A Voyage To Dari

by Ian Wallace

With definition: “Croyd, I read you. I have sighted the Castel Jaloux. I am prepared to move in for critical action. I am prepared to do this alone, but I would do it better with you here. Can you assist? Over.”

  What a hell of a time for this! Rapidly he intertwisted the conflicting skeins of action and counteraction, his head almost totally clear now, the muffled fumings of frustrated bloodhound Dzendzel drifting in as faintly distracting background.

  And apparently the cosmic brain was helping him! Was it not surely this brain’s frontal cortex that had to be the source of the following unexpected idea? To the extent that our energies are concentrated on the problem of the Chloris with respect to Croyd, so much less can we be responsive to the disorganized commandings by our mind liege Duke Dzendzel.

  But that would be to leave Greta and Roland alone with the duke, at his uninterrupted mercy.

  But were they not at the duke’s mercy only to the extent that the duke retained total command over his brain?

  This new action would have the effect of blocking the duke from his surrogate brain. The instant the duke would realize that he had lost control of his brain, he would turn inward to concentrate on controlling Roland and Freya by his own resources.

  How potent were the duke’s own resources?

  Shoot crap!

  Croyd mind-barked: Augment the inhibitory muffler between me and the duke, remove the inhibitory muffler between me and yourselves. Respond to me. Concentrate all available resources on Chloris and her vicinity, deploying at my direction. ACTIVATE!

  All the space was metaspace, and floating a hundred meters to Croyd’s right was the port flank of Chloris, and floating five kilometers ahead was the vast irregular bulk of the Castel Jaloux. The distance between Chloris and Castel did not appear to be increasing or decreasing; but the Castel was tumbling slowly in metaspace, about one complete rotation in maybe five minutes, which signified an angular velocity approximating a hundred kilometers per hour. On crew bow and stern, this would be rough.

  Croyd mind-said quietly—and all the subsequent exchanges were quiet—“Croyd here, Chloris, on your port flank, moving in tight. Tell me where you want me.”

  “For the instant, Croyd, come aboard. I am more accustomed to you when you are in here.”

  “At your instrument panel?”

  “Deeper in. Where you can sense directly what I sense directly. But not in control, Leave me my mind, Croyd, if that is what it is.”

  “Good.” Pause, “I am centrally located now in your perceptual complex.”

  “Welcome aboard, sir.”

  “Thank you. I cannot salute your quarterdeck because I am on it.”

  “Sir, was that a joke?”

  “It was a friendly half-joke.”

  “Accepted, sir; I wish I had time to learn humor from you. Do you see the Castel?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “You have estimated the angular velocity of her tumbling?”

  “Affirmative.” They exchanged and reconciled estimates.

  “Sir, I have already matched outbound velocities with the Castel. I propose to move in on her tail, match angular velocity with hers, then drift tail-on into her prime repulsor pipe. I will hover there until by reonic intertransmission I am satisfied that the internal engine adjustments are ready for ignition. I will then ignite, amplifying my own repuls or as a match. Does it sound feasible?”

  Before replying, Croyd had to exert a great deal of emotional control upon himself in order to stay bland. Biting in the background was a phantom notion that there must be a better way; but the better way was not configuring itself, and he had to conclude that it was wishful thinking, Blandly he replied, “It does seem feasible. It may not work, but it is the best measure I can imagine.”

  “Sir, before you replied, you seemed to be wasting a great deal of energy on random subcortical activity centering in your thalamus. Would you mind explaining?” His mind voice, replying, was not quite perfectly bland. “I was reflecting that if you succeed, you die. And because I like you, my thalamus was involved, and some of my energy was randomized.”

  “You . . . like me?”

  They were drawing quite close to the Castel.

  “That’s right, Chloris.”

  Her reply was more dry than bland. “With respect to you, sir, if I had a thalamus, it would be involved; with respect to my own energy, I cannot at this time afford to randomize it.”

  “Thank you, Chloris. I shall remember you.”

