by Gunn, James
“What we must do,” Asha said, “is survive until we reach the machine and then offer the powerless a different choice.”
“We’d better get started then,” Riley said, and began the disentangling of their bodies.
* * *
Riley emerged first before tapping on the cubicle door to let Asha know that the area was clear of observers, but discretion was unnecessary. The passengers’ quarters was a turmoil of alien voices and flailing appendages. Only Tordor and the flower child were standing aloof.
“What’s going on?” Riley said.
Tordor pointed to the holographic screen where the thin bright line across a far corner seemed even brighter. But that was illusion. The ship had not taken another Jump.
Underneath the display Xi and the Alpha Centauran were circling each other, looking for an advantage. Xi had a knife in this good hand, while his half-grown arm fended off the Centauran’s quick jabs with its beak. On the far side of the room, two aliens were grappling with oddly shaped appendages in what seemed like a fight to the death.
“Why?” Asha asked.
“The possibility that our goal may be attainable has unleashed individual motivations and individual passions,” Tordor said impassively.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” Asha asked.
“These conflicts are better settled now than later, when they might involve the deaths of many.”
Asha looked at Tordor in a way that Riley interpreted as disappointment in the alien’s character, and moved with unexpected speed to separate Xi and the Centauran, knocking the knife from Xi’s hand without detaching the alien’s arm and pushing the Centauran back from its fighting stance. “Be civilized!” she said and turned to the aliens by the dispensary, grabbing each by an appendage and pulling them apart. “Be civilized,” she said again, but this time she added, “Times will come when we will need to depend upon one another for survival.”
The far hatch banged open, and the captain stepped into the passenger quarters followed by his first mate and two armed crew members. “Violence has been reported,” he said, looking around suspiciously.
“All done,” Riley said. “A misunderstanding.”
“We can’t have violence, you know,” the captain said. Riley thought he detected a note of futility in his voice.
“We can’t have a lot of things,” Riley said, “including the intrusion of shipboard personnel into passenger business.”
“Passenger turmoil is shipboard business,” the captain said. “This voyage has been jinxed from the beginning—”
“And even before, as we are all becoming aware,” Riley said.
“—and it threatens a worse outcome for us all if we can’t control our passions or resist acting to further only our own selfish ends.”
“We’ve already reached that conclusion,” Riley said. “As we approach the far spiral arm our reasons for cooperation may be outweighed by our reasons for competing. That prospect may have precipitated the squabble you overheard.”
“And the question,” Asha said, “is how we will survive the breakdown of our mutual interest in getting this ship to its destination.”
“And what do you suggest?” the captain asked.
“We are going to need new reasons for cooperating,” Riley said.
“And what would those be?”
“Survival?” Riley ventured.
“We’re approaching a portion of the galaxy that may—almost certainly does—offer unsuspected perils and unknown creatures,” Asha said. “We’re going to be like children venturing into adult territory. If we don’t work together, we’ll all die.”
“All that’s obvious,” the captain said.
“What isn’t obvious,” Tordor said, “is that this obvious reason for working together may conflict with individual goals of reaching the Transcendental Machine first, or of keeping others from reaching it.”
“And we have reasons to think that some aboard this vessel are acting under instruction,” Riley said.
“From whom?” the captain said.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Riley said.
“Even granting the truth of what you all say,” the captain said, “there doesn’t seem much that can be done about it.” He or his add-ons seemed impatient with all the analysis, as if they would rather deal with the violence that had brought them here.
“Except,” Asha said, “to form bonds closer than being fellow pilgrims.”
“We need to form associations within the larger group,” Riley said, “like the protection groups we formed in the climber, only now we know each other better.”
“I’m the captain of the entire vessel,” the captain said. “I can’t belong to any group smaller than that.”
“That’s understood,” Riley said. “But we want your blessing on our efforts.”
“You and Asha and Tordor?”
“And whoever we can persuade to join us, that we can trust, who will pledge to work on behalf of the group until we reach the Transcendental Machine itself,” Riley said.
“I thought you didn’t believe in the Transcendental Machine.”
“My disbelief is beginning to waver,” Riley said.
“But you still believe in your ability to judge whether creatures who don’t have as close a relation to you as an amoeba are going to subordinate their individual goals to those of a group that includes humans,” the captain said.
“What Riley and I believe in,” Asha said, “is the ability of rational beings to recognize a superior strategy.”
“And the ability of civilized galactics to recognize the virtues of civilized processes,” Tordor said.
“My blessings on that,” the captain said, and departed with his guards.
* * *
Tordor’s gaze followed the captain to the hatch until it closed behind the captain’s group and turned toward Riley and Asha. “We begin, then, with you two.”
It seemed to Riley like a knowing glance and then he told himself that his reaction was the consequence of unexpected intimacy.
But then Tordor said, “Humans, like Dorians, need the companionship of the opposite sex. It is time you two got together.”
