Listening to him in the gloom of the ill-tended bower, Albumarak found herself wondering what Presthin had been like when she was younger and less cynical; much like Karg, she suspected … She decided once for all that she had been right to throw in her lot with these people. If they succeeded with their plan to survive in space, they would not be driven mad by the fate of their fellow creatures, any more than Karg by Quelf’s mistreatment. But they were no less civilized for that. Yull’s contempt for the folk of Prutaj was justified. Worse than primitive, they were insane … if sanity consisted in doing the most the universe allowed, and she knew no better definition.
In a tremulous tone she said, “I admire you very much, Karg. I’d invite you to pair with me, but I shouldn’t be in bud during my first few moonlongs at Slah, should I?”
“Quite right,” was the answer. “And in any case I’m still too weak, though I look forward to the time when it will be possible. And—ah— you say you admire me. But all my life I’ve been trained under the finest tutors to do unusual and extraordinary work. You’ve had a truly awful teacher, and yet for me at least you’ve performed not just one miracle, but two. Thank you again.”
And he swarmed away, leaving her delighted with the world.
VIII
For the first few days, what fascinated Albumarak about her new home was less its modern aspect—its space-site, its laboratories which in many ways were more impressive than those at Fregwil, perhaps because the staff were under less pressure to be forever producing novelties—than its sheer antiquity. She had been vaguely aware that Slah enshrined the last remaining traces of the only ocean-going city to have outlasted the heyday of the People of the Sea, but it was very different to hold in her own claws the mandible of a long-extinct fish, found among the roots of its most ancient trees, or nibble a fragment of funqus and know the species had last been modified by Gveest in person.
As she had expected, the pace of life here was calmer, yet she detected few signs of discontent or boredom. More people were occupied with old-fashioned tasks—such as disposing of dead luminants—which at Fregwil were deputed to creatures programmed for them, but there was a greater sense of being in touch with the natural world, which Albumarak found refreshing, and the citizens, most of whom had naturally heard about her, seemed never to lack time to offer advice or assistance.
By stages she began to grasp the full sweep of the plan these people had conceived for the salvation of their afterbuds, and its grandeur overawed her. They referred casually to the astronomers’ estimate that it might take ten thousand years for the sun to orbit through the Major Cluster, they accepted without question that its dense gas—from which stars could be observed condensing—would raise the solar temperature to the point where the planet became uninhabitable; they were resigned to the high probability that there would be a stellar collision, and if that did not eventuate, then so much random matter was bound to fall from the sky that it would come to the same thing in the end; and all this was equally well known at Fregwil.
But instead of closing their minds to the catastrophe, these people were prepared to plan against it. They spoke confidently of vehicles carrying scores-of-scores of folk, along with everything needed to support them, which could be moved away from the sun as it heated up, maneuvering as necessary to remain within its biosphere, while adapted plants freed raw materials from the outer planets and their moons. Then, later, they envisaged breaking up the smaller orbs and converting them into cylinders which could be spun on their long axis to provide a substitute for gravity. These, they predicted, would permit at least some isolated units of the folk to navigate between the nascent stars, using reaction mass or the pressure of light itself.
All this, of course, was still theoretical. But Albumarak was astonished to learn in what detail the history of the future had been worked out here. She wondered whether she was worthy to contribute to it.