The Avatar

by Poul Anderson

  “I hope I’ve not waked you,” she said.

  “Oh, no. The hour’s not late.” A machine might have spoken. “What is it, Caitlín?”

  “I’d like to see you if I may.”

  He hesitated. “Is it urgent? I am tired. I’d be dismal company.”

  “Company be blowed! Your job description does not include keeping me amused. I want to come around for a bit and talk. Kick me out whenever you wish.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “Thank you, Phil, dear. I’ll be there in two quantum jumps.” She lingered only for a smile at Brodersen.

  Rounding the corridor, she encountered Leino. Fully clad but unkempt, he prowled with a marijuana cigarette reeking in his fingers. He and she stopped on the spot and stood a few seconds.

  “Good evening to you,” she ventured.

  His look went up and down and across her. The pajamas she wore were thin. “Where are you bound?” he demanded.

  “I’ve business that won’t wait, Martti, and beg your pardon for that.” She started past him. He lifted a hand as if to take hold of her, but let it drop. She came to Weisenberg’s door and went on through. He saw.

  Having secured the latch, Caitlín paused a moment. A single fluoro lit the room, set to the minimum short of switching off altogether. The data screen, that could bring forth most of humanity’s heritage, was dark. Weisenberg sat slumped in the dusk; his wrists dangled off the chair arms, his chin dropped nearly to the breast.

  He raised his head by degrees. “Hello,” he recited. “Can I offer you something?”

  “Aye, but I think not liquor. Stay where you are, Phil.” She released a chair and carried it over to seat herself opposite him.

  He let his glance fall back down. “My apologies. I told you I’m tired.”

  “If you were healthy tired, you’d be snoring.” She leaned forward to catch both his hands in hers, warmth around chill. “What’s wrong?”

  He forced each syllable out. “Don’t you regret Fidelio’s death?”

  “‘Regret’ is a shabby word for this.”

  “Well, then, consider me in… in mourning for the second comrade we’ve lost.” Weisenberg shivered a little. “I don’t want to make a fuss. It’s just I don’t have your talent for—” He halted.

  “For what?” she asked, mildly and inexorably.

  He gulped. “Please… don’t misunderstand…. No insult to you, Caitlín, no idea you don’t… feel… as deeply… maybe more…. But you do have your… your talent…. You’ll com pose a song and… exorcise… the worst pain… the way you did for Sergei… won’t you?” He swallowed anew. “I’d like to hear it when you do. It’ll help.”

  “No, Phil,” she said. “I’ll not be making any lament for Fidelio.”

  Startled, he looked up, straight at her.

  “That wouldn’t be right, you see,” she explained. “I did not know him, not truly. None among us but the Emissary folk did: Joelle Ky best, I suppose, and how much she? Me, what can I tell of him? The bare, bleached bones of what happened. Nothing of his. I’ll not give him a song that to me is mechanical. He was worth more than that.”

  “I don’t quite understand.”

  Her lips quirked. “Aye, you’re not a bard. We’re a queer breed.” She withdrew her clasp on him but not her gaze, sat back and said: “Think on this. It didn’t shatter you when Sergei went, though you’d been his shipmate over and over and though you shared being human, with the insight and fellow feeling that means. Honor and affection to Fidelio’s memory; but we were not close to him, it was never possible, nor he to us. Well may we mourn him, as you said, Phil. However, you meant ‘grieve,’ which is not so.”

  He winced and tightened his mouth.

  “Easy, dear, easy,” she said. “What’s to fear? What’s to be humble about? Something else broke you this day, and I’m thinking I know what it was.”

  A thin cloud of anger gathered on him. “See here, you mean well, but I’ve no patience with parlor analysis. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to turn in.”

  She raised a palm and chuckled. “I’ll thank you to use the language of my profession correctly, Philip Weisenberg. I’ve no intention of analyzing you, in the parlor or out of it. What I said was, it’s plain to see where your trouble lies, in a place that does you credit.”

  He gaped, caught himself, attempted to make a retort. She went on before he could, seriously, while again she took his hands.

