They might do anything. The mri suffered from similar future-memory. Presumably two such species even thought they comprehended one another . . . if two species’ future-memories could possibly coincide in any points; and that possibility threatened to unbalance a sane mind.
This was one most profound difference between regul and human, that regul remembered only the past, which was observable and accurate as those who remembered it. Humans accustomed to the factual instabilities of their perceptions, even lied, which was to give deliberate inaccuracy to memory, past or future. They existed in complete flux; their memories periodically purged themselves of facts: this was perhaps a necessary reflex in a species which remembered things that had not yet happened and which falsified what had occurred or might occur.
Disrespect of temporal order; this was the sum of it. Anything might alter in them, past, present, future. They forgot, and wrote things on paper to remember them; but they might not always writs the truth; and the possibility that they might accurately imagine the truth . . . Suth backed his mind from that precipice, refusing the leap.
Humans had not experienced disorientation in the killing of a regul reverend with the accumulated experience of nearly three hundred years. It was as if they could forget all this information, not valuing it—perhaps because they could change whatever they pleased, or imagine backward as well as forward.
And it evidently did not matter to them whether they remembered accurately; it did not disorganize the species, who were accustomed to divergency in future-memory, and therefore—perhaps—cared nothing for divergence in past-memory.
How did they view the present? Did it likewise shift about?
Could they likewise forget the killing of a human elder, if it was not useful to remember it?
If he could reach a correct conclusion, it would be of great value in determining policy.
He sat now, in his sled, which supported his increasing bulk and provided him, on rails and wheels, swift transport about the spiraling corridors of Shirug, if he needed it. In fact there was little need for him to stir from his office, and he did so seldom. Every control on the ship was accessible directly or indirectly from his sled console. Only actual flight operations demanded more meticulous attention to incoming data than be could conveniently handle, and a nervous clutch of Alagn younglings attended the controls constantly. He had killed several for inattention . . . and also because they were older Alagn younglings, and there was the remote chance of one of them sexing male, once the immediate hysteria of Change had eased on the ship, and while the fact of his command was still new to the crew.
The younglings who survived his tempers had improved markedly in efficiency, working feverishly whether or not his eye was immediately on them; this was to the good of the ship. They learned; he would Impress them, so that even years hence he would have no rivals.
Therefore he was prepared to deal with humans. He had absolute power on his own ship, and he was calmer about entering the maze of regul-human relations that he might have been.
Therefore he allowed himself to contemplate confrontation.
He keyed the position of Santiago to the screen on the panel of his sled, and widened the schematic to include the latest plotting of the position of Saber, over the horizon. Flower was a third dot, below, on Kutath’s surface. There were four other points, two human shuttles aloft, two regul shuttles left on Kutath: younglings, expendables.
He stared in prolonged speculation at the screen, his nostrils flaring and shutting in dislike as he sorted all past action to determine present ones, combining and recombining pieces like a stoneworker, seeking those which made coherent structure.
A light flashed on his board, signaling someone wishing his personal attention. He cleared the screen and received a notation from Nagn: Urgent. Direct-contact, favor.
He flashed back his permission. “Door,” he shouted at the youngling who kept the anteroom, and it stirred out in haste: Ragh, its name was, clever and zealous and mightily fearful.
The other doorway opened. Not one but three sleds arrived, Nagn and Tiag and Morkhug, with attendants and commotion. Ragh showed them through, directed the other attendants, stumped this way and that offering drink, murmuring anxious courtesies.
“Out!” Suth snapped; Ragh daringly slipped a cup into his hand and fled with all possible speed, herding the other younglings into the anteroom. “Report,” Suth asked of his mates. “What is the urgency?”
“Important news,” Nagn said. “Favor, reverence bai: analysis of the new tapes indicates a resurgence of power in the sites.”
Suth hissed softly, delayed for a drink to stabilize the out-of-phase beating of his hearts. “Details.”
