17. I sat at the kitchen table and watched as she prepared a stew over the kiln. She had set the kindling alight with an implement from the storeroom, an odd-shaped thing with two small round stones that struck against each other. The kindling’s flame had coaxed fire from the twigs and branches she skilfully placed on it, and glowing logs now heated the bubbling pot wedged between them. A pleasant aroma filled the room, reminding me that I had eaten little but nuts and fruit for several days and was heartily sick of them. A man can ignore hunger until a square meal is set before him. I looked forward to my first sampling of alien cuisine.
The alien woman’s movements were economical, deft and, despite the mundaneness of her occupation, graceful. My observation was turning into admiration. I was content not to speak, as was she. She did not seem to notice me but kept her attention on her task. Finally she carried the pot to the table and ladled out the broth into two bowls, for me then for herself. She sat opposite me and we began to eat.
The food was excellent, tasting like a thick vegetable soup which is probably what it was, though the flavour was enhanced with ingredients I could not identify. We ate in silence for a while.
“Delicious,” I said when done. “You are a very good cook.”
“Not so good, but I try.”
“You have many skills?”
“No-one to do for me, and there is time to learn. Cook, weave, dye, make things. It is good to stay busy.”
“Yes,” I said, remembering my weeks on Mars. “Especially when one is alone.”
She rested her elbows on the table and placed her chin on her joined hands, her great eyes on me. “I see you. Why you alone? Why other one leave you?”
I winced involuntarily. How was I to explain murder, betrayal, judgment and capital punishment to an alien? I turned my spoon around in my hand. “Did you not hear our transmissions…radio signals to each other?”
“No, I cannot understand them, not like other voices from…your world.”
Encryption, and she could not break it. Well NASA transmissions were designed to be unbreakable.
“It is a long story.”
“Tell it.”
I did my best. Some deep instinct told me not to lie. I wanted to summarize some of the details but shrewd questioning on her part eventually convinced me to give a complete account.
“This Dieter…he thinks only later he can hide behind moon? Does not have to stay by Mars for two years?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Then he have no reason to kill them or you. You have food for two more months, yes?”
“We do. It would have meant short rations, but we could easily have waited two months, even more.”
”Then he not so clever. I am sorry for you.”
“I’m the lucky one, I survived.”
“No, I am sorry you see them die. You care for them.”
I had nothing to say to that.
Our conversation passed from Dieter to Ganymed.
“Trinny—our master—told me in his last transmission that the asteroid will cause enormous volcanic activity all over the Earth. It will become winter everywhere. The snow will fall, the oceans freeze. It could last hundreds of years.”
“I know,” she said, “I see it.”
“The eye?”
“Yes. Many ways for eye to look. Worm sees inside Earth and knows what will come. It is as you say.”
“We will not survive.”
“No.”
There was a finality in her voice that killed the small tendril of hope I had let grow during our conversation. I looked downwards, saying nothing. She leaned forwards.
“You come to ask my help. I cannot help you. Ganymed is great. Worm is for going between stars, no more.”
“You cannot use the antimatter?”
“No. Made for light, for warmth, for travel. Cannot use it any other way.” She chuckled, a rich deep sound. “I see your movies. Your space ships with…guns. I like to watch them. Make me laugh. But here not like that. We have no enemies. Nothing to fight. No weapons. Cannot make them. No time and I do not know how.”
A weariness overcame me. I thought of Cloe. She had been alone for five days, not knowing if I was alive or dead, but I knew she was still hoping. Then a fleeting image of Trinny’s harried face. Gotta carry a whole life’s load every day of your life you live. Who had said that? It took a few moments for the memory to surface: the old Carry the Load song by Rodriguez. One of the perennial greats. But Sixto didn’t have to carry the load of every life on Earth. I did and I could not.
“Can you save anyone?”
“From Earth? Maybe a few. Ganymed here soon. First we must go to Earth. Then four days to go down, four days to come up. Earth bigger than Mars. Longer journey. Three, four people each time. Then we must be far from Earth when Ganymed comes. I cannot save many, and,” she placed both hands on the table, “I will not do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know you but I do not know them. Why you think I wait before I speak to you? Why I give you dreams? I must see what is in your heart. Essur, you free him.”
“The bat-bird.”
“I put him in thorns to see what you do. I watch you all time you are in worm. Days before I know your heart is good. If you are Dieter I can make you leave. But if you are ten, twenty…”
“I will make sure only the good come.”
“Who choose? Who choose Dieter?”
“Cannot you take the chance? Our race will perish otherwise.”
Her expression became opaque, her voice cool. “You are not my people.”
I could not answer her. She was right. Had I been the solitary orphan would I risk my home and life for a bunch of strangers who were not above killing each other, never mind an alien species?
“How good your blood?”
“Pardon?”
“How many so your children stay strong?”
“About two hundred.”
“I cannot bring that number here before Ganymed comes. No time.”
“You can’t build a bigger pod?”
“Worm grows this one in hundred years and fifty. A bigger one two hundred, three hundred years. But worm very old. I do not know if it can make another.”
I did not have Dieter’s problem-solving mind nevertheless I realised he would have drawn the same blank. The woman—Noema—was not lying. At a constant four hundred and fifty kilometres an hour the elevator pod would take three and a third days at best to reach Earth from a geostationary orbit. One could probably fit more than four people into the pod, but it was clearly not designed to sustain a breathable atmosphere for a large crowd. There was no possible way of bringing a genetically sustainable population to the alien vessel in time.
Launching people from Earth? Skylon spaceplanes could carry thirty passengers each into low orbit, and there were plenty of them. “We have ships that could bring hundreds of people here…if you wished it,” I murmured.
