Life Force, page 23
"Hello, Beauty," Teddy whispered.
For perhaps a full minute, they watched the motionless white globe. "Do you see movement in it?" Teddy whispered.
"I think so. Can't tell, really."
Silence.
Then, "Matt?" a note of fright in her voice.
"I feel it. Shush."
Loneliness. A tortured, burning, fuming landscape, boiling lava, noxious atmosphere, sulfurous, acidic, unbreathable. Slow change and a sense of being suspended in time. Rains. Rains needing an adjective in multiples of torrential. Great and thunderous discharges of lightning. A gradual clearing to leaden skies and silt-filled, soupy seas and still the loneliness until, in muddy, silted darkness, there was an awareness of life, tiny, insignificant. Swift movement and again that feeling of being lost in time and there were green things, odd, primitive, but living, and a sense of peace, of fulfillment that saw change after change to giant, fernlike plants that grew and faded and then the blue skies of beauty and clouds and familiar scenes. Familiar vegetation and a languorous feeling of pure contentment, slow movement, the hint of something, the smell of flowers, a sense of mission. The work. The work was all, and plenty, and simplicity, and euphoria. A jar. The far off, lonely thunder of a G.D. And with a shock, she was looking at herself, and at Matt.
"Matt?"
"I see. I see. Be quiet."
Sorrow, pain. A dead, pollen-covered body beside a huge tree. Understanding and such joy as had never been known, a feeling of vibrant life unlike anything experienced and the herds, living, breathing, rich, red blood coursing, a feeling of completeness and a yearning never to be lonely again.
Pain again, frustration. Jack's intense desire to teach a zebra colt to run for its life. Puzzlement, and a mental wail that hurt the head. The musky feel of sexual arousal and a rather embarrassing view of Earl and Kerry. She understood. Subconsciously they had wanted just that, but would not admit it and we made it possible to know why they were unfulfilled and why it hurt us so, for we are not prepared for such powerful emotions and the rich, red blood draining from the lifeless form of the big animal and an outside feeling of shock and hatred and the desire for punishment coming from above.
"From us," Matt whispered.
The incredible pain of knowing that Beauty's animals could be slaughtered for, unthinkable, food, and the trees pushed down by huge machines and millions of the pain sources, humans, ripping, tearing, killing animals, and—blackness.
The globe was motionless, no movement visible inside.
"Oh, Beauty," Teddy said, "how it must have hurt you to do what you felt you must do."
In her head was a moment of agony and she gasped.
"It's all right now," Teddy said. "We'll explain. The numbers of humans on Beauty will always be limited. There'll be more and more animals."
Pleasure.
A feeling of finality, of good-bye, and yet the sphere was still there.
"Good-bye?" Teddy asked. "Because Matt and I will be leaving in a few months?"
More.
"I don't understand," Teddy said.
"They've found a way to block contact with humans," Matt said. "There will be no more contact, ever."
The globe bobbed up, down, and then was streaking for the cliffs, disappearing before it reached the top.
"Well," Matt said, "we have encountered our first intelligent alien species."
"So beautiful," Teddy said. "No hint of how they came into being, but they were here when the planet was young, when the surface was still molten, when the oceans formed, for how many billions of years alone, and then the first life, the tiny, primitive plants of the ocean and more billions of years and now the animals. And all they want is to help, to do the work. They pollinated everything, Matt, what a massive work, and now—"
"How will they help the animals?"
"I wonder," Teddy said. "It gives them great contentment just to feel life. What will they do?"
"If they protect the grass eaters, they'll kill the carnivores," Matt said. "If they choose only the old and feeble for lion or cheetah food they'll interfere with the process of natural selection."
"No, they won't. They understand now."
"We could learn so much from them. How a solar system is formed. How a planet develops. How life comes into being."
"But the human mind, its emotions, they're too strong for them," Teddy said. "It hurts."
"Maybe they'll change their minds in the future, contact someone again," Matt said.
"I don't think so. It was so final."
"Do we tell the others about this?" Matt asked.
"No," she said quickly, and wondered if that was her own thought or if— "No."
