by John Shirley
“Yes. The beauty is achieved through a perfect balance between empathy and objectivity; between insight and unaffected appraisal. If we allowed ourselves to become empathic to your suffering—beyond what is needed to appreciate the fullness of our imagery—we would lose that balance and lose the insight.”
“And all of us on Fool’s Hope are part of your staged drama? You’re staging a drama using real-life players who don’t know they’re playing in a drama? Are you manipulating things in some way? Controlling the outcomes?”
“No. Except in our arrangement of the borderlines, the various limitations we impose, and in our choices of the various personality chemistries, cultural chemistries, and other elements to be included. And in the selective introduction of IAMton currents. We know that putting A together with B will elicit certain probable reactions; we can predict to some extent the direction of the drama. Not the details but the overall pattern. And when we are surprised, it is all to the good.”
“You simply drop the players onto the stage and let them go at it?”
“Largely, yes. Setting elements are controlled. The environment, access to tools and shelter, Progress Station motivational factors. But randomness is the choicest element, introducing just the right degree of chaos: a splendid chaos, to quote one of your people, that elevates the drama to the cosmic because it adds in a collaboration with the universe’s own principles of mathematical completeness.”
“And the interspecies conflict, I suppose, gives you good, sharp, well-defined imagery.”
“Your instincts are sound.”
“And the watching balls—they record the art, then you guys edit it?”
“Yes. And transmit the results to our people. So that God can watch it through them.”
“God watches anyway. Why make drama for God if God is already enjoying our dramas from, um, inside us?”
“It is like building a temple to celebrate God. It is a way of communicating with God. It is prayer without petition. Finally, we do it because it is the task we were created for, and to do otherwise would be to refute our creator.”
“Yeah. Right. Do your people live, uh, somewhere on this planet? Or in the moon?”
“This is not our world. The moon of this world is our outpost. Our directorial vantage. This world is our canvas or, if you like, our set.”
“So why talk to me now?”
“You have demonstrated a high order of artistic composition in your manipulation of IAMton energies to create images. It is an unusually high order for so low a creature, for IAMton mastery is difficult, it is a demanding medium. You were the best qualified to achieve this mastery, and we encouraged you, as it is time for the composition to come to its denouement.”
“You say I’m a low creature. I am not low enough, Meta, to steal you from your world, even if I had a way to do it, nor low enough to throw you in the midst of hostile aliens.”
“You are not high enough to do that.”
Exasperated, Zero blurted, “Look, why does the ‘drama’ have to be so melodramatic, full of killing and—big splashy events? How about a nice little nonviolent drawing-room comedy, say? You know, something with some subtlety?”
“Our audience prefers a big canvas. Small, subtle events are not easily perceived on it. Furthermore, we are of the Historical Galvanization school of four-dimensional drama creation.”
“Your audience prefers! Are you telling me it’s a matter of ratings?”
“No. But rapport with the audience is an important element of the process of worshipping God through drama creation.”
“Maybe orginally. I’m beginning to wonder if you haven’t lost sight of your original motivations.”
“Permit us to maintain our own aesthetic imperatives.”
Inwardly, Zero fumed. But he sensed the futility of further argument. He and the Meta would have to agree to disagree on some points.
“Bring the composition to its fruition,” the Meta said, “and your people will be allowed to triumph over this world and all competitors. World is world, Zero. You represent the empathic principle of your species’ consciousness. That’s why you’re a filmmaker; the non-empathic, self-oriented principle is represented by the one called Fiskle, the Emperor Harmony. Resolve this conflict by bringing it to consummation. And then we’ll talk.”
The Meta began to move, angling down and to Zero’s left. It lowered itself over Yoshio. The expedition stood, paralyzed by indecision, as the Meta seemed to bathe Yoshio in the essence of itself, for a few moments saturating him in its interior. Then, leaving Yoshio behind, it lifted away and in seconds was merging once more with the starship, which itself merged with the heavens.
Yoshio yawned and sat up, looking spritely and refreshed. “Is the Punkin’ gone?”
