Critical Threshold Read online

  We even have a phrase for it: you can’t see the wood for the trees.

  The methods of scientific investigation are geared to looking for the trees, never for the forest. Parts, not wholes. Was that why the survey team hadn’t been able to find the factor which had doomed the Dendran colony?

  I put both my palms flat against the bole of a tree, feeling its warmth and its ancient solidity. It was thousands of years old. Ten minutes with an electric saw could see it felled. How could it strike back? What defense can a tree possibly have against the axe? Evolution doesn’t make axes, and certainly not electric saws.

  Karen offered me a knife, hilt first.

  “Carve your initials?” she suggested.

  I gave her a filthy look, and didn’t bother with a verbal reply.

  She grinned, but with genuine humor rather than mocking irony. She didn’t carve her own.

  “Which one is the tree of knowledge?” she asked. I didn’t know.

  “Maybe they all are,” I suggested.

  Mariel was sitting apart, with her back to us, looking out across the water at a party of wading birds near the opposite bank. She didn’t turn around, and there was nothing to indicate that she might be listening.

  “Should I cut some fruit?” asked Karen. “Maybe gather enough for a frugal but Arcadian repast.”

  “Later,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should be.”

  People are superstitious about eating. They think that if they don’t get three meals a day, regular as clockwork, horrible things might happen. Their hair might fall out and their horoscopes might turn on them and rend them limb from limb. Seven years’ bad luck. Like all habits, eating gets to transcend necessity.

  “Grab what you want,” I said, tiredly. “As and when you want. There’s plenty around, and you know what’s safe. Some of it, anyhow. You can be guinea pig and we’ll watch with morbid interest to see if you shrivel and die.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Can I take the book for reference?” She took the book.

  When we set off again Karen was content to lag behind, exploring the vegetation of the river bank with the aid of the book—not by any means an easy task, but one which had to be done and which I was pleased to be able to leave, in some measure, to her.

  Thanks to the avenue of clear air above the river we were able to get a better sight of many of the bird species during the afternoon, and I also managed to catch sight of a tribe of monkeys on the far bank. But we found no sign whatsoever that other men had passed that way. There were no marks blazed on the trees, no artifacts abandoned at some point in the past either by accident or design. There seemed no sense in it. I thought of the seven mile wall and the psychological protection it afforded for the people behind it. And yet I could find nothing sinister in the beauty of the forest and its changelessness. It seemed to me to be welcoming, almost made for human habitation. There was a magnetic attraction drawing me into its being. How had the people of the settlement resisted it so utterly? And why?

  It was not until the sun began to go down that we stopped again, and then both Mariel and I joined forces with Karen in trying to read from the book the most convenient way to gather the substance of a good and healthy meal. Thanks to what Karen had already learned, it was not difficult. The principal problem involved in taking a living from the forest appeared to be the need to climb. There was fruit available in abundance, and there were nuts, but there was more to the gathering of them than simply extending a hand. There were root tubers, too, but they were more difficult to locate, and required digging up and cleaning. Karen wanted me to shoot a bird in order to provide meat, but I refused.

  We assembled a rather varied collection of certified-edible material, intending to test out the range of taste sensations available, to find out what was likeable as well as edible. This was really the most interesting part of the venture, as we had food concentrates in the packs sufficient to last us twenty days, whose only disadvantage was a lack of aesthetic appeal. For the first night, however, we were fairly careful in what we ate, knowing that we were risking stomach-aches as our internal mechanisms protested against the unfamiliar fare. Mariel, in particular, was a little nervous of the fruit. She had eaten the native produce of Floria without complaint or unease, but that had been different. There, even the alien crops were under extensive cultivation. On Dendra, everything remained wild.

  “How much trust do you think we can put in the advice of the book?” asked Karen. It was obviously an academic question as she had already trusted it enough to fill her stomach.

  “As far as it goes,” I said. “It’s not been put together haphazardly.”

  “But if the disaster which overtook the colony was unforeseen...,” she supplemented.

  “They would have added a warning in no uncertain arms,” I finished for her. “No, whatever happened to the colony it wasn’t anything in this book.”

  We all accepted that logic.

  Despite a relative lack of appetite, Mariel seemed a litt1e more at ease in the evening than she had been when we set out in the morning. She remained quiet, but the walk seemed to have done her good, both in taking her away from the disturbing influence of the colonists and in making her use her body and tiring her out. She seemed relaxed, settled. While Karen and I put up the tent she lay flat on her back on a mound of grass and dozed lightly.

  “You know,” I said, when I came to clear away the debris of our meal by throwing it into the river, “I can’t help thinking that all of this is an existential joke.”

  “All what?” asked Karen.

  “Our dining handsomely on nuts and fruit. The seeds of the forest.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the purpose of seeds is reproduction. Trees grow seeds to make more trees. Or seeds grow trees to make more seeds. Either way the idea is to be fruitful and multiply. But on Dendra, that idea was worked out millions of years ago, just about. The forest is everywhere. There’s not only nowhere for it to expand to, there’s nowhere for it to try and expand to. And trees aren’t like people. They don’t die so readily. They go on and on and on, getting older and older, with no real need to die at all. They do die, for one reason and another, eventually. But only after thousands of years. The forest only needs to be replenished very slowly. And yet, the trees produce seed in abundance, constantly. Not even season by season but all the time. It’s part of their intrinsic nature—evolutionary priorities which were once vital but are now no longer necessary. An echo of the past. You might almost say that the only reason the trees go on producing fruit is to feed the birds and the insects.”

