* * * * *
CAPTIVES OF THE FLAME
by SAMUEL R. DELANY
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York 36, N.Y.
CAPTIVES OF THE FLAME
Copyright ©, 1963, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
* * * * *
_This is for Marilyn, of course._
* * * * *
SAMUEL R. DELANY considers _Captives of the Flame_ to be the first
of a trilogy dealing with the same epoch and characters. It is,
however, his second published novel, his first being _The Jewels of
Aptor_, Ace Book F-173, which has received considerable acclaim.
A young man, resident in New York City, Delany is a prolific and
talented writer, whose work in poetry and prose have won him many
awards. Asked for comment on his literary ambitions, he preferred
to quote one of the characters from one of his works:
"I wanted to wield together a prose luminous as twenty sets of
headlights flung down a night road; I wanted my words tinged with
the green of mercury vapor street lamps seen through a shaling of
oak leaves in the park past midnight. I needed phrases that would
break open like thunder, or leave a brush as gentle as willow
boughs passed in a dark room.... The finest writing is always the
finest delineation of surfaces."
* * * * *
PROLOGUE
The green of beetles' wings ... the red of polished carbuncle ... a web
of silver fire. Lightning tore his eyes apart, struck deep inside his
body; and he felt his bones split. Before it became pain, it was gone.
And he was falling through blue smoke. The smoke was inside him, cool as
blown ice. It was getting darker.
He had heard something before, a ... voice: the _Lord of the Flames_....
Then:
Jon Koshar shook his head, staggered forward, and went down on his knees
in white sand. He blinked. He looked up. There were two shadows in front
of him.
To his left a tooth of rock jutted from the sand, also casting a double
shadow. He felt unreal, light. But the backs of his hands had real dirt
on them, his clothes were damp with real sweat, and they clung to his
back and sides. He felt immense. But that was because the horizon was so
close. Above it, the sky was turquoise--which was odd because the sand
was too white for it to be evening. Then he saw the City.
It hit his eyes with a familiarity that made him start. The familiarity
was a refuge, and violently his mind clawed at it, tried to find other
familiar things. But the towers, the looped roadways, that was all there
was--and one small line of metal ribbon that soared out across the
desert, supported by strut-work pylons. The transit ribbon! He followed
it with his eyes, praying it would lead to something more familiar. The
thirteenth pylon--he had counted them as he ran his eye along the silver
length--was crumpled, as though a fist had smashed it. The transit
ribbon snarled in mid-air and ceased. The abrupt end again sent his mind
clawing back toward familiarity: _I am Jon Koshar_ (followed by the
meaningless number that had been part of his name for five years). _I
want to be free_ (and for a moment he saw again the dank, creosoted
walls of the cabins of the penal camp, and heard the clinking chains of
the cutter teeth as he had heard them for so many days walking to the
mine entrance while the yard-high ferns brushed his thighs and
forearms ... but that was in his mind).
The only other things his scrambling brain could reach were facts of
negation. He was some place he had _never_ been before. He did _not_
know how he had gotten there. He did _not_ know how to get back. And the
close horizon, the double shadows ... now he realized that this was
_not_ Earth (Earth of the Thirty-fifth Century, although he gave it
another name, Fifteenth Century G.F.).
But the City.... It was on earth, and he was on earth, and he was--had
been--in it. Again the negations: the City was _not_ on a desert, nor
could its dead, deserted towers cast double shadows, nor was the transit
ribbon broken.
The transit ribbon!
No!
It couldn't be broken. He almost screamed. _Don't let it be broken,
please...._
The entire scene was suddenly jerked from his head. There was nothing
left but blue smoke, cool as blown ice, inside him, around him. He was
spinning in blue smoke. Sudden lightning seared his eyeballs, and the
shivering after-image faded, shifted, became ... a web of silver fire,
the red of polished carbuncle, the green of beetles' wings.
CHAPTER I
Silent as a sleeping serpent for sixty years, it spanned from the heart
of Telphar to the royal palace of Toromon. From the ashes of the dead
city to the island capital, it connected what once had been the two
major cities, the only cities of Toromon. Today there was only one.
In Telphar, it soared above ashes and fallen roadways into the night.
