The Day of Their Return

XVIII

A bony sketch of a man, Colonel Mattu Luuksson had returned Chunderban Desai’s greetings with a salute, declined refreshment, and sat on the edge of his lounger as if he didn’t want to submit his uniform to its self-adjusting embrace. Nevertheless the Companion of the Arena spoke courteously enough to the High Commissioner of Imperial Terra.

“—decision was reached yesterday. I appreciate your receiving me upon such short notice, busy as you must be.”

“I would be remiss in my duty, did I not make welcome the representative of an entire nation,” Desai answered. He passed smoke through his lungs before he added, “It does seem like, um, rather quick action, in a matter of this importance.”

“The order to which I have the honor to belong does not condone hesitancy,” Mattu declared. “Besides, you understand, sir, my mission is exploratory. Neither you nor we will care to make a commitment before we know the situation and each other more fully.”

Desai noticed he was tapping his cigarette holder on the edge of the ashtaker, and made himself stop. “We could have discussed this by vid,” he pointed out with a mildness he didn’t quite feel.

“No, sir, not very well. More is involved than words. An electronic image of you and your office and any number of your subordinates would tell us nothing about the total environment.”

“I see. Is that why you brought those several men along?”

“Yes. They will spend a few days wandering around the city, gathering experiences and impressions to report to our council, to help us estimate the desirability of more visits.”

Desai arched his brows. “Do you fear they may be corrupted?” The thought of fleshpots in Nova Roma struck him as weirdly funny; he choked back a laugh.

Mattu frowned—in anger or in concentration? How can I read so foreign a face? “I had best try to explain from the foundations, Commissioner,” he said, choosing each word. “Apparently you have the impression that I am here to protest the recent ransacking of our community, and to work out mutually satisfactory guarantees against similar incidents in future. That is only a minor part of it.

“Your office appears to feel the Orcan country is full of rebellious spirits, in spite of the fact that almost no Orcans joined McCormac’s forces. The suspicion is not unnatural. We dwell apart; our entire ethos is different from yours.”

From Terra’s sensate pragmatism, you mean, Desai thought. Or its decadence, do you imply? “As a keeper of law and order yourself,” he said, “I trust you sympathize with the occasional necessity of investigating every possibility, however remote.”

A Terran, in a position similar to Mattu’s, would generally have grinned. The colonel stayed humorless: “More contact should reduce distrust. But this would be insufficient reason to change long-standing customs and policies.

“The truth is, the Companions of the Arena and the society they serve are not as rigid, not as xenophobic, as popular belief elsewhere has it. Our isolation was never absolute; consider our trading caravans, or those young men who spend years outside, in work or in study. It is really only circumstance which has kept us on the fringe—and, no doubt, a certain amount of human inertia.

“Well, the times are mutating. If we Orcans are not to become worse off, we must adapt. In the course of adaptation, we can better our lot. Although we are not obsessed with material wealth, and indeed think it disastrous to acquire too much, yet we do not value poverty, Commissioner; nor are we afraid of new ideas. Rather, we feel our own ideas have strength to survive, and actually spread among people who may welcome them.”

Desai’s cigaret was used up. He threw away the ill-smelling stub and inserted a fresh one. Anticipating, his palate winced. “You are interested in enlarged trade relationships, then,” he said.

“Yes,” Mattu replied. “We have more to offer than is commonly realized. I think not just of natural resources, but of hands, and brains, if more of our youth can get adequate modern educations.”

“And, hm-m-m, tourism in your area?”

“Yes,” Mattu snapped. Obviously the thought was distasteful to him as an individual. “To develop all this will take time, which we have, and capital, which we have not. The nords were never interested … albeit I confess the Companions never made any proposal to them. We have now conceived the hope that the Imperium may wish to help.”

“Subsidies?”

“They need not be great, nor continue long. In return, the Imperium gains not simply our friendship, but our influence, as Orcans travel further and oftener across Aeneas. You face a nord power structure which, on the whole, opposes you, and which you are unlikely to win over. Might not Orcan influence help transform it?”

“Perhaps. In what direction, though?”

“Scarcely predictable at this stage, is it? For that matter, we could still decide isolation is best. I repeat, my mission is no more than a preliminary exploration—for both our sides, Commissioner.”

Chunderban Desai, who had the legions of the Empire at his beck, looked into the eyes of the stranger; and it was Chunderban Desai who felt a tinge of fear.

The young lieutenant from Mount Cronos had openly called Tatiana Thane to ask if he might visit her “in order to make the acquaintance of the person who best knows Ivar Frederiksen. Pray understand, respected lady, we do not lack esteem for him. However, indirectly he has been the cause of considerable trouble for us. It has occurred to me that you may advise us how we can convince the authorities we are not in league with him.”

