The Avatar

by Poul Anderson

  The coloring was exquisite: royal blue on backs shaded to sapphire beneath, while the wings were ashimmer like diffraction jewels, each movement of their pliant surfaces an interplay of chromatic waves. Glory exploded when the creatures began to dance for the spacecraft. They swooped, they soared, they planed, they turned, they glided within centimeters of each other, they arced off across kilometers, a wheeling, weaving, fountaining measure which seized the mind and drew it into itself as great art ever does, or love.

  “They have music for that,” Caitlín foreknew. “Carlos, can you be tuning in their music?”

  Rueda tore loose from his own rapture and worked with the sonic receiver. Presently he had eliminated the boom of the boat’s passage, damped the wind-sounds, and brought in the song. From sea-deep basses to ice-clear sopranos, and below and above those pitches humans can hear, tones filled the cabin. They were on no scale known to children of Earth; if they gave the men any clear first impression, it was of unshakeable power; but Caitlín said while tears stood in her eyes, “Oh, the joy in them, the joy! You cannot hear it? Then look how they frolic.”

  “I’d better concentrate on keeping us aloft,” Dozsa said. Despite his gaze straying to the half stately, half genial harmony of movements around him, he swung Williwaw through a tight curve.

  “It’s welcoming us they are,” Caitlín said. “If they are in truth the Others, och, I always knew those must be happy folk.”

  “Eh, wait, my dear,” Rueda cautioned. “It’s a superb spectacle, but you’re jumping to conclusions. Those could simply be curious and playful animals, like dolphins cavorting around a watercraft.”

  “With hands? They use their hands better than hula dancers.”

  “Where are clothes, ornaments, tools, any sign of artifacts?”

  “They need none right now. Hush. I think I may be in the way of starting to understand that music.”

  “You’d better hurry,” Dozsa warned. “I can’t safely continue this maneuver. I’ll have to go back to a larger radius pretty soon. The trouble is, our stalling speed seems to be more than the top they can manage.”

  “As one would expect,” Rueda said. “Nature designed them for… Danu. Man did not design this boat for it. Besides, she’s nuclear-powered, while they run on chemistry—I’m sorry, Caitlín, you wanted quiet.”

  “No, go on, if you’ve a thought,” she said. “I just wanted to listen, not dispute. I’ll save an ear for you. Science too is a set of arts.”

  Rueda smiled lopsidedly. “I’m no scientist. A Sunday dabbler in it at most…. We are getting this scene on tape, aren’t we?”

  “Aye, of course.”

  “Good,” Dozsa said bleakly. “Life like this on a world like this. It’ll give us much to talk about in the years ahead.”

  The pageant went on. Humans spoke amidst its melodies, staring at its motion, as they flew between red dwarf sun and sea of cloud.

  “I think they must be live lighter-than-air ships,” Rueda ventured. “Those giant bodies are mostly gas bags, inflated by their own heat. Vents help them rise or sink, the wings catch winds, and probably there’s a jet arrangement as well, using a bellows or—I don’t know; but the atmosphere’s dense enough at this level to make it practical. They breathe hydrogen instead of oxygen, naturally, but I suspect they’re otherwise not so unlike us, they’re also made of proteins in water solution.”

  “Where do they come from?” Dozsa wanted to know. “What made them evolve? How did life start in the first place? Where does the food chain begin?”

  “How many years and research organizations will you allow me for those questions, my friend? If you want my guess, I’d say the ‘primordial ocean’ is down under the clouds, where the air gets really dense and chemicals can concentrate—orginally on colloids? Remember, this planet is like Jupiter or Zeus or Epsilon. It radiates more than it receives. That means a thermal gradient to drive biochemistry, especially when the sun is weak. Energy comes more from below than above. I daresay our altitude here is marginal for life, like Antarctica or the sea bottoms of Earth.”

  Dozsa scowled at the dancers. “Intelligence developing when the whole ecology floats? How would it? No stone for tools, no fire—”

  Rueda nodded. “That’s why I confess to doubts about those otherwise delightful animals.”

