The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Parleau exclaimed, “Jesus!” He reverted to ancient oaths, and they came easily, even though most people had forgotten the reason why they had been originally said. “Why hasn’t someone been working on this longer, brought it up at Staff? All you have to do is look at that equipment and look at what they do with it. Those people are about as primitive as Buckminster Fuller!”

  Plattsman said, “We had been trying to come to some conclusion about where the activity was leading . . . so far, it has defied all attempts to vector it.”

  “How long?” Parleau insisted.

  “About . . . ah, since the Game appeared, Chairman.”

  “And nothing?”

  “Nothing. It doesn’t change in any manner we can measure. It appeared, and we took sample recordings, and attempted to analyze them. Inasmuch as we have been able to determine, the sole difference between a Game of say, last summer, and one of a hundred years ago, is the same as between any two Games out of the same cycle: individual variation and style of the moment, you know, personal variations.”

  “And you can’t conclude from that?”

  Plattsman answered shamefully, “No, sir, we haven’t to date.”

  Parleau leaned forward, and added projection to his voice: “Well, I’m no Controller, but I can see of that remark that, if it is true, what you are seeing is a finished product, an artifact! Sports as we know them continuously evolve and shift, because they are responding to changing needs of the people who play and watch them. But your people, who are the masters of the science of change, can see no change in this Game, and you’re stymied! That’s the great secret! The Game doesn’t change! You idiots, what does it conceal?”

  Plattsman hesitated. “I don’t understand. . . .”

  “That’s why I’m chairman and you’re a Controller! An artifact doesn’t change—it’s the end of the process! They do something with it that has nothing to do with sports or entertainment or bleeding off aggression. Now what is it?”

  Plattsman said, “We pursued that angle early, Chairman. That was the first thing we thought of, just as you did. Now this Game does have fine possibilities for a system of processing information, but it seems like an awful lot of elaboration, and a lot of calling attention to themselves when they could certainly be more secretive about it. I mean, it’s like using a code—in some circumstances, that just alerts people to the fact that you have something to hide. Now a code can give you security, but you want the parameter of speed and reliability also in any information-flow system, and the use of codes lowers both, in some cases appreciably.”

  Klyten helped Plattsman. “The speed of the responses of the Players, and the actions they take, indicate that whatever messages are concealed in it apply to them. The crowds apparently see no more than we did, that one side or the other gains or loses control of the shape of the figure they are working.”

  Plattsman agreed, nodding his head vigorously, and Klyten continued, “And you have to remember that those Players are raised on a diet of that practically from birth. They get serious about it at around age fourteen, as I understand. By the time they are playing in tournaments, they’ve all had at least twenty years of it, more. Plus a lot of theory that we don’t ever see; they release nothing about the Game or recursive mathematics through the Institute . . . they won’t even acknowledge its existence.”

  Parleau’s earlier attack seemed to lose direction now. He seemed stopped in his tracks by the fact that the Controllers had asked the same question he had, years before, and had seen nothing in it but an unchanging Game. . . . He said, “That’s another aspect of this that bothers me; exactly that. The long time they spend learning it. How do they maintain motivation? Say what you will about training, about ability, about privilege, I can still see that that stuff doesn’t come easy for them, no more than it would be for us. Those Players in the recording were working hard! How much exposure do they get?”

  Klyten answered, “They have the great tournaments at the Summer Solstices. Lesser Games are played throughout the warm months. Technically, the Game runs from spring equinox to autumnal.”

  “And that’s all they have to do?”

  “That’s correct, Chairman.”

  “Then they are only employed six months of the year? That’s the damndest thing I ever heard!”

  Klyten said, “Well, it’s not entirely without precedent: their ruling Braid, the Revens, does almost nothing. Their role is to arbitrate disputes, but very little ever gets taken to them, so they do almost nothing. . . .”

  “But they symbolize authority, nationhood, and all that, like the hereditary kings of old.”