  “When Pandora failed us too, and in such a grisly fashion, when we must carry on this wild hunt, and on and on—suddenly you could take no more. You have been the tower of strength, ever calm, ever steady, more even than Dan. You may not have had your shoulder cried on, though it will be no surprise to me if you have, but yours was the presence of courage and sanity, which simply by being there helped us beyond our telling. You never took from us; in your quiet way, you always gave.

  “Well, who gave to you?”

  “Now, when anew you’ve had dashed from you the hope of coming back to the family that is so dear—”

  Caitlín rose to bend over him and hug him. He stiffened and tried to pull free. She would not let him. Her tresses tumbled over his white crew cut. All at once he caught at her, lost his face in the softness of her bosom, and began to weep. “Sarah, Sarah!”She flowed onto his lap and embraced him more closely, not flinching when his grip grew too tight.

  He was only on the rack for a couple of minutes before he fought for control. “I’m sorry, Caitlín—I never meant—”

  “Hush.” She kept him against her. “It is not unmanly to cry. Achilles did. Cuchulain did.”

  “I… know… but—present cir-cir-circumstances… bad for morale—”

  “Why, there’s none but the two of us here, Philip, and I’ll not be telling. We share, tonight, we share.”

  She heard him out about his wife and children and grandchildren. When during this his legs grew numb, she lowered the bed that they might sit side by side. Later, when his head drooped, she suggested he undress and lie down. He made an embarrassed noise. She laughed and buried her eyes in the crook of an elbow.

  “No peeking,” she vowed. “Tell me when you’re acceptable. I aim to see you well asleep.”

  Weisenberg heeded her wish. She tucked the blanket around him, perched on the bedside, and led him to talk further. In the course of that, she related what she deemed was the truth about the Pandorans. He said it was a comforting idea.

  Yet he couldn’t drowse off. He kept beginning to, and awakening with a gasp. “I’d give you a bottle or a joint or a pill,” she told him at last, “but for you in this hour they are wrong. They don’t care.”

  She swung herself across him and slipped beneath the covers. “Hey!” he exclaimed as her arm went over his breast. “Wait! What’re you doing?”

  “You need to be held, Phil, and kissed some. Would your Sarah really mind?”

  “Uh, uh… no, but—” He grimaced. “I’m old. I’m awfully tired.”

  “Did I ask you for anything save that you learn you are not alone?” She reached for the nearby light switch and darkened the room. Then she caressed him and murmured to him, as a mother might do to a child, for a long while.

  Finally he lay easily breathing. She began a careful disengagement. His clasp remained, and she slipped back down beside him. “Caitlín,” he whispered, half in and half out of dream.

  She made slow and gentle love to him. After that, and a few endearments, he fell altogether asleep.

  Caitlín shut the door behind her and turned toward the captain’s cabin. Leino came around the curve of the hall. In its chilled silence, his footfalls thudded audibly and unevenly. He stopped when he saw her, put left fist on hip, brought right hand to his mouth for a drag on his latest reefer.

  “Well,” he said. “Good evening twice. You have been having a good evening, Miz Mulryan, I trust?”

  “Yes and no,” she replied levelly. “Phil and I had an important matter to discuss.�
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  He lifted his brows. His eyes raked her tousled slenderness. Where her thighs met, the pajamas were moist. “Discuss,” he said. “Yes, indeed. And what was the subject?”

  “Martti, dear, you know better than to be asking that. We’ve little enough privacy as is. Or was it the pot that asked? How many of those have you had? Were you pacing this circle throughout the hours?”

  He bridled. “Don’t call me ‘dear’!”

  “Am I to call you enemy instead?” She stepped nigh. He made as if to retreat and preserve his personal space intact, but congealed. She laid a hand on the back of his neck. Her green gaze captured his. “You too are hard hit, you too have been flailing about trying to regain your balance, is that not so? Your way is wrong, though; it can but worsen things for you.”

  He showed teeth. “What’s your way?” he snapped.

  She considered him for a moment, before a smile grew upon her. “Well,” she answered, far down in her throat, “it works.”

  He stared. Her hips undulated as she brought her free hand to his waist. “We’ve unfinished business, you and I, Martti,” she told him.

