Eileen Gunn: Stable Strategies and Others

Steam rose up where his feet touched the sea and, because he was drawing power from the sunshine, the air was black around him. Virtual particles scintillated in the blackness like the fractured thoughts of a mad god. So terrifying was his aspect that even his beloved plesiosaurs fled from him.

But contrary to his expectations, the source of the green fire was no sleek silver ship from Hy-Atlantis, but a primitive iron behemoth, and its occupants were not of the Evolved People at all but simple anthropoids — humans.

Humans, moreover, from a world where he had once played at creating societies. He remembered well, though it had been long ago, the stone cities and ball courts, the feathered cloaks and tame ocelots, the stepped pyramids he had found thronged with human sacrifices winding slowly toward a peak where the priests waited with obsidian knives, and which he had left cleansed and wholesome. These people had once belonged to him: They had no business here.

Then — outrageous! — the ship’s guns began to fire. The fools. Had they no idea how fragile the local ecosystems were?

He had nursed the organisms here through a hundred extinction events, guiding them through the labyrinthine passages of time into forms more graceful and lovely than nature had ever produced on its own.

The intruders must die.

The trick was to do it with a minimum of fuss. He sank down to the floor of the ocean. That would stop them firing any more chemical-powered shells, at least. Then he would plan.

The warm waters closed about him. Ammonites and belemnites jetted swiftly past. Schools of jewel-like teleost fish grazed among the clam reefs.

There were volcanic vents not five miles down. But if he tapped their energies, it would destroy all this beauty. Unthinkable. Better to set up a time gradient and spur the seaweed to hypertrophic growth. That way the ship would be overgrown, engulfed, and dragged under. Or he could….

A distant ammonite caught his eye. Quetzalcóatl swam over to where it rested in the shelter of a rudist clam the size and shape of an oil barrel. When he reached a hand toward it, the timid creature pulled its tentacles into its shell.

“Come on out, little one,” he crooned. An apprehensive blue eye stared, blinked, relaxed. “That’s right.” He extended his hand again.

Slowly, the ammonite unfolded.

It had sixteen tentacles.

Quetzalcóatl held perfectly still, calling to the animal with his mind. By slow degrees it grew used to him. At last it lovingly twined itself around his fingers.

The tentacles were slender beyond belief, a rare genetic doubling, and fully functional. The creature used them with perfect aplomb. Quetzalcóatl peered deep into its genome. Yes! It was stable. The mutation would breed true.

So great was the peace that came over him with this discovery that without even wishing it, he found his thought encompassing the minds of the humans on the ship above. Ordinary enough minds, most of them, both fearful and courageous, and lacking in comprehension, though their commander was extraordinary for her kind. But there were two among them who were peculiar, though no less afraid than the others. Instead of taking battle stations, clutching their weapons and waiting tensely against his return, they were crawling across the deck on their hands and knees, measuring out distances with a length of rope.

Quetzalcóatl plucked language from their minds and listened with interest to what they were saying.

“Fourteen…fifteen…here. This is where your foot started to go through the floor.”

“Deck, Isaac. It’s called a deck.”

“Deck-schmeck, what the heck. What difference does it make? Who’s got the chalk? Oh, I guess I do. I’ll make a mark.”

“Yeah, you’ll make a mark all right — as a major fuck-up….”

Quetzalcóatl had heard this sort of banter before, and it did not impress him. Whether they were hunting mastodons or conquering empires, bored and frightened men sounded much alike. He sensed the fear both felt that they’d never reach home. Sensed too the humiliation the younger one felt for being chewed out by his commander, the older one’s worry that he was past his physical peak. Both men were coming face to face with their own limitations, and neither much liked it. All this, too, he knew from of old.

What did surprise and intrigue him was that all the while, despite everything else he was saying and feeling, the younger one was thinking about the plesiosaurs. Thinking about their power and beauty, and regretting not having had the nerve to try to touch one. Thinking too of the darkness he had seen coming across the water at them, and feeling outraged that the sailors had fired upon it. Brooding not only on his own fear, but also on the lost opportunities for knowledge.

This was an intellectual honesty out of the ordinary, a restlessness akin to his own. Buried deep as it was under fear and humiliation and anxiety for his future, Quetzalcóatl saw a spark of that same fire of curiosity that burned within his own veins.

“Here’s where the cat walked through the wall.”

“Bulkhead.”

“Whatever. Who’s got the chalk?”

Quetzalcóatl released the ammonite. Then he summoned an archelon and rose to the surface, standing on its back.

The ship’s crew gathered at the rail at Grace’s command. Quetzalcóatl had seized control of her mind, of course. It was easiest to be direct when dealing with primates. Through her eyes he saw himself: tall, auburn-skinned and muscular, with a forbidding expression on his face. It was much the same appearance he had worn when he was worshiped as a god in their own world. Except for the extra arms, the talons, and the jagged horns that swept up from the sides of his head.

In a voice like thunder he said, “Have the young one stand forward.”

The young one turned green. He looked helplessly at his friend, his commander, his shipmates, silently pleading for their help. They all stood stone-faced and emotionless. He had no way of knowing that they were not under their own control.

Finally, because he had no choice, the young one climbed down the rope ladder to the ocean’s surface. Hesitantly, he stepped onto the back of the giant sea turtle.

The young one flinched when Quetzalcóatl placed a clawed hand on his shoulder. The terror that thrilled through him was a palpable thing. There were tears of fright in his eyes. But, probing, Quetzalcóatl saw that — yes — there was under all that emotion, a glint of wonder.

Quetzalcóatl smiled to himself. He wished he could keep this one here, to nurture and encourage it. But he was a naturalist. He would create a bubble of air about them and command the archelon to carry them below. He would show this one a few of his choicer treasures. And then, gently, regretfully, he would remove his hand, and release the specimen back to its natural habitat.

Isaac stood on the leathery back of the giant sea turtle. It swam at a majestic pace through the calm water. A mantle of moss billowed out in its wake, attached to the edge of the shell like the train of a great green wedding-dress. Close to the ocean surface, with the air humid and the hot sun on him, Isaac felt that the boundaries between himself and this strange natural world were not clearly enough defined. He preferred pavement, frankly.

All around him sported plesiosaurs, oddly graceful in the water, like huge penguins with giraffe-long necks, moving their stubby flippers like rudimentary wings. He was unafraid of them, despite their sharp teeth. Somehow fear had lost its context in the light of recent events. Fear was the air he breathed now, and no one thing was more fearsome than any other.

Except perhaps the memory of the obsidian claws of Kukulcan gripping his shoulder. Gukumatz, Nine Wind, One Reed. Quetzalcóatl. Interesting to think that he, Isaac, had encountered someone who was worshiped as a god. He could see how such a situation might come about. Quetzalcóatl certainly gave the impression of being an indestructible entity with unlimited power, all-encompassing knowledge, a life span measured in eons — and wasn’t that what a god was?