The Unreasoning Mask (34 page)

"I couldn't go outside the first house, and I can't go outside this one.
I suppose I could stay in either until I died of old age. But I'd go mad
very quickly. Whether or not the next place is a trap, I have to go to it.
But what's the use of the sigils if they take you away from one perilous
place only to put you in another?"

 

 

The glyfa said, "In a circular universe, who runs away runs toward."

 

 

"To hell with you and your billion-year-old platitudes."

 

 

Ramstan held the egg next to him and put the disk in his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 28 ...

 

 

Of all the places he might have imagined as the third station, this
would not have been in his list of speculations at all. He thought:
What is included is an extremely minute fraction of what might be.
The excluded is always much larger than the included. Entities deal with
exclusions and inclusions, and they can only handle inclusions. Even those
are usually too much for them.

 

 

The room was large and dome-shaped and of a bare green metal. Around him
were upright thin disks, twice as tall as he, the lower edges set into
the floor. There were at least five hundred.

 

 

He knew where he was at once. Through the only entrance, an arch, was
a hall. This opened at its end onto another arch. Beyond that was the
great room where he had visited the Vwoordha.

 

 

He removed the sigil from his mouth and pocketed it.

 

 

"Why didn't they tell me I'd only end up here?" he muttered.

 

 

He set the glyfa down and said, "You knew all the time we'd come here.
'One who runs away runs toward.' Why didn't you say anything?"

 

 

"I didn't know for sure," the glyfa said in Habib's voice. "I had heard
a long time ago, a very long time ago, that the Vwoordha had a
ph'rimon
target. I'd also heard that they'd spent many years in tracking down and
removing
ph'rimons
in various stations. But there must be thousands of
them throughout the Pluriverse. Thus, I could not say with any certainty
that your
ph'rimon
would bring us to this target. In any event, you
had to use your sigil, but you might have balked if you'd known there
was a chance you'd arrive here."

 

 

"You're all manipulating me," Ramstan said savagely.

 

 

"You haven't struck out yet," the glyfa said. "To use another analogy,
you're in a sort of cosmic poker game. We, the Vwoordha and I, hold very
good hands. But the joker is wild, and you may be it."

 

 

The ferretlike animal, Duurowms, flashed through the far arch, raced down
the hall, and ran down a lane through the forest of disks. It reared up
on its hind legs and gestured that Ramstan should follow him. He did so
while the creature danced wildly. Coming to the far arch, they turned
left -- a good omen for him -- and went toward the ancient three. These
were sitting on their folded carpets and pillows near the most distant
wall. Ramstan turned once to look behind him. If only he had gotten up
and strolled around while talking to the Vwoordha, he might have seen
the
ph'rimon
target room.

 

 

But what could he have done if he'd known about it? Despite what the
glyfa said, he would not have stayed at the Urzint world.

 

 

Blue-robed Grrindah laughed, and she said, "Welcome back, Ramstan!"

 

 

He did not reply. When he was close to the three, he set the glyfa down,
and he removed from his pocket the three sigils.

 

 

"You knew you'd be getting these eventually," he said. "Tell me now,
what information or help do I get for this price?"

 

 

Green-robed Shiyai held out a gnarled band. He started toward her,
then stopped. Through the arched exit doorway, he saw al-Buraq.

 

 

He was shocked and confused. Ship had escaped the bolg! The thing had been
diverted by the planet Shabbkorng. That had to be the explanation. Even if
al-Buraq had left the Shabbkorng bell before the bolg's missiles reached it,
she would have been quickly caught if the bolg had jumped after her to the
next bell.

 

 

However, al-Buraq could not have had enough time to transfer through
several systems and bells and returned here by now. That would have
taken far too much time, and he had not been in the first two stations
more than a half hour, if that.

 

 

"Time is determined by the curvature of space-matter," the glyfa said.
"And by the curvature of the mind."

 

 

"Does Benagur know that I'm here?"

