The Forever Man (43 page)

“I… see,” said Mary.

“Think of those Laagi then, sitting there, not able to move, waiting to die; and finally, dying. Sitting there dead, killed by these nice, fluffy little friends of ours, here. No wonder they've been able to keep these worlds and this part of space to themselves for however long they have. And no wonder the Laagi are looking for other worlds to live on in any direction but this one.”

“Are you saying we shouldn't want the worlds that're here, either?” There was a hardness in Mary's answer.

“I'm not sure what I'm saying. But we don't want to bring people in here to live under the nonexistent noses of aliens who can suddenly just order them to stop what they're doing until they die in place, do we?”

“No. You're right about that. But what can we do to make sure they'd be safe, though?”

“I don't know. I've got to get more of a handle of ?1 and his friends. Let's go back and talk to them some more.—?1?”

“Yes. Happily, you are with us once more, both of you.”

“And we're very happy to be back.”

“That makes us all happy together. What a fine thing.”

“Yes. About the Laagi. I may have told you we were being chased by them when we came here.”

“Don't you recall telling me that?”

“I think so, but I'm not sure.”

“How strange. You seem very forgetful.”

“I guess I am.”

“However, be assured you did tell us that.”

“Thank you.”

“It's a pleasure to assist your failing memory.”

“It only fails in little things, as a matter of fact,” said Jim. “As I was saying, about the Laagi. Now, you were telling me they couldn't hear or see you, but when your whole race spoke to them, telling them to stop where they were and not come any farther, they stopped. So they actually were able to hear and see you, after all.”

“But my dear friend! I didn't say they
couldn't
see or hear us. Any other intelligent mind should be able to do that. I said they
wouldn't
. They refused to see or hear—which was very insulting and extremely painful. There was no excuse for such behavior at all, since we'd never met them before. So we shut them out; and they've stayed away even from the place where we told them always to stop, ever since.”

“I see,” said Jim.

“We are glad you understand. But of course, we knew you would, being a gentle, courteous being yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“We do not merely compliment you. It's the truth.”

“Thank you, anyway,” said Jim. “Now, before we escaped from the Laagi, who had us as prisoners for a while, we learned something about them. I don't wish to make you, my friends, at all uncomfortable, but from what I know of the Laagi, it occurs to me there's a chance you might have misjudged them.”

“Oh, no. That's impossible,” said ?1.

“It is?”

“Absolutely… What makes you think we misjudged them?”

“Tell me something first,” said Jim. “When they intruded on you, why didn't you just go away from them, instead of doing something to stop them?”

“But this is the best spot for dancing in the galaxy. Beyond any question the best spot! Should we give up the best spot of all to dance because some impolite beings intrude on us, there? We were here first. We didn't intrude on them—they intruded on us!”

“Just a minute,” said Jim. “I'm afraid there's something I didn't understand as well as I thought I did. You told me you didn't like holes, and that the movement of the holes in relation to each other in the universe was a dance. But since you didn't like holes, I assumed you had no particular feeling for their dance, so—”

“Oh, no! No, no, no, no! No such thing. The dance of the holes is not something to be either liked or disliked—you're right. It merely is. But by itself it has little to recommend it. A hole—forgive me, dear friend, because I know you have a personal small one around, somewhere, though you show your good taste by being out of it at the moment—is not a pretty thing. However, we use the lines of force that is the dance of the holes as threads upon which to weave our own beautiful dances. The possibilities are limited only by creativity itself. That way, this web of natural forces can be made into a beautiful, a shining thing; and here, at this point, is where the possibilities for such creative effort are greatest. We have always lived here because at some time our ancestors found this the best place for dancing. We will allow no intrusion upon it.”

“But I mentioned my people might like to live on some of the holes in this area—"

“Their being there would not affect the dance in any way. It is a small, polite gesture on our part to allow such as you to do what you want on and with the holes, themselves.”

“The Laagi would not disturb the dance either by living on some of these holes,” said Jim.

“No, but they would disturb us greatly by coming through this space and refusing to see or hear us.”

“That's bad, I know,” said Jim, “but was it sufficient provocation for you to kill them?”

“Forgive me,” said ?1. “I am baffled. We are baffled. You have come up with a blank of which not even the edges of meaning am I able to grasp. What was it you said we did to these intruders?”

“Kill. Make die. Cause to cease living,” said Jim.

“None of this makes any sense at all. Forgive me, dear friend, but as I said, we are baffled. Completely baffled.”

“Tell me,” said Jim. “Do you live forever?”

“Do we never cease to exist? Of course, any one of us could wish to cease existence sometime. But none of us know when, just as we do not know how we came to be as a people.”

“No, I mean, do you, ?1, expect to never cease to exist?”

“Oh, I don't see how that would be possible. Even if I wished to exist forever, I don't believe anything can do that. Of course, long before it was forever, I'll probably get tired of living and go out.”

“Out where?”

“Just out into the universe by myself. There've been speculations of a different sort of existence once one has gone out, but such speculation is generally considered idle among us. If one is tired of this existence, why would one want more?”

“Does anyone ever put anyone else out?”

“How could they? But in any case, what an unthinkable concept! The undiluted rudeness of putting another out of present existence!”

“You may have been responsible for the Laagi going out of present existence—the ones you stopped, I mean.”

“Oh, no,” said ?1. “In the case of the ones we stopped, after a while their minds left their holes and went off somewhere, back the way they had come. Their minds were very much in existence when last seen…”

There was a pause.

“I am informed that we noticed that their minds when they left were completely unformed. Like new minds, who have to learn everything. You don't mean to suggest that our stopping them was responsible for their minds to lose acquired form—that it was a kind of putting-out?”

“I'm suggesting,” said Jim, “that possibility.”

