Watchstar (16 page)

She looked down at the soft green grass without weeds, which grew at her feet. At least, unhampered by fear, she could think clearly. She glanced at Reiho. “I cannot stay here.”

He seemed puzzled. “You have not even been here very long,” he answered. “You have seen only a tiny portion of our world, you know nothing about it.”

“I know all I need to know. Look at me, you must put a thing in my arm so that I don't go mad, as any normal human being would in such a place. I feel sick when I think of what you do here.”

“But most of us have such implants at times,” Reiho said. “Some are calming, others help us focus our minds on a particular problem, still others can keep us from needing sleep for a time. Occasionally such things are needed. They are only tools to aid us. Don't your people feel different after drinking wine? This is no different.”

“It's not only that,” she said, her voice rising. “It is everything here. Perhaps if you had taken me as a baby and brought me here, it would not have seemed so, for I wouldn't have known other ways. But I'll never fit in, I'll always be an outsider. I would not want to be a part of this.”

“But Homesmind, and all of us, will help you.”

“You cannot, it is too unnatural here. I look at these trees, and think of trees on Earth. I look at this grass, and remember the plains, where it grows high and wild and turns brown and yellow when there is too much sunshine. And I am crippled in this place. I can't read any of you, I can't understand what you do. No one here seems to do any work.”

“Certainly we do. The people we saw this morning were working when we visited.”

Daiya remembered that. They had been in Etey's cave. Three slender, dark people had appeared before them, along with their furniture and part of their own dwelling. She had been startled; Reiho had explained to her that what she saw was an image, not the people themselves. Etey had spoken words Daiya could not understand while the strangers—or their images—had stared at her so long and hard that she began to feel uncomfortable. “Those people were sitting there gazing at pictures of strange things floating in the air,” she said to Reiho. “Do you call that work?”

“They are exobiologists. They were studying images our probes took of a far world, and analyzing them. We sent our robots to the surface of that world, but they found only microscopic forms of life. Even so...” He droned on. She tried not to fidget, unable to grasp most of his words. Was he trying to say there were other worlds besides Earth and the comet-worlds he had mentioned? Where could such places possibly be? “I am sorry,” he said, and she brought her attention back to him. “I am not explaining this very well.”

She waved a hand, excusing him. “It doesn't matter. I meant real work. Where are your crops, your cattle and sheep?”

“The synthesizer provides our food. The animals here, in the forest and elsewhere, are more like pets. We could not eat the corpse of a creature that once lived.”

She sighed. She looked around at the thick short green grass, the trees, the flowers. This was not a true forest; it was a carefully cultivated garden. She gazed up through the tree limbs, seeing not blue sky and clouds but instead a diffuse golden light. Something moved behind one of the trees. She saw a metal creature, tall and oblong, with pincers for limbs. She shuddered. “I want to go back,” she said.

Reiho put a hand on hers. She stiffened, forcing herself to sit still. “You told me there was nothing for you there. You said you could not share what you know with your people, that there was nothing you could do. Perhaps you make decisions too quickly, Daiya.”

“There is more for me there than here. Even if I die, at least I'll be on my own world.” She held out her arm. “I won't need something inside me to keep from going mad.”

“Please do not decide now. Promise me you will share what you know and believe and think with us first. There is so much we can learn from you.”

She drew away from him, perching on the edge of the rock. “Is that why you brought me here, to persuade me of that? Even if you are not hostile, did it ever occur to you that I might not want to sit and answer questions from strangers?”

“But you will not have to do that,” he replied. “You can speak to Homesmind directly and It will acquire what you know, and more thoroughly than if you only spoke it aloud. Anyone who is interested can then ask for the information afterward. It is very simple. They will see what you have seen, experience it as you did, even ask for commentary spoken to them by an image of you if they wish.”

