The Day of Their Return df-4

by Poul Anderson

  “Ancients, Elders, Builders, High Ones, Old Shen, whatever we call them—and Jaan won’t give them separate name, he says that would be worse misleading than ‘Caruith’ already is—evolved billions of years ago, near galactic center where stars are older and closer together. We’re way out on thin fringe of spiral arm, you remember. At that time, there had not been many generations of stars, elements heavier than helium were rare, planets with possibility of life were few. Elders went into space and found it lonelier than we can dream, we who have more inhabited worlds around than anybody has counted. They turned inward, they deliberately forced themselves to keep on evolving mind, lifetime after lifetime, because they had no one else to talk to—How I wish I could send you record of Jaan explaining!

  “Something happened. He says he isn’t yet quite able to understand what. Split in race, in course of millions of years; not ideological difference as we think of ideology, but two different ways of perceiving, of evaluating reality, two different purposes to impose on universe. We dare not say one branch is good, one evil; we can only say they are irreconcilable. Call them Yang and Yin, but don’t try to say which is which.

  “In crudest possible language, our Elders see goal of life as consciousness, transcendence of everything material, unification of mind not only in this galaxy but throughout cosmos, so its final collapse won’t be end but will be beginning. While Others seek—mystic oneness with energy—supreme experience of Acceptance—No, I don’t suppose you can fairly call them death-oriented.

  “Jaan likes old Terran quotation I know, as describing Elders: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’ (Do you know it?) And for Others, what? Not ‘Kismet,’ really; that at least implies doing God’s will, and Others deny God altogether. Nor ‘nihilism,’ which I reckon implies desire for chaos, maybe as necessary for rebirth. What Others stand for is so alien that—Oh, I’ll write, knowing I’m wrong, that they believe rise, fall, and infinite extinction are our sole realities, and sole fulfillment that life can ultimately have is harmony with this curve.

  “In contrast, Jaan says life, if it follows Elder star, will at last create God, become God.

  “To that end, Elders have been watching new races arise on new planets, and helping them, guiding them, sometimes even bringing them into being like Didonians. They can’t watch always over everything; they haven’t over us. For Others have been at work too, and must be opposed.

  “It’s not war as we understand war; not on that level. On our level, it is.

  “Analogy again. You may be trying to arrive at some vital decision that will determine your entire future. You may be reasoning, you may be wrestling with your emotions, but it’s all in your mind; nobody else need see a thing.

  “Only it’s not all in your mind. Unhealthy body means unhealthy thinking. Therefore, down on cellular level, your white blood corpuscles and antigens are waging relentless, violent war on invaders. And its outcome will have much to do with what happens in your head—maybe everything. Do you see?

  “It’s like that. What intelligent life (I mean sophonts as we know them; Elders and Others are trans-intelligent) does is crucial. And one tiny bit of one galaxy, like ours, can be turning point. Effects multiply, you see. Just as it took few starfaring races to start many more on same course, irreversible change, so it could take few new races who go over to wholly new way of evolution for rest to do likewise eventually.

  “Will that level be of Elders or of Others? Will we break old walls and reach, however painfully, for what is infinite, or will we find most harmonious, beautiful, noble way to move toward experience of oblivion?

  “You see what I was getting at, that words like ‘positive’ and ‘negative,’ ‘active’ and ‘passive,’ ‘evolutionism’ and ‘nihilism,’ ‘good’ and ‘evil’ don’t mean anything in this context? Beings unimaginably far beyond us have two opposing ways of comprehending reality. Which are we to choose?

  “We have no escape from choosing. We can accept authority, limitations, instructions; we can compromise; we can live out our personal lives safely; and it’s victory for Others throughout space we know, because right now Homo sapiens does happen to be leading species in these parts. Or we can take our risks, strike for our freedom, and if we win it, look for Elders to return and raise us, like children of theirs, toward being more than what we have ever been before.

  “That’s what Jaan says. Tanya, darling, I just don’t know—”

  She lifted eyes from the page. It flamed in her: I do. Already.

