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 December 2003
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Tales from the Net: Coming of Age Day 5. IN THE DREAMING no words 6. EXCERPT FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF DAME CATHERIN CASTLETON, DECEMBER 24, 2162, 3:59 PM GMT: It is really absurd, this dating of events I am forced to use in recording these memoirs, but it is built into the Net program; you can't start the recording without it. The tidy mind of the civil servant triumphs again. Thank God the Damánakíppith/fy have no bureaucracies. What they have instead I am just beginning to grasp, since Maknádo and Flesk show no interest in such matters and Molly just looks thoughtful when I ask. It is the way the D'/fy teach, I suspect: throwing their young into the middle of things and letting them try to sort it out for themselves before wiser heads intervene to correct and guide. If "wiser" may be used in this context; in the version of their language they employ around Humans the D'/fy possess comparatives but do not like to use them — they consider it impolite. And what I call their Hermit class does not use adjectives at all. It appears that Ship is not the dictator I had earlier painted it to be. Elizabeth, in a rare moment of feline loquacity, says she has discovered that it is merely a kind of idiot savant, programmed to ensure the physical well-being of the community. It runs the physical plant and all operating systems. Yet Ship's directives, even the primary one, "Protect the Community at all costs!", can be overridden by majority vote of the populace. So it cannot really be said to rule. Nonetheless, its eyes and ears are everywhere. The nullgrav well that runs through the core of the Ship, linking the habitat zones, is alive at all hours of Shipday not only with six of the seven D'/fy morphological classes but also with countless swarms of servomechanisms of various sizes and complexities, going about Ship's business of collecting data on atmospheric density, hull integrity, temperature, humidity, changes in the biomass, stores depletion and pheromone drift. They clean up messes, repair what is broken, contain chaotic events. Yet so do the D'/fy themselves. I once asked Maknádo why she (there I go again!) — why it spends so much time each Shipday going the rounds of the cręchehalls, picking up for recycling the trash the Firsters scatter everywhere. "Surely," I said, in my native English (Maknádo likes to practice on me), "the servos can do that sort of thing." Its reply? "I enjoy doing so, Catherin." How I wish I were not dying. I bullied my way onto the First Expedition, pulling every string I had, determined, with my stupid poet's idealism, to rescue the greatest event in the life of the Human race from the banality of pure scientific objectivity. How obnoxious I was to poor Drusilla in my aesthetic fervor. "We have a visual on them!" she said excitedly, as I stepped off the shuttle at Woomera. "They're humanoid, just as their maths said they would be. And furred, with large, nearly lemurlike eyes. But that doesn't truly convey —" "No! No!" I think I actually raised my hands in horror. "Don't bias me! I wish to encounter them with an absolutely fresh gaze!" "But I've made them sound like chimpanzees." I waved her away. So she gave up, and simply ushered me into the ready room, where Thresk (I know know it was Thresk), conversing via timelagged, black-and-white skiplink with the WHO umpty-umps, was projected on the wall-size Netscreen. I stood stock still, overcome with wonder at the harsh, almost masculine facial planes; at the wide brow and high forehead; at the short, light facial fur exploding in a glorious gleaming silver lion's mane about the vast shoulders; at the wide flat Negroid nose, binostrilled like ours; at the wide, upthrusting, concave, batlike ears; at the thin-lipped, toothless, hard-gummed mouth; no visible Adam's apple. And the hands: six-fingered, each finger nailless, slightly spatulate at the tip, strangely jointed, and constantly in motion. But, oh! The eyes! Large indeed — double the size of a Human's — and as such offputting had it not been for their deep, mild, receptive (rather than penetrating) intelligence. White-balled like ours, triply irised in gradations of gold, yet slightly milky (I thought of cataracts, only later learning of the D'/fy's transparent triple eyelids). Long, almost feminine eyelashes; no eyebrows. Thresk saw me, then, and she — it — smiled at me. Not with its lips, of