Miles on, the edge of darkness paled before the morning and in the faint
shadow of the transit ribbon, at the edge of a field of lava, among the
whispering, yard-high ferns, sat row on row of squat shacks, cheerless
as roosting macaws. They stood near the entrance of the tetron mines.
A few moments before, the light rain had stopped. Water dribbled down
the supporting columns of the transit ribbon which made a black band on
the fading night.
Now, six extraordinarily tall men left the edge of the jungle. They
carried two corpses among them. Two of the tall men hung back to
converse.
"The third one won't get very far."
"If he does," said the other, "he'll be the first one to get through the
forest guards in twelve years."
"I'm not worried about his escaping," said the first. "But why have
there been such an increase in attempts over the past year?"
The other one laughed. Even in the dull light, the three scars that ran
down the side of his face and neck were visible. "The orders for tetron
have nearly doubled."
"I wonder just what sort of leeches in Toron make their living off these
miserable--" He didn't finish, but pointed ahead to the corpses.
"The hydroponic growers, the aquarium manufacturers," answered the man
with the scars. "They're the ones who use the ore. Then, of course,
there's the preparation for the war."
"They say that since the artificial food growers have taken over, the
farmers and fishermen near the coast are being starved out. And with the
increased demand for tetron, the miners are dying off like flies here at
the mine. Sometimes I wonder how they supply enough prisoners."
"They don't," said the other. Now he called out. "All right. Just drop
them there, in front of the cabins."
The rain had made the ground mud. Two dull splashes came through the
graying morning. "Maybe that'll teach them some sort of lesson," said
the first.
"Maybe," shrugged the one with the scars.
Now they turned back toward the jungle.
* * * * *
Soon, streaks of light speared the yellow clouds and pried apart the
billowing rifts. Shafts of yellow sank into the lush jungles of Toromon,
dropping from wet, green fronds, or catching on the moist cracks of
boulders. Then the dawn snagged on the metal ribbon that arced over the
trees, and webs of shadow from the immense supporting pylons fell across
the few, gutted lava beds that dotted the forest.
A formation of airships flashed through a tear in the clouds like a
handful of hurled, silver chips. As the buzz from their tetron motors
descended through the trees, Quorl, the forest guard, stretched his
seven-foot body and rolled over, crushing leaves beneath his shoulder.
Instinctively his stomach tensed. But silence had returned. With large,
yellow-brown eyes, he looked about the grove in which he had spent the
night. His broad nostrils flared even wider. But the air was still,
clean, safe. Above, the metal ribbon glinted. Quorl lay back on the
dried leaves once more.
* * * * *
As dawn slipped across the jungle, more and more of the ribbon caught
fire from beneath the receding shadows, till at last it soared above the
yellow crescent of sand that marked the edge of the sea.
Fifty yards down the beach from the last supporting pylon whose base
still sat on dry land, Cithon, the fisherman, emerged from his shack.
"Tel?" he called. He was a brown, wiry man whose leathery face was
netted with lines from sand and wind. "Tel?" he called once more. Now he
turned back into the cottage. "And where has the boy gotten off to now?"
Grella had already seated herself at the loom, and her strong hands now
began to work the shuttle back and forth while her feet stamped the
treadle.
"Where has he gone?" Cithon demanded.
"He went out early this morning," Grella said quietly. She did not look
at her husband. She watched the shuttle moving back and forth, back and
forth between the green and yellow threads.
"I can see he's gone out," Cithon snapped. "But where? The sun is up. He
should be out with me on the boat. When will he be back?"
Grella didn't answer.
"When will he be back?" Cithon demanded.
"I don't know."
Outside there was a sound, and Cithon turned abruptly and went to the
side of the shack.
The boy was leaning over the water trough, sloshing his face.
"Tel."
The boy looked up quickly at his father. He was perhaps fourteen, a thin
child, with a shock of black hair, yet eyes as green as the sea. Fear
had widened them now.
"Where were you?"
"No place," was the boy's quietly defensive answer. "I wasn't doing
anything."
"Where were you?"
"No place," Tel mumbled again. "Just walking...."
Suddenly Cithon's hand, which had been at his waist jerked up and then
down, and the leather strap that had been his belt slashed over the
boy's wet shoulder.
