C H A P T E R

23





IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. NOT ONLY THAT, THOUGHT JIM, 1T WAS
just about indescribable.
He and Mary and Squonk were surrounded by what could only be described as a host of innumerable invisible fireflies. To call them fireflies and at the same time to say they were invisible was a contradiction in terms, but it was the only way of describing them. They were invisible to any physical sight -even AndFriend's instruments did not register their presence. But his mind saw them very clearly indeed as multitudinous living points of colored lightslights whose colors changed constantly, so that it was like standing in the midst of a rainbow in the process of sorting itself out from an endless number of tiny component parts.
And they were constantly in motion.
Not only that, but they were not only in the ship but all around it. They were in the interior space of the ship, they were partway through the hull of the ship, they were outside the ship, swarming in space and stretching off into the interstellar distance like the tail of a comet.
"They see us! Like the other one!"
"That one doesn't."
266

THE FOREVER MAN / 267
"But these two do. It's lovely to see and be seen by you."
Their voices rang in Jim's mind, each one different and memorable. Each one audible separately for a moment before they were drowned by a perfect roar of greetings from what sounded at the very least like hundreds of thousands of such voices, all entirely individual.
"Who're you?" asked Jim.
"I'm me," said the chorusing host of different voices.
Jim shook his head, stunned.
"If you'd speak just one at a time," said Mary, "we could hear you better."
"Of course, if you wish. But what kind of hearing is that?" said one voice. "We loved your friend. We'll love you, I think. Why aren't more of you lovable?"
"I don't know what you mean by what kind of hearing," said Mary. "In what way are we lovable?"
"Are there different ways of being lovable?" asked a different voice.
"I asked you a question first," said Mary.
"No, you didn't," said the voice that had agreed to talk one at a time. "I asked you a question first."
"Got you," murmured Jim to Mary.
"What is `got'?"
"Look here," said Mary determinedly. "What do you mean, 'what kind of hearing?' and in what way are Jim and I lovable?"
"There really is only one way to hear," said the most recent voice to speak to them. "Just like there's only one way to see. The small hole that's your other friend doesn't see or hear us."
"You mean Squonk?"
"There it is again," said the voice resignedly. "You're just like your friend who could see and hear us. It's very painful for us when a person won't, of course. That's why we told your other friends not to come any nearer. We only let this one come with you because you two can see and hear us, and we wanted to talk to you. But you're just like your other friend we loved dearly, who was here before. He'd start to tell us something and then he wouldn't say it. You just did that. You said `you mean. . . ' and then you stopped."
"I didn't stop," said Mary. "I said his name was Squonk."


268 / Gordon R. Dickson
"You're doing it again. You say 'I said his . . . was...'"
"I think," said Jim, "that we've got a communications problem. When we say `talk,' we're referring to what we usually make as physical sounds in the air-'
"Of course!" said the speaker. Jim had privately named him ?1 and, seeing there were so many more of them, had, privately decided to think of all the others as simply ?plus. "Of course, you garble it up very much, but I think I understand you now. You make changes in your hole in order to converse. But why do that when you can talk?"
"I was starting out to say when you interrupted me-" began Jim.
"I'm sorry. I did interrupt you.'' -Yes, he's very sorry."
`-Very sorry, indeed."
`-We're all sorry with him."
`-We would have interrupted, too, because we didn't know you couldn't talk and listen at the same time."
A roar of apologies and explanations, all in different voices flooded in, then was cut off abruptly as the single voice spoke again.
"From now on, I'll wait for you to tell the when you're through speaking."
"That might get a little clumsy," put in Mary. "Why don't you just wait until one of us pauses? We always pause when we're ready to listen."
"Good. I'll do that. So will everybody else. Did you ask me a question last, or did I ask you one?"
"Don't you know?" asked Mary.
"Of course I know, but I'm being nice."
"Jim was trying to explain that what you call talking we call thinking='
"There you are," said the voice sadly. "You were just about to tell me what you called something when you said. . ."
"Go on," said Mary, after a moment of complete silence.
"I was not saying what you didn't say," said the voice of ?1. "What I meant to say was that you said nothing, you said a blank."
"Let me suggest something," said Jim.
"By all means," said ?1.
"As I said, we're having a communications problem."


