A Voyage To Dari

by Ian Wallace

Croyd tested carefully. “Lately I have felt honored by a certain interest in me that you have seemed to be developing.”

  “My lord duke is shrewd and subtle, his IQ is possibly one hundred and fifty if I may put it that way. This, sir, is an admirable IQ. But lately I have been giving some thought to whether it is enough IQ for competent feudalizing of a metagalaxy—recalling, sir, that true chivalric feudalism entails an ethos.”

  “Perhaps I apprehend you, Roland.”

  “Thank you, sir. But do not try to use me; I can kill you quickly.”

  “You are, I would almost guess, suggesting that my own IQ may be at least one hundred and fifty-one.”

  “However that may be, sir, I am suggesting that you may have a true sense of chivalric ethos.”

  “Roland, we are almost coming right out and saying it to each other.”

  The knight drew himself tall. “Then I shall be the one to say it first. I am going to give you tonight a full introduction to our fissure brain. If you’re able to master our brain, you will be able to replace Duke Dzendzel. And even if you should master our brain, if you should then show signs of metagalactic treason, I would kill you— permanently. But if you fail to master our brain, I will commit you to the duke and the brain scan.”

  The belly dancers gave up and vanished. All around them, sexually protuberant people rebegan their boredom dancing, oblivious of the knight and his guest.

  Croyd remarked, “This is indeed a fine locale for a night on the town.”

  “It is indeed, sir. And I have been here before, relaxed. It is for you to say, sir; I can give you this kind of guidance, if you wish.”

  “May I take a rain check, Roland? For a year from now, say?”

  “Sir, what is rain?”

  “I will answer that, Roland, a year from now, say. May we visit your hinterland, in the general direction of the diencephalon?”

  Magnitude and velocity can be relative in more than ordinary ways, Croyd reminded himself, as, deep in the hinterland, Roland led him aboard an afferent axone whose energy shot them downward and inward. The pulpy rounded “building” bulges that lined and indeed created the Rolandic fissure and the far smaller inward-leading fissures were actually composed of quintillions of just such fibers. Had Croyd’s eyes been able on the boulevard to discern one such fiber, it would have seemed an excessively fine gray hair; yet now, as they entered the axone, its thickness was many times their height, and it had no identifiable substance—only invisible energy at high velocity that caught them up and whirred them on. Croyd questioned, “Is it that we have shrunk, as you did when you entered my brain?”

  Roland negated, “You are physical Croyd. I would not be able to shrink you so; but while we were on the boulevard, I exercised a certain control on your optical centers of cerebral representation so that your synoptic comprehension would not be overwhelmed.”

  And then, the distances and the velocities. If this brain had evolved into anything like a human brain (and the brains of all independently evolved mammalian-human species in Croyd’s galaxy, at least, were roughly similar, this general form being apparently the one so-far most convenient for peak-energy competition survival), then the distance from the lower-inner sexual end of the Rolandic fissure to the irregularly planar surface between cerebrum and diencephalon was crudely one-third the distance from one end to the other of the unilobe fissure; and that same one-third distance, measured even in parsecs, was breathtaking. And yet, if this brain acted with ordinary high brain speed (which clearly it did), an impulse must traverse this intergalactic distance in microseconds! The physics of this demonstrable fact required study; it was extrametagalactic physics, which had not been anticipated by Einstein or even by Norstead or any of his successors. Possibly there was an analogy with I-rays.

  Meanwhile, though, how about the relative duration of Croyd’s own experience? That he had traversed the millions of parsecs of the Rolandic fissure in minutes last night with the duke, this he could put down to the duke’s brain magic. But now he was experiencing a weird reversal; traveling with an impulse that traversed such parsecs in microseconds, he was finding time for all this thought and even for a bit of conversation with Roland.

  Expressing this, he queried, “How?”

  Roland replied, “Sir . . . think.”

