Anotine turned to me, her eyes closed, and said, "Shhh, just listen."
A faint noise of very fine glass slowly fracturing issued from the mechanism. Before long, though, it increased slightly in volume and arranged itself into a tinkling music that sounded like icicles being struck by minute tin hammers. The song was slow and sweet, eliciting a sense of nostalgia. I looked around at the company and saw that they all had their eyes closed and were following every note with emotional intensity.
I thought of them for the first time as a group, their different personalities and the focus of their individual studies, mixing together in a cocktail of inspiration. They were not merely symbolic objects containing secrets waiting to be remembered. If that were the case, there would have been no need for them to carry on lives and interact. I realized that Below was, through them, using the mnemonic system as a type of laboratory for creativity. Not only was he storing ideas here on the floating island, he was blending them to create new hybrids of thought. The researchers and their interactions, their conversations, constituted an imagination engine whose output was gathered and brought to consciousness by the Fetch. In short, Below was thinking without having to think about it.
When the box ran down and the last plinking note had sounded, Doctor Hellman turned to me, and said, "When I hear that, I can't help but believe that things are going to work out for the best."
"Very pretty" I said, and they all smiled at my approval.
"Let's have another drink," said Nunnly, "and then the Doctor can explain what happened to Claudio."
We each assiduously worked at our poison until our glasses were emptied and then refilled. Brisden polished off the bottle before him and reached down next to his chair to lift another pint he had at the ready. As he twisted off the top, he said, "I can hardly remember what Claudio looked like."
"I remember his thin black mustache," said Anotine.
"Hair that curled upon his head in a rather remarkable wave," said Nunnly.
"An altogether serious-minded fellow," added Doctor Hellman. "Claudio was a number man. He worked mathematics like an artist. The tune you just heard was composed by him. It is a theorem of his transposed into notes. For him, numbers had personalities, equations were like plays or stories, great comedies and tragedies that could make him laugh or cry. An interesting fellow, but ill suited for life on the island as it is prescribed by our absent employer.
"His vanity got the better of him, and he eventually came to the decision that he would no longer share his discoveries with the Fetch. We all cautioned him that to meddle with its work might be a tragic mistake. We did not know the extent to which we would be proven correct. One day when the head swooped down to extract his recent findings, he managed to duck beneath it, come up from behind and grab its long locks with both hands. It attempted to free itself, and the wailing it sent up brought us all scurrying to see what the commotion was. When we arrived he was swinging it by the hair, slamming the head into one of the walls in the courtyard outside his rooms. He gave it four or five bone-crunching whacks before it turned on him and bit his hands, finally liberating itself. It sped back to the tower emitting the sounds of a child weeping."
"He was very proud of what he had done" said Brisden.
"To say the least," continued the Doctor. "The next day, we were all sitting at the club, that room where you, Cley, initially materialized. We were drinking and playing cards, when suddenly there appeared a figure in the doorway. He was a tall, exceedingly thin man with a bulbous forehead and a chin that came nearly to a point. I remember his plain brown suit and how snugly it fit his emaciated body. His fingers were long and graceful, and they wriggled like unjointed worms when he spoke. 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,' he said."
"Wait," said Anotine. "Do you remember his head was shorn but for two long braids in the back?"
The others nodded.
"The look he wore on his face was what I imagine my expression will be when I go to the closet and find there is no more Tears In The River," said Brisden.
"Or mine when you next open your mouth to speak," said Nunnly.
Brisden grinned around his cigarette.
"A nightmare," said Doctor Hellman. "Then he said, T am looking for Professor Claudio,' in a high, whistling voice. We were all too amazed at the sight of another person on the island to respond. Claudio finally came to his senses, and said, T am Claudio.' The stranger excused himself to the rest of us and walked over to the mathematician. In an awkward manner, he leaned down. I thought he was going to whisper something to the professor, but at the last second, he put his lips over Claudio's ear, covering the entire thing. Then began the most horrifying process I have ever witnessed. I don't know how else to say it, but that he sucked the life right out of him."
"More than the life," said Nunnly. "Claudio's eyes imploded, his chest caved in, bones popped and broke, and his skull deflated like an overripe melon. The entire procedure took three agonizing minutes. The professor's screams exceeded any relationship to pain. I'll never forget it."
"Claudio was nothing but a limp husk when the stranger released him," said Anotine.
"A flesh puddle," said Brisden.
"The rest of you may not recall this," said the Doctor, "but when the thing, for I knew then it wasn't human, was finished, it belched, and through its open mouth, I could hear Claudio, as if at a great distance, crying unmercifully for help."
"I wish you hadn't mentioned that part," said Anotine, bringing her hand up to cover her eyes.
"Then, he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his brown suit, turned to us, and said, 'Please excuse the interruption/ With that, he walked out of the room," said the Doctor.
"We did nothing to help," said Brisden, staring at the ta-bletop. "We sat by, paralyzed with fear, and watched our colleague get devoured. Since then, I often think of things I might have done."
There was a thick silence for some time before the Doctor went on. "Nunnly and I followed a short distance behind the creature to see where he went. He walked swiftly, taking the most direct route to the doors at the base of the Panopticon. As far as we knew that entrance had never opened in all the time we had been here. But he presented himself to the eye that is carved into the center of the emblem that adorns it. A green light shot out, much like the light that issues from the Fetch, engaging his eyes, and the doors slid open to allow his entrance. He stepped through, and they slammed shut behind him. And that," said the Doctor, "is what you can expect from interfering with the protocol of the island."
"What was it?" I asked.
"We call him the Delicate," said Anotine. "It was Brisden's name for him."
"I thought it captured the irony between his demeanor and his table manners," said Brisden.
"I hope you'll forgive us for not having mentioned it sooner," said Nunnly, "but we can barely stand the thought of it."
There was nothing I could say. Either we would perish by way of the disintegration of the island or at the gaping mouth of the Delicate, who I surmised was some kind of agent for the eradication of errant or dangerous thoughts from the mnemonic system. I merely shook my head. The glasses were filled again, cigarettes were lit, and Nunnly went over and wound the box up. This time the same tune seemed more lurid than nostalgic. While we listened, the Fetch flew by the window outside, then returned to stare in. The Doctor silently motioned for us all to laugh. We did, a false chorus of merriment that iced the eerie moment and convinced Below's spy to move on.