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TWENTY-EIGHT

Kawashita visited the observation sphere six times. Each time, he approached it with trepidation. He could never predict the full flavor of his reaction.

In the sphere, slouched in comfortable weightlessness, he looked the stars over with a frown.

For the sixth time, he requested the same lecture. The sphere chimed and began.

"The distances between stars are lost when ships use higher spaces. An awful immensity is replaced by a short disorientation of the nerves. It is an economic exchange, but one which can give a false perspective. When travel is judged by the consumption of energy, when the longest voyage usually attempted is three months, and economics rules the sway of a wandering heart, space is civilized, some say, and the adventure is gone . . . "

Kawashita was barely listening. His mind was elsewhere. He was well-fed, well-loved, busy enough. Most of the time, his driving questions were in the background, where they didn't occupy his full attention. The centuries under the dome were memories that seemed to have little effect. But a pervasive malaise still churned in him. Under the dome his limits had been broad, practically infinite. But here, suddenly mortal, everything he did was final. He felt his scale in an indirect way—not as a matter of size but as a matter of accounts. One side of the account book was filled with the daily minutiae of life, the other with the number of things he'd be allowed to do before death closed in. The number in the second column was vanishingly small compared to the actions required for perfect knowledge. So perfect knowledge was a perilous way to wisdom.

" . . . But nothing is further from the truth. Between warps, all a traveler has to do is take a short glide down an access tube to the observation sphere, ten meters outside the ship. The ship seems motionless in a black universe pricked with stars. Weightless, the traveler can position himself in the middle of the sphere, his back to the access tube, and feel as if his eyes are the only things for endless trillions of kilometers. The darkness is profound. After a few minutes, the mind relaxes into blankness . . . "

Anna's people took the path of perfect knowledge as a matter of course, rushing here and there to build a complete picture they could never see. But another way was just as futile, even perilous—the way of abstracting and symbolizing. Soon enough, the language of abstraction would swallow its devotee and leave his thoughts mired.

Then there was the way of contemplation. As he now understood this time-honored path, contemplation led to a suspension of certain mental programs and the enhancement of others, and with this came the mastery of mental life. But throughout history, isolation had been necessary for the thorough contemplator. Kawashita enjoyed his life too much for that.

" . . . After a few minutes, the mind relaxes into blankness. The patterns of the stars seem very important a while later, and the craziest notions about religion and philosophy pass through the mind—childish questions: How did God place the stars where they were? Why do they suggest animals, people, or faces? That passes. The next phase is cold terror, and the traveler has to grip himself—clasp his arms with both hands, lift his knees up to see if they're still present—and force himself to stay. There's no horizon, no circle of familiar objects, no orientation of any kind. The distances come back as a reminder, and though the eye doesn't really believe them, some part of the mind—perhaps the part most superstitious about written records—does believe . . . "

Kawashita squinted at the stars, knowing he was seeing much less than there was to see. The tide of sadness rose until his eyes filled with tears. He couldn't even pray any more—the faces of the spirits were too far gone, too confused with the faces of simulacra; the kami had taken new forms, not to be prayed to; God (or Goddess) waited implacable, silent. He wasn't searching for them.

" . . . Some will try to calculate how many human bodies, stretched end to end, would reach from the ship to the nearest star. Or, at a brisk walk, how many lifetimes it would take to traverse a sidewalk magically extending from here to there. That passes. Numbness takes its turn . . . "

Then what was he searching for? However much he loved Anna, he couldn't begin to find it in her. Her life was dictated by immediate problems, practical solutions. But his love for her was the only thing he could fully, deeply believe was real. Everything else was a dream—starships and distant worlds, divine kidnappers and historical fantasies beneath a glass dome. Touching the hole of probabilities. Plucking debris out of space—a toilet! He smiled. It was one vast comedy, a shadow-show.

He was looking for—(a deeper frown).

For—(clenched fists).

" . . . It may all end in giggling and child-like behavior. That's a bad sign. The regression may continue until the traveler simply closes his eyes. Then the sphere administers a mild shock, hustles him back to the body of the ship, and recommends a few hours of exercise and conversation. Few ever forget the experience. Some wish to have it erased, or its terror will haunt them for years after. Some reflect upon it as they would upon a religious experience. Others are unaffected, too blind, unimaginative or numb to pay it any attention. They look at the stars with less curiosity than an animal, convinced the universe is produced within them and exists for them alone."

He was looking for the way to an easeful end, a fine end, full of dignity, obligations fulfilled. He wouldn't find that way until he knew why he refused to commit suicide. According to all his tradition and training, he was a prime candidate for self-destruction. He had failed to reroute history, out of a weakness he still didn't understand—and he had inflicted suffering on myriad ghosts. Four centuries ago, he had failed to join his honored leaders in seppuku on the bridge of the Hiryu. He had failed to kill himself on hearing of Japan's defeat and the renunciation by the emperor.

He had sidestepped every basic belief he had ever held. The shadowplay had surrounded him completely. He had no choice now—he had to flow with it and let it point out his new direction.

"Entering higher spaces in half an hour," the voice warned. "This sphere will close in ten minutes."

He twisted around and grasped the handrails in the tunnel.

 

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Framed