The Unreasoning Mask (7 page)

 

 

"I tore up the skin on my hand, enough to put my skinceiver out of operation.
My NI transceiver went with the jeep, and so I couldn't call the spaceport.
Also, I lost my TR box. I also lost my clothes. I like to sunbathe,
and so I was nude when the accident happened. I borrowed a dress from
a farm woman and started walking. Alter a week, I came to the Kurodan
River. I got passage on a fishing vessel which was returning to the
capital. And here I am."

 

 

"Pegasus hasn't returned," he said. "She was supposed to rendezvous with
al-Buraq at Sigdrauf. We waited a month for her. Then we went to Tolt,
her stop before going on to Sigdrauf. She had not showed there."

 

 

She was pale, and her voice was very low.

 

 

"What do you think . . . ?"

 

 

"I don't know. We can only assume that Pegasus is lost or has been delayed
for some reason. Perhaps she is having or had bio-mechanical troubles,
and she may be on any of a hundred planets. In any event, al-Buraq
isn't staying here long. You will transfer to my command. What were your
shipboard duties?"

 

 

"Only those concerned with the biology laboratory."

 

 

"It's only routine and ridiculous in these circumstances," he said.
"But regulations require that your I.D. be checked."

 

 

He lifted up her left hand with his. With his right hand he pulled from
his jacket pocket a round piece of glasslike material rimmed with metal.
Holding it over his right eye, he looked through it at the hand. He could
see the pale violet symbols invisible to the naked eye.

 

 

"Branwen Sacajawea Davis," he read aloud.

 

 

Born A.D. 2238/1616 A.H. in the Cymric division of the Northwest European
Department.

 

 

He looked down at the upturned, dark, lovely face. Her green eyes were wide
and bright. Too bright.

 

 

He dropped her hand and said, "I'll send for a guard to conduct you to ship.
By the way, your hand feels very warm. Do you have a fever?"

 

 

"I feel a little feverish. But I didn't, as far as I know, come into contact
with any sick native. Of course, you never know."

 

 

He phoned ship via his skinceiver. After he'd signed off, he said,
"You realize you'll be court-martialed?"

 

 

Davis paled but said nothing.

 

 

"It's just more routine. Any time loss of naval property is involved,
a court martial is automatic. I'm sure that you weren't negligent.
Don't worry about it."

 

 

A few minutes later, the marines appeared. Davis picked up her bag,
saluted him, and marched off. Ramstan watched the long, slim legs and
swaying hips, and he sighed. He went up a movable staircase and crawled
into a bed half the size of a basketball court.

 

 

Halfway through a dream about some shadowy sinister whispering thing,
he awoke. His door was shaking under furious knocks, and the skinceiver
was shrilling. He put his wrist near his mouth and said, sleepily,
"Alif Rho Gimel. What is it, Hermes?"

 

 

"CL Waw reported in with an urgent message. She wants to speak to you."

 

 

"I think she's here," Ramstan said. "Hold a minute."

 

 

He rolled out of bed and dropped off without using the staircase. He looked
through the keyhole and unlocked the door. Toyce reeled in, causing Ramstan
for a moment to think that she was hurt. But she was only near-falling-down
stoned.

 

 

"CL Waw's here," Ramstan said. "Out, Hermes."

 

 

Toyce fell into the chair that Davis had used. "I need a drink, Hűd."

 

 

"Of water," Ramstan said. "What's the trouble?"

 

 

"You know that barmaid I was interested in. Well, she told me the Tenolt
had come into her place. They were asking about you and getting, as usual,
indirect answers to direct questions. Thima, that's the barmaid, said one
of the Tenolt was either drunk or about to have a nervous breakdown.
He suddenly started babbling about the Klakgokl, and . . ."

 

 

"The Klakgold?"

