PHANTASIA (22 page)

The chamber that was designated as their quarters was a luxurious suite of three rooms filled with a lavish number of provisions. The kitchen was stocked with what Red imagined was a year’s supply of the unhealthiest foods in Avalonia — a dream come true for him and Magnus. The main room was opulently furnished with Laicon chairs and tables, an alabaster type material that felt smooth to the touch and had sawtooth patterns that shifted in the light. The bathrooms were made out of a rocky material that glowed in the dark, had beds inside, for no purpose that Red could imagine, and were packed with elastic towels that were so soft they reminded Red of flazb, although they fell short of the fungal substances’ intimate feel. In the process of deciding how to split up the rooms — Red, Magnus, and Butz all ended up together in the smallest sleep-room, and S and Raven each took one of the larger two rooms for themselves.
 

Magnus had explained that since knowing they were all coming to Areopa for the qualifiers, he had requested that one of the keepers set aside a room perfect for the stay of five people, allowing them to remain together as they prepared for their trials. The raeth wing, named after a renowned Basil from hundreds of years ago, was hardly occupied by anyone besides Prince Arkan. The lack of permanent occupants, however, made it an excellent workspace, and the wing always buzzed with activity throughout the daytime.

After grabbing a mountain of food from the kitchen, Red, Magnus, and Butz settled down in the suite’s study den, which was almost exclusively filled with books authored by Basils. Most of them, Red noticed, were written by Arkan. The prince seemed to be a prolific writer as well as an eccentric figure. Red browsed through a few choices before committing to one titled “The Mathematics of Combat.” The cover, a rendition of a battlefield, but on a three dimensional graph, had caught his attention. Flipping through the pages, he was immediately surprised at how technical the material was. A certain diagram, a graphical interpretation of a force cast, caught his interest, but he understood none of the equations written on the page and had to ask Magnus to explain them to him. He always found arithmetic to be an overly dry subject and hardly ever paid attention to his math classes at Crest.

“What’s the point of studying math in relation to combat? You’re never actually going to
use
anything you learn, will you?” Red lamented.
 

“As a matter of fact, you’ll use it every moment you’re in a fight,” a familiar voice replied from the entrance of the study den. It was Prince Arkan, who had entered their room so quietly, Red had not noticed his presence until he spoke. He was about to stand up to greet him properly, but Arkan had gestured for him to stay seated.
 

“Please Blue, I absolutely detest all forms of courtesy. Superfluous expressions of respect invented for one intelligent being to assuage the ego of another. An absolute waste of time and energy. Now then, what you were saying about mathematics?”

Red exchanged a questioning glance with Magnus, who seemed to be hiding a laugh behind a blank stare.
Did he just call me Blue?
He was uncertain if he had heard correctly or not.

“Well, its just that I can’t see the utility of it. I mean, I won’t be making calculations on a battlefield will I? Look at all these formulas in this book, of what use are they when you’re dodging the swipe of a blade?” The prince stole a glance at Red’s right hand.

“How long did it take you to register that an enormous blade was a threat?”
 

“Hmm?”
 

“How long, in seconds? Seeing as how you have not had your hand fixed yet, and that your field test was not more than two weeks ago, I assume you must have incurred the injury during your field test. But the alloy desert contains no beast that garnishes a blade. I assume then, that you were under attack by another
human
? Or something sentient? It must have presented itself, with its blade, in front of you, for the injury to have happened in the angle at which your hand is cut. And you were given a few seconds to register the threat in your head.
Exactly
how many seconds did it take?”
 

“A few, I guess.
Too long
, if that’s an answer.”
 

“Precisely —
too long
. Studying these formulas, or mathematics in general has nothing to do with applying them on the battlefield, but everything to do with applying your mind at the task of exercising its own acumen. A mind needs problems as a muscle needs weights. Do you doubt the utility of your mind, the sharpness of its intellect, the breadth of its perception, on your effectiveness in combat?”
 

“No…I guess not,” Red replied. “But there must be other ways to exercise your mind for combat.”
 

“Bahhh!” Arkan shouted. “Nature gives you a science so rational on which to whet your mind, and you would throw it away, for what? The banality of memorization in critter biology? The stale work of reflex manipulation in hand-eye coordination tests? There is no purer a science than that of arithmetic, and no better way to exercise your mind than to embellish it in all of its problems. You need not know the equations in the book you hold. You may forget them even a day after you learn them. But the
process
of simplifying a concept to be understood by your conscious mind, that, your brain will never forget, and it will apply that skill over and over again in all the challenges you will face through out life. You want your mind to react faster in combat? Study arithmetic. You want to solve problems in maneuverability during an engagement faster? Study arithmetic.”
 

Butz’s attention was glued to Arkan. The prince’s words seemed to have a profound effect on him. His eyes lit up as if he had just seen the light of the world. Butz had long been naturally gifted in mathematics, but renounced the subject as Red did in favor of studying more combat oriented topics.

“The injury you’ve sustained on your hand, this is nothing. A single injury will never decide the fate of a war, and it will certainly not decide the fate of humanity. At the upper echelons of our battle for survival against the Xenosite, battles will be fought out on a planetary scale. Strategy will trump tactics, planning will trump practice, and our ability to utilize our mind
while it is still an advantage over the Xenosite
will trump our ability to utilize our physical prowess. Which, might I add,
 
is obviously far behind. You’d better hope that your commanders are astute mathematicians — intuition and experience often lie on the battlefield, numbers never do. Come now, we have more important matters to attend to,” Arkan added, pointing to Red’s hand. “We
must
get that repaired.”
 

“I was going to get it fixed after the ociramma.”
 

“Don’t be silly, a social event is a dangerous thing. You’ll need the protection of both hands to make sure you do not lose the other one. I have the best doctor in Avalonia right here at the palace, he shall fix your injury in less than a moment.”
 

