Bob Shaw - The Fugitive Worlds

“I don’t know what you mean, son,” Cassyll Maraquine said, speaking the words which Toller had already prepared for him on a parchment of the mind. “Yours is the first and only ship to have returned from Land. Countess Vantara has not been seen since the expedition departed.”

Divivvidiv had had a very good dream, one in which he had savored every diamond-sharp second of a day in his childhood. The day chosen had been the eighty-first of the Clear Sky Cycle. His high-brain had taken his memories of the actual day as the basis of the dream, then had discarded those which were less than perfect and replaced them with invented sequences. The content of the fabricated sections had been excellent, as had been the merging of their boundaries with the rest of the dreamscape, and Divivvidiv had awakened with intense feelings of happiness and fulfillment. For once there had been no undertones, no stains of guilt seeping in from the present, and he knew he would return to the dream—perhaps with minor variations—many times in the years to come.

He lay for a moment in the weak artificial gravity field of his bed, enjoying a mental afterglow, then became aware that the Xa was waiting to communicate with him. What is it? he said, raising himself to an upright position.

Nothing of great urgency, Beloved Creator — that is why I waited until you had achieved a natural return to consciousness, the Xa replied at once, using a mind-color similar to yellow for reassurance.

That was very considerate of you. Divivvidiv massaged the muscles of his arms in preparation for a return to activity. I sense you have good news for me. What is it?

The Primitives’ ship is returning, with two males on board, and this time they will not pass beyond my perimeter.

Divivvidiv was immediately on the alert. You are quite positive about this?

Yes, Beloved Creator. One of the males is emotionally linked to one of the females. He believes that she and her companions have damaged their ship in a collision with my body during the hours of darkness, and that they have taken refuge in one of the habitats we found in the datum plane. It is his intention to find and retrieve the female.

How interesting! Divivvidiv said. These beings must have an unusually strong inclination towards single-partner reproduction. First we learn of their mind-blindness, and now this—how many handicaps can a race endure and yet remain viable?

Stated in those terms, Beloved Creator, the question is meaningless.

I expect so. Divivvidiv turned his attention to matters of a more practical nature. Tell me, are the male Primitives becoming aware that you belong to a class of object totally outside their previous experience?

Object? Object?

Being. I should have referred to you as a being, of course. How do they perceive you?

As a natural phenomenon, the Xa said. An accretion of ice or some other crystalline form of matter.

That is good —II reduces their potential for causing damage and at the same time makes them easier for us to capture. Divivvidiv shifted his thinking to the high-brain mode to exclude the Xa from his deliberations. Obtaining specimens of the Primitives for Director Zunnunun’s personal study was in a way a frivolity, something quite extraneous to the great project, and if the Xa were to be damaged in the course of it the penalties would be dire. He, Divivvidiv, would almost certainly be subjected to personality modification as a punishment for allowing himself to be diverted from his duties. After all, the project was the single most important undertaking in the history of his people. The future of the entire race…

Beloved Creator! The Xa’s call was an unexpected intrusion. I have a question for you.

What is it? Divivvidiv demanded, hoping the Xa was not about to make more of the increasingly tiresome enquiries about its own future. The Xa would not have been able to build itself had it not been provided with a powerful artificial intelligence, but its designers—in the remote high floors of the Palace of Numbers—had not anticipated the development of self-awareness.

Tell me, Beloved Creator, the Xa said, what is a Rope?

The shock of the question was so sudden, so forceful, that Divivvidiv experienced a momentary giddiness and a dangerous weakening of mental control. For one perilous instant he almost gave the Xa access to all high-brain networks, and the effort of closing off hundreds of neural highways left him feeling chilled and sick.

Practicing eye-of-the-hurricane rituals to induce a state of calmness, he said, Who told you about Ropes?

There was a slight delay before the Xa responded. Not you, Beloved Creator. Not anybody. The word has lately begun to exist all around me. It must be continually in the minds of millions of intelligent beings, but the concepts behind it are too elusive to be captured. All I know is that the word is associated with fear… a terrible fear of ceasing to exist…

It is nothing for you to be concerned about, Divivvidiv said, using every mental reinforcement technique he knew to give strength to the lie. The word is little more than a sound. Its origins lie in certain aberrations of the human mind — logical lesions, you might say — metaphysics, religion, superstition…

But why has it begun to impinge on my consciousness?

For no particular reason. A tide, a current, an eddy. You trouble yourself with things that do not concern you. I command you to be at peace and concentrate on your given task.

Yes, Beloved Creator.

Grateful for the Xa’s compliant attitude, Divivvidiv severed the telepathic link and floated to the airlock which was closest to his living quarters. As he pulled on the suit which would enable him to survive the outer cold he pondered, with some disquiet, on the Xa’s acquisition of the term “Rope”. Did it simply mean that the Xa’s direct communication capability had increased? Or was there a new degree of alarm on the home world, a heightening of fear which had driven telepathic ripples through the surrounding regions of space?

Divivvidiv entered the airlock and completed the inner seal. As soon as he opened the outer door the bitter coldness stung his face and eyes, and breathing became so painful that he almost gasped aloud. The metallic plazas of the station stretched away before him, flat and bare in some places, replete with engineered complexities in others. The antennae of the teleportation unit projected into the sunlit air—slim and delicately curved sculptures—and occasional flickers of green fire at their tips showed that a consignment of the Xa’s nutrients was currently being received. Beyond the angular boundaries of the station the Xa’s body, now grown huge, formed a sea of white crystalline brilliance stretching into remoteness on all sides.

Divivvidiv’s eyes were not able to focus on infinity without artificial aid, and so the universe beyond the white horizon was simplified into a vision of the sun and one of the local planets on a background washed and speckled with blurs of luminance. He was, nevertheless, able to gaze directly at the mote of blue light which was his home world of Dussarra, and within seconds was in contact with Director Zunnunun.

What is it? Zunnunun said. Why do you interrupt my work?

I have good news, Divivvidiv replied. II was an unfortunate and freakish circumstance that the sampling of Primitives I supplied to you consisted entirely of females. Also, we were unlucky in that the second ship — containing Primitive males—became aware of the Xa in time to guide their ship successfully past its perimeter.