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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29750-h.zip b/29750-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9616f82 --- /dev/null +++ b/29750-h.zip diff --git a/29750-h/29750-h.htm b/29750-h/29750-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc4baa0 --- /dev/null +++ b/29750-h/29750-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Zen, by Jerome Bixby + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1,h2,.figc {text-align: center;} + hr {width: 45%; visibility: hidden;} + hr,.bk1,.figc {margin: 2em auto;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .rgt {text-align: right;} + .figc {width: 600px;} + img {border: none;} + a:link,a:visited {text-decoration: none;} + p.cap:first-letter {float: left; margin-right: .05em; padding-top: .05em; font-size: 300%; line-height: .8em; width: auto;} + .dcap {text-transform: uppercase;} + .figt {float: left; clear: left; margin: 15px; padding: 0; width: 287px;} + .trn {border: solid 1px; margin: 3em 15%; min-height: 230px;} + .trn p {margin: 15px;} + .sp1 {font-size: 200%;} + .bk1 {width: 18em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Zen, by Jerome Bixby + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Zen + +Author: Jerome Bixby + +Illustrator: William Ashman + +Release Date: August 21, 2009 [EBook #29750] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZEN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1><span class="sp1">ZEN</span></h1> + +<h2><small>By JEROME BIXBY</small></h2> + +<div class="bk1"><p><i><big><b>Because they were so likable and intelligent +and adaptable—they were vastly dangerous!</b></big></i></p></div> + +<div class="figc"><img src="images/001.png" width="600" height="328" alt="" title="" /> +<b>Illustrated by ASHMAN</b></div> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It's</span> difficult, when you're on +one of the asteroids, to keep +from tripping, because it's +almost impossible to keep your +eyes on the ground. They never +got around to putting portholes +in spaceships, you know—unnecessary +when you're flying by GB, +and psychologically inadvisable, +besides—so an asteroid is about +the only place, apart from Luna, +where you can really see the stars.</p> + +<p>There are so many stars in an +asteroid sky that they look like +clouds; like massive, heaped-up +silver clouds floating slowly +around the inner surface of the +vast ebony sphere that surrounds +you and your tiny foothold. They +are near enough to touch, and +you want to touch them, but they +are so frighteningly far away ... +and so beautiful: there's nothing +in creation half so beautiful as +an asteroid sky.</p> + +<p>You don't want to look down, +naturally.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I had</span> left the <i>Lucky Pierre</i> to +search for fossils (I'm David +Koontz, the <i>Lucky Pierre</i>'s paleontologist). +Somewhere off in +the darkness on either side of me +were Joe Hargraves, gadgeting +for mineral deposits, and Ed +Reiss, hopefully on the lookout +for anything alive. The <i>Lucky +Pierre</i> was back of us, her body +out of sight behind a low black +ridge, only her gleaming nose +poking above like a porpoise +coming up for air. When I looked +back, I could see, along the jagged +rim of the ridge, the busy +reflected flickerings of the bubble-camp +the techs were throwing +together. Otherwise all was black, +except for our blue-white torch +beams that darted here and there +over the gritty, rocky surface.</p> + +<p>The twenty-nine of us were +E.T.I. Team 17, whose assignment +was the asteroids. We were +four years and three months out +of Terra, and we'd reached Vesta +right on schedule. Ten minutes +after landing, we had known that +the clod was part of the crust of +Planet X—or Sorn, to give it its +right name—one of the few such +parts that hadn't been blown +clean out of the Solar System.</p> + +<p>That made Vesta extra-special. +It meant settling down for a +while. It meant a careful, months-long +scrutiny of Vesta's every +square inch and a lot of her cubic +ones, especially by the life-scientists. +Fossils, artifacts, animate +life ... a surface chunk of Sorn +might harbor any of these, or all. +Some we'd tackled already had +a few.</p> + +<p>In a day or so, of course, we'd +have the one-man beetles and +crewboats out, and the floodlights +orbiting overhead, and Vesta +would be as exposed to us as a +molecule on a microscreen. Then +work would start in earnest. But +in the meantime—and as usual—Hargraves, +Reiss and I were out +prowling, our weighted boots +clomping along in darkness. Captain +Feldman had long ago given +up trying to keep his science-minded +charges from galloping +off alone like this. In spite of +being a military man, Feld's a +nice guy; he just shrugs and says, +"Scientists!" when we appear +brightly at the airlock, waiting to +be let out.