 

 

"No," Shiyai said. "We weren't sure that you would be."

 

 

"What are they doing here?"

 

 

Grrindah said, "Benagur had to check on your story. He could not resist
coming back to question us. We assured him that his return to Earth would
bring the bolg much more quickly to Earth. He may not believe us. However,
he also came here to find out if the bolg can be attacked. Or if there is
some way to elude it."

 

 

Ramstan put the sigils back into his pocket. Shiyai dropped her hand.
Grrindah said, "You're thinking that you'll give them to someone on
the vessel?"

 

 

He did not answer her. He strode to a point near the arch and looked out.
About half a kilometer behind and to one side of a1-Buraq, the nose of
the launch stuck out from behind a root-swelling. Branwen Davis was,
so far, unharmed.

 

 

Ramstan turned. "Is there anything to be done about the bolg?"

 

 

"It will have discharged most, if not all, of its missiles," Shiyai said.

 

 

"Then al-Buraq could go down one of its horns," Rmmstan said. "It might be
vulnerable on the inside."

 

 

"We told Benagur that. He didn't say what he meant to do."

 

 

"How would we find the bolg?" Ramstan said. "Won't it be gone by now?"

 

 

"It could be. But often it orbits around the planet it's just attacked
until it builds up a new supply of missiles."

 

 

"How long does that take?"

 

 

"I don't know."

 

 

"It was gone only a short time after it attacked Kalafala," he said.

 

 

He thought for a moment, then said, "What was Benagur's reaction to my
disappearance?"

 

 

"He was puzzled and furious," Shiyai said. "We didn't enlighten him.
Come now, Ramstan. The sigils."

 

 

She held out her hand again.

 

 

"Only one of you could use them to escape the bolg," he said. "What good
would it do the other two?"

 

 

Grrindah laughed and then said, "You are not as intelligent as we thought.
Why . . ."

 

 

His skin warmed.

 

 

"I see. I was holding the glyfa, and it went with me. If you all hold
each other . . . ?"

 

 

"Right."

 

 

He still hesitated. Could he use Wassruss's gift to get the crew to accept
him as its captain again? He'd be easily able to get taken aboard as a
prisoner, but he did not want that. The only one with authority to make
him a member of the crew or of the officers was Benagur. Would Benagur
regard the sigils as a worthwhile price for this?

 

 

No, he would not.

 

 

Ramstan had nothing to offer the people in al-Buraq. They would all
despise him for deserting them when threatened by the bolg. They would
reject his justifications for having done so.

 

 

He took the sigils out, walked to Shiyai, and dropped them in her hand.

 

 

She rubbed her thumb over them one by one and put them somewhere inside
her robe.

 

 

"The glyfa acts for its own interests and those only," she said.
"But, however sentient and contrary it is, it is, in one respect, a tool.
Anyone who knows how to use it as such may do so, and there is nothing
the glyfa can do about it."

 

 

"True," the glyfa said, using Ramstan's mother's voice. It sounded very
angry. "True. But if you use me as the Vwoordha wish, you'll become
their tool. They want to put God in their pocket."

 

 

"No doubt the glyfa is talking to you now," Shiyai said. "We've told you
the truth, but I'll repeat. It wants power, the supreme power. When a
supremely selfish person uses supreme power, what will that person do
with it? Consider well, Ramstan."

 

 

The glyfa or the Vwoordha or all could be lying.

 

 

"The glyfa is a tool," he said. "For what?"

 

 

"We told you. Its primary purpose is to communicate with the Pluriverse."

 

 

"How can you communicate with someone who can't talk yet?"

 

 

"You can communicate, to a limited extent, with a baby who can't talk yet,"
Shiyai said. "However . . ."

 

 

Ramstan was angry enough to interrupt her.

 

 

"Show me how."

 

 

Grrindah laughed again, making him even angrier.

 

 

"We intended to do that, but not until you chose between us or it."

