The Green Queen Read online

  "Yes, but what could they do to us, after all?" said the tall man with the big nose, carrying on the conversation. "We're a legal organization."

  "We're a legal cult, you mean," the shorter man corrected. "We haven't any business at all to be having a machine like this. As to what they could do to us—do you want to have to take a walk down the Stairs?"

  "They wouldn't," the tall man said quickly and nervously. "There's been no real crime, and our cult's useful. In all the time Viridis has been settled, an Upper has had to go down the Stairs only twice. Anyhow, stop worrying. Our ibim is pulling less current than a heater would. There's nothing for them to get suspicious about."

  "Three flights down, and it begins," the shorter man said hatefully. "Four hundred thousand people packed into a space that wouldn't be comfortable for as many dogs. Almost no barrier protection. A life span that averages thirty years. And polluted food. Have you realized what that means, polluted food? Knowing that every mouthful you eat is increasing the deposit of radioactive particles in your bones? Oh yes, it's a real picnic, having to take that little walk down Stairs."

  "Oh, shut up. When you joined us, you made some promises. Serious ones. Are you forgetting them? What we're doing is important, the logical next step.—Here comes another card."

  In the very dim light the two men studied the duplicates of the cards that Blue Uniform and Gray Tunic had studied. They discussed them quite fully. And in the end, just as Blue Uniform had done, they settled on Leaf.

  BONNAR stood in his office looking out the window. It was in a poor part of town, too near the Stairs that led down to the Lowers' habits, and he disliked it. But Verbal mask, which was designed primarily for the consolation and manipulation of Lowers, never had the prestige of Veridical. Its practitioners always got the short end of the stick.

  Notwithstanding that, he had been successful, rather outstandingly so, as a mask-maker. His somewhat heavy face brightened for a moment. Then it sank back into its normal stolidity. There might be such a thing as being too successful, mightn't there? He was beginning to think that there was.

  It was fashionable to jeer at Verbal as compared to Veridical. Well, Verbal was the older—it went back to the days of James Renfrew, leader of the first of the three big Jovis migrations, who had spoken of "Fable, the kindly mask over the face of Jovis, our angry God,"—and in Bonnar's opinion Verbal was the more respectable. It was also the more useful. Except for the big Veridical displays in Tandis park every second year, when were Lowers ever really in contact with Veridical? It was a minor factor in their lives. Veridical existed to alleviate the strain of Upper life, to put a mask over its anxiety.

  Verbal did seem simple compared with Veridical. He granted that. He'd heard it called a rumor shop. Actually, it was full of subtleties. One could call it the art of inducing consoling belief.

  How many hours he'd spent listening at the ventilating shafts from down Stairs, trying to learn, from the talk, the coughing, the spitting, the groans, what new mask it would be possible to implant! How much care he expended on his disseminators, drilling them to use the exact, the perfect word, without ever letting them know that they were being drilled! (Secrecy was essential; if the Lowers ever learned that the frantic beliefs that consoled their misery came from up Stairs, the efficacy of the mask would be lost.) Theme—vehicles—details—coloring. All tremendously important. A false detail could spoil even the best conceived mask. But the final subtlety of perception was demanded of the mask-maker in knowing when the old mask had failed and a new one must be begun.

  Misgauge that—let the Lowers go for three days without the alleviating veil of Verbal maskart over their ocean of miseries—and the whole social structure of Viridis would crack from side to side.

  A responsible art, and a subtle one. Didn't it, after all, make Veridical, with its somewhat artificial emphasis on beauty, its projectors, lenses, sense impressors, look barren and mechanical?

  He didn't see how anyone could answer that question with any word except yes. And yet a mask could be too successful. He was beginning to think that was what was wrong with the current one.

  It must have met Lower psychological needs to a greater degree than anybody in Verbal had anticipated. A Lower had been killed in a food robbery the other day, near one of the pollution-clear warehouses. They'd blasted him, naturally. But the last words he'd shrieked from his blistered mouth had been, "She's coming! The Green Queen!" Had a Lower, ever before, died like that?

