The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth) by Michael G. Coney Read Free Book Online Page A

capable of thought would have said what you did. I’ve spent nearly twenty years knowing you may well be right, and telling nobody. You spoke as you saw it, as an independent man—and I respected you for it.”  
    “Please don’t respect me any more, Zozula. All that was twenty years ago. I don’t need respect, now. I need pity. Are you human enough to grant it to me?”  
    Zozula descended the ladder. The barrow stood there, crude and wooden, Wild Human–made. In the barrow lay a creature.  
    There was a long silence.  
    Eventually Lord Shout said, “My son, the Mole... You can see he’s not normal. He’s been deaf and blind since birth, and...”  
    “Even if we could treat his physical abnormalities,” Zozula said gently, “our Cuidador code doesn’t allow us to practice medicine on Wild Humans. We have a duty to the species as a whole, and we’ve already paid a price for interfering with the course of nature. You people out here—you represent a hope for Humanity. Natural selection must be allowed to take its course.”  
    “I wasn’t going to ask for treatment.”  
    “What, then?”  
    “Mole, here... He’s known nothing . Can you imagine what that’s like? He’s never seen a tree, or a wave on the beach. He’s never heard the jaguar roar, and he’s never seen its beauty. He’s never even held a conversation with another human. He’s fifteen years old, and he’s never seen a woman...”  
    “I’m truly sorry, but I don’t see what we can do.”  
    “I want you to take him in. I want you to treat him like the rest of those... neotenites you have in there. Lay him down on a shelf and plug him in and let him dream real dreams in the computer. That’s the only way he’ll ever know what the world is like.”  
    “The neotenites have been dreaming for thousands of years. The world they’ve created in Dream Earth is nothing like the world we know. The Mole would find it frightening and I’m afraid the images would drive him mad.”  
    “I’ll take that chance.”  
    “I’m sorry. We’re full to capacity, you understand? In order to accommodate the Mole, we’d have to eliminate a neotenite’s body, which automatically means eliminating his mind. You must see why we couldn’t do that.”  
    “But you told me you have ten thousand bodies in there. What difference can one more make? You could make up a spare bed, surely?”  
    Zozula said, “We could if we knew how. But we don’t. We simply don’t have the knowledge to fabricate the bed, the life-support terminals and so on. I’m sorry.” Then, seeing the expression on Lord Shout’s face, Zozula took pity and said, “But we can do our best for him.”  
    “Anything.”  
    “Does he talk?”  
    “No, of course not.”  
    “Well, what kind of things does he think about? He’s deaf too, you said? What’s happening in his mind?”  
    “I don’t know! For God’s sake, Zozula, I’ve no idea! I feed him and keep him clean, and sometimes he waves those... things. I’ve no idea what’s going on in his mind, or even if he has a mind. He’s my son, and I don’t know anything about him!”  
    Zozula looked at the misshapen head, at the blank places where the eyes ought to be, and just for a moment imagined a whirling of thoughts in there, quick and brilliant, unable to find release, belying the terrible blankness of the exterior. Who could tell? He drew a parallel with the Rainbow—seemingly an immense bank of fog occupying one wall of a vast room, useless and mute unless you knew how to communicate with it.  
    And the tragedy was, that skill in communication was virtually lost. There were programs of great value in there, knowledge and techniques that could probably solve all the world’s problems. But they couldn’t be drawn out, understood and learned from. Nevertheless they were there .  
    The Mole’s thoughts were probably there . If the Cuidadors couldn’t help the Mole, nobody could. For a