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">So</span> the three of us went our separate +ways, and soon were +out of sight of one another. Ed +Reiss, the biologist, was looking +hardest for animate life, naturally.</p> + +<p>But I found it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I had</span> crossed a long, rounded +expanse of rock—lava, wonderfully +colored—and was descending +into a boulder-cluttered +pocket. I was nearing the "bottom" +of the chunk, the part that +had been the deepest beneath +Sorn's surface before the blow-up. +It was the likeliest place to look +for fossils.</p> + +<p>But instead of looking for fossils, +my eyes kept rising to those +incredible stars. You get that way +particularly after several weeks +of living in steel; and it was +lucky that I got that way this +time, or I might have missed the +Zen.</p> + +<p>My feet tangled with a rock. +I started a slow, light-gravity fall, +and looked down to catch my +balance. My torch beam flickered +across a small, red-furred teddy-bear +shape. The light passed on. +I brought it sharply back to +target.</p> + +<p>My hair did <i>not</i> stand on end, +regardless of what you've heard +me quoted as saying. Why should +it have, when I already knew +Yurt so well—considered him, in +fact, one of my closest friends?</p> + +<p>The Zen was standing by a +rock, one paw resting on it, ears +cocked forward, its stubby hind +legs braced ready to launch it +into flight. Big yellow eyes +blinked unemotionally at the +glare of the torch, and I cut down +its brilliance with a twist of the +polarizer lens.</p> + +<p>The creature stared at me, +looking ready to jump halfway +to Mars or straight at me if I +made a wrong move.</p> + +<p>I addressed it in its own language, +clucking my tongue and +whistling through my teeth: +"Suh, Zen—"</p> + +<p>In the blue-white light of the +torch, the Zen shivered. It didn't +say anything. I thought I knew +why. Three thousand years of +darkness and silence ...</p> + +<p>I said, "I won't hurt you," +again speaking in its own language.</p> + +<p>The Zen moved away from the +rock, but not away from me. It +came a little closer, actually, and +peered up at my helmeted, mirror-glassed +head—unmistakably +the seat of intelligence, it appears, +of any race anywhere. Its mouth, +almost human-shaped, worked; +finally words came. It hadn't +spoken, except to itself, for three +thousand years.</p> + +<p>"You ... are not Zen," it said. +"Why—how do you speak Zennacai?"</p> + +<p>It took me a couple of seconds +to untangle the squeaking syllables +and get any sense out of +them. What I had already said +to it were stock phrases that Yurt +had taught me; I knew still more, +but I couldn't speak Zennacai +fluently by any means. Keep this +in mind, by the way: I barely +knew the language, and the Zen +could barely remember it. To +save space, the following dialogue +is reproduced without bumblings, +blank stares and <i>What-did-you-says</i>? +In reality, our talk lasted +over an hour.</p> + +<p>"I am an Earthman," I said. +Through my earphones, when I +spoke, I could faintly hear my +own voice as the Zen must have +heard it in Vesta's all but nonexistent +atmosphere: tiny, metallic, +cricket-like.</p> + +<p>"Eert ... mn?"</p> + +<p>I pointed at the sky, the incredible +sky. "From out there. +From another world."</p> + +<p>It thought about that for a +while. I waited. We already knew +that the Zens had been better astronomers +at their peak than we +were right now, even though +they'd never mastered space +travel; so I didn't expect this one +to boggle at the notion of creatures +from another world. It +didn't. Finally it nodded, and I +thought, as I had often before, +how curious it was that this gesture +should be common to Earthmen +and Zen.</p> + +<p>"So. Eert-mn," it said. "And +you know what I am?"</p> + +<p>When I understood, I nodded, +too. Then I said, "Yes," realizing +that the nod wasn't visible +through the one-way glass of my +helmet.</p> + +<p>"I am—last of Zen," it said.</p> + +<p>I said nothing. I was studying +it closely, looking for the features +which Yurt had described to us: +the lighter red fur of arms and +neck, the peculiar formation of +flesh and horn on the lower abdomen. +They were there. From +the coloring, I knew this Zen was +a female.</p> + +<p>The mouth worked again—not +with emotion, I knew, but with +the unfamiliar act of speaking. +"I have been here for—for—" +she hesitated—"I don't know. +For five hundred of my years."</p> + +<p>"For about three thousand of +mine," I told her.