World without Stars

by Poul Anderson

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I said.

  He straightened. His aloofness came back to him. “I doubt that, captain. People have to be far closer than we are to feel anything but a mild regret at each other’s troubles. Or so I’ve observed. I spend a lot of time observing. Now I don’t want to talk further about this, and if you tell anyone else I’ll kill you. But take my advice and watch your mind!”

  XI

  WE CAME to Prasiyo in darkness, and left in darkness, so to me it was only torches, shadows, sad strange noise of a horn blown somewhere out in the night. Afterward I saw it by day, and others like it; and as I became able to ask more intelligent questions, the Niao I met could give me better answers. Thus I learned a great deal, and never in my traveling have I met a society more outlandish.

  But that’s for the xenological files. Here I’ll just say that Prasiyo wasn’t a town, in the sense of a community where beings lived in some kind of mutual-interest relationship, with some feeling of common tradition. Prasiyo was only a name for that lakefront area where the docks happened to be. This made it convenient to locate certain workshops nearby. So the igloo-shaped huts of the Niao clustered a bit thereabouts—unlike in the wide, wet agricultural region that stretched behind Lake Silence, on and on to the ocean. Yes, and still further, because there were Niao who had been bred for pelagiculture too.

  The Pack maintained a true community, in those lairs where Valland was now a prisoner. Later we found that there were other savages, in other wild parts of the world, who did likewise. Some of them had progressed to building little villages. But the Niao, who appeared to be civilized, had nothing of the kind anywhere. For they were the Herd, and herds don’t create nations.

  Neither do gods.

  Our galley didn’t go to the wharf. Instead, we moored alongside a structure built some distance offshore: a square, massive stone pile that loomed over us in the night like a thundercloud. Lanterns picked out soldier Niao guarding the ramparts. Helmeted and corseleted, armed with knives, pikes, bows, catapults, they stood as if they were also stone. Gianyi and three fellow scribes conducted us off ship, in a stillness so deep that the gangplank seemed to drum beneath our feet. The blind dwarf scuttled after us. They all bent low in reverence to the gate.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “The house that is kept for the Ai Chun, when they choose to visit us here,” Gianyi said mutedly. “You are honored. No less than two of them have come to see you.”

  I had a last glimpse of the galaxy before we entered. The sight had always appeared unhuman to me before—lovely, but big and remote and indifferent. Now it was the one comfort I had.

  Lamps burned dim down the wet, echoing length of a hall. There was no ornament, no furniture, only the great gray blocks. We passed through an archway into a room. It was too broad and feebly lit for me to see the end, although I had my goggles on. Most of the floor was occupied by a pool. I conjectured rightly that this place must connect with the lake by submarine passages.

  The downdevils lay in the water.

  A physical description would sound like any amphibious race. They were pinnipeds of a sort, about twice the length and several times the bulk of men. The sleek heads were notable chiefly for the eyes: not so large as those of the bipeds, a very beautiful luminous chalcedony in color. Evolution had modified the spine so that they could sit up when on land. And I suppose the front limbs had developed digits from internal bones: because what I saw was a flipper with four clumsy fingers.

  The sea doesn’t often bring forth intelligence. But under special circumstances it can happen. The dolphins of Earth were a famous example. If they had gained the ability to go ashore, to travel cross country in however awkward a fashion, who knows what they might have become? I think the environmental challenge that brought forth the Ai Chun occurred billions of years ago. As the planet lost hydrosphere—which happened slowly indeed, under so chill a sun; but remember how old this world was—more and more dry land emerged. With so many ages behind it, the life that then, step by step, took possession, was not modified fish as on Earth. It was life already air-breathing, with high metabolism and well-developed nervous system. New conditions stimulated further development—you don’t need hard radiation for mutation to occur; thermal quantum processes will do the same less rapidly. At last the Ai Chun came into being.

