Far From This Earth

by Chad Oliver

  He screamed. Cold. The shock numbed him. He felt betrayed. The liquid should have been warm—warm and soothing …

  He twisted, crawled, clawed his way out. He sprawled, gasping. He waited, breathing hard.

  Slowly, he eased his efforts. His skin dried. There was no glare. He was cooler. He had swallowed some of the fluid. It hurt, but it was a good hurt.

  Cautiously, he extended his hand. He touched the liquid. It was still cold, but it did not surprise him now. He wet his hand, his arm. He touched the hot places on his skin. He wet his hand again. He licked it. It was sweet. Good.

  This is a good place.

  He relaxed, dozed. He put more fluid in his mouth.

  His head cleared. He felt a sense of well-being, almost of pride. He had done something. He had done something.

  He stood, looked back the way he had come. He could see the glare outside the cool place. He felt a sudden unease.

  Something …

  He remembered.

  Out there. Where he had been. Forms, shapes. Like him. Down, not moving. Heat.

  He shook his head. He was confused. This was a good place. That was not.

  A new idea: why. They were like him. They were where he had been. This was better. Why did they stay there?

  He puzzled over it, worried it. He could not let it go. He did not like it. He wanted to wait, to enjoy. But he kept thinking …

  The unease overcame the comfort. Again, there was no conscious decision. He moved, going back.

  The glare and the heat stopped him for a moment but it was familiar to him now. He knew he could get out of it by retracing his steps. That made it easier. He moved on. He moved more quietly, more certainly. He knew where he was going.

  He found them. A few stood, as he had done. Some were down, with their eyes open. Others were still, their eyes closed. He studied them, checking. Yes, they were like him.

  Heat. Pain. He did not know what to do. He stood there, waiting. They ignored him. The pain increased.

  Go back.

  He turned, thinking of the cool place and the fluid that sounded. He started, stopped.

  They were like him. This was not a good place. The cool place was better. If—

  Another new idea: how. And another: together.

  He knew what he wanted to do. He did not know how to do it. He waited, but not for long. No. Waiting will not work, not any more.

  The glare and the heat irritated him. He had to do something. Move, action, not alone …

  He went back, walked up to one of the standing men. He reached out to touch him. The standing one growled and raised his hand.

  He turned away, puzzled. He knelt and touched one of the forms that was down. It twitched but did not pull away. Eyes looked at him.

  He moaned. He did not know what to do. He hurt.

  Together.

  His hands grasped, held. He pulled. He lifted. The form came up, stood. He clutched it.

  He walked, holding it, taking it with him. When it fell, he picked it up. He kept it moving. Small pleasure sounds came from his throat. It was harder than walking alone, but it was better.

  It took him a long time, but time was nothing to him. He half-carried it to the cool place, the soft place. He put it down next to the moving liquid. He drank.

  He saw another. It had followed.

  Yes.

  He went back, through the bright light and the hotness. He was tired, but it was easier now. His body responded to him. He moved with more assurance. He felt—strong.

  He had a good feeling.

  He would get them all.

  Sleep came, despite the emptiness within him. He slept deeply, not moving. He dreamed images. His mind worked while he slept absorbing, storing, sorting …

  Cold. He awakened, opening his eyes. He saw grayness. The bright glare above the shading screen was gone. There was something else. Smaller, cooler. It was hard to see, but it was not really dark. He was not alarmed. He liked the color of gray. It reminded him of something a long time ago—

  He listened. Sounds. A murmur of liquid moving. A whisper in the shading things. Rustlings near him. Other sounds he could not identify. A sharp, penetrating call from somewhere. Repeated. He shivered. He felt a prickling sensation on his head.

  He was very cold. He ached. His skin burned through the cold, making him shiver. The emptiness cramped him.

  This time, he did not wait. He crawled to the moving fluid. He drank. It did not help much. It was cold in him.

  He sought warmth. There was only one source. The like-hims, sprawled there in the grayness. He went to them. He lay down next to one. He held it in his arms. Soft. Warm. It sighed and stirred, then was quiet. He made a pleasure sound.

  Better.

  He slept again.

  When he opened his eyes, the bright hotness was above him. He could feel it through the shade things. He could see clearly in the shadows. There were colors in the world.

  He moved his arms, releasing the other. He looked at it, studying it. Like him, but not quite the same. There were differences. He saw that now.

  He was not interested. The emptiness in him was everything. It twisted him. It demanded.

  He got up. He used his eyes, searching. The ache almost blinded him, but he kept looking. He did not know what he was after. He frowned, trying to think. When he was cold, he sought warmth. When he was hot, he sought coolness. When he thirsted, he drank. When he was empty …

  He remembered. It had been taught to him long ago, in that other world where he had waited. Food and not-food. Food was for emptiness.

  He felt excitement at the thought of food. That was what he needed. Yes, but where was it? What was it?

  He kept using his eyes, seeking. It did not work. There were so many things, so many colors. He could not decide.

  He used his hands and his mouth and his tongue. He tried substances. Hard, soft, wet, dry. He spat them out. Not-food. He crawled and he walked. He pulled things, broke things, licked things. He whimpered.

