Vacuum Diagrams
Page 38
Only the gray-haired woman showed any continuing curiosity in the ship itself. She prowled the walls, touching, staring, studying. There were panels which showed scenes of stars, but they were not simple windows; they showed images which were magnified, inverted, or distorted, as if seen sideways in a reflecting sheet of ice. Other panels, larger in area, coated the lower walls like silver paint. And to a table fixed beneath an array of panels were attached devices which Paul instantly recognized as waldoes, tailored for human hands. Obviously this was the ship's control system. With a mixture of fascination and dread Paul watched the woman approach the strange, mittenlike objects; she poked at them tentatively, and once even appeared to be contemplating slipping her hands inside. But she backed away nervously and moved on.
Paul, with the wave-function equivalent of a sigh, resigned himself to waiting a little longer.
Erwal ran her fingers over the ship's gleaming surfaces. She stared at the panels, the strange mittens, the shaped chairs, and tried very hard to understand.
She stood before a silver wall panel. The featureless rectangle, about as tall as she was, reflected a tired, uncertain woman. Perhaps she simply wasn't up to this. If only Teal were here—
...She reached out her right hand and slid it through the silver panel, as if it were a pool of some liquid stood impossibly on end; she felt no discomfort, only a mild, vaguely pleasant tingling...
The dream evaporated. Her hands were safely by her sides. She held her right hand up before her face and poked at it, turning it over and over; it was unaffected, right down to the familiar patch of frost-bitten skin between the knuckles.
She found herself shuddering. The vision, like the first one, had been as real as life. It was as if her grasp on reality were loosening. She closed her eyes and stood there, alone in the muddy bustle of the ship, wishing beyond wish that she were with Damen in the warm, dark security of her teepee.
She forced her eyes open and stared at the silver panel. It shone softly in the diffuse light. She recalled reluctantly how useful the first of her waking dreams had turned out to be, the one that had shown her how to get into the ship. Perhaps this latest one would be just as valuable...
If she had the courage to find out.
She reached out a trembling hand. Her fingertips touched the gleaming panel, then slid without resistance into the surface. To her eyes it was as if the fingers had been cut away by a blade; but she could feel them in the unknown space behind the panel, and she wiggled them experimentally. She felt nothing; it was as if the panel was made of air, or some warm liquid.
She withdrew her fingers. There was no resistance. She inspected her hand carefully, pinching the skin, then looked doubtfully at the panel once more.
Almost impulsively she thrust her hand right through the silver, immersing it to the wrist. She felt nothing but a vague, deep warmth; her stretching fingers found nothing within the hidden space.
She pulled her hand away once more, studied it and flexed her fingers. It felt, if anything, healthier than before; as she moved the joints she was untroubled by the stiffness she sometimes suffered in her knuckles...
It felt much healthier, in fact. And it was now completely unmarked. The patch of frostbite between her knuckles was gone.
The news of the miraculous healing panel spread rapidly. Soon hands, forearms and elbows were being thrust through the silver curtain; they returned freed of cuts, bruises and patches of ice-damaged skin. Arke had a slightly sprained ankle, and he lifted his leg and comically thrust his foot through the silver curtain. Afterwards he strode around the chamber grinning, declaring the joint to be stronger than it had ever been.
One five-year-old was suffering from a debilitating chest infection, and in his father's hands he looked little more than a disjointed sack of bones. At last the father thrust the child bodily through the partition. Tears streaming down his face, he held the boy out of sight for several heartbeats.
When he pulled his son back the villagers crowded around expecting a miracle, but the boy appeared just as thin and pale as before. The father smiled bravely at the child, who was excitedly describing how dark it had been in there. The villagers turned away, shaking their heads.
Erwal kept her own counsel and watched the boy.
The improvement was only gradual at first, but after a few days it was beyond doubt: the boy's cough subsided, color returned to his cheeks, and, at last, his weight began to pick up. Everyone was moved by this and there was an impromptu party, with the boy's recovery toasted in wooden beakers of mummy-cow milk.
Erwal reflected carefully on the incident and tried to understand its meaning.
Over the next few days she experienced several more of the waking dreams, and gradually she learned to trust them. She reached into more silver panels and pulled out food and drink of a richness the villagers had never experienced before. That was an excuse for another party... Then she learned how to touch the floor — just so — to make a section of it open up to reveal a pool of warm, clear water. The villagers had never seen so much water standing unfrozen, and they stared at it uncertainly. The children were the first to try it out, and soon the adults found it impossible to resist joining in their games. Dirt floated away from Erwal's flesh, taking with it some of the burden of responsibility she had carried since leaving the village. The pool was soon reduced to dilute mud; but, as soon as Erwal had the floor close and open again, the water was restored to its clear purity.
The villagers took these miracles in their stride. As Erwal delivered each new surprise they would stare at her curiously, one or two questioning her on how she had known to touch the panels or the walls in just that fashion; but, unable to explain the waking dreams only she experienced, she would simply smile and shrug.
