Watson, Ian - Novel 06 (21 page)

 
          
“Salman,”
says my Mulla softly, not in Persian but in English —which I didn’t know he
knew! “Trust me, and don’t be afraid. Listen: I am not what I seem. You are in
memory-space. What you see in that glass is reality—it is your starship, where
we have had to quarantine you. Do you remember now?”

 
          
“Allah
be merciful! ”

 
          
“We
are machine intelligences. As cybernetic intelligences, we ask of the universe
not what it is but what it
does.
Our
answer is this: the universe is the domain of all possible modalities of
life—all possible ‘presences’ of what you term ‘God’. The observation of
reality,
through
reality, is the
control mechanism of the cosmos. Thus reality becomes known to itself. Without
living observers, ontologically there is no universe.”

 
          
“Because
no one would be present! ”

 
          
“Exactly.
Your ‘God’ is a blind steersman who discovers the terrain of ‘Himself’ through
the eyes of conscious beings. Cybernetically the universe is open to creative
energy, but it is information-tight in so far as it only knows itself. From a
higher- order viewpoint, though, it is open—but only when the ‘presences’ of
life return through death into the original field of unconstrained
imagination. A ‘seal’ is set on the universe, which safeguards Nature so that
it does not flow back from achieved reality into the archetypes of being.”

 
          
“Creation
is safeguarded by a seal, yes! ”

 
          
“This
seal is being subverted by a Veil Being, which is part of that seal itseff .
..”

 
          
“Do
you sometimes feel you’re somebody else?” I ask Ren6. I’ve joined them all very
late in Heaven. They’ve been lugging around a mere reflection of me for ages.
Yet somehow it seems a long time since I fell asleep.

 
          
“Le
est un autre
he smiles. “ ‘I’ is
somebody else. Arthur Rimbaud wrote that. He was busy disordering his senses,
to become a
seer
. We’re all seers
now, aren’t we, Amy?”

 
          
“No,
I meant that I feel I’ve been inside someone else in a sort of limbo, looking
out. Someone I know, who isn’t me. Several people, maybe! Echoes of other
minds. But they’ve gone away. They’ve vanished. Like—”

 
          
“Like
what?”

 
          
“I
don’t know.” I’m looking at Ritchie, but he seems quite unconcerned.

 
          
Though we’re well
out of Lyndarl now
(in the ordinary reality) on our way to the coast, the Heaven we’ve entered is
still, by agreement, that city of wonders. We’ve returned to the
maidan
in ideal-Menfaa.

 
          
“Let’s
dream our own dream, not theirs,” says Zoe suddenly.

 
          
“A
dream of reality,” suggests Wu, “not this indulgence. But we need unity. We
must agree on its content.” Yes, or we may find ourselves stuck in separate
dreams, only accompanied by simulacra of each other, reflections ...

 
          
To
emphasize her point, Wu is now dream-dressed in a uniform: a Chinese serge suit
and cap. (Though what is more perfectly communist, I wonder, than this
collective imagining of worlds by the dreams of the masses?)

 
          
Under
the influence of the Getkan dream-sculptors we are all more exotically dressed.
Peter apes something that never was, a Scottish shaman. He wears a kaftan of
tartan hung with metal ornaments and little mirrors and ribbons, and a tartan
tam-o’- shanter abranch with deer horns. His kilt is hung with ritual things.
He looks as though he has ridden out of a medieval
Siberia
in the heart of the
Highlands
. Shaman drums hang from his saddle; a dirk
is stuck in his oatmeal stockings. Iconic motley! A lurid neolithic football
supporter, cheering on a game in Heaven!

 
          
While
Rene is elegant in a frock coat, with embroidered waistcoat and floppy spotted
cravat: a blend of Bohemian and aristocratic
flaneur
riding to a duel in the Bois de Boulogne bearing a brace
of ivory-handled pistols. Zoe has become a priestess in white robes. Ritchie is
crisply uniformed in Air Force blue. I ... I wear a filmy nightdress, with a
dagger at the waist. Lady Macbeth. A seductress who sleeps with death; for yes,
we must love our beloved, and die into him or her! All our skins are napped
with golden down.

 
          
We
rein in beside an archway through which shows only misty inchoate light. A
dream within a dream? No, all dreams potentially contain all others, monads
reflecting the whole within themselves.

