Message From the Eocene

by Margaret St. Clair

  In the second place, he didn't know enough. Who was he to decide what was, or was not, to the benefit of humanity? His ideas of good and evil ran roughly parallel to theirs; but if he had had the power of a demi-god, he would still have felt that he did not have the wisdom of one. Humanity would have to make its own saviors. He was an alien, and if he tried to intervene in their affairs, he would be an interloper. He wasn't wise enough to decide on their proper path.

  Wasn't that sort of intervention what had ailed his own people? The Vaeaa had possessed great power relative to Tharg's race, and they had been self-confident enough not to hesitate to use their power. Self-righteous, rather. Perhaps they had thought they were acting for the best when they had intervened to prevent Tharg's people from benefiting from the guidebook that had so mysteriously reached them; but the intervention, Tharg considered, had been wholly disastrous. It was the lack of the guidebook that had doomed his people to their protracted, and ultimately fatal, series of wars. The history of that race would have been very different if they had been allowed to have what legitimately belonged to them.

  Self-righteousness—what a lot of it the Vaeaa had had! They had been so sure of their rightness that their last act, as a race, had been to set up the projector on Pluto so that no other guidebook, in all the future history of the third planet from the sun, should ever get through to it.

  They had prejudged Earth's future in perpetuity ...

  That meant ... that they had thought it possible ... that another guidebook ... might some day come.

  Another guidebook? Tharg felt his horizons expanding enormously. But only one guidebook had ever been sent to Tharg's people. And the last of them had been dead when the Vaeaa had undertaken their great restrictive work. So the Vaeaa had thought it possible that another race might come into being on Earth—another race, to whom another guidebook might be sent.

  Sent? Sent from where? Tharg speculated fruitlessly on this point for a long time. In the end he had to admit that he had no clue as to where the guidebook might have been sent from, or who the senders were. Perhaps even the Vaeaa had not known.

  But they had thought it possible that another guidebook might some day be sent to earth. They might have been mistaken; they might have been acting out of excessive caution and dislike of the idea. But it was possible—wasn't it possible?—that when the inhabitants of a planet reached a certain level of technological or psychological development, the guidebook was sent.

  It might not necessarily be the same guidebook. Perhaps what was sent differed according to the nature of the recipients. But when the population of a planet reached an appropriate point, it got its appropriate chance.

  When the guidebook had come to Tharg's people, they had been at about the same level of technological development as the autochthonous inhabitants of earth currently were. The older population had had a good deal more innate talent in extrasensory ways. But mutatis mutandi, they had been at about the same level of development.

  In that case, wasn't it possible—wasn't it possible that before too long another guidebook would be sent out?

  -

  Chapter Thirteen

  "This is an unusual experiment," said the teaching assistant. "Its whole point is that it never works."

  The class, a captive audience if there ever was one, laughed dutifully. Some of the dumber ones, who knew they weren't doing very well in the course, managed to gaffaw. The assistant—his name was Warner—smiled an acknowledging smile.

  "The experiment I am about to perform," Warner continued, "ought to demonstrate the existence of magnetic monopoles. It has been performed hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, since Ford first tried it twelve years ago, in 1962. Invariably, the monopoles fail to show up.

  "Yet, monopoles ought to exist. Dirac, more than forty years ago, predicted their existence. Both quantum theory and classical electromagnetic theory have room for them. I'll write the relevant equations for you on the blackboard."

  He wrote, occasionally consulting a piece of paper he held in his left hand. "You see how neatly it would work out," he said when he had finished. "If the partial derivative B is ... And C, of course, represents the speed of light.

  "Now, one of the best places to look for magnetic monopoles is in iron meteorites. Actually, I am not playing quite fair in using this particular meteorite for my demonstration, since it was used in this class last semester, and with the usual negative results.

  "I am going to subject five square centimeters of the surface of this meteorite to a magnetic field of 120,000 gauss. That is quite an intense field; if any monopoles are present, they ought to be jarred loose from their strong attachment to the metoritic iron.

