Edmund Cooper
Page 20
He saw them all. He could hear the traffic, the street musicians, the starlings in Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. Big Ben struck; and he could smell the scent of roasting chestnuts, of crowded restaurants, of late roses in a flower seller’s basket.
He could see and smell—he could almost touch. And suddenly he felt a shock that seemed physical in its impact. He didn’t want London. He knew he didn’t want any of it. For London meant forgetting. London meant the loss of what had grown between him and Barbara And Tom And Mary London meant gaining so little, and losing so much.
He looked at the others and knew that they, too, did not want to surrender the memories of all that had happened to bind them close. On Earth they had all been lonely people. Here, seventy light-years from Piccadilly Circus, they were no longer alone.
But there was another reason for not going back—a reason that was as yet only half-formed in their minds. Here, there was a chance to create. A chance to start from nothing, with only their hands and their hopes. A chance to make something new.... A hell of a chance! But one, thought Avery, that was worth taking.
Unconsciously, he put his arm round Barbara’s shoulder. They looked at each other—as Tom and Mary were looking at each other. They looked at each other and understood.
‘Shall I give Uncle his answer?’ asked Avery quietly.
Barbara shook her head, and stepped up to the machine. ‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘We have a right to know.’
She tapped the message out. We want to see you. You have done a great deal to us without our consent. We have a right to see you.
The answer was enigmatic. It will not be of value. There is no acceptable true image.
Barbara persisted. Nevertheless, we want to see you. Or are you afraid to be seen?
There was a long pause. Then the machine printed out: There is no true image. But judge for yourselves. The request is granted.
Suddenly, there was a humming in the air. A humming as of all the bees in the universe concentrated into an invisible point, into a searing needle of sound.
Then the humming was cut off abruptly. And, farther along the shore, a great monstrous, blinding, golden ball —perhaps thirty yards in diameter—hovered just above the surface of the sand.
There was a tiny, dry crackle—Avery remembered it well—as of fine splinters of glass being broken. For a fraction of a second, the ball shimmered, then it disappeared.
Four people stood where it had been.
Two men and two women.
Four golden people.
One of them was Zleetri.
Avery took a step forward. But in the sf ace of that single step, his desire to move was frozen.
The golden people were no longer golden people. They had changed into another Tom, another Mary, another Barbara—another Avery. Every detail was correct, even to Tom’s bandage showing through the top of his shirt. Even to the burn mark—a scar of battle—on Mary’s arm.
The other Avery spoke. ‘Forgive our tricks. Do not be afraid. They were to show you that there is no true image Think of it as a technique similar to, but far more complex than, the protective coloration of the chameleon.’
Avery heard his own voice used by a mirror-image. But though he was numb with shock, his mind continued to work The voice, he was surprised to find, had not been stolen in a literal sense; for suddenly, and in great amazement, he heard himself speak.
‘The tricks are not good enough. Show us, then, what is most nearly the true image.’
‘As you wish,’ said the other Avery.
The figures changed.
They changed into something that was familar, yet inexplicable. They changed into monsters that were not monstrous, into people who were neither men nor women.
They changed into small, naked, brown-skinned, humanoid hermaphrodites. Hermaphrodites who also seemed like super quadruplets. For, in every detail, they were absolutely identical.
One of them spoke. It was not a man’s voice, nor was it a woman’s voice. Nor yet was the sound displeasing.
‘To you of Achemar, late of the Earth, from the controllers of the second linear quadrant, greetings. For what has happened, we do not ask your forgiveness. We ask only your understanding; since your race is destined to become our inheritors.
‘It will be hard for you to understand. Our science and our culture are more than a million earth-years ahead of yours. Long ago we developed the technology to take us into space; and in becoming space-borne, we acquired the attitudes and the responsibilities that become the burden of all space-oriented forms of intelligent life. We have no planetary home. It is lost in time. Nor do we now need one. For long ago our techniques enabled us to become immortal. And because of this we are dying. That is why we set ourselves the task of discovering our true inheritors. It is to them that we must ultimately entrust the future of intelligent life in the second quadrant.’ Avery found his tongue again. ‘If you are immortal, then you cannot die.’
