"Codrus, alas, never grew conscious of her hidden domination. In fact, Codrus even failed to comprehend that Sappho actually welcomed the Apocalypse.” Timmy scowled. “As a specialist, Codrus was brilliant, but he carried unto death a naïveté that was, in many ways, truly astonishing.
"And then there was Theophrastus. Generally, our scientific maestro applied his formidable logic to support Sappho's ideas, although he was most careful to maintain an air of political neutrality. In fact, he often publicly disputed her suggestions. But actually, Theophrastus was unswervingly loyal to her.
"There was the Star-Edge effort. One of Theophrastus's tways, using the name Teddy Carrera, had successfully infiltrated and took control of that grand project. Ostensibly, the plan was to gather as many Paratwa as possible and retreat into space—escape the Apocalypse by colonizing another world."
A brittle laugh filled the tiny chamber. “Colonizing another world! Ahh, what secret delight Sappho must have taken from that, from knowing that Aristotle, Codrus, and perhaps a thousand other Paratwa had been inspired to believe in this great ideal! We would escape the Earth's decimation. We would create a culture, a civilization, based on Paratwa rule. The binaries would, at long last, be free of humanity's persecution."
Timmy shook his head. “It was a fantasy, of course, but a potent one; a fantasy that Sappho was able to use to rally the breeds, and eventually bind many of them into the service of the Royal Caste. Sappho understood the nature of such a deep desire, a secret dream shared by many of the Paratwa. She understood how to cultivate that dream, how to build it into a thing capable of generating fanatic loyalty."
Empedocles permitted genuine curiosity to emerge from both faces. “The Star-Edge project was a sham?"
"From the very beginning. There was never any intention of colonizing other planets.” Timmy grinned and patted the Susan/tway's arm. “But I race ahead of myself here. This is not proper conduct for a teacher."
"Not proper,” Empedocles murmured, thoroughly intrigued by the disclosure.
"As I stated, it was Sappho's secret lust for the coming Apocalypse that initially aroused the suspicions of Aristotle. He could make no sense out of this. Why did she want the world destroyed, humanity annihilated? The Ash Ock collectively recognized that, in most situations, it was preferable to conquer rather than destroy. Yet Sappho's hidden agenda ran counter to this inherent goal. While her public persona sought ways to prevent the Apocalypse, she secretly plotted to guarantee its occurrence.
"Aristotle's growing suspicions in this area led him to examine other assumptions. One of these involved the birth order of the Ash Ock.
"As you know, the Sphere of the Royal Caste indicates that Codrus was the firstborn, followed by Aristotle, Sappho, Theophrastus and, much later, yourself. The accepted truth was that we four seniors—” he smiled “—were born nearly simultaneously, with less than a week separating us in age. As children, we all remembered one another quite clearly. Our tways played and romped together within the confines of Thi Maloca. But whenever Aristotle utilized his iconic memory to recall his earliest days, he had the feeling that Sappho was present before any of the others.
"One day, Aristotle casually mentioned this novelty to Codrus. And somewhat to Aristotle's surprise, Codrus, too, reflected that his own oldest and deepest iconic memories involved Sappho.
"Aristotle came to the conclusion that the birth order was false. A lie had been told and retold until even our basic iconic awarenesses accepted its verity. In truth, Sappho must have been the firstborn. She had disguised this fact for the same reason that she had disguised her true role within the Ash Ock."
Timmy paused, raised his eyebrows. Empedocles knew that the old remnant was waiting for his “student” to provide a conclusion. Empedocles responded through his Gillian/tway, “It would seem as if Sappho sought always to camouflage herself undercover of the group mind. She practiced invisible politics—inducing actions that could not be traced back to her doorstep."
"Very good. Yes, Sappho indeed thrived on such subterfuge. In the beginning, Aristotle assumed that her ‘invisible politics’ was merely an elegant means of controlling the Royal Caste. But later he came to understand that her deceptive ways were also an integral part of a most peculiar psychological makeup.
