Paradox
Page 5
“I’m sorry.” The Antistita’s eyes glistened in the half-light.
“You can’t find anything, either.” Tom had already tried a cheap diagnostrip, taped across Father’s forehead: status red, prognosis/treatment a noncommittal white.
“There’s a great deal wrong with Davraig.” She reached out and touched his forehead with her ancient, palsied finger. “You must prepare yourself.”
Tom looked away, still blinking from the incense.
“I can’t.”
Minus nine:
Spitting light blackened cheek and one eye stared at him—
A clapping . . .
—-toppling, for ever.
“Huh!” He jerked awake, dragged himself bodily from the microsleep dream.
“Tom?” Outside.
He stood up. Padding barefoot across cold stone, he checked on Father, then went to the hanging and pulled it back. He had not seen Trude for several days, but she was here, with a yellow-tattooed, brown-skinned man behind her.
“You’d better brace yourself, Trude,” said Tom, “for a change in Father’s appearance.”
He felt more than heard her sharp intake of breath as she came inside. The glowcluster was at low intensity, but she could see the grey, emaciated husk hunched foetally in the bed.
“This is Dr Sukhram.” She gestured at her companion, who was already placing tiny discs across Father’s skin.
Torn attractors pulsed in a hundred displays.
“Not battle-wounded,” Sukhram muttered, as though to himself.
“He’s a friend.”
“The access codes—” Sukhram looked up, then turned back to his diagnostics. “Never mind.”
Shifting hues, blurring—
“Sweet Fate, lad!” Strong hands catching him. “When did you last sleep?”
A cool sensation against his neck, then blackness.
“Past and future.”
His tunic was rich, Tom noticed. Upstratum, for sure.
“This is the past event.” Dr Sukhram pointed, and a golden node lit up. “And here the future event.” Another glow.
“Each event sends out two waves: one directed to the future, one to the past.”
Drifting. Trude asking something. Tom focused in again, on Dr Sukhram’s answer.
“Between the events they reinforce. Before the past event and after the future event, the waves cancel out because of phase shift ...”
Waves, hanging in time.
“Quantum predestination, Trude. Don’t you ever attend technical briefings?”
“I ...”
Grey haze, then sleep.
And, when he awoke properly:
“There’s nothing wrong with my father?”
Dr Sukhram slowly shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Nothing organic, in one sense. The mediscanner and diagnostrip weren’t wrong.”
“So you can—” Tom stopped.
The doctor’s eyes were dark and liquid: full of sorrow, quite devoid of hope.
Minus five.
Incredibly, the fragile thing tottered on its bent legs.
“Oh, Pa . . . Back to bed.” Trying to be gentle.
“Stall ...” A dry whisper, scarcely a sound.
“We’ve closed the stall. Sold lots. Time to rest now.”
“Stall . . . Rest.”
The ivory disc—the only one Dr Sukhram had left behind— hummed softly, plunging illegal narcocytes into Father’s bloodstream.
A soft clap, and Trude came in.
“Ran-vera.” Attempting to wet his lips. “Knew . . . you’d . . . come.”
Silently, Trude sat down on a stool beside Father’s bed, and took his hand. Tears, tracking down her lined cheeks, glittered in the glow-cluster’s light.
Zero.
“Go away.”
The hour before dawnlight.
<
“Go away go away go away.”
What devils did Father see, to terrify him so? Shaking, Tom moved out of Father’s line of sight.
<
Breathing change.
Trude held one frail hand, Tom held the other.
Panting now: a long-distance runner, fighting for breath, fighting for life—
Not long.
<
“We love you!” Tom shouted.
Coming faster. Sprinting for the finish—
Soon.
<
“We—”
Breath, rattling. Unmistakable.
<< ... is 100 per cent>>
Now.
<
Finish line.
And silence.
Clap.
Automatically, Tom walked across and pulled the hanging back.
“The Antistita sent me.” The young priestess. “She said—” She stopped, eyes wide with fright. “She said it’s Davraig’s time.”
~ * ~
7
NULAPEIRON AD 3404
Don’t look away.
It swirled beneath the acrid stench: Vortex Mortis, twisting with colour, while the young shaven-headed priestess swung her thurible, trying to overcome acidic fumes with herb-scented purple smoke.
Look.
Tom gripped the observation balcony’s rail as the thing slid forwards.
And remember.
