Watson, Ian - Novel 10 (22 page)

 
          
“The
crystal fog is Hell?”

 
          
“A living Hell.
In the sense that anything is ‘living* here,
it is alive.
Which is another way of saying that it is deadly
purposeful — as are we all.
As you noticed, unspace is made up of
infinitely many parts, which all arise out of each other and coexist. The fog
is a native inhabitant of unspace. It evolved here. But it is the ultimate in
separation.
Once a part of it has
successfully encysted itself around you, it
has
you,
boy. You never reach the sharing possibilities of unspace. And oh, is
there a pile-up of the fog around your world! Was it breeding fast, till we
took a hand! Really, it was seriously unbalancing the whole ecology of
unspace.
Which is why we bred our aviary of little Deaths
from out of our own selves, as a rescue operation.
Certainly we are
altruistic and generous — since unspace is a place of sharing — but we must
confess to a certain self-interest too. The pile-up was getting oppressive. It
spread too far.”

 
          
“Generous?”
echoed Weinberger. “One of your little Deaths cured me. I was sick, and it
burnt me clean. I guess that’s generosity, all right.*’

 
          
Lai
undraped its arm from Weinberger and stood up, on the second attempt, rocking
about a bit. The angel flapped its wings to steady itself, then it half-walked,
half-flew to the door. Putting two claw digits to its mouth, it whistled
shrilly.

 
          
Red
Death streaked through the doorway. Braking in mid-air, it alighted hawklike on
Lal’s thin wrist.

 
          
Lai
whistled several more times, and other little Deaths sped through the door.
They circled the hall, and hung themselves on carved headpieces and empty
picture frames.

 
          
“If
you want my opinion,” said Lai, “Death was just trying to get away from you.
You being alive, and all.
But you entangled it imaginatively,
in your own death-knot. Poor simple thing, it had to unravel that knot before
it could escape. And it did. What did you want to do with the little Death:
exhibit it in a zoo? What a wild scheme: to cage Death, when it is itself the
pass-key!”

 
          
Jim
had been watching the newly-arrived Deaths nervously. “Lai, you said that
unspace is a place —“

 
          
“It
is all places that you can possibly imagine yourself entering.”

           
“You said that it’s a
sharing
place — but it’s full of fierce
competition, too. How can it be both?”

 
          
“Competitive
sharing; isn’t that the very definition of a living ecology? The same holds
true of the ecology of death. But I think I see your point. You worry about
cruelty and oppression — about the misuse of one being by another. Let me
assure you,
that
doesn’t
happen here. We compete in the
desirability
of our world creations: their attractiveness, their inventiveness. The finer
they are, the more they will be common to all. The more everyone will wish to
share them and enjoy them, and be fulfilled by them, and maybe even suffer in
them. But the crystal fog knows nothing of this. It’s like a virus, which only
wants to repeat itself. The fog would crystallize unspace into separate cells
which have no connection with each other. It would freeze the imagination into
endlessly repeating patterns — of self-worlds.”

 
          
Lai
hoisted Death aloft.

 
          
“This
one will guide you home. The others will escort you. Hurry now! I suspect that
your time is up.”

 
          
“You
said that time didn’t matter!”

 
          
“What
do you want, a guided tour of infinity? You must gain that by your own efforts.
As to time, why, time flexes in and out. Sometimes a moment is a million
years,
sometimes an afternoon is a moment. Now I have
business, dear drinking buddies, and the cup is empty. I wish you well. Go
gently, as the poet says. And since no one will believe you back home, don’t
bother trying to tell them, eh? Just, go gently. Then you’ll soon be back, by
the front door.”

 
          
Tossing
Death into the air, Lai skipped off on tiptoes, fluttering its wings.
Becoming airborne, the being glided ineptly through the doorway,
banging one wing against the jamb.
Jim thought he heard it swear before
it disappeared.

 
          
“So
long, angel,” Weinberger called after it. “Nice meeting you.”

 
          
Death
buzzed them. It darted ahead, it returned coaxingly. The other Deaths took wing
and dived to catch at the men’s clothes and hair, pulling them.

 
          
“And
here’s the bum’s rush, out of infinity. Okay, okay, we’re going.”

 
          
The
two men began walking, then trotting, then running, nagged by Deaths which were
pestering them like starlings mobbing a couple of owls. The faster they ran,
the further away the other end of the hall seemed to become, the vaster the
floor space, the higher the domed ceiling. Either the room was swelling to
enormous proportions, or else they were shrinking. The two men were so tiny now
that they had lost all weight and were flying along above the floor.

 
          
What
floor? What walls? Space extended around them indefinitely: space of a pearly
hue. Far ahead bulged a wall of white fog . . . The Deaths had ceased their
harrying tactics by now and were flying wing in a V-formation like migrating
ducks, with the little Death-guide at the forward point. The void was smoothly
empty. Soon the wall of fog ahead began to resolve itself into innumerable
jostling coloured specks . . .

 
          
Jim
sat up, with a groan. He felt as though he had been dragged through a briar
patch by the hair.

 
          
Weinberger
also opened his eyes. Immediately he pointed a finger at the roof.

 
          
“It’s
keeping watch.”

 
          
“I
don’t see anything . .
.Oh
. Wait.” Something red
flickered vaguely up there, almost beyond vision. Jim shook his head. He
couldn’t see it any longer.

 
          
“It’s
there.”

 
          
“Maybe.”

 
          
“If
you let it be there, it’s there.”

 
          
“Our guardian angel?”