The only sound was a sudden intake of breath.
"Now get down to the boat."
Inside the shack, the shuttle paused in Grella's fist the length of a
drawn breath. Then it shot once more between the threads.
* * * * *
Down the beach, the transit ribbon leapt across the water. Light shook
on the surface of the sea like flung diamonds, and the ribbon above was
dull by comparison.
Dawn reached across the water till at last the early light fell on the
shore of an island. High in the air, the ribbon gleamed above the busy
piers and the early morning traffic of the wharf. Behind the piers, the
towers of the City were lanced with gold, and as the sun rose, gold
light dropped further down the building faces.
On the boardwalk, two merchants were talking above the roar of
tetron-powered winches and chuckling carts.
"It looks like your boat's bringing in a cargo of fish," said the stout
one.
"It could be fish. It could be something else," answered the other.
"Tell me, friend," asked the portly one, whose coat was of cut and cloth
expensive enough to suggest his guesses were usually right, "why do you
trouble to send your boat all the way to the mainland to buy from the
little fishermen there? My aquariums can supply the City with all the
food it needs."
The other merchant looked down at the clip-board of inventory slips.
"Perhaps my clientele is somewhat different from yours."
The first merchant laughed. "You sell to the upper families of the City,
who still insist on the doubtful superiority of your imported
delicacies. Did you know, my friend, I am superior in every way to you?
I feed more people, so what I produce is superior to what you produce. I
charge them less money, and so I am financially more benevolent than
you. I make more money than you do, so I am also financially superior.
Also, later this morning my daughter is coming back from the university,
and this evening I will give her a party so great and so lavish that she
will love me more than any daughter has ever loved a father before."
Here the self-satisfied merchant laughed again, and turned down the
wharf to inspect a cargo of tetron ore that was coming in from the
mainland.
As the merchant of imported fish turned up another inventory slip,
another man approached him. "What was old Koshar laughing about?" he
asked.
"He was gloating over his good fortune in backing that hairbrained
aquarium idea. He was also trying to make me jealous of his daughter.
He's giving her a party tonight to which I am no doubt invited; but the
invitation will come late this afternoon with no time for me to reply
properly."
The other man shook his head. "He's a proud man. But you can bring him
to his place. Next time he mentions his daughter, ask him about his son,
and watch the shame storm into his face."
"He may be proud," said the other, "but I am not cruel. Why should I
move to hurt him? Time takes care of her own. This coming war will see."
"Perhaps," said the other merchant. "Perhaps."
* * * * *
Once over the island city of Toron, capital of Toromon, the transit
ribbon breaks from its even course and bends among the towers, weaves
among the elevated highways, till finally it crosses near a wide splash
of bare concrete, edged with block-long aircraft hangars. Several
airships had just arrived, and at one of the passenger gates the people
waiting for arrivals crowded closely to the metal fence.
Among them was one young man in military uniform. A brush of red hair,
eyes that seemed doubly dark in his pale face, along with a squat,
taurine power in his legs and shoulders; these were what struck you in
the swift glance. A close look brought you the incongruity of the
major's insignia and his obvious youth.
He watched the passengers coming through the gate with more than
military interest.
Someone called, "Tomar!"
And he turned, a grin leaping to his face.
"Tomar," she called again. "I'm over here."
A little too bumptiously, he rammed through the crowd until at last he
almost collided with her. Then he stopped, looking bewildered and happy.
"Gee, I'm glad you came," she said. "Come on. You can walk me back to
father's." Her black hair fell close to broad, nearly oriental
cheekbones. Then the smile on her first strangely, then attractively
pale mouth fell.
Tomar shook his head, as they turned now, arm in arm, among the people
wandering over the field.
"No?" she asked. "Why not?"
"I don't have time, Clea," he answered. "I had to sneak an hour off just
to get here. I'm supposed to be back at the Military Ministry in forty
minutes. Hey, do you have any bags I can carry?"
Clea held up a slide rule and a notebook. "I'm traveling light. In a
week I'll be back at the university for summer courses, so I didn't
bring any clothes. Wait a minute. You're not going to be too busy to get
to the party Dad's giving me tonight, are you?"
