The Face of Heaven. Brian Stableford

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      Borgo Press Books by Brian Stableford

      Alien Abduction: The Wiltshire Revelations

      Asgard’s Conquerors (Asgard #2)

      Asgard’s Heart (Asgard #3)

      Asgard’s Secret (Asgard #1)

      Balance of Power (Daedalus Mission #5)

      The Best of Both Worlds and Other Ambiguous Tales

      Beyond the Colors of Darkness and Other Exotica

      Changelings and Other Metaphoric Tales

      The City of the Sun (Daedalus Mission #4)

      Complications and Other Science Fiction Stories

      The Cosmic Perspective and Other Black Comedies Critical Threshold (Daedalus Mission #2)

      The Cthulhu Encryption: A Romance of Piracy

      The Cure for Love and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution

      The Dragon Man

      The Eleventh Hour

      The Face of Heaven (Realms of Tartarus #1)

      The Fenris Device (Hooded Swan #5)

      Firefly: A Novel of the Far Future

      Les Fleurs du Mal: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution

      The Florians (Daedalus Mission #1)

      The Gardens of Tantalus and Other Delusions

      The Gates of Eden

      A Glimpse of Infinity (Realms of Tartarus #3)

      The Golden Fleece and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution

      The Great Chain of Being and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution

      Halycon Drift (Hooded Swan #1)

      The Haunted Bookshop and Other Apparitions

      In the Flesh and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution

      The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels

      Journey to the Core of Creation: A Romance of Evolution

      Kiss the Goat: A Twenty-First-Century Ghost Story

      The Legacy of Erich Zann and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

      Luscinia: A Romance of Nightingales and Roses

      The Mad Trist: A Romance of Bibliomania

      The Mind-Riders

      The Moment of Truth

      Nature’s Shift: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution

      An Oasis of Horror: Decadent Tales and Contes Cruels

      The Paradise Game (Hooded Swan #4)

      The Paradox of the Sets (Daedalus Mission #6)

      The Plurality of Worlds: A Sixteenth-Century Space Opera

      Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine

      Promised Land (Hooded Swan #3)

      The Quintessence of August: A Romance of Possession

      The Return of the Djinn and Other Black Melodramas

      Rhapsody in Black (Hooded Swan #2)

      Salome and Other Decadent Fantasies

      Streaking: A Novel of Probability

      Swan Song (Hooded Swan #6)

      The Tree of Life and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution

      The Undead: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution

      Valdemar’s Daughter: A Romance of Mesmerism

      A Vision of Hell (Realms of Tartarus #2)

      War Games

      Wildeblood’s Empire (Daedalus Mission #3)

      The World Beyond: A Sequel to S. Fowler Wright’s The World Below

      Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

      Xeno’s Paradox: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution

      Year Zero

      Yesterday Never Dies: A Romance of Metempsychosis

      Zombies Don’t Cry: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution

      Copyright Information

      Copyright © 1976, 2012 by Brian Stableford

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      Acknowledgments

      I am greatly obliged to Heather Datta for her great kindness and consummate efficiency in scanning the text of the first edition of this novel, thus enabling me to get it back into print.

      Chapter 1

      The stars stood still in the sky, as they always had, as they always would. They shone with a steady pearl-white light. Each one was perfectly round. They were not evenly distributed in the sky. They clustered above the land that was called Shairn, and they grew hardly less dense towards the east, where the lands of the Men Without Souls stretched away from Cudal Canal farther than the eye could see from Amalek Height. To the north of Shairn was the Swithering Waste, and in those skies the stars were set farther apart, and farther still as one went west of north, skirting the great wall of iron. Ultimately, in the far west of north, were the blacklands, where no stars shone at all except for a single line which curved away into the darkness: a road of stars. No one followed the road of stars, not because no one was curious as to where it might lead and why, but because the blacklands sheltered creatures which preferred to stay away from the lightlands and from men of all kinds, and the men were afraid of them.

      To the west and southwest of Shairn the stars shone brightly enough, but those were bad hills, stained with poison and incurable disease. There were nomad paths—allegedly safe paths—across the hills, but only the Cuchumanates dared use them unless need forced fugitives to take the risk. To the south itself was more good land—the land called Dimoom by the Children of the Voice.

      Chemec was crouched on top of the hill called Clauster Ridge, sheltering beneath the umbrella of a sourcap from the light of the stars. Clauster Ridge was by no means the impressive peak that Amalek Height was, but it brought Chemec far too close to the stars for him to feel truly comfortable. He felt that, as he watched the Livider Marches which stood unused between the ridge and Cudal Canal, so the stars kept watch on him. But someone had to keep watch—someone always had to keep watch in these troubled times. Old Man Yami was getting old, and the young Ermold across the canal was aching for a fight and a chance to take a few skulls. For any reason, or for no reason at all.

      In fact, with the sourcaps all around him, Chemec could hardly watch at all, but he took a liberal interpretation of his duty, and he had every faith in his nose. The fashion these days was to train eyes rather than noses, but Chemec could never really come round to the idea of counting the stars his friends in the great war of life. They were, at best, neutral. Whereas odors....

      He was also listening for movements in the fields of asci which carpeted the gentler slope of the ridge behind him. If anything edible went by, he might as well catch it, and he definitely did not want to be caught unawares by one of his own people. The wind—a gentle enough wind—blew direct from Walgo. It always had and it always would.

      When he caught the signal, it came sharp upon the wind, like a tiny stab in his sinuses. It was a cold smell, and a weird smell. A smell that was distinctly alien. It came to him with such a shock that he imagined a shadow rushing on him from the east, and he leapt to his feet, swinging his stone axe out of the cradle of his arms and into readiness for attack. But the shadow was nothing.

      He moved with a strange sideways shuffle, something like a crab. One of