Part 4 (1/2)
”Such comprehension comes naturally to our species,” Antares said modestly.
That reminded Brother Paul. ”You say your, er, Sphere traded with ours?
Mattermission for hydrofusion?”
”The expense in energy of physical transport over interstellar distances makes material commerce unfeasible,” Antares said. ”Therefore trade is largely confined to information. Since you possess technology we lacked-”
”But if you are so advanced, why couldn't you develop controlled hydrogen fusion yourselves?”
”For much the same reason you could not develop instantaneous transmission of matter. Our mode of thinking was incapable of formulating the necessary concepts. In our framework, artificial hydrofusion is-or was-inconceivable. We are a protean, flexible species. We do not think in terms of either magnetics or lasers. We are adept at flexible circuitry, at the sciences of flowing impedences. Thus, for us, matter-mission technology is a natural, if complex, mode. You Solarians are a thrust culture; you poke with' sticks, thrust with swords, and burn with fierce, tight lasers. For you, laser-controlled atomic fusion is natural.”
That seemed to make sense, although it seemed to Brother Paul that the Antarean's ready a.s.similation of the calculator operation indicated a certain competence with magnetic circuitry. Probably the term ”magnetic” had a different meaning for the alien, though. Man had been incapable of conceptualizing any physical velocity faster than that of the speed of light in a vacuum. Man's mode of thought simply could not admit the alien possibility of instantaneous travel; therefore that science had been out of the question. Thought, not physics, had been the limiting factor.
And what of G.o.d? Was man incapable of conceptualizing His true nature? If so, Brother Paul's present mission was doomed.
”So you traded with us,” Brother Paul said, returning to a simpler level of thought. ”You needed fusion for power, and we needed matter transmission for transport. Our own hydrofusion generators are now monopolized for the tremendous power needed for the MT program.”
”So it would seem. This is a very foolish course you are pursuing, but it seems as though all emerging cultures must pa.s.s through it. If rationality does not abate it, the exhaustion of resources does. Only through Transfer is inter-Spherical empire possible. Spherical regression otherwise presents a virtually absolute limit to the extent of any culture-as you will discover.”
Again, Brother Paul clung to what he could. ”Transfer?”
”With your aura, you do not know of Transfer?”
”I know neither aura nor Transfer. In fact I know nothing of your society.”
”Your administrators did not inform the populace?”
”Apparently not. I'd like to know about you personally, too.”
”Then I shall gladly explain. It has been long since any creature expressed personal interest in me.” Antares paused, and for an instant Brother Paul saw the outline of the alien protoplasm, s.h.i.+mmering like a hovering soul. ”Every living thing we know of has an aura, a field of life-force permeating it.
Solarians term it the Kirlian aura-”
”Ah, that I have heard of!” Brother Paul said. ”I believe it is the same as the aura described by Dr. Kilner, and later photographed by the Russian scientist Kirlian. But I understood it was merely an effect of water vapor in the vicinity of living bodies.”
”Perhaps the water vapor is a.s.sociated with the photographic or visual effects,”
Antares said. ”But the aura itself is more than this. It cannot be detected by ordinary means, although certain machines can measure its imprint, and ent.i.ties of intense auras can perceive other intense auras. I was a high-aura creature, and you are the highest-aura creature imaginable. Therefore our auras interact, and we perceive each other. You have no doubt perceived auras of others similarly, and supposed these to be flukes of your imagination.”
”Maybe I have,” Brother Paul agreed. There had been some strange phenomena in his past, now that he considered the matter in this light. Yet he was not satisfied. ”Why shouldn't we perceive each other now, without the interaction of auras?”
”Because I am dead,” Antares said.
Brother Paul had already become aware of the strangeness of this ent.i.ty, so he took this statement in stride. He glanced at his watch again, noting that ten minutes and forty-nine seconds had elapsed since the setting of the counter. It had seemed longer. He fixed on a single facet, again. ”You are really a ghost?”
”The ghost in the machine.”
Brother Paul tried to organize his reactions, get his tongue in gear. ”Actually, the human brain, with its mysterious separation of powers in its two hemispheres, has qualities that are obscure to our understanding. Nature had to have had good reason for that seeming duplication. We know that the left hemisphere relates to the right side of the body, and handles abstract a.n.a.lytical thought and language functions, while the right hemisphere handles s.p.a.ce patterns, imagery, music and artistic functions. Just as two eyes provide the basis for triangulation, hence depth perception, perhaps two brains multiply the human quality as well as quant.i.ty of thought.” He shook his head. ”But I am babbling. My point is that the hemispheric union is as yet imperfect.
Crazy-seeming things spring from it, visions and hallucinations occur at times.
