Meet Me at Infinity

by James Tiptree Jr.

  And I confer with Mavru, their quasi-official Healer, to set up the way to treat spear wounds—packing them with the water-moss, which seems, like a similar Terra sphagnum, able to suppress infection. We set up a first-aid station by the river.

  Strangely enough, in those last hours of peace, I get to know the Mnerrin better than ever before. I stroll the beach, watching their recreations. Among the more expected sights—boys and girls playing ball—I find a man surrounded by onlookers. He is drawing circles and triangles in the sand and, with a knotted string, explaining what he calls “Relations.” This seems to be their art of geometry and mathematics. I am startled to find diagrams that imply knowledge of the Pythagorean theorems. So these people are not just simple Polynesianlike paradise-dwellers! No, this beach is more like the Athenian agora, where men in simple lengths of cloth discussed the eternal verities.

  “We plan to make a permanent structure of stone at storm-season home,” one man told me. “And we are going to use Relations to make it beautiful.”

  I find that one of their carefully preserved possessions is a big shell straightedge, marked off in equidistant intervals. They have a standard of measure! The man who carries it across his back has found a friend who has promised to take it over in case he is wounded in the coming fighting with the goldskins.

  Nor has Maoul forgotten his discovery of the Galactic alphabet on Kamir’s bracelet. He has been talking it over with others. They get me to teach them the whole alphabet and begin discussing whether more letters are needed to “picture” Mnerrin phonemes. The agora, indeed!

  For my part, I take time to teach the Relations enthusiasts about our system of written numbers. Typically, they grasp it at once, and start transcribing them onto their shell measure. They are especially interested in the concept of zero.

  “With this, we can do many things!” exclaims Kerana, the Relations explainer. I wonder by how many centuries—or decades—I have speeded their mental evolution. I wonder about their minds; this is no case of an isolated genius, but of a group with high, though unexploited, mental capability. And they seem not to be in danger of the fallacy that brought Plato and Aristotle’s deductive logic low, the fallacy of refusing experiment. No; they test out every step of their Relational logic.

  I tell them the story of Aristotle’s deduction that women must have fewer teeth than men, while refusing to count his wife’s teeth. They laugh. I sigh, and wonder if I should expose them to Bacon’s scientific method. I try.

  But time is growing short. I have scoured the land that lies behind the beach, and on the last day discover a flintlike rock. I bring it to two men who have been doing shell knives.

  “Look. I think you can chip this into blades which will be stronger than shell. Let me show you.” Inexpertly, I flake out an edge. They assent with pleasure to trying.

  Maoul has produced a youth named Manya to accompany me on the rescue party. On the last night I pack a few rations and emergency supplies into the boat, and we leave it secured to the beach, to start at dawn.

  That last night with Kamir she is untypically thoughtful. I think that the reality of all this has just come through to her, preoccupied as she is with her monstrously growing pregnancy. She has been lying lazily on the beach by day, sunning her vast belly, and smiling to herself, only distantly interested in my warlike activities. She is still enchantingly beautiful in a different way; my little mermaid has turned into a nature goddess.

  “Darling, take this.” I extract from my gear my last resort, a tiny close-action personal laser. “Defend yourself with it if I do not return in time. But remember, sweetheart, you must wait until your attacker is very close, almost within arm’s length.”

  “I will kill for our babies,” she says calmly. “And you are right to go to save those children. We Mnerrin, as you call us, do not have many. All are precious.” she hugs me again, then pushes me away.

  It is very hard to leave her.

  But Manya and I get into the dinghy, and shortly the little craft is leaping through the green waters at its great top speed. In a couple of hours we are within sight of the other settlement’s bay, a journey which had cost the wounded Elia two painful days. The birthing huts here are different, somewhat larger, and supported by a center pole. Falca and Kimra are still on the reef, invisible until we catch their mind-call.

  We stop out of sight, where we will wait for the goldskins to leave, and hold conference.