Tomar shrugged.
Clea began a word, but pushed her tongue hard against the roof of her
mouth. "Tomar?" she asked after a moment.
"Yes?" He had a rough voice, which, when he was sad, took on the
undertones of a bear's growl.
"What's happening about the war? Will there really be one?"
Again he shrugged. "More soldiers, more planes, and at the Ministry
there's more and more work to do. I was up before dawn this morning
getting a fleet of survey planes off for a scouting trip to the mainland
over the radiation barrier. If they come back this evening, I'll be
busy all night with the reports and I won't be able to make the party.
"Oh," said Clea. "Tomar?"
"Yes, Clea Koshar?"
"Oh, don't be formal with me, please. You've been in the City long
enough and known me long enough. Tomar, if the war comes, do you think
they'll draft prisoners from the tetron mines into the army?"
"They talk about it."
"Because my brother...."
"I know," said Tomar.
"And if a prisoner from the mines distinguished himself as a soldier,
would he be freed at the end of the war? They wouldn't send him back to
the mines, would they?"
"The war hasn't even begun yet," said Tomar. "No one knows how it will
end."
"You're right," she said, "as usual." They reached the gate. "Look,
Tomar, I don't want to keep you if you're busy. But you've got to
promise to come see me and spend at least an afternoon before I go back
to school."
"If the war starts, you won't be going back to school."
"Why not?"
"You already have your degree in theoretical physics. Now you're only
doing advanced work. Not only will they conscript prisoners from the
mines, but all scientists, engineers, and mathematicians will have to
lend their efforts to the cause as well."
"I was afraid of that," Clea said. "You believe the war will actually
come, don't you, Tomar?"
"They get ready for it night and day," Tomar said. "What is there to
stop it? When I was a boy on my father's farm on the mainland, there was
too much work, and no food. I was a strong boy, with a strong boy's
stomach. I came to the City and I took my strength to the army. Now I
have work that I like. I'm not hungry. With the war, there will be work
for a lot more people. Your father will be richer. Your brother may come
back to you, and even the thieves and beggars in the Devil's Pot will
have a chance to do some honest work."
"Perhaps," said Clea. "Look, like I said, I don't want to keep you--I
mean I do, but. Well, when will you have some time?"
"Probably tomorrow afternoon."
"Fine," said Clea. "We'll have a picnic then, all right?"
Tomar grinned. "Yes," he said. "Yes." He took both her hands, and she
smiled back at him. Then he turned away, and was gone through the crowd.
Clea watched a moment, and then turned toward the taxi stand. The sun
was beginning to warm the air as she pushed into the shadow of the great
transit ribbon that soared above her between the towers.
* * * * *
Buildings dropped bands of shadow across the ribbon, as it wound through
the city, although occasional streaks of light from an eastward street
still made silver half-rings around it. At the center of the city it
raised a final two hundred feet and entered the window of the laboratory
tower in the west wing of the royal palace of Toron.
The room in which the transit ribbon ended was deserted. At the end of
the metal band was a transparent crystal sphere, fifteen feet in
diameter which hovered above the receiving platform. A dozen small
tetron units of varying sizes sat around the room. The viewing screens
were dead gray. On a control panel by one ornate window, a bank of
forty-nine scarlet-knobbed switches pointed to off. The metal catwalks
that ran over the receiving platform were empty.
In another room of the palace, however, someone was screaming.
"Tetron!"
"... if your Highness would only wait a moment to hear the report,"
began the aged minister, "I believe...."
"Tetron!"
"... you would understand the necessity," he continued in an amazingly
calm voice, "of disturbing you at such an ungodly hour ..."
"I never want to hear the word tetron again!"
"... of the morning."
"Go away, Chargill; I'm sleeping!" King Uske, who had just turned
twenty-one though he had been the official ruler of Toromon since the
age of seven, jammed his pale blond head beneath three over-stuffed
pillows that lay about the purple silken sheets of his bed. With one
too-slender hand he sought feebly around for the covers to hide himself
completely.
