Dark Ararat

Then the lights were lit behind him, and Ike Mohammed called out to him, suggesting that he return to the cabin for a while.

He hesitated, but no one came to join him. Ike remained in the doorway, waiting.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ike said, quietly, when Matthew finally moved unhurriedly to join him. “The first impression may not last, though. Make the most of it, just in case.”

Matthew had been about to pass him by and go into the lighted cabin, but the warning made him hesitate.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The exhilaration doesn’t last,” Ike told him. “The wonder fades. After a while, the only sensation that lingers is the sensation of strangeness, of dislocation. Dusk is when everything that’s being lying low comes out to play, including all the fears you thought you’d left behind in childhood. Dusk is when the ghosts begin to walk, when unease begins to become profound. Try to imagine what Tang feels when he watches the stars come out. Marya

Matthew had stopped on the threshold, and he made no attempt to resume his passage when the speech reached its conclusion.

“What are you trying to tell me, Ike?”

“I’m warning you that there’s an emotional cycle that most of us have gone through. It’s not unlike the effect of a psychotropic drug. The initial entrancement is usually correlated with excitement and exultation, feelings of godlike power and triumph. When that begins to fade, the strangeness becomes disturbing and distressing, giving rise in more extreme cases to paranoia and restless anxiety. The mind becomes prone to hallucination. Some trips turn bad. Even those that don’t leave a hangover … a letdown. If your head’s as hard as Rand Blackstone’s you’ll come through it. Ly

“Told him what?”

“That Bernal died in the dark. It was the dead of night when we found his body, but he’d been stabbed at dusk, or not long after. In the shadow of a wall: an overgrownwall. He wasn’t as strong as he thought or expected, Matthew. You might be, but don’t blame yourself if you’re not. Rand says that it’s just a matter of time, just a matter of getting used to all the subliminals, like the weight and the background noise—that even Tang will feel at home here if he’s prepared to grit his teeth and wait—but we don’t know that. We simply don’t know. Whoever killed Bernal wasn’t quite in his—or her—right mind. We all understand that, even if we’re convinced that we’d have done better. So will you, in time. For now, I’m just trying to prepare you for the letdown.”

“I’m okay,” Matthew assured him. “In fact, I’m better than okay.”

“I know. You’ll probably still be okay, and maybe better than okay, when we get down on to the plain. But you might not be. I’m just trying to give you fair warning. Check it out with the others, if you like. Either Ly

“And Dulcie?”

“She’s troubled. Coping, but troubled. As for the people at the other Base—well, nobody knows for sure, but I’d bet half a world to a rundown back garden that if they dotake a vote about making representations to Milyukov, the majority will favor a return to orbit. A temporary retreat, of course, and for all kinds of good reasons. But … well, if it’s a show of hands I’d expect a sixty-forty split. If it’s a secret ballot, it’ll probably be nearer eighty-twenty. Milyukov expects it to go the other way, but he doesn’t understand. He can’t. If the vote is stalled, put off for a further year, we might all be further along the cycle, with our worst hangovers cured. On the other hand, we might not. Maybe this is as good as it gets.”

“I can’t believe that,” Matthew said.

“I know. But you will. Maybe sooner, maybe later. Maybe you’ll come out the other side, but the way you were feeling just now can’t and won’t last.” His voice was very even, scrupulously controlled. Matthew could tell that Ike was in deadly earnest, and that he had picked his moment with minute care.

“Right,” Matthew said, keeping his own tone light. “Thanks. I’ll look out for the letdown effect, and I’ll try not to kill anyone if it comes upon me suddenly—or get killed myself.”

Once he was inside the cabin he took the first opportunity to corner Ly

She nodded.

“And you agree with him?”

“I agree that there’s a problem,” she said. “A psychological cycle. I think it’s an adaptation process. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the world wasn’t giving off conflicting signals all the time, sometimes seeming just like home but better and sometimes seeming very strange, sometimes within the scope of the same visual sweep. Either way, we tend to lurch from feelings of intimate co

“But Tang’s given way?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He’s in control. He’s just a little more sensitive than some. So’s Marya

“And Bernal?”

“Maybe he was more sensitive than he wanted to be. Maybe he fought it a bit too hard. I don’t know. Ike thinks so, but Bernal and I had … drifted apart. I don’t know.”

Matthew thought about that for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. If Ike was right, he would find out soon enough, and he was damned if he was going to let the power of suggestion take him over in the meantime. “An idea occurred to me,” he said, emphasizing the change of subject with a summary gesture. “A possible reason why everything here retains photosynthetic pigment, even when following habits and ways of life that aren’t conducive to photosynthesis. Maybe natural selection favors the retention of such options because chimerization works in two directions. It allows organisms with different genetic complements to get together and pool their abilities, but it also allows organisms to dissociate different genetic subsets—speciation by binary fission, if you like, although ‘speciation’ might not be an appropriate term. Photosynthesis might be a useful fallback in situations like that.”

Ly

“It’s too crude,” she said. “The exemplary model doesn’t have to be as definite as that. You could argue, more generally, that the predominance here of chimerization weakens the individual integrity of organisms, so that different parts of the same body can—and routinely do—make different arrangements for their own sustenance. Genetic engineers back on Earth were begi

“That’s true,” Matthew admitted. “I wish people like Lityansky had paid more attention to the rangeof the available genomic data. I suspect that too much effort has been invested in fundamental analysis of the wonders of the hybrid genome, and not enough in the study of how the genomes operate within actual organisms.”

“It’s only been three years, Matthew,” Ly