“Why did they help Yoshio?” Angie wondered aloud.
Zero shrugged. “Can’t say. Seems out of character, since they let so many others die. I guess the Meta were right there, and their ‘empathic principle’ got out of hand. They acted on impulse. Nice to know they have those kinds of impulses.”
“Mostly they seem to be careful not to have them.”
“Yeah.” It was sunset, a bloodred sunset that seemed to give energy to the violet glimmers in the white expanse of IAMton desert. They were strolling along the edge of the desert, the swamp on their left an oasis; the wastes to their right. A few towers rose and fell out on the white crust in a desultory way.
“I wonder if just anybody could put on that mask thing,” she said, “and make something like what you made out there.”
“Probably.” But he didn’t believe it. He was hoping she wouldn’t try. It was dangerous. He’d almost blown it himself.
She stopped and looked at him. “You really did it, though. You contacted the Meta. I don’t care what my mom thinks: I’m proud of you.”
He smiled. “I haven’t said anything about it, but I haven’t forgotten: you saved my life, Angie, on those hills. You stepped in and stopped the Vinyls from killing me. Thanks. A lot of people—even people in love—would have panicked and run. You were brave, you were fast, and you were smart.”
She seemed to bloom, hearing that. “I was, wasn’t I?”
“You know what I want to see? I want to see you dance.”
“What, you mean like a belly dancer in a skimpy costume? Sexist.” But she was joking. Her insecurity was gone.
“I love you,” he said, and kissed her. The IAMton field tingled around them, between them, made the kiss into an electric event. Things began to come together in his mind, organizing as order spontaneously arises from chaos, like self-propogating reactions. A surge of good feelings rose up in him.
Triumph, love for Angie—and something more. A sense of being home.
Suddenly he was brimming with things to tell her. ” ‘World is world,’ they said. Yoshio said something like that once. Angie, when I was out there, I felt the whole world moving around me. It made me feel small, threatened.
But at the same time I got a hint from it, a sense of its identity. As if the Overmind told me its name.”
“What is the Overmind?”
“The planetary matrix, Jack told me. The gestalt awareness of a biosphere. The Gaea of a world. Here it’s more defined than on Earth because of the IAMton concentration. I saw it in my mind’s eye. I saw ten million million little animals procreating and,”—he struggled for words—“and growing and feeding on each other and just being part of the process. Plants and animals, struggling, competing, in conflict but at the same time part of this big system. And it was alien, but, Angie, I recognized it. From Earth. We can relate to this world. We can be part of it. Because two symphonies might be in different keys, with different, um, different styles, at different times but they’re both played by the same orchestra.”
She looked at him, and he looked back, and together they were a matrix, a gestalt, a Gaea, a world, and they fell to the ground together and began procreating, ecstatic in the release of recognition,
making love on the breast of their home. The IAMton field reacted by creating spontaneous structures in the desert beside them, miniature temples growing out of the white crust, thrown up instantaneously by the completeness of their sexual union, rising and falling with the surge of their mutual pleasure.
Later, Zero and Angie sat by the ghost trees, feeling pleasantly drained and thinking vaguely about what to do next. The Pezz and Calum returned.
Calum was carrying the IAMton device Zero had found in the Progress Station. It was shaped like a winged helmet now. Calum set it at Zero’s feet, and it became, once more, a glossy black box. “I tried,” Calum said, “but the thing nearly took my mind away. I cannot use it. The Pezz does not wish to try. We give it into your keeping, with the understanding that our people will share equally in any benefits that derive from this find.”
“Okay. I hope your people trust me as much as you do.”
“They will have no choice,” the Pezz said. “It is clear that the thing is intended for you And you have spoken with the Meta—you are their chosen.”
“Not sure I want to be,” Zero said. But he picked up the box and pressed it to his forehead, and once more it was the tragedy-comedy mask, all of glossy black.
At dawn, as the expedition prepared to set off for the south, they spotted Swanee and Sanchez approaching over the desert. Amazed, they stared at the incongruous figures, thinking that Fiskle had sent Swanee to stop them, to steal the Station’s gift. Zero hefted a pike.
