"What about them?" she asked, indicating the bodies on the floor. "I think they're all unconscious."
Malina turned again to the empty viewing screen. "I suppose we wouldn't have stood much of a chance if the kloatraz had blown up in the cargo hold."
"You wouldn't have survived long enough to die in the explosion," Darzek said. "The Udef was here. In no more than another minute or two, everyone aboard would have been dead. Two things saved you. You ejected the kloatraz, and the Udef, or most of it, went along. And the captain, who was asleep when the Udef struck, managed to stagger in here and hit the transmitting button, which we keep permanently set for a short escape leap when we're in Udef territory. He must have done that seconds after you ejected the kloatraz."
"So only the kloatraz died," Malina said. "And that was entirely unnecessary. "
"What do you mean?"
"If you hadn't been in such a rush to leave Montura, the kloatraz could have designed your instruments there - all of them - and maybe solved this Udef riddle. But you had to uproot it and bring it all this distance in an artificial environment that was about to kill it anyway, just so it could die spectacularly fighting the Udef. It wasn't even a fight in a good cause. It was just a stupid loss because no one took the time to sit down and think."
She turned and stepped through the transmitter to the cargo control room. There, seeing Arluklo still sitting against the wall with the empty cargo hold behind, she wept.
23
When Malina could stand its presence no longer, she picked up Arluklo's body - strangely light under the ship's low gravity - and carried it through the transmitter to the control room. One of the captain's assistants showed her the compartment where the other kloa had been placed for storage and helped her to arrange Arluklo's inert form among them. With a nod of benediction, Malina left him.
"Is there any chance of reviving them?" she asked the assistant.
He did not know. Their instrumentation was bewilderingly complex, and though the scientists thought that much could be learned from it, at the moment they were preoccupied with other things. Some of them feared that the kloa could be activated only by a telepathic power such as the kloatraz possessed.
Malina asked about Gul Darr. He was in conference again, this time on this ship. If Gula Darr wished to join him -
Darzek, the captain, and at least a hundred scientists had gathered in one of the ship's smaller cargo holds. The variegated life forms sat, or reposed, or lounged, or sprawled while keeping their organs of vision fixed on a screen that had been installed in a far corner.
Lines moved across the screen. Some were almost straight, with only a slight quaver, and others meandered wildly. When finally the tape or recording came to an end, most of the lines stopped abruptly. At the bottom of the screen, several drooped and dribbled slowly into nothingness. The screen went blank.
"Let's have it again," Darzek called.
After a brief interval, the lines again began their parade across the screen. Darzek came over to the entrance and stood beside Malina.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Records charted by those instruments the kloatraz designed for us. They measure quantities and qualities we weren't able to measure before. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to figure out what it is that the quantities and qualities are of, except that it's the Udef. This is a synchronization of the readings taken at various times and locations. All of them are quite similar except the one at the bottom, which is the record of the Udef's encounter with the kloatraz."
Malina studied the parade of meaningless lines for a moment.
"Then you have two questions - what are the instruments measuring, and what is the significance of the differences?"
"Right. There are five different instruments, supposedly recording five drastically different things. So each group of five lines represents one encounter with the Udef."
Compared with the others, the five lines at the bottom were wildly eccentric, and these were the ones that slowly drooped and dribbled away when the others cut off sharply.
"Again!" Darzek called. He said quietly to Malina, "I'm waiting for some inspired individual to invent a theory."
She smiled. "To see if it matches the one you already have?" He made no comment.
"Has there been any sign of the Udef since its encounter with the kloatraz?" Malina asked.
Darzek shook his head. "It may have limped off to lick its wounds. Or it may have taken one of its enormous leaps. There's no way of knowing or even guessing which way or how far. All we can do is scatter the fleet and search."
"I suppose you won't know whether you've made any progress until you find out what the kloatraz's instruments are measuring."
"We know that they're measuring the Udef, and that's phenomenal progress. They let us know when the Udef is nearby. We've only lost one crew since we distributed them, and that because the captain forgot to turn them on. Of course we almost lost this crew, but that was a comparable goof. The instruments were turned on, but no one was watching them. A ship had never been attacked in deep space before, and everyone thought there was no danger."
Malina pointed at the screen. "What's your theory?"
"That the Udef and the kloatraz destroyed each other. In all the other encounters, the graphs terminate abruptly. The Udef finished its work and went - zip - somewhere else. But in this last encounter, the graphs slowly drop to zero. The Udef didn't go anywhere. It died."
"But your scientists don't see it that way?"
"I hire them to tell me their theories, not to listen to mine."
