The Alchemists

by Geary Gravel

  Black, leafless trees separated the rim of the valley from the clearing. As it neared the top of the slope, sunlight glistened on something small and red wavering at the tip of one gaunt branch. A tiny scarlet sphere was growing on the end of the

  branch, swelling and darkening swiftly under the silver sky.

  The object began to tremble like a bubble in the wind as the creature came closer. A moment later it had dropped to the ground.

  Without slowing, the kin bent, extended his arm, and retrieved the redfruit in one motion. It walked on through the trees, eating in small, precise bites.

  Raille watched with the others as the creature returned to the clearing. She saw the last red morsel disappear into its mouth and something tugged at her memory. A word, a name: Fo—foe? Faux?

  A cold finger moved leisurely up her spine. She closed her eyes and saw:

  The dark outline of a face.

  Gone.

  An arm. What? A hand?

  Gone.

  Redness. Roundness. Mouth opening, closing.

  Gone.

  Eyes. Eyes!

  Gone. Gone into silver, a sudden burgeoning waterfall of silver all around her, the waves rising into a bubble, enclosing her in slick spherical opacity.

  Like falling into a drop of mercury, like drowning in a raincloud pinned to the center of the sky, surrounded with roiling, beautiful...

  "—thing the matter?"

  Raille felt hesitant fingers on her arm, heard Choss' voice shaded with concern.

  Raille shook her head automatically, offered a smile as thanks and proof of well-being. The pressure on her arm vanished like smoke. She saw clearly for a moment how timid he was with people, how tentative and unsure behind the Scholar's mask of reserve. Her lips moved to form his name, but he had looked away and she said nothing.

  Cil was speaking again.

  Raille turned her full attention to the planalyst's words, eager to submerge the disturbing pinpricks of memory that were never enough for understanding, never more than a glimpse through slitted eyes.

  The kin had settled in the grass several meters from the center of the clearing. It sat cross-legged, fingers moving slightly, eyes in shadow; a shiny green insect prowled carefully along its upper arm.

  "You're probably all familiar with the requirements of the Code."

  Cil made an improbable discussion leader, her green-shaded skin and myth-inspired costume vivid against the silver grass and silver sky. But there was nothing of the romantic sea sprite in her bearing now. Standing before them with one bare foot propped on the mossy log, thumbs hooked in her belt, blue eye-gems tucked away in her pouch, she spoke in a clear, measured voice, and Raille saw in her what she had not recognized before: a confident Scholar, an expert in her enigmatic Major, a complex and gifted human being. How old is she! Raille wondered suddenly.

  In the past few hours the members of the Group had begun, in Raille's eyes, to emerge from beneath the bizarre fashions and unfamiliar quirks of character. She was aware for the first time that tljere were people here, individuals every bit as complicated and significant as those with whom she had grown up on Weldon.

  From the beginning Raille's interest in the Special Evaluation Team had been supplemented by a formless desire to escape from a life and world growing progressively more patterned and predictable. Since leaving her home, her chief aim had become to stay out of people's way, in the hope that she would be left alone to explore this beguiling new universe.

  As a Natural, she had been fascinated with the opportunity to experience an alien ecology firsthand, to actually observe life forms not native to Weldon.

  But to her the Evaluation process itself was a tangled game,

  one of many indulged in by the vast and jaded Community. Though she had dutifully viewed the instructional material, it was never with the intention of becoming seriously involved in such hollow entertainment. When it came time for the final decision, she would fulfill her obligation by casting her vote as she saw fit.

  But she was not the only explorer on Belthannis, she saw. Watching the excitement and concern budding in her companions' faces, she felt a stirring of kinship for those she had been ready to dismiss as muddled dilettantes or, in her mother's angry words, "decadent savages."

  And after seeing the creature itself, she knew that she could not remain a disinterested bystander.

  Silver zigzagged suddenly through her thoughts, vanished. A hand...

