The Pure Cold Light

by Gregory Frost

“You know it alters them, makes them go away where you can’t see them. Into ‘twelve-space.’”

  “What’s twelve-space?” It was a term she knew she had heard somewhere.

  “Well, twelve-space…I picked it up from a broadcast. Some physicist offering theory—a wise man, I think. Very nearly has it all with his theory.”

  She remembered: the Ichi-Plok spokesperson who had scared Nebergall off the slow food story. What would he say when he found out that aliens composed part of his viewing audience? Knowing him, he’d love it.

  “He said one of your physics proposes that you live in a world of eleven dimensions,” he said, “four of which you know and experience, seven of which you know nothing of and cannot experience. You can only imagine them—seven dimensions around you right this instant, everywhere, throughout the universe.”

  “And that’s where you’re from?”

  “Not really,” said Angel. “He calls it ‘twelve-space’ because that’s an easy tag that we can all comprehend. It’s a common concept.” He had a decided accent now; the rhythm of his speech had changed, become lilting. “We are right next door, pues—that is, therefore—he says twelve. We don’t have any idea how many dimensions we are. It never occurred to us to ask. I can’t explain beyond that.”

  “I think I see,” she replied after a moment. “It’s pretty much what Mussari was guessing. Orbitol acts to alter the nature of the body so that the tissues cease to conform to our four dimensions and become part of yours—some sort of crossover?”

  “Yes, that’s fairly accurate.”

  “ScumberCorp thought it was wiping out what it considered an undesirable populace—”

  “But in fact it was dropping them onto your next-door neighbors like bags of garbage,” Glimet finished for her.

  “What happens to the Orbiters in twelve-space?”

  “They decay, almost from the moment they arrive. They appear out of nowhere as huge pulpy masses of suffering—it’s very hard to convey because the physicality is nothing like here. Say that we share their anguish as our own. Pain and pleasure are open among us—no, not ‘open,’ what’s the right word?—communicable? We’re susceptible to them. Their continued arrival fills up our world with their agony. Eventually, we’ll drown in it.”

  None of this talk of pain and dimensions was making much sense to Shikker’s beleaguered brain. She asked, “What about the place Glimet seen all the time, that he wanted to go to? That your world?”

  Glimet smiled indulgently. “There never was such a place, Amerind. His mind was making up images he could cope with—the way all of you dream by creating images that represent things in your life in some abstract way. He saw pink trees and grass and physical things that don’t exist at all in our universe. Or if they do, it’s in one of those dimensions we can’t experience.” He turned to Lyell again.

  She thought his sharp-eyed leanness and directness alone would persuade many in the viewing audience.

  He told her, “This body that I share, I share with a remnant of Glimet’s consciousness. His memory is in here—that’s how I know what he saw, what he dreamed. So is Angel’s memory returned now that the bypass is eliminated. But this—” he paused briefly, then held up his arm, closing his fingers into a fist “—this is done by remote manipulation from a distance too strange to describe. That’s why there is that momentary delay when you ask a question of us.”

  “You’re not here in front of me.”

  Angel said, “No. That would kill us in the crossing, as it has nearly done to Señor Mingo. Empero, the remotes are not too stable. The first group of them decomposed here recently.” He gestured at the withered corpses. “I’m second generation. Glimet, having survived the first batch, is third, I guess. There seems to be a time factor that is inconsistent. I know from Angel Rueda’s memory that I ‘died’ some months ago. However, I seem to be one of the most stable of the remotes.”

  There were matters that, as a reporter, she wanted to make sure they covered. She took control of the conversation, asking, “Tell me what happened on the Moon.”

  The lightness of his manner collapsed into solemnity. His eyes unfocused upon memories. It was his first opportunity to reflect on those events. Tears welled in his eyes. He lowered his head. The tears fell in silent grief. “They’re all dead. I led them to their doom.”

  No one spoke. Even Shikker grasped what was happening. She crept nearer to Glimet and placed her hand over his. He glanced her way uncertainly, but tenderly. It was a look of sadness, reflecting what he must know of her former relationship with the body he inhabited, and the understanding that she would never comprehend Glimet’s secondary presence. Lyell filmed it all.