“No way for them to come in,” she replied. “Only way is gates for pod. They are shut when pod not coming or going. I cannot open them for your people. When worm grows something it cannot be other, do other. Must grow it again to change it.”
“The gates cannot be forced open?”
“Then we die.”
I fell silent again. Suddenly something occurred to me.
“Cloe—Dieter’s wife—is still in the ship above Mars. Are you willing to let her come?”
“She is good. She can come.”
“How do we get her here?”
“She must go down to ground on Mars. Then pod bring her.”
I felt a lump of lead in my stomach.
“She can’t go down to the surface. We had only one ship for that, and it could do it only once.”
It was her turn to be silent.
“There is nothing you can do?” I persisted.
She shook her head. “No. If possible, I do it, but I cannot. Pod not stop in space. Only when it is near ground.”
I had no desire to speak any longer. My gaze wandered across the room, far and vacant, my mind dull and withdrawn. The minutes passed. Finally she stood up.
“I go now,” she said, her voice gentle. “Come back later. Something you need?”
“No, I am fine…thank you.”
She paused, her eyes upon me tinged with compassion, then turned and left.
How does one get used to the idea that the entire human race would be destroyed and that one could not save a single individual? The mind does not acclimatize to the notion. Even Crusoe, in his most solitary moments on his island, knew that fellow human beings lived and breathed beyond the horizon. It is a different thing, a frightening, deadly void, to know one is to be completely alone. We mortals are made for each other. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength, and love thy neighbour as thyself. God we cannot see. Our neighbour we see. If we see neither we go mad.
I lay on the hammock-like bed in my bedroom and spent hours gazing at the rough latticework of the ceiling, sometimes studying it and sometimes seeing nothing at all. Strange it is that we so often only understand the value of something when we are about to lose it irrevocably.
As I traced the irregularities in the crudely shaped branches that ran across the thick supporting beams, I finally realised how utterly human purpose depends on others. It has nothing to do with philanthropy. A demagogue bends the will of the crowd and finds therein sense in his existence. A crooked businessman uses money to buy security and prestige and with it meaning to a life lived well among his fellow men. A mother finds purpose in her children, no matter how selfishly she loves them. But a man who genuinely seeks the well-being of those near him is cut deepest in his soul when they are taken away. Solzhenitsyn wrote that a prisoner in the Gulag lost everything except his soul. But he did not tell the truth. A prisoner had his fellow-prisoners.
The light was failing when I finally arose from the bed. All was quiet, the house deserted. I needed to get outside and stretch my legs. The lakeside seemed as good a place for that as any. When I reached the shore the boat and punt were where I had left them. I looked around at the bushes and trees. No-one in sight. I set off along the shoreline. The grass-covered ground was gentle and open. I could walk without difficulty, letting my mind wander where it would.
I would need to return to Mars and tell Cloe and Houston what I had learned. I would stay on the surface as long as Cloe needed me. My guess is that she would not return to Earth but stay around Mars until my supplies gave out and I had to leave. After that I did not know what she would do. Earth, well, Earth would survive the impact of Ganymed, as would humanity, for a time. I might eventually persuade Noema to pick up a few individuals after human civilisation had collapsed and posed no threat to her, but I doubted it. Dieter’s legacy hung in the air like a bad smell. She had been prepared to let one astronaut aboard her ship before she learned how murderous astronauts could be. Now she would trust no-one, certainly not random strangers from a dying planet.
Perhaps Cloe at least could return to Earth and be brought to the alien vessel from the surface? I mulled over the idea. Terra Nova’s re-entry vehicle was designed to land in water. The elevator pod was clearly meant to descend to the ground. Cloe would have to make it to land first, which meant she would need help from the navy or whoever, which consequently meant she would not be alone. What kind of mob would fight to get into the pod when it descended for her?
As my thoughts puttered out a memory rose in my mind: Domingo and Tessa praying together whilst death closed in upon them. No clever plan, no escape, nothing to do except turn to God. The church of my childhood had been conservative, in the sense that it had pews with kneelers, and at certain times we would kneel to pray. I glanced around again then knelt on the ground, clasped my hands like I had done as a child, and began to pray: Lord save us. Lord pity us. Pity Cloe. Save her. Save all I know. Do not let this be the end. I prayed on, saying the same things over and over again. It was not the words that mattered but the heart behind them. I was at the end of my tether and any hope I had left was given to one I barely knew. But it had to be given entirely.
After a time I became aware of a presence, a realisation that I was not praying to nothing but to something, some benevolence, that manifested itself around—no—within me. The realisation did not provoke surprise or psychoanalytical introspection, but a strengthening of my hope. I prayed with renewed earnestness. I was begging God and it was important that I beg with all my might. The benevolence gradually transmuted into a feeling of peace. I had seen nothing, heard nothing, become aware of no answer to my prayer, but somehow I knew it had been heeded.
I had said my piece. I would say it again and again while humanity lived, but for now it was enough. I raised myself to my feet, my mind still bathed in a sense of tranquillity, and looked up. And there she was, not ten metres away.
She was looking at me with a peculiar expression. For many moments we said nothing. Finally she spoke.
“You pray.”
“Yes.”
“For your people.”
“Yes.”
There was another long silence. I let my gaze wander over the water.
“An, he answer?”
“….I think so.”
“What he say?”
“I don’t know. I just felt he was here.”
“He comfort you.”
“Maybe. He heard me, I’m sure of that.”
She smiled that strange sweet smile of hers. “He come because your heart is good.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
She surveyed me a while.
“Maybe fate of your people must be fate of mine. Maybe this is will of An.”
I did not want to consider it.
