The Unreasoning Mask

  "You aren't reading my mind, are you?" he said half seriously.

  "I'm just trying to anticipate."

  The Webnite spoke for perhaps ten seconds. Davis said, "She will address herself to you, since you are the captain. The Webnites are very formal in certain situations. She believes this is a special situation; she believes that she is dying."

  Ramistan looked at Hu. "Is she?"

  Hu shrugged and said, "I wouldn't have thought so. But maybe she knows more about herself than I do. Most patients do, even if they aren't aware of it."

  Ramstan bowed again, made a coded gesture, and a few seconds later sat down on the chair-shaped protuberance that had formed from the deck.

  There was a burst of dialog between the creature and Branwen Davis. Branwen then said, "Her name is Wassruss. She had been picked up by a Raushghol ship and taken from Webn to Raushghol. The Raushghols wanted her knowledge of sea-farming techniques. In return, they would give the Webnites some deep-sea craft and technological artifacts. Wassruss says that the reasons for her visit are not important. On the way back, the Raushghol ship took a sidetrip to Walisk. Or she started for it, anyway."

  Wassruss spoke again at some length.

  Davis said, "Wassruss was in her cabin when she heard a peculiar, penetrating, and agonizing whistle. It didn't come over the electronic equipment; at least, she heard the captain say it didn't. She had turned on the intercom connecting her cabin to the bridge. The whistling lasted for about two minutes, and then it abruptly ceased. The ship's detectors showed a huge mass nearby. There was no warning of its appearance. It just was there all of a sudden. The captain said that it couldn't be there. But there it was."

  "How big was it, and what did it look like? Was it a spaceship?"

  "It was a sphere with a diameter of 13,000 kilometers. At least that's what she overheard the detector-people report. But . . . she does have a word for it. Tssokh'azgd."

  "What would that translate as?"

  Branwen spoke some more with Wassruss.

  "It's the Webn name for the Chaos-Monster in their religion. Wassruss says she had abandoned her faith. But now that she has actually seen the Tssokh'azgd, she isn't so sure that the religion is false."

  Ramstan said, "Ask her how she knows, or thinks she knows, that the thing was the whatchaniacallit."

  Branwen Davis spoke again. Then, "She says that it is the Tssokh'azgd. There is no argument about it. As soon as it's seen, it's known, though that does the knower no good, because she'll soon be dead."

  Suddenly, Wassruss began talking so swiftly that Branwen had difficulty interpreting and had to tell her to slow down.

  "I am going to die soon. I wish to die on my native world and to be buried according to the custom of my people. If you can get me to Webn before I die, I will pay you well."

  Ramstan was flabbergasted, but he did not show it.

  "It is not necessaiy or even desirable that you pay me. In fact, it would be illegal for me to accept money or gifts of any kind."

  Toyce said, "Not quite so, Captain. There is a clause which says that you may accept gifts if the refusal would insult the giver or cause ill-feelings of any sort. You will then place the gifts in the storeroom as government property."

  Ramstan said, "Ah, I didn't remember that."

  Davis had already translated for Ramstan. Wassruss, forgetting Davis's request for slowness, broke into a torrent of phrases. Ramstan did not know what she had said, but he could not mistake the appeal and the desperation in her voice. Her facial expression looked to him like a threatening snarl but was no doubt a smile to her species.

  Davis said, "Her people are real homebodies. She is the first to leave her planet, and she isn't sure that what happened to her isn't a judgment of her God. You see how quickly she abandoned her atheism, how superficial it was. She is scared, though. To her it's a terrible thing to die far away from her native sea. And a worse thing not to be buried, not to sink down into the depths and be taken back into the bosom of the ocean."

  Wassruss spoke.

  Branwen Davis listened, then said, "She wants to know what I told you. She wants to make sure I'm translating correctly. It isn't easy for me; there are so many phrases I don't know or which may have subtleties I didn't grasp when I was learning her speech."

  Branwen replied. The Webnite seemed to be thinking for a minute, then rattled off another train of phrases.

  Branwen said, "She insists that you accept her gifts. But she says, and I'm not sure I understand her, that these gifts are unique. They do not have their like anywhere in the world."

  Ramstan snorted and said, "How would she know? Has she been throughout the cosmos?"

  Branwen translated before Ramstan could stop her. He felt his face warm. He was embarrassed, but he was also angry at Branwen.

  She must have guessed what he was thinking. She said, "I only asked what the gifts were. She says that she is very tired now and would like to sleep."

  Ramstan bowed to the Webnite and left. So, the monstrous but somehow attractive seal-centaur was going to bestow upon him certain treasures. He did not expect them to be overwhelmingly valuable or beautiful. He was, however, curious about them and about the real reason for her giving them, though it was possible that she was not concealing any motives.

