"You promise?" it said. Quiss nodded.
"Of course. I am a man of my word."
"All right, then." The attendant ran forward. Quiss sat down on the little stool. The attendant stood, facing him. "I don't know what it's called, or even if it has a name. It's a fish, they say, and it just sits there and... well... thinks."
"Hmm, it thinks, eh?" Quiss said thoughtfully, rubbing his neck. A little bit of fur from the hole's collar had stuck to his tunic neck; he picked it off and fiddled with it. "What, exactly, does it think about?"
"Well..." the attendant looked agitated and confused. It kept shifting Its weight from one yellow-booted foot to the other and back again.'... it doesn't actually think so much as experience. I think."
"You think," Quiss repeated, unimpressed.
"It's a sort of link," the attendant said desperately. "It links us up with somebody... in the... on the Subject world."
"Ah-ha!" Quiss said. "I thought so."
There, that's all there is to it," the small attendant said, and started tugging at his sleeve, its other hand indicating the door it had just locked.
"Just a moment," Quiss said, and jerked the sleeve away from the creature's grasp. "What is the name of this Subject place, this planet?"
"I don't know!"
"Hmm, well I suppose I'll find out soon enough," Quiss said, and started to get up off the stool, looking up at the hole. He stood and grasped the iron hoops, put one foot on the stool. The attendant jumped up and down, its little yellow gloves made into fists and jammed together at the small hard mouth of its face mask.
"No!" it shrieked. "I'll tell you!"
"What's it called then?"
" 'Dirt'! It's called 'Dirt'!" the hopping attendant said. "Now will you go, please!"
"Dirt?" Quiss said incredulously. The attendant beat its gloves on its head.
"I... I... I think..." it spluttered, "I think it loses something in the translation."
"And this thing," Quiss nodded up at the ceiling, at the shadow round the hole. "It forms a link from here to this place called Dirt. Is that right?"
"Yes!"
"And are all the people on this planet... accessible? Are all those lights you see initially individual people? How many? Can you get into any of them? Are they all unaware of people looking in on them? Can they all be affected?"
"Oooh no," the small attendant said. It stopped jumping and bouncing around, seemingly collapsing in on itself. Its shoulders dropped, it looked forlornly down at the slate floor. It went and sat with its back to the door. "All the lights you see at the start are individuals." It sighed, talking more slowly now in a small, resigned voice. "They are all available, and can all be influenced. There are about four billion of them."
"Hmm. Their bodies look quite similar to ours."
"Yes, they're supposed to. It is our Subject, after all."
That's where all the books come from?"
"Yes."
"I see," Quiss said. "Why?"
"Why what?" the small attendant said, looking up at him.
"Why the link? What's it all for?"
The small attendant put back its head and laughed. He had never heard one of them laugh before. It said, "How am I meant to know that?" It shook its head, looked back at the floor again, "What a question." Suddenly it sat bolt upright. It turned quickly and pressed the side of its head to the door. It spun round to face him. "Quickly; it's the seneschal! You must get out!"
It quickly unlocked the door and pulled it open, its small boots sliding and skidding on the slate floor with the effort. Quiss was on his feet, but he couldn't hear anything. He suspected the small attendant of trying to trick him. It looked at him, held out its little hands, pleading with him. "For your own sake, man. You'll be here for ever; you must go now."
Quiss could hear a sort of deep rumbling noise from beyond the open door. It sounded like one of the main driveshafts from the great clock, heard through one of the thinner walls. It hadn't been there when he entered the room from the corridor outside. He went quickly to the door and outside. The attendant ducked out with him, and he helped it close the heavy door. The rumbling noise stopped. From along the corridor, as Quiss and the attendant went in opposite directions (the small creature scurried to a tiny door on the far wall and disappeared through, slamming it), a tortured squeaking, squealing noise came. Quiss was walking slowly towards the source of this cacophany; it sounded like metal scraped over metal. A wedge of light came from the side of the wall, and from a large square room with metal gates which squeaked and squealed as they were concertinaed to one side, and which Quiss realised must be a lift, the seneschal emerged with an entourage of black-cloaked minions. They stopped in the corridor when they saw him. Quiss looked at the small figures surrounding the seneschal, and for the first time felt genuinely apprehensive of the castle's dwarfish inhabitants.
"May we escort you back to your own levels?" The seneschal's voice was cold. Quiss got the impression he had little choice; he entered the elevator with the seneschal and most of the small minions, and they let him out a few storeys below the games room level. Nothing else was said.
He had tried since to find either the attendant he had met in the room, or the room itself, but without success. He thought they had probably rebuilt some of the corridors down there; a lot of building work had been going on in that area recently. He was fairly sure, too, that even if he did ever find himself in the same place, the door would be locked.
He hadn't said anything to Ajayi about this. He enjoyed having knowledge she didn't. Let her read, and complain about not having the name of this mysterious place; he knew!
Quiss placed his last domino down. The two of them sat looking at the irregular construction of flat, placed ivories, as though expecting it to do something. Then Quiss sighed and went to scoop them up for another game. He might persuade Ajayi to give it another go before she broke off for food or a book. Ajayi was leaning forward, putting out one hand to stop her companion from starting another game. Then she became aware that the dominoes weren't moving. Quiss was trying to prise them from the surface of the small table, and growing annoyed.
"Now what the -" he began, and went to pick up the table. Ajayi stopped him, putting her hands on his forearms.
"No!" she said, and met his gaze. "This might mean..."
The old man realised, and quickly got up from his seat and went into the hot, bright space of the games room. By the time he came back from calling for an attendant, Ajayi was leaning over the table with a smile on her face, watching as a pattern of spots slowly appeared on the dominoes they had placed there.
"There, you see!" Quiss said, sitting down, bright-faced with sweat and triumph. Ajayi nodded happily.
"Gosh," said a small voice, "it's awfwy hot in here."
"That was quick," Quiss said to a waiter as it appeared from the games room's bright interior. It nodded.
"Welw," it said, "I was on my way here to see what you wanted fo" wunch. But I could take you-wanswer, if you wike."
Ajayi was smiling at the waiter, finding its speech impediment more funny than she knew she ought. She was just in a good mood, she supposed. Quiss said, "Certainly you can; it's...' he glanced at Ajayi, who nodded, and Quiss continued, "... they both disappear in a blaze of radiation. Got that?"
" 'They bofe disappea" in a bwaze of wadiation.' Yes, I fink I've got that. Twy not to be too wong; see you water..." It turned and waddled back through the games room, head down, mumbling the answer to itself, its little blue boots sparkling with reflected light from the fish under the glass floor, its steps and voice dopplering oddly as it passed a clock face.