And it thought of that faint, misty time when he—
He? First an I. And then a he.
Two identities — or rather two terms of identity. No longer an it, but an I and he.
He lay thin and spread out along the tight seams of the limestone and knew the fossils and pondered on the he. Especially that one particular fossil and that other misty time in which the first fossil had been found, the first time he had ever known there was such a thing as fossil. He recalled the finding of it and recalled its name as well. It had been called a trilobite. Someone had told him the name, but he could not remember who it might have been. A place so faint in time, so far in space, that all he had left of it was a fossil called a trilobite.
But there had been another time and another place and he was not new — he had not in that first instant of awareness been turned on, or newly hatched, or born. He had a history. There had been times of other awarenesses and he had held identity in those other times. Not new, he thought, but old. A creature with a past.
The thought of eyes, of body, or arms and legs — could all of them be memories from that other time or times? Could there have been a time when he did have a head and eyes, a body?
Or could he be mistaken? Could all of this be a phantom memory fashioned out of some happening, or event, or some combination of happenings and events that had occurred to some other being? Was it, perhaps, a misplaced memory, not of himself, but of something else? If the memory should prove to be his own, what had happened to him — what changes had been made?
He forgot the limestone and the fossils. He lay spread out in the fissures of the rock and stayed quiet and limp, hoping that out of the limpness and the quietness he might devise an answer. A partial answer came, an infuriating answer, un-specific and tantalizing. Not one place, but many; not one time, but many times. Not on one planet, but on many planets spaced over many light-years.
If all of this were true, he thought, there must be purpose in it. Otherwise, why the many planets and the data on those planets? And this was a new, unbidden thought — the data on the planets. Why the data? For what purpose was it gathered? Certainly not for himself, for he did not need the data, had no use for it. Could it be that he was only the gatherer, the harvester, the storer and communicator of the data that he gathered?
If not for himself, for whom? He waited for the answer to come welling up, for the memory to reassert itself and in time he realized that he had gone groping back as far as he could go.
Slowly he withdrew from the rock, once more was upon the hillside above the red land beneath the yellow sky.
A portion of the nearby surface moved and as it moved, he saw that it was not a portion of the surface, but a creature that had a coloration which made it seem to be a part of the planet's surface. It moved quickly, as if a shadow had brushed along and blurred the surface. It moved in short and flowing motions and when it stopped its motion it became a part of the surface, blending into it.
It was watching him, he knew, looking him over, although what there was to see of him he could not imagine. Sensitive, perhaps, to another personality, to another thing that shared with it that strange and (indefinable quality which made up life. A force field, he wondered — was that what he was, a disembodied intelligence carried in a force field?
He stayed still so the thing could look him over. It moved in its short, flowing dashes, all around him. It left a furrowed track behind it, it kicked up little spurts of sand as it made its dashes. It moved in closer.
And he had it. He held it motionless, wrapped up as if he held it in many hands. He examined it, not closely, not analytically, but only enough so he could tell what kind of thing it was. Protoplasmic and heavily shielded against the radiations, even designed, perhaps — although he could not be sure — to take advantage of the energy contained in the radiation. An organism, more than likely, that could not exist without the radiations, that needed them as other creatures might need warmth, or food, or oxygen. Intelligent and laced with a multitude of emotions— not, perhaps, the kind of intelligence that could build a complex culture, but a high level of animal intelligence. Perhaps still evolving in its intelligence. Give it a few more million years and it might contrive a culture.
He turned it loose. It flowed away, moving rapidly, straight away from him. He lost sight of it, but still could follow its movement for a time by its unfeeling track and the spurts of sand it kicked into the air.
There was much work to do. An atmospheric profile, an analysis of the soil and of the microorganisms that it might contain, a determination of the liquid in the brook, an examination of the plant life, a geological survey, measurement of the magnetic field, the intensity of the radiation. But first there should be a general survey of the planet to determine what sort of place it was, a pinpointing of those areas that might be of economic interest.
And there it was again, another word he had not had before. Economic.
He searched inside himself, inside the theoretical intelligence enclosed within the hypothetical force field, for the purpose that was hinted in that single word. When he found it, it stood out sharp and clear — the one thing he had found that was sharp and clear. What was here that could be used and what would be the cost of obtaining it? A treasure hunt, he thought. That was the purpose of him. It was clear immediately that he, himself, had no use for treasure of any kind at all. There must be someone else who would have a use for it. Although when he thought of treasure a pleasurable thrill went through him.
What might there be in it for him, he wondered, this location of a treasure? What had been the profit to him in the finding of all those other treasures on all those other planets — although, come to think of it, there had not been treasure on every one of them. And on some of the others where there'd been, it had been meaningless, for planetary conditions had been such that it could not be got at. Many of the planets, he recalled, far too many of them, were such that only a thing such as himself would dare even to approach them.
There had been attempts, he remembered now, to recall him from some of the planets when it had become apparent they had no economic worth and that to further explore them would be a waste of time. He had resisted those attempts; he had ignored the summons to return to wherever it was he went when he did return. Because, in his simplistic ethic, when there was a job to do he did it and he did not quit until the job was done. Having started something, he was incapable of leaving off until it had been finished. It was a part of him, this single-minded stubbornness; it was a characteristic that was necessary to do the work he did.
If they had it one way, they could not have it two. He either was, or wasn't. He did the job, or didn't. He was so made that he had an interest in each problem that was presented him and would not leave off until he'd wrung the problem dry. They had to go along with that and they knew it now; they no longer bothered trying to recall him from a nonproductive planet.
They? he asked himself and remembered faintly other creatures such as he had been. They had indoctrinated him, they had made him what he was, and they used him as they used the priceless planets he had found, but he did not mind the using, for it was a life and the only life he had. It either had been this life, or no life at all. He tried to recall circumstances, but something moved to block the recall. Exactly as he never could recall in all entirety, but only in fragments, the other planets he had visited. That, he thought at the time, might be a great mistake, for experience he had gathered on the other planets might have been valuable as guide lines on the one to which he currently had been sent. But for some reason, they did not allow it, but did their imperfect best to wipe from his memory all past experiences before he was sent out again. To keep him clear, they said; to guard him from confusion; to send a bright new mind, freed of all encumbrances, out to each new planet. That was why, he knew, he always arrived upon each planet groping for a meaning and purpose, with the feeling of being newly born to this particular planet and to nowhere else.