Tin Woodman (19 page)

“I’m afraid that was all,” said Mora, “I suppose we’ll just have to risk it, unless we want to try to find some inhabitable world around here—which doesn’t seem likely.” She met Coffer’s stare across the conference room table. Ranged about them were the other members of the mission, as well as the appropriate experts on the subjects under discussion. “And I should have added this to my report; I’ve been thinking about it all, over and over—the Tuu. I wonder if maybe Earth wasn’t one of their colonies—perhaps that would explain why there are human beings on Deva and Crysor.”

“Are you suggesting,” said Kervatz, eyebrows raised, “that these so-called Tuu are the source of the human race—indeed were humans themselves?”

“I’m not sure
what
I’m suggesting, Doctor. Perhaps humans are some special mutation or breed of Tuu, suited to our sort of worlds. At any rate, at this point of development, humans and the Tuu would be practically alien anyway. Certainly humans would be alien to the Gomtuu.

“And I can’t help but wonder—
Tin Woodman
was found pretty close to the Triunion worlds, considering the distances involved. On its way to these Tuu colonies for some special mission . . . ”

“. . . or on its way
back?”
finished Norlan. “Questions, Mora. Interesting, true, but a far cry from facts.”

“I wonder what that mission was,”
said Mora softly to herself.

Or what it
is.

They were in the middle of feasibility investigations as to the re-penetration of the rift, when twenty objects jarred the sensors of the
Pegasus
into action. Twenty objects that at first were simply small lights in the visual screens.

These glowing objects halted just beyond deflector range. The captain, elsewhere on the ship, was immediately notified. The first thing she did when she got a look at the readouts on the objects from the sensor banks was to call Mora Elbrun up to the bridge.

As she stared in disbelief at the magnified images of the objects, Mora felt a tide of awe and wonder wash over her—and anticipation as well. She had not expected this. And yet she welcomed it as though she had been waiting for it all the while.

There was no doubt in her mind.
Tin Woodman
was out there, with its fellows, notified of their presence by some signal transmitted when they’d entered the rift station.

Div had returned.

SEVENTEEN

“Switch the deflectors down to small objects only,” commanded Coffer. Her eyes remained on the blobs of light glowing in the primary view screen.

“Do you think that’s wise? How do you know they don’t intend us harm?” said Norlan. “After all, we’ve pursued
Tin Woodman
across the universe. It might not wish us to return with the news of the space rift.”

“No,” countered Mora. “No. We have nothing to fear.” Something . . . something in her was reaching out to the new arrivals and something in her told her that they were reaching out to her as well. She strained to touch it, realizing it was too far. Like trying to touch a star. . .

“I don’t know,” Norlan responded nervously. “Why the other ships, then?”

Lowering her voice, Coffer said, “I don’t know. But their very presence indicates we’ll find out quite soon. If they intended violence, they’d not have approached us in this manner.”

Even as the deflectors were adjusted, the alien ships drew closer. Soon their number filled the screen. All were similar to the form the crew of the
Pegasus
had discerned in the drifting vessel designated
Tin Woodman.
But the alien had been half-dead then, dormant. Now, if indeed it was among this fleet of its fellows, it fairly glowed with life, radiating an astonishing steady pulse of energy. The sensors were swamped with new information.

Within half an hour, the fleet of aliens was less than twenty kilometers away. Here all of them stopped save one, which ventured another ten kilometers closer to the
Pegasus.
It halted finally, hanging in space before them. They could see every detail of its hull. All the while Norlan had been attempting to communicate with the creature on some frequency, without success. “It would appear that when it wishes to speak to us, it will,” he noted. “No way to raise it.”

Activity all but ceased on the bridge. Every member of the crew could barely resist the impulse simply to stare at the wondrous luminescence the ship-being gave off.

Mora felt herself falling into a trancelike state of mind. All time seemed to fall off her, like discarded clothing. All the pain of the past seemed to lose its constant resonance—she seemed to be turning away from it, away from her troubled present, its scabs flaking, fading away as she pointed her psyche toward an anticipated future. It was like a soothing balm, a sweet forgetfulness. She was only vaguely aware of the others about her.

Sometime later, Div appeared.

