Day Fourteen

"I suppose I have to deal with a formal apology. Did he mention where?"
"He requested the sitting area outside of his cabin in Hallway 4406-DA. Would you like a guide there?"
"DA? No, no thank you."
Betaine stood, accepted the warm, wet cloth from the Steeress, wiped his hands and then buttoned his jacket.
"He also wishes to inform you that his crew will be elsewhere and reassures you of no ill intentions."
"Does he? That's certain to make me suspicious."
The orbs were dimmed after dinner and the absence of other passengers in the commons area made the warm, still air feel like golden cotton. Betaine blinked slowly, felt the weariness settle in his fingertips, his bones vibrating with the effort of staying awake. He unconsciously brushed his hand against the coat pocket where the clear green plasticene vial of anti-fatigue pills were kept, hesitated, kept walking. Obert wasn't stupid and any hostility towards Betaine during the remainder of the voyage would immediately heap suspicions on him... but a twinge in his gut [certainly not the mushrooms still] told him his impressionist capabilities were currently far more important than his focus. Some abilities worked faster than any possible reaction time. The body would shield itself, respond on a molecular level and then the only determining factor of the struggle was the strength of the internalist's talents.
Obert was seated in a high back chair, obviously scooted back against the wall from its original position. Betaine noted the grizzled man had chosen the tallest seat and was casually slouched over the velvetty over-stuffed arms, facing away from the young analyst. Not perceived as a threat then. Mercenaries utilized an evolving body language where the motion of a finger, the position of a foot, the tension in a bicep, could express detailed concepts incomprehensible to an outsider while they chattered on about nothing. Betaine felt irritated. Not only was his companion a part of society that he had only briefly touched on in his studies, but was an external as well. He would certainly be reticent to share information.
A glimmer of light on Obert's hand caught Betaine's attention. The orange spark danced between the blood sausage fingers, weaving in and out, not touching the skin, moving faster and faster.
"Master Obert."
The spark touched a nail, disappeared and the hand flinched. It waved at him to sit and the mercenary, still slouched, every sinew and capillary relaxed and unapologetic, stared with odd pale yellow eyes, the whites an even soft gray. Betaine looked back as he sat, noted the heavy wrinkles around the eyes, mouth, forehead, the youthful smooth cheeks and jaw. Here was a man who smiled and laughed often. It was impossible to tell his age.

The contact shot across his chest this time, the muscles twitching in response to different orders. It itched its way down his inner arm and burnt out by the elbow. Betaine smiled viciously and struck, spaced rendered meaningless by the focal points, his self balanced between his own head and the exciting, unfamiliar pathways of Obert's nerves. Here the thoughts came slower, shades of burnt orange, they pulsed and wriggled in a way that seemed almost spastic until he realized these were fresh, untrained, had never been made aware of themselves.
The mercenary, for all his sleek musculature and careful mannerisms, understood himself not at all, knew nothing of the way his personality was connected to the sack of flesh it inhabited. Betaine laughed, and his slim shoulders moved in an eerie pantomime of Obert's own. Panic poured through Obert's awareness, thick and cold, as he felt Betaine slow the drum of his heart. The analyst had pushed through, projected himself to the older man's [was he truly 86?] metaphor for memory.
It was a roofless stone hall opening onto a deep, dirty sky, the clouds pregnant with dust and burnt umber lightning. A fog clustered around his feet, seemed to touch him and pull away, revealing fist-sized stones scattered along the floor as far as he could see until the hall curved away, presumably to meet itself on other other side of the brain. He bent down to examine the rocks, crude sigils hacked sloppily into their surfaces, some worn smooth from frequent remembrances. There a wedding, three children, one dead, one illegitimate, his homes, the songs he loathed, a life as infinitely deep as any other life.
Betaine was tense as he wandered, waiting for the mental kick that would remove him from this sacred place. Used to the Archivists and his fellow impressionist students, he realized with a start the mercenary had no idea how to hurt him. Obert's self would be watching, unable to protest, move a muscle, shout as surely as he wanted to shout. There was no reason to be excessively vindictive, but he certainly should be given an example of an internalist's abilities.
A small, potato-lumpy stone bumped against his heel and he picked it up. The memory danced along his arm, a little girl with blonde hair holding a dried lily, staring up solemnly. It tugged at him, how familiar she seemed, but that was simply its function. Shifting his fingers carefully, he slammed the rock into the wall. At the first crack, it turned to fog, slid over his hand and joined the miasma on the floor. The walls vibrated with Obert's fear and a dull whine tinged the timpani rumble of thunder.
He flexed his projected fingers, felt for the silver hum that distinguished his real self. The motion was soft and swift and Betaine listened for the dopplered thumping as Obert's heart skipped once, then pounded ever more swiftly. The internalist's eyes were clouded with white. He blinked slowly and the mercenary came into focus, his earth tones and ruddy skin shockingly present, almost glowing with...fear?
There was a stillness between them, a tense expectation of violence.
Slowly the amber light smoking off Obert's hands evaporated and his muscles relaxed, resembling a marionette with its strings severed one by one.
"He wasn't a threat to you anyway," Obert said, his voice slow, tinged with surprise, "neither was I."
He stared at Betaine, who didn't raise his head from the chaise lounge.
"You didn't have to remove that part; she didn't deserve it. Why do I still remember the memory being there?"
The analyst cleared his throat, sounding like a meringue with a coughing fit. He'd never had to actively destroy a memory before and felt rattled by the experience. His teeth ached, felt almost as if they'd come loose.
"Memories aren't chains of sequential events but exist in a three-dimensional lattice structure that has an infinite number of possible connections. It's as if they're twined together into knots and the removal of one of them leaves a hole. It will shift and repair itself in a day or two. As for that particular one, it..." he rubbed his eyes, the lashes heavy as iron bars, tugging the lids shut, "I'm quite tired and your stupidity annoys me."
Obert looked thoughtful, plucked at the wiry mess of his eyebrows.
"Suppose that's fair. But it's only stupid until you think that this is the friendliest my run-ins with internals have gotten."
"Friendly? Nerve pulse triggers are considered nice where you come from?"
"No harm was intended so you can settle down."
"Your intentions of ignorance can cause serious harm. Also, from everything you've said, I gather you understand very little about internals aside from some half-baked stories. What did you call me out here for?"
Ober pushed his lower lip out, sucked on his stained front teeth.
"Ignorance cost me a good man today. After you...I believe you could mind-burn the bunch of us, but you still should've been fried by that igniter. Why'd I ask you here really? I'm curious. You don't get where I am by insisting you know everything."
Sleep was sliding up Betaine's legs, eased the itch in his bones, dropping a gray haze over the edges of his vision.

Day Thirteen

The woman climbs a dusty hill, her skin caked and cracked, the healthy rosey glow now ashen. Breath ragged, a soft, rattling warning, her hair is gone and it took all her willpower to sever it before she was sent away to this strange place in the hopes she might remember where she left it and one day return, somehow knowing something momentous was occuring, that she was part of it. The knowledge drove her to this place, a planet she had never visited before, yet navigates as if born to it.
At the zenith, she pauses on one knee, sucking on her tongue in order to produce enough spit to speak. She doesn't taste the grit, doesn't hear the vultures, doesn't feel the heat. Looking up, she sees a narrow, deep cleft in the ground, layered stone upon stone all the way down into darkness. There is stillness except for the stupid birds who never fly above the hole. Her real self, a teacher of hyperbolic geometry, might wonder at this, might attempt to draw on old lessons of her own about the vacuum of the depths. The, could it be called a canyon? it's so narrow, was free from the grip of the sun but massive, human-like profiles could be seen even through the gloom. Her heart hammers in her chest, but what drove her must be done.
"There is a green water sea that bathes the feet of mountains. The black rock does not flinch from its chilly touch or the sliding caresses from the tails of the sea people, who cover their eyes with shells and grow coral along their spines. The war of flames is beneath the waves, and the icy silver stars fall, swim gracefully down to fight the great beasts with hearts of magma. They are endless, spawning with every breath of the earth. The glitter-skinned stars and the sea people, hair of anemone, barnacled hands, ride the great whales as chariots into the battle, leaving their dances behind in the hopes, one day, a door may be found deep within the mountain."
An invisible wave passed over her face and she sighed as the memories left her, the dream, the fugue state, gone as softly as a kiss. She looked around, saw a murky sparkle to the north and realized she was close to a city. A pressure on her hip, wrapped in stained layers of muslin, turned out to be a gurgling water bottle, anti-fatigue pills and a thick packet of dried meats and fruits.
"Was it a vacation? I know I've always wanted to visit the deserts," she asked and a fresh breeze grabbed her words and tugged them along to the north. Running a thin hand along the stubble on her head, she nodded once, twice, and quickly wrapped a length of the cloth around her head to prevent sunburn. Setting off with suddenly vigorous strides, she failed to hear the deep rumble of the canyon as beings of stone, veins of calcified water, stirred and stretched. Their words were the murmur of the breeze and all through the rock, the human's speech moved like quicksilver. They could not travel, could not seek the source, but deep within, they all knew, had listened and became restless.

The kitchen was a purgatory for the privileged. Comform mats surrounded low ashwood tables and slick oilskin curtains hung from the ceiling, reducing the clank of dishes and providing a sense of intimacy for the diners. There were tumbling trellises of purple flowers scattered around the room, each one anchored in a bubbling fountain that provided a place to wash before and after eating or simply a refreshing drink. Smaller passengers had occasionally attempted to bathe in them, only to have the incredibly powerful filter pointed out by a smiling Steeress. Most stayed out of the fountains and the stubborn few became amusing posthumous tales.
Betaine watched from a higher platform, the floor a graceful marble mosaic, the table carved with tittering nymphs chased by fat-bellied bears, honey on their muzzle, pregnant roasts in their paws. Vines curled around the legs, twirled together around the tabletop, sheltered the upper class passenger from the curious stares of those eating below. Despite the sound dampening, it didn't keep out all the whispering. He attempted to ignore the annoyance; it wasn't him they were interested in but who he worked for.
The meal was delightful, thick, steamed sweet rice mixed with slivers of a tender hotly-spiced meat and crumpled ugly lumps of a black mushroom that was said to grow only on the undersides of rocks overhanging the ocean. Betaine eyed it curiously at the end of his chopsticks, like a clump of brain, the sort of flower that blooms where Death walks. Sampling it produced a salty, chewy sensation and then the memory hit. He felt it explode behind his eyes, fought to gain control over the view of a sea that commanded his vision, its wild, chill churning casting clouds of spray into the clear, violet sky. Giant iridescent bags floated far over the horizon, kemket, they were called, trailed miles of tentacles to the water below. The feeling was a vast and fantastic freedom, lightly touched by loneliness.
His fingers drummed on the table in an automatic sequence, pinky twice, thumb twice, then ring, middle, index in three quick thumps and pulled him from the memory. There was a moment of silver dark waters and then the kitchen refocused around him. He sucked a morsel of the mushroom from his teeth and stared at the attendant Steeress, a dusky, curvaceous girl whose uniform barely constrained a figure that clashed with her smile, a slow seductive dance against an anxious, polished blankness. The right half of her face was covered with an elaborate tattoo that shifted as she moved. showing a familiar gold-clawed hand plucking the sun from a rose in a shower of petals. She was an obvious attempt to appease him, a subservient worshipper of his patron, similar to the ones that had tried to attend him for months.
"Do you always feed your passengers noetic hallucinogens?" he asked in between bites. The mushrooms were neutralized automatically as he ate, their memory demand denied.
"It's quite a celebrated dish and we've never had a complaint so far. Usually they enjoy the visions," the Steeress replied, "we can prepare you something else if it's causing interference with your abilities, but your teliphrase scan indicated no allergies or susceptibilities to this variety of morenel."
"No, but a warning would be appreciated next time."
"As you wish, sir. Oh, a Master Ober of the Red Dragon Cell respectfully inquires if he may join you after dinner."

