The Avatar

by Poul Anderson

  “If any thanks are due,” he answered, “I owe them.”

  Garbed in air whose clouds gleamed white, laved by oceans in hues of sapphire and lapis lazuli, continents green with growth, the planet shone. Its nearby moon burned, sun-brilliant.

  Chinook swung around the world and around while instruments yearned. “Earthlike,” Susanne whispered.

  “I fear not quite,” Rueda told her. “We’ve obtained spectra. That isn’t chlorophyl you see, and indications are that the biochemistry differs from ours in more fundamental ways still. There isn’t anything that might nourish us. But it lives.”

  Joelle reported on the intercom: “The satellite is a gigantic nuclear reactor, consuming its own mass, apparently with an almost total conversion to energy. That violates the laws of physics we have formulated, but clearly those laws express a special case. I suspect that here we see a forced interaction directly between quarks. Probably the apparatus that brings it about is in a hollow space at the center, protected by the very fields that drive the process. Doubtless this artifical sun was originally a natural moon with the right properties—it should be good for five or six billion years—and that is why the Others chose this planet to resurrect.”

  “The Others?” Frieda asked shakenly.

  “Who else?” Brodersen said. “I wonder, did they seed it with life, or let chemical evolution work?”

  “Either way,” Caitlín said in a radiant tone, “here is life again. Maybe—we’ve seen no signs, but they might be woodsrunners yet—maybe beings that think. Even though they’ll never see stars, what might they become and do and love?” After a moment, softer: “Could the Others have done this because they hoped to see that question answered once more?”

  The ship drove back toward the transport engine.

  Gathered in the common room, her crew heard Brodersen declare: “We’ve got to decide. Joelle can’t navigate us to any predictable exact point in space-time, though she can give us a general direction. Sooner or later, if we keep traveling, we’ll pass through a gate with no T machine at the far end. That’ll be where we end up, for good. It could at least be in our proper time, give or take some megayears, when the universe is bright and sort of familiar. Of course, that means dropping any hopes of finding the Others, and likely of surviving longer than our rations last. However, the plan we’ve been operating under has taken us to places more and more strange. The next might kill us—” he snapped his fingers—“like that. Or slowly.”

  He tamped the tobacco in his pipe, struck fire, drank smoke. “Okay,” he said, “let’s hear what each of you wants.”

  Seated near him, pallid and expressionless, Joelle said, “I prefer to continue. But, to be honest, that is because we may indeed encounter the Others. The idea of homecoming in itself leaves me indifferent. Whichever way we bear, once we come to rest I can search into Reality.”

  Leino: “Turn back. What’s in the future except a universe completely burnt out? If it’s cyclical, its collapse will destroy everything. If it isn’t, it’ll hold nothing but darkness, for eternity. Why should the Others want to be there?”

  Weisenberg: “No, we can’t quit.”

  Rueda: “Is it necessarily quitting? We do have a chance, microscopic, yes, but finite, a chance of getting help in the young galaxy.”

  Susanne: “If we tried two or t’ree more forward leaps before we reverse—”

  Dozsa: “No. The likelihood of being trapped in this flying coffin is too great. I want to die in action, exploring a planet, anything, but in action!”

  Frieda: “I was about to vote we continue, but what you say, Stef, makes me think twice.”

  Caitlín trod forth. “Do none of you understand?” rang from her. “Oh, for a while I lost heart myself, but Phil upbore me in a long talk we had, and then when I saw yonder world Do you not understand? The Others live for life. They are death’s great adversaries. Where else are we quite sure to find an outpost of theirs but at his very gates, on the very day of doom? And how else dare we ask for their aid but in the same high spirit that is theirs?”

  Nightwatch.

  Through her electronic senses, integrated by her electronic extra brain and its memories (Fidelio, Fidelio) into an ever more meaningful and magnificent whole, the Noumenon entered Joelle and made her one with itself. Space-time curved, strongly, subtly, mysteriously, through dimension upon dimension; energies flowed, matter like a wave that came and went across their tides; the Law, immanent and omnipotent, was no changeless equation but a music which she had begun faintly to hear.

