"I am interested in your history," he flashed. "Tell me how you came to the point of disbanding."
"Well, I didn't really come to that point," she replied. "I thought I would fly through the dangerous region, and if the Viscous Circle wished to take me, it would. And it did—except you interfered."
"I apologize," Rondl said contritely. "I just needed someone to lead me out. Otherwise I might have been disbanded myself, and I was not eager for that to happen."
Again she evinced mirth, knowing he had had a more socially conscious motive than that. "Maybe the Circle intended to have us meet, and this was how it happened. I no longer feel like putting the issue of disbanding to the test."
"I don't really understand disbanding," Rondl said. "That seems to be part of my amnesia. Oh, I know it relates to death, but not exactly. What is the Viscous Circle, and why should it guide us?"
"You must have suffered extreme damage!" she exclaimed. "Everyone knows about that!"
"Everyone but me. Cirl, I really need some information."
"I suppose you do. But we are coming clear of the tempest region, so there won't be time."
No time? She intended to depart, then. Rondl found he preferred a longer contact, since she was the first person he had had more than incidental contact with. And she was attractive; perhaps that influenced him more than it should have.
"Of course I would not want to occupy your time," he flashed cautiously. "Yet if you were willing to delay a little, to explain a few things to me—"
"Are you ridiculing me?" she demanded. She expressed the concept awkwardly, because the Bands had no convenient term. Bands did not ridicule each other or any other Being. So what she actually said was more like "Are you generating a humorous conjecture or misunderstanding of which I might be the object?" But Rondl understood her meaning perfectly; his mind was evidently more at home with the concept than was hers.
"No such thing!" he protested. "You are the first Band I have conversed with more than momentarily, and I enjoy your company, and I fear I sought to prevail on you more than I should have. I apologize—"
"For enjoying my company?"
"Not for that. But—"
"Rondl, I'm pleased. My former male friend, whom I thought to marry, informed me I was too communicative. He said I flashed so much his lens was getting hot. I thought you would have similar objection."
"How can a magnetic lens get hot?" But actually he understood the image. It would take a great deal of intense light to heat a Band to discomfort; her male friend had been indulging in hyperbole, in humorous exaggeration. Only Cirl had found it unfunny. Apparently she did talk a lot—but for a person like himself, with gaps in memory that were sure to prove awkward, such a companion could be comfortable. Who would notice his lacunae, if he seldom had to fit in a flash?
"He said it," she insisted. "It was this sort of analogy that brought me to the region of tempests."
No single facetious remark should have done that. This one must have been part of an intensifying pattern that had shaded from humor to rejection. That male friend had been practicing sarcasm—another obscure concept—on Cirl, making her suffer. Rondl didn't like that. For one thing, it showed that Bands could be less pleasant than they believed was possible for their kind. They were not, after all, perfect. Rondl's sympathy was with Cirl, the victim of un-Band behavior. "See if you can heat up my lens," he suggested.
"You requested it," she said, flashing brightly in the reflected light of a wall. They were now safely out of the dangerous area; she had certainly known the route out. "But if you really want untrammeled reception, fly high and downlight from me, and I'll summarize it all. We'll use the light of Eclat." Eclat was slightly brighter than Dazzle, so was the preferred origin.
Rondl flew high and downlight. Cirl placed herself in line, ceased her rotation, and focused her beam on him. Now there was no interruption at all to the flow of communication, and it came across rich with nuance and deep with feeling. Cirl had a lovely mode of expression; it was a delight to receive it. And the wealth of minor details she included, not really relevant to the main meaning, nevertheless provided him with an improving notion of Band culture and practice. Some concepts triggered little memories of his own, helping him flesh out his awareness of self. In fact, this was in certain respects the self-revelation he had sought when he entered the tempest region. He had just not known how to go about it.
"The physical form of the Band is merely a housing for the individual aura, or section of aura," she said didactically. "When a Band is created, part of the species spirit is taken to animate him for the time he exists apart. He gathers experience all his life, and when at last he disbands his aura-fragment returns to the great soul-mass, the Viscous Circle, and he merges with it and contributes his amassed experience to it. For the species soul has no physical component; it cannot acquire experience directly. Only indirectly, by allowing portions of itself to break off—to animate separate hosts, existing apart from one another and the Circle during the gathering of experience—, and then to return with their burden of knowledge as an offering to the whole. Our entire physical existence is merely that process of assimilation, our mission for the group soul. We have no better purpose than to learn all we can, for that knowledge is all that we are capable of carrying with us to the Viscous Circle. Our only wrong-ness, our only error, is the failure to garner the best experience we are able: that which will enrich the soul."
She paused to make sure Rondl was assimilating all this. He slid up the sunbeam to flash to her. "I am receiving."
"Did I heat up your lens?"
"You warmed it pleasantly."
Her magnetism intensified momentarily with pleasure. "Does it make sense to you, the Viscous Circle?"
"Seems like Nirvana," he flashed.
"Like what?"
He seemed to have produced another alien concept. "Like an ideal reunion after disbanding."
