by Larry Niven
“What?”
“To exterminate them, Garner. Hell, they’ve killed thirteen men already! We talked practically nonstop, with Phssthpok doing most of the talking, and all the time we were hard at work: calisthenics to build me up, fins for Phssthpok’s suit so he could swim the dust, widgets to get every atom of air and water out of the life support system and take it to the base. I’ve never seen the base; we had to extrapolate the design so we’d know how to re-inflate it and protect it.
“The third day he told me how to get a tree-of-life crop growing. He had the box open and was telling me how to unfreeze the seeds safely. He was giving me orders just as if I were a voice-box computer. I was about to ask, ‘Don’t I get any choices at all?’ And I didn’t.”
“I don’t follow,” said Garner.
“I didn’t get any choices. I was too intelligent. It’s been that way ever since I woke up. I get answers before I can finish formulating the question. If I always see the best answer, then where’s my choice? Where’s my free will? You can’t believe how fast this all was. I saw the whole chain of logic in one flash. I slammed Phssthpok’s head hard against the edge of the freezer. It stunned him long enough so that I could break his throat against the edge. Then I jumped back in case he attacked. I figured I could hold him off until he strangled. But he didn’t attack. He hadn’t figured it out, not yet.”
“It sounds like murder, Brennan. He didn’t want to kill you?”
“Not yet. I was his shining hope. He couldn’t even defend himself for fear of bruising me. He was older than me, and he knew how to fight. He could have killed me if he'd wanted to, but he couldn’t want to. It took him thirty-two thousand years of real time to bring us those roots. I was supposed to finish the job.
“I think he died believing he’d succeeded. He half-expected me to kill him.”
“Brennan. Why?”
The Brennan-monster shrugged cantaloupe shoulders. “He was wrong. I killed him because he would have tried to wipe out humanity when he learned the truth.” He reached into the slit balloon that had brought him across twelve miles of fluid dust. He pulled out a jury-rigged something that hummed softly—his air renewal setup, made from parts of Phssthpok’s control board—and dropped it in the boat. Next he pulled out half of a yellow root like a raw sweet potato. He hold it under Garner's nose. “Smell.”
Luke sniffed. “Pleasant enough. Like a liqueur.”
“Sohl?”
“Nice. How’s it taste?”
“If you knew it would turn you into something like me, would you take a bite of it? Garner?”
“This instant. I’d like to live forever, and I’m afraid of going senile.”
“Sohl?”
“NO. I’m not ready to give up sex yet.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventy-four. Birthday two months from now.”
“You’re already too old. You were too old at fifty; It would have killed you. Would you have volunteered at forty-five?”
Sohl laughed. “Not likely.”
“Well, that’s half the answer. From Phssthpok’s point of view we’re a failure. The other half is that no sane man would turn the root loose on Earth or Belt or anywhere else.”
“I should hope not. But let’s hear your reasons.”
“War. The Pak world has never been free from war at any time in its history. Naturally not, with every protector acting to expand and protect his blood line at the expense of all the others. Knowledge keeps getting lost. The race can’t cooperate for a minute beyond the point where one protector sees an advantage in betraying the others. They can’t make any kind of progress because of that continual state of war.
“And I’m to turn that loose on Earth? Can you imagine a thousand protectors deciding their grandchildren need more room? Your eighteen billion flatlanders live too close to the edge already; you can’t afford the resources.
“Besides which, we don’t really need tree-of-life. Garner, when were you born? Nineteen forty or thereabouts?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“Geriatrics is getting so good so fast that my kids could live a thousand years. We’ll get longevity without tree-of-life, without sacrificing anything at all.
“Now look at it from Phssthpok’s viewpoint,” the Brennan-monster continued. “We’re a mutation. We’ve settled the solar system and started some interstellar colonies. We will and must refuse the root, and even when it’s forced on us, the resulting mutated protectors are atypical. Phssthpok thought in terms of the long view. We’re not Pak, we’re no use to the Pak, and it’s conceivable that someday we’ll reach the core suns. The Pak will attack us the moment they see us, and we’ll fight back.” He shrugged. “And we’ll win. The Pak don’t unite effectively. We do. We’ll have a better technology than theirs.”
