The Great And Secret Show Part 62

"Maybe if I wasn't so tired."

"Guess."

"I'm not in the mood for guessing games."

A sly look came over Jaffe's face. "You want me to come with you-help you stop whatever's coming through Quiddity-but you haven't got any grasp of what's going on. If you did have, you'd understand what you've got in your hand."

She realized what he was proposing before he said it.

"So if I can work it out, you'll come?"

"Yeah. Maybe."

"Give me a few minutes," she said, looking down at the Shoal symbol with fresh eyes.

"A few?" he said. "What's a few? Five maybe. Let's say five. My offer's good for five minutes."

She turned the medallion over in her hand, suddenly self-conscious.

"Don't stare at me," she said.

"I like to stare."

"You're distracting me."

"You don't have to stay," he replied.

She took him at his word, and got up, her legs unsteady, returning to the crack she'd entered through.

"Don't lose it," he said, his tone almost satiric. "It's the only one I've got."

Hotchkiss was a yard beyond the entrance.

"You heard?" she said to him.

He nodded. She opened her palm and let him look at the medallion. The sole light source, the decaying terata, was fitful, but her eyes were well accustomed to it by now. She could read the expression of befuddlement on Hotchkiss's face. There'd be no revelations from that source.

She claimed the medallion from his fingers and looked over to Grillo, who hadn't moved.

"He's fallen apart," Hotchkiss said. "Claustrophobia."

She went to him anyway. He wasn't staring at the ceiling any longer, nor at the body in the water. His eyes were closed. His teeth were chattering.

"Grillo."

He chattered on.

"Grillo. It's Tesla. I need your help."

He shook his head; a small, violent motion.

"I have to know what this means."

He didn't even open his eyes to find out what she was talking about.

"Thanks a bunch, Grillo," she said.

On your own, babe. No help to be had. Hotchkiss doesn't get it, Grillo won't; and Witt's dead in the water. Her eyes went to the body, momentarily. Face down, arms spread. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. She'd not known him at all, but he'd seemed decent enough.

She turned away, opened her palm, and looked at the medallion again, her concentration completely f.u.c.ked by the fact that the seconds were ticking by.

What did it mean?

The figure in the center was human. The forms that spread from it were not. Were they familiars, maybe? Or the central figure's children? That made more sense. There was a creature between the spread legs like a stylized ape; beneath that something reptilian; beneath that- s.h.i.+t! They weren't children, they were ancestors. It was devolution. Man at the center, ape below; lizard, fish and protoplasm (an eye, or a single cell) below that. The past is below us, Hotchkiss had said once. Maybe he'd been right.

a.s.suming that to be the correct solution, what did it imply about the designs on the other three arms? Above the figure's head something seemed to be dancing, its head huge. Above that the same form, only simplified; and again above that, a simplification, which reached its conclusion as another eye (or single cell) which echoed the shape below. In the light of the first interpretation this wasn't so difficult to understand. Below were images of life leading up to man; above, surely, beyond man, the species elevated to a perfect spiritual state.

Two out of four.

How long did she have?

Don't think about the time, she told herself, just solve the problem.

Reading from right to left across the medallion, the sequence was by no means as easy as south to north. At the extreme left was another circle, with something like a cloud in it. Beside it, closer to the figure's outstretched arm, a square, divided into four; closer still what looked to be lightning; then a splash of some kind (blood from the hand?); then the hand itself. On the other side a series of even less comprehensible symbols. What might have been another spurt from the figure's left hand; then a wave, perhaps, or snakes (was she committing Jaffe's sin here? being too literal?); then what could only be described as a scrawl, as though some sign had been scratched out, and finally the fourth and final circle, which was a hole, bored in the medallion. From solid to insolid.

From a circle with a cloud to an empty s.p.a.ce. What the h.e.l.l did it mean? Was it day and night? No. Known and unknown, maybe? That made better sense. Hurry, Tesla, hurry. So what was round, and cloudy, and known?

Round, and cloudy. The world. And known. Yes. The world; the Cosm! which implied that the empty s.p.a.ce on the other arm, the un-known, was the Metacosm! Which left the figure in the middle: the crux of the whole design.