"At any rate, now more curious than ever to uncover Sappho's secrets, Aristotle began to study her every action, follow her every move. She possessed numerous odd behavior patterns, and one of the most curious of these involved her frequent treks to Brazilian coastal cities. During most of her travels, the plenary tway traveled alone, but when a journey was to be made to one of these Brazilian seaports, the partial always accompanied her."
"Plenary tway?” asked Empedocles. “Partial?"
"Ahh, yes. Sappho's configuration. Again, I race ahead of myself. Please forgive me.
"There had been a serious genetic mishap during Sappho's lab gestation—at least that was the accepted story, which by this time, Aristotle regarded with a great deal of skepticism. Be that as it may, one of Sappho's tways possessed severe physiological defects.
"Her halves could not have been more different. The tway known as the plenary was a beautiful and seductive woman, a spellbinding creature, a witch able to attract men the way parched soil sucks in rainwater. In stark contrast, her other tway, referred to as the partial, never grew beyond the size of a small child. The partial was born without arms and legs. She was cursed with neurosynaptic malformations, which, when she was awake, caused almost constant facial neuralgia. The severity of these malformations made it impossible to attach even the most basic prosthetic devices."
Empedocles recalled the armless, legless child he had come across during early explorations of the underwater vessel.
"In our younger years,” continued Timmy, “in Thi Maloca, the plenary used to transport the partial around in a simple electric carriage. Later, the partial was placed in a semipermanent gyropros. This fully robotic container, as well as automatically handling the partial's bodily functions, permitted a limited means of self-transport. The partial eventually learned to control basic gyropros movements via simple auditory commands."
"The partial was ... intelligent?” asked Empedocles, realizing that his question was imprecise even as he uttered it. But Timmy did not challenge his vagueness.
"Oh, yes, the partial was intelligent ... or at least she appeared to be. Even with her crippling affliction, she was able to develop a small vocabulary of word-sounds to direct gyropros movements—no small achievement, considering the severity of her handicaps.
"Now, you must understand that by this time, Aristotle was challenging all of his previous beliefs. He was restructuring his entire conceptualization of Sappho, and doing so in a manner based strictly upon observation. He no longer accepted the accuracy of even his own memory. All data were recorded and cross-checked, then either verified or eliminated. Aristotle was convinced that such a conservative method was the only way he could learn the hidden truths of the Ash Ock.
"But this method, although accurate, was not providing him with a great deal of information. And although he had developed a theory about Sappho's crippled partial, there seemed no safe way of testing his hypothesis. His frustrations mounted. Finally, he concluded that he had to begin taking serious risks if he was to expand his database. He concocted a plan.
"One day, when Sappho's plenary tway had departed—leaving the partial behind—Aristotle paid a visit to Sappho's current residence. The tways were both living in a private European scraper along the old border of Yugo/Hungary. Sappho occupied a ninety-first-floor suite. The scraper was one of those ultraexpensive, ultrasecret hotels, where the entire staff, even the lowliest of servants, were prevented from transferring data to the outside world. At the end of each shift, the workers were thoroughly searched, scanned, and administered cribloc injections to erase all short-term memories. Each day, the entire operating staff had to be given a refresher course, relearn such forgotten de
tails as the layout of the hotel and the names of the guests.
"The Royal Caste had access to one another, of course, so Aristotle knew Sappho's home arrangements. He arrived at the hotel with the knowledge that only the partial would be there. Utilizing a needbreeder, his own cribloc injections, and some careful bribes, Aristotle managed to have the partial's breakfast tainted with an untraceable soporific. And so Jalka, tway of Aristotle, in servant's regalia, penetrated hotel security and entered Sappho's suite.
"The partial, having been fed her drugged breakfast by the gyropros, was unconscious.” Timmy again closed his natural eye. “I remember it clearly. Feeding tubes were still attached to the partial's tiny mouth, spittle dripped from her chin. And the gyropros’ eclectics had become trapped in a logic loop, repeating the same process, over and over. The machine's arms would withdraw the tubes from her mouth, wash her face, reinsert the tubes, determine that she was not swallowing, then again withdraw the tubes. Obviously, there had been a severe failure in the eclectics’ programming—"
"What did Aristotle learn?” prodded Empedocles.
