“Do not fear,” Zeremy said in a whisper. “For all its appearance, it is not hostile.”
Yarrek nodded, evincing valour he did not feel.
The creature was hairless, with an emaciated, naked body supported in some kind of floating carriage; it was not the emaciated state of the being that so shocked Yarrek, nor its nakedness, but the size of its cranium, supported by padded rests on either side of the carriage. Its head was almost the length of its body, a great bulbous pink dome threaded with veins, with at its centre a collection of tiny features that seemed pinched and mean: two tiny eyes, a thin nose, and lips like a bloodless hyphen.
“Welcome,” it said in a croak.
“It speaks our language!” Yarrek said.
The creature’s lips lengthened in what might have been a smile. “You have come so far, and we hope that you will take what you will learn back to your people.”
Zeremy stepped forward. Yarrek hesitated, and the Prelate murmured, “Fear not, for the creature is but some kind of clever projection. A ghost, if you like — not flesh and blood as you and I.”
Not comprehending, nevertheless Yarrek did not want to be parted from the Prelate, and hurried to his side.
They stood before the creature as it bobbed in its metal carriage, and Yarrek was amazed to see that, somehow, he could discern the outline of the entrance through the being’s pink nakedness.
“You deserve an explanation for having ventured so far, and having witnessed so much that must be incomprehensible to you.”
“What is this place?” Yarrek asked.
“You are at the very edge of the Ark,” the feeble creature announced.
Yarrek shook his head and echoed, “The Ark?”
“Your world,” the creature explained, “is but one of a thousand such worlds ranked side by side, like coins along the length of a tube. In each world a different race exists, examples of the thousand races which once inhabited the universe.”
Yarrek glanced at Zeremy, as if for explanation, but the Prelate had closed his eyes, a serene smile upon his lips.
Sunworld, but one of many — like a coin in the barrel of a gun? His senses reeled.
The emaciated being went on, “Hundreds of millennia ago, we began the process of salvation, moving through space from planet to planet.” The creature gave its thin-lipped smile again. “But the concepts I describe are of course alien to you. The universe, space, planets, even millennia.” It lifted a weak arm and gestured. “Beyond the viewscreen is the universe, a vast emptiness scattered with galaxies, each comprising millions of stars, and, around the stars, planets, worlds like your own world, though existing on the outside of spheroids of rock and earth.”
Yarrek felt dizzy. He stepped forward, surprising himself. “The process of salvation?” he said. “Why did you collect us like animals in a zoo?”
The creature stretched its hyphen lips. “The analogy is valid,” it said. “We collected races which were on the cusp of extinction, races torn by futile enmity, which we feared might perish but for our intervention. The history of the universe is that of races coming to sentience and destroying themselves in needless warfare. We could not allow that to happen.”
“And then,” Zeremy said, “you engineered our society away from such warlike tendencies.”
“When we had installed you safely abroad the Ark,” the creature said, “we sent agents amongst you to effect such results.”
Yarrek wondered then if these agents were the angels of yore, which allegedly had founded the Church. What irony if that were so — the formation of a Church which might have brought about lasting peace but which, over millennia, had fossilised to the point of denying the existence of the Ark.
The creature continued, “The experiment, if you wish to call it that, has been deemed successful. Now we can commence the next step of the programme.”
“Which is?” Yarrek found himself asking.
“The time has almost arrived to seed the planets again, to empty the Ark of its precious cargo and allow the races, now hopefully improved, to evolve as they will.”
“You are playing God,” Yarrek said.
The creature inclined its head. “If you wish to use that term, then so be it. We are playing God, in order to save and perpetuate these races.” It gestured, and all around the creature, stretching back towards the walls of the cavern, a great crowd of beings appeared, insubstantial as ghosts.
Yarrek stared, taking in beings of every conceivable size and shape. He saw creatures like crabs, and four legged beasts like lox, and things that resembled kite-fish floating in the air, and great birds, and bipedal hairless individuals with domed skulls.
And then he saw, in the silent crowd, tall, furred creatures like his own people, though more elongated of limb, and grey instead of brown.
The naked pink being went on, “We are the Controllers, my friends, though once, long ago, we called ourselves humans. Our intention was not to wield the power of God, but to empower others to evolve peacefully, to inhabit planets in harmony with nature and with themselves.”
“But when will that be?” Yarrek asked, wondering what it might be like to stand on the surface of what the creature called a planet.
The human gestured to the viewscreen. “The time has almost arrived to seed the cosmos. Perhaps, in a hundred of your cycles, the races of the Ark will be ready and the process can begin.”
A hundred cycles? He would be an old man then, Yarrek thought, if he lived to see the wondrous event. Oh, he could not wait to return to the Hub, and tell Yancy of his find, blind Yancy who had always been more far-sighted than himself.
“Now go,” said the human, “and inform your people of what awaits them.”
And so saying, the manifestation of the enfeebled creature, and the host of the saved, vanished in an instant.
Yarrek turned to Zeremy. To his surprise the Prelate was weeping.
“But you were aware of the truth, sir,” Yarrek said, “and yet you did not tell the world.”
“When my sons told me of what they had discovered,” the Prelate said, “I thought that it would be they who would tell the world… but of course that was not to be. I had to wait, then, until…”
Yarrek stared at the old man, awareness slowly dawning. “Until?”
In reply, Prelate Zeremy laid a loving hand on Yarrek’s shoulder and steered him towards the exit. “Come, my son, together now we have a duty to tell the world the truth.”
And Yarrek, bearing a freight of understanding greater than the mere fact of a race saved from itself, made his slow way back through the rock and ice to Sunworld and the task awaiting him there.
Beneath the Ancient Sun
We sat around the glow-coals and Old Tan, our Storyteller, told us about the time when water filled the valleys and people lived on the mountaintops.
“Millions of people,” he said in a whisper.
“But what is millions?” I asked.
Old Kahl, who was respected for his wisdom, said, “Pick up two handfuls of sand, Par, and let the sand trickle to the floor. That is a million.”
Dutifully I scooped up two handfuls of fine sand and felt the grains squirm from my grip. But I could not imagine that each grain was a person. “Surely it was impossible,” I said. “So many people could not exist.”
Old Tan was exaggerating, of course; he was known to make great claims to enhance his tales. For the next hour he told of mountain peaks that had teemed with people, of valleys filled with more water than could be imagined.
“But how do you know?” Kenda asked with his usual arrogance. He was a big-boned youth a winter my senior, who hated me — and for good reason.