The Belly of the Bow (12 page)

Rhetorical pause, Needless to say, none of them understood; not yet. ‘Let me refine that a little,’ he said. ‘I want you to consider the concept of Product. Take heat, for example. Heat is the Product of fuel and fire. Take a tree and burn it; the fire turns the wood to ash and smoke. It’s easy to see Different in that, because where there was once a tree there’s now only charcoal and a smell of burning - there has been an act of Difference. But look again, and try and see the operation of the other Opposite. Has the tree disappeared? No, it’s still there, in the ash and the smoke and the heat of the fire. In other words, there has also been an act of Sameness, but achieved through the agency of Product. The Same and Different have collided, have been at war, Different has come and gone, The Same remains behind in the Product of the act - which in the case of burning a tree is ash and smoke and heat.

‘That’s a very simple example, of course, but it might help you to see that Different might not be as important as you thought it was. It might even occur to you to ask yourselves if The Same is always the same, and Different is always different. Confused? Try it again, now that you’re a little bit better educated. Every time you burn a tree, you get ash, smoke and heat; you get the same difference, the difference is always the same. Now you might ask yourselves, is there really such a thing as Different, or is it just The Same in some other configuration, the tree becoming ash in the same way as life becomes death or night becomes day? Can you burn a tree and get flowers and milk? Now that
would
be Different.’

Sure enough, every single face in the hall was a study in bewilderment; mostly, he knew, they were frantically trying to work out whether Doctor Gannadius was immensely wise or a raving lunatic. Very good.

‘Now then,’ he resumed, ‘by the looks of you, you’ve all had about as much education as you can take for one day, so I’ll leave you with one last subject for your consideration. Let’s assume that The Same is always the same, and Different is always different; the key to this riddle must be something to do with the nature of this elusive third factor, Product. Where there’s a Product, there must be a Process. In our example with the tree, the Process is burning. We’ve seen that Product can be both an act of difference and an act of sameness. The ash and smoke and heat are different from the tree, but they’re still the tree, they’re the Product of the Process of burning. This may lead you to believe that it’s the Process that makes the difference, except that the Product of the burning Process is always the same. So now, instead of just two incomprehensible abstracts, we have four. Are they really all the same? Or are they different? I’d like you to think about that before we meet again; and if by then any of you can answer the riddle, please feel free to come up here and take over the class; provided, of course, that you can prove you understand it by burning a tree and producing flowers and milk.’ He paused and grinned. ‘Dismissed.’

As he walked back to his lodgings, he felt a little guilty, as if he’d been doing something dishonest; as if he’d sought to convince his audience of some abstruse point of philosophy by pulling a rabbit out of his hat, and had succeeded.
I’m trying to make it sound like magic
, he confessed to himself,
which it isn’t, of course. It’s just that occasionally, if things go wrong, it can do the same things as magic. And that’s like saying that a sack of flour is a sword, because if it falls on you out of a high loft it can kill you
. He wondered why he was worrying about it. Perhaps the guilt came from trying to make the subject sound interesting, which was certainly an act of deception.

‘Doctor Gannadius!’ That voice. Oh,
hell
!

‘It’s Machaera, isn’t it?’ he said as he turned, trying his unsuccessful best to look frail and confused. ‘Ah, yes, of course it is. How can I help you?’

The dreadful child was beaming at him, her small oval face a study in humility and devotion.
Idiotic
, he said to himself as he resisted the urge to shudder.
The child’s got twenty times more ability than I’ll ever have, she really
is
a magician. Which is why she should be killed immediately, for the public good
.

‘Could you possibly spare me just a few minutes?’ she was saying - she was skipping backwards so as to be able to face him and keep up with him at the same time. He really didn’t want to stop and get bogged down in theoretical debate in the middle of the courtyard; the girl might be a natural genius, but she was simply too young to be able to grasp even the most basic implications of the word
rheumatism
. Escape, he knew, was impossible, but back in his lodgings he would at least be able to sit down. There was even a possibility of getting rid of her by feigning sleep.