“Are you the last of your kind?” I asked. “Are there none on your home planet?”
“There are none. I am last one.”
A faint memory rose up of my first dream on the alien vessel, of a darkened planet facing destruction.
“I dreamed of your world. The elders were there and spoke of the worm. But one thing did not seem right. You were there too.”
She nodded.
“But that’s impossible,” I persisted. “That means you have been on this vessel for—how long?”
“You do not well remember dreams? It is easy to see.”
“See what?”
“My people are not like you. We not age. Only die if accident or sickness.”
“How old are you?”
“Thousands of years. I forget how many. We are in worm ages without number before your first words are written.”
“Will you never die?”
“No. We go to many worlds. Dangerous there. We cannot live on them. Most of my people die. But safe in worm. As long as worm lives, I live.”
“When the ice passes you will be able to survive on the Earth.”
“Yes. I wait hundred years, thousand years. Not too long for worm. Then I go down. I have seeds of plants, birds, fish, animals. I will give life to Earth again.”
“But you will be alone.”
She bowed her head. “Yes.”
“You have kept no seeds of your people?”
Her eyes flashed up at me. “That you do, not us. Many strange things you do. For our people child from father and mother, husband and wife, as it always was.”
“You have a strong sense of family.”
“It is as An made it.”
“And yet they all wanted you to be the mother of their children.”
There was a silence.
“Yes, and they die for it.”
“How?”
She did not immediately answer, but turned and started up the slope. I followed her closely in the dim light. Near the shrubbery she paused and glanced back towards me.
“Tubal kill them.”
18. I lay on my bed, tablet in hand, making the longest report yet since I entered the pod.
I omitted any reference in my report to the reawakening of my faith. It was not relevant to my mission and I knew that a mention of religion would serve only to convince Mission that I had lost it. The early astronauts were quite happy to speak of God when in space, even pray to him over the radio, but things had come a long way since then. Professionalism in scientific circles meant being agnostic, or at least keeping religious convictions strictly to oneself as Domingo had done until Dieter's prodding opened him up. Well, right now that suited me fine. Noema’s own beliefs however were another matter.
“She has mentioned one god whom she calls An. He seems to be a benevolent deity as she believes he visits the good. She certainly sets a high store by goodness, by which she seems to mean integrity and trustworthiness. If she could just be convinced that humans can be trusted then she might be willing to take a human colony into her vessel when things have settled down after Ganymed’s impact, but I have no idea how to persuade her to do it.
“I might have tried lying about Dieter but I suspect she already knew a good deal about me before we met. I don’t know…the lack of the initial awkwardness of strangers meeting for the first time, the way we seem to attune to each other without difficulty. I think it may be due to the same process that implanted the dreams in my mind. I don’t regret my decision to tell the truth about Dieter and everything else. Creating an initial mistrust would have been disastrous.
“Although I can see no solution I have not yet given up hope. There is still some time left and anything can happen. I will return to Mars and send these reports only when it’s clear there is nothing further to be done. Jason out.”
I pressed Stop, pushed the tablet into my pack next to the bed, then leaned back with my arms behind my head. Once the chaos of Ganymed’s impact had passed it would be possible to return to Earth for survivors, but it would take months if not years before atmospheric conditions were calm enough to allow the elevator pod to descend to the surface. I had all the data on my tablet. The gigantic lava-filled impact crater and newly active volcanoes would cause massive hurricanes, torrential rains succeeded by blizzards, and constant high speed winds for God knows how long.
Humanity would have to live underground until the pod could reach them, and worst of all, as they watched death slowly close in they would have to come to terms with the fact that only few of their number would escape. What kind of self-discipline and self-sacrifice would that demand? Who would go and who would stay? Would not the ruthless shove aside the weak?
Trust. It was all about trust. Noema could not trust humans, and deep down neither could I. But it would be a while before I knew that she had been betrayed as I had.
I wasn’t sure exactly when the betrayal began. The shifting of motivation, the awareness that interests no longer coincide, and the loss of simplicity are born deep in the mind, growing in the dark regions of conscious thought whilst the sun still shines on the waters above. Perhaps it had been there from the very beginning, needing just the right circumstances to bring it to the surface.
Or perhaps it began with the bioengineering.
Her race learned how to modify living organisms long before the advent of the cataclysm that ruined their world. They had known machine-orientated technology and had discarded it.
“You do as we once did,” she told me during our evening meal, eaten by the light of an oil-lamp. “You make machines, and machines to make machines. But you go no further. Machines are wrong path. Cannot grow, cannot heal, cannot be used again for new machines. Break often, and you must fix them, must tend them. You make more and more. More and more to fix and tend. It becomes burden too heavy for you.
“I watch your people many years, listen to your voices. First you love your machines, think they will make paradise for you. Then you doubt them. Now you begin to hate them.”
She paused, her expression abstracted. “Machines….they not fit well in world. A little, yes, but not too much. You make your world full of machines and they bring trouble you not think of, yes?”
I nodded. “Pollution, damage to the environment.”
“I think more…trouble for you. Your lives not go well. For our people family is all. Family live together, work together. Strong family make good lives. This is same for your people?”
“I suppose so.”
“But your machines are not in home. Not with family. You must go far from your homes to work. Husband goes to one place, wife goes to other place, children go to other place.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way. We seem to manage well enough.”
“Husband stay with wife all his life?”
“Not so often. Most people divorce sooner or later.”
“That is not good.”
I didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking and decided it was time to change tack.
“This is why you abandoned machines? How did you learn bioengineering?”
