Still Forms On Foxfield

by Joan Slonczewski

  “The truth is,” he said, “I know deep down that Celia’s right about the Light. And Clifford’s right about how well UNI seems to work—but perhaps it works too well. It’s swallowed every other religion, so far, as surely as the whale got Jonah. What will become of us, in the long run?”

  Allison grew cold. Judged by past experience alone, their chance of survival as Friends looked infinitesimal.

  Martha made a suggestion. “Perhaps we may speak to that concern by resolving that we, Friends of Foxfield, shall fulfill our commitments as citizens of UNI, insofar as our own Light is not violated—since we are capable of so much, but not more.”

  “That sounds fine,” said Wilbur, “if they’ll take it.”

  Christine said, “I think that’s exactly what everyone has sought all along. But how far will it take us, Martha?”

  Seconds passed.

  Lowell’s credometer beeped. “Questor Silva Maio.”

  “Do we accept the call?” Lowell asked.

  No one refused.

  “We accept your call,” he said.

  “Friends of Foxfield,” Silva announced, “UNI considers your statement an excellent first step in the reintegration of Foxfield, and we sincerely hope that it receives approval of the Meeting.”

  Some individuals stirred and commented over this, but raised no overt objection. Allison let out her breath in relief, though she still felt a twinge of unease; she generally did, when the Adjustor sounded pleased.

  “Are Friends in accord?” Lowell asked. “Noah?”

  Noah sat, arms crossed, in frozen silence. “I will not block the resolution,” he said at last.

  “But do you approve?”

  “Approved.”

  Lowell surveyed the room and said, “I believe we are in accord on this resolution…”

  Martha repeated the wording for Clifford to record.

  Dave tugged Allison’s sleeve and demanded, “Can we go home yet?”

  “No, business isn’t done yet.”

  “Nothing’s done yet,” muttered Frances. “Of course they accepted our resolution; what do they have to lose? Time is on their side. And what in fact did we decide, after all?” Slowly she shook her head. “In medical parlance, we labored long to bear a mouse.”

  XIII. The Lamps of Science

  Allison sat as still as possible while Dave sculpted her portrait. She watched critically as her son traced a life-size figure in three dimensions above the transcomm floor. His arm swung at a measured pace, and a line of light grew from the tip of his forefinger like thread on a needle. The luminous form took on details; now it appeared human, at least (definitely not commensal, for instance).

  “Hm. Do I really look like that?” she asked.

  “Actually,” Dave said, “you’re shorter and squatter. I’m used to practicing on Terran figures.”

  “Thanks a lot. Rodin wasn’t made in a day, I guess. You’d better finish up soon, because I have to go and—”

  “Okay, just another minute.”

  “Remember to bring the chairs back when you’re done in here.”

  “I will, Mom. Keep still, for your nose.”

  The chair left there since yesterday had half dissolved into the floor by the time she’d found it this antimorn. The cleaning mechanism seemed to lack discrimination. It was a wonder they had any shoes left, she thought.

  When she got up at last, pain shot through her neck and shoulders. The Meeting had lasted well into antinight, and she’d forgotten proper covering for the walk back. She was lucky to have escaped with a bad sunburn, this time of year. As she stepped outside, she gingerly turned her head to the sky. Black clouds hid the sun now; where had they been when she could have used them?

  The storm was gathering fast, and she half hoped that Kyoko might cancel, but the shuttle descended with customary insouciance. No putting this off, then, Allison thought. She nervously fingered her wristband, hoping that her chosen privacy level would suffice.

  Kyoko appeared in the shuttle entrance, her figure neatly sheathed in the standard sea green suit. She came forward and said, “Friend Allison, I sincerely regret what took place; it won’t happen again.”

  Allison nodded briskly.

  “I know,” Kyoko added, “I mean to respect your preferences. About women, that is.”

  “What?” Allison frowned. “No, it’s not that. Though I—it was unexpected…” She shifted her hair, feeling acute discomfort. “But I do feel…attached, sort of.”

