A year had passed since the gser-rangers had appeared among us, when Robert and I launched on a project that they
prevailed on us to undertake. Actually the one who instigated it was the one and only gser-ranger that we knew.
Here, on Earth, he had some kind of a little school for physicists or naturalists, just as we have extracurricular
activities in our schools for bright kids. He used to show up for those who knew him about once in two months,
and answered their questions. Then, perhaps, he would go to other corners of the Earth to meet with his other students.
Or not only on the Earth.
As far as I was informed, gser-rangers didn't have names. When they had to address each other, they knew immediately which one was spoken to. But we had to address him by some name. So each of us, his students, suggested a name, and then we tried to arrange the first letters of the names into a nice-sounding word. The best combination we could come up with was AHUDSAK (yes, there were only seven of us). We abbreviated it into Ahu. And this was the only task presented by him to us that we solved so easily.
I knew he himself chose the people with whem he communicated. I didn't know on what basis he did that. I didn't know what tasks he had given to the rest of his people. Robert and I just asked him questions and listened to his answers.
"...Gser is a principle of travelling. Let's say we have two points. One of them, say, X, is on our planet, the other one, Y, is somewhere else, maybe in some unknown galaxy. They are in different layers (a "layer", we thought, more closely than any other word represented the gser-concept that Ahu spoke about), but one of them is right above the other (clearly, word "above" is only to make the description more vivid, not that it has any physical meaning). So, if such two points exist, then it's possible to transport yourself directly from one to the other by the gser-path. If the given point is not connected to the destination by the gser-path, then you need to find an intermediate layer where a gser-point exists, and seek a path to your destination from there."
Teleportation, that's how we interpreted the "gser" word by a human concept. In my mind, I agreed with Ahu. I, too, thought that it would be the most reasonable way to travel. It's much, much superior, and much neater than flying a spaceship. Sometimes I and Robert even had glimpses of ideas of how teleportation could be implemented in reality.
If Ahu had chosen us because he knew about our ideas and hoped to take advantage of them, he was wrong. Now I know he was.
...When after our ordinary meeting I asked him when he was going to come back, he said:
"Do I really need to?"
I was baffled. "Well", I said irreverently, "have you already taught us everything you know?"
"Have you applied even a small part of what you've learned from me?"
My mouth snapped shut, while he went on:
"I'm not visiting you guys just to chat with you. If the gser-alliance is promoting any knowledge, it's because is wants the ones that attain the knowledge to join the alliance."
"Then what's the problem?" , I said.
"The problem is that the alliance will not admit people who have no acceptable means of communication."
"By 'acceptable means of communication' you mean 'to transport instantly from one place to another'?"
"Exactly. It is the gser-alliance, after all. This means, all its members, independently of where they live in space, should be able to reach a place where they are needed instantly, anytime. I'll tell you, often they don't have a clue about where their destination is located in space. Nothing like "I'm going to Alpha Cygni", as you would say here on Earth. You won't believe me, but for some of those people gser-travels bear no relation to stars or galaxies. For them stars are merely holes in the sky-dome. When they travel, they say: "I'm stepping into the sixth sphere of the sky". But they always arrive exactly where they're summoned."
"In other words, we too must master gser", I said.
He nodded, said nothing more and left.
"So he finally realised that his teachings are for us like a compress for a corpse", Robert summarised. "This gser-thing is so murky that I'd rather build a teleportation machine the way I imagine it, even though it's not much, than continue to wade in this gser-mush."
"Why don't you really try to build it? But in that case you better take me as part of the team". My spirits suddenly lifted, and I explained to him: "Our ideas may be not so stupid, after all. The gser-principle could even shed light on some things. You see, according to him, around the object that you want to teleport you only need to create a..."
That afternoon lasted long into the night, and the night long into the morning.
Such was the pre-history.
***
Ahu visited us as before, and after that he didn't say anything that would imply we were good-for-nothing slobs. And he never asked, not once, how our teleportation work was coming along. We, in turn, didn't let him in on details. On his fourth visit, we already had something to show him. We had a machine. Conceptually for this machine it wouldn't make any difference where to teleport: to a room next door, or to the outskirts of the galaxy. I chose the first destination. Just in case. So that Ahu would be here for us, if something went wrong.
Ahu came in, and for the first time I thought of him as of a member of some extraterrestrial race. It wasn't until now that I had really incorporated it into my mind. However, yesterday, on the experiment's eve, some questions started bugging me. Now I was watching him, a perfectly human-looking guy. But perhaps it wasn't difficult for him to take on any shape he wished? He wore a jump-suit of dull greenish-grey. However, the way this jump-suit fit him, it was easy to suspect that it was nothing but a part of his body, that it was made of his own flesh just for show, just like his head or arms were only for show.
So, before we started the machine, I let my "what ifs" out.
"Suppose we master gser. Does that mean then, that our invention becomes available to our whole race, and you will establish official relations with us?"
