The Unreasoning Mask

by Philip José Farmer

  Benagur, on the bridge, was speaking through the translator hanging by a cord from his neck. The machine spoke Tolt in answer to the commander of the launch from the Popacapyu. This was stopped a few meters from a port on the starboard side. Ramstan, looking at a bridge screen, could see the white set face of Branwen Davis through the transparent upper part of the hull. There were also twelve Tenolt there, heavily armed and looking grim.

  "Your god will be here within a minute or two," Benagur said. "I assure you that you have no reason to fear treachery. I regret deeply that our former commander stole the glyfa, and I will see to it that he gets maximum punishment."

  The launch commander had identified his rank as 'sakikl , equivalent to commodore, and his surname as Khekhani'l. His deep harsh voice, speaking Terrish through the translator, said, "The fate of the blasphemer thief is up to you. Our only concern is to get our god back."

  And then? Ramstan thought.

  He gave another order to al-Buraq, following it with the code word to put the order into action.

  Benagur looked at the bridge chronometer. He momentarily turned the translator off and said, "Tenno, open the channel to my quarters."

  It was obvious that he meant to find out if Toyce had left the cabin yet.

  Tenno did as ordered.

  "The screen is blank, sir," Tenno said.

  "I can see that," Benagur said. "Try voice."

  Tenno spoke into the screen. Then, "No response, sir."

  He opened a channel to the main engine room. It was empty, so he used the all-ship channels to call for an engineer.

  Benagur scowled and said, "I don't like this, Tenno. Get Indra on it. Put me through to Ramstan."

  The glyfa would arrive in another five minutes. Ramstan began pacing back and forth as if he were thinking deeply about something, which he was. Benagur's face appeared on a screen, and he bellowed, "Ramstan!"

  It might have been better to seem to be startled, but Ramstan would not give Benagur that satisfaction. He stopped and turned slowly. "Yes?"

  Benagur looked the brig over, but he would see nothing out of the way. Nevertheless, he was suspicious. His expression said that his prisoner had to be up to something and that he was probably responsible for Toyce's being late and for the malfunction in his cabin channels. Still, he could do nothing about it.

  Benagur did not even give Ramstan the courtesy of answering him. The screen went blank.

  The cell screen showed Ramstan the bridge. Benagur said, "Tenno, send someone after Toyce and scan ship for her."

  He looked at the chronometer again and then at the screen showing the Tolt launch. "Where's Indra?"

  "Can't find him as yet, sir," Tenno said.

  "Can't find him?" Benagur's voice lost some of its deepness. "What do you mean, you can't find him? What's going on?"

  Tenno called Mijako. "Do you have any idea where Commodore Indra is?"

  Mijako shook her blonde head. "No, sir. Just a minute ago he was in the main engine room, testing."

  "For what?"

  "He said he suspected some sort of malfunction."

  "He was right!" Benagur said. "We're up to our ass in malfunctions!"

  That was the first time Ramstan had heard the commodore use any phrase even hinting at vulgarity. Ramstan smiled. Benagur was very nervous.

  The Tolt commodore spoke again, asking what was causing the delay. Benagur replied that Toyce would be on the bridge within a minute with the glyfa. He asked the commodore if he would enter ship now. It would expedite matters. The Tolt refused, and, a minute later, called Benagur.

  "My captain gives you ten more minutes to surrender our god. If I don't report that the glyfa is in the launch by then, I am to proceed back to my ship."

  That meant that the Popacapyu might attack as soon as the launch returned. Branwen Davis would still be a prisoner.

  Ramstan thought briefly about her. She was very attractive, and he was very fond of her. But he was not in love with her. He could not, would not, permit himself to be. All the women he had fallen in love with and who had fallen in love with him had left him. Those who had told him why they had left had said that he was missing something vital. He was flawed. Not that they could not tolerate certain flaws in their men. As the saying went, nobody was perfect. But he was always thinking of something other than them, even at the times when he should have been entirely with them. One with them, as Nuoli had once said. He did not satisfy them. They did not use that phrase in the sexual sense; he was far from wanting in bed. Physically, that is. But he was searching for something, and when he drove hard into their bodies, it was as if he was trying to clutch that something inside them.

  They did not have it, of course, and they hated him for using their bodies as a channel for it.

  Ramstan had denied their accusations at first, but eventually he had admitted to himself that they were right. He did not want things to be that way. But he could not help himself.

  What was he looking for?

  Immortality? He could have had that from the glyfa, though it was in a form that he would take only as a last resort. Perhaps not then.

  Despite this, he grieved about Branwen Davis, though only for a short time. Allah alone knew what she faced if she remained the captive of the Tenolt. Even though they had forced her to be their tool, they would regard her as a blasphemer. She had touched the glyfa.

