The Evolutionary Void v-3

by Peter Hamilton

  A couple of Anomine tending one of the village’s five fire pits stopped moving and twitched their antennae. They were elderly; he could tell that from the dark lavender color of their limbs and the way their lower legs curved back, reducing their height. Youngsters were a nearly uniform copper color, whereas the adults in their prime had a jade hue. These ones were also larger around the trunk section. Weight gain clearly didn’t affect only humans as they got older.

  He walked into the village as his u-shadow ran one last check through the translator unit hanging around his neck on a gold chain. It was a palm-size rectangle, capable of producing the higher-frequency sounds employed in the Anomine language. Navy cultural anthropologists had resequenced their vocal chords so they could speak with the Anomine directly, but it hadn’t been an unqualified success. The effort had been appreciated, though; the Anomine really didn’t like machines more advanced than a wheel.

  The Delivery Man studied the etiquette profile file displayed by his exovision. “I greet you this fine morning,” he said, which immediately came out as a series of squeaks and whistles similar to dolphin chatter. “I have traveled from another world to visit you. I would ask you to share stories of your ancestors.” He bowed slightly, which was probably a gesture wasted on the aliens.

  They were taller than he by nearly a meter, especially when they stood up straight, which they did to walk. Their tapering midsections were nearly always bent forward, and the upper knee joints of the triple-segment legs folded the limbs back to balance.

  The one whose limbs were shading from purple toward black replied. “I greet you this morning, star traveler. I am Tyzak. I am an old-father to the village. I can spare some time to exchange stories with you.”

  “I thank you for showing me such a kindness,” the Delivery Man said. If there was excitement or curiosity in Tyzak’s posture, he couldn’t gauge it. Unlike the weight issue, there was no human-parallel body language, no jittering about or understandable agitation. It would have been hard, he admitted to himself. Their skin was almost like scales, making subtle muscle motion impossible. As for the classic darting eyes, their twin antennae were a uniform slime-gray of photosensitive receptor cells waving up from the small knobbly head that was mostly mouth, giving them a visual interpretation of their world wholly different from that of a human. The brain was a third of the way down inside the torso, between the small midarms and larger main upper arms.

  “Your true voice is silent,” Tyzak said.

  “Yes. I cannot make the correct sounds to speak to you directly. I apologize for the machine which translates.”

  “No apology is required.”

  “I was told you do not approve of machines.”

  The two Anomine touched the small claws of their midarms. “Someone has been less than truthful with you,” Tyzak said. “I am grateful you have come to our village that we might speak the truth with you.”

  “It was my own kind who informed me of your aversion to machinery. We visited a long time ago.”

  “Then your kind’s memory has faded over time. We do not dislike machines; we simply choose not to use them.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Tyzak’s middle and upper knees bent, lowering him into a squatting position. The other Anomine walked away. “We have a life path laid out by this world which formed us,” Tyzak said. “We know what happened to us when we chose a life path centered around machines and technology. Our ancestors achieved greatness, as great as you, even.”

  “Your ancestors reached farther than we have in so many ways,” the Delivery Man said. “Our debt to them is enormous. They safeguarded so many stars from an aggressive race, for which we are forever grateful.”

  “You speak of the oneness which lives around two stars. It sought to devour all other life.”

  “You know of them?”

  “Our life path is separate from our great ancestors, for which we feel sorrow, but we rejoice in their achievements. They went on to become something other, something magnificent.”

  “Yet you didn’t follow them. Why was that?”

  “This planet created us. It should choose the nature of our final days.”

  “Sounds like another goddamn religion to me,” Gore said over the secure link.

  “More like our factions,” the Delivery Man countered. “Their version of the Accelerators went off and elevated, while the Natural Darwinists wanted to see what nature intended for them.”

  More Anomine were coming down from their houses, jumping easily onto the ground from thin doorways several meters above the ground. Once they were on the ground, they moved surprisingly swiftly. Long legs carried them forward in a fast loping gait, with each stride almost a bounce. As they moved, they bobbed forward at a precarious angle.

  Their balance was much better than a human’s, the Delivery Man decided, even though the motion sparked an inappropriate comparison to a pigeon walk.

  A group of younger ones bounded over. He was soon surrounded by Anomine children who simply couldn’t keep still. They bopped up and down as they chattered loudly among themselves, discussing him, the strange creature with its odd body and clothes and weak-looking pincers and fur on top. The noise level was almost painful to his ears.

  He heard Tyzak explaining what he was.

  “Where do you come from?” one of the children asked. It was taller than its fellows, getting on toward the Delivery Man’s height, and its apricot skin was darkening to a light shade of green.

  “A planet called Earth, which is light-years from here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I search out wisdom. Your ancestors knew so much.”

  The children’s high-pitched calls increased. The translator caught it as a round of self-reinforcing: “Yes. Yes, they did.”

  “I eat now,” Tyzak said. “Will you join me?”

  “That would please me,” the Delivery Man assured him.

