Shapers of Worlds

by Edward Willett

  “Run!” she whispered, pointing toward the tree line. “You have to run!” She could see it all so clearly: the Giant’s flight through the forest, its reunion with its people where they yet dwelt on reservations high in the vales of the Kalpeny Mountains. She could not give it back its world, but she had given it something.

  “What are you doing?”

  Valka felt her every muscle tense as she turned, but it was only the boy, Malky. From his rumpled nightshirt and tangled hair, Valka guessed that he’d just rolled out of bed. She did her best to smile. “I couldn’t sleep. ’Twas just out to catch a bit of the night air, Malky. You go back to sleep now.”

  Half-asleep as he was, the boy was not so stupid as that. He rubbed his eyes and squinted up at her and the Giant behind her. “But what are you doing?” he asked again, coming closer. “Papa says we shouldn’t bother Dim!”

  “Just go back to sleep,” Valka said. The boy had caught her in the act. What was she going to do? What could she do?

  It was no use. The whites of the boy’s eyes stood sharply out in the fungal gloom. “His bolts are out! Did you take them out?” He half-stumbled back. “You can’t do that!”

  “Malky!”

  But the boy was gone. He turned and scurried back across the yard toward the caravansary. Throwing all caution to the winds, Valka shouted after him. “Malky, come back!”

  Behind her, the Giant bellowed, and the noise of it startled a flock of terranic birds from their nightly perch atop one of the smaller mushroom trees. All at once, the Giant leaped over her, bounding ape-like after the boy.

  Valka didn’t even have time to cry out. To warn him.

  She had a brief impression of the boy as a pale wisp against the night, like the flame of some brief candle. Then the Giant fell upon him and snuffed him out with a fist as big around as a tree.

  Valka did scream then.

  She took off running toward the bathhouse that stood apart from the main caravan house. Malky must have awakened in the night to use it, and had paid for that innocent impulse with his life. She had some vague thought of finding shelter in the squat, flat-roofed building. She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t a soldier anymore, and at any rate, had never seen action on the ground, and certainly never against something so huge and so evidently lethal as the Giant.

  And Malky was dead—must be dead.

  Why? Why had the Giant done that? It didn’t make any sense. The boy was innocent.

  Why hadn’t it just run away?

  She heard shouts behind her and pressed herself against the wall of the bathhouse, peered back around the corner toward the chaos she had caused. Two of the labourers burst out of the caravansary with hunting rifles. When they saw what they were up against, they retreated just as fast, cursing to scorch the ears of the foulest spacer. The Giant drew itself up to its full height and bellowed once again. One of the workers fired on the Giant, but if his shot was true, it did nothing to harm the massive xenobite. While Valka watched, the creature tore through the corner of the caravansary, and the sweep of its arm was like a tree falling. Masonry crumbled like old plaster.

  In the distance, someone screamed. Another gunshot split the night.

  It was supposed to just . . . disappear into the forest. It was supposed to flee. But the Giant seized one of the workmen by the ankle and hurled him clean over the wayshrine’s unfinished dome. Where he landed, Valka never learned.

  “Dim!” a deep voice rang. “Stop this at once!”

  Indrassus had appeared in the arched door to the caravan house. Valka saw the flash of something silver in his hand by the light of stars, and for a moment—even still—she felt the warm flush of satisfaction. It was only too bad that at this distance she would not see the colour drain from the priest’s dark face.

  The Giant wheeled on its master. Its former master.

  A shout of violet light split the darkness like a wedge. The shot took the Giant where ribs ought to be even as it lurched toward Indrassus. And only then did Valka realize . . . the silver instrument in the priest’s hand was not the remote. It was a plasma burner.

  The priest fired again, plasma fire burning hotter than the surface of Sadal Suud’s binary suns. The Giant let out a strange, ululating cry and toppled as flames engulfed one of its legs.

