The Wild

by David Zindell

  ‘If one knows the right words,’ Danlo said, ‘it is always possible to open another’s mind.’

  He remembered, then, something that his Fravashi teacher had once said to him: The human mind is made with words. And that which is made with words, with words can be unmade.

  ‘You’re truthful in your words, and you speak with grace, too,’ Isas Lel said.

  Again, Danlo smiled. Although his found-father, Haidar, had taught him always to speak the truth, he attributed any grace with words only to the translating skills of the devotionary computer’s Ede program.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Isas Lel said, ‘that you could find new words to open Harrah Ivi en li Ede’s mind. You have a way of opening people to themselves, Pilot. I think we’ve all seen that.’

  Danlo, sitting straight on his cushion, looked up at the half-circle of Transcendentals safe in their robots. Each man and woman (and manwoman), he saw, was now smiling at him.

  ‘Kistur Ashtoreth was right,’ Isas Lel said. ‘You know about people. And you know things that should be impossible for you to know – perhaps you might know how to help us avoid this war.’

  Danlo’s heart was now beating quick and light, like a sparrowhawk’s.

  ‘If we were to tell you of Tannahill’s star,’ Isas Lel said, ‘would you speak for us with the Church Elders?’

  ‘Yes,’ Danlo said.

  ‘You have your mission, your calling to your Order, too,’ Isas Lel said. ‘We wouldn’t ask you to compromise this – but if you journeyed to Tannahill, would you also be our emissary?’

  ‘Yes,’ Danlo said. And then he thought, I have almost accomplished what I must accomplish.

  ‘An emissary of peace,’ Isas Lel repeated. ‘All we want is peace.’

  Danlo bowed his head in silence for a moment. He remembered, then, that his Fravashi teacher had once bestowed upon him the name of Danlo Peacewise.

  ‘We’d like to point out Tannahill’s star for you to see,’ Isas Lel said.

  With the warm flush of triumph spreading like coffee-wine through his veins, Danlo looked up at the dome beyond the Transcendentals. He expected to see the star scene return in a flash of brilliant lights, but this did not happen.

  ‘We’d like to show you this star, but unfortunately, we can’t.’

  ‘You … cannot,’ Danlo said. He drew in a breath of air and held it until his lungs began to burn.

  ‘It’s not our decision to make.’

  The scene on the chatoy walls, Danlo saw, was still that of the sunset. In all the time they had spent talking, the bloody red sun of Alumit Bridge had dropped scarcely an inch below the glowing horizon.

  ‘I … do not understand,’ Danlo said. He looked at Lieswyr Ivioss, all haughty and self-willed beneath her glittering clearface, and the shy, quiet Diverous Te, and all the others. ‘You … call yourselves the Transcendentals, yes? Of all the Narain, are you not the ones to make this decision?’

  ‘We are the ones,’ Isas Lel said, ‘but we are not.’

  ‘You are … and you are not,’ Danlo said. ‘You–’

  ‘I,’ Isas Lel said, interrupting, ‘am only one of many. As with the others.’

  Danlo looked at the pretty sunset, the streaks of amethyst and carmine burning across the low sky. He said, ‘Yes, one of many. I had thought that all of you, together, speaking together within the interface of what you call the Field … would make this decision.’

  Isas Lel shook his head. ‘I must explain myself more clearly. I am one of many who are one. But none of the others whom you have met today are of this one.’

  ‘What … one?’

  ‘My name, our name, is Abraxax. Only Abraxax is the Transcended One.’

  Just then Danlo remembered their initial conversation by light radio, with Danlo and his lightship floating in space some three hundred miles above the planet. This proud Transcendental had first identified himself by the full name of Isas Lel Abraxax.

  ‘And my name,’ Kistur Ashtoreth said, ‘is Manannan.’

  As Isas Lel then explained, each Transcendental was part of a group self, and each of these selves had a name. For instance, Isas Lel’s transcended self, as he called it, was a sevenplex: across Alumit Bridge, in Megina and Kelkarq and other cities, there lived six other Transcendentals with whom he shared selfness. In the cybernetic space of the Field, which was as timeless and locationless as a dream, they would choose a moment to meet and merge. From their many talents and personalities – Isas Lel’s sense of purpose, Omar Iviorvan’s kindness, Duscha li Lan’s imperturbability, and so on – they would assemble a single cybernetic entity. Thus each Transcendental was one of many who were one – a Transcended One. Lieswyr Ivioss was one of a triad named Shahar; Diverous Te shared selfness with the famous Maralah quad. Although a few maverick Transcendentals in the other cities of Alumit Bridge entered the Field as only singletons, this was uncommon. The ideal, as Isas Lel explained, was to go beyond and transcend the single self. And so the Transcendentals claimed to have done. If Isas Lel could be believed, these higher cybernetic selves were as real and complete as ordinary human beings limited by existence in the everyday world – only they were almost as powerful and intelligent as gods.