 
          
“No,
Lai was the angel. That thing’s just a self-propelled feather from Lai’s wings.
Knotted up into a creature.
I think there are two of
them up there.”

 
          
Whatever
Lai had said about time flexing in and out, by now it was late afternoon. The
batteries of the cassette player had run down. The rain had quit lashing the
lake. Earth and sky had unmixed. Once again, clouds definitely belonged in the
sky; and as the clouds drifted by, they broke apart so that ragged patches of
sunlight ran across the dull waters outside like searchlight beams hunting for
the shack.
But with no interest in finding it, only in
picking out arbitrary stencil shapes.

 
          
Jim
stared up at the place where the little Deaths either lurked, or did not lurk.
Really, he couldn’t be sure — and staring hardly helped him see them. Obviously
the corner of Weinberger’s eye was more acute than Jim’s.

 
          
“Do
you know something, Nathan? I believe we’ve run out of reasons for escaping.”

 
          
“Because
we’ve been where we wanted to go?”

 
          
Jim
nodded. “And what could we tell our ‘friends’ over the border now? ‘Hey, if you
get squashed by a train or electrocuted, you’ll go to Hell! Play it safe, and
you’ll reach the free spaces. Play it dangerous, and that’s that, baby.’ That’s
no philosophy for a world.”

 
          
“You
have a point, old drinking buddy. Where would people get the spunk to create
anything half-way imaginative after they were dead? Lai forgot to mention
that.”

 
          
“Right.
He was just worried in case we all killed ourselves
quickly and quietly.
Which is precisely what
we
ought to arrange for ourselves!
”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“I
don’t mean right now. I don’t mean we should shoot ourselves. I guess the
adrenalin begins pumping when you’re faced by a gun. Fight-or-flight sets in,
and the death pheromone hasn't got a look in. No, we should get back to
Egremont — back to the House. We'll apply for immediate euthanasia, you and I.
Don't you see the logic of it, knowing what we do? I'll take this straight to
Menotti. He can't refuse an Application Absolute, backed by both client and
guide. And I certify you well and truly guided, Nathan.” Jim grinned crookedly.
“Me too.
At least fifty miles well guided . . . which
is a bit of a nuisance.”

 
          
“What
about Resnick?”

 
          
“Ah
yes, your public appearance . . . Sally Costello must have told Menotti about
that scheme, even if Resnick didn't. I think I can put it to Menotti that
Resnick is simply serving his own ego — and what's more, that it would actually
do horrible harm to the House and all the other Houses to set you up on your
hind legs on a platform. Some of the things you'd say would really blow the
roof off everything! What things? Well, we aren't telling. Leave 'em puzzled.
Leave Resnick bewildered. Serve him right.”

 
          
“He
might put the cage together again, just to find out?”

 
          
“Alice
Huron would never let him. Besides, you control the world supply of the
pheromone.”

 
          
Weinberger
lifted the dispenser flask, still dangling from the fishing line.

 
          
“Not
any more. Nobody does. It's all gone.” He licked his lips. “Like they say, I'll
take the secret with me to the grave.''

 
          
“You
agree, then?”

 
          
“I
guess so. I could hardly suspect you of some cunning scheme to guide me all the
way through the countryside back to my own deathbed.”

 
          
“Oh, Nathan.”

 
          
“Just joking, old buddy.
I realize that you're heading for
your deathbed too. Shall we make a start? It'll take us two or three days.”

 
          
“It
won't, if they're still flying around looking for us. Waving a red flag from a
treetop mightn't do much good, but I bet you that a nice smokey fire will
attract some attention! It's a bit closed in here for that — we ought to be on
higher ground. They won't bother parachuting the troops in if we’re jumping up
and down beside a bonfire, waving to them. They’ll send a helicopter. We’ll
ride back in style. Let’s eat, then we can decide about starting back.”

 
          
“I
need sugar. I want something sweet.”

 
          
Jim
dug into his valise and produced a large can of peach slices with a bright,
sunny label.

 
          
Weinberger
swilled the last of the syrup out of the can, and set it down neatly.

 
          
“There’s
one thing we never found out. Aren’t Lai and his crew aiming to do anything
tough
about the crystal fog? Can’t they
smash it up or something? We should have asked. But we got the bum’s rush.”

 
          
Jim
considered.

 
          
“It
sounded to me more as though they were just keeping it in check — ecologically.
Maybe the crystal cells crack up after a few million subjective years?
So people do get out again.
Maybe the whole thing reaches a
population climax and dies down? I have a sneaking suspicion that the fog’s no
worse for Lai and company than a patch of weeds in the back of the flower
border is for us. They hold their garden parties on the lawn. True, the weeds can
spread like wildfire ...”

 
          
“Lai
was a
nicer
fellow than that.”

 
          
“But
if the crystals are natives of that region, how do they come to be there in the
first place? Ecologically speaking? Prey and predator relationship, oh sure —
but maybe the fog preys
particularly
on sick souls, unhealthy souls, ones that aren’t mature enough? Like an
antibody or phagocyte. Perhaps it keeps unspace clean by catching those souls
and binding on to them and purging them in purgatories? Lately, it’s gotten out
of hand — and it’s
all our
fault.”

 
          
“How?”

 
          
Jim
sucked his fingers then wiped them dry on his trousers. “Once, if you were
half-way wise you could get through the fog. Or simply because the fog was
thinner, you could. But all of a sudden we overpopulated the world,
then
we killed a billion people in a flash. They all got in
each other’s way. The fog soaked them up, dividing and redividing like nuclear
fission. Now it’s so dense that it traps everyone whom the little Deaths can’t
reach in time.