He had failed.
His children would go on, and raise their children, and travel to the asteroid, and he and the others, in thrall, would follow. But their despair would grow deeper; they would continue to fall short, and their sorrow would finally destroy them. He wondered how they had lived with it for so long.
He knew what he had to do. He would begin another project, but this time, he and Josepha and Chane and all the other parents would be the subjects. He would not keep fearing what he might be after the change. He would dig through the muck to his old brain, and root it out.
Merripen heard a knock. He looked up from his lap screen. “We’re having supper now,” Teno said from the open door.
“I’ll have mine here.”
“Please join us this time. We’d like your company.”
Merripen was about to refuse, but Teno’s eyes seemed to plead with him. “All right.”
He followed Teno to the table. He sat at one end; at the other, Andrew was feeding a piece of fruit to Ramli’s child, Albah. Josepha smiled at him tensely, and Chane nodded. Teno sat with Laurel. Merripen poured some wine, nibbled at his mushrooms, then cleared his throat.
“I’ve made a decision,” he said.
The others turned their heads toward him.
“I’m going to begin some research. I am going to try to find a way to alter our bodies so that we can be like you.” He gestured at Teno, then at Ramli.
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “But why?” Chane said.
“Can’t you see? It’s the only way. I’ve seen what’s happened here. It’ll be better for all of us.”
Josepha looked down, as though Merripen had raised a forbidden topic. Teno gazed at Ramli, and something passed between them. Ramli’s head turned toward Merripen again.
“You’re making a mistake,” Ramli said.
“No, I’m not.” He faced Teno. “You theorized that our descendants might have been like you in time. Is it reasonable to wait? Why not now?”
Teno raised a hand. “No, Merripen. You haven’t thought it through. You’re not looking at what you can be, or what you are; you’re trying to find a niche. So many of you do that, as if there is some golden space that can enclose you and guarantee you happiness. But there are no golden spaces, not for us, not for any of you.”
The others were silent for a while, then began to talk. Merripen picked at his food, then pushed the plate away. Josepha was looking at him. Merripen glared at her. You know I’m right—speak out. She lowered her eyes.
Teno and Ramli got up abruptly, reaching out for their children. Ramli went to Chane, held Albah out, then whispered something to him. Chane started, then smiled. Teno went to Josepha’s side. She kissed Laurel, then looked up at her child.
Teno said, “I love you, Josepha.”
She held Laurel more tightly, then handed the child back to Teno. “Thank you for saying it,” she said softly. “You don’t have to.”
“I wanted to say it now—it’s important.” Teno crossed to Merripen’s side and stood there with Ramli and the children. “Thank you, Merripen, for giving us our lives.”
Merripen stared at them, puzzled. They left and went to their rooms.
He was soaring with Josepha over the settlement. When he looked toward her again, Teno stared back at him. They flew toward the hill and were suddenly over a silver lake; he looked down through the clear water at the white pebbles below it. They flew into the black night and the distant stars danced; he could see them through Teno’s transparent body. Teno spoke, but the words were lost in the wind.
“Merripen.”
He opened his eyes. Josepha was standing over him, her red silk robe tied carelessly at her waist; the tip of her cigarette was a bright red eye. “Merripen!” There was desperation in her voice.
He sat up. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong. I woke up a little while ago. I saw a group go by outside, Yoshi and some others. They were going toward the transport.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. I sat down and had some tea, and then I suddenly had the feeling that the house was almost empty. You get used to people being around; you feel it when they’re gone. I went to Teno’s room, and then to Ramli’s. They aren’t here. Laurel and Albah are gone, too.”
“Is Chane awake?”
She shook her head. “No. Please come with me. I’m afraid.”
He got up and pulled on his robe, following her out of the house. She dropped her cigarette and ground it into the path with her slippered foot. The street was quiet; he saw Gurit at the door of her brick house. Josepha pulled at his arm, leading him down the road toward the grassy slope.
They climbed toward the transport. Merripen was apprehensive; was Josepha going to take him to the asteroid? He thought of his body turning into tachyons, streaking through space; he feared that transformation.
As they approached the entrance, part of the silver wall slid open, showing him a dark cavern. They entered, and the cavern grew lighter. Twenty transparent cylinders, each large enough to hold a few people, stood to one side.
Josepha went to one and pressed her hand against it, then turned to Merripen. “It won’t open.”
A figure was taking shape in the center of the cavern. Its edges grew sharper, and Merripen recognized Teno. Josepha ran to the image, as though she could embrace it; her arms passed through it. “Teno,” she cried. Teno gave no sign of having heard her.
“I don’t know how many of you are here,” Teno said, “but this message will be repeated each time one of you enters this room. We have shut down the transports and will soon be leaving this system. We are saying farewell.”
Josepha stepped back. Her hands fluttered before her face.
“I know you had assumed that we would travel together,” Teno went on, “but it’s better this way. Our paths are different, our needs are not the same. We knew we would have to leave you behind, and you are probably now thinking that it was cruel of us not to have told you before. Nothing any of you said precipitated this action; we had planned it long ago. Please believe that. When your shock and surprise wear off, you’ll be happy that you didn’t come with us.”
