Lost Among the Stars Page 3

  This was the final expression of the shattering truth no one had ever revealed while we lived below, but which Odile and I quickly learned upon our last ascension.

  Up until the eleventh level, there was no sense of competition in our culture’s beauty worship, except perhaps with one’s self. I did not lose out just because X or Y was also promoted to another level. Their achievement honored Aglaia equally with mine. And all my success was grounded in my own efforts. My only rival was sloth and ineptitude, my only limits the raw genetic heritage my parents had conferred. (And I swear, I did think with gratitude from time to time of my mother’s genes, so exemplary in recombination with my never-known father’s seed, although those same dictatorial twists of inheritance had betrayed her, with that harelip and blobby nose and lips.)

  But upon consecration to the twelfth level of Aesthetica’s pyramid—a stratospheric space more cloistered and compact than any other level, of course, a condition which helped foment a hothouse sense of competition—there was no further opportunity for any individual to reach a new plateau. We were all the cream of the crop, perfected. Those meaningless ones below us could no longer serve as our foils. We were like a drawer full of sharp, polished, gem-handled knives, with nothing to cut except each other.

  Where, then, did the competition emerge, to bedevil us aimless, high-status citizens?

  In the office of Prime Allure.

  One man, one woman, each deemed the literal apex of beauty.

  And who would judge such an honor? In the realms below, the judges had been learned men and women, preceptors of Aglaia. But here, due to the general youthfulness of the citizens elevated to the twelfth, there were no experienced judges. The award would have to be conferred by a general vote.

  And so the twelfth became a swamp of intrigue and alliances, treachery and chicanery, as we all sought the final honor.

  To my eternal shame and discredit, I plunged into the milieu and the entire process wholeheartedly, as soon as I ascertained what was what. I wanted to become the Prime Allure. It seemed to my constantly revolving brain the only possible culmination to my long journey. Or, failing that, I wanted a friend to have the success. So I enmeshed myself in a sticky web of enmity and fawning, of backbiting and exclusion, false intimacy and hardened heart.

  Odile, however, revealed her true gentleness of spirit and respect for Aglaia. Although her vast beauty would have easily enabled her to contend for Prime Allure against others of her gender, she showed no interest in the race.

  “But Tono—did we not pledge eternal loving fealty to each other, and to a life centered around Aglaia? How is this contest worthy of us? Both of us would have to win, if we were not to be separated, and the odds are against such a dual victory. And this elevation of two mere mortals to such a peak of veneration—No, I just can’t find it in me to participate.”

  I made no rejoinder to her sweet-voiced counsel, no plea or justification. I simply murmured something inconsequential and left her, for good. For already my thoughts were turning to Dira.

  Dira, all dark waterfall of hair, olive skinned and lush, was hot for the honor that Odile disdained. Her fevered eyes and full fleering lips could lash men to high exertions, and cut down others of her sex.

  Aglaia and her earthly representatives acknowledge many different forms or templates of beauty, all neatly categorized by the indices. Odile’s sylph-like charms had earned her admittance to the twelfth, just as Dira’s more earthy endowments had. But in this competitive realm, the two strains of beauty were hardly matched in terms of force or effect. Dira had the twelfth wrapped around her little finger, and seemed a shoo-in for the spot of female Prime Allure.

  And when it became apparent, after much politicking, that I was one of the two or three men most likely to claim the matching title, she turned all the intensity of her body and spirit on me.

  We became lovers, and I began to heed her damnable advice.

  “Tono, you know that only Traoke and Stig stand against you. Now Stig I can easily remove from your path. It will only take a little incitement among various women and their partners. But Traoke—he’s too beautiful, too well ensconced and beloved. No, there’s only one sure method of taking him down.”

  Lying naked beside Dira, I played with her thick tresses, only half listening to her incessant scheming, which, truth be told, wearied even me sometimes.

  “And how is that to be accomplished, dear?”

  “He must be disfigured. It’s the only way.”