  Falca says he expects them to leave very soon. “And see, they are loading three canoes. I think it is as you said, they are sending a party by sea to cut off escape on the beaches.”

  “How many are there in all?”

  “About ninety, counting thirty-six in the canoes.”

  “It is bad odds for our people. But I have a very powerful weapon which will kill many. I shall be busy!”

  “Kimra told you about the children?”

  “Yes. That is why I’m here.” I tell him my plan. Falca sighs.

  “That is a great relief. Last night… they killed another. It was all we could do not to rush ashore and assail them. Stranger, you are a good man. Kimra and I were going to try alone, but we had no place to send them. The mutilated men cannot guide.”

  “Manya here will take care of that. Meanwhile, you and Kimra are no longer needed here. You might as well start swimming home. But be wary that those canoes do not overtake you in the water.”

  “Good. I go. The children are in that large hut with two entrances, and so are the other captives. They are tied with ropes.”

  “I can take care of that.” I show him my shark knife. “Fair travel, friend.” He nods, and without more ado he and Kimra take off in long, flat dives.

  And then we wait. It becomes clear that the goldskins’ start will not be made till next morning; they are preparing for a feast. I make the mistake of giving my binoculars to Manya, and he sees the fresh-killed body of a child hung up by the fire. He chokes with fury, then weeps quietly. I take the glasses and try to soothe him as best as I can.

  “Oh, if only I had those long-range weapons you told us about! No—I would go to them, I will kill them with my bare hands. I would kill! I will kill!… We will return in time, won’t we?”

  “Yes, but you won’t be with me, Manya. You will be leading the children and the mutilated men to safety on that island.”

  He heaves a sigh. “Yes, I forgot. But if there is a goldskin left ashore, I will kill him with my bare hands.”

  “Don’t be rash, Manya. Those men are practiced fighters. One of them could destroy you. I will attend to the killing.”

  “Then I will kill their children!”

  He seems to hear himself then, and looks shocked. But he continues in a grim voice, “Their children will grow into such as they. They have devoured our babies. Yes, I will kill them.”

  I, too, am shocked. What have I created? Or no, it was not me, but the circumstances, the irruption of the goldskins. The sight of one’s children being butchered like animals is not to be reacted to in a civilized way. He is not to be blamed.

  But what about me? I contemplate cold-blooded genocide. No, not cold-blooded; these Mnerrin are in a sense my children. My ideal of Human life… Grimly, I realize that I have fallen into every psychic trap that spacers are warned of. I love these people.

  So be it. When I return, I will pull every lever, press every button known to me to obtain official intervention, to save this planet for the Mnerrin. It’s just possible, especially if one or two of my friends are still in their offices…

  Twilight has come. We eat and settle for the night, thinking our different thoughts. This is, in fact, one of the few times I have had pause from my duties to reflect. Manya’s slight form beside me in the boat reminds me of Kamir. What of her? What of my babies, if incredibly they are born whole and viable? Can I stay here with them? Could I endure this tranquil life, as a non-sea animal? I don’t know….

  In any event, the need to get off-planet and do somet
hing for the Mnerrin will dominate my life for a while. After that, we’ll see.

  The fact is that my conviction that our mating would be infertile has been so strong that I still do not believe I am about to father little half-aliens, if all goes well. I have never fathered others. What is this recurrent question, How will you feed them. How are they fed, without mother’s milk, by non-mammals? I had vaguely supposed that they would eat fish, like the adults. Evidently there is something that I, helped by Agna and Donnia, am going to have to do. And Kamir—I shudder away from the mounting evidence that somehow this birthing will mean her death. Surely those were older women, there in the village. Not my bright, vital little mermaiden! No… no… These concerns are for after the coming battle…

  Finally I sleep, and the balmy night goes by.

  We rouse to dawnlight, at once aware that the camp is in motion. I check the glasses. Yes, goldskins are loading the canoes, preparing to cast off. We had better conceal ourselves.

