He would have to keep a rigorous watch upon himself. There was no knowing what he might do.
~
Once again, Tanglanah and Laspetosyne stood in the golden room, an image of Greckoh before them.
Tanglanah called for constructive interference, then added, ‘Greckoh, do you hear me?’
There came the sound of Greckoh’s mandibles rattling, and then, ‘Yes, I do.’
‘The deed is almost done. Soon, Subadwan will decide she must experience our abstract country of Gwmru.’
‘How soon? There is so little time remaining.’
‘Very soon. Subadwan has the ability to manipulate the abstract fabric of Gwmru through the power of her imagination. She is a Gayan with the strength to do the deed, and she owns the accoutrements of her position. Now she owns the shell too we can focus what we can of Gwmru upon her mind. It is just a matter of trapping her, of fooling or persuading her–’
‘Fooling or persuading? You have not yet decided?’
‘No,’ Tanglanah admitted. ‘We have a mountain to leap off, not a hillock. I will make my final decision when we force Gwmru to impose itself upon the city and I have seen how she reacts to it. But she is gullible, and she imagines that she has worth. Such characters can be manipulated with ease since they are susceptible to pleasant words. I foresee no difficulties with Subadwan.’
‘Have you penetrated her Gayan secret?’
Tanglanah hesitated. ‘Our plan is twofold. The gnosticians must have tribal memories of our arrival–’
‘Have you penetrated her secret?’
‘No, Greckoh, and do not call it her secret, for it is the secret of Zelenaiid, our ancient enemy.’
The mandibles clattered as if jostled by a gust of wind. ‘Forget niceties! Zelenaiid feels for these flimsy humans, and so only the chief Gayan can find her. That is clear! Our plan may be twofold, but enticing Subadwan into experiencing Gwmru is the mainstay.’
To this, neither Tanglanah nor Laspetosyne gave an answer.
‘She will suspect nothing,’ Laspetosyne ventured.
‘What then of the lunar plan?’ Greckoh asked.
‘The return vehicle is almost complete. It is coming out of orbit and will soon hover a hundred miles or so above the city. Laspetosyne will send images at a later date.’
‘I was thinking of Selene’s Archive.’
‘Ah,’ Tanglanah said, as if remembering a guilty secret. ‘They have greatly increased network defences since we tried to send in our data thieves, and this has halted progress. Tierquthay is continuing Zelenaiid’s work, as you asked him to, but I do not know what stage his faction has reached.’
‘Let us hope it is advanced, and that the opposing faction will not halt it. Gwmru is being eaten away. Abstract data is becoming corporeal at a frightening rate thanks to this plague of glass. Soon the living software that supports Cray will become a lump of dead hardware.’
‘Spare us your nightmares,’ Tanglanah remarked.
‘Hah!’
‘There is one other point Greckoh, which I cannot now put aside. We can see neither Zelenaiid nor her defences, and the fact is that Subadwan may also not be able to see. What shall I say to her when Gwmru is upon the city? What shall I tell her to look for when neither you nor I know? I think it would be wise to strengthen our lunar plan by persuading the lunar Archivists to secretly bring the most intelligent gnostician into the Cemetery. You and the others could then attempt to speak with it.’
‘The gnosticians can speak now?’
‘I do not know for sure,’ Tanglanah admitted, ‘but it is possible. The problem is that entry into the Archive is too risky for either me or Laspetosyne. Data trawling takes too long. The solution is to bring a suitable gnostician into the Cemetery.’
Greckoh replied, ‘The druids would never allow it. Only pyutons and invited humans may enter the Cemetery.’
‘We will have to risk the wrath of the druids. The chosen gnostician could be clothed, disguised–’
‘It is far too risky,’ stated Greckoh. ‘We must leave the augmented gnosticians in Selene’s Archive and invade it when one is ready to be spoken with. This is our critical time, the time for which we have waited centuries, and we must not make a single mistake. It would take only one insightful druid to notice your prospective gnostician event for the plan to fall into ruins.’
