The final of the three called down, “Ours is a noncommercial order, and the event-situation is coercive rather than commercial. Hence the language is symbolic; but what degree of relation does it bear to the signification-environment of reality? It is a metaphoric expression, or emotive?”
“Emotive, Preceptor Yndech. It is called braggadocio.”
Illiance raised his finger. “Pardon the interruption, Beta Anubis, but if I happen to ask a question, will you answer?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you sighing and rolling your eyes?” asked Illiance.
Menelaus raised his eyebrows. “What? You are asking a question about me, now? What brought that on?”
Illiance nodded and smiled a seraphic smile. “You said ‘shoot.’ This means you have accepted the moral obligation placed on you, and must answer the question.”
“Well, to be blunt, I am annoyed at your comrades in the rafters. You and Ull always waited patiently for the full answer from your prisoners before you asked questions. I have not even found out this prisoner’s name yet. So why are these yammering parrots here? Do they want me to find something out from the prisoner, or to hear themselves yak?”
Illiance said, “I asked a single question. You cannot reciprocate with more than one.”
“Fine. Answer me this: When did you learn to read human expressions?”
“I am human.”
“That’s not an answer. You know what I mean.”
“At the request of Oenoe Psthinshayura-Ah of Forsythia, I altered the signal-condition of my nervous system and provoked a configuration of parasympathetic-endocrinal responses in my cortical-thalamic complex, so that my symbol-event responses would complement and correspond to her thought-environment. Do you happen to understand?”
“Sure. You turned on your emotion chip, and now your fellow weirdlings are weirded out.”
“I do not see an obvious one-to-one correspondence between my explanation and yours. Can you confirm that you understand?”
“I understand that the peanut gallery was invited, so you all could keep an eye on each other, just in case someone else was tempted to turn on his emotion chip. Right? You guys are getting nervous about something. You are trying to liquor up this new prisoner and ply him with goodies instead of just threatening him with dog-death, like you did me, but you must be getting more frightened—I am not sure of who—because each time I see you, there are twice as many dog things as the time before. Are the marines on your tails? Is your boss getting nervous? Time to report to your stockholders? Has there been a palace coup?”
Illiance radiated serenity. “You ask many questions, where one would do. Inquire of the relict what was asked.”
“No.”
“No?”
Menelaus pointed over his shoulder. “No, not unless you tell the peanut gallery to shut up. I cannot cross-examine the prisoner if Dopey, Doc, and Grumpy up there keep jostling my elbow.”
Ull addressed Illiance in Intertextual: “There is a meta-message behind the denotation. Beta Sterling Anubis attempts to explore the graduations of our power relation with him, perhaps to ascertain whether we prioritize his cooperation over the need to maintain credible coercion. Therefore underreact. Yield to his demand. It is not in our interest that he define the contour of our true interests in these matters.”
Illiance pursed his mouth in a moue of sad patience. “Mentor, he can understand what you are saying. Notice how he stares at the ceiling and pretends to whistle.”
Ull said, “I see the ceiling-staring and pretend-to-whistle behavior, but what does it mean?”
Illiance looked sidelong up at Menelaus and made a skeptical twitch of his lips. He said, “It means he is the least convincing actor imaginable.”
Preceptor Yndech leaned down from his overhead stand. “Brethren! I have deduced a stratagem to determine for what ulterior motive this relict, called Beta Sterling Anubis, if indeed he understands our language while maintaining a pretense of ignorance, maintains this deception. Allow me to proceed?”
Ull nodded ponderously. “Proceed!”
Yndech called down in Iatric, “Beta Sterling Anubis! Eschew deception! What is your ulterior motive?”
Menelaus rubbed his ungainly, hawklike nose, covering his mouth with his hand, and seemed to take a moment to smother a cough. “Ahem! Ah, what was the question again, heh, ahum, Preceptor Yndech?”
“Beta Sterling Anubis! Eschew deception! What is your ulterior motive?”
Menelaus blew out his cheeks and looked thoughtful. “Yup, I, um, thought you said ‘eschew deception’—good advice. I’ll take it to heart. Let’s see. Motive, eh? My ulterior motive is to have a good belly laugh watching you squirm, you damn looters, as whatever your scheme here falls to pieces in your hands. Something has happened to make you nervous, and I want the chance to smirk and watch you bungle and make things bad, worse, and worst for yourself as your time runs out. It’s not too late to change your course, you little blue dimwits, and tell me the truth. Anyone who surrenders will be treated mercifully. Take a few days to think about it. Or—do you even have a few days?”
Yndelf said in the shrill voice, “Signals from the Tomb, using the entire Earth’s crust as an antenna, were sent to the Bell, which immediately responded—”
Illiance raised his palm, and Yndelf’s sentence was snapped off as suddenly as flipping a switch.
Illiance said meditatively, “It may appear, upon reflection, that the request of Anubis is perfectly reasonable, and produces no disharmony when merging with the several purposes we follow. I affirm that Preceptors Yndech, Ydmoy, and Yndelf, lacking experience with dealing with relicts and their anachronistic yet unpredictable behaviors, should merely audit for a time, and not participate on a verbal level.”
Menelaus smirked, and reached down with both hands, and scraped a swath of stones and mirrors free from the cobra-patterned surface of the back of Illiance’s coat. This left two parallel stripes of blank fabric running from his shoulders halfway down his back.
There was a stir among the triplets, but Ull did not change his reptilian expression or even turn his eyes toward Menelaus. Illiance maintained his normal serene expression, but he could not hide something like an unseen glow that filled his chest, straightened his shoulders, and brightened his eye.
Menelaus straightened up, dashed the gems and trinkets to the ground, and brushed his hands against each other. “Now!” he said in Iatric. “Do you gentlemen have anything you want to tell me?”
Ull said, “Yes. We tell you to continue questioning the relict. We wish to know the cause of the hibernation spike in his generation.”
Illiance offered, “And, to be honest, we are also curious about the origin of the Tombs, and any information he has concerning … ah … the figure of the Judge of Ages.”
The man on the chair sat up straight and spread his hands. He called out in Chimerical. “Hey! What’s gives? You forgot about me? How long are you and your trained monkeys and dogs going to gab and gabber, Commandant?”
Menelaus snarled at him. “You’re damn lucky I’m not a Commandant. It’s Lance-Corporal. I’m a Beta. Beta Sterling Xenius Anubis, Academic Wing, Dependent College, Hundred and second Civic Control Division, attached to the Pennsylvania Third Legion—I teach freshmen history and predictive history, Cliometry, xenolinguistics, Monument mathematics, and also gunnery, whip drill, and prisoner beating and torture techniques, basic laceration, boot and thumbscrew, singeing and deprivation. The psychological torture techniques are taught sophomore year. So I am not a nice man and I am not in a good mood right now. Who the hell are you?”
“Well, Lance-Corporal Anubis, I am a nice man, and you are going to be glad today was the day you met me! The name’s Larz! Kine Larz Quire Slewfoot of Gutter, private invigilator, investigator, effectuator, and consummator, fixer and facilitator, procurer, perfecter, eavesdropper, nonstopper, go-getter, and gutter-ganger! Quire-for-Hire, that’s me! Streetlaw Larz, mercenary of mercy! I’ve taken stripes and earned my stripes! If you lost it and you want it, I can find it; if you find you don’t want it, I can lose it. I know how to mix it up and fix it up. Electronic, optic, cryptic, and Coptic, I never sleep and I don’t let whoever I’m after sleep neither!”