By Walter Miller, Jr.
_Strange gods were worshipped on Mars.
But were they so clever? They'd lost their own world._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science
Fiction, May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_"The ancient gods, our Fathers, rode down from the heavens in the
Firebirds of the Sun. Coming into the world, they found no air for
the breath of their souls. "How shall we breathe?" they asked of
the Sun. And Sun gave them of His fire and beneath the earth they
kindled the Blaze of the Great Wind. Good air roared from the womb
of Mars our Mother, the ice burned with a great thunder, and there
was air for the breath of Man._"
--FROM AN OLD MARTIAN LEGEND
* * * * *
A thief, he was about to die like a thief.
He hung from the post by his wrists. The wan sunlight glistened faintly
on his naked back as he waited, eyes tightly closed, lips moving slowly
as he pressed his face against the rough wood and stood on tiptoe to
relieve the growing ache in his shoulders. When his ankles ached, he
hung by the nails that pierced his forearms just above the wrists.
He was young, perhaps in his tenth Marsyear, and his crisp black hair
was close-cropped in the fashion of the bachelor who had not yet sired
a pup, or not yet admitted that he had. Lithe and sleek, with the quick
knotty muscles and slender rawhide limbs of a wild thing, half-fed and
hungry with a quick furious hunger that crouched in ambush. His face,
though twisted with pain and fright, remained that of a cocky pup.
When he opened his eyes he could see the low hills of Mars, sun-washed
and gray-green with trees, trees brought down from the heavens by
the Ancient Fathers. But he could also see the executioner in the
foreground, sitting spraddle-legged and calm while he chewed a blade
of grass and waited. A squat man with a thick face, he occasionally
peered at the thief with empty blue eyes--while he casually played
mumblety-peg with the bleeding-blade. His stare was blank.
[Illustration: "_Are you ready for me, Asir?_"]
"Ready for me yet, Asir?" he grumbled, not unpleasantly.
The knifeman sat beyond spitting range, but Asir spat, and tried to
wipe his chin on the post. "Your dirty mother!" he mumbled.
The executioner chuckled and played mumblety-peg.
After three hours of dangling from the spikes that pierced his arms,
Asir was weakening, and the blood throbbed hard in his temples, with
each jolt of his heart a separate pulse of pain. The red stickiness had
stopped oozing down his arms; they knew how to drive the spike just
right. But the heartbeats labored in his head like a hammer beating at
red-hot iron.
_How many heartbeats in a life-time--and how many left to him now?_
He whimpered and writhed, beginning to lose all hope. Mara had gone to
see the Chief Commoner, to plead with him for the pilferer's life--but
Mara was about as trustworthy as a wild hüffen, and he had visions of
them chuckling together in Tokra's villa over a glass of amber wine,
while life drained slowly from a young thief.
Asir regretted nothing. His father had been a renegade before him, had
squandered his last ritual formula to buy a wife, then impoverished,
had taken her away to the hills. Asir was born in the hills, but he
came back to the village of his ancestors to work as a servant and
steal the rituals of his masters. No thief could last for long. A
ritual-thief caused havoc in the community. The owner of a holy phrase,
not knowing that it had been stolen, tried to spend it--and eventually
counter-claims would come to light, and a general accounting had to be
called. The thief was always found out.
Asir had stolen more than wealth, he had stolen the strength of their
souls. For this they hung him by his wrists and waited for him to beg
for the bleeding-blade.
_Woman thirsts for husband,
Man thirsts for wife,
Baby thirsts for breast-milk
Thief thirsts for knife...._
A rhyme from his childhood, a childish chant, an eenie-meenie-miney for
determining who should drink first from a nectar-cactus. He groaned and
tried to shift his weight more comfortably. Where was Mara?
* * * * *
"Ready for me yet, Asir?" the squat man asked.
Asir hated him with narrowed eyes. The executioner was bound by law to
wait until his victim requested his fate. But Asir remained ignorant
of what the fate would be. The Council of Senior Kinsmen judged him
in secret, and passed sentence as to what the executioner would do
with the knife. But Asir was not informed of their judgment. He knew
only that when he asked for it, the executioner would advance with the
bleeding-blade and exact the punishment--his life, or an amputation,
depending on the judgment. He might lose only an eye or an ear or a
finger. But on the other hand, he might lose his life, both arms, or
his masculinity.
There was no way to find out until he asked for the punishment. If he
refused to ask, they would leave him hanging there. In theory, a thief
could escape by hanging four days, after which the executioner would
pull out the nails. Sometimes a culprit managed it, but when the nails
were pulled, the thing that toppled was already a corpse.
The sun was sinking in the west, and it blinded him. Asir knew about
the sun--knew things the stupid council failed to know. A thief, if
successful, frequently became endowed with wisdom, for he memorized
more wealth than a score of honest men. Quotations from the ancient
gods--Fermi, Einstein, Elgermann, Hanser and the rest--most men owned
scattered phrases, and scattered phrases remained meaningless. But a
thief memorized all transactions that he overheard, and the countless
phrases could be fitted together into meaningful ideas.
