"Brin, David - New Uplift Trilogy 02 - Infinity's Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David) Infinity's
Shore David
Brin (Back
of Jacket) For the
fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of
genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of
sapient beings. Now the human settlers
of Jijo and their alien neighbors must take heroic--and
terrifying--choices. A scientist must
turn against the benefactors she's been trained to love. A heretic must rally
believers for a cause he never shared.
And four youngsters find that what started as a simple
adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them
to the dark abyss of mystery.
Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last
on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge.
Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies
first spawned intelligence--a secret that could mean salvation for the planet
and its inhabitants. . . or their ultimate annihilation. Streaker [Five
Jaduras Earlier] Kaa * What
strange fate brought me, *
Fleeing maelstroms of winter, * Past
five galaxies? * * Only
to find refuge, * On a
forlorn planet (nude!) * In
laminar luxury! * SO HE
THOUGHT WHILE PERFORMING SWOOPING rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with
exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh. Dappled
sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of
floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flat-jawed fish,
moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the
instinctive urge to give chase. Maybe
later. For
now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the
greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the
green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each
time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on
Oakka. There wasn't enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter. This
sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the
ship would give you a toxic dose of hard metals. In
contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa
of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on
far-off Earth. He
tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne,
safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe failed. One
paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world. Sound. -a
beating of tides rising up the continental shelf-a complex rhythm tugged by
three moons, not one. -an
echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp
texture. -an
occasional distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself. -the
return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike
creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways. -above
all, the engine hum just behind him ... a cadence of machinery that had filled
Kaa's days and nights for five long years. And
now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty. *
Relent, Kaa, tell us, * In
exploratory prose, * Is it
safe to come? * The
voice chased Kaa like a fluttering, sonic conscience. Reluctantly, he swerved
around to face the submarine Hikahi, improvised from ancient parts found strewn
across this planet's deep seafloor-a makeshift contraption that suited a crew
of misfit fugitives. Clamshell doors closed ponderously, like the jaws of a
huge carnivore, cycling to let others emerge in his wake ... if he gave the all
clear. Kaa
sent his Trinary reply, amplified by a saser unit plugged into his skull,
behind his left eye. * If
water were all * We
might be in heaven now. * But
wait! I'll check above! * His
lungs were already making demands, so he obeyed instinct, flicking an upward
spiral toward the glistening surface. Ready or not, Jijo, here I come! He
loved piercing the tense boundary of sky and sea, flying weightless for an
instant, then broaching with a splash and spume of exhalation. Still, he
hesitated before inhaling. Instruments predicted an Earthlike atmosphere, yet
he felt a nervous tremor drawing breath. If
anything, the air tasted better than the water! Kaa whirled, thrashing his tail
in exuberance, glad Lieutenant Tsh't had let him volunteer for this-to be the
first dolphin, the first Earthling, ever to swim this sweet, foreign sea. Then
his eye stroked a jagged, gray-brown line, spanning one horizon, very close. The
shore. Mountains. He
stopped his gyre to stare at the nearby continent--inhabited, they now knew.
But by whom? There
was not supposed to be any sapient life on Jijo. Maybe
they're just hiding here, the way we are, from a hostile cosmos. That
was one theory. At
least they chose a pleasant world, he added, relishing the air, the water, and
gorgeous ranks of cumulus hovering over a giant mountain. I wonder if the fish
are good to eat. * As we
await you, *
Chafing in this cramped airlock, *
Should we play pinochle? * Kaa
winced at the lieutenant's sarcasm. Hurriedly, he sent back pulsed waves. *
Fortune smiles again, * On
our weary band of knaves. *
Welcome, friends, to Ifni's Shore. * It
might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of chance and destiny, capricious
Ifni, who always seemed ready to plague Streaker's company with one more
surprise. Another unexpected calamity, or miraculous escape. But Kaa
had always felt an affinity with the informal patron deity of spacers. There
might be better pilots than himself in the Terragens Survey Service, but none
with a deeper respect for fortuity. Hadn't his own nickname been
"Lucky"? Until
recently, that is. From
below, he heard the grumble of clamshell doors reopening. Soon Tsh't and others
would join him in this first examination of Jijo's surface-a world they
heretofore saw only briefly from orbit, then from the deepest, coldest pit in
all its seas. Soon, his companions would arrive, but for a few moments more he
had it to himself-silken water, tidal rhythms, fragrant air, the sky and
clouds. . . . His
tail swished, lifting him higher as he peered. Those aren't normal clouds, he
realized, staring at a great mountain dominating the eastern horizon, whose
peak wore shrouds of billowing white. The lens implanted in his right eye
dialed through a spectral scan, sending readings to his optic nerve-revealing
steam, carbon oxides, and a flicker of molten heat. A
volcano, Kaa realized, and the reminder sent his ebullience down a notch. This
was a busy part of the planet, geologically speaking. The same forces that made
it a useful hiding place also kept it dangerous. That
must be where the groaning comes from, he pondered. Seismic activity. An interaction
of miniquakes and crustal gas discharges with the thin overlaying film of sea. Another
flicker caught his notice, in roughly the same direction, but much closer-a
pale swelling that might also have been a cloud, except for the way it moved,
flapping like a bird's wing, then bulging with eagerness to race the wind. A sail,
he discerned. Kaa watched it jibe across the stiffening breeze-a two-masted
schooner, graceful in motion, achingly familiar from the Caribbean seas of
home. Its bow
split the water, spreading a wake that any dolphin might love to ride. The
zoom lens clarified, magnified, until he made out fuzzy bipedal forms, hauling
ropes and bustling around on deck, like any gang of human sailors. . . .
Only these weren't human beings. Kaa glimpsed scaly backs, culminating in a
backbone of sharp spines. Swathes of white fur covered the legs, and froglike
membranes pulsated below broad chins as the ship's company sang a low, rumbling
work chant that Kaa could dimly make out, even from here. He felt
a chill of unhappy recognition. Hoons!
What in all Five Galaxies are they doing here? Kaa
heard a rustle of fluke strokes-Tsh't and others rising to join him. Now he
must report that enemies of Earth dwelled here. Kaa
realized grimly-this news wasn't going to help him win back his nickname
anytime soon. She
came to mind again, the capricious goddess of uncertain destiny. And Kaa's own
Trinary phrase came back to him, as if reflected and reconverged by the
surrounding alien waters. *
Welcome . . . *
Welcome . . . *
Welcome to Ifni's Shore . . . * Sooners
Tkaat
ranger EXISTENCE
SEEMS LIKE WANDERING THROUGH A vast chaotic house. One that has been torn by
quakes and fire, and is now filled with bitter, inexplicable fog. Whenever he
manages to pry open a door, exposing some small corner of the past, each
revelation comes at the price of sharp waves of agony. In
time, he learns not to be swayed by the pain. Rather, each ache and sting
serves as a marker, a signpost, confirming that he must be on the right path. His
arrival on this world-plummeting through a scorched sky-should have ended with
merciful blankness. What luck instead hurled his blazing body from the pyre to
quench in a fetid swamp? Peculiar
luck. Since
then, he has grown intimate with all kinds of suffering, from crass pangs to
subtle stings. In cataloging them, he grows learned in the many ways there are
to hurt. Those
earliest agonies, right after the crash, had screeched coarsely from wounds and
scalding burns-a gale of such fierce torment that he barely noticed when a
motley crew of local savages rowed out to him in a makeshift boat, like sinners
dragging a fallen angel out of the boggy fen. Saving him from drowning, only to
face more damnations. Beings
who insisted that he fight for his broken life, when it would have been so much
easier just to let go. Later,
as his more blatant injuries healed or scarred, other types of anguish took up
the symphony of pain. Afflictions
of the mind. Holes
gape across his life, vast blank zones, lightless and empty, where missing
memories must once have spanned megaparsecs and life years. Each gap feels
chilled beyond numbness-a raw vacancy more frustrating than an itch that can't
be scratched. Ever
since he began wandering this singular world, he has probed the darkness
within. Optimistically, he clutches a few small trophies from the struggle. Jijo is
one of them. He
rolls the word in his mind-the name of this planet where six castaway races
band together in feral truce, a mixed culture unlike any other beneath the
myriad stars. A
second word comes more easily with repeated use- Sara. She who nursed him from
near death in her tree house overlooking a rustic water mill . . . who calmed
the fluxing panic when he first woke to see pincers, claws, and mucusy ring
stacks-the physiques of hoons, traekis, qheuens, and others sharing this rude
outcast existence. He
knows more words, such as Kurt and Prity . . . friends he now trusts almost as
much as Sara. It feels good to think their names, the slick way all words used
to come, in the days before his mangling. One
recent prize he is especially proud of. Emerson
. . . It is
his own name, for so long beyond reach. Violent shocks had jarred it free, less
than a day ago-shortly after he provoked a band of human rebels to betray their
urrish allies in a slashing knife fight that made a space battle seem
antiseptic by comparison. That bloody frenzy ended with an explosive blast,
shattering the grubby caravan tent, spearing light past Emerson's closed lids,
overwhelming the guardians of reason. And
then, amid the dazzling rays, he had briefly glimpsed ... his captain! Creideiki
. . . The
blinding glow became a luminous foam, whipped by thrashing flukes. Out of that
froth emerged a long gray form whose bottle snout bared glittering teeth. The
sleek head grinned, despite bearing an awful wound behind its left eye . . .
much like the hurt that robbed Emerson of speech. Utterance
shapes formed out of scalloped bubbles, in a language like none spoken by
Jijo's natives, or by any great Galactic clan. * In
the turning of the cycloid, * Comes
a time to break for surface. * Time
to resume breathing, doing. * To
rejoin the great sea's dreaming. * Time
has come for you my old friend. * Time
to wake and see what's churning. ... * Stunned
recognition accompanied waves of stinging misery, worse than any fleshy woe or
galling numbness. Shame
had nearly overwhelmed him then. For no injury short of death could ever excuse
his forgetting Creideiki ... Terra .
. . The
dolphins . . . Hannes
. . . Gillian
. . . How
could they have slipped his mind during the months he wandered this barbarian
world, by boat, barge, and caravan? Guilt
might have engulfed him during that instant of recollection . . . except that
his new friends urgently needed him to act, to seize the brief advantage
offered by the explosion, to overcome their captors and take them prisoner. As dusk
fell across the shredded tent and torn bodies, he had helped Sara and Kurt tie
up their surviving foes-both urrish and human-although Sara seemed to think
their reprieve temporary. More
fanatic reinforcements were expected soon. Emerson
knew what the rebels wanted. They wanted him. It was no secret that he came
from the stars. The rebels would trade him to sky hunters, hoping to exchange
his battered carcass for guaranteed survival. As if
anything could save Jijo's castaway races, now that the Five Galaxies had found
them. Huddled
round a wan fire, lacking any shelter but tent rags, Sara and the others
watched as terrifying portents crossed bitter-cold constellations. First
came a mighty titan of space, growling as it plunged toward nearby mountains, bent
on awful vengeance. Later,
following the very same path, there came a second behemoth, this one so
enormous that Jijo's pull seemed to lighten as it passed overhead, filling
everyone with deep foreboding. Not
long after that, golden lightning flickered amid the mountain peaks-a bickering
of giants. But Emerson did not care who won. He could tell that neither vessel
was his ship, the home in space he yearned for . . . and prayed he would never
see again. With
luck, Streaker was far away from this doomed world, bearing in its hold a trove
of ancient mysteries-- perhaps the key to a new galactic era. Had not
all his sacrifices been aimed at helping her escape? After
the leviathans passed, there remained only stars and a chill wind, blowing through
the dry steppe grass, while Emerson went off searching for the caravan's
scattered pack animals. With donkeys, his friends just might yet escape before
more fanatics arrived. . . . Then
came a rumbling noise, jarring the ground beneath his feet. A rhythmic cadence
that seemed to go- taranta
taranta taranta
taranta The
galloping racket could only be urrish hoofbeats, the I expected rebel
reinforcements, come to make them prisoners once again. Only,
miraculously, the darkness instead poured forth allies-unexpected rescuers,
both urrish and human-who brought with them astonishing beasts, Horses. Saddled
horses, clearly as much a surprise to Sara as they were to him. Emerson had
thought the creatures were extinct on this world, yet here they were, emerging
from the "• night as if from a dream. So
began the next phase of his odyssey. Riding southward, fleeing the shadow of
these vengeful ships, hurrying toward the outline of an uneasy volcano. Now he
wonders within his battered brain-is there a plan? A destination? Old
Kurt apparently has faith in these surprising saviors, but there must be more
to it than that. Emerson
is tired of just running away. He
would much rather be running toward. In time
Emerson recalls how to ease along with the sway of the saddle. And as sunrise
lifts dew off fan-fringed trees near a riverbank, swarms of bright bugs whir
through the slanted light, dancing as they pollinate a field of purple blooms.
When Sara glances back from her own steed, sharing a rare smile, his pangs seem
to matter less. Even fear of those terrible starships, splitting the sky with
their angry engine arrogance, cannot erase a growing elation as the fugitive
band gallops on to dangers yet unknown. Emerson
cannot help himself. It is his nature to seize any possible excuse for hope. As
the horses pound Jijo's ancient turf, their cadence draws him down a thread of
familiarity, recalling rhythmic music quite apart from the persistent dirge of
woe. tarantara,
tarantara tarantara,
tarantara Under
insistent stroking by that throbbing sound, something abruptly clicks inside.
His body reacts involuntarily as unexpected words surge from some dammed-up
corner of his brain, attended by a melody that stirs the heart. Lyrics pour reflexively,
an undivided stream, through lungs and throat before he even knows 'that he is
singing. "Though
in body and in mind, We are
timidly inclined, And
anything but blind, To the
danger that's behind- {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!] {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!]" While
his steed bounds ahead, new aches join the background music of his life-raw,
chafed thighs and a bruised spine that jars with each pounding hoofbeat. taranta,
taranta, taranta-tara taranta,
taranta, taranta-tara Guilt
nags him with a sense of duties unfulfilled, and he grieves over the likely
fate of his new friends on Jijo, now that their hidden colony has been
discovered. And yet . . . {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!] His
friends grin-this has happened before. "Yet,
when the danger's near, We
manage to appear, As
insensible to fear, As
anybody here, As
an-y-bo-dy here!" Sara
laughs, joining the refrain, and even the dour urrish escorts stretch their
long necks to lisp along. "Yet,
when the danger's near, We
manage to appear, As
insensible to fear, As
anybody here, As
anybody here!" {tarantara,
tarantara) {tarantara!}" PART
ONE EACH OF
THE SOONER RACES making up the Commons of Jijo tells its own unique story,
passed down from generation to generation, explaining why their ancestors
surrendered godlike powers and risked terrible penalties to reach this far
place--skulking in sneakships past Institute patrols, robot guardians, and Zang
globules. Seven waves of sinners, each coming to plant their outlaw seed on a
world that had been declared off limits to settlement. A world set aside to
rest and recover in peace, but for the likes of us. The
g'Kek arrived first on this land we call the Slope between misty mountains and
the sacred sea-hall a million years alter the last legal tenants--the
Buyur--departed Jijo. Why did
those g'Kek founders willingly give up their former lives as star-traveling
gods and citizens of the Five Galaxies?
Why choose Instead to dwell as fallen primitives, lacking the comforts
of technology, or any moral solace but for a few engraved platinum scrolls? Legend
has it that our g'Kek cousins fled threatened extinction, a dire punishment for
devastating gambling losses. But we cannot be sure. Writing was a lost art
until humans came, so those accounts may be warped by passing time. What we
do know is that it could not have been a petty threat that drove them to
abandon the spacefaring life they loved, seeking refuge on heavy Jijo, where their
wheels have such a hard time on the rocky ground. With four keen eyes, peering
in all directions at the end of graceful stalks, did the g'Kek ancestors see a
dark destiny painted on galactic winds? Did that first generation see no other
choice? perhaps they only cursed their descendants to this savage life as a
last resort. NOT
long after the g'Kek, roughly two thousand years ago, a party of traeki dropped
hurriedly from the sky, as if tearing pursuit by some dreaded foe. wasting no
time, they sank their sneakship in the deepest hollow of the sea, then settled
down to be our gentlest tribe. What
nemesis drove them from the spiral lanes? Any
native Jijoan glancing at those familiar stacks of tatty toruses, venting
fragrant steam and placid wisdom in each village or the Slope, must find it
hard to imagine the traeki having enemies. In
time, they confided their story. The foe they fled was not some other race, nor
was there a deadly vendetta among the star gods of the Five Galaxies. Rather,
it was an aspect of their own selves. Certain rings--components of their
physical bodies- had lately been modified in ways that turned their kind into
formidable beings. Into Jophur, mighty and feared among the noble Galactic
clans. It was
a fate those traeki founders deemed unbearable. SO they chose to become lawless
refugees--sooners on a taboo world--in order to shun a horrid destiny. The
obligation to be great. It is
said that glavers came to Jijo not out of fear, but seeking the Path of
Redemption--the kind of innocent oblivion that wipes all slates clean. In this
goal they have succeeded far better than anyone else, showing the rest of us
the way, if we dare follow their example. Whether
or not that sacred track will also be ours, we must respect their
accomplishment--transforming themselves from cursed fugitives into a race of
blessed simpletons. As starfaring immortals, they could be held accountable for
their crimes, including the felony of invading Jijo. But now they have reached
a refuge, the purity of ignorance, Free to start again. Indulgently,
we let glavers root through our kitchen middens, poking under logs for insects.
Once mighty intellects, they are not counted among the sooner races of Jijo
anymore. They are no longer stained with the sins of their forebears. QHEUENS
were the first to arrive filled with wary ambition. Led by
fanatical, crablike gray matrons, their first-generation colonists snapped all
five pincers derisively at any thought of union with Jijo's other exile races.
Instead, they sought dominion. That
plan collapsed in time, when blue and red qheuens abandoned historic roles of
servitude, drifting off to seek their own ways, leaving their frustrated gray
empresses helpless to enforce old feudal loyalties. Our
tall hoonish brethren inhale deeply, whenever the question arises-"Why are
you here?" They fill their
prodigious throat sacs with low meditation umbles. In rolling tones, hoon
elders relate that their ancestors fled no great danger, no oppression or unwanted
obligations. When
why did they come, risking frightful punishment if their descendants are ever
caught living illegally on Jijo? The
oldest hoons on Jijo merely shrug with frustrating cheerfulness, as if they do
not know the reason, and could not bothered to care. Some do
refer to a legend, though. According to that slim tale, a Galactic oracle once
offered a starfaring hoonish clan a unique opportunity, if they dared take it.
An opportunity to claim something that had been robbed from them, although they
never knew it was lost. A precious birthright that might be discovered on a
forbidden world. But for
the most part, whenever one of the tall ones pulls his throat sac to sing about
past times, he rumbles a deep, Joyful ballad about the crude rafts, boats, and
seagoing ships that hoons invented from scratch, soon alter landing on Jijo.
Things their humorless star cousins would never have bothered looking up in the
all-knowing Galactic Library, let alone have deigned to build. LEGENDS
told by the fleet-footed urrish clan imply that their foremothers were rogues,
coming to Jijo in order to breed-escaping limits Imposed in civilised parts of
the Five Galaxies. With their short
lives, hot tempers, and prolific sexual style, the urs founders might have gone
on to fill Jijo with their kind . . . or else met extinction by now, like the
mythical centaurs they vaguely resemble. But
they escaped both of those traps. Instead, alter many hard struggles, at the
forge and on the battlefield, they assumed an honored place in the commons of
Six Races. With their thundering herds, and mastery of steel, they live hot and
hard, making up for their brief seasons in our midst. Finally
two centuries ago, Earthlings came, bringing chimpanzees and other treasures.
But humans greatest gift was paper. In creating the printed trove of Biblos,
they became lore masters to our piteous commonwealth of exiles. Printing and education changed tile on the
Slope, so that later generations of castaways dared to study their adopted
world, their hybrid civilisation, and even their own selves. As for
why humans came all this way--breaking Galactic laws and risking everything,
Just to huddle with other outlaws under a fearsome sky--their tale is among the
strangest told by Jijo's exile clans. -from
An Ethnography of the Slope, by Dorti Chang-Jones and Huph-alch-Huo Sooners
Alvin I HAD
NO WAY TO MARK THE PASSAGE OF TIME, Lying dazed and half-paralyzed in a metal
cell, listening to the engine hum of a mechanical sea dragon that was hauling
me and my friends to parts unknown. I guess
a couple of days must have passed since the shattering of our makeshift
submarine, our beautiful Wuphon's Dream, before I roused enough to wonder, What
next? Dimly,
I recall the sea monster's face as we first saw it through our crude glass
viewing port, lit by the Dream's homemade searchlight. That glimpse lasted but
a moment as the huge metal thing loomed toward us out of black, icy depths. The
four of us--Huck, Pincer, Ur-ronn, and me--had already resigned ourselves to
death . . . doomed to crushed oblivion at the bottom of the sea. Our expedition
a failure, we didn't feel like daring subsea adventurers anymore, but like
scared kids, voiding our bowels in terror as we waited for the cruel abyss to
squeeze our hollowed-out tree trunk into a zillion soggy splinters. Suddenly
this enormous shape erupted toward us, spreading jaws wide enough to snatch
Wuphon's Dream whole. Well,
almost whole. Passing through that maw, we struck a glancing blow. The
collision shattered our tiny capsule. What
followed still remains a painful blur. I guess
anything beats death, but there have been moments since that impact when my
back hurt so much that I just wanted to rumble one last umble through my
battered throat sac and say farewell to young Alvin Hph-wayuo- junior linguist,
humicking writer, uttergloss daredevil, and neglectful son of Mu-phauwq and
Yowg-wayuo of Wuphon Port, the Slope, Jijo, Galaxy Four, the Universe. But I stayed
alive. I guess
it just didn't seem hoonish to give up, after every thing my pals and I went
through to get here. What if I was sole survivor? I owed it to Huck and the
others to carry on, My
cell--a prison? hospital room?--measures just two meters, by two, by three.
Pretty skimpy for a hoon, event one not quite fully grown. It gets even more
cramped whenever some six-legged, metal-sheathed demon tries to squeeze inside
to tend my injured spine, poking with what, I assume (hope!) to be clumsy kindness.
Despite their efforts, misery comes in awful waves, making me wish desperately
for the pain remedies cooked up by Old Stinky--our traeki pharmacist back home. It
occurred to me that I might never walk again . . . or see my family, or watch
seabirds swoop over the dross ships, anchored beneath Wuphon's domelike shelter
trees. I I tried
talking to the insecty giants trooping in and out of my cell. Though each had a
torso longer than my dad is tall--with a flared back end, and a tubelike shell
as hard as Buyur steel--I couldn't help picturing them as enormous phuvnthus,
those six-legged vermin that gnaw the walls of wooden houses, giving off a
sweet-tangy stench. These
things smell like overworked machinery. Despite, my efforts in a dozen Earthling
and Galactic languages, they seemed even less talkative than the phuvnthus Huck
and I used to catch when we were little, and train to perform in a miniature
circus. I
missed Huck during that dark time. I missed her quick g'Kek mind and sarcastic
wit. I even missed the way she'd snag my leg fur in her wheels to get my
attention, if I stared too long at the horizon in a hoonish sailor's trance. I
last glimpsed those wheels spinning uselessly in the sea dragon's mouth, just
after those giant jaws smashed our precious Dream and we spilled across the
slivers of our amateur diving craft. Why
didn't I rush to my friend, during those bleak moments after we crashed? Much
as I yearned to, it was hard to see or hear much while a screaming wind shoved
its way into the chamber, pushing out the bitter sea. At first, I had to fight
just to breathe again. Then, when I tried to move, my back would not respond. In
those blurry instants, I also recall catching sight of Ur-ronn, whipping her
long neck about and screaming as she thrashed all four legs and both slim arms,
horrified at being drenched in vile water. Ur-ronn bled where her suede colored
hide was pierced by jagged shards-remnants of the glass porthole she had
proudly forged in the volcano workshops of Uriel the Smith. Pincer-Tip
was there, too, best equipped among our gang to survive underwater. As a red
qheuen, Pincer was used to scampering on five chitin-armored claws across salty
shallows-though our chance tumble into the bottomless void was more than even
he had bargained for. In dim recollection, I think Pincer seemed alive ... or
does wishful thinking deceive me? My last
hazy memories of our "rescue" swarm with violent images until I
blacked out ... to wake in this cell, delirious and alone. Sometimes
the phuvnthus do something "helpful" to my spine, and it hurts so
much that I'd willingly spill every secret I know. That is, if the phuvnthus
ever asked questions, which they never do. So I
never allude to the mission we four were given by Uriel the Smith-to seek a
taboo treasure that her ancestors left on the seafloor, centuries ago. An
offshore cache, hidden when urrish settlers first jettisoned their ships and
high-tech gadgets to become just one more fallen race. Only some dire emergency
would prompt Uriel to violate the Covenant by retrieving such contraband. I guess
"emergency" might cover the arrival of alien robbers, plundering the
Gathering Festival of the Six Races and threatening the entire Commons with
genocide, Eventually,
the pangs in my spine eased enough for me to rummage through my rucksack and
resume writing in this tattered journal, bringing my ill-starred adventure up
to date. That raised my spirits a bit. Even if none of us survives, my diary
might yet make it home someday. Growing
up in a little hoonish village, devouring human adventure stories by Clarke and
Rostand, Conrad and Xu Xiang, I dreamed that people on the Slope would someday
say, "Wow, that Alvin Hph-wayuo was some storyteller, as good as any
old-time Earther." This
could be my one and only chance. So I
spent long miduras with a stubby charcoal crayon clutched in my big hoon fist,
scribbling the passages that lead up to this one-an account of how I came to
find myself in this low, low state. -How
four friends built a makeshift submarine out of skink skins and a carved-out
garu log, fancying a treasure hunt to the Great Midden. -How
Uriel the Smith, in her mountain forge, threw her support behind our project,
turning it from a half-baked dream into a real expedition. -How we
four snuck up to Uriel's observatory, and heard a human sage speak of starships
in the sky, perhaps bringing foretold judgment on the Six Races. -And
how Wuphon's Dream soon dangled from a pole near Terminus Rock, where the
Midden's sacred trench passes near land. And Uriel told us, hissing through her
cloven upper lip, that a ship had indeed landed up north. But this cruiser did
not carry Galactic magistrates. Instead another kind of criminal had come,
worse even than our sinner ancestors. So we
sealed the hatch, and the great winch turned. But on reaching the mapped site,
we found that Uriel's cache was already missing! Worse-when we went looking for
the damned thing, Wuphon's Dream got lost and tumbled off the edge of an
undersea cliff. Flipping
back some pages, I can tell my account of the journey was written by someone
perched on a knife-edge of harrowing pain. Yet, there is a sense of drama I
can't hope to match now. Especially that scene where the bottom vanished
beneath our wheels and we felt ourselves fall toward the real Midden. Toward
certain death. Until
the phuvnthus snatched us up. So,
here I am, swallowed by a metal whale, ruled by cryptic silent beings, ignorant
whether my friends still live or if I am alone. Merely crippled, or dying. Do my
captors have anything to do with starship landings in the mountains? Are
they a different enigma, rising out of Jijo's ancient past? Relics of the
vanished Buy ur perhaps? Or ghosts even older still? Answers
seem scarce, and since I've finished recounting the plummet and demise of
Wuphon's Dream, I daren't waste more precious paper on speculation. I must put
my pencil down, even if it robs my last shield against loneliness. All my
life I've been inspired by human-style books, picturing myself as hero in some
uttergloss tale. Now my sanity depends on learning to savor patience. To let
time pass without concern. To live
and think, at last, just like a hoon. ASX YOU MAY
CALL ME ASX. You,
manicolored rings, piled in a high tapered heap, venting fragrant stinks,
sharing the victual sap that climbs our common core, or partaking in memory
wax, trickling back down from our sensory peak. you,
the rings who take up diverse roles in this shared body, a pudgy cone nearly as
tall as a hoon, as heavy as a blue qheuen, and slow across the ground like an
aged g'Kek with a cracked axle. you,
the rings who vote each day whether to renew our coalition. From
you rings i/we now request a ruling. Shall we carry on this fiction? This
"Asx"? Unitary
beings-the humans, urs, and other dear partners in exile-stubbornly use that
term, Asx, to signify this loosely affiliated pile of fatty toruses, as if
we/i truly had a fixed name, not a mere
label of convenience. Of
course unitary beings are all quite mad. We traeki long ago resigned ourselves
to living in a universe filled with egotism. What we
could not resign ourselves to-and the reason for our exile here on Jijo-was the
prospect of becoming the most egotistical of all. Once,
our/my stack of bloated tubes played the role of a modest village pharmacist,
serving others with our humble secretions, near the sea bogs of Far Wet
Sanctuary. Then others began paying us/me homage, calling us "Asx,"
chief sage of the Traeki Sept and member of the Guiding Council of the Six. Now we
stand in a blasted wasteland that was formerly a pleasant festival glade. Our
sensor rings and neural tendrils recoil from sights and sounds they cannot bear
to perceive. And so we are left virtually blind, our component toruses buffeted
by the harsh fields of two nearby starships, as vast as mountains. Even
now, awareness of those starships fades away. ... We are
left in blackness. • •
• What
has just happened! Be
calm, my rings. This sort of thing has transpired before. Too great a shock can
jar a traeki stack out of alignment, causing gaps in short-term memory. But
there is another, surer way to find out what has happened. Neural memory is a
flimsy thing. How much better off we are, counting on the slow/reliable wax. Ponder
the fresh wax that slithers down our common core, still hot-slick, imprinted
with events that took place recently on this ill-fated glade, where once gay
pavilions stood, and banners flapped in Jijo's happy winds. A typical festival,
the annual gathering of Six Races to celebrate their hundred-year peace. Until- Is this
the memory we seek? Behold
... a starship comes to Jijo! Not sneaking by night, like our ancestors. Not
aloofly, like a mysterious Zang globule. No, this was an arrogant cruiser from
the Five Galaxies, commanded by aloof alien beings called Rothen. Trace
this memory of our first sight of Rothen lords, emerging at last from their
metal lair, so handsome and noble in their condescension, projecting a majestic
charisma that shadowed even their sky-human servants. How glorious to be a star
god! Even gods who are "criminals" by Galactic law. Did
they not far outshine us miserable barbarians? As the sun outglows a tallow
candle? But we
sages realized a horrifying truth. After hiring us for local expertise, to help
them raid this world, the Rothen could not afford to leave witnesses behind. They
would not leave us alive. No,
that is too far back. Try again. What
about these other livid tracks, my rings? A red flaming pillar erupting in the
night? An explosion, breaking apart our sacred pilgrimage? Do you recall the
sight of the Rothen-Danik station, its girders, twisted and smoking? Its cache
of biosamples burned? And most dire-one Rothen and a sky human killed? By
dawn's light, foul accusations hurled back and forth between Ro-kenn and our
own High Sages. Appalling threats were exchanged. No,
that still took place over a day ago. Stroke wax that is more recent than that. Here we
find a broad sheet of terror, shining horribly down our oily core. Its
colors/textures blend hot blood with cold fire, exuding a smoky scent of
flaming trees and charred bodies. Do you
recall how Ro-kenn, the surviving Rothen master, swore vengeance on the Six
Races, ordering his killer robots forward? "Slay
everyone in sight! Death to all who saw our secret revealed!" But
then behold a marvel! Platoons of our own brave militia. They spill from
surrounding forest. Jijoan savages, armed only with arrows, pellet rifles, and
courage. Do you now recall how they charged the hovering death demons . . . and
prevailed! The wax
does not lie. It happened in mere instants, while these old traeki rings could
only stare blankly at the battle's awful ruin, astonished that we/i were not
ignited into a stack of flaming tubes. Though
dead and wounded lay piled around us, victory was clear. Victory for the Six
Races! Ro-kenn and his god-' like servants were disarmed, wide-eyed in their
offended surprise at this turn of Ifni's ever-tumbling dice. Yes, my
rings, i know this is not the final memory. It took place many miduras in the
past. Obviously something must f have happened since then. Something dreadful. Perhaps
the Danik scout boat came back from its survey trip, carrying one of the fierce
sky-human warriors who worship Rothen patron masters. Or else the main Rothen
starship may have returned, expecting a trove of bio-plunder, only to find
their samples destroyed, their station ruined, and comrades taken hostage. That
might explain the scent of sooty devastation that now fills our core. But no
later memories are yet available. The wax has not congealed. To a
traeki, that means none of it has really happened. Not
yet. Perhaps
things are not as bad as they seem. It is a
gift we traeki reacquired when we came to Jijo. A talent that helps make up for
the many things we left behind, when we abandoned the stars. A gift
for wishful thinking. Rety THE
FIERCE WIND OF FLIGHT TORE DAMPNESS FROM her streaming eyes, sparing her the
shame of tears running down scarred cheeks. Still, Rety could weep with rage,
thinking of the hopes she'd lost. Lying prone on a hard metal plate, clutching
its edge with hands and feet, she bore the harsh breeze as whipping tree
branches smacked her face and caught her hair, sometimes drawing blood. Mostly,
she just held on for dear life. The
alien machine beneath her was supposed to be her loyal servant! But the cursed
thing would not slow its panicky retreat, even long after all danger lay far
behind. If Rety fell off now, at best it would take her days to limp back to
the village of her birth, where less than a midura ago there had been a brief,
violent ambush. Her
brain still roiled. In just a few heartbeats her plans had been spoiled, and it
was all Dwer's fault! She
heard the young hunter moan, held captive by metal arms below her perch. But as
the wounded battle drone fled recklessly onward, Rety turned away from Dwer's
suffering, which he had only brought on himself, trekking all the way to these
filthy Gray Hills from his safe home near the sea-the Slope-where six
intelligent races lived at a much higher level of ignorant poverty than her own
birth clan of wretched savages. Why would slopies hike past' two thousand
leagues of hell to reach this dreary wasteland? What
did Dwer and his pals hope to accomplish? To conquer Rety's brutish relatives? He
could have her smelly kinfolk, for all she cared! And the band of urrish
sooners Kunn subdued with fire from his screeching scout boat. Dwer was welcome
to them all. Only, couldn't he have waited quietly in the woods till after Rety
and Kunn finished their business here and flew off again? Why did he have to
rush things and attack the robot with her aboard? I bet
he did it out of spite. Prob'ly can't stand knowing that I'm the one Jijo
native with a chance to get away from this pit hole of a planet. Inside,
Rety knew better. Dwer's heart didn't work that way. But
mine does. When he
groaned again, Rety muttered angrily, "I'll make you even sorrier, Dwer,
if I don't make it off this mudball 'cause of you!" So much
for her glorious homecoming. At
first it had seemed fun to pay a return visit, swooping from a cloud-decked sky
in Kunn's silver dart, emerging proudly to amazed gasps from the shabby
cousins, who had bullied her for fourteen awful years. What a fitting climax to
her desperate gamble, a few months ago, when she finally found the nerve to
flee all the muck and misery, setting forth alone to seek the fabled Slope her
greatgrandparents had left behind, when they chose the "free" life as
wild sooners. Free of
the sages' prying rules about what beasts you may kill. Free from irky laws about
how many babies you can have. Free from having to abide neighbors with four
legs, or five, or that rolled on humming wheels. Rety snorted contempt for the
founders of her tribe. Free
from books and medicine. Free to live like animals! Fed up,
Rety had set out to find something better or die trying. The
journey had nearly killed her-crossing icy torrents and parched wastes. Her
closest call came traversing a high pass into the Slope, following a mysterious
metal bird into a mule spider's web. A web that became a terrifying trap when
the spider's tendrils closed around her, oozing golden drops that horribly
preserved. ... Memory
came unbidden--of Dwer charging through that awful thicket with a gleaming
machete, then sheltering her with his body when the web caught fire. She
recalled the bright bird, glittering in flames, treacherously cut down by an
attacking robot just like her "servant." The one now hauling her off
to Ifni-knew-where. Rety's
mind veered as a gut-wrenching swerve nearly spilled her overboard. She
screamed at the robot. "Idiot!
No one's shooting at you anymore! There were just a few slopies, and they were
all afoot. Nothing on Jijo could catch you now!" But the
frantic contraption plunged ahead, riding a cushion of incredible god force. Rety
wondered, Could it sense her contempt? Dwer and two or three friends, equipped
with crude fire sticks, had taken just a few duras to disable and drive off the
so-called war bot, though at some cost to themselves. Ifni,
what a snarl. She pondered the sooty hole where Dwer's surprise attack had
ripped out its antenna. How'm I gonna explain this to Kunn? Rety's
adopted rank as an honorary star god was already fragile. The angry pilot might
simply abandon her in these hills where she had grown up, among savages she
loathed. I won't
go back to the tribe, she vowed. I'd rather join wild glavers, sucking bugs off
dead critters on the Poison Plain. It was
all Dwer's fault, of course. Rety hated listening to the young fool moan. We're
heading south, where Kunn flew off to. The robot must be rushin' to report in
person, now that it can't farspeak anymore. Having
witnessed Kunn's skill at torture, Rety found herself hoping Dwer's leg wound
would reopen. Bleeding to death would be better by far. The
fleeing machine left the Gray Hills, slanting toward a tree-dotted prairie.
Streams converged, turning the brook into a river, winding slowly toward the
tropics. The
journey grew smoother and Rety risked sitting up again. But the robot did not
take the obvious shortcut over water. Instead, it followed each oxbow curve,
seldom venturing past the reedy shallows. The
land seemed pleasant. Good for herds or farming, if you knew how, and weren't
afraid of being caught. It brought
to mind all the wonders she had seen on the Slope, after barely escaping the
mule spider. Folk there had all sorts of clever arts Rety's tribe lacked. Yet,
despite their fancy windmills and gardens, their metal tools and paper books,
the slopies had seemed dazed and frightened when Rety reached the famous
Festival Glade. What
had the Six Races so upset was the recent coming of a starship, ending two
thousand years of isolation. To
Rety, the spacers seemed wondrous. A ship owned by unseen Rothen masters, but
crewed by humans so handsome and knowing that Rety would give anything to be
like them. Not a doomed savage with a scarred face, eking out a life on a taboo
world. A
daring ambition roused . . . and by pluck and guts she had made it happen! Rety
got to know those haughty men and women-Ling, Besh, Kunn, and Rann-worming her
way into their favor. When asked, she gladly guided fierce Kunn to her tribe's
old camp, retracing her earlier epic journey in a mere quarter day, munching
Galactic treats while staring through the scout boat's window at wastelands
below. Years
of abuse were repaid by her filthy cousins' shocked stares,' beholdinng her
transformed from grubby urchin to Rety, the star god. If only
that triumph could have lasted. • •
• She
jerked back when Dwer called her name. Peering
over the edge, Rety saw his windburned face, the wild black hair plastered with
dried sweat. One buckskin breech leg was stained ocher brown under a makeshift
compress, though Rety saw no sign of new wetness. Trapped by the robot's
unyielding tendrils, Dwer clutched his precious hand-carved bow, as if it were
the last thing he would part with before death. Rety could scarcely believe she
once thought the crude weapon worth stealing. "What
do you want now?" she demanded. The
young hunter's eyes met hers. His voice came out as a croak. "Can
I ... have some water?" "Assumin'
I have any," she muttered, "name one reason I'd share it with
you!" Rustling
at her waist. A narrow head and neck snaked out of her belt pouch. Three dark
eyes glared-two with lids and one pupilless, faceted like a jewel. "wife
be not liar to this one! wife has water bottle! Yee smells its
bitterness." Rety
sighed over this unwelcome interruption by her miniature "husband." "There's
just half left. No one tol' me I was goin' on a trip!" The
little urrish male hissed disapproval, "wife share with this one, or bad
luck come! no hole safe for grubs or larvae!" Rety
almost retorted that her marriage to yee was not real. They would never have
"grubs" together. Anyway, yee seemed bent on being her portable
conscience, even when it was clearly every creature for herself. I never
should've told him how Dwer saved me from the mule spider. They say male urs
are dumb. Ain't it my luck to marry a genius one? "Oh
... all right!" The
bottle, an alien-made wonder, weighed little more than the liquid it contained.
"Don't drop it," she warned Dwer, lowering the red cord. He grabbed
it eagerly. "No,
fool! The top don't pull off like a stopper. Turn it till it comes off. That's
right. Jeekee know-nothin' slopie." She
didn't add how the concept of a screw cap had mystified her, -too, when Kunn
and the others first adopted her as a provisional Danik. Of course that was
before she became sophisticated. Rety
watched nervously as he drank. "Don't
spill it. An' don't you dare drink it all! You hear me? That's enough, Dwer.
Stop now. Dwer!" But he
ignored her protests, guzzling while she cursed. When the canteen was drained, Dwer smiled at her through cracked
lips. Too
stunned to react, Rety knew--she would have done exactly the same. Yeah,
an inner voice answered. But I didn't expect it of him. Her
anger spun off when Dwer squirmed, tilting his body toward the robot's headlong
rush. Squinting against the wind, he held the loop cord in one hand and the
bottle in the other, as if waiting for something to happen. The flying machine
crested a low hill, hopping over some thorny thickets, then plunged down the
other side, barely avoiding several tree branches. Rety held tight, keeping yee
secure in his pouch. When the worst jouncing ended she peered down again . . .
and rocked back from a pair of black, beady eyes! It was
the damned noor again. The one Dwer called Mudfoot. Several times the dark,
lithe creature had tried to clamber up from his niche, between Dwer's torso and
a cleft in the robot's frame. But Rety didn't like the way he salivated at yee,
past needle-sharp teeth. Now Mudfoot stood on Dwer's rib cage, using his
forepaws to probe for another effort. "Get
lost!" She swatted at the narrow, grinning face. "I want to see what
Dwer's doin'." Sighing,
the noor returned to his nest under the robot's flank. A flash
of blue came into view just as Dwer threw the bottle. It struck watery shallows
with a splash, pressing a furrowed wake. The young man had to make several
attempts to get the cord twisted so the canteen dragged with its opening
forward. The container sloshed when Dwer reeled it back in. I'd've
thought of that, too. If I was close enough to try it. Dwer
had lost blood, so it was only fair to let him drink and refill a few more
times before passing it back up. Yeah.
Only fair. And he'll do it, too. He'll give it back full. Rety
faced an uncomfortable thought. You
trust him. He's
the enemy. He caused you and the Daniks heaps of trouble. But you 'd trust Dwer
with your life. She had
no similar confidence in Kunn, when it came time to face the Rothen-loving stellar
warrior. Dwer
refilled the bottle one last time and held it up toward her. "Thanks, Rety
... I owe you." , Her
cheeks flushed, a sensation she disliked. "Forget it. Just toss the cord." He
tried. Rety felt it brush her fingertips, but after half a dozen efforts she
could never quite hook the loop. What happens if I don't get it back! The
noor beast emerged from his narrow niche and took the cord in his teeth.
Clambering over Dwer's chest, then using the robot's shattered laser tube as a
support, Mudfoot slithered closer to Rety's hand. Well, she thought. If it's
gonna be helpful ... As she
reached for the loop, the noor sprang, using his claws as if her arm were a
handy climbing vine. Rety howled, but before she could react, Mudfoot was
already up on top, grinning smugly. Little
yee let out a yelp. The urrish male pulled his head inside her pouch and drew
the zipper shut. Rety
saw blood spots well along her sleeve and lashed in anger, trying to kick the
crazy noor off. But Mudfoot dodged easily, inching close, grinning appealingly
and rumbling a low sound, presenting the water bottle with two agile forepaws. Sighing
heavily, Rety accepted it and let the noor settle down nearby-on the opposite
side from yee. "I
can't seem to shake myself loose of any of you guys, can I?" she asked
aloud. Mudfoot
chittered. And from below, Dwer uttered a short laugh-ironic and tired. IT WAS
A LONELY TIME, CONFINED IN GNAWING PAIN to a cramped metal cell. The distant,
humming engine reminded me of umble lullabies my father used to sing, when I
came down with toe pox or itchysac. Sometimes the noise changed pitch and made
my scales frickle, sounding like the moan of a doomed wooden ship when it runs
aground. Finally
I slept . . . . . . then wakened in terror to find that a pair of metalclad,
six-legged monsters were tying me into a contraption of steel tubes and straps!
At first, it looked like a pre-contact tenure device I once saw in the
Dore-illustrated edition of Don Quixote. Thrashing and resisting accomplished
nothing, but hurt like bloody blue blazes. Finally,
with some embarrassment, I realized. It was no instrument of torment but a
makeshift back brace, shaped to fit my form and take weight off my injured
spine. I fought to suppress panic at the tight metal touch, as they set me on
my feet. Swaying with surprise and relief, I found I could walk a little,
though wincing with each step. "Well
thanks, you big ugly bugs," I told the nearest of the giant phuvnthus.
"But you might've warned me first." I
expected no answer, but one of them turned its armored torso-with a humped back
and wide flare at the rear-and tilted toward me. I took the gesture as a polite
bow, though perhaps it meant something different to them. They
left the door open when they exited this time. Slowly,
cringing at the effort, I stepped out for the first time from my steel coffin,
following as the massive creatures stomped down a narrow corridor. I
already figured I was aboard a submarine of some sort, big enough to carry in
its hold the greatest hoonish craft sailing Jijo's seas. Despite
that, it was a hodgepodge. I thought of Frankenstein's monster, pieced together
from the parts of many corpses. So seemed the monstrous vessel hauling me to
who-knows-where. Each time we crossed a hatch, it seemed as if we'd pass into a
distinct ship, made by different artisans ... by a whole different
civilization. In one section, the decks and bulkheads were made of riveted
steel sheets. Another zone was fashioned from some fibrous substance-flexible
but strong. The corridors changed proportions-from wide to painfully narrow.
Half the time I had to stoop under low ceilings . . . not a lot of fun in the
state my back was in. Finally,
a sliding door hissed open. A phuvnthu motioned me ahead with a crooked
mandible and Entered a dim chamber much larger than my former cell. My
hearts surged With joy. Before me stood my friends! All of them-alive! They
were gathered round a circular viewing port, staring at inky ocean depths. I
might've tried sneaking in to surprise them, but qheuens and g'Keks literally
have "eyes in the back of their heads," making it a challenge to
startle Huck and Pincer. (I have
managed it, a couple of times.) When
they shouted my name, Ur-ronn whirled her long neck and outraced them on four
clattering hooves. We plunged into a multispecies embrace. Huck
was first to bring things back to normal, snapping at Pincer. "Watch
the claws, Crab Face! You'll snap a spoke! Back off, all of you. Can't you see
Alvin's hurt? Give him room!" "Look
who talks," Ur-ronn replied. "Your left wheel just squished his toes,
Octopus Head!" I
hadn't noticed till she pointed it out, so happy was I to hear their testy,
adolescent whining once more. "Hr-rm.
Let me look at you all. Ur-ronn, you seem so much . . . drier than I saw you
last." Our
urrish buddy blew a rueful laugh through her nostril fringe. Her pelt showed
large bare patches where fur had sloughed after her dousing. "It took our hosts
a while to adjust the humidity of my guest suite, but they finally got it
right," she said. Her torso showed tracks of hasty needlework-the
phuvnthus' rough stitching to close Ur-ronn's gashes after she smashed through
the glass port of Wuphon's Dream. Fortunately, her folk don't play the same
mating games as some races. To urs, what matters is not appearance, but status.
A visible dent or two will help Ur-ronn show the other smiths she's been
around. "Yeah.
And now we know what an urs smells like after actually taking a bath,"
Huck added. "They oughta try it more often." "
You should talk? With that green eyeball sweat-" "All
right, all right!" I laughed. "Just stopper it long enough for me to
look at you, eh?" Ur-ronn
was right. Huck's eyestalks needed grooming and she had good reason to worry
about her spokes. Many were broken, with new-spun fibers just starting to lace
the rims. She would have to move cautiously for some time. As for
Pincer, he looked happier than ever. "I
guess you were right about there being monsters in the deep," I told our
red-shelled friend. "Even if they hardly look like the ones you
descr-" I
yelped when sharp needles seemed to lance into my back, clambering up my neck
ridge. I quickly recognized the rolling growl of Huphu, our little noor-beast
mascot, expressing gladness by demanding a rumble umble from me right away. Before
I could find out if my sore throat sac was up to it, Ur-ronn whistled from the
pane of dark glass. "They turned on the searchlight again," she
fluted, with hushed awe in her voice. "Alvin, hurry. You've got to
look!" Awkwardly
on crutches, I moved to the place they made for me. Huck stroked my arm.
"You always wanted to see this, pal," she said. "So gaze out
there in wonder. "Welcome
to the Great Midden," Asx HERE IS
ANOTHER MEMORY, MY RINGS. AN EVENT that followed the brief Battle of the Glade,
so swiftly that war echoes still abused our battered forest canyons. Has the
wax congealed enough yet? Can you stroke-and sense the awesome disquiet, the
frightening beauty of that evening, as we watched a harsh, untwinkling glow
pass overhead? Trace
the fatty memory of that spark crossing the sky, brightening as it spiraled
closer. No one
could doubt its identity. The
Rothen cruiser, returning for its harvest of bio-plunder, looted from a fragile
world. Returning
for those comrades it had left behind. Instead
of genetic booty, the crew will find their station smashed, their colleagues
killed or taken. Worse,
their true faces are known! We castaways might testify against them in Galactic
courts. Assuming we survive. It
takes no cognition genius to grasp the trouble we faced. We six fallen races of
forlorn Jijo. As an
Earthling writer might put it-we found ourselves in fetid mulch. Very ripe and
very deep. Sara THE
JOURNEY PASSED FROM AN ANXIOUS BLUR INTO something exalting . . . almost
transcendent. But not
at the beginning. When
they perched her suddenly atop a galloping creature straight out of mythology,
Sara's first reaction was terrified surprise. With snorting nostrils and huge
tossing head, the horse was more daunting than Tarek Town's stone tribute to a
lost species. Its muscular torso flexed with each forward bound, shaking Sara's
teeth as it crossed the foothills of the central Slope by the light of a pale
moon. After
two sleepless days and nights, it still seemed dreamlike the way a squadron of
the legendary beasts came trotting into the ruined Urunthai campsite,
accompanied by armed urrish escorts. Sara and her friends had just escaped
captivity-their former kidnappers lay either dead or bound with strips of
shredded tent cloth-but she expected reenslavement at any moment. Only then,
instead of fresh foes, the darkness brought forth these bewildering saviors. Bewildering
to everyone except Kurt the Exploser, who welcomed the newcomers as expected
friends. While Jomah and the Stranger exclaimed wonder at seeing real life
horses, Sara barely had time to blink before she was thrust onto a saddle. Blade
volunteered to stay by the bleak fire and tend the wounded, though envy filled
each forlorn spin of his blue cupola. Sara would trade places with her qheuen
friend, but his chitin armor was too massive for a horse to carry. There was
barely time to give Blade a wave of encouragement before the troop wheeled back
the way they came, bearing her into the night. Pounding
hoofbeats soon made Sara's skull ache. I guess
it beats captivity by Dedinger's human chauvinists, and those fanatic Urunthai.
The coalition of zealots, volatile as. an exploser's cocktail, had joined
forces to snatch the Stranger and sell him to Rothen invaders. But they
underestimated the enigmatic voyager. Despite his crippling loss of speech, the
starman found a way to incite urs-human suspicion into bloody riot. Leaving
us masters of our own fate, though it couldn't last. Now
here was a different coalition of humans and centauroid urs! A more cordial
group, but just as adamant about hauling her Ifni-knew-where. When
limnous Torgen rose above the foothills, Sara got to look over the urrish
warriors, whose dun flanks were daubed with more subtle war paint than the
garish Urunthai. Yet their eyes held the same dark flame that drenched urs'
souls when conflict scents fumed. Cantering in skirmish formation, their slim
hands cradled arbalests while long necks coiled, tensely wary. Though much
smaller than horses, the. urrish fighters conveyed formidable craftiness. The
human rescuers were even more striking. Six women who came north with nine
saddled horses, as if they expected to retrieve just two or three others for a
return trip. But
there's six of us. Kurt and Jomah. Prity and me. The Stranger and Dedinger. No
matter. The stern riders seemed indifferent about doubling up, two to a saddle. Is that
why they're all female? To keep the weight down? While
deft astride their great mounts, the women seemed uneasy with the hilly terrain
of gullies and rocky spires. Sara gathered they disliked rushing about strange
trails at night. She could hardly blame them. Not one
had a familiar face. That might have surprised Sara a month ago, given Jijo's
small human population. The
Slope must be bigger than she thought. Dwer
would tell stories about his travels, scouting for the sages. He claimed he'd
been everywhere within a thousand leagues. Her
brother never mentioned horse-riding amazons. Sara
briefly wondered if they came from off-Jijo, since this seemed the year for
spaceships. But no. Despite some odd slang, their terse speech was related to
Jijoan dialects she knew from her research. And while the riders seemed
unfamiliar with this region, they knew to lean away from a migurv tree when the
trail passed near its sticky fronds. The Stranger, though warned with gestures
not to touch its seed pods, reached for one curiously and learned the hard way. She
glanced at Kurt. The .exploser's gaunt face showed satisfaction with each
league they sped southward. The existence of horses was no surprise to him. We're
told our society is open. But clearly there are secrets known to a few. Not all
explosers shared it. Kurt's nephew chattered happy amazement while exchanging
broad grins with the Stranger . . . Sara
corrected herself. With
Emerson. . . . She
peered at the dark man who came plummeting from the sky months ago, dousing his
burns in a dismal swamp near Dolo Village. No longer the near corpse she had
nursed in her tree house, the star voyager was proving a resourceful
adventurer. Though still largely mute, he had passed a milestone a few miduras
ago when he began thumping his chest, repeating that word-Emerson-over and
over, beaming pride over a feat that undamaged folk took for granted. Uttering
one's own name. Emerson
seemed at home on his mount. Did that mean horses were still used among the god
worlds of the Five Galaxies? If so, what purpose might they serve, where
miraculous machines did your bidding at a nod and wink? Sara
checked on her chimp assistant, in case the jouncing ride reopened Prity's
bullet wound. Riding with both arms clenched round the waist of a horsewoman,
Prity kept her eyes closed the whole time, no doubt immersed in her beloved
universe of abstract shapes and forms-a better world than this one of sorrow
and messy nonlinearity. That
left Dedinger, the rebel leader, riding along with both hands tied. Sara wasted
no pity on the scholar-turnedprophet. After years preaching militant orthodoxy,
urging his desert followers toward the Path of Redemption, the ex-sage clearly
knew patience. Dedinger's hawklike face bore an expression Sara found
unnerving. Serene
calculation. The
tooth-jarring pace swelled when the hilly track met open ground. Soon Ulashtu's
detachment of urrish warriors fell behind, unable to keep up. No
wonder some urs clans resented horses, when humans first settled Jijo. The
beasts gave us mobility, the trait most loved by urrish captains. Two
centuries ago, after trouncing the human newcomers in battle, the 'original
Urunthai faction claimed Earthlings' beloved mounts as war booty, and
slaughtered every They
figured we'd be no more trouble, left to walk and fight on foot. A mistake that
proved fatal when Drake the Elder forged a coalition to hunt the Urunthai, and
drowned the cult's leadership at Soggy Hoof Falls. Only,
it seems horses weren't extinct, after all. How could a clan of horse-riding
folk remain hidden all this time? And as
puzzling-Why emerge now, risking exposure by rushing to meet Kurt? It must
be the crisis of the starships, ending Jijo's blessed,cursed isolation. What
point in keeping secrets, if Judgment Day is at hand? Sara
was exhausted and numb by the time morning pushed through an overcast sky. An
expanse of undulating hills stretched ahead to a dark green marsh. The
party dismounted at last by a shaded creek. Hands aimed her toward a blanket,
where she collapsed with a shuddering sigh. Sleep
came laced with images of people she had left behind. Nelo,
her aged father, working in his beloved paper mill, unaware that some conspired
its ruin. Melina,
her mother, dead several years now, who always seemed an outsider since
arriving in Dolo long ago, with a baby son in her arms. Frail
Joshu, Sara's lover in Biblos, whose touch made her forget even the overhanging
Fist of Stone. A comely rogue whose death sent her spinning. Dwer
and Lark, her brothers, setting out to attend festival in the high Rimmer
glades . . . where starships were later seen descending. Sara's
mind roiled as she tossed and turned. Last of
all, she pictured Blade, whose qheuen hive farmed crayfish behind Dolo Dam.
