Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (33 page)

 
          
The womb.
And right now the womb was undergoing a contraction.
. . .

           
"I'm a woman, you dumb
corpse!"

 
          
"Please!
The current is the Flow; you are the stone that shapes the Flow. You are the
agent who helps it change, without changing yourself. It'll keep you in
dream-life while it broods around you."

 
          
"It
brooded round me twice already! And crept and crawled inside me. This is
getting to be a habit."

 
          
"Ah,
but this time—"

 
          
"Third time lucky?"

 
          
"This
time you will be a legend, Yaleen. When you finally walk out of its mouth,
salvation will be at hand."

 
          
"What
if I don't want to be a legend?"

 
          
Frankly
I didn't think the current had a chicken's idea what it was doing. If it had, I
didn't think much of the plan. Not when the worm was content to start a war to
get its way.
Even if it did immortalize assorted fallen
victims.

 
          
Those
walls!

 
          
That
roof!

 
          
"Look,
I don't want to sound abrupt, but the place is caving in. Goodbye!" I
turned and quickfooted it over the stepping stones towards the tunnel mouth.
Fronds writhed up over the warts ahead to block my way.

 
          
"Stop!"
cried
Raf
. "The
mouth's
closed!"

 
          
I
did stop. "What?"

 
          
"The
mouth has shut."

 
          
Maybe
I shouldn't have paused. Fronds were questing for my ankles now. I kicked at
them. Maybe the zombi was lying?

 
          
"There
are such rewards, Yaleen!
Access to all the lives that women
have lived!"

 
          
And
maybe if I did fight my way out, with my mission unaccomplished, Maranda and
Sparki and Laudia would toss me back inside . . . While I hesitated, the
ceiling
slumped
a little closer. Obviously the cavern
was a hole in the Worm's body, a big bubble it had blown in itself within some
vaster subterranean space.

 
          
Kindly
consider the absurd horror and lunacy of this moment. Outside, the world was in
chaos. A giant tadpole wanted to make love to me, or something. And the roof
was falling on my head. In such a moment, what could save a girl but a sense of
humour? (Or a sense of
rage
—somehow
rage didn't seem a useful reaction at this point.) I began to laugh. I doubled
up. I creased myself.

 
          
"What's
wrong?" cried
Raf
anxiously.

 
          
"Oh
nothing
... I”
With an effort I
controlled myself. "It's so bloody funny, this business of becoming a God!
How lucky cats and dogs are, never having to try! Just look at it: this
collapsing
Ka-
theodral of a womb ...
a zombi for a guide . . . the spirits of the dead spun in a yam . . . barrels
of minced fungus gotten by devious guile ... all in the guts of a worm ... a
war thrown in! And at the end of the tunnel, what: power and visions? Life is
quite absurd!"

 
          
"But
the universe itself is paradoxical," called
Raf
brightly. "Existence is. I mean, why should anything exist at all?
So maybe true knowledge and absurdity are twins.
Maybe the
one is the key to the—"

 
          
"Oh,
shut up!"

 
          
Already
the wart-stones beyond had all vanished under writhing fronds; where I stood
was
similarly infested.

 
          
"I'm
coming back, damn it!" Swiftly the fronds at my feet shrank away.

 
          
We
set off promptly for the far end of the cavern. Now that I was on the move in
the desired direction, the shrinkage back at the island end appeared to have
stopped.

 
          
So
off I trod to confront my destiny, and the Worm's destiny, and the world's; loaded
down with useless bottles of fresh air; sporting a jewelled ring, with the
power only of cutting rope; and guided by a hairless animated corpse ... As I
followed Raf's lead along those wart-stones, I decided that Doctor Edrick and
his cronies would never get anywhere with
their
quest for knowledge. They were far toe serious about it. The real and the true
could only be seized in a laugh, a laugh which would rattle the stars.

 
          
And
the trouble was, at the same time it all
mattered;
mattered intensely.

 
          
Still,
I was determined not to be too tense. It's no good tensing up for love, eh? And
our worm had decided to love me.
Somehow.

 
          
I
was in the midst of finding out how to be mad and sane simultaneously. I hoped
the Worm could perform the same balancing trick Then maybe it
would
graduate into a God. . . .

 
          
I
hadn't known what to expect. A mound of jelly shot through with sparks? A pool,
depth-full of flickering darting starlight:
Kas
held in suspension?

 
          
What
we arrived at finally, somewhere in the azure fog, was a fountain-basin: a
phosphorescent powder-blue bowl some nine or ten spans across, bubbling with
denser violet fog like foamy suds.

           
A coldly boiling
cauldron.
A chalice of flesh.
A bathtub.

 
          
Of
course all the "architecture" hereabouts had to be a purely temporary
affair. This chalice, or bath of suds, had been laid on
specially
for me. I had no idea what the Art-store might look like the rest of the time.
Perhaps like nothing at all.

