Moon Flower

by James P. Hogan

  “We’ve got company.” Jerri sat up, and Shearer leaned past her to open a window and look out. A hundred yards or so ahead was a small clearing among the trees, from which roads went two ways. A figure on a horse was sitting motionless at the fork.

  “Any idea what it means?” Shearer called back to Chev.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Could it mean trouble, do you think?”

  “Well, I can’t say it never happens.”

  Shearer remembered Korsofal, the first Cyrenean they had met outside the base on the day they landed, and how he had carried a sword slung from his saddle. He had asked himself several times if they should have made some such provision before leaving Revo — not that he would have had much idea how to use such weapons. Chev had a sword and a crossbow-style device that he carried up on the driver’s box. If this did bode some kind of trouble, they were all in his hands now. Behind Shearer in the carriage, Jerri was shaking Uberg awake.

  “How does Nim measure up in situations like this?” Shearer asked her, turning his head.

  “He can do his share if he has to,” she said. As if on cue, Nim had pushed himself into the window alongside Shearer to take in the scene, and was emitting low growling sounds from deep in his throat. Shearer put a restraining hand on his collar.

  “Well, we can’t turn around, and we can’t stay here,” Shearer said up to Chev. “Just carry on easy, and see what happens.”

  Chev urged the horses into motion again at a slow walking pace. A second mounted figure became visible a short distance back behind the first, in the shade. As the carriage drew nearer, the second horseman moved forward and up beside the first. Chev stopped again when they were about ten yards away.

  Nothing happened for five, maybe ten seconds. Then the one whom Shearer had seen initially eased his mount forward, the other following. He wore a wide-brimmed hat turned upward on both sides, and an open coat gathered at the waist, with huge epaulettes standing out to exaggerate the shoulders. The hat was a jaunty affair with a large, curling feather gracing one side. His face, now visible under the brim had a pointy beard with mustachios that echoed the rakishness of his hat. Rembrandt on horseback.

  An exchange in Yocalan with Chev followed. Since Chev was still wearing his NIDA, his side of it came back through Shearer’s unit as, “We are, indeed. Cheveka Tivenius, at your service. At present on business of the esteemed Vattorix himself, no less. And who might I have the honor of addressing?... Indeed?... And this gentlemen is?... None at all. The journey went smoothly.... We did, and they are all well.... Yes, they are, and with another.... None, I’m sure.... Oh yes, ha-ha! A Terran glok.... All the way from Earth.... No, it’s very friendly. But I don’t think I’d want to find out what happens if you tease it too much. But let me introduce you.”

  Shearer had by this time climbed down and was helping Jerri out, while Uberg waited to follow her. The horseman swung down from his saddle and doffed his enormous hat. “My friends,” Chev said from his perch up on the box, “meet Carsio Eckelan, who tells us he was a designer and builder of ships up in Ibennis, and is now honored to work with the Terran Wade, whom you seek.” He gestured and looked at Eckelan. “These are Marc Shearer, the inquirer into nature, and Dominic Uberg, the authority on flowers and plants, that you were sent to meet. And with them is Jerri Perlok, who studies people and how they live...” Chev glanced at Jerri questioningly, as if inviting her to agree. She nodded.

  Eckelan then said something to Chev, but all the time looking at Uberg. Chev translated: “He says then maybe Dr. Uberg is the one he should address. These appear to be times of strange dealings among Terrans, when words are not believed and appearances are not trusted. He has been told by Evan Wade that if you are indeed the ones he has been expecting, you will be carrying a token from him that he would be able to identify.”

  The Terrans looked at each other in puzzlement for a few seconds, and the Shearer murmured, “The rose.”

  “Ah, oh yes, of course.” Uberg reached inside his coat and drew out a wallet, from which he extracted an envelope. He opened the envelope and handed Eckelan the pressed, dried specimen of Rosa spinosissima that Korsofal had delivered with the letter from Wade.

