“Aidon.”
“Is Aidon the name of a man or the name of a place?”
“Both,” she said. “Neither.”
“I have studied with Zen masters and with Sufi sages,” he said, “but I can make no sense of what you are saying. What is Aidon?”
“Aidon is an intelligent being. Aidon is also a place. Aidon is not entirely a man. Aidon is not such a place as places are in this world.”
“Ah,” he said. “Aidon is an artificial intelligence, a construct.”
“Yes,” she said. “No.”
“I will stop asking questions,” he stated, “for now. Just tell me about Aidon.”
She nodded once, sharply.
“When we came to this system looking for Nelsor,” she began, “the ship’s instruments showed that something on this planet had gained control of a cosmic string, circumnavigating the universe, present since its creation. We dismissed this at the time, for it was actually one of the tiny holes of blackness—an object supercollapsed to an unworldly point, also present since the creation—that we were seeking. For this would lead us to Nelsor’s vessel, from which a damage-pulse had come to us. We use the black objects to power our way through other spaces. Do you understand?”
“That part, yes,” he said. “I don’t understand who or what Nelsor is, let alone Aidon.”
“They are the same,” she said, “now. Nelsor was her—the original Alice’s—lover, mate, consort, husband-relation. He piloted the vessel which had the trouble, and they came down in this general area of your planet. I believe that Aidon took control of the vessel—and of Nelsor as well—and caused the landing here, and that this is what triggered the damage-pulse.”
She glanced at him.
“Aidon,” she said, “is difficult to explain. Aidon began as one of those small, black, collapsed objects which make a hole in space. We use them as specialized devices. Bypassing space for distant travel is one of the ends for which they are employed. They are set up for most of their jobs—travel included—by swirling a field of particles about them at high velocity. These fields are impressed with considerable data for the jobs they are to perform. The field is refreshed at its outer perimeter, and the data is replicated and transferred outward in waves as the inner perimeter is absorbed. So there is a matching informed particle-feed to equal the interior information loss. The device draws on the radiation from the collapsed object for power and is programmed to be self-regulating in this regard.”
“I understand what you are saying,” Kalifriki replied, “and possibly even where this is going now. Such a thing becomes intelligent—sentient?”
“Generally. And normally their input is well controlled,” she answered.
“But not always?”
She smiled, momentarily. Kalifriki poured more tea.
“Of all categories of employment, there is less control over the input of those used in space travel,” she responded, “and I suppose that the very act of traversing the peculiar domains they must has Its odd results. The experts are not in agreement on this. One thing which definitely affects such a construct, however, is that for certain areas of space passage the pilot must maintain constant direct communication with it. This requires a special sort of person for pilot, one possessing the ability to reach it mentally—a telepathic individual with special training for working with constructed intelligences. Such a relationship will infect the construct to some extent with the operator’s personality.”
She paused for a drink of tea.
Then, “Sometimes such constructs become disordered, perhaps from staring too long into the heart of darkness between the stars. In a human we would call it madness. The vessels often simply vanish when this happens. Other times, if it occurs in known space there may be a signature pulse indicating the vehicle’s destruction. As with Aidon, they may digest their operators’ minds first—an overlay that could enhance the madness to a kind of schizophrenia.”
“So Aidon ate Nelsor,” said Kalifriki, raising his cup, “and brought the vessel to Earth.”
She nodded.
“Whatever had grown twisted within him twists whatever it acquires. It twisted Nelsor’s feelings for Alice. He destroyed the four Alices one by one, so that he might know them in their pain. For this is how he learned love, as a kind of pain, from the twistings of darkness that damaged him, to the pain of Nelsor’s passing. Not totally alien, perhaps, for there are people who love through pain, also.”
Kalifriki nodded.
“But how do you know that this is the case with Aidon?” he asked.