  ‘It is the Transcended Ones who are the lords of the Narain,’ Isas Lel explained. ‘We may meet with you in this facing chamber to tell you what they decide, but it is we as they who must meet within the Field to come to a decision.’

  ‘I … see,’ Danlo said. Though, in truth, he could not understand what it might mean to merge with another as a higher cybernetic entity. ‘Then you are interfacing your higher self, this Transcended One … almost continually.’

  For a moment, Isas Lel’s little eyes seemed almost to disappear from his head. And then he told Danlo, ‘Yes, almost.’

  ‘Then this meeting of selves, this conclave of your higher ones – this also is occurring almost continually, yes?’

  ‘Even as we speak, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.’

  ‘You must decide if you can trust me, yes? Are you … close to a decision, then?’

  ‘No, we are not close. There are many Transcendentals, many Ones.’

  According to Isas Lel, in all the cities of Alumit Bridge, there were exactly sixteen thousand, six hundred and nine Transcendentals who had surrendered themselves to merge into four thousand and eighty-four higher entities. Of these, the most prominent were Abraxax, Manannan, Tyr, Shahar, Maralah, EI and Kane. That the Transcendentals in the facing chamber shared selfness with one or other of these entities was no accident. Iviunir was the first and most prominent city on the planet, the city to which all Transcendentals aspired to live if they were worthy.

  ‘How could I … help you to your decision?’ Danlo asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Pilot, there’s nothing you can do now.’

  ‘Nothing … truly?’

  Isas Lel Abraxax, who had come to suspect something of Danlo’s wild spirit during their brief time together, looked at him sharply and asked, ‘What are you thinking?’

  Almost casually, Danlo drew his shakuhachi out of its pocket in his robe. He held it lightly between his hands, but he did not play it. ‘If I could speak with Abraxax and Manannan, these Transcended Ones … perhaps I could help them make their decision.’

  ‘But you are speaking to them,’ Lieswyr Ivioss reminded him. ‘Now, through us, the Ones hear your every word.’

  ‘Yes, but if I could speak with them face to face, I might give them more than just words.’

  ‘Face to face?’ Patar Iviaslin choked out in a high, outraged voice. ‘What do you think you mean by this?’

  And then Ananda Narcavage, she of the El twelve, looked at him and demanded, ‘Are you asking to enter the Field and interface the Transcended Ones?’

  ‘Yes,’ Danlo said, quickly, boldly, wildly. ‘I would face them if I could.’

  In the dead silence that followed Danlo’s astonishing proposal, all the Transcendentals could only stare at him. He might as wel
l have suggested taking part in the warrior-poets’ knife ceremony or helping a Scutari shahzadix with her multiple matings and the ritual cannibalism that concluded this sacred blood orgy.

  And then Isas Lel cleared his throat and sucked some water from a clear plastic tube that his robot dangled in front of him. He said, ‘Well, sometimes the common people may face with Transcended Ones. We must never become unapproachable.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Ananda Narcavage said. ‘But this Danlo wi Soli Ringess, a pilot of an unknown star, a naman–’

  ‘A naman, enter the Field and face a Transcended One?’ Lieswyr Ivioss exclaimed. ‘No, no – that would be impossible.’

  But, of course, it was possible, and Isas Lel reminded the others that this was so. ‘To pilot his ship across the stars, Danlo wi Soli Ringess must enter the field that he calls the manifold.’

  At this Danlo almost smiled, but the pain above his eye, where his headaches came, drove all amusement from his face. He thought that Isas Lel couldn’t truly understand about the manifold. In truth, the manifold wasn’t merely just another cybernetic space or surreality; it was something much, much deeper – perhaps even deep reality itself.

  ‘And Danlo wi Soli Ringess has been trained by his Order’s cetics, by these cyber-shamans who are said to be masters of the cybernetic spaces.’

