A spaceman home from the stars, haunted by Something he’s seen … is this just a cliche, or perhaps an archetype? Maybe there’s something out there that we fear to find, even as we search; maybe we’ve always suspected this.

It needn’t be anything awful. In fact, perhaps quite the opposite… .

A SOURCE OF INNOCENT MERRIMENT

James Tiptree, Jr.

His eyes did not bear the look of eagles, his skin was not bronzed by the light of alien suns. Like most astro-explorers, he was a small, sallow, ordinary figure, compact and flexible, now sliding inconspicuously to paunch. His face, from the distance he had been pointed out to me, seemed ordinary too: boyish and a trifle petulant. He was sitting alone. As I came toward him through the haze and spotlights of Hal’s place, he glanced up, and the very bright blue of his eyes was striking even in the murk.

“May I join you for a moment?”

He started to say no, and then looked me over. I’m not young and I never was Miss Galaxy, but I still have a companionable smile.

He shrugged. “If you want.”

I sat down puzzled and wary. Clearly this was no situation to mention my being with GalNews. After what I hoped was a relaxed silence, I told him I was a historian—which was also true.

“I’m collecting data that will be lost forever unless somebody preserves it now. The scouts, the men and women who are the first humans to set eyes on an alien planet, sometimes have experiences so bizarre or improbable that they never get into the official records. They have no witnesses. If they report honestly, it’s put down to cabin fever or nitrogen poisoning. Mostly they don’t report. And then if some of it comes out later, it becomes barroom gossip, and the facts are soon lost in hype and garble. You know? … Some of the stories may be nonsense, but some of them have to be true, and very important. I feel deeply that someone should get it all down straight, while there’s still time. I’m trying.”

He grunted; not hostile, but not forthcoming either.

“Hal said you had quite a story.”

Instead of answering, he shot a blue gleam of fury at Hal behind the bar.

“I use no names, by the way; I protect identities every way I can. My records are under numbers, which refer to other numbers, and the master set is in my safe on Pallas. Also I can disguise all the nonessential detail you want … You did experience something extraordinary, didn’t you?”

He really looked at me then, and I saw in the depths of the blue eyes a pain eating at him, a loss barely to be endured.

“Hal says you don’t take the first runs anymore, after … whatever happened.”

“No. I stick with the follow-up teams, where it’s safe.”

He had a good, patient voice, underlaid with obscure self-mockery. I saw he was drinking Hal’s blue doubles, but they hadn’t affected him yet. I knew he didn’t mean physically safe; the teams going in to set up bases on Earth-type planets have an unpleasant casualty rate.

“Could you tell me why?”

He was gazing beyond me.

“Please, if you can. It’s so important.”

“Important …” He sighed; I sensed he really wanted to let it out, but the self-discipline of silence was strong. “Well … we were way outside the Arm, see, checking out a cluster of promising-looking second-generation stars— Did you mean that, about the codes?”

I showed him my notebook: nothing but numbers. “Somewhere in here is a woman who saw a flight of winged hominids take off into empty space. And singing, where of course no sound could carry. Another is a man who fought a huge invisible hand in his cabin. They put the wreckage down to space paranoia: he’d been out twenty trips. You see, I can’t tell who they are myself until I get back and go through the locked safes routine. Does it matter, so long as the facts are there?”

He sighed again, yielding. “Well, all right… . Anyway, we didn’t find anything useful, just gas giants. I took the last run, out to a GS at extreme range. And I saw it had two inner planets in the life zone. One of them was nothing but a cinder, the atmosphere read solid CO2, with the runaway heat effect. But the other was cool, it read out fine. I don’t mean habitable yet, I mean it had its permanent atmosphere, nitrogen and water vapor, with the CO2 going down fast, being taken up by calcium silicate rock. Not a trace of free oxy, of course—or rather, just a twitch from zero. Big ranges of volcanoes blowing like mad. It had to be changing fast. I hadn’t heard of anyone catching an Earth-type planet right on the edge of atmospheric flip-over, so I decided to run on in for a look. I had plenty of fuel. The problem was air. Those scouts don’t have a bionic regeneration like the big ships, maybe you know that”

“I thought you had some sort of catalytic recycler.”

