Ascending

floor, particularly near the front entrance. Those with brains on the verge of exhaustion have a deplorable habit of walking in from the street and flumping straight down on the closest patch of unoccupied ground. After several generations, there is no space at all in the first few rooms.

But here, the clutter had been partly cleared. Though many senile persons still sprawled about, they were all shoved against the glass walls to make an open path up the middle.

The path led straight to where I had lain.

'Did you do that?' I asked Uclod. 'Did you move these people out of the way?'

'Not me, toots. It was like this when I got here.'

'Then it is a Mystery,' I told him. 'I enjoy solving mysteries. I am excellent at rational deduction.'

'I can see that,' Uclod replied… though his gaze was directed at a part of my person that is seldom associated with intelligent thought.

'Wait,' I told him. 'Observe my methods.' Then I walked to the side of the path and kicked an old man so hard he flew off the floor and smashed into the wall.

The secret is to get your toe underneath the body. Use a strong scooping action.

'Whoa, missy!' Uclod cried. 'Are you trying to kill that guy?'

'Do not be foolish,' I answered. 'My people cannot be killed. They seldom even feel pain — especially those whose brains are Tired. Look.'

I pointed to the man I had kicked. Though he now lay awkwardly against the wall, he showed no sign of being roused from his stupor; he had slept through the whole thing. On the other hand, my kick had propelled him onto an old woman, and she was not nearly so lethargic. Indeed, she embarked upon a Storm Of Invective wherein she claimed to know all about my parentage, particularly how my mother became pregnant and what unusual measures she took thereafter. The woman was wrong in almost every respect, but her ill-informed harangue proved her brain was not so Tired as those around her.

'Hush, old woman,' I told her in our own language. 'I wish to ask you a question—'

'Who are you calling old?' the woman grumbled. 'You’re likely older than I am—'

'I am not!' I snapped.

'What’d she say?' Uclod asked. He had not understood our words, but he must have recognized the anger in my tone.

'She said I was old,' I told him. 'Whereas, in fact, it is she who is elderly.'

'How can you tell?' Uclod asked. 'Yon look the same age to me.'

'Of course, we look the same — my species ceases to change physically after the age of twenty. But mentally this woman must be older than I; she lives in an Ancestral Home.'

'You’ve lived in this same home for the past four years. How do you know that lady didn’t come in after you?'

'Because…' I stopped. I was going to say I would have noticed if someone new arrived; but perhaps that was not so certain. Especially if the woman had arrived while I was sleeping. But no, she could not be younger than I. I was Mentally Alert, whereas the woman before me was already starting to lapse back into slumber. Her gaze was losing intensity; the fire that had flared up while she cursed me was now turning to ash. I tucked my hands under me woman’s armpits, lifted her up, and slammed her back against the tower’s glass wall. Uclod grimaced at the crack of glass bones on glass bricks… but I knew the wall would break long before this woman suffered the least bit of damage.

My people are more sturdy than walls.

'Wake up!' I shouted in the woman’s face. 'Do not go to sleep again.'

'Why not?' Her collision with the wall had brought back the focus in her eyes, but her voice was sullen — like a cranky child who wants to remain in bed.

'Because if you stay awake,' I told the woman, 'you will be able to lead a rich life wherein you accomplish great things.'

'Like what?'

'Like…' I looked about me for inspiration; seeing the open path down me center of me room, I remembered why I had awakened her in the first place. 'We shall solve a mystery, you and I. We can discover who cleared the space from me to the door.'

'Oh, I saw that,' the woman said. 'It was interesting. Sort of. I think…'

Her voice was fading. 'Wake up!' I cried. 'Stay awake and talk to me.' With a burst of fierceness, I thrust my silver ax close to the woman’s face. 'Stay awake or I shall cut off your wallabies.'

'Missy!' Uclod said, staring at the ax. 'What the hell are you doing?'

'I am attempting to make a friend.' Without letting him interrupt further, I turned back to the woman. 'Talk to me. Talk to me about… about this interesting thing you saw.'

'There was an alien,' the woman replied with grumpy ill will. 'A big white thing — like some animals, but bigger than a buffalo and it didn’t have a head.'

