Mindswap (9 page)

Once outside the restaurant, Valdez turned his moustached brown face to the heavens and located the constellation Invidius, which, in northern latitudes, points unerringly to the north-north-east. With this as a base line, he established cross-references, using the wind on his cheek (blowing west at five miles per hour), and the moss on the trees (growing on the northerly sides of decidupis trunks at one millimetre per diem). He allowed for a westerly error of one foot per mile (drift), and a southerly error of five inches per hundred yards (combined tropism effects). Then, with all factors accounted for, he began walking in a south-south-westerly direction.

Marvin followed. Within an hour they had left the city, and were proceeding through a stubbled farming district. Another hour put them beyond the last signs of civilization, in a wilderness of tumbled granite and greasy feldspar.

Valdez showed no signs of stopping, and Marvin began to feel vague stirrings of doubt.

'Just where, exactly, are we going?' he asked at last.

'To find your Cathy,' Valdez replied, his teeth flashing white in his good-humoured burnt-sienna face.

'Does she really live this far from the city?'

'I have no idea where she lives,' Valdez replied, shrugging.

'You don't?'

'No, I don't.'

Marvin stopped abruptly. 'But you said that you did know!'

'I never said or implied that,' Valdez said, his umber forehead wrinkling. 'I said that I would help you find her.'

'But if you don't know where she lives-'

'It is quite unimportant,' Valdez said, holding up a stern musteline forefinger. 'Our quest has nothing to do with finding where Cathy
lives
; our quest, pure and simple, is to find
Cathy
. That, at least, was my understanding.'

'Yes, of course,' Marvin said. 'But if we're not going to where she lives, then where are we going?'

'To where she weel be,' Valdez replied serenely.

'Oh,' Marvin said.

They walked on through towering mineral marvels, coming at last into scrubby foothills that lay like tired walruses around the gleaming blue whale of a lofty mountain range. Another hour passed, and Marvin again grew disquieted. But this time he expressed his anxiety in a roundabout fashion, hoping by guile to gain insight.

'Have you known Cathy long?' he asked.

'I have never had the good fortune to meet her,' Valdez replied.

'Then you saw her for the first time in the restaurant with me?'

'Unfortunately I did not even see her there, since I was in the men's room passing a kidney stone during the time of your conversation with her. I may have caught a glimpse of her as she turned from you and departed, but more likely I saw only the Doppler effect produced by the swinging red door.'

'Then you know nothing whatsoever about Cathy?'

'Only the little I have heard from you, which, frankly, amounts to practically nothing.'

'Then how,' Marvin asked, 'can you possibly take me to where she will be?'

'It is simple enough,' Valdez said. 'A moment's reflection should clear the matter for you.'

Marvin reflected for several moments, but the matter stayed refractory.

'Consider it logically,' Valdez said. 'What is my problem?
To find Cathy
. What do I know about Cathy? Nothing.'

'That doesn't sound so good,' Marvin said.

'But it is only half of the problem. Granted that I know nothing about Cathy, what do I know about
Finding
?'

'What?' Marvin asked.

'It happens that I know everything about Finding,' Valdez said triumphantly, gesturing with his graceful terracotta hands. 'For it happens that I am an expert in the Theory of Searches!'

'The what?' Marvin asked.

'The Theory of Searches!' Valdez said, a little less triumphantly.

'I see.' Marvin said, unimpressed. 'Well … that's great, and I'm sure it's a very good theory. But if you don't know anything about Cathy, I don't see how any theory will help.'

Valdez sighed, not unpleasantly, and touched his moustache with a puce-coloured hand. 'My friend, if you knew all about Cathy – her habits, friends, desires, dislikes, hopes, fears, dreams, intentions. and the like – do you think you would be able to find her?'

'I'm sure I could,' Marvin said.

'Even without knowing the Theory of Searches?'

'Yes.'

'Well then,' Valdez said, 'apply that same reasoning to the reverse condition. I know all there is to know about the Theory of Searches, and therefore I need to know nothing about Cathy.'

'Are you sure it's the same thing?' Marvin asked.

'It has to be. After all, an equation is an equation. Solving from one end may take longer than from the other end, but cannot affect the outcome. In fact, we are really quite fortunate to know nothing about Cathy. Specific data sometimes has a way of interfering with the well-wrought operation of a theory. But we shall suffer no such discomfiture in this instance.'

They marched steadily upwards, across the steepening face of a mountain slope. A bitter wind screamed and buffeted at them, and patches of hoar-frost began to appear underfoot. Valdez talked about his researches into the Theory of Searches, citing the following typical cases: Hector looking for Lysander, Adam questing after Eve, Galahad reconnoitering for the Holy Grail, Fred C. Dobbs' seeking the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Edwin Arlington Robinson's perquisitions for colloquial self-expression in a typically American milieu, Gordon Sly's investigations of Naiad McCarthy, energy's pursuit of entropy, God's hunt for man, and Yang's pursual of Yin.

