by Terry Carr
She heard a child’s voice: “Tell us about where you come from!”
“What are you asking?” The reed-like voice again.
“She means what world are you from?” said an adult. “What’s it like there?”
“My world is Vertariat, or so we usually call it. A planet of Aldebaran. Much beauty, but not at the present time. Most of us are voyaging.”
“Is that like questing?” asked another child.
“I am not sure,” said the foreigner. “What is ‘questing’? Was that the word? What does it mean?”
The press of bodies around Nikki became even tighter as more and more people, children and adults alike, tried to move forward. Nikki fought a sickness in her stomach from the sun’s heat and the closeness of so many bodies. The blouse of her body-suit clung to her breasts and belly as though she were trapped in it.
She heard Robin’s voice: “Questing means you’re looking for something, not just wandering around.”
“I do not understand,” the foreigner said.
“You know,” said Robin. “It’s when you really have a good idea what you expect to find, but you want to see it.”
“Of course,” said the foreigner. “How is this different from wandering around?”
Nikki suddenly knew that she was going to fall. Everything was whirling around her—the children, the hot sky, voices and pungent odors. Somewhere—somewhere she wasn’t looking—a terrible thing was about to happen. She leaned for support against a boy in front of her, but he moved away, crying “Hey!” and she tumbled forward. Her mouth struck against someone’s back, and she was shoved sideways; she tried to grab at someone’s arm, but she slid downward and hit the ground.
Crimson light pulsed in her eyes, and a chill spread from her temples to her neck, enveloping her body. Something was clutching at her from behind, a dark and terrifying ghost. She shivered and tried to get to her knees.
No! It’s too soon! I’m not finished!
A hand touched her shoulder. A voice, Jordan’s voice, said, “Lie still a minute. Lie still, Nikki; take it easy.” She rolled onto her back. The crowd had moved away, forming a circle around her; she saw them as dim shapes wavering against the intense blue sky.
Her shivering passed and her head began to clear. She found herself giggling, relieved that she was regaining control of her body. The one who was trying to come out, Nikki-Four, had lost again. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
There was a soft touch on her forehead, cool and soothing. “You have no need to try so hard,” someone said. “You have much time to be here.”
She smiled and opened her eyes. Jordan was—It wasn’t Jordan.
It was the millipede, its dark, liquid eyes gazing at her with the impersonality of a holograph image. Its fur glowed golden in the sun, creating a halo around its head. It was touching her with one of its forefeet.
She sat up suddenly, ignoring her dizziness, and pushed the millipede away. “Stop it,” she said. “Don’t.” It was creepy, this thing; she hadn’t realized it would be so …
But she wasn’t afraid of it; she wouldn’t be afraid. Why should she be afraid of somebody who just happened to be shaped differently? Weirdly. “I’m okay; let me alone,” she mumbled.
The millipede moved away from her—it seemed to flow like water in a slow stream. It said, “Why do you try so hard?” That reedy voice again, so flat and calm. Yet puzzled.
“I said let me alone,” she told it. “The last thing I need is to have you running clammy feet all over me.”
They weren’t really clammy; they were dry and soft. Even soothing, in a way. But the nerve of this … It didn’t even belong on Earth!
Jordan was still beside her; he said, “No one is trying to hurt you, Nikki. You’re all right. Have you changed again?”
“Of course I’m all right.” To prove it, she got to her feet, pushing away his hands when he reached out to help her. She swayed for a second when she stood, but the dizziness quickly passed. She dusted herself off.
“You’re still Nikki-Three,” Jordan said. It was almost an accusation.
She flashed a triumphant grin at him. “That’s right. I’m stronger than the others.”
“Well, you sure faint a lot,” said Robin. The young girl was inspecting her critically, as though Nikki were a body-suit she was thinking of buying.
“This person uses a chemical to fragment her mind,” said the foreigner. It had not moved far away. “Naturally she is weakened.”