“Wisest among us see we must live as world lives.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In beginning there are no machines. There is only life. Life is one with world, part of world. We are life. We must…use life. What life cannot do we must not attempt. Only in life is there no trouble, no danger, even if ten thousand years pass. In beginning we use machines to study life. Then we use life. We find Strand, heart of life, that which makes life be.”
“You discovered DNA.”
“Yes. Then long time to understand it. Very long time to shape it as one shapes wood. We learn. Many mistakes but we try again. Finally we make great worm.”
“You whole civilisation was built on bioengineering?”
“Not all. We keep old ways, how to make houses, use tools for simple things. We do not need your great cities. We have animals to carry us over land, fish to carry us across water, birds to carry us in sky. We have animals to make animals and fish and birds, old and new. We tend them, feed them. It is easy, not like your machines. They give us what we do not make for ourselves.”
I shook my head. “Bioengineering is incredibly complex. How did you master it without laboratories, computers, an army of scientists and technicians?”
“Our lives are not as yours. We have centuries upon centuries to learn, to understand. Also we use life to help us. Many things you do that seem simple but are not. You climb, this is not simple. Many muscles, must use right ones at right time, just so. Do you think of it? No, you think, ‘I must climb’, and you climb.
“To shape Strand same thing. We think what we wish to make, and life shapes Strand for us. We do not think, ‘I must change this part, then that part.’”
“Still,” I objected, “to make such a living tool must have been difficult.”
“We do not make it all at once. We make one creature to do a little, then use it to make another that does more. Many steps. Very long time. Many centuries pass before we can make what we wish.”
“You could make anything?”
“Not as An does. We cannot make from nothing. We take that which lives and change its Strand. Easier if animal a little as we wish it to be.”
“I understand. So you would use a bird to create a much bigger bird that could carry you in the air. Not a fish or land animal.”
“Yes.”
“But you could change the Strand of any creature to become something else?”
“Yes.”
“Could you change your own Strand?”
She did not answer, nor look at me.
“You are immortal,” I persisted. “Were you always so?”
She stood up and moved across to the window that gave out on the central atrium. She remained there a long time, her back to me. Eventually she turned around.
“In beginning we live many years, longer than your people, but not forever. All things must die. It is curse. We find how to stop age, how to make life always young. We change our Strand. We say curse is taken away, but it is not so.
“We cannot change Strand in all of our people. They have children. Their children have children. Soon, too many to feed if none die. We see this, change Strand of only a few.”
“The mighty ones,” I said.
“You remember dreams. Yes, a few, greatest among us. Those who have power. They live forever, rule people and their children and their grandchildren. If same people rule there can be no war. This is one reason Wise change their Strand.”
“Besides a fear of dying,” I interjected.
“We not know what is after death. A land of shadows An not reveal to us. Yes, we fear death. And now that death need not come we fear it more.”
She returned to the table and sat opposite me.
“You call us immortal. For us it is terrible thing when one of us die. It is like sun is dark or stars not shine. We are not made for death. We do not grow old, become weak. Death is not… right for us.”
The creation of the great worm had been the supreme achievement of her race, but initially it had not meant to be a lifeboat. The cataclysm that wiped all living things from her planet had come suddenly, almost without warning. The original intention behind the worm had been to colonise the galaxy.
“Our people are not happy,” she told me the next morning as we sat on the bench in the peristyle. “Some will live forever and some will die. Those who will die speak against Wise. There is trouble.
“Then we look at heavens and see worlds around stars. If those worlds good for life we can live on them. We can change Strand of all people. They can have children, no matter. But worlds are far away. Very long distance to travel. So we make worm to carry our people. A few to go first and see which worlds are good for us. It will take many years but that is nothing. We make worm to live almost as long as we live.”
“You couldn’t make it immortal?”
“No. Light gives life to worm. Worm makes new light from stars, but not forever. Part of worm that makes light is nearly dead. A day comes when light go dark. When light is finished worm will die.”
It had been a vast undertaking to create the worm. The first stages of its growth had taken place on the surface of the planet. Then, when it was judged large and hardy enough, the worm had been carried into space to complete its development. Adapting a living organism to become a launcher had not been possible, so an exception had been made to the ban against conventional technology, and spacecraft—I gathered they worked rather like Skylon spaceplanes—were created to lift the worm into orbit, along with everything it needed to continue its growth. Once big enough it had been incorporated with the antimatter drive, itself constructed in orbit.
Overturning the taboo against machine technology had been the work of one individual: Tubal, foremost of the Wise. As near as I could tell, his authority resembled that of the Doge of Venice. Elected to office for life by the Wise, he had great power but needed their consent for any really important decisions.
He had not been able to impose his will until discontent boiled over into rebellion. I gathered there had been violence which subsided only when the Wise, in the person of Tubal, pledged to grant immortality to all the people once habitable worlds had been discovered for them.
“Tubal say all who will live without death must go to new worlds. People agree and there is peace.”
“They were prepared to wait for your return?”
“Our people live many hundred years. Not too long for them. Also worm travel fast. Few years to go to nearest worlds and return. We say four hundred, five hundred years.”
Preparations for the exploratory voyage were nearing completion when the cataclysm arrived, virtually without warning. Its cause was unknown, its manifestation a catastrophic climate change accompanied by geological upheavals. It sounded remarkably like what was in store for Earth following Ganymed’s impact.
“Could it have been an asteroid?”
“Maybe it was asteroid.”
“Wouldn’t the worm have seen it?”
“Eye of worm not yet grown. We use other eyes to look at worlds we will go to. Not at every part of heavens.”
“What warning did you get?”
“Great shaking of land. Then sky become dark. Some say An punish our people. Say we put aside curse when we must accept it. Long time before time of trouble one of our people come forward—not of Wise but one who must die. He says An will bring trouble. Wise say he is mad. They laugh at him.”