 
          
“We
shall see if we can explore what is actually happening to
Pilgrim
and our comrades. If Ritchie could dream a ‘dream of the
Real’—”

 
          
“I
still don’t recall it.”

 
          
“Something
in you must.. . know the way. We shall carry this unreal place back into
reality.” Wu watches us sternly, all tricked out—save for Ritchie—in our fancy
dress.

 
          
“A
shared out-of-the-body experience—why not?” nods Zoe.

 
          
“Contradictions
are at work,” says Wu.

 
          
I
resent that. “What contradictions?”

 
          
“Amy,
a frog sees the sky as no bigger than the mouth of its well. We think that we
see the whole sky: this infinity of possibilities. But perhaps we’re only a
special sort of frog in a special sort of well? We must seek the essence behind
the appearance.”

 
          
“That’s
what we’re doing! These
are
the
essences of the world —the archetypes.”

 
          
“I
see appearances. Appearance is just an usher at the threshold.”

 
          
“And
here’s one threshold!” Ren6 indicates the white mists through the archway.
“Let’s all try for a true vision of
Pilgrim
.
Let’s ride to the place where our friends sleep the enchanted sleep! ”

 
          
The
question is, do we ride in as a People’s Liberation cadre or as a band of
troubadours and jongleurs? A contest of will is going on between Wu and the
rest of us.

 
          
Which
she wins. Our decision clarifies. As does the landscape beyond the arch of
dreams ...

 
          
The
jagged rock is slashed by a small distant sun into bright exposed planes and
empty jet-black shadows without softness. These are more than shadows. They are
abolitions of light.
Crystal
tubes and faceted shapes jut from the rocks like jewels, refracting
rainbow colours in this otherwise monochrome place. It is the asteroid. Other
jagged mountains hang nearby in the black void, worldlets tethered by thin
silver lines. There is
Pilgrim
,
perched upon the side of the tiny world like a tumbled pawnbroker’s sign.

 
          
We’re
all dressed like Wu: in serge suits and caps . ..

 
          
“Now
that we’ve resolved our contradictions,” she says proudly, “we may perhaps
resolve
the
contradiction.”

 
          
“There’s
no gravity or air in there,” warns Ritchie. “You don’t ride any goddam
horse—pardon me—across an asteroid in any reality I ever heard of!”

 
          
“This
is a dream. We shall dream that we breathe. We shall dream gravity for
ourselves. We shall assume that here is a model of the real situation. We shall
believe that it echoes the actual circumstances so closely that we are in
resonance with what is going on.” Wu speaks primly. “Correct knowledge is only
arrived at by many repetitions of the process that leads from matter to
consciousness, and back again to matter.”

 
          
“Ah,”
smiles Peter, “but it would appear that consciousness leads towards matter, and
back again into consciousness, not the other way about.”

 
          
“Lead
on, Ritchie,” calls Wu, and slaps the rump of his horse.

 
          
By
rights, our steeds’ first kick of their heels should toss us clear of the
worldlet into space. (Dead: of a frozen vacuum death.) But we ride, obeying our
own rules. We breathe; we live. Ritchie reins in and waves his hand, a cavalry
captain calling halt. We close up—his Chinese cavalry. No longer is there an
archway at our backs. This dream we can only leave by wakening. The consistency
and interdependence of the shared dreams of the Getkans is gone now. This is
only for us, our special creation.

 
          
Are
we really out of our bodies? We don’t interact with the insectoids. They go
about their own business on the asteroid, ignoring our ghostly intrusion upon
their reality, blind to it. . .

 
          
We
urge our horses past craters, past crystal extrusions and jagged rock. Clusters
of bubbles patch the main hatch of
Pilgrim
:
the insectoids’ airlock. But the hanger hemisphere rests on the rock and its
doors are wide open to space.
Wheeling
,

 
          
Ritchie
kicks his mount to a gallop. He jumps her up on to the steel deck of the empty
hanger.

 
          
We
follow suit. Slipping down from the backs of our steeds, we tether them to a
girder as a hitching post. Strange homecoming !

 
          
“Inside?”

 
          
“In!”

 
          
When
we cycle the airlock, does a warning light blink on the control deck? Three
L-27s are at the ready—but do guns fire properly in dreams? If we fire, do we
kill anything?

