Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [12]
Tekton’s free-mind had a sudden thought. Did Sole find their mischief amusing?
Logic-mind snorted. Why would a being with limitless power find anything amusing? Humour is a construct used by lesser sentients. Transcendent beings don’t ‘laugh’!
Who says! Free-mind flounced off to sulk, leaving Tekton feeling curiously detached.
‘Cousin? Did you hear me?’
‘Pardon?’ Tekton flushed. He had not heard Ra speaking.
Ra lifted his head in a faintly derogatory manner. ‘Of course, you were talking to yourselves. Some take longer to adjust to mind division than others. And of course some just never do . . .’
Tekton ignored the jibe, scooped bitter-cheese potato onto a plate and plopped a baby kidney into it. ‘As I was saying, my trip was fruitful. The women were energetic . . .’
Ra curled his lip with distaste.
‘. . . And I located the key to my project. I am optimistic that the Entity will find favour with my project. But then, I am talking too much. How goes the door?’
‘You refer to my neo-brutalist aedicule?’
‘A door is simply a door, Ra.’
‘Not when it is in space, Tekton.’
‘That rather depends on what is behind it. Or have you forgotten our creed? Structure, Purpose, and Delight.’
‘Your creed. You are so mired in the earthly. Implied architecture was never your strength.’
‘In my experience implied can be another word for unworkable.’
Ra shifted in his seat as though it had pinched him. ‘I have begun a new task. The Entity likes to be surprised. It has an appetite for innovation.’
Aha! He has messed up! Logic-mind pounced on Ra’s discomfiture. I will check the astronemein bulletin boards.
‘How inspired of you ... and how precocious. But then, you always were the latter.’
‘I had hoped that your pettiness would subside when you were given this opportunity, Tekton. But I can see that you cling to it for comfort.’
‘I doubt you would have any concept of what gives me comfort.’ A flash of Miranda’s thighs.
‘Perhaps not, but I do recognise rivalry.’
Tekton did not shrink from the provocation. ‘I will beat you, Ra.’
‘The Entity has promised significant enrichment should we surprise it suitably. It is enough motivation for the biggest’—Ra sniffed and wrinkled the cracked skin of his brow—‘and the smallest of minds, don’t you think?’
‘I think that life has a splendid even flow to it, whether you are god or mollusc. Sole makes promises to you, you make promises to Miranda, Miranda makes promises to me ...’
Ra removed his mask and blinked his oddly segmented eyes. Their Lostolian pink colour had been replaced by brilliant reds, lustrous black and vibrant blues. It was, Tekton thought, like looking into the deeply alien eyes of a jewel insect, and it made him slightly nervous.
‘What on Mintaka do you mean by that, cousin?’ Ra asked.
Tekton scraped his plate with deliberate and dramatic indelicacy. ‘I mean that often when we start things, we cannot predict where they will end.’
Ra blinked again. ‘Only a fool is sure of anything.’
THALES
Thales stormed from the apartment and caught the conduit back to the Temple, not knowing where else to go.
Young men need exercise? Rene was treating him like a maladroit: an uneducated common man with no discipline over his urges.
Thales controlled his desire to hit something, vowing to prove her wrong by finding his composure in prayer. Yet, as he exited the carriage he experienced an irresistible urge to visit Villon’s statue instead of the upashraiya.
He hurried past the Jainist Temple, along the well-swept Avenue de Montaigne, and into the gracious sweep of Sextus Circe. The Circe was criss-crossed by streaming spotlights that roamed