Nemesis (49 page)

Insigna ruminated, pushing her fork around on her plate. Then she said, “It’s the sense of loss. The unfairness of it. Crile made a choice and I lost him. Marlene has made a choice and I’m losing her—if not to the Plague, then to Erythro.”

“I know.” He reached for her hand, and she placed it, rather absently, in his.

She said, “Marlene is more and more eager to be out there in that absolute wilderness and less and less interested in being with us. Eventually, she will find a way of living out there and return at lengthening intervals—then be gone.”

“You’re probably right, but all of life is a symphony of successive losses. You lose your youth, your parents, your loves, your friends, your comforts, your health, and finally your life. To deny loss is to lose it all anyway and to lose, in addition, your self-possession and your peace of mind.”

“She was never a happy child, Siever.”

“Do you blame yourself for that?”

“I might have been more understanding.”

“It’s never too late to start. Marlene wanted a whole world and she has it. She wanted to convert what has always been a burdensome ability of hers into a method for communicating directly with another mind, and she has it. Would you force her to give that up? Would you avoid your own loss of her more or less continuous presence by inflicting on her a greater loss than you or I can conceive—the true use of her unusual brain?”

Insigna actually laughed a little, though her eyes were swimming with tears. “You could talk a rabbit out of its hole, Siever.”

“Could I? My speech was never as effective as Crile’s silences.”

Insigna said, “There were other influences.” She frowned. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, Siever, and you’re a great comfort to me.”

Genarr said ruefully, “It’s the surest sign that I have
reached my present age, that I am actually comforted at being a comfort to you. The fires burn low when we ask not for this or that, but for comfort.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, surely.”

“Nothing wrong in the world. I suspect there are many couples who have gone through the wilds of passion and the rites of ecstasy without ever finding comfort in each other and, in the end, they might have been willing to exchange it all for comfort. I don’t know. The quiet victories are
so
quiet. Essential, but overlooked.”

“Like you, my poor Siever?”

“Now, Eugenia, I’ve spent all my life trying to avoid the trap of self-pity and you mustn’t tempt me into it just to watch me writhe.”

“Oh, Siever, I don’t want to watch you writhe.”

“There, I just wanted to hear you say that. See how clever I am. But, you know, if you want a substitute for Marlene’s presence, I am willing to hang around when you need comfort. Even a whole world to myself wouldn’t tempt me from your side—if you didn’t want me to go.”

She squeezed his hand. “I don’t deserve you, Siever.”

“Don’t use that as an excuse not to have me, Eugenia. I’m willing to waste myself on you, and you shouldn’t stop me from making a supreme sacrifice.”

“Have you found no one worthier?”

“I haven’t looked. Nor have I sensed among the women of Rotor any great demand for me. Besides, what would I do with a worthier object? How dull it would be to offer myself as a duly deserved gift. How much more romantic to be an undeserved gift, to be bounty from the skies.”

“To be godlike in your condescension to the unworthy.”

Genarr nodded vigorously. “I like that. Yes. Yes. That’s exactly the picture that appeals to me.”

Insigna laughed again, and more freely. “You’re crazy, too. You know, I never noticed that somehow.”

“I have hidden depths. As you get to know me still better—taking your time, of course—”

He was interrupted by the sharp buzz of the message-receiver.

He frowned. “There you are, Eugenia. I get you to the
point—I don’t even remember how I did it—where you are ready to melt into my arms, and we’re interrupted. Uh oh!” His voice suddenly changed completely. “It’s from Saltade Leverett.”

“Who’s he?”

“You don’t know him. Hardly anyone does. He’s the nearest thing to a hermit I’ve ever met. He works in the asteroid belt because he likes it there. I haven’t seen the old bum in years. I don’t know why I say ‘old,’ though, because he’s my age.

“It’s sealed, too. Sealed to my thumbprints, I see. That makes it secret enough for me to ask you to leave before I open it.”

Insigna rose at once, but Genarr motioned her down. “Don’t be silly, Eugenia. Secrecy is just the disease of officialdom. I pay no attention to it.”

He pressed his thumb down on the sheet, then the other thumb in its appropriate place, and letters began to appear. Genarr said, “I often thought that if a person lacked thumbs—” And then he fell silent.

Still silent, he passed her the message.

“Am I allowed to read this?”

