The dark side of the sun - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,46

point out the lesson. By something like osmosis he had been given just a feeling of Creapiness. The Creap had been trying to tell him that he was right. The world of the Creapii was a Totality away from the world of men. So the Creaps tried to think – to feel – like men. Only thus could the whole nature of the universe be comprehended, they said.

With a new understanding Dom realized that the official view of the Creapii was wrong. They were said to be the race born to science. Creapii were the cool-heads of the universe, the ultimate analysers, a race of intelligent robots, had robots been what the first robotic pioneers considered them to be. It just wasn’t true. What was it one of the pre-Sadhim sects had striven for? Ultimate reality? That was it. The Creapii were the mystics of the universe.

They ate at a table under a spreading pear tree. A stew of slightly rotting oily black toadstools, a real delicacy, had been provided for Hrsh-Hgn. Isaac ate Whole Erse potatoes for energy. There was a seafood soufflé for Dom, expertly cooked. He was beginning to realize too that Creapii were experts automatically. His Furness sucked something from a pressurized cylinder into an airlock approximately where his stomach should have been.

‘Where is your next port of call?’ he asked.

‘Minos, if you can take me there,’ said Dom. ‘I have to get another ship, and I know there is a multiracial settlement there. I could take a look at the Maze, too.’

‘Do you think there might be a clue in the Maze?’ asked the Creap politely.

Isaac chortled, and nudged Dom heavily in the ribs.

‘That was a clever literary allusion, that was,’ he said. ‘Even the name of the planet is—’

‘I know,’ said Dom. ‘I shall look forward to meeting the minotaur. Hrsh?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said the phnobe, looking up. ‘I was jusst reflecting that I sseem to be insside a legend.’

He called the ship One Jump Behind. It was the best the small yard on Minos had to offer. It lacked even an autochef, which was a point in its favour, but its matrix was carefully calibrated and the cabin was at least larger than a closet.

‘Why One Jump Behind?’ asked Isaac.

‘Relativity,’ said Dom. ‘It’s full name ought to be A Jump So Far Ahead That If Einstein Had Been Right It Would End Right Behind You. Try getting that on the ident panel. Do you think you can handle it?’

‘It’ll do,’ said Isaac ruefully. ‘It’s hardly a thoroughbred.’

They walked through the human scientific colony towards the Maze, the nearest wall of which loomed over the low domes.

‘What did you think of the High-Degrees?’ said Hrsh-Hgn.

‘Remarkable,’ said Dom non-committally. ‘What about you?’

‘I met several while you were taken on that tour. I wass sstruck by their phnobisshness, ass you might expect, and your ssuggesstion that each race ssees itss reflection in the—’

A small silver egg rolled up to them at the Maze entrance, waving a sheaf of papers in a tentacle. The reddish tint of its eyeshield said it was a very low-degree Creap indeed.

‘Psst!’ hissed a non-directional voice. ‘Wanna buy a map? Can’t see the Maze without a map. Compiled by my brood-brother from genuine aerial photographs!’

‘Sod off, cinderbrain!’ screamed a large Creap, thundering towards the group. ‘Now, sir and frss, you are obviously discerning people and you want a map. Now I have a map, sir and frss, the like of which is seldom seen.’

‘Do I need a map?’ Dom asked.

‘Not precissely,’ said the phnobe, who had visited the Maze before. ‘But they do make good souvenirss!’

A dozen other map-sellers lurched and rolled after them as they strode into the Maze.

The Jokers had their little joke. Occasionally a researcher would point out that the Maze was probably never designed as a maze at all, but none could come up with a believable alternative use. Dom wasn’t surprised when his two companions faded away on either side of him – Hrsh-Hgn had warned him of the Maze effect.

Something in the monomolecular walls created a separate universe for every individual. That was why all maps and aerial photographs ceased to be useful. Dom’s own map of the maze could be perfectly accurate – for Dom.

Once he saw a shadowy outline of Hrsh-Hgn walk out of a wall and disappear into another. Dom thumped the wall good and hard and then, glancing around to make sure that no one was watching, played a stripper beam over the