and we, me and mine, myself and these with me, we wish you to induct us into the Way of the Nu-chala- nuth.'
'Then you and yours need some brain surgery courtesy of a heavy rock,' said Hatch.
'This is not a joke,' said Son'sholoma. 'We're serious.'
'Serious?' said Hatch. 'You're seriously lunatic! Motsu Kazuka, Nu-chala-nuth – are you mad? What do you want? Our own homegrown version of the Spasm Wars? This is – if I were to exhaust the thesaurus of lunacy, I could hardly find the words of it. As for me – this is my temple, the temple of my people, the temple of yours.'
'I meant no offence,' said Son'sholoma. 'But we did not think you came here to worship.'
'What else does one come to a temple for?' said Hatch, rejecting the suggestion that he was in any sense an apostate, an unbeliever, or – perish the thought! – a tourist-stranger beset by ethnological insights. 'Why else does one come here? To shit wasps, perhaps? Or bugger rocks with a broomstick? You're mad enough for both, but I'm too sane to waste my time by watching.'
Then Hatch left, or tried to.
'Wait,' said Son'sholoma, stepping in his way. 'You know the Way. You have the knowledge. It is written – it's written that anyone who knows the teachings can propagate the same, regardless of their own belief.'
That was true. The religion of the Nu-chala-nuth was strange in the extreme in that it could legitimately be preached even by an unbeliever.
'Where is that written?' said Hatch, who dearly wanted to know who was preaching Nu-chala-nuth in Dalar ken Halvar.
'It is written,' said Son'sholoma Gezira, 'in your own thesis. That is where it is written.'
'My thesis?' said Hatch.
'Yes! The thesis you wrote to gain your degree.'
'Wah!' said Hatch.
It was true. It was true. He had written a thesis which had contained an account of such teachings. But he had thought nothing of it at the time. If one writes that some have mastered the art of making the sun explode or of causing the moon to drown itself in a bucket of blood, one does not usually expect such casual reference to the folly of others to lead to disaster in the literal world of the fact and the flesh.
'You know the teachings,' said Son'sholoma, pressing home his advantage. 'You know and you wrote. You – '
'Since when was simple study rash apostasy? To give an account of war, murder, rape, torture, blasphemy, plague, famine, flood and the demolition of the sun is not to extend a general invitation to the world's madmen to accomplish the fact of the same. Will you stand in my way? Stand, then! I give you five.'
Again the threat. This time, Son'sholoma was being offered a count of five in which to abolish himself, or face the immediate and unlimited consequences of his folly.
Since Hatch's anger was unfeigned, and since Hatch was built along lines which suggested an ample capacity for the breaking of rocks and the bending of iron bars, and since Son'sholoma knew appearances in this case to be by no means deceptive, Son'sholoma chose to retreat, signing his fellows to accompany him downhill.
As Son'sholoma Gezira and his half-dozen barefoot accomplices headed off down the hill, Hatch watched them go with some considerable foreboding. There were not so many as a billion people in all of Parengarenga, so the teachings of Nu-chala-nuth could hardly lead to the death of billions. But even so. The Frangoni nation survived in Dalar ken Halvar only because it was socially cohesive, and at the heart of that social cohesion was the worship of the Great God Mokaragash, the tribal god which was theirs and theirs alone. Whether a baleful entity was immanent in the stone of the Inner Idol was beside the point, at least as far as the human realities of the moment were concerned. The alien religion of Nu-chala-nuth could destroy the Frangoni nation, even if it did not spark open revolution in Dalar ken Halvar as a whole.
But Son'sholoma was reckless, and full of thwarted ambition.
If he could establish the religion of the Nu-chala-nuth in Dalar ken Halvar, he might thereby win a measure of power, fame and glory, if only briefly, whereas otherwise – what else was there for him?
'A pity,' said Hatch to himself, as he started to follow on after Son'sholoma.
In the Combat College, Son'sholoma Gezira had been a very promising student, gifted with great intelligence; but he had lacked the ability to master himself, and in the end his disciplinary defaults had caused him to be exiled from the Combat College. Now the lockway was forever closed against him.
Therefore, since the Free Corps was equally closed to Frangoni, there was no future for Son'sholoma Gezira in Dalar ken Halvar.
As Hatch descended from Cap Uba and made his way toward his sister's house, he wondered what had made Son'sholoma think it safe to approach him with such a blasphemous proposition. Hatch could only think that his challenge for the instructor's position was being interpreted by some – or by Son'sholoma at least – as a rejection of the Frangoni.
True, there had never yet been a Frangoni combat instructor.
For the last five generations the position had always gone to an Ebrell Islander, while previous to that it had usually been held by one of the Pang.
But even so – 'Strange times and dangerous times,' said Hatch, wondering if it was Son'sholoma who had been preaching the doctrines of the Nuchala-nuth to the beggars at the lockway, and whether Hatch himself would be put to the necessity of cutting down Son'sholoma before this business was done.
Chapter Seven
Inner City: that part of Dalar ken Halvar which lies west of the Yamoda River, south of Na Sashimoko, east of the Dead Mouth and north of Yon Yo. It takes in the rocky upthrusts of Cap Gargle, Cap Uba and Cap Foz Para Lash; the Grand Arena (otherwise known as the Great Arena); the administrative quarter of Bon Tray; the commercial center of Actus Dorum; and the slumlands of Spara Slank.
So there – one house -
The toenail with the pubic hair -
The larynx with the liver.
Flesh made flesh with separate faces,
With separate hearts which in pretense
Are said to sing in single beat -
To sing to the beat of a single blood.
With his audience with the High Priest Sesno Felvus satisfactorily concluded, but with some residual anger still remaining from his confrontation with Son'sholoma Gezira, the Frangoni warrior Asodo Hatch descended from the Frangoni rock. He made his way down Cap Uba toward Zambuk Street, the arrowline west-east avenue which ran from the Dead Mouth to the Yamoda, thus dividing the northern commercial area of Actus Dorum from the southern slumlands of Spara Slank.
As Hatch descended through the sunbeat heat, he considered deviating from his schedule to visit the Brick, the Free Corps headquarters which stood on the southern side of Zambuk Street.
There he might well find Lupus Lon Oliver – or Lupus's father, Manfred Gan Oliver. They could talk. Negotiate. Make a settlement.
But it might well be better to negotiate on neutral ground, or to find a third party to do the negotiating.
Besides – Before Hatch sought to win gold from the Brick, he would have to curb the madness of his sister's spending, otherwise any new wealth which he won for his family would be dissipated in very short order.
By the time Hatch gained the soft red dust of Zambuk Street, he had decided that negotiations were best postponed. So he set out east toward the Yamoda. But he had not taken so many as three steps when he was hailed from the Brick.
'Hey, Mister Purple!'
Hatch glanced at the Brick and saw messenger boys lounging outside, as usual. The one who had hailed him was – he could not be certain of this, but guessed with some confidence – the same boy who had accosted him earlier in the day with a cheating offer from Polk the Cash, who had sought to buy Hatch's chocolate for a veritable
