Memory tinged with homesickness tricked him into a sad reverie. That
they were only memories, these thoughts that rose up to slyly capture
his attention, was clear. He was under no illusion that he was
experiencing for the first time events that had long melted into the
past, for they had a common-place familiarity that stamped them as
scenes revisited, events relived, dear friends recalled to mind.
He stood alone at the edge of a meadow with the afternoon sun hot on his
back and debated with Andra the advisability of transplanting a certain
shrub from its chance-chosen place in the meadow to a position in their
own gardens. Throughout their discussion he was conscious of little
drops of perspiration threading their way down his naked spine, and he
longingly savored the coolness of the stream-bank on which Andra
reclined, a mile or two to the south.
In good-humored exasperation he commented enviously on woman's lot and
drew a dry rejoinder from a chance traveler on the highway to the north.
He joined in the general laugh at his own expense, hearing the sally
repeated and elaborated until it drifted out of conversational range. He
was tempted to follow it farther out of curiosity, but it was not good
form to blanket local conversation for a mere whim. While his attention
was distracted, however, Andra became involved in an exchange of local
recipes with a newcomer to the district, a farm-wife whose husband had
had a fancy to try the westward farm lands. He joined the husband in a
wry grimace at the loquacity of women, and simultaneously caught sight
of a distant figure crossing a ridge somewhat north of him. The figure
paused at the same instant, looked searchingly in his direction, then
waved on sighting him and strolled on. It was the traveler whose quip
was now being repeated miles away, far in advance of him. Andra showed
no sign of running out of recipes and returning to shrubs. He sighed,
and stood alone in the meadow....
* * * * *
The casual facility of memory bridged time and space without
disorientation. He was strolling in the evening with his bride, Andra's
arm linked with his for the added pleasure of physical contact. In the
manner of lovers they supplemented their thoughts with murmured words
and sounds, thus sharing still another physical intimacy, for they were
still in that newly-mated condition where every manifestation of the one
was a source of delight and wonder to the other.
They paused momentarily by a vine-covered wall and he felt a cool frond
reach out to caress his shoulder while a long tendril curled gracefully
about his forearm between the upper and the lower wrists. A few
hundred-thousand years ago his remote ancestor would have recoiled
violently from the touch of what was then a strangler vine, but now he
casually disengaged the half-sentient tendril and with his mind caught
the faint, faint flicker of rudimentary awareness; thus far had nature
progressed with the vine, apparently reluctant to abandon a false start
toward mobility and intelligence for an unsuitable species. Or perhaps,
Andra added, in nature's long-term view the experiment might still be
considered promising. He shook his head.
The vine had learned peaceful ways that saved it from extinction,
drawing its food quietly from the earth while further developing a
mobility of sorts, but eventually an impasse would be reached when
greater mobility would endanger nutrition. If the roots withdrew from
the soil, the vine would die--unless, he agreed slowly, echoing her
shudder, the vine solved the dilemma by becoming again a carnivorous
strangler. Nature made unaccountable blunders and sometimes found
strange remedies, turning a blessing for one species into a curse for
others....
[Illustration: HOMER]
On the same impulse they gazed at the night sky blazing with the heart
of the galaxy spread around them, a galaxy as yet less than half mapped,
only a small fraction of its secrets known. Like many new-mates they
planned a leisurely, lengthy quest among the stars, a trip for which
their mutual absorption peculiarly fitted them. After all, the
advancement of knowledge still required physical and intellectual
research and the joy of living still demanded physical and emotional
release, but there was one great barrier to space-travel.
Leaving the great community of Challon ordinarily meant leaving an
intensely experienced fellowship to endure a shattering isolation no
less intensely felt, unless one were fortunate enough to be chosen for
an exploration team. There was both comfort and common sense in the use
of teams of the greatest numerical strength consistent with efficiency,
but the resources demanded by such teams limited the number that could
be fielded at one time. Consequently, private voyages in small craft
were not entirely uncommon among the hardy--or the temporarily
self-sufficient, such as he and Andra. In a few days they would leave
Challon behind, break for the first time the half-spiritual link with
all their world, and voyage forth in the belief that their love for each
other was alone enough to sustain them.
At the same instant the same doubt of self-worthiness crept into each
mind and was read and stoutly answered by the other, while a dozen
neighbors near and distant interrupted their own concerns to murmur
encouragement and recall the doubts they, too, had felt and learned to
dismiss. Reassured he led Andra back to the house, scarcely aware of the
background bustle of other minds busy with other matters--nor, in fact,
greatly caring at that moment that others existed. The manner of love
may change, but not the manners of lovers.
