Out of Nowhere (15 page)

While they waited for the driver to go on, Stephen thought of what the man had said already. He was trying to find some echo of recognition in the story. If he was a Tellene – and that seemed to be the case – then surely he must know this story. But none of it sounded familiar at all.

He looked at Kirsten. Like Simon, she was watching the driver. The look on her face was impossible to read. Stephen wanted to go outside with her, to ask her what she thought. But then the driver started speaking again.

‘This is the hardest part of the story to tell,’ he said. ‘Or at least, the hardest part for you to understand. I need to ask you something before I start. Tell me, what is a soul?’

Simon was taken aback.

‘A soul?’ he repeated. ‘Why … well, in the broadest terms, our religions see it as the non-physical part of a person. It’s in the body but not really of it. The body is its container, as it were.’

‘All right,’ the driver said. ‘I won’t use the word, because it has religious overtones for humans that it doesn’t have for us. But remember what you’ve said:
the body as a container for a spirit
.

‘Now, neither the Tellene nor the Sug had anything you would recognise as a religion. They didn’t really need one.
They had direct experience of many things your various religions can only guess at. I’m not talking about beliefs, they didn’t have beliefs – they had
knowledge
.’

He rapped the table in front of him with his knuckles.

‘You wouldn’t say you
believed
in this table,’ he said. ‘It would be a pointless statement. You just know it’s there. The old people had direct experience of what humans might call other … dimensions, I suppose. Other spheres of being. Again, your languages don’t have proper words for these things. The old people viewed their bodies as containers, as forms worn by their spirits in this particular sphere. In other spheres, with other physical laws, the spirits needed other containers. I say again, this wasn’t a matter of belief, it was a matter of everyday experience, just as this table is to you. The old people travelled in those spheres in a way just as real as any journey in this one. Are you still with me?’

‘Was I ever?’ Simon asked. Then he nodded. ‘I think so,’ he said.

‘I can’t describe these other places to you. All of your human languages are based on your experience of this world. The other worlds are not like this one, they have their own languages to describe them.’

‘And the Tellene suggested that they and the Sug should go to one of these … other worlds?’ Simon asked.

‘No. That wasn’t possible. Other worlds are only suitable for visits. We could visit those places, but we weren’t native to them –
this
is our world. You can’t really understand, but if you stay in another world long enough, you become a creature of it – you
belong
there – and you can’t go back to your own
world permanently. But you do stay attached to your own world, whose child, after all, you originally are. You’re torn between the two. This is extremely painful. The closest I can come to it in human terms is to call it a kind of
homesickness
. But, for our people, a killing kind.’

‘And so no alternative at all,’ Simon said.

‘No. But luckily this wasn’t all that there was. You could think of these places – these worlds – as stations on a railway line. But there was another place we knew, and it was – in those terms – like a junction on that line. A big junction. It wasn’t a place like any other. In fact it wasn’t a place at all. It was …
between
places. There was no matter at all there – strictly speaking, there was no ‘there’ there for any matter to be in. No space. No time. Nothing except – when you went ‘there’, and in a very unusual way – yourself. And because it wasn’t really a place, you could never become a creature of that place – that Noplace. What the Tellene suggested was that, instead of perishing physically or morally, they and the Sug should go into exile in the Noplace.’

There had been several points in the driver’s narrative where the only adequate response was silence. The silences had grown deeper. This was the deepest of all. It was Simon who broke it.

‘But why? What could you do there?’

‘We could
wait
,’ the driver said.

‘Wait? Wait for what?’

The driver said nothing, only looked at him with his pale bland eyes. Understanding slowly dawned on Simon’s face.

‘You thought we’d destroy ourselves, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘It did seem likely, yes. There was a chance your species might become civilised in time, but it didn’t seem like much of a chance. Eventually, humans would run out of places to go and creatures to kill. They’d use up the resources they needed and they’d fall to self-destruction. If they didn’t destroy themselves completely then at least they’d damage themselves so much that they would no longer pose a threat. Then we could come back and pick up the pieces. We saw going to Nowhere as being like climbing a hill when there’s a flood – when the waters recede, you come back down. All you need to do is wait. And in the Noplace, of course, there’s no time, so there’s no waiting as such.’

