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Raummir (Planet of the Goths)
According to my notepad I was supposed to meet Treel, the Maracite Representative in the crossover lounge of the orbital ExPort over Millimillenary at eleven. It was only a half-hour trip from there to Raummir, the Maracite homeworld; I was to be the first outsider to visit the planet since its founding two hundred years ago. Something had happened there recently, and no-one outside of the Maracites themselves knew what. This change had allowed me in. Ordinarily, they kept very much to themselves; you'd be lucky to see more than one a month through the crossover lounge. In the past two days I'd seen more than thirty of them, haunting the bar, dressed in their sombre black, with their dead-pale faces and elaborate shocks of black hair. I'd tried to speak to some of them in the hope that they would either be my contact, or know him; they'd listen to my words, with occasional slight nods to indicate that they understood me, and when I'd finished, silently indicate confusion with polite smiles and slightly concerned looks. They spoke to each other in whispers, some private language filled with sibilant hisses and rolled Rs. I'd seen enough of them now to notice some variation; they appeared to be divided into three groups - males, females and neuters. The males wore heavy, long black coats over black shirts, pants, boots that buckled up to the knees; the females wore expansive dresses in black lace, gauze and velvet. The neuters - who had that thin, androgynous look -generally wore baggy black trousers tucked into boots and shapeless, fluffy jumpers which hung down off one pale shoulder with a totemic design either painted or tattooed on. One of the in-betweens (possibly male, possibly a neuter), heavily-set and with a haggard look on his face, entered the lounge from the docking section, carrying a purple backpack. As all of the Maracites in the lounge turned to look, he dropped the pack, looked down, raised his arms into the attitude of crucifixion, fingers splayed out and said one word, quietly but loud enough for everyone to hear: Kisheshi. At this, the Maracites all glanced down at the carpeted floor and hissed. I couldn't tell if this was disapproval or some other emotion unique to them, although I noticed sly smiles on some of their faces. The Maracite who'd made the announcement came over to me and gave me their equivalent of a handshake; eyes closed, head slightly bowed, a faint smile and the palm of his left hand placed over the back of his right. He was wearing fingerless lace gloves. "Fenderson?" he whispered. I nodded. "Treel?" He glanced up at me through the fringe of his wavy purple-black coif, eyes glittering, gave me a sardonic smile and nodded. "You want to visit the homeworld. To what purpose?" I didn't beat around the bush: "We'd like tourists to be allowed to visit Raummir - strictly controlled, of course; you won't have mobs of unplanned illiterates leaving trash all over the place, and so we thought a visit, to scout out the territory, would -" Treel's smile faded and the haggard look returned. "You should visit before you decide. Things have changed." I nodded, and, on a hunch, inquired, "`Kisheshi'?" He glanced up at me sharply, warily, then smiled. "Come. My ship."
I didn't know that the Maracites had their own starships; I thought the NoSanNoOs forbade ownership of private space-going craft with a faster-than-light capacity. The inside of Treel's ship looked like a tomb; wide, low-ceilinged corridors with faux-marble walls, authentic-looking cobwebs in the corners, a thin layer of fresh soil on the floors. It smelled like dry rot and age and damp decay. Illumination was by dimly glowing fist-sized rubies deeply set into the walls at random intervals. Towards the ends of the corridors, the air looked foggy. I followed Treel to a large, open space with a low marble bench in the middle. He kneeled in the soil before the bench, drew his left sleeve up to the elbow, held his hand out over the bench. He slowly clenched his fist, the middle and ring fingers digging into the palm, the other fingers cocked at odd angles. I could see his hand quivering with the strain; presently, dark liquid began dripping from between his pale fingers onto the pale marble. He moved his hand around, drawing a simple pattern in crimson spots; when he'd drawn a complete circle, the lights flickered and a deep rumbling began somewhere below us. The ship began to move. I raised an eyebrow at this outré control system. Treel licked the palm of his hand and led me towards a battered old leather couch over in a corner. He held out his bloodied hand; for a few moments I examined the two crescent-shaped cuts caused by his fingernails, smeared with red before I realised he wanted me to lick it also. I declined as politely as possible; he dipped his head as if acknowledging the strange habits of outsiders and sat back in the couch. There was an awkward pause before he offered: "Well. What do you want to know?" "Everything. As much as you're willing to tell me." He raised an eyebrow. "Not much is known about us." I nodded. "Two hundred and twelve years ago we petitioned the NoSanNoOs for a world we could make our own. Information, imports, some people would be allowed in; nothing would be allowed out. Visitors were not permitted unless they had agreed to stay and to adopt our View. It didn't happen very often. We had contacts on the outside who were willing to direct others of our kind to us, when they found them." "Why? Was it a religious thing?" He considered this. "No. It was a social thing. We... feel an affinity with Darkness. Traditionally, our kind have been regarded with suspicion; tolerated, if not attacked outright. We needed a safe place to be. The NoSanNoOs gave us Raummir, and we devoted it to our View, which has only recently come to its conclusion." He paused to lick his palm again and smiled. "Tell me: what is done with your people when they die?" I was somewhat taken aback. "I don't know. It depends on where it happens. Most of them are taken to Medicals and... uh, disposed of, I guess. If they're offworld when they die... uh..." I was embarrassed at my lack of knowledge. Treel smiled tolerantly. "When a human dies and there is no prior arrangement, the body is brought to Raummir and buried. Many alien races permit this also. Some of them recognise our View, and insist on it." The subliminal bass hum suddenly faded, leaving a painfully obvious silence. Treel stood and gestured that I should follow. He led me to an observation corridor, windows all down one side showing a grey planet before a distant, dim star: the planet Raummir. The ship was descending rapidly, and I could make out faint light-grey lines marking out irregular patterns on the dark-grey continent below us. Treel was silent, lost in contemplation of his home; politely, I waited until the ship had penetrated the lowest layer of cloud over the mainland and we were flying over an empty, desolate city. It was, for the most part, rendered in grey; not a touch of colour anywhere apart from occasional, decorative bursts of flame from the tops of some of the spires. It looked like one of the abandonded megacities of the late twentieth century, before people had scattered. "How many people are on this world?" I asked. He held his hand up and smiled as if to say: I'll explain when we've landed. For a moment, I thought he'd ignored me. Then, in a faint, distant whisper, he replied: "Two: you and I. No-one else lives on this world. It has been filled with mausoleums and cemeteries and ossuaries and monuments to the dead and catacombs. There is no room for the living." |
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