  We paddle in among some rocks that have tumbled to the sea, forming one arm of the bay shore. There we eat and watch.

  This settlement is similar to the one I know in that it is in a delta around an estuary. Evidently these marshy places are proper sites for birthing and rearing the newborn. And there must be a limited number of them. By driving the Mnerrin from them, the goldskins could make it impossible for the Mnerrin to breed. Idly, I wonder why the deltas are so favorable. Perhaps tiny babies are taught to swim in the little streamlets, before their gills are strong enough for the open sea? And I am still not clear as to what role fresh water versus salt plays in their lives. Really, it is shameful how I have simply lived, without collecting any respectable body of data!

  At this moment Manya nudges me, and we hear the chunk, chunk sound of paddles. A long low dark canoe, gaudily bedizened, comes in sight. Six paddlers to a side. We crouch low.

  It passes by, about fifty meters away, followed by another, and another. And then no more. Cautiously, we nose out of the rocks to where we can see the camp.

  It is so still that we can hear voices. After we have waited about two hours, we hear a different sound, a kind of chanting. It takes on a marching tempo. And then we see a band of about fifty men tramping up out of the swampland, chanting and blowing on pipes. They gain solid ground and set off down the coast. My heart has sunk—fifty and thirty-six, more than two to one against the Mnerrin. My laser will have to do good work.

  But now we have other work in hand.

  We still avoid starting the motor, but paddle in to their beach. We beach the dingy and start at a crouching run toward the big hut Falca had pointed out. Women must be all about us in the camp, but we see none—until suddenly we come on a party of them right outside the hut. They have knives in their hands.

  I notice only that they are brightly gilt, their hides like goldfish, and could be called handsome if your taste runs to eighty-kilo bodies.

  Manya behind me is making an extraordinary noise through his clenched teeth.

  I make a sweeping pass with the laser, and they go down like tenpins without making a sound, their throats burned through. Behind them the door to the hut is ajar. Had they been going in to murder another child?

  Mind-cries are coming from the hut. I send strongly, “Friends come!” and Manya joins me. We step over the golden corpses and go in to a pitiful sight.

  The hut is full of rails and posts, and everywhere are tied children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers. Some grown men, shaved bald, are tied up at one end. The hut stinks.

  “Cut them loose, quickly.” I have brought a spare knife for Manya.

  “Hungry, hungry,” comes the mind-cry, especially from the smaller ones, as we free them.

  “You will have food soon,” we send. But how? I shudder to think what meat we will find beside the cookfires. Still, surely they have already fed on it. And would their dead friends object to giving their flesh to save the living?

  A spear clatters in at the other door, a woman dives back.

  “You finish freeing them, I’ll attend to the village,” I tell Manya. “Can you guard the outer door?” I ask a bald man, who is rubbing his limbs.

  “Yes.”

  I go out and start through the village like a dervish, burning everything that moves. From one hut I am greeted by a spear. Inside, a man obviously sick or wounded is clinging to the center post. Beyond him crouch two women and children. Mercy is not in me that day; when I leave the hut, nothing lives behind me.

  At intervals I check back to the big hut, where Manya is leading the children out. They stare at the goldskin corpses. The mutilated men look nervously about. Their heads are covered with pink fuzz.

  I have found a pot of meat stew simmering at a hearth, and basket bowls. I put it before the kids without looking too closely.

  “Can you catch reef-fish, after what they have done to you?” I ask the men.

  “Oh, yes, if we can find our nets.”

  As luck would have it, a pile of their filmy nets, loincloths, and other belongings has been thrown beside another hut.

  “Good. Now, when you have eaten enough, you and the children will follow Manya here to an island—I think you know it—beside the path of the Long Swim. The people from my settlement will pick you up as they go by.”

  “They haven’t left yet?”

  “No.” And then I have to respond to the overwhelming mind-question coming at me from everyone, even as they begin to gulp food: “Who are you?”