  I sat bolt upright. “But that, that’s—”

  “The only way,” repeated Dira.

  Days went by before I acknowledged she was correct.

  And so we made our plans.

  The circulation of air in the closed environment of Aesthetica was vital. A vast series of ducts and filters and fans accomplished this vital function. The fans, ever spinning, lurked mostly ignored behind vertical grills set low in the corridor walls, or high in the ceilings.

  As part of the shifting, unregulated competition between the contenders for Prime Allure, I challenged Traoke to a race. A large wide corridor here was devoted to that purpose, and generally untenanted otherwise.

  The night before the race, with Aesthetica’s illumination diurnally dialed down, unseen by anyone, I removed one ventilation grill and then simply propped it back in place, careful of my own fingers against the dirty whirring blades. Then I laid down invisible silicone spray lubricant across a stretch of the corridor floor where Traoke and I would run, a glide path right to the fan.

  The next day we perched at the starting line, wearing only our loincloths. Traoke’s magnificent body and handsome countenance revealed no suspicions.

  “May the best man win,” he said.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  So evenly matched were we, that Traoke and I were neck and neck when we hit the unseen lubricant.

  But I had the advantage, for I knew the trap was there.

  So when we both went down, I was able to hurl myself with seemingly natural awkwardness into Traoke, sending him straight toward the fan, ahead of me.

  His leading arm knocked the balanced grill away, and then encountered the fan blades.

  Traoke was remanded to the hospital on the eleventh level, the mere start of his downward plunge to the bowels of the city. Evidence of sabotage was undeniable. But any irrefutable connection to me or Dira was impossible to prove.

  Afterwards, Dira and I rejoiced, alone together.

  “The election is ours now, lover!”

  “When will it be?” I asked.

  “As soon as the term of the current Prime Allures is up.”

  That proved to be a short interval, capped by our predictable victory, and our ascent into the isolated and securely inescapable tetrahedral apartment atop the whole city, where Dira and I learned for the first time the full provisions of our reign.

  And now that our own short tenure as Prime Allures is almost over, I await without fear, but with some sadness and remorse, the ritual scarification of our perfect beauty, which could only be soiled by intact readmission to the lesser spheres of the city, and our exile into the wilds beyond the pyramid where our looks, I think, will not save us.

  Again, the genesis of this story was an invitation, this time from Stephen L. Antczak—a fine fiction writer in his predominant guise, but now acting as an editor. Stephen invited us all to come up with a steampunk refashioning of a fairy tale. Here were two themes I adored, being mashed together. What more motivation did I need?

  But I was immediately faced with the matter of which fairy tale to model my re-telling on? I hate when everyone gravitates to the same tired old models—Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin. Admittedly, these core myths are powerful. But they have also become hackneyed from overuse.

  So I turned to “The King of the Golden Mountain,” one of the lesser-known Grimm-selected fables. My story riffed on a few particular scenes and talismans from the original, but mainly what I
wanted to parallel were the same themes of identity and inheritance, parentage and shape-shifting, youth and maturity.

  Those strike me as eternal, whether in pre-technological eras or steam-driven times!

  The Kings of Mount Golden

  “This is the devil’s own bargain you are forcing upon me, Warner Gilead, and you shall come to rue this day!”

  The man thus addressed—a specimen of the pure-quill Newport-summering plutocrat, yet, surprisingly, not flashily attired, overweening, nor lofty, but rather clad in a mourning suit, enervated, and plainly brought low (in spirits, if not in status) by circumstance—refused the aggression proffered by his angry interlocutor. Warner Gilead seemed drained for the nonce of whatever spunk and vim had once propelled him to that hypothetical stratosphere of society which the remnants of his self-assured mien and sober finery proclaimed he still inhabited. He had apparently lost or misplaced his zest for living, and now moved through the affairs of his own life like a ghost seeking what can never be regained.