"Learn ... oh, yes. First, Aristotle disabled the eclectics and locked down its sensors. Then he integrated his own scan template—complete with a false set of customized spatiotemp memories—into the suite's internal security net. He had thought of all possible ways that his clandestine activities might be detected, and he had taken appropriate precautions. He could conceive of only one possible means for Sappho to find out about his secret visit."
"Through the tway herself,” concluded Empedocles.
"Precisely. The plenary, who was currently thousands of miles away, should have been wondering why her handicapped partial had fallen asleep in the middle of breakfast—an odd occurrence, at best. And if Aristotle's theory regarding the partial was correct, then even that possibility would pose no threat to his safety.
"And so the examination of Sappho's partial took place. In less than twenty minutes, Aristotle had learned that his theory was even more correct than he could have imagined. The partial—this armless and legless thing that lived the majority of its existence strapped into the gyropros—was not really alive, at least not in the fullest Ash Ock sense of the word.
"The partial's true internal makeup was disguised by a self-generated skin screen. But beneath the protective field, the partial was fabricated out of biochips—sophisticated nanocellular components—and of a type totally unfamiliar to Aristotle. These biochip components mimicked standard human organ configurations, with one notable exception. Inside the partial's vaginal canal was an interface organ with nodal connectors.” Empedocles nodded both heads, remembering that the tiny child he had come across had been vaginally attached to a computer terminal.
"Aristotle concluded that the partial was certainly no tway. He realized that she was, in fact, nothing more than a complex android, designed to react appropriately to the plenary's body patterns, to provide the illusion that she was one half of a Paratwa, even down to the detail of appearing to be able to split from the plenary, to function—in her limited manner—as an independent tway.
"Aristotle had the foresight to bring with him a variety of surveillance devices, and upon learning that the partial was an android, he decided to take the added risk of implanting holotronic recorders beneath its flesh. These recorders were the least detectable type of scanner available, passive in the extreme. Unfortunately, this fact also dictated their primary limitation, namely that accessing their accumulated information would necessitate their removal from the partial at a later date. Still, Aristotle deemed the recorders the only reasonably safe means of secretly monitoring the partial's immediate aural/visual arena. Perhaps at some later time, he could extricate the recorders and gain a wealth of new information."
Timmy shook his head. “Aristotle safely exited the suite before the soporific wore off, but as you might well imagine, he was now more mystified than ever. Answering one question had created numerous new ones. Why had Sappho created a ‘fake’ half? If this partial was not Sappho's real tway, then who was? Was the plenary even a Paratwa—could Sappho be merely human? Who had designed and created the partial? Where had such sophisticated and unknown nanocellular components come from? What was the purpose of that interface organ in her vaginal canal?
"The more he learned, the more utterly bizarre the reality of the Royal Caste began to appear. Neither Aristotle nor his tways were capable of suffering true paranoia, but after the visit to the partial, his suspicions had certainly reached an apex.
"Concurrently, Aristotle also had begun to investigate the backgrounds of Thi Maloca's Ash Ock scientists—the so-called creators of the Royal Caste. This quickly bloomed into yet another great mystery. Aristotle's secret inquiries and data traces revealed that all of Thi Maloca's scientific contingent had fake histories. The creators had been recruited from all over the globe, yet data roadblocks existed wherever Aristotle attempted to research their immediate genealogies. Ultimately frustrated, he was forced to the conclusion that the Ash Ock scientists had come out of nowhere. They had no past.
"It was at this point in time when Aristotle decided he needed to safeguard his growing tapestry of strange facts. He had penetrated the fledgling E-Tech archival network, which was being prepared by agglomerating masses of data from the world's computer systems. Within the archives, Aristotle discovered a very powerful rescue program, called Freebird. Using it as a prototype, he fashioned his own particular model. His Freebird, secretly hidden within the archives, would become a repository for all the data he was compiling on Sappho and the Royal Caste. If something should happen to Aristotle...” Timmy hesitated, stared solemnly at the floor.