"No, don't be scared. Your race or your government will not be in possession of gser. They, in fact, will remain as ignorant of its existence as they are now. Only the ones who have learned gser can travel. Until somebody else discovers it, and joins the alliance. Well, I guess you have something to show me. All speculations aside, go ahead and show it."
Of course! It was no surprise for him that we could already dig it, the gser-thing! Therefore, Robert and I went out of the room, beckoned him to follow us, and there in the next room we showed him our machine.
"Here it is. I'm going to transport myself from this room to the adjacent one. Where do you want to watch our gser in action, here or in the other room?"
Ahu said: "What is this?"
"A teleportation cabin. When I teleport, it will disappear together with me. So, you will see a visible effect."
He stared at us unbelievingly.
"A machine?"
"Well, yes. Why don't we start?"
His look of bewilderment, genuine or not, could have perplexed anybody. But I opened the cabin's door and curled myself inside. I shouted at them: "Stay away from it, just in case."
The cabin was controlled from inside. I shut the door. I dialled on the console the direction and distance, and other things. And then I was torn apart into tiny scraps.
The flurry of scraps rained down onto the floor of the adjacent room. It spread all over it. Gradually, gradually... the segments began to feel they were parts of some bigger shape. Slowly... three, four, five, six... the reading of the seconds digit of the watch inside the cabin... the pieces perceived the shape they belonged to, and they determined it was the same as before. Then I wriggled my hands and feet, very carefully, and surrendered to a desire to get the heck out of this machine. Actually it would have been elegant to return to the starting place by the same means, but I thought, this is enough for me. They saw me taking off, therefore, they witnessed teleportation. So I pushed the cabin's door open. Robert, with Ahu behind his back, was already here.
Robert helped me to climb out of the machine. While Ahu... hey, why was his face so sour? Why didn't I hear congratulations? He just asked:
"Are you all right?"
Yes, I was. And you'll have to admit we are all right. We did it, even though you didn't expect it from Earth inhabitants.
Ahu sat down heavily on a couch. I started to get a feeling that we'd have a difficult conversation.
"Do you know what Gasor is?", he asked.
Of course, I'd heard about it. It was a divinity that protected gser and everything related to it. These words nearly slipped off my tongue, but I stopped, because to say it this way would imply Ahu's galaxian civilisation were idol worshippers.
"Well, it's a higher principle, one of whose effects is gser-travelling, if I understand it correctly."
He interrupted me: "It's the guardian of gser-travel and travellers."
Their guardians are almost the same as gods. Or maybe not. The guardians protect a law of physics, a teaching, a philosophical system, things like that. Well, let them.
"Why am I called a gser-ranger? I really have no home. Wherever I am, I am there where I have to act on Gasor's commission. To spread his law to the ignorant, to protect it from distortions."
(To protect? From me or what? And I was already thinking this was going to be his speech of consecration: consecrating me into the knights of Gasor.)
"Gasor requires the one who moves through space to move quietly and inconspicuously, without disturbing the peace of space. Gasor doesn't want to see or hear his travellers. He guards only those who move without leaving a trace. Only for them the space paths are open. Now you, Robert, tell your friend what you saw when he stepped through the door of space for the first time."
"Uh...", said Robert, "in place of the machine there was a white flame. As big as half of the room. You know", he giggled nervously, "I thought, it's some nuclear explosion, or something. There was no noise, though."
Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that the action that gave me such a drastic sensation while throwing me from one place to another, also produced a dramatic effect on the watchers.
"Now you understand, Luke, this was not gser", Ahu said simply. "Maybe it's teleportation, or how do you call it, but anyway. Gasor won't let you into space, you who attack the space doors with flames. I was taken aback the very moment I saw the machine. None of the civilisations I know use any devices for gser-travel. But then I thought: the machine in itself does not violate the peace of space, it's just the same kind of material object as the human body is. Unfortunately, the action it performed was not gser."
I was wondering, is he going to stay with us any longer after all this.
"I see, you accept my words with good will. This is good. The aim of a gser-ranger is to teach you, not to denounce you. You must know, though, that not all creatures in the universe are so benevolent. Some of them, who have no interest in nurturing gser-teachings, but only using them for practical purposes, may not forgive the ignorant ones who mess with it. That's why, Luke, you were fortunate because your first journey was no further than to an adjacent room of your home."
Everybody was silent. He rose from the couch.
"Now I am leaving you for a long time. If you still seek to understand gser, you must start anew. Good luck."
And he went out. Usually as he stepped through the door he would vanish. I always used to watch that moment. Now I didn't watch.
"To start anew?", Robert shouted. "Why the hell? Why can't we make this damned effect decrease and gradually disappear?"
"I think, if it was that easy, maybe his speech wouldn't have been so grave. It seems that the principle we are using is different from gser. We have corrupted the teaching, so to speak. Well, tell you what, I couldn't care less about it. His idol Gasor will denounce us, so what? If we take a walk or two into space, Gasor will survive it."