“As I recall Dorian mating protocols,” Asha said, unembarrassed at being discovered, “males have harems of females.”
“True,” Tordor said, “that is a common pattern for grazing species and one that our civilization must work hard to counteract. For us it is the totality of the female companionship that provides us with a full range of interactions at every level. But perhaps transcendence will raise us to the human level of monogamy and the resultant frustration that impels the human evolutionary drive.”
Riley looked closely at Tordor but he could not detect any irony, if Dorians were capable of such subtlety, or if he were capable of interpreting Dorian subtleties.
“We must consider,” Tordor said, “the effect on our small group of pilgrims of your partnership. As we approach the destination that looms closer with every Jump, any new social configurations are likely to change the group dynamics.”
He did not say “group dynamics,” of course, or “social configurations,” either, and it was possible that neither concept was thinkable in Dorian, but that was as close a translation as Riley’s pedia could provide.
“That is true,” Asha said, “and it is why I joined with Riley here. Our little group was stable enough when we were far from our goal, but as it grows closer individual differences are going to emerge. It is time to form a mutual-defense group.”
“You turned us down in the climber,” Tordor said.
“I didn’t need you then,” Asha said. “Different situations require different approaches. Riley and I want you with us, each of us defending the rest from outside attacks.”
“Until we reach the Transcendental Machine,” Tordor said.
Now, perhaps, there was irony in Tordor’s words, Riley thought. Or maybe only Dorian realism.
“I would h
ope we could help each other even there,” Asha said. “I have the feeling that none of us could reach it alone. But at least until then.”
Tordor gestured toward the holographic screen with its faintly shining streak across one corner. “What happens when we reach the other arm?”
Asha shrugged. Riley wondered, not for the first time, if Tordor understood shrugs. “We’ll find out when we get there,” she said. “It’s as big as our spiral arm, with as many suns. It may not be easy discovering the one that contains the Transcendental Machine.”
“But surely the Prophet knows,” Tordor said. “Or whoever has been sending coordinates to the captain.”
Riley’s expression remained impassive, but he asked himself how much Tordor knew, or thought he knew. “What about Xi? Asha thinks she understands him.”
“What is not to understand about the Xifora? Don’t let them behind you. Watch their hands. Give them no reason to think your death will be to their advantage. You can trust them to choose whatever benefits them at the time.”
“Xi, then.”
“Kom?” Riley asked. “At least, like Xi, he was willing to reveal himself and his motivations.”
“As I was,” Tordor said, “and you can trust us all—to serve our best interests. No one can be certain about a Sirian, not even another Sirian, but it is better to have them with you than against.”
“The flower child?” Riley asked.
“Four one zero seven?” Tordor said. “We have yet to hear a lot from it, and what it says is cloaked in obscurity. But I have no reason to doubt its ability to cooperate. Its evolutionary development has instilled a need for community.”
“But not necessarily of community with meat creatures,” Asha said.
“True,” Tordor said. “But its record in the galactic community is clean, and no Aldebarani has been accused of eating sapients. They have their own protein supplies.”
“What about the Centauran?” Riley asked with a slight nod at the birdlike alien.
“If we recruit Xi we may have difficulty with—”
But before Tordor could finish, the room began to dissolve around them.
* * *
“Damn it!” Riley said as his feet sank into the floor and the passenger quarters began to fade into the terrifying nonexistence of Jump space. First the walls and ceiling became transparent and disappeared and he stared into the awful emptiness of nothing. He reached for Asha. She was still solid, an anchor in a sea of antireality waves. The other aliens, though, were distorted into caricatures like drawings in a horror show. They seemed to be killing each other. He heard Tordor say something. “What?” he asked. It emerged as a giant interrogation mark before it fell and shattered on the floor, which suddenly had hardened, imprisoning his feet, and he could feel his outthrust arms imprisoned in walls that had suddenly pressed in upon him.
An exclamation mark materialized from the monster that Tordor had become. It soared toward the overhead where it broke into pieces like the question mark on the floor. And then it was over, as suddenly as it had begun, and Tordor said, “This should not have happened!”
Riley looked where Tordor pointed. The Centauran was on the floor, or, more accurately, the parts that had once been the birdlike alien were on the floor—its beaked head detached from its body and lying a meter or so away, and blue-ish blood, or whatever fluid served as blood for the Centauran, pumping from its severed neck like the carcass of a chicken Riley’s mother used to kill on Mars for special occasions.
Riley looked at Xi; the alien’s knife was sheathed. “Now what?” he said. The words hung somewhere between Asha and Tordor, addressed to neither and to both.
Both Asha and Tordor were staring at the overhead display. The bright line had jumped toward them, and Riley thought he could almost distinguish individual stars. He turned to look behind him. The other pilgrims were standing immobile, gazing at the display and the evidence glowing upon it, not at the beheaded Centauran.
