Skrynol turned to a marker screen that sat behind her, and drew a circle in the middle with her left forelimb. She placed a small dot in the center and drew a set of radii to connect it with the circumference. “It is time for a little lecture from me. This is you”—she tapped the central dot—“sitting in the middle of a safe region. Like most members of your species you are dominated by self-concern, and so you see yourself at the center of the universe.” She pointed to the radiating spokes. “You also dream of a web. And indeed, you sit in the middle of such a web—a web of information, provided to you through the Mattin Links from everything within the Perimeter. In your dreams there is a dark region. And sure enough, in your working world there is also a dark region. It is everything that lies beyond the Perimeter. More than that, it is terrifying to you. Maybe you can control everything within the known sphere of space—but how can you possibly control what is outside it? How can you even know what is there?”
Skrynol tapped the screen. “In your dreams the safe lighted region is always shrinking, the dark and dangerous zone always comes closer. And in the real world, the Perimeter grows, since through the probes and the Mattin Links new parts of space are steadily made more accessible. They are accessible to you—and you are accessible to them. That is the problem. You do not know what may lie beyond today’s Perimeter, but you know you are afraid of it. The safe region is not really shrinking. It only seems to be so, because the unsafe region steadily becomes larger. New space is added all the time.
“So how can you minimize the danger? It is simple. You seek the position which gives you maximum control over the Perimeter. That is the position of Chief of Boundary Survey Security. You cannot banish the dangers, because they are caused by a force beyond your control: the Solar Group’s expansionist policy. But at least you will learn of any danger as early as possible, and be in a position to combat it. You had no choice except to seek the position of Chief of Boundary Security. And you will do anything to protect the Perimeter. Anything at all.”
Mondrian froze, his exhaustion forgotten. The Pipe-Rilla had discovered his secret—knew why he needed the Morgan Construct.
But the Pipe-Rilla was leaning forward, until her broad, heart-shaped face was less than a foot from Mondrian’s. “I pity you, Esro Mondrian,” she went on. “Although I cannot share your fears, I know that your nightmare is real. You are afraid of the rest of the Universe, everything that lies beyond the Perimeter.” The dark, lid-less eyes stared into his. “Do you understand my analysis, and accept it?”
Mondrian’s nod was no more than a tiny tightening of neck muscles. “I accept it. But I do not know where it leads. Are you telling me that the nightmares must continue as long as I hold my present position?”
“Not at all. You accept, but you do not understand. You sought your present position in an attempt to control the situation, and so banish your nightmares. But those nightmares are not the result of your position, or of the existence of the Perimeter. They stem from a much deeper cause—deeper within Esro Mondrian.”
“What is that cause?”
Skrynol shook her head. “That, I do not know. Not yet. But I do know that it lies deep-buried, far back in your childhood. Still I cannot reach it. I need help. That is why you must do something more.”
“Name it.” Mondrian’s face was pale and dull-eyed, but he was relaxing again.
“You must stay here. Travel the Earth. This planet was the scene of your earliest and most hidden experiences. You may not recognize the original source of your fears, even when you encounter it; but I will know it, through your unconscious responses. And then, at last, I will be able to help you.”
“I can’t do what you ask. I am too busy to spend more time on Earth.”
“You must. Until you do so, your problem will not be solved. Think upon this.” Skrynol swayed up, away from Mondrian. “That is the end of the session for today. I can see your weariness and your distress. Put on your shirt, and I will lead you back.”
Mondrian sighed, and shook his head. “Not yet. We have one more item of business.”
“You are exhausted. For your own sake, make it brief.”
“I cannot promise that.” Mondrian reached into his jacket pocket and took out a black wafer the size of his thumbnail. “This is a summary of human expansion plans. It provides only a broad outline. Before you receive more, I must hear through official channels that full control of the Travancore operation will belong to the Anabasis. That control must not be subject to interference from our ambassador, or from anyone else. I also want it agreed that the Anabasis will be allowed to quarantine the planet Travancore while the escaped Morgan Construct is being hunted.”
