Showm was warming to this echoing of her own feelings that she evidently hadn't expected to hear. "The organized violence that you call war is not only abhorrent but incomprehensible to us," she replied. "No person capable of experiencing empathy and compassion could be capable of ordering such things. And subordinating a life to obsessively accumulating possessions in place of cultivating the works that make life truly rewarding is mystifying indeed. Thuriens behaving in such a way would be regarded with concern and sympathy." She paused to eye Mildred searchingly for a moment. "But I'm not sure that our differences are attributable purely to our respective origins in the way you assume. Ours is also a far older culture."
"You think it might be a matter of the Thuriens being more mature as a race?" Mildred asked.
"Possibly. In part, anyway."
"They certainly show more of the characteristics that I'd describe as 'adult,'" Mildred agreed. "It makes so much of what we've seen on Earth appear as the antics of spiteful adolescents in comparison." She had made the same point to Christian on several occasions. Showm seemed surprised to hear this assessment coming from a Terran-impressed, even. Mildred paused, then went on, "Although it is true that Thurien progress came to a halt for a long time, isn't it?" She was referring to the period of stagnation that occurred following Thuriens' attainment of immortality after their migration to the Giants' Star, which they later abandoned.
"Even without that, we were a spacegoing race long before humans existed," Showm pointed out.
"Well, all right, yes, I suppose so…"
"And in those earlier times we went through a phase of what you would probably call hyperrational materialism, too. Before the migration from Minerva, our ancestors considered moving to Earth. They sent survey missions there and set up bases. But nothing in their experience had prepared them for the ferocious competition of life that they found there. They knew that they could never coexist with such a pattern. And so, they…" Showm's voice faltered. She was unable to finish the sentence.
"I know," Mildred said quietly, and nodded. "You don't have to explain. Christian told me about it." The early Ganymeans had embarked on a program to exterminate the higher forms of Terran life with the aim of clearing the territory for their own kind and forms of life compatible with it to move in. Parts of Earth subjected to the pilot experiments had remained deserts to the present day. But the experience had proved too traumatic and filled with unexpected consequences for the Ganymeans involved. So the notion of moving to Earth was forgotten, and the program to move the entire race to a new star system took shape in its place.
"It isn't something that Thuriens normally talk to Terrans about," Showm said. She appeared to be a little taken aback. "Because of uncertainty as to the possible reactions. I was prepared to tell you because you seem more understanding than many might be."
"It came from Victor," Mildred replied. "He learned the story from the Ganymeans of the Shapieron-before there was any contact with Thurien."
"Ah, yes… In that case, I see." Showm nodded. "And you don't hold it against us? I find that… curious."
Mildred smiled, at the same time snorting scornfully. "I don't think anyone from a species with a record like ours would be in any position to condemn the lapses of another," she replied. "Especially when you were able to learn so much from it-about yourselves and about the true consequences of one's actions. That's more than can be said for the geniuses who led Terrans by the millions from one slaughter to another through millennia, and learned nothing."
"You are wise," Showm commented. "You understand truth. So why don't Terrans allow people like you to lead?"
Mildred laughed delightedly. "We've been through that! I'd never be appointed. They don't want to hear what's true. They want to hear whatever justifies their prejudices."
"Like children who think they can change reality by wishing it so. On Thurien you would be listened to."
"Well then, there's your difference, Frenua."
A movement outside the window caught Mildred's eye. A bird had come out of a tree to swoop down over the stream tracing a rocky course along the valley floor. She watched it climb again until it was soaring against the sky. Behind it in the distance, incongruously, the long, slender shape of a bright yellow zeppelin with red markings was hanging above the mountains. "VISAR, what's that doing there?" Mildred demanded in astonishment.
"Oh, just an experiment I dreamed up to add in some variety. Would you rather I stuck strictly to authenticity?"
Victor had mentioned that one of the tasks VISAR had set itself was trying to plumb the subtleties of Terran humor, and it had taken to injecting peculiar effects into its creations in an effort to arrive at some understanding of what worked and what didn't. He had told VISAR to be sure to let him know if it ever figured the answers out, because as a human he'd like to know, too-which apparently hadn't done much to help the machine draft its game plan. But it was persevering. "No, it's okay," Mildred responded. "Now I'm curious to see what comes next." She thought for a second. "Although, thinking about it, you could put Lynx here. My office really isn't complete without her, you know." The cat promptly appeared, curled up asleep on the window sill.
"I've been developing a theory that a culture's picture of science reflects the level of maturity that it has reached," Showm said. "In the same kind of way as the worldview of an individual. Fairies and enchantment are the stuff of childhood."
"It's true of Thuriens, too?"
"Oh, yes. Materialism and pragmatism of the kind you talk about come with adolescence. We went through it long ago, and Earth is perhaps just beginning to emerge. It goes with the fixation on the shorter term and inability to see beyond self that are the prelude to maturity. But eventually the realization comes that the important things are not all the mysteries that the materialist sciences can explain, but the things that they can't."
"The Thuriens concern themselves with such things?" Now it was Mildred's turn to be surprised.
"The purpose of life and of mind," Showm said. "Where the quest for greater understanding becomes directed when physical knowledge alone proves inadequate."
"You don't think they are just accidental byproducts of physics, then, the way our scientists would have us believe?" That was another area in which Mildred had provoked her cousin's ire over the years, by steadfastly refusing to accept his pronouncements-although lately there had been signs that he might be having second thoughts about some things.
Showm made an expression coupled with an utterance that Mildred was unable to interpret. "No more than that VISAR is just an accidental byproduct of the configuration of optronics that supports it. Only a culture in its materialist phase could have conceived such an impossibility and believed it."
"Adolescence," Mildred said. "Having banished the fairies of childhood, it makes itself the lord of all that exists. Mindless matter is all that it can allow."
"Yes, exactly."
"So what exists beyond Thuriens and humans?"
"We don't know. The desire is to find out is our greatest motivation."
"Was that why the Thuriens gave up immortality?"
"Not exactly. But we realized later that it was a necessary thing to do in order to ask and understand the question."
There was a drawn-out silence. Mildred had the feeling of sharing a commonality of understanding with this alien that ran deeper than most she could remember. She was still reflecting on the strangeness of the situation, when Showm said, "Well, as I said earlier, I do have another pressing matter to take care of now. I'll leave you to experiment with your office at your leisure. But we must pursue our talk further, Mildred. It's not the kind of thing I'm used to discussing with Terrans. I live in the mountain region to the south of Thurios. You'll have to be my guest there next time-I mean in actuality, in person. But for now, I have to take my leave."