“You will know,” Demeter Mother told him.
He swung toward his own mother. “Do you have to become like, like her?”
“Yes,” said the voice from the kingdoms outside. “On each new planet they will need a new Demeter.”
Anson strengthened his hold. “Not to worry,” he said. “We’ll live our lives as they are, we two here, overseeing the migration.” He smiled. “Somebody’s got to, and we were elected before we woke up, seems. But a download of your mother will go to Isis and another to Amaterasu and a third to Kwan-Yin,” the globe in Puppis, too distant for organic beings to reach, which Guthrie had nonetheless decided would be a home for them. “There they’ll become the Life Mothers.”
“Don’t say that I have to or that I must,” exclaimed Demeter Daughter. “I want to. It’s a—it’s too great, too wonderful for me to understand as I am, but I have my half-memories of it, like dreams I once dreamed.”
“Bringing life to the universe,” said Demeter Mother.
“And you know, lad,” Guthrie put in, his tone calmingly prosaic, “once folks have taken root yonder, once they’ve built an industry in places that will last, why, they won’t have to destroy any other life they may find, ever again. They won’t need to start with oxygen in the air. They’ll have the power, and the time, to begin from scratch, and make naked rocks blossom.”
Childhood is too often haunted by dreads that the child dares not speak of. Noboru’s were being lured forth to their exorcism. “Will the—so-pho-tects on Earth let us?”
“Hey, are they a boogeyman for you? Don’t give them a hoot. All they’ll ever do is admire their own intelligence.”
“Don’t say that,” Demeter Mother reproved. “We should not scorn them, nor forever shun them. There is more than one Dao, more than one path toward truth. They have their ways to give the universe a meaning, as we have ours. I think in the end humans will seek back to them, as equals, brothers and sisters in the same quest.”
Noboru’s eyes widened. “You’re awfully wise,” he breathed.
Her laugh rippled. “Barely wise enough to guess how little wisdom is mine, dear.”
“But—Mother said—you’re much more’n she is.”
Now a sigh went, like a breeze through leaves. “In some ways. In others, oh, far, far less.” Pause. In the multi a salmon breasted a waterfall, upstream bound to spawn and die. “I am content, but I can never be fulfilled. No living creature ever can be; and that is the real miracle of life.”
“Yes,” Demeter Daughter said, “I’m glad for what I shall be, but I’m also glad for what I am, and don’t want that to end either.”
Anson took the boy’s chin, turned the small face toward his, and spoke gravely. “When we’re old, your mother and I, we’ll download, she for the fourth time, I for the first. And I expect we’ll make the long, long voyage to Kwan-Yin. By then the machines and earlier downloads should have it ready for us and a Life Mother be waiting. We and those who go with us will live again as humans.” His wife smiled at him above the tousled head. He winked back. “You can come along, son, if you wish. Next door on Bion we’ll find lifetimes of whooping adventures and fantastic discoveries.”
“And afterward, all the stars?” Noboru asked.
Guthrie chuckled. “A chip off the old block, you. Yes, all the stars.”
Noboru looked again at him. The thin voice sharpened. “What about you?”
“Me? Oh, I’ll stay put. Gotten stodgy, I have.”
The boy stiffened. “No!” he screamed. “This planet’s goin’ to die!”
“Not for many years yet,” Demeter Mother said like a caress, while Demeter Daughter hugged him. “Never fear what shall be. Rejoice in what is.”
“She can’t leave,” Guthrie said, “and I’m not about to leave her alone . . . then.” He leaned forward, caught the boy’s hand, and held it. “Listen, Noboru. We are not sad. We are not afraid. We’ve had a long span of being, and it was full of love and work worth doing and everything else good, but when the time comes for us to rest, that will be good too.”
“What a load for one little soul,” Demeter Mother murmured. “Why don’t we stop? Whenever you want us, child, wherever you are, we will be there for you, we who love you. But meanwhile, let’s simply be happy together.”
They showed him the marvels that dwelt here, allowed him to play with what he could handle, told him how much more lay beyond the sky but also in every commonplace day ahead of him, miraculous because he would not know what it was until he found it. When they brought him outside, a flock of cranes was passing overhead, southbound for the winter. Demeter Mother called them down. Their wings made a snowstorm around him. He shouted for joy.
In this country at this season, the double sunset came early. Night had fallen when the family started toward their flyer to go home. The wind had ceased but the cold had deepened. The land reached obscure close by, unseen farther on, as if there were no more horizons. In the darkness above shone red Proxima, amber Sol, a purity of radiance that was Phaethon. Encompassing them were stars in their thousands and the countlessness of the galaxy.
Guthrie stood waving farewell. Words drifted back and forth, “Goodnight. . . . Tomorrow. . . .” When the air was again silent he turned about and went to the halidom under the trees, where he would enter into communion with his beloved.
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