Nikki didn’t like the way everybody was staring at her; the children looked as though they were about to laugh at any second, and this creepy foreigner kept acting as if it were so smart! She didn’t have to put up with sewage like that.
“Listen,” she told it, “just shut your mouth—if you call that thing a mouth.” She giggled, and took courage from her wit. “No, I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If you know so much, just answer one small question for us. Okay? Just one question. This little girl here asked me a question a minute ago, and I’d like to hear you answer it. If you’re so smart!”
Jordan said, “Oh, come on, Nikki—”
“No,” she told him, pushing him aside and approaching the millipede. “This thing we call a person, which shows how polite we are, comes here and tries to tell us how to live our lives. Well, you brought your class here to learn, didn’t you? So let’s ask it some questions. And I’ve got a question that one of your own students asked me.”
“I am flattered to be asked any question,” said the millipede, its voice dry as the dust. “I am not smart, but I shall respond to anything asked.”
“Robin, come here!” Nikki held out her hand to the girl, and after a moment Robin came to stand beside her, looking dubiously from Nikki to Jordan and back again. “Okay,” said Nikki, putting her arm around Robin’s shoulders. “Just tell us this much. It’s not a big question—it’s just a little girl’s question—but let’s hear you answer it. What’s the meaning of life?”
The foreigner’s eyes blinked—Nikki hadn’t realized it had eyelids; they were covered with downy fur. Creepy. The foreigner said, “Life is an embodiment of consciousness. Is that the right answer?”
Nikki looked suspiciously at the millipede. Was it trying to make fun of her? “I didn’t ask you for a definition. What I want to know is what the purpose of life is. What’s the point of it?”
She squeezed Robin’s shoulders and grinned down at her. “You pay close attention now, because it’s going to tell us the purpose of life,” she told the girl. Robin looked uncomfortable and tried to squirm out of Nikki’s grasp.
The millipede’s head bobbed up and down, back and forth, as though it were sniffing a nonexistent wind. Its forefeet—the eight of them that were off the ground—waved aimlessly.
“Well?” said Nikki.
“How can life have any purpose?” the foreigner asked. “I think I do not understand your question.” The creature’s eyes searched faces and settled on Robin’s. “You are the one who asked this question?” it asked her.
Robin straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. She shrugged off Nikki’s arm. “It isn’t such a dumb question,” she said. “It’s really simple, only nobody will take it seriously. See, everybody’s always trying to teach me stuff, like about the early missionaries or the names of trees or just things like that. But I keep thinking I’d like to know why we’re here, only nobody will tell me.”
The millipede had lowered its forepart to Robin’s height as it listened to her. Now it smiled with its thin, sliced mouth and asked gently. “What is your religion?”
“Oh, come on!” Robin snapped. “None of that!”
“Then what is your view of reality?” the millipede asked.
Nikki noticed that everyone in the crowd was standing silently, listening to the foreigner as though it were an oracle from the stars. How stupid could they be? Did they really think this thing was going to tell them some great truth they’d never heard
from the thousand temples in Cirque, just because it came from somewhere else?
Sure, that was exactly what they thought. That was why they all came out to meet it—to hear it talk about things it had seen out near Aldebaran, or what it thought of Cirque, or how it felt to walk around on twenty or thirty legs. As thought any of that meant anything.
“I’m just a Centrist,” Robin said to the millipede. “You know—the world radiates out from the Abyss because God lives down there, where it’s dark and nobody can see. But I’m not sure I really believe that even.”
“Hey!” said one of the other children. “Did you know there’s some real scary thing coming out of the Abyss? There was a broadcast this morning.”
“I do know that,” said the millipede. “I want to see it. That is why I have come.”
Jordan spoke up: “You mean you can tune in to the broadcasts too? I thought only humans could see them.”
The millipede turned its head to him, lifting it further from the ground, blinking slowly. “I do not see your broadcasts. I know of what is happening now in your Abyss because this eruption is famous on my world. How could it not become famous?”
“Already?” said Jordan.
“Not already in time,” the millipede said. “It will take days for this news to reach Aldebaran.
It’s talking in riddles, Nikki thought. The better to impress the heathens, of course.
“You never answered my question,” Robin said. “I bet you don’t even know the answer.”
The millipede regarded her silently, then lowered its head till it was looking up at her from the ground. It said, “That is true. I do not know of any purpose to life. There are so many people living—now, yesterday, tomorrow. There is no end to life, so if there is purpose it is never achieved. One person dies; a thousand die; stars fade into blackness. All the purposes that people imagine die with them. And other people live somewhere else with other purposes. Nothing is ever an end. How can there be a purpose such as you ask?”
Robin was making crosses in the dust with her heel, one after another, rapidly. She said, “I didn’t ask you about stars or anything. Forget it.” She looked up at Nikki. “People who don’t know anything aren’t interesting,” she said.
There was an embarrassed silence. Nikki thought: Well, we’ve been rude to our visitor, and it hasn’t even gotten past the Gate.
But the millipede showed no sign of resentment. Raising its head into the air, forefeet waving, it asked, “Is the River Fundament near?”
Several people tried to answer at once, Jordan among them. Nikki stepped forward and put her hand on the millipede’s sparsely furred back, forcing herself, not to shudder. “I’ll show you,” she said magnanimously, and guided the foreigner westward through the crowd. It wasn’t as awful to touch as she’d expected; its fur was soft, its skin surprisingly cool in the sun.
The crowd followed them, and Nikki saw Robin staring at her with a look of betrayal. She suppressed a grin. Kid, she thought, you’ve got a lot to learn about people.
“Here we are.” Nikki guided the millipede toward a grey, sun-bleached dock where four gravity boats were tied up. A single attendant lounged in the shade of his boathouse, placidly watching the approaching crowd of people. He was used to crowds: the gravity boats on the River Fundament were popular with the tourists in Cirque and with the people of Cirque themselves.
The river flowed slowly past, bounded by high banks covered with dense foliage: wild strawberry vines, flowering bushes, tree ferns, alders growing outward from the banks and curving up toward the sun. The river was a soft blue here, its surface smooth, the lush banks of the western side reflected in it like a memory of jungles.
The millipede paused at the top of the steps that went down to the dock. It peered upriver, its head bobbing in the air. Then it slowly turned to scan the river as it flowed past and slipped quietly under the walls of Cirque to the left. The millipede’s fur stirred under Nikki’s hand; she dropped her hand to her side.
“I feel honor,” the millipede said.
“You’ll feel more than that when you shoot the First Cataract,” Nikki told it. “I’ll bet there isn’t anything like it out in space.”
Nikki had never ridden the gravity boats, either as herself or as any of the other Nikkis, but everyone in Cirque knew of them. Sometimes the broadcasts included a trip downriver by some visitor; their reactions were exciting.
“There is only one River Fundament,” the millipede said. “There are rivers on every planet—if not today, then yesterday or tomorrow. None is the Fundament.”
“Come on,” said Nikki, urging the creature down the steps. The attendant had come out of his boathouse when he saw the millipede; now he came forward to wait at the bottom of the steps, smiling his tourist smile.
Jordan had caught up to Nikki and now walked beside her down the steps. He asked the millipede, “Is the River Fundament famous on your world, then?”
“Very famous,” said the millipede. “From the present time to centuries to come. It has given nourishment to the eruption in your Abyss, you see. It is a fortunate river.”
“You seem to know a lot about Cirque that we don’t know ourselves,” Jordan said. “Are you sure you haven’t been listening to wild rumors?”
Robin laughed at that as though it were hilariously funny; but when no one else laughed she abruptly quieted and looked annoyed.
“The city of Cirque is famous on my world,” explained the millipede. “Its Abyss, its River Fundament, all are famous. We of course have senses that you lack—just as you can see broadcasts in your minds that we do not see. Surely you know much about Cirque that I shall never know.”
