Message From the Eocene

by Margaret St. Clair

  He yawned and stretched. What had he been dreaming? He seemed to remember something about a dragon ... and hadn't there been something about a white bear? He grinned. The dragon and the bear were obvious symbols for Tibet's two menacing neighbors, China and the U.S.S.R. He didn't usually dream so politically. But it seemed to him there had been something else, something new and extraordinarily interesting, in the dream.

  Tsong Gam-po had had a good education. At the time he had finished his novitiate, there had been a good deal of competition between Moscow and Peking for Tibetan favor. Tsong had been offered scholarships in both capitals. After a good deal of consideration, he had refused them both and had studied for three years at the University of Bernares. Nothing he had learned there had made him doubt the essential validity of the lamaistic buddhism in which he had been brought up.

  Tsong shook his head in dissatisfaction. No, he couldn't remember what the rest of his dream had been about. But he'd better get up. From the way the light was coming into his cell, he must be almost an hour late.

  He threw the sheepskin cover aside and jumped out of bed. He pulled his long woolen robe on over his head and thrust his feet into felt slippers. Then he hurried into the monastery kitchen.

  The cook greeted him politely. "Good morning, Honored Master of Novices Tsong. Shall I make you a mug of tea?"

  "If you would have the kindness, Respected Cook ..."

  The cook churned the tea, and Tsong swallowed it hastily. Then, somewhat fortified, he hurried into the hall where the novices were repeating their prayers.

  They were well-trained. None of them looked up when he came in. They went on with their chanting, bodies rocking and eyes half closed. Yes, a good bunch of lads. But there were less than half as many as there had been when Tsong had done his novitiate. Boys simply weren't going into the priesthood on the scale that they had even ten years ago. Tsong's monastery was dwindling.

  Perhaps it was better so. If Tibet were to survive, her fertile land must be tilled, and the recruitment of so many of her youth into a celibate priesthood had led, historically, to a steady population drop. Empty, fertile land—and to the south an able, many-millioned people, eager to fill the gap. Tibet would have been a Chinese colony these past five years if the Gray Death, breaking out in the late 1960's, hadn't cut China's population in half and given her empty space within her own borders to fill. For Tibet, it had been an unanticipated respite.

  The deep shivering note of a gong rang out. Time for breakfast. At the head of his novices, Tsong Gam-po led the way to the refectory.

  Here monks and novices alike sat down at long tables. Breakfast—boiled barley groats and plentiful mugs of buttered tea—was served by three lay brothers. Since it was a feast day, there were shreds of boiled mutton in the groats. After breakfast was over, there was to be a doctrinal assembly in the monastery's great courtyard.

  The last of the buttered tea went down. Tsong gave his novices fifteen minutes' recess for personal hygiene. Then the gong struck once more and the monastery personnel began crowding into the courtyard and sitting down on the stones.

  The Abbot Gan-den, Tsong's immediate superior, read the scripture. Discussion was invited. One of the novices wanted to know why the Mahayana was called "the greater vehicle", and the abbot dealt patiently with this elementary question. The discussion went on.

  Tsong listened abstractedly. He was still preoccupied with his dream. When the abbot referred a question to him for his opinion, Tsong's neighbor had to nudge him with his elbow before he realized he was being addressed.

  "The question was, whether one who had been emancipated from the chains of desire exists after death," the abbot repeated helpfully. "We should like your opinion, Honored Tsong Cam-po."

  Tsong stood up. He cleared his throat. "It is said that there are four questions to which the Enlightened One refused to give any answer," he said. "The questions are, first, whether the universe is eternal, second, whether the universe is finite, third—"

  Tsong stopped, his mouth open. He had the sensation of having physically experienced a dazzling flash of light.

  He looked about him. The courtyard, in honor of the feast day, was decorated with hundreds of tiny paper prayer flags. Prayer wheels, with tiny windmills attached, had been mounted in suitable spots and were rotating dizzily. One of the more artistically gifted monks had painted a banner depicting the Buddha Sakyamuni at the moment when he saw the corpse being carried out for burial; the banner hung over the courtyard's outer gate.