Malina excused herself - there really was nothing there for her to do - and returned to the cargo control room. It was time she thought about getting back to Montura, and picking up her children, and going home. She couldn't claim to have earned her million dollars, because the only task she had found for herself had proved to be vastly beyond her ability, but she had done her best in a difficult situation, and she could retire with conscience unblighted, beaten but not dishonored.
"Like the kloatraz," she thought soberly.
She glanced at the comer where Arluklo so frequently had sat leaning against the curving side of the ship when he was not needed. She turned away sadly.
Then she looked again and stared.
On the floor lay a tiny, creamy white object.
She stooped to pick it up and snatched away a seared finger. After treating the bum, she tried again, with forceps, and placed the object in a cotton-filled box from her medical supplies.
Then she studied it. It looked like a small bead, badly chipped or broken on one side. Gazing at it intently, she almost thought she could see lights flashing within it.
She stepped to the intercom. "Please tell Gul Darr that Doctor Darr would like to see him at once in the cargo control room."
He stepped through the transmitter a moment later. "What is it?" She held the box under his nose. When he reached out for it, she pulled it away and said, "Just look. Don't touch. I burned myself trying to pick it up."
"Where'd you find it?"
"On the floor." She pointed a toe at the spot. "It must have holed the hull," Darzek said. "I beg your pardon?"
"That was quite an explosion, and this piece had enough velocity to come through the side of the ship. It happens occasionally with small meteoroids, which is why the ship has a self-sealing hull. I hadn't realized that the bodily substance of the kloatraz was that hard. Have you finished with it?"
"What do you want it for?"
"I'll have the scientists do a proper analysis of it."
She pulled the box away from him protectingly. "No. That would destroy it. I have a better use for it."
"What?"
"I'm going to plant it."
He backed over to the one hassock remaining in the room and sat down. "Tell me more."
"Back on Montura," she said, "a silly idea occurred to me. Since Supreme is a computer, and the
kloatraz was - we thought - a computer, I wondered if Supreme had sent a mission to Montura just so it could get in touch with the kloatraz. I wondered if we were unknowingly carrying love messages from one computer to another." Darzek made no comment. His eyes were fixed on her face; his manner was alertly, intensely curious.
"So perhaps this is merely another silly idea," she went on, "but it occurs to me that opposites attract."
He scowled. "Every white will have its black, and every sweet its sour. Perhaps. Though when humans remark that opposites attract, the opposites referred to usually have more in common than in opposition."
"In many species, the two sexes are drastically opposite."
Darzek's scowl became fierce. "Then - this fragment that holed the ship is a seed? Or an egg?"
She nodded. "If you don't mind an oversimplification. More likely it's a fragment of a creature that reproduces by multiple fission or combines reproduction and regeneration or something like that. We shouldn't be discussing the reproductive system of an alien in human terms."
"You're absolutely right. Go ahead and discuss it in nonhuman terms."
"I can be just as reckless with a theory as you can," she said sharply. "Say a fragment similar to this one came drifting through space and reached the world of Montura - and grew there."
"Having somehow survived its collision with the atmosphere." "What's impossible about that?" Malina demanded. "The kloatraz underwent tremendous heat but it didn't burn up. It exploded."· Darzek shrugged. "It reached the world of Montura - "
"Yes. Relatively few such fragments would ever reach hospitable worlds on which growth would be possible. The one on Montura had the additional incredible good luck to find a telepathic life form it could communicate with and which could be of service to it in many ways. Its history may be unique. It was able to develop its mental powers fully. It came to the same end, though, as if it had grown up as an unthinking vegetable. It reached sexual maturity and went to seed."
Darzek said slowly, "Then the spots you were trying to cure could have been an indication of sexual maturity? And when it came into estrus, it sent out a signal?" ,
"If you don't mind a terrestrial illustration, the female Luna moth releases a scent that attracts males from kilometers away. There probably are better examples."
"Then we'll say the kloatraz sends out some kind of emanation when it reaches sexual maturity: a scent, a radio signal - "
"Not a very precise signal," Malina said. "But it serves."
"I'd say highly precise, considering the size of the universe. The Udef was attracted to the correct galactic system and only missed its objective by one galaxy. Then your theory is that this fragment is the offspring of a violent sexual union, and that given proper opportunity it'll grow into another kloatraz. That's certainly an original theory."
"I'm also wondering if the Udef exploded the same way the kloatraz did and scattered its fragments."
"The female gives birth to females and the male to males?"
"You're still viewing the reproductive system of an alien in human terms. Why shouldn't each partner give birth to offspring of its own sex? That's much more logical than our untidy system."
