Shakespeare's Planet (20 page)

“Pond,” he said. “I spoke to you. Why don't you answer, Pond?”

A tiny flutter stirred within his mind, a contented flutter, like the soft sighing of a puppy settling down to sleep.

“Pond!” he said.

There was no answer. The flutter was not repeated. And this was the end of it, the all of it? Perhaps Pond was tired. It struck him as ridiculous that such a thing as Pond was tired.

He rose to his feet, and his cramped leg muscles cried relief. But rising to his feet, he did not move immediately, standing there and listening to the amazement that thundered through his brain.

He had been disappointed, he remembered, at his first glimpse of the planet, disappointed at its lack of alienness, thinking of it as no more than just a dowdy Earth. It was, he said, defending his first impression, dowdy enough, if it came to that.

Now that it was time to go, now that he'd been dismissed, he found a strange reluctance to leave. As if, having struck up a new friendship, he hated to say good-bye. The term was wrong, he knew; it was not a friendship. He sought for the right word for it. There was none that he could think of.

Could there, he wondered, ever be an actual friendship, a bone and blood friendship, between two intelligences so totally different. Could they ever find that common ground, that area of agreement, where they could say to one another: I agree with you—you may have approached the concept of a common humanity and a common philosophy from a different standpoint, but your conclusions coincide with mine.

It was unlikely, he told himself, in detail, but on the basis of broad principles, it might be possible.

“Good night, Pond,” he said. “I am glad I finally met you. I hope it will go well with the both of us.”

Slowly he climbed the rocky shore and set out down the path, using the flashlight to find his way.

As he rounded a bend, the light picked up a blur of whiteness. He shifted the light. It was Elayne.

“I came to meet you,” she said.

He walked up to her. “It was a foolish thing to do,” he told her. “You could have lost your way.”

“I couldn't stay back there,” she said. “I had to hunt you out. I'm frightened. There is something about to happen.”

“The sense of awareness once again?” he asked. “Like when we found the creature caught in time?”

She nodded. “I would suppose that's it. Just a feeling uncomfortable and on edge. As if I were teetering somewhere, waiting to jump, but not knowing where to jump.”

“After what happened before,” he said, “I am inclined to believe you. Your hunch, that is. Or is it stronger than a hunch?”

“I don't know,” she said. “It's so strong that I am frightened—desperately frightened. I wonder—would you spend the night with me? I have a togetherness blanket. Would you share it with me?”

“I'd be pleased and honored.”

“Not just because we're a man and woman,” she said. “Although I suppose that's a part of it. But because we're two human beings—the only human beings. We need one another.”

“Yes,” he said, “we do.”

“You had a woman. You said the others died …”

“Helen,” he said. “She's been dead hundreds of years, but to me only yesterday.”

“Because you were in sleep?”

“That's right. Time is canceled out by sleep.”

“If you wish, you can pretend I'm Helen. I will not mind at all.”

He looked at her. “I won't pretend,” he said.

25

So there goes your theory,
said the scientist to the monk,
about the hand of God brushing across our brows
.

I don't care,
said the grande dame.
I don't like this planet. I still think it's ishy. You can get excited about another life-form, another intelligence very much unlike us, but I don't like it any better than I do the planet
.

I must confess,
said the monk,
that I do not care too greatly about the idea of bringing even a gallon or so of the Pond aboard. I don't understand why Carter agreed to do it
.

If you recall what passed between Carter and the Pond,
said the scientist,
you'll realize that Carter made no promise. Although I rather think we should. If we find a mistake has been made, there is a simple remedy. Anytime we wish, Nicodemus can jettison the Pond, heave it out of the ship
.

But why should we bother with it at all?
asked the grande dame.
This thing that Carter calls the god-hour
—
it is nothing to us. It brushed us, that is all. We sensed it, as Nicodemus did. We did not experience it, as did Carter and Shakespeare. Carnivore
—
what happened to him we don't really know. He was mostly frightened
.

We have not experienced it, I am sure,
said the scientist,
because our minds, which are better trained and disciplined …

Which is only so because we have nothing but our minds,
said the monk.

That is true,
said the scientist.
As I was saying, with minds better disciplined, we instinctively shunted off the god-hour. We did not let it get to us. But if we opened up our minds to it, we probably would derive much more from it than do any of the others
.

Even if that should not be the case,
said the monk,
we'll have Horton on board. He is quite good at it
.

And the girl,
said the grande dame.
Elayne
—
is that her name? It will be good to have two humans back on board again
.

That wouldn't work for long,
said the scientist.
Horton or the two of them, whichever it may be, must go into cold-sleep very shortly. We can't allow our human passengers to age. They represent a vital resource we must make the most of
.

But for only a few months?
asked the grande dame.
In a few months, they'd be able to pick up a good deal from the god-hour
.

We can't afford a few months,
said the scientist.
A human life is short, at best
.

Except for us
, said the monk.

We can't be entirely sure how long our lives may be
, said the scientist.
At least not yet, we can't
.
Although I would suggest that, in the full meaning of the term, we may be no longer human
.