  “Yes, Chairman, that’s true, but you have to bear in mind that if they are following the royal-dynasty model, they are doing so without any of the traditional symbols of royalty; they have no ceremony, no ‘court,’ no deference. When he is not ‘in his role,’ as they say, the High Reven is a dirt farmer, just like the lowest.”

  Parleau said, “So this Mallenkleth . . .”

  “Maellenkleth,” Klyten corrected, changing the broad, open ah-sound Parleau had used to a shorter, flatter sound, something intermediate between an “A” and an “E,” but without the nasal quality of the North American Modanglic “ae.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “ ‘Mai’ means ‘bad,’ ‘Mael’ means ‘Apple.’ There’s a difference.”

  “You’re the expert. So, then, this insibling of a Braid of Gameplayers.”

  Plattsman and Eykor answered together, “Right!”

  Parleau continued, “And a mathematician with the Department of Research and Development at the Institute, and a captured ‘vandal’ who elects somehow to disappear inside herself rather than reveal one single word? And now she’s gone and we can’t ask her anything? Damn! I’d really like to know if there is any connection. So now we all know some things, but not which is relevant among them.”

  Klyten said, “We had hoped that these recordings of Game phenomena would suggest something to you that none of us had seen before. We have all tried, in our way, beforetimes, but there was nothing. . . . No one ever paid much attention to the Game before, other than cursorily. And here, we got the criminal, as they say, red-handed at the scene of the crime. But no motive. A great anomaly. It’s obvious that . . .”

  Eykor interjected, “Obvious that they’re up to something. Otherwise, all that we’ve heard still adds up to nothing. No other way! And now I must needs ask the learned doctor of the mysteries of the New Humans another question: what exactly is this stuff they call ‘Multispeech, ’ anyway?”

  Klyten looked about, sharply. “Why do you ask?”

  “Our monitor facilities seem to be picking up a lot more of it now. Significant statistically.”

  Klyten said, “Little enough is known of it. They talk freely enough in their everyday language. Singlespeech. It’s just another language, far as I know, if it is a bit more regular than most, and of course it has its difficult parts for one to learn. But now Multispeech. . . . perhaps multichannel language would be a better term. It is something different, a new concept. Now we express ourselves multiplexually, too, but the media are different; ordinary voice, a broad, harmonic system. Then there is body-language. And there is the frequency-modulated fail-alarm system present in our voices all the time. It’s just a tone that’s always present in your voice, you never hear it. Nervous system to nervous system, direct. Until you have anxiety. Then the tone drops out and your voice flattens a bit to the ear. When you hear loss of safe-tone, you also lose safe-tone until you discover the source of the anxiety. Even infants respond to it. It has uses in verification interviews. Now, what has apparently happened in the ler brain is that they combine all three systems into one channel of communication, via sound waves modulated by the larynx, and their resonances are so arranged that they can control the individual harmonic bands of the sound, modulate them individually. We know they can communicate with it, but we don’t know all that much of what t
hey can do with it . . . we have some studies indicating that in Multispeech the data-rate drops. In other words, it takes longer to say the same thing. Quite a bit longer. So we can deduce that speed is not one of the reasons for using it.”

  Plattsman commented, “Wrong, there, Klyten, though I hate to say it. Communications systems are the heart of Controlling, and we know very well that we will gladly sacrifice speed for accuracy, because in a system that programs noise and semantic distortions out, the resultant lack of misunderstanding and the increase in clarity means an ultimate increase of speed in the end.”

  “That’s no news! We already know that the principle applies to Singlespeech, which has a rather slower data rate than any modern, historic language. It’s slower than Modanglic by far.”

  “Then why have they exploited the ability? It must be that much more accurate. And it may have other uses. Communications systems do more than pass words, you know.”

  “We know little about it. They tell us nothing more than that they can talk to three people at once, saying different things . . . we don’t even know how different the texts are.”

