Big Planet

17 The Oracle

Koromutin continued his preparations. From a locked cabinet he brought a jar of a murky yellow fluid, from which he filled a rude hypodermic.

“What’s that stuff?” demanded Glystra contemptuously.

“That is wisdom.” Koromutin spoke with unctuous complacency. “The head glands of four men go into each charge; the material is concentrated sagacity.”

Hormones, pineal fluid, thought Glystra; God only knew what nastiness.

Koromutin replaced the jar of fluid in the cabinet, clamped the hypodermic to the front of his hat like a holy emblem. “Now—to the Veridicarium.”

He led Nymaster and Glystra down the corridor, up the stairs, along a wide passage to the central hall under the dome—a large twelve-sided room panelled with mother-of-pearl and swimming with pale gray color. In the center rose a dais of black wood holding a single chair.

There were only two dozen priests in the hall, arranged in a semi-circle, chanting a litany of monosyllabic gibberish unintelligible to Glystra, and, he suspected, equally meaningless to the priests.

“Only a score,” muttered Koromutin. “The Lord Voiv-ode will not be pleased. He bases the value of the oracle’s wisdom by the number of priests in the hall… I must wait here, in the alcove.” His voice came muffled as if from under the robes. “By custom, I follow the oracle.” He glanced around the hall. “You two had best go by the Boreal Wall, lest some stripling novice peer under your hood and raise an outcry.”

Nymaster and Glystra took inconspicuous positions against a great carved screen. A moment later an egg-shaped palanquin curtained with peach satin and fringed with blue tassels was borne into the hall. Four black men in red breeches served as porters; two girls followed with a chair of withe and clever pink bladder cushions.

The porters set down the equipage; a red-faced little man hopped out from between the curtains, seated himself in the chair which was hurriedly thrust under him.

He beckoned furiously, to no one in particular, to the world at large. “Haste, haste!” he wheezed. “Life is running out! The light leaves my eyes while I sit here!”

The Prefect Superior approached him, bowed his head with nicely calculated respect. “Perhaps the Lord Voivode would care to refresh himself during the preliminary rites.”

“Devil take the preliminaries!” bawled the Voivode. “In any event I note but a niggardly score of priests here to honor my presence; such makeshift preliminaries I can well spare. Let us to the oraculating; this time let him be a stalwart in his prime—a Rebbir, a Bode, a Juillard. No more like that senile Delta-man who died two minutes after the spasms left him.”

The prefect bowed. “We will seek to oblige you, Voivode.” He looked up at a sound. “The oracle comes.”

Two priests entered the room supporting between them a black-haired man in a white smock. He stared back and forth like a trapped animal, digging his heels into the floor.

The Lord Voivode roared in contempt. “Is this the creature who is to advise me? Faugh! He appears unable to do more than empty his bowels in fear!”

The prefect spoke with imperturbable suavity. “Let your misgivings vanish, Lord Voivode. He speaks with the wisdom of four men.”

The wretch in the white smock was hoisted to the chair on the dais, where he sat trembling.

The Lord Voivode watched in ill-concealed disgust. “I believe I can tell him more than he can tell me, even with his wisdom quadrupled; all he knows is fear. And once again the precious instants of my life are wasted futilely; where will I find just treatment?”

The prefect shrugged. “The world is wide; perhaps somewhere oracles exist superior to ours here at Myrtlesee Fountain. The Lord Voivode might with advantage put his questions to one of those other omniscients.”

The Voivode spluttered, abruptly lapsed into silence.

Now appeared Koromutin, stately and ceremonious in his stiff gown. He climbed the dais, lifted the hypodermic down from his hat, plunged it home in the oracle’s neck. The oracle tensed, arched his back like a bow, flung his elbows out, thrust his chin hard into the air. For a moment he sat rigid, then slumped, limp as seaweed into the chair. He put his head into his hand, rubbing his forehead.

There was dead silence in the chamber. The oracle rubbed his forehead.