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">And</span> then blank astonishment +sank home in me—astonishment +at the last two words of her +remark. I was already familiar +with the Zens' enormous intelligence, +knowing Yurt as I did ... but +imagine thinking to qualify +<i>years</i> with <i>my</i> when just out of +nowhere a visitor from another +planetary orbit pops up! And +there had been no special stress +given the distinction, just clear, +precise thinking, like Yurt's.</p> + +<p>I added, still a little awed: +"We know how long ago your +world died."</p> + +<p>"I was child then," she said, +"I don't know—what happened. +I have wondered." She looked up +at my steel-and-glass face; I +must have seemed like a giant. +Well, I suppose I was. "This—what +we are on—was part of +Sorn, I know. Was it—" She +fumbled for a word—"was it +atom explosion?"</p> + +<p>I told her how Sorn had gotten +careless with its hydrogen atoms +and had blown itself over half of +creation. (This the E.T.I. Teams +had surmised from scientific records +found on Eros, as well as +from geophysical evidence scattered +throughout the other bodies.)</p> + +<p>"I was child," she said again +after a moment. "But I remember—I +remember things <i>different</i> +from this. Air ... heat ... light +... how do I live here?"</p> + +<p>Again I felt amazement at its +intelligence; (and it suddenly occurred +to me that astronomy and +nuclear physics must have been +taught in Sorn's "elementary +schools"—else that <i>my years</i> and +<i>atom explosion</i> would have been +all but impossible). And now this +old, old creature, remembering +back three thousand years to +childhood—probably to those +"elementary schools"—remembering, +and defining the differences +in environment between +<i>then</i> and <i>now</i>; and more, wondering +at its existence in the +different <i>now</i>—</p> + +<p>And then I got my own thinking +straightened out. I recalled +some of the things we had +learned about the Zen.</p> + +<p>Their average lifespan had been +12,000 years or a little over. So +the Zen before me was, by our +standards, about twenty-five +years old. Nothing at all strange +about remembering, when you +are twenty-five, the things that +happened to you when you were +seven ...</p> + +<p>But the Zen's question, even +my rationalization of my reaction +to it, had given me a chill. +Here was no cuddly teddy bear.</p> + +<p>This creature had been born +before Christ!</p> + +<p>She had been alone for three +thousand years, on a chip of bone +from her dead world beneath a +sepulchre of stars. The last and +greatest Martian civilization, the +<i>L'hrai</i>, had risen and fallen in +her lifetime. And she was twenty-five +years old.</p> + +<p>"How do I live here?" she +asked again.</p> + +<p>I got back into my own framework +of temporal reference, so +to speak, and began explaining +to a Zen what a Zen was. (I +found out later from Yurt that +biology, for the reasons which +follow, was one of the most difficult +studies; so difficult that +nuclear physics actually <i>preceded</i> +it!) I told her that the Zen had +been, all evidence indicated, the +toughest, hardest, longest-lived +creatures God had ever cooked +up: practically independent of +their environment, no special +ecological niche; just raw, stubborn, +tenacious life, developed to +a fantastic extreme—a greater +force of life than any other +known, one that could exist almost +anywhere under practically +any conditions—even floating in +midspace, which, asteroid or no, +this Zen was doing right now.</p> + +<p>The Zens breathed, all right, +but it was nothing they'd had +to do in order to live. It gave +them nothing their incredible metabolism +couldn't scrounge up +out of rock or cosmic rays or +interstellar gas or simply do without +for a few thousand years. If +the human body is a furnace, +then the Zen body is a feeder +pile. Maybe that, I thought, was +what evolution always worked +toward.</p> + +<p>"Please, will you kill me?" the +Zen said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I'd</span> been expecting that. Two +years ago, on the bleak surface +of Eros, Yurt had asked Engstrom +to do the same thing. But I asked, +"Why?" although I knew what +the answer would be, too.</p> + +<p>The Zen looked up at me. She +was exhibiting every ounce of +emotion a Zen is capable of, which +is a lot; and I could recognize +it, but not in any familiar terms. +A tiny motion here, a quiver +there, but very quiet and still for +the most part. And <i>that</i> was the +violent expression: restraint. +Yurt, after two years of living +with us, still couldn't understand +why we found this confusing.</p> + +<p>Difficult, aliens—or being alien.</p> + +<p>"I've tried so often to do it +myself," the Zen said softly. "But +I can't. I can't even hurt myself. +Why do I want you to kill me?" +She was even quieter. Maybe she +was crying. "I'm alone. Five hundred +years, Eert-mn—not too +long. I'm still young. But what +good is it—life—when there are +no other Zen?