Still Forms On Foxfield

by Joan Slonczewski

  Silva Maio rose. “Friends, I’d like to speak to that. Humans and commensals are in fact different species, with differing sets of goals and needs. Quakers and other UNI citizens are one species—and all profess belief in the equality of all humans. UNI could not accept a permanent relationship which entails political disunity, and by implication, inequality on a personal level. Where would such a concept lead, when UNI encompasses so many disparate races and cultures, as many as did the old Earth you knew? It would lead us back to the age of war and holocaust—on a galactic scale.”

  Silva paused. “I do not mean to frighten you; we clearly are far from that era now. But you are part of us as we are of you. Do you feel truly unready for us now? We could depart and dismantle the SLIT station, and leave you alone for several generations more.”

  Dave’s eyes opened wide. “Mom,” he whispered hoarsely, “They can’t do that, can they? I mean—”

  “Sh, Dave.”

  Frances looked sideways. “Clerk, please?” she called. “David Thorne wants to say something. Come on, Dave, don’t hide your Light.”

  The boy stood with reluctance. “Well, the thing is I want to be an artist, like one of those mobilists who make all kinds of things in the transcomm. I can’t do anything like that without the System, ’cause Foxfield can’t afford artists. I mean, sure, I do my job here and all—even work nights, sometimes. But on Terra—why, Michiko says it’s even ‘socially productive’ to be an artist on Terra.”

  He sat down, and Allison rubbed his shoulder encouragingly.

  “Thank you, Dave,” said Lowell. “Anne?”

  “I certainly would like Dave and others to become artists as they choose, and to benefit from modern medicine and other services, without giving up membership in the community of Foxfield. But to renounce control of our own community—that is something which no individual may do. I confess I see no clear way in this, Lowell.”

  Lowell nodded slowly. “I think you’ve hit the root of it, Anne, and I also see no way to proceed at this time.”

  Silva rose again. “Friends,” said the Adjustor, “there is time to work out these matters—years, if need be. The Board has patience. If the medical incident is closed, I respectfully suggest we take up the urgent commensal problem.”

  “The problem is urgent,” Lowell agreed. “If Friends are in accord…Seth, will you explain?”

  Seth said, “The One Organism has discovered a disturbing object in orbit around Foxfield. The source of disturbance seems to coincide with this so-called SLIT station. The One has revealed Her intention to eliminate this irritant.”

  While this news sank in, Lowell signaled to Rashernu, who squatted in the aisle as usual beside the attenders from Coral Vale. “What disturbance?”

  Rashernu raised some tendrils, and people craned their necks to see. “Sky-object emits wave-forms. Interfere with One’s scientific observation.”

  The clerk’s eyebrow lifted. “Radiowave interference from that far out in space?”

  Letitia Mott rose to speak. “We should explain to our off-world attenders that the One has long monitored signals from the stars, at the Dwelling. This stellar observation is taken very seriously, and the SLIT station seems to interfere. The One will not say more; it was only by chance that we happened to glimpse Her intent during a recent interview.”

  “At the Dwelling?”

  “Yes.”

  Lowell signaled again to Rashernu. “One knows human significance of sky-object?”

  “Small significance,” the Fraction responded. “No blood-sharing wave-forms; not part of you. Extraneous distraction.”

  Excited voices mingled, a chorus of confusion. Lowell added, “The One is surely mistaken.” But he could get no further response from the creature.

  A thought struck Allison; she grew very cold. “Clerk, please,” she called, “may I try to check something?”

  “Yes, Allison. Attention, Friends, please.”

  She turned to Rashernu. “How will the One eliminate sky-object?”

  The creature kept still.

  Letitia said, “This Fraction can’t tell you; the matter lies beyond her grasp. You must ask at the Dwelling.”

  “Well…Can she even show that it’s possible?”

  That was the wrong question; anything was “possible.” But Letitia signaled for some minutes, and finally got an answer.

  “One knows. Practice, on lesser sky-objects.”

  “When?” demanded Allison.

  “Five sun-tours past; four sun-tours past.”