Red looked at Magnus and Butz, both of whom shrugged and got up to follow Arkan as he left the room.
I guess better now than later,
Red thought, following behind the three of them.
 

“Parrot and Z, the both of you should come as well. Best to give your teammate all the moral support he can get,” Arkan advised while ushering to Raven and S, who were sitting in the kitchen preparing food for themselves. Raven stared at Arkan in disbelief, and then looked at Magnus, who gave her the same look he had given to Butz earlier — the one that said
I told you so.
S followed behind with a disappointed groan, upset that her meal would have to wait.
 

“Uncle, I did not know that the Xenosites interested you so much. I’ve never heard you speak of them before.”
 

“A new hobby if you will. They are currently the only thing on my mind. Areopa has been bombarded with requests to share our resources more generously in the struggle against them. The Priori have contacted father several times already about attempting to create a unified front. Being a kingdom of several races, they believe that Areopa can serve as the foundation for a cross-species effort. I agree with their stated intentions, but the last thing I’d want would be for Areopa to be ruled by the light.”
 

The doctor that Arkan had spoken of was located only a few minutes away from their own suite; his laboratory occupied a space at the eastern edge of the raeth wing. Red suspected that it couldn’t have been a coincidence — Arkan likely stationed him there and worked alongside the doctor on various projects. The prince’s writings had spanned such a wide breadth of topics, Red imagined that he must have taken great measures to surround himself with people he could consult with on all the subjects that interested him. On the way there, he also spotted a sickbay for critters, and a workshop with several people engineering weapons of various sorts.

Upon entering the laboratory, Red understood why anyone would want to work under Prince Arkan in the first place. The lab held nothing back when it came to furnishing itself with equipment and necessary facilities. The place was manned by at least fifty other people, some of whom were young researchers simply observing the going-ons of the lab, and others who were of an older age, running in between different sections of the workspace while shouting orders, statistics, and ideas. It occurred to Red that every room he had entered thus far in the palace seemed deceptively small from the outside, and then opened up into its own world. Magnus was unsurprised by the size of the lab, but smiled at the wonder it held for his team, seemingly satisfied that they were impressed by all of the Alcazar’s marvels.

“This place must have cost a fortune!” Butz exclaimed.
 

“Science does not believe in fortunes, it believes in building the future as it pleases,” A hoarse voice replied from behind them. Red turned around to see a gaunt figure in a blue lab coat, holding in his right hand the segmented limb of a critter and in his left, a pair of enormous scissors. Arkan nodded his head in greeting, and took the limb of the critter from the old man to study it himself.

“Excellent. Excellent work. Doctor Lurch, my nephew’s friend here requires a syntechdage, his hand was cut off in an accident during an academy field test. Will you take a look?”
 

“Of course,” replied the doctor, holding out his hand towards Red, who hesitated for a moment before resting the stump of his right hand on the doctor’s palm. Doctor Lurch’s hands were long, thin, and mottled. He grabbed Red’s wrist so suddenly that Red almost jumped at the touch. The doctor’s face had a strange resemblance to someone else they had all recently seen, but Red hoped it was just a memory bias on his part.
Wrinkles make all elderly people look similar, that must be it,
he thought to himself. Doctor Lurch must have been at least a hundred and fifty.
 

“Lurch, I’ve heard the name before,” Magnus replied.

“Likely you have. A family of several prominent scientists will do that.”
 

“You invented crystalized Cron.”
 

“Afraid that was a cousin.”
 

“Weren’t you one of the first to discover the Xenosite on Eaut?”
 

“A brother.”
 

“Oh,” Magnus replied bashfully.

Stepping closer to the man’s face, Red realized that the similarities between Doctor Lurch and the bladed man were too striking to be a coincidence. The doctor had the same, cruel, penetrating eyes — the ones Red had seen in his memories.

“Come, this shall take only a few minutes,” the doctor replied while ushering their group to a section of the lab filled with different human parts, some mechanical and others that looked almost identical to real limbs. A large machine resembling a giant microscope stood in the center of the space and Doctor Lurch ordered Red to sit in the center of it where several green lights scanned his body back and forth. Raven, S, Magnus, and Arkan stood by him while Butz went off to find Linx. The cat had wandered somewhere into the lab.
 

“Have you ever had a syntechdage installed before?” The doctor asked.
 

“No,” Red replied. “Does it hurt?”
 

“There is no such thing as pain,” the doctor replied brusquely. “Do you wish to keep your memory of the incident?”
 

“My memory?”
 

“Once a syntechdage is installed, it shall operate with your nerves just as your original hand did. This machine, an orgoprinter, is scanning your body to replicate an identical version of your hand. Once it is installed however, no matter how accurately the hand was replicated and how precisely the augmentation was done, your mind shall remember the hand as a prosthetic one, inhibiting your ability to function at full capacity. To fix that, I can delete a segment of your memory, the part that involves the loss of your hand. Your brain shall make up another event in its place. There are rarely any side effects, although some
do
come up from time to time.”
 

“Like what?” Raven quickly asked. Her reaction seemed to have caught Arkan’s attention, but only for a moment.

“There are patients who, for instance, replace the lost memory with that of losing another limb, one that they
do
have, leading to a psychosomatic inability to use parts of their bodies that are healthy. While we can delete the new memory as well, deleting
made up
memories creates further complications. Too much memory slicing can lead to complex side effects. There is always a price to pay when it comes to science.”
 

“I’ll do it,” Red said. “If it’ll help me cast like I did before, I’ll take the small risk it comes with.”
 

“Excellent, then,” the doctor replied.
 

“Are you sure?” Raven asked. “Your casting ability seemed fine with just your left hand.”