Viscous Circle (3 page)

Rondl explored his memory—and discovered he had none. He knew his name and the language and the manner of his physical functioning, but little else. He was amnesiac.

So he was a green, magnetic individual of the species of Band, here near the planet of Band. There were thousands like him. Was there any reason for this situation to surprise him? What had happened to his memory?

Another Band swooped down, rotating in the sunlight, not turning on an axis, but flipping over and over so that its black rim seemed to form a hollow sphere. It caught the light of both suns, causing rays to flash across the region and reflect from the nearer wall. "Are you in difficulty?" it inquired. "May I assist?"

"I seem to have mislaid my memory," Rondl admitted. "I have no notion of my employment or even where I reside."

"I am Sunt," the black Band flashed after a pause.

"I am Rondl. That's most of what I remember."

"Now that we are acquainted, may I express confusion?"

"You cannot be more confused than I am!"

"Your employment is of course as you choose, but your reference to 'reside' is a blank flash."

"Where I live, my home—" But as he spoke, even as the flash left his lens, Rondl realized that the concept was meaningless. Bands did not locate anywhere; they traveled perpetually along the lines. He was really mixed up! "I think I mean I don't recall my associations. My friends, my favored lines, the regions I most enjoy frequenting."

"All Bands are friends," the other assured him. "Perhaps you were pursued by a Kratch and passed too close to a magnetic origin and suffered a wipeout. In that case your memories will return in time."

"I hope so," Rondl replied. What was a Kratch? He decided he didn't want to know, yet. Not until his position was better defined.

Sunt drifted off after assuring himself that Rondl was well. Why did it seem odd that strangers should so eagerly help one in trouble? It wasn't odd at all; it was natural to Bands.

Rondl experimented, watching himself as well as he could in the reflections, mastering the feasible mechanisms of motion and flashing. They came naturally, once he paid attention; his body obviously was versed in this. Then he lifted himself out of the canyon and up into the main flow of traffic. He kept himself stable and accelerated along the line, enjoying the motion and velocity. There was something about flying that he liked—though he knew that all Bands flew all the time. Perhaps his amnesia lent novelty to an otherwise most familiar experience.

The line was a beautiful thing. Somehow it did not honor the laws of physics he associated with magnetism, yet he could not identify what he thought those laws should be. The line was just a Band-sized strand of concentrated magnetic energy that could be tapped merely by moving his substance through it, cutting across it. The lines were the source of power to all Bands, and a Band could go almost anywhere a line could go. Since there was, properly, no end to any line, that was far indeed. There were many other lines nearby, so that Bands did not have to collect too thickly on any one. When a given line got too crowded, he remembered now, it began to lose potency, for it could not replenish itself at an infinite rate. But any line traveled moderately would endure indefinitely. So Bands tended to give each other room.

The other Bands were sailing along, rotating end over end, figuratively; being round they had no ends. Rondl caught flashes of speech: "...a most reflecting personality..." "...tired, not recharging properly..." "...the great soul-spirit..." "...in difficulty, Green?"

Rondl realized that the last fragment was directed at him. He knew what it was: he was not rotating. He remedied that quickly. "No difficulty, thank you," he flashed to the cosmos in general.

"Excellent," the response came. Rondl realized that this rotating mode enabled Bands to hold dialogues without the intercession of a reflecting surface. A fragment of light-speech would be transmitted to one; then both would turn so that a fragment of response could be sent. The staccato mode obviously worked well enough for most Bands.

Now Rondl experimented with this, discovering the optimum rotation rate so that communication was orderly instead of ragged. If he was oriented the wrong way when a flash came, he missed it. Also, he had to address the light-source correctly; he could refract light through his magnetic lens at varying angles, but not more than about an eighth of a circle. Thus it was impossible to send a message to someone uplight from him unless he was near a reflector. He had to have another source of light. This explained why many lines ran down near the planet, with its ubiquitous reflecting walls: they provided diverse sources of light and direction, greatly facilitating social intercourse. It was not necessary to go right next to them; a number of walls were tilted from the vertical, reflecting rays upward and across so that the traveling Bands on this line had no trouble flashing any direction or in all directions. But farther out in space it would be a different matter; light was limited to two major sources.

