Cluster c-1

by Piers Anthony

  A private cell was what he had come for, but now Flint changed his mind. This Tarotism was strange, and it had some connection to Sphere Sol. It was possible that it could be of aid to him, if he could learn more about it. “I choose the reading.”

  “I deal the keys as you have arranged them,” the Hierophant said. “Stand at the animation plate, and do not be afraid. No harm will come to you; it is only your own mind made manifest. No news of what the Tarot reveals will pass beyond these premises except as you make it known yourself.”

  “Thank you.” Flint rolled to the circle that illuminated itself in a chamber before him. As he touched it, he became the Hermit, in a long gray robe, standing in the darkness atop a mountain, holding his stellar lamp aloft in his right hand, supporting himself by a staff in the left. Yellow light shone down where he looked, cutting through the literal chill of the still air. He was no Fool; he contemplated his next step as well as the far reaches. His feet were cold on the snow.

  And Flint leaped out of the chamber. It had been a human representation—not a Polarian one! Hands, not a trunk; feet, not a wheel. Direct vision, not peripheral. Eyes.

  “I perceived it,” the Hierophant said. “You are of Sphere Sol, surely a transferee, though we were not aware your kind possessed that marvelous secret. Your animation was the most intense I have experienced, and it suggests a truly remarkable Kirlian aura. Are you the Founder, come to correct us?” And his skin glowed apprehensively as his body sank into a globular mass. When a Polarian was worried, his shape-control suffered.

  “I am of Sphere Sol, but I am not your Founder,” Flint said. “I come on a mission unrelated to Tarotism; my presence here is coincidental.” Yet it was amazing that his intense aura should relate so directly to animation; certainly there was some kind of connection. Was animation a nonmechanical, nonsentient way to identify the Kirlian aura? If so, he had been guided by fate into a highly significant insight.

  The Hierophant regained his composure. “It is not that we have anything to fear from such a visitation; we have followed the principles of the Arcana faithfully. But the very presence of the Founder after these centuries would suggest some serious development.”

  “I understand,” Flint said, considerably reassured himself. “I respect your privacy as you respect mine; no news of this shall leave these premises. Let us proceed with the reading.” And he rolled back into the chamber. When he returned to Sol Sphere, he would do some research on Tarotism and its Founder.

  The Hermit manifested again—this time as a Polarian. The card dictated the symbol, but his mind animated it. Or rather his Kirlian aura did. He could control the image to some extent. And in dealing he must have controlled the order of the cards—but if the supernatural had some hand in it, that was as valid. Flint trusted to superscience, but at his core he accepted magic also. He was still a Paleolithic man, and he had seen the effect of spells, and learned civilized behavior from the Shaman, the tribe’s magic man, still the wisest person Flint had ever known. Was there really any difference between super-science and magic?

  “This covers you,” the Hierophant said, touching the machine to make it deal the first card. “This defines the influence upon you, the atmosphere in which you relate.” And Flint found himself standing naked and sexually neuter within a circular wreath. Around him stood four figures: a flying animal, a Polarian, Old Snort the dinosaur, and a wheeled carnivorous beast. These in their diverse, devious fashions symbolized the four conditions of existence: gaseous, liquid, solid, and energy. More specifically, air, water, ground, and fire; as at the Temple entrance, the four elements.

  “This is the Cosmos key,” the Hierophant explained. “The Crown of the Magi. It signifies that your mission relates to the whole of our galaxy, affecting all creatures. It is also the key of great promise; what you do is good, reaching for perfection.”

  Flint didn’t comment. He agreed with the card—but who wouldn’t? It signified nothing but flattery. If this were the practical nature of a Tarot reading, it was a waste of his time.

  “This crosses you,” the Hierophant continued, dealing the next. “That is, what opposes you.” And before Flint appeared a handsome queen on her throne, holding a staff in one hand and a flower in the other. A cat stood before her.

