Автор неизвестен. A Rose for Ecclesiastes

"She is gone," she said.
"Where?"
"I do not know."
I looked at those devil-bird eyes. Anathema maranatha rose to my
lips.
"I must know."
She looked through me.
"She has left us. She is gone. Up into the hills, I suppose. Or
the desert. It does not matter. What does anything matter? The
dance draws itself to a close. The Temple will soon be empty."
"Why? Why did she leave?"
"I do not know."
"I must see her again. We lift off in a matter of days."
"I am sorry, Gallinger."
"So am I," I said, and slammed shut a book without saying
"m'narra."
I stood up.
"I will find her."
I left the Temple. M'Cwyie was a seated statue. My boots were
still where I had left them.

All day I roared up and down the dunes, going nowhere. To the crew of
the _Aspic_ I must have looked like a sandstorm, all by myself.
Finally, I had to return for more fuel.
Emory came stalking out.
"Okay, make it good. You look like the abominable dust man. Why
the rodeo?"
"Why, I, uh, lost something."
"In the middle of the desert? Was it one of your sonnets?
They're the only thing I can think of that you'd make such a fuss
over."
"No, dammit! It was something personal."
George had finished filling the tank. I started to mount the
jeepster again.
"Hold on there!" he grabbed my arm.
"You're not going back until you tell me what this is all about."
I could have broken his grip, but then he could order me dragged
back by the heels, and quite a few people would enjoy doing the
dragging. So I forced myself to speak slowly, softly:
"It's simply that I lost my watch. My mother gave it to me and
it's a family heirloom. I want to find it before we leave."
"You sure it's not in your cabin, or down in Tirellian?"
"I've already checked."
"Maybe somebody hid it to irritate you. You know you're not the
most popular guy around."
I shook my head.
"I thought of that. But I always carry it in my right pocket. I
think it might have bounced out going over the dunes."
He narrowed his eyes.
"I remember reading on a book jacket that your mother died when
you were born."
"That's right," I said, biting my tongue. "The watch belonged to
her father and she wanted me to have it. My father kept it for me."
"Hmph!" he snorted. "That's a pretty strange way to look for a
watch, riding up and down in a jeepster."
"I could see the light shining off it that way," I offered,
lamely.
"Well, it's starting to get dark," he observed. "No sense looking
any more today.
"Throw a dust sheet over the jeepster," he directed a mechanic.
He patted my arm.
"Come on in and get a shower, and something to eat. You look as
if you could use both."
_Little fatty flecks beneath pale eyes, thinning hair, and an
Irish nose; a voice a decibel louder than anyone else's..._
His only qualification for leadership!
I stood there, hating him. Claudius! If only this were the fifth
act!
But suddenly the idea of a shower, and food, came through to me.
I could use both badly. If I insisted on hurrying back immediately I
might arouse more suspicion.
So I brushed some sand from my sleeve.
"You're right. That sounds like a good idea."
"Come on, we'll eat in my cabin."
The shower was a blessing, clean khakis were the grace of God,
and the food smelled like Heaven.
"Smells pretty good," I said.
We hacked up our steaks in silence. When we got to the dessert
and coffee he suggested:
"Why don't you take the night off? Stay here and get some sleep."
I shook my head.
"I'm pretty busy. Finishing up. There's not much time left."
"A couple of days ago you said you were almost finished."
"Almost, but not quite."
"You also said they're be holding a service in the Temple
tonight."
"That's right. I'm going to work in my room."
He shrugged his shoulders.
Finally, he said, "Gallinger," and I looked up because my name
means trouble.
"It shouldn't be any of my business," he said, "but it is. Betty
says you have a girl down there."
There was no question mark. It was a statement hanging in the
air. Waiting.
_Betty, you're a bitch. You're a cow and a bitch. And a jealous
one, at that. Why didn't you keep your nose where it belonged, shut
your eyes? You mouth?_
"So?" I said, a statement with a question mark.
"So," he answered it, "it is my duty, as head of this expedition,
to see that relations with the natives are carried on in a friendly,
and diplomatic, manner."
"You speak of them," I said, "as though they are aborigines.
Nothing could be further from the truth."
I rose.
"When my papers are published everyone on Earth will know that
truth. I'll tell them things Doctor Moore never even guessed at.
I'll tell the tragedy of a doomed race, waiting for death, resigned
and disinterested. I'll write about it, and they will give me more
prizes, and this time I won't want them.
"My God!" I exclaimed. "They had a culture when our ancestors
were clubbing the saber-tooth and finding out how fire works!"
"_Do_ you have a girl down there?"
"Yes!" I said. Yes, _Claudius! Yes, Daddy! Yes, Emory!_ "I do.
but I'm going to let you in on a scholarly scoop now. They're already
dead. They're sterile. In one more generation there won't be any
Martians."
I paused, then added, "Except in my papers, except on a few pieces
of microfilm and tape. And in some poems, about a girl who did give a
damn and could only bitch about the unfairness of it all by dancing."
"Oh," he said.
After awhile:
"You _have_ been behaving differently these past couple months.
You've even been downright civil on occasion, you know. I couldn't
help wondering what was happening. I didn't know anything mattered
that strongly to you."
I bowed my head.
"Is she the reason you were racing around the desert?"
I nodded.
"Why?"
I looked up.
"Because she's out there, somewhere. I don't know where, or why.
And I've got to find her before we go."
"Oh," he said again.
Then he leaned back, opened a drawer, and took out something
wrapped in a towel. He unwound it. A framed photo of a woman lay on
the table.
"My wife," he said.
It was an attractive face, with big, almond eyes.
"I'm a Navy man, you know," he began. "Young officer once. Met
her in Japan."
"Where I come from it wasn't considered right to marry into
another race, so we never did. But she was my wife. When she died I
was on the other side of the world. They took my children, and I've
never seen them since. I couldn't learn what orphanage, what home,
they were put into. That was long ago. Very few people know about
it."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't be. Forget it. But"--he shifted in his chair and looked at
me--"if you do want to take her back with you--do it. It'll mean my
neck, but I'm too old to ever head another expedition like this one.
So go ahead."
He gulped cold coffee.
"Get your jeepster."
He swiveled the chair around.
I tried to say "thank you" twice, but I couldn't. So I got up and
walked out.
"Sayonara, and all that," he muttered behind me.

