Cosmocopia

by Paul Di Filippo

  Palisander lived in the back of a small Cosmocopian shrine on Overspan Way. The entrance from the street to the front public room of the shrine was garlanded with a curtain of beads. The clacked as Crutchsump and Lazorg stepped inside. (Pirkle, uninterested in metaphysics, had followed his vibrissae toward some tasty bit of offal.)

  The windowless anteroom was lit by a bevy of candles tall as people, with heavy metal bases spiked into their bottoms to keep them upright. No one else was present to hear the droplets of melted wax as they plopped faintly to the floor. Against one wall stood a cubical altar of polished stone, nothing rare. Atop the altar resided a model of the Cosmocopia, surrounded by coils of fizzing incense. The pungent smoke from the incense subdued the light, rendering the whole room dusky.

  Lazorg approached the model of the Cosmocopia and ran a hand tentatively along its length, from tip to flaring mouth.

  “It’s—it’s a horn of plenty.”

  “I have never heard the Cosmocopia referred to as such. But that’s a poetical description that might fit the facts.”

  Lazorg bent closer, to peer at the material of the model, with an artist’s eye. “How was this made? I don’t see any chisel marks. Was it cast? If so, what material is this? It’s not a resin, or plastic. It’s almost like a ceramic. …”

  “Again, you use words I don’t recognize. That model is an ideation.”

  “An ideation?”

  Crutchsump began to grow a tad impatient with Lazorg. Were all ex-monsters so dense? “You’ll understand later. Right now, you wanted to learn about the Conceptus. It’s growing late and I’m tired. I hardly slept last night, wondering and worrying about you. Let’s see Palisander and then go home.”

  “Fine, yes, all right. I’m sorry to be a burden.”

  Crutchsump regretted her shortness of temper immediately, but felt too awkward to apologize. Instead, she turned toward a second portal.

  This doorway likewise sported a bead curtain. The visitors pushed through it.

  The inner apartment, lit by a single oil lamp, was as spartan as Crutchsump’s. A small larder, a sleeping platform, a stool. On this last piece of furniture sat Palisander the noetic. He wore the traditional robe of Cosmocopian warp and weft, and loafcake hat, tipped slightly askew. His caul was the color of the mingled shadows when both Watermilk and Zarafa were high.

  Palisander’s eyes were shut in meditation on the ineffable, and he inhaled a long plume of incense smoke.

  “Palisander,” called out Crutchsump mildly. “You have a questioner.”

  The noetic opened his eyes, which were almost the same shade as his caul, thus producing an odd effect of merged fabric and flesh.

  “Ask away.”

  “My companion here is a being from far away, and has never heard of the Conceptus. Can you explain?”

  “Of course.” Palisander directed his attention to Lazorg. “Did you see the model of the Cosmocopia outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is the shape of the universe.”

  “How so? Literally?”

  “Yes. The mouth of the horn is a spreading, widening wavefront. As it sweeps out a path, new planes of existence are born, new dimensions that imagine themselves unique, whereas they are really just the latest accretions of the living eternal process that is the Cosmocopia.

  “You can conceive of the Cosmocopia as a finite stack of universes, each one slightly larger and hence more attenuated than its predecessor. Working backward down the length of the Cosmocopia, the universes grow smaller and smaller, until finally we reach the endpoint—or, actually, the origin, the Omphalos, which is simultaneously without size, yet infinite, since it contains the seed of all that was to come. At this point resides the Conceptus, he who gave birth to the Cosmocopia and continues to inform it. The Conceptus manifested the Cosmocopia as an expression of his will and nature. Everything we see, everything that will be, on all the planes, is inherent in the character of the Conceptus. So, by studying his creation, we come to understand the creator. Do you comprehend?”

  Lazorg was quiet for a moment. “Except for the personalization of the Monobloc, it’s just like the Big Bang. The spacetime lightcone. … And your stacked universe are just parallel worlds.”

  “You can employ any terms you wish, but the truth is incontrovertible.”