  Tsong swallowed and tried to go on. The scene about him seemed as alien to him as the mountains of the moon. The trappings of piety were meaningless; the content had drained out of them. The faces turned toward him expectantly were the faces of strangers. He felt that he stood on a height above the faith in which he had been reared, as if he stood on a mountain, and that the pious beliefs he had held had become a flattened-out maze of error and superstition at the heart of which there had been, initially, a kernel of ethical truth.

  Everybody was looking at him. He walked over to one of the prayer wheels, threw it down on the stone pavement, and crushed its brittle spokes under his felt-shod feet. He plucked down four or five of the prayer flags and snapped their staffs over his knee.

  An angry hum came from his audience. Two or three of the monks were running toward him. Tsong faced them unflinchingly. "Be quiet," he told them. "Something much better than paper toys is on its way to us."

  -

  Yes, the guidebook was coming. By now Tharg had received too many intimations, both physical and psychical, of its approach to doubt it. But would it be able to get through to Earth?

  -

  Chapter Fourteen

  It all turned on whether the projector the Vaeaa had installed so long ago was still working. On one hand, it was reasonable to think it must have ceased operation long ago; the time that had passed since the Vaeaa installed it was incredibly long. What machinery, or what power source, could continue to function efficiently for billions of years? On the other hand, the Vaeaa had designed the projector to be effective through all Earth's future history, they had been brilliantly intelligent, and they had put all their resources and skill into the projector. So it might still be operating effectively.

  In any case, there was nothing Tharg could do about it. Besides, it wasn't really his responsibility. True, he felt a certain vague benevolence toward the present inhabitants of the third planet. But it wasn't up to him to solve their problems for them, even if he had been able.

  Tharg was not altogether satisfied with this reasoning. He might have let it go at that, however, if it had not been for the incident of the shells.

  -

  John Scott went out in his garden early one July morning to weed his roses. After years of attempts with weed inhibitors, cultivators with power packs, robohoes and chlorophyll extractors, he had decided the easiest way to keep his flower beds clean was to get down on his knees and pull the weeds up, one at a time, by hand.

  He weeded. It was going to be a hot Kansas day, but the air, at seven-thirty, was delightful. The rich, ethereal perfume of Lady Forteviot came to his nose gratefully. These fresh moments in his garden were the best of his whole day.

  After ten minutes he paused to straighten his back and sigh. Canadian Glory had inflicted a nasty scratch on the back of his right hand; he sucked it thoughtfully, while he sat on his heels and looked for slug tracks on the ground.

  Yes, the roses were doing beautifully. But who could he get to take care of them when he went on vacation, in late August? The U.S.-U.S.S.R. joint expedition to Venus had been a reality since last year. Now there was talk of trying to send a ship to Pluto. But for all these interplanetary marvels, when a gardener wanted to go on vacation, it was just as difficult for him to be sure his roses would be cared for adequately during his absence as it had ever been.

  The watering was no real problem. Scott could install a timing device on his sprinkling system, and be sure his
roses would be watered faithfully for an hour every day. But what machine was there that would dust for fungus, bait for slugs and snails, and cope with airborne invasions of aphids? The trouble with technology was that it developed too unevenly.

  He began to weed again. He reached far over to the right to pull the last few blades of grass away from the roots of Canadian Glory, and then made a quarter-turn to the left and started in on Boadicea. When he was done with Boadicea, he sat back on his heels again. Something on the ground near Canadian Glory caught his eye. Still squatting, he leaned over to examine it.

  He saw four shells, shaped like snail shells but more pointed, lying on the finely-tilled earth. One of the shells was a glowing light scarlet, with golden highlights, one was a glinting iridescent black, one—the most beautiful of the four—was a wonderful deep peacock green, and one was a dark violet with a velvety luster like a real violet. The shells were empty, about an inch across, and arranged in a neat square.