Good old Blade, who saved Sara and Emerson from disaster at the Urunthai camp. "Seems
I'm always late catching up," her qheuen friend whistled from three leg
vents. "But don't worry, I'll be along,Too much is happening to
miss." Blade's
armor-clad dependability had been like a rock to Sara. In her dream, she
answered. "I'll
stall the universe . . . keep it from doing anything interesting until you show
up." Imagined
or not, the blue qheuen's calliope laughter warmed Sara, and her troubled
slumber fell into gentler rhythms. The sun
was half-high when someone shook Sara back to the world-one of the taciturn
female riders, using the archaic word brekkers to announce the morning meal.
Sara got up gingerly as waves of achy soreness coursed her body. She
gulped down a bowl of grain porridge, spiced with unfamiliar traeki seasonings,
while horsewomen saddled mounts or watched Emerson play his beloved dulcimer,
filling the pocket valley with a sprightly melody, suited for travel. Despite
her morning irritability, Sara knew the starman was just making the best of the
situation. Bursts of song were a way to overcome his handicap of muteness. Sara found
Kurt tying up his bedroll. "Look,"
she told the elderly exploser, "I'm not ungrateful to your friends. I
appreciate the rescue and all. But you can't seriously hope to ride horses all
the way to ... Mount Guenn." Her tone made it sound like one of Jijo's
moons. Kurt's
stony face flickered a rare smile. "Any better suggestions? Sure, you
planned taking the Stranger to the High Sages, but that way is blocked by angry
Urunthai. And recall, we saw two starships last night, one after the other,
headed straight for Festival Glade. The Sages must have their hands and
tendrils full by now." "How
could I forget?" she murmured. Those titans, growling as they crossed the
sky, had seared their image in her mind. "You
could hole up in one of the villages we'll pass soon, but won't Emerson need a
first-rate pharmacist when he runs out of Pzora's medicine?" "If
we keep heading south we'll reach the Gentt. From there a riverboat can take us
to Ovoom Town." "Assuming
boats are running . . . and Ovoom still exists. Even so, should you hide your
alien friend, with great events taking place? What if he has a role to play?
Some way to help sages and Commons? Might you spoil his one chance of goin'
home?" Sara
saw Kurt's implication-that she was holding Emerson back, like a child refusing
to release some healed forest creature into the wild. A swarm
of sweetbec flies drifted close to the starman, hovering and throbbing to the
tempo of his music, a strange melody. Where did he learn it? On Earth? Near some
alien star? "Anyway,"
Kurt went on, "if you can stand riding these huge beasts awhile longer, we
may reach Mount Guenn sooner than Ovoom." "That's
crazy! You must pass through Ovoom if you go by sea. And the other way around
is worse-through the runnel canyons and the Vale." Kurt's
eyes flickered. "I'm told there's a ... more direct route." "Direct?
You mean due south? Past the Gentt lies the Plain of Sharp Sand, a desperate
crossing under good conditions-which these aren't. Have you forgotten that's
where Dedinger has followers?" "No,
I haven't forgotten." "Then,
assuming we get past the sandmen and flame dunes, there comes the Spectral
Flow, making any normal desert seem like a meadow!" Kurt
only shrugged, but clearly he wanted her to accompany him toward a distant
simmering mountain, far from where Sara had sworn to take Emerson. Away from
Lark and Dwer, and the terrible attraction of those fierce starships. Toward a
starkly sacred part of Jijo, renowned for one thing above all-the way the
planet renewed itself with flaming lava heat. Alvin MAYBE
IT WAS THE COMPRESSED ATMOSPHERE WE breathed, or the ceaseless drone of
reverberating engines. Or it could have been the perfect darkness outside that
fostered an impression of incredible depth, even greater than when our poor
little Wuphon's Dream fell into the maw of this giant metal sea beast. A single
beam- immeasurably brighter than the handmade eik light of our old
minisub-speared out to split the black, scanning territory beyond my wildest
nightmares. Even the vivid imagery of Verne or Pukino or Melville offered no
preparation for what was revealed by that roving circle as we cruised along a
subsea canyon strewn with all manner of ancient dross. In rapid glimpses we saw
so many titanic things, all jumbled together, that- Here I
admit I'm stumped. According to the texts that teach Anglic literature, there
are two basic ways for a writer to describe unfamiliar objects. First is to
catalog sights and sounds, measurements, proportions, colors-saying this object
is made up of clusters of colossal cubes connected by translucent rods, or that
one resembles a tremendous sphere caved in along one side, trailing from its
crushed innards a glistening streamer, a liquidlike banner that somehow defies
the tug of time and tide. Oh, I
can put words together and come up with pretty pictures, but that method
ultimately fails because at the time I couldn't tell how far away anything was\
The eye sought clues in vain. Some objects-piled across the muddy
panorama-seemed so vast that the huge vessel around us was dwarfed, like a
minnow in a herd of behmo serpents. As for colors, even in the spotlight beam,
the water drank all shades but deathly blue gray. A good hue for a shroud in
this place of icy-cold death. Another
way to describe the unknown is to compare it to things you 'already recognize .
. . only that method proved worse! Even Huck, who sees likenesses in things I
can't begin to fathom, was reduced to staring toward great heaps of ancient
debris with all four eyestalks, at an utter loss. Oh,
some objects leaped at us with sudden familiarity- like when the searchlight
swept over rows of blank-eyed windows, breached floors, and sundered walls.
Pushed in a tumbled mound, many of the sunken towers lay upside down or even
speared through each other. Together they composed a city greater than any I
ever heard of, even from readings of olden times. Yet someone once scraped the
entire metropolis from its foundations, picked it up, and dumped it here,
sending all the buildings tumbling down to be reclaimed the only way such
things can be reclaimed-in Mother Jijo's fiery bowels. I
recalled some books I'd read, dating from Earth's Era of Resolution, when
pre-contact humans were deciding on their own how to grow up and save their,
homeworld after centuries spent using it as a cesspit. In Alice Hammett's
mystery The Case of a Half-Eaten Clone, the killer escapes a murder charge,
only to get ten years for disposing of the evidence at sea! In those days,
humans made no distinction between midden trenches and ocean floor in general.
Dumping was dumping. It felt
strange to see the enormous dross-scape from two viewpoints. By Galactic law,
this was a consecrated part of Jijo's cycle of preservation-a scene of devout
caretaking. But having grown up immersed in human books, I could shift
perspectives and see defilement, a place of terrible sin. The
"city" fell behind us and we went back to staring at bizarre shapes,
unknown majestic objects, the devices of star-god civilization, beyond
understanding by mere cursed mortals. On occasion, my eyes glimpsed flickerings
in the blackness outside the roving beam-lightninglike glimmers amid the ruins,
as if old forces lingered here and there, setting off sparks like fading
memories. We
murmured among ourselves, each of us falling back to what we knew best. Ur-ronn
speculated on the nature of materials, what things were made of, or what
functions they once served. Huck swore she saw writing each time the light
panned over a string of suspicious shadows. Pincer. insisted every other object
must be a starship. The
Midden took our conjectures the same way it accepts all else, with a patient,
deathless silence. Some
enormous objects had already sunk quite far, showing just their tips above the
mire. I thought-This is where Jijo's ocean plate takes a steep dive under the
Slope, dragging crust, mud, and anything else lying about, down to magma pools
that feed simmering volcanoes. In time, all these mighty things will become
lava, or precious ores to be used by some future race of tenants on this world. It made
me ponder my father's sailing ship, and the risky trips he took, hauling crates
of sacred refuse, sent by each tribe of the Six as partial payment for the sin
of our ancestors. In yearly rituals, each village sifts part of the land,
clearing it of our own pollution and bits the Buyur left behind. The
Five Galaxies may punish us for living here. Yet we lived by a code, faithful
to the Scrolls. Hoonish
folk moots chant the tale of Phu-uphyawuo, a dross captain who one day saw a
storm coming, and dumped his load before reaching the deep blue of the Midden.
Casks and drums rolled overboard far short of the trench of reclamation,
strewing instead across shallow sea bottom, marring a site that was changeless,
unrenewing. In punishment, Phu-uphyawuo was bound up and taken to the Plain of
Sharp Sand, to spend the rest of his days beneath a hollow dune, drinking
enough green dew to live, I but not sustain his soul. In time, his heart spine
was ground to dust and cast across a desert where no water might wash the
grains, or make them clean again. But
this is the Midden, I thought, trying to grasp the wonder. We're the first to
see it. Except
for the phuvnthus. And whatever else lives down here. I found
myself tiring. Despite the back brace and crutches, a weight of agony built
steadily. Yet I found it hard to tear away from the icy-cold pane. Following
a searchlight through suboceanic blackness, we plunged as if down a mine shaft,
aimed toward a heap of jewels-glittering objects shaped like needles, or squat
globes, or glossy pancakes, or knobby cylinders. Soon there loomed a vast
shimmering pile, wider than Wuphon Bay, bulkier than Guenn Volcano. "Now,
those are definitely ships!" Pincer announced, gesturing with a claw.
Pressed against the glass, we stared at mountainlike piles of tubes, spheres,
and cylinders, many of them studded with hornlike protrusions, like the quills
of an alarmed rock staller. "Those
must be the probability whatchamacallums starships use for going between
galaxies," Huck diagnosed from her avid reading of Tabernacle-era, tales. "Probability
flanges,"Ur-ronn corrected, speaking Galactic Six. In matters of
technology, she was far ahead of Huck or me. "I think you may be
right." Our
qheuenish friend chuckled happily as the searchlight zeroed in on one
tremendous pile of tapered objects. Soon we
all recognized the general outlines from ancient texts-freighters and courier
ships, packets and cruisers- all abandoned long ago. The
engine noise dropped a notch, plunging us toward that mass of discarded
spacecraft. The smallest of those derelicts outmassed the makeshift phuvnthu
craft the way a full-grown traeki might tower over a herd-chick turd. "I
wonder if any of the ancestor vessels are in this pile," Huck contemplated
aloud. "You know, the ones that brought our founders here? The Laddu 'kek
or the Tabernacle" "Unlikely,"
Ur-ronn answered, this time in lisping Anglic. "Don't forget, we're in the
Rift. This is nothing vut an offshoot canyon of the Nidden. Our ancestors
likely discarded their shifs in the nain trench, where the greatest share of
Buyur trash went." I
blinked at that thought. This, an offshoot? A minor side area of the Midden? Of
course she was right! But it presented a boggling image. What staggering
amounts of stuff must have been dumped in the main trench, over the ages!
Enough to tax even the recycling power of Jijo's grinding plates. No wonder the
Noble Galactics set worlds aside for ten million years or more. It must take
that long for a planet to digest each meal of sapient-made things, melting them
back into the raw stuff of nature. I
thought of my father's dross ship, driven by creaking masts, its hold filled
with crates of whatever we exiles can't recycle. After two thousand years, all
the offal we sooners sent to the Midden would not even show against this single
mound of discarded starships. How
rich the Buyur and their fellow gods must have been to cast off so much wealth!
Some of the abandoned vessels looked immense enough to swallow every house,
khuta, or hovel built by the Six Races. We glimpsed dark portals, turrets, and
a hundred other details, growing painfully aware of one fact-those shadowy
behemoths had been sent down here to rest in peace. Their sleep was never meant
to be invaded by the likes of us. Our
plummet toward the reef of dead ships grew alarming. Did any of the others feel
we were heading in awful fast! "Maybe
this is their home," Pincer speculated as we plunged toward one twisted,
oval ruin, half the size of Wuphon Port. "Maybe
the phuvnthus are made of, like, parts of old machines that got dumped
here," Huck mused. "And they kind of put themselves together from
whatever's lying around? Like this boat we're on is made of all sorts of
junk-" "Perhaps
they were servants of the Buyur-" Ur-ronn interrupted. "Or a race
that lived here even vefore. Or a strain of nutants, like in that story-" I cut in.
"Have any of you considered the simplest idea? That maybe they're just like us?" When my
friends turned to look at me, I shrugged, human style. "Maybe
the phuvnthus are sooners, too. Ever stop to think of that?" Their
blank faces answered me. I might as well have suggested that our hosts were
noor beasts, for all the sense my idea made. Well, I
never claimed to be quick-witted, especially when racked with agony. We
lacked any sense of perspective, no way to tell how close we were, or how fast
we were going. Huck and Pincer murmured nervously as our vessel plunged toward
the mountain-of-ships at a rapid clip, engines running hard in reverse. I think
we all jumped a bit when a huge slab of corroded metal moved aside, just duras
before we might have collided. Our vessel slid into a gaping hole in the
mountain of dross, cruising along a corridor composed of spaceship hulls,
piercing a fantastic pile of interstellar junk. ASX READ
THE NEWLY CONGEALED WAX, MY RINGS. See how folk of the Six Races dispersed,
tearing down festival pavilions and bearing away the injured, fleeing before
the Rothen starship's expected arrival. Our
senior sage, Vubben of the g'Kek, recited from the Scroll of Portents a passage
warning against disunity. Truly, the Six Races must strive harder than ever to
look past our differences of shape and shell. Of flesh, hide, and torg. "Go
home," we sages told the tribes. "See to your lattice screens. Your
blur-cloth webs. Live near the ground in Jijo's sheltered places. Be ready to
fight if you can. To die if you must." The
zealots,' who originally provoked this crisis, suggested the Rothen starship
might have means to track Rokenn and his lackeys, perhaps by sniffing our
prisoners' brain waves or body implants. "For safety, let's sift their
bones into lava pools!" An
opposing faction called Friends of the Rothen demanded Ro-kenn's release and
obeisance to his godlike will. These were not only humans, but some qheuens,
g'Keks, hoons, and even a few urs, grateful for cures or treatments received in
the aliens' clinic. Some think redemption can be won in this lifetime, without
first treading the long road blazed by glavers. Finally,
others see this chaos as a chance to settle old grudges. Rumors tell of anarchy
elsewhere on the Slope. Of many fine things toppled or burned. Such
diversity! The same freedom that fosters a vivid people also makes it hard to
maintain a united front. Would things be better if we had disciplined order,
like the feudal state sought by Gray Queens of old? It is
too late for regrets. Time remains only for improvisation-an art not well
approved in the Five Galaxies, we are told.
Among poor savages, it may be our only hope. Yes, my
rings. We can now remember all of that. Stroke
this wax, and watch the caravans depart toward plains, forests, and sea. Our
hostages are spirited off to sites where even a starship's piercing scrutiny
might not find them. The sun flees and stars bridge the vast territory called
the Universe. A realm denied us, that our foes roam at will. Some
remain behind, awaiting the ship. We
voted, did we not? We rings who make up Asx? We volunteered to linger. Our
cojoined voice would speak to angry aliens for the Commons. Resting our basal
torus on hard stone, we passed the time listening to complex patterns from the
Holy Egg, vibrating our fatty core with strange shimmering motifs. Alas,
my rings, none of these reclaimed memories explains our current state, that
something terrible must have happened? Here,
what of this newly congealed waxy trail? Can you perceive in it the glimmering
outlines of a great vessel of space? Roaring from the same part of the sky
lately abandoned by the sun? Or is
it the sun, come back again to hover angrily above the valley floor? The
great ship scans our valley with scrutinizing rays, seeking signs of those they
left behind. Yes, my rings. Follow this waxy memory. Are we about to rediscover
the true cause of terror? Lark SUMMER
PRESSED HEAVILY ACROSS THE RIMMER Range, consuming the unshaded edges of
glaciers far older than six exile races. At intervals, a crackling static
charge would blur the alpine slopes as countless grass stems wafted skyward,
reaching like desperate tendrils. Intense sunshine was punctuated by bursts of
curtain rain- water draperies that undulated uphill, drenching the slopes with
continuous liquid sheets, climbing until the mountaintops wore rainbow crowns,
studded with flashes of compressed lightning. Compact
reverberations rolled down from the heights, all -the way to the shore of a
poison lake, where fungus swarmed over a forty-hectare thicket of crumbling
vines. Once a mighty outpost of Galactic culture, the place was now a jumble of
stone slabs, rubbed featureless by abrading ages. The pocket valley sweltered
with acrid aromas, as caustic nectars steamed from the lake, or dripped from
countless eroding pores. The
newest sage of the Commons of Jijo plucked yellow moss from a decaying cable,
one of a myriad of strands that once made up the body of a
half-million-year-old creature, the mule spider responsible for demolishing
this ancient Buyur site, gradually returning it to nature. Lark had last seen
this place in late winter-searching alone through snow flurries for the
footprints of Dwer and Rety, refugees from this same spider's death fury.
Things had changed here since that frantic deliverance. Large swathes of mule
cable were simply gone, harvested in some recent effort that no one had
bothered explaining when Lark was assigned here. Much of what remained was
coated with this clinging moss. "Spirolegita
cariola." He muttered the species name, rubbing a sample between two
fingers. It was a twisted, deviant cariola variety. Mutation seemed a specialty
of this weird, astringent site. I
wonder what the place will do to me-to all of us-if we stay here long. He had
not asked for this chore. To be a jailor. Just wearing the title made him feel
less clean. A chain
of nonsense syllables made him turn back toward a blur-cloth canopy, spanning
the space between slablike boulders. "It's
a clensionating sievelator for refindulating excess torg. . . ." The
voice came from deep shade within-a strong feminine alto, though somewhat
listless now, tinged with resignation. Soft clinking sounds followed as one
object was tossed onto a pile and another picked up for examination. "At
a guess, I'd say this was once a glannis truncator, probably used in rituals of
a chihanic sect . . . that is, unless it's just another Buyur joke-novelty
device." Lark
shaded his eyes to regard Ling, the young sky-born scientist and servant of
star-god Rothen, in whose employ he had worked as a "native guide"
for many weeks . . . until the Battle of the Glade reversed their standing in a
matter of heartbeats. Since that unexpected victory, the High Sages had
assigned her care and custody to him, a duty he never asked for, even if it
meant exalted promotion. Now I'm
quite a high-ranking witch doctor among savages, he thought with some tartness.
Lord High Keeper of Alien Prisoners. And
maybe executioner. His mind shied from that possibility. Much more likely, Ling
would be traded to her Danik-Rothen comrades in some deal worked out by the
sages. Or else she might be rescued at any moment by hordes of unstoppable
robots, overpowering Lark's small detachment of sword-bearing escorts like a
pack of santi bears brushing aside the helpless buzzing defenders of a
zil-honey tree. Either
way, she'll go free. Ling may live another three hundred years on her homeworld,
back in the Five Galaxies, telling embroidered tales about her adventure among
the feral barbarians of a shabby, illicit colony. Meanwhile, the best we fallen
ones can hope for is bare survival. To keep scratching a living from poor tired
Jijo, calling it lucky if some of the Six eventually join glavers down the Path
of Redemption. The trail to blissful oblivion. Lark
would rather end it all in some noble and heroic way. Let Jijo's Six go down
defending this fragile world, so she might go back to her interrupted rest. That
was his particular heresy, of course. Orthodox belief held that the Six Races
were sinners, but they might mitigate their offense by living at peace on Jijo.
But Lark saw that as hypocrisy. The settlers should end their crime, gently and
voluntarily, as soon as possible. He had
made no secret of his radicalism . . . which made it all the more confusing
that the High Sages now trusted him with substantial authority. The
alien woman no longer wore the shimmering garb of her Danik star clan-the
secretive band of humans who worshiped Rothen lords. Instead she was outfitted
in an illfitting blouse and kilt ofJijoan homespun. Still, Lark found it hard
to look away from her angular beauty. It was said that sky humans could buy a
new face with hardly a thought. Ling claimed not to care about such things, but
no woman on the Slope could match her. Under
the wary gaze of two militia corporals, Ling sat cross-legged, examining relics
left behind by the dead mule spider-strange metallic shapes embedded in
semitransparent gold cocoons, like archaic insects trapped in amber. Remnants
of the Buyur, this world's last legal tenants, who departed half a million
years ago when Jijo went fallow. A throng of egglike preservation beads lay
scattered round the ashen lakeshore. Instead of dissolving all signs of past
habitation, the local mule spider had apparently chosen relics to seal away.
Collecting them, if Lark believed the incredible story told by his half
brother, Dwer. The
luminous coatings made him nervous. The same substance, secreted from the
spider's porous conduits, had nearly smothered Dwer and Rety, the wild sooner
girl, the same night two alien robots quarreled, igniting a living morass of
corrosive vines, ending the spider's long, mad life. The gold stuff felt queer
to touch, as if a strange, slow liquid sloshed under sheaths of solid crystal. "Toporgic,
" Ling had called the slick material during one of her civil moments.
"It's very rare, but I hear stories. It's said to be a pseudo-matter
substrate made of organically folded time.". Whatever
that meant. It sounded like the sort of thing Sara might say, trying to explain
her beloved world of mathematics. As a biologist, he found it bizarre for a
living thing to send "folded time" oozing from its far-flung
tendrils, as the mule spider apparently had done. Whenever
Ling finished examining a relic, she bent over a sheaf of Lark's best paper to
make careful notes, concentrating as if each childlike block letter were a work
of art. As if she never held a pencil before, but had vowed to master the new
skill. As a galactic voyager, she used to handle floods of information,
manipulating multidimensional displays, sieving data on this world's complex
ecosystem, searching on behalf of her Rothen masters for some biotreasure worth
stealing. Toiling over handwritten notes must seem like shifting from starship
speeds to a traeki's wooden scooter. It's a
steep,all-one moment a demigoddess, the next a hostage of uncouth sooners. All
this diligent note taking must help take her mind off recent events-that
traumatic day, just two leagues below the nest of the Holy Egg, when her home
base exploded and Jijo's masses violently rebelled. But Lark sensed something
more than deliberate distraction. In scribing words on paper. Ling drew the
same focused satisfaction he had seen her take from performing any simple act
well. Despite his persistent seething anger, Lark found this worthy of respect. There
were folk legends about mule spiders. Some were said to acquire odd obsessions
during their stagnant eons spent chewing metal and stone monuments of the past.
Lark once dismissed such fables as superstition, but Dwer had proved right
about this one. Evidence for the mule beast's collecting fetish lay in
countless capsules studding the charred thicket, the biggest hoard of Galactic
junk anywhere on the Slope. It made the noxious lakeshore an ideal site to
conceal a captured alien, in case the returning starship had instruments
sifting Jijo for missing crew mates. Though
Ling had been thoroughly searched, and all possessions seized, she might carry
in her body some detectable trace element-acquired growing up on a far Galactic
world. If so, all the Buyur stuff lying around here might mask her presence. There
were other ideas. Ship
sensors may not penetrate far underground, one human techie proposed. Or
else, suggested an urrish smith, a nearby lava flow may foil alien eyes. The
other hostages-Ro-kenn and Rann-had been taken to such places, in hopes of
holding on to at least one prisoner. With the lives of every child and grub of
the Six at stake, anything seemed worth trying. The job Lark had been given was
important. Yet he chafed, wishing for more to do than waiting for the world to
end. Rumors told that others were preparing to fight the star criminals. Lark
knew little about weapons-his expertise was the natural flux of living species.
Still, he envied them. A
burbling, wheezing sound called him rushing to the far end of the tent, where
his friend Uthen squatted like an ash-colored chitin mound. Lark took up a
makeshift aspirator he had fashioned out of boo stems, a cleft pig's bladder,
and congealed mule sap. He pushed the nozzle into one of the big qheuen's leg
apertures and pumped away, siphoning phlegmy fluid that threatened Uthen's
ventilation tubes. He repeated the process with all five legs, till his partner
and fellow biologist breathed easier. The qheuen's central cupola lifted and
Uthen's seeing stripe brightened, "Th-thank
you, L-Lark-ark ... I am-I am sorry to be so-be so-to be a burden-en-en.
..." Emerging
uncoordinated, the separate leg voices sounded like five miniature qheuens,
getting in each other's way. Or like a traeki whose carelessly stacked oration
rings all had minds of their own. Uthen's fevered weakness filled Lark's chest
with a burning ache. A choking throat made it hard to respond with
cheerful-sounding lies. "You
just rest up, claw brother. Soon we'll be back in the field . . . digging fossils
and inventing more theories to turn your mothers blue with embarrassment." That
brought a faint, gurgling laugh. "S-speaking-king of heresies ... it looks
as if you and Haru . . . Haru . . . Harullen-ullen, will be getting your
wish." Mention
of Lark's other gray qheuen friend made him wince with doubled grief. Uthen
didn't know about his cousin's fate, and Lark wasn't about to tell him. "How
do you mean?" "It
seems-eems the raiders-raiders found a way to rid Jijo of at least one of the
S-S-Six P-p-pests. ..." "Don't
say that," Lark urged. But Uthen voiced a common thought. His sickness
baffled the g'Kek medic resting in the next shelter, all four eyes curled in
exhaustion. The malady frightened the militia guards. All knew that Uthen had
been with Lark in the ruined Danik station, poking among forbidden things. "I
felt sorrow when-hen zealots-lots blew up the alien base." Uthen's
carapace shuddered as he fought for breath. "Even when the Rothen tried to
misuse our Holy Egg . . . sending false dreams as wedges-edges ... to drive the
Six Races apart-part. . . . Even that did not justify the . . .
inhospitable-able murder of strangers." Lark
wiped an eye. "You're more charitable than most." "Let
me finish-ish. I was-as going to say that now we know what the outsiders were
up to all along-long . . . something worse than dreams. Designing-ing bugs to
bring us down-own-own." So,
Uthen must have overheard the rumors-or else worked it out for himself. Biological
warfare. Genocide. "Like
in War of the Worlds" It was one of Uthen's favorite old novels.
"Only with the roles reversed." Lark's
comparison made the gray qheuen laugh-a raspy, uneven whistle. "I
... always-ways did identify . . . with those . . . with those poor Martians-ans-ans.
..." The
ribbon eye went foggy, losing the light of consciousness as the cupola' sank.
Lark checked his friend's breathing, and found it no worse. Uthen was simply
tired. So
strong, he thought, stroking the rigid shell. We
picture grays as toughest of the tough. But cbitin won't slow a laser ray. Harullen
found that out. Death came to Uthen's cousin during the brief Battle of the
Glade, when the massed militia of Six Races barely overcame Ro-kenn's robot
assassins. Only the advantage of surprise had carried that day. The aliens
never realized that savages might have books showing how to make rifled
firearms-crude, but potent at short range. But
victory came late for Harullen. Too dedicated or obstinate to flee, the heretic
leader spent his last frenzied moments whistling ornate pleas for calm and
reason, crying in five directions at once, beseeching everyone to lay down
their arms and talk things over-until Harullen's massive, crablike body was
cleaved in uneven parts by a killer drone, just before the machine was itself
blown from the sky. There
will be mourning among the gray matrons of Tarek Town, Lark thought, resting
both arms across Uthen's broad shell, laying his head on the mottled surface,
listening to the strained labor of his friend's phlegmy breathing, wishing with
all his heart that there was more he could do. Irony
was but one of many bitter tastes in his mouth. I always figured, if the end
did come, that qheuens would be the last to go. Emerson JIJO'S
COUNTRYSIDE FLOWS RAPIDLY PAST THEM now, as if the mysterious horsewomen fear
any delay might turn faint hope to dust. Lacking
speech, Emerson has no idea where they are riding in such a hurry, or why. Sara
turns in her saddle now and then, to give an encouraging smile. But
rewq-painted colors of misgiving surround her face-a nimbus of emotion that he
can read the way he used to find meaning in letters on a data display. Perhaps
he should find her qualms unnerving, since he depends on her guidance in this
strange, perilous world. Yet Emerson
cannot bring himself to worry. There are just too many other things to think
about. Humidity
closes in as their caravan veers toward a winding river valley. Dank aromas
stir memories of the swamp where he first floundered after the crash, a
shattered cripple, drenched in agony. But he does not quail. Emerson welcomes
any sensation that might trigger random recall- a sound, a chance smell, or
else a sight around the next bend. Some
rediscoveries already float across a gulf of time and loss, as if he has missed
them for quite a while. Recovered names connect to faces, and even brief
snatches of isolated events. Tom
Orley ... so strong and clever. Always a sure eye for trouble. He brought some
back to the ship, one day. Trouble
enough for Five Galaxies. Hikahi
. . . sweetest dolphin. Kindest friend. Dashing off to rescue her lover and
captain . . . never to be seen again. Toshio
... a boy's ready laughter. A young man's steady heart. Where is he now? Creideiki
. . . captain. Wise dolphin leader. A cripple like himself. Briefly,
Emerson wonders at the similarity between Creideiki's injury and his own. . . .
But the thought provokes a searing bolt of pain so fierce that the fleeting
thought whirls away and is lost. Tom . .
. Hikahi . . . Toshio ... He repeats the names, each of them once attached to
friends he has not seen for . . . well, a very long time. Other
memories, more recent, seem harder to reach, more agonizing to access. Suessi
. . . Tsh't . . . Gillian ... He
mouths each sound repeatedly, despite the tooth jarring ride and difficulty of
coordinating tongue and lips. He does
it to keep in practice-or else how will he ever recover the old handiness with
language, the skill to roll out words as he used to, back when he was known as
such a clever fellow . . . before horrid holes appeared in both his head and
memory. Some
names come easy, since he learned them after waking on Jijo, delirious in a
treetop hut. -Prity,
the little chimp who teaches him by example. Though mute, she shows flair for
both math and sardonic hand speech. -Jomah
and Kurt . . . sounds linked to younger and older versions of the same narrow
face. Apprentice and master at a unique art, meant to erase all the dams,
towns, and houses that unlawful settlers had built on a proscribed world.
Emerson recalls Biblos, an archive of paper books, where Kurt showed his nephew
well-placed explosive charges that might bring the cave down, smashing the
library to dust. If the order ever came. -The
captive fanatic, Dedinger, rides behind the explosers, deeply tanned with
craggy features. Leader of human rebels with beliefs Emerson can't grasp,
except they preach no love of visitors from the sky. While the party hurries
on, Dedinger's gray eyes rove, calculating his next move. Some
names and a few places-these utterances have meaning now. It is progress, but
Emerson is no fool. He figures he must have known hundreds of words before he
fell, broken, to this world. Now and again he makes out snatches of half
meaning from the "wab-wah" gabble as his companions address each
other. Snippets that tantalize, without satisfying. Sometimes
the torrent grows tiresome, and he wonders-might people be less inclined to
fight if they talked less? If they spent more time watching and listening? Fortunately,
words aren't his sole project. There is the haunting familiarity of music, ?nd
during rest stops he plays math games with Prity and Sara, drawing shapes in
the sand. They are his friends and he takes joy from their laughter. He has
one more window to the world. As
often as he can stand it, Emerson slips the rewq over his eyes ... a masklike
film that transforms the world into splashes of slanted color. In all his prior
travels he never encountered such a creature-a species used by all six races to
grasp each other's moods. If left on too long, it gives him headaches. Still he
finds fascinating the auras surrounding Sara, Dedinger, and others. Sometimes
it seems the colors carry more than just emotion . . . though he cannot pin it
down. Not yet. One
truth Emerson recalls. Advice drawn from the murky well of his past, putting
him on guard. Life
can be full of illusions. PART
TWO ?
LEGENDS TELL OF MANY PRECIOUS TEXTS that were lost one bitter evening, during
an unmatched disaster some call the Night of the (ghosts, when a quarter of the
Diblos Archive burned. Among the priceless volumes that vanished by that cruel
winters twilight, one tome reportedly showed pictures of Buyur-the mighty race
whose lease on Jijo expired five thousand centuries ago. Scant
diary accounts survive from witnesses to the calamity, but according to some
who browsed the Xenoscience Collection be, lore It burned, the Buyur were squat
beings, vaguely resembling the bullfrogs shown on page ninety-six of C^,earys
C-'uiae to lerres' trial L,iK-rorms, though with elephantine legs and sharp,
forward-looking eyes. They were said to be master shapers or useful
organisms,and had a reputation for prodigious wit. But
other sooner races already knew of that much about the Buyur, both from oral
traditions and the many clever servant organisms that nit about Jijo's forests,
perhaps still looking for departed masters. Beyond these few scraps, we have
very little about the race whose mighty civilisation thronged this world for
more than a million years. HOW
could so much knowledge be lost in a single night' Today it seems odd. Why
weren't copies of such valuable texts printed by those first-wave human
colonists, before they sent their sneakship tumbling to ocean depths' Why not
place duplicates all over the Mope, safeguarding the learning against all
peril' In our
ancestors defense I recall what tense times those were, before the Great Peace
or the coming of the bgg. The live sapient races already present on Jijo
(.excluding glavers, had reached an edgy balance by the time starship
tabernacle slinked past l^munutts dusty glare to plant Earthlings illicitly,
the latest wave of criminal colonists to plague a troubled world. In those
days, combat was frequent between urrtsh clans and haughty qheuen empresses,
while hoonlsh tribes skirmished among themselves in their ongoing ethical
struggle over traeki civil rights. The nigh Sages had little inlluence beyond
reading and interpreting the Speaking Scrolls, the only documents existing at
the time. Into
this tense climate dropped the latest Invasion of sooner relugees, who found an
unused eco-niche awaiting them. But human colonists were not content simply to
take up tree tarming as another clan of illiterates. Instead, they used the
tabernacles engines one last time before sinking her. With those godlike torces
they carved Diblos fortress, then toppled a thousand trees, converting their
pulp into ireshly printed books. The act
so astonished the Other five, It nearly cost human settlers their lives.
Outraged, the queens of larek town laid siege to the vastly outnumbered
Carthlings. Others, equally offended by what seemed heresy against the Scrolls,
held back only because the priest sages refused sanctioning holy war. That
narrow vote gave human leaders time to bargain, to cajole the ditlerent tribes
and septs with practical advice from books, bribing them with useful things.
Spoke cleats (or g'Kek wheels. Better sails for hoonish captains. And, for
urrish smiths, the long-sought knack of brewing clear glass. How
things had changed Just a few generations later, when the new breed of scholar
sages gathered to aihrm the Great peace, scribing their names on fresh paper
and sending copies to each hamlet on the Slope. Reading became a common habit,
and even writing is no longer viewed as sin. An
orthodox minority still objects to the clatter of printing presses, they
piously Insist that literacy fosters memory, and thus attachment to the same
conceits that got our spacefaring ancestors in trouble. Surely, they claim, we
must cultivate detachment and forgetfulness in order to tread the lath of
Redemption. perhaps
they are right. Out lew these days seem in a hurry to lollow glavers down that
blessed trail. 1'Jot yet. first, we must prepare our souls. And
wisdom, the New Sages declare, can be nurtured from the pages of a book. from
forging the peace, a Historical ,VIeditation-Umble, by Homer ,wph-puthtwaoy Streakers
Kaa STRANDED,
BY UNYIELDING FATE, ON IFNI'S SHORE.
Stranded, like a beached whale, barred from ever going home. Five
ways stranded- First,
cut off from Earth by hostile aliens bearing a death grudge toward Terrans in
general, and the Streaker crew in particular, though Kaa never quite understood
why. Second,
banished from Earth's home galaxy, blown off course, and off-limits, by a
caprice of hyperspace-though many on the crew still blamed Kaa, calling it
"pilot's error." Third,
starship Streaker taking refuge on a taboo world, one scheduled to have a
respite from sapient minds. An ideal haven, according to some. A trap, said
others. Fourth,
when the vessel's weary engines finally ceased their labors, depositing the Streaker
in a realm of ghosts, deep in this planet's darkest corner, far from air or
light. And
now, this, Kaa thought. Abandoned, even by a crew of castaways! Of
course Lieutenant Tsh't didn't put it that way, when she asked him to stay
behind in a tiny outpost with three other volunteers for company. "This
will be your first important command, Kaa. A chance to show what you're made
of." Yeah,
he thought. Especially if I'm speared by a hoonish harpoon, dragged onto one of
their boats, and slit open. That
almost happened yesterday. He had been tracking one of the native sailing
craft, trying to learn its purpose and destination, when one of his young
assistants, Mopol, darted ahead and began surfing the wooden vessel's rolling
bow wake ... a favorite pastime on Earth, where dolphins frequently hitched
free rides from passing ships. Only here it was so dumb, Kaa hadn't thought to
forbid it in advance. Mopol
offered that lawyerly excuse later, when they returned to the shelter.
"B-besides, I didn't do any harm." "No
harm? You let them see you!" Kaa berated. "Don't you know they
started throwing spears into the water, just as I got you out of there?" Mopol's
sleek torso and bottle beak held a rebellious stance. "They never saw a
dolphin before. Prob'ly thought we were some local kind of fish." "And
it's gonna stay that way, do you hear?" Mopol
grunted ambiguous assent, but the episode unnerved Kaa. A while
later, dwelling on his own shortcomings, he worked amid clouds of swirling bottom
mud, splicing optical fiber to a cable the submarine Hikahi had laid, on its
return trip to Streaker's hiding place. Kaa's newly emplaced camera should let
him spy more easily on the hoon colony whose sheltered docks and camouflaged
houses lay perched along the nearby bay. Already he could report that hoonish
efforts at concealment were aimed upward, at shrouding their settlement against
the sky, not the sea. That might prove important information, Kaa hoped. Still,
he had never trained to be a spy. He was a pilot, dammit! Not
that he ever used to get much practice during the early days of Streamer's
mission, languishing in the shadow of Chief Pilot Keepiru, who always got the
tough, glamorous jobs. When Keepiru vanished on Kithrup, along with the captain
and several others, Kaa finally got a chance to practice his skill-for better
and worse. But now
Streaker's going nowhere. A beached ship needs no pilot, so I guess I'm
expendable. Kaa
finished splicing and was retracting the work arms of his harness when a flash
of silver-gray shot by at high speed, undulating madly. Sonar strafed him as
waves of liquid recoil shoved his body. Clickety dolphin laughter filled the
shallows. * Admit
it, star seeker! * You
did not bear or see me, *
Sprinting from the gloom! * In
fact, Kaa had known the youth was approaching for some time, but he did not
want to discourage Zhaki from practicing the arts of stealth. "Use
Anglic," he commanded tersely. Small
conical teeth gleamed in a beam of slanted sunshine as the young Tursiops swung
around to face Kaa. "But
it's much easier to speak Trinary! Sometimes Anglic makes my head hurt." Few
humans, listening to this exchange between two neo-dolphins, would have
understood the sounds. Like Trinary, this underwater dialect consisted mostly
of clipped groans and ratchetings. But the grammar was close to standard
Anglic. And grammar guides the way a person thinks-or so Creideiki used to
teach, when that master of Keeneenk arts lived among the Streaker crew, guiding
them with his wisdom. Creideiki
has been gone for two years, abandoned with Mr. Orley and others when we fled
the battle fleets at Kithrup. Yet every day we miss him-the best our kind
produced. When
Creideiki spoke, you could forget for a while that neo-dolphins were crude,
unfinished beings, the newest and shakiest sapient race in the Five Galaxies. Kaa
tried answering Zhaki as he imagined the captain would. "The
pain you feel is called concentration. It's not easy, but it enabled our human
patrons to reach the stars, all by themselves." "Yeah.
And look what good it did them," Zhaki retorted. -Before
Kaa could answer, the youth emitted the need-air signal and shot toward the
surface, without even performing a wariness spiral to look out for danger. It
violated security, but tight discipline seemed less essential as each Jijoan
day passed. This sea was too mellow and friendly to encourage diligence. Kaa let
it pass, following Zhaki to the surface. They exhaled and drew in sweet air,
faintly charged with distant hints of rain. Speaking Anglic with their
gene-modified blowholes out of the water called for a different dialect, one
that hissed and sputtered, but sounded more like human speech. "All
right-t," Kaa said. "Now report." The
other dolphin tossed his head. "The red crabs suspect nothing. They
f-fixate on their crayfish pensss. Only rarely does one look up when we c-come
near." "They
aren't crabs. They're qheuens. And I gave strict orders. You weren't to go near
enough to be seen!" Hoons
were considered more dangerous, so Kaa had kept that part of the spy mission
for himself. Still, he counted on Zhaki and Mopol to be discreet while
exploring the qheuen settlement at the reef fringe. , guess I was wrong. "Mopol
wanted to try some of the reds' delicaciesss, so we'd pulled a diversion. I
rounded up a school of those green-finned fishies-the ones that taste like
Sargasso eel-and chased 'em right through the q-qheuen colony! And guess what?
It turns out the crabs have pop-up nets they use for jussst that kind of: luck!
As soon as the school was inside their boundary, they whipped those things up-p
and snatched the whole swarm!" "You're
lucky they didn't snag you, too. What was Mopol doing, all this time?" "While
the reds were busy, Mopol raided the crayfish pens." Zhaki chortled with
delight. "I saved you one, by the way. They're delisssh." Zhaki
wore a miniharness fastened to his flank, bearing a single manipulator arm that
folded back during swimming. At a neural signal, the mechanical hand went to
his seamed pouch and drew out a wriggling creature, proffering it to Kaa. What
should I do? Kaa stared at the squirmy thing.
Would accepting it only encourage Zhaki's lapse of discipline? Or would
rejection make Kaa look stodgy and unreasonable? "I'll
wait and see if it makes you sick," he told the youth. They weren't
supposed to experiment on native fauna with their own bodies. Unlike Earth,
most planetary ecosystems were mixtures of species from all across the Five
Galaxies, introduced by tenant races whose occupancy might last ten million
years. So far, many of the local fishoids turned out to be wholesome and tasty,
but the very next prey beast might have its revenge by poisoning you. "Where
is Mopol now?" "Back
doing what we were told," Zhaki said. "Watching how the red crabs
interact with hoonsss. So far we've seen 'em pulling two sledge loads toward
the port, filled with harvested ssseaweed. They came back with cargoes of wood.
You know . . . ch-chopped tree trunks." Kaa
nodded. "So they do trade, as we suspected. Hoons and qheuens, living
together on a forbidden world. I wonder what it means?" "Who
knows? If they weren't mysterious, they wouldn't be eateesss. C-can I go back
to Mopol now?" Kaa had
few illusions about what was going on between the two young spacers. It
probably interfered in their work, but if he raised the issue, Zhaki would
accuse him of being a prude, or worse, "jealous." If only
I were a real leader, Kaa thought. The lieutenant should never have left me in
charge. "Yes,
go back now," he said. "But only to fetch Mopol and return to the
shelter. It's getting late." Zhaki
lifted his body high, perched on a thrashing tail. * Yes,
oh exalted! * Your
command shall be obeyed, * As
all tides heed moons. * With
that, the young dolphin did a flip and dived back into the sea. Soon his dorsal
fin was all Kaa saw, glinting as it sliced through choppy swell. Kaa
pondered the ambiguous insolence of Zhaki's last Trinary burst. In
human terms-by the cause-and-effect logic the patron race taught its dolphin
clients-the ocean bulged and shifted in response to the gravitational pull of
sun and moon. But there were more ancient ways of thinking, used by cetacean
ancestors long before humans meddled in their genes. In those days, there had
never been any question that tides were the most powerful of forces. In the
old, primal religion, tides controlled the moon, not vice versa. In
other words, Zhaki's Trinary statement was sassy, verging on insubordination. Tsh't
made a mistake, Kaa mused bitterly, as he swam toward the shelter. We should
never have been left here by ourselves. Along
the way, he experienced the chief threat to his mission. Not hoonish spears or
qheuen claws, or even alien battlecruisers, but Jijo itself. One
could fall in love with this place. The
ocean's flavor called to him, as did the velvety texture of the water. It
beckoned in the way fishlike creatures paid him respect by fleeing, but not too
quick to catch, if he cared to. Most
seductive of all, at night throbbing echoes penetrated their outpost
walls-distant rhythms, almost too low to hear. Eerie, yet reminiscent of the
whale songs of home. Unlike
Oakka, the green-green world-or terrible Kithrup-this planet appeared to have a
reverent sea. One where a dolphin might swim at peace. And
possibly forget. Orderly
dolphin whose frailty had grown as Streaker fled ever farther from home. Brookida's
samples had been taken when the Hikahi followed a hoonish sailboat beyond the
continental shelf, to a plunging abyssal trench, where the ship had proceeded
to dump its cargo overboard! As casks, barrels, and chests fell into the murk,
a few were snagged by the submarine's gaping maw, then left here for analysis
as the Hikahi returned to base. Brookida
had already found what he called "anomalies," but something else now
had the aged scientist excited. "We
got a message while you were out. Tsh't picked up something amazing on her way
to Streaker\" 'Kaa.
nodded. "I was here when she reported, remember? They found an ancient
cache, left by illegal settlers when-" "That's
nothing." The old dolphin was more animated than Kaa had seen Brookida in
a long time. "Tsh't
called again later to say they rescued a bunch of kids who were about to
drown." Kaa
blinked. "Kids?
You don't mean-" "Not
human or fin. But wait till you hear who they are . . . and how they came to be
d-down there, under the sea." Brookida
was waiting when Kaa cycled through the tiny airlock, barely large enough for
one dolphin at a time to pass into the shelter-an inflated bubble, half-filled
with water and anchored to the ocean floor. Against one wall, a lab had been
set up for the metallurgist geologist, an el Sooners
Alvin A FEW
SCANT DURAS BEFORE IMPACT, PART OF THE wall of debris ahead of us began to
move. A craggy slab, consisting of pitted starship hulls, magically slipped
aside, offering the phuvnthu craft a long, narrow cavity. Into it
we plummeted, jagged walls looming near the glass, passing in a blur, cutting
off the searchlight beam and leaving us in shadows. The motors picked up their
frantic backward roar . . . then fell away to silence. A
series of metallic clangs jarred the hull. Moments later the door to our
chamber opened. A clawed arm motioned us outside. Several
phuvnthus waited-insectoid-looking creatures with long, metal-cased torsos and
huge, glassy-black eyes. Our
mysterious saviors, benefactors, captors. My
friends tried to help me, but I begged them off. "Come
on, guys. It's hard enough managing these crutches without YOU all crowding
around. Go on. I'll be right behind." At the
intersection leading back to my old cell, I moved to turn left but our six-legged
guides motioned right instead. "I need my stuff," I told the nearest
phuvnthu-thing. But it gestured no with
a wave of machinelike claws, barring my path. Damn, I
thought, recalling the notebook and backpack I had left behind. I figured I'd be
coming back. A
twisty, confused journey took us through all sorts of hatches and down long
corridors of metal plating. Ur-ronn commented that some of the weld joins
looked "hasty." I admired the way she held on to her professionalism
when faced with awesome technology. I can't
say exactly when we left the sea dragon and entered the larger
base,camp,city,hive, but there came a time when the big phuvnthus seemed more
relaxed in their clanking movements. I even caught a snatch or two of that
queer, ratcheting sound that I once took for speech. But there wasn't time for
listening closely. Just moving forward meant battling waves of pain, taking one
step at a time. At last
we spilled into a corridor that had a feel of permanence, with pale, off-white
walls and soft lighting that seemed to pour from the whole ceiling. The
peculiar passage curved gently upward in both directions, till it climbed out
of sight a quarter of an arrowflight to either side. It seemed we were in a
huge circle, though what use such a strange hallway might serve, I could not
then imagine. Even
more surprising was the reception committee! At once we faced a pair of
creatures who could not look more different from the phuvnthus-except for the
quality of having six limbs. They stood upright on their hind pair, dressed in
tunics of silvery cloth, spreading four scaly webbed hands in a gesture I
hopefully took to mean welcome. They were small, rising just above my upper
knees, or the level of Pincer's red chitin shell. A frothy crown of moist,
curly fibers topped their bulb-eyed heads. Squeaking rapidly, they motioned for
us to follow, while the big phuvnthus retreated with evident eagerness. We four
Wuphonites consulted with a shared glance ... then a rocking, qheuen-style
shrug. We turned to troop silently behind our new guides. I could sense Huphu
purring on my shoulder, staring at the little beings, and I vowed to drop my
crutches and grab the noor, if she tried to jump one of our hosts. I doubted
they were as helpless as they looked. All the
doorways lining the hall were closed. Next to each portal, something like a
paper strip was pasted to the wall, always at the same height. One of Huck's
eyestalks gestured toward the makeshift coverings, then winked at me in Morse
semaphore. SECRETS
UNDERNEATH! I
grokked her meaning. So our hosts did not want us to read their door signs.
That implied they used one of the alphabets known to the Six. I felt the same
curiosity that emanated from Huck. At the same time, though, I readied myself
to stop her, if she made a move to tear off one of the coverings. There are
times for impulsiveness. This was not one of them. A door
hatch slid open with a soft hiss and our little guides motioned for us to
enter. Curtains
divided a large chamber into parallel cubicles. I also glimpsed a dizzying
array of shiny machines, but did not note much about them, because of what then
appeared, right in front of us. We all
stopped in our tracks, facing a quartet of familiarlooking entities-an urs, a hoon,
a red qheuen, and a young g'Kek! Images
of ourselves, I realized, though clearly not reflections in a mirror. For one
thing, we could see right through the likenesses. And as we stared, each figure
made beckoning motions toward a different curtained nook. After
the initial shock, I noticed the images weren't perfect portraits. The urrish
version had a well groomed pelt, and my hoonish counterpart stood erect,
without a back brace. Was the difference meaningful? The hoonish caricature
smiled at me in the old-fashioned way, with a fluttering throat sac, but no
added grimace of mouth and lips that Jijoan hoons had added since humans came. "Yeah
right," Huck muttered, staring at the ersatz g'Kek in front of her, whose
wheels and spokes gleamed, tight and polished. "I am so sure these are
sooners, Alvin." I
winced. So my earlier guess was wrong. There was no point rubbing it in. "Hr-rm
. . . shut up, Huck." "These
are holographic Projections," Ur-ronn lisped in Anglic, the sole Jijoan
language suitable for such a diagnosis. The words came from human books,
inherited since the Great Printing. "Whatever
you s-say," Pincer added, as each ghost backed away toward a different
curtained cell. "What d-d-do we do now?" Huck
muttered. "What choice do we have? Each of us follows our own guy, and see
ya on the other side." With an
uneven bumping of her rims, she rolled after the gleaming g'Kek image. A
curtain slid shut after her. Ur-ronn
blew a sigh. "Good water, you two." "Fire
and ash," Pincer and I replied politely, watching her saunter behind the
urrish cartoon figure. The
fake hoon waved happily for me to enter the cubby on the far right. "Name,
rank, and serial number only," I told Pincer. His
worried-"Huh?"-aspirated from three leg vents in syncopation. When I
glanced back, his cupola eye still whirled indecisively, staring in all
directions except at the translucent qheuen in front of him. A
hanging divider closed between us. My
silent guide in hoonish form led me to a white obelisk, an upright slab,
occupying the center of the small room. He pantomimed stepping right up to it,
standing on a small metal plate at its base. When I did so, I found the white
surface soft against my face and chest. No sooner were my feet on the plate
than the whole slab began to tilt . . . rotating down and forward to become a
table, with my own poor self lying prone on top. Huphu scrambled off my
shoulders, muttering guttural complaints, then yowled as a tube lifted up from
below and snaked toward my face! I guess
I could have struggled, or tried to flee. But to what point? When colored gas
spilled from the tube, the odor reminded me of childhood visits to our Wuphon
infirmary. The House of Stinks, we kids called it, though our traeki pharmacist
was kindly, and always secreted a lump of candy from an upper ring, if we were
good. ... As
awareness wavered, I recall hoping there would be a tasty sourball waiting for
me this time, as well. "G'night,"
I muttered, while Huphu cluttered and wailed. Then things kind of went black
for a while. Asx STROKE
THE FRESH-PLOWING WAX, MY RINGS, .streaming hot with news from real time. Here,
trace this ululation, a blaring cry of dismay, echoing round frosted peaks,
setting stands of mighty greatboo a-quivering. Just
moments earlier, the Rothen ship hovered majestically above its ruined station,
scanning the Glade for signs of its lost spore buds, the missing members of its
crew. Angry
the throbbing vessel seemed, broody and threatening, ready to avenge. Yet
we/i remained in place, did we not, my rings? Duty rooted this traeki stack in
place, delegated by the Council of Sages to parley with these Rothen lords. Others
also lingered, milling across the trampled festival grounds. Curious onlookers,
or those who for personal reasons wished to offer invaders loyalty. So we/i
were not alone to witness what came next. There were several hundred present,
staring in awe as the Rothen starship probed and palped the valley with rays,
sifting the melted, sooty girders of its ravaged outpost. Then
came that abrupt, awful sound. A cry that still fizzes, uncongealed, down our
fatty core. An alarm of anguished dread, coming from the ship itself! Yes? You are
brave, my rings. . . . Behold
the Rothen ship-suddenly bathed in light! Actinic
radiance pours onto it from above . . . cast by a new entity, shining like the
blazing sun. It is
no sun, but another vessel of space! A ship unbelievably larger than the slim
gene raider, looming above it the way a full-stacked traeki might tower over a
single, newly vienned ring. Can the
wax be believed? Could anything be as huge and mighty as that luminous
mountain-thing, gliding over the valley as ponderous as a thunderhead? Trapped,
the Rothen craft emits awful, grating noises, straining to escape the titanic
newcomer. But the cascade of light now presses on it, pushing with force that
spills across the vale, taking on qualities of physical substance. Like a solid
shaft, the beam thrusts the Rothen ship downward against its will, until its
belly scours Jijo's wounded soil. A
deluge of saffron color flows around the smaller cruiser, covering the Rothen
craft in layers-thickening, like gobs of cooling sap. Soon the Rothen ship lies
helplessly encased. Leaves and twigs seem caught in midwhirl, motionless beside
the gold-sealed hull. And
above, a new power hovered. Leviathan. The
searing lights dimmed. Humming
a song of overpowering might, the titan descended, like a guest mountain dropping
in to take its place among the Rimmers. A stone from heaven, cracking bedrock
and reshaping the valley with its awful weight. Rety Rety
never believed Kunn's people came across vast space just to teach some critters
how to blab. Then
what was the real reason? And what were they afraid of? RETY
THOUGHT ABOUT HER BIRD. THE BRIGHT bird, so lively, so unfairly maimed, so like
herself in its .stubborn struggle to overcome. All her
adventures began one day when Jass and Born returned from a hunting trip
boasting about wounding a mysterious flying creature. Their trophy-a gorgeous
metal feather-was the trigger she had been waiting for. Rety took it as an
omen, steadying her resolve to break away. A sign that it was time, at last, to
leave her ragged tribe and seek a better life. I guess
everybody's looking for something, she pondered, as the robot followed another
bend in the dreary river, meandering toward the last known destination of
Kunn's flying scout craft. Rety had the same goal, but also dreaded it. The
Danik pilot would deal harshly with Dwer. He might also judge Rety, for her
many failings. She
vowed to suppress her temper and grovel if need be. Just so the starfolk keep
their promise and take me with them when they leave Jijo. They
must! I gave 'em the bird. Rann said it was a clue to help the Daniks and their
Rothen lords search . . . Her thoughts stumbled. Search
for what? They
must need somethin' awful bad to break Galactic law by sneakin' to far-off
Jijo. Rety never
swallowed all the talk about "gene raiding"- that the Rothen
expedition came looking for animals almost ready to think. When you grow up
close to nature, scratching for each meal alongside other creatures, you soon
realize everybody thinks. Beasts, fish . . . why, some of her cousins even
prayed to trees and stones! Rety's
answer was-so what? Would a gallaiter be less smelly if it could read? Or a
wallow kleb any less disgusting if it recited poetry while rolling in dung? By
her lights, nature was vile and dangerous. She had a bellyful and would gladly
give it up to live in some bright Galactic city. The
robot avoided deep water, as if its force fields needed rock or soil to push
against. When the river widened, and converging tributaries became rivers
themselves, further progress proved impossible. Even a long detour west offered
no way around. The drone buzzed in frustration, hemmed by water on all sides. "Rety!"
