A crystalline spray of green showered the unseeable region of the Caleban. It glittered for a moment like a fluorescent explosion of fireworks, dissolved.
An ecstatic moan came through the vortal tube.
McKie fought an intense outpouring sensation of distress, leaped forward. Instantly, the S’eye jumpdoor closed, dumping a severed Palenki arm and whip onto the floor of the room. The arm writhed and turned, slower . . . slower. It fell still.
“Fanny Mae?” McKie said.
“Yes?”
“Did that whip hit you?”
“Explain whip hit.”
“Encounter your substance!”
“Approximately.”
McKie moved close to the spoon bowl. He still sensed distress but knew it could be a side effect of angeret and the incident he had just witnessed.
“Describe the flogging sensation,” he said.
“You possess no proper referents.”
“Try me.”
“I inhaled substance of whip, exhaled my own substance.”
“You breathed it?”
“Approximately.”
“Well . . . describe your physical reactions.”
“No common physical referents.”
“Any reaction, dammit!”
“Whip incompatible with my glssrrk.”
“Your what?”
“No common referents.”
“What was that green spray when it hit you?”
“Explain greenspray.”
By referring to wavelengths and describing airborne water droplets, with a side excursion into wave and wind action, McKie thought he conveyed an approximate idea of green spray.
“You observe this phenomenon?” the Caleban asked.
“I saw it, yes.”
“Extraordinary!”
McKie hesitated, an odd thought filling his mind. Could we be as insubstantial to Calebans as they appear to us?
He asked.
“All creatures possess substance relative to their own quantum existence,” the Caleban said.
“But do you see our substance when you look at us?”
“Basic difficulty. Your species repeats this question. Possess no certain answer.”
“Try to explain. Start by telling me about the green spray.”
“Greenspray unknown phenomenon.”
“But what could it be?”
“Perhaps interplanar phenomenon, reaction to exhalation of my substance.”
“Is there a limit of how much of your substance you can exhale?”
“Quantum relationship defines limitations of your plane. Movement exists between planar origins. Movement changes referential relatives.”
No constant referents? McKie wondered. But there had to be! He explored this aspect with the Caleban, questions and answers obviously making less and less sense to both of them.
“But there must be some constant!” McKie exploded.
“Connectives possess aspect of this constant you seek,” the Caleban said.
“What are connectives?”
“No . . .”
“Referents!” McKie stormed. “Then why use the term?”
“Term approximates. Tangential occlusion another term expression something similar.”
“Tangential occlusion,” McKie muttered. Then, “tangential occlusion?”
“Fellow Caleban offers this term after discussion of problem with Laclac sentient possessing rare insight.”
“One of you talked this over with a Laclac, eh? Who was this Laclac?”
“Identity not conveyed, but occupation known and understandable.”
“Oh? What was his occupation?”
“Dentist.”
McKie exhaled a long, held breath, shook his head with bewilderment. “You understand—dentist?”
“All species requiring ingestion of energy sources must reduce such sources to convenient form.”
“You mean they bite?” McKie asked.
“Explain bite.”
“I thought you understood dentist!”
“Dentist—one who maintains system by which sentients shape energy for ingestion,” the Caleban said.
“Tangential occlusion,” McKie muttered. “Explain what you understand by occlusion.”
“Proper matching of related parts in shaping system.”
“We’re getting nowhere,” McKie growled.
“Every creature somewhere,” the Caleban said.
“But where? Where are you, for example?”
“Planar relationships unexplainable.”
“Let’s try something else,” McKie said. “I’ve heard you can read our writing.”
“Reducing what you term writing to compatible connectives suggests time-constant communication,” the Caleban said. “Not really certain, however, of time-constant or required connectives.”
“Well . . . let’s go at the verb to see,” McKie said. “Tell me what you understand by the action of seeing.”
“To see—receive sensory awareness of external energy,” the Caleban said.
McKie buried his face in his hands. He felt dispirited, his brain numbed by the Caleban’s radiant bombardment. What would be the sensory organs? He knew such a question would only send them off on another empty label chase.
He might as well be listening to all this with his eyes or with some other organ rude and unfitted to its task. Too much depended on what he did. McKie’s imagination sensed the stillness which would follow the death of this Caleban—an enormous solitude. A few infants left, perhaps—but doomed. All the good, the beautiful, the evil . . . everything sentient . . . all gone. Dumb creatures which had never gone through a jumpdoor would remain. And winds, colors, floral perfumes, birdsong—these would continue after the crystal shattering of sentiency.
But the dreams would be gone, lost in that season of death. There would be a special kind of silence: no more beautiful speech strewn with arrows of meaning.
Who could console the universe for such a loss?
Presently he dropped his hands, said, “Is there somewhere you could take this . . . your home where Mliss Abnethe couldn’t reach you?”
“Withdrawal possible.”
“Well, do it!”
“Cannot.”
“Why?”