Two sources? Of course; he kept forgetting. The twin suns Eclat and Dazzle provided the vital light energy. Why had he been surprised at their number? Double stars were common enough in the galaxy. There had always been two here; it equated with the basic number needed to hold convenient dialogue, and with the very structure of Band society: its system of rights and wrongs, perhaps even its separation into two genders. Yet he had somehow reacted as though this were unusual. What had he expected—three suns, three genders? Four? There was definitely something odd about his associations! What kind of a Band had he been before losing his memory? A far traveler? A criminal?

Oops. Bands did not travel beyond their region of space, since they could not leave the lines; that was another irrelevant thought. Some lines extended to other stars, but none to systems with three or four suns clumped. He could not have been to any such region. And criminals did not exist among Bands. There was not even a term for criminality; he had postulated a concept of general wrongness that he could not effectively describe to any other Band. So even in analyzing his oddities, he was encountering more oddities.

He almost collided with a purple Band traveling the opposite direction on this line. Rondl wrenched himself out of the line, and immediately began to feel suffocated in the absence of its life-sustaining power. But he managed to retain equilibrium this time; he did have some reserve power to draw himself back into place.

"Are you well?" the purple Band inquired solicitously.

Strangers certainly were kind! "Thank you; I am well," he returned. "Merely indulging in concentrated thought."

"I am glad to know it. Perhaps you should seek a secluded region for your cogitation." There was no irony; it was just friendly advice.

"Appreciation," Rondl said.

The other Band moved on, reassured, and Rondl paid closer attention to his maneuvering. He realized now that there were conventions for passing each other on lines; each Band turned edgewise to make room. He had failed to do so, interfering with the other. When he distracted himself too much, he wavered physically, attracting concerned attention.

Now he was sure there was, or had been, something extraordinary about him. There had been too consistent a flow of peculiarities. He needed to penetrate the veil of his own amnesia and discover what his secret was. That meant he needed a private place, where he could evince physical symptoms without alarming others—exactly as the purple Band had suggested. Where could he go?

To the tempest region, he realized. The planet was large and had many facets. There were wild mountains in some regions, unshaped to reflective purpose. Atmosphere tended to compress and rarefy, to heat and cool and change the burden of particles it suspended; therefore it was generally in motion. When mountains interrupted the normal flow, severe disturbances could result, and these were called tempests. One area was prone to magnetic storms that disrupted the lines on which Bands traveled, and therefore was shunned by all but the adventurous. If he veered about there, his erratic course would seem to be the result of a magnetic flux. There would be some danger—but Rondl weighed that against the dangers inherent in not knowing his own nature. And of course he did not have to go far into the tempest region; just far enough to have privacy.

Were there safer places to achieve his objective? Rondl wasn't sure; his memory of the planetary surface was spotty, like a discontinuous line. That was part of what he had to explore: the pattern of his own ignorance, if that was possible.

Rondl accelerated. He had purpose now. He followed the line across the surface of the Planet of Band, zooming over walls, hills, valleys, forests, rivers, and intermediate, indeterminate terrain. He knew where the tempest region was; it was the part of his background information that survived.

He no longer bothered to exchange flashes with others. He oriented his body directly on the line, taking in power, propelling himself forward magnetically, leaving a trail of ionized particles behind. He realized that it was possible to detect the recent presence of other Bands by sensing the trace magnetic flux of the particles they had left, before such particles mixed again with the background environment. Particles were everywhere, though much thinner in space than near a planet. His velocity was limited only by his ability to process the abundant energy of the line and the friction of the local atmosphere. The speed was exhilarating!