  “A friend from the skies, Tom Jared. I have been living with your people since I met a girl named Kamir and mated with her. Now, these goldskins are going to attack our village. I must return quickly and help them fight. I can carry only one. Is there a man here who can strike and kill? Kill goldskins? Our people need defenders.” I send an image of a goldskin leaping at a Mnerrin.

  To my surprise, amid the blank looks I had expected from most of the men, a younger one steps smartly forward. “I think I can do what you call fight, O friend from the skies. I have thought much during our captivity. Now I can kill. But I need things to strike with. Here!”

  He bends down to the row of corpses and takes a strong-looking knife from a dead woman’s hand.

  “And now a long one—”

  “We call those spears. Maybe we will find some in this big hut.”

  And indeed we find a cache of spears. But they are mostly slim, decorated things for rituals and dancing. Again to my surprise, my new recruit sorts out some that are sturdy and useful. This lad is an untypical mutation, in theory, maybe, a dangerous one. Right now I wish I had a hundred of him.

  “Good. Now we go. I have fish in the boat, you can eat on the way. And you others had best be on your way with Manya, lest some gold-skins catch you again.”

  I bid good-bye to them as they eagerly follow Manya to the water’s edge. The men have found some rope, and start tying the smaller children on towlines to their belts. Always this care for the young! I cut short their curiosity about my boat.

  “Later. No time, now.”

  The warlike lad’s name is Sintana. His eyes shine as I direct him to help me tow the dinghy to deep water and hop in. When I start the motor and start skimming along the reef, he is visibly ecstatic.

  “Now, I don’t know whether we will overtake the canoes before they reach my village or not. So we must proceed with care whenever we cannot see a long way ahead. I want you to watch and listen with all your power for those canoes. I will have much watching to do to avoid hitting coral heads this close to shore. If you see or suspect a canoe, raise your arm like this and be ready for a quick stop, right? If you are sure that all is clear ahead, go like this.”

  Enthusiastic assent from Sintana. I gun up the motor to full speed, and we rip along at top speed toward my village. I want to keep close to the reef to avoid being sighted by the canoes ahead, but the danger from isolated coral rocks strings my nerves tight. Luckily, there is enough wave action to show where most of them lie. Avoiding
one at the last minute, I nearly spill us. Sintana looks round questioningly, and after that I see him hang on.

  He is radiating pleasurable excitement like a child, but looking him over, I see he has plenty of muscle to go with his combative spirit. A gods-sent ally.

  It’s getting dark. Each time as we round a shallow point, Sintana waves me on. Those canoes have really covered ground. I’m not afraid of their hearing my motor over their paddling splash—and even if they did, they would not know what it was. But where are they?

  We approach the last point before our bay. Suddenly Sintana’s hand goes up and we jolt to a stop.

  “I think I hear minds from around the point. Maybe quite close.”

  “They could be holed up, waiting for the men on land to arrive. No more talking now.”

  At lowest speed we nose around the point. Presently we can see most of the bay, but no canoes.

  “They’re hiding right on the other side of these rocks,” Sintana whispers. I listen, and fancy I can catch a crude mind-murmur.

  “Can you paddle quietly?”

  “I think so.”

  “Fine. Let’s try to get a look.”

  We paddle the dinghy silently forward, about an arm’s length from the rocks. Sintana’s hand shoots up and I stop. Eyes glowing with excitement, he whispers, “I can see the bows of two canoes, in a cove in the rocks. I don’t know where the third is.”

  “Sintana, get down low in the boat. I am going around fast and fire my weapon at them. But we will be within spear-throw. Make sure they do not hit you. And do not throw your spear, you will need it later,” I add, knowing what the excitement could do to such a boy.

  “And your part is to keep watch for that third canoe. Got it?”

  “Yes.” He is reluctantly crouching down.

  “Get farther down. The air will be full of spears, and I must fire over you. Can you stay down?”