The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  “Life is ours to use, and use it we must, because it is our only resource that is not in short supply. So let’s drop this pride, this worship of a form that is changing with every generation, this nonsense about the sanctity of human life. Let’s realize that we are one animal among many, and they are all changing, and we can make a better life for everybody if we help them change.

  “There is an intelligent life-form out in space that is infinitely more advanced than ourselves and that gave up the use of machinery aeons ago. I’m sure we’ve all heard of the kikihuahuas. Once they were like us. Now they have progressed. They are humble and kind and clever and infinitely good—and they are genetic engineers. One day, we shall be like them.

  “Let’s make it soon, shall we?”

  When the minstrels tell the story of the Martyrdom of Raccoona Three, it’s easy to think that it all happened quickly, that the animal-girl was executed and suddenly the lot of the Specialists improved. It didn’t happen that way, though.

  It was a gradual thing. Mordecai Whirst didn’t live to see the end of it, neither did Vixena Ten (who was actually called Vixena Rhodez, since proper names were one of the earlier changes). The Vixenas stayed with him to the end, because they were his favorites. And his favorite of all was the first Vixena’s granddaughter who, before his death, got the truth from him.

  “They say Raccoona could have saved herself,” she said one day. Specialist history was her best subject.

  “She could have, but she didn’t,” he said. Enough time had gone by now. Changes were happening. A True Human had been convicted of assault upon a coati-girl. A dog-man had been allowed to enter law school. It was time to tell the truth—so it is probably from that day that the simple record of trial and execution became the Martyrdom. “It was her idea and I went along with it, although I could have saved her too.”

  “Did she kill La Rialta?”

  “She did.”

  “Why?” asked Vixena, a little disappointed. “How could she do a thing like that?”

  “A group of people—mostly True Humans, I’m pleased to say—were planning a general strike by all Specialists. It would have paralyzed Earth, and it would have brought people to their senses and made them realize just how much they depended on you people.” He sighed. “We were hasty in those days. Hasty and just a little too idealistic. Looking back on it, perhaps it’s as well it came to nothing. But we’d been planning it for years while we moved Specialists into key positions.

  “La Rialta and I would have been the chief spokesmen. Two public figures fighting for the underdog, if you’ll excuse the expression. And La Rialta had the world at her feet. Everybody adored her.

  “But then, little by little, she began to get nervous. She realized the strike would set True Humans against her—and she couldn’t bear to lose all that adulation. She began to set little conditions on her involvement and to engineer small delays to our plans. In the end there was a hell of a row and she left, threatening to expose us. Raccoona overheard all this. She saw that it could be the end of all our hopes.

  “You know what she did. She was very loyal. She proved that again, in court.”

  The voice was fainter now; he was tiring. “After the deed, Raccoona suddenly saw that we didn’t need the strike. Murder is defined as ‘the unlawful, malicious and intentional killing of one human being by another.’ She had killed a person humans loved, and they wanted her blood. They wanted her tried out there in public, and found guilty, and executed with due ceremony.

  “They ignored the fact that by trying Raccoona for murder, they were admitting she was human.

  “In the heat of the moment it seemed unimportant. The trial was the thing. They wanted to crucify her with due regard for the law. She mustn’t be permitted a simple animal escape like the datachimp. They didn’t want her quietly put down. That fact was registered in the Rainbow the moment sentence was passed. Mankind decrees that murder was committed, therefore Specialists are human. Now the Rainbow applies that rule to every decision it makes.

  “The Third Species of Man has arrived.”

  Vixena sighed. It all seemed so long ago, and tomorrow she was running in the council elections. “Poor, fated Raccoona. Brave Raccoona. That story that she could have saved herself in spite of public opinion, it’s probably a myth. A flourish to make a better yarn. Whether she was a Specialist or not, the humans wanted a show.”

  “I told you, she only had to reveal one little fact.”

  “What was that?”

  “That La Rialta was a Specialist too.”

  “What!”

  “Yes. If she’d revealed that to the court, public interest would have died of embarrassment and the judge would have declared ‘no trial.’ One animal kills another. So what’s new?” Even now, there was bitterness in his voice. “La Rialta was the result of a unique experiment we’ve never repeated. But she wanted to be human. She left the institute at an early age and assumed a new identity with the aid of a datachimp who loved her.”

  The evening was calm and rosy, and gulls swept across the clifftops, rising on the faint breeze. Somewhere within the institute the sound of laughter could be heard. The evening meal was cooking, roast pheasant. Vixena could smell it faintly and her mouth watered. The sun sank into the crimson pillow of the ocean, and blue nightfall climbed the sky from the east. Vixena said, “Tell me, Pops.”

  “You know it all.”

  “I don’t know that one little thing you never told anyone. What did counsel for the defense whisper to you? You know, those famous words they speculate about in all the history tapes, when you lost your temper and told him to keep his mouth shut?”