  The intemperate, gaunt-faced gentleman offering the prediction of ill fortune wore a moderately priced, slightly shabby set of tweeds, and exhibited the educated manner of a skilled professional of some sort—lawyer, teacher, or perhaps architect. But an alert observer would have noticed that the man’s blunt-fingered hands had been scarred by sharp objects and burnt by chemicals, and still hosted ineradicable grease beneath their nails, thus marking him as some sort of chemist or engineer or artificer.

  The scene hosting the two antagonists—Gilead seated, the other man standing—was a dark-paneled, book-lined office with tall windows offering a view from above onto Boston’s busy Charles Street. Past the raised sashes, riding the spring breezes, came a welter of peddlers’ cries, carriage wheels rumbling, and the excited cries of children frolicking.

  Before choosing his response to the accusation of driving an infernal deal, Warner Gilead stroked his bushy salt-and-pepper side-whiskers thoughtfully. He regarded his opponent coolly, as might one who mentally weighs the penal consequences of murder against the satisfaction afforded by the deed. Finally deciding against such an act of passion, for which he had not, if truth be told, the adequate zeal, Gilead said, “Rather, Hedley, I think I am being extremely merciful and generous in my offer, considering that you stole my wife away from me, and then could not save her when she was in extremis.”

  Hedley King—for such was the full name of Gilead’s younger correspondent—blanched at this thrust. His face betrayed a blend of anguish, guilt, and self-reproach.

  “Damn you, Gilead! How was I to predict a breech birth followed by uterine rupture! I had a competent midwife in the house, but Pella’s condition would have been too much for even a professional obstetrician. She died so damnably fast! But did I not rush the baby straight to your man at Massachusetts General Hospital, as soon as we abandoned hope for Pella?”

  “Yes, where the child was saved only due to the intervention of my good friend Dr. Warren, and where the infant has remained safely ever since. And of course, Dr. Warren’s genius and expertise would have been at the disposal of dear Pella from the start, had you not—”

  Hedley King interrupted. “Listen to me, you self-deluding old coot! Pella and I fell in love! Such things happen, without intent or machination. Pella left you to be with me. After a year together, she chose to bear me a child. The sad outcome of this chain of events, we both know. But the guilt, if any, rests just as firmly with your beloved Pella and with you, as it does with me. If you had not turned so adamantly away from her, she might have felt welcome at your damn fine hospital—”

  Gilead considered this observation, the truthfulness of which he was too honest a soul to deny.

  “I am sorry to reopen these still-fresh wounds, Hedley. Please forgive me. It’s just that Pella—No, I’ll speak no further on that subject. Let us simply conclude our business, and then we will not have to associate any longer.”

  Gilead withdrew two impressively thick legal documents from the center drawer of the desk at which he sat, and took up a pen. Standing on the far side of the big desk, Hedley King watched his rival warily, as if convinced that Gilead was about to trigger some infernal device that would suicidally blast them both into flinders.

  Dipping the pen into a pot of ink, Gilead said, “Let me show my good faith by first voluntarily signing the papers transferring to you all the patents pertaining to your invention. Though I do not believe I will hand the document over to you until you have signed your own contract.”

  Gilead suited deed to words. He regarded King for some sign of appreciation, but King’s glare indicated the man was still grudgeful.

  “A fine state of affairs, to have to barter for my own intellectual property.”

  “Come now, Hedley, you know full well that your invention was funded entirely by me, and involved important contributions from my partner, Mr. Blanchard. You worked strictly at my behest and as my employee, using my facilities.”

  “Bah! I’m no one’s wage slave! I’m a sovereign creator! And as for Thomas Blanchard, he’s a doddering old has-been! His glory days are behind him. When did he invent his foolish ‘horseless carriage?’ Just over two dozen years ago, in 1825! And where has he gotten with it since? Nowhere! All he did for me was to perfect the process for machining the pressure-resistant capsules that contain the vril. Every other aspect of the Morphic Resonator is mine! Mine alone!”

  “Be that as it may, your claims would not hold up in a court of law without this legal transference of the patents. So now you have what you most desire, and so shall kindly grant me the same.”

  Gilead turned around the second document toward King, and proffered the pen. King snatched the stylus, found the relevant page of the contract, and scratched his name with an angry vigor.

  “There! The child is now all yours! My own flesh and blood, bartered like a sack of oats! Now, give me those patents!”

  King irritably plucked up the document his rival had signed, and paged through it roughly to be certain of its terms. Gilead, however, took up the other sheaf of papers tenderly, as if he were lifting the baby itself.

  “The boy is only half your flesh, Hedley. Pella’s contribution is not to be diminished. And as she was still my wife when she died—you two not having trifled with such formalities—I could have made a good case for instant legal custody of the child. But as you were irrefutably the father, you might have contested my claim and caused me a long and aggravated court battle, depriving me of crucial formative years with my son. But now I can begin to raise the child from his earliest days, free from your stain and influence.”

  “Raise him as you will, Gilead! His sinews and cells are still half mine!”

  “That hardly matters, I think, given that the terms of our agreement call for you never to see him again.”

  Hedley King’s impudence and arrogance dissipated somewhat, and he seemed crestfallen at the finality of this edict. He turned away and moved toward the exit of the study.

  At the door, he paused, and said mildly, “We planned to name the child Roland—”

  “I don’t care what you planned. My heir will be named Brannock. That was his mother’s maiden name, one of many facts about Pella concerning which you probably never even deigned to inquire.”

  Now Hedley King’s anger flared afresh. “Curse you, Gilead! You may have made it impossible for me to attempt to see the child ever again. But what will you do when he wants to see me!”

  King stormed out on that note, leaving Gilead to sit and contemplate with nebulous unease the dawning of such an impossible day.

  * * *

  At age thirteen, Brannock Gilead (Bran to his chums and teachers and servants and shopkeepers—to all in fact but his stern father) presented the inviting appearance of a handsome young fellow, tall for his age and rather more gracile than muscular, with sensitive lips and deeply pooled brown eyes. These two features he knew he had inherited from his mother, Pella, for a large hand-tinted ambrotyp
e of her beautiful face dominated the parlor of his Charles Street home. Bran had spent endless hours musing over that visage captured in silver on glass—serene on the surface, yet with hints of lurking unease and stifled ambition. He tried to imagine speaking with this dead woman, asking her all the questions about his own heritage which he had saved up since earliest childhood—questions which his implacable surviving parent simply would not countenance.

  Newly preeminent among these niggling unvoiced queries were all those concerning the nature, history and current status of the mysterious man who had actually sired him.

  Just the past week, upon his thirteenth birthday, Bran’s father had revealed to him that there existed no ties of blood between Warner Gilead and the boy he called his son.

  Diffidently intruding into Bran’s bedroom that anniversary evening, after the muted, lonely celebration of his son’s birth—a nighttime visit heretofore unprecedented, save once when Bran had been worrisomely ill with the bloody flux—Gilead had manifested some discomfiture totally at odds with his usual self-possessed sangfroid. Sitting himself down on the edge of Bran’s mattress and petting his silvery muttonchops, he awkwardly began to recount what seemed at first to Bran to be some kind of modern fairy tale, but which soon revealed a startling personal relevance.

  “There’s something I feel you are now old enough to know, son, and so I wish you to listen closely to me now. You see, Brannock, your mother—my dear wife—had the misfortune to be gulled and seduced by a villain, some short while before you were born. The fellow was the essence of insolence and temerity, a cheap hired hand whose name shall forevermore be stricken from the rolls of humanity. Pella was a smart woman, but one in whom animal passions ran strong and sometimes countervailing to her usual good sense. In this case, she should certainly have heeded her better angels. When the flippant dastard callously tossed her aside, laden with child—that embryonic lad was your innocent self, of course—I magnanimously took her back into my home. But she perished giving birth to you, ascending to her heavenly reward, and so you and I were deprived thenceforth of the comfort of her companionship.”