A Voyage To Dari Read online

  Mind-searching his brain, precisely he located the affected synapses and noted their hyperpolarization; but for the moment he made no effort to depolarize them, for such action might wreck a diagnostic pattern. (Roland crouched.) Instead, Croyd devoted an hour to swift total-brain fine-scan, much more meticulously than he had done this morning. Nothing else appeared abnormal—for him.

  Withdrawing from his brain ingression, he allowed him, self to fuse again subjectively with his brain; and as a whole man, he thought.

  At length he decided to test. Projecting his mind along the Castel's intercom wiring, rather as though the ship’s electrics were a crude brain, he found Gorsky in her cabin and telepathically knocked on her brain door.

  Instantly she mind-responded: I thought I might be hearing from you. What's up?

  My hackles, but I don’t know why. Request permission to do a thorough check of ship’s wiring.

  Incidentally checking your own?

  No comment.

  Will there be any . . . phenomena?

  Maybe some flashing lights. I’ll start in fifteen minutes and take thirty.

  Gorsky activated her intercom. “Now hear this, all passengers and crew. This is the admiral. We are about to do a routine test of circuitry. Do not be alarmed at flashing lights. Particularly ship’s electricians. Do not be alarmed. This test will start in fifteen minutes and will terminate thirty minutes later. After forty-five minutes from now, funny stuff you should report. Out.”

  She thought at Croyd: Don’t ring bells or honk horns . . . or kill the repulsors. Permission granted—as if I could stop you.

  He used the quarter-hour to safeguard his body with respect to the incident suspended animation. Then his mind, his essential self, wholly departed his brain; bodiless, the Croyd mind entered and prowled the circuitry, utilizing the ship’s distant computers as surrogate brain ganglia. (He avoided Chloris.)

  Returning to his own brain, he put all the subjectivity together. Nothing at all was wrong with the ship’s wiring or with his mind, testing the ship. And something should be wrong.

  He took time to report Negative to Gorsky. She replied: Acknowledged.

  There remained a triad of ultimate tests, crowding his own limits.

  Selecting with his eyes a zac bottle on a shelf behind his bar, approximately five meters distant, delicately he mind-lifted this bottle and transferred it to the bar. So that was all right.

  Next test: he simply vanished. Almost instantaneously he reappeared in Greta’s bedroom back on Nereid. She slept—alone, he noted with tender amusement. Not awakening her, he vanished from there and reappeared in his cabin aboard the Castel (which, except for appearances and staff leadership, he hadn’t really needed in order to journey to Djinn).

  Final test: uptime into past. (Downtime you don’t dare test, except in extremis.)

  Again he vanished. Twenty minutes later he reappeared, meditatively twirling between thumb and finger a feather that he had just plucked from a phoenix perched atop a ben-ben at On-of-Kamat on Erth in the year 2439 B.C.

  Everything that he had learned to do in the course of years was working well, except intuitive language perception. And that had been synapse-blocked. Deliberately? If so, it was a silly sort of thing to block; and his brain scan had revealed absolutely no sign of invasion. Well, he had worked hard and long preparing for embarkation; perhaps he was in a sag; exhaustion could randomly hyper-polarize, and a delicate function such as language perception would be highly susceptible. Perhaps he should rest all his special powers.

  ACTION AFTER H-HOUR:

  CROYD BARKED: “COME IN, CHLORIS!” It yanked me out of reverie; we were ejected, we were in metaspace, we were falling.

  Chloris blanded. “They have killed my I-rays. I cannot judge position, velocity, or direction. My impression is that our fall continues to accelerate. My guesstimate now is for touchdown very soon—if touchdown is the right word; it is the nearest word in my banks, but semantically—”

  Croyd interrupted, “I sense a certain stiffness. You cannot be emotionally disturbed?”

  With dignity Chloris asserted, “I am not emotionally disturbed. The predicate emotionally implies glands. I have no glands. In the sense that I am experiencing dysfunction, I am disturbed.”

  Pause.

