"You'd give this up to come back?" Low manifested a gesture. "All this knowledge, this opportunity?"
The first confronted him, as much as it was possible to do so given the limitations of their immediate environment. "Listen well, traveler. Immortality is Hell."
"Then follow me."
So saying, he entered the gray splotch. He felt a light buffeting, as if he'd suddenly opened the door to his home on a blustery day.
He was standing on the beam that emanated steadily from the fifth islet. The gray globe grew misty behind him.
The breeze struck again. Standing at his shoulder, seven feet tall, was a Cocytan. More massive than the Creator, bright of eye and dynamic of countenance, it inhaled deeply. Much to Low's surprise, he found he could understand the words when it addressed him.
"In the other place knowledge is absorbed as easily as is food in the physical world. Much was implanted in your thoughts while you were among us. Food!" it exclaimed, as though contemplating all the jewels in the universe. "To eat again. To consume, and process." Eyeing the muscular form, Low found himself wondering if the Cocytan were vegetarians.
A second alien stepped through the vortex of the Eye, followed by a third.
"Come." The first gently urged Low downward, back toward the fifth islet. "Now that the way is known, it will not be lost again. We must make room for the others."
Looking back as he retraced his steps, Low saw Cocytan after Cocytan emerge from the Eye. They paused to stare at the sky, the sea, one another. Soon more were stepping out onto the four other light-bridges and making their way toward the other islets. Cries of delight and booming calls of homecoming echoed across the sky.
He wondered how long it would take for all of them to make the transition. Three billion, the Creator had told him. Would the machinery that powered the Eye continue to function long enough? He put the question to the Cocytan accompanying him.
"Worry not, traveler. Among the first to come through are many who were engineers and builders. They will take control of the mechanism and see to its maintenance. The bridges will not be allowed to fade nor the Eye to dim." Even as he spoke, long-limbed Cocytans were striding past Low on either side. Their strange singsong speech filled the air with what he could only think of as exclamations of sheer joy. A number leaped and pirouetted with remarkable grace, heedless of the potentially fatal plunge to the ocean below. Others simply paused to inhale deeply of both fresh air and a restored reality. Upon successive reemergence, several embraced. Their joy and delight could not help but communicate itself to Low.
Vividness of expression is more than possible, he thought, without the use of any language at all.
"Where are you going to put everybody?" Low wondered. "Even the central island isn't very big."
"There are transportation systems that lead to the nearest continent and from there to the rest of Cocytus. Like so much other carefully tuned machinery, it has been waiting patiently for a return we had come to believe would never take place. I infer that you did not discover them. It is as well. Had you been presented with all of Cocytus to explore, it is likely you would not have found the key to the Eye.
"After transportation, communications will be restored, for on this plane of existence we can no longer simply think at one another. You cannot imagine, cannot conceive of, what an enchantment it is to utilize ordinary speech again." Alien eyes gazed down at him.
"You cannot imagine our debt to you, Boston Low. What we owe you can never be repaid."
"Hey, it's all right. To be perfectly truthful, I didn't think I was embarked on any kind of good deed. My intentions, my thoughts, were ... elsewhere. So don't give me any credit for it." The spire that overtopped the fifth islet loomed near. "In the other dimension your physical forms were still preserved?"
"As was yours," the Cocytan told him. "In the other dimension all memories of the physical world are preserved. And like memories there, they do not age. Now we have regained them at last, along with our heritage." A powerful, multidigited hand came to rest on Low's shoulder. "And also, I think, some new friends. You have no idea how much anxiety you caused us. We could observe you but not help, scrutinize but not contact, monitor but not warn. Many sensations were denied to us in the other dimension, but frustration was not one of them."
As they entered the spire, Low could see numerous Cocytans busying themselves among the instruments and machines. They worked smoothly, efficiently, as if they had left their professions only yesterday. Watching them operate, it was impossible to believe they had been absent from this place for a millennium.
"Since the beginning of our civilization," Low professed, "my people have wondered about the existence of a Heaven."
"Heaven." The Cocytan ruminated. "A paradise beyond and outside the realm of physicality. We found a way to exist without physicalities, but we did not find a Heaven. Perhaps your people may have better luck."
As they made their way through the chamber, which now rang to the cries and calls of busy Cocytans, Low tried to avoid the place where Maggie's body lay. Again the strong hand rested upon his shoulder.
"I feel a tenseness within you."
Low looked up at his new friend. "Can you read minds too?"
"No, but you forget that we have been observing you ever since your arrival on our world. There was little we missed. Your body language as well as the one you speak was learned. You grieve for your female companion, do you not?"
Low could only nod.
"She could not have known how dangerous it was to stand so near to the center when final attainment was achieved. Why do you not speak to her now?"
