Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

Natives?

People who live here. They are sub-human, blue-skinned and hairless – not pretty to look at.

Picture!

I think you’d be better without one. Judy and I ran for the ship. We were nearly up to it when a rock caught me behind the knee – they were pitching rocks at us – and I went down. Judy never noticed until she was in the airlock, and then the savages were on me. My leg was hurt; I couldn’t even put up a fight.

Please tell me no more of this. I want mmmm.

Listen, son! That’s all the frightening part. The savages are taking me over the mountains to their village. I don’t think they mean to harm me; I’m just a … curiosity to them.

Please let me mmmm.

You can go comatose as soon as I’ve explained how these little spacecraft work. Astrogating, the business of getting from one planet to another, is far too intricate a task for anyone but an expert to master. I’m not an expert; I’m a geohistorian. So the whole thing is done by a robot pilot. You feed it details like payload, gravities and destination, and it juggles them with the data in its memory banks and works out all the course for you – carries you home safely, in fact. Do you get all that?

This sounds complicated.

Now you’re talking like your mother, boy. She’s never bothered, but actually it’s all simple; the complications take place under the steel panelling where you don’t worry about them. The point I’m trying to make is that steering is all automatic once you’ve punched in a few co-ordinates.

I’m tired.

So am I. Fortunately, before we left the ship that last time, I had set up the figures for Earth. OK?

If you had not, she would not have been able to get home?

Exactly it. Keep trying! She left Mirone safely and you are now heading for Earth – but you’ll never make it. When I set the figures up, they were right; but my not being aboard made them wrong. Every split second of thrust the ship makes is calculated for an extra weight that isn’t there. It’s here with me, being hauled along a mountain.

Is this bad? Does it mean we reach Earth too fast?

No, son. IT MEANS YOU’LL NEVER REACH EARTH AT ALL. The ship moves in a hyperbola, and although my weight is only about one eight-thousandth of total ship’s mass, that tiny fraction of error will have multiplied itself into a couple of light-years by the time you get adjacent to the solar system.

I’m trying, but this talk of distance means nothing to me. Explain it again.

Where you are there is neither light nor space; how do I make you feel what a light-year is? No, you’ll just have to take it from me that the crucial point is, you’ll shoot right past the Earth.

Can’t we go on?

You will – if nothing is done about it. But landfall will be delayed some thousands of years.

You are growing fainter. Strain too much. Must mmmm

The fish again, and the water. No peace in the pool now. Cool pool, cruel pool, pool … The waters whirl toward the brink.

I am the fish-foetus. Have I dreamed? Was there a voice talking to me? It seems unlikely. Something I had to ask it, one gigantic fact which made nonsense of everything; something – cannot remember.

Perhaps there was no voice. Perhaps in this darkness I have taken a wrong choice between sanity and non-sanity.

… thank heavens for hot spring water …

Hello! Father?

How long will they let me lie here in this pool? They must realize I’m not long for this world, or any other.

I’m awake and answering!

Just let me lie here. Son, it’s man’s first pleasure and his last to lie and swill in hot water. Wish I could live to know you … However. Here’s what you have to do.

Am powerless here. Unable to do anything.

Don’t get frightened. There’s something you already do very expertly – telemit.

Non-comprehension.

We talk to each other over this growing distance by what is called telepathy. It’s part gift, part skill. It happens to be the only contact between distant planets, except spaceships. But whereas spaceships take time to get anywhere, thought is instantaneous.

Understood.

Good. Unfortunately, whereas spaceships get anywhere in time, thought has a definite limited range. Its span is as strictly governed as – well, as the size of a plant, for instance. When you are fifty light-years from Mirone, contact between us will abruptly cease.

How far apart are we now?

At the most we have forty-eight hours more in contact.

Don’t leave me. I shall be lonely!

I’ll be lonely too – but not for long. But you, son, you are already halfway to Earth, or as near as I can estimate it you are. As soon as contact between us ceases, you must call TRE.

Which means?

Telepath Radial Earth. It’s a general control and information centre, permanently beamed for any sort of emergency. You can raise them. I can’t.

They won’t know me.

I’ll give you their call pattern. They’ll soon know you when you telemit. You can give them my pattern for identification if you like. You must explain what is happening.

Will they believe?

Of course.

Are they real?

Of course. Tell TRE what the trouble is; they’ll send out a fast ship to pick Judy and you up before you are out of range.

I want to ask you –

Wait a minute, son … You’re getting faint … Can you smell the gangrene over all those light-years? … These blue horrors are lifting me out of the spring, and I’ll probably pass out. Not much time …

Pain. Pain and silence. All like a dream.

… distance …

Father! Louder!

… too feeble … Done all I could …

Why did you rouse me and not communicate with my mother?

The village! We’re nearly there. Just down the valley and then it’s journey’s end … Human race only developing telepathic powers gradually … Steady, you fellows!

The question, answer the question.

That is the answer. Easy down the slope, boys, don’t burst this big leg, eh? Ah … I have telepathic ability but Judy hasn’t; I couldn’t call her a yard away. But you have the ability … Easy there! All the matter in the universe is in my leg …

You sound so muddled. Has my sister this power?

Good old Mendelian theory … You and your sister, one sensitive, one not. Two eyes of the giant and only one can see properly … the path’s too steep to – whoa, Cyclops, steady, boy, or you’ll put out that other eye.

Cannot understand!

Understand? My leg’s a flaming torch – Steady, steady! Gently down the steep blue hill.

Father!

What’s the matter?

I can’t understand. Are you talking of real things?

Sorry, boy. Steady now. Touch of delirium; it’s the pain. You’ll be OK if you get in contact with TRE. Remember?

Yes, I remember. If only I could … I don’t know. Mother is real then?

Yes. You must look after her.

And is the giant real?

The giant? What giant? You mean the giant hill. The people are climbing up the giant hill. Up to my giant leg. Goodbye, son. I’ve got to see a blue man about a … a leg …

Father! Wait, wait, look, see, I can move. I’ve just discovered I can turn . Father!

No answer now. Just a stream of silence. I have got to call TRE.

Plenty of time. Perhaps if I turn first … Easy. I’m only six months, he said. Maybe I could call more easily if I was outside, in the real universe. If I turn again.

Now if I kick …