“The truth is, the Companions of the Arena and the society they serve are not as rigid, not as xenophobic, as popular belief elsewhere has it. Our isolation was never absolute; consider our trading caravans, or those young men who spend years outside, in work or in study. It is really only circumstance which has kept us on the fringe—and, no doubt, a certain amount of human inertia.
“Well, the times are mutating. If we Orcans are not to become worse off, we must adapt. In the course of adaptation, we can better our lot. Although we are not obsessed with material wealth, and indeed think it disastrous to acquire too much, yet we do not value poverty, Commissioner; nor are we afraid of new ideas. Rather, we feel our own ideas have strength to survive, and actually spread among people who may welcome them.”
Desai’s cigaret was used up. He threw away the ill-smelling stub and inserted a fresh one. Anticipating, his palate winced. “You are interested in enlarged trade relationships, then,” he said.
“Yes,” Mattu replied. “We have more to offer than is commonly realized. I think not just of natural resources, but of hands, and brains, if more of our youth can get adequate modern educations.”
“And, hm-m-m, tourism in your area?”
“Yes,” Mattu snapped. Obviously the thought was distasteful to him as an individual. “To develop all this will take time, which we have, and capital, which we have not. The nords were never interested … albeit I confess the Companions never made any proposal to them. We have now conceived the hope that the Imperium may wish to help.”
“Subsidies?”
“They need not be great, nor continue long. In return, the Imperium gains not simply our friendship, but our influence, as Orcans travel further and oftener across Aeneas. You face a nord power structure which, on the whole, opposes you, and which you are unlikely to win over. Might not Orcan influence help transform it?”
“Perhaps. In what direction, though?”
“Scarcely predictable at this stage, is it? For that matter, we could still decide isolation is best. I repeat, my mission is no more than a preliminary exploration—for both our sides, Commissioner.”
Chunderban Desai, who had the legions of the Empire at his beck, looked into the eyes of the stranger; and it was Chunderban Desai who felt a tinge of fear.
The young lieutenant from Mount Cronos had openly called Tatiana Thane to ask if he might visit her “in order to make the acquaintance of the person who best knows Ivar Frederiksen. Pray understand, respected lady, we do not lack esteem for him. However, indirectly he has been the cause of considerable trouble for us. It has occurred to me that you may advise us how we can convince the authorities we are not in league with him.”
“I doubt it,” she answered, half amused at his awkward earnestness. The other half of her twisted in re-aroused pain, and wanted to deny his request. But that would be cowardice.
When he entered her apartment, stiff in his uniform, he offered her a token of appreciation, a hand-carved pendant from his country. To study the design, she must hold it in her palm close to her face; and she read the engraved question, Are we spied on?
Her heart sprang. After an instant, she shook her head, and knew the gesture was too violent. No matter. Stewart sent a technician around from time to time, who verified that the Terrans had planted no bugs. Probably the underground itself had done so … The lieutenant extracted an envelope from his tunic and bowed as he handed it to her.
“Read at your leisure,” he said, “but my orders are to watch you destroy this afterward.”
He seated himself. His look never left her. She, in her own chair, soon stopped noticing. After the third time through Ivar’s letter, she mechanically heeded Frumious Bandersnatch’s plaintive demand for attention.
Following endearments which were nobody else’s business, and a brief account of his travels:
“—prophet, though he denies literal divine inspiration. I wonder what difference? His story is latter-day Apocalypse.
“I don’t know whether I can believe it. His quiet certainty carries conviction; but I don’t claim any profound knowledge of people. I could be fooled. What is undeniable is that under proper conditions he can read my mind, better than any human telepath I ever heard of, better than top-gifted humans are supposed to be able to. Or nonhumans, even? I was always taught telepathy is not universal language; it’s not enough to sense your subject’s radiations, you have to learn what each pattern means to him; and of course patterns vary from individual to individual, still more from culture to culture, tremendously from species to species. And to this day, phenomenon’s not too well understood. I’d better just give you Jean’s own story, though my few words won’t have anything of overwhelming impression he makes.
“He says, after finding this Elder artifact I mentioned, he put ‘crown’ on his head. I suppose that would be natural thing to do. It’s adjustable, and ornamental, and maybe he’s right, maybe command was being broadcast. Anyhow, something indescribable happened, heaven and hell together, at first mostly hell because of fear and strangeness and uprooting of his whole mind, later mostly heaven—and now, Jaan says, neither word is any good, there are no words for what he experiences, what he is.
“In scientific terms, if they aren’t pseudoscientific (where do you draw line, when dealing with unknown?), what he says happened is this. Long ago, Elders, or Ancients as they call them here, had base on Aeneas, same as on many similar planets. It was no mere research base. They were serving huge purpose I’ll come to later. Suggestion is right that they actually caused Didonians to evolve, as one experiment among many, all aimed at creating more intelligence, more consciousness, throughout cosmos.
“At last they withdrew, but left one behind whom Jean gives name of Caruith, though he says spoken name is purely for benefit of our limited selves. It wasn’t original Caruith who stayed; and original wasn’t individual like you or me anyway, but part—aspects?—attribute?—of glorious totality which Didonians only hint at. What Caruith did was let heeshself be scanned, neurone by neurone, so entire personality pattern could be recorded in some incredible fashion.
“Sorry, darling, I just decided pronoun like ‘heesh’ is okay for Neighbors but too undignified for Ancients. I’ll say ‘he’ because I’m more used to that; could just as well, or just as badly, be ‘she,’ of course.
“When Jaan put on circlet, apparatus was activated, and stored pattern was imposed on his nervous system.
“You can guess difficulties. What shabby little word, ‘difficulties’! Jaan has human brain, human body; and in fact, Elders thought mainly in terms of Didonian finding their treasure. Jaan can’t do anything his own organism hasn’t got potential for. Original Caruith could maybe solve a thousand simultaneous differential equations in his ‘head,’ in split second, if he wanted to; but Caruith using Jaan’s primitive brain can’t. You get idea?
“Nonetheless, Elders had realized Didonians might not be first in that room. They’d built flexibility into system. Furthermore, all organisms have potentials that aren’t ordinarily used. Let me give you clumsy example. You play chess, paint pictures, hand-pilot aircraft, and analyze languages. I know. But suppose you’d been born into world where nobody had invented chess, paint, aircraft, or semantic analysis. You see? Or think how sheer physical and mental training can bring out capabilities in almost anybody.
“So after three days of simply getting adjusted, to point where he could think and act at all, Jaan came back topside. Since then, he’s been integrating more and more with this great mind that shares his brain. He says at last they’ll become one, more Caruith than Jaan, and he rejoices at prospect.