Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories

by Terry Bisson

  “Major?”

  Hvarlgen’s hand was on my wrist. I looked up—to applause from the bed where the lunies were sitting, like bright yellow birds, all in a row.

  “Nobody leaves!” said Hvarlgen. She went around the room. All agreed on what the Shadow had said. All agreed that it had been inside their heads, more like the memory of a voice, or an imaginary voice, than a sound. All agreed that it had not been my voice.

  “Now everybody leave,” she said. “Dr. Kim and I need to have a talk.”

  “Including me?” I asked.

  “You can stay. And he can stay.” She pointed toward the bowl, which the lunies were placing back on its table. They left it by the door.

  * * *

  “Damn!” said Hvarlgen. Irrationally, she shook the recorder but there was no record of the Shadow’s words, any more than of its image. “The problem is, we have no hard evidence of any communication at all. And yet we all know it happened.”

  Dr. Kim took a snort of PeaceAble and smiled somewhat inscrutably. “Unless we think the Major here was hypnotizing us.”

  “Which we don’t,” said Hvarlgen. It was late afternoon. We were having still more coffee under the magnolia. “But what I don’t understand,” she said, “is how can it make us hear without making a print, a track in the air.”

  “Clearly, it works directly on the hearing centers in the brain,” Dr. Kim said.

  “Without a physical event?” said Hvarlgen. “Without a material connection? That’s telepathy!”

  “It’s all physical,” said Dr. Kim. “Or none of it. Is that thing material? Maybe it accesses our brains visually. We were all looking at it when we heard it talk. The brain is stuff just as much as air is stuff. Light is stuff. Consciousness is stuff.”

  “So why the physical contact at all?” I asked. “The Shadow’s not really here; I can’t feel it, we can’t touch it or even photograph it. Why does it have to enter my body at all? If it does, why can’t it just sort of slip in through the skin, or the eyes, instead of . . . the way it does.”

  “Maybe it’s scanning you,” Hvarlgen said. “For the image.”

  “And maybe it can only scan certain types,” said Dr. Kim. “Or maybe it’s restricted. Just as we might be forbidden to trade with Stone Age tribesman, they—whoever or whatever they are—might have a prohibition against certain stages or kinds of life.”

  “You mean the ‘New Growth’ business?” I asked.

  “Right. Maybe old folks seem less vulnerable to them. Maybe the contact is destructive to growing tissue. Or even fatal. Look at what happened to Mersault. But I’m just guessing! And my guess is that you have not quite finished menopause, Sunda, right?”

  She smiled. Just as her scowls were smiles, her smiles were grimaces. “Not quite.”

  “See? And in my case, perhaps the flourishing cancer with its exorbitant greed for life was mistaken for youth. Anyway . . . perhaps we are dealing with prohibitions. Formalities. Perhaps even the innovative mode of contact is a formality, like a handshake. What could be more logical?” Dr. Kim took another snort of PeaceAble, filling the infirmary with a sweet heavy smell.

  “It’s hard to think of as a handshake,” I said.

  “Why? The anus, the asshole in vulgar parlance, is sort of a joke, but in our secret heart of hearts, for all of us, it’s the seat—so to speak—of the physical being. It may be perceived by this Other as the seat of consciousness as well. We’re much more conscious of it than, say, the heart. Certainly more conscious of it physically than the brain. It alerts us to danger by tightening up. It even speaks from time to time . . .”

  “Okay, okay,” said Hvarlgen. “We get the point. Let’s get back to work. Shall we go again?”

  “Without the lunies?” Dr. Kim asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Because without a video or sound image, they are our only corroboration that there is any communication going on here. I know it’s your project, Sunda, but if I were you I would move more deliberately.”

  “You’re right. It’s almost five o’clock. Let’s wait and go after supper.”

  * * *

  I had supper alone. Hvarlgen was on the phone, arguing with somebody named Sidrath. A poster on the wall over her head said D=96. Hvarlgen sounded pleading, then sarcastic, then pleading again; I felt like an eavesdropper, so I left without coffee and walked to East alone.

