After long minutes, Tha-tha let out a protracted sigh. “We did not know, Bram,” he said. “No one remembers this knowledge being shared. If Voth knew, he was the last one.”
The living landscape sighed all at once. The strangeness of the moment passed.
“It is a very great burden,” Tha-tha said distantly. Bram felt his touch brother’s attention slip away as Tha-tha submerged himself in the mass conference.
Bram lifted his eyes above the living horizon and found the familiar constellation of the Boat. Using the point star as a reference, he located the patch of night sky that held Original Man’s invisible home.
“When I was very small,” he said quietly, “I dreamed of returning to the place where humanity began. And I was told that the twin barriers of time and space made such a dream forever impossible. Now, at least, time can be conquered.”
He returned his gaze to the tribunal. Several score mirror-eyes changed color as they returned his stare. They could not avoid hearing him, at least.
“Whatever you decide to do about us, everything is changed now,” he said. “If you allow human beings to continue to exist at all, we can never go back to being exotic seasonal blooms in your perennial society. Not now that you know, and we know, that we need not be condemned to wither and die. But be warned! If you allow humankind to reach its full potential, one day we will stand beside you as equals.”
He stood breathing in the moist night air, wondering if he had gone too far. Was that gigantic entity out there now reflecting anew on the dangers of human fecundity and human aspirations?
He became aware of movement behind him and turned to see the red-maned Jao emerging from the waiting crowd. The ex-physicist was subdued, all his former ebullience drained out of him.
“I’m sorry, Bram. For everything,” Jao said. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Hard feelings?”
Bram thought of Voth, lying in a puddle of violet dissolution. He blinked back the scalding tears.
“No,” he said.
Jao faced the expanse of close-packed forms and bellowed at it. “Did you hear him, damn you? He’s given you half of the solution, if you’ll only realize it! Immortality for humans! Now the question is, what do we do with it?”
The carpet of Nar recoiled visibly at the violence of Jao’s outburst, then settled down again. Some of the people around Jao began edging away.
Jao grinned through his beard. “I’m talking about your robot ramscoop that some of us ephemeral humans have been working on for you. The marvelous implement that’s supposed to seed the galaxy with replicas of yourself. That’s not so very different from what Original Man set out to do, is it? Life seeking to perpetuate itself when its time is ripe. Well, if it’s your imperative to exist, it’s ours, too. Remember that when you judge us. What happened on the tree was a terrible thing, and maybe the ones I’m ready to take what I have coming. But don’t judge the entire human race by what a few of us did. Because what we did was only a perverted, misbegotten expression of the same impulse that’s driving you ten-limbed wonders to claim your own rightful place in the universe!”
He broke off, breathing hard. “Sorry,” he said with a lopsided grin at Bram. “I never learned how to be diplomatic.”
Bram, standing with the warm cloak of Nar flesh draped across his shoulders, said, “It’s all right. They took it. They just want to understand.”
“So?” Jao said. “In that case …”
He turned again to the Nar assembly, hands on hips. In the first hundred yards or so, tufted humps rose and fell like wavelets as individual Nar rose up to get a good look at him through their own eyes.
“Listen to me, you lords of creation,” Jao roared at them. “Eighty thousand years from now — if your precious robot probe ever reaches the center of this galaxy and you start getting radio signals from your artificial children to tell you that it worked — just remember that we humans were a part of getting it there. Maybe you’ll have canceled us out by then. But by the Allfather, you’ll owe us! Because the hadronic photon drive that’s going to make your messenger possible was born in the human imagination. Not yours.”
A soft rustle of uneasy movement spread through the expanse of Nar. Presumably those who knew the details of the probe program were explaining the hadronic photon drive to those who didn’t, and it was diffusing gradually through the whole audience of laity.
Jao waited it out, his expression fierce. When he resumed, it was in a more pensive tone.
“Bram, here, told you his dream. The biggest dream that any of us had. To go home again. When I first heard it, I put it down for a kid’s fantasy that he never outgrew. But I didn’t know he was on the track of immortality. If human immortality is possible, then all of a sudden the long trip home becomes more possible, too.”
He raised his eyes to the crowded sky and stared a long time at where the bridge of stars led to the Bonfire.
“Oh, not now,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do first. As Smeth told Bram, ramscoop robots are not for living things. And there’s not much hydrogen in the void between galaxies for a ramscoop to gulp. But who cares?” His negligent shrug was probably wasted on the front-row decapods. “Those are mere details! Hell, I can think of a couple of possible ways around the problem right now. Give us time and we’ll find a way to make that jump.” Jao made a gesture that included the people who were crowding excitedly around. “We’ve got the motivation now. You see, Bram’s given us all his dream. It can never be bottled up again. And, damnation, it’s a better dream than any of the ones we’ve had so far. Better than the Ascendists, better than the Resurgists, and especially better than the Penserites!”
A low murmur of assent came from the human crowd.
“Bram gave you half the solution to your little dilemma, and I’m handing you the other half,” Jao boomed at the Nar. “Turn your probe over to us. We’ll do your work for you. We’ll do it better than machines could. And when we’re finished, we’ll take the damn vehicle for our pay! We’ll leave the galaxy and go where you won’t have to worry about us. We’ll go home!”
