Watchstar

by Pamela Sargent

  Reiho was turning his head, glancing down the long corridor. “It would seem that your power should be vast,” he murmured. “Yet from what you have said, it appears your people use little of it.” He sighed. “I wish I knew more, that I was more learned. There is a whole science here which could tell us much. I wish I knew more. I must speak to Etey and Homesmind.”

  “No!” she cried. “Not now, please. It will only bring more of your people here, and it will be dangerous for them.” She paused and swallowed. “You mustn't, Reiho.” The word Reiho fluttered the veils of light. She had finally spoken his name, and a barrier between them had disappeared. She saw him at last as another person, another creature like herself. He was not really separate; she could speak to his mind, though in a different way. She felt that now.

  She put her elbows on her folded legs and rested her head on her hands. “I don't know what to do,” she said. She recalled her friends, trapped in an illusion, dying because of it. “I have nowhere to go.”

  Reiho leaned toward her. “But you should go to your home and tell your people of this, what is here. It seems they have forgotten it.”

  “You must understand that I can't. They would not believe me. They would look into my mind and decide I was the victim of a great illusion, that I had grown so separate I could not be allowed to live, that I had shown them a...” She broke off. The boy was distracted, still looking around the great corridor, sneaking a peek through the railing at the gold and crystal pillars below. “Why don't you go?” she asked.

  “What did you say?”

  “You want to look at all of this. Go and look.”

  “Are you sure that you will be all right?”

  “I'd rather be alone for a time.”

  Reiho rose and wandered away to another railing, peering down another hole in the floor. She wondered what he thought he could find out that way. She stretched out on the smooth surface, staring up through the violet veils of air at the softly glowing light high overhead.

  The light blurred and she saw the city again. It shimmered before her; its people reeled through the streets this time, as if intoxicated by wine. She saw a man seize a solitary one, forcing her to dance; she threw off her robes, unable to stop him, unable to draw on the power of the great machines. A woman crushed the mind of a man, then leaned over his lifeless body, her face contorted by regret and guilt. The image changed. Outside the city, groups of separate selves huddled together, crowding themselves into tall pointed towers. The towers shook and shot up into the sky.

  Daiya was in front of the city once again. Families and small groups were leaving, fleeing the beautiful towers and well-kept gardens. She shook the visions out of her head. Somehow she understood that she had been shown events many ages apart in time, that time's passage could be marked by such vast changes as well as by enumerating the cycle of the seasons. Jowē's vision formed in her mind; she saw the light from the mountains touch people, the towers crumble into the earth. The vision had not been false, only compressed and distorted. She began to wonder how many ages people had lived as solitaries, what the history, as Reiho called it, of those times was.

  She sat up. There was power in these machines under the earth, power and knowledge of long-ago things. She clasped her hands, remembering her mental disciplines. Drawing on the power she felt, she began to form the city she had seen; first a golden tower, then a metallic-blue spire, then a sparkling web of girders and metal, wider at the sides than at the base, then a park with a clear lake in which water birds swam. Behind her, dimly, she heard a shriek and felt fear.

  She released the vision. It blurred and faded. She reached toward Reiho with her mind, sliding him gently toward her. He threw up his hands. She spun him in front of her and set him down.

  “What was that,” he cried. “I saw...”

  “It was a vision I was shown here, of time past. The power in these machines is so great that I can form it here and show it to you.” Her head spun; she felt as if she had drunk too much wine. “If my people had known there was such power to draw on...” She sighed, suddenly sober again. Somehow they did know, or sensed it. That was why they had always imposed mental discipline, why they had taught the young to restrain themselves, why those who resisted the fear of separateness passively survived the ordeal instead of those who reached out to crush the dark beast which embodied their loneliness and terror. It was why she and everyone like her was taught to become absorbed in the life of the village, in the minds around them. Power had to be channelled through the Net; they had to become Merging Selves. People growing separate, drawing on the power here to strengthen themselves and finding that there was still more available, would grow stronger. The power would tempt them with its promise of freedom from restraints. The machines would reveal the knowledge that she was sure lay within them, tempting the curiosity that was hidden and suppressed in every human being. Disorder would follow; the quiet enduring world she knew would vanish.

  There was a voice inside her. It breathed out a sigh and she gasped. Reiho vanished. She was trapped inside a golden cylinder.

  /Why do we touch only part of you?/ the voice whispered. She trembled, unable to escape it. /Only a part of you is conscious/ She shook her head uncomprehendingly. Then she saw her village, the huts as small as toys, the people standing in the streets as tiny as little dolls. A golden cloud shimmered over the village and a small cloudlet broke away from it, shining brightly. /Only a part of you is conscious/ the voice repeated.

