Naumi tried to see into the fog, but saw only shapes there. He heard a chittering, a birdsong, a bray that was half cow, half horse, the chatter of people.
Falija said, “My people have watched the human struggle for thousands of years. Without the means to be good, still they struggle to be so. Seeing such a struggle, any ethical and powerful race would do what could be done to ease it. Such a powerful race would say, ‘Other races have a racial memory, can we not provide man with one of his own?’
“We could try. Still, no matter how much truth it might contain, the whole would be a lie. Should we ask a race to gamble its future on the basis of a lie? Only Keeper records only truth.”
“True,” said Keeper.
Falija went on, “In the great history of the Pthas we read of the delegation they sent to the Keeper. They found you, they spoke to you, you spoke to them. They asked a boon, you granted it. Will you do as much for Genthera?”
Keeper seemed to look elsewhere, into infinite distances. “Keeper might not will to do it for Humans, who are silly infants, meriting very little. Keeper might not do it for the Gibbekot or their Gentheran kin, for even they are not yet fully grown.”
A sigh breathed through the circle, the tiniest moan.
“But,” said Keeper, “Keeper would do it for umoxen, whose soul is far older than Genthera.” He stared at Mar-agern, and Mar-agern returned the stare, astonished.
Keeper turned to M’urgi. “M’urgi, Keeper would do it for chitterlain, whose ancestors moved among the stars a billion years ago. Ongamar, Keeper might do it for the humble Hrass. Naumi, Keeper might do it for the gammerfree, and Margaret, for the hayfolk Dame. And you, Wilvia and Gretamara, Keeper might do it for a Trajian juggler upon whom one took pity and the other avenged. Yes, all of them are older, and far wiser, than mankind.
“You were kind to their people,” said Keeper, focusing on each of us in turn. “There will be a price to pay, of course, but Keeper is fond of their people, and so would be kind to your people.”
Into the wordless and shocked silence, Wilvia spoke. “We thank you, Keeper.”
The beings who had surrounded us had vanished, drawn backwards into the great wind that came all at once, loosening the grip of our seven pairs of hands and wrenching us apart. I, Margaret, felt them blown away into the howl of a black storm, bodies incapable of movement, wills paralyzed, minds in confusion, scraps of perception driven into an unimaginable otherwhere, each of us holding, only briefly, the same clear, perfectly accepted thought.
Well, this is death, but we have done what was to be done.
And yet I was still somewhere, with the Keeper, now in a shape I have tried since to remember and cannot. It spoke into my ear: “Don’t forget what your father told your mother, Margaret. About what he was trying to do on Mars…”
“Father never really knew what would happen,” I cried.
“No. The Scientist does not know the result until it happens. You are part of its workings. I am the record it keeps of what succeeds and will be used again and what fails and will be excluded forever…”
And then, only silence.
On the world called Shore by the people who lived there, and Hell by those who didn’t, the people woke one morning with a strangeness in them. None of them rose from their beds. They just lay there very quietly, thinking.
“Did you know we were humans once?” said one to his mate.
“I didn’t know it before,” she said. “We were humans when we came here on the moon. Except it wasn’t a moon. It was a starship, a Quaatar starship.”
“Do you think we are human now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “If we’re not, why do we remember being? I remember we gave up living in trees…”
“I remember we killed Earth,” he said.
“I remember we were going up the river soon to cut trees to make a new town and build many boats…”
“I remember we have to make room for more…”
Outside the house, some of the people were moving about. The town leader came out of her house and sat down on her stool, by the door. Each day the leader did this and the people came with their questions.
They gathered now.
The leader did not wait for questions. “Mika, Dao, Tinka. We have made a nasty at the creek. It smells bad. Nothing grows there. Dig a pit inside the forest, put all the nasty into the pit, and cover it with earth. In time it will feed trees. Choun, Bila, Fet, consult your minds and make a plan so no more nasty happens, then come tell me.” The leader fell silent.
“Today we plan to go upriver and make a new town,” said one of them. “We will cut trees to make room for more?”
“Not today,” said the leader. “Today we count people. Today we count how many trees each person uses every year. Today we count fishes for each person, mollusks for each person, freshwater for drinking. Today we begin to learn how many people can live on this world without ruining it.”
“What shall the rest of us do?” someone asked helplessly.
“Today,” the leader said, “you all stop making room for more and take time to remember.”
On Tercis, the Gardener waited, her head bowed. Falija had gone. Time stretched thin, the sound of its tenuity becoming intolerably shrill. No one returned. At last, with a shuddering sigh, the Gardener entered the way-gate before her.
On Fajnard, she found the Siblings guarding the way-gate. “All quiet, ma’am,” they reported.
“Come with me,” she said.
On Thairy there were other Siblings to join the group, and again on B’yurngrad, Cantardene, and Chottem. They stepped into the last gate but one and emerged into the buried starship on the planet called Hell. A naked woman lay on the metal floor,
