Complete Short Fiction, page 292
It would have been nice if everyone could live in deep valleys, but people also needed water, and for some reason the valleys which contained enough water also had enough oxygen to be dangerous. Mapper had wondered why, but no one had been able to satisfy her curiosity. It might be a law of nature which no one understood yet, which would make the quest hopeless, but so far such valleys seemed still worth seeking on the chance.
So people went on mapping.
Having reached nearly level ground she stored the ladder where it could be found again easily, and headed south. There was no stream to follow, but the landscape was becoming familiar, or at least similar in detail to places she had heard about. By the time the sun had brightened from deep green to yellow there was no more doubt about where she was, and she paused to think.
There would be no more serious climbing between here and the Station. It would definitely be possible to carry the stranger down by the route she had just had taken—in fact, the only place the ladder would be really needed was that very first drop from the shelf where they had been trapped. This meant that, while the implement would have to be carried back up, it would not be needed again on the descent; only the stranger would have to be carried.
But would this be worth doing? The Station would not be equipped to repair the alien body. Maybe Mapper should simply go on and get her own damage attended to, and then go back for the other with much more convenience. On the other hand, there was the water question; the being had had some use for the liquid, however strange the use seemed to be, and there was none on the shelf. Mapper could sympathize with that situation; she was no stranger to thirst in the surveying profession. There would certainly be water at the station, and maybe the creature had enough food for a while at least. Maybe, for that matter, the people at the station would know how to get in touch with others of its kind.
There was, on another hand, no need to go on to find the station; she knew where it was, now. It could not be reached before dark, and repairs to leg and arm would take two or three additional days. She could also deliver her egg during that time, but that was a minor consideration; it did not yet interfere with travel.
Reasoning was inconclusive; she made a random decision. She turned abruptly and retraced her steps to the ladder.
The sun was green again, now descending toward the Station, and even though climbing would this time be possible in the dark since the way was known, the upward travel would be harder and more rest be needed. The pauses would not, of course, be boring; patching together the details which had been observed on the way down with what had already been mapped would be recreation, especially since some of the patching would still have to be made by inference. Thinking was fun.
She hurried in order get above the heavy vegetation of the valley floor before the sun set; it would be good to check some of the more casual observations made on the way down, even though there might be enough oxygen for dangerous animals if she went very far. This was a standard risk, not worth very much attention. She could, after all, still use three of her knives.
As it happened, one at a time was enough. The carnivores this deep in the valley were larger, clumsier, and didn’t hunt in packs, so she was not even very tired when the climb was resumed at daybreak.
Tired or not, upward progress was much slower, and the sun had set again before the last stage, requiring the ladder, was reached. It seemed best not to call aloud; the alien was not looking over the edge—there was no obvious reason why it should be expecting anyone—and it was clearly inconvenient for it to crawl. Once again Mapper wondered why it had bothered to do the non-repair to its leg.
It was fully dark—the world had no moon, and at the best of times its atmosphere was too hazy for starlight to produce much more than a faint general glow—when the ladder was set up. The climb was made as carefully and quietly as possible, not so much out of consideration for the injured alien as because the ladder was shaky enough to demand full attention. For the first time it occurred to Mapper to wonder whether it would hold the two of them at once.
Maybe the trip back up had been wasted after all, but there was only one way to tell.
All the eyes that could be brought to bear swiveled carefully over the shelf the moment they were high enough. No more cutting of shoots seemed to have been done; all that had still been standing when the surveyor had departed still showed faintly against the vaguely luminous sky. The alien was not visible, but was probably lying down if it were anywhere at all in the line of sight. Mapper dragged herself over the edge and decided to rest until there was enough light.
Well before sunrise she could see the creature. It was lying motionless near the stand of plant life which had provided splints and ladder. At first it seemed dead, but as the light increased, its breathing motions could be seen; it had not shut down completely.
It had, however, changed visibly and surprisingly. At the time of Mapper’s departure its inner skin—the surface exposed largely by removal of the strap material from the upper part of its body, and partly by rips resulting from the fall—had shown numerous injuries. There had been scrapes, cuts and tears leaking nearly black body fluid. This had hardened to form a seal within a few minutes, as had Mapper’s over her similar injuries. This had not been at all surprising, though the alien’s smearing of a pasty material over the areas afterward was hard to understand.
Now, however, there was no sign of these injuries, though the leg was still splinted. Mapper was dumfounded.
She remembered perfectly well where each scratch and scrape had been; after all, she had a surveyor’s memory. If that had been in doubt the growing light showed paler patches at the damage sites. The uninjured integument had also changed a little; now it was darker than before.
But what had repaired the injuries? No other aliens could possibly have arrived with reconstruction equipment. There were no traces of anyone, other than the creature and Mapper herself, having moved around in the dust and rubble of the shelf; she remembered every mark they had left. Besides, why would anyone repair the minor damage and then not only ignore the leg but depart leaving the creature itself behind? It made no sense. Could the substance the creature had smeared on the scabs have been responsible for their disappearance? Hardly; repairs weren’t made that way or that quickly. New growth had to be directed.