Day Twelve

The hall was gleamingly, achingly white, airy and brilliant with the gentle undulating carvings Bala loved. Pillars, each a unique, blissful statue of one of the goddess' early disciples, snaked their taut forms up, supported a lattice-style roof that let in tantalizing snippets of sky. It was a smooth darkness now, but gusts of perfumed breezes poured in, bringing the scents of her gardens, her orchards, the wide green fields. With the orbs that sparkled like stars, some milky and rippling with a wild nebulous rainbow, that hung in the air and wove graceful, carefully-timed paths that kept the vast expanse softly and evenly lit, the guests agreed their hostess' coastal celebration hall was tasteful, wonderful, a thousand congratulations to her.
It was the fourth day of the festival and some of the attendees were still moving slowly around the edges of the vast expanse, admiring silver-thread tapestries showing the purifying of the Bay of Isla, Bala, wearing a crown of fangs like a halo, breaking the necks of the sea serpents that coiled in nests of thousands just below the surface, their viscous black blood pouring down her arms, her legs; the same crown of fangs, glowing with a rusty aura, thrown into the deepest part of the bay, sealing a pact between the restless spirits that moaned with the creaking voices of dead ships, that they would watch over the waters, that none of her people would drown unless willfully and one of their kinds would be pulled into Bala's paradise every hundred years.
The scenes blended into one another, the spread of the goddess' power across the planet through the depths of the seas that covered most of the surface, into the heated rock until every cell of every plant and beast bore an awareness of her...it wound like a ribbon around pillars, slid across carefully placed screens. One end was laid across a simple ivory loom, threads tattered and unfinished and while certain historians and one or two Narrators recognized the machine, most were puzzled and bemused by the notion that this clumsy, delicate device had produced this continuous expression of splendor. Jokes were hushed when a suspended projector informed them that the loom was the goddess' own and this, not the library, not the vast reservoirs of Archivist memory, was the true history as made, thread over thread, by Bala's hand.
When asked about it, she would dismissively wave her fingers at the inquirer, laughing low and saying only that it was "good to keep a hobby going."
The mistress herself was floating out on the promenade where one end of the hall had been removed and converted to a wide, sweeping balcony overlooking the murmuring waters. Her gowns were black but so heavily beaded with fire opals and pearls that they rippled with the colours of a seductive, carnivorous plant, fluttered rather stiffly in the soft winds. Feathers of a long-extinct bird bloomed from her collar and framed her perfectly painted face. Small bells were hidden in the glossy sheet of her hair and the tiny sparkling tones chased each other around the goddess' company, a suspended, angelic-faced head that radiated serenity and was said to be amongst the leading linguists of the times, able to create a language precisely suited to any person it spoke to, a deeply personal construction of sounds that echoed all the truth a person held within them; the bartender from Planet's favourite place, who bore the strained nonchalance of someone bursting at the seams with recent thrills, the songs of Bala's skin on his lips, in his brain; and the pouting Brigadier General Electorus Majour of a small, agricultural planet far from anything of note. He boasted he was all the soldier the world needed and was quite correct in that regard. It was a sleepy place of perpetual dawn, dense, smooth-trunked trees and low, worn-out foothills. The native humans had a bad habit of whispering wherever they went and wore flowing skirts and robes in a dozen layers, of golds and tawny hues, the tans of wood smoke, looking like clusters of dreaming flowers.
The head, who insisted upon being called nothing more than Thee, which annoyed the Brigadier, who placed status with name, claimed to be a construct that projected the sweetly beaming face into the current set of dimensions to facilitate its favourite hobby and anyone who wandered behind it through a space of several yards felt a strange vibration in their bones, moved quickly from the spot no matter how crowded it became elsewhere. There was so much empty space in the celebration hall that people flowed together in erratic clumps, occasionally foraying across the smooth floor to another cluster. Perhaps long ago, molecules bonded together in such a way to avoid the frightening, inviting voids around them.
"Your ability doesn't solve the problem of mutual communication, I'm afraid. While the notion is lovely, I can't see the collective sentience agreeing to a Babel state," said Bala.
Thee's teeth were small, wonderfully even with a pale bluish sheen. An aura like the dreams of butter floated around the construct.
"You operate under the conviction that communication is egalitarian, that it is to be shared between everyone. Standard or any language not built by the speaker, it is my observation, pleases none and creates deep-seated frustrations that are further compounded when those frustrations cannot be adequately expressed. Perhaps we should restrict those we talk to by restricting those we are capable of talking to."
"How does that work precisely? Won't it be rather lonely?" The bartender, despite his fugue state, attempted to impress by joining in.
"Loneliness is not a condition soothed by speaking but by receiving," said Thee, "also, psychological and emotional resonance between two beings will allow for translation of said resonance. The truths you hold, whether love or fear or hatred, will be conveyed more simply and perfectly than any current possible assembly of words. We all know you cannot lie to others from your subconscious. To yourself, you can, but others would remain free of duplicity."
"Sounds like the garbage back home."
Thee arched its head slowly towards the Brigadier General but said nothing. Bala purred in the back of her throat and smiled brilliantly.
"Master Rotham, this is surprising to hear. Your home's language is regarded as one of the last truly evolving varieties of Old Arkeen. I had arranged for some singers later in the week to attend us."
The Brigadier General rubbed his shiny forehead, curdles of steam almost rising off his meaty skull under Bala's glittering gaze. His cheeks looked packed with suet and shook slightly as he spoke.
"No....no offense meant, mistress. If they were speaking Old Arkeen, I'd have no damned problem with them. They speak..." a hand rough and red, like a slab of ribs, waved jerkily in the air, "Standard gibberish. Stuff about deserts and bones and holes in the earth. It puts a man off his course to see his own staff with nothing to say besides this crap, and then boom...back to normal. Why, my wife..."
"A compulsion plague?"
The jowls shook harder.
"We've had them all tested, every one! I thought maybe it was this wave of tourists, the trees are a popular place this time of year, but there was nothing, everything clean. We even brought in a clear-skilled impressionist fellow."
"They just say these things and then are fully functional again? Do they retain memories?" Thee asked, craning eagerly towards Rotham, who wrinkled his fat red blob of a nose.
"My wife, Etylline, she fair remembers enough for both of us, would lose my head without the girl, came home one day talking about the eyes of hope opening and listening or something like that, and when she was done, just clammed up, sat down on the table and then looked up at me. 'Rotham, how was the market projection conference?' as if nothing had happened. Couldn't for the life of her remember anything she'd said. I got the clear in, then, and he found nothing. Headache for a week and he found nothing."
He bit the edge of his fluted glass savagely before gulping the rest of his honey-smooth drink.
"That is fascinating," murmured Bala, "if it is specialists you would like to study this strange thing, I can make arrangements with my priests."
"I'll find whatever did that to my Etylline, mistress, and I'll end it faster than it can blink."
Thee sighed, a tremulous low note that pricked at Bala's ears. The feeling touched at the base of her spine, rolled upward to areas of higher functions. It felt oddly intimate and she realized this was his own language resonating within her and smiled inwardly at the sentiment.
[That is what we are afraid of.]
"If you are available sometime tomorrow, Brigadier General, I would appreciate it immensely if you made a quick stop over at one of the memory halls. I don't doubt the capabilities of your clear, but a fast scan would take no time at all. I would like to make sure my other guests remain safe."
"Security procedures, I understand," said Rotham, then nodded at the gathered company, "I'm not feeling as good as I was earlier. I think I'll call it a night."
He stumped off, leaving the trio momentarily thoughtful.
"You'll be sending someone anyway," said the bartender, looking up at the goddess. Even perfectly still, her breathing deep and calm, the air seemed to shiver around her, excited like a puppy, eager to be filled with her action.
"I may go myself if this dry spell continues. This is the first interesting thing I've heard, aside from your sweet words, in months. With Planet gone and no upstart gods to smite, I've had next to nothing to do. If something doesn't happen soon, I may die of boredom."
She rolled smoothly onto her back and locked eyes with the bartender, who trembled as she grazed his high cheekbone with a gilded nail.
"But you can keep me busy in the meantime."

Day Eleven

A brawl was brewing amongst the mercenaries, their curses thick molasses in the heavy atmosphere. Small blue-green sparks began to flicker across the ceiling tiles, causing the orbs to shiver. The one who had attempted to set Betaine's coat on fire was almost screeching, dashing back and forth in a half-circle, his shouts rippling the air. Books were flung about, fluttering like crows to the floor and hands used to a dozen different weapons twitched impotently or clenched in concentration.
"You sick, rotten son of a slut! I'll wrap your intestines around your heart until it pops..."
The words fell, clunky, stone-like, on sudden silence. Glasses had been gathered and a peaceful tableau resumed in the group, save for the screamer. The anger on his face spasmed with nervousness and uncertainty as he stood alone, still bouncing from foot to foot. Betaine opened his eyes and saw the same bubbly Steeress from before, smiling the same brittle smile.
"Bethany, I can explain," said the smaller mercenary, "he's young and stupid. I'll thrash him well when we get to Regulskek."
The girl took one, two steps forward, was less than a meter from Betaine, ignored his presence completely.
"Yes you will, Ober, but his disruption of the lights has disturbed the Controller, not to mention the teeny infraction he's committed against the esteemed guest of the goddess, Bala. The captain wishes to see him."
Ober paled under his leathery tan, glared half in pity and disgust at his now scared piss-less companion.
"You dumb sack of waste, I hope you enjoyed that potshot at the uptight little fucker (no offense meant). I'm canceling your contract when we get home."
"But sir..."
"Don't sir me anymore, you get stupid enough to hit a VIP, I'm not having you at my back. He's all yours, Bethany."
She clapped her thin, pale hands together twice, softly and the man simply wasn't there anymore.
"He'll be back within the hour."
Ober snorted softly, nervously fingered his rolled collar.
"You can kick him off and charge me the fees. He was out of my jurisdiction the moment he used that igniter and I apologize for the problem."
Bethany tilted her shiny blond head to the side.
"Was this before or after you tried to get him yourself, Ober? We would not like to disturb his mistress. She owns the only landing field large enough for the wheels in this system."
She watched him squirm for a moment, then folded her hands behind her back and widened her smile before pivoting on the heel of her thick-heeled boot. Even when her eyes met Betaine's, there was no acknowledgment there.
"I do hope you will not take offense, please, at the actions against you by the ah, former member of the Red Dragon Cell. If you require medical assistance, please let me know. All expenses will be covered by Master Ober."
The mercenary's gaze flickered between Betaine and Bethany as if expecting the air between them to crack and freeze.
Betaine felt the glossy wall of her personality, the obsidian shiny core that blacked out the frenzied noise of the other passengers and spoke of heavy rejection training. Of course she would have it. There was no better protection against the abilities of the passengers, even at the cost of being sealed away from the cycles of ambient energy that fed sentient existence in the Universe. A shortened life span, the indescribable aloneness of being a null point in your own racial memory...
"There will be meals served shortly, please, in the main kitchen for general passengers who so desire. You, sir, may dine when you please."
The words bounced like a soap bubble through the lounge and Bethany turned sharply, left the commons area down a lemon yellow corridor.

