Castle Dreams

by John Dechancie

  But whoever was in pursuit seemed to have lost the scent. Gene guessed that the three craft he had seen streaking through the planet's upper atmosphere had either overshot their intended landing site or were deploying into a wide search pattern.

  He asked, “Do you think their instruments got a fix on you as you landed ... uh, crashed?"

  “They were tracking me as I deorbited, but I employed...” She grunted as she stepped up to a ledge. “I used every deception ploy and decoy device that the lander had to offer. Something might have worked."

  “Seems to have."

  “They'll be following phantom sensor readings for a good while. We may have time enough to reach the test mine—if we're lucky."

  “Test mine?"

  “Yes, a test shaft and a number of tunnels, if the information I have is correct. Production mining never commenced here, and the facility was mothballed. Unless scavengers found it, there may be an operating multiphone there."

  “Some kind of radio?"

  She gave him a curious look. “What strange terminology you use. Radio? No. It doesn't broadcast on the usual spectra. It employs paired virtual photons to propagate probability waves through...” She shrugged. “You must be a bumpkin from the darkest of galactic provinces if you need the principles of superluminal1 communication explained to you."

  [1. Faster than light.]

  “Yeah, you might say I'm from the boondocks,” Gene told her.

  She frowned. “Could it be that you don't speak Universal? I seem to be understanding you, but I just suddenly realized you're actually speaking some other tongue. Do you have a running translator working?"

  “Sort of."

  “It must be very sophisticated. You had me fooled."

  “It is sophisticated, very,” Gene said. “It's downright magical, in fact. How far to this mine thing?"

  “It should be just over this next ridge. Uhhh..."

  She sank to her knees.

  “Take it easy. Do you want to rest?"

  “No!” She forced herself to rise as he assisted. “We must get there and send for help. It's only a matter of time before they realize they've been fooled and begin to recognize our life readings hidden in the false data."

  They moved on. The pink sky looked darkly ominous now, as if warning of a strange storm to come. The orange scrub moved nervously with the breeze. The rocks looked greener here, shading from verdigris to jade.

  They made their way across rugged terrain for a good ten minutes.

  “Kind of obvious question, and maybe I'm missing something,” Gene said, “but won't your broadcast on this multiphone gadget—By the way, it is a broadcast you're talking about, something that can be detected easily?"

  “A multiphone transmission can be detected by anyone with a multiphone receiver anywhere in the universe."

  “I see. So my question is, Won't your transmission give our position away?"

  “Not at all.” She was out of breath. “No way to ... determine the origin of a multiphone transmission ... omnidirectional ... uhhh."

  “We've got to slow down. You could be bleeding again."

  She suddenly pointed. “There!"

  Gene looked ahead. An inverted hexagonal umbrella, looking very like an advanced communications dish, was jutting above the crest of the next hill.

  “Isn't this the first place they'll look?” he asked.

  “Not if the lander's decoy drones succeed in convincing the Irregulars that I came down on the other side of the planet,” she said. “They won't search here until they realize they've been hoodwinked."

  “Another obvious question,” Gene said as he helped her up the steep rise. “Why do they want you?"

  She was silent.

  “Just thought I'd ask,” he said.

  “How do I know you're not an Irregular agent?"

  “Would I be helping you?"

  “You could be leading me into a trap while trying to get me to divulge information without resorting to either torture or mind probe. Not that either would yield anything of value."

  “I concede the point."

  She gave him an analytical look. “But I don't think you are an Irregular. You're a bit of mystery. You haven't even mentioned your ship. If you have one, that is the first place they would have looked—unless your ship is in a stealth mode that is beyond their capacities to defeat. In which case, you might just be a freebooter."

  He said, “In which case I might be tempted to turn you over to your pursuers for any reward they might offer. Are they offering a reward?"

  “None that I know of,” she replied. “The Supreme Command of the Irregular Forces of the Liberation would probably thank you for contributing to the cause of bringing down the central government of the Dominion of Worlds. And then they would likely kill you to cover up any traces of their actions here."

  “Oh."

  “But you are free to take the gamble that they might just impress you into service. They do that, you know."

  “I'm not impressed,” Gene said. “But don't worry, I'm not about to meddle in affairs I know nothing about. All I know is that you're hurt, you're in trouble, and you're the shapeliest shuttle pilot I've ever seen. I just want to prevent further harm from befalling you."

  “You are a strange one. Where is your ship?"

  “Don't have one, sorry."

  “Then...” She fell silent as they neared the tall silo-shaped building, prickly with numerous antennae, that stood on the slope of the next hill. Behind it stood other functional structures. The silo was buff-colored with a yellow door at its base. The door's only feature was a square shiny plate.

  She slumped to the ground in front of the door, exhausted. Gene bent to inspect the plate.

  “Some kind of electronic lock, I guess."

  When she caught her breath she said, “No doubt the security system has already scanned us and decided we're unlikely candidates for admission."

  “How did you plan on getting in?"

