Legends of the Surface are well-known. Morpt reflected, in sleepy irony, that if gas is the immortal part of Shadi, then since two Shadi who see each other instantly fight to the death, the bubble at the center of the universe must be the scene of magnificent combat. But his irony was lost upon me. I interrupted to tell him of the Object and what I had already learned from it.
I immediately felt other minds crowd me. All of Morpt’s pupils were instantly alert. I blanked out my mind with more than usual care—to avoid giving any clue to the whereabouts of my cave—and served science to the best of my ability. I told, freely, everything I knew.
Under other conditions, I would have been proud of the furor I created. It seemed that every Shadi in the Honda joined the discussion. Many, of course, said that I lied. But I was fed, and filled with curiosity. I did not reveal my whereabouts to those challengers. I waited. Even Morpt tried to taunt me into an incautious revelation and went into a typical Shadi rage when he failed. But Morpt is experienced and huge. I could not hope to be the one to live, did we meet each other outside of the Peace Tides.
Once I had proved I could not be lured out, however, Morpt discussed the matter dispassionately and in the end suggested the journey from which I have just returned. If, despite my caution where other Shadi were concerned—all of Morpt’s pupils will recognize the challenging irony with which he thought this—if, despite my caution, I was not afraid to serve science, he advised me to carry the Object back to the Heights. From the creatures within it I should receive directions. From their kind I had my strength and ferocity as protections. From the Heights, themselves, Morpt urged his exercises as the only possible safeguards.
As I knew, said Morpt, the gas in our swim-bladders expands as pressure lessens. Normally, we have muscles which control it so that we can float in pursuit of our prey or sink to solidity at will. But he told me that as I neared the Heights I would find the pressure growing so small that in theory even my muscles would be unable to control the gas. Under such conditions I must use the Morpt exercises and release a portion of it. Then I could descend again.
Otherwise, I might actually be carried up by my own expanding gas, it might rupture my swim-bladder and invade other body cavities and expand still further, and finally carry me with it up to the Surface and the central bubble of Caluph’s theory.
In such a case, Morpt assured me wittily, I would become one Shadi who knew whether Caluph was right or not, but I would not be likely to return to tell about it. Still, he insisted, if I paused to use his exercises whenever I felt unusually buoyant, I would certainly carry the Object quite near the Surface without danger and so bring back conclusive evidence of the truth or error of the entire Caluphian cosmology, thus rendering a great service to science. The thoughts coming from within the Object should be of great assistance in the enterprise.
I immediately determined to make the journey. For one thing, I was not too sure that I could keep my whereabouts hidden, if continually probed by older and more experienced minds. Only exceedingly powerful minds, like those of Morpt and the other instructors, can risk exposure to constant hungry inspection. Of course, they find the profit in their instructorships in such slips among their students…
It would be distinctly wise for me to leave my cave, now that I had called attention to myself. So I put up my mind-block tightly, and with the Object clutched in one tentacle, I flowed swiftly up the slope which surrounds Honda before other Shadi should think of patrolling it for me—and each other.
I went far above my usual level before I paused. I went so high that the gas in my swim-bladder was markedly uncomfortable. I did the Morpt exercises until it was released. It was strange that I did this with complete calm. But my curiosity was involved now, and we Shadi are inveterate seekers. So I found it possible to perform an act—the deliberate freeing of a part of the contents of my swim-bladder—which would have filled past generations of Shadi with horror.
Morpt was right. I was able to continue my ascent without discomfort. More, with increasing Height, I had much for my mind to think of. The two creatures—the man and the woman—in the Object were bewildered by what had happened to their container.
“We have risen two thousand feet from our greatest depth,” the man said to the woman.
“My dear, you don’t have to lie to make me brave,” the woman said. “I don’t mind. I couldn’t have kept you out of the bathysphere, and I’d rather die with you than live without you.”
Such thoughts do not seem compatible with intelligence. A race with such a psychology would die out. But I do not pretend to understand.
I continued upward until it was necessary to perform the Morpt exercises again. The necessary movements shook the Object violently. The creatures within speculated hopelessly upon the cause. These creatures not only lack the receptive faculty, so that their thoughts are secret from each other, but apparently they have no spatial sense, no sense of pressure, and apparently fail of the cycle of instincts which is so necessary to us Shadi.
In all the time of my contact with their minds, I found no thought of anything approximating the Peace Tides, when we Shadi cease altogether to feed and, therefore, instinctively cease to fear each other and intermingle freely to breed. One wonders how their race can continue without Peace Tides, unless their whole lives are passed in a sort of Peace Tide. In that case, since no one feeds during the Peace Tides, why are they not starved to death? They are inexplicable.
They watched their instruments as the ascent went on. Instruments are artifacts which they use to supplement their defective senses.
“Four thousand feet up,” said the man to the woman. “Only heaven knows what has happened!”
“Do you think there’s a chance for us?” the woman said yearningly.
“How could there be?” the man demanded bitterly. “We sank to eighteen thousand feet. There is still almost three miles of water over our heads, and the oxygen won’t last forever. I wish I hadn’t let you come. If only you were safe!”