The old minister quietly picked up the edge of the ermine-rimmed
coverlet and held it out of reach. After several half-hearted swipes,
the pale head emerged once more and asked in a coldly quiet voice,
"Chargill, why is it that roads have been built, prisoners have been
reprieved, and traitors have been disemboweled at every hour of the
afternoon and evening without anyone expressing the least concern for
what I thought? Now, suddenly, at--" Uske peered at the jewel-crusted
chronometer by his bed in which a shimmering gold light fixed the hour,
"--my God, ten o'clock in the morning! Why must I suddenly be consulted
at every little twist and turn of empire?"
"First," explained Chargill, "you are now of age. Secondly, we are about
to enter a war, and in times of stress, responsibility is passed to the
top, and you, sir, are in the unfortunate position."
"Why can't we have a war and get it over with?" said Uske, rolling over
to face Chargill and becoming a trifle more amenable. "I'm tired of all
this idiocy. You don't think I'm a very good king, do you?" The young
man sat up and planted his slender feet as firmly as possible on the
three-inch thick fur rug. "Well, if we had a war," he continued,
scratching his stomach through his pink sateen pajama top, "I'd ride in
the first line of fire, in the most splendid uniform imaginable, and
lead my soldiers to a _sweeping_ victory." At the word sweeping, he
threw himself under the covers.
"Commendable sentiment," stated Chargill dryly. "And seeing that there
may just be a war before the afternoon arrives, why don't you listen to
the report, which merely says that another scouting flight of planes
has been crippled trying to observe the enemy just beyond the tetron
mines over the radiation barrier."
"Let me continue it for you. No one knows how the planes have been
crippled, but the efficacy of their methods has lead the council to
suggest that we consider the possibility of open war even more strongly.
Isn't this more or less what the reports have been for weeks?"
"It is," replied Chargill.
"Then why bother me. Incidentally, must we really go to that imbecilic
party for that stupid fish-peddler's daughter this evening? And talk
about tetron as little as possible, please."
"I need not remind you," went on the patient Chargill, "that this stupid
fish-peddler has amassed a fortune nearly as large as that in the royal
treasury--though I doubt if he is aware of the comparison--through the
proper exploitation of the unmentionable metal. If there is a war, and
we should need to borrow funds, it should be done with as much good will
as possible. Therefore, you will attend his party to which he has so
kindly invited you."
"Listen a minute, Chargill," said Uske. "And I'm being serious now. This
war business is completely ridiculous, and if you expect me to take it
seriously, then the council is going to have to take it seriously. How
can we have a war with whatever is behind the radiation barrier? We
don't know anything about it. Is it a country? Is it a city? Is it an
empire? We don't even know if it's got a name. We don't know how they've
crippled our scouting planes. We can't monitor any radio communication.
Of course we couldn't do that anyway with the radiation barrier. We
don't even know if it's people. One of our silly planes gets its tetron
(Pardon me. If you can't say it, I shouldn't say it either.) device
knocked out and a missile hurled at it. Bango! The council says war.
Well, I refuse to take it seriously. Why do we keep on wasting planes
anyway? Why not send a few people through the transit ribbon to do some
spying?"
Chargill looked amazed.
"Before we instituted the penal mines, and just after we annexed the
forest people, the transit ribbon was built. Correct? Now, where does it
go?"
"Into the dead city of Telphar," answered Chargill.
"Exactly. And Telphar was not at all dead when we built it, sixty years
ago. The radiation hadn't progressed that far. Well, why not send spies
into Telphar and from there, across the barrier and into enemy
territory. Then they can come back and tell us everything." Uske smiled.
"Of course your Majesty is joking." Chargill smiled. "May I remind your
Majesty that the radiation level in Telphar today is fatal to human
beings. Completely fatal. The enemy seems to be well beyond the barrier.
Only recently, with the great amount of tetron--eh, excuse me--coming
from the mines have we been able to develop planes that can perhaps go
over it. And that, when and if we can do it, is the only way."
Uske had started out smiling. It turned to a giggle. Then to a laugh.
Suddenly he cried out and threw himself down on the bed. "Nobody listens
to me! Nobody takes any of my suggestions!" He moaned and stuck his head
under the pillows. "No one does anything but contradict me. Go away. Get
out. Let me sleep."
Chargill sighed and withdrew from the royal bedchamber.