  She listened to the basic tenets of the Code of Human Criteria as Cil recited it, storing key words and phrases in her journal for later weighing.

  A limb or limbs modified for grasping.

  A limb or limbs modified for locomotion.

  The building pattern.

  Sense organ(s) providing visual/aural/tactile perceptions.

  Long-term memory.

  The manufacture and utilization of tools.

  A symbolic language.

  The sociocultural inclination. ·

  Abstract reasoning within a framework of logic.

  The Waydel imperative.

  An ethos, generative or inherent, incorporating self-preservation, pragmatic growth, mutability...

  "Kiri," Raille whispered to herself. "Has anyone ever passed this test?"

  Choss moved his head slightly to one side. "No."

  Whirring faintly, the insect had reached the face. It wandered slowly over the handsome lips, skirted the right nostril, and began to mount the bridge of the nose.

  He doesn't even know it's there, she thought, watching the tiny intruder, her nails digging deep into her palms.

  Abruptly she remembered what Emrys had said to them back in the Hearth Room. "I want you to lie. All of you."

  Choss drifted toward the kin, fingers automatically activating his journal as impressions crystallized into words.

  "This is—spectacular. Sobering. And—a little disappointing."

  He paused, pondering.

  "Inevitable? Most likely. First Meetings have been among the most exciting events in recorded human history. The anticipation, the shock, the numbness that descends in a mixture of fear and exaltation: this is an experience which human beings have longed for since the days of Far Antiquity, before space travel. To be awakened. To be lifted out of oneself. To see something completely new."

  He watched the gentle movements of the arms and legs, the dark hair that framed its face.

  The creature stretched gracefully, and Choss saw Raille look quickly away, her eyes flying to her sandals half hidden in the silver grass.

  He smiled, thinking he knew the reason: public nakedness was as unusual on his homeworld, Hinderlond, as he surmised it to be on her own Weldon. But—

  He raised the journal again. "Social nudity is and has been common on many human worlds. He'd not look at all out of place on Sipril, Hem, Maya, Green Asylum—or in the flesh-presses of a dozen other worlds, for that matter.

  "And perhaps that is why I can't react to him—to it—in the proper manner. It is so obviously a human being that the expected awe will not materialize. Even the use of 'it' rather than 'him' seems barbaric, all questions of intelligence aside. We don't treat our own mental defectives like this. We still call them human."

  Raille had been staring at the ground, deep in thought. After a while she became conscious of a rustling sound, a soft buzzing murmur. Raising her head, she saw that it was coming from the others. They were standing at varying distances from the

  creature, arms raised against their chests, lips mouthing softly into their journals.

  Nearest to her was Emrys, his own hands clasped behind his back as he spoke to the Group in a normal tone, as if completely unaware of the muted chorus.

  The other nonparticipant was Jack, who crouched at Mary-su's feet with a rapt expression on his face. His nub of charcoal raced across the drawing pad, recording the kin's image with flawless accuracy.

  Everyone seemed far away, wrapped in separate envelopes like the packets that ha
d brought them down to this world. Raille looked from face to face and found the same expressions, all variations on a theme of secretive wonder. The murmuring was like a tide lapping at her.

  Having had no prior exposure to Community etiquette, Raille was immune to the powerful pressures of custom and polity which rendered her fellow Group members functionally deaf to the whispered journal entries of their companions; the realization that Raille, or anyone else, was actually listening to their private thoughts would have resulted in a shock of outrage and revulsion.

  Among the muttering voices, Marysu's precisely carved words were the clearest. They drifted to Raille threaded with Emrys' continuing narration.

  "—body is silent, totalt tyst Even the gestures do not speak to me. They're perfect, I swear it, like the accelerated holos of plants swaying as they grow to gravity and the sun—"

  "Watch carefully now," Emrys was saying. "Can you see his arms changing position? Shifting orientation, altering stress? Notice the movements of the shoulders, also. And the legs, there, the toes, the fingers..."