‘Certainly, certainly,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Follow me.’ Not for the first time he envied his old friend and colleague Alexius his years and infirmities, for which people were always so ready to make allowances. Gannadius was that much younger and obviously spry, and so not entitled to mercy. ‘I mustn’t be too long, though,’ he added in forlorn hope. ‘Paperwork to catch up with, that sort of thing.’

The girl Machaera was getting better, give her her due; she didn’t start up until after he’d sat down and kicked off one boot.

‘I thought what you said in the lecture was
fascinating
,’ she was saying. ‘And so
true
. Except,’ she went on, with a little glint of far-away in her eyes, ‘I always seem to think of it as a massive great tree fallen and lying endways, and if you find a crack and hammer in a wedge, it suddenly splits open, just like that.’

‘Sorry,’ Gannadius interrupted. ‘Think of what?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What is it,’ Gannadius said carefully, ‘that you always seem to think of as a log?’

‘What? Oh I
see
. Well, Sameness, I suppose. Or whatever the Principle isn’t - I’m a bit muddled about that bit. But the Principle’s like the wedge; you find the crack and the rest of it’s so easy. What’s the proper technical term? Mechanical advantage, that’s it.’

Oh, so that’s how it’s done. Assuming you can spot the crack, I suppose
. ‘You could put it like that,’ he replied guardedly. ‘In fact, it’s not a bad comparison. But surely that’s a bit far removed from what the lecture was about.’

The girl looked puzzled. ‘Oh, surely not,’ she said. ‘Surely the whole point is that the Principle is what you use to turn The Same into Different. When it doesn’t want to, I mean.’

You may well be right; how the hell would I know, though?
‘In a sense,’ he replied. ‘Though that’s over-simplifying things rather, if you don’t mind my saying so.’ He devoutly, earnestly wished she’d go away, this little cute-faced bubble of a creature who talked so blithely about using the Principle; it was like listening to a mouse chattering on about harnessing a team of cats to a cheese-wagon, except for the horrible knowledge that she could do it.
Break the world in half?
he could imagine her saying.
Oh, that’s easy. You just press
here,
and then put your thumbnail
here,
like
this . . .

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m gushing again, aren’t I? And running before I can walk. You see, I’d never thought of it in those terms before, but it’s so obviously the right way of seeing it - well, of course, you know that,’ she added, with a self-deprecating little grin. ‘No, what I really wanted to do was tell you about this projection I did, using that special formula you taught me.’

Blood and thunder, not another one. It’s a miracle we’re all still alive
. ‘You’ve managed another projection?’ was what he actually said. ‘That’s really very - well, I’m impressed. Was it—?’

She smiled at him. ‘Why don’t I just show you?’ she said.

—And, before he could say anything, suddenly he was standing beside her in a workshop of some sort, next to a long bench with a heavy wooden vice clamped to it, and lots of peculiar-looking tools hanging on the walls (except that, because she was there too, he realised that at least for the time being he knew that that was a drawknife and that was an adze and that was a boxwood plane, and those green twiggy things were horsetail rushes, which are rough and abrasive enough to be used for smoothing toolmarks out of wood). Light slanted into the shop through an open shutter and fell across the back of a man crouching over the bench - dear gods, that’s Colonel Bardas Loredan, the fencer-at-law - and an old man sitting talking to him, who turned out to be someone he knew very well indeed.

‘Alexius?’ he said.

The Patriarch looked up and saw him. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said to Loredan, who nodded and carried on with his work. ‘Hello, Gannadius,’ he went on. ‘I was thinking about you only the other day. I didn’t even know if you were alive.’

‘Me neither. I mean,’ Gannadius corrected, ‘I didn’t know if
you
were alive. I’d heard a few rumours, but nothing I was prepared to believe. Dear gods, but it’s good to see you again.’

Alexius smiled warmly. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Though the circumstances—’

‘I know,’ Gannadius agreed hastily. ‘Hardly ideal. Look, I’m sorry if this is an idiotic question, but when is this? Are we in the present, or is this the future, or what?’

Alexius thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think this is for a while yet; I mean, I haven’t been to see Bardas yet in real life, I haven’t even found out properly where he lives, just something vague about “in the mountains”, which could mean anything. I think this must be the future.’

‘I see,’ Gannadius said. ‘Well, in a way that’s reassuring. At least it suggests we’re going to have one. Are you well?’