  “Attached? You did say you were not ‘married,’ no?”

  “Well yes, but—you can be loyal to someone without being married.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s all right. Just took me by surprise, that’s all. Is homosexuality common in Japan?”

  “Less so than in the West, where the Eradication movement grew strongest. But even today, our overall sex ratio is three to two.”

  “I see.” Allison felt like kicking herself; she should have known, it was plain as day.

  Kyoko smiled. “You knew,” she said, “we’re finding it just as hard to figure you people out as you are us.”

  “So I gather, from the calls we get. They think we’re stranger than ’mensals.”

  Kyoko laughed and waved a delicate hand. “Shall we move on to check out construction at the power plant? We have more mundane problems to cope with on the ship, by the way. A System satellite collapsed a couple days ago, and we’ve yet to determine the cause.”

  “Really? I suppose you think I shot it down.”

  They both laughed and headed downhill toward the silvery towers of the model plant, the ‘Babel towers,’ as Allison called them. Thunder rolled in the distance. As heavy raindrops began to fall, her rain screen switched on with a slight hum.

  “Kyoko—something still bugs me. Suppose we had opted for ‘secession,’ at the Meeting last night. What would have happened?”

  “That’s hard to say.” Kyoko’s face was impassive. “We counted on your decision.”

  “That much?”

  “Oh, well.” The suit creased as she shrugged. “Silva gave you about forty to one.”

  The Foxfielder paused. “I see,” she began, sucking her lips in. “You knew our better side would surface in any case, so why not leave folks alone to let off steam?”

  “That was it, more or less. You people take this ‘religion’ very seriously, don’t you?”

  Allison stopped then and faced her. “You really don’t understand us—at all.”

  “That’s unfair. One has to start somewhere.”

  “Then start out by telling me how you get on, without religion.”

  “Well…that’s loading the question.”

  “How do you define values?” Allison asked.

  “Scientifically, of course.”

  “But…” She searched for words. In vain I send my soul into the dark, where never burn the lamps of science…“Even human values? The meaning of existence?”

  “Oh, all that. That should take care of itself, in a perfectly synchronized individual; first principle of psychosynchrony. In practice, everyone needs adjustment now and then.”

  “Faith drugs, you mean?”

  “That’s an archaic way to put it. Psychormones are available to balance the psyche on several levels. Some are accessible for self-adjustment on the outer level; Adjustors take care of the deeper levels. Silva could tell you more; it’s been a while since I studied such things.”

  “You studied it?”

  “For several years. My parentcorp wanted me to become an Adjustor. But I…declined to qualify.”

  “You dropped out.”

  Kyoko shivered. “One has to change, you see. After all, who can adjust an Adjustor?”

  Allison reflected on this. “So everyone depends on, er, adjustment, for mental health?”

  “Mental alignment. Don’t you ever go through times when you feel like killing yourself?”

  “Sure I do
. Usually I’m too busy to carry it out.”

  Kyoko nodded. “It’s quite individual. I myself check in for realignment once a month or so; more often when under stress.”

  Allison said nothing. She watched the streams of rain course down, tracing a cone of dryness about the pair of them.

  “What is morally wrong with that?” Kyoko asked. “Your commensal friends seem to regulate their own body chemistry completely.”

  “But they’re not human,” said Allison. “Their worldview works on the small end of physics, not the large. We think of levers, of gravity, of Newtonian planets around suns; we grasp that intuitively, more or less. But they think, She thinks, of electron clouds around nuclei. Quantum interactions on a molecular scale; that’s reality, for a ’mensal.”

  “You mean that because they deal with the world in terms of chemistry, their conceptual framework relates to quantum mechanics rather than classical physics?”

  “Closer to quantum than ours, at least,” said Allison. “This was Rachel’s most important insight. Humans see objects as ‘particles’; commensals see ‘probability waves,’ or distributions of ‘particleness.’ We think intuitively that things at rest stay at rest; they think in terms of zero-point energy, and of the finite chance that an electron might jump from its atom, or a planet from its stellar orbit.”

