Bad to Worse

by Edeson, Robert;

  Interestingly, modular arithmetic and language have been intimately linked before. Darian describes devastating linguistic weapons deployed by the Romans in their defeat of the Syllabines, one of which was the iterated negative (another was the amnestically long question), easily evaluated mod 2 but desperately confusing otherwise.

  The reference to Parsan gap requires explanation. Misgivingston (in Stochastic Signatures of the Parsan Gap) and others have demonstrated that human languages can be distinguished solely by statistical properties of the brief silences (Parsan gaps) that occur naturally in speech. It will be quite revolutionary if this technique, which is very recent, finds application in the taxonomic separation of swint languages. An elementary treatment of the subject is given in Pilcrow’s TWF Compendium, from which the following is abstracted with permission.

  Nicholas Misgivingston’s discovery that every language is identifiable from the stochastic properties of its Parsan gaps is fundamental. The direction of research now is to determine whether these gaps carry information not only about the language they belong to, but also the sense communicated by the speech of which they are an integral part.

  This latest hypothesis is that the gaps, which are very rich statistically, do encode meaning essentially equivalent to that more obviously conveyed by the words they apparently serve to separate. Indeed, there is a suggestion that in Ferent languages the bandwidth of gaps exceeds, in theory, the capacity of vocabulary, and is already exploited subliminally by native speakers. (Perhaps this explains why that language group was thought to be at risk of extinction, when in fact it was simply a case of silence becoming more functionally dominant.)

  Human hearing has a sensitivity, in frequency and interval terms, in the upper microsecond range. This is more than sufficient, with properly directed learning, to detect, analyse and interpret the fine-structure statistics of gaps. (Those with a musically trained ear are likely to acquire this skill more readily.) Misgivingston envisages a universal language (his term is lingua Parsa) that exploits this semantic content in the silence. Then, spoken words, foreign or otherwise, will come to be seen as arbitrary tokens of partitioning that serve exclusively to define gaps.

  Nicholas’s comment about swint blood changing during migration will hold no mystery for ornithologists or swint fanciers generally. For those not wishing to access academic sources, a reasonable account of the physiology is given in Darian.

  23 VOLCANO STREET

  Worse didn’t care for La Ferste, where he had stayed for a few nights the previous year. His disaffection wasn’t lessened on seeing from the air an enormous plume of pollution spreading many tens of kilometres into the South China Sea from the Peril River delta.

  Nevertheless, there were some things he needed to do there before moving on to the smaller and very beautiful capital of Madregalo.

  He had organized ahead a car and driver, and was met at the airport arrivals hall. Worse gave an address, correct in street but wrong in number. He was duly delivered to premises at No 337, where he loitered before walking back across an intersection. When he opened the door of No 303, the philatelist shopowner smiled in recognition. He was an unlicensed gunsmith whom Worse had met through Spoiling. They shook hands.

  ‘You are well, I … trust?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you. I hope all is well with you,’ said Worse.

  ‘Things are well with me. As is your … collection. Wait.’

  He left through a door at the rear of the shop and returned a minute later, holding a parcel out to Worse.

  ‘As before,’ he smiled.

  It was Worse’s Totengräber 9 purchased previously, and stored with its supplier. ‘As before’ signified a single ammunition clip.

  Worse placed the parcel in his backpack, thanked him, and shook hands again before leaving. Even now, neither knew the other’s name.

  Worse had the address of a ship chandler who looked after Camelline interests in La Ferste. Their office was right down on the wharves close to where cruise liners berthed. After a rapid interaction in Ferent ending in laughter, the driver persuaded security guards to let the car through to the harbour frontage. Worse wondered what had been said about him. Out of sight of the driver, he transferred the T-9 from the pack to his jacket.

  It wasn’t a salubrious place of business. The office was a lean-to attached to a large warehouse, and had a front-facing door with a dirty window at the side. There was no one there when Worse entered. The rear wall was fully open to the storage facility, and he could see shipping containers, baskets, boxes on pallets, and several loose items. Worse was interested in the baskets. These were what the casino manager had been told to expect when delivered aboard, and he had been given rough dimensions ahead of time so that he could plan their storage.

  There was nobody in sight, and Worse decided to help himself to an inspection. It took just a moment to conclude that all baskets with ‘Winnings’ labels had a special yellow streak for quick identification by handlers. He tested the weight of several by a tilting force. The first heavy one he found was taped shut, but had not yet been steel banded like some of the others. He cut the tape with a pocketknife and lifted the lid. The interior was black-plastic lined, and all he could see were polystyrene beads. He reached through and felt something hard, shelled his hand around it, and brought it into view.

  It was as Nicholas had described, like a great crystal of quartz, about twenty centimetres in diameter. Worse drew it up to the light to appreciate its clarity.

  ‘Hey. What are you up to, mister?’

  A large red-haired man stood up from behind a forklift tractor.

  ‘I’m inspecting for quality,’ said Worse, holding up the crystal again and feigning the critical study of minor officialdom.

  It seemed to work for a few seconds. He knew he was a failed imposter when the other man bent to pick up a length of pipe and came towards him.

  ‘That needs to be kept out of the light. You know shit quality if you don’t know that.’

  Taken literally, it seemed a convoluted argument, but Worse put down the josephite. He pointed to the weapon.

  ‘That must make quite a sound when you hit someone,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t worry about the sound, mister. You worry about the pain.’

  ‘Not worried,’ said Worse. ‘Got pipe too, makes a sound.’

  It was a warning, but the redhead’s thinking lacked the metonymic. He came at Worse with the pipe raised.

  To the attacker’s surprise, Worse didn’t retreat but suddenly moved in closer. The next thing the storeman felt was a T-9 muzzle pressed hard into his red-locked forehead.

  ‘Want to feel the pain mine makes, mister?’ said Worse.

  Worse had never seen a man shrink so visibly. The threatened sound became the redhead’s steel pipe half bouncing on the concrete floor.

  ‘Don’t move. Just talk. Where were these going?’ said Worse, tilting his head toward the josephite basket.

  ‘For the Princess Namok, going to San Diego. Something happened to the ship.’

  ‘Your dumb boss fell off it. How many are there?’

  ‘Seven baskets.’

  ‘Have you shipped others before?’

  ‘Every few months for about a year.’

  ‘Always crystals?’

  ‘It started off some kind of ore, like black sand, in plastic bags.’

  ‘How does it get to you?’

  ‘I only know him as the prospector. He brings the stuff in on his truck.’

  ‘Why did you say to keep it out of the light?’

  ‘I don’t know why. The prospector just said it was important.’

  ‘Listen carefully,’ said Worse. ‘Now I am going to step back and you are going to move slowly. Come and take me through some business records in the office.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Worse had nearly finished his search. The storeman apparently used the time in some redemptive search of his own.

  ‘I wasn’t really going
to hit you, mister,’ he said.

  Worse was absorbed in a document and ignored him.

  ‘With the pipe.’

  ‘Mm.’ Worse was still reading.

  ‘You weren’t really going to shoot me, mister, were you?’

  ‘Mm? Yes.’

  ‘Madregalo,’ said Worse.

  The driver nodded and started the engine. Worse settled into his seat in the rear, placing an appropriated josephite into his pack. He was tired after the flight but resisted sleeping. The Ferendes was a place of surprises, and he had no reason to trust the driver.

  The roadworks on the intercity motorway seemed hardly advanced on the previous year. There were still detours and passing lanes and red lights and rough surfaces. Worse watched the activities with fascination. His driver made a few attempts at conversation, beginning with ‘Have you been to the Ferendes before, sir?’ Worse was polite but not expansive. The forty-kilometre journey took ninety minutes, and eventually Worse was delivered to his hotel on the Kardia, the historic main square of Madregalo.

  After checking in and seeing his bags to his room, Worse walked out to the famous weaver fish fountain in the centre of the Kardia. It was cast in glass, using a special lamination process that even when explained in detail seemed not to account for the miraculous result. Worse had been introduced to it by Nicholas and, in turn, he had shown it to Millie on the day they released the swints.

  Otavio Fitrina’s masterpiece was one of those rare sights in tourist travel that belong in the album of archetypes. Worse was drawn back to it, and the magic and beauty in its making were immediately familiar to him. He sat on one of the surrounding glass benches for half an hour, studying the sculptural form, its refractive subtleties, and the interplay of glass and water. Eventually he stood up, returning to the hotel with no greater understanding of its impossible geometry than when he walked away the last time.

  The next morning, Worse took the tram down Ahorte, the main north–south boulevard of Madregalo, to the bay. Felicity’s was still there, by the jetty, and he chose an outdoor table.

  As he waited for his breakfast order, he thought about events of the previous year. They were sitting here when Prince Nefari was taken, in full view of huge crowds gathered to see a signing ceremony with the Chinese envoy, Admiral Feng. That compact fell through and a revolution started. In the pandemonium of the first hour, he and Millie had found a way into the deserted palace and released the swints kept cruelly caged by the prince.

  He thought more about Millie. He admired her courage and adventurousness. He especially appreciated her intellect. It would be good if they could spend time together while she did her research year in Perth.

  Worse looked around. There was no sign of the café’s owner, Mr Felicity, but the business seemed to be prospering. No doubt its fame as a forward observation post for the prince’s fate and the weaver fish visitation attracted many who liked their excitement vicarious, served safely subsequent, and with coffee on the side.

  Worse had booked a helicopter charter to the LDI station at midday. The fee included a limousine pick up from town. He had also arranged to take some lighting gear that Nicholas purchased, which was to be delivered to the heliport further along the bay. Before leaving Felicity’s to return to the hotel, he phoned the charter office to confirm they had the freight.

  Paulo and Nicholas heard the helicopter’s approach, and were waiting at the edge of the clearing as the pilot put down. Nicholas introduced Worse to Paulo, and the three carried Worse’s bags and the equipment boxes over to the canteen. They were followed by the pilot, who had been invited for a coffee. One of the teachers needed to attend an antenatal appointment in Madregalo, and she and her husband, a cleaner in the school, were flying back with him.

