Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [167]
“What’s unlikely,” Matthew said, “is that the colonists have been here for three years without seeing a single identifiable egg of a single identifiable seed, if there are any to be seen.”
“Not as unlikely, I submit,” Lityansky retorted, “as the proposition that organisms of any great complexity could undergo the kinds of fission and fusion that you are proposing.”
“You’re forgetting the insects, Dr. Lityansky.”
Lityansky walked right into the trap. “There are no insects on Ararat,” he said.
“An interesting observation in itself,” Matthew observed. “It must be significant, must it not, that the bioforms that cannot be observed in our problematic Ararat’s life system are those with the greatest reliance on rigid structures like chitinous plates and shells. The reptile- and mammal-analogues here all have relatively flexible bones, tough enough in association with their attendant sinews and tendons to provide leverage but far more active and alive than our bones. But the insects whose example you seem to be forgetting are the Earthly insects that provide us with our most spectacular examples of serial chimerization: the insects that pupate and metamorphose, so that mere maggots become gloriously gaudy flies.”
“One at a time,” Lityansky pointed out.
“Just so,” Matthew agreed. “One at a time, and in pupae that remain stubbornly opaque. But imagine, if you can, a pupation process that could accommodate whole groups of chimerical maggots, which could continue to draw energy from their environment while they went about their leisurely business, because they had chloroplasts as well as mouths. Imagine, if you can, that these maggots need not exercise their biochemical ingenuity in transforming themselves into gloriously gaudy flies, but may instead be more modest in their aspirations, at least routinely—but at the same time, more ingenious in their intercourse. And imagine, if you can, that the maggots might be mammals, monkeys or men. What dreams might they have, I wonder, while they slept?”
“Incredible,” Lityansky said, presumably having no idea how feeble the judgment was bound to sound to his audience.
“I’ve crossed the void in a pupa of sorts,” Matthew reminded that audience. “I’ve lived in that cold chrysalis for seven hundred years, and have outlived my species, save only for the people who accompanied me, as fellow travelers within their own pupae or faithful watchmen set to see that no harm came to us. Is Hope not a kind of chrysalis too, bearing humans tightly wrapped in steel and further encased in yet more ice? We’ve been unable to fuse with one another, or even to bond, but mightn’t that be reckoned our misfortune, our tragedy? We’re separate from one another; that’s our nature. The only alliances we can form, even in the height of passion, are brief and peripheral encounters—but we’re capable—are we not?—of forging a society in spite of that. We’re capable—are we not?—of working together to the mutual benefit of our species. Imagine, if you can, the society of the people of our purple Ararat. Imagine their memories, their quests, their hopes, their ambitions, their strangeness, remembering as you do that even if everything I’ve said is the purest fantasy, they are people, possessed of memories, quests, hopes, ambitions, anxieties, terrors … and, most of all, of differences. At which point, if you don’t mind, I’ll sign off. I’m sure you’d like the chance to offer the audience your side of the argument.”
Without giving Lityansky the opportunity to answer, he signaled to Ikram Mohammed to cut the transmission.
“You really are an egomaniac, you know” Ikram Mohammed said, as soon as he had disemburdened his shoulder of the camera. “Imagine, if you can … you are going to look so stupid if Lityansky turns out to be right.”
“He won’t,” Matthew said. “I might be wrong, but at least I appreciate