I smiled. “Among our people there is always somebody saying the world is about to end. It’s inevitable that one day one of them will be right.”
It was meant as a joke, but Noema did not smile, nor reply.
The Wise had scarcely enough time to escape before hurricane-like weather covered the surface, making any further exodus impossible. The worm itself was damaged, reinforcing the theory that an asteroid had hit the planet and thrown up a vast mass of ejecta into space. The worm had just enough vision to flee the debris field without heading into the planet’s sun, but it was many decades before its eye was sufficiently developed for Tubal to look back at their world and see what had become of it.
“Tubal is mariner. He alone can become one with worm and see with eye. He tells us our world is destroyed. Nothing lives, no place for life. We must go on, find a home on another world.”
“He became one with the worm?”
“Yes. His mind is in mind of worm. He knows what it knows, sees what it sees. He is mariner. He guides worm.”
“How did he do that?”
“I cannot explain well. Join with worm here,” and she tapped the back of her head. I stared.
“That’s how you gave me the dreams!”
“Yes. You are asleep. I make your sleep deep then I take you to worm. It knows my mind, gives my.…memories to you. You see them in your dreams.”
She leaned back, gazing into the distance.
“Worm remembers what we have seen, keeps our memories. If you are mariner you can hide nothing. When I become mariner I see all that was in Tubal’s mind. But this is long time after. First Tubal take us to worlds.”
“How many did you visit?”
“Hundreds, thousands. I do not remember.”
‘What did you find?”
She did not immediately reply. I waited.
“They are all.…beautiful. Glory of An is in them. When we come to one we are full of hope. This will be our home, we say. In all heavens An will give us one world where we can live. We go in pod to surface. Sometimes we do not reach ground and we know world is not for us. Other times it is longer for us to learn. I remember one world. A sky of orange and yellow. A sea like gold on fire when sun goes down, and mountains brown and red and shining white on their tops. Air we can breathe, cold and fresh. We stay there many days.”
“What happened?”
“Poisons in ground. They kill all that grow. We cannot live there, cannot plant our seeds there. Everywhere in that world it is same thing. Nothing can live.”
They spent tens of thousands of years wandering among the stars, looking for a planet they could call their own. The worm renewed itself many times over, gradually adding to its protective mantle of iron-rich rock as it wandered from one system to the next. I never fully understood how it kept its rocky sheath from flying off when it rotated, but it seems to have been able to charge the iron in the rock, turning it into an interlocking series of magnets that held the outer layers of rock to an inner layer bound fast to its skin.
As mariner Tubal was able to fuse his mind with the consciousness of the worm and use its eye to search for new habitable planets. He alone had seen the fate of their world, a destruction so complete it made resettlement impossible.
“He says fire over all land, air changed so we cannot breathe it. He says it stay like this until we so far away he cannot see it any more. Our world is dead. Nothing for us there. We must go on.”
Slowly the people died off. Most perished on the planets they visited, killed by a host of unexpected perils: sudden storms, surging waters, the ground opening beneath their feet. A few died on the worm through freakish accidents. Hope waned. New planets now inspired dread and, despite everything Tubal could do, the conviction grew that they did not belong anywhere in the universe. They were accursed by An and would wander through the endless reaches of space until the curse consumed every last one of them.
From the beginning they had agreed by a solemn vow not to have children until they found a world they could settle on. The ban was absolute. They had already seen the consequences of allowing such a privilege to some of their people and not to others. But if all had been permitted to have children then those children would claim the right to have offspring of their own, and before long their numbers would be too great for the worm to support. There was one exception. Tubal as foremost of the Wise obtained consent for two children. Such was his power at that time that no-one dared refuse him.
We were walking along the lakeshore, Noema speaking with greater animation than I had yet heard from her.
“They are both sons. Tubal is very happy. First is Harran. He is like Tubal. Tubal says he will make him mariner when he is of age. Second son Hulla.”
“How was Harran like his father?”
“Strong, proud. Must rule others, not be ruled. Hulla follow him in everything. Hulla is quiet. He smile. All think well of him.”
“He was like his mother.”
Noema glanced at me.
“Maybe. Maybe his fault is mine. I follow Tubal. He is my husband and my lord. I cannot do other. But I follow him when I should not, and Hulla follow Harran when he should not.”
“What happened?”
Noema paused in her stride. Her eyes, large and clear and brilliant, swept over the glassy water of the lake. She was dressed in a simple robe, unlike the richly-patterned dress of our first meeting, and she no longer wore a headdress. She was if anything more beautiful. Her gaze turned to me.
“I tell you much. It takes burden from my heart. But do you wish to hear these things? Your sorrows….are they not enough for you?”
I hesitated. “I don’t mind you telling me about yourself and your people. If I am to live here I wish to know all about you just as I’m happy you know all about me. It’s better than being….alone with one’s thoughts.”
“You speak truth.”
“Then go on.”
As the centuries and millennia passed the people steadily dwindled in numbers until it became clear they would need to have children if their genetic pool was not to become dangerously impoverished. Tubal upheld the ban for as long as he could. Perhaps he already knew the truth. Of all the Wise he understood best the art of genetic engineering and better than the others suspected its pitfalls. Eventually by unanimous vote Tubal’s veto was overturned. The Wise could have children, two for each couple until they reached a habitable world. Years passed. No-one became pregnant.
“It is Strand. We think we understand it perfectly but we do not. We make ourselves always young but some things in us become old. You see?” She lifted a handful of her snowy white hair. “We think it no matter. But then we learn that seed in woman is dead.”
“Ova cells,” I said. “They don’t replicate.”
