“Another reason,” Peter said, more confident now that Sylvia had taken the lead on this, “is that we too, after having learned as much as we have learned about your language and culture and other things, have decided that we have learned enough. Needless to say we could learn more, much more, but, since we wish to return home, the time has to come when we draw the line that signifies that our learning what we can learn here has to come to an end and other learning (including thinking about what we learned here and applying that learning to new circumstances) has to begin.
“Ironically, the learning machinery you used and your skillful handling of it so accelerated our learning that drawing the line sooner than later became easier for us. Now, thanks to all of that machinery and the daily routine you gave us that included spending hours in your classroom each day, we can think in terms of a time and day for our departure.”
Sylvia said, “We too may begin to feel confused, even traumatized, because of a loss of sense of place unless we are allowed to start our new life on our home planet. We need to go.” She added, “I hope you are not offended. You have treated us well. We have learned a lot. You helped us bring a baby into this… (she was about to say world but caught herself in time to insert another word than world) this…universe, but now we have got to go.”
The teacher kept playing with the sticks that lay side by side on its desk. It did not say anything for a long time and then said, “We will miss you.” It stopped playing with the sticks and, looking directly at the two of them and also over at the wall where the baby lay in its bassinet, looking with its eyes bulging atop the long black stalks that supported the eyes, said, “Enjoying the company of members of a species different from any that are native to one’s home planet and also intelligent is not an everyday occurrence. That too has an impact. That too has what you might call ramifications.
“And being in the presence of another intelligent species originating in another part of the universe may not happen again in our lifetimes.” The teacher seemed to feel that it was making an argument more powerful than any of theirs, so powerful it might get them to change their minds.
Sylvia said, “We too feel blessed, enriched, and honored having lived amidst alien extraterrestrial, and intelligent creatures for as long as we have. But being in the presence of more than one other specimen of one’s own kind can also be enriching and a blessing. Besides, we have our memories. Nothing, besides death or certain kinds of catastrophic illnesses or accidents (maybe not even those) can take away and extinguish our memories.
“While we are anxious to go home, I have no doubt that Peter and I will, for the rest of our lives, look back on the time we spent here. And we will describe being here to Kory in such vivid detail that he too will come to think of this place as his temporary home. Our drawings and stories will substitute for memories he was not old enough to acquire and, after a while, will become indistinguishable from real memories.”
Peter seconded her sentiments, saying, “Aside from the first few horrible days, time passed beautifully for us here. We were well cared for. We were well taught. I met Sylvia here. I fell in love. I helped make a baby. I will return to Earth no longer a somewhat desperate, somewhat pathetic and very solitary soul but instead a family man very much in love with my wife and ready to build the foundations of what I hope will be a lasting friendship with my child. All of this I owe in part to you and your colleagues.”
The teacher resumed playing with its sticks. It seemed to need time to think. While Sylvia and Peter could not possibly comprehend the range and depths of the emotions of these creature or indeed whether there was any range or depth or indeed whether there were any emotions at all, they nevertheless suspected (or maybe even felt) feelings of sadness emanating from the creature.
“Before agreeing to let you go and before undertaking the task of working out the details of your departure with you, I want first to go back to the choice we earlier asked you to make. With the passage of time, your ideas might have changed. I want to ascertain exactly how each of you feel. So let us go over these one by one.
“One option was to journey to our home planet.” To emphasize the point, the teacher pointed with its two uppermost limbs to itself and with its second set of limbs from the top to others of its kind who happened to be in the classroom at that time. This option is still open to you. The three of you can go there and start a new life in a very fine place.
“So I ask, wondering if the passage of time has made a difference in your thinking: Does this option appeal to both of you or either one of you?” Sylvia shook her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t think going there would be wise for reasons we’ve already talked to you about.”
The teacher seemed to experience a kind of spasm with the membrane connecting the front and rear parts of its shell swelling and shrinking in rapid succession. When the spasm stopped, the teacher said, “And you, Peter, how do you feel about this?” “I feel as Sylvia feels and for the same reasons, reasons already given.”
“Alright then. The second option was to stay here indefinitely—to make this your permanent home. Does this option appeal to you now?” “No, it does not,” Sylvia said. “No, it does not,” Peter echoed, adding, “Despite the fact that living here has been good and would, I am sure, continue to be pleasant, we feel we must go home.”
“Alright then. The third option was to stay here for a while and then leave. That was the option you took. You said you’d stay about a year and attend classes. At the time, there was no child. Now there is. And I assume that remains your preferred choice.” “It does,” Sylvia said. Peter just nodded.
“Then one question only remains, which is this: now that you’ve been here, Peter, a full year by your reckoning of time, and now that you Sylvia have been here more than three years, when exactly would you like to leave?”
