He coughed and went on: “No matter. But these Eyes have come into every home; they have peered about, peered about, and no one has been taken. Why? Is it something to do with the Translation of Wolves?” He stared hopelessly at his visitors. “All I know is that it is very strange and therefore I am worried.”
“Then take us to Gala Tropile,” said Haendl. “Let’s see what we can find out!”
Citizen Germyn bowed. He cleared his throat and raised his voice just sufficiently to carry from one room to another. “Citizeness!” he called.
There was a pause and then his wife appeared in the doorway, looking ruffled and ill at ease with her guest.
“Will you ask if Citizeness Tropile will join us here?” he requested.
His wife nodded. “She is resting. I will call her.”
They called her and questioned her for some time.
She told them nothing.
She had nothing to tell.
X
On Earth’s binary, Glenn Tropile had been reprogrammed for a new task.
The problem was navigation. Earth had been a disappointment to the Pyramids; it was necessary to move rapidly to a more rewarding planet.
The Pyramids had taken Earth out past Pluto’s orbit with a simple shove, slow and massive. It had been enough merely to approximate the direction in which they would want to go. There would be plenty of time for refinements of course later.
But now the time for refinements had come, earlier than they might have expected. They had now time to travel, they knew where to—a star cluster reasonably sure to be rich in Componentiferous planets. It was inherent in the nature of Component mines that eventually they always played out.
There were always more mines, though. If that had not been so, it would have been necessary, perhaps, to stock-breed Components against future needs. But it was easier to work the vein out and move on.
Now the course had to be computed. There were such variables to be considered as: motion of the star cluster; acceleration of the binary-planet system; gravitational influence of every astronomical object in the island universe, without exception.
Precise computation on this basis was obviously not practical. That was not an answer to the problem, since the time required would approach eternity as one of its parameters.
It was possible to simplify the problem. Only the astronomical bodies which were relatively nearby need be treated as individuals. Farther away, the Pyramids began to group them in small bunches, still farther in large bunches, on to the point where the farthest—and the most numerous—bodies were lumped together as a vague gravitational “noise” whose average intensity alone it was required to know and to enter as a datum.
And still no single Component could handle even its own share of the problem, were the “computer” they formed to be kept within the range of permissible size.
It was for this that the Component which had once been Tropile was taken out of storage.
This was all old stuff to the Pyramids; they knew how to handle it. They broke the problem down to its essentials, separated even those into many parts. There was, for example, the subsection of one certain aspect of the logistical problem which involved locating and procuring additional Components to handle the load.
Even that tiny specialization was too much for a single Component, but fortunately the Pyramids had resources to bring to bear. The procedure in such cases was to hitch several Components together.
This was done.
When the Pyramids finished their neurosurgery, there floated in an oversized nutrient tank a thing like a great sea-anemone. It was composed of eight Components—all human, as it happened—arranged in a circle, facing inward, joined temple to temple, brain to brain.
At their feet, where sixteen eyes could see it, was the display board to feed them their Input. Sixteen hands each grasped a molded switch to handle their binary-coded Output. There would be no storage of the Output outside of the eight-Component complex itself; it went as control signals to the electrostatic generators, funneled through the single Pyramid on Mount Everest, which handled the task of Component-procurement.
That is, of Translation.
The programming was slow and thorough. Perhaps the Pyramid which finally activated the octuple unit and went away was pleased with itself, not knowing that one of its Components was Glenn Tropile.
Nirvana. (It pervaded all; there was nothing outside of it.)
Nirvana. (Glenn Tropile floated in it as in the amniotic fluid around him.)
Nirvana. (The sound of one hand. … Floating oneness.)
There was an intrusion.
Perfection is completed; by adding to it, it is destroyed. Duality struck like a thunderbolt. Oneness shattered.
For Glenn Tropile, it seemed as though his wife were screaming at him to wake up. He tried to.
It was curiously difficult and painful. Timeless poignant sadness, five years of sorrow over a lost love compressed into a microsecond. It was always so, Tropile thought drowsily, awakening. It never lasts. What’s the use of worrying over what always happens. …
Sudden shock and horror rocked him.
This was no ordinary awakening—no ordinary thing at all—nothing was as it ever had been before!
Tropile opened his mouth and screamed—or thought he did. But there was only a hoarse, faint flutter in his eardrums.
It was a moment when sanity might have gone. But there was one curious, mundane fact that saved him. He was holding something in his hands. He found that he could look at it, and it was a switch. A molded switch, mounted on a board, and he was holding one in each hand.
It was little to cling to, but it at least was real. If his hands could be holding something, then there must be some reality somewhere.
Tropile closed his eyes and managed to open them again.
