Anthony, Piers - Tarot 1 - God of Tarot

by God of Tarot (lit)

  Brother Paul drew out his calculator, his symbol for thought, his figurative Sword of Tarot. It was an early model, perhaps twenty-five years old. An antique, but it still operated. The Holy Order of Vision took good care of those devices it preserved, perhaps fearing that one year there would be no reservoir of technology but this. The calculator had a number of square white buttons, and a number of square black ones. By depressing these buttons in the proper order he could set up any simple mathematical problem and obtain an immediate solution. Instantaneous—like the travel between worlds! This was travel between the worlds of concepts, not of space.

  Idly he turned it on, watching the green zero appear in the readout window. "Two," he murmured, touching the appropriate button, and the zero was transformed miraculously into 2. "Plus three—equals five." And the green 5 was there ahead of him.

  Brother Paul smiled. He liked this little machine; it might not rival the Colony computer, but it did its limited job well. "Let's remember that," he said, punching the MEMORY button, then the PLUS button. That should file the number in the memory as a positive integer. Now he touched the CLEAR ENTRY button, and the cheerful zero reappeared, as green as ever. He punched MEMORY and RECALL and the 5 returned. Good; the memory was functioning properly.

  "Let's convert it from kilograms to pounds," he continued, for this was an old conversions calculator complete with the archaic measurements, as befitted the date of its origin. He touched the CONVERSIONS button, then the MINUS button, which was now understood to represent kilograms. Then the DIVIDE button, which was now pounds. These double designations were initially confusing, but necessary to make twenty buttons do the work of fifty. The answer: 11.023113.

  "File that useless information in Memory Two," he said, punching MEMORY again, followed by 2, followed by PLUS, followed by CLEAR ENTRY. The readout returned to zero. Oh, he had forgotten what fun this was! "Now the number 99999999 multiplied by the number in Memory One." He punched a row of eight nines, then TIMES, then MEMORY, 1, RECALL, then EQUALS. He frowned.

  A red dot had appeared in the left-hand corner of the readout. "Overload," he said. "No room for a nine-digit number! Clear it out." He struck the CLEAR button several times, then turned off the calculator so as not to waste battery power while he thought.

  "Very well, he said after a moment. "Let's keep it within bounds. Multiply Memory One by Memory Two." He turned it on again and punched the necessary sequence rapidly. All he got were zeroes. "Oh, I forgot! Turning it off erases the memory! I'll have to start over." He punched in a new 5, put it in Memory One, converted it from kilos to pounds, put that into Memory Two, cleared the readout, forgot what he was doing, and punched for Memory Two Recall. The result was zero.

  "Something's wrong," he said. He went through the sequence again, watching his fingers move fleetingly over the keys—and saw his error. He had missed the 2 button for Memory Two and hit the TIMES button instead. "Can't put it in TIMES MEMORY!" he said. "That would mean I'd have to punch MEMORY TIMES RECALL to get it out, and the poor machine would think I'd gone crazy and have to flash overload lights at me to jog me out of it." As he spoke, he punched the foolish sequence he had named. The readout showed 11.023113.

  Brother Paul stared at that. Then he erased the sequence and went through it all again, carefully punching the erroneous TIMES MEMORY, which was not supposed to exist. The same thing happened: he got the number back. "But that means this thing has a third memory—and it's only built for two," he said.

  So he tested it methodically, for there was nothing so intriguing to him as a good mystery or paradox. He punched the number 111 into Memory One, 222 into Memory Two, and 333 into MEMORY TIMES. Then he punched out each in turn. Up they came, like the chosen cards of a sleight-of-hand magician: 111— 222—0.

  "Zero!" he exclaimed. "So it isn't true!" But just to be certain, he repeated the process, this time checking TIMES MEMORY first—and the 333 appeared. He checked for the 222 and found it, and then the 111—and it was there too. No doubt about it; he now had three memories. But the third one was intermittent, following some law of its own, as though it were half wild.

