The Ring of Ritornel

by Charles L. Harness

  “Yes, but only if I am willing to die. With a little care, there’s no force within the Twelve that can do me any real harm. Small amounts of nuclear energy I simply convert to protons at my dermal surface. Energy large enough to tear my body apart I avoid by ‘fading’ partway back into the Deep. But I avoid these foolish contests. The best defense is to hide what I am. It avoids all sorts of problems.”

  “Suppose I had not been able to persuade the arbiters to stay the destruction of Terra? What would you have done?”

  “Probably nothing, I am powerless here at the Node. It would mean that Ritornel had failed. Five centuries of planning would have been wasted. All my colleagues are now dead. No one would be left to help me. But we need not speculate. Terra is here, ready to enter the Deep, when the quake comes.”

  “And now,” said Andrek, “we come to the one remaining, vital question. Your hominids—male and female. Have you selected them, as individuals, I mean?”

  “Of course, Don Andrek. Did you not know?”

  “What do you mean?” stammered Andrek. “Who?”

  “Why Amatar, and you, of course.”

  6. PILGRIM AND SURGEON

  No thing can freely enter here, nor leave.

  —Andrek, in the Deep.

  The blood began to leave Andrek’s face. “No!”

  “Oh, yes! Why do you think we are here! Why do you think I’ve been telling you all this?” Iovve looked over at Andrek in real concern. “Don’t you understand? It’s really quite simple. You will go into the Deep, with the first quake of the diplon. You will come out again with the second quake, and you will then be antimatter. As antimatter, you could not possibly marry Amatar. The only solution is for you to use your new powers to take Amatar back with you into the Deep, find Terra, and someday emerge to found a new race, a new universe.”

  “Iovve,” said Andrek, shaking his head slowly, “thanks for the honor. But no thanks. I don’t want to be the father of a new race. I’m not the progenitive type. Nor have I any interest in the preservation of civilization. Let civilization take care of itself. And in particular, I have no interest in going into the Deep. From your very brief description, I’m certain I wouldn’t like it there. Get yourself another specimen.”

  Iovve studied Andrek for a long time before speaking. At last he said, “Is that your final word?” There was something in his voice that was beyond sadness.

  “Yes. I’m very sorry, Iovve, to have it end this way. Stay if you like, but I’m getting out now, while I can.”

  “How will you leave?”

  “There are three or four couriers waiting to take those arbiters home. We probably wouldn’t even have to stowaway. They’d have to take us as distress cases.”

  “They are all gone. All ships are gone. We are alone in the station.”

  Andrek’s eyes widened. “Impossible!”

  “Call the desk.”

  “That wouldn’t mean anything. You saw the clerk leave.” Andrek strode over to the door and opened it. There was no sound in the corridor. The muted background noise of the station was gone. Absolute silence reigned. “Oh, no!” he groaned. Leaving the door open, he clacked off down the corridor, across the dim-lit lobby, to the other side of the station, where the couriers had docked on either side of Xerol. His breath hung in frozen clouds around him. The heat had been turned off. And it was becoming harder to breathe. Probably the pressure system had been disconnected, too. And now he saw the loading platform, where only hours before he and Iovve had made their ill-fated entrance to this cursed place.

  Xerol was gone. He had expected that. He looked up and down the platform wildly. There was nothing. The docks were empty. All tubes were closed. There was no motion anywhere.

  His head jerked. There was a sound at one of the loading tubes, so high-pitched as to be barely audible. Rather like a whistle, he thought. He moved quickly up the loading ramp to the outer wall. There, he located the whistle. It was a tiny leak in the valve sealing the loading tube, and air rushing from the station into the vacuum of space was making a hissing sound. The station was bleeding to death. His arms drooped. Slowly, he turned and retracted his steps.

  It made no sense. He could have got away, yet Iovve had treacherously, cruelly, diabolically detained him until all the ships had gone. The station would be at the epicenter of the quake. Nothing in it could possibly escape. His body, dead or alive, must soon enter the Deep.

  He opened the door to the seismographic room and stepped inside.

