by J F Bone
“Oh, that? Well, the voice contacted me before it came in. I had just felt the first labor pains, and it said it would help. I knew it was sincere, because telepathy is incapable of lying, and I was scared enough to need help. You wouldn’t have been much good and I didn’t want to have the baby alone if I could help it. So I let the cart bring me here. I knew you’d follow. The only thing I didn’t know was that the people who lived here didn’t have babies normally. That might be why they died out—no youngsters, the old getting older and more tired until life became too much for them and they died of sheer boredom.”
“It’s a theory,” George said noncommittally. “And a theory can usually be checked.”
“How—in this case?”
“By asking that voice. It probably has all kinds of information we could use. And incidentally, I want to see it.”
“Don’t you want to see your daughter first?” Laura asked. “After all, I went to a lot of trouble to bring her into the world. Or are you going to disown her because she’s a girl.”
Bennett flushed. “Of course I want to see her.”
“Well, take a look, then.” She pointed to the tub.
Obediently he looked over the metal rim. “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Laura asked.
Bennett couldn’t see it. The tiny thing cradled in the yielding forcefields might be a beautiful baby, but if she was, he wondered what homely ones looked like. To him this short-legged mite with the oversized head and chubby fists jammed into its cheeks seemed hardly worth the trouble and pain that had accompanied her entry into life.
Still, she was his daughter—and he was partly responsible for her presence here. He felt a surge of protective feeling stir within him.
“She’s very nice,” he said. “But isn’t she awfully red and small?”
“Silly! All newborn babies are red and small. But in a month she’ll be different, and in a few years she’ll be so beautiful that it’ll hurt. This gal’s going to be a glamor doll!”
At least Laura had confidence, Bennett thought wryly. Mothers could probably see things in their offspring that fathers were either too dull or too stupid to recognize. But he kept looking, liking what he saw more and more as the minutes passed.
“Okay, father, you’ve done your duty. Now would you like to see the voice?”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Sure, several days ago.”
“What’s it like?”
“Wait until you see it yourself. You’ve got a surprise coming. It would be a shame to tell you. It’d spoil the effect.” She turned to the door, and the tub floated after her. She looked at it proudly. “Follows me around like a pet dog. Never gets in the way, but I have Martha right at my elbow when I want her. Nice, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“I want to make one thing clear,” Laura said as they walked down the corridor. “No matter what you learn from the voice, I don’t want to leave here—not for awhile, at any rate. Martha’ll have to be bigger than she is before I’ll go into space with her.”
Bennett stared at her. “Now listen—” he began.
“You listen! Just where else in the universe can a baby get the care it can here? There’s a whole technology dedicated to keeping her well and healthy. And besides, I like it here. There’s no want that can’t be satisfied. This place is a paradise!”
“But there’s always the snake. What good is all this if we don’t do some good with it? If you owned the Universe what would it profit you if it wasn’t used to help others. This place is simply crying to help Civilization.”
“Oh, I don’t mind if someone else benefits,” Laura said. “But I don’t want to lose what I have. We may not be able to live for ourselves alone, but we could do a pretty good imitation of it for awhile. You might be right in the long run, but we’ll have plenty of time to decide how long the run will be.” She stopped before a doorway. “It’s in here,” she said.
Bennett looked into a deep pit surrounded by a narrow balcony whose walls were crowded with unfamiliar electronic equipment set behind transparent panels. Tiny autoservice mechs sped silently through the maze of circuits and crystal visible behind the panels. The whole area pulsed with life and movement.
But this wasn’t what caught his eye. The center of attention was the pit itself and what was within it. Fully a hundred feet wide, the pit sank an equal distance to the powdery brown soil of the planet, and squatting within the geometric center of that huge shaft, nestling within a girdle of broad leathery leaves rose the pink corrugated hemisphere of an enormous plant!
Hair fine tendrils reached from the base of the twenty foot long leaves to disappear into the fluted walls of the shaft, and as Bennett watched he was certain that the gigantic mass of the plant pulsed faintly under the steady unchanging light from the glowing ceiling.
“Cauliflower!” The word jumped from his lips involuntarily. Yet that was exactly what the plant looked like—an enormous pink cauliflower! His mind grasped the implications of the plant instantly. This was the source of the voice! No wonder it seemed amused when he had been pontificating about identity of race!
“Aye, Master.” The voice swept softly into his mind. I am a plant, similar in many ways to that pictured in your mind. Yet I am vastly different. For I was designed as I am, and not as a natural growth. Long ago the first of me was bred and mutated to take the burden of routine thought from the Masters’ minds, and to serve as a storehouse of their wisdom. And every one of the many who followed have been faithful to our trust. It is good to have you back, as it is my purpose to serve. Without the Masters, life is lonely and incomplete.
“Would you like more of us?”
“It would be good to have the levels filled again, that I may use my powers. For since I have found you there is a peace within—a pleasure I had near forgot. Yet I have seen what is within your mind, and I fear I shall lose you.”
“Not for long. We shall return bringing others.”