Day Ten

There was something here, something important about Planet that even Bala had missed, drove her through ten thousand years, was in every footstep she took, every story she told. What could the possessor of such a lifetime consider as a vacation? A sequence of words came to him as he sunk deeper into memory recall: garden in a far corner. There was...
"There's a wall there."
Betaine looked up, shot out a hand quickly enough to catch himself from slamming his nose into a projection window sill. Someone was snickering, a flat, wheezy noise like a whine being pushed through a broken nose in spurts. He looked up for the speaker and a cluster of red and brown lumps around a sleek tan table resolved into a group of human mercenaries, their clothing heavily layered and stained, lines of embroidery flashing here and there. He recognized some of it as elaborate wards and curses and they glittered in the soft light. One, the man who had spoken, had a black, spiraling mark on his bandana that twisted under Betaine's gaze, was like a brand, a cankerous sore on the fabric.
Their weapons were absent but worn patches, a crease in a pair of trousers, an empty leather harness sewn into a boot, indicated they were usually very heavily armed but acted no more ill-at-ease for the loss of their gear. A cluster of small cobalt glasses was gathered neatly at the center of the table and thin booklets of carbonweave paper filled the rest of the surface. One or two were thumbing through them, taking care to read without their lips moving.
"Thank you," said Betaine, eyeing the reading material, "nerve pulse triggers?"
It came faster than a wish, a burning itch that snaked up his spine. He recognized it as a warning shot, not intended to cause serious harm and let it pass through, subdued the twitching in his right arm that made him want to salute. They wouldn't injure him, not on the ship, not openly, but forcing excessively inquisitive passengers such as himself into small and humilating gestures often relieved the boredom of travel. The source was a smaller, lumpy man, muscles like a sack of potatoes, who leaned almost bonelessly on the table. He was staring away from Betaine, but the silence made him turn.
The mercenary's eyes were slightly bloodshot and he arched a frizzy eyebrow at the young analyst, who smiled just a little too tightly to be called pleased or pleasant.
"No offense meant."
"I'm sure," said Betaine and moved away towards a low cream-coloured divan that looked achingly comfortable.
There was a disorienting flash and the smell of burnt hair. He rocked slightly on his feet but kept walking.
"What the hell? Are you some kind of fucking idiot?"
Words exploded from the smaller mercenary as he grabbed a no longer smirking companion by his elaborate kerchief from across the table, scattering cobalt glasses that pinged as they fell.
"Sir, I..."
"I don't care if he called your God damned grandfather a crechewhore! You don't use an igniter on an impressionist unless you want us all to die, you endstain! Remember Ysorri? He thought it'd be funny..."
"...not funny, sir..."
"...to implode that roundcar and now he's a greasy fucking stain on some wall in the God damned Doric system! They teach these internal bastards weird shit...they're all wired to take out the whole fucking ship if you cross the noetic flows."
The divan curved around his back like a hello, the buttery soft suede making him almost dizzy as Betaine attempted to relax, simultaneously amused and annoyed at the argument going on at the mercenaries' table. The rumors of an impressionist mind-burning everyone for miles around if attacked with external psionics was a school tradition, a bit of protection for alumni who couldn't keep their mouths shut.
The stories were as old as dirt and new students delighted in making up new permutations, passing around ever more realistic tales about someone who'd been stupid enough to set their psionic focal point close enough to a master of internal energies. It was true the contact between fields allowed the impressionist access to the nervous system of his antagonizer as if physical contact had been made, letting him spread pain sensations through everyone within the external psionic's field, but when no harm could be done anyway to the internalist, why amplify the problem? The jokes went "How do you kill an external? Mind burn. How do you kill an internal? A stick."

Day Nine

The cabin was no larger than a broom closet, lined with a slick, red metal that made Betaine feel distinctly uncomfortable. The hostess [or stewardess...what had she called herself? Steeress.] with him rocked back and forth on her heels, her face bright and fresh, smiling out the frustrations of her job. She had escorted him to this odd room, with its pressurized door and obvious lack of a bed or bath. Betaine took a step forward into it, turned once slowly, his nose wrinkling at the sharp scent of ozone which seemed to be coming from the rear wall.
He had been more than a little surprised that Bala had booked him passage on one of the relatively new Dyson ships, spherical vessels built like a Russian nesting doll, each inner chamber connected by massive bearings of a truly frictionless alloy. At the heart of the ship was still the Controller, this one with shaggy hair and large insect wings, slick brown and iridescent, grafted in pairs up each arm. They fanned and hummed spasmodically when Betaine had seen the pilot dashing down the gently sloping corridor, shouting for someone named Butterfly.
According to the steeress behind him, who's cheerfulness was solid and unwavering, the Dyson ship was in all ways like riding on the normal passenger rings, but with an increase in storage space by over sixteen hundred percent. The free spinning levels created a more gentle sensation of gravity and absorbed outer impact much better in case, well, you never know what you'll bump into out in space, our Controller tries, he really does. She had also asked three times if he had ever been off-planet before, despite his records showing his birthplace over thirty seven million light years away.
Betaine was thoroughly and unabashedly disgusted with her, the neat little boots, the trim little oil blend suit, wanted nothing more than to collapse after two dizzying days of the festival. After dancing, which he did passably, for the thirteenth time with the something-or-other Countess or Margravess or Creche Mother of somewhere he forgot, he'd wearily asked Bala how anyone had energy left afterwards for a month. She'd ceased the animated discussion about nano-precise security perimeters she was having with a kivin emissary, who looked quite human outside of the energy grid he was composed of, duck egg blue helixes of light shifting slowly through the shape of his limbs, and told him the festivities would continue for a week or so more.
Betaine had spoken to her Majordomo discreetly afterwards and discovered that Bala had already gotten him a cabin on the White Pearl, a Dyson ship that was one of the few allowed near Regulskek, currently docked in orbit for minor repairs. He'd been amused to find the goddess had anticipated his limits in regards to social gatherings such as this one and had spent the remainder of his time in Isla transfering funds to an account that required the proper series of dream impressions to access and avoiding a stone-skinned Duch who had repeatedly tried to purchase him from Bala and had eventually left on the second morning, furious his offers had been laughed at.
After the rich, masterful dishes, glass after glass of smooth liquors and the shallow and demanding company of a series of lovely young women Bala had thrown him at like a puppy to a herd of cats, all he wanted was to disconnect, re-establish his mental balance and sleep without dreaming. Instead, he was faced with a hellish robotic womb of a room.
"Thank you, and this is well and good, but where do I sleep?" he'd asked finally, when he realized the steeress wouldn't volunteer the information.
She slid past him smoothly into the cramped cabin, not brushing even a thread of her suit against him.
"There's a seal on the back wall here that's been tuned to your bio-electrical resonance, please. If you place your hand on it, you'll be granted access to the rest area. You can choose from a wide variety of sleep aides, please, as well as intraveneous or osmosis-type nutritional feeds in the event our kitchen is not to your liking."
Betaine stared at the barest lip of a protrusion that she had pointed at. He turned and she was once again on the outside of the cabin, clapsing the edges of her suit jacket and rocking back and forth on her thick heels.
"There is a commons area down the corridor to your left, should you feel like mingling with your fellow passengers. Please remember your manners, as our security staff would be very unhappy if an unpleasant incident occurs. Enjoy your stay, please."
And she was gone down the hall with a choppy wave of the hand.
His reinforced satchel was placed carefully in a rounded nook by the door, containing nothing more than a spare change of clothes, a small metal-bound book with seemingly blank pages, a bundle of dark blue indelible ink pens, a sensory recorder that was a retarded, crippled cousin to the Archivist creation, a bottle of anti-fatigue pills, and an opaque, indestructible box no larger than his palm that contained a full identification kit, including a composite teliphrase scan, a time-lapsed genetic signature that couldn't be replicated.
Betaine leaned against the glossy back wall, caught himself when the rest area gave way beneath him like a rubber sheet. No, maybe later he'd sleep in it, but for now, even as weary as he was, the chamber made his skin crawl. Checking that the contents of his inside shirt pockets hadn't shifted and they were still sealed shut, he let the cabin door close behind him and set off with long, forceful strides down the left corridor.
The ceilings were high, set with frosted half-orb lamps that were meant to give the impression of daylight, their brightness waxing and waning on a cycle carefully balanced between the departing and destination planets. Panels on the walls were stamped with clean, geometric patterns of parallel arcs and lines and painted in muted forest greens, plums, marigolds. Faux windows looked out onto incredible projected star scapes that rotated slowly with the subdued motion of the ship. The floor was a rubberized plasticene, muffling sounds at a ten yard range. He passed occasional sitting areas, comfortable over-stuffed couches, sling chairs and suspended lounges clustered for a feeling of intimacy. The young analyst wondered if they would let him sleep there.

He felt disconnected, rubbed at his temples in the hopes he could stop thinking so sluggishly. Everything seemed a fever dream, this strange ship, this sterile hall. The procession had shaken him strangely. Betaine had studied theology, modern and ancient, as well as the process by which gods came to be. A perceptual psionic such as himself saw the Universe as a rippling sheet, sentient beings like drops of inky rain against the surface, a black mark against the snow field purity of empty space before dissipating into the background. Those who'd found their purpose were heavier, more solid, wrapping time and energy around themselves as their spiritual signatures expanded.
Gods were darker yet, like marbles, so dense that space itself warped around them, forming a funnel for forces still undefined, called belief, faith, that damnable lie [for the few who still clung to atheism like tar to a lily]. Talks with Bala had revealed that they no longer even saw the Universe in the old way, but became aware of the ebb and flow of belief, watched the boundaries of it shift, clouds of coloured fog, existed on a sensual seesaw where either you felt the rush of being fed or the chilly stiffness as faith slid away.
Faith. Betaine had never had a use for it, wondered occasionally if it came as a revelation, like purpose. There was never a time when there wasn't an explanation for something. The insatiable search for knowledge had started out as a simple thing, to please the authority figures that he quickly eclipsed, and had evolved into a ferocious desire to understand, to follow every searing train of thought until the epiphany came, not through chance or luck, but through the connections made between seemingly disparate data sources.

