Perhaps, 'pathed Chaney, the thing cannot follow us across water.
I fear that's an empty hole' Tedesco said.
By this time the women were staying close to their men, and the men continually cast wary glances over their shoulders. All of them were heavy-eyed and fuzzy-minded from lack of sleep.
We've nothing to lose by trying it, Melopina 'pathed.
She's right — Jask.
And by taking a ship, we would save days and days of marching around the shore of Hadaspuri — Kiera.
The water slapped at the docks.
The dead and dying ships caught pieces of the morning sun and shone in brief remembrance of their youth.
I've never sailed — Tedesco.
I have — Chaney.
You think you could teach us to man the rig of a ship like that one? Tedesco pointed at what appeared to be a sound, yellow alloy ship, which still rode high in the water after so many years and which contained three masts, all empty of sailcloth.
I could, I think — Chaney.
Jask? — Tedesco.
I'm for it.
Please! Let's try it! — Melopina.
They boarded the yellow ship, which was chained at the far end of the dock, and they found that she was in excellent condition. Her sealed engines, which had been placed in her hull during the Last War, were still functioning, monuments to the great technology of that age. Of its twenty robot tenders, twelve still rolled about the gleaming ship, polishing and repairing, scouring away the gradual erosions of time.
We could forget the sails, Jask said. The engines will carry us across the Hadaspuri.
Chaney stood on the bridge of the vessel, staring at the complex controls, his hairy fingers working them cautiously, his mouth twisted in concentration. Lights popped on; buzzers sounded; gauges registered levels of liquids and of power in the batteries. He looked away from all this for a moment and said to Jask, That's a bad idea.
We'd save a week or more if we didn't bother with sails.
Chaney smiled knowingly, returned to the controls. Then again, the engines might cut out on us when we're in the middle of all that damned water, leave us stranded there until our food and fresh water were gone. Maybe we could boil up a drinkable brew from seawater and survive a bit longer. In the end, though, we'd starve to death.
But those engines have been working for thousands of years, Chaney! Why should they suddenly quit on us when we need them?
And why should they not quit on us? Chaney asked.
Jask decided there was something to be desired in having a skipper who was at least a little pessimistic.
In all of Kittlesticks there was no cloth to be had — just tattered, mildewed, mold-covered, rotting lumps of stuff that could never be fashioned to fit their needs. Finally, though, in a dockside nautical shop they found a great length of lightweight metallic sailcloth whose metal fibers had withstood the gnawing of the years.
This material proved difficult to cut and sew, and they remained in Kittlesticks five days, working up three serviceable sails. They saw no Indians during the night, though their unearthly companion remained, haunting their sleep and forcing its mental aura into their esp perceptions all the time they were awake.
At last, in the early morning, with only a suggestion of the sun in the sky, they carried the three sails down to the ship.
Mist drifted in from the sea, oddly sweet scented.
They mounted the sails on the electrically controlled yard-arms, drew them up for testing, then rolled them down again and bound them fast until they might be needed. The noise of their labor echoed across the flat waters like footfalls in a tomb.
That afternoon, on the edge of town, they gathered wild fruit of many kinds, and packed it all into baskets and sacks. They killed a large animal that had descended from pure cattle but which was now a nine-horned, broader-shouldered, taller and meaner creature than its ancestors had been. They skinned and butchered this brute and salted several large pieces of meat. These stores were loaded in the galley of the ship, below the waterline, where they might be kept cool.
The espers dreamed at night; a living city, rooms of flesh, streets of pulsing tissue…
Before dawn of the seventh day they boarded the yellow ship, which they had christened Hadaspuri Maiden, half in fun and half in hopes that after being accorded such an honor the sea would look with favor upon their journey. The engines were brought up to full power, and the ship was taken from the dock at Kittlesticks. They had still seen no Indians.
The Hadaspuri was amber near the coast but grew a dirty green and then a rich blue color as they moved out onto it and it grew deeper beneath them.
