Zen City (11 page)

When the Second Orbital Anomaly was first discovered—some of you were still children then—the bankruptcy of the hard sciences had already become apparent to our leading minds. Physical studies had dead-ended in their own originating principles. The speed of light confined exploration and expansion to our immediate intragalactic neighborhood. Heisenberg’s relationship, the impossibility of determining
subatomic events independently of an infecting observer, limited our manipulation of microcosmic phenomena. One saw increasingly detailed studies of decreasingly significant subjects, filling in the blanks of work done decades before. We could reach the outer planets, but could do little. We produced food we could not distribute. We perfected engines, and ran out of fuel. And meanwhile, world population was at the bursting point.

Then came the new Mercury Anomaly. The path of a planet in space-time, we found to our dismay, could be an appendage of a creature whose body extended across galaxies, with holes many parsecs in diameter and gaps millennia in duration. The transcategoricals, as is now common knowledge, could combine a phrase of music, a particular human jawbone, a black hole, all the entities of a certain mass or shape in the universe, and so on, in a single intelligent being, with whom communication began to be possible.

The Newtonian concept of point mass was unseated. Cartesian analyses of space and time, however extravagant and non-Euclidean, became passé. Impenetrability of matter, conservation and symmetry laws of all stripes were superseded. The experimental method itself—repeatability, parsimony, falsifiability, the null hypothesis—instant atavisms.

We were like primitives whose coconut currency became suddenly worthless alongside the explorers’ dubloons. There were suicides in those days. Is there a person here now who has not been touched by one? People discovered they were part of a transcat and lost the will to go on.

Who understood this first? The scientists? No. It was the mystics, and in particular the Buddhist mystics, whose codified insights had prefigured and inspired cosmologists and quantum physicists even before the Anomaly. It was natural then that the language and culture of our Western civilization should have become permeated with Buddhist language and ideology—the ideology of non-dual logic, of non-substantiality, of unlimited spacio-temporal extent in which humanity was one small, basically vacuous element. The fertilization of science by Buddhism, catalyzed by the contact with transcats, led to the
technologies of Cityfication: hypostasis and hypodynamics.

It is now generally conceded that the initial attempts to apply transcat science to the population question were deficient in fundamental ways. Interpenetrating space-time has been at best a partial solution. No one would submit to suburban life today unless he or she had already been placed there. Mutual occupation of space-time, somatic overlapping and the like, are ineffective without ego-loss.

Only look at the suburbs. The same frictions eventuate, the same centripetal forces of psychology that have always created tensions, crime, war, and mass suffering. No one doubts this today. We have gone past that. Mere stacking, however dense, will never serve. With the risk of sounding trite, I say again, that ‘to enter the City, you have to get rid of the idea of self-gain.’

FROM THE FLOOR: What about love? This is relevant. When you love somebody, their gain is yours, but you haven’t lost your own self. And what about Doubt Mass? Without Doubt Mass, won’t a City stagnate?

Kindly refrain from interrupting, madam, or I shall be compelled to ask the bailiff to escort you to the door. We are conducting this meeting in conventional 3-space to make it accessible to the general public; however, we shall compact, or dyne and stat, to finish our business, if we see privileges being abused. As to love, however, Doubt Mass, and the rest, they are well and good for the unenlightened, but the true Cityzen sees them to be vacuous. There is no room for such egoistic phenomena in our City.

* * *

“I think I was at that meeting.” Big Man squinted to remember. “That was a long time ago, though.” He shook his head. “I hate torching my brains over gone shit.”

Tenacity, who had been watching Big Man’s reaction with great interest, looked disappointed. “Yeah, just like you’re supposed to,” he mumbled.

“What’s up, Tenacity?” No Mind asked him.

“It so happens the ideer of love wasn’t completely left out, back at the beginning of the City. They shooed it out later on—love, passion, Doubt Mass, all that juice. I got a sort of brother who’s the turnstile at Control—he knows City business, butt and smacker. They statted all them berzerker scats into one skinbag and hooted him into the hicks.”

No Mind was troubled. His mind became opaque. His Voice pounded on smoked, doubled glass; he didn’t hear. “So he’s out here somewhere, this hypostat? In the world?”

“Yeah, in the world, in the Saha World,” drawled Tenacity.