The Antistita’s prayer-hum; Trude’s black-headbanded form; the mourners’ small shoulder banners. Clear, yet distant: a dislocated place and time.
Always remember.
Whirlpool, gathering pace.
“…among infinity’s shimmering lights ...”
Tom’s lips moved with the prayer’s words, but his thoughts were numbed.
“…commit Davraig Corcorigan ...”
Slowly, slowly, an elongating membrane lowered the thing—that husk which had once held Father’s spirit, his life—into the swirling pool.
“Davraig!” Trude, almost whimpering.
Remember.
Released, it floated for a moment, the twisting corpse—and then it sank, spinning, beneath the surface: already burning apart, decomposing into minerals.
Clasped hands over the lifeless chest.
“Time to go.” One of the mourners, hand on Tom’s shoulder.
But Tom kept watching as turbulence caused the body to bob upwards once more. Clasped hands, forefingers pointed stiffly in blessing. White bones showing, already scoured by acid.
A fingertip broke loose and plopped back into foaming solvent.
“This way.”
The body disappeared beneath bubbling waves—
Father!
—and was gone.
Dirge.
“My sympathies.”
A skirl of strange pipes.
“Thank you.” An automatic politeness: Tom’s consciousness seemed disembodied, suspended from the reality of the mourners, maybe thirty of them, taking their places at the spiral table.
The man who spoke was strong-looking and dressed in green; square-jawed and with hair as red as Mother’s.
“This,” said Trude, “is Dervlin. An old friend.”
Twinkle in his eyes: he wanted to make a joke—not so much of the old—but he repressed it for Tom’s sake. It showed manners, and Tom appreciated that.
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Ah, no need to call me sir, lad.” Running blunt fingers through his cupric hair.
Mother—Tom forced the thought down.
The man, Dervlin, turned away Across his back—wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist—was a diagonal sheath holding two slender, black rods.
Musician.
One of the women, Heleka, carefully taking her place at table, had a black hip-sling. Inside, her tiny red-faced baby slept, miniature fist closed, thumb in mouth.
Had Father been like that once? So small, with all of life ahead of him?
In one corner of the heptagonal chamber, D
ervlin was setting up floating drum-discs, while a young woman sang:
“To the caverns of my youth
Where shouts were glad
And children laughed:
I return now, seeking truth…”
The Antistita stood at the spiral table’s focus, murmuring a blessing in Old Eldraic while the wake-aria continued. “Beneh y blagos neh repas ...”
“The singer’s wonderful,” Tom said to Trude, in between bowing to mourners as, one by one, they touched fingertips to forehead in benediction.
Minrastic cakes and fragrant rice balls. Other dishes, which Tom could not have named. All arranged by Trude.
‘‘In the shadowed world of death,
Our works are dead:
Sad, hollow boasts ...”
Dervlin, unslinging the slender black drumsticks from his back, stood before his floating discs, waiting for his cue. A soft murmur of conversation, as people began to eat, formed a backdrop.
“Yet hear the newborn drawing breath.
Standing, around the bed:
Rejoicing shades, our dearest ghosts.“
For the meal’s duration, Tom remained calm. Polite to well-wishers; charming, even to those few who had borne a grudge against Father, but were shocked now that he was gone: an intimation of their own mortality.
Then it was over, and the mourners were filing silently out. Once more Tom bowed to them, completely composed, as though all were well with the world.
Remember.
Low tavern chamber. Glowclusters of turquoise and jade. Discreet tang of ganja masks from the rear alcoves.
“Dance?”
Tom shook his head, and the girl moved on. Her white dress was slashed through with violet, patchily redyed to suit the fashion.
Dervlin played, his sticks a blur, while the woman sang and metallic sparklets danced in a glittering cloud around her.
Remember.
Not just Father’s death, but that Mother did not come—
“Are you all right, lad?”
Break. The music had stopped, and Dervlin was standing over him, a stick held lightly in each strong hand.
“Sorry, s—Dervlin.”
“Aye, maybe”—a stick lightly touched the end of Tom’s nose—”I’m the one who should apologize. But this gig’s been arranged for a while.”
“I understand.” Tom looked aside.
There’s something else: something wrong. But he doesn’t want to tell me.
As the wake-fest had ended, Tom had seen Trude talking to a fit-looking woman dressed in grey tunic and red trews, and it had taken him a moment to recognize her sans uniform: the woman trooper. What had the male officer called her? He remembered: Elva.
