Groton had not been aware of any exercise of courage, and in any event this development was contrary to anything he could have expected, let alone feared. “You know where I — when I come from?”
“Approximately one hundred million years hence, in the Third Siege. We have a number of volunteers from that period, since the cultures of that time have a superior perspective on history.”
“I thought I was a messenger from the Queen. I’m wearing the body of her consort.”
“So you are,” the Horven said, as though just noticing. “That means that the last unit is in place and activated, and we can begin on the next. I shall initiate the cycle.”
“You handle the gravity compression? I thought the Queen—”
“Once the unit has been activated, the ordinary species cannot attune to the Traveler,” the Horven explained gently. “Several hundred personnel must be discorporated, which means they must be assessed by the Traveler. I will handle juxtaposition.”
Of course! The destroyer blocked off that macroscopic band, as Ivo had observed, making it impossible for most minds to draw on the intergalactic knowledge. Ivo had set it up, for the human party; the Horven—
“You are the one-in-a-thousand!” Groton exclaimed. “The species that is immune to the destroyer.”
The Horven donned a surprisingly Earthlike helmet and touched a panel. “There will be several shifts,” it said. “This will take some time, but it only occupies a portion of my intellect. Please do not interrupt your discourse.”
The Queen’s workers, Groton realized, would be lining up and passing through Traveler introductions, exactly as he and Beatryx and Afra had while Ivo guided them past the lurking destroyer. But the Horven must be handling them a score at a time! “You — you built the destroyer!”
“We — with companion species — designed it,” the Horven admitted. “We cannot construct or emplace the individual units.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you reserving true space travel for yourselves?”
“It must be.” Lights were flickering within the helmet, and Groton wondered what circuitry was being utilized. A lead to the macroscope, naturally, and trunk lines to the upper regions…
“Wait! I need to get back upstairs before the cycle begins.” Shifts there might be, but if he missed the last one it would be the end, for him.
“For what purpose? Your destiny is with us.”
“It is?” He was confused.
“We have weighted the repressive side of the scales. The destroyers have been installed. Now we must balance the other side, or the task remains half-complete. Another representative will replace me here; you and I travel to Horv.”
“And I am supposed to — to participate in the other side too? When I’m not even certain I agree with this side?”
“I apologize for my neglect,” the Horven said. “I forgot that you have not been adequately informed, since your species evolved many millions of years after mine passed.
“The Traveler destroyed the civilization of our galaxy once, and perhaps many times. This travel-power is too great for juvenile species; it only releases and amplifies their destructive impulses. Therefore we of the Second Civilization, rising from the ruins of the First, have had to take defensive measures against this Second Siege. Only we who have left violence behind can safely travel from star to star. In this manner we may preserve galactic civilization until the Siege is over.”
At last it was beginning to fall into place. Now he remembered a fragment of — history? — he had heard or read at some point, that reinforced this explanation. “The destroyer — only destroys evil minds?”
“Not evil minds, no. To be savage is not to be evil. It is a necessary phase in the evolution of a mature species. But until it passes, that species must be protected from itself. It must be confined to its planet of origin and that planet’s immediate environs. It does not have the discretion to indulge in galactic contacts — apart from purely communicatory, of course. Maturity requires an extended apprenticeship.”
“And you Horven are one of the mature species?” He had thought to put irony into his tone, but it misfired; he was already convinced that the Horven was mature. “Why do you make younger species do your bidding? Why not simply place the destroyer-units yourselves?”
“Because there is insufficient violence in our nature. We can conceive of suppressive strategy, though with discomfort, but cannot implement it. We could not survive the destroyer ourselves, if such pacifism diminished in us.”
Thus this temporary cooperation between forward-looking juveniles and inactive seniles. Were they correct? Was this necessary to save civilization?
He thought about the incalculable violence of human history, and was not prepared to deny the need for this step. Man had always been willing, even eager, to spend much more effort on calamitous war than on any peaceful pursuit. Governments had spent billions of dollars, francs, rubles for war every year, while allowing their own less fortunate citizens to starve. Man in space would be the same — except that the stakes would be larger.
“I am a member of a juvenile species,” he said.
“Of the juvenile stage in your species evolution, yes. No species is inherently young or old. It may be that the climax of mankind will be a far greater thing than that of the Horven. Possibly some visitor from the Fourth Siege will know. We hope the measures we have taken here will enable your species to achieve such distinction.”
“I hope so too,” Groton said fervently. Then, remembering: “What is the other side of the scale? If this side is the forced preservation of galactic civilization?”
“Exploration, comprehension, knowledge. The nature of the Traveler, and the reason for its infliction upon us. The civilization that developed such technique is as far beyond the Horven as the Horven is beyond the Queen’s hive. Surely its purpose was not to extinguish our progress.”
“Why don’t you just pay the source a visit and find out?”
“That was attempted during the First Siege. But our predecessors were unable to map intergalactic convolutions prior to exploration there, and intergalactic ventures were unsuccessful.”