"Here it is, Gallinger!" I heard a shout.
I turned on my heel and looked back up the ramp.
"Kane!"
He was limned in the port, shadow against light, but I had heard
him sniff.
I returned the few steps.
"Here what is?"
"Your rose."
He produced a plastic container, divided internally. The lower
half was filled with liquid. The stem ran down into it. The other
half, a glass of claret in this horrible night, was a large, newly
opened rose.
"Thank you," I said, tucking it in my jacket.
"Going back to Tirellian, eh?"
"Yes."
"I saw you come aboard, so I got it ready. Just missed you at the
Captain's cabin. He was busy. Hollered out that I could catch you at
the barns."
"Thanks again."
"It's chemically treated. It will stay in bloom for weeks."
I nodded. I was gone.

Up into the mountains now. Far. Far. The sky was a bucket of ice in
which no moons floated. The going became steeper, and the little
donkey protested. I whipped him with the throttle and went on. Up.
Up. I spotted a green, unwinking star, and felt a lump in my throat.
The encased rose beat against my chest like an extra heart. The donkey
brayed, long and loudly, then began to cough. I lashed him some more
and he died.
I threw the emergency brake on and got out. I began to walk.
So cold, so cold it grows. Up here. At night? Why? Why did she
do it? Why flee the campfire when night comes on?
And I was up, down, around, and through every chasm, gorge, and
pass, with my long-legged strides and an ease of movement never known
on Earth.
Barely two days remain, my love, and thou hast forsaken me. Why?
I crawled under overhangs. I leaped over ridges. I scraped my
knees, an elbow. I heard my jacket tear.
No answer, Malann? Do you really hate your people this much?
Then I'll try someone else. Vishnu, you're the Preserver. Preserve
her, please! Let me find her.
Jehovah?
Adonis? Osiris? Thammuz? Manitou? Legba? Where is she?
I ranged far and high, and I slipped.
Stones ground underfoot and I dangled over an edge. My fingers so
cold. It was hard to grip the rock.
I looked down.
Twelve feet or so. I let go and dropped, landed rolling.
Then I heard her scream.

