The Moons of Barsk

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  When he finally passed through into the Civilized Wood of Ulmazh, differences leapt out at him. For one thing, the scope of everything from the boardways to the buildings was bigger, as if to accommodate a larger population. And there were devices everywhere. Little machines that whirred softly to themselves on lintels and corners and balconies. And on people, too. As Pizlo hung back, concealed by the foliage border in a broad avenue—much as he might have done back in Keslo—he saw Eleph and Lox going about their day. They didn’t seem the least bit concerned that they lived upside down inside of a moon. And except for the bits of metal and ceramic clipped to their ears or about their wrists—more machines doing who knew what—they could have been any people from anywhere on Barsk.

  The effects of the koph he’d taken earlier had begun to fade during his climb, and he took another piece and popped it into his mouth. He’d never overlapped doses before, but it would probably be all right, and besides this was too important. Throwing a mental switch, he made the swaths of nefshons surrounding the people on the boardway visible to him, and summoned a strand from the nearest of them. Then he conjured up the index, compared it to the strand, and found the person already there. Not that he needed it, but the match was further confirmation that the people who had made the index knew that there were Fant living in the moon.

  He let the strand go and refocused on the index and the bit he’d identified as belonging to Klarce. She was nearby. The sooner he found her and convinced her to talk to him, the sooner he could fix things for Jorl. He had a good feeling for direction and distance so he let his perception shift back to the ordinary world. He pushed through the green, somersaulted and rolled to his feet on the boardway and ignored the gasps and stares of other folk as he ran along toward his goal.

  Now that he was out in the open, Pizlo noticed other differences. The air was … odd. Kind of like it had been when he’d been snugged up in that environment suit, only now it wasn’t something he could blame on the helmet. It was drier. The omnipresent rain of Barsk that permeated every breath on every island had no place here. And the light was wrong. The diffuse illumination of Keslo that filtered through the Civilized Wood via cunning arrays of mirrors and lenses from the edges of the forest and the tops of the canopy didn’t exist here. Glow strips lined the ceilings of avenues and archways, not unlike those he’d seen on the space station all those years ago, but subtler and more cleverly worked into the architecture.

  There was something different about the people he passed, too, but he couldn’t say what. They recoiled from him the way others back in Keslo did, reacting first to his paleness and the dirt and stains and cuts that covered him head to toe. And then, invariably, they made the connection, some cultural shared consciousness that let them label him as other, unclean, abomination. They moved out of his path and erased him from their perceptions like a Speaker would dismiss nefshons that were of no interest. That was fine. The fewer obstacles in his path, the sooner he would reach Klarce and fix everything.

  Pizlo’s earlier estimate that this Civilized Wood was bigger than the one he knew back home was born out by his having already traversed twice the length of the main boardway of Keslo that ran from one end of the island to the other. He was getting tired. He’d passed many different neighborhoods each with their own bookshops and apothecaries and spirit stores, numerous gymnasiums and performance balconies and parks. Several hundred pedestrians going about their own business had encountered their first abomination and would whisper of it that night. He’d lost track of how many municipal buildings he’d ticked off on his run, but paused at last in front of a modest one, little more than a simple office suite. The outer door had Klarce’s name carved into it, along with the word “Councilor” and on a line below, “Ulmazh Office-Hours By Appointment.”

  Pizlo let himself in, his ears lifting as a faint beep accompanied him. The room held a small desk directly opposite the entrance, a young Eleph seated behind it, his head down as he worked through a tablet and made notations upon it with the stylus he held in his trunk. Framed projections on both side walls showed changing images of Fant smiling and waving as they stood in front of parks and libraries and orchestras, and always with the same middle-aged woman in the middle of them. Klarce. Seeing the images, he saw the calmer, happier version of her features than the horrified face he’d briefly connected with.

  “I’ll be right with you,” said the man behind the desk, not yet looking up, his attention still focused on his work. “The councilor isn’t available today, but I’ll be happy to schedule an appointment for you in just a moment.”