  Thank you, Caitlín, poor animal, flickered in a tiny portion of her. I could never have raised raw emotion in your fellow animals and turned it into will as you did in a single wild hour. Now ahead of me is a dissolution I cannot fear, I who know in my inmost cell that the Ultimate is what is; or ahead of me [existence thrilled] are the Others.

  Night watch.

  Light in the cabin was low and golden. The data retrieval formed an illusion of roses. Caitlín had set the thermostat for warmth and daubed around extracts of almond and cloves from her galley to scent the air. The audio played “Sheep May Safely Graze,” that dearest of all melodies.

  She stepped from her clothes and stood before Brodersen, hands held out to him. “God damn,” he said, from down in his breast, wishing he had a gift of words, “Pegeen, you’re so beautiful it hurts.”

  She smiled. “You are that for me, Dan, darling.”

  “No, wait—”

  Her laughter blessed him. “Aye, it’s homely you are beside the Apollo Belvedere, and I’m no flashbomb either. But you are beautiful because you are you. You look like yourself, the man I’m in love with. And likewise for you beholding me, is that not true, my own?”

  In a heartbeat she turned serious—woundable—and cast herself against him. “Oh, Dan, Dan, we’re bound into unknownness, we can foresee neither what will become of us nor what we will become; but we have this night. Hold me, Dan, make love to me, love me.”

  XLIV

  JUMP.

  Light, everywhere light. It was as if space had become a dewdrop in dawnlight, and they at its heart. Soft iridescences, every color that was which every seeing creature had ever known, swirled, mingled, shivered, flowed, flooded, with here and there a brief rush of starlike sparks in fountains, clusters, dancing pairs and triplets, solitaries arching through graceful great curves before they died out to be rekindled elsewhere. The sight took awareness by storm and bore the beholder off into its mighty harmonies.

  They in Chinook had no way to tell what size was the globe of luminance that enclosed them. Surely it was vast. The T machine was dwarfed by the distance at which the ship had emerged. As remote, and of comparable hugeness, were two other things. The first was perhaps a white-hot sphere, though forces and torrents made perception waver; lesser shapes, likewise veiled, moved around it on intricate paths. The second was a sweetly curved ellipsoid which seemed to be more immaterial, quasi-solid and of ultimate strength, than the vessel which had passed through galactic center ages ago. A webwork extended from it, not identical with what the observatories bore at the neutron star and the black hole, but possessing the same intricate delicacy.

  Here are the Others! blazed in Joelle. No beings hut the Others could have wrought this.

  She sent forth her probes, opened her multitudinous senses, summoned her entire comprehension of the Noumenon. I’ll not realize everything that’s happening here, hut I’ll grasp enough that I can ask the right questions when the Others arrive, questions to prove me worthy of entering their fellowship.

  Then: she was blind, she was deaf, she was numb, she was lame. Instruments could register nothing except what they were designed to. Theory could account for nothing in an environment whose nature sprang from principles wholly beyond it. An earthworm could more readily imagine and explain birdflight than she could make this place a part of her Reality.

  Stunned, she barely noticed the sudden appearance of an asteroid not f
ar from Chinook. The dark, jagged mass had for companion a small golden-shining prismatic form that moved at once toward the incandescent globe. The asteroid followed. Rapidly gaining speed, the two were soon lost to vision.

  Brodersen’s hail reached her as if through a stone wall: “Joelle, how’re you doing? What can you tell us?”

  “I can’t,” she heard herself whimper.

  “Yeah, no surprise.” Through his dry words, the captain’s tone resonated. “Listen, friends. Whatever we’ve found, and I do believe it is what we’ve hunted for, we can only wait till these… builders… get in touch. I imagine they will, they’re bound to’ve noticed us. Leave your stations. We’ll meet in the common room. Best to be together.”

  Joelle rallied. “I’ll stay in holothesis,” she said.

  “Good. Thanks. I was hoping you would.”

  “You’ll be with us just the same,” Caitlín called.

