Transcendental

by Gunn, James

  “How could I forget?”

  “The fighter was blown apart, but somehow we both survived,” the captain said.

  “I didn’t know you had survived until you rescued us from the vator.”

  “I was in reconstruction for three months in a different hospital ship.”

  “They put you back together pretty well,” Riley said.

  “What you can’t see are the mechanical parts and the A.I.s.”

  “I’m grateful for that.”

  “Why did you leave me there, Riley?”

  “I was unconscious for thirty days,” Riley said. “And when I woke up, they told me you were dead. They didn’t have to rebuild me, like you, but I spent nearly a year in the hospital.”

  “Maybe they wished I was dead,” the captain said. “Or maybe they lost me in the system. The man who came out was not the same man who went in.”

  “Which man am I speaking to?”

  “Some kind of composite creature who would like to be Hamilton Jones again,” the captain said. “That’s what the Transcendental Machine offers me.”

  “You’re right: that’s an answer to the second question,” Riley said. He wasn’t sure it was the truth, but it was an answer. “What about the first?”

  “As to that,” the captain said, “I know only a little more than you do.”

  “How can that be true?”

  “The ship was hired from the corporation. The payment was substantial—they could have bought this sorry vessel for less, but the price included the captain and funds for hiring a crew.”

  “Who rented the ship?”

  “Commercial transactions are often anonymous, or hidden behind a series of go-betweens; this one, though, was concealed better than any my employers had ever experienced.”

  “I understand why no one would want it known that the ship had been hired to seek out the Transcendental Machine, but why wouldn’t your employers demand that kind of information?”

  “The money was solid. My employers were satisfied. They were paid enough that they didn’t care if the ship ever came back, and I was satisfied to be a part of it once I found out where we were going.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Ah,” the captain said. It was a sound that suggested the gulf between goals and destinations.

  “You mean you knew that we were supposed to seek out the Transcendental Machine but you weren’t given directions.”

  The captain looked at Riley as if surprised at Riley’s ability to riddle his meaning. “Exactly. What I got was a pedia that opened to a new nexus only after the previous one had been passed. Ordinarily I would have kept it all in here.” The captain tapped his skull. “My add-ons have unusual abilities. But this wrist pedia is all I have.”

  “Surely you can break through any firewalls.”

  “Ordinarily I would say you were right,” the captain said. “I’m very good at programs, and my add-ons are even better. But this one was created by a master—maybe the most advanced programmers I’ve ever encountered. Or—”

  “Or what?”

  “Or my pedia is being updated after each Jump.”

  “But that would mean—”

  “Yes, the person or creature who has the directions to our destination is on board.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Riley returned to the passengers’ quarters without an escort, feeling liberated while reminding himself that freedom was relative for a person living inside a metal can surrounded by vacuum, light years from help of any kind.

  Asha, Tordor, and a few of the other pilgrims were restoring order to what had been a scene of battle. Asha was unmarked but Tordor had a bruise on the side of his sturdy head. Asha fought well, it seemed, even in staged events.

  “Thanks for giving me cover,” Riley said.

  “Is nothing,” Tordor said, but looked at Asha.

  “We had to make it convincing,” Asha said. “But what of your expedition?”

  “Return without guards,” Tordor said. It sounded like a question.

  “I bring good tidings,” Riley said. “That’s an ancient human saying,” he explained for Tordor’s benefit. He announced to the aliens within hearing range, “The captain wants to speak to us—not as an investigating officer, as before, but as a fellow voyager on this trip into the unknown.”

  The weasel looked up from a corner by the food dispenser. The Alpha Centauran turned from its contemplation of a crystal it held. The Sirian opened its hooded eyes.

  The word would get communicated, Riley knew, through the variety of mechanisms and languages represented among this group of aliens. Without further announcement, the pilgrims began to gather, some from the separate environments maintained for them, some bringing their environments with them. Even the coffin-shaped alien. They were together in whatever their cultures considered appropriate by the time the captain arrived, this time without his humanoid guards, as if announcing his new status as a pilgrim like the rest of the passengers.

  He walked to one end of the lounge in the characteristic glide developed by longtime spacers. He stood silent for a long moment, his hands clasped behind his back, his head cocked as if listening to inner voices. Maybe he was listening to his add-ons, Riley thought. He hoped that the captain didn’t know about Riley’s.

  “This trip has had a troubled start,” the captain said. “But perhaps no more troubled than most voyages.” The message spread around the lounge in a mixture of modulated sounds, hoots, hisses, whispers, gestures, and light flashes, and perhaps other means imperceptible to human senses. “But this voyage is unprecedented. We are following a will-o’-the-wisp, a phantom that appears and disappears, leading us deeper into the swamp of space.

  “We all have our reasons for following this phantom,” the captain continued, “including me and members of my crew, and we need to work together and trust one another if we are going to have any chance of reaching our goal. We are all pilgrims here, all looking for transcendence, venturing our lives and our dreams, our everything, on a fable that has captured our imaginations because it represents the goal of all existence: to evolve, to achieve our ideal forms, to transcend our limitations.”