  “Then I must have somehow been cast out of my own universe and wound up in this one.”

  “Quite likely.”

  “But how?”

  “Please describe the circumstances attendant on your last moments in your native universe.”

  Lazorg winced. “I—I prefer not to. They are hazy, and I—”

  “Did they involve intense emotions, and perhaps a derangement of the senses?”

  “Yes, yes they did.”

  “These factors occasionally open up a noetic hole in the fabric of the Cosmocopia. A hole which one can easily fall through.”

  “Can I return the same way then?”

  “Unlikely. You see, for one thing, there is a gradient to the Cosmocopia. All-that-is wishes instinctively to return to the Conceptus, to unite with its ultimate source. Therefore, travel through noetic gaps is always inward, from younger, more primitive and attenuated planes to older, more dynamic and powerful ones. Travelers are caught in an irresistible psychosomatic current. Do you note any changes in your constitution since the transition?”

  “I was old and feeble before. Now I’m not.”

  “Certainly. Because you are now marginally closer to the Conceptus, inhabiting a plane of richer, more elemental forces. Many of your old paradigms will not apply here. You would be wise to learn the ways of your new plane, and settle down.”

  Crutchsump regarded Lazorg and saw his shoulders slump in defeat. “So I can never return to the plane of my birth?”

  “Never. The gradient will not permit it. Even if you were able to open up another noetic gap—and such moments come rarely to anyone; once in a lifetime is the most anyone can realistically even hope for—then you would find yourself just plunging deeper into the Cosmocopian chute.”

  Lazorg turned wearily and wordlessly away from the noetic. Crutchsump hastened to make a proper farewell.

  “Thank you, Palisander, for your teachings. May each day bring you closer to the Conceptus.”

  “And you also, Crutchsump.”

  Lazorg had stumbled out into the public anteroom, and now stood regarding the model of the Cosmocopia with an expression of numb fixity. Crutchsump laid a hand gently on his arm.

  “Let’s go home, Lazorg.”

  4. The Volvox

  WHATEVER HIS HIDDEN INNER FEELINGS, whatever tumult of despair and self-pity might be concealed in his bosom, Lazorg adapted without protest to the life of a bone-scavenger.

  Crutchsump was not truly surprised.

  Despite any lingering debilitating attrition of his memories, the former monster seemed a reasonable being, of above-average intelligence. He could see, like any thinking individual, that he had little choice in the matter of profession. He was a stranger in this universe, unacquainted with any of its culture or paradigms. He had to have shelter and be able to eat to survive. What could he do, other than follow in the footsteps of the only person who had so far taken his welfare to heart?

  The morning after their first visit to Palisander, Crutchsump arose early. Again, she had dozed fitfully on the stool, ceding her pallet to Pirkle and Lazorg, who, in his dumbfounded daze subsequent to the noetic’s revelations, seemed more in need of whatever spartan comfort the basement apartment could afford. But Crutchsump’s aching bones and muscles and unrelieved fatigue informed her that the arrangement could not persist. Although what new domestic setup could replace it, she did not know.

  Also, she chafed at having to wear her caul continuously, without the relief of any naked hours.

  Crutchsump hobbled wearily over to the sleeping Lazorg and shook him awake. He received the summons w
ith equanimity, opening his eyes—Crutchsump noted for the first time their odd color, like that of a leaden sky—stretching, and saying with some small measure of enthusiasm, “Good morning, Crutchsump.” Pirkle emitted a companionable chirring as well.

  Crutchsump did not feel similarly civil. “We need to go to work today. The money I earned from the shifflets will not last us forever. Refresh yourself, have something to eat, and then we’ll be off.”

  Lazorg stood and looked about. “Where, ah—where do I eliminate my wastes? It wasn’t a problem yesterday, for some reason. But today—”

  “The application of the cleansing livewater to your skin also attended to that inner necessity for a short time. But now we have no more such luxury.”

  “So, you people commonly need to void?”