He knew now that Mars, once dead, was dying again, its air leaking
away once more into space. And Man would die with it, unless something
were done, and done quickly. The Blaze of the Great Wind needed to be
rekindled under the earth, but it would not be done. The tribes had
fallen into ignorance, even as the holy books had warned:
_It is realized that the colonists will be unable to maintain a
technology without basic tools, and that a rebuilding will require
several generations of intelligently directed effort. Given the
knowledge, the colonists may be able to restore a machine culture if
the knowledge continues to be bolstered by desire. But if the third,
fourth, and Nth generations fail to further the gradual retooling
process, the knowledge will become worthless._
The quotation was from the god Roggins, _Progress of the Mars-Culture_,
and he had stolen bits of it from various sources. The books themselves
were no longer in existence, remembered only in memorized ritual
chants, the possession of which meant wealth.
Asir was sick. Pain and slow loss of blood made him weak, and his
vision blurred. He failed to see her coming until he heard her feet
rustling in the dry grass.
"Mara----"
She smirked and spat contemptuously at the foot of the post. The
daughter of a Senior Kinsman, she was a tall, slender girl with an
arrogant strut and mocking eyes. She stood for a moment with folded
arms, eyeing him with amusement. Then, slowly, one eye closed in a
solemn wink. She turned her back on him and spoke to the executioner.
"May I taunt the prisoner, Slubil?" she asked.
"It is forbidden to speak to the thief," growled the knifeman.
"Is he ready to beg for justice, Slubil?"
The knifeman grinned and looked at Asir. "Are you ready for me yet,
thief?"
Asir hissed an insult. The girl had betrayed him.
"Evidently a coward," she said. "Perhaps he means to hang four days."
"Let him then."
"No--I think that I should _like_ to see him beg."
She gave Asir a long searching glance, then turned to walk away. The
thief cursed her quietly and followed her with his eyes. A dozen steps
away she stopped again, looked back over her shoulder, and repeated the
slow wink. Then she marched on toward her father's house. The wink made
his scalp crawl for a moment, but then....
_Suppose she hasn't betrayed me?_ Suppose she had wheedled the sentence
out of Tokra, and knew what his punishment would be. _I think that I
should like to see him beg._
But on the other hand, the fickle she-devil might be tricking
him into asking for a sentence that she _knew_ would be death or
dismemberment--just to amuse herself.
He cursed inwardly and trembled as he peered at the bored executioner.
He licked his lips and fought against dizzyness as he groped for words.
Slubil heard him muttering and looked up.
"Are you ready for me yet?"
* * * * *
Asir closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Give it to me!" he yelped
suddenly, and braced himself against the post.
Why not? The short time gained couldn't be classed as living. Have it
done with. Eternity would be sweet in comparison to this ignomy. A
knife could be a blessing.
He heard the executioner chuckle and stand up. He heard the man's
footsteps approaching slowly, and the singing hiss of the knife as
Slubil swung it in quick arcs. The executioner moved about him slowly,
teasing him with the whistle of steel fanning the air about him. He was
expected to beg. Slubil occasionally laid the knife against his skin
and took it away again. Then Asir heard the rustle of the executioner's
cloak as his arm went back. Asir opened his eyes.
The executioner grinned as he held the blade high--aimed at Asir's
head! The girl had tricked him. He groaned and closed his eyes again,
muttering a half-forgotten prayer.
The stroke fell--and the blade chopped into the post above his head.
Asir fainted.
When he awoke he lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. The executioner
rolled him over with his foot.
"In view of your extreme youth, thief," the knifeman growled, "the
council has ordered you perpetually banished. The sun is setting. Let
dawn find you in the hills. If you return to the plains, you will be
chained to a wild hüffen and dragged to death."
Panting weakly, Asir groped at his forehead, and found a fresh wound,
raw and rubbed with rust to make a scar. Slubil had marked him as an
outcast. But except for the nail-holes through his forearms, he was
still in one piece. His hands were numb, and he could scarcely move
his fingers. Slubil had bound the spike-wounds, but the bandages were
bloody and leaking.
When the knifeman had gone, Asir climbed weakly to his feet. Several
of the townspeople stood nearby, snickering at him. He ignored their
catcalls and staggered toward the outskirts of the village, ten minutes
away. He had to speak to Mara, and to her father if the crusty oldster
would listen. His thief's knowledge weighed upon him and brought
desperate fear.
Darkness had fallen by the time he came to Welkir's house. The people
spat at him in the streets, and some of them flung handfuls of loose
dirt after him as he passed. A light flickered feebly through Welkir's
door. Asir rattled it and waited.
Welkir came with a lamp. He set the lamp on the floor and stood with
feet spread apart, arms folded, glaring haughtily at the thief. His
face was stiff as weathered stone. He said nothing, but only stared
contemptuously.