DUALITY: The World of Lies (25 page)

“You should know, young one, that The
Order has two branches, foreign and domestic. Your father is
of the former. His mission is diplomatic in nature, and he resides
about the star Ignis Rubeli, so when you look to it, you may think
of him. He is my dear friend, and he is a peacemaker. You can be
very proud. The nature of his work does not allow him to
return to this world, but he is updated of your progress, and
follows it with great interest. His absence must feel like a
coldness in your life, but please consider the circumstances he is
faced with, and know that he loves you deeply.”

Gahre digested this for some time, and held
back the tears. People live on the star Rubeli as well?! That
flaming ball of fire. Wasn’t it too hot? Oh Father, do take care
there! Finally, he opened his mouth to fulfill his end of the
agreement.

“A holy man in the forest told me.”

“A holy man in the forest told you of Arath’s
existence?”

“That’s correct. I met him four, well I
suppose now, five days ago. But I urge you leave him
be.”

Indulu sighed deeply. “Why would you do that,
Jokhon?” he muttered to himself.

“Excuse me, Honored One, you know that
man?”

“Yes. Yes, I do Gahre. I know him
well.”

Gahre looked to Indulu and saw his eyes filled
with compassion, “Did you…. did you know I was there in the rafters
tonight?”

“Yes, I sensed you there the moment I
entered.”

“And the others?”

“The others did not know a thing until you
came crashing down on them.”

“Then why… why not stop me? Why allow me to
hear about elder Dhrussius living on Oberion?”

“Last we met I learned better than to
interfere with your path, Gahre. Rather, I hope to facilitate it.
That is why I brought you here, away from the prying ears of the
lodge. Gahre, you must never repeat the things I’ve told you
tonight, or I will be disgraced and stripped of my
office.”

“I swear to you!”

“You will never make it to Arath. The Order
will pursue you.”

“I will evade them. I will travel by trail,
not road, and stick to the smaller villages.”

“The Sea of Sand cannot be
crossed.”

“I will earn coin and buy a camel.”

“Then it shall die too. And, Gahre, even if
you do somehow get across, there is a wall.”

“A wall? I shall climb it.”

“It is too high!”

“Then I shall tunnel beneath it!”

“The wall has eyes, Gahre, it will see
you.”

“The wall has eyes? That’s
impossible.”

“No it isn’t. Gahre, there is Forbidden
Knowledge, but then there is also knowledge that transcends
Forbidden Knowledge, so I would like to propose another course for
you, and it does not involve any farming.”

“I don’t follow you, Honored One.”

“There is an order beyond The Order. A Truth
above the truth. As you know, The Order is secular and accepts all
religions, but I am a Dharmaist, and I find myself in conflict with
my worldly duties.”

“How so, Honored One?”

“Gahre, when I was just older than you, I
became determined, like you are, to find the truth of things. I
want you to know that you are essentially right. Forbidden
Knowledge requires a vast amount of deception upon society.
Ultimately, we compel the people to believe many lies. But Gahre,
even were you to acquire all Forbidden Knowledge, one such as
yourself would come to realize that you still know nothing of that
truth, but are just wandering in yet another, even deeper layer of
deception.”

“I will remember and contemplate those words,
Honored One.”

Indulu rested his hands on the rickety wooden
bridge rail beneath the magnificent red glow of Oberion. “Let me
ask you, being of Tulan, if you’ve heard of the Mountain
Sage?”

“Yes, of course. I’ve heard the legend. It’s
existed for many hundreds of years. I even recall a man six or
seven years ago who came through the village to head off into the
Mountains of Immutability in search of him. He came stumbling back
out of those mountains sixteen days later, half dead from hunger
and exposure, babbling and ranting. I guess that’s what one gets
for believing legends.”

“I believe it to be more than a legend,
blessed one. My journey was 12 days and I too returned ragged and
half mad. Those mountains are treacherous, and what’s more, they
cloud the mind.”

“Honored One! I’d never heard your tale. You
entered those mountains on a matter of faith?”

“I burned for the Truth, Gahre, burned for it.
But I didn’t burn for it enough. In the end, neither Jokhon nor I
proved worthy.”

“Jokhon? Jokhon! The ascetic I met in the
wood? He was the same man I saw all that time ago. That’s
right!”

“Yes, Gahre, that’s correct. But my point is,
we both made it back to the village. We both turned back, both gave
up when it became apparent we would not survive otherwise. To find
the Mountain Sage, one must be truly willing to die in search of
him.”

M
ei was at
once awed by the singing angelic vision, but something about his
face, it was vacant and wide-eyed and appeared so helpless as he
floated there before them.

“Mei, let’s get the isopod into
position.”

“Aye, Captain.”

They hoisted the isolation pod up into the
interior of the sphere and stabilized it in place so it was readied
for their target to be guided into it. She gestured to the man and
then to the pod hoping for some acknowledgement, but he just
hovered there open mouthed and unresponsive. She gently synched her
ascent with Aru's and they each took an arm of the target. The
target did not resist but slowly cocked his head to either side to
look on them. His body was limp, but she could feel his arm was
surprisingly muscular. She smiled as reassuringly as she knew how,
and on Aru's mark, they thrust down in unison, turning to match the
angle of the pod opening in a piece of zero-g ballet. He neither
resisted nor aided their efforts as they stuffed him into the
casket shaped pod one limb at time and closed the cover.

“I want to get a recording of the
interior,” she commed to Aru. It would be their last chance to
see it.

“Go ahead,” he commed back.