Of course we are
, said the grande dame.
We are far too human. We cling to our identities and individualities. We quarrel among ourselves. We let our prejudice show through. We still are petty and objectionable. And we were not meant to be that way. The three minds were supposed to flow together, to become one mind much greater and more efficient than three minds. And I'm talking not only about myself, with my pettiness, which I am quite willing to confess, but you, Sir Scientist, with your exaggerated scientific viewpoint that you tend to flaunt to prove your superiority over a simpleminded, flighty woman and a dumb bunny of a monk …

I will not deign to debate with you
, said the scientist,
but I must remind you that there have been times …

Yes, times
, said the monk.
When deep in interstellar space, there were no distractions, when we had worn ourselves out with our pettiness, when we were bored to death. Then we came together out of sheer weariness and those were the only times when we came close to the fine-honed communal mind that it was expected by those back on Earth we finally would achieve. I'd like to see the look on the faces of all those weighty neurologists and those bird-brained psychologists who worked out the scenario for us if they could only know how all their calculations worked out in actuality. Of course, all of them are dead by now …

It was the emptiness
, said the grande dame,
that drove us together. The emptiness and the nothingness. Like three frightened children huddling together against the emptiness. Three minds huddling together for mutual protection and that was all it was
.

Perhaps
, said the scientist,
you have come close to the truth of the situation. In your bitterness, close to the truth
.

I am not bitter
, said the grande dame.
If I'm remembered at all, I am remembered as a selfless person who gave of herself all her life and who gave more than any human should be ever expected to give. They will think of me as one who gave up her body and the solace of death to advance the cause …

So
, said the monk.
once again it comes down to human vanity and to misguided human hopes, although I do not agree with you on that business about the solace of death. But you're right about the emptiness
.

The emptiness
, the scientist thought to himself.
Yes, the emptiness. And it was strange that, as a man who should have understood the emptiness, who should have expected it, he had failed to understand, failed to come to terms with it, but had been seized with the same illogical reaction to it as the other two, in the end developing a shameful fear of it. Emptiness, he had known, was only relative. Space was not empty and he had known it wasn't. Although thinly scattered, there was matter there, much of it made up of fairly complex molecules. He had told this to himself time and time again, saying to himself
—
it is not empty, it is not empty, there is matter there. Yet, he had not been able to convince himself. For there was in the seeming emptiness of space an uncaring and a coldness that drove one in upon one's self, shrinking from the coldness and uncaring. The worst of the emptiness, he thought, was that it made one seem so small and insignificant and that, he told himself, was the thought to fight against, for life, no matter what its smallness, could not be insignificant. Life, on the face of it, was the one thing, the only thing, that had any meaning to the entire universe
.

And yet
, said the monk,
there were times, I recall, when we overcame the fright and no longer huddled, when we forgot the ship, when, as a newborn entity, we strode across the emptiness as if it were quite natural, as if we walked a pasture or the garden. It always seemed to me that this time came, that this condition came about only when we reached a point where it seemed we could bear no more, when we had reached and exceeded the feeble capabilities of humanity
—
when this time came there was an escape valve of some sort, a compensating situation in which we entered upon a new plane of existence
…

I remember, too
, said the scientist,
and from the memory I can snatch some hope. How confused we seem to be, able to convince ourselves of our hopelessness and then recalling some small fact that can give us hope. It's all so new to us
—
that's our trouble. Despite the millennia, it's still too new to us. A situation so unique, so alien to our human concepts, that it's a wonder we're not more confused
.

The grande dame said,
You recall that from time to time, on this planet, we have detected another intelligence, a sort of whiff of another intelligence, as if we were hounds sniffing out an ancient trail. And now that we have felt the full force of the Pond-intelligence
—
reluctant as I am to say it, for I want no more intelligence
—
the Pond-intelligence does not seem to be the one that we earlier detected. Is it possible there is yet another great intelligence upon this silly planet?

The creature-in-time, perhaps
, suggested the monk.
The intelligence we detected was very faint, extremely subtle. As if it were trying to hide against detection
.

I doubt that would be it
, said the scientist.
A thing encased in time, I should judge, would be undetectable. I can think of no more effective insulation than a shield of arrested time. The terrible thing about time is that we know it not at all. Space, matter and energy
—
these are factors that we can pretend to recognize, or at least theoretically accept their theoretical values. Time is the complete mystery. We cannot be certain of its actuality. It has no handle we can grasp to examine it
.

So there may yet be another intelligence
—
an unknown intelligence?

I do not care
, said the grande dame.
I have no wish to know it. I hope that this pretty puzzle in which we've become involved comes to an early end so we can get out of here
.

It won't be long
, said the monk.
A few more hours, perhaps. The planet's closed, and there is nothing further to be done. In the morning, they'll go down and look at the tunnel and then will know there's nothing to be done. But before that happens, there is a decision that must be made. Carter has not asked us because he is afraid to ask us. He fears the answer we will give
.

The answer is no
, said the scientist.
Much as we may regret it, the answer must be no. Carter may think harshly of us. He may say we've lost our humanity with our bodies, that we retain only the coldness of our intellect. But that will be his softness speaking, forgetting that we must be hard, that softness has but little part to play out here, away from our own conditioned planet. And, furthermore, it would be no kindness to the Carnivore. He'd drag out his weary life within this metal cage, with Nicodemus hating him and him hating Nicodemus
—
perhaps afraid of Nicodemus
—
and that would be heaping coals upon his shame, that he, a warrior of repute who has killed many evil monsters, should be reduced to fearing a spindly mechanism such as Nicodemus
.

With reason
, said the monk,
for Nicodemus undoubtedly, in time, would kill him
.

He is so uncouth
, said the grande dame, a shudder in
her thought. So lacking in sensibilities, with none of the niceties nor considerations …

Which do you mean?
asked the monk.
Carnivore or Nicodemus?