Cluster (3 page)

Flint raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I'll be extra nice to the next Pole I meet.” Then he caught himself before the Shaman could protest. “
Polarian,
I mean.” Despite his bantering tone, he intended to keep his promise. He was curious about the alien residents anyway.

“To return to your question,” the Shaman said. He never lost a thread, no matter how far the conversation might wander. “Why aren't we within two hundred years of Earth, in culture and technology? That is the crux of dissension. There seems to be a cumulative regression, a logarithmic ratio–”

Flint cleared his throat again.

“All right, all right,” the Shaman said, more than a tinge of petulance in his tone. “In nontechnical language, it gets worse as you get farther out from the center, unless progressive subcenters develop. Somehow that two hundred year delay multiplies, until—well, Outworld is frankly Paleolithic. Old Stone Age, to you.”

“And a good thing,” Flint said. “What would I do for a name if there were no stoneworking?”

The Shaman sighed. “What, indeed. Be glad you're not in Castor or Pollux or Capella, with their Victorian cultures and musket diplomacies.”

“Why did you come here, Shaman? You had so many worlds to choose from.”

The old man gazed at the first faint light of dawn, as mighty Etamin gave herald of his rising. The Shaman's eyesight improved greatly by day. “I suppose it was because of the challenge. Certainly I didn't relish the odds for survival. Only half the freeze-passengers ever make it, you know.”

“What happens to the others?” This was new to Flint; he had assumed that all ships got where they were going without a hitch.

“Natural attrition. One ship in four is lost. Either it is struck by a meteor, or goes astray to perish in uncharted space, or its internal systems fail and destroy it. And one body in three, aboard the intact ships, does not revive.”

“That's more than half lost,” Flint said.

The Shaman smiled. “That is exactly half.”

“Uh-uh. You taught me fractions, remember? Find the common denominator, add them up. One in four is three in twelve ships lost; one in three is four in twelve bodies dead. That's seven of twelve dead. More than half.”

The old man chuckled. “Bright boy. But you are mistaken, because you have not really found the common denominator. You can't add ships and bodies.”

“All right. If one ship in four is lost, all the bodies
in
it are lost. So that's still one body in four.”

“But you are now counting bodies twice. Those in the last ships have to be excluded from the surviving ship tally.”

Flint wrestled with that, but the concept was nebulous.

“It will come to you in time,” the Shaman said. “The obvious is not always the truth, in mathematics
or
in life.”

“Maybe so,” Flint said dubiously. “Either way, it's one hell of a risk.”

“I was not really aware of those statistics at the time I volunteered,” the Shaman admitted. “And there is nothing very personal about it. It is not like fighting a dinosaur. The journey is like an instant. That's why I was able to leave Earth at age thirty-five and arrive here at thirty-five.” He sighed again. “Thirty years ago.”

“Another freezer is due soon, isn't it?” Flint asked.

“In a couple of years, yes. They are spaced out about three ships to the century, so that at any given moment half a dozen ships are on their way here, or heading back. In this way there is a steady, if small, supply of educated Earth natives to guide us and see that Outworld progresses. The same is true for all Earth colonies, of course. Otherwise Sol would not be a true Sphere, but just a motley collection of settlements.”

“Why didn't my ancestors travel by freezer?” Flint asked. “Then they would all have been Earthborn, and Outworld would have started civilized.”

“Well, the survival rate is better in the lifeships. And without the complex, heavy freezing and resuscitation apparatus, twice as many people can be shipped in each vessel. So about three times as many make it to the colony, at a fraction the expense. With a program the size of Earth's, that's a critical saving. In fact, Outworld would not have been colonized at all, without the lifeships. But there is that one disadvantage: in the course of the seven isolated generations the trip takes, much regression takes place, even though books and tapes are available. The spaceborn just don't have the inclination to maintain complex systems of knowledge and rigorous skills that aren't needed aboard the ship itself. And once they emerge on the planet–”

“Who can study dull books when he's fighting a dinosaur?” Flint asked.