  When she was a girl, Valka had seen an old courthouse demolished. She had never forgotten the way the grey pillars of its façade—which had seemed so immutable, so permanent to her young eyes—had crumbled when the wrecking ball struck. The Giant's leg was the same, and with a dreadful crunching, splintered just below the knee where the damp flesh turned to stone.

  The Giant fell with a cry of pain and a noise like the ending of the world.

  They said the Giants were immortal, as old as the bones of the mountains in which they lived . . . but mountains are worn down in time. By wind. By water.

  This one died by fire.

  It was a long time dying.

  Indrassus shot the Giant a dozen more times, and when the flames all died, the priest ordered his labourers to hammer the body into pieces and to load the pieces on the sledge. Indrassus said they’d have to take the pieces to a kiln when they returned to the city, for even broken, a single living cell was sufficient to regenerate the whole Giant in time. When she’d heard that, Valka had discreetly snatched a fragment of it. She still held it in her hand, sharp edges cutting into the flesh of her palm. Despite the heat of the night and the burning, she clutched the blanket tight about her shoulders.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” she heard herself say. “I was in the bathhouse when I heard it, I . . .” She trailed off, unable to look Malky’s father in the eye. Coram’s sun-spotted face was empty. Of colour. Of feeling. Of everything. She had seen that emptiness a moment earlier and—seeing it—could not bear to see it again. She clenched her fist over the bit of dead clay until she thought she might bleed. “I’m sorry.”

  To her astonishment, Indrassus spoke. “It’s all right, doctor,” he said, not unkindly. “The restraints must have failed . . . the poor boy.” He reached out and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, peering down into her face. “If you’d been outside, you’d have been killed, too.”

  Valka swallowed and looked down at her feet. She could say nothing. They had thought she was apologizing for being unable to save the boy—not that she was apologizing for his death. She shut her eyes, but it did no good. Her memory was perfect, and whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Malky’s pale outline crushed beneath the Giant’s bulk. She’d only been trying to help, to do the right thing and save the Giant from its enslavement . . . and now it was dead.

  And Malky was dead. And one of the workmen.

  She clutched her blanket tighter.

  She wished she could forget like normal people, forget the image of the boy stamped out by the Giant. She could delete the memory, if she wanted, cut out the images wholesale.

  But the human mind is a tricky thing, plastic and changeable. If she did remove the memory, she would not know why it was she cried, and that would have been so much worse.

  She clenched the little piece of the Giant tighter in her hand, afraid to keep it, afraid to toss it on the sledge with the rest. Was it dead? There was no way to be sure that some spark of life did not yet remain in the alien clay. It was not impossible to imagine the inert lump growing once again, softened in some pool or by rain. Was it a seed she held? Part and particle of the creature—the killer—that had died because she freed it from its bonds? Would the Giant that grew from such a seed remember its former life? Remember the torment and the anger of its imprisonment?

  She listened to Indrassus and the men rattle on, reassuring her and comforting Coram as they continued the work of cleaning. Not a one suspected her hand in what had happened—and why should they? They were humble Imperial peasants and knew little of the technologies in play. Even Indrassus was only a country preacher, not one of the Chantry witch-finders who made a career of hunting
for thinking machines. In time, she stood.

  “I need to sleep,” she said, leaving them all by the sledge and the bathhouse as she crossed back to the caravansary. One more day. One more day and she’d be free of them.

  Valka stopped for a moment halfway between the men and the door. Unseen beneath the blanket, she opened her fingers.

  The shard of the stone Giant tumbled to the earth at her feet.

  Maybe they would find it.

  Maybe they would not.

  “Shhhh . . .”

  By David Brin

  Nobody speaks much of the Talent, anymore—that aspect of our nature we were once asked to give up for the sake of pity. We gave it up, something precious and rare, for the sake of the Lentili.

  Or did we?

