Harry Harrison - Captive Universe

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TO THE TEMPLE…

"Bring the one in," Citlallatonac's voice spoke from the temple, and they pushed him inside.

The first priest was sitting cross-legged on an ornamented block of stone before a statue of Coatlicue. In

the half-light of the temple the goddess was hideously lifelike, glazed and painted and decorated with

gems and gold plates. Her twin heads looked at him and her claw-handed arms appeared ready to seize.

"You have disobeyed the clan leaders," the first priest said loudly… Chimal came close, and when he did

so he saw that the priest was older than he had thought. His hair, matted with blood and dirt and

unwashed for years, had the desired frightening effect, as did the blood on his death-symboled robe…

His skin had a waxy pallor except where patches of red powder had been dusted on his cheeks to

simulate good health….

"You have disobeyed. Do you know the penalty?" The old man's voice cracked with rage.

"I did not disobey, therefore there is no penalty."

Also by Harry Harrison

THE STAINLESS STEEL RATS REVENGE

THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT SAVES THE WORLD

TUNNEL THROUGH THE DEEP

SF: AUTHOR'S CHOICE 4 (editor)

STAR SMASHERS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS

CAPTIVE UNIVERSE

HARRY HARRISON

A BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOK

published by BERKLEY PUBLISHING CORPORATION

Published by arrangement with the author's agent.

whatsoever. For information address

Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

156 East 52nd Street

New York, New York 10022

SBN 425-03072-5

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by

Berkley Publishing Corporation

200 Madison Avenue

New York, N. Y. 10016

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOK ® TM 757,375

Printed in the United States of America

BERKLEY MEDALLION EDITION, FEBRUARY. 1976,/p>

THIRD PRINTING

THE VALLEY

O nen nontlacat

O nen nonqizaco

ye nican in tlalticpac:

Ninotolinia,

in manel nonquiz,

in manel nontlacat.

ye nican in tlalticpac.

In vain was I born,

In vain was it written

that here on earth:

I suffer,

Yet at least

it was something

to be born on earth. Aztec chant.

Chimal ran in panic. The moon was still hidden by the cliffs on the eastern side of the valley, but its light

was already tipping their edges with silver. Once it had risen above them he would be as easily seen as

the holy pyramid out here among the sprouting corn. Why had he not thought? Why had he taken the

risk? His breath tore at his throat as he gasped and ran on, his heart pulsed like a great drum that filled his

chest. Even the recent memory of Quiauh and her arms tight about him could not drive away the

world-shaking fear—why had he done it?

If only he could reach the river, it was so close ahead. His woven sandals dug into the dry soil, pushing

him forward toward the water and safety.

A sibilant, distant hissing cut through the silence of the night and Chimal's legs gave way, sending him to

the ground in a spasm of terror. It was Coatlicue, she of the serpent heads, he was dead! He was dead!

Lying there, his fingers clawing uncontrollably at the knee-high corn stalks, he struggled to put his

thoughts in order, to speak his death chant because the time of dying had come. He had broken the rule,

so he would die: a man cannot escape the gods. The hissing was louder now and it sliced through his

head like a knife, he could not think, yet he must. With an effort he mumbled the first words of the chant

as the moon rose above the ledge of rock, almost full, flooding the valley with glowing light and throwing

a black shadow from every cornstalk about him. Chimal turned his head to look back over his shoulder

and there, clear as the road to the temple, was the deep-dug line of his footprints between the rows of

corn. Quiauh—they will find you!

He was guilty and for him there could be no escape. The taboo had been broken and Coatlicue the

dreadful was coming for him. The guilt was his alone; he had forced his love on Quiauh, he had. Hadn't

she struggled? It was written that the gods could be interceded with, and if they saw no evidence they

would take him as a sacrifice and Quiauh might live. His knees were weak with terror yet he pulled

himself to his feet and turned, running, starting back toward the village of Quilapa that he had so recently

left, angling away from the revealing row of footprints.