“What happened to them?”
“They never returned. Some survived, but their travel mechanisms were inoperative.”
“How could you learn about them, then?”
“Their traces were picked up subsequently on the macroscope.”
“But that could take millions of years, if they were in intergalactic space!”
“Yes. It was the Second Civilization that recorded the signals, and they only succeeded in this because they were specially attuned and alert. The macroscope is hardly effective beyond our own galaxy, ordinarily. By the time the signals had been identified, it was far too late to come to the assistance of their originators, even had travel been feasible at that time. But these casualties did assist in the mapping of deep space in a general way, and provide clues as to the nature of its dynamics. We believe we can now achieve the other galaxies in our cluster.”
Intergalactic travel! “So you mean to discover the truth about the origin of the Traveler,” Groton said. He realized that this was a similar quest to the one the party of human beings had embarked on. They had seen the destroyer as their enemy, when in fact it was their friend (though a stern one!); Earth might have been ravaged many times by other aggressor species, except for that protection, and the sapience of man might never have had the opportunity to develop. The true enemy was the Traveler — but this too was only conjecture, until its rationale was known.
“Your invitation tempts me,” Groton said. “The prospect of such explorations is fascinating. But my essential loyalty is with my own. I can’t simply—”
“You are not among your own. I assure you, the Queen’s ire at losing her present Drone will pass quickly. The King is the game, for us. Though of course we can arrange to have you occupy a different body, and return this one to—”
No! No! the
Drone-mind screamed. Do not send me back alone!
“Oh, I see,” the Horven said. “Thoughtless of me. Of course you would be unable to cope with the revised situation.” It was addressing the Drone directly. “But it would not be kind to keep you in subservience here—”
The other Queen!
“Yes, we could do that,” the Horven agreed. “You realize you would be captive of the Felk, however—”
The Drone was more than willing to take that chance.
“You have no objection to assuming some other form?” the Horven inquired of Groton. “We cannot act unless all parties are amenable. It would be quite unlike your normal one.”
“The horoscope does not specify species,” Groton murmured. What was he getting into?
The Horven continued to wear the helmet, but Groton was sure it was simultaneously setting about preparations for the other transfer. “There are still horoscopes in your time?”
“Still? You mean you practice astrology here?”
“That depends on what you mean by the term. I don’t know enough about your conception either to believe or disbelieve in it, let alone practice it. If you would clarify—”
“It — I—” Groton found himself at a loss for words, never having anticipated this turn of conversation. He finally had to settle for a concrete example, his well-versed summaries having fled his mind. “Well, I was born on October 11, 1940, at Key West, Florida. That means — but you don’t know Earth chronology or geography!”
“I comprehend your meaning, nevertheless. Go on.”
“The time was 4:10 p.m., Eastern Standard. That’s important for the house structure. So the configuration of the signs and planets at that moment — well, I’m a Libra personality, sun in the seventh house, moon in Aquarius, Mercury—”
“If you will provide an exact listing, I will transpose to my framework,” the Horven said. “I perceive that your astrology does approximate one of our disciplines, but of course your local viewpoint does not coincide.”
“You can convert my terms to your chart?” This was as marvelous an accomplishment as any he had witnessed here.
“We Horven specialize in orderly intellectualization. One of the tools we have developed is a unified-orientation conception of horoscopy that enables us to apply the details of any local system in the galaxy to our own framework. A precise interpolation would take much time, of course, since we have to compensate in your case for a sizable time differential, but we can certainly make a crude alignment now.”
For the next hour they compared notes, oblivious to all else except for the Horven’s continued helmet-transaction. It needed no chart on which to post information, keeping complete data in its head.
“My tentative plotting indicates that you will enter a new cycle of experience at a life duration of about forty-two of your years,” the Horven remarked at last.
“Mine also,” Groton said. “My sun passes out of Scorpio at that point.” He stopped. “Ouch! That’s now!”
“Of course, since you are coming with us.”
Very neat. “But my wife—”
“Provide me her configuration, and we shall see how she fits into this picture.”
Groton did so, though he felt increasingly uneasy about it. This being, this representative of a mature species, was frighteningly intelligent in obscure ways.
“I am sorry,” the Horven said then. “This is not an aspect that would normally be evidenced in your more limited framework; but mine is, if I may say so without giving offense, somewhat more advanced. Your wife is dead.”
The words struck with a physical impact. “But—”
“Your astrology cannot pinpoint such an event specifically, but ours can. Even after making due allowance for error introduced in transposition, the probability is virtually conclusive. Her skein terminates abruptly.”
Groton remained stunned, not yet ready to believe it “How — when — ?”
“On that I cannot yet provide exact details, but can say that there were ironic elements. She perished as the result of her own decision, in an effort to do what she believed was proper. She was mistaken, but it was a noble demise. As for when — in this framework, approximately ninety-eight million years ago. In yours — ten minutes.”
“I must go back to her!”
The Horven removed the helmet. “It is better that you do not.”
