Earthwind, p.4
Earthwind, page 4
’Turn right.’
The light catching the smooth hull of the ship, a mile and a half distant. Beyond the ship the earthen wall around the colony rose starkly from the high-ground clearing in the heart of the jungle. Smoke drifted above the wall, spiralling on the wind vortices, dispersing into the vast sky. Blackness, thinning, a vein of fire quickly returning to earth.
Behind Gorstein the door opened and closed softly. Knowing this was the rationalist he ignored the sound for a few moments.
On the screen a woman darted from the nearby undergrowth, stared at the vehicle for a second, before running away out of sight. Gorstein leaned forward and instructed the vehicle to follow her. The image on the screen shifted along the river and then lurched as the robot mobilized its pursuit.
After a minute, as the screen showed a dense wall of vegetation approaching, into which the woman had run, Gorstein realized that for the moment he would have to make do with that single glimpse.
A dark-skinned woman, very tall, very lean, very beautiful. Her hair had been cropped short, and there had been jewels sparkling on her chest. She had been naked but for a pair of crude shoes. She did not, he felt sure, belong on Aeran.
‘You sent for me?’
The rationalist’s voice was calm, old. Without turning to face him Gorstein nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
He rose and crossed to the draped window. Pulling back the patterned curtain he found himself staring out across a flat, almost barren field, dull brown vegetation, lowly and struggling. But at the end of the field the impressive earthworks of the colony rose almost sheer for twenty feet, before curving over to form a rampart above which the spiralling smoke strand was still battling through the wind. There was no one watching. Through the gap in the earthworks all that could be seen were the brown, gentle slopes of a second ring of earth, a wall within a wall, a double barrier against the invading eyes of the ship.
As he stared at those walls so his apprehension returned. It was impossible to explain this nervousness, this sense of wrongness, and yet as he stared at the colony on Aeran he knew that things were not right; he was acutely uncomfortable.
Turning, he faced the rationalist. The smiling man who stood there showed unmistakable signs of his distant oriental ancestry, but the features were overlayed, now, with the mixed expressions of many generations of racial intermixing. The tracery of red blood vessels that covered his whole body (a pressure accident some years before) further obscured the fact that he, of all the rationalists that Gorstein had ever encountered, was closest to the race which had brought awareness of the cosmic tao so absolutely into the human psyche.
Peter Ashka: white-haired, a thin white beard around the angle of his jaw; deep-set brilliant blue eyes, housed in heavy lids, in a face as richly lined as it was veined. He stood, slightly bowed, staring at the floor before Gorstein’s feet; his hands shook as he clutched his black cloth bag to his chest. Bare feet showed beneath his blue and green ship-robe; the robe was gathered about his waist and displayed the man’s total thinness. It was the thinness of age, not race, and yet for all his feeble appearance Peter Ashka was a strong and vital man. And a great comfort to Gorstein who leaned upon that strength more often than he leaned upon the strength of sex.
Gorstein motioned the rationalist deeper into the room and indicated that he should sit on one side of the communion mat that had been laid and prepared in one corner of these quarters.
Ashka walked forward, still silent and bowed with respect, and took a position on the south side of the mat so that Gorstein could sit facing that pole, the strong pole of any revolving planet. When they were both seated and had smiled at each other (and the difference in status had been formally dispersed) Ashka relaxed and placed his cloth bag on the mat before him. He looked up at Gorstein and motioned that he should strip. Gorstein undid the belt of his robe and let it slip from his shoulders, leaving the warm material gathered about him, but allowing the rationalist’s expert eyes to survey the muscles and angles of his body. ‘You look strained,’ said Ashka calmly. ’Tense. Yes, tense. You look apprehensive. Yes. I’ll certainly be able to help you.’
’Thank you,’ said Gorstein with the faintest of smiles touching his lips. I wonder. I wonder if your little magic book can help me, or if it is just your relaxing presence…?