“That's about it. So I think we have a complex of reasons for the retardation. It starts in the original colony lifeships, and is not corrected by the freezers, because the majority culture is already set. Perhaps the lowered density of population has something to do with it. As you know, only so many people can survive on a square mile of land by hunting and gathering. Until rising population forces them to change, they take the easy way—and that's what you have here on Outworld. Enjoy it; it will not endure forever.”

“You know what I said, when I learned I had been apprenticed to you?” Flint inquired mischievously. “'What? That old fool?'”

The Shaman laughed with him. “Right you were.”

But Flint was abruptly serious. “No,
I
was the fool. You know so much, I can hardly comprehend it even when you tell it straight. But you're always right, when I finally figure it out. Compared to you, I know how stupid I am.”

“Never that,” the Shaman said. “Ignorant, yes; stupid, no. There's another fundamental distinction for you. I chose you because you were by far the brightest and most talented child in the tribe. You have a peculiar, special intense vitality. I saw real leadership in you, Flint, and I see it yet, stronger with every question you ask. You must work, you must learn, you must not be content like the others, for one day this tribe will be yours.”

“But I am no Chief's son!” Flint cried, flattered.

The Shaman seemed not to have heard. “You will have to lead your people out of the Paleolithic, and into the Mesolithic—even the Neolithic, the New Stone Age. Progress is much faster here than it was on Earth,
because now the knowledge exists
. I have been teaching you to read; the books are here, waiting to teach you more than I have ever known. You can accomplish in a generation what took millennia on Earth. Centuries from now, Outworld will be civilized...”

Flint let him ramble. He looked through the telescope again, locating Sirius, fainter now with the coming dawn, and then, with special effort, the twin stars of Sol and Toliman. This was his last chance before Etamin blotted them out for the day. Strange to imagine that man had evolved on that far little planet circling that almost invisible star–

“Shaman!” he exclaimed. “Sol's gone!”

The Shaman started, then relaxed. “That would be an eclipse. One of our satellites. With nine moons, these things happen.” He paused. “Let me see—that would be Joan. She's the only moon in the Sirius constellation at this hour. I had forgotten.”

“You need a memory bank,” Flint said, smiling. If there was one thing that grew even longer and clearer with time, it was the old man's memory.

“I need a
computer
—to figure out all the nine orbits, the patterns of occlusion, so unpredictable by the naked mind. On Earth the early cultures, not far ahead of you,
had
a computer. A marvelous device. It was made of stone, huge stones, each weighing many tons, set in a monstrous circle. It was called Stonehenge by the later natives. With that, they could accurately track the phases of the sun—Sol sun, I mean—and predict the eclipses by Earth's moon, Luna. It was a monstrous moon.”

”A moon covered up the sun?” Flint asked incredulously.

“It happened. Here, the moons are too small and distant. There, its disk appeared to be as large as that of Sol. The ancient astronomers went to extraordinary trouble to chart its cycles.”

“Civilized Ancients!”

“Not the way you mean. It is true that there appears to have been a pattern of early artifacts on Earth, prehistoric yet vast. So vast that the evidences of primal civilization went virtually unnoticed for millennia, and only recently have they been appreciated for what they are. They–”

“That is the way I mean!” Flint said, growing excited. “Here on Outworld there are artifacts of Ancients, things we can't understand. Why not the same on Earth?”

“The Earth ancients dated from four or five thousand years ago,” the Shaman said indulgently. “The Alien Ancients may date from four or five
million
years ago. There is no comparison! It's like the common error of putting cavemen and dinosaurs together, because both are prehistoric, when actually–”

Flint burst out laughing. The Shaman seldom made jokes, but when he did, they were beauties. “Cavemen and dinosaurs. It's an error to put them together, all right!”

The Shaman sighed. “I keep forgetting...” Then he sat up, startled. “Sol? Are you sure? Sol has been obscured?”

“Sol. I see Toliman–”

“An omen! An omen! Clear as the star itself!”

Flint put down the telescope. “Do you really believe in such?”