  “Thank you, sir. At the last instant, if I succeed, I shall wish that I could have remembered you. And should I fail, I would depend upon you to guide me through the inevitable suicidal impulse into a sense of a new mission.”

  “This you can depend upon.”

  “Acknowledged. Croyd, are you now seeing precisely what I see?”

  “I think so. You have effectively matched angular velocities with the tail of the Castel; we seem to be hovering motionless bow-on with the central pipe in her five-repulsor tail assembly. What now?”

  “A problem, sir. I am not good at backing; my maximum perceptual field is three hundred and seventy degrees and weak at the rearward extremes; in short, I cannot see clearly to back into her. What can you do?”

  Pause, while the phantom sense of some better way nagged him. Then: “I will relocate into your tail, utilizing the fissure brain for direct perception. But from there I will have no reonics for communication with you, and I cannot any more project telepathy. Can you reach back and pick me up?”

  “I think so. Let us try it.”

  He directed the brain to locate him subjectively in the center of the Chloris tailpipe, looking outward. (Almost subliminally and fleetingly he was aware of background Dzendzel murmurings, and then he forgot this.) He spoke then. “Do you read me, Chloris?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Clearly?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Rotate axially at will, and I will report when our target comes into view.”

  For the best part of a minute there was no sense of motion, the uniform nothing view of metaspace giving him nothing to judge motion by. But then the left-hand arc of the Chloris tailspout began to include something; and he reported, “I am starting to see the Castel.”

  “Good; I am slowing rotation. Report.”

  “Horizontally you are swinging in on her center pipe, vertically you are well centered.”

  “I am halting rotation. Report.”

  “You have swung seven degrees too far to your own starboard.”

  “Adjusting to port seven degrees. Report.”

  “Adjust one degree back starboard and two degrees downward, then back in slowly.”

  “Adjusted, backing. Keep reporting.”

  “You are on target, but slow it down.” The great maw of the Castel's central repulsor tube yawned to swallow him.

  “Done. Report.”

  “Raise your tail half a degree and come on back at ten centimeters per second.”

  “In progress. Report.”

  The tube mouth closed upon him; there was darkness; just prior to darkness, swiftly he used the brain’s hind vision to assure himself that Chloris would not even bump the tube edges. He snapped, “Cut power and drift—this tube is thirty meters deep.”

  Prolonged silence. Abruptly Chloris jet-braked. Then: “I am motionless relative to the tube. How far do I sit from ignition locus?”

  “I would guess, about three meters.”

  “Too distant. I must come in a little deeper, but I must not crush my own tube end. Is your judgment accurate?”

  “Let me try the brain.” His relationship with the fissure brain was much too new for him to understand its resources; and he felt about for intuition much as he would have done in his own brain. Presently a semiconviction came, and he ventured, “I have a sense that you could safely manage another two hundred and eighty centimeters.”

  “This is smaller than my perfect-control resolution power, but I will try. I am acc
elerating backward at a thousandth of a G for five seconds. I have cut power. I am braking. This is close, Croyd.”

  “I know.”

  Most prolonged silence.

  A tiny click, a barely noticeable jar.

  Silence.

  Chloris, tautly: “One of us misjudged by a centimeter. Please finger my tube edges and report.”

  Croyd ran a psychic finger all around the rim of the tube that he mentally lay in. He reported, “There is no more than a one-millimeter inward annealing of the tube edge for no more than thirty degrees of arc. I would say that your matchfire ability is unimpaired.”

  “Good.” The inward voice had returned considerably toward the bland. “I have now to establish reonic communication with the Castel engine adjustments to be sure that she is ready for matchfire. Croyd, I suggest that you return into my perceptual center.”

  “Why?”

  Pause. Then: “Back there you will be double-incinerated by my fire and by her answering fire.”

  “In your perceptual center, Chloris, I will be incinerated along with you by her answering fire. And the delay from your tail to your nose will not be appreciable.”

  “Agreed. But in my tail, even if we fail and she does not offer answering fire, you will get my matchfire.”