  "Once jarred loose, they will be accelerated to an energy of more than a billion electron volts. In this accelerated state, the putative monopoles will go pinging through a pair of nuclear emulsion plates, and finally be trapped again in an iron backstop.

  "On their trip through the emulsion plates, the magnetic monopoles should leave their characteristic traces: tracks which, initially, are so heavy that they cannot be confused with those of any other elementary particle and which, as the magnetic monopoles lose energy and interact less strongly with the atoms of the emulsion, taper from heavy to light in a unique manner.

  "The interest of this experiment, as I said before lies in the fact that it never works. Magnetic monopoles can exist, therefore should exist, and yet never do.

  "Now I will actuate the electromagnet. I am going to give the target three bursts, at about a minute apart."

  Warner pressed a switch. Nothing visible happened. He looked at his watch, while the second hand moved. He pressed the switch again, waited, and pressed it once more.

  "Now I am going to put the nuclear emulsion plates under the microscope and look for magnetic monopole tracks. The microscopic image will be projected on the screen"—Warner indicated a square white screen on the wall behind him—"so the class can see exactly what I am seeing."

  He sat down at the microscope. A round spot of light duly appeared on the screen. While the class watched and fidgeted, he moved the plates slowly about under the objective of the microscope. The spot of light on the screen did not change.

  "You see," said Warner, his voice a little muffled by his sitting position, "there are no monopole traces. The experiment has failed to—what! Why—my God!"

  The spot of light on the screen had been abruptly crisscrossed by a whole barnyard of tracks. They were broad and heavy at one end, they faded and narrowed rapidly, they ran across the screen in all directions. There must have been at least thirty of them.

  Warner got up from his chair. He was visibly trembling. "M-m-magnetic m-m-monopoles," he explained, somewhat unnecessarily. "I can't b-b-believe it. I'm g-g-going to get Dr. Donaldson." He looked sternly at the class. "Wait in your places. This is a h-historic moment."

  He hurried away. The class exchanged glances. Warner returned with Donaldson, who looked first at the image on the screen and then sat down at the microscope.

  "It's certainly so," Donaldson said after a moment. "Mr. Warner, please put in fresh nuclear emulsion plates and try the experiment again."

  Warner did as he was requested. The electromagnet delivered its three bursts. The new emulsion plates were put under the microscope.

  The end of the class period had come, but nobody moved. Even the slower students had the feeling that, as Warner had put it, they were present at a historic moment.

  Donaldson moved the plates around, hunting for more monopole tracks. It was not long before he hit on a rich spot. Once more the screen was covered with the tapering tracks.

  Donaldson began to count. "One ... two ... three ... four ..." He got up to twenty-seven, and may have missed some. At last he stood up.

  "Class dismissed," he said mildly to the students, and then, to the teaching assistant, who was flapping around him excitedly, "Mr. Warner, something very unusual must be happening."

  -

/>   It was a moonless night. The sky was lightly overcast. Captain Bergson, regarding the barometer, thought the ship must be heading into an area of rain.

  Though the sky was dark, the water through which the Odin moved was dimly phosphorescent. Where the ship's bow cut the water, the furrow broke into creamy light on both sides. A pretty sight; Captain Bergson hoped that those of the passengers who were still awake were enjoying it.

  He retied the knot of his pareu. He had worn the pareu at the party he had given for the passengers earlier in the evening, and had seen no reason for changing into his tropical whites before going up on the bridge to receive the first officer's report. The Odin was a smallish Norwegian freighter that plied between the California coast and the South Pacific islands, and the captain's pareu was one of the Polynesian touches that the passengers enjoyed so much. Besides, Captain Bergson had personal reasons for liking to wear a pareu: it was a comfortable garment for a man who feared he was getting a little too thick around the middle.

  Captain Bergson sighed. The trouble was, he was a compulsive eater. He reacted to stress and worry—and the captain of a ship always has his worries—by eating more and at more frequent intervals. The Odin had an excellent cuisine.

