The Wine of Violence by James Morrow

Author:James Morrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

In their minds Francis and Burne toasted Dr. Janet Vij. A hundred and seventy years after her death, she had given them a way to go home.

Now Burne began narrowing his eyes and twitching his cheeks in a manner that said it was time to get practical. “We’ll need subjects. Animals…and humans.”

“Quetzalia has rabbits, chitzals—whatever we want. Humans? Zamanta owes you a couple of favors, one for each child.”

“We’ll need moat fluid, liters of it.”

“The markets have pots. Fired clay probably holds noctus for at least a minute, long enough to prepare a saltwater solution.”

“Then, of course, Vij favors injecting the stuff.”

“My needles are back at Olo, two five-cc syringes. Tez wanted me to burn them.”

Burne’s hands began writhing around each other. “Ah, Lostwax, this is going to be fun. I’ve been needing an adventure. Killing the neurovore was mostly work, but now I’ve got a whole goddam war to play with.”

LEAVING THE LIBRARY, Burne at his side, the noctus formula in his pocket, Francis felt the elation of the night’s accomplishment give way to embarrassment. In the mute simplicity of dawn, Tepec looked every inch a sacred city. This was a great civilization! What right had he, an obscure entomologist with a beanlouse theory, to tell them they must change their ways? Did he really expect pacifists to fight and die just so he could go home? He put it into words.

Burne, predictably, was unruffled. “Hell, these jellyfish have everything to gain by going to war. Do you think they enjoy having neurovores around? We’re offering them nothing less than their freedom.”

“Promise me one thing, Burne. Offer them their freedom, don’t force it on them. I don’t want anybody injected against his will.”

“You have my word.” There was enough heart in Burne’s answer to make Francis feel better. They continued down the steps, and the sun gave the city its first colors of the day.

“FRANCIS, WHAT IN IZTAC’S NAME is going on around here?” Tez was referring to the animals that for the past five days had been arriving at Olo sane and clear-eyed and frisky and leaving either crazed or comatose or dead.

“You don’t want to know.” As Francis continued down the hall, Tez at his heels, he drew a rude bronze key from his pocket. Burne in his romanticism had wanted to build their laboratory in the basement, mad-doctor style, a plan thwarted by their discovery that Olo had no basement; settling for the next best thing, they converted the villa’s grandest room, the library. Its door, like all Quetzalian doors, had no lock, so Burne built one. Francis inserted the key, turned it, heard the homemade cylinders clunking into place. He slithered behind the door with the motion one uses to keep a puppy from following.

“Secrets are so juvenile,” Tez called, thereby shaming him into leaving the door partially open.

“It’s a Nearth religious ritual. Quetzalian atheists aren’t allowed.”

“You’re doing something that you think will get your ship back.”

“Yes,” he confessed.

“I hope your experiments are going well,” she said, her conviction that of a physicist consulting a Ouija board.

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