Sisyphean
Page 32
“You’re staying here,” Kugu-shi told Umari flatly, but she refused to nod assent.
Wringing the words from her throat, she said, “Even if I can’t move, I can still make carrier tone. Please take me with you.”
Everyone took turns trying to talk her out of it, but Umari kept on asking.
At last, Kugu-shi told her frankly, “You’d just be cuffs and fetters slowing us down. We’ve got to get Master to Rengen Recuperation Block. Who’s gonna look after you in the middle of all that when you can hardly move? Also, you’d probably wake the nanodust by wishing for what you’ve lost. That could get somebody killed.”
“What you oughta call her is a limblacker. Just look what happened to the old man on account of—”
“Romon, shut up. Umari, what you need to focus on right now is recovering as quickly as you can.”
With her right hand only, Umari gripped the edges of her covers, hung her head, and began crawling forward by moving either elbow in turn.
“Umari, wait!” Renji shouted.
“Whoa there, where do you think you’re going in that condition?”
“You all got a cruel streak, too, don’t you, brothers? Even if she does recover, what then? Any way you look at, there’s no place for her now but the maternitorium. The bedrooms over there’ve even got soft bedding. She’ll be able to take all the time she needs to get better.”
Chapter 5:
Journey to Nankou
Having departed Tochino Recuperation Block, the momonji caravan’s long procession would soon pass beyond the two-kilometer radius of the calmdust belt—and the scenery was a chaotic jumble of views from above, views from the ground, and close-ups, with all viewpoints lining up or sticking together in the backs of my eyes (It’s like visual intercession set to multiperceptory mode). Or maybe memories of my long life up till now—my life of nothing but momonji columns that stretch on and on forever—simply coming together to form a meaningless illusion (At first, I couldn’t see this bizarre scenery as anything other than an illusion).
But I remembered the order. Fifty head of edible momonji, to be delivered unharmed within ten days to clients one hundred kilometers away in Nankou. The clients were a stingy pair of merchants, so there’d be no cooks or feelancers coming with us this time. We’d even been forbidden from putting loads on the momonji, despite the fact they were hardly high-grade animals. That was why we’d had to borrow two momonga more than usual from the rental place.
The momonga, spaced out so as to place one after every five or so momonji, had iron spikes driven into their backshell ossiforms. With towing cables tied to the spikes, they were hauling along covered wagons. These contained water, foodstuffs, momonji feed, rolls of guideline, and so on, and inside the one bringing up the rear (is you, lying down). Yeah, that’s you, lying down in there.
I was supposed to be an Untranslatable (You were supposed to turn to wasteflesh and die after I got Translated).
They called it dustsunk land where the shrine was located, but even so, I could’ve sworn I’d been struck by lightning back there. All of a sudden, I was swallowed up in this mysterious surge of power, and while I was tossing and turning in an incoherent flood of memories I don’t ever remember having, my whole body—missing arm included—got pulled apart into what seemed like a million earthworms (For some reason, that surge is now an endless series of repeating vibrations all around me). Maybe it was suppressed by the calmdust belt’s calmingsong. As the covered wagon passed over the crystalline lattices, their surfaces would start to melt; the caravan hands were very worried about it.
There were ten hands total. Of these, five were Fatguard clan fatteners, and the rest Dustclinger clan dustmancers. Umari was nowhere to be seen. I’d been (I’d been) stolen away from that girl.
Every time I woke up, I tried to ask somebody, “What happened?” or “What’s going on now?” But our thoughts would interfere with each other (Our tongues would get tangled), and all that would come out was delirious babbling.
Walking in the lead, Kugu-shi turned his hulking self around and looked back toward the formation. He whistled with his tongue and stopped the first momonji by pressing one hand against the middle of its face. All down the line, caravan hands shoved their fingers into gaps between the backshell ossiforms under their beasts’ skins. One after another, the momonji came to a halt, pushing their faces into the backsides of the ones in front of them, then falling back little by little to space themselves out again. I could dully feel their shifting centers of gravity, like babies squirming to get loose from the people holding them.
In front of the column was a towering dustwreck jungle. It was covered in power lines that hung down like dark, dense growths of creeper vine, and countless pipes and ducts, which together resembled pipe organs. For some reason, ripples of faint light were shining on these dustwrecks’ surfaces. Being as no one mentioned it, the caravan hands apparently didn’t notice. Other dustwreck jungles visible off in the distance—and even the ground itself—were tinged with that light. The whole Vastsea seemed filled with it.
Is this your doing? The dictation of content I’ve never uttered— (No, it’s the
Next, a powerful stream of light came rolling in from under the ground. It leapt into one eye of each momonji, and in the same instant, light of different wavelengths shone out of their other eyes.
Why can I see this kind of thing? (It’s a lot like a kosmetic EM field visualization.) Maybe it’s their abilities as planetary bioprobes being used as some kind of conversion device.
The dustmancers of the Dustclinger clan gathered in front of Kugu-shi. They all flickered like stripes in an interference pattern, their outlines indistinct, even blending in and out of the background as they moved.