Dwer's hoarse voice called from below. "Talk to it again!" "I
already did, remember? You must've wrecked its ears in the ambush, when you
ripped out its antenna thing!" "Well
... try again. Tell it I might . . . have a way to get across a stream." Rety
stared down at him, gripped by snakelike arms. "You
tried to kill it a while back, an' now you're offerin' to help?" He
grimaced. "It beats dying, wandering in its clutches till the sun burns
out. I figure there's food and medicine on the flying boat. Anyway, I've heard
so much about these alien humans. Why should you get all the fun?" She
couldn't tell where he stopped being serious, and turned sarcastic. Not that it
mattered. If Dwer's idea proved useful, it might soften the way Kunn treated
him. And me,
she added. "Oh,
all right," Rety
spoke directly to the machine, as she had been taught. "Drone
Four! Hear and obey commands! I order you to let us down so's we can haggle
together about how to pass over this here brook. The prisoner says he's got a
way mebbe to do it." The
robot did not respond at first, but kept cruising between two high points,
surveying for any sign of a crossing. But finally, the humming repulsors
changed tone as metal arms lowered Dwer, letting him roll down a mossy bank.
For a time the young man lay groaning. His limbs twitched feebly, like a
stranded fish. More
than a little stiff herself, Rety hoisted her body off the upper platform,
wincing at the singular touch of steady ground. Both legs tingled painfully,
though likely not as bad as Dwer felt. She got down on her knees and poked his
elbow. "Hey,
you all right? Need help gettin' up?" Dwer's
eyes glittered pain, but he shook his head. She put an arm around his shoulder
anyway as he struggled to sit. No fresh blood oozed when they checked the
crusty dressing on his thigh wound. The
alien drone waited silently as the young man stood, unsteadily. "Maybe
I can help you get across water," he told the machine. "If I do, will
you change the way you carry us? Stop
for breaks and help us find food? What d'you say?" Another
long pause-then a chirping note burst forth. Rety had learned a little Galactic
Two during her time as an apprentice star child. She recognized the upward
sliding scale meaning yes. Dwer
nodded. "I can't guarantee my plan'll work. But here's what I suggest." It was
actually simple, almost obvious, yet she looked at Dwer differently after he
emerged from the stream, dripping from the armpits down. Before he was halfway
out, the robot edged aside from its perch above Diver's head. It seemed to
glide down the side of the young hunter's body until reaching a point where its
fields could grip solid ground. All the
way across the river, Dwer looked as if he wore a huge, eight-sided hat,
wafting over his head like a balloon. His eyes were glazed and his hair stood
on end as Rety sat him down. "Hey!"
She nudged him. "You all right?" Dwer's
gaze seemed fixed far away. After a few duras though, he answered. "Um
... I ... guess so." She
shook her head. Even Mudfoot and yee had ceased their campaign of mutual deadly
glares in order to stare at the man from the Slope. "That
was so weird!" Rety commented. She could not bring herself to say
"brave," or "thrilling" or "insane." He
winced, as if messages from his bruised body were just now reaching a dazed
brain. "Yeah ... it was all that.
And more." The
robot chirruped again. Rety guessed that a triple upsweep with a shrill note at
the end meant-That's enough resting. Let's go! She
helped Dwer onto a makeshift seat the robot made by folding its arms. This
time, when it resumed its southward flight, the two humans rode in front with
Mudfoot and little yee, sharing body heat against the stiff wind. Rety
had heard of this region from those bragging hunters, Jass and Born. It was a
low country, dotted with soggy marshes and crisscrossed by many more streams
ahead. Alvin I WOKE
FEELING WOOZY, AND HIGH AS A CHIMP that's been chewing ghigree leaves. But at
least the agony was gone.. The
soft slab was still under me, though I could tell the awkward brace of straps
and metal tubes was gone. Turning my head, I spied a low table nearby. A
shallow white bowl held about a dozen familiar-looking shapes, vital to hoon
rituals of life and death. Ifni! I
thought. The monsters cut out my spine bones! Then I
reconsidered. Wait.
You're a kid. You've got two sets. In fact, isn't it next year you're supposed
to start losing your first . . . I
really was that slow to catch on. Pain and drugs can do it to you. Looking
in the bowl again, I saw all my baby vertebrae. Normally, they'd loosen over
several months, as the barbed adult spines took over. The accident must have
jammed both sets together, pressing the nerves and hurrying nature along. The
phuvnthus must have decided to take out my old verts, whether the new ones were
ready or not. Did
they guess? Or were they already familiar with hoons? Take
things one at a time, I thought. Can you feel your toe hooks? Can you move
them? I sent
signals to retract the claw sheaths, and sensed the table's fabric resist as my
talons dug in. So far so good. I
reached around with my left hand, and found a slick bulge covering my spine,
tough and elastic. Words
cut in. An uncannily smooth voice, in accented Galactic Seven. "The
new orthopedic brace will actively help bear the stress of your movements until
your next-stage vertebroids solidify. Nevertheless, you would be well advised
not to move in too sudden or jerky a manner." The
fixture wrapped all the way around my torso, feeling snug and comfortable,
unlike the makeshift contraption the phuvnthus provided earlier. "Please
accept my thanks," I responded in formal GalSeven, gingerly shifting onto
one elbow, turning my head the other way. "And my apologies for any
inconvenience this may have cause-" I
stopped short. Where I had expected to see a phuvnthu, or one of the small
amphibians, there stood a whirling shape, ghostly, like the holographic
projections we had seen before, but ornately abstract. A spinning mesh of
complex lines floated near the bed. "There
was no inconvenience." The voice seemed to emerge from the gyrating image.
"We were curious about matters taking place in the world of air and light.
Your swift arrival-plummeting into a sea canyon near our scout vessel-seemed as
fortuitous to us as our presence was for
you." Even in
a drugged state, I could savor multilevel irony in the whirling thing's
remarks. While being gracious, it was also reminding me that the survivors of
Wuphon's Dream owed a debt-our very lives. "True,"
I assented. "Though my friends and I might never have fallen into the
abyss if someone had not removed the article we were sent to find in more
shallow waters. Our search beyond that place led us to stumble over the
cliff." The
pattern of shifting lines took a new slant of bluish, twinkling light. "You
assert ownership over this thing you sought? As your property?" Now it
was my turn to ponder, wary of a trap. By the codes laid down in the Scrolls,
the cache Uriel had sent us after should not exist. It bent the spirit and
letter of the law, which said that sooner colonists on a forbidden world must
ease their crime by abandoning their godlike tools. It made me glad to be
speaking a formal dialect, forcing more careful thought than I might have used
in our local patois. "I
assert ... a right to inspect the item . . . and reserve an option to make
further claims later." Purple
swirls invaded the spinning pattern, and I could almost swear it seemed amused.
Perhaps this strange entity already had pursued the same line of questioning
with my pals. I may be articulate-Huck says no one can match me in GalSeven-but
I never claimed to be the brightest one in our gang. "The
matter can be discussed another time," the voice said. "After you tell
us of your life, and recent events in the upper world." This
triggered something in me ... call it the latent trading instinct that lurks in
any hoon. A keenness for the fine art of dickering. Carefully, tenderly, I sat
up, allowing the supple back brace to take most of the strain. "Hr-r-rm.
You're asking us to give away the only thing we have to barter-our story, and
that of our ancestors. What do you
offer in exchange?" The
voice made a pretty good approximation of a rueful hoonish rumble. "Apologies.
It did not occur to us that you would look at it that way. Alas, you have
already told us a great deal. We will now return your information store. Please
accept our contrition over having accessed it without expressed
permission." A door
slid open and one of the little amphibian creatures entered the cubicle,
bearing in its four slim arms my backpack! Better
yet, on top lay my precious journal, all battered and bent, but still the item
I most valued in the world. I snatched up the book, flipping its dog-eared
pages. "Rest
assured," the spinning pattern enounced. "Our study of this document,
while enlightening, has only whetted our appetite for information. Your
economic interests are undiminished." I
thought about that. "You read my journal?" "Again,
apologies. It seemed prudent, when seeking to understand your injuries, and the
manner of your arrival in this realm of heavy wet darkness." Once
again, the words seemed to come at me with layers of meaning and implications I
could only begin to sift. At the time, I only wanted to end the conversation as
soon as possible, and confer with Huck and the others before going any further. "I'd
like to see my friends now," I told the whirling image, switching to
Anglic. It
seemed to quiver, as if with a nod. "Very
well. They have been informed to expect you.
Please follow the entity standing at the door." The
little amphibian attended while I set foot on the floor, gingerly testing my
weight. There were a few twinges, just enough to help me settle best within the
support of the flexible body cast. I gripped the journal, but glanced back at
my knapsack and the bowl of baby vertebrae. "These
items will be safe here," promised the voice. I hope
so, I thought. Mom and Dad will want them . . . assuming that I ever see
Mu-phauwq, and Yowg-wayuo again . . . and especially if I don't. "Thank
you." The
speckled pattern whirled. "It
is my pleasure to serve." Holding
my journal tight, I followed the small being out the door. When I glanced back
at the bed, the spinning projection was gone. ASX HERE IT
IS, AT LAST. THE IMAGE WE HAVE SOUGHT, now cool enough to stroke. Yes, my
rings. It is time for another vote. Shall we remain catatonic, rather than face
what will almost certainly be a vision of pure horror? Our
first ring of cognition insists that duty must take precedence, even over the
natural traeki tendency to flee unpleasant subjectivities. Is it
agreed? Shall we be Asx, and meet reality as it comes? How do you rule, my
rings? stroke
the wax. . . . follow
the tracks. . . . see the
mighty starship come. ... Humming
a song of overwhelming power, the monstrous vessel descends, crushing every
remaining tree on the south side of the valley, shoving a dam across the river,
filling the horizon like a mountain. Can you
feel it, my rings? Premonition. Throbbing our core with acrid vapors? Along
the starship's vast flank a hatch opens, large enough to swallow a small
village. Against
the lighted interior, silhouettes enter view. Tapered
cones. Stacks
of rings. Frightful
kin we had hoped never again to see. Sara SARA
LOOKED BACK FONDLY AT LAST NIGHT'S WILD ride, for now the horses sped up to a
pace that made her bottom feel like butter. And to
think, as a child I wished I could gallop about like characters in storybooks. Whenever
the pace slackened, she eyed the enigmatic female riders who seemed so at home
atop huge, mythological beasts. They called themselves Illias, and their lives
had been secret for a long time. But now haste compelled them to travel openly. Can it
really be just to get Kurt the Exploser where he wants to go? Assuming
his mission is vital, why does he want my help? I'm a theoretical mathematician
with a sideline in linguistics. Even in math, I'm centuries out of date by
Earth standards. To Galactics I'd be just a clever shaman. Losing
altitude, the party began passing settlements-at first urrish camps with buried
workshops and sunken corrals hidden from the glowering sky. But as the country
grew more lush, they skirted dams where blue qheuen hives tended lake-bottom
farms. Passing a riverside grove, they found the "trees" were
ingeniously folded masts of hoonish fishing skiffs and khuta boats. Sara even
glimpsed a g'Kek weaver village where sturdy trunks supported ramps, bridges,
and swaying boardwalks for the clever wheeled clan. At
first the settlements seemed deserted as the horses sped by. But the chick
coops were full, and the blur canopies freshly patched. Midday isn't a favorite
time to be about, especially with sinister specters in the sky. Anyone rousing
from siesta glimpsed only vague galloping figures, obscured by dust. But
attention was unavoidable later, when members of all six races scurried from
shelters, shouting as the corps of beasts and riders rushed by. The grave
Illias horsewomen never answered, but Emerson and young Jomah waved at
astonished villagers, provoking some hesitant cheers. It made Sara laugh, and
she joined their antics, helping turn the galloping procession into a kind of
antic parade. When
the mounts seemed nearly spent, the guides veered into a patch of forest where
two more women waited, dressed in suede, speaking that accent Sara found
tantalizingly familiar. Hot food awaited the party-along with a dozen fresh
mounts. Someone
is a good organizer, Sara thought. She ate standing up-a pungent vegetarian
gruel. Walking helped stretch kinked muscles. The
next stage went better. One of the Illias showed Sara a trick of flexing in her
stirrups to damp the jouncing rhythm. Though grateful, Sara wondered. Where
have these people lived all this time? Dedinger,
the desert prophet, caught Sara's eye, eager to discuss the mystery, but she
turned away. The attraction of his intellect wasn't worth suffering his
character. She preferred spending her free moments with Emerson. Though
speechless, the wounded starman had a good soul. Villages
grew sparse south of the Great Marsh. But traeki flourished there, from tall
cultured stacks, famed for herbal industry, all the way down to wild quintets,
quartets, and little trio ring piles, consuming decaying matter the way their
ancestors must have on a forgotten homeworld, before some patron race set them
on the Path of Uplift. Sara
daydreamed geometric arcs, distracting her mind from the heat and tedium,
entering a world of parabolas and rippling wavelike forms, free of time and
distance. By the time she next looked up, dusk was falling and a broad river
flowed to their left, with faint lights glimmering on the other bank. "Traybold's
Crossing." Dedinger peered at the settlement, nestled under camouflage
vines. "I do think the residents have finally done the right thing . . .
even if it inconveniences wayfarers like us." The
wiry rebel appeared pleased. Sara wondered. Can he
mean the bridge? Have local fanatics torn it down, without orders from the
sages? Dwer,
her well-traveled brother, had described the span across the Gentt as a marvel
of disguise, appearing like an aimless jam of broken trees. But even that would
not satisfy fervent scroll thumpers these days. Through
twilight dimness she spied a forlorn skeleton of charred logs, trailing from
sandbar to sandbar. Just
like at Bing Hamlet, back home. What is it about a bridge that attracts
destroyers? Anything
sapient-made might be a target of zealotry, these days. The
workshops, dams, and libraries may go. We'll,allow glavers into blessed
obscurity. Dedinger's heresy may prove right, and Lark's prove wrong. She
sighed. Mine was always the unlikeliest of all. Despite
captivity, Dedinger seemed confident in ultimate success for his cause. "Now
our young guides must spend days trying, to hire boats. No more rushing about,
postponing Judgment Day. As if the explosers and their friends could ever have
changed destiny." "Shut
up," Kurt said. "You
know, I always thought your guild would be on our side, when the time came to
abandon vanities and take redemption's path. Isn't it frustrating, preparing
all your life to blow up things, only to hold back at the crucial moment?" Kurt
looked away. Sara
expected the horsewomen to head to a nearby fishing village. Hoonish coracles
might be big enough to ferry one horse at a time, though that slow process
would expose the Illias to every gawking citizen within a dozen leagues. Worse,
Urunthai reinforcements, or Dedinger's own die-hard supporters, might have time
to catch up. But to
her surprise, the party left the river road, heading west down a narrow track
through dense undergrowth. Two
Illias dropped back, brushing away signs of their passage. Could
their settlement lie in this thicket? But
hunters and gleaners from several races surely went browsing through this area.
No secret horse clan could remain hidden for more than a hundred years! Disoriented
in a labyrinth of trees and jutting knolls, Sara kept a wary eye on the rider
in front of her. She did not relish wandering' lost and alone in the dark. Gaining
altitude, the track finally crested to overlook a cluster of evenly spaced
hills-steep mounds surrounding a depression filled with dense brush. From their
symmetry, Sara thought of Buyur ruins. Then
she forgot about archaeology when something else caught her eye. A flicker to the
west, beckoning from many leagues away. The
mountain's wide shoulders cut a broad wedge of stars. Near
its summit, curved streaks glowed red and orange. Flowing
lava. Jijo's
blood. A
volcano. Sara
blinked. Might they already have traveled to- "No,"
she answered herself. "That's not Guenn. It's Blaze Mountain!' "If
only that were our destination, Sara. Things'd be simpler." Kurt spoke
from nearby. "Alas, the smiths of Blaze Peak are conservative. They want
no part of the hobbies and pastimes that are practiced where we're
headin'." Hobbies?
Pastimes? Was Kurt trying to baffle her with riddles? "You
can't still reckon we're going all the way to-" "To
the other great forge? Aye, Sara. We'll make it, don't fret." "But
the bridge is out! Then there's desert, and after that, the Spec . . ." She
trailed off as the troop turned downward, into the thorn brake between the
hills. Three times, riders dismounted to shift clever barriers that looked like
boulders or tree trunks. At last, they reached a small clearing where the
guides met and embraced another group of leatherclad women. There was a
campfire . . . and the welcome aroma of food. Despite
a hard day, Sara managed to unsaddle her own mount and brush the tired beast.
She ate standing, doubtful she would ever sit again. I
should check Emerson. Make sure he takes his medicine. He may need a story or a
song to settle down after all this. A small
figure slipped alongside, chuffing nervously. No-Go-Hole-
Prity motioned with agile hands. Scary-Hole. Sara
frowned. "What
hole are you talking about?" The
chimp took Sara's hand, pulling her toward several Illias, who were shifting
baggage to a squat, boxy object. A
wagon, Sara realized. A big one, with four wheels, instead of the usual two.
Fresh horses were harnessed, but to haul it where? Surely not through the
surrounding thicket! Then
Sara saw what "hole" Prity meant-gaping at the base of a cone hill.
An aperture with smooth walls and a flat floor. A thin glowing stripe ran along
the tunnel's center, continuing downhill before turning out of sight. Jomah
and Kurt were already aboard the big wagon, with Dedinger strapped in behind, a
stunned expression on his aristocratic face. For
once Sara agreed with the heretic sage. Emerson
stood at the shaft entrance and whooped, like a small boy exploring a cave
first with his own echoes. The starman grinned, happier than ever, and reached
for her hand. Sara took his while inhaling deeply. Well, I
bet Dwer and Lark never went anywhere like this. I may yet be the one with the best story to tell. I FOUND
MY FRIENDS IN A DIM CHAMBER WHERE frigid fog blurred every outline. Even
hobbling with crutches, my awkward footsteps made hardly a sound as I approached
the silhouettes of Huck and Ur-ronn, with little Huphu curled on Pincer's
carapace. All faced the other way, looking downward into a soft glow. "Hey,
what's going on?" I asked. "Is this any way to greet-" One of
Huck's eyestalks swerved on me. "We're-glad-'to-see-you're-all-right-but-now-shut-up
and-get-over-here." Few
other citizens of the Slope could squeeze all that into a single GalThree
word-blat. Not that skill excused her rudeness. "Hr-rm.
The-same-to-you-I'm-sure, oh-obsessed-beingtoo-transfaxed-to-qffer-decent-courtesy,"
I replied in kind. Shuffling
forward, I noted how my companions were transformed. Ur-ronn's pelt gleamed,
Huck's wheels were realigned, and Pincer's carapace had been patched and buffed
smooth. Even Huphu seemed sleek and content. "What
is it?" I began. "What're you all staring . . ." My
voice trailed off when I saw where they stood-on a balcony without a rail,
overlooking the source of both the pale glow and the chill haze. A cube-two
hoon lengths on a side, colored a pale shade of brownish yellow-lay swathed in
a fog of its own making, unadorned except by a symbol embossed on one face. A
spiral emblem with five swirling arms and a bulbous center, all crossed by a
gleaming vertical bar. Despite
how far the people of the Slope have fallen, or how long it's been since our
ancestors roamed as star gods, that emblem is known to every grub and child.
Inscribed on each copy of the Sacred Scrolls, it evokes awe when prophets and
sages speak of lost wonders. On this frosted obelisk it could only mean one
thing-that we stood near more knowledge than anyone on Jijo could tally, or
begin to imagine. If the human crew of sneakship Tabernacle had kept printing
paper books till this very day, they could have spilled only a small fragment
of the trove before us, a hoard that began before many stars in the sky. The
Great Library of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies. I'm
told moments like these can inspire eloquence from great minds. "J-j-jeez,"
commented Pincer. Ur-ronn
was less concise. "The
questions . . . ," she lisped. "The questions we could ask ..." I
nudged Huck. "Well,
you said you wanted to go find something to read." For the
first time in all the years I've known her, our little wheeled friend seemed at
a loss for words. Her stalks trembled. The only sound she let out was a gentle
keening sigh. Asx If only
we/i had nimble running feet, i/we
would use them now, to flee. If we/i
had burrowers' claws, i/we would dig a bole and hide. If we/i
had the wings, i/we would fly away. Lacking
those useful skills, the member toruses of our composite stack nearly vote to
draw permanently, sealing out the world, negating the objective universe,
waiting for the intolerable to go away. It will
not go away. So
reminds our second torus of cognition. Among
the greasy trails of wisdom that coat our aged core, many were laid down after
reading learned books, or holding lengthy discussions with other sages. These
tracks of philosophical wax agree with our second ring. As difficult as it may
be for a traeki to accept, the cosmos does not vanish when we turn within.
Logic and science appear to prove otherwise. The
universe goes on. Things that matter keep happening, one after another. Still,
it is hard to swivel our trembling sensor rings to face toward the mountain
dreadnought that recently lowered itself down from heaven, whose bulk seems to
fill both valley and sky. Harder
to gaze through a hatchway in the great ship's flank-an aperture broad as the
largest building in Tarek Town. Hardest
to regard the worst of all possible sights-those cousins that we traeki fled
long ago. Terrible
and strong-the mighty Jophur. How
gorgeous they seem, those glistening sap rings, swaying in their backlit
portal, staring without pity at the wounded glade their vessel alters with its
crushing weight. A glade thronging with half-animal felons, a miscegenous
rabble, the crude descendants of fugitives. Exiles
who futilely thought they might elude the ineludable. Our
fellow Commons citizens mutter fearfully, still awed by the rout of the smaller
Rothen ship-that power we had held in dread for months-now pressed down and
encased in deadly light. Yes, my
rings, i/we can sense how some nearby Sixers- the quick and prudent-take to
their heels, retreating even before the landing tremors fade. Others foolishly
mill toward the giant vessel, driven by curiosity, or awe. Perhaps they have
trouble reconciling the shapes they see with any sense of danger. As
harmless as a traeki, so the expression goes. After all, what menace can there
be in tapered stacks of fatty rings? Oh,
my,our poor innocent neighbors. You are about to find out. i^arl THAT
NIGHT HE DREAMED ABOUT THE LAST TIME HE saw Ling smile-before her world and his
forever changed. It
seemed long ago, during a moonlit pilgrimage that crept proudly past volcanic
vents and sheer cliffs, bearing shared hope and reverence toward the Holy Egg.
Twelve twelves of white-clad celebrants made up that processsion-qheuens and
g'Keks, traekis and urs, humans and hoons-climbing a hidden trail to their
sacred site. And accompanying them for the first time, guests from outer
space-a Rothen master, two Danik humans, and their robot guards-attending to
witness the unity rites of a quaint
savage tribe. He
dreamed about that pilgrimage in its last peaceful moment, before the
fellowship was splintered by alien words and fanatical deeds. Especially the
smile on her face, when she told him joyous news. "Ships
are coming, Lark. So many ships! "It's
time to bring you all back home." Two
words still throbbed like sparks in the night. Rhythmically hotter as he
reached for them in his sleep. . . .
ships ... . . .
home ... . . .
ships . . . . . .
home ... One
word vanished at his dream touch-he could not tell which. The other he clenched
hard, its flamelike glow increasing. Strange light, pushing free of
containment. It streamed past flesh, past bones. A glow that clarified,
offering to show him everything. Everything
except . . . Except
now shewas gone. Taken away by the word that vanished. Pain
wrenched Lark from the lonely night phantasm, tangled in a sweaty blanket. His
trembling right hand clenched hard against his chest, erupting with waves of
agony. Lark
exhaled a long sigh as he used his left hand to pry open the fingers of his
right, forcing them apart one by one. Something rolled off his open palm- It was
the stofle fragment of the Holy Egg, the one he had hammered from it as a
rebellious child, and worn ever since as penance. Even as sleep unraveled, he
imagined the rocky talisman throbbing with heat, pulsing in time to the beating
of his heart. Lark
stared at the blur-cloth canopy, with moonlight glimmering beyond. I
remain in darkness, on Jijo, he thought, yearning to see once more by the
radiance that had filled his dream. A light that seemed about to reveal distant
vistas. Ling
spoke to him later that day, when their lunch trays were slipped into the tent by
a nervous militiaman. "Look,
this is stupid," she said. "Each of us acting like the other is some
kind of devil spawn. We don't have time for grudges, with your people and mine
on a tragic collision course." Lark
had been thinking much the same thing, though her sullen funk had seemed too
wide to broach. Now Ling met his eyes frankly, as if anxious to make up for
lost time. "I'd
say a collision's already happened," he commented. Her
lips pressed a thin line. She nodded. "True.
But it's wrong to blame your entire Commons for the deeds of a minority, acting
without authority or-" He
barked a bitter laugh. "Even when you're trying to be sincere, you still
condescend, Ling." She
stared for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Your sages effectively
sanctioned the zealots' attack, post facto, by keeping us prisoner and
threatening blackmail. It's fair to say that we're already-" "At
war. True, dear ex-employer. But you leave out our own casus belli." Lark
knew the grammar must be wrong, but he liked showing that even a savage could
also drop a Latin phrase. "We're fighting for our lives. And now we know
genocide was the Rothen aim from the start." Ling
glanced past him to where a g'Kek doctor drew increasing amounts of nauseating
fluid from the air vents of a qheuen, squatting unconscious at the back of the
shelter. She had worked alongside Uthen for months, evaluating local species
for possible uplift. The gray's illness was no abstraction. "Believe
me, Lark. I know nothing of this disease. Nor the trick Ro-kenn allegedly
pulled, trying to broadcast psi influentials via your Egg." "Allegedly?
You suggest we might have the technology to pull off something like that, as a
frame-up?" Ling
sighed, "I don't dismiss the idea entirely. From the start you Jijoans
played on our preconceptions. Our willingness to see you as ignorant
barbarians. It took weeks to learn that you were still literate! Only lately
did we realize you must have hundreds of books, maybe thousands!" An
ironic smile crossed his face, before Lark realized how much the expression
revealed. "More
than that? A lot more?" Ling stared. "But where? By Von Daniken's beard-how?" Lark
put aside his meal, mostly uneaten. He reached over to his backpack and drew
forth a thick volume bound in leather. "I can't count how many times I
wanted to show you this. Now I guess it doesn't matter anymore." In a
gesture Lark appreciated, Ling wiped her hands before accepting the book,
turning the pages with deliberate care. What seemed reverence at first, Lark
soon realized was inexperience. Ling had little practice holding paper books. Probably
never saw one before, outside a museum. Rows of small type were punctuated by
lithographed illustrations. Ling exclaimed over the flat, unmoving images. Many
of the species shown had passed through the Danik research pavilion during the
months she and Lark worked side by side, seeking animals with the special
traits her Rothen masters desired. "How
old is this text? Did you find it here, among all these remnants?" Ling
motioned toward a stack of artifacts preserved by the mule spider, relics of
the long-departed Buyur, sealed in amber cocoons. Lark
groaned. "You're still doing it, Ling. For Ifni's sake! The book is written in Anglic." She
nodded vigorously. "Of course. You're right. But then who-" Lark
reached over and flipped the volume to its title page. fl
PHVLOGENEIIC INTERDEPENDENCE PROFILE OF ECOLOGICRL SYSTEMS ON THE JIJO lN SLOPE "This
is part one. Part two is still mostly notes. I doubt we'd have lived long
enough to finish volume three, so we left the deserts, seas, and tundras for
someone else to take on." Ling
gaped at the sheet of linen paper, stroking two lines of smaller print, below
the title. She looked at him, then over toward the dying qheuen. "That's
right," he said. "You're living in the same tent with both authors.
And since I'm presenting you with this copy, you have a rare opportunity. Care
to have both of us autograph it? I expect you're the last person who'll get the
chance." His
bitter sarcasm was wasted. Clearly she didn't understand the word autograph.
Anyway, Ling the biologist had replaced the patronizing alien invader. Turning
pages, she murmured over each chapter she skimmed. "This
would have been incredibly useful during our survey!" "That's
why I never showed it to you." Ling
answered with a curt nod. Given their disagreement over the rightness of gene
raiding, his attitude was understandable. Finally,
she closed the volume, stroking'the cover. "I am honored by this gift.
This accomplishment. I find I cannot grasp what it must have taken to create
it, under these conditions, just the two of you. ..." "With
the help of others, and standing on the shoulders of those who came before.
It's how science works. Each generation's supposed to get better, adding to
what earlier ones knew. . . ." His
voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying. Progress?
But that's Sara's apostasy, not mine! Anyway,
why am I so bitter? So what if alien diseases wipe out every sapient being on
Jijo? Weren't you willing to see that as a blessing, a while ago? Didn't it
seem an ideal way to swiftly end our illegal colony? A harmful invasion that
should never have existed in the first place? Over
the course of Uthen's illness, Lark came to realize something-that death can
sometimes seem desirable in abstract, but look quite different when it's in
your path, up close and personal. If
Harullen the Heretic had lived, that purist might have helped Lark cling to his
belief in Galactic law, which for good reason forbade settlements on fallow
worlds. It was our goal to atone for our ancestors' egotistical sin. To help
rid Jijo of the infestation. But
Harullen was gone, sliced to bits by a Rothen robot, and now Lark grappled with
doubts. I'd
rather Sara were right. If only I could see nobility here. Something worth
enduring. Worth fighting for. I don't
really want to die. Ling
pored through the guidebook again. Better than most, she could appreciate the
work he and Uthen spent their adult lives creating. Her professional esteem
helped bridge the chasm of their personalities. "I
wish I had something of equal value to give you," she said, meeting his
eyes again. Lark
pondered. "You
really mean that?" "Of
course I do." "All
right then, wait here. I'll be right back." At the
rear of the shelter, the g'Kek physician indicated with twined eyestalks that
Uthen's condition was unvaried. Good news, since each change till now had been
for the worse. Lark stroked his friend's chitin carapace, wishing he could
impart comfort through the gray's stupor. "Is
it my fault you caught this bug, old friend? I made you go with me into the
station wreckage, rummaging for alien secrets." He sighed. "I can't
make up for that. But what's in your bag may help others." He
lifted Uthen's private satchel and took it back to Ling. Reaching inside, he felt several slablike
objects, cool to the touch. "Earlier,
we found something that you might help me learn to read. If you meant your
promise." He put
one of the flat lozenges in her hand-pale brown and smooth as glass, with a
spiral shape etched on each face. Ling
stared at it for several duras. When she looked up, there was something new in
her countenance. Was it respect for the way he had cornered, her? Trapping her
with the one other trait they shared-a compelling sense of honor? For the
first time since they met, Ling's eyes seemed to concede that she was dealing
with an equal. ASX CALM
DOWN, MY RINGS. NO ONE CAN FORCE YOU to stroke wax against your will. As
traeki we are each of us sovereign, free not to recall intolerable memories
before we are ready. Let the
wax cool a little longer-a majority of rings demands-before we dare look again. Let the
most recent terror wait. But our
second cognition ring demurs. It insists-we/i should delay no longer
confronting the dread news about Jophur, our terrible cousins, arriving on
Jijo. Our
second ring of cognition reminds us of the Quandary of Solipsism-the riddle
that provoked our traeki founders to flee the Five Galaxies. Solipsism.
The myth of the all-important self. Most
mortal sapient beings hold this conceit, at one level or another. An individual
can perceive others by sight, touch, and empathy, yet still reckon them as mere
figments or automatons. Caricatures, of little importance. Under
solipsism, the world exists for each solitary individualist. Examined
dispassionately, it seems an insane concept. Especially to a traeki, since none
of us can thrive or think alone. Yet egotism can also be useful to ambitious
creatures, driving their single-minded pursuit of success. Madness
seems essential in order to be "great." Terran
sages knew this paradox from their long isolation. Ignorant and lonely, humans
wallowed in one bizarre superstition after another, frantically trying concepts
that no uplifted species would consider for even a dura. According to wolfling
tales, humans wrestled endlessly with their own overpowering egos. Some
tried suppressing selfness, seeking detachment. Others subsumed personal ambition in favor of a greater
whole-family, religion, or a leader. Later
they passed through a phase in which individualism was extolled as the highest
virtue, teaching their young to inflate the ego beyond all natural limits or
restraint. Works from this mad era of the self are found in the Biblos Archive,
with righteous, preening rage flowing across every page. Finally,
just before contact, there emerged another approach. Some of
their texts use the word maturity. We
traeki-newly uplifted from the pensive swamps of our homeworld-seemed safe from
achieving greatness, no matter how many skills our patrons, the blessed Poa,
inserted in our rings. Oh, we found it pleasant to merge in tall, wise stacks.
To gather learned wax and travel the stars. But to our patrons' frustration, we
never found appealing the fractious rivalries that churn the Five Galaxies.
Frantic aspiration and zeal always seemed pointless to our kind. Then
the Poa brought in experts. The Oailie. The Oailie pitied our handicap. With
great skill, they gave us tools for achievement. For greatness. The Oailie gave
us new rings- Rings of power. Rings of self-centered glory. Rings that turned
mere traeki into Jophur. Too late, we and the Poa learned a lesson-that
ambition comes at a cost. We
fled, did we not, my rings? By a
fluke, some traeki managed to shuck these Oailie "gifts," and escape. Only a
few wax-crystal remembrance cells survive from those days. Memories laced with
dread of what we were becoming. At the
time, our ancestors saw no choice but flight. And yet
... a pang of conscience trickles through our inner core. Might
there have been another way? Might
we have stayed and fought somehow to tame those awesome new rings? Futile as
our forebears' exodus now seems . . . was it also wrong' Since
joining the High Sages, this traeki Asx has pored over Terran books, studying
their lonely, epochal struggle-a poignant campaign to control their own deeply
solipsistic natures. A labor still under way when they emerged from Earth's
cradle to make contact with Galactic civilization. The
results of that Asx investigation remain inconclusive, yet i/we found
tantalizing clues. The
fundamental ingredient, it seems, is courage. Yes, my
rings? Very
well then. A majority has been persuaded by the second ring of cognition. We/i
shall once again turn to the hot-new-dreadful waxy trail of recent memory. Glistening
cones stared down at the confused onlookers who remained, milling on the
despoiled glade. From a balcony high a-flank the mountain ship, polished stacks
of fatty rings dripped luxuriously as they regarded teeming savages below-we
enthralled members of six exile races. Shifting
colors play across their plump toruses-shades of rapid disputation. Even at a
great distance, i/we sense controversy raging among the mighty Jophur, as they
quarrel among themselves. Debating our fate. Events
interrupt, even as our dribbling thought-streams converge. Near. At last
we have come very near the recent. The present. Can you
sense it, my rings? The moment when our dreadful cousins finished arguing what
to do about us? Amid the flashing rancor of their debate, there suddenly
appeared forceful decisiveness. Those in command-powerful ring stacks whose
authority is paramount-made their decree with stunning confidence. Such
assuredness! Such certainty! It washed over us, even from six arrowflights
away. Then
something else poured from the mighty dreadnought. Hatchet
blades of infernal light. Emerson HE HAS
NEVER BEEN ESPECIALLY FOND OF HOLES. This one both frightens and intrigues
Emerson. It is a strange journey, riding a wooden wagon behind a four-horse
team, creaking along a conduit with dimpled walls, like some endless stretched
intestine. The only illumination-a faintly glowing stripe-points straight ahead
and behind, toward opposite horizons. The
duality feels like a sermon. After departing the hidden forest entrance, time
became vague-the past blurry and the future obscure. Much like his life has
been ever since regaining consciousness on this savage world, with a cavity in
his head and a million dark spaces where memory should be. Emerson
can feel this place tugging associations deep within his battered skull.
Correlations that scratch and howl beyond the barriers of his amnesia. Dire
recollections lurk just out of reach. Alarming memories of abject, gibbering
terror, that snap. and sting whenever he seeks to retrieve them. Almost
as if, somehow, they were being guarded. Strangely,
this does not deter him from prodding at the barricades. He has spent much too
long in the company of pain to hold it in awe any longer. Familiar with its
quirks and ways, Emerson figures he now knows pain as well as he knows himself. Better,
in fact. Like a
quarry who turns at bay after growing bored with running-and then begins
hunting its pursuer-Emerson eagerly stalks the fear scent, following it to its
source. The
feeling is not shared. Though the draft beasts pant and their hooves clatter,
all echoes feel muffled, almost deathlike. His fellow travelers react by
hunching nervously on the narrow bench seats, their breath misting the chill
air. Kurt
the Exploser seems a little less surprised by all this than Sara or Dedinger,
as if the old man long suspected the existence of a subterranean path. Yet, his
white-rimmed eyes keep darting, as if to catch dreaded movement in the surrounding
shadows. Even their guides, the taciturn women riders, appear uneasy. They must
have come this way before, yet Emerson can tell they dislike the tunnel. Tunnel. He
mouths the word, adding it proudly to his list of recovered nouns. Tunnel. Once
upon a time, the term meant more than a mere hole in the ground, when his job
was fine-tuning mighty engines that roamed the speckled black of space. Back
then it stood for ... No more
words come to mind. Even images fail him, though oddly enough, equations stream
from some portion of his brain less damaged than the speech center. Equations
that explain tunnels, in a chaste, sterile way-the sort of multidimensional
tubes that thread past treacherous shoals of hyperspace. Alas, to his
disappointment, the formulas lack any power to yank memories to life. They do
not carry the telltale spoor of fear. Also
undamaged is his unfailing sense of direction. Emerson knows when the
smooth-walled passage must be passing under the broad river, but no seepage is
seen. The tunnel is a solid piece of Galactic workmanship, built to last for
centuries or eons-until the assigned time for dismantling. That
time came to this world long ago. This place should have vanished along with
all the great cities, back when Jijo was lain fallow. By some oversight, it was
missed by the great destroyer machines and living acid lakes. Now
desperate fugitives use the ancient causeway to evade a hostile sky, suddenly
filled with ships. While
still vague on details, Emerson knows he has been fleeing starships for a very
long time, along with Gillian, Hannes, Tsh 't, and the crew of Streaker. Faces
flicker, accompanying each name as recall agony makes him grunt and squeeze his
eyelids. Faces Emerson pines for . . . and desperately hopes never to see
again. He knows he must have been
sacrificed somehow, to help the others get away. Did the
plan succeed? Did Streaker escape ahead of those awful dreadnoughts? Or has he
suffered all of this for nothing? His
companions breathe heavily and perspire. They seem taxed by the stale air, but
to Emerson it is just another kind of atmosphere. He has inhaled many types
over the years. At least this stuff
nourishes the lungs . . . . . . unlike the wind back on the green-green world,
where a balmy day could kill you if your helmet failed. ... And his
helmet did fail, he now recalls, at the worst possible time, while trying to
cross a mat of sucking demiveg, running frantically toward- Sara
and Prity gasp aloud, snapping his mental thread, making him look up to see
what changed. At a
brisk pace the wagon enters a sudden widening of the tunnel, like the bulge
where a snake digests its meal. Dimpled walls recede amid deep shadows, where
dozens of large objects dimly lurk-tubelike vehicles, corroded by time. Some
have been crushed by rock falls. Piles of stony debris block other exits from
the underground vault. Emerson
lifts a hand to stroke a filmy creature riding his forehead, as lightly as a
scarf or veil. The rewq trembles at his touch, swarming down to lay its filmy,
translucent membrane over his eyes. Some colors dim, while others intensify.
The ancient transit cars seem to shimmer like specters, as if he is looking at
them not through space, but time. It is almost possible to imagine them in
motion, filled with vital energies, hurtling through a network that once
girdled a living, global civilization. The
horsewomen sitting on the foremost bench clutch their reins and peer straight
ahead, enclosed by a nimbus of tension made visible by the rewq. The film shows
Emerson their edgy, superstitious awe. To them, this is no harmless crypt for
dusty relics, but a macabre place where phantoms prowl. Ghosts from an age of
gods. The
creature on his brow intrigues Emerson. How does the little parasite translate
emotions-even between beings as different as human and traeki-and all without
words? Anyone who brought such a treasure to Earth would be richly rewarded. To his
right, he observes Sara comforting her chimpanzee aide, holding Prity in her
arms. The little ape cringes from the dark; echoless cavern, but the rewq's
overlaid colors betray a fringe of deceit in Prity's distress. It is partly an
act! A way to distract her mistress, diverting Sara from her own claustrophobic
fears. Emerson
smiles knowingly. The hues surrounding Sara reveal what the unaided eye already
knows-that the young woman thrives on being needed. "It's all right,
Prity," she soothes. "Shh. It'll be all right." The phrases are
so simple, so familiar that Emerson understands them. He used to hear the same
words while thrashing in his delirium, during those murky days after the crash,
when Sara's tender care helped pull him back from that pit of dark fire. The
vast chamber stretches on, with just the glowing stripe to keep them from
drifting off course. Emerson glances back to see young Jomah, seated on the
last bench with his cap a twisted mass between his hands, while his uncle Kurt
tries to explain something in hushed tones, motioning at the distant ceiling
and walls-perhaps speculating what held them up ... or what explosive force it
would take to bring them crashing down. Nearby, with fastened hands and feet,
the rebel, Dedinger, projects pure hatred of this place. Emerson
snorts annoyance with his companions. What a gloomy bunch! He has been in spots
infinitely more disturbing than this harmless tomb . . . some of them he can
even remember! If there is one sure truth he can recall from his former life,
it is that a cheerful journey goes much faster, whether you are in deep space
or the threshold of hell. From a
bag at his feet, he pulls out the midget dulcimer Ariana Foo had given him back
at the Biblos Archive, that ornate hall of endless corridors stacked high with
paper books. Not bothering with the hammers, he lays the instrument on his lap
and plucks a few strings. Twanging notes jar the others from their anxious
mutterings to look his way. Though
Emerson's ravaged brain lacks speech, he has learned ways to nudge and cajole.
Music comes from a different place than speech, as does song. Free
association sifts the shadowy files of memory. Early drawers and closets,
undammed by the traumas of later life. From some cache he finds a tune about
travel down another narrow road. One with a prospect of hope at the end of the
line. It
spills forth without volition, as a whole, flowing to a voice that's
unpracticed, but strong. "I've
got a mule, her name is Sal, Fifteen
miles down the Erie Canal. She's a
good old worker and a good old pal, Fifteen
miles down the Erie Canal. We've
hauled some cargo in our day, Filled
with lumber, coal, and hay, And we
know every inch of the way, From
Albany to Buffalo-o-o. ..." Amid
the shadows, they are not easily coaxed from their worries. He too can feel the
weight of rock above, and so many years. But Emerson refuses to be oppressed.
He sings louder, and soon Jomah's voice joins the refrain, followed tentatively
by Sara's. The horses' ears flick. They nicker, speeding to a canter. The
subterranean switching yard narrows again, walls converging with a rush. Ahead,
the glowing line plunges into a resuming tunnel. Emerson's
voice briefly falters as a flicker of memory intrudes. Suddenly he can recall
another abrupt plunge . . . diving through a portal that opened into jet vacuum
blankness . . . then falling as the universe converged on him from all sides to
squeeze. . . . And
something else. A row
of pale blue eyes. Old
Ones . . . But the
song has a life of its own. Its momentum pours unstoppably from some cheerful
corner of his mind, overcoming those brief, awful images, making him call out
the next verse with a vigor of hoarse, throaty defiance. "Low
bridge, everybody down! Low
bridge! 'Cause we're comin' to a town. And you
I'll always know your neighbor, Always
know your pal, If you
ever navigate along the Erie Canal." His
companions lean away from the rushing walls. Their shoulders press together as
the hole sweeps up to swallow them again. PART
THREE ONCE A LENGTHY
EPISODE of colonization finally comes to an end, subduction recycling Is among
the more commonly used methods for clearing waste products on a llle
world. Where natural cycles of plate
tectonics provide a powerful indrawing force, the planets own hot convection
processes can melt and remix elements that had been rationed into tools and
civilised implements. materials that might otherwise prove poisonous or
intrusive to new-rising species are thus removed from the (allow environment,
as a world eases into the necessary dormant phase. What
happens to these refined materials, alter they have been drawn in, depends on
mantle processes peculiar to each planet. Certain convection systems turn the
molten substance into high-purity ores. borne become lubricated by water seeps,
stimulating the release or great liquid magma spills, ,et another result can be
sudden expulsions of volcanic dust, which richly coat the planet and can later
be traced in the refractory-metal enrichment of thin sedimentary layers. Each of
these outcomes can result in perturbations of the local biosphere, and
occasional episodes of extinction. However, the resulting enrichment fccunJity
usually proves benehcial enough to compensate, encouraging development of new
presapient species. . . .from A. Oalactograpfuc Tutorial for Ignorant Voiding
Tsrrans, a. special publication of the Library Institute of the Five Galaxies,
year 42 EC, in partial satisfaction of the debt obligation of 35 t,C Hannes SUESSI
FELT NOSTALGIC ABOUT BEING HUMAN. NOW and then, he even wished he were still a
man. Not that he was ungrateful for the hoon the Old Ones had granted him, in
that strange place called the Fractal System, where aloof beings transformed
his aged, failing body into something more durable. Without their gift, he
would be stone dead-as cold as the giant corpses surrounding him in this dark
ossuary of ships. The
ancient vessels seemed peaceful, in dignified repose. It was tempting to
contemplate resting, letting eons pass without further care or strife. But
Suessi was much too busy to spare time for being dead. "Hannes,"
a voice crackled directly to his auditory nerve. "Two
minutes, Hannes. Then I think-k we'll be ready to resume cut-t-ting." Shafts
of brilliant illumination speared through the watery blackness, casting bright
ovals toward one curved hull segment of the Terran starship Streaker. Distorted
silhouettes crisscrossed the spotlight beams-the long undulating shadows of
workers clad in pressurized armor, their movements slow, cautious. This
was a more dangerous realm than hard vacuum. Suessi
did not have a larynx anymore, or lungs to blow air past one if he had. Yet he
retained a voice. "Standing
by, Karkaett," he transmitted, then listened as his words were rendered
into groaning saser pulses. "Please
keep the alignment steady. Don't overshoot." One
shadow among many turned toward him. Though cased in hard sheathing, the
dolphin's tail performed a twist turn with clear body-language meaning. Trust me
. . . do you have any choice? Suessi
laughed-a shuddering of his titanium rib cage that replaced the old, ape-style
method of syncopated gasps. It wasn't as satisfying, but then, the Old Ones did
not seem to have much use for laughter. Karkaett
guided his team through final preparations while Suessi monitored. Unlike some
others in Streaker's crew, the engineering staff had grown more seasoned and
confident with each passing year. In time, they might no longer need the
encouragement-the supervising crutch- of a member of the patron race. When that
day came, Hannes would be content to die. I've
seen too much. Lost too many friends. Someday, we'll be captured by one of the
eatee factions pursuing us. Or else, we'll finally get a chance to turn ourselves
in to some great Institute, only to learn Earth was lost while we fled
helter-skelter across the universe. Either way, I don't want to be around to
see it. The Old
Ones can keep their Ifni-cursed, immortality. Suessi
admired the way his well-trained team worked, setting up a specially designed
cutting machine with cautious deliberation. His audio pickups tracked low
mutterings-keeneenk chants, designed to help cetacean minds concentrate on
explicit thoughts and tasks that their ancestral brains were never meant to
take on. Engineering thoughts-the kind that some dolphin philosophers called
the most painful price of uplift. These
surroundings did not help-a mountainous graveyard of long-dead starcraft, a
ghostly clutter, buried in the kind of ocean chasm that dolphins traditionally
associated with their most cryptic cults and mysteries. The dense water seemed
to amplify each rattle of a tool. Every whir of a harness arm resonated queerly
in the dense liquid environment. Anglic
might be the language of engineers, but dolphins preferred Trinary for
punctuation-for moments of resolution and action. Karkaett's voice conveyed
confidence in a burst phrase of cetacean haiku. *
Through total darkness * Where
the cycloid's gyre comes never . . . * Behold-decisiveness!
f The
cutting tool lashed out, playing harsh fire toward the vessel that was their
home and refuge . . . that had carried them through terrors unimaginable.
Streaker's hull- purchased by the Terragens Council from a third-hand ship dealer
and converted for survey work-had been the pride of impoverished Earthclan, the
first craft to set forth with a dolphin captain and mostly cetacean crew, on a
mission to check the veracity of the billion-year-old Great Library of the
Civilization of the Five Galaxies. Now the
captain was gone, along with a quarter of the crew. Their mission had turned
into a calamity for both Earthclan and the Five Galaxies. As for Streaker's
hull- once so shiny, despite her age-it now lay coated by a mantle of material
so black the abyssal waters seemed clear by comparison. A substance that drank
photons and weighed the ship down. Oh, the
things we've put you through, dear thing.
This was but the latest trial for their poor ship. Once,
bizarre fields stroked her in a galactic tide pool called the Shallow Cluster,
where they "struck it rich" by happening upon a vast derelict fleet
containing mysteries untouched for a thousand eons. In other words, where
everything first started going wrong. Savage
beams rocked her at the Morgran nexus point, where a deadly surprise ambush,
barely failed to snare Streaker and her unsuspecting crew. Making
repairs on poisonous Kithrup, they ducked out almost too late, escaping mobs of
bickering warships only by disguising Streaker inside a hollowed-out Thennanin
cruiser, making it to a transfer point, though at the cost of abandoning many
friends. Oakka,
the green world, seemed an ideal goal after that-a sector headquarters for the
Institute of Navigation. Who was better qualified to take over custody of their
data? As Gillian Baskin explained at the time, it was their duty as Galactic
citizens to turn the problem over to the great institutes-those august agencies
whose impartial lords might take the awful burden away from Streaker's tired
crew. It seemed logical enough-and nearly spelled their doom. Betrayal by
agents of that "neutral" agency showed how far civilization had
fallen in turmoil. Gillian's hunch saved the Earthling company-that and a
daring cross-country raid by Emerson D'Anite, taking the conspirators' base
from behind. Again,
Streaker emerged chastened and worse for wear. There
was refuge for a while in the Fractal System, that vast maze where ancient
beings gave them shelter. But eventually that only led to more betrayal, more
lost friends, and a flight taking them ever farther from home. Finally,
when further escape seemed impossible, Gillian found a clue in the Library unit
they had captured on Kithrup. A syndrome called the "Sooner's Path."
Following that hint, she plotted a dangerous road that might lead to safety,
though it meant passing through the licking flames of a giant star, bigger than
Earth's orbit, whose soot coated Streaker in layers almost too heavy to lift. But she
made it to Jijo. This
world looked lovely, from orbit. Too bad we had only that one glimpse, before
plunging to an abyssal graveyard of ships. Under
sonar guidance by dolphin technicians, their improvised cutter attacked
Streaker's hull. Water boiled into steam so violently that booming echoes
filled this cave within a metal mountain. There were dangers to releasing so
much energy in a confined space. Separated gases might recombine explosively.
Or it could make their sanctuary detectable from space. Some suggested the risk
was too great . . . that it would be better to abandon St reaker and instead
try reactivating one of the ancient hulks surrounding them as a replacement. There
were teams investigating that possibility right now. But Gillian and Tsh't
decided to try this instead, asking Suessi's crew to pull off one more
resurrection. The
choice gladdened Hannes. He had poured too much into Streaker to give up now.
There may be more of me in her battered shell than remains in this cyborg body. Averting
his sensors from the cutter's actinic glow, he mused on the mound of cast-off
ships surrounding this makeshift cavern. They seemed to speak to him, if only
in his imagination. We,
too, have stories, they said. Each of us was launched with pride, flown with
hope, rebuilt many times with skill, venerated by those we protected from the
sleeting desolation of space, long before your own race began dreaming of the
stars. Suessi
smiled. All that might have impressed him once- the idea of vessels millions of
years old. But now he knew a truth about these ancient hulks. You
want old? he thought. I've seen old. I've
seen ships that make most stars seem young. The
cutter produced immense quantities of bubbles. It screeched, firing ionized
bolts against the black layer, just centimeters away. But when they turned it
off at last, the results of all that eager destructive force were
disappointing. "That-t's
all we removed?" Karkaett asked, incredulously, staring at a small patch
of eroded carbon. "It'll take years to cut it all away, at-t this
rate!" The
engineer's mate, Chuchki, so bulky she nearly burst from her exo-suit,
commented in awed Trinary. *
Mysteries cluster *
Frantic, in Ifni's shadow-^ * Where
did the energy go! * Suessi
wished he still had a head to shake, or shoulders to shrug. He made do instead
by emitting a warbling sigh into the black water, like a beached pilot whale. * Not
by Ifni's name, * But
her creative employer- *I wish
to God I.knew. * Gillian IT
ISN'T EASY FOR A HUMAN BEING TO PRETEND she's an alien. Especially
if the alien is a Thennanin. Shrouds
of deceitful color surrounded Gillian, putting ersatz flesh around the lie,
providing her with an appearance of leathery skin and a squat bipedal stance.
On her head, a simulated crest rippled and flexed each time she nodded. Anyone
standing more than two meters away would see a sturdy male warrior with armored
derma and medallions from a hundred stellar campaigns-not a slim blond woman
with fatigue-lined eyes, a physician forced by circumstances to command a
little ship at war. The
disguise was pretty good by now. It ought to be. She had been perfecting it for
well over a year. "Gr-phmph
pitith," Gillian murmured. When
she first started pulling these charades, the Niss Machine used to translate
her Anglic questions into Thennanin. But now Gillian figured she was probably
as fluent in that Galactic dialect as any human alive. Probably even Tom. It
still sounds weird though. Kind of like a toddler making disgusting fart
imitations for the fun of it. At
times, the hardest part was struggling not to break out laughing. That would
not do, of course. Thennanin weren't noted for their sense of humor. She
continued the ritual greeting. "Fhishmishingul
parfful, mph!" Chill
haze pervaded the dim chamber, emanating from a sunken area where a
beige-colored cube squatted, creating its own wan illumination. Gillian could
not help thinking of it as a magical box-a receptacle folded in many
dimensions, containing far more than any vessel its size should rightfully
hold. She
stood at a lipless balcony, masked to resemble the former owners of the box,
awaiting a reply. The barredspiral symbol on its face seemed slippery to the
eye, as if the emblem were slyly looking back at her with a soul far older than
her own. "Toftorph-ph
parffuL Fhishfingtumpti parfffui" The
voice was deeply resonant. If she had been a real Thennanin, those undertones
would have stroked her ridge crest, provoking respectful attentiveness. Back
home, the Branch Library of Earth spoke like a kindly human grandmother,
infinitely experienced, patient, and wise. "I
am prepared to witness," murmured a button in her ear, rendering the
machine's words in Anglic. "Then I will be available for
consultation." That
was the perpetual trade-off. Gillian could not simply demand information from
the archive. She had to give as well. Normally,
that would pose no problem. Any Library unit assigned to a major ship of space
was provided camera views of the control room and the vessel's exterior, in
order to keep a WOM record for posterity. In return, the archive offered rapid
access to wisdom spanning almost two billion years of civilization, condensed
from planet scale archives of the Library Institute of the Civilization of Five
Galaxies. Only
there's a rub, Gillian thought. Streaker
was not a "major ship of space." Her own WOM units were solid, cheap,
unresponsive-the only kind that impoverished Earth could afford. This lavish
cube was a far greater treasure, salvaged on Kithrup from a mighty war cruiser
of a rich starfaring clan. She
wanted the cube to continue thinking it was on that cruiser, serving a
Thennanin admiral. Hence this disguise. "Your
direct watcher pickups are still disabled," she explained, using the same
dialect. "However, I have brought more recent images, taken by portable
recording devices. Please
accept-and-receive this data now." She
signaled the Niss Machine, her clever robotic assistant in the next room. At
once there appeared next to the cube a series of vivid scenes. Pictures of the
suboceanic trench that local Jijoans called the "Midden"-carefully
edited to leave out certain things. We're
playing a dangerous game, she thought, as flickering holosims showed huge
mounds of ancient debris, discarded cities, and abandoned spacecraft. The idea
was to pretend that the Thennanin dreadnought Krondor's Fire was hiding for
tactical reasons in this realm of dead machines . . . and to do this •without
showing Streaker's own slender hull, or any sign of dolphins, or even revealing
the specific name and locale of this planet. If we
make it home, or to a neutral Institute base, we'll be legally bound to hand
over this unit. Even under anonymous seal, it would be safest for it to know as
little as we can get away with telling. Anyway,
the Library might not prove as cooperative to mere Earthlings. Better to keep
it thinking it was dealing with its official lease-holders. Ever
since the disaster at Oakka, Gillian had made this her chief personal project,
pulling off a hoax in order to pry data out of their prize. In many ways, the
Library cube was more valuable than the relics Streaker had snatched from the
Shallow Cluster. In
fact, the subterfuge had worked better than expected. Some of the information won so far might prove critically useful
to the Terragens Council. Assuming
we ever make it home again . . . Ever
since Kithrup, when Streaker lost the best and brightest of her crew, that had
always seemed a long shot, at best. In one
particular area of technology, twenty-second-century humans had already nearly
equaled Galactic skill levels, even before contact. Holographic
imagery. Special-effects
wizards from Hollywood, Luanda, and Aristarchus were among the first to dive
confidently into alien arts, undismayed by anything as trivial as a billionyear
head start. Within mere decades Earthlings could say they had mastered a single
narrow field as well as the best starfaring clans- Virtuosity
at lying with pictures. For
thousands of years, when we weren't scratching for food we were telling each
other fables. Prevaricating. Propagandizing. Casting illusions. Making movies. Lacking
science, our ancestors fell back on magic. The
persuasive telling of untruths. Still
it seemed a wonder to Gillian that her Thennanin disguise worked so well.
Clearly the "intelligence" of this unit, while awesome, was of a
completely different kind than hers, with its own limitations. Or else
maybe it simply doesn 't care. From
experience, Gillian knew the Library cube would accept almost anything as
input, as long as the show consisted of credible scenes it had never witnessed
before. So Jijo's abyss flashed before it-this time the panoramas came over
fiber cable from the western sea, sent by Kaa's team of explorers, near the
settled region called the Slope. Ancient buildings gaped-drowned, eyeless, and
windowless-under the scrutiny of probing searchlight beams. If anything, this
waste field was even greater than the one where Streaker took refuge. The
accumulated mass of made-things collected by a planetary culture for a million
years. Finally,
the cascade of images ceased. There
followed a brief pause while Gillian waited edgily. Then the beige box commented. "The
event stream remains disjointed from previous ones. Occurrences do not'take
place in causal-temporal order related to inertial movements of this vessel. Is
this effect a result of the aforementioned battle damage?" Gillian
had heard the same complaint-the very same words, in fact-ever since she began
this ruse, shortly after Tom brought the'captured prize aboard Streaker . . .
only days before he flew away to vanish from her life. In
response, she gave the same bluff as always. "That
is correct. Until repairs are completed, penalties for any discrepancies may be
assessed to the Krondor's Fire mission account. Now please prepare for
consultation." This
time there was no delay. "Proceed
with your request," Using a
transmitter in her left hand, Gillian signaled to the Niss Machine, waiting in
another room. The Tymbrimi spy entity at once began sending data requisitions,
a rush of flickering light that no organic being could hope to follow. Soon the
info flow went bidirectional-a torrential response that forced Gillian to avert
her eyes. Perhaps, amid that flood, there might be some data helpful to
Streaker's crew, increasing their chances of survival. Gillian's
heart beat faster. This moment had its own dangers. If a starship happened to
be scanning nearby-perhaps one of Streaker's pursuers-onboard cognizance
detectors might pick up a high level of digital activity in this area. But
Jijo's ocean provided a lot of cover, as did the surrounding mountain of
discarded starships. Anyway, the risk seemed worthwhile. If only
so much of the information offered by the cube weren't confusing! A lot of it
was clearly meant for starfarers with far more experience and sophistication
than the Streaker crew. Worse,
we're running out of interesting things to show the Library. Without fresh
input, it might withdraw. Refuse to cooperate at all. That
was one reason she decided yesterday to let the four native kids come into this
misty chamber and visit the archive. Since Alvin and his friends didn't yet
know they were aboard an Earthling vessel, there wasn't much they could give
away, and the effect on the Library unit might prove worthwhile. Sure
enough, the cube seemed bemused by the unique sight of an urs and hoon, standing
amicably together. And the existence of a living g'Kek was enough, all by
itself, to satisfy the archive's passive curiosity. Soon afterward, it
willingly unleashed a flood of requested information about the varied types of
discarded spaceships surrounding Streaker in this underwater trash heap,
including parameters used by ancient Buyur control panels. That
was helpful. But we need more. A lot more. I guess
it won't be long until I'm forced to pay with real secrets, Gillian
had some good ones she could use ... if she dared. In her office, just a few
doors down, lay a mummified cadaver well over a billion years old. Herbie. To get
hold of that relic-and the coordinates where it came from-most of the fanatic,
pseudo-religious alliances in the Five Galaxies had been hunting Streaker since
before Kithrup. Pondering
the chill beige cube, she thought- I'll
bet if I showed you one glimpse of of' Herb, you 'd have a seizure and spill
every datum you've got stored inside. Funny
thing is . . . nothing would make me happier in all the universe than if we'd
never seen the damned thing. As a
girl, Gillian had dreamed of star travel, and someday doing bold, memorable
things. Together, she and Tom had planned their careers-and marriage-with a single
goal in mind. To put themselves at the very edge, standing between Earth and
the enigmas of a dangerous cosmos. Recalling
that naive ambition, and how extravagantly it was fulfilled, Gillian very
nearly laughed aloud. But with pressed lips she managed to keep the bitter,
poignant irony bottled inside, without uttering a sound. For the
time being, she must maintain the dignified presence of a Thennanin admiral. Thennanin
did not appreciate irony. And they never Sooners
ASX YOU MIGHT
AS WELL GET USED TO IT, MY RINGS. The piercing sensations you feel are My
fibrils of control, creeping down our shared inner core, bypassing the slow,
old-fashioned, waxy trails, attaching and penetrating your many toroid bodies,
bringing them into new order. Now
begins the lesson, when I teach you to be docile servants of something greater
than yourselves. No longer a stack of ill-wed components, always quarreling,
paralyzed with indecision. No more endless voting over what beliefs shall be
held by a fragile, tentative ('. That
was the way of our crude ancestor stacks, meditating loose, confederated
thoughts in the odor-rich marshes of Jophekka World. Overlooked by other star
clans, we seemed unpromising material for uplift. But the great, sluglike Poa
saw potential in our pensive precursors, and began upraising those unlikely
mounds. Alas,
after a million years, the Poa grew frustrated with our languid traeki natures. "Design
new rings for our clients," they beseeched the clever Oailie, "to boost,
guide, and drive them onward." The
Oailie did not fail, so great was their mastery of genetic arts. WHAT
WAS THEIR TRANSFORMING GIFT? New,
ambitious rings. Master
rings. LIKE
ME. Will
they break their promise, once we've shared all we know? Maybe
they'll fake the answers. (How could we tell?) Or
perhaps they'll let us talk to the cube all we want, because they figure the
knowledge won't do us any good, since we're never going home again. On the
other hand, let's say it's all open and sincere. Say we do get a chance to pose
questions to the Library unit, that storehouse of wisdom collected by a
billion-year-old civilization. What on
Jijo could we possibly have to say? Alvin THIS IS
A TEST. I'M TRYING OUT A BURNISH-NEW WAY of writing. If you
call this "writing"-where I talk out loud and watch sentences appear
in midair above a little box I've been given. Oh,
it's uttergloss all right. Last night, Huck used her new autoscribe to fill a
room with words and glyphs in GalThree, GalEight, and every obscure dialect she
knew, ordering translations back and forth until it seemed she was crowded on
all sides by glowing symbols. Our
hosts gave us the machines to help tell our life stories, especially how the
Six Races live together on the Slope. In return, the spinning voice promised a
reward. Later,
we'll get to ask questions of the big chilly box. Huck
went delirious over the offer. Free access to a memory unit of the Great
Library of the Five Galaxies! Why, it's
like telling Cortes he could have a map to the Lost Cities of Gold, or when the
legendary hoonish hero Yuqwourphmin found a password to control the robot
factories of Kurturn. My own nicknamesake couldn't have felt more awe, not even
when the secrets of Vanamonde and the Mad Mind were revealed in all their
fearsome glory. Unlike
Huck, 'though, I view the prospect with dark worry. Like a detective in some
old-time Earth storybook, I gotta ask-where's the catch? I've
just spent a midura experimenting. Dictating text. Backing up and rewriting.
The autoscribe sure is a lot more flexible than scratching away with a pencil
and a ball of guarru gum for an eraser! Hand motions move chunks of text like
solid objects. I don't even have to speak aloud, but simply will the words,
like that little tickle when you mutter under your breath so's no one else can
hear. I know it's not true mind reading-the machine must be sensing muscle
changes in my throat or something. I read about such things in The Black Jack
Era and Luna City Hobo. But it's unnerving anyway. Like
when I asked to see the little machine's dictionary of Anglic synonyms! I
always figured I had a good vocabulary, from memorizing the town's copy of
Roget's Thesaurus'. But it turns out that volume left out most of the Hindi and
Arabic cognate grafts onto the English-Eurasian rootstock. This tiny box holds
enough words to keep Huck and me humble ... or me, at least. My pals
are in nearby rooms, reciting their own memoirs. I expect Huck will rattle off
something fast-paced, lurid, and carelessly brilliant to satisfy our hosts.
Ur-ronn will be meticulous and dry, while Pincer will get distracted telling
breathless stories about sea monsters. I have a head start because my journal
already holds the greater part of our personal story-how we four adventurers
got to this place of weirdly curved corridors, far beneath the waves. So I
have time to worry about why the phuvnthus want to know about us. It
could just be curiosity. On the other hand, what if something we say here
eventually winds up hurting our kinfolk, back on the Slope? I can hardly
picture how. I mean, it's not like we know any military secrets-except about
the urrish cache that Uriel the Smith sent us underwater to retrieve. But the
spinning voice already knows about that. In my
cheerier moments I envision the phuvnthus letting us take the treasure back,
taking us home to Wuphon in their metal whale, so we seem to rise from the dead
like the fabled crew of the Hukuph-tau . . . much to the surprise of Uriel,
Urdonnol, and our parents, who must have given us up for lost. Optimistic
fantasies alternate with other scenes I can't get out of my head, like
something that happened right after the whale sub snatched Wuphon's Dream out
of its death plunge. I have this hazy picture of bug-eyed spiderthings stomping
through the wreckage of our handmade vessel, jabbering weird ratchety speech,
then jumping back in mortal terror at the sight of Ziz, the harmless little
traeki five-stack given us by Tyug the Alchemist. Streams
of fire blasted poor Ziz to bits. You got
to wonder what anyone would go and do a mean thing like that for. effortless
and easily corrected. It encourages running off at the mouth, when good old
pencil and paper meant you had to actually think in advance what you were going
to sa- Wait a
minute. What was that? There
it goes again. A faint booming sound . . . only louder this time. Closer. I don't
think I like it. Not at all. Ifni!
This time it set the floor quivering. The
rumble reminds me of Guenn Volcano back home, belchin' and groanin', making
everybody in Wuphon wonder if it's the long-awaited Big 0-Jeekee sac-rot! No
fooling this time. Those
are explosions, getting close fast! Now
comes another noise, like a zookir screeching its head off 'cause it sat on a
quill lizard. Is that
the sound a siren makes? I always wondered- Gishtuphwayo!
Now the lights go dim. The floor jitters- What is
Ifni-slucking going on! Dwer I might
as well get to work. How to
begin my story? Call me
Alvin. ... No. Too
hackneyed. How about this opening? Alvin
Hph-wayuo woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant . . . Uh-uh.
That's hitting too close to home. Maybe I
should model my tale after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Here we are, castaways
being held as cordial prisoners in an underwater world. Despite being female,
Huck would insist she's the heroic Ned Land character. Ur-ronn would be
Professor Aronnax, of course, which leaves either Pincer OR me to be the comic
fall guy, Conseil. So when
are we going to .finally meet Afewo? Hmm.
That's a disadvantage of this kind of writing, so THE
VIEW FROM THE HIGHEST DUNE WASN'T Promising The Danik scout craft was at least
five or six leagues out to sea, a tiny dot, barely visible beyond a distinct
line where the water's hue changed from pale bluish green to almost black. The
flying machine cruised back and forth, as if searching for something it had
misplaced. Only rarely, when the wind shifted, did they catch the faint rumble
of its engines, but every forty or so duras Dwer glimpsed something specklike
tumble from the belly of the sleek boat, glinting in the morning sun before it
struck the sea. Ten more duras would pass after the object sank- then the
ocean's surface bulged with a hummock of roiling foam, as if an immense monster
suffered dying spasms far below. "What's
Kunn doing?" Dwer asked. He turned to Rety, who shaded her eyes to watch
the distant flier. "Do you have any idea?" The
girl started to shrug her shoulders, but yee, the little urrish male, sprawled
there, snaking his slender neck to aim all three eyes toward the south. The
robot rocked impatiently, bobbing up and down as if trying to signal the
distant flier with its body. "I
don't know, Dwer," Rety replied. "I reckon it has somethin' to do
with the bird." "Bird,"
he repeated blankly. "You
know. My metal bird. The one we saved from the mule spider." "
That bird?" Dwer nodded. "You were going to show it to the sages. How
did the aliens get their hands-" Rety
cut in. "The
Daniks wanted to know where it came from. So Kunn asked me to guide him here,
to pick up Jass, since he was the one who saw where the bird came to shore. I
never figured that'd mean leavin' me behind in the village. . . ." She bit
her lip. "Jass must've led Kunn here. Kunn said somethin' about 'flushin'
prey.' I guess he's tryin' to get more birds." "Or
else whoever made your bird, and sent it ashore." "Or
else that." She nodded, clearly uncomfortable. Dwer chose not to press for
details about her deal with the star humans. As
their journey south progressed, the number of marshy streams had multiplied,
forcing Dwer to "carry" the robot several more times before he finally
called a halt around dusk. There had been a brief confrontation when the combat
machine tried intimidating him to continue. But its god weapons had been
wrecked in the ambush at the sooner camp, and Dwer faced the robot's snapping
claws without flinching, helped by a strange detachment, as if his mind had
somehow grown while enduring the machine's throbbing fields. Hallucination or
not, the feeling enabled him to call its bluff. , With
grudging reluctance that seemed lifelike, the robot gave in. By a small fire,
Dwer had shared with Rety the donkey jerky in his pouch. After a moment's
hesitation, Rety brought out her own contribution, two small lozenges sealed in
wrappers that felt slick to the touch. She showed Dwer how to unwrap his, and
guffawed at the look on his face when intense, strange flavors burst in his
mouth. He laughed, too, almost inhaling the Danik candy the wrong way. Its
lavish sweetness won a place on his List of Things I'm Glad I Did Before Dying. Later,
huddled with Rety on the banked coals, Dwer dreamed a succession of fantastic
images far more potent than normal-perhaps an effect of "carrying"
the robot, conducting its ground-hugging fields. Instead of crushing weight, he
fantasized lightness, as if his body wafted, unencumbered. Incomprehensible
panoramas flickered under closed eyelids . . . objects glimmering against dark
backgrounds, or gassy shapes, glowing of their own accord. Once, a strange
sense of recognition seized him, a timeless impression of loving familiarity. The
Egg, his sleeping consciousness had mused. Only the sacred stone looked
strange-not an outsized pebble squatting in a mountain cleft, but something
like a huge, dark sun, whose blackness outshone the glitter of normal stars. Their
journey resumed before dawn, and featured only two more water crossings before
reaching the sea. There the robot picked them up and streaked eastward along
the beach until it reached this field of dunes-a high point to scan the strange
blue waters of the Rift. At
least Dwer thought it was the Rift-a great cleft splitting the continent. I
wish I still had my telescope, he thought. With it he might glean some idea
what the pilot of the scout ship was trying to accomplish. Flushing
out prey, Rety said. If that
was Kunn's aim, the Danik star warrior could learn a thing or two about hunting
technique. Dwer recalled one lesson old Fallon taught him years ago. No
matter how potent your weapon, or whatever game you're after, it's never a good
idea to be both beater and shooter. If there's just one of you, forget driving
your quarry. The
solitary hunter masters patience, and silently learns the ways of his prey. That
approach had one drawback. It required empathy. And the better you learn to
feel like your prey, the greater the chance you may someday stop calling it
prey at all. "Well,
we settled one thing," Rety commented, watching the robot semaphore its
arms wildly at the highest point of the dune, like a small boy waving to
parents who were too far away to hear. "You must've done a real job on its
comm gear. Even the short range won't work, on line-o'-sight." Dwer
was duly impressed. Rety had learned a lot during her stint as an adopted
alien. "Do
you think the pilot could spot us by eye, when he heads back toward the village
to pick you up?" Dwer asked. "Maybe
. . . supposin' he ever meant to do that. He may forget all about me when he
finds what he wants, and just zip west to the Rothen station, to report." Dwer
knew that Rety had already lost some favor with the sky humans. Her voice was
bitter, for aboard that distant flying dot rode Jass, her tormentor while
growing up in a savage tribe. She had arranged vengeance for the bully. But now
Jass stood at the pilot's elbow, currying favor while Rety was stuck down here. Her
worry was clear. What if her lifelong enemy won the reward she had struggled
and connived for? Her ticket to the stars? "Hmm.
Well, then we better make sure he doesn't miss us when he cruises by." Dwer
wasn't personally anxious to meet the star pilot who had blasted the poor
urrish sooners so unmercifully from above. He fostered no illusion of gentle
treatment at Kunn's hands. But the scout boat offered life and hope for Rety.
And perhaps by attracting the Danik's attention he could somehow prevent the
man's quick return to the Gray Hills. Danel Ozawa had been killed in the brief
fight with the robot, but Dwer might still buy time for Lena Strong and the
urrish chief to work out an accord with Rety's old band . . . beating a stealthy
retreat to some place where star gods would never find them. A delaying action
could be Dwer's last worthwhile service. "Let's
build a fire," the girl suggested, gesturing toward the beach, littered
with driftwood from past storms. "I
was just about to suggest that," Dwer replied. She
chuckled. "Yeah, right! Sure you were." Sara AT
FIRST THE ANCIENT TUNNEL SEEMED HORRID and gloomy. Sara kept imagining a dusty
Buyur tube car coming to life, an angry phantom hurtling toward the little horse-drawn
wagon, bent on punishing fools who disturbed its ghostly domain. Dread clung
fast for a while, making each breath come short and sharp between rapid
heartbeats. But
fear has one great enemy, more powerful than confidence or courage. Tedium. Chafed
from sitting on the bench for miduras, Sara eventually let go of the dismal
oppression with a long sigh. She slipped off the wagon to trot alongside-at
first only to stretch her legs, but then for longer periods, maintaining a
steady jog. After a
while, she even found it enjoyable. I guess
I'm just adapting to the times. There may be no place for intellectuals in the
world to come. Emerson
joined her, grinning as he kept pace with longlegged strides. And soon the
tunnel began to lose its power over some of the others, as well. The two wagon
drivers from the cryptic Illias tribe-Kepha and Nuli-grew visibly less tense
with each league they progressed toward home. But
where was that?, Sara
pictured a map of the Slope, drawing a wide arc roughly south from the Gentt.
It offered no clue where a horse clan might stay hidden all this time. How
about in some giant, empty magma chamber, beneath a volcano? What a
lovely thought. Some magical sanctuary of hidden grassy fields, safe from the
glowering sky. An underground world, like in a pre-contact adventure tale
featuring vast ageless caverns, mystic light sources, and preposterous
monsters. Of
course no such place could form under natural laws. But might the Buyur-or some
prior Jijo tenant-have used the same forces that carved 'this tunnel to create
a secret hideaway? A place to preserve treasures while the surface world was
scraped clean of sapient-made things? Sara chuckled at the thought. But she did
not dismiss it. Sometime
later, she confronted Kurt. "Well,
I'm committed now. Tell me what's so urgent that Emerson and I had to follow
you all this way." But the
exploser only shook his head, refusing to speak in front of Dedinger. What's
the heretic going to do? Sara thought. Break his bonds and run back to tell the
world? The
desert prophet's captivity appeared secure. And yet it was disconcerting to see
on Dedinger's face an expression of serene confidence, as if present
circumstances only justified his cause. Times like
these bring heretics swarming . . . like privacy wasps converging on a gossip.
We shouldn 't be surprised to see fanatics thriving. The
Sacred Scrolls prescribed two ways for Jijo's illegal colonists to ease their
inherited burden of sin-by preserving the planet, and by following the Path of
Redemption. Ever since the days of Drake and Ur-Chown, the sages had taught
that both goals were compatible with commerce and the comforts of daily life.
But some purists disagreed, insisting that the Six Races must choose. We
should not be here, proclaimed Lark's faction. We sooners should use birth
control to obey Galactic law, leaving this fallow world in peace. Only then
will our sin be healed. Others
thought redemption should take higher priority. Each
clan should follow the example of glavers, preached Dedinger's cult, and the
Urunthai. Salvation and renewal come to those who remove mental impediments and
rediscover their deep natures. The
first obstacle to eliminate-the anchor weighing down our souls-is knowledge. Both
groups called today's High Sages true heretics, pandering to the masses with
their wishy-washy moderation. When dread starships came, fresh converts
thronged to purer faiths, preaching simple messages and strong medicine for fearful
times. Sara
knew her own heresy would not attract disciples. It seemed ill matched to
Jijo-a planet of felons destined for oblivion of one sort or another. And yet .
. . Everything
depends on your point of view. So
taught a wise traeki sage. we/i/you
are oft fooled by the obvious. BIN
URRISH COURIER CAME RUSHING OUT OF THE forest of tall, swaying great boo. Could
this be my answer already? Lark
had dispatched a militiaman just a few miduraS ago, with a message to Lester
Cambel in the secret refuge of the High Sages. But no.
The rough-pelted runner had galloped up the long path from Festival Glade. In
her rush, she would not even pause for Lark to tap the vein of a tethered
simla, offering the parched urs a hospitable cup of steaming blood. Instead,
the humans stared amazed as she plunged her fringed muzzle into a bucket of
undiluted water, barely shuddering at the bitter taste. Between
gasping swallows, she told dire news. As
rumored, the second starship was titanic, squatting like a mountain, blocking
the river so a swamp soon formed around the trapped Rothen cruiser, doubly
imprisoning Ling's comrades. Surviving witnesses reported seeing familiar
outlines framed by the battleship's brightly lit hatchway. Corrugated cones. Stacks
of rings, luxuriously glistening. Only a
few onlookers, steeped in ancient legends, knew this was not a good sign, and
they had little time to spread a warning before torrid beams sliced through the
night, mowing down everything within a dozen arrowflights. At
dawn, brave observers peered from nearby peaks to see a swathe of shattered
ground strewn with oily smudges and bloody debris. A defensive perimeter,
stunned observers suggested, though such prudence seemed excessive for
omnipotent star gods. "What
casualties?" asked Jeni Shen, sergeant of Lark's militia contingent, a
short, well-muscled woman and a friend of his brother, Dwer. They had all seen
flickering lights in the distance, and heard sounds like thunder, but imagined
nothing as horrible as the messenger related. The urs
told of hundreds dead . . . and that a High Sage of the Commons was among those
slaughtered. Asx had been standing near a group of curious spectators and
confused alien lovers, waiting to parley with the visitors. After the dust and
flames settled, the traeki was nowhere to be seen. The
g'Kek doctor tending Uthen expressed the grief they all felt, rolling all four
tentacle-like eyes and flailing the ground with his pusher leg. This
personified the horror. Asx had been a popular sage, ready to mull over
problems posed by any of the Six Races, from marriage counseling to dividing
the assets of a bisected qheuen hive. Asx might "mull" for days,
weeks, or a year before giving an answer-or several answers, laying out a range
of options. Before
the courier departed, Lark's status as a junior sage won him a brief look at
the drawings in her dispatch pouch. He showed Ling a sketch of a massive oval
ship of space, dwarfing the one that brought her to this world. Her face
clouded. The mighty shape was unfamiliar and frightening. Lark's
own messenger-a two-legged human-had plunged into the ranks of towering boo at
daybreak, carrying a plea for Lester Cambel to send up Ling's personal Library
unit, so she might read the memory bars he and Uthen had found in the wrecked
station. Her
offer, made the evening before, was limited to seeking data about plagues,
especially the one now sweeping the qheuen community. "If
Ro-kenn truly was preparing genocide agents, he is a criminal by our own
law." "Even
a Rothen master?" Lark had asked skeptically. "Even
so. It is not disloyal for me to find out, or else prove it was not so. "However,"
she had added, "don't expect me to help you make war against my crew mates
or my patrons. Not that you could do much, now that their guard is raised. You
surprised us once with tunnels and gunpowder, destroying a little research
base. But you'll find that harming a starship is beyond even your best-equipped
zealots." That
exchange took place before they learned about the second vessel. Before word
came that the mighty Rothen cruiser was reduced to a captive toy next to a true
colossus from space. While
they awaited Cambel's answer, Lark sent his troopers sifting through the burned
lakeshore thicket, gathering golden preservation beads. Galactic technology had
been standardized for millions of years. So there just might be a workable
reading unit amid all the pretty junk the magpie spider had collected. Anyway,
it seemed worth a try. While
sorting through a pile of amber cocoons, he and Ling resumed their game of
cautious question-and-evasion. Circumstances had changed-Lark no longer felt as
stupid in her presence-still, it was the same old dance. Starting
off, Ling quizzed him about the Great Printing, the event that transformed
Jijo's squabbling coalition of sooner races, even more than the arrival of the
Holy Egg. Lark answered truthfully without once mentioning the Biblos Archive.
Instead he described the guilds of printing, photocopying, and especially
papermaking, with its pounding pulp hammers and pungent drying screens, turning
out fine pages under the sharp gaze of his father, the famed Nelo. "A
nonvolatile, randomly accessed, analog memory store that is completely invisible
from space. No electricity or digital cognizance to detect from orbit."
She marveled. "Even when we saw books, we assumed they were
handcopied-hardly a culture-augmenting process. Imagine, a wolfling technology
proved so effective . . . under special circumstances." Despite
that admission, Lark wondered about the Danik attitude, which seemed all too
ready to dismiss the accomplishments of their own human ancestors-except when
an achievement could be attributed to Rothen intervention. It was
Lark's turn to ask a question, and he chose to veer onto another track. "You
seemed as surprised as anybody, when the disguise creature crawled off of
Ro-pol's face." He
referred to events just before the Battle of the Glade, when a dead Rothen was
seen stripped of its charismatic, symbiotic mask. Ro-pol's eyes, once warm and
expressive, had bulged lifeless from a revealed visage that was sharply
slanted, almost predatory, and distinctly less humanoid. Ling
had never seen a master so exposed. She reacted to Lark's question cautiously. "I
am not of the Inner Circle." "What's
that?" Ling
inhaled deeply. "Rann and Kunn are privy to knowledge about the Rothen
that most Daniks never learn. Rann has even been to one of the secret Rothen
home sites. Most of us are never so blessed. When not on missions, we dwell
with our families in the covered canyons of Poria Outpost, with just a hundred
or so of our patrons, Even on Poria, the two races don't mix daily." "Still,
not to know something so basic about those who claim to be-" "Oh,
one hears rumors. Sometimes you see a Rothen whose face seems odd ... as if
part of it was, well, put on wrong. Maybe we cooperate with the deception by
choosing at some level not to notice. Anyway, that's not the real issue, is
it?" "What
is the real issue?" "You
imply I should be horrified to learn they wear symbionts to look more humanoid.
To appear more beautiful in our eyes. But why shouldn't the Rothen use
artificial aids, if it helps them serve as better guides, shepherding our race
toward excellence?" Lark
muttered, "How about a little thing called honesty?" "Do
you tell your pet chimp or zookir everything? Don't parents sometimes lie to
children for their own good? What about lovers who strive to look nice for each
other? Are they dishonest? "Think,
Lark. What are the odds against another race seeming as gloriously beautiful to
human eyes as our patrons appear? Oh, part of their attraction surely dates
back to early stages of uplift, on Old Earth, when they raised our apelike
ancestors almost to full sapiency, before the Great Test began. It may be
ingrained at a genetic level . . . the way dogs were culled in favor of craving
the touch of man. "Yet,
we are still unfinished creatures. Still crudely emotional. Let me ask you.
Lark. If your job were to uplift flighty, cantankerous beings, and you found
that wearing a cosmetic symbiont would make your role as teacher easier,
wouldn't you do it?" Before
Lark could answer an emphatic no, she rushed ahead. "Do
not some members of your Six use rewq animals for similar ends? Those symbionts
that lay their filmy bodies over your eyes, sucking a little blood in exchange
for help translating emotions? Aren't rewq a vital part of the complex
interplay that is your Commons?" "Hr-rm."
Lark throat-umbled like a doubtful hoon. "Rewq
don't help us lie. They are not themselves lies." Ling
nodded. "Still, you never faced a task as hard as the Rothens'-to raise up
creatures as brilliant, and disagreeable, as human beings. A race whose
capability for future majesty also makes us capricious and dangerous, prone to
false turns and deadly errors." Lark
quashed an impulse to argue. She might only dig in, rationalizing herself into
a corner and refusing to come out. At least now she admitted that one Rothen
might do evil deeds-that Ro-kenn's personal actions might be criminal. And who
knows? That may be all there is to it. The scheming of a rogue individual.
Perhaps the race is just as wonderful as she says. Wouldn 't it be nice if
humanity really had such patrons, and a manifest greatness waiting, beyond the
next millennium? Ling
had seemed sincere when she claimed the Rothen ship commander would get to the
bottom of things. "It's
imperative to convince your sages they must release the hostages and Ro-pol's
body, along with those 'photograms' your portraitist took. Blackmail won't work
against the Rothen-you must understand this. It's not in their character to
respond to threats. Yet the 'evidence' you've gathered could do harm in the
long run." That
was before the stunning news-that the Rothen ship was itself captured, encased
in a prison of light. Lark
mused over one of the mule spider's golden eggs while Ling spoke for a while
about the difficult but glorious destiny her masters planned for impulsive,
brilliant humanity. "You
know," he commented. "There's something screwy about the logic of
this whole situation." "What
do you mean?" Lark
chewed his lip, like an urs wrestling with uncertainty. Then he decided-it was
time to bring it all in the open. "I
mean, let's put aside for now the added element of the new starship. The Rothen may have feuds you
know nothing about. Or it may be a different gang of gene raiders, come to rob
Jijo's biosphere. For all we know, magistrates from the Galactic Migration
Institute have brought Judgment Day as foretold in the Scrolls. "For
now, though, let's review what led to the Battle of the Glade-the fight that
made you my prisoner. It began when Bloor photo'd the dead Ro-pol without her
mask. Ro-kenn went livid, ordering his robots to kill everyone who had seen. "But
didn't you once assure me there was no need to delete local witnesses to your
team's visit? That your masters could handle it, even if oral and written
legacies survive hundreds or thousands of years, describing a visit by human
and Rothen gene raiders?" "I
did." "But
you admit gene raiding is against Galactic law! I know
you feel the Rothen are above such things. Still, they don't want to be caught
in the act. "Let's
assume credible testimony, maybe even photos, finally reach Migration Institute
inspectors next time they visit Jijo. Testimony about you and Rann and Kunn.
Human gene raiders. Even I know the rule-'police your own kind'-prevails in the
Five Galaxies. Did Ro-kenn explain how the Rothen would prevent sanctions
coming down on Earth?" Ling
wore a grim expression. "You're saying he played us for fools. That he let
me spread false assurances among the natives, while planning all along to strew
germs and wipe out every witness." Obviously
it was bitter for her to say it. Ling
seemed surprised when Lark shook his head. "That's
what I thought at first, when qheuens fell sick. But what I now imagine is
worse yet." That
got her attention. "What could be worse than mass murder?
If the charge is proved, Ro-kenn will be hauled off to the home sites in dolor
chains'. He'll be punished as no Rothen has been in ages." Lark
shrugged. "Perhaps. But stop and think a bit. "First,
Ro-kenn wasn't relying on disease alone to do the job. "Oh,
he probably had a whole library of bugs-infectious agents used in past wars in
the Five Galaxies. No doubt starfaring qheuens long ago developed
countermeasures against the germ raging through Uthen's lymph pipes right now.
I'm sure Ro-kenn's concoctions will kill a lot more of us." Ling
started to protest, but Lark forged ahead. "Nevertheless,
I know a thing or two about how pestilence works in natural ecosystems. It
would be a complete fluke for even a string of diseases to wipe out every
member of the Six. Random immunities would stymie the best-designed bugs.
Furthermore, the sparser the population got, the harder it would be to reach
and infect dispersed survivors. "No,
Ro-kenn needed something more. A breakdown of the Commons into total war! A war
that could be exploited, pushed to the limits. A stmggle so bitter that each
race would pursue its victims to the farthest corners of Jijo, willingly
helping to spread new parasites in order to slay their foes." He saw
Ling struggle to find a way around his logic. But she had been present when Ro-kenn's psi-recordings were
played-sick dream images, meant to incite fatal grudges among the Six. Those
present weren't fooled because they were forewarned, but what if the messages
had been broadcast as planned . . . amplified through the compelling wave forms
of the Holy Egg? "I
will tell of this, back home," she vowed in a low, faint voice. "He
will be punished." "That's
gratifying," Lark went on. "But I'm not finished. You see, even by
combining plagues with war, Ro-kenn could never guarantee annihilation of all
six races, or eliminate the off chance that credible testimony might be passed
down the generations-perhaps stored in some cave-to finally reach Institute
prosecutors. On the other hand, he could influence which race or sept would be
left standing at the end, and which would perish first. There is one, in
particular, whose fate he knows well how to manipulate. That one is Homo
sapiens. "The
way I see it, Ro-kenn's plan had several parts. First, he had to make sure
Earthlings were hated. Second, he must weaken the other five races by releasing
diseases that could then be blamed on humans. But the ultimate goal was to make
sure humans went extinct on Jijo. He didn't give a damn if others left a few
survivors to tell the tale." Ling
stared. "What good would that do? You said testimony might be passed
down-" "Yes,
but with Earthlings on Jijo only a hated memory, all history will tell is that
once upon a time a ship full of humans came down, stole genes, and tried to
kill everybody. No one will bother emphasizing which humans did these things. "In
the future-perhaps only a few centuries, if someone plants an anonymous
tip-Galactic judges would arrive and hear that people from Earth did these
dreadful things. Earth will bear the full brunt of any sanctions, while the
Rothen get off scot-free." Ling
was silent for a long moment, working her way through his logic. Finally, she
looked up with a broad grin. "You
had me worried a minute, but I found the defect in your reasoning!" Lark
tilted his head. "Do tell." "Your
diabolical scenario just might make sense, but for two flaws- "First-the
Rothen are patrons of all humanity. Earth and her colonies, while presently
governed by Darwinist fools on the Terragens Council, still represent the vast
majority of our gene pool. The Rothen would never let harm come to our
homeworld. Even in the current galactic crisis, they are acting behind the
scenes to ensure Earth's safety from the enemies besetting her." There
it was again ... a reference to dire events happening megaparsecs away. Lark
yearned to follow that thread, but Ling continued with her argument. "Second-let's
say Ro-kenn wanted all blame shifted to humans. Then why did he and Ro-pol
emerge from the station and show themselves? By walking around, letting artists
sketch them and scribes take down their words, weren't they jeopardizing the
Rothen to the same eyewitness accounts you say could damage Earth?" Ling
seemed ready to accept that her immediate boss might be criminal or insane, but
with bulwarks of logic she defended her patron race. Lark had mixed feelings
about demolishing such faith. He, too, had his heresies. "I'm
sorry, Ling, but my scenario still stands. "Your
first point only has validity if it is true that the Rothen are our patrons. I
know that's the central premise around which you were raised, but believing
does not make it so. You admit your people, the Daniks, are small in number,
live on an isolated outpost, and see just a few. Rothen. Putting aside mythic
fables about ancient visitors and Egyptian pyramids, all you really have is
their word regarding a supposed relationship with our race. One that may simply
be a hoax. "As
for your second point, just look back at the way events unfolded. Ro-kenn
surely knew he was being sketched when he emerged that evening, using his
charisma on the crowd and planting seeds of dissension. After living so long
together, all six races are affected by each other's standards of beauty, and
the Rothen were indeed beautiful! "Ro-kenn
may even have known we had the ability to
etch our drawings onto durable plates. Later, when he saw Bloor's first
set of photographic images, he hardly batted an eye. Oh, he pretended to dicker
with the sages, but you and I could both tell he was unafraid of the 'proof
being used to blackmail him. He was only buying time till the ship returned.
And it might have worked-if Bloor hadn't uncovered and recorded Ro-pol's
corpse, bare and unmasked. That's when Ro-kenn went hysterically murderous,
ordering a massacre!" "I
know." Ling shook her head. "It was madness. But you must understand.
Disturbing the dead is very serious. It
must have pushed him over the edge-" "Over
the edge, my left hind hoof! He knew exactly what he was doing. Think, Ling.
Suppose someday Institute observers see photos showing humans, and a hunch of
very humanlike beings nobody ever heard of, committing crimes on Jijo. Could
such crude pictures ever really
implicate the Rothen? "Perhaps
they might, If that's what Rothen looked like. But
till Bloor shot Ro-pol's naked face, our crude images posed no threat to Rothen
security. Because in a century or two those facial disguise symbionts won't
exist anymore, and no one alive will know that Rothen ever looked like that." "What
are you talking about? Every Danik grows up seeing Rothen as they appear with
symbionts on. Obviously there will be people around who know . . ." Her
voice faded. She stared at Lark, unblinking. "You can't mean-" "Why
not? After long association with your people, I'm sure they've acquired the necessary means. Orsce humans are of no
further use as front men for their schemes, your 'patrons' will simply use a
wide spectrum of tailored viruses to wipe out every Danik, just as they planned
to eliminate humans on Jijo. "For
that matter, once they've tested it on both our peoples, they'll be in a good
position to sell such a weapon to Earth's enemies. After all, once our race
goes extinct, who will protest our innocence? Who will bother to look for other
suspects in a series of petty felonies that were committed, all over the Five
Galaxies, by groups of bipeds looking a lot like-" "Enough!"
Ling shouted, standing suddenly, spilling gold cocoons from her lap. She backed
away, hyperventilating. Unrelenting, he stood and followed. "I've thought
about little else since we left the Glade. And it all makes sense. Even down to
the way the Rothen won't let your kind use neural taps." "I
told you before. It's forbidden because the taps might drive us mad!" "Really?
Why do the Rothen themselves have them? Because they're more highly
evolved?" Lark snorted. "Anyway, I hear that nowadays humans
elsewhere use them effectively." "How
do you know what humans elsewhere-" Lark hurriedly cut her off. "The
truth is, the Rothen can't risk letting their pet humans make direct
mind-computer links, because someday one of you Daniks might bypass sanitized
consoles, draw on the Great Library directly, and figure out how you've been
pawns-" Ling
backed away another pace. "Please, Lark ... I don't want to do this
anymore." He felt
an impulse to stop, to take pity. But he quashed it. This had to come out, all
of it. "I
must admit it's quite a scam, using humans as front men for gene theft and
other crimes. Even two centuries ago, when the Tabernacle departed, our race
had a vile reputation as one of the lowest-ranking citizen tribes in the Five
Galaxies. So-called wolflings, with no ancient clan to stand up for us. If
anybody gets caught, we'll make perfect patsies. The Rothen scheme is clever.
The real question is, why would any humans let themselves be used that way?
"History may hold the answer, Ling. According to our texts, humans
suffered from a major inferiority complex at the time of contact, when our
primitive canoe-spacecraft stumbled onto a towering civilization of star gods.
Your ancestors and mine chose different ways of dealing with the complex, each
of them grasping at straws, seeking any
excuse for hope. "The
Tabernacle colonists dreamed of escaping to some place out of sight of bureaucrats and mighty Galactic clans-a
place to breed freely and fulfill the old romance of colonizing a frontier. In
contrast, your Danik forebears rushed to embrace a tall tale they were told by
a band of smooth talkers. A flattering fable that indulged their wounded pride,
promising a grand destiny for certain chosen humans and their descendants , . .
providing they did exactly as they were told. Even if it meant raising their
children to be shills and sneak thieves in service to a pack of galactic gangsters." Tremors
rocked Ling as she held up one hand, palm out, at the end of a rigid arm, as if
trying physically to stave off any more words. "I
asked . . . you to stop," she repeated, and seemed to have trouble
breathing. Pain melted her face. Now
Lark did shut up. He had gone too far, even in the name of truth. Raggedly,
trying to maintain some remnant of her dignity, Ling swiveled and strode off to
the acrid lake that lay below a boulder field of tumbled Buyur ruins. Does
anybody like having their treasured worldview torn away? Lark mused, watching
Ling hurl stones into the caustic pond. Most of us would reject all the proof
in the cosmos before considering that our own beliefs might be wrong. But the
scientist in her won't let her dismiss evidence so easily. She has to face
facts, like them or not. The
habit of truth is bard to learn, and a mixed blessing. It
leaves no refuge when a new truth comes along that hurts. Lark
knew his feelings were hardly a testament to clarity. Anger
roiled, mixed with shame that he could not hold on to the purity of his own
convictions. There was childish satisfaction from upsetting Ling's former smug
superiority . . . and chagrin at finding such a motive smoldering inside. Lark
enjoyed being right, though it might be better, this time, if he turned out to
be wrong. Just
when I had her respecting me as an equal, and maybe starting to like me, that's
when I have to go stomping through her life, smashing idols she was raised to
worship, showing off the bloodstained hands of her gods. You may
win an argument, boy. You may even convince her. But could anyone fully forgive
you for doing something like that? He
shook his head over how much he might have just thrown away, all for the torrid
pleasure of harsh honesty. Wasx DO NOT BE AFRAID, MY LESSER PARTS. The
sensations you feel may seem like coercive pain, but they convey a kind of love
that will grow dear to you, with time. I am part of you now, one with you. I
will never do anything to cause us harm, so long as this alliance serves a
function. Go ahead,
stroke the wax if you wish, for the old ways of memory still have lesser uses
(so long as they serve My purpose). Play over recent images so we may recall
together events leading to our new union. Re-create the scene perceived by Asx,
staring up in awe, watching the great Jophur warship, Polkjhy, swoop from the
sky, taking the pirates captive, then landing in this tortured valley. Poor,
loosely joined, scatterbrained Asx-did you,we not stare in tremulous fear? Yes, I
can stroke another driving motivation. One that kept you admirably unified,
despite swirling dread. It was a cloying sense of duty. Duty to the not-self
community of half beings you call the Commons. As Asx,
your stack planned to speak for the Commons. Asx expected to face star-traveling
humans, along with creatures known as "Rothen." But then Jophur forms
were seen through our ship ports! After
some hesitation, did you not turn at last and try to flee? How
slow this stack was before the change! When knives of fire lanced forth from this mighty vessel, how did you react
to the maelstrom of destruction? To hot ravening beams that tore through wood,
stone, and flesh, but always spared this pile of aged rings? Had you then
possessed the bright new running legs we now wear, you might have thrown
yourselves into that roaring calamity. But Asx was slow, too slow even to
shelter nearby comrades with its traeki
bulk. All
died, except this stack. ARE YOU
NOT PROUD? The
next ray from the ship seized this multistriped cone, lifting it into the night
air, sweeping the fatty rings toward doors that gaped to receive them. Oh, how
well Asx spoke then, despite the confusion! With surprising coherence for a
stack without a master, tapping waxy streaks of eloquence, Asx pleaded, cajoled,
and reasoned with the enigmatic creatures who peered from behind glaring
lights. Finally,
these beings glided forward. The starship's hold filled with Asx's ventings of
horrified dread. How
unified you were, My rings! The testimony of the wax is clear. At that moment,
you were one as never before. United
in shared dismay to see those cousin toroids your ancestors sought to escape,
many cycles ago. We Jophur, the mighty
and fulfilled. Dwer THE
ROBOT PROVED USEFUL AT HEAPING DRIFTwood onto the seaside shoulder of a high
dune overlooking the Rift. Without rest or pause, it dumped a load then
scurried for more, in whatever direction Rety indicated with an outstretched
arm. The Danik machine seemed willing to obey once more-so long as her orders
aimed toward a reunion with Kunn. Such
single-minded devotion to its master reminded Dwer of Earth stories about
dogs-tales his mother read aloud when he was small. It struck him odd that the
Taber- nacle colonists brought horses, donkeys, and chimps, but no canines. Lark or
Sara might know why. That
was Dwer's habitual thought, encountering something he didn't understand. Only
now it brought a pang, knowing he might never see his brother and sister again. Maybe
Kunn won't kill me outright. He might bring me borne in chains, instead, before
the Rothens wipe out the Six Races to cover their tracks. That
was the terrible fate the High Sages foresaw for Jijo's fallen settlers, and
Dwer figured they ought to know. He recalled Lena Strong musing about what
means the aliens might use to perform their genocide. With gruesome relish,
Lena kept topping herself during the long hike east from the Rimmer Range.
Would the criminal star gods wash the Slope with fire, scouring it from the
glaciers to the sea? Would they melt the ice caps and bring an end by drowning?
Her morbid speculations were like a fifth companion as Dwer guided two husky
women and a lesser sage past a thousand leagues of poison grass all the way to
the Gray Hills, in a forlorn bid to safeguard a fragment of human civilization
on Jijo. Dwer
had last glimpsed Jenin, Lena, and Danel during the brief fight near the huts
of Rety's home clan. This same robot cut poor Danel down with lethal rays,
instants before its own weapons pod was destroyed. Indeed,
the battle drone was no dog to be tamed or befriended. Nor would it show
gratitude for the times Dwer helped it cross rivers, anchoring its fields to
ground through the conduit of his body. Mudfoot
was hardly any better a comrade. The lithe noor beast swiftly grew bored with
wood-gathering chores, and scampered off instead to explore the tide line,
digging furiously where bubbles revealed a buried hive of sand clamettes. Dwer
looked forward to roasting some . . . until he saw that Mudfoot was cracking
and devouring every one, setting none
aside for the humans. As
useful as a noor, he thought, quashing stings of hunger as he hoisted another
bundle of twisty driftwood slabs, digging his moccasins into the sandy slope. Dwer
tried to remain optimistic. Maybe
Kunn will feed me, before attaching the torture machines. yee
stood proudly atop the growing woodpile. The diminutive urrish male called
directions in a piping voice, as if mere humans could never manage a proper
fire without urrish supervision. Rety's "husband" hissed
disappointment over Dwer's poor contribution-as if being wounded, starved, and
dragged across half of Jijo in a robot's claws did not excuse much. Dwer
ignored yee's reprimand, dumping his load then stepping over to the dune's
seaward verge, shading his eyes in search of Kunn's alien scoutship. He
spied it far away, a silvery bead, cruising back and forth above the deep blue
waters of the Rift. At intervals, something small and shiny would fall from the
slender spacecraft. An explosive, Dwer supposed, for about twenty duras after
each canister struck the water, the sea abruptly frothed white. Sometimes a
sharp, almost musical tone reached
shore. According
to Rety, Kunn was trying to force something-or somebody-out of hiding. I hope
you miss, Dwer thought . . . though the star pilot might be in a better mood
toward prisoners if his hunt went well. "I
wonder what Jass has been tellin' Kunn, all this time," Rety
worried aloud, joining Dwer at the crest. "What if they become pals?" Dwer
waited as the robot dropped another cargo of wood and went off for more. Then
he replied. "Have
you changed your mind? We could still try to escape. Take out the robot. Avoid
Kunn. Go our own way." Rety
smiled with surprising warmth, "Why, Dwer, is that a whatchamacallum? A
proposal What'll we do? Make our own little sooner clan, here on the wind
barrens? Y'know I already have one husban' and I need his p'rmission to add
another." Actually,
he had envisioned trying to make it back to the Gray Hills, where Lena and
Jenin could surely use a hand. Or else, if that way seemed too hard and Rety
rigidly opposed returning to the tribe she hated, they might strike out west
and reach the Vale in a month or two, if the foraging was good along the way. Rety
went on, with more edge in her voice. "B'sides,
I still have my eye set on an apart'mint on Poria Outpost. Like the one Besh
an' Ling showed me a picture of, with a bal-co-ny, an' a bed made o' cloud
stuff. I figure it'll be just a bit more comfy than scratchin' out the rest of
my days here with savages." Dwer
shrugged. He hadn't expected her to agree. As a "savage," he had
reasons of his own for going ahead with the bonfire to attract Kunn's
attention. "Well,
anyway, I don't suppose the bot would let its guard down a second time." "It
was lucky to survive doin' it around you once." Dwer
took a moment to realize she had just paid him a compliment. He cherished its
uniqueness, knowing he might never hear another. The
moment of unaccustomed warmth was broken when something massive abruptly
streaked by, so fast that its air wake shoved both humans to the ground. Dwer's
training as a tracker let him follow the blurry object . . . to the top of a
nearby dune, which erupted in a gushing spray of sand. It was
the robot, he realized, digging with furious speed. In a
matter of heartbeats it made a hole that it then dived within, aiming its
remaining sensor lens south and west. "Come
on!" Dwer urged, grabbing his bow and quiver. Rety paused only to snatch
up a wailing, hissing yee. Together they fled some distance downslope, where
Dwer commenced digging with both hands. Long
ago,. Fallen the Scout had taught him-If you don't know what's happening in a crisis,
mimic a creature who does. If the robot felt a sudden need to hide, Dwer
thought it wise to follow. "Ifni!"
Rety muttered. "Now what in hell's he doin'?" She was
still standing-staring across the Rift. Dwer yanked her into the hole beside
him. Only when sand covered most of their bodies did he poke his head back out
to look. The
Danik pilot clearly felt something was wrong. The little craft hurtled toward
shore, diving as it came. Seeking cover, Dwer thought. Maybe it can dig
underground, like the robot. Dwer
started turning, to spot whatever had Kunn in such a panic, but just then the
boat abruptly veered, zigzagging frantically. From its tail bright fireballs
arced, like sparks leaping off a burning log. They flared brightly and made the
air waver in a peculiar way, blurring the escaping vessel's outlines. From
behind Dwer, streaks of fierce light flashed overhead toward the fleeing boat.
Most deflected through warped zones, veering off course, but one bypassed the
glowing balls, striking target. At the
last moment, Kunn flipped his nimble ship around and fired back at his
assailants, launching a return volley just as the unerring missile closed in. Dwer
shoved Rety's head down and closed his eyes. The
detonations were less Jijo-shattering than he expected-a series of dull
concussions, almost anticlimactic. Looking
up with sand-covered faces, they witnessed both winner and loser in the brief
battle of god chariots. Kunn's
boat had crashed beyond the dune field, plowing into a marshy fen. Smoke boiled
from its shattered rear. Circling
above, the victor regarded its victim, glistening with a silvery tint that
seemed less metallic than crystal. The newcomer was bigger and more powerful
looking than the Danik scout. Kunn
never stood a chance. Rety
muttered, her voice barely audible. "She
said there'd turn out to be someone stronger." Dwer
shook his head. "Who?" "That
smelly old urs! Leader o' those four-legged sooners, back in the village pen.
Said the Rothen might be a-feared of somebody bigger. So she was right."
"urs smelly?" yee objected, "you wife should talk?" Rety
stroked the little male as yee stretched his neck, fluting a contented sigh. The
fallen scout boat. rocke'd from a new explosion, this one brightly framing a
rectangle in the ship's side. That section fell and two bipeds followed,
leaping into the bog, chased by smoke that boiled from the interior. Staggering
through murky water, the men leaned on each other to reach a weedy islet, where
they fell, exhausted. The
newcomer ship cruised a wary circle, losing altitude. As it turned, Dwer saw a
stream of pale smoke pouring from a gash in its other side. A roughness to the
engine sound grew steadily worse. Soon, the second cruiser settled down near
the first. Well,
it looks like Kunn got in a lick of his own.
Dwer wondered-Now why should that make me feel glad? Alvin BONE-RATTLING
CONCUSSIONS GREW MORE TERRIfying with each dura, hammering our undersea prison
refuge, sometimes receding for a while, then returning with new force, making
it hard for a poor hoon to stand properly on the shuddering floor. Crutches
and a back brace didn't help, nor the little autoscribe, fogging the room with
my own projected words. Stumbling through them, I sought some solid object to
hold, while the scribe kept adding to the mob of words, recording my frantic
curses in Anglic and GalSeven. When I found a wall stanchion, I grabbed for
dear life. The clamor of reverberating explosions sounded like a giant, bearing
down with massive footsteps, nearer . . . ever nearer. . . . Then,
as I feared some popping seam would let in the dark, heavy waters of the Midden
... it abruptly stopped. Silence
was almost as disorienting as the jeekee awful noise. My throat sac blatted
uselessly while a hysterical Huphu clawed my shoulders, shredding scales into
torglike ribbons. Fortunately, hoon
don't have much talent for panic. Maybe
our reactions are too slow, or else we lack imagination. As I
was gathering my wits, the door hatch opened and one of the little
amphibian types rushed in, squeaking a
few rapid phrases in simplified GalTwo. A
summons. The spinning voice wanted us for another powwow. "Perhaps
we should share knowledge," it said when the four of us (plus Huphu) were
assembled. Huck
and Pincer-Tip, able to look all ways at once, shared meaningful glances with
Ur-ronn and me. We were pretty rattled by the recent booming and shaking. Even
growing up next to a volcano had never prepared us for that! The
voice seemed to come from a space where abstract lines curled in tight patterns, but I knew that was an illusion.
The shapes and sounds were projections, sent by some entity whose real body lay
elsewhere, beyond the walls. I kept expecting Huphu to dash off and tear away a
curtain, exposing a little man in an emerald carnival suit. Do they think we're
rubes, to fall for such a trick? "Knowledge?"
Huck sneered, drawing three eyes back like coiled snakes. "You want to
share some knowledge? Then tell us what's going on! I thought this place was
breaking up! Was it a quake? Are we being sucked into the Midden?" "I
assure you, that is not happening," came the answer in smooth-toned
GalSix. "The source of our mutual concern lies above, not below." "Explosions,"
Ur-ronn muttered, blowing through her snout fringe and stamping a hind hoof.