  “They think of planets as electron clouds?”

  “Well, they ‘know’ intellectually that it’s not the same, just as we do. But intuitively, they see no reason why a sun or a planet can’t just take off one day. In that sense, every day is a miracle for Fractions of the One.”

  “Is that why Ghareshl was so frightened in the shuttle craft, when the planet seemed to disappear?”

  “That was part of it. The Dwelling has of course developed more sophisticated notions.”

  “As human scientists developed quantum theory. Most intriguing,” Kyoko observed.

  “A commensal expects change,” Allison went on, “and is surprised by temporal continuity; so instead of greeting or leave-taking, one ‘affirms existence’ during the course of communication.”

  “But in another sense, quantum theory also implies a greater continuity.”

  “That’s right,” said Allison, “the continuity of the whole. An ensemble of electrons, say, are indistinguishable from one another and may be described by a single all-encompassing wave function. That is how the One sees Herself, and that is why the Dwelling developed.”

  “As opposed to a collection of individuals with independent wills.” Kyoko paused, lost in thought. “The commensals must find us very strange.”

  “I think,” said Allison, “that they may see us as a rather unstable ‘compound,’ a high-energy state likely to disintegrate as suddenly as we appeared on Foxfield.”

  The storm blew over by Wednesday antimorn, when Allison rose from bed at four west, as usual. She sat alone in the stuffy kitchen with the blinds tightly shut and sipped her tea. If only Seth were here, she thought; she missed his taciturn gaze across the table. He had been gone nearly two weeks now, ever since Casimir’s expedition. Still, it was unlike him to miss a Monthly Meeting.

  She had met Seth fourteen Foxfield years ago, when she and Josh had gone to Coral Vale to check out the hematite ore samples found just inside the jungle by Seth’s father, Gabriel Connaught. Those had been heady days for Josh and herself, full of excitement and discovery. An auroral glow yet lingered over those memories, though shot through with the pain which had followed.

  Years later, when she was entrenched at the Tech Center, Seth had stopped by. After a while, his visits had lengthened. When the Meeting had made known its need for a regular liaison with Coral Vale, he had volunteered without comment. Her relationship with him had developed likewise, almost, without comment. Perhaps, she reflected, the time had come for that to change.

  At any rate, other cares crowded her mind now. The System plans were taking too much of her time, and Kyoko was chafing over yet another satellite malfunction. So Allison put her cup in the sink and headed off to the Center to see how much she could get done today without interruption.

  Some hours later, the programmer took a break to step outside for fresh air. She let out an exclamation; for there by the door stood Lherin, basking patiently in the sun—after a week’s worth of unanswered scent pods.

  “Lherin! Where have you been?” Allison signaled.

  The Fraction’s compound eye stared like a silvery sunflower embedded in green velvet. Her corollar tendrils came to life. “Dwelling. One visits place of possible blood-sharers.”

  Allison was taken aback. “You mean sky-ship?” she asked, unsure of her interpretation; Lherin’s jungle mannerisms were more pronounced than usual.

  “Yes. Now.”

  Allison rubbed her hands in agitation. “How certain?”

  “Less certain than sun-flight; more certain than a copterfly.”

  “How will you get there?”

  The Fraction said nothing.

  Allison’s thoughts raced. “Call Casimir Stroem,” she told her credometer.

  “Request holding…”

  “Request urgent,” Allison added.

  Casimir’s voice came in. “Hello, Allison; I’m right at the crucial point in my analysis, so—”

  “Sorry, I just thought this might interest you.”

  “What?”

  “Lherin’s back; the Fraction, remember?”

  “The one that nearly gassed me, right?”

  “Right. She wants to visit the ship.”

  “Really?” Now his voice did sound excited.

  “I think,” added Allison, “that she expects me to take her there.”