  “The same must apply to forests on Earth,” said Karen.

  I shook my head, but not in contradiction. “In a way,” I said, “it happens everywhere. All species tend to overproduce their means of reproduction. But here, where everything is so perfectly balanced, it seems so strange....”

  “Sometimes,” she said, “you’re like a little child.” She said it soberly, without any derisory intention.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But think of it. Trees can go on for thousands of years, just getting older. All the while they manufacture fruit. And yet all that’s required, in the long run, is for one seed to replace one tree when it finally succumbs.”

  “How many sperm have you generated in your lifetime, Alex?” she asked. “Just for your one lone son.”

  I shrugged.

  “Mind you,” she said. “You’re right about some of it. Some of the stuff is no damned use at all. Tastes awful.”

  The way she kept on returning to the egocentric viewpoint was faintly annoying. I hoped, perhaps unkindly, that if any one of us were to get sick as a result of a metabolic rebellion it would be Karen.

  As it turned out, however, it was Mariel. She woke up from her doze when we lit the lamp, and it occurred to her almost at once that all was not well internally. I gave her something to help settle it, but it was the kind of situation where nothing works wonders. She
ached for a long time into the night, and had diarrhoea. Karen kept her company outside the tent while I removed myself diplomatically from the scene. With a small hand- lantern I set out to explore the night life of the vicinity.

  By night, the forest wore a different aspect. The camp was a fragment of alien existence becalmed in an oasis of blue-white light, with an infinite darkness all around. Only from the river bank itself could I actually look up and see the stars. One of Dendra’s two moons was in the sky, and though it presented a disc rather than being simply a point of light it seemed no brighter than the most prominent stars.

  The sound of the forest abated with the night, but lost nothing in terms of complexity. The birds, save for one or two nocturnal species, were silent, but whistling, whirring, clicking insects took their place. There were bats, too, fluttering about between the trees. Occasionally, I could just catch the lower registers of their constant auditory dialogue with the environment. Though the background noise was much quieter its components seemed more distinct and noticeable. Robbed of sight, human senses next give priority to hearing. But it isn’t simply a matter of substituting one set of data for another. We are, by nature, creatures who order our expectations according to experience of a visible world. For us, it is seeing that is believing, and “I see” means “I understand”. When we are adrift in a dark world, therefore, the sensory environment becomes strange, eerie—often sinister. Fear of the dark is more reasonable than we sometimes assume.

  The flashlight I carried seemed impotent as I wandered in the darkness—indeed, it was almost a handmaiden of the bewildering murmurs. It picked out shadows, and partial shapes, revealed just for fleeting seconds the flickering of bat wings, and once now and again would put a gleam into watching eyes. Most of the eyes belonged to tiny tree-frogs, but some did not.

  The oceanic rippling of the forest canopy in the unsteady wind sounded, by night, like an ocean indeed, with countless breakers tumbling in the shallows. Against that background the calling of frogs, night birds, grasshoppers all seemed rather plaintive.

  I wandered around, quite aimlessly, for more than half an hour. I was never out of sight of the bluish glow that emanated from the large lamp lighting the campsite. I dared not go further.

  The lamp did not attract insects. I had assumed that it would, but you can’t always judge by Earthly standards. Natural selection favors similar forms, often similar behavioral priorities, but there is never an exact tally. On Earth, moths are drawn to flames. On Dendra, they are not. On Dendra, eyes are not so important, and light plays little part in behavioral programming. The moths on Dendra, I guessed, would congregate not about a flame but about an odor.

  When I returned to the camp Karen and Mariel were still outside. I knew that it was going to be a long night, but it was only to be expected. I waited until we were all inside and settled before I called Nathan to check in.

  I told him how things stood with us, and he gave me a rundown on the day’s work at the colony. There was nothing new to report. Everything was continuing. The lack of anything constructive to say weighed heavily on both our minds.

  “Alex,” he said, trying to voice something of his unease, “you have to be careful.”

  “I am careful,” I assured him.

  “Extra careful. Don’t relax. Don’t take anything for granted.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I replied, somewhat sourly. “You have a premonition.”

  “If you like,” he said. “Call it what you will. There’s something badly wrong and I can’t find it. I can’t even ask the right question. But every time I walk down the hill I feel it’s behind me, following me.”

  “That’s old-fashioned talk,” I said. “I don’t expect it from you. You’re the diplomat, remember?”

  “I’m out of my depth,” he answered.

  I already knew that.

  “What does Conrad think?” I asked.