  I think too that there was once a satellite, large and close, which lit the nights until finally the sun’s field, intense at this short remove, perturbed it away. Or maybe the Ai Chun evolved when the planet had a permanent dayside. For their eyes Weren’t well adapted to the long nights they now faced. They had substituted firelight for the optic evolution that had taken place in younger species. Perhaps this is the reason they hated and feared the galaxy. In the day sky it was invisible to them, but on alternate nights it ruled the darkness.

  All that is for the paleontologists to decide. And it happened so long ago that the evidence may have vanished.

  What mattered to Yo Rorn and me, confronting those two beings, was their words. They did not deign to speak directly. They would have had trouble using the Yonder language anyway. The dwarf opened his mouth, moved his arms, and said:

  “Through this creature we address you, as we have already observed you from afar. You are kin to those which dwelt here for a space, numerous years ago, claiming to be from above, correct?”

  “There is no blood relationship,” I said. My heartbeat knocked in my ears. “But you and we and they, like the Niao and the hill people, are thinking animals. I believe this is more important than our bodily shapes.”

  Gianyi made an appalled hiss. “Have you forgotten whom you speak to?” he cried.

  “No offense intended,” I said, wondering what local custom I’d violated. “Since you have followed our discussions with your … your servants, you know we are ignorant and need help. In exchange we offer friendship as well as material rewards.”

  “Say further,” commanded the Ai Chun.

  They drew me out with some extremely shrewd questions. They had forgotten little of what the Yonderfolk had evidently told them. I explained our background, I spoke of the galaxy, its size and distance, the millions of worlds and the powerful races which inhabited them— Why did the scribes, the will-less dwarf himself, cringe?

  Sweat glistened on Rorn’s skin. “You’re telling them the wrong things,” he said.

  “I know,” I answered. “But what’s the right thing?” I dropped hand to gun—started to, but my arm wouldn’t obey. It was as if the muscles had gone to sleep. With a curse, I focused myself on the task. My hand moved, jerkily, to clasp the butt.

  Rallying nerve, I said: “Are you trying to control me? That is no friendly act. And you can’t, you see. Our minds are too unlike.”

  A part of me thought they must also have tried this on the Yonderfolk, and failed so completely against brains based on hydrogen and ammonia that the attempt wasn’t noticed. Otherwise we’d have been warned. Then the Ai Chun dissembled, hid their real nature like the hidden part of an iceberg, gave the impression of being harmless primitives. A telpathic folk with a unified, planet-wide culture could do that.

  In our case, they didn’t bother. They knew far too well that no one would avenge us. The dwarfs monotone said:

  “We dismissed the former visitors, and we shall not let you run free in the world. Have no fear. Your potential usefulness is admitted. While you obey, you shall not be harmed. And when you grow old you will be cared for like any aged, faithful Niao.”

  Rorn and I moved until we stood back to back. The scribes edged off into a dark corner. One downdevil raised himself higher, so that the lamplight gleamed on him. The dwarf spoke:

  “We have pondered what reason we might have had in the beginning to bring forth creatures like you and those others. Where we do not supervise it, life on shore often develops in curious ways. Perhaps you do not yourselves know your ancestral history. However, you are ordered at least to desist from t
elling falsehoods. For we believe now that your existence is not accidental but intended.”

  Rorn whimpered. “They’re in my mind. I can feel them, they’re in my mind.”

  “Shut up and keep ready to shoot,” I told him.

  I felt it myself, if “felt” is the right word. Unbidden images, impulses, bursts of terror and anger and bliss and lust, a stiffness in my body, my clothes drenched and stinking with perspiration. But the impressions were not intense—about like a mild drunkenness, as far as their power to handicap me went. I told myself, over and over:These beasts are projecting energies of a type that’ve been known to our scientists for hundreds of years. They want to stimulate corresponding patterns in my brain. But I belong to another species. My neurones don’t work like theirs. I won’t give them a chance to find out how I do work. And remember always, in spite of the horror stories, nobody can be “taken over” who keeps his wits about him. It’s physically impossible. You’re closer to your own nervous system, and better integrated with it, than anyone else can he.

