The Avatar

by Anderson, Poul

  He flinched. She saw, laid a hand on him, and said quietly, "I'm prejudiced, you understand. I like everyone aboard; you're each of you special; but Dan I love, and he loves me." After a moment: "I'd not have been neglecting him this often did you not need help. That well do I think of you, Martti Leino. Now the time is on for returning to normal."

  "You don't mean drop me? No! I love you!"

  She gave him a light kiss. "Och, no. While this voyage lasts, we'll have our occasional tumble, you and I. Nor will that be a favor done you out of kindness. I've had plenty of pleasure here." Drawing slightly aside, once more grave, she went on, "But you're too emotional about me. Frankly, you've grown too possessive. This evening you well-nigh dragged me from the common room, when I had words left for Phil and an unspoken date with Dan. I thought best not to provoke a scene... Don't be wounded, dear. 'Twas a fine romp. Just the same, that kind of thing has to stop, and the place where it must stop is in yourself."

  He beat fist in palm. "I can't stop loving you, Caitlin."

  "No, if there has not been terrible rancor, we never really fall out of love, we humans, do we? But old fires burn gentler as new fires kindle. Were we home, you'd soon be happily courting a lass quite unlike me. I dare believe I've proved to you she can be both alive and decent, and that would be what you'd most kindly remember me for.

  "But, Martti," she said, a spoken caress, "a steady woman is what you want for the rest of your days, a partner, a tree for your house to stand beneath. Like Lis; like your mother, I'm sure. I must help you escape getting fixed on me. That will happen, if our search lasts for many months, unless we both take care and forethought. Then you'd be ruined for the family man your nature intends you to be. I'm never for you, unless as a friend who chances to be of the opposite sex. I'm a rover."

  "Oh, I've pretty well overcome jealousy about, I think-"

  She smiled, "That's not the main thing I meant, my honey. I've restless feet. Dan himself can't hold me in Eopolis. You want a wife, not a vagrant mistress." She swung her legs over the bedside. "Martti, I know full well we can't neatly solve our problems in an hour's talk. We'll need patience and reflection and caring." She stood up. "First and foremost, we should become friends - relax - stamp on any growth of melodrama between us, but nurture any shoot of comedy that springs up - for it's comic animals we humans are, is that not so?

  "We've most of a bottle of whisky left, I seem to recall."

  When they were lounging back, a trifle drunk, at enough ease that they could joke, she strummed her sonador and remarked, "Aye, I'd not be kicking you out, not while we travel on, have no fear. That would be a shameful waste of an excellent talent. You must simply realize I am a wanderer born... Do you remember you teased me about my 'Outbound Song' being in a man's mouth, the which it is not, and I said I'd fix you in my next? Well, I've made my next, exactly for you."

  The associations of the evening to which she referred no longer pained him. "Go on," he invited.

  She grinned and began.

  I'm off in space on an endless chase.

  No single world can bind me.

  As I boost along, I'll sing a song

  Of the lad I left behind me,

  The trustiest lad, the lustiest lad,

  The lad I left behind me.

  Oh, he was a prize, the starry skies

  Will forevermore remind me.

  Aye, he was fair to see, and it's rare

  To meet a soul so cheery,

  Though he was not tame, but kissed like flame

  And I could not make him weary.

  Each time I felt bad, I'd seek out my lad

  To get him to unwind me.

  I would purr and pounce, and soon we'd bounce,

  All the while his arms entwined me.

  We said goodbye on a day when I

  Confess a little weeping,

  And although it's best to go a-quest,

  I have often trouble sleeping.

  And so, my good sir, you may well infer

  I cherish hopes I'll find me

  Only one or two, including you,

  Like the lad I left behind me.

  Nightwatch.

  "You are unhappy, Dan," Frieda said.

  "Huh? No, no, why should I be, after the workout we've had?" Brodersen pushed his arm against her. She arched her back and he got a clasp around her waist. "My mind just drifted. Sorry."

  "It drifted far, and into no good place. The way your mouth drooped, and that tiny line between your brows-" She brushed fingertips over the creases in his countenance. Concern paled the blue of her eyes.

  He attempted a smile. "Well, I am the Old Man, you know. Worry about the ship is an occupational disease. Help me slough it off."

  The blond head shook. "That isn't the matter. You are tough and practical; to brood is not in your nature. Therefore when you fall into it, you are defenseless."

  "Oh, never mind. How about a drink or a smoke or both?"

  She pressed her solidity down to hold the arm beneath her. "Not yet, please. Dan, Caitlin could help you. May I try?"

  He scowled at his feet. Frieda and he were in her cabin, which contained hardly anything else to look at, none of the small bright touches the Irishwoman had given theirs. As usual, she had music playing, a Bach fugue, turned low but remaining ineluctably noble.

  "Let me guess." She rolled onto her side and nestled against his breast, to spare him her gaze. "You feel guilt about Zarubayev and Fidelio, about the rest of us who are lost in space-time because of what you suppose is you. Dan, Liebchen, you know we went freely, gladly. We who you safed from the Wheel - Fidelio too, yes, Fidelio foremost, I belieff - whateffer comes on us, while we liff we will thank you. Mistakes, misfortunes, effery captain knows about those. You are too strong a captain for letting them darken you. No, you will learn from them and then go on slugging, for the good of your followers. And if in the end, what I suppose is likeliest, in in the end we do not succeed, we neffer come home... why, what a glorious adventure we haff had!"

  "Yeah," he sighed.

  "Caitlin makes you feel that in your blood. It is too bad she is not with you tonight." Frieda paused. "Or maybe it is best. Maybe she makes you too happy for looking deeper, at the roots of your sorrow. Dan, you were thinking about your family."

  He drew a spastic breath.

  "Your wife, your children," she said. "You suppose you haff deserted them. When Caitlin is gone, they come back too much. From there you go on to punish yourself in effery way you can find."

  His mouth writhed, his lids squinched. "Listen, let's drop the subject," he grated. "You're no... psychotech... and I'm no damn patient."

  "Ja, ja, I know, I am simply your shipmate Frieda. Can we talk, though? Can you tell me about Lis? I would like to hear."

  Long afterward, he lay at peace of a sort, drowsy. "You're a marvelous woman," he said beneath the muted music. "I'd no notion how kind you are - helpful, understanding-"

  Bitterness crossed her which he did not see. "Oh, yes, I haff my reputation, coarse old she-soldier. Well, the two grenadiers in the song, they cried, when they came back and found their Emperor was taken." She chuckled: a statement. "Now if you want to do me a fafor, Dan, you will sleep, and wake up feeling fine again before breakfast. An hour before breakfast."

  His grip tightened slightly about her. "Sure. Good idea."

  Impulse broke through as she said, "Dan, we had better find home soon. Else I am going to fall very hard in luff with you."

  Seen from outside, the planet was a deeper blue than Earth or Demeter, marbled by clouds that bore the softest touch of amber within their whiteness. Continents made rusty blurs in that clarity, save where snow gleamed on peaks and altiplanos. Their outlines were hazy; sunrise and sunset colors, as Chinook orbited close, were fantastically vivid; polar caps were lacking. Three moons attended.

  Massive, dense, gravity at the surface a fifth again the Terrestrial, this world held a thick atmosphere. Humans could not have breathed
unaided at sea level. Their lungs would accept the oxynitro composition, but not the concentration; and greenhouse effect kept lowlands hot in the high latitudes, unbearable closer to the equator. Only on the uppermost plateaus might man survive.

  Yet life overran the globe, not much different from the Earth kind, as differences go in the cosmos.

  "Damn it, that could be the reflection spectrum of chlorophyl off the vegetation," Dozsa muttered. "Masked by something else, of course, but-"

  "The chances against our being able to nourish ourselves down there, with no seeds or synthesizers, are absurdly big," Weisenberg interrupted.

  "We could investigate," Leino proposed.

  Brodersen shook his head. "No. I'd like to, but the risk's too great, the stakes too small, when we've found no sign of civilization, of any intelligence."

  "Besides," Caitlin said, "the Others are keeping this world for a race that can truly grow into it, the way they kept Demeter for us."

  Nightwatch.

  Chinook drove back toward the gate, Caitlin lay awake after Brodersen had fallen asleep, until she rose, slipped on her pajamas, and left their quarters. Entering the common room, she closed its door, turned off the lights and that viewscreen which showed the sun, and sat down in a soundless dark to be with the stars of the cluster.

  Half an hour had passed when the door opened anew, to admit a person who shut it behind her. The sky, more radiant than a full Luna, showed Susanne Granville. Tears coursed along her face.

  She halted when she saw Caitlin. "Oh," she stammered, "ex-excuse me," and turned to go.

  "Wait, Su." The quartermaster sprang up and hastened toward her. "What's wrong?"

  "Rien- it makes noting. I kn-kn-knew not you are 'ere. I will take me to my cabin."

  "Like hell you will." Caitlin reached her and laid arms about her. "If anybody leaves, that'll be myself. You came in search of comfort, girl." She considered the desolate visage, bowed head, uneven breath, desperately intertwined fingers. "Or strength?"

  Susanne yielded. Caitlin held her, stroked and murmured, until the storm of sobbing had passed. Thereupon she led her to a small gaming table, set her down, sat opposite, and reached across to clasp a hand. The heavens were a diademmed house around them. Su shuddered. "It's cold," she said in a tiny voice.

  "Aye, that time of the temperature cycle," Caitlin replied. "You're feeling it in a coverall, though, where I've naught but these flimsy things on me. The real cold is in you, dear. Can you be letting in some warmth?"

  Su bent her look blindly outward.

  "I'd not pry," CaitlIn said. "Still, I am the doctor to this ship, who on Demeter has heard worse than I'd ever have you imagine, helped where I was able, and always kept silence... It's to do with Carlos, is that not so?"

  Su nodded violently.

  "Aye, everybody's noticed you two becoming close, and been glad for you," Caitlin went on. "See here, if you tell me to mind my own business, I'll apologize and leave you be. However, you've a high heart beneath your mildness. A fight with him could make you miserable, but would not crush you like this. What happened, Su?"

  The linker lifted a fist and got out, nearly too headlong to be followed: "E 'as asked me for to marry 'im!"

  "What? Why, that's wonderful. Two fine people- But you refused?"

  "Yes. I must. It is impossible."

  "Why?" Su giving no immediate response other than a dry gulp or two, Caitlin reconstructed in her most soothing tone: "No doubt he first propositioned and you declined. Tonight he proposed marriage. That shows he loves you, darling. He could have ample sex elsewhere. Frieda; and I confess I'd have satisfied my curiosity by now, had he not begun making you glow. True, a service Dan performed would have no legal or canonical standing, but it'd be a wedding in every honest intent, and sure I am he'd take care of the formalities if we should find our way home. Dan, who knows him of old, has told me that when Carlos gives his loyalty, that loyalty stays given."

  Su bobbed her head.

  "Why'd you not simply move in with him?" Caitlin asked. "Your parents are religious, you said, but to me you've called yourself a devout atheist."

  "For their sakes," Su replied in a raw whisper. "I 'ave 'urt them enough already, not to come back a, a kept woman." A ghost of vitality entered. "And I would not be, regardless."

  "But you'd accept a shipboard ceremony? You do love him? Then in Macye's raunchy name, why have you told him no?"

  "I am - une vierge."

  "A virgin?" Caitlin smiled. "Well, that's unusual at your age, but no disgrace. No more than a misfortune, I'd say." Seeing the woe before her unchanged, she went on soberly, "Is it afraid of conjugal relations you are? Not pain, maybe, but inadequacy? I can give you a bit of help overcoming that, and Carlos far more. Frie- I've reason to know he's considerate... Or do you fear being subordinated, smothered? He does have his touch of machismo. Yet I'll wager you've spirit to match, and to steer by your own compass. Remember Lis Leino."

  "You are not compre'ending. I am never inoculated."

  "What?" Caitlin was downright shocked.

  "My parents- I am not angry wiz them. They are adorable. But living at 'ome, if I took my shot before marrying, they would 'ave t'ought it like a declaration I mean to... to make me cheap like most girls."

  Caitlmn scowled. "That's their attitude."

  "I do not condemn you," Susanne said hurriedly. "It is just I 'ave been raised to the making of a different choice. On Eart' too, going to a doctor for this, it would 'ave felt - sneaky?" A rueful chuckle. "No need any'ow. The problem did not come."

