The Unreasoning Mask

  "You won't die," Ramstan said.

  "Our will to live may end before our bodies do. It has been a long time, a time unimaginably long to you."

  "And unendurable to me," Ramstan said. "Somehow, somewhere in me, I knew that it would happen this way."

  "Perhaps that is because you wanted it that way."

  Again, he thought of the possibility that he might have been drawn into the glyfa some time ago and now was playing out his own fantasy. It was not likely. But, by Allah, if it were true, he was at least governing his own life, even if it was a fantasy. The glyfa could never think of a scenario like this.

  "I'm not unhappy about it. Not for me. But the others . . ."

  "That spinning ball in the center," Shiyai said. "Your detectors bounce off it as if it were some solid matter and give readings indicating that it is. But it's not. It's an energy configuration."

  Ramstan was silent for a moment. Those around him were looking strangely at him. Was it because his lips were moving? He had explained to them that, when he subvocalized, he was talking to the Vwoordha or the glyfa. No. They were wondering what he would do to get them out of this trap.

  "Our instruments couldn't detect that. How do you know?"

  "Do you think that because our house isn't fitted with all those flashing lights and screens and knobs and dials that we don't have a science and technology far beyond yours?"

  "No, I don't think that. But since you do have all that, why would you need my . . . our help?"

  "Because we are very, very, very old. Though we've gained much, we've lost much. There are things you can do that we can't because you are young. I'm not talking about strength of mind or muscle. I'm talking about spirit. The spirit grows old with or without the body, Ramstan. Never mind that. What now?"

  "I'll try to disrupt the energy configuration of the central globe with the same means I would have tried if it had been matter."

  "That might do it. Still . . ."

  "I know," he said.

  He spoke to the people in al-Buraq then, knowing that the glyfa and the Vwoordha were listening in. He also knew that there was another, someone deep inside him, the dumb thing which spoke sometimes more loudly and forcefully than he.

  There was a long silence after he had finished.

  Finally, Tenno said, "It's a hell of a choice."

  "Most are."

  "Then, regardless of what we decide to do, you have decided on the one . . . path?"

  "What I'm going to do is far easier than what you will do. I know what's going to happen to me. I know the end. You don't. Not yet, anyway."

  Shiyai said, "We can take three. They'll be safe from the radiation. Once the bolg has spent its supply of missiles, we can escape. What the three want to do after we get out is up to them. We can drop them off anywhere in this universe. But they'll never see Earth again."

  "They may prefer the glyfa," Ramstan said, "though I don't know that it will take them or any of us. It hasn't said."

  "I will take all," his mother's voice said. "All. I'd like to receive you, too."

  "No."

  "Very well. I'll tell you just how it is done."

  Ramstan repeated the words of the voice in his mind so that all ship's crew would understand. When he was finished, he said, "The glyfa says that you will have a fine life, far better than you could get on Earth, while in it. I don't agree with that. If you gain something, you lose something. But that's up to you. Anyway, some time, maybe in the next Pluriverse, you'll come across some culture which will be able to put your neural electronic configuration into bodies of artificial protein constructed to your specifications. It says that that will happen; it's a high statistical probability. But, in the meantime . . ."

  "It's better than dying," Toyce said.

  "Anything is," Tenno said.

  "No," Ramstan said.

  Nuoli said, "Why don't we wait this out? The bolg may empty itself before we run out of food and water. We should take that chance."

  "I've had al-Buraq estimate the time that would require. The time it takes for the formation of a complete load of missiles -- based on the speculation that the bolg won't fill itself entirely, and I don't know if it will or won't -- the time it's taking for X amount of missiles to form now, calculated against our supplies . . . no, we will starve before then.

  "It will have to pause between the present missile-making and the next. It must recharge another time, maybe many times, before it can load itself up. That estimated time is twice as long as the estimate based on a continuous charging."

  The tec-op said, "Sir. The missile-production rate is slowing."

  "I am not surprised," Ramstan said.

  The others looked at each other. Ramstan said, "Tenno, have someone bring the glyfa to the third-deck auditorium. I'll tell al-Buraq to open the door to my quarters."

  "See," his uncle's voice said. "You said you'd never see me again. But you will. You never know what is going to happen. Even I, who've lived so long, don't know."

  "I know," Ramstan said.

  A minute later, the tec-op said, "Sir, the production seems to have stopped."