His foot jerked. His head bobbed. Sounds came from his mouth. He raised his head in bewilderment. His shoulders quivered, his feet jerked again, his nose twitched. A swift babble poured from his mouth, rising in pitch. He yelled, in a hoarse bawling voice. His body quivered, jerked—faster, faster. He was vibrating as if the dais were rocking.

Glystra watched with fascinated eyes. “Is that the wisdom? I find no sense in this screaming.”

“Quiet.”

The man was in wildest agony. Moisture dripped from his mouth, his face muscles were knotted into ropes, his eyes glared like lamps.

The Lord Voivode leaned forward, smiling and nodding. He turned to the prefect who bent respectfully, put a query inaudible over the yammer of the oracle. The prefect nodded calmly, straightened, teetered back and forth on his heels, hands behind his back.

The oracle sprang to his feet. His back arched, the breath rattled past lips which were pulled back from teeth… Then he settled limply into the chair. He sat still, calm and serene, as if agony had purged away all the dross in his soul and left him with a vast meditative coolness.

In the silence the prefect’s murmur to the Voivode was clearly distinguishable: “He’s now on the settle. You have perhaps five minutes of wisdom before he dies.”

The Voivode hitched himself forward. “Oracle, answer well, how long have I to live?”

The oracle smiled wearily. “You ask triviality—and I shall answer. Why not? So—from the position of your body, from your gait, from certain mental considerations, it is evident that you are eaten by an internal canker. Your breath reeks of decay. I judge your life at a year, no more.”

The Voivode turned a contorted face to the prefect. “Take him away; he is a liar! I pay good slaves and then he tells me lies”

The prefect held up a calm hand. “Never come to Myrtlesee Fountain for flattery or bolus, Voivode; you will hear only truth.”

The Voivode turned back to the oracle. “How may I extend my life?”

“I have no certain knowledge. A reasonable regimen would include bland foods, abstinence from stimulating narcotics and gland revitalizers, a program of charitable deeds to ease your mind.”

The Voivode twisted angrily back to the prefect. “You have gulled me; this creature voids the most odious nonsense. Why does he not reveal the formula?”

“What formula?” inquired the prefect without concern.

“The mixing of the elixir of eternal life!” roared the Voivode. “What else?”

The prefect shrugged. “Ask him yourself.”

The Voivode dictated the question. The oracle listened politely.

“There is no such information in my experience, and insufficient data to synthesize such a formula.”

In more gentle tones the prefect suggested, “Ask only such information as lies in the realm of the natural. The oracle is no seer, like the Witthorns or the Edelweiss Hags.”

The Voivode’s face turned a mottled purple. “How may I best secure my son his inheritance?”

“In a state isolated from external influence a ruler can rule from tradition, by force or by the desire and acquiescence of his subjects. The last of these guarantees the most stable reign.”

“Go on, go on!” screamed the Voivode. “Time fleets: You will die at any moment?”

“Strange,” said the oracle with a weary smile, “when now for the first time I have started to live.”

“Speak!” said the prefect sharply.

“Your dynasty started with yourself when you poisoned the previous voivode; there is no tradition of rule. Your son might therefore maintain himself by force. The process is simple. He must kill all who dispute his leadership. These acts will win him new enemies, and he must kill these likewise. If he is able to kill faster than his enemies are able to gather their strength, he will remain in power.”

“Impossible! My son is a popinjay. I am surrounded by traitors, preening cock-o’-the-walk underlings who wait the time of my death as the signal to rob and pillage.”

“In this case your son must prove himself a ruler so able that no one will desire to be rid of him.”

The Voivode’s eyes grew dim. His gaze went far away, perhaps to the face of his son.

“To foster this situation, you must institute a change in your own policies. Examine every act of your officials from the viewpoint of the least privileged members of the state, and modify your policies accordingly; then when you die, your son will be floated on a reservoir of good will and loyalty.”

The Voivode leaned back in his chair, looked quizzically up at the prefect. “And it is for this that I have paid twenty sound slaves and five ounces of copper?”

The prefect was disturbed. “He has outlined a course of action to guide you. He has answered your questions.”

“But,” the Voivode protested, “he told me nothing pleasant!”

