Hunt stared at her for a long time. A lot of things were making more sense now. If that was really the problem, then perhaps the Ganymean cure of several years’ planetary cold turkey would turn out to be the answer after all. The secondary problems would just have to be dealt with by conventional, time-tried methods, as some members of the Thurien-Terran Joint Policy Council seemed to have been saying. It would also explain why whoever was profiting in the meantime would want to keep the administration off the trail for as long as possible.
What did not make sense was why Nixie should want to rock the boat if business was so good.
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,” Hunt said.
“That isn’t what I followed you for,” Nixie answered. “When we were with Murray, the other thing you asked about was the ayatollahs.”
“He didn’t seem to know much about them.”
“He doesn’t. He’s not a Jevlenese. But I do.”
Hunt hesitated, checking mentally for something he might have missed. “Is there a lot more to explain about them?” he said. “It sounds as if they’re just extreme cases of this-this fantasy-addiction that you just described. Ones that have pulled their anchors up from reality completely.”
Nixie shook her head. “No. That can happen to the headworld junkies, yes. But the ayatollahs are not the same. Their situation is something else.”
Hunt nodded and raised his eyebrows. So Garuth had been right in his classifications. “There is something definitely very different about them, then?” he asked. “Something that sets them apart?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You can be sure? They’re not simply suffering from delusions? Or some kind of breakdown, possibly, induced by stresses encountered in these fantasy realities?”
“The ayatollahs aren’t products of any fantasies,” Nixie said, speaking somberly. “They aren’t junkies at all.”
“Then what makes them crazy?”
“Crazy?” Nixie stared at him strangely. “They’re bewildered,” she replied. “And very often scared, confused, lost, and hysterical. If a lot of them act demented, it’s because of things like that. And yes, maybe some of them do lose their orientation completely. But it’s not from getting too involved with some fairyland. They come from somewhere that’s real. But it’s somewhere very strange-at least, it would be strange to anyone who’s used to this…” She gestured around her vaguely.
“You mean Jevlen?” Hunt said.
“And Earth, too. Everywhere. The whole universe.”
Hunt’s brow knitted. “I’m not sure what you’re saying. Where do they come from?”
“They don’t know. That’s what screws them up-or at least, it screws a lot of them up. But some manage to handle it and keep their act together. They’re not all crazy.” Nixie lifted her glass again and gave Hunt a long, appraising look over the rim. “At least, I hope you think they’re not all crazy. You see, you’re the first scientist I’ve met here. And you’re sane. The reason I followed you was that you look like someone who might be able to find the answers.”
“Is it really that important to-” Hunt began, and his eyes widened as he realized what she was saying.
Nixie nodded, reading his expression. “Yes,” she said. “That’s right, Vic. To me, it’s very important. You see, I’m one of them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
In the night, everything lay hidden beneath the blackness of a sky deserted by the gods. Even Pamur, the god whose lantern was the sun, was turning away, reducing Waroth’s days to twilight gloom, Snow blanketed the mountains and choked the passes. Herders and hill people were moving into the valleys as cold crept down across the land.
High in the midst of the Rinjussin wilderness, the Master, Shingen-Hu, and a select group of adepts from his school ascended a rocky peak for the ceremony of reconsecrating the Altar of Arising, from whence those who arose with the currents departed from the world. The currents had been running very weak of late, and they were too high to be drawn down. The purpose of the rite was to get Nieru’s blessing for better conditions.
The chanting and incantations were of particular significance to Thrax, for Shingen-Hu had chosen him as the next to ascend, when the signs and the currents became favorable. In his devotions he had already, on several occasions, captured the wisps of current that sometimes came low, bringing images into his mind. He recalled the images now, as he stood clad in heavy robes and a cowled cloak upon the peak, gazing at the scattering of remnant stars flickering wanly above, as if beckoning, somehow… Images that he had seen of Hyperia.
Of lawfulness reigning indefinitely through time and over unimaginably vast regions of space.
Of things that spun.
Of huge cities of permanent matter, sculpted into fantastic shapes that soared into the sky.
Of the strange beings that inhabited them, whose wondrous devices could operate themselves directly, without any intervention of mind.
It would be as one of those strange beings that he would emerge, Shingen-Hu had told him. Most of the abilities that he knew would be lost. But he would find, as he persevered and learned, that he didn’t need them. For the inhabitants of Hyperia knew none of the gods that held sway over Waroth. They didn’t need to bother with prayer, and the few gods that they did worship in their own mysterious ways were as nothing ever revealed to any Warothian. The Hyperians delegated their powers to complex magic objects, which they were able to fashion as effortlessly as a Master could project a firebolt; thus they freed themselves to devote their time to such higher things as amusement and bodily comforts, without the daily drudgery of cultivating mystical insights and developing powers of unaided thought.
But to begin with, he would feel lost and helpless when he emerged. He would search in vain for reassurance from things that were familiar, knowing that until he developed new powers of comprehension and came to terms with the revelations which those new insights would open up, there would be no way back. That would be when he should seek the security of his own kind among those bearing the emblem of the purple spiral.
But he had been thoroughly trained. He was ready. Others were not so fortunate, Shingen-Hu had said. In former times, when the currents had been abundant and strong, it often happened that new initiates, or even novices, would emerge into Hyperia ignorant and unprepared, without even having glimpsed what lay ahead. Usually they were solitary learners, unschooled and impatient.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Baumer had suggested a tour of the environs of PAC to give Gina a start at getting her bearings in Shiban. After that, he said, he would introduce her to some of the associations of Jevlenese and Terran historians engaged in organizing the information coming to light on past Jevlenese meddlings with Earth. They left PAC by the main entrance and crossed a plaza, where one of the battery of escalators below the transportation terminal took them down several levels to emerge into one of the major thoroughfares traversing the district between PAC and the city center.
They passed an exchange market for used furniture, clothes, and household junk that was situated in an open area between facing lines of dilapidated storefronts and lesser buildings. Above, enormous ribs of an architecture that belonged to a different scale soared and merged, enclosing a space vast enough to hold a small mountain-a monument to a vision in an alien mind that had leapt above the commonplace as surely as the lines seemed to break free from gravity
… now stark and bare against the pale, orange-smeared green of the sky, their original function long forgotten. A stream connecting ornamental pools built on a series of terraces had run dry and become a trash dump. Jevlenese in blue costumes were dancing to a strange, repetitive chant, vaguely reminiscent of medieval plainsong, while a crowd looked on apathetically. Insensible figures lay sprawled against walls along the sidewalks.