The teacher’s membrane expanded and contracted again. It seemed to have trouble getting the slits on its chest to open and close properly. It seemed to be choking. After a while, however, the spasm stopped. It asked, “Can’t I induce you to remain a couple more years? Not only would we like to enjoy the company of the two of you but also we would like to see how the child changes as it grows older. We would like to see it become toilet trained and be weaned and start eating the food we would offer it. We would like to see it learn to talk not only in your language but also in ours. We would like to talk to it and teach it some things. We would like to see it walk and play.”
The teacher’s voice seemed to change and slow down and become softer as it said those things as if, in saying those things and realizing that much of what it would like to see it would never see, saddened it immensely.
Peter said, “We want to leave in about two months. That will give you time to see some of what you said you wanted to see, but, as for the rest, why can’t we continue to communicate both by film and audio. You can talk to the child. You can see it take its first steps. You can talk to it while also looking at it, and it can respond. And we too, Sylvia and I, can stay in touch with you and remain friends and ask you questions and answer any questions you might have.”
“That will be difficult,” the teacher said. “I will give you the frequency we plan to use for purposes of outside communication but the frequency may change. My colleagues and I might choose to become incommunicado, at least for a while. Almost certainly, we will destroy the obviously artificial structure that the computers aboard your shipped picked out as being a certain sign that an intelligent species lived or once lived here. The structure will be destroyed in such a way as to leave no sign that it ever existed.
“After all, we have to be worried about being overheard and about having eavesdroppers coming here with the intention of uprooting us, turning us into slaves, or exterminating us. And, even if we determine that the danger posed by visitors can be fairly easily negated, just having to deal with creatures having such impulses would be too bothersome to us to be worth enduring.
“We a
re not naïve. Our sense of things is guided not only by certain incidents we have experienced while living here on this asteroid (I will not burden you with the details) but also by incidents occurring over the equivalent of many hundreds of thousands of your years that the historians back in our home planet have recorded for our edification.
“We have also gleaned from transmissions that we managed to intercept from your planet Earth a number of very edifying incidents. An especially upsetting example involves the arrival of what you call the Spanish Conquistadors into your western hemisphere. The example is especially upsetting to us mostly, we assume, because we got a fairly detailed account. There are other incidents, more sketchily presented, occurring at different times and places, that are known to us.
“So we are not naïve and, not being naïve, we are very careful not to let potentially dangerous visitors come among us. Take the two of you. We erected and let stand the structure you found on the surface to entice alien visitors. When first you, Sylvia, and then you, Peter, entered, we dared not let you come among us until after we had a chance to closely observe you and carefully analyze your behavior as you wandered through what we felt you would come to regard as endless subterranean edifices during those first few days after your arrival.
“Had we seen something that we did not like, you would simply have been made to circle around and around until you found yourselves back inside of the above-ground structure. You would then have gone home never to return. But instead we saw aspects of personality that intrigued and appealed to us.
“Neither of you got angry. Neither of you began to wantonly destroy. Instead, you both studied what surrounded you and drew some pictures and stopped occasionally to think. You, Sylvia, would occasionally weep due to a sense of abandonment while also occasionally calling out for sympathy and guidance to something or someone who might or might not exist for all you knew. And you, Peter would shout out or whisper Sylvia’s name, saying ‘I have been sent to rescue you’ or ‘please now rescue me.’
“We liked what we saw enough to agree to let you open doors that would bring you to us. And nothing that has happened since has given us cause for regret.” The creature paused, turned to its sticks again, and then, after playing with its sticks for a few seconds, looked straight at them with both of its protruding eyes, said, “And now I suppose we are bound by an initial reckless determination to give you a choice and by our liking of and respect for you to let you go.”
Peter and Sylvia said nothing. Both supposed that they had been watched and listened to during those first few days but had never before been told how thoroughly and for what purposes it had been done.
“And, when you do leave us, we have to worry about who might follow you and may decide that the best thing for us to do is to make it as difficult as possible for alien creatures to find us or visit us. This might mean cutting off all communication for a while. It will almost certainly mean restoring this asteroid’s entire surface to its natural condition. It might mean altering the path this asteroid takes around the sun. We just cannot afford to take chances with visitors.”
Peter and Sylvia still said nothing. Both knew that what the teacher said made a lot of sense and reflected great wisdom based on observations and experiences, including those they knew nothing of and could hardly even imagine. Realizing that communication might be blocked or at any time cut off saddened them. They liked these creatures. They regarded some of them as true friends. They wished very much to keep in touch with them. Still, they felt that returning to Earth was the best thing for them to do.
“Well,” the teacher said, “because your minds are made up, I suppose we have to adjust our expectations to fit your resolutions. Two months longer it will be. In the meantime, we will make sure your space suits are in good condition and that your child can be safely transported to whichever of the two space ships you intend to place it in during the voyage back to your home planet.”
