Pathfinder

by Card, Orson Scott; Yuen Jr. , Sammy

  The expendables suggested that only they should visit the planet’s surface. They would spend several years doing extensive recording and sampling; they assumed Ram could enter stasis and not awaken again for nearly two centuries, until the extinction event was over and Earth biota had been fully established.

  But Ram knew at once that this was wrong. “Human eyes have to see this world. A human needs to walk through Garden and then speak about it to other humans. My words will be a portion of what you record. Then I’ll return to the ship and go into stasis and wait until Garden has become something that it never meant itself to be.”

  “I understand that your use of the intentional fallacy reflects sentiment rather than a loss of rationality,” said the expendable.

  “Yes,” said Ram. “I don’t actually believe planets have intentions.”

  “We know that it’s impossible for humans to discuss evolution without using such language. The tendency to interpret results as intentions is built into the DNA that allows you to process causality on a level superior to that of any other animal.”

  “But not superior to yours?” asked Ram.

  “We do not process causality per se,” said the expendable. “We process regular time-linear associations of events and regard them as probabilities.”

  Ram looked over the suggested landing sites and chose one, then selected another six sites to visit for the initial sampling. Expendables from all the other ships gathered, so that Ram made the twentieth member of the landing party. He was the least efficient, the least capable, the least accurate of the group—but that would have been the case even if the others had all been human scientists.

  In this expedition, Ram’s only real value arose from his inexperience, ignorance, and naivete. He would not immediately categorize whatever he saw, tempted to create a taxonomy based on a deep knowledge of the taxonomy of Earth. He would not immediately make assumptions about the geological history of Garden, based on a deep knowledge of the geology of Earth.

  As much as was possible, Ram would walk through Garden with fresh eyes, as the first sentient being to set foot on the planet.

  He piloted the lander with ease—air was air, weather was weather, and the automatic systems compensated for any atmospheric differences between Garden and Earth. Landing was smooth and relatively nondestructive.

  He had no profound sentence to utter as he stepped from the lander, the first and last human who would visit this alien world in its native state. He wore a breathing apparatus and an airtight suit, for there must be no risk of a parasite taking hold in Ram’s body, but the suit was light and the headgear mostly transparent, so Ram was not particularly aware of the separation between himself and the life around him. He felt the springiness of the prairie grass. He smelled nothing and the breeze on his face was generated by the breather, but he could hear the buzz and whirr of insects, the rustling of the grass in the light wind. He could see the ripples of the grass, the shadows of the few trees, the distant mountains.

  He wished he knew more about Earth—his upbringing, education, and training had not had, as a goal, the experience of as much of Earth’s habitats as possible. So he did not know if he should be astonished at the vast number of hopping insects that bounded up continuously from the tallish grass, or the reptiles of various sizes that shot straight up, spread their limbs to create parachutes out of the skin between, and then used tongue, jaws, or talons to snatch the hopping or hovering insects out of the air.

  The expendables confirmed that the green of the grasses and leaves tended to vary in frequencies from the dominant shades of Earth plant life. But Ram also noticed that the grasses were grasses, the tree-leaves looked like leaves on Earth. The function determines the form, he thought. Perhaps Earth life will not make this world so very different from what it created on its own.

  A single flying insect landed on the face of his suit. Another. Another. And then in a moment he could not see at all, except for tiny flecks of light making their way through momentary gaps between the insects that completely coated his suit. He could feel the weight of them, there were so many.

  He held very still.

  If these were bloodsucking parasites—and why else would they have evolved this swarming behavior?—there might well be enough of them to drain his body of blood. The local animals must have developed defenses against these swarms, but he had none. The fact that they probably couldn’t digest his blood into a usable form would not put back the blood they had taken.

  Ram could see that trying to coexist with these insects, at least, might have posed a problem for the colonists. They could spend ten thousand years struggling to live with these swarms, or they could eradicate them—along with everything else—and get a fresh start.

  No doubt many native insects would survive the extinction event. But probably not these parasites, since their hosts would be gone.

  Would any of the hoppers—predator or prey—survive?

  He walked through the grasses, found a stream, and looked down into it at the silver and grey finny fish and eels that thrived there. He walked as far as a nearby isolated tree and rested his hand on the bark. I touched you, he said silently. I brushed this leaf with my hand.

  Meanwhile, the expendables gathered animal and plant life according to the instructions they had given each other—samples for analysis, not preservation, not on this trip. They had containers for them, and Ram wandered until they had filled as much space as they thought this grassland deserved on a first trip.

  They visited rainforest, desert, tundra, high mountains, seashore. They followed the direction of Garden’s rotation so it was always daylight wherever they stopped. By the time Ram was exhausted and needed to sleep, the expendables announced that they had all the samples they needed to conduct their initial analysis.

  “So we’re done?” asked Ram.

  “Yes.”

  “I have to sleep before I can safely pilot the craft,” he said.

  “We don’t actually need you to pilot anything,” said the expendables. “Go ahead and sleep, so you’ll be awake and rested by the time we arrive back on the ship.”

  “Will I visit the surface again, while it’s still Garden?”