"Ahu was clever enough to guess that you'd be tempted to do that", Robert answered. "And he warned you clearly: the gods will not tolerate us, nor the people either."
"If they're not going to tolerate us, we'll go back. Our main concern is to escape in time. For this, of course, the machine has to be compact and portable. A cabin is no good. The device has to be small enough to be carried on your back."
To improve the machine was my major occupation during the following months. Robert assisted me. I suspected he did it just to have something to do. I could judge about his level of enthusiasm from the fact that he never tested the device himself. It was always I who would run the machine each time we made some improvements. He would always leave the departure room so that he won't have to fall on the floor covering his eyes during the moment of departure. He used to watch the explosion of the white flame - as big as before - through a thick pane of glass in the door. Well, but our machine's dimensions were getting significantly smaller.
***
The machine was finally light enough to carry it on your back, and it could be worn comfortably. The ordinary jump was successful. That is, its visible effect hadn't changed: the flash of fire at the start was as impressive as the first time. And, just like the first time, I burst into particles as the machine switched on. Actually I never told Robert about it. And he never offered to perform an experimental jump instead of me.
That time, however, when I rose from the floor, I started seriously considering where I could go.
Ahu had taught us more than physics: he educated us about other civilisations and the habits of other races almost as much. From what we learned we had a big selection of places to go to.
"For starters you can go to one of the planets where stars are diamonds attached to the sky-dome made of stone", Robert suggested. I laughed: my thoughts mirrored his. This choice would mean were looking for a place with natives more stupid than us. Let's hope we'll find it.
On the floor there stood half a dozen three-dimensional paintings given to us by Ahu a long time ago. Where the world that they pictured, was in what corner of the Universe, nobody knew. Ahu wasn't even sure if it was in our Galaxy. But for gser-travel the coordinates of the destination point were not a necessary piece of information, not even a useful one: all you had to do was to imagine the destination in your mind, graphically, with all the details. It could be a chamber of a palace, or a clearing in the woods near a river. As I arranged the paintings around me and looked at them intently, my determination matured. There wasn't anything to prevent me from trying. Now I was glad Ahu had already missed two of our meetings. I wanted to take a shot at real gser-travel before he visited us again (if ever). Why don't I do it right now?
"You should step down to some secluded place on that planet and then see if you can come into the open and seek a contact with the locals", Robert mused aloud.
"What if I just step down right into their central temple", I pointed to a building in one of the paintings, which looked like honeycombs glued together. "It's nothing other than a temple of Gasor. From what I can recall about the local civilisation, not everybody there had mastered gser. And the ones who had, were considered the chosen ones and accorded great respect. Maybe they'll take me a close friend of Gasor?"
Robert didn't notice my attempt to make a joke. He examined the paintings. "In fact, most of these pictures represent the same place, only from different angles. Here is the temple, there is a descent down to a river, there is a road leading away from the temple. So you don't have many choices."
I scrutinised the pictures and finally I chose the one with the riverbank. Maybe the closeness of water gave me some sense of security?
I put the pictures into the backpack. The machine was in there, too. On both my wrists there were small panels for data and controls. This way it was so comfortable to dial all I needed was to turn the machine on. So I dialled it.
I was dissolved into dust, into sparks by a force, the like of which I never experienced before. The sparks burst out into black interstellar space and spread in all directions. They thought they were falling apart with every second without a hope to recombine, to reach their destination without losing part of themselves on the way...
...The sparks are reflected in a river as they fall toward that reflection, uncontrolled, unprotesting, unresisting. They fall and merge with the reflection, and dive under the water. The liquid sloshes inside. I cough, choke, pull my head out of the water. I recollect my shape again. My hands and all the devices attached to them are under the water. I sit up with my legs under me and shake my hands gently and thoroughly, to shake the drops away. A shadow falls next to me. I turn around, slowly, because my head and its contents are not quite in control yet.
The owner of the shadow had a golden-rosy fur, all shining in the sun like a halo. That's why it was very appropriate that I knelt before him. The hair that covered all his body had lots of style: the fur in front was short and downy, while long tresses were along his back. They held their shape as neatly as if a bottle of hair spray had gone on them. A dignified dog-like face. His headdress resembled a wire net, only it was not just any net, but a honeycomb-like structure, the symbol of Gasor. The shape in which the temple was built, too. Therefore, he had to consider himself a righteous representative of Gasor. I was curious. Would he acknowledge me as another such?
Such a gorgeous, glossy creature simply demanded flowery words and dramatic gestures: not like me, techie-rat from Earth. Before I rose to my feet, I bowed before him, making the symbol of Great Peace of Space with my hands.
"May Gasor open all the doors of space before you, just like he opened them to me into your beautiful land."
It was the language of the gser-alliance. If this guy was as educated as he was decorated, he should understand the standard greeting.