“Scant, reverence. The readings are faint. More might be done . . . but the likelihood of triggering fire with Shirug in range . . .”
The hearts tended apart, and then toward unity. “Mri with weapons. This can be demonstrated in plain data. Mri with weapons.”
“Every site,” Nagn said in a low voice. She keyed a graphic to their screens, the world rotating, sites lighting, all edging on the great chasms. “Concentrated life signs indicate moisture in the depths of the basins; what is there, is patently available for use at such sites. Life requirements are available to a technology advanced sufficiently to draw the water up. The area out of which the youngling Duncan appeared . . .” The graphic reversed its revolution and narrowed in field. “ . . . possesses more than one such site.”
“Old,” Suth murmured, staring at the distance between the diminished water sources and the city sites. It was shattering constantly to realize how old. Data available in home space had indicated the mri to be a young species, and regul oldest of all—regul, who had risen on the cycles of famines and the dread of famines, to seek resources outward, warless, with errorless passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. But not the oldest. Far from oldest. Millions of years lay even in the decay of Kutath.
Of mri who, like humans . . . forgot.
Data existed in such cities, recorded as forgetting species must record such things: a treasury of eons, knowledge of all these regions of space, records of the dead worlds which the mri had killed, of all this aged, alien species had done and known and been. To destroy this knowledge . . . .
The very thought sent a wave of revulsion through him, almost unbearable in intensity. It was the death of elders. It was murder. He sucked air, his hearts paining him. Sharn had committed such destruction, without understanding what she did. He was cursed to know. But what was down there was knowledge inaccessible to regul, in language mri had never given regul to learn, of experiences which had to make sense only to mri—or to those who could speak the language, who could become mri.
A human could. Duncan spoke the mri tongue, and assumed the robes and the manners and the thoughts of mri. A human forgot his own way, and crossed that boundary which regul in two thousand years had not crossed nor wished to.
Humans would gain access to such knowledge with the fall of the mri world, or with the peaceful accommodation they sought with it. They would possess the experience of millions of years which would be recorded down there. Would become . . .
. . . mri. Imitating, as Duncan so facilely imitated. The model was before them, in the youngling Duncan.
To let this happen . . . to allow to exist information which regul could not use, and allow it into the hands of a species which could forget its own nature and assume that of another . . . or which already shared tendencies which mri had—
“Eldest?” Nagn murmured. “Eldest?”
“We have a difficulty, bai Nagn. One which affects policy. Heed: I shall tell you a thing. Once . . . in the memory of doch Horag, a dispute of Horag elders was to be resolved by the combat of mri kel’ein. And one kel’en said that he sought this particular combat gladly, because he understood that the other Horag elder had abused her mri mercenary. Yet the first mri killed the second.”
“That is mad,” said
Tiag.
“Not so. The regul who lost the challenge, lost territory and younglings and influence. Thus the dead mri was avenged powerfully, and his killer was indeed his avenger as he had purposed to be. Mri are fully capable of understanding revenge. And they do not value survival above status as humans do.”
“Their lives are short by nature,” Morkhug said with contempt. “And they forget what they are told.”
“Do not reckon that they lack wit, mate-of-mine. Errors have been made on this account, serious errors.”
“There is a human with them, reverence. He is the dangerous one. He has made them dangerous, as they were not before his coming among them. Humans are capable of some memory functions, if only on paper and tape. Remove this one human and the mri are disorganized.”
“No,” Suth said flatly. “No. Sharn and doch Alagn erred, because Alagn never employed mri directly and did not understand them. Alagn came from homespace . . . as you do. But Horag doch has employed mri in the colonies, for two thousand years. I remember.”
This silenced them all, Alagn-born that they were; they were tied now to Horag, and lifted their faces to him, respectfully expecting enlightenment.