The gray eyes gazed toward Merripen, then turned in Josepha’s direction. The gesture seemed awkward, as though Teno was pretending this was a real conversation. “We have much to learn, about ourselves as well as other things. We must find out who and what we really are, and especially what we should become. You would have tried to hold us back, seeing in us only what you wanted to see, while we would have been trying to make you more like us. Perhaps our evolutionary paths are not the same. We may become something which you will become in time, or we may turn into something you never can be. We needed you for a while, but no more. We had exacerbated the divisions inside each of you; you were struggling to escape yourselves instead of confronting yourselves. You have time now to find out who and what you are, to create your own purpose. You may not find one—you may have reached a dead end. I don’t say that to be cruel. You’ve tried to destroy yourselves in the past, and perhaps that part of you that seeks death will never wither away.”
Josepha leaned against Merripen; he reached for her hand. Her pulse beat with his own. “Stay with one another, if you can,” Teno continued. “We’ve left you the only legacy we could leave—our journals, our observations, all of our research—it’s all here. And, of course, you have your memories. Perhaps you’ll choose to follow us, or to change the world you have. We may meet again, though I don’t think any of us will be the same then. Please understand. I don’t ask you to forgive, though you will in time. We loved you, in our way. Farewell.”
The image dissolved, shimmering as it disappeared. Josepha was biting her lower lip; her dark eyes shone. She bowed her head, and her long hair hid her face. Merripen stared at the spot where Teno’s image had been.
What had they been told? Had Teno said that they could not follow as they were, that they had to change
? Or were they caught by their past and unable to escape it? He had come here too late, in time only to catch a glimpse of what was now gone forever. Better if he had never come at all.
“Teno’s wrong,” Josepha said. “I think they’re going to find that they’re divided inside themselves, too. It was so easy for us not to see it when they were here, it was so easy for them not to see it—they could ascribe it to our influence. Now they’ll have to confront themselves.” Her voice broke.
“Josepha?” he murmured.
“It’s all right. I think I must have known it would happen all along. We tried so hard. We should have realized we couldn’t have stayed with them. Isn’t it odd? Only Teno speaks, so I get to see my child one last time. You’d think they all would have left messages. I suppose it didn’t occur to them. The message is the same, so it doesn’t matter who delivers it, but you’d think they’d understand by now that it would matter to us.” Her mouth became a narrow line; her hand trembled slightly.
He turned. Chane and Gurit had entered the cave. Gurit hurried to Josepha and put an arm around her while Chane looked uncertainly toward the cylinders. The image began to form once more. “I don’t know how many of you are here,” Teno began.
Merripen went outside.
Merripen sat on the slope. Below, he could see Edwin Joreme digging in his garden. Josepha ambled through the streets with Chen Li Hua; Alf Heldstrom sat on his porch reading; Chane was visiting Dawud al-Ahmad. They had all been ghosts living in bodies for days; now they were returning to themselves.
Teno and the others had not, after all, lacked compassion. Each had left a personal message, locked inside the system until after their departure; they had apparently recorded them some time ago. So it had not been his arrival that had caused their leavetaking. That would have to console him. They had left him no message.
Andrew was climbing toward him. He looked back for a moment, stood over Merripen, then sat down. “I’m ready to leave,” he said. “You’ll still be here when I get back, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“How soon will you return?”
Andrew shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe by next year. It depends on Terry. She’ll be afraid to leave.” He raised his head. “I can tell you now. I don’t know if she would want me to, but I’ll say it anyway. It isn’t just the death of our friend that bound us. Terry killed two people a long time ago.”
Merripen held his breath for a moment.
“It wasn’t what you think. One of them was tormenting her, and the other would have killed her, and me as well.” Andrew lowered his eyes. “It was self-defense. If she hadn’t done it, she would have died, and I would have, too. Our friend did. But it marked her. For a long time, she didn’t feel anything about it, but when she did, the guilt almost destroyed her. She couldn’t forgive herself. She was afraid it might happen again. You can’t imagine the guilt she felt. Two people might have lived, might be alive now, could have changed and repented, maybe even been forgiven, and that was denied to them. I had to keep coming back to her so that she would remember that she’d given me my life. It’s my debt to her. She kept me sane.” Andrew shook his head. “She’s lived with death too long. I want her to come here.”
“We may not have much to offer her,” Merripen said. “I don’t know what will happen.”
“Yes, you do. You’ll do what they asked you to do. Go down there and talk to people. They’re relieved. They feel they’ve been given another chance, even though they won’t admit it outright. They’re reconciled. They’re starting to accept themselves, and then they’ll be ready for your new project, and theirs.”
Merripen raised his eyebrows. “What new project?”
“Yours. The one that you’ll all begin when you’re ready. The next transformation, the next Transition. Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it—I know you have. But you have to build a society first. We haven’t had one for a while, only isolated people running after their own lonely dreams.”