  Until now, the Tenolt had never been absolutely sure where their god was. They had preferred a waiting game; using cunning and guile and patience. Now, they knew that the glyfa was in al-Buraq. They were getting very impatient and very desperate. They could attack and destroy al-Buraq and not harm the glyfa. Its hard surface would defy even a laser or an atom bomb, if what the glyfa had told him was true. It had been forged in a star, had burned up the star as fuel. It could fall into a white dwarf and not be damaged or affected in any way.

  For all Ramstan knew, the Tolt launch was armed with a neutron bomb. Its commodore might be under orders to set it off if he had to. He would not hesitate to do so. His act would ensure his soul eternal delight within the glyfa.

  The more Ramstan considered this possibility, the more he was sure that the Tenolt would be prepared for such an act.

  In any event, he did not plan that they would get the glyfa.

  If he gave the code word now, al-Buraq would go into alaraf drive. She would vanish from the sight of the Tenolt. If they indeed did have the ability to trace the passage of al-Buraq, they would still have to chase her, and Ramstan thought he might lose them. Even if he could not, he could get ship to a more defensive or offensive situation.

  Going into alaraf drive, however, would leave Branwen Davis in Tenolt hands.

  He thought furiously for a moment and then decided to take a chance. The weapons in the launch might be set to operate automatically if al-Buraq or her crew made a sudden offensive move. And even if that was not the situation and if the launch crew was not overcome swiftly enough, its commodore might trigger a bomb -- if it had a bomb.

  He gave another order to ship. Her deck and bulkhead quivered. He had ship fold a shock-cushion of flesh around him, a formation from the deck. Partially enclosed in this, he said, "Now!"

  The swift movement of al-Buraq thrust him sideways into the yielding but still-holding flesh. Anyone else in ship who was unsecured would be hurled from the deck or pressed against a chair or bulkhead or whatever. There would be injuries, but he could not help that. He must do what he was doing if Branwen was to be saved from torture and death.

  Al-Buraq shot toward the launch, swallowed it in the port, and deck and bulkheads and overhead squeezed down. The launch was being pressed down -- if things were going as Ramstan planned -- until there would be only room enough within the launch for its occupants to lie on the deck. The hull would be a mangled can squeezing them, keeping them from moving enough to get to the controls. And the control machinery should be compressed and out of operation.

  That was what he hoped woul
d happen.

  A bulkhead screen flashed out in code, "Order carried out. Awaiting next phase."

  Ramstan could not keep from crying out triumphantly. Then he said, swiftly, in code, "Next phase."

  The shock-cushion spread out from him, and he arose. The lessened weight told him that al-Buraq had gone into alaraf drive.

  ... 23 ...

  A bulkhead screen showed that the two marines had regained their guard posts. Ramstan gave an order. The brig shrank to compensate for the widening of the bulkheads directly behind the marines, their hollowing-in in the central portion, and their lipping-out at the edges. The pliable bulkheads then swiftly strait-jacketed the two guards except for their heads. They were helpless to do anything but yell.

  The iris could not fully open because of the bulging out of the bulkheads, but Ramstan squeezed through it. He had the marines released one by one, took their olsons, and put one in his jacket pocket. He ordered them to enter the brig. There he gave another order to al-Buraq. The deck flowed up and around them until it covered their lips. Though no one but he could hear them, he did not want to be distracted by their voices.

  An olson in one hand, he left the brig, ran down the passageways to a lift, and took it down two decks to the port which had swallowed the Tolt launch. At his order, ship opened up enough to let him in. The distorted bulkheads parted for him as the Red Sea had for Moses. The port crew was enfolded in the reddish substance of dock and bulkhead. Their protruding heads reminded him of a scene from Dante's Inferno. Ignoring their cries for help, he walked on, the bulkheads dividing for him, and he came to what was left of the launch. Al-Buraq had crushed it, trapping Branwen Davis and the Tenolt crew inside it.

  Branwen was the only one alive. The others, unable to get free and doubtless acting on orders given before they had left the Popacapyu, had committed suicide. They had probably done it by code words which had released poison from minute containers in their bodies.

  Ramstan cut with his olson the hull sections which trapped Branwen, put the weapon in his jacket pocket, and helped her to her feet. She was very pale and covered with vomit. Her hand shaking, she pointed at the forward part of the launch.

  "I think there's a bomb there," she said.

  She staggered toward him, and he held her up. The stench sickened him.

  "The commodore couldn't get his hands free to pull a button from his uniform," she said. "He kept screaming at the others to get loose and tear the red button off."