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know there are +no other Zen?"</p> + +<p>"There are no others," she said +almost inaudibly. I suppose a human +girl might have shrieked it.</p> + +<p><i>A child</i>, I thought, <i>when your +world blew up. And you survived. +Now you're a young three-thousand-year-old +woman ... uneducated, +afraid, probably crawling +with neuroses. Even so, in your +thousand-year terms, young lady, +you're not too old to change.</i></p> + +<p>"Will you kill me?" she asked +again.</p> + +<p>And suddenly I was having one +of those eye-popping third-row-center +views of the whole scene: +the enormous, beautiful sky; the +dead clod, Vesta; the little creature +who stood there staring at me—the +brilliant-ignorant, humanlike-alien, +old-young creature who +was asking me to kill her.</p> + +<p>For a moment the human quality +of her thinking terrified me +... the feeling you might have +waking up some night and finding +your pet puppy sitting on +your chest, looking at you with +wise eyes and white fangs gleaming ...</p> + +<p>Then I thought of Yurt—smart, +friendly Yurt, who had +learned to laugh and wisecrack—and +I came out of the jeebies. I +realized that here was only a sick +girl, no tiny monster. And if she +were as resilient as Yurt ... well, +it was his problem. He'd probably +pull her through.</p> + +<p>But I didn't pick her up. I +made no attempt to take her back +to the ship. Her tiny white teeth +and tiny yellow claws were +harder than steel; and she was, +I knew, unbelievably strong for +her size. If she got suspicious or +decided to throw a phobic tizzy, +she could scatter shreds of me +over a square acre of Vesta in +less time than it would take me +to yelp.</p> + +<p>"Will you—" she began again.</p> + +<p>I tried shakily, "Hell, no. Wait +here." Then I had to translate it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I went</span> back to the <i>Lucky +Pierre</i> and got Yurt. We could +do without him, even though he +had been a big help. We'd taught +him a lot—he'd been a child at +the blow-up, too—and he'd +taught us a lot. But this was +more important, of course.</p> + +<p>When I told him what had +happened, he was very quiet; crying, +perhaps, just like a human +being, with happiness.</p> + +<p>Cap Feldman asked me what +was up, and I told him, and he +said, "Well, I'll be blessed!"</p> + +<p>I said, "Yurt, are you sure you +want us to keep hands off ... +just go off and leave you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please."</p> + +<p>Feldman said, "Well, I'll be +blessed."</p> + +<p>Yurt, who spoke excellent English, +said, "Bless you all."</p> + +<p>I took him back to where the +female waited. From the ridge, I +knew, the entire crew was watching +through binocs. I set him +down, and he fell to studying her +intently.</p> + +<p>"I am not a Zen," I told her, +giving my torch full brilliance +for the crew's sake, "but Yurt +here is. Do you see ... I mean, +do you know what you look +like?"</p> + +<p>She said, "I can see enough of +my own body to—and—yes ..."</p> + +<p>"Yurt," I said, "here's the female +we thought we might find. +Take over."</p> + +<p>Yurt's eyes were fastened on +the girl.</p> + +<p>"What—do I do now?" she +whispered worriedly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that's something +only a Zen would know," I told +her, smiling inside my helmet. +"I'm not a Zen. Yurt is."</p> + +<p>She turned to him. "You will +tell me?"</p> + +<p>"If it becomes necessary." He +moved closer to her, not even +looking back to talk to me. "Give +us some time to get acquainted, +will you, Dave? And you might +leave some supplies and a bubble +at the camp when you move on, +just to make things pleasanter."</p> + +<p>By this time he had reached +the female. They were as still as +space, not a sound, not a motion. +I wanted to hang around, but I +knew how I'd feel if a Zen, say, +wouldn't go away if I were the +last man alive and had just met +the last woman.</p> + +<p>I moved my torch off them +and headed back for the <i>Lucky +Pierre</i>. We all had a drink to the +saving of a great race that might +have become extinct. Ed Reiss, +though, had to do some worrying +before he could down his drink.</p> + +<p>"What if they don't like each +other?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"They don't have much +choice," Captain Feldman said, +always the realist. "Why do +homely women fight for jobs on +the most isolated space outposts?"</p> + +<p>Reiss grinned. "That's right. +They look awful good after a +year or two in space."</p> + +<p>"Make that twenty-five by Zen +standards or three thousand by +ours," said Joe Hargraves, "and +I'll bet they look beautiful to +each other."