The Morphodite

by M. A. Foster

  Inside, it was a small, cramped room with benches around the walls, and a counter along one wall backed by a fading mirror. It was early in the morning; predawn, and there was no tipsy night gaiety. The proprietor sat lumpishly on a stool and stared off into nothing. The room was crowded, but curiously empty in feeling. As if the people were there, but not in spirit. They filled the benches, their bundles piled beside them, waiting for the local beamer that was always late. Rael looked briefly at them, and then into the fading mirror, at the unrecognizable stranger who was the only one standing in the room, who looked back at him with an alien face whose set conveyed no meaning to him whatsoever. He caught the weak attention of the counterman and ordered a mug of hagdrupe, which was presently passed across the counter, reeking with the acrid flavor of the boiled potion. Rich in an alkaloid similar to caffeine, hagdrupe served the settlers of Oerlikon in place of coffee, which they had left behind. This was vastly overboiled and rancid, but he sipped at it anyway, passing one of the coins from his meager store across the counter.

  Rael found the place subtly disturbing, familiar. Not that he had been in one before; not as Tiresio Rael. Perhaps as someone else who had been, once. He blinked. He could not remember Jedily; but the association set him to reflecting. He knew this world well, despite his loss of the other life which he had been, so they had told him. It felt familiar, all the sad nothingness of it, the sour flavor of the arguments the lifers* used to bolster their endless justifications to the poor sloggers*. He fit into it perfectly, and he did not know why in any direct sense. The logical explanation was that Jedily was familiar with this sort of life, and that there were ingrained habits even The Mask Factory could not erase, did not know of. Rael knew of one he had saved, hidden carefully from them, although it was covered openly in the notes he had left Pternam. Small chance, there.

  * The slang terms for the two main classes of Lisak society.

  What did Rael know? Rael’s system of computation was paradoxical, like all good science, ambiguous, fleeting. He thought, Science and Art are exactly alike in that. Ambiguity, a shimmering mirage. It considered, on the one hand, that human faces were unique to a terrifying degree, even when broken down into component parts, and that a large section of the brain was devoted solely to the recognition of those unique patterns. It considered, equally, that music shared the same sort of uniqueness; that what the uninitiated saw as a single persona was in reality a highly-organized group of disparate personalities gathered under the one roof of the body. And that whole societies acted as these complex entities, and that certain highly , specialized statistical methods led one, by a crooked trail, into understanding, which integrated Time into the picture, a continuum that one could follow one’s way through, with discipline and will.

  He looked at the figure in the mirror: a thin, saturnine person, some slogger down on his luck, perhaps, insignificant, unworthy of notice. He looked… resigned, used to it by now. Oerlikon was the place where the Changeless gained power, and they had locked it into place for all time. To one tied within that perception, there was no hope, no possibility of change. But Rael had seen how it could be done within the holistic pattern his formulae had revealed, and he had seen much more there than he had told Pternam. Pternam! They had done something to him… not once, but many times. There had been pain and fear, later fading but never completely gone. They could always bring it back, if they wished. And as they had perceived a pattern emerging, so it had suited them to see that Rael could at least convince some that the incredible idea might be true. But they of course did not believe it. He saw that, understood it from the beginning; that made him all the more determined to make it real, make it work. And work it would.

  It was exactly as Pternam had told the revolutionaries. That much. But there was more to it. Once he did it, the world would change, obeying its own laws about the speed of the reaction, but not as any of them imagined it. No. In the new alignment, there would be no Pternams, and the Heraclitan Society could not exist, would fade and be a curious note in the histories, if any were written. Those in the future, they would look back in astonishment, in gaping, slack-jawed wonder. And in this set of the world, Rael felt the pressure: he was not supposed to be. The orientation of a world that set a premium on Changelessness did not include one who could stand partly outside it, outside the mythos, and reset the balance point of the reflected pyramid so that it assumed a new set, a set in which Rael, or rather what he would become, would live openly, buried. Rael would make the act that would begin the Change, but not for Pternam or the revolutionaries, but to create a Set of World in which he could exist It would be, of course, as Damistofia. It was fitting, he thought, for somehow he felt the Jedily had been pushed to the edge as well, in her own time, without knowing why, pushed to the edge and beyond, and would return to peace in a world he would make for one who would come.