 

 

"Show me now."

 

 

Grrindah and Shiyai exchanged glances and then stared briefly at
black-robed Wopolsa. It was difficult to determine exactly what or whom
she ever looked at. He also flashed on the feeling that the other two
were somewhat afraid of her.

 

 

Shiyai said, "Very well. Know first, Ramstan, that the overpowering light
that fell upon you, that shone through you in the Tolt temple, was only
the edge of the numinous that you'll experience when you first . . . venture.
It was transmitted by the gJyfa just to impress you, Nuoli, and Benagur.
And to weaken your defenses against its guile.

 

 

"It was the beginning, the relatively weak beginning, of a deeper experience.
It was what the mystics and the saints of many worlds, yours included, have
. . . should I say . . . seen? Many sentients are rotatable amplifying
antennae . . . not antennas, antennae . . . which receive some of what
the Pluriverse radiates. Or perhaps I should say they glimpse into Its
mind. Not very far, though some see deeper than others.

 

 

"In any event, some sentients are such antennae, though not very efficient.
The use of the glyfa enables anyone who has this inborn power to receive
and detect, and, if the glyfa is used well, to communicate. Or perhaps
I should say, to observe and be observed. But it takes a long time to
learn to do whatever the doing is. How long, we don't know yet. The
glyfa managed to get away from us before we could get to that stage."

 

 

"If," Ramstan said, "the glyfa can't get into . . .
touch
with this . . .
being, then how did it transmit this . . . power . . . to us three in
the temple?"

 

 

Shiyai opened her mouth. Ramstan said quickly, "It must have been using
a Tolt. The high priest, I suppose."

 

 

Shiyai stood up. "We'll do it now."

 

 

Grrindah also rose to help her sister, but Wopolsa remained sitting,
her eyelids closing slowly as if a greater night were falling on a lesser.
At Shiyai's orders, Ramstan placed the glyfa on top of a table. This was
much higher than the others and had not been here on his last visit. He
felt that it had been brought in for just this occasion, and he flashed
rage. He was being manipulated, controlled.

 

 

A Vwoordha stood on each side of him, but far enough across the table
so that the three formed the corners of an equilateral triangle. He was
surprised when Shiyai said something softly to Duurowms, and the animal
leaped upon the table and put its front paws on an end of the glyfa.

 

 

"He represents our beast nature," Shiyai said. "There's enough of that
in us sentients to amplify the transmission, but he will greatly increase
the power."

 

 

"The glyfa is the only sentient in all the worlds who has no subconscious,"
Grrindah said, and she cackled. "It never sleeps, and so it can't dream.
Not in the way sentients dream. But when it shuts down to recharge, it does
not do so entirely and it couldn't if it tried. We built that limitation
into it. It is during the charging, when only a slight trickle of energy
keeps it awake, that it daydreams in a peculiar way."

 

 

"Yes," Shiyai said. "It is then that it watches the microscopic similitudes
of the creatures that it has drawn within itself. It has set up many worlds
there, and it observes the mockups of living beings, mostly sentients,
who enact their own fantasies within it. The glyfa is even capable of
participating to some extent in these dramas and comedies. It feels and
sees and hears and smells what the tiny personae experience."

 

 

Ramstan said, "Yes, I know. It said that it could draw within it my neural
atoms and set them up in a seeming body. Thus, I could live forever inside
it and enjoy eternity. If I wished, I could play Muhammad or Einstein or
Jesus or Buddha or Crazy Horse or even fictional characters, Natty Bumppo,
Sam Spade, the Wizard of Oz, Sinbad the Sailor, Ishmael, who sailed under
Captain Ahab, Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, ancestor of the Arabs,
Alyosha Karamazov, Sherlock Holmes, Frodo, whomever I wanted to be.
I would still know that I was Ramstan and could withdraw whenever I wanted
to, but a part of me would be that person or seem to be. It was very tempting
but not tempting enough."