He flicked a switch on the strap that held his harp to him. He murmured something, and the next thing we knew we were in the air conditioning of the Know-All. It took us a moment to look about us before we realized that yes; we were out in space on a spaceship.
A teenage boy in a gray uniform stepped up to us, "Welcome to the Know-All; please step this way."
I felt a little sick seeing the gray uniform. I had a brief jolting memory of my keepers on the huge spacecraft wearing those same gray uniforms. How had I gotten on that huge spacecraft to begin with? I only had fleeting impressions as memories. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't really want to remember. My stomach heaved every time I tried to recall it. It also sickened me to remember that the men who had stood silently and menacingly behind the board members during my official Listing wore the same gray uniform. We followed the teenager into a much larger room.
A throng of people were milling about waiting. The gabble of dialects told me that people were visiting this museum spacecraft from many different worlds. The Toelakhan seemed to have invited people from all over Imenkapur as the troubadour had said. The throng hummed with patient excitement as it waited to be ushered into the exhibit areas. I saw some other Holy Folk among the crowd: the green skull cap of the Healing Night, the yellow sash of the Bright Noon, the leather gauntlet of the Wild Rain, and a deep green robe of the Woods Deep. Since this was no Holy time, I began to speculate on why these Holy Folk would be wearing the insignia of their Orders. By Forest Law, only the Healing Night Sect could wear their Holy garb when they pleased. It made sense for the medical people to do so. The Bright Noon Order, worked in technology, especially computers, so why would that man wear his sash? He saw me looking at him, so he came up to me.
"In the full light of day many mysteries are revealed." He said the ritual words in hushed tones.
I locked my mouth shut with an imaginary key, and handed the imaginary key to my fellow priest.
"Sometimes the break of day is silent, mourning the words of a night remembered," he observed.
I couldn't help noticing that he was the most bland looking person I had ever met. He had clear unwrinkled skin, a promising start to a double chin and to a paunch, wispy hair carefully combed in a nondescript fashion, and he was carefully shaved in the scant areas where he might grow scant hair. But his eyes, pale and bland like the rest of his features, glinted with the fire of mischief and of thought.
I nodded.
"A sun-storm brings many wild creatures out of hiding," he continued, waving at the Wild Rain Priest to join us.
The Wild Rain priest, an exceptionally skinny man with bowed shoulders and thick curly hair on head, face, neck, and forearms caught the remark, and said to us, "The falconer's shrill whistle calls wild creatures and sets them aloft again. Avert your eyes to the deep woods, for a gray one counts you as it prey."
He then locked his one ungloved and hairy hand under his opposite arm in a gesture of shy attention. A man about my height wearing a gray uniform was staring at me. I was grateful for the priest's warning that told me to look to my right where the Woods Deep Holy One stood. The green robed one turned around and I gasped. It was Neighteeha!
The Wild Rain priest leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, "Even a City of Waves grows familiar Woods where a priestess of Amokku may feel at home."
Neighteeha rushed up to us. She was grinning and grinning. "The light of day permeates even the deep of the woods or a wave from the deep," she exulted as she embraced me.
"The dawn is silent like ritual mourning," said the Bright Noon Priest.
Neighteeha nodded, understanding from this that I was under oath not to speak. "Listen," she said, "we haven't much time. As many Holy ones as understood thy dream summons that we should discover the hiding place of the Zitam List are here garbed in their Forest insignia to help thee search it out and destroy it. Here, too, are Holy Folk not wearing their Sects' insignia who felt the need to come here without the comprehension of the dream thou didst send. Not all of the Holy Folk here know or agree that the List should be destroyed, but all have acted upon what has been universally felt as a call by Ipernia for us to be here."
After scratching his marvelous beard, the Wild Rain Priest added,
"The Bright Noon is so intense it is capable of burning out memory chips of even the best protected computer. Methinks the Know-All shall grow forgetful."
"Aye, this morning we shall go hunting, falconer, the Blue Dawn enlightening our way," the Bright Noon Priest smiled conspiratorially, his eyes flashing as though he couldn't wait to do something naughty.
