The Cat and the Calculator: Part 1
For the first time in perhaps sixty years, the Cat and the Calculator agreed on something.
“It’s here,” the Cat muttered again. “I’m sure of it.”
The Calculator sniffed in mild derision. Who knew, in the whole of the Myriad Worlds why the Cat was sure of anything. It hadn’t even bothered to look properly. It had just sat there, seeming pleased with itself, while the Calculator had done all the work.
It didn’t blame the Cat, of course. It had at first; almost sixty years ago, the Cat had confused the Calculator terribly. It was an ordained priest of the Linear Church, and had certain expectations about the world. It didn’t expect perfection — only high deacons, like the calculator, knew all thirty-six of the divine senses — but the mangy beast didn’t even seem to use the four or five they did know about.
Now, some three-score years later, they had come to an understanding.
“Stop looking at me,” the Cat growled.
The Calculator shifted, refocusing itself on the surroundings. The Cat may have been certain, but no Calculator worth its oath would dare be certain of anything without careful calculation.
“Oddstreet,” it said, shifting its inner workings about, cogs and wires snapping into place. Clues and rumors had led the two of them here; after sixty years of searching they were closer than ever.
No, the Calculator admonished itself with a grinding of its gears. That was how the Cat thought. There was no telling how close the two were; if either of them had known they were close then they would know where their target was, and neither of them truly had a clue.
But rumors and whispered secrets had guided the two of them here, to Oddstreet; one of the busiest backstreets in all of Garm. Everyone knew about Oddstreet. If you needed anything, you could find it here.
The world jumped as the Cat fell back on their haunches. “Hold still you fool!” The Calculator flung three of its limbs out to steady itslef. “You almost threw me, you troublesome beast!”
“So?” The Cat licked their paw in what only the foulest jesters would have called thought. “It’s my turn, and I want to go this way.” Without waiting for so much as a nod, the Cat launched itself off the cobblestones and towards a nearby crate. The Calculator barely had time to throw its limbs around the Cat’s neck.
It was the work of a moment. Like a breath of wind, the Cat danced up the stacked crates, loose awnings, and thin windowsills. Had the Calculator a life to fear for, it would have done so.
At last the Cat stopped and lay down on a thin strip of wall overlooking Oddstreet. Their tail lashed back and forth like a lazy viper, struggling to gather the energy to strike. “There,” the Cat stared. “See?”
The Calculator struggled to untangle its limbs from the Cat’s harness. “Foul beast! How you expect me to see anything when you charge about like that…”
“Maybe I don’t,” the Cat’s eyes took in the entire street. “We’re getting close. I can feel it.”
“Feel,” the Calculator grumbled as it pulled its last limbs free. “Well, I can’t; I see a poorly designed street with a bunch of people milling around trying to figure out how to get from one shop to the next. How that gets us any closer to the Primus, I’m sure I don’t know.”
“I thought you knew everything.”
The Calculator sagged. For sixty years the two of them had wandered the Myriad Worlds like penitents, scraping together what means of survival they could. They had met with alley-kings and court-beggars. They had explored lost libraries and had tea with witches. They had seen thing to tantalize all of the divine senses, and still the Cat stubbornly refused to understand even a fraction of what the Calculator was.
But now was not the time to have that conversation. Not when the street unfolded beneath them like a gnarled scroll, ancient letters and diagrams spilling across the ground. There were the usual storefronts, both open-walled and shut, there were the street vendors who cried out for attention from the wandering shoppers, there was even a Ripjin set by the side of the main thoroughfare, the wiry Gilbrim relaxing with their feet up on the handlebars as they waited for a customer.
The gentle sounds of population drifted through the air. In accordance with the Divine Search, such sounds had multiple classifications — noise, ambiance, discord — but the Calculator had long ago found another classification that suited it much better; music. A thousand instruments, all playing together, asking and answering in their turn. There were fugues from old friends, choruses from the shop-keeps, and choruses, leitmotifs, counterpoints, and all manner of melodies playing in and out of tune, conducted by some strange invisible conductor that no one ever acknowledged.
Someday, the Calculator wished to meet that conductor and ask if it could see their musical score. It wanted to see even a fraction of the formula for such beautiful music.
“Stop looking at me,” it said.
The Cat looked away without another word. They lowered their head to their paws, the pose of a hunter ready to leap perfectly blended with the tranquil posture of a sleeping child.
Well, the Calculator thought, they can be as certain as they like. I’m not certain yet.
With exacting care, the Calculator’s arms unfolded, fit their spectacles in place on the end of their nose, and LOOKED.
There was CAT, and CAT was the world.
A fairly small and focused part of the world, yes, but the world nonetheless. A distinct and individual part of the whole, true, but still the whole. They were, to be quite specific about it, a somewhat nonplussed part of the Myriad Worlds that had chosen — though not entirely under their own volition — to lie down on this tiny strip of wall that connected the two adjoining buildings.