She started back towards the cave, where Jaffe was waiting for her, knowing there could only be seconds left.

"I've got it!" she shouted through to him, "I've got it!" It wasn't quite true, but the rest would have to be instinct.

The fire inside the cave was very low, but there was a horrible brightness in Jaffe's eyes.

"I know what it is," she said.

"You do?"

"It's evolution on one axis, from a single cell to G.o.d-hood."

She knew by the look on his face that she'd got that part right at least.

"Go on," he said. "What's the other axis?"

"It's the Cosm and the Metacosm. It's what we know and what we don't know."

"Very good, "he said. "Very good. And in the middle?"

"Us. Human beings."

His smile spread. "No," he said.

"No?"

"That's an old mistake, isn't it? It's not as simple as that."

"But it's a human being, right there!" she said.

"You still see the symbol."

"s.h.i.+t. I hate this! You're so d.a.m.n smug. Help me!"

"Time's up!"

"I'm close! I'm really close, aren't I?"

"You see how it is? You can't work it out. Even with a little help from your friends."

"I didn't get any help. Hotchkiss can't do it. Grillo's lost his mind. And Witt's-"

Witt's lying in the water, she thought. But didn't say that, because the image had suddenly struck her with revelatory force. He was lying sprawled in the water with his arms spread out and his hands open.

"My G.o.d," she said. "It's Quiddity. It's our dreams. It's not flesh and blood at the crossroads, it's the mind."

Jaffe's smile disappeared, and the light in his eyes got brighter; a paradoxical brightness that didn't illuminate but took light from the rest of the chamber, into itself.

"It is, isn't it?" she said. "Quiddity's the center of everything. It's the crossroads."

He didn't answer her. He didn't need to. She knew without the least doubt that she'd got it right. The figure was floating, in Quiddity, arms spread out as he, she, or it dreamed in the dream-sea. And somehow that dreaming was the place where everything originated: the first cause.

"No wonder," she said.

He spoke now as if from the grave.

"No wonder what?"

"No wonder you couldn't do it," she replied. "When you realized what you faced in Quiddity. No wonder."

"You may regret this knowledge," he said.

"I never regretted knowing anything in my life."

"You'll change your mind," he said. "I guarantee it."

She allowed him his sour grapes. But a deal was a deal, and she was ready to insist upon it.

"You said you'd come with us."

"I know I did."

"You will, won't you?"

"It's useless," he said.

"Don't try and get out of it. I know what's at stake here just as much as you do."

"And what do you propose we do about it?"

"We go back to the Vance house and we try and close the schism."

"How?"

"Maybe we have to take some advice from an expert."

"There are none."

"There's Kissoon," she said. "He owes us one. In fact he owes us several. But first, we have to get out of here."

Jaffe looked at her for a long time, as though he wasn't yet certain whether to acquiesce or not.

"If you don't do this," she said, "you'll end up here in the dark where you spent how long...twenty years? The Iad will break through and you'll be here, underground, knowing the planet's been taken. Maybe they'll never find you. You don't eat, do you? You're beyond eating. You can survive, perhaps a hundred years, a thousand years. But you'll be alone. Just you and the dark and certain knowledge of what you did. Does that sound tasty enough for you? Personally, I'd prefer to die trying to stop them getting through-"

"You're not very persuasive," he said. "I can see right through you. You're a talkative b.i.t.c.h, but the world's full of them. Think you're clever. You're not. You don't know the first thing about what's coming. But me? I can see, I've got that f.u.c.king son of mine's eyes. He's moving towards the Metacosm, and I can feel what's up ahead. Can't see it. Don't want to. But I feel it. And let me tell you, we don't have a f.u.c.king chance."

"Is this some last-ditch effort to stay put?"

"No. I'll come. Just to watch the look on your face when you fail, I'll come."

"Then let's do it," she said. "You know a way out of here?"

"I can find one."

"Good."

"But first-"

"Yes?"

He extended his less broken hand.

"My medallion."

Before they could begin the climb she had to coax Grillo from his catatonia. He was still sitting beside the water when she emerged from her conversation with Jaffe, his eyes closed tight.

"We're getting out of here," she said to him softly. "Grillo, do you hear me? We're getting out of here."

"Dead," he said.