He turned to go, then checked himself. “Think about it,” he said with another bold grin. “It’d be a good way of getting rid of us.”
He shouldered his way through the human crowd, ignoring the attempts to ask him questions. His brows were knit in concentration, as if he were doing mathematical problems in his head. Bram could hear him muttering to himself.
After several minutes, Tha-tha spoke sadly. “It is true, then, Bram-bram? All your life you concealed a dream of going to your human home? You were not happy in your life; you felt you had no place here?”
“Yes,” Bram said. “I’m no different from the others.”
“Voth would have grieved for you.”
“Voth understood my dream, I think. When I was small, he tried to spare me pain by discouraging it.”
“It is too late for that now.”
“Yes, it is.”
Tha-tha held him through the long night. Bram was glad of the warmth of the velvety mantle. The lesser sun cast enough light to read by — if you didn’t mind straining your eyes — but no heat.
The loudspeakers stayed off. There was no way to translate what was happening into words. Even the Nar could not have said what was starting to result from the vast exchange that was taking place now, any more than a human being could have predicted what patterns a handful of straws would make when it was cast to the ground. The individual straws might be there, fixed and immutable, but the way they would fall out after a shuffle was the sum of too many variables.
Bram felt the shifting patterns in the velvet pile, caught scraps of emotion from Tha-tha, and waited in silence.
An equally silent semicircle of waiting humans stood nearby, shivering. They probably thought that Bram could in some way follow the deliberations that were taking place — word of his prowess with touch readers had gone round the enclosure —
and that they could glean some clue by watching his reactions.
“No,” he had to say over and over again to those who edged forward to quiz him. “I can’t tell you anything.”
Sorrow, he felt, and regret and distress. But it could mean anything. Sorrow over what had happened or sorrow at what they were going to have to do about the humans. Distress over human behavior or distress at the Nar role that was now crystalizing.
And then he became aware that something new was happening.
Several times during the vigil, the carpet of Nar parted to form an aisle and let through people from outside. They were humans from the Compound — folk who had not been involved in the events in the tree.
They spoke to the assembly briefly or at length, then left while the aisle closed up behind them. They would have to walk for miles through that teeming plain back to whatever vehicles had brought them here. And the gaps and neural rerouting that they caused at this stage of the game — after deliberations had already begun — must have been troublesome for the Nar.
Bram huddled within the shelter of Tha-tha’s clasp. The new arrivals could mean only one thing.
The stakes had gotten bigger. The inquiry had been widened to include the entire human race.
Mim and Olan Byr were among those who came. Olan had to be brought in on a walker guided by a solicitous Nar. He got out of the seat nimbly enough, but Bram was shocked at his appearance. Olan seemed to have aged tremendously, and he seemed very feeble.
Afterward, they came over to see him.
“Hello, Bram,” Mim said. “Some people told us we’d find you here.” She looked at the nest of tentacles entwining him, not at all intimidated. “Hello — Tha-tha, isn’t it? I’m sorry to meet you again under these circumstances.”
“It’s Tha-shr-tha,” Bram said apologetically.
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry.”
“Hello, Mim,” Tha-tha said. He did not remind her that he had been part of the group consciousness that had interrogated her a few minutes ago. “Yes, this is a time of sorrow. But I am glad to see you. Hello, Olan Byr.”
Olan gave a nod of acknowledgment. The handsome face was a thinner sketch of its former self, drawn in vertical lines, and the dark sleek hair had gone white. Bram saw the quick look of affection and protectiveness from Mim.
“What are you doing here?” Bram said.
Mim answered for them both. “Nobody’s sleeping tonight in the Compound. Some Nar came to fetch a few people. I guess they were mentioned here in one connection or another, and the Nar wanted to hear what they had to say. And some of us asked if we could speak, too.”
“Quite a few, actually,” Olan said. “Not all of them were brought inside; some of them gave depositions at the edge.”
“But why?” Bram said. “You’re not involved.”
Olan smiled with effort. “We’re all part of it, all humans. We can’t hide behind our music anymore, can we? Not after this.”
“What … what did they ask you?” Bram glanced at Tha-tha, but the mirror-eyes were reflected inward, listening to the soundless murmurs from beyond.
“They wanted to know how we felt,” Mim said.
“What we live for,” Olan said. “And what we hope for.”
“They know Olan is our greatest musician,” Mim said.
Olan gave a wry smile. “They asked me what it means to a human creative artist to die young — young to them! I told them about Mozart.”
“Good-bye, Bram,” Mim said. She leaned past Tha-tha’s tentacles and brushed his cheek with her lips. Then she led Olan to his carryseat and got him settled. A group of about twenty was leaving. The sea of yellow flesh rolled back to pass them through, and they were gone.
Once, in the pale half-light, Bram saw Smeth. The lanky physicist was talking a mile a minute, his hands making violent gestures, his head tucked deferentially between his shoulders. He broke off a couple of times to confer with Jao, then continued with his presentation. He left immediately afterward without seeking Bram out.
