Before, just after they’d left the meeting hall, Cahann had been full of questions, had tried to ask them at once, but Harvey had raised a hand to stop him, saying, “Not yet. I’ll answer all your questions, I promise that, but not just yet. Let me show you this first.”
“What is it?” Cahann had asked him.
“I don’t think I could explain it to you,” Harvey had said. “When you see it, you’ll understand why. When you see it, you’ll understand a lot of things that are puzzling you now.”
“This thing, whatever it is you want to show me,” Cahann had said, “this is what you think will protect you from the Empire, is that it?”
“Not precisely,” Harvey had said. “Please, don’t try to guess. That won’t do any good. Just come along. Once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand; and that will be that.”
So they had fallen silent. And they had walked aimlessly, back and forth, and Cahann had just about come to the conclusion that he was being given a-runaround, that they were simply retracing their steps among the buildings of the settlement and not really getting anywhere at all, when the first faint touches of it had reached him.
Desire.
Love.
Warmth and compassion and understanding.
A need for him, for him and him alone of all the creatures of the universe, all the creatures that had ever lived or would ever live, for no one and nothing but him.
It had come upon him almost unnoticeably, like an aroma creeping into a room, and it is strong in the room before you even notice it. And so it was with this, it was only a faint unnoticed sensation until suddenly it had been there for a long time and had grown strong and was now all-pervasive in his mind.
This way, it called. This way.
A message of love, a message of desire and understanding and fulfillment; and he had followed it, he had turned in the path it had pointed out, and now Harvey trailed him, unnoticed and unneeded, and he hurried toward his beloved, who hungered for him.
He felt like running, but there was really no reason to run. They would have all eternity together, now that they had found one another at last. And so he walked through the settlement, striding certainly forward, eyes bright with love and hope. He reached the last of the houses of the settlement and the edge of the woods beyond, and stepped unhesitatingly into the woods, for the loved one was in there, beckoning to him, calling for him, needing him.
And Harvey trailed along behind him, two or three paces behind him.
He was getting closer and closer, so close he could feel his skin tingling with anticipation, so close that the sweat broke out all over his body and his mouth hung open and his eyes stared for a sight of the beloved.
And then, at last, he came to it, where it stood in its own small clearing.
It was the head of Medusa, a thick green plant with many sinuous waving arms reaching up and out from the single stubby base, the whole nearly eight feet high and five feet in diameter. The rubbery green branches, or arms, swayed slowly, as though from a breeze, and at their tips were great scarlet flowers with thick petals, the flowers as big as a man’s head. The arms swayed voluptuously, and the petals of the flowers, which looked like great rough tongues, scraped together with a sound like the smacking of dry lips.
This was It, the beloved, the purpose of all life.
This was his destination and his ending and his fulfillment.
For what greater purpose could any creature have than the satisfaction of the hungers of It?
What was there in life more wonderful than the feeding of It?
How grand and blessed and wonderful it was that he had been chosen, he of all the beings that lived and moved, he had been chosen to give himself to the beloved, to feed it and so to become a part of it forever.
To throw himself at its base and give himself to its hunger.
But as he stepped forward into the clearing, and the great scarlet flowers beckoned and bowed to him, he was suddenly stopped. Some petty creature was clutching at him, trying to hold him back, trying to keep him from his proper completion.
He pushed the creature aside. But it came back, and again, grabbing at him, clutching at him, pulling him away, keeping him always just out of reach of the beckoning scarlet flowers which hungered for him.
And then more of the foul filthy creatures arrived and overpowered him. And though he fought against them, though It gave him the strength of fury and of love, he was borne down and back, carried bodily away from the clearing and away from the sight of his beloved.
And still he fought, and the creatures dragged him back and back, out of the woods and among constructions which were of no moment to him, for the beloved was there, back there, still calling to him.
And when at last he knew that it was hopeless, that the creatures were not going to release him ever, that he would never be able to complete himself at the base of his beloved, he shrieked with the torment of the greatest loss and the greatest sorrow that any being had ever known. He shrieked and shrieked, till one of the creatures struck him. And then blackness rushed in, and he knew no more.
V
They could read his mind!
Every thought!
Elan sat on the platform in terror of his life. That was their secret, and he knew it now, and the nature of their secret was such that they must know he knew it.
The girl Harriet’s slip when she had asked him to describe his home had been the first indication, but it had seemed too fantastic to be believed, and he had chosen to accept her flimsy excuse.
But gradually, as the questioning had gone on, he had seen that the people in the room were listening attentively not to the evasions and generalizations he was saying but to the truths he was thinking. The play of expression on an unguarded face, a look passing between two people, things which could have been produced only by his thoughts, and not by his words.
Until finally there just wasn’t any choice any more, there weren’t any other possible answers. But still they played out the game with him, Harriet asking the questions and he stumbling through the useless answers.
At one point, a kind of wave seemed to go through them all, they looking at one another with suddenly widened eyes, and five men at the back of the room got to their feet and hurried outside. He tried to recall what his thoughts had been at that second, but it didn’t seem as though their strange apprehension had anything to do with him.
The scientist, Cahann?
Harriet patted his hand again, saying, “Be easy, Elan. You have nothing to fear.”
He stared at her. “You know what I’m thinking,” he whispered. “You’re reading my mind.”
“Be easy, Elan,” she said softly. “Don’t always expect the worst of humanity. Not all of mankind has chosen the path of Earth.”
Then they were silent. He looked from face to face, and knew that they were talking to one another without words, deciding what to do with him and with Cahann and with all the people on the ship.
The silence was suddenly shattered by a shriek from outside the building, and a second shriek on the heels of the first. “Cahann!” he cried, leaping to his feet. Jumping from the platform, he raced through the natives to the door and outside.