The Plurality of Worlds, page 3
“The neo-Platonists and Aristotelian diehards have a saying,” Drake muttered.
“As above, so below—but this seems to me to be a very different world from the one we know. Men of that sort are mostly monists, though, who think that the moon is a mere lamp planted in the skies by providence to ameliorate the darkness of night in suitably teasing fashion, and that the stars are candles disposed to foretell our futures. Master Dee is no monist, is he—despite that he wrote a book called Monas Hieroglyphica?”
“He was converted to pluralism thereafter,” Thomas said. “Propadeumata Aphorisitica is his definitive statement. He is committed to the infinity of space and of worlds—and when I tell him of our adventure, he will also be committed to the infinite variety of form and virtue. These are intelligent beings, Francis—including the thing inside me—and I’m praying hard that they might be more virtuous in their treatment of fellow intelligent beings than the great majority of men. Take care!” It was not he that had pronounced the final words, although they had been spoken aloud. Thomas was abruptly snatched from his bed, and Drake was seized.
“Have no fear!” said Thomas’s interior voice, silent again but still voluble.
“They are doing as I have asked, and are taking us to a visitor from the galactic core.
With luck, he will order your release.”
Thomas and Sir Francis Drake were dragged from the room then, but they were both being held quite gently. They were no worse than lightly bruised as they were hustled along one winding corridor after another, through an interminable labyrinth. Thomas’s impression was that they were going deeper into the bowels of the moon, but he could not be sure.
“Where are they taking us?” Drake shouted back to him, his tall but slender captor having drawn some twelve or fifteen yards ahead of Thomas’s stouter guardian.
“To a queen’s chamber, I believe,” Thomas replied, retaking control of his own vocal cords.
“I have heard that ants have queens,” Drake said. “None as pretty as my darling Jane, though.”
“Is she your darling?” Thomas called back, although he could feel the ether-creature’s impatience to revert to silent conversation.
“She will be,” Drake said, “if I get out of this alive with the means to return to Earth—always provided that I tell my tale before Ned and Walt tell theirs. There’s naught like a little gooseflesh to animate affection, and I think I have the means now to make her majesty’s flesh crawl prodigiously.”
Thomas was ashamed to feel a sudden pang of resentment at the observation that Drake—who was, after all, five years his senior and no great beauty—had not thought to include him with de Vere and Raleigh in the list of his rivals for the queen’s affection. Such was the burden of humble birth, and perhaps the myth of the mathematician’s disdain for common passion.
Thomas now had the opportunity to see for himself that the giant inhabitants of the moon did not all resemble insects, although its insectile population was exceedingly various; there were, as Drake had briefly mentioned, creatures like slugs the size of elephants, with shells on their backs like mahouts’ turrets, and many other creatures shelled like lobsters, whelks, or barnacles. There were legions of chimeras clad in what Thomas could not help likening to Medieval suits of armor designed for the protection of entities with far too many limbs.
“Why, this must be a busy port or a great capital,” Thomas said, though not aloud. “A cultural crossroads where many races commingle and interact. If the moon is hollow throughout, honeycombed with tunnels, how far must its pathways extend, and how shall its hosts be numbered?”
“Very good, Thomas,” his invader said. “I’m assisting you as best I can, but you’ve a naturally calm mind, which makes it a great deal easier. Thank God you have no relevant phobias—they’d be a lot less easy to counter than your allergies.”
“You talk a deal of nonsense,” Thomas said, “for someone using a borrowed tongue.”
“Aye,” the creature replied, “but I’ll make sense of it for you if I can. I must, for we’ve work to do here, now that the True Civilization is aware of your new capability. They must have studied you, I dare say, but they could not have thought you capable of building an ethership for another four hundred years—and study conducted at a distance is always calmer than a close confrontation, where differences stand out that distinguish you from burrowers and ethereals alike. We must convince an influential philosopher that you are harmless still, and likely to remain so.”
“Have you a name, guest?” Thomas demanded. “I feel that I am at every possible disadvantage here. Or will you name yourself Legion, and make things even worse?”
“I am no possessive demon,” the creature assured him. “I shall be as polite a guest as circumstances permit, and will take my leave before I overstay the necessity of my visit. You may call me Lumen.”
“As in light, or cavity?” Thomas retorted.
“A little of both. We are chimerical creatures by nature, and our aims are syncretic. I cannot bind your race to the True Civilization at present, but I must persuade someone close to its heart that humankind might one day be so bound—if I fail, the consequences might be catastrophic.”
Thomas wanted to demand further clarification of this remarkable statement, but he did not have time. They had just arrived in a much larger cavern: a vast and crowded amphitheater, with terraces arranged in multitudinous circles about a central core.
“I told you so,” Drake shouted. It took Thomas several seconds to realize that his friend was referring to his assertion that an insect queen could never be as pretty as his darling Jane. Thomas had to agree, as he looked upon a vast individual, who was surely the queen of a hive, although her resemblance to an ant or bee was no greater than her resemblance to a moth or a centipede. Her ugliness in human eyes was spectacular in its extremity. She was laying eggs at the rate of one every ninety seconds, which acolytes carried away into tunnel-mouths dotting the rim of the central arena.
