Radix

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note 1 – radix by a. a. attanasio

Scanned, formatted and proof-read by BW-SciFi Release Date: 18 th , July, 2003 Ebook Version 1.0 acknowledgments The inwardness of this effort has indebted me to many people. I am particularly grateful to my family for their compassionate support; the poet Jon Lang for sharing his visions and for allowing me to transmogrify his poem "The Other" into the Voor Litany (pages 299-300); the editor Maria Guarnaschelli for ennobling this book with her clarity and caring; the composer Victor Bongiovanni for permission to use a voice from his musical composition "Berceuse from Suite for Piano Four-Hand"* as Sumner's undersong (page 445); and the copy editor Betsy Cenedella for closing the circle.
Robert Silverberg published an early and greatly re-visioned excerpt of "The Blood's Hori-zon" in his New Dimensions 7 (Harper & Row, 1977).
I also want to thank Artie Conliffe for the map of the hemisphere and Fred Marcellino for the cover art.
*"Berceuse from Suite for Piano Four-Hand" copyright В© 1979 by Victor Bongiovanni. contents distorts Firstness
Pictures of the Real Universe
Teeth Dreams voors The Mysteries
The Emptying
The Blood's Horizon godmind Destiny as Density
Trance Port
The Untelling
Epilogue
Appendix
Worldline
Profiles
Argot
Things can be—
and their Being is grounded
in Nothing's ability to noth.
—kenneth burke, Language as Symbolic Action
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^/С distorts No man knows himself. —I ching firstness Blinded by the headlights, Sumner Kagan lunged off the road and slid down the dirt embankment into the dark. Above and behind him braking tires squealed furiously. Sav-age voices yowled as the Nothungs, in leather streetgear, rolled out of their Death Crib and chased after him. They were five viper-thin men with blood-bruised eyes and teeth filed to points.
"Run, Wad—run!" the Nothungs yelled.
At the bottom of the incline Sumner veered into the marsh. He looked like a spooked cow in the dark, waddling heftily from side to side, with only the Death Crib's head-lights shimmering off his smudged and tattered shirt. He pushed into the tall grass, arms flailing wildly. His night vision had returned and he could see clearly the squat silhou-ette of the alkaloid factory on the horizon. He knew there was a packed dirt path somewhere around here.
Not far behind, the Nothungs were whistling chains through the air, howling, and cracking stones together. If he merely stumbled he would be torn to pieces—the police could search the marshes for weeks and still they wouldn't find all of him.
He thrashed through a brake of cattails, and then his feet hit hard earth. It was the path, a straight run to the alkaloid factory. In the west the Goat Nebula was rising. He screwed his mind into that brilliant green spark and kept his thick legs pumping.
When he reached the chain-link fence of the factory the Nothungs were close enough to pelt his broad, stoop-shouldered back with scattered handfuls of gravel. There was barely time to find the hole that he had sheared through the fence earlier that day. He found it beneath the massive and mud-streaked billboard: NO GO! TRESPASSERS SHOT!
He bellycrawled through and had to strain to haul his corpulent body to its feet. He banged up a long metal ramp toward a broad staircase that ascended into the dark galleries of the factory.
It was bad planning, he told himself, to have to climb stairs after such a long run. It might all end here. Rau! His feet and legs were numb with fatigue and his heart was slamming in his throat. He fixed his eyes on the dark shadows at the head of the stairs and ignored the pain that stabbed him more sharply with each step.
Just as he made it to the top, one of the Nothungs clutched at his pants and ripped off his back pocket. Desper-ately, spastically, he sprawled forward and kicked free. Strug-gling with his own pendulous weight, he pulled himself to his feet as the Nothungs came bellowing over the top.
Exhaustion staggered him but he fought against it. The big vat was up ahead. He could see it below through the wire mesh of the ramp.
The Nothungs were now coming up strong directly be-hind him, ricocheting their chains off the pipes on either side. They thought they had him trapped. Alone, in an aban-doned factory. That appealed to their imaginations. Sumner had known it would.
The silver scars on the metal post, where the DANGER sign had once been, blurred past him, and Sumner took its cue and leaped. The knotted rope was there all right, and its stiff threads stung his pulpy hands as he swung heavily to the other side. There were two sharp screams behind him, two splashes.
Swiftly he looped the rope around the railing and, plod-ding off into the darkness, found the broad pipe that would carry him back to the other side. He staggered along it, adjacent to the ramp where three silent Nothungs were meekly peering down into the darkness. An emergency waterhose was just where he had left it. He had tested it that morning.
One of the Nothungs was yelling across the darkness: "We'll find you, fat boy! We'll rip you!"
"Aw, blow it out, screwfaces," Sumner said, just loud enough to be heard. He had already turned the waterpower on, and as three rage-dark faces spun around, he opened the valve. The blast clipped their legs out from under them and logrolled them off the ramp, their wails lost in the hiss and bang of water hitting acid.
Sumner listened deeply to the hissing water as he crouched with fatigue over the limp hose. His breath was tight in his throat, and his leg muscles were spasming from the hard run. He paused only briefly before taking a canister of red spraypaint from its hiding place beside the waterhose. With an unsteady arm he mist-scrawled on one of the broad overhead pipes: SUGARAT.
Sumner didn't stop to rest until he got to his car in a lot behind the factory. It was a standard bottle-green electric car, squarebacked, with three small hard rubber tires and two scoop seats. He loved it more than anything else. It was his home, more of a place of fealty and comfort than the rug-walled residence he shared with his mother.
He slumped over and laid his head and arms on the cool metal roof. When he caught his breath he opened the door and dropped into the driver's seat, his head lolling back against the headrest. One hand fingered the wooden steering wheel and the other dangled over a carton of stale crumbcake. He stuffed a morsel in his mouth, and though it was dry and powdery, a fossil of its original flavor spread over his tongue. He closed his eyes to savor it. He hadn't eaten in two days. He had had to settle this thing with the Nothungs, and he couldn't enjoy eating when he was thinking about killing. But now that was over. It was time for the Tour. His stomach grumbled in anticipation.
Stuffing another block of cake in his mouth, he slid the starter chip into the ignition slot. He felt a warmth spread over him as he opened the clutch, set the car in gear, and wheeled out through the elephant grass.
Sumner and his car had a lot in common. They were both bulky, squarebacked, and sloppy. Dunes of crumbs drifted out of the corners and over stains of beer, gravy, and pastry fillings. Shreds of wrapping paper, crushed cookie cartons, a bedraggled sock, and numerous bottle caps were wedged between the seats and under the dash. And there, beneath the particolored triangular Eye of Lami—which Jeanlu the witch-voor had given him to protect him from his enemies—were three words: BORN TO DREAD. Their am-biguity pleased him. Besides eating, the thing he did most consistently and with the most fervor was dread.