  Still, he considered himself a fortunate man. The Odin was a lovely little ship, he liked his job, the owners were well pleased with him. Sea traffic between the islands and the mainland was increasing rather than lessening. Humanly speaking, he was sure of a good job for as long as he would want one. And then there was Cecile.

  Cecile lived in Papeete. She had long glossy black hair, a smooth brown skin, and there wasn't a coy bone in her body. She was, in short, a typical Tahitian vahine ... The Odin would reach Tahiti in three days.

  Oh, boy. True, she had said something last time to the effect that her captain was getting a pretty big opu. Bergson had gained about four kilos since then, and the belly had got bigger. But that was the beauty of Tahiti. If Cecile cold-shouldered him on the ground that he was getting too fat for her taste, there was sure to be some other girl probably just as young and good looking, who would think he was "bien gentil".

  Rain had begun to fall. Bergson could hear its patter on the deckhouse roof. Far ahead, off to the right, he saw a vivid lightning flash.

  Should he order a change of course? Probably not—changing course would use extra fuel oil, and hence cost money, and while a sensible captain would detour almost any distance to avoid contact with a hurricane, what was ahead seemed to be nothing but an ordinary thunderstorm. True, the Odin was carrying a huge drum of bottled gas, destined for Pago Pago, on her lower foredeck. The drum would be a terrific fire hazard if the Odin should be directly struck. But that was so unlikely that there was really no point in worrying about it.

  The patter of rain had deepened to a steady, droning roar. Bergson yawned. He really ought to go to bed, but he had drunk a lot of coffee at the party, and wasn't at all sleepy. He went into the chart room, looked idly at a large scale map of the Friendly Islands, and then went back to stand beside the helmsman.

  The roaring rain lay like a curtain around the ship. If Bergson had gone out on deck in oilskins, he wouldn't have been able to see more than a meter in any direction. But, since there wasn't anything around for thousands of kilometers on which the Odin could hurt herself, the zero visibility didn't matter.

  Bergson yawned again. He was just about to say good night to the helmsman, a cheerful young Samoan everybody called Toto, when two bright and almost simultaneous flashes of lightning, not far ahead of the ship, made him change his mind. He'd better stay in the deckhouse until the ship was out of the electrical part of the storm.

  Time passed. The Odin slid smoothly ahead. The lightning flashes continued, but Bergson thought the storm was dying away. Then, without any warning at all, a terrific lightning flash struck the water dead ahead of the ship.

  The Odin shuddered through her whole fabric. She had been missed by inches. The electric discharge had caused a momentary waterspout, and the next minute tons of water were thudding down on the roof of the deckhouse. Bergson couldn't tell whether the noise in his ears was the crash of thunder, the roaring of the water, or the pounding of his own alarmed heart.

  He glanced at the helmsman. Toto's brown skin had turned pale yellowish tan. He said something in Samoan. "Steady, man," Bergson told him. "A miss is as good as a mile."

  Toto nodded and licked his lips. The first officer came into the deckhouse. "Everything's sound, sir," he said. "I was checking the gas tank." Water ran in rivulets off his plastic oilskins as he spoke.

  "Thank you, Mr. Andreas," the captain answered. "Go on to bed. I'll wait until Ibbets comes on watch."

  The storm was dying away. The lightning had ceased. Bergson walked over to the port side of the deckhouse and stood staring out through the raindrops on the glass. A dolphin—no, a mermaid—was reclining comfortably on the smooth, phosphorescent water and smiling at him.

  It couldn't be. He must be dreaming; the terrible lightning flash had addled his wits. With trembling fingers the captain picked up his binoculars and focused them. The mermaid was still there; she seemed to be keeping pace with the ship. She was holding a large book, like a volume out of an encyclopedia set, in her hands. She held it out to him.

  Desperately Bergson stared at her. He'd lost his mind—he'd have to radio the owners; it wasn't safe to have a mad captain in charge of the ship. Andreas could take over the command.

