Nita actually winced. That was a question the answer to which she d had entirely too much of lately. Yet Nita also could sense that out here, pinned down in the unforgiving light,was someone or something as vulnerable as a butterfly with glass wings. An angry or thoughtless answer could shatter it.
She thought about her response for a moment. We re the impermanent ones, she finally said. The world may last, but we don t.
The eyes in the painted face widened.
The painted mouth went wide, and a great cry of anguish burst out of the clown. Nita took a breath, terrified that she d screwed up, despite her caution.
Then she caught her breath again, because without warning there was suddenly another clown there, identical to the first one. It was standing, not sitting, and with an interested expression it watched the first clown scream. I heard about the impermanence thing, said the second clown. The Silence told me. What went wrong
Nita was finding all of this unusually weird, even for a dream.The Silence What s that supposed to mean She sat down outside the circle of the spotlight, not far from where the second clown stood in the twilight zone, halfway between the light and the shadow. There are a lot of answers to that one, Nita said. One ofthem s simple. Somebody invented Death.
As she mentioned It, Nita heard that low menacing growl coming from somewhere out there in the shadows. Invoking the Lone Power, however obliquely, and even in dream, always had its dangers. But the growl seemed to have no real teeth in it.It sounds almost tired , Nita thought.Weird. But of much more interest to her, though the second clown wouldn t look directly at her, either, was the sudden live look in its eyes a flash of recognition, a scowl of rejection.
I know, the second clown said. Its voice, his voice, was fighting with that robotic quality, the life in it struggling to get out.
Just for a moment it succeeded. Nita got a quick flicker-rush of images and sounds: dawns and sunsets, objects shaped roughly like the clown all rushing hither and yon on unfathomable errands, shouting at one another about incomprehensible things. All kinds of pain were tangled up with the rush and roar of perception, but strangest of all, it was pain that the one who experienced it actually welcomed. For the clown, that pain was a lifeline, something it clung to as away to temporarily mask out sensations it couldn t bear, and as something that could sometimes pierce through the muffling blanket ofnonfeeling that kept draping itself over the clown s body and mind. Nita could feel that the clown hoped there might be more to life than hurting but it was also willing to suffer the hurt if that meant staying alive to get its own job done.
The storm of pictures and feelings faded, leaving Nita staring down into a roiling, scary darkness. But the darkness was oddly ambivalent, as filled with possibility as with terror.
And I m the one who finds that strange, not him, Nita thought. Whoever this was, however simplistic or not his view of the universe might be, he was braver about it than she was.
I didn t know everything was like this for you, Nita said.
The clown winced, as if something had pained it. I But Idid know. There is noother .
Nita blinked. It was remarks like this that kept making her wonder if she was dealing with a human or an alien that, and the way the clown seemed able to cope with some concepts one moment, and then would lose them again the next. Yet again she had to remind herself that there was still no guarantee she was dealing with a human. All the imageries so far the clown, the robot, the knight were ones this entity could have pulled out of her own head as possible ways to communicate. And she still needed to be careful not to hurt whatever it was.
Well, I wonder if the version of the Speech I ve been using is too local, toohumanoid I could try one of the broaderrecensions .Orthebroadest one.
She pulled out her manual to make extra sure of the phrasing. The EnactiveRecension was the form in which it was said the One didIts business. Nita was a little nervous about using it, because she could, apparently, make serious changes in her local environment if she was careless while speaking in Enactive. According to an old joke, the asteroid belt had been a planet once, until one of the Powers That Bemisconjugated a verb
Well, I can t blow anything up if I keep the phrasing simple enough, Nita thought.This phrasing should be real inoffensive .
Thereare more than one of us, she said.
There was the briefest pause and this timeboth clowns put their heads up and screamed. While Nita watched, her mouth open, the first one actually shredded away on the air, in torment and shock.
The second one stood there screaming away, and Nita watched, wide-eyed, wondering if it was going to shred, too. But it didn t. The scream didn t stop, either. After a few moments, as her own shock wore off, the noise began to remind Nita of her earliest encounters withDairine or rather, withDairine after she d first become aware that Nita might possibly be in competition with her for their parents attention.Dairine s lung power at the age of two had initially caused Nita some innocent wonder, but this was a phase that had lasted about five minutes, and now, as the scream just kept on going, Nita let out a long breath and invoked theremedy she d learned way back then. All right, she shouted in the Speech. Shut UP!