  Dr. Kim was asleep. The Shadow lay in its bowl. It was fascinating to look at it. It lay still but seemed, somehow, to be moving at great speed. It was dark but I could sense light behind it, like the stars through thin clouds. I was tempted to touch it; I reached out one finger . . .

  “That you, Major?” Dr. Kim sat up. “Where’s Sunda?”

  “She’s on the phone with somebody named Sidrath. She’s been arguing with him for almost an hour.”

  “He’s the head of the Q Team. He’s probably setting up in High Orbital, for when the Shadow arrives. They are assembling all sorts of fancy equipment. They think we’re dealing with some sort of antimatter here, which is why they can’t take it down to the surface.”

  “What do you think it is?” I asked. I pulled the plastic chair over and sat with him, looking up at the stars through the clear dome and the dark magnolia leaves.

  “I think it’s unusual, surprising,” Dr. Kim said. “That’s all I require of life these days. I no longer try to understand or comprehend things. Dying is funny. You realize for the first time you are not going to finish Dante. You give up on it.” He took a shot of PeaceAble. “Did you ever wonder why the Shadow looks younger than you?”

  “You have a theory?”

  “Robert Louis Stevenson had a theory,” he said. “He once said that our chronological age is but a scout, sent out in advance of the ‘army’ of who we feel we are—which always lags several years behind. In your mind, Major, you are still a young man; at most, in your fifties. That’s the image the Shadow gets from you, and therefore the image he gives us.”

  I heard his pipe hiss again.

  “I’d offer you a shot, but—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I know, I’m a test bunny.”

  “You guys ready?” It was Hvarlgen, rolling through the doorway. It was time to go again.

  * * *

  The plastic chair had been left in place. Two lunies wheeled the bowl in on its table. The rest of the lunies drifted in, sitting on the bed and clustering by the doorway. At 7:34 P.M. Hvarlgen cleared her throat and looked at me impatiently. I pulled off my pants; I sat down in the chair and spread my withered old shanks—

  This time, without ascending between my legs, the Shadow twisted in its bowl and disappeared; the movement was somehow sickening, and I gagged—

  And there it was; he was. Was it my imagination, or was my image, the Shadow, clearer and more positive than it had been? It seemed to have a kind of glow. He smiled.

  Hvarlgen wasn’t waiting around this time. “Where are you from?” she asked.

  “Not from a where. The protocol is a where.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Adjusting the protocol,” said the voice. It was so clear now that I thought it must be a sound. But I watched the aural indicator lights on Hvarlgen’s video recorder, and there was nothing. As before, the voice was only inside our heads.

  “Where are the Others?” asked Hvarlgen again.

  “Only the protocol is where,” said the Shadow. “A wherewhen point.” It seemed to enjoy answering her questions. It had stopped flickering and its speech was now in synch with its lip movements. Its movements looked familiar; gentle; graceful. I felt a certain proprietary affection for it, knowing it was an idealized version of myself.

  “What do they want?” Hvarlgen asked.

  “To communicate.”

  “Through you?”

  “The communication will end the protocol. The connection is one-time only.” The Shadow looked directly toward us, but not at us. It seemed always to be looking at somethi
ng we could not see. It was silent, as if waiting for the next question.

  When nobody said anything, the image began to fade, ghostlike once again—

  And the Shadow twisted into being in the bowl at my feet. It seemed even clearer than before. I could see stars behind it. It was like seeing the stars reflected in a pool, only I had the distinct (and uneasy) feeling I was looking up. I even checked the back of my neck with my hand.

  That was it for the first day. We’d had three sessions, and Hvarlgen thought that was enough. Dr. Kim asked us to join him for 4-D Monopoly. He had a passion for the game with its steep mortgage ramps and time-release dice. While we played, the lunies watched movies in Grand Central. We could hear gunshots and bluegrass music in the distance, all the way down the tube.

  * * *

  We began the next morning with a leisurely breakfast. I was still on moonjirky, but I had no appetite anyway. The poster over the coffee machine said D=77.