  Croyd nodded. He started to give the reply. Roland Interrupted with a terse “I apprehend you, sir.” Roland, grace to his metagalactic fissure brain, possessed some of the powers that he had stolen from Croyd—among them, receptive telepathy. He saw that Croyd saw that Roland was exerting upon him something like a velocity-analogon of the Rolandic-boulevard effect; there, Roland had expanded the brain processes of Croyd so that he would see the relatively vast as the relatively ordinary; here, Roland had accelerated the brain processes of Croyd so that he would experience microseconds as minutes.

  Roland possessed the power of receptive telepathy. At the instant, Roland was exercising this power, but only with respect to the mind content that Croyd was anyhow ready to communicate to Roland. And there was much evidence that Roland had not previously exercised this power, since Roland remained guarded about the intentions of Croyd. Then, with respect to telepathy—that is to say, with respect to mind privacy—Roland’s ethics were like Croyd’s. This reflection served to remind Croyd that pure chivalric ethics were at heart very much like pure middle-class ethics, even though most members of both classes might pay only lip service to either code. It was likely that Western nobility and bourgeois had originally evolved, in one culture or another, out of the same strong yeoman stock, possibly taking different directions because of primogeniture. Anyhow, the Roland-Croyd ethos was essentially one; and neither confined his service to his lips.

  Middle class. That is, middle class accompanied by critical discernment between what is essential and what is mere taboo.

  Roland warned, “We are swiftly approaching my own headquarters. Please be prepared for an abrupt debouchment.”

  THERE WAS NO SPECIAL VISIBLE FEATURE to the small cell that was Roland’s headquarters as seneschal to the duke; indeed, Croyd (after his recent experiences with magnitude paradox) was not at all ready to judge that the cell had any special size. But the room was pregnant with sensa. They were in the air, if there was air; only, to Croyd they were not intelligible, and this was a vast pity, because a few days earlier, to Croyd they would have been intelligible, and he knew it. He grinned grimly at a phantom memory of a recent debility-interrupted foray into the Moskovian language; this was different, but the same. However, he merely queried as an opener, “This is where you locate yourself, Roland, when you direct your brain?”

  “This is where I locate myself when I intensively direct our brain. The way you put it, Croyd, left about four considerations out of account. One is that this is a thoroughly mature brain, fully equipped with habitudes; routinely it regulates itself without direction.”

  “This I assumed.”

  “Another is that neither the duke nor I needs to be in his special brain place for purposes of minor direction; so this morning, without moving away from his pavilion, the duke by telepathy was able to produce instantaneously your graul and my reification—and, now I think about it, my duplication and your healing.”

  “So I assumed. And last night I further judged that when the duke by mental powers converted the ceiling of my dungeon keep into a circular ramp egress—”

  “Your pardon, Croyd. A circular what?”

  “Ramp egress. Well, when he did that, later when I thought about it, I judged that he had done it, not through any special power of his own minded brain, but rather through the power of this brain.”

  “I will not at this time assert that you are wrong.” Nevertheless, the face of Roland was losing its poker; there was a nuance of growing confidence in Croyd.

  “You were going to mention a third and a fourth consideration.”

  “The third is, Croyd, that when I do come here intensively to direct this brain, I direc
t it under the duke’s guidelines. The fourth is that very often when I sit here administrating rather than directing this brain, in the course of excessively complex operations that are beyond my simple comprehension other than managing the detail work, Duke Dzendzel is in his place beyond—really DIRECTING this brain.”

  He waited then, clearly expecting a cross-question about the duke’s place beyond. But Croyd ducked and counterthrust. “A while back, when I first awakened from my dolor, you mentioned ambivalence as to whether you wished me to live or to die. Is this ambivalence perhaps a fifth consideration that I am leaving out of account?”

  Childe Roland took time to assimilate the question. While he did so, there came a remarkable change in him: the golden armor vanished, it was replaced by a tasteful-comfortable pseudocloth suit having a purple jerkin and pink tights—informal evening-parlor stuff, in no way self-assertive. Roland then appeared to relax into an invisible chair; Croyd, intuitively comprehending the geste, allowed himself to relax in the same way—into fortunately, another invisible chair.

