Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal

  I want to create a clone of myself, he said.

  To what purpose?

  Interventional, Rho said.

  Describe the nature of the intervention.

  He took a breath, thinking how to phrase this. The clone will appear to visit multiple destinations, and then depart those destinations again. When visiting those places it will perform diagnostic wizardries on the stars. After performing each such diagnostic it will, after some delay, depart for the next destination.

  The Aethyr seemed to pause to digest this. Is it your intention to invest the clone with enacture energy?

  Yes.

  Is it your intention to invest the clone with free will?

  Yes. With the stricture that it ought not depart from the specified planned path.

  Will you desire to reclaim the experience associated with this clone at a later date?

  If possible, yes.

  There was a pause. …Confirmed: this will be possible.

  Good.

  Please confirm intention, the Aethyr said. Your purpose is to direct this clone along a selected pathway in order to lay a false trail for a superdimensional entity?

  No names were mentioned. None needed to be. Yes.

  He waited, almost in a kind of hope, for his Aethyr to tell him This is impossible.

  But no such assertion came. After a moment, Define the list of target stars, the Aethyr said.

  Rho swallowed again. I don’t have a list. But I want to create one by defining a set of conditions. Is that possible?

  Yes.

  He began laying out the specifications. Unstable stars with inhabited planets. Instability of these types— Rho chose the types of stellar morbidity that he knew to be most common, and specified that the search include those with the worlds of highest population—places where even the interstellar organizations like the Interconnect Project, who specialized in dealing with this kind of disaster, would be seriously challenged by the prospect of handling them.

  Define the desired volume of space, said the Aethyr.

  In his mind Rho indicated a sphere of space centered on Thahit and approximately five hundred parsecs wide.

  Noted. Other parameters? the Aethyr said.

  Rho drew a deep breath. This list needs to involve only stars that will not reach crisis levels in their morbidities for the next two hundred sunrounds.

  There was a pause. Fulfillment of this parameter requires limited timeslide access in the information-only mode, the Aethyr said at last. Such access will require higher-level authorization. Authorization, if granted, implies significant energy outlay.

  I understand that, Rho said, and held his breath.

  Silence ensued, one deeper than even that which already hung about him. Rho realized he couldn’t even hear his heart beating in that silence. He waited.

  Waited…

  Approved, the Aethyr said. Further parameters?

  Numbly he tilted his head in negation.

  Compiling the requested list, the Aethyr said.

  Rho sat quiet and drank his fesh and waited. After a little while the Aethyr said, List completed.

  Thank you, Rho said. Display the set, please?

  He was instantly surrounded by a tagged display of approximately three hundred stars.

  Please indicate the order and approximate durations of visitation to each star, the Aethyr said.

  Rho spent some minutes over this, doing his best to construct for the Lost Aethyr’s benefit what would be a pathetic picture indeed. It would seem to see a Rho who would journey from star to star to troubled star, carefully investigating each one and then moving on… a sorrowfully peripatetic figure, always on the move, never at rest. Sometimes it would try to double back closer to Thahit, seemingly lonesome for sight of its homestar: but always it would be decoyed further out again by some twitch or threat in another star on the list.

  If the Lost Aethyr troubled to look forward in time, It would see that none of these stars were truly in danger of going into crisis in the other-Rho’s lifetime… and this ugly irony would please It well. Eventually It would most likely get bored with watching “him”, lose interest—thinking It had won—and turn Its mind to other prey more immediately amusing.

  Rho sat back wearily and examined his handiwork, and could find no flaw but one. There’s always the danger, Rho thought, that the Lost One might look in on Wellakh some day to see how my parents are taking my loss.

  But there’s nothing to be done about that. In the short term, I have to save my world and my people from the Lost One’s attentions now. And this is the best result I can produce…

  Meanwhile the moments were slipping past, and his time in this protected space was getting short. It was time to start things going.

  Complete? said the Aethyr.

  Yes.

  Final data on the prospective clone, said the Aethyr. Is it to be sequential from your present timespace locus, or another one?

  This one.

  Final disposition?

  Such a cold word, such a painful word. But it had to be thought of, for the spell would not have infinite energy to power it, and could therefore only last so long. When it is within one percent of expending its final energies, Rho said, it is to proceed to the next sun on the list, walk into its chromosphere… and die gloriously.

  There was a pause. …Define ‘gloriously,’ his Aethyr said.

  Rho opened his mouth, closed it again. All right, he said. It just dies. Painlessly.

  …Instruction accepted, the Aethyr said. Construction of wizardry complete. Implementation of clone routine must begin immediately to occur within secured area.

  All right, Rho said. Go.

  Trigger word in preparation. Please examine the price of wizardry and approve or decline it. And the Aethyr displayed a figure in his mind. It was an approximation of a certain amount of life energy, concentrated along a given temporal stretch.

  Rho looked at it, and sucked in a breath. It’s… that’s at least three sunrounds of a life.

  My life.

