[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  "But surely there are sensitive instruments that could detect brain waves from a distance, aren't there?" This was a new Jan Darzek - alert, intense, eager. "If there aren't, there's nothing theoretically impossible about the existence of such an instrument, is there?"

  "I suppose not."

  "And if the brain wave of one individual is a rather feeble emission, would there be any kind of cumulative effect with the brain waves of a billion billion individuals? Would the waves be mutually supporting, or would they tend to cancel each other out?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea."

  He was paying no attention to her. "Does a world emit a characteristic brain wave which is a summation of all of the brains of the lives it supports? And what if the Udef were a life form attuned to, and stimulated by, brain waves? Or what if it's a brain wave carnivore, going about consuming them for nourishment? Since the results are impossible, we're in no position to quibble about the improbability of the causes. The first thing we'd have to decide is whether this death force has the ability to detect brain waves at a distance and home in on them until it locates the world they emanate from. Does every world with intelligent life send out a signal that says to the Udef, 'Brains here!' If so, perhaps the only way we can save the intelligent life of the universe is by developing a brain wave filter."

  "It wouldn't necessarily have to be waves," Malina said. "Thought produces chemical changes in the brain. The by-products - "

  "Then the Udef could be a chemical analyzer instead of a brain wave detector."

  "I can't believe either one," Malina said. "It would take a fantastically refined apparatus to register such chemical changes."

  "Or to detect brain waves across the light-years?" Darzek suggested.

  "They're comparable fantasies," she agreed. "What about telepathy?"

  "Definitely a possibility, but in that case we'd have to assume that any creature possessing intelligence emits some kind of telepathic signal. Are there thought waves, as distinct from brain waves?"

  "On a world where the natives are telepaths, we shouldn't have to speculate on the nature of telepathy. Why not ask them?"

  "Ah! But our friends the Monturan natives couldn't explain how telepathy works any more than a gymnast could explain what makes his muscles function. We also have the kloatraz, which communicates telepathically with its robots even at distances of a hundred and forty kilometers, as we know. Does it also communicate with the natives? We definitely must investigate the kloatraz." He yawned. "Excuse me. Tomorrow we definitely must investigate the kloatraz. What are your plans for tomorrow?"

  "I'm taking my children to the park," Malina said.

  He stared at her for a moment and burst into laughter. "Good thought. Do you have permission?"

  "No, and 1 don't intend to ask for it."

  Miss Schlupe hurried in excitedly. Darzek asked, "What about you, Schluppy? What do you have planned for tomorrow? Are you ready to return to Earth?"

  "Certainly not. I'm sticking around. If all the intelligent life in the universe is going to be destroyed, I want to be one of the first to know. Anyway, I've decided to reopen my refreshment stand, but I'm cutting the gesardl's share of the profits to ten per cent, the bums."

  "Have you told them that?" Darzek asked.

  "I certainly have. I gave them a choice: ten per cent of my business, or fifty per cent of no business, and they decided to take the ten per cent."

  "Then it's business as usual." Darzek yawned again. "Excuse me. Submarine sandwiches and games in the park. And the kloatraz. I wonder whether the kloatraz could communicate directly with one of us if it wanted to."

  "I wonder if Supreme knows about the kloatraz," Malina said. Darzek nodded. "That's one of the questions Rok Wllon will ask it."

  In the morning Malina borrowed the flyer and chauffeur directly from the gesardl, "for personal use." The gesardl may have winced, but the request was acceded to without comment. She flew to the park with Brian and Maia and accompanied them in their playas far as the mysterious door, and when they encountered a pair of natives studying the tree plants, Brian and Maia marched boldly up to them to make ceremonial presentation of gift-wrapped packages of spices from the mart, something one of the gesardl members' had assured Miss Schlupe the natives were fond of.

  Brian bowed; Maia curtsied albeit she was wearing trousers; and the natives, their reactions hidden by the light shields, performed gestures either of perplexity or gratitude. Malina felt satisfied. A monstrous nightmare had been exorcised, for herself if not for the children.

  They returned to the mart, and she got out the children's textbooks and made assignments. "From now on," she announced, "five days of seven will be school days."

  She left them at their books and went looking for Jan Darzek.

  As she expected, she found him at the Kloa Common. He sat on a hassock near the kloatraz, withdrawn, oblivious to his surroundings, while all of the trading bustle generated by the army of kloa flowed around him. Beside the looming whiteness of the kloatraz, with its spectacular flashes, he seemed an utterly drab, inconsequential figure. Miss Schlupe sat nearby. She jumped to her feet as Malina approached. "Thank God. Now you can be the subject. I have work to do."

  "What sort of subject?" Malina asked.

  "You'll find out. It's painless. Come and see me when he's finished with you."

