But now she worried that she would be unable even to confront–much less to win over for the human species– an extraterrestrial being. They hadn’t thought to screen the Five for that. There had been no effort to determine whether they were afraid of mice or dwarfs or Martians. It had simply not occurred to the examining committees. She wondered why they hadn’t thought of it; it seemed an obvious enough point now.
It had been a mistake to send her. Perhaps when confronted with some serpent-haired galactic Stationmaster, she would disgrace herself–or far worse, tip the grade given to the human species, in whatever unfathomable test was being administered, from pass to fail. She looked with both apprehension and longing at the enigmatic door, its lower boundary now under water. The tide was coming in.
There was a figure on the beach a few hundred meters away. At first she thought it was Vaygay, perhaps out of the examining room early and come to tell her the good news. But whoever it was wasn’t wearing a Machine Project jump suit. Also, it seemed to be someone younger, more vigorous. She reached for the long lens, and for some reason hesitated. Standing up, she shielded her eyes from the Sun. Just for a moment, it bad seemed…It was clearly impossible. They would not take such shameless advantage of her.
But she could not help herself. She was racing toward him on the hard sand near the water’s edge, her hair streaming behind her. He looked as he bad in the most re-cent picture of him she had seen, vigorous, happy. He had a day’s growth of beard. She flew into his arms, sobbing.
“Hello, Presh,” he said, his right hand stroking the back of her head.
His voice was right. She instantly remembered it. And his smell, his gait, his laugh. The way his beard abraded her cheek. All of it combined to shatter her self-possession. She could feel a massive atone seal being pried open and the first rays of light entering an ancient, almost forgotten tomb.
She swallowed and tried to gain control of herself, but seemingly inexhaustible waves of anguish poured out of her and she would weep again. He stood there patiently, reassuring her with the same look she now remembered he had given her from his post at the bottom of the staircase during her first solo journey down the big steps. More than anything else she had longed to see him again, but she had suppressed the feeling, been impatient with it, because it was so clearly impossible to fulfill. She cried for all the years between herself and him.
In her girlhood and as a young woman she would dream that be had come to her to tell her that his death had been a mistake. He was really fine. He would sweep her up into his arms. But she would pay for those brief respites with poignant reawakenings into a world in which he no longer was. Still, she had cherished those dreams and willingly paid their exorbitant tariff when the next morning she was forced to rediscover her loss and experience the agony again. Those phantom moments were all she had left of him.
And now here he was–not a dream or a ghost, but flesh and blood. Or close enough. He had called to her from the stars, and she had come.
She hugged him with all her might. She knew it was a trick, a reconstruction, a simulation, but it was flawless. For a moment she held him by the shoulders at arm’s length. He was perfect. It was as if her father had these many years ago died and gone to Heaven, and finally–by this unorthodox route–she had managed to rejoin him. She sobbed and embraced him again.
It took her another minute to compose herself. If it had been Ken, say, she would have at least toyed with the idea that another dodecahedron–maybe a repaired Soviet Machine–had made a later relay from the Earth to the center of the Galaxy. But not for a moment could such a possibility be entertained for him. His remains were decaying in a cemetery by a lake.
She wiped her eyes, laughing and crying at once.
“So, what do I owe this apparition to–robotics or hypnosis?”
“Am I an artifact or a dream? You might ask that about anything.”
“Even today, not a week goes by when I don’t think that I’d give anything–anything I had–just to spend a few minutes with my father again.”
“Well, here I am,” he said cheerfully, his hands raised, making a half turn so she could be sure that the back of him was there as well. But he was so young, younger surely than she. He had been only thirty-six when he died.
Maybe this was their way of calming her fears. If so, they were very…thoughtful. She guided him back toward her few possessions, her aim around his waist. He certainly felt substantial enough. If there were gear trains and integrated circuits underneath his skin, they were well hidden.
“So how are we doing?” she asked. The question was ambiguous. “I mean–”
“I know. It took you many years from receipt of the Message to your arrival here.”
“Do you grade on speed or accuracy?”
“Neither.”
“You mean we haven’t completed the Test yet?” He did not answer.
“Well, explain it to me.” She said this in some distress. “Some of us have spent years decrypting the Message and building the Machine. Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s all about?”
“You’ve become a real scrapper,” he said, as if he really were her father, as if he were comparing his last recollections of her with her present, still incompletely developed self.
He gave her hair an affectionate tousle. She remembered that from childhood also. But how could they, 30,000 light-years from Earth, know her father’s affectionate gestures in long-ago and faraway Wisconsin? Suddenly she knew.
“Dreams,” she said. “Last night, when we were all dreaming, you were inside our heads, right? You drained everything we know.”
“We only made copies. I think everything that used to be in your head is still there. Take a look. Tell me if anything’s missing.” He grinned, and went 0n.
“There was so much your television programs didn’t tell us. Oh, we could figure out your technological level pretty well, and a lot more about you. But there’s so much more to your species than that, things we couldn’t possibly learn indirectly. I recognize you may feel some breach of privacy-”
“You’re joking.”
“–but we have so little time.”
“You mean the Test is over? We answered all your questions while we were asleep last night? So? Did we pass or fail?”
“It isn’t like that,” he said. “It isn’t like sixth grade.” She had been in the sixth grade the year he died. “Don’t think of us as some interstellar sheriff gunning down outlaw civilizations. Think of us more as the Office of the Galactic Census. We collect information. I know you think nobody has anything to learn from you because you’re technologically so backward. But there are other merits to a civilization.”
“What merits?”
“Oh, music. Loving kindness. (I like that word.) Dreams. Humans are very good at dreaming, although you’d never know it from your television. There are cultures all over the Galaxy that trade dreams.”
“You operate an interstellar cultural exchange? That’s what this is all about? You don’t care if some rapacious, bloodthirsty civilization develops interstellar spaceflight?”
“I said we admire loving kindness.”
“If the Nazis had taken over the world, our world, and then developed interstellar spaceflight, wouldn’t you have stepped in?”
“You’d be surprised how rarely something like that happens. In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It’s their nature. They can’t help it. In such a case, our job would be to leave them alone. To make sure that no one bothers them. To let them work out their destiny.”
“Then why didn’t you leave us alone? I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m only curious as to how the Office of the Galactic Census works. The first thing you picked up from us was that Hitler broadcast. Why did you make contact?”
“The picture, of course, was alarming. We could tell you were in deep trouble. But the music told us something else. The Beethoven told us there was hope. Marginal cases are our specialty. We thought you could use a little help. Really, we can offer only a little. You understand. There are certain limitations imposed by causality.”
He had crouched down, running his hands through the water, and was now drying them on his pants.
“Last night, we looked inside you. All five of you. There’s a lot in there: feelings, memories, instincts, learned behavior, insights, madness, dreams, loves. Love is very important. You’re an interesting mix.”
“All that in one night’s work?” She was taunting him a little.