Chapter Ten
What is the highest life form?
What is the lowest?
The answers defy analysis.
—Tulyan Wisdom
In his cell one evening, surrounded by the orange glow of a pattern-changing containment field, Noah had plenty of time to think. The guards had modified the electronic field around him. Instead of traditional bars, now triangles, squares, and other geometric shapes glimmered and danced around him.
In them he thought he saw images of Humans being blasted away or maimed, with their arms and legs flying off. Since he had performed amazing mental feats himself it occurred to him that he might be able to focus and catch what he thought were subliminal messages in the containment field, cruel tricks employed by his captors. Noah tried this for a while, but found himself unable to do so.
His thoughts drifted to what kept him busy most of the time when he was alone, envisioning ways he might escape from this dismal cell in Max One. Intermittently he had been able to accomplish this, but only in his mind, where he took fantastic but unpredictable space journeys. And always when he returned from those sojourns into the realm of Timeweb, he was faced with a stark reality, the imprisonment of his body.
As before, the space journeys were like time-trances, and he looked forward to them. They were increasingly unpredictable, though, in that he could never predetermine how long he would remain in the alternate dimension. Sometimes, after only a few moments of mental escape, he felt himself kicked out, dumped back into his cold cell.
One morning Noah lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. A spider was working up there, using its legs to spin an elaborate, wheel-shaped web to trap insects. The spider went down the web, working for several moments with one pair of legs, then alternating with others. Then it went back up.
From somewhere, Noah heard a terrible scream. His heart dropped. He hoped it was not Anton. He also prayed that the injury was not too severe. But the scream told him otherwise.
As far as Noah was concerned, the Doge was the worst of all men, not only for his cruelties to prisoners, but for the damage his Merchant Prince Alliance inflicted upon the environment. The ecology of each planet—like the cellular integrity of each prisoner—was a living thing, deserving of respect and care.
Noah became aware of the spider again. It had lowered itself on its drag line and was suspended just overhead, staring at Noah with multi-faceted eyes. Noah saw intelligence there, and perhaps more.
This tiny creature seemed, in many respects, superior to a Human being.
Abruptly, the spider rose on its line and returned to its web. Noah found himself struck by the perfection of the gossamer structure, so uniquely beautiful and astounding in the way it had been spun. He found his mind expanding on its own, spinning into the cosmos and onto the faintly green cosmic webbing that connected the entire galaxy. As if he were a podship himself, he sped along one strand and then another, changing directions rapidly, vaulting himself out into the far, dark reaches of space.
He saw a podship and caught up with it, but he could not gain control of it. He was, however, able to seep inside, and entered the central sectoid chamber. There, he saw a tiny Parvii pilot controlling the creature from a perch on the forward wall of the chamber.
Tesh! he thought, feeling a rush of excitement.
She looked to one side, and then to another, as if sensing his presence.
Noah noticed something different this time, compared with prior occasions when he had journeyed around the cosmos. A faint mist formed where he was, and it took the barely discernible shape of his own body, dressed in the very clothing he had on now. Could she see this? Was it really occurring, or was it only in his imagination?
Drifting closer to her, he dwarfed her with his presence. And he whispered to her, but to his own ears the words were ever so faint, as if coming from far across the cosmos. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Can you hear me? I’ll tell you where I am.”
No reaction.
He said it again louder, and this time he added, “Have you been thinking about me, too?”
She looked to each side again, and then turned her entire body and looked around the sectoid chamber.
“You heard me, didn’t you?” he said.
A perplexed expression came over her. She looked toward him, but in an unfocused way, as if peering beyond him.
To check her, Noah moved around the chamber, and after a moment’s delay each time, her gaze followed his movements. “What do you see?” he asked.
No reply. Obviously, she could not make out the words, and he didn’t think she could discern his ghostly mist, either. But she seemed to be sensing something. How far did it go?
On impulse, he floated to her side. Since his physical form (as he saw it) was much larger than hers, and he wanted to kiss her, he brought his mouth as close to hers as he could and let his lips touch hers. Or seem to.
Instantly, she jerked her head back, then brought a hand to her mouth.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
He kissed her again in the mismatched way, like a hippophant kissing a tiny bird. This time she didn’t pull her head back, but left it in position, and even moved toward Noah just a little, as if cooperating in the cosmic contact.
“Noah?” she said as they separated. “Is that you?”
In response, he attempted to kiss her again, but this time she showed no reaction at all. He tried again, but still she didn’t respond. “Tesh?” he said. “Did you feel that?”
Abruptly she turned away, and resumed her attention to her piloting task. “I’m going crazy,” she said. “That wasn’t Noah. It couldn’t be.”
“But it is me!” he shouted. Now he didn’t hear the words at all, not even the faintest sound. And looking down at his misty form, he saw that it was fading, disappearing entirely.
In a fraction of a second, Noah found himself back in the prison cell, wondering what had just occurred.
***