"Those weren't quakes, but underwater detonations. Clean, sharp, and very
close. I'd say soneone up there doesn't like you guys very much." Pincer
hissed sharply and I stared at our urrish friend, but the spinning voice
conceded. "That
is an astute guess." I
couldn't tell if it was impressed, or just sarcastic. "And
since our local guild of explosers could hardly achieve such feats, this
suggests you have other, powerful foes, far greater than we feevie Six." "Again,
a reasonable surmise. Such a bright young lady." "Hr-rm,"
I added, in order not to be left out of the sardonic abuse. "We're taught
that the simplest hypothesis should always be tried first. So let me
guess-you're being hunted by the same folks who landed a while back in the
Festival Glade. Those gene raiders Uriel got word about before we left. Is that
it?" "A
goodly conjecture, and possibly even true . . . though it could as easily be
someone else." "Someone
else? What're you say-ay-aying?" Pincer-Tip demanded, raising three legs
and teetering dangerously on the remaining two. His chitin skin flared an
anxious crimson shade. "That the eatees-tees-tees on the Glade might not
be the only ones? That you've got whole passels of enemies?" Abstract
patterns tightened to a tornado of meshing lines as silence reigned. Little
Huphu, who had seemed fascinated by the voice from the very start, now dug her
claws in my shoulder, transfixed by the tight spiral form. Huck
demanded, in a hushed tone. "How
many enemies have you guys got?" when the voice spoke again, all sardonic
traces were gone. Its tone seemed deeply weary. "Ah,
dear children. It seems that half of the known sidereal universe has spent
years pursuing us." Pincer
clattered his claws and Huck let out a low, mournful sigh. My own dismal
contemplation-umble roused Huphu from her trancelike fixation on the whirling
display, and she chittered nervously. Ur-ronn
simply grunted, as if she had expected this, vindicating her native urrish
cynicism. After all, when things seem unable to get any worse, isn't that when
they nearly always do? Ifni has a fertile, if nasty imagination. The goddess of
fate keeps shaving new faces on her infinite-sided dice. "Well,
I guess this means-hrm-m-that we can toss out all those ideas about you
phuvnthus being ancient Jijoans, or native creatures of the deep." "Or
remnants of cast-off Buyur machines," Huck went on. "Or sea monsters." "Yeah,"
Pincer added, sounding disappointed. "Just another bunch of crazy
Galactics-tic-tics." The
swirling patterns seemed confused. "You would prefer sea monsters'"' "Forget
it," Huck said. "You wouldn't understand." The
patterns bent and swayed. "I
am afraid you may be right about that. Your small band of comrades has us
terribly perplexed. So much that a few of us posed a sly scenario-that you were
planted in our midst to sow confusion." "How
do you mean?" "Your
values, beliefs, and evident mutual affection contribute to undermining
assumptions we regarded as immutably anchored in the nature of reality. "Mind
you, this confusion is not wholly unpleasant. As a thinking entity, one of my
prime motives might be called a lust for surprise. And those I work with are
hardly less bemused by the unforeseen marvel of your fellowship." "Glad
you find us entertaining," Huck commented, as dryly sarcastic as the voice
had been. "So you guys came here to hide, like our ancestors?" "There
are parallels. But our plan was never to stay. Only to make repairs, gather
stores, and wait in concealment for a favorable window at the nearest transfer
point." "So
Uriel and the sages may be wrong about the ship that came to the Glade? Being a
gang of gene raiders-that could just be a cover story. Are you the real cause
of our troubles?" "Trouble
is synonymous with being a metabolizing entity. Or else why have you young
adventurers sought it so avidly? "But
your complaint has merit. We thought we had eluded all pursuit. The ship that
landed in the mountains may be coincidental, or attracted by a confluence of
unlucky factors. In any event, had we known of your existence, we would have
sought shelter somewhere off-planet instead, perhaps in a dead city on one of
your moons, though such places are less convenient for effecting repairs.
" That
part I had trouble believing. I'm just an ignorant savage, but from the classic
scientific romances I grew up reading, I could picture working in some lunar
ghost town like my nicknamesake, waking mighty engines that had slept for ages.
What kind of starfaring beings would find darkness and salt water more
"convenient" than clean vacuum? We
lapsed into moody silence, unable to stay outraged at folks who accept
responsibility so readily. Anyway, weren't they fellow refugees from Galactic
persecution? Or from
justice, came another, worried thought. "Can
you tell us why everyone's so mad at you?" I asked. The
spinning figure turned into a narrow, whirling funnel whose small end seemed
diminished and very far away. "Like
you, we delved and probed into unvisited places, imagining ourselves bold
explorers. . . . ," the voice explained in tones of boundless sadness.
"Until we bad the misfortune to find the very thing we sought. Unexpected
wonders beyond our dreams. "Breaking
no law, we planned only to share what we had found. But those pursuing us
abandoned all pretense of legality. Like giants striving over possession of a
gnat, they war lustily, battling each other for a chance to capture us! Alas,
whoever wins our treasure will surely use it against multitudes." Again,
we stared. Pincer unleashed awed whispers from all vents at once. "Tr-tr-treasure-ure-ure
. . . ?" Huck
wheeled close to the spinning pattern. "Can you prove what you just
said?" "Not
at this time. Not without putting your people in more danger than they already
are." I
recall wondering-what could be more dangerous than the genocide Uriel had
spoken of, as one likely outcome of contact with gene raiders? "Nevertheless,
"the voice continued, "it may prove possible to improve our level of
mutual confidence. Or even help each other in significant ways." Sara SUPPOSE
THE WORLD'S TWO MOST CAREFUL OBservers witnessed the same event. They would
never agree precisely on what had happened. Nor could they go back and check.
Events may be recorded, but the past can't be replayed. And the
future is even more nebulous-a territory we make up stories about, mapping
strategies that never go as planned. Sara's
beloved equations, derived from pre-contact works of ancient Earth, depicted
time as a dimension, akin to the several axes of space. Galactic experts
ridiculed this notion, calling the relativistic models of Einstein and others
"naive." Yet Sara knew the expressions contained truth. They had to.
They were too beautiful not to be part of universal design. That
contradiction drew her from mathematics to questions of language-how speech
constrains the mind, so that some ideas come easily, while others can't even be
expressed. Earthling
tongues-Anglic, Rossic, and Nihanic-seemed especially prone to paradoxes,
tautologies, and "proofs" that sound convincing but run counter to
the real world. But
chaos had also crept into the Galactic dialects used byJijo's other exile
races, even before Terran settlers came. To some Biblos linguists, this was
evidence of devolution, starfaring sophistication giving way to savagery, and
eventually to proto-sapient grunts. But last year another explanation occurred
to Sara, based on pre-contact information theory. An insight so intriguing that
she left Biblos to work on it. Or was
I just looking for an excuse to stay away? After
Joshu died of the pox-and her mother of a stroke-research in an obscure field
seemed the perfect refuge. Perched in a lonely tree house, with just Prity and
her books for company, Sara thought herself sealed off from the world's
intrusions. But the
universe has a way of crashing through walls. Sara glanced
at Emerson's glistening dark skin and robust smile, warmed by feelings of
affection and accomplishment. Aside from his muteness, the starman scarcely
resembled the shattered wreck she had found in the mule swamp near Dolo and
nursed back from near death. Maybe I
should quit my intellectual pretensions and stick with what I'm good at. If the
Six Races fell to fighting among themselves, there would be more need of nurses
than theoreticians. So her
thoughts spun on, chaotically orbiting the thin glowing line down the center of
the tunnel. A line that never altered as they trudged on. Its changelessness
rebuked Sara for her private heresy, the strange, blasphemous belief that she
held, perhaps alone among all Jijoans. The
quaint notion of progress. Out of
breath after another run, she climbed back aboard the wagon to find Prity
chuffing nervously. Sara reached over to check the little chimp's wound, but
Prity wriggled free, clambering atop the bench seat, hissing through bared
teeth as she peered ahead. The
drivers were in commotion, too. Kepha and Nuli inhaled with audible sighs. Sara
took a deep breath and found her head awash with contrasts. The bucolic smell
of meadows mixed with a sharp metallic tang . . . something utterly alien. She
stood up with the backs of her knees braced against the seat. Was
that a hint of light, where the center stripe met its vanishing point? Soon a
pale glow was evident. Emerson nipped his rewq over his eyes, then off again. "Uncle,
wake up!" Jomah shook Kurt's shoulder. "I think we're there!" But the
glow remained vague for a long time. Dedinger muttered impatiently, and for
once Sara agreed with him. Expectation
of journey's end made the tunnel's remnant almost unendurable. The
horses sped without urging, as Kepha and Nuli rummaged beneath their seats and
began passing out dark glasses. Only Emerson was exempted, since his rewq made
artificial protection unnecessary. Sara turned the urrishmade spectacles in her
hand. I guess
daylight will seem unbearably bright for a time, after we leave this hole.
Still, any discomfort would be brief until their eyes readapted to the upper
world. The precaution seemed excessive. At last
we'll find out where the horse clan hid all these years. Eagerness blended with
sadness, for no reality-not even some god wonder of the Galactics-could compare
with the fanciful images found in pre-contact tales. A
mystic portal to some parallel reality? A kingdom floating in the clouds? She
sighed. It's probably just some out-of-the-way mountain valley where
neighboring villagers are too inbred and ignorant to know the difference
between a donkey and a horse. The
ancient transitway began to rise. The stripe grew dim as illumination spread
along the walls, like liquid trickling from some reservoir, far ahead. Soon the
tunnel began taking on texture. Sara made out shapes. Jagged outlines. Blinking
dismay, she realized they were plunging toward sets of triple jaws, like a
giant urrish mouth lined with teeth big enough to spear the wagon whole! Sara
took her cue from the Illias. Kepha and Nuli seemed unruffled by the serrated
opening. Still, even when she saw the teeth were metal-corroded with flaking
rust-Sara could hardly convince herself it was only a dead machine. A huge
Buyur thing. She had
never seen its like. Nearly all the great buildings and devices of the
meticulous Buyur had been hauled to sea during their final years on Jijo,
peeling whole cities and seeding mule spiders to eat what remained. So why
didn't the deconstructors carry this thing away? Behind
the massive jaws lay disks studded with shiny stones that Sara realized were
diamonds as big as her head. The wagon track went from smooth to bumpy as Kepha
maneuvered the team along a twisty trail through the great machine's gullet,
zigzagging around the huge disks. At once
Sara realized- This is
a deconstructor! It must have been demolishing the tunnel when it broke down. I
wonder why no one ever bothered to repair or haul it away. Then
Sara saw the reason. Lava. Tongues
and streamlets of congealed basalt protruded through a dozen cracks, where they
hardened in place half a million years ago. It was caught by an eruption. Much
later, teams of miners from some of the Six Races must have labored to clear a
narrow path through the belly of the dead machine, chiseling out the last
stretch separating the tunnel from the surface. Sara saw marks of crude
pickaxes. And explosives must have been used, as well. That could explain the guild's
knowledge of this place. Sara
wanted to gauge Kurt's reaction, but just then the glare brightened as the team
rounded a final sharp bend, climbing a steep ramp toward a maelstrom of light. Sara
fumbled for her glasses as the world exploded with color. Swirling
colors that stabbed. Colors that
shrieked. Colors
that sang with melodies so forceful that her ears throbbed. Colors
that made her nose twitch and skin prickle with sensations just short of pain.
A gasping moan lifted in unison from the passengers, as the wagon crested a
short rise to reveal surroundings more foreign than the landscape of a dream. Even
with the dark glasses in place, each peak and valley shimmered more pigments
than Sara could name. In a daze, she sorted her impressions. To one side
protruded the mammoth deconstructor, a snarl of slumped metal, drowned in
ripples of frozen magma. Ripples that extended to the far horizon-layer after
layer of radiant stone. At last
she knew the answer to her question.
Where on the Slope could a big secret remain hidden for a century or
more? Even
Dedinger, prophet of the sharp-sand desert, moaned aloud at how obvious it was. They
were in the last place on Jijo anyone would go looking for people. The
very center of the Spectral Flow. PART
FOUR FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN I WISH
I COULD introduce myself to Alvin. I feel I already know the lad, from reading
his Journal and eavesdropping on conversations among his mends. Their
grasp of twenty-third-century Anglic idiom is so perfect, and their eager
enthusiasm so dllierent from the hoons and urs I met before coming to Jijo,
that half the time I almost forget I'm listening to aliens. that is, it I
ignore the weird speech tones and inflecttons they take for granted. Then
one of them comes up with a burst of eerily skewed logic that reminds me these
arent just human kids alter all, dressed up in Halloween suits to look like a
crab, a centaur, and a squid on a wheelchair. passing the time, they wondered
vand I could not blame them,, whether they were prisoners or guests in this
underwater refuge. Speculation led to a
wide-ranging discussion, comparing various tamous captives of literature. Among
their intriguing perceptions-Ur-ronn sees Richard II as the story of a
legitimate business takeover, with Dolingbroke as the kings authentic
apprentice. The red
qheuen, I incerlip, maintains that the hero of the leng Ho chronicles was kept
in the emperors harem against his will, even though he had access to the bight
Hundred Beauties and could leave at any time. finally, Huck declared It
frustrating that Shakespeare spent so little time dealing with Macbeths evil
wile, especially her attempt to escape sin by iinding redemption in a
presapient state. [luck
has ideas for a sequel, describing the ladys reuplilt from the tallow
condition. Iner ambitious work would be no less than a morality tale about
betrayal and destiny in the Five Galaxies! Beyond
these singular insights, I am struck that here on Jijo an illiterate community
of castaways was suddenly Hooded with written lore provided by human settlers.
What an ironic reversal of Larths situation, with our own native culture nearly
overwhelmed by exposure to the Great Galactic Library. Astonishingly, the Six Kaces
seem to have adapted with vitality and confidence, if tluck and Alvin are at
all representative. I wish their experiment well. Admittedly,
I still have trouble understanding their religion. the concept of redemption
through devolution is one they seem to take for granted, yet its attraction
eludes me. to my surprise, our ships
doctor said she understands the
concept, quite well. Every
dolphin grows up tee ling the call, Makanee told me. In sleep, our minds still
roam the vast songscape of the Whale Dream. It beckons us to return to our
basic nature, whenever the stress of sapiency becomes too great. This
dolphin crew has been under pressure for three long years. Makanees tfait must
care for over two dozen patients who are already redeemed, as a Jijoan would
put it. These dolphins have reclaimed their basic nature all right. In other
words, we have lost them as comrades and skilled colleagues, as surely as it
they died. Makanee
fights regression wherever she finds symptoms, and yet she remains
philosophical. She even otters a theory to explain why the idea revolts me so. She put
it something like so-- 1
L,Ktiy\l S you humans dread this lite avenue because your race had to work for
sapiency, earning it for yourself the
hard way across thousands of bleak generations. We
tins-and these urs and qheuens and noons, and every other Galactic clan--all
had the gitt handed to us by some race that came before. you can t expect us to
hold on to it quite as tenaciously as you, who had to struggle so desperately
for the same prize. The
attraction of this so-called Redemption lath may be a bit like ditching school.
There s something alluring about the notion of letting go, shucking the
discipline and toil of maintaining a rigorous mind. It you slack off, so what'
YOM descendants will get another chance. A fresh start on the upward road of
uplift, with new patrons to show you the way. I asked
Makanee it she found that part of it especially appealing. The
idea of new patrons. Would dolphins be better off with ditlerent sponsors than
Homo sapiens' She
laughed and expressed her answer in deliclously ambiguous Trinary. *When
winter sends ice* *growling
across northern seas* *Wimps
love the gull stream!* Makanees
comment made me ponder again the question of human origins. On
Earth, most people seem willing to suspend Judgment on the question of whether
our species had help from genetic meddlers, before the age of science and then
contact. Stubborn Darwinists still present a strong case, but few have the guts
to insist Galactic experts are wrong when they claim, with eons of experience,
that the sole route to sapiency is Uplift.
Many terran citizens take their word (or it. So the
debate rages--on popular media shows and in private arguments among humans,
dolphins, and chims-about who our absent patrons might have been. At last count
there were six dozen candidates-from luvalllans and L"ethani all the way
to Sun Ghosts and time travelers from some bizarre (Nineteenth Dimension. While a
few dolphins do believe in missing patrons, a majority are like Makanee. I hey
hold that we humans must have done it ourselves, struggling against darkness
without the slightest Intervention by outsiders. How did
Chaplain Creideiki put it, once" Oh yes. 1 Hr,Kt
are racial memories, lorn and Jill. Recollections that can be accessed through
deep keeneenk meditation. One particular image comes down from our dreamlike
legends--of an apelike creature paddling to sea on a tree trunk, proudly
proclaiming that he had carved it, all by himself, with a stone ax, and
demanding congratulations from an indifferent cosmos. Now I
ask you, would any decent patron let its client act in such a way a manner that
made you look so ridiculous' INO.
From the beginning we could tell that you humans were being raised by amateurs.
Dy yourselves. AT
least thats how I remember Creidelki's remark, lorn found it hilarious, but I
recall suspecting that our captain was withholding part of the story. There was
more, that he was saving for another time. Only
another time never came. Even as
we dined with Creideiki that evening, Streaker was wriggling her way by an
obscure back route into the Shallow duster. A day
or two later, everything changed. It is
late and I should finish these notes. Try to catch some sleep. Mannes
reports mixed results from engineering, lie and l\arkaett found a way to remove
some of the carbon coating from Streaker's hull, but a more thorough job would
only wind up damaging our already weak Ranges, so that's out for now. On the
other hand, the control parameters I hoaxed out or the Library cube enabled
Suessi's crew to bring a couple or these derelict dross starships back to lire!
They re still Junk, or else the Buyur would have taken them along when they
lett. Out immersion in icy water appears to have made little difference since
then. perhaps some use might be found for one or two of the hulks. Anyway, it
gives the engineers something to do. We need
distraction, now that Streaker seems to be trapped once more. Galactic cruisers
have yet again chased us down to a far corner or the universe, coveting our
lives and our secrets. How? I've
pondered this over and over. How did they follow our trail? The
course past l?munuti seemed well hidden. Others made successful escapes this
way before. The ancestors of the Six Races, for instance. It
should have worked. ACROSS
this narrow room, I stare at a small figure in a centered spotlight. My closest
companion since lorn went away. Herbie. Our
prize from the Shallow cluster. Bearer
of hopes and evil luck. Was
there a curse on the vast fleet of translucent vessels we discovered at that
strange dip in space? When Tom lound a way through their shimmering fields and
snatched Herb as a souvenir, did he bring back a Jinx that will haunt us until
we put the damned corpse back in its billion-year-old tomb! I used
to find the ancient mummy entrancing. Its hint of a humanoid smile seemed
almost whimsical. But
I've grown to hate the thing, and alt the space this discovery has sent us
Heeing across. I'd
give it all to have Tom back. To make the last three years go away. To recover
those innocent old days, when the rive Galaxies were merely very, very
dangerous, and there was still such a thing as home. B-BUT
YOU SAID HOONS WERE OUR ENEMIESSS!" Zhaki's tone was defiant, though his
body posture- head down and flukes raised-betrayed uncertainty. Kaa took
advantage, stirring water with his pectoral fins, taking the firm upright
stance of an officer in the Terragens Survey Service. "Those
were different hoons," he answered. "The NuDawn disaster happened a
long time ago." Zhaki
shook his bottle snout, flicking spray across the humid dome. "Eatees are
eateesss. They'll crush Earthlings any chance they get, just like the Soro and
Tandu and all the other muckety Galactics-cs!" Kaa
winced at the blanket generalization, but after two years on the run, such
attitudes were common among the ranks. Kaa also nursed the self-pitying image
of Earth against the entire universe. But if that were true, the torment would
have ended with annihilation long ago. We have
allies, a few friends . . . and the grudging sympathy of neutral clans, who
hold meetings debating what to do about a plague of fanaticism sweeping the
Five Galaxies. Eventually, the majority may reach a consensus and act to
reestablish civilization. They may even penalize our murderers . . . for all
the good it will do us. "Actually,"
said Brookida, turning from his workbench in the far corner of the cramped
shelter. "I would not put the hoon in the same category as our other
persecutors. They aren't religious radicals, or power-hungry conquerors.
Sourpuss bureaucrats-that's a better description. Officious sticklers for
rules, which is why so many enter service with Galactic Institutes. At NuDawn
they were only enforcing the law. When human settlers resisted-" "They
thought they were being invaded!" Zhaki objected. "Yessss."
Brookida nodded. "But Earth's colony hadn't heard about contact, and they
lacked equipment to hear Galactic inquiries. When hoonish officials came to
give a ritual last warning, they met something not in their manuals ... armed
trespassersss. Barbarians with no Galactic language. Mistakes followed.
Military units swarmed in from Joph-" "This
has nothing to do with our present problem." Kaa interrupted Brookida's
history lecture. "Zhaki, you must stop cutting the local hoons' fishing
netsss! It draws attention to us." "Angry
attention," Brookida added. "They grow wary against your
dep-p-predations, Zhaki. Last time, they cast many spears." The
young dolphin snorted. * Let
the whalers throw! * As in
autumn storms of old- * Waves
come, two-legs drown! * Kaa
flinched. Moments ago, Zhaki was eager to avenge humans who had died on a lost
colony, back when dolphins could barely speak. Now the irate youth lumped all
bipeds together,, dredging up a grudge from days before men and women became
caretakers of Earth. There was no arguing with a mind that worked that way.
Still, it was Kaa's job to enforce discipline. * If
you repeat this act, * No
harpoon will sting your backside * Like
my snapping teeth! * It
wasn't great haiku-not poetical Trinary like Captain Creideiki used to dazzle
his crew with, Grafting devoted loyalty from waves of gorgeous sound. But the
warning rocked Zhaki. Kaa followed up, projecting a beam of intense sonar from
his brow, piercing Zhaki's body, betraying fear churnings within. When in
doubt, he thought, fall back on the ancestors' ways. "You
are dismisssssed," he finished. "Go rest. Tomorrow's another long
day." Zhaki
swerved obediently, retreating to the curtained alcove he shared with Mopol. Alas,
despite this brief success, Kaa also knew it would not last. Tsh't
told us this was an important mission. But I bet she assigned us all here
because we're the ones Streaker could most easily do without. That
night he dreamed of piloting. Neo-dolphins
had a flair for it-a precocious talent for the newest sapient species in all
Five Galaxies. Just three hundred years after human geneticists began modifying
natural bottlenose dolphins, starship Streaker was dispatched in a noble
experiment to prove the skill of dolphin crews. The Terragens Council thought
it might help solidify Earth's shaky position to become known as a source of
crackerjack pilots. "Lucky"
Kaa had naturally been pleased to be chosen for the mission, though it brought
home one glaring fact. I was
good . . . but not the best. In half
slumber, Kaa relived the terrifying ambush at Morgan, a narrow escape that
still rocked him, even after -all this time. Socketed
in his station on the bridge, helpless to do anything but go along for the
ride, as Chief Pilot Keepiru sent the old Snark-class survey ship through
maneuvers a Tandu fighter ship would envy, neatly evading lurk mines and snare
fields, then diving back into the Morgan maelstrom, without benefit of guidance
computation. The
memory lost no vividness after two long years. Transit
threads swarmed around them, a dizzying blur of dimensional singularities. By a
whim of cerebral evolution, trained dolphin pilots excelled at picturing the
shimmering space-time clefts with sonar imagery. But Kaa had never rushed through
such a tangle,A tornado of knotted strands. Any shining cord, caught at the
wrong angle, might burl the ship back into normal space with the consistency of
quark stew ... . . .
Yet somehow, the ship sped nimbly from one thread to the next, Keepiru escaped
the pursuers, dodged past the normal trade routes, and finally brought Streaker
to a refuge Captain Creideiki chose. Kithrup,
where resources for repairs could be found as pure isotopic metal, growing like
coral in a poison sea . . . . . .
Kithrup, homeworld of two unknown races, one sinking in an ancient wallow of
despair, and the other hopeful, new ... . . .
Kithrup, where no one should have been able to follow ... . . .
But they did. Galactics, feuding and battling insanely overhead . . . . . .
And soon Keepiru was gone, along with Toshio, Hikahi, and Mr. Orley . . . . . .
and Kaa learned that some wishes were better not coming true. He
learned that he did not really want to be chief pilot, after all. In the
years since, he has gained experience. The escapes he piloted-from Oakka and
the Fractal System- were performed well, if not as brilliantly. Not
quite good enough to preserve Kaa's nickname. I never
heard anyone else say they could do better. All in
all, it was not a restful sleep. Zhaki
and Mopol were at it again, before dawn, rubbing and squealing beyond a slim
curtain they nearly shredded with their slashing tails. They should have gone
outside to frolic, but Kaa dared not order it. "It
is typical postadolescent behavior," Brookida told him, by the food
dispenser. "Young males grow agitated. Among natural dolphins, unisex play
ceases to be sufficient as youths turn their thoughts to winning the
companionship of females. Young allies often test their status by jointly
challenging older males." Of
course Kaa knew all that. But he could not agree with the "typical"
part. I never acted that way. Oh sure, I was an obnoxious, arrogant young fin.
But I never acted intentionally gross, or like some reverted animal. "Maybe
Tsh't should have assigned females to our team." He pondered aloud. "Wouldn't
help," answered the elderly metallurgist. "If those two schtorks
weren't getting any aboard ship, they wouldn't do any better here. Our
fern-fins have high standards." Kaa
sputtered out a lump of half-chewed mullet as he laughed, grateful for
Brookida's lapse into coarse humor- though it grazed by a touchy subject among
Streaker's crew, the petition to breed that some had been circulating and
signing. Kaa changed
the subject. "How goes your analysis of the matter the hoons dumped
overboard?" Brookida
nodded toward his workbench, where several ribboned casks lay cracked open.
Bits of bone and crystal glittered amid piles of ashen dust. "So
far, the contents confirm what the hoonish boy wrote in his journal." "Amazing.
I was sure it must be a fake, planted by our enemies." Transcripts of the
handwritten diary, passed on by Streaker's command, seemed too incredible to
believe. "Apparently
the story is true. Six races do live together on this world. As part of
ecology-oriented rituals, they send their unrecyclable wastes-called dross-to
sea for burial in special disposal zones. This includes parts of their
processed bodies." "And
you found-" "Human
remainsss." Brookida nodded. "As well as chimps, hoons, urs . . . the
whole crowd this young 'Alvin' wrote about." Kaa was
still dazed by it all. "And
there are ... J-Jophur." He could hardly speak the word aloud. Brookida
frowned. "A matter of definition, it seems. I've exchanged message queries
with Gillian and the Niss Machine. They suggest these so-called traeki might
have the other races fooled as part of an elaborate, long-range plot." "How
could that be?" "I
am not sure. It would not require that every traeki be in on the scheme. Just a
few, with secret master rings, • and the hidden equipment to dominate their
fellow beings. I cannot quite fathom it. But Gillian has questioned the
captured Library unit. And that seems a possssible scenario." Kaa had
no answer for that. Such matters seemed so complex, so far beyond his grasp,
his only response was to shiver from the tip of his rostrum all the way down to
his trembling tail. They
spent another day spying on the local sooners. The hoonish seaport, Wuphon,
seemed to match the descriptions in Alvin's journal . . . though more crude and
shabby in the eyes of beings who had seen the sky towers of Tanith and bright
cities on Earth's moon. The hoons appeared to pour more lavish attention on
their boats than their homes. The graceful sailing ships bore delicate carving
work, down to proud figureheads shaped like garish deities. When a
vessel swept past Kaa, he overheard the deep, rumbling sounds of singing, as
the sailors boomed evident joy across the whitecaps. It's
hard to believe these are the same folk Brookida described as passionless
prigs. Maybe there are two races that look alike, and have similar-sounding
names. Kaa made a mental note to send an inquiry in tonight's report. Hoons
weren't alone on deck. He peered at smaller creatures, scrambling nimbly over
the rigging, but when he tried using a portable camera, the image swept by too
fast to catch much more than a blur. Streaker
also wanted better images of the volcano, which apparently was a center of
industrial activity among the sooner races. Gillian and Tsh't were considering
sending another independent robot ashore, though earlier drones had been lost.
Kaa got spectral readings of the mountain's steaming emissions, and discovered
the trace of a slender tramway, camouflaged against the rocky slopes. He
checked frequently on Zhaki and Mopol, who seemed to be behaving for a change,
sticking close to their assigned task of eavesdropping on the red qheuen
colony. But
later, when all three of them were on their way back to base, Mopol lagged
sluggishly behind. "It
must-t have been some-thing I ate," the blue dolphin murmured, as
unpleasant gurglings erupted within his abdomen. Oh
great, Kaa thought. I warned him a hundred times not to sample local critters
before Brookida had a chance to test them! Mopol
swore it was nothing. But as the water surrounding their shelter dimmed with
the setting sun, he started moaning again. Brookida used their tiny med
scanner, but was at a loss to tell what had gone wrong. NOMINALLY,
SHE COMMANDED EARTH'S MOST Famous spaceship-a beauty almost new by Galactic
standards, just nine hundred years old when the Terragens Council purchased it
from a Puntictin used-vessel dealer, then altered and renamed it Streaker to
show off the skills of neo-dolphin voyagers. Alas,
the bedraggled craft seemed unlikely ever again to cruise the great spiral
ways. Burdened by a thick coat of refractory stardust-and now trapped deep
underwater while pursuers probed the abyss with sonic bombs-to all outward
appearances, it seemed doomed to join the surrounding great pile of ghost
ships, sinking in the slowly devouring mud of an oceanic ravine. Gone
was the excitement that first led Tsh't into the service. The thrill of flight.
The exhilaration. Nor was there much relish in "authority," since she
did not make policies or crucial decisions. Gillian Baskin had that role. What
remained was handling ten thousand details . . . like when a disgruntled cook
accosted her in a water-filled hallway, wheedling for permission to go up to
the realm of light. "It'ssss
too dark and c-cold to go fishing down here!" complained Bulla-jo, whose
job it was to help provide meals for a hundred finicky dolphins. "My harvesst
team can hardly move, wearing all that pressure armor. And have you seen the
so-called fish we catch in our nets? Weird things, all sspiky and
glowing!" Tsh't
replied, "Dr. Makanee has passed at least forty common varieties of local
sea life as both tasty and nutritious, so long as we sssupplement with the
right additives." Still,
Bulla-jo groused. "Everyone
favors the samples we got earlier, from the upper world of waves and open air.
There are great schools of lovely things swimming around up-p there." Then
Bulla-jo lapsed into Trinary. * Where
perfect sunshine * Makes
lively prey fish glitter * As
they flee from us! * He
concluded, "If you want fresh f-food, let us go to the surface, like you
p-promised!" Tsh't
quashed an exasperated sigh over Bulla-jo's forgetfulness. In this early stage
of their Uplift, neo-dolphins often perceived whatever they chose, ignoring
contradictions. J do it
myself, now and then. She
tried cultivating patience, as Creideiki used to teach. "Dr.
Baskin canceled plans to send more parties to the sunlit surface," she
told Bulla-jo, whose speckled flanks and short beak revealed ancestry from the
stenos dolphin line. "Did it escape your notice that gravitic emissions
have been detected, cruising above this deep fissure? Or that someone has been
dropping sonic charges, seeking to find usss?" Bulla-jo
lowered his rostrum in an attitude of obstinate insolence. "We can g-go
naked . . . carry no tools the eatees could detect-ct." Tsh't
marveled at such single-minded thinking. "That
might work if the gravities were far away, say in orbit, or passing by at high
altitude. But once they know our rough location they can cruise low and slow,
ssseeking the radiochemical spoor of molecules in our very blood.
Surface-swimming fins would give us away." Irony
was a bittersweet taste to Tsh't, for she knew something she had no intention
of sharing with Bulla-jo. They are going to detect us, no matter how many
precautions Gillian orders. To the
frustrated crew member, she had only soothing words. "Just
float loose for a while longer, will you, Bulla-jo? I, too, would love to chase
silvery fish through warm waters. All may be resolved sh-shortly." Grumpy,
but mollified, the messmate saluted by clapping his pectoral fins and swimming
back to duty . . . though Tsh't knew the crisis would recur. Dolphins disliked
being so far from sunlight, or from the tide's cycloid rub against shore.
Tursiops weren't meant to dwell so deep, where pressurized sound waves carried
in odd, disturbing ways. It is
the realm of Physeter, sperm whale, great-browed messenger of the ancient dream
gods, who dives to wrestle great-armed demons. The
abyss was where hopes and nightmares from past, present, and future drifted to
form dark sediments-a place best left to sleeping things. We
neo-fins are superstitious at heart. But what can you expect, having humans as
our beloved patrons? Humans, who are themselves wolflings, primitive by the
standards of a billion-year-old culture. This
she pondered while inhaling deeply, filling her gill lungs with the air-charged
fluid, oxy-water, that filled most of Streaker's residential passages-a
genetically improvised manner of breathing that nourished, but never
comfortably. One more reason many of the crew yearned for the clean, bright
world above. Turning
toward the Streaker's bridge, she thrust powerfully through the fizzing liquid,
leaving clouds of effervescence behind her driving flukes. Each bubble gave off
a faint pop! as it hiccuped into existence, or merged back into supercharged
solution. Sometimes the combined susurration sounded like elfin applause-or
derisive laughter-following her all over the ship. At
least I don't fool myself, she thought. I do all right. Gillian says so, and
puts her trust in me. But I know I'm not meant for command. Tsh't
had never expected such duty when Streaker blasted out of Earth orbit,
refurbished for use by a neodolphin crew. Back then-over two years ago, by
shipclock time-Tsh't had been only a junior lieutenant, a distant fifth in line
from Captain Creideiki. And it was common knowledge that Tom Orley and Gillian
Baskin could step in if the need seemed urgent ... as Gillian eventually did,
during the crisis on Kithrup. Tsh't
didn't resent that human intervention. In arranging an escape from the Kithrup
trap, Tom and Gillian pulled off a miracle, even if it led to the lovers'
separation. Wasn't
that the job of human leaders and heroes? To intercede when a crisis might
overwhelm their clients? But
where do we turn when matters get too awful even for humans to handle? Galactic
tradition adhered to a firm-some said oppressive-hierarchy of debts and
obligations. A client race to its patron. That patron to its sapience benefactor
. . . and so on, tracing the great chain of uplift all the way back to the
legendary Progenitors. The same chain of duty underlay the reaction of some
fanatical clans on hearing news of Streaker's discovery-a fleet of derelict
ships with ancient, venerated markings. But the
pyramid of devotion had positive aspects. The uplift cascade meant each new
species got help crossing the dire gap dividing mere animals from starfaring
citizens. And if your sponsors lacked answers, they might ask their patrons. And
so on. Gillian
had tried appealing to this system, taking Streaker from Kithrup to Oakka, the
green world, seeking counsel from impartial savants of the Navigation
Institute. Failing there, she next sought help in the Fractal Orb-that huge icy
place, a giant snowflake that spanned a solar system's width-hoping the
venerable beings who dwelled there might offer wise detachment, or at least
refuge. It
wasn't Dr. Baskin's fault that neither gamble paid off very well. She had the
right general idea, Tsh't mused. But Gillian remains blind to the obvious. Who is
most likely to help, when you're in trouble and a lynch mob is baying at your
tail? The
courts? Scholars
at some university? Or your
own family? Tsh't
never dared suggest her idea aloud. Like Tom Orley, Gillian took pride in the
romantic image of upstart Earthclan, alone against the universe. Tsh't knew the
answer would be no. So,
rather than flout a direct order, Tsh't had quietly put her own plan into
effect, just before Streaker made her getaway from the Fractal System. What
else could I do, with Streaker pursued by horrid fleets, our best crew members
gone, and Earth under siege? Our Tymbrimi friends can barely help even
themselves. Meanwhile, the Galactic Institutes have been corrupted and the Old
Ones lied to us. We had
no choice. . . . I
had no choice . . . It was
hard concealing things, especially from someone who knew dolphins as well as
Gillian. For weeks since Streaker arrived here, Tsh't half hoped her disobedience
would come to nought. Then
the detection officer reported gravitic traces. Starcraft engines, entering
Jijo space. So,
they came after all, she had thought, hearing the news, concealing satisfaction
while her crew mates expressed noisy chagrin, bemoaning that they now seemed
cornered by relentless enemies on a forlorn world. Tsh't
wanted to tell them the truth, but dared not. That good news must wait. Ifni
grant that I was right. Tsh't
paused outside the bridge, filling her gene-altered lungs with oxy-water.
Enriching her blood to think clearly before setting in motion the next phase of
her plan. There
is just one true option for a client race, when your beloved patrons seem
overwhelmed, and all other choices are cut off. May the
gods of Earth's ancient ocean know and understand what I've done. And
what I may yet have to do. Sooners
Nelo ONCE, A
BUYUR URBAN CENTER STRETCHED BEtween two rivers, from the Roney all the way to
the faroff Bibur. Now the
towers were long gone, scraped and hauled away to distant seas. In their place,
spiky ferns and cloudlike voow trees studded a morass of mud and oily water.
Mule-spider vines laced a few rounded hummocks remaining from the great city,
but even those tendrils were now faded, their part in the demolition nearly
done. To
Nelo, this was wasteland, rich in life but useless to any of the Six Races,
except perhaps as a traeki vacation resort. What am
I doing here? he wondered. I should he back in Dolo, tending my mill, not prowling
through a swamp, keeping a crazy woman company. Behind
Nelo, hoonish sailors cursed low, expressive rumblings, resentful over having
to pole through a wretched bog. The proper time for gleaning was at the start
of the dry season, when citizens in high-riding boats took turns sifting the
marsh for Buyur relics missed by the patient mule beast. Now, with rainstorms
due any day, conditions were miserable for exploring. The muddy channels were
shallow, yet the danger of a flash flood was very real. Nelo faced the elderly
woman who sat in a wheelchair near the bow, peering past obscuring trees with a
rewq over her eyes. "The
crew ain't happy, Sage Foo," he told her. "They'd rather we waited
till it's safe." Ariana
Foo answered without turning from her search. "Oh, what a great idea. Four
months or more we'd sit around while the swamp fills, channels shift, and the
thing we seek gets buried in muck. Of course, by then the information would be
too late to do any good." Nelo
shrugged. The woman was retired now. She had no official powers. But as former
High Sage for all humans on Jijo, Ariana had moral authority to ask anything
she wanted-including having Nelo leave his beloved paper mill next to broad
Dolo Dam, accompanying her on this absurd search. Not
that there was much to do at the mill, he knew. With commerce spoiled by panic
over those wretched starsbips, no one seems interested in buying large orders. "Now
is the best time," Ariana went on. "Late in dry season, with water
levels low, and the foliage drooping, we get maximum visibility." Nelo
took her word. With most young men and women away on militia duties, it was
mostly adolescents and oldtimers who got drafted into the search party. Anyway,
Nelo's daughter had -been among the first to find the Stranger from Space in
this very region several months ago, during a routine gleaning trip. And he
owed Ariana for bringing word about Sara and the boys-that they were all I
right, when last she heard. Sage Foo had spent time with Nelo's daughter,
accompanying Sara from Tarek Town to the Biblos Archive. He felt
another droplet strike his cheek . . . the tenth since they left the river,
plunging into this endless slough. He held his hand under a murky sky and
prayed the real downpours would hold off for a few more days. Then
let it come down! The lake is low. We need water pressure for the wheel, or
else I'll have to shut down the mill for lack of power. His
thoughts turned to business-the buying and gathering of recycled cloth from all
six races. The pulping and sifting. The pressing, drying, and selling of fine
sheets that his family had been known for ever since humans brought the
blessing of paper to Jijo. A
blessing that some called a curse. That radical view now claimed support from
simple villagers, panicked by the looming end of days- A shout
boomed from above. "There!"
A wiry young hoon perched high on the mast, pointing. "Hr-r ... It must be
the Stranger's ship. I told you this had to be the place!" Wyhuph-eihugo
had accompanied Sara on that fateful gleaning trip-a duty required of all
citizens. Lacking a male's throat sac, she nevertheless umbled with some verve,
proud of her navigation. At
last! Nelo thought. Now Ariana can make her sketches, and we can leave this
awful place. The crisscrossing mule cables made him nervous. Their boat's
obsidiantipped prow had no trouble slicing through the desiccated vines. Still
it felt as if they were worming deeper into some fiendish trap. Ariana
muttered something. Nelo turned, blinking. "What
did you say?" The old
woman pointed ahead, her eyes glittering with curiosity. "I
don't see any soot!" "So?" "The
Stranger was burned. His clothes were ashen tatters. We thought his ship must
have come down in flames-perhaps after battling other aliens high over Jijo.
But look. Do you see any trace of conflagration?" The
boat worked around a final voow grove, revealing a rounded metal capsule on the
other side, gleaming amid a nest of shattered branches. The sole opening
resembled the splayed petals of a flower, rather than a door or hatch. The
arrival of this intruder had cut a swathe of devastation stretching to the
northwest. Several swamp hummocks were split by the straight gouge, only partly
softened by regrown vegetation. Nelo
had some experience as a surveyor, so he helped take sightings to get the
ship's overall dimensions. It was small-no larger than this hoonish boat, in
fact-certainly no majestic cruiser like the one that clove the sky over Dolo
Town, sending its citizens into hysteria. The rounded flanks reminded Nelo of a
natural teardrop, more than anything sapient-made. Two
pinpoints of moisture dotted his cheek and forehead. Another struck the back of
his hand. In the distance, Nelo heard a sharp rumble of thunder. "Hurry
closer!" Ariana urged, flipping open her sketchpad. Murmuring
unhappily, the hoons leaned on their poles and oars to comply. Nelo
stared at the alien craft, but all he could think was dross. When Sixers went
gleaning through Buyur sites, one aim was to seek items that might be useful
for a time, in a home or workshop. But useful or not, everything eventually
went into ribboned caskets to be sent on to the Great Midden. Thus colonists
imagined they were helping cleanse Jijo-perhaps doing more good than harm to
their adopted world. "Ifni!"
Nelo sighed under his breath, staring at the vehicle that brought the Stranger
hurtling out of space. It might be tiny for a starship, but it looked hard as
blazes to move by hand. "We'll
be in for a hell of a job draggin' this thing out of here, let alone gettin' it
down to sea." Again,
off to the south, the sound of thunder boomed. from the too-timid Poa,
completing the final stages of our Uplift. Those
same Oailie who designed new master rings to focus and bind our natures. Without
rings like Me, how could our race ever have become great and feared among the
Five Galaxies? AND
YET, even as I learn to integrate your many little selves into our new whole, I
am struck by how vivid are these older drippings that I find lining our inner
core! Drippings that date from before My fusion with your aged pile of rings.
How lustrous clear these memories seem, despite their counterpointing
harmonies. I confess, existence had intensity and verve when you,we were merely
Asx. PERHAPS
this surprise comes because I,Myself am so young, only recently drawn from the
side of our Ship Commander-from that great one's very own ring-of-embryos. Yes,
that is a high heritage. So imagine the surprise of finding Myself in this
situation! Designed for duties in the dominion caste, I am wedded, for
pragmatic reasons, to a haphazard heap of rustic toruses, ill educated and
filled with bizarre, primitive notions. I have been charged to make the best of
things until some later time, when surgery-of-reconfiguration can be performed- AH.
THAT DRAWS A REACTION FROM SOME OF YOU? Our second ring of cognition, in
particular, finds this notion disturbing. Fear
not, My rings! Accept these jolts of painful love soothing, to remind you of
your place-which is not to question, only to serve. Be assured that the
procedure I refer to is now quite advanced among the mighty Jophur. When a ring
is removed for reassembly in a new stack, often as many as half of the other
leftover components can be recovered and reused as well! Of course, most of you
are elderly, and the priests may decide you carry other-race contaminations,
preventing incorporation into new mounds. But accept this pledge. When the time
comes, I, your beloved master ring, shall very likely make the transition in
good health, and take fond memories of our association to My glorious new
stack. I know
this fact will bring you all great satisfaction, contemplating it within our
common core. wasx WE
JOPHUR ARE TAUGHT THAT IT IS TERRIBLE TO BE traeki-a stack lacking any central
self. Doomed to a splintered life of vagueness and blurry placidity. ALL SING
PRAISES to the mighty Oailie, who took over PATHEDRAL-LIKE
STILLNESS FILLED THE BOO Forest-a dense expanse of gray-green columns, towering
Uto support the sky. Each majestic trunk had a girth like the carapace of a
five-clawed qheuen. Some stretched as high as the Stone Roof of Biblos. Now I
know how an insect feels, scuttling under a sea of pampas grass. Hiking
along a narrow lane amid the giant pillars, Lark often could reach out his arms
and brush two giant stems at the same time. Only his militia sergeant seemed
immune to a sense of confinement infecting travelers in this strange place of
vertical perspectives. Other guards expressed edginess with darting eyes that
glanced worriedly down crooked aisles at half-hidden shadows. "How
far is it to Dooden Mesa?" Ling asked, tugging the straps of her leather
backpack. Perspiration glistened down her neck to dampen the Jijoan homespun
jerkin she wore. The effect was not as provocative as Lark recalled from their
old survey trips together, when the sheer fabric of a Danik jumpsuit sometimes
clung to her biosculpted figure in breathtaking ways. Anyway,
I can't afford that, now that I'm a sage. The promotion brought only unpleasant
responsibilities. "I
never took this shortcut before," Lark answered, although he and Uthen
used to roam these mountains in search of data for their book. There were other
paths around the mountain, and the wheeled g'Keks nominally in charge of this
domain could hardly be expected to do upkeep on such a rough trail. "My
best guess is we'll make it in two miduras. Want to rest?" Ling
pushed sodden strands from her eyes. "No. Let's keep going." The
former gene raider seemed acutely aware of Jeni Shen, the diminutive sergeant,
whose corded arms cradled her crossbow like a beloved child. Jeni glanced
frequently at Ling with hunter's eyes, as if speculating which vital organ
might make a good target. Anyone could sense throbbing enmity between the two
women-and that Ling would rather die than show weakness before the militia
scout. Lark
found one thing convenient about their antagonism. It helped divert Ling's ire
away from him, especially after the way he earlier used logic to slash her
beloved Rothen gods. Since then, the alien biologist had been civil, but kept
to herself in brooding silence. No one
likes to have their most basic assumptions knocked
from under them-especially by a primitive savage. Lark
blew air through his cheeks-the hoonish version of a shrug. "Hr-rm.
We'll take a break at the next rise. By then we should be out of the worst
boo." In
fact, the thickest zone was already behind them, a copse so dense the monstrous
stems rubbed in the wind, creating a low, drumming music that vibrated the
bones of anyone passing underneath. Traveling single file, edging sideways
where the trunks pressed closest, the party had watched for vital trail marks,
cut on one rounded bole after the next. I was
right to leave Uthen behind, he thought, hoping to convince himself. Just hold
on, old friend. Maybe we'll come up with something. I pray we can. Visibility
was hampered by drifting haze, since many of the tall boo leaked from water
reserves high above, spraying arcs of fine droplets that spread to saturate the
misty colonnade. Several times they passed clearings where aged columns had
toppled in a domino chain reaction, leaving maelstroms of debris. Through
the fog, Lark occasionally glimpsed other symbols, carved on trunks beyond the
trail. Not trail marks, but cryptic emblems in GalTwo and GalSix . . .
accompanied by strings of Anglic numbers. Why
would anyone-go scrawling graffiti through a stand of greatboo? He even
spied dim figures through the murk-once a human, then several urs, and finally
a pair of traeki- glimpsed prowling amid rows of huge green pillars. At least
he hoped the tapered cones were traeki. They vanished like ghosts before he
could tell for sure. Sergeant
Shen kept the party moving too fast to investigate. Lark and his prisoner had
been summoned by two of the High Sages-a command that overruled any other
priority. And despite the difficult terrain, recent news from the Glade of
Gathering was enough to put vigor in their steps. Runners
reported that the Jophur dreadnought still blocked the sacred valley, squatting
complacently inside its swathe of devastation, with the captive Rothen ship
doubly imprisoned nearby-first by a gold cocoon, and now a rising lake as well.
The Jophur daily sent forth a pair of smaller vessels, sky-prowling daggers,
surveying the Slope and the seas beyond. No one knew what the star gods were
looking for. Despite
what happened on the night the great ship landed-havoc befalling Asx and others
on the Glade-the High Sages were preparing to send another embassy of brave
volunteers, hoping to parley. No one asked Lark to serve as an envoy. The Sages
had other duties planned for him. Humans
weren't the only ones to cheat a little, when their founding generation came to
plant a taboo colony on forbidden Jijo. For
more than a year after it made landfall, the Tabernacles crew delayed sending
their precious ship to an ocean abyss. A year spent using god tools to cut
trees and print books . . . then storing the precious volumes in a stronghold
that the founders carved beneath a great stone overhang, protected by high
walls and a river. During those early days-especially the urrish and qheuen wars-Biblos
Fortress served as a vital refuge until humans grew strong enough to demand
respect. The
Gray Queens also once had such a citadel, sculpted by mighty engines when they
first arrived, before their sneakship fell beneath the waves. The Caves of
Snood, near present-day Ovoom Town, must have seemed impregnable. But. that
maze of deep-hewn caverns drowned under a rising water table when blue and red
workers dropped their slavish maintenance duties, wandering off instead to seek
new homes and destinies, apart from their chitin empresses. Dooden
Mesa was the oldest of the sooner ramparts. After Tarek Town, it formed the
heart of g'Kek life on Jijo, a place of marvelous stone ramps that curved like
graceful filigrees, allowing the wheeled ones to swoop and careen through a
swirl of tight turns, from their looms and workshops to tree-sheltered
platforms where whole families slept with their hubs joined in slowly rotating
clusters. Under an obscuring blur-cloth canopy, the meandering system resembled
pictures found in certain Earthling books about pre-contact times-looking like
a cross between an "amusement park" and the freeway interchanges of
some sprawling city. Ling's
face brightened with amazed delight when she regarded the settlement, nodding as
Lark explained the lacy pattern of narrow byways. Like Biblos, Dooden Rampart
was not meant to last forever, for that would violate the Covenant of Exile.
Someday it all would have to go- g'Kek elders conceded. Still, the wheeled ones
throbbed their spokes in sinful pride over their beloved city. Their home. While
Ling marveled, Lark surveyed the busy place with fresh poignancy. This
their only home. Unless
the Rothen lied, it seems there are no more g'Kek living among the Five
Galaxies. If they
die on Jijo, they are gone for good. Watching
youngsters pitch along graceful ramps with reckless abandon, streaking round
corners with all four eyestalks flying and their rims glowing hot, Lark could
not believe the universe would let that happen. How could any race so unique be
allowed to go extinct? With
the boo finally behind them, the party now stood atop a ridge covered with
normal forest. As they paused, a zookir dropped onto the path from the branches
of a nearby garu tree-all spindly arms and legs, covered with white spirals of
fluffy torg. Treasured aides and pets of the g'Kek, zookirs helped make life
bearable for wheeled beings on a planet where roads were few and stumbling
stones all too many. This
zookir squinted at the party, then scampered closer, sniffing. Unerringly, it
bypassed the other humans, zeroing in on Lark. Trust a
zookir to know a sage-so went a folk saying. No one had any idea how the
creatures could tell, since they seemed less clever than chimps in other ways.
Lark's promotion was recent and he wore the new status of "junior
sage" uncomfortably, yet the creature had no trouble setting him apart. It
pressed damp nostrils against his wrist and inhaled. Then, cooing satisfaction,
it slipped a folded parchment in Lark's hand. MEET US
AT THE REFUGE-That was all it said. RPAIR
OF HIGH SAGES WAITED IN A NARROW CANyon, half a league away. Lester Cambel and
Knife-Bright Insight, the blue qheuen whose reputation for compassion made her
a favorite among the Six. Here,
too, the paths were smooth and well suited for g'Keks, since this was part of
their Dooden Domain. Wheeled figures moved among the meadows, looking after
protected ones who lived in thatched shelters beneath the trees. It was a
refuge for sacred simpletons-those whose existence promised a future for the
Six Races-according to the scrolls. , Several
of the blessed ones gathered around Knife-Bright | Insight, clucking or mewing in debased versions of Galac- i tic tongues. These were hoons and urs, for
the most part, though a red qheuen joined the throng as Lester watched, and
several traeki stacks slithered timidly closer, burbling happy stinks as they
approached. Each received a loving pat or stroke from Knife-Bright Insight, as
if her claws were gentle hands. Lester
regarded his colleague, and knew guiltily that he could
never match her glad kindness. The blessed were superior beings, ranking above
the normal run of the Six. Their simplicity was proof that other races could
follow the example of glavers, treading down the Path of Redemption. It
should fill my heart to see them, he thought. Yet I
hate coming to this place. Members
of all six races dwelled in simple shelters underneath the canyon walls, tended
by local g'Keks, plus volunteers from across the Slope. Whenever a qheuen, or
hoon, or urrish village found among their youths one who had a knack for
innocence, a gift for animal-like naivete, the lucky individual was sent here
for nurturing and study. There
are just two ways to escape the curse bequeathed to us by our ancestors, Lester
thought, struggling to believe. We could do as Lark's group of heretics
want-stop breeding and leave Jijo in peace. Or else we can all seek a different
kind of oblivion, the kind that returns our children's children to
presentience. Washed clean and ready for a new cycle of uplift. Thus they may
yet find new patrons, and perhaps a happier fate. So
prescribed the Sacred Scrolls, even after all the compromises wrought since the
arrival of Earthlings and the Holy Egg. Given the situation of exile races,
living here on borrowed time, facing horrid punishment if,when a Galactic
Institute finds them here, what other goal could there be? But I
can't do it. I cannot look at this place with joy. Earthling values keep me
from seeing these creatures as lustrous beings. They deserve kindness and
pity-but not envy. It was
his own heresy. Lester tried to look elsewhere. But turning just brought to
view another cluster of "blessed." This time, humans, gathered in a
circle under a ilhuna tree, sitting cross-legged with hands on knees, chanting
in low, sonorous voices. Men and women whose soft smiles and unshifting eyes
seemed to show simplicity of the kind sought here . . . only Lester knew them
to be liars! Long
ago, he took the same road. Using meditation techniques borrowed from old
Earthling religions, he sat under just such a tree, freeing his mind of worldly
obsessions, disciplining it to perceive Truth. And for a while it seemed he
succeeded. Acolytes bowed reverently, calling him illuminated. The universe
appeared lucid then, as if the stars were sacred fire. As if he were united
with all Jijo's creatures, even the very quanta in the stones around him. He
lived in harmony, needing little food, few words, and even fewer names. Such
serenity-sometimes he missed it with an ache inside. But
after a while he came to realize-the clarity he had found was sterile
blankness. A blankness that felt fine, but had nothing to do with redemption.
Not for himself. Not for his race. The
other five don't use discipline or concentration to seek simplicity. You don't
see glavers meditating by a rotten log full of tasty insects. Simplicity calls
to them naturally. They live their innocence. When
Jijo is finally reopened, some great clan will gladly adopt the new glaver
subspecies, setting them once more upon the High Path, perhaps with better luck
than they bad the first time. But
those patrons won't choose us. No noble elder clan is looking for smug Zen
masters, eager to explain their own enlightenment. That is not a plainness you
can write upon. It is simplicity based on individual pride. Of
course the point might be moot. If the Jophur ship represented great Institutes
of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies, these forests would soon throng with
inspectors, tallying up two thousand years of felonies against a fallow world.
Only glavers would be safe, having made it to safety in time. The other six
races would pay for a gamble lost. And if
they don't represent the Institutes? The
Rothen had proved to be criminals, gene raiders. Might the Jophur be more of
the same? Murderous genocide could still be in store. The g'Kek clan, in
particular, were terrified of recent news from the Glade. On the
other hand, it might be possible to cut a deal. Or else maybe they'll just go
away, leaving us in the same state we were in before. In that
case, places like this refuge would go back to being the chief hope for tomorrow
... for five races out of the Six. Lester's
dark thoughts were cut off by a tug on his sleeve. "Sage
Cambel? The . . . um, visitors you're, ah, expecting ... I think . . -." It was
a young human, broad-cheeked, with clear blue eyes and pale skin. The boy would
have seemed tall- almost a giant-except that a stooped posture diminished his
appearance. He kept tapping a corner of his forehead with the fingertips of his
right hand, as if in a vague salute. Lester
spoke gentle words in Anglic, the only language the lad ever managed to learn. "What
did you say, Jimi?" The boy
swallowed, concentrating hard. "I
think the . . . um . . . the people you want t'see ... I think they're here . .
. Sage Cambel." "Lark
and the Danik woman?" A
vigorous nod. "Um,
yessir. I sent 'em to the visitors' shed ... to wait for you an' the other
Great Sage. Was that right?" "Yes,
that was right, Jimi." Lester gave his arm a friendly squeeze.
"Please go back now. Tell Lark I'll be along shortly." A broad
grin. The boy turned around to run the way he came, awkward in his eagerness to
be useful. There
goes the other kind of human who comes to this place, Lester thought. Our
special ones . . . The
ancient euphemism tasted strange. At
first sight, it would seem people like Jimi fit the bill. Simpler minds.