  “Conrad doesn’t know what he thinks,” Nathan replied. “He’s in no better position to jump to conclusions than anyone else. So he isn’t jumping. He’s healing the sick and waiting...or trying to heal and trying to wait. Alex, these people haven’t just forgotten what their ancestors were about. They act as if their minds are burned out—blown like fuses. Alex, if whatever is here can do that, I’m not even sure I want to know what it is.”

  That was the darkness speaking. I guessed that it wasn’t just Mariel who was disturbed by the remnants of the colony. Nathan was just letting it out a little. He didn’t mean what he was saying. I guessed that he was alone, talking to the microphone. Sometimes it’s easier to say what you need to say when you aren’t face to face.

  I knew that the problem was going through and through his mind. He couldn’t let it rest. We aren’t ever content with ignorance. We always have to know, or at least to attack what we don’t know. The only safeguard is faith, and faith was something we couldn’t really find here on Dendra.

  I wished that I could assure Nathan—and myself—that there was no mind-breaking force lurking hereabouts. But I couldn’t. The survey team had survived unscathed, but that no longer figured. Maybe we had a year in hand, maybe ten, but maybe not. Something, somewhere...

  We just couldn’t tell.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “And slowly. Just keep sifting through the ruins. You’ll find something.”

  “Which ruins?” he asked. “The buildings, or the people?”

  It wasn’t a happy note on which to sign off.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mariel lay in her sleeping bag, but she wasn’t asleep. She looked as if she was feeling rough. I wasn’t feeling much like sleep myself.

  “How do you feel?” I asked her.

  “Better,” she assured me, not very sincerely.

  “You’ll be okay,” I said.

  She nodded.

  There was a silence which I felt to be rather awkward. Mainly to break it. I asked: “What do you think? About the whole situation?”

  “Wait a minute, Alex,” intervened Karen. “This isn’t any time for a heavy discussion. Let her sleep.”

  My eyes went to Karen, then back to the girl. I hesitated, waiting for Mariel to accept or reject the invitation to talk.

  “I don’t know what I think,” she said.

  It seemed to be a common complaint....

  “...But something’s wrong,” she added, all in a rush.

  It hardly needed saying. But there was a certain anguish in the way she said ‘wrong’. She felt the wrongness much more basically than Nathan or I. It cut straight through to her mind. The people of the colony weren’t just people to her. If even Nathan’s calm professional approach was shaken, what of hers? She was always committed, involved. Her so-called talent, her so-called understanding, that laid her mind open like a gaping wound.

  I snatched up my thoughts suddenly, remembering that she was looking at me. It was a habit we had all acquired. Keep an eye out for ideas, try to cut them back.

  Even though it couldn’t be any good.

  Even the start, the break in the train, was revealing enough. I watched her, guiltily, and she looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling rather foolish.

  “It’s all right,” she replied, in a dead tone. It was a formularistic response.

  I wished, fervently, that there was some way this wall of doubt could be broken down. Why, I wondered, should it bother me so that Mariel had some knowledge of what want on in my mind? It wasn’t as if I had anything to hide. I consider myself an honest man. Why the need to defend, not just the privacy, but the secrecy of the world of my mind?

  Perhaps, I thought, that’s another reason why seeing is believing and the things we hear are both suspect and strange. Because we’re so used to telling one another lies—overt, covert, innocent, safe little lies.

  I felt that I had to get out of the tent, if only for a few moments. I stepped outside quickly, without pausing to think it over and giving her the chance to use her talent on my hesitatio
n.

  I crouched down by the brightly burning lamp. I fiddled with the controls, turning the brilliance down and the heat up. The glow changed color and became ruddy. I spread my palms to receive the radiation.

  “You’re not cold,” said Karen, from behind me. She had followed me out.

  “So what?” I said.

  “The way you act,” she said, “is really tearing that poor kid.” She was speaking very softly. She didn’t want Mariel to hear.

  “I can’t help it,” I replied. “I suppose you don’t mind wa1king around with your mind naked?”

  “I don’t resent it the way you do,” she countered. “You have to take these things as they come. You’ve been around talents before.”

  “Not this one.”

  “No,” she said. “But what is it about this one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You sure?” She crouched down opposite me, spreading her palms like mine so that there was a ring of fiery hands cutting out the light. But she wasn’t cold either.

  “She’s a fourteen year old child,” I said.

  “So what makes you uneasy?” she persisted. “Her age, or her sex?”

  “That’s a bastard thing to say. I have a son two years older than she is.”

  “And what’s he?” she said. “A talisman to ward off the evil spirit?”

  I didn’t take the trouble to answer that.

  “Hell, Alex,” she said, after a pause, “I’ll say this much for you. As a sympathetic and understanding human being you make a great scarecrow.”

  “And what gives you the right to sneer?” I demanded, provoked at last.

  That one she refused to answer.

  “I wish I knew,” I said, “whose bloody stupid idea it was to send her along.”

  “She has a talent, Alex,” said Karen. “A valuable talent. Maybe it has its drawbacks, but it’s genuine. She could be useful out here. Okay, maybe she can’t read an alien mind. But she has insight. A special kind of insight—the kind that you and Nathan specifically don’t have. If we can only help her—if we can only put some trust in her. But you won’t. You’re breaking her, Alex.”