The Unreasoning Mask (28 page)

 

 

"Davis wasn't told when the clock would strike. All she knew was that the
Tenolt had allowed her an unspecified time. If she did not have the glyfa
back in their hands by then, she would blow up. The biological clock,
however, could be forever stopped by a certain frequency transmitted
by the Tenolt. That would be done as soon as she got the glyfa in their
hands. By that, I suppose that they meant inside their ship."

 

 

Benagur opened his mouth, then closed it. Nuoli said, "Either way,
she'll be killed!"

 

 

"Perhaps," Ramstan said. "We don't know if the Tenolt were lying about that.
But we can't take a chance."

 

 

"Poor Branwen," Nuoli said softly.

 

 

"She wouldn't be in this horrible situation if you hadn't stolen the glyfa!"
Benagur bellowed. "None of us would be!"

 

 

"True," Ramstan said coolly. He gave the order, and the deck swelled up
all around Benagur and enfolded him tightly. Only his head from the nose
up was visible. That was very red, and his eyes were rolling like ball
bearings about to tear loose.

 

 

"Tenno, I'm going to let a marine come down here," Ramstan said. "But only
if the marine is unarmed. The marine will escort Lieutenant Davis to a
launch. A technical force will prepare shielding for the launch. The launch
will be the one that has alaraf drive. When this is completed, by that
I mean so that no radio signal can penetrate it, Lieutenant Davis will
be put in it. The launch will be programmed to accompany al-Buraq at
a distance of two kilometers. No, make that three. I don't know how
powerful the explosive is. The program will automatically direct the
launch to keep pace with ship at this distance. When we go to another
bell, the launch will go also. Lieutenant Davis will be given enough
life support for four weeks of ship's time. Is that clear?"

 

 

Ramstan's words had been recorded, and, if Tenno was uncertain about
their meaning, he could play back the recording. He said, "Aye, aye,
sir. Clear."

 

 

Ramstan felt relief. One more crisis gotten through. He had not known
if Tenno would disobey him because he thought that Benagur had to be,
according to regulations, still in command. But Tenno could not be trusted.
He might be going along with his former captain because there was nothing
else he could do at the moment. For the moment, he was obeying, and that
was what Ramstan wanted.

 

 

Davis said, "You're really doing this to me?"

 

 

He turned. "Listen, Branwen, I don't like it. But it's absolutely necessary.
I'd be justified if I had you ejected into space. You're a very real danger,
and there are events . . . things . . . which you don't know about.
These make your situation very insignificant . . . unimportant . . .
comparatively speaking. I'm extending myself . . . I shouldn't even be
doing this for you . . ."

 

 

"They're right!" she cried. "They're right!"

 

 

He did not ask her what she meant by that. He supposed that she was
referring to what the other women had told her about him. She was wrong,
though, in assuming that this situation had anything to do with his
relations with the crewwomen. If she were not so frightened, she would
understand that he had to do this for the preservation of ship and her
crew. And for even larger matters. Much much larger.

 

 

He told her that she should leave his quarters now and go to meet the marine.

 

 

"I can't wait until he gets here. There may be little time left. But you
can hear what I have to say in ship and the launch. It'll clarify this
business for you."

 

 

Or perhaps make her even more confused, he thought.

 

 

She turned her head to glare as she walked by him toward the iris.

 

 

He said, "After all, I did save your life, and I'm doing all I can to
keep you safe. It's much better to be by yourself, no matter how lonely
you are for a while, than to be blown up. And I do have to consider the
safety of ship first."

 

 

"
Now
you do," she said. "What about
then
?"

 

 

He did not reply. He assured the tec-op and cam-op that the order for
silence while he talked did not apply to them if the detectors picked
up anything that might be dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 24 ...

 

 

"First, I must tell you what happened when Commodore Benagur, Lieutenant
Nuoli, and I went to the temple of the glyfa. I must because you cannot
understand the events following unless you know what impact this had on
us three. Especially, on me."