  And not only among Lowers; it was beginning to get into Upper culture too. In the last month or so he'd heard of a symphony, two poems and a statue, all concerned with the Green Queen. The people one met at dinner parties added details to the legend. And yet Bonnar had come up with the basic mask idea, himself, not more than six months ago, and had done most of the work on it himself. It was curiously convincing; sometimes he wondered whether he had ever actually invented it—whether it hadn't, somehow, been distilled out of the soft air, or been exhaled from the damp soil of Viridis like a mist. He must have touched, have tapped, something much more powerful than he had realized.

  There was a soft but oddly repulsive plop from the room behind him. He turned round, his face puckered with disgust. Yes, it was. One of the flying frogs. Dull gun-metal gray, the color of the sole of an old shoe, it was flopping frenziedly around the lamp on his table. How could it have gotten in?

  Through the dome, the barrier, his skylight? And yet there it was, plopping and leaping repulsively.

  He didn't want to touch it; it might carry fungus spores. With a net he scooped it up and dumped it down the chute. Then he turned back to the window and his thoughts.

  Mightn't it be desirable to begin another mask? Yes, though the old one hadn't even begun to fail—was, in fact, stronger than ever. Desirable, certainly. But could it be done? Bonnar's eyebrows rose a little as the phrase—the definitive phrase—came into his mind. The mask was getting out of hand.

  He didn't know why the explicitness of the words should be so startling. Their content had been latent in his mind for a long time. And there must be other instances of an overly persistent mask in the history of Verbal. There might even have been techniques worked out for dealing with such a situation. He'd look the subject up and see what could be done after he had finished his interview with Leaf. All the same, the mask was getting out of hand.—There must be something more pleasant for him to think about than this.

  About breaking off with Leaf? He didn't really want to break off. Their relationship had lasted some three months now—longer than anything had since he was seventeen—and he wasn't really tired of her yet. She had an attractive person, of course. (But so did a lot of other women. He'd had a little Lower girl once who was really charming. She would have done for a model in Veridical. But the next week the pustules had broken out on her.) Leaf was ardent. That was very nice, delightful, in fact, after the lukewarm response one got from Body-servants and even from some Uppers. But it wasn't these two things alone that made him like her. It was something more personal. Directness? Freedom? Spontaneity? Perhaps it was because she was from earth; she was the first earthgirl he had ever had. Or perhaps it was because she was Leaf.

  No, he wasn't eager to break with her. But he had had an order. A man didn't rise to his position in his profession without being able to obey. He hoped he could get Leaf to do what she was supposed to do.

  Bonnar was suddenly profoundly depressed. It was the view from the window; he'd always disliked it. Naturally it was depressing. The pale green light, the flat pavement that was the exact mud color of a flying frog, the ceaseless agitation of the writhing trees. (Why did he dislike the trees so much? Fairfield, also in Verbal, had done a most successful mask dealing with them. And yet Bonnar hated them, was bothered more by them every time he saw them. Their tormented writhings, no matter how much they might have deserved to suffer, were hideous. The red fruit they bore was delicious, but for years he hadn't been able
to touch it. They affected him, he supposed, the way Lowers did some people. And yet Lowers didn't disturb him much.)

  A wave of motion passed along the line of trees; there was a writhing tree not more than twenty-five feet from his office window. Ugh. With sudden energy Bonnar went to the big square cupboard in the comer and got out a three-sense veridicial projector. There was no reason why he should see the trees writhing if he didn't want to.

  He began to fuss with lenses and controls. Veridicial did, for the full effect, depended a great deal on the skill and the psychological attitude of the operator, but Bonnar could get by. He was good enough that he didn't have to use a previously recorded roll.

