22
When he had pulled the scaled skin of the fish away from the flesh, theflesh away from the bones, and eaten his fill, Cal lay back on the rockagain, to doze, to continue his search for a means of communicating.
He was now sharply aware of Their presence, of Their urgency, of Theirlong patience. Awareness! Once man had got over his greedy delight inoccupying more and more of the universe simply because he could, toprotect himself against the cosmic loneliness that must follow, he toowould be searching for awareness.
But he would define it in his own terms, and pass it by if it did notmeet those terms.
That there was some other intelligence which had found man instead, Caldid not doubt. The experiment of Eden, the manipulation of natural laws,the denial of physical tools--for what purpose? To clear away the debriswhich prevented communication of awareness as They defined it?
There was a trace, a minor trace of awareness in man not dependent uponthe tools and artifacts of physical science--extra-sensory perception,psi. Underdeveloped, because with physical tools its development hadbeen made unnecessary? Because having found the answers with physicaltools, man stopped looking for answers other than these?
Was there, then, a science of controlling things, forces, without theuse of physical tools? Was there a road of transition from the crudemanipulation of things and forces through tools to a manipulationwithout them? There was precedent in man's science. The elaboratewirings of the first bulky and crude electronic sets, that gave way to aprinted diagram of such wirings on a card to obtain the same result?
A step farther? The visual picture, the mental image of the diagram toobtain the same result? But how?
To one whose total orientation is through the use of physical tools (forthe material printed on the card diagram was the physical carrier of thecurrent) how to cause the current to follow the mental image of thatdiagram? With voice and music bathing one's senses simply because onethought of the diagram of a receiver? How?
He felt like the turkey come up against the obstruction of a fence toolow to justify the effort of flying over it. Instead of flying, he waswalking around and around, looking for an opening, walking in an endlesscircle.
Circle?
Excitedly, he climbed down from the rock and headed for a patch of baresand at the river's edge.
In every framework of thought which man had ever devised, the circle wasprominent, vital. It played its part in every creed of every race, ofevery time. It was as essential to the ancient arts of magic as to thecurrent methods of science. It played its part in the movement ofplanets, the shape of stars, perhaps the essence of the total universe.
Man might be too didactic in requiring that awareness develop a physicalscience comparable to his own, but surely awareness, whatever form ittook, would know the circle.
He sank down on his haunches beside the smooth sand, and with the tip ofhis finger he quickly drew a circle.
The furrow, scratched in the sand, did not close or smooth out!
He sat back and waited. Nothing happened. It was almost as if theinvisible intelligence were saying, "All right. You are aware of acircle. That was obvious to us from your artifacts. What else do youknow?"
He leaned forward, and as nearly as he could estimate, he dotted thecenter of the circle with a finger, then scratched a radius to theperimeter. It stayed. To one side he drew another line, approximatingthe radius and in parenthesis he drew a small 2. Beside this he wroteR^2. He drew an equals sign. He scratched the pi sign.
Then he drew another circle and with the palm of his hand he smoothedall its interior. That should be plain enough. The symbols stayed. Theyunderstood his mathematics, then. The equation seemed undisturbed, yetthere was something wrong with it. He had to look closely at the sandbefore he saw what it was.
The = had changed to : !
Why had they changed the meaning by substituting "proportionate to" for"equals"? He felt a flash of exasperation. Well sure, without tools hecould not draw a perfect circle, nor two of them entirely equal. It waspedantic of them to split hairs over that? He must practice, withouttools, to draw a perfect circle?
Or was that running around inside his low fence?
He looked down at the sand, and saw the entire scratching was nowsmoothed out. Apparently he was on the wrong track. Hadn't got what theymeant.
He wrote again in the sand: "pi = 3.14159265...."
Again = changed to : .
Again he felt his flash of exasperation. It must be obvious by hisstring of dots that he knew pi had never been exactly resolved. Theywere being too pedantic. He must exactly resolve it? Yet the numberscould be continued to infinity and never exactly resolved. He lookeddown again, and the equation was gone.
Wrong track again.
He sat forward, hugged his knees, and stared into the water.
The equation had never been exactly resolved, yet man used it as aconstant, an absolute. An obvious fallacy. Was the difference betweenphysical science and psi science based in this insignificant differencein exactness? Try something else. See what happens. There was anequation which had proved its effectiveness, upon which the wholescience of atomics was based.
