Shakespeare's Planet

by Clifford D. Simak

  One of the many planets in the diagram zoomed toward him until it was larger than all the others and he saw that it was not a planet, but was Ship, still lopsided, but Ship undeniably, with one of the lightning bolts shattering against it. The lightning bolt bounced off Ship and came streaking straight toward him. He ducked instinctively, but was not quick enough and it struck him straight between the eyes. He seemed to shatter and was flung across the universe and was stripped naked and laid open. And as he spattered across the universe, a great peace came out of somewhere and settled softly on him. In that instant, for a flaring second, he saw and understood. Then it all was gone and he was back again, in his own body, on the rocky shelf beside the Pond.

  The god-hour, he thought—it’s unbelievable. Yet, as he thought more upon it, it gained belief and logic. The human body—all sophisticated, biologic bodies—had a nervous system that was, in effect, a communication network. Why, knowing this, should he balk at the thought of another communication network, operating across the light-years, to tie together the many scattered segments of another intelligence? A signal to remind each scattered colony that it still was a part and would remain a part of the organism, that it was, in fact, the organism.

  A shotgun effect, he had earlier told himself—caught in the spray of pellets that had been aimed at something else. That something else, he now knew, was Pond. But if it had been only a shotgun effect, why should Pond now want to include him and Ship in that spray of god-hour pellets? Why did it want him to take on board a bucket of itself to provide a target that would include him and Ship in the god-hour? Or had he misunderstood?

  “Have I misunderstood?” he asked the Pond and in answer, he felt again the scattering, the opening-out and the peace that came with it. Funny, he thought, he had not known the peace before, but only fright and befuddlement. The peace and understanding, although this time there had only been the peace and none of the understanding, and that was just as well, he thought, for even as he’d sensed it, he had gained no idea of the understanding, of what kind of understanding it might be, but simply the knowledge, the impression, that there was an understanding and that, in time, it might be grasped. To him, he realized, the understanding had been as befuddling as all the rest of it. Although not to everyone, he told himself; Elayne, for an instant, had seemed to grasp the understanding—grasping it in one instinctive instant, then losing it again.

  Pond was offering him something—him and Ship—and it would be boorish and ungracious to see in what it offered anything but the wish of one intelligence to share with another something of its knowledge and its insight. As he had told Pond, there should be no conflict between two such dissimilar life-forms. By the very nature of their differences, there should be no competition nor antagonism between them. And yet, far in the back of his mind, he heard the tinny ringing of the alarm bells that were built into every human brain. That was wrong, he told himself, fiercely, that was unworthy; but the ringing of the bells went on and on. You do not make yourself vulnerable, chimed the bells, you do not expose your soul, you trust nothing until proven tests—proven many times—you can be triply certain that no harm will come.

  Although, he told himself, the offering by Pond might not be totally selfless. There might be some part of humanity—some knowledge, some perspective or viewpoint, some ethical judgment, some historical evaluation—that Pond could use. Thinking this, he felt a surge of pride that there might be something humankind could contribute to this unsuspected intelligence, giving some evidence that intelligent entities, no matter how dissimilar they might be, could find a common ground, or learn a common ground.

  Apparently Pond was offering, for whatever reason, a gift which had great value in its scale of values—no gaudy trinket such as a greater, arrogant civilization might offer a barbarian. Shakespeare had written that the god-hour might be a teaching mechanism and it could be that, of course. But it could be, as well, he thought, a religion. Or simply no more than a recognition signal, a clan call, a convention to remind Pond and all the other Ponds throughout the galaxy of the unity, the I-ness, of all of them with one another and their parent planet. A sign of brotherhood, perhaps—and if this were the case, then he, and through him, the human race, was being offered at least a provisional position in the brotherhood.

  But it was more, he was certain, than a mere recognition signal. On the third time it had come to him, he had not been triggered to the symbolic experience he had lived through the times before, but to a scene out of his own childhood and to a quite human fantasy in which he had talked with Shakespeare’s clacking skull. Was that mere triggering or had it happened because the mechanism (the mechanism?) responsible for the god-hour had wormed its way into his mind and soul, in fact examining and probing and analyzing him as it, those first two times, had appeared to do. Something of the sort, he remembered, apparently had been experienced by Shakespeare.

  “Is there something that you want?” he asked. “You do this for us—what can we do for you?”

  He waited for the answer, but there was no answer. Pond lay dark and placid, with the starlight freckling its surface.

  You do this for us, he’d said; what can we do for you? Making it sound as if what Pond had offered was something of great value, something that was needed. Was it? he asked himself. Was it something that was needed, that was even wanted? Was it not, perhaps, something they could do without, most happily without?

  And was ashamed. First contact, he thought. Then knew he was wrong. First contact for him and Ship, but perhaps not first contact for Pond or the many other Ponds on many other planets. Nor first contact for many other humans. Since Ship had left the Earth, man had spread across the galaxy, and these splinters of humanity must have made many other first contacts with creatures strange and wonderful.