  I clamped my teeth for a moment, then started asking questions.

  Abruptly the disturbances in my head stopped. Maybe simply because of the contrast, I felt more in possession of myself than ever before in my life. So for hours I stood talking. All the while, Rorn was silent at my back.

  The downdevils responded to me with cold candor. No use trying to reproduce our discussion as such. I don’t remember the details. And naturally our conference was often interrupted by explanations of some new term, by arguments, by cogitation until a meaning became clear. They didn’t press me, these two in the pool. They weren’t in the habit of hurrying. Besides, I slowly saw, they were quite fascinated. They didn’t hate us any more than we would hate a pair of wild beasts we had captured for study and possible taming.

  At least, there was no conscious hatred. Down underneath, I don’t know. We threatened their whole existence.

  You see, they were gods.

  It was not just that their Niao worshiped them. I doubt the Niao did, anyway, in the human-like sense in which you could say the Azkashi worshiped the galaxy. The Niao were devoted to the Ai Chun as a dog is to a man; they’d been bred for that trait; but aside from a few gestures of respect, they didn’t conduct ceremonies. For that matter, the Ai Chun had no religion, if you mean by that a belief in a superior power.

  No, they simply thought this was the only world, the whole universe, and they had created it.

  The idea was not crazy. Their planet showed few phenomena to inspire awe, like stars or volcanoes or seasons. The Ai Chun had existed in their present form for over a billion years, I imagine. Their natural enemies were exterminated before their recorded history began. In spite of much empirical knowledge, they had never developed a true science. They did not quarrel with each other, they parceled out the world and refrained from overbreeding. One generation lived exactly like the next. Their culture was sufficiently complex that intelligence didn’t atrophy; but change was so slow that there remained vast land areas they had not so much as explored. Only lately had their minions been pushing into the Lake Silence region—and not in any pioneer rush, but by calculated degrees. Theirs was a static world.

  Individual Ai Chun suffered accidents, grew old, died. That didn’t matter. They believed in reincarnation. So it was reasonable to imagine that at some time in the past, in earlier lives, they themselves had made the universe. It was an obvious analogy to the building and stockbreeding they now practiced. Likewise, they knew they made occasional mistakes in their present lives—which accounted for unruly elements in the cosmos.

  Besides, had they not, within historical times, added a thinking race to the world?

  They had. I saw no reason to doubt their claim. Being poorly adapted to dry land, they domesticated a promising bipedal animal and spent half a million or so Earth-years breeding it for intelligence and dexterity. That was the last great advance their frozen society had made. Now the Niao did for them what they were not able to do for themselves.

  Of course, intelligence is a tricky thing. And without techniques of molecular biology, you can never get every wild gene out of a stock. Certain Niao, here and there on the planet, for one reason or another, had gone masterless into new territories. There the demands of an independent life had quickly winnowed out submissiveness. An instinct of devotion remained, making for religion and mutual loyalty. The end result was the Azkashi and other cultures—feral.

  The Ai Chun were not alarmed. They thought in millionyear terms. They didn’t let their Niao expand fast: that could have introduced upsetting factors. Bit by bit, as agricultural acreage increased, the savages would be whittled away. Meanwhile they posed no real threat.

  The Yonderfolk, and now we, did. Not that we desired this wretched planet for ouselves. But our very attitude was an insult. Our claim to be from other worlds in an unimaginably big and complicated universe ran into the teeth of a mythology that was old while the dinosaurs still lived. Our machines, our weapons, something as simple as a steel knife, had not been dreamed of here and could not even be copied. By existing, we doomed this whole culture.

  The Yonderfolk hadn’t stayed long enough to do more than shake the Ai Chun. What they had taught was preserved and brooded on. Now we were here, still another race. But this time the intruders were few and vulnerable. If we could be subjugated, that would prove we were inferior. Then the Ai Chun could assure themselves that outsiders like us had also been created by them in the distant past, for the purpose of inventing things which we would now offer to our gods.