  Eckelan nodded, satisfied, and returned it, then nodded up at his companion. “It is they.”

  Shearer looked up at the other, still sitting on his horse, who was now grinning. He had an unusually fair face for a Cyrenean, with blond curly hair showing beneath a low cap, and eyes that could have been blue. It seemed a good time to return the courtesy of the aliens always seemingly making the effort to communicate in English. Shearer offered haltingly in the best Yocalan he could muster, “Gree-tings. The plea-sure is ours. We come in friend-li-ness to your land.”

  The other’s grin broadened. “Never mind all that crap, mate.” The twang was natural Australian. “You’re the fella that Evan’s been waiting for, right? Glad ta meetcha. The name’s Nick Parker.”

  Parker climbed down to join Eckelan, and in the ensuing round of handshakes he introduced himself as a medical physician from the first manned mission. Eventually, he said, so many Terrans had left the base that he decided he’d be of more service to them on the outside than by staying in. Formalities being completed, Eckelan stepped forward to hold open the carriage door and gestured. “Please.... We will take you to Wade.”

  The two horsemen remounted, turned, and moved ahead along the road branching to the right. Chev started the carriage again to follow. From the window Shearer made out two more mounted figures leading, who must have been stationed farther back. And then four more emerged from the trees behind where the carriage had stopped. The reception party had certainly not meant to take chances.

  For a while the road continued winding its way upward through convoluted country of valleys and hills, but the dense covering of greenery remained. Then, from a high point it began descending again. They seemed to have left the valley that they had followed from the Geevar, and were now dropping down into another basin lying to the north of it. The last light from Ra Alpha was barely filtering through the trees to the west by the time they rounded a bend to be suddenly confronted by a large, gray, stone building standing on the far side of a a fenced paddock and one or two small fields. A smaller cottage stood close by, along with a number of sheds and storehouses. The main house was almost hidden, visible mainly as a collection of gables and parapets poking above the orange and green treetops. It could have been a remote mansion built by some recluse; the seat of something resembling a monastic order, or body given to contemplation and study, maybe. Perhaps it had been built as some kind of castle or defensive post.

  A track from the gateway opening onto the road led around the house to the main entrance, where a group of figures was standing, obviously waiting. Presumably they had been alerted by a scout sent out to watch, or by somebody who had ridden on ahead. As the carriage halted, a tall, broad figure in the center, wearing a bush shirt with jeans and a padded sleeveless vest, came forward, his teeth flashing in the gathering darkness as he smiled. His hair was wilder than when Shearer had last seen it, his face darker and more weathered, and he had acquired a shaggy beard streaked with gray. But his voice was as hearty as ever as Shearer came tumbling down from the carriage to receive a hefty clap across the shoulder.

  “Well, hey, you finally made it, eh? Welcome to Cyrene!”

  “Hello, Evan,” Shearer said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The name of the place was Linzava. They had come to it via its rear approach, as it were, over the divide from the Geevar valley to the south. The main access route was via the valley leading north, which they had entered from its top end. It carried a tributary of the river called the Woohosey that Blanborel had described, bigger than the Geevar, that formed the border with Ibennis on the far side to the north.

  As at Doriden, the first thing after their arrival and being shown their quarters was some refreshment to reinvigorate them afte
r the day’s travel, starting off with a jug of pikoe, a hot herb brew apparently drunk universally in these parts. It was less formal affair this time, in a room of timber beams and mullioned windows enlivened by long, bannerlike wall tapestries. One more person joined them in addition to Eckelan and Nick: a woman of Asiatic appearance that Wade introduced as Elena Hukishido, a biophysicist whose background was in cellular photons — the field that had led Wade into the study of quantum processes. She was from Seattle originally, of mixed parentage, and had come out to Cyrene on the first manned mission — the same one as Wade. She was dressed Terran style in a traditional high-neck dress with slits that revealed shapely legs to good effect. Shearer put her at around thirty-five. They could meet more faces in the days ahead, after they had rested, Wade said. As the company began tucking in to a selection of ribs, roasts, and finger food, he described some of Linzava’s background.

