When Wizard was better, they organized for the search, starting with Bem’s frame. They trekked to the mountain intersection where they had first encountered Bem, and considered the steep descent.
“There will be no problem,” Bem said, forming into a shape like a toboggan. The four others sat on this and gripped the provided handholds. Then they slid slowly down the steep slope. Bem had it under control. When it evened out below, the ride continued, taking them though a landscape with forms like mounded colored plastic. This was evidently Bem’s native flora.
Bem glided to a halt. “We must converse,” it said.
The others got off and formed a circle around Bem, who resumed its normal blob shape. “We will help in any way we can,” Tod said. “But you know we can’t enter your realm.”
“That may be a matter of interpretation,” Wizard said. “The Amoeba is familiar with the problem of access and has developed certain protocols to facilitate it when necessary. It can connect us to Bem’s presence so that we can see, hear, and feel it, and communicate with it, though Bem’s associates in its realm will not be aware of our participation.”
“Telepathy?” Tod asked.
“No. We can’t contact Bem’s mind. But what Bem speaks we will hear, and Bem will hear us. It is awkward to explain.”
“Like a bat snooping on humanoids,” Vanja said.
“Or a video/audio camera tracking someone,” Tod said.
“Or a ghost presence,” Veee said.
“These analogies are all imperfect,” Wizard said. “But I believe close enough. So if Bem requires our input, we can provide it.”
“I may,” Bem said. “I need to clarify an aspect of my culture. The cultures of the rest of you are fundamentally material, with goods and power defining the welfare of individuals. Bem culture, in contrast, is artistic. We are motivated by the design, construction, and function of esthetic monuments, and seek always to preserve them. I am not sure your cultures have equivalent terms.”
“Architecture,” Tod said. “The building of anything from a crap shack to the Eiffel Tower.”
Bem considered, digesting the translation. “Yes. I am a chief architect. I must make of our people a unified artifact-that will withstand the next storm of entropy. It is no easy thing.”
“A most interesting concept,” Wizard said. “In my frame, entropy is that quality of disorder that allows no independent structures. Maximum randomness and uselessness. A storm might blow apart a house, rendering it into a disordered pile of boards. Entropy is not a storm in itself, but can be the result of a storm.”
“That is similar. In my frame, entropy is not passive,” Bem said. “It actively attacks the ordered structures of civilization and seeks to reduce them to disorder.”
“So the laws of physics or magic differ in your frame,” Wizard said. “You have organized disorder, oxymoronic as it may seem.”
“Active inactivity,” Tod said.
“Artless art,” Veee said.
“Just as you have bloodless blood,” Vanja said. “We’re used to different sets of rules. We’ll make do.”
“Different in every frame, it seems,” Bem agreed. “Just so long as you understand.”
“You said you have to make a thing of your people,” Veee said. “Do you mean for your people, or by your people?”
“Both. But also of them. Every person in our society is part of the artistic whole. If that whole is lost, all will perish.” Bem paused. “I felt I was not up to the task, so rather than let my people down, I departed. Now I must return, at least temporarily.”
“Temporarily this time,” Wizard said. “Permanently, in a few days.”
Bem flashed negative colors. “I do not wish to wipe out my people because of an inadequate design or application. Better to vacate my role and allow it to be filled by my sibling, who is more competent than I am.”
Wizard shrugged. “My scries are not always completely accurate. I may be mistaken.”
“I am not sure of that,” Bem said. “At any rate, when I re-enter my frame, I will seek out my sibling to advise it of the necessity to prepare to assume the role. Then I will try to locate the source of the android menace, if it is in my frame.”
“You will be able to sniff it out,” Wizard said. “Literally. You now know the smell of the androids. If that odor is not present, you will know it is not your frame. If there is only a slight smell, it will suggest that the menace stems from a closely related frame, that we will then have to identify and deal with.”
“How will be do that?” Veee asked.
“We will go back along the trail, checking closely for offshoots we missed before. If the androids stem from this vicinity of space/time/reality, there will be an open trail, however obscure.”
“Will I be able to visit a realm that is not my own, however proximate it may be?” Bem asked. “I understand that a person loses substance away from its realm.”
“That depends on how close to your home frame it is,” Wizard said. “The closer it is, the more substance you will possess. I do not know the exact ratio.”
“Suppose it’s not close enough?” Tod asked.
“That won’t matter. We don’t need to enter it, we just need to identify it. Then we can verify which inhabitant of the Amoeba associates with it, and persuade that person to go home and stay there, so that the trail dries up. It’s not a complicated business.”
“Famous last words,” Tod muttered under his breath.
“At any rate, when I revisit my home frame, the landscape may seem strange to you,” Bem said, speaking to them all. “Do not be concerned. If there is a problem, I will voice it, and you may advise me as you see fit.”
“We’ll do that,” Vanja said.
They moved on. The lumpy landscape became lumpier. Then abruptly Bem went on while they were balked; the trail had ended. “Good luck,” Tod said.
“What is luck?”
“A randomly favorable turn of events, enabling you to succeed.”
“That is interesting. It does not exist in my frame.”
“It surely does exist,” Wizard said. “Your folk merely don’t recognize it as such.”
