A Maze of Stars Read online

  “You have no conception how decadent they have become. Even if someone there dreamed of being taken to another world, he or she would lack words to convey the request.” Memories of something Rencho had said drifted back. How long ago it seemed that they had last spoken—and how far away it truly was … She said, repressing another pang of misery, “Then how can they advance again if they no longer possess words to express what they’re thinking?”

  “New words will evolve.”

  “A different language?”

  “Humans have always spoken different languages, even on the birthworld. That is a matter of record.”

  “Are there many languages in the Arm?”

  “Yes. Already Trevithrans find it hard to understand visitors from a comparatively nearby world like Yellick, and vice versa. Even if one considers only the wealthy planets that again enjoy startravel—in their own ships or others’—there are virtually adjacent systems that need interpreters, whether human, machine, or organic.”

  “But you understand them all.”

  “It is one of the faculties my designers equipped me with … Now I have good news.”

  “Tell me.”

  “My survey of this planet is complete.”

  Yet again it had been a world where humans were still struggling to create some semblance of a comfortable civilization, and it held no temptations for her. Nonetheless, she contrived a display of interest.

  “Is the next world likely to be suitable for me?”

  “Again, it is probable that you’ll be disappointed.”

  Stripe hesitated. A question had lately tormented her that she was half-afraid to ask. She could not decide whether an honest or a misleading answer would be worse. Abruptly, though, she plucked up courage.

  “How many worlds did you seed?”

  “Six hundred and seventy.”

  “Did they all—how can I put it?—did they all take?”

  “No, some proved too marginal for people to survive. It was the settlers’ choice, not mine … Even there, though, there will always remain traces of human intervention, for the pattern of the native life was altered by it.”

  “About how many would you call successful?”

  “I’m glad you said ‘about,’ ” the dry voice murmured. “I discover to my surprise that I can tell you this: There are some where, even as far ahead as I have been, the survival of humanity in recognizable form is still uncertain.”

  “I’ll settle for a round figure.”

  “Approximately six hundred.”

  “And of those how many have advanced civilizations?”

  “You asked me not to refer again to the fact that I am obliged to regard Trevithra as backward. I apologize, but I need to know what standard you’re applying.”

  Stripe could have screamed, but controlled herself—or maybe Ship was still keeping her calm.

  “I’ll abide by yours. The ones that enjoy starflight!”

  “I can’t answer. I haven’t been to all of them yet.”

  “But— Oh.” She bit her lip. “Yes, you said this is the earliest of your visits … I’m getting terribly confused. I don’t know how you keep track—no, don’t tell me. That must be something you were designed to do. But you must have visited them all on—uh—future trips that you remember. Can’t you work back from what you know from before? I mean, whether they retained startravel or reinvented it, the date when they first managed to launch a starship of their own must be pretty significant.”

  “Your reasoning once more impresses me. Unfortunately you are wrong. For one thing, most planets ‘enjoying starflight’ are or will be those like Trevithra that were recontacted from outside. For another, there are cultures that will renounce it.”

  “Give up starflight after having regained it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What in space for?”

  “Reasons that seem good to those making the decision.”

  “So you don’t know whether some of these worlds have it or not, because on giving it up they didn’t—I mean won’t—bother to keep any records?”

  “Exactly.”

  “This species I belong to is even weirder than I dreamed … I’ll settle for about how many.”

  “Sixty plus or minus four. By the way, if you’re envisaging the possibility that, now you’re cured of the risk of cheeching, you might quit me at a world like Yellick and explore other planets aboard a modem ship instead of this ancient machine that you are so afraid of—”

  “Afraid?” she exclaimed.

  “You cannot disguise your dermal pheromones. I was, after all, designed to maintain the health and sanity of my human passengers even when they saw their friends departing to confront an unknown fate.”

  Stripe’s jaw fell. Eyes round, she demanded, “I never thought to ask before, but even if you didn’t carry millions of people, you must have carried thousands! Ship, how big are you?”

  “Let me see how I can best describe myself… Ah, yes. Think of the reception grid at Clayre. You would have to land a ship the size of the one from Sumbala every day of your local year and for two weeks into the following year to bring to ground a mass equivalent to mine.”

  “Cheech!” Stripe swallowed hard, suddenly all little girl again. “How do you hide? How is it that your gravity doesn’t give you away?”

  “Oh, you impress me more than ever! At the risk of distressing you, I wish I could compliment your parents.”

  “Well, you cheeching can’t! Answer me! No, don’t bother. You were designed that way, right?” -“That is so. And I’m afraid even your remarkable range of knowledge is inadequate for me to explain the principle whereby I transform the rectification of local space-time stresses into the energy required for my next reversion to tachyonic mode, let alone the compensation that’s applied to ensure it goes undetected even by sensitive apparatus.”

  Stripe pondered that before reverting to her previous inquiry.

  “So what were you warning me about?”

  “Against,” said the quiet voice. “Against any idea of traveling by a contemporary human ship.”

