Kiln People Part 45

"Him? Oh, Beta works hard, I'll give him that much. He's the one with hungers. Ambitions. Voracious appet.i.tes.

"And one more thing," she added. "He gets to remember."

50.

Through a Simulacrum, Darkly ... or, a glazier in the gla.s.s ...

I should feel honored. This really is genius-level stuff.

It's apparent in the amplified Standing Wave that I'm now part of, filling a s.p.a.ce far greater than the body-limited ripples that are contained within a typical golem. It pulses and throbs with power that I never before imagined.

Yosil Maharal must have known that he was on the verge of an epochal breakthrough, both beautiful and terrifying. And that terror did its work on him ... on the solipsistic cowardice that comes embedded with Smersh-Foxleitner syndrome. Naked fear battled the awe-drenched draw of an unparalleled opportunity to change the world, and that conflict tipped him the rest of the way into madness.

A madness that his ghost manifests in spades, ranting as he cranks up the soul-stretching machinery, preparing me/us for my/our a.s.signed role as a carrier wave carrier wave -- a finely tuned vehicle for transporting the Yosil-soul to Olympian grandeur ... -- a finely tuned vehicle for transporting the Yosil-soul to Olympian grandeur ...

... even as echoes of distant gunfire penetrate from some nearby subterranean pa.s.sageway, creeping closer by the minute.

"You know, Morris, it's awful how people take miracles for granted. TwenCenners adapted to faster faster lives, because of jets and cars. Our grandparents could fetch any book by Internet. We got used to living in lives, because of jets and cars. Our grandparents could fetch any book by Internet. We got used to living in parallel parallel -- the convenience of being in several places at once. For two generations we've just tweaked golemtech, making minor improvements, never pus.h.i.+ng beyond the physique-limited vision of Aeneas Kaolin's clay dolls. -- the convenience of being in several places at once. For two generations we've just tweaked golemtech, making minor improvements, never pus.h.i.+ng beyond the physique-limited vision of Aeneas Kaolin's clay dolls.

"Such ba.n.a.lity! People receive a splendid gift, then lack the will or vision to exploit it fully!"

Ah yes, contempt for the ma.s.ses, one of the lovelier Smersh-Foxleitner symptoms. Better not answer, though. He thinks I'm already largely subsumed into the giant, amplified waveform of the glazier beam -- the augmented spiritual field that he designed to utilize the perfect duplicating talent of Albert Morris, while deleting the ego-consciousness that made Albert special to himself.

Something's gone wrong with his plan. It must have, since I I am still here. Smeared thin, rolled up, sliced, and then mirror-multiplied ten thousandfold ... in fact, there seems to be more me than ever! Tickled and driven by electric currents. Vibrating in a dozen dimensions and sensitive to countless things I never before noticed before -- like a myriad flakes of crystalline mica, floating like glittery diatoms within the surrounding ocean of stone. am still here. Smeared thin, rolled up, sliced, and then mirror-multiplied ten thousandfold ... in fact, there seems to be more me than ever! Tickled and driven by electric currents. Vibrating in a dozen dimensions and sensitive to countless things I never before noticed before -- like a myriad flakes of crystalline mica, floating like glittery diatoms within the surrounding ocean of stone.

It is is an ocean, of magma that flowed here ages ago. The mountains are waves. I feel this one still moving, slower now, having cooled and congealed. But everywhere, still in motion. an ocean, of magma that flowed here ages ago. The mountains are waves. I feel this one still moving, slower now, having cooled and congealed. But everywhere, still in motion.

I can even start to stretch my perceptions beyond this mountain, reaching out toward polyspectral sparkles that seem to glimmer in the distance, just beyond clear reckoning, like tendrils of delicate smoke ... or like fireflies that tremble at my touch ...

Metaphors fail me. Am I sensing other people? Other souls souls beyond this underground lab? beyond this underground lab?

It's an austere, terrifying sensation. A reminder of something we all suppress most of the time, because it hurts so much.

The stark loneliness of individuality.

The essential alienness alienness of others. of others.

And of the universe itself.

"The real driver is pleasure," ditYosil continues while nudging instrument settings toward perfect synchronization. "Take the entertainment industry back in one-body days. People wanted to watch what what they wanted, they wanted, when when they wanted. Demand brought a.n.a.log videotape into being, three decades before digital technology was ready to do the job right. A ridiculous, kludge solution using magnetic heads and noisy whirling parts, yet VCRs sold by the millions so that people could copy and play whatever they desired. they wanted. Demand brought a.n.a.log videotape into being, three decades before digital technology was ready to do the job right. A ridiculous, kludge solution using magnetic heads and noisy whirling parts, yet VCRs sold by the millions so that people could copy and play whatever they desired.