As they passed the last of the atolls twenty kilometers from shore, rainbow-colored flying fish danced before their bow. Their wings were as much as four feet across, spreading gloriously as they arced from the sea and folding sleekly as they plummeted back in.
Standing by the rail on the deck of the open bridge door, looking at the heaving sea, through which the Maiden sliced like a knife, Tedesco 'pathed to Chaney, What do you know of the Hadaspuri?
It's six hundred kilometers from west to east, eight hundred from Kittlesticks on the south to any point on the north shore.
Is it inhabited?
The sea? Chaney 'pathed, perplexed.
Yes.
By fish.
How big are the fish?
Chaney grinned. So far as I know, the Hadaspuri contains no beasts. It is not, after all, a Wildlands sea.
Let's hope you're right.
If anything attacks our little ship, Chaney promised, I'll skin it, butcher it, and store it below.
No need. I hate fish.
The sunny sky grew overcast as they thrust deeper into the heart of the Hadaspuri. The clouds were light gray, riding high, bothersome but not threatening a storm.
Before long the air smelled only of the sea, without a single trace of land in it.
They ate a light lunch of fruit, a dinner of roasted beef basted in the juice of apples and pears.
The unseen creature remained with them.
It nagged at the periphery of their extrasensory perception, its voice a wail, its note that of endless suffering, its effect stronger than ever on the five espers.
Later, when Kiera took the first watch on the bridge, before the wheel and instruments, the others went below to sleep in the two main cabins, aft. Despite the fact that they were separated by the metal bulkheads, they all dreamed, simultaneously, of the living city. The dream swiftly graduated into a full-fledged nightmare and grew rapidly worse than that. No one could get any rest at all.
On deck again Tedesco 'pathed, Something will break soon.
Let's hope! — Jask said.
If I could see it, Chaney 'pathed, I could get these claws into it and take a good bite in its neck with these teeth. He held up his unsheathed claws and showed them his wicked teeth so that they would know he was not making an idle boast.
Melopina sat against the deck railing, her head hung down, her shoulders bent, exhausted, her pretty blue-green neck membranes hanging limp like sails without wind, and she did not say anything at all.
Something must break, Tedesco continued. Either this creature will get weary of us and go away, back to wherever it sprang from — or it will make itself fully understood, impart this compulsive information and deplete its energies of anguish.
And if it does neither? — Jask inquired.
Tedesco grunted. Then you will learn that a man can die from lack of sleep as easily as he can from lack of food or water.
The Hadaspuri Maiden knifed on through the sea as darkness became complete and the stars popped out through holes in the gray clouds.
28
Two days later the five passengers on the Hadaspuri Maiden moved sluggishly about their duties, not like real men but like zombies who had only a minimal charge of life donated them by sorcerers. They spoke hardly at all, either vocally or telepathically, because the
amount of thought necessary to keep up a sensible conversation required energy they no longer possessed. Their eyes were swollen and teary. Their limbs felt as if they had been cast from lead; each step became a major journey, each tiny deed a Herculean effort.
Soon they were forced to keep two watchmen at the wheel instead of one, in order not to be accidentally taken off their course for the northern shore of the inland sea. Once, after Tedesco's watch, they found themselves twenty degrees off course, though the bruin, in his state of near-collapse, did not recall altering any of the controls. After Melopina's watch it was found that she had somehow turned them completely about and that they were driving hard for Kittlesticks, from which they had come only days ago. Melopina had no recollection of turning the ship about, though she had often fallen asleep over the wheel, to be awakened by the awful nightmares. Clearly she had not turned them around on purpose; therefore, the double watch was immediately established.
Though they had not originally been affected by the pitching waves through which the Maiden drove, they now found every tilt of the decks more than they could cope with. They zigzagged from place to place, staggering like drunkards, gripping safety rails and wondering when one of them might be pitched overboard.