"Let it not be said that I raise my voice against logic," Darzek murmured. "Then those oscillating lines on the graphs represent the climax of a sexual union, after which the partners subsided and then vanished by giving birth. It's a good theory. It's even a lovely theory. I'm going to break a personal rule and pass it along to the scientists. It'll make them flip, which will be healthy for them. They'll start worrying about those millions or billions of kloatraz and Udef fragments floating about the universe. They'll wonder whether on some obscure world in one of our three galaxies, another kloatraz is about to reach maturity and start signaling. Sobering thought: did the kloatraz stop designing instruments for us because it realized that we were trying to destroy its intended husband?"
"Here's a more sobering thought," Malina said. "Was the kloatraz helping us, or was it using us for transportation?"
"I don't think it was consciously using us. I doubt that either kloatraz or Udef had a conscious awareness of the other's existence, and I'm certain that such a marriage has never taken place in space before. Normally it would happen on the ground, where the kloatraz was growing, and perhaps the explosion serves to throw the particles into space. That's another theory that'll make the scientists flip. They're already flipping over the explosion. It definitely wasn't atomic, but they've no notion what it was. Let's talk about the Udef."
"It was driven by its mating instinct," Malina said. "Since the kloatraz was an enormous brain, the Udef's instinct was to treat each brain it encountered as a potential mate. Or perhaps it attempted to treat an entire world population as a potential mate. Whatever the kloatraz was emanating must have approximated the emanations of a world of normal brains. When the Udef realized its error, it left the brains destroyed and continued the search."
"I vaguely recall a story out of India," Darzek said, "about a tiger in estrus that forced the closing of a major highway by attacking everything in sight."
Malina smiled. "Apparently nature operates everywhere to produce inconceivable differences and appalling similarities."
Darzek got to his feet. He had seen her finger indentations in the transparent wall, and he went to examine them. Then he stood looking into the empty hold and spoke meditatively. "Somewhere in the universe, there may be a galaxy, or a galactic system, or a group of systems, where Udef and kloatraz are the dominant life forms. No other intelligent life form could develop in a system where Udefs are numerous. One kloatraz seed or spore or fragment, from one of those remote unions, drifted an incredible distance across the universe and reached the world of Montura. And except for another unlikely accident it would have lived out its life there and perished unmated: it encountered a life form it could communicate with and make use of - and that led to the mart, and its own robots, and wealth, and the means to indulge itself with a regular application of its favorite fertilizers - with the result that it attained an immense size and in the process probably delayed its sexual maturity. When maturity came, its signal was powerful enough to attract a mate from an enormous distance."
"And now we have the danger that kloatrazes and Udefs may become numerous in this galactic system," Malina said.
"And we - perhaps - have a defensive weapon in the instruments: the kloatraz designed." Darzek reached out and took the box with the kloatraz fragment. "I'll see that this is planted and tended with care. But of course nothing may happen. There may be no substance to your mating theory."
"And even if there is, you'd still have the problem of finding a way to cope with the next Udef that happens along."
Darzek nodded. Again he gazed meditatively into the empty cargo hold. "And the universe certainly holds stranger mysteries and ghastlier horrors than kloatrazes and Udefs .... "
The intercom clicked. The captain spoke above the babble of excited voices. "A special emissary from Primores. Just arrived."
"Send him in," Darzek said. He turned back to Malina. "Where was I?"
"The mysteries of the universe."
"Yes. The next Udef may be something entirely different. Perhaps it's just as well that we don't know all the dangers the universe contains."
Rok Wllon stepped through the transmitter frame.
They greeted him warmly, but he was wasting no time on conversational clichés. He panted, "Supreme says - "
"Sit down," Darzek said, guiding him to the hassock. "Relax. You look as though you'd run the last three light-years."
Rok Wllon refused the hassock. "Supreme says - "
"Sit down," Darzek said firmly. "Take a deep breath. Doctor Darr has solved all of our riddles, and whatever Supreme says comes too late."
Rok Wllon seated himself reluctantly. "Supreme says the natives of Montura have an unusual computer that is alive. It might be capable of different patterns of thou
ght and able to devise a defense - "
"But we discovered that ourselves right after you left," Darzek said. "The computer that was alive was the kloatraz, which now is dead. You'll have to go back to Primores immediately to bring Supreme up-to-date. You also must tell Supreme that it goofed badly in recommending a dermatologist, and that the dermatologist it shouldn't have recommended has solved our problem."
Rok Wllon gazed from one to the other with a blankness so exquisitely expressive that both Malina and Darzek burst into laughter.
24
MALINA DARR
Montura Mart no longer seemed the same fantastic trade center, and Doctor Malina Darr felt substantially changed herself. Instead of a dermatologist bewilderedly in search of nonexistent patients, she now was an official emissary with impeccable credentials.
[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe Page 26