"E = MC^2," he wrote.
Again = changed to : .
What were they saying? That the fallacy lay in using the equals sign?That the science of psi was one of proportion. But equals was one of thepossible proportions. Had we become walled in our low fence because wewere too dependent upon the exact balance? Been satisfied to find thatanswer, and therefore stopped looking for the possibilities inherent inunbalanced equations?
He looked down at the symbols again half expecting to see them erased.But they were still there. So he was starting on the right track. Butwait.
Before his eyes he saw the C^2 smooth out, disappear. Only "E : M"remained. Were they saying that dependence upon constants was the lowfence? That man must learn to do without his firm absolutes? That wasthe ultimate in relativity: Energy is proportionate to matter. But soall-inclusive as to be too vague for use.
For more than three centuries now, controversy had raged over Einstein'suse of C^2 in his expression. Some held that it was a product of histime, that he was able to make only one step beyond classical physicswhere all things must be related to a fixed value. Others held that itsinclusion was a deliberate fallacy; that Einstein, by his other work,had shown he knew it was a fallacy; that, tongue in cheek, he insertedit into his equation in full knowledge that his fellow scientists of hisday could not even bear to think of the awesome concept of thingswithout orientation to an absolute; that he knew they would reject himentirely, refuse even to consider his thought unless he catered thatmuch to their superstitions.
The need of the absolute was not mathematical or scientific, butemotional. Man was still tortured by his determination to be the centerof things, himself the fixed absolute! The need of a familiar, fixedcave where he might run and hide, close himself in securely when thechaos of storm outside became too frightening to bear. The need of afixed absolute, whether in philosophy or science, a fixed spot thatwould not shift.
The science of psi, then, was based in a willingness to shift?
He looked down at the equation, to see if he were still on the track.
It had changed again. Now it read "E{d}M": The form of the function ofenergy to matter is variable.
Quickly, another change. "Df(em)": The form of the function and theindependent variable of the function vary together.
Still another: "E = f(M)": There is a general relationship of energy tomatter.
And then: "F(e,m) = 0": There is a general unspecified relationshipbetween energy and matter.
He slapped his hand down on the sand in frustration.
"All right," he said. "You've made your point. And it means about asmuch as if I said to the turkey, 'All you have to do is fly'."
There was a stir behind him. He turned his head and saw Louie. A deepsigh, almost a sob came from Louie as he stared down at the symbols i
nthe sand.
"They talked to _you_," Louie said brokenly. "I wanted only to serveThem, but it was to _you_ They talked."
And all the tragedy of his life was contained therein.
Cal sprang to his feet, and put his arms around the other man'sshoulders. The two of them, the bitter and the sympathetic, looked downat the sand. The symbols were still changing, and now read "There is aninfinity of relationships between matter and energy, an infinity offorms to be taken by matter as you control the energy."
The signs were wiped out, and the sense of Their presence was gone. Calfelt the withdrawal, the sense of a lesson being over. He did notregret it, he had enough to think about. But first, there was Louie,racked with broken sobbing.
Here was a man whose life had been a search for certainties, absolutesthat would not shift under the weight of his questioning. No doubt inhis youth he had turned to the religions of the day--and found them atissue of rationalizations without contact in reality. Then toscience--and found it, too, constantly shifting in its interpretations,making new evaluations as evidence discounted the old. The shock oflanding on Eden to drive him back into childhood interpretationsagain--at last, the clear evidence that had been denied his belief inyouth.
Wholehearted in his belief of Them, yet it was not to him They hadtalked.
"Louie," Cal said slowly. "If you were lonely, very lonely, if you hadsearched through the years for companionship, and thought you might havefound it, would it please you to have that companion drop to his knees,grovel before you? Would this be your idea of companionship?
"What manner of monstrous egotism would require that? What but theincredible vanity of primitive man, to whom life meant nothing more thanconquering or being conquered, could imagine such conduct would bepleasing to another intelligence?
"We are men, Louie. If, in our loneliness, we found anotherintelligence, wouldn't we want an equal exchange instead of abasement?The use of that intelligence to know, to understand, instead of a denialof it?"
Louie twisted out of Cal's embracing arm, and ran stumbling toward thedepths of the forest.