Skrynol reached out and took the wafer delicately from his hand. She bobbed her head from side to side, examining the small black square. “I will try to do as you ask. Already I am doing as much as I can.”
“Why is it taking so long?”
Skrynol waved a forelimb at him reprovingly. “Esro Mondrian, you above all others should not be making the common error of your species. Pipe-Rillas are individuals, as much so as humans. Each of us has her own preferences and agenda. There is as much variety of thought and desire among us as there is among your people. And so I must seek a consensus before I can act. That is not easy, since my species does not trust yours. But this”—she waved the black wafer—“will simplify my task. Have patience. If you have given me what I need, the Anabasis will control access to Travancore.”
“Don’t look for much detail in those plans. What you have is only an outline. The rest will be available in ten more days.”
“For the moment, this is enough.” The Fropper placed the wafer carefully in one of her body pouches. “You see, even if the plans that you have given me are wrong in some details—wrong even in every detail—that is not of great importance. Your species went through the mental processes needed to create such plans. It is those mental processes, the broad concepts, that we want more than the plans themselves. To my species, it is inconceivable that such ideas could ever be imagined, still less that the actions they describe might be carried out.
“But we have read human history. When it comes to war and fighting, the human species may not—I give you the benefit of the doubt—be wholly aggressive. But you are certainly aggressive. And you have a saying, that where all are blind the creature with a single eye will prevail. In matters of conquest and destruction my species is blind, as are the Tinkers and the Angels.”
“All the other Stellar Groups seem to think of humans in the same way.”
“I am afraid that we do. Why else would I be here on Earth, alone? In the case of the Tinkers, their feelings are partly a consequence of your appearance. The human form resembles that of a small carnivore on their home world of Mercantor. It is not dangerous to them, but it is mindless, ferocious, and annoying. Such associations are of course irrelevant to a creature of perfect intellect, but to most of us such factors carry large weight. I would say all, except that one can never be sure of the Angels. To the rest of us, small points can be very important. For example, to a human a Pipe-Rilla’s voice sounds cheerful. And even this gesture”—Skrynol bowed her head, and placed her forelimbs high on top of it—“which to us indicates shame or embarrassment, to you appears amusing. To humans, the worries and sorrows of a Pipe-Rilla look and sound comical, no matter how deeply felt.”
“They do. But I certainly do not think of you as comical.”
“In this as in many things, Commander Mondrian, you are an exception. I respect your opinions, but I would be more interested to know how other humans regard us.”
“I think you know. As you pointed out, neither humans nor Pipe-Rillas form a uniform group. There is diversity of opinion among us. But the popular view of Pipe-Rillas is that you are conscientious, self-deprecating, and a little dull. In human terms, you also lack initiative.”
“Initiative for the warfare that you find so popular?”
“For mor
e than that. As most humans will tell you, we found you in our exploration, you did not find us. And there is an old story that summarizes the general human view of all species of the Stellar Group.”
“A true story?”
“Only in the sense that all parables are true, because they reveal a group’s common perspective. According to the story, a ship carrying a human, a Pipe-Rilla, a Tinker and an Angel made an emergency planetary landing.”
“Aha!”
“You have heard the story?”
“I think not. Continue.”
“They did not have time to send out a distress signal, and no one had any reason to search for them. The four sat down and reviewed the situation. Their onboard food supply was small, their communication equipment damaged beyond repair. If any other ship visited the planet, it would almost certainly not be for years.”
“A grave problem indeed. What did they do?”
“The human asked for suggestions. The Pipe-Rilla said that she was of course sorry that they were in such a fix, but a mere Pipe-Rilla would not be able to solve the problem when another species had already failed. She left the ship and went off alone into the wilderness.