“What about Leif, and Peony, and the others? Do you think they’ll come here?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew replied. “They’ll have to decide that when I tell them. If they don’t leave, they’ll die there, you know, one way or another.” He paused. “Is there anything you want me to say to them?”
“Just tell them I found my children.”
Andrew rose and went down the hill toward his hovercraft. Merripen watched him get in and float away down the road and up the far slope until his craft disappeared over the top.
The wind touched him, whipping his hair; clouds sailed across the sky. Dust danced in the streets below, and trees swayed. The wind caressed him and lifted his spirit; his mind soared above the slope, then dipped, returning to him again.
Children were only one way of facing the future. It’s that uncertainty, he thought, or taking what is to come into our own hands by becoming our own posterity.
The shield was down. Everything was before him again, he realized with surprise.
The Golden Space
He was awake. He moved his toes slowly and pressed his fingers against his palms until he could feel warmth returning to his hands. He opened his eyes and stared blindly. Lifting his arms, he pushed against the flat surface above him until it shifted and fell with a clatter. He smelled dirt. He blinked and saw a patch of dark gray in the blackness overhead.
Sitting up, he removed the bands and wires from his arms, legs, and chest, then took off the circlet binding his head. Above him, a wind whistled, then died. He took a breath, tasted dust, and began to cough.
Soon he felt able to stand. He got up and stamped his feet, raising dust; he coughed some more. He folded his arms over his bare chest; he would have to find something to wear.
As he stumbled through the dark, he stretched out his arms and felt a wall. He ran his hands along it, feeling grit and bumps and then an empty space. He moved toward the space cautiously. He could see nothing; he shuffled forward and bumped his knee against an edge. He put out his hands, touching something smooth and hard—a tabletop. As he ran his fingers along the surface, he felt another object. He lifted it, feeling the rounded bumps at one end, and then recognized it.
A cry escaped him. He dropped the bone and staggered backward, lost his balance, and fell. Choking and gasping for air, he drew up his legs, then forced himself to stand. He was holding a piece of torn fabric in his hand; he must have fallen on it. He wrapped it around his waist and crept back to the outer room.
Why was he here? He reached up to rub his chin and felt his thick, matted beard. How long had he been suspended? He walked forward until his toes met a step. Crouching, he began to climb the steps, feeling his way with his hands as he went. His knees scraped against shards; his palms pressed against pebbles.
The opening in the roof had not widened when he reached the top step. He squatted and pushed at it, then pulled himself through the narrow space. He wriggled out and sat in the dirt, head bowed.
It was warmer outside; he was no longer shivering. The hazy sky was glowing faintly. He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder.
A grassy, leaf-strewn mound was behind him, covering part of the roof. He stared at the spot where his ship should have been, and trembled; he would be helpless. The roof was almost level with the ground; to his left, masses of earth sloped, forming a hill.
The village was gone. He covered his eyes; his shoulders shook. He heard whistling and chirping nearby; birds were singing their morning songs. A low moan accompanied them, the deep, strangled voice almost drowning out the delicate melodies, and Domingo realized that he was weeping.
The dawn came swiftly, appearing as a gray light over the misty blue hills in the east. It became a pale glow and was followed by a swollen red eye. Fog lay over the hills in long streamers.
His beard was wet; beads dampened his chest. His stomach rumbled. He would have to decide what to do. He could wait here, but the weedy ground, the
clumps of trees and bushes, and the buried temple all showed that this place had been forgotten and abandoned. He had no food and no water. No one was likely to find him if he stayed. No one. He shivered. Was there anyone left to find him?
Domingo cleared his throat. The hollow, rasping sound startled him, echoing in his ears. He struggled to compose himself. He would go back inside and find what he could and then decide what to do. He would not think any further ahead than that.
He had been crawling in the dust, feeling for objects, before he thought of searching the platform which had held his suspended body. There, sealed in a drawer hidden in the side, he found clothes and a small pocket light. The light was dim, but bright enough to show him that every room except one was blocked by rubble.
He put on the clothes, noting that the shoes were too tight, and went into the next room, trying not to look at the bones. The skull on the table grinned at him in the faint light. Mounds of debris had settled in the corners of the room; pieces of metal were in the dirt. He gritted his teeth in dismay; his materializer had been destroyed.
He left the room and climbed back to the roof. The day had grown warmer. Domingo sighed; at least he had not awakened in winter. He had no weapon. He would have to find water. That would keep him alive for a while, and then … and then …
He had told himself that he would not think any further ahead than that. He gazed at the wooded land, trying to orient himself, struggling to remember where he might find a creek or a river. The trees near him were tall and leafy, with thick trunks; he wondered how long they had been growing here. He would have to look at the stars tonight and see what they told him. Had the Big Dipper lengthened, or become a wedge? Would he even be able to see it? He did not know whether it was early or late summer, or how far the equinoxes had precessed. He hoped the sky would be clear, and was suddenly afraid of what the heavens might show him.
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