Jao was called a couple of times after that to be asked some question or other. He answered laconically and returned to his seat. He did not come over to Bram to volunteer information.
After that, no one else came from the Compound and no one else was called. Bram found himself nodding off several times. When the sky started to lighten, a number of people left their places to get something to eat. Somebody woke Bram out of a light doze and handed him a cup of something warm. He looked up, thinking for a moment that it was Kerthin, but it was the string quartet player, Ang.
“When do you think they’ll decide?” she said.
“Soon.”
He could feel some kind of process coming to a head through Tha-tha’s blanket of cilia. For some time now the crosscurrents had been seeking to merge, and now there was a steady procession of wave fronts, tide after tide, rolling on and gathering force. He had tried several times to speak to Tha-tha, but he could get no response. Except for the activity of the inner surfaces, Tha-tha’s limbs had gone slack, and he seemed to be in a sort of trance.
Dawn broke. Bright sunlight spilled over the tremendous arena, and the Nar nation, acre after acre, shook itself like an awakening waterbeast.
The little loudspeakers on their low posts hummed to life, and the humans throughout the enclosure stopped whatever they were doing and looked at them. One by one, the seated people at the rim rose to their feet.
A few preliminary warbles came through the background sizzle — the Nar equivalent of throat cleaving — but no intelligible sounds could be discerned as yet.
Tha-tha stirred to life. The deep, long rhythms of racial communion had abruptly ceased, and though Tha-tha was still plugged into the whole, the random patches of movement on his inner mantle — thinking aloud — showed that he was once more aware of his surroundings.
“Good morning, Bram,” Tha-tha said, and Bram could sense a wave of compassion from him. “The time is here.”
“I know,” Bram said.
All the loudspeakers began to speak in one voice, first in Inglex, then in Chin-pin-yin.
“Hear us, for we would have you understand
(“Ting wo men, ni-man pi hsu dong …”)
“Humankind has multiplied beyond our custodianship, and the nature of man has become apparent …”
(“Jen djang gwe kuan-wo, shung-djir jen-chung hsien jan te
“Therefore, this is what we have decided
“Congratulations,” Bram said, lifting his cup. “Here’s to the new head of the physics team.”
“Not the physics team,” Jao protested. “A physics team. More of a task force. The task being to keep our vehicle from frying us. The head of the physics team is still Smeth. The Nar are being scrupulously careful not to step on human toes now that we’ve shown ourselves to be such sensitive creatures.”
“But you’re going to work independently?”
“Yes.” Jao grinned wickedly. “And the first thing I’m going to do is to steal our friend Trist from under Smeth’s nose.”
“It must be good to be back in physics, though.”
“Beats going to Juxt One. The best part is the total independence I’m going to have. Smeth may be a sensitive toe, but he’s still only an appendage on a Nar foot.”
Mim choked on her drink. “Stop it!” she said when she was able to stop laughing. “I’ll never be able to get that image out of my mind. A swollen red toe with a little Smeth face where the toenail ought to be!”
She broke into peals of laughter again. The long night without any sleep had made her a little giddy. Most of the people at the impromptu celebration were acting a bit too animated. Collapse would come later.
Similar parties were taking place throughout the Compound and wherever human beings lived. The Nar verdict had been more than compassionate; it had been magnanimous. A generation of Nar had grown to midlife taking human beings for granted as a fact of their env
ironment, like house plants and touch pets. When one did encounter the occasional human being, it was as a handicapped creature incapable of true speech, abroad on some errand and asking directions in a halting approximation of the Small Language. One knew, of course, that they lived pitiably short lives without the final flowering that gave existence meaning, and so one was as kind and helpful to them as possible.
Now, all of a sudden, human beings had proved to have free will and murky purposes of their own. And they could sting.
The grand touch conclave had for the first time given the entire Nar nation the opportunity to share the perceptions of those few thousand Nar who had known human beings intimately — raised them as foster children, grown up with them as touch brothers, worked with them in joint enterprises. The sentience of these queer boned beings could no longer be ignored. And a great injustice had been done to them.
And so things had to be set right — at whatever cost. The first item of redress was to help them, with all the resources of Nar civilization behind them, achieve the longevity that was their due. The second was to assist them to full citizenship, despite their handicap. Immortality would help. Who could say what a human being might achieve in a thousand years of learning — even though biologically mute?
And finally, this newly surfaced wish of a majority of humans to go “home” could not be denied — any more than one could prevent a Nar, at the final fruition of his life, from reaching a spawning pool. The interstellar probe project would have to be speeded up and adapted to the purposes of the humans. The probe represented a stunning gift, but fortunately it was a gift that could be repaid: The newly immortal humans could use the vehicle to perform an errand that the Nar, with their mere thousand-year lifespans, could not do for themselves.
Olan Byr gave a small cough and got everybody’s respectful attention. His face was drawn. He hadn’t held up under the lack of sleep on this festive day as well as some of the younger people. Mim had settled him in a comfortable chair and seen to it that his needs were attended to.
The Genesis Quest Page 34