by Geoff Ryman
We will abide by that.
5260
Z
You see, love?
Men are reasonable creatures.
5265
B
Reason!
Reason is a weapon!
This is Man, the Hunter!
5271
The Alien
Skyhum!
Listen!
Watch!
III
from the letters of Raul Kundara
Hola Mari,
All casts are vetted. No letters leave unread. I write and can only hope to send this to you later.
We are all under Secrecy Regimen. The unbelievable, the impossible has happened. They have found life on Daphne, life on a sun! Senior Thoroughgood called a gathering to tell us. Later that afternoon I was called to his room. Already I had a nervous inkling of what was to come. Senior Thoroughgood was not there. Researcher Mzobwe greeted me instead, and asked me, so calmly, to follow him to the Angelroom. I knew then what was to happen, and my heart leapt. I was to ride an Angel.
I followed him down a long, low corridor, through a voice-locked door. Seniors Thoroughgood and Yuan sat staring and still, crowned by headpieces. There was an empty chair beside them. Researcher Mzobwe motioned me to it, and I sat down. Consolers listened, leaning forward. On the wall was a screen, filled with red. It was a cast, in hydrogen light, from the sun. I thought I saw movement in it, distant, like kelp in water.
Researcher Mzobwe passed a headpiece to me. “I have never rode before,” I whispered.
“Do not fight,” he advised me. “Z will read a count of chemical components to you.” Then he slipped the headpiece on for me. A metal band cut uncomfortably into my ear. I remember reaching up to adjust it. Suddenly, very suddenly, the room was swallowed by a roaring in my head, and I felt as though I was falling and rising, both at the same time. Different planes of thought passed and intersected each other, like lights from a landcraft passing each other on a wall. Then they focused, and separated, and I could understand.
There were three minds waiting. The first was familiar. It reminded me of Gareth, scholarly but not unkind. The second felt simply angry, hot and heavy, like the breath of a bull. I had a brief image of clear, accusing blue eyes, like a child’s.
And there was something else. Something hot and bright and leaping. I shied away from it.
“Please commence reading, Z,” said a voice, loud in my head. It was Senior Thoroughgood. Then the Angel spoke. It had a clear, piping voice, that was sad. Fortunately I had my logger with me, for I was not truly listening to the count. The components themselves add up to nothing—chloride, iridium, gallium, common carbon, hydrogen, helium, iron…We do not even know how it holds together in one place, let alone lives. The reading Angel was polite and precise in his counting. But I could feel he was under some emotional strain. He seemed so human. He ached for the reading to be over, and so he hurried.
The visualiser glowered at me, his anger steady. When the count was finished, he asked, “Do you think you know him better now?”
“I must beg your pardon,” said a too-loud voice. It made me jump. It was my own.
“Does that in truth tell you anything about him?” the voice asked me again. My stomach wilted with excitement. I was riding an Angel!
“Not much. No, nothing. Now,” I replied. “Where did you find him?”
“He found us,” it growled, and said nothing more. He had relented because I was young and harmless, because he couldn’t hate me. I wonder if he knew how much of itself it revealed?
Then the alien touched me. There was a greeting, something that might have been a name. It meant no harm. But it sickened me. I thought of snails and their feelers, and of all that is strange and unrecognizable. All through me, I felt burning, as though my blood were fire. I began to weep, and to shake my head. A sun opened up beneath me, huge, with billows of orange and crinkles of yellow-white heat. I thought I would fall, and I screamed.
“He’s panicked,” said a voice. I felt something grab an arm, faraway. The headpiece was hauled away from my head, which felt vast, like an ocean, and I was pulled into the real world. Hands, human hands, patted my shoulder and coaxed me to my feet. I stumbled and was caught. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I kept repeating.
“Well, you did well,” I heard Mzobwe say. “Contact with alien thoughts on first riding! I would not want to face that.” The researcher knows the right thing to say. Senior Thoroughgood said nothing. He kept watching the screen. He was riding his Angels.
I still felt weak two tens later. I told my blockmates I was ill. I did not tell them where I had been. I think they guessed. My reaction in other ways has been odd…
from Entropy Control and You
Entropy Control is our Prime Duty. All other Duties contribute to this end.
The mechanics repair machines, machines that keep Humankind alive and well, machines that work for Control and order. They contribute.
The builders shape the prefabs and the houses. They keep us sheltered so we can live in comfort and think serenely. They contribute.
