Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Tiptree Jr.

  A near thing. He must take no chances on the next one—it will be nearer to that marvelous light, will be in fact behind the command console where Yellaston was. Aaron finds his feet hurrying, stops himself at the last turn in the ramp and ties one end of the tether to a wall-hold. The other end he knots around his waist. Multiple knottings, must not be able to untie these in a hurry.

  It’s well he did so, he finds; he is already stepping into the corridor itself, stumbling on helmets, gloves, cables. The great flare of warm light is about twenty meters ahead. He must go back, go back and close the port. He stops himself at the command console and looks up at the videoscreen, still focused on China Flower’s fiery heart. It is like jewels in there, he sees, awestruck—great softly glowing globes, dazzling, changing color as he looks . . . some are dark, like a heap of fiery embers burning out. Dying? Grief wells up in him, he puts his hand up to hide it, looks away. There are his useless, evil canisters . . . and the corridor a shambles. Aftermath of a stampede . . . What was Coby muttering about, sperm. They went through here, tails thrashing—

  “Arn—you came!”

  From nowhere Lory is hugging his arm. “Oh, Arn dear, I waited—”

  “Get out of here, Lor!” But she is working at his waist, trying to untie knots. Her face is ecstatic—a load of jizzum in the head, all right. “Go away, Lor. I’m going to depressurize.”

  “We’ll be together, don’t be afraid.”

  Angrily he pushes her behind him. “I’m going to vent the air, can’t you hear me? The air is going out!”

  He tries to head her back toward the ramp, but she twists away from him, gasping, “Oh, Arn, please Arn, I can’t—” And she is running to the light, to China’s hatch.

  “Come back here!” He runs at her, is brought up by the rope. She wavers just beyond him outlined in pale fire, turning, turning, her fists at her mouth, sobbing, “I—I’m going—alone—”

  “No! Lor, wait!”

  His own hands are ripping at the knots, but she is going, slipping away from him across the tangled floor. “No, no—” The warm light enwraps her, she has turned, is walking into it, is gone—

  A harsh warble breaks into his ears, waking him. He staggers back, finally makes out that the flashings on the console are launch warnings. Somebody is in China Flower, taking off!

  “Who’s in there? Stop!” He flips channels at random. “You in the ship, answer me!”

  “Good-bye . . . boy.” Bustamente’s voice echoes from the speakers.

  “Ray, are you in there? This is Aaron, Ray, come out, you don’t know what you’re doing—”

  “I know to . . . set course. Keep your shit . . . world.” The deep voice is flat, mechanical.

  “Come out here! Ray, we need you. Please listen, Ray—the gyros are broken. The gyros.”

  “. . . Tough.”

  A heavy metal purring shivers the walls.

  “Ray, wait!” Aaron screams. “My sister is in there, she’ll be killed—your hatch is open! I’ll be killed too, please, Ray, let her come out. I’ll close it. Lory! Lory, get out!”

  His eyes are seeking desperately for the hatch control, his hands tear at the knots.

  “She can come, too.” A deathlike chuckle—another lighter voice briefly there, too. Ray’s women—is Soli in there? The knots are giving.

  “I’m going to . . . that planet . . . boy.”

  “Ray, you’ll wake up a million miles in space, for Christ’s sake, wait!” He jerks, pulls loose—he has to get there, get Lory out—he has to save that living beauty, that promise—

  Other lights are flashing, there is a shudder in the walls. The ship, Lory, his brain cries faintly. He pulls the rope free and sees her shadow, her body wavering out blue against the radiance waiting there, waiting for him. With his last sanity he strikes the hatch lever, shoves it home.

  The big hatch starts to slide shut across the radiant port.

  “No, wait! No!” Aaron starts to run to it, his hand still grasping the rope, he is running toward all he has ever longed for—but the walls clang, scrape thunderously, and a wind buffets him sideways. He grips the rope in reflex, sees Lory stagger and start to slide in the howling air, everything is sliding toward the closing hatch. China Flower is going, falling away—taking it from him. They will all be blown out after her—but as Lory nears it the hatch slides home, the last ray vanishes.

  The wind stops, the corridor is totally silent.

  He stands there, a foolish man holding a rope, knowing that all sweetness is fading. Life itself is falling out to the dark beneath him, going away forever. Come back, he whispers, aching. Oh, come back.