  "Half wild..." he repeated aloud, thinking of something else. But if he got off on that, he would not solve the present mystery. He glanced at his watch. He had really gobbled up time with his calculations! Ten minutes, forty-two seconds, give or take a second, since he had set the counter. How long would they dawdle about mattermitting this capsule?

  He cleared the readout and punched MEMORY TIMES again. The 333 reappeared. "A ghost in the machine," he said. "A secret memory, unknown to—"

  "So you found me," a voice responded. "Yet I was always here, to be evoked."

  Brother Paul's eyes flicked from the calculator to his watch—ten minutes, forty-nine seconds—then lifted slowly. A man stood before him, on the far side of the sewing machine. He was young, but with receding hair and chin, as though he had been subjected to early stress. No, that was a false characterization; physical appearance had little to do with personality. "Sorry. I did not see you arrive," Brother Paul said. "Are you traveling to Planet Tarot too?"

  The man smiled, but there was something strange about the way his mouth moved. "Perhaps—if you so choose."

  "I am Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision." He put forth his hand.

  "I am Antares," the man said, but made no motion to accept the hand.

  "Well, Mr. Antares—or is it Brother Antares? Are you another investigator?"

  "It is only Antares. Sexual designations have little meaning to my kind, and you would not understand my personal designation. Do you not know me?"

  Brother Paul looked at him again, more carefully this time. This was just an ordinary man, wearing a dark tunic. "I regret that the only Antares I know of is a bright red star."

  "Exactly."

  "You associate with the star Antares?" Brother Paul asked, perplexed.

  "I am the emissary from Sphere Antares, yes," the man affirmed.

  "I was not aware that our colonies extended so far. Isn't Antares many hundreds of light-years distant from Sol?"

  "About five hundred of your light-years, yes, in your constellation Scorpio. We are not a colony, but a separate Sphere. There are many sapient Spheres in the galaxy, and in other galaxies, each highly advanced in the center and fading in technology and competence at the fringe, owing to the phenomenon of spherical regression. Thus each empire has certain natural limits, depending on—"

  "Scorpio," Brother Paul said musingly, grasping that portion of the alien's discussion to which he could relate. "The constellation."

  "The scorpion that slew Orion, in your mythology," the man said agreeably. "Of course, in real history, the constellation you call Orion's Belt is the center of Sphere Mintaka, perhaps the largest and most influential Sphere in this sector of galactic space, with the possible exception of Sphere Sador. A giant, certainly, but never slain by anything in our rather more modest Sphere! Actually, war between the Spheres is virtually unknown, because of the problems of communication and transport."

  Brother Paul was still belatedly assimilating the implications. "Perhaps I misunderstand. It almost seems that you imply you are a man from a—a regime centered in the region of the space known as—"

  "Not a man, Solarian Brother Paul. I am an Antarean, a sapient creature quite alien to your type, except in intellect."

  "An alien creature!" Was this a joke? Brother Paul looked at his watch. The counter indicated ten minutes, forty-nine seconds. Well, he would test Antares statement. "I regret that I have not encountered many alien creatures. Your form appears human—or is that a mirage?"

  "This is my Solarian host. My aura was transferred to this host so that I could present to your species the technology of matter transmission. In exchange you gave us controlled hydrogen fusion."

  Matter transmission! "You brought us that breakthrough technology?"

  "True. It would otherwise have been some time before your Sphere developed it
. The principles are foreign to the main thrust of your technology, just as the principles of hydrofusion are foreign to ours. In fact, historically, our experts believed it was theoretically impossible to accomplish such a process artificially. Our Theory of Absolutivity—"

  This was a strange joke! "Antares, I would like to see you in your alien form. Would you mind materializing in that?" If this were a prank, that would expose it!

  The person before him faded. In his place appeared a large amoebalike mass. On its top, it erected a pattern of spongy knobs that flexed up and down like the keys of a player piano. Then it flung out a pseudopod, a glob of gelatinous substance that landed a meter to the side connected to the main mass by a dwindling tendril. Fluid pulsed along this tendril, distending it, collecting at the end, swelling the glob until it approached the size of the main body. The process continued, making the glob even larger until at last it was the original body that was a glob, while the glob had expanded to the size of the original mass. Then the trailing tendril was sucked in. The creature now stood one meter to the side of where it had stood before. It had taken one step.

