The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth) (6 page)

Zozula had been touched by the sight of this strong, hirsute creature so shocked, and had explained to him in some detail the tragedy of the Dome, as told to him by the Rainbow.
 

“It all started a long time ago, in the fifty-fourth century Cyclic, as I understand it...”
 

That was almost 90,000 years ago. The Consumer Wars were over and Anticonsumerism had won. Shortage of fossil fuels and the high cost of travel resulted in increased use of self-contained recreational centers. At the same time there was a growing demand for visual rather than physical entertainment, accelerated by the decreased oxygen content of Earth’s atmosphere as the oceans’ oxygen-producing creatures dwindled. The first Domes were built in the mid 56s, the later, solar-powered models in the late 57s.
 

During the Great Retreat and the subsequent Nine Thousand Years’ Ice Age, the Domes were probably responsible for the survival of the human race.
 

But then came the creeping onset of neoteny, the failure of the breeding programs and the vicarious consolation of Dream Earth, where the neotenites lived imaginary lives in a corner of the Rainbow.
 

“Can’t you do anything about it?” Lord Shout had asked.
 

“We’re trying, believe me,” said Zozula “We have a full-scale research program on another planet. The only trouble is that the neoteny factor, which is responsible for their appearance, can’t be eliminated. It seems to be a dominant gene present in all samples in our tissue bank—even in my own tissues, we’ve found. I’m lucky to be built the way I am. My own body is the last of its line. And like all the other Keepers in there, I’m dying slowly. We practice our Inner Think, of course. But we can’t live forever. And when we’ve gone—the present generation of Keepers, that is—there will be nobody else. No True Humans to take our place. I don’t know what we’ll do. I suppose we’ll have to recruit the neotenites, but they’re terribly weak and susceptible to disease.”
 

A lot of this had gone over Lord Shout’s head. “Why not let all those poor monsters die? What’s the point of it all? What’s so important about the Dome, and True Humans? It’s only
you
that call yourselves True Humans. Personally, I’m quite happy with my own body. At least I can withstand the climate without getting out of breath. Shouldn’t that be the measure of a True Human?” His shock and sorrow were turning slowly to outrage.
 

“We have a duty to those creatures in there. We’ve failed them often enough already. Now we must keep them alive until we can breed True Human hosts for their minds. There are ten thousand of them in there, all living their thinking lives in the Rainbow, waiting for us to find them bodies. Would you want to be responsible for wiping out all those minds?”
 

Lord Shout was becoming furious.
 

“God damn you,” he said. “If there is a God—and I still believe there is, in spite of what I’ve just seen—may he twist
your
body into a monster and feed
your
brains into a computer.” He spoke very formally, as though uttering a sacred curse.
 

Zozula couldn’t remember his own reply. Whatever it was, it had been inadequate and hadn’t satisfied Lord Shout or himself. As if offering some kind of excuse, he’d taken Lord Shout into the Dome and shown him Dream Earth, the imaginary world where the neotenites exercised their minds in environments of their own invention, among phantom forests and meadows, cities and seas. Lord Shout had remained unconvinced.
 

Zozula had been very thoughtful for many months after that meeting, and the other Keepers, or Cuidadors, had noticed and commented, but he’d kept his own counsel. He was the head Cuidador, hardly an appropriate person to start voicing doubts about their mission in life.
 

And now, twenty years later, here was Lord Shout again...
 

But changed. The pride was there and he tried to meet Zozula’s gaze levelly, but his eyes were haunted.
 

“It’s been a long time, Zozula,” he said quietly.
 

“Time to think. Time to come to terms.”
 

“For me or for you?”
 

“I’ve never forgotten what you said. And I’ve never been able to decide whether you were right or wrong.”
 

And Lord Shout said, “I was wrong.”
 

Zozula stared at him. “How can you say that? You believed what you said. Any Wild Human capable of thought would have said what you did. I’ve spent nearly twenty years knowing you may well be right, and telling nobody. You spoke as you saw it, as an independent man—and I respected you for it.”
 

