The Evolutionary Void (67 page)

“Which do you want to tell me?”

“Every story of our beautiful world. That is what we live for. So that
everything may be known to all of us.”

“But isn’t that contrary to what you are? Knowledge lies in the other
direction, the technology and science you have turned from.”

“That is the story of machines. That story has been told. It is finished.
We tell the stories of ourselves now.”

“I think I understand. It is not what was achieved by your ancestors but
the individuals who achieved it.”

“You grow close to our story, to living with us. To hear the story of
what we are today, you must hear all our stories.”

“I regret that my time on your world is short. I would be grateful for
any story you can tell me about your ancestors and the way they left this
universe behind. Do you know where this great event took place?”

Tyzak gulped down another pot. He went over to the chests and opened the
hinged lids. Small, bulging cloth sacks were taken out and carried over to the
benches. “There is a story that tells of the great parting which will never
fade from me. It is most important to us, for that is how our kind was split.
Those who left and those who proclaimed their allegiance to our planet and the
destiny it had birthed us for. To this time we regret the separation, for we
will never now be rejoined.”

“My people are also divided into many types,” the Delivery Man said as he
watched Tyzak open the sacks. Various fruits and roots were taken out and
dropped into pots. Water from a large urn at the center of the benches was
added. Finally, the alien sprinkled in some blue-white powder from a small
sachet. The contents of the pots began to bubble.

“I will listen to your stories of division,” Tyzak said. “They connect to
me.”

“Thank you. And the story of the place where your ancestors left? I would
very much like to know it, to visit the site itself.”

“We will go there.”

That wasn’t quite the reply the Delivery Man was expecting. “That is good
news. Shall I call for my ship? It can take us anywhere on this world.”

“I understand your offer is intended to be kindness. However, I do not
wish to travel on your ship. I will walk to the place of separation.”

“Oh, crap,” Gore said. “This could take months, years. Just try and get
the damn monster to tell you where it is. Tell him you’ll meet him there if
necessary.”

“I regret I am not able to walk very far on your world,” the Delivery Man
said. “I need my own kind of food. Perhaps we could meet at the place.”

“It is barely two days away,” Tyzak said. “Can you not travel that far?”

“Yes, I can travel that far.”

“Hot damn,” Gore was saying. “Your new friend must mean the city at the
far end of the valley. There’s nowhere else it can be.”

The Delivery Man’s secondary routines were pulling files out of his
lacuna and splashing them across his exovision. “We checked a building there
four days ago, right next to a big plaza on the west side. You went in. There
was an exotic matter formation, some kind of small wormhole stabilizer.
Nonoperational. We assumed it was connected to an orbital station or something
that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That just shows you how stupid it is to assume anything about aliens,”
Gore said. “We’ve found fifty-three exactly like it and dismissed them all.”

“They were all in different cities,” the Delivery Man said, reviewing a
planetary map in his exovision. “Well distributed geographically. I suppose
they could be an abandoned transport network like the old Trans-Earth-Loop.”

“Yeah, that was before your time, but I used it often enough. Whatever,
I’m on my way to the city now. I’m going to scan and analyze that mother down
to its last negative atom. I’ll find out what the hell it does before you’ve
had lunch.”

Tyzak walked through into one of the back rooms. The Delivery Man
considered it a minor miracle the old alien didn’t bash its antennae on the
ceiling. But each movement was deft, and it ducked under the doorway without
pausing.

“Lucky we picked a village close to the actual elevation mechanism,” the
Delivery Man responded. He couldn’t believe it himself. Probability was stacked
way too high against such a thing.

“About time we got a break,” Gore replied.

The Delivery Man knew damn well he didn’t believe it, either.
Perhaps Tyzak is just going to use the wormhole to take us to the
elevation mechanism. Maybe that’s what the transport mechanism is for. No,
that’s stupid. If he won’t use a starship to fly to the city, he’s not going to
use a wormhole. Damn!

The Anomine came back into the main room dressed in what resembled loops
of thick cloth dyed in bright colors and embellished with stone beads. It was
actually an elaborate garment, the Delivery Man acknowledged, covering the long
tapering abdomen while allowing the legs and arms complete freedom of movement.

They set off straightaway, walking down the slope through the village,
then crossing the river on an arched stone bridge that was old enough for the
outer stone to be flaking away.

“How long has your village been here?” the Delivery Man asked.

“Seven hundred years.”

The fields and orchards on the other side of the water were neatly
tended. Anomine adults moved along the rows of trees, reaching up to snip the
fruit stems with their strong upper arm pincer claws. They were mostly the mothers,
the Delivery Man guessed from their coloration. The Anomine life cycle followed
a simple progression from neutral youngsters to adult female to elder male,
with each stage lasting about twenty-five years. It was very unusual for an
adult to live past eighty.

That he simply could not get his head around. He knew they’d had complete
mastery of genetic manipulation in the past, giving them the ability to extend
their lives. That, too, had been rejected and neutralized so that they could
follow their original evolutionary path. There was no human faction that would
ever follow such a tenet; even the Naturals went in for good old-fashioned
rejuvenation every thirty years. The desire to cling to life was screwed into
the human psyche deep beyond any psychoneural profiling to remove.

Like hope
, he thought.
I’m
carrying on this ridiculous charade of Gore’s because it gives me hope. It’s
the only way I know that might possibly deliver me back to Lizzie and the kids.
Ozzie alone knows what madness Ilanthe has planned when she reaches the Void,
but no one else has any idea how to stop her. If only this wasn’t so … frail.
If only I could bring myself to believe in what I’m doing
.

