by Gunn, James
“Or as the central fires cooled, they moved closer to what was left.”
“Or they’re dying off slowly and clustering together in the depths for comfort and companionship.”
Adrian kept up his hope of finding something meaningful even as each journey turned up nothing. Adrian and Frances took the first few trips, and then, when it seemed safe enough, Adrian and Jessica, and then Frances and Jessica once more. Once Frances thought she saw movement at the end of a long side tunnel, but when the cart got there she and Jessica found no sign of an alien or any evidence that anything had been there.
“What did it look like?” Jessica asked.
“Like something misshapen,” Frances said. “Maybe with tentacles. Or viscous, like protoplasm.”
“Have you been reading those speculative books again?” Jessica asked.
“I’ve learned a lot from books,” Frances said. “Things I never would have learned if I had to experience it all myself.”
“You also learned a lot that isn’t so,” Jessica said. “Me, too. People who read have active imaginations, and sometimes reading over-stimulates them.”
“Too bad we don’t have one of those Star Trek gadgets that detect life signs,” Frances said. “And individual signatures.”
“And transporters and magic wands,” Jessica said.
“‘A truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,’” Frances quoted.
“So are wishes, and wishful thinking,” Jessica said.
Eventually the explorations slowed down and then ceased altogether, not so much from decision as from lack of incentive. They had another meeting in the control room of the Ad Astra.
“We could go through this exploration business for a lifetime and never get anywhere,” Jessica said. “Explorers on Earth fanned out across the world and still left depths untouched, and that took thousands of years.”
“That’s true,” Frances said. “And there’s only a couple of us who can go on any expedition, and an entire planet to search. If they don’t want to be found, we aren’t going to find them.”
“Maybe it’s a test,” Adrian said. He was seated in front of the control panel, as he had been so many times before, but turned to face them.
“What kind of test?” Jessica asked.
“To see if we have the determination to persist in the face of discouragement.”
“If that’s the test,” Frances said, “I think we’ve failed, and we might as well pack up and go home.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Jessica said, putting her hand on Frances’ shoulder in a gesture of support. “We’ve made it out this far after years of effort that for you two began nearly twenty years ago, and through uncounted parsecs. What purpose would one more test serve?”
“That’s true,” Adrian mused. “On the other hand, we may be trying to judge alien motivations by human standards, and the fundamental nature of the alien is that it isn’t human.”
“But that’s all we have,” Jessica said.
“Anyway,” Frances said, “there has to be a common denominator, a basic level of rational discourse, or all these other alien ships wouldn’t be here, too.”
“Yes,” Jessica said. “There is a basic message, isn’t there, in sending plans from afar to people who have the capability of understanding them? And of building the ship? There can’t be an alien interpretation to that; it means: here’s your invitation—come visit.”
“Maybe it isn’t a test,” Adrian said. “Maybe it’s a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?” Jessica asked.
“Well, they could have been here to greet us and tell us everything we wanted to know.”
“Or,” Frances said, “if they had been reading our novels or watching our TV, they would have got all mixed up with romantic entanglements, or differences between political factions, or confusion between philosophies.”
“But it’s not a TV show or a novel,” Adrian said, shaking his head, “and we have to believe that their not greeting us was part of the message.”
“Sort of a negative message,” Jessica said skeptically.
“Not necessarily,” Adrian said. “Maybe not greeting us was a way of telling us that there are no answers at the end of the journey.”
“And the empty tunnels,” Frances said, “that life is a quest, not an arrival.”
“Exactly,” Adrian said.
Jessica looked back and forth between them. “I find that depressing. We didn’t have to come all this way to get a homily about existence.”
“Would we have believed it if we had stayed home?” Adrian said. “I mean—I agree with the lesson in principle—life is a search for answers, not a finding of them—but believing and experiencing are different states of mind.”
“But it’s so—so—much of a letdown,” Jessica wailed.
“If it is,” Adrian said somberly, “then we will have to get used to it, and if we are able, rejoice in it.”
“I think we should make one final effort,” Frances said.
“What kind of effort?” Jessica asked.
“Attach a wagon to the back of the cart, fill it with batteries and oxygen canisters, and head down as far as it will take us into that labyrinth below.”
A day later Frances and Adrian passed through the gates of Enigma and headed into the bowels of what had once been a living world.
They moved slowly but steadily through the main tunnel leading downward, ignoring branches, descending steadily. They had supplies of oxygen, food, and power sufficient for two days’ journey into the depths and two days’ getting back, unless something broke down. Of course eating and sleeping would be a problem, but they could survive, Frances knew, on brackish water regenerated within their suits, and occasional snacks of food paste from a helmet dispenser, and they could take shifts, one driving while the other napped, as best he or she could within an iron maiden.
But there was nothing to reward their venture as they drove deeper and deeper into the hollowed planet, and near the end of the first day Adrian’s despair was only exceeded by hers. “There’s an irony here, isn’t there?” Frances said.
