The wind died down. Having tied the sails down, Doctor Hosmer
retired below, leaving Noir and Evelyn on deck, reclining.
"Look at the stars, the constellations. Promises were made
on the strength of those stars. No stargazer could hope to
count them all and they called their number infinity. Even
today, there is no one scientist who will give you a definitive
answer about the number of stars in the sky. There is a number,
of course, but it changes with the moment. I suppose, depending
on your viewpoint, one might say that the stars in the sky
are as ephemeral as the flowers in a field."
"For every star, there is a watcher. Those like me who
come from a time before the formation of this universe.
Each one to watch the planets form. Most are blessed
with stars with no life. For them, existence is
abstraction, the contemplation of realities that I
cannot easily explain to you. Those, who like myself,
have life to observe, know a separate joy, similar to
the experience that parents have when raising children.
But there is pain and suffering as well, and I am
starting to suffer greatly.
"I touch those other watchers. Though we may seem to
be separated by great distances of time and space, I am
close to them, as they are to me, for time and space
are mine, and distances that we register as vast, such
as the distance to even the closest star, do not matter
in the realm that I exist within, for they do not exist
beyond time.
"Let me explain it to you in this manner. Human
science is beginning to move into a realm which is
called dimensional reality. Pure mathematics is
already starting to explore n-level dimensions. There
are many dimensions yet to be determined, but more
importantly, there is a dimension horizon at the
seventeenth. Dimensions start folding back onto one
another at that point. My own kind exist primarily at
that horizon, and your universe to us is purely a
recurring phenomenon, expanding, collapsing, and
expanding again."
Evelyn found herself in a fixed stare with Noir. She
observed, his eyes never blink. They are open, or
closed. Yet whatever he might be, he was very much a
man, and she felt again, that strong moment of
attraction toward him. She also sensed a cool
detachment within herself toward all men, all people.
She was becoming a stranger to her own kin, to her own
people. Her own brother.
She also felt the expansion, yet again, of her own
intellectual faculties. She was gradually coming to
understand the systems of organization that Noir was a
part of. She came to see the resonance between the
most substantial work being done in the fields of
abstract science, and the realities that Noir spelled
out so simply.
But acquiring great knowledge and wisdom were not on
her mind at the moment. She burned with a question
that had first formed some sixty years into the
hypothetical now. Noir had been frail, obviously
dying. If he were out of time, why did his body age?
Was it, as she had suspected because he wore the state
of the earth on him like a suit of clothes?
"You say that you are suffering greatly. Will you
die?"
"No, but my body will grow so marked by illness and
disease that I will not be able to function and
interact with your kind. I live while the planet
lives, but like nature, there is a point of no return
for me. When natural systems can no longer offer pure
water and fresh air because they have been damaged or
destroyed, then the web of life begins to break down,
reaching humankind in turn.
"Some time ago, a scientist called Lovelock developed a
concept called Gaia, which referred to the living
earth. He was shocked into coming up with the concept
by his discovery that human actions on the planet ran a
very great risk of generating catastrophic,
irreversible change. His big fear was an atmospheric
inversion which could revoke habitability in a moment.
"I witnessed that fear, Bartholemew Hermon Noir."
"Many scientists, ecologists, sensible people..." he
looked at her as if to say 'you know the type' "...are
deeply concerned about the state of the environment.
Each does their own thing to try to save the planet.
But they are a tiny fraction, Evelyn, of the world
population. Most people really don't have a clue."
She drifted in to full consciousness. She had slipped
into a state listening to gentle hypnotic music
floating up from below deck. The night was at its
darkest, the moon absent from the sky. Noir sat,
gazing aft toward a cluster that was diffused. He
reached out to take her hand and her eyes saw miniscule
individual points of light emerge from the mass. One
took on prominence, glowing a faint red.
"Jupiter."
Eyes closing, she allowed the image of Jupiter to form
in her mind's eye. She succeeded in increasing the
size of the planet to reveal details on the planet
surface.
"Thinking is the best way to travel. Pinder said that
in song some time ago. It was just one of the many
remarkable observations that he made about things."
He sang: "You can fly high as a kite if you want to,
faster than light, if you want to. Speeding through
the universe, thinking is the best way to travel." He
turned abrubtly, breaking contact, and called out
"Scott."
Hosmer popped his head above deck, glancing toward the
couple. Noir walked over, hunched down, and engaged in
brief conversation. Moments later Noir retreated below
deck. Hosmer came and sat down beside Evelyn.
"What do you know about sailing a boat?"
Evelyn looked at him, astonished. She had sailed small
boats on family vacations in the Laurentians, but this
was a sizeable craft, well beyond her knowledge and
skills. She retreated. "I know nothing about sailing,
Doctor."
"Neither did I the first time I stepped on board. It's time for you to learn.
There's nothing to it, really." He lay a hand on her shoulder,
fixing her a steady look that said 'you will become a competent
sailor.'