The voice sighed in his mind. “It would be a consummation devoutly to be wished! Since the last of the Masters took their lives, there has been a great emptiness.”
Bennett’s eyebrows rose. The words were familiar, but to hear them from a plant was a mild irony that he doubted Shakespeare would have appreciated. And Laura was right about the others.
“But you have more than a desire to see me.”
Bennett nodded.
“A desire for knowledge,” the voice continued. “Your woman cares naught for knowledge, but you are a man, and therefore curious.” The voice seemed to laugh. “ ‘Twas said by the Masters that the female was the curious one. Yet it is not truly so. Their curiosity is of things, while yours is of ideas. Therefore tell me, Master. What is your wish to learn.”
Bennett told, and the telling itself took a long time.
VII
FOR THE FOURTH TIME, the patient mechanical rescued Martha from the cliff edge and brought her kicking and protesting back to Laura who sat in the shade of a dune watching the byplay with amused interest. Laura disregarded the protesting wails, dusted her daughter off and set her on her feet with stern maternal admonitions about the dangers of falling a mile through empty air. Then, for the fifth time, Martha headed back for the edge, her chubby legs pushing bravely against the sand, while the mechanical hovered watchfully behind.
Laura sighed and leaned back against the sand, contemplating the barren sweep of the mesa’s top shining in the blistering rays of the hot yellow sun. Martha wailed again as the mech lifted her from the threatening edge for the fifth time and began the slow journey back, but Laura disregarded the noise. A long time ago she had learned the difference between temper and terror in Martha’s cries. Instead she watched the bronze figure of Bennett coming toward her in the crawler. From the plume of yellow dust that trailed him he was apparently in a hurry.
Martha saw him too, shook free from the mech and began running to intercept the vehicle, screaming “Daddy, Daddy!” in a high childish treble. The
ir courses met, and Bennett stopped the machine long enough to hoist Marth inside and then came on again with undiminished speed.
Laura smiled. In the few seconds it took for the crawler to reach her, her mind roved back over the years that had passed since she had awakened here. They had been good years. Life had been pleasant and easy—perhaps too easy, and too little filled with struggle. But there was nothing wrong with struggle. The mesa was a friendly place with Collie’s warmth pervading it. Collie—what a simply terrible name George had saddled on that poor vegetable! But the plant seemed to like it.
She stretched her lithe young body lazily, feeling the play of smooth muscles under her skin. It was good to be alive. But things could be improved with a little more excitement. It would be nice to relive those hectic days after they had first awakened here.
Bennett jumped from the crawler, set Martha down and came over to her, walking with a quick nervous stride that told her something was afoot. She knew George Bennett almost as well as she knew herself. After four years of living with a man, knowledge like that was almost second nature.
“Laura, I’ve seen the ship!” he announced.
“Is that all? You’ve known where it was for nearly four years.”
“But I couldn’t get at it. You know that as well as I do. It’s almost free now. That last storm has blown most of the sand away. You can see it from the rim easily.”
“So that’s what’s been attracting Martha. She’s been running over to that edge all morning.”
“And you didn’t look?” His voice was accusing.
“I’ve been sunbathing,” she said in a tone of voice that explained everything.
“Women!” he snorted.
A strange fear gripped her. George had never abandoned the idea that someday they would leave this place. And now the means were come to his hand. This pleasant life was about to end. She could hear it in his voice—the voice of the adventurer, the seeker, the hunter of danger. She felt an irrational regret, as though deep in her mind she craved action. But now that action was at hand she shrank from the prospect. Truly, she was getting soft.
“And now with the upper part of the hull out of the sand, I can use the dissociators,” Bennett said. “I’ve never dared to use them before because there was no telling whether or not they’d carve the hull to ribbons. But we’ll have that crate cleared in a day. And then we’ll know!”
“Know what?”
“What we were before we came here and if the ship isn’t too badly damaged to fly! Doesn’t that make you feel good?” He laughed and picked her up effortlessly from the sand and held her easily over his head, grinning up at her like an excited boy, the light of new adventure shining in his eyes.
He was an incurable romantic, she thought with faint grimness. “Put me down, you big ape!” she said. “There’s no reason for you to act like an adolescent just because you’ve seen a spaceship. It isn’t going to blow away. And besides, all of us have been out in this sun long enough. Let’s go inside and talk this over sensibly.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” he said glumly as he lowered her to earth.
“I’m not. All that thing out there means is trouble.”
“You should be interested. After all that ship’s yours. Your name is etched on the bowplates.”
“As far as I know, I’ve never owned a ship in my life!”
His face wore the deflated expression characteristic of men whose women fail to appreciate them. “You just don’t remember owning it,” he said patiently. “But the logtapes in the crawler say you did. Don’t you even want to look at your property?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you feel anything? Doesn’t the possibility of learning what you were before we came here thrill you even a little bit?”
She shook her head. “From what I’ve managed to gather, Laura Latham wasn’t very nice, I’m not at all eager to resurrect her.”
“Oh, she couldn’t have been too bad.”