course; only Firsters possess the modified snarl-grimace we call a smile. With those eyes. I burst into tears, of course, only barely conscious of the indulgent looks on the faces of the scientists, government shills, and military personnel standing round about. They, whom in my pseudointellectual arrogance I had dismissed as cretins sight unseen, knew all about it, having each experienced the same reaction herself. Maknádo had promised me the child would have D'/fy eyes. And it does. I would have aborted it, else. 7. ON THE GAMINGFLOOR On the Gamingfloor, the Firster septets from Cather's cręche-hall are training. None of them have morphed into Seconders yet, though there is an electricity in the air that portends Change soon; and Ship has turned up the gravities, so everybody gets a chance to run around and enjoy the push and thrust of muscles under pressure. In Flet's septet, Flet has been assigned to play Union of Opposites with Cather, because they are sibs and Cather is Different. Before they begin, Flet passes on to Cather — with the pride of recent acquisition — the knowledge that null-gee, though fun for sleeping and sex and flying, is bad for the bones. "Bones are the semirigid structures within us to which our muscles attach," says Flet. "We all have them. They show us that we come from planets, long ago; and that space is not our first home. Null-gee makes the bone-stuff weak. Too weak for planetfall." Its eyes shine. It is Flet's great dream to visit Earth, an enthusiasm that Cather, fearing his own Humanness, does not share. "Am I three watches from the womb?" snaps Cather. "Begin the Opposition!" He is nervous, his time in the Pool with Thresk still haunting him. "Let it begin, then." They circle one another, locking gazes. Playful mockery in its eyes, Flet purses its lips in a D'/fy grin. "Thou art small, my sib," it taunts, "but thou art not wise." First Challenge: verbal. "Thou art not small, my sib, but thou thinkest thyself wise," retorts Cather, glaring. Second Challenge. "Thou art smaller than I, but not as wise as I." Third Challenge. A mild look, to match its tone. Insolent, insolent, thinks Cather. "Thy smallest part is not as wise as my largest part." Fourth Challenge, Cather. "My largest part is wiser than thy smallest part." Fifth Challenge, Flet. It begins to hum the Hum of Incipient Altercation, inviting Cather to take first strike. Cather bounds forward, kicking out as he does so. Flet is gone, just like that. Cather whirls. Humming, Flet shoves its brother backwards: once, twice, thrice, using its superior reach to stay just outside Cather's swing-range. "Strike, sib, strike!" it calls. "Strike! Why art thou not striking?" Cather grabs Flet by the left arm and drops back, pulling Flet slightly off-balance. Then he raps his legs around Flet's middle and unloads a barrage of curses from his sematophores. The stench engulfs them both. Gasping, Flet pulls away, nictitating membranes sliding into place over its sensitive eyes. Cather, extra lids already in place, hoots gasping laughter in his turn. He has been wheedling extra sulphur from Ship for several weeks, preparing for this moment. "Thou scum-sucking turdling!" cries Flet in mock-anger. The stench is really a masterpiece. "Yield thyself, sib!" shouts Cather. "Yield, and so turn the Challenge!" "Never!" cries his sib, and leaps. And spreads new wings. And flies. "What? What?" Cather cries (Sá? Sá?, ejaculatory form of s˙, First Stage Mánafut linking-particle denoting wonder, horror, amazement, amusement, depending on context, tonals, and vowel-shift). Gamesward claps its four big hands and skirmishes cease all over the field. Mouths open; long, furred necks crane. The shout goes up first from Cather and Flet's five cręchemates: clever Frélkip, sweet Méstipa, deft B˙njyk, randy Hlélever, agemates all, known to Cather in sight and smell and sound and muscle-feel and limb-writhe and heartbeat since his first knowing: "y'Flet! y'Flet! y'Flet!" It is taken up by the next septet, dancing Dévved's; and the next, tubbed by Véssesh the (normally) silent; and the next, and the next. "y'Flet! y'Flet! y'Flet!" The Gamingfloor resounds. And above it, floating in silvered majesty, leaking joy from every sematophore, excited canoes buzzing in golden clouds around it, Fret/jÉjno/Lílyo/fy — now Fret/jÉjno/Dyénye/fy —soars. Flet's braided tail, tip newly healed, nearly clunks Cather on the head on its way to the floor. Then Méstipa explodes in mane, rainbowed, oceanic. Hlélever writhes, flowers erupting from throat and chest and armpits. B˙njyk splits down the middle, silver fur fusing into turquoise scales, then puffing back into fur again as the new Seconder exerts its new-coined will. All across the Gamingfloor, warrior Firsters are shuddering with their Change into Seconder metamorphs, tails falling off right and left, while Gamesward races amongst them, embracing, reassuring, shouting encouragement. All, that is, except Cather, who lost his tail long ago. And Cather flees, shrieking, in utterly hominid despair. 