  "Nothing is being said," Marysu continued. "Even when humans are asleep, or deep in a drugwine trance, the brain talks through face, limbs, muscles. Here: silence. This thing is kinetically dumb, is less eloquent than a statue, which at least has something to say about its sculptor—"

  "Back at the Hut I'll show you holos that illustrate the way he moves in and out of sunlight so that he gets the same amount of exposure over a certain period..."

  "—and yet I keep looking! Waiting, I admit it. And it's

  absurd! More realistic to expect a greeting from a stick of wood, conversation from a pebble. But it feels—it feels as if this thing has just spoken. Or is about to speak—"

  Emrys spoke on. "In fact, each of his movements seems to have a definite purpose. I defy you to find a millimeter of excess, the slightest miscalculation. The Hut can show you a schematic of all the motions of a single day. It makes a beautiful graph..."

  CHAPTER 6

  We believe now that the original goal was to break down the barriers existing between human and

  human.

  Centuries later they still stalked the same prize,

  but coldly now, with purpose but without desire. They

  went their way because planners long dead had

  named it the correct way, and for no other reason: a

  frighteningly fragile premise on which to base the

  striving of an entire world. But they had sloughed off

  fear as they had-coiled out of hope, long ago.

  Their minds had come to work in ever more

  similar ways over the years, until the thought of one

  was as the thought of all. This they also called

  correct, and were guided by its consequences from

  generation to generation, from novice to noumenon,

  as Maribon swung in its erratic orbit and empath in

  his. . . .

  FROM UNDERSTANDING MARIBON:

  HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES.

  BY CHOSS BOESGAARD

  The sky's taut metal had tarnished to a crumpled dome, streaky with blue-gray and violet, the small sun dropping down like a pivoting eyepiece through the mist of multichrome clouds.

  Raille Weldon had begun to hide yawns in the hollow of her fist.

  They had drifted into scattered single file behind Emrys when he halted them at the top of the first hillock.

  "Please indulge me," he said. "I know it's been a long strange day and your bones and brains are tired. I have just one more request. It amounts to a question, one question before we leave this place for the rather insulated atmosphere of the Hut. Responding to this question involves the expression of personal opinions, so I beg forgiveness in advance if you find such things offensive. And I realize that according to the regulations you won't have to reply until the formal voting one year from now.

  "Having said all that, I think I can put the question itself into the simplest form: What do you think of it? Human by the Code? Does it fulfill the definition?"

  A brief silence followed, then signs and murmurs of negation. He squinted at them, trying to see more than the growing darkness would allow.

  "Prime. Any dissenting? Anyone unconvinced?"

  Choss raised his arm. "I need clarification. Can we be certain all of them are identical to the one we've observed today? I mean in the matter of the mind. Are you and the Hut both satisfied that there exist no variations which might affect the Evaluation, no exceptions from the pattern you described to us?"

  "No exceptions, I swear." Emrys touched the higher band on his forearm. "Will you confirm that, Hut?"

  "Gladly." The sweet voice hovered in the shadows.

  Choss nodded. "I won't dissent, then," he said. "At least not on the basis of current data."

  Emrys waited, but the rest were silent.

  "All right. Thank you for your candor," he said very softly.

  Then in a lighter tone: "Something hearty and wanning for dinner, Hut, if you will. And goblets of blue waiting for us in the foyer."

  "Certainly, Emrys."

  As he started back on the trail, Raille Weldon suddenly said in a stricken voice from the end of the line: "But what do we do now? Just go home and leave them? Is it over?"

  "Ah, no." He froze. "No, it's not over." He seemed about to add something, then he shrugged and plodded on a few paces. But his steps faltered and he turned back to them, face now lost in the shadows.

  "Listen to me, please," he said. "Raille—all of you—I do not believe it is necessary to be a human being in order to be worthy of life." He spoke slowly, shaping the thoughts into words with great care. "I simply cannot accept that any longer. Do you understand me?"

  He raised his palm outward before they could reply.

