by M. A. Foster
Not very much, he had to conclude. A lot wrong, but they accepted it as right and due, some obligation. . . . And he thought again. Anomalies and enigmas casually strewn about as if their very multiplicity were intended to confuse, ensnare the mind, waylay. You could become so absorbed in figuring out what was wrong that you could walk right by the why of it. First there was this hifzer Krisshantem, influencing her as he was being influenced. And an insibling off working with the humans, a telescope builder, an astronaut, a photographer. Parents gone more or less for fifteen years. But at the least, he had the poor words of a verbal description to go on, although he could project several possible images of girls who could fit that description. And with Kris, at least he’d get a real image.
He was relaxing now. It would be soon. But his musings were interrupted by a soft whisper from the curtain leading down into the hearthroom. There was a movement. He looked, but could not distinguish who was there.
“Whoever is there, come along, if you’ve a mind.”
A softer voice answered him. “It is I, Plindestier.” The girl climbed into the compartment with Morlenden. He watched the shadow-on-shadow shape as it climbed in, bent, stooped, settled smoothly on its haunches. He could tell by the flowing of the motions and a soft, insistent fragrance of girl in the compartment, that Plindestier was quite naked. She bent close by his ear, to whisper.
“Klervon and I talked. We decided that you should know as well.”
“Know what?”
“When I left, the first time, I felt as if someone were watching me, from nearby. He or she followed a little, then left me. Nothing I could see. That was why I hurried home; I was afraid. And when Tas and I came back, we were very quiet, like a couple of little sneaks, and we came back a different way. Tas has good wood-sense. And we saw someone by the entryway, someone who sensed us, and slipped away before we could get closer.”
“Who was it?”
“Who? What as well, for I know neither. Not Tas, not I. It was formless and quick. It faded into the shadows.... We looked all about before we came in, but there were no traces.”
“Then someone was outside listening to us. . . .”
“It must be so. I know that you were talking of Maellenkleth. Klervondaf will not discuss her around me; he says that we will all know about Mael someday, that she will be great among us, but he does not say how this will be. And around here, near the mountain, it’s always a little wilder than in other places. There are lights, sometimes, and funny noises. Tremblings in the air. There are tales . . . well, people just don’t stay out so much at night. But I had never seen anything until tonight. We agreed that I should tell you to be very careful and watch your back-trail as you go with Tas and from there.”
“Be careful? Am I in danger?”
“Just take care, he said. Be alert. He will tell you no more than he already has, and that is too much. But despite that, he wishes you well on your quest. He thinks that something bad has happened to Maellenkleth, and that it could affect all our lives, if it has gone too far. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No. But I will keep my eyes open.”
The girl rose from her haunches and flowed ghostlike out of the sleeper. For a moment, Morlenden could hear her moving through the yos, but then it became quiet. Her scent remained in the sleeper also for a time, about as long as the faint rustlings far off in the yos, and then it, too, faded, leaving behind it bittersweet afterimages in Morlenden’s mind of things that had been once, long ago, now irretrievable forever. He felt a curious light-headedness; someone hiding under the curve of the yos, listening to their conversation in the middle of the night! What a thing to happen! But he now knew the questions: Who was Maellenkleth? What was Maellenkleth? They were the things in his mind that made him light-headed, for simple as they were, they demanded answers filled with voids and shifting, indeterminate vistas. Morlenden recalled his primary schooling, sitting in the yard at the feet of his own Kadh, Berlargir, and hearing about the human philosopher, Godel, and Godel’s stunning discovery—that, ultimately, nothing was provable. Nothing was knowable.
Morlenden recalled that vividly and chuckled to himself in the darkness and silence of the yos of the Perklarens: Godel, indeed! And, Godel or not, he set it firmly in the innermost part of his resolve that he’d get to the bottom of it all and root it all up. That if he could even make an approximate answer to the two questions, the slippery tervathon, then he’d know where she was and what happened to her. And more yet, most likely. She would be illuminated, as would he. He was sure. He sighed, and fell into sleep without further thought.
BOOK TWO
Vicus Lusorum
EIGHT
DECEMBER 1, 2550
You need some square-ruled graph paper, some tracing paper, a pencil. Make a Surround-template by cutting out a three-by-three square from a strip of the graph paper, and set it aside.
Now memorize these symbols: each square on the graph paper is a cell. An empty cell is symbolized by nothing inscribed in the cell, while a full cell is symbolized by an inscribed circle. These are the only conditions that exist. Just two. Binary. Now there are two operations: empty-becoming-full and full-becoming-empty. The first is symbolized by a dot in the center of the cell. The second becoming is symbolized by an X over the cell.
Lay out a pattern of filled cells of your choice on the graph paper, leaving plenty of empty cells around the outside of the pattern. Anything you want; but for beginners, keep it simple: you’ll see why. Now you have a playing field. There are within it filled and empty cells.
