Nest of Worlds (24 page)

Has Ra Mahleiné found the answer? Does my reading stop the epidemic of deaths? I leave my surroundings, reading, I don’t think of other things. Perhaps the correlation of death disappears then, and life returns to normal.

He smiled at himself. Medved hadn’t called in a while. Perhaps there was no reason for him to call. Perhaps Ra Mahleiné’s illness too had stopped.

And Zef, what conclusions had he reached?

Gavein removed the first index card from the pages of the book. It was covered with close, tiny writing, in a precise, slanted hand, and included formulas of some kind.

I’m establishing a hierarchy of the worlds: the more nested the book, the higher the degree of nesting. Obvious, but one has to start somewhere. As the degree of nesting increases, the number of Lands increases; the time spent in a given Land decreases; the number of Significant Names increases, as well as the number of versions of
Nest of Worlds
. The structure of the versions resembles the branches of a tree: the next degree of nesting is a new branch. Two versions of
Nest of
Worlds
, it’s exactly like two trees.

With the degree of nesting, the physics of the nested world changes. The Lands in the world of Gary and the Bolyas are surrounded by a desert in which there are separate threads of common time—in each path taken, the retardation of time is different. In Jaspers’s world, and in worlds more deeply nested, the divergences are so marked that no common time can be determined between any two Lands.

That’s a qualitative analysis. Now let’s look at the numbers.

I calibrate: Let the world of Gary, Daphne, and the Bolyas be 1, the world of Jaspers 2, the world of Ozza and Hobeth 3, the world of Linda and Jack 4.

Comparing the number of the world with the number of its Lands: world 1 has nine, world 2 sixteen, world 3 twenty-five, and world 4 thirty-six. Do you see, Dave, what a simple formula connects them? [Zef often addressed Gavein in his notes.] The number of Lands = (n + 2)
2
, where n is the number of the world. Pretty and elegant.

Gavein looked at the formula with a frown. He didn’t care for symbolic notation. He had difficulty following that kind of thinking, though he understood it.

I tried comparing the times of stay in each of the nested worlds. It’s as follows: 15 5/9 years, 8 3/4 years, 5 6/10 years for worlds 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In days, that comes to 5,677, 3,194, 2,044. I see no pattern. Not yet, that is!

The number of nested worlds must be finite. Otherwise, even if each version contained only one letter,
Nest of Worlds
would have an infinite length—and I can hold this book in my hand, after all. I can lift the back cover and look at the last page, though I don’t understand what I read there. A simple proof, no, Dave?

“It isn’t that easy. You’re in error there, I think, my friend . . . The book expands, like an accordion.” He remembered what Wilcox had said, how Wilcox had spent whole days on one page. And the stricken look in the man’s eyes. Gavein suspected that it was impossible to read the entire contents of
Nest of Worlds
. There was a “microscope effect” in operation: the more carefully you read and the more the reading absorbed you, the more detailed the description grew. New facts emerged, things that hadn’t been there before. Whenever you came upon a nested world that interested you particularly, this happened.

If Zef came to the conclusion he came to, he must have been a fairly superficial reader of the worlds. Gavein had no problem with there being an infinite number of nested worlds in the book. No reader would visit more than a handful of them, in any case.

Another, more intuitive explanation: a reader in a nested world could learn more than Gavein about a world that was near that reader. Ozza could read in great length about Linda and Jack, while Gavein’s view of them was at best fragmentary.

Turning the pages of the book, he found another scrap of paper with Zef’s notes. It had been crumpled, then smoothed out, and was covered with writing. Zef was going to throw it out, Gavein thought, but changed his mind . . .

The writing was smeared, maybe because (Gavein thought with a smile) Zef was left-handed. Gavein used to tease him about that, but not in Ra Mahleiné’s presence, because she was left-handed too, though her writing was never smeared.

The number of nested worlds must be finite for another reason [Zef wrote]. In each Land there is more or less the same number of people, since they are born at pretty much the same rate. In a world 173,204, for example, there would be thirty billion Lands, so you would have five or ten Lands to every person. Since a man and woman would meet once in only fifty to two hundred Lands, it is clear that the population of such a world would die out.

In addition, giving birth takes about an hour, so there could not exist a world of so high a degree of nestedness that an inhabitant would have less than that time in a Land.

These birth arguments were better.

Every evening Lepko sat at the head of Jaspers’s bed, waiting for Crooks to fall asleep. He didn’t want to provoke Crooks with bits of straw falling from the mattress. Jaspers, unable to read while Lepko sat, began to ask him about principles of accounting, which in Darah were the same as in Taayh.

