Lunari

by Tala Bar

Chapter 4: The Controller

part 2 of 2

“No,” Lyish answered, reflecting, “I think you’re right. But I leave this to Leshem and her helpers. In the meantime, I’d like to talk about your biological aspect. If all you take in is a pill, then you don’t need a digestive system like the one we have. The pill’s contents go directly to the bloodstream and then to the necessary places.

“You also don’t use lungs for breathing. No wonder you’re so thin, without all these internal organs used for digesting and breathing!” he said with a sigh. Though a highly experienced man — or perhaps for that very reason, his experience denying everything he was seeing now — it was hard for him to accept that strange information. “Are we going to create all that?” he asked, skeptically.

“Evidently. But I don’t know how long it has taken — will take — for you to do it,” Kwl added.

Lyish, not a telepath, managed nonetheless to grasp a glimpse of the rich complex of her mind.

“I think that, though you are going to start with it, you’ll have to leave finishing the job to following generations...” Kwl was still staring at the ample figure on the screen with some disbelief, as if unable to imagine the amount of substance he was able to insert into his body.

“What about sex and reproduction?” Lyish asked, searching Kwl’s figure again; “you said you were female, but it doesn’t show at all...” He thought for a moment that perhaps there was a faint sense of femininity emanating from that neutral-looking person, but he did not trust his feelings in this matter.

“You may not be able to tell I am female, but any of us would, easily, just from the pattern of my mind,” she commented.

“I suppose, for you it’s a matter of culture,” he pondered. “Our genders differ greatly, physically.” Lyish punched some keys, and a pair of nude figures of each gender appeared on the screen; he explained the function of their different organs, showing her copulation, and the growing of the embryo in the womb.

“Right inside a woman’s body!” Kwl exclaimed. He got a message of her feeling for her own body. “And what are you, male or female?” she asked, curiously.

Lyish, a masculine figure if there had ever been one, laughed with embarrassment. In all the sixty-odd years of his life, no one had ever questioned his masculinity. “No Earth person would mistake me for a female,” he answered.

Kwl read his gruffness in her mind, and sent him a complex message of pacification.

Afterwards, they were able to continue their conversation on more scientific lines. Kwl explained how Lunari people, either male or female, whenever their body was ready, emitted their genetic material to be collected and brought to the proper facilities; specialists would arrange for fertilization on the basis of genetic suitability, and the embryos would grow in incubators.

The young, Kwl said, hatched fully developed physically, able to walk and communicate. In the incubator they absorbed with their physical food also spiritual nourishment, learned the colorful telepathic language and the essence of human behavior.

She was astonished to learn about the immature state of the child when emerging from its mother’s body. “I think our way is much more efficient,” Kwl commented.

“No doubt,” Lyish answered dryly, reflecting on similar ideas that had been raised throughout human history. “But don’t you think you’re missing the physical enjoyment of closeness with your child?”

Kwl paused for a moment. “Including the terrible pain women suffer in labor, as I read in your mind? I am not so sure.”

Lyish sighed. It was impossible to decide what was best, but bowing to circumstances was unavoidable. “I suppose we would have built your kind of incubator centuries ago if it were men who had to bear children,” he agreed. Then he added, “But, you know, there have always been too many people who preferred the ‘natural way’, however painful and dangerous it may be...”

“Well,” Kwl remarked, “the ‘natural way’ on Lunari demands our kind of breeding, if any is going to take place at all here. I don’t suppose your women would really object to being free of pregnancy and labor, as you have shown me. In any case, the metal skin prevents any benefit derived from touching, and without that, there is not much enjoyment in rearing children outside the incubator, is there?”

As Lyish agreed with that sentiment, the two biologists continued with their discussion; when they parted, Lyish felt there was still much more for him to learn and ponder on. But the urgent need to begin the work as soon as possible seemed now much clearer.

* * *

At the Education Center of Lunari, Oul concentrated her thought and sent a message. “Shahm, would you come and see me at the Education Center? I need to talk to you.”

Shahm was a big, restless man, his skin glowing with orange tint; his eyes were bright yellow and the tuft of hair on his head emerald green speckled with purple. In spite of all that contrast, though, the green aura around him showed a natural complacency of character. He moved about Lunari a great deal, and only a strong telepathic talent like Oul’s was able to locate him so easily on the strength of very scant information.

Shahm’s expertise was computer programming for the purpose of planning the physical aspect of industrial production. The task required a great knowledge of physics, especially mechanics, heat, light, and other aspects. At the personal level, his job was also his hobby, as he loved the machines and had more affinity to them than to any human beings. Nevertheless, his very job had forced him to meet with many people who had need for his skill.

When Oul’s call reached him, he was working among some scientists and manufacturers on the adaptation of one of his new programs to a particular process of production. Surrounded as he was by his clients, Shahm he paid them as little attention as possible, giving all his thoughts to the monitor in front of him.

As soon as he heard Oul’s call, he stopped his work for a moment, seemingly relieved at the opportunity to take a break. Giving a last order to the computer and a last suggestion to the company around him, while ignoring their confused protests, he put his mind to the Councilor’s position and was gone in a flash.

Oul did not need to reach that far for Gahn; the young philosopher spent much of her time and work at the Educational Center. She appeared at a moment’s notice, not just obeying her Mentor but also happy to spend some time with her. She was an enthusiastic soul, her coloring a strange combination of all shades of reds and blues, giving an impression of a hanging balance threatening every minute to topple this way or that.