‘So you went,’ Simon said. ‘You all went.’

‘Yes. We went.’

‘But if there’s no time in this place then … when you say ‘we’ you mean it literally, don’t you? You were there, you personally! You’re ten thousand years old!’

‘Not really. I’ve spent most of it outside time. But I was here that long ago, yes.’

‘And your body …’

‘Was made yesterday, and when my job is over it will return to nothing, to the dust it was made of.’

Simon kept shaking his head, more in shock than disbelief.

‘And you all stayed outside time until now?’ he said.

‘Oh no. We send people back. We assume human form and we return. Mostly it’s enough to send creatures such as your ‘patients’. But sometimes we find it necessary to come ourselves. And that, I’m afraid, leads to more trouble for you. Because what I’ve told you so far doesn’t explain why the four
of us are sitting here now.’

Simon fixed him with a bleary eye.

‘You mean there’s
more
?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Simon sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time.

‘I’m beginning to feel sorry that I asked for an explanation in the first place,’ he said.

‘Then maybe I should stop. You’ve heard as much as you want to.’

Simon’s laugh was almost sarcastic.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘In some ways I’ve heard much
more
than I want to. But now that you’ve started, I want it all.’

‘Even though you’ll forget?’

‘Even so.’

This time the driver went over and refilled his coffee cup himself.

‘Very well, Brother Simon,’ he said. ‘Now this is where it all gets a bit
strange
.’

This time Simon’s laugh was very sarcastic indeed. 

The human’s chest rose and fell with the rhythm of his breathing. It was almost normal now. The chest wound was still a little raw on the outside, but that was fading as I watched. In a little while there wouldn’t even be a bruise. Once begun, the work had gone quickly. The flesh had slept and dreamed about a time before its rupture, and the stones had helped it to make its dreaming real. It was all they ever did, really.

I’d been so pleased with the result that I’d taken the process a step beyond what was necessary. The abbot’s body had been in good condition before the wound, but it had been the well-preserved body of a middle-aged man. Now, while his flesh dreamed and remembered, I’d prompted its memory to go back a bit further. When the process was finished the abbot’s inner organs would be as they’d been when he was half his present age. So long as he took care to avoid further bullets and such, he’d live well beyond the time set for him. If you’re going to interfere at all, I reckoned, then you might as well go all the way.

It was bright outside, but in the refectory there was a kind of dusk. Shafts of light fell through high narrow windows. I looked at the dust-motes floating in the light and thought about our visit. We’d done well, I thought, in difficult
circumstances. Catastrophe had been avoided. Our people had been rescued. Security had been maintained. The humans inside the barrier would forget us; those outside would be left with a puzzle. That might even be good for them.

We too, though, had our puzzles to consider as a result of the mission. It had been a downright peculiar affair: Sugs acting decently; humans acting sanely – it was all a bit of a revelation to me. Live and learn, as my mother always advised me. I hoped she’d be all right now. I’d done my best.

I thought of the restless stirrings of power that were coming from the lake. There was no way to know what they meant, but they had to mean something. And then the fact that these monks were here at all – that meant our power had failed here in the old sacred place. That was a first, and it too must mean something. But there was no point in wondering about any of it – when the right time came, we’d see what we’d see.

In my mind I ran over the things that still needed to be done. I’d overlooked nothing I could think of. The novice was asleep. The big Irish monk was frozen where the Sug had left him. I’d looked in his mind, and what I’d found there hadn’t been pretty. There was an old guilt there, and an old hatred. It had stewed away inside him for years. It had helped cause his loss of control now. The monk himself was appalled by it, but he was too far gone to control it. So I’d fixed it myself, taking the guilt. It seemed easier, somehow, now that I’d already worked on one human. They were simple creatures, really, their problems so basic that they were quite easy to help.

The bodies of the ‘dead’ would dissolve into nothing now
that they had been switched off. The Sug’s body was already gone. Only our own flesh remained to be vacated, but we couldn’t do that just yet. We’d have to clear away every sign of our presence before we left. The rooms used, the utensils, everything would have to be minutely checked. The human authorities would be all over this place once we removed the barrier.

