Aglabec…? The name floated up from memory: it had been cited by her parents. Chybee said firmly, “I’m against dreamness!”
“I’m glad of that!” said the boy caustically. But they were being called on to hush again. Wam was expanding her mantle for a counterblast.
“There is one point on which Professor Ugant and myself are entirely in agreement! I maintain that her scheme to seed the planets with microorganisms is a poor second-best, because what we must and can do is launch ourselves, or our descendants, and our entire culture into space! But we unite in despising those who spout nonsense about the nature of other planets totally at odds with scientific reality, those who claim that they can make mental voyages to Swiftyouth and Sunbride and indeed to the planets of other stars! Such people are—”
What carefully honed insult Wam had prepared, her listeners were not fated to find out. A group of about a score of young people, with a leavening of two or three older, outshouted her and simultaneously began to shake the branches. Resonance built up swiftly, and those around cried out as they strove to maintain their grip. The slogans the agitators were bellowing were like the one Chybee had caught a snatch of a few moments earlier, warnings that the folk of other planets were bound to drop more rocks from heaven if any plan to carry “alien” life thither were put into effect. But who could respect them if they were capable of slaughtering fellow beings for their own selfish ends…?
Chybee caught herself. There was no life on Swiftyouth and Sunbride; there couldn’t be. Modern astronomy had proved it. Fatigue and hunger were combining to drive her into dreamness herself … plus the shock of realizing that she could never go home again. Had she really gambled the whole of her future life on this one trip to Slah, which her budder had forbidden?
Indeed she had, and the knowledge made her cling as desperately to rationality as to her swaying branch.
She barely heard a new loud voice roaring from the center of the bower, barely registered that Aglabec the leader of the agitators had finally spoken up, and was shouting:
“You’re wasting your efforts! You’ll never shake this lot loose from their grip on the tree of prejudice! Leave that to the folk of other worlds—they’ll act to cure such foolishness in their own good time!”
Disappointed, his reluctant followers ceased making the branches thrash about. But at that point Chybee could hold her peace no longer.
Rising as best she could to full height on her swaying perch, she shouted back, “There aren’t any folk on other worlds, and there never will be if you get your way! We can’t live there either! Our only sane course is to hope that the seeds of life can be adapted to germinate and evolve elsewhere!”
What am I saying? Who am I saying it to?
Mocking laughter mingled with cheers. She slumped back on the branch, folding her mantle tightly around her against the storm of noise, and heard at a great distance how the company dispersed. Several in passing discourteously bumped against her, and she thought one must have been the boy from the adjacent perch. It was a shame to have made him dislike her on no acquaintance, but after what Aglabec had said … after what her parents had tried to force down her maw … after…
She had imagined herself young and strong enough to withstand any challenge the world might offer. The toll taken by her journey, her emotional crisis, her lack of food, maybe the subtle poisons some claimed to have identified in the air of Slah, proved otherwise. Her mind slid downward into chaos.
II
Reacting to the reek of hostility that permeated the bower, Wam snapped, “I knew it was a crazy idea inviting Aglabec to take part in a scientific debate!”
She swarmed down from the crotch she had occupied during the meeting and gazed disconsolately at the departing audience.
“You can’t have thought it was that stupid if you came so far to join in!” Ugant retorted, stung.
“Oh, one always hopes…” Wam admitted with a sigh. “Besides, the dreamlost are gathering such strength at Hulgrapuk, even among my own students, and I imagined that things might be better here. Apparently I was wrong. What do we have to tell these folks to convince them of the doom hanging over us all?”