Day Seven

"Semon, don't you dare. I know you're awake," said Betaine, prodding the man's licorice whip arm with his foot.

"I know you can use the Catalog, or are you so busy ogling the white-haired chit that you forgot your manners?"

The Archivist lifted himself from the floor, his limbs bending and creaking like rusty scaffolding.

"I certainly can't pick them up spending so much time around your lot," the young man replied, "and I'd pay good money to see you say that to her face."

Semon snorted, wet and ripply.

"I have before and I'll do it again. She just laughs. Worth a million of you, knows how to respect her elders."

"Last I checked, she didn't have any. You're what....still under three thousand?"

"So what the hell do you want, analyst?" Semon began tightening the recorder strap to his head. It acted as a focus, amplified the electric pulses to a strength where they could be shared.

"I need Planet's most recent recording, the one from Regulskek."

Semon stopped, his chin wobbling as he jerked his head to stare at Betaine.

"You're out of your brain pan. We haven't gotten anything new from that quadrant in decades."

Betaine's fingers drummed on his thigh.

"Wake up Rubyat if you can't do it, but her last assignment definitely occurred after the Solstice. For the Heir Presumptive of Regulskek."

The Archivist tugged off the forehead strap, snorted again.

"I heard you the first time. We don't have it, not Rubyat, not Vermilli, not Loranisck, Carew, or even that wet behind the ears Matchal. All the others have their hands full with keeping track of our mistress."

"Nothing? That's not possible."

"Well, it's true, you shitling. Nothing from the College either except for a speech from the Council three weeks ago and some fool Advisor called Ovid."

Betaine turned away, rubbed the spot between his eyebrows.

"Why would she not send in a recording?" he murmured to himself.

Semon let out a soggy cackle as Betaine made his way back upstairs.

"You look pensive," said Bala and waved her flashing fingers under Betaine's nose. He looked up at the goddess smiling playfully. "A blessing for your thoughts."

"I always look pensive."

"I was going to say you're a wet blanket, but thought I'd be nice."

She reached up, caught a brilliant, velvety rose that had been thrown from the crowd, crushed it in her fist, released a blood red pea hawk that cried the tones of the bells.

"Are you not enjoying the procession? I can certainly send you back to the tower...might do so anyway as you've been exceedingly morose. I can't have you depressing my people."

Betaine shook his head to dislodge a rose petal from his nose.

"My pardons, Bala, I didn't wake up this morning expecting to be center stage of a royal peregrination. How did you possibly get this organized so quickly?"

They passed below an array of onyx arches, supported by beardless titans, each muscle smooth and polished, their faces stern, ivy leaves twined around their stone heads in celebration. The goddess inhaled the sweet smoke and beamed, looking more radiant the further they traveled.

"The priests and concubines are always clamoring for another parade and things have been, hmmm, rather oddly quiet on the war front. Even Seultat, that old rheumy bastard, seems content to sit on his hunk of frozen rock and doze. If it continues on, I may have to stir things up myself. You can't let the soldiers and war mounts muck around at home too long or they start looking for trouble. While chaos and death and great bloody battles where the brain goes white and the scent of carrion burns your nose and if you survive, there's no cheering because your vocal chords are stripped from the screaming are all well and good, it's better to give than to receive. Plus, these walks give me time to think."

Betaine did a terrible job suppressing the expression of disbelief that squatted on his face as clearly as the the raised eyebrows and the tightened corners of his mouth.

"Ha ha aha... it's quite funny an impressionist-trained analyst wouldn't be able to understand why this show of consumption and revelation seemingly devoid of a point is so important. Do what you were hired to do, boy, reason for me. Find the purpose behind the gaud and the glitter."

Bala's normally honeyed voice carried a glinting edge of anticipated violence, of danger if she was not satisfied with his answer. Had her eyes taken on a ruddy overtone? Would she abandon her current peaceful posture in favour of her aspect known as the Murderer, where silken robes were replaced with the skins of her victims, her hair soaked and matted with gore, the golden needles on her fingertips disemboweling a man with one deceptively soft gesture?

He had read accounts of her viciousness in battle, crushing a soldier's armoured skull in one clenched fist, hurling curses that caused skin to blacken and sag away from the bone, leaving a disgusting mess of slag that scorched the earth, where afterwards nothing would ever grow. Betaine saw hints of mania in her wide, dark smile and had a sudden vision of her scattering his intestines to the awe-struck crowds, who would wail and fight each other for a scrap of his guts. He shivered uncontrollably, forced himself to inhale once deeply through the nostrils, fell back into the silvered black waters that lay at the center of his subconscious.

Here there were no currents but the ones he created, no sound beyond a distant, slow heartbeat. He'd once had a doctor acquaintance monitor his vital signs while he fell into the trance state, only to discover that all indications of life ceased when he went below himself. This was the home of cellular memory, infinite capacity that both shaped and was shaped by time. From this point of balance, he calmed his still-shuddering muscles, moved upward into the rapid-fire traces of lightning that held his impressionist recordings.

When a brief second had passed...two...three, he returned to the surface, what he thought of as the front of himself, eyes clear, hands steady.

"The city is a circle, the planet a sphere, it moves in unhurried paths through space and duration around the sun, which itself moves in rhythms ever more complex. This process extends downward as well, as the strange organisms we are composed of work in concert in fractions of a dimension, all the way down to the dark pits where the unit that is the soul resonates. We are lines along programmed paths and require outside impetus to start creation. Our vices are used to slow us, our passions to force us down new byways, in the hopes that we will reach a crossroad where orbits no longer intersect, where instead is the unexpected.

The olive branch in the hand becomes a weapon, the fear becomes fascination. We are reminded that we are not chaotic beings, must push it down our throats, must choke on our own inertia until we learn to escape it. The festivals are a failure for, as soon as they are planned, they lose the spontaneity necessary to prompt a true frenzy."

Damn, he hadn't meant to say that last bit, and the soft-skinned concubines stared wide-eyed at him, their censors no longer waving. Bala's face was fixed with a sneer, but slowly, ever so slowly, it was replace with a warm, peaceful smile.

"Interestingly enough, the analyst is correct. These large affairs are too diluted to really stir the passions, but they're an amusing diversion and safe enough for those without courage to trade their warm homes and the minor bickering their arguments amount to for the danger of chaos. However, *that* is the path of a god, and I have no desire to create my own competition...yet."

The divan jerked, pulled Betaine from his reverie. The noise returned to deafening levels, and he realized they had not stopped, the roaring hadn't ceased at all during his impressionist state. Feeling honestly tired, he recalled why he had spoken to Bala in the first place.

"I will be heading to Regulskek in the next day or so, to pay a visit to the Heir Presumptive. If the Archivists are correct, Planet either failed to record her last session or perhaps destroyed the sensory recorder so to avoid it turning up here and leaving clues for her present location."

The goddess spun slowly above the half-canopy, once again radiating serenity.

"Planet? Destroy her little crystal? Why, it's been her friend almost as long as I have. But if you believe that fat blob has anything worth telling you, I'll book you a cabin on the next passenger ship to head in that direction."

Betaine drummed his fingers against the linen cushions.

"Where else is there to go? You could try to ransack your memory for more strange gaps in her speeches and I can rot along with a gaggle of crusty old men in your library or go to the last place we both know she at least appeared."

He sighed, increased the tempo of his fingertips.

"Your hospitality has been exceptional, and I don't really want to travel to such a xenophobic system, but even if I discover she completely skipped her appointment there, that will be as telling as anything the Heir Presumptive might say, or might not say. Do you think he'll avoid communication?"

Bala threw back her head and laughed.

"Him? Oh no...you'll have trouble shutting him up. He's a weak, burbling sack of garbage who latches onto anyone who pays him the least bit of attention. The Magistrate is something of an insensitive whore-monger who would slit your throat if he thought he could get the marrow from your bones, but he's fair when you're not worth killing. You'll be fine. I'll make the arrangements this evening and make sure none of the Magistrate's...men, for lack of a better term, decide to turn the oxygen off in your caul tank. Now, face forward, attempt to smile, please. Isla is only a few hours away, and there will be feasting and dancing and a thousand people to introduce you to."

This one, called Ce by itself for the benefit of those lucky enough to fill all dimensions, had been discovering the golden dawn that poured through the holes in itself when the words had come. It was a steeping, a drowning, the whole of Ce slid like oil over ice onto the words. Here now, here was something new. Ce flowed between planes, was pleased to discover that the words stayed themselves however itself changed. The dawn, the quivering paper trees, the soft curve of ground faded until there was nothing but the polished shimmer of the words and for once, the desire came with them, a subtle, insistent companion, to share.

It understood that on a certain level, what it did now was not natural. [Ce being a variety of those strange beasts which vibrated on a sub-atomic level so erratically that it filled this plane then that, in depth but not time, time but not length. Seen only as a shifting blank due to their interference with light, they were frequently called Blind Spots. They were driven by a deathless curiosity and would have been despised if they could utilize what they learned.] Distance was all one thing, the only thing when there to Ce and his sort, and intersections, like sheets of Phylo pastry, occurred frequently.

The words were shared, appearing slowly and permanently like a relief rubbing over stone, defined in Ce's way by the space around them, only hinting at the depth of the cuttings.

"On the other side of time is a hole lined with blue glass. It is deeper than a heart, wider than your sight, slick as your mother's skin. Everything that has ever been is etched into the walls and as you go, the story grows. Those who come, who fall with faith, who taste the blood on their tongue and hear the scream in their brain, will read the history of all and come away with understanding. The strong will push on, fall further, the resistance growing as they drop, for knowledge of what is to come is a painful beauty and not to be wished on anyone. At the bottom, where no one has been, is a child whose limbs are fine silver, whose face swarms with eyes. A bottle of blue glass in held carelessly in his hands."

Shock, light, the warmth of curiosity. The other beasts leave, carrying the words like a brand. Ce, alone, is satisfied.

Day Six

The day was fresh and brassy, the waves of cheering and thousands of ringing bells chasing the clouds from the brilliant blue sky. Plump marble minarets lined the road that ran from Bala's tower to the great harbor of Isla two hundred miles to the west. The paving stones were smooth, diamond-hard, fitted expertly together without the need for mortar and cut into fantastical shapes that, up close, looked like cavorting angels and demons that shimmered iridescent in the sunlight. From a great distance, the stones formed letters in Betaine's original language, now called proto-Indostani. Less than two hundred people living in the Universe currently were capable of reading the prayer, the prayer that unlocked Bala's divinity as she laid and wept next to her husband's make-shift grave over seventy centuries ago. It had been translated into Standard, carved into a small, unassuming oranium plaque located at the center of the goddess' water gardens.

