Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

"So," said Hatch, "I cannot venture out into the city to preach the doctrines of the Nu-chala-nuth, because the Free Corps would kill me if I did. So, first…"

"What will you do first?" said Senk.

"I will tell you in due course," said Hatch, who had absolutely no idea what he would do first. "But before I do any telling, I need the answers to some questions."

"Ask your questions," said Senk.

"Where did your face, name and personality come from?"

"Way back in the days of the Nexus," said Paraban Senk, "a master programmer designed the asma which runs the Combat College.

His name was Paraban Senk. It was Nexus policy that this particular asma should be equipped with a fully functional human personality which would take charge of the Combat College should that tutorial facility be separated from the Nexus. So – "

"So the master programmer designed this, this reserve personality in his own image," said Hatch.

"Precisely," said Senk. "When you talk to me, you talk, in effect, to that programmer. You talk to a citizen of the Nexus.

Next question."

Hatch took a deep breath then said:

"What was the true relationship between the Nexus and the Golden Gulag?"

"You were taught this as part of your political studies program when you were a child," said Senk.

"Regardless of what I may or may not have been taught," said Hatch, "I am still asking the question. What was the truth of that relationship?"

"The truth was stated to you in your political studies program," said Senk stiffly. "I have nothing more to add to that."

"So," said Hatch.

The Golden Gulag was the free enterprise prison empire which had run the planet of Olo Malan in the days of the Chasm Gates.

Hatch had studied the official accounts of the relationship between the Golden Gulag and the Nexus, and did not believe what he had read there. But it seemed that Paraban Senk believed the official line, or was not authorized to reveal the real truth, which meant that Hatch was surely condemned to live in ignorance of the facts.

"Next question," said Senk.

"How many planets have dorgis?" said Hatch.

"Very few," said Senk. "Dorgis were… dorgis were experimental."

"I thought as much," said Hatch.

"Next question."

Hatch tried to think of one, but drew a blank. He closed his eyes briefly and saw green jungle, metallic seas, the flaming smoke of aerial wreckage, a handful of confetti and the white stars of the Nexus.

Then he opened his eyes and said:

"Who killed Hiji Hanojo?"

"Why," said Senk, "you know the answer to that as well as I do."

"You mean you don't know," said Hatch.

"Let's not play games with each other," said Senk. "You killed him."

Asodo Hatch was quite taken aback by this.

"That's a nonsense!" said Hatch.

"You had motive and opportunity," said Senk. "You – "

"Go play this game in your own time," said Hatch. "Because I'm not interested."

"Very well," said Senk. "If you want to pretend yourself innocent, then pretend. In the meantime, if you've no more questions, then let's discuss our plans for the future."

"What time is it?" said Hatch. "Outside, I mean?"

"It is early afternoon," said Senk. "It is the early afternoon on the Day of Two Fishes."

"So I was dueling with Lupus Lon Oliver all through the night."

"And in the morning," said Senk.

"Then," said Hatch, "logically, my next step is to get to sleep, and that is exactly what I intend to do."

Senk was not at all pleased with this, but in the end had to acknowledge that Hatch's plan had a lot of wisdom. So Senk broke contact with Hatch, and Hatch laid himself down on his bed, and was plunged almost instantly into the deepest of sleeps.

Intelligence can be a defect, since intelligence can be bluffed. Consider the dangers of negotiating a passage past the guardians of an interdicted door. Dogs will give you no chance – they will tear out your throat regardless of your arguments. Human guards, on the other hand, can be bluffed or beguiled, or possibly bribed. Thus dogs are valued for their very stupidity, for with intelligence comes autonomy – and autonomy is very much a doubleedged blade. – from the Book of Negotiations Dorgi-dog, dorgi-dog, Catch me if you can;

Dorgi-dog, dorgi-dog

I'm the fastest man.

– Lupus Lon Oliver (at age seven) Asodo Hatch slept through the afternoon of the Day of Two Fishes, and slept solidly through the night that followed. At dawn on the Day of the Last Fish, the day before Dog Day, Asodo Hatch lay dreaming of Thaldonian Mathematics, of equations breeding and mutating in a warm sea of dogfish-ducks, of seagull-sharks and floating skulls. The skulls were purple, and, as the quills of shellfish plucked themselves to deliquescent music, the skulls became warthogs, and sunbloated smoothly into the brown melt of chocolate.

The sea smelt of opium.

The sea caressed his breasts, which were seven in number. He opened his mouth, his teeth ejecting themselves from his jaw as he did so. Just before plunging into a wash of blood, each tooth fired retro-rockets, first slowing itself, then disintegrating. A rain of small crabs came smattering-splattering down to the blood.

What was that bloodwash?

The blood was the bluesky of morning, the day's dawn's bluesky revelation. A pulsing sun of lemons and limes was heaving itself up over the rim of the world. It was – Morning?

Hatch woke himself, and found himself lying fully-dressed on his narrow bed in the cramping enclosure of his room in the Combat College, deep in the heartrock of Cap Foz Para Lash. Deep in the rock. He felt the weight of rock in his head.

"Wah!" said Hatch, lamenting the necessity to wake, to get out of bed and face the necessities of the future.

But he struggled out of bed and made his to the nearest ablutions block, where he woke himself properly with a stinging needle-shower. Then Hatch, who found himself possessed of a ferocious hunger, hastened to the Combat College cafeteria, which was strangely empty now that the graduating class had been exiled from Cap Foz Para Lash.

With the graduation ceremonies over, everyone else was theoretically on holiday. Some few had stayed, hiding out in the Combat College for fear of the violence which had lately been unleashed in Dalar ken Halvar, but most had returned to the world of the sun, compelled by either an eager excitement or a concern for their nearest and dearest.

At a table in the center of the canteen sat three familiar faces: Beggar Grim, Master Zoplin and Lord X'dex Paspilion, master of the Greater Tower of X-n'dix in the far-off land of X-zox Kalada (which distant land, in Hatch's long-considered opinion, was strictly imaginary).

"Hatch!" said Beggar Grim, greeting the new lord of the instructorship. "Our Teacher of the Way!"

"What?" said Hatch. "Are we not rid of you yet?"

"Your Combat College told us to go," said Grim. "But we reminded the thing that we are your honored guests."

"And?"

"It said it would consult with you then kick us out regardless."

"The kicking out I understand," said Hatch, "but the consultation seems needless."

"A plague on you, then," said Beggar Grim cheerfully. "May stones grow from your toenails and worms from your teeth."

"May you be infested with lampreys and may blind mice gnaw your sandals," said Master Zoplin.

"They despise you because they are commoners, not aristocrats," said the great Lord Paspilion. "As a ruler, I offer you the favor of the broad strath of X-zox Kalada. In that valley fair, all that flourishes is yours, and the welcome of the Greater Tower likewise."

"The welcome of breakfast is all I need for the moment," said Hatch.

Then the much-famished Hatch chose from the array of food which was laid out for the common delectation. There was everything from delicate Janjuladoola cuisine to a whale steak some four times the length of a man – this last a specialty prepared for the delight of the Ebrell Islanders. There were many things from the Nexus, in particular tofu – white, soft, tasteless, repulsive. Hatch chosen from the range of food cooked in its given form: chose rice which had been cooked as rice and frog cooked as frog.