Innocent. Our ideal envoys to tread the Path. He
glanced at the blessed ones surrounding Knife-Bright Insight-urs, hoons, and
g'Keks who were sent here by their respective races in order to do that. To
lead the way. By the
standards of the scrolls, these ones aren 't damaged. Though simple, they
aren't flawed. They are leaders. But no one can say that of Jimi. All sympathy
aside, he is injured, incomplete. Anyone can see that. We can
and should love him, help him, befriend him. But he
leads humanity nowhere. Lester
signaled to his blue qheuen colleague, using an urslike shake of his head to
indicate that their appointment had arrived. She responded by turning her visor
cupola in a quick series of GalTwo winks, flashing that she'd be along shortly. Lester
turned and followed Jimi's footsteps, trying to shift his thoughts back to the
present crisis. To the problem of the Jophur battleship. Back to urgent plans
he must discuss with the young heretic and the woman from the stars. There was
a dire proposal-farfetched and darkly dangerous-they must be asked to accept. Yet, as
he passed by the chanting circle of meditating humans-healthy men and women who
had abandoned their farms, families, and useful crafts to dwell without work in
this sheltered valley-Lester found his contemplations awash with bitter
resentment. The words in his head were unworthy of a High Sage, he knew. But he
could not help pondering them. Morons
and mediators, those are the two types that our race sends up here. Not a true
"blessed" soul in the lot. Not by the standards set in the scrolls.
Humans almost never take true steps down redemption's path. Ur-Jah and the
others are polite. They pretend that we, too, have that option, that potential
salvation. But we
don't. Our lot is sterile. With or
without judgment from the stars-the only future humans face on Jijo is
damnation. Dwer SMOKE
SPIRALED FROM THE CRASH SITE. IT WAS against his better judgment to sneak
closer. In fact, now was his chance to run the other way, while the Danik robot
cowered in a hole, showing no further interest in its prisoners. And if
Rety wanted to stay? Let
her! Lena and Jenin would be glad to see Dwer if he made the long journey back
to the Gray Hills. That should be possible with his trusty bow in hand. True,
Rety needed him, but those up north had better claim on his loyalty. Dwer's
senses still throbbed from the din of the brief battle, when the mighty Danik scoutship
was shot down by a terrifying newcomer. Both vessels lay beyond the next dune,
sky chariots of unfathomable power . . . and Rety urged him to creep closer
still! "We
gotta find out what's going on," she insisted in a harsh whisper. He gave
her a sharp glance, demanding silence, and for once she complied, giving him a
moment to think. Lena
and Jenin may be safe for a while, now that Kunn won't be returning to plague
them. If the Daniks and Rothens have enemies on Jijo, all the star gods may be
too busy fighting each other to hunt a little band in the Gray Hills. Even
without guidance from Danel Ozawa, Lena Strong was savvy enough to make a
three-way deal, with Rety's old band and the urrish sooners. Using Danel's
"legacy," their combined tribe might plant a seed to flourish in the
wilderness. Assuming the worst happened back home on the Slope, their combined
band might yet find its way to the Path. Dwer
shook his head. He sometimes found it hard to concentrate. Ever since letting
the robot use his body as a conduit for its fields, it felt as if voices
whispered softly at the edge of hearing. As when the crazy old mule spider used
to wheedle into his thoughts. Anyway,
it wasn't his place to ponder destiny, or make sagelike decisions. Some things
were obvious. He might not owe Rety anything. She may deserve to be abandoned
to her fate. But he couldn't do that. So,
despite misgivings, Dwer nodded to the girl, adding with emphatic hand motions
that she had better not make a single sound. She replied with a happy shrug
that seemed to say, Sure . . . until I decide otherwise. Slinging
his bow and quiver over one shoulder, he led the way forward, creeping from one
grassy clump to the next, till they reached the crest of the dune. Cautiously
they peered through a cluster of salty fronds to stare down at two sky
vessels-the smaller a smoldering ruin, half submerged in a murky swamp. The
larger ship, nestled nearby, had not escaped the fracas unscarred. It bore a
deep fissure along one flank that belched soot whenever the motors tried to
start. Two men
lay prostrate on a marshy islet, barely moving. Kunn
and Jass. Dwer
and Rety scratched a new hole to hide in, then settled down to see who-or
what-would emerge next. They
did not wait long. A hatch split the large cylinder, baring a dark interior.
Through it floated a single figure, startlingly familiar-an eight-sided pillar
with dangling arms-close cousin to the damaged robot Dwer knew all too well.
Only this one gleamed with stripes of alternating blue and pink, a pattern Dwer
found painful to behold. It also
featured a hornlike projection on the bottom, aimed downward. That must be what
lets it travel over water, he thought. If the robot is similar, could that mean Kunn's
enemies are human, too? But no,
Danel had said that machinery was standard among the half a million starfaring
races, changing only slowly with each passing eon. This new drone might belong
to anybody. The
automaton neared Kunn and Jass, a searchlight playing over their bodies, vivid
even in bright sunshine. Their garments rippled, frisked by translucent
fingers. Then the robot dropped down, arms outstretched. Kunn and Jass lay
still as it poked, prodded, and lifted away with several objects in its pincers. A
signal must have been given, for a ramp then jutted from the open hatch,
slanting to the bog. Who's going to go traipsing around in that stuff? Dwer
wondered. Are they going to launch a boat? He
girded for some weird alien race, one with thirteen legs perhaps, or slithering
on trails of slime. Several great clans had been known as foes of humankind,
even in the Tabernacles day, such as the legendary Soro, or the insectlike
Tandu. Dwer even nursed faint hope that the newcomers might be from Earth, come
all this vast distance to rein in their criminal cousins. There were also
relatives of hoons, urs, and qheuens out there, each with ships and vast
resources at their command. Figures
appeared, twisting down the ramp into the open air. Rety
gasped. "Them's traekis!" Dwer
stared at a trio of formidable-looking ring stacks, with bandoliers of tools
hanging from their toroids-of-manipulation. The tapered cones reached muddy
water and settled in. Abruptly, the flipper legs that seemed awkward on the
ramp propelled them with uncanny speed toward the two survivors. "But
ain't traekis s'posed to be peaceful?" They
are, Dwer thought, wishing he had paid more attention to the lessons his mother
used to give Sara and Lark. Readings from obscure books that went beyond what
you were taught in school. He reached back for a name, but came up empty. Yet
he knew a name existed. One that inspired fear, once-upon-a-time. "I
don't-" he whispered, then shook his head firmly. "I don't think
these are traeki. At least not like anyone's seen here in a very long
while." Alvin THE
SCENE WAS HARD TO INTERPRET AT FIRST. HAZY blue-green images jerked rapidly,
sending shivers down my still-unsteady spine. Huck and Pincer seemed to catch
on more quickly, pointing at various objects in the" picture display,
sharing knowing grunts. The experience reminded me of our trip on Wuphon's
Dream, when poor Alvin the Hoon was always the last one to grok what was going
on. Finally,
I realized-we were viewing a faraway locale, back in the world of sunshine and
rain! (How
many times have Huck and I read about some storybook character looking at a
distant place by remote control? It's funny. A concept can be familiar from
novels, yet rouse awe when you finally encounter it in real life.) Daylight
streamed through watery shallows where green fronds waved in a gentle tide.
Schools of flicking, silvery shapes darted past-species that our fishermen
brought home in nets, destined for the drying racks and stewpots of hoonish
khutas. The
spinning voice said there were sound "pickups" next to the moving
camera lens, which explained the swishing, gurgling noises. Pincer shifted his
carapace, whistling a homesick lament from all five vents, nostalgic for the
tidal pens of his red qheuen rookery. But Ur-ronn soon had quite enough,
turning her sleek head with a queasy whine, made ill by the sight of all that
swishing water. Slanting
upward, the surf grew briefly violent. Then water fled the camera's eye in
foamy sheets as our viewpoint emerged onto a low sandscape. The remote unit
scurried inland, low to the ground. "Normally,
we would send a drone ashore at night. But the matter is urgent. We must count
on the land's hot glare to mask its emergence." Ur-ronn let out a sigh,
relieved to see no more liquid turbulence. "It
forces one to wonder," she said, "why you have not sent sleuthy
agents vefore." "In
fact several were dispatched to seek signs of civilization. Two are long
overdue, but others reported startling scenes." "Such
as?" Huck asked. "Such as hoon mariners, crowing wooden sailing ships
on the high seas." "Hr-rr
. . . What's strange about that?" "And
red qheuens, living unsupervised by grays or blues, beholden to no one, trading
peacefully with their hoonish neighbors." Pincer
huffed and vented, but the voice continued. "Intrigued, we sent a
submarine expedition beyond the Rift. Our explorers followed one of your dross
ships, collecting samples from its sacred discharge. Then, returning to base,
our scout vessel happened on the urrish 'cache' you were sent to recover.
Naturally, we assumed the original owners must be extinct." "Oh?"
Ur-ronn asked, archly. "Why is that?" "Because
we had seen living hoon! Who would conceive of urs and hoon cohabiting
peacefully within a shared volume less broad than a cubic parsec? If hoon
lived, we assumed all urs on Jijo must have died." "Oh,"
Ur-ronn commented, turning her long neck to glare at me. "Imagine
our surprise when a crude vessel plummeted toward our submarine. A hollowed-out
tree trunk containing-" The
voice cut off. The remote unit was in motion again. We edged forward as the
camera eye skittered across sand mixed with scrubby vegetation. "Hey,"
Ur-ronn objected. "I thought you couldn't use radio or anything that can
ve detected from sface!" "Correct." "Then
how are you getting these Pictures in real tine?" "An
excellent question, coming from one with no direct experience in such matters.
In this case, the drone needs only to travel a kilometer or so ashore. It can
deploy a fiber cable, conveying images undetectably." I
twitched. Something in the words just spoken jarred me, in an eerie-familiar
way. "Does
it have to do with the exflosions?" Ur-ronn asked. "The recent attack
on this site vy those who would destroy you?" The
spinning shape contracted, then expanded. "You
four truly are quick and imaginative. It has been an unusual experience
conversing with you. And I was created to appreciate unusual experiences." "In
other words, yes," Huck said gruffly. "Some
time ago, a flying machine began sifting this sea with tentacles of sound.
Hours later, it switched to dropping depth charges in a clear effort to
dislodge us from our mound of concealing wreckage. "Matters
were growing dire when gravitic fields of a second craft entered the area. We
picked up rhythms of aerial combat. Missiles and deadly rays were exchanged in
a brief, desperate struggle." Pincer
rocked from foot to foot. "Gosh-osh-osh!" he sighed, ruining our pose
of nonchalance. "Then
both vessels abruptly stopped flying. Their inertial signatures ceased close to
the drone's present location." "How
close?" Ur-ronn asked. "Very
close," the voice replied. Transfixed,
we watched a hypnotic scene of rapid motion. An ankle-high panorama of scrubby
plants, whipping past with blurry speed. The camera eye dodged clumps of saber
fronds, skittering with frantic speed, as the drone sought height overlooking a
vast marshy fen. All at
once, a glint of silver! Two glints. Curving flanks of- That
was when it happened. Without
warning, just as we had our first thrilling glimpse of crashed flyships, the
screen was abruptly filled by a grinning face. We
rocked back, shouting in surprise. I recoiled so fast, even the high-tech back
brace could not save my spine from surging pain. Huphu's claws dug in my
shoulder as she trilled an amazed cry. The
face bared a glittering, gleeful display of pointy teeth. Black, beady eyes
stared at us, inanely magnified, so full of feral amusement that we all groaned
with recognition. Our
tiny drone pitched, trying to escape, but the grinning demon held it firmly
with both forepaws. The creature raised sharp claws, preparing to strike. The
spinning voice spoke then-a sound that flew out, then came back to us through
the drone's tiny pickups. There were just three words, in a queerly accented
form of GalSeven, very high-pitched, almost beyond a hoon's range. "Brother,
" the voice said quickly to the strange noor. "Please
stop." wasx WORD
COMES THAT WE HAVE LOST TRACK OF A Corvette! Our
light cruiser sent to pursue an aircraft of the Rothen bandits. Trouble
was not anticipated in such a routine chore. It raises disturbing questions.
Might we have underestimated the prowess of this brigand band? You,
our second ring-of-cognition-you provide access to many memories and thoughts
once accumulated by our stack, before I joined to become your master ring.
Memories from a time when we,you were merely Asx. You
recall hearing the human gene thieves making preposterous claims. For instance,
that their patrons-these mysterious "Rothen"-are unknown to Galactic
society at large. That the Rothen wield strong influence in hidden ways. That
they scarcely fear the mighty battle fleets of the great clans of the Five
Galaxies. We of
the battleship Polkjhy heard similar tall tales before arriving at this world.
We took it all for mere bluff. A pathetic cover story, attempting futilely to
hide the outlaws' true identity. BUT
WHAT IF THE STORY IS TRUE? No one
can doubt that mysterious forces do exist-ancient, aloof, influential. Might we
have crossed fates with some cryptic power, here in an abandoned galaxy, far
from home? OR TAKE
THE IDEA MORE BROADLY. Might such a puissant race of cloaked ones stand
secretly behind all Terrans, guiding their destiny? Protecting them against the
fate that generally befalls wolflihg breeds? It would explain much strangeness
in recent events. It could also bode ill for our Obeyer Alliance, in these
dangerous times. BUT NO!
Facts do not support that fear. You
primitive, rustic rings would not know this, so let Me explain. NOT
LONG AGO, the Polkjhy was contacted by certain petty data merchants,
unscrupulous vermin offering news for sale. Through human agents, these
"Rothen" approached us-the great and devout Jophur-because our ship
happened to be on search patrol nearby. Also, they calculated Jophur would pay
twice as much for the information they wanted to sell. -ONCE
for clues to find the main quarry we seek, a missing Earth vessel that ten
thousand ships have pursued for years, as great a prize as any in the Five
Galaxies- -AND A
SECOND TIME for information about the ancestor-cursed g'Kek, a surviving
remnant who took refuge here many planet cycles ago, thwarting our righteous,
extinguishing wrath. The
Rothen and their henchmen hoped to reap handsome profit by selling us this
information, added to whatever genetic scraps they might steal from this unripe
world. The arrangement must have seemed ideal to them, for both sides would be
well advised to keep the transaction secret forever. Is that
the behavior of some great, exalted power? One risen above trivial mortal
concerns? Would
deity-level beings have been so rudely surprised by local savages, who
vanquished their buried station with mere chemical explosives? Did
they prove so mighty when we turned our rings around half circle in an act of
pious betrayal, and pounced upon their ship? Freezing it in stasis by means of
a not unclever trick? No,
this cannot be a reasonable line of inquiry, My rings. It worries me that you
would waste our combined mental resources pursuing a blind pathway. , This
digression-IS IT YET.ANOTHER VAIN EFFORT TO ( DISTRACT ME FROM THE NARROWNESS
OF PURPOSE ' THAT IS MY PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE STACK? I Is that
also why some of you keep trying to tune in socalled guidance ^patterns from
that silly rock you call a "Holy
Egg"? Are
these vague, disjointed efforts aimed at yet another rebellion? HAVE
YOU NOT YET LEARNED? Shall I
demonstrate, once again, why the Oailie made My kind, and named us "master
rings"? LET US
drop these silly cogitations and consider alternative explanations for the
disappearance of the corvette. Perhaps, when our crew hunted down the scout
boat of the Rothen, they stumbled onto something else instead? Something
more powerful and important, by far? . . . ? Is this
true? You truly have no idea what I am hinting at? Not
even a clue? Why, most of the inhabitants of the Five Galaxies-even the
enigmatic Zang-know of the ship we seek. A vessel pursued by half the armadas
in known space. You
have indeed lived in isolation, My rustic rings! My primitive subselves. My
temporary pretties, who have not heard of a ship crewed by half-animal
dolphins. How
very strange indeed. Sara WITHOUT
DARK GLASSES PROVIDED BY THE HORSE riding Illias, Sara feared she might go
blind or insane. A few stray glints were enough to stab her nerves with
unnatural colors, cooing for attention, shouting dangerously, begging her to
remove the coverings, to stare . . . perhaps losing herself in a world of
shifted light. Even in
sepia tones, the surrounding bluffs seemed laden with cryptic meaning. Sara
recalled how legendary Odysseus, sailing near the fabled Sirens, ordered his
men to fill their ears with wax, then lashed himself to the mast so he alone
might hear the temptresses' call, while the crew rowed frantically past bright,
alluring shoals. Would
it hurt to take the glasses off and stare at the rippled landscape? If
transfixed, wouldn't her friends rescue her? Or might her mind be forever
absorbed by the panorama? People
seldom mentioned the Spectral Flow--a blindspot on maps of the Slope. Even
those hardy men who roamed the sharp-sand desert, spearing roul shamblers
beneath the hollow dunes, kept awed distance from this poison landscape. A
realm supposedly bereft of life. Only
now Sara recalled a day almost two years ago, when her mother lay dying in the
house near the paper mill, with the Dolo waterwheel groaning a low background
lament. From outside Melina's sickroom, Sara overheard Dwer discussing this
place in a low voice. Of
course her younger brother was specially licensed to patrol the Slope and
beyond, seeking violations of the Covenant and Scrolls. It surprised Sara only
a little to learn he had visited the toxic land of psychotic colors. But from
snippets wafting through the open door, it sounded as if Melina had also seen
the Spectral Flow-before coming north to marry Nelo and raise a family by the
quiet green Roney. The conversation had been in hushed tones of deathbed
confidentiality, and Dwer never spoke of it after. Above all, Sara was moved by
the wistful tone of her dying mother's voice. "Dwer
. . . remind me again about the colors. ..." The horses did not seem to
need eye protections, and the two drivers wore theirs lackadaisically, as to
stave off a well-known irritation rather than dire peril. Relieved to be out of
the Buyur tunnel, Kepha murmured to Nuli, sharing the first laughter Sara had
heard from any Illias. She
found her thoughts more coherent now, with surprise giving way to curiosity.
What about people and races who are naturally color-blind? The effect must
involve more than mere frequency variations on the electromagnetic spectrum, as
the urrish glasses probably did more than merely darken. There must be some
other effect. Light polarization? Or psi? Emerson's
rewq satisfied his own need for goggles. But Sara felt concern when he peeled
back the filmy symbiont to take an unprotected peek. He winced, visibly
recoiling from sensory overflow, as ir a hoonish grooming fork had plunged into
his eye. She started toward him-but that initial reaction was brief. A moment
later the starman grinned at her, an expression of agonized delight. Well,
anything you can do-she thought, nudging her glasses forward. . . . Her
first surprise was the pain that wasn't. Her irises adjusted, so the sheer
volume of illumination was bearable. Rather,
Sara felt waves of nausea as the world seemed to shift and dissolve ... as if
she were peering through layer after layer of overlapping images. The
land's mundane topography was a terrain of layered lava flows, eroded canyons,
and jutting mesas. Only now that seemed only the blank tapestry screen on which
some mad g'Kek artist had embroidered an apparition in luminous paint and
textured thread. Each time Sara blinked, her impressions shifted. -Towering
buttes were fairy castles, their fluttering pennants made of glowing shreds of
windblown haze. ... -Dusty
basins became shimmering pools. Rivers of mercury and currents of blood seemed
to flow uphill as merging swirls of immiscible fluid. . . . -Rippling
like memory, a nearby cliff recalled Buyur architecture-the spires of Tarek
Town-only with blank windows replaced by a million splendid glowing lights. . .
. -Her
gaze shifted to the dusty road, with pumice flying from the wagon wheels. But on
another plane it seemed the spray made up countless glittering stars. . . . -Then
the trail crested a small hill, revealing the most unlikely mirage of all ...
several narrow, fingerlike valleys, each surrounded by steep hills like ocean
waves, frozen in their spuming torrent. Underneath those sheltering heights,
the valley bottoms appeared verdant green, covered with impossible meadows and
preposterous trees. "Xi,"
announced Kepha, murmuring happily in that accent Sara found eerily
strange-familiar . . . . . .
and she abruptly knew why! Surprise
made Sara release the glasses, dropping them back over her eyes. The
castles and stars vanished . . . . . .
but the meadows remained. Four-footed shapes could be seen grazing on real
grass, drinking from a very real stream. Kurt
and Jomah sighed. Emerson laughed and Prity clapped her hands. But Sara was too
astonished to utter a sound. For now she knew the truth about Melina the
Southerner, the woman who long ago came to the Roney, supposedly from the
far-off Vale, to become Nelo's bride. Melina the happy eccentric, who raised
three unusual children by the ceaseless drone of Dolo Dam. Mother
. . . Sara thought, in numb amazement. This must have been your home. The
rest of the horsewomen arrived a few miduras later with their urrish
companions, dirty and tired. The Illias unsaddled their faithful beasts before
stripping off their riding gear and plunging into a warm volcanic spring,
beneath jutting rocks where Sara and the other visitors rested. Watching
Emerson, Sara verified that one more portion of his battered brain must be
intact, for the spaceman's eyes tracked the riders' nude femininity with normal
male appreciation. She
squelched a jealous pang, knowing that her own form could never compete with
those tanned, athletic figures below. The
starman glanced Sara's way and flushed several shades darker, so sheepishly
rueful that she had to laugh out loud. "Look,
but don't touch," she said, with an exaggerated waggle of one finger. He
might not grasp every word, but the affectionate admonishment got through. Grinning,
he shrugged as if to say, Who, me? I wouldn 't think of it! The
wagon passengers had already bathed, though more modestly. Not that nakedness
was taboo elsewhere on the Slope. But the Illias women behaved as if they did
not know-or care-about the simplest fact all human girls were taught about the
opposite sex. That male Homo sapiens have primitive" arousal responses
inextricably bound up in their optic nerves. Perhaps
it's because they have no men, Sara thought. Indeed,
she saw only female youths and adults, tending chores amid the barns and
shelters. There were also urs, of Ulashtu's friendly tribe, tending their
precious simla and donkey herds at the fringes of the oasis. The two sapient
races did not avoid each other-Sara glimpsed friendly encounters. But in this
narrow realm, each had its favored terrain. Ulashtu
knew Kurt, and must have spent time in the outer Slope. In fact, some Illias
women also probably went forth, now and then, moving among unsuspecting
villagers of the Six Races. Melina
had a good cover story when she came to Dolo, arriving ivith letters of
introduction, and baby Lark on her hip. Everyone assumed she came from
somewhere in the Vale. A typical arranged remarriage. It
never seemed an issue to Nelo, that his eldest son had an unknown father.
Melina subtly discouraged inquiries into her past. But a
secret like this . . . With
Ulashtu's band came a prisoner. Vigor, the urrish tinker who befriended Sara
back at Dolo, only to spring a trap, leading to captivity by Dedinger's
fanatics and the reborn Urunthai. Now their roles were reversed. Sara noted
Vigor's triplet eyes staring in dismay at the astonishing oasis. How the
Urunthai would hate this place! Their predecessors seized our horses to destroy
them all. Urrish sages later apologized, after Drake the Elder broke the
Urunthai. But how can you undo death? You
cannot. But it is possible to cheat extinction. Watching fillies and colts
gambol after their mares below a bright rocky overhang, Sara felt almost happy
for a time. This oasis might even remain unseen by omniscient spy eyes of alien
star lords, confused by the enclosing land of illusion. Perhaps Xi would survive
when the rest of the Slope was made void of sapient life. She saw
Uigor ushered to a pen near the desert prophet, Dedinger. The two did not
speak. Beyond
the women splashing in the pool and the grazing herds, Sara had only to lift
her eyes in order to brush a glittering landscape where each ripple and knoll
pretended to be a thousand impossible things. The country of lies was a name
for the Spectral Flow. No doubt a person got used to it, blanking out
irritating chimeras that never proved useful or informative. Or else, perhaps
the Illias had no need of dreams, since they lived each day awash in Jijo's
fantasies. The
scientist in Sara wondered why it equally affected all races, or how such a
marvel could arise naturally. There's no mention of anything like it in Biblos.
But humans only had a sprinkling of Galactic reference material when the
Tabernacle left Earth. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon, found on many
worlds. But how
much more wonderful if Jijo had made something unique! She
stared at the horizon, letting her mind free-associate shapes out of the
shimmering colors, until a mellow female voice broke in. "You
have your mother's eyes, Sara." She
blinked, drawing back to find two humans nearby, dressed in the leather
garments of Illias. The one who had spoken was the first elderly woman Sara had
seen here. The
other was a man. Sara
stood up, blinking in recognition. "F-Fallon?" He had
aged since serving as Dwer's tutor in the wilderness arts. Still, the former
chief scout seemed robust, and smiled broadly. A
little tactlessly, she blurted, "But I thought you were dead!" He
shrugged. "People assume what they like. I never said I'd died." A Zen
koan if she ever heard one. But then Sara recalled what the other person said.
Though shaded against the desert's glow, the old woman seemed to partake of the
hues of the Spectral Flow. "My
name is Foruni," she told Sara. "I am senior rider." "You
knew my mother?" The
older woman took Sara's hand. Her manner reminded Sara of Ariana Foo. "Melina
was my cousin. I've missed her, these many years-though infrequent letters told
us of her remarkable children. You three validate her choice, though exile must
not have been easy. Our horses and shadows are hard to leave behind." "Did
Mother leave because of Lark?" "We
have ways of making it likely to bear girls. When a boy is born we foster him
to discreet friends on the Slope, taking a female child in trade." Sara
nodded. Exchange fostering was a common practice, helping cement alliances
between villages or clans. "But
Mother wouldn't give Lark up." "Just
so. In any event, we need agents out there, and Melina was dependable. So it
was done, and the decision proved right . . . although we mourned, on hearing
of her loss." Sara
accepted this with a nod. "What
I don't understand is why only women?" The
elder had deep lines at the corners of her eyes, from a lifetime of squinting. "It
was required in the pact, when the aunties of Urchachkin tribe offered some
humans and horses shelter in their most secret place, to preserve them against
the Urunthai. In those early days, urs found our menfolk disquieting-so strong
and boisterous, unlike their own husbands. It seemed simpler to arrange things
on a femaleto-female basis. "Also,
a certain fraction of boys tend to shrug off social constraints during
adolescence,' no matter how carefully they are raised. Eventually, some young
man would have burst from the Illias realm without adequate preparation- and
all it would take is one. In his need to preen and make a name, he might spill
our secret to the Commons at large." "Girls
act that way, too, sometimes," Sara pointed out. "Yes,
but our odds were better this way. Ponder the young men you know, Sara. Imagine
how they would have behaved." She
pictured her brothers, growing up in this narrow oasis. Lark would have been
sober and reliable. But Dwer, at fifteen, was very different than he became at
twenty. "And
yet, I see you aren't all women. ..." The
senior rider grinned. "Nor are we celibates. From time to time we bring in
mature males-often chief scouts, sages, or explosers-men who already know our
secret, and are of an age to be calm, sensible companions . . . yet still
retain vigor in their step." Fallen
laughed to cover brief embarrassment. "My step is no longer my best
feature." Foruni
squeezed his arm. "You'll do for a while yet." Sara
nodded. "An urrish-sounding solution." Sometimes a group of young
urs, lacking the means to support individual husbands, would share one, passing
him from pouch to pouch. The
senior rider nodded, expressing subtleties of irony with languid motions of her
neck. "After many generations, we may have become more than a bit urrish
ourselves." Sara
glanced toward Kurt the Exploser, sitting on a smooth rock studying carefully
guarded texts, with both Jomah and Prity lounging nearby. "Then
you sent the expedition to fetch Kurt because you want another-" "Ifni,
no! Kurt is much too old for such duties, and when we do bring in new partners
it is with quiet discretion. Hasn't Kurt explained to you what this is all
about? His role in the present crisis? The reason why we gambled so much to
fetch you all?" When
Sara shook her head, Poruni's nostrils flared and she hissed like an urrish
auntie, perplexed by foolish juniors. "Well,
that's his affair. All I know is that we must escort you the rest of the way as
soon as possible. You'll rest with us tonight, my niece. But alas, family
reminiscence must wait till the emergency passes ... or once it overwhelms us
all." Sara
nodded, resigned to more hard riding. "From
here . . . can we see-?" Fallen
nodded, a gentle smile on his creased features. "I'll
show you, Sara. It's not far." She
took his arm as Foruni bade them return soon for a feast. Already Sara's nose
filled with scents from the cook- fire. But soon her thoughts were on the path
as they crossed narrow,' miraculous meadows, then scrublands where simlas
grazed, and beyond to a steepening pass wedged between two hills. Sunlight was
fading rapidly, and soon the smallest moon, Passen, could be seen gleaming near
the far west horizon. She
heard music before they crested the pass. The familiar sound of Emerson's
dulcimer, pinging softly ahead. Sara was loath to interrupt, yet the glow drew
her-a shimmering lambency rising from Jijo, filling a vista beyond the
sheltered oasis. The
layered terrain seemed transformed in pearly moonlight. Gone were the garish
colors, yet there remained an extravagant effect on the imagination. It took an
effort of will in order not to go gliding across the slopes, believing in false
oceans and battlements, in ghost cities and starscapes, in myriad phantom
worlds that her pattern-gleaning brain Grafted out of opal rays and shadows. Fallon
took Sara's elbow, turning her toward Emerson. The
starman stood on a rocky eminence with the dulcimer propped before him, beating
its forty-six strings. The melody was eerie. The rhythm orderly, yet impossible
to constrain, like a mathematical series that refused to converge. Emerson's
silhouette was framed by flickering fire as he played for nature's maelstrom. This
fire was no imagining-no artifact of an easily fooled eye. It rippled and
twisted in the far distance, rimming the broad curves of a mighty peak that
reared halfway up the sky. Fresh
lava. Jijo's
hot blood. The
planet's nectar of renewal, melted and reforged. Hammering
taut strings, the Stranger played for Mount Guenn, serenading the volcano while
it repaid him with a halo of purifying flame. PART
FIVE A
PROPOSAL FOR A USEFUL TOOL,STRATEGY BASED ON OUR EXPERIENCE ON JIJO: IT HAS
BEEN NEARLY A MILLENNIUM SINCE A LARGE OUTBREAK OF TRAEKINESS WAS FOUND. These
Hare-ups used to be Frequent embarrassments, where stacks or hapless rings were
round languishing without even a single master torus to guide them. But no word
of such an occurrence has come within the memory of living wax. The
reaction of our lollijhy ship to this discovery on Jijo was disgusted
loathing. HOWEVER, LET US NOW PAUSE
and consider how the Great Jophur League might learn,benerit from this
experiment. Never belore have cousin rings dwelled in such intimacy with other
races Although polluted,contaminated, these traeki have also acquired waxy
expertise aoout urs, hoon, and qheuen sapient lilc-torms--as well as human
wolflings and gis-ek vermin. MOREOVER,
the very traits that we Jophur find repellent in traeki-natural rings--their
lack of locus, sell, or ambition--appear to enable them to achieve empathy with
unitary beings! The other five races of Jijo trust these ring stacks. They
confide secrets, share confidences, delegate some traekts with medical
tasl<s and even powers of llle continuation,cessation. IMAGINE
THIS POSSIBILITY SUPPOSE WE ATTEMPT A RUSE. INTENTIONALLY
we might create new traeki and arrange for them to escape the loving embrace of
our noble clan. Genuinely believing they are in (light From oppressive master
rings, these stacl<s would be induced to seek shelter among some of the
races we call enemies. Next
suppose that, using this knack of vacuous empathy, they make Iriendships among
our toes. As generations pass, they become trusted comrades. At
which point we arrange for agents to snatch-to harvest--some of these rogue
traeki, converting them to Jophur exactly as we did when Asx was translormed
into Ewasx, by applying the needed master rings. Would
this not give us quick expertise about our toes' GKAN 1
L,U, this L,wasx experiment has not been a complete success. The old traeki,
Asx, managed to melt many waxy memories beiore completion of metamorphosis. The
resulting partial amnesia has proved inconvenient. Yet,
this does not detract From the value of the scheme-to plant empathic spies in
our enemies midst. Jples who are believable because they think they are true
triends! Nevertheless, with the hoon of master rings, we can reclaim lost
brethren wherever and whenever we hnd them. Makanee THERE
WERE TWO KINDS OF PUPILS IN THE WIDE, wet classroom. One
group signified hope-the other, despair. One was illegal-the other, hapless.
The first type was innocent and eager. The second had already seen and heard
far too much. # good
fish . . . # goodfisb, goodfish . . . # good-good FISH.' # Dr.
Makanee never used to hear Primal Delphin spoken aboard the Streaker. Not when
the keeneenk master, Creideiki, used to hold the crew rock steady by his
unwavering example. Nowadays,
alas, one commonly picked up snatches of old-speech-the simple, emotive
squealing used by unaltered Tursiops in Earth's ancient seas. As ship
physician, even Makanee sometimes found herself grunting a snatch phrase, when
fmstrations crowded in from all sides . . . and when no one was listening. Makanee
gazed across a broad chamber, half-filled with water, as students jostled near
a big tank at the spinward end, avid to be fed. There were almost thirty
neo-dolphins, plus a dozen six-armed, monkeylike figures, scrambling up the
shelf-lined walls, or else diving to swim agilely with webbed hands. Just half
the original group of Kiqui survived since they were snatched hastily from
far-off Kithrup, but the remaining contingent seemed healthy and glad to frolic
with their dolphin friends. I'm
still not sure we did the right thing, taking them along. Neo-dolphins are much
too young to take on the responsibilities of patronhood. A pair
of teachers tried bringing order to the unruly mob. Makanee saw the younger
instructor-her former head nurse, Peepoe-use a whirring harness arm to snatch
living snacks from the tank and toss them to the waiting crowd of pupils. The
one who uttered the Primal burst-a middleaged dolphin with listless
eyes-smacked his jaw around a blue thing with writhing tendrils that looked
nothing like a fish. Still, the fin crooned happily while he munched. #
Goodfish . . . good-good-good! # Makanee
had known poor Jecajeca before Streaker launched from Earth-a former
astrophotographer who loved his cameras and the glittering black of space. Now
Jecajeca was another casualty of Streaker's long retreat, fleeing ever farther
from the warm oceans they called home. This
voyage was supposed to last six months, not two and a half years, with no end
in sight. A young client race shouldn't confront the challenges we have, almost
alone. Taken
in that light, it seemed a wonder just a quarter of the crew had fallen to
devolution psychosis. Give it
time, Makanee. You may yet travel that road yourself. "Yes,
they are tasty, Jecajeca," Peepoe crooned, turning the reverted dolphin's
outburst into a lesson. "Can you tell me, in Anglic, where this new
variety of 'fish' comes from?" Eager
grunts and squeaks came from the brighter half of the class, those with a
future. But Peepoe stroked the older dolphin with sonar encouragement, and soon
Jecajeca's glazed eye cleared a bit. To please her, he concentrated. "F-f-rom out-side . . . Good s-s-sun . . . good wat-t-ter . . ." Other
students offered raspberry cheers, rewarding this short climb back toward what
he once had been. But it was a slippery hill. Nor was there much a doctor could
do. The cause lay in no organic fault. Reversion
is the ultimate sanctuary from worry. Makanee
approved of the decision of Lieutenant Tsh't and Gillian Baskin, not to release
the journal of Alvin the Hoon to the crew at large. If
there's one thing the crew don't need right now, it's to hear of a religion
preaching that it's okay to devolve.
Peepoe finished feeding the reverted adults, while her partner took care
of the children and Kiqui. On spying Makanee, she did an agile flip and swam
across the chamber in two powerful fluke strokes, resurfacing amid a burst of
spray. "Yesss,
Doctor? You want to see me?" Who
wouldn 't want to see Peepoe? Her skin shone with youthful luster, and her good
spirits never flagged, not even when the crew had to flee Kithrup, abandoning
so many friends. "We
need a qualified nurse for a mission. A long one, I'm afraid." Ratcheting
clicks spread from Peepoe's brow as she pondered. "Kaa's
outpost. Is someone hurt-t?" "I'm not sure. It may be food poisoning
... or else kingree fever." Peepoe's
worried expression eased. "In that case, can't Kaa take care of it
himself? I have duties here." "Olachan
can handle things while you are away." Peepoe
shook her head, a human gesture by now so ingrained that even reverted fins
used it. "There must be two teachers. We can't mix the children and Kiqui
with the hapless ones too much." Just
five dolphin infants had been born to crew members so far, despite a growing
number of signatures on the irksome Breeding Petition. But those five
youngsters deserved careful guidance. And that counted double for the
Kiqui-presentients who appeared ripe for uplift by some lucky Galactic clan who
won the right to adopt them. That laid a heavy moral burden on the Streaker
crew. "I'll
keep a personal eye on the Kiqui . . . and we'll free the kids' parents from
duty on a rotating basis, to join the creche as teachers' aidesss. That's the
best I can do, Peepoe." The
younger dolphin acquiesced, but grumbled. "This'll turn out to be a wild
tuna chase. Knowing Kaa, he prob'ly forgot to clean the water filters." Everyone
knew the pilot had a long-standing yearning for Peepoe. Dolphins could
sonar-scan each other's innards, so there was no concealing simple, persistent
passions. Poor
Kaa. No wonder he lost his nickname. "There
is a second reason you're going," Makanee revealed in a low voice. "I
thought so. Does it have to do with gravitic signals and depth bombsss?" "This
hideout is jeopardized," Makanee affirmed. "Gillian and Tsh't plan to
move Streaker soon." "You
want me to help find another refuge? By scanning more of these huge junk piles,
along the way?" Peepoe blew a sigh. "What else? Shall I compose a
symphony, invent a star drive, and dicker treaties with the natives while I'm
at it?" Makanee
chuttered. "By all accounts, the sunlit sea above is the most pleasant
we've encountered since departing Calafia. Everyone will envy you." When
Peepoe snorted dubiously, Makanee added in Trinary- *
Legends told by whales * Call
one trait admirable- *
Adaptability! * This
time, Peepoe laughed appreciatively. It was the sort of thing Captain Creideiki
might have said, if he were still around. Back in
sick bay, Makanee finished treating her last patient and closed shop for the
day. There had been the usual psychosomatic ailments, and inevitable accidental
injuries from working outside in armored suits, bending and welding metal under
a mountainous heap of discarded ships. At least the number of digestive
complaints had gone down since teams with nets began harvesting native food.
Jijo's upper sea teemed with life, much of it wholesome, if properly
supplemented. Tsh't had even been preparing to allow liberty parties outside .
. . before sensors picked up starships entering orbit. Was it
pursuit? More angry fleets chasing Streaker for her secrets? No .one should
have been able to trace Gillian's sneaky path by a nearby supergiant whose
sooty winds had disabled the robot guards of the Migration Institute. But the
idea wasn't as original as we hoped. Others came earlier, including a rogue
band of humans. I guess we shouldn't be surprised if it occurs to our pursuers,
as well. Makanee's
chronometer beeped a reminder. The ship's council-two dolphins, two humans, and
a mad computer-was meeting once more to ponder how to thwart an implacable
universe. There
was a sixth member who silently attended, offering fresh mixtures of
opportunity and disaster at every turn. Without that member's contributions,
Streaker would have died or been captured long ago. Or
else, without her, we'd all be safe at home. Either
way, there was no escaping her participation. Ifni,
capricious goddess of chance. Hannes IT WAS
HARD TO GET ANYTHING DONE. DR. BASKIN kept stripping away members of his
engine-room gang, assigning them other tasks. He
groused. "It's too soon to give up on Streaker, I tell you!" "I'm
not giving her up quite yet," Gillian answered. "But with that
carbonite coating weighing the hull down-" "We've
been able to analyze the stuff, at last. It seems the stellar wind blowing off
Izmunuti wasn't just atomic or molecular carbon, but a ftind of star soot made
up of tubes, coils, spheres, and such." Gillian
nodded, as if she had expected this. "Buckyballs.
Or in GalTwo-" Pursed lips let out a clicking trill that meant container
home for individual atoms. "I did some research in the captured Library
cube. It seems an interlaced mesh of these microshapes can become
superconducting, carrying away vast amounts of heat. You're not going to peel
it off easily with any of the tools we have." "There
could be advantages to such stuff." "The
Library says just a few clans have managed to synthesize the material. But what
good is it, if it makes the hull heavy and seals our weapons ports so we can't
fight?" Suessi
argued that her alternative was hardly any better. True, a great heap of
ancient starships surrounded them, and they had reactivated the engines of a
few. But that was a far cry from finding a fit replacement for the Snark-class
survey craft that had served this crew so well. These
are ships the Buyur didn 't think worth taking with them, when they evacuated
this system! Above
all, how were dolphins supposed to operate a starship that had been built back
when humans were learning to chip tools out of flint? Streaker was a marvel of
clever compromises, redesigned so beings lacking legs or arms could move about
and get their jobs done-either striding in six-legged walker units, or by
swimming through broad flooded chambers. Dolphins
are crackerjack pilots and specialists. Someday lots of Galactic clans may hire
one or two at a time, offering them special facilities as pampered
professionals. But few races will ever want a ship like Streaker, with all the
hassles involved. Gillian
was insistent. "We've
adapted before. Surely some of these old ships have designs we might use." Before
the meeting broke up, he offered one last objection. "You
know, all this fiddling with other engines, as well as our own, may let a trace
signal slip out, even through all the water above us." "I
know, Hannes." Her eyes were grim. "But speed is crucial now. Our
pursuers already know roughly where we are. They may be otherwise occupied for
the moment, but they'll be coming soon. We must prepare to move Streaker to
another hiding place, or else evacuate to a different ship altogether." So,
with resignation, Suessi juggled staff assignments, stopped work on the hull,
and augmented teams sent out to alien wrecks-a task that was both hazardous and
fascinating at the same time. Many of the abandoned derelicts seemed more
valuable than ships impoverished Earth had purchased through used vessel
traders. Under other circumstances, this Midden pile might have been a terrific
find. "Under
other circumstances," he muttered. "We'd never have come here in the
first place." Sooners
Emerson WHAT A
WONDERFUL PLACE! Ever
since glorious sunset, he had serenaded the stars and the growling volcano . .
. then a crescent of sparkling reflections on the face of the largest moon.
Dead cities, abandoned in vacuum long ago. Now
Emerson turns east toward a new day. Immersed in warm fatigue, standing on
heights protecting the narrow meadows of Xi, he confronts the raucous invasion
of dawn. Alone. Even
the horse-riding women keep inside their shelters at daybreak, a time when
glancing beams from the swollen sun sweep all the colors abandoned by night,
pushing them ahead like an overwhelming tide. A wave of speckled light.
Bitter-sharp, like shards of broken glass. His
former self might have found it too painful to endure-that logical engineer who
always knew what was real, and how to classify it. The clever Emerson, so good
at fixing broken things. That one might have quailed before the onslaught. A
befuddling tempest of hurtful rays. But now
that seems as nothing compared with his other agonies, since crashing on this
world. In contrast to having part of his brain ripped out, for instance, the
light storm could hardly even be called irritating. It feels more like the
claws of fifty mewling kittens, setting his callused skin a-prickle with
countless pinpoint scratches. Emerson
spreads his arms wide, opening himself to the enchanted land, whose colors
slice through roadblocks in his mind, incinerating barriers, releasing from
numb imprisonment a spasm of pent-up images. Banded
canyons shimmer under layer after lustrous layer of strange images. Explosions
in space. Half-drowned worlds where bulbous islets glimmer like metal
mushrooms. A house made of ice that stretches all the way around a glowing red
star, turning the sun's wan glow into a hearth's tamed fire. These
and countless other sights waver before him. Each clamors for attention,
pretending to be a sincere reflection of the past. But most images are
illusions, he knows. A
phalanx of armored damsels brandishes whips of forked lightning against
fire-breathing dragons, whose wounds bleed rainbows across the desert floor.
Though intrigued, he dismisses such scenes, collaborating with his rewq to edit
out the irrelevant, the fantastic, the easy. What
does that leave? A lot,
it seems. From
one nearby lava field, crystal particles reflect tart sunbursts that his eye
makes out as vast, distant explosions. All sense of scale vanishes as mighty
ships die in furious battle before him. Squadrons rip each other. Fleet
formations are scythed by moving folds of tortured space. True.' He
knows this to be a real memory. Unforgettable. Too exquisitely horrible to let
go, this side of death. So why
was it lost? Emerson
labors to fashion words, using their rare power to lock the recollection back
where it belongs. I . . .
saw ... this . . . happen. I . . .
was . . . there. He-turns
for more. Over in that direction, amid a simple boulder field, lay a galactic
spiral, seen from above the swirling wheel. Viewed from a shallow place where
few spatial tides ever churn. Mysteries lay in that place, undisturbed by waves
of time. Until
someone finally came along, with more curiosity than sense, intruding on the
tomblike stillness. Someone
. . . ? He
chooses a better word. . . .
We . . . Then, a
better word, yet. . . .
Streaker! A
slight turn and he sees her, traced among the stony layers of a nearby mesa. A
slender caterpillar shape, 'studded by the spiky flanges meant to anchor a ship
to this universe ... a universe hostile to everything Streaker stood for. He
stares nostalgically at the vessel. Scarred and patched, often by his own hand,
the hull's beauty could only be seen by those who loved her. . . .
loved her . . . Words
have power to shift the mind. He scans the horizon, this time for a human face.
One he adored, without hope of anything but friendship in return. But her image
isn't found in the dazzling landscape. Emerson
sighs. For now, it is enough to sort through his rediscoveries. A single
correlation proves especially useful. If it hurts, then it must be a real
memory. What
could that fact mean? The
question, all by itself, seems to make his skull crack with pain! Could
that be the intent? To prevent him from remembering? Stabbing
sensations assail him. That question is worse! It must never be asked! Emerson
clutches his head as the point is driven home with hammerlike blows. Never,
ever, ever . . . Rocking
back, he lets out a howl. He bays like a wounded animal, sending ululations
over rocky outcrops. The sound plummets like a stunned bird . . . then catches
itself just short of crashing. In a
steep, swooping turn, it comes streaking back . . . as laughter'. Emerson
bellows. He
roars contempt. He
brays rebellious joy. Through
streaming tears, he asks the question and glories in the answer, knowing at
last that he is no coward. His amnesia is no hysterical retreat. No quailing
from traumas of the past. What
happened to his mind was no accident. Hot
lead seems to pour down his spine as programmed inhibitions fight back.
Emerson's heart pounds, threatening to burst his chest. Yet he scarcely
notices, facing the truth head-on, with a kind of brutal elation. Somebody
. . . did . . . this. . . . Before
him, looming from the fractured mesa, comes an image of cold eyes. Pale and
milky. Mysterious, ancient, deceitful. It might have been terrifying-to someone
with anything left to lose. Somebody
. . . did . . . this ... to ... me! With
fists clenched and cheeks awash, Emerson sees the colors melt as his eyes fill
with liquid pain. But that does not matter anymore. Not
what he sees. Only
what he knows. The
Stranger casts a single cry, merging with the timeless hills. A shout
of defiance. THEY
SHOW COURAGE. You were right about that, My rings. We Jophur had not expected
anyone to approach so soon after the Polkjhy slashed an area of twenty korech
around our landing site. But now a delegation comes, waving a pale banner. At
first, the symbolism confuses our Polkjhy communications staff. But this
stack's very own association rings relay the appropriate memory of a human
tradition-that of using a white flag to signify truce. WE
INFORM THE CAPTAIN LEADER. That exalted stack appears pleased with our service.
My rings, you are indeed well informed about vermin! These worthless-seeming
toruses, left over from the former Asx, hold waxy expertise about human ways
that could prove useful to the Obeyer Alliance, if a prophesied time of change
truly has come upon the Five Galaxies. The
Great Library proved frustratingly sparse regarding the small clan from Earth.
How ironic then, that we should find proficient knowledge in such a rude,
benighted world as this Jijo. Knowledge that may help our goal of extinguishing
the wolflings at long last. What?
You quiver at the prospect? In
joyful anticipation of service? In expectation that yet another enemy of our
clan shall meet extinction? No.
Instead you shudder, filling our core with mutinous fumes! My
poor, polluted rings. Are you so infested with alien notions that you actually
hold affection for noisome bipeds? And for vermin g'Kek survivors we are sworn
to erase? Perhaps
the poison is too rife for you to be suitable, even with useful expertise. The
Oailie were right. Without master rings, all a stack can become is a pile of
sentimental traeki. THE
TALL STAR LORD WAS NO LESS IMPOSING IN A homespun shirt and trousers than in
his old black-andsilver uniform. Rann's massive arms and wedgelike torso
tempted one to imagine impossible things . . . like pitting him against a fully
grown hoon in a wrestling match. That
might take some of the starch out of him. Lark pondered. There's nothing
fundamentally superior about the guy. Underlying Rann's physique and smug
demeanor was the same technology that had given Ling the beauty of a goddess. ,
might be just as strong-and live three hundred years-if I weren't born in a
forlorn wilderness. Rann
spoke Anglic in the sharp Danik accent, with bur- ring undertones like his
Rothen overlords. "The
favor you ask is both risky and impertinent. Can you offer one good reason why
I should cooperate?" Watched
by militia guards, the star lord sat cross-legged in a cave overlooking Dooden
Mesa, where camouflaged ramps blended with the surrounding forest under
tarpaulins of cunning blur cloth. Beyond the g'Kek settlement, distant ridges
seemed to ripple as vast stands of boo bent their giant stems before the wind.
In the grotto's immediate vicinity, steam rose from geothermal vents,
concealing the captive from Galactic instruments-or so the sages hoped. Before
Rann lay a stack of data lozenges bearing the sigil of the Galactic Library,
the same brown slabs Lark and Uthen found in the wrecked Danik station. "I
could give several reasons," Lark growled. "Half the qheuens I know
are sick or dying from some filthy bug you bastards released-" Rann
waved a dismissive hand. "Your
supposition. One that I deny." Lark's
throat strangled in anger. Despite every point of damning evidence, Rann
obstinately rejected the possibility of Rothen-designed genocidal germs.
"What you suggest is quite preposterous, " he said earlier. "It
is contrary to our lords' kindly natures." Lark's
first response was amazement. Kindly nature? Wasn't Rann present when Bloor,
the unlucky portraitist, photographed a Rothen face without its mask, and
Rokenn reacted by unleashing fiery death on everyone in sight? It did
Lark no good to recite the same point-by-point indictment he had laid out for
Ling. The big man was too contemptuous of anything Jijoan to heed a logical
argument. Or else
he was involved all along, and now sees denial as his best defense. Ling
sat miserably on a stalagmite stump, unable to meet her erstwhile leader in the
eye. They had come seeking Rann's help only after she failed to read the
reclaimed archives with her own data plaque. "All
right," Lark resumed. "If justice and mercy won't persuade you, maybe
threats will!" Harsh
laughter from the big man. "How
many hostages can you spare, young barbarian? You have just three of us to
stave off fire from above. Your intimidation lacks conviction." Lark
felt like a bush lemming confronting a ligger. Still, he leaned closer. "Things
have changed, Rann. Before, we hoped to trade you back to the Rothen ship for
concessions. Now, that ship and your mates are sealed in a bubble. It's the
Jophur we'll negotiate with. I suspect they'll care less about visible wear and
tear on your person, when we hand you over." Rann's
face was utterly blank. Lark found it an improvement. Ling
broke in. "Please.
This approach is pointless." She stood and approached her Danik colleague.
"Rann, we may have to spend the rest of our lives with these people, or
share whatever fate the Jophur dish out. A cure may help square things with the
Six. Their sages promise to absolve us, if we find a treatment soon." Rann's
silent grimace required no rewq interpretation. He did
not savor the absolution of savages. "Then
there are the photograms," Ling said. "You are of the Danik Inner
Circle, so you may have seen the true Rothen face before. But I found it a
shock. Clearly, those photographic images give Jijo's natives some leverage. In
loyalty to our mast ... to the Rothen, you must consider that." "And
who would they show their pictures to?" Rann chuckled.
Then he glanced at Lark and his expression changed. "You would not
actually-" "Hand
them over to the Jophur? Why bother? They can crack open your starship any time
they wish, and dissect your masters down to their nucleic acids. Face it, Rann,
the disguise is no good anymore. The Jophur have their mulch rings wrapped
tightly around your overlords." "Around
the beloved patrons of all humanity!" Lark
shrugged. "True or not, that changes nothing. If the Jophur choose, they
.can have the Rothen declared anathema across the Five Galaxies. The fines may
be calamitous." "And
what of your Six Races?" Rann answered hotly. "Each of you are
criminals, as well. You all face punishment-not just the humans and others
living here, but the home branches of each species, elsewhere in space!" "Ah."
Lark nodded. "But this we have always known. We grow up discussing the
dour odds. The guilt. It colors our distinctly pleasant outlook on life."
He smiled sardonically. "But I wonder if an optimistic fellow like
yourself, seeing himself part of a grand destiny, can be as resigned to losing
all he knows and loves." At
last, the Danik's expression turned dark. "Rann,"
Ling urged. "We have to make common cause." He
glared at her archly. "Without Ro-kenn's approval?" "They've
taken him far away from here. Even Lark doesn't know where. Anyway, I'm now
convinced we must consider what's best for humanity ... for Earth ...
independent of the Rothen." "There
cannot be one without the other!" She
shrugged. "Pragmatism, then. If we help these people, perhaps they can do
the same for us." The big
man snorted skepticism. But after several duras, he brushed the stack of data
lozenges with his toe. "Well, I am curious. These aren't from the station
Library. I'd recognize the color glyphs. You already tried to gain
access?" Ling
nodded. "Then
maybe I had better have a crack at it." He
looked at Lark again. "You
know the risk, as soon as I turn my reader on?" Lark
nodded. Lester Cambel had already explained. In all probability, the digital
cognizance given off by a tiny info unit would be masked by the geysers and
microquakes forever popping under the Rimmers. Yet, to
be safe, every founding colony, from g'Keks and glavers to urs and humans, sent
their sneakships down to the Midden. Not a single computer was kept. Our
ancestors must have thought the danger very real. "You
needn't lecture a sooner about risk," he told the big man. "Our lives
are the floating tumble of Ifhi's dice. We know it's not a matter of winning. "Our
aim is to put off losing for as long as we can." They
were brought meals by Jimi, one of the blessed who dwelled in the redemption
sanctuary-a cheerful young man, nearly as large as Rann but with a far gentler
manner. Jimi also delivered a note from Sage Cambel. The embassy to the Jophur
had arrived at Festival Glade, hoping to contact the latest intruders. The
handwritten letter had a coda: Any
progress? Lark
grimaced. He had no way of telling what "progress" meant in this
case, though he doubted much was being made. Ling
helped load beige slabs into Rann's data plaque- returned for this purpose.
Together, the Daniks puzzled over a maze of sparkling symbols. Books
from pre-Tabernacle days described what it was like to range the digital
world-a realm of countless dimensions, capabilities, and correlations, where
any simulation might take on palpable reality. Of course mere descriptions
could not make up for lack of experience. But I'm not like some fabled
islander, befuddled by Captain Cook's rifle and compass. I have concepts, some
math, a notion of what's possible. At
least, he hoped so. Then he
worried-might the Daniks be putting on an act? Pretending to have difficulty
while they stalled for time? There
wasn't much left. Soon Uthen would die, then other chitinous friends. Worse,
new rumors from the coast told of hoonish villagers snuffling and wheezing,
their throat sacs cracking from some strange ailment. Come
on,he urged silently. What's so hard about using a fancy computer index to look
something up? Rann
threw down a data slab, cursing guttural phonemes of alien argot. "It's
encrypted!" "I
thought so," Ling said. "But I figured you, as a member of the
Inner-" "Even
we of the circle are not told everything. Still, I know the outlines of a
Rothen code, and this is different." He frowned. "Yet familiar
somehow." "Can
you break it?" Lark asked, peering at a maze of floating symbols. "Not
using this crude reader. We'd need something bigger. A real computer." Ling
straightened, looking knowingly at Lark. But she left the decision up to him. Lark
blew air through his cheeks. "Hr-rm.