She shivered. What were they going to do, rob her of her soul? “Why should you want to know what I do?” she said. “Why should it matter? Both our worlds have survived very well without such things. You talk about things I can't even understand, and use strange words and chants, which means you must possess some kind of wisdom.”

Reiho folded his hands on his lap. “You have not lived here,” he said, “so you cannot know our problems. Life is good here. We have learned much, and we have all that we need. We do not have to do the work you mentioned, and that leaves us free to do our own, whatever interests us—if I chose to do nothing, that would be accepted, though a hundred years from now I might become bored.”

She wrinkled her brows. “You live so long?”

“Longer if we wish, though accidents kill many of us in time. But that is not my point.” Reiho frowned. “We have had our troubles. I have told you there are other comet worlds. Once we were one world, but we have become divided. If someone is dissatisfied here, she may create a new world with others, leave us. Sometimes it is only a certain style which divides us, sometimes it is something more serious.”

“We live in separate villages on Earth,” Daiya said, “but we're not divided. Our customs are the same.”

“Earth is small,” Reiho replied. “If you were to travel to another village, you would think of the journey in terms of days or at most months, would you not? We must think of years, hundreds of years, thousands if we could not control our speed and our path. Often when we meet another comet, and that does not happen frequently, we find that the divisions are so deep that we cannot share and communicate any more. We do not fight, because there is nothing to be gained from it, but we are aliens to one another. I have seen a world where the people are concerned only with art and the creation of beauty. Etey has seen a world where the people had shed their bodies and united their minds with that of a cybernetic intelligence. She has also seen a world where she was not quite sure what it was the people valued.” He paused. “I am not saying we would want to be like you, I do not think we could. Your life is too hard. But if we understood your perspective, we could learn something from it, I am certain. We are individuals, and must go our own ways, but sharing adds something to each of us. Too often we are divided here. We do not have to cooperate on many things because Homesmind is here and takes care of us. Few of us become parents to those who are born because to do that requires that an individual feel more of a bond with others than she usually does. The only thing we can all accept is that it is important to learn, find out what we can, but too many of us are only spectators, self-absorbed, gazing at what is known without discovering much that is new, unable to act or decide much more than what to wear or what to eat or who to mate with for a time. Only knowledge unites us. That is what we value most.”

She thought about his words. He spoke of knowledge as if it were only words or legends without substance. On Earth, truth could shame one, an idea could maim if it was thrown about carelessly. He was a solitary; he could play with ideas as if they were toys. She peered at him. Even his people, who supposedly valued knowledge so much, had lost the ability to build machines like those on her world; even they were afraid of some knowledge.

“You see, you have nothing to fear from us.” Reiho went on, his mouth curving in a half-smile. “Most of us would rather view the vistas of Earth through Homesmind than walk there ourselves. I would not even go there as I am, though I might be safe enough. I must wear a lifesuit for protection. Most of us would not want to confront your people. We have a great fear of confrontation, and have many forms of courtesy devised to avoid it. One would not even want to criticize another's choice of wine or clothing, though our thoughts are our own. So we grow apart even more, since we rarely bring our disputes into the open until someone simply decides to leave and seed a new comet and by then it is too late.”

“But you say you can speak directly to this Homesmind,” she said, “and to one another through those things, those implants. At least I think that's what you meant.”

“That is true. But Homesmind will only advise, It will not tell us what to do. And we usually do not speak to others directly, though we do when we wish to exchange knowledge or our reasoning about some subject, since that is much quicker and more accurate than speaking. But much of the time we use speech.”

“But then why can't you become closer? I don't see how people can be so divided if you can somehow touch another's mind.”

Reiho shrugged. “We have certain inhibitions, made stronger by tradition. We value privacy, the uniqueness of each person, the freedom to think a thought without having to share it with everyone else. We can speak into another's mind, but we cannot search it, or know another's thoughts as we know our own.”