* * * * *
Memory surged after memory on waves of nostalgia and homesickness that
told their own story of why the memories had been long buried. Challon
had fallen away behind them and the strangeness of the cleavage from
their fellows had dismayed them. In and around the spaceport center, a
multitude of the fellows they were never to see again had paused long
enough in their own affairs to mesh thoughts in a final projection of
encouragement that reached after the dwindling ship like a gesture of
farewell.
A long, long farewell. A final farewell, unrecognized for the last
parting that it was.
They had known from the experience of others that the first terrible
silence would be a hard thing to endure until the strangeness wore off.
At first they huddled like two children, driving their thoughts far into
unanswering space in desperate disbelief that such utter silence could
be. Repelled by space, they turned to each other and found more complete
union than they had thought possible. From the depth of their union they
found the strength and growth and maturity to adapt, to endure, and to
survive. The fear passed. The worst was over.
* * * * *
Planetfall succeeded planetfall and the routine of their activities
became smooth and practiced. As was the custom, they had been asked
to obtain various items of information from sundry known but largely
unexplored planets to help determine whether a later visit by a
full-scale exploration team would be advisable. In one system they made
a rapid instrumental survey of the only major continent on the only
inhabitable planet, from a height of a hundred miles. In another, a
skimming prospecting trip in a certain area confirmed a predicted rich
ore body. And at all times, of course--particularly when they left the
known systems behind and entered virgin territory--there was the
Challonari to be trained and observed.
The Challonari--a part-organic, artificial brain--was one of the most
promising recent developments of Challon science. It was also one of the
most debatable, for the Challonari was capable of independent thought in
its limited fashion and yet had been devised solely as an instrument, a
tool. It had no freedom of action, no physical independence, but it had
childlike emotions and--this was the damnable thing--a sense of identity
and awareness of its creators as such. Thus the moral issue was raised.
To the Challon, the control or coercion of an independent intelligence
was a cardinal outrage. No greater sanctity existed than the sanctity of
the individual, for anything that prejudiced or restricted the right of
the individual to full mastery of himself was worse even than the
deliberate taking of life. It was murder of the ego. In a telepathic
society, life itself could not be more precious than self-control.
The combined growth and manufacture of the Challonari had been stopped
in horror when it was realized that their capabilities were greater than
anticipated. An organic tool had not been created, but rather a ...
what? When does a tool become an entity? If it is an entity, what right
have its makers to control it and use it as a tool? What right have they
to--the thorniest issue of all--destroy it or otherwise put it aside
when it is no longer required? Until these fundamental issues could be
settled, the handful of Challonari in existence must be cared for,
trained and observed as if they were backward children.
The main function of the Challonari on such a voyage as this was to
safeguard the ship and its immediate vicinity when on strange worlds.
This it accomplished by a swift, simplified appraisal of the offensive
capacities of any life form coming within its limited range. If their
natural weapons--claws, size, poison, fangs--rendered them potentially
dangerous should the Mentor leave the ship, then the Challonari
projected into their minds a simple disinterest in the environs of the
ship, a reluctance to approach closer. If this failed, the reluctance
impulse became tinged with fear, the intensity of the fear increasing
until the desired retreat occurred.
If the approaching unknown was of sufficient intelligence to identify
the disinterest-reluctance-fear impulse as a telepathic warning, then
no further effort was made to turn it back, much less to hurl it back
by force. That would have been unthinkable. An intelligent entity
approaching the vessel would be welcomed and requested to identify
itself, while notice of its approach would be delivered to the Challon
Mentor. Stranger and Challon would then inevitably join in friendly
greeting, for hostile suspicion was unknown among minds that lay open
one to the other. Among the handful of known life forms of sufficient
intelligence to possess highly organized communications, no exception to
this natural rule existed. A meeting of minds was a meeting of friends.
* * * * *
Memory flinched, wavered, then flowed on into previously forbidden
areas. The long outward voyage approached its turning point, its
disaster point. He did not know how or why it had happened. Perhaps
in their mutual absorption he and Andra became careless. They had
entered a planetary system, he recalled, and he had casually manipulated
the controls. His perceptive faculties detected a tiny spurt of flame
somewhere out of sight in the control bank, then the potent engines
reacted out of control for a critical instant near planetary mass. The
swift restoration of control only eased the crash, the automatics taking
over a fraction too late after the fragile living tissue was smashed
against the walls.
The return of consciousness told him at once that he was in the presence
of death. Lying paralyzed and helpless in a pool of his own fluids, he
could see the jelly that had been Andra. He quietly resigned himself to
the death that might yet take days to come. It would be welcome.
An interregnum of shock followed in which his normal faculties were
unseated, but with the passage of time he roused himself a little.