"Doesn't that sound like dittoing in our time, Morris? A clumsy, ornate industry that s.h.i.+ps hundreds of millions of intricate clay-a.n.a.log devices all over the world, every day. The complexity! The resources and cash flow! Yet people pay, gladly, because it lets them be wherever they want, whenever they desire.

"A fabulous, flamboyant industry, and my good friend Aeneas Kaolin counts on it going on forever.

"But it will end soon, won't it, Morris? Because the crucial breakthroughs are ready at last. Like digital finally overwhelming a.n.a.log recording. Like jet planes outracing the horse. After we're done tonight, things will never be the same."

The pendulum sways, rhythmically cutting through my/our amplified Standing Wave, plucking complex harmonies with every sweep. Soon, ditYosil will climb aboard and his ghastly personality will start drawing all the stored-up power, taming it, preparing to ride the glazier beam toward deification.

If only that were all that lay at stake, I'd almost be happy to help. I'm expendable -- a golem knows it. And much as I dislike Maharal's ghost for its callous smugness, the scientific wonder of this experiment might make my sacrifice seem almost reasonable. At one level I know he's right. Humanity has been marking time, mired in an orgy of self-involvement, squandering vast resources on teeny personal satisfactions that don't add up to much at all.

There's something much bigger awaiting us. I can tell, sensing it now with growing certainty as the glazier amplification mounts. Maharal -- no matter how twisted by sickness -- had the vision to know this. And the brilliance to hunt down a hidden door.

Yes, he's made a mistake of some sort. My ego hasn't gone away as planned. Instead of leaving only a perfect copying template behind -- a healthy root substrate for his diseased soul to graft onto -- my sense of selfness seems to grow and expand with each pa.s.sing minute, in ways that no longer seem painful but more akin to voluptuous bliss.

And for the first time it occurs to me ... this may not be a bad thing. In fact -- In fact, I'm starting to wonder. Who is in the best position to exploit this magnificent glazier, when it finally attains full power? Its inventor? The one who understands the theory?

Or the one who dwells within within the ever-growing Standing Wave? The one who makes it possible by virtue of raw duplicating talent? The one who, you might say, was born for it? the ever-growing Standing Wave? The one who makes it possible by virtue of raw duplicating talent? The one who, you might say, was born for it?

Hey, theoretical understanding is overrated. Anyway, as we/I amplify, grow, and spread, I can start to feel Maharal's knowledge, like a riffling breeze of index cards, all aflurry nearby, close enough to reach out and access -- Who says he he should be the rider and should be the rider and I I the steed? the steed?

Why not the other way around?

51.

Ceiling Fate ... as Greenie falls in ...

It's kind of hard to move about when half of you has fallen off or broken down.

Crushed and burned, shrunken and diminished, I had only partial function in one leg to help me haul myself upward along the fuselage of the skycycle, perching next to its c.o.c.kpit, leaning in to fumble at whatever b.u.t.tons I could reach. I was trying for the radio, to transmit a general distress call. But after a few encouraging bloops and beeps and instrument flashes, what I somehow triggered was the autopilot!

"Emergency escape procedure activated," a voice announced, loud enough to make out through seared and blasted ears. My torso felt a rumble as the engine reignited. a voice announced, loud enough to make out through seared and blasted ears. My torso felt a rumble as the engine reignited. "Closing canopy. Prepare for lift." "Closing canopy. Prepare for lift."

I was still dazed and muddled from the nightmare ride that brought me here, so it took a couple of seconds to realize -- or notice the gla.s.s bubble swinging down. I managed to pull my head back in time, but not my left arm, which got pinned in that moment of indecision.

d.a.m.n! I was used to pain by then, but this crus.h.i.+ng sensation was ghastly as the transparent canopy tried to squeeze shut. For some reason it didn't sense my arm was in the way. A malfunction? Or did Beta program the unit not to care about trivial clay limbs when a quick getaway was at stake? All I could do -- while the lift ducts sandblasted grit into the air -- was send commands for my trapped left hand to keep stabbing b.u.t.tons, hoping to shut it off. I was used to pain by then, but this crus.h.i.+ng sensation was ghastly as the transparent canopy tried to squeeze shut. For some reason it didn't sense my arm was in the way. A malfunction? Or did Beta program the unit not to care about trivial clay limbs when a quick getaway was at stake? All I could do -- while the lift ducts sandblasted grit into the air -- was send commands for my trapped left hand to keep stabbing b.u.t.tons, hoping to shut it off.

