The Fountains of Paradise

But they would not explain to the Starholmer, whose normal colour vision lay entirely in the infra-red, that the human skin was not a random mosaic of greens and reds and blues. Even when It had threatened to turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and eat them all up, they still refused to satisfy Its curiosity. Indeed, they quickly pointed out – to an entity that had crossed scores of light-years and collected knowledge for thirty centuries – that a mass of only a hundred kilogrammes would scarcely make an impressive dinosaur.

The Holmer did not mind; It was patient, and the children of Earth were endlessly fascinating, in both their biology and their psychology. So were the young of all creatures – all, of course, that did have young. Having studied nine such species, the Holmer could now almost imagine what it must be like to grow up, mature, and die… almost, but not quite.

Spread out before the dozen humans and one non-human lay the empty land, its once luxuriant fields and forests blasted by the cold breaths from north and south. The graceful coconut palms had long since vanished, and even the gloomy pines that had succeeded them were naked skeletons, their roots destroyed by the spreading permafrost. No life was left upon the surface of the Earth; only in the oceanic abyss, where the planet's internal heat kept the ice at bay, did a few blind, starveling creatures crawl and swim and devour each other.

Yet to a being whose home had circled a faint red star, the sun that blazed down from the cloudless sky still seemed intolerably bright. Though all its warmth had gone, drained away by the sickness that had attacked its core a thousand years ago, its fierce, cold light revealed every detail of the stricken land, and flashed in splendour from the approaching glaciers.

For the children, still revelling in the powers of their awakening minds, the sub-zero temperatures were an exciting challenge. As they danced naked through the snowdrifts, bare feet kicking up clouds of powder-dry, shining crystals, their symbiotes often had to warn them: "Don't over-ride your frost-bite signals!" For they were not yet old enough to replicate new limbs without the help of their elders.

The oldest of the boys was showing off; he had launched a deliberate assault on the cold, announcing proudly that he was a fire-elemental. (The Starholmer noted the term for future research, which would later cause It much perplexity.) All that could be seen of the small exhibitionist was a column of flame and steam, dancing to and fro along the ancient brickwork; the other children pointedly ignored this rather crude display.

To the Starholmer, however, it presented an interesting paradox. Just why had these people retreated to the inner planets, when they could have fought back the cold with the powers that they now possessed – as, indeed, their cousins were doing on Mars? That was a question to which It had still not received a satisfactory answer. It considered again the enigmatic reply It had been given by ARISTOTLE, the entity with which It most easily communicated.

"For everything there is a season," the global brain had replied. "There is a time to battle against Nature, and a time to obey her. True wisdom lies in making the right choice. When the long winter is over, Man will return to an Earth renewed and refreshed."

And so, during the past few centuries, the whole terrestrial population had streamed up the equatorial Towers and flowed sunwards towards the young oceans of Venus, the fertile plains of Mercury's Temperate Zone. Five hundred years hence, when the sun had recovered, the exiles would return. Mercury would be abandoned, except for the polar regions; but Venus would be a permanent second home. The quenching of the sun had given the incentive, and the opportunity, for the taming of that hellish world.

Important though they were, these matters concerned the Starholmer only indirectly; Its interest was focused upon more subtle aspects of human culture and society. Every species was unique, with its own surprises, its own idiosyncrasies. This one had introduced the Starholmer to the baffling concept of Negative Information – or, in the local terminology, Humour, Fantasy, Myth.

As it grappled with these strange phenomena, the Starholmer had sometimes said despairingly to Itselves: We shall never understand human beings. On occasion It had been so frustrated that It had feared an involuntary conjugation, with all the risks that entailed. But now It had made real progress; It could still remember Its satisfaction the first time It had made a joke – and the children had all laughed.

Working with children had been the clue, again provided by ARISTOTLE. "There is an old saying; the child is father of the man. Although the biological concept of 'father' is equally alien to us both, in this context the word has a double meaning –"