The only thing that made sense was perhaps not impossible, but certainly unbelievable, at first. It did not occur to her for several minutes, and when it did she froze momentarily in shock.
The creature had built-in repair powers.
At least, it could handle minor damage. The leg seemed beyond it, or maybe that just took longer. The former seemed more likely by far, now that Mapper considered the whole matter. After all, repairing skin damage might be just a minor advance over having body fluids seal their leaks, which anyone could do.
But that settled it. The creature would have to be brought to the station, if only as evidence of what could be done. Self-repair would obviously be useful; she had no idea why no one had thought of incorporating it in Person design. Maybe it would even be possible on broken limbs. Mapper was going to get a really unheard of repair job this time, especially since there seemed no reason why the repair crew themselves shouldn’t share the credit.
If the alien’s broken leg-bone healed itself on the way, it would be even more impressive. It might be amusing, later, for Mapper to break an arm or a leg deliberately before witnesses, and watch their amazement as it healed. If it didn’t take too long, of course.
The alien seemed nearly dead already; at least, it had shown no signs of awareness. The limp body might be awkward to carry, but there was a solution now for that.
Briefly, Mapper thought of borrowing the odd knife which had sectioned the trees so easily, but decided familiar equipment was better. The chlorine-breather was strong enough to do the job with her own knives, and minutes later four two-meter lengths of wood lay beside the strange, still form.
There was plenty of cord left in the creature’s possession and Mapper used it all. There was no objection, or sound which might conceivably have implied an objection, as she tied one end of a strand to one of the new splints and began winding it around the body and the poles. Perhaps the creature was nearly dead, which would simplify matters. The winding took a long time; the cord was in many separate pieces and one end had to be tied to another every minute or two. It was lucky the alien had demonstrated the art of knotting.
By the time the job was finished, forty or fifty turns of parachute line encased body and splints. It should be easy enough to carry the package now with only two arms, leaving one and a fraction free for ladder and if necessary for knife work.
Mapper rested for a while after completing the wrap-up. All her strength might be needed for the ladder maneuver, which would have to be done slowly and carefully.
It was neither. Before the intended rest had lasted a hundred breaths squeals sounded from far up the rockfall, and for the first time Mapper realized what could have happened while she was gone. It was lucky any of the alien was here at all. As quickly as her strength permitted, she dragged the bundle toward the head of the ladder. They reached it, but before any maneuvering could be started, nearly two dozen oxygen-users were upon them.
Again she thought of borrowing the alien knife, but this time it was unavailable under several turns of cord, and three of her own blades went into service. Fatigue and perhaps the approaching egg delivery kept them from moving as fast as usual, and several times one or another of the attackers came close enough to get a quick bite.
Even in the excitement of battle, Mapper noticed that the ones which nipped out bits of the alien and retreated to swallow them almost at once went into convulsions. Cause and effect were easy enough to connect, but it still seemed best to kill the things in the usual fashion. Dead or alive, the body was needed for evidence, and not enough of it might be left if it were used for poison. Besides, the attackers weren’t being choosy; she had to defend herself. The knives continued to slash. This time the affair went on until the last of the things was dead; a few of them had gotten nips out of Mapper and this, not surprisingly to the native, drove them into a feeding frenzy.
There were more squeals from above as the last of the group was slashed apart, and with no trace of caution she eased the bundle over the edge onto the ladder. She held the burden with two hands and used the other two, including the one on the broken arm, for climbing. The descent was not quite at free fall speed but was far from casual. Once down, the bundle was thrust urgently to one side and the ladder pulled away from the rock face. Moments later louder squeals could be heard and pointed, razor-toothed heads appeared at the verge. None of the creatures appeared willing to jump.
Two did indeed go over the edge, probably being pushed by the crowd, but Mapper’s knives were ready and each attacker reached the ground in two pieces. The others promptly retreated, and the surveyor’s attention went back to her burden. This seemed not to be dead after all.
The dark body fluid was oozing from the places where the oxygen-users had nipped, so circulation was still operating. Also, the eyes were open and sounds were coming from its mouth.
Jerry had no notion of what had occurred in the hours since Creak had left. He was not suffering from infection, luckily—it was luck; no Paintbox organism could have managed his body chemistry, of course, but there was no reason to suppose his own clothing and equipment were sterile. He was nevertheless in bad shape. The broken leg had swollen since it had been splinted, and even with the padding its circulation was suffering. He had eaten a few crumbs—nearly all he had left—since Creak had vanished below, and drunk more than was really wise of the water he had left. He had tried to be firm with himself on that point, he had heard that thirst was about the worst way to go, and he had off and on been trying to decide when it would be best to remove his filter mask. The trouble was that breathing chlorine, while much quicker than dying of dehydration, was also extremely painful.