I lay there, not moving, looking up. Against the night, above, she
called.
"Gallinger!"
I lay still.
"Gallinger!"
And she was gone.
I heard stones rattle and knew she was coming down some path to
the right of me.
I jumped up and ducked into the shadow of a boulder.
She rounded a cut-off, and picked her way, uncertainly, through
the stones.
"Gallinger?"
I stepped out and seized her by the shoulders.
"Braxa."
She screamed again, then began to cry, crowding against me. It
was the first time I had ever heard her cry.
"Why?" I asked. "Why?"
But she only clung to me and sobbed.
Finally, "I thought you had killed yourself."
"Maybe I would have," I said. "Why did you leave Tirellian? And
me?"
"Didn't M'Cwyie tell you? Didn't you guess?"
"I didn't guess, and M'Cwyie said she didn't know."
"Then she lied. She knows."
"What? What is it she knows?"
She shook all over, then was silent for a long time. I realized
suddenly that she was wearing only her flimsy dancer's costume. I
pushed her from me, took off my jacket, and put it about her
shoulders.
"Great Malann!" I cried. "You'll freeze to death!"
"No," she said, "I won't."
I was transferring the rose-case to my pocket.
"What is that?" she asked.
"A rose," I answered. "You can't make it out in the dark. I once
compared you to one. Remember?"
"Yes--Yes. May I carry it?"
"Sure." I stuck it in the jacket pocket.
"Well? I'm still waiting for an explanation."
"You really do not know?" she asked.
"No!"
"When the Rains came," she said, "apparently only our men were
affected, which was enough....Because I--wasn't--affected--apparently--"
"Oh," I said. "Oh."
We stood there, and I thought.
"Well, why did you run? What's wrong with being pregnant on Mars?
Tamur was mistaken. Your people can live again."
She laughed, again that wild violin played by a Paginini gone mad.
I stopped her before it went too far.
"How?" she finally asked, rubbing her cheek.
"Your people can live longer than ours. If our child is normal it
will mean our races can intermarry. There must still be other fertile
women of your race. Why not?"
"You have read the Book of Locar," she said, "and yet you ask me
that? Death was decided, voted upon, and passed, shortly after it
appeared in this form. But long before, before the followers of Locar
knew. They decided it long ago. `We have done all things,' they
said, 'we have seen all things, we have heard and felt all things.
The dance was good. Now let it end.'"
"You can't believe that."
"What I believe does not matter," she replied. "M'Cwyie and the
Mothers have decided we must die. Their very title is now a mockery,
but their decisions will be upheld. There is only one prophecy left,
and it is mistaken. We will die."
"No," I said.
"What, then?"
"Come back with me, to Earth."
"No."
"All right, then. Come with me now."
"Where?"
"Back to Tirellian. I'm going to talk to the Mothers."
"You can't! There is a Ceremony tonight!"
I laughed.
"A Ceremony for a god who knocks you down, and then kicks you in
the teeth?"
"He is still Malann," she answered. "We are still his people."
"You and my father would have gotten along fine," I snarled. "But
I am going, and you are coming with me, even if I have to carry
you--and I'm bigger than you are."
"But you are not bigger than Ontro."
"Who the hell is Ontro?"
"He will stop you, Gallinger. He is the Fist of Malann."