“When we first change Strand we make new seed come from old. But it is not well done. New seed is…bad. Seed from new seed is also bad. One day no more new seed.”
Slowly the realisation dawned that the women were sterile. With that realisation came desperation. Alone among the Wise Noema had born children, at an age well past the original lifespan of her people. Childbirth may have had a beneficial effect on her seed. She might bear children again.
As the story unfolded I had a peculiar feeling of familiarity, as if reminded of something long since buried in my memory. I could read into the minds of the Wise, fill in the gaps left by Noema’s hesitant English, as if I had been there. An image arose in my mind of an ancient people, ever young, sensing their coming dissolution.
Among humans the family bond comes from the continuity that children give, a permanence that steadies and directs the uncertain brevity of a human life. There is a kind of vicarious immortality in seeing your children grow and have children of their own. It was the same with Noema’s race. They had not cheated death with their eternal juvenescence, merely come to fear it in a way no ageing human could ever comprehend. That fear combined with their shrinking numbers created a longing for offspring that finally broke the social bounds like floodwaters pouring over a dam wall. Tubal was given an ultimatum. Noema would bear all their descendants with his consent or without.
Tubal heard their decision and at first said nothing. They did not immediately try to enforce it: better that he come to accept it freely. For many weeks he held his peace, keeping to himself alone. Then one day he summoned the Wise.
“If you will have Noema become mother of all the living then she must be wife of all, for so it has been from the beginning. We will build a great temple for An, and there before An you will become husbands to Noema as you did to your own wives.”
They all agreed to this for it gave a solemn blessing to their deed. They spent months in the construction of the temple. Stone was drawn up from the frozen planet they orbited then hewn into blocks and assembled into a wide structure, simple and without ornamentation as was characteristic of their architecture.
From the beginning the worm had been divided into two halves, one large and one small, with a narrow aperture between them. The temple was built in the larger half, a large part of which was unlit. Once it was completed and the ceremony accomplished, the people would move to the smaller half of the worm and last of the light would be withdrawn from the larger space, plunging it into darkness. This would conserve the light, allowing the worm to live longer.
Tubal drew up the plans for the temple and oversaw its construction. His will was supreme again and harmony reigned among the Wise. Only Noema shunned the sight of all, keeping herself hidden. She spoke to no-one, not to Tubal, not even to Harran, but only to her youngest son Hulla. Harran endorsed the decision of the Wise as he would be able to claim a wife from their children. Hulla did not speak openly against the decision. In secret however he opposed it. He comforted his mother but she knew he could do no more for her. He resolved never to take a wife from any daughter of the Wise.
“For then he takes his own sister to wife and such an evil has never been heard of, not since after first days. But he says this only to me.”
On the day of the ceremony Tubal called Noema and his sons together.
“Now hear me. In an hour all the people will be gathered together in the temple. You know that Noema is to enter at my side, followed by Harran and Hulla. When the time comes for us to enter you will follow me.”
“Where to, father?” asked Harran.
“Where I will take you,” replied Tubal. “Until then you will speak to no-one. There is one thing I must do before Noema is given in marriage. It is a matter that concerns us and no other.”
“Yes father,” said Hulla, but Harran said nothing.
As soon as the temple was filled Tubal spoke again to his wife and sons. “Come.”
They followed him across the grassy fields and up the slope to the top of the gap between the two halves of the vessel. Tubal made to go on but Harran gripped his sleeve.
“Where are we going, father?”
“A little further.”
“Why have you brought us here?”
“To see the justice of An. Come. Time is short.”
“No,” Harran replied. “What will you do?”
The calm dropped from Tubal’s face and rage twisted his features. “They think they will take my wife as animals take a dam,” he snarled. “They think they will do this thing against my will, I who saved them from death when our world was ruined. They will learn what it is to defy Tubal, their lord and saviour.”
“Speak plainly,” said Harran, “What will you do?”
“All in the great space will die. I have spoken to the worm. The light that shines in the great space will shine here on the heights, brighter than a hundred suns, burning anyone who tries to cross them. The great space will be in perpetual darkness. Nothing will grow. They will starve with their deed on their heads. Thus shall the wrath of An be appeased.”
Noema was filled with horror. “You cannot do this,” she said. “Then our people will perish.”
“Would you rather they lay with you?” asked Tubal.
“It is not for you to decide who lives and dies,” said Harran. “You must prevent the worm from doing this deed.”
“I shall not,” said Tubal.
“Then we will join them,” said Harran, stepping back to the edge of the heights. “Hulla, stand by me.”
Hulla did not move.
Harran stretched out his arm. “Stand by me, my brother. Your father will not see us both perish. You may think the deed of the Wise is evil, but this is a far greater wickedness. Stand by me and your father will save us and the people. Or would you see our whole race perish?”
At this Hulla stepped forward. Noema grasped his sleeve but he shook himself free.
“You will betray your father?” asked Tubal, but Hulla did not reply nor look at him.
The two brothers stood at one end of the heights, Tubal and Noema at the other.
“Father,” Harran called out, “Save us and your people. Speak to the worm.”
“I will not,” said Tubal. “There is very little time. Come to me, my sons. Here you shall live. There death awaits you.”
“None shall die if you speak to the worm.”
Noema saw how greatly Tubal was troubled. His rage had subsided but his pride was hard as stone.
“I shall never allow the Wise to have your mother nor you to have her daughter as your wife. If I speak to the worm their will shall prevail and these abominations come to pass. I shall never permit it.”
“I will speak to the Wise,” said Harran, “that their hands never touch Noema.”
Tubal laughed. “They will heed you as they heeded me. Come to me. Our people need not perish. I shall bear many children by Noema, as many as the people were in the beginning.”