He had been too deeply unconscious—it was not normal sleep—to be aware of the native’s bundling him up, and only slowly was he realizing now how helpless he was. He couldn’t touch his mask if he had wanted to. He couldn’t even get at his drinking tube, and there was some water left. There had to be.
His arms and legs hurt in several places, though he had no way of knowing about the bites and couldn’t move his head freely enough to see what was wrong. He wondered briefly whether he had been delirious and the Paintboxer had tied him up for his own security. There was no way to ask, and Snow had never liked futile talk, so he didn’t try. He remained silent while the native gathered him up, settled him in two of its uninjured arms, and started to walk away from the ladder, in the direction in which it had disappeared nearly forty hours earlier.
They were over three hundred meters lower when Jerry Snow uttered his last carefully considered words.
“Creak is taking me down into Death Valley. I’m tied up with parachute cord and can’t do a thing about it. If he ever repeats these words to anyone who understands them, please tell him I don’t blame him, even if I don’t know why he’s doing it. At least I can be sure he doesn’t want me for food, and I don’t suppose I could blame him if he did. I like to believe he’s trying to rescue me, and doesn’t have any idea what will happen when we get down to nearly zero oxygen. I hope the filter pump merely cuts out and doesn’t blow up. That would be quicker than suffocating, 1 suppose, but not much, and there’s no need for him to get hurt too. And I never had much chance anyway. The flyer probably did blow up. Even if it only crashed, the stuff I was carrying to Port Crayon will have to be replaced. At least, suffocating will be better than thirst. Don’t blame Creak.
“Don’t blame any Paintboxers. Even if some of them know about oxygen, there’s no reason they all should. My will is in the green pack—”
It went on for many minutes, less and less coherently, and ended with; “Hurry up. Creak. I’m getting thirsty.”
“Pilot Swift was generous,” the Station Director remarked. “Mapper of course did not know enough details about oxygen breathers and is not to blame, but those of us responsible for communication and record updating do have some responsibility.”
“I can’t see that,” answered the human pilot. “There was only the tiniest chance of Mapper’s ever meeting one of us in her existence, and you have better things to teach your people.”
“Curious facts are always worth knowing, and the fact that for your kind death is not reversible is certainly curious. I don’t know how I can explain this to Mapper; she already has a problem.
“What’s that?”
“She discovered that Swift could repair damage to his own body, and wants me to include this quality in her present rebuilding. She’s quite indignant that this has never been done before, since it’s so obviously desirable quality. I’m not sure I can convince her—”
“Maybe I can help. I’m not too much of a biologist, and we were long enough recognizing your biological nature, goodness knows, but it’s clear enough now. By our standards you’re nanotech machines—pseudolife, not real life. You didn’t evolve naturally; you were planned. That was very, very hard for us to believe, at least partly because there are still members of our own species who believe the same thing about us.
“I have had the process of evolution explained to me. It makes sense, and answers one very old question.”
“What’s that?”
“The origin of the Creators. Obviously they couldn’t have made themselves, and assuming that other creators made them simply pushes the problem back a step without solving it.”
“Like the old panspermia theory.”
“Possibly. I haven’t heard of that. In any case, if there is a natural explanation for the origin of at least some life, it’s worth knowing—but how does this help my problem with Mapper?”
“It should help her see why you can’t give her the healing option. The ability had to be part of natural life all along, almost from the first autocatalytic and self-duplicating molecules. No life form could last long enough to reproduce without it except by the wildest luck, so it’s there all through any planet’s life history. It involves carrying the complete plans for the organism in every cell.
“Our bodies carry such plans already. We use them when we grow eggs.”
“Of course, but are they in every body cell? I’d bet you your have them only in reproductive organs.”
“Of course. Where else would they be useful?”
“In healing. That’s what I’m trying to explain. Do you know, by the way, why your creators made you?”
“Of course. There are very explicit records, but all that’s quite separate from the instructions telling how to produce new people without using eggs and how to repair damaged ones. No doubt we’ll need to study your own design before we can incorporate this self-repair process. I can see that the detail information must be enormous.”
“We’ll be glad to help, if you really want. I’d bet, though, that if you did it’d have to be at the expense of a lot of things like your perfect recording ability and, most especially, your reversible death. In a way, you’re relatively simple machines, which can be shut off, repaired, and restarted. We aren’t. Life isn’t. It doesn’t normally stop all at once. Some chemical processes keep running longer than others, so many side reactions occur, ones which don’t take place while we’re alive because the wanted ones come first. Very quickly a point is reached where there’s no reversing and getting back on course. We’re really dead.
“I’d guarantee that if you do manage to work out and incorporate the self-repair option, your own deaths will also become irreversible. So don’t let Mapper worry or feel guilty or envious. Swift had no real chance anyway, and his suffocation involved far less pain than being eaten bit by bit or dying of thirst would have. I guarantee he’d have preferred it the way it happened. Tell Mapper that. It should stop her from feeling guilty as well as discourage her ambition for a self-repair rebuild.”
