Zit! Not the case at all with the High Ones! This globe I found told us a million times as much about them as we knew before: the way they looked and moved, the shape of their cities, something of their customs. And they don’t seem like Just Plain Folks at all. They seem tremendously alien, far stranger than Shilamakka or Dinamonians or Thhhians or any of the alien beings we encounter in our own lives. We may have difficulty understanding Dinamonian theology or the Shilamakkan craze for replacing perfectly good limbs with machinery, but we can still get along with them on a business basis. I don’t think we could ever have gotten along with the High Ones, even if they weren’t separated from us by a billion-year gap. Not only because of their immense technological superiority, either. They way they think would always be unintelligible.
Consider the cultures of Earth before communications satellites and rocket transport helped everybody to live just like everybody else. Consider the world-outlooks of Eskimos, Polynesians, Bedouins, Belgian businessmen, Pueblo Indians, and Tibetans. Not a whole lot in common there. Pretty alien to one another, matter of fact, and all native to the same planet. Okay, eventually they all died out or became smoodged together into “Earthmen,” but now we were part of a galaxy full of other intelligent species, each one with its own various cultures, and each one different from us … and so on. Huge gulfs between peoples of the same world, and huger gulfs between peoples of different worlds, yet all these gulfs were bridgeable.
The hugest gulf of all seems to be the one between us and the High Ones. Forget my romantic ideas about finding them still alive somewhere. I don’t want to find them any more. I think it would be pretty frightening if we did.
After an hour of viewing the globe, 408b shut it off and we had a Discussion. The eleven of us sat around trying to interpret what we had just seen. Jan carefully positioned herself as far from Leroy Chang as she could get, but Leroy seemed to be going out of his way not to look at her. He seemed twitchy and ill at ease, more so than usual; I guess he was scared that Jan was going to rise up and denounce him as a rapist. A bungling rapist, at that. (Question: Is a man more loathsome if he succeeds in Having His Way with a woman, or if he’s such a spinless vidj that he botches the job? Don’t bother answering.)
Dr. Schein acted as chairman. He said, “It’s apparent that the whole scope of High Ones archaeology has changed overnight. For the first time we know something of what their living culture was like, as a result of Tom Rice’s fine discovery.”
I glowed nicely and nodded to acknowledge the cheers of a multitude of admirers.
Dr. Horkkk dampened my furnace a little by saying crisply, “Let it be noted that as a result of careless excavation technique this miraculous artifact nearly was destroyed.”
I looked at the floor in shame and counted my toes for lack of anything else to do. Dr. Horkkk tacked on a few more criticisms in his neat Teutonic way and I tried to shrink out of sight. Jan, who was sitting next to me, whispered, “Don’t let him get you quonked. You did find it. And you didn’t damage it.” I should have added that Jan had chosen to sit next to me instead of Saul Shahmoon. Interesting. Is she trying to awaken his slumbering jealousies, or do Jan and I have something going?
When Dr. Horkkk finished flaying me, 408b said, “It is questionable that this instrument represents a view of the living culture of these beings. Perhaps it is an entertainment device, providing pure fantasy.”
“Good point,” said Dr. Schein. “But I don’t go for it.”
Pilazinool took off one hand and waved it in the other to get the floor. The mechanical man said, “On the basis of a quick analysis, I too doubt that 408b is correct. I feel that we’ve got an authentic look at High Ones life, here. I can’t say what purpose this globe was meant to serve, but I do believe that those were genuine scenes of daily life, as Dr. Schein suggests.”
Dr. Schein beamed. 408b folded his tentacles in irritation. Mirrik, Saul Shahmoon, and Kelly offered opinions, more or less simultaneously. I didn’t have the slice to open my glapper after the things Dr. Horkkk had said about me, but privately I agreed with Pilazinool and Dr. Schein.
“The question is,” Dr. Schein said, “should we ship the globe back to Galaxy Central for detailed study of the content of its images, or should we keep it here to guide us in the remaining period of our excavations?”
“Keep it here,” said Pilazinool.
“Send it to Galaxy Central,” said Dr. Horkkk.
We went around on that for a while. It developed that Dr. Horkkk was so enthralled with the globe that he proposed calling the expedition off at this point, heading back toward civilization, and devoting all our efforts to trying to learn things from the projected scenes. Leroy Chang seconded the motion. I guess Leroy is looking for any excuse to get off Higby V after that fiasco with Jan.
Steen Steen said, “That seems hasty. Why leave now, when we may be on the verge of even more amazing discoveries?”
First sensible thing I ever heard him/her say.
Dr. Horkkk replied, “As long as we stay here with the globe, we run the risk that it may be lost or destroyed. It’s our duty to convey it safely to some more settled world.”
Dr. Schein, who in his mild way can be murderous, smiled sweetly at his Thhhian rival and said, “Perhaps, Dr. Horkkk, you and Professor Chang would be willing to detach yourselves from the expedition and take the globe to a safer planet, while the rest of us proceed with the work?”
Dr. Horkkk made a gargling sound. He wasn’t pleased by that maneuver.
In the end, when all the verbal knifeplay was over, a reasonable decision emerged. All of us, and the globe, will remain on Higby V while we complete our scheduled period of excavation work. For safety’s sake, though, we’ll make several copies of the films of the globe’s projections and ship them out to civilization aboard the monthly transport packets. Jan and I were given the assignment of writing up a press release about the globe which is to be sent out via the TP communications network as soon as possible. We’re supposed to write the release tonight.
The work schedule is going to be revised somewhat. Pilazinool, 408b, and Dr. Horkkk will be relieved of all supervisory work at the excavation and instead will devote themselves pretty much full time to playing the globe and puzzling over the meaning of the scenes it shows. The hope is to get some clue that will lead us to other important discoveries. This means that the burden of overseeing the digging will fall to Dr. Schein and Leroy Chang, since Saul will be busy classifying artifacts in the lab, and that most of the actual grubbing in the pit will be done by our two specialized diggers, Mirrik and Kelly, and by the three apprentices, Steen, Jan, and yours cordially.
Dinnertime now. Nasty rain coming down.
I still feel dazed by the things the globe projected. Those dangling buildings… the weird customs… above all, just seeing the faces of the High Ones. Did I mention their eyes? Three of them, side by side. Cold. Glittering. They look at you out of those projected images and you want to crawl into the ground. That look of chilly intelligence … of having lived a hundred thousand years. It’s terrifying to meet a High One’s stare, coming at you across so much time. What kind of race was this? Where did they learn the skills that let them grow so great before all the other races of the galaxy had begun to evolve? How were they able to keep their civilization intact for all those hundreds of millions of years? (Hundreds of millions of years! Those long-ago Egyptians and Cro-Magnons happened just an eye-blink back, on a scale like that!)