Alexius nodded. ‘I believe so. It seems that discomfort and uncertainty and being chivvied about tend to agree with me, rather more so than comfort and tranquillity. I’d say I felt ten years younger if I knew when this is meant to be. And you?’

‘Oh, well, not so bad. Average, I suppose. Except, of course,’ he added, ‘for this problem I’ve got.’

‘Oh, yes? What’s that?’

Hellfire, he doesn’t realise
. ‘Well,’ Gannadius said edgily, ‘it’s not the sort of thing I like to talk about with, er, this young lady present. Another time, perhaps.’

‘What? Oh, right, yes. We’ll have to try and make sure it’s after this one, then. Otherwise I won’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘Alexius!’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant, it’s just - well, it’s all a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? Normal people write letters. I’m sorry; I’d better—’

—And Gannadius’ hands closed around the arms of his chair. His head felt as if someone had taken it for a fencepost and nailed a rail to it. ‘I say,’ he muttered, ‘that was really rather good. Did you, er, work out how to do that all by yourself?’

Machaera nodded happily. ‘It just sort of came to me,’ she said. ‘Only I got it wrong, of course,’ she added, suddenly remembering, and her face fell. ‘Perhaps it was because you were there this time—’

‘I see,’ Gannadius said, managing to keep his voice calm at least. ‘So the first time, the words were different.’

‘It was that old man and the other one talking,’ Machaera said, and she briefly summarised the conversation. ‘Sorry, does that mean I’ve - well, changed something?’

‘Nothing important, I’m sure,’ replied Gannadius, who was sure of no such thing. ‘That man I was talking to is called Alexius; he was my friend and superior back in Perimadeia. He was the Patriarch of the Foundation there.’ The girl looked suitably awed. ‘And,’ he went on without knowing why, ‘also probably the greatest authority in the world on, um, projections. We did a lot of research into the subject together.’

(
And nearly got ourselves killed, and maybe actually caused the fall of the City in some ghastly way we don’t understand, and did who knows what other damage
. . .)

‘That’s
wonderful
,’ the girl said. ‘Oh, do you think he’d mind terribly if I - well, talked to him? Myself, I mean. Just to ask him a few questions?’

Gannadius felt as if he’d just been kicked in the stomach. ‘Perhaps it’d be better if you didn’t,’ he managed to say. ‘He’s, well, a very private sort of man, and—’

‘Of course. I shouldn’t have suggested it.’ The girl looked down at her shoes. ‘I’m afraid I get a bit carried away sometimes,’ she added. ‘That’s very wrong, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s just say these things ought to be treated with respect,’ Gannadius heard himself saying. ‘And caution, too, of course. I don’t want to alarm you in any way, naturally, but it can be - well, I’ll be absolutely straight with you, it can be rather dangerous. Bad for you, I mean. If you go too fast without knowing the proper procedures and everything.’

‘I see,’ the girl said. ‘Oh, I’m really sorry. I just don’t think, that’s my trouble.’

Gannadius took a deep breath. Was that a tiny glimmer of light he could see, he wondered? Or just a hole in the sky through which Disaster was about to come cascading down? ‘It’s all right, really,’ he said. ‘And you’re making satisfactory progress. Very satisfactory progress. But since you
are
so far advanced, maybe you really ought to stop doing projections on your own for a while. What do you think?’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Machaera replied quickly; she looked like a child who’s just been told her favourite toy’s about to be taken away, and then hears the merciful word
unless
. ‘Obviously, the last thing I want to be is irresponsible. I wonder - would you mind helping me? Being there when I do projections, I mean? If it’s no trouble, of course. If it’s any trouble—’

Gannadius smiled thinly. ‘That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?’ he said.

I hope I won’t die today
, Master Juifrez muttered to himself as he took his place in the landing barge. He looked at his shipmates, fifty halberdiers of the Foundation’s Fifth Company, and wondered how many of their minds were occupied with variations on that theme. At the bow, a thin, nervous young corporal was clutching the banner of the Fifth:
Austerity and Diligence
. Scarcely the kind of inspiring concepts that men willingly die for, which was probably all to the good. Master Juifrez didn’t want his men to die for anything.