Hermes

Long day down here. Long day to look at all the little pieces of the fullness. Hermes Cept has been staggering about his little room for what? twelve hours now? Appropriate that the lights are on, yes. To see things, as the cliche goes, in the light of day.

The light of floorday he corrects himself with a sigh. This absurd tendency towards neologism among the flat creatures. Call a thing by its name, just once, and God would burn them up on the spot. (What is he thinking? This is crude, cruel, pathetic. Start over.)

Call up the facts again. All the little pieces. A piece: first contact has been made. There is no longer any hope for quarantining the flat creatures from the full creatures. Hermes has wondered if there was anything he could have done. But no: this was a possibility he had never prepared for. He’d tried, and tried, to stop the horrors from spreading on his little model of an earth, and here they are storming the gates of the one and only Heaven.

A piece: fragments of fullness poured out from a child’s mouth. An innocent child, here to tell him of the innocent world—yes, perfect (too perfect?). And here she is, poor thing, defiled by the flatness. In the belly of the beast. What crude questions will Tile prod her with? What ludicrous intrigues will she be drawn into, down here on this ship of fools?

A piece: he was here in his own fullness, and so was Mohammed. The child told him of “Herm” and “Selm”—Hermes and Salim. Could that be? His name was not Hermes even here, was it? And he and Mohammed were—brother and sister?

He keeps looking in the mirror, at his bald dome and bony mask. He can see nothing remotely female there. What does it mean, that his full self was a woman—if indeed that was true? What could it mean? He imagines his thin old lips coated in lipstick, his wrinkles subdued by makeup. No: this isn’t a real image. Can’t be. Full is full and flat is flat. He is—

But who is he to argue with God? Who is he—she?—to argue with the fullness? “This isn’t,” “this can’t be”—isn’t that the sort of thing the flat creatures are always saying?

A piece: there is strife in the full world. War stories apparently without end. Entire continents impassable. Aftermath of a nuclear war? A pneumatech war? God only knows. But strife is acceptable if it is real. Yes: full is full and flat is flat. Nature abhors a gradient, and some gradients do not go to the grave willingly. So it should be, and so it is.

A piece: the computer. It has made the day (floorday) long. What does it think it is doing?

Hermes feels dizzy suddenly. He sits down on the bed. Lies down. Looks at the ceiling. Lights still on. He feels impotent. He had secured all the power he could get, when he first arrived in this world, and now none of it is of any use. He thought if only he could guide the scientists—stupid. Stupid. If only he could guide the scientists. But they aren’t pulling the strings here. And who is? Who can say? The flat creatures and their games remain as inscrutable as ever. Useless, useless.

A sudden noise. Boltzman? No, it’s the computer. Hermes debates getting up. Seems so pointless. No: need to keep going. Still here, still staggering. Onward. The comfort of the mission. Do what he must. (What she must? No: it doesn’t—fit . . .)

The computer is telling him about something he could have already guessed:

Ratio T. [preprint] A Comprehensive Branch-Loop Analysis of the Reintegration Plume, and Implications for the Branch-Loop Theory Landscape (joint work with Cecelia R.)

Hermes clicks and yes, and it’s what he expected, of course—the flat creatures have figured out the obvious, overcome his resistance at last. Pandora’s Box is open. There was nothing he could do. (No, no, don’t rationalize. He has failed, unequivocally. He already knew that, of course. Nothing he can do now.)

Whatever will become of the child Selp, and the great sprawling full world, and his Mohammed? The flat creatures will trample over all.

No—it can’t be allowed. Keep going. The comfort of the mission. The mission goes on. Embrace the full things. Align with them. Fight to the last.

Hermes looks in the mirror, for the thirtieth time this floorday, sees again the decaying thing that is his face, and now he says to himself, with a sprinkle of divine madness in his voice:

I am Herm, sister of Selm, who wept when my brother looked into the well, who saw the center of Iah. I will fight to the last. I will not let the world end.

And for a moment all is right, and a tranquility, rarely found this deep in the abyss, falls over the bright hushed room.