Appleseed

by John Clute

  —Ah, said the man.

  His skin had turned to winter birch, his guts to pomace. His arms gnarled. He lifted to the goddess his wicker face, on which could be seen — through the relicts of the mappemonde — traces of rain.

  —We must leave you behind now. You must go back. Guard Klavier from the minions of God, Johnny. Watch and ward. Your life in the mortal flesh is the aria that convened us. Goodbye.

  A fist appaumy flickered in the night air.

  —You may speak pronto, murmured the Predecessor Queen. —Pronto.

  —Johnny Appleseed, said SammSabaoth sounding from the loyal stern face at the heart of the spider at the heart of the clenched hand at the heart of the fire, —take my coat.

  There was a sense of movement.

  Over his naked twig-thin shanks, Johnny Appleseed now wore a coat of thorn.

  —Goodbye, Johnny, said the Predecessor Queen.

  He clicked out.

  —Child of the Rose, said the Predecessor Queen.

  There was no convener in Glass Island.

  But the thousand monitors flickered like a mosaic suddenly come alive, and a dozen Johnny Appleseeds, a hundred Johnny Appleseeds caught in a thousand tiles gazing, rose through Klavier. One hundred and twenty- one Johnny Appleseeds dressed in thorn fell up grav-shafts through the hollows of the yew. Where the convener could not be seen it was as though he had just passed and would return. Soon, the hundred and twenty-one Johnny Apple- seeds were gazing into vacuum through time through filmed eyes through skin through the hundred and twenty-one faces of Klavier. They gazed upon the englobing Harpe fleet.

  The hundred and twenty-one gazed as one at the three visors of Opsophagos.

  —Nathaniel, said Mamselle Cunning Earth Link. —Wanna be dubbed, kiddo?

  The dauphin Knight Captain knelt.

  His eyes were black as night and hooded.

  The fierce white flyte beard of Uncle Sam thrust into the world; deep behind, within a spider gape, an appaumy clench, boiled a cauldron forging tools.

  —But first, I think, perchance, a peekaboo, I think, said the transitus tessera, or Mamselle, or Ynis Gutrin, or the Predecessor Queen, it did not matter, they were the same. —I wish grandiloquent knighthood investiture be conferred in sight of loved ones.

  She sat back on her violet hooves, petals fluttering.

  Slowly, like a rose at dawn, her belly unfolded.

  Within the proscenium arch of her ribs, she was larger than her outside. Fireflies glowed from alcoves, reflecting depths charged with water, just as in conclave space a thousand lanterns might illumine Venice of Human Earth for a tiny fraction of a Heartbeat, to make a point.

  The waters became an islet cloaked in ferns, which parted.

  —Hi gang! chirped the giant head of Arturus Quondam Captain Future. Petals wreathed his spindly body; his limbs shimmered. He was backlit by stars or fireflies. His rose- red owl eyes fixed on Freer, then on Uncle Sam, then on the frog bodies, whose skins had begun to bake.

  He waved a tendril-pliant arm.

  A small rain fell on the frogs and their skins were whole again.

  His mother nodded her triffid tuft complacently.

  Quondam’s gaze fixed on the Captain.

  —We’re all gonna wanna gander! he said. —Knighthood in flower! Bejaysus!

  His arms wreathed into a gesture of unfolding, and deeper inside the womb of his mother a curtain of placental silk slid open. Nestled snugly into a font, the head of Ferocity Monthly-Niece sat within the mother.

  —Time to wake, adoptive sib! pealed the son.

  The head opened its eyes and saw Freer. The mouth, which was not bloody, opened in a smile. The teeth were intact. The skull was whole. The hair had been brushed.

  —Ticketyboo moment of happy recognition! I surmise with some insight, warbled Mamselle, —hey? I shall leave you guys alone for a precious moment! Peripeteia chuckles!

  Nathaniel Freer took two steps and stood before the great turnip-shaped Predecessor Queen. He knelt. He put his head inside the womb of Mamselle.

  Ferocity moved her lips.

  —Nat, Nat, her lips could be heard from conclave space uttering a nickname.

  The Knight Captain moved his lips.

  He whispered to her as well a nickname from long-ago flesh.