“Agreement prohibits.”
“Break the damned agreement!”
“Dishonorable action brings ultimate discontinuity for all sentients on your . . . suggest wave as preferred term. Wave. Much closer than plane. Please substitute concept of wave wherever plane used in our discussion.”
This thing’s impossible, McKie thought.
He lifted his arms in a gesture of frustration and, in the movement, felt his body jerk as a long-distance call ignited his pineal gland. The message began to roll, and he knew his body had gone into the sniggertrance, mumbling and chuckling, trembling occasionally.
But this time he didn’t resent the call.
All definitions, no matter the language, should be considered probationary.
—The Caleban Question
by Dwel Hartavid
“Gitchel Siker here,” the caller said.
McKie imagined the Bureau’s Director of Discretion, a suave little Laclac sitting in that nicely tailored environment back at Central. Siker would be relaxed, fighting tendril withdrawn, his face split open, an elite chairdog ministering to his flesh, trained minions a button-push away.
“About time you called,” McKie said.
“About time I called?”
“Well, you certainly must’ve gotten Furuneo’s message quite a . . .”
“What message?”
McKie felt as though his mind had touched a grinding wheel shooting off ideas like sparks. No message from Furuneo?
“Furuneo,” McKie said, “left here long enough ago to . . .”
“I’m calling,” Siker interrupted, “because there’s been no sign of either of you for too damn long, and Furuneo’s enforcers are worried. One of them .
. . Where was Furuneo supposed to go and how?”
McKie felt an idea blossoming in his mind. “Where was Furuneo born?”
“Born? On Landy-B. Why?”
“I think we’ll find him there. The Caleban used its S’eye system to send him home. If he hasn’t called yet, better send for him. He was supposed to . . .”
“Landy-B only has three Taprisiots and one jumpdoor. It’s a retreat planet, full of recluses and . . .”
“That’d explain the delay. Meanwhile, here’s the situation. . . .”
McKie began detailing the problem.
“Do you believe this, this ultimate discontinuity thing?” Siker interrupted.
“We have to believe it. The evidence all says it’s true.”
“Well, maybe . . . but . . .”
“Can we afford a maybe, Siker?”
“We’d better call in the police.”
“I think she wants us to do just that.”
“Wants us. . . . Why?”
“Who’d have to sign a complaint?”
Silence.
“Are you getting the picture?” McKie pressed.
“It’s on your head, McKie.”
“It always is. But if we’re right, that doesn’t make any difference, does it?”
“I’m going to suggest,” Siker said, “that we contact the top level in the Central Police Bureau—for consultation only. Agreed?”
“Discuss that with Bildoon. Meanwhile, here’s what I want done. Assemble a Bureau ConSentient Council, draft another max-alert message. Keep the emphasis on Calebans, but bring in the Palenkis, and start looking into Abnethe’s . . .”
“We can’t do that, and you know it!”
“We have to do it.”
“When you took this assignment, you received a full explanation of why we . . .”
“Utmost discretion doesn’t mean hands off,” McKie said. “If that’s the way you’re thinking, then you’ve missed the importance of . . .”
“McKie, I can’t believe . . .”
“Sign off, Siker,” McKie said. “I’m going over your head to Bildoon.”
Silence.
“Break his contact!” McKie ordered.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Won’t it?”
“I’ll put the agents onto Abnethe at once. I see your point. If we assume that . . .”
“We assume,” McKie said.
“The orders will be issued in your name, of course,” Siker said.
“Keep your skirts clean any way you like,” McKie said. “Now, have our people start probing into the Beautybarbers of Steadyon. She’s been there, and recently. Also, I’ll be sending along a whip she . . .”
“A whip?”
“I just witnessed one of the flagellations. Abnethe cut the connection while her Palenki still had an arm through the S’eye door. Cut the arm right off. The Palenki will grow another arm, and she can hire more Palenkis, but the whip and arm could give us a lead. Palenkis don’t practice gene tagging, I know, but it’s the best we have at the moment.”
“I understand. What’d you see during the . . . incident?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Hadn’t you better come in and put your report directly onto a transcorder?”
“I’ll depend on you for that. Don’t think I should show at Central for a bit.”
“Mmm. See what you mean. She’ll try to tie you up with a countersuit.”
“Or I miss my guess. Now, here’s what I saw. When she opened the door, she practically filled it, but I could see what appeared to be a window in the background. If it was a window, it opened onto a cloudy sky. That means daylight.”
“Cloudy?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s been cloudy here all morning.”
“You don’t think she’s . . . no, she wouldn’t.”
“Probably not, but we’ll have Central scoured just to be sure. With her money, no telling who she might’ve bought.”
“Yeah . . . well, the Palenki. Its shell carried an odd design—triangles, diamonds in red and orange, and a rope or snake of yellow wound all the way around and through it.”
“Phylum identification,” Siker said.