Terror drove him on, though he knew escape was hopeless, and each time the hissing sliced the air it was

closer until, suddenly, a larger shadow enveloped his shadow that fled before him and he fell. Fear

paralyzed him and he had to fight against his own muscles to turn his head and see that which had

pursued him.

"Coatlicue!" he screamed, driving all the air from his lungs with that single word.

High she stood, twice as tall as any man, and both her serpents' heads bent down toward him, eyes

glowing redly with the lights of hell, forked tongues flicking in and out. As she circled about him the

moonlight struck full onto her necklace of human hands and hearts, illuminated the skirt of writhing snakes

that hung from her waist. As Coatlicue's twin mouths hissed the living kirtle moved, and the massed

serpents hissed in echo. Chimal lay motionless, beyond terror now, accepting death from which there is

no escape, spread-eagled like a sacrifice on the altar.

The goddess bent over him and he could see that she was just as she appeared in the stone carvings in

the temple, fearful and inhuman, with claws instead of hands. They were not tiny pincers, like those of a

scorpion or a river crayfish, but were great flat claws as long as his forearm that opened hungrily as they

came at him. They closed, grating on the bones in his wrists, severing his right arm, then his left Two more

hands for that necklace.

"I have broken the law and left my village in the night and crossed the river. I die." His voice was only a

whisper that grew stronger as he began the death chant in the shadow of the poised and waiting

goddess.

I leave

Descend in one night to the underworld regions

Here we but meet

Briefly, transient on this earth…

When he had finished Coatlicue bent lower, reaching down past her writhing serpent kirtle, and tore out

his beating heart.

Beside her, in a small pottery bowl set carefully in the shade of the house so they would not wilt, was a

spray of quiauhxochitl, the rain flower after which she had been named. As she knelt over the stone

metatl grinding corn, Quiauh murmured a prayer to the goddess of the flower asking her to keep the dark

gods at bay. Today they drew so close to her she could scarcely breathe and only long habit enabled her

to keep drawing the grinder back and forth over the slanted surface. Today was the sixteenth anniversary

of the day, the day when they had found Chimal's body on this side of the riverbank, torn apart by

Coatlicue's vengeance. Just two days after the Ripening Corn festival. Why had she been spared?

Coatlicue must know that she had broken the taboo, just as Chimal had, yet she lived. Every year since

then, on the anniversary of the day, she walked in fear. And each time death had passed her by. So far.

This year was the worst of all, because today they had taken her son to the temple for judgment. Disaster

must strike now. The gods had been watching all these years, waiting for this day, knowing all the time

that her son Chimal was the son of Chimal-popoca, the man from Zaachila who had broken the clan

taboo. She moaned deep in her throat when she breathed, yet she kept steadily grinding the fresh grains

of corn.

The shadow of the valley wall was darkening her house and she had already patted out the tortillas

between her palms and put them to bake on the cumal over the fire when she heard the slow footsteps.

People had carefully avoided her house all day. She did not turn. It was someone coming to tell her that

her son was a sacrifice, was dead. It was the priests coming to take her to the temple for her sin of

sixteen years ago.

"My mother," the boy said. She saw him leaning weakly against the white wall of the house and when he

moved his hand a red mark was left behind.

"Lie down here," she said, hurrying inside the house for a petlatl, then spreading this grass sleeping mat

outside the door where there was still light. He was alive, they were both alive, the priests had simply

beaten him! She stood, clasping her hands, wanting to sing, until he dropped face down on the mat and

she saw that they had beaten his back too, as well as his arms. He lay there quietly, eyes open and

staring across the valley, while she mixed water with the healing herbs and patted them onto the bloody

weals: he shivered slightly at the touch, but said nothing.

"Can you tell your mother why this happened?" she asked, looking at his immobile profile and trying to

read some meaning into his face. She could not tell what he was thinking. It had always been this way

since he had been a little boy. His thoughts seemed to go beyond her, to leave her out. This must be part

of a curse: if one broke a taboo one must suffer.

"It was a mistake."

"The priests do not make mistakes or beat a boy for a mistake."