 

 

He paused. And the glyfa spoke.

 

 

"Ramstan, tell me what's been happening since I last talked to you and
what is happening now."

 

 

This time it was using his father's voice.

 

 

He started, and he came close to choking.

 

 

"Officers and crew! Just a minute!"

 

 

He turned, though it was not necessary to do so, to speak to the glyfa.
Human beings, all sentients he'd met, felt that looking at the face of
the one they were talking to ensured a fuller communication and a deeper
trust in whatever that one was saying. The face expressed the soul, the
consciousness, the sincerity. The speaker could be judged by his, her,
or its expression. But the egg-shape was unchangeably fixed; no play of
emotions crossed its surface, no ripple of face, no bodily movements,
only the voice itself was the index of truth or falsehood. And that voice
was changing and could be his mother's or father's or anyone he knew. It
was like talking over an ancient telephone or radio transceiver which
lacked the image of the one you were talking to.

 

 

Also, what the Vwoordha had told him about it when he was in their house
weighed heavily on him. The atmosphere seemed to thicken, to become
layers on layers of glue-impregnated paper, layers rising to unimaginable
heights, a crushing weight. He was pressed down as if a building had fallen
down on him, and he felt as if the building was something unknown before.
One which towered up, up, up past the boundaries of air and Space.

 

 

Boundaries.

 

 

The word flashed like a meteorite over the fields of his mind.

 

 

"Glyfa! I've been trying for a long time to get you to talk to me.
But you didn't reply."

 

 

"I was thinking."

 

 

"You may have been," Ramstan said. "But you were also not receptive to
anything outside yourself. You were recharging your . . . battery? . . .
fuel? . . . self? You didn't answer me because you couldn't hear me."

 

 

"The Vwoordha told you this."

 

 

"Yes. They told me that you had periods of unwilling withdrawal. That you
have to depend upon a fuel source, like all life, to keep alive, if alive
is the correct term. When your source of energy is not equal to your demands
on it, you must rest and draw in the energy before you. . . ."

 

 

"So. They told you. I expected that they would. I have a very small surface
area. Though I operate on a 67-percent economy, which is more efficient
than anything or anyone else in this cosmos, excluding one, I have to go
through periods of . . . hibernation . . . suspended animation . . .
no, you'd understand the analogy to a recharging battery best."

 

 

"But you have a wide range of energy sources," Ramstan said. "Electricity,
X-rays, gravitons, even antigravitons, photons, antiphotons. There's no
reason why you should recharge so often. Especially when there's an energy
source on ship and I could connect you to it."

 

 

He paused, then said, "No. I'm wrong. The bioengineers would note any
unexplainable consumption of power. They'd track It down."

 

 

He still did not believe that a forced quiescence during recharging
accounted for all or even half of the glyfds silence. Most, if not all,
of the time it had failed to respond to him, it had done so for reasons
only it knew.

 

 

It was trying to nudge him here and there with both its silences and its
enigmatic revelations.

 

 

The Vwoordha were pushing him towards their goal, too. When the glyfa
nudged, they counternudged. And vice versa. Or were the Vwoordha and
the glyfa just pretending to be opponents?

 

 

"You know two of my limitations," the glyfa said. "Did the Vwoordha tell
you about the third?"

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"I know when you're lying. You're lying now."

 

 

"Then I won't lie to you from now on," Ramstan said. "Maybe. I don't know
that you can tell when I'm lying. My truth may not be yours."

 

 

"Sly, sly. Always considering all the variables -- as you can see them.
See. Why must you sentients use this term? There are so many things
that you can't see but can still sense otherwise. Even without light,
you can see. Within limits."

 

 

"All senses have limits," Ramstan said. "Except one. And even that . . ."

