The Unreasoning Mask (33 page)

 

 

The glyfa, who had no born or built-in unconscious, said the same thing.

 

 

"Use the
shengorth
, Ramstan!"

 

 

He stood still, and the inability to make physical movements was reflected
in his mental movements. Right or left? Up or down? Forward or backward?
Or any movement in between or among?

 

 

"Take me with you?" the glyfa said in the voice of Ramstan's mother.
"You must have your hands on me before you put the sigil in your mouth.
Or touch me closely. As close as fetus to mother or infant lips to the
nipple."

 

 

Ramstan gave an animal cry expressing his rage, rage from helplessness
and from his ignorance, which made him even more helpless.

 

 

"You fool!" the glyfa said in the voice of Ramstan's father. "There is
only one thing you can do, now that you've done this. Get out! Use the
shengorth! But you must take me with you. Otherwise, you're done for!"

 

 

"And so are you," Rmnstan said.

 

 

"Is that a consolation?"

 

 

Suddenly, the whistling, the "entrance noise," was gone. Ramstan was relieved
greatly by this, but he still felt panic.

 

 

Ship could not use her alaraf drive to get to another universe until she
was near enough to the planet Shabbkorng to be within its "bell." Even
if she could make the jump, she'd be quickly tracked by the bolg. Unless
. . . unless the bolg would be diverted by the life on Shabbkorng and stop
there to massacre it. That was an almost unbearable thought -- almost --
there were seven billion people there, yet al-Buraq could attack the bolg
after it had spent all its missiles. That is, al-Buraq could do so if the
bolg did not retain a supply of missiles for emergencies while recharging.

 

 

But al-Buraq could not stay in this universe while waiting for the bolg
to empty itself. It might attack ship first.

 

 

A screen had been displaying a green circle, the Popacapyu. Suddenly,
the circle became a white balloon. The whiteness and the expansion lasted
perhaps a second and then became a swarm of many very small pale dots.

 

 

Ramstan cried out, "Allah!"

 

 

Tenno cried out in Japanese, then said, in Terrish, "I take refuge
in the Buddha."

 

 

The tec-op crossed himself, muttered something in Polish, then said,
"Sir, the Popacapyu was struck by missiles from the bolg. Her power
supply must have exploded."

 

 

Another screen displayed the area where the bolg was; a tiny orange circle
was in its center. Flashing orange numbers showed that the thing was moving
at a rate of velocity and acceleration that would make it visible on the
screen within three hours. Before then, however, its missiles would blow
al-Buraq apart.

 

 

Ramstan said, "Tenno, what's the computation on ship reaching the jump
area before she's in the bolg's missile-range?"

 

 

"If we make it, we'll do so with about a minute's grace. Perhaps."

 

 

Ramstan put his hand in his jacket pocket.

 

 

"That's the right decision," his mother's voice said. "But hold me to
your chest before you put the
shengorth
in your mouth. If you don't,
you leave me behind."

 

 

Ramstan's fingers moved the disk and the square aside and closed on
the triangle. It felt slippery and warm. After taking it out of his
pocket, he went to the glyfa, adjusted the a-g units on its two ends,
and picked it up in one hand. It slipped out and struck the deck. His
hand trembling he leaned down and got a good grip on the egg-shape. It
only weighed ten grams now, but the power in the batteries of the a-g
units would quickly be used up at this adjustment.

 

 

Then, as if someone had possessed him, he went to the bulkhead on which
hung his prayer rug. He had no rational reason to do so; he had not used
it since he had entered the academy. Nuoli, when she had been his lover,
had mocked him once, asking why he, an atheist, kept it. It was, she
had said, his security blanket. That had angered him. But now, pressed
by his fear, he took the rug from the bulkhead with the hand holding
the
shengorth
. The triangle slipped from his fingers to the deck.
He left it there for a moment while he wrapped the glyfa in the rug.
Then he picked up the triangular stone and held it to his open lips.

 

 

A vision of Branwen in the launch flashed through his mind. She would
be even more terrified than the others because she was alone.

 

 

"Wait! Wait!" someone screamed at him.

 

 

It was his own voice, not uttered through his mouth but from his mind.

 

 

"The crew . . . the crew!"

 

 

He shouted, or thought he shouted, since he could not hear his own words,
at al-Buraq. He gave her orders to release Benagur and to obey him until
he, Ramstan, returned.

 

 

He put the shengorth in his mouth with his right hand, his left holding
the ends of the rug, his left arm curved to push rug and glyfa against
his chest.

 

 

Despite the impediment caused by the stone in his mouth, he began to
recite the
Light-Verse
from the Qu'ran. "God is the light of the
Heavens and of the Earth . . ."

 

 

The stone seemed to swell. It grew between his right teeth and the inside
of his cheek. It choked off the words, but when he put a finger in his mouth
to extract it before it broke his flesh, he found that it was the same size
as when he had put it in.

 

 

The transition seemed as swift as a light.

 

 

His eyes blinked, the lids sweeping down and up. As they went down, he saw
his quarters. As they went up, he saw an unfamiliar room. There was no
sense of movement. Around him was silence. The air seemed dead, heavy,
and stale, but within a few seconds it began moving, and it became fresh.

 

 

He became aware that he had wet his pants.

 

 

He dropped the rug and its burden. It thunked softly on a very thick
white carpet with a pattern of connected pale-red diamond-shapes with
pale-red edges and light-blue interiors.

 

 

As he started to remove the
shengorth
from his mouth, his mother's voice
said, "First, reset the a-g units. If the power goes, you'll never be able
to lift me."

 

 

After unrolling the rug, he said the code word which would cause the power
to the a-g units to be cut off.

