Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [24]
But Tekton did not have time to wait for sanction. That would give Ra and the other tyros more time. He needed a facility now.
The Entity has requested your presence in the shafting room.
Now?
Yes, Godhead.
Not a little annoyed at the timing, Tekton hastened to the surface building. The Balol matron wasn’t there this time. The attendant was a tall thin Pagoin who looked as if he might implode from sheer fragility.
Tekton entered the sheer-walled room and stared at the shafting cylinder, remembering his previous experiences with startling clarity.
‘This will not be painful or nauseating like the initial procedure. Well... only slightly nauseating, so I’m told,’ said the Pagoin.
‘Why do I need to be here at all? I have had my . . . procedure as you call it.’
‘The accentuation facility in this room gives you a more multidimensional and intimate communication experience with Sole. The Entity prefers to use this when it has something important to communicate. The auditory preceptors in your remodelled mind have limitations.’ The attendant blinked several times. ‘Do you mind me asking, Godhead, what is it like to have two separate minds?’
Tekton thought to ignore the question. Then he reconsidered. ‘It is most. . . liberating,’ he allowed.
The Pagoin smiled. ‘That’s what I thought.’
Tekton climbed into the cylinder field and braced himself. What did the Entity want to show him?
This time when space fell at him the transition was exhilarating. In an instant he had become an infinitesimal stitch in a majestic tapestry and yet he was also the central knot from which everything else would unravel. He hung in Sole’s eye. In Sole’s mind. In Sole’s heart.
Humanesque concepts all.
And with that one powerful thought Tekton’s humanesque framework fragmented. Him—the stitch, the mote, the minutest particle of matter—recomposed and he became a bounding, lightless energy shifting and expanding restlessly, thrusting against other equal forces. Quintessence. He [it] was a burgeoning intransigent, negative pulse. An energy rubbing and pulling. Sophisticated and raw in one cosmic breath. Time irrelevant. He [it] was suffused with cold-warmth. And gradually he [it] became more than his [its] senses. A type of cognition formed. Not thinking but knowing. There was a difference. A billion mysteries unlocked and drenched his [its] cold-warmth with their knowledge. Phantom Energy had its own sentience: giddy, infantile, wise and wily. Knowing offered everything and he [it] luxuriated in it. He [it] played and romped and fed greedily. Stirred. More answers than questions. A bath of answers. But one single question. He [it] gorged on answers to reach the question. But bloated knowledge slowed him [it], and he [it] lost purpose or meaning or momentum with the swollen greatness of himself [itself]. Many, many, many resided in that corpulent space/time: quarrelling and bargaining and gossiping in the manner of all-knowledgers. They had been there since the true for-ever. Unrelated, yet born of the same. But he [it] alone retained memory of the question. And when the stirring came again, the itch that gave him [it] purpose, he [it] reached . . . grasping, grasping. . . Imploding/explosion. Collapsing/expansion. Separation. A final glimpse. For-ever in a moment. Comprehension in emptiness. Ending in a beginning. Life in death, life in death, life in death . . . Tekton fell painfully back into humanesque thought, as if his body had been compressed into a tiny box. He took time to orientate. A straw was forced to his lips. Blood wiped from his nostril. Lotion applied to his face. Eventually he was able to focus on the Pagoin who ministered to him. ‘Was that liberating?’ the Pagoin asked. Tekton shuddered, barely able to reply. ‘No,’ he whispered. The Pagoin helped him to the taxi. ‘Do you require medical assistance, Godhead?’ The Lostol archiTect waved him off and instructed