Four thousand feet—whatever that term may mean—above the Honda, the character of living things had changed. All forms of life were smaller, and their spatial sense seemed imperfect. They were not aware of my coming until I was actually upon them. I kept two tentacles busy snatching them as I passed. Their body lights were less brilliant than those of the lesser creatures of the Honda.
I continued my flowing climb toward the Surface. From time to time, I paused to perform the Morpt exercises. The volume of gas I released from my swim-bladder was amazing. I remember thinking, in somewhat the ironic manner of Morpt himself, that if ever Shadi possessed so vast an immortal part, the central bubble must be greater than Honda itself! The creatures inside the Object now watched their instruments incredulously.
“We are up to nine thousand feet,” said the man dazedly. “We dropped to eighteen thousand, the greatest depth in this part of the world.”
The thought “world” approximates the Shadi conception of “universe,” but there are puzzling differences.
“We’ve risen half of it again,” the man added.
“Do you think that the ballast dropped off and we will float to the Surface?” asked the woman anxiously.
The thought of “ballast” was of things fastened to the Object to make it descend, and that if they were detached, the Object would rise. This would seem to be nonsense, because all substances descend, except gas. However, I report only what I sensed.
“But we’re not floating,” said the man. “If we were, we’d rise steadily. As it is, we go up a thousand feet or so and then we’re practically shaken to death. Then we go up another thousand feet. We’re not floating. We’re being carried. But only the fates know by what or why.”
This, I point out, is rationality. They knew that their rise was unreasonable. My curiosity increased. I should explain how the creatures knew of their position. They have no spatial sense or any sense of pressure. For the latter they used instruments—artifacts—wh
ich told of their ascent. The remarkable thing is that they inspected those instruments by means of a light which they did not make themselves. The light was also made by an artifact. And this artificial light was strong enough to be reflected, not only perceptibly, but distinctly, so that the instruments were seen by reflection only.
I fear that Kanth, whose discovery that light is capable of reflection made his scientific reputation, will deny that any light could be powerful enough to make unlighted objects appear to have light, but I must go even further. As I learned to share not only consciously formed thoughts but sense-impressions of the creatures in the Object, I learned that to them, light has different qualities. Some lights have qualities which to them are different from other lights.
The light we know they speak of as “bluish.” They know additional words which they term “red” and “white” and “yellow” and other terms. As we perceive differences in the solidity of rocks and ooze, they perceive differences in objects by the light they reflect. Thus, they have a sense which we Shadi have not. I am aware that Shadi are the highest possible type of organism, but this observation—if not insanity—is important matter for meditation.
But I continued to flow steadily upward, pausing only to perform the necessary Morpt exercises to release gas from my swim-bladder when its expansion threatened to become uncontrollable. As I went higher and ever higher, the man and woman were filled with emotions of a quite extraordinary nature. These emotions were unbearably poignant to them, and it is to be doubted that any Shadi has ever sensed such sensations before. Certainly the emotion they call “love” is inconceivable to Shadi, except by reception from such a creature. It led to peculiar vagaries. For example, the woman put her twin tentacles about the man and clung to him with no effort to rend or tear.
The idea of two creatures of the same species pleasurably anticipating being together without devouring each other—except during the Peace Tides, of course—is almost inconceivable to a Shadi. However, it appeared to be part of their normal psychology.
But this report grows long. I flowed upward and upward. The creatures in the Object experienced emotions which were stronger and ever stronger, and more and more remarkable. Successively the man reported to the woman that they were but four thousand of their “feet” below the Surface, then two thousand, and then one. I was now completely possessed by curiosity. I had barely performed what turned out to be the last needed Morpt exercise and was moving still higher when my spatial sense suddenly gave me a new and incredible message. Above me, there was a barrier to its operation.
I cannot convey the feeling of finding a barrier to one’s spatial sense. I was aware of my surroundings in every direction, but at a certain point above me there was suddenly—nothing! Nothing! At first it was alarming. I flowed up half my length, and the barrier grew nearer. Cautiously—even timorously—I flowed slowly nearer and nearer.
“Five hundred feet,” said the man inside the Object. “My heavens, only five hundred feet! We should see glimmers of light through the ports. No, it’s night now.”
I paused, debating. I was close enough to this barrier to reach up my first tentacle and touch it. I hesitated a long time. Then I did touch it. Nothing happened. I thrust my tentacle boldly through it. It went into Nothingness. Where it was there was no water. With an enormous emotion, I realized that above me was the central bubble and that I alone of living Shadi had reached and dared to touch it. The sensation in my tentacle within the bubble, above the Surface, was that of an enormous weight, as if the gas of departed Shadi would have thrust me back. But they did not attack, they did not even attempt to injure me.
Yes, I was splendidly proud. I felt like one who has overcome and consumed a Shadi of greater size than himself. And as I exulted, I became aware of the emotions of the creatures within the Object.
“Three hundred feet!” said the man frantically. “It can’t stop here! It can’t! My dear, fate could not be so cruel!”
