Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [126]
His mind was so aroused by what had transpired with the Quists and the vigilantes, the secret writing of the Ambassadors, and the lethal force of the Spirosian Eye (all of which, of course, had come close on the heels of the time-distorting effect of the Vardogers’ music box and the questions raised by the accelerated decomposition of the cannibal dog), that even though he was drained of physical energy, his thoughts ran back over his night episode. The conundrum of the Eye seemed momentarily impenetrable, so he ended up sifting through the things he had said to the Quists—the idea that the twins’ symbol system may have been treated by some process to create the illuminated effect. This, at first, had seemed to be the most logical explanation. He had even offered suppositions about what type of materials might be involved. Then he heard again in his sleep the remark made by the equine-countenanced girl: “The markings change!”
At the time, he had been aware of some taut string of conjecture her words had stroked in him, but there had been too much happening to address it. Now, in the serial stream of hypnologic clarity, this assertion began to resonate more explicitly. He realized that her remark was like the instruction on the Vardogers’ music box. Initially, he had thought it said one obvious thing—referring to the glowing effect of the writings. But it may have meant something both more literal and miraculous. Since he had first come into possession of the box, a vague thought had passed back and forth in his mind—that the symbols and characters seemed to move or shift with different examinations. Without the technology to duplicate the markings, it was impossible to decide the matter objectively. All he had was a foggy but needling impression that he had so far not had the energy, leisure, or privacy to explore.
The Quist girl had called his attention to it again, and now, in the twilight morning of half-sleep, he was able to at least contemplate the notion without prejudice. The idea of markings carved on a box, which were able to be altered—or to somehow alter themselves—was on the surface absurd. But suppose one had the suspicion that they did. What if this idea lingered and no matter how many times the writing was consulted one could not with absolute certainty feel as if the suspicion had been dispelled? This alone said something important about the symbol system, Lloyd felt. This was, in fact, a fundamental part of its uniqueness—that every time you confronted it, it seemed new and all the more indecipherable.
Yet if it were just a matter of impressions one could argue that the sense of change and movement was due to the foreignness of the markings. The whole world was like this. Birds arrange themselves like musical notes on the rope between trees where you hang washing. Are they the same birds you saw yesterday? Are they all the same? Do all humans appear as un-differentiated and interchangeable to other undomesticated species? This question sent him down a long corridor of speculation, and at the end of the corridor was a painting.
The impression one had that the Ambassadors’ writing underwent some kind of alteration (perhaps continuously, perhaps not) struck him as no more extraordinary than a painting that seems to change color and mood depending on the light, which brought to mind again the story that St. Ives had told about the paintings in Junius Rutherford’s possession. These apparently innocuous works of art, when observed over time, possessed very odd properties. It was not the effects their surface created that changed but the deeper structure, the very subject matter—or so his friend with the mechanical prosthesis had insisted.