"Relationship of connectives one to many, many to one," the Caleban said. "Maintenance exchange."
"How in the hell did we get into this dead-end conversation?" McKie asked.
"You seek positional referents for placement of floggings, that begins conversation," the Caleban said.
"Placement . . . yeah."
"You understand S'eye effect?" the Caleban asked.
McKie exhaled slowly. To the best of his knowledge, no Caleban had ever before volunteered a discussion of the S'eye effect. The one-two-three of how to use the mechanism of the jumpdoors - yes, this was something they could (and did) explain. But the effect, the theory. . . .
"I . . . uh, use the jumpdoors," McKie said. "I know something of how the control mechanism is assembled and tuned to . . ."
"Mechanism not coincide with effect!"
"Uhhh, certainly," McKie agreed. "The word's not the thing."
"Precisement! We say - I translate, you understand? - we say, 'Term evades node.' You catch the hanging of this term, self thinks."
"I . . . uh, get the hang of it," McKie agreed.
"Recommend hang-line as good thought," the Caleban said. "Self, I believe we approach true communication. It wonders me."
"You wonder about it."
"Negative. It wonders about me."
"That's great," McKie said in a flat voice. "That's communication?"
"Understanding diffuses . . . scatters? Yes - understanding scatters when we discuss connectives. I observe connectives of your . . . psyche. For psyche, I understand 'other self.' True?"
"Why not?" McKie asked.
"I see," the Caleban said, ignoring McKie's defeated tone, "psyche patterns, perhaps their colors. Approachments and outreaching touch by awareness. I come, through this, to unwinding of intelligence and perhaps understand what you mean by term, stellar mass. Self understands by being stellar mass, you hang this, McKie?"
"Hang this? Oh, sure . . . sure."
"Good! Comes now an understanding of your . . . wandering? Difficult word, McKie. Very likely this an uncertain exchange. Wandering equals movement along one line for you. This cannot exist for us. One moves, all move for Caleban on own plane. S'eye effect combines all movements and vision. I see you to other place of your desired wandering."
McKie, his interest renewed by this odd rambling, said, "You see us . . . that's what moves us from one place to another?"
"I hear sentient of your plane say sameness, McKie. Sentient say, 'I will see you to the door.' So? Seeing moves."
Seeing moves? McKie wondered. He mopped his forehead, his lips. It was so damned hot! What did all this have to do with "maintenance exchange"? Whatever that was!
"Stellar mass maintains and exchanges," the Caleban said. "Not see through the self. S'eye connective discontinues. You call this . . . privacy? Cannot say. This Caleban exists alone or self on your plane. Lonely."
We're all lonely, McKie thought.
And this universe would be lonely soon, if he couldn't find a way to escape their common grave. Why did the problem have to hang on such fumbling communication?
It was a peculiar kind of torment trying to talk to the Caleban under these pressures. He wanted to speed the processes of understanding, but speed sent all sentiency hurtling toward the brink. He could feel time flying past him. Urgency churned his stomach. He marched with time, retreated with it - and he'd started somehow on the wrong foot.
He thought about the fate of just one baby who'd never passed through a jumpdoor. The baby would cry . . . and there'd be no one to answer.
The awesome totality of the threat daunted him.
Everyone gone!
He put down a surge of irritation at the zzzt-beat of the Taprisiot intrusions. That, at least, was companionship.
"Do Taprisiots send our messages across space the same way?" he asked. "Do they see the calls?"
"Taprisiot very weak," the Caleban said. "Taprisiot not possess Caleban energy. Self energy, you understand?"
"I dunno. Maybe."
"Taprisiot see very thin, very short," the Caleban said. "Taprisiot not see through stellar mass of self. Sometimes Taprisiot ask for . . . boost? Amplification! Caleban provide service. Maintenance exchange, you hang? Taprisiot pay, we pay, you pay. All pay energy. You call energy demand . . . hunger, not so?"
"Oh, hell!" McKie said. "I'm not getting the half of . . ."
A brawny Palenki arm carrying a whip inserted itself into the space above the giant spoon. The whip cracked, sent a geyser of green sparks into the purple gloom. Arm and whip were gone before McKie could move.
"Fanny Mae," McKie whispered, "you still there?"
Silence . . . then, "No laughter, McKie. Thing you call surprise, but no laughter. I break line there. An abruptness, that flogging."
McKie exhaled, noted the mindclock timing of the incident, relayed the coordinates at the next Taprisiot contact.
There was no sense talking about pain, he thought. It was equally fruitless to explore inhaling whips or exhaling substance . . . or maintenance exchanges or hunger or stellar masses or Calebans moving other sentients by the energy of seeing. Communication was bogged down.
They'd achieved something, though Tuluk had been right. The S'eye contacts for the floggings required some timing or periodicity which could be identified. Perhaps there was a line of sight involved. One thing sure: Abnethe had her feet planted on a real planet somewhere. She and her mob of psycho friends - her psycho-phants! - all of them had a position in space which could be located. She had Palenkis, renegade Wreaves, an outlaw PanSpechi - gods knew what all. She had Beautybarbers, too, and Taprisiots, probably. And somehow the Beautybarbers, the Taprisiots, and this Caleban all used the same sort of energy to do their work.
"Could we try again," McKie asked, "to locate Abnethe's planet?"
"Contract forbids."
"You have to honor it, eh? Even to the death?"
"Honor to ultimate discontinuity, yes."
"And that's pretty near, is it?"
"Position of ultimate discontinuity becomes visible to self," the Caleban said. "Perhaps this equates with near."
Again arm and whip flicked into being, showered the air with a cascade of green sparks, and withdrew.
McKie darted forward, stopped beside the spoon bowl. He had never before ventured quite this close to the Caleban. There was more heat near the bowl, and he felt a tingling sensation along his arms. The shower of green sparks had left no mark on the carpeting, no residual substance, nothing. McKie felt the insistent attraction of the Caleban's unpresence, a disturbing intensity this near. He forced himself to turn away. His palms were wet with fear.
What else am I afraid of here? he asked himself.
"Those two attacks came pretty close together," McKie said.
"Positional adjacency noted," the Caleban said. "Next coherence more distant. You say 'farther away'? True?"
"Yeah. Will the next flogging be your last?"
"Self not know," the Caleban said. "Your presence lessens flogging intensity. You . . . reject? Ahhh, repel!"
"No doubt," McKie said. "I wish I knew why the end of you means the end of everyone else."
"You transfer self of you with S'eye," the Caleban said. "So?"
"Everyone does!"
"Why? You teach explanation of this?"
"It's centralizing the whole damn universe. It's . . . it's created the specialized planets - honeymoon planets, gynecology planets, pediatrics planets, snow sport planets, geriatrics planets, swim sport planets, library planets - even BuSab has almost a whole planet to itself. Nobody gets by without it, anymore. Last figures I saw, fewer than a fraction of one percent of the sentient population had never used a S'eye jumpdoor."
"Truth. Such use creates connectives, McKie. You must hang this. Connectives must shatter with my discontinuity. Shatter conveys ultimate discontinuity for all who use jumpdoor S'eye."