‘They may already have foreseen the event,’ Tanglanah observed.
‘If you forget the event it will never enter the mind of any druid.’
‘I suspected you would find the idea difficult,’ Tanglanah said, ‘but in the fabric of spacetime events can happen simultaneously. If we were to provide an event momentous enough to camouflage the minor gnostician event at the Cemetery, then…’
Greckoh considered. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘A violent explosion, or some such disaster. This would mask in the minds of the druids any future interview you might hold with a gnostician.’
Some minutes of silence passed as the insectoid being considered all it had heard. Then it said, ‘Would that those cursed druids had never appeared.’
‘It was inevitable once Zelenaiid released humans here,’ said Tanglanah. ‘Gwmru is too vast to be hidden. Pyuter technology inevitably led to experimentation with radio, and a minor predictive ability ensued. But what of my idea?’
‘We waste time discussing the secondary plan. I cannot stop you from trying your idea, and if I can speak to an augmented gnostician through Cemetery weirding then I will.’
‘If we cannot find Zelenaiid, then we do need to hear those ancient tales.’
‘Enough of tales. I worry that you do not spend enough time on Subadwan.’
Tanglanah relaxed, as if happy with her reply. ‘Subadwan will do as I require.’
Without further comment Greckoh began to move away. When the black mass had become a spot, a dot, and then vanished, Laspetosyne turned to Tanglanah and said, ‘Why did you not mention Subadwan’s truculence?’
‘I suspect that only an adept of Gaya’s mysteries can discover Zelenaiid, for that cursed enemy left secret knowledge with Gaya after the demise of our interstellar vehicle. How then could I reveal Subadwan’s independence? If I described her as flighty and wayward, Greckoh would report it to the others and there would be dissent. We might then never find out how Zelenaiid perverted the creation of Cray with her flaw.’
‘But we are bodies, Tanglanah. We can ignore Greckoh and the others and do as we like. We can ignore their opinions.’
‘Yes, we are corporeal, forsaking the infinities of Gwmru, but our freedom is limited. None of the others can compel us, but they can persuade us. And do not forget that we two must undergo a physical journey once the vehicle is ready, unlike the others. We will have hardships to endure.’
‘Will we?’
‘We have sacrificed part of our potential for the sake of the others,’ Tanglanah said, ‘but that is right and noble. Laspetosyne, I am four thousand and eighty-four years older than you. It took me the duration of your life just to comprehend the meaning of intuition, let alone experience its joys. But now I think I see how this strange story is playing itself out.’
‘How?’
‘I believe that we have all made a cosmic mistake. I believe that for our art to succeed – for us to live in harmony with our environment – we must all become embodied. Minds and bodies are not separate entities, not dual creations, rather they are one. If we are truly to complete our art then we must all become bodies. We must feel the world, not intellectually appreciate it, and so acquire intuition. We must burst out of infinity to sweat, bleed, feel warmth and icy chill, and rain.’
Laspetosyne replied, ‘Those thoughts shock me, and they will shock the others. I cannot agree with you.’
‘There is a reason for your disbelief. You know less than me. You do not understand the meaning of guesswork. I now suspect that it is a mistake to idolise the mind at the expense of the body.’
; ‘I cannot agree,’ said Laspetosyne. ‘There are three of your class, Greckoh being one other – but you fail to mention the third, who is Zelenaiid. You sound as if you are following her thoughts!’
‘No, Laspetosyne. Zelenaiid is the cause of our predicament, of our enervation. Somewhere in the Cray we made there lies her flaw, that she, the queen of glass, created before she vanished into Gwmru. That flaw is the key to our survival. No, Zelenaiid remains the eternal outsider.’
‘So you say. But we created Cray to be our perfect environment. We made the hardware of the city and the software of Gwmru. If we all become bodies we will be forced to experience Gwmru as an illusion, as if we were puny humans ourselves.’
‘We are greater than humans.’
‘Yet we rely on Subadwan, who is human.’