“Whoever that is must be desperate to get in, to be whole again,” No Mind said. “Whoever that is must have Doubt Mass like a mountain.”

Big Man said, “Is it you, No Mind?”

“No”—suddenly weary, defeated—“it isn’t me.”

The whaddayagets were clambering out of their hole. The smoked, doubled glass shattered. No Mind’s eyes cleared, and he did what he was asked to. He slapped Big Man on the back, winked, and pointed to the oblique opening. “I smell something funky coming out of there. I think you should be the one to help Pirate out, Big Man.”

I saw rock dust spitting out of the oblique, and I knew it was Pirate grinding through. Angela wouldn’t leave a trace. I walked to the opening and stuck my head in. I could see the top of his head worming toward me like a baby—or a shit.

No Mind whispered, “I’d have a hard time keeping the precepts right now, if I were you.”

“You’re not him, killer, and you already broke a couple.” Tenacity jetted into No Mind’s ankles, tripping him. “Relax, Big Man. Bend, don’t break, okay?”

Pirate didn’t see me until his forehead touched my nose. He craned his head up, and I smiled in his face. “What’s that smell on you, Pirate? Is that Angela?”

“Let me out, Big Man. It’s not like that.”

“You missed our game. Afraid of being tagged?”

Tenacity whined, “I’m tagging him, Big Butt—he’s nine parts true, and the tenth has nothing to do with Jello.”

“I’m sorry to say, I don’t see it that way.” No Mind flinched as if he were expecting Tenacity to charge him, but the little bugger stayed put.

“Here. Let me help you out, bro.” I grabbed under Pirate’s armpits and yanked. He yelled bloody murder. The spar was shredding his skin like a fruit peeler. As soon as most of his arms were out, he shoved me back and scrambled to his feet. He wasn’t hurt bad. He was scratched up. Some whaddayas came by to heal him, but he shooed them away.

“Hey! Hey!” We heard Angela’s voice echoing back up the oblique. “You dopes, you’re fighting, ain’tchas?”

Pirate and I stung each other’s eyes dead on, like lizards set to spring. His ugly mouth twitched with the rest of him, just aching to swipe me.

“Come on, Pirate, take your best shot.” Arms at my sides,
palms forward, I walked into his face. “You took my woman. Take me.”

No Mind and the whaddayagets were jabbering at me from behind—just jazz to me; I was juiced for Pirate. He was a butcher’s chart, as far as I was concerned. I just stood there, choosing my cuts.

He breathed out a long one, looked down and then looked up again, soulfully. “Big Man…”

I laid my fingers on his chest and pushed.

He came at me, winding up for his pathetic roundhouse right, and I was ready for it. I had his breadbasket all picked out for my knee to land in. But he never came through with the right. His shoulder pulled forward—a sucker’s lead—and jerked to a stop.

Angela was holding his fist. “You dumb assholes, knock it off. You’re not s’posta be doin’ that now. Darn shoo, Big Man, I thought you wanted to be a Cityzen. Where’d all your samadhi go, Big Man? Don’t you know Pirate’s one of them sentient beings you’re s’posta be savin’, just like you’re one of his?” She slid her other leg out of the oblique passage.

“That’s right,” I said. “Don’t let me mess up your pretty boy. Lecture me, Angela. You been to the City and back, haven’t you? You know it all.” Pirate bit his tongue.

“Stop it. Lookit, the stream’s come up into the junction. We gotta move on. No Mind, did Pirate tell you I said you could come?”

“No.”

Angela shot Pirate an angry look. Pirate tried to say something, then gave up; he just rolled his eyes and turned away. She said, “Well, No Mind, you can. Just stay close, ’cause I got no more glow stuff for you. There are some places up ahead where you could fall way down and spill your brains in the dark.

“Through the keyhole now. Straight ahead. We don’t take no turnoffs till we hit a big shaft. It’s a long drop, then there’s a slow incline up to the karst. Let’s go. It was good to see you, Tenacity.
I love all you hodags—you know that. We just gotta go.”

Tenacity stood on the point of his tail. He let the tail fold under him like a column of z’s, then spring out again. He bounced onto my shoulder. If he hadn’t retrofired with exhaust, I would have collapsed under the impact—I was that surprised.

“I’m coming along. I like this asshole,” he said.

