The Children Star (33 page)

The pleasure began to return. Then he realized that he would do anything the microbial masters demanded, even sell his own children. He groped frantically for the tablet, which had slipped from his fingers. At last his hand caught it and squeezed hard.

Gradually Rod awakened, to a room filled with morning light. Confused, he wondered where he was and what had happened. His head turned, and he saw someone seated nearby. With an effort he focused his eyes and saw Mother Artemis.

The shock chilled him. “How am I still alive?”

“Did you think Station would let you come to harm?”

So that was it. Tricked by that lying sentient. But the Reverend Mother must know that he had tried to end his
own life, the worst of sins. He turned his head to the wall. “Mother, I am not worthy to face you.”

“Brother Rod, you are forgiven absolutely. Think of it no more.”

“I am not forgiven. I am better off dead.”

Mother Artemis paused. Rod could imagine her behind him, her all-to-familiar face screen with its compelling gaze. “Once, Rod, you asked the Spirit to grant you a world. Do you remember?”

He shuddered. “I am not the man I was.”

“Now, all the worlds of the Fold depend on you.”

Rod swallowed hard. “ 'jum can help you better.”

“ 'jum has entered some kind of trance. Not whitetrance, like Sarai, but she will not communicate.”

So much for “Sharer” microzoöids, Rod thought bitterly. Who could tell what they were doing to poor 'jum. Far better had he left her that day on Scarecrow Hill.

“There are other carriers, but none as advanced as you. Please, Rod—won't you try again? Secretary Verid has arrived to talk with them.”

“It's too late,” he whispered. “There is nothing I can do. Please, leave me.” No need for her to see what the microzoöids could do to him.

He lay there facing the wall, for hours, perhaps days for all he could tell. Drained of emotion, all he could do was to think of nothing, neither pain nor desire, and hope the tormenters within kept quiet.

A faint swishing sound came from the wall, and a breath of air touched his neck. Someone must have opened a door to look in on him. Rod listened hard, but did not hear the door close. The minutes ticked by, and he wondered, had the visitor left, or were they still there? At last he turned his head, just far enough to see.

A small woman in a leaf brown Elysian talar sat near
the door, her back toward him. He frowned, wondering why she looked familiar. Then her head half turned, and her profile leaped out at him from a thousand holocubes.

Hurriedly he sat up straight. “Honorable Secretary.”

“Brother Rod.” Her voice sounded at once familiar, yet extraordinary, to be addressing him in person instead of from a newscast. “Brother Rod, how can I face you. You, who offered your own brief lifetime that my Iras might enjoy centuries more.”

Taken aback, Rod shook his head. “Whatever they've told you—I'm just a very sick man.”

“And here come I, a cupbearer for murderers. I am covered in shame.”

Rod blinked, wondering what to say. “You have all the humans of the Fold to speak for. What do I know of that?”

Secretary Verid turned toward him, and he faced her owlish eyes. Suddenly Rod realized what the Guard and the Spirit Callers had always shared: They taught disdain for politics. Obey your commanding officer, or your Reverend Father or Mother, and forsake the slimy machinations of the world. But here was someone who made the world her business.

“What you know may save countless lives. Shall we proceed?”

Rod swallowed. “What do you want of me?”

“We have seven days to convince the Council of the Fold that we can deal with the . . . alien intelligence. If we succeed, they will suspend the planet's destruction.”

He looked away. “I'm no longer sure that's wise.”

“Indeed. Explain.”

How could anyone know what he had undergone? He shuddered. “The microzoöids make us helpless. They can control us absolutely.”

“You seem in control right now.”

“They leave me alone, then attack at their whim.”

The Secretary thought this over. Even she, with her thousand years' experience, what could she know of these alien creatures too small to see? “How long has it been since their last attack?” she asked.

“Since last night.”

“Half a generation, for them. Did they get what they wanted?”

He considered this. “Not yet.”

“Not yet, indeed. I can imagine what they're going through—accusations and recriminations, shifting the blame, ‘who lost the human,' and so on. They must have sacked half their staff.”

Despite himself Rod smiled. “Whatever comes next, though, will only be worse. They can't even think of us as people—they call us ‘animals.' ”

“And what do you call them?”

Rod frowned, puzzled. “Microzoöids?”

“ ‘Little animals.' ”

“Well that's what they look like.”

“Just as you always looked like a llama, to them. Let's call them what you would like to be called—a man.” Seeing his look, she smiled. “ ‘Micromen,' if that's easier.”

Rod shrugged. “As you wish, Secretary.”

“Now tell me, what is it the ‘micromen' want?

“They want to go back to Prokaryon.”

Her eyes widened with astonishment. “Back to Prokaryon? Isn't that what you'd want them to do?”

“Certainly. But they want me to take them. And Station says we need to study them here, to help cure those infected.”

“Ah, I see.” Verid sighed and shook her head. “What a tangled web we weave. Well, I think now we're ready to talk. Can you contact them?”

Rod stiffened all over. “I can try. If I have to.”

“It's absolutely crucial.”

Taking a deep breath, Rod let his mind empty, as he had done so often for the Spirit. He wondered how long it had been since evening prayers. Now he prayed, out of a place of despair he had never known before.
Whoever is out there, help me now
.

He raised his hand and focused his eyes upon the fingers. This was the sign the “micromen” had used before, and it was his best guess to summon them. For some time there was no sign or sound, only the pounding of his own heart. He tried to envision his inner denizens as “little men,” though he recoiled at the thought.

From the corner of his eye, a light flashed.

Rod closed his eyes. “Room darken,” he ordered. The light from the ceiling dimmed, and Secretary Verid became a shadow.

Within his eyes the letters began to shape themselves. Panic seized him; he gripped the bed rail to steady himself. MAN . . . I SEEK TALK.

“They want to talk,” Rod said aloud.

“There's a start,” said the Secretary. “Talk about what?”

MY BROTHERS NEED YOUR HELP.

“You tried that before. It was no good,” he told them.

WAS DIFFERENT GENERATION. THIS GENERATION KNOWS BETTER.

Rod laughed. “They say ‘this generation' knows better, but it's only been half a day. Khral says the elders live a month.”

“That's all right,” said Verid, “let them save face. Why do they need your help?”

Why do you need help?
he silently asked.

BROTHERS ARE DYING. BROTHERS FROM ANOTHER
WORLD, DEAD PLACE. WE MEN CANNOT GROW WITHIN A DEAD WORLD, ONLY WITHIN A LIVING HOME.

That was true of humans, too. How long would humans thrive outside an ecosystem? “They say some of them are dying. Ones from ‘a dead world.' ” But what could that be? Had one of the patients died?

“How would they know?” asked the Secretary. “They've been inside you for weeks, I understand.”

“The whirr,” Rod recalled. “The whirr must have brought them—from Khral's sick culture. That's the only place micromen would be growing outside a living body.”

BROTHERS ARE DYING. WE CANNOT HEAL THEM; MUST RETURN TO TUMBLEROUND.

“Their ‘brothers' need expert medical care,” Rod guessed.

“Excellent,” said the Secretary. “A chance for a humanitarian gesture.”

“But they would need a human body to carry them. Unless we find enough whirrs.” A prospect unlikely to please Station.

Verid considered this. “I think we can arrange human transport. Most discreetly, of course.” Humans were now banned from Prokaryon.

“I don't like it. They would think I gave in.”

“You already proved you would not.”

Rod closed his eyes. “
No pain, and no rewards,”
he told them.

NO PAIN, NO REWARDS.

“If I take you there,”
Rod asked hopefully,
“will you all go home
—
all of you?”

There was a long pause. The Secretary watched intently.

HOW CAN YOU SEND US AWAY? YOU ARE
HOME TO US, MANY GENERATIONS. YOU ARE ONLY HOME WE KNOW.

Rod's eyes widened. “The ones growing inside me—they don't want to leave, ever.” He caught his face in his hands. “Spirit save me.”

“They don't want to leave,” mused Verid. “By now, perhaps, few of them can. In any world, how few individuals have the courage to emigrate.”

'
j
um had long experience of shutting out a world of pain. Now, sitting entranced, she had the new lure of the world within, full of the sisterlings with their pulsing number codes. This one was flashing green: Once, one pause, then twice . . .
1 0 2 0 0 7 1
, said the sisterling. (If you cannot yet help us travel, then we'll help you. Travel into our world.)

What is your world like?

The numbers flashed, and she translated. (You'll see. Trust me; I am an elder.)

'jum focused on a tiny green speck of light. The speck grew into a ring, and the ring became a fat, healthy torus. Its surface was crisscrossed with a molecular scaffolding that held the cell intact. It extended loops of polysaccharide filaments toward 'jum, as if to caress her.

(My name is:)
1 0 0 3 7
. The whole shining torus flashed at her. (What is your name?)

'jum thought this over.
1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1,
she said, picking some of her favorite primes.

(A beautiful name,
1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1.
Your elders must love you very much.)

My elders all died, one after the other
.

(Your elders died? Ours can live for thirty generations of children. How do you live without elders?)

Brother Rod brought me to the Children Star. Now, I have Mother Sarai
.

(“Mothers” we cannot understand. For a tumbleround, yes; but for a person?)

Another torus tumbled over, a blue one, looming near out of the dark liquid. Then came two yellow ones. As they approached, though, all turned green. (Our children.)

The green rings propelled themselves by pumping little jets of liquid this way and that. Two of them knocked together, then one managed to squeeze itself affectionately through the ring of the other. They tangled in each other's filaments, and blinked their light at each other, so fast even 'jum could not make out the numbers.

(We normally converse a thousand times faster than I do with you.)

When will your children grow up?
'jum wondered.

(She will grow up fast,) 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1. (In a couple of hours, she will be as old as you. She'll go to school, too.)

A new group of rings appeared, of various colors and sizes, all smaller than the adults. In their midst floated one elder, colored red. The elder flashed color insistently, and the smaller ones gradually adjusted, though they kept straying off a bit, here orange, there indigo. It was always hard to make children listen.

How do you eat?
'jum wanted to know.

(We take food through molecular pores in our sheath. The pores open wide when we like the food around us.
And all our food comes from you! Please, feed us foods we adore, especially foods rich in mimosin and azetidine.)

I'll remember
, 'jum promised, watching the children. Do
they tell stories?

(We all tell the story of how our people, the Dancing People, came to be. Long ago, in the Perfect Garden, our ancestors dwelt within a mindless world; a world to be controlled, to be led in its wanderings, to cultivate our planet full of worlds, but mindless nonetheless, indifferent to our desires. From other worlds came whirrs, bringing visitors, but one world to another was all the same.)

(Then the whirrs brought numbers about different kinds of worlds, grown with internal landscapes of harsh alien beauty. The Dancing People marveled. How could such a world appear; where did they come from?)

(To seek answers, some of us took to the whirrs and braved the passage into the alien worlds. Many died, for the habitat was harsh and unforgiving, its physiology foreign to our control. But we learned and adapted. One of those worlds,
1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
, became our beloved home.)