“What do you mean?”
“We launched ourselves into the infinite expanse of space, and now we’re heading down into areas increasingly confined.” She shuddered and hoped Adrian didn’t notice.
“Maybe that’s what’s intended,” Adrian said. “The science of our times: the galaxies and the universe on one end, sub-atomic particles on the other—answers to the riddle of humanity lie at either extreme, or both. I know you’re uncomfortable. Maybe we should turn back.”
“Never,” Frances said, but she shuddered again inside her suit.
And they plunged deeper. The temperature rose as they descended, as if the fires of this ancient world had not yet been extinguished. They did not notice the change themselves, but the sensors on the cart registered the information and their suits’ heat-exchangers worked a little harder.
At the end of the next half-day, the main tunnel ended in a blank wall; side tunnels extended on either side. When Adrian reported to Jessica, her reply was faint. “Your transmission is fading,” she said. “It’s having a hard time penetrating all those levels of rock. Call it off.”
“Never,” Frances said, but her voice was breathless.
“We’re going right,” Adrian said.
They took the right branch. After an hour and several more side tunnels to choose from, they emerged into a large room that was different from anything else they had seen. Something like dark windows broke the monotony of the luminescent walls.
“This is more like it,” Frances said, but she knew it sounded as if she were not prepared for revelation.
“If it still works,” Adrian said, and as he spoke the windows became illuminated. Scenes of a green world appeared behind the windows, slowly at first and then changing more rapidly as the world itself evolved through what appeared to be millennial transformations, flickering from win
dow to window, with increasing speed until they whirled around Adrian and Frances like a fantastic kaleidoscope. The movement was too swift to detect individual creatures, only the vast movements of geologic—or xenologic—time. Gradually the procession of images slowed and the light faded from white to yellow to orange, and the landscape that had been green changed to lifeless gray.
“At last,” Frances said. “They’re communicating.”
“Maybe not,” Adrian said. “I think we’ve stumbled into a classroom. Alien youngsters probably could slow this thing down, inspect individual eras, find out what drove them underground.”
“Then we still haven’t contacted the aliens—or been contacted by them.”
“This may be as close as we get.”
Then the windows faded into darkness again.
“Jessica,” Adrian said. “Can you hear us?
No answer came to their receivers. Frances felt a shiver of alarm.
The windows lighted up once more, one at a time. Behind each one was a creature out of Frances’ worst nightmare. Some were spidery with long legs; some, winged with segmented eyes like flies; some with great mouths like sharks seemed to be swimming in water; some had many arms like octopi; some looked like ravening animals with four legs and big teeth; some looked relatively herbivorean, almost sheeplike; but most had no earthly counterparts at all, and the mind rebelled at trying to classify them according to human experience.
“I wonder which one is the Minotaur,” Frances said, hoping that Adrian didn’t notice that her voice was shaking.
“Perhaps more important,” Adrian replied, “where’s Daedalus?”
“Or Theseus. Unless that’s you—Aladdin and Theseus. At least,” Frances said shakily, “the aliens are showing us something relevant.”
“This may be part of the schooling process, too,” Adrian said. “Getting the alien youngsters accustomed to the idea that life comes in many forms, teaching them not to be repelled by appearance; or simply a catalog of creatures. No doubt there are ways to stop this display, and to explore the backgrounds and taxonomies of each of these creatures in as much depth as the individual student desires.”
“Then they’re still not talking to us,” Frances wailed, not sure she could endure much more of this claustrophobic environment.
“No,” Adrian said, “and I think we need to think about getting back. We’ve nearly reached our limit. We may never get any direct communication.”
The final window, however, revealed a familiar face: it was a human face. It was Adrian himself.
“At last!” Frances breathed.
“Now I understand,” Adrian said. “It’s not a catalog of all the creatures who live, or once lived, on this world. It’s a catalog of visitors—”
“Maybe that’s why they never revealed themselves to us,” Frances said. “They knew if we saw what they looked like we’d never listen to what they had to say.”
“We’re still primitive creatures,” Adrian said. “We still judge a book by its cover.”
“That reminds me,” Frances said, “ever since we saw the alien ships orbiting this hunk of rock, I’ve been trying to think what it reminded me of: a school of predatory fish around a victim, vultures around a carcass, pigs at a trough. But I’ve finally come up with something more appropriate: those ships are like patrons of a library, and they’re all gathered around the information desk.”
“Then why are we the only ones not getting any information?” Adrian asked.
“That isn’t quite true,” said a voice they hadn’t heard for more than two years.
They looked at the final screen. The image of Adrian had been replaced by another. Looking back at them was Peter Cavendish.
Frances was the first to speak. “Peter, what are you doing here?” She started breathing again, and hoped Adrian hadn’t noticed the break in the pattern of sounds reaching his intercom.
“Strictly speaking,” Adrian said, “he isn’t here. Right, Peter?”
Adrian didn’t seem surprised.