He shuddered and made a gesture I could not follow: I could swear he didn't touch his web-headdress, but the latter somehow unfolded and fell over me. A shiver ran through me, I felt confined. The creature turned around and started to go, and the web, not asking my permission, made me follow him. I could hardly drag my feet along. It seemed like those honeycombs sucked the energy out of me, and it was likely they transmitted it to their owner. We moved toward the temple. There were no other living beings in sight.
In the middle of the temple stood a marble column. It could be representing a tree - the world-tree, perhaps? - because its top ramified into a multitude of branches, connected together by dimly transparent plates, like coloured glass. The plates, joined at various angles, made lattices or honeycombs, similar to those that covered the temple's outer walls. The same arrangement of plates made up the floor. So it could have been a world-tree with the spheres of heaven and of the underworld. To me as a human, this concept was not new. Nevertheless, this gser- structure that framed the temple building and spread all over its interior, made me uneasy, to say the least. I couldn't relate to it, or identify with it... and I considered myself a gser-traveller, after all! Who were those people for whom the gser-teaching was not only part of their daily life, but also part of their mentality, their earth, sky and underworld?
A dark hole gaped at the foot of the column-tree. When he dragged me towards it, I understood that it was there he was going to put me.
My new acquaintance, a priest of Gasor or whoever he might be, turned to me and spoke for the first time in not quite perfect gser-language:
"Now listen to me, stranger. You broke into the Zhsa world, damaging the Chaarseh net with fire on your way. What's more, you broke in here during the fragile hour, while the sun is high and people put their shortened souls to rest, letting them grow long as the evening approaches. You are lucky therefore, that no one saw you, except me, otherwise they wouldn't let you live", he added in a somewhat less poetic style.
Then he pulled the net away from me, and again it inexplicably curled itself around his head. At the same moment the rest of my strength left me, and I fell into the dark hole. So the priest didn't have to defile his hands by trying to fight an infidel.
I don't know what it was in the bottom of the shaft, maybe some sort of antigrav pillow: it let me land on my feet and preserve my dignity. As the priest went away, I started frantically checking my equipment. While doing this I thought, why did you, O watchful priest, leave my machine with me? Unless you didn't know it was this machine that threw me into your world - or you didn't know what a machine was anyway. And how could he see the flash of fire? The flame leaped up at the starting point, not at the destination! He didn't like the flash, yet he couldn't figure out that I might get out of here the same way I arrived, and while leaving his temple I might blow up the whole underworld and half of the world-tree!
After I had made sure the equipment was functioning, I didn't want to escape from this place. I could do it anytime. Perhaps his hostility would turn out to be a little misunderstanding and we'd become buddies in the end? I decided to wait for his further attention.
Later on two creatures came and leaned above the hole. One of them was my acquaintance, while the other had a face covered with shag falling below his (her? its?) eyes. They stared at me.
"Send him into emptiness and be done with it." This voice must have belonged to the other creature. The anxiety in it was all too clear. "And do it quickly, while people are resting."
"Let me tell you, sister", the priest of Gasor answered, "first, you don't always have to speak chars language in the temple. Although I am a Chaarseh's servant, now, when there are no people here, I'm just your brother. And the visitor understands chars language and he can hear us."
"So what? These will be the last words he'll ever hear."
"Then for you apparently it is important to practice chars language - is it so that you can easily communicate with the Multipathed Eight-ones?"
"Don't speak about them so light-heartedly", the other creature almost whispered. "You don't know yet, but the representatives of Multipathed Eight-ones are going to come here when the day goes strong. That's why the intruder must disappear before they come. For one, the common people must not know that it's possible to violate chars law. But it would be much worse if the Multipathed Eight-ones got to know it. If they found out that the space net was disrupted right next to Zhsa land, then... can you imagine how their opinion would change..."
"The Multipatheds are coming here? Well, I have my own reasons to think he has to be hidden from them. I'll explain why. But let's go outside."
And they went away.
At that time I didn't know what they were talking about, but I learned it later, in the no-named mountains somewhere on the Zhsa planet. The Chaarseh priest told it to me, because by then it turned out he was as dependent on me as I was on him. Here was their conversation:
"Sister, you didn't see how he came here. But I saw it! It... it wasn't chars! Now I'll ask you a question: when the Multipatheds chars-travel... have you seen them at the moment of arrival? Of course, you have. What does it look like?"
"Well, they just emerge out of the air, and that's it. You yourself must have seen it many times."
"How do you know which sphere they arrive from?", he asked then.
"There is no way I can know it if they don't tell me. How could I know? It's the Secret of the chars-doors, and everybody defers to it", the sister answered.
"That's right. When somebody comes to your world through the chars-door, you won't know what place it connects to. You can't see what's on the other side of the chars-doors."
The sister concurred.
"Now listen to me. This visitor dived with a splash into the river over there", he pointed towards the place. "A moment before I saw a white ball of light. And this light was not here, not in the Zhsa world. The flame flashed on the other side of the doors. That's why I said, these were not the chars-doors! I don't even know the name for it. I could see through the open door."