  “Of course! Unless one lives exclusively on oral livewater, we have to eliminate, just like you, I presume. I don’t have a waste closet here. You can use the neighborhood honeyshed. It’s only around the corner, once you turn left. But don’t stray and get lost!”

  “I won’t.”

  Lazorg left the basement. Crutchsump immediately whipped off her caul, and used the moments of privacy to splash her face from a pot of insensate water. Scrubbing her introciptor brought muted feelings of much-missed pleasure. She was hardly a virgin, and relished intimacy with certain local bedmates as much as anyone. New living arrangements would definitely be the first order of the day. …

  Crutchsump just barely had time to re-don her caul when she first heard Lazorg descending the basement steps. She finished knotting the under-chin tie as he came in.

  Seemingly invigorated by his short solo excursion into the streets of the Telerpeton neighborhood, Lazorg announced, “There were no signs at the honeyshed to say which closets were for males, which for females. So I just used any.”

  So much was confusing about Lazorg’s pronouncement, that Crutchsump hardly knew where to begin.

  “What is ‘signs’?”

  Lazorg’s eyes expressed his own bafflement. “A sign? A sign is a—” He paused. “Your language doesn’t seem to have any word for it. It’s a piece of writing hung for all to see.”

  “And what is ‘writing’?”

  “You don’t—This world has no writing?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Lazorg pondered long and hard upon that statement before saying: “Perhaps you’re just illiterate. People who live in poverty often are. When I can ask others, surely they’ll tell me what the local equivalent of writing is. Palisander will know.”

  Although the word “illiterate” was just gibberish, Crutchsump resented Lazorg’s tone. “It’s true that I live on few scintillas, but I am as smart as any rich dweller on Hedgepath Avenue! My gut brain has a deep lineage! You are the stranger in this world, not me!”

  Lazorg seemed genuinely humbled. “I apologize.”

  Mollified, Crutchsump found herself intrigued by the way Lazorg thought. “Accepted. Now, why did you expect the closets to be separate for males and females?”

  “Because that’s how it works where I come from.”

  “Don’t we all share identical organs of voiding? What would be the point of one sex concealing their equipment from the other?”

  “Oh, then your—your introciptors have nothing to do with waste elimination?”

  No aspect of Lazorg’s looks or speech had truly disgusted Crutchsump until this moment.

  “That is the most perverted thing I have ever heard of! Perhaps you are a monster after all!”

  Sensing his mistress’s dismay, Pirkle stilted himself higher in a threatening manner.

  Lazorg hastened to explain himself. Crutchsump listened attentively, her ire gradually dwindling along with Pirkle’s stature, then said, “Truly, the more distant a Cosmocopian plane is from the Conceptus, the more primitive life there shows itself. Well, you can thank your lucky ghosts that you have ended up one stage closer to the font of creation, where such absurd biological insults have no meaning.”

  Lazorg’s curiosity now switched topics. “So the shape of the introciptors is what distinguishes male and female among your people?”

  Putting herself in Lazorg’s position—alone and bereft in a strange land, desperate for information—Crutchsump could pardon his indelicate presumption. Nonetheless, the topic was unwelcome. She felt herself flushing beneath her caul.

  “Your ideas are ridiculous right down the line! Male and female introciptors are shaped identically.”

  “Then what—?”

  “Male and female are variable roles based on size. During mating, whichever introciptor is the smaller will slip inside whichever is the larger. The smaller is considered the male.”

  “And at that point?”

  “Well, eventually … after, ah, some activity … the male passes his gamete to the female, where it bonds with the matching gamete inside her. The fused gametes grow, and the female eventually gives birth.”

  “So an individual can function as male or female, all depending on their partner’s size?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do individuals exhibit preferences for performing as either sex? Do they search out partners that allow them the desired role? And what of partners with identically sized organs?”

  Crutchsump regarded the packed dirt floor of her quarters. “Not so much. Occasionally. That is, attraction to one’s character—”

  This was ridiculous! Discussing sex with a being from another world! Crutchsump looked up with a fierce glare.

