Sign of the Labrys Read online

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. There are… animals like that. I think you really did have the double sight, temporarily. Perhaps someday you’ll have it for good.”

  “I’m not so sure I like having it. Oh, and Cindy Ann. Did she catch the plague from me?”

  “I doubt it. The course of immunization the people on G have had has left them more fragile than they realize. I think she died of a heart attack.”

  “Kyra, are you a doctor?”

  She laughed. “Of a sort. You’d better get back to bed now.” She helped me over to the bed. I lay back with a sigh of fatigue. The clean, cool sheets felt good.

  “There’re a lot more questions I want to ask you,” I said.

  “I know. But you’d better have a nap now.”

  When she came in with lunch, I asked her, “What’s the noise I keep hearing in the hall? A rustling and scratching? I don’t think it’s the white rats that were in the hall before.”

  I thought she turned pale. She went to the hall door and tried the fastenings. “It’s all right,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “As long as the door’s locked…”

  “But what was it?”

  “One of the workers here—Sorensen, I think his name is—has been doing some breeding experiments with lab animals. This one can eat its way through the wire mesh of a cage as if it were tissue paper. But for some reason it never attacks wood.”

  “Is it carnivorous?”

  “Not primarily. It loves to gnaw. But it doesn’t eat what it gnaws.”

  I blinked. “Oh, it’s not really dangerous,” she said impatiently. “Wood repels it. And the door is locked.”

  “Is that why you were carrying the knife when I first saw you? To protect yourself?”

  “One of the reasons. Level F is not without its dangers. I do have to protect myself.”

  “Why do you stay here, then?”

  She was silent. “Eat your lunch,” she said at last. “I’m running out of things to cook. I’ll have to visit the stockpiles pretty soon.”

  As she was clearing away the tray, I said, “Sit down and talk a while. There are a lot more questions I want to ask.”

  “Umm,” Kyra replied, but she put the tray down on a table and sat down by my bed.

  “How much of my perceptions on level H were actual? What made me so sick? And why did Despoina want me to come to her? I suppose she was real, anyway.”

  Kyra laughed. I could smell the faint rose of the perfume she used. “Yes, Despoina was real… Tell me what happened on level H. And on I, the hidden nadir level, too.”

  It took me quite a time. “Well,” she said when I had finished, “the man in the cowl wasn’t real. And the flames you saw were an illusion, too. Or, more accurately, an old memory. And it was memory that told you the proper responses to make.”

  “Memory? Nothing like that has ever happened to me.”

  She gave me an oblique look. “I didn’t say when it had happened. But it was a memory.

  “The man in the stag’s mask was really there, I think,” she continued. “You see, a scourging is part of the rite. The rite was interrupted by the FBY, or you would have learned the reason for it.”

  “And Despoina? And the men in the lions’ masks?”

  “They were both really there. Despoina has made some changes… That is what makes her a great…”

  “A great what?” I asked impatiently. “Kyra, you people—you all seem to be related, somehow. You hint and hint. Ames did. Why don’t you ever say anything directly? Why all the mystery?”

  She laughed. “We hint partly because some things can only be said indirectly, and partly because we are not sure how much you already know. From all our hinting, you will some day, perhaps, realize that you have learned what was already there.”

  I sighed with exasperation and rolled my head on the pillow. Kyra laughed again. “Any more questions?”

  “Yes. Why have I been so sick? Why did Despoina summon me to her?”

  “You had Despoina’s ring. Did you ever look at the inside of it?”

  “I don’t think so. The outside was what interested me.”

  “Yes. If you had looked at the inside, I think you would have found a thin brownish film smeared over it.”

  “A film of what?”

  “Of certain strain of plague spores. You see, I cannot be quite certain what Despoina was trying to do. I don’t know everything that was in her mind. But haven’t you noticed something? You have been in my company for hours now. Do you feel any desire to get away from me?”

  “No. No, I don’t. That’s odd.”

  “Not odd. It’s what she was trying to do. Your infection with this particular strain, and recovery from it, have had the effect of making you able to tolerate the proximity of human beings in the way that was usual before the plagues broke out.

  “Despoina infected you deliberately. Ames, who hadn’t quite your—constitution, died when he put on the ring. But she has also been trying to find a simpler way of making people able to endure each other, and that is why the FBY, as an organization, has been interested in her.”

  “The people on level G seemed to be able to stand each other’s society,” I said thoughtfully. “They did it with euph pills.”

  Kyra shrugged. “They have to take bigger and bigger doses. After a while, they lock themselves in closets and shiver, or start banging their heads against walls.”

  “Cindy Ann didn’t mention the head-banging.”

  “I imagine she was ashamed of it. It isn’t the sort of thing that ought to happen to VIP’s.”

  “But why did Despoina make me go down to her? I could have been infected by the ring, and stayed on level E. I could just as well have gone through my whole illness there.”

  “I told you, I don’t know all that was in her mind. She doesn’t confide in me. But I think she was testing you to make sure you are one of the old sort.”

  “Of the old sort? What do you mean by that?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve already had lots of hints.”

  “Umm. Did I pass the test?”