  Now he allowed the composition of the group in the nasty little godown to seep onto him, carefully, so that they were not aware of his attention. He heard fragments of small talk, small sounds of half-awake people trying to arrange themselves comfortably. He let his eyes wander, seeing what they would, careful not to allow the lingering of attention, anything which might alert some watcher who might be spotted in this group. The owner was harassed and overworked. To him the faces that pressed upon him daily were just papers in the wind, faded petals on a rain-wet branch; a handful of traveling reps of the trade guilds, or contact men for the small factories that were the mainstay of small suburbs like this. A couple of farmers from back in the country, scared of bosels by night and city sharpers by day, but on the way to Marula no less, where they expected to be cheated; one recognizable Proctor, one who was tasked with uncovering Change and arresting it. This one was old and tired and waiting for his pension after an uneventful lifetime of snooping and offering Pollyanna-pap advice, usually unsolicited, which never worked for those who needed it most. The Proctor was not even aware of him, and the rest were totally uninterested. He had picked a good group, bound for the distant City, one they hated and feared, Marula, vast, sprawling, trashy, fecund Marula, the City-as-Beast in the warmth of the southern province of Sertse Solntsa.

  Rael relaxed into the disciplines of his craft, and began to read the group identity; this one was weak, but it was there for the initiate to understand: a minimum of awareness and coherence. As he read the group, he felt a sudden constriction, a knotting, a small awakening. He visualized it as an abstract plane surface with random undulating waves of low amplitude, which developed a bunching: he followed it, and understood that the Beamer was coming. They had heard it before they were consciously aware they had heard anything. He levered himself out of this state and perceived normally: he saw someone get up and stretch, while others began stirring, although it would be some time yet before time came to board.

  They were rising, now, one by one, moving slowly, joints stiffened from inactivity. One seemed to be having considerable difficulty with an unwieldy bundle which resisted all efforts to gather it for lifting. He looked closer, something catching his attention. Yes. Under the shapeless plain garments of a wandering agricultural worker, he thought he could recognize a girl or woman. She turned so her face showed: Rael saw that she was not particularly attractive, and no one seemed to pay her any attention at all—indeed, they seemed to avoid her. Could he contact her? He took a quick moment to read, and saw that he could, but that it would lower his position, such as it was. What was she? With her plain looks, she certainly was not one of the inhabitants of one of the happy-houses. He made as if to leave the room, and as if on an impulse, turned back and approached the girl, and asked, “You need help with that bundle?”

  For a flicker of an instant, she registered fear, looking back to him, but this faded, and after a moment, she said, “Yes. Please; it was fine until I set it down.”

  Rael bent and grasped the bundle, and after a few tries, found it to be indeed uncooperative. He sat back on his haunches and said, “It
doesn’t work so well for me, either; what’s in here?”

  The girl continued to struggle with the bundle, and said, without looking up, “Cured fleischbaum pod.”

  He understood better why the rest ignored her. The fleischbaum, a scraggly, ragged tree, produced a pod whose fibers, properly cured, were of the flavor and protein content of meat. The problem was that the trees would not grow close to one another, which made orchards and plantations impossible, and the gathering was done from wild trees scattered through the wild. And for reasons which Rael did not completely understand, this was considered the lowest occupation one could take. He said, neutrally and as politely as he could, “You’re a gatherer.”

  “Yes.”

  He said, “By the feel of it, it may take two to manage this bundle; it’s shifted inside badly. Did you carry it here alone?” She brushed a strand of curly, mouse-brown hair out of her face, now shiny with sweat. “Yes. For the markets. In Marulupol.” Gatherers were the most solitary and taciturn of people, people of the open, the empty places, the stony wildernesses, people who heard their own thoughts in the silences, and who often had to run for their lives: from bosels, and from occasional bands of more integrated people who delighted in harassing solitaries, knowing there could be no retribution when none but the victim knew of the crime. Rael looked at her again. She was not a beauty, but there was no ugliness on her face. He could read it. Fear and despair and loneliness she had known, but not envy, impatience, rage, frustration, the marks of societal people.