  She covered her ears, groveling on the bottom of the cylinder. /It has been so long/ the voice went on. /It has been so long since we last touched a conscious mind. We have waited, and found only dreamers, who ask so little of us. They could awaken, but they do not. Now we touch a mind, but only part of a mind, where is the rest?/

  She suddenly understood that the voice meant the village.—I am a mind—she answered.—My village is many minds trying to become one—The cylinder blazed, its brightness burning through her eyelids as she closed them.—We are not one mind as you think—

  /Then we too have slept, and dreamt as well/ the voice said. /What has happened? You ask us for so little, yet there is so much power here. You have forgotten it, yet you need only awaken, and all this power is yours. There is so much we can do. We were built to serve/ The voice was mournful. /You have used us only to destroy yourselves, and now you sleep. You are unconscious, you must awaken. We shall grow weaker if you do not. We shall grow weaker if you do not, we shall grow weary of waiting. We shall shut down and the world will die, your history, your possibilities. We too shall be denied our chance to learn. Be warned, small mind. We shall try to live, whatever becomes of you. We shall not die quietly/

  The voice faded; the cylindrical enclosure was gone. Reiho was staring at her, bewildered. “I heard you speak,” he said. “You spoke with a voice not your own, and then with your own voice. You were speaking to the intelligences in these machines, were you not?”

  She nodded. Tentatively, she reached out, trying to hear the voice again.—I have another with me—she thought.—He is from another place, but his people lived on Earth long ago—

  /Then he must be one of those I cannot touch/ The cylinder enclosed her again, but with transparent walls through which she could still see the boy. /Once you hoped, long ago, to find a way by which we could reach such people, but you destroyed yourselves before finding it, and they are lost to me. How we long to hear what they could tell us! Why have you chosen to sleep and dream all this time/

  —We are afraid. My people are afraid. We do not want to destroy ourselves again—

  /How can knowledge destroy? It cannot, but ignorance can. The desire to learn is so much a part of you that by suppressing it, you only wound your most distinctive quality/

  —You are wrong—she argued.—We must have had too much knowledge, and too much power. Had we not decided to live as we do, perhaps we would all have perished. Knowledge is not all that is important. We have other qualities, we
love, we feel, feelings are part of us too—

  /There is your answer. It was not the knowledge and power that were damaging to you/

  —It was too much for us—

  /You do not learn how to control a thing by retreating from it. You live in dreams. You must awaken/

  She focused on Reiho. The voices departed again. She felt very tired; her shoulders sagged. “I cannot grasp all that is here,” she said to him. “It is beyond me. Your people might be better able to understand it, but they lack the ability to look inside these minds, these machines, and see what is here.” What did the minds here expect her to do? She could not show her people such a thing and hope to have them understand it. She sighed and waved an arm at the nearby railing. “There is nothing to be done.”

  Reiho wrinkled his brows. “But you can show what is here to me. You can show what you see, and I can help you interpret it.” There was coldness in his voice. His lust for knowledge would swallow her and override any concern he felt. His strongest feelings were for ideas; she was only an idea to him now, a nexus of thoughts and perceptions.

  “I understand what it means,” she shouted at him. “You want to know it for yourself. You will see what is here and you will want to see more. You will want your people to see. You'll come here with your machines and your devices and I shall have to sit here and show all of you what is here. And then my village will discover you are here and it will end in many deaths. I won't let you.”

  Something broke inside her. She began to shake uncontrollably. The veils of air waved and fluttered; the tiny sparkling lights near their edges twinkled more brightly and danced. The soft hum in the background became a buzz, then a moan. The air shrieked. A wind whipped past her and blew Reiho's dark hair over his eyes. The violet veils turned red; the wind grew stronger. The lights above her began to flicker. Farther down the corridor, a beast was forming, a darkness with a multitude of baleful red eyes.

  “Daiya!” Reiho tried to get up and was bowled over by the wind. It whipped her hair, slapping curls against her face. “Daiya!” He was shaking her. The beast was flowing toward them. She felt more power flow into her. “Please!” Reiho cried. He looked around quickly and she realized he could not see the beast. But he felt the wind. He slid across the floor and grabbed the railing, hanging on until his knuckles were pale. With the power that was here, she could form an image of the beast that even Reiho would see. “Daiya!” He reached over to her with one arm and struck her in the face.

  She gasped, more startled than hurt. She was no longer trembling. The wind became a warm breeze; the red veils faded. Reiho's mouth was open and his arched eyebrows wrinkled his forehead.

  She got up on unsteady legs and helped him to his feet. For a moment, she thought she heard the voice of the machines calling her. She thrust it from herself, rejecting it, wondering if she had dreamt it. “I don't want to stay here,” she said. “I must have time to think.” He took her elbow. The veils brushed against them as they walked down the corridor.

  10

  They sat outside Reiho's craft in the cold night air of the desert. Daiya shivered a bit and warmed the air near her. Reiho did not seem to notice the cold. She chewed on another of his bars; this one tasted like salted meat. He had said it was something else, trying to explain before giving up. He had recoiled when she asked him if it was meat.

  She lifted her sack of wine and held it out to him; there were only a few swallows left. He shook his head. “I had better not,” he said. “It might make me sick.”

  “It's only wine, there isn't enough left to make you sick. You would need more than a sack for that and you would have to drink it quickly.”

  “I am not used to it.”

