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charts and reference bases? Just pull out the probes and leave them to it like
laboratory animals that have served their purpose billions of unborn to the
story of anguish, pain, torment, and slaughter that will unfold . . . for
millennium after murderous millennium?"
Calazar looked expectantly toward the door. It opened to admit a house
platter, which glided in to deliver a serving of ule with a selection of
confectionaries. Timed exactly to allow him time to absorb the message, Eesyan
noted.
"I didn't mention this at the time, because I wanted to reflect and be sure,"
Calazar said, rising to set out the dishes from the tray, as befitted the
host. "Some time ago, I had a visit from Gregg Caldwell."
Now it was all taking another unexpected turn. "Vic Hunt's superior," Eesyan
said, more to give himself a moment to adjust again.
"Yes. The man who was one of the driving forces that turned Terrans' energies
away from violence and destructiveness, and instead hurled them out across the
Solar System; who directed the investigations that led to their rediscovery of
their past and the rescue of the Shapieron, and kept his head after they
eventually made contact with ourselves, when many others on both sides were
yielding to fears and suspicions that would have led us to a very different
situation today." Showm flinched slightly, but Eesyan didn't think Calazar had
intended it personally. Calazar handed Eesyan a goblet mixed in the way he
knew from experience was to Eesyan's taste. "The kessaya are very good." He
gestured toward the tray.
"Maybe in a moment. . . . Thank you."
Calazar went on, "A person not only of rare vision, but also with the even
rarer gift of being able to turn visions into reality. Who dares to dream, and
can make dreams come true. Well, Caldwell came to me with a dream. . . . Are
you sure you won't try the kessaya?"
Eesyan had a fleeting urge to throw them at him. He shook his head.
"Terrans like him epitomize all that's positive about their race: the
dynamism; the restless energy; the refusal to give in even when the cause is
hopeless, and yet win. Look at what can happen in just a few decades when they
turn their aggressiveness upon constructive ends."
Such thoughts weren't exactly new to Eesyan. He had discussed them on many
occasions, with Showm among others. "Truly extraordinary," he agreed. They had
come across nothing else like it in all the worlds they had reached.
"And we Ganymeans embody another set of qualities that are every bit as
laudable," Calazar said. "You put them succinctly yourself just a few minutes
ago: caution and thoroughness; commitment to excellence in all things;
dignifying of the moral over the material. We've seen what each of these
combinations has achieved on its own. But can you imagine, Porthik, what they
might be capable of together?"
Eesyan looked at Showm, who was watching him intently. She seemed to be
brimming with things to say of her own, but just at this instant not wanting
to interrupt Calazar's stride. Eesyan wondered if he was missing a point
somewhere. "Yes, I hear what you're saying," he said, turning back to Calazar.
"But isn't that what we have? The Jevlenese menace has been uncovered and
neutralized. Earth is showing signs that it might have mended its ways
finally. They seem to be absorbing our science and adapting to our technology.
. . ."
Calazar waved a hand and shook his head rapidly. "That isn't what I meant.
What we have is Earth with all its scars and bruises and blemishes, and us on
the other side of a divide that began opening tens of thousand of years ago,
struggling to get to know each other again like adult siblings that were
separated in childhood. I'm talking about the potential that existed with the
human race as it existed then, before they were forced back to animal
survivalism, and then had their recovery sabotaged; when no gulf existed.
Where might Thuriens and a race like that be today, do you think? Still
striving to trace the origins of the codes that direct life, to discover what
agency devised them and for what purpose? Or would we long ago have become
fully alive and conscious beings, knowing ourselves and our role in the
multiplicity of realities that we are even now just beginning to glimpse?"
Eesyan had a sudden, jolting premonition of where this might be going. He
licked his lips and glanced at Showm again. She nodded as if reading his
thoughts. "And it was the lead we got from Terrans that put us on the right
track, even now," she reminded him.
Calazar became expansive. "I'm not talking about sending probes and prying
eyes, and sitting back here like gawkers at some awful Terran movie, passively
watching the Lunarians marching toward their fate. I'm talking about going
there, to the time before the war ever happened, and doing something to change
it!"
Eesyan reached for one of the kessaya and unwrapped it shakily. Just for the
moment, his mental faculties seemed to have seized up.
"Think of it, Porthik!" Showm urged. "The full, true potential of humans and
Thuriens in combination, that should have been realized just as the potential
for Minerva should have been realized. A whole new reality that was meant to
exist. It still can. We can create it!"
For a brief moment the sweet, smooth taste of the candy distracted Eesyan from
the turmoil of his thoughts. Minutes ago, Calazar and Showm had agreed that
the current program had gone beyond the bounds set by prudence and needed
tighter control. Yet what they were proposing instead exceeded it in boldness
and audacity on a scale that took his breath away. Objections poured into his
mind reflexively.
They wouldn't be "creating" anything; the physics of quantum reality said that
everything that could possibly exist did exist. . . . But no. He checked
himself. That was according to the old way of assuming things, arrived at from
a literal interpretation of the mathematical formalism. Danchekker had
produced some good reasons for supposing that the intervention of
consciousness was able to change that, making some futures by no means
automatic. Rebellious Terran thinking again. It had started a furious debate [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]