For another week, perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement hadlost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their completeretrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which theyhad retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of theiridea-content no longer required its use.
Only Tom and Jed seemed to retain their orientation to the past, theclarity of awareness. These two spent much time together, seemed alwaysavailable when Cal needed them, yet did not intrude upon his thought.Frank now seemed one with the colonists. Louie lived on the outskirts ofthe herd, near the colonists but not of them. He had ceased to exhort,warn, command, argue. His face was closed, told nothing of what he wasthinking.
And he had ceased to demand his tithe as intercessor. He was gatheringhis own food, catching his own fish.
And he seldom let Cal out of his sight.
Tom and Jed helped as best they could by maintaining contact with theold reality. They spent much of the daytime with the colonists. At nightthey turned their faces to the dark sky to watch the ships, now grown tofour, bathed in the light of Ceti like a constellation of bright starsabove them. They read the intermittent flashes of light from McGinnis,and from the E.H.Q. laboratory. McGinnis told of the police ship'sattempts to break through the barrier surrounding Eden, and itsfailure. The laboratory told of Linda's presence on board, and now andthen flashed out a message to Cal from Linda of her love, her nearness,her faith in him, her desire to be with him, her patience in waiting.
McGinnis told of the arrival of a fifth ship, carrying Gunderson inperson. He had been unable to believe his police captain. Unable tobelieve that the ship could not land at will. He had come in person totake charge, and apparently fumed his frustration in idleness, unable todo anything with the situation, unwilling to go back to Earth and leaveit alone.
Tom and Jed told Cal the content of these messages, but to Cal thereports of the police activity seemed noises heard from far away andunrelated to himself. The messages from Linda seemed the hauntingstrains of a song remembered from long ago.
For his mind was wholly enrapt with the problem. He had been given thekey--reality is a matter of proportion, change the concept of proportionand you change the material form--but he had not found the lock and thedoor it would open. He knew it, but he couldn't do it.
Perhaps Tom might help? Tom was well-grounded in math, had to be for hisjob as pilot.
"Look, Tom," Cal said one morning after they had given him the night'smessages from the ships. He squatted on the ground and brushed away someleaves from an area of dirt. "Watch the equals sign." He scratched aformula in the dirt:
"2 + 2 = 4"
The = changed to : . Then to {d}. Then through the series of variablerelationships.
Tom leaped to his feet from the log where he had been sitting.
"That's crazy," he exclaimed. "It isn't just proportionate, it isn'tvariable. It equals."
Jed was looking from one to the other, obviously at a loss.
"Well," Cal said drily, "I'm much more interested in what They have tosay than in trying to convince Them that They're wrong."
"But if everything were only proportionate and variable," Tom argued,"then you'd have nothing fixed, constant. Why the proportionaterelationship might be dependent solely upon choice. Nothing would besolid, dependable."
"Not even the footprints under your feet," Cal answered softly. "Not ahouse, nor a field of grain, nor a spaceship. Simply alter the choice ofproportion--and they aren't there anymore."