The prefect looked blandly up along the mother-of-pearl panelling. “At Myrtlesee Fountain you will hear no flattery, no spurious evasions. You hear exactitude and truth.”

The Voivode swelled, puffed, blew out his cheeks.

“Very well, another question. The Delta-men have been raiding all Cridgin Valley and stealing cattle. My soldiers flounder in the mud and reeds. How best may I abate this nuisance? What can I do?”

“Plant bush-vine on the Imsidiption Hills.”

The Voivode sputtered; the prefect said hastily, “Explain if you please.”

“The Delta-folk subsist by preference on clams. For centuries they have cultivated clam beds. You have grazed your pechavies on the Imsidiption slopes so steadily that the vegetation is gone and the rain washes great quantities of silt into River Pannasic. This silt is deposited on the clam beds, the clams die. In hunger the Delta-men raid the cattle of the valley. To abate the nuisance, remove the cause.”

“They have been impudent and treacherous; I want revenge.”

“You will never achieve your wish,” the oracle said.

The Voivode leapt to his feet. He seized a stone jar from his palanquin, threw it viciously at the oracle, struck him on the chest. The prefect held up an outraged hand; the Voivode darted him a look of black malice, flung aside the girls, jumped into the palanquin. The four black porters silently lifted the poles to their shoulders, started for the door.

The oracle had closed his eyes. His mouth drooped. A tic twisted his lips. He began to gasp—great gulping breaths. His fingers clenched, unclenched. Glystra, watching in fascination, started forward, but Nymaster clutched him, drew him back.

“Are you mad? Do you not value your head?”

Koromutin marched past, motioned significantly. “Await me in the corridor.”

“Hurry!” said Glystra.

Koromutin gave him a glance of wordless contempt, disappeared down the passage. An endless ten minutes later he returned, wearing his usual white and blue robe. Without a word or glance he turned up the steps glowing with vermilion lacquer, which gave on an arcade circling the dome. Through tall arches Glystra could see across the oasis, past the shimmer of the desert to the black hills, now hazy in the afternoon light.

Koromutin turned up another flight of stairs, and they came out into another corridor circling the dome. This time the openings overlooked the hall below. Koromutin turned into a small office. A man almost his twin sat at a desk. Koromutin waved Nymaster and Glystra back, approached the desk, spoke with great earnestness, and presently received an answer of equal import.

Koromutin beckoned to Nymaster. “This is Gentile, the Steward Ordain. He can help us, if your father will part with a second dagger of workmanship like that I am to receive.”

Nymaster grumbled and cursed. “It can be so arranged.”

Koromutin nodded and the little man at the desk, as if waiting the signal, arose, stepped out into the hall.

“He has seen the woman in question,” said Koromutin in a confidential undertone, “and can take you to her quarters. I leave you in his care. Walk discreetly, for now you tread in high places.”

They continued, with Gentile the steward in the lead— along interminable corridors, up another flight of stairs. Glystra heard a sound which caused him to halt in his tracks—a low-pitched steady hum.

Gentile turned impatiently. “Come now, I will show you the woman, then my task is done.”

“What causes that sound?” asked Glystra.

“Look through the grating; you will see the source. It is a glass and metal organism that talks in distant voices—a think of potency, but not of our present interest. Come.”

Glystra peered through the grating. He saw modern electronic equipment arranged and hooked together in a manner that suggested knowledgeable improvisation. A rough table held a speaker, a microphone, a bank of controls, and behind, the twenty parallel fins which carried the printed circuits, served as condensers, resistances, impedances… Glystra stared, the sight opening an entirely new range of possibilities.

“Come, come, come!” barked the steward. “I wish to keep my head on my shoulders, even if you care nothing for yours.”

“How much further?” snapped Nymaster. The affair was taking him farther afield than he had bargained for.

“A few steps, no more, then you shall see the woman; but mind you, take care not to make your presence known or else we’ll all dangle and our heads will be drained.”

“What!” barked Glystra savagely. Nymaster gripped his arm, shook his head urgently. “Don’t antagonize the old fool,” he whispered. “Otherwise we’ll never find her.”