"They did this time. I was climbing the cliff…"

"Then it was no mistake that they beat you—it is forbidden to climb the cliff."

"No, mother," he said patiently, "it is not forbidden to climb the cliff—it is forbidden to climb the cliff to

attempt to leave the valley, that is the law as Tezcatlipoca said it. But it is also permitted to climb the cliffs

to the height of three men to take birds' eggs, or for other important reasons. I was only two men high on

the cliff and I was after birds' eggs. That is the law."

"If—that is the law, why were you beaten?" She sat back on her heels, frowning in concentration.

"They did not remember the law and did not agree with me and they had to look it up in the book which

took a long tune—and when they did they found I was right and they were wrong." He smiled, coldly. It

was not a boy's smile at all. "So then they beat me because I had argued with priests and set myself

above them."

"As so they should have." She rose and poured some water from the jug to rinse her hands. "You must

learn your place. You must not argue with priests."

For almost all of his life Chimal had been hearing this, or words like it, and had long since learned that the

best answer was no answer. Even when he worked hard to explain his thoughts and feelings his mother

never understood. It was far better to keep these thoughts to himself.

Particularly since he had lied to everyone. He had been trying to climb the cliff; the birds' eggs were just a

ready excuse in case he were discovered.

"Stay here and eat," Quiauh said, putting a child's evening portion of two tortillas before him, dry, flat

corn-cakes over a foot wide. "I will make atolli while you eat these."

Chimal sprinkled salt on the tortilla and tore off a piece which he chewed on slowly, watching his mother

through the open door of the house as she bent over the fire stones and stirred the pot. She was at ease

now, the fear and the beating finished and forgotten, her typical Aztec features relaxed, with the firelight

glinting from her golden hair and blue eyes. He felt very close to her; they had been alone in this house

since his father had died when Chimal had been very young. Yet at the same time he felt so distant He

could explain nothing to her about the things that troubled him.

He sat up to eat the atolli when his mother brought it to him, spooning up the corn gruel with a piece of

tortilla. It was rich and filling, deliciously flavored with honey and hot chillies. His back was feeling better

as were his arms: the bleeding had stopped where the skin had been broken by the whipping stick. He

drank cool water from the small pot and looked up at the darkening sky. Above the cliffs, to the west,

the sky was red as fire and against it soared the zopilote vultures, black silhouettes that vanished and

reappeared. He watched until the light faded from the sky and they were gone. That was the spot where

he started to climb the cliff; they were the reason he had climbed it.

The stars were out, sharp and sparkling in the clear air, while inside the house the familiar work noises

had ceased. There was just a rustle as his mother unrolled her petlatl on the sleeping platform, then she

called to him.

"It is time to sleep."

"I'll sleep here for awhile, the air is cool on my back."

Her voice was troubled. "It is not right to sleep outside, everyone sleeps inside."

"Just for a little while, no one can see me, then I will come in."

She was silent after that but he lay on his side and watched the stars rise and wheel overhead and sleep

would not come. The village was quiet and everyone was asleep and he thought again about the vultures.

He went over his plan once more, step by step, and could find no fault in it. Or rather one fault

only—that a priest had happened to pass and had seen him. The rest of the plan had been perfect, even

the law which permitted him to climb the wall had been as he remembered it. And the vultures did fly to

the same spot on the cuff above. Day after day, and for as long as he remembered this had interested him

and he had wanted to know why. It had bothered and annoyed him that he did not know the reason, until

finally he had made his plan. After all—was not the vulture the totem of his clan? He had a right to know

all that there was to know about them. No one else cared about it, that was certain. He had asked

different people and most of them had not bothered to answer, just pushing him away when he persisted.

Or if they had answered they had just shrugged or laughed and said that was the way vultures were and

forgotten about it at once. They didn't care, none of them cared at all. Not the children, especially the

children, nor the adults or even the priests. But he cared.

