The Unreasoning Mask (40 page)

 

 

"It's not right," Tenno said, but he obeyed, saluting as he ran.
Ramstan left the bridge and walked towards his quarters. He was going
there because it was . . . what? Home? A womb? Both?

 

 

But he talked as he walked, and his words and image were caught and
transmitted to all the other moving screens.

 

 

He chanted
The Saying Of Allah's Command to Annihilate All Things
,
the chant which he had heard so often when the neighbors who were also
members of the al-Khidhr sect met in his parents' apartment.

 

 

"The angel of death is ordered by Allah to destroy the oceans. "The angel
of death comes to the oceans and says, 'Your time to end is now.'

 

 

"The oceans say, 'Grant us time to sorrow and to contemplate our wonders
and majesties.'

 

 

"The angel of death says that there is no more time for the oceans,
and he shouts once, and the oceans are gone.

 

 

"After the angel of death has destroyed the oceans, he travels to the
mountains, the Earth itself, the moon, the sun, and the stars, and each
begs for a little more time, a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour,
seven seconds. But the angel grants them nothing, and he shouts, and
they are not, as if they had never been.

 

 

"Allah then says, 'O angel of death, what of my creation is left?'

 

 

"And the angel of death replies, 'O Allah, only You and Your angels live.'

 

 

"Then Allah says, 'Angels, did you not hear Me say that everyone must
taste death? Do not beg for more time.'

 

 

"And so the angel of death and all the other angels died, and they are
as if they had never been created.

 

 

"And only His Face lived."

 

 

And, Ramstan thought, not even He -- It, rather -- lives forever.

 

 

I will not plead for more time.

 

 

He said, "I have chanted this because, hearing it, you might understand why
I am not going into the glyfa or the house of the Vwoordha."

 

 

He stopped before the iris-door to his quarters, spoke the code word,
and stepped through the opening. It closed for the last time.

 

 

He went to the prayer rug, stooped, and turned it so that the red
arrowhead symbol, the
kiblah
, was pointed at him.

 

 

He pushed down the impulse to kneel upon the rug. No. He would not do that.
But he would stand here with the tip of his boot touching the edge
of the rug.

 

 

Why had he pointed the
kiblah
at himself? Did he think that he was God?

 

 

The Sufi mystic al-Mansur had thought that he was God. At least, he had
said so in the marketplace, and he had been stoned to death for his
blasphemy. Yet -- he had meant that he was a part of God, just as a11
human beings were.

 

 

Now he could see on a screen that everyone in ship except for himself
and Nuoli was in the auditorium room. Al-Buraq had expanded the room to
make space for the almost four hundred people. And she had not extruded
seats for them as she would have done if they had come to hear a lecture
or watch a live drama. They stood on a level floor, forming concentric
circles, the innermost with their fingers on the egg, those behind
pressing closely against them, their hands grasping the hands of others,
and those behind them pressing against them.

 

 

Ramstan said, "I wish that things . . . I . . . had been different.
But if I could start all over again, I think that I would not be or act
differently. You have done and are doing what you think is best to do.
I have done and am doing what I think is best for me to do."

 

 

He choked for a moment, cleared his throat, and said, "You may forget me,
but don't forget what I stand for. Good-bye."

 

 

They had no time to say anything to him. They fell jammed together,
their open eyes seeing nothing. There was no display of energy, no slight
thickening of air in threads or clouds as the part that made them unique
and sentient passed into the glyfa.

 

 

"It is done," his mother's voice said. "Hűd, you still have time to
join them."

 

 

"No."

 

 

"They will soon be walking inside this little shell which will seem to them
as big as Earth, as big as the universes if they wish."

 

 

"No."

 

 

Maija Nuoli entered the auditorium, looked horrifiedly at the corpses,
looked at the screen displaying his image, and then, wincing, walked
over the bodies. She picked up the glyfa, held it to her breasts. and
walked back over the bodies. Just before she got to the exit, she looked
up again at the screen.

 

 

"Good-bye, Hűd. God be with you. I loved you once for a brief while,
then I hated you. But I think I love you again."

 

 

"I made a fatal mistake," Ramstan said. "I loved answers to my questions
more than I loved human beings. The only answers that mattered -- the
only questions, too -- were people. I have been only an agent for the
glyfa and the Vwoordha. I have been nudged and prodded and moved here
and there toward some destination unknown to me until now. The plot
was as vast and as dark as this hollow thing we are now in. But, though
it might seem so to others, I was no mechanical agent. I had choice. I
decided to do what I wished to do. I have moved from darkness to a brief
light and back to darkness, but I am in the light again. This time, it
is my own light, not that of others. It's mine, and it's bright enough
for me to see what I'm doing. If darkness presses around me, it is not
as close as it was. Few are lucky enough to have even this little flicker.

