I essentially summoned you after me—there were things you had to see, experiences you had to have before you could understand the message I have for humanity. At the moment I speak to every individual on board the Pegasus, completing the contact I instigated for the nanosecond before my Null-R jump. I am appearing before all of them, just as I appear before you. I have called you here because I still bear much love for the species that spawned half of my consciousness. You shall carry the message back to your fellows.
We see that you have learned much of the history of our race. We are pleased. This is part of the reason I have called you here, so far from where we first met.
I might have lingered—but it was obvious that you were not yet ready for the message there was to give. Your commanding officers may well have been hostile—a factor which I was also instrumental in changing for our present meeting. Besides, it is best to show you rather than merely tell you. You have our history in your computer’s information banks. You have documented proof. You shall need all of this, later.
The image of Div held out its hands.
But to be understood, our story cannot be merely relayed in words and thoughts. You must understand its totality, its implications. And to achieve this, you must all be communicated to in different and diverse levels.
Div lifted his arms straight up. The contoured light which composed his body began to blur. Diamond-like scintillations began to sparkle as the body metamorphosed into a column. This coruscating cylinder began to spin, slowly at first, then faster. It narrowed at its base, became a cyclone of light which grew, its edges reaching out toward the surrounding watchers.
The river of light washed out over
into a smoother, symmetrical
••• WHOLE •••
Suddenly, it turned topsy-turvy—instead of being drawn up into the center of the vortex, she fell down into it, fast.
She hit bottom, felt the essence of life enfold her as though she had pierced through its outer membrane of will, it somehow piercing her as well. There was a melding of spiritual juices that felt like tongues of cool fire licking at her soul. She surrendered to the pleasure/pain of it, and forgot what consciousness was.
When she awoke, she was no longer on the bridge. Nude, she drifted free in space. Stars and planets surrounded her like long-time friends. The void of space was no longer a cold, lifeless vacuum, but a sea of light that bathed her in soothing warmth. Light was life; life, light.
She was not alone. In the distance, alien life forms swam like schools of fish, grazing on the coronas of suns.
By her side was Div.
“Welcome to an experiential metaphor,” he said. He too was nude. About them both, Mora could distinguish the tenuous outline of the being she had known as Tin Woodman. The name was now needless, ridiculous. “I am he, and he is I,” said Div. “We are I; I am we. Yet I am still I.”
“I can’t—grasp . . .” she said. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t understand.”
He laughed. The sound was of twenty laughs, blending together into a single effect—like the individual instruments of an orchestra melding. “I am no longer merely Div Harlthor, nor am I merely a combination of Div and the alien you call Tin Woodman. I am all of my fellows that hang here before your metal vessel. And yet, I remain Div Harlthor.”
Gazing about, she saw the forms on the other ship-beings, each centered with its symbiote-rider. She looked back at Div. She shook her head, not comprehending.
He smiled.
They became . . . elsewhere.
On a seashore. In a tropical clime.
Mora found herself seated on a beach. Cool, frothy waves whispered up toward her, reaching for her, missing, falling back into the green-blue ocean. To one side of her, Div sat in physical form, drawing pictures in the gray and white sand. He looked up. He held out his hand. She took it in hers. It was warm.
“We waited for you, at my insistence. Soon, we shall depart this universe for one more suited for our existence. But I had them linger, for the sake of my parent race.”
The huge orange sun, hazy on the horizon, was warm and pleasant on her bare skin. She leaned back into the hot sand, She watched Div. She held his hand tighter.
“First I shall explain. Then you shall experience,” he said. “Just as in other places I am explaining to your shipmates.”
“But how can you do this?”
Div shrugged. “How does one do anything that one does? It is not merely my power with which I speak to you, but that of all of us.
“As you may have concluded, the symbiotes were victorious in the war. As we grew, we abandoned our home planet for the greater freedom of space, learned to make that our home. Over the centuries we have developed not merely a double being—the space whale and its rider—but a singular being, the combination of all of us into one mind like the component cells of a brain.”
“But how was that possible?”
“Your race bears the rudiments of the capability. In some it is greater than others. Over the ages, our race has developed it as well, and we use it now for its ultimate purpose.”
“You mean Talents? Like you—and me?
“A poor name. But yes, that is what I mean. This is the reason I was able to link up with the alien—my Talent.”
“The ultimate communication.”
“Communication. Yes,” said Div, staring out at the sea. A breeze frolicked through his hair. “From the moment it is separated from the intimate commune with its mother, does not a human child seek to re-establish this relationship—not only with its mother, but with its surrounding family of fellow humans? As it grows and falls deeper into itself, realizes its separateness from others, it also learns the methods of communication. Still, there is the constant inner war within it: the yearning for commune with its fellows against the ego it has developed as it has grown into an individual being.
“And yet, life would be impossible, unbearable, for an individual without the company of its fellows. Alone, any creature is insufficient. It is nothing without its fellows. Co-operation with them makes life viable, and even enjoyable. And one of the strongest drives in any sentient being is to communicate with its fellows.