It was not the queen to whom the two prisoners were taken, though—it was to a group of individuals twenty-five or thirty strong, situated no closer to her head than her nether end, who were in conference in one of the inner ranks of the array of terraces. The majority were more mothlike than any other species Thomas had yet seen, conspicuously furry, with multifaceted eyes each larger than a human head; the minority were very varied indeed.
“Now,” said Thomas’s uninvited guest, “you must let me speak. The future of your nation, and perhaps your world, may depend on it.”
*
Thomas pulled himself together once he had been released, and tried to look one of the mothlike creatures squarely in the eyes, although the wide spacing of the compound aggregations made it difficult. Whether it was he or his passenger who had identified the significant member of the group Thomas could not tell. Drake was standing close beside him, but said nothing: his eyes were on Thomas, his captain.
“Very well, Sir Lumen,” Thomas said, silently, since his guest seemed to be waiting for explicit permission to proceed. “Speak—but tell me, I beg you, what you are saying and what replies you receive.”
His hands immediately became active, as did the multiple forelimbs of the lepidopteran monster.
“I am delighted to have the privilege of communicating with one who has come so far through the universal web,” the voice within him said, evidently translating what the hands it was guiding were attempting to convey in a very different language. “May I address you as Aristocles?” Then the internal voice changed its timbre entirely, to signify that it was translating a different gestural sequence. “You may,” the monster replied. “I suppose that it is a privilege of sorts for us, also, to converse with an ethereal in such a strange guise. We had not thought that such as you could have an interest in a being of this sort.”
Thomas, who still had control of some of his motor functions, tried to keep his eyes on the monster’s frightful face, although a certain instinctive repulsion added to the temptation to glance sideways to see what other creatures were passing along the terraces and to hazard guesses at what multifarious kinds of business they might be transacting.
“We are interested in all beings, whether they are ethereal, vaporous, liquid, or solid,” Lumen stated. “Nor do we discriminate between endoskeletal and exoskeletal formations. We are as intrigued by anomaly as you are.”
“We stand corrected,” Aristocles replied. “Your kind does not often descend to planetary surfaces, though—do you not find the thick and turbulent atmosphere of this world’s neighbor as inhospitable as we do?”
“We can move in air as in ether,” Lumen said. “It is uncomfortable, but it does no lasting damage if we do not linger long.”
“And the same is true of these bizarre creatures, I assume,” Aristocles replied.
“It will do you no lasting damage to dwell within the bonebag, provided that you do not linger long—but they cannot be as welcoming, in their capacity as hosts, as we soft-centered creatures are.”
The ether-creature made no reply to that teasing statement. Instead, it said:
“May I introduce Thomas Digges, esquire, in the service of Her Majesty Queen Jane of England? His companion is Sir Francis Drake. May I also ask what has become of the other three humans who were captured with them?”
“You may,” the mothlike creature replied, its politeness wholly feigned if the suggestive timbre of its mimic could be trusted. “Thomas Digges’ companions are unharmed, although one of them is direly fearful. He appears to believe that we and the Selenites are incarnations of pure evil.”
“I am glad that you understand these creatures well enough to be able to deduce that,” Lumen said—sarcastically, presuming the tone of the translation to be accurate. “John Field has a narrow opinion of what it means to be made in God’s image. He does not understand there are innumerable worlds scattered throughout the cosmos which exact different adaptations on their surface-dwellers and burrowers alike, and he thinks of images in purely formal terms.” Thomas blinked as some drifting miasma stung his eyes, and he felt his sinuses grow itchingly moist in response to some peculiar scent. He sniffed, as surreptitiously as he could—although it was obvious, on the basis of the merest glance about that astonishing arena, that few of the individuals gathered here could have any objection at all to the extrusion of surplus mucus.
“There are those even in the bosom of the True Civilization who have narrow opinions as to the will and whims of God,” Aristocles admitted. “If there is disagreement even within the ultimate harmony, what can we expect without? A race such as this must have a very peculiar notion indeed of the image in which they have been forged. With your permission, of course, we should like to take these specimens to the Center, so that they may be savored by a mature fleshcore.”
“Their flesh has been more than adequately sampled, thanks to the assiduousness of your gatherers,” Lumen replied. “As to their consciousness, I know it more intimately than you can, given the limited means you can apply to the task. Were you to return the five humans to the surface of their world—or let them make their own way home in their ethership—I would be willing to go with you to the Center, to enlighten the community of Great Fleshcores to the limit of their desire.”
“We thank you for your consideration,” said his adversary—Thomas was very certain that there was a powerful adversarial component to this exchange—”but ethereals cannot fully comprehend the transactions of more palpable beings. There is no substitute for tangible evidence. We must insist on taking the humans to the Center—but we are, of course, perfectly willing to bring them back again afterward, by means of the ninth-dimensional transmitter. There would be no inconvenience to those concerned.”
“Bargain with him,” Thomas said, hoping that the interruption would not break his guest’s concentration. “I’ll go, if my four companions are set free.”
