The soft calm voice issued from a speaker on the stasis cage. “Yes. What a strange dream.”
“What do you dream?” Nomun demanded.
A long pause. Then: “I torture myself efficiently. I refuse to confess, though the pain is terrible. I dig deeper into my flesh, with fire, with knife, with lash. Still I say nothing; perhaps I have nothing to tell, but I will not admit it. I will not give up, I will get the truth out of me or I will die trying. I...”
“Enough,” Nomun said. “Enough....” He shuddered, clutched his hands to his head. The young Nomun was picking up transients, the pointless writhings of Nomun’s overloaded mind. He pressed another button, and the Nomun’s brain accelerated to a higher level of function. The eyes showed a spark of life now.
Nomun tugged down the headband of a privacy mask, fumbled at the switch. There was a memory associated with that mask; had someone given it to him, long ago? But the memory was gone, given to the memwort. All that remained was a little sore spot where the memory had been. That was the drawback to the memwort–once buried in the crystal the memory was gone...but not its pain. Each trip to the memwort left him clean, but added to the store of sourceless aches in his mind.
He found the switch, and a black mist covered his face.
The voice from the speaker was sharper, more focused. “Where am I? Who are you? Why are you holding me?”
Nomun took a deep breath. “You’re at sea, like the rest of us. I’m a man; I took you from wherever I found you because of your name.”
“My name?”
“But it isn’t your name; it doesn’t belong to you. You’ve stolen it from someone.”
“It’s the name my parents gave me.” The voice seemed puzzled.
“They weren’t your parents! They bought you in some alley, from a fleshseller; they brought you home in a jar. Though perhaps you were implanted into the woman’s womb.”
A pause, as if the young Nomun were pondering this allegation. “I find this hard to believe.”
Nomun rubbed at his face, pushed his fingers through his tangled hair. “It’s true. Ten thousand Nomuns walk a thousand worlds. You’re only an unimportant one. Those who bought you hoped you would do as well as the original Nomun, hoped you would get rich and share your wealth. Where did you grow up? No, don’t answer, I know. I don’t know the name, but it was on some backwater world where you would be unlikely to hear about the other Nomuns until you’d made your own mark. And then, when you heard, what did you think?”
“It’s true that news seldom reaches Melluce. The other Nomuns? Rumors about myself, echoed from far away. Flattering to be the source of legend, so early in my career.” The voice paused for a bit. “So you claim to be the original Nomun?”
Nomun fingered the privacy mask band. “I never said that.”
“If not, why would you care?”
The voice grew sharper. “I asked: why would you care that another uses the name. And what will you do with me?”
Nomun drew a shuddering breath. “I don’t care,” he lied. “My purpose isn’t revenge,” he lied again. “A test. That’s what this is. Yes. To see which of you is the truest Nomun.” As soon as he said it, he felt the truth of it and the falsehood.
“Truest? What does that mean?”
“Who knows?” Nomun laughed, but the sound of his laughter frightened him. He punched the switch, and the young Nomun fell silent.
He stood beside the stasis cage for a while, as motionless as one of his captives. He heard the anchor chain rattle out of the hawsepipe; a moment later, the pale-haired captain came down the companionway into the hold.
“We’re here,” she said. “Will you go ashore now?”
“Yes. Immediately. You have your instructions? Is everything clear?”
“Clear,” she answered sadly. “Must you do this?”
“Oh yes,” he whispered as he moved past her. All he could think about was the crystal. The crystal, waiting to drain away the centuries. “Oh yes.”
He went out through a long passageway. On either side, in ranks that reached the ceiling, were hundreds of heads encased in clear plastic blocks. Nomun kept his eyes on his feet; he felt the pressure of all those dead eyes. “Don’t blame me,” he muttered. “You lost.”
NOMUN WOKE WITH the first sunlight and raised his face from the glittering sand. The red light slanted across the beach, lit the motionless forms of the others, sprawled in the active zone. On the edge of the sea, Dead Nomun waited.
A faint chorus of chimes rang across the black water, and Nomun recognized the sound.
Young Nomun stirred, groaned. After a moment, he got to his knees. “Have we lived?” he asked.