The Buttoned Sky Read online

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  THE BUTTONED SKY

  By Geoff St. Reynard

  [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories ofScience and Fantasy August 1953. Extensive research did not uncover anyevidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  Legends spoke of Earth's glorious past, of freedom and greatness. But this was the future, ruled by god-globes, as men gazed fearfully at--THE BUTTONED SKY

  CHAPTER I

  The squire he sat in Dolfya Town, He swilled the blood-dark wine: "O who can blight my happiness, Or face the power that's mine?"

  Then up there spoke his daughter fair: "The priest can end your joy; The globe can sap your might away, And the Mink can you destroy!"

  --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

  The day that Revel killed a god, he woke early. There was a bitter tastein his mouth, and a pain in his ear where somebody'd hit him during ashebeen brawl the night before. He rolled over on his back. The bed wasa hollowed place in the earth floor, filled with leaves and dried grassand spread with yellow-brown mink skins sewn into a big blanket; he'dslept on it every night of his twenty-eight years, but this morning itfelt hard and uncomfortable.

  The water gourd was empty. In the cold gray mists of dawn he groped hisway sleepily to the well behind the hut, and drew up the bucket.

  "Damn the gentry!" he burst out. The bucket, an ancient thing made ofoak slats pegged together with wooden dowels, was half filled with dirtand rotten brush. "Curse their lousy carcasses to hell!" he yelled, and,suddenly scared, looked around to see if perhaps a god was floatingsomewhere near him. But no yellow glimmering showed in the mists.

  Laboriously he cleaned out the well, dropping the bucket time after timeand dragging up loads of trash. Some roving band of gentry had fouledthe water for sport. Anything that hurt the ruck, made them more work orinjured them in any way, was sport for the squirarchy.

  At last he got a bucket of cold and almost clean water, filled the biggourd and carried it back to the one-room hut. The morning that hadbegun badly was getting worse; his mother's limp was painful to see; shemust have had a hard night. Bent and gray and as juiceless as the grassof their beds, she slept more lightly and fretfully with every passingmonth. Many years before a squire had ridden her down in the lanes ofDolfya Town, as she scurried out of the path of his great stallion, andher broken leg had mended crookedly. A few hours on the mink-covered bedcrippled her up so that moving was an agony.

  With the impious brain at the center of his skull--Revel had long beforedecided that he had a number of brains, one obedient, one rebellious,one dull, one keen and inquisitive, and so on--with the impious brain henow cursed the gods and the gentry and the priests, and everyone abovethe ruck who preyed on them and made their lives so stinking awful. Ifhe had thought then of killing a god, the idea would have seemedpleasant indeed. But quite impossible, of course, for a man of the ruckdid not touch a god, much less slay one.

  He did not think of such a thing, but cursed the gods briefly and thenturned off his impious brain and began to wolf down his food. He paid noattention to what he ate--it was the same old bread of wild barleyseeds, the same old boiled rabbit.

  When he finished, he glanced at his mother, feeling sorry for her,wishing that she would go to the shebeens with him and have at least alittle happiness before she died. He wondered if she had ever known anyjoy, any hope such as he had in drunken flashes now and then of beliefthat life might some day be better for the ruck. He shook his head,grabbed his miner's pick, booted his brother in the ribs to waken him,and left the miserable hut to walk to the mine for his day's work.

  The day was brightening, and above him in concentric circles to thehorizon and beyond hovered the eternal red and blue buttons. He lookedup grimly. Always there, in all the spoken history of man, stretchedabove the world to keep watch on every action of the ruck. The buttonswere full of gods, omnipotent, omnipresent.

  The mine was a mile from his hut, which lay on the outskirts of Dolfya.It was halfway down a long valley, a gut between hills pitted with manyother mines. There coal was dug for the gentry and the priests. Hewalked up to the entrance, gave his name telepathically to the god-guardat the top of the shaft, and went down the ladders until he'd reachedhis level. Another god passed him there, its aura of energy justtouching his skin and tingling it into small bumps.

  * * * * *

  Shutting off the thoughts of his various brains from any probing mindthat might be eavesdropping, he said to himself, Always, always they'renear a man! You go out of your hut and there's a god, a big golden globehanging in the air shoving its tentacles at you and reading your mind.You come down the mine shaft and every hundred feet or so you see theyellow luminosity. Why can't they leave us alone! Why can't they stickto their temples, and exact their worship on Orbsday, instead of allweek long, all day long, every day in the year!

  He came to his work place, a dead-end tunnel. Jerran was there beforehim, as usual. Revel grinned at him. Jerran was a runty wisp of a man,with a face the color of old straw, and he had been Revel's friend sincethe day he came to the mine from distant Hakes Town by the sea. Awonderful drinking companion, Jerran, but he wouldn't brawl ... strange!He was forever pulling Revel out of fights and trying to teach himserenity.

  As Revel greeted him, he involuntarily glanced at the end of the tunnel.There, behind a carefully casual erection of boulders, lay their secretcave. They'd broken into it the morning before, and after no more than ahasty glimpse of unknown wonders, and a check to see that no globes werein sight, they'd walled up the opening and begun to dig along theshaft's sides. Revel wasn't quite sure why he had followed Jerran's leadin keeping it secret, but the brain which had decided to do it must bethe rebellious one. All secrets were taboo to the ruck, who wererequired to report all finds to the gentry or the god-guards.

