Christian snapped his fingers. “Stupid me!” he muttered. “Give us a couple of opticals.”
Immediately he and Laurinda held the devices. From his era, they fitted into the palm but projected an image at any magnification desired, with no lenses off which light could glint to betray. He peered back and forth for minutes. Yes, the appearance was quite Chinese, or Chinese-derived, except that a number of the individuals he studied had more of an Amerindian countenance and the leader on the elephant wore a feather bonnet above his robe.
“How quiet here,” Laurinda said.
“You are at the height of the Great Tranquility” the amulet voice answered.
“How many like that were there ever?” Christian wondered. “Where, when, how?”
“You are in North America, in the twenty-second century by your reckoning. Chinese navigators arrived on the Pacific shore seven hundred years ago, and colonists followed.”
In this world, Christian thought, Europe and Africa are surely a sketch, mere geography, holding a few primitive tribes at most, unless nothing is there but ocean. Simplify, simplify.
“Given the distances to sail and the dangers, the process was slow,” the voice went on. “While the newcomers displaced or subjugated the natives wherever they settled, most remained free for a long time, acquired the technology, and also developed resistance to introduced diseases. Eventually, being on roughly equal terms, the races began to mingle, genetically and culturally. The settlers mitigated the savagery of the religions they had encountered, but learned from the societies, as well as teaching. You behold the outcome.”
“The Way of the Buddha?” Laurinda asked very softly.
“As influenced by Taoism and local nature cults. It is a harmonious faith, without sects or heresies, pervading the civilization.”
“Everything can’t be pure loving kindness,” Christian said.
“Certainly not. But the peace that the Emperor Wei Zhi-fu brought about has lasted for a century and will for another two. If you travel, you will find superb achievements in the arts and in graciousness.”
“Another couple of centuries.” Laurinda’s tone wavered the least bit. “Afterward?”
“It doesn’t last,” Christian predicted. “These are humans too. And—tell me—do they ever get to a real science?”
“No,” said the presence. “Their genius lies in other realms. But the era of warfare to come will drive the development of a remarkable empirical technology.”
“What era?”
“China never recognized the independence that this country proclaimed for itself, nor approved of its miscegenation. A militant dynasty will arise, which overruns a western hemisphere weakened by the religious and secular quarrels that do at last break out.”
“And the conquerors will fall in their turn. Unless Gaia makes an end first. She does—she did—sometime, didn’t she?”
“All things are finite. Her creations too.”
The leaves rustled through muteness.
“Do you wish to go into the city and look about?” asked the presence. “It can be arranged for you to meet some famous persons.”
“No,” Christian said. “Not yet, anyway. Maybe later.”
Laurinda sighed. “We’d rather go home now and rest.”
“And think,” Christian said. “Yes.”
9
Transfer.
The sun over England seemed milder than for America. Westering, it sent rays through windows to glow in wood, caress marble and the leather bindings of books, explode into rainbows where they met cut glass, evoke flower aromas from a jar of potpourri.
Laurinda opened a bureau drawer. She slipped the chain of her amulet over her head and tossed the disc in. Christian blinked, nodded, and followed suit. She closed the drawer.
“We do need to be by ourselves for a while,” she said. “This hasn’t been a dreadful day like, like before, but I am so tired.”
“Understandable,” he replied.
“You?”
“I will be soon, no doubt.”
“Those worlds—already they feel like dreams I’ve wakened from.”
“An emotional retreat from them, I suppose. Not cowardice, no, no, just a necessary, temporary rest. You shared their pain. You’re too sweet for your own good, Laurinda.”
She smiled. “How you misjudge me. I’m not quite ready to collapse yet, if you aren’t.”
“Thunder, no.”
She took crystal glasses out of a cabinet, poured from a decanter on a sideboard, and gestured invitation. The port fondled their tongues. They stayed on their feet, look meeting look.
“I daresay we’d be presumptuous and foolish to try finding any pattern, this early in our search,” she ventured. “Those peeks we’ve had, out of who knows how many worlds—each as real as we are.” She shivered.
“I may have a hunch,” he said slowly.
“A what?”
“An intimation, an impression, a wordless kind of guess. Why has Gaia been doing it? I can’t believe it’s nothing but pastime.”
“Nor I. Nor can I believe she would let such terrible things happen if she could prevent them. How can an intellect, a soul, like hers be anything but good?”
So Laurinda thought, Christian reflected; but she was an avatar of Gaia. He didn’t suppose that affected the fairness of her conscious mind; he had come to know her rather well. But neither did it prove the nature, the ultimate intent, of Earth’s node. It merely showed that the living Laurinda Ashcroft had been a decent person.
She took a deep draught from her glass before going on: “I think, myself, she is in the same position as the traditional God. Being good, she wants to share existence with others, and so creates them. But to make them puppets, automatons, would be senseless. They have to have consciousness and free will. Therefore they are able to sin, and do, all too often.”
“Why hasn’t she made them morally stronger?”
“Because she’s chosen to make them human. And what are we but a specialized African ape?” Laurinda’s tone lowered; she stared into the wine. “Specialized to make tools and languages and dreams; but the dreams can be nightmares.”
In Gaia’s and Alpha’s kind laired no ancient beast, Christian thought. The human elements in them were long since absorbed, tamed, transfigured. His resurrection and hers must be nearly unique.
Not wanting to hurt her, he shaped his phrases with care. “Your idea is reasonable, but I’m afraid it leaves some questions dangling. Gaia does