He had had other questions, but he had stopped asking questions about things many years ago. Because

unless the questions had simple answers that the people knew, or there were answers from the holy

books that the priests knew, asking just made people angry. Then they would shout at him or even hit

him, even though children were rarely struck, and it did not take Chimal long to discover that this was

because they themselves did not know. Therefore he had to look for answers in his own way, like this

matter with the vultures.

It had bothered him because although much was known about the vultures, there was one thing that was

not known—or even thought about. Vultures ate carrion, everyone knew that, and he himself had seen

them tearing at the carcasses of armadillos and birds. They nested in the sand, laid their eggs, raised their

scruffy chicks here. That was all they did, there was nothing else to know about them.

Except—why did they always fly to that one certain spot on the cliff? His anger at not knowing, and at

the people who would not help him or even listen to him, was rubbed raw by the pain of his recent

whipping. He could not sleep or even sit still. He stood up, invisible in the darkness, opening and closing

his fists. Then, almost without volition, he moved silently away from his home, threading his way through

the sleeping houses of the village of Quilapa. Even though people did not walk about at night. It was not a

taboo, just something that was not done. He did not care and felt bold in doing it. At the edge of the

open desert he stopped, looked at the dark barrier of the cliffs and shivered. Should he go there

now—and climb? Did he dare to do at night what he had been prevented from doing during the day? His

feet answered for him, carrying him forward. It would certainly be easy enough since he had marked a

fissure that seemed to run most of the way up to the ledge where the vultures sat. The mesquite tore at his

legs when he left the path and made his way through the clumps of tall cacti. When he reached the field of

maguey plants the going was easier, and he walked straight forward between their even rows until he

reached the base of the cliff.

Only when he was there did he admit how afraid he was. He looked around carefully, but there was no

one else to be seen and he had not been followed. The night air was cool on his body and he shivered:

his arms and back still hurt. There would be bigger trouble if he were found climbing the cliff again, worse

than a beating this time. He shivered harder and wrapped his arms about himself and was ashamed of his

weakness. Quickly, before he could worry anymore and find a reason to turn back, he leaped against the

rock until his fingers caught in the horizontal crack, then pulled himself up.

Once he was moving it was easier, he had to concentrate on finding the hand and toe holds he had used

that morning and there was little time for thought. He passed the bird's nest that he had raided and felt his

only qualm. Now he was certainly higher than three men above the ground—but he was not trying to

climb to the top of the cliff, so he could not really be said to be breaking the law… A piece of rock gave

way under his fingers and he almost fell, his worries were instantly forgotten in the spurt of fear as he

scrabbled for a new hold. He climbed higher.

Just below the ledge Chimal stopped to rest with his toes wedged into a crack. There was an overhang

above him and there seemed to be no way around it. Searching the blackness of stone against the stars

his glance went over the valley and he shuddered and pressed himself against the cliff: he had not realized

before how high he had climbed. Stretching away below was the dark floor of the valley with his village

of Quilapa, then the deep cut of the river beyond. He could even make out the other village of Zaachila

and the far wall of the canyon. This was taboo—Coatlicue walked the river at night and the sight alone of

her twin serpent heads would instantly kill you and send you to the underworld. He shuddered and turned

his face to the stone. Hard rock, cold air, space all around him, loneliness that possessed him.

There was no way to know how long he hung like that, some minutes surely because his toes were numb

where they were wedged into the crevice. All he wanted to do now was to return safely to the ground, so

impossibly distant below, and only the wavering flame of his anger kept him from doing this. He would go

down, but first he would see how far the overhang ran. If he could not pass it he would have to return,

and he would have done his best to reach the ledge. Working his way around a rough spire he saw that

the overhang did run the length of the ledge—but an immense bite had been taken from the lip. At some

time in the past a falling boulder must have shattered it. There was a way up. With scratching fingers he

hauled himself up the slope until his head came above the level of the ledge.