“We will?”
“I told you, they can’t keep their technology. Whatever can’t be used immediately, gets lost until someone files it in the Library. Military knowledge never gets filed; the families keep it a deep, dark secret. And the only ones to use the Library are childless protectors. There aren’t many of them, and they aren’t highly motivated.”
“Couldn’t you have tried to talk to him?”
“Garner, I’m not getting through to you. He’d have killed me the moment he figured it out! He was trained to fight protectors. I wouldn’t have had a chance. Then he’d have tried to wipe out the human species. We’d have been much worse to him than hostile aliens. We’re a corruption of the Pak form itself.”
“But he couldn’t do it. He was all alone.”
“I’ve thought of half a dozen things he could have tried. None of them sure things, but I couldn’t risk it.”
“Name one.”
“Plant tree-of-life all through Congo National Park. Organize the monkey and chimpanzee protectors.”
“He was marooned here.”
“He could have commandeered your ship. He’d have had your silly flare gun as fast as I did. Gentlemen, may I point out that it’s near sunset? I don’t think we want to navigate the ring wall in darkness.”
Luke started the motor.
“This is Martin Shaeffer at Ceres calling Nick Sohl aboard U Thant. Nick, I don’t know how your hunting goes, but Phobos reports that you’ve landed safely at Olympus Base, and they’re tracking your dustboat wake. Presumably you’ll find this on tape when you get back.
“We’ve sent the Blue Ox to meet you, on the theory that you may need the computer package as a translating device. Eisaku Ikeda commanding. The Ox should reach Olympus Base a day behind the UN fleet.
“Einar Nilsson is dead. We’ll have an autopsy report shortly.
“We’ve sent fuel ships and construction facilities to rendezvous with the Outsider ship. There are two singleships falling alongside already, and the Outsider ship has a tested tow line of its own. We may be able to rig the singleships for towing. Still, it’s all going to be very sticky and time consuming. We may not get it home to the Belt for a couple of years.
“Nick, when the Ox gets there, be careful of Tina Jordan. Don’t shake her up. She’s had a bad shock. I think she blames herself for what happened to Einar.
“Repeating...”
Luke docked the dustboat in near-darkness. He said, “You’ll have to wait in the boat, Brennan. Nick can’t carry us both.”
“I’ll roll,” said the Brennan-monster.
Nick’s walk down the path and around the rim of the dust pool was made in unseemly haste. “Take it easy,” Luke complained. “You can’t trot in this light. You’ll fall and crack both our helmets.”
“He’s going to beat us to the ship,” Nick said edgily.
Brennan was taking the short cut, rolling directly across the dust.
“Slow down. You can’t beat him, and he can’t get up the ladder.”
“Maybe he’s thought of a way. If he does... oh, hell.” Nick slowed down. Brennan had rolled uphill to the foot of U Thant’s ladder. He waited for th
em there like a translucent sausage.
“Nick? Do you trust him?”
It was seconds before he answered. “I think his story’s straight. He’s a Belter. Or an ex-Belter.”
“He swore by damn instead of by Finagle.”
“So do I. And he recognized me. No, I’ll tell you what really convinced me. He didn’t ask about his wife, because she can take care of herself. He asked about his cargo. He’s a Belter.”
“We accept his story, then. Anthropology and all. Wow.”
“His story, yes. Luke, I’ll take you up, then come back for Brennan. But I won’t come down until you’re talking to Ceres. I want all of this on record before I let him in the ship. I’m still wondering about his motives.”
“Ah.”
“He said it himself. Motives change for a protector.” Garner was already signing off when Brennan climbed out of his zippered balloon. Brennan made no mention of the delay. He said, “If you’re worried about accommodations, I can get along without an acceleration couch. In fact, I can ride outside in a cargo net if you’ll give me a radio link. If my patchwork air plant breaks down I’d want to get inside fast.”