  Caitlín straightened in her harness. “Wurra, wurra, where have you two parked your imaginations?” she challenged. “Can you not think of growths adrift for use, like kelp and fish bones, only better? If you must have a thing that answers to fire, what about enzymes that catalyze reduction of organic compounds? And do we know what made apes turn manward on Earth, let alone dogmatizing about the subject on a foreign planet?”

  Rueda stroked his mustache. “True. However, I decline to believe in the possibility of electronics without solid materials, minerals, being available. Yes, conceivably the Others know tricks with pure force-fields. But how does one get from here to there? Not in a single bound! Native Danaan sentience might develop, it might get as noble and artistic and intellectual as you please, but by itself it has no way to build a scientific-technological civilization.” His laugh came brittle. “E pur si muove. We’ve detected transmitters.” He sagged. Weariness flattened his voice. “Never mind. I’m afraid this gravity is getting to my marrow. I can’t think very well. How I hope something more happens soon.”

  Dozsa nodded. He had no reason to repeat what they knew. Their stay was sharply limited in time. Muscles might adapt to high weight, but the cardiovascular system, the entire fluid distribution of the human body, could not. Blood was pooling in the lower extremities; the laboring heart grew less and less able to supply the brain; seepage out of cells would bring edema; eventually the damage would be irreversible.

  Meanwhile the hull was not impermeable. At this pressure, molecules of hydrogen were leaking through metal. The mixture would at last become explosive.

  “Well, we planned on remaining till near sundown.” Dozsa sighed. “Probably we were too optimistic. Distances must be great everywhere on Danu. Those people, if they are intelligent, must be those that happened to be close by. The others—the Others—”

  “The true Others would have arrived sooner, is that what you are saying, Stefan?” Caitlín asked.

  Again he nodded.

  “It’s right you are, I fear.” She looked back outward. “But how lovely they are here, how full of bliss!”

  Dozsa returned Williwaw to her former height and path. The dance continued. The visitors watched and recorded as best they could.

  The ember sun passed noon. More Danaans came.

  There was no longer any doubting their sapience. The dance dissolved, and those took over who had brought equipment. Some had curious objects hung on their titantic persons, some guided vehicles of various shapes (platforms? birds? chambered nautiluses?) from which projected devices (telescopes? cobwebs? interlocked rings?). They did not attempt to meet the spacecraft, but came to rest well beneath her and adjusted their apparatuses.

  The radio receiver brought in ordered sounds, in the same wide range as earlier tunes but plainly speech.

  “Give me five minutes,” Rueda muttered, and got busy with a reflection spectrometer which had been preset for him aboard Chinook. Dozsa held the boat in a steady wheeling at a steady speed, though an afternoon wind was rising to drone around her structure and thrill through it. Aches, exhaustion, the drag of gravity were forgotten.

  “How do we respond?” Caitlín inquired out of exultation; and immediately: “Och, aye, a notion, if you’ve none better, boys.”

  “The mike is yours,” Dozsa said. “What have you in mind?”

  “A patterned signal, to show them we wish to communicate. Why start with mathematics? They know full well that we know the value of pi. But if we can recognize their music for what it is and enjoy the same, faith, they can ours.” Caitlín reached down to the webbing on the side of her chair. “Well that I thought to bring my sonador.”
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br />   She inserted a program and touched the keyboard. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik tumbled forth. “They offered us mirth,” she explained. “Let us offer it back.”

  A screen at high magnification showed the Danaans reacting. At least, they moved about… to confer?

  “Ha!” Rueda said. “I expected this.” He tapped the spectrometer. “Those vehicles, most of those gadgets are metal. Tell me how that was mined, on a planet whose surface is hot liquid hydrogen.”

  “It wasn’t,” Dozsa declared. “It came from outside.”

  Seen against purple heaven and a tower of cloud, two Danaan carriers linked together. One of the pilots withdrew on mother-of-pearl wings, the other remained. Suddenly he(?!) and the machines were hidden behind great sheets and curtains of light. Outward and outward they flared, every color, a created aurora. It wavered about for a short while, as if uncertain. Then—

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Caitlín whispered. “They’re replying to Mozart.”