“Oh yes. Just enough to let you die slow after the tanks are empty. You have to figure close. But I had enough for two orbits easy. And the thing was, as soon as I got within tight scan range, I knew I had to get closer. There was … activity.”

‘The vulcanism?”

“No.” He was staring past me, with his teeth bared. I was afraid Hal’s specials were getting to him, but he went on very lucidly.

“It was a half-and-half planet, you see. All the landmass on one side, and the other all ocean. Not like our ordinary oceans, of course, not water. Hot and shallow and mephitic. What they used to call the primordial soup. Lot of electrical storm action going on. My readout showed that ocean was loaded with protolife, bits and pieces of proteins and nuclear material—the precursors of our kind of oxygen-based life. Anaerobic, methanogenic—are those the words? I’m no biologist The primitive stuff that doesn’t use oxygen… . People think of it as dumb, nothing, like a lot of clay that hasn’t made bricks.”

He drained his glass, signaled Hal for another.

“It was … beautiful. Not the land side, that was just silicates where it wasn’t igneous. The ocean. Like a sea of jewels, like a sunrise in the water—oh hell, anything I say sounds stupid. I can’t really describe it. The atmosphere there had a kind of ruby cast, lit up blue-white from tremendous lightning bolts, and in between the storms you could see the surface swirling with colors—gold and sapphire and coral and lavender and lemon and dark purple, all changing. No true green, of course. Except in one place where there was a great round rosette of floating algae. It was photosynthesizing, making oxygen. I’d really caught it just as the change was starting, you see.”

“Was that the, what did you call it, the activity?”

“No. I mean activity, movement. Not like wave action, not like boiling. When the clouds cleared off I saw that all over that huge ocean the surface was formed up into unnatural-looking shapes that moved and pulsed and transformed into others. At first I saw only the big ones, like towers and ridges and crevasses. And then I saw they were covered and intermixed with smaller and smaller shapings—hillocks, lines, dark fuzzy patches like forests, clusters of geometrical blobs. And everything moving, changing, some slow, some fast. The whole thing—well, it was like flashes of a populated landscape. If you took a still shot of it you’d swear it was inhabited land, with cities, roads, dams, traffic— although I was too high up to have any idea of the details. It was never still. A couple of times there were glimpses of what looked like great battles, with organized masses and weird objects surging, and fires and explosions—and then peace again. I realized that it was exactly as if you were running a film of the history of a whole planet at incredible speed. Centuries, millennia of history flashing by. I couldn’t keep track of it, I couldn’t imagine what it was. All I knew was that it was alive, and I had to get down closer. And then just as I was passing over the far shore onto the rocky side … it hit me.”

His breathing had quickened almost to sobs. I kept quiet.

“The joy,” he said at last, in a heavy, dead tone. “Oh, God. That whole crazy sea of poison was exuding it. Radiating joy. At a thousand km up I was grinning like a fool, happier than I’d ever been in my life. It faded some while I was over land, and then came back stronger than ever as the coast showed over the horizon. I’d backfired down lower by then. …”

For a moment he seemed to be lost in pure wonder, and then noticed me again.

“You have to understand it wasn’t anything we would call life that was doing it, see. It was some kind of prelife, the transient forerunner. Doomed to die—in fact it was starting to die. And it knew it. Somehow I was sure of that. And yet it was broadcasting this innocent gladness, this contagious, childlike glee. All alone by itself, it was playing. And when I came over the shore again I began to suspect what it had found to play with… . Say that somehow it could foresee the oxygen-based life to come, the life that would kill it. And it was amusing itself by running through a show of the whole damn future history of that planet.”

