The Whole World Unbound

By Ben Darrow

When her friend and former guardian Colombe decides to reclaim her individuality, Byx reluctantly agrees to help her seek out the life she no longer remembers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Darrow
• Release date: Jan 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463234822

Book preview

The Whole World Unbound

Ben Darrow

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Ben Darrow

Are we there yet? asked Byx, her eyes shut tight.

Technically, the answer is no, smiled Colombe – Colombe never laughed, but she often smiled, and Byx could tell she was smiling now – But you may open your eyes.

Byx did so, and clutched Colombe for support as the aftward half of the Tenbor Dish Valley exploded into view far below. Dizziness engulfed her, and she tried to chant it away, but she botched the middle part and got no result other than a dull buzzing noise and the faint afterimage of an error message, which she dismissed with wrathful blinking. She turned her gaze upon more reassuring elements: the sturdy spar on which she stood; the solid bulk of the antenna tower from which it emerged.

Byx knew that she could not fall, because she was not really on the spar at all. She knew that the images and sounds all around her were being sent to her by a flit – a tiny hovering bot which was at the spar. Byx’s mind knew that she was flitting, but her body did not, and she was receiving urgent messages from her body – especially from her stomach and kneecaps – to sit down. She considered the option and decided that it was less embarrassing than trying to shut her body up with another chant, and possibly botching that as well. She lowered herself onto the spar with as much grace as she could muster, daring the world to suggest that she had any motivation other than casual comfort.

Sitting down helped to quiet her stomach and kneecaps, and Byx slowly returned her gaze to the expanse of the Dish. Near the rim, its massive arc was filled with a patchwork of farms and isolated structures. Further downslope, the agrarian landscape gave way to neighborhoods of greater density, but looking down at such a sharp angle made her stomach nervous again, so Byx chose to study the rimward farms in greater detail. Beyond the rim, the hull was mostly bare. The skyline of Mecantrion was little more than a distant blur on the horizon. Byx squinted at it, and the flit’s cameras went telescopic, bringing the storied domes and towers leaping forth into better focus. Byx frowned at the reminder of her illusory status, and relaxed her gaze. Mecantrion retreated once more into a vague aftward smudge.

Byx watched the afternoon sun glinting on the stairstepped course of a river as it cascaded from the rim towards the center. It’s pretty, she observed.

I think it is, agreed Colombe.

Are you sure this is the same one Dad was on when Tenbor went away?

Yes, replied Colombe. Tenbor is telling me that it monitored Tench’s presence on this spar many times, including the morning of the priority feedback incident.

Byx inched a little closer to the spar’s edge and tried to imagine that she was her father, looking on with resolute sagacity as the underpinnings of civilization melted away. She then looked up at Colombe. How does it work when Tenbor tells you things?

Colombe regarded Byx with a puzzled expression. I think I do not understand your question. Tenbor simply tells me things.

Yeah, but, Tenbor IS you, right? I mean, one of its subselves is doing your thinking for you.

Tenbor helps my new mind stay awake, replied Colombe uncertainly.

Right. So, how does it work when your Tenbor-subself brain has a conversation with plain old Tenbor? Does it talk back to you in its dove voice? Or do its thoughts just pop into your head?

Colombe frowned, twisting her hands together. I think I … I think it … I think we … She closed her eyes and laced her fingers through her brilliant white hair, revealing the mirror-bright disc set into her left temple. I think I think I think I…

Byx stared at Colombe, gravely concerned at this highly ungrownuplike behavior, as the young woman suddenly smiled and relaxed. I think my new mind is hard at work today! Abixandra, would you mind if I left you now? I think I need to rest.

OK, replied Byx, still watching Colombe carefully. Thanks for showing me Dad’s spar.

I think I am glad I could help.

I’m sure you are – you’re pretty nice. Byx prepared to leap to her feet, then paused to question whether it was really necessary to do so. She remained seated as she chanted off the flit, and to her relief the Verch accepted her command without hesitation. As the flit disconnected itself from her senses, the image of the spar wavered for a moment and then crumpled in upon itself.

Byx was now in her personal Verchspace: the captain’s cabin of a blue-and-purple zeppelin, floating high above a landscape populated by majestic dinosaurs. Byx, with help from her father, had instructed her Verchspace not to give her body a full set of signals about her surroundings, which meant that her stomach and kneecaps never complained, no matter what she did. She opened a window and leaned out more than halfway, peering down at a pair of ceratopsians bellowing at each other with locked horns.

Byx hopped back into the cheerfully appointed cabin and retrieved a long copper case with an ivory clasp in the shape of a shell. She placed it on the table and touched the shell with the pinky finger of her left hand, concentrating mightily on the three thoughts that served as the lock’s combination: the smell of licorice, a big pile of coconuts, and the dinosaurs currently visible from the window – wearing red evening gowns. She realized that she had added pearl necklaces to the dinosaurs without thinking about it, but it didn’t matter – the case clicked open. Byx took out a large chart and unrolled it on the table, weighing down the corners with assorted curios.

The chart bore a detailed image of her totem glyph, a haphazard swirl of angles and vortices, branching out from a narrow vertex to a series of fluted whorls. This was the Fractal Conch: an image of unparalleled grace and power, capable of shaking the Verch to its foundations. Or rather, that is what it would become, once Byx had fixed the squiggly bit on the left. For now, she referred to it as the Fractured Conch, and although it was an excellent totem for someone her age (or so she was assured), the foundations of the Verch had never so much as quivered in its presence.

Nevertheless, Byx knew that the Fractured Conch had great potential, because her father’s totem, the Fractal Lotus, was extremely powerful, and she was at least as smart as her father. The Fractal Lotus was so strong and well-made that it had made her father almost unstoppable when he went crazy after he fixed Tenbor, and he almost ended up hurting her mother, which they didn’t know she knew. Her mother had needed to carry her father off to get help from the Szerar Entity, who was also crazy, and when they came back her father was better but her mother had subselves, which they also didn’t know she knew.

Byx frowned at the chart of the Fractured Conch. It was almost perfect, but the squiggly bit on the left was always getting in the way. In this way, Byx mused, it was like her family, which had been almost perfect since her parents returned from Szerar. At first, Byx had thought that the remaining tension was because of her mother’s subselves, but these had proven to be manageable, with a little practice. It was not until later that she realized that the problem was related to Sex.

Byx was careful to keep the forbidden word deep within her mind – not to actively project the thought into the Verch, and certainly not to utter it aloud. There was logic built into every child’s totem that let their parents know if they tried to learn about Sex, which would lead to the child being summoned for the Talk. Byx possessed very little information about Sex, and she guarded her ignorance carefully, because she had it on good authority that there was nothing about the secret lore of Sex that justified sitting through the formalized horror of the Talk. Byx did know that Sex was a process related – albeit