  No, not really, I’m certain. Pride and faith rose anew in Joelle. I should not have been dismayed to discover a whole new kingdom of the Law. Rather let me be eager to learn of it and take it into myself. Let me trust the Others will teach me.

  Against the auroral skies a point of light sprang into view. Swiftly it grew until it was a nacreous arrow shape, bound straight for Chinook from the direction of the ellipsoid, which must be where the creators dwelt. They are coming, they are coming. And I am she who will converse with them, who is able to, I, alone among humans, I, who have gone beyond the human.

  The crew floated waiting. Screens gave on immense and gentle brilliance; rainbow tints flew across them to make changeable the chamber they were in. They clasped each other around the waist, Rueda and Susanne, Frieda between Leino and Dozsa, Caitlín between Brodersen and Weisenberg. They shared each other’s breath, sweat, animal odors, warmth—sometimes taste, in a kiss.

  The stranger ship, if ship it was, drew nigh, no larger than Williwaw, flowingly formed but featureless behind its iridescence. By invisible means it halted alongside, a hundred meters off. And there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

  “Can you raise them, Joelle?” the captain asked hoarsely.

  “No,” he heard. “Neither laser nor radio. Nor do I detect anything from them.”

  “But I’ll bet they’re looking us over,” he said, “in some way we’re ignorant of, that we can’t even feel.”

  Caitlín tensed in her man’s embrace. “Can’t you?” she whispered.

  “What?” He snapped his head rightward to see her. Luminance played over red-brown hair; the green gaze was lost in outwardness; breasts strained at coverall as the air went in and out of her. “You can?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered in a sleepwalker’s voice. “How could I know? But I sense—no words can tell—a stirring that is bright—lost memories rise before me like merrows from the sea—Do none of you?”

  Fright seized him. A scan of the whole body, nerves, brain… had she been singled out, or was she more sensitive?… Suddenly he remembered the Elf Hill story she had from her mother. “Oh, Pegeen!” He gripped her hard, and felt Weisenberg’s arm tighten likewise.

  “Be not afraid for me, darlings,” she said, while she never turned her face from the universe. “It’s a happy state. How could the Others be other than good?”

  A minute or two later—many heartstrokes in Brodersen’s aching chest—she trembled, looked bewildered around, and said thinly, “It’s gone. It’s left me.”

  “Gone to anyone else?” Weisenberg barked. He got mumbled negatives. “I suppose they’re through, then,” he ventured. “What next?”

  Still the arrow lay moveless.

  “A message must be going back through the T machines,” Joelle said. “Our coming must be unusual even for them, quite possibly unprecedented. They’ll want to consult records, perhaps call in a specialist But I don’t expect we’ll have long to wait.”

  “No, they’d not torment us,” Caitlín said. Brodersen could virtually share how she eased, moment by moment, returning from a wakeful dream to herself.

  “But what will they do?” Susanne’s tone stumbled. Her look at Rueda gave away that it was him for whom she feared. “We ’ave entered a, a ’ome of the gods.”

  “Aye, and myths tell how mortals who did that were never the same again,” Caitlín replied. “Yet I think we’ll be more than we were, not less.” To Brodersen she breathed, “As long as I may keep on loving you—”

  The half hour drew to a slow close. A second lean hull came in sight, hurtling from the direction of the T machine toward Chinook.

  It lay to on the opposite side of the human craft from its twin. Resplendence encompassed all three and the tremendous works beyond.

  On every waveband she had, Joelle radiated her salutation. Here I am, she proclaimed in the human languages she knew, and the Betan, and what she had mastered of the Oracular. Here I am, she with whom you can speak, she who has awaited you as a bride awaits.

  A response welled forth in her that was a benediction:—Greeting, Joelle Ky. Be glad; be at rest. [Perception of her grew.] O poor grieved spirit, be now at last at peace!

  Who are you? What are you?

  —Be not afraid.

  Of you?

  —Yes, you fear no harm, Joelle Ky, and in this you are right. Here at the end of your quest is shelter. But a dread more deep is in you, that we will not or cannot grant you your holiest wish. A promise will not annul that, for it may well prove to be true. Can you heal the terror, and wait calmly for whatever must happen?

