Manella shrugged. “Such thanks I get.”
“Thanks enough not to question how you rescued Teresa from that pit… or managed to be the sole person on the entire island to make it alive past the death angels and knock on Atlantis’s door… just in time to hitch a ride—”
He stopped as Manella lifted a meaty hand. “It’s still awfully thin, Lustig.”
“Thin!”
“Come on. All of those things could have happened without my being — what you imply. Where’s your proof? What are you trying to say?”
Alex turned now to face Manella fully. His blood was up and he no longer felt reticent at all. “It was you, I now recall, who seeded the idea of asking my grandmother to help get us a resonator site in Southern Africa. In exchange, you made sure she had full-time computer access!”
“So I’m a nice fellow. And things worked out so she was in a place to make a difference. Still, all you have is a tower of teetering suppositions and guesses.”
“I don’t suppose,” Alex growled, “it would bother you much if I insisted you be medically examined—”
“ — not at all—”
“ — down to the level of a DNA scan? No?” Alex sighed. “You could be bluffing.”
“I could be. But you know I’m not. This body’s human, Alex. If I were some little green pixie riding around inside this carcass — if this were some sort of big, ugly disguise — don’t you think I’d have suffocated by now? Wouldn’t I have arranged to wear a better-looking model?” Manella groomed his moustache in the window reflection. “Not that I’ve had many complaints from the ladies, mind you.”
In exasperation, Alex fought to keep from shouting. “Dammit, you and I both know you’re not human!”
The tall figure turned and met his eyes. “How do you define ‘human’? No, seriously. It’s a fascinating notion.
Does it include your grandmother, for instance? In her present state?
“This is such an amusing discussion! But just for the sake of argument let’s follow your reasoning. Suppose we posit you have cause to suspect — no proof, mind you — that I’m unusual in some way.”
Alex swallowed again. “What are you?”
Manella shrugged again. “A reporter. I never lied about that.”
“Dammit—”
“But for the sake of argument, let’s consider the chance a fellow like me, who was involved in all the things I’ve been, might have had another job as well.”
“Yes?”
“Well, there are possibilities. Let’s see…” Pedro lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe as a friendly neighborhood policeman? Or a social worker?” He paused. “Or a midwife?”
Alex blinked once, twice. “Oh,” he said.
For the first time, Manella’s expression grew pensive, thoughtful. “I can guess what you’re thinking, Lustig. That all your conclusions back in Waitomo must be wrong. That Beta couldn’t have been a berserker machine, a weapon sent to wreck the Earth. Because see what actually happened! Rather than ruin a world, Beta became essential to bringing an entire planet alive.”
“Auntie Kapur. She told me to ‘seek the wisdom of sperm and egg.’… Oh, these damn bloody metaphors!” Alex’s temples hurt. “Are you saying Beta was sent here to fertilize — ?”
“Hey, I never admitted knowing any more about it than you do. We’re just doing a particularly bizarre, imaginative, pretend scenario right? Frankly, after all the things I’ve been called in my life, it’s a bit refreshing to be cast in the role of a friendly alien for a change!”
Manella laughed. “Anyway imagine a bunch of clever parameciums, trying to parse a Shakespeare play by likening it to ripples in the water when they wave their flagella. That’s a lot like you and me claiming we understand a living planet.”
“But the effects of Beta—”
“Those effects, combined with your intervention, combined with a thousand other factors, including my own small influence… yes, surely, all these things helped bring about something new and wonderful. And perhaps similar events have happened before in this galaxy, here and there.
“Maybe the results aren’t always as pleasant or sane as what happened here. Perhaps humans really are very special people, after all. Despite all your faults, this may be a very special world. Maybe others out there sensed something worth preserving and nurturing here.”
The warmth in Pedro’s voice surprised Alex. “You mean we don’t have enemies out there after all?”
“I never said that!” Manella’s brows narrowed with sudden intensity. Then, just as quickly, he visibly retreated again into his mood of blithe playfulness. “Of course we’re still only speaking hypothetically. You do come up with brilliant what-ifs, Lustig. This one is so intriguing.
“Let’s just say one possibility is that Beta came at an opportune time. After a painful transition, it was turned into an instrument of joy. But does it necessarily follow that the ‘father’ of this particular sperm was a friend? That’s one possibility. Another is, this world has managed to make the best out of a case of attempted rape.”
Alex stared at Manella. The man talked, but somehow nothing he said seemed to make any sense.
“I know you don’t want to hear more, metaphors,” Pedro went on. “But I’ve given some thought lately to all the different roles humanity has to play in the new planetary being that’s been born. Humans — and man-made machines — contribute by far the largest share of her ‘brain’ matter. They’ll be her eyes, her hands, as she learns to shape and spread life to other worlds in this solar system.
“But the best analogy may be to a body’s white blood cells! After all, what if the universe is a dangerous place as well as a beautiful one? It will be your job, and your children’s and their children’s, to protect what’s been born here. To serve Her and sacrifice yourselves for Her if need be.
“And then, of course, there is the matter of propagation…”
The vistas Manella presented — even hypothetically — were too vast. He kept talking, but suddenly his words seemed barely relevant anymore.
By the same token, Alex suddenly didn’t care any longer whether his suspicions about the man were valid or just more tantalizing similes, drawn against the universe’s infinite account of coincidence and correlation. Rather, Manella’s latest comparison suddenly provoked in Alex thoughts about Teresa, how he felt about her in his blood, in his skin, and in the busy flexings of his heart. He found himself smiling
“… I’d like to think it’s that way,” Pedro went on in the background, as if garrulously lecturing an audience. “That there might exist others out there, scattered among the stars, who foresaw some of what was fated here. And maybe arranged for a little help to arrive in time.
“Perhaps those others feel gladness at this rare victory, and wish us well…”
An interesting notion, indeed. But Alex’s thoughts had already moved well ahead of that, to implications Manella probably could not imagine, whatever his true nature. His gaze pressed ahead, past the bustling construction yards, along the film of air and moisture enveloping the planet’s soft skin. Skirting the hot, steady glow of the sun, Alex’s eyes took in the dusty scatter of the galactic wheel. And as his perplexed musings cast outward, he felt a familiar presence pass momentarily nearby, a propinquity invisible and yet as real as anything in the universe.
“YES, IT GOES ON,” his grandmother’s spirit seemed to whisper in his ear. “IT GOES ON AND ON AND ON…”
Fluttering ribbon banners proclaim condemned, and warning lights strobe keep away. But even tales of radioactive mutants cannot keep some people from eventually coming home. Even to the Glarus Alps, where gaping, glass-rimmed caves still glow at night, where angry fire once melted glaciers and cracked fortress mountains to their very roots.