  This, at least, was true. Danlo was pleased that Isas Lel should champion his proposal to enter the Field. And then Lieswyr Ivioss, who had seemed antagonistic to Danlo and all his hopes, abruptly changed her manner. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘Danlo wi Soli Ringess should be allowed to face a Transcended One. If he proves worthy, perhaps we should allow him to enter the Field.’

  For the twentieth time that morning, the eyes of Isas Lel and Lieswyr Ivioss and the others hardened, as of clear water freezing into cloudy white ice. And then, some moments later, they returned to full consciousness of the facing chamber and of Danlo, who was still sitting patiently before them.

  ‘It has been decided,’ Isas Lel finally said. He seemed ill at ease, almost embarrassed.

  Danlo waited for him to say more, then asked, ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s been decided that telling you the location of Tannahill requires a decision of all the Transcended Ones.’

  ‘I … see.’

  ‘Some believe that this decision would best be made if you could enter the Field and face the Ones.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Unfortunately, however, others do not.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The decision as to allow you to enter the Field is itself difficult. But we have decided that this decision must be made.’

  ‘You have decided … only this?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pilot. But we Narain have no single ruling lord, as does your Order. We make our decisions well but not easily.’

  ‘No,’ Danlo said. ‘Not easily.’

  ‘And so we must ask you to wait while we decide if you’re to enter the Field. Will you wait a while longer, Danlo wi Soli Ringess?’

  All the Transcendentals were watching Danlo, waiting to see what his decision would be. Danlo bowed his head and told them, ‘Yes, if you’d like, I will wait.’

  ‘Very well,’ Isas Lel said. ‘An apartment has been prepared for you. A robot will take you there.’

  So saying, Isas Lel looked at the facing chamber’s red plastic doors, which suddenly slid open. An empty robot wheeled into the room and stopped only inches short of where Danlo sat. Danlo understood that his meeting with the Transcendentals was over. He rose up from his cushion, slid his flute back into its pocket, and reached down to grasp the devotionary computer. He held this miraculous translating machine close to his belly. As he settled into the robot’s softly-cushioned seat, his back was turned to seven very curious men and women. And so, for a moment, with his body shielding the Ede imago from their watchful eyes, he was able to look down and behold the signs that Ede was flashing him. Ede’s hands and little fingers of light fluttered like flying insects. And the meaning of these cetic signs was clear: ‘Beware any invitation to enter this space they call the Field. Beware of Lieswyr Ivioss and her Transcended One called Shahar.’

  ‘Yes?’ Danlo whispered.

  And Ede signed back, ‘There are many who wouldn’t want you to journey to Tannahill. And so they will try to trap you within the Field. Like a bee is trapped by the nectar of a fireflower. Like a moth is trapped by light.’

  Danlo closed his eyes for a moment as he considered this. And then he whispered, ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Let’s leave this place while we can, Pilot. Before it’s too late.’

  ‘No … I will not leave yet.’

  ‘Then let the Transcended Ones make their decision without you. Don’t face them within the Field.’

  Danlo smiled to himself as he rubbed the scar that marked his aching head. ‘But I must face them,’ he said. ‘If I can, I … will.’

  After that, almost without a sound, the robot began to roll away from Isas Lel and his transcendent friends. They quickly rolled through the open doorway, into the bright, plastic corridors leading to the streets of the city of Iviunir.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Fields

  There is no matter without form, and no form not dependent upon matter.

