Time of Breath

by Paul Mannering

  “Where does Professor Bombilate fit in to all of this?” Drake­forth asked.

  “Currently, he probably fits between half a dozen cities and innumerable home appliances. Prior to his being converted to double-e flux, he was the man holding it all together.”

  “An idea is a fragile thing,” Drakeforth said. “Bombilate nur­tured the idea of an idea. He gave it to the Pathians and they ran with it. He made something as perfect and delicate as a soap bubble. This—” He carefully unfolded the shroud, “—is an original idea. A moment in time, preserved forever. The perfect distillation of a thought.”

  “It’s lines and circles and some kind of numbers?” I peered at the sheet.

  “Arthur’s first revelation. He never intended it as the found­ation of an entire religion. He just thought many thoughts that were too big and exciting for him to contain.”

  “He sounds like an interesting person,” I said.

  “Arthur was just a man. No smarter or more socially adept than the rest of us. He made cringe-worthy mistakes and some remarkable leaps of logic. If he hadn’t recorded the core principles of his theory of relatives on this linen sheet, he would have been as forgotten as a thousand other prophets who lived at the same time.”

  “Strange how things work out,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the most valuable religious artefact in the world.

  “It’s only strange when they work out. Can you log in to that?” Drakeforth asked.

  “It’s not the default user name and password. This system has been used and carefully configured.” I rested my fingertips on the keyboard, feeling the hum of empathic energy glowing in the circuit boards and memory chips.

  After a minute, Drakeforth cleared his throat.

  “Something you need?” I asked, without opening my eyes.

  “Access to this computer?” Drakeforth said.

  I flexed my fingers and sat back. “You’re welcome to try it yourself.”

  “User name, Bombilate?”

  I keyed it in. “Now the password?”

  Drakeforth thought for a moment. “We are talking about a very clever man. His password could be long and complex, or it could be as simple as Bombilate.”

  “Right,” I smirked, and typed Bombilate into the password field and pressed Enter. The computer whirred and the login screen cleared.

  “What happened?” Drakeforth asked.

  “We logged in,” I said, swallowing my astonishment.

  Drakeforth shrugged as if it were nothing, and went back to studying the Shroud of Tureen. I found the encrypted file and transferred the other section from the tablet to the notebook.

  The two pieces fit together like the world’s simplest jigsaw puzzle, except it was still encrypted with a specific code key. I sighed and typed in Bombilate. The computer didn’t quite laugh at me, but I felt like it should.

  “What would Professor Bombilate use as an encryption key…?”

  “Have you tried using his name, but with a zero and a one instead of the ‘o’ and the ‘i’?” Drakeforth asked. He was on his hands and knees, his nose almost touching the grey fabric of the shroud.

  “An encryption key needs to be something impossible to guess, but easy to remember. It’s like any code: once you know the key, you can unlock the entire message.”

  “What would be the hardest thing to ever guess?” Drakeforth murmured his attention clearly on the sheet.

  “A random sequence of numbers and letters,” I replied.

  “Arthur’s formulae is the basis of some key concepts of quantum physics. Most of the work was done by more secular minds after his death, but he got people talking and thinking and, most importantly, doing some serious math.”

  “I’m not sure even a mathematician could crack this,” I said.

  “Arthur’s Theory of Relatives came about because he realised that nothing exists unless it is perceived. He had a friend, a woman named Magnesia. She didn’t know if her mother was alive or dead. Arthur concluded that she was neither alive nor dead, as long as Magnesia didn’t know.”

  “That would have been weird for anyone who actually met the poor woman,” I said.

  “Arthur understood that probability meant she could be both; in the Universe that Magnesia occupied, her mother could live forever, provided her daughter’s perception was never altered to create a reality where she had deceased.”

  “Which helps us with the encryption key how, exactly?” I waited with my hands hovering over the keyboard. The answer felt close, and I itched to type it in.

  “The key both exists and doesn’t exist. It is in a state of flux. Until it is observed, it can be both up and down. Left and right, porcine and equine.”

  I inhaled and exhaled slowly. “The secret is to accept that you cannot know the key without destroying it.”

  “It’s a start,” Drakeforth agreed.

  “It sure is…” I pressed the Enter key and the file started to unpack into a readable format.

  While the secret Professor Bombilate had died for unpacked itself, Drakeforth found a way to secure the ancient Shroud of Tureen to the hotel room wall. We stood together, studying the faded marks and lines. Over the centuries, lines had formed along the fold marks. The meaning of the symbols lost in the creases had caused more deaths and claims of heresy than any other aspect of Arthurianism.

  “You could solve a lot of arguments by simply telling people what it actually says,” I said.

  “I wrote it down with the expectation that people would accept the truth and it wouldn’t be open to interpretation.”

  “People never accept anything, and everything is open to interpretation,” I replied.

  “You can see why I find them all so annoying.”

  “It’s understandable,” I agreed.

  The bathroom door opened and a cloud of dust wafted out. A man walked into the room carrying an armload of cologne scent on his skin.

  “Goat…?” I stared.