  She must show the men how this was true, how the lambencies matched the notes (in no simple fashion, but even more truly as the unseen artist strengthened a grasp on the intent of an Earthling centuries dead) until spectrum and scale became a single jubilation. Her understanding of the fact was not strictly scientific, demonstrable by any standard analytical technique; it was the kind of insight that came to Newton and Einstein.

  Later sendings and transformations confirmed it. Attempts at television exchange failed; evidently the electronics were too unlike. Only music and radiance could say, back and forth: “Hello, there; we love you.”

  The short day drew toward a close. Caitlín stayed ecstatic, while her companions grew slowly grim.

  At last:

  “We must go,” Dozsa said. “We have no choice.”

  “We’ll be back.” Caitlín spoke as if in dreams.

  “No, I hardly think we will,” Rueda told her with compassion. “Haven’t we agreed? It’s death to linger, down here or up in orbit. Oh, yes, we may be wrong about that, but what can we do except proceed on our best guesswork… and haven’t we agreed?”

  She bowed her head. Twilight closed in; it was golden. The Danaans waited below for her next message.

  Rueda leaned around in his seat to clasp the hand Caitlín lifted to him. “Those are not the Others,” he reminded. “They cannot be. I guess that they are a… a favored race. One that the Others come to openly, maybe because they’re happier, kindlier, more creative than most. If that’s right, then the Others give them metal things, for them to realize the better what they are—born artists, and who knows what else? But not scientists. Not engineers. They can’t help us. And we, we can’t survive long in these parts, unless we put Chinook into spin mode and make her unable ever to leave. And how often do the Others visit these adopted children of theirs? Maybe they will next week, but maybe they won’t for a thousand years. How can we tell?”

  “Aye.” Caitlín squared her shoulders against the weight upon her. “Our best bet is to seek onward.” She laughed shakenly. “We’ve seen this much of what the universe holds. Ho for the next world!”

  Dozsa bit his lip. “If possible,” he said. “We’re still out of touch with Chinook. We’ll have to fight our way alone, unguided, up to clear space.”

  Caitlín cast regret from her. “Go, lad, go,” she urged. “You’ll make it. We’ll yet be seeing wonders more lofty than here.”

  XXIX

  I WAS A CHIMPANZEE, born where forest met savannah. My earliest memory was of my mother holding me to her. The warmth and odors of her flesh mingled with the sharper fragrances of hair, and with the smells of soil and growth everywhere around us. Leaves glowed green-gold overhead, sunbeams slanting between them to fleck the ground whereon she sat. My lips sought through her crisp shagginess until they found a teat and gladdened me with belly comfort.

  Later I ran free and noisy in the band, save when an elder bared teeth. Then one cringed respectfully back. The Eldest, He, was like the sky over us all, which sent rain and sunlight alike, and sometimes roared and flashed till we squalled in terror: for He did lead us to safe trees and delicious fruits, He did lead us in that grimacing, howling threat-dance which made the leopard slink off.

  I learned where to find bananas and birds’ nests, insects and grubs. Later I learned how to moisten a stick and probe it into the anthills which loomed under the savannah blaze. I began to stand my share of lookout while we drank at the river. Further grown, I became the only female who joined our occasional hunts, when we went after a small animal, caught it, tore it asunder, grew wild from its meat and salty blood and crunchy bones. A craziness inore pure was to spring, swing, soar from branch to branch, become speed and air, clasp and let go the tree as a lover.

  The first who mounted me was He. His grip was python-strong, He growled and thrust, the scent of Him whirled me away. But afterward when my seasons came upon me, I liked best another among the males, the gentlest. We would groom and nuzzle through long, lazy, lovely whiles, or sit hand in hand on a bough looking out over the moon-white plain.

  There was everything to wonder at, sun, weather, a butterfly, elephants, lion roar, flower aromas, the creatures that came in bright shells and stepped forth on two long legs, the distant twinkle of the fires they made at dusk We peered, prodded, snuffed, nibbled, listened, hooted our merriment or chattered our anger or mutely marveled.