It was hard to believe that everything had gone so smoothly. There had been no major difficulties. It didn’t seem quite natural. Chance is chance, but many things that pass for chance are nothing of the kind. I felt the clean air around me, the hard grain of purity in it that even all these years of humanity hadn’t managed to tarnish. The oddities had something to do with the place, I was certain of that. There had been rare energies let loose around here lately, and not all of them were ours. It wasn’t for me to guess at their cause or effect. Even after we’d gone, the place wouldn’t be the same again. It would be noticed by any creature with any kind of sensitivity at all – a subtle difference in atmosphere for which they’d have no name.

Looking around the room, I caught a glint of movement from the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I saw my own reflection looking back at me from the glass door of a tall cupboard by the wall. I walked over and stood in front of it, just looking. A dark-haired bare-chested man looked calmly back at me. We were in two worlds that reflected each other, separated by a fragile shining screen. One world had substance, the other did not. Which was which? We fingered the bandages on our necks. Beneath mine, the flesh felt whole.
I unwound the long linen strip and my double did the same with his. Better. I turned my head this way and that, examining the neck. There was a faint line where the join had been. The neat lines of the stitching were clearly visible. I cut the thread with my nails, took one end and slowly pulled. It came out cleanly and easily, with an odd but not unpleasant
pulling
sensation. I put the thread in my back pocket and looked at the neck again. It was fine. It seemed a pity I’d be losing it so soon. I left my reflection to go about his business, and went back for a last look at the abbot.

The colour was returning to the tall monk’s face. A long lean face, a face with character. I raised him carefully to look at the exit wound in his back. It wasn’t there anymore. I had to smile. Perfect healing, and of a human. The real miracle was that he hadn’t died of shock when he was shot: staying alive then had been something he’d done for himself. A strong man.

I stood up and stretched. I took a last look at my reflection in the glass across the room. The ghost man in the glass stood looking back at me evenly. I raised my hand to him. He raised his in reply.

‘So long, man,’ I said.

His lips moved, but I heard nothing, only my own footsteps echoing back from the stone walls as I walked out of that cool stone room forever.

‘Nowhere is hard to describe,’ the driver said. ‘In fact, it’s impossible. No time, no space, no matter – there’s nothing
to
describe. For our spirits, there’s less individuality than we’re used to; yet in some ways, there’s much more. After we’d been there for a while we began to realise how limited our ideas had been when we lived in this world. You think quite differently when you’ve no body, you know.’

‘I daresay you do,’ Simon said dryly.

‘We learned, for instance, the true degree to which matter is – how can I put it – a
shadow
. A shadow of thought, of spirit. I’m not talking now in any religious sense, far from it. Maybe this makes no sense to you.’

Simon was still staring at him.

‘But it does,’ he said. ‘It’s a basic part of many human philosophies. There was a man called Plato who had a famous parable about it.’

‘But I don’t mean a parable. I mean a simple
fact
. Back here we found that the new ideas we’d learned in the Noplace gave us a different relationship with
this
world. We’d always been powerful here by human standards. Now we were more so.
Not that we’d learned any special thing – it’s just that we now
thought
of things differently. Look here.’

He casually put his hand through the table top. There were three sharp intakes of breath.

‘A simple parlour trick,’ the driver said. ‘Sleight of hand. Any one of you could do it very easily – except for the fact that you know it’s impossible. I couldn’t have done that so easily before going to the Noplace, and I can’t say that I ever
learned
to do it. But once, when I was back here, it simply struck me that there was no reason why I couldn’t.’

‘Can you appear in two places at once?’ Stephen asked.

‘Of course. Under some circumstances it just happens – when someone close to me is in some kind of danger, for instance.’

He chuckled.

‘Don’t humans talk about being “beside yourself with worry”? Well, this is the same thing – only you’re not beside yourself, you’re a bit further away.’

He drew his hand out of the table, but Simon’s eyes stayed fixed on the place where it had gone in.

‘But why?’ the old monk muttered. ‘Why do you bother coming back at all?’

For the first time since his arrival, the driver looked a little nonplussed.