Gei’ei-shi pushed his shadecap back from his crewcut-framed face so that it hung from his neck. He clicked his tongue, got his bearings from the echoes, then plunged ahead into the dustwreck jungle. He began climbing up an immense dustwreck tower formed out of interwoven silos, airplanes, bridge girders, and lighthouses, which in turn were composed of walls of assorted smaller items—it was like he was climbing up a trompe l’oeil painting.
There were thick blooms of traffic lights and streetlamps, clusters of antennae bifurcating like rime-frost, pipes that here and there swelled with woodwind tumors, and crosses and propellers that knocked against each other with outstretched arms. Higher up, images of Christ crucified, ships’ figureheads, mannequins, corpses clad in caravan gear, gargoyles, and sign-age all stuck out in every direction. Temples and tochkas lay covered in scaly coats of clocks and measuring instruments, and every gap in between was filled with the friction and disorder of some lampstand, kitchen utensil, mirror window bottle doorpostboxcarouselectorpedometerrariumbilicalendartboardwalkmandalandminesweeperiscope—even folkloric eide, which should have never been installed in Yaoyorozu, had been dug out of every kind of memory-bearing media. Gei’ei-shi made his way upward, sticking fingers and toes into seams between relics reminiscent of untold hosts of lives (It’s like he’s gouging gaps between my ribs— (No, more like trenches in my brain— (One by one). Thanks to the antidust camo covering his body, Gei’ei-shi didn’t scatter any eide, although the body heat and brainwaves he was giving off did melt some nearby dustwroughts into indistinct blobs (It itches, like a light burn).
Gei’ei-shi, having reached the summit, looked out across the distant landscape, still clicking his tongue cheerfully. A flock of pigeons that had been roosting in the dustwreck tower took flight, and a part of the tower imitated their motion, with countless wings blossoming like a bed
of flowers.
Something blocked my field of view. It was so close that its image blurred (Looks like the inside of a lamprey’s mouth. Look at those concentric rings of serrated teeth). It looks like a momonji’s mouth (But those saw-teeth are revolving).
My field of view shattered, breaking apart like images in a compound eye. Each view began to spin independently of the others (This is bad; I’m getting dizzy).
I felt the sensation of Gei’ei-shi climbing back down the inside of my brain (Of my body)—and with each descending step, my fields of view gradually converged and unified.
The fatteners were scolding the momonji, trying to get them back onto their guidelines.
Inside their tough multiple stomachs, momonji broke down whatever they ate, all the way down to the molecular level, incorporating it into their bodies with great efficiency. Nanodust and ores, however, were different. Through microbiotic refining, they could transform such materials into ferroscrap and excrete it, but each time they did so, it consumed an enormous amount of their heat energy.
Gei’ei-shi jumped back down to the ground and told Kugu-shi that there was an extremely active region south by southwest.
Kugu-shi, the Dustclingers’ acting leader, altered one part of the planned route that was drawn on his map.
No matter how precisely they forecast the Vastsea’s movements prior to departure, and no matter how thoroughly the journey was planned, momonji drives that proceeded as planned were for all intents and purposes nonexistent. This was because the very act of traveling through the Vastsea triggered transformations in it. In belts of high responsivity, the labyrinth was complicated by the struggle of nanodust and human to anticipate one another, and lessons learned on one journey became completely useless on the next. It was said that powerful longings for a safe arrival had even been known to make entire recuperation blocks appear—entire caravans had stopped and spent the night in them, with no one ever doubting that they were inside the real thing.
Kugu-shi nodded toward Romon, who was on linelayer duty. Romon hefted onto his back a spool of guideline that weighed as much as he did and started up the steep slope of a hill between two dustwrecks. Homaru and Renji followed behind. The mosaic of bricks and flagstones and tile roofs underfoot was divided into patchwork by tangled pipes and power lines. It looked as if time had stopped just as it was all starting to collapse.
Homaru kept lowering cable from Romon’s spool, periodically chanting the metal fittings needed to secure it.
Renji’s carrier tone was like a birdsong as she cleared obstacles from their path, covering over pitfalls, flattening out areas of upheaval, pushing into the wreckwalls those dustwroughts that stuck out in their way, and even pushing the wreckwalls themselves with both hands, making them shift as if she were moving mountains.
With encouragement from Kugu-shi’s sharp tongue-whistles, the momonji reluctantly started moving again.
Starting with the lead momonji, each one in turn latched onto the guideline with its ten sets of claw-legs, following it as they hurriedly crawled up the hill.
The dustwroughts on either side were pretending not to notice, rippling only faintly. According to one hypothesis, the extremely simple shapes of momonji had been carefully designed so as to keep nanomotes from detecting them. Even antidust camouflage had originally been made to mimic the patterns of momonji fur.
They crossed over the hill and had traveled about seven kilometers farther when Gei’ei-shi, who was in the middle of the column, raised one hand up high. Those nearest him copied the gesture, transmitting it up and down the line. Moving silently, each hand in the caravan brought a momonji to a halt. The guideline made a sound like that of whining cicadas. Everyone in the caravan held their breaths.