  She unzipped a pouch on her pressure suit and withdrew a small black box with dials and readouts on it. “This.” She fiddled with the settings, then handed it to him.

  He took it and examined it. The markings were indecipherable, but somehow he tumbled to the thing's function. There was an adhesive strip on the back.

  “Timed charge?"

  She nodded. “It's powerful enough to take out the side of the building, so it must be set back a distance. Put it about...” She sized up the building. “Here.” She pointed.

  He walked to the spot. “Right here?"

  “Yes. But—"

  “What?"

  “There is one flaw to my plan,” she said glumly, “such as it is. They'll readily detect any major energy discharge."

  “Now, that's a problem."

  “Yes.” She crossed her legs and let out a breath. “I didn't have much time to think this through. But I suppose the only thing to do is rush for the communications room and get off the transmission as quickly as possible. After that the only thing we can do is hide in one of the tunnels."

  “Where they'd have us neatly cornered."

  “True.” Her purplish-blue eyes rolled. “I suppose it's useless."

  “Don't give up yet."

  Gene approached the door and eyed it up and down.

  “Do you have any ideas?” she asked.

  “This security system you mentioned, the way you phrased it—” He ran a hand over the smooth yellow-painted metal of the door. “Is it controlled by an Artificial Intelligence?"

  “Of course,” she said. “How else could a security system know friend from foe?"

  “Right. If we did get in, we'd have to contend with it. True?"

  “We'd have to take it out."

  “Hmm. First we have to get in. I'm going to try something."

  “What?"

  “Little magic trick I know."

  Gene squared himself in front of the door and extended his right hand, bringing the palm up flush with
the metal plate.

  She watched with interest.

  “'Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston pie,'” he began.

  She was very interested. One pale eyebrow rose.

  “'A fly can't bird but a bird can fly,'” he finished.2

  [2. See Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne.]

  He repeated the couplet several times, keeping perfectly still, fixing his gaze straight ahead.

  Presently the door emitted a high-pitched tone. It emitted several more in a complex harmonic sequence, then beeped dissonantly. After a few more seconds it slid aside with a hiss.

  “Amazing,” she said.

  “Nothing to it."

  “Whatever was that?"

  “A little facilitation spell. I can't do much in the way of hocus-pocus, but I can do a door-opener in worlds with manageable indigenous magic. Fortunately, this is such a world."

  She guffawed. “You're a magician?"

  “An inept one. Please, I'm very sensitive about it."

  She laughed.

  “Don't you have any compassion for the handicapped?"

  “I have no idea who you are or what you're up to,” she said, “but you do have style, that much I'll say."

  “Style is the last refuge,” he replied as he helped her up, “of those who are short in the substance department."

  The strange building was dark inside. They entered cautiously.

  PLANE

  The horizon had lightened a bit, he thought. But he could not be sure. He had been walking for ... how long? But there was no time, of course. Nothing, except...

  Was it that he had a better conception of himself? Not a conception, exactly. It might best be said that he had a firmer grasp on his own reality. The situation had been touch and go for a while. (Timelike words again! No avoiding them, try as he might.) He had felt that he would dissolve, fade away. But now he was fairly sure that his existence, such as it was, would continue for an indefinite time into an indeterminate future. That was something. Not much, but something.

  There was not much else, however. His name still eluded him. He had no memories to speak of. Only, now, a vague sense that much had gone on before.

  Well, that was more than he had possessed on his arrival here....

  Again, the persistence of time. Perhaps time did have a meaning here. Things were changing, albeit imperceptibly. Conditions were ... improving. No. That was exaggeration. It was enough that things were changing, and perhaps changing in an important way.

  But on the other hand...

  Did he have two hands? He looked at them. Yes.

  But on the other hand, not much about this place had changed. It was barely a place at all. There was a nothingness about it that was disquieting, that defeated him. There was too much nothingness here. In fact, there was almost no “here” in which to contain a nothingness. There was absolutely nothing to distinguish any one point on this plane from any other...

  Until now.

  He stopped. Far ahead, something rose above the horizon. It wasn't much of anything but a line, a spike, a rise of something that had no characteristics save that it was perpendicular to the line of the horizon. It seemed very far away.

  A goal! He had a goal! He strode forward eagerly.

  Unlike the horizon, this new feature of the universe got closer the more one walked toward it. As he neared, it got bigger, and he began to notice that it was thicker at its base. It was a tall, thin pyramid—an obelisk, and there was something at the top, an irregular shape, but he still could not distinguish it.

  He hurried toward it.

  He arrived at the column's base and found that he could barely see the top. It was almost lost in the darkness. Yet he could make out a shape.

  It looked like a man up there. Yes, very definitely, though the features were indiscernible. The man seemed to be sitting atop the obelisk, seated in a wing chair. The chair rested on a capital that crowned the shaft.

  He stared up at the figure. It did not move. He continued watching. Before long he could have sworn that he detected movement, perhaps a slight shifting of the figure. But no more than that. Whatever or whoever it was preferred not to move.