  For her fierceness he had called her this.

  —Cochise, he whispered.

  From deep within the armour of the flyte self of the Knight Captain, Freer gazed jack upon the beloved. A map of lines tattooed the outward face of the Knight Captain, then faded; but for an instant the Knight Captain wore her face.

  —Neat reunion, guys, chirruped Quondam.

  When he touched them his touch was falling leaves.

  —Cochise? whispered Freer. —How long have you been awake?

  —Just a tiny tumult out of what you call time, dears, spoke the mother from above. —You placed her in an altar. I accepted the offering. Lo!

  —I have some growing to do, whispered Ferocity.

  —Before she takes her afternoon nap, said Cunning Earth Link, —let’s get you dubbed.

  The sword in the sinuous handpiece of the Predecessor Queen raised into the air above the kneeling dauphin and the flat of the blade descended.

  —Former acting Knight Captain, we dub you Knight Captain. Jiminy Cricket! What a lallapaloosa!

  Ferocity’s eyes shut. Her eyelashes fluttered like a puppy’s.

  The font absorbed the head.

  —Her body is daily growing, said Mamselle.

  —My siblings say all is well, said Quondam.

  The Knight Captain climbed to his feet.

  —When?

  —Before we come through the portal. You will need her help then.

  The womb sealed over its charges.

  Perhaps Thirty Heartbeats had passed, in the real world, since her beheading.

  Cooled by the gentle rain, the frog bodies hunkered together into flying buttresses, where they spasmed continuously, in great myoclonic fantoche jerks, like marionettes dropped from a height.

  FreeLance turned to the anguish of Vipassana.

  —Yes, he said. —We can proceed now.

  He turned to Mamselle.

  —I propose to execute the Made Mind Vipassana now. Will you attend?

  —Aye aye, Boss Captain! belled the Predecessor Queen.

  The Knight Captain of Tile Dance made a sign and the caul that enclosed Number One Son and the golems split open.

  The golems’ stony faces stretched in yawns.

  Number One Son blinked.

  ‘Gawsh,’ he said into the blistering wind of acoustic.

  ‘Please attend me, my boy,’ said Freer.

  ‘Sure thing, Pops,’ said the sigillum.

  ‘Take the golems. Fetch the coffin of Vipassana here.’

  ‘Gangway!’ said Number One Son and began to galumph.

  Freer licked his lips in the wind.

  He never spoke willingly to his sigillum.

  Number One Son and the golems banged on the shut iris. Lions flared in the doorjamb.

  —Let them pass. Let them return.

  The iris flexed, closed behind them.

  In the access corridor, lit by luminescent fish gazing through portholes at dry land, the sigillum and the golems fell down immediately into slow augment. Number One Son suffered a small seizure (it was not long for this world), but whammed on regardless downwards at the head of its squad, shoving air aside, passing the regeneration coffers where a new Ferocity was growing. Finally they reached the armoured inner chamber containing the physical entities of the Made Minds in their coffins as intricate as coral, guarded by slats of light which burned at the touch.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Number One Son.

  The Knight Captain of Tile Dance, which continued to hover at the strait gate to the interior of Klavier, spoke through the thousand, the thousand thousand tiles of the skin.

  —Johnny Appleseed, he said, —Johnny Appleseed.


  There was silence in the council chamber. The Handfasts hung their tongues down but no menus came to roost. The twitching henge of frog parts of Vipassana barely held itself together. The lion of KathKirtt sat sculpted, time inched.

  —Johnny Appleseed! belled the Queen.

  Whirligigs of root and branch filled Ynis Gutrin, but did not dislodge a feather; there was a tickling smell, pine needles after a shower.

  —Yes? said the hundred and twenty-one voices finally. —I’m busy.

  —Are you all right? said Freer.

  There was a pause.

  —All right? said the voice of Johnny Appleseed at last. —All right?

  A circlet of twigs opened to uncover an image of the face of the convener.

  It wore an expression not much like a grin.

  —No I am not all right, said Johnny Appleseed. —Who watched this fence till the seeds took root? Anyway?

  —You did, said FreeLance.

  The Appleseed face softened slightly.

  —It was for this you descended into the flesh, said FreeLance. —It was for this Mamselle tricked you at the dawn of time. I love you.

