Lunari by Tala Bar	Table of Contents Preface Introduction 1 The Flight 1 1 part 2 2 The Planet, 1 2 part 2 3 Meetings, 1 3 part 2 3 part 3 4 The Controller, 1 4 part 2 5 Visions of Earth, 1 5 conclusion
Chapter 4: The Controller part 1 of 2

When Zohr had gone, Oul, deep in thought, went to her own designated office. Like all other constructions on Lunari, it lacked walls; the privacy of the Councilor was kept through the admirable self-control of the planet’s inhabitants. Privacy, though, was not a value approved by Lunari society: the overall policy was that there be no secrets kept by any one person from any other.

Oul sat in front of the computer terminal. There was no desk, as Lunari people did no writing. The terminal was fixed on a stand without a keyboard; orders were given directly on the screen with energy flowing from the user’s fingertips in much the same way as Zohr used energy for her building purposes. Voice reception could not be implemented, of course, as no voice could be carried on the airless planet.

Sitting at the terminal, Oul did an extraordinary thing: she concentrated for a moment and then called up the Controller. What she had been blocking from Zohr was, indeed, the continuous communication she had maintained with the Controller since she had become a Lunari Councilor for Education.

Usually, people could in no way make contact with the Controlling Computer of Lunari. The Controller was involved with all aspects of life on Lunari, but any connection with it would normally be initiated by it and not by any other.

Oul was one of a kind, who had been allowed that privilege; she had never given herself any account of where her ability to discuss all kinds of issues with the Controller had stemmed from; it must have been done, she assumed, by its own choice.

The Controller’s markings appeared on the screen. Reflecting for a while on the right question to ask, Oul worked her fingers, her question appearing on the screen not in letters but in a series of colored waves: “Have you shown our ancestors to Zohr and Nour?”

She herself had known much about the ancestors, having learned a great deal from the computer’s store. But she had never been in touch with them directly, nor thought that was possible over the stretch of time that had passed between the period of their existence and the present day.

She did reflect, however, that Time had no particular function on Lunari, which lacked its basic components of nights and seasons. Any contact across it should therefore not be a difficult notion to bring to mind.

There was a pause before the answer came, as if the Controller was also reflecting on it: “Don’t you think it’s high time I did?”

“I don’t think,” Oul answered curtly, ignoring the capricious pun; “it’s not my function to think. I only follow the rules.”

The Controller’s reply was in a form of laughter, as if it were a real person. “I’ve known differently, even if you like to hide your skills from others.”

“Never mind that. Now, what do you want us to do in the new circumstances?”

“I want you to contact Lilit, but it’s a pity you deny any ability to think things out for yourself. That’s why I had to alert Zohr and Nour to the true situation; they are a breed different from your generation.”

“I really hope they will not be sanctioned for an independent action,” Oul answered with some bitterness. The ban on independent thinking was not of her own making, and in the secret of her heart she had resented it many times. After all, she had been the one to support Zohr in her way of personal creativity.

Oul had known much about Lilit from the computer’s archive, including her good telepathic skills. The thought of getting to know this woman more closely, whom she considered her own direct ancestress, had excited her, and she ignored the bitterness rising in her heart; she let her fingers maneuver the terminal monitor the way she was shown by the Controller.

* * *

“You must be Oul!” Lilit exclaimed as the old Educator’s form appeared on her own terminal in the study room. She had already come to the conclusion that the ship’s computer must be the best means of communicating with the planet’s people. “I’m glad I can meet you at last, Granddaughter, having felt your presence almost since we first landed here.”

Somewhere on Lunari, in a place and time so remote she had no idea where and when, her words, which would have carried no meaning for Oul, were turned by the Controller into visual signs of various shapes and colors. “I had to get the Controller’s permission before I could meet you,” Oul replied, her colorful markings turning to words on the ship’s screen.

“Isn’t that the descendant of our computer?”

“It is. So, how are you doing? Have you started yet on the work of creating us?”