'From these specifics,' Valdez said, 'we derive the general notion of Search and its most important corollaries.'

Marvin was too miserable to answer. It had suddenly occurred to him that one could die in this chill and waterless wasteland.

'Amusingly enough,' Valdez said, 'the Theory of Searches forces upon us the immediate conclusion that nothing can be truly (or ideally) lost. Consider: for a thing to be
lost
, it would require
a place to be lost in
. But no such place can be found, since simple multiplicity carries no implication of qualitative differentiation. In Search terms, every place is like every other place. Therefore, we replace the concept
Lost
with the concept of
indeterminate placement
, which, of course, is susceptible to logico-mathematical analysis.'

'But if Cathy isn't really lost,' Marvin said, 'then we can't really find her.'

'That statement is true, as far as it goes,' Valdez said. 'But of course, it is merely Ideal notion, and of little value in this instance. For operational purposes we must modify the Theory of Searches. In fact, we must reverse the major premise of the theory and reaccept the original concepts of Lost and Found.'

'It sounds very complicated,' Marvin said.

'The complication is more apparent than real,' Valdez reassured him. 'An analysis of the problem yields the result. We take the proposition: "Marvin searches for Cathy." That seems fairly to describe our situation, does it not?'

'I think it does,' Marvin said cautiously.

'Well then, what does the statement imply?'

'It implies – it implies that I search for Cathy.'

Valdez shook his nut-brown head in annoyance. 'Look deeper, my impatient young friend! Identity is not inference! The statement expresses the activity of your quest, and therefore implies the passivity of Cathy's state-of-being-lost. But this cannot be true. Her passivity is unacceptable, since ultimately one searches for oneself, and no one is exempt from that search. We must accept Cathy's search for you (herself), just as we accept your search for her (yourself). Thus we achieve our primary permutation: "Marvin searches for Cathy who searches for Marvin." '

'Do you really think she's looking for me?' Marvin asked.

'Of course she is, whether she knows it or not. After all, she is a person in her own right; she cannot be considered an Object, a mere something-lost.We must grant her autonomy, and realize that if you find her, then, equally, she finds you.'

'I never thought of that.' Marvin said,

'Well, it's simple enough once you understand the theory,' Valdez said. 'Now, to ensure our success, we must decide upon the optimum form of Search. Obviously, if both of you are actively questing, your chances of finding each other are considerably lessened. Consider two people seeking one another up and down the endless crowded aisles of a great department store, and contrast that with the improved strategy of one seeking, and the other standing at a fixed position and waiting to be found. The mathematics are a little intricate, so you will just have to take my word for it. The best chance of you/her finding her/you will be for one to search, and the other to allow himself /herself to be searched for. Our deepest folk wisdom has always known this, of course.'

'So what do we do?'

'I have just told you!' Valdez cried. 'One must search, the other must wait. Since we have no control over Cathy's actions, we assume that she is following her instincts and looking for you. Therefore you must fight down your instincts and wait, thereby allowing her to find you.'

'All I do is wait?'

'That's right.'

'And you really think she'll find me?'

'I would stake my life on it.'

'Well … all right. But in that case, where are we going now?'

'To a place where you will wait. Technically, it is called a Location-Point.'

Marvin looked confused, so Valdez explained further. 'Mathematically, all places are of equal potentiality insofar as the chances of her finding you are concerned. Therefore we are able to choose an arbitrary Location-Point.'

'What Location-Point have you chosen?' Marvin asked.

'Since it made no real difference,' Valdez said, 'I selected the village of Montana Verde de los Tres Picos, in Adelante Province, in the country of Lombrobia.'

'That's your home town, isn't it?' Marvin asked.

'As a matter of fact, it is,' Valdez said, mildly surprised and amused. 'That, I suppose, is why it came so quickly to my mind.'

'Isn't Lombrobia a long way off?'

'A considerable distance,' Valdez admitted. 'But our time will not be wasted, since I will teach you logic, and also the folksongs of my country.'

'It isn't fair,' Marvin muttered.

'My friend,' Valdez told him, 'when you accept help, you must be prepared to take what one is capable of giving, not what you would like to receive. I have never denied my human limitations; but it is ungrateful of you to refer to them.'

Marvin had to be content with that, since he didn't think he could find his way back to the city unaided. So they marched on through the mountains, and they sang many folksongs, but it was too cold for logic.