He stared at the items on the mat, several small, patterned plastic jars, smooth to the touch, indefinable to the eye as the subtle lines of decorative colour twisted in and out of the fabric of the containers, almost imprisoning the awareness of the casual observer.
‘I have caffeine, liquified and flavoured with chocolate, I imagine. There is mescal,’ he tapped the smallest of the jars; touching a third, ’this is neurobyn, probably not advisable at the moment. And this one is…’ he broke off and picked up the last jar, frowning as he studied it. After a moment he shook it and smiled when it rattled. ‘Button cookies. Very good. Do have some. There is also sweet starch, and this protein slab is genuine meat.’ He waved his hand across the food. ‘Please feel free to take what you want.’
Ashka regarded the delicacies enviously, then glanced up at the shipMeister. ‘Will you eat first as well?’
Gorstein declined. He wasn’t feeling hungry, and didn’t want to risk a stimulant. Ashka seemed disappointed and looked briefly at the protein slab before raising his hands. ’Thank you, but I will also decline.’
Gorstein removed the food from the mat and Ashka placed the cloth bag in the centre of the ring of ching hexagrams that had been hand-sewn into the fabric. Purely decorative, it was nevertheless impossible to deny the stillness, the calmness that they extended to the seated observer who regarded them. The pattern, just a collection of threads, was so evocative that it was as if some intangible essence flooded from the mat to the mind, a drug that worked its magic in the moment of looking.
Opening the bag Ashka unpacked the contents, laying them out before him, neatly, precisely, letting his fingers linger for a moment or two on each item:
—Tarot cards, thumbed, worn, ancient. The pack was a twenty-first-century Marseilles pack, and though the edges showed signs of their passage through time, the colours of each face were bright and alive; with age, with use, meaning had become instilled into the cards. Ashka treasured them, even though he rarely used them.
—A memory terminal, a small screen, surrounded by ebony wood, notched and carved over the years in Ashka’s personal way. This was placed to one side, its earth lead touching the metal strip that ran round the base of the walls. At the top of the screen a tiny red light glowed on signifying contact with the ship’s association-memory bank.
—A small red cloth which Ashka opened and the contents of which he spilled on to the mat to his right. Bones, small, white, very fragile. They had been with him for many years, inherited from the shaman who had been his first teacher, who had inherited them in turn, and so on, back through the centuries, before there were rationalists, before the rational Universe was even understood. Bones. The disarticulated framework of a small extinct bird. Gorstein had only once asked why the bones were so important to Ashka, and whether they were an oracle in their own right. Ashka, then a few years younger, had merely smiled, then explained in all seriousness: They are the bones of an extinct water bird of Earth; the moorhen, which swam on the waters of Earth, flew in the air currents and winds of Earth, and used the earth itself for its nest, burrowing into the river bank for several feet. Such a bird was one with all the environments of the old world, and in its bones are memories of those environments. When I throw the bones they adopt a pattern on falling, the vertebrae thus, the leg bones here, the wing bones so…or perhaps a different configuration. From their arrangement it is possible to read many things. I rarely use them, and never in my capacity as rationalist.’ Gorstein had stared at the fragments of that long dead bird and slowly shaken his head, breathing softly as the implications of the rationalist’s ability sank into his mind. When he had glanced at Ashka there had been just the hint of a smile on the rationalist’s lips. Just a hint, vanishing quickly. Gorstein had felt slightly piqued and had not asked again. (Had that simple joke been the beginning? The start of the corrosion…?)
—Last item on the mat, the most important. The bound copy of the ching, still wrapped in its traditional black silk covering. Ashka placed this carefully before him, unwrapped the covering, exposed the ancient book, its leaves yellowed with time, treated to preserve them. It was written in an ancient language that few but rationalists spoke, the language that formed the basis for the more complex interLing that was the Universal tongue.