  “I don’t need an appointment,” said Pizlo. “But I do need to speak with Councilor Klarce. It won’t take long though.”

  “I’m sure you believe that’s the case,” replied the man, and the smile in his voice was warm and friendly. “Everyone does, but the reality is the councilor’s time is—” He broke off as he finally looked up and stared at the latest visitor in the office. Pizlo gazed back, and waved.

  “You’re … Pizlo.”

  Pizlo grinned. He saw recognition on the face of the man looking back at him, seconds before he averted his gaze. And he’d actually spoken to him, called him by name. Remarkable.

  “I am. But how do you know that? Who are you?”

  The man stammered, his ears flapped furiously in distress. He fixed his gaze over Pizlo’s shoulder and spoke to the door there. “You—You were in a report I prepared for the councilor. I’m T–Temmel. I’m Councilor Klarce’s assistant. She’s, ah, not in.”

  “Yes, she is. Just through there.” Pizlo waved his trunk to indicate the door on the wall behind Temmel’s desk.

  “What I mean is, she’s busy. In conference. Can’t be disturbed.” He swallowed hard and kept looking at anything and everything else in the room. But for all that, Temmel’d kept talking to him, only the eighth person in his life to ever do so. Neither Ulmazh nor any of the other moons had even hinted that such a thing would happen. Was it because he’d learned of him from some report, become someone real rather than an abstract idea? It was hard for the man, but he was managing, and Pizlo realized it would be so easy to turn away from his goal, to just stay and talk, make a connection to another person, expand the tiny universe of people whom he knew and who might come to know him. But this was just an obstacle, a trial on his quest albeit a very appealing one. Heroes were always tempted from their true course. He shook his head, sniffling once as he let go of this brief addition to his constellation of people.

  “Yeah, but—and you’ll just have to trust me on this—this is more important. Thank you, Temmel, for seeing me, at least for a short while. I—I really hope we can talk again.” He walked around the desk and stepped through the door, leaving the stunned Eleph behind.

  * * *

  THE inner room wasn’t much bigger but held considerably more furniture. A floor to ceiling cupboard filled most of the wall to Pizlo’s left, while the one on the right held a wide and fluffy couch, a low table with a shallow bowl of nuts upon it. A scattering of brass discs lay on the floor. The far wall held a semi-circular desk with a cushioned hammock seat and a single occupant who appeared to be sleeping. Klarce.

  Pizlo locked the door behind him even as the Eleph on the other side gathered his wits and tried to follow him through. It would hold for a while. He crossed the room, avoiding the discs, swinging his trunk low to help himself to a few nuts as he passed the table, and climbed onto Klarce’s desk. He settled himself in front of her and opened his perceptions to the nefshons she’d presumably gathered and the mindspace she’d created with them.

  And immediately fell to the ground, pushed back by the presence of tens of people. He rolled on his back in the midst of them until he managed to find enough space to stand, far to the side. Blinking back surprise he saw that most of the Fant in the room were Jorl. A few others stood in the room, each of them astride one of the discs he’d seen on the floor. And, back by her desk, Pizlo could just make out the
figure of Klarce on the other side of at least a ten of Jorl. She held a looping whirl of a meme in one hand, and in the next moment sent it racing down a nefshon thread.

  As one, all the Jorls around cried out, “Rina!”

  Klarce said something after that, but Pizlo failed to make it out. And then all but one of Jorl vanished and the space between himself and Klarce was empty. This was his moment, the critical point where determinism could be overturned by agency. Paradox. Something that couldn’t possibly happen needed to happen, and could because he embodied contradiction. It was the fulfillment of his quest, and as he stepped into the moment he realized he couldn’t see the future. But that was fine, what he needed now was the past. Pizlo closed his eyes on the scene and got his bearings again in the physical office. In both realities he rushed forward, grasping Klarce’s hand in his.

