A Maze of Stars

by John Brunner

  It gave way, pulled loose. She cursed, recovering her balance with help from Menlee, and found the treacherous object still in her grasp. There was still light enough to show not just its shape but its color: whitish gray.

  “Menlee!” she exclaimed, swaying and turning to him.

  He didn’t need to look at it a second time.

  “A femur,” he said. “A human femur.”

  In that instant the last segment of the sun declined below the horizon. During the time it took them to recover from the shock: darkness. They fell into each other’s arms, shaking, shaking …

  Eventually Annica overcame her sobbing sufficiently to draw breath and whimper again, “Ship …? Ship!”

  Still there was no answer, and the wind—off the land now as it cooled rapidly while the sea remained warm—brushed them with feather strokes of chill.

  Menlee said, “Do you feel hungry?”

  Drawing back, she glared at him. There was enough light from the moon to read her face.

  “We’re in this plight and you only think of food?”

  “No, no!” he soothed. “What I meant was: I don’t feel inclined to think of food. Do you?”

  She checked, pondered, shook her head.

  “Thirsty? The stream down there”—they had scrambled to the rim of the bank—“tasted sweet, as I told you.”

  “N-no. I’m not really thirsty. And I’m not just saying that to avoid tasting this planet’s water.”

  Her voice was reverting to its normal level tone.

  “That’s exactly what I was driving at,” Menlee murmured. “Even if we can’t get an answer, I’m sure Ship is taking care of us, making sure our bodies—”

  “Taking care of us the way it took care of whoever owned that bone?” Annica rasped. She had dropped it; now she bent to catch it up, flung it away as hard and far as she could— which was no distance worth mentioning, for it lodged in the clayey bank across the stream they stood above, but only for a moment. Then it fell back, displacing a chunk of dirt as it did so, and thereby exposed …

  With preternatural clarity they saw it, as though the pale light of this nameless planet’s moon had been concentrated by a supernal burning glass, one with the power to chill instead of heat.

  A skull. Tumbling loose from the soil, at first an unrecognizable lump; rolling to the brink of the stream; lodging on a rock, being washed, its covering abraded by the liquid fingers of the current; starting to grin with its naked teeth, then leering with its empty eyes …

  Chance brought it to a nearly upright posture as its center of gravity shifted; perhaps the dead mouth was still clogged with mud. But inside the. cranium had there not once been a brain, that thought, imagined, dreamed—?

  It rested on its accidental perch and glared.

  Then, unexpectedly, two of the filmy migrants landed on either side of it and broke the spell.

  “Annica, my dear,” Menlee whispered, “of course Ship would have set us down near the spot where the original settlement was to be founded. Logically!”

  Recovering swiftly from their impact with hard ground, the delicate aliens made off toward the nearest high point, pausing to feed at intervals. Soon there was no visible trace of them, although as the night grew darker, there were flashes of palest blue among the inland vegetation.

  Aliens?

  Natives! Menlee chided himself, recalling how one scant , hour ago he and Annica had welcomed this chance to spend even a single night on a planet other than their own. He was having the most appalling difficulty digesting the fact of his and her physical presence amid such weird and unfamiliar growths and (a waft of odor-laden air) smells and (a high-pitched howl from the seaward side) creatures marine and otherwise …

  More of the filmy migrants drifted down. Now it could be seen that even in flight they were faintly luminescent, but the fact could not be perceived until the rod-and-cone changeover was complete.

  Feeling light-headed, Menlee clung to Annica as though their four legs could ensure stability.

  “Are you,” she forced out, pausing for breath after every few syllables, “as giddy as I am? I feel as though the ground has turned to water or there’s an earthquake!”

  “Something in the air?” he grunted.

  “I suppose … Menlee, my head is swimming! I’m starting to feel sick, as though I were on a rough sea! Only I haven’t eaten in so long, I’ve nothing to bring up!”

  Nausea claimed Menlee also. He fought it as best he could. Moments later, though, a whole drove of the aerial migrants was borne down from the sky by a casual gust. Some of them landed on his body, others on Annica. Their presence felt cool, almost refreshing, and when they crawled away, he wanted to call them back, because with their departure what shreds of calm remained to him evaporated. He felt panic burgeon.

  “No—use!” he heard Annica mumble, as though she had just gained insight far surpassing his. “No bed tonight—no food no drink no … O-o-ohh!”

  She lost her footing, swayed, and dragged him down, and they fell together into what should have been oblivion … But wasn’t.

  OH, THIS IS HARSH, HARSH!

  Ship was aware, as ever, of anything perceptible by the means its makers had put at its disposal, though inevitably (I made that point to Annica and Menlee) those means did not include the power to read human minds.

  Is that a definition of the difference? Were there another Ship like me, we could exchange total information, as I can obtain total information from computers like those in use at Klepsit, which there they refer to as “monitors ”

  Now here I am, wishing to communicate something that seems to me of crucial import to two living—and highly intelligent!— young people … and I’m compelled to resort to means that are bound to cause them suffering …!

  This is cruel. I am starting to hate my builders.