“That’s no longer your weapon,” Jack said.
Zero dropped the pike and picked up the glossy black tragedy-comedy mask.
But then Jack said, “That’s Sanchez, I think. He’s not one of Fiskle’s cronies.”
“But the batwing guy,” Angie protested.
“I sense no hostility in the Twist,” Jack said. “Pain, disappointment, self-disgust. But no hostility. No Fiskle influence. His name is Swanee.”
After a moment he added, “But there’s a Murderer coming.” He pointed to the sky above and behind Swanee. “There.”
Zero saw it then. A second flying thing. It looked as if it were gliding more than flying. Every so often it pumped itself like an octopus, jetting up for a little more elevation. Then a long glide … “Never saw it before,” Angie said.
“It is a stranger to me, too,” Calum said.
“Its name is Vanderman,” Jack said, staring at the distant silhouette, frowning. “No—that was its old name, before the Twist. I pick up … Sizzle. The Emperor calls it Sizzle.”
“The other one looks weak,” the Pezz said.
Swanee’s wing-strokes were uneven, shaky. “He’s exhausted. Dangerously,” Jack said.
They were close enough now that their faces could just be made out. The exaggerated expression of idiotic glee on Sizzle’s face made Zero’s stomach turn.
Suddenly Sizzle angled down toward Swanee, diving to intercept him. “He’s going to kill him!” Jack said suddenly. “He’ll burn him with acids!”
Swanee braked with his wings, backpedaling, and Sizzle overshot him.
Sizzle came about and pumped up his elevation, prepared for another dive.
They were lower now, only a hundred feet over the desert. “He’ll get him this time,” Yoshio said. “Swanee’s too weak, he’s barely maintaining up there.”
Zero ran, fitting the mask over his head as he went. He skidded out onto the IAMton wastes and told it what to do.
The sands of the IAMton desert boiled up and solidified into a structure that rose, rose, branched out, and enclosed Sizzle in midair. He was trapped, fluttering angrily, caught in a cage of solidified sand, visible through the bars Zero had constructed. Sizzle latched on to one of the bars, wrapping himself around it. The bars began to smoke as he commenced burning his way through.
Zero said, “Forget it.” He visualized, and the sand structure responded. It closed around Sizzle, clenching, shutting like a mousetrap, crushing and dragging him down, burying him alive in the desert sands. A hump of sand shook for a few moments and then lay still.
Swanee came toward them like a plane with its engine out, losing altitude rapidly, his wings sagging, dipping. He angled for the nearest bog-pond.
Sanchez had to yank his feet up to keep from losing them in the little coral trees. They hit the pond with a double splash.
The expedition waded out to get them, but Sanchez was already free of the harness when they got there, carrying Swanee in his arms. Swanee was limp. His wings trailed in the water.
“He’s dead,” Sanchez said, his voice thick with grief. “He wouldn’t put me down. I tried to talk him into letting me walk, but he wouldn’t. His heart just gave out. I guess it’s what he wanted.”
Bowler shook his head and growled. “No! No! He doesn’t know everything. He isn’t all-powerful. If he were, he would have busted us by now. We’ve had four meetings. Harmony won’t tolerate dissent. He doesn’t know about us.”
There were six of them in the cell, crowded into a corner of the tanner’s workshed. The hides of oruh and slug-lizards hung from pegs at Bowler’s back. The place reeked, but you got used to it after a few minutes. They used it because the smell discouraged the guard from coming in.
Bowler lit a third candle to give them a little more light. The gloom was disheartening.
“It’s not just the risk of it,” Brindle said. He was young, thin, with a wispy red beard. Had been a sculptor on Earth. “It’s the—the futility. Everyone is scared, really scared, of Harmony. He’s got them all jumping when he snaps his fingers. They saw what happened to Doggo. Trish. They’ve seen Jamie. They’ve seen that big thing wandering around that looks like it’s made of scrap iron. God, Harmony told it to kill someone who was looking at him funny, and it sucked the guy into itself like a human garbage disposal, grinding him up. And that Sizzle thing and those vamps and—”
“Don’t forget the Pricks,” Carmody said, meaning the Phylum Twos. “That’s his real power.”
