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either a given weight of any stable element, an area on a free
Orbital, or a computer of a given speed and capacity. The Aoish guaranteed the
conversion and never defaulted, and although the rate of exchange could
sometimes vary to a greater extent than was officially allowed for - as it had
during the Idiran-Culture war - on the whole the real and theoretical value of
the currency remained predictable enough for it to be a safe, secure hedge
against uncertain times, rather than a speculator's dream. Rumour - as ever,
contrary enough to be suspiciously believable - had it that the group in the
galaxy which possessed the greatest hoard of the coins was the Culture; the
most militantly unmoneyed society on the civilised scene. Horza didn't really
believe that rumour either, though; in fact he thought that it was just the
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sort of rumour the Culture would spread about itself.
He pushed the coins away into a pocket inside his blouse as he saw Kraiklyn
reaching to the centre of the game table and toss some coins into the large
pile already there. Watching carefully now, the Changer made his way round to
the nearest money-changer's bar, got eight Hundredths for his single Tenth (an
exorbitant rate of commission, even by Vavatch standards) and used some of the
change to bribe his way into a terrace with some unoccupied couches. There he
plugged into
Kraiklyn's thoughts.
Who are you? The question leapt out at him, into him.
The sensation was one of vertigo, a stunning dizziness, a vastly magnified
equivalent of the disorientation which sometimes affects the eyes when they
fasten on a simple and regular pattern, and the brain mistakes its distance
from that pattern, the false focus seeming to pull at the eyes, muscles
against nerves, reality against assumptions. His head did not swim; it seemed
to sink, foundering, struggling.
Who are you? (Who am I?) Who are you?
Slam, slam, slam: the sound of the barrage falling, the sound of doors
closing; attack and incarceration, explosion and collapse together.
Just a little accident. A slight mistake. One of those things. A game of
Damage, and a high-
tech impressionist . . . unfortunate combination. Two harmless chemicals
which, when mixed - . . .
Feedback, a howl like pain, and something breaking . . .
A mind between mirrors. He was drowning in his own reflection (something
breaking), falling through. One fading part of him - the part which didn't
sleep? Yes? No? - screamed from down the deep, dark pit, as it fell: Changer .
. . Changer . . . Change - . . . (eee) . . .
. . . The sound faded, whisper-quieted, became the wind-moan of stale air
through dead trees on a barren midnight solstice, the soul's midwinter in some
calm, hard place.
He knew -
(Start again . . . )
Somebody knew that somewhere a man sat in a seat, in a big hall in a city in .
. . on a big place, a big threatened place; and the man was playing . . .
playing a game (a game which killed).
The man still there, living and breathing . . . But his eyes did not see, his
ears did not hear.
He had one sense now: this one, inside here, fastened . . . inside here.
Whisper: Who am I?
There'd been a little accident (life a succession of same; evolution dependent
on garbling;
all progress a function of getting things wrong) . . .
He (and forget who this 'he' is, just accept the nameless term while this
equation works itself out) . . . he is the man in the chair in the hall on the
big place, fallen somewhere inside himself, somewhere inside . . . another
one. A double, a copy, somebody pretending to be him.
. . . But something wrong with this theory . . .
(Start again . . . .)
Marshal forces.
Need clues, reference points, something to hold onto.
Memory of a cell dividing, seen in time lapse, the very start of independent
life, though still dependent. Hold that image.
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Words (names); need words.
Not yet, but . . . something about turning inside out; a place . . .
What am I looking for?
Mind.
Whose?
(Silence)
Whose?
(Silence)
Whose? . . .
(Silence)
( . . . Start again. . . . ) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]