  Nomi dwelt with her children in a two-room adobe at the bottom end of Grizzle Alley. Poverty flapped and racketed everywhere around them. It did not stink, for even the poorest Orcans were of cleanly habits and, while there was scant water to spare for washing, the air quickly parched out any malodors. Nor were there beggars; the Companions took in the desperately needy, and assigned them what work they were capable of doing. But ragged shapes crowded this quarter with turmoil: milling and yelling children, women overburdened with jugs and baskets, men plying their trades, day laborer, muledriver, carter, scavenger, artisan, butcher, tanner, priest, minstrel, vendor chanting or chaffering about his pitiful wares. Among battered brown walls, on tangled lanes of rutted iron-hard earth, Ivar felt more isolated than if he had been alone in the Dreary.

  The mother of the prophet put him almost at ease. They had met briefly. Today he asked for Jaan, and heard the latter was absent, and was invited to come in and wait over a cup of tea. He felt a trifle guilty, for he had in fact made sure beforehand that Jaan was out, walking and earnestly talking with his disciples, less teaching them than using them for a sounding board while he groped his own way toward comprehension and integration of his double personality.

  But I must learn more myself, before I make that terrible commitment he wants. And who can better give me some sense of what he really is, than this woman?

  She was alone, the youngsters being at work or in school. The inside of the hut was therefore quiet, once its door had closed off street noise. Sunlight slanted dusty through the glass of narrow windows; few Orcans could afford vitryl. The room was cool, shadowy, crowded but, in its neatness, not cluttered. Nomi’s loom filled one corner, a half-finished piece of cloth revealing a subtle pattern of subdued hues. Across from it was a set of primitive kitchen facilities. Shut-beds for her and her oldest son took most of the remaining space. In the middle of the room was a plank table surrounded by benches, whereat she seated her guest. Food on high shelves or hung from the rafters—a little preserved meat, more dried vegetables and hardtack—made the air fragrant. At the rear an open doorway showed a second room, occupied mostly by bunks.

  Nomi moved soft-footed across the clay floor, poured from the pot she had made ready, and sat down opposite Ivar in a rustle of skirts. She had been beautiful when young, and was still handsome in a haggard fashion. If anything, her gauntness enhanced a pair of wonderful gray eyes, such as Jaan had in heritage from her. The coarse blue garb, the hood which this patriarchal society laid over the heads of widows, on her were not demeaning; she had too much inner pride to need vanity.

  They had made small talk while she prepared the bitter Orcan tea. She knew who he was. Jaan said he kept no secrets from her, because she could keep any he asked from the world. Now Ivar apologized: “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, my lady.”

  She smiled. “A welcome interruption, Firstling.”

  “But, uh, you depend on it for your livin’. If you’d rather go on with it—”

  She chuckled. “Pray take not away from me this excuse for idleness.”

  “Oh. I see.” He hated to pry, it went against his entire training, and he knew he would not be good at it. But he had to start frank discussion somehow. “It’s only, well, it seemed to me you aren’t exactly rich. I mean, Jaan hasn’t been makin’ shoes since—what happened to him.”

  “No. He has won a higher purpose.” She seemed amused by the inadequacy of the phrase.

  “Uh,
he never asks for contributions, I’m told. Doesn’t that make things hard for you?”

  She shook her head. “His next two brothers have reached an age where they can work part time. It could be whole time, save that I will not have it; they must get what learning they can. And … Jaan’s followers help us. Few of them can afford any large donation, but a bit of food, a task done for us without charge, such gifts mount up.”

  Her lightness had vanished. She frowned at her cup and went on with some difficulty: “It was not quite simple for me to accept at first. Ever had we made our own way, as did Gileb’s parents and mine ere we were wedded. But what Jaan does is so vital that—Ay-ah, acceptance is a tiny sacrifice.”

  “You do believe in Caruith, then?”

  She lifted her gaze to his, and his dropped as she answered, “Shall I not believe my own good son and my husband’s?”

  “Oh, yes, certainly, my lady,” he floundered. “I beg your pardon if I seemed to—Look, I am outsider here, I’ve only known him few days and—Do you see? You have knowledge of him to guide you in decidin’ he’s not, well, victim of delusion. I don’t have that knowledge, not yet, anyway.”

  Nomi relented, reached across the table and patted his hand. “Indeed, Firstling. You do right to ask. I am gladdened that in you he has found the worthy comrade he needs.”

  Has he?

  Perhaps she read the struggle on his face, for she continued, low-voiced and looking beyond him:

  “Why should I wonder that you wonder? I did likewise. When he vanished for three dreadful days, and came home utterly changed—Yes, I thought a blood vessel must have burst in his brain, and wept for my kind, hard-working first-born boy, who had gotten so little from life.

  “Afterward I came to understand how he had been singled out as no man ever was before in all of space and time. But that wasn’t a joy, Firstling, as we humans know joy. His glory is as great and as cruel as the sun. Most likely he shall have to die. Only the other night, I dreamed he was Shoemaker Jaan again, married to a girl I used to think about for him, and they had laid their first baby in my arms. I woke laughing … ” Her fingers closed hard on the cup. “That cannot be, of course.”

  Ivar never knew if he would have been able to probe further. An interruption saved him: Robhar, the youngest disciple, knocking at the door.

  “I thought you might be here, sir,” the boy said breathlessly. Though the master had identified the newcomer only by a false name, his importance was obvious. “Caruith will come as soon as he can.” He thrust forward an envelope. “For you.”

  “Huh?” Ivar stared.

  “The mission to Nova Roma is back, sir,” Robhar said, nigh bursting with excitement. “It brought a letter for you. The messenger gave it to Caruith, but he told me to bring it straight to you.”

  To Heraz Hyronsson stood on the outside. Ivar ripped the envelope open. At the end of several pages came the bold signature Tanya. His own account to her had warned her how to address a reply.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled, and sat down to gulp it.

  Afterward he was very still for a while, his features locked. Then he made an excuse for leaving, promised to get in touch with Jaan soon, and hurried off. He had some tough thinking to do.

  XIX

  None but a few high-ranking officers among the Companions had been told who Ivar was. They addressed him as Heraz when in earshot of others. He showed himself as seldom as feasible, dining with Yakow in the Commander’s suite, sleeping in a room nearby which had been lent him, using rear halls, ramps, and doorways for his excursions. In that vast structure, more than half of it unpopulated, he was never conspicuous. The corps knew their chief was keeping someone special, but were too disciplined to gossip about it.

  Thus he and Yakow went almost unseen to the chamber used as a garage. Jaan was already present, in response to word from a runner. A guard saluted as the three men entered an aircar; and no doubt much went on in his head, but he would remain close-mouthed. The main door glided aside. Yakow’s old hands walked skillfully across the console. The car lifted, purred forth into the central enclosure, rose a vertical kilometer, and started leisurely southward.

  A wind had sprung up as day rolled toward evening. It whined around the hull, which shivered. The Sea of Orcus bore whitecaps on its steel-colored surface and flung waves against its shores; where spray struck and evaporated, salt was promptly hoar. The continental shelf glowed reddish from long rays filtered through a dust-veil which obscured the further desert; the top of that storm broke oft in thin clouds and streamed yellow across blueblack heaven.

  Yakow put controls on automatic, swiveled his seat around, and regarded the pair who sat aft of him. “Very well, we have the meeting place you wanted, Firstling,” he said. “Now will you tell us why?”

  Ivar felt as if knives and needles searched him. He flicked his glance toward Jaan’s mild countenance, remembered what lay beneath it, and recoiled to stare out the canopy at the waters which they were crossing. I’m supposed to cope with these two? he thought despairingly.

  Well, there’s nobody else for job. Nobody in whole wide universe. Against his loneliness, he hugged to him the thought that they might prove to be in truth his comrades in the cause of liberation.

  “I, I’m scared of possible spies, bugs,” he said.

  “Not in my part of the Arena,” Yakow snapped. “You know how often and thoroughly we check.”

  “But Terrans have resources of, of entire Empire to draw on. They could have stuff we don’t suspect. Like telepathy.” Ivar forced himself to turn back to Jaan. “You scan minds.”

  “Within limits,” the prophet cautioned. “I have explained.”

  Yes. He took me down into mountain’s heart and showed me machine—device—whatever it is that he says held record of Caruith. He wouldn’t let me touch anything, though I couldn’t really blame him, and inside I was just as glad for excuse not to. And there he sensed my thoughts. I tested him every way I could imagine, and he told me exactly what I was thinkin’, as well as some things I hadn’t quite known I was thinkin’. Yes.

  He probably wouldn’t’ve needed telepathy to see my sense of privacy outraged. He smiled and told me—

  “Fear not. I have only my human nervous system, and it isn’t among the half-talented ones which occur rarely in our species. By myself, I cannot resonate any better than you, Firstling.” Bleakly: “This is terrible for Caruith, like being deaf or blind; but he endures, that awareness may be helped to fill reality. And down here—” Glory: “Here his former vessel acts to amplify, to recode, like a living brain center. Within its range of operation, Caruith-Jaan is part of what he rightfully should be: of what he will be again, when his people return and make for us that body we will have deserved.”

  I can believe anyway some fraction of what he claimed. Artificial amplification and relayin’ of telepathy are beyond Terran science; but I’ve read of experiments with it, in past eras when Terran science was more progressive than now. Such technology is not too far beyond our present capabilities: almost matter of engineerin’ development rather than pure research.

  Surely it’s negligible advance over what we know, compared to recordin’ of entire personality, and reimposition of pattern on member of utterly foreign species …

  “Well,” Ivar said, “if you, usin’ artifact not really intended for your kind of organism, if you scan minds within radius of hundred meters or so—then naturally endowed bein’s ought to do better.”

  “There are no nonhumans in Orcan territory,” Yakow said.

  “Except Erannath,” Ivar retorted.

  Did the white-bearded features stiffen? Did Jaan wince? “Ah, yes,” the Commander agreed. “A temporary exception. No xenosophonts are in Arena or town.”

  “Could be human mutants, maybe genetic-tailored, who’ve infiltrated.” Ivar shrugged. “Or maybe no telepathy at all; maybe some gadget your detectors won’t register. I repeat, you probably don’t appreciate as well as I do what
variety must exist on thousands of Imperial planets. Nobody can keep track. Imperium could well import surprise for us from far side of Empire.” He sighed. “Or, okay, call me paranoid. Call this trip unnecessary. You’re probably right. Fact is, however, I’ve got to decide what to do—question involvin’ not simply me, but my whole society—and I feel happier discussin’ it away from any imaginable surveillance.”

  Such as may lair inside Mount Cronos.

  If it does, I don’t think it’s happened to tap my thoughts these past several hours. Else my sudden suspicions that came from Tanya’s letter could’ve gotten me arrested.

  Jaan inquired shrewdly, “Has the return of our Nova Roma mission triggered you?”

  Ivar nodded with needless force.

  “The message you received from your betrothed—”

  “I destroyed it,” Ivar admitted, for the fact could not be evaded were he asked to show the contents. “Because of personal elements.” They weren’t startled; most nords would have done the same. “However, you can guess what’s true, that she discussed her connection with freedom movement. My letter to her and talks with your emissary had convinced her our interests and yours are identical in throwin’ off Imperial yoke.”

  “And now you wish more details,” Yakow said.

  Ivar nodded again. “Sir, wouldn’t you? Especially since it looks as if Commissioner Desai will go along with your plan. That’ll mean Terrans comin’ here, to discuss and implement economic growth of this region. What does that imply for our liberation?”

  “I thought I had explained,” said Jaan patiently. “The plan is Caruith’s. Therefore it is long-range, as it must be; for what hope lies in mere weapons? Let us rise in force before the time is ready, and the Empire will crush us like a thumb crushing a sandmite.”

  Caruith’s plan—The aircar had passed across the sea and the agricultural lands which fringed its southern shore, to go out over the true desert. This country made the Dreary of Ironland seem lush. Worn pinnacles lifted above ashen dunes; dust scudded and whirled; Ivar glimpsed fossil bones of an ocean monster, briefly exposed for wind to scour away, the single token of life. Low in the west, Virgil glowered through a haze that whistled.