  Greatest of wonders was whenever my waxing heaviness departed in pain and left a baby to cling to me. It would grow up and leave me at last, or it would grow still and I would carry it around, hurt, puzzled, till it turned strange; but always would come new babies, new love.

  Once the male I liked best wanted me when He did too, and defied. But he was soon thrashed and, groveling, offered his rear. It was a different male who at last brought Him down and became He. A later morning, when we stirred awake, we found the body which had so long dominated us lying at the edge of our glade. A breeze played with its grizzled fur. The ants were busy. The vultures came. We went away, for somehow fear had touched us.

  After a crocodile got my special mate, I drifted into a different band. Rank by rank, I rose to be first among its females. We ordered ourselves in less clear and less conscious wise than the males, but we knew who ruled over whom. Indeed, now in my ripeness I had no more dread of them, from Him on down. They came and went on their foolish errands; we endured; and the band was really ours—was mine. I took the choicest food and resting places among females, but I also often kept watch over children, not just my own, and herded them back from danger.

  Less and less often did my seasons come upon me. Less and less eager for movement, I took to staring outward from the troop, into shadows or rain, across open land, upward at night to the stars, full of a feeling that more lay yonder than we had wind of.

  Suddenly, from darkness, the Summoner came. I was borne off and became One, as it were with dawn and lightnings. The tree among whose limbs I leaped was the tree which bears the worlds. I would be returned to live out my chimpanzee days, unharmed, but would ever be haunted by joy I could not really remember. I was Mammal.

  XXX

  WANING FROM HALF PHASE, the red sun ever closer to its illuminated crescent, Danu remained sublime to the eye. Opposite, a pair of moons stood forth among the brilliances that filled the firmament.

  Martti Leino could not bear to watch. Alone in his cabin, he hung tethered, for his hands were clasped white-knuckled together except when he smote the bulkhead and rebounded, his legs kicked at nothing except when they trailed helpless. Tears bobbed glittery around his head.

  “No, God, Lord, no,” he croaked. “Please. You know not what You do if You let her die—” Horrified: “Forgive me! Lord, I spoke ill there. But save her. You can. You will, nay? Please—”

  He drew lungful after lungful of air till his head spun, his limbs tingled, but he could at least say in a flat voice, in Finnish: “Martti, boy, you are developing a classic case of hysterics. Do you know that? Very we
ll, stop. It isn’t helping Caitlín a bit. Offer an orderly prayer if you wish, but don’t tell God His business, and do be about yours.

  “Ow-w-w-w!” he howled and writhed about.

  He was halfway back under control when the door chimed. “Hoy?” he asked aloud, stupidly. The chim repeated. “Come in,” he hiccoughed. The chime sounded again. He remembered he had locked himself in, to be undisturbed after he began to tremble. Well—Slipping his leash, he kicked toward the entrance, misgauged and fetched up against a table, and went through a set of rookie mistakes before he got the latch released.

  Frieda von Moltke entered, checked her flight at the jamb, had a good look at Leino, and secured the door behind her. Since he merely gaped, she took the initiative: “Hell and damnation, you are worse off than I expected.”

  He closed his jaws. “What do you want?” he managed.

  She clasped him by the upper arms. They drifted off, a slight rotation making the room wobble slowly around them. “I saw how you were getting frantic,” she said. “You went away. Good, I thought, maybe a drink, a tranquilizer, a nap; he calms down when nobody watches. But you were gone too long.”

  He turned his face from hers. “They are gone too long.”

  “Yes, communication broken for hours, and now they must be blasting from the planet, if they are still alife, without guidance, yes. It is very bad for us if we haff lost our boat.”

  “Jesu Kriste, believe you that matters?”

  She gripped him harder. “Martti, dear, listen. My family were soldiers from as long ago as we haff chronicles. They knew what it is to lose a friend. Ich hat’ einen Kameraden…ja. You mourn. But you go on.”