A right arm wrapped itself around his left, and Wandra whispered in his ear. "Well, I think Cal's going to do all right without us. We're planning to take two-hour shifts in the teaching with one-hour breaks after each pair of lectures, so the students'll have a chance once in a while to behave like normal Rosans. How does that sound?"
Sorrel nodded. "We're playing this all by ear, so your suggestion sounds as good as any. We'll see how it goes with this group, and readjust later. I've got a feeling that two or four hours of humans talking is too much at a shot, but we'll see."
Wandra had been gently tugging him out of the room while he talked. Two Rosans in an electric wagon whooshed by with a load of tunneling equipment. Wandra plopped onto the cool stone floor and Sorrel followed, awkwardly falling over her as she dragged him down. She laughed, beautifully, and he laughed as well. She shook her head. "I was getting so tired standing there in the lecture hall, I couldn't wait for a chance to sit down," Wandra said.
Sorrel nodded. "Yes, I've got the feeling all my blood went into my legs. I think we'll have to install a few chairs here and there in strategic locations around Khayyam. Either that, or do some genetic engineering on the Rosans so they need chairs, too—that way we can invent the chair for them and make a huge profit, selling cushions."
Wandra laughed again, a wonderful human sound. Rosans knew laughter, too, but it was a swift, chirping sound, the laughter of hummingbirds. There was no time for rich melodies here on Khayyam.
Wandra's laughter cut just a bit short. "Were you watching the engineers while you were speaking?"
Sorrel sighed. "Yes, I was."
"They worship you."
"I know."
The silence hung heavy in the still, dry air. Wandra spoke again. "I know you did something special for these people once, but frankly I'm amazed by how they remember you. That was hundreds of generations ago, wasn't it, whatever you did?"
Sorrel sighed. "Yeah, but the Rosan memory is long and fickle. "
Wandra just stared at him.
He exhaled slowly. "Especially, they remember their gods."
She nodded. "Brek Dar El Kind said something like that."
"Brek Dar El Kind?"
"One of the students."
"Um." Long pause. "Did he tell you of the Faith of Six Parents?" She shook her head. "Well, it's the main religion of Khayyam. In fact, it's the only religion here in the MoonBenders Cavernwork. The followers of the earlier religion were wiped out here in a war some years ago. Shortly after I finished my dissertation on Rosan culture, as it happens."
"Um. Coincidence?"
Sorrel clutched his head in his hands. "I'm afraid not. You see, I invented the Faith of Six Parents." He shrugged. "Oh, it wasn't a religion when I invented it, it was just an idea—but when my idea got mixed with real beings on a real planet with real problems, it became a religion." He took a deep breath.
Just then they heard someone—or something—skitter around the corner. The something made sharp clicking steps, much different from the Rosans. "Freeze," Sorrel ordered Wandra.
He turned toward the sound. Sure enough, a krat hunched there, eyeing them hungrily.
The man and the krat looked at each other for a long time, there in the tunnel. The krat's petals were more ragged than Rosan petals, and a vicious scar gouged the length of his left side. The small but tough creature approached.
An electric cart whirred down the passage toward them, and the krat vanished.
Sorrel noticed his hands were shaking, and his brow was damp despite the dustiness. "They really aren't very dangerous," he said, as much to himself as to Wandra. "Usually the krat don't bother adult Rosans. But the Rosans recently started another big extermination push on the krat, and hunger makes them bolder."
Wandra squeezed his arm. "Thanks," she said, before looking him in the eye with some amusement. "You were telling me about your dissertation. "
"Ah yes." Sorrel took a deep breath. "I guess I'll give you the whole spiel."