Genarr shook his head, “Of course not, but who cares? Read it.”

She did so, almost at a glance, then looked up. “An alien ship? About to land
here?
”

Genarr nodded. “At least that’s what it says.”

Insigna said wildly, “But what about Marlene? She’s out there.”

“Erythro will protect her.”

“How do you know? This may be a ship of aliens. Real aliens. Nonhumans. The thing on Erythro may have no power over them.”

“We’re aliens to Erythro, yet it can easily control us.”

“I must go out there.”

“What good—”

“I must be with her. Come with me. Help me. We’ll bring her back into the Dome.”

“If these are all-powerful and malevolent invaders, we won’t be safe inside—”

“Oh, Siever, is this a time for logic?
Please
. I must be with my daughter!”

They had taken photographs and now they were studying them. Tessa Wendel shook her head. “Unbelievable. The whole world is absolutely desolate. Except this.”

“Intelligence everywhere,” said Merry Blankowitz, her brow furrowed. “No question about it now when we’ve been so close. Desolate or not, intelligence is there.”

“But most intensely at that dome? Right?”

“Most intensely, Captain. Most easily noticeable. And most familiar. Outside the dome, there are slight differences, and I’m not sure what it signifies.”

Wu said, “We’ve never tested any high intelligence other than human, so, of course—”

Wendel turned to him. “Is it your opinion the intelligence outside the dome isn’t human?”

“Since we agree that human beings couldn’t have burrowed everywhere underground in thirteen years, what other conclusion is it possible to come to?”

“And the dome? Is that human?”

Wu said, “That’s a different thing entirely, and doesn’t depend on Blankowitz’s plexons. There are astronomical instruments to be seen. The dome—or part of it—is an astronomical observatory.”

“Couldn’t alien intelligences be astronomers as well?” asked Jarlow, a bit sardonically.

“Of course,” said Wu, “but with instruments of their own. When I see what looks to me like an infrared computerized scanner of exactly the type I would see on Earth— Well, let’s put it this way. Forget the nature of the intelligence. I see instruments that were either manufactured in the Solar System, or built from designs prepared in the Solar System. There is no question about that. I cannot conceive that alien intelligences, without contact with human beings, could have built such instruments.”

“Very well,” said Wendel. “I agree with you, Wu. Whatever there is on this world, there are, or were, human beings under that dome.”

Crile Fisher said sharply, “Don’t just say ‘human beings,’
Captain. There are Rotorians. There can be no other human beings on this world, excluding ourselves.”

Wu said, “And that’s unanswerable, too.”

Blankowitz said, “It’s such a small dome. Rotor must have had tens of thousands of people on it.”

“Sixty thousand,” murmured Fisher.

“They can’t all fit into that dome.”

“For one thing,” said Fisher, “there may be other domes. We could sweep around the world a thousand times and yet miss objects of all sorts.”

“There’s only this one place where there seemed to be a change in the plexon type. If there were other domes like that, I would have spotted a few more of them, I’m sure,” Blankowitz said.

“Or,” said Fisher, “another possibility is that what we see is a tiny bit of an entire structure which, for all we know, may spread out for miles below the surface.”

Wu said, “The Rotorians came in a Settlement. The Settlement may still exist. There may be many. This dome may be a mere outpost.”

“We haven’t seen a Settlement,” said Jarlow.

“We haven’t
looked
,” said Wu. “We’ve concentrated entirely on this world.”

“I haven’t spotted intelligence anywhere but on this world,” said Blankowitz.

“You haven’t looked, either,” said Wu. “We’d really have to scan the heavens to spot a Settlement or two, but once you detected plexons from this world, you looked nowhere else.”

“I will if you think it’s necessary.”

Wendel held up her hand. “If there are Settlements, why haven’t they spotted
us?
We’ve made no attempt to shield our energy emissions. After all, we were pretty confident that this star system was empty.”

Wu said, “They may have had the same overconfidence, Captain. They haven’t been looking for us, either, and so we’ve slipped past them. Of, if they have detected us, they may be uncertain as to who—or
what—
we are, and they’re hesitating as to what action to take, just as we are. What I say, though, is that we do know one spot on the surface of this large satellite where there must be human beings, and I think we must go down and make contact with them.”

“Do you think it would be safe to do so?” asked Blankowitz.