“I shall share my knowledge,” he promised them, “as it becomes needful. Alagn erred. Bai Hulagh Alagn-ni of Kesrith failed to ask into the experience of his predecessors. Therefore Alagn does not remember. I do not make that error of omission. If any of you has pertinent information or acquires it, I order you to give it to me at once.”
One after the other they solemnly confessed ignorance of mri.
“Attend,” said Suth with a pleased hiss. “It is necessary to touch that mri characteristic I named.”
“This is not Kesrith,” Nagn said. “Bai—”
“Does a question occur to you?”
“There are cities. Machines. Do mri construct such things? Have mri ever constructed such elaborate things themselves? This is not consonant with observation.”
“Mri have always worked . . . among themselves, or for their own benefit. They would not lift a pebble at our bidding; but to house themselves, yes, they have built their own edunei, and they handle complex machinery—expertly. Does Alagn estimate the mri edun on Kesrith was built by regul? Does Alagn not know that kel’ein have handled regul ships—with controls designed for regul minds and memory, which humans have greatest difficulty grasping? Alagn has failed to observe, until now. I congratulate you, bai Nagn, at least on an appropriate question.”
The three Alagn-ni fretted in visible discomfiture.
“Further question,” Suth pursued. “As this is the mri home-world—we accept human reckoning this is so—do associational structures here operate as they did in mri for hire far from the authorities of this world? It will not be wise to make simplistic conclusions based on data from Kesrith. Facts too soon recorded are sometimes imperfect.”
“But,” Tiag said, her nostrils fluttering still under the sting of sarcasm, “this is an armed world, reverence. Facts not swiftly enough recorded are not available for our defense, reverence bai.”
Suth swelled in pique, not overmuch. Logical that Tiag had sexed as she had; she had always had a brusqueness that disturbed. “Physically, bai Tiag, we could launch further fire into those sites. But humans are onworld; humans must perceive the origin of the threat clearly as mri. We are within range of human ships as well as mri cities.” In exaggerated lack of haste he reached for the sled-console, sipped at his cooling cup from one hand while he keyed in library functions with the other. He obtained memory-films, meant to chronicle the mri wars for any youngling which might be born on board; and he smiled, having obtained what he sought. Editing them on the spot was a simple matter, ordering the machine to duplicate, beginning and ending at certain points, and to arrange scenes into desirable sequence.
Human faces showed on the screen: Duncan’s face. The mri slaughter at Elag lay tangled in smoking ruin; the towers of Nisren’s edun fell in fire and human troops rushed across a field strewn with mri dead; human warships hovered above mri ruins.
He composed, sent the result to the others, watched their faces conceive excitement.
“We do not speak the mri tongue,” he said, “but these powered sites surely have the facilities to receive simple transmissions. And demonstration speaks all tongues.”
“Bai,” Nagn murmured.
“We have ten shuttles. Several can be dropped; we reserve four for maneuverings where humans can keep them in sight. The ones sent down are at very high risk. But I tell you this for your information, honored mates: these mri . . . all the laughter regul have indulged in over species whose memory is lost without their paper . . . and these humans too . . . . Does it occur to you that in the Alagn debacle at Kesrith, these aforesaid humans gathered up a great deal of regul paper and tapes? The library was lost. Your great Alagn bai Hulagh salvaged machines and ships and lives of younglings and let the library fall into human hands; a minor loss, so long as the minds which contained that—doubtless trivial—information were packed onto ships and sent back to home space and safety, true? Or perhaps Hulagh would have fifed the library before leaving . . . if he had had time. Observe this youngling Duncan, observe how exactly he imitates mri. A minor loss, a poor colonial library on a mining colony? Regul lost nothing; but humans gained. Did humans much fret for the loss of the machines Hulagh lifted off? No. But humans swarmed over that library in the first days of Kesrith’s occupation like insects over corruption. Does no conclusion yet occur to you?”
“We erred,” Nagn said after a moment, her nostril edges showing pallor. “Reverence, why have we failed to note such things?”