 

 

"Maija Nuoli, whatever happens, may you have your own light."

 

 

"Well spoken," Shiyai said in his mother's voice. "But you should not die
as you have lived, always suspicious. However, that does not matter now.
As a parting gift, you will be allowed to see what happens to the
three women."

 

 

"What do you mean?"

 

 

"That you need not fear that something bad will happen to them because
they are in our house. Now, Ramstan. You have turned down the glyfa's
last offer. It is probably a waste of time to ask you if you will change
your mind about coming with us. Despite what we told your crew, we do
have room for one more. You can join us now if you wish. It is not good
to live alone, and it is worse to die alone."

 

 

"I thought so."

 

 

The glyfa said, "We are in the house, Ramstan. Wait for five minutes."

 

 

Shiyai said, "See. Hear."

 

 

The images before him were pale and wavering and so transparent he could see
through the people and monsters to the objects in the bridge. The Vwoordha
were in a room he had not seen before, a round room with a round pool
in its center, and they were in the liquid up to their waists. They were
holding hands. By them, helping to form a circle, were Toyce, Nuoli, and
Davis. All three looked scared. Nuoli held the glyfa to her chest. By her
side was the great salmonlike creature, its head against her left leg. On
the fish's other side, one hand on the top of the fish, the other touching
the shimmering thing, was "the laugher who hops." The shimmering thing,
"the cold-blood who drinks hot blood," was touching Wopolsa.

 

 

"We've formed a circle, and I am going to put into my mouth the first
of the sigils," Shiyai said. "I will do that as soon as I can determine
whether or not you have destroyed the heart of the bolg.

 

 

"Wopolsa has been calculating the probabilities of destruction of the bolg.
She's done more than that. She sees . . . a little beyond what Grrindah
and I can see. Anyway, she says that you have a 75 percent chance of success.
Those are good odds, Ramstan.

 

 

"Also, we three will die some day. Rather, Grrindah and I will. Wopolsa
will die, too, though not as we do. She will go . . . somewhere else.
In the meantime, we three will be teaching these three as much as they can
learn. And, some day, they will become the Vwoordha. If they wish to,
of course. I think that they will.

 

 

"So, good-bye, Ramstan. We won't be seeing you again, but we may see
your like."

 

 

Ramstan laughed, and he said, "Are you even now thinking of the time
when you may need another like me?"

 

 

"There may be other bolgs."

 

 

He looked at the flashing figures on a screen.

 

 

The five minutes had passed while he was looking into the house of the
Vwoordha, though he would have sworn that he had done so for no more
than thirty seconds.

 

 

He opened his mouth. The code word that would tell al-Buraq to launch
the missiles and shoot the lasers hung glowing in his mind, glowing as
brightly as the numbers that told the time on the screen.

 

 

Why had he chosen his mother's name, Kadijah, as the code word?

 

 

No more questions.

 

 

He shouted.

Philip Jose Farmer, the three-time Hugo award winning author of the
best-selling Riverworld series, has long been considered one of the
few real masters of science fiction. All the skills and the soaring
imagination which have won Farmer millions of dedicated fans are abundant
in this highly charged, far-future, space adventure story.
The Unreasoning Mask is the story of Ramstan, captain of al-Buraq,
a rare model starship. It is capable of alaraf drive: instantaneous
travel between two points of space. Three of these special ships were
built to explore and make contact with the many sentient races inhabiting
the universe. Suddenly, one of the ships mysteriously disappears. And
then it is discovered that an unidentifiable "creature" is marauding
through the universe, totally annihilating intelligent life on planet
after planet. Ramstan, a thoughtful and moral man, becomes a fascinated
yet reluctant pawn in the hands of the strange forces which arise to
fight the deadly destroyer. Ultimately, he is the one man who, in a
fearful race against time, can stop the destruction. But what price must
he pay for becoming the savior of intelligent-kind? The Unreasoning
Mask  is Farmer at his best -- fast-paced, complex, slightly mystical,
high-action adventure.
"Farmer at his most intriguing . . . The Unreasoning Mask  is a
metaphysical space opera on the grandest scale."
-- David Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels
"His imagination is certainly of the first rate . . . his velocity is
breathtaking."
-- Time Magazine
PHILIP JOSE FARMER, a science fiction author for thirty years, is
considered one of the most daring, innovative and far-thinking writers in
the genre. He reached his deserved level of success with the Riverworld
series. Mr. Farmer and his wife live in Peoria, Illinois.
Cover design by Plainclothes Ltd.
Cover type design by Gene Mydlowski
THE OVERLOOK PRESS
Woodstock & New York
ISBN-13: 978-1-58567-715-3
ISBN-10: 1-58567-715-9
9000
9 781585 677153
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