The cataclysms in between have erased so much of the old records. Actually preflight eras don't interest us much, for it was with the development of the flying machines that mankind bloomed like a flower. In less than a century they had graduated from flights within their own atmosphere to trips to the moon and the establishment of colonies on several other nearby worlds.”
“Man has never left this world,” Jask said. “The stars are denied him, because he has never earned them.”
“I'm not talking about the stars right now,” Tedesco said. “Just the planets, at first. I know that you don't understand me, but that is only because the knowledge of other worlds has long been forgotten. You see, besides the stars, there are nearer heavenly bodies, as large as our own, not like the moon, hanging out there waiting for us.”
“I've never seen them,” Jask said.
“You can't see them that easily,” Tedesco said. “They are not so far away as the stars, but far enough to appear only as tiny spots of color in the night sky.”
“Then they are stars,” Jask said.
Frustrated with his own inability to explain and with Jask's narrowmindedness, Tedesco thumped his fist on the blue floor. “Planets, like this one. Like the planets that circle each of those stars you see at night.”
“But you're asking me to take all of this incredible stuff on faith,” Jask complained.
“If you can take Lady Nature on faith, you can listen to what I'm telling you.”
“Lady Nature is different,” Jask insisted.
“I'll agree to that,” Tedesco said, grinning.
“Oh, go on,” Jask said. He shifted his position, for his poor shell of flesh did little to cushion his bones from the jeweled floor.
Tedesco said, “Men settled on the other planets circling our sun, fought impossible environmental problems there and won. In time, perhaps a thousand years after they touched down on the moon, they launched the first starship. A thousand years after that, they had uncovered the key to faster-than-light travel and began the greatest era in the history of the race. They went to the stars.”
“Impossible. If we had achieved so much, Lady Nature never would have left us to—”
Tedesco interrupted with a wave of his hand and continued when Jask grew quiet. “For perhaps five thousand years, mankind journeyed in the stars. The number of other worlds is infinite, you know. The possibilities for discovery never ceased. Indeed, in all that time mankind encountered no other sentient race, only the ruins of what other races had achieved and lost in ways we will never know. But after five thousand years, men discovered alien races superior to our own. It was this encounter that led to the decline of their civilization.”
Jask said, “How could that be? Space and stars are blessings, not evils.”
“Man found that he could not communicate with the alien races that he met, for they were purely telepathic beings who had eons earlier stopped communicating verbally. An entire galactic civilization, composed of hundreds of odd races of beings, did business by means of telepathy. Some of them could read the minds of men, but none of them could make themselves understood, for man was not the least bit receptive to their mental emanations. Earthborn were outcasts, both intellectually and socially. Perhaps they could have ignored these superior beings and gone on, exploring arms of the universe in which the other races had never ventured or had no interest. But they did not. Man was precocious in some ways, venturing into space before most other races did, quick and bright and eager to learn. On the other hand, he was hundreds of generations away from acceptance by his superiors. For this reason, and for the psychic shock his inferiority caused him, man retreated from the stars, came home to his own system of worlds, finally withdrew back to Mother Earth herself, there to contemplate his position on the scale of things.
“In time his inability to accept his station in the cosmic order corrupted him, turned him away from real achievement. For thousands of years mankind reveled, trying to forget that he occupied a low rung on the ladder of sentient civilizations. He partied. He made new toys, among which were the Artificial Wombs. At first some held hopes that these centers for genetic juggling would produce telepathic men, but this was not to be. In a few years the Artificial Wombs were just other toys, to be played with by parents who wanted colorful children either for the thrill of it or for some strange social status I've never been able to define.
“In time their society divided into countless cults and sects, splintered by philosophies and religions, by occupations and leisure interests, by politics and morals, they began to lose interest in the games and other festivities. Men fell to arguing with other men. These arguments became fistfights. The fist-fights degenerated into armed confrontations, and then into genuine battles and, at last, into major wars among differing power blocks. For a brief while the catalogue of human knowledge was added to — as men theorized, built and used strange new weapons. But this was only a cancerous growth of knowledge, and it led to the Last War, nearly killing the entire human organism. This occurred seventy-five thousand years ago. In the time since, mankind and all his mutated selves struggled for survival against staggering odds, often nearly lost, somehow went on and grew, lost ground, gained ground, and obtained the present Medieval level.”
Jask shook his head. “There are a great many gaps in your story.”
“Such as?”
“How do you explain the fortresses where the Pure enclaves live? Were they not Lady Nature's gifts to the survivors of Her war with the Ruiner, Her offering of a last chance for mankind to remain pure and gain Her grace again?”
“They were nothing of the sort,” Tedesco said. “They were simply the last refuge of mankind when the final war had devastated the Earth. They were originally built to house high government officials who remained safe while most of the populace was ashed and plagued with diseases.”
“What of these jeweled formations?” Jask inquired.
“What of them?”
The Pure stood and stretched the knotted muscles in his legs, rubbed at his sore buttocks with both hands. “Can you deny, in good conscience, that they are monuments to the Ruiner and that they were established by the first men who openly worshiped a false god?”
“I can deny it two ways,” Tedesco said. “First, by logic. Does it seem reasonable to you that any group of men would have spent the time necessary to handcraft a sea of jewels as an offering to their god? The task would have taken centuries.”
“It is not completely beyond the bounds of reason,” Jask insisted.
“That is neither here nor there,” Tedesco said. “I know the real truth behind the jewel sea.'' Fumbling with the concepts as if they were heavy stones, he tried to explain to Jask the nature of biological warfare and the purpose of the bacteria jewels.
When he had finished, Jask shook his head doubtfully, though his response was not nearly so violent as it would have been only a day or two earlier. Jask supposed he had become corrupt without ever taking notice. Tedesco, on the other hand, supposed he was gaining a bit of insight, at last. Jask said, “Even if what you've told me is true — a possibility I reject, you understand — what good will this new theology do us?”
“It is not just another theology,” Tedesco said patiently. “It is the truth; it is history.”
“Still, we are without succor, without friends, without any place we can be safe and call home. One interpretation of events seems little more valuable than the other.” He sat down again, too weary to stand any longer, despite the nagging stiffness in his haunches. “So where do we go from here?”
“To find the Black Presence,” Tedesco said. He spoke as casually as he had during dinner, as if the proposal was not in the least bit mad. But it was, of course: mad, insane, maniacal.
“Chasing a fairy tale?” Jask asked, disgusted.
The bruin, however, remained calm and sure of himself. “It is no fairy tale. When mankind withdrew from interstellar space and fell back on his own world, the telepathic aliens he had encountered dispatched a creature to keep watch over us and to monitor our evolution. When we begin to show signs of acquiring psionic abilities — especially telepathy — this creature is to contact its own kind and lead us into full association with other advanced races. Mankind will then be ready for the stars. In fact, you and I, with our telepathic talents, are evidence that the time has come for mankind to grow up.”
“But we are no longer men,” Jask said. “We're tainted.” He spoke with great sadness, aware that he had at last come to accept his inferior status.
The bruin's patience evaporated in a flame of anger. He scowled, twisting his lips back from sharp teeth.