  “That’s it,” said Allison. “Today is Tuesday; Kyoko’s System satellites gave out last week, on Saturday and Monday. That’s what She ‘practiced’ on…so as usual, She means what She says.”

  Allison realized that the One might not even have connected the satellites with humans. The ship was another matter, of course; it now appeared that She had sent Lherin to the ship for one last look at the “possible blood-sharers” who depended upon the SLIT station.

  The room was full of voices now, as everyone seemed to offer advice at once.

  “We must keep calm,” Lowell insisted. “Silva?”

  The Adjustor rose. “Are we to understand that these creatures seriously threaten the SLIT station?”

  “Right,” said Seth, “She’ll jam your space-door for good.”

  “Seth Connaught,” said Lowell, “such an attitude serves the Meeting poorly. Silva, I’m afraid we still have much to learn about the One…”

  Allison signaled Rashernu once more. “Let us adjust sky-object. Then we can protect—”

  “Unnecessary. One will inactivate.”

  “When?”

  “One-third per sun-tour.”

  “Chance,” explained the Coral Vale woman. “One chance in six, each half-day from now on. The One rarely plans discrete events, especially events of this magnitude.”

  “In that case,” said Lowell, “we’ll send a delegation at once to try to change Her mind. Off-world citizens should come, too, to show—”

  “The One is no longer interested in non-blood-sharers,” Seth put in.

  “Then it’s up to us to instill that interest,” said Martha. “I suggest,” she added bluntly, “that Coral Vale Meeting consider its responsibility for this deplorable lapse in communication.”

  “But we’re all responsible,” said Anne Crain. “All of us, who have closed our eyes and left blood-sharing in the hands of a few for too long.”

  Silva discussed options with those who stayed afterward. “We could remove the SLIT station,” she said, “send it to another planet or to one of the moons. Inconvenient, of course—longer time lags—but that’s not the point.”

  “What is it, then?” Clifford asked. “Do you still question the danger?”

  “Let me tell you this,” she went on. “The Board of Adjustors keeps a close watch on Foxfield, and finds itself…increasingly dissatisfied with certain aspects. Frankly, some find it difficult even to credit the existence of this Dwelling.”

  Lowell’s brow shot up. “The Dwelling? Hundreds of us have been there.”

  “But where? Is it a physical place? Our scanners find no sign of civilization within the jungles.”

  Allison said, “I can’t understand that. There a structure, if not a square building; at least, that’s what Seth says. At Coral Vale, they have mapped its location, roughly. You can’t bring electronic directional finders which would disturb the Dwelling. The magnetic anomalies would mess up your instruments in any case.”

  “So you’ve no records, either,” Silva said. “Furthermore, the SLIT station has orbited Foxfield for the past twenty years…”

  Twenty years? This was news. Someone had told Allison four or five years; had it been Casimir?

  “…and in this space, it is detectable only by gravity waves. How does it disturb your creatures, and why only now?”

  Allison’s scalp prickled. No one had an answer.

  “Just what are you trying to say?�
� Clifford demanded at last. “Do you think we’re all putting on a farce?”

  Silva’s eyelids fluttered beneath her long forehead, betraying the first hint of fatigue. “Some Board members so conclude. I myself don’t see it, not here. I’ve studied your culture. Besides, you don’t have the technology.”

  “Thanks,” said Clifford ironically.

  “But the alternative,” Silva pointed out, “is worse yet: that these creatures appear to threaten UNI…with no known technology at all…”

  Allison was annoyed. Surely Casimir had enlightened them, by now.

  Martha’s brow creased thoughtfully. “Friend Silva, you spoke before of breaking contact with us, of leaving us for some generations until we were ready to accept you. Is it possible that your people, too, are unready to accept Foxfield?”

  Shadows deepened in the Adjustor’s face. “That may be true,” she said. “But now, I’m afraid, to break contact would be impossible. To be perceived as backing down before some nonhuman power—the Board cannot accept that.”

  “Well what can you accept?” Clifford asked. “Thermolyze the planet?”

  A pause lengthened in the room.

  “We still hope to avoid that.”