  “Allison, that’s just incredible. You have no idea how hard I’ve tried to convince one to come back up here. All they’ve said is something like ‘low chance occurrence.’ I figured Ghareshl must have talked them all out of it.”

  “Well, Lherin shares some of Ghareshl, including the ship experience, but she wants to go.”

  “But what about the magnetic field?” Casimir asked. “I thought that was the main problem.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s not miss a chance. I’ll be down in half an hour.”

  “Well…” Allison sighed and turned to the commensal. “Still want to go?”

  Lherin’s corona folded like an inside-out umbrella. “‘One exists, you exist, world exists,’” she declared.

  They approached the shuttle craft on the hill; Casimir waited at the entrance.

  “You’re not afraid?” Allison anxiously signaled.

  “No, Plant-spike,” Lherin replied. “Gateway to another field. Energy waves stink, but tolerable.”

  Casimir scratched his golden curls. “I think I missed a phrase before ‘tolerable.’”

  “Well,” said Allison, “it doesn’t translate exactly. It refers to the shuttle’s electromagnetic radiation, and it’s not very polite.”

  “I see.” He looked puzzled.

  The craft rose, without any sign of discomfort from Lherin.

  “Frankly, Allison,” said the biosphere analyst, “I’m floored.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I was sure I’d figured out just how commensals work, and now all of a sudden it doesn’t fit. It occurred to me that those ion storms could produce enough radiowaves to stimulate electron spin resonance transitions in the molecules of the organism; they might be one source, at any rate. I’ve even devised a model of a biological organ which could pick up the transition signals.”

  “That’s right, just like some folks pick up signals in their teeth. The Fractions love auroras, even though they occur at night when the sun is down. Perhaps the Dwelling is in the south to avoid auroral distractions—”

  “But now,” said Casimir, “Lherin doesn’t seem to need a magnetic field.”

  Allison shrugged. “Maybe she can do without it for a little while.”

  “But if they like auroras, w
hy can’t they stand our radiowaves?”

  She grinned. “Now you should know that, Casimir.”

  Casimir groaned. “A matter of taste.”

  The shuttle control panel came to life and caught his attention. Casimir fiddled with it, then called someone on the ship and spoke in Japanese. “Wakarimasen, don’t understand…unsteady…malfunction…check into…”

  “What’s wrong, Cas?” Allison asked.

  “I’m not sure. Don’t worry, we’ll have the repair squad look into it. We’re almost there.”

  “It seems to me,” she observed, “that you folks have run into a lot of entropy lately.”

  The shuttle hooked up and deposited them in the ship corridor. Casimir led a brief tour for Lherin’s sake, including, of course, the garden. The place fascinated the commensal so much that she refused to signal for some time as they wandered up and down the paths of greenery.

  “Will she never give up?” Casimir asked. “You’d think she was greeting all her long lost relatives.”

  “Sh, watch what you say.”

  “Like humans, enchanted with chimpanzees and dolphins.”

  Allison’s credometer spoke up. “Questor Rissa Nduni.”

  She winced, tempted to refuse. “Accept.”

  “Friend Allison,” called the doctor’s voice. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. How have you been?”

  “Very well indeed. Especially physically.”

  “That’s good to hear; your credo confirms that. But credos can’t tell the whole story, you know.”

  “Really? I thought that was the whole idea.” Allison ducked a branch as Lherin made a sudden turn, and she nearly tripped over Casimir in the process.

  “Someday, perhaps,” Rissa went on, “but not quite yet. As we noted before, it’s good to be sure. A physical checkup will add to your credit level, and it won’t take much time; I just have one slot at the end of my appointment schedule.”

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll come—if we can ever get this commensal out of the garden.”

  Casimir finally coaxed Lherin away by promising her some exotic things to smell in his laboratory.

  In the lab Allison recognized some of the instruments which she had seen in a holoview from the Center transcomm. Casimir led the commensal to a small stage. A screen nearby beeped and filled with letters.