It was a still part of the world, while the rest got on with the activities of life. CAT knew it was the world then, as all the still parts remained still while the moving parts moved somehow faster. CAT could feel everything spinning like a top, pulling and tugging at their core, begging them to return to the everything that was not CAT.
The Calculator called it “being bored.”
They didn’t know for sure they were bored, but that was what the Calculator called it. CAT had spent many years (was it years, now? Goodness!) with the tiny metal thing, and even after so long CAT still had no idea what the Calculator was on about, half the time.
It liked to label things, the little companion did. Such labels! The cat part of the world had never even heard the word ‘bored’ before, and now that was what they were whenever the Calculator limb flipped through its brass and pearl lenses.
The cat part of the world let their tail dangle gently in the breeze. There were so many things that they had never seen nor understood before they had met the little Calculator. The primal laws of the Myriad Worlds had been toys to CAT, tiny pieces of experience that drifted through the Velvet like snowflakes and cotton-puffs. Currents carried CAT from place to place, all it had to do was spread its sails and follow the feeling.
They didn’t even know what they were. The Calculator had called them CAT.
The tail of the cat part of the world lashed in sudden fury. They couldn’t even remember if they had always been CAT, or if the Calculator had somehow performed some brass-and-line magic that had trapped themself in their current shape. Perhaps the tiny metal thing had wanted a steed; traveling the Velvet and searching for the Primus could not have been easy for it. There were so many ways to get stepped on, or things to fall off of…CAT never had to worry about any of that.
CAT had never needed labels or titles or the eleventy-leven holy senses of true muckity-muck or whatever. CAT hadn’t worried about doing anything right. They had just moved about, knowing in their heart of hearts that when they found the Primus, they would know.
The idea had driven the Calculator to convulsions.
Yet somehow they were searching together. The Calculator had talked the cat part of the world into it, or perhaps CAT had convinced the Calculator, or maybe neither of them cared enough to part ways. Whatever the reason, for sixty-years their quest had been joined. It had sounded so reasonable — another foreign word to the cat part of the world. After all, if they were both looking for the Primus, they stood a better chance searching together.
The cat part of the world rolled its neck, letting the world pour in through their eyes, mouth, ears, feet, fur, and all the many little ways CAT was the world.
Well, they didn’t feel bored. At least, not the way the Calculator described it. And for all its practice labeling things, the Calculator wasn’t even very good at it. They asked it, now and then, to label different things; it rarely had a reliable answer. It hadn’t known what to call the feeling you get when you say goodbye to a friend and then get the same tightness in the chest you get when you tell a lie. It gave two different labels to different forests, even though they had the same kinds of trees. It hadn’t even known the best path to take to get to Oddstreet, when CAT had known all along that the best path was the one that went forward.
Giving a gentle yawn, CAT looked down on the street. If it wasn’t for them, the pair would never get anywhere.
Down on Oddstreet, food stalls offered cuisine from all corners of the Kingdom and soft cloths made from a hundred different kinds of hair, fur, and skin were offered to passers-by. Rustic smiths drove their hammers onto delicate metals, while white sages and technologists from all across the Myriad Worlds offered magical devices that painted pictures in the air or sang sad songs of distant lands.
Even a shallow glance had told CAT all they had needed to know.
CAT’s tail lashed for a second. Not ‘glance,’ they hadn’t used their eyes. (The fool Calculator was rubbing off on them.) They had known the same way they knew they were hungry or tired. A thousand invisible strings, a web across the worlds. The street knew, and that was enough.
The clicking sound of metal and glass filled the world as the Calculator flipped its lenses away. “It’s near.”
“You’ve said that before,” the cat part of the world sniffed. Their poor companion didn’t answer, so it must have remembered as well.
The Cat’s landing was gentler than its assent, made all the smoother for its expected nature. The Calculator felt its cogs click perfectly together in holy satisfaction of an expectation met.
“You always do that.”
The Calculator’s cogs shifted, grinding unpleasantly down its own rocky ravine, searching through hundreds of previous calculations, hunting for the expectation it had inadvertently achieved.
“Do what?” It asked at last, when minutes of searching both its and the Cat’s past had proven fruitless.
“I was just getting somewhere when you interrupted.” The Cat’s tone held no malice. Years ago, the Cat would have spat the words, or forced the Calculator to walk alongside for a time as rudimentary punishment. Now, the Cat had succumbed to the way of all flesh: familiarity with the world as it was.
The Calculator didn’t need to say anything. It was an argument well worn through regular use, and there was nothing new to say. Nevertheless, if anyone knew about the importance of ritual and performative pattern, it was a high deacon of the Linear Church.
“I had finished LOOKing,” the Calculator answered. It wasn’t an excuse; at best it was an explanation.
“There’s a world out there,” the Cat drifted to the side, pausing to lean down and sniff gently at a discarded rag. “You could be a part of it.”