  She touched his mind; he seemed to think the wine was contaminated. She put it to her lips and took a long drink, finishing it. The comet was brighter tonight, its tail longer. She glanced at the boy. He had finished his supper, washing it down with the water that he got from his vehicle; the craft seemed to have an endless supply of it, producing water and food, it seemed, from the air. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” he asked. “I must go inside my craft and clean myself, I have not done so for a while.”

  She frowned. “Is there enough water for that?”

  “I do not need it.” He went inside, sliding the door shut. After a few moments, she rose and peered through the dome. Reiho had peeled off his silvery suit and lay on one of the seats under a glowing white light which hovered in the air. His body was hairless. She glanced at his groin, surprised to see he had genitals. She had expected pipes, or metal tubes, or perhaps nothing at all.

  She sat down again, putting the wine container on the ground next to her. Her sack was still inside Reiho's vehicle; she would fill the empty sacks with water from the craft, and get provisions from it to fill the big sack to tide her over until she found animal meat, and then.... She didn't know. She could sit by the mountains, exploring the minds inside them. She did not need to go inside; she could draw on the strength of the machines and send her mind inside, learn from them. She could learn many useless things. She wondered if the machines and her mind could create food and drink. She could live there until she died. She could watch other young people stumble out into the desert and die; perhaps she would reach out and save one or two, as if she were God. Maybe she would save the violent ones, and send them back to the village.

  Reiho, wearing his silver clothes again, came out of the craft and sat down near her. He gestured with his hand. “You may use it too, if you wish,” he said.

  “What?” she asked absently.

  “The shuttle. I hope you do not get angry, but you could use a cleaning. I must tell you that you smell very strong ... everything here does.” He glanced uneasily at her as he spoke.

  Daiya did not know whether to laugh or be offended. She had been unable to wash in the river, as she used to, for some time now; what did he expect? She sniffed. Reiho did not have much of a smell, not even normal body odors. “I am becoming more used to it, though,” he continued, as if trying to appease her. “Anyway, you might feel more comfortable after a cleaning.”

  She shrugged, leaning against the craft and stretching out her legs. The light from the vehicle lit part of the boy's face; the rest was shadowed by darkness. He seemed to be struggling with his thoughts.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Well, in a short while I shall go inside and go to sleep. You may also, if you like. It would be more comfortable than staying out here.”

  “That isn't what I meant. Your people must be wondering where you are. You'll have to go back.”

  “I know.” She thought she heard him sigh. “I wish I could see what those structures inside the mountains contain. We could learn more about the principles of their construction. They may also have historical records we do not have, and depictions of ancient arts, and I would like to know from where they draw their power. My people could learn much.”

  With only a tendril, she could feel his desire for that knowledge. She felt her anger begin to rise again. “You can't bring more of your people here. They would be in danger. You don't seem to understand that, no matter how much I repeat it.”

  “They do not have to come here. There is another possible way...” He broke off, leaving her to wonder exactly what he meant. His thoughts on the subject were too alien for her to read. He tried to smile. His eye sockets were dark caves; the smile was a grimace.

  “If we studied them,” he went on, apparently understanding that he was in dangerous territory, “we might even be able to devise a way in which the people you call solitaries could make use of the power. You say that some are born without such ability here, and that people like me do not have it. But if those structures in the mountains can draw on the power, maybe we could develop an implant, like the one that connects me to Homesmind, that would...”

  She exhaled loudly, interrupting his speech. “Solitaries are solitaries,” she said, marveling at the wa
y the boy kept trying to alter the facts of the world, refusing to assent to what existed. She shook her head; her mind felt muddled.

  “Even after what you have seen, you still believe what you were told.” He sounded aggravated; she touched his mind and sensed his impatience.

  “I don't know what to believe,” she responded. “I don't know what you really think, either. You take a thing and twist it this way and that with words and questions and you take a truth and turn it into something else. If you could mindspeak, maybe you'd understand how foolish it seems.”

  He stretched a hand toward her and touched her arm. She stared resentfully at him. He had a place to which he could return, friends, perhaps a family, a world. “You will go back, Reiho. I don't know where I will go.” She thought of the machines, remembering the sadness in the voice which had spoken to her. They would want her to return home and tell of what she had witnessed. But that was impossible.

  “I thought you would be happy to see me leave,” Reiho said in a toneless voice.

  “I shall be, but I'll be alone then, and I don't know what I'll do. You still don't see what you have done, do you?”

  He held out his hands.

  “Try to imagine yourself sitting here, Reiho, unable to go to your home and unwelcome anywhere here, forced to stay alone, after someone had shown you that all that your people loved and believed in, their whole way of life, was somehow...” She could not say it.

  “The intelligences inside the mountains would want you to go back and communicate with your village. When you spoke with their voice before, that was what they implied, was it not?”

  “Who am I to take such a message to my village?” she cried. “Why should I question our ways? They may be based on something we don't understand, we may believe false things, but we have survived for many ages this way, in harmony with the earth. I would be killed for telling my people such things.”