  Scott regarded them with amazement. They were as beautiful as anything he had even seen in his life—the best rose he had ever grown was not more beautiful—and where had they come from? They hadn't been on the ground seven or eight minutes ago, when he was weeding Canadian Glory, and nobody had come into the garden since then. He had been alone the whole time.

  He looked up at the sky, as if he expected it to be raining shelly objects. There wasn't a cloud to be seen. The sky was bright blue, and the sun shone undisturbed.

  A little nervously, Scott picked up the scarlet shell. It seemed to weigh nothing at all, but when he pocked it inquiringly with a finger nail, he jumped and said "Ouch!" It hurt, as if he had snapped his nail against an unusually hard and dense piece of brick.

  Scott chewed his lip. He felt a little frightened. He picked up the other shells, and found they were as paradoxically light as the scarlet one. Four shells, arriving out of nowhere, extraordinarily beautiful and with extraordinary physical qualities—what did it mean?

  He drew a shallow breath. Once more he looked about him. Then he dropped the shells in his pocket. It was time to be starting to work. He'd show the shells to the Science Editor.

  Scott was a copy reader on the Emporia Daily Gazette. He hung his coat up on a hanger, got the shells out of his pocket, and went over to the Science Editor, who was standing talking to one of the pressmen.

  "Joe, what do you think of these?" he asked. He held out the shells on the palm of his hand.

  Joe North frowned. He picked up the purple shell, moistened the end of his finger, and rubbed the shell vigorously with it. "Doesn't seem to be dyed," he commented. "Sure is light for its size. Where'd you get these, John?"

  Scott told him. "That's impossible," North told him when he had finished.

  "I know. But it's what happened."

  "You must be mistaken."

  "No, I'm not. What kind of shells are they, anyway, Joe?"

  "I have no idea." He pocked one of the shells with a middle finger, just as John Scott had done, and, like him, said, "Ouch." He handed the shell back to Scott. "Funny," he said.

  "I thought you'd be able to tell me what they were," Scott objected.

  "I'm sorry. I'm no conchologist. Wait, though—there might be a story in this. I'll get somebody in the zoology department at the college on the viz and see what he says."

  North made the call. Since it was July, the head of the department was on vacation. The young zoologist North got said that, as far as he could tell over the viz, the shells weren't shells at all. If their physical properties were as North described them, he thought somebody in the Physics department might be interested.

  North made another call. Then he got on his Vespa and took the shells over to the college for Dr. Hopkins to look at.

  The result of his visit was a story on page six of that evening's edition of the Gazette. The story was headlined, "Shells from Space?" and it ended with the words, "Dr. Hopkins says he is baffled by the shells. He is keeping them for further study. Is it possible the 'shells' reached earth from outer space?"

  News tends to be scarce in July. One of the wire services picked up the story and sent it to its subscribers. And then Life took it up.

  They sent a reporter and photographer to Emporia for the story. Hopkins and Scott were interviewed and photographed. The photographer got an amusingly foreshortened picture of Scott on his knees weeding his roses. And the shells, reproduced in as accurate color as high-speed presses are capable of, appeared on the cover of Life.

  People all over the world were talking and thinking about the mysterious, beautiful shells. Enough people were thinking about them, in fact, that Tharg couldn't help being aware of their thoughts. And he, uniquely, realized what the little shells were. They were the residue, the waste product, of the projector the Vaeaa had set up.

  The Vaeaa had repressed not only an interest in paranormal phenomena, but a strong innate esthetic sense. They had allowed it vent only in peripheral and indirect ways. The beautiful little shells were one of those ways.

  Instead of heat, water, ash, carbon dioxide or smoke as a waste product, the Vaeaa had compressed their projector's residue into these exquisite shells. Earth scientists, Tharg thought, could derive considerable benefit from studying them.