”Alice was also a pilot,” she said, “and as such, a sensitive. She had a strong bond of this sort with Nelsor. All of her clones shared her ability. When she brought the final three of us and came seeking him—for he seemed still alive, but somehow changed—this was the means by which we located the entrance to the blister universe he had created.”
“He has his own world?”
“Yes. He formed it and retreated to it quickly after coming to this place. And there he dwells, like a trapdoor spider. Alice entered and was destroyed by him. We all felt it happen. Then, one by one, the three of us who remained essayed the passage—each succeeding in penetrating a little farther into the place because of her predecessor’s experience. But each of the others was destroyed in the process. I was the last, so I knew the most of how his world operated. It is a kind of slow killing machine, a torture device. I was injured but was able to escape.”
She brushed at her scar.
“What could you have hoped to accomplish?” he asked. “Why did you keep going in when you saw what he was up to?”
“We hoped to reach a point where we could communicate with that part of him which is still Nelsor. Then, by linking minds, we had thought to be able to strengthen him to overcome Aidon. We hoped that we could save him.”
“I thought he was dead—physically, that is.”
“Yes, but in that place, with that power, he would have been god-like, if he could have been freed even briefly and gained control of Aidon again. He might have been able to reconstitute his body and come away in it.”
“But…” Kalifriki said.
“Yes. Aidon proved so much stronger than what remained of Nelsor that I saw it could never be. There is no choice now but to destroy Aidon.”
“Why not just let him be if he’s retreated to his own universe?”
“I can hear their cries—Nelsor’s, and those of the ravished souls of my sisters. There must be some release for what remains of them all. And there are others now. The entrance to his underworld lies hidden in a public house on a trade route. When a sufficiently sensitive individual enters there, Aidon becomes aware of it, and he takes that person to him. He has developed a taste for life stories along with his pain. He extracts them both, in a kind of slow feasting. But there is more. You are aware of the nature of such objects. You must realize that one day he will destroy this world. He leeches off it. Eventually, he will absorb it all. It will hover forever in a jumble of images on his event horizon, but it will be gone.”
“You would hire me to destroy a black hole?”
“I would hire you to destroy Aidon.”
Kalifriki rose and paced through several turns.
“There are many problems,” he said at last.
“Yes,” she replied, drinking her tea.
…P
assing through the mirror into my world, hand emerging from a lake, slim white arm upthrust as if holding the sword in that story the Frenchman had. And hesitation. Coy, her return, as if waiting for me to reach out, to hand her through. Perhaps I shall. There is amusement to be had in this. Come, siphon…
Fading, faded, gone. The arm. She wavered and went out, like a flame in a sudden draft. Gone from beneath the lake, behind the mirror. Along with the blind monk. To what realm transported? Gone from the inn, from my world, also.
But wait…
“Y
ou are asking me to pit my Thread, in some way, against a singularity,” he said.
“How is it that your string resembles a piece of red thread?” she asked.
“I require a visible appearance for it locally,” he said, “to have something to work with. I do not like your idea.”
“As I understand these things, your Thread goes all the way around the universe. It was this that we detected on our approach. There are fundamental physical reasons why it can never have an end. A singularity could not bite a piece out of it. The antigravity of its pressure would exactly cancel the gravity of the energy. So there would be no net change in the gravity of the black hole which tried to take it in. The hole would not grow in size, and the situation would remain static in that regard. But you would have Aidon hooked with the string passing through him. Could you then transfer him to another universe?”
Kalifriki shook his head.
“No matter what I might do with him that way, the hole would remain permanently attached to the Thread, and that is unacceptable. It might cause unusual loopings. No. I will not match two such fundamental objects directly against each other. If I am to be retained to destroy Aidon I will do it my way, Alice. Aidon, as I understand it, is not really the black hole itself, but a self sustaining, programmed accretion disc which has suffered irreparable damage to its information field. That could be the point of my attack.”
“I don’t see how you would proceed with it.”
“I see only one way, but it would mean that you would not be able to return to your home world.”
She laughed.