Ashka finished his delicate array, working slowly and with suddenly steady hands. Gorstein had long since ceased to smile at the man’s fad for the traditional approach to the changes, and to all the oracles he used, for that matter. The rationalist was too successful for there to have been no point in the tradition. Gorstein knew that it didn’t matter how the oracles were consulted, or where, or under what circumstances, but the comfort of the rationalist was all-important. So much of the consultation comprised the professional interpretation of the luminary—so much from his mind into the life of the questioner—so much influence on the basis of the throw of a coin—so much interference…
He allowed the doubt to filter away and returned to the moment, stared at the composed figure of his friend (how many years had they been friends? It seemed like a lifetime, but it was a mere forty seasons, ten years out of fifty!)
As always, as he watched the meticulous old man, Gorstein felt unhappy at the thought that Ashka’s life was coming to an end. Why did you do it, Peter? Why? No man’s destiny belongs to himself alone. You should not have asked…
How he had done it he had never explained to Gorstein, save to say that it had nearly destroyed his relationship with the ching— but however it was done, Ashka had asked for an absolute prediction, he had asked for his moment of death. And he had been told. The Book of Change did not predict, it guided, but in all the thousands of years that it had been added to and expanded it did not surprise Gorstein to discover the power of prediction entering its pages. Ashka remained thoughtfully (perhaps tactfully) silent on the point. All he knew was that he would die peacefully, and that his remaining time, now, was as little as seven months.
It posed a bureaucratic headache for Gorstein, who would soon have to begin the long and tedious process of selecting a replacement, and all of Ashka’s trainees on the ship were still too young to take on the responsibility of rationalist.
‘Well now.’ Ashka seemed satisfied with his arrangement and looked up at the shipMeister. ’Tell me why you’ve sent for me. Identify your problem.’
‘Since landing here…’ how difficult to put feelings into words without their sounding trite, almost childish. ‘Since landing here I’ve felt uneasy. Very uneasy. Perhaps apprehensive would be more accurate.’
Ashka nodded thoughtfully. ‘Concerning what?’
‘Concerning…the mission, I suppose.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘It’s difficult to tell…’ As he spoke so he grew more uncomfortable. What would it look like to the junior ranks, the shipMeister squirming with embarrassment? But then, the rationalist was a rank apart from the rest of the ship. It was senselessness on Gorstein’s part that he felt uncomfortable exposing his fears to this man above all. ‘Yes,’ he said more convincingly. ‘Yes, the mission. I’m apprehensive about the mission.’
‘And which aspect of the mission do you think is worrying you most?’
Gorstein was silent for a moment, eyes closed, thinking hard. His face grew darker as he frowned. He was aware of his hands clasping and unclasping in his lap. Self-consciously, feeling that his nervous motions would draw attention to his nudity, he drew his robe across his lap. As his eyes flickered open for a moment he noticed Ashka smiling as he stared at him. Gorstein smiled back.
‘Christ, Peter. I’m tense. What can I do?’
Ashka shook his head. ‘Your penchant for archaisms is very disconcerting. What can you do? Become less tense. Simple procedure—’
‘Breathe deeply. I know.’
’For just a few moments.’
After a minute or so Gorstein felt his body relax, his heart slow down and his painful sense of embarrassment faded away, leaving him feeling slightly foolish. ‘Which aspect of the mission? Yes. That’s a good question. I have no answer. Perhaps this is where I need clarification.’
The rationalist smiled. Then: ‘When did this unease develop? Before or after landing?’
‘After. Immediately after.’
‘Before or after you first saw the colony?’
From where he was sitting Gorstein could not see the earthworks, but the mention of the colony made his stomach tense—he could visualize that calm structure, the smoke spiral curling through the wind.
‘After.’
’Then what can I do for you? You are worried that the mission will run into difficulties. It’s a common apprehension—from examinations to missions, the thought of failure is very frightening, sometimes irrationally so.’
‘No!’ Gorstein felt momentary disappointment make him momentarily angry. ‘No…it’s more than that. I’ve performed too many of these missions for our new masters to let one more bother me. It goes deeper. I’m sure it goes deeper.’