I think that might be arranged." . A mixed
company of militia drilled under nearby trees, looking brave in their
fog-striped war paint. Lark saw only a few burly qheuens, though-the
five-clawed heavy armor of Jijoan military might. As one
of the few living Jijoans ever to fly aboard an alien aircraft and see their
tools firsthand, Lark knew what a fluke the Battle of the Glade had been-where
spears, arbalests, and rifles prevailed against star-roaming gods. That freak
chance would not be repeated. Still, there were reasons to continue training.
It keeps the volunteers busy, and helps prevent a rekindling of old-time feuds.
Whatever happens-whether we submit with bowed heads to final judgment, or go
down fighting-we can't afford disunion. Lester
Cambel greeted them under a tent beside a bubbling hot spring. "We're
taking a risk doing this," the elderly sage said. "What
choice do we have?" In
Lester's eyes, Lark read his answer. We can
let Uthen and countless qheuens die, if that's the price it takes for others to
live. Lark
hated being a sage. He loathed the way he was expected to think-contemplating
trade-offs that left you damned, either way you turned. Cambel
sighed. "Might as well make the attempt. I doubt the artifact will even
turn on." At a
rough log table, Cambel's human and urrish aides compared several gleaming
objects with ancient illustrations. Rann stared in amazement at the articles,
which had been carried here from the shore of a far-off caustic lake. "But
I thought you discarded all your digital-" "We
did. Our ancestors did. These items are leftovers. Relics of the Buyur." "Impossible.
The Buyur withdrew half a million years ago!" Lark
told an abbreviated version of the story-about a crazy mule spider with a collecting
fetish. A creature fashioned for destruction, who spent millennia sealing
treasures in cocoons of congealed time. Laboring
day and night, traeki alchemists had found a formula to dissolve the golden
preservation shells, spilling the contents back into the real world. Lucky for
us these experts happened to be in the area, Lark thought. The tiredlooking
traekis stood just outside, venting yellow vapor from chem-synth rings. Rann
stroked one reclaimed object, a black trapezoid, evidently a larger cousin to
his portable data plaque. "The
power crystals look negentropic and undamaged. Do you know if it still
works?" Lark
shrugged. "You're familiar with the type?" "Galactic
technology is fairly standard, though humans didn't exist, as such, when this
thing was made. It is a higher-level model than I've used, but . . ." The
sky human sat down before the ancient artifact, pressing one of its jutting
bulges. The
device abruptly burst forth streams of light that reached nearly to the canopy.
The High Sage and his team scrambled back. Urrish smiths snorted, coiling their
long necks while human techs made furtive gestures to ward off evil. Even
among Cambel's personal acolytes-his bookweaned "experts"-our
sophistication is thin enough to scratch with a fingernail. "The
Buyur mostly spoke Galactic Three," Rann said. "But GalTwo is close
to universal, so we'll try it first." He
switched' to that syncopated code, uttering clicks, pops, and groans so rapidly
that Lark was soon lost, unable to follow the arcane dialect of computer
commands. The star lord's hands also moved, darting among floating images. Ling
joined the effort, reaching in to seize ersatz objects that had no meaning to
Lark, tossing away any she deemed irrelevant, giving Rann working room. Soon
the area was clear but for a set of floating dodecahedrons, with rippling
symbols coursing each twelve-sided form. "The
Buyur were good programmers," Rann commented, lapsing into GalSix.
"Though their greatest passion went to biological inventions, they were
not slackers in the digital arts." Lark
glanced at Lester, who had gone to the far end of the table to lay a pyramidal
stack of sensor stones, like a hill of gleaming opals. Tapping one foot
nervously, the sage kept wary vigil, alert for any spark of warning fire. Turning
farther, Lark found the mountain cleft deserted. The militia company had
departed. No one
with sense would remain while this is going on. Rann
muttered a curse. "I
had hoped the machine would recognize idiosyncrasies in the encryption, if it
is a standard commercial cypher used widely in the Five Galaxies. Or there may
be quirks specific to some race or alliance. "Alas,
the computer says it does not recognize the cryptographic approach used in these
memory slabs. It calls the coding technique . . . innovative." Lark
knew the term was considered mildly insulting among the great old star clans. "Could
it be a pattern developed since the Buyur left Jijo?" Rann
nodded. "Half an eon is a while, even by Galactic standards." Ling
spoke, eagerly. "Perhaps it's Terran." The big
man stared at her, then nodded, switching to Anglic. "That
might explain the vague familiarity. But why would any Rothen use an Earther
code? You know what they think of wolfling technology. Especially anything
produced by those unbelieving Terragens-" "Rann,"
Ling cut in, her voice grown hushed. "These slabs may not have belonged to
Ro-kenn or Ro-pol." "Who
then? You deny ever seeing them before. Neither have I. That leaves ..." He
blinked, then pounded a heavy fist on the wooden slats. "We must crack
this thing! Ling, let us commence unleashing the unit's entire power on finding
the key." Lark
stepped forward. "Are you sure that's wise?" "You
seek disease cures for your fellow savages? Well, the Jophur ship squats on the
ruins of our station, and our ship is held captive. This may be your only
chance." Clearly,
Rann had another reason for his sudden zeal. Still, everyone apparently wanted
the same thing-for now. Lester
looked unhappy, but he gave permission with a nod, returning to his vigil over
the sensor stones. We're
doing it for you, Uthen, Lark thought. Moments
later, he had to retreat'several more steps as space above the prehistoric computer
grew crowded. Innumerable glyphs and signs collided like snowflakes in an
arctic blizzard. The Buyur machine was applying prodigious force of digital
intellect to solving a complex puzzle. As Rann
worked-hands darting in and out of the pirouetting flurry-he wore an expression
of simmering rage. The kind of resentful anger that could only come from one
source. Betrayal. A
midura passed before the relic computer announced preliminary results. By then
Lester Cambel was worn out. Perspiration stained his tunic and he wheezed each
breath. But Lester would let no one else take over watching the sensor stones. "It
takes long training to sense the warning glows," he explained. "Right
now, if I relax my eyes in just the right way, I can barely make out a soft
glow in a gap between two of the bottommost stones." Long
training? Lark wondered as he peered into the fragile pyramid, quickly making
out a faint iridescence, resembling the muted'flame that licked the rim of a
mulching pan when a dead traeki was boiled, rendering the fatting rings for
return to Jijo's cycle. Cambel
went on describing, as if Lark did not already see. "Someday,
if there's time, we'll teach you to perceive the passive resonance, Lark. In
this case it is evoked by the Jophur battleship. Its great motors are now
idling, forty leagues from here. Unfortunately, even that creates enough
background noise to mask any new disturbance." "Such
as?" "Such
as another set of gravitic repulsors . . . moving this way." Lark nodded
grimly. Like a rich urrish trader with two husbands in her brood pouches, big
starships carried smaller ships-scrappy and swift-to launch on deadly errands.
That was the chief risk worrying Lester. Lark
considered going back to watch the two Daniks work, invoking software demons in
quest of a mathematical key. But what good would he do staring at the
unfathomable? Instead, he bent close to the stones, knowing each flicker to be
an echo of titanic forces, like those that drove the sun. For a
time he sensed no more than that soft bluish flame. But then Lark began
noticing another rhythm, matching the mute shimmer, beat by beat. The source
throbbed near his rib cage, above his pounding heart. He slid
a hand into his tunic and grabbed his amulet- a fragment of the Holy Egg that
hung from a leather thong. It was warm. The pulselike cadence seemed to build
with each passing dura, causing his arm to vibrate painfully. What
could the Egg have in common with the engines of a Galactic cruiser? Except
that both seem bent on troubling me till I die? From
far away, he heard Rann give an angry shout. The big Danik pounded the table,
nearly toppling the fragile stones. Cambel
left to find out what Rann had learned. But Lark could not follow. He felt pinned
by a rigor that spread from his fist on up his arm. It crossed his chest, then
swarmed down his crouched legs. "Uh-huhnnn
..." y-t M u . . _ He
tried to speak, but no words came. A kind of paralysis robbed him of the will
to move. Year
after year he had striven to achieve what came easily to some pilgrims, when
members of all Six Races sought communion with Jijo's gift-the Egg, that
enigmatic wonder. To some it gave a blessing-guidance patterns, profound and
moving. Consolation for the predicament of exile. But
never to Lark. Never the sinner. Until
now. But instead of transcendent peace, Lark tasted a bitter tang,
like molten metal in his mouth. His eardrums scraped, as if some massive rock
were being pushed through a tube much too narrow. Amid his confusion, gaps in
the sensor array seemed like the vacuum abyss between planets. The gemstones
were moons, brushing each other with
ponderous grace. Before
his transfixed eyes, the silken flame grew a minuscule swelling, like a new
shoot budding off a rosebush. The new bulge moved, detaching from its parent,
creeping around the surface of one stone, crossing a gap, then moving gradually
upward. It was
subtle. Without the heightened sensitivity of his seizure,
Lark might not have noticed. Something's coming. But he
could only react with a cataleptic gurgle. Behind Lark came more sounds of
fury-Rann throwing a tantrum over some discovery. Figures moved around the I
outraged alien . . . Lester and the militia guards. No one paid
Lark any mind. Desperately,
he sought the place where volition resides. The
center of will. The part that commands a foot to step, an eye to shift, a voice
to utter words. But his soul seemed captive to the discolored knob of fire,
moving languidly this
way. Now
that it had his attention, the flicker wasn't about to let him go. Is this
your intent? he asked the Egg, half in prayer and half censure. You
alert me to clanger . . . then won't let me cry a warning? Did
another dura pass-or ten?-while the spark drifted around the next stone? With a
soft crackle it crossed another gap. How many more must it traverse before
reaching the top? What sky-filling shadow would pass above when that happened? Suddenly,
a huge silhouette did loom into Lark's field of view. A giant, globelike shape,
vast and blurry to his fixed, unfocused gaze. The
intruding object spoke to him. "Uh
. . . Sage KoolKan? . . . You all right, sir?" Lark
mutely urged the intruder closer. That's it, Jimi. A bit more to the left . . . With
welcome abruptness, the flame vanished, eclipsed by the round face of Jimi the
Blessed-Jimi the Simpleton-wearing a worried expression as he touched Lark's
sweat-soaked brow. "Can
I get ya somethin', Sage? A drink o' water mebbe?" Freed
of the hypnotic trap, Lark found volition at last . . . waiting in the same
place he always kept it. "Uhhhh
. . ." Stale
air vented as he took gasping breath. Pain erupted up and down his crouched
body, but he quashed it, forcing all his will into Grafting two simple words. ".
. . ever'body . . . out!" E THEY
ACT QUICKLY ON THEIR PROMISES, DO THEY not, my rings? Do you
see how soon the natives acquiesced to our demands? You
seem surprised that they moved so swiftly to appease us, but ,expected it. What
other decision was possible, now that their so-called sages understand the way
things are? Like
you lesser rings, the purpose of other races is ultimately to obey. HOW DID
THIS COME ABOUT? you ask. Yes,
you have My permission to stroke old-fashioned wax drippings, tracing recent
memory. But I shall also retell it in the more efficient Oailie way so that we
may celebrate together an enterprise well concluded. WE
BEGIN with the arrival of emissaries-one from each of the savage tribes,
entering this shattered valley on foot and wheel, shambling like animals over
the jagged splinters that surround our proud Polkjhy. Standing
bravely beneath the overhanging curve of our gleaming hull, they took turns shouting
at the nearest open hatch, making pretty speeches on behalf of their rustic
Commons. With surprising eloquence, they cited relevant sections of Galactic
law, accepting on behalf of their ancestors full responsibility for their
presence on this world, and requesting courteously that we in turn explain our
purpose coming here. Are we
official inspectors and judges from the Institute of Migration? they asked. And
if not, what excuse have we for violating this world's peace? Audacity!
Among the crew of the Polkjhy, it most upset our junior Priest-Stack, since now
we seem obliged to justify ourselves to barbarians. "Why
Did We Not Simply Roast This Latest Embassy, Like The One Before It?" To
this, our gracious Captain-Leader replied: "It
Costs Us Little To Vent Informative Steam In The General Direction Of
Half-Devolved Beings. And Do Not Forget That There Are Data Gleanings We
Desire, As Well! Recall That The Scoundrel Entities Called Rothen Offered To
Sell Us Valuable Knowledge, Before We Righteously Double-Crossed Them. Perhaps
That Same Knowledge Might Be Wrung From The Locals At A Much Smaller Price,
Saving Us The Time And Effort Of A Search." Did not
the junior Priest-Stack then press its argument? "Look
Down At The Horrors! Abominations! They Commingle In The Shadow Of Our Great
Ship-Urrish Forms Side By Side With Noons? Poor Misguided Traeki Cousins
Standing Close 'To Wolfling Humans? And There Among Them, Worst Of All ...
G'keks! What Can Be Gained By Talking With Miscegenists? Blast Them Now!" • •
• AH, MY
RINGS, would not things be simpler for us/me, had the Captain-Leader given in,
accepting the junior priest's advice? Instead, our exalted commander bent
toward the senior Priest-Stack for further consultation. That
august entity stretched upward, a tower of fifty glorious toruses, and
declared- "I/we
Concede That It Is A Demeaning Task. But It Harms Us Little To Observe The
Appropriate Forms And Rituals. "So
Let Us Leave The Chore To Ewasx. Let The Ewasx Stack Converse With These
Devolved Savages. Let Ewasx Find Out What They Know About The Two Kinds Of Prey
We Seek" So it
was arranged. The job was assigned to this makeshift, hybrid stack. An
appointment to be a lowly agent. To parley with half animals. In this
way, i/we learned the low esteem by which our Jophur peers regard us. BUT
NEVER MIND THAT NOW. Do you recall how we took on our apportioned task, with
determined aplomb? By gravity plate, we dropped down to the demolished forest,
where the six envoys waited. Our ring of association recognized two of
them-Phwhoon-dau, stroking his white hoonish beard, and Vubben, wisest of the
g'Kek. This pair shouted surprised gladness at first, believing they beheld a
lost comrade-Asx. Then,
realizing their mistake, all six quailed, emitting varied noises of dismay.
Especially the traeki in their midst-our,your replacement among the High
Sages?- who seemed especially upset by our transformation. Oh, how that stack
of aboriginal toruses trembled to perceive our Jophurication! Would its
segmented union sunder on the spot? Without a master ring to bind and guide
them, would the component rings tear their membranes and crawl their separate
ways, returning to the feral habits of our ancestors? Eventually the six representatives recovered enough to listen. In
simple terms, I explained Polkfhy's endeavor in this far-off system. WE ARE
NOT OF THE MIGRATION INSTITUTE, I/we told them, although we did invoke a clause
of Galactic law to self-deputize and arrest the Rothen gene raiders. There will
be few questions asked by an indifferent cosmos, if, when we render judgment on
them . . . or on criminal colonists. To whom
will savages appeal? BUT
THAT NEED NOT BE OUR AIM. This I
added, soothingly. There are worse villains to pursue than a hardscrabble pack
of castaways, stranded on a forbidden reef, seeking redemption the only way
they can. OUR
CHIEF QUEST is for a missing vessel crewed by Earthling dolphins. A ship sought
by ten thousand Heels, across all Five Galaxies. A ship carrying secrets, and
perhaps the key to a new age. I told
the emissaries that we might pay for data, if local inhabitants help shorten
our search. (Yes,
My rings-the Captain-Leader also promised to pay those Rothen rascals, when their
ship hailed ours in jump space, offering vital clues. But those impatient fools
gave away too much in their eagerness. We made vague promises, dispatching them
for more proof . . . then covertly followed, before a final deal was signed!
Once they led us to this world, what further purpose did they serve? Rather
than pay, we seized their ship. (True,
they might have had more data morsels to sell. But if the dolphin ship is in
this system, we will find it soon enough.) (Yes,
My rings, our memory core appears to hold no waxy imprints of a "dolphin
ship. "But others on Jijo might know something. Perhaps they kept data
from their traeki sage. Anyway, can we trust memories inherited from Asx, who
slyly remelted many core drippings? (So we
must query the Jijoan envoys, using threats and rewards.) While
the emissaries pondered the matter of the dolphin ship, I proceeded to our
second requirement. Our goal of long-delayed justice! YOU MAY
FIND THIS ADDITIONAL REQUEST UNPLEASANT, OR DISLOYAL. BUT YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.
YOU MUST BEND TO THE IMPLACABILITY OF OUR WILL. THE SACRIFICE WE DEMAND IS
ESSENTIAL. DO NOT THINK OF SHIRKING! The
hoon sage boomed a deep umble, inflating his throat sac. "We are unclear
on your meaning. What must we sacrifice?" To this
obvious attempt at dissembling, I replied derisively, adding rippling emphasis
shadows across our upper rings. YOU
KNOW WHAT MUST BE GIVEN UP TO US. SOON WE WILL EXPECT A TOKEN PORTION. A DOWN
PAYMENT TO SHOW US THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. With
that, I commanded our ring-of-manipulators to aim all our tendrils at the aged
g'Kek. Toward
Vubben. This
time, their reactions showed comprehension. Some former Asx rings shared their
revulsion, but I clamped down with electric jolts of discipline. The
intimidated barbarians retreated, taking with them the word of heaven. We did
not expect to hear from the agonized sooners for a day or two. Meanwhile, the
Captain-Leader chose to send our second corvette east to help the other unit
whose selfrepairs go too slowly, stranded near a deepwater rift. (A candidate
hiding place for the missing Earthling ship!) Once,
we feared that dolphins had shot down our boat, and Polkjhy itself must go on
this errand. But our tactician stack calculated that the Rothen scout simply
got in a lucky shot. It seems safe to dispatch a smaller vessel. Then,
just as our repair craft was about to launch, we picked up a signal from these
very mountains! What else could it be, but the Jijoan envoys, responding to
My,our demands! The
corvette was diverted north, toward this new emission. And lo!
Now comes in its report. A g'Kek settlement-a midget city of the demon
wheels-hidden in the forest! Oh, we
would have found it anyway. Our mapping has only just begun. Still, this
gesture is encouraging. It shows the Six (who will soon be five) possess enough
sapient ability to calculate odds, to perceive the inevitable and minimize
their losses. What,
My rings? You are surprised? You expected greater solidarity from your vaunted
Commons? More loyalty? Then
live and learn, My waxy pretties. This is just the beginning. i^arl TEARS
COVERED THE CHEEKS OF THE AGED HUMAN sage as he ran through the forest.
"It's my fault. . . ." he murmured between gasping breaths. "All
my fault,. . . I never should've allowed it ... so near the poor g'Kek.
..." Lark
heard Cambel's lament as they joined a stampede of refugees, swarming down
narrow aisles between colossal shafts of boo. He had to catch Lester when the
sage stumbled in grief over what they all had witnessed, only duras ago. Lark
caught the eye of a hoonish militiaman with a huge sword slung down his back.
The burly warrior swept Lester into his arms, gently hauling the stricken sage
to safety. For
those fleeing beneath the boo, that word-safety- might never be the same. For
two thousand years, the ramparts of Dooden Mesa offered protection to the
oldest and weakest sooner race. Yet no defense could stand against the sky
cruiser that swept over that sheltered valley, too soon after Lark's shouted
warning. Some refugees-those with enough nerve to glance back-would always
carry the image of that awful ship, hovering like a predator over the graceful
ramps, homes, and workshops. It must
have been drawn by the Buyur computer-by its "digital resonance." Once
over the mountain, the aliens could not help noticing the g'Kek settlement in
the valley below. ".
. . we were too near the poor g'Kek ..." Driven
by a need for answers-and a lifelong curiosity about all things Galactic-Cambel
had allowed Ling and Rann to drive the machine at full force, deciphering the
mystery records. It was like waving a lure above this part of the Rimmers,
calling down an ill wind. Some of
those running through the forest seemed less panicky. Fierce-eyed Jeni Shen
kept herd on her militia team, so Rann and Ling never had a chance to dodge
left or right, slipping away through the boo. As if either Danik had any place
to go. Their faces looked as dismayed as anybody's. Lark's
ears still rang from when the Jophur ship cast beams of aching brilliance,
tearing apart the frail canopy of blur cloth, laying Dooden Mesa bare under a
cruel sun. Teeming wheeled figures scurried futilely, like a colony of hive
mites in a collapsed den. The
beams stopped, and something even more dreadful fell from the floating nemesis. A
golden haze. A flood of liquid light. Lark's
nerve had failed him at that point, as he, too, plunged into the boo, fleeing a
disaster he had helped wreak. You
aren 't alone, Lester. You have company in hell. Dwer MUDFOOT
SEEMED CRAZIER THAN EVER. Blinking past a cloud of buzzing gnats, Dwer watched
the mad noor crouch over some helpless creature he had caught near the shore,
gripping his prey in both forepaws, brandishing sharp teeth toward whatever
doomed beast had unluckily strayed within reach. Mudfoot showed no interest in
two sooty spaceships that lay crippled, just beyond the dune. Why
should he care? Dwer thought. Any Galactics who glimpse him will just shrug
of,another critter of Jijo. Enjoy your meal, Mudfoot. No squatting under hot
sand for you! Dwer's
hidey-hole was intensely uncomfortable. His legs felt cramped and grit eagerly
sought every body crevice, Partial shade was offered by his tunic, propped up
with two arrows and covered with sand. But he had to share that narrow shelter
with Rety-an uncomfortable fit, to say the least. Worse, there was a kind of
midge, no larger than a speck, that seemed to find human breath irresistible.
One by one, the insectoids drifted upslope to the makeshift cavity where Dwer
and Rety exposed their faces for air. The bugs fluttered toward their mouths,
inevitably being drawn inside. Rety coughed, spat, and cursed in her Gray Hills
dialect, despite Dwer's pleas for silence. She's
not trained for this, he thought, trying for patience, During his
apprenticeship, Master Fallen used to leave him in a hunting blind for days on
end, then sneak back to i observe. For each sound Dwer made, Fallen added
another midura, till Dwer learned the value of quiet. "I
wish he'd quit playin' with his food," Rety muttered, glaring downslope at
Mudfoot. "Or else, bring some up for us." Dwer's
belly growled agreement. But he told her, "Don't think about it. Try to
sleep. We'll see about sneaking away come nightfall." For
once, she seemed willing to take his advice. Sometimes, Rety seemed at her best
when things were at their worst. At this
rate, she'll be a saint before it's all over. He glanced left, toward the
swamp. Both alien ships lay grounded in a seaside bog, just two arrowflights
away. It made the two humans easy targets if they budged. Nor had he any
guarantee this would change at night. I hear
tell that star gods have lenses that pick out a warm body moving in the dark,
and other kinds to track metal and tools. Getting
away from here might not be easy, or even possible. There
wasn't much to say for the alternatives. It would have been one thing to
surrender to Kunn. As a Danik adoptee, Rety might have swayed the human star
pilot to spare Dwer's life. Perhaps. But the
newcomers who shot down Kunn's little scout . . . Dwer felt his hackles rise
watching tapered stacks of glistening doughnuts inspect their damaged ship,
accompanied by hovering robots. Why be
afraid? They look like traeki, and traeki are harmless, right? Not
when they come swooping from space, throwing lightning. Dwer
wished he had listened more closely to holy services as a child, instead of
fidgeting when the Sacred Scrolls were read. Some excerpts had been inserted by
the ringed ones, when their sneakship came-passages of warning. Not all stacks
of fatty rings were friendly, it seemed. What was the name they used? Dwer
tried to recall what word stood for a traeki that was no traeki, but he came up
blank. Sometimes
he wished he could be more like his brother and sister-able to think deep
thoughts, with vast stores of book learning to call upon. Lark or Sara would
surely make better use of this time of forced inaction. They would be weighing
alternatives, listing possibilities, formulating some plan. But all
I do is doze, thinking about food. Wishing I had some way to scratch. He
wasn't yet desperate enough to walk toward that silver ship with hands raised.
Anyway, the aliens and their helpers were still fussing over the smoke-stained
hull, making repairs. As he
nodded in a drowsy torpor, he fought down one itch in particular, a prickly
sensation inside his head. The feeling had grown ever since he first gave the
Danik robot a "ride" across a river, using his body to anchor its
groundhugging fields. Each time he collapsed on the opposite bank, waking up
had felt like rising from a pit. The effect grew stronger with every crossing. At
least I won't have to do that again. The robot now cowered under a nearby dune,
useless and impotent since Kunn's ship was downed and its master taken. Dwer's
sleep was uneasy, disturbed first by a litany of aching twinges, and later by
disturbing dreams. He had
always dreamed. As a child, Dwer used to jerk upright in the dark, screaming
till the entire household roused, from Nelo and Melina down to the lowest chimp
and manservant, gathering round to comfort him back to sweet silence. He had no
clear memory of what nightmares used to terrify him so, but Dwer still had
sleep visions of startling vividness and clarity. Never
worth screaming over, though. Unless
you count One-of-a-Kind. He
recalled the old mule spider of the acid mountain lake, who spoke words
directly in his mind one fateful day, during his first solo scouting trip over
the Rimmer Range. -the
mad spider, unlike any other, who tried all kinds of deceit to charm Dwer into
its web, there to join its "collection." -the
same spider who nearly caught Dwer that awful night when Rety and her
"bird" were trapped in its maze of bitter vines . . . before that
vine network exploded in a mortal inferno. Restlessly,
he envisioned living cables, the spider's own body, snaking across a tangled
labyrinth, creeping ever nearer, closing an unstoppable snare. From each
twisting rope there dripped heavy caustic vapors, or liquors that would freeze
your skin numb on contact. Around
Dwer, the sand burrow felt like a ropy spiral of nooses, drawing tight a snug
embrace that was both cloying and loving, in a sick-sweet way. No one
else could ever appreciate you as much as I do, crooned the serenely patient
call of One-of-a-Kind. We share a destiny, my precious, my treasure. Dwer
felt trapped, more by a languor of sleep than by the enveloping sand. He
mumbled. "Yer
just . . . my . . . 'magination. . . ."
A crooning, dreamlike laugh, and the mellifluous voice rejoined- So you
always used to claim, though you cautiously evaded my grasp, nonetheless. Until
the night I almost had you. "The
night you died!" Dwer answered. The words were a mere rolling of his
exhaled breath. True.
But do you honestly think that was an ending? My kind is very old. I myself bad
lived half a million years, slowly etching and leaching the hard leavings of
the Buyur. Across those ages, thinking long thoughts, would I not learn
everything there is to know about mortality? Dwer
realized-all those times he helped the Danik robot cross a stream, conducting
its throbbing fields, somehow must have changed him inside. Sensitized him. Or
else driven him mad. Either way, it explained this awful dream. His
eyes opened a crack as he tried to waken, but fatigue lay over Dwer like a
shroud, and all he managed was to peer through interleaved eyelashes at the swamp
below. Till
now, he had always stared at the two alien ships- the larger shaped like a
silvery cigar, and the smaller like a bronze arrowhead. But now Dwer regarded
the background. The swamp itself, and not the shiny intruders. They
are just dross, my precious. Ignore those passing bits of "made
stuff," the brief fancies of ephemeral beings. The planet will absorb
them, with some patient help from my
kindred. Distracted
by the ships, he had missed the telltale signs. A nearby squarish mound whose
symmetry was almost hidden by rank vegetation. A series of depressions, like
grooves filled with algae scum, always the same distance apart, one after
another, extending into the distance. It was
an ancient Buyur site, of course. Perhaps a port or seaside resort, long ago
demolished, with the remnants left for wind and rain to dissolve. Aided
by a wounded planet's friend, came the voice, with renewed pride. We who
help erase the scars. We who
expedite time's rub. Over
there. Between the shadows of his own eyelashes, Dwer made out slender shapes
amid the marsh plants, like threads woven among the roots and fronds, snaking
through the muddy shallows. Long, tubelike outlines, whose movement was
glacially slow. But he could track the changes, with patience. Oh,
what patience you might have learned, if only you joined me! We would be one
with Time now, my pet, my rare one. It
wasn't just his growing vexation with the irksome dream voice-that he knew to
be imagined, after all. Dawning realization finally lent Dwer the will to shake
off sleep. He squeezed his eyelids shut hard enough to bring tears and flush
away the stickiness. Alert now, he reopened them and stared again at the faint
twisty patterns in the water. They were real. "It's
a mule swamp," he muttered. "And it still lives." Rety
stirred, commenting testily. "So?
One more reason to get out of this crakky place." But
Dwer smiled. Emerging from the fretful nap, he found his thoughts now taking a
sharp turn, veering away from a victim's apprehension. In the
distance, he still heard the noor beast bark and growl while toying with his
prey-a carnivore's privilege under nature's law. Before, Mudfoot's behavior had
irritated Dwer. But now he took it as an omen. All his
setbacks and injuries-and simple common sense-seemed to, demand that he flee
this deadly place, crawling on his belly, taking Rety with him to whatever
hideout they could find in a deadly world. But one
idea had now crystallized, as clear as the nearby waters of the Rift. I'm not running away, he decided. I don't
really know how to do that. A
hunter-that was what he had been born and trained to be. Alvin ALL
RIGHT, SO THERE WE WERE, WATCHING FARAWAY events through the phuvnthus' magical
viewer, when the camera eye suddenly went jerky and we found ourselves staring
into the grinning jaws of a giant noor! Hugely magnified, it was the vista a
fen mouse might see-its last sight on its way to being a midday snack. Huphu
reacted with a sharp hiss. Her claws dug in my shoulder. The
spinning voice, our host, seemed as surprised as we. That whirling
hologram-thing twisted like the neck of a confused urs, nodding as if it were
consulting someone out of sight. I caught murmurs that might be hurried Anglic
and GalSeven. When
the voice next spoke aloud, we heard the words twice, the second time delayed
as it came back through the drone's tiny pickups. The voice used accented
GalSix, and talked to the strange noor. Three words, so high-pitched I barely
understood. "Brother,
" the voice urged quickly. "Please stop." And the
strange noor did stop, turning its head to examine the drone from one side to
the other. True,
we hoons employ noor beasts as helpers on our boats, and those learn many words
and simple commands. But that is on the Slope, where they get sour balls and
sweet umbles as pay. How would a noor living east of the Rimmers learn Galactic
Six? The
voice tried again, changing pitch and timbre, almost at the limit of my hearing
range. "Brother,
will you speak to us, in the name of the Trickster?" Huck
and I shared an amazed glance. What was the voice trying to accomplish? One of
those half memories came back to me, from when our ill-fated Wuphon's Dream
crashed into the openmawed phuvnthus whale ship. Me and my friends were thrown
gasping across a metal deck, and soon after I stared through agonized haze as
six-legged monsters tromped about, smashing our homemade instruments underfoot,
waving lantern beams, exclaiming in a ratchety language I didn't understand.
The armored beings seemed cruel when they blasted poor little Ziz, the
five-stack traeki. Then they appeared crazy upon spying Huphu. I recall them
bending metal legs to crouch before my pet, buzzing and popping, as if trying
to get her to speak. And now
here was more of the same! Did the voice hope to talk a wild noor into
releasing the remote-controlled drone? Huck winked at me with two waving g'Kek
eyes, a semaphore of amused contempt. Star gods or no, our hosts seemed prize
fools to expect easy cooperation from a noor. So we
were more surprised than anyone-even Pincer and Ur-ronn-when the on-screen
figure snapped its jaws, frowning in concentration. Then, through gritted teeth
came a raspy squeak . , . answering in the same informal tongue. "In
th' nam o' th' Trickst'er . . . who th' hell'r you.'!" My
healing spine crackled painfully as I straightened, venting an umble of
astonishment. Huck sighed and Pincer's visor whirled faster than the agitated
hologram. Only Huphu seemed oblivious. She licked herself complacently, as if
she had not heard a blessed thing. "What
do you jeekee, Ifni-slucking turds think you're doing!" Huck wailed. All
four eyes tossed in agitation, showing she wa&more angry than afraid. Two
hulking, sixlegged phuvnthus escorted her, one on each side, carrying her by
the rims of her wheels. The
rest of us were more cooperative, though reluctant. Pincer had to tilt his red
chitin shell in order to pass through some doorways, following as a pair of
little amphibian creatures led us back to the whale ship that brought us to
this underwater sanctuary. Ur-ronn trotted behind Pincer, her long neck folded
low to the ground, a pose of simmering dejection. I
hobbled on crutches behind Huck, staying out of reach of her pusher leg, which
flailed and banged against corridor walls on either side. "You
promised to explain everything!" she cried out. "You said we'd get to
ask questions of the Library!" Neither
the phuvnthus nor the amphibians answered, but I recalled what the spinning
voice had said before sending us away. "We
cannot justify any longer keeping four children under conditions that put you
all in danger. This location may be bombed again, with greater fury. Also, you
now know much too much for your own good." "What
do we know?" Pincer had asked, in perplexity. "That noors can
talk-alk-alk?" The
hologram assented with a twisting nod. "And other things. We can't keep
you here, or send you home as we originally intended, since that might prove
disastrous for ourselves and your families. Hence our decision to convey you to
another place. A goal mentioned in your diaries, where you may be content for
the necessary time." "Wait!"
Huck had insisted. "I'll bet you're not even in charge. You're prob'ly
just a computer ... a thing. I want to talk to someone else! Let us see your
boss!" I
swear, the whirling pattern seemed both surprised and amused. "Such
astute young people. We had to revise many assumptions since meeting the four
of you. As I am programmed to find incongruity pleasant, let me thank you for
the experience, and sincerely wish you well." I
noticed, the voice never answered Huck's question. Typical
grown-up, I thought. Whether hoonish parents or alien contraptions . . .
they're all basically the same. Huck
settled down once we left the curved hallway and reentered the maze of
reclaimed passages leading to the whale ship. The phuvnthus let her down, and
she rolled along with the rest of us. My friend continued grumbling remarks
about the phuvnthus' physiology, habits, and ancestry, but I saw through her
pose. Huck had that smug set to her eyestalks. Clearly,
she felt she had accomplished something sneaky and smart. Once
aboard the whale ship, we were given another room with a porthole. Apparently
the phuvnthus weren't worried about us memorizing landmarks. That worried me,
at first. Are
they going to stash us in another salvaged wreck, under a different dross pile,
in some far-off canyon of the Midden? In that case, who'll come get us if they
are destroyed? The
voice mentioned sending us to a "safe" place. Call me odd, but I
hadn't felt safe since stepping off dry land at Terminus Rock. What did the
voice mean about it being a site where we already "wanted to go"? The
whale ship slid slowly at first through its tunnel exit, clearly a makeshift
passage constructed out of the hulls of ancient starcraft, braced with rods and
improvised girders. Ur-ronn said this fit what we already knew-the phuvnthus
were recent arrivals on Jijo, possibly refugees, like our ancestors, but with
one big difference. They
hope to leave again. I
envied them. Not for the obvious danger they felt, pursued by deadly foes, but
for that one option they had, that we did not. To go. To fly off to the stars,
even if the way led to certain doom. Was I naive to think freedom made it all
worthwhile? To know I'd trade places with them, if I could? Maybe
that thought laid the seeds for my later realization. The moment when everything
suddenly made sense. But hold that thought. Before
the whale ship emerged from the tunnel, we caught sight of figures moving in
the darkness, where long shadows stretched away from moving points of sharp,
starlike light. The patchiness of brilliance and pure darkness made it hard, at
first, to make out very much. Then Pincer identified the shadowy shapes. They
were phuvnthus, the big six-legged creatures whose stomping gait seemed so
ungainly indoors. Now, for the first time, we saw them in their element,
swimming, with the mechanical legs tucked away or used as flexible work arms.
The broad flaring at the back ends of their bodies now made sense-it was a
great big flipper that propelled them gracefully through dark waters. We had
already speculated that they might not be purely mechanical beings. Ur-ronn
thought the heavy metal carapace was worn like a suit of clothes, and the real
creatures lay inside horizontal shells. They
wear them indoors because their true bodies lack legs, I thought, knowing also
that the steel husks protected their identities. But why, if they were born
swimmers, did they continue wearing the coverings outside? We
glimpsed light bursts of hurtful brilliance-underwater welding and cutting.
Repairs, I thought. Were they in a battle, before fleeing to Jijo? My mind
filled with images from those vivid space-opera books Mister Heinz used to
disapprove of, preferring that we kids broaden our tastes with Keats and Basho.
I yearned to get close and see the combat scars . . . but then the sub entered
a narrow shaft, cutting off all sight of the phuvnthu vessel. Soon,
we emerged into the blackness of the Midden. A deep chill seemed to penetrate
the glass disk, and we backed away . . . especially since the spotlights all
turned off, leaving the outside world vacant, but for an occasional blue
glimmer as some sea creature tried to lure a mate. I lay
down on the metal deck to rest my back, feeling the thrum of engines vibrate
beneath me. It was like the rumbling song of some godlike hoon who never needed
to pause or take a breath. I filled my air sac and began to umble counterpoint.
Hoons think best when there is a steady background cadence-a tone to serve as a
fulcrum for deliberation. I had a
lot to think about. My
friends eventually grew bored with staring at the bleak desolation outside.
Soon they were all gathered around little Huphu, our noorish mascot, trying to
get her to speak. Pincer urged me to come over and use bosun umbles to put her
in a cooperative mood, but I declined. I've known Huphu since she was a pup,
and there's no way she's been playing dumb all that time. Anyway, I had seen a
difference in that strange noor on the beach, the one that spoke back to the
spinning voice in fluent GalSix. Huphu never had that glint in her eyes . . . . . .
though as I reflected, I felt sure I'd seen the look before-in just a few noor
who lounged on the piers in Wuphon, or worked the sails of visiting ships.
Strange ones, a bit more aloof than normal. As silent as their brethren, they
nevertheless seemed more watchful somehow. More evaluating. More amused by all
the busy activity of the Six Races. I never
gave them much thought before, since a devilish attitude seems innate to all
noor. But now perhaps I knew what made them different. Though
noor are-often associated with hoons, they didn't come to Jijo with us, the way
chimps, lorniks, and zookirs came with human, qheuen, and g'Kek sooners. They
were already here when we arrived and began building our first proud rafts. We
always assumed they were native beasts, either natural or else some adjusted
species, left behind by the Buyur as a practical joke on whoever might follow.
Though we get useful work out of them, we hoon don't fool ourselves that they
are ours. Eventually,
Huck gave up the effort, leaving Pincer and Ur-ronn to continue coaxing our
bored mascot. My g'Kek buddy rolled over beside me, resting quietly for a time.
But she didn't fool me for a kidura. "So
tell me," I asked. "What'd you swipe?" "What
makes you think I took anything?" She feigned innocence. "Hr-rrm.
How 'bout the fakey way you thrashed around, back there in the hall-a tantrum
like you used to throw when you were a leg skeeter, till our folks caught on.
After we left the curvy hallway, you stopped all that, wearing a look as if
you'd snatched the crown jewels under old Richelieu's nose." Huck
winced, a reflex coiling of eyestalks. Then she chuckled. "Well, you got
me there, d'Artagnan. Come on. Have a look at what I got." With
some effort, I raised up on my middle stretch of forearm while Huck rolled
closer still. Excitement hummed along her spokes. "Used
my pusher legs. Kept banging 'em against the wall till I managed to snag one of
these." Her
tendril-like arm unfolded. There, held delicately between the tips, hung a
narrow, rectangular strip of what looked like thick paper. I reached for it. "Careful,
it's sticky on one side. I think a book called it adhesive tape. Got a bit
crumpled when I yanked it off the wall. Had to pry some gummy bits apart. I'm
afraid there's not much of an impression left, but if you look closely . .
." I
peered at the strip-one of the coverings we had seen pressed on the walls,
always at the same height, to the left of each doorway in the curved hall,
surely masking label signs in some unknown language. "You
wouldn't happen to've been looking when I ripped it off, were you?" Huck
asked. "Did you see what it said underneath?" "Hr-r.
Wish I had. But I was too busy avoiding being kicked." "Well,
never mind. Just look real carefully at this end. What d'you see there?" I
didn't have Huck's sensitivity of vision, but hoons do have good eyes. I peered
at what seemed a circular pattern with a gap and sharp jog on the right side.
"Is it a symbol?" "That's
right. Now tell me-in what alphabet?" I
concentrated. Circles were basic ingredients in most standard Galactic codes.
But this particular shape seemed unique. "I'll
tell you my yirrt impression, though it can't be right." "Go
on." "Hr-rm
... it looks to me like an Anglic letter. A letter G, to be specific." Huck
let a satisfied sigh escape her vent mouth. All four eyestalks waved, as if in
a happy breeze. "That
was my impression, too." We
clustered round the viewport when the hull began creaking and popping,
indicating a rapid change of pressure. Soon the world outside began to brighten
and we knew the sub must be on final approach. Beyond the glass, sunshine
streamed through shallow water. We all felt a bit giddy, from changing air
density, I guess. Pincer-Tip let out hissing shouts, glad to be back in a
familiar world where he would be at home. (Though lacking the comforts of his
clan rookery.) Soon water slid off the window in dripping sheets and we saw our
destination. Tilted
obelisks and sprawling concrete skeletons, arrayed in great clusters along the
shore. Huck let out a warbling sigh. Buyur
ruins, I realized. These must be the scrublands south of the Rift, where some
city sites were left to be torn down by wave and wind alone. The
voice read my journal and knew about our interest in coming here. If we must be
quarantined, this would be the
place. The
cluster of ancient sites had been Huck's special goal, before we ever stepped
aboard Wuphon's Dream. Now she bounced on her rims, eager to get ashore and
read the wall inscriptions that were said to be abundant in this place.
Forgotten were her complaints over broken phuvnthu promises. This was a more
longstanding dream. One of
the six-limbed amphibians entered, gesturing for us to move quickly. No doubt
the phuvnthus were anxious to get us ashore before they could be spotted by
their enemies. Huck rolled out after Pincer. Ur-ronn glanced at me, her long
head and neck shaking in an urrish shrug. At least she must be looking forward
to an end to all this water and humidity. The countryside ahead looked
pleasantly dry. But it
was not to be. This
time I was the mutinous one. "No!"
I planted my feet, and my throat sac boomed. "I
ain't movin'." My
friends turned and stared. They must have seen hoonish obstinacy in the set of
my limbs as I gripped the crutches. The amphibian fluttered and squeaked
distress. "Forget
it," I insisted. "We are not getting off!" "Alvin,
it's all right-ight," Pincer murmured. "They promised to leave us
lots of food, and I can hunt along the shore-" I shook
my head. "We
are not going to be cast aside like this, exiled for our own Ifni-slucking
safety, like a bunch of helpless kids. Sent away from where things are
happening. Important things!" "What're
you talking about?" asked Huck, rolling back into the cabin, while the
amphibian fluttered and waved its four arms vainly. Finally, a pair of big
phuvnthus came in, their long horizontal bodies metal-clad and slung between
six stomping steel legs. But I refused to be intimidated. I pointed at the
nearest, with its pair of huge, black, glassy eyes, one on each side of a
tapered head. "You
call up the spinning voice and tell him. Tell him we can help. But if you
people turn us away, putting us ashore here won't do any good. It won't shut us
up, 'cause we'll find a way back home, just as fast as we can. We'll head for
the Rift and signal friends on the other side. We'll tell 'em the truth about
you guys!" Ur-ronn
murmured, "What truth, Alvin?" I let
out a deep, rolling umble to accompany my words. "That
we know who these guys are." Sara IN THE
LODGE OF A HORSE CLAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT to see lariats, bridles, and saddle
blankets hanging on the walls. Maybe a guitar or two. It seemed strange to find
a piano here in Xi. An
instrument much like the one back home in Dolo Village, where Melina used to
read to her children for hours on end, choosing obscure books no one else
seemed eager to check out from the Biblos Archive-some crinkly pages wafting
aromas from the Great Printing, two hundred years before. Especially books of
written music Melina would prop on the precious piano Nelo had made for her as
part of the marriage price. Now, in
the great hall of the Illias, Sara ran her hands along white and black keys,
stroking fine tooth traces left by expert qheuen wood-carvers, picturing her
mother as a little girl, raised in this narrow realm of horses and mindscraping
illusions. Leaving Xi must have been like going to another planet. Did she feel
relief from claustrophobic confinement, passing through the Buyur tunnel for a
new life in the snowy north? Or did Melina long in her heart for the hidden
glades? For the visceral thrill of bareback? For the pastoral purity of life
unconstrained by men? Did she
miss the colors that took each dream or nightmare, and spread its secret
panorama before your daylight gaze? Who
taught you to play the piano, Mother? Sitting with you on this very bench, the
way you used to sit beside me, trying to hide your disappointment in my awkward
fingers? A folio
of sheet music lay atop the piano's polished surface. Sara flipped through it,
recalling ancient compositions that used to transfix her mother for duras at a
stretch, rousing young Sara's jealousy against those dots on a page. Dots
Melina transformed into glorious harmonies. Later,
Sara realized how magical the melodies truly were. For they were repeatable. In
a sense, written music was immortal. It could never die. The
typical Jijoan ensemble-a sextet including members from each sooner
race-performed spontaneously. A composition was never quite the same from one
presentation to the next. That trait appealed especially to blue qheuens* and
hoons, who, according to legend, had no freedom to innovate back in ordered
Galactic society. They expressed puzzlement when human partners sometimes
suggested recording a successful piece in traeki wax, or writing it down. Whatever
for?they asked. Each moment deserves its own song. A
Jijoan way of looking at things, Sara acknowledged. She
laid her hands on the keys and ran through some scales. Though out of practice,
the exercise was like an old friend. No wonder Emerson also drew comfort from
tunes recalling happier days. Still,
her mind churned as she switched to some simple favorites, starting with
"Fur Elise." According
to Biblos anthropology texts, most ancient cultures on Earth used to play music
that was impulsive, just like a Jijoan sextet. But shortly before they made
their own way into space, humans also came up with written forms. We
sought order and memory. It must have seemed a refuge from the chaos that
filled our dark lives. Of
course that was long ago, back when mathematics also had its great age of
discovery on Earth. Is that a common thread? Did I choose math for the same
reason Melina loved this instrument? Because it lends predictability amid
life's chaos? A
shadow fell across the wall. Sara drew back, half rising to meet the brown eyes
of Foruni, aged leader of the horse-riding clan. "Sorry
to disturb you, dear." The gray-headed matriarch motioned for Sara to sit.
"But watching you, I could almost believe it was Melina back home with us,
playing as she did, with such intensity." "I'm
afraid I don't look much like my mother. Nor do I play half as well." The old
woman smiled. "A good parent wants her offspring to excel-to do what she
could not. But a wise parent lets the child select which excellence. You chose
realms of deep thought. I know she was very proud." Sara
acknowledged the kindness with a nod, but took small comfort from aphorisms. If
the choice really were mine, don't you think I'd have been beautiful, like
Melina? A dark woman of mystery, who amazed people with many graceful talents? Mathematics
chose me . . . it seized me with cool infinities and hints at universal truth.
Yet whom do I touch with my equations? Who looks at my face and form with
unreserved delight? Melina
died young, but surrounded by those who loved her. Who will weep over me, when
I am gone? The
Illias leader must have misunderstood Sara's frown. "Do
my words disturb you?" Foruni asked. "Do I sound like a heretic, for
believing that generations can improve? Does it
seem an odd belief for a secret tribe that hides itself even from a
civilization of exiled refugees?" Sara
found it hard to answer. Why
were Melina's children so odd, byJijoan standards? Although Lark's heresy seems
opposite to mine, we share one thread-rejecting the Path of Redemption. The
books Mother read to us often spoke of hope, drawn from some act of rebellion. To the
Illias leader, she replied, "You and your urrish friends rescued horses,
back when they seemed doomed. Your alliance foreshadowed that of Drake and
Ur-Chown. You are a society of dedicated women, who carefully choose your male
companions from the best Jijo has to offer. Living in splendid isolation, you
see humanity at its best-seldom its more nasty side. "No,
it does not surprise me that the Illias are optimists at heart." Foruni
nodded. "I am told that you, in your investigations of language theory,
reached similar conclusions." Sara
shrugged. "I'm no optimist. Noj; personally. But for a while, it seemed
that I could see a pattern in the evolution of Jijo's dialects, and in all the
new literary activity taking place across the Slope. Not that it matters
anymore, now that aliens have come to-" The old
woman cut in. "You don't think we are destined to be like glavers, winning
our second chance by passing through oblivion?" "You
mean what might have happened, if starships never came? I argued with Dedinger
about this. If Jijo had been left alone, I felt there was the possibility of .
. ." Sara
shook her head and changed the subject. "Speaking
of Dedinger, have you had any luck finding him?" Foruni
winced unhappily. "It's been just a short while since he broke out of the
pen where he was kept. We never imagined he would prove so resourceful, knowing
how to saddle and steal a horse." "He
had time to learn by observing." "I
see that we were naive. It's a long time since we kept prisoners in XL "Unfortunately,
the tracks do not lead back to the tunnel, where we might have trapped him in
the narrow darkness. Instead, the wily ligger spawn struck out across the
Spectral Flow." Sara
tried picturing a man alone on horseback, crossing a vast desert of poison
stone and cutting light. "Do you think he can make it?" "You
mean can we catch him before he dies out there?" It was Foruni's turn to
shrug. "Fallen is not as spry as he was, but he departed a midura ago with
some of our most able young riders. The fanatic should be back in care soon,
and we'll watch him more closely-" Foruni
stopped, midsentence, glancing down at her hand. An insect had landed, and was
sniffing at a vein. Sara recognized a skeeter-a blood-sucking irritant familiar
across the Slope. Skeeters were slow and easily smacked, but for some reason
Foruni refrained. Instead, she let the vampire wasp leisurely insert a narrow
tube and take its meal. When finished, it proceeded to perform a little dance,
one filled with jerky, beckoning motions. Sara
stared, fascinated. Skeeters seldom survived landing on a human long enough to
do this. Come
with me, it seemed to say with each swing of its tiny abdomen and tail. Come
with me now. Sara
realized, it must be another remnant servant beast of the vanished Buyur. A
useful messenger, if you knew how to use it. Foruni
sighed. "Alas, dear cousin, it's time for you to go. You and Kurt and the
others must hurry to where you're needed most." Needed?
Suessi wondered. In times like these, what could a person like me possibly be
needed for? The
journey south resumed, this time on horseback. They used the ancient Buyur
transit tunnel at first, where the failed deconstructor left its demolition
unfinished. But soon it lay cracked open for stretches, like the spent larval
casing of a newly fledged qheuen, leaving a dusty cavity or else a pit filled
with water. Thereafter they had to ride in the open, awash in the luminous
tides of the Spectral Flow. The Illias provided hooded cloaks. Still, it felt
as if the colors were probing the reflective garments for some gap to worm
their way inside. Kurt and
Jomah rode ahead with Kepha, their guide. The elderly exploser leaned forward
in his saddle, as if that might get them to their goal quicker. Then came
Prity, on a donkey more suited for her small form. Emerson
seemed strangely subdued, though he smiled at Sara from time to time. He wore
the rewq constantly, though from his ever-turning head, Sara gathered the filmy
symbiont was doing more than just softening the colors. It must be adjusting,
translating them. Sometimes, the starman stiffened in the saddle . . . though
whether from pain, surprise, or exaltation, Sara could never be quite sure. Taking
up the rear was Uigor, the urrish traitor. Wisely, she had not tried to break
across the poison plain with her erstwhile ally, Dedinger. Guarded by two of
her own kind from the Xi colony, Uigor swung her head in growing eagerness as
the party neared Mount Guenn. Urrish nostrils flared at scents of smoke and
molten rock, as the volcano loomed to fill the southern sky. Sara
felt surprisingly good. The saddle was a tool her body had mastered. When the
going grew steep and riders dismounted to lead the horses by hand, her legs
were suffused with waves of comfortable warmth, with strength still in reserve. So, a
hermit math potato can manage to keep up, after all. Or is this euphoria an
early sign of altitude sickness? They
were mounting one of countless knee hills along the sloping volcano, when
suddenly all three urs bolted forward, hissing excitement and trailing clouds
of pumice, forgetting their separate roles as they jostled toward the next
outlook. Outlined against the sky, their long heads swept in unison, from left
to right and back again. Finally,
winded from the climb, she and Emerson arrived to find a mighty caldera spread
before them . . . one of many studding the immense volcano, which kept rising
to the southeast for many more leagues. Yet
this crater had the urs transfixed. Steamy exhalations rose from vents that
rimmed the craggy circle. Cautiously, Sara removed her sunglasses. The basalt
here was of a coarser, less gemlike variety. They had entered a different realm. "This
was the site of the first forge," Uigor announced, her voice tinged with
awe. She tilted her muzzle to the right, and Sara made out a tumble of stone
blocks, too poorly shaped to have been laser-cut by the Buyur, and now
long-abandoned. Such tumbled shelters were handhewn by the earliest urrish
seeker smiths who dared to leave the plains pursuing lava-borne heat, hoping to
learn how to cast the fiery substance of Jijoan bronze and steel. In its day,
the venture was fiercely opposed by the Gray Queens, who portrayed it as
sacrilege-as when humans much later performed the Great Printing. In
time, what had been profane became tradition. "They
must've found conditions better, on high," Jomah commented, for the' trail
continued steadily upslope. An urrish guard nodded. "Vut it was fron this
flace that early urs exflorers discovered the secret way across the Sfectral
Flow. The Secret of Xi." Sara
nodded. That explained why one group of urs conspired to thwart another-the
powerful Urunthai-in their plan to make horses extinct when humanity was new on
Jijo. The smiths of those days cared little for power games played by high
aunties of the plains tribes. It did not matter to them how Earthlings smelled,
or what beasts they rode, only that they possessed a treasure. Those
books the Earthlings printed. They have secrets of metallurgy. We must share,
or be left behind. So it
was not a purely idealistic move-to establish a secret herd in Xi. There had
been a price. Humans may be Jijo's master engineers, but we stayed out
ofsmithing, and now I know why. Even
after growing up among them, Sara still found it fascinating how varied urs
could be. Their range of personalities and motives-from fanatics to pragmatic
smiths- was as broad as you'd find among human beings. One more reason why
stereotypes aren't just evil, but stupid. Soon
after they remounted, the trail followed a ridgeline offering spectacular views.
The Spectral Flow lay to their left, an eerie realm, even dimmed to -sepia
shades by distance and dark glasses. The maze of speckled canyons spanned all
the way to a band of blazing white-the Plain of Sharp Sand. Dedinger's home,
where the would-be prophet was forging a nation of die-hard zealots out of
coarse desert folk. Sandmen who saw themselves as humanity's vanguard on the
Path of Redemption. In the
opposite direction, southwest through gaps in the many-times-folded mountain,
Sara glimpsed another wonder. The vast ocean, where Jijo's promised life
renewal was fulfilled. Where Melina's ashes went after mulching. And Joshu's.
