The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (50 page)

A sudden burst of confidence surprised Reynolds. He had not felt this sure of himself in years, and just like before, there was no logical reason for his certainty. “Would you be willing
to answer some questions for me? About
your
star?”

“Certainly, Bradley Reynolds.”

“Can you tell me our name for your star? Its coordinates?”

“No,” Jonathon said, dipping its neck. “I cannot.” It blinked its right eye in a furious fashion. “Our galaxy is not this one. It is a galaxy too distant for your
instruments.”

“I see,” said Reynolds, because he could not very well call the alien a liar, even if it was. But Jonathon’s hesitancy to reveal the location of its homeworld was not
unexpected; Reynolds would have acted the same in similar circumstances.

Richard spoke. “May I pay obeisance?”

Jonathon, turning to Richard, spoke in a series of shrill chirping noises. Then Richard replied in kind.

Turning back to Reynolds, Richard again asked, “May I pay obeisance?”

Reynolds could only say, “Yes.” Why not?

Richard acted immediately. Its legs abruptly shot out from beneath its trunk at an angle no giraffe could have managed. Richard sat on its belly, legs spread, and its neck came down, the snout
gently scraping the floor.

“Thank you,” Reynolds said, bowing slightly at the waist. “But there is much we can learn from you, too.” He spoke to hide his embarrassment, directing his words at
Jonathon while hoping that they might serve to bring Richard back to its feet as well. When this failed to work, Reynolds launched into the speech he had been sent here to deliver. Knowing what he
had to say, he ran through the words as hurriedly as possible. “We are a backward people. Compared to you, we are children in the universe. Our travels have carried us no farther than our
sister planets, while you have seen stars whose light takes years to reach your home. We realize you have much to teach us, and we approach you as pupils before a grand philosopher. We are
gratified at the chance to share our meager knowledge with you and wish only to be granted the privilege of listening to you in return.”

“You wish to know deeply of our star?” Jonathon asked.

“Of many things,” Reynolds said. “Your spacecraft for instance. It is far beyond our meager knowledge.”

Jonathon began to blink its right eye furiously. As it spoke, the speed of the blinking increased. “You wish to know that?”

“Yes, if you are willing to share your knowledge. We, too, would like to visit the stars.”

Its eye moved faster than ever now. It said, “Sadly, there is nothing we can tell you of this ship. Unfortunately, we know nothing ourselves.”

“Nothing?”

“The ship was a gift.”

“You mean that you did not make it yourself. No. But you must have mechanics, individuals capable of repairing the craft in the event of some emergency.”

“But that has never happened. I do not think the ship could fail.”

“Would you explain?”

“Our race, our world, was once visited by another race of creatures. It was they who presented us with this ship. They had come to us from a distant star in order to make this gift. In
return, we have used the ship only to increase the wisdom of our people.”

“What can you tell me about this other race?” Reynolds asked.

“Very little, I am afraid. They came from a most ancient star near the true center of the universe.”

“And were they like you? Physically?”

“No, more like you. Like people. But – please – may we be excused to converse about that which is essential? Our time is short.”

Reynolds nodded, and the moment he did, Jonathon ceased to blink. Reynolds gathered that it had grown tired of lying, which wasn’t surprising; Jonathon was a poor liar. Not only were the
lies incredible in themselves, but every time it told a lie it blinked like a madman with an ash in his eye.

“If I tell you about our star,” Jonathon said, “will you consent to tell of yours in return?” The alien tilted its head forward, long neck swaying gently from side to
side. It was plain that Jonathon attached great significance to Reynolds’ reply.

So Reynolds said, “Yes, gladly,” though he found he could not conceive of any information about the sun which might come as a surprise to these creatures. Still, he had been sent
here to discover as much about the aliens as possible without revealing anything important about mankind. This sharing of information about stars seemed a safe enough course to pursue.

“I will begin,” Jonathon said, “and you must excuse my impreciseness of expression. My knowledge of your language is limited. I imagine you have a special vocabulary for the
subject.”

“A technical vocabulary, yes.”