Tanglanah turned to face Laspetosyne. ‘Do you not see the consequences of my line of thought regarding Subadwan? In Gwmru lies our answer. We cannot hope to match her clarity of thought because of our familiarity with Gwmru. Suppose then that as the signals of Subadwan’s body desert her for the artificial illusion of Gwmru, her powers desert her also? She is the Lord Archivist of Gaya, the personification of Earth’s memoirs. If her powers desert her in Gwmru and Zelenaiid remains hidden, what will become of us on this dismal planet?’
‘Cray will become a glass shell, and all its intricacies turn to useless lumps of memory.’
‘And we will die.’
CHAPTER 14
Vitrescence was worsening. The foundations of the Rusty Quarter houses showed dim-spot, the characteristic sign of infection, while much of the Empty Quarter was now dark and sharp, with shards covering every street, the skyline an encircling row of knives. The Water Purification House standing on Feverfew Street had not yet succumbed, but everybody knew that soon it would. Elsewhere, the Cold Quarter was in some sectors a continuous sheet of cracked glass, gloomy and deadly, a place that only the mad and the dead did not leave.
Because the consequence of glass was cuts and blood, the fervour displayed by the followers of Selene lessened a little across the city, despite the continuing transformation of the Spacefish. And at last Noct’s inevitable answer arrived. From the smoking factories of the Nocturnal Quarter came black plastic ladies on sticks, thousands upon thousands of them, idols superior to previous efforts in that they could be filled with water by an act of trepanning and squeezed, thus making the image weep black tears. It was noted, however, that although these idols initiated waves of high spirits to counter the lunar acolytes, they were of poor manufacture, since when squeezed the black tegument came off to stain hands and fingers. Many people wondered if this was an omen of strife and secret discord in high circles, since to certain clerks these inferior products would constitute an act of schism.
Dwllis was far too busy to notice any of this. One day at the Cowhorn Tower he was disturbed by noise at the door, and upon investigating he discovered Crimson Boney jumping up and down and trying to get inside. Dwllis let him in, shutting the door after making one round of the tower’s circumference; the gnostician had no lunar follower, so far as he could see.
At once he was confronted with the problem of communication. For some weeks now he had realised that the gnosticians were important to the Crayan scheme of things, the words of Hedalgwadey making this hunch even more plausible. Despite Umia’s threat he desperately wanted to sit down with Crimson Boney and chat. It would solve so many mysteries.
Working for Lord Archivist Subadwan had displaced his other activities. Now, a gnostician at his side, he felt the overwhelming urge to create a translator. Vivid, dreamy minutes passed as he considered the problem, oblivious to the creaking of the tower, the pattering footfall of the gnostician, to the purr and burble of on-line pyuters.
Pyuters. That was the key. It was the only way. He would have to create a pyuter powerful enough and with enough memory to become a translation machine. It could be done. An inner certainty drove him. The fact that he was the only person in all of Cray to consider gnosticians an already conscious species made him puff up with pride.
Hours of reverie passed. Thousands of discrete thoughts entered his mind.
‘I’ll do it,’ he suddenly said, standing. ‘I’ll crack this damnable thing once and for all.’
Crimson Boney showed no sign of leaving. This both worried and reassured Dwllis: because of the connection with the Archive of Selene, and because he felt a bond was forming between himself and the gnostician. All Crimson Boney did was eat leaves from his backpack and drink water.
And now Dwllis worked with intensity. Touring the Cowhorn Tower, he realised that none of his pyuters would be able to hold the abstract architecture required for something so complex as translation. One avenue remained. City wall pyuters featured vast memories. Unfortunately they were electronically and physically connected to the networks. Dwllis would have to steal one.
