The Unreasoning Mask (23 page)

 

 

"You should sit down," the one in green said. Her eyes were large and as
green as her robe. Deep wrinkles radiated from them; her face was that of
a ten-thousand-year-old mummy. The teeth in the seamed lips were black,
though he did not think that they were rotten. She was ugly, yet the
hideousness went beyond ugliness. She was also very beautiful, not as a
young woman was beautiful, but as an ancient star was beautiful. Something
radiated from her, and her eyes seemed to shed kindness. Or compassion.

 

 

Certainly, he had wrongly conceived the green one. Whatever she was,
she was not al-Khidhr. His childhood religion had made a certain mold in
his mind, a preconception, and her image had been fitted into that mold.

 

 

Again, the green one said, "You should sit down."

 

 

Ramstan looked around. If he did sit, and he needed to do so before he
collapsed, he'd have to look up at them. He'd be at a psychological
disadvantage. Allah knew that he was weak enough now, that he needed
every advantage and strength he could get.

 

 

"No, thank you," he said. Surprisingly, his voice was firm.

 

 

"As you will," the green one said.

 

 

She sat down on a pile of rugs and leaned back against some giant pillows.
The others also seated themselves, their legs crossed under their robes.
They did not have to care that they must look up at him. Or perhaps
they were giving him a chance to rest and to be on the same level at
the same time.

 

 

He lowered himself on a pile of rugs and crossed his legs. He said,
"Pardon me. I must tell my crew what's happening."

 

 

After speaking briefly into his skinceiver and telling Nuoli that no one
must follow him as yet, he waited for a few seconds for his "hosts"
to speak. When they did not, he said, "You know who I am. But I don't
know . . ."

 

 

"At present," the green-robed one said, "I am called Shiyai."

 

 

The black-robed one cackled, and she said, "At present! She has been
Shiyai for a billion of your years, Ramstan!"

 

 

The others broke into high-pitched laughter. When that died, the black-robed
one said, "I am called Wopolsa."

 

 

"And I," the blue-robed one said, "am called Grrindah."

 

 

"What we are called and who we are are not the same," Wopolsa said.

 

 

"These are my sisters," Shiyai said, waving a withered, blue-veined,
dark-spotted hand. "Sisters in name only, since we do not belong to
the same species and were born more years apart than you can imagine,
even if you can encompass the time in a phrase."

 

 

"Language is cheap," Wopolsa said. "Time is dear."

 

 

"Yet, waste time as much as you wish, there is always as much as before,"
Shiyai said.

 

 

"If you are like us," Grrindah said.

 

 

"And one other," Wopolsa said.

 

 

"Or perhaps two others," Shiyai said.

 

 

The three looked at each other and burst into their nerve-rubbing laughter
again.

 

 

If they were frying to put him at bin ease, they were falling. His stomach
was folding in on itself like a flower at nightfall.

 

 

"What is this planet called?" he said.

 

 

"Grrymguurdha," Shiyai said.

 

 

"At least, that is what it sounds like to us," Wopolsa said. "That is what
the tree calls it."

 

 

"The tree?" he said, feeling foolish. Were they playing with him? What would
they gain by it?

 

 

"Yes, the tree," Grrindah said. She waved a hand. It was webbed between
the first joints of the fingers.

 

 

"It need be no riddle or mystery," Wopolsa said. "The trees are one tree,
and it is this planet's sole native sentient. We three planted its seed,
and we helped it to evolve into sapiency."

 

 

Her face was more deeply hooded than the others. Her eyes were black, and
Ramstan could not look long into them, though he tried. He shivered. They
reminded him of the eyes of the shimmering thing in the well.

 

 

"We three call ourselves the Vwoordha," Shiyai said. "Though not very often."

 

 

She laughed again. The others smiled, their faces cracking open like
defective eggs in boiling water.

 

 

"You have some rather strange pets," he said.

