All The Myriad Ways

"I wonder if you don't think of yourself in just that way."

The rammer was astonished. "Me? Nonsense. I am a simple rammer. But I find man-shaped spacecraft easier to believe in than golden giants walking on emptiness."

"More comforting, too."

"Yes." The rammer shuddered. "It came up very fast, so that I must damp the magnification to keep him in view. His middle finger was two joints longer than ours, and the thumbs were of different sizes. His eyes were set freakishly far apart, and too low in the head. They glowed red with their own light. His mouth was a wide, lipless horizontal line."

"Not once did I think to avoid the intruder. We could not have reached a collision course by accident. I assumed that he had altered course to follow me, and would alter course again to protect us."

"He was on me before I knew it. I had flipped the magnification down another notch, and when I looked the setting was at zero. I looked up at the sparse red stars, and found a golden dot as it exploded into a golden man."

"I blinked, of course. When my eyes opened he was reaching for me."

"For you?"

The rammer nodded convulsively. "For the pod of my ship. He was much larger than the pod, or rather, his ship was."

"You still thought it was a ship?" I would not have asked; but he kept changing the pronoun.

"I was looking for windows in the forehead and the chest. I did not find them. He moved like a very large man."

"I hate to suggest it," I said, "not knowing your religion. Could there be gods?"

He jumped as if stung. "Nonsense."

"How about superior beings? If we've evolved beyond the chimpanzees, couldn't—"

"No. Absolutely not," said the rammer. "You don't understand modern xenology. Do you not know that we and the Monks and the Smithpeople are all of equal intelligence? The Smithpeople are not remotely humanoid in shape, yet it makes no difference. When a species begins to use tools, evolution stops."

"I've heard that argument, but—"

"When a species begins to use tools, environment no longer shapes that species. The species shapes its environment to suit itself. Beyond this the species does not develop. It even begins to take care of its feebleminded and its genetically deficient.

"No, he could have better tools than mine, this intruder, but he could not be my intellectual superior. He was certainly nothing to worship."

"You seem awfully sure of that," I snapped.

Instantly I regretted it; for the rammer shivered and wrapped his arms around his chest. The gesture was ludicrous and pitiful at the same time, for his arms swept up an armful of folded skin and hugged it to him. "I needed to be sure. The intruder had taken my main pod in his hand and pulled me toward—toward his ship.

"I was glad of my crash straps. Without them I'd have bounced about like a pea in a dryer. As it was, I blacked out for an instant. When I opened my eyes I faced a great red iris with a black pupil.

"He looked me over with care. I... forced myself to look back. He had no ears, no chin. A bony ridge divided his face where a nose might have been, but there were no nostrils. .

"He pulled back for a better view of the main pod. This time I was not jolted. He must have realized that the jolting could hurt me, and done something to prevent it. Perhaps he made his ship inertialess.

"I saw him lift his eyes momentarily to see over my pod.

"You must remember that I was facing back along my own wake, back toward Horvendile, to where most of the stars had been red-shifted to black." The rammer was picking his words with care and patience. They came so slowly that I wanted to squirm. "I was not looking at the stars. But... suddenly there were a million clustered stars, and they were all white and bright.

"I did not understand. I put side and forward views on the screen. The stars looked the same in all directions. Still I did not understand.

"Then I turned back to the intruder. He was walking away across the sky.

"You must understand that as he walked, he receded at much faster than walking speed. Accelerating. In a few seconds he was invisible. I looked for signs of an exhaust, but there was none.

"Then I understood." The rammer lifted his head. "Where is the boy?"

"Boy?"

The rammer looked about him, his blue eyes searching. Children and adults looked back curiously, for he was a weird sight. He said, "I do not see the boy. Could he have left?"

"Oh, that boy. Sure, why not?"

"There is something I must see." The rammer eased his weight forward onto his bare and battered feet. I followed him as he crossed the gravel path, followed him onto the grass. And the rammer resumed his tale.

"The intruder had examined me and my ship with care. He had made himself and my ship inertialess, or otherwise cushioned us against acceleration. Then he had cancelled our velocity relative to Koschei."

"But that wasn't enough," I objected. "You'd still die."

The rammer nodded. "Still I was glad to see him go, at first. He was terrifying. And his last mistake was almost a relief. It proved that he was—human is not the word I want. But he could make mistakes."

"Mortal," I said. "He was mortal."

"I do not understand. But never mind. Think of the power of him. In a year and a half, at point six gravities, I had accelerated to a velocity which the intruder cancelled in no more than a second. I preferred death to his dreadful company. At first.

"Then I became afraid. It seemed unjust. He had found me halfway between stars, stranded, waiting to die. He had half-saved me—and then left me to die, no better off than before!

"I searched for him with the scope. Perhaps I could signal him, if I knew where to aim my com laser... . But I could not find him.

"Then I became angry. I—" The rammer swallowed. "I screamed insults after him. I blasphemed in seven different religions. The more distant he was, the less I feared him. I was reaching my stride when— when he returned.

"His face was outside my main window, his red eyes looked into mine, his strange hand was reaching for my main pod. My collision alarm was just begi

"What did you scream?"

"Prayers. I begged for forgiveness."

‘‘Oh."

"He took my ship in his hand. I saw the stars explode in front of me." We had reached the shade of a dark oak, one so old and so spread out that its lower limbs needed the support of iron pipes. A family picnicking beneath the tree watched our approach.

"Explode?"

"That lacks accuracy," the rammer apologized. "What happened was this: the stars became very much brighter, at the same time converging toward a point. They flared horribly. I was blinded. The intruder must have shifted me to within a meter-per-second of lightspeed.

"I rubbed my hand hard across my eyes. With my eyes closed, I felt acceleration. It remained constant while I waited for my eyes to recover. Through experience I was able to estimate its force at ten meters per second squared."

"But that's—"

"One gravity. When I could see again, I found myself on a yellow plain beneath a glaring blue sky. My pod was red hot, and was already sagging around me."

"Where did he put you?"

"On Earth, in a refertilized part of North Africa. My pod was never built for such things. If Earth's gravity collapsed it, then re-entry should have torn it to pieces. But the intruder must have taken care of that too."

I am a peoplewatcher, an expert. I can crawl into a man's mind without letting him know I exist. I never lose at poker. And I knew the rammer was not lying.

We stood beside the dark oak. The lowermost limb grew almost parallel to the ground, and was supported by three iron pipes. Long as were the rammer's arms, he could not have wrapped them around that limb. Its bark was rough and gray and powdery, and it smelled of dust. The top of it was level with the rammer's chin.