The Sinners of Erspia

“Yes, they have,” Laedo admitted thoughtfully. Klystar was right. The galaxy abounded with life, but nowhere did it get any further than the equivalent of a mouse or a horse or a lizard, or a fish or even a bacterium. And yet many of the biospheres examined were much older than Earth's.

Astronomers had come up with an explanation which tended to agree with Klystar's assertion. The planets and moons of the solar system were heavily cratered as a result of long-term bombardment by asteroids and meteorites. It came as a surprise to discover that the same had not happened to other planetary systems, which had known more peaceful and orderly histories. Something unusual must have happened to the solar system early on. It was now accepted that there really had once been a planet between Mars and Jupiter, and that it had disintegrated, filling the system with dangerous debris. While evolution elsewhere proceeded at a sedate pace, on Earth it had been forced to cope with recurrent catastrophes—mass extinctions from asteroid strikes which sometimes had nearly extinguished the biosphere altogether. The repeated twists and turns of fate had accelerated evolutionary change.

What could have shattered a planet? Collision between neighbouring worlds, while possible, would not have scattered the fragments far and wide, as had happened. They would have slumped back together by self-gravitation. Something more energetic was needed, and for that one had to look outside the solar system. The current hypothesis was that an interstellar intruder, zipping through the solar system with enormous velocity from high above the ecliptic plane, was the culprit.

Collision was more plausible if a cluster of interstellar transients was involved. Another might have struck Uranus a glancing blow, tilting its axis to its present unusual alignment nearly parallel to its orbital plane.

So far so good. But for the accident to have resulted in a premature and half finished mankind, flawed, inadequate, below the cosmic standard, was a new and unwelcome idea.

“Come with me,” Klystar said. “I-Klystar will show you what I mean."

He resumed striding down the rubble-strewn slope. Laedo followed. Once they neared the valley floor, the crater's panorama vanished. The horizon intervened, leaving only the lip of the crater wall visible to the eye.

Klystar's approach had been noticed. A crowd of people poured from the barracks and fields to welcome him. They reminded Laedo of primitives on some island paradise, naked except for a simple piece of white cloth worn around the waist, by both men and women. They fell to their knees before Klystar, placing their hands together in an attitude of prayer.

A hoarse, windy voice arose from one of the older men.

"We have buried our dead, O Klystar! How have we failed?"

In a stentorian voice, completely different from the one he had used when speaking to Laedo, Klystar answered.

"YOU HAVE NOT HAD ENOUGH FAITH! BEGIN AGAIN! HAVE MORE FAITH! YOU MUST

BEGIN A NEW TOWER TOMORROW!"

A chant grew from the crowd. "We will have faith! We will begin again!"

The crowd melted away as the people returned from whence they had come.

“Look at those idiots,” Klystar said quietly. With one of his four thin lank arms he pointed to the nearest pile of ruins on the horizon. It appeared to be the base of a tower, surrounded by tumbled stone. “For generations I-Klystar have been telling them to build a tower twenty miles high so that they can climb up it to heaven. It is manifestly impossible to build a tower that high with the materials available. On reaching a certain height it collapses and kills large numbers of the builders. Yet do they ever lose faith in me? Do they tell themselves that I-Klystar might be lying and perhaps am not even a god, as they think? No, they do not. They begin again. And simply because my personality is stronger than theirs."

Such cynicism appalled Laedo. But he was also puzzled. Why should the mighty Klystar, whose deeds were so awesome, come to resemble a corny Jehova?

At the same time there was something odd in the way the alien being referred to himself as ‘I-Klystar'. Or was it ‘I/Klystar'?

An inspired thought came to him. He blurted it out immediately.

“You're not Klystar at all, are you? What are you? A robot proxy? Or a biological one, perhaps?"

'Klystar’ paused, before he answered, his tone neutral and matter-of-fact. “You have acuity, for a member of an inferior race,” he congratulated. “No, I-Klystar am not a proxy. I am a relic. To be exact, I am Klystar's body. Klystar himself, that is to say his mind, or essence, is away journeying. Methods for moving material objects, such as those used by your starships, are not fast enough for his requirements.

He uses a technique which abstracts the individual from his corporeal form and expresses him as a pattern of consciousness and thought. This can be instantaneously transferred to an immense distance."

“How?"

“By a means known as Immediacy of Thought. It would be tiresome to explain."

“What happens at the other end?"

“A replacement body is needed as an instrument of action. Klystar forms one from available materials where this is possible. Or he may arrange for one to be constructed beforehand."