I saw it with my own eyes, Mr Zoliparia. I know you don't hold with the crypt and all and think it's all a dream anyway, but it's not that simple, and what I saw I saw, and I never seen nor heard of nothing like that thing like a flayed head and making that horrible noise; I mean, you hear stories of ghosts and beasties and stuff like that from the chaotic realms coming up and snatching people and gobbling them up, but you never see it happen; that stuff's just myth; this was real.
You are sure that because it had a human head it was something from the human part of the crypt?
That's the way it works, Mr Zoliparia. It was something that had to preserve human form even in its monstrousness or it couldn't function, or maybe because it might have let the birds see what it was really like, which given that birds don't much like humans in the first place, is saying something.
And it was after you.
It sure was. I'm not saying I am what they're actually looking for — don't expect I am — but they're catching and caging everybody a bit different or suspicious and that head thing seems to be involved in the round- up.
Mr Zoliparia shakes his head. O dear Bascule, o dear.
Never mind, Mr Zoliparia. No harm done.
That's true, Bascule; least you back here safe and sound, no thanks to me. Anyway, I think you should keep away from the crypt for a bit, don't you?
Well that might be an idea, Mr Zoliparia, I says. You certainly got a point there…
Good boy, he says. I know; why don't we play a game? Or maybe you would like to go for a walk; take a constitutional round some of the terraces on the roof, maybe stop off somewhere for lunch — what you say, Bascule?
All sounds good to me, Mr Zoliparia.
Let's do both things, he laughs. We'll go for a walk but we'll take the portable Go board with us and have a game over a nice long lunch at a rather nice restaurant I know.
Good idea, Mr Zoliparia. That's a fine old complicated game, that Go.
Right! I'll get the Go, then we'll go! he laughs, and he jumps up and heads indoors. Drink up your tea! he shouts.
I look out at them birds again, circling above a far tower. I don't want to tell Mr Zoliparia but I'm going straight back in there to that crypt just as soon as I feel able. I still want to find out what happened to poor Ergates, but I want to know what's going on, too.
Truth be told, it terrifies me half to death just thinking about it, but I got this feeling I learnt a lot while I was in the crypt today and it's true what they say; it's like a addictive game, and once you come out of it a bit bruised and wounded, the first thing you want to do is get straight back in there and get it right next time. I just won't think about that horrible head thing.
I finish my tea and tidy up the cups and stuff (you have to do this at Mr Zoliparia's because he hasn't any servitors) and take the tray inside just as he's putting on his coat and stuffing the portable Go board in his pocket.
Ready, Bascule? he asks.
I'm ready, Mr Zoliparia.
Ready all right. Big stuff happening in the crypt and some poor bugger being hunted and me with a headstart on the people doing the hunting.
Bascule the Rascal, that's me and I'm more than ready;
A little bird told me.
TRANSLATION — FOUR — 4
I've got a very good view of the fast-tower from here. I'm half-lying and half-sitting cradled by the babil branches and am looking up through a gap in the foliage at the dirty great hugeness of the castle's central tower.
You forget the tower's there a lot of the time because (a) it's usually behind you if you're looking out the way from the castle and (b) it's obscured by cloud more than half the time anyway.
According to Mr Zoliparia the fast-tower is where the space elevator was anchored to Earth.
That's why it's called a fastness, Mr Zoliparia says; in English fastness means a stronghold, and also because when things are tied hard against each other they are said to be tied fast to each other like the space elevator was tied fast to Earth, and in a sense tied to the Earth's surface and space together, too (I said; and the space elevator was a way of getting into space fast; but Mr Z said no actually it was slower than a rocket or whatever but much more efficient). Mr Zoliparia thought the space elevator was a great idea and it was a shame we'd got rid of it and if we hadn't then we wouldn't be in the pickle we are, i.e. about to get clobbered by the Encroachment.
But I thought space was just full of nothing I said to Mr Zoliparia. What's the point of going there?
Bascule, he said, you are so thick sometimes.
He told me the fast-tower led to the planets and the stars; once you were in space you had limitless energy and raw materials and after that brainpower took you wherever you wanted but we'd thrown all that away.
Mr Zoliparia says the fast-tower represents something of an enigma, on account that we don't strictly speaking know what's actually in the top of it; it's been explored up to about the 10th or 11th levels but after that you can't get no higher, so they say. Blocked on the inside and nothing to hold onto on the outside and too high up for a balloon or an aircraft to go. The knowledge of what's up there's been lost long ago in the chaos of the crypt, says Mr Z.
You hear rumours that there are people up there in the top of the tower but that's got to be nonsense; how'd they breathe?
Mr Zoliparia isn't the only person to have theories concerning the big tower; Ergates the ant told me there used to be three space elevators; one here, one in Africa near a place called Kilimanjaro and one in Kalimantan. According to her, they've all been dismantled long since of course but we've got the biggest stump on account of whoever designed the American continent space elevator had the wizard idea of making the terminus particularly spectacular and so designed it to look like a huge castle, viz. the vastness of the fastness (which she claimed used to be called Acsets, which was another of them acronyms, apparently).
I thought this all sounded a bit iffy and asked Mr Z if he'd ever heard of there being other fast-towers and he said nope, not as far as he knew, and sure enough when I searched the crypt for info there wasn't any on no other elevators and when you actually look into it there doesn't seem to be anywhere where it says straight out the fast- tower used to be one end of a space elevator, though it's not a secret. Anyway, Kilimanjaro is a lake and Kalimantan is a big island (it's got a Crater Lake too) and I think Ergates' imagination was running away with her a bit there and besides if her theory was right the name of this place would begin with a K not a S or a A, stands to reason.
Poor Ergates. I still wonder what happened to that dear little ant, even though I've got plenty of other things to worry about now.
I turn over in the little nest I've made for myself in the babil branches and look down the curved trunk to the wall. Nobody else around. Looks like I gave the bastards the slip.
My shoulder still hurts. So do my wrists and my knees.
Oh what a sorry state we're in, young Bascule, I says to myself.
I just know that sooner or later I'm going to have to go back into the crypt to find out what on earth's going on, even though the last thing the big bat said was not to. Don't think it's going to be much fun.
I'm frightened.
You see, I've become an outcast.
I have to say I had a very pleasant lunch with Mr Zoliparia and a good game of Go which he won of course (like he always does) in this travelling restaurant. The restaurant starts in a vertical village in the babil near the top of the great hall gable and slowly descends to floor level over the next couple of hours. Good food and views.