“Take it further. If that is the case, then the ultimate communication is the intermeshing of minds as a whole. We approached that, Mora, just before I left the Pegasus. You felt a flicker of it when I transmitted that message just before dropping into Null-R space. That was also when I imbedded in all of you my Call. This is why you are here now.
“All of us ship-beings have strong powers of psi, which allow us to link together into what is effectively one mind, one consciousness.
“But the preservation of the individual is just as important, just as a chain is no more than a collection of individual links. Differing views of reality are necessary for species survival. Necessary for love.
“It is a delicate balance we have established. For if we creatures homogenize ourselves into one mind entirely, a mind without individual conscious entity components, then that mind is alone. And aloneness is intolerable in such an inhospitable universe.”
“Why is it so important to tell us this? Why have you brought us here?” asked Mora.
Letting her hand go, Div stood, facing the sea breeze. “The human race has impeded its natural growth. They let themselves stand still. Their minds do not grow. They persecute those whose minds have grown. They wish to remain as they are—static. And thus they rot and wither on the vine of life. The universe will eventually slough them off. This I do not wish to happen.” He glanced down at her, offered his hand once more. She accepted it, and he pulled her up to him, Placing her head against his chest, she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, they were . . . somewhere else altogether.
They stood on a cliff overlooking a much darker sea than before. Above the dark, choppy sea w
as a clear blue night sky, laden with stars and bright moons and color-streaked planets. A cool wind pounced on them. Div held her close.
“We are alone now, Mora. I speak only to you. The others of the Pegasus are back in their mortal bodies. I have placed specific instructions on the method of returning through the space rift. Soon my people and I will leave.”
“Why only me?”
Div kissed her forehead. “Experience, Mora Elbrun. Experience my present existence, then dream my dream for mankind.”
She was falling.
The scene jerked away from her, and she was falling a measureless distance across the span between minds. Falling into Div.
When the descent halted, she was Div as much as she was herself. Here the contact was yet deeper than the previous one experienced with him. She knew every nuance of his soul, every highlight and low point of his pain-streaked earthly existence. She participated in a replay of his trip into the ship-being. The combining of minds. The ecstatic brief contact with the humans aboard the Pegasus, the seeding of his designs in the necessary minds, the journey to rejoin his fellows. Through all of this, she knew Tin Woodman as well, and the creature welcomed her. When the fleeting finish of the experience arrived she knew what it was to be a part of a mass mind—and yet remain an individual. It was breathtaking. She had never felt so close to any living creature, nor felt so strong the bond of love between them.
Then, like the shattering of a fragile crystalline bowl, she felt her mind seem to burst, sending its sparkling shards tumbling through canyons of time. Each of the myriad pieces flung helter-skelter through the universe was a part of her, intimately linked with the others through the enigmas of time and space. Stars were so many glittering specks in the sweeping beach of infinity, girded with an ocean of nothingness. Death and life seemed meaningless words; cyclic states. She sprinkled a part of herself through a globular galaxy, breathing in suns which smelled like crushed buttercups. The songs of the dimensions beyond her haunted her ears in vague alien tunes. A shower of comets landed on her metaphorical tongue like falling snowflakes.
Jarringly, she cohered into a whole once more, instantly realizing that she was more than before. Her fingers glowed with fine webworks of glittery thread; her body was covered with a soft, pliable sparkly gauze.
Div was beside her; she knew it, though she could not see him. “Experience us, Mora.”
The last curtain of his mind dropped, sheared off from the top. She stared into his naked soul, and beyond into the souls of twenty others. Not like Div—she could see their alienness now. But they were alive, and life was what counted. They were alive and combined, like organs in a body, efficiently complementing one another in the composition of the whole—yet full individuals on their own. She felt a wash of warm raindrop love splash about her—and she was a school child again, plashing in a stormy park, synchronous with the world and herself. Instantly she yearned to hurl her lonely self into this mass of beings that knew no aloneness—only love, and security, and purpose.
In touching their minds, she experienced their history, saw their hopes, which branched out into places her mind was unable to go. It was as though she had journeyed through a chilling night all her life and now stood on the verge of dawn, the warm light of the Gomtuu just pinking the horizon.
It was gone.
Suddenly all became dark. Only Div was there, withdrawn.
“No!” she cried, a sense of deprivation she had never known before flooding her. She felt sick, empty, confused. “You can’t take me away, not after showing me this,” she pleaded.
Div said, “This is not for you, Mora.” There was a strange tone in his voice, an emotion straining to break through bars of control. “Believe me. No—these are not humans. I am not human, now.” His pale form, outlined in cool fire, stood before her and lifted up its arms to touch her forehead. “What you have seen required eons of evolution among my new people. But let me show you my hope for mankind, Mora. Let me show you my vision. My dream.”
And she saw.
She was on her back, sprawled on the deck.