"Oh, yes, that's it!" She resumed her broadcast position and he slid back downbeam. "When I was rejected by the Band I loved, I no longer wanted to gain new experience, but wasn't sure I had amassed enough to be worthy of return to the Soul, the great Circle. So I did not disband, exactly; I flew into the region of tempests. If the Viscous Circle wanted me, it would let me disband then; if not, it would arrange to leave me in fragmentary state, doomed to live separately for some time longer. Yet when it seemed the Circle was indeed ready to take me, I suffered uncertainty and was afraid. Somehow I wanted to cling to substance, unpleasant as it was. I fell—and you are conversant with the rest."
Somehow, as she flashed, Rondl absorbed the larger concept. There was a gigantic and beautiful imagery associated with the Nirvana soul. The Viscous Circle as Cirl envisioned it was a tremendous swirl of color, perhaps as big as the universe, turning quickly at the center, slowly at the fringe, so that its internal structure was constantly charging while its external torus shape remained constant. Of course it was shaped like a Band; the gods of all creatures resembled those who believed in them—except that this god was not rigid, but fluid, viscous—beautifully so. From it tiny sparks of consciousness radiated, as though flung out by centrifugal force: the individual flakes of aura, to animate living, solid Bands. To it other sparks, or embers, returned, gratefully: the tired lives of disbanded individuals, heavy with their burdens of experience and the rigors of separate existence.
She paused again. Rondl shifted around so that he could reestablish the dialogue, using the light from Dazzle. "No, my lens is not heating uncomfortably," he informed her before she asked. "I take pleasure in receiving your beam."
"I take pleasure in your pleasure," she returned. "I do love to communicate."
"And you do it well."
She seemed almost to glow with her own light.
"So you believe there is no death," he continued after a moment. "Merely the release of individual auras to the Viscous Circle."
"Of course. Don't you?"
Rondl considered. "N
o, I don't. I don't know why, since I have no basis for belief or disbelief, but I find I can't believe in a nonphysical consciousness. It has to be a myth. But I admit it is a pretty concept."
"It is reality!" she flashed, dismayed by his doubt. "Everyone knows! How could you ever disband if you did not believe in the Viscous Circle?"
How indeed! Rondl certainly did not want to disband. "How can consciousness exist without physical substance?" he flashed. "There can be no organization, no mind. Death to the body must mean dissipation of the aura it houses, the soul. It cannot be otherwise."
"You poor creature!" she returned. "How horrible to be thus deluded!"
She felt sorry for his disbelief! "I'm not sure which of us has the delusion—"
"I must labor ever so much to get you well again!" she flashed warmly.
Rondl realized that it was pointless to argue further. "As you wish."
"Of course I wish! How lonely your life must be! And no wonder you feared to let me disband. You thought I was erring!"
That was it exactly. "At any rate, there is much to be appreciated in the physical existence. We must live for the present—me because I know there is no other life, you because you believe you are amassing information for the eventual benefit of your Viscous Circle."
"I must make you see the error of your nonbelief!" she insisted. "It is mooted that those who disbelieve are not welcomed back to the Viscous Circle, and that is a fate too horrible to be contemplated. I must reason with you, show you—"
"You are welcome to try," Rondl agreed, beginning to appreciate a quality in her that might have annoyed her former male friend. She had to have a concept her way. "If you can spare the time."
"You saved me from disbanding. Surely the Viscous Circle arranged this. My time is yours."
Rondl was not sure of the logic, but was amenable. Cirl remained, after all, a very esthetic figure of a torus. He still needed help figuring out this society and recovering his balky memory. So if she wanted to make a project of him, good enough. "Our time is each other's."
"And I didn't heat your lens?"
That remained a sensitive subject for her, understandably! "You can't heat it enough to make me uncomfortable."
She paused, and Rondl feared he had overdone his reassurance, making it possible to apply a negative interpretation. But in a moment she came around to the favorable aspect, and flashed an affirmative. It was all right—but he would have to be careful.
First she took him on a tour of the premises. Before, Rondl had only a vague notion where things were; now the picture became much more detailed. The Bands did not reside on land, but did need a number of planetary structures. There was the physical plant: a tube running through a volcanic mountain, where the internal heat vaporized the metallic substances that made up the Band body. Each flying pass through this tunnel enabled a Band to concentrate a layer of alloy about himself. Many of the Bands flying through here were young ones who needed to flesh themselves out to adult mass. They were adult diameter, but not adult thickness. This acquisition had to be effected gradually, for each condensed layer was merely inert metal until properly assimilated by the magnetic forces of the Band. Many hundreds of passes, spaced across years, were required to complete the process. Other Bands attracted to the tunnel were gravid females, who needed extra matter to build up an entire extra ring segment. When it was substantial enough and imbued with the proper magnetic patterns, it would split off: a new Band. Still others were old individuals who had suffered demetalization and thus needed restoration. A few were injured Bands, concentrating on particular cracks or abrasions; one had lost a small segment of his torus and was laboring to re-form the missing link. For creation and maintenance of the physical host, this tunnel was essential.