“Now I am sure I can't stay here.” Daiya said. “Everything you have said now we think is a sin. Everyone in my village warned me about my separateness, it was a great flaw in me. Perhaps it's because of that blot on my character that I can listen to you and understand something of what you say, but I cannot live in such a place. I could not endure it. I have no powers here, I can't even get a sense of this place, can't feel things you feel only with your mind. You would clutter my body with more of these calming things, and it would not matter because I would only wait for death. I am completely unlike you.”

He took her hand again. She thought of his artificial skin and tried not to recoil and wondered how it could feel so much like real skin. She poked impulsively at the back of his hand with her nail and he jerked his head slightly.

“You are more like me, and like Etey, than you think,” he answered. “In a way, we are as much outsiders here as you are in your home. Of course, we cannot really be outsiders, since everyone here is free to go her own way, but we question many things about life here, just as you questioned your life on Earth.”

She realized that if Reiho had not been so different, he might have been a friend. But there was too much that divided them. He was still an alien curiosity, an acquaintance, someone she would never really understand. It was a wonder she could grasp as much of him as she did.

“Tell me,” she said, speaking carefully, longing for the lost powers that would have made some of this cumbersome talk unnecessary. “Is it because you and Etey are different from others here that you are now having disagreements?”

Reiho seemed surprised. “We are not really having a disagreement.” His voice slid over the words.

“Don't try to fool me. I heard you before I slept, and I saw how your bodies moved today as you spoke to those others, the people who were staring at pictures. You moved as though you were afraid to touch each other.”

“It is not serious.”

“It is. I have come between you.”

“No, you have not. It is only that Etey wonders if I was wise to bring you here, but I explained things to her, and she understands that I could not leave you behind.”

“She wants me to leave.”

Reiho's eyes shifted slightly. “She did at first. Now she is not so certain. She feels sorry for you.”

Daiya straightened her shoulders. “She does not have to feel sorry for me.” She stood up. “You say I should speak to this Homesmind of yours. Is that your request, or is it Etey's?”

He rose and faced her. “We are both in agreement on that. Homesmind is the wisest being here.”

“You have said you created It, yet It is wiser than you. You speak in paradoxes.”

She turned and walked through the forest. Reiho followed her and took her arm and she did not draw away. Light danced in the spaces among the trees, making her blink. They came to the edge of the forest.

They stood together on a low hill and gazed at a plain of gray rocks. In the distance, three small boats were sailing on the clear, calm waters of a lake. A breeze curved the sails and rippled the lake's surface, making the light dance and sparkle again. The curls against her cheek fluttered. She looked up at the golden sky and wondered if she could ever love this world as she loved Earth.

She leaned against Reiho, who had tried to be her friend. For a few moments, she forgot that his body was not all flesh and bone. The breeze brushed her face once more, and she heard Reiho breathe.

Three birds darted from the woods behind them and flew out over the lake. She withdrew from Reiho and turned to face him. He watched her quietly and then said, “Will you commune with Homesmind?”

She said, “Yes, I will.”

Daiya sat in the corner of a large room on a blue cushion. The roof above her was transparent. She leaned against a wall. Images moved through the center of the room; they looked more like diagrams or drawings than real things. The room's grassy ground was covered by cushions. Pictures danced on the walls, pictures of forests and landscapes through which rabbits and deer jumped and ran. A speckled fawn near her corner blinked at her; she put out her hand and touched the wall, her hand concealing its nose. Tree limbs bent slightly, as if a breeze was stirring them.

Five children giggled as the lines in the middle of the room twisted and curved; squares turned into rectangles, circles became globes. The children stared at Daiya and giggled some more. Etey was speaking to a tall man who stood near the children. The man nodded. Etey came back across the room, walking through the images.

Reiho sat next to Daiya. He smiled at her reassuringly Etey sat down across from her, holding out a thin silver circlet. Reiho pressed a hand against the wall. A transparent surface slid across the room, dividing them from the children on the other side; then it darkened so that she could no longer see through it.