Free The City of the Sun by Brian Stableford Page A

erroneously called a parasite. Nor may you conduct experiments upon any companion cells.
    “At the end of twenty days one of your number must himself—or herself—accept a companion. Only by experience is understanding genuinely possible.
    “The association need only be temporary if that is your wish. That is the judgment of the Self. Do you agree?”
    I was left a little breathless, but Nathan didn’t so much as hesitate. “We too are subject to a collective will,” he said. “We three cannot decide here and now. We must return to the ship to confer with the others.”
    “A Servant will escort you,” said the Ego, with perfect equanimity. “When may we expect your decision?”
    “This evening,” said Nathan, promptly.
    The changes of pace had left me behind a little, but as we mounted up—one beast each, this time—at the spot where we had dismounted the night before, I began to review the situation. We were being given the opportunity to run, if we wanted to. We could take our jumped conclusions back to Earth. But we were also being tempted to stay, with twenty clear days before the crunch. If they were prepared to offer us that much rope, could they possibly be the monsters that our fears had painted them? Or were they simply trying to give us the opportunity to hang ourselves?
    We rode downhill with the early morning traffic. It was hardly any more crowded than the previous evening, but it was daylight now, and the white and yellow tunics seemed very bright. There were more ox-carts ahead of us and behind us, some empty but some carrying groups of laborers with agricultural tools. The tools were mostly wooden—only a few had metal blades and tines.
    Whether it was because we were going downhill or because the tempo of the beasts’ movements had been deliberately stepped up I’m not sure, but it didn’t take us long to get out of the city. I didn’t get much of a view of the wondrous walls because I had to look back over my shoulder to see the pictographs after we had passed through each gate.
    Once outside the city the oxen were encouraged into a gait which might have been their version of a trot, and we covered the country rather more efficiently than we had previously done. Even so, I had no doubt that the animals could have gone a great deal faster had they been encouraged. I was impressed by their docility and their cooperativeness, but somewhat worried about the means by which this had been achieved. To what extent was the parasite modifying their behavior? And to what extent was the “companion” riding the neck of my mount in touch with—and possibly governed by—other companions of other hosts? It was going to be difficult to find out if both the parasite and its hosts were taboo.
    The dark man escorted us patiently. He didn’t say anything, and Nathan didn’t try to ask him any questions. This may have been because his mind was on getting back to the ship and nothing else, or it may have been that he couldn’t guide his mount close enough to the dark man’s to make striking up a conversation feasible.
    When we got back Karen, Conrad and Linda were all asleep. They hadn’t had our problems, despite the fact that they could have had the grace to worry themselves sleepless over our fate. We didn’t wake them immediately, but got some tubes of liquefied food to squeeze through the filters. Mariel was lucky—after external decontamination she could jettison her suit and get some real food.
    I let Nathan tell the story to the others. He gave a blow-by-blow account, not too heavily biased by commentary and inference.
    He finished up by saying: “They obviously aren’t scared of us. They’re giving us the chance to run despite the fact that they must have a clear idea of how this situation looks to us. They’re asking for a chance to explain...and I’m not quite sure whether ‘they’ is the people or the things on their backs. Either way, maybe we owe it to them. We need to know more.