“And whom shall they marry?” asked Harran. But Tubal was silent.
Noema spoke: “Hulla, my son. Come to me. Your father will not change his purpose. Do not perish for your brother’s sake.”
“We do no good,” said Hulla to Harran. “Let us go to them.”
“He is our father,” said Harran, “He will not watch us starve.”
“You do not know him,” said Hulla, and set out towards Tubal. He was halfway across the heights when light like searing flame blazed down from above, burning Hulla up like a leaf in a fire. Beyond the wall of light a blackness descended on the vessel. Harran leapt back, scorched by the rays.
Noema fell to her knees, her fingers in the soil. “My child! My gentle Hulla!”
Tubal neither spoke nor moved. From the other side of the fiery wall Harran looked at him a long time, then turned and went down the slope into the darkness.
We were standing by the lakeshore, Noema’s eyes far across the water. She had not spoken for many long minutes. I said nothing. She would finish the tale or not as she wished. Eventually she lowered her head, her great eyes closed.
“If it is too much to remember do not speak of it,” I said.
“How do I forget?” she asked. “It is in my mind every day. I know from beginning curse is on us, but….then I learn how terrible it is. For Tubal, for my sons, for our people, for myself. We defy An. We change what he has willed. In end his anger is upon us….such as I could never dream.”
After the death of Hulla Tubal said nothing for many weeks. He built a shelter for Noema and himself in one of the forest glades, for the surface of the vessel was more open in those days, green fields interspersed with woody copses. He did not ascend the heights nor did he speak to the worm. The wall of fire remained, sundering the two halves.
Finally Tubal climbed the slopes to the searing light. Noema followed him.
“Stay back,” he said.
“If you will see our son I will see him too,” she replied.
They stood before the fiery rays for many hours before Harran appeared at the far edge.
“I returned every day,” he said, “but you did not come.”
“I have come now.”
“Will you free us?”
“I cannot.”
“Then why have you come?”
“To see you one last time. You are flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, my firstborn. If I could save you I would. But Noema is my wife. None but I shall touch her. You have chosen your part with those who would defile her. With them you shall remain. Bid farewell for you shall not see me again.”
“Then may the curse of An come swiftly upon you,” said Harran.
“It has come already,” said Tubal. And the two parted each from the other.
Noema remained at the heights until darkness fell, calling for Harran, but she did not see him again, neither that day nor any thereafter, save once only.
Days became weeks, weeks turned into months. Noema climbed the heights, hoping to see Harran, but met only the Wise, who begged for mercy from Tubal. Again and again she returned from the heights and spoke to Tubal and would not be silent. One day he took a great store of food to the place where he was with the worm and shut himself in, not coming out until the all the Wise were dead.
One more time Noema saw Harran at the gap. His frame, once strong, was shrunken to bone, his face a masked skull.
“They are eating the women,” he told her.
Noema could not speak.
“They draw lots for them,” he said. “I have no part in it. Soon I shall die. How is my father?”
“He has shut himself in with the worm. I have not seen him for many weeks.”
“When he comes out tell him I take back my curse. The Wise chose evil and it is on their heads. I accept the will of An.”
Noema wept. “My son!”
“Go now,” he said, “In the halls of the dead we shall meet again if An will it.”
“If An will it,” she said. And he left her.
Noema did not climb the heights again. One day Tubal came out from the worm. Each day he ascended to the gap but Noema did not follow him. Finally he spoke to the worm and the deadly light was withdrawn. Alone he went into the darkness and found all the bodies of the Wise. Alone he built tombs of stone for them in the great temple. He dressed their bones in their finest robes and placed gold rings upon their fingers and put each into his own tomb, sealing them with slabs. Two tombs remained empty, one for Noema and one for himself. Finally he carved words in the ancient tongue over the entrance.
“I saw them,” I said, and I showed her the pictures I had taken. “What do they mean?
“First sign is for water,” Noema replied, “second for people, third for a time in past, fourth for a star, fifth for people on a journey, then for animal, plant, fish. Then for worm, then people, then time in past, then….sign for making.
“Together they mean: ‘In time of trouble people go to stars in worm. People in time before make animal, plant, fish and worm.’ It is a poem, last words of Tubal for people, but I do not say it well.”
“I understand,” I said, “’Here is the people who travelled to the stars in the great worm when their world was ruined, the people who in the beginning made marvels: animals, plants, fish and the great worm itself.’”
“Yes,” she said, “Like that.”
Tubal left the darkened region never to return to it. For a time he and Noema remained in the shelter he had made. Then he began to build a dwelling in a glade surrounded by trees, near the shores of a lake.
“You shall have sons again,” he told Noema, “And here they shall live. Two have been lost and two shall be got in their place, and many more after them, till all the land within the worm is filled and gladness has washed away our sorrows.” But Noema could see he spoke with his lips and not with his heart.
When the dwelling was finished Tubal said to Noema, “Come to me, my wife.” But she drew away from him.
“In all the ages we have been together I have never done you wrong,” he said, “Nor permitted any to do wrong to you. The death of our sons and our people is a wound in my soul that does not heal. But I cannot change what was done. Come to me, that we may have children and ease the burden on our hearts.”
Then she consented to him on that day, and the day after, and the day after that, for weeks and months until they both knew the truth. She was barren.
A sullen gloom settled upon Tubal like a mantle of sickness. He spoke little and spent many long hours alone with the worm. The months turned into years. Noema plied the ancient skills of her people and filled the days at her kiln, by her loom and in her garden to keep her loneliness at bay. She wandered to and fro through the vessel but never set foot in the place of darkness. Tubal became as a stranger to her and weeks might pass before she saw him. When they met he said little to her and parted soon after. Deathless though she was she longed for death.
