Far Horizons

by Robert Silverberg

  I’d better reassure them, or risk getting harpooned.

  Peepoe spoke, starting with Anglic, the wolfling tongue most used on Earth. She articulated the words carefully with her gene-modified blowhole.

  “Hello, f-f-folks! How are you doing today?”

  That got a response, but not the one she hoped for. The crowd onshore backed away hurriedly, emitting upset cries. This time she thought she made out a few words in a time-shifted dialect of Galactic Seven, so she tried again in that language.

  “Greetings! I bring you news of peaceful arrival and friendly intentions!”

  This time the crowd went nearly crazy, leaping and cavorting in excitement, though whether it was pleasure or indignation seemed hard to tell at first.

  Suddenly, the mob parted and went silent as a figure approached from the line of huts. It was a hoon, taller than average among these midgets. He wore an elaborate headdress and cape, while the dyed throat-sac under his chin flapped and vibrated to a sonorous beat. Two human assistants followed, one of them beating a drum. The rest of the villagers then did an amazing thing. They all dropped to their knees and covered their ears. Soon Peepoe heard a rising murmur.

  They’re humming. I do believe they’re trying not to hear what the big guy is saying!

  At the edge of the pool, the hoon lifted his arms and began chanting in a strange version of Galactic Six.

  “Spirits of the sky, I summon thee by name…Kataranga!

  “Spirits of the water, I beseech thy aid…Dupussien!

  “By my knowledge of your secret names, I command thee to gather and surround this monster. Protect the people of the True Way!”

  This went on for a while. At first Peepoe felt bemused, as if she were watching a documentary about some ancient human tribe, or the Prob’shers of planet Horst. Then she began noticing something strange. Out of the jungle, approaching on buzzing wings, there began appearing a variety of insectlike creatures. At first just a few, then more. Flying zigzag patterns toward the chanting shaman, they started gathering in a spiral-shaped swarm.

  Meanwhile, ripples in the pool tickled Peepoe’s flanks, revealing another convergence of ingathering beasts—this time swimmers—heading for the point of shore nearest the summoning hoon.

  I don’t believe this, she thought. It was one thing for a primitive priest to invoke the forces of nature. It was quite another to sense those forces responding quickly, unambiguously, and with ominous threatening behavior.

  Members of both swarms, the fliers and the swimmers, began making darting forays toward Peepoe. She felt several sharp stings on her dorsal fin, and some more from below, on her ventral side.

  They’re attacking me!

  Realization snapped her out of a bemused state.

  Time to get out of here, she thought, as more of the tiny native creatures could be seen arriving from all directions.

  Peepoe whirled about, sending toward shore a wavelet that interrupted the yammering shaman, sending him scurrying backward with a yelp. Then, in a surge of eager strength, she sped away from there.

  TKETT

  Just when he thought he had seen enough, one of the crystal fruits descended close to the pool where he and Chissis waited, stopping only when it brushed the water, almost even with their eyes. The walls vibrated for a moment…then split open!

  The occupant, a tiny g’Kek with spindly wheels on both sides of a tapered torso, rolled toward the gap, regarding the pair of dolphins with four eyestalks that waved as they peered at Tkett. Then the creature spoke in a voice that sounded high-pitched but firm, using thickly accented Galactic Seven.

  “We were aware that new settlers had come to this world. But imagine our surprise to find that this time they are swimmers, who found us before we found them! No summoning call had to be sent through the Great Egg. No special collector robots dispatched to pick up volunteers from shore. How clever of you to arrive just in time, only days and weeks before the expected moment when this universe splits asunder!”

  Chissis panted nervously, filling the sterile chamber with rapid clicks while Tkett bit the water hard with his narrow jaw.

  “I…have no idea what y-y-you’re talking about,” he stammered in reply.

  The miniature g’Kek twisted several eyestalks around each other. Tkett had an impression that it was consulting or communing with some entity elsewhere. Then it rolled forward, unwinding the stalks to wave at Tkett again.

  “If an explanation is what you seek, then that is what you shall have.”

  PEEPOE

  The interior of the great leviathan seemed to consist of one leaf-shrouded pool after another, in a complex maze of little waterways. Soon quite lost, Peepoe doubted she would ever be able to find her way back to the thing’s mouth.

  Most of the surrounding areas consisted of dense jungle, though there were also rocky escarpments and patches of what looked like rolling grassland. Peepoe had also passed quite a few villages of little folk. In one place an endless series of ramps and flowing bridges had been erected through the foliage, comprising what looked like a fantastic scale-model roller coaster, interspersed amid the dwarf trees. Little g’Keks could be seen zooming along this apparatus of wooden planks and vegetable fibers, swerving and teetering on flashing wheels.

  Peepoe tried to glide past the shoreline villages innocuously, but seldom managed it without attracting some attention. Once, a war party set forth in chase after her, riding upon the backs of turtlelike creatures, shooting tiny arrows and hurling curses in quaint-sounding jargon she could barely understand. Another time, a garishly attired urrish warrior swooped toward her from above, straddling a flying lizard whose wings flapped gorgeously and whose mouth belched small but frightening bolts of flame! Peepoe retreated, overhearing the little urs continue to shout behind her, challenging the “sea monster” to single combat.