  He sought to back off. She held him. “You were overwrought last time,” she said. “Maybe you’ve no idea how often that is the case. You gave me no chance to help, not really, much though I wanted to. Ever since, I’ve been wanting more and more to.”

  “Do you—mean—” He couldn’t go on.

  She plucked the cigarette from his fingers and dropped it to the deck. The carpet would take no harm and the regular cleanup would collect stub and ash. “I told you, that’s the wrong way, Martti, darling.”

  He seized her to him.

  —Not long afterward in his cabin, he lay back on his pillow, looking pleased and dazed. She snuggled. “There, now, you see, wasn’t I right?” she inquired.

  “You were,” he muttered. “Sure. Thanks, Caitlín.” With a slight effort, while he stared through half-shut eyes at the overhead: “Thank you. Uh, I’m afraid I was too quick. Would you like to spend the rest of the nightwatch here?”

  “That I would. It’s a shameless, greedy hussy I am.” She kissed him. He responded vigorously.

  —They had slept a short span, and coupled a third time, and were resting against the bulkhead, as she and Brodersen had done hours ago. The cabin felt warm and full of animal odors. Morn watch was near.

  “Can you join me tonight?” he asked. “Uh, not to intrude on Dan or anything, but if you can, it would be wonderful.”

  “How badly do you want me to?” she replied. “I’m sure Frieda could—” she grinned—“squeeze you in.”

  He hugged her. His voice dropped into Upland dialect. “Nil have I for to downsay Frieda, Caitlín, but you’re longways prettier and, yea, livelier still.”

  “Ah, good, pretty, lively; if that’s all, I’m glad.”

  “What?” He swung his head about to look at her.

  She looked back. “Why, I feared you were in love with me. That could tear you apart.”

  Shocked, he protested, “I am, Caitlín!”

  “You said no word about that this evening…. Wait, please. Let me finish. I’m not the least hurt or offended. Think how inconvenient it would be if every man alive desired me. I do believe you’ve become my good friend, Martti, and treasure that.” She embraced and kissed him.

  He scarcely reacted. When she let him go, he regarded her in a kind of horror. “Caitlín, heartling, I do love you,” he said raggedly. “By me you’re the most fair that ever did walk.”

  She sat erect. Her tone lashed: “Then why could you not have me until you saw me as a slut?”

  He choked. She pursued, jabbing a finger at his breast: “Listen to me, Martti Leino. Bear in mind I’d not be taking this trouble did I not care for you. Easier to give you your pleasure and let you wallow in your smugness. Easier for both of us, no doubt, while this voyage lasts. But it may not last till our small doomsday. We may find our way home. In that case, in due course you’ll want to marry wait. You’re about to say you’ll marry me. I warn you that’s impossible, but whether or not makes no difference. Surely you’ll want a wife you respect, a wife you take pride in.

  “Martti, how are you going to be a husband to a woman you respect9”

  —Afterward, when the shouting was done and the pain had subsided, they lay quiet. She whispered into the hollow between his neck and shoulder: “Och, forgive me. I judged this must be done to you for you—sometime, and how better than by a near shipmate? The more so when I know well old habits of thinking cannot be changed in a day, and here we have weeks, months, maybe years…. Never fear, I’ll not be prying into how you’ve felt about your mother or your sister, especially Lis.” He flinched. “No, dear Martti, I won’t It’s not needful, nor decent, I believe. You already have the knowledge in your brain; you’ve only to get it into your bones. The knowledge that we women are not vessels of holiness, forever defiled if we let in the same kind of honest lust that you know. We are hardly different from you there, nor you from us in your fragility.”

  “Caitlín.”

  “The wife you get may well choose to be none but yours, as Lis has chosen thus far with Dan. There’s nothing amiss with that, if it’s what the two of you really wish. But she has the same right to freedom, every kind of freedom, as you do, and if she claims it she becomes not the less, she becomes the more. Aye, freedom can be lonely, can be frightening, wherefore many persons forswear it, on their own behalf or what’s truly evil—on everyone’s. Yet I often think that it’s what being human is about. Anything else, a beast or a machine can match. Freedom is ours.”