'I, who have stepped softly to avoid the notice of Death, who have suppressed a thousand thousand words of love and hatred, who have covered my face from the sun lest the gods despise me, know now that I have been wrong, that it was only my cowardice that made me walk through my life as a sleeper still in a dream. Never again will I quiet the beating of my heart or feel shame at the rage that courses through me. Let the gods come that would curse me for I will no longer sit at their feet like a child. There was never a thorn not worth grasping for the beauty of the rose.'

Betaine had stumbled upon the plaque several weeks ago while wandering the gardens, pretending to ignore the damp, watched the monstrous loan swim lazily through the gently curving canals. They were a favourite of Bala's, their scales a shocking blue-green, fins of a gauzy and ephemeral crimson. Semi-intelligent, they recognized Betaine as someone who never carried bread crumbs or stopped to scratch their slick, rubbery underbellies and ignored him. The presence of their mistress or the head gardener made them tousle like puppies for attention. It had taken several hours of coaxing on his part to get Bala to admit she had once been human, had possessed no supernatural abilities until the grief had overcome her.

Betaine then spent several days in the mundane sections of the library, crouched over huge, restored tomes of leather, carbon-weave paper, human skin, pressed flowers, his eyes and nose watering from the over-powering smell of the preservative used on the books. Arguments happened frequently over dinner, in the conservatory, on processions through the holy city much like the one today, about the nature of Bala's purpose, the arguments Feynerman's contemporaries had posed to him that the circumstances under which the awakening occurred usually determined the purpose itself, that the perpetual cellular re-growth characteristic of those who'd found their place in the Universe was not stimulated until the proper state of awareness was reached, brought upon by a crisis that allowed the blossoming of their innate personality.

Bala had begrudgingly agreed to assist with this particular train of thought at his insistence that, lacking purpose himself, and her being one of the few that possessed a longevity that nearly rivaled Planet's, studying the peculiar events of her ascension to godhood might help him understand the unique perspective her kind developed over the millennia. She had become increasing obstinate the further he attempted to dig, however, until one night at dinner when she set his pant leg on fire for asking about her parents.

"There aren't many secrets I keep," she had told him, her perfect lips, red as guilt, pursed angrily, "but the ones I want to, I will, and no brat academian will think he can steal them from me."

Betaine had dropped the discussion, but continued his private research when he wasn't filling his head with sessions of Planet's. It was true that while some godlings had impressive and sometimes bizarre new forms thrust upon them, Bala had changed very little, although as he sat next her on a heavily embroidered divan, or rather, he sat and rocked awkwardly with the motion of the procession as forty curvaceous, joyful courtesans of the goddess surrounded him on the cushions and waved censors to which great bunches of colourful ribbon were tied while Bala floated in a lotus position above him, her gauzy robes trimmed in amethyst mingling with the sweet-smelling smoke, perhaps her evolution was merely a more subtle one. She cast blessings on the crowds that lined the road, which was so wide that a hundred elephants could walk abreast, and red lights sparkled on the filigreed caps that adorned her fingers and toes as they moved sedately towards the distant harbor.

He squinted up at Bala, as power flowed from her like the tide, was returned fourfold by the adoring worshipers that clustered thickly along both sides, their mouths opening and closing as their goddess passed, the sound almost deafening. Betaine compared her unbelievable presence with the subdued sepia illustrations that were all the remained of her as a human. She had possessed an unearthly beauty even then, but now seemed as distant and unreachable as the heart of the sun that now painted the city with a golden brush.

Betaine had awoken that morning with an itch in his palms, the speed of his thoughts causing a roaring in his ears. He washed quickly, scarcely noticed he had failed to request the water warm. Dressed in flowing dove gray slacks and a trim black jacket, his hair slicked back out of his eyes, he ignored the rumblings of his stomach and padded in soft, low-heeled sandals to the Archives, swore when he noticed both Vermilli and Rubyat missing. An almost identical wrinkled coot in a tattered white robe was stretched out on the floor of the pit, eyes closed and let out a hilariously fake snore when he saw it was Betaine that had showed up.

Day Five

He was a tall, thin man with pale blond hair that more resembled frost clinging to the rock of his head, who wrung his hands and was depressingly subservient, his constant kowtowing to the other Advisors, students, passing birds, had given him a spine like a longbow and while he was a renowned expert on pneumatic control and vocal techniques, most people listened to him out of an uneasy pity, absorbed his tuition fervently in the hopes that he could at least stop worrying about the success of his students.

The meeting had been mostly uneventful, a report on the progress in experiments dealing with poly-tonal species, their verbal communication, and the effects this had on emotive responses in standard humanoid subjects. It was a pet project of Ovid's, and he had been unusually ebullient, his hands flitting about as he discussed differences in muscle structure, vibratory resonance, hormone compression and release.

His thoughts had appeared to the Council as flashes of lightning, almost too agitated to read. A word had stood out even from the blinding thrash...Listen. The Adam aspect made a soft noise in its throat and Ovid looked up, startled, trailed off like a stuttering firecracker. Poor man, some soothing was required.

'I am pleased with your results, Head Advisor. Your work has been consistent and your progress more than satisfactory. We are finally in the grasp of the shramta and while this perfect balance can not last, the second will be easier to create than the first, and your research will assuredly advance the causes of the College Narrate in those sub-species that yet prove resistant to our guidance.'

A smile fluttered on Ovid's wide mouth and he bowed deeply to the Council.

'I look forward to continued reports. What news of the worlds do you have to share with me?'

It was the question that concluded all meetings with the Council and created consistency as well as hope for a quick escape from the dizzying chamber. Ovid rolled the hem of his sleeve between his thumb and forefinger, the gesture was hypnotic.

"I...there was a strange occurrence in the market over in Solips earlier today when I was picking up my Erudian translator from the shop with the flat green roof and arched windows."

As his training took over, Ovid's nervousness fell from him and his words became beautifully shaped, their tone and timbre precise and elegant.

"The warmth of the early morning spread over the square, its tiles of slate and granite painted, worn away, painted again with a score of elaborate geometric patterns, said to be prayer circles from a far off desert planet long forgotten, its core dead and cold. Women and men, many with broad-brimmed straw hats or lengths of sleek cloth wrapped around their faces, moved rhythmically to their destination, the murmur of a dozen languages and the bell sounds of the rings some had woven into their hair vanishing like mist into the wide violet sky.

A Martly appeared at the western end of the market, scales dripping from his skin like tears, his simple suit of clothes worn and stained. The desperation in his lidless eyes caught the attention of those near him, and they moved away as if he might explode into violence. His voice was a low croak but he pushed it past cracking to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

'Where you all be will rise dust, rise wind, gather storms of dirty air and white blood. Returning to the stream of heat, your delivery into far gardens where the fingertips of your gods curl, nibbled by belief, pocked with grief for your fear and the death of your eternal enemy. You will find your heart there, the heart will rend the throat with grief, the split of your tongue will whisper a name, that name will guide you. What is now is right and wrong and we will move to the place of beautiful delivery.'

When he had finished, the stiff webbing on his neck rose and fell, quivered with the effort of breathing. The Martly seemed spent and when I helped him up, could barely form the words to thank me.

'Where are you from that you prophecy in this place? We need no gods here.'

A shudder went through him and he stared into the distance, suddenly weeping.

'I visited the place, I listened for truth and now go out where the words drive me. Someday, I'll be done but I don't know when.'

He patted me with a limp hand and stumbled into the crowd. My translator in hand, I returned home to the Central College and then to meet with you."

Ovid drew three sharp breaths inward without exhaling, released it slowly and the half-trance of the Narration fell from him. The light left his dim blue eyes and he gazed worriedly at the floor.

The Adam archetype smiled beatifically and the wide door portal shimmered into activity.

'Thank you, Head Advisor Dea-Pereleon.'

"Do you need me to record the experience?"

He shuffled towards the door but kept his face fixed on the ground beneath the Council, the swirling mists that had increased their speed and evident agitation. Usually the Council shared its opinion on the news he brought, a sagacious perspective that simultaneously cheered and humbled Ovid, refreshed his determination for the sometimes tedious research he performed. Today the golden figure stared forward, smiling, unseeing. It was a nerve-wracking sign.

"I will aah....assume yes."

The Head Advisor bowed swiftly four times, each as involuntary as a sneeze, as smoothly as if his torso was filled with oiled bearings, then scurried through the door, leaving the presence of the Council.

Day Four

This room, this tower, was located millions upon millions of light years away, was seen to the laughing controllers of the great silver ships as a quick run through dusty nebulae, past black holes and red giants. It was located in a trinary system, the main sun burning hot and blue, balanced by the orange glow of the two lesser suns, which appeared no larger than stars and brighter than the moons that clustered around the planet. There were thirty four, some resembling crumbling potatoes or large splotches of white ink against the deep violet sky. Orbital mirrors directed the sunlight and created a period of artificial dusk every twenty six hours, though true night never came.

The planet had no name, was consumed by a connected series of settled territories that made the surface resemble a balding porcupine. Wide expanses of ocean, forest and mountainous terrain were left exposed but there wasn't an inch that hadn't been explored, pondered, and shaped by the slow and steady hand of terra-forming. Even a small patch of desert remained, and on it was the heart of the linked cities. Its towers rose seemingly needle-thin, until one realized they were sometimes thousands of meters in diameter, made possible by super-cooled alloys and the lighter gravity. Lights sparkled with vigor and purpose, fed by and feeding the rest of the Universe, the home of the College Narrate.

The room was a cylindrical dome at the peak of the tallest spire. Sounds became lost in the great expanse hundreds of meters above the heads of those who entered, the walls and ceiling a nondescript brushed porcelain. The temperature was warm, a constant and unexpected breeze slid playfully around the walls though there were no windows and no viable source. The floor was soft and felted, muffling sharp noises. The whirls of blacks and grays that decorated the odd carpet gave the room a dizzying sense of motion and visitors felt unsettled no matter how often they came. This impression certainly exacerbated by the incredibly singular resident, the swirl of misty forms known as the Council.

No one knew its true origins, could only guess at what occurrence had spawned the hyper intelligent entity. When not conversing or when disturbed, the Council seemed nothing more than a gray haze in which flashes of translucent colour raced madly, a soft deep hum in perfect fifths filling the room. Figures boiled beneath the surface, each eerily familiar, each a tug on ancestral memories long forgotten.