  It was the mutual decision.

  To seal it, Roland extended a hand and arm sidewise; his hand was filled by a full wineglass. Croyd did the same and received the same; he tasted—it was a kind of Burgundy, just right, neither brut nor douce. He extended his glass toward Roland; they clicked; they sipped.

  Roland asserted then, “When I will that this room not be bugged, it is not bugged. It is not bugged. I have judged my liege the duke, and I find him wanting in chivalry. Nevertheless, my provisional position is one of continuing loyalty. Meanwhile, I do not find you wanting in chivalry or in power of mind, despite my paltry pilferings. I was divided about killing you for the following reasons: if I should kill you, I would save you from the brain scan, and that would be good; but if I should not kill you, you might end by replacing the duke in my esteem—and that, should you pass all tests, would be better. You have now passed all tests of chivalry. There remains a test of intelligence—projective intelligence. Should you fail this test, I would use my powers to blank out your memory of this interview and commit you to the brain scan.”

  Croyd drained the wine and told him, “I am beholden. What is the test?”

  Somehow the wineglass refilled itself.

  After some orienting of Croyd to this featureless control room, whose operation fundamentally entailed that its operator be attentive to the sorts of impulses that might come in and peremptory about the sorts of impulses that he might wish to go out, Roland queried in an attitude of moderate interest that disguised eagerness, “Now, Croyd, what will your first action be?”

  Croyd said instantly, “I wish to communicate with Chloris.”

  “Chloris?” Roland seemed disconcerted.

  “Any questions? Any objections?” This was a demand.

  Puzzled, Roland waved his wineglass. “Be careful. I am here.”

  In his mind Croyd called out, Chloris! And while he did so, he tried to visualize the entire metaspace region of the metagalactic fissure and beyond.

  Faintly she responded in his mind, Croyd, where are you?

  Roland was alert, monitoring. Croyd called, You must give me your approximate coordinates to improve these readings.

  She responded, I have moved vertically out of the fissure. Approximately eight hours ago I moved through and upward beyond the position where we quit the Castel Jaloux. I am searching for the Castel. Where are you, Croyd, and can you help me?

  His eyes were squeezed shut; he was concentrating on disciplined thought; he visualized and conceptualized the approximate position where she seemed to be; and then he commanded: Say something to test signals.

  Louder and clearer: That is much louder and clearer, Croyd. How well do you read me?

  He rapped: Damn well! Stand by! Opening eyes, he challenged Roland, “Can you give me visuals?”

  Intent, Roland answered, “It is you who are test-directing the brain.”

  “Why, then,” the Croyd voice lazed, “it is beautiful; with this magnificent instrument I need no special powers; this feels exactly like when my own ego decides to take a walk, and so my brain makes my body walk! As for visuals, though, this would require . . . well, never mind, Roland, because any communication in metaspace would require the same potential in your brain, so it must have it.” He closed eyes again, and he desired to see the lifeboat Chloris.

  She was clearly visible. But there was nothing else visible around her.

  He opened eyes; still, over there in the indefinite space of the Roland cell, she was visible. And a fascinated Roland was looking at her.

  Eyes open, Croyd thought at her: Where is Tannen?

  Her voice, audible to him (and, apparently, to Roland), was a thought callous. Down there, somewhere. Him I had to jettison. Not enough inertial shield.

  Croyd swung to Roland. “Can we find and rescue him?”

  Roland simply looked at Croyd.

  Did you leave him where I left both of you? he demanded of Chloris.

  Precisely, she affirmed.

  You have not found the Castel?

  I am on search course.

  Stay on search course. I will be back with you shortly.

  His eyes closed again, and he thought (image and personality): Tannen. I materialized before him, reaching upward for tree fruit, panting heavily, unaware of him as yet. He shot at Roland: “You see him. Can he eat and drink there?”

  Roland gestured, meaning: “It is you who direct the brain.”