  "And you returned, and hung around patiently in love with Dan - oh, I saw, I saw - till Carlos and you - What you fear is pregnancy."

  "Yes. Abortion is 'omicide. When it is not necessary for the saving of the mother's life or 'ealt', it is murder."

  "Agreed. Furthermore, we're not equipped to perform it safely. Infanticide, no! Sooner would I throw myself out an airlock."

  "And we c-cannot bring children... into this lost ship... to need rations and shorten the few years our mates probably 'ave left to them-" Su straightened in her chair. The hand Caitlin was not holding smote the tabletop, a lonely noise. "I told 'im no. 'E wanted to talk more, but I ran away. Per'aps now I can meet 'im again. T'ank you. Do you know Dan was kind to me in this same room?"

  "Hold on." Caitlin tugged her chin and frowned at the universe. "Let me think. Faith, many an agonizing human dilemma has turned out to have what our skipper calls an engineering solution... I've not the kit or the competence to sterilize either of you. But there were once mechanical contraceptives. Maybe Phil and I between us can reinvent a thing that won't be too unpleasant." She felt resistance. "Don't get bashful. Would you not sacrifice a grain of what you consider your dignity, for your happiness and your man's?"

  Susanne must struggle before she could say, "Yes. Yes."

  "And it may not be needed." As ideas came to Caitlin, enthusiasm arose and bloomed into joy. "I'll ask the data bank. It may well know of procedures - aye, vasectomy ought to be simple enough surgery if I can find out how to do it, and reversible by a bit of cloning if ever we get home - or I seem to remember reading once about intrauterine devices - or something in the chemistry - Och, we can consider details later. The point is, you poor innocent, you are not helpless. Go on! Wed him and be blessed!"

  The linker seemed stunned. "No, what if we do fail and 'ave a conception?"

  "Why, then," Caitlin replied, and a trumpet might have spoken, "it's no failure at all, at all. It's a triumph. It says we do not surrender to death, no, not though he offer to let us march forth with full military honors. We fight on, live on, search on - your child beside us!"

  Slowly began to grow in Susanne a brightness to equal the stars.

  XL

  Jump.

  The stellar host was less myriad and brilliant than before, though more than around Sol or Phoebus - save that in one direction towered vast thunderheads of night, relieved only by a few gleams in thei
r foreground. No sun was in view. The T machine had for a satellite a great ellipsoid much like that at the pulsar. It orbited something which the eye perceived as a quivering bluewhite spark, Joelle and the instruments as a hellish fountainhead of hard radiation.

  Her judgment came to them like God's: "We've approached the core of the galaxy. Those are the dust clouds that have always hidden it from us. Here is a black hole."

  The ultimate collapsar, a supernova remnant so massive that its gravitational force upon itself compressed it to a smallness, a field strength, such that light could no longer escape... The known laws of physics were superseded, and matter shrank down and down toward a geometrical point, a singularity, at which no laws whatsoever would prevail. But none of this might the seekers observe. Nothing but an infinitesimal wave-mechanical leakage could return from that all-devouring potential well. Interstellar material, sucked in, gave up energy as a last despairing cry before it vanished - for eternity?

  I suspect eternity is a human superstition and the Others know better, Brodersen thought. Aloud: "Yonder must be an observatory, similar to what we found earlier, except I'll bet with a lot of damned enlightening differences. We'll investigate. The background count isn't too high for us to stay a while."

  "No." Joelle's voice grew urgent. "Don't. Go on. Right away."

  "Why?"

  "I can't tell you. A hunch... We holothetes work on hunches, Dan, often as not, and here- Forces, energies, the very shape of space, everything feels too strange. I'm afraid we can't cope."

  Without more knowledge, her self-respect said. The Others can teach me how to come back and learn, when I find them, if I find them.

  XLI

  Jump.

  Again the sky was thronged with stars, almost as thickly as two leaps ago, nearly all of them a red hue, from that of blood to that of roses, but crystalline sharp. Most showed less bright than those of the cluster, more bright than those of the inner spiral arm, which fact bespoke their distances and spacings. No trace of nebulae, exterior galaxies, or Milky Way appeared. In one direction the stellar density grew greater and greater, until vision saw it melt into a ruby globe like some huge talismanic sun.