He exhaled slowly. "I'll start with the Rosan lifecycle. Rosans have two sexes, pretty much like humans, except they get along better." Wandra hit Sorrel in the arm, and he laughed. "Anyway, each pair of genetic parents produce several eggs. The eggs hatch in about a year, and the larvae take off into the deserts. These larval Rosans are tough beasts, tough enough to survive repeated exposure to Khayyam's sun. The larvae grow and fight for about two years before returning to the place of hatching. At that time they metamorphose into adults." Sorrel felt Wandra's breath upon his cheek, and enjoyed the warmth of having a woman near him again. It had been a long time. "The last act of metamorphosis is the bloodfeast, in which the larva consumes the bulk of the brainblood of its bloodparents. From the bloodparents the larva gets many memories, opinions, and attitudes—foremost are the memories associated with the parents', uh . . ." What was a human equivalent? Sorrel winced. "Their purpose, I suppose. Except the purpose is also transmitted in brainblood, and it takes generations to change the direction of the brainblood's purpose, even if one of the individuals in the bloodline is fanatically dedicated to a different purpose." Sorrel shrugged. "Anyway, the larva also feasts on a part of the brainblood of the brainparents and receives some of their memories as well—though the brainparent memories are stripped of emotional associations. You could think of the brainparent memories as being collections of highlighted facts, and the bloodparent memories as being both facts and beliefs." Sorrel chuckled. "Actually, there are theorists who think that all memories are passed, even though only a part of the bloodmemories are remembered. But it'd be hard to prove—no Rosan could live long enough to remember that many memories anyway. Especially since the individual Rosan has a photographic memory, as far as his own life is concerned. Just remembering one parent's whole life would be a lifetime affair."
Sorrel stood up, dragging Wandra with him as she had earlier dragged him. "Let's walk." Their direction led away from that of the krat's departure. "Since the larvae always return to their hatch-place for the bloodfeast, genetic parents tended to be the bloodparents as well. Thus there were four parents.
"But after the invention of the shovel, civilization developed inside the caverns, where Rosans could live both day and night. In this new environment the identity of genetic and bloodparents was no longer necessary; in fact, it was a severe hindrance to progress. Since the egg and larval stages last three years, the memories of the great scientists and philosophers missed a hundred generations of civilization between incarnations." Sorrel's voice turned bitter. "That's where my distant, objective eye came into play. I saw something better. You see, if they used a different larva—a larva that reached maturity just as a person died—the person's memories wouldn't have to wait for three years. No, that person's memories could be incarnated the next day." Sorrel shrugged. "The Rosans themselves never saw this possibility. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an instinct for having genetic parents as bloodparents. Not that an instinct was needed anymore—the correspondence of genetic parents with bloodparents was institutionalized in the Faith of Four Parents. The religious leaders, of course, vehemently opposed the six-parent concept."
"So there was a war."
Sorrel nodded. "War isn't common among Rosans—it takes too many generations to make a change that way. Assassination and brainblood-burning are more common. But when they have a war, it's a total war in the finest human tradition." Like the kind we waged against the Lazarines, he thought. "The Faith of Six won, of course; no one in the universe can beat the speed with which a six-parent Rosan culture can make advances in experimental sciences like weaponry, because no one else could conduct so many experiments so fast as a series of determined generations of Rosans."
"Which is why we brought the FTLcom here, to be done swiftly."
"Yes." Sorrel looked at his watch. "You know, if you hurry, you'll still be late for your part of today's lecture."
Wandra stared at his timepiece, turned and rushed down the tunnel. Sorrel laughe
d, watching.
Cal never learned their names.
Their faces and their names changed, but their minds stayed the same—as each tech on the FTLcom project died, the Bloodkeepers fed his brainblood to the next, best returning larva. There was one class for the dayspinners and one for the nightspinners. The minds were constant within those two groups.
Too constant. Day after day Cal would answer the same questions—sharp, insightful questions, but still the same questions. Oh, the Rosans always knew all the facts before they came to class: they read all the textbooks beforehand. With photographic memories it was a breeze. Yes, they knew the facts—but to understand and manipulate those facts was another matter, and facts without understanding simply wouldn't transmit through brainblood. The brainblood absorbed abstruse mathematics in tiny increments; to produce a clear imprint would require generations of effort.