It was an exciting time in the development of Beauty. Before the birth of Teddy's baby there were bird songs in the mornings, the buzz of insects. Andrew Reznor compromised, for the moment, on one of his pet hobby horses and introduced only nectar-drinking mosquitoes. On flowering Beauty, there was never a shortage of nectar. Matt caught a five-pound bass from a little lake near Africa House. Seal herds were to be seen at specific places along the continental shores, but one had to know where to look to find any of the animals, for it would be many years before the natural birthrates raised the numbers of any species enough to fill their habitats.
Beauty became a favorite stop for galactic officials and Reznor's private sector friends and acquaintances. Several times a year the animals of Beauty starred in documentaries broadcast on one world or another. Scientists from all the settled worlds waited in line to study and observe. And Cassie Frost's chimps, flourishing in Africa, began to build woven shelters to keep them out of the rain.
Matt, helping a tummy-swollen Teddy walk through some brush-littered chimp country, took one look at the shelters and said. "I think the next few centuries are going to be very interesting."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Andrew Reznor made a brief speech. Jack Frost toasted Teddy, Matt, and the new addition to their family, now one year old. Kerry cried. Cassie said, "You'll be back. You won't be able to stand not knowing what my monkeys are going to do next."
It was time to go. The new ship, called Tinker's Belle, waited on the pad. She was state of the art. She had a built-in nursery and Teddy had had to limit the number of gifts, lest the room be packed solid. The first human children born on Beauty had been spoiled and pampered by dozens of self-styled aunts and uncles and younger cousins.
"We'll have small but nice schools here," Cassie said. "So when you're through transing around the universe and want to settle down—"
"There'll always be a place for you," Reznor said, which was not a worthless promise, since applications for resident work on Beauty outnumbered vacancies by the thousands, even with the facilities designed to study and tend the animal life growing.
Matt was slightly hungover next day when he and his little family boarded Belle. Teddy had prolonged their leavetaking until Beauty's sun was ducking below the western horizon. Twilight came quickly as Cassie and Kerry said one last good-bye to the child. Night came while Matt, with a new life for which he was responsible, was being extra careful with the takeoff check lists. Belle lifted into the darkness, before the rise of the moon.
"Matt, hold at about five thousand feet and drift over the plains," Teddy said.
"One last look?"
"You don't mind?"
Belle's lonely thunder swept, growling, over the plain. Resting herds didn't bother to move. The thunder reverberated from the far cliffs.
"Matt," Teddy whispered, "Matt, look."
He had already seen.
Below, like thousands of stationary fireflies, the white dots hovered over the standing, grazing, dozing animals.
"Each of them has one," Teddy said. "Each of them has an animal, and they're not lonely anymore."
"They showed themself to us, to you," Matt said. "Will anyone else see it, ever?"
"I don't know." Teddy scurried to the cradle at the rear of the bridge, loosed restraining straps, pulled the child from the cradle and held her up to the port. "Look, Beauty," she said. "You're so young, and I'm sure you'll never remember, but look."
A globe, far below, dashed into motion and for a moment she was puzzled. Then, judging by the speed and the abrupt halt, Teddy realized that she'd witnessed a kill, perhaps by Nefertiti or one of her cubs. She felt only a momentary sadness. Life went on, and it would grow and develop and fill Beauty as it had once filled the Earth.
She put her child back into the cradle. Matt said, "Up we go." Belle rose smoothly. The child laughed at the sensation and then, only minutes later, while the ship was clicking and purring as Matt programmed a trans, she was asleep.
Teddy used the viewers on maximum magnification . She could see only the infrared shadows of the herds. She could not see the globes.
"Ready?" Matt asked.
"Ready," she said, taking her seat. "I can't see the globes."
"No. Here we go."
Belle transed. As the stars appeared again, in unfamiliar patterns, both Matt and Teddy looked back toward the cradle to see how their child had taken her first trans.
The one-year-old girl named Beauty Tinker slept peacefully. Neither her mother nor her father could see the globe that hovered one foot over Beauty Tinker's auburn head, from which emanated the sweet, uncomplicated, nonpainful life force of a child.
Zach Hughes, Life Force