  No one doubts the Lentili merited such a sacrifice. They have done so much for humankind, after all. Had we never met them, would we or our Earth have survived mankind’s childish greed and temper for much longer? I know this—I would never have been able to put off writing my memoir so long, procrastinating for two centuries of augmented life span, were it not for the medical technologies donated by our benefactors.

  Ah, but Time is inexorable, or so the Lentili philosophers tell us. So now, I’ll pour my testimony into Write-only Memory, that bank that takes only deposits, never withdrawals. Someday, there will be no men or women still corporeal whose vivid neuronal recollection recalls that time of excitement, when our first starprobes brought back word of contact. But for now, I remember.

  Contact—a word so sweet, yet chilling, promising an end to loneliness and a beginning of . . . what?

  Oh, such fears we had. The high hopes! Each pundit had his or her own theory, of course. This would end the miserable, solipsistic isolation of mankind, some predicted. Others said this would be our end entire.

  Initial reports arrived from our contact team. They sounded so optimistic, so wonderful. Too wonderful, we thought, to be true!

  As it turned out, they understated the case. In dazed wonderment, we came to realize that the Universe might actually be sane, after all! How else could there ever come about beings such as the Lentili?

  Oh, there were many ancient, wise races in the Galactic Commonweal, advanced, philosophical species who had no more interest in swooping down to seize our grubby little world than a professor might wish to steal a small boy’s ball. All of a sudden, all our worst fears seemed so silly. Of course, we would remain awkward newcomers for ages, but starfaring had transformed us overnight and forever from the status of clever animals into citizens.

  Our appointed advisers in this process would be the kind, gregarious Lentili, so beautiful and gentle and wise. Could we ask for any better proof that the Universe was kind?

  They were on their way, great Lentili starships, escorting two crude Earth Survey vessels they could just as easily have swallowed and brought here in a fraction of the time. But there was no hurry, and the Lentili were sensitive to matters of honour.

  Honour can be costly, though. We learned this when the Margaret Mead, containing half our contact team, exploded halfway home to Sol. In the midst of this shock, the widely respected European president—newly elected chairman of the Interim Council of State Leaders—went on the air to address the world.

  Platitudes and paeans can be clichés, but that is not lamentable. Originality is not useful to those freshly numbed with grief. So, President Triddens spoke of our lost emissaries in words used oft to eulogize heroes, yet seldom so aptly.

  But then there came an unexpected coda. He said something that took the world by surprise.

  Officially, no copies of his address exist any longer. And yet, while it is seldom spoken of, has any speech ever had more far-reaching effects? It endures in secret tapes all over the Solar System. Here is how Triddens revealed his shocking news:

  “Fellow citizens and people of the world, I must now talk to you about something I learned only hours before hearing about the loss of the Margaret Mead. It is my duty to tell you that the Lentili, these gentle, fine beings who will so soon be our guests on this planet, are not quite as perfect as they seem. In fact, they have a serious, tragic flaw.

  “Just before she died aboard the Margaret Mead, the eminent psychologist-sociologist Dr. Ruth Rishke sent me a most disturbing document. After two days of sleepless agonizing over what to do, I’ve decided to share this information with the entire human race. For if anything is to be done about Dr. Rishke’s disturbing conclusions, it must be now, before the Lentili arrive.

  “First off, I don’t want to disturb you all unduly. We are in no danger from our approaching guests. Quite the contrary. Had they wished us harm, resistance would have been utterly useless, but all evidence shows them to be benevolent. Indeed, we are offered all of the secrets of an ancient, wise culture, and solutions to many of the troubles that have vexed us for ages.

  “But I must report to you that there is a danger, nevertheless. The danger is not to us, but to our benefactors!

  “You see, for all of their advancement, the Lentili appear to be deficient in an unexpected way. Before her untimely death, Dr. Rishke was quite concerned.