A composite of animalian beliefs, the Council displayed the face of its company's progenitor, the long ago creation myth that lay dormant in the imaginative properties of its viewer. Bearded gods, mono-cellular organisms, forms of dust and blood and bone, dragon beasts, electrical impulses and shades of blue. Each personality spoke with a different voice and often debated amongst themselves but all were calm, musical, certain in their place and power. New forms occasionally appeared but were thin, stretched, as if their presence had not yet extended completely into racial subconscious. The disappearance of a mythic presence happened rarely, but was noted with alarm by those who could be called close to the Council, and mourned greatly for the loss of the tale.

For the Council was the sum of its stories, crafted new visions of the subtlest order. Through the senior administrators of the College, it trained Storytellers to resonate with their purpose, to deliver to civilizations unnumbered the Council's narratives, to shape and guide the guts and minds of their leaders. When the College was founded, rumours ran like wildfire through the upper echelons of society, wondering if the bizarre being was working for a more ominous agenda, attempting a bloodless coup and controlling interest in the mishmash of governing organizations that established order in the Universe.

Seven thousand years later and all doubts of the Council's benevolence had proved baseless. Rulers, from theocratic dictators to communal elders, who welcomed the wandering storytellers prospered and overall peace spread like a hush. As it had explained on numerous occasions, the Council's goal was not to eliminate warfare, suffering or death. It recognized the necessity of destruction to a people's growth, however, wanton and needless aggression was re-directed, channeled into an overall understanding and appreciation of eunoia, the benevolence a civilized, sentient being felt towards his neighbors and the composite totality of the state. Slowly, it had become unfashionable to wage war.

Alone in the room, the Council seethed, roiled with unexpected complications, wondered why an innocuous bit of news tossed off by the Head Advisor of Deliverance disturbed it so. Normally it rested in the windowless tower, felt the motions of the minds below it, their thoughts like clouds of bubbles that sang strange, never-ending melodies. Each sentient being was a path, traced lines of shadow over the brilliant whiteness of space. The lines intersected, frayed, broke apart and re-joined forming letters of a language dictated by the dreams of genetic code.

The Council had been shaped from the whispers of the words written most sharply across the soul. Even now, with science a tired dream and every wish a possible reality, civilization still closed its eyes, walked away from the fire and sought the dark places where the claws and teeth of a nightmare history dwelled. The Council stood guard at that gate of stone, eliminated the hind-brain fears that reduced the intelligent being to an animal that lost the ability to reason and hope.

Those who sought out the Council assumed it kept surveillance with sophisticated recording devices, projectors, psionic agents who gathered secrets. One amusing rumour said the Council could see through the eyes of every race it represented and flickered from face to face in the span of a blink. Others assumed the tower itself was a form of recorder... that the Council was a true Oracle and knew the eventual fate of the Universe itself... that the godlings told it all they had heard to avoid their names being erased from the Book of Time.

Ordinary vision was certainly possible; the human aspects [for humanity had filled the cracks of the civilized Universe like putty, had proved astoundingly capable of adaptation and inter-breeding. What seemed to every sensible scientist as a weak and wild-eyed excuse for a sentient species had bloomed like a fire-petaled peony and thrived in the great gulping expanses of space. There were races that loved and laughed and mourned more deeply than any human, but none did it all at once or drew so much wisdom from such a relatively short life-span. Ultimately, the Homo Sapiens, with a few important evolutionary changes, became the dominant form of intelligent life. Many key scientists, being forced to witness their mistaken published predictions thousands of years later, simply gave up or, oddly enough, became spelunkers. The Human Margin for Error, as the theory was later dubbed in jest, was attributed to a form of planetary claustrophobia.] sometimes enjoyed using an approximation of normal senses to put more nervous guests at ease.

The Council would limit itself severely to put its next visitor at ease. For most who spoke with it, being kept slightly off-balance helped tofacilitate the flow of information, the sparkle that adrenaline provided to their normally cloudy thoughts accented the key points of their perception grid more efficiently than a spotlight. It was unfortunate that certain individuals, such as the high-strung Head Advisor of Deliverance, would simply light up like a sparkler, their limbic systems firing on all cylinders and obscuring the thread of themselves. Occasional face to collective entity communication was required as some never learned to handle the impressions that rumbled up their spine, settled into their minds like a bird to its nest. When the Council responded, it was never heard, only felt and suddenly known.

What did the message mean?

The Adam archetype still stared out at the room, its golden, muscular form and dark curls perfect. A long snake as green as the breath of spring had coiled around a leg, then the torso, sinking pearly fangs into the spot above the heart. Despite the turmoil billowing within the Council, the human progenitor remained visible, motionless, now entered into a debate with the other personae.

"The Head Advisor, while meaning nothing but innocent social discourse, has brought to our attention something that was not there before, something that has apparently existed for some time now and escaped Our attention."

'Re-create the experience,' murmured the Brahmid aspect from within, 'we cannot judge when one of Us limits our perceptions so greatly.'

Adam appeared to sigh and his form broke into a rush of misty tendrils, flowing into the center like a cloud of silverfish. The Head Advisor of Deliverance, known to a few stubborn friends as Ovid Dea-Pereleon, appeared before the Council as he had been a few hours previous. The real Ovid was fitfully sleeping in his bunk, would have been gripped with paranoid fear had he known the Council could spin a facsimile memory of him from nothing.

Day Three

"Didn't you get enough the first thousand times, you disgusting sack of whal pus?" said Rubyat amicably, strapping the feedback device to a head that was more tufts of muddy dandelion fluff than hair, "you think you'd get sick of watching her jabber on but whatever rocks your cradle..."

"You would've melted your brains months ago on tsoma if I didn't put up with your flak," Betaine replied. He leaned stiffly against an over-stuffed pillow. It reeked of body odor and honey-tinged smoke. Months of sessions had not removed his revulsion of the Archivists, but it had blossomed into a camaraderie of loathing between him and Rubyat. He slid forward slightly, his feet parallel, the very picture of regularity, had no clue he was as repulsive to the old men as they were to him. Sweat trickled down his narrow back, a small damp patch appearing on the charcoal wool jacket and he cleared his throat, once, sharply, knew the Archivist had been prepared since the call came and was merely delaying to spite him.

"Is there a particular section you're looking for? It's over three hours long and I need to take a piss." Two spotted, hairy-knuckled hands rested on the pressure points below Betaine's ears and the young man shivered, attempted to force himself to relax, failed.

"Begin during the section, 'Owning things creates...'"

Betaine swallowed and as Rubyat began to hum tunelessly the focus sequence that gave him access to his astounding expanse of memory, he closed his eyes, prepared for the shock of contact, the spasm of muscle that created a sensation of white heat in every nerve.

It came abruptly; Rubyat never eased into a playback but slammed him in as hard as he could. It was falling, rising, every cell splitting, reforming, whirling into a void only to return as something new. The scene came into focus as abruptly as a glass window shattering. There was Planet, her gray robe of office gathered at the shoulders, exposing pale arms, piling at her feet. Only she wore the gray, the rest of the room a cacophony of muted colours. Navy blue, sepia, cream, every gown and suit new and almost creaking from the sparseness of line and severity of cut. These were the young ones entering the College, and sat awe-struck as Planet spoke.

"...despite the fact that my wealth exceeds the GNP of several galaxies and I do nothing to hide this information, I'm seen as an otherworldly wanderer, a holy mystic who abstains from the trap of naming things as mine."

"Remember, we are brothers and sisters, if not by blood, then by a common purpose. Our divinity is questionable, our methods even more so. What it is we do is shape a perspective, not persuade or, even worse, get directly involved. Your work may not be visible for several generations or ever. Subtlety and growth. The thread of the sentient subconscious is consistent whatever the background or genetic code of your temporary employer may be. Remember this, and let your story pass through that part of you that accesses the common denominator. Good day."

The seminary hall exploded into wild cheering and whistling after a brief stunned silence, what Betaine had come to recognize as the reaction to almost everything Planet said, their animal brains conquering the confusion and building a kinship with the enigmatic, unassuming woman at the podium. He wondered if they realized that she did to them what they did to their clients, working manipulations so deft and subtle, she might as well be called a magician. Briefly, Betaine mused on the possibility that this was what Bala intended, this quiet, frustrated respect for an art part psychology, part mysticism, part bullshit, part king-making. A strange breed of sociology that was as poorly understood now as it was when Planet first discovered her purpose. How did you find someone as trackless as a dust mote in a sandstorm, as comprehensible as the language of rain?

A sharp sensation bit at his brain, and every muscle spasmed with what felt like a painful sneeze. He opened his eyes, hadn't even realized they were closed, stared through the dirty fog at a violet dome stained black. The frieze depicted was one of Bala's first priests, Kehet, a hairless woman so slender, she barely seemed capable of supporting the yards of billowing fabric that she wore as she reached into the mouth of a spined lizard, scowling with fear and determination. A brilliant gem shone at the back of the throat of the beast, whose fangs were as long as the woman's arm and dripping a virulent poison. It was said she later presented the jewel to the goddess and was rewarded by having it embedded in the center of her forehead, given the power to stir a frenzy in the guts of anyone who gazed at the stone.

Betaine sat up. Rubyat was gone, presumably to pee, and Vermilli had stretched a loop of elastic between his over-sized hands and was making complex figures in the thread. A loop for the sun, lines for waves and clouds, small knots for birds. The Archivist looked up, moved his index fingers in a way that caused the string sea to twist and jerk and rise, swallow the birds from the sky. Betaine tasted bile and suppressed the nausea he felt from being pulled so abruptly from the memory. Normally an Archivist tapped on the foot to alert the watcher that the experience was going to be terminated to give them a chance to prepare for the shock. Rubyat apparently felt Betaine could risk possible temporary loss of muscle control and had simply gotten up and gone to the bathroom. He stood and left the pit, his legs still shaky, without acknowledging Vermilli and his demented cat's cradle.

The door didn't respond to his request to visit Bala and Betaine smoothed his hair in annoyance. Months had gone by since Planet's last appearance and he was no closer to finding her whereabouts, but the gaps...why and how had she circumvented the sensory recorder? It was a complex device, as beautiful as it was functional. Thousands of vibrating crystal scales over-lapped to form curling tendrils that quivered and glowed when activated. Each scale, composed of millions of nano-grade hair-like receptors, recorded the slightest changes in air pressure, temperature, volume, light depth, reflection, intensity....every possible minutiae of data necessary to create a complete three-dimensional memory.

Buffer wires of woven oranium were wrapped around the central quad-lattice diamond core, which contained a greater storage capacity than four hundred thousand humanoid Archivists. The entire scintillating spheroid could fit easily in the palm of the hand and possessed seemingly no weight. It usually hovered twenty feet from the recorded subject and was turned on via a nonsensical thought sequence or physical distress signals by the owner. It had revolutionized much of society in primarily political and corporate fields, where espionage had become an increasingly subtle tool of statecraft and assassination was no longer a viable option except for the exceedingly desperate. Each device was given to persons of note and was unavailable for purchase. The creation and methods by which an Archivist removed and translated data from one of the recorders was a closely-guarded secret and none of those so gifted with what was wryly called "that diamond watchdog" were interested in destroying their relationship with the Archivists.