  Lory stirs. He lets fall the idiotic rope, goes to her bowed under a loss beyond bearing. What have I saved, what have I lost? Going away, fainter, fainter yet.

  She looks up. Her face is clear, empty. Very young. All gone now, the load in her head . . . A feeling of dumb weight comes over him. It is Centaur, the whole wonderful ship he had been so proud of, hanging over him mute and flaccid in the dark. The life-spark gone away. Voiceless, unfindable in the icy wastes . . . His gut knows it is forever now, nothing will ever be all right again.

  Gently he helps Lory up and starts walking with her to noplace, she trustful to his hand; little sister as she had been long ago. As they move away from the corridor his eyes notice a body lying by the wall. It is Tighe.

  IV

  . . . Dr. Aaron Kaye recording. The ghosts, the new things I mean, they’re starting to go. I see them quite well now awake. Yesterday—wait, was it yesterday? Yes, because Tim has only been here one night, I brought him in yesterday. His, his body, I mean. It was his ghost I saw—Christ, I keep calling them that—the things, the new things, I mean. The ghost is in Tim’s bed. But I saw his go, it was still out in Beta corridor. Did I say they’re fairly stationary? I forget what I said. Maybe I should go over it, I have the time. They’re more or less transparent, of course, even at the end. They float. I think they’re partly out of the ship. It’s hard to tell their size, like a projection or afterimage. They seem big, say, six or eight meters in diameter, but once or twice I’ve thought they may be very small. They’re alive, you can tell that. They don’t respond or communicate. They’re not . . . rational. Not at all. They change, too, they take on colors or something from your mind. Did I say that? I’m not sure they’re really visible at all, maybe the mind senses them and constructs an appearance. But recognizable. You can see . . . traces. I can identify most of them. Tim’s was by ramp seven. It was partly Tim and partly something else, very alien. It seemed to swell up and float away out through the hull, as if it was getting closer and farther at the same time. The first one to go, so far as I know. Except Tighe’s, I dreamed that. They do not dissipate. It throbbed—no, that isn’t quite right. It swelled and floated. Away.

  They’re not ghosts, I should repeat that.

  What I think they are—my subjective impression, I mean, a possible explanatory hypothesis—Oh, hell, I don’t have to talk that way anymore. What I think they are is some kind of energy-thing, some—

  What I think they are is blastomeres.

  Holy zygotes, Coby said. I don’t think they’re holy. They’re just there, growing. Definitely not spirits or ghosts or higher essences, they’re not the person at all. They’re a, a combined product. They develop. They stay at the site awhile and then . . . move on out.

  Maybe I should record the order they go in, maybe it will correlate with the person’s condition. That would be of scientific interest. The whole thing is of deep scientific interest, of course. Who will it be of scientific interest to? That’s a good question. Maybe somebody will stumble on this ship in about a thousand years. Hello, friend. Are you human? If you are you won’t be long. Kindly listen to Dr. Aaron Kaye before you—Oh, god, wait—

  This is Dr. Aaron Kaye recording a message of deep scientific interest. Where was I? It doesn’t matter. Tim—I mean Commander Timofaev Bron died today. I mean Tim himself. That’s
the first actual death except Tighe. Oh, and Bachi—I reported him, didn’t I? Yes. The others are still functioning more or less. In a vegetable way. They feed themselves now and then. Since the meals stopped, I carry rations around. We go over the ship every day or so. I’m pretty sure no one else has died. Some of them are still playing cards in Commons, they even say a word or two sometimes. Some cards have fallen down, the ten of spades has been by Don’s foot for days. I made them drink water yesterday. I’m afraid they’re badly dehydrated. . . . Kawabata’s the worst off, I think, he’s sleeping in a soil bed. Earth to earth . . . He’ll probably go soon. I have to learn to run all that, I suppose. If I go on.

  . . . I know now I’ll never be able to fix that laser. Christ, I spent a week in Ray’s spookhouse. Funny thing, they gave us a big nondirectional Mayday transmitter. That means, “Come here and rescue us.” But how can I send, “Stay the hell away?” Flaw in the program. That’s all too short-range, anyway. . . . I could blow up the ship, I guess I could work that out. What good would it do? It wouldn’t stop them coming. They’d figure we had an accident. Too bad, hazards of space. Baby, you’ll find out. . . .