  —Bah, humbug.

  —I beg pardon, most august Made Mind.

  —What do you want, boyo? We got work here.

  But he did not leave. An image of Johnny Appleseed himself formed at the heart of the hologram sphere. He was wearing a tin pot. He was as naked as always. He was sitting at a honkytonk piano with a hundred and twenty- one keys.

  Some were ochre, some were ivory.

  The keys moved singly, in pairs, in cohorts

  —Opsophagos, said a hundred and twenty-one voices in unison, —has ordered the attack. The attack has already begun.

  There was one AppleSeed in the sphere, there were a hundred and twenty-one. Some were ochre, some were ivory.

  —Good, said FreeLance. —Here is what I want you to do. At my signal, I wish you to lower all protective shields between us and the Alderede. Just for a short period. A millisecond should be enough.

  The AppleSeed faces flared green and garish.

  —Nix, said the faces ensemble. —It would let Opsophagos in. Even a millisecond.

  —It would indeed. That is what I want Opsophagos to think—

  —I tell you nix, interrupted the Lords Marcher of the skin of Klavier. We got back here just in time. Our shields are holding. The Harpe fleet batters at us like flies. We are swatting them. Their bombs are food. Their bombs are refuelling us. But we cannot safely lower our defences, even for a millisecond.

  —Johnny?

  Silence.

  —Johnny?

  —Ya?

  —Can you make it look as though Tile Dance is making her escape, that she’s burning a hole in your skin? That she’s burning her way back to Alderede with her Made Mind and his prisoner? That she is ripping you apart?

  Silence.

  —Ya, said AppleSeed finally. —Why?

  —I want Opsophagos to open himself up for full access, and I want Alderede’s shields down just long enough for Vipassana’s twin to experience Vipassana’s death.

  There was a silence for a fraction of a beat of a Heart.

  —Ah, said the voices of Johnny Appleseed, —ah.

  —Okey dokey, murmured FreeLance, —aged brother?

  —When?

  —About One Heartbeat, time in the world, said Freer.

  —Ya. Say when.

  The piano sounded a single chord out of all its keys, and blinked out.

  Freer gazed through fish and tile into the lower depths. The golem squad and Number One Son — minus half an arm — had managed to slide a coffin on to a floating gurney attended by a Doc Punch tocking sullenly on its slender wheeled herm. The coffin was pearled with hoarfrost, through which a Planisphere sigil could be seen. The sigil gave off a Fabergé glow. The squad stumbled into a grav- shaft and shot upwards.

  The iris spun open.

  The sigillum and the grunts tumbled back into high augment.

  —There, said the Knight Captain of Tile Dance, pointing to the henge of trembling frogs, and the squad deposited the coffin in the midst of the tattered body parts.

  —Back, said FreeLance and they scrambled backwards.

  The frog parts and the disembodied frog limbs of Vipassana draped themselves around the coffin, which had begun to steam.

  The Doc Punch parked its herm in a corner and gazed upon the scene through painted eyes.

  Mamselle handed his sword back to FreeLance, it burst into flame, he held it high.

  —Peace, he said.

  —Shantih, the frogs croaked.

  Very casually — lazily as it seemed, but much too fast — the sword began its descent, burning flyte through molecules of unaugmented air, the air burned jack.

  Mamselle raised her arms as though to protect her eyes.

  Her arms were very wide.

  She embraced all the flesh sapients within her ship.

  —When! yelled the Knight Captain through all the tiles of Klavier to the convener, who opened Klavier like flowers, like a hundred and twenty-one mouths opening in abject O’s of total shock as what seemed to be Tile Dance seemed to split their skin.

  The sword sliced through the coffin, which popped like an eardrum. The body ensemble of Vipassana collapsed into smithereens, into mown grass, which slept. Vipassana uttered a trillion shantihs through the aisles of time and space and died. The sound of the dying of the Made Mind lanced through the vacuum between the gorgon of the deep and the Harpe flagship and pierced the bosom of the twin.

  twelve

  Opsophagos crouched in the command cart under the carapace of his dead father, which kept some of the larger rain from staining the screens. Frustrated fatfood wrigglies made a hollow sound on the roof of the carapace, scrabbling for a belly. Through the father’s triune eye sockets smaller rain dripped down from the mouth of the High Kitchen on to Opsophagos and the mask and the Three of Generals and the stud siblings and the nearly spineless heresiologue. Occasionally a wee wriggly landed on the protruding tongue of the breakfast head and made a yummy. The bodies of Opsophagos shat already digested bits and genome rejects constantly into the cart.

