Watson, Ian - Novel 06 (31 page)

 
          
Whatever
Mongolian concoction
kumiss
might be,
we aren't thirsty for it. Our Amy-body isn't in the least bit thirsty.

 
          
The Harxine have
a speech synthesis
programme linked in to the interphones now. Our lingua franca remains English,
though the Harxine can handle all the primary languages of the ex-captives with
equal fluency. Ren6, not being an ex-captive, soon discovers to his chagrin
that they know no French.

 
          
Nor
do they speak seductive Getkasaali. Indeed our own sense of the Getkan language
has begun to rust a little. Nuances are missing—the automatic prompter in our
minds is too distant to be heard.

 
          
We
three golden ones (or seven, if the dead in us are counted) brief the other
eight—who all have in their minds, from memory space, jigsaw pieces of the
puzzle large or small. By now the Harxine have withdrawn two-thirds of their
insectoid boarding party, keeping only half a dozen on
Pilgrim
—and the status of these is less that of menaces or
monsters, now, more that of mascots. Sachiko attempts to pet one, perhaps to
compensate by this comic show of interspecies kinship for the evaporation of
her role as linguist. Even Gus Trimble chucks one under its chitinous chin. The
Harxine controllers must either have a crazy sense of humour in their circuits,
or a sympathy for human foibles, since the beast promptly rolls over like a
dog, exposing its vacuum-proof underbelly, and waggles its legs. Gus slaps and
scratches at its rigid hide.

 
          
Captain
K is back in command again—delighted that the parapsychology aspect of the
expedition has borne strange fruit (even though he didn’t set up the
experiment). Of course, the real power—the God-power—resides in us, who are
that fruit. It lies in our quartet self. Peter’s speculations about our
potential immortality may well be true. We do not eat, we do not drink.

 
          
This
Amy-self feels no need to. We are recreating ourself afresh from moment to
moment.

 
          
—We
still have to die (nags our Franz), to be free. You do realize that? We must be
able to die.

 
          
—Yes,
Franz (soothes Wu.) There’s the small matter of the Veil Being first.

 
          
“So,”
Captain K addresses everyone, “the question is, do we have a force here that
can be tamed and used? You’ve already captured a portion of its being, Dove.”

 
          
(And
the God-bottle rests in our Amy’s pocket . . .)

 
          
“Whole
worlds are enmeshed, Captain,” interrupt the invisible Harxine through the
interphone. “We would remind you of that.”

 
          
“He
who sups with the devil needs a long spoon,” says Salman. “We only have one
spoon, and that’s Amy.”

 
          
“But
is this essentially any more dangerous than, say, nuclear power?”

 
          
“The
Veil Being can draw other species into it, even if you avoid being enmeshed,”
the Harxine remind him sternly. “Who is to say that you have avoided it
successfully, in any case? You are here, and you have knowledge. But your Earth
remains vulnerable. A second High Space drive might be being sent. How do you
propose to travel back through High Space to warn your world without falling
into the clutches of the Veil Being again?”

 
          
“We
can handle that,” we assure them. “We control God- power now.”

 
          
“It’s
a surrogate God,” protests Salman. “A person of real knowledge could achieve
this state by himself. Someone like—”

 
          
“Like
Assaf ibn what’s-his-name,” says Ritchie.

 
          
“Assaf
ibn Barkhiya. I didn’t know you knew the Koran, Ritchie!”

 
          
“It’s
been quite an education down there, friend.”

 
          
“Well,
few people can. Few people do. The world has to go on—that’s why. Surely Getka
and Zerain and these other worlds have got to go on as well. They have to
restart
going on. They’re all locked up
in this false revelation as of now, and it’s sapping them.”

 
          
“This
is why we came,” agree the Harxine.

 
          
Ritchie
scratches his hand. A moment later he glances down at the source of irritation,
and blows on his hand. A dust of gold blows off. It evaporates. Ceases to be.
He rubs both hands together. Motes, hairs drift away. He sneezes. However, the
irritation to his mucous membranes has already ceased to exist.

 
          
“The
stuff’s coming off me— I’m losing it! ” cries Ritchie.

 
          
“Zoe!
” exclaims Rene, at the same time. He flails his arms as though to catch hold
of her, and floats off the deck. We catch him instead.

 
          
—Zoe?

 
          
—I’m
... losing touch.

 
          
—We
can hold you.

 
          
—But
ought we to? (asks our Franz.) This is the true death coming.

 
          
It’s
happening to this Amy-body too: the golden down is sloughing off, melting into
thin air. But we four are all still here together, as powerfully bonded as
ever. We’re in perfect balance. We are a psychic hyperstructure. We don’t need
the golden tendrils now. We’re independent.

 
          
—Rene
and Zoe need them. They’re breaking up.

 
          
—I
said we can hold them. We’re doing so.

 
          
—We’ve
drawn a line around the powers of the Veil Being. We’ve imprisoned it and
limited it. So now it’s withering— withdrawing. Unless we hold on tight.

