That led to another complicated conversation.
On her next pass, Belle forwarded more transmissions from Audree and Robin. Robin explained how it had been raining all day along the Melony. And he’d tried out for a part with the Seaside Players’ production of All Aboard! If he got it, he’d be the main character’s goofy buddy.
FORTY
Forget not that God has given you a mind. It may well be that the greatest sin is a failure to use it. Take time to look above the rooftops. To question that which everyone else holds as incorruptible truth, and live so that your actions are more than a mere echo of all that has gone before.
—The Vanova
Alex showed everyone a picture of the tablet that had been found at Sunset Tuttle’s former home. “Anybody have any idea what it is?”
No one did.
“Does anyone recognize the language?”
More headshaking.
“It might be Arinok,” said Seepah. “It looks a little bit as if it might be.”
Turam studied the picture. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“What’s Arinok?”
“Ancient language. From the Bagadeish. They used to carve stuff like this on their tombs.”
“But you can’t read it?”
“No. I’m not even sure that’s what it is.”
“Is there anyone here we could ask?”
They looked at one another.
Most evenings, there was a party going on in the dining hall. People who’d spent the day constructing irrigation ditches and planting seeds for the coming season picked up wind and string instruments. They had drums, and they even produced a couple of singers with some talent. But the energy was missing. I got a sense of people trying hard to be happy.
The conversations roamed near and far. “You had electricity at one time,” we told them. Actually, they had no word for electricity, so we resorted to the Standard term. “But the places we’ve been to had only candles and gas lamps for light. What happened?”
Seepah smiled. Painfully. “What is electricity?”
Alex tried to explain. Seepah smiled tolerantly and shook his head. “I’m reluctant to say this, but it sounds as if you’re making it up. Lightning, you say?”
A young woman who’d served as one of Seepah’s aides wanted to know how the vehicle we’d been riding floated in air. “Well,” she corrected herself, “it didn’t exactly float, but it wasn’t really falling, either.”
Alex asked me if I wanted to explain about antigravity.
But I had no idea how the system worked. “Push a button,” I said, “and you lift off.”
Then there was the material from which our clothes were made. I was wearing my own blouse that day, and one resident fingered the sleeve. “It’s so soft.”
We had drawn a crowd, as usual, and they ooohed and aaahed with every revelation.
“Are you aware,” Alex asked, “that you’ve been off-world? Sometime in the past?”
They laughed. “You mean to the moons?”
“Better than that,” Alex said.
“Never happened.” An older man who always walked with a cane shook his head. “I’ve read every history book there is,” he said. “Nobody says anything about it. It’s just superstition. It can’t be done.”
I was tempted to point out there were only five or six histories at the compound. But there was no point starting an argument.
Someone else, a middle-aged woman, credited us with marvelous imaginations. “When we went off-world,” she asked, “where exactly did we go?”
That generated laughter.
When it had subsided, Alex’s reply created another skeptical reaction: “You, your forebears, have been to the second world in your system.”
“We’ve traveled to Zhedar?”
“If that’s the second world.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It’s true.”
“How do you know?” The questions were coming from all sides.
“We’ve been there.”
More laughter. Then, maybe, something else. The mockery drained out of the room. “What’s it like?” The question was asked by a teenage boy.
“It’s a lot like here. Except you’d weigh a little less.”
That got still more laughter.
A young man had been sitting listening, taking it all in. His beard was just starting to grow. “Well,” he said, “I’m not going to say there’s a mistake somewhere, but next time you go back, Alex, I’d love to go along.”
Viscenda was there at the time. She smiled politely at Alex’s claim. “I’ve heard that story,” she said. “It appears in everybody’s mythology. They rode winged steeds.” She smiled at us. “But even you and your partner would have to admit it’s a little hard to believe.”
Sestor was an oversized male with a gray beard and a polished skull. He’d been wearing a superior smile throughout, as if listening to nonsense. Now he broke in: “Even if we had the means,” he said, “there’s no reason to go anywhere else. We’re unique. The universe is empty.”
“What about our guests?” asked a man seated beside him who looked ancient.
“Look,” Sestor said patiently, “I don’t want to offend anybody, but you can see they’re just like us. They’re from here. I don’t understand that thing they were running around in, but there’s no difference between them and the rest of us. For God’s sake, people, use your eyes.”
“I agree,” said a woman with a serene expression. “Nobody really exists out there.” She looked apologetically at Alex, and at me. “I’m sorry. But your claims just don’t make sense. They fly in the face of everything we know to be true. But even if there were some truth to your story, I’d suggest we let it go. Our job is to repair the damage here. If we can. This is the only world that matters.”
And then there was Kayla, a resident member of the staff. “We’ve blundered away the gift of the Almighty,” he said. “I’ve never been one of those who was forever saying that God had grown to find us despicable. But one thing is certain: We’re being tested.”
“There is no God,” said one of the others, a young man with fire in his eyes. “If there were, where was He when we needed Him?”
Turam, beside me, whispered his name. “Hakim. He’s an atheist.”
“Mind,” said Hakim, “is the only thing that’s sacred.”
“Well.” Alex reached for his crutches. “Time to head for the salad bar.”
“I think it’s silly,” said Turam, “to deny what Alex tells us. He has no reason to lie. And ask yourself whether anyone in this world could devise a vehicle that floats.” He looked at the others, defying anyone to argue the point. Then he turned to us: “We always believed, most of us did, that we were alone. Yet here you are. You look like us, but you’re alien.”
“I don’t feel like an alien,” I said. Belle had drifted out of range, but it almost didn’t matter anymore. “We don’t really know what the truth is. But I’ll bet we’re from the same line.” (I didn’t know how to say species, but I thought line worked better anyhow.)
Some witticisms went back and forth. And a young man, about nineteen, who’d stopped to listen, leered at me, and said, “I hope so.”
Then Turam asked an unexpected question: “Is there purpose to the universe?”
“I think that’s a bit above our competency level,” said Alex.
A couple of people rolled their eyes. “That is the short answer,” said Hakim. “But surely an advanced culture has thought about these things, Chase.” (They all tended to pronounce my name “Cheese.”) “There must, for example, be an advantage in being alive. A reason for it, wouldn’t you say?”