Why refuse? But... "Why do I need to learn how to
sail? Is it important that I do?"
"Bart likes to sail. It's his first choice for travel
between continents. Some time from now, he won't be
able to sail on his own, and he has chosen you to
accompany him and care for him when he becomes an
invalid. Therefore you must learn how to sail. Not
just learn, but become a master. It's my job to teach
you."
Her lessons in sailing began at sunrise. Hosmer was
meticulous and thorough, covering everything from
navigation by the stars alone, to damage control.
Basic techniques in sail-craft as he called it were
taught over the weeks that followed, in all kinds of
weather. Noir kept entirely to himself during the
remainder of their voyage. He sat in the stern most
days, writing on a slate, reading, staring off into the
distance, ocassionally chanting.
She learned other things, mostly statistics and trends
analysis. All conventional enough, she supposed, but
they were subjects that she had not mastered as a
student. In fairness, the training was highly
specialized to macro trends evidence in interstice with
micro-evidence. She also learned about the purpose of
G2S in a way that had never been revealed to her. It
tied in with her lessons of the day. Hosmer revealed
the agenda in simple fashion:
"Take this soil sample here, and contrast it with these
data taken from the same location ten years ago. The
recent one shows a biodiversity index fractional to the
previous one. Fewer little creatures stirring around.
In another decade, this soil may very well be sterile.
We look at life on a pretty basic level when we examine
these little creatures. When they no longer live....
The chain of life is broken.
"In the oceans, it is the same story. The tiny life
forms that permeate a living ocean are dying. Larger
forms of life will follow in their path. That is what
we call micro evidence. The cause in both cases is the
same. We may protect ourselves from it to some degree,
or to a large degree if we are sensible, but these
small organisms cannot. Their only hope is to evolve
or die. For the moment, they are dying."
The sun beat relentlessly overhead.
"The micro-trend that we have observed is of course a
global macro trend, and the consequence of ozone
depletion. We at G2S predict that within forty years,
largely unsuccessful attempts will be made to reseed
the ozone layer, in a last ditch effort to stave off
catastrophe. I hate to be pessimistic, but by our
calculations, the point of no return was passed some
years ago, and humankind must suffer the consequences,
and by and large, die out.
"G2S is a company that has dedicated itself since 1945
to preparing for the years of hardship to come. Prior
to that, the company sought merely to attempt a balance
to advances in knowledge and capabilities. Much of the
benefits of technology, what I call the good works,
came from people who were very close to Noir, in one
way or another.
"As it exists now, G2S is thinly spread across the
continents, supplying specialized local intelligence
and taking whatever discreet interventionsist steps are
possible. But we are losing the war, so to speak, and
have started to feel the seeds of desperation within
ourselves. The problems are too great for us. We can
only hope to survive the ensuing centuries, but it is
merely that, hope. All of our best indications are
that the best that we can hope for is bare survival on
an inhospitable planet.
"Consider the Apollo mission, the thirteenth. Or the
orbital space disasters that few even know about. In
each case, the crews that made it back to Earth alive
had to do just about everything imagineable to survive.
Earth itself is to become as hostile to us as those
space travellers found deep space to be. And it comes
down to the same reason. Life support.
"We have an additional problem at G2S. As you know,
Bart is an analog for the biodiversity index of Earth.
His physical form erodes even now, and eventually, he
will lose those faculties that make him a man. His
return to youthful integrity and strength will take
centuries, if not millenia. He wants us, those that he
calls 'my kind of folk,' to survive. But he will not
be able to work with us directly, as a person.
"He chose you, your family, on contingency for the
purpose that lies before you."
Evelyn experienced something of a revelation cascade.
"He chose us centuries ago. Was it he who kept us a
singularity as a family."
"No, you yourselves did that. He took steps to ensure
that your gene pool remained viable at times when
inbreeding ran the risk of amplifying undesireable
characteristics. But that was all."
"Why did we always choose each other? Why have I felt
such strong love for my brother?"
"That is due to several things. Centuries ago, the
times and tides of your homeland lead to a very narrow
breeding pattern as a matter of survival. Certain
pheromones became concentrated in your immediate
family. Those pheromones made you find each other
attractive, irresistibly so. On a rare occasion, a
person with the same pheromones would happen by, and
that was usually enough to allow the normal cycle of
attraction to take place. Noir, by the way, made every
one of the introductions."
"Is that what awaits me?"
"No, you are the culmination. No interventions of a physical nature are planned."
Hosmer smiled, giving Evelyn a nudge. "Indeed, you may share
whatever fulfillment you wish with whomever you choose. That
young Raymond would seem to be a good choice.
Hosmer continued. "What awaits you, you will find much
more challenging. We at G2S will work to make that
challenge more bearable, Evelyn, but you will find the
years ahead to be hard going. Or," and he contemplated
the presence of the young woman in front of him, "you
may discover that it is the most natural thing in the
world for you to do."
©1994 (from Zero She Flies)
