The Plurality of Worlds. Brian Stableford
could detect.
How they must envy this Aristocles! Thomas thought.
The moth-like creature’s compound eyes did not need to move sideways to look at Drake or the bugs, but Thomas observed that one of them had altered its attitude slightly. The creature seemed watchful, almost as if it expected that some danger might present itself any moment within the surrounding crowd.
“You know far more about the population of the inner galaxy than I do,” Lumen was saying, in the meantime, to the creature it called Aristocles. “Are these so extraordinary that you must take all five on such a long journey?”
“Very extraordinary indeed,” the monstrous insect replied. “To ethereals like yourself, all solid creatures must seem very much alike, as your various kinds seem to us, but we are very sensitive to differences of bodily structure and its spiritual concomitants.”
“I know that there are more than a hundred million worlds in the True Civilization,” Lumen said, its translation giving the impression now that it was debating for Thomas’ benefit, so that he might learn from the exchange of information, “and I know that there are a thousand million more that have not yet produced intelligent life. Thomas Digges’ world is by no means the only one to have produced endoskeletal species.”
“It is the only one on which endoskeletal life-forms have so obviously violated the normal course of evolution to the extent of producing intelligence,” Aristocles retorted. “If your host Thomas Digges did not exist, he would undoubtedly be considered impossible by the vast majority of our scholars.”
“What does the insect mean by the normal course of evolution?” Thomas could not stop himself asking, silently.
“Listen!” Lumen said, before switching back to translation. “I beg your pardon, my friend,” it went on, “but I am attempting to translate our conversation for the benefit of my host, and am inevitably forced to improvise within his language in order to express ideas that no Earthly philosopher has yet formulated. May I make a brief statement for his benefit?”
“If you think there is any profit in attempting to explain matters far beyond his comprehension,” the moth-like monster replied—very disdainfully, if the translation hit the right note.
“My host’s peers have not yet arrived at a true appreciation of the age of the Earth,” Lumen said, “and are caught up by the false supposition that God must have created every species independently. They do not know that the Divine Plan requires vast reaches of time to unfold, just as it requires vast reaches of space in which to extend. They do not know that life begins simply on every world it reaches, with creatures tinier than their primitive microscopes can yet reveal, becoming increasingly elaborate over time as species divide and become more complex.”
“This is neither the time nor the place to make a scrupulous examination of their foolishness,” Aristocles said.
“I beg your pardon,” Lumen said, “but it would be best for my host if he could learn some of this directly from you—who are, of course, much more knowledgeable on the subject than any mere ethereal, by virtue of your far greater interest. May I offer my own understanding of the situation, so that you might correct it as required?”
“Very well,” said Aristocles, “but be brief.”
“In the ordinary pattern,” Lumen went on, “which presumably reflects the proper working of the Divine Plan, exoskeletal forms always become dominant within any biosphere, a complex association evolving between the patterns associated with the fundamental groups of arthropods, crustaceans and mollusks.”
“A complex harmony,” Aristocles interrupted. “We doubt that you can translate the concept of symbiosis, but if you are to explain, you must make it clear that True Civilization—and the true intelligence that sustains it—is a multifaceted whole. There is no known instance of True Civilization accommodating an exoskeletal species, let alone any instance—other than the planet this satellite orbits—of a world in which a single exoskeletal species has become dominant of all others, incapable of harmony even within its own ranks.”
Thomas could not help turning to look at Drake in frank consternation, although Drake could not possibly understand the cause of his anxiety.
“No wonder Field is fearful,” Thomas muttered, unable to voice the thought to himself without also voicing it to his invader. “If I am obliged to tell him that he is not made in God’s image at all, but constitutes instead some kind of aberration within Creation....” He ceased subvocalizing, in response to Lumen’s urgent command, but at some level he wondered vaguely whether Archbishop Foxe might take a different inference from the discovery that his own species was unique in a universe teeming with life.
“And now they have penetrated the envelope of their atmosphere,” Lumen said to Aristocles. “They have reached the ether, and have been taken captive in a lowly and tiny outpost of the True Civilization, whose indigenous inhabitants might be disposed to be anxious about that fact, were it not that they have the wise guidance of the Great Fleshcores of the inner galaxy. You and I need to demonstrate clearly that no member of the True Civilization has anything at all to fear from creatures of this sort, do we not?”
At last, Thomas began to see what his guest was driving at.
“Fear?” said Aristocles. “Who mentioned fear? We are seekers after knowledge, who desire to know all things as intimately as we may. If there is a place for endoskeletal species within the harmony of the True Civilization, it must be identified.”
The fact that neither the moth-like monster nor the creature in his head took the trouble to add “And if not....” spoke volumes.
Thomas did not think for a moment that his party of five, or England, or even the entire human race could possibly constitute a threat to a community of species crowding a hundred million worlds. He did think, however, that if John Foxe were ever told that there were no other beings in the universe similar to humankind—even though the star-worlds were teeming with life—the Archbishop would be more than content to cite Genesis to the effect that all other creatures everywhere had been made for the use of man. How long pride of that kind might survive in confrontation with the awareness that it was the arthropodan and crustacean intelligences which could travel between the star-worlds—uniting them into an empire vaster than anything Alexander, Augustus or Jesus Christ could ever have imagined—Thomas did not know. He already had some notion, though, of what response the opinion might evoke in the Selenites, by comparison with whom even Aristocles might pass for enlightened.
“Thomas and his four companions will be pleased to go with you to the Center,” Lumen said, striving to make a virtue out of necessity, “since you have generously guaranteed that they will be allowed to return home thereafter. May they have time to feed and wash themselves?”
“Provided that they do not linger too long,” Aristocles said. “We civilized creatures live more rapidly than you ethereals—though not as briefly as your host’s ephemeral kind, thank God—and we have a horror of wasting time. The etheric transmitter will be ready in six hours.”
“Thank you,” said Lumen. “That will be time enough.”
CHAPTER FIVE
While food was being brought from the ethership Thomas was allowed to go out on to the surface of the moon and climb the slope of a shallow mountain.
“That is the hyperetheric transmitter and receiver,” Lumen told him, as soon as his eye lighted on the massive object, which looked something like a cross between a cannon and a refracting telescope.
When Thomas looked up into the sky his ever-attentive guest was equally prompt to say: “This part of the lunar surface is on the face perpetually turned away from the Earth. Purely from the viewpoint of physics, the transmitter might just as easily have been located deep beneath the surface, but the convenience of practical alignment is a different matter.”
“Never mind that,” Thomas said. “Explain to me what a fleshcore is.”
“A