  The pilgrim was sitting where he had left him. But now he was motionless, statuesque. Andrek realized that Iovve had now deliberately slipped into his death trance. His life-mission had failed, and his pilgrimage was at an end.

  Only—it was not so. Andrek now knew that he was going into the Deep, willy-nilly, and then out again. And when he came out, he would annihilate—unless certain vital surgery were done to his nervous system.

  He struck the pilgrim lightly on the cheek. “Iovve, wake up!”

  But the other continued to stare off into some unknown world, immobile, unhearing.

  Andrek slapped him—hard.

  Iovve groaned, then turned his head slowly toward the advocate. But his eyes were vacant, nearly dead.

  Andrek felt along the sides of the seated figure. It was just as he suspected. He began to struggle with the gray robe, and finally got it off over Iovve’s head. Some sort of corset was bound over the chest. Andrek unbuckles it hastily and threw it aside. He sucked in his breath. Folded across Iovve’s chest were three extra pairs of arms!

  In order to merge inconspicuously into the bimanual society of the Home Galaxy, the pilgrim had bound up the six extra arms that would instantly declare his arachnid origins.

  As Andrek began to flex and massage the arms, he examined them closely. The whole assemblage was remarkable. The “elbow” and “wrist” were bulbous joints which apparently gave a play of several complete revolutions to the hands. And such hands! Each held six fingers, in opposing triplets. Andrek surmised that this digital structure must have been very useful to Iovve’s spiderlike ancestors for clambering about their giant webs. In deft rapid motions he stripped the gloves from Iovve’s “normal” hands. As he had suspected, they were similarly contrived. And probably somewhere on Iovve’s body was a vestigal spinneret. Small wonder Iovve had held such an exquisite rapport with Raq! Andrek suppressed a shiver and proceeded grimly with his task.

  The pilgrim was still weaving his web in the best tradition of his forebears, but with improvements. Being invisible, it was deadlier. And it was a paradoxical web: to save his own life, he, Andrek, the trapped insect, had to awaken the spider.

  His attention was drawn again to Iovve’s hands. One finger on each was beginning to glow in a rhythmic pattern, corresponding roughly (Andrek guessed) to Iovve’s heartbeat. As the glow grew brighter, the pulsations leveled out. Iovve’s hands had built-in illumination!

  And then Andrek noticed that one of the fingers was changing shape. It was, in fact, assuming several shapes in succession. First, it grew out into a long thin rod. Then the rod curled into a full loop, and finally the tip became bladelike. Andrek touched the edge of the blade and instantly jerked his finger away and stuck it in his mouth. The knife edge was not only microtome-sharp: it was alive. It cut simply by contact, without pressure or motion. And evidently any part of it could be heated—or frozen—at will. This would explain its use as a key to enter the seismographic room. In surgery it worked by the light of its opposing finger, while (Andrek imagined) the other fingers of the same hand held hemostats, clamps, and sponges.

  And there were eight of these remarkable hands! Small wonder that Iovve, physician and surgeon, could pick any lock in the Twelve Galaxies!

  He stood back and glared at the pilgrim. Surgeon of Ritornel indeed! And what are you now? Space cabbage!

  There was a great deal to be done, and very little time. He had to awaken Iovve, and Iovve must then make certain subtle but basic cha
nges in his, Andrek’s, body. If Iovve had come out of the Deep as antimatter, without being annihilated, so could Andrek. The friar-surgeon knew how.

  But Iovve, apparently determined to bring his long pilgrimage to an end, could not be aroused.

  There was one last thing to try.

  Andrek found Iovve’s medical kit and opened it with trembling fingers. He flipped back to the drug section. Quirinal. Here it is. He jabbed the syringe needle into the rubber stopper and filled the syringe. Two cc.

  He came over and shook Iovve.

  “Wha—?”

  Good! This was some kind of contact. He spoke loudly. “Quirinal, Iovve!”

  “Quir—” muttered the pilgrim.

  “Klein circlets,” said Andrek grimly. “Activate them, the Klein circlets in your body—now, or you’ll annihilate.”

  Iovve bunked owlishly. “Klein—?”