She unhooked the video-recorder from her belt
and began thrusting up and down and back and forth to cover the
entirety of the interior. There were many odd device panels built
into the walls, some churning with florescent liquids, others were
clearly fans and environmental controls. There was some kind of
human sized chamber on the floor attached to an assortment of tubes
running into the wall systems. She traced the track of the
centrifuge along the equatorial region where there had been gravity
when the sphere rotated, and thus his plane of movement in
here.

“This all looks pretty weird Aru. How could
this place maintain his biological functions in such a small
enclosed system?”

“It must recycle everything and transmute it
down to the last molecule.”

“Ok, I've got enough. Let's get
down.”

“Roger that.”

They descended with the pod back down to the
spoke hall upper platform, and waited for the inverted drill array
to enter the sphere and pull the cutting back into the hole. Once
it was in they applied dampening putty along the hairline circle
and torched it to insure it was transmission-proofed.

She took a moment to check on the target. He
was mouthing something that could not be heard through the window
of the isolation pod.

“It looks like he's trying to say
something.”

“You mean singing?”

“No. This looks more like speech. Are we set
to break down the muting field?”

“Affirmative.”

They powered down the field and descended with
the pod down into the inner ring, hopped on the tram and straight
back to the zero-com chamber. She had cleared it of all weapons and
the bulk of gadgets. There was only a bed there and a small table
with chairs. The water and air systems would have to be manually
maintained by special protocol from the adjoining utility
room.

They set the isolation pod upright once both
zero-com room doors were sealed.

“Should we cuff him?” she
asked.

“Let's not. He doesn't appear to be an
immediate physical threat -but be ready just in case. If we do have
to take him down, let's do it without going overboard,
ok?”

“Sheesh, give me some credit. I'm sure the two
of us can manage to restrain him without resorting to lethal
measures. Ok, I'm opening it.”

The pod opened with the slight hiss of
releasing air pressure. The target was very poised as he took his
first step out, holding one arm across his body with his hand
upturned at his abdomen and the other bent at the elbow pointing
palm first at his shoulder, like an opera performer.

“Please put your arms by your side,” she
instructed him.

He looked slowly and curiously at one arm,
then the other. Then he looked at her arms, lowered both of his and
changed his posture in a manner that mimicked hers.

“Can you speak?” asked Aru.

“Uuu..I.........c-c-can spe...ak. I can.. I
can speak. I... have.. learned to.. to speak,” he said in a
choppy clumsy voice.

“When we contacted you earlier, you sang for
us. We thought perhaps you could not speak?”

It took some time for him to process the
question and even longer to answer. “I could not speak then, but I
have learned.”

“When did you learn to speak?”

“I learned to speak... in this pod as you
brought me here. I saw you. Then I saw you speaking. Though I could
not hear, I saw. I saw the Commander speak. Then I learned to speak
as well.”

Mei didn't know what to make of that, but it
was clear that he could now indeed speak, and seemed to be getting
radically better at it with every utterance.

“This is Captain Psyron, and I am Commander
Li.”

He stared blankly for a bit then said, “I am
pleased to make both your acquaintances.” He attempted to bow, but
immediately fell forward face first toward the floor. Aru and Mei
both reached in and caught him in time to prevent impact. They
lifted him upright. He looked again at Mei's posture and again
mimicked it. He did not thank them. He did nothing but stand still
and stare with his mouth open and that completely oblivious look on
his face.

“Yeah, keep still like that,” Mei told him and
ran an analog mediscanner over his body. The reading showed several
strange pulse points and inhumanly high levels of electrical
activity. “Are you human?”

“I am... cyborg.” He answered. No surprise
there, as he had already demonstrated impressive extrahuman machine
capabilities.

“What is your name?” she asked.

He cocked his head and put on a curious visage
which seemed to indicate he was thinking. He moved his head and
eyes around several times in a mechanical looping pattern. Then he
answered.

“My name is Logos.”

Mei and Aru exchanged quizzical
looks. How could 
that
 be true?

Aru challenged him directly. “I do not believe
you are Logos. You appear to be a younger man. Logos is over three
centuries old. Logos knows human language, whereas you have just
learned it. Logos is enthroned within The Stones. You were found
deep inside Ignis Rubeli in a golden sphere. We think you are a
creation of Logos, but certainly not Logos himself.”

He seemed to consider this for a while, then
made his reply. “You are correct Captain. I was in error. I am not
Logos.”

“So what's your name?” Mei tried
again.

“My name is... Ming Hongxing,” he
answered with a term in her tongue for the Red Star,
Ignis Rubeli.

“The Red Star is where we found you. That does
not make it your name.”

“What name would you find acceptable for
me?” he asked.

“We'll just stick with Ming for
now.”

Looking at Mei’s body, he spoke uncued to do
so for the first time. “You are female,” he observed. Then he
turned to Aru and examined him. “You are male. I am also
male.”

The fundamentally absent depths of what they
were dealing with started to dawn on Mei. This guy, he was a like
an newborn infant, but one with an enormous computerized autistic
brain. He literally knew nothing, not even the most rudimentary
facts of existence. He was just picking it all up as he went
along!

“Yes, you've correctly established all our
genders.” She smiled encouragingly. “Ming, how long were you in
that sphere?”

“I had always been in that sphere until you
extracted me from it.”

“And you knew nothing from outside of the
sphere? Male and female? Words? Stars?”

“I knew nothing but the sphere and the numbers
that came into the sphere. I did not know male and female. I did
not know words. I did not know stars. But now I know of all these
things!”