The alien said, “Our star is a brother to yours. Or would it be sister? During periods of the most intense communion, his wisdom – or hers? – is faultless. At times he is angry
– unlike your star – but these moments are not frequent. Nor do they last for longer than a few fleeting moments. Twice he has prophesied the termination of our civilization during
times of great personal anger, but never has he felt it necessary to carry out his prediction. I would say that he is more kind than raging, more gentle than brutal. I believe he loves our people
most truly and fully. Among the stars of the universe, his place is not great, but as our home star, we must revere him. And, of course, we do.”

“Would you go on?” Reynolds asked.

Jonathon went on. Reynolds listened. The alien spoke of its personal relationship with the star, how the star had helped it during times of individual darkness. Once, the star had assisted it in
choosing a proper mate; the choice proved not only perfect but divine. Throughout, Jonathon spoke of the star as a reverent Jewish tribesman might have spoken of the Old Testament God. For the
first time, Reynolds regretted having had to dispose of the tape recorder. When he tried to tell Kelly about this conversation, she would never believe a word of it. As it spoke, the alien did not
blink, not once, even briefly, for Reynolds watched carefully.

At last the alien was done. It said, “But this is only a beginning. We have so much to share, Bradley Reynolds. Once I am conversant with your technical vocabulary. Communication between
separate entities – the great barriers of language . . .”

“I understand,” said Reynolds.

“We knew you would. But now – it is your turn. Tell me about your star.”

“We call it the sun,” Reynolds said. Saying, this, he felt more than mildly foolish – but what else? How could he tell Jonathon what it wished to know when he did not know
himself? All he knew about the sun was facts. He knew how hot it was and how old it was and he knew its size and mass and magnitude. He knew about sunspots and solar winds and solar atmosphere. But
that was all he knew. Was the sun a benevolent star? Was it constantly enraged? Did all mankind revere it with the proper quantity of love and dedication? “That is its common name. More
properly, in an ancient language adopted by science, it is Sol. It lies approximately eight – ”

“Oh,” said Jonathon. “All of this, yes, we know. But its demeanor. Its attitudes, both normal and abnormal. You play with us, Bradley Reynolds. You joke. We understand your
amusement – but, please, we are simple souls and have traveled far. We must know these other things before daring to make our personal approach to the star. Can you tell us in what fashion it
has most often affected your individual life? This would help us immensely.”

Although his room was totally dark, Reynolds, entering, did not bother with the light. He knew every inch of this room, knew it as well in the dark as the light. For the past
four years, he had spent an average of twelve hours a day here. He knew the four walls, the desk, the bed, the bookshelves and the books, knew them more intimately than he had ever known another
person. Reaching the cot without once stubbing his toe or tripping over an open book or stumbling across an unfurled map, he sat down and covered his face with his hands, feeling the wrinkles on
his forehead like great wide welts. Alone, he played a game with the wrinkles, pretending that each one represented some event or facet of his life. This one here – the big one above his left
eyebrow – that was Mars. And this other one – way over here almost by his right ear – that was a girl named Melissa whom he had known back in the 1970s. But he wasn’t in the
proper mood for the game now. He lowered his hands. He knew the wrinkles for exactly what they really were: age, purely and simply and honestly age. Each one meant nothing without the others. They
represented impersonal and unavoidable erosion. On the outside, they reflected the death that was occurring on the inside.

Still, he was happy to be back here in this room. He never realized how important these familiar surroundings were to his state of mind until he was forcefully deprived of them for a length of
time. Inside the alien starship, it hadn’t been so bad. The time had passed quickly then: he hadn’t been allowed to get homesick. It was afterward when it had got bad. With Kelly and
the others in her dank, ugly impersonal hole of an office. Those had been the unbearable hours.

But now he was home, and he would not have to leave again until they told him. He had been appointed official emissary to the aliens, though this did not fool him for a moment. He had been given
the appointment only because Jonathon had refused to see anyone else. It wasn’t because anyone liked him or respected him or thought him competent enough to handle the mission. He was
different from them, and that made all the difference. When they were still kids, they had seen his face on the old TV networks every night of the week. Kelly wanted someone like herself to handle
the aliens. Someone who knew how to take orders, someone ultimately competent, some computer facsimile of a human being. Like herself. Someone who, when given a job, performed it in the most
efficient manner in the least possible time.