Sorrel and the Bloodkeepers told him that soon their determined screening and selection of bloodlines would produce engineers who remembered FTL hyperspace mechanics with facility, for whom the brainblood's purpose was directed toward this kind of learning. But for now there was a slow, painful learning process.
So Cal would teach. Incredibly swiftly they would learn, and then the new faces would come the next day, having forgotten. So Cal would teach.
Until one nightspin he met Dor Laff To Lin. She was delicate and graceful, even for a Rosan. Her mouth quirked into a laughing smile at the slightest provocation. Better yet, she asked new questions.
New questions! Her brain- and blood-parents had passed their knowledge and their understanding in brainblood, and Dor Laff knew it all. She knew, perhaps, as much as Cal himself, and when she reached midnight age Cal no longer knew answers to her questions. He blustered and flushed at her; she laughed and worked with him. She taught the rest of the class to help him find the answers to her new questions, digging ever deeper into the vitals of the Universe.
Cal had never known a woman with whom he could laugh and work, nor had he ever been a member of a team, a leading member at that: though Dor Laff controlled the discussions, it was Cal's mind that was central; it was Cal's mind that was tapped for knowledge and insights. They pushed him beyond the seeming limits of his creativity, to see new truths, and then they took his truth and ran with it farther and faster, in many directions, than a human mind could go.
But Cal didn't have time to be disturbed by their superiority—for as one group ran off with a new idea, Dor Laff would bring him back to work another track, another direction, to send another group racing in another new direction. Never had he loved so deeply someone who had given him so much.
Dawn approached; the brightness in Dor Laffs eyes was fading, but Cal was too flushed with victory to notice. He half-sat, half-fell to the edge of the lecture platform. Waves of exhaustion caught up with him. "Dor Laff, you're a miracle," he told her in ecstasy.
She knelt beside him and touched his cheek. The gentle petals of her hand brushed across his forehead. "Will you remember me?" she asked.
He looked into her eyes. "Of course I will."
She hugged him. "Thank you, thank you for letting me touch your immortality." She turned. "Good-bye."
He called to her, but she was gone for the moment. The fatigue of thirty hours of concentration took him; he slept.
When he woke, she was gone forever.
". . . and things are going remarkably smoothly, all in all," Sorrel was saying into his dictalog when Wandra's call came through.
"Sorrel, we've got a problem here," Wandra yelled above the background sound of an angry crowd. "Cal's lost his cool, with a vengeance. We'll be lucky if they don't lynch us."
"Stay calm," he urged on his way out the door. "Be with you in a flash."
The FTLcom cavern had changed a great deal since the last time Sorrel had seen it; corners here and there contained the beginnings of pieces of equipment that would've given Euclid headaches; some were shrouded to prevent glances into the gravwarps being generated. There were nearly 400 Rosans there now, all murmuring to one another. Cal stood before them, cursing and pleading in anguish. "Why don't you remember? Why are you asking me the same thing again? Why do you question me? Listen to me, please!" Several of the Rosans had left their inclines and gathered near the front platform.
A dozen Rosans saw Sorrel enter the room and hurried to him. "Man Everwood, what should we do?" they asked, with reverence in their eyes.
"Nothing," he replied grimly. "Don't let any Rosans touch him. I'm gonna have enough trouble with him as it is." He turned to Wandra. "How tough are you in a fistfight?" Sorrel asked in Anglic.
"Brown belt in modkido. How 'bout you?" She barked a short, tense laugh.
He shook his head. "I'm too old, I'm afraid. I'll distract him; you grab him. Wish we had more manpower, but if the Rosans tried to touch him, he'd really go wild."
"They'd only get hurt, anyway—too fragile," she commented as they moved in on the podium.
"Cal," Sorrel yelled above the noise, "A shuttle just arrived from New Terra! There's a message for you!"
Cal stopped cold. "What?"
Wandra rushed him. He flailed, and Sorrel ran up to assist Wandra. A few minutes' struggle left Cal tired and sobbing.
"Take him back to his cave?" Wandra asked.
Sorrel shook his head. "The ship. Let's surround him with as much humanness as we can. He's suffering classic culture shock."
