When the Gorfs created the Objects which linked the infinity of Conceived and Inconceivable Dimensions, they always included one element which beamed directly to the planet Thera. The bump served that function on the Stone Rose.
I was there, on Thera, beneath the star Nus, at the edge of the Yawy Klim galaxy in the Gorf Nirveesu. In a small airbubble, sitting on a wide flat rock. Being observed.
Outside, yellow sun against black sky, and a number of stone monoliths surrounding me.
– They look like frogs, I thought. Huge stone frogs. (I-me thought it, not I-Grimus. I-Grimus was reserving its powers to fight me over the Rose.)
– Is it Grimus? The thought, unspoken, unformed into words, came into my mind. It was followed by a second, a deeper, wiser thought-form.
– Yes… no… ah, I see. I had the sense of being stripped naked. My mind had been scanned.
– Where are you? I shouted, and the I-Grimus within me told me that these monoliths, lumpy, huge and surrounded in a slight haze, were the most intelligent life-form in any Galaxy, and that the second thought-form had been that of the great thinker Dota himself.
– The non-Grimus element appears to be marginally in command, came a third thought-form.
– Good. Dota again. Listen, he thought at me, slightly too loud, like a man dealing with a stupid foreigner. We are the Gorfs. There then followed a very rapid series of thought-forms which told me the history of tibe race and the Objects.
– We have two great concerns, thought Dota. The first is for the Gorf Koax, who has settled irrelevantly in your Endimions. Should you meet him, kindly let him know that his gross Bad Order has led to his being banned from Thera. He is not welcome here. He stands or falls with your Endimions.
– Ah, I thought.
– Which leads us to our second concern, thought Dota. We are extremely perturbed about Grimus’ misuse of the Rose. It was never intended to be a tool for intra-endimions travel. Nor a magic box for the production of food. It is a flagrant distortion of Conceptual Technology to use the Rose to Conceptualize a packet of (he searched for the right form) coffee.
Most particularly we are worried about the sub-endimions he has set up on the mountain-top. Sub-endimions are Conceptually unsound. A place is either part of an Endimions or it is not. To Conceptualize a place which is both a part of an Endimions and yet secret from it could stretch the Object to disintegration-point. We would like this ridiculous Concept to be dissolved forthwith. That is all. You may return.
I could feel the I-Grimus part of me throbbing angrily at Dota’s reproof. Then I realized there were some questions that could be answered here better than anywhere else.
– Dota, I thought.
– Yes? The thought was curt, the form of a great mind disturbed.
– Are the blinks in our Dimension a result of the mutilation of the Rose?
– We don’t know, came the reply. Yours is the only Object to have been defaced, and the only Endimions which blinks. There may be a cause and effect relationship. There may not. It may be something which should concern you. It may not. We don’t know everything, you understand.
– One more question, I asked. The air in my bubble felt stale. I would have to go soon.
– Well?
– Is it possible to Conceptualize a Dimension… Endimions… which does not contain any Object?
A long pause, in which I felt complex arguments flashing between the assembled Gorfs.
– We cannot be sure, said Dota. For us, the answer would be No, since the very existence of the Endimions relative to us is a function of the Object. But for a dweller in the Endimions… a mental shrug-form followed.
– Goodbye, said Dota’s lieutenant.
I searched in the I-Grimus and found the technique for returning to the Rose. A moment later I stood in the secret room again.
Media looked very relieved!
Flann O’Toole, wearing his Napoleon hat, right hand concealed in his buttoned greatcoat, face whisky-red, climbing the steps. At his side, One-Track Peckenpaw, raccoon hat jammed on, bearskin coat enveloping his bulk, coiled rope hanging over one shoulder, rifle in hand. And behind them, P. S. Moonshy, a glaring-eyed, unshaven clerk. An unlikely trinity of nemesis nearing its goal.
Grimus stood in the shade of the great ash, beside his home, the particoloured head-dress fluttering in the slight breeze, his birds lining his shoulders, clustered around him on the ground, watching over him from the vast spreading branches. His hands twitched; otherwise he was completely still.
And eventually, the four of them stood facing each other, knowing what had to be done.
Grimus said:
– I have learnt all I wish to learn.
I have been all I wish to be.
I am complete.
I have planned this. It is time.
But in his high, shrill voice was the uncertainty of the subsumed Eagle within him, the second self protesting. It had not chosen this death.
Flann O’Toole said: -Where is your machine, Mr Grimus? You kept it a secret from your servant woman, we know that, surely. You’ll not keep it from us.
Grimus said nothing.
– One-Track, said O’Toole, try and persuade the gentleman to converse with us.
A few moments later, when Grimus’ nose was broken, his eyes closing, his skin bruised, and his lips still sealed, O’Toole said: -Don’t kill him, man. Not yet. Peckenpaw released Grimus. Who swayed on his feet as the blood streamed from him, but remained erect. Birds screamed in the tree.
– Search the house, said Flann O’Toole.
One-Track Peckenpaw and P. S. Moonshy went into Grimushome then, but found nothing. They did, however, wreck whatever they could; and when they came out, Grimus’ shrouded collection lay around its pedestals in fragments, the shards of a lifetime’s Travel. The Crystals, broken. The Ion Eye, trodden on and crushed.
Suddenly, as they emerged into the misty dawn light, the whine stopped. Abruptly, without any warning. It was simply no longer there.
Flann O’Toole was watching Grimus; so he saw the face sag, saw the look of horror in the blackened eyes, saw the exhaustion seep through the pain. He saw it, and smiled.
– You found it, then, he said to Peckenpaw.
– We found a whole lot of things, said Peckenpaw. So we broke them all. I dunno what they were.
– O, you found it, said O’Toole. Mr Grimus here has just this minute told me.
Grimus remained silent.
– One more thing, said Peckenpaw. I want Flapping Eagle. Where is he?
Grimus said nothing.
Flann O’Toole put his hands around the battered man’s neck and pressed with his thumbs. -Come now, Mr Grimus, he said. You’ll tell us that, now?
Grimus said: -I expelled him from the island. He is no longer here.
– That is the truth, isn’t it, now? asked O’Toole.
– Reckon so, said Peckenpaw. Nobody in the house. Nobody out here. Flapping Eagle’s a lucky man.
P. S. Moonshy spoke for the first time. -What are we waiting for? he said.
O’Toole favoured him with an amused smile.
– Mr Moonshy is in a hurry, he explained apologetically to Grimus. And now that we have completed our task, there is little point in delaying matters, Mr Grimus. I’d be grateful if you’d stand just here.
He moved Grimus to a position directly under the thickest branch of the tree.
Grimus said: -I have no reason to live. It is planned.
O’Toole smiled. -O, good, he said. Most co-operative of you, Mr Grimus.