THE FOREVER MAN / 269
"You did say that," put in a ?plus. "There's really no need to say it again."
"Sorry," said Jim. Now I'm doing it, he thought, a little crazily. "I've got a suggestion to make that might give us all a solution to this communication problem."
"Good," said ? 1.
"It's this. I'll start to talk and explain as fully as I can about Mary and myself. When I'm done, I'll tell you so. I'll say, 'I'm through.' Then one of you will answer me, telling me how much of what I said was heard by you and how much wasn't. That way we may be able to figure out where the communication breaks down, and why. With your permission, I'll now start talking. You'll all listen without saying a word until I say, 'I'm through.' Then one of you will answer me, and Mary and I will do nothing but listen until that one of you says, 'I'm through.' Then I'll speak again until I say, 'I'm through.' You answer under the same rule, and so on. Agreed? I'm through."
"Agreed. I'm through," said ?l.
"Good for you, Jim," said Mary.
"Thanks," answered Jim. "Tell me that again, later, will you-when I've got time to appreciate it?"
He turned his attention back to their invisible/visible audience.
"All right, then," he said. "I'll begin. We seem to be able to talk to each other to a limited extent, but wherever the concept behind our thought isn't known or understood by the listening party, nothing comes across. Instead, the listener hears what seems to be a blank, just as Question Mark Oneas I've named the one of you who's done most of the speaking to us-said.
"As a result, there are undoubtedly going to be a lot of blanks in what I now say to you. Hopefully, finding out where these blanks are will help us establish the areas in which one of us doesn't understand the other, and we can try to fill those blanks with meaning by trying to describe these unknowns.
"Just to give you something to start working with, I'm already aware that you don't understand the difference between us and some of those you call our friends. The third living thing aboard this ship, which you call a hole for reasons I don't understand, is actually something different from Mary


270 I Gordon R. Dickson

and myself. Mary and I call ourselves humans. We have bodies with two legs, two arms and a head. The individual we call Squonk, which is the third living thing here, has two legs, a head and six tentacles, but no arms.
"Mary and I come from a planet orbiting a sun a long way from here, on the other side of the territory of the living things we call Laagi. Squonk is a less intelligent, servant species used by the Laagi. The Laagi are those you call our friends, but who can't see you and whom you told not to come any farther, with the result that they sat in their ships and died at the edge of your territory. Mary and I came here without our bodies to study the Laagi. The Laagi don't know that we can live outside of our bodies. Since you have no bodies most of what I have just been saying probably made no sense to you. So I will stop here, although there's a lot more I could say. I'm through."
He stopped. There was a prolonged silence.
"I will begin," said ?1, "since you mentioned me-why are you radiating surprise? I'm through."
"I just thought the name I'd given you would be one of the lungs you couldn't hear. I'm through," said Jim.
"I don't know what that blank is you said you just gave me, but you identified me as you began speaking, so I'm answering. Shall I continue? I'm through."
"Yes. I'm through," said Jim hastily.
"I'll continue, then. Speaking for all of us, I feel that our responsibility in this case is greater than yours, since we had already talked to your particular beloved friend who was here before you and found his speech also full of blanks. Although I must say, regretfully, that there seemed to be some problem about his thinking, as well. In fact, forgive me for saying. . .
?1's mental voice had sunk to a confidential whisper.
". . . but he sometimes saw things that weren't there."
?1's voice went back to its normal tone and volume.
"However, we have had experience with a person such as you and clearly you have had no experience with persons such as us. Therefore we . . . and I most certainly. . . in any case, thank you. It is, as you apparently understand, very hard to guess what might be found in the blanks that occur in your talk when you speak to us. Let me try . . . therefore to recapitulate what you told us.