  “Have you correlated Multispeech to specific activities?”

  Klyten replied, “It is used extensively in playing the Games, but precisely what part it plays, we cannot determine.”

  Parleau snorted, “Hmpf! The further we go, the more we find that someone ought to have been looking into. What have you people been doing all these years? Writing evaluations of evaluations?”

  Klyten said, thoughtfully, after a longish pause, “Perhaps, Chairman, these things we are just now turning up fit somehow into a picture that we were never supposed to see, and that this is the reason why the girl allowed herself to reach the condition she was found in, in the box.”

  Parleau answered, “That’s possible. But in essence, we observe what people do and predict therefrom; not why they do it. After all, once you start asking why, all kinds of speculative Pandoras open up. . . . But if we assume that there was a plot, it can only be that others were in it; and if the girl allowed herself to be reduced to gibbering, slobbering idiocy to prevent us from making certain associations . . . then those associations must exist. I think we have parts of a picture now.”

  Plattsman interjected, “Or an unfinished map.”

  “Very perceptive, that difference,” agreed Parleau. “But we are also in a bit of a bind ourselves in this. We cannot act precipitately. They keep a much closer rein on this Region than I ever saw at Mojave. We could move first, of course. I mean, execute a Two-twelve, full occupation, tomorrow. But we do not at this point know what we are looking for, or where to look for it. Hell, it could be nothing more tangible than an idea; and an ignorant execution of the occupation would in those circumstances amount to destruction or removal of any evidence or artifacts. For the labor we’d get nothing, and we’d spend the rest of our days explaining why we took the action to Section Q. So we can’t act now, however attractive it might seem, working on no more than we have. Disconnected anomalies that’s paranoia.”

  Eykor added, saturninely, “Sometimes even paranoids have flesh-and-blood enemies.” He paused a moment, then said, “We in Security know that there is something to hide. Give me a little time, and I can document it, and possibly locate it.”

  Parleau stared at Eykor, as if he had not heard him. “So granted.”

  Plattsman interrupted. “Pardon me, but I am receiving a signal. May I retire for a moment?”

  “Certainly,” said Parleau.

  He left the office hurriedly, but he was not gone from it for long. Plattsman returned, saying, “Well, news, of a sort. Not what we might have expected, but something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Our monitors report that Vance just entertained a group in his office. There was a reference there to an earlier conversation, which we must have missed; they could find no record of it. Probably was in a desensitized area. Anyway, this group claims to have taken a commission to locate a girl. Maellenkleth by name, and they asked for an introduction to Region Security, for assistance. Vance has forwarded them here, per request.”

  Eykor asked, “According to instructions?”

  “Oh, indeed. Vance has become docile enough, and cooperates freely now.”

  Eykor chortled, “Wonderful, wonderful! A nibble at the bait, so it is, and soon, too. Great concern, within the plot. And who are our nibblers?”

  “In the course of the conversation with Vance, they were identified, apparently he knew some of them personally. There are three: a Fellirian Deren, a Morlenden Deren, and the third was identified only as a Krisshantem. No surname. Vance did not know him.”

  Klyten said, “He gave no surname? None at all?”

  Plattsman answered, “Well, I have only the report to go on, but none was listed. They are pretty thorough and if he had given one, it would have been forwarded.”

  “A curious matter, no surname. Everyone uses one, even elders, who style themselves with the surnames Tlanh or Srith as befits their gender, or rather former gender. We usually translate it ‘lord’ or ‘lady,’ as fits, but I suspect we miss something of the flavor. . . . Could be he didn’t want anyone to know what it was.”

  Eykor said, “As if he were a Player. . . .”

  Parleau asked, “What is the probability of Vance being in a plot with them, here?”

  Plattsman replied, “Low. Lower than twenty percent correlation. As for the others, we are not so sure. The female Fellirian Deren was cleared previously; she is a long associate of Vance’s in the Institute.”