Instead, my efforts gave the Harley conniptions! It bucked and jittered, with each jerk tearing agonizingly at my arm as the gla.s.s bubble tried to close. Why couldn't the idiot machine sense that no one was aboard! Perhaps it also served Beta as a pilotless courier, conveying small objects, like severed heads.

What little feeling I had in my left leg sensed the ground's queasy departure. I was flying again!

More b.u.t.tons and switches fell before my chopping hand, which kept swinging long after an organic arm would have nerves and circulation pinched off. All the clay version needed was some residual connection for me to order a splurge of all its remaining elan. elan. The limb flung wildly, seeking things to twist and pull, until the canopy's steady guillotine pressure finally tore through. The limb flung wildly, seeking things to twist and pull, until the canopy's steady guillotine pressure finally tore through.

The weight of my body did the rest. I looked down -- -- about fifteen or twenty meters, almost straight down to the roof of Maharal's cabin.

Frantically twisting during my plummet, I managed to strike the s.h.i.+ngles first with my useless right leg.

Did you ever have that feeling of viewing life through the wrong end of a telescope? Everything from the moment of impact seemed to happen in a fog of dulled senses -- the noise and jarring force were distant things, happening to someone else. Even time felt softened as another of those eerie otherness otherness waves came over me. I could swear the substance of that termite-eaten roof dissolved as I pa.s.sed right through, floating toward the floor amid cottony clouds of splinters, dust, insects, and other debris. waves came over me. I could swear the substance of that termite-eaten roof dissolved as I pa.s.sed right through, floating toward the floor amid cottony clouds of splinters, dust, insects, and other debris.

Landing on my back, I heard an awful thud. But other senses disagreed. To touch, it felt like rebounding off the surface tension of a soap bubble, hardly jarring at all. An illusion, of course, for I could tell that more chunks of me had broken off.

Bottomed out at last, I stared up at a ragged circle of sky -- rimmed by still-crumbling rafters. Soon the dust haze cleared enough to glimpse Beta's poor skyscooter almost directly overhead, brighter but more frantic than the surrounding stars. Flaming extravagantly, the damaged machine fought to right itself, then turned laboriously to head off. Westward, Westward, I guessed from a glimpse of Sagittarius, and from the orientation of the cabin walls. I guessed from a glimpse of Sagittarius, and from the orientation of the cabin walls. A good choice, if you're trying to get help ... or to be destroyed. A good choice, if you're trying to get help ... or to be destroyed.

Speaking of destruction, I saw little option but to write off this particular branching of the multilimbed life tree of one Albert Morris. Tiredness didn't begin to describe how I felt. What little of me could feel anything at all.

There was no "salmon urge" anymore. Just the siren song of slurry ... the beckoning of the recycling bin, calling me to rejoin the great clay circle, in confident hope that my physical substance may yet find some better use, in a luckier ditto.

But not one who's seen or done more with its life, I thought, finding consolation. It had been interesting, the last few days. I had few regrets. I thought, finding consolation. It had been interesting, the last few days. I had few regrets.

Except that Clara will never hear the whole story ...

Yeah. That was too bad, I agreed.

... and now the bad guys will win. and now the bad guys will win.

Aw, man. Whatever nagging inner voice had to put in that last bit? What guilt-tripping nag? If I could, I'd tear it out! Just shut up and let me die, I groused.

You gonna just lie there and let 'em get away with it?

c.r.a.p. I didn't have to take this from some obsessive soul corner of a cheap-model golem who was misborn a frankie ... became a ghost ... and any moment was about to graduate to melting corpse.

Who's a corpse? Speak for yourself.

Stunning wit, that triple irony. Speak for myself, indeed. And though I tried hard to ignore the little voice, something surprising happened. My right hand and arm moved, moved, lifting slowly till five trembling fingers came within sight of my good eye. Then my left leg twitched. Without conscious command, but reacting to imprinted habits a million years old, they started cooperating with each other, fumbling to s.h.i.+ft my weight, then pus.h.i.+ng to turn me over. lifting slowly till five trembling fingers came within sight of my good eye. Then my left leg twitched. Without conscious command, but reacting to imprinted habits a million years old, they started cooperating with each other, fumbling to s.h.i.+ft my weight, then pus.h.i.+ng to turn me over.