They stared at each other in the stagnant silence of the hot afternoon.
"Perhaps it was a phantom of noon-sunshine", the sister whispered.
"If the Multieights ever find out, they won't think so", brother answered.
"Don't shorten their name! Or they will shorten your soul and you will not withstand the high noon sunshine anymore."
He shook his tresses, not unlike us waving a hand. His metallic headdress glittered and swung in the air. The sister stepped aside in awe.
"The Secret of the Doors defies even the Multieights. Even them! Them, who chars-travel not in their material essence, but in their images - the top perfection in the whole chars-alliance! But do you know why they, your precious teachers, seek perfection?"
"They were your teachers too, my brother. They are still your teachers! They consecrated you as Chaarseh servants!"
"So how do you, their devoted student, like the hide-and-seek game they play with the League of Sunlit Net?"
"A hide-and-seek game? Brother, take thought that words that you choose for speaking about those you have no right to judge."
"Whether you like it or not, it's a game", said the priest. "As things stand now, it's still a game. You know how it goes: the League forces chars-jump into Multieights territory, provoke some skirmish there and jump back. Then the Multieights rush after them. But all they can do is to try to look for them behind all the chars-doors that they know. But they don't know all the possible doors, no matter how knowledgeable they are. In fact - and you know it as well as I - the Multipatheds know only a very small set of the space doors, because there are infinitely many of them! The Multieights even think that anybody can discover a space door that maybe wasn't there before!
And, of course, when the Sunlit Net League attacks, they don't use the chars-entrances that are known to Multieights. They jump back and forth through their own doors, and in that way you could chase after them until the end of the world, and they'd just laugh at you, in safety. But the Multieights, in their turn, have secret doors too, so the League is in the same situation when the Multieight forces raid into the League's territory. To put it briefly, they can just brandish weapons at each other, unable to do serious harm to the opponent."
He stopped for a moment.
"Now imagine what would happen if either side could detect where their attackers come from."
The sister must have been getting the point. She said:
"How is it, brother? Do you think you can track down the chars-path? Could you find the path into the sphere where our intruder comes from?"
"Yes, I could. And... and I'm scared."
They sat down in a shade under the roof of the temple.
"It doesn't belong to any sphere, any region. The path to that place is infinite. And the stars along the way are infinitely many. As if the stars were not confined by our sky-dome, as if there was a void behind it, and the stars dwelt in that void too! I don't know how to describe it. The visitor didn't come through any chars-entrance. He went straight through emptiness, without minding any doors, he came through a boundless void where nobody can live! Nevertheless, his path, although inconceivably long, has an end, and at that end there was this visitor's home, and in the flash of light I saw a room and one more creature like him in that room. That's why I think it was a reality. That's why I'm afraid. You see, if it's just a delirium of my sun-shortened soul - it would be only my problem! But if it was a reality that we can't comprehend... and if the Multipatheds can comprehend it... then what they will turn into, having attained such a power?"
"Maybe you shouldn't be so afraid", the sister said pensively. "Sometimes, you see, I also think about what might be beyond the eleven spheres of the sky. Maybe your vision answers that? Of course, you, as Chaarseh's servant, know better, but maybe it was the truth that Chaarseh, in his grace, revealed to you?"
"If that was the truth, I won't remain a servant of Chaarseh's for much longer, my sister, because Chaarseh won't stay in power for long. Do you understand? It's another power, not Chaarseh. And that's why I won't reveal this secret to the Multipatheds. I'm going to that place myself, little though I know where it is. I'll go there not by chars-paths. I'll find the way to coax the intruder's secret from him. Once it is in my possession, then the earthly sphere of Zhsa will stop crawling on its belly in front of the Multieights; instead it will stand as tall as they."
***
All that time I wallowed on the antigrav-pillow, and had a gut feeling that I'd be used for some interplanetary intrigue.
When the Chaarseh priest returned, he spoke in a different manner. First of all he let the antigrav-pillow push me out of the shaft. Then he let me stand one step away from the hole, but only one step away, so that I wouldn't feel too relaxed.
"You must know the truth about what you have done, visitor. Truth in all its seriousness."
The structure of metallic lattices on his head rose once more and unfolded above him.
"Look at that. This serves as an image of the primeval chars-net. Here are the lines that Chaarseh reveals for the ones that attain realisation of chars. The space doors are located where the lines intersect. Doors from one sphere to another. Do you see how thin the threads are that the net is woven of? Do you see how fragile it is? Once you open a chars-door, the opening motion must be as silent as water, as invisible as wind, so that the interveawe of the lines won't be disrupted. Now look at what you've done. You came with flames, with lightning. You tore a line that was laid by Chaarseh himself. You distorted the paths of thousands of travellers. Do you know how such action is regnited? For the offender there is only one way to go: straight to the void. The void beyond all the chars-paths. I see you don't tremble at the thought of that. That is just because you can't imagine the void, you think it's somewhere far, far away? Wrong. The void is right here, next to us", he pointed at the shaft. "Once you were already falling toward it, yet I didn't let you be swallowed by it. The next time nobody will hold you back, and you'll roar down into emptiness."