  “Good Queen Bess,” Flint murmured wryly, reminded of his experience at System Capella. But this was not Queen Bess, but a superficial figure whose ultimate nature he could not fathom. He concentrated, defining it, and the image became Polarian: a female rolling over an elevated ramp, beneath which flames leaped. A two-wheeled carnivore moved complacently beside her.

  “Beware the Queen of Energy!” the Hierophant said. “Observe the destructive flame, her hallmark.”

  Queen of Energy. Flint’s mission was concerned with the problem of civilization, which was the problem of energy. Transfer enabled the Spheres to elevate their level of civilization without increasing their consumption of energy—and a foreign galaxy was trying to steal the energy of the Milky Way galaxy, incidentally destroying its substance. In short, the card was right on target—and somewhat more specific than the first card. But chance would have both relevant and some irrelevant symbols.

  “This crowns you,” the Hierophant said, dealing another card for animation. “This is the ideal for which you strive, your best potential.”

  It was a massive fortress, not quite square in Sol fashion or round in Pole fashion, but a cross between them. It was girt by four sturdy towers of similar ambiguity: one flaming, one filled with water, one hollow, and one solidly packed. The four conditions, or elements, again. “The Four of Solid,” the Hierophant said. “The symbol of power. But it is primarily a matter of maintaining what you have, and achieving equilibrium through negotiation. And,” he added a bit slyly, “on the purely personal level, it means pleasant news from a lady.”

  That put Flint in mind of Tsopi, as pleasant a female as he had encountered. Could this Tarot tell him anything of her?

  “This is beneath you,” the Hierophant said, dealing again. “The foundation, the basis of your mission.” And it was the crater of Luna, or rather the region known as the Lake of Death, inverted as it had looked to him in the hour of his capitulation, when he had made the decision to continue with the transfer mission, rather than to die alone. Then the image receded as if he were rising, and the surrounding landscape of Earth’s moon came into view: the Lake of Dreams, the craters Burg, Posidonius, Hercules, and Atlas, the Sea of Serenity… and then the larger Sea of Rains, Sea of Cold, and Ocean of Storms. Finally the entire face of the moon was visible, and it was a face, the Man in the Moon, the Lake of Dreams forming its left eyebrow. It became small in the distance, and the horizon of a planetary landscape rose up, with two towers, and two carnivores sitting beside a river, howling at that lunar face.

  “The moon,” the Hierophant continued. “Adapted from that of your own Imperium. Few planets are blessed with such a close, magnificent companion. This is the symbol of secrecy, of hidden urges, horror, fear, dragging through poisoned darkness in the absence of air—”

  “I know!” This card was so relevant it was stifling. The Polarian went on quickly. “This is behind you, that which has just passed.” And it was a charging chariot.

  “Enough!” Flint cried against the floor, not caring to expose his experiences in the Eye of the Charioteer on System Capella. They had been good experiences, with a strong-Kirlian Dragon and a Kirlian queen who had, as promised, been very young in bed. These cards, seeming to orient on him with demonic perception, were striking entirely too close to the mark.

  “This is before you,” the Hierophant said, dealing the next immediately. “Perhaps it represents your next mission.” It was a human heart, pierced by three swords. “Three of Gas, meaning sorrow.” This time the dealer did not dally, but proceeded to the next four keys in succession—and the animation plate became subdivided so that all four were evident at once.

  One was a Polarian suspended by i
ts trunk so that its wheel could not touch the ground, rendering it helpless, yet it did not seem to be in distress: “This is yourself, unable to make an informed decision.” Next a tower being blasted by lightning: “Yet your illusions will soon be destroyed to make way for new understanding.” Then a pattern of six swords, their points touching within a cross: “The Six of Gas—your hopes and fears expressed within the concept of science. Your mission surely involves some modern technological concept.” And the last: a dancing human skeleton wielding a scythe. “A strange animation—we Polarians have no bones—but it represents what is to be, the culmination of all these influences. And it is—”

  “I see it!” Flint cried. “Death!”

  “Not necessarily,” the Hierophant hastened to clarify. “It is also called Transformation, a shifting from one plane to another. All of us die a little with every experience, and are reborn a little. Life itself may be considered as the process of dying.”