Perhaps there was something in the ship which sent the dreams to her. After all a dreaming panel would be no more miraculous than a healing panel...
But she could not believe that. There was an element of patience and sympathy about the visions that reminded her of people who had cared for her in the past: of her mother, of Teal, of old Allel. Surely there was a person behind these visions; and surely that person was a human like herself.
Gradually she came to think of her benefactor as the Friend.
She wondered why he — or she — did not simply walk through the door of the ship and show himself. She suspected she would never know his name. But she became convinced he intended only to help her, and she sent him silent thanks.
But then a new set of visions began, and soon she wished she could close off her mind as she could close her eyes, block her ears.
In these new dreams she was sitting at one end of the chamber, at the table to which were fixed the strange, soft mittens. She would slide her hands into the mittens and spread her fingers flat against the tabletop. That in itself did not seem so bad... but then would come a helpless movement, like sliding across a plain of ice, and the dream would become a nightmare.
Terrified, she resisted the dreams, but they battered at her awareness like snowflakes. Even sleep was no escape. She sensed an urgency behind the dreams, an anxiety; but there was also tolerance and kindness. Obviously the Friend badly wanted her to slide her hands into the mittens, to submit to this awful falling sensation. But she felt that if she failed to overcome her terror the Friend would stay and help her care for her people, here in the Eight Rooms and the ship, as long as they lived.
Finally, after some days, the dreams ceased. Perhaps the Friend had done all he could and was now waiting, resigned to whatever decision she might make. She grew restless in the confines of the ship and the Rooms, fractious and impatient with her companions, and she slept badly.
At last she approached the little table. Two of the children played a noisy game around her feet, barely noticed. She sat down and slid her hands into the mittens. She felt a million tiny prickles, as if the gloves were stuffed with fine needles, but there was no pain.
The ship quivered.
She became aware of a lull in the noise of the chamber. The villagers had felt the ripple and looked about uneasily, their new home abruptly an alien place once more.
Slowly she opened her fingers, turned her hands palm down, and deliberately rested them on the tabletop.
Now another shudder ran through the ship; she imagined a giant waking, stretching huge muscles after too long a sleep. Fear flooded through her; but she kept her hands steady and clung to the idea that the Friend was hovering over her somewhere. Surely the Friend would not lead her into harm.
Arke came bursting into the chamber. He stared around wildly, sweat sparkling on his bald scalp. "Erwal! What are you doing to the ship?"
She turned. "What are you talking about?"
He gestured, swinging his arms through wide arcs. "You can see it from the Eighth Room. The ship has grown wings! They must be a hundred miles long and they're as black as night..."
Erwal barely heard him, for her head was flooded with a new series of dreams, as if the Friend were now excited beyond endurance. She closed her eyes, shook her head; but still the visions persisted. She could see the Eighth Room, but from the outside; it was a crystal toy against a backdrop of stars... and the ship was gone from its side.
She had no idea what the vision meant. Again and again it pounded into her head like a palm slapping her temple. At last, terrified and confused, she... reflected... the vision back.
There were screams; she heard people fall, splash into the pool. Then there came that terrible dream-sensation of sliding—
With a cry she snatched her hands from the mittens. There was an instant of pain, of regret, as if she were spurning a lover. The sense of motion ceased.
She stared around. Baffled villagers clung to each other, crying. The door which had led to the Eighth Room had sealed itself up. In one of the wall panels she saw the Eighth Room... but, just as in the dream, the Room was diminished in size, as if she were viewing it from some distance.
A muscle in Arke's cheek quivered. "Erwal, what have you done?"
"I..." Her throat, she found, was quite dry. She licked her lips and tried again. "I think I've moved the ship. But I'm not sure how."
He pointed to the door. "If that hadn't closed itself the connection to the Room might have just ripped open." He eyed her accusingly. "What if someone had fallen? Or what if the door had closed on one of us, perhaps a child? They might have been cut in two."
Her fears subsiding, Erwal found herself able to say calmly: "Arke, I don't think that could have happened. The ship simply isn't made that way. It's here to help and protect us."
He stared at her curiously, scratching his scalp. "You talk about it as if it's alive."
"Perhaps it is." She touched the mittens and remembered the excitement that had surged through her senses.
"Take us back." There was a barely controlled tremble in Arke's voice.
She looked up at the wall panels. Villagers inside the Eighth Room called soundlessly to the ship, hammering at the crystal walls; they looked like insects in a box of ice, and the occupants of the ship stared at them numbly.
Erwal nodded. "Yes. All right." Once again she slid her hands into the gloves; once again the ship trembled, as if it were some huge animal ready to do her bidding.
She sensed the Friend hovering close by.
She closed her eyes and — imagined — the ship restored to its berth next to the Eighth Room. There was another disconcerting slide through space, briefer this time, and the ship came to rest.
She looked up. The door barring the way to the Eighth Room had dissolved; the villagers in the ship rushed to the door and embraced their companions, as if they had been separated by far more than a few hundred yards and a few minutes.