  She added, “On the other hand, you have glands. And yet you seem curiously undisturbed by my information that we are going to crash within minutes.”

  Croyd cheerfully inquired, “Why should we be disturbed? Glands can hardly disturb our consciousness until we grow conscious of their effects. And presumably our consciousness is epiphenomenal.”

  Was that computer whirring a sort of sublaughter? A moment after the whirring quieted, the voice of Chloris was at its silkiest. “I must apologize. I have some inferential information that I have not fed you. Perhaps you will want to hear it.”

  Alert, I said, “Go ahead.”

  “Just before they cut off my sensors, down below I seemed to be detecting some epiphenomena. And I am right on the verge of drawing a hypothetical inference that—”

  Chloris cut if off. She said, crisp: “They have restored my sensors. We hit bottom in seconds.”

  Phase Three - POWER FAILURE

  Day 4, uptiming to Day 3

  A genetic explanation of the peculiar Darian wedding rite has been discovered and demonstrated by Dr. Hel Zurj, professor of anthropological genetics at Moudjinn University.

  In the course of a Darian wedding, the clan chief of the groom publicly deflowers the bride; or, if the groom is a chief, the defloration is performed by the protocol chief of the clan federation to which the groom’s clan belongs. A prime concern is for the chief to establish that the bride is a virgin; but a further concern, long regarded as a Darian superstition, is that the chief share with the groom the fatherhood of the first child as a ritual blessing. It now appears as pertinent that after defloration by the chief, the bride and the groom pray together in mutual chastity for two days and two nights before consummating their marriage.

  Dr. Zurj was drawn into this line of genetic research because of his belief that many primitive rituals arise through primitive intuitions of nature and especially of biology. Casting out the nonessential point of virginity (since, on life-loving Dari, the bride commonly counterfeits by providing herself internally with a bladder of chicken blood), Dr. Zurj has established that the chief may in biological fact share fatherhood with the groom.

  Our Moudjinn human species Vlaz arche, in common with most humanoid species in all known galaxies, is genetically diploid: every cell has two sets of chromosomes, one contributed by the father and one by the mother. When reproduction gametes are developing in father and mother, the diploid cells go through a reduction division which produces haploid sperms and haploid eggs for union. The fertilized egg or zygote is consequently diploid.

  The Darian humanoid species Mena melans is, however, triploid: there are three sets of chromosomes in every cell, two from the father and one from the mother, collaborating to produce individual characteristics. However, since there is one further step in the reduction division, both sperms and egg are haploid. Darian sperms are twice as energetic as ours, requiring only one day for the journey from vagina to egg, whereas ours take two. Once entered by a sperm, the egg of a Darian woman protects itself chemically against entry by further sperms, as do our eggs. But whereas this is process completion with us, it is only the halfway point with Darians.

  The initial self-protective condition of the semifertilized Darian egg persists only twenty-four hours, then relaxes during forty-eight; where after, if there is no further penetration, the egg dies. Meanwhile, Darian sperms have only thirty-six-hour longevity. As a result, no competing sperm from the original fertilization can enter the egg prior to sperm death.

  To complete the fertilization, making the zygote triploid, a second impregnation must occur between one and three days after the first; preferably, in two days. Both impregnations are usually
accomplished by the husband; but in this first marital consummation, the first impregnation is accomplished by the clan chief and the second by the husband; and so, if and when both impregnations “take,” both men are conjointly fathers of the child, which, under the Darian gods, is a very high blessing.

  As a side issue, bipatemal pregnancy is usually claimed, inexactitudes of pregnancy timing being what they are. As a further side issue, birth control easily occurs if, after a love passage, a woman takes care to remain chaste for three days: again, science thus rationalizes a common Darian “superstitious” practice.

  Morals legislation to outlaw this Darian wedding rite is currently (2448) in process in the Moudjinn Planetary Assembly.

  —Moudjinn Popular Encyclopedia (2448)

  (Croyd had read this flake.)

  ACTION AFTER H-HOUR

  “WE HAVE TOUCHED DOWN,” said Chloris concisely.