Soon Jaspers was promoted again and no longer had to stay by the conveyor belt. For hours he walked down production halls with a noter in his hands and recorded, added, transmitted. It was tedious, exacting work. Every hour he had to collect numbers that described current production and inventory, and these he input into the planning machine. In response he got a printout of production for the next hour. He corrected for the latest indicators received, adjusted the work schedule accordingly, and distributed the new orders.

Then he had fifteen to twenty minutes of free time to read the newspaper. He was barely able to run an eye over the data for food, clothes, shoes produced; the predictions for the goods that would be divided among the older and younger workers. And the cycle began again.

He looked in on the divisions where the women worked. More and more he hung around the station of one of them. In her gray uniform and the gray kerchief over her pinned hair, she contained surprising subtleties. It might have been the way she cocked her head as she worked; it might have been because, unlike most of the other women along the belt, she was slender, graceful. In any case, Jaspers’s route went by her station. The girl had a long white neck of delicate, fresh complexion. She was young but seemed serious for her age. He learned her name, of course. Heather pleased him more and more.

He read the book until late at night, or else he set the alarm for four thirty and read at the crack of dawn. The world it presented was so different from the reality of the factory; he was transported. The adventures of the two old women who spent their life traveling without restraints were like a remarkable dream.

Twice he overslept. The guards were tolerant of his tardiness, because he could calculate the factory’s daily production and set the statistical coefficients accurately. Few others could do that.

The rigors of physical labor proved too much for Lepko; he died of a heart attack. Jaspers missed him.

Crooks became quieter, careful. In the barracks he stopped tormenting others. He continued to beat them in the factory, and the victims would return covered with bruises. But Jaspers had deprived him of an evening activity as invigorating to Crooks as going for a walk was to others. For this, Crooks’s hatred of Jaspers was greater than ever.

After two weeks the results of Jaspers’s tests arrived. Early one morning Lasaille took him from the hall, from his reading. In the corridor he clapped him on the back and shook his hand, taking off his leather glove first.

“Congratulations,” he said warmly.

Jaspers swelled with pride, though Lasaille’s hand was too soft.

They went to the commandant himself. Hullic was tiny behind a massive desk of unfinished plywood. At the production roll calls he seemed solid, old; in reality he was short and rather young. In greeting he shook both their hands and gestured to armchairs.

Jaspers thought he would float: here he was talking with the commandant.

“So this is the discovery of the year,” began Hullic playfully, looking Jaspers over with approval. “You did brilliantly, Mr. Jaspers. My congratulations.” That he used “Mr.” meant yet another promotion. “I’m delighted with our new colleague. We’re short of guards . . . You understand, much is demanded. Few can handle it. You’ll be advanced too for this, Lasaille. Issue him a uniform. Give him the training course. Introduce him around, have him meet the crew.” Hullic made a motion that meant that Lasaille knew what to do, and also that the topic was exhausted and he, Hullic, had things to do, so Jaspers and Lasaille should beat it.

Jaspers was taken to one of the rooms for guards; it accommodated four. Besides him there were Lasaille; the thin, muttering Dub; and Tyang, a garrulous old man who had given Jaspers’s back more than one blow of the stick.

The uniform was fitted. First Jaspers was covered with some kind of silicon grease, then the modeler put foam on him that hardened on exposure to air. The modeler shaped it, giving it big muscles and broad shoulders. He took elastic cushions and sewed them to the uniform to create the impression of normal proportions.

When Jaspers put on this uniform, he looked like a weightlifter, a copy of Crooks. They covered his face with a meshed, transparent mask to mold the features.

During duty the guards were not allowed even to unbutton their uniforms. Here was the reason they all seemed so strong, the reason their rigid, determined faces inspired respect. This alteration of form was indispensable for ensuring obedience among the workers. Lest a new guard be accidentally recognized by his former colleagues, he was stationed in a distant division of the factory.

Jaspers took the three-month training course. The class was run by a tall, gloomy guard named Koleh. There were three other people in it: two older, heavy women—Gabbie and Josa—and Porz, a slight and pale individual. The content of the lectures amazed Jaspers, as he had been amazed, at the beginning, by the method of selecting guards. They were shown how to drill and how to wear their uniform. A few hours a day of practice in front of the mirror: some movements were permitted, some not—for one’s safety. The cushions under the uniform had to look like muscles, not like dummy padding. A guard must in no way reveal that his body differed from that of a common worker, that he was not far superior physically to a common worker. Even in the event of a direct attack, a guard must not permit himself to be exposed. For this purpose a thin microphone was glued into the mask. Immediately a group of strongmen like Crooks would come to the rescue. So far no guard had been attacked, even though they were few in number and had been chosen for their mental, not physical, abilities.

When Jaspers had mastered the art of wearing his uniform and moving correctly, instruction began on how to oversee the workers. In this course the students became acquainted with the organization of the factory divisions where they would be stationed. They were told which workers would grow tired (or bored) and at which hours. Everything had been noted meticulously by the guard scientists. An enormous body of information had been gathered, but the high command rewarded an individual for making additional, well-documented observations—gave him one or sometimes even two days of leave, which could be spent in the reading room.

