One Station of the Way Read online

  The Captain said, "I still do not see why they should have tried to spear me. It was you who was shooting at them."

  The First Mate explained, "At first they were simply trying to spear Husband. Thereafter, being attacked, they naturally tried to kill their attacker. You, being white, stood out in the dark. I didn't. There are advantages in being black. We were close together, and the last hominid aimed at the one of us he could see. A matter of purely physical black and white, you understand. I doubt they sensed your hypothetical spiritual light at all -- or my spiritual negation of light, for that matter."

  "I was going to ask your pardon for shooting off your foot," the Captain said. "But since you have made it an occasion for one of your materialistic diatribes -- "

  "Nevertheless, I freely grant you my forgiveness, for what it's worth."

  "Very well. Now let me have your computer's evaluation of Finiswar."

  The First Mate nodded his flat head. Settling his dark coils more comfortably around their metal "tree," he began:

  "Interpreting the materials gathered and the observations made by its probes, my computer has determined that the chief mode of reproduction on Finiswar is parthogenesis. The boy-child being identical with Husband and the girl-child with Wife should have been enough to tell you that and was enough to tell me."

  The First Mate chuckled, his trifid tongue a blur of black vibration, and continued, "There is good reason, my computer tells me, for parthogenesis on Finiswar and for the unusual armoring and arming of female genitalia there. For Finiswar has a biology that is genetically wide open. Inter-special breeding of any sort, no matter how wide the gap between mating organisms , is possible and fertile. There are literally no lethal genes on Finiswar, and no offspring, no matter how monstrous, which cannot live at least a little while.

  "Yet sexual breeding within species is possible there, provided the coupling beasts take sufficient precaution. There again the fortress-like female genitals are essential, to kill off all false sperm. While an intelligent species, such as the hominids, seeks out for breeding purposes as arid and sterile an area as possible, such as the desert we found them in. Else, despite all precautions, a female might be impregnated by a flower or a fish or a microbe or a glitter-winged insect . . . or a serpent, a wise old serpent.

  "Yes," the First Mate continued after another of his chuckles, "Finiswar is in a small way rather like our planet -- or should I call it your planet? -- since you are the only one paranoid enough to think it a great work to spread your seed across the universe. Husband's son and Wife's daughter were both analogous to your seed parthenogenetically grown to full creature. However, they of Finiswar are more modest. They do not encode their seed with great ideas -- love and such -- and force them on all the infinitely varied breeds of being the stars boast, think thereby to bring 'peace' -- your peace! to all."

  "Silence!" the Captain said at last with a writhe of disgust. "Despite all your mocking, my computer says there is a point seven nine probability that Wife will bear a child gloriously -- "

  "My computer says point eight three on that," the First Mate broke in titteringly. "But you're wrong about the gloriously part. Wife will receive no adulation and reverent care. Instead she will be tortured by Husband, her parthenogenetic daughter taken from her and killed, and she driven out from her family and tribe to suffer. Oh, she will -- "

  "Trifles!" the Captain hissed majestically. "Despite all, she will produce a son who will -- "

  "A daughter," the First Mate contradicted. "By a point nine eight probability."

  "Yes, a daughter, you're right there," the Captain admitted irritably. "My computer echoes yours. But what matter? She won't be the first female savior, as you well know. The only point of importance is that Wife will give birth to a being who will preach the gospel of love all across Finiswar, so eloquently that none will be able to resist! Hate and murderousness will vanish. Greed and envy will wither away. Love alone -- "

  "And what will that mean . . . on Finiswar?" the First Mate interrupted incisively, his great head halting in the natural swaying it maintained in free fall. "I will tell you. It will mean that the females of Finiswar, at least the hominid females, will open themselves to all seeds. There will be a great birthing of fantastical monsters. Exotic flowers with three-eyed heads set amidst their petals. Hominids crested and finned like fish, but not likely showing gills. Rainbow birds with wide mouths instead of beaks and arms instead of wings. Beings even more fantastical -- insects that glitter and speak, animacula that peer with pleading treble eye through the microscope from the viewing plate. Spiders that -- "

  "Enough!" the Captain commanded. "My computer tells me that the chances for a stabilized, still selectively breeding race of loving hominids on Finiswar are . . . well point one seven," he added defiantly.

