Barrington Bayley - The Pillars of Eternity

But in what sense was he now being moved? He sensed that it was not just in time – perhaps not in time at all. After scant seconds all went black. He seemed to be hurtling down a dark tunnel. Then he was still, but in darkness, into which a yellow glow spread slowly.

The darkness fled, revealing that he stood in a dome-shaped chamber. Around him stood five or six of the ibis-headed creatures he had seen in the time-gem. They regarded him calmly, with beady eyes, their beaklike faces gleaming. They were, on average, a little shorter than a man, and their thin, smoothly muscled, olive-colored bodies appeared youthful, like the bodies of young girls – for, he noticed, they all lacked anything resembling male sex organs. The silver circlets around their waists, which comprised their only adornment, seemed, now that Boaz saw them more closely, to be in ceaseless motion, as if made of flowing quicksilver.

Despite the ordeal he had just been through, he did not feel particularly afraid of them. It was, however, a habituated response. He had encountered intelligent aliens several times before, and had come to learn that in general they were apt to offer him less threat than were strangers of his own species.

He did, on the other hand, feel awe. These were the beings who could manipulate time, to whom time was no more than an additional spatial dimension. They were, in other words, four-dimensional beings .

In comparison with ordinary creatures like Boaz, who crawled like worms from one moment to the next, that made them like gods. Were they, in fact, gods? And was not the ibis head, he recalled with an inward shudder, a symbol of the ancient god Thoth, said to have shown and explained the colonnader card pack to mankind long ago, before the technical age?

Once Boaz had asked Madrigo if there were gods. Madrigo had answered: ‘There may be; it has not been settled. But if there are then they are transient and limited beings, as we are. More intelligent, more potent, with a consciousness whose relation to matter is perhaps somewhat different from ours, but that is all. One should not,’ he had added, ‘be afraid of any entity.’

‘They will not be immortal?’ Boaz had asked.

‘All beings are immortal,’ Madrigo had reminded him. ‘But like us, the gods must live and die.’

The creature facing Boaz made a cryptic gesture, touching a finger to its flattened forehead. With the same flowing motion it turned, with an open hand indicating the curved wall behind it. Then the entire group turned, and filed out of the chamber to Boaz’s left.

Boaz could not see the door they exited by. But in front of him, where there had been only blank wall a moment before, there was now an arched opening. A purple cloth screened the opening, waving slightly as if in a breeze. He stepped forward, touched the cloth – which wasn’t there. There was just the feeling of something silky, like warm oil, touching his skin, and his hand went right through.

Boldly he walked through the screen, and stopped. He had entered a circular chamber like the first, but smaller. The walls and curved roof were of the same texture he had seen in the ‘city’ – indeed, Boaz guessed that he was in fact back in the mysterious complex. This chamber, however, contained more by way of furniture, though he could only guess at the functions of the three or four cabinet-like objects standing on the floor.

On a raised, cushioned dais in the center of the room there sat, cross-legged, another of the ibis-headed aliens. At first sight it seemed indistinguishable from the others. But for some reason, as he looked at it, Boaz gained an impression of immense age and experience. Furthermore, as the beady, expressionless eyes stared back, he felt like a puddle into which some lofty entity was poking a finger, so that the ripples radiated out into every crevice of his being and were reflected back. There was absolutely no doubt of it: the creature was inspecting his mind.

‘Come in, little Mudworm.’

Again the hated nickname which, among so many other factors, had helped make his life a misery in the Corsair warrens.

The voice was mature, full, human, – and male. Hearing it was a trifle odd. One imagined it was spoken by the creature facing him, but the curved, tubelike beak was clearly unsuited to human speech, and the creature’s head had not moved. The voice had emanated from empty air.

In spite of the irrational displeasure he felt at the reference to his early years, excitement mounted in Boaz. He had been given an interview with the inhabitants of Meirjain – with the time-gods, as he already thought of them! He could ask questions! He was close to learning what he needed to know!

‘So you know our language,’ he began.

‘Or you have been made to understand ours. What difference does it make? Come closer, Mudworm. Do not hover by the door.’

‘My name is Joachim Boaz,’ Boaz said sternly. But he obeyed, moving closer. The voice chuckled.

‘Aggressive self-assertiveness, as ever with your species. Very well, Joachim Boaz, as you will.’

‘What shall I call you?’ Boaz asked.

‘I am myself. I need no name. Does that answer sound familiar to you?’

‘No.’

‘It should. It is similar to an answer you once gave when asked the name of your ship.’

‘But we are not ships.’

‘Are you not? What are you without one?’

The creature clearly knew all about him. It was disconcerting to be so mentally naked. ‘I have questions,’ Boaz said. ‘But you already know what they are.’

‘You have questions. But discourse cannot be tacit. The mind must express itself.’

Boaz almost smiled. It was a remark Madrigo himself might have made. The thought provoked Boaz into dipping his hand in a pocket and coming out with the colonnader pack. Expertly he flipped through the cards until coming to the Stellar Realm, which showed a naked woman pouring out water onto a landscape from two jugs. Behind her, an ibis was taking flight from an evergreen tree.

He held out the card before the Meirjain creature, pointing to the ibis. ‘First,’ he said excitedly, ‘did your species have contact with mine long ago? This picture is centuries old. Note the head of the bird. It symbolizes the god of all the sciences. Perhaps you taught us the beginnings….’

His voice trailed off. The ibis-headed man leaned forward and inspected the card. ‘Yes, there is certainly a resemblance,’ the voice said. ‘But it means nothing. It is simply a matter of convergent evolution, arising from the manner of feeding. The general shape of my head is a commonly occurring one, as is the shape of yours. As for whether any of my colleagues visited your planets long ago, I have no idea. You have seen the big ships outside? They were mainly used for visiting foreign galaxies. But they have been laid up for a long time now.’

Slowly Boaz put away the cards. He had forgotten all about Romrey and the others. The big, big question hung in his mind, and he was afraid to speak it.

He stood silent, dumb. The ibis-headed man’s artificial voice spoke again, softly.

‘Yes, I can help you, Joachim Boaz. But I wonder if you really want it, little Mudworm.’

‘You know I want it!’ Boaz burst out. ‘It is all I want. You have conquered time! You can tell me how—’

He stopped, realizing the ridiculousness of his position, seeing how he had been reduced to helplessness. Why should these creatures help him? What interest had they in his mad scheme? And yet there was no way he could disguise his intention.

‘Yes?’ the voice said. ‘I can tell you how to alter time, you were about to say? There I can only disappoint you, Joachim Boaz. We cannot alter time, whether past, present or future. Time is inexorable.’