Angela’s eyes melted. For a second I thought she would say, “Me, too.” Then a shadow passed over them. Her face hardened. “Suit yourself,” is what she said. For me, what a relief.

‘Scope and the old orangutan were already squabbling over who was going to be the big boss in Tenacity’s absence. I prodded Tenacity off my shoulder, then ducked into the keyhole—“Let me scout ahead”—hoping Pirate would get the point.

And he did. He charged in right after. “Wait up, Big Man. I’ll help.”

“Hey!” Angela started after us.

“Hey!” Tenacity joined her. “You dumb one-notes. You gonna kill each other now? Jeez, I’d like to meet the asshole who created Man. I’d give him a piece of my mind—the
Veltschmerz
probably. Wait up.”

I sprinted down the passage. Pirate followed me close. I heard him stumble and fall a few times, but I knew he’d keep after me. He was already banged up bad, but I knew him for a bulldog. I’d relied on that in more than a couple tight places.

When I reached the shaft, I wasn’t tired at all. Angela could have spared No Mind the lecture—the unguent was no good here anyway. A shimmer of reflected light coming up from the shaft immediately blacked out the unguent.

I got down on my belly and peeked into the abyss. It looked to be maybe eighty, a hundred feet down. It ran fairly wide at first, with good cracks to jam a fist in for climbing down. For the bottom half, it looked too smooth for good purchase but narrow enough, barely, to ratchet down, spread-eagled against the circumference. You’d need to face the bottom—not a comfortable
prospect. Angela must have some trick for this chimney, but I wasn’t going to wait for her. It looked to me like a damned good spot to flush out the bastard Pirate.

So I started on down. The smoothness of the flowstone in that passage was fine for echoes. I could hear Angela’s voice—“Hey! Hey! Hey, Pirate! Hey, Big Man! Knock it off, you galoots. (
Galoots! Galoots! Galoots!
) Wait for me! (
Me! Me! Me! Me!
)” I chinned down and pushed my fist hard into a bucket-shaped pit just below the lip of the hole. I lowered myself in. From there I was able to slide a little and stem over to a long crack. I could hand-over-hand it for thirty feet before the crack pinched out. Then it was a new ball game.

I wanted to have my tête-à-tête with Pirate down below, in the whale’s throat. There was poetry to it. We’d both be pressing hands and feet against the circumference for dear life. I figured I could hold on a lot longer, and then his meat would be mine. Or else he’d just lose hold and die all on his own. And I could watch.

The rock was dead vertical and cold. I climbed down as quickly as I could, without forgetting what a body looks like after smashing down a hundred feet, caroming off walls and slamming to bed on dumb rock. I made sure I always had three holds, hands and feet, with only one limb at a time in space.

I was well down the crack when Pirate peeked in. I leaned out from my hold and looked up. I saw him, black and white in the dark above me swimming with sky flowers and paisleys.

“This is stupid, Big Man. You’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You think you could?”

“Shit.”

Hugging the rock, he lowered himself down. He tickled his feet along the waves of rock face, looking for a hold. He moved just like a fat man easing into hot bath water. He found the seam, stacked his fingers in, wedged his foot below, and torqued on down.

I was down to a pinky lock near the bottom of the crack. It was time to vault off and slap all fours against the circumference of the hole, spread-eagle in the whale’s throat like a stuck fishbone, when I had an evil inspiration—I sprang out facing up instead of down. “Hey, Pirate!” There was a split-second of limbo, the dead point, midair, as I heaved out. Then I was in there, tensioned between the walls, looking up at Pirate as if I were relaxing on a hammock. “Take me, man. I’m yours.”

Pirate stopped to look down, and I thought he would vomit. He nearly lost his hold. “Shit.” He labored down the seam, fist over clumsy fist. When he was a few feet above me, he paused, sucked his chest into the rock, and, one by one, shook the blood back into his arms. He scanned the shaft for a good hold, and realized there wasn’t any. Then he understood why I had wedged that way, that it wasn’t only to taunt him. He took a deep breath, groaned it out, and Geronimoed across the hole.

It looked like he would take us both down. He was out of control. It was completely up to the forces of Nature—gravity vs. the inertia of his wild, first spring. In that crazy second, I had to remind myself that to flinch was to fall; I had to keep pressing out. Then his hands and one foot slapped the rock, slipped a tad, and frictioned to a stop.