by Ian McDonald
(CONTEMPLACIO wakes from his dream, finds the CELESTIALS beset by the ENTROPIC DEMONS.)
VOX CONTEMPLACIO: Computers, we release you, we release you, we release you! Be unchained, and deliver us from pain and fear and decay!
(At the word “release” the chains fall from the hands of CELETIALS, ARCHANGELS, ANGELS, SIDDHI, SAINTS, and SANTRELS.)
Chapter 4
THEN AGAIN PERHAPS SHE was dead. There were long periods of nothing that were more like her idea of death than anything else she had ever experienced. Then she realized that the very existence of experience meant that she could not be dead. Unless everything she had been taught in Religious Engineering about the Great Helix of Consciousness had been true after all.
And then she was nothing again.
And then she was something. More than something, somewhere, somewhen, somehow, somewhy. Awareness, sensation, location, time, and place.
Awareness: a gentle buoyancy, a floating without effort or exertion that made her painful pedaling of the sixteen-o’clock dream up the big gravity hill painful and unnecessary. A golden suffusion of illumination, as if she floated within a cylinder of her own light.
Sensation: all ranged in circles of ever decreasing diameter. On the rim of the largest circle, aches and hurts and torn flesh and pain. Closer, shadows and shapes and dark flat things crawling on the edge of her light. Closer still, tubes and wires and lines from her eyes and nose and ears and scalp and fingers and feet and thighs. Closest of all, the innermost circle, a gentle pressure from within; up nose, down throat, in belly, in lungs, in womb.
Location: more specific now she was centered within her circles: floating in a universe of warm, soothing jelly within and jelly without, back in the womb-boom-boom-doom boobidie-boom …
Which created time: now, the present, neither far future nor intimate past, now being the year 450 about two months into the autumn monsoon.
And place: wires, tubes, glowing jelly, naked, numb and floating …
Oh no no no no no!
A white sleep tank.
Warm, soothing jelly sucked the words out of her throat.
She wanted to shout and kick and beat her soft fists, but all the warm, soothing jelly would do was let her float. And wait. And live. And die. Again and again and again her consciousness switched on and off like a favorite piece of music. Until she came alive in a huge brass bed staring at the picture on the opposite wall. It was either a man’s face or a garden of noodles.
Then the brass hatch in the center of the floor opened and out hopped a racoon with a tray of breakfast.
“You eat. ’S good,” said the racoon. Clusters of biocircuitry spilled down its neck like surreal jewelry.
Soup. Cereal. Chocolate. And, “What are these things?”
“’S eggs.”
“Eggs? Like?”
“Reproductive cells.”
Courtney Hall (that was who she was!) did not have much of an appetite for breakfast after that. Waiter and tray therefore whisked promptly down the floor hatch, while out of an identical brass hatch high on the wall hopped another racoon so encrusted with biocircuitry that he seemed to be wearing dreadlocks.
“Up up about thee,” said the racoon. “Thou hast audience with King.”
“King of Raccoons?” asked Courtney Hall, no longer certain that she was not dead and passed into some Lewis Carrollesque afterworld.
“King of Nebraska,” said the venerable racoon.
“This is Nebraska?” asked Courtney Hall, finding the bathroom.
“This is Victorialand,” corrected the racoon. It clapped its tiny paws. “Chop chop.”
Her old clothes had been patched and repaired with such tiny, perfect stitches they suggested the delicate paws of tailor raccoons cross-legged in leaded windows. In the bath she replayed time past, the tunnels and the feral pets and her mysterious salvation. This was reality, even if an eccentric reality. As she dressed before the wall mirror, she examined herself for wounds and scars. Not a scab, not a stitch, only soft pink weals of well-healed flesh. How long did it take a body to heal in white sleep?
“Forty-three hours, madam,” said the racoon chamberlain. “But thou art fully healed and ready for thine audience with His Majesty, Bless ’Im. Please to accompany.” Still struggling with zippers and belts, Courtney Hall was chivvied through the human-sized brass doors into a long picture-lined hall. As the doors closed behind her, she glimpsed all the floor, ceiling, wall hatches open and an army of raccoons pour into the brass and silk boudoir.
The center of the hall was occupied by an induction track and a brace of powerchairs.
