Damon Knight: Orbit 17

They had picked up his trail, and it was inevitable that they would find him. Rather than be discovered like an animal in hiding, Robert climbed down and approached them. He tried to greet them as he might a casual acquaintance on a city street. Layton spoke softly, as if to a madman. “It’s all right, Robert, the experiment is over. You don’t have to stay here any longer.”

“I told you once before, I’m never going back.”

Layton’s eyes fastened on the bulge in Robert’s pouch. “All right,” he said quietly, “but will you stay the night with us?”

“No.”

“We won’t force you to come back with us. I give you my word.”

“But you would like to talk me into it.”

“What harm is talk? We’ve lost a great deal on this experiment, can’t you allow us that much?”

“All right. But only for tonight.” Robert wished he felt certain of that.

They made camp. There were no enemies on this planet, and a sleeping bag would have provided more than enough warmth. Yet the humans lit a heat lamp and set out a robowatch. They were of Earth, and so lacked faith. It had taken Robert a long time to get used to the darkness. And now he found the light, once again, oddly comforting.

After supper Layton sat down next to him. “So, Robert, how have you been?” It had begun.

“Healthy, happy and wise.”

“Flippancy is often a cover.”

“Of what, insanity?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you would like to prove it.”

Layton spoke softly. “Why would I want to do that, Robert?”

“Because then you could obtain legal authority to send me back to Earth. Leaving my baby in your custody.”

Layton was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was as if to a child. “Robert, you don’t have the legal rights of a human being.”

Robert was stunned. Once a little boy had looked into a mirror. Had he forgotten, even here, in the depths of the Epsilon forest?

“The Alien Act provides the only law that pertains to you. And it states simply that the citizens of Earth may neither colonize nor exploit a planet inhabited by sentient aliens. It was enacted soon after our discovery of tricephs, and will last, I suspect, only as long as we can hope to learn something from our first efforts to understand an alien race.”

“If I have no legal rights, why did you allow me to study anthropology?”

“If I had forbidden you to do so, would you have helped us at all?”

Robert tried to regain his composure. “Well, in any case, I’m not going back.”

“Haven’t you been lonely?”

“I’m not quite alone.” Robert looked down at his pouch, stifling an impulse to show off his baby to Layton.

“It’s newly hatched, isn’t it? Hardly old enough to talk to.

Haven’t you missed the pack at all?”

“I could hardly converse with the pack. And I miss no one.”

“You’re lying, Robert, you were never a hermit.”

“I won’t be alone forever.”

“I see. Your offspring is to become your companion, and to hell with the rest of the universe. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re going to die a good twenty years before it does. What is it going to do then, wander around all by itself? Have you ever thought about how lonely it might become?”

“What would you suggest?”

“I don’t think we were wrong, Robert, in our assumption that this was the way to bridge the gap. We only made one mistake. You might say that we started the bridge, but we never completed it. I think it requires another generation. A triceph raised among its own kind, but with a parent who was raised among humanity.”

To bridge the gap, Robert thought, but what of the bridge?

“Isn’t this better, Robert, than to leave your offspring utterly alone after your death?”

The robowatch was designed not to alarm the members of the camp against themselves. With legs made for a peculiar forest, Robert left the camp in silence. He had a decision to make, and it would be made beyond the control of humankind.

A few hours later he fell asleep by the riverbank. Like their flesh counterparts, the robotrackers could be misled by water and a confusion of scents.

When Robert awoke, Layton was standing over him. “Running out on us again?”

“How can I be running out on you? I owe you nothing.”

The man had evidently come on alone, but leaving a trail, no doubt, for others to follow.

“How did you find me?”

“By robotracker. It’s a little more sophisticated than the kind you’re used to.”

“And you only wanted to talk.”

“After all the years and money put into this experiment, did you really think we would give up on the whim of a creature?”

“Is that the imperial ‘we’?”

“Robert, it wouldn’t be as effective, but if we have to, we’ll conduct this experiment without you. If you’re willing to help, you’ll have the opportunity to guide the development of your offspring; if you aren’t, we take over that function. The choice is yours.”

“That’s very considerate of you.”

“More considerate than you’ve been of us.”

“This child is mine, Layton, and no one is going to take it from me.” He wondered if the man realized the intensity of his feeling.

“Cooperate, Robert, and you can keep your child. But fight us and you’ll lose. Fighting is a human prerogative, it’s not in the nature of your species.”

“Like speech, curiosity, intelligence, and aggressiveness?”

“That’s ri—”

Robert leaped at the man. He had forgotten how heavy the child made him, and he fell short. But Layton was stunned by the inconceivable, and Robert had time to leap again. With arms to spare, he pinned him down, grabbed a rock, and knocked him unconscious. He hoped he had done no serious damage, but would not have stayed in any case. The robocontrol was in Layton’s pocket; Robert brought in the sensor and destroyed it. Then he left the river.

That day he concentrated on covering his trail, circling back often to be sure no person or device was following him. He passed the place where three rivers met. There was no sign of the packs, other than the remains of a decaying structure. That night he slept in a perch well above the ground. He awoke before dawn and made his plan. The packs moved slowly. He had only to go back to the place where the rivers met, and follow their trail of decayed structures. He could cover their twelve months’ journey in a day. And then? He felt incapable of thinking beyond that. But he knew he would have to see them once more before he made his decision. “We’ll see,” he told his child.

As he awaited the dawn, his mind moved restlessly across the past day. Layton had been wrong. He had been aggressive, and therefore tricephs had that potential. But he had scored below average on the intelligence tests. Of course, there was as yet no indication of where he stood in relation to other tricephs; he could be a retardate or a genius. Layton had been wrong, and Jamison had been wrong. Might not the tests also have been wrong? He knew enough psychology, now, to guess how his own attitude could have influenced them. And what of feeling? Could a human feel more deeply than he, and not go insane?

Dawn touched the sky with its first cold light.

“Where are you going, Robert?” Susan asked.

For the first time since he had left the pack, he became aware of the full weight of his loneliness. He thought of the camp and its warm light, and of the home of his parents. Where was Susan now? Was she really waiting? For what, a creature who could only be a burden in her life? He dismissed the thought. And his loneliness deepened. Finally he had to admit to the irony of the truth. However much he hated Layton, he needed humankind. His baby moved, and Robert hugged his pouch, whispering softly, “When you look in the mirror, what will you see?” He pictured two suns, and the emptiness between them.