As chance would have it, the first recording they got into had been left behind by Breaze, Orimar Breaze.
They saw him as he saw himself. A handsome, white-haired man, strolling among age-gentled walls set in an early spring, trees just budding, their trembling lace spread across time-softened stones, themselves dripping with viny green.
He hears voices raised in song:
“Brannigan we sing to thee.”
He hears and feels water splashing. He touches the wetness on his cheeks, feeling the separate droplets, like jewels on his skin.
“Fountain of diversity.”
“I am Orimar Breaze, chairman of the Great Question Committee, elder statesman of academe, appointed by the almighty Chancellors to the referendum on curriculum reform, prize-winning author of the greatest erotic work of my century, Jorub and Andacine.” So he thinks to himself, liking the sound of the words as he murmurs them, contented to be what he is. “Jorub and Andacine,” he says again. “A seminal work.”
The dinks feel what he felt, hear what he heard. They are proud to be Orimar Breaze who is not like other men. Not like other women. Who is far and away superior to most men, even to many of those here at Brannigan Galaxity, great BG.
Orimar Breaze is on his way to class. Today he will bring the beautiful young into this parklike burgeoning, seat them on the sward, and then stand before them, a first edition of Jorub and Andacine open in his hands. He will read aloud, his voice a mellifluous torrent sweeping them along.
Oh, Brannigan:
It is his mistress, his wife. It is his forum, his stage. It is himself, made manifest.
Vast auditoria reverberating to words deathless as Scripture. Laboratories where genius falls thick as pollen, packed with potentiality. Hallways vibrant with scuttering youth, with striding maturity, and so on and so on and so on….
“Brannigan we sing to thee….”
Eyes, bright eyes, the young liquid eyes sparkling between fringed lids, unlined foreheads shining like little marble monuments, sweet mouths curved into succulent questions. Here they are, seated cross-legged on the grass. “Illuminated one,” they cry. “Tell … tell me … tell me everything!”
Brannigan Galaxity.
A thousand colleges, each with its own history, its own traditions, its own glories to recount….
“… tell me everything,” they cry.
He warms at the heat of their voices, feels the excitement of their excitement. Oh, he can teach them things they will never learn from anyone else.
And he loves the names they have for him, the girls particularly. “Magister.” “Sweet teacher.” “Lord of my heart and mind.” Who was it had called him that? No matter. There would be others … others.
Ah, the feel of that young skin against his own.
Ah, the surge of adoration from them to him.
Ah, the surge of … of knowledge pouring out of him to them, his body pressed … himself pressed…. That was in the library, the great library, among the books, she and him.
Brannigan Galaxity:
Libraries sprawling in wandering tunnels of stone across continents of lawn. The infinite distance of painted ceilings where faded figures out of forgotten legends disport themselves …
They were not the only ones disporting themselves!
[Tourists come here to see the murals. He has never really approved of that. Not in Brannigan, which should be sacrosanct, which should exclude the chattering throngs who stroll along, staring upward, spilling meat sauce upon the mosaics. Oh, they should go away! Depart! This is no place for laity. This is where …]
… legends disport themselves. Is that Wisdom teaching the multitude? Or the Queen of who-was-it? issuing thingummies? …
… where the body is pressed … himself pressed … All that working away inside like sparkling wine, bubbling up, pure joy, delight, glory! Glorious these days, these ageless words, these students forever young! Glorious to hear the breathless voice whispering his name. “There he is, Orimar! Teacher! Lover! Oh, Orimar!”
Here twisting stairs clattering beneath niagaras of pounding feet. There dim corridors, endless as roads, running into vaulted passages that grow silent….
He does not like silence. Not when he is alone in it.
No matter. All that is here is also in Files, incorruptible.
Incorruptible. He is incorruptible.
Listen to them, the sweet things, gathered before him on
the sward, their voices whispering his name, “Oh, Orimar Breaze!” Oh, he relishes it still, in this place, just as he always has.
Though there is one among this group who is not looking at him! One there, to the side, who is not responsive. This has happened before. It is happening again!
When he has dismissed the others, he focuses upon that one. “Come,” he says. “What is this? You don’t seem to be enjoying the seminar, dearest girl.”
She has no reason to reject him. Isn’t Orimar one of the illuminati, after all? One of the emeriti, the …
“May thy Golden Towers rise as a beacon for the wise….”
“You need to extend yourself. Be one with the group.”
She says something noncommittal. He sees scorn in her eyes. “Old man,” her eyes say. “I know you, old man.”
What right has she to look at him like that?
He dismisses her, his voice like cutting ice. She will not last, not at Brannigan. He will see to that. One negative report is all it takes, and she may be assured she has earned it from him.
“Immortal may thy children be …”
Brannigan, whose emeriti stand in glittering rows along the Halls of Tomorrow, preserved in impenetrable vitreon until the hour they will be raised from senescence into eternal youth …
What right had she to think him an old man!
He would summon her to his office. He would give her one more chance.
She is there, before him, her face closed, her eyes shut. He suggests that she do … a certain humiliating, undignified thing.
She does not even answer.
Enough then. She has earned her dismissal. Oh, for some other world. Some world in
