What was going on here? At least Carl knew what the flushed, burning sensation in his face and gut was - raw, selfish envy. But he ignored that and called his wife on the phone; she was overjoyed to hear he was alive and well.
They both spent two hours talking. Twice during their conversation, Carl saw a message flashing on the phone's tiny screen: the President was trying to call him. Carl happily ignored him as well, and kept talking to his wife. He felt so certain all danger was over, he even promised to try and get her a pass to visit the island.
"That would be wonderful," Carl's wife said, "you think they would grant us that privilege?"
"My dear - in an infinite universe, anything is possible!" He forgot about Ann, wherever she was - probably in a safe place.
"Today's program will be several hours long, concentrating on the many aspects of the aborted standoff between the Sirian visitors and the Khadi alliance.
"During nighttime in the Pacific Region, the awaited attack on Alien Beach was stopped under mysterious circumstances. Several unnatural storms have raged through the region all night, causing enormous damage to the Saudi-Iranian fleet. None of the fired missiles appear to have reached their intended targets - they disappeared from radar view just as they were about to hit Alien Beach.
"Even stranger, no casualties have been reported from either side; civilian ships are now picking up distress calls from all over the Pacific, from Saudi ships that have been wrecked. Several black balloons of unknown origin are being found, which appear to have helped wrecked aircraft carriers and sailors to stay afloat and shielded them from injury.
"From the capital of Saudi Arabia, this just came in: King Khadi has been declared unfit for office, and the parliament has taken over control of government from the ruling family. All military forces are now being ordered withdrawn from the Pacific. From Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, similar orders are being issued. No explanation has come from either country, except the usual rumor mill..."
As the day passed, the boats that Carl had requested from the fleet came in, with new food supplies and equipment to house the castaways until they could be shipped home.
Edmund, Takeru, and Mats took time off from their scientific work and joined the Sirians at the submarine wreck. Later in the afternoon, Carl came over and saw the strangest sight. The almost one hundred stranded castaways - Saudis and Iranians from the submarine crews, judging by their different uniforms - were peacefully gathered around the amphibians, with several bonfires, eating together... and singing.
Mnmnonns was playing an improvised flute quartet with three other flute-playing sailors. Aonasann was learning Arabic song from a grinning officer.
Carl strolled about the place until he located the soldier, sitting next to Oanorrn. They stopped talking when he came - Carl felt excluded, though he sensed something profound was going on. In spite of his doubts and misgivings, he spontaneously greeted the soldier with a smile.
"I see you're making progress with the newcomers. Congratulations!"
The soldier turned his attention to Carl, calm and benevolent. "Mr. Sayers, you're wondering what I'm doing here, who I'm working for - you deserve an answer. I assure you, I'm no longer working under governmental or military jurisdiction. This is a private matter entirely. In due time, I might be able to explain, but - as it is now, I suggest you just let things happen the way they happen and worry later. The Ancestors are still with us."
"I thought so. Thanks, whoever you are. Now, have you seen a blond, rather tall woman named Ann Meadbouré? She's been out of sight ever since last night."
"The Sirians told me she was meeting Oanss over at the southern cape."
Carl was about to go there, then realized it would be pointless. He opened the suitcase he had brought along, produced his violin, and began to play along. The jam session included several elements - Arabic folk music, English pop music from the 1960s, amphibian song and chanting-calls, and Bach by violin. The looming submarine wreck caused an interesting resonance effect, which gave the tones more volume.
For a few hours, before the outside world gathered the courage to approach, the island was a happy place to be - almost like the first feast between amphibians and humans. If the Sirian lander vessel, which lay still at the beach facing the lagoon, was alive like the amphibians had hinted, it might have heard the music being played.
It lay silent, though, like a stranded sea creature from another world guarding its eggs.
At the southern cape, Ann sat with Oanss and watched the sun set - and listened to the music and laughter from the other side of the small island.
A great melancholy overcame Ann, for the sounds reminded her of the first party on Alien Beach, when she had first shared a meal with an amphibian. She sat at arm's length from him on a flat, curved rock, perfectly still. Oanss was equally immobile; they had been that way for two hours.
Both knew what separated them. One would never die, the other might live perhaps fifty or eighty years more; they were too genetically diverse to have children, and belonged to cultures so different in age and customs that the situation bordered on the absurd. Both also knew, now, what attracted them to each other. Neither had touched the other once during the two hours; what had happened, had happened - but it changed nothing. The situation remained impossible.
Some part of Ann, the part that had made her cut her hair like a Sirian, refused to accept the obvious. That part was thinking up what she ought to tell him:
You can persuade them let me come with you! To hell with the rest of mankind - you can make one exception. I know I'm not as good a person as you, but I don't want to become an Ancestor.
I'd settle for a limited life, as long as it is with you! Why don't you stay here, with me! You would eventually see me die of old age before you become an Ancestor, and that would destroy you - your kind are no longer used to seeing their loved ones pass away... not for real. But you'd still have the memory of me! To hell with eternity. You said you wanted to die like me, you liar - if you really love me, you'd do that for me!