“The human asked the Tinker for ideas. The Tinker said that there was really no problem. The planet had abundant winged insect life, so there was no food shortage. All one had to do was resolve into individual components, fly off, and catch as much as one wanted.
“The human turned to the Angel. It agreed with the Tinker: there was no problem. The soil of the planet was very fertile. All one had to do was settle in and put down a root system.”
“And what, Commander Mondrian, was the human suggestion?”
“The human made no suggestion. After hearing the others, the human set to work. In ten months the crippled ship was repaired enough to fly home. What others see as aggression, we see as human diligence and initiative.”
“You have a poor opinion of your fellow-members of the Stellar Group.”
“Not as bad as the story would suggest. Like many parables, this tale exaggerates to make its point. Humans like Tinkers. We enjoy their sense of humor, though we find them—if you will pardon a human joke—’flighty’ and ‘scatter-brained.’ Angels we regard as accurate and precise, but almost totally incomprehensible. As for your species, humans think that Pipe-Rillas sound amusing, look terrifying, take their responsibilities seriously—and worry too much.”
Skrynol had listened in silence. Now she settled far back on her hind limbs and began to rock gently from side to side. “Fascinating. I said that I had not heard your story, and that was true. But I had heard something very like it. Did you know that we have our own tale of a similar shipwreck, and that the Tinkers and the Angels acted just as you describe? But in our version the human wanted to hunt, kill, and enslave the native animals.”
“And the Pipe-Rilla?”
“Repaired the ship—naturally!—and made the escape from the planet possible.”
Mondrian stood up and buttoned his jacket. “I would like to hear what version of the story is told by the Tinkers and the Angels. But now I am truly exhausted. I would like to go.”
Skrynol nodded and moved in front of him. She insisted on changing the meeting-place every time, escorting Mondrian to and from it through a dark maze of tunnels.
“Someday we must discuss what each of us means by intelligence,” she said as they moved into a stygian corridor. “I suspect that there too we will find surprises. I think we can agree that, whatever our differences, humans, Tinkers, Angels, and Pipe-Rillas are all intelligent—perhaps of comparable intelligence. But equality does not imply identity. We are different, for this reason: we did not follow the same road to the light.
“Humans evolved from a rather small and weak animal, on a planet with powerful predators. You had to be clever, inventive and aggressive or you would have died out. That is why you conquered fire, made tools, changed the face of Earth, and went to space. But compare that with the others of the Group, who never thought of leaving their home worlds until humans arrived. We Pipe-Rillas are twice the size of any other life form on our planet. We are strong, and we had no natural competition for living space and food. We did not need intelligence to avoid or neutralize our enemies. But a few million years ago, our planet S’kat’lan went through a major change in its climate. Our intelligence developed in response to that need. Only through drastic changes in our life-style and habitat were we able to survive. But the forces that we faced were all impersonal ones, of winds and weather and earthquake. We learned early to cooperate, and to control our population. But we never learned to hate. We never fought each other, nor were we ever threatened by another species.”
Skrynol extended a tough and whiskery palp behind her for Mondrian to hold on to, and led the way up a thirty-degree slope. “As for the Tinkers, at the level of individual components they know aggression, and they fight over food, living space, and mates. But a Tinker Composite has no such needs. It does not eat, drink, or mate in the Composite form. It is in some sense immortal, and in another sense it has no permanent existence at all. It has no sense of danger at the Composite level, because at the first sign of danger its instinct is simply to disperse. And resolved to elements, the Composite no longer exists to feel fear or danger. Mercantor is a cold world, and to a Tinker ‘intelligence’ is a synonym for ‘closeness and warmth.’
“As for the Angels, their form of intelligence remains as much of a mystery to us as I suspect it does to you. The Chassel-Rose will live and bud and die, and know little more than a yearning for light and fertile soil. But the Singers live a long, long time, and no one knows how they came to be intelligent, or what purpose that intelligence evolved to serve. Perhaps some day, after another few hundred years of interaction and mutual effort . . .”
Skrynol’s musings in the darkness had occupied only half of Mondrian’s attention. He had a new problem to worry about. The Pipe-Rilla had told him to roam Earth and seek his early childhood. But where was he supposed to begin the search? In the Gallimaufries, up in the polar resorts, on the open ocean, or out in the great equatorial nature preserves? Mondrian had vague childhood memories of all those areas. The crucial experience that Skrynol was seeking could have happened anywhere. Worst of all, how could Mondrian spare time for any of that when the Pursuit Team operations were moving ahead at an increasing tempo?
They were approaching the lighted levels of the deep basement warrens. Mondrian arrived at his own conclusion: the Anabasis had first priority. No matter how bad his nightmares, he would have to live with them for a while longer.
As for exploring Earth, he could make a detailed list of the places that he might have been when he was very young. What he would need was somebody to go to each of the locations and make full sound and vision recordings. His review of those could provide the mental key to unlock his memory.
Not for the first time, Mondrian needed help. By the time that he reached Tatty’s apartment he knew what he must say and do.
Chapter 21
The room had been set up as a briefing facility and battle station, complete with conference table, projection equipment, terminals and interactive map displays. The Adestis battlefield was at the rear, overlooked by a spectators’ gallery. Twenty-five men and women sat at the desks serried across the body of the room. In front of them, dressed in a close-fitting black outfit that closely resembled the uniform of a Security Force commander, stood Dougal MacDougal. His expression was totally serious as he presented a series of graphics. Luther Brachis had never seen the Solar Ambassador so deeply involved in anything.
“This is the enemy,” said MacDougal. “In case any of you may be inclined to underestimate it, let me remind you that there has never been a successful attack on this type of stronghold using an attack force of fewer than forty members. And even in those cases, there was substantial loss of simulacra and several human deaths.”
The three-D imaging system showed a dark, walled pit, descendi
ng to unknown depths in a fibrous black soil. Above the players, in large glowing letters, stood a sign:
ADESTIS—YOU ARE HERE.
Luther Brachis was sitting in the audience about halfway back. He had had his private word with Dougal MacDougal, hinting at the security network rumors of human expansion plans. Now he was stuck. He could not easily leave without going through the whole Adestis exercise. He was watching Ambassador MacDougal closely, concealing his own irritation and skepticism. A morning of Adestis was not his idea of time well-spent, but Lotos Sheldrake had been very explicit: “If you want an informal word with the ambassador in the next week this isn’t just your best chance, it’s your only chance. Part of the time he’ll be on Titan with a new industrial plant, then he’ll be heading for the Procyon colony. It’s Adestis, and it’s tomorrow, or it’s nothing. Take it or leave it.”
Luther Brachis took it—grudgingly. When the briefing began he had been cynically amused to see that MacDougal conducted the game as though it were some major military operation, with complete attention to detail. A few minutes later Dougal MacDougal gave them their first look at the adversary; at that point Brachis lost his bored look and became the most attentive member of the audience.
“Remember the scale.” MacDougal moved the light pointer from one side of the display to the other. “That’s roughly three and a half centimeters. Sounds like nothing, but your simulacrum is a lot smaller than that. You’ll be less than half a centimeter tall. As you see, the quarry is more than three times as big as that across the body. This is a full-grown specimen of the family Ctenizidae; sub-order Mygahmorphae, order Araneae, class Arachnida. In short, a trapdoor spider. A female, and gram for gram one of Earth’s deadliest creatures. She won’t be afraid of you—but you’d better be scared of her. Let me show you some of the danger points.”
The screen moved in on the dark brown form, crouched ominously at the bottom of the smooth-sided pit. The length of the body was divided into two main sections connected by a narrow bridge between head and body. Eight bristly legs grew from the front section, and near the mouth were another two pairs of shorter appendages. Eight pearly eyes were distributed along the dark back of the upper body.
The Mind Pool Page 21