“Please don’t respect me any more, Zozula. All that was twenty years ago. I don’t need respect, now. I need pity. Are you human enough to grant it to me?”
 

Zozula descended the ladder. The barrow stood there, crude and wooden, Wild Human–made. In the barrow lay a creature.
 

There was a long silence.
 

Eventually Lord Shout said, “My son, the Mole... You can see he’s not normal. He’s been deaf and blind since birth, and...”
 

“Even if we could treat his physical abnormalities,” Zozula said gently, “our Cuidador code doesn’t allow us to practice medicine on Wild Humans. We have a duty to the species as a whole, and we’ve already paid a price for interfering with the course of nature. You people out here—you represent a hope for Humanity. Natural selection must be allowed to take its course.”
 

“I wasn’t going to ask for treatment.”
 

“What, then?”
 

“Mole, here... He’s known
nothing
. Can you imagine what that’s like? He’s never seen a tree, or a wave on the beach. He’s never heard the jaguar roar, and he’s never seen its beauty. He’s never even held a conversation with another human. He’s fifteen years old, and he’s never seen a woman...”
 

“I’m truly sorry, but I don’t see what we can do.”
 

“I want you to take him in. I want you to treat him like the rest of those... neotenites you have in there. Lay him down on a shelf and plug him in and let him dream real dreams in the computer. That’s the only way he’ll ever know what the world is like.”
 

“The neotenites have been dreaming for thousands of years. The world they’ve created in Dream Earth is nothing like the world we know. The Mole would find it frightening and I’m afraid the images would drive him mad.”
 

“I’ll take that chance.”
 

“I’m sorry. We’re full to capacity, you understand? In order to accommodate the Mole, we’d have to eliminate a neotenite’s body, which automatically means eliminating his mind. You must see why we couldn’t do that.”
 

“But you told me you have ten thousand bodies in there. What difference can one more make? You could make up a spare bed, surely?”
 

Zozula said, “We could if we knew how. But we don’t. We simply don’t have the knowledge to fabricate the bed, the life-support terminals and so on. I’m sorry.” Then, seeing the expression on Lord Shout’s face, Zozula took pity and said, “But we can do our best for him.”
 

“Anything.”
 

“Does he talk?”
 

“No, of course not.”
 

“Well, what kind of things does he think about? He’s deaf too, you said? What’s happening in his mind?”
 

“I don’t know! For God’s sake, Zozula, I’ve no idea! I feed him and keep him clean, and sometimes he waves those... things. I’ve no idea what’s going on in his mind, or even if he has a mind. He’s my son, and I don’t know anything about him!”
 

Zozula looked at the misshapen head, at the blank places where the eyes ought to be, and just for a moment imagined a whirling of thoughts in there, quick and brilliant, unable to find release, belying the terrible blankness of the exterior. Who could tell? He drew a parallel with the Rainbow—seemingly an immense bank of fog occupying one wall of a vast room, useless and mute unless you knew how to communicate with it.
 

And the tragedy was, that skill in communication was virtually lost. There were programs of great value in there, knowledge and techniques that could probably solve all the world’s problems. But they couldn’t be drawn out, understood and learned from. Nevertheless they were
there
.
 

The Mole’s thoughts were probably
there
. If the Cuidadors couldn’t help the Mole, nobody could. For a moment Zozula thought about the Mole’s thoughts and the form they might take—and the germ of an idea took shape in his mind.
 

He said, “Help me carry him up the ladder.”
 

After Zozula had settled Lord Shout and the Mole into their quarters, he made his way to the relaxation room. Three of the Cuidadors sat there, and the dead echo of long silence was in the air. Zozula sat down on a golden couch, not knowing what was going on.
 

Eulalie said finally, an edge of horror in her voice, “I’m dying. That’s what you’re afraid to tell me, isn’t it?” She had risen. Now she walked to the window and looked down at the clouds, looked up at the brightness of the late afternoon sky, pale gray through the age-darkened glass. She couldn’t look at Zozula.
 