  “Only mentally, Chloris. Remember that: I get it only mentally; you get it physically.”

  Pause. Then: “While we talk, I am establishing contact and getting sluggishly favorable results. Meanwhile, when you get it mentally, will it be fully subjective?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Involving your thalamus?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Painful, eh?”

  “Probably. In more ways than one.”

  “Come up into me forward here, Croyd. I need you here, and there is no sense in having you incinerated by as unanswered blow from my tail.”

  Seeing the rationale, Croyd instantly moved forward to her perceptual center, informing her, “I am in here.” “Good. How do you perceive that I am doing?”

  “Very well; the Castel engine automatics are responding favorably. But, Chloris . . . ”

  “Croyd?”

  Still he was nagged by a dark sense that there must be a better way, some method that his mind should have found. He temporized: “For a last time, I suggest that you first try to find and awaken Admiral Gorsky or Captain Czerny or Lieutenant Hanoku.”

  Edgy: “I thought I had mentioned, in doing so, we might well excite the apparitions which invaded the ship in the first place.”

  “True. But . . .”

  A psychic fist hit his mental forehead. “Chloris! For the love of any god or goddess, suspend operations until I have checked out something! I think I know how to beat this.”

  “Croyd, we are almost ready for matchfire; time is critical! Why should we delay now?”.

  “Chloris, no time to explain—I order you to hold! Hold, do you hear me? Hold! I will be back.”

  Turning all his attention to another quarter of the brain, abandoning Chloris for the instant, he demanded: Was it this brain that activated the apparitions?

  Affirmative.

  And sped the Castel outward?

  Can we now deactivate the apparitions, arouse the crew, and inspeed the Castel?

  Affirmative.

  Then DO IT!

  He felt it done.

  Gratefully he returned to Chloris, arriving with profound soul shock into a radiant bee cluster of outwardly spreading atoms that had been Chloris before evidently ignoring his order she had matchfired and successfully ignited the disintegrative repulsors of the Castel Jaloux.

  Shivering, he came into self-realization in the ambiguous room that was Roland’s.

  He sat there on something, gradually quieting.

  A strong hand closed on his shoulder. A strong young voice asserted, “You can come back now.”

  He sat, bleakly experiencing the hand gripping his shoulder.

  He laid a hand on Roland’s hard hand. Slowly he arose.

  The nothingness of the Roland room expanded into the more spatial nothingness of the Dzendzel room.

  Before him was the Dzendzel throne. Freya sat on this throne, with the inert body of Dzendzel lying supine across her knees; and the eyes of the madonna in this pietà gazed at Croyd.

  But then, over to one side of this room, a stick ship materialized, and out of it poured monsters who deployed themselves threateningly about the throne; and in the main hatch Pan appeared flaming, calling, “HOLD, DZENDZEL! TELL ME WHERE CROYD IS!”

  And then there was ultimate silence.

  In the midst of which, the eyes of Pan and Croyd met. And lingered together. Then the eyes of Pan moved throneward, considering the significance of inert Dzendzel lying supine across the knees of Freya.

  The significance to Pan. The totally ironical significance to Pan.

  Phase Seven - INTERPERSONAL CODA

  Day 8 et seq.

  The Leibnitz doctrine of the identity of indiscernibles was intended to dramatize a logical quandary: if no observer, no matter how thorough, can distinguish one entity from another entity, is there any good reason to insist that they are not the same entity?

  This doctrine has been raped in recent centuries by probability physics. And I confess its utility, in the abstract statistical work which is technologically the most practical. But in the final confrontation, the doctrine misses a crucial ontological point:

  If each of the objectively indiscernible entities is a subjectively experiencing reality—a living org—can any observer authentically assert their identity or difference without first having dwelt in the moccasins of both?

  —Nike Pan, Plato and the Stars (2318)

  (Nike Pan was an earlier philosopher whose name Pan Sagittarius adopted for reasons of long-range admiration.)

