Child of Fortune (9 page)

Consider the history of this planet. Millennia ago, after a voyage of generations in the simple, bounded, and entirely artificial reality of their arkology, the original settlers of Edoku found themselves stranded not on a planet teeming with the open-ended complexity of an evolved ecosphere, but on a bleak and lifeless tabula rasa of dead stone and perfect vacuum, Thus they were faced with the esthetic challenge and spiritual necessity of crafting a world, indeed for all practical purposes a total reality, out of nothing more than mass, energy, and their own inner landscapes, which is to say devoid of any surprise, chaos, or animating spirit not created by their own conscious hand.

So, over the centuries, did they create a world in which ersatz recomplicated upon ersatz, in which artificial order recomplicated upon artificial order, in which the parts were deliberately crafted to bear no unified relationship to any whole, in which the "natural" and the "man-made" were terms without meaning, in which day and night, winter, summer, spring, and fall, gravity and terrain, flora and fauna, being of necessity arbitrary human creations to begin with, were allowed to follow the random dictates of human caprice and the surreal esthetic of the imagination unbounded by the natural laws of geography, meteorology, biology, or time. Thus, as if by magic, did human craft itself rescue their spirits from the dead and soulless determinism of a reality crafted entirely by the rational mind, thus by a transcendent act of will was chaos reconjured out of order.

In essence, then, Edoku was a quicksilver environment created to induce and perpetually maintain in the spirits of its inhabitants precisely that state of permanent surprise, that eternal flow of one unpredictable into another, that ongoing illusion of an organically complex and unencompassable chaos which I found so disorienting and daunting.

Naturellement, the foregoing is informed by hindsight's more mature wisdom as well as a perusal of the relevant texts; at the time, all that I began to finally perceive was that an orienting overview might very well be something that Edoku was in fact designed to avoid, certainement at the least it was something no amount of random wanderings were likely to allow me to attain, and therefore, rather than continue my intellectual attempts to crystallize order out of this chaos, my only course was to embrace it, and seek to impose upon it only the structure of my own desires.

Upon achieving this satoric state, a certain clarity of perception and purpose began to coalesce out of the mists. While I had no clue to or concept of the absolute passage of time, I knew with certainty that the soles of my feet were growing sore, that the muscles of my legs had long since lost their spring, that the weight of the pack on my back was bowing my shoulders, that my stomach was beginning to demand nourishment, and that my bladder was filling to the point of some urgency.

In short, biological imperatives and ultimate surrender to the knowledge that further aimless wanderings would be productive of nothing more than further confusion had finally combined to produce a motivational vector, which is to say that I realized that it was time to find what in this strange land at least served the practical purpose of a hotel.

***

In Nouvelle Orlean I knew the repute of every hotel in the city and in any other human habitation that I had previously heard of or imagined, one simply located the typical sort of arrondissement where hotels were to be found, and selected one on the basis of general ambiance. But here on Edoku, I had not the faintest notion of where such an arrondissement might be found, might not have recognized same were I standing at its center, and could hardly have distinguished a hotel from a palace of pleasure or a hospital on the basis of architectural style.

I was therefore reduced to screwing up my courage and accosting total strangers.

"Pardon, good sir, but I've just arrived on Edoku, and I'm looking for a good hotel --"

"Good hotel, jai nai ici by my lights, and I agree it is a disgrace to our ciudad grande, but there you have it, bonne chance and buena suerte!"

"Excuse me, but would you --"

"Certainly not! Ruegelt for Children of Fortune arimasen!"

"Pardon me, but I'm new on Edoku --"

"Y yo, I appear old ne? Vraiment, I knew this skin tint suited me not, but to hear it from a rank auslander!"

"Would you know the location of a good hotel?"

"Would I know the location of a good hotel? C'est possible. Aber primero, define good and location kudasai, since these are locutions subjective, whereas hotel is a noun objective in most sprachs of Lingo --"

Et cetera, et cetera, und so weiter.

Finally, near tears with frustration, and shaking with fatigue and no little outrage at what seemed to pass for street manners in Edoku, I cornered three Edojin lying on a lawn close by a waterfall in a garden strewn with cafe tables, who seemed sufficiently toxicated from the contents of a flagon of wine they were passing around to be incapable of flight, and essayed what I fancied was my own version of the local conversational style.

"Merde! Caga! Why do you imagine that Edoku has totally disgraced itself?"

The three of them -- a silver-skinned woman in a chemise of black and white harlequinade, an orange fellow wearing only tight green breeches, and an entirely nude man with rainbow body paint and a crest of hair in the same style -- exchanged arch glances of amusement.

"Porque Edoku hast keine acceptable restaurant in the Magyar mode?" the woman ventured.

"Weil Edoku nikulturi des'?" said the nude man.

"I imagine Edoku disgraces itself because no one has a clever answer to your koan, babaji!" the orange fellow declared triumphantly. "Ken sie the one about Diogenes and the Honest Man?"

"Wrong, wrong, wrong!" I told them. "Edoku has disgraced itself because nowhere in its precincts is a good hotel to be found!"

At this there was general consternation. Then the clever orange one clapped his hands and laughed." Ach, I comprend!" he cried. "Nowhere within Edoku is a good hotel to be found because everywhere good hotels abound!"

"Indeed? Then why can you not direct me to one nearby?"

"Tres facile! We cannot direct you to one nearby because there are several close at hand!

"Then which of them is the best hotel?"

"Mit more precision, kudasai," the woman said. "Best a subjective adjective of comparison desu, ne, signifying maximization of an adjective of quality. Best extravagant? Best outre? Best bucolic? Best large? Best small?"

"How about the cheapest?" I asked. "Or to be more precise, the best value?" "So," said the orange man, "du bist no wandering guru of the zen koan after all. Merely green auslander with a chip of credit of modest amount seeking a bargain hotel?"