  The original house had been built a century or more before by an architect-builder as a hunting retreat, intended later to become a secluded home for his retirement. After he died, his children had added extensions of various kinds and styles over the years, giving the place a something of a haphazard appearance, and then vacated it as the urge overcame them to see more of the world and its life. In later years it was likely that they in their turn would come back, if only to spend intervals away from homes they had found elsewhere. In the meantime, the premises were available for use by other enterprises. And just at the moment, that meant Wade and somewhere between one and two dozen other Terrans from the first and second missions — not all of whom were present at this particular time — and the small but dedicated band of somewhat exceptional Cyreneans who in one way or another had come together around them.

  The connection with Doriden was stronger than had been apparent, but the fact was kept obscure to avoid inviting attention from the Terran authorities. With its emphasis on training students, and experimenting with rudimentary technologies, Doriden, in a way, served as a front to disguise the extent of what the Cyreneans were really learning from their Terran contacts.

  The plans that Wade hinted at went far beyond Vattorix and Yocala, Ibennis to the north, and other neighboring or nearby states. Zek’s steam-engine project at Doriden was seen as an interim measure to provide the experience and acquaint an initial cadre of students with the concepts involved. Beyond that, moves to develop a pioneer oil-producing operation on a modest scale were already progressing more rapidly than Zek and Blanborel at Doriden had revealed. But it would require all the essentials of a higher-quality engineering base as Shearer had pointed out, along with means for drilling, refining, and transportation, much of which would depend on the cooperation of people and their rulers in distant places. Such contacts were being cultivated right now in various parts of Cyrene. That was why many of the Terrans who had come to Linzava were currently absent.

  “I don’t want to sound negative,” Jerri said when Wade had gotten that far. “But can you be sure it will stay as simple as that? I mean, look at the kind of thing that happened with us. It sounds like a recipe for colonial wars. Despite all their history, how certain can you be that it won’t provoke the same kind of thing here?”

  Wade banged the table with the palm of his hand and gestured at her as if inviting all of them to witness. “Jerri’s got it, right on! That’s the whole point. The leaders we’re so expert at ending up with would see no other way than to fight over who gets to own what. The Cyreneans won’t. They’ll do it the way they do everything else — which you must have seen by now. They’ll work together for what they know will be better for all of them in the end.”

  “Which is all a good reason for keeping the jolly folks back home out of it,” Nick put in from beside Wade. “We all know what their stake is. The Cyreneans don’t want to end up as the work-horses on somebody else’s plantation. They’ll run their own show — the way it should be run.”

  “Do you remember how we used to talk about what a different place Earth might have been if Europe had actually practiced the Christian ethics that it talked about, and initiated an industrial era that preserved them?” Wade said, singling out Shearer. He threw out an arm expansively. “Well, this is it, Marc! It’s all happening out there. If we can just get them through the early stages without Earth interfering.”

  Eckelan, who had removed his hat to reveal brown, shoulder-length waves and was sitting with Shearer and Uberg, elaborated, using the spare NIDA. Wade hadn’t seen one of the devices before and was impressed. “We are aware of the need to move on to other things than relying on animals. You have seen the sewer they make of Revo. Over half the land that we farm is to grow feed for them. Your friends have told us how it was on Earth.”

  As he listened, Shearer began to realize the full enormity of the threat that Wade and this group represented to the designs of Interworld and the interests that it acted for. This world would stand together to resist economic imperialism. The people would refuse to be divided by false promises and accusations, and their leaders would never sell out or betray them. None of the usual methods of creating dependence and then asserting control would work here. The investment in three missions and any prospects for subsequent earnings would have to be written off. Uberg was looking mildly stunned. It seemed to be the first time that he had fully seen all the ramifications too.