“On Earth, thirty years ago—I mean, two hundred and thirty years ago—no. I wasn't superstitious. But here on Outworld, in the Old Stone Age, the people expect it from me. After a while it becomes easier to accept. And I must admit, for those who follow omens, this is as clear as they come. Sol is going to change your life, significantly and soon. Take it from an old scientist who converted to a medicine doctor to survive among savages: you have been warned by the stars.”

“No!” Flint said. “Sol is nothing to me, and I don't believe than rubbish.” But he felt a premonitory chill, for despite his denials, he
did
believe.

 

*
 
*
 
*

 

 
“Flint! Flint!” the child cried. “The hunt—you must come!”

Flint stopped in the path, letting the lad come to him. It was a message runner. “I'm not involved in hunting any more; you know that. I'm the stone mason.” He did not need to add that he was also apprenticed to the crazy Shaman.

“Three are dead, five gored, two trampled. We need help!”

“Three dead! That was supposed to be a routine morning hunt! What did they flush?”

“Old Snort,” the boy cried despairingly.

“No wonder! That dinosaur is best left alone. Anyone fool enough to tangle with him–”

“Chief Strongspear–”

“That explains it!” But Flint was on nervous ground, for if word of his insolence reached the Chief there could be unpleasant repercussions.

“Chief Strongspear's son is dying. Old Snort won't let them recover the dead. You must come.”

“I told you: I no longer hunt.” But he wondered. The Shaman had spoken of leadership, and now the Chief's son was dying. The heir was stupid, like the father, but who would fill the office if the muscular Chiefson died? In a year the Chief would be retired. And Sol had been eclipsed. Since Flint had seen it happen, he was the one directly affected by the omen.

“Chief Strongspear says if you don't come now, he'll put a pus-spell on Honeybloom.”

The Chief was fighting dirty. The very thought of such disfiguration on the prettiest girl in the tribe turned Flint's stomach. “I'll come. Show the way.”

The boy showed the way, running swiftly ahead. These runners were agile and long-winded; they could keep the pace better than any man. Flint followed, pausing only to don his harness and secure his best handax. They left the fruitpalms of the oasis behind, hopped from hummock to hummock through the thornreed swamp—the village's chief bulwark against predatory dinosaurs—and climbed nimbly up the trailing tentacle of a vine. At first it was only a few inches in diameter, requiring careful balancing, but as they approached the vine's center web it swelled to more than a yard across.

Out along the opposite tentacle they went, dropping to the firm ground beyond the swamp. They passed a bed of fragrant honeyblooms, the big green and red flowers as pretty as they smelled, reminding him poignantly of their namesake: his woman. He and Honeybloom would be wed in midsummer. He would go to her tonight...

The boy slowed. An alien was squatting in the path. A Polarian.

They drew up before the strange creature. It was a teardrop-shaped thing with a massive spherical wheel on the bottom and a limber tentacle or trunk at the top. When the tentacle reached straight up, it would be as high as Flint, and the body's mass was similar to his. But the Polarion had no eyes, ears, nose, or other appendages.

The Shaman claimed they were similar to human beings because they liked similar gravity, breathed the same air—though they had no lungs—and had a similar body chemistry. Their brains were as massive and versatile as man's, and they were normally inoffensive. But they
looked
quite different, and such details as how they ate, reproduced, and eliminated were mysteries.

But Flint had promised himself to treat the next alien he met with special courtesy. He and the boy halted politely. “Greetings, explorer,” Flint said.

The creature's body glowed with simulated pleasure. It put its stalk down to the ground. In this position it looked more than ever like a dinosaur dropping. Flint stifled a laugh.

A little ball on the tip of the trunk spun rapidly. “Greetings, native,” the ground said.

Flint was surprised. He had been familiar with the mechanism from infancy. The little ball vibrated against the ground, or any available surface, to produce intelligible sounds. As the Polarian had no mouth, it could not talk as humans did.

“I am Flint, Solarian male.” What was obvious to a human was not necessarily evident to a Polarian, and vice versa. Protocol did not require such an introduction; he could have gone on after the first exchange. The runner boy was already fidgeting at this delay. But Flint had a resolution to fulfill: appreciate an alien.