They picked him up, started him moving out of the cavern. "Classic culture shock? I never heard of anybody frothing gibberish because of culture shock before."
"Well, almost classic culture shock," Sorrel grunted. "You've gotta admit, this culture has a lot of shock in it." He bit his lip, and together they dragged Cal's limp body back to the ship.
Sorrel had never been a practicing psychologist, at least not to the extent of hanging out a shingle and looking for lost psyches. But it seemed to be his main function on this trip; perhaps Balcyrak had known all along that this would happen.
The psychologist took a deep breath, but otherwise retained a professional calm. Apparently this episode had been triggered by the death of a Rosan woman. Sorrel cursed himself for thinking Cal's aloofness would protect him; the aloofness had made him all the more vulnerable, once someone broke through the shell.
At the moment Sorrel was sitting quietly next to Cal, who lay on an accelerator couch pouring forth his soul. Freud would have loved it. Sorrel did not. It had taken great effort even to get Dor Laffs name, and Cal still didn't acknowledge her as his source of pain. "Is that the only problem with the Rosans, Cal? Are you sure?"
Cal nodded. "I can't stand it. Every day I teach the same thing, again and again, and the faces are different." The last ended in a howl of horror. "Every day different, never the same person twice." He whimpered, "Please, let me have just one student twice."
Sorrel shook his head. "Don't they remember, Cal? Don't they ever, from one day to the next? Just one thing. Can you remember?"
"Well . . . just a couple of things. Not much. Always the same questions . . ."
Wandra knocked at the open door of the cabin; Sorrel waved her in. "How's he doin', Doc?" she asked, attempting to be light and cheery.
"Cal's as fine as ever, of course. I think we'll spend the rest of the afternoon here, though. Can you manage the courses by yourself?"
She nodded. "You bet, Doc. Stimpills and me, we've got what it takes."
"Yeah, I'll bet. Next Cal will have to take the whole show for two days, while you recuperate.'"
"Faith, Doc, faith. Catch ya later." She was gone before Sorrel could speak again.
He turned back to Cal. "You were telling me what else bothers you about the Rosans, besides the fact that they forget every day."
"I was?" Cal twisted his head to Sorrel. "I, uh, I guess there is something else. They don't remember too well, but . . ." Cal's shoulders shook as he sobbed. "They're, they're smarter than we are. I just don't believe how much smarter they are.
So fast, so sharp. Every day I say the same things over again, but every day they learn it again in just a matter of minutes. " He rolled over, away from Sorrel, and mumbled into the couch, "God, what I'd give to be able to think as fast as they can."
"Would you give your life for it, Cal? They do."
"I know, I know, but . . ." He rolled back over, smiled through the tears. "My old quant prof, Durbrig, used to tell me my problem was that I wanted it all. I guess I still do."
"I guess so, too. I envy you that, Cal. I wish I still had enough hope to dare to want it all." Sorrel stood up. "Stay here until, oh, maybe 5100 hours, and come on back to the cavernwork. Think you'll be all right?"
"Yeah." He smiled, crossed his arms as Wandra would. "Sure thing, Doc."
The new nightspin Bloodbond was different from the earlier Bonds; this Sorrel could tell already, and he hadn't even met the being yet. But so far three other Rosans had gone in to see the Bond, leaving Sorrel to cool his heels for upwards of two minutes—a short but significant wait. Earlier, Sorrel had received immediate service, regardless of how important the other callers were and how precious their time was. It had always made Sorrel uncomfortable before, but now its absence left a trace of anxiety nibbling his mind.
As the third Rosan left, Kik Nee Mord Deth beckoned him. "What, Man, want you?" he asked in peremptory Rosan.
"Equipment," Sorrel replied as smoothly as he could manage. "FTLcom tech bloodmemories firm now. Prototype construction begins. Trouble develops acquiring these items." He held out a list to Kik Nee, who snatched it, skimmed it, and thrust it back to Sorrel.
The Gentle Seduction Page 12