“But-”

“I know. It’s impossible. But I became absolutely certain, although I kept telling myself it was just a brew of mindless molecular fragments. By that time I was down to one-fifty km; my scope showed me the flickering forms of alien animals and people and their artifacts. If you could have seen it—the momentary panoramas of empires spreading out and falling, the huge engineering structures flashing into being and back to dust again, and everything growing more complex as it evolved and changed and vanished away—and always with this aura of delight, a great joyful play.”

“You mentioned film—”

“No. I said ‘if.’” His tone was abruptly savage. I understood that something had happened there. If his cameras had been running he must have destroyed the film. Why?

“You couldn’t catch the essential thing,” he said more quietly. “The incredible harmless happiness, the acceptance. It was enchanted just to be, to play its game of foreseeing, even if what it saw was based on its own death. It wasn’t afraid or saddened at all, it was even using that damn lethal patch of oxygenating algae in its structures … and sending out its joy. To me, to the universe. … I can’t tell you what it felt like, all pain gone, all fear gone, all the crap—just deep, total joy, that’s the only word. Nothing like sex or drink or drugs, nothing like anything you’ve ever known, except maybe in dreams… .”

He fell silent

“Well, I do thank you.” I started to close my notebook. ‘That is something I shall always remember.”

He gave a short, harsh laugh. “There’s more,” he said painfully.

“Oh?”

“As I was on my second pass over—that should have been the last one—I saw a new change. And I realized it was becoming aware of me, of me personally, I mean. Suddenly an Earth-type spaceport formed below, and a familiar lake, and the flash of a house I knew. Like signals. And an increase of delight, as if it was discovering a fine new game. And then glimpses of more and more personal stuff—the lab, my aircar, the ship, roads and places from my childhood, all mixed up. It seemed to be reading me deeper and deeper, and it loved it. Believe it or not, I loved it too—I heard myself laughing. Ever notice how pretty a traffic tower is? … And people’s faces, friends, even a guy I hated, big as a mountain—you must understand, the scale of sizes was chaotic, and things dissolved into each other. But all suffused with this gladness… . And then my folks, my family, covering half the sea, and lit with this glow, this sort of sweet playfulness as if it was proud of itself and wanted me to share… . Funny, I’ve always felt better about what happened to Dad after that … But I was coming over the shoreline, and then …”

“Then?”

He took a deep drink.

‘Well, I had to cut out and go back, see. The oxy. But I couldn’t. The last glimpse I had of that ocean, it seemed to be building up a big cliff of foamy white stuff, I couldn’t figure what it was. It didn’t change and vanish like everything else as long as I could see it. I had to find out what it was… . And, oh hell, the truth was I couldn’t bear to leave that wonderful happiness. Couldn’t. So, over the land side, I refigured everything and decided I could make one more orbit if I didn’t mind getting back to the ship half-dead… . Mind? What I really wanted was to stay and go round that planet until I strangled. Or even to dive down in and die in bliss… . How the goddamn training tells; I reset the program for automatic kickout after one more turn. Oh, God, I wish I hadn’t.”

He seemed to be out of words, looking at me as if I were an ape or a robot who couldn’t possibly understand.

“You wish you hadn’t gone back to the ship?”

“No. Yes, that…” he said blurrily. His voice was getting very low. “It was … that last orbit, see.”

“What did you find?”

“Find? Felt—got burned forever, I guess.” He started to take another drink and then seemed to become aware of what Hal’s blues were doing to him. He put the glass down and straightened effortfully in his chair. When he spoke again his words were flat and clear.

“When I came around again, I saw that whole deadly sea was edged with this beautiful creamy white lace. Joyful, like—like as if you could see laughter. And as I came over it, it opened. It was a goddamned gift box.”

He did take a drink then, looking far away.