  Mordecai Whirst chuckled. “That? It was sad, really. He’d just found out La Rialta was a Specialist and he’d been trying to persuade me to have the trial declared void on that basis. He wasn’t aware of our plan, of course. And he wasn’t aware that public ridicule was the last thing the Specialists wanted to suffer, at that time.

  “What he said was: ‘La Rialta was a hippo.’”

  Manuel Talks with God

  And so the Specialists took their place in human society. In time the Whirst Institute fell into disuse, and by the 106th millennium, around the Age of Regression, creation of new Specialist varieties had ceased. As humans retreated into the Domes and neoteny began to claim them, the Specialists went with them, to serve them again.

  Outside, the Wild Humans evolved. They became primitive, almost savage in their struggle against their environment. In a few of them, however, the old humanity lived on.

  One such Wild Human lived on a beach near the village of Pu’este...

  Manuel mourned. Unaware of the momentous happenings in the nearby Dome, he had spent the days in remembrance of Belinda—of her slim beauty, of the inspiration she had given him and the love she had brought him. Stumping around his shack dressed in his trailing pacarana skins, he lost track of the days. He took fish from the waters of the bay, he milked his vicunas and combed them for wool and made butter and cheese. He did this to stay alive, but the fun had gone out of his life, and the passing villagers, calling down to him as he dug for clams, received only a curt nod. They went on their way shaking their heads. The young man was unhappy. It was a pity. But whatever the misery, no doubt it would pass.

  “The guanacos will return,” said Insel, meaning that things run in cycles.

  Insel was right. For a man as young as Manuel, despair cannot be sustained. One fine morning of horse clouds, as he sat at the door of his shack watching the sea and dreaming of the reappearance of Belinda, he surprised himself by throwing his head back and giving vent to a roar that sent the gulls winging from his roof and caused a pair of capybaras to run for shelter under the brow of the low cliff.

  It was a roar signifying frustration, bitterness and, above all, annoyance with himself. The time had come to pull himself together. “I’ve been behaving like a fool,” he told the vicunas. Standing, he caught up a rock and hurled it out to s
ea. “Lying around like a sick sheep. Now I’m going to do something. Dooooo something!” he shouted in the undisciplined way of one who spends too much time alone and does not have to consider the ridicule of human listeners.

  He climbed the track to the clifftop. Before him the old road wound its potholed way to the village, where people were already moving, hoeing and weeding their crops in the dusty fields behind the houses. Old Insel, who was cloud-struck, lay on his back nearby, watching the sky. He murmured ancient saws, reassuring himself and anyone who happened to be near, “Horses high, good days nigh.” Nearby, Prior carved a totem, while Jinny spun a cloud of flossy cottonweed to decorate its tip and appease the gods. Dad Ose, the priest, who disapproved of such nonsense, was nowhere to be seen.

  Manuel called to the villagers as he passed and they waved back, glad to see him out and about again. Whatever had been his problem, it was over now. Insel had been right.

  Manuel climbed steadily toward the church. He admired its lines and, as usual, wondered at the ancient workmen who had fitted those smooth rectangular rocks so neatly together, all those thousands of years ago. In its way, the church was as wonderful as the Dome.

  Within his huge chest Manuel’s lungs worked easily in the thin air. Scarcely out of breath, he paused at the church entrance and smiled at the priest, who sat with closed eyes against the wall.

  Dad Ose was enjoying the sun, dozing, knowing it was time to practice his daily Inner Think but letting the midsummer warmth leach the discipline from him. By the standards of the village people he looked fifty years old, but diligent application of the Inner Think had already afforded him a life of 496 years. This extreme age, and his consequent encyclopedic knowledge of village history, had earned him the respect of the people. He wanted little more, having realized long ago that his invisible God lacked the dramatic impact of the clouds that the village people preferred to worship.

  Hearing Manuel’s step, he opened an eye. “Can I help you, young man?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” said Manuel politely, walking past him into the church.

  “Wait! Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’d rather be alone, thank you, Dad Ose.” Manuel turned to face the priest, who was now silhouetted in the doorway, rigid with indignation. “I wish to talk privately with God.”

  “You what!”

  “I said I wish to talk with God. That’s what your church is for, isn’t it?”

  “I... Get out of here, right now!”

  “Why?”

  Dad Ose stared at the young man. Manuel was taller than he and several hundred years younger. He couldn’t throw Manuel out physically. Besides... Applying a small measure of Inner Think, the priest calmed himself. Incredible as it might seem, Manuel could be sincere—in which case, he was in for a sad disappointment: God had never spoken to Dad Ose yet, so it was hardly likely he would stoop to granting a young fisherman audience. On the other hand (on a more mundane level) Dad Ose didn’t think Manuel intended to carve sexual graffiti on the altar. There was no harm in humoring the boy.

  “I apologize, Manuel,” he said sincerely. “You may meditate all you wish.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be very long,” said Manuel.

  Manuel walked confidently to the end of the church, ignored the altar, with its selection of idols ancient and modern, and paused outside the vestry door.

  “God?”