  – saying of the cetics

  While awaiting the decision of the Transcendent Ones of Alumit Bridge, Danlo was given a small apartment on the city’s seventeenth level – overlooking a huge and busy street called Elidi Boulevard. As he would soon discover, of course, it was actually no smaller than any other apartment in Iviunir; like Scutari nymphs in their feeding boxes, the Narain required little living space. His five rooms were tiny, separated from one another by thin walls of white plastic: there was a bathing room where he might cleanse his body, a multrum barely large enough to allow for squatting and voiding oneself of wastes, a facing cell almost the same size, a sleeping chamber, and – barbarically – a kitchen. Danlo had always regarded the private consumption of food to be a shameful and barbaric thing, but the Narain lived according to different sensibilities, preferring convenience to company; it was their way to voice their immediate hungers to their ministrant robots, to wait silently a few seconds while these semi-sentient machines lit the light ovens in the kitchen, and then to recline on soft white carpets of spun plastic in their sleeping chambers, there to swallow their meals of tasteless factory foods in solitude. It was a bad way to live, but then, as Isas Lel had warned Danlo, the Narain preferred to let their robots live for them. In Danlo’s free moments he searched the city for signs of true human life, but found few instances of that warm, earthy, marvellous quality he thought of simply as livingness. The Narain did not gather in restaurants to talk about the events of the day; they did not meet friends in public squares or in cafés or in shops. In the whole city, he could find no park or agora that served to focus the Narain’s appreciation of one another. Many times, on the streets, he sought to engage men or women (or womenmen) in conversation, but it seemed that no one wanted to talk with him. They hurried past him as they hurried past each other. Theirs was a cold and terrible isolation from one another, and yet Danlo never sensed that the Narain disliked each other or were fundamentally misanthropes, as were, for instance, the exemplars of Bodhi Luz. In truth, Danlo attributed the Narain’s unsociability to shyness. It was almost as if they had never learned to meet each other eye to eye, to inquire as to a friend’s well-being, to smile and laugh and open their hearts to the sounds of their lovers’ hearts – to take joy in the light of each other’s soul. An alien (or a stranger), proceeding down the plastic walkway of the Elidi Boulevard, might have thought that the thousands of single-minded human beings rushing by in their plastic kimonos were not really human. He might have thought that they were not really alive, or worse, that they were more robotlike than any robot. In a way, this was true. To be in the world, sar en getik, for almost any good Narain, was to be not truly alive. In truth the Narain lived only to
return to the cleanliness of their apartments, to pull their silver heaumes over their heads and lie down in their facing cells. And there, in their dark apartments, in their millions, stacked one on top of the other like corpses in a funeral ship, they would close their eyes and enter into the many glittering spaces of the Field. There they would merge and be as one. Some pursued the bliss of cybernetic samadhi; some sought union in the integration into higher selves; a few desired little more than the exchange of information with other minds.

  It was only after Danlo had risked his life talking with a gang of young rebels whose tattooed faces proclaimed them the Assassins of Ede that he began to understand the Narain people and to perceive the paradox of their way of life: as great as was their isolation from each other out on the streets, their sense of common purpose within the Field was even greater. This purpose remained for Danlo unclear. Once or twice, however, as he might make out the shape of a great white bear stalking him across miles of sea ice, he thought that he had caught sight of the Narain’s dream. If he had been allowed to enter the Field freely like any of the common Narain, he might have entered this consensus hallucination and beheld all its hubris and horror. But in the facing cell of his apartment there was no heaume for him to place upon his head. The Transcendentals, it seemed, had allowed him every freedom in the city except the only one that really mattered. They had told him that he must wait for the decision of the Transcendent Ones, and wait he must.

  And so Danlo began to study the syntax and words of modern Church Istwan. He had much time in which to learn this rather difficult language and much need to learn it. While walking the city streets and boulevards, of course, he could – and did – use the translating program of his devotionary computer to converse with the rare individuals who consented to talk with him. But if he were to journey to Tannahill this wouldn’t do. To employ the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede as a mere translator would be sacrilege: ‘You would probably be killed on sight,’ Isas Lel had warned Danlo. ‘The Worthy Architects would rip the devotionary from your hands and swarm upon you and tear you into pieces.’ On Neverness Danlo might have acquired Istwan almost instantly by placing his brain beneath the heaume of an imprinter, but the Narain knew little of this difficult art of repatterning the neural pathways. Fortunately, he was good at learning languages. He already had his milk tongue, Alaloi, and he had mastered Moksha as well as the Language of the Civilized Worlds. He was almost fluent in Zanshin and Yarkoning, and he knew more than most humans of those impossible alien languages, Fravash and Scutaruil. To learn the long way the syntax of Istwan was no great problem as it was one of the hundreds of granddaughter languages of Ancient Anglish, which Danlo had once studied as a novice. Then too, Danlo had a phenomenal memory, and it was no great feat for him to learn a thousand new words each day. Soon he found himself able to converse with the Narain without the aid of his devotionary computer. The Ede imago warned Danlo against talking with everyday people without the benefit of his translating services. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Ede told Danlo. ‘These people might misunderstand you and kill you for making some casual slight. Or you might misunderstand them and gain false knowledge of this world. You might base your future actions on this knowledge and thus be destroyed.’