After that many of the little group retreated to the comparatively familiar confines of the Eight Rooms — some went so far as to spend some nights outside, buried in the chill, comforting snow — and it took some time before they grew to trust the interior of the ship once more. For some time Erwal did not dare move the ship again; but when she slid her hands into the mittens it was like the feel of the muscles beneath the thick hair of Damen's forearm.
Paul exulted.
Unsophisticated the humans might be, but they were not primitive, Paul saw clearly. They had been shaped by the habitation of a Galaxy, over millions of years. The woman, for all her fear and tentativeness, had no difficulty with grasping the essential concepts — that the object she sat in was a ship, which could be directed through immense spaces — despite the fact that such things were so far beyond her own experience. It was as if humans had evolved for spaceflight, as if the imaginative concepts required were embedded in deep mental muscles in the woman's brain — atrophied perhaps, but now stirring anew.
Paul tried to analyze his own reactions. Not long ago he had been near the peak of his sophistication, his awareness multiplexed and his senses sweeping across the Galaxy... Now he was spending so much time locked into a crude single-viewpoint self-awareness model in order to communicate with the pilot woman that he was in danger of degenerating.
Why was he doing this? Why did he care?
He shook off his introspection. There were greater issues to resolve. He had focused so long on the question of teaching the humans to fly the ship that he had neglected to consider where they were meant to take it. Already he sensed the most advanced one, the woman pilot, was beginning to frame such questions.
He must consider.
He withdrew from the woman. (There was a sharp, bittersweet sense of loss.) Then his awareness multiplied, fragmented, and spread like the wings of the ship, and the small pain vanished.
The watching Qax had become aware of the quantum-function creature through its interaction with the primitives, and had only slowly come to recognize it as an advanced-form human.
Now the evolved human had gone.
The Qax considered.
The primitive humans were helpless. There would be time to collect them later.
The Qax departed, following the evolved human.
The Friend had gone.
Erwal worried briefly; but he would return when she needed him.
And in the meantime there was the ship.
Inside the warm stomach of the ship the days were changeless, their passing marked only by sleep intervals.
Erwal found a way to dim the light in the main chamber, and each "evening" the villagers would retreat to their nests of blankets, and soon a soft susurrus of snoring, gentle scratching, of subdued belches and farts, would fill the clean walls of the ship.
Erwal found it difficult to rest.
Nights — "nights" — were the times she missed Damen most. She lay alone in her cordoned-off space for long hours, staring up at the featureless ceiling. At length, driven by the boredom of sleeplessness, she would steal past sleeping bodies to the control table, slip her hands into the warmth of the mittens, and once more touch the great muscles of the craft.
She could not put aside the thought that they had not come so far simply to stop here. They had braved the snows to reach the Rooms — they had learned to use the ship's facilities to feed and cleanse themselves...
They could even make it fly.
Surely they should not simply give up? If they could make the ship fly, why should they not make it fly far and wide in this strange, roofless Universe?
The claustrophobic warmth, the cosy human scents of the cabin, closed in around her once more.
She wished the Friend were still here. But she was alone, with her frustration.
Arke came to her, concern creasing the flesh between his eyes. "You worry me," he said softly.
"Then I'm sorry. There's no need—"
"Erwal, most of us are happy simply to have reached this haven. Warmth, safety, peace, food — that's all we ever wanted. We don't
want more uncertainty, adventure. You know that. But you — you are different. You seem driven," Arke said.
Perhaps she should tell Arke about the Friend — what a relief it would be to share her doubts and uncertainties with another! — but Arke, good man as he was, would surely conclude that she was simply insane; and she would never again be allowed to use the controls without the watchful eye of a villager on her.
Anyway, she reflected, at the moment the Friend wasn't here! So whatever was impelling her, making her restless, was coming from inside her.
She leaned forward and peered into Arke's pale, anxious eyes. "I think we have to go on. We can't stop here."
He spread his hands. "Why? We are comfortable and safe."
"Arke, this ship isn't just a teepee. It flies! Look — someone built the Eight Rooms for us to find. Didn't they?"
Arke nodded slowly. "Someone who knew we would need to escape the ice one day."
"So they released us from one danger — the cold. But, Arke, why give us a ship as well? Why not just stop at the Eight Rooms?"
Arke frowned. "You think there's something else — another danger; something we would need to escape in the flying ship."
"Yes." She sat back, resting her hands on her knees. "And that's why I think we have to learn to use this vessel."
Arke rubbed his broad nose. "Erwal, you've been right about a lot of things before. But—" He gestured at the sleeping villagers. "We aren't pioneers. We only came so far because the alternative seemed certain death. And even if you're right, this mysterious danger might not manifest itself for a long time — for lifetimes, perhaps! So why should we not relax, let our children worry about the future?"
Erwal shook her head, remembering the urgency of the Friend. "I don't think we have lifetimes, Arke."
Arke spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Frankly, Erwal, I don't see why the rest of us should let you endanger all our lives."
She nodded. "Then consider this: Arke, would you let me take the ship away alone? — Then I would only be endangering myself, after all."