 

 

"Pets?" Grrindah said. The blue eyes regarded him steadily, and, though
she had been blinking before, now her eyelids did not move. There was
something about those eyes . . . where had he seen them before?

 

 

"In the well."

 

 

"He calls it a well," she said, and all three cackled.

 

 

Ramstan became angry.

 

 

"You're very rude!"

 

 

That made them laugh again. When the shrilling died, Wopolsa said,
"We are beyond politeness or rudeness."

 

 

Shiyai said, "You are sweating, but your voice sounds as if your mouth
and throat are very dry. I think we could all do with some refreshment
before we get away from the small talk. Would you care for some?"

 

 

Ramstan nodded, and he said, "A cool drink would be nice."

 

 

Shiyai clapped her brittle-looking hands, making a brittle noise.
The creature coiled around the jewel hanging from the chain straightened
out and dropped to the floor. Ramatan started. He had forgotten about it.

 

 

Though it had fallen from a height of at least 20 meters, the animal
landed without seeming to hurt itself and ran out of the room through
the door on the right. Ramstan was surprised at its size; he had thought
it was only a meter long. He was also surprised that it ran on its back
legs. He'd assumed from its long body that it was four-footed.

 

 

"I don't know how much I have to explain," Ramstan said. "I mean, who
I am and why I'm here. You seem to know . . . I mean, my experiences
. . . you've talked to me . . . I've seen you, you, at least . . ."
He pointed a finger at Shiyai, then raised his hands, palms upward.

 

 

There was a silence for a few seconds. Then Grrindah said, "We'll wait
until Duurowms serves us."

 

 

Ramstan held the skinceiver area close to his mouth and asked in a soft
voice for the time. His eyes on the three if they should object to his
reporting, he told Nuoli what had happened so far. Her only reaction
was to ask if he thought that he was in any danger.

 

 

"I don't think so," he said. "I may be here for a long time. I'll report
every fifteen minutes or so. Relay this to ship."

 

 

Nuoli must be wondering why he just did not keep his skinceiver on
so that she could listen in. He could not tell her that he could not
because the glyfa would probably, no, undoubtedly, be mentioned sooner
or later.

 

 

He waited. The three were motionless, free of the fidgeting and eye-rolling,
sighing and coughing, twitching and turning that possessed most sentients
in similar situations. They looked withdrawn, but he felt that each was not
just communing with herself. They could be holding a lively conversation
among themselves. Telepathy? The scientists still had neither proved or
disproved its existence.

 

 

Presently, and it seemed to be a long time, the creature called Duurowms
entered. It carried in its two front paws a large tray with four
silvery-looking goblets and a plate with tiny squares of some food.
It came to Ramstan first and extended the tray, bowing at the same time.
Ramstan looked into its large eyes. The eyeballs were entirely dark-brown,
soft, liquidish -- animal eyes. But sentients were animals. And the paws
were not paws; they were hands, four humanoid fingers and an opposable
thumb.

 

 

The goblets bore figures in both alto- and bas-reief, figures he could
identify as animal, bird, fish, reptile, and bipedal and quadrupedal
sentients, and things he'd never seen before. But they lasted only a flash
to be replaced by other figures, which in turn were replaced. Alto-relief
became bas-relief and vice versa.

 

 

Three of them held a blue liquid with a pleasant odor. Odors, rather. They
seemed to change as swiftly as the figures on the goblet sides. Perhaps
they coincided with the changing figures. He could not say that they did,
since the transmutation was confusingly swift. Each odor evoked memories
in him, all pleasing. None were ecstatic, just highly gratifying.