  How had the shells managed to reach Earth? There must, Tharg thought, be a sort of shutter effect, a sort of valve, involved. The projector sent its force outward, and it ejected its wastes inward, along lines of force identical with those going to the projector. Lines of force? Yes, for the projector was powered—logically, could only be powered—by the force of human thought. Only thus could the Vaeaa have been sure their projector would have power when there was danger of the guidebook being sent.

  Tharg couldn't be sure how long it would have taken the little shells to reach Earth. The period might have varied between a few hours and a few years. But practically speaking, the conclusion was unavoidable that the projector on Pluto was still operating, still effective. So the guidebook from space would not get through.

  -

  Chapter Fifteen

  It wasn't his responsibility. And it was highly unlikely that the new guidebook would benefit him, personally, in any way. What was designed for the present inhabitants of Earth, with their distinctive abilities and endowments, would be of no use to a disembodied Tharg. But whether or not the new guidebook would help him, he wanted it to get through to those it was designed for. It was their birthright. They had earned it. They were entitled to it.

  The mechanisms that projected the deflecting barrier were located on Pluto. An expedition to Pluto, Tharg knew, was already being discussed by the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. space administrations. Sooner or later an expedition would be sent. But the most optimistic timetable yet arrived at did not plan to surface a craft on this most distant planet in a less time than ten years.

  Ten years, more probably fifteen. When the astronauts finally landed, they would marvel at what the Vaeaa had made. They would be totally unable to imagine what its purpose had been. And the guidebook, meantime, would have been deflected away from the solar system into the illimitable depths of space. Once it had been swerved away from its target, trying to recover it would be like trying to recover a particular grain of sand from the depths of the sea.

  Would another guidebook be sent if this one failed to get through to Earth? Well, another one hadn't been sent to Tharg's people when they had been deprived of the original. Tharg didn't think a second would be sent to human beings if the first failed. He thought it represented a unique chance. And the chance was going to be lost. He felt corroded with helplessness. What astrophysicist, or astronaut, would listen to him, who wasn't even a ghost?

  If the expedition to Pluto could be sent out immediately—but even if it left at once, it could not get there for several years, five at a minimum, in the present state of the art. The guidebook would be at the barrier in a matter of months. Even five years would be far too late.

  Very well. The guidebook wou
ldn't get through. What would the failure mean to the inhabitants of Earth?

  The answer was fatally clear. These cruel, aspiring people—capable always of aspiring to eliminate their cruelty—would turn, in their unrecognized frustration, to the one sure thing they had ever had. What they could always fall back on, what to them was more dependable than love or intelligence, was their destructiveness. If they were balked of their birthright, they would turn to war. They wouldn't stop, Tharg thought, until not one conscious life was left on Earth.

  It might not be his responsibility to see that the guidebook got through. But he did, after all, have an interest in the matter. It would be terrible to be tied through all eternity to a lifeless, thoughtless Earth.

  The projector on Pluto must be destroyed.

  Tharg had been able to hallucinate the senses of the Proctors, to fill the mine at Noumea with shadowy shapes, to communicate with Denise. Was there no human being he could communicate with who might have power to destroy what the Vaeaa had made?

  A general? The military personnel of a dozen nations had guided missiles with atomic warheads under their command. Earth was as full of bombs as a fat hen is of eggs, and there was no lack of military men who would be glad to have an excuse to let off a live bomb against anything. If a guided missile could reach Pluto ...

  But the unmotivated insanity of shooting a bomb against Pluto might bother even a general: Tharg doubted that he could bamboozle anybody into trying it. More cogently, a bomb probably wouldn't get there at all. The distance was tremendous, the target tiny, the guidance systems totally inadequate for such a task. A realistic attempt to reach Pluto with a live bomb would involve as much preparation as would an attempt to land a space craft there.

  Captain Ambarzumian? The Second Joint Expedition to Venus had already left Earth; Tharg might be able to communicate with the captain and try to persuade him to change his vessel's course. If the Elpis headed for Pluto instead of Venus, she would reach the outermost planet in two or three years.