They had been discussing him, and he had read one phrase from the woman’s lips: fourteen SY old.
Too young for a dwelling-permit.
“Time I took you back, lad.”
Almost gone.
“Ah, Fate.” Dervlin’s voice was a lilting murmur. “I’m sorry, Tom.”
Nowhere to live.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said steadily. “I was expecting it.”
They were waiting in the corridor: fifteen or sixteen men and women, dressed in shabby tunics and shawls.
“. . . all you’re owed,” Trude was saying to the hunched man at the head of the queue.
Father’s creditors.
The hangings were down, in a heap upon the stone floor. Young Alycha and Old Alycha, from the chamber on the left, were damp-eyed as they extended their own hangings into the space which had been the Corcorigans’ family chamber. On the other side, the new young couple—who had lived there for only a hectoday, if that—were fastening drapes, ignoring Tom.
“Not that one.” Trude, sharply.
A bent old woman, about to take a small ceramic box, paused.
“It’s mine.” Trude held out a carving: a triplet of entwined narl-serpents. “Take this.”
I remember Father making that.
The woman took it, polished it on her dirty shawl, and clucked to herself. She turned and shuffled away.
“I’m sorry, Tom.” Trude let out a long, shaky breath. “I thought we’d be finished by now.”
“I have to get back.” Dervlin tapped Tom’s shoulder. “Take care.”
Soon they were down to the last creditor: a hunched, plain-robed man. Accepting cred-flakes, he stopped, looked at Tom, and handed some copper mil-creds back to Trude. “For the boy.”
Then he, too, was gone.
Where the family chamber had been, strange colours now hung: faded ochre, unfamiliar green.
Snick.
It rotated: coated in a patina of rust, but gleaming silver at the disc’s circumference, polished by friction against the rim.
Snack.
The sounds came from below: facets snapping into place, forming a spiral staircase down to another stratum.
“Don’t be afraid, Tom.” But it was Trude’s voice that shook as her permit tag sparked with ruby light.
Some two metres in diameter, the floor hatch. A segment swung aside, revealing the helical stair.
I didn’t think it would be like this.
“Can you take this?”
Tom took the small, fabric-wrapped bundle from Trude. All his belongings.
Trude was a little unsteady, leading the way downwards. Tom held back, swallowing nervously, then followed. When he had dreamed of visiting another stratum, it had always involved climbing upwards.
Stained walls. Trickle of dirty water. A dark echo of distant people, talking.
Above their heads, a grinding noise. The slatted steps pulled upwards, folding into the hatch, as it rotated shut.
Another stratum.
Down again. Two strata below home.
Grey mesociliates scurried away as Trude and Tom clambered through a natural-rock junction, then down a sloping, dank corridor which ended in a small cavern.
“The thing is, it’s—”
There was a double image, blurred, with odd parallax effects as they walked past: a big floating Yarandian tricon, script code common to thirty languages.
*** RAGGED SCHOOL ***
“—better than it looks.”
Trude led the way inside.
~ * ~
8
NULAPEIRON AD 3404
*** PniO, WENHS something.
“Are you awake, boy?”
*** PniO, LLENHSAN . . .
“Uh, yes.” Tom squinted. “Yes, sir.”
Obermagister’s study. Shelves piled high with crystals. Tom swung himself upright on the couch.
“Hmm.” Long white hair, tied back with white cord. “I’ve let you sleep in, since you arrived so late. It will be the last time.”
“Yes, sir.”
*** PnrD, LLENHSAH NEDLOV .isM *** Ancient holo flat-script, not triconic, floating near the black-curtained portal. Hard to decipher, even when seen the right way round.
Steam rose from a bowl of herb tea. Not for Tom: it was on the Obermagister’s black desk.
*** Mzr. WOLDEN HAZHNELL, DrNP ***
Reversed, it made sense.
“Your benefactrix, Madam Mulgrave, is gone.” Obermagister Hazhnell turned, making some sort of control gesture. Tom’s view was obscured by the desk, overflowing with crystal-racks. “You’re free for the remainder of the morning. Attend class after lunch.”
A clap from outside.
“In.” The Obermagister looked up as a tall youth came inside. “Praefectus Bruan. This is Corcorigan. Put him in dorm Seven-Beth.”