  Riley felt proud of Ham and his humanity. His eloquence was unexpected—and perhaps wasted on aliens who had it all filtered through inadequate pedias.

  “For that reason we are relaxing the customary rules of travel that restrict contact between passengers and crew,” the captain continued. “We cannot allow passengers unrestricted access to other parts of the ship—the crew cannot perform their jobs with strangers wandering among them—but we will allow a representative to occupy an adjunct position with the crew and serve as your spokesperson and representative, and report back to you.”

  Something that resembled a murmur arose from the passengers. Such a representative would be useful to the passengers in many ways, some unimaginable at the moment, but he or she or it also might acquire power that would be meaningful as the end of the voyage approached, as transcendence became reality, as perhaps only one might be chosen.

  Riley was the logical candidate. Everyone knew it. He was human; he could go anywhere without comment, without environmental aids. He was experienced. He had negotiated their new status.

  Ham could have made it so much simpler if he had named Riley as the adjunct. But Ham couldn’t do that, Riley knew. If named, Riley would have become the captain’s choice and the captain’s confederate; the captain would have gained nothing in soothing passenger unrest—and the representative would lose any power to shape attitudes and events. Riley would have to compete with all the others. He glanced at Asha and Tordor. Both were looking at him with expressions he could not read, and neither could his pedia.

  “I will entertain questions,” the captain said.

  “How choose?” Tordor said.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “What of those who aren’t chosen?” Asha said. “What will they have gained?”

  “Infor
mation from one of their own,” the captain said, “and, as captain, I will keep all informed of developments that affect the group, like conditions if they change or departures from routine or Jumps as they approach.

  “And one is approaching very shortly, and I must leave to prepare the ship. You will be notified before it happens.”

  “What of the crew member who died?” someone called out in an alien hiss.

  “What of Jan?” another whispered.

  “And the other—Jon?” came a grumble.

  The captain was already heading for the hatchway. “I don’t have time for further questions now. Decide upon your representative, and I will talk to that person.”

  After he was gone, all of the voyagers began to talk at once. “Like the Tower of Babel,” Riley’s pedia told him.

  * * *

  The passengers shifted into small ad hoc groups, like dust specks on a pond. Only these specks were noisy. The babbling that had followed the captain’s departure intensified. Riley’s pedia picked up snatches of remarks: “… traitor … danger … opportunity … trap … who … who … who…” Riley wondered if his pedia could overload, and what would happen if it did.

  “How choose?” Tordor asked.

  Riley looked at Asha. “Humans have elections. One person—or in this case one being—one vote. The being with the most votes wins. Or if you want a majority rather than a plurality, you have a second vote between the two top vote-getters.”

  “Democracy is not a universal practice,” Asha said.

  “Agreement,” Tordor said.

  “He means ‘consensus,’ I think,” Asha said.

  “But how arrived at?” Riley asked.

  Asha gestured at the other passengers. The noise was getting deafening. “I think that’s what they’re doing. When they’ve reached a decision, they’ll let us know.”

  “No campaigning?” Riley asked. “No promises? No racial slurs?”

  “No bribes,” Asha said. “No buying votes. No promises. No success and no failure. Whoever is chosen gets dismissed the same way, sometimes fatally.”

  “Is choice,” Tordor agreed.

  The process took less time than Riley expected. Within minutes the weasel approached Riley and Tordor. “You,” he said and pointed toward Tordor with his half-grown arm.

  Tordor raised his proboscis in recognition. He looked at Asha and then Riley. “So let it be,” he said. He blew a surprising blast of noise from his long nose. As the other passengers turned toward them and quieted, he said, in language that Riley’s pedia began translating in greater fluency, “Beings, you have chosen me to be your representative, and I will do so to the best of my ability. I go now to begin the process.” He turned to Riley and said in a voice that only he and Asha could hear, “You are the better choice, but the galactics would never choose a human. The memory of the war is too fresh and the belief in the unpredictability of humans too ingrained.”

  He turned and ponderously marched to the hatchway. He pounded on it. It opened, revealing a portion of the passageway outside and a humanoid guard beyond before the hatch closed again behind him.

  Riley looked at Asha. She shrugged. “Galactics seem to have long memories as well,” she said.

  Riley looked back at the hatch. “What does Tordor expect to accomplish?”

  She looked at Riley as if evaluating the implications of his question. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “I’m going to talk to the galactics,” he said.

  “That might be misinterpreted. In fact, it’s sure to be misinterpreted.”

  “That’s basic to the process,” Riley said and moved off to the group that contained the weasel, the Sirian, and the Alpha Centauran. All the members of the group guardedly turned toward him. “Their posture suggests the possibility of violence,” Riley’s pedia said. Riley held his hands in front of him, palms up. “I join you in your excellent choice of Tordor as representative,” he said.

  The galactics relaxed.

  “Tell me how you chose him,” Riley said.

  “Some choices are not choices,” the weasel said in his characteristic whine.

  “So obvious they require no thought?”