  He saw a bright color, bright but cool. Up, not down. Hanging in the shade-things. He touched it. Soft. He ripped at it, crushing it between his hands. It was wet but not fluid. He smeared it on his mouth. He licked it.

  It tasted sweet. He swallowed some. It was in him. He reached up and grabbed another. He crammed it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. Food. Food was for emptiness. He ate another and another and another.

  He began to hurt. He crawled back to the moving liquid and put his face in it. He gagged, choked. He pulled himself out of the fluid and collapsed in the shade.

  This time, he waited. He could not move. The cramping was worse, then subsided. The emptiness was gone. He felt a subtle, growing strength.

  He was drowsy. He felt easy and relaxed.

  He closed his eyes, resting. A faint smile played at the corners of his sweet-stained mouth.

  There was brightness and grayness. Sometimes there were two brightnesses at once, one of them much larger than the other. Sometimes the grayness did not come and it was dark. It was a definite cycle, however; there was regularity to it. It could be known, anticipated.

  The rhythm of change continued. Glaring light and gentle gray glow. Blackness speckled with tiny points of light. Heat and cold. Wind that blew and rain that fell.

  It was less strange, now. It was a part of them.

  The cycle went on.

  He learned and the strength within him grew. He knew who he was and discovered pride. He had been the first. The first to walk, to seek, to drink, to eat. He had led the way. He was the First One.

  He knew his companions. They were all the same and all different. Some were males, as he was. Others were females. Some were strong and some were not. Some could climb better than others. Some were quick, others slow. Eyes were different, and hair.

  One male never awakened. He was very still. His skin was cold. After a time, he smelled. First One dragged him away and left him.

  He learned many things. He kn
ew about the water; he found its bubbling source and followed its moving trail. He knew about fruits and berries and nuts and roots. He knew the difference between trees and grass and bushes. He understood that the rain that fell was like the water in the stream. He knew how much sun-glare he could take and when to avoid it.

  He knew who would help him and who needed help. He knew where to find comfort and when to growl. He knew that being First One meant responsibility.

  He knew that there were other things in his world. Things that were not-us. He saw and heard them in the trees and in the sky. He heard calls in the night. Once, out on the grassy plain where he had first awakened, he saw some big things moving. He ran from them. They did not follow.

  He knew colors. He recognized the blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the redness of fruit. He was still astonished by colors. He drank them in, learning them.

  He knew so much. It was incredible to him how empty he had been. He relished his new knowledge, all of it. He knew the joy of living.

  He did not yet know tears.

  A day came, like other days. First One and three of the people had wandered a long way, leaving the grove of trees. It had been growing colder and they were searching for a warm place, a warm place with water and food.

  They had crossed the level grassland and worked their way up a rocky hill. It was hard going and it was not good. It seemed that the higher they climbed the colder it became. The wind blew against them, whining. The shadows lengthened.

  First One braced himself and rested. He was pleased to find that he could see a long distance. There was nothing to block his eyes. He could even see the trees that had sheltered them, and they were far. It was, he decided, a place to come to examine his world, sometime. But now it was cold and night was on the way.

  They started back, wearily. First One was annoyed that he had not found warmth. It did not occur to him that he might never find it.

  They descended the hill and walked across the grassland. It was getting darker but he could still see. Long before they reached the trees, he sensed that something was wrong. There was a difference, a feeling.

  Unease …

  Danger!

  He broke into a run. He was First One. He should be there, where the danger was. He could do something.

  Just as he got to the trees, he heard a deep hissing growl. It was not a people noise. He heard a scream, suddenly choked off. That was one of his kind. It was a female. He knew her.

  He went to the sounds, crashing through the bushes. His breath came hard and fast. He shouted a new noise.

  He saw them. A snarling furry thing, bigger than he was. A tail, lashing. Teeth that flashed, claws that tore. The female, down. Red fluid on her skin. One arm—off.

  He did not hesitate. He charged, teeth bared, arms swinging. He hurled himself at the thing. He caught it. He felt power—

  Pain. Hurt. Shock.

  He was thrown back, down. His head hit something. There was wetness on him. The furry thing was all over him. Strong, strong. He smelled him. He felt claws that ripped.

  He rolled, kicked. He tried to crawl away. He was not fast enough. The thing was on him. He cried out.

  The three who had been with him came. They attacked, growling. The thing turned to face them, its great tail twitching. It roared.

  First One staggered to his feet. He learned. He knew now he must not get in close. He grabbed a stick to make his arm longer. He swung it, as hard as he could. One of the men was down now, red on his chest. Another picked up a rock, threw it.

  More people came out of the trees, shouting.

  The furry thing whirled, hissed. It was not hurt but it was confused now. It ran, moving in great gliding bounds. It disappeared into the gathering darkness of the grasslands.

  First One could not stand. He fell to his knees. He touched the sticky redness on him. Warm. His warmth. There was no pain. Only weakness, depletion.

  And shocked surprise.

  He had been strong. He had tasted success, many times. He had not known that he could fail.

  He collapsed, shaking. He felt hands on his body, lifting him. He knew he was being carried. He felt it when they washed him with cool water. He knew the smell of his own nest.

  He shuddered. He had no strength. He was cold.

  A form came into his nest. Warm. Soft. He knew her. She made comforting noises. She held him.

  He could not hold on, could not think. He slipped away, falling …

  He slept.

  The starship maneuvered through the gray reach of space prime, its computers plotting vectors and strategies. There could be no mistakes, not here. Mistakes were fatal. There were no second chances,

  Controlled power is not infinite and sealed systems must ultimately have renewal. There came a time when evasive action was not enough.

  The ship made its move.

  It attacked with maximum surprise and force. Beams lanced out, ice-white and hot-red. Raw concentrated energy pulsed from the transmitters. The great missiles were launched: spacecraft in their own right, locked on their target, warheads set.

  The ship of the Others was not caught napping. That awesome shape-changing fish of the deeps responded. Screens flickered into being, beams flashed. But the ship of the Others was late, a fraction of a second late.

  It was hit, hard.

  It glowed, expanded—and burst, a brief and temporary sun where there could be no suns.

  It was gone.

  The starship was damaged, but not critically. It could function, and did.

  It drove through the folds of space prime. It seemed to go on forever in nothingness.

  In time, the ship wrenched joltingly back into normal space. It was battered and clumsy and it emerged perilously close to its own family of planets.

  But it made it.

  It set its course for home, limping in.

  It was nearly three years before the new starship returned to the binary system of Capella. The giant yellow primary burned against the blackness of space, almost obscuring its smaller companion sun. Capella V, a world of blue and white and green, waited.

  The ship was loaded and ready. A full complement of blanks floated in the nourishing vats, neither awake nor asleep. The voyage could not be wasted. There were alternate targets, but Capella V was the obvious choice. The Capella system was forty-two light-years from Earth. Even utilizing the folds of space prime, that was no casual jaunt. The experts at home had virtually written off the first abortive seeding attempt.

  They had to try again, and this time complete the job. A man without a culture was nothing; he had no chance. The ship had the fresh blanks. It had the detailed lifeway, stored and ready for transfer.

  The seeding had to succeed, not only here but in many places. There was no more room on Earth. The home culture was static, stagnant, feeding on itself. The trouble with a single planet-wide culture was that it tended to freeze. There were no alternatives, no variants, no new ideas.

  But those variants could be tried on other worlds.

  Human beings could be seeded—not as helpless babies, but as strong young men and women. A culture could be fed in—any culture. Hunters, farmers, industrialists. A thousand lifeways, each with its own potential.

  Man could survive with promise, even when Earth was old.

  That was the reason for Capella V.

  Of course, the starship could not proceed blindly. It could not assume too much. There had been a seeding here, however strange it had been.

  If any of those people were still alive …

  They would have to check very carefully.

  Paul Edmondson would see to that.

  The starship rested in orbit, a huge metallic cylinder that floated on the thin edge of space. The auto-scouts went down through the sky. Gleaming spheres, they probed and searched and recorded. It did not take them long. They knew what they sought, and they knew where to look.

  They returned, docked, and disgorged their data.

&n
bsp; And the five men sat again around a table in a quiet room aboard a starship. This time they were not playing a game of make-believe. This was more than an intellectual puzzle to distract the mind. They had a decision to make, and the authority to make it.

  “It’s incredible,” Kitemu Nzioki said. “As a biologist, I hardly know what to say. There are forty-five of them left, plus eight living infants. They have increased their population.”

  Doc Bordie smiled his thin spider smile. “I told you they were healthy young animals. There’s not a one of them that’s twenty-one years old yet, remember. And those injections are effective, we know that.”

  Tino Sandoval threw up his hands. “I was wrong. Okay. What do we do now? We can’t seed again with them there; it’s against regulations. We can’t just leave them. And, dammit, they’re not quite blanks anymore. Can we adapt a lifeway design to what they already have, build on it? That’s never been done before. That’s why we use blanks.”

  “We can do it,” Art Embree said. “They haven’t got much. We could catch them easily enough, recondition them. That isn’t the question. Should we tamper with them now? That’s the question.”

  “I’m with you.” Paul Edmondson fired up his pipe. “Look at what they’ve done in three years. Kitemu used the right word: incredible. Do we just step in and take it all away from them? Do we just muscle in with some prefabricated culture that we happen to like? I don’t think so.”

  “Take what away from them?” Kitemu asked, shuffling through the data sheets. “They have no language. They have no fire. They have no real shelters—just piles of thorny brush with nests hidden in them. They have no effective weapons. They can’t even hunt. They’re just—scavengers.”

  “They have survived,” Art Embree said quietly. “They have reproduced. They have cared for their young. They have worked out the rudiments of a social order. Who are we to sit in judgment? Are our own lifeways all that great?”

  Paul Edmondson stood up, nervously. He paced the floor. “Look,” he said. “The whole purpose of the seed program is to create new ideas, new directions. This is a real opportunity. If we dream something up, we use the old ideas, no matter how we modify them. Our thinking flows through familiar channels; it has to. If we let them alone, anything can happen. Cultural evolution does not have to repeat itself; there’s nothing foreordained about it. These people may come up with something we’ve never dreamed of.”