A vibrating rumble rose up from underground, like the sound of trees being mowed down (My insides feel like lead. My gut’s twisted, and the hollow inside me’s getting bigger)—it was a canvasser. The high-pitched sound of its swiftly rotating pleopods grew more and more noticeable. It was coming this way.
I felt a sharp pain (Like having an iron spike driven through the top of your head)—
In the midst of the rank, there was a dull thunk, and suddenly one momonji was flung up into the air—it flipped over before crashing back down to the ground. Curling up to protect its underside, it went rigid, then started wiggling its claw-legs at the sky. Right next to it crouched Romon, who had been on his way back from picking up guideline. There was a big tear in the front of his shadecap. Before him and behind, panicked momonji were blowing out hot breaths of air as they squirmed about.
The noise of the canvasser propelling itself through the ground was moving parallel to the line of the caravan.
A huge tearing sound shook the air.
Toward the front of the line, a second momonji went flying, hanging suspended for an instant in midair before it came crashing to the ground.
Dark red blood gushed out from under its stretched, distorted pelt, drenching ground that was covered in a luxuriant growth of wires.
The sound receded steadily into the distance. It was moving away from the caravan.
Gei’ei-shi crawled up on top of a nearby momonji and raised his arm. The caravan hands who saw him started moving swiftly.
Kugu-shi came running over to him, and Romon looked up, with one palm pressed against his face.
“They got me again,” he said as he took away his hand. His flesh had been laid open from chin to cheek, and his uneven rows of teeth could be seen peeking through. “Just look at this! And the Hades thorn only grazed me!”
“We’ll sew you right up,” Kugu-shi said, but Romon refused to be treated. Under his boot, he stomped the suture ants that came boiling up from the ground. The pain, it was said, would be four times worse if you let someone else do the stitching. Kugu-shi threaded a sewing needle and handed it to him. Romon held down the skin around the tear and pushed the needle through, hissing and groaning in pain as he crudely sewed his face back together.
Nearby, Sagyoku-shii, corpulent leader of the Fatguard clan, was crouched down beside the upturned momonji, inspecting it as she coughed occasionally into a handkerchief. There was a deep gash on one side of its belly, but as she could see from the busy movements of its claw-legs, its life was in no danger. The wound was quickly sewn up, then six men together hefted its huge body and flipped it back onto its stomach.
The other momonji’s intestines had come spilling out from its underside, but even so, a frantic Renji and Homaru were working hard to push them back in. Too late, everyone gathered around and lifted up one side. The fleeting glimpse they got of its underbelly told them that nothing could be done. A Hades thorn was buried in the inner wall of its body cavity.
Hwa, hwa … Its short, quick pants were growing steadily farther apart.
Everyone stood there unmoving until its breaths could be heard no longer.
(I can still hear it breathing, just barely) No, you can’t, that sound is (Like compressed air leaking out)—gas! The airsac in its body cavity might be torn. But something isn’t right. This isn’t the right type for gas production. And for it to go on this long (Nobody seems to have noticed). This is bad; if they’re not careful it could ignite (But even if I wanted to stop it, my five senses are spread out all across the Vastsea). If they don’t get away from it fast—
Several projections resembling udders began rising up from the ground around the body. Was “I” moving them?
I tried bending my fingers, and the projections bent as one. The sensation in my fingers—scattered like dots in a pointillist painting—seemed dispersed through and crammed into hundreds of such projections.
I dipped the tips of those phalanxes into the puddle of momonji blood, grabbed hold of the ground as if to knead it, and then dragged it gradually downward.
The momonji’s corpse began to sink just a little.
“It’s copying the pool of blood!” cried Sagyoku-shii, her ample chin swaying.
At the rear of the dead momonji, Kugu-shi quickly drew his tamer, squatted his huge body low, and put the muzzle against the center of the puddle.
I felt my spinal column snap violently backward. The stench of bones carbonized by blazing heat—(This memory … )—after the cremation, I spent forever gathering up the bones. Thousands of people’s worth of bones and countless broken shards—
Kugu-shi raised his rugged, bony face and looked across the pool of blood toward its far side.
Gei’ei-shi, clucking his tongue, was swiveling his head right, left, up, and down.
“What happened—?”
“I don’t know; that response was pretty weird. There’s an incredibly long dustwrought bending backward deep underground—it just keeps going, farther and farther down. It’ll be calmdust soon enough though.”
True to his words, holes began to open in the ground as it hardened into a lotus receptacle pattern. It looked like it had frozen over.
I endured a pain that was like having my skin frozen. The movements of my fingers, reflected back at me by the calmdust, pressed against my abdominal cavity from the inside, squeezing my diaphragm.
I could still hear the disquieting sound of leaking gas. I had to get that momonji away from everyone.
I took hold of my own intestines with fingertips that now only barely obeyed my will. Tormented by a nausea that made me shudder, I pushed at my intestines’ opening, spreading it ever wider. I felt intense heat being radiated from inside.
Gei’ei-shi put one ear to the ground, and the expression on his tattoo-covered face twisted in alarm.