Other Earths (collection)

I did not reach this conclusion at once but over the course of an interminable night, watching other deracinated Cradles—twenty or more—cross the drowned forest to meet their fate, repeating the transition that the woman had made. The druggy reverence I had earlier felt reinstituted itself, though not as strongly as before, and I felt a compulsion to join them, to sacrifice my life in hopes of some undefined reward, a notion allied with that now-familiar sense of glorious promise. I believe my fight with the woman, however, had put me out of that head enough so that I was able to resist—or else, having nearly run out of Cradles, the thing, the animal, God, the All, whatever you wished to call it, needed survivors to breed and replenish its medicine cabinet (giving the Biblical instruction “Be fruitful and multiply” a new spin) and thus had dialed back the urgency of its summons.

Toward dawn, the light dimmed, and I was able to see deeper into the thing. I noticed what might have been cellular walls within it and more of the ephemeral, limblike structures that I had previously observed. At one point I saw what appeared to be a grayish cloud fluttering above a dark object—it looked as if one of the lesser internal structures had been coated with something, for nowhere else did I see a hint of darkness, and there was an unevenness of coloration that suggested erosion or careless application. The fluttering of the cloud had something of an animal character—agitated, frustrated—that brought to mind the approach-avoidance behavior of a mouse to a trap baited with cheese, sensing danger yet lusting after the morsel. I recalled my opiated vision aboard the Undine , the gray patch that had been chasing after the luminous void-dweller, and I thought the coating must be the blood and bones of countless Cradles reduced to a shield that protected it from the depredations of the cloud. Soon it passed from view, seeming to circulate away, as though the creature were shifting or an internal tide were carrying it off.

A deep blue sky pricked with stars showed among the leaves overhead, the last of the light faded, and I continued to squat neck-deep in the water, staring after it, trying to find some accommodation between what I thought I had known of the world and what I had seen. While I was not a religious man, I was dismayed to have learned that the religious impulse was nothing more than a twitch of evolutionary biology. I could place no other interpretation on the event that I had witnessed. The parallels to the peak Christian experience were inescapable. I was dazed and frightened, more so than I had been in the presence of the creature. My fear had been suppressed by the concomitant feelings of awe and glory, and though I knew it had not truly gone anywhere, that it still enclosed all I saw and would ever see, now that it was no longer visible, I feared it would return …and yet I was plagued by another feeling, less potent but no less palpable. I felt bereft by its absence and longed to see it again. These emotions gradually ebbed, and I became eager to put that oppressive place behind me. I splashed over to the tree where I had tied up the boat and began fumbling with the line.

“Hey, brother,” said the man in the tree adjacent to mine. “Take me with you.”

Anxiety floored the superficial nonchalance of his tone. He still held the pistol, though not aiming it at me. I told him to find his own boat—there were plenty around.

“I don’t have the will to leave,” he said. “And if I don’t leave, that thing’s going to get me.” He offered me the pistol. “You have to help me. I won’t try anything.” He laughed weakly. “The shape I’m in, it wouldn’t matter if I did.”

I knew he had been playing me, that his every word and action had been designed toward this end; but he had saved my life. I took the gun and told him to bind his hands as tightly as he could manage. When this was done, I helped him down from the tree and into the boat. He was frail, his skin loose on his bones, and I guessed that he had lied to me, that he had been in the forest far longer than five nights. I checked his bonds, settled him into the bow, and climbed in. The man seemed greatly relieved. He pressed his fists to his forehead, as if fighting back tears. When he had recovered, he asked what I thought about things now that I had seen the show. I summarized my reactions and he nodded.

“You didn’t carry out the metaphor as far as I did,” he said. “But yeah, that pretty much says it.”

I asked him to explain what he meant by carrying out the metaphor.

“If you accept that our bad character is what makes us useful to it …or at least is symptomatic of the quality that makes us useful. Our psychic reek or something.” He broke off, apparently searching for the right words. “You saw that gray, swarming thing? How it seemed reluctant to come near the part that was treated? Coated, as you said.”

“Yeah. So?”