  “Pond,” he said. “I spoke to you. Why don’t you answer, Pond?”

  A tiny flutter stirred within his mind, a contented flutter, like the soft sighing of a puppy settling down to sleep.

  “Pond!” he said.

  There was no answer. The flutter was not repeated. And this was the end of it, the all of it? Perhaps Pond was tired. It struck him as ridiculous that such a thing as Pond was tired.

  He rose to his feet, and his cramped leg muscles cried relief. But rising to his feet, he did not move immediately, standing there and listening to the amazement that thundered through his brain.

  He had been disappointed, he remembered, at his first glimpse of the planet, disappointed at its lack of alienness, thinking of it as no more than just a dowdy Earth. It was, he said, defending his first impression, dowdy enough, if it came to that.

  Now that it was time to go, now that he’d been dismissed, he found a strange reluctance to leave. As if, having struck up a new friendship, he hated to say good-bye. The term was wrong, he knew; it was not a friendship. He sought for the right word for it. There was none that he could think of.

  Could there, he wondered, ever be an actual friendship, a bone and blood friendship, between two intelligences so totally different. Could they ever find that common ground, that area of agreement, where they could say to one another: I agree with you—you may have approached the concept of a common humanity and a common philosophy from a different standpoint, but your conclusions coincide with mine.

  It was unlikely, he told himself, in detail, but on the basis of broad principles, it might be possible.

  “Good night, Pond,” he said. “I am glad I finally met you. I hope it will go well with the both of us.”

  Slowly he climbed the rocky shore and set out down the path, using the flashlight to find his way.

  As he rounded a bend, the light picked up a blur of whiteness. He shifted the light. It was Elayne.

  “I came to meet you,” she said.

  He walked up to her. “It was a foolish thing to do,” he told her. “You could have lost your way.”

  “I couldn’t stay back there,” she said. “I had to hunt you out. I’m fr
ightened. There is something about to happen.”

  “The sense of awareness once again?” he asked. “Like when we found the creature caught in time?”

  She nodded. “I would suppose that’s it. Just a feeling uncomfortable and on edge. As if I were teetering somewhere, waiting to jump, but not knowing where to jump.”

  “After what happened before,” he said, “I am inclined to believe you. Your hunch, that is. Or is it stronger than a hunch?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s so strong that I am frightened—desperately frightened. I wonder—would you spend the night with me? I have a togetherness blanket. Would you share it with me?”

  “I’d be pleased and honored.”

  “Not just because we’re a man and woman,” she said. “Although I suppose that’s a part of it. But because we’re two human beings—the only human beings. We need one another.”

  “Yes,” he said, “we do.”

  “You had a woman. You said the others died …”

  “Helen,” he said. “She’s been dead hundreds of years, but to me only yesterday.”

  “Because you were in sleep?”

  “That’s right. Time is canceled out by sleep.”

  “If you wish, you can pretend I’m Helen. I will not mind at all.”

  He looked at her. “I won’t pretend,” he said.

  25

  So there goes your theory, said the scientist to the monk, about the hand of God brushing across our brows.

  I don’t care, said the grande dame. I don’t like this planet. I still think it’s ishy. You can get excited about another life-form, another intelligence very much unlike us, but I don’t like it any better than I do the planet.

  I must confess, said the monk, that I do not care too greatly about the idea of bringing even a gallon or so of the Pond aboard. I don’t understand why Carter agreed to do it.

  If you recall what passed between Carter and the Pond, said the scientist, you’ll realize that Carter made no promise. Although I rather think we should. If we find a mistake has been made, there is a simple remedy. Anytime we wish, Nicodemus can jettison the Pond, heave it out of the ship.

  But why should we bother with it at all? asked the grande dame. This thing that Carter calls the god-hour—it is nothing to us. It brushed us, that is all. We sensed it, as Nicodemus did. We did not experience it, as did Carter and Shakespeare. Carnivore—what happened to him we don’t really know. He was mostly frightened.

  We have not experienced it, I am sure, said the scientist, because our minds, which are better trained and disciplined …

  Which is only so because we have nothing but our minds, said the monk.

  That is true, said the scientist. As I was saying, with minds better disciplined, we instinctively shunted off the god-hour. We did not let it get to us. But if we opened up our minds to it, we probably would derive much more from it than do any of the others.

  Even if that should not be the case, said the monk, we’ll have Horton on board. He is quite good at it.

  And the girl, said the grande dame. Elayne—is that her name? It will be good to have two humans back on board again.

  That wouldn’t work for long, said the scientist. Horton or the two of them, whichever it may be, must go into cold-sleep very shortly. We can’t allow our human passengers to age. They represent a vital resource we must make the most of.

  But for only a few months? asked the grande dame. In a few months, they’d be able to pick up a good deal from the god-hour.

  We can’t afford a few months, said the scientist. A human life is short, at best.

  Except for us, said the monk.