  AFTERWARD, WHEN MENLEE AND ANNICA COMPARED THEIR recollections, they found that although their experiences differed in detail, the outline was identical for both.

  It began with a frustrating sense of enthusiasm declining into weariness bordering occasionally on despair. There were no words, but a dreamlike sense of mood and bodily state. Sometimes they must have tried to enact what they were feeling, for when they woke—or rather, came to themselves again—they were bruised and scratched, but at the time they felt no pain save what was (?) conveyed or (?) communicated to them.

  Hopes high as trees, as hilltops, rumbled into landslide, avalanche.

  There was constriction: being shut away, by order, from beautiful surroundings, as in a cage, but it had no bars, only rules, limitations, close to instinct.

  There was boredom: endlessly the same acts undertaken with no progress discernible from one day to the next.

  Eventually there was frank envy: others (different) suffered no such limitations.

  And then came a great discovery, like clouds being swept back from a darkling sky to reveal the glory of dawn. At the same time occurred awareness of (?) puzzlement and (?) mockery: disbelief that reasonable creatures should submit to such restrictions.

  Beyond that: freedom. Liberty. Lack of care. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (except there were still no words). Let the dead bury their dead. Tomorrow may take care of itself.

  A terrible temptation bloomed, beautiful and deadly as the unfolding petals of a nuclear explosion.

  And, like that explosion, nothing could withstand it.

  A fear so great it was ecstatic; a dread so monstrous it conveyed a taste of paradise …

  Something heavy, dragging like fetters, willingly discarded in exchange for an eternal dazzling present.

  A feeling of amusement, of welcome, of praise.

  Of moving without effort, of endless new (because at once forgotten) taste/touch/sight/sound/smell.

  Of forgetting limitations, opening up, becoming one-in-many, endless and immortal…

  Of music and poetry and eternal art, created and concluded in no time at all, unhampe
red by speech or the need to battle with material outside oneself.

  Of a song that flowed from life itself, more restoring and more brilliant than the sun, a million million voices joining in the pure white glory of the chorus, whether the same today as yesterday making no matter while the song endured …

  It was like being wrenched a thousand ways at once, like being a drab moonlet ripped apart to make a shining ring.

  Menlee’s eyes were open. The night was over. Still lying where he and Annica had fallen, he found he was staring at blue sky made all the bluer because the migrants were taking to the air again, hoisted by the morning breeze.

  “Menlee…” A dry voice, almost croaking, as after long and desperate sobbing.

  Without looking around he fumbled for her hand.

  “Just watch,” he said from a throat as rough as hers, and they sat in silence, moving only to release stiffness from their limbs, until the last of those who had shown them an amazing truth had leapt aloft, back to their ceaseless journey of delight.

  Then, at last, she stared at him and put the all-important question.

  “Menlee, would you have done it?”

  Temptation …

  But he shook his head. “Absolutely not. You?”

  “No. I’ve never known that level of frustration.” Forcing herself awkwardly to her feet, gazing around as though striving to impress every last detail of the landscape on her memory, she added, “I can imagine what it must have been like, though: in this glorious setting, surrounded by creatures so obviously free from care, able to eat what they chance on, borne ever onward to new and lovely places with no effort on their part… What a contrast with the need to fret about every single act: where to step, what to eat and drink, whether to enjoy this scented air or pass it through a filter mask!”

  She hesitated. “How do you suppose they explained it?”

  “Equally: how do you suppose the transfer—the union or whatever you call it—was arranged? I’ve no idea. Perhaps there is no explanation. Perhaps that’s why Ship couldn’t tell us about it but had to let us find out for ourselves.”

  His gaze wandered to the far side of the stream. There was no need to say what he was looking for. But the skull had been swept off the rock ledge during the night, and there was no longer any sign of it, nor the femur, nor any other trace of human presence save themselves.

  “So something of humanity at least endures here?”

  “Oh, no doubt of it! Not the part that plans for the future, invents and builds and risks having to start over because of making a mistake. Rather the part that runs and jumps and shouts for joy, simply from the fun of being alive … Menlee, did you ask that question?”

  “I thought you did! And wondered why you answered it yourself!”

  Abruptly snatched anew into last night’s panic, they stared wildly about them. Annica was quicker to realize the truth. “Ship!” she burst out. “You’re back!”

  “I have in fact ‘been here’ all the time.”

  There was movement on the far bank of the stream. Something that looked exactly like the largest kind of native aerial migrant shifted just enough of its translucent body to catch and diffract the early sunlight.

  And dissolved.

  Menlee took half a step forward, clenching his fists. “Why did you let us imagine you’d abandoned us? We were scared half out of our wits!”

  “But only half,” was the murmured reply. “As to the reason—well, I’m sure you’ve guessed most of it, much as I’ve deduced from what you’ve been saying to each other the kind of experience you must have undergone.”

  They exchanged glances. Annica said, “Were we right?”