  I argued. I tried to show them the pathetic, ridiculous futility of their scheme. I said we couldn’t possibly give them more iron than there was in our ship; and if we built them plants to extract light metals, they could still make only the most limited use of the stuff; and if our people should decide to base on this planet, there wouldn’t be one damned thing the Ai Chun could do about it; and if they cooperated with us we could offer them infinitely greater rewards— Useless. Such concepts didn’t lie within their horizon.

  Yet they were neither stupid nor mad. Only different from us.

  “The seed we planted long ago is bearing its fruit,” said the voice of the dwarf. “We will occupy your camp and put you to work.”

  “Like fury you will!” I drew my gun. Their minds didn’t try to stop me.

  I fired a beam into the air. The Niao wailed and covered their eyes. The Ai Chun dived. “You see?” I shouted. “We can kill you and every one of your folk. We can seize a boat and sail back. Our friends will not open their gates to you, and their own weapons will burn you at a distance. We do not want to fight, but if we must, then it is you who will be dead!”

  A hand closed on my wrist. An arm locked around mine. The gun clattered free. I stumbled from a push. Whirling, I saw Yo Rorn.

  His own gun was out, aimed straight at me. “Hold still,” he said.

  “What the chaos!” I lurched toward him.

  “Stop. I’d hate to burn you down.” He spoke quietly. Haloed by darkness, his face was altogether serene. “You’ve lost,” he said.

  XII

  THE GALAXY was high in heaven when we started back, and first glimmers of dawn paled it. I still needed my goggles to see; they showed me Lake Silence ice-gray and ruffled by a light wind. Rain clouds grew in the north. The air had turned cold. I stood on the galley deck, looking across to the score of canoes which escorted us, and again felt horror at how quietly the Niao worked.

  Down below decks, the two Ai Chun rested in a tank of water. They were going to make a personal inspection after our camp was occupied. Through their sensitives they were in touch with their fellows around the globe. Not only this little fleet was moving against my crew; a planet was.

  “No,” Rorn said, “they didn’t get inside me and pull any strings. I’m doing what I want to do.”

  I couldn’t look straight into the nirvana of his eyes. The downdevils were clever, I thought. Sensing his we
akness, they had left me alone, holding my attention with talk, while through hours they studied him. Not that they had battered down any defenses he had. He would have known, then, and appealed for my armed help. But they had watched his reactions as one subtle impulse after another was tried. In the end, they had understood him so well that they had been able to—to what?

  I asked him.

  “It was a stroke of luck for them that you took me with you instead of someone else,” Rorn said impersonally. “They couldn’t have operated on a well-developed personality. They’ve admitted to me it’s not possible to tame even a captured savage through mentalistics; he has to be broken first by physical means. And we humans are less kin to them than any Azkashi. But in my case, I didn’t have much ego strength. I was a bundle of uncoordinated impulses and poorly understood memories. Galactic civilization had little to offer me.”

  “What did they give you?”

  “Wholeness. I can belong here.”

  “As a nice, safe slave?”

  “You don’t get any closer to the truth with swear words. I was shown something great, calm, beautiful, at peace with itself. Then they took it away. I got the idea: they’d give it back to me if I joined them.”

  “So you stopped being human,” I said.

  “No doubt. What was the use of staying human? Oh, in a hundred years or so I’d have crystallized into your pattern again. But it’s a poor one at best, compared to what I have now.”

  I didn’t believe he had acted quite freely. Once the Ai Chun got past his feeble resistance, they could explore the neuronic flows until they learned how to stimulate his pleasure center directly. (I wouldn’t have allowed them that far in; no normal man would, at least not before techniques like sensory deprivation had made us disintegrate.) But there was no point in telling Rorn that.

  Defeat tasted sour in my mouth. “Why do you bother explaining to me?” I asked.