“I take your point about there being no substitute for tangible evidence,” Lumen said, immediately. “To take all five humans on such a difficult journey would, however, be superfluous. One would be sufficient. The others are of no use, this one being the only one that can communicate with you effectively. Perhaps the others could wait here, until this one returns, and then they could all be returned safely to the surface of their world.”
“We disagree,” Aristocles said. “Your presence certainly adds to this one’s versatility in communication, but much has been learned by palpation of all five and comparison of the results. If our poor feelers can detect interesting differences, think what a mature Fleshcore might discover. As we have said, we are prepared to bring the five creatures back here when we are done with them. If it is their desire to risk a return trip in their ridiculous vessel, we shall not hinder them, even though we would not be optimistic about their prospects of success.”
“Have you noticed, Thomas, that we are the cynosure of all eyes in this exotic court?” Drake put in, evidently feeling that the time had come to intervene in the orgy of palpation.
Thomas spared a momentary glance for a mixed group of bug-like creatures some thirty feet away, who did indeed seem to be using their own intercourse merely as a pretext for studying the two humans, their eyes somehow suggestive of a fervent desire to supplement their curiosity through the medium of touch. If they were embarrassed by his sudden attention, they gave no sign that human senses could detect.
How they must envy this Aristocles! Thomas thought.
The mothlike creature’s compound eyes did not need to move sideways to look at Drake or the bugs, but Thomas observed that one of them had altered its attitude slightly. The creature seemed watchful, almost as if it expected that some danger might present itself any moment within the surrounding crowd.
“You know far more about the population of the inner galaxy than I do,” Lumen was saying, in the meantime, to the creature it called Aristocles. “Are these so extraordinary that you must take all five on such a long journey?”
“Very extraordinary indeed,” the monstrous insect replied. “To ethereals like yourself, all solid creatures must seem very much alike, as your various kinds seem to us, but we are very sensitive to differences of bodily structure and their spiritual concomitants.”
“I know that there are more than a hundred million worlds in the True Civilization,” Lumen said, its translation giving the impression now that it was debating for Thomas’s benefit, so that he might learn from the exchange of information, “and I know that there are a thousand million more that have not yet produced intelligent life. Thomas Digges’s world is by no means the only one to have produced endoskeletal species.”
“It is the only one on which endoskeletal life-forms have so obviously violated the normal course of evolution to the extent of producing intelligence,” Aristocles retorted. “If your host Thomas Digges did not exist, he would undoubtedly be considered impossible by the vast majority of our scholars.”
“What does the insect mean by the normal course of evolution?” Thomas could not stop himself asking, silently.
“Listen!” Lumen said, before switching back to translation. “I beg your pardon, my friend,” it went on, “but I am attempting to translate our conversation for the benefit of my host, and am inevitably forced to improvise within his language in order to express ideas that no Earthly philosopher has yet formulated. May I make a brief statement for his benefit?”
“If you think there is any profit in attempting to explain matters far beyond his comprehension,” the mothlike monster replied—very disdainfully, if the translation hit the right note.
“My host’s peers have not yet arrived at a true appreciation of the age of the Earth,” Lumen said, “and are caught up by the false supposition that God must have created every species independently. They do not know that the Divine Plan requires vast reaches of time to unfold, just as it requires vast reaches of space in which to extend. They do not know that life begins simply on every world it reaches, with creatures tinier than their primitive microscopes can yet reveal, becoming increasingly elaborate over time as species divide and become more complex.”
“This is neither the time nor the place to make a scrupulous examination of their foolishness,” Aristocles said.
“I beg your pardon,” Lumen said, “but it would be best for my host if he could learn some of this directly from you—who are, of course, much more knowledgeable on the subject than any mere ethereal, by virtue of your far greater interest. May I offer my own understanding of the situation, so that you might correct it as required?”
“Very well,” said Aristocles, “but be brief.”
“In the ordinary pattern,” Lumen went on, “which presumably reflects the proper working of the Divine Plan, exoskeletal forms always become dominant within any biosphere, a complex association evolving between the patterns associated with the fundamental groups of arthropods, crustaceans, and mollusks.”
“A complex harmony,” Aristocles interrupted. “We doubt that you can translate the concept of symbiosis, but if you are to explain, you must make it clear that True Civilization—and the true intelligence that sustains it—is a multifaceted whole. There is no known instance of True Civilization accommodating an exoskeletal species, let alone any instance—other than the planet this satellite orbits—of a world in which a single exoskeletal species has become dominant of all others, incapable of harmony even within its own ranks.” Thomas could not help turning to look at Drake in frank consternation, although Drake could not possibly understand the cause of his anxiety.
“No wonder Field is fearful,” Thomas muttered, unable to voice the thought to himself without also voicing it to his invader. “If I am obliged to tell him that he is not made in God’s image at all, but constitutes instead some kind of aberration within Creation…” He ceased subvocalising, in response to Lumen’s urgent command, but at some level he wondered vaguely whether Archbishop Foxe might take a different inference from the discovery that his own species was unique in a universe teeming with life.