  She hurried away. Malina took her place and waited, and eventually Darzek became aware of her presence. "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Trying to communicate with the kloatraz telepathically," he said. He raised a finger, and Arluklo materialized from somewhere nearby, his mechanical breakdown fully repaired. "Does the kloatraz know the ages of Doctor Darr's children?" Darzek asked.

  Arluklo gestured negatively.

  "Doctor Darr is going to think the names and ages of her children. There will be two names and two numbers, with a pair of primary relationships. She will think the numbers in this language I'm using, which we call large-talk. I'd like to know if there is any leakage at all. Ready?"

  "Ready," Arluklo said.

  Darzek said to Malina, "Think their names in English and follow each name with the large-talk number for the age. Do that over and over. "

  She did so, concentrating furiously; but after a few minutes Arluklo announced, "No. Nothing at all."

  Darzek lapsed into moody silence.

  "What was supposed to happen?" Malina asked finally.

  "I wanted to see whether the kloatraz had any more success with your thoughts than with mine or Miss Schlupe's. We humans seem to he thoroughly unexceptional where telepathic talents are concerned."

  "But - there are many humans who have telepathic talents!"

  "Unfortunately we don't have one here to test. The kloatraz says telepathic leakage can occur with any life form, but it is random, uncontrolled, unpredictable, and usually done without the awareness of the individual doing it. Telepathic communication is something quite different. But you'll notice I said humans seem to be unexceptional. The kloatraz said it got no leakage from you. Does a kloatraz lie?"

  She stared at him. "But why - "

  "Miss Schlupe and I studied a bit of its history this morning. First we asked the kloatraz about its early life and it said it didn't remember."

  She continued to stare. "Didn't - remember?"

  Darzek grinned at her. "I have to keep reminding myself, too. It's alive. It's an intelligent life form. It may possess the most monumentally brilliant brain in our three galaxies. But does it lie? How much do you remember of events when you were a baby? Maybe it was abandoned here by its parents. Maybe it was a seed from outer space that grew here. Or an egg some undefined life form left here to hatch. It says it doesn't remember, which probably is true. It also professes to remember very little of what happened before the mart was built, and that certainly is false. So Miss Schlupe requested an interview with one of the rare native linguists who knows the mart language
she learned, and we explored the early history of the kloatraz as far as the natives remember it. They aren't much for written records. Since they lack Earth's long history of political and military squabbles, it must seem to them that they've had very little to record. According to their oral tradition, the kloatraz always has been here. Their earliest recollection has it present as an outside mind located they knew not where that participated fully in the telepathic life of their community. Their tradition also says that when they finally located that outside mind - remember, they rarely came to the surface except to work their fields at night - it was a plant growth shaped like a rock and the size of two of their peculiarly shaped hands."

  Malina gazed upward dumfoundedly at the glowing mass.

  "It's alive," Darzek said. "It grows. It's still growing. Tradition may exaggerate, but undoubtedly it once was quite small."

  "Then it really is a plant?"

  "Precisely. It has roots. It's always been where it is now. It did not come to the mart; the mart came to it - was built around it. When the natives first found it, it had the appearance of one more rock in a wasteland of rocks, although an unusually beautiful one. The natives quickly discovered that a living computer has its uses. All of this happened hundreds if not thousands of years ago, mind you. When neighboring worlds developed space travel and visited Montura, the kloatraz's fame spread to the stars. Other worlds sent delegations to consult it. In time this became a convenient place to exchange goods while awaiting a turn with the computer oracle, and the result of that was Montura Mart - conceived, designed, promoted, and brought to reality by the kloatraz. All this time the natives were stuck with the job of providing interpreters for non-telepaths consulting the kloatraz, which must have been quite a bore for them. They weren't much interested in commerce and still aren't."

  "Where did the kloa come from?"

  "The world of Klo - a world with a unique expertise in manufacturing robots. It brought some here to trade. The kloatraz became interested and designed its own robots, which the experts on Klo built for it. They turned out to be uniquely designed robots, each with its own personality and individual capabilities - Arluklo's is languages, for example—and all of them have the ability to communicate telepathically with their owner. Not a bad achievement for an overgrown vegetable. It makes one wonder what else the thing could do if only it would condescend to put a few of its circuits to work for us. Maybe it could design some instruments that would help us figure out what the Udef is. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem interested. Anyway, that's how the kloatraz got its name. The robots from Klo were called kloa, and their owner - or master - became the kloatraz."

  "Doesn't the kloatraz realize that the Udef is a threat to it, too?"

  Malina asked.

  "My very question. The answer is no. Its own physiology is entirely different from that of the victims it saw in my recordings, and it considers itself invulnerable to such a force. Further, it's far too busy with trading ventures at the moment to devote time to figuring out something that doesn't interest it and for which there's almost no data to work with."

  "How much trading does it expect to do after the Udef passes through here?"