  Tyzak stood swiftly, scattering several of the children, who bounded about in circles. He started walking toward one of the nearby houses, moving fast. His lower curving legs seemed almost to roll off the ground. The Delivery Man jogged alongside, keeping pace. “I should tell you, I may not be physically able to eat most of your food.”

  “I understand. It is unlikely your biochemistry is compatible with our plants.”

  “You understand the concept of biochemistry?”

  “We are not ignorant, star traveler. We simply do not apply our knowledge as you do.”

  “I understand.”

  Tyzak reached his house and jumped up to a small platform outside the door. The Delivery Man took a fast look at the thick posts the house stood on and swarmed up the one below the platform.

  “You are different,” Tyzak announced, and went inside.

  The membrane windows allowed a lot of light to filter through. Now that he was inside, the Delivery Man could see oil-rainbow patterns on the taut surface, which he thought must be some kind of skin or bark that had been cured. Inside, Tyzak’s house was divided into three rooms. There wasn’t much furniture in the largest one where they entered. Some plain chests were lined up along an inner wall. There were three curious cradle contraptions that the Delivery Man guessed were chairs and five benches arranged in a central pentagon, all of which were covered by fat earthenware pots.

  His first impression was that half of them were boiling their contents. Bubbles fizzed away in their open tops. And the air was so pungent, it made his eyes water. He recognized the scent of rotting or fermenting fruit, but so much stronger than he’d ever smelled before.

  After a moment he realized there was no heater or fire in the room even though the air was a lot warmer than outside. The pots really were fermenting-vigorously. When he took a peek in one, the sticky mass it held reminded him of jam, but before the fruit was properly pulped.

  Tyzak pulled one of the pots toward him and bent over it, opening his clam mouth wide enough to cover the top. The Delivery Man had a brief
glimpse of hundreds of little tooth mandibles wiggling before the Anomine closed his mouth and sucked the contents down in a few quick gulps.

  “Would you like to sample some of my ›no direct translation: cold-cook conserve/soup‹?” Tyzak asked. “I know the sharing of food ritual has significance to your kind. There must be one here harmless enough for you to ingest.”

  “No, thank you. So you do remember members of my species visiting this world before?”

  “We hold the stories dear.” Tyzak picked up another pot and closed his mouth around it.

  “No one else seems interested in me except for the younger villagers.”

  “I will tell the story of you at our gathering. The story will spread from village to village as we cogather. Within twenty years the world will know your story. From that moment on you will be told and retold to the new generations. You will never be lost to us, star traveler.”

  “That is gratifying to know. You must know a lot of stories, Tyzak.”

  “I do. I am old enough to have heard many. So many that they now begin to fade from me. This is why I tell them again and again, so they are not lost.”

  “Stupid,” Gore observed. “They’re going to lose a lot of information like that. We know they used to have a culture of writing; you can’t develop technology without basic symbology, especially math. Why dump that? Their history is going to get badly distorted this way; that’s before it dies out altogether.”

  “Don’t worry,” the Delivery Man told him. “What we need is too big to be lost forever; they’ve certainly still got that.”

  “Yeah, sure; the suspense is killing me.”

  “I would hear stories of your ancestors,” the Delivery Man said to Tyzak. “I would like to know how it was that they left this world, this universe.”

  “All who visit us upon this world wish this story above everything else. I have many other stories to tell. There is one of Gazuk, whose bravery saved five youngsters from drowning when a bridge fell. I listened to Razul tell her own story of holding a flock of ›no direct translation: wolf-equivalent‹ at bay while her sisters birthed. Razul was old when I attended that cogathering, but his words remain true. There are stories of when Fozif flew from this world atop a machine of flame to walk upon Ithal, our neighboring planet, the first of our kind ever to do such a thing. That is our oldest story; from that grows all stories of our kind thereafter.”

  “Which do you want to tell me?”

  “Every story of our beautiful world. That is what we live for. So that everything may be known to all of us.”

  “But isn’t that contrary to what you are? Knowledge lies in the other direction, the technology and science you have turned from.”

  “That is the story of machines. That story has been told. It is finished. We tell the stories of ourselves now.”

  “I think I understand. It is not what was achieved by your ancestors but the individuals who achieved it.”

  “You grow close to our story, to living with us. To hear the story of what we are today, you must hear all our stories.”

  “I regret that my time on your world is short. I would be grateful for any story you can tell me about your ancestors and the way they left this universe behind. Do you know where this great event took place?”

  Tyzak gulped down another pot. He went over to the chests and opened the hinged lids. Small, bulging cloth sacks were taken out and carried over to the benches. “There is a story that tells of the great parting which will never fade from me. It is most important to us, for that is how our kind was split. Those who left and those who proclaimed their allegiance to our planet and the destiny it had birthed us for. To this time we regret the separation, for we will never now be rejoined.”

  “My people are also divided into many types,” the Delivery Man said as he watched Tyzak open the sacks. Various fruits and roots were taken out and dropped into pots. Water from a large urn at the center of the benches was added. Finally, the alien sprinkled in some blue-white powder from a small sachet. The contents of the pots began to bubble.

  “I will listen to your stories of division,” Tyzak said. “They connect to me.”