“Adrian is correct,” the image said.
“You’re what?” Adrian asked. “A computer program?”
“A bit more than that,” the image said.
“A person?” Frances said.
“A bit less than that.”
Frances fidgeted inside her suit, wishing Jessica were there, wishing she were not, aware of Adrian beside her, conscious of the impossible image in front of them. The image in the window looked at them with a calm that was uncharacteristic of the Peter Cavendish she knew. He was the man who had deciphered the first messages from space and published them as diagrams for the construction of a spaceship. He was also the man whose paranoia about the message had driven him over the edge of sanity, who had regained enough self-control to build a secret association of space enthusiasts, who had helped construct the spaceship and programmed its computer, possibly in response to alien instructions he had never revealed, to take the ship to the white hole that had led them—here. He was also the Peter Cavendish who had stayed behind when the ship left.
“Less than a person but more than a program,” Adrian said calmly. “Whatever you are, it’s good to see you again. We need some help.”
“As for what I am,” the image said, “I am a heuristic program modeled after your colleague Peter Cavendish, capable of learning, responding, and a limited amount of independent decision-making.”
“Limited in what way?” Frances asked.
“Limited to fulfilling the objectives of this mission,” the image said.
“Defined by whom?” Adrian asked.
“By Peter originally,” the image said, “but modified by the inputs from each of you during the past two years, with a slight preference for those from Adrian, as the chosen captain.”
“So we’re really talking to the computer,” Frances said.
“If you prefer,” the image said.
“I’d rather talk to Peter,” Adrian said.
“If you prefer,” the image said.
“Maybe you can answer some questions first.”
“Anything you wish.”
“Like the genie from the bottle,” Frances said.
“Why did you keep from us the instructions you programmed into the computer that brought us here?”
“I have an answer,” the image said, smiling as Peter seldom had, “but you have to understand that answers about motivation are always conditional.”
“The best you can do,” Adrian said.
“It was my—or my programmer’s—belief that the instructions the aliens sent for reaching them would delay the construction of the ship, and after the ship was completed, you—or more accurately, the crew—would be unlikely to start the engines if you knew that the computer was programmed to assume control of the ship and take you to the white hole.”
“You never understood normal people,” Frances said.
“That was one of my failings,” the image said.
“We would have gone no matter what,” Adrian said.
“I see that now. I am capable of learning, as I said.”
“We could have chosen to override the computer,” Adrian said.
“But you did not. Clearly I misread the situation, but then I was a paranoid schizophrenic, and I saw the world through glasses distorted by fear.”
“But you aren’t now,” Frances said.
“A paranoid schizophrenic?” the image said. “No. Peter programmed me to be the person he never was—as intelligent as he but with a mind unfettered by apprehensions.”
“Maybe you can tell me,” Frances said, “why he stayed behind. He was the most driven of us all.”
“Driven, yes,” the image said. “But by fear of everything—of not finding what the aliens wanted, of finding what they wanted, of never being able to find a resting place between the two extremes. I was the perfect solution.”
“I can see that,” Adrian said.
“I don’t see it,” Frances said.
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br /> “He can stay at home, where he feels safe, and yet send out his alter-ego to discover the answers to his questions,” Adrian said.
“But he’ll never know!” Frances protested.
“Always the literal mind,” Peter said.
“Unless we return,” Adrian said. “But, of course, he’s just doing what humans do: we have children to carry on our lives, to realize the dreams that we never manage to achieve, to answer the eternal questions of life and death and meaning.”
“And the computer-Peter is Peter’s child!” Frances said.
“Yes,” Adrian said, “and Peter himself, in a sense—his mind sent out to explore the universe, to fulfill his destiny.” He put his hand on Frances’ suited arm.
“We understand all that,” Adrian said, turning back to the image. “But why haven’t you revealed yourself before? Why now?”
“I wasn’t needed until now,” the image said. “But you seem to have reached an impasse. You’re discouraged, your oxygen is almost used up, and your mapper isn’t working.”
Adrian looked down at his gauges. “He’s right.”
“Should we get out of here?” Frances asked. On top of her claustrophobia, the thought of being lost in this maze of tunnels was almost unbearable.
“As soon as we hear Peter out,” Adrian said.
“I have communicated with the aliens,” the image said calmly.
Frances put an arm around Adrian’s unyielding waist, as if protecting them both against the terrors of the night.
“Why haven’t they spoken before now?” Adrian asked.
“It took a while for them to learn our language.”
“That’s both too easy and too difficult,” Adrian said.
“I don’t understand that,” Frances said.
“Adrian means that if they could send us messages, they should know our language,” Cavendish’s image said, “and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be able to learn it in a couple of months. But they didn’t send us messages, they sent us images and mathematical formulations, which have few cultural relevancies.”
“And they sent them everywhere,” Adrian said.
“Everywhere there was a possibility of a technological civilization capable of receiving and understanding such a message,” the image said.