“I am calling Shahm for a conference with you and me,” Oul told her.

“Shahm? That’s a new one. What can we discuss with that technocrat?” Gahn knew, or thought she knew, what she was talking about, because once, when she was still studying physics before she had turned her mind to more humanistic and abstract studies, she had been persuaded by Shahm — then a part-time new-students’ guide to the physical sciences — into Soul-mating. The experience went sour and was never repeated, Gahn having found him — either because or in spite of his great intellectual ability — a cold and indifferent soul, not to be approached on any emotional level.

Oul had no time to answer Gahn’s question before the man teleported into their company.

Shahm’s green aura deepened when he saw Gahn, his mind filled with a complex of pinkish-green waves. “Gahn, how nice to see you after all this time!”

“Hi, Shahm,” the philosopher replied with short, neutral light blue-gray squares.

“So, Oul, to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing both my old and my young friends?”

“It’s serious, Shahm,” the Councilor admonished gently, her purple aura glowing. “Have you been aware of any kind of different occurrences lately?”

“Different from what? As far as I know, things have been the same as always, the way they should be.”

“Same as always! Should be!” Gahn burst out. “Aren’t you interested in anything different occurring? Though, I myself don’t know what you’re talking about, Oul.”

“What do you want, Gahn?” Shahm rejoined, his mind exploding in bright red and orange; “you’re always looking beyond the acceptable.”

“I like to acquire knowledge; I look for the truth — however different it can be, in appearance or in essence,” she answered coldly.

“Truth! There is plenty of truth in everything around you! Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because it isn’t. Let me ask you something, Shahm. Do you think our world is perfect?”

“Of course it’s perfect! It’s full of light; it’s just; it’s open; it’s free!”

“I know all the slogans — ‘The Four Best Qualities’! Why four? Why not three, or five? Even numbers are so dull!”

“Even numbers denote perfection, and four is the most perfect of all numbers.”

“It’s always been bothering me — that perfection! Do you think the world outside is all that perfect?”

Shahm’s green complacency was pierced with yellow spikes. “Outside? What do you mean by ‘the world outside’? Outside of what?”

“You are such a technocrat, Shahm. For you, visible facts are everything. In spite of your inventive mind, you are a prisoner, like all of us.”

“What are you talking about, Gahn? I’ve never heard you, or anybody else, talk like that. What do you mean by it?”

“Have you ever asked yourself whether there is, whether there can be, a bigger world beyond our three suns?”

“Hush, what are you saying? Tell her, Oul — this is blasphemy!”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Gahn answered, ignoring his addressing the old Councilor. “But I’d still like to know. Do you know what’s missing from our world?”

“I’ve never thought anything was missing from it.”

“Well, I have. What’s missing from it are opposites.”

“Opposites? What kind of opposites.”

“Any kind. An opposite to our openness, or to our rationality. I concede that the opposites of justice and freedom would be undesirable, but wouldn’t it be interesting to deal with such phenomena? However, what I want to know most of all about is the opposite of light.”

“There is no opposite of light!” Shahm stated darkly. “You frighten me, Gahn, you really do. I’m not sure I like to be in your company as I used to in the past.”

“I know. I’ve changed, haven’t I? Perhaps, I’ve been pondering too much; but I can’t help myself asking those questions and wanting to find out some answers.” For a moment she sank into a pool of gloomy colors.

Shahm turned to Oul again. “How can you listen to these ideas? If I’d known that’s what we were going to discuss, I don’t think I would have come. You know, this could invalidate your position as top educator!”

Oul’s smile brightened her purple aura, her skin lost some of its old-age hue. “Don’t worry about my position, Shahm. I have the support of the Controller, and the things Gahn has been saying are particularly appropriate to what I’ve called you here for.

“Now, think hard. Have you noticed lately any apparitions in your mind, or on the computer screens, that puzzled you, that should not have been there?”

Shahm’s reluctance to answer that particular question was expressed by a twisted picture of his usual calm-looking frame of mind. “I think there was something, now you mention it; pictures passing very swiftly, which I could not understand and which did not belong to the programs I was working on. I thought they were computer glitches, though there seemed to have been too many of them. Also, I could never find their source. Now, you are telling me that you know what these glitches were?”

“I know that basically they are messages from the Controller. As to their content, you’ll have to find out for yourself. I just want you to bear in mind Gahn’s words: she seems to have managed to say everything necessary without any prompting from me. You can go back now and expect clearer messages than you’ve received up till now. I can’t say any more than that.”

As soon as she finished, Shahm was gone, as if glad to get away from the two women, perhaps to ponder about those things by himself.

Oul then told Gahn about the recent meetings with their ancestors, adding, “I’ll get you to meet your counterpart among them. I don’t think she’s a telepath, and you’ll have to contact her through a terminal, via the Controller.”

She concentrated, her lidless gaze turning hazy as she sent a message to Lilit across the abyss of Time. “There,” she said, “her name is Nogah, and she’s what they call a socio-historian. I am sure your exchange of ideas should be very interesting and useful for us.”

Oul’s greenish fingers, with their purple tips, flew over the screen until a figure appeared, and Gahn wondered about its fair, soft appearance; the silver hue surrounding the figure was much more subdued than anything she had known on Lunari.

“I don’t need to tell you how to talk to her, both of you are highly articulate in expressing your ideas, so I’ll leave you to it.”

To be continued...

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