Sylvia nodded her head and repeated Peter’s last sentence. “Please try to understand,” she said. She added, “When one has spent as much time as we have in a certain place where creatures that at least physically resemble us and speak the same language as us exist, then a pull, like a tidal pull, exists. It is a kind of psychological gravity. It pulls on us.”
“Then you must go,” the teacher said, adding, “provided that the metaphors you have just used accurately describe what you feel and are not instead a way you have found to deceive yourselves regarding the nature of your true feelings.”
The teacher added, “In any case, on the assumption that you will not change your minds (though I wish to emphasize that you can still change your minds and can do so up to the very last moment of your being on this asteroid), my duty now is to tell you what is planned for your departure.
“A ceremony is planned for the day before your departure. It will be a grand ceremony. The large meeting room will be full to overflowing. The king and other dignitaries will be present. Gifts will be given to you. The ceremony will not really be a farewell ceremony. It could more accurately be called “it-is-still-not-too-late-to-change-your-mind ceremony.”
“My fellow creatures and I will not be sad. No one will say goodbye. The atmosphere will instead be very raucous and celebratory. All will assume that, at the last moment, you will decide to remain. And this attitude of ours might (in fact I suppose it must) seem strange to you—this attitude that we take. But, you see, we colonists have not welcomed anyone but yourselves into our midst. We exist in a kind of limbo. We feel exiled though we are not being punished. All of this strengthens the sense of community we feel towards one another.
“True, aged members of our community die, but, aside from that sort of departure (which, because of our belief in reincarnation, we do not regard as a true departure), none of us have any experience whatsoever with seeing physically sound members of our community leave us while alive of their own free will.
“True, every five hundred years or so, a space ship is constructed and outfitted for departure to our home planet. A mostly volunteer crew mans the ship and leaves us when the ship departs. But somehow that too does not really seem to be a real departure for, after all, the crew is going home—a place that we feel is our true home—and therefore we feel that a part of us goes with them. We do not regard that as a true departure and, besides, it happens so rarely as to be not very much a part of any given’s generation’s consciousness except in anticipation. Such an expedition is being planned now. It will take off soon. The option to join that expedition, which we extended to you a long time ago, is still open to you. You can go.”
“Then your species too feels the tug of psychological gravity,” Sylvia said, purposely avoiding the trap of having to discuss again the option of their going to the creatures’ home planet.
“I suppose that is one way of thinking about it. I am not entirely sure that your point is valid; however, I have to concede it comes very close to being valid,” the creature said. It added, “How clever of you to turn my own logic around on me and, figuratively speaking, stab me in the back with it, Sylvia.
“In any case, your departure is something new to us. True, you may come back to us as reincarnated beings and that thought is somewhat consoling. But then again you may not come back to us as reincarnated beings for a few hundred thousand years. Aside from that possibility, which we take to be a real possibility though something we cannot count on, we have to face the fact that we who live here now are not likely to see you again. That is a problem for us. Though we know we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of your departure, we find reconciling difficult. We just cannot easily face that fact.
“Your departure will be a kind of painful amputation. We do not like to think about it. But, after much discussion and with the full realization that you might well, when the time comes, carry out your intention to depart, we have decided to be invisible on the day of your departure.
“You will wake up, don your space suits, leave your rooms for the last time, walk down an empty corridor and into an empty meeting room and over to an empty alcove, the alcove where you sat where you discussed the choice given to you. You will then walk over to the elevator door which will open automatically when you arrive with no one anywhere around you.
“You will get inside the elevator carriage and push the buttons with symbols that you now can read. The symbols make obvious which buttons to push to reach the surface. You will get to the surface, open the door of the structure we built and will dismantle soon after you depart (assuming you do not change your minds at the very last moment), and take your last steps prior to entering your space ships on the uneven terrain that is the surface of this asteroid.
“Assuming you do not then change your minds, what you do next will be up to you, the computers that control your spaceships, and directives from Earth. And we will be down below, our minds no doubt dwelling on the fact that we have lost you whom we have come to regard as true members of our community.”
The creature then pulled its upper limbs out of their hands and rolled back to its usual place behind its desk. It pulled a couple of painted sticks out of one of the drawers of its desk and began running four of its limbs along the lengths of the sticks.
The teacher seemed to be concentrating utterly on its sticks until, at one point, the stalks holding its eyes forced the eyes to look directly at them.
The teacher then said, its voice at a slightly higher pitch than usual (signifying sadness), “I have said what I must say. Now you know about the ‘it’s-not-too-late-to-change-your-minds’ party that will take place the day before your departure. Now you know how things will be on the morning of your departure, assuming you do not change your minds at the last minute and will not regard our absence as indicating that we don’t care about your going. ”
Sylvia was about to say something but shut her mouth when the teacher dismissed them, saying simply, “You can go now.”