So while it is possible that you are what you claim to be, the ghost of an alien creature, it is rather more likely that I am suffering a similar derangement-”
”Solarian Brother!” Antares protested. ”Your aura is so strong, it enables manifestations that could not otherwise occur. Your divided brain is imperfect, vastly complicating your thinking processes, but I am not a phantasm of your imagination. I am an aura trapped in the mechanism of the mattermission unit. We did not know the units had this property, but of course no one has ever fathomed completely the technology of the Ancients from which both mattermission and Transfer derive.”
What difference did it make, really, whether this creature was real or imaginary? He was certainly entertaining! ”You said you were dead.”
”My Sphere, seeking trade, Transferred the auras of its most suitable members to the bodies of sapient aliens of other Spheres, animating them,” Antares explained. ”I was lucky enough to find this host: a Solarian who had lost his own aura and become a member of the living dead, a soulless creature. I located the Solarian authorities after some difficulty and convinced them of my authenticity, but precious time had been lost. You see, the aura of a Transferee in an alien host fades at the rate of about one intensity a day, for reasons we do not yet understand, and when it drops to the sapient norm-”
”The alien soul becomes submerged by the host,” Brother Paul finished with sudden insight. All of this was incredible, yet it had its own logic, like that of non-Euclidean geometry. In this day of non-relativistic physics, why not?
”True. My natural aura was ninety times the ordinary intensity, as measured by our calibration. That is very high. Not half as high as yours, however. So I had only three of your months to act, and more than half that period was exhausted by the time I made contact. Because your scientists needed time to construct the first mattermission unit, after they had been persuaded that it was even theoretically possible-”
”You faded away to nothing before you could return to Star Antares.” Brother Paul said. What singular courage this alien had had, to undertake such a mission! Traveling in spirit to an alien body, to convince people of a truth they knew was impossible- and giving his own life in the process. This creature must have had a good deal more than aura going for him; he had to have had intelligence, determination, and nerve. Brother Paul had thought his own mission special; now he saw that it was ordinary in comparison to that of Antares.
”I faded down to sapient norm,” Antares agreed. ”There is no fading below that, except in illness or physical death. But my native ident.i.ty was gone then, as the host-body dominated. Once the first mattermission unit was ready, the Solarians s.h.i.+pped my Solarian host to my home Sphere, together with a nuclear fusion expert, honoring the bargain I had made. But I was dead.”
”Except that you aren't dead!”
”My aura was enhanced by the mattermission machine, and that returned my ident.i.ty to me,” Antares agreed. ”But my host was gone; I could not exist outside this unit. The machine is now my host, and I am now its constant, as in your calculator. I cannot manifest at all unless evoked by someone like you with the interest and aura to make it possible. When you arrive at your destination-”
Brother Paul looked at his watch again. Still ten minutes, forty-nine seconds.
He was certain now; no time at all had pa.s.sed since Antares had appeared. He was in the process of suffering a potent hallucination. Maybe. ”But if I can see you and hear you, others can too; we can open the capsule before it mattermits-”
”We are in mattermission now. Did you not comprehend?”
”Now? But I thought the process was instantaneous!”
”That it is, Solarian Brother.”
Brother Paul mulled that over. An extended dialogue in zero time? Well, why not one more impossibility! ”Who are these 'Ancients' you mentioned? Why don't they get you out of this fix?”
”They are extinct, as far as we know. They perished three million Solarian years ago, leaving only their phenomenal ruins.”
”Ruins? But you said the mattermission equipment derived from-”
”Some few of their ruins have functioning components. Most of the advanced technology has been reconst.i.tuted from the far more advanced science of the Ancients by those contemporary species capable of recognizing the potential of what they discovered. There may be Ancient ruins in your own Sphere, but if your individuals did not recognize them for what they were, they may have been destroyed. Chief among these technological reconst.i.tutions in other Spheres is Transfer-the means by which I came to Sphere Sol. That secret we will not share with you, for its value is measureless, and your species-please do not take umbrage-may not be mature enough to handle this knowledge safely.”
Brother Paul suddenly realized that he liked this alien ghost, even if Antares were merely a figment of his own imagination. ”I take no umbrage; I regard my own species with similar misgivings, at times. I suppose you may be considered a figment of my mind, or as you put it, of my aura. Yet you have provided me comfort and interest during a nervous period.”
”Do not underestimate the capacities of aura, friend Solarian,” Antares replied equably. ”In my brief tenure in Solarian form I came to know some of the nature of your kind, alien as it is to my prior experience. Many of your mysteries are explicable in terms of aura, as you will know when you achieve aural science.
Your water-divining merely reflects the aural interaction with hidden water or metals. Your 'faith healing' const.i.tutes a limited exchange of auras, the well one augmenting the failing one. What you call telepathy is another aural phenomenon: the momentary overlapping of aural currents such as we experience at this moment. When an ent.i.ty dies, his aura may dissipate explosively, like a supernova, flooding the environment for an instant, forcing sudden awareness upon those who are naturally attuned. Close friends, or ent.i.ties with very similar aural types. Thus a sleeping person may suffer a vision at the instant of his friend's demise.”