THE FOREVER MAN I 271
"You said that the holes of some of your friends were different from the holes of your other friends. Therefore there was some larger or general difference between you and them. We were left with the possibility that the friends who are holes different from you do not understand why you sometimes do not take your personal holes with you when you go to visit them-I refer strictly to your personal holes, not the somewhat larger hole you and your nonseeing, nonhearing, speechless friend here, whose hole is in some way different from yours, are currently wearing. The question arises why do any of you, similar friends and different friends, wear holes at all? I'm through."
"Fine," said Jim. "Already we're making some progress. When you talk about holes, I think you're referring to what we call ships, or bodies. Were there a couple of blanks in the last few words I said? I'm through."
"There were," said ?1. "Apparently you have a different conception of holes than we do. I'm through."
"You tell me what you think holes are. I'm through."
"A hole is hard to define. A hole is a hole. It is a place that -isn't. I'm through."
"Isn't what? I'm through," said Jim.
"Isn't the universe. A hole is any place where the universe ceases to be because the hole's there. I'm through."
"When I say `space' do your minds hear 'universe'? I'm through."
"In a way," said ?I cautiously. "There's both something extra and something less in what you say when you say hole than when we say it. I'm through."
"When I say `think,' do you hear me saying 'say'? I'm through."
"Certainly. Did you intend to say something different? By the way, do you suppose we could stop saying 'I'm through' so much, now? We believe we've come to understand the rhythm of your endof-speech pauses."
"Fine. I'll be glad to stop saying it. It was a clumsy way of taking turns talking anyway."
"Very clumsy."
"All right," said Jim. "With that much out of the way, let's try this. When I say man, woman, ship, Squonk, Laagi, Earth, moon, what do you hear me saying?"


272 / Gordon R. Dickson
"You're just," said I "repeating the word hole, over and over again."
"Aha!" said Mary.
"Yes," said Jim. "Aha, indeed. ?1, I think we've got a real problem here. We aren't hearing what the other is saying at all. We're hearing the closest thing to it that our minds can find in their own experience and understanding."
"Then you don't really know what a hole is?" said ?1.
"We don't know what you mean when you think the concept that our minds translate into the word 'hole.' On the other hand, you use `hole' as a sort of general term for a great number of things that our experience teaches us are entirely different."
"I'm distressed!" said ?1. "How can this be? A hole is a hole!"
"A hole, if I understand you correctly," said Mary, "is any place space isn't. You make the distinction, but apparently you can travel through holes as easily as you can travel through space."
"Why not?" said ?1.
"I'll tell you why not. Because we can travel through spacebut we can't travel through what you call holes."
"I see. Well, that makes sense," said ?1. "A hole can't travel through a hole without one absorbing the other. We've seen little holes run into big holes and become part of them. -Forgive me. There is an exception. Sometimes, if the holes are about equal size, they both break up into a lot of smaller holes which go off in all directions."
"Like two asteroids crashing together," said Jim.
"That's what I said-two holes hitting each other," replied ?1.
"The point is," said Jim, "that we all need to understand that what we're doing is thinking at each other, not talking; and that what's received may not really be what was sent.."
"No, that's not right, either," said Mary. "What you mean to say, Jim, is that what ?1 thinks may appear to be something we understand, when actually we aren't understanding it at all; and vice versa. The blanks in speech are when a sent concept finds no common experience to relate to in the receiver at all. So there's two problems. One, how to tell the other side about something they've never known and have no word or descrip


THE FOREVER MAN / 273
tion for; and two, how to be aware that when the other side seems to understand a thing you mention, they're not confusing it with something else they know about, or see entirely differently."
"Good for you, Mary," said Jim.
"Well, I thought what you said could use a little straightening out."
"Er. . . yes. I suppose. Well, ?1, what do you say to what Mary said?"
"It had relatively few blanks. We appreciate it. But I will ask a question of you both. Why do you keep identifying yourself, each other, and even me?"
Jim found himself unexpectedly at a loss as to just how to answer that.
"I think he's referring to our using names Jim," said Mary. "We do it so that everyone present will know which one of them is being spoken to."
"But isn't that obvious? You identify a person by speaking to her."
"You referred to me just now as 'her.' How would you refer to Jim, then?" Mary asked.
"I would just refer to him as him," said ?1.
"Are you bisexual yourself, then?"
"I beg your pardon, but what you asked me if we were came through as a blank."
"Why do you say him to Jim and her to me, if you have no concept of sexual differences?"
"The kind of differences you referred to came out as a blank," said ?1. "But to answer your question, I simply referred. I identified no difference between you in referring."
"You see," said Jim, "that's exactly what I was talking about. They can say something that comes through loud and clear but doesn't necessarily mean what we think we hear-or receive, rather. ?1 just said whatever he said, and when we thought he was talking to me we heard what he said as 'him'; and when we thought he was talking to you-"
"He was talking to me," said Mary.
"-we heard it as 'her.' ?1, what do you hear when I call you '?1'?"
"You say 'you,"' answered ?l. "I must say you seem moved to say it a lot more often than is necessary."


274 / Gordon R. Dickson

"How many of your friends-I mean your own peopleare listening to us talk right now?"
"I would assume," said ?1, "as many as are interested."
"Sorry," said Jim. "I may have phrased that a little badly. Let me ask you instead how many of your people are here, in and around the ship, listening to us talk?"
"As many as want to be, I assume," said ?1. "I don't understand what you're striving to elucidate."
"How many of your people are there, all together?"
"Many," said ?1.
"Can you count?"
"I'm sorry, but what you asked if we could do came out as a blank."
"Mathematics unknown. Do you know how what you call holes-large holes-move about?"
"Certainly. The movement of hole material has always caused a web of forces throughout the universe. By these forces are the holes moved, and the forces generated by their movements move other holes. It is the primary dance-not one of the prettiest, but quite wonderful in its own way."
"When I say `stars,' does the concept come out as a blank to you?"
"Oh, no. We understand you quite clearly when you say `stars.' They are individual holes of somewhat larger size."
"Also hot-I see what you're driving at, Jim," said Mary.
"Well, more hot than you are, or this larger hole you have around you. Your holes would be changed on coming into contact with a star."
"They would indeed," said Jim. "Luckily, there's no star here. Do you know if there ever will be-here, where we are now?"
"One will pass through this point in the universe in four million, five hundred thousand, eight hundred and twentynine point four seven six six two eight years," said ?1.
"There will, will there?" said Jim. "And that brings us back to what we're driving at. If you don't recognize mathematics, how did you decide exactly when a star would be here? And where did you learn the concept of 'years'?"
"The concept of what?" said ?1. "1 merely told you when the hole would arrive where we are now."
"Oh," said Jim.


THE FOREVER MAN / 275

"Yes, it's dancing in this direction and therefore it'll be here then. That's the way the dance works out. But of course you'll have moved in four million, five hundred thousand, eight hundred and twenty-nine point four seven six six two eight years, won't you?"
"You can count on it," said Jim.
"We suspected you would. By the way, we are enjoying talking to you very much."
"We," said Jim, "are enjoying talking to you."
"In that case," said ?1, "may I suggest one thing? We have nothing against holes, but they really are somewhat uncomfortable compared to the universe itself. Would you be agreeable to moving outside this somewhat larger-than-you hole of yours, so that we can talk under more natural conditions?"
Jim hesitated. Mary evidently was also hesitating, for she said nothing also for a moment.
"I beg your pardon?" said ?1 anxiously. "I haven't offended you by that suggestion?"
"No, no," said Jim.
"It's just that I don't know if we're able to move outside the ship," said Mary.
"But I see nothing attaching you to this hole," said an obviously puzzled ?1.
"That's right," said Jim. "There isn't anything attaching us to this ship. So, why not?"
"Squonk," he told the small alien, who had continued to work steadily all this time-they had him searching for the bits and things Jim had caused the ship's robot to hide about the vessel's interior so that Squonk could continue his hunt for the "key" that he had been put on to begin with='I've got to go away for a little while. But keep searching until I get back."
Squonk signaled an affirmative with his antennae, and broadcast an eagerness to continue with his mind. Jim returned to the question of how to leave the ship with these invisible mental entities.
He imagined himself-his mind only-stepping outside the hull of AndFriend, free to roam the universe as a nonphysical thinking entity, alone. Nothing happened. He got angry and tried again, forcing against whatever held him back.
There was a strange sensation, a sensation that he thought


276 / Gordon R. Dickson
later was what it might have felt like to be a living cork and feel himself be pushed out of the neck of a bottle of champagne, because the bottle had been shaken and too much gas pressure, released from solution in the wine, had built up beneath him. He found himself outside the ship.
"There we are. Nothing to it," he said. "How do you like it, Mary . . . Mary? Mary, where are you?"
He had suddenly become conscious of a sense of loss, and that loss was of the identity of Mary, which had been so close to him all this time.
"I'm right here, Jim. Jim, where did you go?" He heard her voice. "Jim, I'm in the ship, but I'm not part of you anymore. Where are you?"
"I'm outside the ship now. Evidently when we travel as free spirits, we travel on our own. Come on out, Mary. Just be determined to come out and join ? 1 and me and all the rest. You may have to push a little-I did-but it can be done."
"Push? How? Jim, I don't know-"
"Ah, well," said Jim. "I guess it's just something you may not be able to do. I didn't have any trouble, but maybe it just isn't possible for you. Don't get yourself all worked up trying, if-,,
"What do you mean?" snapped Mary. "If you can do it, of course I can do it! I can do whatever . . . there! I'm out."
And she was, too. He could tell by her voice, somehow, that she now was near to him, rather than apart, or inside him as he had grown so used to her being. He was bothered by an odd sense of abandonment, and he reassured himself by summoning up the picture of her in his mind. It comforted him. There she was, as bright as ever.
"Quite a feeling, isn't it, Mary?" he asked.
"It is." Her voice was unexpectedly soft. "You're right beside me, aren't you, Jim?"
"Absolutely right beside you," he said. "Invisible but present and able."
"That's good," she said.
"You find it strange not to be in a hole?" inquired the voice of ? 1.
"Very strange," said Mary, still with that unusual softness in her voice. "Very strange, but lovely."
"Do you, too, find it lovely?" said ?1, and Jim understood


THE FOREVER MAN / 277

without needing to be told that he was the one being addressed.
"You could put it that way, I suppose," he said.
"It is the natural way to be, of course," said ?1. "Sometime, when we can understand each other better, you must explain to me why you chose to live in holes in the first place."
"Where did you people come from?" asked Jim.
There was a strangely long pause before ?1 answered.
"We don't know," he said. "It never occurred to us to wonder about that before. Do you suppose we started out in holes, too, and found our way out?"
"Can you think of an alternative?" Jim countered.
"We could simply have sprung spontaneously into being .... No, that's ridiculous," said ?1 thoughtfully. "No," he went on, obviously addressing someone besides Jim and Mary, "and I find it hard to believe we existed before the universe did, let alone created it. Of course, we might have created it-until the facts are known, any hypothesis is possible, but most of us don't believe that."
"You speak for yourself most of the time, but then you suddenly start speaking for all the rest of your people-all that're here, anyway," said Jim. "Are you just guessing how they feel or do you actually know?"
"I was not hypothesizing," said ?l. "Of course. Agreement or disagreement is obvious. Can't you feel those reactions yourself?"
"Feel is not the way we generally communicate agreement or disagreement, particularly when we're wearing our holes," said Jim.
"That's strange," said ?1. "This time you said 'hole,' but it had a larger meaning."
"I actually said 'hole,' not one of my own words that you translate into it," answered Jim. "I'm learning from you."
"How happy of you!"
"No need to get all excited," said Jim uncomfortably. "Learning's a natural process for any thinking mind, isn't it?"
"Ah, but the will to learn! To exert that will is a compliment, in addition to all else. I must exert myself to learn from you, in turn!"
"Well. . . ," said Jim. -17tanks."


278 / Gordon R. Dickson

"There is no need to thank me for a pleasure which you make possible to me," said ?1. "Now that we're all back in the universe again, would you care to dance? Or is there something else you'd prefer to do?"
"Like what?" asked Jim.
"I've no idea," said ?I, "since I've no experience in what pleases you."
"Let's just go on talking," said Mary.
"No," said Jim. "We can always talk-am I right about that, ?1?"
"How could it be otherwise?"
"Then, for now can we go and visit some of those GO-type stars and land on any planets they may have? I want to see if any of them live up to what Raoul was talking about with those references of his to 'paradise."'
"Would this be pleasurable also to you?"
"Of course. I just said=
"I think he was asking me, Jim," interrupted Mary. "Yes, thank you. Even though Jim suggested it, I'd be interested to see any planets of those nearby GO stars."
"What do you consider nearby?" queried ?l.
"Those we can see," said Mary.
"I can see six million, two hundred thousand and forty-nine holes of the type you concept, with planets orbiting them."
"Oh," said Jim. "Well, let's just start with the closest one to where we are now and go on from there. All right, Mary?"
"Fine," she answered.
"Then we go," said ?1.