  We mutely consulted each other.

  Croyd asked Chloris, “What do you make of the scene, if any?”

  The contralto reply was a wondering reply. “I get a sense that I have returned home. No question about it—I have settled into precisely the lifeboat factory where I was born; out there in endless vista are countless younger sisters and brothers at various stages of assembly, being wandered among by the same sort of robot workers who constructed me.”

  Croyd commanded, “Activate viewports.”

  We waited.

  Croyd said again, “Repeat: activate viewports!”

  Petulant: “But I did”

  We studied the viewports. We consulted each other again. We shrugged. Nothing.

  Croyd tried again: “You say that you are in your home factory?”

  “No question about it, sir. I am getting signals that—”

  “We are seeing nothing in your viewports. Is it your impression that we could step out and breathe the atmosphere?”

  “Yes, sir. It is an Erth-type atmosphere, bracingly high in ozone, as in sunshine after a storm.”

  “As in your home factory, Chloris?”

  “My banks hold no memory of the atmosphere in my home factory; but since that is unquestionably where I am, and since that factory is on Erth, the required inference is yes.”

  “Chloris, is it logical that after all this, you would have touched down in your home factory on Erth?”

  “Sir, it is not logical; but since you came in here, I am transcending logic; and intuitively I know that this is home.”

  We were on our feet, each recognizing on the other an expression that was quizzically perturbed. Croyd pressed Chloris, “It is safe for us to step outside?”

  “Yes, sir, but watch out for the worker robots, they are not used to humans.”

  Croyd turned to me. “Mr. President, shall we try it?”

  I simply ordered Chloris to open her hatch.

  It slid open. We sniffed cautiously, inhaled deeply, looked at each other, nodded. I suggested, “Neither of us is armed.”

  Shrugging, Croyd disappeared through the hatch.

  Laboriously, I followed. I found him slowly swiveling in a prolonged study of the astonishing scene. I swiveled likewise. At length we were facing each other squarely again, and both of us were bewildered.

  He queried, “Do you see any sign of a lifeboat factory?”

  I negated with a headshake.

  He added, “Do you have any sense of an Erth-type atmosphere laced with ozone?”

  I nodded, looking at him.

  He was frowning hard. “Then tell me what you are seeing.”

  Gazing about, I told him, “We are standing on what appears to be a planetary surface, but a surface that is a veritable Arcadia. We are in a wilderness paradise in high spring, standing in a lush flowery meadow, with a deciduous forest over there boasting about spring greenery, and over there the long coastline of a body of water that is either a mighty lake or a sea. Blue and white have attained water-and-sky synthesis in this country, enriched by the green of Arcadia.”

  Croyd, his mouth curiously twisted, observed, “Sir, I thought you were a statesman.”

  “So?”

  “You are instead a poet.”

  “I am a Sinite.”

  “All right, that is the synthesis. Then tell me where we are.”

  I frowned at the ground. “For me this is very specifically my birthland, in the Gaza Strip that was flowered into a garden by cooperative Sinite-Ereb endeavor.”

  Silence. He pronounced, “We are neither on the Gaza Strip, nor in a lifeboat-factory, nor in a meadow by the sea. Instead, we stand in a broad forest clearing by a small freshwater lake; and this is my birthland—on Nigel III, a planet which ceased to exist in 2292.”

  I stared at him.

  Croyd ventured, “What follows may prove cryptic, for the reason that I shall be utilizing abstractions in order to minimize the hazard of telepathic interception. I trust that you will forgive me and join me.”

  Brows veiling eyes, I examined him. “Perhaps it is safe for me merely to say, ‘Forgiven’; but I am not certain of the hazard you have in mind, and consequently I am not sure that it would be judicious for me to respond in any other way.”

  He told me, “I am disciplining my mind mood to be a meld of amazement and burbling delight at the birth scene in which each of us finds himself—yea, all three of us, including Chloris—while focusing my action mentality on entirely unemotive symbolic analysis. Hopefully, only the mind mood will be externally noticed. Are we together in this?”

