Orson Card - Wyrms

"You're such an ass when you try to talk like a scholar," whispered Patience.

Angel ignored her. "And the wyrm that originally called the Starship Captain-it had that same ability, and perhaps more."

Ruin spoke without looking up from his work. "No doubt the wyrms used their ability to lure their prey and repel their enemies. One wyrm used it with your Starship Captain, but no doubt it doesn't depend on any intelligence on the part of the victim."

"And instead of eating the captain, they mated," said Reck.

"I wonder which he would rather have done, in the end, mate or die," said Angel. "I wonder how much abasement a human being can bear, and still desire to live." He sounded sad.

"With his right hand he drew what the wyrm wanted him to draw," whispered Patience. "With his left hand he warned us. He still had some part of his human will, even though the wyrm controlled most of his actions."

"Yes, a fragmentation, that's it, a breaking down. Part of the will carried in the brain, created and shaped by memory, by experience. The conscious mind, the controllable mind, the mind of words. And part of the will carried-where? In the genes? Certainly the genes are the only part of us that has any hope of surviving our death- what more appropriate place for a seat of a part of the unconscious mind ..."

Patience's vision suddenly focused. She had not realized it was blurred before. But it was not Angel speaking at all, it was old Mikail Nakos. Whose voice had she thought it was? She couldn't remember. Mikail, he was the one who had taken it upon himself to study these creatures, the geblings. I thought it could do no harm. But now he wants to implant this organic crystal in someone's mind. He doesn't understand the implications of it.

"What if the crystals actually enhance human mental abilities, make it possible for human beings to communicate telepathically, the way the geblings seem to?"

Then another voice. "It might be possible." It was her own voice, she knew, but not what she expected. For some reason she expected it to be a girl's voice, trained to be mellifluous, soothing; instead it was harsh, commanding, male. Why not male? Am I not a man? The Heptarch listened to himself, trying to remember why his own voice didn't sound right to him.

"I suspect, though, that the telepathic communication has more to do with the molecules than the crystals. The crystal is more likely to be memory. Incredibly well- ordered, clear, and powerful memory." He did not doubt his ability to converse intelligently with a brilliant scientist.

But then the old Heptarchs had been scientists, in the beginning. But why am I calling him an old Heptarch?

It's not me, then. Not really me talking, though I remember it as being myself. "I'm guessing-but the little ones, you see, the ones they call dwelfs, they can remember with absolute perfection everything that they've ever done, even though they can't hold an idea more complex than their name for very long. They store millions of items of data, but have no organizing principle."

"Not implausible, sir. Not at all. The crystal would be the data storage. The brain, the systematizer. But the telepathy-it might be in the crystal."

"I'm not even sure I believe there is any telepathy. It's only speculation. The geblings are certainly not telling, bless their murderous little viper souls."

"Still, sir, combined with a human brain, the crystal could provide a great enhancement of mental abilities."

"If it can combine. If it actually has anything to do with mentation."

"Difficult to answer. But the geblings aren't answering -and they probably don't know, anyway. Ignorant little devils."

For some reason the Heptarch wanted to correct him.

To tell him the truth about geblings. But he couldn't remember why he thought he knew geblings so well, so he said nothing.

"You see, sir, if the geblings weren't so dangerous, so deadly, we might be able to leave it alone. But they're cannibals-we saw how they eat each other's brains- and they've murdered almost a dozen of our people already. We have to understand all we can about them.

What they want, where they come from-"

"So you need a little white mouse to test the crystal."

"Unfortunately, it needs to be a highly intelligent white mouse. I intend to have it implanted in my own brain, sir."

"Nonsense. If you implant it in anyone, implant it in me."

"You're the Heptarch. I can't do that."

"I'm the Heptarch, so you must do it. There is no duty so difficult or dangerous or unpleasant that one of my people can do it, and I cannot."

Patience was suddenly aware that she was not the man who chose to have the mindstone placed in his brain.

That was long ago, another person. But how could the crystal contain a memory of an event that obviously took place before the crystal was implanted?

No sooner had the question occurred to her than the answer came, a mother speaking to a daughter; she was the mother and the daughter, hearing the conversation from both sides, speaking both sides of the conversation herself. It was confusing, but exhilarating.

"When the scepter first enters your brain, it searches for your most potent memories and copies them and keeps them."

"You won't know my memories, will you?"

"No, darling, but you'll know mine. You'll know what I'm thinking at this very moment, how much I love you, to give you this gift while I'm still alive."

"I'm afraid."

"The first thing you think of is always our great ancestor, who first chose to bear the scepter. He is our courage, and part of him becomes part of you."

Why didn't Father help me, as this mother helped her daughter? Then she couldn't remember who Father was, or who she was, except the mother, except the daughter.

"You're safe as long as you don't think of certain things."

"What things?"

"If I tell you what they are, my foolish child, then how will you stop yourself from thinking of them?"

I know what they are, thought Patience. They are the gebling kings in whose brain the crystal first grew. They are the wyrm-hearted gebling kings that I mustn't think of.

And that very thought brought her to the memories most to be feared, a terrible alien viewpoint. She knew at once that she had taken the step into the abyss. She could feel a faint buzz of feeling, like peripheral vision, like background noise, like a metallic taste in her mouth, like a smell redolent of sweet and bitter memories, like the touch of a thousand tiny flies upon her skin; gradually she realized, as the gebling whose mind now dwelt in hers realized, that these were her brothers, her sisters, the life of them speaking to the firstborn, the gebling king, myself.

The other geblings are still tearing their way out of their soft-skinned shells, their hair curled and matted. I am curled by my mother's exhausted body, her black segments trembling from her labors. Beside me lies my father, his poor, weak, hairless body covered with sweat.

Come to me, Father, open my mouth-

"Full-grown. Whatever it is, it's no baby." The voice is soft. "Haven't you heard of babies around here?"

His mouth moves and the sounds are beautiful. Teach me how to make these sounds.

Father's face is twisted as he looks at me. "Full-grown little apes." He touches me. He pushes me. "You brought me here so you could give birth to these!"

Another egg opens, but with something black inside.

Black like Mother. The tiny, tiny head like Mother. It's hungry. I can feel it being hungry. It wants to kill Father.

It wants to kill me. It wants to kill everybody and eat all the world.

Father taught me what to do. Already he saved me.

Father taught me pushing. I push the black one, I push him but he hurts me very much. I cry out with my fear.