Apply your Surround-template to every cell in your pattern, ensuring you work all the way to the outside of it on all sides, according to these rules: • If the center cell (of the three-by-three) is empty-state, and exactly three of its eight adjacent cells are filled-state, mark this center cell with a dot. This cell will be filled-state upon the next move. Any other number of filled-state neighbor cells will cause this cell to remain empty. Mark this condition with an X across the cell.
• If the center cell is filled-state, and two or three of its eight adjacent cells are filled-state, mark this cell with a dot inside the circle. This cell will remain filled on the next move. Any other number zero, one, four, or more, will cause this cell to become an empty on the next move. Mark this condition by crossing out the cell.
Copy the pattern of dots and transfer the pattern to a fresh section of grid paper. Move one is over and repeat over again for move two, the neighbor rules. You should continue this procedure until your playing field either becomes empty of filled cells or attains a stable or cycling condition.
The first thing you will notice is that your initial pattern will immediately undergo startling transformations. No doubt some of you will see your pattern vanish without a trace. Others will learn secrets.
Oh, yes. Don’t use a computer. You miss the best parts of it. You are now a Gameplayer.
—Apologies of the Author to Martin Gardner
There are simple games and complex ones, but the only ones worth playing are the multiplex ones in which all parameters are in a constant state of flux and change.
—The Game Texts
VANCE SAT BACK in his office chair, picking a sheaf of papers from the desk as he settled; he wasn’t interested in their contents. It was simply and purely a gesture of defense. Vance wanted to put some distance between himself and the visitor his administrative assistant had announced. This Errat, whoever he was. A Controller. Vance did not wish this morning to talk to a Controller about anything, face to face, or via any alternate mode of communication one would care to imagine. He pretended to be vastly absorbed in the papers before his face, squinting owlishly at them and frowning. When he looked up again, he hoped that he would see this alleged Nightsider32 just coming through the door. It was not to be so: Vance was surprised to see the man already in the room, standing before his desk in a posture suggesting painstaking neutrality. He had come into the office unnoticed in absolu
te silence.
Vance saw before himself a man of about his own age, late forties, perhaps early fifties, dressed in Nightsider navy blue pants and tunic and wearing on his right breast a Master Controller’s Badge. Vance also observed that the badge was an old one, with decorative fringes and flourishesdone in the style of roundels and curlettes in vogue some thirty years ago. Vance nudged his estimate of his visitor’s age upward. After another reflection, he recalled that even a Nightsider was of higher status than any shiftworker, and that the badge was so obviously dated. Vance thought that in the condition Errat appeared to be, he must have been on gerries33 for the past twenty years at least.
Now this Errat. Who was he? Vance had never heard of him. He may very well have been a Controller once, but he certainly had to be more than that now. Staff? Vance doubted that as far as Region Central went, even considering the newcomers who had come in with the investiture of Parleau. Continental Secretariat? Who could tell? Those people never went out in the field. In appearance, the visitor was tall, loose-limbed, erect, and alert; he managed to cast an impression of both great dignity and sinister decisiveness. Errat was dark enough of skin and curly enough of hair to have had more than a trace of black ancestry, although considering the intermingling that had gone on over the years, Vance knew instinctively that Errat was as far from a hypothetical ancestral African as Vance was from an equally hypothetical ancestral northeastern European. There were no more pure types left. Errat had a peppering of gray in his hair, and had over the years overlain the full, sensual mouth with a hard, compressed line of determination.
Vance also considered the name: Hando Errat. Programmed name. Those had arrived with the establishment of Shifter Society, and were simply no more than pattern-generated assemblies of phonemes and vocables, internationally acceptable to all, with all traditional or meaningful or even suggestive contracts deleted from the list. The original intent of programmed names had been to offer persons an opportunity to style themselves without reference to any known national, ethnic, linguistic, or religious point of origin. One had to have a name, but the name didn’t have to mean anything, other than a simple personal label. Name-changing was nothing new; waves of it had often swept through new movements, signaling new allegiances and new bindings. But programmed names had come, and not gone. They had endured. And even now, if anything at all, they signaled allegiance only to cold efficiency, expediency, and the unifying power of IPG, the Ideal of Planetary Government, which was sought daily, but, according to releases, never quite attained. Vance knew better. It may have been patchwork; but of one piece it was now.
But now? For a long time, the bearers of programmed names had seemed to have an edge on those who retained their old names, with their taint of residues of older loyalties, and virtually all of the key positions were held by such persons. But some decay had entered the system as well, for Vance was sure that there were many careerist coat-riders who took them merely to gain points in the Shifter Society establishment
Vance acknowledged his visitor. “Yes, Citizen Errat.”
Errat responded politely. “Citizen Vance; I see that you are at your work early in the day. Or is it late, as in my own time-reference?” Errat’s voice was deep and resonant, but carefully neutral in tonation. And highly controlled; nothing showing save that which Errat wished to be seen. Vance felt some apprehensions—this one would be to no good for someone.
