Base... Khist Ait base, Ceeam is calling you...
It's Ceeam, CM-3.
Tell them your full name tell them before you forget it
The Carrier of Matter.
Three.
Base...
Tell them at once what happened
What's the word for it?
Try to recall the word
The crash.
I crashed.
Base, I reached the planet Haasva-III. I was landing but I burned in the atmosphere. If you can hear me... Ask
the manager of the flight, my Teacher Grasogafi, to come to the receiver. I want him to hear me... if only you
can hear me. I-ship crashed. Its shell is all shattered. But its axis is still whole... the transmitter still works...
it survived the impact. Now it is 37:154 according to my clock. Thirty seven horas and one hundred and fifty four
mins. My receiver doesn't work. Ask the Teacher to come
what if the base can't hear you
tune the transmitter to the first channel, record this message and make it transmit it nonstop oh no, how can I
record it? The memory is dead. There is a layer of memory scattered next to that grey rock over there. The memory
was smashed dead. Everything is dea...
stop this. Tune the transmitter to Teacher's frequency. Now speak. Spea
Forty two twenty seven. Teacher Grasogafi, this is Ceeam. Sorry, I made you wait five horas. Fortunately, the transmitter's energy supply is not wasted when I lose consciousness. Now I won't lose it... for a while. I inhaled one dose of afomozem. You know, the so-called drug of Powerman's Endurance? Now I'll have the strength to tell you everything. This drug relieves the pain a bit. Actually I know it's not good for the Carriers to boost their endurance by artificial means. I know that for one dose of afomozem one has to pay with five years of one's life. But, Teacher, I'm getting this drug for free: I'll die in a dozen horas anyway. No later. Moreover, soon I'll have no way to inhale, because I don't have my outer layer anymore. When I-ship crashed to the ground, its shell broke and my protection was gone. You remember, we planned that after I landed I would slowly separate from the ship and grow my own outer layer... then the ship's functions and my functions would separate... then I'd get out of the ship... But now... now... you understand. Luckily, the transmitter still stays grown into my body, that is good, otherwise I wouldn't be able to reach it. But my inhaling pores are no longer protected by the outer layer, and the sun is drying them out.
And it hurts.
go back to what you were saying Ceeam
Teacher, here's what I wanted to say. I guess this may be confidential: none of our ships reached this planet. You know, the minds of all four of us were connected, since we originated from one soul. I didn't need a transmitter or a receiver to communicate with them. I tried to reach them, yet there was only silence. Or maybe they are still going to come?
you should ask him WHY DID IT HAPPEN?
Teacher, but if they too had crashed, why did it happen? No, I don't expect you to answer since I can't hear what you're saying. It's just that instead of starting your so eagerly awaited work, the investigation of Haasva, you'll have to investigate the causes of our sad misfortune. I have disappointed you. My flight was going so well... and then the landing began. The next moment I lost control of the ship. But I was still sharing all the sensations with it. When the heat melted the surface of the ship during my fall into the atmosphere, the pain made me lose consciousness. And, unfortunately, I regained it.
If you had chosen a human being for this journey, there wouldn't have been even a wet spot left of him. But I'm not a human, and my - or rather, our, CM-series, tolerance is non-human. That's why we were sent here, to Haasva, to breathe its nitrogen-methane atmosphere.
and to multiply life on it but now there will be no life
DON'T think about it or you'll die right now better tell him what you see around you
What do I see around me? Things similar to what the photos of the planet had shown. Rocks; lots of rocks; and the spots free of rocks are teeming with those colourful crystals. Our guess that they are local vegetation might have been correct. I'm now lying on a cluster of those crystals and feel as if lying on soft grass. They actually remind me of plants, except that they grow in bunches of incredibly geometric shapes. And all those "bowls", "shafts" and "castles" that we saw in the photos are obviously made up of these crystal-plants. I think I'm now in one of the "bowls". At least I can understand that much by looking around...
it hurts don't look around anymore sky is spinning the pain pierces through like a screw as soon as you move your vision-limbs even afomozem won't help you
... but I can't keep looking around for long. My vision-limbs are crushed. Besides that, the transmitter is towering in the centre of my back, and it blocks the view... I can't see what's behind it.
why are you saying this to a human he can't imagine it
The latter circumstance is bad, though, because otherwise I don't know what I might see there. Four of my limbs are in front of me, and two more of them should be in the back part of my body... but I feel there's not much left of that part. It's hard to determine where exactly it hurts, after I took afomozem.