“The space ships are still there, then?” Peter asked. “Yes, they are. We’ve kept our eyes on them. They’re still there.” “Thank God for that,” Peter said. “Amen,” Sylvia said while nervously crossing and uncrossing her arms.
Behind them, the baby started crying, causing both Sylvia and Peter to look back in its direction with great concern. Their first thought was that an attempt was being made to kidnap it but, looking back, they realized that the child was safe. It lay in its egg-shaped basinet. A few of the other students were gathered around it but had not yet gotten close enough to peer down at it. And perhaps the baby cried because, not seeing anyone looking down on it or reaching down with open arms, it felt abandoned.
“Go to it,” the teacher said. “Take what time you need to comfort it. When all is well with the child and your sense that it is safe, the class will resume.”
Chapter 60: Preparations for Departure
Using a calendar they had created to reflect the passage of days, weeks, and months that was consistent with the way such things were reckoned back on Earth, Peter and Sylvia counted the day that passed from the morning they told the teacher of their wish to depart and the day two months later when they would depart.
Because of the care the creatures took of them, they did not have to do too much to prepare for their departure.
One night shortly before they were scheduled to depart, for example, creatures scratched and banged against the door of the room where they happened to be spending that night and asked to inspect their space suits and the baby’s bassinet to ‘make certain the surfaces of the suits and bassinet had not been punctured or in any other way rendered defective.’ The creatures explained that such an inspection ‘had to be done to make certain they and the child would be protected from the elements during the brief interval that would occur between exiting the above-ground room and entering their respective space ships.’
With their acquiescence, the space suits and bassinet were taken away from them for purposes of inspection. They were returned two days later with symbols embossed on the tops of the helmets and on the sides of the bassinet that said, in effect, that the suits and bassinet had passed their safety inspections and that, in addition, pockets had been added to make it possible for them to stash everything they possessed, including notebooks and other things given to them since they had arrived. Also straps had been added to the bassinet that would enable either Peter or Sylvia to attach it to the backs of their space suits in the manner of a backpack.
A couple of nights after the modified suits and bassinet were returned to them, three creatures knocked and scratched at the door of the room where the three of them were staying that night and explained that they were there to explain how to attach the bassinet to either one of the space suits so that air could pass safely back and forth between the bassinet and whichever suit Peter and Sylvia decided to attach it to.
After attaching the bassinet to the back of one of the suits by means of the straps, the creatures presented them with two short hoses that, if properly attached, would carry fresh air from a suit to the bassinet and would carry used air back from the bassinet to the suit where the proper balance of gases and moisture would be restored by means of a recycling system.
After demonstrating how to attach the bassinet to a suit and how make the necessary nozzle connections, they removed the straps and hoses and asked Peter and Sylvia to repeat what they had just seen demonstrated. At first they could not do it, but, after watching a couple of demonstrations, they got it right and were able to do what had to be done several times without error.
After being satisfied that the lesson had been learned, the three creatures bowed, complimented them on how quickly they had acquired the necessary knowledge, apologized for having taken up their time during a period of the day when the creatures knew the two of them liked being alone, turned around, opened the door, and rolled away.
When the creatures left, Peter and Sylvia resumed doing what they had been doing before the creatures arrived. They were playing with
the baby. One took one of its little hands and the other took the other little hand. They then lifted the child up so just high enough so that its little feet touched the surface of the bed.
Then they moved the child’s hands forward while the laughing child’s little legs bent and unbent in a way that actually looked like walking. When it reached the edge of the bed, Sylvia let go of the hand she was holding and put her arms on its back and leaned forward and kissed it on its cheek while Peter took hold of both of the baby’s hands, scooted up on the bed in front of the child in a kneeling position, and said, “The star child is walking.” He too hugged and kissed it.
Being hugged and kissed from in front and behind at the same time delighted the child. It laughed and made sounds of various kinds while still moving its legs in the way it had earlier, in the way that Peter and Sylvia took to be an imitation of walking. “The star child walks,” Peter repeated.
Later that same evening, after the child had been put to bed, Peter and Sylvia packed up all of their possessions inside of their respective suits. And, just as the creatures promised, there was room for all of their notebooks and for the model of the creature that had contained their wedding rings and for the beautiful box that came with the model.
A pocket had been added to the bassinet large enough to hold the sphere the child had been given. Peter said, “I am imagining an exhibit of our drawings, our rings, the model, the box, the egg-shaped bassinet, and even our baby’s magical sphere going from the Metropolitan Museum to the Smithsonian to the Chicago Art Institute to the Louvre to the Tate to the Hermitage and to this and that other museum.”
“Our rocket ships and space suits probably also would be put on display as well as whatever photographs and recordings our onboard computers took that would not be classified, Sylvia said.”
A Theory of Gravity Page 40