Relic

by Alan Dean Foster

  Raising right hand to mouth, Kel’les fanned the three fingers so that two flanked the lipless gap while the third bisected the opening: a sign of uncertainty.

  “It is impossible to know, or even to speculate.” The alien’s voice was soft and breathy, a loud whisper. Even now Ruslan had to be careful to keep his voice down when speaking with the people who had found him. To their decibel-sensitive organs, normal human speech came across as excessively loud. Though he had never attempted to do so, Ruslan suspected that a good, hearty shout could do real physical damage to his hosts’ organs of hearing.

  He persisted. “Speculate anyway.” A spangled lorpan soared low over the treetops, looking for food it could steal with a quick thrust of its coiled, sticky proboscis.

  Though s’he might have been wanting on the necessary specific knowledge, Kel’les was not lacking in imagination. S’he was also too polite to continue refusing. “I am a supervisorial consort, not a scientist. I understand how to keep things functioning and individuals content, but not always how they function or why they are content. Having been assigned to…” The Myssari hesitated.

  With a slight nod Ruslan indicated his understanding. “To my case?”

  “To you. To your individuality. In the course of being assigned to you, I have naturally been obligated to learn as much as possible about your kind so that I may provide the best support to you of which I am capable. Among many other things, this required me to learn as much as I could about the great tragedy that overcame your people.” Once more the alien paused. “You do not mind my talking about it?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you to hypothesize about it.” Ruslan looked away. “It’s not like there’s anyone else to offend.”

  Kel’les’s head tilted slightly to one side—a Myssari gesture of compassion. “Then since you ask, it is my opinion that nothing would have changed had my people, or the Hahk’na, or any of the other advanced races, contacted your kind once the plague had begun its spread. To this day the method and means of its propagation remain a mystery. From the histories we have scanned, it appears that your biologists first tried to contain it by quarantining the afflicted individuals, then the affected cities, then entire worlds. Nothing worked.” Kel’les’s voice was softer now even than was usual for a Myssari.

  “Whoever designed the pathogen was very specific. As you point out, only humans were affected. It did not afflict even your nearest genetic relatives. It burrowed into your cerebroneural system and nothing else. Perhaps that is why your other—I believe the correct term is ‘primates’—were not harmed. As a weapon of biowarfare, it was as precise as it was unstoppable.” Small violet eyes focused on the human. “Whoever schematicized it knew exactly what they were doing.”

  “Not quite.” He made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I doubt their intention was to kill every last human being in the galaxy—with one exception.” He did not smile. Smiling he reserved for those isolated occasions when it was justified. Not knowing when one might be his last—humanity’s last—smile, he rationed them.

  “No one has proposed a cure,” Kel’les continued, “especially since the agent has now died out. With no hosts in which to dwell, it has officially vanished from the canon of galactic illnesses as mysteriously as it first appeared.”

  Ruslan found himself growing tired. One of the glistening, metallic, free-form strandstands that had been provided to give promenaders a place to rest cast a hopeful loop in his direction. Though it was too narrow even for his aged and shrunken human backside, he settled himself against the semifluid surface as best he could. It rippled uncertainly beneath him, trying to accommodate buttocks it had never been intended to support. At least it allowed him to take the weight off his feet, if only for a little while.

  Settling in far more comfortably beside him, Kel’les eyed the biped who had become his friend. “Despite uncertainty and reluctance, I have answered a question of yours. Now you must answer one of mine. Why do you object so strongly to allowing yourself to be cloned?”

  Ruslan’s face twisted. Familiar with them as s’he had become, Kel’les still had difficulty interpreting the human’s many expressions. Myssari facial construction was relatively inflexible.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. Your scientists are going to attempt it anyway.”

  Once again Kel’les’s head bobbed sideways: this time in the other direction. “You know that we believe that the preservation of any species, especially of an intelligent one, far outweighs the personal preferences of any one individual. I would just, as a matter of personal curiosity, like to know why you continue to object.” The tone of the alien’s voice, to which, with time and instruction, Ruslan had by now become sensitive, had changed to one of deference.

  They’re so damn courteous, he thought. It made it hard to refuse the Myssari anything. Had they been other humans, or aliens whose attitude more nearly resembled that of his own confrontational species, he would not have bothered to respond.

  Instead of replying directly, he continued to evade. “You may succeed anyway, without my cooperation.”

  “That is so,” Kel’les admitted. “We have more than enough genetic material from you. Only a few cells are necessary, and while we were restoring you we acquired many thousands. It is a pity you are not female. It would make things much easier if we had access to eggs.”

  “Sorry.” Ruslan’s tone clearly indicated he was not.

  Innocent of the sarcasm, Kel’les continued. “Helpfully, your species is bi- instead of trisexual, so there is no need for the inclusion in the reproductive process of an intermet like myself. Still, without eggs, I am told it will be difficult. First we must successfully produce human eggs via genetic manipulation. Then these must be impregnated in the hope of bringing forth viable embryos. Once this has been achieved and adults brought to maturity, the ongoing process will become easier. Additionally, genetic material has been salvaged from bodies on your world that had not yet reached advanced stages of decomposition. This will permit chromosomal variation to be introduced into your…offspring. Whether it agrees with your personal preferences or not, your species will live.”