  “Lord save us,” whispered Lowell.

  Allison hurried up the hill at a dangerous pace for the darkness.

  “Mom,” Dave panted, “I can only walk so fast. Why don’t we get an antigrav car?”

  “Listen to you. Foxfield could burn in hell, and you tell me about antigravs? Off to bed with you, now.”

  “I’m a mature citizen, now. I don’t have to go to bed.”

  “You’ll be a citizen with a sore seat if I catch you awake past seventeen west.”

  Lighted windows at the Tech Center—that would be Bill, on night shift. The aurora tonight was a faint bluish white, like the ship corridors. The moon Providence cast a frail gleam on the transcomm, whose once-smooth surface now bore stains and scratches.

  Allison cupped her hands and faced the transcomm. “Open, ‘Belshazzar’!”

  Inside, she called for Casimir. He appeared at last in his study, seated on a mat before a low desk. On one side of the desk top stood an oblong vase with three lines of wisteria, Ikebana style. Over the other side hung a globe of Mars.

  Allison crossed her arms. “All right, Cas, what’s going on? Since when are commensals cows, and Friends covert anarchists? You know better.”

  “Allison, we’re doing the best we can.” The biosphere analyst wearily pulled a hand through his ruffled hair. “What do you expect of us?”

  “Better than thermolysis, that’s what. What’s wrong with you folks? The minute things go sour you have to blow up a planet?”

  “That’s enough,” he replied sharply. “Don’t you know I’ve worked my head off for the past two weeks trying to figure out what in space is going on?”

  “Then do it right; go to the Dwelling and see.”

  Casimir threw up his hands. “How can I do that when you all turn it into some kind of ‘forbidden city’? No electronics—blood-sharing—it sounds like a horror story. What is this place, Angkor Wat? No, it’s Stonehenge, and we’ve interrupted their stargazing.”

  “We can’t help it if we don’t know any more than you do.” But she winced, recalling Anne’s last words.

  “Look,” said Casimir with sudden decision. “Let me show you something. I know this is a level-ten credit-loss news item, and I’ve played it and replayed it to death already, but—I want to show you just what we’re up against. How’s your credit?”

  “Around eighty thousand, as if you didn’t know.”

  Then Allison screamed. Blue-tinted sunlight beat down as she hung tens of meters above a sea of faces which stretched interminably over the stark plain. When she collected herself, she realized that the faces were shouting something, roaring, actually; it sounded like “roar, roar.” As she stared at the upraised faces and listened more closely, she realized that the word was “aurora, aurora, aurora…”

  “This,” said an urbane voice-over, “is the Pennsylvania Desert. The people are calling on the so-called goddess Aurora to come to Terra. The sign of arrival of this entity is supposed to be an increase in geomagnetic field strength up to the level of planet Foxfield, Tau Ceti-nine. Eight hours ago, one of the cultists claimed to pick up an increase on a magnetic detector. The report has not been confirmed, but since then the crowd’s numbers have swelled to over a hundred thousand.”

  The scene faded out. Two people appeared in chairs. One was a man in a deep blue Terran robe. The other, a woman, wore a full ship suit, with hood and goggles open. Her expression reminded Allison of Silva Maio.

  The man spoke. “Bob Watrobski, here, speaking with Board Adjustor Jan Fiorella, North-Am sector. Adjustor, North-Am seems to be a perennial source of trouble, doesn’t it?”

  “Still full of floaters,” she agreed. “Floaters use any excuse to start a riot.”

  “But many of those cultists are citizens. The cultists say that since expert planetologists have studied the Aurora planet for twenty years and have yet to explain the unprecedented planetary magnetism, the only alternative is a ‘magical’ explanation of some kind. How do you respond to that?”

  “True, the mystery is embarrassing, and the planetologists involved have received reprimands from the Board. I remind you however that the need to keep UNI’s presence hidden from Foxfielders during sociological study has also hampered physical study of the planet Foxfield.”