  Angel raised his head. His eyelids glistened. He spoke softly. “We, that is to say Glimet’s first wave, had learned what was causing the appearance of these creatures, these Orbiters, in our world. They found out that the chemical is processed in a factory on the Moon. So we created an enclosure to sustain life and made it blossom beside Stercus Pharmaceuticals’ lunar manufacturing plant. We can extrude inert material back through the hole where our space is torn, the crossover you referred to.”

  She held up her hand to stop him. “Wait a second, on the Moon? There was a rent in space corresponding to a location on the Moon?”

  “Not one, dozens, close together. Next to Stercus’s facility, yes,” he said. “It’s the factory for making Orbitol. ¿Comprende? There’s a mass grave.” He stared hard at her. “The guinea pigs were put to sleep before their tissues had totally transformed, at various stages of transformation. We had to stretch some of them apart to come through. The enclosure is built on their bones.”

  Lyell saw how what he was saying connected up with ScumberCorp’s free lunch inducements to the Boxers, especially the ones who went up into the towers and were never heard from again. She had to repress the urge to smile. “And down here. Your first wave was here, you said. A similar situation? Bodies?”

  “Yes,” said Glimet. “A much higher incidence here. There must be bodies scattered all through this subterranean maze.”

  “Sure,” agreed Shikker, “down here’s where most Orbiters come sooner or later.”

  Angel continued, “We invaded Stercus Pharmaceuticals. A dozen of us, innocently believing we had the power to overcome any obstacle. Verdadero, we expected to reason with those we met. What we met turned out to be ScumberCorp security. Mingo led them. Glimet has already explained about the time delay in maneuvering these bodies. We’re in no position to make snap decisions. We hoped to negotiate. They executed everyone on hand. Cold-blooded murder under Mingo’s guidance, with ScumberCorp’s seal of approval on it.

  “I was knocked down at the beginning and taken prisoner. Mingo interrogated me himself. I told him why we were there. I informed him that he had just slain not a bunch of reanimated Orbiters but the first ambassadors of a friendly alien race. An intelligent race. Mingo showed less reaction than you do right now. Weighed against ScumberCorp’s profit margin that Mingo was paid to secure, we were of no consequence. I was inconvenient, nothing more.”

  “Nothing surprises me where ScumberCorp is involved,” Lyell commented.

  “Then, you will understand my horror and repulsion at discovering that Mingo and the quartet to whom he answered were most concerned about their failure to kill the underclass people this drug is made for. They didn’t give a shit about my people or what they were doing to our world. They didn’t give a shit about anything except pie charts. Graphs and pie charts. The room I was kept in was full of graphs and pie charts—projections of population reduction as a result of Orbitol addiction. Pie charts.

  “Stercus ran an identity check on me, and the information came back that I was a dead Orbiter from Madrid, and that news sent them right over the edge. Como loco, the bastards. The four of them screamed at him across the void. One wanted to kill me, and another to have me dissected to see how I’d been altered, except they already had eleven dead bodies for th
at useless purpose. Two of them argued for using me as bait, to draw out more of us. Their idea was to establish right off that coming over here was an unhealthy idea. Do you see how insane they are?”

  “No problem there. So, then, you really are the infamous Xau Dâu?”

  “Actually, no. Xau Dâu’s sitting out there.”

  “Mingo?” she said incredulously.

  “Mingo had been milking a phantom for years. His creation. He was fiercely proud of it, he wouldn’t stop talking about it all the time I was his captive. Xau Dâu allowed him to dispatch anyone who threatened to go public with information about corporate violations, anyone who wanted to make trouble. They either became terrorists posthumously or were made the victims of terrorists. It was a foolproof idea. Everybody grieves for the company’s loss. ¡Que lastima!”

  “Clever. My editor’s suspected something like it for a long time, but he’s a cynic. Did Mingo want to eliminate you from the beginning?”