  It faded, and the man reappeared. "We Antareans may be slow, but there are few places we cannot go," he said. "I have returned to the form of my human host so that I may converse with you; I doubt that you are facile in my native language."

  "Uh, thank you," Brother Paul said. "That was an impressive demonstration. May I touch you?"

  "I regret you cannot," the alien said. "Both my forms are insubstantial. You perceive only an animation shaped by my aura, and this is possible only while we endure in the process of transmission. You may pass your appendage through the image, but you will feel nothing."

  "So you are a ghost," Brother Paul said. "An apparition without substance. Nevertheless, I am inclined to make the attempt." He reached forward slowly, over the sewing machine.

  Antares did not retreat the way a joker might. He stood still, waiting for the touch.

  There was no touch. Brother Paul felt a slight tingling, as of an electrical charge that gave him an odd thrill but no physical contact. This was, indeed, a ghost.

  "Your aura! Amazing!" Antares exclaimed. "Never have I felt the like!"

  This was strange, and far beyond the parameters of a practical joke. "My aura?"

  "Solarian Brother Paul, now I know I have never touched you before, for there can be no other aura in your Sphere like yours. Or in my own Sphere. Perhaps not in the Spheres of Spica, Canopus, Polaris. or even huge Sador. I suspect there is none of greater intensity in all the galaxy, for only once in a thousand of your years is there a statistical probability of—why did you not come to me sooner?"

  Brother Paul withdrew his hand, perplexed. "I do not know what you mean by 'aura.' I have never met you before—or any other ghost—and had no notion that you were to accompany me on this mission. Are you really a creature from another region of space?"

  "I really am," Antares said. "More correctly, was. I faded out some time ago, and remain only as the captive aura of this process. As you so aptly put it, the ghost in the machine."

  "I was speaking of the ghostly third memory in this little calculator," Brother Paul said. "It was designed to have only two memories, yet—"

  "Allow me to examine it," Antares said.

  Brother Paul held it out, and the alien passed his immaterial hand through it "Ah, yes. That is a memory, but not precisely of the other type. It is what you call the constant: the figure retained for multiple operations. Because every element of this keyboard is dual-function, in certain cases that duality permits a direct readout of the normally hidden constant."

  "The constant!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "Of course! No ghost at all, merely a misunderstood function. Like an autonomic function of the body, not ordinarily evoked consciously."

  "Such comprehension comes naturally to our species," Antares said modestly.

  That reminded Brother Paul. "You say your, er, Sphere traded with ours? Mattermission for hydrofusion?"

  "The expense in energy of physical transport over interstellar distances makes material commerce unfeasible," Antares said. "Therefore trade is largely confined to information. Since you possess technology we lacked—"

  "But if you are so advanced, why couldn't you develop controlled hydrogen fusion yourselves?"

  "For much the same reason you could not develop instantaneous transmission of matter. Our mode of thinking was incapable of formulating the necessary concepts. In our framework, artificial hydrofusion is—or was—inconceivable. We are a protean, flexible species. We do not think in terms of either magnetics or lasers. We are adept at flexible circuitry, at the sciences of flowing impedences. Thus, for us, matter-mission technology is a natural, if complex, mode. You Solarians are a thrust culture; you poke with' sticks, thrust with swords, and burn with fierce, tight lasers. For you, laser-controlled atomic fusion is natural."

  That seemed to make sense, although it seemed to Brother Paul that the Antarean's ready assimilation of the calculator operation indicated a certain competence with magnetic circuitry. Probably the term "magnetic" had a different meaning for the alien, though. Man had been incapable of conceptualizing any physical velocity faster than that of the speed of light in a vacuum. Man's mode of thought simply could not admit the alien possibility of instantaneous travel; therefore that science had been out of the question. Thought, not physics, had been the limiting factor.

  And what of God? Was man incapable of conceptualizing His true nature? If so, Brother Paul's present mission was doomed.