  “After a fashion.” Ruslan squinted into the distance. Pe’leoek had been built on a peninsula, and from the rise on which the promenade had been constructed he could see the glint of alien sun on alien sea. The latter exploded with life in waters that were saltier than those of Seraboth. Under the watchful eyes of minders like Kel’les, he had been allowed to go swimming many times. In his youth he had been quite an athlete. In his youth he had been…in his youth he had been…

  His youth was gone, along with everything else he had known. He was not caged. It only felt that way.

  “I just don’t like the whole idea.” He turned to face the Myssari’s hairless, largely frozen face. Shepherded by the customary trio of adults, a covey of youngsters ambled by. They made no attempt to conceal their curiosity. He was locally famous, in his way, but he could still never quite get used to being the object of so much attention.

  “Is it the idea of you, personally, giving rebirth to your species that offends you?” Kel’les’s questioning was as earnest as ever. Ruslan wondered if s’he was trying to satisfy a matter of personal curiosity, as s’he claimed, or just subtly working for the benefit of the Myssari scientific community. He found that he was too tired to parse.

  “I don’t think the result, if your biologists do succeed, will justify my history. True, if successful it will mean that humans will continue to exist. But how human will they be? No matter how much ‘variation’ your scientists manage to induce by utilizing genetic material from deceased others, every individual that lives will still essentially be a variant of me. And believe me, I’m not the one I would have chosen to serve as the foundation for such a resurrection.”

  Amusement crept into Kel’les’s reply. Even the
ir humor was strenuously polite, Ruslan had found.

  “We can only work with those poor materials that are available to us.”

  Ruslan looked away, staring off in the direction of the pale blue sea. “Like I said, you’re going to do it anyway. You don’t need my cooperation. What do you want me to do—bless the results?”

  “We want you to be happy. We want you to be—”

  “Stop it,” he snarled abruptly. “Just stop it. Stop being so damn nice!”

  Kel’les recoiled and, as much as it was possible to do so, an abashed Ruslan could see the mixture of fear and revulsion in the alien’s visage. A trio strolling nearby was visibly shocked at the un-Myssari outburst and accelerated their pace.

  “What was that?” His minder was visibly unsettled.

  “That was…being human. I hope it provided some insight. It should have. Look, I’m sorry. I just wish it wasn’t going to proceed like this. It’s not that I object per se to what your biologists are wanting to do.” He looked down at his hands: leather-brown, the veins prominent as a geological upheaval. “I just wish you had…better materials to work with.”

  Poise recovered, Kel’les inhaled deeply. Beneath the bright red sweep of his overshirt, the conical upper torso where the tripartite lungs were situated barely heaved.

  “I think you underestimate your cellular composition. With luck and time, you will become a multitude. And that is another reason why we wish, why we need, your cooperation. We are fairly certain that we can bring your species back to life. We can remake, according to your peoples’ classification system, Homo sapiens. What we cannot do is make a him, or a her, fully human. There are great quantities of historical material showing what human society was like, but that is not the same thing.” Ruslan saw that Kel’les was trying to be very specific without saying anything that might offend. S’he need not have worried. Ruslan was long past being offended by much of anything.

  “What I am saying is that while we can reproduce human beings,” the Myssari went on, “what we cannot do is imbue them with humanness. In a society such traits are acquired from watching others of one’s kind, from one’s parents, from one’s peers and equals, and from education systems. We can re-create a little of that. But for the scientific venture to be a real success, we need you to instruct those we bring forth in how to be human.”

  It was an eventuality Ruslan had already considered. “Once again, I think you’re working with the wrong material.”

  Kel’les was not dissuaded. “Once again, I think you underestimate yourself. My superiors concur. In any event, you are all we have to work with. We will bring forth humankind again whether you cooperate or not. How human they will be is a decision that rests largely upon you.”

  I’m not the person to be making such decisions, he thought irritably. There were better, far better, people than I. Unfortunately, Kel’les was right. The choice was up to him. Where humanity was involved, all choices were now up to him. He was torn. He was confused. He vacillated.

  Kel’les had learned enough to recognize uncertainty. Straightening all three legs, s’he rose and stepped away from the flexing, tubular bench. Two of three hands gestured toward a nearby transport booth. “Come with me to Tespo. My superiors have been empowered to present something that may interest you.”

  Ruslan looked longingly toward the horizon. “I would rather spend the afternoon at the beach.”

  Kel’les’s head slowly spun a full 360 degrees, the eyes coming once more to meet Ruslan’s. It was a physical contortion that a human skull, set atop a fixed vertebra instead of a bony gimbal, could not hope to duplicate. Among the Myssari a full rotation was heavy with understated eloquence.

  “You spend so much time in the water that I have to remind myself your species was not amphibious. Is there a reason other than simple pleasure that you so enjoy immersing yourself in another environment?”

  Ruslan nodded as he rose. “It helps me to forget.”

  Side by side, biped and triped started toward the booth. Noticing the human, a pair of unmated females gave them a wide berth.