  Jerri broke the silence that the newcomers had lapsed into. “It’s this business about them just somehow... knowing, isn’t it?” She looked at Wade, as if finally hoping for an answer. “How do they work these things out? They’re really not very analytical.”

  Wade’s eyes twinkled as he answered. “I’d say they have things in proportion.”

  “This wonderful intellect that we thought was going to be the answer to everything is good only as far as it goes,” Nick said.

  “And what’s that?” Uberg asked.

  “Making machines that work,” Wade replied.

  “And that’s it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So what about all the other things?” Jerri asked.

  “Such as?”

  She shrugged. “Life, the universe, and what it all means. Where it all came from.”

  Wade turned up his palms. “Nothing’s repeatable, testable, or really falsifiable. They’re not matters that are accessible to science. But science has gotten away with pretending that they are by claiming false credit through association that rubs off from technology. See, with engineering you’re nailed to a reality check every inch of the way. If your design’s flawed or what you think you know is wrong, your plane won’t fly and there’s no way to hide it. But with the things you’re talking about, nobody knows. All the stuff you hear is more ideology than anything else. A person can go from undergraduate through to retirement and have a comfortable career based on some theory about cosmology or biology that’s totally wrong, and it doesn’t make any difference.” Wade looked from side to side to take in all three of the new faces. On Jerri’s other side, Chev continued eating casually in a way that seemed to say none of this was new. “But as Jerri said, Cyreneans don’t try to analyze what life’s all about. And yet they get it right. The basic things that matter, anyway. The rest will follow.”

  “And it isn’t religion,” Uberg put in.

  Wade shook his head. “They don’t have any religious ideas here of the kind we know. They have some extraordinary insights to the workings of mind and living processes, and they feel a strong affinity with what you might call a cosmic consciousness that pervades all life. But they don’t try to analyze or reduce it to everyday terms. They just accept what they feel, and are satisfied to follow it as their guide for living.” He looked around again. “And they manage to do remarkably well, don’t they?”

  “What they feel,” Shearer came in. “I’ve been hearing it all the time, and I still can’t make any sense out of it.”

  “You won’t,” Nick promised. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You do feel strange,
intuitive things here,” Jerri agreed. “Dominic told us we would, and it’s true. Marc and I have both experienced it.”

  Uberg was looking with a faraway expression at no one in particular. “Blanborel back at Doriden said that I should understand it better than anyone, because I’m a botanist.... Could it have something to do with the richness of the biosphere on Cyrene? I’ve seen places that make our tropics look meager in comparison.”

  Wade looked at him mysteriously for a moment or two. “You know, Dominic, you’re a lot closer than you think,” he said.

  “You sound as if you know the answer,” Uberg answered.

  “Oh, yes, I do,” Wade assured him.

  They waited. “Well, tell us, then,” Shearer demanded finally.

  “Where, oh where to begin?...” Wade sighed and leaned back in his chair. He turned to Elena, who had said little so far. “Do you want to take it?”

  Elena finished what she was eating without hurrying and looked around. “Okay, I’ll throw it back. Before we can talk about what’s going on here on Cyrene, we need to go ask that old question about living and non-living things. We use the words all the time, and everybody knows what we mean. So what is the crucial difference that distinguishes them? Does anyone have any ideas?”

  It was a frequently heard question, and anyone familiar with it would know that the first answers that people tended to come up with were easily disposed of. Crystals “grew”; explosions, chain reactions, and autocatalytic processes “grew exponentially”; and the synthesis of biological molecules was long past the point where the chemistry that occurred in living things could be claimed as unique. Shearer guessed that Elena had something special in mind and decided to stay out of it.

  “Life reproduces itself,” Jerri offered.

  Nick responded. “We’re a bit out of touch here because electronic communication’s a no-no. But even before I left Earth they had sambot systems assembling modules the same as the ones they were constructed from, and then passing on their own programs. Wouldn’t that qualify?”