  It seemed she had entered a world full of beings who were as suspicious as they were diminished in size. Several more times, shamans and priests of varied races stood at the shore, gesturing and shouting rhythmically, commanding hordes of beelike insects to sting and pursue her until she fled beyond sight. Peepoe’s spirits steadily sank…until at last she arrived at a broad basin where many small boats could be seen, cruising under brightly painted sails.

  To her surprise, this time the people aboard shouted with amazed pleasure upon spotting her, not fear or wrath! With tentative but rising hope, she followed their beck-onings to shore where, under the battlements of a magnificently ornate little castle, a delegation descended to meet her beside a wooden pier.

  Their apparent leader, a human wearing gray robes and a peaked hat, grinned as he gestured welcome, enunciating in an odd but lilting version of Anglic.

  “Many have forgotten the tales told by the First. But we know you, oh noble dolphin! You are remembered from tales passed down since the beginning! How wonderful to have you come among us now, as the Time of Change approaches. In the name of the Spirit Guides, we offer you our hospitality and many words of power!”

  Peepoe mused on everything she had seen and heard.

  Words, eh? Words can be a good start.

  She had to blow air several times before her nervous energy dispelled enough to speak.

  “All right then. Can you start by telling me what in Ifni’s name is going on here?”

  GIVERS OF WONDER

  A Time of Changes comes. Worlds are about to divide.

  Galaxies that formerly were linked by shortcuts of space and time will soon be sundered. The old civilization—including all the planets you came from—will no longer be accessible. Their ways won’t dominate this part of the cosmos anymore.

  Isolated, this island realm of one hundred billion stars (formerly known as Galaxy Four) will soon develop its own destiny, fostering a bright new age. It has been foreseen that Jijo will provide the starting seed for a glorious culture, unlike any other. The six…and now seven!…sapient species who came sneaking secretly to this world as refugees—s
kulking in order to hide like criminals on a forbidden shore—will prosper beyond all their wildest imagings. They will be cofounders of something great and wonderful. Forerunners of all the starfaring races who may follow in this fecund stellar whirlpool.

  But what kind of society should it be? One that is a mere copy of the noisy, bickering, violent conglomeration that exists back in “civilized” space? One based on crude so-called sciences? Physics, cybernetics, and biology? We have learned that such obsessions lead to soullessness. A humorless culture, operated by reductionists who measure the cost/benefit ratios of everything and know the value of nothing!

  There must be something better.

  Indeed, consider how the newest sapient races—fresh from uplift—look upon their world with a childlike sense of wonder! What if that feeling could be made to last?

  To those who have just discovered it, the power of speech itself is glorious. A skill with words seems to hold all the potency anyone should ever need! Still heedful of their former animal ways, these infant species often use their new faculty of self-expression to perceive patterns that are invisible to older “wiser” minds.

  Humans were especially good at this, during the long ages of their lonely abandonment, on isolated Earth. They had many names for their systems of wondrous cause and effect, traditions that arose in a myriad landbound tribes. But nearly all of these systems shared certain traits in common:

  —a sense that the world is made of spirits, living in each stone or brook or tree.

  —an eager willingness to perceive all events, even great storms and the movements of planets, as having a personal relationship with the observer.

  —a conviction that nature can be swayed by those favored with special powers of sight, voice, or mind, raising those elite ones above other mere mortals.

  —a profound belief in the power of words to persuade and control the world.

  “Magic” was one word that humans used for this way of looking at the universe.

  We believe it is a better way, offering drama, adventure, vividness, and romance.

  Yet, magic can take many forms. And there is still some dispute over the details.…

  ALTERNATING VIEWS OF TEMPTATION

  Tkett found the explanation bizarre and perplexing at first. How did it relate to this strange submersible machine whose gut was filled with crystal fruit, each containing an intelligent being who leaped about and seemed to focus fierce passion on things only he or she could see?

  Still, as an archaeologist he had some background studying the tribal human past, so eventually a connection clicked in his mind.

  “You…you are using technology to give each individual a private world! B-but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? Are you saying that every hoon, or human, or traeki inside these crystal c-containers gets to cast magic spells? They don’t just manipulate false objects by hand, and see tailored illusions…they also shout incantations and have the satisfaction of watching them come true?”

  Tkett blinked several times, trying to grasp it all.

  “Take that woman over there.” He aimed his rostrum at a nearby cube wherein a female human grinned and pointed amid a veritable cloud of resistance threads.

  “If she has an enemy, can she mold a clay figure and stick pins in it to cast a spell of pain?”

  The little g’Kek spun its wheels before answering emphatically.

  “True enough, oh perceptive dolphin! Of course she has to be creative. Talent and a strong will are helpful. And she must adhere to the accepted lore of her simulated tribe.”

  “Arbitrary rules, you mean.”

  The eye stalks shrugged gracefully. “Arbitrary, but elegant and consistent. And there is another requirement.

