Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (15 page)

 
          
Mardoluc read the death-letter
differently. To him it was clear that the wise woman in question had been a
cultist; and that his mum and dad had conceived him by rutting whilst drugged.
This accounted for the sensuality of his nature; and now his sensuality was
pointed in a certain direction, namely the hinterland. Hitherto his epicurism
had been cramped by the general squalor of Port Barbra; which was why he had
lavished so much energy upon superb cuisine. Mardoluc was a creature of good
taste, but only one sort of good taste—of the food variety—seemed possible in
'Barbra itself. Now he decided to search out his real home and extend the realm
of his pleasures.

 
          
Yet the concept of a "real
home" begged a number of questions. Such questions as: "Could I ever
build a real home for myself anywhere in this world?" He knew that he
might have fulfilled himself better in Ajelobo or far Aladalia. To be sure of
this he would have had to sail to Ajelobo or Aladalia as a lonely passenger,
unable to sail back again if he discovered he had made the wrong choice.

 
          
Questions such as this: "My
parents risked a lot to bring me into the world; okay, point taken. But where
did they bring me
from?
What was I,
before I was? Am I even the same person as I was yesterday?"

 
          
In Mardoluc's case good taste wasn't
confined to the sensual domain but was a general cast of mind: composed of
savour and discrimination. So whilst he fed his flesh excellently—increasing
his already hefty anchor-hold on the world—he also asked himself some deep
questions.

 
          
In the course of our tettytet he
said, "How much do you remember of your own first origin, Yaleen?"
And he answered himself, thus: "Why, nothing! At first your mind wasn't
capable of knowing that it existed. It had to learn existence little by little.
When it had learnt, and when you'd become a person with an identity,
everything which went before became hidden in a timeless mist. You had
congealed out of that mist, like a roux stiffening a milky sauce, but never at
any single definable moment.

 
          
"Perhaps something akin happens
throughout life. Identity isn't bom of communion with the past. It's caused by
loss
of the past. Forgetfulness forges
the person; not memory."

 
          
"Till we enter
the
Ka-
store, Papa!"
I'd
taken to calling him that. "When we die, our whole life is ever-present to
us."

 
          
"Ah yes. We're only fully
present after we die. Not before. Do you know
,
I
suspect that we might have been looking at existence the wrong way round? Could
it be that our
Kas
originate not at
birth, but at death? Could it be that they give us our being in retrospect?
Could it be that from out of the illuminated
Ka
-state after death we project a cone of awareness backwards
through our whole lives like the beam of a lanthom—a beam which fades out, the
further that it pierces into the past? You have twisted back into the past,
Yaleen. Thus it is written in
The Book of
the Stars.
What say you?"

 
          
"Gosh, I dunno. So you've read
Stamno's copy?"

           
"But
of course. The copy's back in 'Barbra now." He waved a hand dismissively.
"What say you?"

 
          
"One thing I do know: the Ka-store
can't last forever. If our sun ever blazes up and bums the world, or if its
fires die and our world freezes, I guess the Worm will die too. Where
Kas
go to
afterwards,
seems a good question."

 
          
"Maybe they don't go, but come.
If only we could solve this teaser! The moment flees; we cannot stop it—only
slow it with a drug. You twisted back into the past, Yaleen. If only you could
halt the flow of time—without having to die! We might leam what time
is,
and existence too. Then we could really fight the
Godmind."

 
          
"So that's what you want from
me. Do you know what the Worm wants, Papa? It wants me to contact worms on
other worlds. It thinks I ought to jump out of a balloon and kill myself."

 
          
"A balloon?
I don't follow."

 
          
"I should go up in a hot-air
balloon and leap out of the sky.
Splat.
Then it can
scoop me up and send me through Aif-space on my travels."

 
          
"My proposal seems rather less
drastic, don't you think?"

 
          
"I wonder. I do wonder."

 
          
"Are you worrying that you might
end up like Peepy, prematurely aged? Or like me, a monstrous mountain of lard,
a tun of tummy? Oh I fully admit that this fullness of fat can't all come from
eating!" He grinned. "How could mere eating have done this to
me?"

 
          
"A complete mystery," I
said.

 
          
"I'm thirty-two years old. Soon
I'll have a heart attack, just like my own dear Papa. The circle of my
existence will be complete. Pretty big circle, though, stretching all the way
around me! Big enough, maybe, to bend time
itself
?
If you could but show me how.

 
          
. . . Time might stop and I might
live forever inside a single moment.
Ah dreams, ah just
desserts, ah extraordinary dinners!"
I couldn't tell how much was
joke and how much in deadly earnest; but if plea this was, he didn't stoop to
beg or wheedle.

 
          
"One use of the drug won't warp
you," he promised.

 
          
Well, one use of it hadn't warped
Marcialla; just screwed her up for a while.

 
          
"Maybe," I said, "you
can't actually stop time entirely. If you get close to doing so, maybe time
shifts you—to some other time?"

 
          
"Ah! Now, why's that?"

           
"Perhaps
if time did stop completely, everything would have to stop existing?"

 
          
"We would only find
non-existence: is that what you're saying?"