The second clown fell silent in complete amazement.
There is more than one of us, Nita said, into the abruptly echoing silence. Are.Whatever. I m sorry if this poses some kind of problem for you. Butscreaming s not going to make all the rest of us go away.
There was another of those long, long pauses.
Tried that before, huh Nita said, not without some amusement.
And ignoring you, the clown said, looking past her, and looking annoyed. That didn t work, either.
Nita found herself remembering how desperately she had wanted to ignore the preparations for her mother s funeral, to the point where she had actually partly succeeded and the funeral itself had begun to seem unreal, like a bad dream. It was after that that the remoteness began to sink into her.That feeling of nothing mattering, of not wanting to deal with anything , she thought,the filter I ve been stuck with that s what this guy and I have in common. That s what s been drawing us together even when he s tried to break the link himself. But somehow it seems important for it not to get broken now . Why ignore everybody she said.
Because you re a distraction.
As for the first part of that, Nita said, sorry, but you re confused. I m here, believe me.And as for the second a distraction from what
The clown looked around at the darkness. This.
Meaning what
Out of the darkness, ever so softly, came that growl again.
Nita glanced out into the dark, slightly unnerved.But this is still my dream , she thought.IfIt tries something cute, I can just slip out. I hope . Now there are some contradictions in what you ve been saying, she said. I thought you said you were all by yourself.
I am. This time the phrase, in the Speech, was identical with the Self-declaration of Life. Nita, even more unnerved now, half expected to hear thunder, but none came. The One was either otherwise occupied, or not particularly concerned about havingIts lines stolen. But That, out there That s different.
Nita wasn t sure that the clown was able to perceive the contradictions.Maybe it can t. Or maybe differentand otherdon t mean the same thing for it . Certainly they were different words in the Speech.
All right, Nita said. I won t argue that. She noted that the clown wasn t wincing quite so badly now when she said I. But, look, you don t have to stay here.
And suddenly there were two clowns again. One of them was back in the middle of the spotlight. Nita made a silent bet with herself as to which one would shred next. Thespotlit clown said, But this is all there is. The one standing in shadow said, If I go there That s waiting.
One more tiger growl sounded from out in the darkness: Nita s dream-image of the Lone Power, patient, hungry, willing to wait.But still a little tired , Nita thought.Interesting
Yeah, well, so isWhat s older, Nita said. And doesn t die, no matter what one ofIts older kids intended for the rest of creation.
This time the screaming didn t surprise Nita when it started. This time it was the clown in the shadows that shredded. The one in the spotlight looked at Nita in genuine shock. Where d you come from it said.
Don t askme , Nita said. Theoretically, I m asleep. Look, now that you re over not being the only thing in existence for the moment do you wear that costume all the time
The clown looked at her in astonishment. You can tell it s a costume
Under the costumes, Nita said, even clowns have lives.Outside the circus, anyway.
The clown was silent again, for even longer than before. Nita waited, untroubled. This far along in her practice, she had learned that a lot of wizardry wasn t speech, but silence. It seemed right, the clown said. The body I wear usually doesn t work real well, and that makes people laugh. They may as well laugh for a good reason as for a bad one.
And suddenly it wasn t a clown standing there, but a boy of maybe eleven. He was handsome, in a little-kid way, skinny and sharp-faced, with a short, restrained Afro cut high in the back. But his eyes were younger than his body. Nothing works, he said, sounding abruptly matter-of-fact or maybe it was just the loss of the clown suit that reinforced this effect. Everybody laughs. Especially the ones who don t do it out loud; they do it the loudest.
Nita s surprise at the change of clown-into-kid was muted a little by what he was saying, because she knew something about this, though not in regard to laughter. Some of the kids at school and family friends who d tried over the past month to treat her as usual, as if nothing had happened, had hurt her far worse than those who d let their discomfort show. Well, she said, they re idiots.
They re allThat , the little kid said, pointing with his chin into the darkness. He didn t move much; he stood with his hands hanging down by his sides, like he wasn t sure what to do with them, and his face was fairly immobile. The Thing out in the darkness,That s been chasing me forever.
Nita wasn t sure what to make of this.
I m not sure you re notThat , too, the kid said.
Nita raised her eyebrows. Either I m the One, or I mThat , she said, frankly amused at the possibility that she could be either, but I don t think you get to have it both ways.