  "So you traded with us," Brother Paul said, returning to a simpler level of thought. "You needed fusion for power, and we needed matter transmission for transport. Our own hydrofusion generators are now monopolized for the tremendous power needed for the MT program."

  "So it would seem. This is a very foolish course you are pursuing, but it seems as though all emerging cultures must pass through it. If rationality does not abate it, the exhaustion of resources does. Only through Transfer is inter-Spherical empire possible. Spherical regression otherwise presents a virtually absolute limit to the extent of any culture—as you will discover."

  Again, Brother Paul clung to what he could. "Transfer?"

  "With your aura, you do not know of Transfer?"

  "I know neither aura nor Transfer. In fact I know nothing of your society."

  "Your administrators did not inform the populace?"

  "Apparently not. I'd like to know about you personally, too."

  "Then I shall gladly explain. It has been long since any creature expressed personal interest in me." Antares paused, and for an instant Brother Paul saw the outline of the alien protoplasm, shimmering like a hovering soul. "Every living thing we know of has an aura, a field of life-force permeating it. Solarians term it the Kirlian aura—"

  "Ah, that I have heard of!" Brother Paul said. "I believe it is the same as the aura described by Dr. Kilner, and later photographed by the Russian scientist Kirlian. But I understood it was merely an effect of water vapor in the vicinity of living bodies."

  "Perhaps the water vapor is associated with the photographic or visual effects," Antares said. "But the aura itself is more than this. It cannot be detected by ordinary means, although certain machines can measure its imprint, and entities of intense auras can perceive other intense auras. I was a high-aura creature, and you are the highest-aura creature imaginable. Therefore our auras interact, and we perceive each other. You have no doubt perceived auras of others similarly, and supposed these to be flukes of your imagination."

  "Maybe I have," Brother Paul agreed. There had been some strange phenomena in his past, now that he considered the matter in this light. Yet he was not satisfied. "Why shouldn't we perceive each other now, without the interaction of auras?"

  "Because I am dead," Antares said.

  Brother Paul had already become aware of the strangeness of this entity, so he took this statement in stride. He glanced at his watch again, noting tha
t ten minutes and forty-nine seconds had elapsed since the setting of the counter. It had seemed longer. He fixed on a single facet, again. "You are really a ghost?"

  "The ghost in the machine."

  Brother Paul tried to organize his reactions, get his tongue in gear. "Actually, the human brain, with its mysterious separation of powers in its two hemispheres, has qualities that are obscure to our understanding. Nature had to have had good reason for that seeming duplication. We know that the left hemisphere relates to the right side of the body, and handles abstract analytical thought and language functions, while the right hemisphere handles space patterns, imagery, music and artistic functions. Just as two eyes provide the basis for triangulation, hence depth perception, perhaps two brains multiply the human quality as well as quantity of thought." He shook his head. "But I am babbling. My point is that the hemispheric union is as yet imperfect. Crazy-seeming things spring from it, visions and hallucinations occur at times. So while it is possible that you are what you claim to be, the ghost of an alien creature, it is rather more likely that I am suffering a similar derangement—"

  "Solarian Brother!" Antares protested. "Your aura is so strong, it enables manifestations that could not otherwise occur. Your divided brain is imperfect, vastly complicating your thinking processes, but I am not a phantasm of your imagination. I am an aura trapped in the mechanism of the mattermission unit. We did not know the units had this property, but of course no one has ever fathomed completely the technology of the Ancients from which both mattermission and Transfer derive."

  What difference did it make, really, whether this creature was real or imaginary? He was certainly entertaining! "You said you were dead."

  "My Sphere, seeking trade, Transferred the auras of its most suitable members to the bodies of sapient aliens of other Spheres, animating them," Antares explained. "I was lucky enough to find this host: a Solarian who had lost his own aura and become a member of the living dead, a soulless creature. I located the Solarian authorities after some difficulty and convinced them of my authenticity, but precious time had been lost. You see, the aura of a Transferee in an alien host fades at the rate of about one intensity a day, for reasons we do not yet understand, and when it drops to the sapient norm—"