  "Let us try to walk in silence the rest of the way," he said. "I think you'll find Belthannis in the evening is an uncommonly good place to listen to your own thoughts."

  How very odd, Choss remarked to himself, staying as close as possible to Raille without being obvious in the near darkness.

  All in one day: A man, a famous High Scholar whose reputation is impeccable, has shown me an interesting living puzzle, a creature which—if Emrys is telling the truth—is like no other living thing encountered in the seven thousand years since our ancestors stumbled into space. That was in the morning of this portentous day. Now at twilight this same respected, distinguished person has said, in effect: lie with me, risk your livelihood, your very lives with me, as we go against every law and Law in our great Community!

  I see what he means to do—/ think. He ducked beneath a branch, pushed it to one side and held it for Raille. But what could it possibly accomplish?

  I believe him when he says they are not human. And I know that it is part of the Ninth Law that living beings judged non-human under the Code shall in certain situations be given over to the directors of colonization so that their future lives may be planned. There can be miscalculations, blunders, tragedies of excess—/ don't deny it. Sometimes relocation is unavoid—

  able, and it doesn't always work. But where is the system of government that is foolproof? The colonies must be settled. The people must have food and space to live their lives.

  An insect chirred and the evening pushed into his thoughts. Sable blotted the sky, all but a thin rim of paleness too indistinct to be a color, as stars picked their way out from the zenith, random points of brightness as yet unorganized into deeds and heroes.

  As they passed into the foyer, Marysu leaned close to Jack and clutched at his bare shoulder, speaking to him in a low ragged whisper.

  "What?" He turned to her, guileless green eyes wide with surprise. "Elyins?"

  Emrys' hand curled away from the frosted blue decanter gleaming on the ledge of stone next to a clump of pterodendron. He turned and joined the others, staring in the silent room.

  Marysu shot Jack a withering glance, then lifted her chin defiantly to Emrys.
"Well, if no one else will say it, I must."

  "Marysu, why don't we—"

  "Face facts, Emrys—why don't we do that for a change? Before it's too late! What is the one logical answer to what we've seen out there? Elyins!" She hissed the word.

  Emrys found himself caught off guard, for all his own speculation on the same theme in the past few months. "If you mean is it possible that the kin are mentally deficient or somehow disabled—·"

  "I mean Elyins. Do you want me to spell the word for you? The Departed, the Otherfolk. Completely aware, capable, powerful. Gaming with us, shamming this mindlessness. Feigning this whole dumbshow, with the others off somewhere, worlds away, watching. They could do that, you know. Tricking us. Laughing as they make fools of us one more time."

  "I don't think they ever really laughed," Jack said softly.

  "Shut up!" she snapped, and the vehemence in her tone made Emrys' skin crawl. In his mind he pictured the kin as it had been a few hours earlier: quiet, empty-looking, oblivious to the moth sunning itself peacefully on one brown shoulder.

  "I cannot believe that, Marysu," Emrys said. He tried to shake off the numb horror that had crawled under his scalp with her words. "For three months I have lived here among them without one indication—"

  "And what were you looking for, what did you expect to see, gusratna.nl Do you think you could discover them if they wanted it otherwise? Praise Isis, I thought you were an old breck, with experience in your head if not wisdom. Have you forgotten what they were? Our friend in the clearing this afternoon—suppose that there were others watching through his eyes the whole time we were out there. Laughing!"

  "But, why, Marysu? Give me a reason."

  "Why? You must have clotted milk between your ears! How can you even ask that question when the subject is Elyins? It's a cup with a hole in the bottom, a sieve—you can never fill it."

  She turned around in a slow circle, challenging them all, her long fingers twitching, her breasts heaving.

  "Why did they do any of it? Why show themselves in the beginning when they could have left us alone? Why those come-apart ships, still killing us after all this time? Why the Departure, you fools, when we trusted them? Why take away their language, that rotten, beautiful language, before—" She stopped suddenly, dark cheeks aflame.