  Slowly and with a semblance of effort the mask began to spread out. The windows of the office faded. The writhing trees wavered and then, as if sheets of gauze were coming down that gradually grew more solid, became a rank of blossoming apple trees. The backless bench under the trees on the comer turned to a grassy bank. There was a dusting of purple violets at its foot.

  So far, so good. It needed more grass, and some little plants, irises maybe, by the trunks of the trees. (Bonnar's family had been of Viridis for a long time. They had come there before the Jovis migration. Yet Bonnar, when he made the mask he wanted, made the flora of earth.) A brook—no, a spring—over to the left. A bright blue sky. More flowers in the grass—hoop-petticoat daffodils, and some low white California irises with gold on the petals. Clouds in the sky, puffy and slowly drifting. A breeze, not warm, not cool, like a caress from a skillful, loving hand. Anything else? Perfume from the apple blossoms, sweet and faint. That was about it.

  Bonnar stood back from the projector, admiring his handiwork. There it was, a spring day on earth, beginning at his windows. And very nice.

  Of course, it lacked the precision and clarity that a really good veridical would have had. It lacked organization. It wasn't five-sense. It was full of holes, really. But it was nice.

  Leaf came forward, smiling under the apple trees, to him.

  Bonnar's heart began to pound. She was, as always, less beautiful, more individual, than he had imagined her. She had an excellent figure, but the only really beautiful thing about her was her hair. After her baby had died, she had had rather a hard time, and the experience had left marks on her. And yet, as she moved under the apple trees toward him, there was a vitality in her that made his projected fantasy of terrestrial springtime as unreal as the sugar constructions on a cake.

  He switched off the projector; he must remember to ask her whether the mask had been visible at all from her side. He swallowed and inhaled. Funny, he couldn't seem to get enough air into his lungs. But of course he had to do what he had been directed to do.

  She left his office a quarter of an hour later. Bonnar watched her from the window. Now that the interview he had been dreading was over, he should have felt better, but he didn't. He was feeling shaken and a little sick. He went to the cupboard from which he had gotten the mask projector, and rummaged about until he found an ethel eugenool bottle. He poured himself a big drink.

  He couldn't stay away from the window. Drink in hand, he went back to it. Leaf was moving down the street slowly, toward the writhing trees. When she came to the backless bench on the corner, she sat down on it.

  She had turned white—a greenish, ghastly white—when he had told her he didn't want to go on with her. "But I thought you lo—" she had said, and then bit off the words. She had been too proud to argue. But when he had suggested that she might find consolation, at least temporarily, in one of the religious cults, "for instance, The Apple Pickers," (he had congratulated himself on the delicacy with which the name had been implanted), she had looked at him as if he were something outrageous, a creature utterly outside her experience. She had laughed on a high note. And when she had turned toward the door to go, she had put one hand in front of herself almost gropingly, as if she had suddenly become blind.

  Could he have done anything else? No, of course not. If he hadn't broken off with her willingly, pressure would have been put on him—until he had done it. It wouldn't have helped Leaf any for him to refuse. But he might have told her, mightn't he, that he didn't want to do it? That he was being forced to act?

  Bonnar blinked, and then shook his head. No, he couldn't have. Leaf had to do what was expected of her. That she didn't know, and mustn't know what it was, didn't alter the issue. The great thing was discipline, authority. He had yielded to it. And so must Leaf, even though she yielded ignorantly.

  He couldn't leave the window. He wanted to forget about Leaf, now the interview was over, and get back down to his work. He wanted to stop feeling unhappy, and even a little guilty, for having done what was definitely the right thing to do. But as long as Leaf was sitting there on the bench, bent over as if the green light oppressed her, her hands over her face, it was impossible. He had to keep watching her, if only to know what she would do.

  He finished his drink, and poured another one. Once Leaf picked up her macquillage kit—it was hanging from a strap around her waist—and opened it. But she put it down again, as if the task of making up her face just now was too much for her.