  THIRTY-ONE

  RE-EDUCATION

  JORL lay in his bed, sound asleep, the emotional strain of the day before having taken its toll. He could have easily slept through till noon—even with the sartha outside his window cut back—but Klarce took that option away. One moment he was lost in some dream involving a library full of books from the time Before and the next he was blinking himself into awareness, having been summoned to a mindspace of the same office Klarce had shown him before, somewhere inside Ulmazh.

  It was on his lips to make some wry remark that surely she could manage a full day without seeing him but the words fell away unspoken. Klarce looked … haggard, like someone who had been working with nefshons for too long over too short a span. Even for those who had built up an immunity to its worst effects, koph was still a toxic drug. The Caudex councilor had clearly been pushing herself too hard. And something else. Koph toxicity could account for her wan complexion, the droop of her eyes, but Jorl saw a tremor in her fingers and nubs as well.

  “Is something wrong? I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon.”

  “Jorl ben Tral, your actions betray all our people.”

  He blinked back his confusion. “Are we back to this again? Yes, I still think it’s important for us to find a way to live alongside the other races of the Alliance, but I told you I won’t pursue it personally or encourage any proposals for it in the senate. I won’t jeopardize the worlds you’ve built. I won’t do anything to endanger the many Eleph and Lox living there.”

  “And yet, you have.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You bear an aleph, a mark that has taken on great historical significance and dates back almost to the beginning of our exile on Barsk. But you flout an even older tradition. No, worse, you actively work to undermine it.”

  “Klarce, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her face twisted with disgust. “Don’t play at stupidity. I’m talking about your pet abomination.”

  Jorl scowled back at her. “If you mean Pizlo, what about him?”

  “He’s sensitive to koph.”

  “Well … yes.”

  “And when you discovered this, did you train him to be a Speaker?”

  “I did. But mainly so I could stay in touch with him, much like I’m communicating with you. It’s not as though he can summon any other Fant. He doesn’t know anyone. Moreover, he knows that even if he did, it would make any conversant he reached profoundly uncomfortable.”

  “That no longer constrains him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Members of the Caudex here on Ulmazh have reported an abomination appearing to them as a nefshon construct and interfering with their work.”

  “Oh, please. When I was half Pizlo’s age I tried to convince a teacher that an abomination had stolen my homework. Your reports are surely just more of the same folklore and rumor that’s always existed.”

  “Spare me your anecdotes. This rumor was substantiated today when your creature forced himself into my mind,” said Klarce.

  “That’s not possible. He doesn’t know anything about you. How could he summon you?”

  “He can summon any Fant on Barsk. He has a copy of the index!”

  “Sorry? Index? I don’t know what that is.”

  “And I don’t believe you. You’re cunning, Jorl. Too cunning by far. Too cunning to trust. I admit, you had me fooled. I believed you before. You convinced me we had the same goals. And the very fact that you could do that is why I have gone to the council and asked them to stop you. Now, and for all time. And after we’ve dealt with you, I will personally put an end to your pet abomination.

  With no further warning, an additional member of the Caudex grasped for Jorl, connecting to him via a nefshon thread and pulling himself into the conversation and the mental space Klarce had crafted. Then another did the same, then more, until the other seven members of the Caudex Full Council were present and glaring at him. He’d done the inverse of this often enough, using his enhanced abilities to Speak with the entire Committee of Information at one time. Completing connections to the other senators allowed him to bring them all together in the same place in the manufactured mindspace and communicate in real time.

  This was different. These Speakers had nothing to share. Rather, they sought to take.

  “This is not our way, but you have left us no choice,” said Klarce. She still stood in front of him in the mindspace, now with one hand outstretched and a writhing loop of self-sustaining particles swirling on her palm. He’d seen that kind of structure before. Pizlo’s echo of himself existed independent of him, a thing made of knowledge; a meme.

  Jorl ignored Klarce. Whatever rationalization she babbled now was some pathetic attempt to assuage her own conscience. He shifted his attention to the other seven council members.

