Reward for Retief (37 page)

            "B-but—" Magnan
protested, "Boss's office should be here, not this kaliedophonic
nightmare! We'd better go back!"

            "We can't," Retief
told him. "We can only go ahead. There's nothing behind us, not even
chaos."

            Magnan twisted to catch a
glimpse, closed his eyes and shuddered. "It's the Vug dimension; I knew
that meddling with that would only end in disaster! Lost in the Vug dimension!
It's too grotesque to conceive! And for what? I came back to look for poor
Gaby—and you came after me—we meant no harm. It isn't fair!"

           
fair
!
the Big Voice came faintly, muffled by the
roar of reality in collapse,
that
concept is a curious conceit invented by your own deviant species. the universe
knows nothing of justice! you did well in expelling the troublesome eater from
this paradigm. now to cleanse the node of the other, lesser, yet still
disturbing nuisances. proceed as you were. I note an attention of the entropic
density along
THAT
vector.
As the Voice fell silent, a glowing
pink line traced itself across the tossing surface of pre-matter that lay at
their feet. It dimmed and disappeared in the writhing, light-shot mist. Retief
followed it, Magnan trailing, muttering half aloud.

            "... none of this can
be so much as mentioned
en paspant
in my report. After who can say how
many days of unauthorized absence from our posts of duty, we can do no more
than say we were detained by circumstances beyond our control—that's if we ever
do get back to sanity."

           
you consider an ambassadorial staff meeting to be 'sanity?
the now-muffled Voice inquired.
I
suggest you abandon these fragile concepts,
benmagnan, and concentrate your faculties on the immediate pseudo-reality
confronting you.

           
"Really!"
Magnan huffed. "Your intrusiveness is exceeded only by your impracticality!
How can one deal realistically with the unreal?"

           
reality
,
the Voice intoned,
may be defined as 'that which appears to be
reality! abort this sterile concept and proceed boldly!

           
Retief took a
step and disappeared from Magnan's view. "Retief!" Magnan yelped.
"You
cant
go off and leave me here like this!"

            "It's all right,
Ben," Retief's voice replied calmly, as if emanating from directly ahead.

            Looking about him, Retief
saw nothing but a dense blackness; then a strip of greenish light appeared,
which widened a moment later into a view of a sunny hillside, broken by a heap
of blackish boulders apparently deposited by a melting glacier. Suddenly a
great black horse came into view, walking calmly, with a small boy perched in
the elaborate saddle.

            "Hail, Sir
Knight," Retief called cheerfully. "Didst thou unhorse the outlaw
Farbelow?"

            "Not I,
Commander," Sobhain replied. "I saw the scoundrel scuttling from the
thicket yonder, and captured his mount. At sight of him, his mob of rascals
fled hither." He came up to Retief, just as Magnan, looking bewildered,
emerged from behind the stone-pile, looking about fearfully. He halted at the
sight of the horse, apparently not noticing the diminutive rider, and ducked
back behind the boulder.

            At that point, Boss hurried
past Magnan and disappeared with a long-drawn wail like a man falling from a
height.

            "There!" Magnan
bleated. "You see? Poor Mr. Boss 'proceeded boldly' and just look what
happened to him!"

           
and what, precisely, happened to him?
the Voice demanded relentlessly.

            "Well, I don't rightly
know," Magnan replied reluctantly, "but it surely wasn't anything
pleasant,"

           
if you are here in search of pleasure, benmagnan,
the Voice countered,
you have perhaps erred in venturing abroad
today.

           
"I'm here
in the discharge of my duties as First Secretary of Embassy of Terra;
specifically as Deputy Counselor of Embassy For Trivial Affairs!" Magnan
rejoined testily.

           
then let us hear no more of 'pleasures',
the Voice closed the subject.

            "Stand fast, sir,"
Retief called to his immediate supervisor. "I'm going to try
something."

            "Try what?" Magnan
yelped. "I demand to know what you propose. After all, my life is at
stake! As well as your own, of course," he added.

            "Reasonable, Mr.
Magnan," Retief said, "but there's no time. Prince Sobhain is out
there alone."

            "Merely more
illusion!" Magnan dismissed the idea. "In any case, I'm sure a case
could be made that we've done all we could. Hardly our affair if the lad
chooses to interfere in matters outside his legitimate interest-cluster!"

            "Still," Retief
countered. "It can hardly be our duty to stand idly by while he intercepts
a gang of Rath cut-throats."

            "Idly?" Magnan
queried as if Amazed by an Egregious Non Sequitur, (1214-m). "We're lost
in chaos, struggling to regain a stable paradigm, and you call that
'idle'?"

            "Precisely,"
Retief confirmed. "Have you noticed the pattern of the events—or apparent
events—of the past few hours?"

            "Of course!"
Magnan confirmed emphatically. "The pattern consists of our plunging ever
deeper into matters not properly of concern to the Embassy of Terra. And I say
it's high time that we take action to extricate ourselves from the deepening
maelstrom!"

