Tin Woodman (20 page)

When the descent halted, she was Div as much as she was herself. Here the contact was yet deeper than the previous one experienced with him. She knew every nuance of his soul, every highlight and low point of his pain-streaked earthly existence. She participated in a replay of his trip into the ship-being. The combining of minds. The ecstatic brief contact with the humans aboard the
Pegasus,
the seeding of his designs in the necessary minds, the journey to rejoin his fellows. Through all of this, she knew
Tin Woodman
as well, and the creature welcomed her. When the fleeting finish of the experience arrived she knew what it was to be a part of a mass mind—and yet remain an individual. It was breathtaking. She had never felt so close to any living creature, nor felt so strong the bond of love between them.

Then, like the shattering of a fragile crystalline bowl, she felt her mind seem to burst, sending its sparkling shards tumbling through canyons of time. Each of the myriad pieces flung helter-skelter through the universe was a part of her, intimately linked with the others through the enigmas of time and space. Stars were so many glittering specks in the sweeping beach of infinity, girded with an ocean of nothingness. Death and life seemed meaningless words; cyclic states. She sprinkled a part of herself through a globular galaxy, breathing in suns which smelled like crushed buttercups. The songs of the dimensions beyond her haunted her ears in vague alien tunes. A shower of comets landed on her metaphorical tongue like falling snowflakes.

Jarringly, she cohered into a whole once more, instantly realizing that she was more than before. Her fingers glowed with fine webworks of glittery thread; her body was covered with a soft, pliable sparkly gauze.

Div was beside her; she knew it, though she could not see him. “Experience us, Mora.”

The last curtain of his mind dropped, sheared off from the top. She stared into his naked soul, and beyond into the souls of twenty others. Not like Div—she could see their alienness now. But they were alive, and life was what counted. They were alive and combined, like organs in a body, efficiently complementing one another in the composition of the whole—yet full individuals on their own. She felt a wash of warm raindrop love splash about her—and she was a school child again, plashing in a stormy park, synchronous with the world and herself. Instantly she yearned to hurl her lonely self into this mass of beings that knew no aloneness—only love, and security, and purpose.

In touching their minds, she experienced their history, saw their hopes, which branched out into places her mind was unable to go. It was as though she had journeyed through a chilling night all her life and now stood on the verge of dawn, the warm light of the Gomtuu just pinking the horizon.

It was gone.

Suddenly all became dark. Only Div was there, withdrawn.

“No!” she cried, a sense of deprivation she had never known before flooding her. She felt sick, empty, confused. “You can’t take me away, not after showing me this,” she pleaded.

Div said, “This is not for you, Mora.” There was a strange tone in his voice, an emotion straining to break through bars of control. “Believe me. No—these are not humans. I am not human, now.” His pale form, outlined in cool fire, stood before her and lifted up its arms to touch her forehead. “What you have seen required eons of evolution among my new people. But let me show you my hope for mankind, Mora. Let me show you my vision. My dream.”

And she saw.

She was on her back, sprawled on the deck.

. . . bridge . . .
Pegasus .
. . Gomtuu . . . Div . . .

Her thoughts were spiraling wildly down into her, disassociated.

She felt disoriented. And then her thoughts ordered themselves, and everything was clear. She lifted herself up, looked around. The others of the bridge crew were similarly prone, some beginning to stand. They looked confused.

Pushing herself the rest of the way up, she had to lean against the command desk. She found herself staring into the eyes of Leana Coffer. At first those eyes seemed in another place entirely; gradually they returned to focus, and the mind behind them realized that someone was looking into them.

Coffer attempted to speak. She produced only astonished, guttural sounds.

Mora helped her into the chair behind the desk. “Are you all right, Leana?”

“Yes. Yes.” She shook her head, as though to clear it. “God, it was incredible. What—what I heard, saw, felt! The transmission from
Tin Woodman
before was only a glimmer of it. We
all
saw it. I could sense everyone there.” She stiffened. “The Gomtuu. I must contact them before they leave. There are questions . . .” She began to move toward the vu-tank and flat-screen controls. Mora’s hand detained her.

“They’re already gone, Leana. We’ll not see them again.”

Coffer looked back at her in disbelief, shook off her hand, hurried to a control console, punching up all available visuals and sensor operations.

The flat screen snapped up before them immediately. Still hoping, she stepped up magnification, stared into the wealth of stars. But there was nothing there but the stars—and empty space.

Coffer sat down, defeated.

“So much to ask,” she mumbled into her hands. “So much.”

Mora went to her, smoothed a hand across her back comfortingly. “Then ask me.”

Coffer looked at her. “What?”

The others who had awakened were staring at her as well. How she had hated that before: people looking at her, fixing her with mocking, unpleasant expressions of contempt. But now there was no contempt in those faces, no fear or suspicion. Only pure awe. And instead of despising those stares, she welcomed them.

