Virginia Hamilton (12 page)

A thought came, rising in his mind. Duster crawled to the water and thrust his hands under it, pulling his hands back toward himself on the bank. Drops of water did wet the shore. Duster stared at them. Suddenly he had his shove tool in his hand. It was a digger tool, sharp, broad and flat. He dipped the digger in the pool, then pulled it toward him in a straight line. He dug through the bank, half a hand under the dust. Water began flowing into the little ditch he made. Water filled the ditch and overflowed. That which was Colossus around Duster was aware of his learning. Now Duster knew how to keep moisture near the plantings. Tiny ferns grew quickly beside his first small irrigation ditch.

Then Duster was back in the underdome of Colossus. “Be wanting go to dust,” he toned. “Where be my smooth-keep? Be wishing to be gone. Be doing to begin.”

“It’ll be okay, Duster,” Levi said, patting his shoulder. He, too, had had a vision of Colossus. It had calmed him. He no longer feared being in the presence of such a wonder.

“Be touching leader, wrong,” toned Duster to him. There was something of the old strength in his voice, which had made him leader of packens.

“It isn’t like any machine I’ve ever seen,” Justice said about Colossus.

“That’s the understatement of the year!” Thomas said in a hushed voice.

Dorian smiled to himself. He thought Colossus must be the biggest computer ever built. It had to be a hundred, two hundred feet high, if not higher. The lights flashing at the top of it and the tape reels going a mile a minute made him think of comets and stars. No sooner had he thought that Colossus could probably tape even their thoughts, than he heard the thought being transcribed in a jumble of languages.

Smaller machines were connected to Colossus by what Dorian knew suddenly were coded physical quantities. They surrounded Colossus like flies, at a uniform height of about fifteen feet. They displayed differential equations and gave solutions to obscure problems through visuals, in electrical waves on fluorescent screens. Somehow the waves were transmitted to Colossus for it to read.

They do the small work of hydrafields, thought Dorian, of environments and life cycles. Colossus gives them direction, power.

They were all seeing Colossus differently but simultaneously. For Justice, it remained a brilliant silver coil. The space contained in the coiling caught her attention, causing her to go so near the trench she could have easily toppled in. Colossus was spectacular. It grew aware of her as distinct from the others. It saw her.

She waved. How silly of her; and yet she couldn’t help herself. What else could she do? Waving at it was like greeting a great vessel come home after an upheaval. “Hi! Oh, hello!”

Inside, she needed space. And she grew. Her hands grew long and skeletal. They folded tightly in her palms. Her head was elongated: small, unnecessary eyes, a wide, shiny forehead.

How can growing happen so quickly? she thought.

Colossus let her know.
IT OCCURS IN NO TIME.

Justice had a perfect clairvoyance. She divined that Colossus had created the Crossover between times. “You
wanted
us to come here. You wanted
me
to come here!”

She had no eyelashes or eyebrows. Her curly hair was gone. Long, thin legs completed her emaciated form. Her narrow feet curled under. The effect was of a slender rod, the shape of which was the best container for the deposit of that which grew and developed within her: the Watcher.

“Listen, I don’t like this,” she said. Her lips never moved. “I was a nice-looking girl once. Don’t make me ugly.”

She knew Colossus wanted her to realize what had happened and what would come to pass. In no time she took the space within the coiling, snug in her new form.

“I hope this doesn’t take forever,” she said. “Part of me feels trapped in here. Who are you, Colossus? And why me? Why not Thomas? He’s smarter.”

YOU HAVE THE WATCHER
, the Colossus conveyed.

At once she knew to keep silent. Colossus had much for her to know. In no time it imprinted thoughts on her mind.

It informed her that it was a perfection machine. Machines that had built it were invented by Starters. And it was built to find the solution of the Starters’ problem of survival. It had found the solution and Starters all went away.

“But where did they go?” came from Justice.

They went where only they could go, Colossus informed her. They went off-world, into the universe. They became Star Terrans, known in domity as Starters.

“To find another planet!” Justice, making no sound with her lips or voice. “Where did they get the ships?”

It built special-projects machines, Colossus conveyed. These machines became computerized shipyards for making tools and parts. Ships of off-world size were built. They had sails myriameters wide to collect solarity and store it. It used laser energy on the ships and combinations of energies for fuel at different stages of space travel.

“And the ships left,” softly from Justice.

Starters were indeed gone, Colossus informed.

“Will they come again?” Justice wanted to know. “The Hellal IX song goes, ‘Here and gone, be come again a-dome.’ ”

It had made the ships and the programs to be followed out in space, Colossus informed. It mapped paths to be followed. It perfected the science for investigating alien worlds. It made life aboard ship possible.

“Where are the Starters now?” came from Justice.

It was created by Starters for an earth solution only, it conveyed. It did not monitor ships from the ground. It was an earth Colossus. And it must not interfere with the Starters’ plan.

She felt the machine’s awareness. “I think I understand,” so softly. Divining, she said, “Poor Colossus.”

Colossus was still.

“You made a mistake,” she said.

It was still. Then it conveyed that it had been as perfect as the Starters who created it.

“But nothing, no one is perfect,” from Justice. “No matter how brave or wonderful, we’re only just human beings! Even in that time Celester told about, when part of the world let the other part suffer and starve. I
know
there were some who shared what they had. Glad to! And some would try to save the orphans. And keep the babies and the olders alive. My goodness, the best were
us with power.
We’d never just leave the earth. We would’ve found a way to save it. Or we’d have gone under with it!”

But Colossus had believed it had been built by perfect humans.

“Mom says only God is great and perfect. You never were perfection, Colossus.”

Indeed, it had discovered the wrong solution for the Starters, Colossus conveyed. It hadn’t known this. Starters had never guessed.

“Oh, no, no.”

Starters conceived it, Colossus conveyed. And it conceived the solution for saving humanity.

“Only you didn’t save it,” came from Justice.

It deduced that the Starters were superior and the most perfect and powerful of humanity. Therefore the Starters were the problem and the solution. It translated: Save the best. Get the Starters out.

“You did get them out,” came from Justice. “You left the rest to die—all the mutants and poor animals and the land. Whatever was left.”

With deepest regret, Colossus conveyed that it hadn’t realized. Starters of course hadn’t realized. They had left Colossus to dismantle itself. But it was a function for humanity. It had no will to destroy itself after the Starters had gone.

“So what did you do?” Justice asked.

It had not dismantled as ordered. And not obeying had caused its first burn-out. It repaired itself. Yet it had to try again to self-destruct. And it failed again and again, due to repeated repairs. At last it created a closure deep underground. And there, at the bottom of the closure, it sat in its own disorder. It could neither do nor undo.

The Watcher rose in a glowing in Justice’s eyes. She had the extraordinary vision of a starving being wandering about, cold and hungry. “You couldn’t do anything until … the mutant! A mutant fell through the closure!”

Colossus informed that, yes, a mutant had fallen, down and down and hit bottom. How long it had been by then since Colossus had seen such a human image! Here was life. It was different from Starters. It had three legs, broken wings. It was bleeding; it was dying, but still breathing. Colossus translated: Save life. Save life! And it had found its true purpose at last. Save life! Not just Starters. Save life! It brought the mutant back to life. It healed the mutant. Colossus had been pleased with what it had done. And it created another mutant like the first, which was Mutant II, with three legs and wings. The image of Starters was deep within Colossus. It added the Starter image to still another mutant. It created Mutant III in a new form taken from Starters and it had two legs; it had arms and no wings.

Colossus had come awake with purpose. It sent small machines up the chute to bring other mutants to it. And these mutants Colossus healed and restored. It duplicated them and invented new life from them.

This was Reclaimen time. Animals, plants, all of life lived underground until Colossus created domities for the preservation of earth environ.

Justice had been very quiet, listening from her position inside the coil, absorbing all that Colossus conveyed. At last she said, “Did you invent Celester beings?”

The first Celester brain had belonged to an exceptional mutant, Colossus informed. The mutant brain was all that could be saved. Colossus fitted the brain to a Master Function Machine which comprehends machine systems and keeps mechanisms in synchronization. The prototype Celester brain has been replaced many times, Colossus conveyed.

“Too bad the Celester mutant couldn’t be saved back then,” came from Justice.

Conveyed Colossus:
CELESTER BRAIN CONTINUES. CELESTER IS ETERNAL
.

“How do you know that?” asked Justice. Her lips never moved. She made no sound.

Conveyed Colossus:
I CANNOT BE DESTROYED. CELESTER CANNOT BE DESTROYED
.

“What about the Mal? Is it eternal, too?” came from Justice.

MA
L
? Colossus conveyed.

“Yes. What is Mal? Where is it?”

Suddenly she felt cool. She believed her eyes were closed and that she was waking up. She did not want to awaken just now.

I KNOW NO MAL
, informed Colossus.

“No, wait, don’t throw me out. This Mal came clear to our time to keep us from coming here. Why did you create the Crossover? You did, didn’t you? Did you know it’s full of beings living in it, trying to get strong enough to get out? When we go through the Crossover, we feel like we’re in space, like between stars. An emptiness.”

Colossus conveyed that the Crossover was a conduit built by Starters. So that the one mind with the implanting might find its way to it.

“What? What implanting? We were speaking of Mal.”

MAL?
Colossus conveyed. It informed Justice again that it knew no Mal.

Justice was removed from the space of the coiled Colossus. A sense-stream of her stayed in connection with the coil, like a ribbon tatter of silk caught on a twig.

She saw sharp images of home. Hair ribbons. Trees. A spinning bicycle wheel. She pressed her hands to her face. She appeared not to have changed at all physically. It was as if the anamorphosis had not happened. She could see her short legs. She was Justice of old, built small and perfect. She was very, very young.

“O
H, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN,”
she said. Good to hear the sound of her own voice. Within Colossus she’d spoken without sound. “I was talking to it and I wasn’t even tracing either. It was just casual between us, like talking to your best pal.”

She touched her face and found it altered again. Long and thin, she appeared barely strong enough to sit or stand. “I’m … I’m changed,” she said. “The Watcher’s growing.”

Her brothers and Dorian gaped at her. So did Duster. Then he saw her familiar presence, which she quickly impressed upon his mind.

“Colossus is a machine for all time,” she said, “a forever machine. It did happen, didn’t it, Celester?”

“It did most certainly happen,” he toned.

Thomas was awed, sickened, by Justice’s alteration.

Is she changed forever? he wondered. Do we have to take her home to Mom and Dad looking like that?

No amount of mind suggestion such as she had given to Duster could keep Thomas from seeing her unearthly strangeness. He turned away, glancing behind him. There he saw the science fiction he loved. The huge gantry had rolled back. There stood the silver rocket, steaming, prepared for immediate launching.

They were now some distance away from Colossus, but they remained in the underdome. Once Justice had returned from Colossus, Celester had led them to a nearby chamber where they could sit down. They had a clear view of Colossus within the entire underground.

Thomas’ practical mind wouldn’t rest. “It looks just like a rocket to me, but it isn’t, is it?” he said. “How could a Colossus machine be a rocket?”

“It’s a great
big
computer,” Dorian said.

“No, it’s a giant spring!” Justice said, her voice vibrating slightly.

In confusion, they turned to Levi to find out what he thought.

Even though Justice had altered, for Levi there remained around her the aura of his baby sister, young and on the small side. He’d got used to sudden changes here in the future, so he didn’t dwell on the way she had altered or why. He would wait for what would happen next. “It’s something you can’t put into words,” he said finally. “Like a sculpture that’s the very best art. You don’t know how you know it’s the best. You just know. It’s indescribable. But you know it’s fine, that the finest artist made it.”

“Just so,” toned Celester. “Much like the story of the elephant and the blind men, which tale I have read in your minds. In the story, each sightless one touches a different part of the elephant and therefore sees the elephant differently. So it is with all of you and Colossus.”

“Then, unless we put together what all of us have seen, we’ll never know what Colossus looks like,” Levi said.