  “Enough of this foolish racy talk! What does it matter to you after all? You’re sexless!”

  Lazorg made no reply to this rebuke, and Crutchsump felt she had effectively if harshly put an end to this unproductive line of talk.

  “Pay attention now. If you’re to continue living here, we have to make some alterations in this apartment. And that’s going to cost money. We can spend what I have, but we’ll need more for afterwards.”

  “I can help. I don’t want to be a burden. Are we going to collect more bones from the Mudflats?”

  “No. Almost as soon as I sold Rheaume the ostealist my harvest, all my peers will have learned that the Shulgin Mudflats are no longer haunted, and will have descended on the flats like a flock of minouskine. I doubt there are any shifflets left. But with your help, we can go after bigger prizes.”

  Crutchsump did not elaborate, and Lazorg refrained from inquiry. Just as well, since the bone scavenger was a trifle awed at her own nascent ambitions, and might have quailed stating them aloud.

  “Let’s go now.”

  “Where?”

  “To Lustrum’s Domestics.”

  Out on busy Weepmark Lane, Crutchsump led the way. Lazorg, she noted, tended to lag, fascinated by the commonplace surroundings, his gaze bouncing around excitedly from one unexceptional street tableau to another. Only Pirkle chivvying at his heels kept the fellow moving.

  So intent was Lazorg on the passing parade that he failed to note or be offended by the taunts and giggles and shocked gasps elicited by his empty and flaccid introciptor pouch. But Crutchsump felt hurt and offended on his behalf. If only people knew that a stranger from another Cosmocopian plane walked among them, they’d be more respectful. …

  Caul-clad citizens carrying their market baskets. Mothers trundling prancer prams. Shouting children playing raggle taggle. Hawkers touting their wares, licit and illicit. A stray noetic, a brave yet circumspect uniformed member of the civil guardia, an ethical advocate proudly wearing the scarlet and gold midriff wrap of her profession. …

  Smells of guttermire, spices and the sea infiltrated the alleys and mews of the district. Adding to the soup of smells, Pirkle met another wurzel and exchanged aromatic scat lozenges.

  Without a second look, Crutchsump passed a vendor standing beside a tray of cheap ideations, unimaginative renderings of awkward abstract shapes. The seller seemed too bored with his own wares even to prais
e them to potential customers.

  But even without invitation, Lazorg stopped short beside the display. He picked up a palm-sized sample, all interlocking curves that frustrated intuitive vision rather than allured it.

  “What is this? It’s made of the same strange material as the model of the Cosmocopia at Palisander’s.”

  “Put that down,” said Crutchsump. “We have no money or time for geegaws.”

  Lazorg obeyed, and they moved on.

  The decrepit block of conjoined buildings housing Lustrum’s Domestics was composed of buttery cheesestone from the famed Boumalik quarries, legacy of the building’s past fashionable existence. The combined light of Watermilk and Zarafa rendered the distressed facades luminously polychromatic, lending the tawdry street a bit of romance in Crutchsump’s eyes.

  The dusty interior of Lustrum’s Domestics held various oddments of furniture and fabrics, most of the goods secondhand. The desultory sales staff adequately mirrored the merchandise.

  Savoring this rare consumerist splurge, Crutchsump tracked down the best bargain in relatively clean bed clothes and doss pads. She selected the thickest, cheapest curtains, some rods and fittings. Lazorg did the toting. Once she had paid the toll, Crutchsump found she had just enough scintillas left for a few days’ meals for the two of them.

  Out on the street again, Crutchsump announced, “Back home now.”

  Burdened with the purchases, Lazorg still managed to dawdle and act the lookyloo.

  Down in their basement quarters once again, Crutchsump directed her new partner. The second pallet was established as far across the room from the original as the limited dimensions of the space allowed. Standing on a wobbly crate, Lazorg erected the curtain rod up high down the middle of the room, and hung the sliding drapes on their clattering wooden rings. Retracted, the divider was hardly noticeable. But once extended, the curtains formed a seamless privacy barrier between the two sleeping pads.