“I doubt it,” she answered, half amused at his awkward earnestness. The other half of her twisted in re-aroused pain, and wanted to deny his request. But that would be cowardice.

When he entered her apartment, stiff in his uniform, he offered her a token of appreciation, a hand-carved pendant from his country. To study the design, she must hold it in her palm close to her face; and she read the engraved question, Are we spied on?

Her heart sprang. After an instant, she shook her head, and knew the gesture was too violent. No matter. Stewart sent a technician around from time to time, who verified that the Terrans had planted no bugs. Probably the underground itself had done so … The lieutenant extracted an envelope from his tunic and bowed as he handed it to her.

“Read at your leisure,” he said, “but my orders are to watch you destroy this afterward.”

He seated himself. His look never left her. She, in her own chair, soon stopped noticing. After the third time through Ivar’s letter, she mechanically heeded Frumious Bandersnatch’s plaintive demand for attention.

Following endearments which were nobody else’s business, and a brief account of his travels:

“—prophet, though he denies literal divine inspiration. I wonder what difference? His story is latter-day Apocalypse.

“I don’t know whether I can believe it. His quiet certainty carries conviction; but I don’t claim any profound knowledge of people. I could be fooled. What is undeniable is that under proper conditions he can read my mind, better than any human telepath I ever heard of, better than top-gifted humans are supposed to be able to. Or nonhumans, even? I was always taught telepathy is not universal language; it’s not enough to sense your subject’s radiations, you have to learn what each pattern means to him; and of course patterns vary from individual to individual, still more from culture to culture, tremendously from species to species. And to this day, phenomenon’s not too well understood. I’d better just give you Jean’s own story, though my few words won’t have anything of overwhelming impression he makes.

“He says, after finding this Elder artifact I mentioned, he put ‘crown’ on his head. I suppose that would be natural thing to do. It’s adjustable, and ornamental, and maybe he’s right, maybe command was being broadcast. Anyhow, something indescribable happened, heaven and hell together, at first mostly hell because of fear and strangeness and uprooting of his whole mind, later mostly heaven—and now, Jaan says, neither word is any good, there are no words for what he experiences, what he is.

“In scientific terms, if they aren’t pseudoscientific (where do you draw line, when dealing with unknown?), what he says happened is this. Long ago, Elders, or Ancients as they call them here, had base on Aeneas, same as on many similar planets. It was no mere research base. They were serving huge purpose I’ll come to later. Suggestion is right that they actually caused Didonians to evolve, as one experiment among many, all aimed at creating more intelligence, more consciousness, throughout cosmos.

“At last they withdrew, but left one behind whom Jean gives name of Caruith, though he says spoken name is purely for benefit of our limited selves. It wasn’t original Caruith who stayed; and original wasn’t individual like you or me anyway, but part—aspects?—attribute?—of glorious totality which Didonians only hint at. What Caruith did was let heeshself be scanned, neurone by neurone, so entire personality pattern could be recorded in some incredible fashion.

“Sorry, darling, I just decided pronoun like ‘heesh’ is okay for Neighbors but too undignified for Ancients. I’ll say ‘he’ because I’m more used to that; could just as well, or just as badly, be ‘she,’ of course.

“When Jaan put on circlet, apparatus was activated, and stored pattern was imposed on his nervous system.

“You can guess difficulties. What shabby little word, ‘difficulties’! Jaan has human brain, human body; and in fact, Elders thought mainly in terms of Didonian finding their treasure. Jaan can’t do anything his own organism hasn’t got potential for. Original Caruith could maybe solve a thousand simultaneous differential equations in his ‘head,’ in split second, if he wanted to; but Caruith using Jaan’s primitive brain can’t. You get idea?

“Nonetheless, Elders had realized Didonians might not be first in that room. They’d built flexibility into system. Furthermore, all organisms have potentials that aren’t ordinarily used. Let me give you clumsy example. You play chess, paint pictures, hand-pilot aircraft, and analyze languages. I know. But suppose you’d been born into world where nobody had invented chess, paint, aircraft, or semantic analysis. You see? Or think how sheer physical and mental training can bring out capabilities in almost anybody.

“So after three days of simply getting adjusted, to point where he could think and act at all, Jaan came back topside. Since then, he’s been integrating more and more with this great mind that shares his brain. He says at last they’ll become one, more Caruith than Jaan, and he rejoices at prospect.

“Well, what does he preach? What do Elders want? Why did they do what they have done?

“Again, it’s impossible to put in few words. I’m going to try but I know I will fail. Maybe your imagination can fill in gaps. You’ve certainly got good mind, sweetheart.