 

 

"You must have had a long talk with the Vwoordha. But it could not have been
long enough. However, they did tell you of my restrictions. I am dependent
on other sentients for mobility, and I am dependent on my energy source,
like all of my kind. Though it may surprise and even repulse you, I am
of your kind, though I am artificial"

 

 

"What . . . who . . . was your model?"

 

 

"None! Or perhaps a thousand were my model. Whatever the sources of my
creators . . . the models . . . the end result was unique. Just as you,
the result of a hundred million models . . . are unique."

 

 

"Uniqueness does not necessarily mean anything more than mediocrity . . .
even idiocy . . . a pale similitude of humanity," Ramstan said. "Listen!
This is getting us nowhere. Let me tell you what I've been doing since
you withdrew to . . . recharge. I'll have to go fast. The crew is waiting
for me. They must be wondering what the hell's going on, why I should have
started to tell them everything."

 

 

"Everything?"

 

 

Ramstan felt his skin warming. He realized that the glyfa was, in some ways,
just like him. It questioned the inexact use of a word or term; it liked to
demonstrate that the other did not know exactly what he, she, or it was
saying. Was this characteristic a means for putting down the other and
so showing his own superiority? Or was it his personal requirement,
quite justified, for the precise use of a word? Or both?

 

 

It might even be that the glyfa was not like him. It might be subtly
mocking him. It might be that it knew that no sentient could ever use a
word in the dictionary sense, the objective sense, that every sentient
had his own personal, unique language.

 

 

Ancient as it was, the glyfa could not use language as he, Ramstan,
so impermanent, so time-bound, so mayflyish, used it.

 

 

"Within your limits . . . and mine . . . even mine... everything,"
the glyfa said.

 

 

"I haven't time," Ramstan said.

 

 

"Tiiiiimmmme." The word murmured, swelled, leaped up, like a surf wave
striking a cliff, and receded. Now the speaker was Ramstan's uncle,
the one who'd taught him "squirrel talk," the queerly inconsistent
philosophical and humorous uncle. The uncle long-dead who still lived
in his mind and had been resurrected by the glyfa.

 

 

"No, I don't have time!" Ramstan shouted. "Listen while I tell the others!"

 

 

"Others! Others! Others!" echoed and then faded away.

 

 

Ramstan turned from the glyfa and spoke again to the crow.

 

 

"When I went into the Tolt temple with Benagur and Nuoli, I, too, experienced
something phenomenal. Numinous. The very nature of the experience, if
reported, would have made you doubt my sanity. I was flooded with light,
just as Benagur and Nuoli were. Not photonic light. It was a light such
as few have ever seen."

 

 

Suddenly Ramstan had been Muhammad the prophet, yet at the same time
was also himself. He was sleeping in a house near the sacred Kaaba in
Mecca. He had gone to bed weary and sad because he had gained so few
disciples after the angel Gabriel had appeared to him in a grotto, had
shown him a scroll, and said, "Recite!" That is, read and then reveal
the divine contents to mankind.

 

 

The fatigue, disappointment, and discouragement lasted only for a few
seconds. He was awakened when Gabriel entered the house, the archangel
Gabriel with his many-colored wings and the glorious light streaming
from his face.

 

 

Ramstan described the events following very rapidly. He would have liked
to dwell with great detail on them, but he did not want to weary his
audience, and time was vital.

 

 

"After Gabriel had purified my heart by washing my breast with water
from the sacred well of Zamzam and poured over me the
hikma
, which is
symbolic of faith and wisdom, he took my hand. And al-Buraq appeared,
al-Buraq, the Lightning, the fabulous unique animal. It had the face of
a young woman and wore a golden crown. Its body was a mule's, its hoofs
and tail were a camel's, its harness was of pearls, its saddle was a
single carved emerald, and its stirrups were turquoise."

 

 

Before helping Muhammad-Ramstan onto al-Buraq, the archangel told him
that Allah had decreed that this night he would travel through the
seven heavens and would be allowed to worship the face of the Truth,
the Everlasting, the Father of All.