</p> + +<p>We decided to drop our investigation +of Vesta for the time +being, and come back to it after +the honeymoon.</p> + +<p>Six months later, when we returned, +there were twelve hundred +Zen on Vesta!</p> + +<p>Captain Feldman was a realist +but he was also a deeply moral +man. He went to Yurt and said, +"It's indecent! Couldn't the two +of you control yourselves at least +a little? <i>Twelve hundred kids!</i>"</p> + +<p>"We were rather surprised ourselves," +Yurt said complacently. +"But this seems to be how Zen +reproduce. Can you have only +half a child?"</p> + +<p>Naturally, Feld got the authorities +to quarantine Vesta. Good +God, the Zen could push us clear +out of the Solar System in a couple +of generations!</p> + +<p>I don't think they would, but +you can't take such chances, can +you?</p> + +<p class="rgt"><b>—JEROME BIXBY</b></p> + +<div class="trn"><div class="figt"><a href="images/002-2.jpg"><img src="images/002-1.jpg" width="287" height="200" alt="" title="" /></a></div> + +<p><big><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></big></p> + +<p>This etext was produced from <i>Galaxy Science Fiction</i> October 1952. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and +typographical errors have been corrected without note.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zen, by Jerome Bixby + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZEN *** + +***** This file should be named 29750-h.htm or 29750-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/5/29750/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Zen + +Author: Jerome Bixby + +Illustrator: William Ashman + +Release Date: August 21, 2009 [EBook #29750] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZEN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +ZEN + +By JEROME BIXBY + + + _Because they were so likable and intelligent + and adaptable--they were vastly dangerous!_ + +[Illustration: Illustrated by ASHMAN] + + +It's difficult, when you're on one of the asteroids, to keep from +tripping, because it's almost impossible to keep your eyes on the +ground. They never got around to putting portholes in spaceships, you +know--unnecessary when you're flying by GB, and psychologically +inadvisable, besides--so an asteroid is about the only place, apart from +Luna, where you can really see the stars. + +There are so many stars in an asteroid sky that they look like clouds; +like massive, heaped-up silver clouds floating slowly around the inner +surface of the vast ebony sphere that surrounds you and your tiny +foothold. They are near enough to touch, and you want to touch them, but +they are so frighteningly far away ... and so beautiful: there's nothing +in creation half so beautiful as an asteroid sky. + +You don't want to look down, naturally. + + * * * * * + +I had left the _Lucky Pierre_ to search for fossils (I'm David Koontz, +the _Lucky Pierre_'s paleontologist). Somewhere off in the darkness on +either side of me were Joe Hargraves, gadgeting for mineral deposits, +and Ed Reiss, hopefully on the lookout for anything alive. The _Lucky +Pierre_ was back of us, her body out of sight behind a low black ridge, +only her gleaming nose poking above like a porpoise coming up for air. +When I looked back, I could see, along the jagged rim of the ridge, the +busy reflected flickerings of the bubble-camp the techs were throwing +together. Otherwise all was black, except for our blue-white torch beams +that darted here and there over the gritty, rocky surface. + +The twenty-nine of us were E.T.I. Team 17, whose assignment was the +asteroids. We were four years and three months out of Terra, and we'd +reached Vesta right on schedule. Ten minutes after landing, we had known +that the clod was part of the crust of Planet X--or Sorn, to give it its +right name--one of the few such parts that hadn't been blown clean out +of the Solar System. + +That made Vesta extra-special. It meant settling down for a while. It +meant a careful, months-long scrutiny of Vesta's every square inch and a +lot of her cubic ones, especially by the life-scientists. Fossils, +artifacts, animate life ... a surface chunk of Sorn might harbor any of +these, or all. Some we'd tackled already had a few. + +In a day or so, of course, we'd have the one-man beetles and crewboats +out, and the floodlights orbiting overhead, and Vesta would be as +exposed to us as a molecule on a microscreen. Then work would start in +earnest. But in the meantime--and as usual--Hargraves, Reiss and I were +out prowling, our weighted boots clomping along in darkness. Captain +Feldman had long ago given up trying to keep his science-minded charges +from galloping off alone like this. In spite of being a military man, +Feld's a nice guy; he just shrugs and says, "Scientists!" when we appear +brightly at the airlock, waiting to