Hal Clement - A Question of Guilt

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A Question of Guilt

MUCH OF THE pit's four-acre floor was in shadow, but reflection from the white limestone of the

eastern walls kept it from being wholly dark. Its three occupants could easily have seen the watcher if

they had chanced to look toward him. However, his silence and their own occupation combined to leave

him unnoticed. He stood motionless in the tunnel mouth a few yards above the pit floor, and looked at

them with an expression on his thin face which would have defied reading by the keen-est beggar of

Rome.

There was nothing remarkable about those he watched. Two were women: one a girl not yet twenty

and the other ten or twelve years older. The third was a boy of five or six. They were playing some game

which involved throwing two fist-sized sacks of sand or earth back and forth, apparently at random. The

child's shouts of glee whenever one of his companions missed a catch echoed between the walls of the

sinkhole. More decorous chuckles and an occasional cry of encourage-ment from the older woman

reached the witness's ears at longer intervals.

The eyes in the lean, pale face seldom left the boy. Unlike the women, whose clothing somewhat

hampered their activity, his thin body and thinner limbs were nearly bare. The short, kiltlike garment of

brightly dyed wool which was his only covering left him free to leap and twist as the game demanded. It

was these actions the watcher followed, marking each move of the pale-skinned body and nervous little

hands, noting each bit of clumsiness that let a bag reach the ground, each leap and shriek of triumph as a

double catch was made. The tiny fellow was holding his own—perhaps even winning—against his older

adversaries, but no one could have been quite sure whether this was due to his own agility or their

generosity. Perhaps the watcher was trying to learn as he stood in the shadow of the tunnel mouth.

The game went on, while shade covered more and more of the garden which made up the pit's floor.

The players began to slow down, though the child's shouts were as loud as ever; if he was getting tired,

he did not intend to admit it. It was the older woman who finally called a halt.

"Time to rest now, Kyros. The sun is going." She pointed toward the western lip of the pit.

"There's still plenty of light, and I'm not tired."

"Perhaps not, but you must be getting hungry. Unless Elitha and I stop playing, there will be no food

cooked." The boy accepted the change of subject with-out actually surrendering.

"Can't I eat before cooking is done?" he asked. "There must be things to eat that don't have to be

cooked." The older woman raised her eyebrows quizzi-cally at the other.

"There may be something," was the answer to the unspoken question. "I will see. You could both stay

in the light while it is with us, mistress." The girl turned toward the watcher, and saw him instantly.

Her gasp of surprise caught the attention of the other two, and they looked in the same direction. The

boy, who had been about to fasten a light woolen cloak about his shoulders, dropped it with a yell of joy

and dashed toward the tunnel mouth. The older woman shed the dignity which had marked her even

during the game, and sprang after him with a cry.

"Kyros—wait!"

The girl echoed the words, but acted as well. She was closer than the boy to the tunnel, and as he

rushed past her she reached out quickly and caught him up, swing-ing him around and almost smothering

him for a mo-ment in the folds of her garment. She held him while the other woman passed her, and the

silent man came toward them down the slope of rubble which led from the tunnel to the pit's floor.

As the two met at its foot the girl let her captive go. He instantly resumed his dash toward the

embracing couple; reaching them, he danced up and down and tugged at their clothing until an arm

reached out and drew him into the close-locked group. Elitha stopped a few yards away and watched

them, quietly smiling.

At length the older woman stepped back, still gazing at the newcomer. The latter now held the boy on

his left arm, looking at him as he had for the many minutes of the game. It was his wife who spoke first.

"Four months. It has seemed like the year you thought it might be my own." He nodded, still looking

at the child.

"A hundred and thirty-one days. It was long for me, too. It is good to see that all is well here." She

smiled.

"Well indeed. Open your mouth and show your fa-ther, Kyros." The boy's response might have been

mere obedience, but looked more like a grin of triumph. The man started, and his grip on the small figure

tightened momentarily as he saw the gap in the grin.

"A tooth—no, two of them! When?"

"Forty days ago," his wife said quietly.

"What trouble?"

"None. They loosened not long after you had gone. Elitha watched him carefully, and we were very

particu-lar about his food. He was very good most of the time, though I never knew him to be so fond of

apples. But he kept his hands away from the loose teeth, and finally they just fell out—on the same day."

"And?"

"That was all. No trouble." Slowly the man put his son down, and for the first time a smile appeared

on his face. Elitha spoke for the first time.

"You two will want to talk. I would like to hear what has happened on your journey, Master, but the

meal must be prepared. Kyros and I will leave you and—"

"But I want to hear, too!" cried the child.

"I will not talk about my adventures until we have all eaten, Kyros, so you will miss nothing. Go along

with Elitha, and be sure she makes food I like. Do you re-member what that is?" The gap-toothed grin

appeared once more.

"I remember. You'll see. Come on, Elitha!" He turned to dash up the slope, and the girl moved

quickly to take his hand.

"All right," she said. "Stay with me so I don't fall; the stones are rough." The man and wife watched

sob-erly as the other two disappeared into the tunnel; then the mother turned quickly to face her husband.

"Tell me quickly, my own. You said you might be gone a year. Did you come back now because you

learned something, or—" She stopped, and tried to make her face inscrutable, but failed signally. The

man put an arm about her shoulders.