IV

I scudded the jeepster to a halt in front of the only entrance I knew,
M'Cwyie's. Braxa, who had seen the rose in a headlamp, now cradled it
in her lap, like our child, and said nothing. There was a passive,
lovely look on her face.
"Are they in the Temple now?" I wanted to know.
The Madonna-expression did not change. I repeated the question.
She stirred.
"Yes," she said, from a distance, "but you cannot go in."
"We'll see."
I circled and helped her down.
I led her by the hand, and she moved as if in a trance. In the
light of the new-risen moon, her eyes looked as they had the day I had
met her, when she had danced. I snapped my fingers. Nothing
happened.
So I pushed the door open and led her in. The room was
half-lighted.
And she screamed for the third time that evening:
"Do not harm him, Ontro! It is Gallinger!"
I had never seen a Martian man before, only women. So I had no
way of knowing whether he was a freak, though I suspected it strongly.
I looked up at him.
His half-naked body was covered with moles and swellings. Gland
trouble, I guessed.
I had thought I was the tallest man on the planet, but he was
seven feet tall and overweight. Now I knew where my giant bed had
come from!
"Go back," he said. "She may enter. You may not."
"I must get my books and things."
He raised a huge left arm. I followed it. All my belonging lay
neatly stacked in the corner.
"I must go in. I must talk with M'Cwyie and the Mothers."
"You may not."
"The lives of your people depend on it."
"Go back," he boomed. "Go home to _your_ people, Gallinger.
Leave _us_!"
My name sounded so different on his lips, like someone else's.
How old was he? I wondered. Three hundred? Four? Had he been a
Temple guardian all his life? Why? Who was there to guard against?
I didn't like the way he moved. I had seen men who moved like that
before.
"Go back," he repeated.
If they had refined their martial arts as far as they had their
dances, or worse yet, if their fighting arts were a part of the dance,
I was in for trouble.
"Go on in," I said to Braxa. "Give the rose to M'Cwyie. Tell her
that I sent it. Tell her I'll be there shortly."
"I will do as you ask. Remember me on Earth, Gallinger.
Good-bye."
I did not answer her, and she walked past Ontro and into the next
room, bearing her rose.
"Now will you leave?" he asked. "If you like, I will tell her
that we fought and you almost beat me, but I knocked you unconscious
and carried you back to your ship."
"No," I said, "either I go around you or go over you, but I am
going through."
He dropped into a crouch, arms extended.
"It is a sin to lay hands on a holy man," he rumbled, "but I will
stop you, Gallinger."
My memory was a fogged window, suddenly exposed to fresh air.
Things cleared. I looked back six years.
I was a student of the Oriental Languages at the University of
Tokyo. It was my twice-weekly night of recreation. I stood in a
thirty-foot circle in the Kodokan, the _judogi_ lashed about my high
hips by a brown belt. I was _Ik-kyu_, one notch below the lowest
degree of expert. A brown diamond above my right breast said
"Jiu-Jitsu" in Japanese, and it meant _atemiwaza_, really, because of
the one striking-technique I had worked out, found unbelievably
suitable to my size, and won matches with.
But I had never used it on a man, and it was five years since I
had practiced. I was out of shape, I knew, but I tried hard to force
my mind _tsuki no kokoro_, like the moon, reflecting the all of Ontro.
Somewhere, out of the past, a voice said "_Hajime_, let it begin."
I snapped into my _neko-ashi-dachi_ cat-stance, and his eyes
burned strangely. He hurried to correct his own position--and I threw
it at him!
My one trick!
My long left leg lashed up like a broken spring. Seven feet off
the ground my foot connected with his jaw as he tried to leap
backward.
His head snapped back and he fell. A soft moan escaped his lips.
_That's all there is to it,_ I thought. _Sorry, old fellow._
And as I stepped over him, somehow, groggily, he tripped me, and I
fell across his body. I couldn't believe he had strength enough to
remain conscious after that blow, let alone move. I hated to punish
him any more.
But he found my throat and slipped a forearm across it before I
realized there was a purpose to his action.
_No! Don't let it end like this!_
It was a bar of steel across my windpipe, my carotids. Then I
realized that he was still unconscious, and that this was a reflex
instilled by countless years of training. I had seen it happen once,
in _shiai_. The man had died because he had been choked unconscious
and still fought on, and his opponent thought he had not been applying
the choke properly. He tried harder.
But it was rare, so very rare!
I jammed my elbow into his ribs and threw my head back in his
face. The grip eased, but not enough. I hated to do it, but I
reached up and broke his little finger.
The arm went loose and I twisted free.
He lay there panting, face contorted. My heart went out to the
fallen giant, defending his people, his religion, following his
orders. I cursed myself as I had never cursed before, for walking
over him, instead of around.
I staggered across the room to my little heap of possessions. I
sat on the projector case and lit a cigarette.
I couldn't go into the Temple until I got my breath back, until I
thought of something to say.
How do you talk a race out of killing itself?
Suddenly--
--Could it happen! Would it work that way? If I read them the
Book of Ecclesiastes--if I read them a greater piece of literature than
any Locar ever wrote--and as somber--and as pessimistic--and showed them
that our race had gone on despite one man's condemning all of life in
the highest poetry--showed them that the vanity he had mocked had borne
us to the Heavens--would they believe it--would they change their minds?
I ground out my cigarette on the beautiful floor, and found my
notebook. A strange fury rose within me as I stood.
And I walked into the Temple to preach the Black Gospel according
to Gallinger, from the Book of Life.