I found pleasure in the emotions of the two creatures. They felt a new emotion, now, which was as strange as any of my other experiences with them. It was an emotion which was the anticipation of other emotions. The woman named it.
“It is insane,” she told the man, “but somehow I feel hope again.”
And in my pleasure and intellectual interest it seemed a very small thing for one who had already dared so greatly to continue the pleasures I felt. I flowed further up the slope. The barrier to my spatial sense—the Surface—came closer and ever closer.
“A hundred feet,” said the man in an emotion which to him was agony, but because of its novelty was a source of intellectual pleasure to me.
I transferred the Object to a forward tentacle and thrust it ahead. It bumped upon the solidity which here approached and actually penetrated the Surface. The man experienced a passion of the strong emotion called “hope.”
“Twenty-five feet!” he cried. “Darling, if we start to go down again, I’ll open the hatch, and we’ll go out as the bathysphere floods. I don’t know whether we’re near shore or not, but we’ll try.”
The woman was pressed close against him. The agony of hope which filled her was a sensation which mingled with the high elation I felt over my own daring and achievement. I thrust the Object forward yet again. Here the Surface was so near the solidity under it that a part of my tentacle went above the Surface. And the emotions within the Object reached a climax. I thrust on, powerfully, against the weight within the Bubble, until the Object broke the surface, and then on and on until it was no longer in water but in gas, resting upon solidity which was itself touched only by gas.
The man and woman worked frantically within the Object. A part of it detached itself. They climbed out of it. They opened their maws and uttered cries. They wrapped their tentacles about each other and touched their maws together, not to devour but to express their emotions. They looked about them dazed with relief, and I saw through their eyes. The Surface stretched away for as far as their senses reported, moving and uneven, and yet flat. They stood upon solidity from which things projected upward. Overhead was a vast blackness, penetrated by innumerable small bright sources of light.
“Thank God!” said the man. “To see trees and the stars again.”
They felt absolutely secure and at peace, as if in a Peace Tides enhanced a thousand fold. And perhaps I was intoxicated by my own daring or perhaps by the emotions I received from them. I thrust my tentacles through the Surface. Their weight was enormous, but my strength is great also.
Daringly I heaved up my body. I thrust my entire forepart through the Surface and into the central bubble. I was in the central bubble while still alive! My weight increased beyond computation, but for a long, proud interval I loomed above the Surface. I saw with my own eyes—all eighty of them—the Surface beneath me and the patch of solidity on which the man and the woman stood. I, Sard, did this!
As I dipped below the Surface again I received the astounded thoughts of the creatures.
“A sea-serpent,” thought the man, and doubted his own sanity as I fear mine will be doubted. “That’s what did it.”
“Why not, darling?” the woman said calmly. “It was a miracle, but people who love each other as we do simply couldn’t be allowed to die.”
But the man stared at the Surface where I had vanished. I had caught his troubled thought.
“No one would believe it. They’d say we’re insane. But confound it, here’s the bathysphere, and our cable did break when we were above the Deep. When we’re found, we’ll simply say we don’t know what happened and let them try to figure it out.”
I lay resting, close to the Surface, thinking many things. After a long time there was light. Fierce, unbearable light. It grew stronger and yet stronger. It was unbearable. It flowed down into the nearer depths.
That was many tides ago, because I dared not return to Honda with so vast a proportion of the gas in my swim-bladder released to the central bubble. I remained not too far below t
he Surface until my swim-bladder felt normal. I descended again and again waited until my “immortal part” had replenished itself. It is difficult to feed upon such small creatures as inhabit the Heights. It took a long time for me to make the descent which by Morpt’s discovery had been made so readily as an ascent. All my waking time was spent in the capture of food, and I had little time for meditation. I was never once full-fed in all the periods I paused to wait for my swim-bladder to be replenished. But when I returned to my cave, it had been occupied in my absence by another Shadi. I fed well.
Then came the Peace Tides. And now, having bred, I lay my report of my journey to the Surface at the service of all the Shadi. If I am decreed insane, I shall say no more. But this is my report. Now determine, O Shadi: Am I mad?
I, Morpt, in Peace Tides, have heard the report of Sard and having consulted with others of the Shadi, do declare that he has plainly confounded the imagined with the real.
His description of the scientific aspects of his journey, and which are not connected with the assumed creatures in the Object, are consistent with science. But it is manifestly impossible that any creature could live with its fellows permanently without the instinct to feed. It is manifestly impossible that creatures could live in gas. Distinction between light and light is patent nonsense. The psychology of such creatures as described by Sard is of the stuff of dreams.
Therefore, it is the consensus that Sard’s report is not science. He may not be insane, however. The physiological effects of his admitted journey to great Heights have probably caused disorders in his body which have shown themselves in illusions. The scientific lesson to be learned from this report is that journeys to the Heights, though possible because of the exercises invented by myself, are extremely unwise and should never be made by Shadi. Given during the Peace Tides…
THE POWER
First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster Page 23