  “Apparently, we humans have a certain talent, one which seems to be completely absent from the Lentili. One which they appear barely capable of even comprehending. At first, when she referred to it, they did not seem to understand what she was talking about. When her persistent efforts resulted in a few of them finally catching on, Professor Rishke said, and I quote, ‘I was appalled at the consequences to those poor Lentili,’ unquote.”

  How well I remember the expression on President Tridden’s face. His sympathy for the plight of these poor creatures was apparent. We had all come to admire the Lentili so, over the recent weeks. Tall and gangling, with faces that seemed almost droopy with kindness and gentle humour—they looked so harmless, so incapable of doing harm.

  They also seemed so omnipotent! Terrifically strong and coordinated, they lived, as corporeal individuals, for thousands of years before going on to join their Universal Mind. Skills a man might spend a lifetime perfecting were the study of a lazy vacation to a Lentili. Their accomplishments, both as a race and as individuals, were awesome.

  The Lentili spoke kindly of the arts and achievements of mankind, of course, never qualifying their praise as some of us would have, allowing for the fact that these were, after all, the simple works of children. And yet, how could we avoid inserting those burning qualifiers ourselves?

  Humanity’s overweening pride had come near to wrecking our beloved world. Even by the time we launched two crude starships, the Earth was still a fractious, nervous place. So, our newly discovered humility went down as medicine that did not taste anywhere near as bad as we’d feared. Despite a few dissenting voices, our people were determined to become good students, to be grateful, hard-working pupils.

  So, imagine our surprise! How could the President be saying this to us? How could such creatures as the Lentili be flawed?

  Such was President Tridden’s great authority, however, and such was the renown of the famed professor Rishke, that we had no choice but to take their word for it, and be amazed! We leaned forward toward our sets and concentrated as few ever have in times of peace.

  “Professor Rishke sent her information directly to me,” the President went on. “And now, I pass the buck to all of you. For it is up to all of humanity to decide what we are to do.

  “At the very start of our long relationship with a kind, decent race—one whose interest in our welfare is indisputable—we find we actually have it within our power to wreak untold psychic harm upon the Lentili. The Lentili have a mental block, something like an odd inferiority complex, and it concerns something so mundane to us that few human beings ever bother even thinking about it, past the age of ten! It certainly isn’t our fault. And yet, we can hurt our new friends terribly if we are crass or rudely force them to see what they would rather not see. We are duty-bound to try to minimize that harm as best we
can.

  “Therefore, I have decided to ask you all to join me in making a grand sacrifice.

  “Over the coming weeks, as we prepare to receive our visitors, our guests and future guides, we must expunge all references to this human talent from our literature, from our language, from our outward lives!

  “To begin with, I have already given orders to various governmental agencies using my emergency powers. Commencing this hour, the indexes of the Library of Congress are being destroyed. No books will actually be burned, but in the laborious process of reconstruction, the new indexes will exclude all reference to this human ability that so disturbs our new friends.

  “All of you can do the same, in your towns and villages and homes. We must not, of course, destroy our heritage. But we can at least make an effort to mask this thing, so that when the Lentili arrive, we can hope to spare them avoidable pain.”

  Oh, the sadness in his eyes. The human wisdom of President Tridden as he spoke these words. I can tell you now what so many of us were feeling, then. We felt dread. We felt fear. But most of all, we felt pride. Yes, pride that we humans, too, could bring forth nobility and charity to those in need. We were determined, listening to this great man, that we would follow his example. Yes, we would do this great thing, and begin our relationship with our mentors nobly, in an act of self-sacrifice and pity.

  Only a few of us had begun to worry about how to do this. But then, the President went on.

  “Of course, we all know human nature. Part of the work we did in becoming civilized enough to be allowed to join the Galactic Commonweal involved the way we learned to despise secrecy. We’ve become a race of eccentric individualists and are proud of that fact. How can we, then, hide forever the existence of a human talent? It just wouldn’t be possible, even if everyone agreed to do so, even if we found and eradicated every record.