  “Right from the start, yes. He couldn’t do it there—too many people were watching. The Moon was too small a community and the CEOs had other plans. He had to get me out of there, so he fell in with the two heads who wanted to use me as bait to lure the others, and thereafter insisted they had to get me off the Moon as soon as possible and bury the evidence of this incursion before the word spread and public sentiment or an investigation forced them to suspend Orbitol production. Events proved him right. In just the few hours they held me inside Stercus, a pilot of some craft or other flew over, accidentally saw our extruded enclosure, and tried reporting it to the nearside lunar facility. The message was duly routed back to Stercus. Mingo had to clear an entire cargo bay and race halfway around the Moon in order to set up another accident to take care of that one man before he talked to anybody.”

  “Xau Dâu. Another terrorist act.”

  “That’s right. Mingo had it all worked out. How to use the media, how to manipulate public opinion, how to wage a never-ending war on the perceptions of the whole human race. That was the key element: perception. How it looked was a thousand times more important than the truth of an incident. He was right again. Machiavelli would have placed a poor second to Mingo.”

  Though she had said similar things at one time or other, Angel Rueda’s words troubled Lyell. She recalled her father’s faraway words: You know your truth. She wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “While he was gone, I fell asleep. I never woke up till now. I gather they drugged me and installed the bypass. They located our point of control in the remote, maybe with an MRI scan, then shut down that part of Angel, including the core of his memory. Both of us nearly ceased to be. With that calotte on, as they called it, he was a zombie, lacking so much of his identity that he hardly reacted to anything around him. I couldn’t disengage, either. I was stuck in the remote body, dragged along with no means of influencing it. I couldn’t so much as look through his eyes to see where I was. If he’d been one of the first wave, he would have begun decomposing. We knew that members of the first group were, and I could never be sure he wasn’t. I found myself in contact with him twice, briefly, and attempted blindly to warn him of the danger he was in. He seemed to be regaining some awareness, but nothing that could communicate with me for very long.”

  She pressed a knuckle to her lips. “What happens now? Mingo certainly won’t be back.”

  “Now we must confront the four who remain. The ones in charge. They have a great deal to answer for.”

  Lyell laughed spontaneously. “Forgive me, but I can’t imagine how you expect to sneak into the tower, unless it’s through another one of those flower arrangements of yours.”

  “That would be impossible. Without the corresponding tunnel that Orbiters create, we cannot pass anyone through to your side. There are already thousands of these intrusive wormholes. We could spend years investigating each of them before we found one that admitted into the right tower in the so-called Overcity. We understand that situation well.”

  “Then assassination’s not on your list.”

  “It’s unacceptable,” Glimet said. “We’re not a violent people.”

  “Then, how? You can’t very well just walk in and announce yourselves to the secretary. Or…” She tilted her head thoughtfully, tapped her forefinger against her lips. A wicked smile spread across them. “Or,” she repeated, “maybe you can.”

  “Really?” said Angel, doubtfully.

  “Maybe,” she repeated. “Just maybe. If it works, it’s going to make great TV.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The King of Misrule

  Gansevoort had only managed two hours of a fitful sleep during which he remained constantly aware of his body tangled up in sheets.

  Then a clamorous, nasal baa from the outer door drilled with surgical precision right through the thin veneer, hell-bent for his reticular formation. Baa! and peptides leapt like dolphins out of the message’s path. Wake Up!

  He thrashed at the sheets like a man drowning, and came fully, dreadfully, awake. He lay still, and listened, and knew absolutely and for certain that he would never do so again.

  This would be it, the confrontation. Death—the ultimate fatalist’s dream vacation.

  Sweat seared in a wet rash across him. The fear itself was strangely buoyant; his horrific elation would sail him through the room, float him to the door, carry him to his doom. In blue and white pin-striped pajamas, he would face his executioner. Mingo. It wasn’t the same as being bound and helpless, but it was helpless nonetheless.