  "Likewise my question. Obviously the implications haven't penetrated. We've got to stop thinking of this thing as a computer and think of it as a fallible living intelligence."

  "But it does have a sense of ethics," Malina mused. "Remember how eager the kloa seemed to be to make amends after they found Brian and Maia for the gesardl?"

  "Was that from a sense of ethics or an awareness that the incident might provide bad publicity for the mart? Too many unjust legal complications on Montura would encourage traders to found another mart and trade elsewhere. That would effectively put the kloatraz out of business. I see it as an extremely selfish genius that's looking after itself. The problem is to convince it that by helping us it's also helping itself."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "I'm going to try to talk the natives into announcing the closing of the mart - ostensibly so the participating worlds can get to work planning the defense of the galaxy. That may make the kloatraz realize there's not going to be any trade at all unless the Udef is dealt with. It may even make it realize that the universe is likely to be an insufferably dull place if it's the only intelligent life form that survives. If it realizes that, perhaps it'll gives us some grudging cooperation."

  Miss Schlupe already had reopened her refreshment stand, and she was happily looking down on the throng of customers when Malina arrived in her office. She asked how Malina had made out with the kloatraz, and Malina told her about Darzek's plan to stimulate the kloatraz's imagination.

  "Close down the mart?" Miss Schlupe exclaimed indignantly. "When I've just reopened?"

  "I don't think he actually intends to - "

  "Mr. Darzek ought to know better. That's no way to practice alien psychology. He's been in space too long."

  "I thought he seemed much improved."

  "He's got a long way to go yet. Come on. We've got to get there before - "

  She was gone. Malina chased her through two pairs of transmitters and failed to catch up with her until, in the arena, she had to stop to extricate herself from the involuntary embrace of a multi-armed life form she had collided with. They walked on together.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Space or no space, Mr. Darzek ought to have more sense than that," Miss Schlupe said, still being indignant. "Tell that curdled Christmas tree you're going to close the mart, and it~ immediately start scheming to keep the mart open. We've got to remember that the dratted thing is a brain. It might even succeed, and where would that leave us? Putting it in opposition to us when we could have it on our side is just plain stupid."

  They swept into the Kloa Common and cornered Arluklo. "Tell the kloatraz we need its help," Miss Schlupe panted. "Immediately."

  "In what way?" Arluklo piped politely.

  "I've just reopened my refreshment stand, and reordered all my supplies, and found a producing orchard, and got my cider crew on location and working, and finally I have the whole operation going smoothly again - "

  She paused for breath. Arluklo, still being distantly polite, asked, "In what way do you need the help of the kloatraz?"

  "It's got to help us keep the mart open. I don't want to have to close down again and take another loss and then go through the strain and expense of opening up a third time. It'll understand that."

  "Keep the mart open?" Arluklo piped blankly.

  "Surely you know about the Udef - the death force. You saw all those recordings. If it isn't stopped quickly, the traders will dispose of their inventories and head for home. A lot of them won't wait to dispose of their inventories. They'll want to warn their own worlds about what's coming. The closer the Udef gets to us, the more business we'll lose, and long before there's any real danger here, the mart will close down completely. How can we keep it open?"

  "The kloatraz will consider your question," Arluklo said. "Can we count on its help?"

  "Of course."

  "I was afraid maybe it'd be running off to warn someone or find a safe place for itself like all the other traders."

  "It does not think the Udef offers any danger to such as itself, but it agrees that the mart must be kept open, and it will consider ways to do that."

  Miss Schlupe expressed gratitude and profound relief. "If the kloatraz says it'll help," she announced, "then there's nothing to worry about. The mart won't close."

  They were in their apartment lounge an hour later, mediating an argument between Brian and Maia over a geography lesson, when Jan Darzek came in. He said blankly, "The kloatraz has changed its mind."

  "Changed its mind how?" Miss Schlupe asked.

  "Changed its mind about helping us with the Udef." Darzek was elated and at the same time exasperated. "Not only is it willing to help us design new instruments, but if we can find a way to take it with us,
it's willing to go off and meet the Udef in person. It says it would like to experience this death force itself. And I hadn't even got started on my scheme to close the mart. Now why would it do an about-face so quickly?"

  Miss Schlupe affected nonchalance. "You know how fickle these alien intelligences are."

  20

  "I talked with Mr. Darzek," Miss Schlupe said. "He says there's no reason why you shouldn't go home any time you want to."

  "Thank you," Malina said.

  "But right at this moment he can't spare a ship to take you all the way to Earth. If you don't mind waiting, he'll have Rok Wilon escort you when he returns."

  "I'm sure we can manage without an escort."

  "I'm afraid you can't. Earth isn't a member of the Synthesis, and getting there takes very special arrangements. Of course we'd love to have you and the children here as long as you're willing to stay. And if you'd like a job, temporary or permanent - "