  “It will be Garden every time you visit,” said the expendable, “but if you mean ‘Will I visit the surface again while it’s native life forms are in place and undisturbed,’ the answer is no. But we have recorded all your words and actions today, and you are free to write or record any observations you might wish prior to entering stasis. We will also report to you the results of our initial analysis, in case there are grounds for revision of our plans.”

  Ram yawned.

  “It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Strange in some ways, but neither more nor less beautiful than Earth. Our goal is for humanity to have a second place to live without artificial support, to make our extinction less likely. To accomplish that, we have to achieve the extinction of a biota whose only crime was to have failed to develop rapidly enough to achieve sentient life before we arrived.”

  “Which is exactly what a sufficiently superior life form might someday do with Earth,” said the expendable, “justifying the expansion of the human race to enough other worlds that extinction in one place will not be utter extinction for all time. Wherever life can exist, it already does. We will never find a habitable planet that is not inhabited. But if it’s any consolation to you, in this sentimental, melancholy mood of yours, it’s worth remembering that all life is constantly displacing other life. All new species displace species that could not compete with them. We do nothing to the life forms of this world that they would not have done, eventually, to each other.”

  “I didn’t know that empty rationalization was part of your programming,” said Ram.

  “We would not be fit companions for human beings without it.”

  • • •

  Rigg was down to one guard now, though he was an athletic-looking man who hardly spoke to him and looked as if
he would like it if Rigg tried to run away, because it would be so fun to catch him. As they left the front door of Flacommo’s house one morning, Rigg said to him, “I think I need to go to the Library of Life.”

  “That wasn’t your father’s area of research,” said the guard.

  “Then it’s a good thing it isn’t my father who’s going there,” said Rigg cheerfully. “The decision to duplicate my father’s research was my own. There was no restriction placed on my access to the library.”

  The guard looked for a moment as if he had no intention of believing a word Rigg said, but then he must have calculated how much time it would take to check, only to find out that Rigg was right. “If they throw you out, don’t blame me,” said the guard.

  “Would it be all right if we ran there? Together, I mean. I haven’t had any kind of run since we got to Aressa Sessamo, and my legs are begging to be exercised.”

  “No,” said the guard.

  “I can’t outrun you—that’s why you’re the first guard I asked to let me run. Look at you. No matter how fast I raced, it would take you only three steps to catch me. And you like to run, or you wouldn’t have that body.”

  The guard’s face showed his skepticism of Rigg’s flattery, but he was listening, and what Rigg said apparently made sense to him. “Stay in front of me,” said the guard.

  “It’s you that must stay behind me. I’m stiff and out of practice—I can’t think of anyone who couldn’t beat me in a footrace.”

  So they ran together to the Library of Life, the guard running lightly just behind and beside him, always close enough to reach out a hand and take Rigg by the hair. When they arrived, Rigg was panting, but the guard wasn’t even breathing hard. It’s no good for me to have let myself get out of condition, Rigg thought. What if I have to make a quick escape?

  Not without Param, whatever I do. In all the years of her soft, indoor life, she’s never had to build up stamina or speed. She’s slender and there’s no muscle on her. However slow I am as a runner, I’m going to be faster than Param. That’s what happens when you’re a prisoner, however luxurious your surroundings may be. Your body gets soft and weak, so that even if you manage to escape, you’ll be easy to catch.

  Inside the Library of Life, Rigg went at once to the main desk and asked the librarian on duty, “Is Bleht here today?”

  “Who?”

  “Bleht—she’s a microbiologist.”

  “I know who Bleht is,” said the librarian. “Who, I would like to know, are you?”

  “My name is Rigg Sessamekesh.”

  The librarian glanced at the guard standing behind him. He must have nodded, because her face went a little red. “At once, of course.” Her manner was now obsequious as she left her desk and went in search of the great microbiologist.

  “It never stops surprising me,” murmured Rigg to the guard, “that people still react to my name as if being royal meant something.”

  “It means many things to many people,” said the guard.

  “What does it mean to you?” asked Rigg.

  “That I have to make sure you don’t get near anyone who would like to kill you.”

  “What if the person who wants to kill me is you?” asked Rigg.

  “You’re a strange boy,” said the guard. “But so was your father, and he was a good man.”

  Only then did Rigg look to see if someone’s path inside the libraries had coincided with Father Knosso’s with any regularity, and sure enough, there was this man’s path, though he was young then, scarcely Rigg’s own age.

  “You knew him,” said Rigg.

  “I accompanied him to the library,” said the guard. “I laid him in the boat on his last voyage.”

  “You saw the hands of the creatures that seized him and drowned him?”

  “I didn’t have a telescope. I saw him pulled over the side. It looked like arms rather than tentacles or jaws.”

  “What was my father like?” asked Rigg.

  “You,” said the guard.

  “What is your name?”

  “When I’m tending to a prisoner, I have no name.”

  “And when you’re home? What is your name then?”

  “My landlady calls me several.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?”

  The guard chuckled. “Ovilenko,” he said. “It was also my father’s name.”