  ONCE MORE LADEN WITH US, the Castel Jaloux drove for the metagalactic barrier at the tip of the Djinn lobe; but on the third day after our mutual rescue between the perished hands of Chloris, and just prior to barrier breakage, there was time for a shipboard rite which had assumed in my mind an importance that in objective moments I tended to consider disproportionate.

  Croyd was deep in a long-range black brood; nevertheless, urged by me, he joined me in beginning personal preparations nearly an hour in advance. In my private quarters, we peeled, showered, and dried; then each of us began to darken himself with a synthetic whose skin-browning effect resembled that of Darian nada-nut juice.

  Midway through this browning, there was a discreet door knock; minimally draping myself, I caused the door to half-open, and I reached through to bring in with one hand our two costumes. Dropping them on a chair, I rejoined Croyd; in silence he did my back, then I did his; he donned his costume, I donned mine; we examined each other . . .

  . . . and we broke up. And my own laughter was all the freer because this was the first free laughter by Croyd since the disintegration of the lifeboat Chloris.

  But almost immediately his laughter shriveled; and later I would learn that it wasn’t only Chloris. For here was this wedding rite; and already—synthesis or no synthesis, and with or without a chastity vigil—for Croyd it was too late.

  We joined the assembled passengers and crew in the great balconied ballroom of the ship. The encircling balcony was thronged with crewmen and crewwomen, all who could be spared from stations (and that was half the crew at this time); the floor was packed with officers and petty officers and members of the Sol legations to Moudjinn and to Dari.

  All without exception were brown, seminude, wearing only lua-lua and shell beads. If all the lua-lua and most of the shells were synthetic, nobody cared; they were appropriate to a rite that mingled gaiety with solemnity, and their primitive innocence represented a toylike triumph of Western sophistication, having been turned out on one-day notice by the ship’s omnifabricators.

  Amid the free chatter there was a general attention trend toward the fifteen-meter open circle in the ballroo
m center—a circle centered by a small grass-thatched hut which at the moment was open all around but with rolled-up screens that could close it.

  Seated cross-legged on the floor of this hut was I, brown and lua-lua’d and corpulent; explicitly, my belly hung over the tie string of my lau-lua; I felt as mal à propos as a fat woman in a miniskirt. Standing behind me was Croyd, brown and lua-lua’d and lean. The scene shared the problem of every theater-in-the-round; it could not play front-on at all times to all spectators; wherever you sat, you discovered after you sat whether you would be viewing mostly front or back; side seats were fair compromises.

  There was first a great musical business with a couple of stringed instruments and some bongo drums; and twenty male and female dancers, hurriedly recruited and spot-rehearsed, did an inexpert but enthusiastic Dari hula all around the clearing (in, of course, eight-tenths gravity). This was the only part of the ceremony wherein it did not matter where you sat.

  Peering into the peripheral shadows, I could descry variously colored decapoda standing punctuative sentinel; and, most inconspicuously, Pan was there, always with Freya near.

  Now the dancers disappeared, and the music quieted (but continued); and Gorsky, surprisingly muscular in the deminude (her breasts were military solid), stood before me to announce the ceremony officiation by Captain Czerny. Then the Czech, so thin in his scant-kilted brownness that no shadow casting could be expected, intoned to the throng: “I am favored to announce the nuptials of Lieutenant Onu Hanoku, alias Prince Onu of the house of Hanoku, and Miss Gilligan Flynn, alias Princess Djeelian of the house of Faleen. If these principals continue to wish marriage, they are bidden to come forward.”

  Whereupon people parted asunder; and Hanoku and Djeel walked forward in a rhythmic walk that was a kind of conservative hula, Djeel’s right hand delicately placed on the sinewy brown left forearm of Hanoku.

  They were the only people in the ballroom whose brown was not artificial; even the blacks and greens and blues and yellows and reds had made stabs at turning brown, but these two were for real. Djeel was tawny, Hanoku was burnt umber, they were exquisitely beautiful; and in her left hand the bride carefully carried a small opaque scarlet rhyton.