"Ladies and gentlemen if you will step this way please," a gracious female voice issued from the wide door that opened before us.
Eager people hurried ahead of our little cluster of Holy Folk. I stepped forward through the door, and the short muscular man in the gray uniform who had stared at me immediately put a rope across the doorway, barring access to the Holy Folk who accompanied me. I shrugged and continued forward. We were in a large long hall of raw gems. The hall's length was regularly interrupted by doorways to other rooms. People flowed in and out of these busily. Did I see a leather gauntlet flit by a doorway over there?
I slowly made my way down the hall, stopping at certain stones to feel their power issuing to me. My left hand started to heat up, the feeling that I had learned at the seminary was a signal of my psychic awareness rousing. A Holy woman wearing a yellow sash stood gazing at an enormous yellow crystal, so I focused on a small blue diamond.
Both my hands were heating now, and I got her message clearly, "There are several of the Blue Dawn here, follow the sign of the next one you see."
I sent her thanks and focused on the message I wished to send. I envisioned myself with my mask pulled up over my face. I sensed the Bright Noon Priestess nodding in understanding and agreement. The same gray uniformed man who had separated me from my priestly companions bumped into me.
"A thousand pardons priestess. That is a lovely diamond isn't it?"
He was an older man; his crew cut was quite white. However, the lines of his face were few and not well defined, as though he had seldom moved his features, giving his face no opportunity to delineate his character. He gazed at me, unblinking, face passive, immobile. I smiled in answer to the first remark and nodded to the second.
Then I moved on. The other priestess was nowhere in sight. I went into an adjoining room which I discovered exhibited cut gems and sculpted stones. The room was absolutely mobbed with people. At each of the three doors, gray-clad guards were posted. Was it my imagination or were they watching me? Or was it something behind me? I looked around, and found four Blue Dawn holy people were gathered beside me. A fifth Blue Dawn priest entered from one doorway and exited by another. As he did so he casually lifted his hood up, effectively concealing his face. On instinct, I did the same. The Blue Dawn folk, who now clustered around me, also put their hoods over their heads. The crush of people around us forced us to shuffle around, and I thought of the game of finding the pea under the shell. Then we separated from each other and went in different directions.
The next room I entered was part of the sculpture exhibit. One piece, a sculpture of a flock of birds fluttering in ascent, caught my eye. As I studied it, I became aware of another sentience--birds. Birds from elsewhere and other non-Imenkapurn animals were quite nearby. Carefully I focused, and sensed where they were--a large room with bars between them and the people. A dark hall connected behind that room. They wanted to go down the dark hall. Plants were potted in the huge caged room the wild life was in. Listen, I thought to the creatures, look for this man, and I envisioned the Wild Rain priest I had met. Next, I focused on the Wild Rain priest. There, I saw him in my mind's eye. He was in a room full of maps, looking at a section of a map that seemed to be an undulating expanse of tightly woven feathers. I am here, I said with my mind-sense, and focused an the sculpture of birds as a reference point. You need to go here, and I envision
ed the animals and birds in the caged room. The look on the Wild Rain priest's face was of sheer amazement blended with a little fear. I felt from him a fear stemming from the new knowledge that telepathy could happen. I sensed his answer was yes; he would go to the creatures. Then he seemed anxious. All I could get was Bright Noon, Bright Noon.
My awareness swept to an entirely new vision. I saw the Bright Noon priest in a strange dark room. He wanted me to come there. Something about the information access place. Then the visions were gone. Just in time too, the man in gray, who seemed to my personal nemesis, was walking by with a false casualness in his stride, pretending his presence was just a coincidence.
I turned to him and opened my mouth to ask him, "Whe-- " I slapped my hand over my mouth.
"Yes, Holy One, you want to find something?" In his still face, his eyes looked as though something vital had been erased from his personality. I nodded sweetly. Why did he have to phrase his question like that? Did he know I was looking for the List?