  “How many hours until sunrise?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure; somewhat less than seventy-seven,” Hvarlgen answered. But it wasn’t a problem. Even though Houbolt was no longer environmentalized for the lunar day, it would be comfortable for all but the six days of the lunar “noon”—and would probably have been manageable even then, in an emergency. According to Hvarlgen’s plan, Here’s Johnny was to arrive and take us off soon after sunrise.

  Hvarlgen went down the tube toward the infirmary first, followed by me, followed by the lunies. East smelled like PeaceAble, indicating that Dr. Kim had been up for a while. He suggested that he be allowed to ask one question, and Hvarlgen agreed.

  Me, I was just the hired asshole. I took off my pants and the bowl was slid between my feet. Ignoring me (or seeming to) the Shadow in the bowl twisted itself into nothingness. This time I didn’t feel sick. In fact, it was beautiful, slick and fast, like a whale diving.

  “Is there a message for us?”

  It was Hvarlgen’s question. I looked up from the empty bowl and saw the Shadow standing across the room—or across the universe.

  “A communication.”

  “Are you conscious?”

  “The protocol is conscious and I am the protocol.”

  “Who is communicating with us?”

  “The Other. Not a who.”

  “Is it conscious?”

  The Shadow said, “You are conscious. The protocol is conscious. The Other is not a wherewhen string.”

  There was a long silence. “Dr. Kim—” Hvarlgen said. “You had a question?”

  “Are you a Feynman device?” Dr. Kim asked.

  “The protocol is a two-device.”

  “What is the distance?” Dr. Kim asked.

  “Not a distance. A wherewhen loop.”

  “Where does the energy come from?”

  As if in answer, the Shadow began to flicker and fade, and I leaned over the bowl (even though I no longer believed that the Shadow was inside of me). And like a dark whale surfacing, the Shadow twisted into its bowl. I wondered how such a tiny space could contain a space so huge.

  * * *

  While the lunies cleared the room, and Hvarlgen hurried down to Grand Central to make a phone call, I pulled my chair over to the bed and sat with Dr. Kim.

  “I see it’s no longer accessing our universe through your butt,” he said. “Maybe it has what it needs.”

  “Hope so,” I said. “Meanwhile—what’s a Feynman device?”

  “Have you ever heard of the EPR paradox?”

  “Something to do with Richard Feynman?”

  “Indirectly,” Dr. Kim said. “The EPR paradox had been proposed by Einstein and two colleagues in an unsuccessful effort to disprove quantum physics. Two linked particles are separated. The ‘spin’ or orientation of each is indeterminate (in true quantum fashion) until one is determined, up or down. Then the other is the opposite. Instantaneously.”

  “Even if it’s a million light years away,” Hvarlgen said, from the doorway. She rolled into the room, shutting the door behind her. “I told Sidrath about your question. He liked it.”

  “It was never answered.” Dr. Kim shrugged.

  “In other words, we’re talking about faster-than-light communication,” I said.

  “Right,” said Dr. Kim. “Theoretically, a paradox. It was Feynman who proved that the paradox wasn’t a paradox at all. That it was true. And that FTL communication was, at least in theory, possible.”

  “So that’s what our little isn’t is,” I said. “A muon bridge.”

  “An ansible,” said Hvarlgen. “A device for faster-than-light communication. As I said, Sidrath agrees. What we have here seems to be some version of a Feynman device. Everything that happens to it here happens simultaneously, perhaps as a mirror image, at the other ‘end.’ ”

  “Across the galaxy,” I said.

  “Oh much farther away than that, I think,” said Dr. Kim, taking another shot of PeaceAble. “We may be dealing with realms of space and time that don’t even intersect our own. I think, for sure, that we are dealing with forms of life that aren’t biological.”

  * * *

  At noon I asked for a sandwich. “I’m going to quit worrying about my lower intestine,” I said. “The Shadow has quit worrying about it.”

  “We’re not sure,” said Hvarlgen. “Stay on moonjirky just one more meal. This afternoon, we’ll try the session with your pants on and see what happens.”

  The Shadow didn’t seem to notice. (I was a little hurt.) It twisted in its bowl, diving into—another form (my own), which appeared across the room as before.

  “When is this communication going to occur?” asked Hvarlgen.