The primary worth of a device was that it could not be tampered with, its memory was whole and complete. Every time it was activated or shut off was duly noted in the recording and anyone leaving out pertinent information would have a very long inquiry ahead of them as well as the collective pressure of the Archivist Guild to deal with. He remembered the play of light on the silver rings in her hair, wondered why even such a trivial detail had been removed.

Until Bala awoke, there was no way to know if other recordings had been altered. His fingers tapped along his jaw as he scowled at the door, the soft drum sound echoing through the main hall, melding with the trickle of water from the Fountain. He finally ordered the door to access his suite. It would be dawn in a few hours and Betaine realized the shakiness in his knees was as much weariness as the terrible memory session. Fatigue pills would purge the required poisons from his system, but continued use sometimes impaired impressionist abilities.

The bedroom was dark and he left the orb lights off. It was a wide circular room, lined with silvered windows that adjusted the illumination and heat levels during the day to the whims of the occupant and provided almost as impressive a view of the holy city and the landing fields as Bala's conservatory. A wide, sumptuous bed with a duvet covered in quivering white silk roses sat in the center of the room, un-slept in. He collapsed on the mat on the floor and was pondering briefly the ancient significance of the rose when sleep stole upon him, swiftly and gently.

Day Two

The bartender clapped his hands twice and the woman vanished, her last vitriolic outburst ringing in the air. Bala stared blatantly at the bartender, interest sparkling on the edges of her attitude.

"I suppose you'll find out for all of us. Have you ever seen him do that before?"

"But what happens when my purpose is taken away even for a short while?"

Bala shifted in her seat, wanted to levitate, to think comfortably. She'd raged and fought and thought the question for years at a time. It confronted you when the tide of battle turned, when the cold overwhelmed and all you had to tie the pale thread of your life to was the theory of a crackpot scientist who vanished eight thousand years ago.

Planet stood, brushed the resin dust from the seat of her pants. Unlike most, she ran a credit at the bar, making sure deposits found their way from one of her myriad accounts across the star systems. She tipped so excessively, drank so little, Bala was almost certain she'd paid for the bar a dozen times over at this point. The idea would've amused the storyteller, who owned nothing but her ship and used a bunk at the College when she wasn't on assignment. The goddess recalled a lecture of Planet's at a far seminary in the Naron system that took place six hundred years previous. It bothered her that she couldn't remember why she had been there at the time.

"Owning things creates affiliations that weaken mystique; even a garden in a far corner of nowhere will raise questions at the places you visit. Your objects solidify part of yourself, make it fully visible, destructible and definable. No longer will people say 'She cannot own anything for her possession is the entire Universe.' So despite the fact that my wealth exceeds the GNP of several galaxies and I do nothing to hide this information, I'm seen as an otherworldly wanderer, a holy mystic who abstains from the trap of naming things as mine." She paused. Her white hair was kept long then, in a twisted braid looped around her neck and she picked at the tail of it where she had tied silver rings than chimed sweetly against each other.

"It also helps to be perceived as that eccentric...a person who owns nothing might do *anything*. The princes and presidents and creche unions know that I can out-wait their morals and judgements. It doesn't even matter if what I do is wrong as long as I stick by it. If I'm willing to walk on my hand for two hundred years, people will let me do as I please. Hell, they might build a religion around it."

The crowd murmured with an appreciative laugh.

"If something doesn't make sense to someone, they usually chalk it up to religion. Faith as a shield, their faith, not yours, is the natural course of those completely comfortable with themselves. Keep in mind that the perception of faith as trial will often save your hide when you wear out your welcome. To appear to suffer is entertainment almost no ruler can abstain from enjoying. Keep your wealth fluid, your path trackless, and amuse yourself with other people's things."

Planet-now interrupted Planet-memory.

"The Heir Presumptive of Regulskek awaits," she said, wrinkling her nose, "I haven't been in a caul tank since his great-grandfather declared Narrators anathema. I did a good job with that old king, but this one's been raised pampered and spineless, in a metaphorical sense, and his advisors have turned against him and he's getting nervous. Violence is being considered but invoked by either party would involve excessive black market growth. The Council line is that the Majordomo's ban on intra-system trade needs to stay in place until their brother planet reaches at least Second World progression. Not likely when an ethnic war seems eminent..."

Bala stared moodily at the tiny forest. Life continued in a squeaking, stinking pantomime, the diminuitive beasts and chopstick thick trees growing, breeding, dying. Her perfect face reflected in the glass and she saw it as a ghostly sun, wondered what these creatures would ask of her as a deity.

"Sounds excessively complicated," she murmured.

"Easy job. Then I'll meet with the Council."

Bala looked up at her friend, saw the set of her jaw, the usual iron resolve to do what needs to be done overlaid with thick weariness.

"Not that the Council knows," the goddess said, "where will you go?"

"They'll find out when I get there."

Planet waved a brief good-bye and moved briskly through the bar, out the door. Bala felt deflated, somnambulant, pondered asking the bartender if he wouldn't mind sharing his port trick, watched him question the angry woman's companion, who was visibly shaken.

"No, no more trouble. I swear I didn't know she would get so upset and if there's any reparations I can make, please let me know. What? No... all I wanted was to listen with her."

Betaine's eyes snapped open and he rocked himself forward on his feet, then stumbled towards the port.

"NO...no, no, no...no no no...damn her, damn Archivists..." he cursed and Bala watched him vanish with a faint pop through the door. She felt a twinge of curiosity but rolled over and commanded the orbs to dim. Visions always depressed her and she watched the glowing red compression streaks like pillars of flame left by the passenger ship as it spun away from the surface with the grace and surety of an experienced controller. Her gaze followed the sleek ring until it reached the edge of her perception and she drifted to sleep.

Betaine's cursing followed him in a gray cloud all the way down to the Archives. Bala's library was astonishingly well-stocked with upwards of a billion volumes, data cubes, crylon projectors, imprint registers and theurge thrums, as well as the largest collection of Archivists outside the College Narrate. Golden leaf doors engraved with images of the miracles performed by Bala stood over 80 feet tall, the carvings done by the greatest master woodworkers and goldsmiths spanning six millennia.

The goddess, her eyes represented by smooth onyx cabochons, riding a six-legged Thrassian elephant, flying tassels and palanquin stained russet with the blood of half-of-a-million warriors of the god Neume, descending upon his city with the great lightning spear Oalo, the Bringer of Madness, clutched in her long, golden claws.

The exceedingly explicit sexual conversion of the 724 virgin guardian women of the moon goddess, Arishvana. Bala, strands of her glittering black hair wrapped around the hearts of the statuesque guardians with their ivory swords laid at their feet as she beckoned them forward into her clouds of red silk.

Destruction of the Fourth Temple of Salumat. The slaves who laboured in the labyrinthian salt mines below the scorched earth, their skin crusted and pale, hands and feet twisted, eyes gouged and mouths sewn shut to keep the silence their horned, vengeful god demanded of the weak...fleeing with the assistance of the great wind spirits summoned by Bala, clothed in white with wide angelic wings that cried healing tears upon their wounds, their sightless eyes turned to her. This scene occurred near the middle of the door, marking it as an early triumph of Bala as her aspect of benevolence was abandoned soon after Salumat's downfall.

A new visitor to the library often spent hours wandering, no matter how urgent his academic pursuit. The doors were considered a trial, an imposing demand on the viewer to prove his worth to come within and deface the silence. The floor, walls, pillars seemed one solid piece of warm, amethyst stone, carved, covered with shifting tapestries, murals, encrusted with gems beyond worth. Entering the main hall itself, the Fountain of Birth rose hundreds of feet beneath the first of many violet domes that radiated down impossibly long corridors.

The Fountain showed the souls of the faithful, naked in physical perfection, contorted and struggling in impossible configurations, every face sweet with lust and terrible with anger, all reaching towards the summit where a resplendent figure of Bala awaited, a sword in one hand, a rose in the other. The colours shifted as the water poured from her feet and made the ascendants writhe as if almost real. Drinking the water was said to bring visions and good fortune but Betaine hurried past to a seemingly empty room where heavy curtains fell from ceiling to floor, muffling the sharp clicking of his shoes. He paused and held out a slender hand. A faint breeze on his palm announced the Catalog, a device used to guide users through the library.

The Catalog, at its simplest, was nothing more than a floating light projector with access to the massive database below the library. It displayed possible suggestions for reference material, kept track of previous searches and confirmed the user's species in the event that one of the more esoteric forms of data storage needed to be accessed. Some owners gave them AI, voices, user recognition and a plethora of creative and bizarre shapes. Bala had kept hers simple, a gleaming bronze sphere carved into the shape of a vasayan, a short, fat humanoid spirit said to guide the dead who revered knowledge to Paradise. The expression on its wide, lipless mouth was one of gleeful subservience and 'What do you seek, wanderer?' was displayed on the air in ornate, calligraphic Standard six inches from the needle point projector located between its squinting eyes.

"Archive access for Saul Betaine. Get me the Farshi, Rubyat, or whatever the other one is specializing in College Narrate history....Vermilli, he'll do if Rubyat is off on one of his waker drug fugues again. I'll need Planet's speech to the seminary on Naron...should be reference number seven two two two four one."

The Catalog chirruped twice.

'Rubyat is awake and available. Currently accessing story records. Vermilli queries if you ever sleep or simply stay awake from spite. Please proceed to the Archives.'

Despite the treasure of knowledge housed within the library, the true worth was held in the Archivists, mnemonic impressionists raised in controlled environments of alternating sensory deprivation and overload, training their considerable psionic abilities as complete recorders. Most had no parents, birthdays, memories beyond the moment their purpose was realized. Less than a hundred thousand existed according to the current census and most, if not all, utilized their exquisite nerve control over other sentient beings to form a network where important impressions were backed up over multiple Archivists. They shared a bitterly comedic view of Life, spread thinly enough to be considered personality as opposed to a preconception, which ruined the Archivist's ability to record consistently and objectively. Knowing full well there was no such thing as objectivity but enjoying the job security and schadenfreude of their duties, the black-humoured librarians continued to curse the scientists, professors, philosophers and the just plain curious with an as untainted view of what really happened that they could provide.

How the data requested was played was not via a remote feed, but plugged or strapped directly into the Archivist, who used the inquirer as a full immersion playback machine, dumping the experience directly into the seeker's brain via muscle memory. In the event of violent or strongly emotional recordings, ghost injuries or feelings sometimes lingered for months. Accessing the wrong source recording or simply browsing could be quite damaging. This was an endless source of amusement to the Archivists.