Something black hurtled at him, buffeting his head, washing him in a foul and dusty smell. A spasm of

unreasoning fear clamped his hands onto the rock or he would have fallen, then the blackness was gone

and a great vulture flapped his way unsteadily out into the darkness. Chimal laughed out loud. There was

nothing here to be frightened of, he had reached the right spot and had disturbed the bird that must have

been perched up here, that was all. He pulled himself onto the ledge and stood up. The moon would be

rising soon, and was already glowing on a high band of clouds in the east, lighting the sky and blotting out

the stars there. The ledge was clear before him, empty of any other vultures, although it was foul with

their droppings. There was little else here of any interest, other than the black opening of a cave in the

rising wall of rock before him. He shuffled toward it, but there was nothing to be seen in the blackness of

its depths: he stopped at the dark entrance and could force himself to go no further. What could possibly

be in it? It would not be long before the moon rose and he might see better then. He would wait.

It was cold this high up, exposed to the wind, but he took no notice. The sky was growing lighter every

moment and grayness seeped into the cave, further and further from the entrance. When at last the

moonlight shone full into it he felt betrayed. There was nothing here to see. The cave wasn't a cave after

all, just a deep gouge in the face of the cliff that ended no more than two men's lengths inside the

opening. There was just rock, solid rock, with what appeared to be more rocks on the stony floor. He

pushed his foot at the nearest one and it moved squashily away from him. This was no rock—what could

it possibly be? He bent to pick it up and his fingers told him what it was at the same instant his nose

identified it.

Meat.

Horror drove him back and almost over the edge to his death. He stopped, at the very brink, trembling

and wiping his hand over and over again on the stone and gravel.

Meat. Flesh. And he had actually touched it, a piece over a foot, almost two feet in length, and as thick

as his hand was long. On feast days, he had eaten meat and had watched his mother prepare it. Fish, or

small birds caught in a net, or the best of all, guajolote, the turkey with the sweet white meat, cooked in

strips and laid on the mashed beans and tortillas. But how big was the biggest piece of meat from the

biggest bird? There was only one creature from which pieces of flesh this big could have been wrenched.

Man.

It was a wonder he did not keep going to his death when he slid over the edge of the cliff, but his young

fingers caught of their own accord and his toes dug in and he climbed downward. He had no memory of

the descent. The stream of his thoughts broke into drops like water when he remembered what he had

seen. Meat, men, sacrifices the zopilote god had placed here for the vultures to eat. He had seen it.

Would his body be chosen next to feed them? Trembling uncontrollably when he reached the bottom, he

fell and long moments passed before he could force himself up from the sand to stumble back toward the

village. Physical exhaustion brought some relief from the terror and he began to realize how dangerous it

would be if he were discovered now, coming back this way. He crept cautiously between the brown

houses, with their windows like dark, staring eyes, until he reached his own home. His-petlatl was still

lying where he had left it; it seemed incredible that nothing should have changed in the endless time that he

had been away, and he gathered it up and pulled it after him through the doorway and spread it near the

banked but still warm fire. When he pulled the blanket over himself he fell asleep instantly, anxious to

leave the waking world that had suddenly become more frightening than the worst nightmare.

The number of the months is eighteen, and the name of the eighteenmonths is a year. The third

month is Tozoztontli and this is when the corn is planted and there are prayers and fasting so that

the rain will come so that in the seventh month the corn will ripen. Then in the eighth month

prayers are said to keep away the rain that would destroy the ripening corn…

The rain god, Tlaloc, was being very difficult this year. He was always a moody god, with good reason

perhaps, because so much was asked of him. In certain months rain was desperately needed to water the

young corn, but in other months clear skies and sunlight were necessary to ripen it. Therefore, in many

years, Tlaloc did not bring rain, or brought too much, and the crop was small and the people went

hungry.

Now he was not listening at all. The sun burned in a cloudless sky and one hot day followed another

without change. Lacking water, the small shoots of new corn that pressed up through the hardened and

cracked earth were far smaller than they should have been, and had a gray and tired look to them.

Between the rows of stunted corn almost the entire village of Quilapa stamped and wailed, while the

priest shouted his prayer and the cloud of dust rose high in the stifling air.

