“Three billion?” Robbins swallowed as points of light swirled about her. “And they’re all here now, in this room with us?”
“Why should they be somewhere else when they could be here? As I said, you represent an entertaining diversion.”
“What’s it saying?” Low demanded to know.
She turned to him. “It says that all of the Cocytans who went through the Eye are here now, in this chamber with us. You, me, it, and three billion thought-forms.”
Low whistled softly. Once more his gaze flicked about the room. “Funny. Up until now I didn’t feel crowded in here.”
CHAPTER 19
It was fortunate neither of them was claustrophobic, or remaining in the chamber would have been unbearable. As it was, they felt no pressure, no weight. Only the knowledge pressed heavily on them.
“How do you know this?” Low inquired.
“It is logical, and as a Cocytan I am more attuned to the presence of my own kind than you. I cannot be sure of the number, but it follows. I am sensitive to projections you are incapable of receiving. Not complete, coherent thoughts, mind you, but general sensations. My brethren are here, and yet they are not.”
The Creator started to stand but proved unable to complete the motion. Instead, it sank back down, clearly exhausted.
“What’s wrong?” The depth of her concern surprised Robbins.
“It is not good for one who has been long dead to be resurrected. The life-crystal process was developed so that those who perished accidentally could be rapidly revived. It was never intended to be used on ancient bodies like myself. Nor, as you now know, is this the first time I have been brought back. Under such circumstances the efficacy of the life crystal is marginal. I am past successful rejuvenation and find the whole process tiresome beyond measure.
“Remember that I chose death: It did not choose me. My physical form is so old that even the preservation processes employed by my misguided but well-intentioned colleagues can no longer sustain ordinary organic functions. The systems are feeble, the organs withered. I am sure that the intention was that should I be revived, I would quickly make the transportation via the Eye. It was never planned that I live for long in this precarious state.”
“Are you in pain?”
Again that maybe-smile. “Only mentally.”
“Then why haven’t you joined them? Why don’t you now?”
“For the same reason I did not do so in the first place,” the scientist-engineer explained. “Immortality is an alluring concept, much better dealt with via learned philosophical discourse than actuality. Every time I am revived, I sense greater and greater un-happiness among the transposed. It is just as I feared: They are less than content with their immortal lot.”
“The Creator lectures the travelers.” The ten million who commented rested unnoticed on Maggie Robbins’s left shoulder.
“Will they comprehend?” wondered twenty million others. “And comprehending, will they act?”
“They will not,” insisted forty million more from the vicinity of Low’s ankles. “Why should they? We didn’t.”
“Primitiveness is relative,” avowed the first. “It is not related to the moment. We have had a thousand years to learn and yet are helpless to affect our own condition.”
“Who could have envisioned eternity as boring?” observed fifty million more.
“From all I have been able to glean,” the Cocytan told Low and Robbins, “paradise is a particularly dreary place. When one surrenders physicality, one also gives up all the sensations it is heir to. Touch, smell, taste and several other senses I do not think you possess. The ability to perceive electrical fields, for one, and to taste of the infrared. In crossing over, all are surrendered, all are lost forever.”
“How do you know all this?” Robbins asked.
“Those sensations I spoke of are present even as we speak. I perceive nothing to contradict that which I have already surmised. Each time I am revived, I sense increasing disenchantment, a desire to trade timeliness for timelessness.”
“Then why don’t they?” Robbins translated for Low. “Why don’t they just come back?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie. It’s patently impossible.”
“Actually,” explained the Cocytan, “it is quite possible. Hypothetically, at least.”
Again Robbins translated. Except for the superior smirk, which was entirely her own addition. “See?”
“Okayyy.” Low turned to face the Creator. “If it’s possible, and muchly desired, then when you’re revived, why don’t you just amble over to this Eye and throw it into reverse or whatever? Assuming the machinery is still functional, of course.”
“As I have told you, my physical form is not capable of leaving this special chamber. Were I to attempt a task as elementary as rising from this platform and walking to the exit, my internal skeleton would simply collapse. My head would sink down between my shoulders to end up somewhere in the region of my pelvic girdle, crushing my internal organs along the way.
“So long as I remain atop this platform and make no attempt to leave, I am constantly bathed in what for lack of a better term I will call an energy field. It is similar to but different from that projected by the life crystals. Did you think that after a thousand years my flesh and blood would remain intact and functional without constant attention?” As an alarmed Low started to back away, it gestured sharply.
“There is no need to flee. The field is site as well as cell specific and cannot affect you.” The alien visage contorted. “At this point in time, it barely affects me.
“I cannot reactivate the Eye, much less execute the necessary adjustments. It is possible that the latter were left engaged by those who stepped through last, but I do not know.”
“You really think this gateway, or whatever it is, still might be operational?” Low asked through Robbins.
“As I told you, I have no way of knowing. I have not set eyes upon the device myself since I terminated my own existence. A termination, by the way, with which I am still fully comfortable and the interruption of which causes me a great deal of distress.”
“We’re sorry,” Robbins replied, “but we didn’t have any choice. We’re desperate to find a way back to our own world.”
“I understand. You are prey to the ills of the flesh. It must be difficult to be alive and far from one’s home. Death alleviates so many petty concerns.”
“Not for me,” Low declared when Robbins had translated this last for him. “I’ve got too many questions for which I’d still like to have answers. Now, tell us about this machine.”
Despite its evident fatigue, the scientist-engineer did its best to comply. “Like all devices of advanced Cocytan manufacture, the Eye was designed when not in use to shut itself down and preserve itself against decay. Unless it was tampered with or affected by unforeseen natural forces, it should remain, self-repairing and self-maintaining, awaiting reactivation should it be required. You have already seen how Cocytan machinery can sustain itself, or you would not be here now.”
Low nodded. “The interisland transport system, the planetarium and many other devices are still functional.”
“My people knew how to build. But they could not devise a mathematical theorem that would lead to contentment. In a delirium of expectation they cast aside everything they had built up to that time. It is a great pity.
“If the Eye could be reactivated, and if it was properly re-programmed prior to the last of my colleagues’ transposing themselves, then I feel certain many if not all would return to gladly engage the normal progression of life and death they unwittingly left behind. Among them would be many who could be of assistance to you.
“As for myself, there is nothing more I can do for them. I did too much while I was alive. My punishment is that I am not to be left in peace. And yet, perhaps I may be of assistance to you. Not out of any personal fondness, you understand, for you are nothing to me but an inconvenient interruption, but because your departure would assure my continued rest.”
“Help us,” Low urged the alien, “and I swear we’ll never bother you again.” It was an easy promise to make.
“Your desire to return home.” The enfeebled scientist engineer strained to remember distant schematics from an even more distant time. “I recall the activation mechanism that was used on the probes. I believe it involved…,” and a long string of untranslatable engineering terms followed.
A brief physical description, however, left no doubt as to what the Cocytan was referring to.
“The four plates,” Robbins told an expectant Low. “It’s describing the four-plate system.”
“We have three. Tell it we have three.” She did so.
“Then the matter is simple. I would think there would be others here, in this spire. Before it became my resting-place, it was a museum of travel. Search near the entrance. I think you will find what you are looking for.”