  “Maybe so,” Flint agreed. “I’m not sure this is getting us anywhere, though. It’s all drawn from my own mind, isn’t it? That’s why it seems so damned relevant. So it represents what I think will happen, nothing more. The reality could turn out entirely differently.”

  “What will happen is governed by what we are,” the Hierophant explained. “And you are very special. The reading does not predict the future, it only tells what is in you. On its own terms it is valid. Your mission is important; you cannot give it up.”

  “I wasn’t about to. But what I need are specifics. Such as who exactly is this Queen of Energy who is balking me? Can you name her?”

  “No. I do not pretend to comprehend the full meaning of your reading. But you can identify her. Here, let me take this key as the Significator and further define it, using the keys as you have arranged them.” The other images faded and the flaming Queen formed. “This covers her.” And the next image showed: a huge, goatlegged, horned creature, laughing.

  “The Devil!” Flint exclaimed. “And look—he has us chained to his post—” For there were two small human figures manacled to the Satanic perch, and they seemed familiar.

  “Satan is God as seen by the ignorant,” the Hierophant murmured. “You see the male and female figures as you and the Queen of Energy?”

  “Yes I do—and now I know who she is!” Flint paused. “No, I don’t know; I have never seen her in her natural form, or in human incarnation. But she tried to kill me twice, and may be after me a third time. How can I stop her?”

  “We shall see. This crosses her.” And it was four swords. “The Four of Gas. It means truce. You cannot destroy her, you can only neutralize her—declare a cessation of hostilities, if she agrees.”

  “Ha! I can deal with her if I can identify her. Can we verify her Polarian identity, or find out whether she’s here at all?”

  “We can try. Where do you see her influence?”

  “In the key for the near future—Three of Gas. Sorrow. If she’s here, she will cause me sorrow, all right. And the first thing I have to do is complete my mission.”

  “You have a good memory for the layout,” the Hierophant remarked. It was actually Flint’s eidetic memory in operation that seemed to accompany him regardless of the brain of his host. “As you wish: Three of Gas the Significator.” The triply pierced heart returned. “This covers it.” And it was overlaid by—“The Queen of Liquid.”

  “Not the Queen of Energy!” Flint said, surprised.

  “Definitely a different female. Do you know one with the qualities of water? Soft, supple, beautiful, pliable, loving, with an affinity for flowing streams, not intelligent but wise in her timeless fashion, virtuous, the ideal spouse—”

  “Honeybloom!” Flint cried with a pang, looking at the triply pierced heart within the Queen’s bosom, struggling to continue its beating despite its transfixion. “I was to marry her, before this. But she would never hurt me!”

  “Not intentionally, perhaps. This crosses her.”

  Flint cried out in horror. For ten terrible swords converged to pierce the Queen’s body, destroying her.

  “There certainly is much Gas in your reading,” the Hierophant remarked. “And that is the suit of Trouble. This is the Ten—signifying ruin. Not of you—of her. Are you sure you have not—”

  “I have to return to her!” Flint cried. “Poor, sweet Honeybloom, my green girl! She waits for me—”

  “The Tarot—which I remind you is merely the animation of information you already possess—suggests it is already too late.”

  “I don’t believe it! Right after this mission, I don’t care what the Imps say—that’s what I should be checking. My mission! Let’s have a supplementary reading on that.”

  “We shall have to select a Significator for your mission—”

  “It has to do with the Big Wheel. I must see him—now.”

  “The Big Wheel! That would be the Key Ten, the Wheel of Fortune, the most important one to Polarians.” It formed: a huge wheel surmounted by a sphinx. “Your Sphere Sol images are fascinating; I have never seen them animated so neatly. I refer to content as well as clarity of image. The Founder—”

  “Get on with it.”

  “This covers him.” Four staffs appeared, with a castle in the background. “Four of Energy. Completion, peace—”

  “That’s it. On.”

  “This crosses him.” A woman, bound in front of a line of tall swords. “Eight of Gas. Interference, accidental yet—”

  “I know who’s been trying to interfere, maybe well intentioned. A Polarian female, young, pretty—”

  “Has she borne issue?”