 

 

He was a baby, and his mother was nursing him. He was a baby, and his
father was bathing him. He was a child in a boat on the Shatt-al-Arab, and
his mother and father were teaching him how to fish. He had just mastered
the Terrish alphabet; he had just mastered the Arabic alphabet. He had
just been informed that he had been accepted as a cadet in the Terran
space navy. His uncle had taught him the signals of the squirrels
in the great forest just outside New Babylon, and he was "talking"
to them. His father and mother were showing him, for the first time,
the family genealogy book, and they were telling him the origin of the
family name. Originally, it had been Ramstam, brought to the newly built
city of New Babylon by a Scot transported to this area by the "hostage"
system of the world government. Ramstam, in Scots Gaelic, meant "reckless
or stubborn." During the generations after his coming to this land,
the Arabic language of New Babylon had changed Ramstam to Ramstan.

 

 

It had also been a pleasure, which his parents for some reason found
ecstatic, to discover that he was a descendant of the prophet Muhammad.
Certainly, his parents were in a state exceeding pleasure because of
this. But he could not attain their emotional heights at the news. Why
should he? There were millions all over the world who could claim the
same lineage.

 

 

Ramstan tried to ignore the pleasant memories. He looked at the goblet
containing a different liquid. This was reddish-brown, and its odor made
his nose wrinkle and evoked unpleasant memories. It looked like rapidly
oxidizing blood, and its smell verified that impression.

 

 

"Take whichever one you like," Wopolsa said.

 

 

Ramstan looked up from lowered lids at her. She seemed to be smiling,
her mouth just a larger wrinkle in a mass of smaller ones. The teeth,
unlike Shiyai's black ones, looked red.

 

 

A tremor passed through him, and his stomach, which had been expanding
at the pleasing memories, shot back into a contracting ball. And someone
was kicking that ball down . . . what field?

 

 

"Take one," Shiyai and Grrindah said at the same time.

 

 

"Only one?" Ramstan said, and he enjoyed the change of expression in
the three. He did not know why. Perhaps because he had surprised them,
and they were supposed to do the surprising.

 

 

Wopolsa, however, said, "All, if you wish."

 

 

"No, thank you," he said. He gripped the goblet nearest him. He came
close to dropping it because the seeming metal gave way under his fingers.
If anything, it felt as if it were made of something that was part
mercury. It held together, but it yielded. It was part rigid substance,
part liquid. When he released two fingers, the indentations filled out.

 

 

This goblet, for some reason, terrified him more than anything that he'd
experienced in this house. It told him that he was in the presence of a
science far advanced beyond any he had so far met.

 

 

He lifted the goblet but did not drink.

 

 

"After you," he said.

 

 

Duurowms carried the tray to Wopolsa first. Ramstan wondered if this meant
that Wopolsa was the leader of the trio? He also noticed for the first time,
though he should have seen it before, that the liquid in her goblet gave off
a thin steam.

 

 

"'The cold-blood who drinks hot blood.'"

 

 

It was Shiyai, the green-eyed and green-robed, however, who first lifted
a cup.

 

 

"To the other," she said.

 

 

"To the other," Grrindah and Wopolsa said.

 

 

Ramstan raised his goblet. "To the other."

 

 

After a brief pause, he said, "And to the one who is not the other.
To both."

 

 

He did not know why he said that or what it meant. But some sort of
defiance was called for.

 

 

The three looked at him over their goblets. Then they said, "To both,"
and they drank.

 

 

Ramstan, flicking his gaze from the one on his left to the one on his
right, sipped. The liquid was heavy but cool and delicious, though he
could not quite identify its contents. He knew that he could not taste
anything which his tongue buds were not receptive to. But it was also
possible that these were genetically receptive to this liquid yet had
not experienced on Earth, or anywhere until now, this particular taste.

 

 

Lowering the goblet, Ramstan said, "I have many questions. I hope you don't
mind answering them."

 

 

"We have questions which have gone unanswered for eons," Grrindah said.
"I hope you aren't going to ask us any of those."

 

 

She broke into laughter again.

 

 

He looked with some disgust at Wopolsa. Unlike the others, she was
still drinking.

 

 

"The cold-blood who drinks hot blood." Cold-blooded? She looked as human
as the others; she was no more batrachian or reptilian than they. Or did
something other than blood flow in her?