While listening to this, I used inconspicuous finger movements to dial the coordinates for another jump, so as to be ready to escape. I chose another spot on this planet as my destination, a beach pictured in one of the paintings I had with me. But I delayed the start, perhaps hoping that the Chaarseh servant would cool down yet.
"But you can stay alive, if I redeem your fault", he continued. "Chaarseh has granted me the power to restore a damaged chars-line." (As I learned later, this was purely his improvisation: Chaarseh would not allow him to even think that it was possible to breach the chars-net.) "For this I must go to the point from where you arrived. As I go, I'll mend the line. For this you must give me your flame-arousing device, so that I can travel the same path as you did."
So this what was on his mind! The scope of his plans included my equipment and my planet. Very impressed by that, instead of answering I hit the start switch. In a couple of moments I was reconstituted on a beach. I didn't have a chance to look around, as he gracefully emerged out of the air in front of me and blocked my view.
"What you've just done only aggravates your offence", he said.
I dashed to run, trying to leave him behind although it didn't make much sense. But at that time another question bothered me: how did he find me? I stopped running and quickly dialled the coordinates of yet another place on the planet. It was on the other hemisphere. A civilisation that perceives its earth as flat, probably doesn't suspect that another hemisphere exists, so let's see if he'll find me now. I made two jumps in a row. This caused me to lie on the ground recovering for a longer time than usual. I lay without realising at once where I was (should be in the mountains, according to the picture that I used) while Chaarseh's priest was sitting patiently next to me.
"Do you hope to run away from me?", he spoke.
"Do you hope to keep up with me?", I retorted.
"Up until now I have kept up with you, as you see."
"Then save your strength. I'll take a rest now and set out back home. Then you'll be free to search for me all over the Universe."
"Why should I search for you, visitor? You yourself are showing me the way. You breach the chars-door on your way and leave a gaping hole behind you. That's why I can go after you so easily. And I'll step down into your sphere right after you."
"Into my sphere?", I sneered at the word. "Unfortunately, no. Even if you were to tread the lenght and width of every sphere, you still won't find me. It's just that I don't live on a sphere."
"I don't care where you live, visitor", the priest said scornfully. "I saw your home, I saw the path to it, and I'll find you. You still don't believe me? Here are some details. At your home you left another being who looked like you. When a white flame leaped, it scared him, but didn't kill him."
The details were quite effective in making me see that the situation was more serious than I had thought.
Then I said: "All right, then I'll try to find some people in the Universe who will be friendlier to me than you are. For instance, maybe your buddies the Multipathed Eight-ones won't be so harsh with me."
"You better not show yourself to the Multipatheds if... if you want your home sphere to stay safe."
"Oh really? But perhaps it's time for you to show yourself to them. The time of your meeting with them could be near. Anyway, don't they miss you at the temple right now? I guess the day there is getting stronger already, and soon the people will start coming to the temple." (I could recall that 'the day getting stronger' in Zhsa meant an evening drawing closer. The native people on Zhsa don't divide the day into day-time and night-time, they differentiate between various degrees of 'strength' instead. Since their life is most intensive in the night-time, the day is 'strongest' then. Here, in the other hemisphere, it was dark, so after some calculations I reckoned it could have been late afternoon in the geographical location of the temple.)
He didn't bother to answer.
"It's better if you go back now with empty hands, than to return when you'll be searched for, and still with empty hands. Because if your Multipathed friends search for you, you'll have to give them some explanation. Anyway, you are not going to lurk here for the rest of your life. And just as you leave me alone I'll inevitably leave this planet too. Or, what'll be even worse, the Eight-ones themselves will find us."
"Oh no, they won't!", he interrupted me. "Nobody can track us down, not even they. To find somebody after he has stepped through a chars-door is beyond their power, beyond anybody's power. You simply have no way to know where the place is located to which a person chars-travelled. Multieights claim it's impossible. They consider themselves the most powerful beings that ever existed. They travel not in their flesh but in their vision. They send their images, but they feel and see everything that surrounds the image. This way they don't risk anything. Nobody even knows on what sphere they live. Maybe only the overlords of the Sunlit Net League have a vague idea. But a chars-door is not transparent even to the Multieights. Even if I, a lowly creature that I am, were to chars-go out of Star-pathed One's sight, he himself would not know where to look for me."
"Well, I sort of understand what you are trying to say", I said. "So unlike you guys, I leave all the space doors open behind me. And you, a lowly creature, can follow me without any difficulty. Anyway, I knew from the beginning this was not gser."
"Then what was this?"
"Teleportation", I hurled the word at him in Earth's language. If he can't memorise it, it's his problem.