  But as time (yes!) passed he began to see that there was more to the figure, and became convinced that the small platform at the apex of the obelisk held more than just the figure and the seat. The figure ... yes, it was a man, a man dressed in a long gown and a pointed cap ... was bent over a small writing desk or lectern. He was writing, slowly and methodically, with a quill in a large ledger, his attention to detail fastidious, the tip of the quill processing equinoctially, in slow circles.1

  [1. The precession of the equinoxes is the earlier occurrence of the equinoxes in each successive sidereal year because of a slow retrograde motion of the equinoctial points along the ecliptic, caused by the wobble inherent in the Earth's rotation, much like that of a spinning top.]

  Time passed.

  Below, the one who looked up waited. He stood completely still, eyes on the figure above. Waiting. Waiting.

  A further duration ran its course. At some point in a moving stream of time that was now well-established, a few moments later or several hours later—no one could say—the man on high laid the quill aside and settled within the wings of his high-backed chair.

  Something had changed in the interim. The obelisk was not so much an obelisk as a high bench—a very high bench, such as that from which a judge might deliberate.

  The man in the gown and pointed cap looked down. The face was vague in shadows, but a flowing beard could be discerned, its color perhaps a silver-gray. The eyes, under a dark lowered brow, were pools of deeper shadow.

  He spoke. He said, “Ah.” His voice was deep and resonant.

  The man below said nothing.

  The Judge (for after all, he must have a name) glanced at the open book. “I was just working on your entry. Good. You have come. Your time has come. Rather, the end of your time. There now must be a reckoning."

  More time passed, enough so that the man below felt he must answer.

  “Where am I?"

  The Judge smiled faintly. “Where, indeed. If this is a place, it is a place between places. Less a place than a transition between places. Between different states of being, shall we say. The notion of physical location is moot. This is not so much a place as it is a way station. A short stop on the journey."

  “On the journey to where?"

  “That is what must be determined."

  “If you can't tell me where I am,” the man below said, “then tell me who I am."

  “That also must be determined. Identity is not a constant thing. It shifts. It flows. It must be stabilized. It needs bolstering now and then. Reinforcing. It is not a given."

  The man below stared at the ground for a moment. Then he looked up again. “What am I doing here? Why was I brought to this place?"

  “You are full of questions,” the Judge said. He smiled again and nodded. “Good. You must regard what is happening to you as a process, a situation in a state of becoming. You must ask questions, you must learn. You must forget what you know, or what you think you know, and you must learn it again, afresh. With the relearning might come something new. New knowledge. Sharper insight. A change of perspective. And all that will come, in time. You must learn, as well, to be patient."

  “I want to know,” the man below said. “I want to learn."

  “Good, good. You will learn. And you will know."

  The Judge leaned back and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Ah,” he said wearily. “This is not the easiest of jobs."

  “Who are you?” the man looking up asked.

  “It is my job to see you through this process of learning. To guide you, but not to teach. You must teach yourself. I will be with you in spirit along the way. It is also my appointed task to choose a proper path for you. There are many paths to knowledge. Many means to the ultimate goal. One way must be chosen that is right for you, that is more conduci
ve to self-instruction than any other."

  “Where am I to go?” was the question.

  “Do not ask where,” came the answer. “As I told you, location is of little importance. More significant is the process itself. Forget for now the question of where in space and time the process unfolds. For your purposes, there is no space, save for that space in which you are to fulfill your destiny. There is no time, save for the duration needed for that destiny to be fulfilled."

  “Is it all written?” asked the man. “Is it all set down in that book?"

  The Judge nodded, leaning forward again, looking over the edge of the towering bench. “I am writing it. It is being written even as we speak."

  “Then I have no will, no volition."

  “On the contrary! You have every means at your disposal to change the circumstances in which you will find yourself. You will have the wherewithal to resist, to fight, to scheme, to meddle, or to refuse. All is possible. All this you will do."

  “But if my fate is sealed..."

  “In eternity, your fate is set. But you live in time, and you have the means and the opportunity to affect the outcome of all that you engage in. You will choose your fate. You will cause it to be fixed in eternity. You will be the only cause of your own predetermined fate. You will write your story. And I ... I will set it down. Here.” The Judge touched the pages of the open ledger.

  The man did not answer for a long while. The silence of the Plane droned on.

  “I find all that ... very interesting."

  “No doubt,” the Judge said. He sat back again. “There is not much more to say. Words, at this point, would be of little value."

  “You have not said many,” the man below said. “Nor have you told me very much."

  “That is true. For many reasons. And you will know the reason in time, as you shall know many things."

  The Judge straightened in his chair.

  “It is time to begin."

  “Begin what?"

  The horizon, the man suddenly noticed, was barely visible now, a faint ring of grayness that had slowly faded as the conversation progressed. The darkness that was not a sky above seemed to grow darker still. Shadows fell upon one another across the length and breadth of the Plane. Silence deepened.