8. EXCERPT FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF DAME CATHERIN CASTLETON, 12 JUNE, 2163, 1:05 AM GMT: They brought it in person to me today as I lay here in my coffin, Maknádo, Molly, and Thresk. Elizabeth Barrett Browning disdained to put in an appearance. That will come later, at the very end. Molly's udders are full; Thresk says the child will have no trouble nursing, and Molly's mutagens will of course ensure it gets the mixed Human and D'/fy nutriment it requires. He requires. I am entirely paralyzed now, except for my eyes, respiration, and vocal apparatus, though thanks to Ship, there is no pain, only a floating feeling. That, and an occasional intolerable urge to scratch my nose, which Thresk, the new authority on Human physiology, who is feeling very proud of itself these days, insists is all in my head. What, nowadays, isn't? Ship feeds me intravenously, and feeds me well. I am never hungry or thirsty. Still, I dream of chocolate, and wish I could taste it one more time before oblivion. Impossible, of course; my stomach, as such, succumbed to the supercancer long ago. But still. The Twentieth Expedition said goodbye earlier. They do not know about the child, of course. One by one they filed in, like Irishmen at a wake. Captain Roos-Jensen was very chatty. Construction on Concord Station has begun. The D'/fy have opened their starlogs to the linguists, and Roos-Jensen's voice shook with delight as she described what little they had come to find out. "Dozens of civilizations," she told me. "Scores of them. Maybe thousands. Hard to say; the logs aren't strictly scientific, if you know what I mean." She winked when she said this. Ah, how well I know. The D'/fy are dreamers, first and foremost. They have been dreaming since the dawn of time, dreaming of us, it seems, of creatures like us, that is to say, of creatures like themselves. In their flight from their masters, millennia ago, they were flying not only away, but also flying towards. Us. And they have always known it. I am sorry for the child, I find, having gazed face to face upon its nearly supernatural ugliness (excepting its eyes — always excepting its glorious angel eyes). Oh, it is alien enough for the Net, I suppose, should the Net ever discover its — his — existence. It possesses a vestigial tail, which they tell me will soon drop off, much sooner than it will for its D'/fy sibling; finger- and toe-webbing; little purple gills, which they say will be fully functional into adulthood; strange shiny skin, like a porpoise's only already dense with hair; ridiculous flappy ears (really, the D'/fy should do something about those ears!); and that big cranium, already no doubt aswim with strange hybrid thoughts. The baby is fully conscious at less than one Shipday old. They didn't have to tell me that; I could see the look on its face when it poked its head out from Maknádo's translucent carrying pouch and took a gander at me for the first time. It looked as horrified as I felt. Poor Maknádo seemed tired. It would not let me see the sib. They have all gone, now, even Thresk and Molly, so that I may die in peace. It is a great relief. I had always read that loved ones hold back a dying person, and it is true. If I were D'/fy, my agemates would devour me as I died; but Ship fears, I think, that I would give Her indigestion, so She is going to display me in a time-anomaly for future generations to vomit over. How very lower middle class. Molly wished to stay till the end, but I forbade it, though I admit her placid bulk and the green smell of her sweet breath would be a comfort right now. Who knows? I might be back. What little I have been able to comprehend of D'/fy theology appears to resemble some of the tenets of Buddhism and Hinduism: everything is change; peace is acceptance, not resistance; we never die, but are merely transformed, all that twaddle. Acceptance indeed! Was it acceptance that drove them into space? They are anything but passive. The D'/fy never lie, they claim; to