"I did learn something, though not nearly what I hoped. I came back because I couldn't stay

away—though I was almost afraid to come, too. If I had known of Kyros's teeth I might have been able

to stay longer." The woman's face saddened slightly. "I might have, my Judith; I don't know that I would

have."

"What did you learn? Have other healers spoken or written of this trouble? Have they learned how to

cure it?"

"Some of them know of it. It is mentioned in writings, some of them many years old. One man I

talked to had seen a person who had it."

"And cured him—or her?"

"No," the man said slowly. "It was a little boy, like ours. He died, as—" Both their heads turned

slowly to the north side of the garden, where three small mounds were framed in carefully tended beds of

flowers. The woman looked away again quickly.

"But not Kyros! There was no trouble when his teeth came out! It's not like that with him!" Her

husband looked at her gravely.

"You think we have wasted effort, being so careful with him? You have forgotten the bruises, and the

lameness he sometimes has? You would go back to live in Rome and let him play and fight with other

chil-dren?"

"I wouldn't go back to Rome in any case, and I'd be afraid to have him play with other children or out

of my sight," she admitted, "but why was there no trouble from the teeth? Or are teeth just different?

None of the others"—she glanced toward the graves again—"lived long enough to lose teeth. Little Marc

never grew any." She suddenly collapsed against him, sobbing. "Marc, dear Marc, why do you try? No

man can fight the gods, or the demons, who have cursed us—who have cursed me. You'll only anger

them further. You know it. You must know it. It was just not for us to have children. I bore you four

sons, and three are gone, and Kyros will—"

"Will what?" There was sternness in the man's voice. "Kyros may die, as they did; no man can win all

his battles, and some men lose them all. If he does, though, it will not be because I did not fight." His

voice softened again. "My dearest, I don't know what I, or you, or we may have done to offend before I

started to fight for the lives of my sons, You may be right in thinking that it is a punishment or a curse, but

I cannot cringe before a man and don't like to before a god. Certainly if men had attacked and slain my

sons, you would think little of me if I did not fight back. Even when the enemies are not men, and I cannot

see them to fight them directly, I can hope to learn how they attack my children. Perhaps I can find a

shield, even if there is no sword. A man must fight somehow or he isn't a man."

The mother's sobs were quieter, though the tears still flowed.

"He might be a man, but he wouldn't be you," she admitted. "But if no healer in all the world has

learned how to fight this thing, why do you think it can be fought? Men are not gods."

"Once there must have been a healer who first learned how to set broken bones, or cool fevers. How

he must have learned is easy to guess—"

"The gods told him! There is no other way. Either you learn from another person or you learn from

the gods."

"Then perhaps the gods will tell me what to do to keep Kyros alive."

"But surely they will not, if they have brought the sickness to punish us. Why should they tell you how

to take it away again?"

"If they won't, then maybe the demons will. It's all the same to me; I will listen to anyone or anything

able to help me save my son's life. Wouldn't you?"

Judith was silent. Defending her children was one thing, but defying the gods was quite another. A

more thoughtful husband would not have pressed the ques-tion; a really tactful one would not have asked

it in the first place. Seeing into the minds of other people, even those he loved best, was not a strong point

with Marc of Bistrita.

"Wouldn't you?" he repeated. There was still no an-swer, and his wife turned away so that he could

not see her face. For several seconds she just stood there; then she began to walk slowly toward the

tunnel, stumbling a little as she reached the irregular heap of stones which formed the "stairway" to its

mouth. The man watched for a moment in surprise; then he hastened after her to help. He did not repeat

the question again; he was sometimes slow, but seldom really stupid.

No more words were exchanged as they made their way up to the opening and into the deepening

darkness beyond. The tunnel was very crooked, and the last trace of daylight from the pit quickly

vanished. The only illu-mination came from pottery oil lamps which were more useful in telling direction

than in revealing what was actually underfoot.

Then the way opened into a cavern some forty feet across. It was well lighted, to eyes accustomed to

the blackness of the tunnel; half a dozen lamps flickered around the walls. In a grotto at one side a small

fire glowed. An earthenware pot was supported over it on a bronze trivet. Steam from the pot and smoke

from the fire swirled together through a crack in the top of the grotto.

Elitha and the child were kneeling a yard or two from the blaze, working on something which could

not easily be made out from across the cavern. As his par-ents came nearer, however, they saw that the

child was cracking nuts with a bit of stone and carefully extract-ing the meats, which he placed in a clay

bowl beside him. The girl was arranging other dishes for the meal, which seemed nearly ready. Except for

the background, it was a typical family scene—the sort that Marc of Bis-trita had known all too seldom in

his forty-five years of life, and was to know very seldom in the future.

As he and his wife settled to the stone floor by the others, the boy grinned up at them; and it was the

tiny distraction of their arrival which changed the atmo-sphere. The rock which he was using as a

nutcracker landed heavily on his finger instead of the intended tar-get. There was a startled cry, and a

flood of tears which was stopped without too much trouble; but there was also a portion of skin scraped

from the finger, and it was this which took most of the attention of Marc and his wife. The injured spot

was oozing blood—not much by ordinary skinned-finger standards, but their stand-ards were not

ordinary.

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Hal Clement - A Question of Guilt

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