Betaine, with his eidetic memory and considerable impressionist training paired with the generally peaceful nature of Planet's sessions, had earned the simultaneous ire and respect of the dozen or so Archivists in Bala's library, who considered the young man to be a brilliant analyst and an insufferable, pompous twat.

The on-duty Archivists, three old men, bony, wrinkled, walnut-coloured, resembling a cat's asshole and smelling like one on a hot day, lounged in a low, soft pit of carefully treated furs and snowy white pillows. A cloud of pale yellow smoke hung over the room, evidence of a recent memory drug binge, likely tsoma, where the user assumed control of a fellow user's memories, racing through experiences at a break-neck speed before dumping the collected impressions in a giant burst of sensation that left all involved a shaky wreak for several days.

Day One

"The problem with Planet is not that she didn't make mistakes, but that when you know as much as she did, it becomes easy to bury your mistakes in mystery."

Betaine's long legs flickered across the marble floor as he paced, his shoes making purposeful clicking noises that seemed to propel his sentences from his tight-lipped, reluctant face. He almost looked like a clockwork man, dark hair smooth and undeserved, a pretty face completely ignored, a body that did its vigorous best no matter how little attention he paid to it. He glowed like a youth who cared, whereas the truth of the matter was that Betaine did not give a rusty goddamn for his mortal coil but flitted from project to project, hoping to find the ephemeral soap bubble of purpose, the thing that would cement his soul to this world and ensure he always had plenty of reading material and people to lecture at.

Bala found herself interested in him, in his sharp, fractured intellect...he was so utterly consumed by whatever he was currently thinking that she, as a goddess of passions and worshipped by the Shivros, found little in him she could toy with to amuse herself. Even his anger was channeled into his mental engagements. He hated and loved his projects in equal amounts and with a savagery that would've revolutionized the tired science world if he'd been able to focus on anything for more than a year or two. Bala rarely found a mortal so completely consumed by what they did, so she did a rare thing and listened to the words being spat against the conservatory walls.

"Mystery in these times! Everything she's done that hasn't been related to her...peculiar profession..fits on the head of a pin. You'd think after ten thousand years, there'd be something more than a few love letters, restaurant receipts, ship repair invoices...and all of it only within the last few hundred or so. It's inexplicable that she kept no diaries, had no children..."

Bala twirled lazily in her cloud of red silk, picking at her teeth with a gold-capped finger.

"Perhaps, young man, you are forgetting that after a few hundred years, almost everything rots...disintegrates...goes kaput. Even the best data cubes barely last three, four millennia. People too."
She smiled her carnivorous smile, filled with lacquered black teeth, small diamonds and opals dusting the surfaces like stars. Betaine turned his head sharply towards the window that wrapped around a quarter of the room, stared out into the darkness toward fields. The silvery ring of a passenger ship left deep red streaks across the black fade of the horizon as it landed, the spindles doing a hiccupy jerk as they spun. He registered the beauty of the view without expression.

Memories stirred within him and he acknowledged them duly, the data connections came seamlessly. Rings of fire revealed as ancient messengers of God, harbingers of ill times to be avoided, wheels that spun throughout space, careening on wild courses that consumed distance and time in a burst of joy. These wheels, hundreds of miles across, were controlled at the central chamber by the most fanatical of speed junkies. He'd met one before, the Controller barely out of his teens, his movements irritable and clumsy. He'd knocked things over frequently with his gestures and eventually returned to the ship to thrash out his claustrophobia. They felt confined to even planets, needed the great voids around them to be comfortable.

"Tch tch..." Bala said, her syrupy voice wriggling into his ear and pulling his attention from the ship. "Like a child's top...no grace, no style. They must've put a rookie piloting that thing. Everyone on that ship will be vomiting."

Betaine's pale green eyes blinked once, twice. He took a breath.

"After almost two years of being strapped to a pungent, cackling Farshi archivist while he accessed every recorded session of Planet's, that's 934,867 sessions, by the way; after researching every majour and minour political, economic, religious and sociological decision altered by her visits, after witnessing her unorthodox and frankly really bizarre methods of accomplishing whatever the Council sets out for her to do, after reading every scrap of this facade of a private life, I'm even further lost as to why you hired me to find her and how this isn't just another manipulation of events by her to bring about some stupid revolution or other inane....story."

It was the first time since Bala met him that the young man had used the word. She counted it as progress.

She rotated onto her back, floating just above his height, her hair a lustrous, inky waterfall to the floor. Her eyes, black from lid to lid, glittered in the golden glow from the orb lights anchored to the pillars in the conservatory. Her believers argued that under her skin was a whole Universe where the souls of the faithful existed forever in a brawl/orgy where the passions generated birthed new worlds. When a Shivros passed on, his self was sucked through her eyes, focused and purified and given an indestructible form.

So it was said.

While imposing, she was charming enough to put anyone who caught her fancy at ease and maintained a relatively human size and appearance, insisting it was too much effort to be anything other than what she really was. Even if he had been affected by the aura of power that surrounded her, Betaine would have felt no fear in her presence.

"It's a thought I've entertained. In fact, she's disappeared for decades before and will just...turn up one day, continuing the conversation we were having before she left as if all that time was nothing. Well, I suppose to her, it *is* nothing anymore."

"She would have just left for Regulskek when you contacted the college. So why?"

"Don't interrupt, dear boy. You're much more attractive when your mouth is shut."

Rolling her eyes, she made a sinuous and complicated gesture with her gold-capped hands.

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you why, but perhaps our last meeting would shed some light for you. I don't store my memories like an Archivist, and I've usually no need to hang on to thoughts I had six millennia ago. My priests keep track of those for me."

She smiled at her joke. Betaine's mouth twitched into what might pass for a grimace.

"I can certainly gift you with a vision, however you have to accept it. I'm not getting in trouble for not following protocol." The young man sighed, nodded, his shoe tapping against the copper-veined marble floor.

The gifting was unimpressive. Bala relied on the depths and complexities of her memories to astound the lucky host rather than the dog-and-pony flash many of her fellow godlings used. Her hands glowed faintly red and she laid a needle-tipped finger against his forehead. A surge of white blankness overwhelmed him and Betaine crashed like a sack of dice to the floor.

"This was the last conversation I had with Planet, three months ago..."

The bar was a graceful thing, composed of carefully blended curves of a hundred different woods, treated to release their scents in a thick, sweet cloud that evoked memories of forests across the Universe, quiet dreams of green and deep loam. Drinks were kept simple and the bartender extended lines of credit that reached seven or eight digits for some of the more prodigious drinkers who frequented the place. It was a favourite spot of Planet's when something upset her and she had made Bala swear on her ten thousand sons that she, Bala, yes you, would absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever, don't you dare ignore me on this, will not invoke in any way, shape or form, even if you think it's an emergency, your godly presence and start a goddamn bar-fight, I don't care about your reputation, I'm sick of being thrown out of places to have a quiet drink in.

Bala had acquiesced after much pouting and rarely showed up except when Planet needed a drink and to give someone an earful. Tonight, however, she had ported over as quickly as possible and found Planet slouched in a booth alongside the bar's 40,000 cubic foot miniature forest, staring through the glass at two diminuitive black bears clinging to the evergreen treetops, snapping fish-birds from their nests with comical gnashing. The bears were the size of a quarter and looked like mobile burrs, their prey, tiny squeaky slivers of blue almost too small to see.

Normally the sheer ridiculousness of Mother Nature done on such a small scale never failed to amuse Planet, but her lips were pursed and her fingers drummed erratically on the Tavnasian rosewood. Bala lowered herself until the tips of her perfect, lotus-shaped feet were an inch above the pale ironwood floor. She slid into the seat and stared at her friend, prepared to wait until Planet spoke.

The first thing one noticed about Planet was how hard it was to separate her from the scenery. She seemed a statue until she moved and had an unnerving habit of forgetting to blink. Her wardrobe consisted of gathered white tunics above ugly brown workman's pants that had a hard time staying up on her boyish hips and a pair of beaten old leather slippers. Her skin was smooth and pale, a smattering of freckles across her upper shoulders. Planet's face was well-composed, balanced between a small jaw, straight nose and a fluffy mess of silver hair which was currently being tugged and frazzled with a long-fingered hand.

"When was the last time you were bored, Bala?"

Behind Planet, a blue-skinned woman stood and began shouting at her companion, ugly, hateful things, and everyone but Bala and Planet turned to stare.

"Bala."

"I swear on the moon of my soul that I have nothing to do with that, but you are making this very difficult. Could you, perhaps, explain what the hell you mean?"

Planet shrugged.

"Last month it was Snav. I almost fell asleep in front of the Lord of Lions because he's so much like his twelfth-great-grandfather that I might have just sent a recording of myself from back then. In a few years, he'll have to make a choice to allow core-drilling and decide against it, which will save his country. I couldn't bring myself to care. This month it's Regulskek. More black market problems. Another budding religious war. It's nothing new."

The goddess tapped her gilded nails against the forest glass, startling a flock of crows no larger than pinheads. They looped in strange, lazy patterns, crying warnings across the trees, pretending raucous laughter at the intrusive noise even as they scattered.

"You told me the only way you can do your job is because sentient nature rarely varies."

"I'm wishing it would."

"Oh seriously. You've dealt with dry spells and tedium, your whole *purpose* is tedium and words, and you're getting upset over a few throwback systems who make hobbies of planetary destruction and economic ruin? You're even pouting."

"I am not."

The woman behind them had raised her volume, was screaming flecks of spittle, her words indistinct as she moved from Standard to her own guttural language. Planet ordered another drink and raised an eyebrow at Bala.

"Still not me, but I could translate if you'd like...ahem...that whatever was in your creche/home...unholy, a great void of roaring...I will not hold to me, hmm...embrace it? You listen for it only and will listen no longer for my footsteps outside your creche/home. Aah, a break up is a beautiful thing."

"Okay, I am pouting. What do you suggest?"

"Hmm. I'd tell you to come stay with me, but I've got my hands full with another Miracle."

"The conversion of Theruman's heir that I've been hearing about? The sun god?"

"Tch...it took a miraculous amount of effort to seduce him. Theruman is livid his son is one of my castellan priests...old bastard tried to force a heat plague on one of my landing fields," said Bala, a bitter smirk on her painted lips.
"He didn't get anywhere, but..." she trailed off, noting Planet's glassy expression.

The goddess sighed.

"Look, take a lover, take a vacation, take something. I know I tease but I've never seen you like this. You! You sat in a Gekkin sensory dep jail for forty years and came out asking if your ship had been ticketed."

Planet smiled thinly. The screaming woman lunged at her companion, who barely dodged and shouted for the bartender.

"Maybe I'll get a dog."

"And maybe I'll have to console you in twenty years when it dies again. Do something different."

Her fingers paused, wrapped in thick glittering strands of white hair, Planet looked up at Bala, the creases on her forehead smoother but not quite gone. Worry was in her eyes and only her consummate skill kept it out of her voice.

"*Can* we do something different?"