"I know, O visitor, you are laughing at my lack of understanding. I know you are not going to explain to me what it means. But even if you run away from me, I'll chars-travel to your sphere and obtain some knowledge from your people about your chars-method. If you will not reveal it to me. And when I go there I'll be not alone."
I didn't want to tell him that he hardly would obtain any clue about teleportation on Earth, since presently there are not even two people who would suspect scarcely two people who have any inkling of gser, or teleportation, or whatever it is. I asked him:
"And you expect me to believe that if I give you this knowledge you'll just leave my planet alone?"
"I don't need your so-called planet. The most important thing is not to let the Multieights know about your innovative chars-method. Because, believe me, they won't leave your world alone. They may or may not be interested in your planet, but even if they are not, they just won't be headful enough not to touch it as they settle accounts with their adversaries, just as we might trample a bug because we don't look under our feet as we walk."
This turn of discussion was making me uneasy. I really didn't have a strategy of how to discourage him from visiting my home. So I said:
"You better think of what explanation you'll give for being absent from the temple."
I stretched out on the ground. Time was not on his side, if he really had a meeting with the Multipathed Eight-ones. Maybe I could idle around until morning and see if I could think of anything. Why don't I chat with him, and try to turn the conversation in another direction.
"What do those Multipathed Eight-ones look like?", I asked.
"Umm... just like me."
"Really? Then it's sort of curious that their civilisation is so well ahead of yours. Actually, did they ever bothered to appear before you in the flesh, not just as images?"
"Of course not. This would be unheard of. Who could ever deserve such a honour?"
"Then maybe their images are not their real portraits after all. Maybe they just show you an image that looks like a person of your race."
Chaarseh's servant was perplexed. "Why would they?"
"Maybe they would look too frightening otherwise? What if their real shape is incomprehensible to your mind?"
"I can't comprehend where your home is, O visitor, where the place is that you came from, but tell me, does that scare me away from the intention to travel there?"
"Apparently not", I had to admit.
From further conversation I learned about the League of the Sunlit Net, and about the hide-and-seek game, and about the Secret of the gser-doors that allowed the two largest intergalactic races to bully each other, but didn't let their hostility reach a serious extent, unless one of them obtained a weapon like mine.
The morning drew close. I still didn't have any bright idea what to do with my new friend.
"If you are so determined to visit my home, I can try to explain you in a popular fashion where it is", I said, after our talk broke for a while. So what, I thought, that little piece of knowledge can hardly make him more dangerous for Earth than he is now.
"Well?"
"Let's see. Tell me, how many spheres the sky has?"
"Eleven", said he.
"Then what's beyond all the eleven spheres?"
***
Therefore, the universe was made up of stars, and planets that revolved around them. I don't know whether he felt I enlightened him on that subject, or he just thought this was a mirage of my soul shortened by the morning sun rays. He didn't change his determination regarding me. He didn't let me home. As the sun rose, the periods of silence between the questions and answers were getting longer and longer. Eventually there was only silence, turbid like noon-time heat. All the morning we kept retreating under the shade of the rock, which grew shorter with every hour. Presently I leaned back against the rock hoping that the shade wouldn't shrink to an area too small for me. Who knows how much time we'll have to spend here? I had to coordinate my actions with those of my new friend, since it didn't make sense to try escaping him.
At last he figured out what to do. "Time to sleep", he said.
It's great to take a nap, but he would be at a disadvantage, again. He can't steal the equipment from me without waking me up. And nothing can keep me from escaping while he sleeps, and then he won't be able to track me down. This was not a mature idea, though. Before I finished my train of thought, he took off his web-headdress.
"No, not this time!", I cried out and made a pathetic attempt to wrestle this thing from him. Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Just like it's not advisable to grab a live electric wire with your hands. As I touched the web, my knees unhinged and (what a stupid reflex), I clutched the web so as not to fall, while the damned tangle of wires did a good job draining the energy out of me. Very quickly I was reliably locked up in the mystical model of the gser-net. As I lay under it I didn't have a chance to move, nor any wish to do so. I blacked out.
***
Once again I was full of vigour and was getting ready to travel.
The machine was with me, all fired up for a jump. I was going to some planet on a mission, since I was one of the Multipathed Eight-ones. Several other Multipatheds, my colleagues, were nearby. "You are going to travel for the first time, so let me make a final check if everything is all right." The one who spoke looked me over from every angle and suddenly he stopped. I knew at once something was wrong.
"A machine", he cried. "You have a machine?!"
"Why do you need a machine?", the others protested.
I turned my face to the first one, trying to keep the device on my back out of his sight. He continued to speak: "The machine disturbs the peace of space, just as your body does. If you are taking some device with you, you must take... must take yourself, too! Then are you going to travel in flesh? Are you going to travel alive? ALIVE?"
"ALIVE?!", the others shouted. "You can't travel alive! You'll be no more!"
"What are you talking about?", I shouted back. "Here, watch this!"