  "Button?" Ramstan said. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes. I think that tearing the button off would activate the bomb."

  "I'll tell the crew to take care of it," Ramstan said. He half-lifted her and urged her out of the port. The heads yelled at him, asking questions, begging to be released. He ignored them.

  As they went down the passageway, he said, "The Tolt captain admitted that he'd forced you to steal the glyfa and leave a fake in its place. How'd he manage to do that? I mean . . . once you were in al-Buraq, you should have been safe. You could have told us . . ." He stopped. Obviously, she had had a good reason to keep quiet.

  "The fever?" he said. "That have anything to do with what the Tenolt did to you?"

  "Yes," she said huskily. "The fever was a temporary reaction to the artificial protein-explosive mix implanted in me. They took . . . they took . . ."

  She choked, then said, "They took out a section of my vaginal wall and replaced it with the mixture. It's undetectable from natural flesh unless a piece of it is removed and subjected to a laboratory test. The explosive could be set off with a certain radio frequency. I was told that if I didn't cooperate with them, I'd be blown up."

  "But you could have told us. The surgeons would've removed the section."

  "With what? Steel or plastic tools would set off the explosive. I was told that the explosive radiated a field that would cause an explosion when there was direct contact of any hard substance with the artificial flesh. Laser beams would also trigger it. I don't know . . ."

  "That what they told you was true?"

  "Yes, but I couldn't . . . wouldn't . . . take the chance."

  "There were plenty of times when we were far away from the ToIt ship. They couldn't send a triggering frequency then, and I'm sure that Doctor Hu would've figured out something. At the least, you could have told us what the situation was. Maybe we couldn't remove the section, but we wouldn't have been ignorant . . . blind . . ."

  "Look who's telling me what a cowardly traitor I am."

  "You were afraid, and you kept silent," he said. "I have no love for the Tenolt. But they can't be blamed too much. I did steal their god, and they believe that without their god they are nothing. Nothing! By the way, how did they know that I did it? What about Benagur and Nuoli?"

  "They figured that you were the only one with enough authority to keep the officers and crew from asking questions. But I suppose they didn't really know who'd taken it. Their speculations were right, though. You did steal it!"

  They entered his quarters. She went to the bulkhead where a symbol, three wavy black horizontal lines, was at her eye-level. She pointed at her open mouth, and the bulkhead bulged out, became a down-curving pipe, and a section formed a cup which fell off. She held the cup until it was almost full of water, signaled for the outpour to stop, drank, and then slapped the cup against the bulkhead. It seemed to melt and shortly was part of the bulkhead again. The pipe-form remained in case ship's captain might wish a drink also. The affection circuit was responsible for this. Without it, ship would have automatically retracted the pipe.

  Ramstan drank also. Branwen came up to him. Her green eyes, reminding him of the surface of the Persian Gulf, seemed to expand, to grow like balloons in his mind, to crowd out all else that was vital at that moment.

  "Can you really blame me?" she cried. "What was I to do? Ethically . . ."

  He said, "Yes, ethically?"

  "Right or wrong? That's what I mean! Weren't the Tenolt basically right, justified? Weren't you the criminal, the unjustifiable? What was I to do? I believed, half-believed, anyway, that they had the right!"

  "There's no time for this kind of talk," he said. "Any kind of talk. I'm here, not on the bridge, and . . ."

  "I don't know what kind of hold the glyfa has on you," she said. "But you betrayed . . ."

  "Be quiet!" he yelled.

  She quivered, reminding him for some reason of the shaking of the deck when al-Buraq was excited or anxious about him.

  "Why should I?" she said. "What can you do to me? Or for me? You're nothing. I know that you're not the captain, you're in disgrace, you've been brigged. Benagur told the Tolt captain, and he told me. Only . . ."

  She waved a hand to indicate that she did not understand what was going on. Even in her shock, she must comprehend that the situation was not what had been described to her. Otherwise, how would Ramstan have been able to leave the brig, rescue her, and come to his quarters?

  "Take your seat, and stay there," he growled.

  "I'll take it. I may not stay."

  By then the bulkhead was glowing with forty-nine screens, each showing a key-point in ship. By now, some crewpeople were trying, without using lasers or other violent means, to get Indra out of the grip of the storeroom. They were failing, of course. Other screens showed faces with many differing expressions or without expression, which was as indicative of emotions as the liveliest masks. Most displayed various kinds of anxiety or fear or panic or stunned incomprehension which concealed a comprehension their owners did not want to admit.

  Ramstan now concentrated his thoughts on Benagur. What he ordered was what the crew would do. Unless he, Ramstan, snatched the leadership from Benagur.