  He got a grip on the bundle at last, and lifted it. It was surprisingly heavy, and he felt more respect for the girl for managing to carry it alone; it was a load that would have taxed a strong man, yet somehow she had managed alone. He said, “I’ve got it, but it won’t stay; it’ll take both of us.”

  She picked up her end. “I had it packed just so—it wasn’t hard. Now if we stop to retie it, I’ll miss the beamer… Are you certain you won’t feel shame associating with a gatherer?”

  “Will it disturb you to associate with a stranger?”

  “What are you, that you would call yourself stranger?”

  “I am Tiresio. Let us say that things have changed somewhat for me. Fortune, as it were. However it is, I now find myself looking for a new life of sorts, and in a land where things remain as they were, this can be difficult.”

  Now she smiled a little. As if she understood. Yes. Rael was someone who had been through Correction. Attitude Adjustment. He saw her in the light coming in from the street, seeing an open face free of guile or plot. Well-formed, though plain. She said, “And so you would take up with a gatherer, or a lonely woman? No matter—I need the help, so it would seem. Have a care, though: I’m an egg-stealer, too, and I’ve grappled bosels more than once and come away alive, and they don’t volunteer for it.”

  Now that she was standing, he could see more of her shape and configuration; she was shorter than he, stocky and sturdy. He noticed that she moved well, confidently, with balance and no small amount of grace. He read truth in her words. She was extraordinarily self-possessed. She was exactly what she said she was. He said, “Very well, that is fair to say. And you know me as Tiresio. How are you called?”

  She half turned away from him, shyly. “Meliosme.”

  Still grappling with the load, Rael made an artificially polite face. “Meliosme. May I accompany you to Marula?”

  She gave him a wry smile, saying, “If you will help me get this thing to the fleischbaum bazaar, I will not complain, nor will I eat stinkhorns in front of you. But there remains a thing—which is what must I do. You can see that I can pay little or nothing, and…”

  “I will be grateful for the company. I know no one now. Until Marula; I have affairs there.”

  “You could have one prettier, no doubt, if for hire, from the happy-house.”

  “Perhaps.” Here he raised one index finger dramatically. “True. But they will not ride the beamer to Marula. Moreover I have little enough in the way of money… And last, you are by no means homely or fearsome, or one to be called a bagger.”*

  * Slang. Homely women were called “baggers” by the men, allegedly on the premise that they were so ugly they would have to put a bag over their head in order to have a liaison with someone. Even more extreme were the so-called two-baggers, in which cases the man would also put a bag over his head, in case hers came off.

  “Gallant as well! And with the words as well. Are you a fugitive?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So. Very well, then. But few seek such as I, and I’ll sully your reputation, such as it is. Others may sneer. It’s said that when a slogger associates with a gatherer, it’s the gatherer who’s in bad company, for who would stoop so low…”

  “I accept. Let’s go.”

  They were the last of the group to leave the dim little godown. The proprietor remained behind the bar, glum and absorbed in his own concerns, and ignored them and the irregular bundle they were struggling with. Outside, a weary daylight was seeping into the adyts of the world, like a winter sunrise through frosted glass, although winter was by no means near yet.

  The beamer was still moving along its elevated track, very slowly, but the rest of the people were gathering at locations which they suspected from long practice would be where the doors were when the machine stopped. Unlike the express models which ran at high speeds out on the plains of Crule, the locals made no rhythmic, driving sounds evocative of motion and power but emitted noises of mechanical, electrical and pneumatic protest: the electric motors hummed and throbbed irregularly and joints squealed with friction; likewise, the air brakes emitted vulgar flatulent moans, ventings and hisses. With a last moan, the beamer stopped, and the passengers began crowding at the doors.

  Meliosme said, “No need to hurry; we won’t get a seat with a sack full of fleischbaum with us, anyway.”

  “The baggage section, then?”