"Uncover your face, Holy One so that I may hear your question."
I pretended not to hear him and walked purposely towards the far door.
"That's the direction of the information access room if that's what you're looking for," he called after me.
I swung around and gave him a quick bow. Then I hurried on. The next room was a store filled with souvenirs geared toward children's preferences. The kids ran happily, in shopping mania, from counter to display and back again. One child, whose parent was denying him something, cried loudly. The room was very noisy with the children's sounds of delight, greed, and disappointment. A counter held masks and bore a sign "Be a wild, dangerous zitam! Masks of all exotic beasts!"
"Mommy, I want to be the dotted fury creature but it doesn't have any teeth, and I want it to have sharp teeth," a little girl informed her harried parent.
"Well, this one has teeth, dear."
"Ucky, I don't want scales."
Drawing my robe around myself, I strode silently through the room unnoticed. Using the correct mind set, I was, to the roomful of preoccupied and unobservant people, invisible. As I stepped out of the room, I reached inside my collar for my mask. Since children who wore masks became zitam, would a zitam who wore a mask, I wondered sarcastically, become a human?
The corridor I was now passing through was the access to the rest rooms, and like so many public buildings, was therefore dark, dingy, and slightly odorous of mildew and cleaning fluid. I turned down another corridor that was even darker, but was well carpeted and had a more respectable smell. It led to a large room. The large room had twenty small circular platforms spaced out in four rows of five. Each platform was ringed by a green rope. A panel stood beside each platform but outside of the ring of rope. Nestled around some of the platforms were small clusters of people. I watched what they were doing to find out what this exhibit was about.
"Surely time is all one when the noon and the dawn occur at the same instant," a female voice murmured tensely at my shoulder.
I turned toward the speaker. A woman a few inches taller than I faced me. She stood with her weight on her right foot, her arms and shoulders drooping forward, and her head tipped to the side, as though this posture of bored exasperation were her natural reaction to life's little intricacies. Her unkempt, straight hair fell to the base of her neck. She regarded me expectantly and suspiciously. She was not wearing her yellow sash, but her greeting could not be mistaken.
"A yellow band of light seeks out the truth by marking this dial with a setting that will yield up secrets," she said pressing some buttons on the panel.Her manipulation of the panel caused a ghost to appear in front of us. The ghost glowed and raised its hand. I stepped back from it in surprise. Of course this was a hologram, but to have one leap into being before me was astonishing.
The ghost gave a long moan.
The woman at my side and I giggled at this.
"Why have you disturbed me from my rest? What do you want?" moaned the ghost.
Ghostly moans, shaking of chains, rattling of teeth broke out noisily all over the room as the various groups of people activated the holograms. Specters shrieked; monsters hissed and gibbered; nymphs played harps--all to the delight of onlookers.
"Ghost, what do you know about the zitams and the List?" the woman beside me demanded, dropping the priestly dialect in preference of Standard Industrial.
Our ghost moaned most frightfully, "I don't know, and because of my ignorance I must continue to burn in the healing fires of Little Ippa. How I curse you for making me fail again. When will I serve someone? Oh, I hate you!" The ghost stretched out its hands to strangle the woman at my side.
We both jumped back and giggled at our silliness.
"Ghost, redeem yourself by telling us who would know," the woman said, getting into the spirit of the game.
"The goddess of wisdom, she who can speak with birds!" the ghost shrieked. This did unsettle me. Was the ghost referring to the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, whose sacred beast was the owl? If the ghost was referring to Athena, how could this galaxy have knowledge of my universe? But of course, the Toelakhan could have read some of the accounts of priestly visions, where such information could be obtained. I realized it was more likely the ghost was referring to some obscure goddess of one of the Innocent Zones. The woman at my side typed in something on the panel, and another pale ghostly figure appeared.
I sucked in my breath; it was the image of Athena that stood before us.