  Klyten added, “By the names, the one called Morlenden is the familial co-spouse of Fellirian, although we can’t see the exact relationship. If she is clear, he probably is also. But the other one, this Krisshantem. He could be anything. It certainly is possible that he could be, as Eykor suggests, a Player, or one of the plot, but it is also true that he could be in another relationship, either with the girl, or with the Derens, or something else, a specialist of some sort. We have no way of knowing, short of interrogation.”

  Parleau said, “I cannot permit that at this time, not after our loss of the girl.”

  Eykor commented, “Loss, perhaps, but look at what that loss has led us to.”

  Parleau answered, “Yes, I see what it has led us to: anomalies and more questions than we were asking at the start! So I direct that they be given the girl without obstruction. But not without the closest of observation. Have the medics state that we found her that way and have been conducting an investigation.”

  Eykor asked, “Is that entirely prudent, Chairman? After all, they may be able to learn something from her. And here we have three more . . .”

  “No, no, no, don’t take them. Unless they themselves show cause, and then handle subtly—we don’t want three more of these basket-cases on our hands. However it occurs. Plattsman, can your people follow them?”

  “Not easily, Chairman, but I believe we can work out something.”

  “Well, do your best. I want every move recorded and analyzed. As much as possible, Klyten, you go down to Control and work with them, interpret. And we will also want some reserves close to hand.”

  “No problem, there, Chairman. I can have a Tacsquad in parallel all the time.”

  “All right! So get to it and keep me informed.”

  Parleau waved them off, naggingly, hurriedly, as if he were shooing a group of schoolboys away from some valuable statue, or out of a tree they were not supposed to climb. The rest collected their portfolios and departed, leaving Parleau alone in the now silent office. He leaned back deeply in his chair, sighed thoughtfully, and at last, put his heavy feet upon the desk. At first, he placed his hands across his belly, but later, he folded them behind his head, thinking. He tried to fit the pieces together, but there were too many other pieces missing, and he could not make them fit. He reflected that Eykor had had the first crack at the girl, and had failed to extract anything; likewise, in turn, Control. Klyten admitted
ignorance of reasons, but supplied considerable data, much of which disturbed him more than the original incident, the destruction of the instruments. That seemed very far away now, a niggling little problem not worthy of solution by him. Yes. There was much there, strands of coincidences . . . something was nagging, nibbling at the back of his mind. What was it? He tried to relax and free-associate. Yes, something to do with families. They certainly were strongly oriented to the family, maintaining their line with what seemed to Parleau to be a most artificial system, and keeping it going. Families. And those aristocratic Players, two family groups of them since the dawn of their time, doing something that had no function.

  An alarm went off, silently, in his mind. Yes, he was on the track of it now. Yes, the Player families. And he sat back, mentally, as it occurred to him what they all had missed. It all fit, beautifully. They had control, they had management, even if no one could describe it and locate it. And they had an electronic Game in an anti-tech culture, a competition in a cooperative, primitive communist society. And a family, no, two, who were subsidized to do something that had no function but to entertain, in an economic environment that saw itself as severely practical. It all smelled. But not half so bad as the idea that was arriving sideways, as it were, deep in the recesses of Parleau’s mind: that one of these Players was given away to the humans, and that the other was a spy, obviously out of the Game, and that the Braid, the family group, was being allowed to end. And Klyten hadn’t even seen it. Parleau felt a rush of pride: he had seen something their ler expert hadn’t, even as he had been commenting on it. Sexed-out, he had said; they had to seek new identities. But the Game as he had seen it required two sides, and very soon, in a few years, there would be only one. They were going to let something go that they had carefully nurtured for three hundred years or more, without a comment! Parleau sat up abruptly, all semblance of relaxation gone. And from a recess in the desk, he retrieved a vocoder and began transcribing some ideas and instructions, as fast as he could consider them. Yes. It was all tied together somehow, and he was going to derive the answer, if he had to run all of them right into the ground.