  “I think so. Even the difficulties you had, the places you failed, were the places where one of the old sort would fail.”

  I still didn’t understand. Looking back on it, I think I must have been deliberately blind. “But the FBY captured her?” I asked. “Didn’t she foresee that they might follow me down?”

  Kyra’s eyes flickered. “I keep telling you, I don’t know what was in her mind. But they captured her, yes. Her, and all the people with her. The FBY has them now.”

  Kyra’s voice hadn’t changed at all, and yet I was perfectly convinced that she was lying. I couldn’t believe that the woman I had seen in the twinkling light of the candles, bare-breasted and beautiful, had fallen ignominiously into the hands of the FBY.

  “I wonder…” I said thoughtfully.

  “Wonder what?” Kyra snapped the words.

  “I wonder if there are any of her people still on level H.”

  “Well, there might be. But we’ll never know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the FBY, when they came up with her, sealed off the lower levels for good. Nobody can get down there again.”

  I said nothing. But I was resolved, as soon as I recovered my usual strength, to try to get down to level H once more.

  12

  The jailer cast the hempen rope around my throat. I knew better than to resist him; he was my friend, and this was clearly for the best.

  “It will be short,” he said into my ear. He put a billet of wood in the slack, of the noose and began to twist. The rope bit in. I couldn’t breathe any longer. My chest strove desperately. No air got past the rope. My eyes were starting from my head.

  How long it took! Why didn’t he hurry? Against my will my hands went up and began to fight the rope.

  “Stop it,” he hissed. “Better this than burning.”

  I bucked and labored. He held on. His kind han
ds inexorably tightened the rope.

  I woke with a strangled cry. In the darkness I reached out for Kyra. When I had begun to have the nightmares—which she had explained as indicating that I was “developing”—she had moved her bed in beside mine, saying that if I woke without her near me, I might grow to be afraid to go to sleep.

  I found her hand and pressed it. She sighed, fidgeted, and then said sleepily, “What is it, Sam?”

  “I had another dream.”

  “Which one?”

  “I dreamed I was in a jail, a dank filthy place, and the jailer was trying to strangle me—with a rope he twisted with a piece of wood. I wasn’t supposed to fight him, though. I thought he was my friend.”

  “He probably was,” she answered. She yawned and sniffled. “If you have any more dreams, Sam, I don’t think you need to wake me. You can do without me now. You’re getting better when you have that dream. Go back to sleep.”

  I gave her hand a final squeeze and rolled away from her in my bed. The last thing I thought before I fell asleep again was: She says I’m getting better. All right. Tomorrow, if I get a chance, I’ll try to get through to level H.

  Breakfast was instant coffee and a Danish pastry we both liked that came in cans. She was picking up the cups to take them over to the sink to wash them when I said, “Do you hear that noise in the hall? That sort of rustic and flutter? Is it what I think it is?”

  She stopped, frozen, and listened. “Oh, yes, it is.” She sighed. “Sorensen’s home-grown monster. It’ll go away again pretty soon, I suppose. I wish it would stop coming here. Most of the things on level F don’t bother me, but I hate that blob of muck.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Never mind what it looks like. If I told you, it would just give you more material for nightmares.” She went over to the sink with the cups and started rinsing them.

  “Kyra, why do you stay on this level?” I asked when she came back.

  “I’ve been stationed here,” she answered briefly.

  “To do something? Is that what you mean?”

  “Partly that. And partly because I—”

  “Because you what?”

  “None of your business,” she snapped. “If it’s right for you to know, you’ll be told.”

  “When I was on level F before, you made me promise to help you get back to the surface again.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think I could do?”

  “I thought you might use your influence at court to help me get back.”

  “With Despoina?”

  “I suppose so.”

  The interchange was beginning to have the maddening quality that most of my attempts to get information from Kyra ended in. I said, “What about it now? Does the promise still hold?”

  “If you’re able to keep it, it does. But Despoina’s gone. There’s nobody for you to use influence with.”

  She went over to a cupboard and opened it. “Nothing for lunch but dehydrated eggs,” she said. “I’ll have to visit the stockpiles. Do you think you can get your bath by yourself?”

  This was a reference to the little shower she had rigged up in the corner of the next room. We were able to get by with living on level F because most of the labs had sinks and hot plates, with a toilet to every three or four rooms. But it lent an amateurish, camping-out quality to our domestic arrangements.

  “Sure, I’ll be all right. But what about Sorensen’s pet? It’s probably still in the hall.”

  “It won’t bother me,” she said, “as long as I have this.” She picked up the knife that was so often in her hand.

  “I should think a chunk of wood might be more helpful.”

  “No. It can’t stand the noise when I make the knife twang.”

  I must still have looked doubtful, for she said reassuringly, “It’s all right, Sam. I wouldn’t go if I thought it was dangerous. I won’t be gone more than half an hour.”

  She went to the cupboard and got out a strong cloth shopping bag. With it in one hand and the athame in the other, she walked to the door. “I’ll be back soon,” she said reassuringly, and went out.