All the same, she hated herself for thinking so selfishly. Of course she had no right to demand that kind of sacrifice. She couldn't know what Oanss was thinking as they sat there - she had learned to read his face better, but this time it was particularly expressionless. Then, as if he had spent the day considering what to say, Oanss spoke - slowly, without meeting her gaze.
"Lllittle laand-hummman... thee Anccestors haave nevver spokeen to mme. Aand noot nnow, whhen I need theirr aaadvice. Haave theey comme to yyou Aann, inn paast timmme?"
Ann cleared her throat, hardly able to speak. "No. Never. But... I never asked them for advice."
She wasn't a religious person - and this wasn't quite religion. The Sirian Ancestors were real - and not in the everyday sense of the word. "How... how do you get contact with Ancestors? Can I... contact Ancestors who were related to you?"
"The Annceestors caan ssee eneergy iin all itss fforms... iff yyour thhoughts aare... cannoot translaate... llike so - a raadio cann abssorb the raadio signalls if iit iss tuuned to thhe rright ffrequennnciess... yyou uunderstannd?"
"I think I understand."
Her "radio" was PAL, his was NTSC. Different systems... and the Ancestor "station" didn't broadcast in her language. As long as her mind remained that of a land-human...
"I could have my body changed, mix your DNA with mine, and become more like your people. It could be done."
"Doo yyou wwant liike soo?"
Their eyes met. She wanted him to believe - tried to make her face neutral. There was a tiny metal blob lodged next to Oanss' left ear opening. He put one fingertip to the device; it made tinny sounds in his ear, and his eyes changed. He shook his head; they both knew.
"This is where I'm supposed to get all sentimental," she said, as if to herself. "The violins start playing."
In fact, they could hear the faint tones of Carl's violin playing in the distance - but it was a rendition of a partita by Bach, stringent an
d rational, not exactly romantic ambience.
"I can't cry any longer," she said. "Do your people cry? I mean, are you physically capable of weeping?"
"No."
"Are you sad now?"
"I aam maany kindss nnow."
"Same for me."
"I wwant youu to uunderstaand thhis diifficulty I haave nnow. I waant to liive, buut not. I amm noot uused too thhis paainn."
"My people are."
"Yyour peoplle haave thhings mmy peeople nnot haave. Too maake ssmaller oof painnn."
"Yes."
"Moost of alll thhe musiic."
She nodded. And finally, they managed to hold each other tightly, and held on until the sun had set. Then they parted ways, without a word. He walked up along the beach, to the huge silhouette of the lander vessel; she walked off to the barracks. The violin music kept playing Bach for a while, accompanied by flutes and song, until that too ceased.
At least, she thought (hoping he thought so too), they would be able to see each other for eight more months. The memory of that night before was still unfocused in her memory - she had not been injured in any way, yet... she could not quite recall what had happened, or would not let herself remember. A restraint that went beyond mere shame.
She cried then, in frustration over what could not be resolved.
Chapter Thirty-Two
DAY 125
A young U.S. naval officer, unarmed and carrying a suitcase, came off the supply boat and asked a passing scientist for Carl Sayers.
"I think he's over there," said Takeru, pointing the way to the giant lander vessel a hundred meters further in.
The officer went pale under his suntan, but resolutely walked that way. In the shadow of the mighty alien ship's supporting pontoon balloons, he soon found Carl, next to a Sirian machine that resembled a giant silver egg. The scientist was examining the pod with another, small instrument of alien origin - it resembled a miniature telescope.
"Mr. Sayers?"
Carl looked up, recognizing the officer from previous visits. "Hi again! Did the fleet suffer any damage in the storm?"
"A few scratches, nothing to worry about. Say, that's an impressive-looking ship."
"Did you know that each and every one of their machines is made out of metal cells? " Carl mused absent-mindedly. "That possess a kind of pseudo-life? Even that big ship has a mind of sorts. Only, it doesn't rebel against its passengers. Isn't that amazing?"
The officer was too amazed to answer.
"But I assume you came to gather some information for your superiors in the Pentagon," Carl added, with no audible malice.
"I beg your pardon?"
"These are our terms: the castaways are not prisoners. They are to be picked up by civilian ships as soon as they reach the three-mile perimeter. No military prisoners are to be taken from this island. Any attempt to take prisoners will lead to a protest from the amphibian representative Ranmotanii. You can ask him yourself. Tell that to General Harrod's successor."
"There isn't exactly a successor , sir."
"Who, then?"
"Admiral Boswell, commander of the U.S.S. Powell, has taken over transitional leadership of the Alien Beach Security Committee, while they try to find a replacement. To tell you the truth, nobody wants the job now."
"Why?"
The officer lowered his voice, as if it would make a difference. "They're afraid. I know this sounds stupid - the top brass in the intelligence community, Pentagon, CIA, the NSA, you name it - all the talk about those Sirian Ancestors has scared the living daylights out of them. Their entire concept of secrecy is coming down."
"I think I understand what you mean. Was there anything else I could help you with today?"
"In fact, yes - I was ordered to look for a member of the unarmed platoon. He went missing during the evacuation, and our patrol boats haven't managed to find his body."