Ebus, the Dome physician, said, “There are some more tests I could make.” “How long do I have?” She swung round. Ebus hesitated, glanced at Zozula, who was still sitting and gazing at his wife and companion of many centuries, uncomprehending. How can you comprehend death, when you live that long? Ebus said, “Maybe a week.”
 

“A week? There’s been a mistake, Ebus.” The horror had become desperation in her voice. “I’ve practiced my Inner Think religiously, every morning. I’ve never been so in tune with myself. I feel fine, except for... Look at me!”
 

They looked. It was not easy to believe Eulalie was dying. Tall and beautiful, she wore a long white dress of Grecian style; her hair, likewise, was long.
 

Over the millennia the Keepers had come to dress like the gods their charges considered them to be. There was scarcely a line on her face, her neck was pale and smooth, no veins marred the delicacy of her hands.
 

“We keep up appearances,” murmured Ebus. Why should he remind her that the Inner Think was not perfect because humans were not perfect; that concentration lapsed, cells were missed; that the thinking areas of the brain were themselves the most difficult to revitalize? She knew all that.
 

An hour later they were able to face the situation more reasonably. Ebus now went to the heart of the matter. “This doesn’t give us long to find a replacement,” he said.
 

“Ebus!” Zozula was outraged. He glanced at Eulalie. She met his look with understanding and sympathy. He and she were different from the others. They were throwbacks. Like Manuel, they knew love.
 

And now, born of love, an idea slipped into Zozula’s mind.
 

“There’s one way out, if you can bring yourself to take it,” he said quietly. “Those happenings in Dream Earth—who’s to say they’re less real than what happens out here? It’s a logical little world in the computer—up to a point—with its own rules. If you could bear the change, it’s possible that we could program your brain-patterns into the Rainbow and hook you up to a spare host.”
 

So much for Zozula’s high principles. An hour ago he’d spoken about the Cuidador’s duty to the Dream People and the impossibility of finding room for the Mole because it would mean erasing a neotenite’s mind. Now, in shock and grief, he was suggesting doing just that.
 

They watched Eulalie. She took a peach from a bowl and bit into it, savoringly, as though it were the last thing she would ever do.
 

“So I would live on as a Dream Person, with one of
those
bodies?” she asked calmly.
 

“I’d be able to visit you, of course,” said Zozula quickly. “Maybe your real body wouldn’t be very pleasant, but that’s immaterial. You could Bigwish yourself into whatever Dream form you chose. Your present form, if you wanted.”
 

And Eulalie was tempted, let there be no mistake about that. When a person has lived as long as she had, even the unthinkable can seem better than dying. She thought for a long time before replying. “Thank you, Zo. But that would only be dragging things out. My time’s arrived, and I’ll accept it. Ebus is right. Our first duty is to the Dream People, and the most important thing now is to find a replacement for me. As it happens, I do have a replacement in mind.”
 

Juni, the dietitian, spoke for the first time. “She’ll be a...” She couldn’t finish. Distaste wrinkled her perfect face.
 

“A blubber.” Ebus used the unkind word for neotenite. “That’s right—there are none of the old humans left.”
 

“There are humans outside.”
 

“Barrel-chested freaks,” said Ebus. “Don’t fool yourself, Juni—they’re a completely different variety. They’ve evolved away from the true form just as radically as the neotenites have, only their adaptation is much more favorable. They’re hardy, but you can’t say much else in their favor. I’ll support Eulalie’s choice. A blubber it must be. And you never know—Selena might have a breakthrough in the breeding program before long. Only yesterday she said that gorilla-man of hers—what’s his name... ?”
 

“Brutus,” said Eulalie sharply. Ebus could grate on a person sometimes.
 

“Yes. Brutus has come up with a new approach that she has some hopes for. Funny, isn’t it, to think of a Specialist leading the way in genetic research?”