  We can’t be entirely sure how long our lives may be, said the scientist. At least not yet, we can’t. Although I would suggest that, in the full meaning of the term, we may be no longer human.

  Of course we are, said the grande dame. We are far too human. We cling to our identities and individualities. We quarrel among ourselves. We let our prejudice show through. We still are petty and objectionable. And we were not meant to be that way. The three minds were supposed to flow together, to become one mind much greater and more efficient than three minds. And I’m talking not only about myself, with my pettiness, which I am quite willing to confess, but you, Sir Scientist, with your exaggerated scientific viewpoint that you tend to flaunt to prove your superiority over a simpleminded, flighty woman and a dumb bunny of a monk …

  I will not deign to debate with you, said the scientist, but I must remind you that there have been times …

  Yes, times, said the monk. When deep in interstellar space, there were no distractions, when we had worn ourselves out with our pettiness, when we were bored to death. Then we came together out of sheer weariness and those were the only times when we came close to the fine-honed communal mind that it was expected by those back on Earth we finally would achieve. I’d like to see the look on the faces of all those weighty neurologists and those bird-brained psychologists who worked out the scenario for us if they could only know how all their calculations worked out in actuality. Of course, all of them are dead by now …

  It was the emptiness, said the grande dame, that drove us together. The emptiness and the nothingness. Like three frightened children huddling together against the emptiness. Three minds huddling together for mutual protection and that was all it was.

  Perhaps, said the scientist, you have come close to the truth of the situation. In your bitterness, close to the truth.

  I am not bitter, said the grande dame. If I’m remembered at all, I am remembered as a selfless person who gave of herself all her life and who gave more than any human should be ever expected to give. They will think of me as one who gave up her body and the solace of death to advance the cause …

  So, said the monk. once again it comes down to human vanity and to misguided human hopes, although I do not agree with you on that business about the solace of death. But you’re right about the emptiness.

  The emptiness, the scientist thought to himself. Yes, the emptiness. And it was strange that, as a man who should have understood the emptiness, who should have expected it, he had failed to understand, failed to come to terms with it, but had been seized with the same illogical reaction to it as the other two, in the end developing a shameful fear of it. Emptiness, he had known, was only relative. Space was not empty and he had known it wasn’t. Although thinly scattered, there was matter there, much of it made up of fairly complex molecules. He had told this to himself time and time again, saying to himself—it is not empty, it is not empty, there is matter there. Yet, he had not been able to convince himself. For there was in the seeming emptiness of space an uncaring and a coldness that drove one in upon one’s self, shrinking from the coldness and uncaring. The worst of the emptiness, he thought, was that it made one seem so small and insignificant and that, he told himself, was the thought to fight against, for life, no matter what its smallness, could not be insignificant. Life, on the face of it, was the one thing, the only thing, that had any meaning to the entire universe.

  And yet, said the monk, there were times, I recall, when we overcame the fright and no longer huddled, when we forgot the ship, when, as a newborn entity, we strode across the emptiness as if it were quite natural, as if we walked a pasture or the garden. It always seemed to me that this time came, that this condition came about only when we reached a point where it seemed we could bear no more, when we had reached and exceeded the feeble capabilities of humanity—when this time came there was an escape valve of some sort, a compensating situation in which we entered upon a new plane of existence …

  I remember, too, said the scientist, and from the memory I can snatch some hope. How confused we seem to be, able to convince ourselves of our hopelessness and then recalling some small fact that can give us hope. It’s all so new to us—that’s our trouble. Despite the millennia, it’s still too new to us. A situation so unique, so alien to our human concepts, that it’s a wonder we’re not
more confused.

  The grande dame said, You recall that from time to time, on this planet, we have detected another intelligence, a sort of whiff of another intelligence, as if we were hounds sniffing out an ancient trail. And now that we have felt the full force of the Pond-intelligence—reluctant as I am to say it, for I want no more intelligence—the Pond-intelligence does not seem to be the one that we earlier detected. Is it possible there is yet another great intelligence upon this silly planet?

  The creature-in-time, perhaps, suggested the monk. The intelligence we detected was very faint, extremely subtle. As if it were trying to hide against detection.

  I doubt that would be it, said the scientist. A thing encased in time, I should judge, would be undetectable. I can think of no more effective insulation than a shield of arrested time. The terrible thing about time is that we know it not at all. Space, matter and energy—these are factors that we can pretend to recognize, or at least theoretically accept their theoretical values. Time is the complete mystery. We cannot be certain of its actuality. It has no handle we can grasp to examine it.

  So there may yet be another intelligence—an unknown intelligence?

  I do not care, said the grande dame. I have no wish to know it. I hope that this pretty puzzle in which we’ve become involved comes to an early end so we can get out of here.

  It won’t be long, said the monk. A few more hours, perhaps. The planet’s closed, and there is nothing further to be done. In the morning, they’ll go down and look at the tunnel and then will know there’s nothing to be done. But before that happens, there is a decision that must be made. Carter has not asked us because he is afraid to ask us. He fears the answer we will give.