  “Above all, our user of magic must intensely believe.”

  Peepoe blinked at the diminutive wizard standing on the nearby dock, in the shadow of a fairy-tale castle.

  “You mean people in this place can command the birds and insects and other beasts using words alone?”

  She had witnessed it happen dozen of times, but to hear it explained openly like this felt strange.

  The gray-cloaked human nodded, speaking rapidly, eagerly. “Special words! The power of secret names. Terms that each user must keep closely guarded.”

  “But—”

  “Above all, most creatures will only obey those with inborn talent. Individuals who possess great force of will. Otherwise, if they heeded everybody, where would be the awe and envy that lie at the very heart of sorcery? If anyone can do a thing, it soon loses all worth. A miracle palls when it becomes routine.

  “It is said that technology used to be like that, back in the Old Civilization. Take what happened soon after Earth-humans discovered how to fly. Soon everybody could soar through the sky, and people took the marvel for granted. How tragic! That sort of thing does not happen here. We preserve wonder like a precious resource.”

  Peepoe sputtered.

  “But all this—” She flicked her jaws, spraying water toward the jungle and the steep, fleshy cliffs beyond. “All of this smacks of technology! That absurd fire-breathing dragon, for instance. Clearly bioengineered! Somebody set up this whole thing as…as an…”

  “As an experiment?” the gray-clad mage conceded with a nod. His beard shook as he continued with eager fire in his piping voice.

  “That has never been secret! Ever since our ancestors were selected, from among Jijo’s landbound Six Races, to come dwell below the sea in smaller but mightier bodies, we knew that one purpose would be to help the Buyur fine-tune their master plan.”

  Tkett reared back in shock, churning water with his flukes. He stared at the many-eyed creature who had been explaining this weird chamber-of-miniatures.

  “The B-Buyur! They left Jijo half a million years ago. How could they even know about human culture, let alone set up this elaborate—”

  “Of course the answer to that question is simple” replied the little g’Kek, peering with several eyestalks from its cracked crystal shell. “Our Buyur lords never left! They have quietly observed and guided this process ever since the first ship of refugees slunk down to Jijo, preparing for the predicted day when natural forces would sever all links between Galaxy Four and the others.”

  “But—”

  “The great evacuation of starfaring clans from Galaxy Four—half an eon ago—made sure that no other techno-sapients remained in this soon-to-be isolated starry realm. So it will belong to our descendants, living in a culture far different than the dreary one our ancestors belonged to.”

  Tkett had heard of the Buyur, of course—among the most powerful members of the Civilization of Five Galaxies, and one of the few elder races known for a sense of humor…albeit a strange one. It was said that they believed in long jokes, that took ages to plan and execute.

  Was that because the Buyur found Galactic culture stodgy and stifling? (Most Earthlings would agree.) Apparently they foresaw all of the changes and convulsions that were today wracking the linked starlanes, and began preparing millennia ago for an unparalleled opportunity to put their own stamp on an entirely new branch of destiny.

  Peepoe nodded, understanding part of it at last.

  “This leviathan…this huge organic beast…isn’t the only experimental container cruising below the waves. There are others! Many?”

  “Many,” confirmed the little gray-bearded human wizard. “The floating chambers take a variety of forms, each accommodating its own colony of sapient beings. Each habitat engages its passengers in a life that is rich with magic, though in uniquely different ways.

  “Here, for instance, we sapient beings experience physically active lives, in a totally real environment. It is the wild creatures around us who were altered! Surely you have heard that the Buyur were master gene-crafters? In this experimental realm, each insect, fish, and flower knows its own unique and secret name. By learning and properly uttering such names, a mage like me can wield great power.”

&nbs
p; Tkett listened as the cheerful g’ Kek explained the complex experiment taking place in the chamber of crystalline fruits.

  “In our habitat, each of us gets to live in his or her own world—one that is rich, varied, and physically demanding, even if it is mostly a computer-driven simulation. Within such an ersatz reality every one of us can be the lead magician in a society or tribe of lesser peers. Or the crystal fruits can be linked, allowing shared encounters between equals. Either way, it is a vivid life, filled with more excitement than the old way of so-called engineering.

  “A life in which the mere act of believing can have power, and wishing sometimes makes things come true!”

  Peepoe watched the gray magician stroke his beard while describing the range of Buyur experiments.

  “There are many other styles, modes, and implementations being tried out, in scores of other habitats. Some emphasize gritty ‘reality,’ while others go so far as to eliminate physical form entirely, encoding their subjects as digital personae in wholly computerized worlds.”

  Downloading personalities. Peepoe recognized the concept. It was tried back home and never caught on, even though boosters said it ought to, logically.

  “There is an ultimate purpose to all of these experiments,” the human standing on the nearby pier explained, like a proselyte eager for a special convert. “We aim to find exactly the right way to implement a new society that will thrive across the starlanes of Galaxy Four, once separation is complete and all the old hyperspatial transit paths are gone. When this island whirlpool of a hundred billion stars is safe at last from interference by the Old Civilization, it will be time to start our own. One that is based on a glorious new principle.