At length a messenger entered the camp site and sought out Barstow. “. . .We are sorry we shunned you . . . in our haste we mistook your fortune for your fault . . . we wish to help you . . . we offer to teach you that you may become like ourselves . . .”
Barstow pondered how to answer this generous overture. “We thank you for your wish to help us,” he said at last, “but what you call our misfortune seems to be a necessary part of our makeup. Our ways are not your ways. I do not think we could understand your ways.”
The thought that came back to him was very troubled. “We have aided the beasts of the air and of the ground to cease their strife . . . but if~you do not wish our help we will not thrust it on you . . .”
The messenger went away, leaving Zaccur Barstow troubled in his mind. Perhaps, he thought, ha had been hasty in answering without taking time to consult the elders. Telepathy was certainly not a gift to be scorned; perhaps the Little People could train them in telepathy without any loss of human individualism. But what he knew of the sensitives among the Families did not encourage such hope; there was not a one of them who was emotionally healthy, many of them were mentally deficient as well-it did not seem like a safe path for humans.
It could be discussed later, he decided; no need to hurry. “No need to hurry” was the spirit throughout the settlement. There was no need to strive, little that had to be done and rarely any rush about that little. The sun was warm and pleasant, each day was much like the next, and there was always the day after that. The Members, predisposed by their inheritance to take a long view of things, began to take an eternal view. Time no longer mattered. Even the longevity research, which had continued throughout their memories, languished. Gordon Hardy tabled his current experimentation to pursue the vastly more fruitful occupation of learning what the Little People knew of the nature of life. He was forced to take it slowly, spending long hours in digesting new knowledge. As time trickled on, he was hardly aware that his hours of contemplation were becoming longer, his bursts of active study less frequent.
One thing he did learn, and its implications opened up whole new fields of thought: the Little People had, in one sense, conquered death.
Since each of their egos was shared among many bodies, the death of one body involved no death for the ego. All memory experiences of that body remained intact, the personality associated with it was not lost, and the physical loss could be made up by letting a young native “marry” into the group. But a group ego, one of the personalities which spoke to the Earthmen, could not die, save possibly by the destruotion of every body it lived in. They simply went on, apparently forever.
Their young, up to the time of “marriage” or group assimilation, seemed to have little personality and only rudimentary or possibly instinctive mental processes. Their elders expected no more of them in the way of intelligent behavior than a human expects of a child still in the womb. There were always many such uncompleted persons attached to any ego group; they were cared for like dearly beloved pets or helpless babies, although they were often as large and as apparently mature to Earth eyes as were their elders.
Lazarus grew bored with paradise more quickly than did the majority of his cousins. “It can’t always,” he complained to Libby, who was lying near him on the fine grass, “be time for tea.”
“What’s fretting you, Lazarus?”
“Nothing in particular.” Lazarus set the point of his knife on his right elbow, flipped it with his other hand, watched it bury its point in the ground. “It’s just that -this place reminds me of a well-run zoo. It’s got about as much future.” He grunted scornfully. “It’s ‘Never-Never Land.”
“But what in particular is worrying you?”