  The First Mate shrugged all along his body's length. "On that, my computer says point oh oh three."

  "Your computer is biased!"

  "Not as much as yours, I fancy. Remember, you have a great work, I am only the observer. No, the overwhelming chances are for one jeweled and gemmed generation on Finiswar, like an uncontrollable growth of crystals of every angularity and hue, like a beautiful cancer -- freaks to please a mad empcror! -- and then . . . the end. At least for the hominids."

  "What matter?" the Captain demanded stubbornly. "It will be an end with love. That is enough."

  "Oh, you have at last solved the problem of Death?" the First Mate asked innocently. Then, after a moment, with his hissing laugh, "No, you have not as I can see. On Finiswar at least, your highly touted love will end in Death, just as it promises to do on longer-suffering Terra. Myself, I still admire most the beings who rise up and do battle against Death. And even the creatures that flee Death, the ones who are the eternal prey -- those I admire more too, though not as greatly. The slayer is always more admirable than the slain, for he survives."

  "That endless circling, bloody chase of the hunters and the prey? You can admire that ?"

  "Why not? It's all there is to admire. Besides, it forces both basic types of being to develop velocity, first to swim through water, run on land and fly through air. Finally, to speed through sub-space, even as we do. And to achieve that last requires the development of high intelligence and brilliant imagination, qualities which nicely embellish both the best of hunters and the best of prey. I always admire good decor."

  "I detest you in this mood," the Captain said flatly. "You have been the companion of all my wanderings, and still you will not admit the primacy of Love. You cannot even bring yourself to think of what might happen if the prey fled so swiftly that, like a guilty conscience, they caught up with the hunters along the great circles of the cosmos."

  "Metaphysics!" was the First Mate's only comment, delivered with great contempt.

  "You scorn me and my works," the Captain said. "Yet you devote your entire existence to observing me and them. If they are valueless, why?"

  For the first time, the First Mate was at a loss for an answer. Finally he hissed, "Perhaps it amuses me to watch you do your work of destruction, calling it Love -- a love which only weakens the hunter's lust to pursue and the prey's panic to escape. Using Love, you'd leech out of the universe its finest fighting stocks, its cleverest evaders. Nevertheless," he continued flatly, "has not Finiswar at last taught you that your great work is useless, tending always toward Death rather than Life? All your savior-children -- every last one of them -- are mules unable even to reproduce themselves. They are spokesmen for Death! I suggest you end it all, this instant. Negate the Inseminator's fix on the next planet, and set a course for home."

  "Never!" said the Captain. "Wherever it leads -- into whatever seeming horrors -- Love is primal!"

  "Oh, that is sweet. That is exquisite," the First Mate hissed, his voice dripping venom. "As I said, my chief aim is my own amusement. And truly the finest pleasure lies in spying on you, who are the greatest hunter of them all, slaying with love. And also the greatest
prey, fleeing always from the simple truth."

  "Silence!" the Captain hissed, wrathful at last. "I'm sick of your sickness. Slither off at once to your study, and stay there. Place yourself under ships arrest."

  The First Mate obeyed with alacrity. As he glided into his hole, the Captain called after him, "And the great work goes on. I shall continue planting saviors!"

  The First Mate thrust back out of his hole his flat black head with eyes like rounds of starry night.

  "Or simply the seeds of your great Death-oriented paranoia," he hissed with sheerest hatred.

  "And you shall continue to watch me," the Captain said, missing no least opportunity to stamp into the other the fact of his own unswerving strength.

  "So I shall," the First Mate hissed sharply. His head vanished as if every atom of strength in his massive trunk had been employed to whip it out of sight.