  “Had children, you mean? I don’t think so. She’s really very sweet, in a down-to-ground sort of way, but not—”

  “Page of Solid, then, for her Significator.” The image formed. Tsopi.

  “Yes—that’s her! Check her out—I want to know if she’s my enemy.”

  “This defines her.” The image was of two overflowing cups. “Two of Liquid, signifying love, harmony. There is no enmity here.”

  “So she’s innocent!”

  “So you believe. I would be inclined to trust that judgment.”

  “What crosses her?”

  “This crosses her. Two of Solid, signifying change. Not really a negative indication—”

  Flint had had enough. “Thanks, but I have to be on my way. Can you direct me to the location of the Big Wheel?”

  “I don’t really advise—”

  “I know you don’t. But you have helped me—you really have!—and it’s my decision.”

  The Hierophant glowed, resigning himself. “We do not impose advice beyond the Querent’s desire. I shall show you a map.”

  The map was a pattern of tastes on a sphere, unlike anything Flint had used before but quite adequate to the present need.

  He soon found himself at the entrance to the palace of the Big Wheel. “I have important information for His Rondure.”

  The guard was unimpressed. “Your identity?”

  “Emissary from Sphere Sol, transferred.”

  The guard checked as though this were routine. “The Wheel regrets he cannot interview you at this time.”

  “He can’t speak with a Spherical Emissary?” Flint demanded incredulously. “This is important!”

  “There is an unexpiated debt.”

  “Well, I’ll see him anyway.” And Flint shoved by.

  “Please desist,” the guard replied. “I do not wish to incapacitate you.”

  But Flint continued on into the palace, certain that no attack would be made against an identified agent of a friendly Sphere.

  The guard shot him on the wheel with a jet of frictive powder.

  The effect was immediate and alarming. A patch of the surface of his ambulation ball became painfully rough, preventing him from controlling it properly. Uniformity of friction was vital to the control of the spherical wheel; the body was always making small adjustments of balance. When the compensation for a slippery su
rface was applied to a rough surface, that section grabbed and threw the body to the side. But adjustment for extra friction fouled up the minimum-friction surfaces too. The result was an increasingly erratic motion, ending in an ignominious crash.

  Then Tsopi was there. No doubt the guard had notified her as soon as Flint identified himself. “Plint!” she cried on his prostrate hulk. “How did this happen?”

  “The watch-cog bit me, Topsy,” he explained wryly.

  “He tried to see the Big Wheel,” the guard explained. He did not react to Flint’s pun, as there was no similarity in Polarian to the words for “dog” and “cog.” Concepts could be translated; puns were lost. There were, however, dogs in this Sphere; they were twi-wheeled, fast-rolling carnivores, readily amenable to domestication.

  Tsopi glowed with distress. “You cannot see him yet! I thought you understood that”

  “I thought you understood that I have to see him. My mission—”

  “It means that much to you?” she asked. “You risk injury—?”

  “Cutespin, it means that much.”

  She glowed with vexation. “Then I shall not clog your roller. Come.” She wrapped her supple tail about his torso and drew him upright. Her touch was delightful.

  “Page of Solid,” he murmured against her skin as he tested his wheel. The friction was wearing off, being diluted and cleaned away by his body, and he was able to function—carefully. “I’m glad I can trust you.”

  “You have been to the Tarot Temple!” she murmured back. “I never thought to look there, Knight of Gas.”

  “No, I’m the Hermit,” he said. But he remembered how often the Gas cards, indicated by the flashing swords (the symbolism being the way they sliced through air?), had shown up in his reading.

  “Not any more. You’re not giving me the slip again.” She drew up before a large door. “You’re sure you—?”

  “Yes.” Could it suddenly be this easy?

  She pushed through the door. It rotated very like some he had seen on Planet Earth. Of course, even stick figures employed some circular devices, and Polarians used some back-and-forth mechanisms. Nothing was pure. He followed her.