Bondri had huddled down beside Clarin, the two of them arguing over an explanation of love that would make sense to a crystalline being. An unlikely duo to be doing such a thing, Tasmin thought at first. Then, remembering certain things both Bondri and Clarin had done in the past, he thought perhaps they were the best ones to do so. Bondri was going on about loving sets of offspring, loving a good giligee, loving the troupe.
Clarin didn’t talk with the viggy long. Using the translator, she began singing about hope and fear, with the troupe of Bondri Gesel as backup. Those of us with short lives,’ she vocalized, in a line of extended melody, ‘much regret ending, becoming nothingness. This regret is fear. Those of us with fragile bodies that can be broken, much regret that breaking. This regret is also fear. We fear ending and breaking. We fear the ending of those we think of as parts of ourselves . Others are those who are not broken with us or ended with us. Thinking of others as part of self is called love.
‘So, in our minds we create patterns in which there is no fear. These patterns are called hope….’
Donatella was stretched out on the ground, simply listening, her face remote and musing. When she saw Tasmin looking at her, she remarked, ‘She makes it all sound so simple, Tasmin. They’ll probably understand her, too. I told you they talked, Tasmin. I told you. God, I wish Link could be here…’
Later, falling over themselves from exhaustion, they tried to sleep, but Bondri Gesel kept waking them.
‘The Great One wishes you to explain pain once more, Loudsinger.’ ‘The Great One asks that you tell again of the difference between bad and good.’ ‘In answer to a previous question, you used certain Loudsinger words the Great One does not understand. The Great One wants to know more about “standard business practices.” ’ ‘The Great One wants to know if you have something the same as hoosil. I told the Great One that was anger, but it wants you to tell it. It sang your particular label. This means the Great One now knows we are each a separate creature, Tasmin Ferrence. It never thought that before. None of them ever thought that before.’
Tasmin accepted this through a haze of fatigue. ‘I noticed the translator had some trouble deciding between parts and entities. As though the Presence isn’t quite sure about boundaries between things.’
‘The viggies noticed this, too, Tasmin Ferrence.’
‘You sound amazed, Bondri Gesel.’
‘I am … what is that word Jamieson gave me? I am dumbfounded, Tasmin Ferrence. I am based in silence.’ Bondri bounded away, obviously elated, only to return later, waking them all to get yet another answer and to answer a question or two himself.
‘What was that business about the northern and southern parts, Bondri? I didn’t understand that,’ asked Jamieson.
‘The one you call the Black Tower touches the ones you call the Watchers, deep beneath the soil. Far to the west it touches the ones you call Mad Gap. It touches the False Eagers and Cloud Gatherer and all the Presences of the Redfang Range. Beneath the lands, Tasmin Ferrence, all the Presences touch one another. Or perhaps not quite all. Perhaps they are all part of one thing. A thing that is everywhere, beneath the Deepsoil, far down, even beneath the seas. We think this is so. Or perhaps they only talk with one another. This is why, we viggies think, the Great One is not sure about edges of things. The Black Tower is not sure where it ends and other things begin. It is not madness, like the Enigma, but it is strangeness….’
Morning.
Donatella, still triumphant, to Jamieson, ‘I told you they talked.’
‘You didn’t tell me they talked all the time.’ Jamieson was unable to get up, and no one would let him try. Still, he seemed to be alert, with a clear understanding of what was going on. He asked Tasmin, ‘What do we do now? Have we got enough proof for the commission?’
‘We haven’t talked to it yet about what Justin is planning to do….’
‘Has already done,’ snapped Don. ‘At least partly.’
This took the entire morning. Some things were understood almost immediately. The Black Tower understood destruction. It did not understand ‘maximizing profits,’ however, which Tasmin had taken some time to translate though he used the Urthish word for it, too. When the Tower finally understood cost benefits, it had a fit of hoosil, which required them to leave the vicinity for over an hour. At the end of the hour, the concept had been spread through the vast network and they were told that all the Presences both understood it and were equally annoyed by it as it pertained to them. What came out always equaled what went in, so far as the Presences were concerned. Taking more out than went in was immoral, unmathematical, and illogical. Things did not balance properly if more went in than out, or vice versa.
‘Of course, they’re completely right,’ Donatella said. ‘Do we want to talk about closed and open systems? Maybe that can wait.’
‘It’ll have to wait,’ Tasmin told her. ‘We’re all getting to the point that our voices are giving out.’
‘Now what?’ intoned Bondri Gesel, sounding weary but indomitable. The troupe had spent the morning telling each other what was happening, just to get it on record, and they had not been able to arrive at a finished song. Some of the words did not seem to be entirely accurate or true. The senior giligee was having a fit over that. Giligees were conservative anyhow, and this one was carrying the brain-bird of Prime Priest Favel, which made it even more conscious of doing things right.
‘I hate to say this, Bondri, but do you suppose we could teach the Black Tower to speak some Urthish? The human language? We have some words that are very cumbersome to translate.’
‘It should be very easy
