Downward to the Earth

Seventeen

LEANING ON THE sulidor’s arm, Gundersen walked unsteadily out of the chamber of rebirth. In the dark corridor he asked, “Have I been changed?”

“Yes, very much,” Ti-munilee said.

“How? In what way?”

“You do not know?”

Gundersen held a hand before his eyes. Five fingers, yes, as before. He looked down at his naked body and saw no difference in it. Obscurely he experienced disappointment; perhaps nothing had really happened in that chamber. His legs, his feet, his loins, his belly — everything as it had been.

“I haven’t changed at all,” he said.

“You have changed greatly,” the sulidor replied.

“I see myself, and I see the same body as before.”

“Look again,” advised Ti-munilee.

In the main corridor Gundersen caught sight of himself dimly reflected in the sleek glassy walls by the light of the glowing fungoids. He drew back, startled. He had changed, yes; he had outkurtzed Kurtz in his rebirth. What peered back at him from the rippling sheen of the walls was scarcely human. Gundersen stared at the mask-like face with hooded slots for eyes, at the slitted nose, the gill-pouches trailing to his shoulders, the many-jointed arms, the row of sensors on the chest, the grasping organs at the hips, the cratered skin, the glow-organs in the cheeks. He looked down again at himself and saw none of those things. Which was the illusion?

He hurried toward daylight.

“Have I changed, or have I not changed?” he asked the sulidor.

“You have changed.”

“Where?”

“The changes are within,” said the former Srin’gahar.

“And the reflection?”

“Reflections sometimes lie. Look at yourself through my eyes, and see what you are.”

Gundersen reached forth again. He saw himself, and it was his old body he saw, and then he flickered and underwent a phase shift and he beheld the being with sensors and slots, and then he was himself again.

“Are you satisfied?” Ti-munilee asked.

“Yes,” said Gundersen. He walked slowly toward the lip of the plaza outside the mouth of the cavern. The seasons had changed since he had entered that cavern; now an iron winter was on the land, and the mist was piled deep in the valley, and where it broke he saw the heavy mounds of snow and ice. He felt the presence of nildoror and sulidoror about him, though he saw only Ti-munilee. He was aware of the soul of old Na-sinisul within the mountain, passing through the final phases of a rebirth. He touched the soul of Vol’himyor far to the south. He brushed lightly over the soul of tortured Kurtz. He sensed suddenly, startlingly, other Earthborn souls, as free as his, open to him, hovering nearby.

“Who are you?” he asked.

And they answered, “You are not the first of your kind to come through rebirth intact.”

Yes. He remembered. Cullen had said that there had been others, some transformed into monsters, others simply never heard from again.

“Where are you?” he asked them.

They told him, but he did not understand, for what they said was that they had left their bodies behind. “Have I also left my body behind?” he asked. And they said, no, he was still wearing his flesh, for so he had chosen, and they had chosen otherwise. Then they withdrew from him.

“Do you feel the changes?” Ti-munilee asked.

“The changes are within me,” said Gundersen.

“Yes. Now you are at peace.”

And, surprised by joy, he realized that that was so. The fears, the tensions, were gone. Guilt was gone. Sorrow was gone. Loneliness was gone.

Ti-munilee said, “Do you know who I was, when I was Srin’gahar? Reach toward me.”

Gundersen reached. He said, in a moment, “You were one of those seven nildoror whom I would not allow to go to their rebirth, many years ago.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you carried me on your back all the way to the mist country.”

“My time had come again,” said Ti-munilee, “and I was happy. I forgave you. Do you remember, when we crossed into the mist country, there was an angry sulidor at the border?”

“Yes,” Gundersen said.

“He was another of the seven. He was the one you touched with your torch. He had had his rebirth finally, and still he hated you. Now he no longer does. Tomorrow, when you are ready, reach toward him, and he will forgive you. Will you do that?”

“I will,” said Gundersen. “But will he really forgive?”

“You are reborn. Why should he not forgive?” Ti-munilee said. Then the sulidor asked, “Where will you go now?”

“South. To help my people. First to help Kurtz, to guide him through a new rebirth. Then the others. Those who are willing to be opened.”

“May I share your journey?”

“You know that answer.”

Far off, the dark soul of Kurtz stirred and throbbed. Wait, Gundersen told it. Wait. You will not suffer much longer.

A blast of cold wind struck the mountainside. Sparkling flakes of snow whirled into Gundersen’s face. He smiled. He had never felt so free, so light, so young. A vision of a mankind transformed blazed within him. I am the emissary, he thought. I am the bridge over which they shall cross. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.

He said to Ti-munilee, “Shall we go now?”

“I am ready when you are ready.”

“Now.”

“Now,” said the sulidor, and together they began to descend the windswept mountain.