“That may be,” Bem agreed guardedly. It put on its presentation colors and moved out.
Tod found that he was able to watch it advance into its frame. There was no special equipment, nothing he had to do; it was just that when he looked in Bem’s direction, he saw Bem as if it were only a few feet away, as though the end of the trail were a big screen showing a three dimensional picture of Bem.
“Remarkable,” Vanja murmured. “So we do have a way to visit other frames, at least in spirit.”
“The Amoeba is capable of remarkable things,” Wizard said. “We have yet to appreciate them all.”
Bem came to what was evidently a settlement. Similar bems stood in a broad and lovely pattern, like flowers on a field, each seining the air for nourishment. Some were red, some blue, some yellow, and the pattern vaguely resembled a larger flower. A living blossom, enhanced by the small motions of the seinings, as if a wind were rippling through. In fact the seinings were coordinated, occurring with the same cadence, like the aligned strokes of the bows of violins in a classy orchestra. That was of course no accident. This was a work of art.
“Bem wasn’t fooling,” Veee murmured. “They are all parts of a picture.”
Bem passed through this pattern carefully, gliding from one ring of flowers to another, assuming the color of whatever flower was appropriate, so as not to interrupt the pattern. Tod knew it was Bem, because the focus was on it; otherwise Bem would have been immediately lost amidst the picture.
“I envy Bem’s coloring capacity,” Vanja said. “I am limited to clothing.”
“Yours is just fine,” Tod said.
She flashed a bare breast at him, appreciatively.
Bem proceeded to a neighboring pattern, similar to the first but not identical. In fact there were many designs, grouped into a larger patt
ern of intricate yet lovely complexity. It seemed that all the bems were part of it, and that this was their naturals state.
It reminded Tod of something he had seen. Then he got it: “The Mandelbrot set!”
“Fractals,” Wizard said. “A marvelous example. Mathematical artistry.”
“I do not know your reference,” Veee said, “but I take your meaning. This goes beyond the beauty of the form.”
“I never really appreciated paintings,” Vanja said. “Until now. This is awesome.”
Indeed it was. Bem had said that its culture was artistic rather than material. This was the proof of that. The bems seemed to desire nothing more than to fulfill the larger pattern.
“I wonder whether this is what Heaven looks like,” Tod asked rhetorically.
“It must be,” Veee agreed softly.
Bem made its way to the center of the larger pattern of this region. There was a black bem that seemed to be the linchpin of the artistic structure.
“Beobrumemmik!” the other said, recognizing Bem.
“The same, Sibling,” Bem agreed.
“Are you returned at last to relieve me of this chore?”
“No, Sibling. Merely to inform you that I do not wish to return. You must carry it forward.”
“But I am not competent! When the storm comes, I will prove to be inadequate.”
“No, Sibling. You are more adequate than I. That is why I departed: so as not to destroy our people and our culture by my failure to accomplish the necessary art. You have a better chance to accomplish it than I do.”
“No, Sibling! Standing here in your stead I have come to appreciate the depth of my own inadequacy. I am unable to fulfill the role, and must vacate.”
“But you must fulfill it, for I can not.”
“Touch me, Sibling, and compare our qualities. You will have the proof.”
Bem extended an extension and touched the other.
Tod felt the connection. It was as if he were clasping hands with another person. But this was more than touching physically; he was picking up on the mental state of the other. Sibling was deeply uncertain.
“You seem competent to me, Sibling.”
“I am not! The first minor entropy storm of the series will strike soon; tarry long enough to appreciate me in action, and you will know.”
“How soon?”
“In two hours. I can handle this one, but you will see the flaws in my capacity that would defeat me in a more serious storm.”
“Team?” Bem asked, and it was evident that the sibling did not hear it. Bem was addressing the members of the Amoeba’s team.
Tod exchanged glances with the others. “We can wait two hours,” Tod said. “You must ascertain how badly your people need you. You would not care to desert them if you knew it made their destruction likely.”
“True,” Bem agreed. Then, to the sibling: “I will return here in two hours and navigate the entropy storm in parallel with you. We shall see whether my decisions are any better than yours.”
“And if they are?”
Bem made a flashing sigh. “Then I will return also for the larger storms.”
“Gratitude!”
“But I doubt they will be, Sibling. You have had the same training as I, and have the same native capacity. You should do as well as I.”
“I lack that confidence.”
“So did I,” Bem said. “That is why I departed.”
“But you are superior to me now. I can feel it in your very presence. You have changed, Beobrumemmik.”
“I do not see why. I merely visited other regions and made new friends. I undertook no special training and did not ponder the situation.”
“Nevertheless, I feel that change. You have matured in ways that are inaccessible to me.”
Bem shrugged and glided away, shifting colors as it intersected other parts of the pattern. “Now I am sniffing for android traces,” it said. “I am not finding them.”
Tod was surprised to receive an odor of warm plastic clay, and saw that the others were too. Not only were they seeing, hearing, and feeling what Bem did, they were smelling what Bem smelled. Indeed, there was no android odor here.
“Get to a breezy place,” Wizard suggested. “There will be more smells on the winds, from farther afield.”
