X

White, James – Sector General 05 – Sector General

CRLTs, despite their advanced technology, were not having things all their own

way. They lived on an incredibly savage world which had no clear division

between its animal and vegetable predators. In order to have any chance of

survival at all, the young CRLTs had to be born physically well developed and

remain under the

protection of the parent for as long as possible. In the CRLT’s case,

parturition was delayed until the offspring was a young adult who had learned

how to survive and how to aid the continued survival of its parent.

Separation took place every winter, when everything went to sleep and there was

no physical threat, and the young one rejoined its parent in the spring to

continue its lessons in sur­vival. The young one, who at this stage was

invariably female, reached physical maturity early and produced a child of its

own. And so it went with the original adult, who had begun to change its sex to

male, trailing a long tail of beings of diminishing degrees of masculinity and

experience behind it as it moved up the chain of the group entity toward the

head.

“The CRLT brain forms part of the central nerve core which during fusion is

linked to the brains of the individuals ahead of and behind it via the

interfaces at each end of the body,” Conway went on, “so that an individual

segment learns not only by its own experience but from those of its predecessors

farther up the line. This means that the larger the number of individuals in the

group, the smarter will be its male head and forward segments. Should the head

segment, who is the elder of the group and probably its decision maker, die from

natural or other causes, the male next in line takes over.”

Murchison cleared her throat delicately and said, “If anyone wishes at this

juncture to make a general observation regarding the superiority, physical or

intellectual, of the male over the female, be advised that I shall spit in his,

her, or its eye.”

Conway smiled and shook his head. He said seriously, “The male head will,

naturally, fertilize a number of young female tail segments of other group

entities, but there is a problem. Surely there would be serious psychological

difficulties, sex-based frustrations, with so many of the intervening segments

neither fully male or female and unable to—”

“There is no problem,” Murchison broke in, “if all mentation and, presumably,

the pain and pleasure stimuli are shared by every individual in the group.”

“Of course, I’d forgotten that aspect,” Conway said. “But there is another.

Think of the length of our survivor. If men­tation and experience are shared,

then this could be a very long-

lived and highly intelligent group entity indeed—”

The discussion was cut short at that point by the lock cycling warning. The

third pair of CRLTs had arrived, *

These two had been taken from the sternmost loops of the coilship where the

casualties among the most senior and in­telligent CRLTs had been heaviest.

According to Vespasian’s tactical computer and the findings of Descartes’s

specialists in e-t written languages and numerical systems, fifty-three of the

CRLT hibernation cylinders—and their occupants—had been destroyed as a result of

the collision, and between these two segments there had been seventeen members

of the group entity who had not made it.

The other breaks in the coil were much smaller—the largest missing five segments

and the rest only three or four each. Conway hoped that if the largest gap could

be closed success­fully, then the smaller ones should pose fewer problems.

As with the previous two CRLTs, the combination of ar­tificial gravity and

atmospheric pressure triggered the actuators which opened the cylinders and

reversed the hibernation pro­cess. Conway had already sited the IV needles which

would put them back to sleep again should they become disorderly, and Prilicla

reported that they were reviving and their emotional radiation indicated that

they were beings who were fully ma­ture, healthy, and highly intelligent. As

consciousness returned they began moving out of their cylinders and toward each

other.

They touched, and jerked apart.

“What?” Conway began. But Prilicla was already answering the question.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

Categories: White, James
curiosity: