The Moons of Barsk

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  Klarce flexed the fingers of her outstretched hand in reminder until Dabni felt she had no choice but to take the meme. Round and around in the knotted strands of its nefshons was a repeating imperative that would turn the recipient’s own body against them. It would build from the cellular level, spreading and disrupting critical systems until they faltered and triggered a cascade of organ failure and finally death. The Caudex wanted this for Jorl, her husband, the father of her daughter. Her assignment all these years.

  “Your target is in good health and as a Speaker has a more resilient mind than most. The meme’s effects vary, and he could require as much as a tenday to expire. Keep him under observation until he dies. After which, you’ll continue with your duties managing the index on Keslo until a replacement can be sent. The council will reassess whether to provide you with a new assignment in the identity you’ve created, or recall you from the field. Rest easy, no decision will be made until the end of the next season, and we will take into consideration your own wishes in the matter.”

  Klarce paused and then used her trunk to point to the loops of deadly instructions now in Dabni’s hand.

  “But that’s many days away. For now, your only immediate concern is to place this meme into your target’s mind. You must kill Jorl ben Tral.”

  PART 2

  LEAVING HOME

  TEN

  AGENT IN PLACE

  A TENDAY before Klarce had reached out to Dabni with the directive to murder her husband, a Caudex field agent—the first she’d seen in years—had limped into her shop. He’d been an elderly Eleph, the sort of fellow who had probably traveled the islands extensively in youth and middle age and come to rest in Keslo to enjoy his retirement. An easy-going smile dominated his face. He wore loose shorts and an open vest, both made from dull brown tapa cloth, more for comfort than style. Covering the crown of his head he affected a bizarre tricorn hat fitted with an enormous feather from a bird that only flew among the islands of the eastern archipelago. He had a slightly fishy odor to him that stopped just short of being unpleasant.

  “I wonder if you can help me,” he said, after browsing the shelves of the bookshop long enough that the only other customers present that early in the morning had gone and no new ones had arrived to replace them. “I’m looking for a book about the Vulp of Kitsu and their mythical cities on the northern continent of Skennel.”

  Dabni recognized the phrases from coursework years in the past, but had never heard them spoken aloud. She bit back her surprise and responded with the appropriate counter phrase. “The Vulp never lived on Kitsu, nor does that world possess a continent named Skennel. Perhaps you’re thinking of some other imaginary place?”

  The Eleph nodded, considering. “Yes … perhaps. Perhaps some tea would help me to remember what I thought I knew so well when I came in.”

  That phrase confirmed that the customer was indeed from the Caudex and a Speaker, knew her for one as well, and wanted them both to ingest some koph for a private exchange. Dabni excused herself, locked the door to her shop and went into a back room to boil water and prepare two cups of drug-infused tea. A short while later she sat with the old man at a small table near the center of the shop, and soon after that they regarded each other on a colorless plane of their shared making, a pair of nefshon constructs that could neither be overheard nor spied upon by others who happened upon them in the shop.

  “Hello, Dabni. I am Walto. I knew your late mother, oh so many years ago, long before the Caudex sent me into the world for one mission after another. You look just like her, a delightful surprise.” Walto paused as if he’d forgotten why he’d come to speak with her in this way. He shook his head, fanned his ears, and resumed. “I bring you greetings from the Caudex. They are pleased that you’ve established yourself in Keslo and asked that I pass along their praise.”

  The façade of simple shopgirl fell away and she responded with more of her natural impatience. “Thank you. But they could have told me that themselves. Surely that’s not why you’re here.”

  “No, of course not. I am to pass on to you a secondary assignment. By this time tomorrow you will be responsible for managing the index, or rather, the portion of it that contains everyone on Keslo.”

  “Index? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

  “Well, you do, but you don’t. You’ve probably not thought about nefshons in this particular way, but I’ve never met a Speaker who didn’t grasp the concept once they held it with their trunk. It’s like this: each of us is unique, different from everyone else down to the squiggly bits in our cells that define us. We’re all individuals, right?”

  Dabni nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  “Good. And each of your cells, even though they may differ from one another, they’re all still clearly part of you. Not someone else’s. All you.”

  “Still following.”

  “And the same is true of your nefshons. They’re not like anyone else’s.”

  “That’s how we summon people. Because having known them while they were alive, we have an unconscious knowledge of their nefshons. It’s why a Speaker can’t summon a stranger.”

  “Exactly. That’s precisely what every Speaker is taught.” He paused and his eyes did that twinkling thing. “It’s also wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Right now, as we converse like this, you’re effectively holding some of my nefshons. It was an easy thing for you to pull strands from the weave that surrounds me, just as I did for you. And were I to drop dead this instant and that fabric came undone, you’d still be able to summon me. It wouldn’t matter that I’m almost a complete stranger to you. Having once perceived my nefshons you know the pattern of them, what you called an unconscious knowledge.”

  Dabni found herself focusing on the Eleph’s nefshons, pulling her attention away from the shared illusion that provided sight and sound, scent and texture. She regarded the nefshon thread of his personality, his identity, that she’d grabbed hold of to have this conversation, and realized in that moment that yes, she could summon him, despite knowing nothing more than his name.

  Walto smiled at her and clapped his hands. “That’s it. The epiphany shows in your face. Now, let’s take it up a branch. Consider that metaphor and make the idea a deliberate and conscious act. But don’t stop with just my nefshons. What’s to prevent you from doing that with anyone you’ve spoken to like this?”

  She gasped as the realization hit home. She didn’t need to actually know the details of a person to summon them, just to have previously accessed their nefshons in the past. Each was unique, and that was sufficient to distinguish one individual’s particles from all the rest in the galaxy. She could stand up this very moment, with the koph still heightening her perceptions, step out in front of her shop and pull nefshon threads from passersby and have everything she might need in the future to summon any of them.

  “You’re right,” she said, and then belatedly realized he’d asked her a question. “Nothing’s stopping me. I just … I never thought of it that way. All I need is a single strand to use as a sample to draw more from the same conversant.”

  “That’s it precisely. But once you let it go, how would you remember it, tomorrow or next season or next year?”

  “I’d … I wouldn’t, I suppose. Not unless I made a point of deliberately holding on to it, created a record of it.”

  Walto’s ears flapped with excitement. “Like a list?” he asked. “Like an inventory?”

  “I … I guess so. Yes.”

  He clapped his hands again and intertwined his fingers. “That’s the trick of it. Rather than simply letting go of that strand, you spin a duplicate of it and add it to your list. Simple enough. Now imagine taking your list and adding it to mine. There might even be some overlap, but that doesn’t matter. The duplicates merge. In the end, everyone you could summon becomes someone I could as well.”

  “That would … that’s amazing.”

  “It is. And of course
I could then take our combined lists and share them with some other Speakers who have their own combined lists of all the people they could choose to summon. And you know, that’s how it happened, centuries ago. When the first Caudex Speakers thought to do this, pooling their knowledge to create the first index.”

  He opened his hands and revealed a gleaming gold polyhedral lattice of so many sides she at first mistook it for a sphere. It was knowledge, a dense compacting of information unlike anything she’d seen. That slightest glimpse sparked a yearning in her. She hungered for it more than anything she’d ever wanted before.

  “This is the index. Or rather, it’s my most recent version of the index. With this, you could summon any Fant going all the way back to the first generation born on Barsk. Your job will be to add to it. To keep the index up to date with respect to the people living here on Keslo. You’ll check in with your superiors at least once each season and share your latest version with them, and receive back the updated index that reflects the work of agents throughout both archipelagos and everywhere else Fant exist.”

  “Everyone? Everyone ever?”

  Walto grinned. “Pretty much. Adding to your existing catalog is relatively easy. It’s sort of like a structured meditation, well within your abilities or we wouldn’t be here having this conversation. I’ll walk you through the technique later today.”

  “Are you leaving Keslo when we’re done?”

  He nodded. “These old bones aren’t good for much down here. It wore me out just making my way to your shop today. I’m leaving gravity behind so I can continue to be of use. Anyone who notices I’ve left will simply assume I’ve sailed away.”

  Dabni swallowed hard, suddenly serious. Leave gravity behind? She looked at Walto with new respect. “You’re going to stand sentry on a portal? Protecting all of Barsk?”

  “That’s the plan. Well, not the ‘stand’ part. I’ll mostly be floating. It’s a nice cap to a long life of service.”

  She’d never been to space, but every Caudex operative knew of the portals. Far from retiring, Walto was taking on some of the Caudex’s most important work.

  “It’s a formality, Dabni, but I need you to say that you accept this assignment before I can share the index with you.”

  She snapped her mind back from imagining Walto’s future and grinned as she held out her hands to take the gift he had come to offer. “Yes, of course, I accept this assignment.”

  He passed the index to her, pouring it from his hands into hers, both vessel and contents. When he had finished he still held it but so did she, the same one or a copy. It didn’t matter which. It was as heavy as a star and as light as a breeze. And just that easily she incorporated the knowledge of a hundred million individual Fant into herself. Her nefshon construct spun, nonexistent as it was, and she had the sudden understanding that she was passing out while in the middle of a nefshon trance.

  “Don’t worry,” said Walto. “It’s overwhelming both mentally and physically. You’re going to experience a bit of deep sleep. Your body needs a nap to accommodate what you’ve just received. I’ll stay here until you awaken. Then I’ll take you out to a nice meal and show you how to add the waitstaff to the index. But for now, rest well.”