 

 

The room was large and oblong and had an arched entrance at each side.
The ceiling was level and pale blue. The walls were off-white.
Wooden-framed paintings hung on them, some depicting landscapes which
would not have been out of place on Earth. But the portraits displayed
sentients with hairy, triangular faces and large, domed heads. The eyes
looked catlike.

 

 

He became aware that the light was shadowless, seemingly without source
yet everywhere.

 

 

He turned, and he started. Two meters away was a pyramid resting on its base.
It was twice his height and made of some shimmering gray metal.

 

 

"That's the magnet, the poie which drew you here," his father's voice said.
"Fortunately, no one was standing near it when you appeared. Otherwise,
both of you would have been burned to ashes."

 

 

"Why couldn't the builders have put in safeguards?"

 

 

"I don't know. They couldn't. Anyway, anything that has advantages always
has disadvantages. That's the inscrutable economy of the Pluriverse."

 

 

"I know that," Ramstan said angrily.

 

 

"It doesn't hurt to remind you."

 

 

The glyja had switched to the voice of Habib ibn-Ali O'Riley, Ramstan's
chemistry professor in elementary school. Ramstan was too busy to ask
it why it had changed. It probably would not have explained, anyway.

 

 

"What is this place?" he said.

 

 

"A refuge for the user of the
shengorth
, I suppose. The little I know
is what the Vwoordha told me. It's set up so that it can support sixty
sentients of your size for many years. It may be located in another
universe, since the people who made the sigils could communicate with
people in other universes. I think they used the same means that the
Vwoordha did. Thus, they avoided causing carcinoma in the Pluriverse.
After the receiving stations were set up, the people used the sigils
to travel, though not often."

 

 

"For the sake of Allah" Ramstan said. "Here's the means for interuniversal
travel without injury to the Pluriverse! Why didn't everybody use it?"

 

 

"One, there are trillions of universes and a googolplex of peopled planets
in every one. It would be impossible to contact all planets in all universes.
Only a very small number were. Second, the making of sigils costs much
in time, materials, and labor. Only a very small number of sigils were made.
The Vwoordha said it was a million or so. Third, for some reason even
their makers did not know, the sigils could be used by any individual
only once."

 

 

"Even so, they could be analyzed and reproduced."

 

 

"They are indestructible, and for that reason unanalyzable."

 

 

Ramstan left the room for the archway to his left. He strode through room
after room, oblong, seven-sided, nine-sided, or round, the walls hung with
paintings and gold or platinum shields sporting jewels, sculpture here
and there, and, in a huge chamber, a library. The books were crystalline
balls which spoke or sang as soon as be touched them and which stopped
when he withdrew his finger. Some contained moving three-dimensional images.
A number seemed to be textbooks; others, entertainment. He did not understand
the language, and the weird music grated on him.

 

 

Finally, he came to what seemed to be the end, the outer wall of this
place. There was a very thick window in it. He looked through it. The
ground was flat and sandy. The atmosphere seemed to be clear air, but
presently several fish-shaped creatures swam through the frondy branches
of a plant. They were moving swiftly. A short time later, the reason
for their haste appeared. It looked more like a stingray than anything,
and it traveled by flapping its winglike fins. Its teeth were sharklike.

 

 

Ramstan started towards the other end of the station, but he veered off
into what was obviously a toilet. He drank some water and inspected the
toilets. There were no urinals. Either it was reserved for females,
as such had once been on Earth, or the builders all had to sit down
to urinate.

 

 

When he came to the other side of the house, he saw the same kind of scene.
Piscines apparently swimming in air, thin fragile plants bending under
a current. The light was bright enough, but the sun was not visible.

 

 

On his return, he stopped in a room which was obviously an eating place.
He got food and liquid by punching buttons, but after one experiment,
he quit. Munching on the hot vegetables from the plate he carried,
he returned to the central room.

 

 

"We're under the surface of some kind of sea or lake," he said to himself.
"But its liquid is not water."

 

 

"We're probably on a planet which is not reachable from Earth by alaraf
drive," Habib's voice said. "It's in a bell connected to the routes which
go only to non-G0-type stars systems. You'd probably die at once if you
could step outside."

 

 

"Then there's only one way to get out," Ramstan said. "Use the next sigil."

 

 

"Right. But you're safe from the bolg as long as you stay here."

 

 

He thought about finding a place where he could wash and dry his pants.
No. He could do that in the next place. He set the plate down on the
carpet, then picked it up again, and he took it back to the eating
place. After dropping it down a slot, which he supposed was for
dirty plates, he went back to the central room. Habib's voice said,
"The next person could have taken care of the plate. If there ever is
another person."

 

 

Ramstan did not reply. He adjusted the a-g units to lighten the glyfa's
weight to ten grams, and picked the thing up in his prayer rug. He put
the
pengrathon
, the square stone, in his mouth. It, too, seemed to swell,
and he was suddenly in another house. He turned to see a thin square upright
structure of gray metal set in the parquet floor.

 

 

After removing the
pengrathon
and putting it in his pocket, he set the
glyfa down and turned the a-g units off. The paintings and sculptures
showed him that Terranlike sentients had built this place. He walked
until he found a window. The house was high on a mountain. The sky
was blue and cloudless; the sun, near its zenith. The horizon was an
estimated 150 kilometers distant. Straight ahead, there was only the
vegetationless rocky slope of the mountain and a vast yellow-brownish
plain lacking plants and topsoil. Fissures crazed its face.

 

 

Nearby, to his left, was what was remained of a stone statue. The pedestal
and body had been shattered and toppled. The head had rolled about 20 meters
from the body. Though the head was cracked and its features were eroded,
it certainly looked like the Urzints, the photographs of which he had
seen on Kalafala.

 

 

He returned to the glyfa and told it what he had seen.