But that time in Khist Ait, when I enclosed myself in the ship, how perfect it seemed to me, my new ship-body! It didn't become a prison cell to me,
though that's exactly how it must have looked to the staff members and technicians who saw you off that's why they frowned slightly and shuddered: hiding their disgust for you and the ship
this shiny shell. Instead, it became an extension of my being. From outside it looked so small, as if I wouldn't be able to twitch a finger once I curled inside. But it was not so. All I had to do was to imagine a motion, and it obeyed me instantly. I didn't have to think of anything. I sailed through space with the same ease as swimming in a pool of methane.
And its eyes! It - I - could see with all its-my outer surface, so I could see in all directions at once. I was rocking in the cradle of stars. The information flowed to me from all sides. In fact, there were no sides at all. I just drank from the incoming stream without having to search for anything or to be concerned with anything. And the information was being stored in the biomass-memory, the memory that was an unseparable part of me. The knowledge about cosmos, about stars, their radiance seeped through the shell into the biomass-memory and accumulated there. It mingled with my personal experience and became my cosmos, my stars.
And this was more than anything in life.
now remember what it was for
and tell the Teacher what you really have to tell. At least he must know that the project failed
LATER!
No not later because the afomozem won't last much longer and you stand little chance to wake up for a second time even less than right after the crash
Teacher, my Powerman's Endurance is wearing off. Soon I'll have ... to rest, but you just wait several horas and I'll come back to my senses, I surely will. And you know, before I'll go silent I may start to talk some senseless blabber.. because of this drug, you know it...
you think he can hear your gibberish? You are happy to talk to yourself:
Grasogafi, for a single indication that you hear me, I would give... I don't have anything to give anymore, but I'd give it, believe me.
This sun. Look, how could it rise so high. Luckily, the shadow cast by the transmitter spreads over my head. When two thirds of my pores dry out, what then?
Fire. Fire on the back side where I can't see it.
and this is called Powerman's Endur
Teacher Grasogafi, this is Ceeam, again. It's forty nine ninety eight. A second capsule of the drug and I'm still alive. There must have been about eight mins silence in the transmission: it took that much for me to arrange my thoughts after I inhaled a dose. Every dose muddles my mind even more.
your mind your precious brain remember the teacher said your brain would have been enough for three and you really wanted to share it that was your purpose but you see how it happened NOW TELL HIM
So now I'll tell you what I have to tell, but it's obvious anyway. There will be no Multiplication of Life. The biomass-memory that was meant to develop into living beings - do you know where it is now? It's lying in a jumble all over these rocks. In some spots the crystal-plants pierce through it. What was meant to be the Copies, died before they had a chance to come to life. The future children of the Carrier and the stars. No, they also would have been the children of Haasva. They were supposed to get adjusted to the conditions of this planet. The process of adjustment would have started as soon as we landed peacefully and found our way in this environment. The memory then would register everything and make necessary computations to determine what shape the Copies should attain. So, the kids would be more perfect than I: I may or may not be fit enough to live on Haasva, but they would be born perfectly fit.
They could have been.
This biomass is capricious, isn't it? In my person, it grew and prospered, but I was formed as a by-product of an experiment. While this biomass that I brought with me... I carried it to such a distance, we fed it energy of the stars
rocked in the star cradle
and what of it?
but things were simple in your case: you came to life accidentally, you were left to live by chance, what's so strange if you perish accidentally
No, it was not by chance. Grasogafi, Teacher, I know it was you who left me to live after that experiment. Tell me, did you do it just because he was your friend, I mean Zahomeir, the replica of whose personality I am? I remember how we, the Carriers of Matter, were greeted by the researchers of Multiplication of Life group. I didn't have a chance to meet Zahomeir. Through the videowall I could only see a heap of melted shards and rubble. It was the agheidi chamber, a thing that I will never have a chance to see, either. Agheidi. Only later I learned this was the name of the device that created me. Only later I learned that the heap of melted rubble was all that was left of Zahomeir. A second before I was formed, he was standing inside the chamber and sharing his aghe with the biomass. The immortal aghe, is this what people call it?