  I heard her footsteps receding in the hall. As soon as I felt she was safely out of the way, I got to my feet. I was still weak and wobbly; I had to stop and lean against the wall. A few steps at a time, stopping to rest and support myself on pieces of furniture, I made my way to the intercommunicating door.

  The next room had been Kyra’s bedroom. Now there was nothing in it but the rigged-up shower and a few changes of clothing hanging on hooks on the wall. I made my way through it and into the next room in line, which was Kyra’s “consulting room.” It kept being borne in on me how weak I still was.

  The consulting room was just as it had been when I first saw it: it held the padded couch, the armchair with the straps, and the autoclave. The autoclave was what interested me.

  I wobbled over to it. I had resolved to try to get through to level H today, and I still meant to, weak as I was. But it occurred to me that I was behaving in a somewhat disingenuous manner toward Kyra. After all, she had saved my life.

  I looked around me. Under the padded couch there was a sort of sled, quite large but amateurish-looking, with a rope tied to it. I wondered if that was how Kyra had got me back from the bottom level. Well, I could reconnoiter anyway.

  I opened the autoclave—the thing was as big as a bathtub—and stuck my head and shoulders inside. I reached forward and began tapping against the metal surface opposite me. It seemed perfectly solid. In my mind was a faint hope that I would touch a spring, or something of that sort, and be carried forward and into the chute without the guilt of having deliberately deserted Kyra.

  That was not what happened at all. I tapped and listened for quite a long time, without getting anything more than the thin, tinny noise one would expect. Annoyed, I began to tap louder. And suddenly—I must have jarred the hinges—the lid of the autoclave came down with a clunk over my head.

  I began to back out, wriggling. My shirt caught on the catch, and then on a series of projections along the bottom valve. I tried to get my arms out to help myself, but there wasn’t room. Ripping loose by main force didn’t work either. The shirt was cloth, not paper, and it held. I felt like a man trapped by a gigantic clam.

  I tried to push up on the lid. But I was still weak from my illness, and I couldn’t get any leverage. I was still in this ridiculous and embarrassing position when Kyra came in.

  She could move very quietly when she chose, and the first indication I had of her presence came when she said acidly, “What are you trying to do, Sam? Steam-clean yourself?”

  “Get me out,” I said in muffled tones.

  “No.” There was a series of sounds that might have meant she was sitting down on the couch. “Not until you tell me what you were trying to do.”

  “I should think it would be obvious,” I said with what dignity I could muster. “To get through to level H, of course.”

  “Level H?” She sounded really surprised. “But I told you it had been closed off. Nobody can get through to it. Didn’t you believe I was telling the truth?”

  “Get me out!”

  “Okay.” She came over to the autoclave and began tugging at my shirt. Nobody could have accused her of undue gentleness—later I found a whole series of abrasions along my spine—and when she had got me loose she gave me a slap on the buttocks that caught me off balance and almost sent me sprawling.

  I turned to face her, furious. But she gave me glare for glare, her dark eyebrows knitted angrily, and after a moment I began to laugh. There was something irresistibly comic in this small girl’s self-confident dignity.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” she said severely. “I don’t like being suspected of lying.” She sat down on the couch.

  “I’m sorry, Kyra. But—”

  “But you just didn’t believe me, eh?” She tossed the athame up in the air and caught it expertly.

  “I’m sor
ry, Kyra,” I said again.

  She put the athame down and folded her hands in her lap. “When the FBY came up from H, they blew up G with hand grenades. G is one big rubble heap. The whole space is filled with broken masonry and pieces of twisted steel. You never saw such a mess.”

  It was impossible to doubt her. “What happened to the people?” I asked.

  “They were all killed.”

  “Didn’t the FBY care about killing them?”

  “No, why should they? They weren’t any good.”

  “They were all VIP’s.”

  She shrugged. “The FBY is the new VIP’s.”

  “Was everybody killed?” I asked. I was thinking of the dark-skinned woman I had shown Despoina’s ring to.

  Kyra looked away. “Two people got out, I think. And a dog. But nobody could get down there now unless he had a steam shovel.”

  “Nobody could get down there,” I repeated thoughtfully.

  “Oh, somebody might be able to. But the FBY is efficient, and they were trying to block H off. You or I couldn’t get through. You’ll just have to accept it, Sam.

  “And now that you’re so much better,” she said practically, “it’s time to start training and strengthening you. Have you had your bath?”

  “No. What difference does it make?”

  “It does, though. Have a good bath, with plenty of soap, and put on all fresh things. I’ll get you a towel.”

  When I came back from my shower, she was waiting for me in the room with the autoclave. I had been thinking while I was getting dressed, and I tackled Kyra immediately.

  “Kyra,” I said, “are you Despoina in disguise?”

  Her mouth came open a little. She gave me an astonished look. “Am I—what?”

  “Are you Despoina? You could be, you know.”

  “No, I couldn’t. What makes you think I could?”

  “You’re just about the same height—”

  “No, we’re not. She’s several inches taller than I—”

  “And you both have that very pale, pearly skin. Your hair could be dyed.”

  “Well, it isn’t. And what about the color of our eyes?”

  “I didn’t get to see what color her eyes were. Your figures seem to be alike.”