VACANCY & ARIEL

“Those of us trying to inhibit the conflict,” he went on, “have taken the names Akhitai and Akashel. Akhitai is the word for ‘man’ in one of the multiversal languages. Akashel means ‘woman.’ The Akashel believe the conflict can best be resolved by the elimination of Ishas. We believe the opposite. Though Ishas are relentless in their pursuit, rarely do they perceive Ariel as a threat. Their attitudes are colored by affection. Though Ariels are generally considered the more gentle and nurturing, fear motivates them to use deadly force far more often than is the case with Ishas. If a deadly weapon had fallen to your wife’s hand during her moment of fear, when she recognized on a subconscious level that you were a mortal enemy, she would have killed you. It’s possible her original mission was to kill you…you specifically. That she was traveling to California to meet you and not the Isha with whom you fought.”

I was incredulous. “You’re saying it’s just her and me? We’re the ones causing all the damage?”

“I’m sorry, but…yes.”

“That’s crazy!”

“It is as it is,” said Rahul.

“If it’s true, why not send operatives to kill us all?”

“How many operatives should we send? Millions? There are at least that number of trans-multiversal Ishas and Ariels. So many more journeys might destroy the Weave. A few of us make journeys by necessity, but it’s safer to train Ishas and Ariels to kill one another. The method’s not terribly efficient, I’m afraid. We’re spread too thin. We don’t have the resources we need and so we make mistakes…like the one we apparently made with you.” He brushed aside a forelock. “There’s another figure in the dance, of course. Me. Every outpost of the Akashel and the Akhitai is manned by at least one of my analogues. I’m in conflict with myself.” He gave a disconsolate laugh. “The three of us make a curious trinity.”

I wanted to reject his words, but everything he said seemed to connect with a truth I carried inside me. Though it was difficult to think of myself and Ariel as a host of sexually deranged termites eating holes in the multiversal equilibrium, once that image had been invoked, it was impossible to erase. Rahul enumerated my choices. I could return to my life and stay away from women named Ariel…but it was probable that an Ariel programmed to kill Ishas would seek me out. I could let them train me and become a predator whose prey was the woman I loved in all her incarnations. Or I could go my own way, take one of the vehicles they had acquired and pursue Ariel for my own reasons. Rahul recommended Number Two. My feelings for him had dwindled—he seemed imbued with the horrifying impersonality of our enfolding circumstance—and I locked him in with Siskin and the others. Thereafter I strolled about the circular room, studying the infinite variety of my lover’s faces, finding no better answers there.

There was a fourth choice, one that Rahul had not mentioned, and during the hours of the night I contemplated self-destruction; but as I have stated, I am a hero in only the structural sense of the term. My life is precious to me and the portrait painted by Rahul of the damage my analogues had wrought—universes destroyed, an unimaginable apocalypse looming—made it no less precious. Hungry, I found a kitchen adjoining the circular room and fixed a chicken sandwich and drank an entire pot of coffee. After eating I stretched out on a stainless steel prep table to rest and remembered something Rahul had said years before. We had been talking about the fragility of the human body, how the slightest chemical imbalance, one milli-fraction less of a compound, could result in death, and he suggested the universe itself was endowed with a similar fragility. “Everything is in balance,” he said. “A nudge from the perfect angle and it would all topple.” It appeared in this he had essentially been correct.