A second, and we missed each other.
Do you really know what aghe is? I would rather simply say "mind", but then, people say it's something more, deeper, less fathomable than that. Do you think I was in time to get enough of aghe? And was it immortal enough?
The reservoir of biomass was on one side of the agheidi chamber, while on the other side there were researchers, watching the experiment. In this way we, freshly made creatures, were able to meet them eye to eye, through two transparent videowalls. So transparent, they couldn't conceal any gesture or facial expression. Their voices echoed down from the ceiling. They had all microphones switched on, so that the newly made people could hear their voices, their warm greetings, so they would feel comfortable. The Multiplication of Life group had expected the experiment to produce human beings. Nice, regular humans, with the peculiarity of being able to do without oxygen and to breathe poisonous gases. And having at least as much grey matter in their heads as Zahomeir had.
So then... after the agheidi chamber blew up, one of the researchers, our creators, pushed his face against the videowall and searched all over the place with his eyes. Then he uttered in a quivering voice:
"Where's Zahomeir?"
After a pause: "Where is he? Hey, Saumtakh, can you see him?"
Another researcher, standing further away from the wall, answered:
"You better take a look over here, in the reservoir. Yeah, take a look."
Of course, at that time I didn't understand who they were, or what all the things around me were. I didn't know that the sounds echoing above me were language. Nor did I know what language was and what words were for. But my memory recorded this scene. Later, when you taught me to recognise forms and their names, only then could I recall this scene and interpret it. Remember, you have said that my memory is as exact as a chip that machines use to store information. You said I was lucky - no, we, you and I, were lucky, because I had such a superb memory. I never needed to carry the storage chips with me, as people do.
...So the first person stared into the biomass reservoir for a few seconds. Then he reached out his left hand and groped around the videowall, until he found a switch and hit it. Then the videowall became opaque.
"No", the other voice shouted, "turn it back on. Right now."
Silence.
"You hear me, Fikhain", the voice was more commanding, "if you don't switch it on right now, later you'll be afraid of what you might see! Maybe they'll start to move soon. What if they... crawl out...". He tried to take control of himself. "Fihkain, I'm telling you!"
The vision returned.
"Allright, it's clear what we should do", Fikhain said in a crisp, too enthusiastic voice. "We must blow up the reservoir and be done with it."
A third participant spoke: "The whole reservoir? The equipment that was built over so many years? No, thanks. It's enough to take a ray-device and cleanse the reservoir of those... umm, formations. It can be done nicely and precisely without damaging the equipment."
Fikhain turned to the speaker, who was saying:
"The ray-device is right here", and pointed to the corner.
"All right. Let's call the technicians over here and have them do it."
"Are you going to show the technicians that you are scared of what you've produced?", Saumtakh grinned, "and do you expect them to work for you after that?"
"Really, Fikhain, don't try to dodge your duty", the third one said. "You know how to shoot as well as anybody else."
"Oh really?", Fikhain shouted at him. "Well, since your shooting skills are no worse than mine, then why don't you do it?"
"Because", the third one said, trying to sound intimidating, "this is the only way you can diminish your fault for the blood that was shed. Zahomeir died, don't forget it."
"Hey you, don't try to force a complex on guilt on him", Saumtakh interrupted. "Or I'll let the Committee of Compatibility know every word you said."
"Well, well", the third one pretended to be hurt. "Since it's so hard to reach agreement with you guys, why don't we give the ray-device to Grasogafi himself and let him clean up the mess."
"Actually, how could we do anything without consulting Grasogafi first?", Fikhain picked up the thought. "And Gras, as you know, is not quick to throw anything away. And anyway, why do we need to destroy this biomass? It's valuable raw material. I assume there will be more experiments, so we'll make use of it?"
"Are you saying that the things we got in the reservoir are raw material?", Saumtakh sneered. "Somehow it looks like a product to me."
"Does it mean it can't be decomposed and remade into something else?"
"You are right", a fourth person spoke who had been silent until now, "in the sense that Gras finds use for everything. But perhaps a different kind of use than what you think. But of course he must see all this. And see what's happened to Zahomeir, too. Therefore why don't you, Saum, go to him and tell him at once."