be let out. + + * * * * * + +So the three of us went our separate ways, and soon were out of sight of +one another. Ed Reiss, the biologist, was looking hardest for animate +life, naturally. + +But I found it. + + * * * * * + +I had crossed a long, rounded expanse of rock--lava, wonderfully +colored--and was descending into a boulder-cluttered pocket. I was +nearing the "bottom" of the chunk, the part that had been the deepest +beneath Sorn's surface before the blow-up. It was the likeliest place to +look for fossils. + +But instead of looking for fossils, my eyes kept rising to those +incredible stars. You get that way particularly after several weeks of +living in steel; and it was lucky that I got that way this time, or I +might have missed the Zen. + +My feet tangled with a rock. I started a slow, light-gravity fall, and +looked down to catch my balance. My torch beam flickered across a small, +red-furred teddy-bear shape. The light passed on. I brought it sharply +back to target. + +My hair did _not_ stand on end, regardless of what you've heard me +quoted as saying. Why should it have, when I already knew Yurt so +well--considered him, in fact, one of my closest friends? + +The Zen was standing by a rock, one paw resting on it, ears cocked +forward, its stubby hind legs braced ready to launch it into flight. Big +yellow eyes blinked unemotionally at the glare of the torch, and I cut +down its brilliance with a twist of the polarizer lens. + +The creature stared at me, looking ready to jump halfway to Mars or +straight at me if I made a wrong move. + +I addressed it in its own language, clucking my tongue and whistling +through my teeth: "Suh, Zen--" + +In the blue-white light of the torch, the Zen shivered. It didn't say +anything. I thought I knew why. Three thousand years of darkness and +silence ... + +I said, "I won't hurt you," again speaking in its own language. + +The Zen moved away from the rock, but not away from me. It came a little +closer, actually, and peered up at my helmeted, mirror-glassed +head--unmistakably the seat of intelligence, it appears, of any race +anywhere. Its mouth, almost human-shaped, worked; finally words came. It +hadn't spoken, except to itself, for three thousand years. + +"You ... are not Zen," it said. "Why--how do you speak Zennacai?" + +It took me a couple of seconds to untangle the squeaking syllables and +get any sense out of them. What I had already said to it were stock +phrases that Yurt had taught me; I knew still more, but I couldn't +speak Zennacai fluently by any means. Keep this in mind, by the way: I +barely knew the language, and the Zen could barely remember it. To save +space, the following dialogue is reproduced without bumblings, blank +stares and _What-did-you-says_? In reality, our talk lasted over an +hour. + +"I am an Earthman," I said. Through my earphones, when I spoke, I could +faintly hear my own voice as the Zen must have heard it in Vesta's all +but nonexistent atmosphere: tiny, metallic, cricket-like. + +"Eert ... mn?" + +I pointed at the sky, the incredible sky. "From out there. From another +world." + +It thought about that for a while. I waited. We already knew that the +Zens had been better astronomers at their peak than we were right now, +even though they'd never mastered space travel; so I didn't expect this +one to boggle at the notion of creatures from another world. It didn't. +Finally it nodded, and I thought, as I had often before, how curious it +was that this gesture should be common to Earthmen and Zen. + +"So. Eert-mn," it said. "And you know what I am?" + +When I understood, I nodded, too. Then I said, "Yes," realizing that the +nod wasn't visible through the one-way glass of my helmet. + +"I am--last of Zen," it said. + +I said nothing. I was studying it closely, looking for the features +which Yurt had described to us: the lighter red fur of arms and neck, +the peculiar formation of flesh and horn on the lower abdomen. They were +there. From the coloring, I knew this Zen was a female. + +The mouth worked again--not with emotion, I knew, but with the +unfamiliar act of speaking. "I have been here for--for--" she +hesitated--"I don't know. For five hundred of my years." + +"For about three thousand of mine," I told her. + + * * * * * + +And then blank astonishment sank home in me--astonishment at the last +two words of her remark. I was already familiar with the Zens' enormous +intelligence, knowing Yurt as I did ... but imagine thinking to qualify +_years_ with _my_ when just out of nowhere a visitor from another +planetary orbit pops up! And there had been no special stress given the +distinction, just clear, precise thinking, like Yurt's. + +I added, still a little awed: "We know how long ago your world died." + +"I was child then," she said, "I don't