  “Soon.” The way the Shadow said the word, it sounded almost like a place—like “Moon.”

  “What is soon?”

  “When the protocol is adjusted.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What kind of communication will it be?” asked Dr. Kim. “Will we hear it?”

  “No.”

  “See it?”

  “No.”

  “Why is it that you never speak unless we ask a question?” asked Hvarlgen.

  “Because you are half of the protocol,” said the Shadow.

  “I thought so,” said Hvarlgen. “We’ve been talking to ourselves!”

  The Shadow started to flicker. I resisted the urge to bend over the bowl, and watched him fade away.

  * * *

  I was tired. I went back to my wedgie to sleep, and I dreamed, for the first time in years, of flying. When I got up, Hvarlgen was still in East with Dr. Kim. They were on a conference call with High Orbital and Queens; they were somewhere between calling the Shadow an ET and an AD (alien device).

  I left it to them. I ate alone (another sandwich) and then watched the first half of Bonnie and Clyde with the lunies. They had a kind of cult thing about Michael J. Pollard. Now I understood why every time something went wrong around the station, one of them was bound to say, “dirt.”

  Hvarlgen rolled into Grand Central at almost nine P.M. “We’re going skip the evening session tonight,” she said. “Sidrath and the Q Team don’t want to miss this promised communication. They are afraid we’ll speed things up, or wear the Shadow out, like an eraser.”

  “But you are in charge.” I was surprised to find myself disappointed.

  “True. But that’s only a formality. In fact, Sidrath is already on his way here with Here’s Johnny, in case this communication occurs before they can get the Shadow back to High Orbital. We made a deal; I agreed to limit the sessions to one a day.”

  “One a day!”

  “I think we’ve learned all we’re going to learn here. All it does is answer the same questions, in a sort of a loop. We’ll go in the morning, Major, as usual. Meanwhile, want to play Monopoly?”

  * * *

  That night I dreamed again that I was flying. The flying itself was flying, so fast that I had to chase it in order not to disappear. The next morning, after break
fast (sausage and eggs) I followed the lunies down the tube to East, where Hvarlgen and Dr. Kim were waiting.

  Hvarlgen insisted that I sit in my usual spot. Like a priestess at a ritual, she placed the bowl at my feet, then rolled back to Dr. Kim’s bedside. The Shadow twisted in the bowl and disappeared; the Shadow appeared again in his blue coveralls, bluer than I remembered.

  “Who are the Others?” asked Hvarlgen.

  “They are not a they. They are an Other.”

  (Maybe Hvarlgen was right to limit the sessions, I thought. It was beginning to sound like word games.)

  “Another what?” Hvarlgen asked. “Another civilization?”

  I heard a sound like a growl. It was Dr. Kim, snoring; he had fallen asleep propped on one elbow, with his spraypipe in his hand.

  “Not a civilization. They are not—plural like yourself. Not biological.”

  “Not material?” asked Hvarlgen.

  “Not a wherewhen string,” the Shadow said.

  “Is the communication ready? Can it take place now?”

  “Soon. The protocol is completed. When the communication takes place, the protocol will be gone.”

  I wondered what that meant. We were, supposedly, part of the protocol. I was about to raise my hand to ask permission to ask a question—but the Shadow was already flickering, already twisting back into being into its bowl.

  * * *

  Being careful not to awaken Dr. Kim, Hvarlgen shooed everyone out of the infirmary and we went to Grand Central for a late breakfast. I didn’t tell her I had already eaten. I had soup and crackers.

  The poster said D=55. I had less than two days left on the Moon.

  “Isn’t Dr. Kim using a lot of that stuff?” I asked.

  “He’s in a lot of pain,” Hvarlgen said. “I just hope he lasts until this communication, whatever it is. At the same time—”

  “It’s for you,” said one of the lunies. “It’s the Diana. They just completed TLI and they’re on their way.”

  I went back to my wedgie for a nap, and dreamed again of flying. I hadn’t dreamed so much since Katie died. I didn’t have wings, or even a body—I was the flight itself. The movement was my substance in a way that I understood perfectly, except that the understanding evaporated as soon as I sat up.