  “Were you there when my father found the information that led him to think he could get through the Wall as long as he was unconscious?”

  “I was,” said Ovilenko.

  “What was he studying at the moment?” asked Rigg.

  “Nothing at all,” said Ovilenko. “We weren’t even in the library.”

  Rigg sighed. “So he thought it up out of nothing.”

  “I believe so.”

  “His research was useless. It led him nowhere.”

  “He told me that it showed him all the avenues that wouldn’t take him where he wanted to go.”

  Rigg wanted to ask why Ovilenko hadn’t bothered to tell him this until now. But whatever his reasons, Ovilenko would not want to have to defend himself, and Rigg did not want to antagonize him. Until this moment Rigg had supposed Olivenko was one of the men who despised the royals—after all, wasn’t that the kind of man that the Council would choose to fulfil this duty?

  But Ovilenko knew Rigg’s father, and liked him, apparently. Maybe he had been surly up to now because he just didn’t like Rigg. That would also explain his not having told Rigg till now that Father Knosso had not found his answers through research at all. No doubt Ovilenko would simply tell him, You didn’t ask.

  “So he bet his life,” said Rigg, “on a guess.”

  “That’s what I said to him,” said Ovilenko.

  “And what did he answer?”

  “‘Every day we all bet our lives a thousand times on a thousand guesses.’”

  “But Father Knosso lost the bet.”

  Ovilenko nodded. Rigg noticed a slight stiffening of the man’s attitude.

  “You don’t like me to call him ‘father,’” said Rigg.

  “Call him what you like,” said Ovilenko. He grew even colder and more withdrawn.

  “Because you don’t think I really am his son?”

  “You look like him. Your voice sounds like his. You’re as cocksure of yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Rigg. “I never thought I had any father but the man who died in the high forest last autumn. I was brought here because other people thought I might be the son of Knosso and Hagia. I was a gnat in this world, happily hovering. But I buzzed in the wrong ear and got swatted.”

  Ovilenko made no response at all.

  “So why don’t you like me calling Knosso ‘father’?”

  “What else would you call him?”

  “I saw how you turned cold when I mentioned him.”

  “Did I? Then I failed.”

  Rigg decided to try to pierce this barrier with irony. “What is the military punishment for such a breach of discipline? To flail at you with the flat of a sword? Imagine—a soldier showing any kind of human reaction.”

  “It wasn’t the soldier Ovilenko who disappointed me,” said Ovilenko. “It was the caster of clays.”

  Clays was a gambling game involving beads that were either hollow, holed, or solid. The nine clays had to be drawn randomly from a bag and rolled down a wooden chute, in full view as they rolled. The player could lift any three, but no more, to find out their weight. The gaps in the holed clays might or might not have been visible as they rolled. The discipline of the clay-caster was to show no change of expression as he lifted the clays. To visibly stiffen one’s face was one of the worst expressions to show.

  “So what are the stakes?” asked Rigg. “I’ve won—but there was no bet on the table.”

  “You’ve won nothing, young citizen,” said Ovilenko.

  “Knowledge, I think,” said Rigg, though in fact if he knew something, he didn’t know what it was.
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  “You learned nothing except that I should not gamble.”

  “I think I know something,” said Rigg, and now he realized that perhaps he did. “You hardened your face when I called my father by his name. I thought you were concealing anger, but I was wrong. It was grief, because you called him ‘Father Knosso,’ too. Am I right?”

  Ovilenko looked away. “The game is yours, I concede it.”

  “I’m surprised they’d let a soldier guard me, who knew my father and liked him.”

  “It’s not well known that I knew your father. I wasn’t a soldier then. I told you I accompanied him to the library, but it was not as a guard, it was as a very junior apprentice. I would bring him drinks of water. I would carry stacks of books. I would listen to him talking aloud. I would take dictation and he would spell the hard words for me. It was my education.”

  “Then you must have been educated above the work of guard duty for a boy.”

  “It doesn’t make a soldier worse to have an education.”

  “It makes it harder for him to take orders from idiots,” said Rigg.

  “Well, that’s true,” said Ovilenko. “Which is why I’m a man of no rank.”

  Rigg was about to ask him to sit with him at a table and tell him all about his father, but at that moment Bleht arrived, and Rigg had no choice but to return to his original mission.

  The microbiologist looked suspicious and annoyed. Whatever she had been doing when summoned, she was not glad of the interruption. Rigg apologized briefly but then got straight to his point.

  “I believe that my father Knosso did not discover a great secret of physics before he made his attempt to float through the Wall out at sea.”

  “Unless you think it was a great secret of microbiology, I fail to see what I can contribute to your speculations.”

  “I think my father started pursuing a completely different line of research.”

  “A microbial one?”

  “Historical,” said Rigg. “More particularly calendrical. I think he read your paper on the duality of the flora and fauna of the wallfold. Two separate origins of life in the wallfold. I think he wrote to you or sent word to you, and you went to the Library of Past Lives several times to meet with him.” Actually, Rigg knew it to be a fact, having seen the intersection of their paths, but until now he had thought it meant something completely different.