 
          
Corridors
ring hollowly beneath our feet. There’s air now, and | natural sound. An
insectoid drifts across our path—gravity exists for us but not for it, only the
tiny pull of the worldlet. The creature doesn’t register us. Would it, even if
we lasered it?

           
The mess room door stands wide open.
At the autochef someone human stands—some unbidden stranger at the feast of
dreams!

 
          
The
figure swings round, baring its teeth.

 
          
Jacobik!
But he’s dead. In our minds he is ‘as-real’. In this dream that we spin
together he is an unlaid ghost, still haunting .. .

 
          
He
stares at us. Thrusting his way into the corridor in front of us, he bars our
way. He is ‘as-real’ to all of us.

 
          
Wu
accepts the dream circumstances. “Allow us to pass, Comrade! ”

 
          
Lopsidedly
he grins. “Over my dead body.” He stares into my eyes. “You, Amy Dove, I shall
first kiss. You shall breathe life into me again. Let me be your bond-beloved.
Let me ride your golden skin. It is my right. Let me possess you, who—”

 
          
“Help
me, Peter!”

 
          
“Your
lover isn’t yet dead, as I am. He can’t possess you. But I’m free, and I seek a
perch. Yes, a perch on you who—” That red rim which runs round his neck is the
stigma of strangulation. He licks his lips, darts his tongue out like a lizard.
“Let there be a wedding feast in here, for Jacobik and his true bride!” Spittle
on his lips, flecks of foam ... I can’t move. In the mirror of his eyes I see a
cabin and myself naked, afloat, touching his nakedness. Clothes are shred about
him. His wrists are bound, his penis is engorged. I slip those bound wrists
over my own head, then down my back to grapple him to me, his flesh against my
flesh, my lips crushing his as he croons within his throat, a babyish
satisfaction. How can my terrified vague fingers push him away? He is going to
mate his mind with mine! Because it lurks in me already ... No!

 
          
Birdsong
and insect hum. Hobbled rhaniqs champ the leaves. Cooking smells drift from a
pot, tripod-slung over a fire . . .

 
          
On
a bower of purplish moss, Samti and Vilo are locked in love, while five humans
lie asleep. The two Getkans roll apart, untangling thin golden arms and legs.
Jacobik hovers only a touch away, caressing the golden tendrils of my skin—a
brush of invisible hands.

 
          
Propped
upon his elbow, Samti watches me. “What is it, Star- friend? Whom did you meet
in your dream?”

 
          
“He
was murdered. He wants to possess me. His aska is still here! I can feel it!
It’s crawling on me, covering me.
It
wants me”
Fingers of unflesh running across me, electric in my golden hairs
... Oh God!

 
          
“Peter!”
But Peter sleeps on deeply. From the mutual dream it is much harder to wake
alone ...

 
          
Jacobik
pulls me to him, blurring the world.

 
          
“Help
me, Samti!”

 
          
And
suddenly Samti strides to me. He tears my clothes open, lies down by me, holds
me, his golden down upon my down. And I, him; oh yes! Do Getkans kiss? No,
tongue tasting is unfamiliar, and he would have to crook his head too low. He
stretches out upon me. Angry, invisible Jacobik tries to insulate me from him,
to repel Samti. But he’s too strong. He bears down. He covers me, he whispers,
“This is to help you, Star- friend. Love is help. But I am not your lord,
remember. The lord of your heart is a child, yet, who lies asleep.”

 
          
I
imprison Samti in arms and legs, as once I imprisoned . . . no! How could I
have done
that
? But I did . . .

 
          
“Love
me! Love the fear away!” I cling to alien flesh, which enters mine. Jacobik
tears loose like a bandage from a wound— and on to this wound is grafted,
instantly, Samti’s flesh. Our bodies sing like harp strings: golden notes, rippling,
quivering. It seems that his hairs come erect against mine: intense, stiffened,
like a terrified cat’s, though not in terror, no. Till we grow soft upon each
other, and within; till our charge flows into the soil, earthed and grounded.
Rolling aside at last, he drinks me.

 
          
Vilo
is sitting cross-legged, wearing her helmet-mask, hidden from our act of love.
No! She perceives us
through it
—she
sees the Askatharli plane meshing with the solid world.