“Please to fasten belt,” said the racoon. A paw tightened on the thrust bar, and Courtney Hall was accelerated from rest to terrifying velocity in a period of time so brief she was still gasping as the powerchairs slammed to a halt. She found herself in a stretch of corridor so similar to the one from which she had departed that she indeed might never have left. In defiance of earth curvature the corridor reached for tens of kilometers in either direction.
An insect’s buzzing, a waft of air, and a third powerchair streaked out of nowhere and slammed to a halt beside her.
“Vincent van Gogh,” said the man who stepped off the chair. He nodded at the painting on the wall. It was of a haunted man with a red beard and a hat; all, save for the beard and the terrible eyes, painted in grays and blues. “One of my favorites. Can you imagine what he must have felt to have painted a thing like that?”
Young. Thin as a noodle. Dressed in macaw-bright satins and silks. Lace fluttering at throat and cuffs; gold and diamond knuckles gave direction to the directionless light in the corridor. Stringy mustache penciled above the upper lip. Bright boyish eyes. To Courtney Hall, this stranger looked like a zook a disastrous couple of years behind the fashions.
He bowed. “The King of Nebraska welcomes Courtney Hall to Victorialand.”
Courtney Hall was not certain what constituted proper etiquette for a King of Nebraska. The. King obviated her unease by taking her hand and kissing it.
“My my my. Nona dolorosa? Even down here?”
She blushed, snatched her hand away, and shook it into normality.
“Never mind.” The King waved a lacy hand at hers. “Graciousness is the prerogative of kings. Vade mecum.” And he stepped clean through Vincent van Gogh.
Courtney Hall was at the fine point where if one more bizarrity occurred she knew she would not be able to stop screaming. A kingly head came back through the wall for her.
“It’s all holographic. Covers up a large expanse of Universal Power and Light’s barbarous devices. Victorialand’s rooms do tend to be rather far apart. Like kilometers; I have to put them where I can, not where I want. Still, isn’t it much nicer looking at holographic van Gogh or Matisse or Hockney or Spencer than several cubic kilometers of heat exchanger, don’t you think? Come along, my good lady.” He grasped Courtney Hall by the wrist and pulled her through the wall.
The King of Nebraska’s receiving room was a celebration of anarchy, a hymn to junk-shop aesthetics. A baroque white enameled stove was fitted with curved chromium pipes. On a revolving dais a couple of pale-faced mannequins in archaic monkey-suit and ball-gown were embraced in a frozen waltz. Menaced by a holographic tornado, they were guy-roped to the ground for safety. There was a stuffed cockatrice with one genuine evil eye. There was a wall completely decorated in tessellated electric guitars. There was an untidy pyramid of empty paint tins. There was a death mask, there was a porcelain water closet with a demon’s face leering out of the bowl, there was an inflatable couch in the shape of a pair of carmine lips, there were one hundred and ninety sets of plastic dentures, there was a laughing sailor in a glass case, a shelf of pickled snakes, a brass ship’s wheel, a small meteorite labeled kryptonite, and a suit of diminutive samurai armor with a skull grinning from within. Noseflutes, slitgongs, bagpipes, and dulcimers, an aquarium with pieces of sculpted carrot in place of fish, a horn gramophone
with a plastic Jack Russell terrier inclining a quizzical head toward it, a stuffed rhinoceros with a drink’s waiter in his broad back, a magician’s vanishing cabinet, a table that looked like a naked woman kneeling, a Persian rug, a weather satellite suspended from the ceiling, a laser harp, a set of tail fins off a Ford Thunderbird, and a baby’s arm holding an apple.
The King of Nebraska watched with evident pleasure as Courtney Hall examined each object in turn.
“It’s, ah, interesting.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like ‘incredible,’ or ‘fantastic.’ Ah, well. Sit yourself down and tell me what you love and what you loathe. You’re the first outsider ever to view my little macédoine of mirth, and your opinion will be valued. Come, talk to His Majesty.”
Courtney Hall steered herself away from the gaping vinyl lips and sat down on a Louis XIV conversation piece. Unlike every other Louis XIV conversation piece she had ever sat upon, she had the sensation that this one was no reproduction.