  “Because I couldn’t afford it?”

  “For one thing.”

  “And for another?”

  “Because certain worlds that at this stage possess starships have regained the technique at the cost of skills in biology and medicine. In consequence they are paranoid about alien contagion. It would do you no good to assert that you have been rendered noninfectious by the Ship. Disbelieving your claim— and my continuing existence—they would respond solely to your outward appearance.”

  “Worse than antis?”

  “Much worse. They would act with full planetary support… Comfort yourself with the reflection that I alone visit all the seeded worlds. Speaking of which, we are approaching the point at which I may exceed light-speed.”

  “You’re going to put me to sleep again.”

  “You may stay awake if you insist, but afterward I would have to treat you for an overt psychosis.”

  “You didn’t tell me that before!”

  “I didn’t know you then as intimately as I do now.”

  Stripe sighed. “Very well. But what can I look forward to at our next—ah—port of call?”

  “Even less than at the last. It’s among the ones doomed to fail. But at this stage there may still be recognizable humans.”

  And there were. Just. Foraging and rutting among the tendrils of a vegetable life-form girdling the globe and spreading against all odds into the polar tundra. Whether there were continents and oceans made no difference; a single self-sustaining organism covered both.

  “I remember how optimistic those settlers were,” said Ship. “So versatile a plant seemed to offer a virtual infinity of resources. Here, for example, it is processing rock and excreting heavy metals in pure form. Besides, it makes the air ideally respirable for human lungs.”

  Wanting to cringe back even though she knew its tendrils— more like tentacles, in fa
ct—could never seize her, Stripe watched nuggets of gold and silver, and perhaps lead and cadmium, tumble down a slope of dark green fronds to serve at the foot as playthings for subhuman anthropoids. She whispered, “What went wrong?”

  “It’s mode of reproduction was not recognized.”

  “But—”

  “You never saw the like. Nor did the settlers, nor my designers. There is a wind that’s kept in constant motion around the world, entirely by the action of the plant. It carries organisms not exactly cells, a sort of pollen but more polymorphous. These, transmitting what one might term lessons learned from local needs, enable it to evolve at amazing speed. The moment human germ plasm was introduced, plus that of the associated organisms we all carry, they provoked a reaction that ensured the newcomers adapted to the needs of the plant and not the other way around. You see the outcome.”

  “I’d rather not,” Stripe whispered. The scene vanished. Relieved, she went on, “You said ‘organisms we carry.’ Are you not identifying too much with your makers?”

  “No.” The dry humor returned, which she was coming to like. “I meant it literally. I carry you; do I not also therefore carry what you carry?”

  On the next world humans were at least likely to survive in some more recognizable form than as contamination in an all-engulfing plant. Over most of one continent, however, there hung a pall of smoke. Unaware that their new home had passed through a phase when its atmosphere was high in carbon monoxide, which a now-vanished form of aquatic vegetation had found hostile to its tentative forays on land and absorbed in huge rigid spongelike tubers that then were buried by eons of mud, the newcomers had lit a fire at a point where tilted sedimentary rocks had been exposed and split by weathering. Now an inferno was spreading diagonally beneath a mountain chain. Planetary temperature was rising thanks to carbon dioxide, while the level of available oxygen, formerly just tolerable for humans, was diminishing. But, having domesticated a local organism that ingested C02 and excreted oxygen, the inhabitants were fighting back valiantly, even though they had to drag the creatures behind them on sleds or carts, constantly pausing to inhale from a connecting tube. Now and then there were mistakes, and somebody got burned alive.

  “Yet they intend to win,” said Ship. “They plan to dam a river that will spill between the mountains and douse the fire. They are already talking about what use they can make of the stored gas afterward.”

  “You’ve been down to speak with them?” Stripe countered.

  “As ever.”

  “Does anybody want to join me?”

  “I suspect you’re growing lonely with just me for company.”

  “I am.”

  “I know the feeling … But I have found nobody who wishes to leave. Everyone is convinced the problem can be solved and in a few centuries this will be an excellent home for humans.”

  “Will it?”

  There was a brief pause. Then: “Better than some … I have to inquire: Do you wish to remain here?”

  “I don’t fancy the idea of sucking breath from some alien creature that I have to haul around like a tail!”

  “I thought you might not… Believe me, I am not unsympathetic. But I doubt the next port of call will greatly tempt you, either.”

  And it didn’t, although it, too, allegedly was destined for success. Stripe found that even harder to credit than the future of the fire world. Here she saw what Ship declared were human beings, better than ninety-nine percent indistinguishable from herself at the cellular level, yet if she had encountered one at home, she would have mistaken it for a plant. These “people” were shaggy, of a shade between green and purple, and only seldom moved.

  “In the other hemisphere,” said Ship, “it’s breeding season. They move then. I’ll show you.”

  And they did, running organized races, throwing rocks, clambering up nearly vertical cliffs, all the time shouting at one another in language that Stripe nearly understood. Every sentence they called out had to end in a rhyme proposed by a challenger, and they extemporized amazingly.

