Chapter 23

For another week, perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement had lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their idea-content no longer required its use.

Only Tom and Jed seemed to retain their orientation to the past, the clarity of awareness. These two spent much time together, seemed always available when Cal needed them, yet did not intrude upon his thought. Frank now seemed one with the colonists. Louie lived on the outskirts of the herd, near the colonists but not of them. He had ceased to exhort, warn, command, argue. His face was closed, told nothing of what he was thinking.

And he had ceased to demand his tithe as intercessor. He was gathering his own food, catching his own fish.

And he seldom let Cal out of his sight.

Tom and Jed helped as best they could by maintaining contact with the old reality. They spent much of the daytime with the colonists. At night they turned their faces to the dark sky to watch the ships, now grown to four, bathed in the light of Ceti like a constellation of bright stars above them. They read the intermittent flashes of light from McGinnis, and from the E.H.Q. laboratory. McGinnis told of the police ship’s attempts to break through the barrier surrounding Eden, and its failure. The laboratory told of Linda’s presence on board, and now and then flashed out a message to Cal from Linda of her love, her nearness, her faith in him, her desire to be with him, her patience in waiting.

McGinnis told of the arrival of a fifth ship, carrying Gunderson in person. He had been unable to believe his police captain. Unable to believe that the ship could not land at will. He had come in person to take charge, and apparently fumed his frustration in idleness, unable to do anything with the situation, unwilling to go back to Earth and leave it alone.

Tom and Jed told Cal the content of these messages, but to Cal the reports of the police activity seemed noises heard from far away and unrelated to himself. The messages from Linda seemed the haunting strains of a song remembered from long ago.

For his mind was wholly enrapt with the problem. He had been given the key--reality is a matter of proportion, change the concept of proportion and you change the material form--but he had not found the lock and the door it would open. He knew it, but he couldn’t do it.

Perhaps Tom might help? Tom was well-grounded in math, had to be for his job as pilot.

“Look, Tom,” Cal said one morning after they had given him the night’s messages from the ships. He squatted on the ground and brushed away some leaves from an area of dirt. “Watch the equals sign.” He scratched a formula in the dirt:

“2 + 2 = 4”

The = changed to :. Then to δ. Then through the series of variable relationships.

Tom leaped to his feet from the log where he had been sitting.

“That’s crazy,” he exclaimed. “It isn’t just proportionate, it isn’t variable. It equals.”

Jed was looking from one to the other, obviously at a loss.

“Well,” Cal said drily, “I’m much more interested in what They have to say than in trying to convince Them that They’re wrong.”

“But if everything were only proportionate and variable,” Tom argued, “then you’d have nothing fixed, constant. Why the proportionate relationship might be dependent solely upon choice. Nothing would be solid, dependable.”

“Not even the footprints under your feet,” Cal answered softly. “Not a house, nor a field of grain, nor a spaceship. Simply alter the choice of proportion--and they aren’t there anymore.”