“Yes, but what Palenki family?”
“Well, we’ll check it. What else?”
“There was a mob of sentients behind her during the actual flogging. I saw Preylings, couldn’t miss those wire tentacles. There were some Chithers, a few Soborips, some Wreaves . . .”
“Sounds like her usual patch of sycophants. Recognize any of them?”
“I’ll try for ID’s later, but I couldn’t attach any names to this mob. But there was one, a Pan Spechi, and he was stage-frozen or I miss my guess.”
“You sure?”
“All I know is what I saw, and I saw the scars on his forehead—ego-surgery, sure as I’m sniggering.”
“That’s against every Pan Spechi legal, moral, and ethical . . .”
“The scars were purple,” McKie said. “That checks, doesn’t it?”
“Right out in the open, no makeup or anything to cover the scars?”
“Nothing. If I’m right, it means he’s the only Pan Spechi with her. Another would kill him on sight.”
“Where could she be where there’d be only one Pan Spechi?”
“Beats me. Oh, and there were some humans, too—green uniforms.”
“Abnethe house guards.”
“That’s the way I made it.”
“Quite a mob to be hiding away.”
“If anyone can afford it, she can.
“One more thing,” McKie said. “I smelled yeast.”
“Yeast?”
“No doubt about it. There’s always a pressure differential through a jumpdoor. It was blowing our way. Yeast.”
“That’s quite a bag of observations.”
“Did you think I was getting careless?”
“No more than usual. Are you absolutely sure about that Pan Spechi?”
“I saw the eyes.”
“Sunken, the facets smoothing over?”
“That’s the way it looked to me.”
“If we can get a Pan Spechi to make an official observation of this fellow, that’d give us a lever. Harboring a criminal, you know.”
“Apparently, you haven’t much experience with Pan Spechi,” McKie said. “How’d you get to be Director of Discretion?”
“All right, McKie, let’s not . . .”
“You know damn well a Pan Spechi would blow up if he saw this fellow. Our observer would try to dive through the jumpdoor and . . .”
“So?”
“Abnethe would close it on him. She’d have half of our observer, and we’d have the other half.”
“But that’d be murder!”
“An unfortunate accident, no more.”
“That woman does swing a lot of weight, I admit, but . . .”
“And she’ll have our hides if she can make it stick that she’s a private citizen and we’re trying to sabotage her.”
“Messy,” Siker agreed. “I hope you made no official sounds in her direction.”
“Ah, but I did.”
“You what?”
“I put her on official notice.”
“McKie, you were told to handle this with dis—”
“Look, we want her to start official action. Check with Legal. She can try a countersuit against me personally, but if she moves against the Bureau, we can ask for a seratori hearing, a personal confrontation. Her legal staff will advise her of that. No, she’ll try to get at . . .”
“She may not go into court against the Bureau,” Siker said, “but she’s certain to set her dogs on us. And it couldn’t come at a worse time. Bildoon has just about used up his ego-time. He’ll be going into the crèche any time now. You know what that means.”
“The Bureau Director’s chair up for grabs,” McKie said. “I’ve been expecting it.”
“Yes, but things’ll be in a
real uproar around here.”
“You’re eligible for the seat, Siker.”
“So are you, McKie.”
“I pass.”
“That’ll be the day! What I’m worried about is Bildoon. He’ll blow when he hears about this ego-frozen Pan Spechi. That might be all it takes to . . .”
“He’ll handle it,” McKie said, putting more confidence into the statement than he felt.
“And you could be wrong. I hope you know I’m not passing.”
“We all know you want the job,” McKie said.
“I can imagine the gossip.”
“Is it worth it?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“One thing,” Siker said. “How’re you going to keep Abnethe off your back?”
“I’m going to become a schoolteacher,” McKie said.
“I don’t think I want that explained,” Siker said. He broke the contact.
McKie found himself still seated in the purple gloom of the Beachball. Sweat bathed his body. The place was an oven. He wondered if his fat was actually being reduced by the heat. Water loss, certainly. The instant he thought of water, he sensed the dryness in his throat.
“You still there?” he rasped.
Silence.
“Fanny Mae?”
“I remain in my home,” the Caleban said.
The sensation that he heard the words without hearing grated on McKie, fed on the angeret in his system, stirred a latent rage. Damn superior stupid Caleban! Got us into a real mess!
“Are you willing to cooperate with us in trying to stop these floggings?” McKie asked.
“As my contract permits.”
“All right. Then you insist to Abnethe that you want me as your teacher.”
“You perform functions of teacher?”
“Have you learned anything from me?” McKie asked. “All mingled connectives instruct.”
“Connectives,” McKie muttered. “I must be getting old.”
“Explain old,” the Caleban said.
“Never mind. We should’ve discussed your contract first thing. Maybe there’s a way to break it. Under what laws was it executed?”
“Explain laws.”
“What honorable system of enforcement?” McKie blared.