  “Goat,” he agreed. His eyes were furtive, skipping over the floor and the walls before landing on the Shroud of Tureen hanging from the wall.

  “Tree…” he whispered.

  “Shroud,” I corrected automatically. “Goat, you look different.”

  The calcified lump of facial hair had been scraped off his face, his hair was clean, trimmed, and combed back. He had a deep tan and wore a towel.

  “Tree…” Goat came closer, the towel forgotten as he reached out and almost touched the sheet.

  “I should find him some pants,” Drakeforth said. He went to his suitcase and retrieved clothes for Goat.

  The notebook beeped, confirming that the file reconstruction was complete. I went to the computer and started reading. In the background, Drakeforth struggled to get Goat dressed.

  Chapter 45

  “‘And in conclusion’,” I read aloud, “‘it is my belief that the future of Pathia as a stable and sovereign nation requires that we take all necessary steps to ensure the integration of a modern and robust credit unit system which will allow us to compete on international markets and increase the stability and productivity of our domestic industries.’ Yeah, he goes on like this for…another three pages.”

  “That’s quite the revelation,” Drakeforth said.

  “Faith in the economy is what keeps the economy growing. Bombilate said it, and the Knotsticks are losing their sand over it. If people question their faith in the current standard value of the knowledge economy, it will all fall apart.”

  “It will all fall apart eventually,” Drakeforth replied. “It’s not faith in knowledge that keeps the Pathian economy turning the pages of the ledgers. The faith people have in the artefacts and ideals on display in places like the museum is what drives economic growth.”

  Drakeforth sipped a cup of tea. “In Pathia, the Godden Energy Corporat
ion doesn’t need to harvest double-e flux from the dying. They are gathering it from the faith inherent in the system. The knowledge economy and the careful regulation of that knowledge.”

  “Well yes, Bombilate goes into detail about that in his research paper. That’s why they killed him. He was going to destabilise everything. The dig at Errm: the Knotsticks are looking for new artefacts to inspire faith.”

  “Strong faith will protect the markets against the revolution that is to come,” Drakeforth nodded.

  “Tree,” Goat said.

  “Right, so where is the technology they are using to extract all this latent empathic energy?”

  “In the pyramids,” Drakeforth said.

  “Tree,” Goat said.

  “That’s where they are storing it. The Godden engine we saw was simply a pump, keeping everything ticking over. We’ve seen no evidence of a pipe or cable network in the desert.”

  “Same as their internet service, radio waves and satellite.”

  “Tree,” Goat said.

  I shook my head. “Empathic energy doesn’t travel wirelessly. Outside of the range of an empowered object’s anthropomorphic field, the radiance dissipates. It has to be sent through some kind of pipe or cabling system.”

  We fell silent, both lost in thought.

  “Boat,” Goat announced, and stood up. “Ah, Tree. Tea. Boat. You’re welcome, it’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. If we are going to save the world, then we should get to the roof immmm—no, not yet. Wait. Here.” He gestured for us to both remain where we were, and backed towards the door. A moment later, he was gone.

  “We should follow him,” I said.

  Drakeforth stood up and collected his hat.

  Goat was halfway down the stairs when we caught up with him. He nodded in acknowledgement of us and bounded down the remaining flights and out into the street.

  Once there he turned this way and that, agitation tightening his face.

  “Goat, where are we going?”

  “Sand. Ship. Tree,” Goat pointed in three different directions, and seemed at a loss as to which way to go first.

  “Where’s the airship?” I asked.

  “The police have it.” Drakeforth joined Goat in the dance of uncertainty. “They’ll have it in impound.”

  “Where is that?” I stepped in time with the other two.

  “In Pathia,” Drakeforth stopped dead.

  “You think?” I glared.

  “Yes, constantly, and even yet, I still manage to miss the occasion­al important detail. We need Harenae.”

  Finding a pathologist was a mysterious process that happened very quickly. We asked around and word spread, and the young woman with a map of the entire city in her head came strolling towards us within the hour. We had time to drink water and watch a funeral procession for a fly before she arrived. The mourners carried a platform with a tiny casket draped in flower petals. It was a solemn affair, and I wondered how the poor thing came to its end. At the end of the line, the woman in black twirled and danced. The floating material of her dress moved to its own current and she barely touched the ground. It seemed strange to celebrate death in this way, though the sorrow of the mourners was expressed in her every leap.

  “Where to?” Harenae asked.

  “Police impound lot. We need to collect our friend’s…ahh… vehicle,” I said.

  “Easy,” Harenae said. “Just the three of you? Any luggage this time?”

  “No, just us.”

  “Walk this way,” Harenae replied, and led us into a maze of narrow streets and alleyways. These were the places even litters couldn’t fit, and we marched in single file under dusty awnings and past stalls selling spices and fruits that I couldn’t name.

  The police impound lot was mostly empty, and Goat’s airship was tied down with more ropes than a circus tent.

  Harenae led us to the kiosk and waited while we tried to explain the situation.

  “Do you have your licence and registration?” the officer asked.

  “Goat,” Goat said.

