The Forever Man (42 page)

“Whoof!” said Jim, which in thought-language came out rather like an invisible exclamation mark.

“So, I suggest—I only suggest, mind you; the actual decision's up to you—that if the mindpeople are willing to have these planets settled by us, we might even suggest that one or more of them be opened to the Laagi, too, provided we can reach an agreement with them. Then we could go back to the Laagi, and after we'd found out how to talk to them, tell them that through friendship with us, only, they had a chance to settle on the new worlds they've always wanted, down-galaxy. There's no hurry about getting all this done. The worlds for the Laagi are going to have to be terraformed for them as much as most of the worlds we get are going to need to be fixed up for us, so we've got plenty of time to hammer out a way to talk to them. But if that idea works we'll have peace with them, as well as new worlds for both our races. Plus, from our viewpoint, we'd have two other intelligent races as friends and neighbors in case we run into a really unfriendly one, later on.”

Jim thought about it.

“What about this business of ?1 and his friends finding it painful the way the Laagi can't see or hear them?” he asked.

“I don't know,” said Mary cheerfully. “You're the expert in this area. I'll leave it to you to come up with an answer to that problem.”

“Thanks,” said Jim.

“You're entirely welcome,” answered Mary. “Now, hadn't we better be getting back into contact with ?1 and the others?”

“I guess we should.”

He paused for a second, puzzling over just how the getting back in contact should be accomplished. Finally he decided it couldn't require much more than simply announcing that he and Mary were once more ready to engage in general conversation.

“?1,” he said (or thought), “are you there?”

“Of course,” said ?1. “Though I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by ‘there.”'

“Neither do I,” said Jim. “So let's not get into that. The point is, you're close enough so that we can talk, now that Mary and I are through with our private conversation.”

“You have completed your private conversation? Excellent. We welcome you back into conversation with us. Happy! Happy!”

“We say ‘hurrah'—or at least, some of us say ‘hurrah!'”

“I fail to see the difference between that and ‘happy!' However, if you wish—‘hurrah!' “

“Come to think of it, I guess there isn't any difference,” said Jim. “Happy! Happy!”

A general chorus of “Happies!” poured in on his mind.

“On this subject of ‘there,”' said ?1, “you seem to relate it to being physically close enough so that speech is possible. But speech is possible at any distance in the universe. How otherwise could the large holes, and the congregations of large holes, be able to tell each other which way they were dancing?"

“Say that again?” asked Jim.

?1 good-naturedly said it again, word for word.

“To my way of thinking,” said Jim, “you seem to be confusing physics with communication.”

“But isn't all dancing a form of communication?” said ?1. “Forgive me if my limited capacity to understand confuses this subject between us.”

“No, it's not you.” Jim tried to think of ways of explaining what he meant. Then he thought of human dancing, real dancing, and he had to admit to himself that in essence, it was communication in a sense.

“But large holes have no minds,” he said. “Therefore they don't communicate the way we do. If I understand what you mean by their dancing, it's simply that they're moving in response to the forces acting on them from the rest of the solid matter in the universe. All the other holes, I mean—from the very beginning when there was only one big hole that's since broken up into all the other ones.”

“Was there only one big hole in the beginning? How interesting,” said ?1.

“Well, we think there was. You mean you people don't know? I was under the impression you knew everything there was to know about the physical universe, holes and space and all.

“Oh, no!” said ?1. “We understand very little. That's why we're so eager to indulge in the pleasure of learning from you.”

“We're—well, I'm complimented,” said Jim. “But I have to admit we don't really know how the solid universe started, either. We only have theories—hypotheses—like the one I just told you.”

“A hypothesis, only?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“I'm devastated. Nevermind, though. Perhaps it will prove to be a fact.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “and since we're on the subject of facts, I meant to ask you about your stopping the Laagi—those you call our other friends—from coming down into your space, here?”

“You'll remember I explained that,” said ?1. “They would not see or hear us; and, this being very painful, we told them not to come any farther.”

“You say it was painful,” Jim said. “Let me suggest another concept that might fit it better. ‘Uncomfortable'?”

“No,” said ?1, “that approaches the concept as we know it, but only partially, as your concept ‘painful' approaches it only partially. Surely, you must know what we mean, though. Is it completely unknown to you and your friends, the effect of being not-seen and not-heard?”

“Well, yes and no,” said Jim. “It's been used as a sort of punishment by social groups among us probably since we first began to band together in social groups. To be ignored and cut off from all communication is unpleasant for an individual. I think I know what you mean.”

“Yes,” said ?1, “to an extent I think you do know what we mean. We are extremely sensitive to that sort of unpleasantness, ourselves. It disturbs us all greatly when we must use it to discipline one of our own members.”

“You do that sort of thing to one of your own?”

“Alas,” said ?1. “Every people must have their rules.”

“What could one of you do to the others to require that kind of reaction?” asked Jim.

There was a momentary hesitation on ?1's part.

“I don't think it can be explained to you,” he said finally, “at your present stage of understanding of us.”

“I suppose,” said Jim.

He thought he could imagine what it must be like for one of these eagerly friendly little creatures to be suddenly treated by all the others as if he or she or it did not exist. “How long a session of that does it take to bring one of them back to proper behavior?”

“Oh, forever, of course,” said ?1. “Once we have ceased to see or hear them, they no longer exist for us. Even their memory is put away.”

Jim felt the mental equivalent of an unexpected chill on the back of his neck.

“You don't mean you shut them out permanently?” he said. “What do they do? Where do they go?”

“Who knows?” said ?1. “Since they no longer exist, in fact, what does it matter? But you wished to talk to me about these friends of yours called Laagi?”