  He fidgeted. Wasn't she ever going to go on about her business? There was a shrine of the Apple Pickers in the next street; he could just see it if he leaned far to one side. If Leaf went into it, it meant that his delicately implanted suggestion had worked. Of course, even if she didn't, she might become interested in the cult later. The people who had told Bonnar he must break off his relationship with the girl had subtle but effective ways of influencing people.

  At last Leaf straightened. She opened the kit and made up her face rather thoroughly. Her face was toward Bonnar, but she did seem to be feeling a little better. He was glad of that.

  The branches of the tree were moving restlessly. One of the pendant dark red fruit was shaken loose by the motion. It fell on the ground at Leaf's feet with an almost audible plop. Leaf looked up, toward the trunk of the tree. She must have seen the writing on the bark at nearly the same moment that it caught Bonnar's eye.

  It was spelled out letter by letter, as if some invisible hand were writing, and in ink of glowing liquid gold. "The Apple Pickers are coming," it read. The slightest of pauses. And then, "Be ready," was added to the legend on the bark.

  Bonnar felt a superstitious thrill that was almost fright. Then common sense reasserted itself. It was the government, of course. The people who had told him to break off with Leaf. They had a projector somewhere; there wasn't anything supernatural about it; it didn't make any difference that he couldn't make an accurate guess as to where the projector was located.

  He wasn't altogether sure the projector was a good idea. Leaf was stubborn. She was really exceedingly stubborn. If she had known, for instance, that he wasn't quite ready to break off his relationship with her, she would never have acquiesced in it. And if she once got the idea that somebody was trying to make her enter the Apple Pickers, she would never go near one of their shrines. Nothing outside of superior physical force would compel her.

  The words faded from the bark, a letter at a time. They faded in the order in which they had appeared. Leaf was looking at the tree intently, her head a little tipped, her back stiff. New letters began to appear.

  This time the gold was darker, with streaks of black and ominous red in it. And the message—Bonnar frowned—the message was darker too. "There's a serpent in every bushel of apples that we pick," it ran.

  Well, it might appeal to Leafs curiosity. The message did avoid the pitfall of making the Apple Pickers seem too attractive. But the trouble was that Leaf had almost no curiosity. She never asked questions or pried. It seemed a mistake to try to bait her through a quality she didn't have.

  He had better watch his thoughts. This wasn't a good way to feel about people in authority.

  The message stayed a little longer on the bark than the earlier one had done. Then it disappeared all at once, as if the projector
had been switched off.

  Leaf got up from the bench. She looked around her for a moment, as if she had forgotten something and couldn't remember what it was. Then she began to move down the street, in the direction of the Apple Pickers' shrine.

  Bonnar let his breath out in relief. It wasn't sure yet, of course. But she could have taken another way home, and she hadn't. Yes, it did look ...

  He watched her, his body pressed against the glass. She was walking rapidly and jerkily, not at all like Leaf. He had always rather enjoyed watching her walk, since her movements were smooth and assured. Now, even in the midst of his curiosity, he was conscious of a certain distress. It was unpleasant to see Leaf moving without grace.

  The street was empty, except for her and a Lower. The Lower was a man in his thirties, though of course he looked much older. There were two big pustules on his chest, some fungus on his legs, and he was exceedingly thin. He was so thin that his knee caps made big bulges and his spine was as sharp as the backbone of a fish. He'd been trying to cut his radioactive intake, of course. That was why he was so thin. But they oughtn't to allow Lowers in that condition on an Upper-level street.

  Leaf was abreast of the shrine now. She wasn't slowing her pace. Her head was bent. She wasn't looking where she was going.

  She didn't bump into the Lower; it was not so crude as that. The edge of his kilt brushed her hand; perhaps she smelled him, too. She looked up, startled.

  She made an involuntary gesture of repulsion and disgust. The Lower looked away from her wearily. And as if a spring in her had been pressed, she turned and entered the shrine.