"I am overwhelmed by your perceptivity," I admitted.

"Then why didn't you simply say so?"

"Because I surmised that such a straightforward request on Great Edoku might mark me as a bumpkin and a bore ...?" I suggested.

At this, the three of them broke into delighted laughter. "Well spoken! the orange man exclaimed. "Bienvenidos a Edoku! Such regard for the niceties of civilized discourse deserves its reward. I commend therefore the Yggdrasil. Direct through midnight, links at the cliffs of sunset, circle round the noonday fountain, and there in the petit wald, voila!"

"You cannot miss it," the woman said. "It's the only building in the vecino fashioned in the likeness of a tree."

***

I could not. It was.

Rather pleased with myself for having successfully negotiated my first more or less coherent conversation on Edoku, I followed the directions I had been given with little difficulty. Indeed I began to appreciate the manner in which Edoku's bizarre melange of architecture and landscaping provided starkly unmistakable landmarks at every hand. Vraiment, every conceivable vista consisted of little else but an endless succession of unmistakable images!

The hotel Yggdrasil was hardly an exception to this rule.

In the center of the small forest to which I had been directed was a clear blue lake which was little more than a decorative moat surrounding a central island, which indeed may have existed solely to esthetically justify the rainbow bridge which soared airily above it. Rising from the island, indeed all but overgrowing it with the enormous maze of shaded porchways formed by its system of unburied "roots," was a gigantic silver tree.

A good two hundred meters tall at its leafy crown and perhaps forty meters thick through its trunk, to this day I cannot say precisely to what extent the Yggdrasil was a building and to what extent a gene-tailored floral artifact. Vraiment, the trunk and the overarching branches were unmistakably metallic, though their surfaces were worked in the most cunning simulation of natural bark, but the profusion of greenery festooning the whole and growing directly therefrom was just as unmistakably organic. The upper surfaces of the main branches were shaded walkways equipped with railings, along which I could see hotel guests gamboling as lightly as the moussas of Glade. Depending from the branches were several score "fruits" of various colors and generally ovoid shapes, the least of them the size of a small bungalow.

Enchanted, overawed, I danced across the rainbow bridge, which had scarcely any gravity gradient at all, through the maze of porches formed by the roots, where people sat sipping drinks at table or lounging in garden bowers, and into the main lobby. Here the gravity gradient was set to give the kinesthetic senses a heavy, almost oppressive, sense of solidity and weight, in keeping with the decor, for the lobby gave the appearance of a vast subterranean grotto beneath the tree; earthen walls veined with the traceries of great gnarled wooden roots, blazing torches set high in brazen sconces, seats in the form of brightly colored giant mushrooms, cool, somewhat dank air redolent with the smell of wet loam.

Against the far wall, behind a counter of rough-hewn gray stone, sat a prim-looking man whose skin had been painted, or may hap actually bioformed, to simulate the color and texture of rich old wood, dressed in the somewhat ludicrous green garb of an elf of ancient lore.

I approached this worthy and somewhat tremulously announced my desire to secure a room. He seemed to eye me dubiously, as if "auslander" and "indigent" were blazoned on my brow.

"Indeed," he said rather haughtily for someone dressed as if for a masquerade. "Weil the Yggdrasil a hotel desu, and you bearing luggage are, I had little difficulty deducing your intent, ne, aber the operative questions sind, primero, what class of chambre might suit your fancy, segundo, for how long, tercero, can you afford it?"

Such lofty churlishness, far from intimidating me further, only served to remind me that I was a child of Nouvelle Orlean, entirely unaccustomed to such boorish manners from one whose establishment I was favoring with my custom.

"First, I require a chambre ordinaire in your median price range, second, the duration of my stay will depend upon the extent to which your hotel meets with my approval, and third, voila!" I said in a tone to match his hauteur, handing over my chip, which I knew full well was backed by enough credit to finance two full months of all my expenses at mean galactic living standard.

The domo of the Yggdrasil fingered the plastic wafer thoughtfully for a moment, as if he fancied he could read the current balance stored in its circuitry by touch alone. Then he relented, popped it into his credit slot, scanned the readout, raised an eyebrow, shrugged, deducted a sum, and returned it to me.

"First day's rent debited ist," he said in what seemed a somewhat more respectful tone. "Since you plan a stay of indefinite duration, crediting in advance on a day-to-day basis mandates itself." He came close to favoring me with a smile. "Unless, naturellement, you prefer to give over a week or two's rent in advance at this time ..?"

"Quelle chose! Since I have not yet inspected your accommodations, I hardly think it prudent to commit myself to a week's stay in advance."

"As you will," he said with a diffident shrug. "A hopper now to your room conveys yourself, which in order I'm sure you will find. Gravity control knob on right bedstand desu, transparency control on the left."

A chime sounded. From somewhere behind the counter, may hap from a hidden access hole, the most outre little creature appeared. About a meter tall, and the best part of that devoted to an enormous derriere and a pair of haunchy legs, the hopper sported a coat of bright scarlet fur bibbed with white, two enormous stylized humanoid eyes, and a mouth which the gene-crafters had fashioned in the bizarre simulacrum of a permanent human grin.

Loading my pack onto a floater with its long springy arms and executing a little bow, the hopper bounded across the lobby, and led me through a cavelike opening into a brightly illumined shaft whose negative gravity gradient carried us high up the trunk of the hotel to a landing stage which debouched directly onto a branch high in the boughs of the Yggdrasil. Although the height should have been dizzying, the light gravity gradient, the sturdy railings, and the profusion of overgrowing foliage which screened and softened the direct sight of the drop to the ground, all cunningly combined to set me at my ease as I followed the hopper along the treetop walkways.