 
          
—Choose,
Zoe (Franz urges her.) Will you die the true death? Will you go beyond? Or
shall we keep you here?

 
          
—I’ve
got to choose, haven’t I? I’m . . . not scared. It doesn’t matter, does it?
Because it’s
right.
Let me go, dear
friends. Let me go.

 
          
“Don’t”
begs Rene.

 
          
—But
it
is
right. It’s best. Goodbye,
Rene.
Adieu. Je t’adore.
Don’t
grieve.

 
          
And
it
is
right. We do let her go.

 
          
—Good
... bye

 
          
Rene
slumps in the air, grieving none the less.

 
          
—What’s
holding the High Space pyramid in being? (asks Peter urgently.) The minds of
everybody on board! But it
is
a
danger, isn’t it? The Harxine are right. We should make it cease to exist.

 
          
(Then
how do we get
Pilgrim
back to Earth?)

 
          
—We
get her there the Assaf way! The way we got here. If we

 
          
could
shift three bodies, why not shift a whole ship? We’ve got the God-bottle under
our
control. It’s a High Space drive in
itself, if we want it to be! Look, the High Space pyramid was obviously two
things. One was a coded pathway through High Space. But the other was deception—necessary
window-dressing. Earth would never have built
Pilgrim
if we hadn’t felt sure there was some ordinary, specific
destination that we were heading towards. We’d have been too suspicious of a
drive without any obvious flight plans or controls. Our journey had to wear the
mask of an ordinary journey—a journey, yes, that we could
believe
in! —or we wouldn’t have had the . . . faith, the mental
commitment to trigger and maintain the High Space field. We were all Rats, in
that sense. We had to
know
we were
travelling from A to B, from Earth to 82 Eridani, in an ordinary way before we
could learn the extraordinary way. But we’ve learnt more than the Veil Being
expected! We can go direct. The pyramid is a real danger now. Maybe we can
control the Being’s imprint on it, but everyone else on board would be
contributing their own fears and anxieties and beliefs and disbeliefs to the
journey.

 
          
(But
a whole
ship?)

 
          
—If
Assaf could transport a throne . . . well,
Pilgrim
is our throne. It belongs intimately to us. I say that we loose the bonds of
the pyramid now. We should abandon it. How could we trust ourselves to it?

 
          
We'reach
consensus in a moment.

 
          
“Harxine—and
everybody, listen. We’re going to dissolve the High Space pyramid. We’re going
to uncreate it. It’s dangerous because it’s a link with the Veil Being.”

 
          
“Please
do that,” reply the Harxine. I suppose they aren’t ultimately concerned whether
we get home to Earth or not.

 
          
“You’re
crazy,” protests Gus.

 
          
“But
hell,” shouts Neil Kendrick. For a while, there’s a babble.

 
          
“Listen,
all of you. We’re a new being, and we’re going to get you home.”

 
          
“Are
you planning to leave local space?” demand the Harxine, concerned now. “What
about your proposal regarding the gas giant?”

           
—I can see a way (schemes Franz)—a
way to tear the Veil so that it goes on tearing!

 
          
He
shows us. And it is true; there is a way. Trust our kamikaze Franz!

 
          
(We’ll
have to take the rest of the crew home first, then return with the ship. If we
can transfer
Pilgrim
to Earth, we can
transfer her back again.)

 
          
—Wait,
this could be a breakthrough in interstellar travel (speculates Wu, seizing on
a main chance.)

 
          
—Hardly!
(mocks Franz.) A single ship, with a single pilot? What we
can
do about that is take a Harxine paracomputer home with us to
set up a light-speed liaison with their home base—so long as they’re
transportable. I mean, if they aren’t built right into these flying asteroids
of theirs. We could take some Group- ones along on board, for that matter, if
the Harxine need them as manual extensions.

 
          
“Harxine,
how large are your separate units?”

 
          
“Perhaps
five per cent of the size of the High Space pyramid.”

 
          
“Can
a single unit still function separately as a ‘full’ Harxine?”

 
          
“Certainly.”

 
          
“Could
you dig one of yourselves out of the asteroid and accompany us? This is our
plan, you see . . .”

 
          
The
Harxine paracomputer unit is a cube the size of a large holovision set. It’s
independently powered by a hundred-year energy cell in its base—which Earth
can, in any case, recharge. Its umbilicals plug in to our computer terminals.
Group-ones have brought it out of the interior of the asteroid. Neil and Gus
have helped them install it here on the Control Deck. By now the Group-ones
have all withdrawn. We will take none with us, after all. This vacuum-adapted
variety tolerate gravity and atmosphere for a fairly long time, but not
indefinitely.

 
          
We
have only one thing left to do before we leave.

 
          
Our
Franz and Wu and Peter reach out through imagination space for the pyramid.

 
          
We
unimagine it, and that whole complex system of cognita which it is slowly
ceases to be part of our cognition any longer. Slowly: the natural resistance
of the others to the disappearance of their ‘lifeline’ makes this somewhat of a
Cheshire Cat operation!