There was another pause before ?1 spoke again.

“If so,” said ?1, “that was an unplanned result, which we regret. Nonetheless, they brought it on themselves by stubbornly refusing to answer us when we spoke to them in a polite and friendly manner.”

“That may not have been their fault,” said Jim. “You see, there are drawbacks to being formed as a mind when that formation takes place within a personal hole.”

“What drawbacks could stand in the way of polite response?”

“The fact that they may not have believed you were there.”

“Not there?”

“That's what I said,” said Jim.

“But you can't be serious. As intelligent minds they had to perceive us, let alone the fact that they became very disturbed after we had spoken to them, which they had not been until that moment. Certainly that effect augurs a cause which would be that they were aware of us.”

“I'm sure they were,” said Jim. “But you ran up against a particular sort of conditioning imposed on them by the holes within which their mind had been formed. Mary and I, now, grew up in personal holes that communicated by causing vibrations in the gases of the large hole on which our people lived. Our reception of these sound waves was what we call ‘hearing'; and because of that early training, even though we know now it's a case of our minds receiving the concepts your mind gives them, we conceived of what you say to us as sound vibrations heard in a gas medium, like that in which our minds were formed to adult intelligence. The Laagi, on the other hand, were formed in personal holes that communicated by distorting the shape of those personal holes in various subtle ways to convey concepts to each other.”

“This is strange and wonderful,” said ?1. “But I fail to see where it might be leading us.”

“Hopefully, to a better understanding of the Laagi,” said Jim. “You see, when your people first spoke to the Laagi in the ships that approached your territory, they confronted those Laagi with a situation that the Laagi knew could not possibly be, but which was nonetheless undeniable.”

“No such situation is possible!”

“I'm afraid it is possible. That was the trouble. The Laagi knew what they were seeing—receiving from you in the way of a message—could not possibly be delivered as it was being delivered. At the same time their mind gave them no choice but to believe it was being so delivered.”

“I don't wish to offend you, dear friend,” said ?1, “but you're the one who's making no sense.”

“Let me try to give you an example of what it must have been like for them. Do you know what I mean when I mention the concept of carbon dioxide gas?”

“You're speaking of a gas which is a familiar component in larger holes, and even in some smaller holes.”

“You're also familiar with it in its solid form?”

“Of course.”

“What would you think if you saw a block of it in solid form floating in the atmosphere of a very hot star?”

“It could not. It would take on its gas form, immediately.”

“But what if you saw it as I said, in the heat of the star's gases but itself still in solid form.”

“I could not.”

“Now,” said Jim, “if I saw such a thing and knew the chunk of frozen carbon dioxide to be actually that, and the gases of the star to be actually as hot as I've said they were, I'd consider that I was having what my people call a hallucination.”

“You are saying you would be less than healthy. You have not really thought you saw such a thing, have you?”

“Rest easy,” said Jim. “No. Of course not.”

“I am so relieved. If you had, you would be sick and we would be forced to shut you out. I should imagine your people would do likewise?”

“Not exactly. We've got other ways, ways of helping people with hallucinations not to see them anymore rather than shutting them out.”

“You must tell us sometime how to do this. But, I understand. You're using this image of a block of carbon dioxide remaining in ice form although in the midst of heat more than sufficient to change it into a gas, as an example. We fail to see its application to our simply speaking to these Laagi.”

“I'll explain,” said Jim. “Just as in order to make sense of your thoughts, Mary and I must imagine we hear them as words, that is, as sound waves through a conducting medium—under the same sort of conditions one of the Laagi you spoke to could only conceive of receiving your message as if it were visual signals from another Laagi.”

“Visual signals?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “distortions of the shape of another Laagi hole. Specifically, the signals had to be given by some other Laagi, since their signal system is built on the shape of their particular personal holes and that form's unique capabilities for distortion. Therefore, what the Laagi receiving you thought he saw was another Laagi—in a ship where there was room for at most the two that were already there—saying something to him he could not understand, because first, there were gaps in what he heard—these being concepts the Laagi did not know—and second, what did reach him implied a people and situation that were inconceivable from his point of view. He could only conclude that he was doing the Laagi equivalent of hallucinating. Naturally, since he thought the one of you speaking to him was merely an aberration of his own mind, he did not reply. He rejected the reality of the image—as you rejected the possibility of a cake of carbon dioxide, ice—‘dry ice,' we call it ordinarily among our people—floating in a hole of high temperatures.”

From ?1 there was an extended moment of silence.

“What you tell us is almost impossible to believe,” he finally answered.

“Don't take my word for it,” said Jim. “Some of you go to the large hole the Laagi inhabit—it's just up-galaxy a handful of light-years from here—and observe for yourself them talking to each other the way I've described.”

“It would be distasteful for any one of us to go to such a place and do such a thing, so I will volunteer to do so,” said ?1.

There was a silence following his last words that went on and on for perhaps a minute and a half, at Jim's estimate. Then ?1's voice spoke again.

“Yes, it's true,” he said. “My friends are all astonished. If I had not witnessed it myself, they would have been unable to conceive of such a thing. Your insight in this case is worthy of the highest praise. But we were certainly right to tell them never to intrude upon our space. How could anyone ever communicate to any purpose with such creatures? And what benefit could be gained by such communication?”

“Possibly, great benefits, the existence of which you don't even yet suspect,” said Jim.

“Come now, dear friend,” said ?1. “The fact that you are ordinarily a hole, yourself, has made you over-indulgent toward these Laagi. Say what you will about our misunderstanding of their reaction when they came this way first, the fact remains that they approached us in the persona of their personal holes, which you and Mary had the politeness not to do; and in any case, what could they have to tell us that we do not already know?”