'Then where did it put its ears?' I asked.

'It didn’t have ears. Or eyes or a nose or a mouth. Because it didn’t have a fucking head. Have you heard a word I’m saying?'

'I am listening most attentively. This headless beast picked you up to clear a path to me?'

'It didn’t touch us,' the woman answered, 'but we moved anyway. Everybody. We floated off the floor and out to the sides. Then the creature took away your body and when it brought you back, you were alive again.'

'But I was always alive. I am not so weak as to the from a little tumble.'

'You didn’t look alive,' the woman said. 'But you got taken away and when you came back…'

Her voice faded again. I gave her another smack against the wall. 'Wake up! Is it not interesting that I appeared dead but then was alive? Do you not wish to find this headless beast and learn the reasons for its actions? I am clearly enmeshed in Portentous Events and if you accompany me, we shall both… wake up! Wake up! Wake up!'

I slapped her hard. She did not react. I lifted my hand to slap her again, but Uclod seized my wrist.

'Enough, missy,' he said. 'You’ve knocked her out cold.'

I looked at the woman before me. She was beginning to slump to the floor — but not because I had battered her unconscious. I had not hit her hard enough to cause injury; in fact, I had not hit her hard enough to keep her awake.

And through all this, none of the others within hearing had opened an eye to watch. Too lost to care. The woman had been the most awake of them all; but she had not been awake enough.

Perhaps no one in this tower was. No one in this city. No one in the world.

Uclod eased his grip on my wrist and took me by the hand instead. 'Come on. Let’s get out of here.'

I let him lead me away.

2: WHEREIN I BECOME AN IMPORTANT WITNESS

Subterranean Snow

Outside the tower, it was snowing. Only a few flakes trickled directly onto my shoulders, but many more were falling three blocks over.

The snow came through a great hole in the roof. This city — and I do not know the city’s true name, so I shall call it Oarville — was built within a gigantic cavern dug deep under a mighty mountain. The place seemed empty and abandoned now, except for thousands or even millions of Ancestors who slept in their great bright towers. Apart from those towers, all other lights had been damped down by the supervising machines that concern themselves with power consumption. The result was a permanent dusk, illuminated only by Ancestral Towers shining amidst the underground blackness.

At one time, the whole cavern had been completely sealed off from the outside world; but then my friend Festina used Science to blow a great fissure in the stony roof so she could fly inside with an aeroplane. Although that happened four years before, the city’s repair machines had not yet patched up the damage… which disturbed me very much indeed. The purpose of machines is to work automatically: to mend breakage and to shield people from the Harsh Cruel World. Here in Oarville, the Harsh Cruel World was enjoying free rein — a blizzard gusted with arctic ferocity through the mountains outside, and its thick showers of white spilled in through the roof’s hole.

Why had the damage not been fixed? Unless perhaps the city’s repair machines were becoming as Tired as the people: lapsing into torpor like the woman in the tower. But I did not want to think such a thing — I did not want to think about my whole world guttering out like a candle. Therefore, I tried to empty my mind of mournful thoughts, concentrating only on the here and now.

Standing in the open air. Snowflakes falling down.

The hole in the roof was high above us, higher than the city’s glass towers. Wind whistled across the gap, but did not reach all the way to the street; the gale sent snow swirling madly as it entered the cavern, but the furious spinning whiteness lost energy as it fell. By the time the snow brushed past my face, it had resigned itself to perfect calm. Even over by the central square, directly under the rupture in the roof, the snow floated quietly as it settled onto the pavement.

'Whoa!' Uclod said, staring at the soft white tumble pouring onto the sky. 'Where did that come from?'

'It is snow,' I told him, 'Snow is a weather phenomenon.'

'It wasn’t a weather phenomenon ten minutes ago,' he said. 'But I guess things change fast in the mountains. Give me a sticky-hot beach any day.'

'I will not give you anything,' I said. 'I have heard about you aliens trying to obtain other people’s land. If you offer me beads and trinkets, I shall punch you in the nose.'

'You got the wrong idea, missy. I’m not here to give you grief.' The little man grinned. 'But maybe together, we can give grief to other people.'

'Are these other people evil?'

'Utter bastards.'