Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (18 page)

 
          
(The shapes of power continue priming
you whether you pay attention or not.)

 
          
It'll
just be two or three worlds—against hundreds!

 
          
What's
up with you? One moment
you 're
keen as mustard. The
next,
you 're
pussyfooting.

 
          
What's
wrong is that I haven't any choice in the matter!

 
          
(And you need choice.
Lots of choice.
Many cabins, many tapestries, many
alternatives! Last time when you were in
Ka-
space
on your way back home you saw how choices could be made. How a raven could be a
writing desk. Yet you chose to be a baby girl in Pecawar, marking time and
repeating yourself. Ah, but
then
you
weren't mad—and many!)

 
          
All
in a good cause, Yaleen!

 
          
If you say so.

 
          
That’s
my girl!

 
          
(The shapes of power fade. . .
. )

 
          
Hang
on! What about afterwards? When the great victory is won; when I'm back here
for good?

 
          
Afterwards,
welcome to the Ka-store. Where you can relive any life you choose.

 
          
Relive—aye,
and not change a single detail.

 
          
You'd
rather be alive again?
Hmm.
Do you suppose your mother
might be carrying Petrovy's child?

 
          
No
thanks! I've no wish to be anyone s little baby again.

 
          
You
are hard to please.

 
          
What
about all the loose ends I’ve left behind? What about Tam, stranded in Pecawar?
What about the loose end of his arm? What about you—stopped short at Aladalia?
What about men never being able to sail again? What about—?

 
 
         
You
can't be responsible for everything.

 
          
(Why not, if there are enough of
you?)

 
          
That's
Godmind megalomania, Yaleen. Are you sure you're quite in your right mind?

 
          
(Footfall on a companion way. . . .)

 
          
(Right mind, port
mind; south mind, north mind.
Aft mind, for'ard mind,
'tween-decks mind.)

 
          
I
feel super. Never better. I’ll settle for the Ka-store. Let’s get on with the
job. Right!

 
          
This time, no gentle pat on the back
sends you zipping through
Ka-space.
You're picked up and hurled through the storm-front, through the blue void.
Surely the Worm must have noticed that it was heaving not a cockle-shell but an
argosy? No. The weight of a
Ka
stays
the same: zero. Onward your Ka-ship sails, through a nothingness simmering
with potential. . . .

 
          
If you were many, would you see
better
? That's what you wondered once before.

 
          
That's the Godmind's project: to set
fire to minds on a hundred worlds, to make a many-fold Ka-lens—and in that
moment to try to master time, and Being.

 
          
The void bubbles. The void breathes.

 
          
You once felt that you were on the
brink of a transformation. Then the Worm yanked you home. You chickened out.

 
          
The void dreams the universe. But the
void is unconscious. The universe has consciousness, but it can't control the
breath of
Being
. A strong force, the inertia of
normality, rules the universe. So the universe always chooses the same state as
before. It sustains itself; limits itself.

 
          
In Ka-space, the weak force rules.
The force of choice.
Yet no one chooses.

 
          
It's said in old myths that wizards
could change men into toads, stones into bread. Those wizards must have tapped
the weak force.
Never for long, always on a tiny
scale—because they lived in a universe ruled by the strong force.

 
          
The universe is dreamed by the void.
It is made out of . . . grains of choice.
Grains of virtual
existence.

 
          
(Yes,
now
you're beginning to see.)

 
          
These basic grains are . . .
electons.
They elect their state of
being.

 
          
Now look closer. Electons are really
tiny dots, consisting of a circle of
Ka-
space
rolled up compactly. Forever they unroll back into the void. Forever other bits
of void roll up to replace them exactly. Roll up, roll up! Thanks to the
pressure of public opinion in the neighbourhood, the new electons choose to be
just the same as the old ones.

 
          
All these electons roll-up compactly
in the same direction. Thus time flows in one direction, in the universe. In
A^-space the electons aren't rolled up. So there in the never-ever all time is
one, and timeless.

 
          
A mind, a
Ka,
must be a mesh of electons which are only partly rolled-up.
Thus minds delve into time-past, into memory. Minds resist the flow of time.

 
          
That must be why old folk say that
time speeds up as you grow older. The more you know and remember, the more your
Ka
resists. A fish washed along by a
stream hardly seems—from the fish's point of view—to be moving at all. A fish
swimming against the stream sees the water rush by on all sides. . . .