  No. He wouldn't give in to this. Bergson stared hard at the mermaid, and, after a moment, she disappeared.

  Thank God. Bergson pressed a button. When one of the stewards appeared, Bergson told him, "Get me something to eat." Fifteen minutes later, when four bells sounded and Ibbets came into the deckhouse, the captain was eating a cold ham and turkey sandwich, quite restored to himself.

  -

  Beulah Annatak and her husband were walking home from a dance in the community center. They had had a fine evening. They both liked to dance, and that new dance, the Wellington Lemon, was lots of fun. Also, the parks cooperative had closed its books for the year, comfortably in the black, and they both had fat checks coming. They felt good.

  The night was still but not especially cold, only about fifteen below. There was no moon in the sky, but for all that there was plenty of light. One could have read a newspaper by it.

  "I never saw the lights so bright before," said Beulah, looking up. "The sky is all one big yellow-green flame."

  "Me neither," her husband answered. "My grand-dad used to say that when the northern lights are extra bright like this, it means trouble coming. But I bet he never saw them this bright. I bet nobody has."

  "I don't think it means trouble," Beulah said slowly. "It's too pretty. Look at that big red-purple curtain, with the edges blue! And those long red streamers, with streaks of gray on them! I'm surprised there aren't some men from the University at Ottawa to study it."

  "Maybe they didn't know it was coming," Henry said. "—Here come Josie and her husband. Let's wait for them."

  The other couple soon caught up with the Annataks. "Did you ever see such lights?" Josie called in greeting. "See that purple one go!"

  "The light's better out here than it was in the hall for the dancing," George Innatuk, her husband, said. "Josie, may I have the pleasure of your company for the next dance?" He made her a sketchy bow and held out one hand.

  Josie giggled. She took his mittened fingers and they moved three steps to the right, three steps to the left, and then turned back to back, in a complicated Wellington Lemon step.

  "Want to dance, Beulah?" Henry asked. "We can do as good as that."

  "Sure, you bet." They linked arms at the elbow and began to glide over the snow.

  Other stragglers from the community hall joined them. In no time at all there were six couples dancing on the snow's crisp surface, bowing and twirling, like peasants in a Breugel painting.

  The dance grew wilder as the banners and curtains of l
ight leaped in the sky. The strange yellow light rustled its red edges above them. They bounded and twisted, leaped and cavorted. They bounced away from each other like billiard balls. They introduced unheard-of new steps into the Wellington Lemon. They were as mad as March hares.

  Beulah Annatak stopped suddenly, seized by a paroxysm of coughing. The fit brought her to her senses. She ran among the others, shouting and striking them with her mittened fingers. "Stop! Stop! Stop, all of you! Do you want to freeze your lungs dancing like that? Stop, I tell you, stop!"

  The words and blows sobered them. She was right, and they knew it. Besides, some of the others had begun to cough.

  "What got into us, to dance like that?" Beulah asked as she and Henry reached the front door of their prefabricated house. Now that she had stopped dancing, she was painfully tired, and her body, inside her fur garments, was wet with sweat. "We all know it's dangerous."

  Henry looked up toward the zenith, where the awesome curtains of light still moved and waved. "It was the flags," he said, "the flags in the sky."

  -

  These were only a few of the human beings to whom, over the Earth, the approach of the guidebook signaled itself. The phenomena of approach, primarily magnetic in origin, were augmented in intensity by the hothouse effect of the projector the Vaeaa had established out on Pluto so long ago. The experience of Captain Bergson had precognitive elements, too. And then were was the case of Tsong Gam-po.

  -

  Tsong Gam-po slept later that morning than the rule of his monastery allowed. He had got up dutifully at midnight, when the sound of the gongs roused him, for prayers; but the same gong-stroke, this morning, failed to waken him. Since he was the monastery Master of Novices, nobody liked to bother him and he slept on. In the end, it was not the droning chant of "Om Mani Padme Hum" coming from fifty throats that roused him, but the high whine overhead of a turbo-rocket, bound for the air strip at Lhasa.