Oh well. Might as well help.

As I've said, Albert was always pigheaded, obstinate, persistent -- and I guess that endearing trait came through on Tuesday morning when he made me, rolling his soul into this inert doll and willing it to move ... with much the same sanguine hopefulness as ancient Sumerian scribes who long ago held that each clay impression manifested something sacred and magical. A brief but potent shove back against the surrounding darkness.

So I crawled, using one arm and a half-usable leg to haul what was left of me past broken furniture and tattered western-motif rugs, through an open door with a shattered lock and then over fresh footprints that led down a long, dusty hallway -- a corridor that seemed to push right into the mountain. Following Beta.

What else could I do, since it seemed quite clear that I was too stubborn to die?

52.

Prototypes ... as realAl peels away layers ...

There had been clues. Too subtle for the likes of me, but somebody smarter might have caught on ages ago.

Beta -- the name implied "number two" or a second version. Ritu's middle name was Liza -- the name implied "number two" or a second version. Ritu's middle name was Lizabetha. And in mythology, Maharal -- the name her father chose to adopt before she was born -- had been a t.i.tle given to the greatest late medieval maker of golems ... while another reverent appellation for one with that skill was Betalel or Betzalel. And in mythology, Maharal -- the name her father chose to adopt before she was born -- had been a t.i.tle given to the greatest late medieval maker of golems ... while another reverent appellation for one with that skill was Betalel or Betzalel.

And so it went, on and on. The sort of childish puzzle-hints that made you groan, both over your own stupidity and the comic book immaturity of it all.

Another reason I never caught on? Maybe because I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned at heart. The gender difference between lovely-reserved Ritu and the prodigally flamboyant Beta shouldn't have fooled a worldly fellow like me, who's seen plenty of ostentatious cross-roxing in his time. The fact that it did trick me proves what a conservative old fart I really am, dammit. Unwarranted a.s.sumptions are the bane of any private eye.

I still had trouble absorbing this, trying desperately to recall what I've learned over the years about Multiple Personality Disorder, or MPD.

It's not an either-or thing. Most people experience the fluid overlap of amorphous subselves from time to time, debating or contesting internally when awkward decisions have to be made -- imagining inner dialogues till the conflict is resolved. They do this without engendering any lasting fracture or disturbing the illusion of a single, unified ident.i.ty. At the opposite extreme are those with mental schisms that are rigid, adamant, and even self-hateful, erecting permanent personas who hold opposing values, voices, and names, battling each other over control.

You seldom ran across truly blatant examples back in pre-kilning days, outside of a few famous case studies and some movie exaggerations, because one body and brain don't offer enough room! Confined to a single cranium, one dominant character-facade usually held fierce command. If others lurked -- products of trauma perhaps, or neural injury -- they'd be reduced to waging guerrilla wars of spite or life sabotage from below.

Dittoing changed all that. Though MPD is still rare, I've seen imprinting unleash the unexpected from time to time. Some peculiarity that lay dormant or suppressed in the original would burst forth in a duplicate, unleashed to manifest in ditto form.

But never anything as extreme as this Ritu/Beta flipflop! One in which the original person -- a seemingly competent professional -- somehow remained unaware of the very existence of her alter ego, even though it hijacked nearly every ditto that she made.

As a mere criminalist, I'm no expert psych-diagnostician. Guessing, I pondered a possible link to Yang-Pimintel disease. Possibly a variant of Smersh-Foxleitner, or a rare and dangerous variety of Moral Orthogonality syndrome. Frightening stuff! Especially since a few of these disorders show significant a.s.sociation with the worst kind of genius. The persuasively self-deceptive kind, fas.h.i.+oning brilliantly amoral rationalizations for any crime.

History shows that some of these psychopathologies have been heritable, pa.s.sing from one generation to the next. It could explain why I've been outcla.s.sed from the very start.