Or rather, Mora could see, a projection of what Div had been. It began as a faint tremble of blue light spotted with pinpricks of green and yellow that burst into existence at the very center of the bridge, some two meters above the floor. It dashed a milky sort of glow into every part of the room—all eyes were drawn to the hypnotic effulgence that was suspended in the air like a tiny, cold sun. The light grew, slowly, into a large globe. Quivering, this light began branching streamers of itself outward—like pseudopods growing from an amoeba. There were five of these streamers. The lower two descended to the floor, assuming the shape of legs. The middle two thinned out into arms. The topmost bulged into an ill-defined head. Slowly, the image resolved into the recognizable shape of, a human being, as though it were being focused into clarity inside a vu-tank. A soft glow still haloed the specter-like presence. The image resolved into a vague opacity. Mora could see through it with no difficulty. The slow dazzle that was the head slowly faded into features. Eyes, nose, mouth. Chin, ears, hair.

Div’s mouth was set in a slight smile. His eyes glimmered welcome. The sheen he emanated carried with it a comforting tingle. Mora, peripherally, could feel that whatever fright the awe—struck crew had felt at this unannounced arrival was rapidly diminishing.

Div motioned with his hands, and it was as though he were casting his thoughts to the crew.

You have come, as I hoped you might. As I planned. It is well that you are here. This pleases us.

“What?” Coffer immediately assumed the role of spokesman for the group. “You mean, you expected us? How did you know?” Of course she was not used to telepathic communication. The thoughts that Mora received were pregnant with so much more meaning than the surface word/symbols indicated. She understood.

I essentially summoned you after me—there were things you had to see, experiences you had to have before you could understand the message I have for humanity. At the moment I speak to every individual on board the
Pegasus
, completing the contact I instigated for the nanosecond before my Null-R jump. I am appearing before all of them, just as I appear before you. I have called you here because I still bear much love for the species that spawned half of my consciousness. You shall carry the message back to your fellows.

We see that you have learned much of the history of our race. We are pleased. This is part of the reason I have called you here, so far from where we first met.

I might have lingered—but it was obvious that you were not yet ready for the message there was to give. Your commanding officers may well have been hostile—a factor which I was also instrumental in changing for our present meeting. Besides, it is best to show you rather than merely tell you. You have our history in your computer’s information banks. You have documented proof. You shall need all of this, later.

The image of Div held out its hands.

But to be understood, our story cannot be merely relayed in words and thoughts. You must understand its totality, its implications. And to achieve this, you must all be communicated to in different and diverse levels.

Div lifted his arms straight up. The contoured light which composed his body began to blur. Diamond-like scintillations began to sparkle as the body metamorphosed into a column. This coruscating cylinder began to spin, slowly at first, then faster. It narrowed at its base, became a cyclone of light which grew, its edges reaching out toward the surrounding watchers.

The river of light washed out over

into a smoother, symmetrical

•••
WHOLE
•••

Suddenly, it turned topsy-turvy—instead of being drawn up into the center of the vortex, she fell down into it, fast.

She hit bottom, felt the essence of life enfold her as though she had pierced through its outer membrane of will, it somehow piercing her as well. There was a melding of spiritual juices that felt like tongues of cool fire licking at her soul. She surrendered to the pleasure/pain of it, and forgot what consciousness was.

When she awoke, she was no longer on the bridge. Nude, she drifted free in space. Stars and planets surrounded her like long-time friends. The void of space was no longer a cold, lifeless vacuum, but a sea of light that bathed her in soothing warmth. Light was life; life, light.

She was not alone. In the distance, alien life forms swam like schools of fish, grazing on the coronas of suns.

By her side was Div.

“Welcome to an experiential metaphor,” he said. He too was nude. About them both, Mora could distinguish the tenuous outline of the being she had known as
Tin Woodman.
The name was now needless, ridiculous. “I am he, and he is I,” said Div. “We are I; I am we. Yet I am still I.”

“I can’t—grasp . . .” she said. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t understand.”

He laughed. The sound was of twenty laughs, blending together into a single effect—like the individual instruments of an orchestra melding. “I am no longer merely Div Harlthor, nor am I merely a combination of Div and the alien you call
Tin Woodman.
I am all of my fellows that hang here before your metal vessel. And yet, I remain Div Harlthor.”

