Orphans of Earth (29 page)

He also realized that he had some control over the situation. He was able to maintain some distance from the incessant and headache-inducing babble. For the first few minutes, he tried teasing apart the various voices and the threads of their conversations. Although what they were talking about didn’t make much sense—making him wonder if the Praxis’s translation was designed to obfuscate information he wasn’t privy to—he felt confident afterward of at least hearing any replies they offered him.

“Can you hear me?” He found himself instinctively shouting to be heard over the racket.

Voices and smells swirled around him like a fine, snakelike mist. From the writhing fog, a reply emerged, angry and indignant, and smelling of gunpowder: “Of course we can.”

“I want to thank you for allowing me—”

“What is it you want?” another voice shot from the rabble.

“I—I want...” He faltered for a moment, wondering for whom he was actually speaking. What
he
wanted surely differed from what Axford or Hatzis wanted. “We want—humanity, that is, wants—to form an alliance with the
Yuhl/Goel
against the common threat we all face.”

A barrage of replies erupted from the mist:

“Alliance?”

“He is
already/dead
!”

“How can you help
us
?”

He withdrew for a moment from the onslaught of voices and emotion, his entire being feeling as if he were trembling. But he knew he couldn’t afford to show any sign of weakness with these aliens and so quickly reimmersed himself into the almost impenetrable vapor of their protests, snatching at the comment he felt to be the most important.

“I’m referring to the threat of the Starfish,” he said. He realized also that he didn’t need to shout at all; his voice would come across as a shout regardless of how much effort he put into it. “You regard them as part of the Ambivalence. It—”

“THE AMBIVALENCE IS INDIVISIBLE!”

The response clearly came from many voices at once, and their combined protest was a painful and disorienting shriek. A smell like sulfur accosted his senses. For a moment he was confused, wanting to withdraw again from the voices.

“What—?” he started, not knowing how to respond to such a unified outburst.

“The Ambivalence gives—”

“The Ambivalence takes away.”

“One cannot exist without the other!”

Flustered, Alander struggled for words. He had inadvertently given rise to a religious argument.

“But surely it takes more than it gives,” he interjected. “Surely
lives
are more important than technological trinkets.”

“Lives are lives,” said another voice. “Before the Ambivalence, we were a profligate race. We didn’t truly understand the gift of life.”

“We squandered it,” said another.

“We waned.”

“But there is no more war now,” the first voice went on, their words carried on a subtle scent of cinnamon. “We have achieved a refined state.”

A general hubbub rose at the pronouncement, like a cheer. Then:
“
PRAISE AND THANKS TO THE AMBIVALENCE!
”

“We are the
Yuhl/Goel
!” roared a familiar voice.

“You are just
humanity/riil
,” put in another.

“You are the
already/dead
.”

“Yes, we are,” said Alander defiantly. “But we are also living creatures like yourselves. Surely the Praxis has taught you the importance of the flesh. Did you spurn
it
because it was not Yuhl/Goel?”

“The Praxis is many things to us,” came a new voice, deep and measured. “It guides us.”

“It teaches us.”

“It tells us that you are
not
creatures of the flesh, but that you have spurned your bodies.”

“It is true,” said Alander. “We
did
abandon our bodies—but only so that our species could explore space. We never abandoned the
idea
of our bodies. We carried our sense of physical self as an anchor to keep us sane, to protect who we are. Some of us, like me, have been unable to survive without it, and we returned to the flesh as soon as we were able. You must see that these are
not
the actions of a species that spurns the flesh; but rather they are the actions of one that has made a mistake and learned from it.”

The mist settled momentarily, as did the various aromas. Then, bursting from the calm: “You seek exoneration for your actions?”

“I didn’t know I had to,” said Alander.

“We are not forcing you to do anything.”

“You are coming to us for help.”

“We merely seek to understand what it is you want.”

Alander felt like he was being played with but forced himself not to rise to the bait.

“We want many things,” he said. “But first and foremost, we want peace with all aspects of the Ambivalence. We do not want war; we do not want destruction. We want coexistence, not predation.”

“And how do you hope to achieve this?”

“The only way to achieve it is to cooperate,” he said firmly. “The details are not as important as that fundamental impetus. If we can agree to work together, the details will fall into place of their own accord, I am sure.”

“We are not so sure,” one voice replied.

“We already have peace with the Ambivalence.”

“Why should we jeopardize that?”

Alander was surprised when another voice from the mist answered for him: “We do not have peace with the Ambivalence,” it said, with the smell of freshly cut grass accompanying its words. “We have peaceful coexistence.”

“They amount to the same thing.”

“No, they are different! We survive because we exist in the fringes. If we stray beyond those boundaries, we risk upsetting the balance we have striven so long to maintain.”

“Perhaps that would be a good thing,” said another voice.

It occurred to Alander that he was starting to tell the voices apart. The strident voice with the near-fanatical interest in preserving the status quo was
Zealot/Shrieking
; the more measured but equally conservative tones of the one who had argued for peaceful coexistence was called
Status Quo/Mellifluous.
The new voice deservedly had the name
Radical/Provocative.

That wasn’t their real names, he assumed; these were simply titles that identified the individual’s character. Equally, he was sure that the names weren’t of his own creation. They were being given to him by the Praxis.

“I think we have stifled in this niche, this rut we have dug for ourselves, long enough,” said the new voice. “It’s time for a change.”

“What? And put our lot in with this bodiless rabble?” retorted
Zealot/Shrieking.
“With
prey
?”

“And attack the Ambivalence?”

“Is that gratitude?”

“Attack is not the only option,” said
Radical/Provocative.
“There was a time when the
Yuhl/Goel
aspired to more than the parasitic lifestyle we currently enjoy.”

A wave of shouting almost drowned out
Radical/Provocative,
but the alien persisted.

“Yes, parasitic! Be outraged at the notion of what we
do
rather than what I say!”

“You are talking about the Species Dream,” broke in
Status Quo/Mellifluous.

The hubbub eased, allowing
Radical/Provocative
to speak more freely. “That is what I am referring to,” he said. “Yes. But it doesn’t have to be a fantasy. We have the resources and the opportunity to make it all real. The only thing we lack is the will.”

“The will to survive remains strong in us,” said a new voice:
Stoic/Enduring.
This voice had a hint of caramel lifting from it. “Perhaps too strong to take such a risk.”

“It
is
a risk, but it’s a glorious one. This envoy from
humanity/riil
is proof of that. See how he defies what we regard to be self-evident? See how he challenges us to reinvent ourselves? He shames us with his very presence.”

“What is the Species Dream?” Alander asked over the voices building in response to
Radical/Provocative’s
challenge.

“It is an ancient aspiration of the
Yuhl/Goel
,” said
Status Quo/Mellifluous.
“When our people were first visited by the Ambivalence and were swept up in its journey through space, we very nearly did not survive. We adopted many of our current practices in order to ensure that what remained
would
survive. With the help of the Praxis, we formed a stable society that could outlive the eons yet was capable also of adapting to constant change. We no longer needed a home system in which to live. We are nomads, crossing the gulfs between the stars and scouring the universe for knowledge.

“But some said that wasn’t enough,” he went on. “There were some who advocated that this was only a short-term solution, that the
Yuhl/Goel
need more than just survival in order to thrive. They argued that we needed a goal, an aspiration, and that that aspiration should be a new home somewhere, a permanent settlement in the wake of the Ambivalence, where we can establish ourselves as an independent civilization. That is the Species Dream.”

“But time has demonstrated that we can live without it,” said
Radical/Provocative,
picking up the story with bitterness. “Time has seen us grow in strength. I say that this strength is only illusory. We have sown the seeds of our downfall with the very crops that keep us alive! We need the Dream—and now might be the perfect time to embrace it.”