Ashka smiled and reached for the small memory terminal. ‘I think I understand—you want to satisfy yourself that your unease derives from within you and not from some outside force.’ Very tidily put, thought Gorstein. It was obvious to him, now that the rationalist had enunciated it so simply and precisely. Was he subconsciously avoiding the idea of outside forces? Was it an intolerable idea to the quieter Gorstein that lay below the conscious mind of the loud and authoritative one? Perhaps he should go into that with the rationalist at some later date.
‘I should like you to consult the changes for me.’
Ashka seemed surprised, then shook his head, slowly. ‘Why? It would be meaningless. To ask a question about something you know very little about would result in only the broadest answer possible—a trend, a prediction since you like the word so much, that could mean many things. The ching will be useful after you’ve got to know Aeran on a real gut level. You know this, shipMeister. Surely…’
‘Nevertheless…’ Gorstein began firmly.
‘I refuse!’ snapped Ashka, suddenly angry. He immediately regretted his outburst and smiled apologetically. ‘Relax, Karl. Relax and I can do you some good!’
Gorstein relaxed, moodily, and watched the rationalist at work. The memory bank was too simple, too simple by far. Ashka never related to anything but the changes, at least, never related in that out-flowing, all-enveloping way that managed to put Gorstein so much at his ease. A book or a friend? Which was important? He stared at the ching and then at Ashka. He closed his eyes. I just don’t know. I just…don’t know!
There was movement in the corridor outside the shipMeister’s quarters, a hesitation, then the movement went away. No doubt a landing party request; it wasn’t often that they reached a world quite as amenable to survival as Aeran, and the crew had been cooped up in the Gilbert Ryle for a good long time now. But there would be no ’earth leave’ just yet. Not with a giant earthworks staring the ship in its camera eyes, and not a sign of civilization to be seen around what should have been a conventional, if fairly backward, colony.
Ashka was at work, drawing Gorstein’s recorded personality from the ship’s memory log, crossing it with observations to date on the planet Aeran Aurigae IV, and placing his questions. After a moment he frowned and glanced at Gorstein. He placed the memory terminal in the middle of the communion mat and asked his question loudly, the words appearing in glowing blue at the very top of the screen.
‘Does shipMeister Gorstein’s unease derive from his own personality?’
A second to process, then the answer, brief, unequivocal: No.
‘Does shipMeister Gorstein’s unease derive from forces outside the ship?’
Unequivocal: Yes.
Gorstein started forward, about to speak, but Ashka silenced him with a wave of his hand.
‘What are these forces?’
Red light answer: Not yet known.
’To what degree of certainty do you state that the forces derive from outside the ship?’
Ninety-three parts certainty.
’Is there value in consulting the ching! Correction…’ the screen was covered with waving lines, indicating misunderstanding ’is there value in consulting the I Ching?’
A longer moment to process. Then, flashing on to the screen in a split second: There is value in consulting I Ching, since the area of unease within shipMeister Gorstein’s psyche may emerge and be relatable to observed elements on Aeran. Caution is urged in interpretation.
Gorstein smiled. Ashka seemed content enough; he was not humbled by having been proved wrong in his earlier recommendation. How could he have known?
Something outside the ship…intriguing. Something outside the metal walls…something to do with the planet, or with the colony, or both. It did not occur to Gorstein to be frightened.
Ashka unwrapped the book and placed it before him. He opened its pages and removed three silver discs from between the leaves. These he passed across to Gorstein who studied them for a moment. They were very old coins, a woman’s head drawn on one side, and a strange and confusing pattern of plants drawn on the reverse. They were all dated 1961. The inscriptions were in two archaic languages, one of them an early form of interLing. Gorstein had asked a long time ago what precisely the coins had been. ‘Sixpences,’ Ashka had replied cryptically and with an almost tangible pride in his voice. ‘Very rare European coins from the age of Pisces. Twentieth century after the Christ.’