Weakened as he was, his perception told him that the ship had buried
itself deep in a swamp until it rested on bedrock. A dozen feet of muck
and water lay over it. Even had they survived the crash they would have
been helpless unless intelligent aid could be enlisted. He tried to
drive out his thoughts in a cry for help, but the strength was gone from
him. Within a radius of two miles there was no intelligent life, if any
existed on the planet.
More from habit than for any other reason, he awakened the Challonari.
It had survived the crash unharmed in its carefully cushioned
immobility, unaware that anything had transpired between the last
planetfall and this one. It immediately perceived that one of the
Mentors had gone, but before it could ask questions it was sternly
directed to concentrate its attention on the environs of the vessel.
Having thus distracted it from the presence of death, he sank back
gratefully into a stasis of no-thought. Let time pass. It would bring
succor or death, and he could do nothing more to hasten either one.
The Challonari roused him from his stupor on the third day after the
crash. It was disturbed, excited by something beyond its comprehension.
While he had lain helpless and shriveling on a compartment floor
something unusual had approached to within half a mile of the ship
through the thick swamp vegetation. The life form had apparently
detected the first tendrils of thought from the Challonari and without
preamble, as a natural defense, erected a savage mental shield. Pain and
chaos that made coherent thinking difficult shook the artificial brain,
but since this evidently was not an intelligent life form, else it would
not have reacted in such a manner, the Challonari increased in intensity
its fear-reluctance impulse. The mental shielding of the intruder blazed
and crackled with increasing dissonance, radiating pain, fear and panic,
but no decipherable intelligent thought. It drew nearer, erratically,
apparently running, then swiftly lapsed into unconsciousness. That was
when the bewildered Challonari had called him for aid.
* * * * *
He reached out wearily with his mind in automatic response, touched
and hastily withdrew. Even when unconscious the strange being had an
aura of discordance about its mind. He would have shivered had he still
been capable of physical reaction, for this was Unsanity, a thing he
had heard of but never before encountered. The Challonari caught his
protective thought and withdrew from contact, though not without a soft
protest, for it was inquisitive as any child. It, too, had heard of
unsanity. Rare stresses or injuries now and again temporarily upset the
balance of the mind and required the healing touch of other minds. But
unsanity was not something the Challonari could handle. It withdrew from
possible infection, protestingly, fearful for its beloved Mentor but
incapable of disobeying a clear command.
His own great pity for the sick creature outside conquered the
inertia of approaching death and he rallied what mental forces he
still retained. He could not disregard suffering nor withhold whatever
aid it was in his power to give. Carefully, knowing something of what
to expect, he probed the shield which was no true shield but an uproar
of faulty coordination comparable to the disruptions coming from a
badly tuned radio. Wincing, as a musician winces when harsh, grating
dissonance strikes his ear, he gingerly probed deeper and deeper,
exploring this strange and fascinating structure that was unlike
anything he had ever experienced. It was an extraordinary complexity
that spread before him--a maze, a labyrinth, a magnificent corruption
of order and reason.
His first discovery he half expected. This was a mind of an intelligence
level not far beneath his own, though fearfully hobbled by
misconceptions, superstitions, half-truths and fallacies. Life had
brutally mishandled and shackled--_life_ had? It was an adult of its
species. How could its condition have existed undetected for so long?
He extended his explorations, and suddenly the incredible truth lay
revealed.
The dominant species on this planet was that theoretically possible
but logically improbable mistake of nature, a race of intelligent
nontelepaths!
Fantastic as it was, there was no room for doubt. He was glad he had
ordered the Challonari to withdraw from contact. To accept the existence
of such beings required a flexibility under shock, an adaptability of
reasoning, that the limited Challonari could never rise to. It was like
a blow at the structure of the universe, but it raised a fascinating,
age-old problem--what possible means of adequate communication could
they have?
Excited despite the great discomfort of maintaining contact with this
mind, he extended his explorations in search of the answer. A growing
suspicion was quickly confirmed beyond question, explaining at once
the sickening deformities of the wasted mind and the enigma of the
alternative means of communication. There simply was no adequate
communication! From that, all else stemmed. Each of these creatures,
these--he searched for the term--these "Man" as they called themselves,
was an island, an isolation of ego in a flood of dark fears that began
lapping about them in early childhood and never ceased to rise. And
this, by its own conception, was a "normal" specimen! It had "matured"
in a thoroughly competitive society instead of the completely
coöperative society of the Challon. It had never really known or
understood its own true nature, much less that of its fellows. It had
never truly known security, serenity, freedom, or peace. The eternal
wonder was that it had progressed at all.
