Snook: I’m sorry that I was the bringer of such news.
Do not distress yourself. The intellectual experience has been unique—and the end is not yet. Also, the knowledge you gave me has been put to good use. I have, for example, been able to explain to the satisfaction of the People certain disturbing phenomena which have occurred in distant lands, all of them near the equal-day line, which you refer to as the equator. Some individuals have been terrified by visions, and by intimations about the end of our world. Without knowing it, for there was nothing to see, they had come within self-congruency range of others of your race who live on or near your equator, and an accidental and partial communication was achieved.
How is it that I am able to see you and your companions?
Please be at ease—it is not necessary for you to construct sentences, nor have we time for such laborious methods. You have a companion who has knowledge of nuclear physics and it was his idea to illuminate your body by placing it within what he calls an intermediate vector boson field. I wish to communicate with him, but he is surrounded by the silence which separates and I have no means of reaching him. It is apity that the planetary motion gives us such a short time together, but there is something you can do to help, if you are willing.
Snook: I’ll do anything I can.
I am grateful. When we are separated from each other,please obtain writing materials and have them in your hands when we are united again. I will then be able to communicate with Equal Boyce. In addition, I have a very important request to make of you and all the other members of your race. I have learned that yours is a troubled and divided world, and in order that my request be properly received I must teach you enough about the People to make it clear that the granting of the request will not add to your problems. In a few seconds we will separate, therefore—to achieve my purpose -1 must resort to full congruency of self. Do not be alarmed, and do not at this stage attempt to impose language upon concept.
Simply receive…
…the People are mammalian, bisexual, vegetarian (images of many Avernians, idealised/transformed by Felleth’s own vision; underwater farms; swimmers tending lines of tree-like plants)…average life span is ninety-two of your I our years (unfamiliar method of reckoning)
…inter-personal communication is telepathic, complemented by vocal sound, expression and gesture (images of Avernian faces, idealised/transformed, made meaningful, fierce white light of truth)…social organisation is paternal, flexible, informal—no equivalent term available in Earth languages (images of philosopher-statesmen holding congress in vast brown stone building covering two islands linked by a double-arched bridge)
…mass aggression and individual aggression unknown in recent history—corrective procedure for murder was voluntary cessation of breeding by all Avernians of same genetic strain
(image of small wave losing momentum, subsiding into the unity of the ocean)
…planetary population is now 12,000,000 but was 47,000,000 before the weight of the oceans decreased (images of bodies of small children floating in water faces downward, numerous as autumn leaves on a forest floor, unmoving except for the slow jostling of the waves)
“Oh, God,” Snook whispered. “It’s too much. Too much.”
He became aware of the pressure of the uneven rock against his knees. His hands were holding the smooth plastic frame of his magniluct glasses, and a flashlight beam was dancing behind the silhouettes of human beings, shadows flailing and flickering in the confines of the tunnel.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Helig said. “I never saw anything like that.”
Murphy and Helig came forward and helped Snook to his feet. He looked around him and saw that Ambrose was close by, still wearing his Amplites, busy chalking marks on the tunnel wall, consulting his watch and talking into his recorder in a low voice, Quig was operating his camera, pointing it upwards, and Culver was doubled over the rectangular shape of the pulse code modulator. For an instant the scene was completely meaningless to Snook and he felt lost, then there was a shift of perception, and the strangers became known to him, their motivations familiar.
“How long did it last this time?” Snook’s throat was dry, hoarsening his voice. “How long was I in contact?”
“Your forehead was touching Felleth’s for nearly a minute,” Murphy said. “Was it Felleth, by the way?”
“Yes, that was Felleth.”
“They all look alike to me,” Murphy commented drily. “Then he leaned forward and his head was right inside yours, the way it was yesterday, for about a second.”
“A second?” Snook pressed the back of a hand to his forehead. “I can’t go on like this. I spend my whole life avoiding people, because I just don’t want to know, and now…”
“They’ve gone,” Ambrose said in a firm voice. “Everybody take their Amplites off—I’m turning on the big light.” A moment later the tunnel was filled with marble-white brilliance. There was a general shuffling of feet and flexing of shoulders. Snook felt in his pocket for his cigarettes.
“We can relax for ten minutes until the Avernians pass top dead centre and drop down again/ Ambrose continued.
“We drew a blank on the modulator,” Culver said. “I don’t think they were trying for light-sound communication this time—at least, I didn’t see any equipment.”
“No, it looks as though they’ve decided to work through Gil.” Ambrose lit Snook’s cigarette and his voice became unexpectedly sympathetic. “How was it, Gil? Rough?”
Snook inhaled fragrant smoke. “If anybody ever shoves an air hose in your ear and inflates your head to five times its normal size, you’ll get some idea.”
“Can you give me a preliminary report?”
“Not now—I’ll need a full morning with a recorder.” There was an abrupt stirring in Snook’s memory. “Felleth is going to send you a message, Boyce. I need a writing block and a pen before he comes back again.”
“A message? Have you any idea what it could be?”
“It’s technical. And it’s something big…” Snook felt the coldness of prescience beginning to grow within him and he fought to quell it. “Just give me the block and pen, will you?”
“Of course.”
Snook took the writing equipment, moved a short distance down the tunnel from the rest of the group and stood by himself. He lit a second cigarette and smoked it with quiet concentration, all the while wishing he was far away and above ground, in sunlight. The sunlight was important. There had to be clear skies, with views of infinity, a visual antidote to the bund grey skies of Avernus. There had to be an escape from the claustrophobic, doomed world, with its low islands reflecting as diamond-shapes in the tideless ocean, and the bodies of alien children drifting like sterile spawn…