  Dad Ose arrived at an open side window, leaned against the warm stone and looked in. Crickets chirped and the long grass tickled his bare legs. Manuel was standing in a shaft of sunlight and his head was cocked as though he were listening.

  Then the boy said, “You remember the storm, God—when all the lifeweed came onto the beach?” He smiled at his own silliness. “Of course you remember—you sent it. Well, there was a girl...”

  And he told the story of Belinda.

  Now Dad Ose wanted to creep away. This was a private thing, and he had no right to listen even if it was his church. But he couldn’t leave, now. Manuel would hear any movement. Dad Ose listened in sadness and sympathy, unable to escape.

  What disturbed him, though, was the way Manuel would stop talking every so often and appear to be listening. It was just a little eerie.

  “So what shall I do, God?” Manuel asked eventually. “I’ve just got to see her again. Where is she? Where do I find her?”

  And he listened.

  And—Dad Ose stiffened with a thrill of horror—was that a voice?

  No, of course not. It was the wind in the bell tower, the distant sigh of a llama, it was the sea. It was not a voice.

  Manuel nodded. “If you say so.” His voice was unhappy. He turned away. He said quietly, “Thank you, God.”

  In the warmth outside, Dad Ose shivered. He swung away from the window and returned to the entrance in time to meet Manuel coming out. Manuel nodded and smiled and was about to pass on, when the priest spoke.

  “What were you doing in there, Manuel?”

  The youth looked slightly puzzled. “Talking to God, of course.”

  “Of course. That’s what you said before. But...” The priest struggled for the right words. “You can’t really expect me to believe that, can you?” He smiled with an effort.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Manuel was clearly depressed.

  “No—I want to know. What’s it like, talking to God? How does he sound?”

  “Well, you know that, Dad,” said Manuel in surprise.

  “Of course I do—I was expressing myself badly. I’d just like to know what he said. You understand, I must know what goes on in my own church.”

  “Oh...” Manuel flushed. “I have a... problem, over a girl. And so I asked God’s advice.”

  “Isn’t that rather a small thing to bother him with?”

  “Not to me, it isn’t. And anyway, he seemed quite happy to talk about it.”

  “He is very understanding, Manuel. And what advice did he give you?”

  “He told me that what I asked was not simple. He talked about strange things—happentracks, I think he said. And he said that in the Ifalong—I think he meant in the future—I would meet Belinda again, but then I’d lose her forever. And he said that I must go to the Dome very soon, maybe tomorrow, and speak to the man there, which would set everything on the right happentrack. He didn’t tell me what to say to him, though.”

  They turned and regarded the Dome, which dwarfed the hills a few kilometers away. As they watched, the thing happened that never ceased to puzzle the Wild Humans. Near the curving top of the Dome, where the horse clouds passed close overhead and the gray opalescence of the massive hemisphere changed subtly to aquamarine, there was a flash of light.

  In truth it was more like a puff of light. The flash was brief and diffused and seemed to have no source, and within it something solid and glittering was half seen, traveling outward with incredible speed, disappearing instantly as though it had accelerated past the speed of light and disappeared into some undimensional limbo.

  “He wanted me to try to make friends with the man at the Dome,” said Manuel. “And he doesn’t really call himself God, by the way. That’s what you call him.”

  Dad Ose regarded the youth helplessly. After 496 years, he could accept the inexplicable flashes from the Dome; the terrifying snake clouds that made people choke and die; the Quicklies, with their bewildering lifestyle; the fleet guanacos, with their uncanny sense for approaching disaster—he could accept all this. It was part of life.

  But he would never accept the notion that Manuel talked with God.

  It was humiliating and unthinkable that this youth with the strange emotions should be able to communicate with a being in which Dad Ose himself only half-believed. And Dad Ose was supposed to be the expert. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being made fun of. He flushed. He tried to remain calm.

  “Are you sure you don’t hear the voice in your own head?”

  “Of course I do. You know what it’s
like.” Manuel smiled.

  This was too much. “Why do you lie to me, Manuel?”

  “Lie? Why should I lie?”

  “Trying to make a fool of me. Of me, Dad Ose, old enough to be your father many times over. The voice of God, eh? Why should God want to talk to you—a nobody? I tell you this, Manuel—in future you’ll put your questions to me, and I’ll speak to God for you. It’s an impertinence for a young man to address him directly!”

  “If that were so, God would have told me.”

  The priest gazed skyward as if seeking guidance. The fleecy horse clouds had given way to high wispy guanaco clouds, moving fast. There was dirty weather brewing again. The wind brought a whiff of kelp. Dad Ose inhaled and felt the lift that oxygen-rich air brings. He was silent for a while, thinking.

  Then he said, mildly, “Tell me what God’s voice sounds like.”

  Although the Rainbow monitored all activity on the Earth’s land surface during those years, it could not look inside people’s heads. Only the Dedos could do that. So it is not recorded when Manuel first became aware of the real difference between himself and other people. Here the minstrels must needs use poetic license, and they did:

  Dad Ose asked the Boy about the prophesy he heard,

  And Manuel knew that he alone could listen to