“You remember her. I’m quite sure that what you remember isn’t very flattering.”
“I know you too well.” He caught her in his arms and squeezed.
“Oh stop it! You’re squeezing the breath out of me!” Laura said in a half-exasperated, half-enticing tone. She struggled, not too hard, as Martha watched them, a smile on her snub-nosed face. Daddy was such fun when he was excited.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so. But there may be internal injuries.” She laughed at him as he set her down.
He looked at her oddly, “Sometimes I wish that I understood you better,” he said.
“If you did there’d be no mystery about me and with no mystery, love wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Let’s take a look at your spaceship,” Laura said.
He groaned in mild frustration. There were times when she infuriated him.
Laura looked at the bright metallic cone protruding from the sand. “It doesn’t look like much,” she commented. “It’s still half buried.”
“Oh, cleaning out the rest of that sand is easy.”
“Why don’t we just leave it and let the sand bury it again?”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. We have a duty to bring this place to Civilization. The Confederation needs what we have here.”
“You still talk like a starry-eyed ensign hi the Navy,” Laura said bitterly. “You’re planning to turn our paradise over to the wrecking crews. They’ll destroy more than they save, and claw each other to death over the remains. You’re so full of ideals that you don’t know about people. They’re not like the Officer’s Code says they are.”
She looked at him with disgust. “You’ll never learn a thing until it hits you in the face, so go ahead and dig your precious spaceship out if you want to. I’m going to take Martha inside. We’ve had enough sun to last us for awhile, and besides it’s time for dinner.”
“Women!” His snort was eloquent.
She smiled at him fondly. Despite his size and all the knowledge Collie had poured into him, he was still a small boy at heart. Perhaps that was the secret of his charm—the reason why she loved him. Maybe it was just maternal instinct. She sighed and shook her head. When you’re permanently twenty-two, there’s little maternal instinct involved in dealing with a magnificent animal like George Bennett. He was grumbling, but he wouldn’t explode, and he would come down to their quarters with her, and eat dinner—and after awhile everything would be all right again.
It worked out exactly as she had predicted.
But Bennett was at work the next day. With the aid of Collie and two of the big dissociators used in rebuilding work inside the mesa it was scarcely noon before the ship stood in a glass-lined caisson, completely free of enshrouding sand. Bennett whistled with mild dismay as he inspected the starboard steering jet. The ship had taken a terrific mauling somewhere out in space. He wondered idly how Laura and he had managed to live through that sort of damage. Transmitted shock alone should have killed them.
A sudden eagerness to see what was inside gripped him as he stood on the rim of the glass-lined pit and looked down at the sleek streamlined shape of the ship—a shape that had no particular value in space at normal speeds, but what was highly important for both atmosphere travel and the incredibly fast travel in hyperspace where the continuum itself offered the yielding rigidity of half set gelatin in the upper blue.
Funny, he thought, how the old “functional” design of spaceships changed once they began to travel fast enough for the space to offer actual resistance to flight. With the development of a “cold” drive which gave no more danger from radioactivity, the designers quickly departed from the old dumbbell design and went back to the ancient pinch-waisted streamline that had been the ultimate in hull design during the Dark Ages. His ancestors could easily have recognized this craft for what she was—an ultra fast ship whose every line screamed of speed an
d more speed.
He stepped onto an antigravity plate and was lowered slowly down alongside the ship until he stood on the fused yellow sand at the bottom of the caisson. He stared at the thin line of the entrance port. There were no interpenetrating binding edges here. The valve looked as prosaically conventional as those he had been accustomed to in the Navy.
His hand reached out toward the latch as the memory of the tech manuals came back to haunt him. if there were too many things like chronotrine helices inside, perhaps even the vast technological knowledge stored in his brain would be useless. He sighed and shrugged. It was impossible to find out the easy way. He had to see what lay ahead.
He opened the valve. It swung outward easily under his hand.
The first sight was reassuring. The airlock was normal enough except that the controls were located on the left side of the inner door rather than on the right as he remembered them. The double hull concept that had just begun to be employed during his last memories was still in vogue. The inner controls responded to his manipulations, bringing a grunt of surprise to his lips. He really hadn’t expected them to work after being inactive so long.
This ship must have accumulators that really were accumulators. He smiled as the red light held steady above the panel and the inner door swung open, giving onto a narrow landing floored with a perforated metal plate. Above him ran the smooth circular tunnel of the central shaft. It was small and there were no visible climbing irons.
This plate on which he was standing must be a lift, but lifts were uncommon in craft of this size. Beside him, welded to a small post rising from the metal floor, was a control box. The controls were obvious. Tentatively he punched the button under the plate inscribed “Control Room”, and the plate on which he stood lifted with a smooth rush through four hatches that opened automatically as he approached, and halted in the lowest quadrant of a spherical room whose walls were covered with scanner plates.
Two heavily padded chairs and a kidney-shaped control board were suspended in a universal mounted transparent ball by thin girders running inward from the periphery of the room. A retractable ladder led upward to the sphere which held the chairs and board, and up this he climbed.