  Andrek screamed at him. “Iovve! Concentrate! To your system, this is antimatter. If you’re not careful, we’re both dead. You’ll have to convert it to antimatter quirinal, drop by drop, as it enters your bloodstream. Can you do that?”

  “Drop by drop.”

  “Concentrate, Iovve! Here it comes!”

  The pilgrim gasped as the needle jammed into his arm. “Easy. Awake now. Slowly, slowly. All right, I have it under control. A little faster. Good. Faster still. Stay with it. So you’ve come to your senses. Good boy. Stay with it. It’s working rapidly, quite rapidly. All the rest, now. That’s it.”

  Andrek’s face was wet when he pulled the needle out. He looked at Iovve quizzically.

  A change was coming over the pilgrim. His eight arms, in opposing pairs, began a strange rhythmic pattern, flexing, unflexing. The fingers were locking, unlocking, as though long strangers to each other. He now stared coldly at Andrek. “Strip.”

  Andrek’s heart leaped. “Of course.”

  Iovve jerked his head toward the table. “Over there. I’ll have to stretch you out.”

  “Are you going to use an anesthetic?”

  “You might call it that. But don’t bother me with your silly questions.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And don’t be humble. You don’t know enough to be humble. I’ll explain as I work.”

  Andrek exhaled heavily, and was silent.

  Iovve said, “A man made of antimatter has two basic problems. He must avoid contact with normal matter, and he must develop a vastly different metabolism. If he eats an apple—or even breathes—he annihilates. If his nervous system is not drastically modified, he can be safe only while asphyxiating in free fall in a vacuum. So—what must be done to him? It would be fairly simple if we could passivate his entire skin—his available topological surface, and leave it at that. But that would solve only part of the problem. He would then be too well protected against contact with normal matter. Some contact is necessary, because his new metabolism is going to be powered by the energy generated at the controlled juncture of his skin with the world of normal matter. In his former world of carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins, he could sum up his metabolism requirements in terms of fifteen hundred to two thousand calories a day. He still can—but now he converts mass, generally from the dead cells of his epidermis, into the same number of calories, by the ancient energy/mass equation. In a word, our antimatter man annihilates, but he does it slowly, almost imperceptibly, a few million atoms at a time. He has, if he so will, a half-life of several hundred thousand years.”

  Andrek exhaled in slow wonder. “But how is this accomplished?”

  “Surgery. To passivate the skin, we have to make the positron shells around atoms of antimatter repel the negative electron shells that surround normal atoms. This in itself is not too difficult. It’s the same principle that keeps the negative electron in stable orbits around the positive nucleus, in an atom of normal matter, without spiraling inward and annihilating the nucleus. And what is it that keeps the electron from spiraling inward and combining with the nucleus? Simply the fact that it moves in acceptable orbits. It’s the same with the antimatter/normal matter juncture. Any approaching normal atom is forced into an inert pattern, at the will of the antimatter man.

  “It becomes tricky,” continued Iovve, “when we have to let a minute number of atoms react—from time to time, and completely at the will and order of our antimatter man—to provide his daily energy requirements. This requires accurate voluntary control of his dermal cells—which normally are involuntary. The change has to be made in his medulla, obviously before he becomes antimatter. And changes have to be made in the alveoli of his lungs. He will no longer need air as a source of oxygen; yet, if he is to be able to communicate vocally in a normal-matter world, he will need to be able to draw air of normal matter into antimatter lungs and blow it back out again through an antimatter voice box. Again, anatomical alteration is required.

  “And now we come to the final step. I have to go into your brain. In a word, my boy, you’ll have to be completely rewired. It won’t hurt—there are no pain sensory endings in the brain, but after it’s over, I want you to remain very quiet. Otherwise you might jar loose some of your new circuitry. And of course, for all this, I’ll have to put you to sleep.”

  Andrek started under the straps.

  “No choice,” said Iovve, anticipating his question. “However, if this works at all, you’ll come out of it before the quake hits. And of course if the operation is a failure, you will never know it. So, relax!”