In due course he came to the tempest region. There was no tempest at the moment, but few Bands were in evidence. Rondl proceeded cautiously, not wishing to be foolhardy. If he could fade into a cul-de-sac and be unobserved for a period—

He checked around. There turned out to be more Bands than he had supposed, evidently with the same notion. No, they could not all be amnesiacs; they must merely wish privacy for other reasons. He would have to penetrate deeper until he found a suitable and vacant spot.

The lines distorted here, and crossed each other randomly. Some were strong but narrow, others broad but weak. Tricky flying! Lines convoluted around outcroppings of charged rock and even dipped under the surface of the planet in places, forcing him to backtrack to search out other lines. No wonder there were few Bands here! It was a puzzle just to make progress.

Rondl wended his way about, enjoying this exploration. He discovered that he liked searching out new regions, even though his whole present situation was new to him. Soon he found a valley-nook, rich in lines, but shielded from the view of others. Here he could finally relax and think and gyrate without concern. If it was in him to remember his origin and history, he would do it now.

He concentrated—and came up against blankness. There was, simply, nothing. He could not even start.

All this trouble to get a private place for deep thinking—gone to waste. Apparently the rich lodes of strange notions had to be evoked randomly by events and spot thoughts; they could not be commanded per se. Disgusted, Rondl left the valley.

Now the puzzle aspect of this place became more challenging. He had, literally, lost himself here. He remembered the nearby terrain—but the pattern of lines did not seem to go there. He should have memorized the lines, not the landscape!

Soon he was in an unfamiliar valley, unable to cross to the one he wanted. Dull brown rocks littered the valley floor, with enough metallic content to fragment the weaker lines near them, and green plants twined about these rocks and climbed the steep sides of the hills, interfering with the closest lines there. Unfortunately, no lines extended from this region upward into space; maybe the tempests had somehow wiped them out. Yes—there was electricity in weather disturbances, and that related indirectly to magnetism. He was stuck in a two-dimensional maze.

Well, he would simply continue until he found another way back. There were many small lines, and one of them should lead to escape. If he could not find where he had entered this region, he might at least find some other line leading to space. Since lines did not end, they had to get him out eventually.

Rondl traveled along, admiring the scenery as it unfolded from valley to valley. The land was so irregular it was hard to know what was slope and what was pause. On the ledges, colored things clung; when his line took him there, Rondl saw that they were flowering plants. They were anchored to the land, unable to fly the lines. They ate light instead of using it for vision and communication, with the single exception that the flowers arranged their hues to be esthetic, to attract creatures that could fly. It was an interesting mode. But the plants also utilized substance. Some of it they took up through their roots, but some plants sought other sources. Their tendrils reached toward Rondl as he floated close. He quickly moved clear. It was amazing how much he knew, when the information was triggered by experience. Probably if he could only return to his most familiar haunts, much of his memory would return—but he needed his memory to find those haunts. Vicious circle.

He skirted a dull natural wall and entered yet another valley. This one was filled with water—a large lake or small sea. Rondl swooped over it. This was a new experience! The lines crisscrossed sportively above the water, and when they dipped into it, it didn't matter. Rondl dived, following one past the surface; progress was much slower underwater and the light diminished, but he could manage nicely. The Band body was largely immune to moisture, as well as to extremes of heat and cold; he belonged to one of the most stable living forms in the Galaxy.

There—he had intercepted some more information! He must know about other creatures of the Galaxy too—if only he could evoke the proper data. But he could not. Not voluntarily.

He pursued the line for some distance, following it down toward the bottom; the light had dimmed almost to nothingness. It didn't matter, since there was no one to communicate with and he did not need light to sense the line itself. This slow-motion, liquid-medium travel was pleasant, as contrast, and perhaps it would help evoke some of the information so tantalizingly locked in his mind. Interesting that this conductive medium did not dissipate the energy of the line. But magnetism was very special stuff, obviously.