There was silence all about me.
M'Cwyie had been reading Locar, the rose set at her right hand,
target of all eyes.
Until I entered.
Hundreds of people were seated on the floor, barefoot. The few
men were as small as the women, I noted.
I had my boots on.
_Go all the way,_ I figured. _You either lose or you
win--everything!_
A dozen crones sat in a semicircle behind M'Cwyie. The Mothers.
_The barren earth, the dry wombs, the fire-touched._
I moved to the table.
"Dying yourselves, you would condemn your people," I addressed
them, "that they may not know the life you have known--the joys, the
sorrows, the fullness. --But it is not true that you all must die." I
addressed the multitude now. "Those who say this lie. Braxa knows,
for she will bear a child--"
They sat there, like rows of Buddhas. M'Cwyie drew back into the
semicircle.
"--my child!" I continued, wondering what my father would have
thought of this sermon.
"...And all the women young enough may bear children. It is only
your men who are sterile. --And if you permit the doctors of the next
expedition to examine you, perhaps even the men may be helped. But if
they cannot, you can mate with the men of Earth.
"And ours is not an insignificant people, an insignificant place,"
I went on. "Thousands of years ago, the Locar of our world wrote a
book saying that it was. He spoke as Locar did, but we did not lie
down, despite plagues, wars, and famines. We did not die. One by one
we beat down the diseases, we fed the hungry, we fought the wars, and,
recently, have gone a long time without them. We may finally have
conquered them. I do not know.
"But we have crossed millions of miles of nothingness. We have
visited another world. And our Locar had said `Why bother? What is
the worth of it? It is all vanity, anyhow.'
"And the secret is," I lowered my voice, as at a poetry reading,
"he was right! It _is_ vanity, it _is_ pride! It is the hubris of
rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is
our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which
the gods secretly admire in us. --All the truly sacred names of God
are blasphemous things to speak!"
I was working up a sweat. I paused dizzily.
"Here is the Book of Ecclesiastes," I announced, and began:
"`Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all
if vanity. What profit hath a man...'"
I spotted Braxa in the back, mute, rapt.
I wondered what she was thinking.
And I wound the hours of the night about me, like black thread on
a spool.

Oh, it was late! I had spoken till day came, and still I spoke. I
finished Ecclesiastes and continued Gallinger.
And when I finished there was still only a silence.
The Buddhas, all in a row, had not stirred through the night. And
after a long while M'Cwyie raised her right hand. One by one the
Mothers did the same.
And I knew what that meant.
It meant, no, do not, cease, and stop.
It meant that I had failed.
I walked slowly from the room and slumped beside my baggage.
Ontro was gone. Good that I had not killed him....
After a thousand years M'Cwyie entered.
She said, "Your job is finished."
I did not move.
"The prophecy is fulfilled," she said. "My people are rejoicing.
You have won, holy man. Now leave us quickly."
My mind was a deflated balloon. I pumped a little air back into
it.
"I'm not a holy man," I said, "just a second-rate poet with a bad
case of hubris."
I lit my last cigarette.
Finally, "All right, what prophecy?"
"The Promise of Locar," she replied, as though the explaining were
unnecessary, "that a holy man would come from the Heavens to save us
in our last hours, if all the dances of Locar were completed. He
would defeat the Fist of Malann and bring us life."
"How?"
"As with Braxa, and as the example in the Temple."
"Example?"
"You read us his words, as great as Locar's. You read to us how
there is `nothing new under the sun.' And you mocked his words as you
read them--showing us a new thing.
"There has never been a flower on Mars," she said, "but we will
learn to grow them.
"You are the Sacred Scoffer," she finished.
"He-Who-Must-Mock-in-the-Temple--you go shod on holy ground."
"But you voted `no,'" I said.
"I voted not to carry out our original plan, and to let Braxa's
child live instead."
"Oh." The cigarette fell from my fingers. How close it had been!
How little I had known!
"And Braxa?"
"She was chosen half a Process ago to do the dances--to wait for
you."
"But she said that Ontro would stop me."
M'Cwyie stood there for a long time.
"She had never believed the prophecy herself. Things are not well
with her now. She ran away, fearing it was true. When you completed
it, and we voted, she knew."
"Then she does not love me? Never did?"
"I am sorry, Gallinger. It was the one part of her duty she never
managed."
"Duty," I said flatly....Dutydutyduty! Tra-la!
"She has said good-bye, she does wish to see you again.
"...and we will never forget your teachings," she added.
"Don't," I said automatically, suddenly knowing the great paradox
which lies at the heart of all miracles. I did not believe a word of
my own gospel, never had.
I stood, like a drunken man, and muttered "M'narra."
I went outside, into my last day on Mars.
_I have conquered thee, Malann--and the victory is thine! Rest
easy on thy starry bed. God damned!_
I left the jeepster there and walked back to the _Aspic_, leaving
the burden of life so many footsteps behind me. I went to my cabin,
locked the door, and took forty-four sleeping pills.

But when I awakened I was in the dispensary, and alive.
I felt the throb of engines as I slowly stood up and somehow made
it to the port.
Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it
dissolved, brimmed over, and streamed down my face.