Then began the lessons in intimidation. The students were taught to speak in a way that inspired dread, to shout in a way that never failed to impose one’s will. Then came instruction in striking with the hand, with the stick. The blow—always a single blow, no more—had to create the impression that the one who struck possessed tremendous strength. The pain of it should be sharp, intense, but of short duration. The blow should cause no permanent harm; its purpose was to spur the worker to greater productivity, not incapacitate him.

Jaspers opened the book less frequently and with less interest. In comparison with the great responsibilities awaiting him, the fate of the two old women and their lame cat seemed unimportant. Their lifestyle he now considered a kind of social desertion. The world they lived in was falling apart, and increasingly people were shirking their duties. The cities, moreover, were not safe, since the wind spread poisonous clouds from the ruins of the chemical factories that could destroy all life in Zatr.

Jaspers believed that the disintegration of institutions and the closing of the factories had been caused by the lack of professional, conscientious people, the kind who kept society going. The path taken by that world was leading it to destruction. To postpone the inevitable end, he put aside the book. Because he no longer read it, Ozza and Hobeth did not die.

He stopped seeing Heather. One factor in this decision was the consideration that, by choosing her, he would no longer be able to avail himself of the list of unattached women workers of the factory. Against that great number of possibilities, her charms waned. Using Lasaille’s strategy, for example, he could have a woman who would be leaving Taayh soon. Since a union was annulled immediately by a departure, he could look for another to replace her.

The night before the first time he was to serve as a guard in a production hall, he had difficulty sleeping. For half the night he tossed and turned, until Dub—who was known for uttering no more than 250 words in the course of a week, including bids during bridge games—said something.

Jaspers reported for duty an hour early. The shift went without surprises. At first he was disconcerted by the squeak of his own boots and of the strap of the uniform, but he grew to like the sound. He didn’t need to raise his voice once. Koleh, on duty with Jaspers for the initiation, said that it went very well, that Jaspers was perhaps even too formal and correct. It was meant as a compliment, not criticism.

“Now, Jaspers, you are a different breed of man,” said Tyang, sitting at the table and sipping herbal tea for his ulcers. “You’ll move to Lauhl but remain a guard. Once a guard, always a guard. The workers mustn’t know that, otherwise everything would fall apart. Those who precede must build for those who follow . . .”

“How do you know this, Tyang?” asked Lasaille. He lay on his bunk, hands clasped behind his head. “We could get to Lauhl and find everything in ruins there, because people might think that if they’re moving on, there’s no reason to leave anything of value behind . . .”

“There is no ‘we’ and ‘they’ here,” Tyang returned. “Each person changes Land as an individual and finds the world as it is, and therefore nothing unravels. You serve your eight years and nine months and move on.”

“A generation of destroyers would be a catastrophe,” said Jaspers. “After them, no one would be able to rebuild. A man who wanted to build would know that where he was going he would find only destruction, that if he built, he would leave behind work that had only just begun, with no certainty that those who followed him would continue it . . . Once destroyed, the social mechanism cannot be re-created.”

“And yet someone created it,” said Dub.

They fell silent, struck not only by the truth of this statement but also by the fact that Dub had spoken.

“I always fear what I will find in the next place,” said Lasaille, breaking the silence.

“Always with the same fear?” asked Tyang.

“Yes.”

“I think that any overturning of a world’s system is impossible. The destroyer would have to be a superior individual, and all such individuals are pulled out to serve as guards. You have a recent example right here . . . but all of us are examples. No man will bring down a system in which he advances. It would make no sense.”

“I don’t like moving. I never know how much time I will lose in the journey,” muttered Lasaille.

“Sometimes it seems to me that the whole social contract hangs by a thread, and that it is only thanks to us that everything hasn’t gone to hell.”

“The
Nest of Worlds
books depict Lands that are coming apart,” said Jaspers. “The more you read, the more things crumble . . . People leave their homes, wander like nomads . . . They don’t build, don’t renew. They have lost faith in what they do.”

“The stunted descendants of giants?” Tyang said, with a whistling
s
. He had had a tooth pulled recently, and a false one hadn’t been put in yet.

Lasaille shook his head. “No. There were never giants. It’s simply that each book begins with the situation given it. The created world changes according to its own laws. And it moves toward decay.”

“Always?” asked Jaspers.

Lasaille shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve seen yourself how slowly the reading goes. Perhaps, ultimately, a kind of equilibrium is achieved, imposed by the conditions given, and the future stabilizes.”

“I think,” said Tyang, summing up, “that the
Nest of Worlds
books are telling us not to throw away what we have.”