“Ancients, Elders, Builders, High Ones, Old Shen, whatever we call them—and Jaan won’t give them separate name, he says that would be worse misleading than ‘Caruith’ already is—evolved billions of years ago, near galactic center where stars are older and closer together. We’re way out on thin fringe of spiral arm, you remember. At that time, there had not been many generations of stars, elements heavier than helium were rare, planets with possibility of life were few. Elders went into space and found it lonelier than we can dream, we who have more inhabited worlds around than anybody has counted. They turned inward, they deliberately forced themselves to keep on evolving mind, lifetime after lifetime, because they had no one else to talk to—How I wish I could send you record of Jaan explaining!

“Something happened. He says he isn’t yet quite able to understand what. Split in race, in course of millions of years; not ideological difference as we think of ideology, but two different ways of perceiving, of evaluating reality, two different purposes to impose on universe. We dare not say one branch is good, one evil; we can only say they are irreconcilable. Call them Yang and Yin, but don’t try to say which is which.

“In crudest possible language, our Elders see goal of life as consciousness, transcendence of everything material, unification of mind not only in this galaxy but throughout cosmos, so its final collapse won’t be end but will be beginning. While Others seek—mystic oneness with energy—supreme experience of Acceptance—No, I don’t suppose you can fairly call them death-oriented.

“Jaan likes old Terran quotation I know, as describing Elders: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’ (Do you know it?) And for Others, what? Not ‘Kismet,’ really; that at least implies doing God’s will, and Others deny God altogether. Nor ‘nihilism,’ which I reckon implies desire for chaos, maybe as necessary for rebirth. What Others stand for is so alien that—Oh, I’ll write, knowing I’m wrong, that they believe rise, fall, and infinite extinction are our sole realities, and sole fulfillment that life can ultimately have is harmony with this curve.

“In contrast, Jaan says life, if it follows Elder star, will at last create God, become God.

“To that end, Elders have been watching new races arise on new planets, and helping them, guiding them, sometimes even bringing them into being like Didonians. They can’t watch always over everything; they haven’t over us. For Others have been at work too, and must be opposed.

“It’s not war as we understand war; not on that level. On our level, it is.

“Analogy again. You may be trying to arrive at some vital decision that will determine your entire future. You may be reasoning, you may be wrestling with your emotions, but it’s all in your mind; nobody else need see a thing.

“Only it’s not all in your mind. Unhealthy body means unhealthy thinking. Therefore, down on cellular level, your white blood corpuscles and antigens are waging relentless, violent war on invaders. And its outcome will have much to do with what happens in your head—maybe everything. Do you see?

“It’s like that. What intelligent life (I mean sophonts as we know them; Elders and Others are trans-intelligent) does is crucial. And one tiny bit of one galaxy, like ours, can be turning point. Effects multiply, you see. Just as it took few starfaring races to start many more on same course, irreversible change, so it could take few new races who go over to wholly new way of evolution for rest to do likewise eventually.

“Will that level be of Elders or of Others? Will we break old walls and reach, however painfully, for what is infinite, or will we find most harmonious, beautiful, noble way to move toward experience of oblivion?

“You see what I was getting at, that words like ‘positive’ and ‘negative,’ ‘active’ and ‘passive,’ ‘evolutionism’ and ‘nihilism,’ ‘good’ and ‘evil’ don’t mean anything in this context? Beings unimaginably far beyond us have two opposing ways of comprehending reality. Which are we to choose?

“We have no escape from choosing. We can accept authority, limitations, instructions; we can compromise; we can live out our personal lives safely; and it’s victory for Others throughout space we know, because right now Homo sapiens does happen to be leading species in these parts. Or we can take our risks, strike for our freedom, and if we win it, look for Elders to return and raise us, like children of theirs, toward being more than what we have ever been before.

“That’s what Jaan says. Tanya, darling, I just don’t know—”

She lifted eyes from the page. It flamed in her: I do. Already.

Nomi dwelt with her children in a two-room adobe at the bottom end of Grizzle Alley. Poverty flapped and racketed everywhere around them. It did not stink, for even the poorest Orcans were of cleanly habits and, while there was scant water to spare for washing, the air quickly parched out any malodors. Nor were there beggars; the Companions took in the desperately needy, and assigned them what work they were capable of doing. But ragged shapes crowded this quarter with turmoil: milling and yelling children, women overburdened with jugs and baskets, men plying their trades, day laborer, muledriver, carter, scavenger, artisan, butcher, tanner, priest, minstrel, vendor chanting or chaffering about his pitiful wares. Among battered brown walls, on tangled lanes of rutted iron-hard earth, Ivar felt more isolated than if he had been alone in the Dreary.

The mother of the prophet put him almost at ease. They had met briefly. Today he asked for Jaan, and heard the latter was absent, and was invited to come in and wait over a cup of tea. He felt a trifle guilty, for he had in fact made sure beforehand that Jaan was out, walking and earnestly talking with his disciples, less teaching them than using them for a sounding board while he groped his own way toward comprehension and integration of his double personality.

But I must learn more myself, before I make that terrible commitment he wants. And who can better give me some sense of what he really is, than this woman?