Deeper and deeper he explored, tracing and classifying, filled with awe.
The incredible creature knew little or nothing of its own nervous system
and would not have been aware of loss if the most essential portion of
its brain had been surgically removed! Its life span was only a small
fraction of what it should have been since, in its ignorance, it failed
to repair itself as it had the innate ability to do. And yet, what an
unbelievable treasury lay locked and sealed here. Only long study could
render this infinite honeycomb intelligible, even to a Challon. Nothing
like this had ever been known.
Mingled horror and profoundest admiration grew at what he found, but the
creature began to awaken. With a deft skill he planted a suggestion,
then hastily withdrew from contact before the impossible discord of
mental cacophony became unbearable. The creature rose, wondering at its
previous panic, and moved away from the vicinity of the vessel that now,
above all else, it must never discover.
That was the first problem to be faced.
By learning what he had, the heaviest duty and the greatest moral
obligation his race had ever borne was laid upon him. The last secret of
these "Man" made effective action imperative. Although he him self was
crushed beyond hope of survival, somehow his new knowledge and _all that
it implied_ must survive.
* * * * *
Unobtrusive, physical reduction of the ship to completely unrecognizable
debris might have to be accomplished eventually, but it certainly was
not immediately possible. However, perception told him that the heavy
vessel was already hidden beneath silt and stagnant water. It would
be safe for a while from accidental discovery. The Challonari was
self-sustaining and could survive untended for years, if necessary,
serving to keep the area clear of wild life that might draw hunters
of the dominant species dangerously near.
There remained, then, the problem of providing a substitute for his own
personal survival. Here, the prospect seemed hopeless. The requirements
were a continuance of understanding, together with both the will and the
ability to act as necessary. Theoretically, he could have forcefully
taken possession of the body and mind of any suitable subject, but the
mere thought of such a violation was impossibly abhorrent. Respect for
the right of the individual to self-will was so deeply ingrained as to
make the deliberate unseating of another's reason virtually impossible.
On the other hand, free-willed coöperation and understanding were
equally out of reach; to enter the conscious mind of these beings was
agony for both parties. They could neither project nor receive thoughts.
Ebbing vitality and the increased urgency of the problem drove him to a
desperate resource. A pregnant female came within the extreme range of
his perception. An embryo mind might serve! The mind, as yet unsullied,
sleeping, a blank page untouched by the world, was open to him. If the
appropriate knowledge was seeded in its memory banks it might--it
_must_--remain sane despite the world, and a sane mind would not dispute
what must be done.
He made a quick evaluation of the subject mind and discovered the flaw.
The intelligence potential was too low. The embryo would not be capable
of understanding the planted memories as they came to the conscious
level, nor be capable of acting on them if they were understood. Time
was ebbing fast, and vitality with it. Very well, then, the most
desperate, the most questionable resource of all remained. The unused,
unrecognized prime center, true seat of the intellect, must be activated
the way nature presumably had intended that it should be, had not
something gone wrong in the dawn years of the planet.
There could be no moral objection to this measure if successful, since
it amounted to giving sight to a blind man. The element of grave doubt
lay in the relative chances of success or failure. The strange,
interlocking structure of the unconscious mind of the embryo was not
something that could be unraveled and examined in a hurry. Honesty
compelled him to evaluate himself as young and inexperienced, not
especially noted among his own kind for brilliantly incisive judgment.
It was not the sort of thing that he should even attempt without long
study. It was too risky, too indecisive, too--
Time made the decision. There was no time left. The chill of death told
its own story. In an agony of haste he summoned all that remained of
vitality and fought off Death while he entered the embryo mind.
The fast-shriveling body in the spaceship retained life long enough to
recognize the blunder, but not long enough to correct it. The wrong was
done, and could not be undone.
* * * * *
The memories that mercifully blurred became clear again. He knew that
in due course the mishandled embryo experienced birth, entering the
world normally as a helpless, feebly squirming, pathetically vulnerable
mite, and in no way drew unusual attention to itself. No one knew, or
cared, that intellectual awakening was phenomenally quick, the first
tentative questionings occurring in only the fourth week of life. He
recalled how the stirring of objective awareness brought with it a
half-remembered pang of death, and how the stirring of innocent wonder
brought--memories. The memory banks flooded open at the touch of wonder,
poured out their contents, and the fledgling ego went down before the
surge, overwhelmed forever.
Inexperienced in such delicate maneuvers and overtaken at the crises by
the climactic unseating of Death, he had poured into the empty memory
banks the whole contents of his own mind. All his knowledge, all his
experiences, all his memories on every level of incidents great and
small. Everything. Including the complex and ineradicable concept of
his own identity.