Much of this raced through my mind a few seconds after Ritu obliquely revealed the truth through her parable of the chrysalis. parable of the chrysalis. I wanted to stand and stare, to blink in a fugue of dismayed realization, stammering incoherent questions -- in other words, all the time-honored ways that folks react to extreme surprise. But there wasn't time to do any of that, only to resume our hurried march. What choice did we have, with one platoon of Betas in front of us, fighting their ahead way through the tunnel, and a contingent of reinforcements pressing close behind? I wanted to stand and stare, to blink in a fugue of dismayed realization, stammering incoherent questions -- in other words, all the time-honored ways that folks react to extreme surprise. But there wasn't time to do any of that, only to resume our hurried march. What choice did we have, with one platoon of Betas in front of us, fighting their ahead way through the tunnel, and a contingent of reinforcements pressing close behind?

I finally understood why the two groups of Beta-drones had left us alone so far, allowing the gap around us to remain intact. Ritu -- their archie and reproducer -- was now safely pinned right where they wanted, available in case more dittos had to be made. Till then, they had no reason to hara.s.s her any further. Indeed, they would be fiercely devoted to protecting her physical welfare.

I tried frantically to make sense of this.

Ritu always had the power to destroy Beta, by staying off copying machines! If the b.u.t.terfly refused to lay any more eggs, there'd soon be no more chomping caterpillars.

To protect against that, paranoid Beta would have stashed extra frozen copies all over town. I met one of them behind the Teller Building, after Tuesday's raid, when it spoke about someone "taking over my operations ... " "taking over my operations ... " Did one of those backup copies follow us here to force Ritu onto an imprinter? Did one of those backup copies follow us here to force Ritu onto an imprinter?

Why, in all the time since we set out on Tuesday night, did Ritu never warn me about this!

All right, at one point she mentioned that her dittos were "unreliable," that most of them went missing, unaccountably. Even the fraction who loyally performed their a.s.signed ch.o.r.es only brought home partial memories, because -- I now knew -- the missing experiences were seized and stored away by the proto-Beta personality, hiding in her brain. From Ritu's point of view, dittoing must have seemed a horribly inefficient and unsatisfying process, even before she learned the truth about Beta.

In that case, I wondered, I wondered, why do it at all? why do it at all?

Rationalizations. People are talented at coming up with reasons to keep doing stupid things. Perhaps she worried about the modern bigotry toward those who cannot ditto -- the unkind implication that such folks are barren, with no soul to copy.

Or she might have kept imprinting because an official of Universal Kilns has has to send out duplicates, even if it takes four tries to make one that goes where it's told. Certainly she could afford the cost. to send out duplicates, even if it takes four tries to make one that goes where it's told. Certainly she could afford the cost.

Maybe she needed desperately to pretend she was like everybody else.

I guessed one more reason. A compulsion from below. Inner pressure that could only be satisfied by laying between the soul-probes, feeling them palp and ma.s.sage, pressing her Standing Wave sensually into wet clay. Something like an addiction, along with the denial blindness to to addiction that has always plagued junkies, of every kind. addiction that has always plagued junkies, of every kind.

No wonder it took years for her to admit her problem aloud.

I had been wondering how Beta managed to track us across open desert, then follow us past every security screen into a buried national security redoubt. The answer hit me. He did nothing of the sort! Beta simply lay quiescent inside inside Ritu, building pressure within her till the strain grew intolerable. At which point she slipped away from me and Corporal Chen, rus.h.i.+ng to one of the giant military autokilns we had seen. Loathing herself, like any addict giving in to a foul habit, she laid herself down, seeking relief between the floating tetragramatron tendrils, surrendering to her insistent, stronger half -- a master thief and desperate character, the sort of devil-may-care who dared all and defied every authority of the lawful outer world. Ritu, building pressure within her till the strain grew intolerable. At which point she slipped away from me and Corporal Chen, rus.h.i.+ng to one of the giant military autokilns we had seen. Loathing herself, like any addict giving in to a foul habit, she laid herself down, seeking relief between the floating tetragramatron tendrils, surrendering to her insistent, stronger half -- a master thief and desperate character, the sort of devil-may-care who dared all and defied every authority of the lawful outer world.

No wonder I was never able to connect Beta to a real person! Oh, the endless hours I spent in ebony form, laboriously noting and encoding fragments of Beta's speech and other personality quirks, sieving the Net in search of someone who used similar patterns of phrasing, syntax, and emphasis -- the sort of arduous slog that lets a plodding detective track down even the shrewdest arch criminal, given enough time.

Only all that work was wasted in this case. Because the villain had a perfect hiding place, and Ritu spoke with a voice-manner that was nothing at all like Beta's.