“Most men don’t have it, I guess. The lucky ones. But some do—maybe women too, God help them. I’m one of those that have it. The dream, you know. The ideal. Quite explicit, vivid. Your perfect, ideal woman. The one you long for, seek for, knowing it’s hopeless. You take other women because they seem to remind you of her, body or soul, for a time. Body and soul … there she was.”

He was forcing his voice, the words coming out harshly.

“She was lying on that lacy stuff, naked. Flawless. Perfect and flawless. And absolutely alive. I could see her sweet belly breathe, her wonderful breasts blushed a little. Her long thick lashes—her eyes were closed—were trembling on her cheeks… . She was as big as a planet, of course, and I was a midge in the sky, but it didn’t seem that way. She seemed normal-sized, or rather, we were both the same. … I slowed down as far as I dared, just drinking her in. She stirred a little, I could see every intimate part of her. Totally exposed, totally innocent… . The sexual impact was unbelievable. I wasn’t laughing anymore. They—it—whatever had created her had even used that deadly algae rosette to make a sort of flower bouquet in the crook of her arm, I could see it hurting her beautiful skin… .”

His face creased with pain.

“Yes… . It—they—didn’t mean to hurt me, you know. It just read what I wanted and gave it to me, in delight, as well as it could. And I think I could have stood the physical thing, the violent sexual lust… I think. But as I came over her she opened her eyes and looked directly up at me. And the deepest, wildest bliss a man can imagine enveloped me. All the joy that ocean could project was looking from those huge eyes into mine. Sex? God, it was ecstasy. She knew, you see—she knew all about me, and about herself, and we loved. How shall I say? A marvelous fond complicity, as if we had lived all our lives together. I tried— I tried to tell myself it was just a hundred billion shreds of proteins and viruses somehow reflecting me, but I couldn’t. She was a living person, a living, loving person. And mine…..Then she smiled, the most beautiful smile, with a sweet quirk of playfulness. Total sharing … oh, God, I was in heaven. If I hadn’t been paralyzed with wonder I would have killed the orbit and gone down to her. But she wasn’t calling or luring me down in any way, you understand, it wasn’t any dumb siren stuff. She was just so happy I was there… . And then my orbit carried me to the coast. I saw her raise her head and push back her floating hair to look after me. And then just at the very last her expression changed. It only lasted an instant—it was like being mortally cut with a razor, you don’t feel it at the time. One heartbreaking look of sadness—love and loss and good-bye. As I say, it was over in a flash, and all was joy again … and the lovely smile… . But I—I—it nearly—”

He drank again, and then again more deeply.

“I had to leave then, of course. If I hadn’t laid the course in on automatic I couldn’t have. Couldn’t. I almost punched it out. … If I had it to do over again, I would have. Just to keep tasting of heaven… . As I left the system I could feel it dying away, the joy; the hell we call life coming back. I tried to hold on to it. I was still imagining I could feel it when I did run out of oxy… . When the scout docked and they peeled me out I remember the human air smelled like poison, and I tried to punch Grober, the crew chief… . Later on I told them there was nothing there.”

He was silent a minute. Emotion seemed to have burned the drink out of him, but his eyes were sick.

“I keep wondering, do you suppose that happens everywhere? The forerunners, a strange unliving life, knowing it’s transient and doomed, but foreseeing all, accepting all—and laughing? The most beautiful thing in the universe, existing only for cosmic seconds. Do you suppose it happened on Earth, happens everywhere before the dull bloody grind of oxygen life begins? … The sweetness … and I left it.”

He noticed me again.

“Do you see why I’m through scouting?”

“You mean, in case you run into another?”

He sighed; I saw I hadn’t quite understood. Maybe no one could. “That. Yes. Dreading, wondering if there’re more.” Fatigue and liquor overcame him then, his head sagged into his fists. “I don’t want to know,” he mumbled. “Let somebody else get burned. God help them. … God help them … I don’t want to know.”

Table of Contents

Start