  “To forget.” Kel’les pondered. “Anything in particular?”

  “Yes. How ignorant we were. Thousands of years of development, achievement, and supposed maturation, and in the end we were just as stupid as we were when we first came down out of the trees. We deserved to go extinct.” He looked sharply over at his friend. “As I’ve told you, I think we still deserve it.”

  “Then, much as my kind strives always for consensus, I am afraid I and my colleagues must disagree with you. Provided we can manage the bioengineering, your species will continue to exist in spite of your distrust of the arrangement.”

  Ruslan grunted as they approached the booth. The Myssari were going to do what they wanted to do no matter what he said. Politely, of course, the same as they did everything else. That much had already been made clear. Even if he killed himself, he could not stop them from preserving a humankind he was convinced was better off dead and gone. That was his one consolation. Soon enough he would be dead and gone. Despite their best efforts, he would not live long enough to see the results, or more accurately the consequences, of their strenuous efforts on behalf of his all-but-vanished species.

  At least he had something to look forward to.

  2

  Ruslan knew that his kind had developed short-range teleportation, though the service had never been widely distributed on Seraboth. The energy requirements were enormous and an outlying world like his own had never been able to justify the expense to construct anything more extensive than an essential-services network. It had long since ceased to function and had entered into a state of serious decay by the time the Myssari arrived.

  In contrast, analogous technology was readily available on many Myssari, Hahk’na, and other civilized worlds. It was omnipresent in Pe’leoek. But just as had been the case on human-settled worlds, the system functioned only over short distances. The energy required to sustain a transfer to another world or even a satellite increased exponentially with distance. To send someone to an orbiting ship or station, far less a moon, required an enormous amount of power. That did not keep Kel’les’s scientific superiors and others from striving to solve the problem. With any intelligent species it is failure, not success, that drives science.

  Additionally, successful teleportation required direct line-of-sight between sending and receiving stations. While this offered hope for future transit across spatial distances, it ironically reduced its usefulness on planetary surfaces. A teleported individual or object could not be relayed. One had to enter a departure booth, step out of another, and enter a second booth to cover anything like a significant distance. The tall, needlelike towers that dotted the landscape were teleportation senders and receivers. By employing the technology, one could circle an entire world, but doing so required a significant number of stops, of repeated entries and exits.

  Tespo being a suburb of Pe’leoek, this was not a problem for the two travelers, especially since they were journeying from the high peninsula of the capital to a community lying at sea level. Using Kel’les’s priority identification, they were able to jump the queue. None of the individuals or families waiting to use the transport system begrudged them this advantage. Leastwise, not visibly. To do so, especially in public, would have been unforgivably impolite.

  “I wish I could have examined a human teleport system in action.” Kel’les entered their destination and stepped backward onto the platform. Ruslan had preceded him and stood waiting. “So much potentially useful technology lost.” His epiglottal membrane vibrated to indicate his regret.

  “Your people have found some valuable remnants,” Ruslan reminded him. “The Aura Malignance destroyed people, not physicalities.”

  “That is so.” A rising electronic prattle that sounded like millions of tiny seeds being poured onto a flat g
lass surface began to fill the chamber. “But it is astounding to see how swiftly Nature reclaims that which has been abandoned. Too many of your centers of knowledge and systems for retaining records were overwhelmed by the elements or destroyed by anarchic elements of your society before we could reach them. We are continuously searching for more, of course. As are the Hahk’na and others who now know of your demise.”

  So the Myssari were not too polite to engage in a little salvage competition, Ruslan thought. “I’m sorry I’m not a scientist. If I were, I would be able to help you more.”

  Kel’les looked surprised. “You would do that?”

  The human shrugged, a gesture the handler had come to recognize. “Why not? The survival of knowledge is more important than the survival of a race. Knowledge transcends species.”

  Kel’les was about to comment when s’he disappeared.

  Their actual physical selves were not moved. They were destroyed. As they were obliterated, duplicates of themselves that were exact down to the simplest molecule of the last cell appeared in a reception booth within the scientific complex at Tespo. Billions of such transits had taken place without a single accident, though the urban legends of the Myssari whispered of the occasional traveler who arrived sans a limb, or with two reversed, or absent more sensitive portions of their anatomy.

  Ruslan never gave the process a thought. The worst that could happen was that he would die. Darkness would steal upon him soon enough anyway. Despite his situation he did not long for it, but neither did he waste time lamenting its increasing proximity. The air around Pe’leoek was too fresh, the sun too warm, the strange sounds that passed for laughter among Myssari youth too effervescent. When the time came, he would depart readily, with no regrets.

  Tespo was comprised of twelve identical large structures. Half were given over to the cause of science, the other half to its support. Each edifice was shaped like a giant teardrop that had flowed uphill; the smaller end terminated at a narrow beach, the much larger bulbous end ballooning up into the rolling hills. They were substantial buildings rising to twenty or thirty stories in height at the thickest point of the structures and descending several stories or more into the ground. Slathered in exteriors of a muted golden brown, they absorbed more of the intense sunshine than they reflected, rising up the hillsides like gargantuan droplets of molten bronze.