  Having now caught his high drift, I responded, “We are essaying this. Is one assured that the approach may not be superhuman?”

  “As you were advised, this subject no longer possesses superhuman powers, if indeed he ever did. The present procedure is entirely within the scope of a self-disciplined human. Be certain to retain the prevailing mind mood of amazed delight, even throwing in back-burner ejaculations. (Ah, the Heaven of it!) Is this operative?”

  I sought to stay with him in the fantastic ploy. “One thinks so (wild wild surf!), and one is receptive. Proceed. One suggested that elements escaped attention.”

  Convinced that we were being mind-monitored, Croyd thrust ahead with the glib double-talk, hoping that his rapport with me was close enough for communication without intelligible interception. “One notices that each of us finds himself (home, sweet home) in his own birthplace.”

  I nodded.

  He added, “One has scanned the situation (foliaceous Eden!) without observing any instance of animal life.”

  I met him: “This is true. (O acme of terrestrial beauty!) Is one aware of additional deficiencies?”

  “One sounds like Gorsky. Yea. One has considered the infraviolet phenomenality of what is above, examining this beyond the minimal clots of totocolor vapor, while (oh, joy!) reminding oneself that the sense is one of astral unveiling following a meteorological disturbance. And yet one fails (praise the Lord!) to be visually aware of any astral body.”

  Now, for the first time I noticed that—exactly as Croyd was roundabout saying—not only were there no animals in this Arcadia, but in the divine sky that overbowled this Arcadia there was no sun! I inquired, “Does one project the hypothesis (peace, it’s wonderful!) that parties hereabouts constructing a hallucination for one’s bemusement may have neglected one or two elements of circumstantiality?”

  “Perfection is (Allah bismillah!) elusive. Each of us desparately entertains a concept of one’s locus as one’s birthplace. Tannen, do you feel at home, here on the Gaza Strip?”

  “Blessed be he, yea!”

  “Chloris?”

  “Factory.”

  “I too feel nostalgically fulfilled (beatitude!) here on my Nigel III. Now . . . your comment?”

  Pause. Then it came into me to observe, “One nymph or one satyr would make all of us wrong.”

  Croyd considered me. Then he pointed.

  Three hysterical nude nymphs ran out of the forest in a cluster, pursued by a grinning, grunting, goaty s
atyr. We watched electrified. The nymphs, well ahead of the satyr, stopped and huddled in consultation. Then, as the satyr galloped down upon them, the girls deployed three ways into a spread pattern, diverging swiftly from each other. Confused, the satyr paused, looked in turn at each departing rump, squatted in the grass, buried face in arms, began to sob.

  Croyd warned, “One would be well-advised to disregard special attractions which (gaudeamus igitur!) would tend to disrupt conceptual dissociation.”

  Nymphs and satyr vanished.

  The entire scene went negative: shadows became lights, lights shadows.

  Coughing, apologetically, Croyd asserted, “I was testing.”

  I suggested, “You may have overtested a little.”

  Then, out-of-hand, down ceased to be down for Croyd: he rotated before me and semistabilized himself upside down; absurdly, he hung from sky by his upward feet, with his head just even with my own; transiently I noticed that in this position his shocked mouth with its downturned corners appeared grotesquely to be grinning at me. He cried to me, “They are playing with me. Ill try to recover, but you may lose me. Go back into Chloris; I may be able to contact her. If you don’t hear from me in believable time, take off and try to get home . . . ” His voice went garbled-negative.

  And his image went negative.

  And he vanished.

  I stared at the place where he had been, feeling lonely and cold and old. Then I considered my Gaza Arcadia-in-negative. A droll reflection saved me from despair: praise the Lord, the illusion of oxygen had not gone negative! This drollery provisionally comforted me, as Croyd’s presence would have done; and I reminded myself to obey him and enter Chloris.

  Inside, I demanded of her, “Are your sensors following him?”

  She replied, “Negative.”

  I told her, “In present context, that needs clarification.”

  She, curt: “My sensors have lost him. I doubt that they will find him.”