  Their uniqueness did not mean that they would be interesting, desirable, useful, or any combination thereof. Many artifacts could be unique and yet of little significance except to the owner. Or to a sentientologist, who was theoretically interested in everything non-Terran.

  At one time the concept of God, which concept was a mental artifact, could have been of value only to its owner.

  That was a strange intrusion of thought.

  What was it doing, sidling in through a crack in the wall of thinking?

  And why the crack?

  Never mind. He could not dwell long on that, though it might not be as irrelevant as it seemed. Nor could he ponder long upon the promise of Wassruss. What seized his mind most of the time, awake or dreaming, was the destruction of the Walisk natives. Had this been done by the thing that the whisperer had warned him of, the bolg?

  There was one who might have the answer. Who might even have been the unseen warner in the Kalafalan tavern. But it had spoken once while he was carrying it from the Tolt temple and a second time after he had heard the voice in the tavern.

  He had since sat down before the table seven times and looked through the microscope at the surface of the egg. His eyes roved over the sculptures of some microbe Michelangelo who had worked them how long ago, perhaps eons? Whatever dwelt inside that impervious shell surely had to extend an antenna to transceive thoughts. Or, perhaps, one of the figures crowding the surface of this little world was an antenna. Or perhaps he was not thinking in the correct category. It might not need an antenna.

  Or, and at this a chill skipped up his spine like a cold stone thrown by a clammy hand over a frozen lake, perhaps the egg was an antenna?

  In which case, who was the transmitter of the thought he received?

  He didn't know. One thing all worlds shared was a superabundance of questions and a poverty of answers.

  Seven ship-days after leaving Walisk, while walking to the bridge from his quarters, he was startled by a loud piping noise and the change of a circle on the bulkhead from a pale yellow to a flashing orange-yellow over which rotated a scarlet spiral.

  He began running, at the same time calling out, "Bridge! What is the alarm?"

  Tenno's face appeared on one of the circles keeping pace with him.

  "The EVD has detected a USO, sir. It suddenly appeared from behind the asteroid we passed three hours ago. Raser is checking it out now, sir"

  By the time he'd reached the bridge, the raser report was in. The EVD (Ether Vibration Detector) had noted the disturbance in the recently traversed tunnel. EVD was not capable of radar or raserlike powers of location and dimension measurements, however. It could note only intrusions at a relatively
near distance and those within a limited time period.

  Warrant Officer Yazdi reported that the unidentified space object was 260 meters long and 210 meters wide and was oyster-shell-shaped. Ramstan did not listen intently; he could see the data and the object itself on a display screen.

  "Looks like the Popacapyu," Tenno said.

  ... 10 ...

  Ramstan did not reply to the obvious. It could be another Tolt ship, but he doubted that. As far as he knew, the Tenolt had only two alaraf-drive ships. This one must have followed them from Kalafala. Which meant that the Tenolt were more technologically advanced than the Terrans had supposed. Not until just before al-Buraq's last jump had Earth's alaraf scientists developed a device to detect the vibrations of passage of ships in the "tunnels." This was in a primitive stage and capable only of sniffing out the tracks of vessels that had passed within a period of ten to twelve hours. The scientists had thought that, by the time al-Buraq returned to Earth, the EVD would be capable of a finer and more extended discrimination.

  Tenno shook his head and said, "Perhaps it's only coincidence, and they didn't follow us here. It's difficult to believe that they have a better EVD than we. In fact, I can't believo they have any at all."

  "You're showing your prejudice," Ramstan said. "Just because they worshiped -- I mean, worship -- an idol and have certain customs we regard as retarded, if not degenerate, doesn't mean that their science is on a low level.

  "Anyway," he continued briskly, "they are here. And we can assume that they've followed us for some reason."

  Tenno and Yazdi looked out of the corners of their eyes at each other. Were they both thinking of the object which their captain had brought into ship in a bag? If so, why didn't they have the courage to say what they thought? He would, if he were in their position. Were they really that afraid of him? Or was it that they were more afraid of being shown up as foolish if they were wrong?

  "What we have to do first," Ramstan said, "is to attempt again to communicate with them. Maybe this time they'll respond. If they don't, then we'll do some backtracking. If it's not just coincidence, if they do have an EVD, they'll follow us."

  Tenno's expression said, "And then what?" But he turned and spoke to the raser operator, who gave the second-level bridge raser operator an order. Presently the 2-L RO reported that he was getting no acknowledgments, even though he had transmitted in Tolt. The unknown (it was still classified as such) was, however, scanning al-Buraq with radar and raser.