  Each held the same meme, sending its message to him through the links they’d forced. It was as if they were somehow whispering to his mind. He had a vague awareness that his body had stiffened, his heart rate increased, but otherwise he wasn’t in any physical danger. Then, was this a mental attack? He focused on the meme being thrust upon him. It was simple, like a recipe. Do this, then this, then this other thing, and repeat. The actual actions were incomprehensible to him but the directions themselves were easy enough to follow. He cycled through the recipe, once, twice, and recoiled as the effect of it reached him at last. He reacquired the perception of his own nefshon fabric for confirmation and instead of a smooth tapestry of golden particles he saw innumerable threads trailing off. He was being plucked, unwound, shredded.

  Like anyone else, he had a near infinite number of nefshons bound to his living body, but the councilors’ meme worked impossibly fast, propagating the idea of his unraveling to his own particles, making them a partner in their own unbinding. He looked inward, trying to see his own nefshons in ways no non-Caudex Speaker had ever considered. He touched one of the unraveling threads and coaxed it back into the seamless pattern that was its default, repairing the damage. He moved on to the next and the next, picking up confidence and speed. He could do this. Soon enough he was restoring his threads easily twice as fast as a meme caused him harm.

  But eight Speakers assaulted him with the memes, deliberately of course. They had guessed that he could restore what another Speaker sought to destroy. But not eight to one. He’d slowed the dissolution, but he couldn’t stop it. That’s why they had come like this, attacking him en masse. No matter how fast he repaired the damage, an ordinary Speaker could never survive the scenario.

  But he’d stopped being ordinary years ago.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” he said, even as his focus phased in and out. He had to hurry, the meme didn’t need to run its course to defeat him, just leave him muddled enough as not to be able to defend against it. He had time yet, but not much. “You’ve forgotten the third law of Margda’s edict.”

  “Third law? That never made any sense,” said Klarce. “You won’t distract us into sparing you. We do what must be done.”

  He summoned himself, much as any Speaker might summon the dead. He cal
led to his own nefshons and created a doppelgänger, his duplicate in ability and power. Together, both of him stood facing off against the eight councilors and applied themselves to restoring the unraveling caused by the Caudex meme.

  Klarce gasped, but it was a sound of surprise not defeat. “I see. I don’t know how you’ve done that, but it doesn’t matter. Two of you working in unison is still insufficient to heal you. You’re only prolonging your suffering.”

  “I hadn’t planned on stopping at two.”

  “You’re babbling. No Speaker can maintain more than one additional construct.”

  “You mean, none of your Speakers can,” said both Jorls. They nodded to one another and suddenly there were four of him. The quartet smiled at Klarce’s confusion and then there were eight of him. Enough that each quickly restored a different suffering piece of their shared threads, slowing the devastation of all eight copies of the deadly meme. Slowing, but not stopping. And it was getting harder to concentrate. That had to be part of the effect, the eventual goal of the meme. What would be left of his mind if all of his nefshons unraveled? Worse still, he’d summoned himself too late. None of him were whole, and every copy he’d made already contained the shredding meme.

  “You amaze me, Jorl ben Tral. Clearly you have resources that would have been a boon to the Caudex, if only you were not corrupted and amoral beyond any redemption.”

  “Corrupted and amoral? Because I honored a friend’s dying wish? Because I guided a boy toward adulthood? Because I saw strength and ability and helped him to channel his gifts?” Jorl wanted to laugh. He felt like he was drunk, and recognized it as evidence that he was losing ground. He shook his head, ears flapping wildly. He was losing. All of him was losing. He looked into the eyes of himself repeated all around, felt the power that rested within him to do impossible things, to reach back to Before, to invoke the Silence, to scatter the Matriarch. Except … the control he needed wasn’t there. He tried to summon himself again, doubling to sixteen as surely that would be sufficient to his need, but shied back as the nefshons he drew to increase his number were ones that were unraveling already. If he doubled again he’d finish the task for the council.