Saum looked hesitant. "He's busy now in his lab", he murmured.
"In his lab there's a direct video link with the agheidi chamber. You just go there, turn it on and you won't have to say anything more."
He left, and they waited for him in silence. Returning, he looked somehow perplexed. "Gras said...", Saumtakh stumbled over the words, "there's no need to consider this experiment a failure. The newly made copies are not humans - so what? The most important thing is that they adjusted as well as they were supposed to. The next most important thing is their intellectual abilities. If they're okay in these two aspects, then we have got our Carriers of Matter. Their appearance can't hinder us, can it?", said Saumtakh and let out a shaky laugh.
Although I, like a blind and deaf man, was unable to interpret anything at that time, his laughter made me feel sick.
don't think 'sick' you don't know what is sick yet but you'll know very soon
But later on I felt good. I had the company of the other three Carriers... they too had CM names, like me. My reservoir brothers... or were they sisters?.. maybe just siblings... twins, perhaps?
you're getting confused again: your curve of endurance is decreasing
Then there was school. Things, their names and sounds. The images and sounds of their names. For the four of us.
And together with it we had astronautical training. Before I learned the name of the land I walked upon, I was learning to control the ship, the biomass-memory, the transmitter...
attention: transmitter
Learning to dive together with the ship into a state where the gravitational field of a star would pull us close to it. And to dive out at a safe distance. You said that the waves that we use for transmissions from distant planets work on the same principle. You said that if those waves could do it, why couldn't I do the same? Or maybe you haven't said it...
Well, why couldn't I do the same? Indeed I could. I went the same way the waves did. But you know, when the waves fall on a planet, they are not damaged. Because they're not alive, are they? That's why they can't crash. My misfortune was that of being alive. And sentient besides...
Teacher, never mind this. I'll try to speak intelligently. Who cares about the waves? But for me astrogravitational diving went smoothly. It gave me the same feeling as plunging into a pool of liquid methane, my favourite pastime. It's something I could do naturally.
the transmitter why is it still working is it naturally too where does its energy come from it's not from me
don't think about it don't be a fool it's a miracle that it works it will vanish if you try to explain it
just DON'T ASK GRAS ABOUT IT! Change the topic of conversation
After some time we learned that Zahomeir's laboratory was also meant for the four of us.
When we entered Zahomeir's lab, it turned out that most of the things we were taught about were actually there in this lab. They were Zahomeir's heritage. While our minds were also his heritage! I recognised his equipment right upon entering the room. We could recall the experiments he had done. We knew what he had discovered, and we continued his work. Nevertheless we were getting different ideas about the same things. We sometimes argued. But if the minds of our foursome were not identical, then which of us was the true Zahomeir? Maybe no one? And not me, then?
now bring your attention to your swollen limbs that are under you. The swelling is reaching higher and higher, soon the drugs won't hold back the pain, you must turn on your side
I'll do it tomorrow as soon as I wake up
You once said that I came into the lab in the same manner as Zahomeir: as into my Own Place. You said that I fit there even better, because he used to work wearing a hermetic suit and oxygen supply - but I could move around as free as outside, oxygen or no oxygen. You admitted you were fascinated to see me at work, and that you waited for this more than a year, more than two years.
but you should turn on your side before you black out
at least give it a try
all right, I'm giving it a try
O-oh........................................................
Sorry, Teacher, never mind it. I won't scream again. I won't try to turn. I'll just lie quietly, and it won't hurt. And no more thinking today, either.
but for him it's still the same day. He's got plenty of time, so much more than you
Really? How long have I been here? Now it's fifty horas, but what does that mean? How many horas are there in one day? One hundred, uh-uh. Add two hundred mins to each of them. No, two hundred mins in each of them. No... something's wrong there...