  “These persons have learned to live in peace by thinking clearly.”

  Riley again felt surprised at the eloquence of the alien, so different from the lingua galatica pidgin he had grown used to. Either the aliens were becoming more adept or his pedia was becoming more skillful as examples accumulated; or perhaps the aliens had been concealing their sophistication behind a pretense of patois. “Without emotion?” he asked.

  “With logic.”

  “Forgive a poor, hotheaded, ignorant human,” Riley said, hoping that irony didn’t translate, “but perhaps you could tell me why you are here on this pilgrimage.”

  “In this matter, this person can speak only for itself,” the weasel said. “This person comes from an ill-favored planet where life is hard and cunning is essential. Logic tells this person that evolution has pushed its people into blind alleys. Transcendentalism offers these persons a way out.”

  “And you?” Riley asked, turning to the Sirian. “If you will forgive my inexperience?”

  The Sirian opened its eyes. “Inexperience is correctable; ignorance is teachable; effrontery is unforgivable.”

  “I am a poor, ignorant—” Riley began again

  “My native world is the daughter of two suns,” the Sirian broke in, as if to cut off a repetition of Riley’s self-abasement. “And thus my people are drawn in two directions—one hot blue and near and one yellow and distant. We live in the near blue but we long for the remote yellow. Somehow this dichotomy must be resolved.”

  Riley would have turned next to the coffin-shaped alien, hoping to get beyond the enigma of its existence, but the ship’s communicator announced the next Jump, and a moment later the illusion of transcending reality began again.

  * * *

  Tordor returned an hour later, escorted by two battered guards. Tordor was unmarked but indignant. “You may expel me from your company,” he said, “but you will have to deal with me before this voyage is over.”

  As soon as the guards had left and the hatch had been locked behind them, Riley spoke. “I gather that you did not get along.”

  “They would not talk to me,” Tordor said loud enough for everyone to hear. “They would not answer my questions. They would not let me go where I needed to go. Finally I confronted the captain, and he refused to discipline his subordinates. I could not do my job.”

  In a lower voice that only Riley and Asha could hear, he added, “The captain agreed that I was not the right representative.”

  “What shall we do?” asked the weasel.

  “We will have to make a more practical choice. This being”—Tordor pointed at Riley— “is the captain’s species and shares the captain’s language and experience. He can come and go freely and learn what we cannot.

  “Because he is human we distrust him. His kind has not yet earned our respect, much less our trust. We do not know what they may do, or why. But I have learned that we must trust if we are to earn our reward. And so I ask that you name this being your representative.”

  The passengers milled around before the weasel turned toward Riley, Tordor, and Asha once more and the weasel-like alien said, “We agree.”

  Tordor spoke only to Riley and Asha once more. “It had to be this way. First they must see that their choice is impractical. Second they must learn to accept what they cannot change. It is a difficult lesson for beings who have governed the galaxy since humans were living in caves.”

  To the other passengers he said, “These humans are barbarous beings. We must watch them closely and control their choices. For that reason I, your first choice, will monitor everything that this being does and report to you what he does not.”

  “And I,” Riley said, “am a poor, ignorant human, untutored in the ways of the civilized galaxy, and I must ask your forgiveness
in advance for any errors in judgment or information I might make, while pledging myself to consider the well-being of all over my own personal benefit.”

  The other passengers muttered among themselves at the far side of the room, next to the food dispensers, but were not upset enough to mount an insurrection. “Well said,” Tordor remarked to Riley.

  “They do not believe you,” Asha said, “but they respect your willingness to placate them with fine words.”

  “I have a lot to learn,” Riley said with uncharacteristic humility.

  “The admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom,” Tordor said.

  “We humans have a similar saying,” Riley said.

  “Rational beings are the same everywhere,” Tordor said, “adrift in an enigmatic universe. Otherwise they could not communicate.”

  Riley wondered again at Tordor’s newfound eloquence.

  “I will put that into action,” he said, and ventured once more into the gathering of aliens. The group dispersed as he approached, as if trying to avoid contact with the barbarous human. He noticed again what a variety of sentient beings they were, some dressed in what seemed like rags, some adorned in what passed for finery, many of them unclothed and with curious appendages dangling; small, large, humanoid, and vaguely repellant because of the resemblance that had gone awry, utterly alien and repellently horrid.…

  “Judge not!” his pedia said. Riley told himself that he must be just as repellant to some of the others, maybe more so. He would have to work even harder to make himself accept these creatures as fellow galactics.

  “I desire to serve this group as I desire to help myself,” he said to the coffin-shaped alien, but the alien was as perversely silent as Tordor’s universe. He turned to the Sirian.

  “The path into darkness is strewn with pitfalls,” the Sirian said. Riley had to remind himself that for Sirians, under the glare of their overpowering primary star, night was a time not only of rest, but of nirvana.

  “We do not expect much,” the Alpha Centauran said. “Surprise us.”

  That would not be hard, Riley thought. This pilgrimage was full of surprises, with, he had no doubt, more to come.