  The varishaped beams from the globe in the center had also ceased. The bolg was recharging.

  Suddenly, the many indicators on many panels turned a bright flashing orange, and alarms shrilled.

  Ramstan ran to the tec-op and looked over her shoulder.

  "What is it?"

  "We're losing energy, sir! Something's draining our fuel supply! But there isn't any leakage! See for yourself, sir!"

  His mother's voice spoke. "The bolg must be draining the energy from the fuel. It may also be draining your energy, the life from your bodies."

  Ramstan had enough self-control to impose even more on himself. He said, coolly, "Are you affected also?"

  "No. Our hull resists the draining effect. The glyfa's shell also resists."

  Ramstan had not been sure until then that the speaker was not the glyfa.

  "You won't take more than three of us?"

  "Only three."

  "Cut off all the alarm indicators except on one screen," Ramstan said to the tec-op. "Turn off all unnecessary illumination, and reduce what's still on to half."

  He had to conserve all the energy aboard. He did not know how swiftly the draining progressed.

  He called Doctor Hu. "Dispense all the candy bars, vitamins, and protein pills to all personnel. They're going to need it. Tenno will explain why."

  Energy was probably being withdrawn from the food, but it would still give extra energy to the crew.

  He silently cursed. He had been on the point of changing his decision to act at once instead of waiting to determine how long the recharging and missile-production took. Now, he had no choice.

  He called for quiet throughout ship and then announced what had happened.

  "We may have very little time. The indicators are registering an alarming rate of energy loss."

  He was beginning to feel weak. But that could be his imagination.

  "Tenno! Nuoli, Davis, and Toyce will go at once to the Vwoordha's house. At once."

  "Why those three?" Tenno said.

  "I don't know why."

  He subvocalized, "Shiyai, did you hear?"

  "I heard. We can lock into a port. They won't have to get into space suits. And, Ramstan . . ."

  "Yes?"

  Shiyai seemed reluctant to say what she must.

  "The energy is being sucked out from your warheads and the power of your lasers. If you wait too long, the bombs and lasers will be too weak to affect the generator sphere."

  "I know!"

  He looked at a data screen. Al-Buraq would arrive within 1,000 kilometers of the generator-sphere in twenty minutes. He could order that the warhead missiles be released now and the lasers concentrated on a spot on that whirling energy-configuration. Since the energy from ship and its crew and its fuel and the warheads was being sucked out by that monstrous vampire in some manner unknown to his s
cientists, he should command that the attack begin at once. But he could not do so until his people had gotten to a safe place: the glyfa and the Vwoordha's house.

  When the vast power of the lasers and the warheads hit that sphere hanging in the center of the bolg, the sphere should be disrupted. It would, according to the Vwoordha, release an energy that would make that of the lasers and the warheads look feeble. The now-incoherent power would raven outwards from the core of this thing. Though the spherical shell of the bolg had a diameter of 13,000 kilometers, it would be filled with a destroying energy equaled only at the heart of a star.

  His mother's voice spoke, and he knew that it was the glyfa who was simulating it and not Shiyai. He could detect a very slight trace of the personality of the glyfa or the Vwoordha in that voice.

  "Tell everybody except the three women to come to the third-level auditorium at once. Davis and Toyce will be in the Vwoordha's house within a minute. Nuoli is still in ship. She will stay here until she can take me to the house. She won't go near the auditorium, however, until the passage of the crew into me has been completed. That will take no more than a microsecond, but they have to be close to me. Nuoli would be drawn in, too, if she were near. When I make a mass transit like this, I cannot discriminate. All nearby are drawn in."

  There was a pause. His mother's voice spoke again, but this time it was activated by Shiyai.

  "As soon as Nuoli is in the house, we will notify you. You must wait five minutes after that before launching the attack."

  Another pause. Then his mother's voice said, "Tell them to gather around me as closely as possible. Those nearest me must put their fingers on me, and each person not touching me should put his hands on others. They should also have body contact. Tell them to crowd as closely together as possible."

  Ramstan gave the orders as directed. The bridge personnel left immediately, though several, especially Tenno, wished to say good-bye.

  "No, not even a handshake," Ramstan said. "Get going! Run! I will talk to you, all of you, through the screens while you're on your way to the auditorium."

