Robert Heinlein - The Past Through Tomorrow

He admitted that he was prejudiced in favor of men. He was a man.

The uncounted days slid past while he argued with himself over the things that bothered him-problems that had made sad the soul of his breed since the first apeman had risen to self-awareness, questions never solved by full belly nor fine machinery. And the endless quiet days did no more to give him final answers than did all the soul searchings of his ancestors. Why? What shall it profit a man? No answer came back -save one: a firm unreasoned conviction that he was not intended for, or not ready for, this timeless snug harbor of ease.

His troubled reveries were interrupted by the appearance of one of the Little People. "... greetings, old friend your wife King wishes you to return to your home... he has need of your advice..."

"What's the trouble?" Lazarus demanded.

But the little creature either could or would not tell him. Lazarus gave his belt a hitch and headed south. "... there is no need to go slowly..." a thought came after him.

Lazarus let himself be led to a clearing beyond a clump of trees. There he found an egg-shaped object about six feet long, featureless except for a door in the side. The native went in through the door, Lazarus squeezed his larger bulk in after him; the door closed.

It opened almost at once and Lazarus saw that they were on the beach just below the human settlement. He had to admit that it was a good trick.

Lazarus hurried to the ship's boat parked on the beach in which Captain King shared with Barstow a semblance of community headquarters. "You sent for me, Skipper. What's up?"

King's austere face was grave. "It's about Mary Sperling."

Lazarus felt a sudden cold tug at his heart. "Dead?"

"No. Not exactly. She's gone over to the Little People. 'Married' into one of their groups."

"What? But that's impossible!"

Lazarus was wrong. There was no faint possibility of interbreeding between Earthmen and natives but there was no barrier, if sympathy existed, to a human merging into one of their rapport groups, drowning his personality in the ego of the many.

Mary Sperling, moved by conviction of her own impending death, saw in the deathless group egos a way out. Faced with the eternal problem of life and death, she had escaped the problem by choosing neither... selflessness. She had found a group willing to receive her, she had crossed over.

"It raises a lot of new problems," concluded King. "Slayton and Zaccur and I all felt that you had better be here."

"Yes, yes, sure-but where is Mary?" Lazarus demanded and then ran out of the room without waiting for an answer. He charged through the settlement ignoring both greetings and attempts to stop him. A short distance oustide the camp he ran across a native He skidded to a stop. "Where is Mary Sperling?"

"... I am Mary Sperling . .

"For the love of- You can't be."

"I am Mary Sperling and Mary Sperling is myself do you not know me, Lazarus?... I know you.

Lazarus waved his hands. "No! I want to see Mary Sperling who looks like an Earthman-Iike me!"

The native hesitated."... follow me, then...

Lazarus found her a long way from the camp; it was obvious that she had been avoiding the other colonists. "Mary!"

She answered him mind to mind: "... am sorry to see you troubled... Mary Sperling is gone except in that she is part of us..."

"Oh, come off it, Mary! Don't give me that stuff! Don't you know me?"

"... of course I know you, Lazarus... it is you who do not know me... do not trouble your soul or grieve your heart with the sight of this body in front of you... I am not one of your kind... I am native to this planet.

"Mary," he insisted, "you've got to undo this. You've got to come out of there!"

She shook her head, an oddly human gesture, for the face no longer held any trace of human expression; it was a mask of otherness. "... that is impossible...Mary Sperling is gone... the one who speaks with you is inextricably myself and not of your kind." The creature who had been Mary Sperling turned and walked away.

"Mary!" he cried. His heart leapt across the span of centuries to the night his mother had died. He covered his face with his hands and wept the unconsolable grief of a child,

LAZAIWS found both King and Barstow waiting for him when he returned. King looked at his face. "I could have told you," he said soberly, "but you wouldn't wait."

"Forget it," Lazatus said harshly. "What now?"

"Lazarus, there is something else you have to see before we discuss anything," Zaccur Barstow answered.

"Okay. What?"

"Just come and, see." They led him to a compartment in the ship's boat which was used as a headquarters. Contrary to Families' custom it was locked; King let them in. There was a woman inside, who, when she saw the three, quietly withdrew, locking the door again as she went out.

"Take a look at that," directed Barstow.

It was a living creature in an incubator-a child, but no such child as had ever been seen before. Lazarus stared at it, then said angrily, "What the devil is it?"

"See for yourself. Pick it up. You won't hurt it."

Lazarus did so, gingerly at first, then without shrinking from the contact as his curiosity increased. What it was, he could not say. It was not human; it was just as certainly not offspring of the Little People. Did this planet, like the last, contain some previously unsuspected race? It was manlike, yet certainly not a man child. It lacked even the button nose of a baby, nor were there evident external ears. There were organs in the usual locations of each but flush with the skull and protected with many ridges. Its hands had too many fingers and there was an extra large one near each wrist which ended in a cluster of pink worms.

There was something odd about the torso of the infant which Lazarus could not define. But two other gross facts were evident: the legs ended not in human feet but in horny, toeless pediments-hoofs. And the creature was hermaphroditic-not in deformity but in healthy development, an androgyne.

"What is it?" he repeated, his mind filled with lively suspicion.

"That," said Zaccur, "is Marion Schmidt, born three weeks ago."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"It means that the Little People are just as clever in manipulating us as they are in manipulating plants."

"What? But they agreed to leave us alone!"

"Don't blame them too quickly. We let ourselves in for it. The origihal idea was simply a few improvements."

"Improvements!' That thing's an obscenity."

"Yes and no. My stomach turns whenever I have to took at it... but actually-well, it's sort of a superman. Its body architecture has been redesigned for greater efficiency, our useless simian hangovers have been left out, and its organs have been rearranged in a more sensible fashion. You can't say it's not human, for it is... an improved model. Take that extra appendage at the wrist. That's another hand, a miniature one... backed up by a microscopic eye. You can see how useful that would be, once you get used to the idea." Barstow stared at it. "But it looks horrid, to me~'

"It'd look horrid to anybody," Lazarus stated. "It may be an improvement, but damn it, I say it ain't humans"

"In any case it creates a problem."

"I'll say it does!" Lazarus looked at it again. "You say it has a second set of eyes in those tiny bands? That doesn't seem possible."

Barstow shrugged. "I'm no biologist. But every cell in the body contains a full bundle of chromosomes. I suppose that you could grow eyes, or bones, or anything you liked anywhere, if you knew how to manipulate the genes in the chromosomes. And they know."

"I don't want to be manipulated!"

"Neither do I."

Lazarus stood on the bank and stared out over the broad beach at a full meeting of- the Families. "I am-" he started formally, then looked puzzled. "Come here a moment, Andy." He whispered to Libby; Libby looked pained and whispered back. Lazarus looked exasperated and whispered again. Finally he straightened up and started over.