  Wonder where Ray is now, how long he lasted? His, his thing is here, of course. In Gamma One. The women too. I found Soli’s, it’s, no, I think we won’t talk about that. They were with him, their bodies, I mean. Them . . . He was so strong, he did something, he acted, afterward. No use, of course. The dead saving the dead. Help me make it through the night—quit that.

  . . . Functioning, we were discussing functioning. The most intact is Yellaston. I mean, he isn’t intact at all, but we talk a little, sort of, when I go up there. Maybe a lifetime practice in carrying on with half of his cortex shot. I think he understands. It’s not a highly technical concept, after all. He knows he’s dying. He saw it as death, the whole thing. Intuition in his locked-up guts, the fear—Sex equals death. How right you are, old man. Funny, I used to treat patients for thinking that. Therapy—Of course it was a different, let’s say order of sex. He’s quit drinking. The thing he was holding in, the load, it’s gone. . . . I think of what’s left as him, damn it, it is him, the human part. I’ve seen his, his product, it’s by the bow-port. It’s very strange. I wonder, has he seen it? Does a spent sperm recognize the blastomere? I think he must have. I found him crying, once. Maybe it was joy, I don’t think so. . . .

  . . . Hello, friend. This is Dr. Aaron Kaye, your friendly scientific reporter. Dr. Aaron Kaye is also getting the tiniest bit ethanolized, maybe you’ll forgive it. It has occurred to me as a matter of scientific justice that Coby deserves credit for the, the formulation of the hypothesis. Superb diagnostician, Coby, to the end. That’s Dr. William F. Coby, late of Johns Hopkins/M.I.T. Originator of Coby’s final solution—hypothesis, I mean. Remember his name, friend. While you can. I tried to get him to record this, but he doesn’t talk anymore. I think he’s right; I know he’s right. He still functions, though, in a dying way. Goes to the narcotics locker quite openly. I let him. Maybe he’s trying something. Why is he so intact? Didn’t he have much of whatever it is they lost, not much jizzum there? No—that’s not fair. Not even true . . . Funny thing, I find myself liking him now, really liking him. Dangerous stuff all gone, I guess. Comment on me. Call me Lory—no, we aren’t going to talk about Lory, either. We were talking about, I was talking about Coby. His hypothesis. Listen, friend. You on your way with a load in your head.

  Coby’s right, I know he’s right. We’re gametes.

  Nothing but gametes. The dimorphic set—call it sperm. Two types, little boy sperms, little girl sperms—half of the germ-plasm of . . . something. Not complete beings at all. Half of the gametes of some . . . creatures, some race. Maybe they live in space, I think so. The, their zygotes do. Maybe they aren’t even intelligent. Say they use planets to breed on, like amphibians going to the water. And they sowed their primordial seed-stuff around here, their milt and roe among the stars. On suitable planets. And the stuff germinated. And after the usual interval—say three billion years, that’s what it took us, didn’t it?—the milt, the sperm, evolved to motility, see? And we made it to the stars. To the roe-planet. To fertilize them. And that’s all we are, the whole damn thing—the evolving, the achieving and fighting and hoping—all the pain and effort, just to get us there with the loads of jizzum in our heads. Nothing but sperms’ tails. Human beings—does a sperm think it’s somebody, too? Those beautiful egg-things, the creatures on that planet, evolving in their own way for millions of years . . . maybe they think and dream, too, maybe they think they’re people. All the whole thing, just to make something else, all for nothing—

  Excuse me. This is Dr. Aaron Kaye, recording two more deaths. They are Dr. James Kawabata and Quartermaster Miriamne Stein. I found her when I was taking Kawabata’s body to cold Stores. They’ll all be there, you’ll find them, friend. Fifty-five icicles and one dust pile . . . maybe. Cause of death—have I been reporting cause of death? Cause of death, acute—Oh, hell, what does a sperm’s tail die of? Acute loss of ability to live anymore. Acute postfunctional irrelevance . . . Symptoms; maybe you’d like to know the symptoms. You should be interested. The symptoms start after brief contact with a certain life-form from the Alpha planet—did I mention that there does seem to have been momentary physical contact, apparently through the forehead? The gross symptoms are disorientation, apathy, some aphasia, ataxia, anorexia. All responses depressed; aprosexia, speech echolalic. Reflexes weakly present, no typical catatonia. Cardiac functions subnormal, nonacute. Clinically—I’ve been able to test six of them—clinically the EEG shows generalized flattening, asynchrony. Early theta and alpha deficits. It is unlike, repeat totally unlike, post-ECS syndrome. Symptoms cannot be interpreted as due to a physical shock, electric or otherwise. Adrenergic systems most affected, cholinergic relatively less so. Adrenal insufficiency is not, repeat not, confirmed by hormonal bioassay. Oh, hell—they’ve been drained, that’s what it is. Drained of something . . . something vital. Prognosis . . . yes.