Before, they’d kicked up her self-doubt, her lack of self-assurance. They’d raked her over the coals of her insecurities, and the terrible emotions emanating along with them had touched her mind like corrosive acid. But not any more. She would not be bothered, she realized, even if they still hated her. Because now everything was different.

“Div not only told me about the creatures. He showed me how it felt to be one of them. Can you imagine? A part of something as huge as that, full of love and promise—never alone, and yet remaining yourself? I find it hard to describe. It is the ultimate. But I can describe what Div showed to me—a vision of mankind’s future with such verve and sweep it stunned me. And yet, it’s possible. I saw it—and the very existence of the Gomtuu and their mind-mesh shows it to be possible!”

“What is possible, Mora?” asked Coffer.

“You all felt a part of the mind linkage, I’m sure. That is what I mean. That is what is possible.”

“For the human race?” someone asked. “But how?”

She took a breath, let it out raggedly, emotionally.

“There are, among us, humans who are the keys to this ideal the symbiote creatures have achieved. In the very midst of the stagnant Triunion civilization, these people exist, and have existed for many years. And yet they are looked upon as freaks. They are hated and reviled. They are denied growth and maturation. They are feared.

“Div showed me his dream. I saw a mankind filled with love for one another. Not hate and fear. I saw masses of people that knew one another intimately and worked together for a common goal without division and strife among them. A civilization that existed not for self-gain, but for a mutual love.

“I saw a human panorama of unmatched splendor; a technology built not to serve itself, or just a few, but to serve the human ideal. I saw perfect cities on green planets with room to grow. And I saw human beings living together literally as one, in perfect peace.

“I should have to be a literary genius to construct phrases and sentences, metaphors, similes, and word-images of what I experienced. But I shall try. All my life, I shall try. And all my life I will travel among my people, trying to impart this vision to them.

“For you see, these human keys to this ideal future are none other than my own kind—Talents. And every single human being has the seeds of that psychic energy. But these must be cultured, nurtured, encouraged as the years pass. There are things we can learn from my people—things beyond comprehension. For it is in the combining of minds, emotions, and spirits that we are making the inroads toward progress of the human mind—of human evolution.

“We are the hope of the human race. We who you have spit upon with your hearts should be loved for what we offer. We who have been outcasts so long, misunderstood, hated, feared by you Normals, are the chance for the human race to move toward what the Gomtuu have achieved. Because of our mental talents, because of our empathic faculties, we can teach you much. Study us. Duplicate what we have artificially, genetically, in your children. Honor
our
children.

“For the first time I feel comfortable with my Talent. It is a gift. Not a curse. Div has given direction to my existence. I have his message to carry to you, and to others. Far from being the
blight
of humanity, Talents are the only hope for the proper evolution and maturation of the human race.”

She smiled a smile she never thought she could before—a smile that must mirror the new inner peace she felt. The bridge crew about her was silent, speculative.

“I have much more to tell vou. But not now, There will be time. Right now, I must go and rest and think about this vision that Div and the Gomtuu have given me. I must decide how best to bring it to you, and to others.”

Not actually realizing what she was doing, she coursed a warm flow of empathic love over all of them. They smiled at her, and she felt their feelings—good feelings—as well. Div had improved her Talent. Sharpened it.

As Mora turned toward the lift shaft, Coffer’s words broke the silence Mora left in her wake. “No time to waste,” Coffer said. “We’ve got the directions from Div. We’ve got to maneuver the ship to prepare to re-enter the rift. There’s much to do. There’s a long journey ahead of us.”

Another voice objected, “But if we return, might we not be arrested as mutineers? Perhaps we should find some nearby Earth-type planet and colonize it. We have the necessary equipment.”

Coffer’s response was sharp and full of emotion. Mora turned, saw she was pointing at her. “I could give you a hundred reasons. But right there is the only reason that counts.”

Mora smiled to herself. Such a strange thing to be loved. Such a strange experience to be a prophet, a bearer of a new message. A dull pain of memory touched her deep inside. If only Ston were here to share this with her.

But no. No more looking back to a past so fraught with pain and self-hate. For the first time in her life, she felt happy with herself—felt fulfillment. The future would by no means be easy. But each day would be a solid stairstep now to her heart’s desire.

She stepped onto the platform, and lifted up to the observation deck to look at the stars, for the first time knowing her place beneath them.

EPILOGUE

In a spherical pattern, the nexus-link ship at the center, the twenty Gomtuu traveled through the mass of extradimensional energies that was Null-R space as one. The brilliant and blazing colors that boiled about them fell on inactive sensor receptors. All inner force was now focused on the nexus-ship, bridging the twenty various mind combinations, meshing the consciousnesses into a semblance of one. This communication exchange centered upon the recent experiential matrices built through their contact with the human ship. Empirical and metaphysical permutations were constructed to augment the stored group memory, so as to place it in the proper emotional/ situational context—so that it would be as much the truth to them in the future as it was then and would not suffer damage in transference to the mass memory system of the collective, so far away.