  There was no way to regard such a number dispassionately. He felt cold, cold all over. Yet at the same time, the cold wasn’t entirely fear. Rho could remember some of those nights when he lay staring into the darkness above his couch and thought, I would do anything to be a wizard, I would give anything—

  Now the Aethyrs had called in that statement of intent.

  Rho stared at the figure for a little longer and said, I don’t suppose there’s any chance that this is a test, and that if I agree to pay the price I will be forgiven it—

  The answer was utter silence.

  No, Rho said. Of course not. Forget I said that.

  He took a deep breath. Approve, Rho said, and braced himself.

  Nothing happened. But then it wouldn’t, he realized. I’m going to be paying that off a little at a time for a long while. The rest of my life. Forever…

  There was nothing to do now but manifest the clone and put it where it needed to be to start his journey.

  The two beings I was speaking to earlier, Rho said. Delay their gating.

  On what pretext?

  I don’t know… how about ‘operational reasons!’ He smiled grimly.

  Length of delay?

  How long will it take to construct the clone, manifest it, and send it to their gate?

  Approximately thirty breaths.

  Delay the gate patency for a hundred breaths, then. Rho had no desire to leave “himself” talking to the Lost Aethyr’s one or two inadvertent puppets for any longer than another thirty breaths or so: “he” would be in enough discomfort at what he was about to do.

  Shield activities about to occur in this area from outside observation, please, he said to the Aethyr. Display only the present view.

  Understood. Shield period starting. Fifty breaths maximum. Though the shield had no visual component, Rho could feel it slide into being.

  Spell trigger word preparation complete, the Aethyr said. Please spea
k the word.

  The trigger word—actually an acronym of a number of separate spell activator sequences for the cloning routine—displayed itself in the Speech in the darkness before him. It seemed about as long as he was tall.

  Rho took a breath and spoke it. And spoke it, and spoke it… and could not stop speaking it, for it seemed as much to be speaking him. When he was finished—or it was finished—he had no energy left for the moment except to slump forward on the kiosk’s counter and lean there gasping for air.

  And it still came as a shock to him when a hand came to rest on his shoulder. Rho gasped again, straightened, turned to look.

  …It was beyond strange to see himself without needing a mirror. The other was absolutely as like him as wizardry could make it: the very image of him, to the last long golden hair.

  It stood there. He looked at…

  He couldn’t say it. It was him.

  The other him looked back, wearing the oddest expression—awe, amusement, a touch of sorrow. At the sight of him, all Rho wanted to do was apologize.

  “You know why I had to do this,” he said.

  The other him tilted its head “yes”. “And I understand it.”

  Rho gulped, trying to get control of that lump in his throat. “I will think of you every day.”

  “I know,” said the other Rho. “The same for me. But know this: I understand what I will be saving. You and I, we are victors over the Lost One together.”

  Rho hoped that was true. “You know that this situation… can’t last forever,” he said.

  “I was there when you built the spell,” his otherself said. “I do recall.” Its voice was dry, but amused. “But you’re running out of time. To have this work, we have to act now.”

  Rho echoed the other’s tilt of agreement. He spoke the five words of a simple invisibility spell he’d prepared in the Aethyr earlier, and got off his seat.

  The other him sat down in it.

  “Ready?” Rho said.

  “Ready.”

  He swallowed hard against a throat that felt suddenly tight. “Dai stiho, brother,” he said.

  His other self tilted its head in agreement. “Dai,” he said. “And give them my love.”

  Rho turned away and spoke to the Aethyr. “Kill the shield,” he said.

  It flickered out of existence as invisibly as it had come.

  The other him looked up at the Rirhait behind the counter. It cocked a couple of eyes at him. “Another, Emissary?”

  “Thought it would knot my eyes up,” the other Rho said.

  “So it might,” said the Rirhait. “Could be interesting to watch.” It chuckled at him. “But it’s your call. Maybe you could use some of that tailored water instead.”

  “No,” Rho said, “unfortunately I must depart.” He got up. “Is our accounting sorted?”

  “Gone on the master account as usual, young wizard,” the Rirhait said. “Wherever you’re going, go well.”

  “From your mouth to Their ears,” said the other him. It was Rho’s father’s line. He lifted a hand to pinch his Aethyr into being, and turned just enough to catch Rho’s eye.

  And he vanished.

  Rho breathed out and turned away; he too had other places to be. Very quietly he walked away and headed carefully down the concourse, looking at nothing in particular. He had to be cautious about how he went, being invisible. And I can’t be seen leaving, either. I will need to do a private gating using wizardry alone. There must be someplace here set aside for practitioners of the Art to use without endangering others…

  He consulted his Aethyr about this as he went, edging himself out of the way and over to the far side of the main concourse, where he would be out of danger of easy collisions with passersby who couldn’t see him. As he did this he gradually became aware of something like an echo, half lost in the murmuring din of the Crossings’ endless traffic. In the echo Rho found that he could discern the sound of someone speaking: yet another voice that sounded like his, but in a different way. I wanted to thank you…

  You’re going? Right now?