They had reached the boat landing, Nikki and Jordan and the millipede, with the crowd close behind them. The attendant, short and muscled in a red undershirt, stepped forward. He shook one of the millipede’s forefeet with his right hand, and another with his left. “Well come to the Winter Gate of Cirque,” he said.
He had an accent, Nikki noticed—not one of the Cirque accents, but one from the hills to the north. How typical that an outlander should greet visitors to the city.
“I feel honor,” the millipede said. “I shall ride a gravity boat all the way to the Abyss. I should like to pay for the boat now.”
The attendant shook his head as the millipede began to rummage in its green leather pouch. “Oh no, no need to pay—we provide the boat rides free for visitors.”
“When a boat is damaged, it is the responsibility of the person who has chartered it, is that correct?” asked the millipede, drawing from its pouch several money-spheres. Nikki saw that they contained gold dust in a mercury solution, the most valuable of all interplanetary coinage. “What is the value of one gravity boat?” asked the millipede.
The attendant raised his hands, shaking his head. “No, no, I don’t collect any money. It really isn’t dangerous, you see, cataracts and all—you’ll be safe and so will your boat. You wait and see.”
The millipede hesitated. “I should prefer to pay for the boat now,” it said; but it returned the money-spheres to its pouch. The attendant led them across sun-bleached planks to the nearest gravity boat.
“Are you riding alone?” the attendant asked.
The millipede bobbed its head back and forth. “It might be best,” it said.
But Nikki stepped forward again. This was her chance to ride the boats—and to do it herself, not through Nikki-One or any of the others. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “I can tell you about all the parts of the city we go through—I’ll be your guide.”
The attendant looked at her dubiously. Nikki smiled brightly at him. The millipede said, “I respond to your kindness,” and Nikki’s smile flashed triumphant.
The millipede boarded the gravity boat, lifting its forepart across the half meter between the boat and the dock, then lowering its forefeet to the boat’s boarding step and flowing into the passenger area. There were six seats, each with its gravity harness
. There were no controls; the boats were self-guiding.
“Anybody else going with you?” the attendant asked. Nikki held out her hand for the man to steady her as she clambered aboard. First class, she thought. It just takes a little nerve, and you get what you want.
She saw Robin standing on the dock, staring at her with a stricken look. For a second Nikki felt a pang of conscience; she and the girl had been allies against the foreigner, but Nikki had defected.
Maybe I can teach her some more lessons, she thought. She held out her hand to the girl. “Hey, Robin, come with us.”
Robin’s eyes grew wide, but she made no immediate response. Instead Jordan said, “The class has to stay together. Sorry, but she can’t go.”
Nikki saw with surprise that Jordan was angry with her. Jordan? Angry? How delicious.
“Oh, please,” Nikki said. “It will be so much fun, and Robin will learn a lot—she’ll be with this person who’s come all the way from Aldebaran. She can tell the class about it tomorrow.” Nikki turned again to the girl. “Robin? Tell him you want to come with us. It’ll be exciting.”
Robin made up her mind; she said, “I do want to go, Jordan. And I can get home by myself later; I don’t live too far from the Final Cataract.”
Jordan scowled. He said to the millipede, “Perhaps you object?”
Its furred eyelids blinked. “Not at all. I prefer to share excitements.”
Robin ran forward and jumped into the boat; it rocked in the water as she seated herself next to Nikki. She set her gravity harness and sat still, staring straight forward. Nikki patted her hand and smiled softly. She loved winning.
“Well,” said Jordan, and then he stopped. His gaze moved from Robin to the millipede, who was inspecting its harness, adjusting it to its own dimensions. Jordan asked it, “Why did you want to pay for damage to this boat? If you expect anything dangerous—”
“Oh no,” said the millipede, fur rippling on its neck and chest. “Robin will not be hurt. You need not fear for her safety.”
“The boats are safer than traffic carts,” said the boat attendant. “It’s been years since we had any trouble.”