Their appetites dwindled, became almost nonexistent. They wanted sleep, not food, and they ate what little they could only because they knew they dared not forego food altogether. They tasted nothing they consumed, but they got indigestion from all of it.
Out of desperation and the agony of her total exhaustion and her continuing inability to sleep properly, Melopina came up with the idea that was to save them. It did not seem like much; it had only a small chance of success; but it was, when all was said and done, their only hope of salvation.
The idea came to her during one of her duties at the wheel. She turned to Jask, who was her watchmate, and she 'pathed, Do you think that if we worked together, the five of us could combine our esp powers and create a single psychic probe stronger than any of our individual powers?
Jask did not want to have to respond. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, and his mouth was as dry as a handful of sand. Finally he said, I never thought much about it. I don't know.
Well, think about it now. It's important.
Nothing is important but sleep.
That's what I mean, she 'pathed.
He 'pathed a question mark.
She explained. The reason this creature keeps bothering us is to make full contact with us and — we all seem to agree — tell us something it deems vital to communicate.
So?
Thoughts moved like syrup down a two-degree incline.
She 'pathed, None of us has been able to reach the thing on his own. But suppose that when we pool our talents, we have the necessary — call it “range" — to establish contact.
Then?
Then we let it tell us what it wants.
And send it away satisfied?
Yes.
If it wants more than to just impart a message? If it won't pick up its invisible skirts and go back where it came from?
She 'pathed, Then we kill it.
With our amplified esp power?
Yes. And as Chaney said before, no moralizing. This thing will be the death of us unless we act against it.
No argument, he 'pathed. And I think you really have something here.
Do you really?
It's the only hope we have, in fact.
You don't sound very excited, she 'pathed.
I don't have the energy for excitement, he replied.
When Chaney and Kiera came onto the bridge to take their turn at watch, Jask sent the wolf-man to bring Tedesco into the small, instrument-crammed cabin. When they were all assembled, Melopina repeated her suggestion and opened the floor for discussion.
It sounds good to me — Kiera.
Maybe — Chaney.
Kiera leaned toward him and 'pathed, Have you got any better ideas, Captain?
Chaney — I'd still like to claw it and get my fangs in its neck.
His bushy tail whipped back and forth at that thought.
In effect that's what you'll be doing, Jask said. Only we'll substitute the esp power for claws and teeth if necessary.
Tedesco? Chaney had come to respect the bruin's opinions on most all matters.
I think it's worth a try, but…
But? — Jask.
Practically speaking, the bruin 'pathed, how do we go about establishing this mesh of our talents, this consolidation of forces?
They looked at Melopina.
She bit her blue lip, tossed her black hair away from her face, setting up a sympathetic vibration in her neck membranes.
She 'pathed, First, we ought to have all our attention on the problem. That will mean shutting down the ship and losing some travel time.
Right — Kiera.
We'll lose much more travel time if we don't solve this situation, Tedesco 'pathed. What else?
Melopina thought a moment, and said, Perhaps we should begin by forming a meditation circle, like they do in some religions.
That's an ancient means of focusing concentration, Tedesco said. It sounds like a worthy enough beginning to me.
They sat in a close circle on the main deck, forward of the bridge, while the Maiden rocked gently back and forth. They held hands and looked sheepishly at one another, embarrassed by this childish ritual but not certain how else to begin.
Now, Melopina 'pathed, leading them, we've first got to compress all of our perceptions, esp and otherwise, into a single entity. It seems to me that the best way to handle that is to start with only two of us. Jask and I will touch each other's minds, meld into one as we have often done in the last few weeks.
Then? — Tedesco.
When Jask and I have accomplished this, you, Tedesco, can attempt to meld with the two of us and form a tricornered personality — something we do casually all the time but which we 've never tried to this degree. If that is successful, then Kiera will join us. Then Chaney. Psychically, we will be a single being. Whether or not our telepathic and destructive esp powers can then be disciplined as a single force, I do not know. But we'll find out.