“My guess,” said Wu firmly, “is that it would be. They can’t shoot us out of hand. After all, they’d want to know more about us before they do so. Besides, if all we dare do is stay here in uncertainty, then we will accomplish absolutely nothing and we ought to go back home and tell them what we have discovered. Earth will send out a whole fleet of superluminal vessels, but they won’t be thankful to us if we come back with only minimal information. We’ll go down in history as the expedition that flinched.” He smiled blandly. “You see, Captain, I’ve learned a few lessons from Fisher.”

Wendel said, “Then you think we should now go down and make contact.”

“Absolutely,” said Wu.

“And you, Blankowitz?”

“I’m curious. Not about the dome, but about the possible alien life. I’d want to find out about them, too.”

“Jarlow?”

“I wish we had adequate weapons, or hypercommunication. If we’re wiped out, Earth will have found out nothing—absolutely nothing—as the result of our trip. Then it might be that someone else will come here as unprepared as we and just as unsure. Still, if we survive the contact, we’ll be going back with important knowledge. I suppose we should chance it.”

Fisher said quietly, “Are you going to ask me for my opinion, Captain?”

“I assume that you wish to land to see the Rotorians.”

“Exactly, so may I suggest— Let’s land as quietly as we can, and as unobtrusively, and I’ll leave the ship to reconnoiter. If anything goes wrong, then take off and return to Earth, leaving me behind. I am dispensable, but the ship must return.”

Wendel said at once, her face seeming to tighten, “Why you?”

Fisher said, “Because I know the Rotorians, at least, and because I—wish to go.”

“I, too,” said Wu. “I must be with you.”

“Why risk two?” asked Fisher.

“Because two are safer than one. Because, in case of trouble, one might escape while the other holds off the
threat. And most of all, because, as you say, you know the Rotorians. Your judgment may be warped.”

Wendell said, “We will land, then. Fisher and Wu will leave the ship. If, at any time, Fisher and Wu disagree on procedure, Wu will be the decision-maker.”

“Why?” demanded Fisher indignantly.

“Wu has said you know the Rotorians and your decisions may be warped,” said Wendel, looking at Fisher firmly, “and I agree with him.”

Marlene was happy. She felt as if she were wrapped in gentle arms, protected, shielded. She could see the reddish light of Nemesis and feel the wind against her cheeks. She could watch the clouds obscure part or all of Nemesis’ large globe, now and then, so that the light would dim and turn grayish.

But she could see as easily in the gray as in the red, and she could see in shades and tints that made fascinating patterns. And though the wind grew cooler when Nemesis’ light was hidden, it never chilled her. It was as though Erythro were somehow enhancing her sight, somehow warming the air around her body when necessary, somehow caring for her in every way.

And she could talk to Erythro. She had made up her mind to think of the cells that made up the life on Erythro
as
Erythro. As the planet. Why not? What else? Individually, the cells were only cells, as primitive—much more primitive, in fact—than the individual cells of her own body. It was only all of the prokaryote cells together that made up an organism that encircled the planet in a billion trillion tiny interconnected pieces, that so filled and permeated and
grasped
the planet, that it might as well be thought of
as
the planet.

How odd, thought Marlene. This giant life-form must never, before the coming of Rotor, have known that anything live existed other than itself.

Her questions and sensations did not have to exist entirely in her mind. Erythro would rise before her sometimes, like thin gray smoke, consolidating into a wraithlike human figure wavering at the edges. There was always, about it, a flowing feeling. She could not
actually see that, but she sensed, beyond doubt, that millions of invisible cells were leaving each second and immediately being replaced by others. No one prokaryote cell could exist for long out of its water film, so that each was only evanescently part of the figure, but the figure itself was as permanent as it wished to be, and never lost its identity.

Erythro did not take Aurinel’s form again. It had gathered, without being told, that that was disturbing. Its appearance was neutral now, changing slightly with the vagaries of Marlene’s own thought. Erythro could follow the delicate changes of her mind pattern far better, she decided, than she herself could, and the figure adjusted to that, looking more like some figure in her mind’s eye at one moment, and then as she tried to focus on it and identify it, it would shift gently into something else. Occasionally, she could catch glimpses: the curve of her mother’s cheek, Uncle Siever’s strong nose, bits of the girls and boys she had met at school.