The officer gave Carl a photograph of the missing person. The man on the picture was that soldier, all right - but when Carl had last seen him among the Sirians, the soldier had looked at least ten years older and had a bulging ridge running along the top of his head. Carl thought about it. What would a Sirian have said?
"Lieutenant, you are not yet in the position to understand the information I possess about the missing soldier. Later, when you are wiser, I will tell you more. Can I keep this picture for now?"
"I... yes, sir. I'll come back in a week or so then. P... please call us if you find anything."
The officer gave Carl a last baffled glance, and retreated back to his boat - trying not to give away his hurry to get off the island. The sight made Carl grin. Then he looked at the photograph again, and understood a little more of what was going on.
He touched the huge metal egg and said: "Send this message to Ranmotanii: 'Carl Sayers wants to meet Ranmotanii and his new guest this evening, in Carl's house.'" Silently, the machine instantly transmitted the message.
Not only Ranmotanii and the soldier, but also Oanorrn and Namonnae came to meet Carl that evening.
"I think I have a right to know why you are here," Carl explained to the soldier. "It's not too soon to tell me."
"It was just yesterday that you agreed not to ask too much too soon."
"That was yesterday, and now I know more; thus I will understand better now. The fact is - you are mutating. Why?"
Carl pointed straight at the soldier's forehead bulge. The prematurely aging soldier gave Carl an excusing grin.
"I've been asking myself that for quite a while, Mr. Sayers. Maybe... maybe the chemical exposure I underwent during the war, altered my brain so that I became receptive to Ancestor communication. This is not the work of the Sirians you see before you; they have no plans to mutate us into their own kind."
"I wasn't accusing them of -" Carl's voice died away. Well, maybe he was accusing them.
The soldier said, not without humor: "The idea has a certain charm to it, I admit - instead of replacing mankind or killing us off, they could let loose a mutating technology and turn us into their own kind. A soft invasion."
And Carl saw the childishness of the idea - it was like taken straight out of a 1950s B-movie. Neither the amphibians nor the Ancestors needed to make that effort, when they had an infinity of worlds to choose from. Why bother with one that was already occupied, polluted, being used up?
"I'm sorry," he said. "You know how self-centered our species is - we always thought we were the center of the universe. Tell me, is it the Ancestors who are changing you?"
"Yes, I think so."
"When did this begin?"
"It's not certain. Maybe even before the first contact with the amphibians - their Ancestors have an entirely different perception of time and space. It began -"
The soldier had to stop - he began to laugh nervously, his head felt light and he got tears in his eyes.
"I just realized - this is the first time I talk to another human - another land-human - about my experience, and he's actually listening. I was so afraid of being called a lunatic, you wouldn't believe it -"
"After what I've been through, you sound sane enough," Carl replied gravely. "Go on, this is important."
With eyes that had become imperceptibly different from human eyes, the soldier gave Oanorrn a questioning stare - and the old amphibian nodded.
"It began with the first vision, about four months ago..."
As the soldier strained to recount the many visions that had lodged themselves in his changing brain, they fell into place. The thing that had communicated itself to him, the sum of its messages, could finally take the form of human speech. The soldier was no longer all himself, but partly composed of the memories and experiences of that "other."
And the other spoke through the soldier...
"I was among the first ones to become an Ancestor. This was long before Ranmotanii's group journeyed from Sirius to this planet. At the time when I was transformed into the nether state, our homeworld was still orbiting its original su
n. The homeworld was the most beautiful planet known to us - it still is, as my descendants propel it from star to star with their great machines.
"When I was born, in the northern ocean of the homeworld, our population had grown to the limit of the star system's capacity.
"Yet, this was not why we decided to leave our sun and seek out new space.
"At the time when I grew up to be a young infant, I learned - like so many other children - that our civilization was built upon the remnants of a dead one, that had lived exclusively on land. Perhaps this dead culture had once created us, to allow intelligent life to survive what catastrophe destroyed them; no one knows. So I always knew that our culture must move or die.
"Yet, this was not why we decided to leave our sun and seek out new space.
"Movement is in our nature. I remember as a child living mostly underwater, asking why the bubbles always strive upward to the sun. And my mother said it was the way of things - like the bubble striving to become part of the greater ocean of air, I was going to feel the pull toward the greater ocean above. She was right; and it did not end there.
Once we had come to explore all land, we were attracted to go further upward, into the biggest ocean, that you call 'outer space'.
"Yet, this was not why we decided to leave our sun and seek out new space.
"For as long as our species had existed, we had firmly believed that the Pull, the urge to soar upward, would always continue without interruption. My own, really dead ancestors thought their minds would soar into the star-filled sky when their bodies died. I recall the sight of my own old relatives dying physically... their corpses were carried to a hilltop and burned.
"As the smoke was carried upward, we sang for their safe ascent into the greater ocean. Every star, we were told by our elders, was the home of an ancestor spirit...
"Yet, this was not why we decided to leave our sun and seek out new space.
"As the land-living part of our culture had developed, partly by learning to use the many machines left behind by the previous species, we had learned the way of thinking you call 'science'. Many, many generations before my birth, scientists had learned to use telescopes to map out the skies.
Yngve, AR - Alien Beach Page 29