's surprise—the tiny girl came and tugged at Beth's skirt, clambering into her lap. Beth put an arm around her, looking down in astonishment.

  “Why, she—” she broke off, not knowing, again, whether she should remark on the extraordinary likeness. The tiny girl—she seemed about four—had the same, pearly, lustrous skin; her hair was a silvery eiderdown, pallid and patrician. Cassiana noted her discomfiture and laughed gaily. “Yes, Arii is rhu'ad. She is mine."

  “I thought—"

  “Oh, Cassiana, stop it,” Nethle protested, laughing. “She doesn't understand!"

  “There are many things she does not understand,” said Cassiana abruptly, “but I think she will have to learn to understand them. Bet', you have done a terribly unwise thing. Terran women cannot have children here in safety!"

  Beth could only blink in amazement. The self test taken the day before had shown her pregnancy to be less than a month advanced. “How ever did you know?” she asked.

  “Your poor husband,” Cassiana's voice was gentle. “I felt his fear like a gray murk, all evening. It is not pleasant to be telepath, sometimes. It is why I try not to go in crowds, I cannot help invading the privacy of others. Then, when you were so sick, I knew."

  Nethle seemed to freeze, to go rigid. Her arms fell to her sides. “So that is it!” she whispered almost inaudibly. Then she burst out, “And that is the way with the women of Terra’ That is why your Earthmen will never take this planet! As long as they despise us and come as conquerors, they cannot come here where their women—die!” Her eyes glared. She rose and stood, heavy, distorted, menacing, over Beth, her lips drawn back in an animal snarl, her arm raised as if to strike. Cassiana gasped, sprang up, and with a surprising strength, she pushed Nethle back into her chair.

  “Bet', she is raving—even women here, sometimes—"

  “Raving!” Nethle said with a curl of her lip. “Wasn't there a day when our women and their unborn children died by the hundreds because we did not know the air was poison? When women died, or were kept in airtight rooms and given oxygen till their children were born, and then left to die? When men married a dozen wives to be sure of one living child? Did the Terrans help us then, when we begged them to evacuate the planet? No! They had a war on their hands—for 600 years they had a war on their hands! Now they've finished their private wars, they try to come back to Megaera—"

  “Nethle! Be quiet!” Cassiana commanded angrily.

  Beth had sunk into the cushions, but through her cupped hands she saw that Nethle's face blazed, a contorted mask of fury. “Yes, yes, Cassiana,” her voice was a mocking croon, “Bet’ condescends to make friends with me—and now she will see what happens to the women of Terra who mock our customs instead of finding out why we have them!” The wildness of her hysteria beat and battered at Beth. “Oh, yes, I liked you,” she snarled, “but could you really be friends with a Centaurian woman? Don't you think I know you mock our rhu'ad? Could you live, equal to us? Get out!” she shouted. “Get off our world’ Go away, all of you! Leave us in peace!"

  "Nethle!" Cassiana grasped the woman's shoulders and shook her, hard, until the wildness went out of her face. Then she pushed Nethle down in the cushions, where she lay sobbing. Cassiana looked down at her sorrowfully. “You hate worse than she hates. How can there ever be peace, then?"

  “You have always defended her,” Nethle muttered, “and she hates you worst of all!"

  “That is exactly why I have more responsibility,” Cassiana answered. She went to the curtained door at the end of the room. At her summons, a servant came and began unobtrusively to shepherd the children out of the room. They went obediently, the older ones looking scared and bewildered, glancing timidly at the weeping Nethle; the little ones reluctant, clinging to Cassiana, pouting a little as she gently pushed them out the door. Cassiana drew the curtain firmly down behind them; then went back to Nethle and touched her on the shoulder. “Listen,” she said.

  Then Beth had the curious feeling that Nethle and Cassiana were conversing through some direct mental exchange from which she was excluded. Their changing expressions, and faint gestures, told her that, and a few emphatic, spoken words seemed to give point to the soundless conversation—it made Beth's flesh crawl.

  “My decisions are always final,” Cassiana stated.

  Nethle muttered “...cruel of you..."

  Cassiana shook her head.

  After long minutes of speech-silence, Cassiana said aloud, quietly, “No, I have decided. I did it for Clotine. I would do it for you—or for Wilidh, if you were fool enough to try what Bet’ has done."