  He got up. The floor was cold underfoot. He should have put on slippers. What kind of sleepwear, he wondered, did the other executives wear? Well, it hardly mattered anymore—a realization that strangely lightened his load. No more worrying about being out of step, unfashionable, out of his depth.

  Standing near the door, he spoke his set password, “Chaos.” The unit came on—sound, disk recorder, a flicker igniting on the clear monitor screen. He appreciated the obvious futility of attempting to record his own impending death, but this in no way forestalled him. With aplomb, he was cresting the wave of his fear.

  The screen presented to him the face of Thomasina Lyell.

  Gansevoort coughed. His fear collapsed like a bad lung. Certain Death peeled off the menu.

  She was staring straight into the hidden lens, straight into him. She knew. He couldn’t figure out how—she hadn’t called, he hadn’t answered his phone. He touched the intercom key. “What are you doing, get away from here,” he ordered.

  “Mr. Gansevoort?”

  “Yes,” he hissed. This was no good. She was not Mingo come to kill him. He wanted Mingo; his whole being had prepared for extinction. This woman was spoiling everything. “I’m calling security right now,” he threatened.

  “Is that such a good idea?”

  The way she said it made him wonder what secrets she kept. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” he demanded. “Right this minute they’re all looking for you and your friend, the terrorist. I’m just doing my job if I report you.”

  “Just doing your job, I see. Then, you’d better.” She turned and walked away.

  He watched her grow smaller and smaller. Her shrinking image sucked his resolve with it. He hastily uncoded the door and threw it open. “Wait a minute,” he called.

  Lyell turned around. From a distance she considered him, her arms crossed. She strolled leisurely back.

  “Who are you really?” he asked.

  “You know. A friend of Mr. Rueda’s. Of yours possibly, depending on how deep runs your loyalty to the Gang of Four. That is the colloquial SC expression for your bosses, isn’t it?”

  “You tied me up. Used me to get access to the city. That’s no sort of friendship as I understand the word.”

  “We tied you up to protect you so that Mingo wouldn’t simply shoot you. The access, you’ll recall, you volunteered on your own.”

  He closed the door behind them. “Mingo, he …” He withered into something small and lost. “I’m dead o
n account of you, your involving me like that. I thought you were Mingo just now. You know what he told me? While he was untying me? He told me I wasn’t to worry. He was taking care of everything and I should wait here until I heard from him, not to go to work, not to talk with anyone, not to be seen by anyone, everything would be fine in the end. Fine.” He smiled without humor. “The moment he said ‘fine’ I knew he was going to kill me. I’ve been waiting here ever since.”

  “That’s taking dedication too far, don’t you think? If you know all this, why don’t you escape? He’s not sitting out in the hall, you know.”

  “Where to? Iowa? One of those little subsistence farms, those places where they think they’re taking back the land from the agribusiness concerns?”

  “It’s not the worst life I can imagine.”

  “Well, it’ll do.” He slumped down in the same chair she’d tied him to. He had a Kleenex in the pocket of his pajamas, as if in an attempt to make them more formal. “My whole life, I’ve expected everything I did to catch up with me. That’s the way I see Mingo—final retribution, punishment meted out.”

  “I don’t understand. Has everything you’ve done been all that bad?”

  “Been a lie. A sham. I’ve never gotten anything right. Only, sometimes people miss it, and I slip by.”

  She clicked her tongue. “No escape, then, I take it.”

  “None.”

  “You’re probably right. He’ll come for you the same as he did Chikako Peat.”

  He glanced up. “I thought the news said … but, then, it would say that, wouldn’t it? He’d make it say that. Terrorists. When he had me act as liaison to get Angel Rueda that scummy ICS teaching post, I knew nothing was the way it appeared. I mean, who would do that to a valued employee, and an accident victim, too? I expect this has been about Rueda from the start.”

  “Partly. It’s about you and the people you work for, too.” Lyell leaned forward and placed her hand on top of his. He shivered at the contact. “All the lies you blame yourself for are a speck of sand compared to the mountain of deceit you work for, that disgusts you. There’s at least one option to sharecropping among the Mennonites, you know.”