Groton looked into the indefinite countenance and knew with terrible certainty that truth had emerged. The life he had known was over; his return could only wreak havoc. He was committed to a new existence — alone.
The mellow music of the bassoon welled up as he explored the final triad. Ivo saw his resources falling away. The horn had failed him after all; it had departed, never to return. Only one hope remained — yet in this concurrency, it was impossible for him to affect its theme.
On the ground stood a fair young woman. She cast a smile at him as though it were a handful of soil, seeking to assimilate him into her world, but he passed her by. Next was a massive bull stroking the sod with its hoof, epitome of power yet not aggressive. Last was the goat: a gentle doe, horned and bearded after the nature of her kind, and with a fine udder. Surely the symbol had been of a virile male-goat, a buck, most indefatigable of animals! Perhaps it was, elsewhere; but this was what he saw, and he would not deny it.
She contemplated him, the gaze of one eye suggesting DISCRIMINATION, and the gaze of the other — and he paused to verify this, taken aback — LOVE. He stood before Capricorn, responding to the bleat of the bassoon and the ambience of earth, and could not speak.
She said: “Music is love in search of a word.”
Then he saw behind her, written upon an erosion-ragged mountain cliff, as it were a palimpsest:
There was some initial difficulty emplacing the suppressors — popularly known as “destroyers” — as many immature cultures were unable to appreciate the long-range purpose of these devices. The mission was nevertheless accomplished. Although galactic communications were necessarily inhibited during the Second Siege, civilization itself suffered stasis instead of abolition.
In fifteen to twenty thousand years the fields of the several destroyers overlapped each other, and crews were dispatched to place their defenses on standby. As more time passed, these units became repositories for galactic artifacts, and even assumed museum-status. As individual species came of age and thus were immune to the interference signal, they tended to visit the stations, and sometimes to leave examples of their own cultures for display. No untended immatures were able to visit the stations, because of the nature of the broadcasts, so selectivity was no problem.
The Second Siege, like the First, endured about a million years. This time civilization rebounded almost immediately, no worlds having been ravaged or cultures destroyed by other than natural means.
The destroyer network was considered to be only a holding action, not a solution. The major thrust was of a different nature. The first concerted extragalactic exploration was undertaken, and entire civilized planets made the jump into deep space. Chief among the advanced species participating were the Ngslo, the Horven and the Dooon. Their objective was the realization of the true nature of the Traveler and its reason for being. They departed — and did not return.
The ultimate nature of the Traveler was not discovered until the Third Civilization picked up reports from the surviving explorers, many millions of light-years removed. The truth, as brought out by the dispatch from Horv, was remarkable, and it changed the entire complexion of galactic intercourse.
Afra felt the impetus shoving her into an alternate existence. She felt the compulsion of the music, the fascination of galactic history, so much more vast than anything she had studied before. There was a period of timelessness, of drifting to melody; then the surroundings firmed and she was standing in—
A supermarket.
Ahead of her was an aisle bordered by towering promontories of canned goods: on one side beans — lima, pinto, k
idney, navy, great northern, vegetarian, pork , black-eyed peas. On the other side, other vegetables — potatoes, canned sliced white; corn, whole kernel; corn, cream-style; tomatoes, stewed; peas, baby; peas, dried; beets, cut. To one side beyond the near islands were the fresh vegetable bins, leafy green, round red, puffy white. To the other side was the main portion of the store, neat hanging signposts identifying the aisles; there were pyramidding displays of canned fruit juice, boxed powdered milk, cartoned cigarettes, bagged charcoal and the eleventh volume of a cheap coupon-encyclopedia.
Shoppers moved with their wire push-baskets, their noisy children running free to sneeze into the wilting lettuce, splatter bottles of grape-juice on the worn tiles, and eat bananas before they were weighed and marked, dropping the peels behind the larger boxes of detergent where the cleanup crews wouldn’t discover them for days. Harried housewives changed their minds about half-gallon cardboard containers of ice cream and left them melting on the racks of chewing gum by the cash registers. Pot-bellied, sun-baked men ambled along in shorts and the hairs on their chests, picking up six-packs of beer. Freshly nubile girls clustered titteringly near the magazine rack, ignoring the PLEASE DO NOT READ IN STORE sign.
Afra stood there, absorbing it all. This was not the kind of vision she had anticipated. The market was ordinary, the people typical. Everything was routine middle-class, and there was nothing alien or even outré about it, apart from its slightly old-fashioned aspect. Certainly it illuminated the “truth” about the Traveler signal in no obvious way.
She turned about, seeking the exit. It was her conjecture that this vision would endure for an established period, and that whatever was to be manifested would be manifested regardless of her own actions. All she could do was wait it out, and act to preserve her equanimity.
Her eye fixed on a man standing in the nearest checkout line. He was muffled up as though braced against a storm, though the temperature within the store was comfortable, and he wore a tall silk hat tilted at a rakish angle. His hand was buried in a pocket as though he were searching for small change, and there was something familiar about him.
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