Piers Anthony - Juxtaposition

“I’m not at all sure I want to cooperate with this emotionless machine. It has entirely disrupted my life, not stopping even at murder. What it put the Lady Blue through, and my friend Hulk—“ Stile shook his head. “This is not the sort of thing I care to tolerate.”

“I agree. But it seems the alternative is to let both frames crash.”

“Or so the cynical Oracle says,” Stile said. “That machine has shown itself to be completely unscrupulous in the manipulation of people and events. Why should I believe it now?”

“The Little Folk believe it,” Clef said. “They despise it and want to be rid of it, but they believe it. It is a machine, programmed for truth, not for conscience. So its methods are ruthless, but never has it lied. Its sole purpose is to negotiate the crisis with minimum havoc, and it seems that the grief inflicted on you was merely part of the most rational strategy. It has no human will to power and, once it returns to Proton, it will serve its master absolutely.”

“And who will its master be?”

“You, I think. I am called the Foreordained, but I believe the term is most applicable to you. Perhaps it was applied to me as a decoy, to prevent your premature destruction.” He smiled, appreciating the irony. “The Oracle prophesies that Blue will govern Proton in the difficult period following separation of the frames. As you may have gathered, there is no limit on information when it deals with me. The computer will help you govern Proton, and the book of magic will assist the one who takes power from the Adepts in Phaze.”

“And who is that?”

“I can’t get a clear answer there. It seems to be you—but of course you can’t be in both frames after they separate. I suspect the computer suffered a prophetic short circuit here. I can only conjecture that whichever frame you choose to remain in will be yours to govern.”

“I want only to remain in Phaze with the Lady Blue and Neysa and Kurrelgyre and my other friends. Yet I have already been treated to the prophecy that Phaze will not be safe until Blue departs it.”

Clef shook his head. “I wish I could give you a dear answer on this. Stile, but I can not. Your future is indistinct, perhaps undecided. It may be because you are the key figure, the one who will decide it. The uncertainty principle—“ He shrugged.

Unwillingly, Stile had to concede the probable truth of this complex of difficult notions. Machines acted the way they were designed and programmed to act—and why would the experts of three hundred years ago have de signed a machine to lie during a crisis? Surely they would not have. The very ruthlessness that Stile hated was an argument in favor of the Oracle’s legitimacy. “Where is this book of magic?” Stile asked at last. It was his grudging, oblique concession that he would have to go along with the Oracle and perform his part in this adjustment of frames.

“In Proton, under the control of the Game Computer.”

“What’s it doing in Proton? No one can use it there.”

“That is why it is in Proton. To protect the two tools of power from premature exploitation and dissipation, the powers-that-were placed them in the wrong frames. The book of magic is impotent in the science frame, and the computer is greatly reduced in power in the fantasy frame. In order to resolve the crisis, both must be restored to their proper frames.”

“So my job is to fetch the book and pass the computer back through?”

“These tasks are not simple ones,” Clef cautioned him. Stile, of course, had already gathered that. “The book should be no problem in the acquisition, for the Game Computer will turn it over to anyone possessing the code request. But the Citizens will do their utmost to stop it from being transported across the curtain. The computer —that relates to my job. It will cross only as the moving curtain intersects this location.”

“Your job? Exactly what will you do as the Fore ordained?”

“I will juxtapose the frames. That is the precondition for re-establishing parallelism.”

Stile shook his head. “Just when I thought I had it straight, I am confused again. It is my limited present understanding that the frames are about to separate, but can’t because of the imbalance of Protonite. I suppose their separation would tear that associated Phazite free and rupture our whole reality, like a knot pulled through a needlehole. But we have only to form a ball of Phazite and roll it across the curtain, where it will become the necessary Protonite. What’s this business about juxtaposition?”

“Nice notion, that ball. But you don’t just roll Phazite across the curtain. Phazite is magic; the curtain is really an effect of that magic, like a magnetic field associated with electric current or the splay of colors made by a prism in sunlight. Such a ball might rend the curtain, causing explosive mergence of the frames—“

“Ah. The dam bursting again.”

“Precisely. But you could roll it into the region of juxtaposition, and then on into the other frame. Two steps, letting one aspect of the curtain recover before straining the other. Like an air lock, perhaps.” He smiled. “What a fortune a multiton ball of Protonite would be worth!”

“So you juxtapose the frames. You are foreordained to perform this task so that I can perform mine. How do you do this?”

“I play the Flute.”

“Music does it?” Stile asked skeptically.

“The Platinum Flute is more than a musical instrument, as you know. It produces fundamental harmonics that affect the impingement of the frames. Properly played, it causes the frames to overlap. The Little Folk have been teaching me to play the ultimate music, which ranges within a single note on the audible level, and across the universe on a level we can not perceive. I have had to learn more about music than I learned in all my prior life, for this single performance. Now I have mastered the note. The effect will be small at first. Toward the culmination it will become dramatic. There will be perhaps two hours of full juxtaposition in the central zone, during which period the exchange of power-earth must be effected. If it is not—“

“Probably disaster,” Stile finished. “Yet if that is the case, why should the Citizens and Adepts oppose it? Of course they will lose power, but when the alternative is to lose the entire planet—“

“They choose to believe that the threat is exaggerated. To return to the dam analogy: some, when the dam is about to burst, will dislike the inconvenience of lowering the water level, so will claim there is no danger; perhaps the sluices will pass water across their properties, damaging them only slightly as the level is lowered. So they indulge in denial, refusing to perceive the larger threat, and oppose corrective action with all their power. To us this may seem short-sighted, but few people view with equanimity the prospect of imposed sacrifice.”

“And there is the chance the Oracle is wrong,” Stile said. “Or am I also indulging in foolish denial?”

“Wrong perhaps in timing; not in essence. No one can predict the moment the dam will burst, but the end is inevitable.”

“You do make a convincing case,” Stile said ruefully. “When will you begin playing to juxtapose the frames?”

“As soon as I return to Phaze, after garnering your agreement to manage the transfer of computer, book of magic, and Phazite.”

“Damn it, this computer murdered my other self and caused untold mischief in the personal lives of people involved with me. Why should I cooperate with it now, or believe anything it says?”

Clef shrugged. “You are a realist. You are ready to undertake personal sacrifice for the greater good, as was your alternate self, the Blue Adept.”