Gazing about, she saw the forms on the other ship-beings, each centered with its symbiote-rider. She looked back at Div. She shook her head, not comprehending.

He smiled.

They became . . . elsewhere.

On a seashore. In a tropical clime.

Mora found herself seated on a beach. Cool, frothy waves whispered up toward her, reaching for her, missing, falling back into the green-blue ocean. To one side of her, Div sat in physical form, drawing pictures in the gray and white sand. He looked up. He held out his hand. She took it in hers. It was warm.

“We waited for you, at my insistence. Soon, we shall depart this universe for one more suited for our existence. But I had them linger, for the sake of my parent race.”

The huge orange sun, hazy on the horizon, was warm and pleasant on her bare skin. She leaned back into the hot sand, She watched Div. She held his hand tighter.

“First I shall explain. Then you shall experience,” he said. “Just as in other places I am explaining to your shipmates.”

“But how can you do this?”

Div shrugged. “How does one do anything that one does? It is not merely my power with which I speak to you, but that of all of us.

“As you may have concluded, the symbiotes were victorious in the war. As we grew, we abandoned our home planet for the greater freedom of space, learned to make that our home. Over the centuries we have developed not merely a double being—the space whale and its rider—but a singular being, the combination of all of us into one mind like the component cells of a brain.”

“But how was that possible?”

“Your race bears the rudiments of the capability. In some it is greater than others. Over the ages, our race has developed it as well, and we use it now for its ultimate purpose.”

“You mean Talents? Like you—and me?

“A poor name. But yes, that is what I mean. This is the reason I was able to link up with the alien—my Talent.”

“The ultimate communication.”

“Communication. Yes,” said Div, staring out at the sea. A breeze frolicked through his hair. “From the moment it is separated from the intimate commune with its mother, does not a human child seek to re-establish this relationship—not only with its mother, but with its surrounding family of fellow humans? As it grows and falls deeper into itself, realizes its separateness from others, it also learns the methods of communication. Still, there is the constant inner war within it: the yearning for commune with its fellows against the ego it has developed as it has grown into an individual being.

“And yet, life would be impossible, unbearable, for an individual without the company of its fellows. Alone, any creature is insufficient. It is nothing without its fellows. Co-operation with them makes life viable, and even enjoyable. And one of the strongest drives in any sentient being is to communicate with its fellows.

“Take it further. If that is the case, then the ultimate communication is the intermeshing of minds as a whole. We approached that, Mora, just before I left the
Pegasus.
You felt a flicker of it when I transmitted that message just before dropping into Null-R space. That was also when I imbedded in all of you my Call. This is why you are here now.

“All of us ship-beings have strong powers of psi, which allow us to link together into what is effectively one mind, one consciousness.

“But the preservation of the individual is just as important, just as a chain is no more than a collection of individual links. Differing views of reality are necessary for species survival. Necessary for
love.

“It is a delicate balance we have established. For if we creatures homogenize ourselves into one mind entirely, a mind without individual conscious entity components, then that mind is alone. And aloneness is intolerable in such an inhospitable universe.”

“Why is it so important to tell us this? Why have you brought us here?” asked Mora.

Letting her hand go, Div stood, facing the sea breeze. “The human race has impeded its natural growth. They let themselves stand still. Their minds do not grow. They persecute those whose minds
have
grown. They wish to remain as they are—static. And thus they rot and wither on the vine of life. The universe will eventually slough them off. This I do not wish to happen.” He glanced down at her, offered his hand once more. She accepted it, and he pulled her up to him, Placing her head against his chest, she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, they were . . . somewhere else altogether.

They stood on a cliff overlooking a much darker sea than before. Above the dark, choppy sea was a clear blue night sky, laden with stars and bright moons and color-streaked planets. A cool wind pounced on them. Div held her close.

“We are alone now, Mora. I speak only to you. The others of the
Pegasus
are back in their mortal bodies. I have placed specific instructions on the method of returning through the space rift. Soon my people and I will leave.”

“Why only me?”

Div kissed her forehead. “Experience, Mora Elbrun. Experience my present existence, then dream my dream for mankind.”

She was falling.

The scene jerked away from her, and she was falling a measureless distance across the span between minds. Falling into Div.