Bem glided rapidly toward a nearby mountain. Tod was amazed by the velocity it could achieve; it was faster than a man could run. He had tended to think of Bem as slow, like a giant snail, despite knowing better; now he saw how fast the creature could move when it tried.
Not only that. Because Bem was traversing the fringes of the area pattern, the flower bed as it were, it was now shifting colors as fast as it moved. It was as if a tiny ripple of air was crossing the pattern, twitching petals here and there without seriously disturbing them. The larger artistry was not interrupted.
Then Bem got beyond the patterns, into the rougher territory beyond. Here there was no real path, merely a tormented landscape of jumbled boulders. Yet Bem navigated this, too, at speed.
“I think we did not know you well enough, Bem,” Veee said. “In your own framework, you are a remarkable creature. Your art is as impressive as your physical and mental capacities.”
“Thank you, Veee,” Bem replied as it sped along. “I have come to appreciate your own art, and that of the other members of the team. More than that, I have learned to relate to the marvels of your courtship and mating protocols, which are of course unknown among my own kind.”
“How does your kind reproduce?” Vanja asked. “Surely individuals die on occasion, and need to be replaced.”
“We grow, slowly, until we are of sufficient size,” Bem said. It was now coming to the base of the mountain, whose surface was smooth and glassy. There were fewer others here, and that pattern was diffuse. “Then we fission, forming two smaller individuals from our substance. Sibling and I are the progeny of the elder individual before us. Our capacities are thus very similar.”
“What, no sex?” Vanja asked teasingly.
“Sometimes two of us will merge to form a larger entity, facilitating fissioning. That is a very intimate association, equivalent to your sexual embrace.”
“More than equivalent. Do you lose your personal identities?”
“No. They merge like our bodies, forming a more complete one, which will then be shared by our offspring.”
“You and your sibling are architects,” Tod said. “Was your progenitor of the same persuasion?”
“Yes. The larger patterns of our society require a number of more specialized abilities to complete their forms, and this is ours.” Bem was now sliding rapidly up the slope, leaving the others of its kind below.
“Somewhat the way the Amoeba needs several differing individuals to make up a team,” Wizard said.
“I appreciate the parallel,” Bem agreed. It reached the breezy rounded top of the mountain and seined the air. “I still discover no trace of android.”
Tod’s nose confirmed it. He would never forget the rank stink of android flesh. There was only fresh clean plastic here. He saw that the others agreed.
“It seems that your frame is not the origin of the androids,” Wizard said.
“I had feared it was, because of the android menace we faced before,” Bem said.
“You evidently dealt with that so well that no trace remains,” Wizard said. “And your frame was not the origin of it. It must have been another victim of a randomly spreading pool.”
“I am relieved,” Bem said, starting back down the mountain. “I would not have wanted to inflict such a scourge upon any other realm.”
“Navigate your storm,” Vanja said, “then return to us. We like you, Bem. I never said that to an alien monster before.”
“And I like you, Vanja. I never said that to a humanoid before, let alone a vampire.”
“Too bad you’re not male. I could give you such a good time.”
“I fear that state is beyond my ability to achieve. I
could assume the approximate male form, and emulate a courtship protocol, but I would be unable to truly copulate or generate a nascent creature with you.”
“Maybe you just need more practice.”
“You are flirting with me!” Bem said, surprised.
“Well, you know how it is with bems and femmes. They are oddly attracted to each other.”
“Odd, indeed,” Bem agreed.
Vanja, of course, would flirt with anything, and seduce it if she could. It was nevertheless a signal of the unity their team had formed. They all liked each other, and were happy to interact in various ways, sex not excluded.
Now the first signs of the storm manifested. The flowers moved uncomfortably as if being shaken by small tremors, and the pattern seemed to be distorting. There seemed to be no strong wind there; it was something else.
Bem arrived back in the center. Sibling had not moved. They touched again, like another handclasp, and held it. “You take the left half,” Bem said. “I will take the right.”
The storm intensified. Not wind, not an earthquake, not thunder or rain, yet it seemed to have aspects of all of them. Tod tried to analyze it, to fathom what was occurring. It was more like a psychic disturbance whose physical manifestations were merely the reactions of the bems making the flowers. They stood in place, but they wavered. Tod felt as if he were wavering too, though he stood outside it.
“We’re feeling Bem’s input,” Veee said.
“This may not be telepathy,” Vanja said, “but it has a certain affinity.”
“It is part of the ambiance the Amoeba provides,” Wizard explained. “It seems to be a psychic storm, and Bem experiences certain reactions to it, and Bem’s body responds, and we pick up on those responses.”
Now a more forceful ripple crossed the pattern. Bems rocked back and forth as it struck them, struggling to hold their places. To lose ones place, Tod understood, was to suffer a psychic injury.
“Steady!” Bem’s light message radiated. Sibling’s message echoed Bem’s; they were acting in tandem. It was more than a message; the strength of their encouragement infused the individuals, unifying them, making them stronger. But as the wave crossed the pattern, some of the placeholders did lose their positions, at least to the extent of bending too far to the side so that the pattern was distorted.