Chimal did not find it easy to cry. Almost all of the others had tears streaking furrows into their

dust-covered cheeks, tears to touch the ram god's heart so that his tears of rain would fall as theirs did.

As a child Chimal had never taken part in this ceremony, but now that he had passed his twentieth year

he was an adult, and shared adult duties and responsibilities. He shuffled his feet on the hard dirt and

thought of the hunger that would come and the pain in his belly, but this made him angry instead of tearful.

Rubbing at his eyes only made them hurt. In the end he moistened his finger with saliva, when no one was

looking, and drew the lines in the dust on his face.

Of course the women cried the best, wailing and tearing at their braided hair until it came loose and hung

in lank yellow strands about their shoulders. When their tears slowed or stopped, the men beat them with

straw-filled bags.

Someone brushed against Chimal's leg, pressing a warm and yielding flank against him. He moved further

down the row, but a moment later the pressure had returned. It was Malinche, a girl with a round face,

round eyes, a round figure. She stared, wide-eyed, up at him while she cried. Her mouth was open so he

could see the black gap in the white row of her upper teeth, she had bit on a stone in her beans and

broke it when she was a child, and her eyes streamed and her nose ran with the intensity of her emotions.

She was still almost a child, but she had turned sixteen and was therefore a woman. In sudden rage he

began to beat her about the shoulders and back with his bag. She did not pull away, or appear to notice

it at all, while her tear-filled round eyes still stared at him, as pale blue and empty of warmth as the winter

sky.

Old Atototl passed in the next row, carrying a plump eating dog to the priest. Since he was the cacique,

the leading man in Quilapa, this was his privilege. Chimal pushed his way into the crowd as they all turned

to follow. At the edge of the field Citlallatonac waited, a fearful sight in his filthy black robe, spattered all

over with blood, and thick with embroidered skulls and bones along the bottom edge where it trailed in

the dust. Atototl came up to him, arms extended, and the two old men bent over the wriggling puppy. It

looked up at them, its tongue out and panting in the heat, while Citlallatonac, as first priest this was his

duty, plunged his black obsidian knife into the little animal's chest. Then, with practiced skill, he tore out

its still beating heart and held it high as sacrifice to Tlaloc, letting the blood spatter among the stalks of

corn.

There was nothing more then that could be done. Yet the sky was still a cloudless bowl of heat. By ones

and twos the villagers straggled unhappily from the fields and Chimal, who always walked alone, was not

surprised to find Malinche beside him. She placed her feet down heavily and walked in silence, but only

for a short while.

"Now the rains will come," she said with bland assurance. "We have wept and prayed and the priest has

sacrificed."

But we always weep and pray, he thought, and the rains come or do not come. And the priests in the

temple will eat well tonight, good fat dog. Aloud he said, "The rains will come."

"I am sixteen," she said, and when he did not answer she added, "I make good tortillas and I am strong.

The other day we had no masa and the com was not husked and there was even no lime water to make

the masa to make the tortillas, so my mother said…"

Chimal was not listening. He stayed inside himself and let the sound of her voice go by him like the wind,

with as much effect They walked on together toward the village. Something moved above, drifting out of

the glare of the sun and sliding across the sky toward the gray wall of the western cliffs beyond the

houses. His eyes followed it, a zopilote going toward that ledge on the cliff… Though his eyes stayed

upon the soaring bird his mind slithered away from it. The cliff was not important nor were the birds

important: they meant nothing to him. Some things did not bear thinking about. His face was grim and

unmoving as they walked on, yet in his thoughts was a twist of hot irritation. The sight of the bird and the

memory of the cliff that night—it could be forgotten but not with Malinche's prying away at him. "I like

tortillas," he said when he became aware that the voice had stopped.

"The way I like to eat them best…" the voice started up again, spurred by his interest, and he ignored it.

But the little arrowhead of annoyance in his head did not go away, even when he turned and left Malinche

suddenly and went into his house. His mother was at the metatl, grinding the corn for the evening meal: it

would take two hours to prepare it. And another two hours of the same labor for the morning meal. This

was a woman's work. She looked up and nodded at him without slowing the back and forth motion.

