They were not sequential thoughts. That would have been tolerable. They were simultaneous thoughts, screaming for attention, fighting for dominance.
After a few hours of internal conflict, Julius/Steven/Julian Graves could only agree on one thing: while the condition persisted, he was worse than useless — he was positively dangerous. He might make a decision, then a moment later do something to undermine or change it.
And yet he was the organizer and nominal leader of the whole expedition. He could not add to everyone’s problems by making them focus on worries that should be his alone.
Let the others explore the singularities, then, and look for Genizee and the Zardalu. All his internal thoughtstreams agreed on one thing: that he could best serve the party by staying out of the way. If he remained on the Erebus and did not touch the controls, it was difficult to see how he could do much damage. And perhaps in a few hours or days his personal reintegration would occur and he could be useful again.
He watched Darya Lang and the second party leave with a feeling of vast relief.
And learned, within a few hours, that he had no reason for satisfaction. Without others to distract him and to channel his thoughts to particular subjects, the split in his personality became more noticeable. He was incapable of holding any thought without another — several others — riding along beside it. It was worse than it had been during the first days of interface, because there were more than two thoughts jousting for dominance. His mind darted and veered and fluttered from place to random place like a startled bird, unable to find a stable resting place. And when the monitors sounded to indicate that some object was seeking rendezvous with the Erebus, any worry that the main ship might be vulnerable to attacking Zardalu was swamped by the knowledge that he would no longer be alone. The presence of another being — any other being — would help to focus his mind.
The control system of the Erebus indicated that the new arrival had docked at one of the medium-sized external holds. Graves set off through the ship’s interior. In the final narrow corridor that led to the hold, a crouching shape rose suddenly before him.
He gasped, with surprise and then with relief. “J’merlia! Are the others with you? Did you meet Professor Lang?”
The two questions had risen in his mind in the same fraction of a second. But when the Lo’tfian shook his thin head and said, “I am alone,” Graves’s divided mind managed to agree on one emotion: disappointment. Of all the beings in the party, J’merlia showed the least independence of thought. He was likely to mirror Graves’s own mental patterns, however confused and fragmented they might be.
“I did not meet Professor Lang,” J’merlia continued. “Did she leave the Erebus?”
“She, and also Dulcimer and E.C. Tally. They went to seek your group. They went to learn why there was damage to the returned drone, and mud on it.”
Graves put his hand to his head. He was getting worse; his voice was no more controllable than this thoughts. But J’merlia was merely nodding and turning to walk with Graves back to the control room.
“We must have passed each other on the journey through the annular singularities. I have been sent back to tell you that everything goes well. Captain Rebka and the others have landed, and confirm that the planet is the famous lost world of Genizee. It appears to be a peaceful and pleasant place, with no sign of danger.”
“There are no Zardalu?” With a gigantic effort Graves forced his divided brain to the single question. The mental energy required to resolve alternatives and form one thought was enough to crack his skull, or so it felt.
“We are not sure. No trace of them had been discovered when I left. But Captain Rebka decided to land only when an extensive survey from space showed that it was safe to do so.”
Even to the distracted thought processes of Julian Graves’s split brain, there seemed something wrong with that statement. “But the message drone was damaged. How did that happen? Who launched the drone? It has to be done in space. Why was there mud on it? Why did you leave the others on Genizee without a ship and return here alone? How can they be safe, when there may still be Zardalu on the planet?”
Graves cursed himself as he flopped down at the control console of the Erebus. J’merlia had a linear mind; he would be hopelessly confused by a stream of questions delivered all at once. Graves was confused by them himself. Where were they all coming from?
“I will reply to your inquiries, if you do not mind, in a rather different order from that in which they were asked.” J’merlia sat down without waiting for permission. He lifted six legs and began to click off answers on his claws. “First, I left Genizee under the direct orders of Captain Rebka. I launched the message drone for the same reason. He commanded me to take off from the planet and launch it. The drone itself suffered minor damage and became muddied on our landing on Genizee, as did the seedship, but it was not enough to affect performance. As to the safety or lack of it of Captain Rebka and the others, you know my relationship to Atvar H’sial. Do you imagine that I would ever leave her if I thought that she might be in danger, except under direct orders?”
There was something wrong with the J’merlia who gave those answers. Graves knew it. Something odd about the answers, too. Lo’tfians did not tell lies — that was well-known — but did that mean they always told the truth? Those two were logically equivalent, weren’t they? But suppose that one was ordered to tell lies. His own condition prevented him from thinking it through. His mind was splitting into pieces. He put his hands up to rub his eyes. Even they seemed to want to provide double vision. Well, why not? The optic nerve was part of the brain.
He covered his eyes with his hands and fought to concentrate. “But why did you come back? Why didn’t you send another probe here? If there are Zardalu…”
“The seedship is unarmed, Councilor. Even if it were still on Genizee, it could do nothing to protect the party from any Zardalu that may be encountered. I know that, quite certainly. I came back to help you to bring the Erebus through the singularity rings. There was no way of knowing that the probe had reached you with the information that charts the way in. We must prepare to leave at once, and bring the Erebus to orbit Genizee.”
Graves hesitated. J’merlia was right: the seedship had been defenseless. But to take the Erebus inside the singularities, surely not…
But why not? Almost the whole party was there now, anyway. Julian Graves took his hands away from his eyes, almost ready to force his mind to a decision, and found that J’merlia had not waited for one. The Lo’tfian was already working at the control console, entering an elaborate sequence of navigational instructions.
When the program was complete, J’merlia turned flight execution over to the Erebus main computer and turned his thin body to face Julian Graves. “We are on our way. In a day or less, depending on the condition of stochastic elements of our path, we will be within sight of Genizee. But this raises a new question, and one that fills me with concern. Suppose that when we reach Genizee, Captain Rebka’s group, or possibly Professor Lang’s group, have indeed discovered that the planet is the home of the Zardalu. What will we do then? Would it not be logical to bring our group away to safety, and employ the arsenals of the Erebus to exterminate the Zardalu?”
Graves considered himself lucky. He did not have to think about the last question with his poor community of a brain, because he had already thought about it long before, for days and weeks and months. The Zardalu were bloodthirsty and violent and cruel, former masters and tormentors of dozens of other intelligent races. That could not be denied. But Julius Graves had spent years working on an interspecies Council. One of the Council’s prime duties was to protect any species that had borderline or even potential intelligence. The idea of genocide, of destroying all the surviving members of a known-intelligent species, made his stomach turn over.