“That won’t be necessary. It’ll be cramped, but not that cramped,” said Nick. He squeezed past Brennan, wincing inside himself from the dry leathery touch, and into the control chair. “We seem to have a message.”
They listened in silence to the recorded voice of Lit Shaeffer.
“Too bad about Nilsson,” Brennan said afterward. “There wasn’t much chance they’d let him eat enough of the root, even if he wasn’t past the age.”
Nobody answered.
“Shaeffer’s right, you know. Doing it that way, it’ll take you a couple of years to drag Phssthpok’s ship home.”
“Have you got a better idea?”’
“Of course I’ve got a better idea, Nick, you idiot. I can fly that ship home myself.”
“You?” Nick stared. “When did the Outsider ever let you operate the controls?”
“He never did. But I saw them, and they didn’t look cryptic. Just complicated. I’m sure I can figure out how to fly it. All you’ve got to do is fuel the ship and fly me to it.”
“Uh huh. What do we do about the cargo pod? Leave it where it is?”
“No. There's a gravity polarizer in that pod.”
“Oh?”
“Not to mention the supply of roots, which I need, even if you don’t. The seeds count too. Gentlemen, when you have finally grasped the extent of my magnificent intelligence, you'll see what those seeds represent. They’re a fail-safe for the human race. If we ever really need a leader, we can make one. Just pick a forty-two-year-old childless volunteer and turn him or her loose in the tree-of-life patch.”
“I’m not sure how well I like that,” said Garner.
“Well, the gravity polarizer’s important enough. You and the UN fleet can retrieve it while Nick and I go after Phssthpok’s ship—“
Nick said, “Just a—“
“—You won’t have to worry about the martians for awhile. I dumped Phssthpok’s share of the water into the dust, just before I left. Don’t let anyone into the pod without a pressure suit. Need I elaborate?”
“No,” said Garner. He felt like an amateur on skis. Somewhere he had lost control, and now events were moving too fast.
Nick spoke with a certain amount of anger. “Hold it. What makes you think we’d trust you to fly the Outsider ship?”
“Take your time. Think it through,” said Brennan. “You’ll have my supply of root for hostage. And where would I go with a Bussard ramjet? Where would I sell it? Where would I hide, with my face?”
Nick’s face wore a trapped look. Where was his own free will?
“It’s probably the most valuable artifact in human space,” said Brennan. “It’s falling outward at several hundred miles per second. Each minute you take to make up your mind now is going to cost us a couple of hours hauling it back from interstellar space. You’ll pay for that in extra fuel and provisions and man-hours and delays. But take your time. Think it through.”
The Brennan-monster had the ability to relax. Sometime in the future there would be periods of furious activity...
They left Lucas Garner on Phobos, refueled there, and took off. Garner did not see Nick again for seven months. He did not see Brennan ever again.
For the rest of his life he remembered that cramped conversation. Brennan—on his back with his knees up, in a position of acute discomfort—was a blurred half-alien voice behind his control couch. Brennan had trouble with his V’s and W’s, but he could be understood. His voice was full of clickings.
An indefinite tension went out of Nick once they were in free fall. Mars converged slowly on itself, a bright varied landscape reddening as it lost detail.
“Children. You’ve got children,” Luke remembered suddenly.
“I’m aware of that. But fear not. I don’t intend to hover over them. They’ll have a better chance for happiness without that.”
“The hormone changes didn’t work?”
“I’m as neuter as a bumblebee. They must have worked to some extent. I think most of a Protector’s urge to die after his blood line is dead must be cultural. Training. I don’t have that training, that conviction that a breeder can’t be happy or safe without his ancestors constantly telling him what to do. Nick, can you give it out that the Outsider killed me?”
“What? What for?”