 

 

"Yeah. It's some kind of monster in Tolt eschatology. It will appear
near the end of time and wreck the world, eat up all life. That sort of
nonsense. Anyway, he hadn't spoken more than a few sentences about it
when his companions dragged him away. The barmaid knows some of their
lingo, just enough to understand that something terrible had happened on
Tolt. She also caught some references to you when the Tolt was carried
off screaming. She didn't know what was said exactly. But she got the
impression that the crazy Tolt was swearing vengeance."

 

 

"Anything else?"

 

 

"No. But whatever it was, it played hell with my plans for Thima. I had to
bring you the news, whatever it means."

 

 

Ramstan spoke quickly but calmly into the skinceiver.

 

 

"Alif Rho Gimel. Come in, Hermes."

 

 

"Hermes here."

 

 

"Burning Troy! Repeat, Burning Troy!"

 

 

There was a pause, and then Hermes said, "Acknowledge! Burning Troy, sir!"

 

 

Before they got to ship, Ramstan received a report from the chemical
laboratory. The traces of the gas in the expeller had been analyzed. Even
in the quantity contained in the cylinder, the gas would not have done
more than put him to sleep for several hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 7 ...

 

 

"Al-Buraq" had lost her starfish-shape and bright-red glow. She was
a cylinder, flat on the underside, emitting yellow pulses. Flashes of
light revealed spacers entering many ports.

 

 

By the time Ramstan was on the bridge, all posts had reported in, the
drunk and drugged were in the various sickbays, and the general-alert
alarm was turned off. The crescent-shaped bridge pulsed whitely from
its spongy deck and those bulkhead areas not having indicator/control
plates. The six commissioned officers and seven warrant officers were
seated in their chairs. Ramstan took his chair in the center of the
crescent. The chair was, like the others, a pseudopod of the deck,
extended by the ship, shaped to fit him as near perfectly possible.

 

 

On Ramstan's right was Lieutenant-Commodore (acting full commodore) Jimmy
Tenno. On his left was Commander Erica Hannay. Five meters before them,
the IC panel curved up to a height of 2.8 meters. Thirteen black-lined
circles, extending from the deck to the ceiling, filled the panel. A CO
and WO sat before one.

 

 

"All secure?" Ramstan said.

 

 

An octagonal in the lower left-hand part of the circle directly before him
flashed yellow-yellow-yellow.

 

 

"Drive ready?"

 

 

Two tiny arrows flashed, one green-green-green and one
scarlet-scarlet-scarlet.

 

 

"Alaraf drive on," Ramstan said.

 

 

The green light ceased pulsing.

 

 

"Activate Reverse Jump Number One -- RJN 1."

 

 

There was no motion, nothing to indicate that the vessel had left Kalafala
behind at a distance of googolplex parsecs and perhaps at a distance of
googolplex millennia.

 

 

The scarlet light ceased.

 

 

"EV and coordinates."

 

 

The circle became black, and Ramstan was looking into space. Stars
flamed white, red, orange, green, blue, yellow, violet. A spiral galaxy,
seen from "above," was a dying albino octopus that had been wounded by
a shotgun loaded with jewels.

 

 

The scanners traveled across the circle, and the octopus drifted out of
view on the right side. More stars, a giant red sun, not more than three
light-years away, traveled across a nebula bright as a movie screen. The
upper edges of the gas cloud formed the ragged silhouette of a crouching
and grinning wolf.

 

 

Ramstan did not need the pulsing yellow letters that appeared near the
bottom of the circle to know where he was. There had never been any
doubt anyway.

 

 

"EV off. M-GD, Walisk window," Ramstan said.

 

 

The view faded. The scarlet arrow came to life, pulsed, and would continue
to pulse until Ramstan ordered it to stop.

 

 

Ramstan looked to both sides and caught a few officers looking at him
expectantly. He frowned, causing them to look straight ahead. All in
the bridge, everybody in ship, in fact, obviously hoped to hear an
explanation for their sudden departure. He did not have to give one,
and he would just as soon not. If they were not informed, however, they
would resent it, and good morale would boil away. He would have to tell
them something. Fortunately, Branwen Davis and Toyce had given him enough
to shape a half-truth.