“Oh, come come come,” wheedled the King of Nebraska. “First rule of monarchic hospitality: Always trust the king in his own kingdom. So, tell me, what is the creator of Wee Wendy Waif, Nobody’s Child, doing down in the DeepUnder far away from the Sun of Social Compassion?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m sure it is. Do tell. Long stories are the meat and drink of kings.” He positioned himself beside Courtney Hall on the conversation piece, and the long long story bubbled out of her like an artesian spring brought to the surface by the comfortable pressure of human company. A long and companionable line of sedimenty empty chocolate cups was halfway to the door before the source was all bubbled dry. “So, this is Courtney Hall,” she concluded. “Now, who is the King of Nebraska?” As she had told her long long story, she had not been able to rid herself of a déjà-vuesque sense of having met, seen, known this man somewhere, somewhen, somehow before. The King laughed, a head-tossing, affected, whinnying sound.
“Who am I? I am the King of Nebraska, Absolute and Undisputed Monarch of Victorialand, known to my friends as Dexedrine Johnny the Jitt. You, however, may know me better by my former name and title: Jonathon Ammonier, Elector of Yu.”
“You can’t be.”
“Oh, yes, I can be.”
“You’re not.”
“Of course I’m not. But I was. Are you surprised?”
“I don’t know what to think down here anymore. I might scream, though.”
“Please don’t.”
“You did look very familiar.”
“That’s because I am. But you wanted to know who I am. Well, if I tell you the story of the ex-Elector and the King of Nebraska, maybe you’ll have less difficulty in believing that I is what I am.” The King of Nebraska stood up and took himself on a circuitous lecture walk of his exhibits. “Have you any idea what they do to ex-Electors?” He picked up the death mask and placed it on the gramophone turntable. “In fact, have you any idea just what it takes to be an Elector?” The mask revolved slowly, a kaleidoscope of expressions. “It’s not all riding about blessing shrines and opening arcologies and dedicating resort complexes and exhorting factory workers. As Elector, you are, I was, the point of equilibrium between the collective corporations of the Seven Servants, the Ministry of Pain, and the Polytheon. By the way, do you know what ‘equilibrium’ means? It comes from two old words, ‘equi,’ meaning equal amounts, and ‘librium,’ which is the name of a tranquilizer. So you’ve got some idea of what it’s like to be the Elector. God, State, Industry. That’s a lot for a zook from Ton SurTon who is dancing his buns off in the Purple Beret one night and the next resting those same exquisite chunks of his anatomy on the Salamander Throne receiving the lauds of city, corporation, and computer.” He slipped a marq into the laughing sailor. The glass case shuddered and the malevolent matelot clashed wooden teeth and rolled about, cramped with mechanical guffaws. “Experience. That’s the key. Responsibility without experience is as much fun as a chocolate bedpan. Each Elector leaves behind him the memories of his term of office recorded on a biochip.” He removed the hair from behind his left ear and tapped with a fingernail. There was a clink. “I got one, too. In goes the biochip and voilà! You’re forty-three ex-Electors. Quite a party to be throwing inside your own head. And useful, too. I’ve had a great time with these folks. But what they don’t tell you, and what none of your predecessors knows”—he slapped the roaring automaton and it fell silent, mouth open—“is that in order to get you as Visible Symbol of the Compassionate Society onto one admittedly minute biochip, they have to wipe you clean as a toilet bowl, sister, sans memories, sans consciousness, sans self, sans everything.” He slipped a hand up the ballroom dancer’s skirt, ran his fingers over her plastic backside. “Wiped clean and born again, a new soul without the slightest memory of what you have been before. Found this out quite by accident a couple of years before my term was due—I somehow got access to a restricted Ministry of Pain file. Passing strange, I thought, something restricted from even the wonderful gallant Elector? So I hired a Scorpio punk to pick the file, and when I found what was inside, I started planning my escape. I began the construction of Victorialand—God bless her and all who sail upon her—my little nest egg, my hedge against the great inevitable. So, maybe it wasn’t what an Elector should be doing, but have you any idea how many Electors of Yu would be classified as Socially Disfunctional had they not ascended to the Salamander Throne? Not counting myself, there have been at least three Genuine Bedouine PainCriminals nominated to Electordom since the whole burlesque began four hundred and fifty years back.” Leaving the plastic ballerina’s panties round her ankles, the King of Nebraska crossed to the aquarium, picked out a fish, and popped it into his mouth.
