Still another: Well, well, well! We thought you’d never make it.
He had to. There hasn’t been a new one for so long…
Gerry clapped his hands to his mouth. His eyes bulged. Through his mind came a hush of welcoming music. There was warmth and laughter and wisdom. There were introductions; for each voice there was a discrete personality, a comprehensible sense of something like stature or rank, and an accurate locus, a sense of physical position. Yet, in terms of amplitude, there was no difference in the voices. They were all here, or, at least, all equally near.
There was happy and fearless communion, fearlessly shared with Gerry—cross-currents of humour, of pleasure, of reciprocal thought and mutual achievement. And through and through, welcome, welcome.
They were young, they were new, all of them, though not as new and as young as Gerry. Their youth was in the drive and resilience of their thinking. Although some gave memories old in human terms, each entity had lived briefly in terms of immortality and they were all immortal.
Here was one who had whistled a phrase to Papa Haydn, and here one who had introduced William Morris to the Rossettis. Almost as if it were his own memory, Gerry saw Fermi being shown the streak of fission on a sensitive plate, a child Landowska listening to a harpsichord, a drowsy Ford with his mind suddenly lit by the picture of a line of men facing a line of machines.
To form a question was to have an answer.
Who are you?
Homo Gestalt.
I’m one; part of; belonging…
Welcome.
Why didn’t you tell me?
You weren’t ready. You weren’t finished. What was Gerry before he met Lone?
And now… is it the ethic? Is that what completed me?
Ethic is too simple a term. But yes, yes… multiplicity is our first characteristic; unity our second. As your parts know they are parts of you, so must you know that we are parts of humanity.
Gerry understood then that the things which shamed him were, each and all, things which humans might do to humans, but which humanity could not do. He said, ‘I was punished.’
You were quarantined.
And—are you… we… responsible for all humanity’s accomplishments?
No! We share. We are humanity!
Humanity’s trying to kill itself.
(A wave of amusement, and a superb confidence, like joy.) Today, this week, it might seem so. But in terms of the history of a race … O new one, atomic war is a ripple on the broad face of the Amazon!
Their memories, their projections and computations flooded in to Gerry, until at last he knew their nature and their function; and he knew why the ethos he had learned was too small a concept. For here at last was power which could not corrupt; for such an insight could not be used for its own sake, or against itself. Here was why and how humanity existed, troubled and dynamic, sainted by the touch of its own great destiny. Here was the withheld hand as thousands died, when by their death millions might live. And here, too, was the guide, the beacon, for such times as humanity might be in danger; here was the Guardian of Whom all humans knew—not an exterior force nor an awesome Watcher in the sky, but a laughing thing with a human heart and a reverence for its human origins, smelling of sweat and new-turned earth rather than suffused with the pale odour of sanctity.
He saw himself as an atom and his Gestalt as a molecule. He saw these others as a cell among cells, and he saw in the whole the design of what, with joy, humanity would become.
He felt a rising, choking sense of worship, and recognized it for what it has always been for mankind—self-respect.
He stretched out his arms, and the tears streamed from his strange eyes. Thank you, he answered them. Thank you, thank you…
And humbly, he joined their company.