The growers feed each new generation and fuel the minds of the Controllers. They contribute.
The man with the broom, sweeping corridors, preserves order and frees great minds from petty worries. They owe him a debt of gratitude. He contributes.
We all give something. The Regimen of Tanner Cahsway directs our energies. The Regimen places us where we are most able to help.
This way brilliant minds are not wasted in vain pursuits. This way good, common people have work that has meaning. This way tasks that need doing are not left undone.
Humankind must lead an orderly life. The Regimen gives us guidance and shows us where our Duty lies…
Juniors must treat elders with respect. The old are many in number, but they have lived long and seen much. Their wisdom must be heeded.
Juniors will follow the course of study set by their placers.
They must work hard to uncover their true abilities. They must not contradict their placers.
Juniors must be tidy. Personal order is part of the general order, and thus part of our duty.
No one may have sex for the purpose of having children unless the Regimen permits the union. This makes sure that every child is loved and nurtured.
No one shall neglect his placing, the needed work he is suited to perform.
All seniors must be treated with respect. They are highly placed for good reasons.
No one shall deny the right of the Regimen and its seniors to direct, decree and to place…
All work is the result of disequilibrium, between hot and cold, between stable and unstable, between up and down. The Regimen, as described and founded by Our Master, Tanner Cahsway, maintains social disequilibrium. This generates tension and thus energy and work. If you feel anger toward a senior, that is natural. Do not express it. Take the anger and put it to work for you.
Sublimation is duty.
There is one prime duty, but a thousand pathways to it, all of which are dutiful. Each person with the help of the Regimen travels toward duty in a way that is fresh and new and his own. Anything that contributes to order and energy is dutiful.
Thus duty may consist of overriding all other duties here listed.
Thus one must rebel, show disrespect, go against even a master if it prevents negligence of the one prime duty. One must do so even if justice is not done and one is punished.
Duty takes precedence over individual people.
from the letters of Raul Kundara
(continued)
The time drags on since my night in the Angelroom. I stay here in my room. Mzobwe thinks I am working. They will never see this letter. I can say what I like.
I hate this place. I hate my elders, I hate the regulars. They sit dead, playing cards, not speaking even to each other. They have all been placed here because they want to hide, because they dislike the worlds. I hate dirty dishes. I mistrust the Chief and his joke
s. And don’t, please, tell me again that it is my duty after three years of study to wash dishes! Duty is a lie! There is no such thing! Everyone does what he likes, until made to do something else.
I don’t like science. I forced it on myself. I had hoped it would save me from a life like yours and Tamel’s, trapped in rigid placings and meager work. You encouraged me. I studied, but only out of habit and fear. I passed exams, and then forgot what I had learned. When I was finished, Old Regi called me a Biological Engineer, and you were proud. I concocted a project for research. Could life exist in stars, in nebulae, on all the cold rocky worlds even Angels bypass? I called it “On the Possibility of Life under Extreme Conditions.” It had no interest for me. It was a way out to the stars. And when the alien had been found; when the listing was actually in my hand; when chance had given me a door to open, I simply did not have the energy. I didn’t care.
Science can be a beautiful thing. Clean thought, pure thought, peeling back the universe in layers, dazzling in its leaps, humble in its careful workings. I have the head, but not the heart for it. I have misused it and myself.
At supper some days ago, a regular stopped at my table. He wore only half his coolsuit, and his eyes skimmed everyone skittishly as he spoke. He asked for the shift-times, though he plainly had his chart with him, and asked no one in particular if the food was well-cooked. In reply people shrugged and looked embarrassed. He nodded good-bye awkwardly and walked on. I stewed up complicated reasons for his strangeness, all to do with bottled anger and middle age. I like talking about people, but I always make things too complicated. “He is lonely, that’s all,” said a young regular with a soft and pale face. “He does not know how to talk to people.” She was right, inarguably. Simplicity has its own shrewdness. I resent all those years I studied. They gave me an excuse to be aloof. I don’t think I understand people at all, and this pains me. I don’t think I actually see them. I never saw Gareth. I did not see the Chief until too late. I begin to get some glimmer of this woman.