  “What’s happened to them?” she whispered.

  “A stroke of astonishing good luck. They’ve established symbiosis with a native life-form that enables them to live directly off light, air, dirt, and water. This world has a year longer than most habitable planets’. During the winter they absorb from the ground enough energy to support them in the summer. In spring they mate, in autumn bear children, and then they revert to the immobile phase. It’s rather like the life cycle of creatures on the birthworld that were known as bears. Some early scientists speculated that they too could have evolved to intelligence.”

  “But what use are they making of their lives?”

  “Like the herd guards I told you of, they have time to speculate and ponder. Besides, they survive to an immense age. They will create new art and new philosophy.”

  “When?”

  “In a few thousand years.”

  With an attempt at wry humor she retorted, “Even for the sake of longer life I don’t think I want to be turned the same color as them. I rather like my stripes. I’ve been used to them for …”

  The words trailed away.

  “Is something wrong?” prompted Ship.

  “Yes!” Stripe waved to indicate that the planetside scene should vanish, which it did, and drew herself bolt upright. “I just realized I don’t know how long I’ve been on board.”

  “Owing to the fact that there is no time—”

  “In tachyonic mode! I know, I know! I also know that every time you let me interrupt you, you’re playing games with me because your reactions are faster than mine, and I admit that by letting me do it you’re showing that you understand the concept of politeness! Now do me a favor and give me a straight answer! In terms of the age I’d be if I hadn’t left Trevithra, how long have I been on board?”

  “Four years and approximately four days. I cannot be more precise.”

  “At home I would be married with a family.”

  “At home the stress you underwent when—”

  “You’re letting me do it again! I’m coming to recognize the leisurely delivery you adopt when you expect me to cut you short. You’re toying with me, aren’t you? You were going to say, and I know you were going to say, the stress would have made me cheech ahead of time so I wouldn’t even have grand-motherhood to look forward to.” She clenched her fists. “Let me see you for once! Come back the way you were when we first met! I want to look you in the face!”

  And there he was, and they were orbiting the planet, and it was rotating into darkness so that the reflected brightness of its primary no longer dazzled out the stars.

  “You’re reminding me what a big universe it is,” Stripe declared bitterly. “You’re trying to make me resigned to spending maybe your entire voyage with you, hoping I won’t find anywhere to settle because everywhere you take me is too unlike Trevithra. Well, I won’t have it! Where next?”

  “Klepsit.”

  “Oh!”—in sudden childish excitement. “A world that has starships!”

  “No.”

  “But I’m sure that back home—”

  “My turn to interrupt. You’d never heard the name of Klepsit before I invited you aboard.”

  “Oh, that’s right!” Yet her excitement was undiminished. “I remember now. You said it was from there they brought the cure for cheeching!”

  “Be careful of your tenses.”

  “What—? Oh, you know what I mean!”

  “You seem to think I can read your mind simply because I can deduce from your pheromones what your mood is.”

  “And mess about with it!”

  “I have not interfered with your metabolism, not even by altering the nature of your food, since we left the ice-age planet.

  “For one thing, you had adjusted excellently; for another, knowing in advance how you are going to react makes your presence worthless to me as a stimulus.”

  Stripe stared at Ship’s flawless imag
e, clenching her small fists. She said after a long pause, “You are conscious, aren’t you? I think you must have been copied from a real human being.”

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Either that, or you’ve had so many temporary passengers you’ve absorbed their mannerisms … You sound like a bad husband I knew down my alley back home—bossy, domineering, and offensive! So if you mess about with my mind, my presence is worthless, is it? And that’s the only reason you stopped doing it? Not for my sake? Not because I might prefer to be a free responsible individual?”

  She was panting now.

  “Tell me about Klepsit! Even if you can keep me alive longer than those things on the last planet, I don’t want to spend eternity dragging around with you! I’m human, and I want to stop somewhere and do human things like having children, even if my husband looks different from anyone I ever met! I thought that was the whole idea of spreading people down the Arm of Stars!”

  “You are a Ship-believer,” Ship responded. “Amazingly, even after meeting the real thing.”

  “And should I not be? You are real, even though after being batted back and forth through time, I’m not surprised you sometimes doubt the fact yourself! At least you’re real enough to keep me with you more years than I imagined and not let me measure how long it’s been except by how frustrated I’ve become!”

  The air around her seemed to grow cold. She could not tell whether it was imagination. Abruptly alarmed, she cried out. “I order you to tell me what it’s like to live on Klepsit! Come on! But keep it brief!”

  “On Klepsit,” said the Ship in a tone far more machinelike than usual, “the settlers decided to postpone recovery of starflight. They resolved to adapt their planet and themselves to one another by main force. They opted to challenge their metabolisms with whatever the native life could offer. Many died. The rest became resistant—or rather, their descendants will. At this point people must still be dying who did not volunteer for early death.”

  “But it’s the world that invented a cure for cheeching?”

  “Watch your tenses.”