  Lashed down into its own humbler cart, the Three of Generals snuck a tasty through its breakfast head.

  The Opsophagos tails swished warningly.

  But the eyes of Opsophagos were on Klavier.

  The gorgon of the deep glittered poisonously in the giant triplex visor screens. It had not blinked for nearly a Thousand Heartbeats. Beamer grids fixed the gorgon in their sights; planet bombs shot down from the Harpe fleet, contusing the fabric of space, but the shields held.

  A hive ship, too slow to exit the combat zone, took a direct hit, imploded halfway out of space-time.

  But the shields held over Klavier Station.

  —Progress? Opsophagos hissed.

  The Made Mind in the iron mask did not instantly open its mouth hole to answer, so he took a hardened sibling in his claw and punctured a new hole in its skin.

  —Progress? he screamed.

  The skin face of the captive Made Mind flapped open in many places.

  —I cannot tell, it hallooed through its flayed skin. — The shields are intact. Shall I expend another frigate to break through?

  Wait, mouthed Opsophagos.

  Saliva shot out between the thousand needle teeth of his breakfast mouth and hardened into stalagmites of plaque. Wait.

  The Three of Generals kowtowed. Half-grown stud siblings, some of whom had survived long enough to become thrice, hunkered in the rain of tiny wide-eyed sibling tadpoles. Sluiceways in the jagged floor of the command chamber fed relict siblings downwards to starving grunts in the caves below.

  Absently, Opsophagos tossed a wriggly with broken wings into the mouth of the heresiologue.

  The wriggly climbed right through the heresiologue and out the other side.

  The heresiologue, whose bowels had been removed along with its forebrains
, would soon starve to death. Six of its seven hollow idiot-savant eyes gazed at the screens. One eye rolled in its socket.

  ‘It is written,’ said the heresiologue in an acoustic whine hardly audible over the plopping of the larger rain upon the carapace of the father, ‘that the inside of a gorgon belly is bigger than the outside. It is written that, therefore, gorgons are never filled. It is written, therefore, that bombs are a gorgon’s breakfast. It is written,’ continued the heresiologue, spiralling higher and higher up those ranges of acoustic attainable through its unsexed throats, ‘that the greater an assault upon a gorgon, the greater becomes the gorgon. It is written that a gorgon of the deep eats plaque. It is written—’ chuntered the heresiologue, but Opsophagos took the hardened sibling that had by now fastened itself to his claw and thrust it upwards through the idiot’s gut cavity and through its uncensorable mouth and into its brain pan, killing the heresiologue dead, and it said no more.

  The seventh eye fell to the floor and siblings ate it.

  Another Heartbeat fled down-time.

  The triplex screens showed the great grinning artefactual taunting Johnny Appleseed face of Klavier, mouth open for further instalments of the feast of planet bombs.

  Then the screens showed a fluttering, a darkening.

  Something was beginning to happen.

  Opsophagos switched the command chamber into augment.

  Unwary siblings slid off his corpulence, clawing at pitons of Opsophagos skin, as augment hit.

  The eyes of Opsophagos came back into augment focus in time to see the face of Johnny Appleseed sag, like a kite that has lost its wind.

  Klavier began to pucker.

  Something was slicing its skin from inside.

  Opsophagos spewed, it was a joy spew.

  His mouths snapped, managed to claw back a few vomited yummies. Liquid sped down his flanks, washing siblings down to the grunt refectories.

  On the screens, the face of Johnny Appleseed split open. Out of his split mouth shot something silver.

  —Tile Dance! screamed Opsophagos into chip conclave. —Tile Dance! bellowed the Three of Generals.

  The skin face of the crippled Made Mind did not open. The abducted ship arrowed upwards on an intersecting course, streaming scabs of Klavier skin.