“You must understand that we need a great deal of information and direction before we can embark on a job of that magnitude. I hope your scientists and technicians will be able to help us, now that you have created a direct contact with us. They must demonstrate the fact that the only way for any descendants of ours to survive on this planet is through genetic engineering. We must change ourselves to suit this planet, because we can never change its conditions to suit us.”

“What would you think is the best way to start with such a demonstration?”

“A personal connection on the basis of similarity of character, inclination and skill, as it has already begun,” Lilit answered promptly. “Get an established physicist to talk to ours, a biologist or whatever you call it to exchange ideas with our biologist, and so on.

“Both Ziv and Mira have met their counterparts in Nour and Zohr. They did not have much to say to each other at their first encounter; I suppose both sides need some getting used to the idea.”

“I’ll see about it, now that I know what actually must be done. It’s been good to see you, Ancestress.” Oul’s mind was full of pleasant, rounded shapes in glowing colors. Lilit used words in kind.

* * *

“The thing is,” said Lilit, her gaze sweeping over her companions who were gathered at her request in the ship’s common room, “our scientists are right. There are no other people, or any other living creatures, on this planet but us. At least, for the present.”

“What do you mean, ‘for the present’?” asked Leshem, the most down-to-earth person aboard the spaceship. “Are they going to be here in the future? Are we — or at least Mira and Ziv — anticipating them?”

“In a way they are. These people are our descendants.”

All Family members looked at her and at each other, some in doubt and disbelief, others with astonishment and wonder.

“Let’s make it clear,” Lyish demanded in his booming voice; “are you saying that these strange apparitions Ziv and Mira saw are our descendants?”

“Yes, the way we have developed them.”

“Why?” asked Mira, with some apprehension.

Lyish gave her a harsh look, which softened as a calming effect. “Lilit means that we are going to develop our descendants in this way in order to—”

“Adapt them to live on Lunari!” Nogah cried out in surprise.

“‘Adapt’, that is the key word,” Lilit turned her shining eyes to her.

“This adaptation must have gone very far, if we recall the way Mira and Ziv have described these people.” Lyish shook his head skeptically. “How can we do that? It will take such a long time. We will be dead long before we reach our final goal!”

“It seems to me,” Leshem intervened, “that you know more than you’re saying, Lilit. Do you know if they’re still living in the spaceship? If they do, how did they manage to extend the life span of the facilities, which is already on the decline? What length of time are you actually talking about?”

“I think they are living out in the open,” Mira sighed in envy. “I wish we could!”

“Out in the open? Out in that hot vacuum that is full of all kinds of radiation?” Lyish was unusually perplexed, feeling out of his element.

“That must be the reason they have that metallic skin,” Ziv said, ponderously.

Lilit tried to reason with her mates. “I don’t know what they do about breathing, or the rest of their biological functions; that is something we’ll have to learn from them. You’ll all have to meet some of them, get to know them, and to learn how to create them.”

“Meet them! Create them!” Leshem exclaimed. “You are talking in riddles, Lilit, and I don’t like riddles of this kind. How can we meet people from the far future? How long has it been — will it be? I don’t even know how to express it! Hundreds, thousands of years? That’s absurd, it’s a paradox!”

Ziv nodded his golden head in agreement.

“We’ll have to get over the feeling of paradox!” Lilit assured them. “We’ll see these people, talk to them, listen to what they have to tell us about themselves and about the ways to create them!”

Secretly, Lilit noted that they had all been speaking about the strangers in the present tense, as if they were actually present in their own time. She thought that was one step in the right direction of accepting them as real.

“Do you actually think, as Lyish said, that they have gone through some kind of evolution to fit this planet?” asked Ofer.

“An artificial change,” Lilit replied, “not a natural evolution. It would have had to take too long for us or for our direct descendants to exist here. That is why we’ll have to ‘make’ them, use—”

“Genetic engineering!” Lyish interrupted her, as the thought just dawned on him.

“That’s some job!” Leshem said, ponderously. “That’s an enormous responsibility, Lyish; are you ready for it?”

“When did the computer start controlling our lives?” Leshem asked Lilit aside.

“When we began getting in trouble,” was the answer, “as Ziv, for instance, and Mira. But now, it’s so serious we could have never have got it right without its control.”

