[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
clumps of long, many-colored grass, and the four yellow spikes that were its
stings were beaded with venom at the tips. For it was seeing again the images
that had been indelibly printed into its racial memory, the terrible pictures
complete with their telepathically shared death agonies as the gigantic
predators had torn its joined forebears into bloody tatters. Lioren suspected
that the signal of ultimate distress, the Call for Joining, would have already
gone out if Khone had not controlled its instinctive terror with the reminder
that the only other
Gogleskan capable of linking telepathically with it was its own sleeping
offspring.
Gradually Khone's trembling diminished, and when the erect hair and stings
were again lying flat against its body, it went on. "There is great fear and
even greater despair. The Gogleskan feels that the help of the Earth-human
Diagnostician, with goodwill and the resources of this great hospital at its
disposal, are not enough to alter the destiny of a world. It is a stupid self-
delusion on the part of this healer to think otherwise, and a gross act of
ingratitude to tell Conway of these feelings. Everywhere in the Federation
there is a balance between order and chaos, or good and evil, but it is
inconceivable that a Gogleskan and its child could alter the destiny, the
habits and thinking and feelings of an entire planetary population.''
Lioren made the sign of negation, then realized that the gesture would be
meaningless to Khone. "The healer is wrong. There are many precedents on many
different worlds where one person was able to do just that. Admittedly, the
person concerned was an entity with special qualities, a great teacher or
lawgiver or philosopher, and many of its followers believed that it was the
manifestation of their God. It is not certain that the healer and its child,
with Conway's assistance, will change the course of Gogleskan history, but it
is possible."
Khone made a short, wheezing sound which did not translate. "Such wildly
inaccurate and extravagant compliments have not been received since the
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
prelude to first mating. Surely the Tarlan is aware that the Gogleskan healer
is neither a teacher nor a leader nor a person with any special qualities.
That which the trainee suggests is ridiculous!"
"The trainee is aware," Lioren said, "that the healer is the only member of
its species to have faced its Devil, to have broken its racial conditioning to
the extent of coming to a place like Sector General, a place filled with
monstrous but well-intentioned beings the majority of whom are visually more
terrifying than the Dark One that haunts the Gogleskan racial memory. And the
trainee disagrees because it is self-evident that the healer possesses special
qualities.
"For it has demonstrated beyond doubt," Lioren went on before Khone could
react, "that it is possible for one Gogleskan who was continually in fear of
the close approach of its own kind to overcome and, with practice and great
strength of will, to understand and even befriend many of the creatures out of
nightmare who live here. This being so, is it not possible, even probable,
that it will be able to find and teach this quality to others of its kind, who
will in time spread its teachings throughout their world until gradually the
Dark One loses all power over the Gogleskan mind?''
"That is what Conway believes," Khone said. "But is it not also probable that
the followers will say that the teacher is damaged in the brain, and be
fearful of the great changes that they would have to make in their customs and
habits of mind? If it persisted in its attempts to make them think in new and
uncomfortable ways, they might drive the teacher from them and inflict serious
injury or worse."
"Regrettably," Lioren said, "there are precedents for such behavior, but if
the teaching is good it outlives the teacher. And the Gogleskans are a gentle
race.
This teacher should feel neither fear nor despair.''
Khone made no response and Lioren went on. "It is a truism that in any place
of healing a patient will invariably find others in a more distressed
condition than itself, and derive some small comfort from the discovery. The
same holds
true among the distressed worlds. The healer is also wrong, therefore, in
thinking that Goglesk is uniquely accursed by fate or whichever other agency
it feels is responsible.
"There are the Cromsaggar," Lioren went on, maintaining a quiet tone within
the sudden clamor of memories the word aroused, "whose curse was that they
were constantly ill and constantly at war because fighting each other was the
only cure for their disease. And there are the Protectors, who fight and hunt
and kill mindlessly for every moment of their adult lives, and who would make
the long-extinct Dark Ones of Goglesk seem tame by comparison. Yet within
these terrible organic killing machines live, all too briefly, the telepathic
Unborn whose minds are gentle and sensitive and in all respects civilized.
Diagnostician Thornnastor has solved the Cromsag problem, which was basically
one of endocrinology, so that the few surviving natives of that planet will no
longer be condemned to unending, reluctant warfare. Diagnostician Conway has
made itself responsible for freeing the Protectors of the Unborn from their
evolutionary trap, but everyone feels that it is the Gogleskan problem which
will be more easily solved "
"These problems have already been discussed," Khone broke in, its whistling
speech increasing in pitch as it spoke. "The solutions, although complex,
involve medical or surgical conditions that are susceptible to physical
treatment. It is not so on Goglesk. There the problem is not susceptible to
physical solution. It is the most important part of the genetic inheritance
that enabled the species to survive since presapient times and cannot be
destroyed.
The evil that drives the race to self-destruction and self-enforced solitude
was, is, and always will be. On Goglesk there has never been a God, only the
Page 95
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Devil."
"Again," Lioren said, "it is possible that the healer is incorrect. The
trainee hesitates lest offense is given through ignorance of Gogleskan
religious beliefs that may be held by the "
"Impatience is felt," Khone said, "but offense will not be taken."
For a moment Lioren tried desperately to remember and organize the information
he had recently abstracted from the library computer. "It is widely taught and
believed throughout the Federation that where there is evil there is also
good, and that there cannot be a devil without God. This God is believed to be
the all-knowing, all-powerful but compassionate supreme being and maker of all
things, and is also held to be ever-present but invisible. If only the Devil
is evident on Goglesk it does not necessarily mean that God is not there
because all of the beliefs, regardless of species, are in agreement that the
first place to look for God is within one's self.
"The Gogleskans have been struggling against their Devil since they first
developed intelligence," Lioren went on. "Sometimes they have lost but more
often of late they have made small gains. It could be that there is one Devil
and many who unknowingly carry their God within them."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]