Kelly was the director of the moon base. She had come here two years ago, replacing Bill Newton, a contemporary of Reynolds’, a friend of his. Kelly was the protege of some U.S. Senator,
some powerful idiot from the Midwest, a leader of the anti-NASA faction in the Congress. Kelly’s appointment had been part of a wild attempt to subdue the senator with favors and special
attention. It had worked after a fashion. There were still Americans on the moon. Even the Russians had left two years ago.

Leaving the alien starship, he had met Kelly the instant he reached the air lock. He had managed to slip past her and pull on his suit before she could question him. He had known she
wouldn’t dare try to converse over the radio; too great a chance of being overheard. She would never trust him to say only the right things.

But that little game had done nothing except delay matters a few minutes. The tug had returned to the moon base and then everyone had gone straight to Kelly’s office. Then the
interrogation had begun. Reynolds had sat near the back of the room while the rest of them flocked around Kelly like pet sheep.

Kelly asked the first question. “What do they want?” He knew her well enough to understand exactly what she meant: What do they want from us in return for what we want from them?

Reynolds told her: They wanted to know about the sun.

“We gathered that much,” Kelly said. “But what kind of information do they want? Specifically, what are they after?”

With great difficulty, he tried to explain this too.

Kelly interrupted him quickly. “And what did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know what to tell them.”

“Didn’t you ever happen to think the best thing to tell them might have been whatever it was they wished to hear?”

“I couldn’t do that either,” he said, “because I didn’t know. You tell me: Is the sun benevolent? How does it inspire your daily life? does it constantly rage? I
don’t know, and you don’t know either, and it’s not a thing we can risk lying about, because they may very well know themselves. To them, a star is a living entity. It’s a
god, but more than our gods, because they can see a star and feel its heat and never doubt that it’s always there.”

“Will they want you back?” she asked.

“I think so. They liked me. Or he liked me. It. I only talked to one of them.”

“I thought you told us two.”

So he went over the whole story for her once more, from beginning to end, hoping this time she might realize that alien beings are not human beings and should not be expected to respond in
familiar ways. When he came to the part about the presence of the two aliens, he said, “Look. There are six men in this room right now besides us. But they are here only for show. The whole
time, none of them will say a word or think a thought or decide a point. The other alien was in the room with Jonathon and me the whole time. But if it had not been there, nothing would have been
changed. I don’t know why it was there and I don’t expect I ever will. But neither do I understand why you feel you have to have all these men here with you.”

She utterly ignored the point. “Then that is all they are interested in? They’re pilgrims and they think the sun is Mecca?”

“More or less,” he said, with the emphasis on “less.”

“Then they won’t want to talk to me – or any of us. You’re the one who knows the sun. Is that correct?” She jotted a note on a pad, shaking her elbow briskly.

“That is correct.”

“Reynolds,” she said, looking up from her pad, “I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

He said, “Why?”

She did not bother to attempt to disguise her contempt. Few of them did any more and especially not Kelly. It was her opinion that Reynolds should not be here at all. Put him in a rest home back
on Earth, she would say. The other astronauts – they were considerate enough to retire when life got too complicated for them. What makes this one man, Bradley Reynolds, why is he so special?
All right – she would admit – ten years, twenty years ago, he was a great brave man struggling to conquer the unknown. When I was sixteen years old, I couldn’t walk a dozen feet
without tripping over his name or face. But what about now? What is he? I’ll tell you what he is: a broken-down, wrinkled relic of an old man. So what if he’s an astronomer as well as
an astronaut? So what if he’s the best possible man for the Lunar observatory? I still say he’s more trouble than he’s worth. He walks around the moon base like a dog having a
dream. Nobody can communicate with him. He hasn’t attended a single psychological expansion session since he’s been here, and that goes back well before my time. He’s a morale
problem; nobody can stand the sight of him any more. And, as far as doing his job goes, he does it, yes – but that’s all. His heart isn’t in it. Look, he didn’t even know
about the aliens being in orbit until I called him in and told him they wanted to see him.