  Now a globe came drifting down the corridor, and Revel got quickly towork, prying coal from a vein with his pick. The thing passed him,flicking his mind lightly with its own, and went on to the end of thetunnel. He watched it from the tail of his eye. Its glow brightened withinterest; it shifted back and forth before the rampart of rocks.

  They hadn't kept a tight enough check on their excitement yesterday! Theglobes could sense emotions long after the man who'd had them left aspot, and if the emotion were anger or grief or strong excitement, theglobes could detect their residue as much as forty-eight hours later.

  The thing floated back to them, briskly now, and ordered Reveltelepathically to pull down some of the rocks at the end.

  He eyed it coolly, his various brains walled with the protective screenthat he had learned to erect between his thoughts and the outside world.This screen was made of shallow ideas, humdrum speculations on prosaicthings--the last woman he'd had, the good feeling he got from workingthis rich vein of coal after some days of poor luck, even (to make thegod think it was hearing secret desires) a wish that he might taste thewine that the gentry drank. He could throw up the screen and forget it,using his core of brains for serious plans.

  A dozen rocks displaced, he thought, and we're doomed. For not tellingthe gods about the cave, he and Jerran would be given to the squires forthe next big hunt.

  So, without much hope of living through the next minute, but believingit was the only thing he could do now, he shoved Jerran to one side,raised his pick and slammed it with all his might into the center of thesmall, gold, eight-tentacled sphere.

  And Revel had killed a god!

  The feel of the pick slashing through it told him that:
it was likehitting an overripe melon. The globe recoiled, dragged itself off thepick, and sank toward the floor, wobbling and dripping yellow ooze, withits aura of energy fading quickly into air. Jerran said quietly, "Noothers in sight. We're lucky!" and began to make a hole in a pile ofdiscarded rocks. "Help me hide it, Revel."

  "You can't hide it," he said dully. "They're telepathic, after all. Itmust have signaled its consorts."

  "They can't hear or send messages through rock," said Jerran, workingaway. Revel automatically started to help him.

  "How do you know?"

  "We've proved it."

  Revel heard the phrase, wondered who "we" might be; but so much hadhappened in the last seconds that he did not question Jerran. Hecouldn't absorb all the shattering facts. A man could not only touch agod, he could murder it! The gods were not all-powerful, for they couldnot perform telepathy if rock were in the way. Truly it was a morning ofwonders. The world was falling around him.

  * * * * *

  He stared at the limp corpse of the globe. The tentacles were alreadyshriveling up, the emanation of energy that surrounded the living orbswas gone. He bent, sniffed; no odor. He peered at it keenly, in the softblue light of the mine's lanterns, then straightened.

  A hand fell on his shoulder.

  He spun on one heel, the pick arcing round to gut whoever was behindhim. He had a glimpse of a short red beard and a popping walleye, andstopped his whirl by an instantaneous checking of his whole muscularsystem. The pick's point, still splattered with god's gore, was nudginghis brother's belly.

  "Nobody could have halted such a swing but you, Revel," said Rackabsently. His good eye, ice blue and sharp as a bone needle, was fixedon the dead globe. "What happened?"

  "An accident," said Jerran. "The god interposed itself between yourbrother's pick and the coal."

  "That's right," said Revel. He had been lying to his brother for years,but he never grew reconciled to it; still, Rack was a man with but onebrain, and that one servile and obedient to every whim of the gentry,the priests, the gods. So he had to be lied to.

  Rack brought his gaze to Revel's tense face. "I got in the way of yourpick," he said heavily. "You have the keenest nerves, the strongest bodyin the mines. This was no accident."

  Revel began to grow cold in the head and the bowels. If Rack wasconvinced that he'd slain the god on purpose, then he'd report him. Thereligion that held the world so tightly was greater than any familybonds. He looked up at Rack. The man was a giant towering four inchesover Revel's six feet one, and sixty pounds heavier. Rack's eyes wereblue and white, Revel's lustrous brown; the elder's hair and beard wereflame-colored, the younger had a sleek chocolate-brown thatch with ahint of rich black in its sheen, and was clean-shaven.

  I'd hate to kill you, big man, thought Revel, but if I must, to save myneck, I will.

  Jerran thrust his pick under the flaccid corpse and tossed it with onequick motion into the hole. He piled rocks on it, as Revel stamped theyellow ichor out thin and stringy, spread rock dust and jetty coalfragments over it till no sign of the murder remained.

  "I'll report it," said Rack, apparently making up his mind.

  "Then I'll say you did it," snapped Jerran, turning on him like a mousebaiting a bear. "What chance would you stand in the temple against me,whose cousin serves in the mansion of Ewyo of Dolfya?"

  It was true, Jerran was slightly higher in the ruck than the brothers,being related to a servant of the gentry. Revel hoped Rack would bescared off by the threat. He had become perfectly cold now and could inthe blinking of an eyelash bury his pick in Rack's head, but he didn'twant to do it.

  When Rack said nothing, Revel spoke. "Brother, agree to hold yourtongue, or by Orb, I'll cut you down where you stand!"

  Rack glanced at his own pick. "You could do it," he acknowledged."You're fast enough. All right. I promise." He turned to his workstolidly; only Revel could see that he was blazing with anger.

  The three began to dig coal from the wall. Revel kept glancing at thesmall Jerran. What was there to the man that he had never suspected? Howdid he know that globes were stymied by rock? Why had he taken the deathof the god so lightly?

  _What was Jerran, anyhow?_