  "They wouldn't talk to us on Kalafala, and they won't talk to us here," Tenno said. "Why're they dogging us?"

  "We have to make absolutely sure that they are," Ramstan said.

  Reluctantly, he ordered that ship return to the Walisk window. This involved a 360-degree maneuver which required five hours. The stranger began to turn also a few minutes after al-Buraq did.

  "That does it," Ramstan said. "There's no use in going into alaraf drive. Head her back toward Webn, Tenno."

  The stars on the visual screen wheeled, and then al-Buraq was locked into the former course, guiding herself by the configuration of stars and the position of Webn's sun. When she had first arrived in this window, she had had no data about star fixes, of course. But once her navigators had figured out the correct course to Webn and had then fed in the data, she could navigate on her own. All she needed was the command, verbal or punched.

  In the same way, she could backtrack to any other window, including Earth's, with only one short command.

  Ramstan was relieved. He had not wanted to go back to Walisk for fear of what might be lurking, if such a word was applicable, in the window. Or it could be in another window connected to a "tunnel" leading to the Waliskan window. Which meant that the thing could pop out and confront the Terrans with no warning.

  Ship's rasers had not located any such massive object as Wassruss had reported. Therefore, the thing might have gone into alaraf-drive to another sector of space-time. But it could just as easily have returned to Waliskan space and be waiting. Or it could appear at any second in this sector.

  Ramstan had already given ship her instructions on what to do if an object of the dimensions and shape of the thing described by Wassruss appeared. She was to go into alaraf-drive at once, even though this would probably mean she would come out into an unknown window. But this was nothing to worry about, since the ship could always backtrack.

  What if the thing had an equivalent of EVD and could follow the "tracks" of al-Buraq?

  Then she would have to either plunge into tunnel after tunnel, known or unknown, or stand and fight. Which action would be taken would depend upon how distant the thing was when it came out of the tunnel. If it were very close, say, within a hundred kilometers, then flight was the answer. If the thing (should he think of it as the bolg?) was far enough away so that its missiles would take more than three minutes to reach al-Buraq, then Ramstan would use lasers and rasers and torpedoes and, as a last resort, the ether-disruptor.

  These might destroy the thing. But if it launched its missiles immediately on arrival in the window, al-Buraq might have to duck into another tunnel before the effect of its weapons could be observed. The bolg (there, he'd said it!) could spew out trillions of missiles, spread them out in a vast screen that al-Buraq, unless she happened to be at the top velocity attainable in m-g drive, could not escape.

  And that depended upon the velocity of the missiles. How swiftly were they hurled from the bolg?

  The Popacapyu maintained the same distance behind the Terran vessel. Ramstan would have liked to slow down and then speed up to determine if the Tolt vessel would match the deceleration and acceleration. But conservation of power was more important in this situation than satisfying his curiosity.

  After ordering that he be notified immediately if anything demanded his presence, he went to his quarters. He removed the glyfa from the safe and placed it under the microscope on the table. He did not turn on the scope. Instead, he placed a hand on each end of the egg-shape, stroked the ends lightly, then gripped them tightly. It was as if he could force something from the glyfa, as if the intensity of his desire could be transmitted through his hands and choke words out of the thing.

  "The bolg has come," he said softly. "I've seen a whole planet ravaged, all of its land life, plant and animal, killed. Pegasus is lost, and I fear that the bolg got her. I'm seeing ghosts from my childhood and hearing voices.

  "Are the voices yours, are the ghosts images you've projected? If you can throw a voice as if you were a ventriloquist, why not an image? Speak! Speak, or in the name of Allah, I'll cast you out from the ship while it's in space and let you fall into a star!"

  "Which would in no way harm me physically," the voice of his father said. " I was forged in a star."

  The words sounded as if they came out of a mouth of flesh, one with teeth, gums, a tongue, a palate, one quite human. But they were not modulated vibrations of air striking his eardrum. They sprang without benefit of matter from the glyfa into his brain, where certain impulses evoked electrical configurations. And these seemed to sound in his ear and to originate from his long-dead father.

  Now that he had gotten the thing to speak, he was speechless. His heart thudded, and there was a thunder in his ears as if he lay at the end of a giant's bowling alley and the ball would strike him soon and fatally.

  The voice slashed through the roaring and seemed to sever it so that the ends dropped away. But his heart still beat faster than was good for it.

  "You are not of much use while you are afraid of me," the glyfa said. "Afraid? No, in awe. That is the correct term. No. There is fear, though not of me so much as of yourself. You are afraid of what you might do. Which is wrong, since you have been doing what you fear you're going to do. Too late."