call a D'/fy a liar is the greatest imaginable insult: it drives them wild. But no one has thought to ask them if they always tell the truth. I see my executioner has come at last, so I will end this recording. My son, my daughter, whatever you are, when you view this in your elder days, have pity on your poor mother. I did not do my best for you; I did not think of you at all, really, those months pushing thermometers into Maknádo's gill-slits, but only of my need for union with these blessed people, my yearning to belong at last to something greater than myself and my wretched Humanity. So do not grieve for me, or wish you had known me, or love me. I am quite sure, now, that I have never loved you. For you are too Human, my dear. It is not your alienness that fills me with disgust when I looked upon you, but your Humanity. Whatever strange blood courses now through your hybrid veins, you bear the stamp, the unmistakable stamp, of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve. And I hate everything Human. Ah, Elizabeth. How nice of you to drop by. I have been expecting you. No, don't bother to dissemble; it's why they made you, after all, so long ago. Let's get it done. Catherinson out. 9. IN THE WELL Anguished, afraid, Cather falls down the nullgrav well. I will never Change; never! he thinks. Never! Never! The well is clogged as usual with the traffic of those Awake: lílyoy Firsters, from cręchehalls other than his own (one big youngling, glands bulging, giving everybody within tail's reach sexpokes); dyényey Seconders (Like Flet! Like Flet!), new to their swift, compact bodies, shapeshifting as they plunge just for the joy of it; a gaggle of nuplástay Thirder empaths with pain on their faces, deep in recall of their past incarnations; unéstay Fourthers, geometrician-specialists by the sound of it, arguing math-politics with hands, mouths, and scent-glands; and every now and then, a quiet t˙mytay Fifther teacher like Thresk, falling with dignity. No shóryay hermits, but this does not surprise him; Sixthers rarely use the well. Nor do the źryey, of course. Seventh Cyclers, the Smallest Ones, ancient D'/fy in their final life-Change, do not normally make visits to the cręche areas, or use the well, or the tubs, or the groves, or the common grounds, or the rutpits. They do not break bread with the community, or cast their songs through the scent network binding the Family together both Awake and Asleep. He has never seen an źry, nor does he know anyone who has, except his father and Thresk, and they will not speak of them. (Yry from ˙r, a particle indicating throughness, aboveness, beyondness; plus ˙, self; in plural, –ye, i.e., those-set-apart-from-Us.) When once Cather had asked his parent Maknádo what the źrye did all Cycle, Maknádo had replied, "Remake the world" (Vee'y, All-That-Is, ste'sté'olélet, present indicative of stély, to build, to construct, to grow on). Which had told Cather precisely nothing. "Not-theres," Cather's sib Flet has called them, there being whispers in the ranks, "those who dwell in the deepest core of Ship and never venture forth." There was a time when Cather could not have imagined what it was like to be one of them, to be so set apart from everyone else. Yet now, Cather, falling, finds himself thinking of the źrye, and an enormous sadness possesses him. His eyes, leaking tears, attract nanoes which, glittering, settle lapping upon his lips, cheeks, eyelids. (Nothing on Ship is wasted.) Oh, Flet! he thinks. How beautiful thou art with the high air in thy wings! Thou art lost to me, now, lost; thy form, so sweet to me; thy voice, so familiar; thy silly stupid fond ways — all will be Changed, with those of our agemates, and I will be alone in the cręche. It is an unbearable thought; unsupportable; and for the first time in his short life Cather conceives of suicide, an act for which no word exists in Mánafut at all. A Thirder, brimming with empathy, catches at his arm; Cather pulls away savagely, spins into a burly Fourther, stammers his pardon, grabs a passing servo, yells one unheard-of command to it, and nearly has his arm jerked from its socket as the servo responds to the urgency in his voice and drags him, streaking, downwell. From the scarlet of the Firster level shaft he passes into the orange of Seconder, then the gold of Thirder, then the deep and Dreaming emerald of Fourther. The crowds shift (fewer Firsters, then some, then none but he), jerk away from the acid keening of his sematophores. Clots of nanoes melt like mist, penetrated by the swiftness of his descent. By the time he and the servo reach to turquoise of Fifther level, all Ship knows that he alone of all Maknádo's cręche has not Changed into a fluid-bodied Seconder. There are no crowds here; Fifthers do not use the Well. In the dim blue silence the servo, gibbering ultrasonics, finally manages to assert its self-preservation subroutines, slapping filters over its scent-intakes and braking their descent. No! Cather shrieks in sematophore-talk. No! No! The servo shudders one last time, then its machine will dissolves. They fall faster. He half-expects crowds of Fifthers to emerge from their habitat-bays, surround him, stop him by sheer weight of numbers; but nothing happens: only the silent fall down the near-empty shaft, while the light dims toward the indigo of Level Six. As they pass into the country of the Sixer teachers, Ship acts. Too late Cather sees the vast wide net of webbing, stretching below him in the shadows. He and the servo impact it at such velocity that they are nearly crushed by the sides of the tunnel their momentum makes of it; then it closes around them, and they are caught fast, their kinetic energy instantly absorbed, his limbs wrapped and stilled. The servo squawks once. And there they hang in the indigo dimness. For a long time nothing else happens. Cather wonders briefly if Ship will decide he is more trouble than he is worth, and order him ejected into space, lest his recycled hybrid flesh prove contaminating to those who would consume it. But no nanoes appear to neutralize his scent; no t˙mytay materialize to soothe and lecture him; no Thresk taps him on the shoulder with soft-faced concern. Slowly his anguish banks, and an incomprehensible calm comes over him. His eyes, far keener than a Human's, begin to take in his surroundings. The walls of the ancient shaft are free here of the kiosks and niches and artworks and squatter-bubbles that cake the upper commerce-levels; here they are bare to their original surfaces, though much scarred and pitted. As his gaze sweeps the side of the shaft, he realizes with a start that the scars on the walls are not random. There are patterns in them. They are words, child. From everywhere the voice seems to come; Cather gasps, twists in the webbing, sniffs, listens, then, startled, gawks. For floating in the dimness not a wing's distance from him, floating where nothing had been floating moments previously, is the smallest D'/fy he has ever seen. It is half his size, translucent, lit by a glow from within; he can look into its body and trace the organs, the shadow of a skeleton, memories of fur. Wings above it has, and wings below, and seven faces, not just one. And by this he knows that the źrye have heard the yearning of his heart, and have come to him. Look at the words, child. Hovering, it points its many hands. Read them, and speak what thou readest. He looks, and despairs. Above, below, around him the great walls stretch, their markings branching, interweaving, chill. "Smallest Ones, I cannot read them," he whispers miserably. "I am too Human." Nay, child. Thou art just Human enough. Whereupon the źry reaches out its hands, reaches out and into his skull, and softly turns it on. Light explodes within him, racing down the track of his spine like the fires all Shipborn dread. His head turns to knives, crystalline, dismayed, and each knife is a word. His ears burn as the linking-cells in his brain remold his timpani. His thighs run like rivers, sematophore-profligate. His throat throbs, then widens with a jerk of writhing muscle-fibers. Suddenly it is as though he has spent his life deaf and voiceless, for all around him the walls cry out with shelves and valleys and pits of voicesong and scentsong, voices the existence of which he has never before even suspected, and he can hear and smell them all. For the wall-markings speak:interweaving arms, legs, tails; gesticulating hands; hooting laughter; rumbling subsonics of staggering complexity; song-hums of piercing beauty, prismatic fur colors, bank upon bank of luscious, lambent scent. He can hear and smell and understand them all, and oh joy! He can speak them all: histories, mythologies, sciences, visions; slave-chants from the Homeworld days; Diaspora genealogies, /vevbróta war-chants, hero-tales from the Reformation Era; love-songs from the world-seeding period; all the long yearning of a race of wanderers, seeking creatures just like itself. And he sings, in all four modes of Mánafut at once: Mother! Word-knower! Thou art my wings! Comprehending at last the shape his Change has taken. 10. NETCOM TRANSMISSION, PRIVATE, BEN BRINKER, EXOPSYCHOLOGIST, TWENTY-NINTH EXPEDITION PSYCH ASSESSMENT TEAM, TO LEONARD FLEMING, AGRONOMIST, CONCORD STATION DEVELOPMENT STAFF, 15 JUNE, 2181, 11:34 A.M. GMT: I met the child today, Len. The D'/fy parent, Maknádo, selected me the moment I stepped from the Commerce Level airlock. I was embarrassed as hell; we're a team, after all, and I'm very near to being the junior member. I thought at first it was a mistake. So did Olafsdottir. But the servo that came buzzing up was quite emphatic. After sniffing all our armpits it directed me, in perfect English, to follow it. When Olafsdottir protested, it politely told her to shut up and return to the docking bay with the rest of the team. Then it repeated, "Follow me, please," and we set out together. I felt very small and alone. Sweetheart, the Ship is tremendous, mind-boggling, a planet; seven planets, actually, layered like strata. An enormous humming dance of a city. I can't begin to describe how thrilled I am to be experiencing it in person, from the inside. Mom's big dream for me. The servo led me through the Human compound (now in disassembly, since we're all being moved to Concord Station), then down a corridor lush with plant growth into a small bay where the child stood waiting, flanked by two of the D'/fy. The smaller of the two, who had extremely beautiful eyes and what I might call a slightly feminine or maternal presence, introduced itself as Maknádo/vevbróta/T˙myta/fy, the child's alien parent. The larger of the purebred D'/fy introduced itself as Flet/jÉjno/Dyénye/fy, Maknádo's other offspring. It had a booming voice and big muscles, quite a solid and concrete presence, but I could have sworn when I first laid eyes on it that it had six fingers on each hand. Later, however, I noticed that it had only five. (I must remember that size-values among the D'/fy are precisely opposite of those among most Human societies, smaller size being a sign of physiological and spiritual maturation and therefore indicative of higher community status.) The hybrid was the last to speak, first in English, introducing itself as Cather/jÉjno/Dyénye/Catherinson'fy, its lithe arms moving as adroitly as those of its parent and sibling. Then (to my delight) it launched into a welcoming speech in Middle English (I did not recognize the text and it may have been an original composition), closing (by this time my jaw had dropped) with an exquisite haiku in Early West Saxon! Lenny, how it knew that primitive English forms are my hobby I have no idea. It has no teeth, by the way, just those baleen-like structures the D'/fy use for chewing food. No visible genitals, either, though it assured me, without the slightest show of embarrassment, that it possesses fully functional sets of both male and female Human organs, plus the full complement of Damánakíppith/fy sematophores, which I could not see through its fur. It is subtly, disturbingly Human. One can see in its angular face the sensitivity of its Human DNA-donor, the famous poet Catherin Castleton; one can see her, too, in the curve of its neck, the color of its irises, and the humor that lingers around the edges of its Human-lipped mouth. But the shape of its head, the nimbus of mane, the wide shoulders and chest, and the back-jointed knees are pure D'/fy. Two-legged centaurs, Olafsdottir calls them, which makes no sense until you see them up close. I was instantly taken by Cather's voice. All the D'/fy I've met have attractive voices, rich in subvocals and mellifluously nuanced, but Cather's is enthralling beyond words to describe. At the mere sound of it I felt myself moving into an undefinable emotional space, something like the peacefulness I feel after really great sex with you. Thank God I'll be seeing you at Concord Station next week. I've had raging erections since I first arrived here. Even Olafsdottir is affected by it; she goes around with a permanently red face. Note possible hypnotic influences here, pheromonally enhanced. (But why? And how? D'/fy pheromones shouldn't trigger a response in Humans at all.) There's something about this child, Cather, whom I am trained to make my study for the rest of my life. As its mother was speaker for all Humanity to the D'/fy, so Cather will speak for the D'/fy to all Humanity. And oh my good God, Lenny, how he speaks to me. I'm frightened. Ben out. — The End —
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