The Delivery Man raised his head. High above, the ancient orbital debris
band shimmered faintly through breaks in the cloud, like a motionless strand of
silver cirrus. He sighed at the sight.
Signs and portents
in the sky, that’s what I’m searching for now. How pathetic is that? And I
think the Anomine are weak and strange because they reembrace their primitive
life. A life that doesn’t threaten the galaxy. A life which doesn’t tear
fathers from their families
.

He opened the link to Gore. “What are you going to do after? If we win?”

“Get back out of this goddamn meat animal for a start, back into ANA,
where I can think properly again.”

“But isn’t that the problem? Look what our evolutionary drive has pushed
us to.”

“You think we’re suffering overreach, sonny? You think arrogance is the
root of all this?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Ha, in a way: for fucking certain. That’s why we need to keep going,
keep pushing the human development boundary. All of us need to boost our
responsibility and rationality genes to the maximum. It’s the only way to
survive peacefully in a galaxy as dangerous as this one.”

“That’s an old argument.”

“And completely valid. Maybe the one argument that has remained relevant
for our entire history. Without education and understanding, the barbarians
would have outnumbered us and swarmed the city gates a long time ago.”

“She’s making a pretty good go of it right now, isn’t she?”

“Ilanthe? Typical case, educated way, way beyond her IQ, with ambition
stronger than ability. She’s just another cause fascist, son, and that’s the
worst kind; they always know they’re right. Anyone who dissents for whatever
reason is evil and an enemy, existing only to be crushed.”

He wouldn’t have believed it could happen, but the Delivery Man actually
felt himself smile as he walked on through the alien groves and meadows. “So
very different from your liberalism, huh?”

“You got it, sonny.”

Before long the cultivated fields gave way to the valley’s tangled
grassland. Tyzak chose a small path that curved around to run parallel with the
major river several miles away. That put the Delivery Man facing the giant
empty city that straddled the mouth of the valley; its grandiose towers and
arresting domes were barely visible through the late-morning haze.

That vision. The clean air. The bright sunlight. Walking to a definite
goal. Whatever the reason, he actually began to feel a sense of purpose again.
Not confidence exactly, but it would do for a start.

“I can go faster,” he told Tyzak.

The big alien started to lengthen its stride, bouncing along in an
effortless rhythm. The Delivery Man matched it, relishing the urgency their
speed brought.
I’m doing it
, he told Lizzie and the
kids silently.
I’m coming for you, I promise
.

Ozzie didn’t let anything slip about his opinion. Myraian smiled in that
dreamy way of hers and said: “Sweet.” Then she relived Ingo’s Last Dream again.

Corrie-Lyn was the most affected. She knelt in front of Inigo and looked
up, as if pleading for it not to be true. “They had it all,” she entreated.
“They succeeded. Their minds were beautiful.”

“And it is worthless,” he told her in turn. “They are no longer human.
They have anything they want, which takes away any dignity and purpose they
might have had. Their lives are day after day of ennui. All that concerns them
is the past. Visiting places because they have already been discovered. That’s
not gaining experience; that’s a dismal nostalgia trip. They no longer
contribute because there’s nothing to contribute to.”

“They reached fulfillment,” she said. “Their minds were so strong. Inigo,
they flew!”

“But where did they fly to? What did they use such a gift for? To please
themselves. Querencia became a playground for characterless godlings.”

“They succeeded in throwing off the kind of mundane physical shackles
that grind our lives down. This is what the Waterwalker gave them. They lived
in splendor without having to exploit anyone, without damaging anything. They
understood and loved each other.”

“Because they were all the same. It was self-love.”

“No.” Corrie-Lyn shook her head and walked out onto the veranda. A few
moments later Ozzie heard the sound of her shoes on the creaky old wooden steps
down to the garden.

A dismayed Inigo rose to follow her.

“Don’t do it, dude,” Ozzie said. “Let her work it out for herself. It’s
the only true route to understanding.”

For a long moment Inigo hesitated; then he slowly sank back into the
tall-backed chair at the kitchen table. “Damnit,” he grunted.

“So that was it, huh?” Ozzie said. “Bummer.”

Inigo shot him a thoroughly disgusted look.

“I don’t get it,” Aaron said. “They achieved something approaching the classical
heaven on Earth.”

“Fatal, man,” Ozzie said. “I’ve been there myself. Trust me: plutocrat
with a decent brain and the finest rep available during the first-era
Commonwealth. Wine, women, and song all the way; I had it so totally better
than those guys. Well … except for the flying bit. I gotta admit that was way
cool. I always wondered why Edeard couldn’t do that. Man, if I ever got into
the Void, I’d be trying from dusk till dawn. Oldest human wish fulfillment
there is.”

“I don’t understand,” Aaron said. “They had reached fulfillment. All of
them. That is admirable. It was the final validation of the entire Living Dream
movement.”

“A dung beetle that gets its turd home is fulfilled. We’re talking levels
here, dude. Am I right, Inigo?”

“You’re right.”

“See, be careful what you wish for. Utopia at our biological level just
doesn’t work out. Once you’ve achieved everything, there is nothing left. You
take out the core of being human: the striving. Edeard’s descendants had reached
a state where fulfillment was inevitable. You didn’t have to work for it.
That’s less than human; they were starting to un evolve. And in their own way
they knew it. Their population was way down on Edeard’s time and still
shrinking. There was no point in having children, because there was nothing new
for them. They wouldn’t be able to contribute anything relevant, let alone
profound, to the Heart.”