"I see Malinche out there. She is a good girl and works very hard."

Malinche was framed by the open entranceway, legs wide, bare feet planted firmly in the dust, the

roundness of her large breasts pushing out the huipil draped across her shoulders, her arms at her side

and her fists clenched as though waiting for something. Chimal turned away and, squatting on the mat,

drank cool water from the porous jug.

"You are almost twenty-one years of age, my son," Quiauh said with irritating calmness, "and the clans

must be joined."

Chimal knew all this, but he did not wish to accept it. At 21 a man must marry; at 16 a girl must marry. A

woman needed a man to raise the food for her; a man needed a woman to prepare the food for him. The

clan leaders would decide who would be married in such a way that it profited the clans the most, and

the matchmaker would be called in…

"I will see if I can get some fish," he said suddenly, standing and taking his knife from the niche in the wall.

His mother said nothing, her lowered head bobbed as she bent over her work. Malinche was gone and

he hurried between the houses to the path that led south, through the cactus and rock, toward the end of

the valley. It was still very hot and when the path went along the rim of the ravine he could see the river

below, dried to a sluggish trickle this time of year. Yet it was still water and it looked cool. He hurried

toward the dusty green of the trees at the head of the valley, the almost vertical walls of stone closing in

on each side as he went forward. It was cooler here on the path under the trees: one of them had fallen

since he had been here last, he would have to bring back some firewood.

Then he reached the pond below the cliffs and his eyes went up along the thin stream of the waterfall that

dropped down from high above. It splattered into the pond which, although it was smaller now with a

wide belt of mud around it, he knew was still deep at the center. There would be fish out there, big fish

with sweet meat on their bones, lurking under the rocks along the edge. With his knife he cut a long, thin

branch and began to fashion a fish spear.

Lying on his stomach on a shelf of rock that overhung the pool he looked deep into its transparent

depths. There was a flicker of silver motion as a fish moved into the shadows: it was well out of reach.

The air was dry and hot, the distant hammer of a bird's bill on wood sounded unnaturally loud in the

silence. Zopilotes were birds and they fed on all kinds of meat, even human meat, he had seen that for

himself. When? Five or six years ago?

As always, his thoughts started to veer away from that memory—but this time they did not succeed. The

hot dart of irritation that had been planted in the field still stirred at his mind and, in sudden anger, he

clutched at the memory of that night. What had he seen? Pieces of meat. Armadillo, or rabbit perhaps?

No, he could not trick himself into believing that. Man was the only creature who was big enough to have

furnished those lumps of flesh. One of the gods had put them there, Mixtec perhaps, the god of death, to

feed his servants the vultures who look after the dead. Chimal had seen the god's offering and had

fled—and nothing had happened. Since that night he had walked in silence waiting for the vengeance that

had never arrived.

Where had the years gone? What had happened to the boy who was always in trouble, always asking

questions that had no answers? The prod of irritation struck deep and Chimal stirred on the rock, then

rolled over and looked up at the sky where a vulture, like the black mark of an omen, soared silently out

of sight above the valley's wall. I was the boy, Chimal said, almost speaking aloud, and admitting to

himself for the first tune what had happened, and I was so filled with fear that I went inside myself' and

sealed myself in tightly like a fish sealed in mud for baking. Why does this bother me now?

With a quick spring he was on his feet, looking around as though for something to kill. Now he was a

man and people would no longer leave him alone as they had when he was a boy. He would have

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TOTHETEMPLE…"Bringtheonein,"Citlallatonac'svoicespokefromthetemple,andtheypushedhiminside.Thefirstpriestwassittingcross-leggedonanornamentedblockofstonebeforeastatueofCoatlicue.Inthehalf-lightofthetemplethegoddesswashideouslylifelike,glazedandpaintedanddecoratedwithgemsandgoldplates.Hertwinheadslook...

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Harry Harrison - Captive Universe

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