know--what happened. I have +wondered." She looked up at my steel-and-glass face; I must have seemed +like a giant. Well, I suppose I was. "This--what we are on--was part of +Sorn, I know. Was it--" She fumbled for a word--"was it atom explosion?" + +I told her how Sorn had gotten careless with its hydrogen atoms and had +blown itself over half of creation. (This the E.T.I. Teams had surmised +from scientific records found on Eros, as well as from geophysical +evidence scattered throughout the other bodies.) + +"I was child," she said again after a moment. "But I remember--I +remember things _different_ from this. Air ... heat ... light ... how do +I live here?" + +Again I felt amazement at its intelligence; (and it suddenly occurred to +me that astronomy and nuclear physics must have been taught in Sorn's +"elementary schools"--else that _my years_ and _atom explosion_ would +have been all but impossible). And now this old, old creature, +remembering back three thousand years to childhood--probably to those +"elementary schools"--remembering, and defining the differences in +environment between _then_ and _now_; and more, wondering at its +existence in the different _now_-- + +And then I got my own thinking straightened out. I recalled some of the +things we had learned about the Zen. + +Their average lifespan had been 12,000 years or a little over. So the +Zen before me was, by our standards, about twenty-five years old. +Nothing at all strange about remembering, when you are twenty-five, the +things that happened to you when you were seven ... + +But the Zen's question, even my rationalization of my reaction to it, +had given me a chill. Here was no cuddly teddy bear. + +This creature had been born before Christ! + +She had been alone for three thousand years, on a chip of bone from her +dead world beneath a sepulchre of stars. The last and greatest Martian +civilization, the _L'hrai_, had risen and fallen in her lifetime. And +she was twenty-five years old. + +"How do I live here?" she asked again. + +I got back into my own framework of temporal reference, so to speak, and +began explaining to a Zen what a Zen was. (I found out later from Yurt +that biology, for the reasons which follow, was one of the most +difficult studies; so difficult that nuclear physics actually _preceded_ +it!) I told her that the Zen had been, all evidence indicated, the +toughest, hardest, longest-lived creatures God had ever cooked up: +practically independent of their environment, no special ecological +niche; just raw, stubborn, tenacious life, developed to a fantastic +extreme--a greater force of life than any other known, one that could +exist almost anywhere under practically any conditions--even floating in +midspace, which, asteroid or no, this Zen was doing right now. + +The Zens breathed, all right, but it was nothing they'd had to do in +order to live. It gave them nothing their incredible metabolism couldn't +scrounge up out of rock or cosmic rays or interstellar gas or simply do +without for a few thousand years. If the human body is a furnace, then +the Zen body is a feeder pile. Maybe that, I thought, was what evolution +always worked toward. + +"Please, will you kill me?" the Zen said. + + * * * * * + +I'd been expecting that. Two years ago, on the bleak surface of Eros, +Yurt had asked Engstrom to do the same thing. But I asked, "Why?" +although I knew what the answer would be, too. + +The Zen looked up at me. She was exhibiting every ounce of emotion a Zen +is capable of, which is a lot; and I could recognize it, but not in any +familiar terms. A tiny motion here, a quiver there, but very quiet and +still for the most part. And _that_ was the violent expression: +restraint. Yurt, after two years of living with us, still couldn't +understand why we found this confusing. + +Difficult, aliens--or being alien. + +"I've tried so often to do it myself," the Zen said softly. "But I +can't. I can't even hurt myself. Why do I want you to kill me?" She was +even quieter. Maybe she was crying. "I'm alone. Five hundred years, +Eert-mn--not too long. I'm still young. But what good is it--life--when +there are no other Zen?" + +"How do you know there are no other Zen?" + +"There are no others," she said almost inaudibly. I suppose a human girl +might have shrieked it. + +_A child_, I thought, _when your world blew up. And you survived. Now +you're a young three-thousand-year-old woman ... uneducated, afraid, +probably crawling with neuroses. Even so, in your thousand-year terms, +young lady, you're not too old to change._ + +"Will you kill me?" she asked again. + +And suddenly I was having one of those eye-popping third-row-center +views of the whole scene: the enormous, beautiful sky; the dead clod, +Vesta; the little creature who stood there staring at me--the +brilliant-ignorant, humanlike-alien, old-young creature who was asking +me to kill her. + +For a moment the human quality of her thinking terrified me ... the +feeling you might have waking up some night and finding your pet puppy +sitting on your chest, looking at you with wise eyes and white fangs +gleaming ... + +Then I thought of Yurt--smart, friendly Yurt, who had learned to laugh +and wisecrack--and I came out of the jeebies. I realized that here was +only a sick girl, no tiny monster. And if she were as resilient as Yurt +... well, it was his problem. He'd probably pull her through. + +But I didn't pick her up. I made no attempt to take her back to the +ship. Her tiny white teeth and tiny yellow claws were harder than steel; +and she was, I knew, unbelievably strong for her size. If she got +suspicious or decided to throw a phobic tizzy, she could scatter shreds +of me over a square acre of Vesta in less time than it would take me to +yelp. + +"Will you--" she began again. + +I tried shakily, "Hell, no. Wait here." Then I had to translate it. + + * * * * * + +I went back to the _Lucky Pierre_ and got Yurt. We could do without him, +even though he had been a big help. We'd taught him a lot--he'd been a +child at the blow-up, too--and he'd taught us a lot. But this was more +important, of course. + +When I told him what had happened, he was very quiet; crying, perhaps, +just like a human being, with happiness. + +Cap Feldman asked me what was up, and I told him, and he said, "Well, +I'll be blessed!" + +I said, "Yurt, are you sure you want us to keep hands off ... just go +off and leave you?" + +"Yes, please." + +Feldman said, "Well, I'll be blessed." + +Yurt, who spoke excellent English, said, "Bless you all." + +I took him back to where the female waited. From the ridge, I knew, the +entire crew was watching through binocs. I set him down, and he fell to +studying her intently. + +"I am not a Zen," I told her, giving my torch full brilliance for the +crew's sake, "but Yurt here is. Do you see ... I mean, do you know what +you look like?" + +She said, "I can see enough of my own body to--and--yes ..." + +"Yurt," I said, "here's the female we thought we might find. Take over." + +Yurt's eyes were fastened on the girl. + +"What--do I do now?" she whispered worriedly. + +"I'm afraid that's something only a Zen would know," I told her, +smiling inside my helmet. "I'm not a Zen. Yurt is." + +She turned to him. "You will tell me?" + +"If it becomes necessary." He moved closer to her, not even looking back +to talk to me. "Give us some time to get acquainted, will you, Dave? And +you might leave some supplies and a bubble at the camp when you move on, +just to make things pleasanter." + +By this time he had reached the female. They were as still as space, not +a sound, not a motion. I wanted to hang around, but I knew how I'd feel +if a Zen, say, wouldn't go away if I were the last man alive and had +just met the last woman. + +I moved my torch off them and headed back for the _Lucky Pierre_. We all +had a drink to the saving of a great race that might have become +extinct. Ed Reiss, though, had to do some worrying before he could down +his drink. + +"What if they don't like each other?" he asked anxiously. + +"They don't have much choice," Captain Feldman said, always the realist. +"Why do homely women fight for jobs on the most isolated space +outposts?" + +Reiss grinned. "That's right. They look awful good after a year or two +in space." + +"Make that twenty-five by Zen standards or three thousand by ours," said +Joe Hargraves, "and I'll bet they look beautiful to each other." + +We decided to drop our investigation of Vesta for the time being, and +come back to it after the honeymoon. + +Six months later, when we returned, there were twelve hundred Zen on +Vesta! + +Captain Feldman was a realist but he was also a deeply moral man. He +went to Yurt and said, "It's indecent! Couldn't the two of you control +yourselves at least a little? _Twelve hundred kids!_" + +"We were rather surprised ourselves," Yurt said complacently. "But this +seems to be how Zen reproduce. Can you have only half a child?" + +Naturally, Feld got the authorities to quarantine Vesta. Good God, the +Zen could push us clear out of the Solar System in a couple of +generations! + +I don't think they would, but you can't take such chances, can you? + + --JEROME BIXBY + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ October 1952. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zen, by Jerome Bixby + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZEN *** + +***** This file should be named 29750.txt or 29750.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/5/29750/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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