 
          
"You
climb in," advised my friendly zombi. "You lie down."

 
          
The
basin bore a certain resemblance, also, to an enormous sphincter muscle.
"It won't close up on me, will it?"

 
          
"It
won't
eat
you—never fear!"

 
          
Why
did people say things like "never fear" when that's just what anyone
in their right mind ought to be doing?

 
          
"Perhaps
I could assist you with those things on your back?"
Raf
offered gallantly. "They look cumbrous to lie on."

 
          
"Ah,
so comfort
does
come into this!
That's nice to know."

 
          
With
a certain amount of fumbling,
Raf
managed to detach
the air bottles. He had no such luck with the locked belt and tail of rope.

           
So I climbed aboard that basin. As I
did so, a sigh of satisfaction seemed to sough through the cavern. I lay down
in the violet fog; at once I felt myself departing, into a different kind of
place . . .

 
          
And
I enter the Art-store. . . .

           
I'm Lalia, a woman of Gangee, thirty
years old, dark and tall and strong.

 
          
I'm
borne along within her life. A stick floating downstream, I go where the water
wills; unlike a fish, which can turn and oppose the stream. . . .

 
          
I'm
a stowaway in her. I wear her like a glove. I see what she sees, feel what she
feels, speak what she says,
go
where she walks. I
regard Gangee not as a dingy hole but as home, a drumskin of familiar beats.

 
          
She,
the Lalia who is experiencing her life unfolding, remains unaware of me. Yet a
later, more complete Lalia seems to know me, and nod in recognition. My life as
Lalia isn't continuous. I experience her in spurts, like a gashed artery from
which her lifeblood springs. Several days, then a skip forward.

 
          
Men
of Gangee are planning an expedition to cross the desert. By investing in
supplies the river guild has bought me a place on this expedition as their
observer. Maybe another river flows somewhere beyond the sands?

 
          
Why,
this must be hundreds of years ago! Yet equally it's
now:
the urgent present moment, the moment which matters above all
others.

 
          
Which matters most . . . and least.
The present moment, the
moment you're living through, is often rushed away impatiently for the benefit
of future moments. Or maybe you stand quite still and try to halt time, to
savour the present moment to the full; but what you're really saying to
yourself is: "Look! Concentrate! I'm here now at this point in space and
time. I hereby fix this moment in memory forever—so that I'll understand and
treasure the meaning of it . . . in another hour, another week, another year.
Not now; but
then."
Only when a moment lapses and is gone,
can it be really known. Thus the moment is
everything,
and nothing too.

 
          
Yet
since
I
, Lalia, am living each present moment
ordinarily, but also as part of my whole completed self, this treachery of time
is healed now. Each instant becomes radiant and luminous. Every act and word is
a dewdrop and a diamond.

 
          
This
is the joy of the /Ta-store; it could also be the horror, if the moment was
evil and agonizing. But even horror is outshone, when the light emerging from
each moment is so bright that pain is blinded.

 
          
We
march inland from Gangee to the verge of the desert, accompanied by a gang of
porters laden with
supplies,
We set up base camp in
the dusty outback beside a tree-fringed pool, the last well. Beyond, there's
only a plain of fine gravel horizoned by distant dunes.

 
          
We
have planned well. Taking turns, we lead teams of porters far out into the Dry
to lay down caches of food and waterskins filled from the pool. The first such
sortie takes a couple of days, to go one day's
march
and return. The second sortie penetrates twice as far. And so on. In this way
we scout a full week's journey into those far dunes, preparing the way, always
returning to base. These preparations occupy several weeks and limber us up
marvellously.

 
          
Then
we dismiss all our porters and set out alone to cross the Dry. Six of us: five
men, and myself.

 
          
Thanks
to our preliminary forays, the first week's journey is easy —even though the
ridge-dunes we have to cross are soft underfoot and complexly interlinked. We
find all our caches without any fuss. Dimes may creep, but not that quickly; and
only gentle breezes blow. It's the calmest time of year, the Lull. The river,
of course, is breezier even during the Lull, but we're far away from it. We
have six weeks before the winds blow strong again.

 
          
A
sea of star-dunes succeeds the ridge-dunes; we can thread our way through these
at speed. On scattered rocky outcrops, landmarks in the arid ocean, we stash
food and drink for our return, further lightening our loads.

 
          
And
I fall in love with one of the explorers, Josep.
Likewise, he
with me.
But this is wrong. He's a man of my own home town. We could
only have fallen in love by being so far removed from the breath of the river.
By being so isolated.

 
          
Isolated!
Yet always we are in such close proximity to four other Gangee men (who mustn't
guess; yet do) that we can do nothing at all about our love. This is both a
torment and a blessing. We bum with frustration and yearning and dread, as
surely as we bum in the heat by day. To me Josep seems uniquely brave and
beautiful.