  “Where else? But I accept it with resignation—at least I don’t have to endure the lifers up in the fine compartments, or the sloggers on the benches with their envy. No—it’s all just plain stuff back with the tramps and the thieves. All fools together. Never worry—they won’t bother us. What I am can’t be helped and you don’t seem to have anything worth stealing… or else you’re hiding well. Either way, you’re not worth a risk. We’ll have an easy bit of it.”

  Rael cast Meliosme a wintry glance from his end of the sack. “You inspire one to excellence with your compliments.”

  “I mean, that you should trust me, for this seems new to you. There is something… out of place with you.”

  Rael said, “I would not say why, but I am as confident in my own resources as you are in yours. Let not the aspect deceive you.”

  She smiled, like a child. “Oh, I am not. Otherwise I would not have let you come with me. What I do, out there; it makes one sensitive to the quick judgment of people. I mean that you cannot de-egg a bosel’s creche in the company of idle boasters; that kind of stuff shortens lives. You, now: I think you could do it, but you never have. You don’t move like one who has done a sprightly step with a bosel buck, or better yet a great mother bosel in oestrus, but you are wary—a good thing to be. So come along now; never fear—I will not betray your direness, which hangs about you like a thundercloud. So long as it does not involve me.”

  Rael did not have to look. This was not his quarry. He said, “It does not” And then they were boarding, wrestling the sack through a door which had seemed big enough, but at the crucial moment wasn’t And after they had negotiated that problem, there were others to attend to, until at last they found an open spot no one else had claimed, and there set the sack down, and themselves leaning up against it from opposite sides. For the while, they said nothing, and presently they felt the jerky, erratic motions that signaled the movement of the beamer.

  Rael sat in silence beside Meliosme and reflected on how fortunate he had been to meet one such as her. For however much he knew about the pattern
of deed which he must do, it was in no way a revelation of the whole future to come. Meliosme had arrived by luck—pure aleatory hazard, a happening, a fortune; and by this hazard he had picked someone who was infinitely more real than those pallid phantoms moving about who thought they were people. And as an outcast type, herself, she would be acutely sensitive to the whims of the groups they passed through: a most excellent antenna tuned to the present, and an odd, intriguing mind as well. Now, for the first time since he had computed this course, since he’d seen this way, he felt like he could relax for a little. And he thought, as he relaxed, that he sincerely hoped that he could disengage from his cover, Meliosme, when things began in earnest.

  The beamliner started up again, and moved out onto the elevated trackage leading south along the edge of the hills to the next small town, somewhere out of sight. It rode roughly; the beams were uneven and aligned poorly. Nevertheless, Rael saw, sneaking a quick glance out of the corner of his eye, that Meliosme was cat-napping, taking little short naps, broken by a slight movement, then relaxation again. It looked effortless, and Rael envied her the skill; he would like to have that ability himself. He needed rest, now. The moment of action was not all that far away.

  Rael tried to compose himself by imagining how one could know parts of the future. He did not question the techniques he had been taught and had added to himself, so much as he failed, as everyone else did, to integrate such momentary flashes into a coherent theory of how the universe worked. He knew about prescient dreams, and visions people had under one circumstance or another. His method, while controlled, non-mystical, scientific, all that negated mystery, only opened up deeper layers, and was no less ambivalent, contradictory, incomprehensible. He asked a coherent system for answers, and it gave them. But only that. There was no linking; the answers were as unique as the stars, as a piece of music, as a face. Do this at this moment and it changes. He had free choice: he could refuse, or pass. It did not matter: such chances to alter the lines of this world occurred over and over again. It was just a matter of finding the next one, finding the next act, or non-act. But he could feel this moment coming, and this one was special, different from the others in the way that all such instants were: they had different reaches of influence. And this moment coming at him at the speed the beamliner was running was one in which he could reach all the phases that controlled Oerlikon. And as he thought about it, he saw something else he’d not realized before: that in reaching all phases, there would be a backlash here that would reach into the incomprehensible third phase, and institute change there, too, although he couldn’t see that, or how it would be. Only that it would be.