The Short Life Part 3

"That was quick."

"Yeah." The boy was holding a spray of flowering shrub and his hand pa.s.sed casually over the flowers in a light caress. "Say, hasn't this flower got a sweet smell, Uncle Phil? Here, smell it."

"It's a pretty flower, Timmy, but that stuff has no perfume." He accepted the branch automatically, lifted it to his nostrils.

Time stopped.

He thought he felt a thump against the side of the car, but the impression faded before it was fully born. In a remote corner of his mind the ticking of his watch sounded as a cold, measured rhythm, a metronome with delusions of syncopation. He sat motionless, his forearm resting on the steering wheel, the spray of blossoms caressing his cheek, his mind stunned by the anaesthetic he drew in with each breath.

He was as one lost in thought, his eyes open but unseeing, observing but not interpreting.

There was no sense of duration, of the pa.s.sage of seconds or minutes.

There was only a dream in which, suddenly, a gentle mind made its presence known. Concepts tapped lightly at his own mind and an automatic process of interpretation winnowed and equated until a gentle voice seemed to speak. The words were few, merely computed a.s.sociations keyed to understanding, and with them were perfectly and intimately synchronized fragments of emotion and vision, softly was.h.i.+ng over the surface of his mind.

_(Urgency) Attend--attend! Challonari! Attend!_

An impression of convolutions drifted through his mind--a shape, perhaps, and a color. He felt no curiosity, and let the impression drift. As a sunbather drowsing on a crowded beach, hearing the background hum of the crowd and now and then a more clearly spoken phrase, so he caught the edge of this communication. It was not for him. A second mind entered ... _was_ it a mind? Yes, and yet very different. It was strong, but limited--perhaps childlike, in some ways.

Alive after a fas.h.i.+on, it was receptive of emotion up to a point and even capable of emotion--up to a point. It seemed an embryo mind, in some ways well developed and in others with no potential whatever.

(RELIEF) IDENt.i.tY BLURRED ... KNOW/NOT KNOW. (PERPLEXITY) NO PRECEDENT ... REQUIRE INSTRUCTIONS. (CONFIDENCE/TRUST) INSTRUCT PLEASE.

_Instructions (Decisive) Sleep ... sleep ... sleep._

(AGITATION) IDENt.i.tY NOT MENTOR ... INSTRUCTIONS INVOLVE BASIC DISOBEDIENCE (CONFUSION/DISTRESS) CANNOT OBEY/DISOBEY ... DILEMMA INSOLUBLE TO CHALLONARI (PLEADING) REVISE INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE.

_(Sorrow) Cannot revise. Ident.i.ty mentor/not mentor.

Challonari must obey ident.i.ty._

(GREAT AGITATION) ACCEPT IDENt.i.tY MENTOR/NOT MENTOR ...

CANNOT RECONCILE BASIC CONFLICTS ... CANNOT OBEY/DISOBEY (SUDDEN HOPE) LOGICAL DIVERGENCE PERMISSIBLE ... SIMPLIFY EXPLANATION PLEASE.

_(Reluctance/hesitation) Intelligent ident.i.ties here ...

unable communicate ... Challonari. Result ... so. (Pain) Communication ... so. (Wave pattern)._

(UNHESITATING) ILLOGICAL/REJECT ... COMMUNICATION DESCRIBED IMPOSSIBLY LIMITED ... INCONSISTENT/HIGH-LEVEL INTELLIGENCE.

_Challonari limited ... must accept. (Command) Challonari sleep ... sleep ... sleep._

(EXTREME AGITATION) CANNOT/MUST OBEY.

_(Command/pity) Challonari has destroyed intelligence! Must sleep ... sleep ... sleep!_

(AGONY ... HORROR/CONFLICT ... INSANITY).

_Challonari! (No response. Grief) Ultimate withdrawal ...

Challonari! Challonari!_

Phil frowned, looking at his empty hand. It seemed to him that the spray of flowers had inexplicably vanished. There was an elusive sense of disorientation, a feeling of something overlooked. There was the tag-end of a remembered grief. There was--

"You were right, Uncle Phil. They have no scent."

"What?" He looked around blankly, saw Timmy tossing the spray aside.

"Oh ... there it is. I thought I ... uh ... forget what I was going to say." Two voices that were not voices--a dream, a despairing cry. An elusive memory faded, faded. "There's mud on your cheek, Timmy. Did you fall?"

"No ... that is, yes." Timmy scrubbed his cheek industriously.

"Make up your mind. Hurt yourself?"

"No, I'm all right."

"Well, whip around to the other side and hop in." Phil watched him in the rear-view mirror and noted the hasty dab at moist eyes. It seemed like a significant giveaway, but he couldn't imagine why. "Get your mutt in and let's go."

"Come on, Homer." The boy settled himself with his dog between his feet, and Phil laughed, his good spirits returned. He turned the car without much trouble and they b.u.mped back over the wagon ruts.

"Why do you call him Homer, Timmy?"

"Well, on account of the Odyssey, you know."

"I see. Some day when I have a clear mind and a couple of hours to spare, you can explain the connection between Homer's Odyssey and a flea-bitten semi-airdale."

They rode in silence for a while, until the dirt road changed to pavement. Phil let his thoughts wander idly, thinking of nothing in particular. Sc.r.a.ps of this and that seemed to float to the surface and drift out of reach before he could capture them, had he been interested in trying. One fragment somehow caught in an eddy and remained in sight long enough to draw his attention.

"Challonari," he said, wonderingly, and almost ditched them as stabbing pain shot through his temples. He held the wheel with one hand, the other clapped for a moment to his brow. "Don't do that!" he snapped angrily.

"W-what, Uncle Phil?"

"Sorry, Timmy, I didn't mean you. I don't know who I meant ... or, rather, _what_ I meant, of course. I seem to be pretty confused tonight.

I even startled poor old Homer with that swerve. Get his muddy feet off the cus.h.i.+ons, Timmy." Homer sank back obediently to his usual place between Timmy's feet, but his muzzle rested on the boy's muddied knees and his brown eyes regarded both of them at the same time. Apparently he was not convinced that the upheavals were over.

"What does 'challonari' mean, Uncle Phil?"

"Oh ... that. Just something that came to mind."

"But what does it mean?"

"I don't really know, Timmy ... something about convolutions or a convoluted shape, I think, but that's only part of it. There are connotations of ... of intelligence? No ... ridiculous. How can you have a convoluted intelligence? But a brain is convoluted and to a greater or lesser degree intelligent. The ... um ... the question of degree comes into it, I think. A brain of limited intelligence, then, though d.a.m.ned if I know why I think of it as limited. Challonari ... challonari. It's not English and it doesn't sound like a technical word, but I must have heard it in connection with something ... quite recently, too."

"Sort of rhymes with 's.h.i.+varee.'"

"Only sort-of, Timmy. You wouldn't make a good poet.

s.h.i.+varee--challonari. I mentioned s.h.i.+varee when we were talking about people getting lost in the bush, didn't I? Did it have some connection with that? But how?"