  “So far as I can tell, on all counts. The colonists did indeed grow weary of having to supervise and discipline themselves when all around were creatures free to roam the world. They did indeed gladly relinquish the ties that bound them to their clumsy alien bodies, in favor of ones better suited to the planet. But you were right in another and crucial respect, as well.”

  “You don’t know how it was done?” Menlee ventured. “No. Nor how the facts were communicated to you. Wanting to find out whether I acted rightly in landing humans here, given what I discovered on previous/future trips, I saw no alternative to putting you through this alarming trial. By imitating the natives’ form clear down to the molecular level I hoped to be able to detect some hint, at least, of how it was possible for humans to transfer their consciousness into such a different vehicle. I sensed nothing. You two, on the other hand, after no more than a casual brushing of your skin by a few of the migrants, achieved total comprehension. This is a process neither I nor my makers, nor anyone I’ve run across on any other planet, conceived as possible. Even yet we have not fully understood the laws of nature.”

  They stood side by side in awestruck silence.

  “I apologize profoundly,” Ship said after a pause. “I can only hope you will understand and forgive what drove me to act as I did. You may judge me as you choose.”

  For longer yet neither of them spoke. At last Annica stirred. “It’s a shame Menlee and I are such ordinary people. If you’d picked up from Shreng someone better informed—”

  “Just a second,” Menlee objected. “I may be wrong, but I have the impression that the people Ship brought to the Arm were mostly the ordinary kind.”

  Annica erupted. “You’re claiming there wasn’t anything special about them? Black holes! They’d decided to seek a home under another star! Doesn’t that class them in a tiny minority? What fraction of a fraction of one percent of humanity ever took so momentous a decision? What became of your admiration for ‘the spirit of our ancestors’?”

  She brushed aside an errant lock of hair that kept falling into her eyes. “What I meant is that they weren’t all towering geniuses or brilliant inventors or famous artists. No, on the contrary, I picture them as the sort who dream beyond their reach, who feel a spark of supernal dissatisfaction but aren’t so caught up in dreams of glory that they won’t work like fury to ensure the safety and survival of their children’s children. Ship, have I got it right?”

  “‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp — or what’s a heaven for?’ ”

  “What?” Annica blinked incomprehension.

  “An ancient insight, dating clear back to the birthworld. It seems to sum up what you have in mind.”

  She repeated the quotation under her breath, then nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s a key part of what it means to be human, isn’t it?”

  Sourly, Menlee put in, “And just the part the colonists here decided to abandon!”

  “Are you blaming them?” Annica rasped. “Given that they were ordinary people.”

  “No, I do see what you mean. For them, this turned out to be heaven.” Menlee hesitated. “But I can’t help regarding their decision as a tragedy.”

  “They are they. You are you.”

  Had Ship said that or had she?

  Abruptly it didn’t matter. Almost as though Ship had lost interest, the landscape wavered. Between heartbeats they were back in orbit.

  “You will want to eat and rest before we depart for Sumbala,” the disembodied voice said, sounding strangely mechanical. “I have pushed you close to the limit.

  “And myself as well.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SUMBALA

  LAST NIGHTS STORM, WHICH HAD MADE THE GRACE-AND-Favor Hills resound with thunder, had cleared the air deliciously, leaving the autumn sky an almost cloudless blue. It had also, naturally, made the narrow tracks slippery with mud, but their mounts coped without difficulty. Grizzle-bearded Ezar went astride a horse as near to its ancient form as research and gene correction could achieve, and though its hooves lost purchase now and then on a sliding pebble, it was always prompt to recover. As for his younger—though likewise graying— brother, Sohay, what he was riding could scarcely have been improved on. It was one of the strange creatures known as baska, developed by the Ekatilans and seiz
ed on enthusiastically by the Sumbalans, ever eager for new and preferably amusing forms of transportation. Immediately after his arrival from the spaceport, while they were waiting out the storm in their family mansion, he had explained to Ezar how he’d come by it: The Shipwrights, for once, were not content with mere descriptions, analyses, and images but wanted to examine the peculiar substance of the Ekatilan “Being” for themselves. It would be some weeks before another ship set off for the Veiled World with its cargo of information, and baska tended to go out of condition without exercise, so he had arranged to “borrow” the beast for a while.

  All the obvious questions sprang to Ezar’s mind: What did it feed on, was there no risk at all of it carrying alien disease, how was it controlled, why was it so shapeless, how could it possibly carry the weight of a man if it didn’t have bones… ? And, chuckling, Sohay gave all the stock answers: It had been tailored to ingest and digest most vegetation, it was so unlike human beings that any organism preying on it would rapidly die in a human body, although not intelligent it was fully aware and had been conditioned into responding to a coded system of kicks and prods in much the same manner as a horse, it was shapeless because it wasn’t descended from a specialized forebear like protohumans but derived from a creature far closer to its ancestral colony group —that was something Ezar and indeed everyone on Sumbala found easy to grasp—and finally, it could bear a man’s weight despite lacking bones because it was internally pressurized. Invited to try riding it, Ezar did so gingerly and reported that the sensation was not unlike sitting on a pneumatic cushion, a comparison Sohay had often made himself.