 
          
I shook my head. That didn't seem
right. I'd spent time—no, not time exactly; I'd spent a period of
"never-ever"—in the void. In the void there was nothing. But the void
itself wasn't
nothing
. The void was bubbling and
simmering with—

 
          
"Not non-existence," I
said. "Pre-existence is what you'd find.
The potential
to exist."

 
          
As we talked, it became increasingly
obvious to me that probably that very same day I was going to sample some
fungus powder, no doubt in a black current cocktail. Papa Mardoluc had gained
some curious insights by use of the drug; and the same drug had acted as a
catalyst
upon the Worm too. (New words:
use 'em, or lose 'em!)

 
          
Later, half a dozen more women
arrived accompanied by a couple of men. They bore baskets of provisions.
Mardoluc explained how a thriving little farm had been set up nearby especially
to supply the palace. This farm even had its own miniature river, according to
him. A stream had been deepened, widened and diverted round in an ox-bow shape
for part of its length. A bucket-chain, worked by a windmill, quickened the
flow by transferring water from the tip of the downstream "horn"
across to the upstream horn; hence the presence of pollfish on the breakfast
menu.

 
          
Presently Mardoluc heaved his way
upstairs to see to lunch. Since he declined my offer of culinary assistance, I
was left to my own devices and I went outside on to the moss-sward so as to be
alone of my own free choice rather than by default.

 
          
In full daylight the moss appeared
darker than ever. The living velvet had become a black mirror, a lustrous
hummocky expanse of polished jet. It reminded me of a certain lava-field near
Firelight. Here, however, the surface might
look
as hard as could be—stiff, slippery—yet really it was soft and yielding. My
eyes told me lies about it. Only touch told the truth. Earlier on I'd been
leery of touch. Now I sank my fingers into springy vegetable flesh.

 
          
Flies seemed to shun the moss. Maybe
they could smell something which I couldn't smell. More likely the darkness of
the sward confused their simple senses. The sward confused me too, but I adored
it.

 
          
No, that was
why
I liked it! It upset my balance—in a way which made me feel
more agile within myself.

 
          
Meanwhile, what of the
Crackerjill?
My absence would be a
certainty by now.
Peli's, too.
The possible
consequences bothered me a bit. The river guild could hardly cut off one of my
feet in reprisal, the way they had cut off Tam's hand. Even so, they might send
Peli away from me as punishment. They might beach her in 'Barbra as tit for tat
for her part in my misdemeanour. I would have ruined her life; and 1 could hardly
see Peli becoming a bosom-buddy of Credence's.

 
          
While I was brooding about this, and
trying to imagine agile solutions, sprightly outcomes, Peli herself emerged
from the doorway. She looked more edgy than refreshed.

 
          
I scrambled up and was just starting
to reassure her that we were in safe hands—when Peera-pa followed her through
the veils, wrinkling her nose.

 
          
"You can relax," I was
saying.

 
          
"Shut up, will you?"
muttered Peli. "I just farted in there, that's what. I didn't think anyone
would notice. But it smelt like a kitchen-full of fried poppadums."

 
          
"Oh
dear."

 
          
"I was amazed."

 
          
"That's quite a nice smell,
poppadums."

 
          
"Not when it comes out of
someone's arse." Peli shifted away, stared at the sky, whistled
innocently.

 
          
"Ahem," said Peera-pa.

 
          
"Oh hullo," said Peli. I
giggled helplessly.

 
          
Peli made a bluff lunge at
conversation. "Er, why does that fat fellow call you Peepy, then?"
she asked.

 
          
Peera-pa pulled up her hood and
half-veiled her face.

 
          
"Perhaps
because I only peep at the Truth instead of peering steadily."
She
sounded hurt. "A glimpse is better than being blind!" Aye, and
perhaps her name hinted how strangers
peeped
at Peera-pa's young-and-ancient face?

 
          
"Dum-di-dum-di-dum," hummed
Peli.

 
          
A whole kitchen-full of big thin crinkly
flour-biscuits, sweaty with boiling oil!
Papa-
dums!
I sniggered and hastily slapped myself across the cheek.

 
          
"Sorry," I said.

 
          
"For what?" asked Peera-pa,
staying
veiled.

 
          
"Thought a fly bit me. Forget
it, forget it. It's nothing."

 
          
Perhaps Peera-pa had come out with
the intention of confiding in me, as Papa Mardoluc had done.
(Unless
she had simply popped out for some fresh air!)
Alas, if so, Peli's fart
and its aftermath had blown that tender chance away.

 
          
"Hmm," said Peera-pa.
"We should have lunch now.
Empty bellies, empty brains;
empty bowels and gasbags!"

 
          
"I'm still stuffed tight from
breakfast," I said. "Papa's such a
splendid
cook." Might honest flattery retrieve the situation?

 
          
"You'll be starving later on.
It's better to fill up beforehand."

 
          
"Before I take the timestop
drug?"

 
          
She nodded, as though this was taken
for granted. Perhaps Papa had already tipped her the
wink,
that
I would.

 
          
"Incidentally, Yaleen, I ought
to advise you that some participants may be more interested in the erotic
aspects."

 
          
"We're not prudish. Are we,
Peli?"

 
          
"Dum-di-dum.
Oh no."