"Because she's dead," Low replied bleakly. "Because she gave her life to—"
"Hey, I don't give my life for anything. Well, maybe for the right story."
Low gaped. Maggie was coming toward him. She had been concealed behind a pair of Cocytans. Her eyes sparkled, and there was a spring in her step he hadn't seen since they'd first boarded the Atlantis.
There wasn't a mark on her.
"But how...?" He gawked at his tall alien comrade.
Then she was in his arms, and he didn't have to worry about whether the time was right for kissing. She made sure of that.
When at last she drew back, he could only gape and marvel. "I thought ... I thought you didn't want to be brought back? I thought you didn't want to have anything to do with the life crystals?"
She was laughing at him. Dead one minute, giggling uncontrollably the next. Who said the universe had no sense of humor?
"Did I say anything about life crystals?" She indicated the two busy Cocytans behind her. One made a gesture in their direction that might have been a wave. "It seems that they've developed a number of different ways of doing the same thing. It's just a matter of adjusting the crystal, or fine-tuning its inner frequency, or something. I don't pretend to understand, even in translation, but they promised me there would be no side effects."
"And the result?"
"What, already worried about me keeling over in the middle of visiting friends? The resurrection is permanent for the duration of my normal life span. Which, I am told, is now greatly enhanced. You can get the same treatment, and we'll live long enough to be feted as famous old geezers."
Not knowing what to say, Low glanced back at his newfound friend. "It is true," said the Cocytan. "A properly attuned crystal will maximize your natural life span. We should like that. It will enable us to honor you that much longer."
"We'll go on and on, Boston," she told him, "until our cellular machinery finally gives out. Maybe I can even finish that book I've always wanted to write."
"I thought your people were rejecting immortality," Low told the alien.
"Immortality, yes, but not a long and healthy natural life. The physical dimension offers too much to enjoy."
As if to confirm these words, Low and Maggie embraced for the second time, even more tightly than before.
The pair of Cocytans who had revi
ved her looked on with interest. "Are they mating?" wondered one.
"I do not think so," declared the other. "I envy them their exquisite combination of emotional resonance and surface tactility."
"Most touching." The voice was cool, analytical ... and familiar. Low and Maggie turned as one.
"Ludger?" the Commander exclaimed.
"Do you know anyone else on this world by that name?" The scientist came toward them. "As you can see, I seem to have developed an aversion to protracted death."
"But you look ... so old." Maggie stared at the otherwise fit and healthy scientist. His hair had thinned and whitened and his skin looked as if he'd just emerged from twelve hours spent in a hot bath.
For the second time he made her a present of his formal bow. "Thank you so much for the compliment. I have been ... on tour, I think you would say it. The realm of the deceased is a fascinating place, though I wouldn't want to live there. I have learned much, in exchange for which a decade or so of life seems little enough to sacrifice. It is not as if I had any choice in the matter." He turned to confront Low.
"If I recall correctly, Commander, we had a little disagreement."
"I didn't push you off that platform, Ludger. You fell."
"I know, and I apologize most profoundly for my actions. I was not myself, but rather under the influence of the life crystals." He gestured at his face, and Low noted the profusion of wrinkles and lines. "My appearance, I am told, is the result of their improper application. A lesson that I will more easily be able to impart to others, should the occasion arise."
"He will still live a long time," the Cocytan standing behind Low declared.
"I do not mind the premature aging." Brink smiled. "It will give me status among my peers. In the professional circles in which I move, you're not considered experienced until you've reached the age of sixty." He chuckled. "Wait until those old fossils read my report on this expedition."
"So you won't need to take any more of the crystals?" Low asked him.
"No." Brink smiled broadly. "I have been ... attended to. They performed what I like to think of as neural chiropractic on me. I don't need any more green."
"And now," announced the Cocytan, "I believe you would like to return to your home."
"Return home?" Low shook his head in disbelief. It was altogether too many miracles to deal with at once. "But how?"
"By the same means that brought you here. The asteroid-ship retains a record of your transference. It is easily reprogrammed."
"You mean, we could have done that all along?"
"No." The Cocytan's tone was somber. "You never could have done it. The mechanics are far beyond you. But not beyond your capacity to understand. With a little instruction, you will be surprised at what your kind can accomplish. And we will be glad to share. Not because we owe you, which we do, but because it is in our nature."
"Let's get going," Maggie insisted. "I have a story to file."
"You're not afraid?" Low slipped his arm around her waist. "It's a long way home, and an old piece of machinery."
She took his hand in one of hers and Brink's in the other. "Now, why should I be afraid of a little faster-than-light hop? I've already been dead, and Ludger twice. If one of us ought to be afraid, Boston, it's you."
But he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid at all. Not with a royal Cocytan retinue to escort them from the chamber.
The only thing Boston Low had ever been afraid of was ending up alone.
END
Alan Dean Foster, The Dig
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