 
          
Each death, each disappearance into
^Ta-space, removes a fraction of resistance. The forces balance again quickly.
New
Kas
come into existence.

 
          
What sort of shock would the death of
almost all the minds in the galaxy deal to reality?

 
          
Enough to cause a
lurch, a melting, a possible re-ordering of things?

 
          
Enough to bring about mastery of
time—and mastery of
Being
— locally, for a few crucial
moments?

 
          
The Godmind must think so.

 
          
Meanwhile your ship of
Ka
-space sails the void.

 
          
Could it explore many routes at once?
Routes which would be real for a while; and then, not real?
Many routes—which would later collapse into the one-and-only?

 
          
En route from Earth's Moon, once upon
a time, the void bubbled and almost trapped you. You leapt out of that trap,
into Narya's new-born body. Now you can escape any trap by shifting cabins
within your many-chambered A«-ship.

 
          
Find the place where that happened
before!

 
          
Though it isn't one
place.
It's everywhere, anywhere.

 
          
Summon up a tapestry! And shift!

 
          
Yaleen!
(A distraught cry in the distance.)

 
          
You
goofed, Worm!

 
          
Summon another! Shift again.

          
 
Suddenly you're in a body. As before it isn't
yours to operate; you're only along for the ride . . .

 
          
. . .
aboard
a boat! Spray flies blindingly. Sails boom and clap. The deck pitches and
rears. Through the yowling squall voices scream:

 
          
"Get to the lee of Rokka!"

 
          
"No, outrun! If them round
north,
them'll
cut us!"

 
          
"
Us
could double."

 
          
"Into
this?
You're mad. Outrun, I
say!"

 
          
The mainmast creaks and groans as it
leans this way, that way. Halyards crackle like whips. Figures in leathern
cloaks haul themselves along the handrails.

 
          
And you?
You're hunched in a wooden cage. One of your ankles is shackled with rusty iron
to a bar. You're barefoot. Your tom linen gown is sodden. The cage is roped to
belaying cleats, yet it still lurches to and fro on the slippery planking.

 
          
More figures loom. "It's she as
them want. Toss
she
overboard, cage an' all!"

 
          
"Naw.
Them
want we too."

 
          
"Them might drop sails, try an'
pick
she
up."

 
          
"Cage 'ud
break in that swell.
Them
never see."

 
          
"God's mind!
Try it, man!"

 
          
"Naw.
Soon be in clean water. Just think how wor vicars shall smile when
us
turn up with a blackmind infanta.
En't
been
a good torment on Soltrey since last all-eclipse. Them shall
forgive us wor fines, eh?"

 
          
Bloody damn.
You've been dumped in deep dung. This must be the waterworld of islands, all
right, where the Godmind's good folk struggle against an evil worm. And no
doubt it was predictable that you'd end up sharing minds with someone belonging
to worm territory. Did she
have
to
be a prisoner, caged, in the teeth of a storm, bound for torment?

 
          
Probably.
Probably that put the worm uppermost in her mind. Probably her mind was naked
to terror and desperate hope.

 
          
You're watching through her eyes.
You're hearing through her ears. At least you aren't feeling the sting of the
spray or the soak of her clothes.

 
          
So if she
is
tossed overboard, you personally won't have to endure choking.
Or if she's delivered into the hands of their "vicars" you yourself
won't have to be cooked alive, or stretched, or whatever's planned.
Presumably.

 
          
Why complain? Quite the home from
home, all things considered! Here's a boat, right?
(Though on
what wild wide water, in what vile weather!)
Here are more sodding
swinish Sons, or the local equivalent.

 
          
Hey,
men
are sailing this vessel.
Men.

 
          
Don't assume that everything's the
same!

 
          
Make contact with your hostess. Find
out what's what.

 
          
Hullo
there.

 
          
Sweet
Lordevil! Tis you! Save your servant! Oh Lordevil, you've come.

 
          
Sorry,
but I'm not
what 's
-his-name.
My
name s Yaleen.
Is Lord of Evil what you call your worm?

 
          
Worm?
What's this?

 
          
Is
that what you call your sea-worm?
Your black current?

 
          
Lordevil,
don't mock when I need you so.

 
          
Hmm,
this’ll take a bit of explaining. I’m Yaleen, right? What's your name?

 
          
You
know me, Lordevil!