            "Close, Ben,"
Retief commented. "But it's more structured than that."

           
enough!
the Big Voice, now only Middle-sized,
interjected,
these speculations
regarding matters lying well beyond your abilities to conceptualize, are
feckless!

           
"I guess
they're feckful enough to require further investigation!" Magnan stated
sharply. "After all, there's only one reality!"

           
this 'reality to which you so frequently allude,
the Voice began
in a tone of disparagement,
can you define
it more cogently than in terms of appearances?

           
"Certainly!"
Magnan promptly assured the bodiless entity. "It's ah, well, perhaps I
can't actually define it, but you know as well as I—"

           
tell me, benmagnan, is the past real? in the same sense as that itch
you are now experiencing behind your left pinna, for example.

           
"Yes,
indeed," Magnan replied.

           
and the future?
the Voice pressed him relendessly.
is it, too, an example of your reality?

           
"Precisely,"
Magnan stated, unperturbed.

           
and now, the present? is it the same?

           
"Well, no,
they're not all the same, of course," Magnan hedged. "The present is
what we preceive as immediate experience. The past is that which we experience
in retrospect. The future is that which is experienced in anticipation."

           
then the mode of your perception imposes constraints upon external
time, space, and vug?
 
The
Voice's tone was unmistakably sarcastic.

            "You're twisting my
words," Magnan rasped. "Anyway, that's the well-established Anthropic
Principle."

           
i am attempting
,
the Voice contradicted,
to grasp your curious conception of that which
is and will continue to be, quite independently of your opinions. one can
hardly expect the writ of the anthropic principle to run here.

           
"As to
that," Magnan bluffed. "We shall see!" He turned to Retief, and
inquired earnestly: "What do
you
think, Jim?"

            "Voice is ahead on
points," Retief told him. "You better try for a knockout."

            "Here's one for you,
Mister Smarty," Magnan addressed the circumambient space/time/vug:
"Conceive of space/time/Vug as an endless strip of paper; stretching off
that
way is the past, and the other way is the future. Now, with a sharp shears,
we cut the strip right across; to the left is the past, to the right, the
future. The cut is the present. The paper hasn't moved, any more than the space
dimension; the two halves are in contact, the cut is of zero width, and is
merely a position relative to past and future. Not one atom of paper is in the
cut; every one lies on one side or the other of the cut. That position
represents the present, which endures for no finite period. Ergo the present is
not a substantive phenomenon."

           
nor is the unrealized future—nor the discarded past. in short, there
is no reality. is that your thesis?

           
"Only that
there's no real difference," Magnan amended. "If I'm traveling in a
ground-car on a highway and I see a signpost ahead, very well. I continue to
approach it, and for one infinitely short instant I am beside it; then it is
behind me. And all the while, the signpost is unchanged."

           
yet we can change the future by our actions now,
the Voice reminded him.

            "And that is precisely
what I intend to do!" Magnan stated triumphantly. "What do you say,
Retief?" he went on; "what should we do
now
to improve the
future which rushes at us so relentlessly?" Receiving no reply, he spun on
the uncertain footing, peering into the light-shot darkness. "Retief,
where
are
you?" he wailed.

            "Oh, dear, abandoned,
alone in chaos with a disembodied voice which offers nothing but sophistries
and yivshish! What am I to do?"

            "Stand fast, Ben,"
Retief s voice spoke near at hand. Magnan jumped, staring even more frantically
into the confusion of whirling, colored wisps and guttering streamers all
around him. At least, he consoled himself, there were no pesky gnats here.

            "One hardly has a frame
of reference by which to establish one's position," the bewildered
diplomat carped. "And where
are
you? It's bad enough talking with
the Voice, without having one's own colleague abruptly disappear!"

            "You're merely
perceiving me, or not perceiving me, in an inappropriate mode, sir,"
Retief pointed out. "Concentrate on perceiving me as immediate experience,
as you describe it."

            "Well ... I'll
try," Magnan offered uncertainly. He made an effort to envision Retief,
clad in impervious armor, seated on a mountainous white horse, lance in hand;
somehow his effort slipped its focus, and he felt a sudden weight across his
narrow shoulders, and sniffed a powerful aroma of horse-sweat. Looking down, he
discovered the source of the aroma directly beneath him. He raised his
surprisingly heavy hand to his forehead, with a slight squeak, and heard a
metallic
clatter!
as his ingeniously jointed gauntlet touched the raised
visor of his helmet, the weight of which, though mostly carried by his
shoulders, was swiftly giving him a headache.

            "No, confound it!"
he barked. "
I
didn't want to be somebody's knight-in-armor!"
In expressing his resentment at this unexpected turn of events, Magnan
unintentionally kicked his feet, thereby putting spurs to his mount, which
responded by leaping into a full charge. Magnan's visor
clang!
ed down,
reducing his view to what could be seen through three narrow hand-filed slits
in the steel. He was gripping a wad of leather reins in his left hand, while
his right gripped the shaft of a long but light-weight spear with a flaring
hand-guard, quite inadequate, Magnan noted in panic; and the shank of the lance
was firmly clamped against his side by his upper arm.