  The plane of their conversation dissolved but Dabni had already dropped into a dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  SHE woke near the end of the day, stiff from sleeping in a chair, and found Walto wandering the aisles of her shop looking through books of eastern archipelagic philosophy. He smiled as she staggered toward him. Her head felt fuzzy and her stomach ravenous, realizing that his suggestion of dinner had been anything but random. In fact, he had made a reservation for them at one of Keslo’s most prestigious and expensive restaurants—a place she’d never imagined dining given her cover as a simple shopgirl, and so was only too happy to visit it with him. Over the span of several courses and surreptitious sips of koph-laced liqueur from a small flask he had, Walto guided her through the process of sampling nefshons from a trio of young waiters—a simple matter of drawing a strand from each—and binding their respective uniqueness to the index that now came to her awareness when she called. Dessert consisted of light sweet grasses, and tasted the way she imagined success should taste.

  And why not? The Caudex had been pleased with her work and entrusted her with an enormous responsibility. Their paranoid fears over the target of her official assignment had never materialized. Instead, she’d found love with a brilliant scholar who in turn had gifted her with a darling daughter. Life was perfect, a dream come true.

  But that was a tenday ago. Now Klarce had passed along a new directive and a meme of death. The dream shattered.

  ELEVEN

  DISCOVERY

  PIZLO was moody. To be fair, if anyone on all of Barsk had a right to stew in his own juices or rail against the injustice of daily life it was Pizlo. But the boy wasn’t cranky for his own sake. Never having known fairness, he rarely noticed its absence. Rather, he felt bad for the Archetype of Man, whose nefshons he had just dismissed after the machine had filled his head to bursting. For years, Pizlo had been listening to its stories, thousands upon thousands of them ranging from anecdotes to epics. Most of the stories involved men and women, young and old, but hints here and there throughout the tales had made it clear that those words meant something different to whomever had first told those stories. And some of the stories included beings who were clearly not men and women, but animals that weren’t animals because they were smart and could speak. Sapient. Animals that were sapient, but still weren’t men and so weren’t like him. Pizlo had grappled with that for a long while because he couldn’t wrap his thoughts around it. People were sapient, not animals. But the heroes in the machine’s stories were mostly just one kind of people. Even the Fant had two kinds of people, Eleph and Lox. But not the people in the stories. Maybe that’s why they were all gone. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t recognized what they had made when creating their Archetype of Man.

  That the Archetype had produced nefshons was the only proof Pizlo needed to see two points as incontrovertible: first that it had been both alive and sapient. Maybe not from the moment of its awakening, but certainly during most of the long span of its inorganic machine life. It had spent the majority of that span with its systems powered down to a dormancy that by comparison made the paralysis of mortal sleep like running fast enough to walk on wind. So that was one thing. The other was that it possessed wisdom. Its knowledge outstripped even Jorl, who often seemed like he’d read and understood everything. The Archetype didn’t simply know all its lore, it was the embodiment of it. A miracle storyteller and teacher.

  It amazed Pizlo that people had created it, and he wondered if they’d really understood what they’d done, what a miracle to have built sapience into a machine. And yet, despite that miracle, its creators had cheated it as well.

  The Archetype lacked agency. It had never once initiated any action. Always it waited upon inquiry. According to Jorl its last words before being physically destroyed had delineated its pedigree and qualifications, its tone imploring the Patrolers who had stumbled upon it to use it. Instead, they’d denied it without knowing what they’d extinguished. But even that pointless, willful act of annihilation didn’t upset the boy. Rather it was the cruelty that the Archetype of Man’s long vanished makers chose to imbue it with so much insight while denying it even a hint of free will.

  If knowledge was power—as Jorl had taught Pizlo with endless examples—how could such power exist without will? How could will exist without accountability? Accountability without integrity? And so, back again to the fundamental question, how might a person—ancient hero from Before or Fant abomination such as himself—how could any of them even conceive of integrity without agency? More simply, how could the Archetype’s makers be capable of such majestic creation and so stupid at the same time?

  As often happened when he used koph, Pizlo felt both frantically alert and yawnishly sleepy. In
just such a state he’d wandered along the hidden pathways that were his private routes, pausing at a concealed spot above a favored park where he could watch people come and go without being noticed himself. The drug he’d ingested to speak with the Archetype still buzzed in him. The people in the park each shone with their own golden wrapping of particles. This section of the park held one of Keslo’s public mazes, a shadow-laced space constructed of winding walkways cunningly separated by translucent screens. Fant making their way through adjacent portions of the maze saw their fellows only as questing shadows on the screens, the sound of their laughter and conversation seeming to come from ever-changing distances. The maze offered little challenge except to the youngest of children, and among its many twists and turns were alcoves with comfortable cushions, pairs of chairs and gaming tables, and the occasional bit of artwork appropriate for a span of contemplation. Pizlo’s perch had sufficient elevation that he could see down into the maze. Seniors strolled in unhurried steps, young lovers slipped through for a moment’s private caress, and some wandered at ease in a needed break from the demands of the day. He liked to watch people meander along the paths, much as he had always studied the progress of insects about their day, seeking larger patterns of purpose in the actions of individuals. People weren’t so different. Sometimes he would guess at the identity of the person beneath a particular nefshon cocoon and banish that individual’s particles from his perception to see if he was right.