“Because, Nagn Alagn-ni, the bai of your doch lacked experience, for all his years; so did, Sharn. I have realized it. This question has occurred to me; but even as a youngling I possessed something great Alagn did not have—experience of non-regul. You were insulated, safe, in home space. Horag is colonial. We dealt with mri, with humans, with mri beasts. We gained models against which to compare actions. You have lacked such models. Your comprehensions are wise within your limitations, but there are other species in the universe . . . and Horag has been dealing with them for two thousand years.”
“Mri and dusei and humans,” Tiag exclaimed in disgust. “What can they discover that some regul has not already discovered and remembered the first time?”
“Lackwit, observe what Nagn has correctly observed and think! What would humans do with the records of our own homeworld? And what world is this before us?”
“The mri homeworld,” Morkhug said. “Cities, storehouses of data—”
“To which this Duncan has already gained access,” said Suth. “Mri . . . value revenge. The revenge they owe Alagn is considerable, and I do not want that inheritance. But that is not the only cause for which we should fear. Of how many years be the experience logged in cities which were built to surround seas which are no longer there?”
“Mri,” said Tiag, attempting scorn, but her nostrils kept dilating.
“Mri with ships,” said Nagn, “who made the desert of stars as far as our own space, and turned back only when they ran out of lives. And humans, who keep their memories only on paper, gather the memories of this place. Millions of years, Tiag.”
“But we cannot destroy it,” Tiag moaned.
“Mri,” Suth said, “and incomprehensible to us. Valueless to us, in a language we cannot read. But do you observe, mates-of-mine, that the mri mind and the human . . . are compatible?”
“What shall we do, then, bai?”
“What do we with irrationalities? We remove them from the present. Alien minds are able to bridge these irrationalities. The reflexes of forgetting are not all detriment, to my observation. We cannot operate by such absorptions. Already we are troubled by impossible combinations of concepts. We talk in paradoxes when we carry on any lengthy discourse with humans. We have walked into a morass. We do not extricate ourselves by swallowing mud. Remove it: that is what has to b
e done. It is not the weapons which are the danger; it is not the feud with mri, it is the combination, mates of-mine, the combination, this absorptive tendency in our allies . . . with what we have seen in coming here. How did we first involve ourselves with humans at first hand? A human named Stavros imitated our ways. How did mri involve themselves with humans? A human named Duncan imitated theirs so successfully he has been transformed. This is beyond courtesy. This is a mechanism. This is a biological mechanism by which this species survives. There is one human, in each instance, there is one human who walks from among them, who allows himself to become Impressed, who becomes the enemy . . . who then bridges the gap, and gains knowledge. One sacrifice. One transformation. Who of us, who of the mri, is able to become human? Can you, Tiag? Can you define; having observed Stavros and Duncan and Koch, even what is human?”
Tiag shuddered visibly, eyes rolling aside.
“We shall never be quit of humans,” Suth said bitterly. “By Alagn’s grievous error, we let them inside. But we can see to it that what belongs to this world . . . stays here. Ends here. And we can go back to home space and give our information and observations to regulkind, without mri in the equation. We can cut off this branch, so that there is no hazard at least from this source: we can focus human attention here, where it can no longer profit them, and buy us time.”
“We have one ship,” Morkhug protested. “One to their three. How can we deal with them?”
“More of Alagn’s negotiation. We should initiate a new negotiation. My presence gives us that option, being of different doch. We should see to the arrangement of advantages, maneuver as best we can.” He set his cup aside, empty, stared grimly at the three of them. Carrying, all three; the young could not come to term in any reasonable time to be of assistance: they had not the time of years, but time as humans reckoned it, and actions had to be undertaken . . . quickly.
* * *
The tribe was not here. Niun felt it from the time that they passed the great rounded rock which had been his landmark returning from many a hunt . . . and where once he had felt a sense of occupancy—there was nothing from the dusei, only that feeling which nagged at their shoulders, warning that their pursuers were, if anything, nearer.