Chapter 63: Day Before
On the day before the day they were scheduled to depart, after the three bells rang and they made their morning’s preparations for the day’s activities, Peter and Sylvia with Kory in tow entered the large meeting room not sure what to expect. They knew that a party was planned and supposed the atmosphere would be something like that which they had seen twice before—once on the day of the exchange of motorized carts and the second time on the day the baby was born.
And what they witnessed this day was like what they had seen during those two other occasions in many ways. But it was also different. For one thing, there were more creatures present, more than they had ever before seen or imagined as existing inside of the asteroid. For another thing, instead of milling about all over the large meeting room, the creatures clung to the walls and ceilings. Also a lot more of them than before were piled up in the corners of the room. Many had parked their motorized carts along the walls of the room in order to crawl along the floor, cling to the ceiling or wall, or join the piles of creatures that made the room seem to have lost its sharp edges. There was a sense of excitement in the air, but there was something else too—a sense of shyness.
Instead of making a loud clamor, as before, the creatures whispered to one another. Musicians played muted dirges when they played at all. A lot of the time, they just stood around with their instruments just hanging from the slits on their breast plates and their breast plates hardly moving. It was clear to Peter and Sylvia that the creatures were trying very hard to put a cheerful face on things but were not succeeding very well.
On the raised platform, the king and his entourage sat and just stared at them without calling them over to them right away.
Peter and Sylvia decided to take things in hand on their own. Sylvia kneeled down next to the baby’s bassinet and lowered the transparent sections at the top of it so that the baby could be seen more easily by any creature curious enough to want to get another close look at it
if only to see how it had changed during the two months that had passed since it was born and since most of them had last seen it.
After lowering the transparent sections, Peter and Sylvia both grabbed the handles behind the egg-shaped object and made a tour of the room, stopping from time to time so that any creature that wished to approach could approach them. Mostly, however, the creatures shied away. Piles of creatures, for instance, moved about on and under and beside one another in order to increase rather than decrease the distance between themselves and the humans who might or might not change their minds and stay.
A few creatures managed to overcome their shyness enough to advance towards them. The ones on wheeled carts that overcame their shyness rolled slowly around the three of them and even put out from one to six limbs and touched them lightly.
One pulled from its cart a small transparent sphere that had smaller blue transparent spheres revolving around an empty center inside of it. It placed the sphere close to the larger and more complicated sphere that had been given to the child by the king on the day it was born. The creature pushed slightly on the smaller sphere so that it began circling around the larger sphere. The smaller sphere just hung in space, moving in orbit around the larger sphere, as if it were the moon circling the Earth.
The baby noticed what had happened and reached with one hand for the larger sphere and with the other hand for the smaller one. It pushed the larger one away from itself and watched as the smaller sphere adjusted its orbit so that it was able to continue revolving around the larger sphere despite its change of location.
The baby tried to grab the smaller sphere but had difficulty doing so. Finally, it did grab it and managed to turn it around and around in its two hands. With its forefingers, it tried touching the even smaller spheres that rotated around beneath the outer surface of the small sphere it has just been given.
The baby’s fingers went through the surface of the new sphere and touched the spheres that lay beneath the surface. When it did so, the spheres inside began moving around more rapidly than before. They became a swarm.
After watching the inner spheres swarm for a while, the baby let go of the sphere that contained them. Immediately, after the baby let it go, the sphere the baby had been playing with flew to the larger sphere and resumed rotating around it. Watching this happen, the baby squealed with delight.
In the course of circling the room, Peter and Sylvia passed their classroom and saw that, though sliding doors that were rarely used had been pulled closed, there was a gap. They saw their teacher standing at the gap, its eyes pushed forward on their stalks. They noticed a whitish substance oozing out of the black eyes and rising around it like a mist. They watched as the teacher touched its eyes with its two upper limbs. And then the teacher withdrew. The doors closed shut.
After completing their circuit of the room, Peter and Sylvia approached the raised platform. A number of musicians stood on each side of the king. They had been playing one of the many dirge-like tunes that had filled the room that day; however, when Peter, Sylvia and the baby approached the raised platform, the king raised its two upper limbs. When the king did that, the music stopped.
The king then beckoned for Peter and Sylvia to come closer. When they came to a halt, the king beckoned again. It wanted them to come even closer. When they got to the front edge of the raised platform, the king leaned forward and said, “I cannot imagine anyone wanting to exchange good food and tender treatment for whatever savagery awaits you in the place you once called your home. Surely, after this day and with another night to reconsider, you will change your minds. And everything around here will return to normal once again.
“You are a part of us. We are a part of you. Look into the deepest recesses of your minds and souls. Wherever you look, I am quite sure that you will see signs that will convince you that what I have just said is true. And once having seen and properly interpreted those signs, you will realize that for you to leave us would be for you to do what is absurd. Consequently, you will remain with us.
The king then signaled with its two top limbs, causing the creature standing to its right to open and then reach into a pouch that was on the left side of its motorized cart. It pulled out a box like the box that held the model of a creature they had been given, the model that turned out to be a box in its own right with a hollow at its center that held their wedding rings.