  Croyd mentally grated at the brain: All fruit there is to be edible, with potable juices. Then his soft thought projection entered me, jolting me: Tannen, hold steady, don’t say anything, think your reply. I am entering into some control, but stay where you are for now. Do you read me?

  I turned as though I were facing him—seeing, of course, only land and seascape. I won’t waste time muttering that I knew you would. Croyd, this is coming directly into my mind. Are you recovering your powers?

  No, there is another angle. Stay put. By a certain method l am opening a steady line of one-way communication with you, so that you will be witnessing all that l experience. You can eat or drink whatever you wish.

  Good. I eat and l drink—and I stay attentive. Can you quickly fill me with nearly two days of lost background?

  Hold tight; here it comes: the short form . . .

  Less than a minute later I had the subjective gist of all that had happened to him since yesterday when he had gone negative and vanished, together with enough symbolic footnoting to give me the intellective continuity. When it was done, I ventured: Understood, I think. Later, when you have leisure, will you fill me full?

  If we have leisure—indeed, if we have later. At least you can follow me intimately from here on in.

  That is indeed a Blessed Be He.

  Tannen, have you arrived at a synthesis about Djeel and Hanoku?

  Is there a point?

  Conceivably you will need to use it. Just conceivably.

  Because of Chloris?

  Yes.

  Well, I have one.

  Croyd’s face and voice became more passionally involved, in my vivid mind view, than at any time in my long experience of him. Are you . . . sure you have a synthesis?

  I studied him. I am sure. But I sought and found it mainly because to me it was important. To you it is also important?

  To me it is almost, you should forgive the redundancy, critically crucial.

  I nodded once. Then you should relax. I have a synthesis.

  Visibly Croyd relaxed, indeed sagged; and then he tautened, grinning hard. Good. Don’t bank on the use— but don’t forget the synthesis. Out, old friend.

  Out, Croyd. Cheers.

  I had no concept, then, that he was ambivalent about my synthesis.

  Another subjective shift; Croyd was becoming fluid at this, it was like moving his eyes; room walls dissolved, all was metaspace nothing, he was floating in it—no, effortlessly swimming submerged in it; and full center in
his visual field swam Chloris; he was following her, aft and slightly to port at an apparent distance of ten Chloris lengths. Before hailing, he swam past and around in front of her, although the subjective effect was as though he were manipulating Chloris; and he stabilized himself noses-on with her, half a Chloris length ahead of her, so that she could concentrate on him with just her central I-rays while all her others kept sweeping metaspace in search of the Castel Jaloux. From here she resembled a bows-on Cyclopean fish. She looked petulant, although of course her mood was not petulant; rather she was intently driving herself at peak capacity, and the “expression” was built into the immobility of her metaloid structure.

  They had already reentered communication, now in calm quiet conversation as though they were a gentleman and a lady seated just tête-à-tête in a salon. He told her, “I have Tannen stabilized; I am making some control progress in the fissure. To be brief, the fissure and its environing lobes and apparently a broad multilobed exterior surface of the metagalaxy are a brain controlled by a mind. I am not that controlling mind, I am only for the moment in partial control, I am not at liberty to say more. When you have completed your present mission, return as swiftly as possible. If we lose contact, and if still you can maneuver, touch down anywhere and keep sensors open. If I do not contact you, you are on your own. I do not know how to orient you to my position.” “Acknowledged.”

  “No trace of the Castel?”

  “No, sir. I am persisting and sweeping.”

  “I know.” He did not ask her about fuel; she was equipped to burn metaspace. “How far out are you now?”

  “About two-point-five hundred million parsecs out beyond the lobe-end position where we lost the Castel.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since takeoff twenty hours ago.”

  “Then you have taken twenty hours to move outward merely twice the distance that they pulled you inward in five.”

  “That, sir, is syntax-faulty. First time in my experience of you.”

  “Slow time, Chloris!”

  “I know. Even now I have been able to build up velocity only to a lousy hundred million parsecs per hour.”