Onwards they marched, up the polished mirror face of a vast mountain. The wind whistled and screamed, tore at their clothing and tugged at their straining fingers. Treacherous honeycomb ice crumpled under their feet as they struggled for footholds, their buffeted bodies plastered to the icy mountain wall and moving leechlike up its dazzling surface.

Valdez bore up through it all with a saintlike equanimity. 'Eet ees deefecult,' he grinned. 'And yet – for the love which you bear for thees woman – eet ees all worthwhile, si?'

'Yeah, sure,' Marvin mumbled. 'I guess it is.' But in truth, he was beginning to doubt it. After all, he had known Cathy only for less than an hour.

An avelanche thundered past them, and tons of white death screamed past – inches from their strained and clinging bodies. Valdez smiled with serenity. Flynn frowned with anxiety.

'Beyond all obstacles,' Valdez intoned, 'lies that summit of accomplishment which is the face and form of the beloved.'

'Yeah, sure,' Marvin said.

Spears of ice, shaken loose from a high dokalma, whirled and flashed around them. Marvin thought about Cathy and found that he was unable to remember what she looked like. It struck him that love at first sight was overrated.

A high precipice loomed before them. Marvin looked at it, and at the shimmering ice fields beyond, and came to the conclusion that the game was really not worth the candle.

'I think,' Marvin said, 'that we should turn back.'

Valdez smiled subtly, pausing on the very edge of the vertiginous descent into that wintry hell of suicidally shaped snow slides.

'My frien',' he said, 'I know why you say this.'

'You do?' Marvin asked.

'Of course. It is obvious that you do not wish me to risk my life on the continuance of your insensate and magnificent quest. And it is equally obvious that you intend to plunge on, alone.'

'It is?' Marvin asked.

'Certainly. It would be apparent to the most casual observer that you are driven to seek your love through any and all dangers, by virtue of the unyielding nature of your personality. And it is equally clear that your generous and high-spirited mentality would be disturbed at the idea of involving one whom you consider a close friend and bosom companion in so perilous a venture.'

'Well,' Marvin began, 'I'm not sure-'

'But I am sure,' Valdez said. 'And I reply to your unspoken question as follows: Friendship bears this similarity to love: it transcends all limits.'

'Huh,' Marvin said.

'Therefore,' Valdez said, 'I shall not abandon you. We shall go on together, into the maw of death, if need be, for the sake of your beloved Cathy.'

'Well, that's very nice of you,' Marvin said, eyeing the precipice ahead. 'But I really didn't know Cathy very well, and I don't know how well suited we would be; so all in all, maybe it would be best if we got out of here-'

'Your words lack conviction, my young friend,' Valdez laughed. 'I beg of you not to worry about my safety.'

'As a matter of fact,' Marvin said, 'I was worrying about
my
safety.'

'No use!' Valdez cried gaily. 'Hot passion betrays the studied coolness of your words. Forward, my friend!'

Valdez seemed determined to force him to Cathy's side whether he wanted to go or not. The only solution seemed to be a quick blow to the jaw, after which he would drag Valdez and himself back to civilization. He edged forward.

Valdez edged back. 'Ah no, my friend!' he cried. 'Again, overweening love has rendered your motives transparent. To knock me out, is it not? Then, after making sure I was safe and comfortable and well provisioned, you would plunge alone into the white wilderness. But I refuse to comply. We go on together, compadre!'

And shouldering all their provisions, Valdez began his descent of the precipice. Marvin could do nothing but follow.

We shall not bore the reader with an account of that great march across the Moorescu Mountains, nor with the agonies suffered by the love-dazzled young Flynn and his steadfast companion. Nor shall we delineate the strange hallucinations that beset the travellers, nor the temporary state of insanity that Valdez suffered when he thought he was a bird and able to fly across thousand-foot drops. Nor would any but the scholarly be interested in the psychological process by which Marvin was moved, through a contemplation of his own sacrifices, to a fondness for the young lady in question, and then to a
strong
fondness, and then to a sensation of love, and then to an overweening passion of love.

Suffice it to say that all of these things happened, and that the journey across the mountains occupied many days and brought about many emotions. And at last it came to an end.

Arriving at a last mountain crest, Marvin looked down and saw, instead of ice fields, green pastures and rolling forests under a summer sun, and a little village nestled in the crook of a gentle river.

'Is – is that-?' Marvin began.

'Yes, my son,' Valdez said quietly. 'That is the village of Montana de los Tres Picos, in Adelante Province, in the country of Lombrobia, in the valley of the Blue Moon.'

Marvin thanked his old guru – for no other name was applicable to the role that the devious and saintly Valdez had played – and began his descent to the Location-Point where his wait for Cathy would begin.