‘Can you fix him?’ he sang. ‘Can you fix him so he can feel?’
‘Simple,’ caroled the giligee.
‘Well, then, fix him,’ he said, with a sense of satisfaction that he did not even attempt to understand. ‘And when you have finished, tell the troupe they can eat him.’
By the time the first astonished screams came from Spider Geroan, Tasmin and the others had found Jamieson and carried him far enough away from the Enigma to avoid any further ‘tumble down.’ When they had gone far enough that they could hear no further noise from that direction, they slumped on the flat, motionless earth without moving, watching in dull amazement as a giligee everted her pouch over Clarin’s wounded face and began to mend it.
Jamieson lay nearby, a circle of giligees around him. He was, according to Bondri, somewhat broken, but the giligees thought he could be fixed.
One of those giligees, at Vivian’s suggestion, had shown Tasmin what was in her pouch. ‘It isn’t finished yet,’ she had apologized. ‘But it’s developing nicely. The female Loudsinger says it is your young?’ What was there was very small, but very pink and lively.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Tasmin said over and over. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Bondri could not figure out why he could not believe it. He had seen it. So had everyone else. And they had sung it to him two or three times. Bondri was getting impatient. He had not raised the question of the captive song, but he nudged Vivian from time to time, until at last she cleared her throat.
‘Tasmin. Bondri asks that you free the song you have captive.’
‘It’s the only proof I’ve got,’ Donatella objected.
‘No one’s going to believe just that,’ Clarin said. ‘We’ve got nothing, Don. The Enigma blew. It didn’t talk to you.’
‘It did before,’ she cried.
Bondri inflated his sack. These people did not sing in an orderly fashion. They did not get things straightened out and properly harmonized; they jumped from one thing to another, over and over. ‘Please,’ he boomed. ‘One thing at a time. First, the captive song. Then what other things are of concern.’
‘The record of the viggy music is no good to us,’ said Tasmin. ‘Come on, Don. They’ve saved our lives.’
‘All right,’ she cried. ‘I don’t care. I was probably deluded anyhow.’
Tasmin opened the machine. ‘Would you like us to erase it?’
‘Erase? I would like you to set it free!’
Vivian reached across Tasmin’s hands to press the controls. ‘Let it play out, Tas. Then burn the cube. That’s what they do with their dead. The cube will be dead then, and the song will be free.’
‘So.’ Bondri nodded his approval. ‘We will join the song.’
As it played from the synthesizer, the viggies sang with it. Am-dar-ououm. A song of quiet. When it was done, Tasmin placed the cube in the fire where it expired in a flash of sparks.
‘So.’Bondri sighed.
‘Why did the Enigma blow?’ Tasmin asked Bondri, singing it.
‘Because it is the Mad One, which has two minds. You heard it. On your machine.’
‘On the machine?’
‘On your machine. Which speaks in Loudsinger language with the voice of that one.’ He pointed to Donatella.
Tasmin clutched his head. ‘It uses your voice, Don?’
‘It uses whoever’s voice is using it. When Lim had it, it used his.’
‘Then that bellowing from the translator, it wasn’t you?’
‘It was the Mad One,’ sang Bondri.
‘It was angry that you did not address it by name. You, female Loudsinger,’ he pointed to Don, ‘had asked it before what its name is, but you did not remember….’
‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.
Chowdri was annoyed. These people didn’t understand anything! ‘Bondri and I will sing it to you,’ he chanted. ‘Now listen!
‘You came to the Enigma before. Months ago. You used a stolen song to quiet the skin of the Enigma, is that not so? That is so. Then you asked it a question. You asked it what name it had for itself.’
Donatella nodded. Tasmin brought himself out of his self-absorption and listened. Even Clarin half sat up, making the giligee beside her snort in disapproval.
‘The Enigma replied,’ sang Chowdri. ‘We heard it do so. It sang, “Messengers know to whom they come.” ’
‘Was that a reply?’ chanted Tasmin.
‘It was the name the Enigma called itself. Messengers know to whom they come. Perhaps the Enigma thinks it is a messenger to all the Presences, and so it says this mad thing.
‘Then the female told it something. “I am not one of the usual messengers,” and the Enigma replied, “None of them are.” There are no usual messengers to the Enigma. Messengers do not come to the Enigma. Thinking of this made the Enigma angry, and you, you female Loudsinger, wisely you went away very quickly. Is this not a true song?’
‘It is a true song,’ sang Donatella in a tone of resignation. ‘That’s what happened.’
‘This time,’ sang Bondri, ‘you came again and quieted the skin. It is a sunny day, much light flows into the Enigma making it hot. The Enigma is awake and irritable. It expected you to address it by name. It had told you its name. You did not address it by name. You merely went on with skin quieting, even though the Enigma was awake. It became irritated….’
‘You mean that’s what happened with Lim? He did the same thing?’ Tasmin’s jaw dropped. ‘It wasn’t because he stopped following the score?’
‘When the Presence wakes, you must call it by name,’ sang Chowdri and Bondri together, the troupe behind them in full chorus. ‘Every child knows that!’
Silence, while they thought about it. It was Clarin who asked the question at last. ‘Then all we had to do was call it what it told us its name was? Messengers know to whom they come?’
‘Perhaps,’ sang Chowdri, solo voice. ‘Except that the Mad One is mad.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It changes what it calls itself. Sometimes every hour, every day. Sometimes not so often. And sometimes it will not tell anyone what