‘We have our own needs, you know,’ he said. ‘For one thing, we starve. Not for physical food, of course. But your spirit can starve too. We’re creatures of the senses, like all born to flesh. We starve for sight and sound and touch. We starve for the simple fleshly experience of our lost home. We do send
our creatures back – creatures like your ‘patients’. They collect …
sensations
. Words won’t describe it. I’ve called these creatures biological tape-recorders. When – to use that metaphor – the tape is full, we take them back. Then we play the tape and
share
the sensations. We can
drink
their experiences just like I can drink this coffee, and our spirits gain sustenance and nourishment from it. We can all share in it. Imagine if, say, humans could actually
feed
on music, a whole hall full of you feeding on the notes of a symphony.’

Simon’s eyes had taken on a slightly glazed look.

‘The Sug, now,’ the driver said, ‘they’ll have none of this. Going to Nowhere seems to have used up what little common sense they had. They did send their own people back at first, but they soon sickened of being among humans. So they stopped coming. They now prefer to recycle old sensations and memories – and so, of course, they’ve lost touch completely with the reality of this world. They’d rather blame the Tellene for persuading them to leave it in the first place – as I’ve said, they sulk.

‘It’s hard for the Tellene to be among humans, too. But we accept reality, we learn to bear it. To us, the world itself is the important thing. But the Sug still regret not having their way in the first place. They suspect that they made a mistake in letting the Tellene persuade them to go. So they resent the Tellene, and when they
do
come back – which hasn’t happened for thousands of years – they spend their time trying to interfere with Tellene operations here. As I said, the old races competed – to you their conflicts would seem like complicated games of one-upmanship. The Tellene felt it was past time for
such games, but the Sug still work out their resentment in the same old way. It’s childish, but there you are – the Sug are a childish people.’

‘That man who saved us in the chapel,’ Kirsten said, ‘was he a Sug?’

‘He was. A most unusual one.’

‘So they came back now. For the first time in millennia. Why?’

The driver smiled.

‘You’re a smart girl,’ he said.

We’re reaching the nub of it now, Stephen thought. We’re reaching our part. And I’m not sure I want to know about it at all.

The driver looked at him.

‘I’m sorry if this frightens you,’ he said, ‘but facts are facts.’

He looked around at all of them.

‘We who made the original journey,’ he said, ‘had actual memories of this world. We’d grown up here. But we were few, as I’ve told you. And the Noplace has no physical things there at all – nothing. So we needed to come back here to have our children. And once those children were born, we didn’t want to feed their minds on second-hand sensations, as the Sug did. That’s a very dangerous thing to do to young creatures. It makes for incomplete people – I’m speaking quite literally. We wanted our children to have
actual
experience of the world we loved. We wanted them to have
lives
.’

Simon drew a sharp breath.

‘Your children grow up here!’ he said. ‘They grow up as …’

‘As humans. Yes.’

Both of them turned now to look at Stephen and Kirsten. In Simon’s wide eyes there was something almost like awe. The driver’s eyes had dropped their bland mask. There was open fondness in his look now. Kirsten and Stephen looked back at them with identical expressions of numbness.

‘So I’m … a Tellene,’ Stephen said. ‘A Tellene who’s grown up as a human?’

‘And me?’ said Kirsten. ‘Me too?’

‘You are. And very special ones. This may be the hardest part for you to accept, but …’

He paused.

‘Yes?’ Both Kirsten and Stephen said at the same time.

‘Well, the Tellene weren’t a tribal people. They weren’t what you call a democracy either. The closest thing humans would have to our society would be a kind of monarchy.’

‘They–’ Kirsten began, then stopped. She frowned, trying to work out what he was implying.

Simon began, very gently, to chuckle. Stephen and Kirsten stared at him, bewildered. Gradually the chuckle broadened into a hearty laugh. Simon slapped his knee.

‘My dear children,’ he said, ‘I think what our friend here is saying is that you two are royalty.’

If Kirsten’s face had looked blank before, now it looked positively uninhabited.

‘You …’ she said, whirling to look at Stephen. ‘I …’

Stephen was no help. The absence of expression on her face was mirrored on his own.

‘But this is plain mad!’ he said

Now Kirsten laughed too. There was a hint of hysteria in it.

‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘It’s a fairytale!’

The driver smiled.

‘It just goes to show you,’ he said. ‘It’s a funny old world.’