Neverness - David Zindell

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true with geometric transformations,’ I said. ‘But the topological transformations are harder. I remember when Lionel Killirand made me reverse the tube of my body, inside out. Now that was a horrible exercise. Since you’ve found today’s exercise so easy, perhaps you’d like to play with the topological transformations, then?’

      He smiled a haughty smile and said, ‘I’d rather play at a real transformation, like you, Pilot. Are you really going to sculpt yourself? Is that as severe a transformation as altering one’s lungs? Would you take a novice with you, to the Alaloi? Could I come?’

      ‘No,’ I said, ‘you’re just a boy. Now, shall we practise motions through five-space? I don’t think you’ll be able to visualize five-space so easily.’

      The excitement that my proposed journey provoked throughout the Order was not wholly surprising. Man is man, and even civilized man – especially civilized women and men – will sometimes long for simplicity. In each of us, there is the lure of the primitive, an atavistic desire to experience life in its rawest form; there is a need to be tested, to prove our worth as natural (and ferocious) animals in a natural world. Some said the Alaloi led a truer, more purely human life than could any modern man. Too, the story of Goshevan and his marrow-sick son, Shanidar, had fired the imagination of an entire generation. To return to nature as strong, powerful, natural men – what could be more romantic than that? No day passed that some semanticist didn’t offer advice as to the complexities of the Alaloi language or a fabulist recite the epic of Goshevan’s doomed journey to live among the cavemen; no night ended without one pilot or another drugging himself with toalache and begging to accompany me to the Alaloi.

      Towards the end of that brilliant, happy season of romance and deep snows and plans, I was elevated to my mastership. Strangely enough, although I was by far the youngest pilot ever to become a master, I no longer took pride in my relative youth. Having aged five years intime on my journey, I suddenly felt ageless, or rather, old – as old as the glazed ledges of the Hall of Ancient Pilots where the master pilots welcomed me to their college. I remember waiting for their decision at the far side of the Hall, near the dais where Bardo and I had received our rings. I tapped my boot against the cold floor, listening to the sound vanish into the arched vault above me. I examined the conclave room’s long, black doors, which were made of shatterwood and carved in bas-relief with the faces of Rollo Gallivare and Tisander the Wary, the Tycho and Yoshi, all three hundred and eighty-five of our Lord Pilots since the founding of our Order. Near the centre of the left door, I found Soli’s hard profile, with the long, broad nose, the hard chin and the combed hair bound in its silver chain. I wondered if my own profile would ever be carved in the old, brittle wood, and if it were, I wondered if anyone would be able to distinguish it from Soli’s. Then the doors opened, and the ancient Salmalin, who was the oldest pilot next to Soli, pulled his white beard and invited me into the circular conclave room, and I no longer felt very old. I sat on a stool at the centre of a huge, ringlike table. Around the table sat Tomoth, Pilar Gaprindashavilli, the dour Stephen Caraghar, as well as Lionel and Justine and the other master pilots. When Salmalin stood up to welcome me to the master’s college, all the pilots stood and removed the gloves from their right hands. In that simplest and most touching of all our Order’s ceremonies, I went around the table shaking hands. When I took Justine’s long, elegant hand in my own, she said, ‘If only Soli had been here to see this, I’m sure he would have been as proud as I am.’

      I did not remind her that if Soli had been present, he would probably have vetoed my elevation.

      After she and Lionel (and others) congratulated me, my mother met me outside the conclave room. We walked through the almost deserted Hall together. ‘You’re a master now,’ she said. ‘The Timekeeper will have to pay more attention to your petition. And if he approves it, we’ll sculpt our bodies. And go to the Alaloi where there will be fame and glory. No matter what we find or don’t.’

      I thought it was funny that even my mother had been infected with the general excitement. I bit my lip, then said, ‘You can’t seriously think of coming with me, Mother.’

      ‘Can’t I? I’m your mother. Together we’re a family. The Alaloi would regard us as a family – what could be more natural?’

      ‘Well, you can’t come.’

      ‘I’ve heard that, to the Alaloi, family is everything.’

      ‘The Timekeeper,’ I said, ‘will probably deny my petition.’

      She cocked her head and laughed, almost to herself. ‘Can the Timekeeper deny you this chance? I feel not. We’ll see, we’ll see.’

      Later there was feasting and drinking. Bardo was so happy for me that he practically cried. ‘By God!’ he said. ‘We’ll celebrate! The City will never be the same!’

      His words, along with my mother’s instincts, would prove to be curiously prophetic. (Sometimes I thought my mother was a secret scryer.) Two days after my elevation, on eighty-fifth day, a day of cold, mashy snow and deep irony, Leopold Soli returned from the Vild. He was enraged to find me alive – so it was rumoured. Out of spite and revenge – Bardo told me this – he went to the Timekeeper to demand that my petition be denied. But the Timekeeper fooled him. The Timekeeper fooled everyone, and fooled me most of all. He granted my petition, but added a proviso: I could mount an expedition to the Alaloi provided I took my family, my mother and Justine and Katharine, along with me. And Soli, too. Soli, who was my uncle, must come or else there would be no expedition. And since Soli was Lord Pilot, Soli must lead the expedition – this was Timekeeper’s galling, ironic proviso. When I heard this news I could not believe it. Nor did I suspect that Bardo was right, that as a result of our expedition, the City would never be the same.

       Rainer’s Sculpture

      I was an experiment on the part of Nature, a gamble within the unknown, perhaps for a new purpose, perhaps for nothing, and my only task was to allow this game on the part of primeval depths to take its course, to feel its will within me and make it wholly mine. That or nothing!

       Emil Sinclair, Holocaust Century Eschatologist

      I spent the next few days sulking about my house. I am ashamed to admit this, but the truth is the truth: I brooded like a boy upon learning of the Timekeeper’s proviso. I told Katharine to stay away; I told her I was angry with her for not warning me the Timekeeper would humble me with his proviso. (This was a lie. How could I be angry with a beautiful scryer sworn to keep her visions secret?) I read my book of poems or split firewood or set up my wooden chess pieces, replaying the games of the grandmasters, all the while cursing Soli for ruining my expedition. That Soli had persuaded the Timekeeper to allow him to steal the leadership from me, I could not doubt.

      Soon after his return, Soli came to visit me, to discuss plans for the expedition and to gloat – or so I thought. I received him in the fireroom in front of the cold, blackened fireplace. He immediately noticed the minor insult of the unlit fire, but he could not appreciate the greater insult, that I invited him to sit atop the same furs on which I had swived his daughter. I shamelessly savoured the knowledge of this insult. As Bardo often reminded me, I had a cruel vein running into my heart.

      I was surprised at how much Soli had aged. He sat cross-legged on the furs, touching the new lines on his forehead, pulling at the loose flesh below his long chin. He looked twenty years older. I had heard that he had almost penetrated the inner veil of the Vild. But the price he had paid for attempting those impenetrable spaces was time, crueltime. His voice was older, deeper, cut with new inflections. There should be congratulations on your journey,’ he said. ‘The College did well to make you a master.’

      I had to admit he could be gracious when he wanted to be, even though he was obviously lying. I wanted to tell him not to waste his breath lying. But I remembered my manners and said, ‘Tell me about the Vild.’

      ‘Yes,

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