I'm ready, Jask 'pathed.
I can feel that damned — thing again! Kiera 'pathed. Let's not waste any more time.
They could all sense the invisible creature's nearness, an urgent psychic force that hung above them like a rain-laden cloud.
Okay, Melopina said.
Jask reached out, psychically, and touched the shell of her mind, caressed it and slowly began to meld with her.
She touched him at the same instant.
In a few seconds they were seeing through each other's eyes as well as through their own. Jask saw Melopina's face straight-on, through his own eyes, saw his face straight-on through her eyes.
They felt with two sets of nerves. Melopina felt her hand lying in his, his hand lying under hers; his heartbeat and her own; the wind on her skin and on his; a hair tickling his ear, her own hair blowing out behind her in the salty air; felt both female and male between her legs; felt flat-chested and breasted like a woman…
They tasted as one.
They heard sounds as one.
When the physical match was perfect, they swept into each other's minds, until they held no secrets, until, with an imperceptible lightening of the burden of life, they meshed perfectly together.
Now, Tedesco! Melopina/Jask 'pathed.
The bruin touched them hesitantly, moved carefully, but soon completed the meshing as easily as the lovers had.
Kiera! Melopina/Jask/Tedesco said.
Kiera came among them quickly, with no hesitation.
Chaney…
In half an hour the five had become as one, Melopina/ Jask/Tedesco/Kiera/Chaney, five bodies sharing a single psychic force.
The unseen creature moved closer, came in stronger than it had before, as if it sensed them reaching for it.
Imagine one grasping hand, Me
lopina ordered.
They tried.
One hand… one hand… straining high… straining with every bit of strength that it has… one hand… one… reaching for a distant star… one… hand… one… one… just one… all of us, one hand reaching…
Miraculously their combined esp powers coalesced into a blindingly pure instrument of learning.
In the blink of the gestalt's birth, the invisible companion who had been with them since the craters and who had denied them sleep for several days now, swooped in as if drawn by a magnet. It was then as clear as it could ever be. The message it had to impart was detailed, sensible to some extent, and delivered with immense impact:
The city lives, lives the city, loves the city, all its people. The city does the mathematical dance of cherish for its people, grows for its people, peoples for its people many rooms.
The people live, live for the people, love the people all their city. The people proclaim love for their city to all lesser cities, to all dead and never-living cities across the land.
The people ask; the city gives; the people use; the city feels complete, completely feels, cherishes its people, does the city.
The city lives all of forever, never dying is the city, mourning all its many peoples passing on before.
This thematic narrative was delivered like the blows from a psychic whip, lashing out relentlessly, frantically, bordering on the incoherent, the babblings of a being who had long been mad. None of the espers could yet sense what the creature was, but they knew that revelation would come.
Overlaying the narrative, in bright images, were scenes of the living city as it was meant to be, its citizens happy and its constantly expanding facilities always more than adequate to their needs. In the background, however, lay intimations of tragedy…
The city knows, knows the city, every lane and avenue, street and boulevard, knows its many rooms, homes, stores, factories and institutions, knows what is needed, what stands in want of repair, knows, knows intimately, the city, all of this, for all of this is the city.
Until that morning… That morning, the city discovers a neighborhood unknown to it, a slum, an impossible place, the city feels, impossible the city knows, but the city sees it nonetheless, does the city. The city investigates, grows sensors, stirs into every corner, does the city, every corner of this new place, unheard of place, stirs and stirs, does the city, finds rooms unfit for habitation, ugly rooms, not rooms of beauty, finds the city. The city finds streets that twist unnecessarily, grow too wide here, too narrow there, here with too high a ceiling, there with a ceiling too low… All this finds the city, sees the city, mourns the city, fears the city, and even more than this, even more… The city finds rooms where the walls are not smooth and pleasant, but knotted, gnarled, pimpled, pocked and mottled, finds the city all of this, and even more, even more.
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