“Lyish won’t have to do it all on his own,” Lilit said. “We all must take part in it, learn the necessary skills to help our biologist.”

“You know,” Ben said in Nan’s ear, “all that energy stored in that crystalline ground...”

“Of course,” Leshem agreed, “we could never do it without this energy.”

“I suppose we’ll have to remove our contraceptive plants and get pregnant as soon as possible...” Nogah commented.

“But there’s no time for that,” Lyish protested. “We’ll have to harvest the genetic material straight from our bodies and work the artificial insemination in vitro.”

“That’s the end of fun,” Ziv whispered in Mira’s ear, looking with pleasure at her reddening face. She leaned her head on his shoulder, licking his cheek.

“If we don’t find time and means for fun, we’ll have no strength and patience for work,” Ofer remarked, hugging Ziv on the other side.

“Indeed, we have much work to do, and the earlier we begin... Ben, I am recruiting you to build the incubators, with Leshem and Ziv helping you planning them...” Lyish was already preparing the working order. It was clear that as a biologist, he was going to take charge of operation Genetic Engineering. But all the others, while not busy at preserving life on the spaceship, were going to help him do the job.

“You can see now, why it is so important for all of us to meet people from the other side of Time,” Lilit concluded. “We’ll have to understand them and their way of life, and they can help us with techniques based on Lunari’s physical reality.”

* * *

“When, then, do you begin to work on creating us?” asked Oul in her next meeting of minds with Lilit. This time, they did not bother with the computer’s monitor, sending each other their messages directly.

“We need a huge amount of learning and guidance before we can start with such an enormous task. I hope your scientists and technicians can help us now,” Lilit replied.

“What do you think is the best way to make contact between our people and yours?”

“We must choose the suitable people for such a job, to create contact between people of similar tendencies and skills, as it has happened naturally between Zohr and Nour with Mira and Ziv,” Lilit answered decisively. “Beside Leshem meeting with a physicists and Lyish with a biologist, I also think we need meetings on social and philosophical grounds. On the whole, each one of my people here must meet some of yours, in order to make the whole project look both real and feasible.”

“I’ll start right away looking for the most suitable people for the task,” Oul answered. “Goodbye for now, Ancestress.”

* * *

The communication across Time between the ship’s computer and the Controller was established with the help of Ziv on the one side and Nour on the other. Afterwards, people were divided into small groups according to their skills and professions, sitting at the various terminals on board the Incentive.

Lyish, particularly interested in the biological aspect and the one who was to lead the main work of adaptation, sat at the terminal in the Biology lab. It took some manipulations on the keyboard before contact was established and a picture appeared on the screen. In spite of the descriptions he had heard from Ziv and Mira, he was quite unprepared for the figure on the monitor in front of him.

Kwl, as tall and thin as Zohr and Nour, had a very pleasant atmosphere about her, expressed in a mixture of peaceful variations of blues and cheerful overtones of pink and violet. Her gender, though, was not at all obvious to him, and Lyish did not know she was female until he saw the writings accompanying her appearance. Not much susceptible to colors, the man was most affected by other characteristics in her appearance.

“You look so thin!” he exclaimed, as he stared at her shape on the monitor.

“And you,” she sent him her laughing message, “are three times my size! Why is that?”

The blush was barely apparent on his dark face. “Oh, I like to eat.”

“Eat?”

“You don’t eat?” He was following the message from her mind, as it appeared in words on the screen; she was following his idea about getting volumes of stuff into his body through a hole in his face. Fascinated, she looked at his dark, full lips. Her own tiny opening, he noticed now, was covered with an extension of her smooth, silvery blue skin, in the fashion of a valve.

A small pill appeared in her hand. “This is all the nourishment we get; it’s a combination of sustenance, moisture and oxygen necessary for our existence.”

Lyish looked at it in astonishment. “But what is it made of? There are no organic materials on this planet!”

“No, it’s made only of minerals extracted from the actual material of the planet itself. I don’t think you’ve even begun to find out all about it and its resources.”

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2009 by Tala Bar