  “But the cultists say that this was just an excuse to hide the fact that both the native creatures and the human settlers worship this electromagnetic ‘goddess.’ The natives even have a temple of some sort out in the jungle. And the miraculous survival of the humans in an alien biosphere is seen as further evidence that—”

  “The humans,” said the Adjustor, “in their beliefs, hark back to the dark Age of Uncertainty. They domesticated the native creatures in order to survive—”

  The pair vanished; Casimir returned. “That should give you the idea,” he said.

  “They’re crazy,” Allison whispered.

  “No, just badly adjusted, that’s all.”

  “They don’t know what we are…any more than you do.” She thought for a moment. “How many ‘floaters’ are there?”

  He winced and rubbed his forehead. “Too many. They infest the cities like rats—”

  “But how many?” she insisted. “Hundreds of millions?”

  “Space no, not yet. Ten million, perhaps; impossible to count exactly. On parts of Terra, remember, people were uncountable even before the Last War. And afterward—” He shrugged his tired shoulders. “Inevitably, some were left behind. And the farther the System developed, the wider the gulf became.”

  Ten million desperate people—the thought staggered her. “Still,” she pointed out, “you outnumber them.”

  “But they multiply unchecked. Like bacteria in a flask.”

  “And citizens don’t, of course.” She eyed him severely, recalling his earlier evasion. “So it’s floaters you want to get rid of on other planets.”

  “Well, Terra can’t feed them forever. But it’s more complex than that. Floaters…infect us, Allison.”

  “But why, Casimir? If UNI is so wonderful, then why don’t they all get credometers and join in?”

  He sighed and leaned over the desk, resting his head in his hands. “I wish I knew. Tradition, I suppose; they live on as they have for centuries. Some are fearful. Some are even ‘religious,’ like you folks.”

  “Really? Genuine religion?”

  “You can’t get rid of such things overnight. Those cultists in the desert, even the citizens, want to believe Foxfield has magic, because it wasn’t so long ago that the supernatural held the answers to all mysteries. That’s why we keep preservation societies: ‘cultural museums,’ to inoculate citizens against irrational belief by exposing them to the quaint traditions.”

  “So you’re afraid of us,” All
ison exclaimed. “That’s why you stayed away for twenty years.”

  “Could be. I signed on four years ago, myself, when your existence was acknowledged officially. Who knows how long the Adjustors monitored you before that.”

  “We’re dangerous,” she mused. “More dangerous than Titan; more dangerous to you than you are to us. Foxfield is a virus, and you’re not immune.”

  “Those were Terrans,” he pointed out. “We Martians are more sensible on the whole; that’s a fact, the System will tell you. Comes from strict upbringing; we were pioneers, like you folks.”

  Allison watched the globe above his desk. It had been turning steadily all the while, and she recognized some of its contours from that holoview of the Mars Classic.

  “Silva knew,” he went on. “She didn’t wish to make contact now. She sensed the public needed time, another generation at least. But UNI needs good farmland, and the Board insisted. Your famous missive was a good catalyst. ‘Let’s help out the Lost Colonists,’ and so forth. Sorry to run on—”

  “Not at all, do go on. That documentary; were you responsible for that?”

  “The Social Newsview?” He shrugged. “I provided some data.”

  “So you did try to convince people the ’mensals were cows.”

  “I only drew an analogy, which is quite correct in a narrow sense. Better cows than priests of some mystical cult. How can I prove that’s not so?” His voice held a desperate appeal.

  “Well, they happen to be neither,” said Allison, her voice rising, “so why don’t you go to the Dwelling and get the truth?”

  Casimir wiped his forehead. “Allison—I can’t do that. You heard Seth: the One’s not interested in non-blood-sharers.”

  “Well, come share blood, then. You’re human, aren’t you? Once She sees that—”

  “The commensals are good chemists. Our blood composition differs significantly from yours, and they’ll detect it.”

  “Somebody has to risk that.”

  His expression grew pained. “Allison, I…after the last time—”

  Allison held out her left arm and tapped her credometer. “Listen, citizen, I’ve worn this since the first day; I’ve faced your witch doctors and your psychoshrinks. Why don’t you meet us halfway for a change? With a whole biosphere at stake? Well?”