Tara places her hand on my shoulder. “Rand?”
“Memory,” I say. “This one belongs to Suibhne. It wasn’t as coherent as it might have been.”
“Suibhne is full goose bozo,” says Tara. “It’s surprising if you could make any sense of it at all.”
“He said something about trading cards.”
“Oh!” Tara reaches into a dresser. “These.”
She hands me a deck. On the front are artworks depicting a variety of men. I recognize the names; I recognize the faces. They’re emanations. They’re all me. It strikes me that Suibhne’s disjuncture of identity is a saner response than my blasé acceptance.
On the back are charts listing a variety of statistics: height, weight, age (apparent), cock size, RBI, average duration of play, talents and kinks. Some of the cards are very plain, others elaborately decorated, in direct correspondence to the “RBI” stat – which is basically how many times they’ve had sex with Tara. “Who would make something like this?”
“Suibhne. But they came from statistics being maintained by Mickey and Cüinn.”
“How many of me are there?”
“You’re number forty-four.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re telling me.”
“No, really. Why would I need forty-four versions of myself?”
“You don’t. Counting the unemanated branches on Goliath, Yggdrasil and Ashvattha, you’ll need at least sixty-seven. And who knows how many Canopus will have?”
“Goliath? Canopus?”
“I see it’s time that someone explained the facts of life to you. You are, in the truest sense, a being called a mothman composed of energy from the nul-universe. In a display of startling creativity, humans call that energy nul-energy. This being, named Ashtara, originally inhabited a nau’gsh – a form of mutated nectarine tree native to my homeworld, Dolparessa – known locally as the Atlas Tree. For many years it was believed that one mothman inhabited one tree, and used alchemical powers derived from the nul-universe to create emanations – human forms capable of interacting with the native life forms of our universe. However, Ash proved this wrong by creating and inhabiting multiple trees. There are currently five.”
“I see. No, actually, I don’t. Why are there forty-four versions of me?”
“A number of reasons. Some were emanated out of trauma, some out of need for a particular skill or ability. I think a lot of it is to keep me from getting bored – fat chance of that. Also for the purpose of pollination. You’ll find out about that when you’re older.”
“My card says I’m 36 years old.” I hand it to her.
“So it does. Did you make that?”
“No. It was in the deck.”
“It wasn’t before tonight. Ash works in mysterious ways. Anyway, the most plausible reason I was ever given is that Ash is trying to understand what it means to be human. His most effective way of doing that is by trying out different personae. And then there have been some experiments in incorporating alien characteristics. Lucius, for example.” She frowns. “Till.”
Till is one of the Yggdrasil emanations. When I try to remember him, I’m overcome by terror. My reaction must’ve been marked enough to notice because Tara guides me to a seat. “I’ve been rude, Rand. Would you like a drink? You look like you could use one.”
I nod; I’m not sure I can find my voice. Something happened, something really terrible concerning Till. Did it have to do with the thing Suibhne was trying to fix? It seems unlikely. Suibhne didn’t seem frightened – worried and somewhat remorseful would be closer to what he was feeling. I feel physically unable to remember Till – just the name makes my palms sweat and heart start to race.
Tara hands me a tumbler. “You’re shaking,” she says. She sits next to me. “It’s all right. We’re together now. Now that this colony is finally under way, we shouldn’t have to be apart again for a long time.”
My shaking doesn’t abate. I gulp down the drink. “It’s good.”
“Scotch and RootRiot. Ailann’s favorite. By the way, what virtue are you supposed to represent?”
“What?”
She laughs. “Maybe Davy was just playing with me,” she says. “That prophecy doesn’t make sense anyhow.”
“Prophecy?”
“Yes, it was right after the party with Wynne – that was the celebration of humanity’s incorporation into the Combine of Sentients, by the way. I took the amrita and had a strange vision.”
“I remember you saying that you planned to do that.” I also remembered Wynne’s dread that she would go through with it. The other emanations were definitely hiding something from her. The thought that they were lying to Tara infuriates me.
“Wait. I actually wrote it down in a journal entry. Ever since that mess with Goliath, I keep a journal just in case I have to fill you in on anything. It’s also coming in handy now that I’m putting together a volume of my prophecies for publication.” She hands me a datapad. It reads: