Worlds imagined, p.10
Worlds Imagined, page 10
Once combined with a human, the pair is transformed, becoming much more than the sum of its parts. The human is protected against the harshest environment imaginable. The livable range with a Symb extends from just outside the orbit of Earth (radiation limit) to the orbit of Neptune (sunlight limit). The pair feed each other, water each other and respirate each other. The human brain is converted into a supercomputer. The Symb has radio and radar sender and receiver organs, in addition to sensors for radiation and the electromagnetic spectrum from one thousand to sixteen thousand angstroms. The system can gain mass by ingesting rock and ice and the Symb can retain the valuable minerals and water and discard the rest. About all the pair cannot do is change velocity without a chunk of rock to push against. But it is a small matter to carry a rocket thruster instead of the whole apparatus of a space suit. In the Rings, they didn’t even do that. The Symb could manufacture enough gas for attitude control. For major velocity changes, the Ringers carried small bottles of compressed gas.
So why weren’t all humans in space installed in Symbs?
The reason was that the Symbs needed more than most people were willing to give. It wasn’t a simple matter of putting it on when you needed it and taking it off later. When you took off your Symb, the Symb ceased to exist.
It was probably the heaviest obligation a human ever had to face. Once mated with a Symb, you were mated for life. There had never been a closer relationship; the Symb lived inside your mind, was with you even when you slept, moving independently through your dreams. Compared with that, Siamese twins were utter strangers who pass in the night.
It was true that all the humans who had ever tried it swore they hadn’t even been alive before they joined their Symb. It looked attractive in some ways, but for most people the imagined liabilities outweighed the gains. Few people are able to make a commitment they know will be permanent, not when permanent could mean five or six hundred years.
After an initial rush of popularity the Symb craze had died down. Now all the Symbs in the system were in the Rings, where they had made possible a nomadic existence never before known.
Ringers are loners by definition. Humans meet at long intervals, mate if they are of a mind to and go their separate ways. Ringers seldom see the same person twice in a lifetime.
They are loners who are never alone.
“Are you there?”
?????
“I can sense you. We have to do something. I can’t stand this darkness, can you? Listen: let there be light!”
?????
“Oh, you’re hopeless. Why don’t you get lost?”
Sorrow. Deep and childish sorrow. Parameter was drawn into it, cursing herself and the infantile thing she was caught with. She tried for the thousandth time to thrash her legs, to let someone out there know she wanted out But she had lost her legs. She could no longer tell if she was moving them.
From the depths of the Symb’s sorrow, she drew herself up and tried to stand away from it. It was no use. With a mental sob, she was swallowed up again and was no longer able to distinguish herself from the infant alien.
Her chest was rising and falling. There was an unpleasant smell in her nostrils. She opened her eyes.
She was still in the same room, but now there was a respirator clamped to her face, forcing air in and out of her lungs. She rolled her eyes and saw the grotesque shape of the other person in the room with her. It floated, bandy legs drawn up, hands and peds clasped together.
A hole formed in the front of the blank face.
“Feeling any better?”
She screamed and screamed until she thankfully faded back into her dream world.
“You’re getting it. Keep trying. No, that’s the wrong direction; whatever you were doing just then, do the opposite.”
It was tentative; Parameter hadn’t the foggiest idea of what opposite was, because she hadn’t the foggiest idea of what the little Symb was doing in the first place. But it was progress. There was light. Faint, wavering, tentative; but light The undefined luminance flickered like a candle, shimmered, blew out. But she felt good. Not half as good as the Symb felt; she was flooded by a proud feeling of accomplishment that was not her own. But, she reflected, what does it matter if it’s my own or not? It was getting to where she no longer cared to haggle about whether it was she who felt something or the Symb. If they both had to experience it, what difference did it make?
“That was good. We’re getting there. You and me, kid. We’ll go places. We’ll get out of this mess yet.”
Go? Fear. Go? Sorrow. Go? Anger?
The emotions were coming labeled with words now, and they were extending in range.
“Anger? Anger, did you say? What’s this? Of course, I want to get out of here, why do you think we’re going through this? It ain’t easy, kid. I don’t remember anything so hard to get a grip on since I tried to control my alpha waves, years ago. Now wait a minute…Fear, fear, fear. “Don’t do that, kid, you scare me. Wait, I didn’t mean it…” Fear, fear, loneliness, fear, FEAR! “Stop! Stop, you’re scaring me to death, you’re…” Parameter was shivering, becoming a child again.
Black, endless fear. Parameter slipped away from her mind; fused with the other mind; chided herself; consoled herself; comforted herself; loved herself.
“Here, take some water, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Ggggwwway.”
“What?”
“Goway. Gway. Goaway. GO. A. WAY!”
“You’ll have to drink some water first. I won’t go away until you do.”
“Go ‘way. Murder. Murder’r.”
Parameter was at a loss.
“Why, why won’t you do it? For me. Do it for Parameter.”
Negation.
“You mean ‘no.’ Where do you get those fancy words?”
Your memory. No. Will not do it.
Parameter sighed, but she had acquired patience, infinite patience. And something else, something that was very like love. At least it was a profound admiration for this spunky kid. But she was still scared, because the Symb was beginning to win her over and it was only with increasing desperation that she hung onto her idea of getting the child to open the outside world so she could tell someone she wanted out.
And the desperation only made matters worse. She couldn’t conceal it from the Symb, and the act of experiencing communicated it in all its raw, naked panic.
“Listen to me. We’ve got to get off this merry-go-round. How can we talk something over intelligently if I keep communicating my fear to you, which makes you scared, which scares me, which makes you panicky, which scares me more, which…now stop that!”
Not my fault. Love, love. You need me. You are incomplete without me. I need commitment before I’ll cooperate.
“But I can’t. Can’t you see I have to be me? I can’t be you. And it’s you who’s incomplete without me, not the way you said.”
Wrong. Both incomplete without the other. It’s too late for you. You are no longer you. You are me, I am you.
“I won’t believe that. We’ve been here for centuries, for eons. If I haven’t accepted you yet, I never will. I want to be free, in time to see the sun burn out.”
Wrong. Here for two months. The sun is still burning.
“Aha! Tricked you, didn’t I? You can see out, you’re further along than you told me. Why did you trick me like that? Why didn’t you tell me you knew what time it was? I’ve been aching to know that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
You didn’t ask.
“What kind of answer is that?”
An honest one.
Parameter simmered. She knew it was honest. She knew she was bela- boring the child, who couldn’t tell a lie any more than she could. But she clung to her anger with the sinking feeling that it was all she had left of herself.
You hurt me. You are angry. I’ve done nothing to you. Why do you hate me? Why?????? I love you. I’m afraid you’ll leave me.
“I…I love you. I love you, Godhelpme, I really do. But that’s not me. No! It’s something else. I don’t know what yet, but I’ll hang on. Hang on to it. Hang on to it.”
Where are you?
Parameter?
“I’m here. Go away.”
“Go away.”
“You have to eat something. Please, try this. It’s good for you. Really it is. Try it.”
“Eat!” She turned in the air with sudden cramps of hunger and revulsion. She retched up stale air and thin fluid. “Get away from me. Don’t touch me. Equinox! Equinox!”
The figure touched her with its hand. The hand was hard and cold.
“Your breasts,” he said. “They’ve been oozing milk. I was wondering…”
“Gone. All gone.”
Parameter.
“What is it? Are you ready to try again with that picture?”
No. No need. You can go.
“Huh?”
You can go. I can’t keep you. You think you are self-sufficient; maybe you’re right. You can go.
Parameter was confused.
“Why? Why so sudden?”
I’ve been looking into some of the concepts in your memory. Freedom. Self-determination. Independence. You are free to go.
“You know what I think, what I really think about those concepts, too. Unproven at best. Fantasies at worst.”
You are cynical. I recognize that they may indeed be real, so you should be free. I am detaining you against your will. This is contrary to most ethical codes, including the ones you accept more than any others. You are free to go.
It was an awkward moment. It hurt more than she would have thought possible. And she was unsure of whose hurt she was feeling. Not that it mattered.
What was she saying? Here was what might be her one and only chance, and she was acknowledging what the kid had said all along, that they were already fused. And the kid had heard it, like she heard everything.
Yes, I heard it. It doesn’t matter. I can hear your doubts about many things. I can feel your uncertainty. It will be with you always.
“Yes, I guess it will. But you. I can’t feel much from you. Not that I can distinguish.”
You feel my death.
“No, no. It isn’t that bad. They’ll give you another human. You’ll get along. Sure you will.”
Perhaps. Despair. Disbelief.
Parameter kicked herself in the mental butt, told herself that if she didn’t get out now, she never would.
“Okay. Let me out.”
Fade. A gradual withdrawal that was painful and slow as the tendril began to disengage. And Parameter felt her mind being drawn in two.
It would always be like that. It would never get any better.
“Wait, kid. Wait!”
The withdrawal continued.
“Listen to me. Really! No kidding, I really want to discuss this with you. Don’t go.”
It’s for the best. You’ll get along.
“No! No more than you will. I’ll die.”
No you won’t. It’s like you said; if you don’t get out now, you never will. You’ll…all right…‘by…
“No! You don’t understand. I don’t want to go anymore. I’m afraid. Don’t leave me like this. You can’t leave me.”
Hesitation.
“Listen to me. Listen. Feel me. Love. Love. Commitment, pure and honest commitment-forever-and-ever-till-death-us-do-part. Feel me.”
“I feel you. We are one.”
She had eaten, only to bring it back up. But her jailer was persistent. He was not going to let her die.
“Would it be any better if you got inside with me?”
“No. I can’t. I’m half gone. It would be no good. Where is Equinox?”
“I told you I don’t know. And I don’t know where your children are. But you won’t believe me.”
“That’s right. I don’t believe you. Murderer.”
She listened groggily as he explained how she came to be in this room with him. She didn’t believe him, not for a minute.
He said he had found her by following a radio beacon signaling from a point outside the plane of the Rings. He had found a pseudosymb there; a simplified Symb created by budding a normal one without first going through the conjugation process. A pseudo can only do what any other plant can do: that is, ingest carbon dioxide and give out oxygen from its inner surface. It cannot contract into contact with a human body. It remains in the spherical configuration. A human can stay alive in a pseudosymb, but will soon die of thirst.
Parameter had been inside the pseudo, bruised and bleeding from the top of her head and from her genitals. But she had been alive. Even more remarkable, she had lived the five days it had taken to get her to the Conser emergency station. The Consers didn’t maintain many of the stations. The ones they had were widely separated.
“You were robbed by Engineers,” he said. “There’s no other explanation. How long have you been in the Rings?”
After the third repeat of the question, Parameter muttered, “Five years.”
“I thought so. A new one. That’s why you don’t believe me. You don’t know much about Engineers, do you? You can’t understand why they would take your Symb and leave you alive, with a beacon to guide help to you. It doesn’t make sense, right?”
“I…no, I don’t know. I can’t understand. They should have killed me. What they did was more cruel.”
No emotion could be read on the man’s “face,” but he was optimistic for the first time that she might pull through. At least she was talking, if fitfully.
“You should have learned more. I’ve been fighting for a century, and I still don’t know all I’d like to know. They robbed you for your children, don’t you see? To raise them as Engineers. That’s what the real battle is about: population. The side that can produce the most offspring is the one that gains the advantage.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“I understand. Will you just listen?”
He took her lack of response to mean she would.
“You’ve just been drifting through your life. It’s easy to do out here; we all just drift from time to time. When you think about the Engineers at all, it’s just a question of evading them. That isn’t too hard. Considering the cubic kilometers out here, the hunted always has the advantage over the hunter. There are so many places to hide; so many ways to dodge.”
“But you’ve drifted into a rough neighborhood. The Engineers have concentrated a lot of people in this sector. Maybe you’ve noticed the high percentage of red rocks. They hunt in teams, which is not something we Consers have ever done. We’re too loose a group to get together much, and we all know our real fight doesn’t begin for another thousand years.
“We are the loosest army in the history of humanity. We’re volunteers on both sides, and on our side, we don’t require that individuals do anything at all to combat the Engineers. So you don’t know anything about them, beyond the fact that they’ve vowed to paint Ring Beta red within twenty-five thousand years.”
He at last got a rise out of her.
“I know a little more than that. 1 know they are followers of Ring-painter the Great. I know he lived almost two hundred years ago. 1 know he founded the Church of Cosmic Engineering.”
“You read all that in a book. Do you know that Ringpainter is still alive? Do you know how they plan to paint the Ring? Do you know what they do to Consers they catch?”
He was selective in his interpretations. This time he took her silence to mean she didn’t know.
“He is alive. Only he’s a she now. Her ‘Population Edict’ of fifty years ago decreed that each Engineer shall spend 90 percent of her time as a female, and bear three children every year. If they really do that, we haven’t got a chance. The Rings would be solid Engineers in a few centuries.”
She was slightly interested for the first time in weeks.
“I didn’t know it was such a long-term project.”
“The longest ever undertaken by humans. At the present rate of coloring, it would take three million years to paint the entire Ring. But the rate is accelerating.”
He waited, trying to draw her out again, but she lapsed back into listlessness. He went on.
“The one aspect of their religion you don’t seem to know about is their ban on killing. They won’t take a human or Symb life.”
That got her attention.
“Equinox! Where…” she started shaking again.
“She’s almost certainly alive.”
“How could they keep her alive?”
“You’re forgetting your children. Five of them.”
The last thing anyone said to Parameter for two years was, “Take this, you might want to use it. Just press it to a red rock and forget about it. It lasts forever.”
She took the object, a thin tube with a yellow bulb on each end. It was a Bacteriophage Applicator, filled with the tailored DNA that attacked and broke down the deposits of red dust left by the Engineers’ Ringvirus. Touching the end of it to a coated rock would begin a chain reaction that would end only when all the surface of the rock was restored to its original color.
Parameter absently touched it to her side, where it sank without a trace in the tough integument of Equinox’s outer hide. Then she shoved out the airlock and into fairyland.
“I never saw anything like this, Equinox,” she said.
“No, you certainly haven’t.” The Symb had only Parameter’s experiences to draw on.
“Where should we go? What’s that line around the sky? Which way is it to the Ring?”
Affectionate laughter. “Silly plant-eater. We’re in the Ring. That’s why it stretches all around us. All except over in that direction. The sun is behind that part of the Ring, so the particles are illuminated primarily from the other side. You can see it faintly, by reflected light.”
“Where did you learn all that?”