This new box was handed to the king who opened it up to reveal another model, this time of one of the motorized carts. The king said, “We did not want the earlier model we gave you to have to crawl. Here is a cart for it. And here,” it reached into a pouch beneath the seat of the cart, is a remote control for it.” He handed them a small blue-tinged sphere that, however it was turned, would look clear on its outer edge and get progressively darker blue the closer to the center one looked.
“Take this too,” the king said. “It may take you a day or two to figure out how it works—surely longer than the time you have picked for your departure—one more reason for you to stay with us.”
The king then bowed to them and, without saying another word, turned around and rolled down off the raised platform and over to a door that opened in front of it. The kind and its entire entourage when through the doorway. When all had gone, the door closed automatically behind them.
Then, others of the doors that lined the walls of the meeting room opened. And the creatures crawled down from the ceilings and walls and out from the piles that had filled up the corners of the room. They moved quickly to the doors and then through them. One by one, every one of the doors closed.
“I guess the party is over,” Peter said and put one arm around Sylvia’s shoulder and touched the baby’s cheek with its other arm. “We better get back to our rooms. Tomorrow, after all, will be a big day for us.” He raised the box with the model they had just been given and, pointing to it, said, “Here is another of the objects that will make the rounds of all the world’s big museums.”
They then went to the door that led to the corridor where their bedrooms were. They opened the door and went to Peter’s room where they planned to spend their last evening and last night on the asteroid.
When they got to the room, they found more than a hundred soft pouches neatly arranged inside of an orange bag that was surprisingly small considering how many pouches had been put inside of it. The bag sat on the desk in Peter’s room, the desk that was in the same room that functioned also as a closet.
Inscriptions on the pouches informed them that inside of the pouches was nourishing food like that which they had been given in the mornings and evenings throughout their sojourn on the asteroid. Looking inside of the shining silver and blue pouches and examining them, Sylvia said, “How thoughtful of them. To the very last, they try to take care of us. They must have decided that the food that is stored inside of our space suits and on board the ships could not possibly provide us with the kind of nourishment we need. So they supplemented those stocks with their own contributions.”
She pointed out to Peter that some of the inscriptions printed on the sides of the pouches contained a few words of advice. For instance, according to the inscriptions, they’d get the most out of the food supplied to them if they cooled the contents in the morning and warmed it up at night.
The instructions went on to explain how the temperature of the contents depended upon how the packages were handled. “For a hot drink, squeeze and roll a pouch between your two hands three or four times; then pull the tab which is attached to a straw which, by pulling on the tab, you will extract the straw. For a cold drink, pull the tab without squeezing or rolling pouch.
Peter said, “This is great but remember it only supplements what is already on board and in our suits. If all of us ride on the same ship, we’ll have to transfer food and other supplies from the ship we won’t be traveling in. Doing that might present problems. The ships’ computers might be ordered by those on Earth to trick us.
“So if I were to go al
one to the other ship, then, no matter how hard or well we argue our case, they might just lock the doors and start the rockets on me. We’ll have to figure out a way to keep that from happening though, off-hand, I can’t think of any way really to guarantee that some kind of trick like that won’t be played.”
Chapter 64: Talking to Computers
The next morning, their last day on the asteroid, began as usual: three bells rang. But the bells did not awaken them this time because, out of excitement, they had awoken spontaneously much earlier that morning. The baby’s crying helped. It needed to have its diaper changed. Peter took care of that while Sylvia gathered all of their things together. The baby’s crying might also have been the result of its sensing the excitement and anxiety of its parents. Excitement and anxiety just seemed to fill the air.
When Peter returned from the bathroom with the baby, Sylvia took the baby from Perter and, holding it tightly in her arms, danced with it. While dancing, she whispered in his ear, “My poor child is so young that I cannot see how he will preserve any memory of this place or of the creatures in later years. He will depend for his memories entirely on what we say to him and what drawings and objects we show him. Poor child.” Peter said, “He will be no different from any other child on Earth in that respect—all depend on their close relatives for their earliest memories; however, he, unlike other children his age, will have a couple of unusual toys to play with.”
When they got everything stuffed into their suits, they helped each other don the suits. Peter also helped Sylvia attach the baby’s bassinet to her air supply. He also helped her attach the straps of the bassinet to the suit and helped adjust the straps so that it would fit snuggly on the back of her space suit.
To make room for the pouches of liquid they had been given the night before and for the gifts they were given earlier during that day, Peter removed the backpack that had been stored in his suit, filled the resulting empty pouch with some of what they had been given, and filled the backpack with the rest of what they had accumulated since arriving on the asteroid. They would have liked to take the furniture in the room also because they were sure that the museums that would be exhibiting all of their drawings and baubles would have loved to have exhibited also the furniture. But they simply could not carry any of those bulky things. Unfortunately, the creatures had not seen fit to supply them with a moving van.
A Theory of Gravity Page 42