Context (27 page)

Tom looked around the bare
chamber, the autodoc folded up by the wall. A narrow-shouldered, shaven-headed
man was by the doorway, watching him.

‘How are you feeling?’

Tom clenched his teeth, fighting
down a wave of sickness.

‘Never better,’ he said finally.

‘That will be a white lie, I
hope.’

‘Maybe. But I
have
felt
worse.’

The
thin man, whose name was Zel, led Tom into the next chamber. It was a simple
hall with plain bench seats facing a low altar, where the woman with grey
dreadlocks was polishing a brass thurible which reeked of burnt incense.

‘I’m Fashoma.’

Tom hesitated, then: ‘Call me
Nemo.’

Beside Tom, Zel made a low noise
which might have been concealed laughter, and Tom was impressed: a man who knew
at least a smattering of archaic tongues.

‘Why don’t I’—Zel took hold of
Tom’s arm—‘show our new friend around.’

There
was an alms residence, the Hostel Réfacto naBrethren, in which indigent men
temporarily lived. Attendance at evening service meant one could receive free
dinner afterwards; to sleep in the residence, one had to work during the day.

The sporegardens were an intricate
network of miniature tunnels branching out like capillaries from a central
chamber, splashed with yellow and purple dendritic growths. Tiny airplants
floated along the channels, their fragile roots dangling, their low-pressure
sacs swollen and glistening, trailing exotic scents along the gentle air
currents.

Tom spent the morning in the
company of a thin youth called Prax, helping him to load small harvested
sporefruits into a basket. After a couple of hours, though, an extended wave of
dizziness washed through him, and drops of sweat sprang out across his clammy
skin.

‘You don’t look so good,’ said
Prax.

‘I think I agree with you.’

So he went back, nodded to Zel at
the hostel entrance, and made his way to the autodoc chamber. There he lowered himself
stiffly onto a bier, then slid swiftly into sleep, not awakening until the
evening.

Then he walked through the clean,
plain corridors, pausing before a tiny holo which told him for the first time
exactly where he was—Drelario District, Kuig na’Balizhakh, Shichi no Planum: in
the Seventh Stratum of Count Yvyel-ir-Balizhakh’s demesne.

There were two other realms
between here and the Aurineate Grand’aume, but they were all part of the same
sector, and Tom could not help wondering whether he had placed enough distance
between himself and the strange malignant forces that had reached out and
demonstrated how tiny individual lives can be washed away by the tidal forces
of violence and self-serving legality.

Perhaps these were strange
thoughts for a former member of LudusVitae’s revolutionary movement to be
having. Tom rubbed his face hard with the heel of his palm, and walked deeper
into the hostel.

At the rear, Zel and Fashoma were
working in the kitchen, making occasional smart remarks—maybe not all religious
types had their senses of humour excised at birth, after all -and at ease in
each other’s presence. A matter of longstanding camaraderie, nothing more.

Tom realized then that the peace
and harmony which visitors and residents seemed to breathe in with the air were
created by these two people, from a spirit of love and charity which
transcended rage and jealousy and vengeance.

And he felt like someone tracking
dirt and muck across a newly washed floor; and knew then that he would have to
leave before he dragged his violent past and future into their carefully
managed lives.

Not
everyone who stayed at the Hostel Réfacto naBrethren shared that same spirit.
Later that night, as they dined from plain ceramic tables in the whitewashed
refectory, Tom noticed a large grimy man with bloodshot eyes stealing Prax’s
dessert. Evidently Zel was on the lookout for such events, because he replaced
Prax’s dessert, and spoke in calming tones to both of them.

But afterwards, when Zel had
returned to his own seat, Tom heard part of the cold promise which the large
man muttered to Prax. And, as young Prax blanched in sudden realization of his
own vulnerability in a hostel with communal dorms, Tom could guess at the
promise’s full import.

Then the large man caught Tom
staring, and winked.

Later, as they filed out of the
refectory chamber, Tom felt a light touch on his forearm.

‘Hey, one-arm. I’m Grax, and I
ain’ t never had no cripple.’

And the wide square hand was
trying to grab him but Tom moved faster, an inner wrist block with perfect
torque, power from the tension in fist and abdomen, and the large man had spun
in a half-circle before he realized what was happening.

Tom whipped forwards, palm-heel
to forehead, and Grax’s large head bounced off the white stone wall with a dull
thud, and the angry light faded from his eyes as he slumped slowly to the
floor.

‘Sorry,’ said Tom.

Zel and Fashoma were watching
open-mouthed, with mingled fear and sorrow, but when Tom thought about what had
just happened he felt no true regret.

Basic logosophy included a
neurocognitive model of human behaviour, which lay at the heart of logotropical
design: those tailored molecules built from pseudatoms designed to educate
anyone who had been through the disciplines. Because consciousness is a thin
layer upon the thousand-personality community which resides in every human
brain: a strange illusion which seems to initiate action, but results from
electrical changes which take place a third of a second
before
volition.

Tom had experienced Zen Neuronal
Coding before he had ever dreamed of attending the Sorites School.

It was the hand which blocked.

The fighting technique had been
automatic, astounding in its remembered clarity purely because conscious
thought had no involvement in the action.

Paradox, duality—because
sometimes it is the mind which defines the body.

Even in archaic cultures, there
were individuals with fully developed multiple personalities. Depending on
which daemon was momentarily in charge, the individual’s body could change
dramatically: shifting eye colour, banishing or resurrecting serious diseases.

And, as he stepped over Grax’s
slumbering body—the big man now emitting stentorian snores, as though gentle
sleep instead of sudden knockout had fallen upon him—Tom wondered just how much
of his own life was illusion.

Elva.

‘Nemo.’ It was Fashoma’s voice,
but he ignored it.

You still live, inside the Seer’s
vision...

Somehow, this was a defining
moment.

As Tom walked away, blinking, he
knew that there was only one chance of retaining sanity and meaning in his
life, and that was to focus purely on a single goal amid the whirling
possibilities and complexities woven through the world, yet with no hint or
inkling as to how he could possibly find her.

~ * ~

17

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Fashoma
had been quiet all morning, and was nowhere to be seen now. Zel clasped Tom’s
wrist in farewell, before handing over a small satchel of supplies.