Fifty-three and something. Now it's fifty-three and I don't understand how many more. One and seven and four. Although it is 'one', but actually it's a hundred. And seventy-four more. One hora has two hundred mins. A day has one hundred horas. I wonder, are there the same number of capsules in the package, or more? Never mind. It's not what I was talking about. I wanted to talk about miracles. It's a miracle that the transmitter is still working, but I'm not going to tell this to you. Do you know, Teacher Gras, I remember now, that in my life there were more miracles. One of them happened after a link in Zahomeir's equipment exploded.
good job Ceeam you are finally making sense... it took you fifteen mins after your third dose
Zahomeir was so unlucky... He became an embodiment of bad luck after his death. I bet all technicians thought things left by Zahomeir could only bring bad luck. It was almost written on their faces. When the accident happened and a technician saw it from his video-walled booth in the far end of the lab... I remember his face. He was swearing under his breath as he struggled to put on a hermetic suit. He was swearing at the fate that made an accident happen exactly when Grasogafi was visiting the lab. He was in a hurry to rescue you.
surely not me
The shock wave hurled you into the corner. A sharp edge of a broken panel had ripped your suit. I remember it as if it was yesterday. But I, although I was standing closer to the exploding device than you and the main impact went on me, I didn't suffer anything more than concussions in some of my eye-limbs. We non-humans have non-human tolerance. So, in spite of the concussion, I jumped up...
............DON'T JUMP YOU FOOL EVEN IN YOUR THOUGHTS, you stinking lump of swollen jelly!
...I ran to you, released an adequate amount of binding fluid, glued together the rip in your dehermetized suit and dragged you out into the air, keeping a cool face. During that time the technician could only manage to put his suit on. Well, you humans, you are definitely not meant for space-travelling. You are just no good at it. Without your precious oxygen you can't make a move.
yes, it's true about all of them... Gras was as fragile as any of them... that waiting time while they freed him from his suit, while they brought him back to consciousness... and they didn't let you even close to him... all that waiting...
But after that, when you came back, you were alive and well again, and - was it my imagination? - you were in a hurry to see me, and when you stopped in front of me, you said:
"Ceeam",
few people called my by this name most technicians simply named me Yuck No.3 but not you
You said: "Ceeam, do you know what a great miracle it is that you are alive? It's simply a series of miracles. Starting with the very moment when you were formed..."
And you stopped as if struck by some idea.
you wish you could know what exactly idea it was, Ceeam
oh, remember, there was something more that you wanted to know. Something you didn't want to ask about. Yeah, the transmitter. Is there some connection?
you'd give a lot to find out. But you don't have anything to give. This means, you'll find out for free
Teacher, something within my field of vision has moved. Twice.
Really. Something flickered. I noticed it once before, but I thought it was some trick of the light.
No, it's not the crystal-plants waving in the wind. I recognise the constant, calm swaying of the plants. There's something different.
These movements were rapid, not like crystal-plants. Something else.
You know, yesterday when I shifted on my side, my field of vision became even more narrow. I should pull my vision-limbs from under my body and stretch them in all directions. Then I would see everything around. But what for? No, it's fine the way it is. I'll try to follow them with my peripheral vision.
why do you say 'them'? Who 'them'? Look, Ceeam, are you beginning to understand what it's all about?
Yes, something was running. Even closer to me. Two at the same time! I'm not scared, Teacher. If they do something to me - the sooner, the better.
it's not why you are not afraid
When they stand still, I can't see them. But I want it so much. I'll try to expand my field of vision. I'll try to free at least one eye-limb.
No, this won't work. You'll pay the same price in terms of pain. Pull them out all at once.
Get ready, I'm counting:
one, two, and... thr
Fifty-seven and ten
Fifty-seven and ten
what's this?
it never eats it never drinks yet it's always always ticking
a clock.
Connected directly to the brain.
That's one thing. The next thing: inhale a dose, Ceeam.
I can't, I'm dried out.
Yes, yes, go ahead, do it.
Oh... I'm cracking. I'm bleeding. I can't.
Try. Today it's worth trying. There's a reason for it.
My damned eye-limbs. Why do they protest so much? Oh how I wish to disown them. They'll hurt until I die.
Sure you'll die, but first you should see something!
Fifty-seven and thirty.
Gras, you don't know yet what I see. It seems there are at least three of them. Two of them burrowed into the thicket of crystal-bush. And here's one more running around. The Copies. I didn't expect them, yet I'm still in time to see them. Guess what they look like? Oh, see how it waves its tiny vision-limbs. They take no notice of me: of course, why would they? For them only the crystals are important. So you can't guess what they look like? All right, I'll tell you. They are just what I would have been in my childhood. Except that I was born already fully grown and intelligent.