 

 

He sat brooding while the silence in the bridge stretched like a wire
between two winches. There would be no breaking point because no one
would dare to ask him when he would give the order to resume normal
operations. Nor would any voice the question clogging their throats and
making some cough nervously.

 

 

Suddenly, he stood up. Erica Hannay sighed. Tenno, his dark-brown face
oily with sweat, grinned, showing block-like white teeth. Chief Warrant
Officer Vilkas, at the far left, began coughing violently.

 

 

Ramstan waited until Vilkas had regained control. He said, loudly,
"All posts stand by for an announcement."

 

 

His voice boomed out from the panel, was booming out throughout the ship.
Three clangs of a bell and a short whistle followed.

 

 

"You're all wondering why I issued the Burning Troy," he said. He had
turned by then and was looking at the officers. Most just continued to
stare at him, but a few nodded.

 

 

"Before I tell you why I ordered the ship to leave Kalafala, I must
remind you of one thing. That is, we are primarily a scientific survey
expedition. Though al-Buraq is a ship of the line, we use our weapons only
in self-defense. And then only when no other action is open to us. As you
all know, I have been ordered to avoid military conflict even if
honor
is involved.

 

 

"Until today, we have confronted no sentients with overt hostile intentions.
But the sudden appearance of the Tolt ship, her unorthodox approach, using
Kalafala as a shield to avoid our detection equipment, a maneuver which
required enormous energy, and her recklessness in flying in at treetop
level and literally dropping into the spaceport, are strange actions."

 

 

Ramstan knew what they were thinking. Why then did you not call a Burning
Troy immediately? Why did you go to your quarters at the hotel instead?
And what about our precipitate departure from Tolt?

 

 

"Though the actions of the Tenolt were suspicious," he said, "I did not
believe that they implied attack. If they had wished to attack us,
they could have caught us wide open, unprepared, when they appeared at
the port. Yet they made not the slightest move toward us. I judged that
the Tenolt intended no overtly hostile moves.

 

 

"On the other hand, it was evident that they were up to something. I have
no idea what that is. But it might derive from the incident which took place
during our brief stay on Tolt."

 

 

That widened the eyes of those on the bridge.

 

 

"As you know, Benagur, Maija Nuoli, and I were the only personnel invited
by the Tolt religious authorities to the anuglyfa ceremonies. That
the captain and the second-in-command would be invited was expected,
but it was a mystery why other officers were skipped and a lieutenant
invited. I made some delicate inquiries of the Tolt high priest -- I had
to be sure not to offend any religious prejudices -- and he replied that
the glyfa itself had asked that we three be honored. Our rank had nothing
to do with it. He would add nothing further except that we three must have
the required
sensitivity
. I asked him what that meant, but he did not
answer.

 

 

"And so we three were conducted with an honor guard into the holy of holies,
a large room constructed of ivory and lacking ornamentation or paint.
The only furniture was an altar in the middle of the room, a nine-cornered
block of solid ivory high as my waist -- it was taken from the tooth of an
extinct beast -- and on the altar was a diamond. It was twice as big as
my head, and on top of it was the glyfa. This looked like an egg shape
carved out of ivory. It was white and between 14 and 15 centimeters
long. Tzatlats, the high priest, said that it was so heavy that four
men could not lift it.

 

 

"Tzatlats told us that the glyfa had been dug out of the earth some
ten thousand years before, that it had been the god of the stone-age
tribe that found it and was now the god of the whole planet. The glyfa
had fallen from the skies long before the Tenolt had evolved into sapiency.
It was older than the universe; it had survived the birth and death of
many universes.

 

 

"We found it difficult to believe that a species as highly developed
scientifically as Earth's could worship an idol. We thought that we must
have misunderstood Tzatlats. It must be that the glyfa was a symbol of the
creator, just as a crucifix or a statue of Vishnu are only symbols. But
no. Tzatlats said that this
was
the god, not a symbol nor an embodiment
but the god itself. And it ruled the planet. Tolt was a true theocracy.