  "It's not right," Tenno said, but he obeyed, saluting as he ran. Ramstan left the bridge and walked towards his quarters. He was going there because it was . . . what? Home? A womb? Both?

  But he talked as he walked, and his words and image were caught and transmitted to all the other moving screens.

  He chanted The Saying Of Allah's Command to Annihilate All Things , the chant which he had heard so often when the neighbors who were also members of the al-Khidhr sect met in his parents' apartment.

  "The angel of death is ordered by Allah to destroy the oceans. "The angel of death comes to the oceans and says, 'Your time to end is now.'

  "The oceans say, 'Grant us time to sorrow and to contemplate our wonders and majesties.'

  "The angel of death says that there is no more time for the oceans, and he shouts once, and the oceans are gone.

  "After the angel of death has destroyed the oceans, he travels to the mountains, the Earth itself, the moon, the sun, and the stars, and each begs for a little more time, a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour, seven seconds. But the angel grants them nothing, and he shouts, and they are not, as if they had never been.

  "Allah then says, 'O angel of death, what of my creation is left?'

  "And the angel of death replies, 'O Allah, only You and Your angels live.'

  "Then Allah says, 'Angels, did you not hear Me say that everyone must taste death? Do not beg for more time.'

  "And so the angel of death and all the other angels died, and they are as if they had never been created.

  "And only His Face lived."

  And, Ramstan thought, not even He -- It, rather -- lives forever.

  I will not plead for more time.

  He said, "I have chanted this because, hearing it, you might understand why I am not going into the glyfa or the house of the Vwoordha."

  He stopped before the iris-door to his quarters, spoke the code word, and stepped through the opening. It closed for the last time.

  He went to the prayer rug, stooped, and turned it so that the red arrowhead symbol, the kiblah , was pointed at him.

  He pushed down the impulse to kneel upon the rug. No. He would not do that. But he would stand here with the tip of his boot touching the edge of the rug.

  Why had he pointed the kiblah at himself? Did he think that he was God?

  The Sufi mystic al-Mansur had thought that he was God. At least, he had said so in the marketplace, and he had been stoned to death for his blasphemy. Yet -- he had meant that he was a part of God, just as a11 human beings were.

  Now he could see on a screen that everyone in ship except for himself and Nuoli was in the auditorium room. Al-Buraq had expanded the room to make space for the almost four hundred people. And she had not extruded seats for them as she would have done if they had come to hear a lecture or watch a live drama. They stood on a level floor, forming concentric circles, the innermost with their fingers on the egg, those behind pressing closely against them, their hands grasping the hands of others, and those behind them pressing against them.

  Ramstan said, "I wish that things . . . I . . . had been different. But if I could start all over again, I think that I would not be or act differently. You have done and are doing what you think is best to do. I have done and am doing what I think is best for me to do."

  He choked for a moment, cleared his throat, and said, "You may forget me, but don't forget what I stand for. Good-bye."

  They had no time to say anything to him. They fell jammed together, their open eyes seeing nothing. There was no display of energy, no slight thickening of air in threads or clouds as the part that made them unique and sentient passed into the glyfa.

  "It is done," his mother's voice said. "Hűd, you still have time to join them."

  "No."

  "They will soon be walking inside this little shell which will seem to them as big as Earth, as big as the universes if they wish."

  "No."

  Maija Nuoli entered the auditorium, looked horrifiedly at the corpses, looked at the screen displaying his image, and then, wincing, walked over the bodies. She picked up the glyfa, held it to her breasts. and walked back over the bodies. Just before she got to the exit, she looked up again at the screen.

  "Good-bye, Hűd. God be with you. I loved you once for a brief while, then I hated you. But I think I love you again."

  "I made a fatal mistake," Ramstan said. "I loved answers to my questions more than I loved human beings. The only answers that mattered -- the only questions, too -- were people. I have been only an agent for the glyfa and the Vwoordha. I have been nudged and prodded and moved here and there toward some destination unknown to me until now. The plot was as vast and as dark as this hollow thing we are now in. But, though it might seem so to others, I was no mechanical agent. I had choice. I decided to do what I wished to do. I have moved from darkness to a brief light and back to darkness, but I am in the light again. This time, it is my own light, not that of others. It's mine, and it's bright enough for me to see what I'm doing. If darkness presses around me, it is not as close as it was. Few are lucky enough to have even this little flicker.