“I came here prepared to die in this enterprise,” she said. “But, since the black hole cannot be destroyed and you will not attempt shifting it to another universe, I need to know what your attack will involve—as further disruption of the information will involve Nelsor as well as Aidon.”
“Oh? You said you’d given up on Nelsor, that what was left of him was ruined and merged with Aidon, that the only course remaining was to destroy the entire construct.”
“Yes, but your talk of my not returning home implied that you wanted my ship or something from it. That could only be its singularity drive.”
“You’re right.”
“So you intend somehow to use one black hole against the other. And it could work. Such a sudden increase in mass without a compensating acceleration of the field could result in its absorbing the field faster than the field could replicate itself. You would make the hole eat Aidon and Nelsor both.”
“Correct.”
“I don’t see how you could get close enough to do it. But that is, as you say, your problem. I might be able to penetrate Aidon’s world to a point where I could communicate with Nelsor mentally and make a final effort to save him, to complete my mission. I want you to hold off on doing what you contemplate until I’ve tried.”
“That would narrow our safety margin considerably. Why this sudden change of heart?”
“It was because I saw the possibility when I began to understand your plan. Bringing another singularity into that place might perturb Aidon to the point where he may lose some control over what he holds of Nelsor. If there is any chance he might still be freed…I must try, though I be but an image of his lady. Also, my telepathic bond with him may be stronger than that of any of the other six.”
“Why is that?” Kalifriki asked. She reddened and looked away. She raised her cup and lowered it again without drinking.
“Nelsor took no sexual pleasure with the clones,” she said, “only with the original Alice. One time, however, I was in her quarters seeking some navigational notes we had discussed while she was occupied in another part of the vessel. He came seeking her and mistook me for his lady. He had been working hard and I felt sorry for him in his need for release. So I assumed her role and let him use me as he would her, giving him what pleasure I could. We enjoyed each other, and he whispered endearments and later he went away to work again. It was never discovered, and I’ve never spoken of it till now. But I have heard that such things can strengthen the bond.”
“So you care for him in a somewhat different way than the others,” Kalifriki said, “as he did for you, whatever the circumstances.”
“Yes,” she replied, “for I am her equal in all ways, not just genetically, having known him as the other six did not.”
“So you would undertake an even greater risk for him?”
“I would.”
“And if you fail?”
“I’d still want you to destroy him, for mercy’s sake.”
”And if you succeed, and the world is coming apart about us? It may be harder to escape under those circumstances. I don’t really know.”
She reached for her bag.“I brought all the gold bars I could carry comfortably. There are a great many more aboard my vessel. I’ll give them all to you—”“Where is your vessel?”“Beneath the Sea of Marmara. I could summon it, but it were better to go out in a boat and simply raise it for a time.”“Let me see how much gold you have in the sack.”She hefted it and passed it to him.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he said as he accepted it. He opened it then and examined its contents. “Good,” he said. “But we will need more than this.”
“I told you you can have it all. We can go and get it now.”“It would not be for me, but for the purchase of equipment,” he told her. “This bag and another like it should suffice for that, if I take the job.”“There will still be ample metal left for your fee,” she said. “Much more than this. You
will
take the job, won’t you?”“Yes, I will.”She was on her feet.
“I will get you the gold now. When can we leave for Ubar?”
“Ubar? That is where Aidon has opened his office?”
“Yes. It lies near an Arabian trade route.”
“I know the place. We cannot go there immediately, however. First, there are preparations to be made.”
“Who are you really?” she asked him. “You know too much. More than the culture of this world contains.”
“My story is not part of the bargain,” he said. “You may rest now. My servant will show you to a suite. Dine with me this evening. There are more details that I wish to know concerning Aidon’s world. Tomorrow I would inspect your vessel and obtain the additional gold we will need for a trip we must take.”
“Not to Ubar?”
“To India, where I would obtain a certain diamond of which I have heard, of a certain perfection and a certain shape.”