“Be a part of it?” The Calculator shifted its grip, digging into the Cat’s back a bit more tightly than it needed to. “I am an ordained follower of the High-Seer. I have studied the thirty-six divine senses for decades. I know ten — ten — of the holy koans of presence and I possess a piece of the Holiest Archibecht.”
The Cat turned its head before padding on down the street. “That’s a lot of labels.”
“Of course it is.” The Calculator shifted again, struggling to find the best position to balance. “Every label means something. It is the duty of every adherent of the Linear Church to apply their holy sentience to make manifest that which otherwise would be ephemeral. It is we who built the Letters of Trapz, constructed the One Algorithm, and established the precepts of Rlyan architecture. A part of the world? It is through our holy ritual that the world is.”
The Cat didn’t answer. They probably hadn’t even bothered to listen.
The crowds were getting thicker. The throngs of life were rippling through the air, turning the music into a cacophony. The Cat darted to and fro, dodging limbs and rolling carts, skipping between the cobblestones like smoke. The Calculator hung on as tightly as it could, pressing its cold blocky shape into its companion’s soft fur.
“Move that way,” the Calculator nudged the Cat’s side.
The Cat turned their head, scanning the air with ear and eye. there wasn’t anything interesting in that direction. Just a thin alleyway.
“Come on,” the Calculator’s limbs twitched uncomfortably. “Don’t you ignore me. Go look over there. There might be something important there.”
“Oh?” the Cat allowed themself a gentle smile. “Like what?”
“Familiarity,” the Calculator spoke with almost religious zeal. “The street in Hurfstaad? That time in Greenburg? If that alley there brings us closer to the Primus, then we will have similarity. A pattern.”
The Cat, of course, didn’t remember anything, because there was nothing to remember. The Cat simply was the way the world was. “If you say so.”
“Greenburg,” the Calculator continued while the Cat moved on, “was another time you certainly didn’t listen to me. If I had been able to copy all the carvings before the door had shut, we could be speaking to the Primus right this very moment. There’s no telling…Where are we?”
“I kept walking,” the Cat said. “You were talking.”
“You see?” The Calculator sniffed. “Just like Greenburg.”
The Cat continued on their way, feeling the world shift around them. They knew the Calculator well enough; it would spend a few minutes compiling or whatever it was doing, and leave the world that was CAT alone. The world could simply be, now, and continue to spin without interruption.
And spin it did. It flowed like a river and danced like ash on a pillar of smoke. It floated through and on and with. It scattered over and across. It fell down and rose up, it opened and shut, it shifted and bumped and dodged and paused to catch up. It smiled and frowned and grieved and raged and laughed and trusted and broke and shrugged and cried and screamed and gasped and touched and the part of the world that was cat could feel it all.
“That’s probably the way,” the Calculator shattered the noisy repose of the world. “Go that way. It’s my turn, and I say we should go that way.”
“It’s always your turn,” CAT grumbled, “when I’m just about to get somewhere. With all your gears and holy senses, you’d think you’d realize we’d get where we’re going faster if you’d just let me get us there.”
The Calculator didn’t bother explaining how precisely and exactly wrong the Cat was. Instead, the Cat moved with unerring grace to settle down in a nearby alcove. There was a door, so it had to have been the entryway to one of the many shops along Oddstreet, but there were no windows or signs to mark what kind of store it was. A moment of study told the Calculator that it was not a well-patronized store at any rate; none of the passers-by gave the door a second glance, and most were more interested in the Cat than the doorway.
The adjoining buildings smelled of spices, perfumes, and fresh meats; an eatery and a wealthy luxury-goods store. Small wonder the shop was poorly patronized.
But poorly does not mean never. Thrice while the cat part of the world sat, patrons walked past to enter and later exit the store. Thrice a long limb reached down to PRESS on the Cat, pulling the hair back and around their body. The world felt the weight of those hands, pushing, kneading, shaping, feeling…
The Cat pulled away, hissing at every touch. Unpleasantly pleasant, the fingers spread and clawed at the air. The Cat’s claws ached to bite back.
“Hold still!” The Calculator protested one final futile time before the Cat launched itself away from the offending limbs, slipping like smoke through the slowly closing shop door.
The gentle song of the bell above the door heralded the pair’s entrance. All about them sat shelves filled with scraps of old histories and ancient cultures. The smell of dust and paper flitted on drafts of languid air. The room was tired, patient, and waiting.
“Damned cat!” the Calculator released its limbs and slid to the floor with a metallic clatter. “Why must you always interrupt me? I was finally getting somewhere, and yet again you pull me back!”
“It’s not my fault,” the Cat blinked in bemusement. “I’m not in charge.”
“Then who is?”
The room’s silence at last overcame the questing pair. Gentle shadows and quiet corners gently whispered as the Cat and the Calculator parted.