Then the day came when Tubal took her hands in his. “I have found a world where we may live.”
“So you have spoken many times before.”
“But on this world,” he said, “there lives a people already.”
“A people as our own?”
“As our own.”
“When shall we come to them?”
“Their world is far away,” he said. “We have many years yet to travel. Can you wait that long, my wife?”
“I shall wait centuries if I must,” said Noema, joy in her heart. And so was peace restored between them.
The years multiplied and three centuries and more passed by. As they drew near the new world Tubal described it to Noema, who wondered at how great the eye of the worm had grown that it could see so much from so far away. The world was a land green and brown and blue, where the rain fell and the sun shone in due measure. Life covered it, and here and there the buildings of its people could be seen, and even the people themselves if the light were right.
“Their form is as ours,” said Tubal. “They are not as many as our people were when our world was unspoiled, but they are in every part of the land. Their lives are simple. They devise neither machines nor creatures to do their bidding, but fashion all with their own hands and go only where their own feet can take them. Truly when we come among them and show them the ways of our people they will think us great and honour us.”
“If we may live among them in peace it is enough,” said Noema.
“They are not deathless as we are,” answered Tubal. “They will surely marvel to see that we do not age. If we guide them in the manner of the Wise then we may rebuild that which was lost. And more, make good that which was marred in the beginning.”
“If we failed among ourselves how shall we succeed with them?” asked Noema.
“Failure is our teacher,” answered Tubal. “This time we shall succeed.” But Noema made no reply.
Then the day came when Tubal spoke no more of the new world, and a brooding gloom descended upon him. He did not close himself up alone with the worm as he had done formerly but spent long hours along the lakeshore and among the trees that now covered nearly all the land in the vessel save the darkened region in which nothing grew. Noema questioned him many times but he did not answer. Finally she stood before him.
“Speak plainly to me. What troubles you?”
“Do not question me.”
“I shall not go until you answer. Have I not lived three centuries and more on the hope you have given me? And now we are nearing the end of our journey all joy is gone from you. You have learned something of this new people, have you not? Tell me for I cannot bear your silence.”
“If I tell you the truth you shall wish I had held my tongue.”
“No,” she replied. “The silence is worse.”
“Then it shall be as you ask. I have begun to hear the voices of the people of this new world. They have learned to speak across great spaces as our people did in our earlier days. I have listened to their voices and come a little to understand them. This people are numerous, more than ever we were, and their multitudes have covered every corner of their world.”
“You did not know this?”
“I spoke before to give you hope for I could see your soul was near death. I had seen nothing, heard nothing, until now. All I had said of this world is as you would wish to hear, as I would wish to hear. A simple people that would revere and serve us.”
“And this people will not.”
“No. They have devised machines that could unmake the worm in an instant. They have done all we have done, save change the Strand. They are not deathless.”
“Cannot we live at peace with them?”
A hardness came in Tubal’s eyes. “As their servants, perhaps. Servants who teach them our secrets, make them undying as we are so the curse of An may come upon them as it came upon us. You spoke truly, wisest of the Wise. Death is our lot. This people will perish as our people perished should we come among them.”
“Perhaps they will let us be.”
“I have listened to their voices. They are a cruel people, proud and full of greed. They will not let us be.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“I do not know.”
“We must go to them,” said Noema, “And teach them all we know, save one thing. What else can we do?”
But Tubal looked away and spoke no more.
We were sitting at the table in the dining room, bowls of broth before us.
“I fear to speak to him again,” said Noema. “Blackness is upon him such as never before. Now it is great sadness, now great anger. Truly I no longer know my husband. But he never hurts me.”
“It was our world he saw?”
“Yes.”
“What did he see?”
“He speak to me of your wars. Terrible wars such as are never among our people. Sometimes your voices speak only of them. He say if you do this to your own people what will you do to us?”
“Wars? We have no wars. Not like that anyway.”
“He says you make suns over cities, kill all in them.”
“Was this about a century ago?”
“I think, yes.”
I swore inwardly. Second World War. The first aliens to encounter mankind had to come at just the moment when we were tearing ourselves apart in the greatest global conflict in history. Tubal had seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He would have thought us demons. Or rather, he would have realised that we, like him, would stop at nothing to get our own way.
The years passed. Tubal’s anger faded but his gloom did not abate. Slowly he began to change. He ate little and his flesh wasted away. His skin sagged loosely over his bones and the untold centuries weighed upon his back, bending all within him to the ground save his fierce pride. Deathless though he was his undying youth hung on him in mockery, like a crown too large for his head.
Noema’s fears grew, but she could not console him nor restore his strength. He ate scarcely a mouthful of the meals she prepared for him and would not be distracted from his brooding.
“My husband,” she said to him. “If you follow this path you will surely die.”
“I know it,” he replied, “I no longer wish to live.”
Finally he came to her. “You have been the best of wives. Come.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the worm, for now you shall be mariner.”
They went to the worm and he joined her mind to its own, and at last she learned all his thoughts. Then he took her to the heights where they stood together.
“Now you have seen all,” said Tubal. “And you will never forgive me.”
“Evil cannot repair evil,” she replied.
“Do as you will,” he said, “but I shall not serve them.”
Then light as a blinding fire came down upon the heights. Tubal threw himself into the consuming rays, burning up before Noema as chaff in a blaze.
After the fierce light ceased Noema went into the space beyond the heights for the first time since the darkness came. There she placed the bones of Tubal into the tomb he had made for himself and sealed it with the stone lid. There was now but one empty tomb left, but it would never be filled for who would put her in it when death claimed her at last?