The Bright Noon Priestess hissed, "What is this? Did you do this? This can't be! This can't happen! I know what all of these images in this room are supposed to be; we study this in our holograph classes. We study the mechanics of these things, and then as an exam, we suggest improvements. There is no image like this. Where did it come from? Forests! Your hands are opalescent like the holograph. What is--I'm get--"
Neighteeha rushed up to us, "Calm down; act natural; don't call attention to us. Just type in something else, see if the figure changes."
The frightened woman did so, and to her relief the image of a satyr appeared. He looked suspiciously like the troubadour who had entertained Oasis.
"This image is right. A troubadour of Aridia the Toelakhan converted posed for it," the woman said.
The room was getting mobbed with people and sprinkled among them were Holy Folk of the Woods Deep Sect.
"Yes," said the troubadour.
"Oh, excuse me, we need access to this image; it doesn't appear at our terminal. Would you mind switching with us?" some people asked us.
We stepped over to their terminal. I noticed that a robed Blue Dawn Holy One and a robed Woods Deep Holy One, both hooded, stepped up to the group that had supplanted us at our terminal. The Bright Noon Priestess activated the terminal, and a huge glowing fetus in a uterine sack appeared.
"Hello, I am the inutero that started the calendar," it said cheerfully.
I was fascinated and repulsed at the same time.
Neighteeha nudged me, "The others are in place. We need to switch our robes so thou shalt be disguised and the Toelakhan will be foiled in its attempt to find thee."
I looked at her confused, and then looked around. At several of the other terminals, hooded and robed Blue Dawn and Woods Deep Holy Folk stood side by side like Neighteeha and I did.
The Bright Noon Priestess asked the fetus, "What can you tell us of the Zitam List?"
"I don't know about zitams or Lists, but the philosopher over there does," said the glowing fetus.
We turned and looked at an old man who glowed on another dais.
I remembered a picture I had seen in a history book of this person. He was a famed Bread Civilization philosopher. We made our way to the throng about him, and as we did so Neighteeha and I quickly, but calmly, exchanged robes. Neighteeha had a zitam mask, and so we exchanged masks. We had to wait a moment before we got our turn with the figure.
"What can you tell us of zitam and the List," asked the wearied, exasp
erated, and still somewhat frightened Bright Noon woman.
"The best knowledge is gained from experience," said the philosopher, making the Bright Noon woman curse, "we have a Zitam Zoo on board here, why don't you go and visit it?" The opalescent figure pulled a map out of long drooping sleeves, and pointed at it. "See here, this is the way you go to find it. Now for this List, I can recite for you all of the names entered on the List, if you like. Or if that does not suit you, I can show you the scroll that is the List."
"Show us the Scroll," the Bright Noon woman snapped. The ghost pulled out of his other sleeve a huge scroll and unrolled it. While he did so, the Bright Noon woman said to us,
"While he shows us the scroll or recites the List my brother priest can access the program and insert an eraser program. My brother priest is trying to get into the restricted programming area of this spacecraft, but I don't know if he has managed to get in there or not. If I knew, and if I could meditate properly I could send him the signal to begin. But I can't! I can't!"
"Would you like me to recite the List now? It has a charming meter and rhyme scheme," offered the obliging hologram.
"Yes, please," said Neighteeha.
The old philosopher began to chant.
Neighteeha soothed the Bright Noon Priestess, "Peace, everything is fine, be at peace. Now calm thyself. Thy Sect communicates with crystals, true? Dost thou think thou couldst carry out the communication meditation without a crystal?"
"No, No! I don't have that talent! I have to use a crystal and I don't have one with me."
At this, I pulled my transporter out of my bag and proffered it. Magic wand time, I said to myself.
"Perfect," said Neighteeha "the crystals of this transporter are nice and clear. Wouldst thou feel comfortable using it?"
"Yes, this is good, this is fine," said the anxious woman, "but I'm so nervous I can't concentrate right. Will you two help me?"
"Of course," said Neighteeha, "this is the purpose that brought us here. Let us do the ritual of the three divine female essences. "
We each took a hold of the transporter with our left hands; and held it up as the center of the circle we formed.
Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe Page 20