  “Yes, Mister Goat, however without documentation confirm­ing your legal right to own and operate this vehicle of yours, we can’t release it to you.”

  “Goat,” Goat said.

  “Do you think this officer knows how to spell pedestrian?” I murmured to Drakeforth.

  Harenae shrugged off the shady wall she was leaning against, “Hey, Cuz.”

  The officer in the kiosk looked up and nodded, “Hey Hare, ‘sup?”

  “Not much. How’s aunty?” Harenae asked.

  “Sweet as,” the officer replied. His dialect had gone from being relatively formal to back-dunes colloquial.

  Harenae nodded and we stood in silence for a few moments. “Y’reckon y’can sort these pasties so I can get paid and get outta y’hair?”

  “Yeah, nah,” the officer scratched his jaw apologetically.

  “Aww c’mon,” Harenae grinned at him.

  “Y’gonna get me in the fa’asi,” he replied.

  “Yeah, nah,” Harenae grinned wider.

  The officer sighed and slid off his chair. Exiting the kiosk, he came around and unlocked the gate to let us into the yard.

  “Chur, bro,” Harenae said.

  “Come on, Goat. Let’s get you in the air.” I hurried him across the dusty ground to the tethered airship. Drakeforth signed forms for the officer and we untied the boat.

  Goat scrambled aboard, and from the bleats of his herd, the crew were pleased to see their captain back on deck.

  “Where you fellas goin’?” Harenae asked me.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Yeah—yes. Sorry, where are you planning on going in this?” Harenae switched to talking more like a woman with one of those private academy educations.

  I hesitated, “Goat seems to have an idea on how the Knotstick Order are transferring the empathic energy they have been harvesting from the faith of those who believe in everything, from the knowledge economy to the sanctity of the Shroud of Tureen, to where they are storing it for the Godden Energy Corporation in reservoirs hidden inside the pyramids.”

  “You’re looking for the path,” Harenae replied.

  “I don’t know what we are looking for.”

  “Pathologists know the path. Sometimes the path isn’t clear. But we know the path.”

  “You’re pitching for more work?”

  “I’m offering to help.”

  Drakeforth strode past us and climbed on to the boat as it started to strain against the last rope.

  “Untie that last rope and jump on.” I turned and scrambled over the rail.

  “She’s coming with us?” Drakeforth asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  Chapter 46

  The airship creaked and squeaked as it rose into the air. Goat was hard at work inflating additional intestines, using a strange contraption that seemed to work by siphoning gases from a tank of carefully collected goat waste, and pumping it into a narrow nozzle. With the casual ease of a clown at a child’s birthday party, Goat tied off sausage balloons as they swelled with methane. The heat of the day expanded them further and the gas carried us higher.

  We floated over a sprawling city that looked as insane as the paving that lined so many of its streets. Harenae stood at the bow and stared into the horizon.

  Goat was at the wheel, which still didn’t seem to be connected to anything functional. Perhaps it grounded him and gave a sense of stability. I wished I had something as simple as a wheel to hold onto.

  “Hey,” Harenae called from the rail. “there’s someone follow­ing us.”

  I hurried over and looked where she pointed. A truck was hurtling through the narrow streets, scattering people and litters as it went. A lone figure sto
od in the open roof, a harpoon-like weapon cradled against their shoulder.

  “What the harpsichord is that?” I asked.

  “Serious intent?” the pathologist replied.

  Smoke puffed from the rear of the weapon and a metal spear came rocketing towards us. We both ducked and the point buried itself in the goat balloon netting overhead. A rope went taut and we peered over the side again.

  Eade Notschnott climbed the knotted rope with the determ­ination of a caterpillar climbing towards the last leaf on a bush.

  Drakeforth came over and looked down.

  “You know how you had her declared legally dead?” I said. “I bet you regret not making sure first.”

  Drakeforth grunted and reached down to offer Eade a hand as she came into range. “Eade, how unpleasant of you to drop in unannounced.”

  “Vole, you need to stop. Just leave Pathia and stop.”

  “Stop what?” Drakeforth had an air of innocence about him that could have been sprayed from an aerosol can.

  “Grand Linteum Nonce told me to get you here. I didn’t know why at the time. I think it was because the Godden Energy Corporation wanted you taken care of.”

  “How generous of them,” I said coldly.

  “And quite unnecessary,” Drakeforth replied. “I am reasonably adept at taking care of myself.”

  “They really don’t like you,” Eade insisted.

  “No one likes Drakeforth,” I said. “It’s part of his charm.”

  “They were going to put you in the same cabinet as Professor Bombilate,” Eade said.

  “And you were okay with that?” I asked.

  Eade paused for a moment. “I need to protect what I believe in. The museum, the artefacts, all that knowledge. It’s real to me. Knowledge has value beyond the perceived worth of currency. You are putting all my work, my life’s work at risk.”

  “You harpooned us to get that off your chest?” I asked.

  “No, I harpooned you to stop you floating off into the desert and doing something unforgivable.”

  “You could just forgive us and let us go,” Drakeforth suggested.

  “It’s too late. You have to be stopped.”