  “Thank you. And the story of the place where your ancestors left? I would very much like to know it, to visit the site itself.”

  “We will go there.”

  That wasn’t quite the reply the Delivery Man was expecting. “That is good news. Shall I call for my ship? It can take us anywhere on this world.”

  “I understand your offer is intended to be kindness. However, I do not wish to travel on your ship. I will walk to the place of separation.”

  “Oh, crap,” Gore said. “This could take months, years. Just try and get the damn monster to tell you where it is. Tell him you’ll meet him there if necessary.”

  “I regret I am not able to walk very far on your world,” the Delivery Man said. “I need my own kind of food. Perhaps we could meet at the place.”

  “It is barely two days away,” Tyzak said. “Can you not travel that far?”

  “Yes, I can travel that far.”

  “Hot damn,” Gore was saying. “Your new friend must mean the city at the far end of the valley. There’s nowhere else it can be.”

  The Delivery Man’s secondary routines were pulling files out of his lacuna and splashing them across his exovision. “We checked a building there four days ago, right next to a big plaza on the west side. You went in. There was an exotic matter formation, some kind of small wormhole stabilizer. Nonoperational. We assumed it was connected to an orbital station or something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “That just shows you how stupid it is to assume anything about aliens,” Gore said. “We’ve found fifty-three exactly like it and dismissed them all.”

  “They were all in different cities,” the Delivery Man said, reviewing a planetary map in his exovision. “Well distributed geographically. I suppose they could be an abandoned transport network like the old Trans-Earth-Loop.”

  “Yeah, that was before your time, but I used it often enough. Whatever, I’m on my way to the city now. I’m going to scan and analyze that mother down to its last negative atom. I’ll find out what the hell it does before you’ve had lunch.”

  Tyzak walked through into one of the back rooms. The Delivery Man considered it a minor miracle the old alien didn’t bash its antennae on the ceiling. But each movement was deft, and it ducked under the doorway without pausing.

  “Lucky we picked a village close to the actual elevation mechanism,” the Delivery Man responded. He couldn’t believe it himself. Probability was stacked way too high against such a thing.

  “About time we got a break,” Gore replied.

  The Delivery Man knew damn well he didn’t believe it, either. Perhaps Tyzak is just going to use the wormhole to take us to the elevation mechanism. Maybe that’s what the transport mechanism is for. No, that’s stupid. If he won’t use a starship to fly to the city, he’s not going to use a wormhole. Damn!

  The Anomine came back into the main room dressed in what resembled loops of thick cloth dyed in bright colors and embellished with stone beads. It was actually an elaborate garment, the Delivery Man acknowledged, covering the long tapering abdomen while allowing the legs and arms complete freedom of movement.

  They set off straightaway, walking down the slope through the village, then crossing the river on an arched stone bridge that was old enough for the outer stone to be flaking away.

  “How long has your village been here?” the Delivery Man asked.

  “Seven hundred years.”

  The fields and orchards on the other side of the water were neatly tended. Anomine adults moved along the rows of trees, reaching up to snip the fruit stems with their strong upper arm pincer claws. They were mostly the mothers, the Delivery Man guessed from their coloration. The Anomine life cycle followed a simple progression from neutral youngsters to adult female to elder male, with each stage lasting about twenty-five years. It was
very unusual for an adult to live past eighty.

  That he simply could not get his head around. He knew they’d had complete mastery of genetic manipulation in the past, giving them the ability to extend their lives. That, too, had been rejected and neutralized so that they could follow their original evolutionary path. There was no human faction that would ever follow such a tenet; even the Naturals went in for good old-fashioned rejuvenation every thirty years. The desire to cling to life was screwed into the human psyche deep beyond any psychoneural profiling to remove.

  Like hope, he thought. I’m carrying on this ridiculous charade of Gore’s because it gives me hope. It’s the only way I know that might possibly deliver me back to Lizzie and the kids. Ozzie alone knows what madness Ilanthe has planned when she reaches the Void, but no one else has any idea how to stop her. If only this wasn’t so … frail. If only I could bring myself to believe in what I’m doing.

  The Delivery Man raised his head. High above, the ancient orbital debris band shimmered faintly through breaks in the cloud, like a motionless strand of silver cirrus. He sighed at the sight. Signs and portents in the sky, that’s what I’m searching for now. How pathetic is that? And I think the Anomine are weak and strange because they reembrace their primitive life. A life that doesn’t threaten the galaxy. A life which doesn’t tear fathers from their families.

  He opened the link to Gore. “What are you going to do after? If we win?”

  “Get back out of this goddamn meat animal for a start, back into ANA, where I can think properly again.”

  “But isn’t that the problem? Look what our evolutionary drive has pushed us to.”

  “You think we’re suffering overreach, sonny? You think arrogance is the root of all this?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Ha, in a way: for fucking certain. That’s why we need to keep going, keep pushing the human development boundary. All of us need to boost our responsibility and rationality genes to the maximum. It’s the only way to survive peacefully in a galaxy as dangerous as this one.”

  “That’s an old argument.”