Placating Crimson Boney with food gestures that the gnostician seemed to understand, Dwllis departed the Cowhorn Tower, keeping his visitor inside. For some hours he strode the streets, hunting northerly sectors even to the edge of the Stellar Quarter, until he found what he wanted – a wall pyuter in a dark alley, untouched by glass. The few houses opposite seemed unoccupied. He walked past it a few times, popping a fresh lump of qe’lib’we into his mouth. The previous user had carelessly left the liquid screen undrained, and now it was a slimy mess patterned with soot, dust and glass splinters. Checking again for people walking along nearby Wool Street, he took from his toolkit a crowbar and some wedges. Risking damage, and struggling one-handed, he levered one side of the pyuter away from the wall, inserting the wedges. So far so good. Two more pulls on the crowbar, a loud crack! that penetrated his earmuffs, and the pyuter was loose. Dwllis pulled it out, bit off the optical fibres, poured away the screen, then ran.
He had succeeded in pulling off his crime. He did not know what the penalty might be if he was discovered, but he did not care. The niggling thought that he had descended from perfect citizenship to common criminality he shrugged off.
But the niggling thought was true. He had been, by choice and with pride, a man of unsoiled repute and selfless integrity. People laughed at his stiff ways, but he had right on his side. Until he broke into the Archive of Selene… until he stole a wall pyuter…
The thoughts vanished like dust sucked into a vent. He ran on. All that mattered was speaking with Crimson Boney.
Back at the Cowhorn Tower he first tried to reassure the gnostician, realising after some minutes of Crimson Boney trying to examine his pockets that the object of the search was the food he had signed earlier. What did they eat? He looked inside the gnostician’s bag, finding dried blue leaves from a plant he knew grew alongside the lane leading up to his tower. Outside, torch in hand, he found this plant. Though winter was approaching, its kissleaves were touching the kissleaves of adjacent plants, so that the whole area was cross-fertilising. No fruits here, then: they would appear in spring. Dwllis hunted up and down the lane, trying to recall the dishes Cuensheley set before gnostician guests at the Copper Courtyard, looking for a plant with kissleaves shrivelled and plump fruits. But it was not the season. There: a yellow-leafed ball-plant, its runners underground. One handed, torch stuck in his armpit, he plucked three fruits and took them to a grateful Crimson Boney.
All night he spent working with the stolen pyuter, evacuating the electronic dross, cleaning the memory of images, recalculating response times, finally recreating optical links to the tower system so that his own sub-systems could colonise the pyuter. He set the device in a barrel of bio-gel. The plan was for the pyuter to recreate itself. Once receptive, it would first experience the environment he had devised, then, as he and the gnostician tried to communicate, the sub-systems would evolve into an abstract ecology devoted to the translation of human and gnostician words… if such words existed.
When the optical links grew, the environment appeared. The pyuter rejected nothing, accepting knowledge of Cr
ay, of Dwllis and the gnostician, and of the concepts of language. It became as a year-old child, ready to speak.
Dwllis began collecting oddments from his rooms. He sat next to Crimson Boney and showed him a shoe. ‘Shoe,’ he said. ‘Shoe?’ He stared at the gnostician, waving the shoe in front of the creature’s dark eyes. Above these eyes, a wide mouth slobbered with the remains of yellow fruit: below, tentacles shivered.
The gnostician made a sound. Dwllis squeezed a bulb on the end of a wire to alert the pyuter to what he hoped was a gnostician word. Later on, when the system became intelligent, he wanted it to perform this task itself, as it evolved an understanding of the rules of gnostician sounds.
‘Cloth,’ he said, waving a cloth. ‘Cloth.’
Crimson Boney took the cloth and drew it close to his tentacles, before emitting a grunt.
‘Glass.’ A squeal.
‘Plant.’ A purr.
‘Metal.’ A musical whine.
And so the process continued. With no feedback from the pyuter Dwllis was forced to continue until he ran out of objects, at which point he paused for rest. The pyuter had already developed a level into which he could not inquire, a level below the symbolic, like the invisible molecules that made up a visible chunk of plastic. But despite the intense needs that he had programmed into the pyuter by means of its environment, it was not acting autonomously. Groups of symbols were floating through its electronic core, but not joining. It must need more data.
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