“Best for the children. I couldn’t keep seeing them without affecting their lives. Best for Charlotte too. I don’t intend to rejoin society as such. There’s nothing there for me.”
“The Belt doesn’t look down on cripples, Brennan.”
“No,” Brennan said with finality. “Give me an asteroid I can bubble-form and I’ll raise tree-of-life. Set me up a monthly liaison with Ceres so I can keep abreast of current developments. I’ll be able to pay for all this with new inventions. I think I can design a manned ramrobot. Better than Phssthpok’s.”
Garner said, “You called it tree-of-life?”
“It’s a good name. You remember that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. According to Genesis, the reason they were kicked out was that they might also have eaten from the Tree of Life, to live forever. ‘And be as one of us’ —it would have made them equivalent to angels. Now it looks like both trees were the same.”
Luke found a cigarette. “I don’t know that I like the idea of you producing tree-of-life crops.”
“I don’t much like the idea of a State secret,” said Nick. “The Belt has never had State secrets.”
“I hope I can convince you. I can’t protect my children, but I can try to protect the human race. If I was needed, I’d be there. If more were needed, there would be the root.”
“The cure would be worse than the disease, most likely.” Luke used his lighter. “Wha—“ A knotted hand had reached around the crash couch and taken the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out against the hull.
It had been a shock. He remembered it with a shiver as he traversed the double airlocks at the axis of Farmer’s Asteroid.
Long ago, Farmer’s Asteroid had been an approximate cylinder of nickel-iron orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Then Belt industry had bubble-formed it: set it rotating, heated the metal nearly to melting and inflated it, via exploding bags of water, into a cylindrical bubble five miles in radius. Its rotation produced half a gravity. Much of the Belt’s food supply was grown here.
Luke had been in Farmer’s Asteroid once before. He enjoyed the landscaped interior, the wedding-ring lake, the checkered farmlands that rolled out and away and up and over, to where tiny tractors plowed furrows ten miles overhead.
The airlock let him out at the axis. It was cold here behind the sunshield, where the rays of the axial fusion tube never fell. Icebergs condensed out of the air here; and eventually broke loose and slid downslope, and melted into rivers that flowed in carved beds to the wedding-ri
ng lake that girdled Farmer’s Asteroid. Nick Sohl met him here, and helped him tow himself downslope to where a travel chair waited.
“I can guess why you’re here,” Nick told him.
“Officially, I’m here at the request of the Joint Interstellar Colony Authority. They got your request to send a warning message to Wunderland. They weren’t at all clear on what the situation was, and I couldn’t give them much help.”
“You had my report,” Nick said a bit stiffly.
“It wasn’t much of a report, Nick.”
After a bit Nick nodded. “My fault. I just didn’t want to talk about it—and don’t now, for the matter of that—and it was too bloody late. We didn’t just give up, you know. We’ve been tracking him.”
“What happened, Nick?”
“They’d done considerable work when I got there with Brennan. The idea was to rig two singleships together with their drive tubes aimed about ten degrees apart, then moor the framework to the cable from the Pak ship. There was eight miles of it behind the lifesystem section. We could have hauled them home at low thrust. But Brennan said that the Pak drive section would produce ten times the thrust.
“So we boarded the Pak lifesystem sphere and Brennan played around with the controls. I spent a couple of days in there watching him. It turns out you can make the whole hull transparent, or just part of it, the way it was when we found it. We widened the hole Tina Jordan left and fitted an airlock into it.
“Two days of fiddling, and then Brennan said he had it figured out and all we had to do was refuel the drive section. He said that if we tried to tow it backward we’d set off all kinds of failsafe systems. Garner, how the hell was I to know—“
“You couldn’t. It still doesn’t make sense.”
Nick ran a hand backward through his white wool crest. “They’d already rigged up a mating plug to match the fuel plug on the Pak ship. Brennan insisted on doing all the work himself, and even he had to use a radiation suit and shield. We moored his own singleship to the tow line, just in case something failed on the way home. That was my idea, Garner.”