“Yes,” said Jim. He was still shaken by the idea of some living thing like ?1 being shut out from the society of its kind forever. There was an indifference in the attitude of ?1 which reminded him forcibly, suddenly, of how alien the other mind he spoke to was.

“You see,” he went on, “like us the Laagi are holes who live on one of the larger holes called a planet; and you have planets in your space on which either they, or we, could live, after the world had been changed some physically—they and we would change a world to suit ourselves in different ways, you understand. So probably the reason they were headed this way was to find other worlds on which they could live.”

“You think so? How interesting! But it makes sense—being holes, all of you seem to prefer holes as environment. I should say, being physical beings, you seem to prefer physical environments. Did I get that right?”

“You did, indeed,” said Jim. “Now, the question I wanted to ask was whether, if they or we occupied the surface of some of these planets, that would bother you, in this not-seeing, not-hearing way.”

“I don't know,” said ?1. “Possibly not… yes, we think possibly not, since they and you would be part of the holes, but of course, you do see and hear us, so the question doesn't arise.”

“You're seeing Mary and me out of our bodies—out of our personal holes—” said Jim. “The rest of our people are still in theirs. Maybe, as physical entities, they won't be able to see or hear you either.”

“No, no!” said ?1: “Your own ability to see and hear us reached out through the hole where you were with your third friend who did not see or hear us. You radiated to us, and of course we radiated back. As you are, so must others like you be, I'm sure. If so, you wouldn't bother us at all occupying any of the planets in this area of ours. But to answer your question, even your Laagi friends might not bother us once they were a part of a planet, since by definition, such a hole is outside our universe. But why do you ask me this?”

“For a rather complicated set of reasons,” said Jim. “You see, the Laagi have been having a war with us—”

“A what? Even improving as I now am in experience with your way of thinking, that last came across as a complete blank.”

“Say, a serious disagreement,” suggested Jim.

“Ah, a disagreement. Yes, and therefore—?”

“Well, therefore when we arrived here, the Laagi had just been chasing us. Tell me, how did you get them to stop right at the border of your space like that?”

“Oh, we simply told them to stop. You must remember, I've already given you that information.”

“And they just quit? Gave up coming any farther?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.”

Jim thought that behavior of that sort did not seem to fit what he had seen of the Laagi. He returned to the question.

“Just because you asked them to stop where they were?”

“Dear friend, I have told you twice now,” said ?1, with distress rather than anger, “we did not ask them to stop where they were. We
told
them to stop there.”

Suddenly, Jim understood. The chill that he had felt earlier when ?1 had talked about his race refusing to see or hear one of their own kind who had violated a law of their society should have prepared him for this, but it had not. Now it was back—but a hundred times stronger.

“Jim, what is it?” said Mary.

“If I had a body to do it with,” answered Jim greenly, “I think I'd be sick.”

“Why? What is it?” Mary asked.

“Our butterflies have fangs,” said Jim.

“What do you mean… oh!” said Mary.

“?1,” said Jim.

“Yes?” said ?1.

“Were you listening?” “Of course not,” said ?1. “It was determined, if you remember, that when you and Mary exchange concepts we do not hear you.”

“Good. Thanks. We've got a few more words to say to each other and then we'll be back in conversation with you.”

“I look forward to the prospect.”

“Jim?” said Mary.

“Yes? “

“What is it about their stopping the Laagi that upsets you so much? It's not just what you said. I can feel you're upset.”

“I guess it's because I've been a fighter pilot,” said Jim. “I can put myself in their place.”

“The place of the Laagi who were told to stop?”

“Yes. I've fought them; I've seen them fight when they hadn't a hope until we killed them; and now I've seen them on their own world. I can guess how they follow orders. I can imagine how it was for them, those who got stopped.”

“How was it, then?”

“You studied them. You know as well as I do. They live to work; and for a Laagi fighter crewman what he does is his work. You can imagine for yourself what it must have been like to have the combined minds of our bodiless friends here tell them to stop.”

“I'm sorry, Jim. Maybe it's because I never was a fighter pilot; but I still don't see why hearing about this upsets you so much.”

“Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just me. But picture it for yourself. Those Laagi went out under orders to follow their version of the centerline down-galaxy. They were under those orders when the contrary order of the combined minds of these people told them to stop. And they stopped. That's why I said these little friends of ours have unexpected fangs. You remember how ?1 didn't seem to care what happened to one of their own people after that particular mind-person was cast out—ignored?”

“Yes. How does that tie in?”

“Don't you see? Somehow these mindpeople can set up a—they'd probably call it a concept—that says any living being that can't see or hear them has to stop at a certain point in space; and it's a concept that overrides anything else that being's been told or wants to do. When they say stop, they mean literally
stop
. And that's just what those Laagi crewmen did.”

“You mean that's why they halted their ships where they were, why they didn't go back to their world to report what had happened?”

“I mean they couldn't go back. They couldn't do anything but what they'd been overridingly ordered to do. So they did it. Think of them, driving along. And an overriding order suddenly tells them to stop their progress, shut off their power, do nothing more. So they do it. They obeyed, because they weren't able to do anything else. They stopped… and there they sat, in the case of those ships we looked into, until we came to see what was going on. You've seen how the Laagi can't stand being idle. But they had to sit there and die. And there they'll sit until Judgement Day, them and all the rest who brought ships close enough to this zone in space that our mindpeople've taken over for their own. You and I could see and hear them, so their order to stop didn't affect us. But otherwise you and I, Mary—we, too, we'd have been sitting there now, dead.”