The entity named
Tin Woodman
by the humans hung at the very lowest point of the hierarchal levels. Even in size, it was not so large as its fellows. Once the separate vantage points on the experience were harvested, weighed, considered, and combined, the whole of the group-mind directed a specific, selective question to their fellow, who had been their spokesman, through the focus point of the nexus-link.

Brother,
they said.
It is complete. We have humored your desires because of your difference, which we must accept—and the acknowledged curiosity on our parts as to the progress of the human race, a onetime member of which now forms part of you. All is well, and we are well pleased with the new knowledge we may add to the collective. We rejoice as you must in our destination, after our separate journeys about this galaxy, surveying present conditions. We rejoice that you returned through the rift in time to make the journey with us. We anticipate the company of our fellows. Yet there is one aspect of this unusual contact which you instigated and controlled entirely, with only the aid of channeled energy from the rest of us, which puzzles us. What you told the humans, specifically the one you singled out—the one you have been so preoccupied with during the time-periods we have spent waiting for the metal ship—what you let her experience: it is an untruth. We cannot comprehend—untruths have long since become almost alien to us. We are sure your human part must have been responsible. We have not obtained such an idyllic state, although it is what, as a race, we hope to obtain over the next few eons. Indeed, philosophers among us argue over it constantly, some claiming that such perfection is impossible. There can be no perfect combination of minds maintaining the separate identities of each cell member, they say. If we are totally one another, then we cannot maintain individualities. Wars have been fought—power struggles engaged in with the more powerful of our number who have attempted to suck us all into themselves. Ours is by no means the perfect and splendiferous existence you painted for the human. The extent and power of these imagined fantasies you showed her of ourselves impress us all, perhaps even inspires us to further investigation of the ideal. But why, brother, did you present it to the humans not as ideal, but as fact? This is needed for proper explanation to add to the rest of the memory matrix-and to satisfy our own interest.

The being that was
Tin Woodman
and Div Harlthor acknowledged reception of the query. It responded:
The human race is decaying. There was a need to instill in them a hope and goal for the future. My symbiote-half has much interest in his former race. Much feeling. Integration is not yet complete between us; this has helped that.

But why,
said the others,
was the human woman picked out alone for the transference of these untruthful visions?

There was a long silence from
Tin Woodman.
And then:
Because she bears the power that will effect a renewal in the progress of the human race. She has the power to contact minds, and can relate the vision I instilled her with to others of her kind.

It was obviously an incomplete answer, but the others let it suffice and proceeded to let their thoughts travel over other matters. Their new brother was a problem that would take a time to become accustomed to. He was welcomed, but he was different. They did not understand him. They did not comprehend this fierce emotion they now detected in him, and did not care to contemplate it now. It would slack off and die, surely. Until then, to touch it was like nothing they had experienced before. And so they avoided it, ignoring it and its source as best they could.

Keeping its place within the formation,
Tin Woodman
journeyed on through distance meaninglessly far from where it had orbited the double-star system, bereft of a companion, for so many ages. Within, its fleshy chambers fairly glowed with life. It was discovering itself again, and delighted in the exploration of every cell. The new part of it was especially fascinating, but very strange. But then, as soon as their consciousnesses were truly one, that would pass away. Now it reveled in itself, running through its chambers with its mind like a delighted little boy.

It was in its symbiote chamber now, the section that held the physical body of its new mind-half. Lit by the mottled, colored glows of the crystalloids embedded in room-flesh, the human was a wonder.
This is a part of me now,
it thought. I think now with its mind wrapped up within my ship-body. I am it. It is me. How marvelous!

It did not totally understand the reason it had kept its companions waiting by the space rift. Nor why it had said what it said to the humans. But somehow, it made it happy.

And yet all was not right. When it would journey to certain parts of its new mind, there were cold and lonely places, emptier than empty space. It had not been this way at first.

And that throbbing emotion that would boom out piteously, as though from a lost soul.

It avoided these chilling places of its new mind, for now. They would warm up and fade away. Soon. Very soon.

He is almost fully covered now.

An arm pokes out. The tip of a foot, long since de-shod by the slow flow of connecting flesh. This new skin is translucent; the previous form of the human is just evident below it. Denuded, the boy’s flesh is now punctured with the curling lengths of wire-like nerves and veins which will keep its functions continuous for many millennia.

And yet it is still recognizably Div Harlthor.

The head is covered by a cap of harder flesh, with vine-like tendrils piercing the skull. Part of this descends over the face, obscuring half of the features. But the left side is uncovered. The mouth holds itself in a relaxed state, the perfect moue of a content, sleeping baby.

But the eye—large, pink—is half open. There is a haunted, bitter-sweet look to that eye, frozen forever. And down the cheek below it there is a tear track, which is slowly drying.