“What need have we for a home planet now?” snapped
Zealot/Shrieking.
“You would have us halt our progress! You would have us turn back and reenter the aeries!”

“Your lies in my mouth!”
Radical/Provocative
spat.

“I see no possible advantage to leaving the Ambivalence.”

“We have everything we need right here.”

“Minerals, resources, space—the Ambivalence gives all!”

“What about freedom? What about pride?”

“You mustn’t be hard on yourselves,” Alander interjected, wanting desperately to shift the subject away from the Yuhl’s shortcomings and back to humanity. “You have done what you needed to do in order to survive.”

“There are limits,” said
Radical/Provocative.
“If the method is abhorrent, the results cannot be justified. And what might have been morally justifiable thousands of years ago no longer applies today. The simple fact is that we are able, now, to choose for ourselves. We have accumulated the resources to settle down. The only reason we continue as we do is in order to give us more space to expand—and creating more of something abhorrent hardly makes us better as a species.”

Hatzis should be here,
Alander thought.
Radical/Provocative
was definitely thinking along her lines.

“I look at you,” Alander said, “and I see us. Humanity is facing the same choices you were when you first encountered the Ambivalence. If we choose the same as you, then in two thousand years or so, we might be in the same position you are now. Our species may be very different, but we face the same choices. Humanity, Yuhl, the Praxis—the Ambivalence forces us to decide what we as a species want and what we are prepared to do in order to obtain it.”

“The Ambivalence tests us,” said
Zealot/Shrieking,
in a tone of agreement and a scent of tea tree oil. “It refines us.”

“It distills from us the qualities that make us worthy,” said
Radical/Provocative.
“What about the species that didn’t survive? How many of those have we seen? They weren’t inferior to us; they simply made different choices.”

“And we honor their passing,” said
Zealot/Shrieking.
“We honor
all
those who fall in the Ambivalence’s path. What more can we do?”

“Help them,” said
Radical/Provocative.
“
Join
them.”

“You would die with these humans rather than continue as we are?”

“Our existence is already a form of death,” said
Radical/ Provocative.

“I don’t think dying will be necessary,” Alander said. “I’m certain that cooperation needn’t necessitate mutual destruction.”

“Not if you were to join us here,” said
Status Quo/Mellifluous,
“in our great venture.”

“Become humanity/goel?” Alander asked, remembering the derision that Axford’s hostage had shown the idea.

“Interspecies cooperation is the norm, here, and the Praxis has let you come this far. It is an option you should consider.”

And Alander did consider it—very carefully. If Hatzis would agree with
Radical/Provocative
in calling for a permanent settlement in the wake of the Spinner/Starfish advance, Frank the Ax would undoubtedly go for the second option, of joining the ragtag fleet that were attending the superior aliens like birds picking ticks off hippopotami. That would give him time to collect resources, study the advanced technology, and gather allies for a retaliatory attack against the Starfish.

But where do
I
stand?
Alander wondered.

He could see sense in both sides just as readily as he could see the faults. If they opted for Hatzis’s plan and founded a permanent settlement, the remnants of humanity would be vulnerable to outside attack for a long time to come. And if Axford had his way and they joined the
Yuhl/Goel,
there was a very real risk that humanity would end up exactly the same: feeding off the weak in the wake of the strong.

“Surely there must be a third option?” he asked. “Couldn’t some of the Yuhl/Goel join with the humans who want to settle, while the rest of humanity joins the migration? I can understand that the travelers wouldn’t want to lose resources to the settlers, but with what we could bring to replace it—”

The mist of sound billowed with objection and the smell of burning wood:

“Impossible!”

“Unthinkable!”

“Absurd!”

“
Why
impossible?” asked
Radical/Provocative,
his dissenting voice loud and forceful in the storm of protest.

“How can we trust these creatures?”

“We know nothing about them.”

“Then we must
learn
,” he returned quickly.