  Andrek was perspiring profusely, and his thoughts were chaotic. There was one last thing about Iovve that he had almost grasped, the name that Huntyr had been trying to pronounce as he died. But it kept eluding him, possibly because it was too horrible to accept. Iovve was … was…

  At this moment he observed, with blank amazement, that several of the surgeon’s fingers had apparently passed through his skull, as though it were empty space, and were busily involved deep in his cranium.

  And then he knew the final identity of Iovve. These hands, which, by his invitation—nay, by his demand—were now in his own brain, were the very hands that had created Amatar and Kedrys.

  As he floated out into darkness, he knew. And it was beyond irony. These hands had destroyed his brother.

  Iovve was the Master Surgeon.

  5. AN APPROACHING EXPLOSION

  The Deep is the Beginning and the End, at once the womb and the coffin of time and space, the wellspring of life and death, the mother of nodes. I was cast into the Deep from the die cup of Alea, and Ritornel is lost in the far eons. I wait, and I think.

  —Andrek, in the Deep.

  He saw the clock, straight ahead. Gradually, it came into focus, and he recognized it. It had a red hand, and a black hand. It was the quake clock, in the seismographic room. The black hand was oddly close to the red hand. He was becoming rapidly oriented. He was still on his back on Iovve’s improvised operating table. His head hurt. He put his fingertips gingerly to his forehead, and felt bandages there.

  At this sign of life, Iovve stepped over. “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know,” said Andrek thickly. “Was the operation a success?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Andrek studied the pilgrim morosely. Should he denounce the Master Surgeon for what he had done to Omere? Should he take his vengeance now, within the short time remaining before the quake? He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. It wasn’t that simple. This strange creature had given life, long ago, to Amatar, and, just now, to him. And in any case the great overriding immensity of the quake was about to exact its own vengeance.

  He said: “When is the quake due? Or is that still a secret?”

  “No, there’s no reason for it to be a secret anymore. It is due very soon. Within the hour.”

  Andrek was now almost indifferent. “I imagine you’re right. But would you mind explaining how you know?”

  “By the frequency of the temblors—the harbingers of the quake.”

  “But according to the ins
truments, there hasn’t been a temblor in days,” demurred Andrek.

  Iovve smiled. “Of course. Let me explain. For hundreds of years the instruments have recorded each temblor, as well as each quake. There is a time, before a quake, when the temblors come faster and faster, and their vibrations higher and higher. It’s like—” He looked about the room. “Here, let me show you.” Iovve picked up a wooden lath and flexed it several times. “This will do nicely. Now, we need a stethoscope.” He picked the instrument out of his medical kit and handed it to Andrek. Andrek sat up on the table and inserted the stethoscope plugs in his ears.

  Iovve came over to the table and bent the lath into a quarter circle. “Put the stethoscope bell here, at the center of the arc, and listen carefully. But when I say ‘stop,’ remove the bell instantly. Do you understand?”

  Andrek nodded.

  “So.” Iovve continued to bend the lath. “Do you hear anything?”

  “Clicks. A lot of them. Faster. Going up the scale.”

  Iovve watched him closely, then suddenly was motionless. The lath was nearly a semicircle. “And now?”

  Andrek looked at him blankly. “No sound. Nothing.”

  “Stop!”

  Andrek jerked the stethoscope away.

  The lath broke in half with a loud crack.

  Andrek stared mutely at the other.

  “Don’t you see the analogy?” said Iovve gravely. “The lath loses elasticity just before the break. The component fibers disintegrate, slip, and slide. For a brief interval there is no further audible evidence of stress. Then, at the break area, the structure collapses altogether. It is the same with the quake. The long silence is the prelude, the last thing before the great break.”

  Andrek sat down heavily. “And that was why everyone was in such a hurry to leave. They all knew the exact moment, didn’t they.” It was not really a question.

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose the period of silence is fairly precise, then,” said Andrek.

  “To the minute,” said Iovve calmly. He leaned forward. “If we might go on to other matters, there is something which, until now, I have not been able to discuss with you. Your brother. You know now, of course, that I am the Master Surgeon.”