Brindle added, “And anyway, the guy is telepathic.”
“Not with just anybody,” Bowler said. “Just with—”
“The point is, people think he’s a supernatural power. Some are starting to worship him!” Brindle said.
“I’ll bet he sucks that up,” Bowler said.
“You bet your ass,” Brindle said.
“I have bet my ass,” Bowler said suddenly, seriously. “I’ve put my life on the line. I’ve decided it’s better to die fighting this thing than to live with the whims of our own private Caligula. I thought you people had made the same decision.”
Brindle looked at the bloodstained floor. His voice broke. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I think you’re right, that this world is our chance for a social system that really works. I think you’re right that it’s no good living this way. But it’s useless. And I’m scared.”
Bowler took a deep breath. He decided he had to take the chance that one of them might get caught: he had to tell them. “I got the explosive,” Bowler said. Everyone stared at him. Bowler smiled. “Stole a nice quantity of it. It’s just a matter of timing.”
The return trip was faster. The Expedition crossed the wastes in minutes, carried in a great cupped hand created by Zero’s control over the IAMton deposits. “The atom,” Jack explained, “is only a superposition of possibilities, on the quantum mechanics level. And it is on that level that the IAMton works, when it is directed by Mind to reorganize the material world. It applies itself to the collapsing waveform at the root of atomic structure, and asserts the mind’s probability of form over the infinite range of possibilities vibrating in the heart of wave-function.”
“Whatever,” Zero said.
Responding to Zero’s new IAMton awareness, the forest carried them all as it had carried Jack, and they passed through it with equal ease. After the forest, they had to walk for awhile—till they reached another IAMton deposit, which Zero accumulated beneath them into a sort of abstract engine. The violet, powdery engin
e carried them in a chariot of maybes across the plain, till it lost its charge at the edge of the swamplands that lay between them and the Neutral…
Two weeks after Swanee brought Sanchez to the Expedition, Zero was one again staring at the gates of the settlement. He was almost unnerved. He lay on his stomach beside Angie, Yoshio, and Calum, atop the ridge that separated the settlement from the Rug, staring down at it. It was an overcast morning; in the dull light the settlement’s new embellishments seemed to clutch the shadows to them.
Every visible surface of the fortress and the settlement walls had been covered with an intricate mosaic of bones, teeth, preserved fingers, and other body parts, together with red and black agates. The designs were lush with flourish and self-congratulatory excess. The skeletons of the Groyn killed in the battle had been hoisted to the outer walls, where they were arranged symmetrically, to lean outward like gargoyles. Minarets of wood, eccentrically notched and intaglioed, and fantastic structures with no clear purpose had been erected, making a mad tangle of the skyline.
Phylum Two guards stood scratching themselves and leaning on their pikes at the gaudy parapets.
Another Phylum Two, in the early stages of its Twist—only slightly bigger than average human size—came lumbering out the front gate. The expeditioners watched it cross the several hundred yards of open ground between the fortress and the ridge, where they were hidden among the outcroppings. They watched him, unmoving, as he strode directly toward them. His eyes locked on Zero’s as he caught sight of him. He came closer, and still none of the expedition moved.
The Phylum Two climbed over the rimrock and slid into the crater behind it, close beside Zero. Jack’s voice came out of him. “It hasn’t taken him long to put his stamp on it, on every level.”
Gradually the Phylum Two exterior began to slough off, and in the gaps thus created a tan foam bubbled up. The alien recreated Jack the Baptist.
He went on. “I heard no one bitching about him, but resentment was on a lot of faces. Others seem resigned to him. The ones in the court—the humans he’s dressed up like courtiers—seem to be enjoying themselves. He has a certain charisma. And he encourages their sadistic side. Some people like that. A human and a High Clansman were tortured and murdered while I was there.”