As he looked a tentacle lashed out and struck another alien, staggering it. The action might have been an accident, but it prompted retaliation and then general mayhem. Tordor moved quickly for his bulk and mowed his way through the battling aliens, using his strength and weight like a battering ram. The others scattered before him, some of them falling like game pins, and then Tordor returned, helping the fallen ones upright and slapping down arms and hands and tentacles.
When he returned to their side, he seemed just as placid and unmoved by the incident as he had been before. “Now this,” he said, as if in answer to Riley’s earlier question. “The time for cooperation is even closer than we thought.”
Before they could answer, the hatch had opened again and the captain came through with his two armed guards. This time he was angry. “Now you’ve gone too far!” he shouted.
“And who is it that has gone too far?” Tordor asked.
“Look at that!” the captain said, pointing at the Centauran on the floor. “Now you’re killing each other, and those who aren’t killing each other are trying to do so.”
“Isn’t that our business?” Tordor asked.
“Well,” the captain said. “Well—”
“Not well,” Asha said, “but perhaps inevitable.”
“As the captain, I can’t accept limits on my authority aboard this ship. The result would be chaos and, ultimately, catastrophe for all.”
“You have accepted limits, Ham,” Riley said gently. “You have a passenger list of alpha beings, and they will not be ruled. You will have to let us solve our own problems and punish our own crimes, and we won’t let anybody know.”
“We can’t have unannounced Jumps, either,” Tordor said. “That is against the galactic code.”
“The comm must have malfunctioned,” the captain said. “The important thing is that the Jump was made without incident.”
“Which means that we can go forward,” Asha said, “but we go back at our peril.”
“And yet we must go back.”
“Unless we find the Transcendental Machine,” Asha said, “and that will solve all our problems.”
“In what way?” the captain said. “I don’t recall anything about intergalactic travel.”
“Consult your pedia, Captain,” Asha said. “That’s part of the legend. But I was being ironic.”
“Irony is wasted on moments like this,” the captain said. “Ah,” he protested, “I can’t do anything with you. Clean up that mess!” He pointed out the body on the deck. “And clean up your own situation here, or by the transcendental itself, I’ll clean it up for you.”
He turned angrily toward the hatch.
“Calmly, Ham,” Riley said. “Calmly.”
The captain moved more slowly and deliberately toward the hatch and closed it gently behind him.
“Now what?” Riley repeated.
“Now we must put into effect the mutual defense group about which we spoke before all this happened,” Tordor said. “But first we must take care of this—” He indicated with his short trunk the body of the Centauran on the deck. Then he turned toward 4107. “Why?” he asked.
The flower child said something in the thin whispering of its species. Riley’s pedia did not attempt a translation.
“Ah,” Tordor said. He turned toward Riley and Asha. “It wants to tell us its story.”
“The flower child killed the Centauran?” Riley said.
“No other creature could have done it,” Tordor said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
4107’s Story
4107 said (translated by Tordor):
We are called the People, just as species throughout the galaxy call themselves the People. Whatever language we use—the movement of air through passages that restrict its flow in various distinguishable ways, the rubbing of mandibles, the gestures of tentacles, the release of pheromones, or, in our case, the disturbance of air by the movement of fronds—the translation is always the same. We are the People.
Our world is ca
lled Earth, as every world is called Earth in its own language. You might call it Flora, because we were a flower people, and for uncounted generations we lived our simple lives of seedlings springing from the soil, growing into maturity and sprouting flowers, enjoying fertilization, dropping our petals and then our seeds upon the soil, and depositing our decaying bodies to nourish the next generation. The generations were uncounted because every day was the same, and every year: we were born, we lived, we reproduced, and we died. Flora was a big world, drawn by its massive gravity into great plains and placid seas, and we thrived in peace and plenty amid mindless warmth and fertile soil. That is the time the People look back upon as paradise before we were expelled.
True, Flora had grazers, herbivores who lived among us and nourished themselves with our vegetable plenty, and predators who prevented the herbivores from destroying themselves by overgrazing and overpopulation, but the People responded with one of the great breakthroughs of Floran evolution: we made ourselves unpleasant fodder, and when the grazers evolved in response, we developed poisons. The grazers died off, and then the predators, and only weeds remained as competitors. We developed herbicides, and then we were truly supreme and supremely content in our mindless vegetable way. The process took many long cycles, but finally Flora was ours and we were Flora.
Then a passing astronomical body came into our ideal existence like divine punishment for our hubris, showering Flora with devastating radiation that nearly destroyed all life on the planet including the People, stirring Flora’s inner fires and releasing continents from their loving embrace. The paradise that Flora had been became the hell that Flora was: eruptions poisoned the air and lava flows covered the plains; the continents crashed together and pushed upward great mountain ranges. The people perished.