Their lives will be easier than mine. They'll develop full consciousness when they are completely adjusted to this new wor...ld.
I'm suffocating, that's why there's a pause in the transmission. Soon there will be more pauses. There are only a few patches left of my respiratory surface. The rest of it has dried out and cracked. Blood is seeping out of the cracks. More and more blood. I think, Gras, I won't last more than a hora.
But they are so smooth and glossy, their outer layer is still half-transparent. The one who was running around me, guess what's he doing now? He climbed into a crystal-tree, cuddled up among the leaves, and I can swear, he's sucking the nourishing constituents out of a leaf. So they are feeding on crystal-vegetation. You know, Gras, now I can look at the jumble of biomass scattered all over the crystals with relief instead of dread. Now I can even see the formations of new Copies among the crystals. I wonder how many more there will be?
A miracle, again?
Well, since the miracles are happening all over... why don't I think about the lesser of them, the one I didn't want to ask about (I wonder why?) To be exact: the transmitter is still working. Twenty horas after I crashed, and it's still working. Where does it get the energy from?
Gras, I can't find any other answer, except...
Except that Khist Ait stays connected to the remains of the ship and therefore, to the transmitter, and keeps on supplying energy to it.
yes and this means it had a link with the ship all the time INCLUDING YOUR LANDING
stop this thought kill it before it kills you
Gras, so this means you can hear me! My receiver is broken, I can't hear your response, but the answer is right before my eyes: you are keeping in touch with me!
My blessings to Luelekh, the discoverer of the fields that made this transmission possible! Make a note, Gras, here is my deathbed wish: to name the second highest mountain on this planet after Luelekh, for his immortal discovery! And the highest peak must, of course, be named after you. You must see to it, Gras, that my wish is fulfilled. If... if only you can explain it to these little guys that are now frolicking in the crystal-trees. They are now the native inhabitants of the planet, so you must respect their opinion, too.
Oh, Gras, this afomozem drug is doing me no good. I really wish I could keep my mind straight while I'm talking to you. But there are so many capsules. And all of them are meant for 'extraordinarily difficult situations', so we were told. Did you really plan so many difficulties for the Carriers? Because, if every dose takes five years of life away, then, if you add them all up... you know, people don't live that long.
I don't know how many years I was originally meant to live.
But I'll try to talk sensibly up to the end.
Was it really a miracle that the biomass didn't die as it crashed upon the ground, but developed into Copies instead? Is it not merely a link in the logical sequence of events that started with Zahomeir's death?
Merely a logical sequence of events, yes.
At some point over these one and a half years of my life, the researchers of Multiplication of Life figured out the following thing: for us, Carriers, to be born, Zahomeir necessarily had to die. The agheidi chamber had to explode. Biomass had to be shaken up. During the explosion the matrix of Zahomeir's image was jumbled up, that's why the Carriers came out to look not like humans but like some sick nightmares. But the necessary energy was released, an energy without which nothing would have happened. And the one that got this idea first was you, wasn't it? It struck you after the accident in Zahomeir's lab that proved my superhuman endurance.
Before my ship took off, the members of the Multiplication Group knew for sure what conditions were needed for the Copies to be formed.
If the ship landed smoothly, the biomass would have remained sterile.
The ship had to crash.
None of the Carriers of Matter suspected it, and I think they'll never find out. They must have died instantly. I couldn't establish contact with any of them, so how could it be otherwise?
And the connection between the ship and Khist Ait was there all the time. As soon as I entered the atmosphere Khist Ait took control. They sent the ship down like a stone, while the pain made me lose consciousness when the ship's surface melted. My mission as Carrier was over.
I'm saying: Khist Ait sent the ship to die, Khist Ait crashed it, Khist Ait knew, so as to avoid saying: you, Gras, crashed it, you knew, you...
....................
....................
................... will I have one more breath?
The Copies-kids cannot stand still. They are running in wide circles, farther and farther away from me. Apparently they're looking for a better place to live. I don't know what will happen first: the last of them will disappear from my sight, or I'll stop breathing. Anyway, Teacher, you can switch off your receiver now.
the crystal leaves close behind the last of them