  When they had left, Worse was shown to his accommodation by Nicholas. Worse swung his backpack onto the bed, opened it, and held out the josephite.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ asked Nicholas, surprised.

  ‘I found it in a shipment at the La Ferste docks, bound for the US,’ said Worse. ‘Your friend Glimpse had a little export trade happening. For the terencium in them. I’ll explain.’

  They crossed the clearing to the administration hut where Paulo was working. There, Nicholas and Paulo briefed Worse on events at the station, finishing with an outline of their plans for the time Worse was to be with them. First, there would be an expedition to find the volcano. Second, they would show Worse the first chamber of the cave and ask his help to install the new lighting.

  Worse then told them about his researches into Mortiss Bros and Area Pi, and how the key to everything seemed to be terencium taken from the Ferendes. He had brought the josephite across from his unit, and now held it up.

  ‘I see there’s one on your desk,’ he said to Nicholas. ‘What do either of you know about its behaviour in light?’

  Paulo and Nicholas looked blank.

  ‘It’s just that Glimpse told the chandler in La Ferste to keep the stock in the dark. I wondered if apart from the sonoluminescence you described there was something photochemical going on.’

  Nicholas reached for the josephite that had been on his desk for several days. He held it up.

  ‘You know, Worse, I think it has turned slightly dark, slightly brown.’

  ‘Do you have information on what its chemical composition is, exactly?’ asked Worse.

  ‘Not completely. Terencium sulphide in some of them, at least. We’re still waiting on a comprehensive report from Cambridge,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Paulo. ‘We have Glimpse’s assay.’

  He shuffled papers on his desk, and handed some stapled sheets to Worse.

  ‘Glimpse seems to have found a leaked-out specimen, a geode, and had the internal precipitates analysed,’ explained Nicholas.

  Worse studied the report.

  ‘There’s a lot of chemistry here,’ he said, and passed it to Nicholas. ‘Notice the silver halides. They might account for it.’

  After dinner in the canteen, Worse retired to his hut. It was the one used by Edvard and Anna, but also by other visitors. A shelf under the window displayed magazines and books donated or abandoned by previous occupants. Worse found such accidental microlibraries fascinating, like an archaeological record of a past civilization. He examined it, not for something to read, but as an historian of the room.

  He already had something to read. Before leaving Perth, Sigrid rather forcefully placed in his care her copy of Black Levant, with the instruction that he should neutralize the limerick with something more cerebral. Worse undressed for bed and lay down to look at it. He remembered there was a piece somewhere that was vaguely about chemistry, and the halide discussion earlier had put the subject in mind. He was pleased to see it listed in the contents, and went to the page. Sigrid’s bookmark, a purple ribbon, was already there. He read and reread, until he fell asleep.

  You say the art is lost.

  I say, art embraces loss for absolution.

  Some good remains in brilliant fragments

  awaiting resurrection.

  The artist-consort in this consummation

  —perceiving emptiness—

  will comprehend anew her servitude and struggle.

  While you and I explore

  the flawed topography of wishful senses

  for meaning-shards and weaving-threads

  and buried kicking-stones of loss disfigurement. So making text of ancient purpose

  effort, chance and willing subjugation.

  So recreating genius and the long passion

  that ends in shocking intimacy.

  You say the resurrection is unreal,

  our slim volume of refutations

  will disallow returning.

  I say, my universe is generous. I would be

  entertained as well by different speculations

  were that chemistry never read

  murex left on the wine sea bed

  or mother indigo yet
unwed.

  They set out in two Land Rovers, Nicholas driving one, with Worse as navigator, and Paulo driving the second. As he always did, Nicholas had loaded special sound equipment he used for recording birdsong in the wild. There had been sightings of large swint flocks over parts of the plateau.

  The previous evening had been spent planning. High-resolution satellite images gave some indication of old logging tracks, but most would be overgrown. They reasoned that if Glimpse had got through, the recent disturbance from his truck should show, even if sporadically. On that basis, they plotted a route from the Madregalo road to the volcano.

  About ninety minutes east they reached the point where Nicholas believed Glimpse had gone in. He slowed while he and Worse scanned the forest border. When they saw the track, both vehicles stopped, and all three walked into the forest for fifty or so metres. Even after rains, it was clear that tyre ruts were recent. They returned to their vehicles, confident they had found the route. Worse recorded their position.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Nicholas, turning into the mud.

  Progress was slow. On several occasions, they lost sight of a track, and needed to walk the ground to find it. Worse attempted to document their course using GPS, and periodically attached reflective tape to tree branches to assist their return navigation.

  ‘Perhaps we should have used the charter pilot to get us in,’ said Nicholas at one stage.

  ‘Except that all of Madregalo would then know about the volcano,’ said Worse. ‘I’m sure Glimpse kept it quiet, given we think it was his private terencium quarry.’

  Three hours in, Worse commented that they were gradually gaining elevation. The forest floor drained a little better here, and they had good sightings of Glimpse’s tracks. At four hours, they came to a clearing where the tyre ruts indicated that a vehicle had been turned. They stopped and explored.