The hermaphrodite smiled. ‘Immortality was attained at the expense of fertility. We do not die of age. But no one can be immune to the laws of chance. Accident is our unvanquishable enemy. Few of us die by accident, yet fewer of us are bom. In three or four millennia, we shall be extinct. Because of this we conducted the experiment. As a result, we shall ensure that in this sector one race only will eventually tap the secrets of the stars. The only other intelligent race—those whom you call the golden people, the inhabitants of the fifth planet of Alpha Centauri—will be inhibited. The people of your Earth are our inheritors.
‘Your race will become our inheritors not because of your superior strength, for your strength is not superior; and not because of your superior intelligence, for there is little to choose. But of the forty groups place ! on twenty islands of this planet, thirteen Earth-groups survived creatively, six Centaurian groups survived creatively and the rest disintegrated in conflict. The groups that survived did so not because they were strong—though strength was needed—but because they found another collective strength, which you inadequately call compassion.
‘Of the thirteen surviving Earth groups, nine—including this one, for we see that your decision has been taken —have elected to stay here on Achemar. Of the six surviving Centaurian groups, none have elected to stay....
‘Compassion and the desire to create. In the end, they are the only qualities you will need. Perhaps one day you or the others of your kind will cross the seas of Achemar to unite. They are of different ethnic groups. Perhaps, in the end, you will develop a multi-ethnic culture. That, too, might be an experiment of some interest....
‘But now we leave you with the gift of a planet. Make of it what you will. It may be that, in the space of a generation or two, we shall return to observe your progress. Meanwhile, farewell.’
The four identical hermaphrodites simultaneously raised their left arms in a gesture that seemed vaguely similar to the ancient Roman salute.
‘Wait! ’ said Avery desperately. ‘There is so much we want to know. So much we don’t understand.’
The hermaphrodite who had already spoken spoke once more. There seemed to be a hint of laughter in the voice.
‘This is home. This is the garden. This is the world where you will live and grow and understand. This is where you will discover enough but not too much. This is where life is. It is yours.’
Then there was that penetrating sound as of a myriad bees. The humming stopped. Instantly it was ?.s if the four beings had been obliterated by a ball of fire.
The sphere shimmered. Slowly it seemed to roll, liquid and blinding, towards Avery and Barbara and Tom and Mary.
They backed away.
It passed over the typewriter that was not a typewriter. And where it had passed there was nothing.
There came that other sound—the fine splintering of splintered glass. And suddenly, there was only sea and sky and land.
And four people, like sleep-walkers, like children waking and not yet quite awake.
Tom let out a great sigh and wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘Jesus! ’ he murmured. ‘Jesus H! As far as I’m concerned seeing isn’t believing any more. What do you make of it? What can you make of it?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mary surprisingly. ‘I mean They don’t matter. They can talk about immortality and destiny and quadrants till they’re blue in the face. That doesn’t mean anything. Not to me.... What matters is that we have each other. It’s enough.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Barbara, taking Avery’s hand. ‘It’s quite enough. I don’t know what they’re up to—I don’t even want to know. But they’ve given us a chance to find each other and ourselves. That satisfies me.’
Avery smiled. ‘It doesn’t satisfy me.’
But Barbara’s brief disappointment vanished as he went on.
‘Finding each other is the big thing, but it’s only the first thing. Now we have to build. Not just a house or even—if we get enough children—a village. Not just comfort on a cosy little island for four. But some damn silly compulsive abstraction called civilization.... To hell with Them We’ll try to sort.out a few of their riddles when we have nothing better to do in the evenings. But if it’s true what They said, then sooner or later we’re going to have to try our hands at boats. Then we can link up and really grow.’
‘Pooh,’ said Barbara. ‘Let’s wait till somebody comes to visit us.’
Avery ruffled her hair affectionately. ‘Suppose they all think that? Come on, we can argue it out over breakfast. And then we must really look for a select plot of land for a house—the first house.’
As they went back to Camp Two, Avery began to think about Them. Despite the grotesque appearance, there had been something oddly familiar about them.
And suddenly he knew what it was.
He had seen that face—the four faces in one—and that smile before.
He had seen them seventy light-years ago in an illustration in a geography book in an English schoolroom.
The smile on the face of the Sphinx...
Filled with wonder, confusion—and a strange feeling of exhilaration—he helped Barbara to get fruit and some fresh water for breakfast.
The sun was still low, but there was every sign that it was going to be a hot day.
Perhaps, instead of looking for a piece of land to build on, he would paint.
Perhaps, while he was painting, he would dream of building a boat....
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX