Harvest of Stars

by Poul Anderson

  “Space—” he implored.

  “Even in space, enough is enough. It was grand being a ship, ranging the planets. But I never could the way the real Kyra does and feels and is, because I am not her. Nor am I quite welcome yonder, you know. The Lunarians, especially, wonder whether I may, without intending to, be the forerunner of robots that could ease them out as it happened at Sol. So there too I’ve gone useless. Why linger?”

  “God damn it, I’d miss you!”

  The waves bore a caress. “Gracias, querido viejo.

  You’ve been a main part of why existence was worth doing. We were doing it together. But now I’ve used my share up.”

  “I haven’t. Wonder if I ever can.”

  She sent laughter. “You are what you are. I’m not your kind of conniving, bullying scoundrel.” Turning serious: “Understand, I am not despondent. I’m neither eager nor afraid to let go. I’m simply ready to. When the time comes, give me peace.”

  “You wouldn’t at least consider what Ben Franklin wished for? That after he was dead, somebody would rouse him every hundred years and tell him what’d happened?”

  “No. Too abstract. That’s basically why I want to leave, Anson. More and more, I feel how I myself am becoming an abstraction. A series of events, inside and outside this box, empty of meaning and blood.” With a hint of warmth: “No complaints. On the whole it was good, sometimes great. It was.”

  “It could be again, only much more so,” he told her.

  “How?” she asked flatly.

  “What touched your admission off was my saying I’ve got a new line of work for you.”

  “I was explaining why I don’t want it. Ask Gabe or Pilar.”

  “Neither is suitable. I’ve meshed with them, like their fellows before them, trying to talk them out of terminating, and I’ve learned the symptoms. They’re only staying on to wind up their duties, then that’s it. They’re resolved, because they’re … weary. I haven’t sensed that in you, Kyra.”

  “It hasn’t been my mood. In part, as I said, because of the presence of my living self. I’m looking past her death, and I do not propose to take on any new obligation that’ll hold me down.”

  “This is different from everything else. Wide open. And necessary. Judas priest,” Guthrie roared, “you are not done yet! I need you! I call on your troth!”

  Kyra was mute for a span that lengthened. Humans would have perceived it as short. Her response was wary. “No promises. What do you have in mind?”

  “Do you remember way back when, the first time I got into the Monet?” he began. “You were there.”

  “Yes. I offered to when it looked like maybe being risky, then declined to when it turned out not to be. I have ever since, in spite of your rhapsodies.”

  He sensed the slight lightening of her spirit and responded in kind. “Oh, come on. I haven’t burbled much about it, have I?”

  “No, usually you’ve spared me, once you got it through your database that I wasn’t interested.”

  “Uh, mainly that was because I haven’t had a lot to burble about. I’m actually in rather seldom, and never for long. Too flinking many other claims on my time. Besides, frankly, it’s not a thing I do well. I think too much like a man, and this—it’s more a female thing. Rudbeck agrees. Gaia, Mother Earth, there was some truth in those old myths.”

  “What do you want from me? An opinion?”

  “More, unlimited more, Kyra. You seem to be only marginally aware of it, and it isn’t going on in obvious ways right under people’s noses, but—the ecological net, interlinks and communications, robots and computers, they aren’t doing so well either. Life’s taken root and expanded faster than we expected. It’s outrunning our controls and our helps, and crashing as a result. Not just on the frontiers, but in the established territories, we’re having more disasters all the time, environmental degradation, diseases, mass diebacks. Mostly that’s down around the bottom of the food chain, so it isn’t conspicuous to the untrained eye, but it means we can’t introduce higher species. In the long term, it means failure.

  “Everywhere, the ecology’s getting too big for us, too complicated, self-evolving, chaotic, no direction, no feed-back. If we don’t take hold soon and guide things aright, children today will live to see the grass withering around their homes. What then was the point in coming to Demeter?”

  “M-m, I’ve had news about this, of course, but—”

  “It’s not easy to assemble the big picture. Rudbeck’s gang has, and they aren’t suppressing any information, but we’d rather not scream it from the housetops either. What we need is practical action by people who know what they’re doing, not hysteria. I recall the Renewal on Earth. I’d like to think our community is too select, or anyway too small, to run amok, but you never know. I’ve read about the Salem witchcraft panic.”

  “The what? Skip it. Where do I come in?”

  “We’ve got to get a mind into the system. Not a set of algorithms; a mind, which belongs to the whole and brings it together and makes it heal itself, the way—the way our minds did when we were alive, Kyra.”

  “An artificial intelligence,” she said fast. “I gather the sophotects on Earth can already outthink humans.”

  “Are they right for something as, as intuitive, as instinctive as this? Whether or not, we don’t dare wait till we’ve developed and built one and got it working properly. At our remove from the AI labs, that could take twenty or thirty years or worse. Meanwhile nature here would go to hell down a one-way chute.”

  “So you want a download to … fill in, be a stopgap, till you’ve got your superbrain.”

  “Correct. Though we don’t want. We desperately need.”

  “Why me? Are you sure Pilar is hopeless?”

  “I am. I hate that, I’m going to mourn for her as for all the rest, but I tell you, I know that extinction wish when I meet it. You don’t have it, not really, not yet.”

  “Nor do I have the qualifications you’re after.”

  “You’ll be linked into an almighty powerful system.”

  “If it isn’t equal to the task, what difference can I make?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody does. We’ll have to experiment, find our way forward as best we can, and maybe it’ll be for naught. But theory suggests a download, a consciousness, can be the catalyst. And my personal knowledge says that if any can, it’s you, Kyra, because you’re brave and simpática and still, by God, every bit a woman.”

  She laughed afresh, louder. “And you’re an outrageous bullshit artist. Sweep a girl off her feet and onto her back before she’s guessed what you’re at.”

  “You will do it?”

  “I’ll give it a try. I suppose I owe Fireball that much.” Her tone softened. “And you, Anson.”

  Intensive work, such as was impossible on a global scale, kept the Lifthrasir neighborhood healthy. However, the building in the hilltop grove had not been greatly enlarged. Likewise the human staff; though Basil Rudbeck’s hair was white and his step slowed, he remained their director. It was the instrumentalities that had grown, in ways more artful and potent than size.

  “Bienvenidos,” he said. Smiling: “I feel I should offer you a chat in lieu of a cup of coffee, but no doubt you’d rather I proceed immediately with the grand tour.”

  “Must we?” asked Kyra. “Can’t I start directly on the job? I’ve done my homework.”

  “I think it would be best, señora, if you first got a physical exposure to the layout. You won’t be joined to a single computer-sensor-effector complex, you know. Here is where the integrations of subsystems around the planet—yes, and satellite monitors—come together.”

  “In other words, not just a brain, but organs, nerves, glands, blood cells, the works,” Guthrie said. “You’ll need acquaintance with … yourself.”

  “I know, I know,” Kyra replied. “I’ve been through all the simulations and—Sorry. Why am I so impatient? You’re right, there is no substitute for the real thin
g. Lead on, por favor.” As they took her around, her eyestalks swung to and fro, while questions rattled from her speaker.

  They brought her finally to the core. There, hands made connections, more through energies and inductions than wires; eyes dwelt on meters and displays, ears on auditory cues; voices gave guidance, piece by piece. This union was immensely more encompassing than when Guthrie first entered it.

  Yet she had for many years taken input from and given impulse to many different contrivances, on more worlds than this. She had often linked to other computers, to make their powers temporarily her own. To her the nonhuman was not foreign; she had been it. Today she learned fast. She would not at once become one, that would have taken long even were the means complete, but she began.

  Light fills the air, wind is aglow, drink of it, breathe of it, make leafing.

  Rainfall sows itself; it grows down through soil to the secret places where stones abide; it brings the strength of them up rootward.

  Lie still molder away, then be again grass.

  Stems ripple to the running of a river.

  Cherish these boughs which cast shade.

  A storm flashes and clamors. Wings.

  When they took her out, “How are you? How’d it go?” Guthrie cried.

  “I can’t say,” Kyra answered as if in sleep. “Too strange. Give me time to know.”

  “You want time, then, time in the world?”

  “Yes, oh, yes.”

  56

  We have no plans for new missions beyond the Solar System. The probes to distant, astrophysically interesting objects will arrive centuries and millennia hence. It appears they will be superfluous; instrumental observation confirms every theoretical prediction. Theory shows, as well, how insignificant organic life must be in the universe, and allows the modeling of every possible form it could take. Few humans feel such discontents as drove you at Alpha Centauri to your ruinously costly exodus, and they are, in general, not persons who could succeed in any similar attempt. Rather, the best organic minds join increasingly with the sophotects in exploring and expanding the realm of intellect.

  AMONG THE DEMETRIANS who came from Earth, many adapted to the rotation period by changing their circadian rhythm to a thirty-hour cycle, sleeping for a night and into the next forenoon, then wakeful for the rest of that day and the following night and day. Others, and nearly all children, lived straightforwardly by this their world. It might require a little help in the beginning, treatment to reset the biological clock, or it might not, but always it soon became natural.

  Hugh Davis woke shortly before sunrise. Dew gemmed the glade between blue-black battlemented walls of forest. A few drowsy chirps tinkled through the hush. Orange-red clouds limned branches and crowns to the east. Above them shone white Aphrodite, inward planet, morning star.

  He watched heaven brighten around it. His mother was somewhere yonder. May she be doing well, may she come home bearing more tales of mighty deeds. He wriggled from his sleeping bag and drew in a draught of air cool, moist, tinged with humus odors. The turf beneath his feet was wet and elastic. The spring nearby gave a tang of iron when he drank. Radiance shouted through the woods as A stood up; a thousand hues of green surrounded him. No, he wouldn’t change with her.

  Stoking his banked fire, he squatted down and cooked breakfast. The bacon smells drove him deliciously loco. On a field trip every meal became a feast. Too bad he’d nobody to share it, preferably female. But as thin-spread as the ranger corps was, he couldn’t justify a partner in this comparatively safe area. If he did get into real trouble—by no means unheard of, when so much was unknown and unforeseeable—he’d call the Rescue Corps. If the trouble killed him, that was the chance he took, small enough price to pay for the life he led.

  Having cleaned his gear, campsite, and self, he assembled his backpack, shrugged it on, and set forth. His plan was to continue along this ridge to Emerald Lake, then beside the stream that issued from it down into the valley and as far across as he could before dark. How far that would be depended on what he found on the way. Satellite views had indicated the route should offer a fair sample of conditions in general.

  His pace was unforced but covered ground at a goodly rate among alder, birch, maple, spruce, berry bushes, hazel, among sun-spattered shadows and low soughings. Squirrels darted aloft, jays shrilled, a mockingbird fluted. The sun baked scents from leaves overhead and leaves that crinkled underfoot. His progress slowed after he reached the brook. The descent got steep, tricky in places, and brush grew thick. Besides, he stopped whenever he thought it advisable to examine a plant, take a specimen, or stick a chemical meter into the soil. These past five days he had searched the heights. Now he entered another environment, warmer, better sheltered, hard to observe from above and seldom traversed afoot. In such places nature might go agley unbeknownst till suddenly scathe exploded across a continent.

  Thus far central Achaea seemed to be prospering. Hugh might have grinned and said aloud, “Nice job, Madre,” if discarnate Kyra might have seen or heard him. But that was improbable anywhere, out of the question here: no sensors, no integration of any kind except what the forest and its creatures brought forth of themselves. Robots lacked the minds to judge it. Therefore rangers were needed.

  Hugh thought they would be till Phaethon smote. It wasn’t that the equipment couldn’t be produced; it could, at avalanche rates, even faster than engineered genes and molecular coactors drove the growth of nature. What set a limit was use. The download reported that year by year she gained mastery over her role. She proved it, taking on ever greater capabilities while Demeter suffered ever fewer sicknesses. Yet she would never consciously know or control any but a fraction of the whole. Did he think about each leg muscle when he walked, did he will his blood-stream to circulate oxygen and slay invaders, could he bind the sweet influences of love?

  The stream rushed and rang, a final cascade, and whispered off through the valley, its glitter soon lost to sight behind trees. A kilometer onward he found a mossy ledge open to the sky and its breezes. Noontide waxed hot. Hugh crouched above the water, washed sweat off his face, sat down on the spongy greenness for a rest.

  Brush barely rustled behind the clear space. He glanced about and sprang to his feet.

  As softly as the girl had come, he knew her for loreful. She poised at the edge of the moss, nervous, ready to flee back into the shadows. Keeping hands well away from his sheath knife, he smiled his best smile. She was young, her slenderness not quite filled out, skin fair where the sun had not touched it with golden brown. Yellow hair fell from a garland of ivy past her shoulders. Her eyes were large and smoke blue, freckles dusted a snub nose, her lips recalled to him rose petals in his mother’s garden. For clothing she wore a sleeveless green tunic, less than knee-length, a pocketed belt, and moccasins. She carried a basket woven of split reeds.

  “Why, hola,” he murmured.

  “Who … are you?” The English bore a slight accent, a lilt that he couldn’t put a name to.

  “Ranger Hugh Davis, at your service, señorita!”

  Her mouth fluttered upward a bit. “I am … Charissa. How did you come, Ranger Hugh Davis?”

  “Flew to Mount Mistfall and set out on foot.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why?”

  “I might ask you the same,” he countered. “You’re hardly outfitted for a long trek.”

  “Oh, I live here. In Dandelion Glen, I call it, not far at all.” She hefted the basket. “I was berrying.”

  “You live here?” he wondered. “Not by yourself, surely.”

  She shook her head. The blonde locks tumbled. “No. My parents and two little brothers.” He guessed she too was trying for friendliness: “I’m glad to be free of the boys this while. They’re dears, but they can be such nuisances, can’t they?”

  Wistfulness tugged. The first-born of Demeter, he had passed his childhood among adults, their machines, and some pet animals.

  Bueno, he had his duty. “How long
have you been in these parts?” he inquired. “Where did you come from?”

  She frowned and touched her chin. “Nine years? No, eight, I think. I was little then myself.” She meant Demetrian years, of course; in those, he guessed she was now twelve or thirteen. “We moved from Aulis.” A settlement on the coast, he recollected, chiefly a marine research station though half a dozen families had joined it to experiment with agriculture under local conditions. “I don’t remember it very well.” Emboldened, she added, “But you aren’t telling me anything, Ranger Hugh Davis.”

  “Uh, ‘Ranger’ is just my, uh, title,” he said, taken aback. “My work. I look to see how things are going in the wilds.”

  Charissa nodded. “I know about rangers. We do have a multiceiver at home. Jason-Father lets us watch it an hour a day, or more if we’ve found something good.”

  “He sounds pretty strict.” It wasn’t as if floods of programs were pouring out, the way he’d heard they did on Earth (or had done; he’d gotten an impression it wasn’t true any longer). Port Fireball’s live broadcasts were intermittent, amateur, and decorous. For most entertainment, people drew on the cultural database, when they didn’t make their own.

  “We can screen as many books as we like,” Charissa said. “I read a lot. Yes, I know about rangers. But I don’t know how to ad—ad—address you, sir.”

  “‘Hugh’ is fine, Charissa.”

  Her shyness left her. “Can you stop and visit us? Betty-Mother will be so happy.”

  “M-m, what about your father?”

  She laughed. “Don’t you fear. He may be kind of stiff at first, but he’ll soon break out the cider and talk. Oh, my, he’ll talk!”

  “You get visitors, I take it?”

  “A few. Mostly woodsrunners.”

  “Woodsrunners?”

  “You know. They don’t live in houses—they make shelters wherever they roam—” The girl stopped, surprised. “You don’t know?”