Then there was the line generator. Some magnetic lines extended far from the planet, right on out to the moons and on to other planetary systems. The lines, Cirl happily explained in much detail, had originally been natural, emanating from the intensely metallic core of the home planet, but as the Bands achieved civilized status, they constructed line generators and organized the lines for greater convenience. There was no longer anything very natural about the lines; they extended from star to star, and even to the systems of other sapient species.
"Other Spheres?" Rondl flashed, surprised.
"Spheres?" She was perplexed.
He had run afoul of another confusing term. "Aren't Galactic sapients organized into Spheres of influence and colonization and trade, that are highly civilized at their centers and regress inevitably toward their edges?"
"I don't know. We Bands aren't. We just exist where we belong."
"There is no Sphere Band?" But he was already aware there wasn't.
"Of course not. What would we want with something like that? We already have the Viscous Circle."
Rondl rotated uncertainly. "I'm not sure. I suppose I thought that since other species—"
"How do you even know of Spheres? Are you remembering?"
"No. There just seem to be these concepts that flash out. Strange ones that don't attach to much of anything we know. Like alien Spheres. I know they exist, and I think I know something more about them, but I can't evoke the information when I want to. Only by accident. I wish I could explain it."
"You must have been to such Spheres in your former life, so they became part of your vocabulary."
"That must be it," he agreed dubiously.
"Do you know, your past identity becomes an intriguing riddle. I'd love to solve it."
She was questing for reassurance of his interest again. Cirl needed a lot of that. He was happy to play the game. "I would love to have it solved. It is my dominant concern. But are you certain you can spare the time? You have a separate life—"
"That would have ended this phase, except for your interference."
"I apologize for—"
"Oh, stifle your flash! You know I didn't really want to go. Not yet. You just helped me make up my mind."
Her belief in the Band afterlife was imperfect, evidently, despite her protestations. Maybe in trying to convince him she was also shoring up her own belief, much as a Band shored up his physical substance by passing through the volcanic tunnel. "Still, there is little hope of resolving this matter quickly. You would be obliged to spend a lot of time with me."
"Does that disturb you?" Her yellow dimmed; she had been rebuffed before. "I would not want to impose."
Rondl had to think seriously and quickly. Cirl had volunteered to stay close to him indefinitely. Was this what he wanted? He really had very little basis to decide what he desired. He realized he might be making a mistake, but decided to go with his subjective impression. "I would be delighted. I seem to have no purpose, alone, and I enjoy receiving your flashes."
She was as delighted upon reassurance as only uncertain individuals could be. "Then I will help you. I think the Viscous Circle dictated this to be. It brought us together. You need someone with memory to assist you; I need someone who needs my help."
That covered the situation succinctly. Rondl made a circular flash of agreement. And wondered, a trifle guiltily, whether he would have felt the same if Cirl had not been a physically esthetic, magnetically attractive, socially winsome young female. After all, he had not been interested in further help from any of the males who had checked on him.
Did it matter? Maybe it was best to accept her explanation: the Viscous Circle had willed it.
Chapter 4
Quest
"First we must see if others have news of you, or notions how best to proceed," Cirl decided. "I will convoke a circle."
"A circle?"
"Not a true viscous circle, for there is only one, and that exists only in the spirit life. But we do have a physical approximation. I will show you." She set off on a high line, going out into space, and Rondl followed.
The surface of the planet fell away below. The network of mountains, valleys, plains, seas, and walls shifted in perspective,
and the reflected beams of light spread farther apart, making communication less convenient. The atmosphere thinned, making travel easier; too great a velocity in thick air led to heating that at its extreme could begin to melt the body structure and cause discomfort. Bands had little use for air, other than as a medium for the support of vaporized metals in the condensation chamber. The resources of the planet were vital to certain stages of life, but awkward at other stages.
Space was exhilarating. Rondl was amazed that Bands could fly through it so readily, and again wondered why he should react that way. Bands had always flown through space, needing only the lines for energy and the ambient microscopic metallic dust particles or gas molecules for reaction mass.
Time passed, for interplanetary distances were great. This was a jaunt only out to near space, well within the orbit of the nearest moon, called Fair, but the thinning atmosphere kept progress slow. In deep space, Rondl realized, Bands could accelerate to half the velocity of light, provided they had good lines to ride.
Vision improved out here, too. Rondl could now see the more distant moons of Glow, Spare, and Dinge, though two were well around the planet. They reflected light like massed Bands, and were of pretty colors, though at this range he could not make out individual features of their surfaces. Moon Fair was bright and golden, a little like Cirl; Moon Glow was reddish, with a softer effulgence; Spare was a cold blue; Dinge, a drab brown.
There were planetoids too, particularly in sections of the orbits of the moons, helping define these orbits as rings. It was as though a given moon complete with its delineated orbit was a Band, monstrous but familiar, and Rondl liked that. There was a certain harmony to this form; the circle was obviously the fundamental shape of nature, manifesting in diverse ways. And of course there was the real ring of smaller particles, prettifying the planetary environment within the orbit of the nearest moon. That ring was less evident now, because they were too close to it; they could see right through its flat surface.
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