  The prognosis is death.

  This is of great scientific interest, friend. But you won’t believe it, of course. You’re on your way there, aren’t you? Nothing will stop you, you have reasons. All kinds of reasons—saving the race, building a new world, national honor, personal glory, scientific truth, dreams, hopes, plans—does every little sperm have its reasons, thrashing up the pipe?

  It calls, you see. The roe calls us across the light-years, don’t ask me how. It’s even calling Dr. Aaron Kaye, the sperm who said no—Oh, Christ, I can feel it, the sweet pull. Why did I let it go? . . . Excuse me. Dr. Aaron Kaye is having another drink now. Quite a few, actually. Yellaston was right, it helps. . . . The infinite variety of us, all for nothing. Where was I? . . . We make our rounds, I check them all. They don’t move much anymore. I look at the new things, too. . . . Lory comes with me, she helps me carry things. Like she used to, little sister—we’re particularly not going to talk about Lory. The things, the zygotes—three more of them went away today, Kawabata’s and the two Danes. Don’s is still in Commons, I think it’s going soon. Do they leave when the, the person dies? I think that’s just coincidence. We’re totally . . . irrelevant, afterward. The zygote remains near the site of impregnation for a variable period before moving on to implant. Where do they implant, in space, maybe? Where do they get born?—Oh, god, what are they like, the creatures that generated us, that we die to form? Can a gamete look at a king? Are they brutes or angels? Ah, Christ, is isn’t fair, it isn’t fair!

  . . . Sorry, friend. I’m all right now. Don Purcell collapsed today, I left him in Commons. I visit my patients daily. Most of them are still sitting. Sitting at their stations, in their graves. We do what we can, Lory and I. Making gentle the life of this world . . . It may be of great scientific interest that they all saw it different the egg-things I mean. Don said it was god, Coby saw ova. Åhlstrom was whispering about the tree Yggdrasill. Bruce Jang saw Mei-Lin there. Yellaston saw death. Tighe saw
Mother, I think. All Dr. Aaron Kaye saw was colored lights. Why didn’t I go, too? Who knows. Statistical phenomenon. Defective tail. My foot got caught. . . . Lory saw utopia, heaven on earth, I guess. We will not talk about Lory. . . . She goes ‘round with me, looking at the dying sperms, our friends. All the things in their rooms, the personal life, all this ship we were so proud of. Mono no aware, that’s the pathos of things, Kawabata told me. The wristwatch after the wearer has died, the eyeglasses . . . the pathos of all our things now.

  . . . Yes, Dr. Aaron Kaye is getting fairly well pissed, friend. Dr. Aaron Kaye, you see, is avoiding contemplating what he’ll do, afterward . . . after they are all gone. Coby broke his leg today. I found him, I think he was pleased when I put him to bed. He didn’t seem to be in much pain. His, the thing he made, it went away quite a while ago, I guess I haven’t been recording too well. A lot of them have gone. Not Yellaston’s last time I looked. He’s up in Astrogation, I mean Yellaston himself. Gazing out the dome. I know he wants to end there. Ah, Christ, the poor old tiger, the poor ape, everything Lory hated—all gone now. Who cares about a sperm’s personality? Answer: another sperm . . . Dr. Kaye grows maudlin. Dr. Kaye weeps, in fact. Remember that, friend. It has scientific interest. What will Dr. Kaye do, afterward? It will be quiet around here on the good ship Centaur, which will probably last forever, unless it falls into a star. . . . Will Dr. Kaye live out the rest of his life here, twenty-six trillion miles from his home testis? Reading, listening to music, tending his garden, writing notes of great scientific interest? Fifty-five frozen bodies and one skeleton. Keep your eye on the skeleton, friend . . . or check on that last scout ship, Alpha. Will Dr. Kaye one day take off in little old Alpha, trying to head for somewhere? Where? You guess . . . Tail-end Charlie, last man in the oviduct. Over the viaduct, via the oviduct. Excuse me.