. . . bridge . . . Pegasus . . . Gomtuu . . . Div . . .
Her thoughts were spiraling wildly down into her, disassociated.
She felt disoriented. And then her thoughts ordered themselves, and everything was clear. She lifted herself up, looked around. The others of the bridge crew were similarly prone, some beginning to stand. They looked confused.
Pushing herself the rest of the way up, she had to lean against the command desk. She found herself staring into the eyes of Leana Coffer. At first those eyes seemed in another place entirely; gradually they returned to focus, and the mind behind them realized that someone was looking into them.
Coffer attempted to speak. She produced only astonished, guttural sounds.
Mora helped her into the chair behind the desk. “Are you all right, Leana?”
“Yes. Yes.” She shook her head, as though to clear it. “God, it was incredible. What—what I heard, saw, felt! The transmission from Tin Woodman before was only a glimmer of it. We all saw it. I could sense everyone there.” She stiffened. “The Gomtuu. I must contact them before they leave. There are questions . . .” She began to move toward the vu-tank and flat-screen controls. Mora’s hand detained her.
“They’re already gone, Leana. We’ll not see them again.”
Coffer looked back at her in disbelief, shook off her hand, hurried to a control console, punching up all available visuals and sensor operations.
The flat screen snapped up before them immediately. Still hoping, she stepped up magnification, stared into the wealth of stars. But there was nothing there but the stars—and empty space.
Coffer sat down, defeated.
“So much to ask,” she mumbled into her hands. “So much.”
Mora went to her, smoothed a hand across her back comfortingly. “Then ask me.”
Coffer looked at her. “What?”
The others who had awakened were staring at her as well. How she had hated that before: people looking at her, fixing her with mocking, unpleasant expressions of contempt. But now there was no contempt in those faces, no fear or suspicion. Only pure awe. And instead of despising those stares, she welcomed them.
Before, they’d kicked up her self-doubt, her lack of self-assurance. They’d raked her over the coals of her insecurities, and the terrible emotions emanating along with them had touched her mind like corrosive acid. But not any more. She would not be bothered, she realized, even if they still hated her. Because now everything was different.
“Div not only told me about the creatures. He showed me how it felt to be one of them. Can you imagine? A part of something as huge as that, full of love and promise—never alone, and yet remaining yourself? I find it hard to describe. It is the ultimate. But I can describe what Div showed to me—a vision of mankind’s future with such verve and sweep it stunned me. And yet, it’s possible. I saw it—and the very existence of the Gomtuu and their mind-mesh shows it to be possible!”
“What is possible, Mora?” asked Coffer.
“You all felt a part of the mind linkage, I’m sure. That is what I mean. That is what is possible.”
“For the human race?” someone asked. “But how?”
She took a breath, let it out raggedly, emotionally.
“There are, among us, humans who are the keys to this ideal the symbiote creatures have achieved. In the very midst of the stagnant Triunion civilization, these people exist, and have existed for many years. And yet they are looked upon as freaks. They are hated and reviled. They are denied growth and maturation. They are feared.
“Div showed me his dream. I saw a mankind filled with love for one another. Not hate and fear. I saw masses of people that knew one another intimately and worked together for a common goal without division and strife among them. A civilization that existe
d not for self-gain, but for a mutual love.
“I saw a human panorama of unmatched splendor; a technology built not to serve itself, or just a few, but to serve the human ideal. I saw perfect cities on green planets with room to grow. And I saw human beings living together literally as one, in perfect peace.
“I should have to be a literary genius to construct phrases and sentences, metaphors, similes, and word-images of what I experienced. But I shall try. All my life, I shall try. And all my life I will travel among my people, trying to impart this vision to them.
“For you see, these human keys to this ideal future are none other than my own kind—Talents. And every single human being has the seeds of that psychic energy. But these must be cultured, nurtured, encouraged as the years pass. There are things we can learn from my people—things beyond comprehension. For it is in the combining of minds, emotions, and spirits that we are making the inroads toward progress of the human mind—of human evolution.
“We are the hope of the human race. We who you have spit upon with your hearts should be loved for what we offer. We who have been outcasts so long, misunderstood, hated, feared by you Normals, are the chance for the human race to move toward what the Gomtuu have achieved. Because of our mental talents, because of our empathic faculties, we can teach you much. Study us. Duplicate what we have artificially, genetically, in your children. Honor our children.
“For the first time I feel comfortable with my Talent. It is a gift. Not a curse. Div has given direction to my existence. I have his message to carry to you, and to others. Far from being the blight of humanity, Talents are the only hope for the proper evolution and maturation of the human race.”
She smiled a smile she never thought she could before—a smile that must mirror the new inner peace she felt. The bridge crew about her was silent, speculative.
“I have much more to tell vou. But not now, There will be time. Right now, I must go and rest and think about this vision that Div and the Gomtuu have given me. I must decide how best to bring it to you, and to others.”
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