  It ripped through her. When will you decide?

  —After some time, we fear. We are not supernatural beings, instantly omniscient and infallible. We have come here to know you, whence you have fared and why, what you are striving for, how a victory of yours might change the course of time, perhaps for many different worlds—to know such things fully enough that we can dare to judge.

  Had her arms not been bound in linkage, had she not been afloat in the firmament, she would have raised them in prayer. I see. Here I am, then. Take me, examine me, ask me out, use me however you will.

  The kindly thought (she could feel the kindness, like sunshine inside her) said:—You are not needed. That is well, since you are not representative of your race; you see the cosmos askew from your shipmates, as badly as you have been hurt. We would have looked into them as best we could. But by the greatest good fortune, we do not need them either, imperfect as our knowledge would have been. An avatar of ours is aboard.

  What? I don’t understand—

  —We must leave you now and seek her. It would be cruel to keep your people waiting longer than the least time we can take to learn. Let courage bring calm, Joelle Ky. Do not abide in your holothesis. [No command; a plea:] Go to your fellow humans and be one among them. Farewell.

  The presence vanished. Joelle sat in her harness, marginally aware of what the intercom brought her. Once she tried to weep, and failed. After that, grimly, she stayed where she was.

  A woman’s rich contralto said from the intercom speaker, in English whose lilt brought a gasp from Caitlín: “May the best that there is be always yours. We would like to enter. Please let us in, if you will, by your Number Three personnel lock. It’s happy we’ll be to meet you.”

  “If we will—!” ripped from Brodersen. Nonetheless, soldier’s habit made him tell his comrades: “You stay put. I’ll go, and bring them back.”

  Besides, that’s sort of a cramped area for receiving the lords of the universe, passed within him, as ludicrously as did consciousness of dry mouth and clamorous pulse. With shoving legs and snatching hands he propelled himself through corridors and companionway to the control board he wanted. Then he must wait a minute for his shakes to subside before he could operate the motor.

  The inner valve retracted. Two came in. Silvery auras enrobed them, which must protect against space Brodersen decided in his rocking mind—for they blinked immediately out of existence. Before him poised a man and a woman
.

  Should I kneel? No, you can’t kneel in free fall! “W-w-welcome. We’re, uh, at your service.’

  Both were tall, well-formed, supple, fair and blue-eyed. Long yellow hair framed faces strong and comely, youthful and immemorially mature. The man, bearded, wore a tunic that might be linen, a kilt that might be wool, shoes that might be leather, a broad cloak. The woman, whose tresses fell nearly to her more lightly shod feet, wore a flowing gown and a mantle. The garments were embroidered and many-hued. Both persons were bejeweled in gold and silver and crystal: fillets, torques, bracelets, brooches, rings of intertwining patterns. The knives at their colorful belts gave an impression of being tools, not weapons. He carried a staff, bronze-banded, whose finial was a spray of twigs whereon grew leaves. Perched there and on his shoulders or flying about, singing, were birds, lark, thrush, linnet, robin redbreast. In her arm she bore a small harp.

  Both smiled. “No, it’s we who should bid you welcome, brave wanderer,” said the man. His baritone rang. “Would you lead us to your fellows?”

  “Aye, sir, aye.” Brodersen did, in too much tumult for thinking. The pair did not require rails, handgrips, or kickspots to move. They ghosted along upright.

  Through the companionway, down the hall, to the door of the common room….

  Brodersen hung back to let the visitors precede him. Thus he did not see Caitlín when he heard her cry out. “O-o-o-oh!”—no sight in the whole journey had brought such a sound from her. Alarmed, he swung himself around the jamb. She floated in Weisenberg’s clasp, arms lifted, lips parted, tears breaking loose to dance and glitter. He forgot caution and respect, launched his body at her, reached her with a force that nearly tore the engineer loose.

  “Pegeen, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she choked. “They—Aengus mac Óg, the god of love. Brigit his sister, the goddess of bards—You cannot be, can you, can you?”