"Go on,” urged Empedocles, hoping to refocus him before another bout of melancholia produced silence.
Timmy looked up, startled. “Where was I?"
Empedocles forced patience. “You were discussing Freebird."
"Ahh, yes. Aristotle transferred every new scrap of information he discovered into Freebird's memory. Should Sappho discover his secret investigations and attempt to take ultimate sanctions against him, Aristotle could threaten to open Freebird and turn its information over to E-Tech. Freebird was intended to be his ace in the hole. In the event that things went wrong, the program might serve to rescue Aristotle from disaster.
"His obvious next step was to investigate Sappho's plenary tway. She had to hold the keys to this entire enigma. Aristotle concluded that he had to learn more about her clandestine trips to these various Brazilian coastal cities.
"And so Aristotle waited until the next occasion when both tways journeyed together to South America. After Sappho's tways returned and the plenary had once again departed on other business—leaving the partial alone at the European hotel—Aristotle sprang into action.
"Another complex sequence of events ... another soporific injected into the partial's food ... and tway Jalka again entered Sappho's suite. The recorders, implanted months earlier, were successfully removed from the unconscious android.
"Aristotle journeyed back to his own current operational base, in Cape Town, South Africa. And it was there, in the sheltered privacy of his villa, where he accessed the implants’ aural/visual data and uncovered the truth of the Paratwa."
Through the ears of Empedocles, Gillian listened, at first fascinated by this story that transcended all that he had heretofore known or suspected. But as Aristotle's tale continued, he found himself wishing for a sort of oblivion, a deevolution of data, a way to reduce this expanding sphere of cognition. He wanted to be able to somehow revert, fall backward in time, be carried on a temporal stream toward a simplicity of form and function. He wanted to blot all new knowledge from consciousness.
Had he been in control of his body, he suspected that he would have gone looking for another fight. Full-body flush: a cathartic release of psychic turmoil. But being an amalgam offered no such opportunity. There was no escape.
Susan perceived Gillian's torment though she could
not understand the reason for it. To her, Timmy's story was utterly intriguing. What's wrong?
I'm afraid, he responded calmly, knowing that he had to maintain a degree of composure to prevent Empedocles from sensing his discomfort.
Afraid of what?
I don't know.
Timmy slipped into his best instructor's post: backbone straight, chin tilted back, eyes pinched slightly closed as if trying to gaze upon vistas far beyond the cramped odorous walls of the chamber. Empedocles recalled that such a posture had usually preceded Aristotle's drier lectures.
"There are five basic known forces of nature,” Timmy began. “Gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear, the weak nuclear, and the T-psionic.
"It is this fifth force, the T-psionic, which accounts for the phenomenon of the binary interlink, the ability of a Paratwa's tways to remain telepathically linked no matter what distance might separate them. The T-psionic is the newest of the five, not having been discovered until the middle of the twenty-first century, when the McQuade Unity was developed, permitting Paratwa to be bred. But even at the height of Earth science, in those years before the Apocalypse, there was never a clear and full understanding of the properties and parameters of the T-psionic force. However, it was suspected that within the complexity of life on Earth, the vast carpet of organic activity that was once the sine qua non of the planet—gaia, as it were—it was suspected that within this familiar sphere, the T-psionic remained an essentially weak force, reaching its full resonance only among the mind-linked Paratwa.
"In fact, many twenty-first century scientists believed that the T-psionic force actually occurred at varying intensities throughout the universe, just as gravitation, for example, varied according to the amount of mass present within a particular area of space. One theory suggested that the closer one came to the center of a galaxy, the greater the intensity of the T-psionic force. It was also believed—quite rightly, as it turned out—that the degree of T-psionic force existing within our own spatial arena, out here near the edge of the galaxy, remained at a particularly low level.
The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga) Page 28