She was alone, the youngsters being at work or in school. The inside of the hut was therefore quiet, once its door had closed off street noise. Sunlight slanted dusty through the glass of narrow windows; few Orcans could afford vitryl. The room was cool, shadowy, crowded but, in its neatness, not cluttered. Nomi’s loom filled one corner, a half-finished piece of cloth revealing a subtle pattern of subdued hues. Across from it was a set of primitive kitchen facilities. Shut-beds for her and her oldest son took most of the remaining space. In the middle of the room was a plank table surrounded by benches, whereat she seated her guest. Food on high shelves or hung from the rafters—a little preserved meat, more dried vegetables and hardtack—made the air fragrant. At the rear an open doorway showed a second room, occupied mostly by bunks.

Nomi moved soft-footed across the clay floor, poured from the pot she had made ready, and sat down opposite Ivar in a rustle of skirts. She had been beautiful when young, and was still handsome in a haggard fashion. If anything, her gauntness enhanced a pair of wonderful gray eyes, such as Jaan had in heritage from her. The coarse blue garb, the hood which this patriarchal society laid over the heads of widows, on her were not demeaning; she had too much inner pride to need vanity.

They had made small talk while she prepared the bitter Orcan tea. She knew who he was. Jaan said he kept no secrets from her, because she could keep any he asked from the world. Now Ivar apologized: “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, my lady.”

She smiled. “A welcome interruption, Firstling.”

“But, uh, you depend on it for your livin’. If you’d rather go on with it—”

She chuckled. “Pray take not away from me this excuse for idleness.”

“Oh. I see.” He hated to pry, it went against his entire training, and he knew he would not be good at it. But he had to start frank discussion somehow. “It’s only, well, it seemed to me you aren’t exactly rich. I mean, Jaan hasn’t been makin’ shoes since—what happened to him.”

“No. He has won a higher purpose.” She seemed amused by the inadequacy of the phrase.

“Uh, he never asks for contributions, I’m told. Doesn’t that make things hard for you?”

She shook her head. “His next two brothers have reached an age where they can work part time. It could be whole time, save that I will not have it; they must get what learning they can. And … Jaan’s followers help us. Few of them can afford any large donation, but a bit of food, a task done for us without charge, such gifts mount up.”

Her lightness had vanished. She frowned at her cup and went on with some difficulty: “It was not quite simple for me to accept at first. Ever had we made our own way, as did Gileb’s parents and mine ere we were wedded. But what Jaan does is so vital that—Ay-ah, acceptance is a tiny sacrifice.”

“You do believe in Caruith, then?”

She lifted her gaze to his, and his dropped as she answered, “Shall I not believe my own good son and my husband’s?”

“Oh, yes, certainly, my lady,” he floundered. “I beg your pardon if I seemed to—Look, I am outsider here, I’ve only known him few days and—Do you see? You have knowledge of him to guide you in decidin’ he’s not, well, victim of delusion. I don’t have that knowledge, not yet, anyway.”

Nomi relented, reached across the table and patted his hand. “Indeed, Firstling. You do right to ask. I am gladdened that in you he has found the worthy comrade he needs.”

Has he?

Perhaps she read the struggle on his face, for she continued, low-voiced and looking beyond him:

“Why should I wonder that you wonder? I did likewise. When he vanished for three dreadful days, and came home utterly changed—Yes, I thought a blood vessel must have burst in his brain, and wept for my kind, hard-working first-born boy, who had gotten so little from life.

“Afterward I came to understand how he had been singled out as no man ever was before in all of space and time. But that wasn’t a joy, Firstling, as we humans know joy. His glory is as great and as cruel as the sun. Most likely he shall have to die. Only the other night, I dreamed he was Shoemaker Jaan again, married to a girl I used to think about for him, and they had laid their first baby in my arms. I woke laughing … ” Her fingers closed hard on the cup. “That cannot be, of course.”

Ivar never knew if he would have been able to probe further. An interruption saved him: Robhar, the youngest disciple, knocking at the door.

“I thought you might be here, sir,” the boy said breathlessly. Though the master had identified the newcomer only by a false name, his importance was obvious. “Caruith will come as soon as he can.” He thrust forward an envelope. “For you.”

“Huh?” Ivar stared.

“The mission to Nova Roma is back, sir,” Robhar said, nigh bursting with excitement. “It brought a letter for you. The messenger gave it to Caruith, but he told me to bring it straight to you.”

To Heraz Hyronsson stood on the outside. Ivar ripped the envelope open. At the end of several pages came the bold signature Tanya. His own account to her had warned her how to address a reply.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, and sat down to gulp it.

Afterward he was very still for a while, his features locked. Then he made an excuse for leaving, promised to get in touch with Jaan soon, and hurried off. He had some tough thinking to do.