  “We… we abuse it—”

  “Indeed. We’re but apes who’ve grown brains over-large for our bodies. If ever we meet the Others, we may begin to learn what freedom really is. Meanwhile, let’s be as worthy of it as we’re able.”

  Caitlín laughed softly. “Och, hear me preach! Martti, I must soon be about making breakfast. But first, if you’re not over-wearied—which well you might be sure, and many and would—if you’re not, I’d like to begin proving to you what I mean.”

  Presently, amidst more laughter from them both, she said: “Ah, well, it will do no harm if just this once breakfast is an hour or two late, will it, now?”

  Elsewhere aboard, folk slept, Frieda and Dozsa together, the rest by themselves: Brodersen and Weisenberg peacefully; Joelle heavily, under sedation; Rueda rolling about; Susanne with a smile that came and went and came again. Under robot control, Chinook drove on toward the transport engine.

  XXXVI

  I WAS A CHILD of the People, my father a man of the Corn Society, a respectable man who would never in any way seek to thrust himself above others. Yet in the tenth month before I was born, on a night when he and his fellows were in the kiva blessing their dead, my mother dreamed a strange dream. It seemed as if the kachinas came and gently bore her down to their beautiful world below the world. Therefore, as she knelt on a mat, upheld by her sisters, and brought me forth, the men of my father’s Society—having been duly purified—danced certain measures, blew sacred smoke from their pipes, and prayed.

  They got no sign, good or ill, and so took me for what I was, another boy baby, and presented me to the sun. Later I wailed and crowed and kicked and slumbered, was rocked in the arms of my parents and kin, drank life from my mother’s breasts. She bore me on her back strapped to a cradle board while she worked in the patches of beans, squash, and cotton. At those times my head was tightly bound against the wood, to flatten my skull and make me handsome. Soon, though, I was toddling about in care of older children. We infants played many happy games, seldom broken by a tear-squall. However, my earliest memory is of a raven winging by. I stood near the cliff edge; across from me, the far wall of the canyon climbed from depths of willow, through juniper and cactus, to rise at last naked; amidst those greens deep or dusty, the tawny blue-shadowed rock, the heat and light and stillness and resiny smells, all under a sky where sight could lose itsel
f forever oh, there went that proud bright blackness, flying!

  Our pueblo was built halfway up the canyonside, on a ledge. The heights above gave shade when summer afternoon blasted. We had neither the greatest nor the least community on that mesa where the People dwelt. Adobe walls were thick and strong, their roughness pleasant to touch; rooms within were dim but comfortable at every season; ladders went from level to level, and we were always using them, to go work or go visit. Though we set store by proper manners, I remember much merriment.

  Possessing a nearby spring, we took the trail down to the river for fishing or purification or the gathering of herbs—or, in hot weather, coolness, when the young romped on sandbars while the elders sat in grave cheerfulness. Other trails led to the top, where our crops grew and we cut wood (having first explained our need to the trees), hunted, hiked to different pueblos, sought oneness with the spirits in dream or meditation. There, on a clear night, as most nights were, a man saw stars past counting, more stars than darkness, thronged around the Backbone of the World. A full moon blurred that splendor but set the land mysteriously aglow.

  Yes, Creation was full of light. Even the mightiest rainstorms, cloudbursts, blazed as well as crashed. Even our dead, for whom we broke our finest pottery to bury with them, even our dead saw shiningness, in the world below the world or when they came back to us unseen.

  I grew, duty by duty. For a start, I helped keep watch on weanlings. Later I helped cultivate the corn, that being a right of males. Later still I carried burdens and wielded tools too heavy for women. Led by my seniors, I went hunting, woodcutting, traveling; I partook in ceremonies suitable to my years; in this wise I learned what a man ought to know.

  Apart from a few tasks that were overly hard or dull, we enjoyed whatever we did. As for those which nobody liked, besides the reward of knowing we kept the pueblo alive thereby, we made them as gladsome as might be. Thus, to name a single one, when the women ground the corn the men had brought in (after we had cleaned our buildings in order that the corn would feel happy to enter) they made a party of it, chattering away over the metates while a man stood in the door playing the flute for them.