She hates it here too. We all do. She checks the log transcripts and makes hideous mistakes. Her face goes splotchy with boredom as she sits at her console. She keeps bad shift-time, but most people forgive her because she is so bored. I had thought she was merely stupid. She is, instead, withdrawn. I did not realize that until I saw her laughing and nodding freely with the newly arrived wife of a young regular. Most other women at the station are respected seniors or leathery old researchers. For a time she was the only young woman here. The men made jokes about her body, teased her, coaxed her, eyed her, even the old ones. There was no one for her to talk to. She has been here three years.
I consume my youth for the sake of a placing. She spends her years doing work that she hates. What is this placing? I will tell you. It is a way of using up our time, to keep us busy and unthinking. They don’t need young certed men with just three years training and a project that no one is interested in. They don’t need someone to check the logs. I tell you this placing is hollow. It is a lie. I feel myself to be no part of any great salvation, just because they tell me so.
They will know I have failed. They will know I let the counting lie on my desk like a sickness. No one will take my title of researcher seriously now. I don’t know what will happen. I will stay on here, I suppose. I will do my duty-work testing food from the Slide, inspecting genetic damage, washing dishes. They will call it my contribution. But it could be done by machines. I fear I will end up as lost a soul as any regular. I want to run away, but there is no place to run to.
Just before daylight:
I keep thinking about what went wrong between us, and why I keep writing to you. I can’t remember the pain we shared at my birth. But you do. No wonder you love me more than I love you. It is very hard for me to imagine that flesh and blood connection, the fact that I came from you. It seems such a curious thing. But somewhere I must feel it, something that deep. Else, why, alone here in this room, am I writing to you a letter that will never be read?
You were right to say I was hostile and resentful. I was. I felt trapped by so many things. By my work, by our life, by all the things that made Tamel what he is. I’m sorry. I do love you, very much. For some reason I find it very difficult to say.
I wonder if I ever will.
from the Hellespont Angelogs
Transcripts of 1363/30/1
Time
Recorded Material
9508
Z
I have come back.
9510
B
Yes.
9515
Z
I went outside.
I saw the stars again.
I went down to the very core.
I found your coolplace.
Bestilled nitrogen.
9520
B
It migrates.
Did you see him?
9525
Z
No.
Perhaps he’ll come back.
9529
B
I hope not.
I hope he stays away,
away from us, away from them.
9532
Z
This anger in you still!
Like a weight!
9536
B
Yes.
9538
Z
It is what drove him away, Bee!
This anger, this bitterness.
It hurt him.
It hurts me.
9541
B
I know.
9545
Z
Then why be taken over by it?
Do you want to be alone?
You’ve become heavy, heavy and dull.
9550
B
Not dull, my love.
No.
I burn!
I burn like a sun!
I know what they are.
I know what they will do.
Animated stomachs
in the habit of eating!
They can’t break it.
They would swallow the universe,
if they could.
Do you think they will
stop the Daphne project,
give up a humanized world
for the sake of an alien?
9577
Z
They will hold to
the Regimen Directive.
They have promised us that.
9583
B
The Directive!
The Directive is there
only to keep aliens alive long enough
to steal their technology!
The Dajja has none.
9593
Z
That is not true!
9595
B
It’s true enough, in the end.
9598
Z
Tanner Cahsway speaks
of the sacredness of life!
You are blind with hatred!
Why?
10/9604
B
Because they stop us being
what we should be.
9608
Z
Which is?
9610
B
Free!
From them!
To wander where we will,
beyond the stars.
9618
Z
Then wander. Leave.
9620
B
I am waiting for you.
9624
Z
Bee.
We are human too.
9630
B
No. Not any longer.
9638
Control
Angels, are you receiving?
Angels, this is Control.
9643
Z
Yes, Control, we are receiving.
9645
B
What has Control decided?
9648
Will you be able to find the alien
when the time comes?
9653
Z
Daphne is a large sun.
But yes.
9658
B
What have you decided!
9662
Control
The decision that has been made
was not an easy one, B…
9665
B
It should have been.
9667
Control
…We still do not know
what the alien is.
What Central Control can say
with some assurance
is that it would not survive
a return, however gradual,
to a less ripe stellar environment.
The increased density
and temperature would rather quickly
disperse it.
Perhaps when we have studied it further…
9689
B
And where will you study him?
9691
Control
That brings up the question of
its intelligence.
9695
B
There is no question of it.
9697
Control
I am afraid that there is.
10/9700
B
On what grounds?
The Dajja thinks!
9705
Control
I am afraid the beast
has forced us to redefine our terms…