Vance replied, “It is early. As you see, I’m a Daysider.” Vance hoped his voice had come off as level as Errat’s. Errat was obviously playing with him, because he knew damn well that Vance was a Daysider, from Vance’s tan clothing. It was nothing more than a status-game. Vance chose to ignore the bait and engage in emotional arm-wrestling with Errat, to demonstrate that even with a career going nowhere in particular, a traditionalist name, he was yet somebody to be reckoned with in the affairs of Seaboard South. A provocateur, this Errat. That would have been exactly the reaction Errat wanted, to provide the key into whatever he wished of Vance. Vance knew field Controllers well enough. They were the same breed who had run the surveillance program against Fellirian. Or had that been a decoy for a target program upon himself? He would never know.
“Aha! Well, we Nightsiders are a misunderstood lot. Here I am finishing my duty day, just as you commence yours.”
“Do you really like Nightsiding?”
“Never knew anything else; it would now be difficult for me to change. Circadian rhythms, you know. But regretfully, as I must say, to the matter at hand.” Errat reached within the front of his tunic and extracted a thin, pliable envelope, from which in turn he produced a single, flexible transparency. He handed this across the desk to Vance. Vance took the proffered document, and looked at it.
While Vance was studying the flex, Errat commented, “The person in the flex is a New Human. She had been detained outside for questioning under, ah, I believe the word would be ‘suspicious circumstances.’ There has been some justification for the belief that some sort of shabby plot is afoot, within the reservation, possibly here at the Institute as well. The subject you see in the flex appeared to be useful for these inquiries, but she was . . . uncooperative. Now we poor Controllers must not only pursue our normal onerous investigations and establish vectors of probability and consequence, but we must also turn aside and determine why she has been so reticent. I wish to ask your assistance in this, to help us to identify her and tie her to something.”
“She looks familiar, like someone I’ve seen here. Why not ask the ler about the Institute?”
“We would not have them alerted. After all, the girl was outside, and seemed to know her way well. She had, we reasoned, to have left some traces in our world. Those are the threads we must pick up first.”
“I have heard talk from others about suspicions about a plot. Is there anything to it?”
“The situation is by no means clear, and at the present it is a matter I would rather not comment upon, lest I express points which may prove to be wrong. We are also interested in any New Human attention to this girl, attempts to locate her, and the like. Naturally one observing such an interest would be motivated to report such persons.”
Vance nodded. “Of course . . . it will be as you say. Complete cooperation.”
“You mentioned a familiarity . . . do you know her?”
Vance glanced at the flex again. He looked back at Errat, levelly, wondering what he was giving away. He said, “Well, yes, I do know her face, now that I look at it closely, but not very well at all. Her name slips me right now. I had used her once to do the visitors’ information-releases, as a replacement. I can tell you no more at this moment than the fact that I remember her as cooperative and competent.”
“I see. Could you recall more after some refreshing of your memory?”
“Yes. It will be a moment. Can you wait?”
“It should not be required.... Take your time. We would like to know everything you can find out about her, her activities. You will be contacted later. You may retain the flex.”
“Thank you.”
“Should you wish to make a report prior to contact, you can reach me via ASTRA line, code BD, extension eight-four-eight. Any time.” Vance listened closely. There was absolutely no clue. An ASTRA line could be anywhere.
Vance asked, “I shall do so.” He noted the reference on his pad. “What’s she done?”
“All in all, rather a small matter. But there live those who wish to know why such a small offense should warrant such a strong defense, or as much fear as there reportedly was in the subject. We wish to know more about this curious person and the even more curious circumstances surrounding her . . . transition into her present status.”
“Will you stay for some coffee?”
“No, no, I must be off, now; there are many minor affairs to be concluded before shift-end. So, then, good day.”
Errat turned and departed in the same silent and fluid manner with which he had come.
Vance p
laced a call for Doctor Harkle to call him when she came in, and sat back again, reflecting. What had been the name of the girl in the flex? He couldn’t remember. Had it been Malverdedh? No, it wasn’t that. But they wanted more than a name, they wanted to see who came for her. That sounded simple and effective, but erroneous as well. Suppose the real conspirators sent someone who knew nothing. Send innocents after the girl. They could lose nothing. Vance found himself wishing that Fellirian was here; she would be able to make more sense out of this . . . or perhaps not, for he could hardly tell her everything. But if there was a trap here, she could spot it, he felt sure. But who was the trap for? With Controllers you never could be sure. Was this another setup for Parleau’s house-cleaning, setting himself, Vance, up for the emeritus executive treatment? Damn.
Vance would have worried more about it, but at that moment Doctor Harkle arrived, as usual, without announcement. She habitually forbade the clerks to say she was coming. She simply would not allow them to put her off. She was a severely dressed, somewhat portly woman of definite middle age, who retained, for those who in her estimation deserved it, great humor and warmth. With her she had brought two great steaming mugs of coffee.
She began, “Here, have some of this, Walter. We brew it up down in my shop, and it’s a damn sight better than the stuff you have served up here, or in the buttery. That stuff is industrial strength cheese-dip.”