  Yes, I’ve decided it’s for the best. I wanted to let you know that you have made a tremendous difference in my life… and in the way I will be living it from now on.

  Spoken in the Speech, all of it the truth. Well, please be careful! And I hope you get home to see your people sometimes…

  That will be as the Aethyrs will it. But meantime I’ve accepted the Challenge, and you have helped me on my way to doing so. So whatever your reasons may have been, may you go very well…

  Oh, our gate’s ready… finally!

  Yes. Take care, Rho!

  And you as well.

  A few more farewells from some set of gate hexes right across the Crossings… and then silence.

  Rho stopped still where he was for a few moments and waited until he felt something he had no way to describe but would recognize instantly if it ever happened again—the sense of himself having been in a place twice, and then, suddenly, there just once.

  With that the weariness that his urgency and the fesh had helped stave off began to settle down over him again. He pinched the Aethyr into existence, cautioning it to remain invisible.

  About that private transport area…

  You can walk to it from here, said the Aethyr, and tagged it in his mind.

  It wasn’t far: less even than the distance from his rooms in Sunplace to the Great Room. Continuing to keep well off to the side to avoid being collided with by the visible, Rho headed that way.

  And what am I going to tell them! he thought. It seemed like endless change had befallen him in the space of just a few hours. How do I explain what I did, why I did it, how…

  And then he sighed, because there, listen, still more voices. How am I supposed to think? The world had been so full of voices today. Where are those coming from? A floor up? Are there facilities on some of the elective-ceiling installations?

  Rho looked up.

  And stopped, stopped right where he was, without caring whether anyone might run into him from behind, or indeed run him right over.

  He had completely lost track of the time. Rirhath B’s great sun had set, and the elective ceiling had been decommissioned for the night so that the view could come through. And above him…

  All unprepared for it, Rho stood still and looked up into the view called by some the Ninth Wonder of the Worlds. Above him spread a huge vista of night sky, and embedded in it were hundreds of very-short-period variable stars: a scatter of breathing jewels in every color possible for a star, all pulsing and alive—shrinking, swelling, shrinking again, all swathed in glowing clouds of their casually breathed-out emissions.

  And Rho was equipped to appreciate them in a way that few visitors to the Crossings were, even wizards. He could hear their hundreds of voices—a great chorus of them, every one different. Rho’s throat went tight again at the sound. Their many differences were most welcome, for he’d had enough of sameness for a bit.

  Silently he greeted them, hardly able to find words. In a little while (for even thought takes some brief while to cross such distances) they greeted Rho in return, one after another, leisurely, casual.

  The sight and sound, after a day that already contained so much, left Rho simply dumbstruck. In a little while, though, he heard something even wizards would find heart-filling: the stars’ amused laughter. Rho was given to understand that under the circumstances there was no need for him to come up with quick responses. They were not going anywhere (except in the placid gradual sense of galactic rotation). When he needed their voices, or a subject for research, or even just a sense of adventure and wonder, they would be here. In fact, they would be here whether he needed adventure or not.

  Thank you, was all Rho could say.

  No matter, the response came back again and again.

  There’s always time enough for everything.

  What needs this time does not fulfill, another one yet will.

  So go no
w, and go well!

  And that said, there was nothing further needed except for Rho to go home.

  ***

  He reappeared in the vestibule outside the Great Room in the earliest morning light, with everything around him perfectly still. There Rho deactivated the invisibility spell and stood breathing hard for a few moments as the energy-price for it deducted itself from him.

  Slowly Rho managed to master his breathing and looked around him in a peculiar sort of recognition that found the things around him strange even though they were familiar. This high-ceilinged space, the carving of its stones, the design of the floor, the light starting to come in from the outer terrace— I crawled on this floor when I was a baby. I bounced balls against those walls when I was small. How can just one day make all this look strange?

  But at least he was here now, and probably the effect would wear off. Granted, it was also funny to realize that what he’d seen as his great leap into freedom was in fact a great leap back to right where he had been, the place for which he had been intended, the job for which he was being trained. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Yet he remembered a saying of his mother’s about the Aethyrs: “Oh, they have a sense of humor. It is nothing like ours. But it’s certainly there...”

  A few days ago, even yesterday, he would have found the humor bitter. Now, thank the Aethyrs, everything was changed.

  And in the meantime, the light outside reminded Rho that there was one thing he needed to do before he finally dragged himself down to his rooms for that sleep he so desperately wanted.

  Quietly Rho went over to the doors that opened on the terrace, pushed open the one of them that he knew didn’t squeak, and slipped outside. He had missed dawn by perhaps an hour, and behind smoky streaks of cloud all banded with crimson and gold, Thahit stood perhaps a handsbreadth above the red-and-gold dappled horizon.

  Rho went to lean on the stone balustrade and gaze through the morning’s haze at his system’s star. For the first time in his life he looked across the Wellakhit morning and heard Thahit burn: heard the raw roar of the distant atomic furnace, seemingly filling all space from its core to Wellakh’s orbit with radiation as fluid as water, burning like fire.