  Nethle flared back, “I wouldn't be fool enough to try to have a baby that way—"

  Cassiana checked her with a gesture, rose, and went to Beth, who was still lying huddled in the pillows of the big divan. “If I, who am rhu'ad, do not break the laws,” she said, “then no one will ever dare to break them, and our planet will stagnate in dead traditions. Bet', if you can promise to obey me, and to ask me no questions, then I, who am rhu'ad, promise you this: you may have your child without fear, and your chance of life will be—” she hesitated, “equal to a Centaurian woman's."

  Beth looked up, speechless, her eyes wide. A dozen emotions tangled in some secret part of her mind, fear, distrust—anger. Yet reason told her that Cassiana was showing disinterested kindness in the face of what must certainly have been obvious to her, Beth's own dislike. At the moment Beth was unaware that proximity to the telepath was sharpening her own sense perceptions, but for the first time in months she was thinking reasonably, unblurred by emotion.

  Cassiana insisted, “Can you promise? Can you promise, especially, not to ask me questions about what I have to do?"

  And Beth nodded soberly. “I'll promise,” she said.

  * * * *

  The pale pink, watery sunlight looked feeble and anachronistic on the white, sterile, characteristically Terran walls, floors and furnishings of the Medical HQ; and the white indoor face of the old doctor looked like some sun-sheltered slug.

  He's lived here so long, he's half Centaurian himself, Matt Ferguson thought irrelevantly, and threw down the chart in his hand. “You mean there's nothing to be done!” he said bluntly.

  “We never say that in my profession,” Dr. Bonner told him simply. “While there's life, and all the rest of it. But it looks bad. You never should have left it up to the girl to make sure she took her anti shots. Women aren't reliable about that kind of thing—not normal women. A woman's got to be pretty damned abnormal, to be conscientious about contraceptives.” He frowned. “You know, it's not a question of adapting, either. If anything, the third, fourth, fourteenth generations are more susceptible than the first. The planet seems so perfectly healthy that women simply don't believe it until they do get pregnant, and then it's too late."

  “Abortion?” Matt suggested, lowering his head. Dr. Bonner shrugged. “Worse yet. Operative shock on top of the hormone reaction would just kill her now, instead of later.” He leaned his head on his hands. “Whatever it is in the air, it doesn't hurt anybody until we get the flood of female hormones released in pregnancy: We've tried everything—manufacturing our own air—chemically pure, but we can't get that stink out of it, and we can't keep it pure. There's just something linked into the atomic structure of the whole damned planet. It doesn't bother test animals, so we can't do any experimenting. It's just the human, female hormones of pregnancy. We've even tried locking the women in airtight domes, and giving them pure oxygen, the whole nine months. But we get the same reaction. Pernicious vomiting, weight loss, confusion of the balance centers, convulsions—and if the fetus isn't aborted, it's oxygen-starved and a monster. I've lived on Megaera forty years. Matt, and I haven't delivered a live baby yet."

  Matt raged, “Then
how do the Centaurians manage? They have children, all right!"

  “Have you ever seen one?” asked Dr. Bonner tersely.

  At Matt's denial, he continued, “Neither have I—in forty years. For all I know, Centaurian women cultivate their babies in test tubes. Nobody's ever seen a pregnant Centaurian woman, or a child under about ten years old. But one of our men—ten, twelve years ago—got a Centaurian girl pregnant. Of course, her family threw her out—right in the damn’ street. Our man married the girl—he'd wanted to, anyhow. The man—I won't tell you his name—brought her in to me. I thought maybe—but the story was just exactly the same. Nausea, pernicious vomiting—all the rest. You wouldn't believe the things we tried to save that girl. I didn't know I had so much imagination myself.” He dropped his eyes, bitter with an old failure. “But she died. The baby lived. It's up in the incurable ward."

  "Jesus!" Matt shuddered uncontrollably. “What can I do?"

  Dr. Bonner's eyes were very sorrowful. “Bring her in, Matt, right away. We'll do our damnedest for her.” His hand found the younger man's shoulder as he rose, but Matt was not conscious of the touch. He never knew how he got out of the building, but after a reeling walk through streets that twisted around his bleared eyes, he heard the buzz of a descending cariole, and Cassiana Jeth-san's level voice.

  “Legate Furr-ga-soon?"

  Matt raised his head numbly. She was about the last person he cared to see. But Matt Ferguson was a Legate of the Terran Empire, and had undergone strenuous conditioning for this post. He could no more have been rude to anyone to whom courtesy was required, than he could have thrown himself from a moving cariole. So he said with careful graciousness, “I greet you, Cassiana."