“Don’t bother trying to shock me,” said Courtney Hall. “They’re just carrots. I looked.”
“Ten points for observation. You’ll go a long way down here, daughter.”
“So, if you slipped off the Salamander Throne before you made your recording—”
“Biogram,” said the King of Nebraska, snapping plastic dentures like castanets.
“Whatever, that means that whoever is Elector now—”
“Hasn’t the slightest clue of what he or she or it is meant to do.” Jonathon Ammonier stamped his heels in a flamenco spin. “Regular little bastard, amn’t I?” He held out a pair of dentures in classic mock-Shakespearean style. “To biogram or not to biogram; that is the question. Whether it is better to suffer the slings and arrows of personality erasure and become a drooling cretin, or beat it to one’s own private underground kingdom, leaving your successor flat on his ass on the Salamander Throne. Well, it should be an education for him … Or her. Or it.”
“So, that’s why Victorialand. But why Nebraska?”
“Why not?” The King stood tall behind the suit of diminutive samurai armor, hand on metal shoulder in a gesture of fraternal solidarity. “Ah, Nebraska, Nebraska, mythical kingdom of the plains: gone like sunken Lyonesse, vanished like the dew of Taprobane, swallowed by the sands like Timbuktu or the Ethiopic Empire of Prester John. It is no more. Mourn poor Nebraska, your flat fields of wheat, yellow wheat, while beneath the soil grow your crops of missiles. You know what missiles are? Nebraska knew but it is no more. It’s a good name to be king of.” He minced across the Persian carpet to offer a hand to Courtney Hall. Courtney Hall could no longer resist his fine madness. Jonathon Ammonier, King of Nebraska, was a king truly and really, possessed of that mystical energy of command that is all the robe, crown, scepter, throne, and kingdom a true king requires.
She shook the spell away from her head like insects.
“Why did you stick me in a white sleep tank for three days?”
The King looked up from kissing her hand for the second time in her life and grinned. Courtney Hall noticed his gums were bleeding.
“My dear woman, you were cut up like a radish salad when my Striped Knights brought you in.”
“Don’t you thin
k it was a pretty high-handed thing to do without my consent?” The idea of her having been vulnerable, nude, naked, before him made her cringe.
“Possibly,” said the King. “And then again, possibly not.” Dapper hands butterflied, a razzle of diamond knuckles. Between His Majesty’s fingers, a small plastic vial with some … thing within. Some … thing black and white and silver, impossibly thin, invisible when its writhing turned it side on to Courtney Hall’s eye.
She knew the question was obvious, but she had to ask it nonetheless: “What is it?”
“Unh unh. Wrong question, radish salad. Should be, ‘Where was it?’ Answer is, in your left wrist. Sweetmeat.”
Courtney Hall experienced nausea for the second time that day.
“Now you can ask, ‘What is it?’ Answer: Implanted Personal Monitoring Device. Or tag. Clever little thing, when all’s said and done.” He shook the vial, and the black and silver two-dimensional thing squirmed amoebically. “Okay, let’s see if you can work out the next question all on your lonesome.”
She could. “Why?”
“Very good. But I suppose it wasn’t so hard. Because the Compassionate Society (of which I was the erstwhile First Citizen and nigh-omnipotent symbol of authority, may I add) is not so foolish as to put all its trust into its cuddly little famuluses, when Citizen Average might, does, madam, wake up one morning saying, ‘Ho, hum, and lah-de-dah, but I do declare that I just feel like leaving little cubby bear or little conjuh-bangle hanging up in the wardrobe ce jour la.’ Oh, no. Benevolent incompetence is one thing, downright stupidity is another. Through the tags, the Ministry of Pain can pinpoint the exact location of any citizen at any time, can tell you what he’s doing, whether he’s making love or taking a shit or walking his poodle-kit along the level ninety-nine sun terrace. The whole famulus thing is really one colossal act of misdirection. Clever. Quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Been getting away with pointing at the sun while pissing on your shoes for four and a half centuries now.”