And I dissolved into fine dust. And the dust was carried, as it should have been, far away into space. But I still could see the other Multieights, and I was glad they could see me too. Yes, they should see what I can do. And they wouldn't shorten my soul! (It's you guys, you are the ones that are being shortened, your names are shortened, Multieights! Sometime ago I had abbreviated your name... some long time ago when I didn't know yet who you were... when was that?)
Now I'm going to materialise on my intended planet. Only... now I am terrified. What shape should I assume? The Multipatheds, when they chars-travel, they take on the images of the local inhabitants of the place. What shape should I shift into?
I have no time to think, I'll soon come into being.
What nonsense, why am I so scared, I thought with relief, when I finally came into being. I'm on Zhsa, how could I not know it? Therefore I have the shape of a Zhsa dweller. Well, I materialised in the same spot from where I started, and the same Multieight ones were standing before me, but somehow I was not concerned with it. Excellent! I proved to them that I was like one of their kind.
"You see, now I look like a Zhsa man. I did everything as you do."
"Who is this?", one of them said. "It's not Luke."
"Luke apparently was shortened", another answered.
"He wasn't shortened, he simply dissipated into nothing. Instantly", the third said.
"I haven't dissipated! I arrived at my destination!", I cried out. "Why do you say it's not Luke, you know me just like I know you! You are... you are..."
"You can't know us. We have no names."
"Yes, you have a name. The name that I once shortened", I don't know if I was screaming, or whispering, or just thinking out these words. "I shortened your name into...
... into AHU."
He'll hear this, he'll recall this.
"It's not a real name", he says.
"But you used to answer to it, don't you remember?"
"Luke existed sometime ago", he said, "but he is no more. He discovered teleportation and relied on it. He expected to substitute teleportation for the chars-door. And by that he got dematerialized. Luke is no more, he is out of our reach..."
***
I woke up tossing under the net as in a straitjacket. My screams seemingly woke Chaarseh's servant, and he leaned over me and hastily pulled the web away.
Oh heavens, how simple it is. So this is how it actually works. This is how Luke's teleportation really works.
I closed my eyes and pretended to fall back into sleep, hoping that he'd believe it and wouldn't tie me up with the web again. I needed time to think everything over.
And now when I 'actually' woke up, I had figured out what to do.
Here is how teleportation works, only I'm not going to tell it to you, servant of Chaarseh: I really dematerialize during the jump. I don't exist until I come into being again. It's not just a sensation (that I hide from others), it is reality. The Multipathed Eight-one Ahu himself told it to me in my dream. And if I submit myself to him, then... then I don't see what in the world I can be afraid of, because not many actions are riskier than this.
But you are a different matter, servant of Chaarseh. After one teleporting jump you'll hardly want any more of them. You are accustomed to moving around the Universe as you move in your own home, comfortably, smoothly opening all the doors and closing them. Now imagine that a time comes when the Void will tear you into pieces and hurl those pieces no one knows where... after that you may not only lose your eagerness to travel in such a manner, but also forget your own name. If only that. I even think that after a teleport jump you may not be able to collect your particles back into your body. I thought I was able to do it automatically - to restore my shape after a jump - but you see, my consciousness works somehow differently than yours. I believe so. Otherwise, how would I have invented this dematerializing method of travelling, while all, all the civilisations under the guidance of Multipathed Eight-ones (called gser- rangers on Earth) discovered the gser-principle?
Yes, I'll teleport you with me to Earth, but for the above reasons, I won't be surprised if you won't reach the destination. I even hope you won't reach it. Although I would feel some pity for you, too, because you are brave and because you were deceived by the Multipathed Eight-ones. Just like two humans on Earth nearly trusted them, too. But if such a courageous creature as you learns the Secret of Transparent gser-doors, I'd prefer this creature to dissolve across space.
The Multieights, I think, are even less trouble than you are, strange though it may seem. It's because they chars-travel by their images. They don't dare to travel in the flesh. And to think about performing a jump by dying and recombining again must give them the creeps. I don't think they would ever bring themselves to try this. Ahu understood it the very first time when I teleported in his presence. After seeing me vanish in a white flash, he didn't want to see it anymore. He felt safer if he declared it a mistake, so that Robert and I - and our civilisation - wouldn't pursue this method further. Otherwise we could easily slip out of the gser-rangers' control. A civilisation like that, even if it were never to discover the gser-principle that would allow it to be included in the net of the Universe (the net controlled by gser-rangers who would be the teachers of this civilisation, its guides, leaders, maybe... I don't know what other role they could play for us, I didn't feel well thinking about it)... well, such a civilisation at least would never develop the powers that the gser-rangers hadn't mastered.
...Luke is out of our reach...
"All right, you can try my teleportation since you want it so much", I said to him aloud. "Of course, we will perform the jump together. I only have to adjust the operating field of the device so that it will envelop us both."
And now I'm preparing the machine for the journey for the two of us.