Where the planet erased sin by absorbing and melting anything the universe sent
it. The
Slope is so narrow, andJijo is so large. Will star gods judge us harshly,or
living quiet careful lives in one corner of a forbidden world? There
was always hope the aliens might just finish their business and go away,
leaving the Six Races to proceed along whatever path destiny laid out for them. Yeah,
she concluded. There are two chances that will happen-fat and slim. The
trek continued, more often dismounted than not, and the view grew more
spectacular as they moved east, encompassing the southern Rimmer Range. Again,
Sara noted skittishness among the urs. In spots the ground vented steaming
vapors, making the horses dance and snort. Then she glimpsed a red glimmer,
some distance below the trail-a meandering stream of lava, flowing several
arrowflights downslope. Perhaps
it was fatigue, thin air, or the tricky terrain, but as Sara looked away from
the fiery trail, her unshielded eyes crossed the mountains and were caught
unready by a stray flash of light. Sensitized by her time in Xi, the sharp
gleam made her cringe. What is
that? The
flash repeated at uneven intervals, almost as if the distant mountaintop were
speaking to her. Then
Sara caught another, quite different flicker of motion. Now
that must'be an illusion, she thought. It has to be . . . yet it's so far from
the Spectral Flow! It
seemed . . . she could almost swear . . . that she saw the widespread wings of
some titanic bird, or dragon, wafting between- It had
been too long since she checked her footing. A stone unexpectedly turned and
Sara tripped. Throwing her weight desperately the other way, she
overcompensated, losing her balance completely. Uttering
a cry, Sara fell. The
gritty trail took much of the initial impact, but then she rolled over the
edge, tumbling down a scree of pebbles and jagged basalt flakes. Despite her
tough leather garments, each jab lanced her with fierce pain as she desperately
covered her face and skull. A wailing sound accompanied her plunge. In a
terrified daze Sara realized the screamer was not her, but Prity, shrieking
dismay. "Sara!"
someone yelled. There were scrambling sounds of distant, hopeless pursuit. In
midtumble, between one jarring collision and the next, she glimpsed something
between blood-streaked fingers-a fast-approaching rivulet winding across the
shattered landscape. A liquid current that moved languidly, with great
viscosity and even greater heat. It was the same color as her blood . . . and
approaching fast. Nel elo HRIANA
FOO SPENT THE RETURN BOAT JOURNEY mulling over her sketches of the tiny space
pod that had brought the Stranger to Jijo. Meanwhile, Nelo fumed over this
foolish diversion. His workmen would surely not have kept to schedule. Some
minor foul-up would give those louts an excuse to lie about like hoons at
siesta time. Commerce
had lapsed during the crisis, and the warehouse tree was full, but Nelo was
determined to keep producing paper. What would Dolo Village be without the
groaning waterwheel, the thump of the pulping hammer, or the sweet aroma that
wafted from fresh sheets drying in the sun? While
the helmsman umbled cheerfully, keeping a steady beat for the crew poling the
little boat along, Nelo held out a hand, feeling for rain. There had been drops
a little earlier, when disturbing thunder pealed to the south. The
marsh petered out as streamlets rejoined as a united river once more. Soon the
young people would switch to oars and sweep onto the gentle lake behind Dolo
Dam. The
helmsman's umble tapered, slowing to a worried moan. Several of the crew leaned
over, peering at the water. A boy shouted as his pole was ripped out of his
hands. It does seem a bit fast, Nelo thought, as the last swamp plants fell
behind and trees began to pass by rapidly. "All
hands to oars!" shouted the young hoon in command. Her back spines, still
fresh from recent fledging, made uneasy frickles. "Lock them down!" Ariana
met Nelo's eyes with a question. He answered with a shrug. The
boat juttered, reminding him of the cataracts that lay many leagues downriver,
past Tarek Town, an inconvenience he only had to endure once, accompanying his
wife's dross casket to sea. But
there are no rapids here! They were erased when the lake filled, centuries ago! The
boat veered, sending him crashing to the bilge. With stinging hands, Nelo
climbed back to take a seat next to Ariana. The former High Sage clutched the
bench, her precious folio of drawings zipped shut inside her jacket. "Hold
on!" screamed the young commander. In dazed bewilderment, Nelo clutched
the plank as they plunged into a weird domain. A realm that should not be. So Nelo
thought, over and over, as they sped down a narrow channel. On either side, the
normal shoreline was visible-where trees stopped and scummy water plants took
over. But the boat was already well below that level, and dropping fast! Spume
crested the gunnels, drenching passengers and crew. The latter rowed furiously
to the hoon lieutenant's shrill commands. Lacking a male's resonating sac, she
still made her wishes known. "Backwater-left
. . . backwater-left, you noor-bitten ragmen! . . . Steady . . . Now all ahead!
Pull for it, you spineless croakers! For your lives, pull!" Twin
walls of stone rushed inward, threatening to crush the boat from both sides.
Glistening with oily algae, they loomed like hammer and anvil as the crew rowed
frantically for the narrow slot between, marked by a fog of stinging white
spray. What lay beyond was a mystery Nelo only prayed he'd live to see. Voices
of hoons, qheuen, and humans rose in desperation as the boat struck one cliff a
glancing blow, echoing like a door knocker on the gateway to hell. Somehow the
hull survived to lunge down the funnel, drenched in spray. We
should be on the lake by now, Nelo complained, hissing through gritted teeth.
Where did the lake go! They
shot like a javelin onto a cascade where water churned in utter confusion over
scattered boulders, shifting suddenly as fresh debris barricades built up or
gave way. It was an obstacle course to defy the best of pilots, but Nelo had no
eyes for the ongoing struggle, which would merely decide whether he lived or
died. His numbed gaze lifted beyond, staring past the surrounding mud plain
that had been a lake bed, down whose center rushed the River Roney, no longer
constrained. A river now free to roll on as it had before Earthlings came. The dam
. . . The dam . . . A moan
lifted from the pair of blue qheuens, lent for this journey by the local hive.
A hive whose fisheries and murky lobster pens used to stretch luxuriously
behind the dam wherein they made a prosperous home. Remnants of the pens and
algae farms lay strewn about as the boat swept toward the maelstrom's center. Nelo
blinked, unable to express his dismay, even with a moan. The dam
still stood along most of its length. But most wasn't a word of much use to a
dam. Nelo's heart almost gave way when he saw the gap ripped at one end . . .
the side near his beloved mill. "Hold
on!" the pilot cried redundantly, as they plunged for the opening. And the
waterfall they all heard roaring violently just ahead. PART
SIX FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN MY
DECISION may not be wholly rational. For all
I know, Alvin may die blurting in order to avoid exile, he may have no I idea
who we are. Or
perhaps he really Has surmised the truth. yuter all, dolphins are mentioned in
' many of the earth books he's read. Even . wearing a mlly armored, six-legged
walker unit, a tins outline can be recognised it you look in tne right way.
Once tne idea occurred to him, Alvins fertile imagination would cover the rest. As a
precaution, we could Intern the kids much larther south, or in a subsea I
habitat. That might keep them sale and silent. , Isnt suggested as much, before
I ordered the ; lUKaM to turn around and bring them back. I admit
I'm biased. I miss ,Win and his pals. 11 only the fractious races of the Five
Galaxtes could have a camaraderie like theirs. ' ,Anyway, they are grown-up enough to choose their own late. Wfc,Vb had a report trom Makanees nurse. On
her way by sled to check on a sick member of Kaas team, Repoe spotted two more
piles of Junked spacecratt, smaller than this one, but suitable should we have
to move Streaker soon. Hannes dispatched crews to start preparatory work. ,xgain,
we must rely on the same core group of about liity skilled crewten. I he
reliable ones, whose concentration remains untlagged atter three stresslul
years. Those who arent frightened by superstitious rumors of sea monsters
lurking amid the dead Buyur machines. AJ for
our pursuers--weve seen no more gravitic signatures or Hying cratt, east of the
mountains. That may be good news, but the respite makes me nervous. Iwo small
spacecraft cant be the whole story. Sensors detect some great brute of a ship,
about (ive hundred klicks northwest. Is this vast cruiser related to the two
vessels that (ell near here? They
must surely realise that this region is of interest. It seems creepy they haven
t followed up. .As it they are confident they have all the time in the world. 1 \~\L,
NISS Machine managed to exchange Just a few more words with that so-called noor
beast that our little drone encountered ashore. But the creature keeps us on
tenterhooks, treating the little scout robot like its private toy, or a prey
animal to be teased with bites and scratches. )4t it also carries it about in
its mouth, careful not to get tangled in the hber cable, letting us have briet,
tantalising views of the crashed sky boats. We had
assumed that noor were simply devolved versions of tytlal . . . of little
interest except as curiosities. But if some retain the power of speech, what
else might they be capable or? .At first I thought the Niss AAachine would be
the one oest
qualthed to handle this contusing encounter. .Alter all, the noor is its
cousin, in a manner of speaking. But
family connections can Involve sibling rivalry, even contempt. Maybe the
lymbrlmt machine is simply the wrong spokesman. One
more reason I'm eager to bring ,Win back. AMID
all this, I had time to do a bit more research on Herbie. I wish
there were some way to guess the isotopic input profiles, before he died, but
chemical raeemi?atlon analyses of samples taken from the ancient mummy appear
to show considerably less temporal span than was indicated by cosmic-ray track
llistories of the hull lorn boarded, in the Shallow (cluster. In
other words, Heroic seems younger than the vessel lorn round him on. I hat
could mean a number of things. AAlght
Herb simply be the corpse of some previous grave robber, who slinked aboard
Just a few million years ago, Instead of one to two billion' Or
could the discrepancy be an enect of those strange Holds we (ound in the
Shallow (cluster, surrounding that Heet of ghostly starcraft, rendering them
nearly invisible, perhaps the outer hulls of those huge, silent ships
experienced time dinerently than their contents. It
makes me wonder about poor Lieutenant ,achapa-Jean, who was killed by those
same fields, and whose body had to be lett behind. AAight some future
expedition someday recover the well-preserved corpse of a dolphin and go
rushing around the universe thinking they have the recovered relic of a
progenitor' yVllstaking
the youngest sapient race for the oldest. What a Joke that would be. A Joke
on them, and a Joke on us. llerbie
never changes. Yet I swear I sometimes catch him grinning. OUR stolen Galactic Library unit gets queer
and opaque at times. It I werent in disguise, the big cube probably woutdnt
tell me anything at all. L,ven decked out as a Thennanin admiral, I itnd the
lilbrary evasive when shown those symbols that lorn copied aboard the derelict
ship. One
glyph looks like the emblem worn by every Library unit in known space--a great
spiral wheel. Only instead or hve swirling arms rotating around a common
center, this one has nine: And
eight concentric ovals overlie the stylized galactic helix, making it resemble
a bulls-eye target. I never
saw anything like it before. when I press for answers, our purloined archive says
the symbol ... is very old . . . and that its use is ... memetically
discouraged. Whatever
that means. At risk
of humanising a machine, the unit seems to get grumpy, as it it dislikes being
contused. Ive seen this before. lerragens researchers rind that certain subject
areas make libraries touchy, as ii they hate having to work hard by digging in
older riles. . . . Or maylie thats an excuse to avoid admitting there are
things they dont know. It
reminds me of discussions lorn and I used to have with Jake l-)emwa, when wed
all sit up late trying to make sense of the universe. Jake
had a theory-that Galactic history, which purports to go back more than a
billion years, is actually only accurate to about one hundred and titty
million. With each
eon you go lurther back than that, he said, what were told has an
ever-increasing Havor of a carerutly concocted (able. Oh,
there's evidence that oxygen-breathing stanarers have been around ten times as
long. Jurely some of the ancient events recorded
in oiiicial annals must be authentic. But much has also been painted over. It s a
chilling notion. The great Institutes are supposed to be dedicated to truth and
continuity, tlow, then, can valid tniormatlon be memetically discouraged: Yes,
this seems a rather abstract obsession, at a time when Streaker--and now
Jijo--races dire and immediate threats. Yet I can t help thinking it all comes
together here at the bottom of a planetary graveyard, where tectonic plates
melt history Into ore. We are
caught in the slowly grinding gears of a machine more vast than we imagined. Marines ftT
TIMES HANNES SUESSI ACUTELY MISSED HIS nyoung friend Emerson, whose uncanny
skills helped 11 make Streaker purr like a compact leopard, prowling the trails
of space. Of
course Hannes admired the able fins of his engineroom gang-amiable, hardworking
crew mates without a hint of regression in the bunch. But dolphins tend to
visualize objects as sonic shapes, and often set their calibra, tions
intuitively, based on the way motor vibrations sounded. A helpful technique,
but not always reliable. Emerson
D'Anite, on the other hand- Hannes
never knew anyone with a better gut understanding of quantum probability
shunts. Not the arcane hyperdimensional theory, but the practical nuts and
bolts of wresting movement from contortions of wrinkled spacetime. Emerson was
also fluent in Tursiops Trinary . . . better than Hannes at conveying complex
ideas in neodolphins' own hybrid language. A useful knack on this tub. Alas,
just one human now remained belowdecks, to help tend abused motors long past
due for overhaul. That
is-if one could even call Hannes Suessi human anymore. Am I
more than I was? Or less? He now
had "eyes" all over the engine room-remote pickups linked directly to
his ceramic-encased brain. Using portable drones, Hannes could supervise
Karkaett and Chuchki far across the wide chamber ... or even small crews
working on alien vessels elsewhere in the great underwater scrap yard. In this
way he could offer advice and comfort when they grew nervous, or when their
bodies screamed with cetacean claustrophobia. Unfortunately,
cyborg abilities did nothing to prevent loneliness. You
should never have left me here alone, Hannes chided Emerson's absent spirit.
You were an engineer, not a secret agent or star pilot! You had no business
traipsing off, doing heroic deeds. There
were specialists for such tasks. Streaker had been assigned several
"heroes" when she first set out-individuals with the right training
and personalities, equipping them to face dangerous challenges and improvise
their way through any situation. Unfortunately,
those qualified ones were gone-Captain Creideiki, Tom Orley, Lieutenant Hikahi,
and even the young midshipman Toshio-all used up in that costly escape from
Kithrup. I guess
someone had to fill in after that, Hannes conceded. In
fact, Emerson pulled off one daring coup on Oakka, the green world, when the
Obeyer Alliance sprang a trap while Gillian tried to negotiate a peaceful
surrender to officials of the Navigation Institute. Not
even the suspicious Niss Machine reckoned that neutral Galactic bureaucrats
might betray their oaths and violate Streaker's truce pennant. It wasn't
supposed to be possible. If not for Emerson's daring trek across Oakka's
jungle, taking out a Jophur field-emitter station, Streaker would have fallen
into the clutches of a single fanatic clan-the one thing the Terragens Council
said must not occur, at any cost. But you
let one success go to your head, eh? What were you thinking? That you were
another Tom Orley? A few
months later you pulled that crazy stunt, veering a jury-rigged Thennanin
fighter through the Fractal System, firing recklessly to "cover" our
escape. What did that accomplish, except getting yourself killed? He
recalled the view from Streaker's bridge, looking across the inner cavity of a
vast, frosty structure the size of a solar system, built of condensed primal
matter. A jagged, frothy structure with a pale star in its heart. Emerson's
fighter swerved amid the spiky reaches of that enormous artifact, spraying
bright but useless rays while claws of hydrogen ice converged around it. Foolish
heroism. The Old Ones could have stopped Streaker just as easily as they stopped
you, if they really wanted to. They
meant to let us get away. He
winced, recalling how Emerson's brave, futile "diversion" ended in a
burst of painful light, a flicker against the immense, luminous fractal dome.
Then Streaker fled down a tunnel between dimensions, thread-gliding all the way
to forbidden Galaxy Four. Once there, her twisty path skirted the trade winds
of a hydrogen-breathing civilization, then plunged past a sooty supergiant
whose eruption might at last cover the Earthship's trail. Others
came toJijo in secret before us, letting Izmunuti erase their tracks. It
should have worked for us, too. ' But
Hannes knew what was different, this time. Those
others didn't already have a huge price on their heads. You could buy half a
spiral arm with the bounty that's been offered for Streaker, by several rich,
terrified patron lines. Hannes
sighed. The recent depth-charge attack had been imprecise, so the hunters only
suspected a general area of sea bottom. But the chase was on again. And Hannes
had work to do. At
least I have an excuse to avoid another damned meeting of the ship's council.
It's a farce, anyway, since we always wind up doing whatever Gillian decides.
We'd be crazy not to. Karkaett
signaled that the motivator array was aligned. Hannes used a cyborg arm to
adjust calibration dials on the master control, trying to imitate Emerson's
deft touch. The biomechanical extensions that replaced his hands were marvelous
gifts, extending both ability and life span- though he still missed the tactile
pleasure of fingertips. The Old
Ones were generous . . . then they robbed us and drove us out. They gave life
and took it. They might have betrayed us for the reward ... or else sheltered
us in their measureless world. Yet they did neither. Their
agenda ran deeper than mere humans could fathom. Perhaps everything that
happened afterward was part of some enigmatic plan. Sometimes
I think humanity would've been better off just staying in bed. Tsh't SHE
TOLD GILLIAN BASKIN WHAT SHE THOUGHT OF the decision. "I
still do not agree with bringing those young sooners back here." The
blond woman looked back at Tsh't with tired eyes. Soft lines at the corners had
not been there when Streaker started this voyage. It was easy to age during a
mission like this. "Exile
did seem best, for their own good. But they may be more useful here." "Yesss
. . . assuming they're telling the truth about hoons and Jophur sitting around
with humans and urs, reading paper books and quoting Mark Twain!" Gillian
nodded. "Farfetched, I know. But-" "Think
of the coincidence! No sooner does our scout sub find an old urrish cache than
these so-called kids and their toy bathysphere drop in." "They
would have died, if the Hikahi didn't snatch them up," pointed out the
ship's physician, Makanee. "Perhaps.
But consider, not long after they arrived here, we sensed gravitic motors
headed straight for this rift canyon. Then someone started bombing the abyssss!
Was that a fluke? Or did spies lead them here?" "Calling
bombs down on their own heads?" The dolphin surgeon blew a raspberry.
"A simpler explanation is that one of our explorer robots got caught, and
was traced to this general area." In
fact, Tsh't knew the four sooner children hadn't brought Galactics to the Rift.
They had nothing to do with it. She was herself responsible. Back
when Streaker was preparing to flee the Fractal System, heading off on another
of Gillian's brilliant, desperate ploys, Tsh't had impulsively sent a secret
message. A plea for help from the one source she felt sure of, revealing the
ship's destination and arranging a rendezvous at Jijo. Gillian
will thank me later, she had thought at the time. When our Rothen lords come to
take care of us. Only
now, images from shore made clear how badly things went wrong. Two
small sky ships, crashed in a swamp . . . the larger revealing fierce,
implacable Jophur. Tsh't
wondered how her well-meant plan could go so badly. Did the Rothen allow
themselves to be followed? Or was my message intercepted? Worry
and guilt gnawed her gut. Another
voice entered the discussion. Mellifluous. Emanating from a spiral of rotating
lines that glowed at one end of the conference table. "So
Alvin's bluff played no role in your decision, Dr. Baskin?" "Is
he bluffing? These kids grew up reading Melville and Bickerton. Maybe he
recognized dolphin shapes under those bulky ,exo-suits. Or we may have let
hints slip, during conversation." "Only
the Niss spoke to them directly," Tsh't pointed out, thrusting her jaw
toward the whirling hologram. It
replied with unusual contrition. "Going
over recordings, I concede having used terms such as kilometer and hour . . .
out of shipboard habit. Alvin and his friends might have correlated this with
their extensive knowledge ofAnglic, since Galactics would not use wolfling
measurements." "You
mean a Tymbrimi computer ccan make mistakesss?" Tsh't asked, tauntingly. The
spinning motif emitted a low humm they all now recognized as the philosophical
umbling sound of a reflective hoon. "Flexible
beings exhibit an ability to learn new ways," the Niss explained. "My
creators donated me to serve aboard this ship for that reason. It is why the
Tymbrimi befriended you Earthling rapscallions, in the first place." The
remark was relatively gentle teasing, compared with the machine's normal,
biting wit. "Anyway,"
Gillian continued, "it wasn't Alvin's bluff that swayed me." "Then
what-t?" Makanee asked. The
Niss hologram whirled with flashing speckles, and answered for Gillian. "It
is the small matter of the tytlal . . . the noor beast who speaks. It has
proved uncooperative and uninformative, despite our urgent need to understand
its presence here. "Dr.
Baskin and I now agree. "We
need the children for that reason. Alvin, above all. "To
help persuade it to talk to us." Sooners
Emerson HE
BLAMES HIMSELF. HIS MIND HAD BEEN ON FARaway places and times. Distracted, he
was slow reacting when Sara fell. Till
that moment, Emerson was making progress in the struggle to put his past in
order, one piece at a time. No easy task with part of his brain missing-the
part that once offered words to lubricate any thought or need. Hard-planted
inhibitions fight his effort to remember, punishing every attempt with savagery
that makes him grunt and sweat. But the peculiar panoramas help for a while.
Ricocheting colors and half-liquid landscapes jar some of the niches where
chained memories lie. One
recollection erupts whole. An old one, from childhood. Some neighbors had a big
German shepherd who loved to hunt bees. The dog
used to stalk his quarry in a very uncanine man- ner, crouching and twitching
like some ridiculous ungainly cat, pursuing the unsuspecting insect through
flower beds and tall grass. Then he pounced, snapping powerful jaws around the
outmatched prey. As a
boy, Emerson would stare in amazed delight while outraged buzzing echoed behind
the shepherd's bared teeth, followed by a vivid instant when the bee gave up
protesting and lashed with its stinger. The dog would snort, grimace, and
sneeze. Yet, brief pain came mixed with evident triumph. Bee hunting gave
meaning to his gelded suburban life. Emerson
wonders, why does this metaphor resonate so strongly? Is he the dog, overriding
agony to snatch one defiant memory after another? Or is
he the beef Emerson
recalls just fragments about the haughty entities who reamed his mind, then
sent his body plummeting to Jijo in fiery ruin. But he knows how they regarded
his kind-like insects. He
pictures himself with a sharp stinger, wishing for a chance to make the Old
Ones sneeze. He dreams of teaching them to hate the taste of bees. Emerson
lays hard-won memories in a chain. A necklace with far more gaps than pearls.
Easiest come events from childhood, adolescence, and years of training for the
Terragens Survey Service. . . . Even
when the horse caravan departs the land of stabbing colors to climb a steep
mountain trail, he has other tools to work with-music, math, and hand signs
that he trades with Prity, sharing jokes of ultimate crudity. During rest
breaks, his sketchpad helps tap the subconscious, using impatient slashes and
curves to draw free-form images from the dark time. Streaker
. . . The
ship takes form, almost drawing itself-a lovingly rendered cylinder with
hornlike flanges arrayed in circuits along its length. He draws her
underwater--surrounded by drifting seaweed-abnormal for a vessel of deep space,
but it makes sense as other memories fill in. Kithrup
. . . That
awful worid where the Streaker came seeking shelter after barely escaping a
surprise ambush, learning that a hundred fleets were at war over the right to
capture her. Kitbrup.
A planet whose oceans were poison . . . but a useful place to make repairs,
since just half a dozen crew members had legs to stand on. The rest-bright,
temperamental dolphins-needed a watery realm to work in. Besides, it seemed a
good place to hide after the disaster at ... Morgran
. . . A
transfer point. Safest of the fifteen ways to travel from star to star. Simply
dive toward one at the right slope and distance, and you'd exit at some other
point, far across the stellar wheel. Even the Earthling slowboat Vesarius had
managed it, though quite by accident, before humanity acquired the techniques
of Galactic science. Thinking
of Morgran brings Keepiru to mind, the finest pilot Emerson ever knew-the
show-off!-steering Streaker out of danger with flamboyance that shocked the
ambushers, plunging her back into the maelstrom, away from the brewing space
battle . . . . . .
like the other battle that developed weeks later, over Kithrup. Fine,
glistening fleets, the wealth of noble clans, tearing at each other, destroying
in moments the pride of many worlds. Emerson's hand flies as he draws exploding
arcs across a sheet of native paper, ripping it as he jabs, frustrated by
inability to render the gorgeous savagery he once witnessed with his own eyes.
. . . Emerson
folds the drawings away when the party remounts, glad that his flowing tears
are concealed by the rewq. Later,
when they face a steaming volcano caldera, he abruptly recalls another basin,
this one made of folded space . . . the Shallow Cluster ... Streaker's last
survey site before heading for Morgran-a place empty of anything worth noting,
said the Galactic Library. Then
what intelligence or premonition provoked Captain Creideiki to head for such an
unpromising site? Surely,
in all the eons, someone else must have stumbled on the armada of derelict
ships Streaker discovered there- cause of all her troubles. He can envision
those silent arks now, vast as moons but almost transparent, as if they could
not quite decide to be. This
memory hurts in a different way. Claw marks lie across it, as if some outside
force once pored over it in detail-perhaps seeking to read patterns in the
background stars. Retracing Streaker's path to a single point in space. Emerson
figures they probably failed. Constellations were never his specialty. His
intrigued detachment is cut short by a frightened yell. Yet, for an instant
Emerson remains too distant, too slow to turn. He does not see Sara tumble off
the path. But Prity's scream tears through him like a torch thrust into
cobwebs. Sara's
name pours from his throat with involuntary clarity. His body finally acts,
leaping in pursuit. Hurtling
down the jagged talus slope, he flings eloquent curses at the universe, defying
it-daring it-to take another friend. "Emerson,
you don't have to go." His
head jerks as those words peel from a memory more recent than Morgran or
Kithrup, by many months. Emerson
pans the land of fevered colors, now seen from high above. At last he finds her
face in rippling glimmers. A worried face, burdened with a hundred lives and
vital secrets to preserve. Again she speaks, and the words come whole, because
he never stored them in parts of the brain meant for mundane conversation. Because
everything she said to him had always seemed like music. "We
need you here. Let's find another way." But
there was no other way. Not even Gillian's sarcastic Tymbrimi computer could
suggest one before Emerson climbed aboard a salvaged Thennanin fighter,
embarking on a desperate gamble. Looking
back in time, he hopes to see in Gillian's eyes the same expression she used to
have when bidding Tom farewell on some perilous venture. He sees
worried concern, even affection. But it's not the same. Emerson
frees his gaze from the torment-colored desert, turning east toward less
disturbing vistas. Far-off mountains offer respite with natural undulating
shapes, softened by verdant green forests. Then,
from one^tall peak, there comes a glittering flash! Several more gleam in
series. A rhythm that seems to speak. . . . Raan THE
SERGEANT'S FACE WAS STREAKED WITH CAMOUflage. Her black hair still bore flecks
of loam and grass from worming through crevices and peering between brambles.
Yet Lark had never seen Jeni Shen look better. People
thrive doing the thing they were born,or. InJeni's case, that's being a
warrior. She'd rather have lived when the elder and younger Drakes were
fashioning the Great Peace out of blood and fire than during the peace itself. "So
far, so good," the young militia scout reported. Blurcloth overalls made
it hard to trace her outline amid stark lantern shadows. "I
got close enough to watch the emissaries reenter the valley, bringing the
sages' reply to the Jophur. A couple of guard robots swooped in to look them
over, especially poor Vubben, sniffing him from wheel rims to eyestalks. Then
all six ambassadors headed down to the Glade, with the bots in escort."
Jeni made slanting downward motions with her hands. "That leaves just one
or two drones patrolling this section of perimeter! Seems we couldn't ask for a
better chance to make our move." "Can
there be any question?" added Rann. The tall starfarer leaned against a
limestone wall with arms folded. The Danik was unarmed, but otherwise Rann
acted as if this were his expedition. "Of course we shall proceed. There
is no other option." Despite
Rann's poised assurance, the plan was actually Lark's. So was the decision
whether to continue. His would be the responsibility, if three-score brave
lives were lost in the endeavor ... or if their act provoked the Jophur into
spasms of vengeful destruction. We
might undermine the High Sages at the very moment when they have the Galactic
untraekis calmed down. On the
other hand, how could the Six Races possibly pay the price the Jophur were
demanding? While the sages tried to negotiate a lower cost, someone had to see
if there was a better way. A way not to pay at all. Anxious
eyes regarded him from all corners of the grotto-one of countless steamy
warrens that laced these hills. Ling's gaze was among the most relentless,
standing far apart from Rann. The two star lords had been at odds since they
worked to decode those cryptic data slabs-that awful afternoon when Rann cried
"treason!" then a dread gold mist fell on Dooden Mesa. Each sky human
had a different reason to help this desperate mission. Lark
found little cheer in Jeni's report. Only one or two drones left. According to
Lester Cambel's aides, the remaining robots could still probe some distance
underground, on guard against approaching threats. On the plus side, this
terrain was a muddle of steam vents and juttering quakes. Then there were the
subtle patterning songs put out by the Holy Egg-emanations that set Lark's
stone amulet trembling against his chest. They
all watched, awaiting his decision-human, urs, and hoon volunteers, plus some
qheuens who weren't yet sick. "All
right." Lark nodded. "Let's do it." A
terse, decisive command. Grinning, Jeni spun about to forge deeper into the
cavern, followed by lantern bearers. What
Lark had meant to say was, Hell no! Let's get out of here. I'll buy a round of
drinks so everyone can raise a glass for poor Uthen. But if
he mentioned his friend's name, he might sob the wrenching grief inside. So
Lark took his place along the twisty column of figures stooping and shuffling
through the dim passage, lit by glow patches stuck to the walls. His
thoughts caromed as he walked. For instance, he found himself wondering where
on the Slope all six races could drink the same toast at the same time? Not
many inns served both alcohol and fresh simla blood, since humans and urs
disdained each other's feeding habits. And most traeki politely refrained from
eating in front of other races. I do
know one bar in Tarek Town . . . that is, if Tarek hasn't already been
smothered by a downpour of golden rain. After Dooden, the Jophur may go for the
bigger towns, where so many g'Kek live. It
makes you wonder why the g'Kek came toJijo in the first place. They can only travel
the Path of Redemption if it is paved. Lark
shook his head. Trivia.
Minutiae. Brain synapses keep firing, even when your sole concern is following
the man in front of you . . . and not slamming your skull on a stalactite. When
they glanced at him, his followers saw a calm, assertive pose. But within, Lark
endured a run-on babble of words, forever filling his unquiet mind. I
should be mourning my friend, right now. I
should be hiring a traeki undertaker, arranging a lavish mulching ceremony, so
Uthen's polished carapace can go in style to join the bones and spindles
ofhisforemothers, lying under the Great Midden. It's my
duty to pay a formal visit to the Gray Queens, in that dusty hall where they
once dominated most of the Slope. The Chamber of Ninety Tooth-Carved Pillars,
where they still make pretenses at regal glory. But how could I explain to
those qheuen matrons how two of their brightest sons died-Harullen, sliced
apart by alien lasers, and Uthen, slain by pestilence? Can I
tell those ashen empresses their other children may be next? Uthen
had been his greatest friend, the colleague who shared his fascination with the
ebb and flow of Jijo's fragile ecosystem. Though never joining Lark in heresy,
Uthen was the one other person who understood why sooner races should never
have come to this world. The one to comprehend why some Galactic laws were
good. I let
you down, old pal. But if I can't perform all those other duties, maybe I can
arrange something to compensate. Justice. Debris
littered the floor of the last large cavern, strewn there during the Zealots'
Plot, when a cabal of young rebels used these same corridors to sneak
explosives under the Danik research station, incinerating Ling's friend Besh
and one of the Rothen star lords. Repercussions still spread from that event,
like ripples after a large stone strikes a pond. The
Jophur battleship now lay atop the station wreckage, yet no one suggested using
the same method of attack a second time. Assuming a mighty starcraft could be
blown up, it would take such massive amounts of exploser paste that Lark's team
would still be hauling barrels by next Founders' Day. Anyway, there were no
volunteers to approach the deadly space behemoth. Lark's plan meant coming no
closer than several arrowflights. Even so, the going would be hard and fraught
with peril. "From
here on, the way's too close for grays," Jeni said. Urrish
partisans peered down a passage that narrowed considerably, coiling their long
necks in unison, sniffing an aroma their kind disliked. The
gray qheuens squatted while others unstrapped supplies from their chitin backs.
Given enough time, the big fellows might widen the corridor with their digging
claws and diamond-like teeth, but Lark felt better sending them back. Who knew
how much time they had, with plague spreading on Jijo's winds? Was it a
genocide bug? Ling had found supporting evidence on decoded data wafers, though
Rann still denied it could be of Rothen origin. The
glowering starman was obsessed with a different wafer-gleaned fact. There
had been a spy among the station's staff of outlaw gene raiders. Someone who
kept a careful diary, recording every misdemeanor performed by the Rothen and
their human servants. An
agent of the Terragens Council! Apparently,
Earth's ruling body had an informant among the clan of human fanatics who
worshiped Rothen lords. He
wanted badly to quiz Ling, but there was no time for their old question game.
Not since they fled the Dooden disaster along with Lester Cambel's panicky
aides, plunging through a maze of towering boo. New trails and freshcut trunks
had flustered the breathless fugitives until they spilled into an uncharted
clearing, surprising a phalanx of traeki who stood in a long row, venting noxious
vapors like hissing kettles. Galloping
squads of urrish militia then swarmed in to protect the busy traeki, nipping at
ankles, as if the humans were stampeding simlas, driving Cambel's team away
from the clearing, diverting them toward havens to the west and south. Even
after finally reaching a campsite refuge, there had been no respite to discuss
far-off Galactic affairs. Ling spent her time with the medics, relating what
little she had learned from the spy's notes about the qheuen plague. Meanwhile,
Lark found himself surrounded by furious activity, commanding an ever-growing
entourage of followers. It goes
to show, desperate people will follow anyone with a plan. Even
one as loony as mine. Hoonish
bearers took up the grays' burdens, and the caravan was off again. Half a dozen
blue qheuens took up the rear, so young their shells were still moist from
larval fledging. Though small for their kind, they still needed help from men
with hammers and crowbars, chiseling away limestone obstructions. Lark's scheme
counted on these adolescent volunteers. He
hoped his farfetched plan wasn't the only one at work. There
is always prayer. Lark
fondled his amulet. It felt cool. For now the Egg was quiescent. At a
junction the earlier zealot cabal had veered left, carrying barrels of exploser
paste to a cave beneath the Rothen station. But Lark's group turned right. They
had less distance to cover, but their way was more hazardous. Jimi
the Blessed was among the burly men helping widen the path, attacking an
obstruction with such fury Lark had to intervene. "Easy,
Jimi! You'll wake the recycled dead!" That
brought laughter from the sweaty laborers, and booming umbles from several
hoonish porters. Brave hoons. Lark recalled how their kind disliked closed
places. The urs, normally comfortable underground, grew more nervous with each
sign of approaching water. None of
them were happy to be approaching the giant star cruiser. The Six
Races had spent centuries cowering against The Day when ships of the Institutes
would come judge their crimes. Yet, when great vessels came, they did not bear
high-minded magistrates, but thieves, and then brutal killers. Where the Rothen
and their human stooges seemed crafty and manipulative, the Jophur were
chilling. They
demand what we cannot give. We
don't know anything about the "dolphin ship" they seek. And we'd
rather be damned than hand over our g'Kek brothers. So
Lark, who had spent his life hoping Galactics would come end the illegal colony
on Jijo, now led a desperate bid to battle star gods. Human
literature has been so influential since the Great Printing. It's full of
forlorn causes. Endeavors that no rational person would entertain. He and
Ling were helping each other descend a limestone chute, glistening with seepage
and slippery lichen, when word arrived from the forward scouts. "Water
just ahead." That
was the message, sent back by Jeni Shen. So,
Lark thought. I was right. Then he
added- So far. The
liquid was oily and cold. It gave off a musty aroma. None of which stopped two
eager young blues from creeping straight into the black pool, trailing
mule-fiber line from a spool. Hoons with hand pumps kept busy inundating air
bladders while Lark steeled himself to enter that dark, wet place. Having
second thoughts? Jeni
checked his protective suit of skink membranes. It might ward off the chill,
but that was the least- of Lark's worries. I can
take cold. But there bad better be enough air. The
bladders were an untested innovation. Each was a traeki ring, thick-ribbed to
hold gas under pressure. Jeni affixed one to his back, and showed him how to
breathe through its fleshy protrusion-a rubbery tentacle that would provide
fresh air and scrub the old. You
grow up depending on traeki-secreted chemicals to make native foods edible, and
traeki-distilled alcohol to liven celebrations. A traeki pharmacist makes your
medicine in a chem-synth ring. Yet you're revolted by the thought of putting
one of these things in your mouth. It
tasted like a slimy tallow candle. Across
the narrow chamber, Ling and Rann adjusted quickly to thisJijoan novelty. Of
course they had no history to overcome, associating traekis with mulch and
rotting garbage. "Come
on," Jeni chided in a low voice that burned his ears. "Don't gag on
me, man. You're a sage now. Others are watchin'!" He
nodded-two quick head jerks-and tried again. Fitting his teeth around the tube,
Lark bit down as she had taught. The burst of air did not stink as bad as
expected. Perhaps it contained a mild relaxant. The pharmacist designers were
clever about such things. Let's
hope their star-god cousins don't think of this, as well. That
assumption underlay Lark's plan. Jophur commanders might be wary against direct
subterranean assault. But where the buried route combined with water, the
invaders might not expect trouble. The
Rothen underestimated us. By Ifni and the Egg, the Jophur may do the same. Each
diver also wore a rewq symbiont to protect the eyes and help them see by the
dim light Of hand-carried phosphors. Webbed gloves and booties completed the
ensemble. Ling's
tripping laughter made him turn around, and Lark saw she was pointing at him as
she guffawed. "You
should talk," he retorted at the ungainly creature she had become, more
monstrous than an unmasked Rothen. Hoons paused from laying down cargo by the
waterline, and joined in the mirth, umbling good-naturedly while their pet
noors grinned with needlelike teeth. Lark
pictured the scene up above, past overlying layers of rock, in the world of
light. The Jophur dreadnought squatted astride the mountain glen, thwarting the
glade stream in its normal seaward rush. The resulting lake now stretched more
than a league uphill. Water
seeks its own level. We must now be several arrowflights from shore. That's a
long way to swim before we get to the lake itself. It
couldn't be helped. Their goal was hard to reach, in more ways than one. Bubbles
in the pool. One qheuen cupola broached the surface, followed by another. The
young blues crawled ashore, breathing heavily through multiple leg vents,
reporting in excited GalSix. "The
way to open water-it is clear. Good time-this we made. To the target-we shall
now escort you." Cheers
lifted from the hoons and urs, but Lark felt no stirring. They weren't the ones who would have to go
the rest of the way. Water
transformed the cavities and grottoes. Flippers kicked up clouds of silt,
filling the phosphor beams with a myriad of distracting speckles. Lark's trusty
rewq pulled tricks with polarization, transforming the haze to partial clarity.
Still, it took concentration to avoid colliding with jagged limestone outcrops.
The guide rope saved him from getting lost. Cave
diving felt a lot like being a junior sage of the Commons-an experience he
never sought or foresaw in his former life as a scientist heretic. How
ungainly swimming humans appeared next to the graceful young qheuens, who
seized the rugged walls with flashing claws, propelling themselves with uncanny
agility, nearly as at-home in freshwater as on solid ground. His
skin grew numb where the skink coverings pulled loose. Other parts grew hot
from exertion. More upsetting was the squirmy traeki tentacle in his mouth,
anticipating his needs in unnerving ways. It would not let him hold his breath,
as a man might do while concentrating on some near-term problem, but tickled
his throat to provoke an exhalation. The first time it happened, he nearly
retched. (What if he chucked up breakfast? Would he and the ring both
asphyxiate? Or would it take his gift as a tasty, predigested bonus?) Lark
was so focused on the guide rope that he missed the transition from stony
catacombs to a murky plain of sodden meadows, drowned trees, and drifting
debris. But soon the silty margins fell behind as daylight transformed the
Glade of Gathering-now the bottom of an upland lake-giving commonplace shapes
macabre unfamiliarity. The
guide rope passed near a stand of lesser boo whose surviving stems were tall
enough to reach the surface, far overhead. Qheuens gathered around one tube,
sucking down drafts of air. When sated, they spiraled around Lark and the
humans, nudging them toward the next stretch of guide rope. Long
before details loomed through the silty haze, he made out their target by its
glow. Rann and Ling thrashed flippers, passing Jeni in their haste. By the time
Lark caught up, they were pressing hands against a giant slick sarcophagus, the
hue of yellow moonrise. Within lay a cigarshaped vessel, the Rothen ship, their
home away from home, now sealed in a deadly trap. The two
starfarers split up, he swimming right and she left. By silent agreement, Jeni
accompanied the big man- despite their size difference, she was the one more
qualified to keep an eye on Rann. Lark kept near Ling, watching as she moved
along the golden wall. Though
he had more experience than other Sixers with Galactic god machines, it was his
first time near this interloper whose dramatic coming so rudely shattered
Gathering Festival, many weeks ago. So magnificent and terrible it had seemed!
Daunting and invincible. Yet now it was helpless. Dead or implacably
imprisoned. Tentatively,
Lark identified some features, like the jutting anchors that held a ship
against quantum probability fluctuations . . . whatever that meant. The
self-styled techies who worked for Lester Cambel were hesitant about even the
basics of starcraft design. As for the High Sage himself, Lester had taken no
part in Lark's briefing, choosing instead to brood in his tent, guilt-ridden
over the doom he helped bring on Dooden Mesa. Despite
the crowding sense of danger, Lark. discovered a kind of spooky beauty,
swimming in this realm where sunlight slanted in long rippling shafts, filled
with sparkling motes-a silent, strangely contemplative world. Besides,
even wrapped in skink membranes, Ling's athletic body was a sight to behold. They
rounded the star cruiser's rim, where a sharp shadow abruptly cut off the sun.
It might be a cloud, or the edge of a mountain. Then he realized- It's
the jophur ship. Though
blurred by murky water, the domelike outline sent shivers down his back.
Towering mightily at the lake's edge, it could have swallowed the Rothen vessel
whole. A
strange thought struck him. First
the Rothen awed us. Then we saw their "majesty" cut down by real
power. What if it happens again? What kind of newcomer might overwhelm the
fophur''A hovering mountain range? One that throws the whole Slope into night?
He pictured successive waves of "ships," each vaster than
before, matching first the moons, then all Jijo, and- why not?-the sun or even
mighty Izmunuti! Imagination
is the most amazing thing. It lets a groundhugging savage fill his mind with
fantastic unlikelihoods. Churning
bubbles nearly tore the rewq off his face as Ling sped up, kicking urgently.
Lark hurried after . . . only to arrest himself moments later, staring. Just
ahead, Ling traced the golden barrier with one hand, just meters from a gaping
opening. A hatchway, backlit by a radiant interior. Several figures stood in
the portal-three humans and a Rothen lord, wearing his appealing symbiotic
mask. The quartet surveyed their all-enclosing golden prison with instruments,
wearing expressions of concern. Yet,
all four bipeds seemed frozen, embedded in crystal time. Up
close, the yellow cocoon resembled the preservation beads left by that alpine
mule spider, the one whose mad collecting fetish nearly cost Dwer and Rety
their lives, months back. But this trap was no well-shaped ovoid. It resembled
a partly melted candle, with overlapping golden puddles slumped around its
base. The Jophur had been generous in their gift of frozen temporality, pouring
enough to coat the ship thoroughly. Like at
Dooden Mesa, Lark thought. It
seemed an ideal way to slay one's enemies without using destructive fire. Maybe
the Jophur can't risk damaging Jijo's ecospbere. That would be a major crime
before the great Institutes, like gene raiding and illegal settlement. On the
other hand, the untraeki invaders hadn't been so scrupulous in scything the
forest around their ship. So perhaps the golden trap had another purpose. To
capture, rather than kill? Perhaps the g'Kek denizens of Dooden Mesa might yet
be rescued from their shimmering tomb. That
had been Lark's initial thought, three days ago. In hurried experiments, more
mule-spider relics were thawed out, using the new traeki solvents. Some of the
preserved items had once been alive, birds and bush creepers that long ago fell
into the spider's snare. All
emerged from their cocoons quite dead. Perhaps
the Jophur have better revival methods, Lark thought at the time. Or else they
don't mean to restore their victims, only to preserve them as timeless
trophies. Then,
night before last, an idea came to Lark in the form of a dream. The
hivvern lays its eggs beneath deep snow, which melts in the spring, letting
each egg sink in slushy mud, which then hardens all around. Yet the ground softens
again, when rainy season comes. Then the bivvern larva emerges, swimming free. When he
wakened, the idea was there, entire. A
spaceship has a sealed metal shell, like the hivvern egg. The Rothen ship may
be trapped, but its crew were never touched. Those
within may yet live. And now
proof stood before him. The four in the hatchway were clearly aware of the
golden barrier surrounding their ship, examining it with tools at hand. Just
one problem-they did not move. Nor was there any sign they knew? they were
being observed from just a hoon's length away. Treading
water, Ling scrawled on her wax-covered note board and raised it for Lark to
see. TIME
DIFFERENT INSIDE. He
fumbled with his own board, tethered to his waist. TIME
SLOWER? Her
answer was confusing. PERHAPS. OR ELSE
QUANTIZED. FRAME-SHIFTED. His
perplexed look conveyed more than written words. Ling wiped the board and
scratched again. DO
EXACTLY AS I DO. He
nodded, watching her carefully. Ling swished her arms and legs to turn away
from the ship. Imitating her, Lark found himself looking across the poor
wounded Glade. All the trees had been shattered by ravening beams, left to
submerge under the rising lake. Turbid water made everything hazy, but Lark
thought he saw? bones mixed among the splinters. Urrish ribs and hoonish
spines, jumbled with grinning human skulls. Not the way bodies ought to be
drossed. Not respectful of the dead, or Jijo. Perhaps
theJophur will let us seed a mule spider in this new lake, he mused. Something
ought to be done to clean up the mess. He was
jarred by Ling's nudge. TURN BACK NOW, her wax board said. Lark copied her
maneuver again . . . and stared in surprise for a second time. They
had moved!' As
before, statues stood in the hatchway. Only now their poses were all changed!
One human pointed outward wearing an amazed look. Another seemed to peer
straight at Lark, as if frozen in midrealization. They
did all this while we were turned away? Time's flow within the golden shell was
stranger than he could begin to comprehend. THIS
MAY TAKE SOME DOING, Ling Wrote. Lark
met her eyes, noting they held tense, hopeful irony. He
nodded. You
could say that again. I SPENT
MOST OF THE RETURN TRIP WITH MY NOSE buried in my journal, reviewing all the
things that I've seen and heard since Wuphon's Dream plunged below Terminus
Rock. Pincer kindly chewed my pencil to a point for me. Then I lay down and
wrote down the section before this one. What
began as a guess grew into reinforced conviction. Concentration
also diverted attention from nervous anticipation and the pain in my slowly
healing spine. My friends tried wheedling me, but I lapsed into hoonish
stubbornness, refusing to confide in them. After all, the phuvnthus had gone to
great lengths to hide their identity. The
spinning voice said it was to protect us. Maybe that was just patronizing
glaver dreck. Typical from grown-ups. But what if he told the truth? How can I
risk my friends? When
the time comes, I'll confront the voice alone. SHE
DRIFTED IN A CLOUD OF MATHEMATICS. All around her floated arcs and conic
sections, glowing, as though made of enduring fire. Meteors streaked past,
coruscating along paths smoothly ordained by gravity. Then
more stately shapes joined the frolicking figures and she guessed they might be
planets whose routes were elliptical, not parabolic. Each had its own reference
frame, around which all other masses seemed to move. Rising,
falling ... Rising,
falling ... The
dance spoke of a lost science she had studied once, in an obscure text from the
Biblos Archive. Its name floated through her delirium-orbital mechanics-as if
managing the ponderous gyres of suns and moons were no more complex than
maintaining a windmill or waterwheel. Dimly,
Sara knew physical pain. But it came to her as if through a swaddling of musty
clothes, like something unpleasant tucked in a bottom pantry drawer. The strong
scent of traeki unguents filled her nostrils, dulling every agony except one .
. . the uneasy knowledge-I've been harmed. Sometimes
she roused enough to hear speech . . . several lisping urrish voices . . . the
gruff terseness of Kurt the Exploser ... and one whose stiff, pedantic
brilliance she knew from happier days. Purofsky.
Sage of mysteries . . . But
what is he doing here? . . .
and where is here? • At one
point she managed to crack her eyelids in hopes of solving the riddle. But Sara
quickly decided she must still be dreaming. For no place could exist like the
one she witnessed through a blurry haze-a world of spinning glass. A universe
of translucent saucers, disks and wheels, tilting and rolling against each
other at odd angles, reflecting shafts of light in rhythmic bursts. It was
all too dizzying. She closed her eyes against the maelstrom, yet it continued
in her mind, persisting in the form of abstractions. A
sinusoidal wave filled her mental foreground, but no longer the static shape
she knew from inked figures in books. Instead, this one undulated like ripples
on a pond, with time the apparent free variable. Soon
the first wave was joined by a second, with twice the frequency, then a third
with the peaks and troughs compressed yet again. New cycles merged, one after
another, combining in an endless series-a transform- whose sum built toward a
new complex figure, an entity with jagged peaks and valleys, like a mountain
range. Out of
order . . . chaos . . . Mountains
brought to mind the last thing Sara had seen, before spilling off the volcano's
narrow path, tumbling over sharp stones toward a river of fire. Flashes
from a distant peak . . . long-short, short-long, medium-short-short . . . Coded
speech, conveyed by a language of light, not unlike GalTwo . . . Words
of urgency, of stealth and battle . . . Her
mind's fevered random walk was broken now and then by soft contact on her
brow-a warm cloth, or else a gentle touch. She recognized the long, slender
shape of Prity's fingers, but there was another texture as well, a mans contact
on her arm, her cheek, or just holding her hand. When he
sang to her, she knew it was the Stranger . . . Emerson ... by his odd accent
and the way the lyrics flowed, smoothly from memory, as a liquid stream,
without thought to any particular word or phrase. Yet the song was no oddly
syncopated Earthling ballad, but a Jijoan folk ballad, familiar as a lullaby.
Sara's mother sang it to her, whenever she was ill-as Sara used to murmur it to
the man from space, soon after he crashed on Jijo, barely clinging to life. "One
comes from an umbling sac, a song for you to keep, Two is for a pair of hands,
to spin youhappy sleep, Three fat rings will huff and puff out clouds of happy
steam, Four eyes wave and dance about, to watch over your dream, Five claws will
carve your new hope box, all without a seam,
Six will bring you flashing hooves to cross the prairie plain, Seven is
for hidden thoughts, waiting in the deep, But eight comes from a giant stone,
whose patterns gently creep." Even
half-conscious, she knew something important. He could not sing unless the
words were stored deep within, beyond the scarred part of his brain. It meant
she must have touched him, when their roles were reversed. Not all
the unguents in the world-nor the cool beauty of mathematics-could do as much
for Sara. What finally called her back was knowing someone missed her, when she
was gone. wasx many
days the important work that originally brought us here, even though it means
leaving our comrades to make their own repairs in that eastern swamp, while our
remaining corvette tours the Slope, photographing and recording evidence. It
also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the irresistible majesty of our
power. We did this by destroying egregious structures that sooners should not
use, if their goal truly is racial redemption. IT IS
NOTED THAT YOU WERE NOT MUCH HELP IN THIS WORK, MY RINGS. (Accept these
reproaching jolts, as tokens of loving guidance.) Asx melted many memories,
before capture and conversion, yet we/i did recall certain abominations. We
gained credit, for instance, by helping target the Bibur River steamboats, and
a refinery tower in Tarek Town, an edifice called the Palace of Stinks. DON'T
WORRY. In time, we of the Polkjhy will find all pathetic objects-of-sin prized
by headstrong sooners. We shall help erase the flagrant hypocrisy of tool use
among those who chose the Downward Path! THERE
WAS AN ENJOYABLE SENSE OF IMPORTANCE TO our task, was there not, My rings?
There we stood, this stack of shabby-looking, retread toruses, deputized with a
noble job-explaining to envoys of six races the new order of life on this
world. FIRST-they
should not hope for great judges to come from those Institutes who mediate
among ten thousand starfaring races. Passions run too high, throughout the Five
Galaxies. Institute forces have withdrawn, along with timid, so-called moderate
clans, a dithering, ineffectual majority. Only great religious alliances show
nerve nowadays, battling over which way the Galactic wheels shall turn during a
time of changes. WE ARE
YOUR JUDGES, I told the ambassadors. Out of kindness, we the Polkjhy crew have
volunteered to serve as both posse and jury, chastening the seven races who
invaded this world's fallow peace. To
demonstrate this benevolence, we have delayed by SECOND
comes our unstoppable demand for justice. The High Sages showed surprising good
sense by swiftly emitting a call, soon after our last meeting. A flicker of
computer cognizance, leading our corvette to Dooden Mesa. But this token
gesture will not suffice for long. We want every living member of the g'Kek
race accounted for. That should not be too hard. Stranded on a roadless planet,
they are singulariy immobile beings. "Please
do not destroy our wheeled brethren," the envoys entreat. "Let the
g'Kek seek holy shelter down Redemption's Path. For is it not said that all
debts and vendettas stop, once innocence is resumed?" At
first we see this as yet more lawyerly blather. But then, surprisingly, our
senior Priest-Stack agrees! Moreover, that august pile makes an unusual,
innovative suggestion- HERE IS
THE QUESTION posed by the Priest-Stack: What
kind of revenge on the g'Kek would transcend even extinction? ANSWER:
to see the g'Kek race become once again eligible for adoption, and for their
new patrons to be Jophur\ In
their second sequence of uplift, we might transform them as we see fit-into
creatures their former selves would have disdained! Vengeance
is best when executed with imagination. This justifies bringing a priest along.
Indeed, that stack variety has uses. Of
course this daring plan carries complications. It means refraining from
informing the Five Galaxies about this sooner infestation. Instead, our Jophur
clan must keep it secret, tending Jijo like our own private garden. SO WE
BECOME CRIMINALS, under Galactic law. But that hardly matters. For those laws
will change, once our alliance assumes leadership during the next phase of
history. Especially
if the Progenitors have indeed returned. THIRD
comes opportunity for profit. Perhaps the Rothen gene raiders were onto
something. Jijo seems exceptionally rich for a fallow world. (The Buyur were
good caretakers who left the planet filled with biopossibilities.) Might the
Rothen have discovered a likely presentient race already? One ripe for uplift?
Should we have bought off the gene raiders so we might have access to their
data, instead of sealing them away in time? REJECT
THE NOTION. They are known blackmailers and double-crossers. We will bring in
our own biologists to survey Jijo. AND WHO
KNOWS? Perhaps we might accelerate the sooner races along the path they seek!
Glavers are already far progressed toward innocence. Hoons, urs, and qheuens
have living star cousins who might object if we adopt too soon. But that may
change as battle fires burn across the galaxies. As for human wolflings, at
last word their homeworld was under siege, in desperate straits. Perhaps
those on Jijo are already the sole remnant of their kind. THAT
LEAVES OUR TRAEKI RELATIVES TO CONSIDER. The rebel stacks who came here sought
to reject the gift of the Oailie-the specialized rings that give us purpose and
destiny. It is wrenching to see traeki stumbling about like our pathetic
ancestors. Such ungainly beings, so placid and unambitious! We should at once
commence a program to create master rings in large quantities. Once converted,
our cousins will be ideal instruments of dominance and control, able to
knowledgeably run this planet for us without further cost to the clan. ALL
THESE CONCERNS SEEMED PARAMOUNT. Yet from the start, some members of the crew
chafed at talk of vengeance, or profit, or redemption. Even the fate of local
traeki seemed unimportant, compared with .the matter that brought the Polkjhy
here in the first place. Hints
by the Rothen that they knew the whereabouts of the missing prey ship. The
prey ship carrying news of the Progenitors' return. DROP
ALL OTHER CONCERNS AT ONCE! these stacks insisted. Send the remaining corvette
east! Do not wait for the first boat's crew to make repairs on their own. Fetch
and interrogate the human-slaves-of-Rothen. Search deepwater places where the
prey ship might be hiding. Delay no longer! But our
Captain-Leader and Priest-Stack agreed that a few more days would not matter.
Our hold on this world is total. The prey cannot escape. PALE
DAYLIGHT PENETRATED THE LAKE TO WHERE A few drowned trees wafted their
branches, as if to a gusting breeze. The rewq over his eyes helped him see, amplifying
the dim glow, but Lark found the resulting shadows creepy, adding to a feeling
that none of this could possibly be real. Working
underwater alongside Rann and Ling, he took part in an odd ritual,
communicating with the trapped inhabitants of the preservation bubble. Since
the process began, the hatchway of the imprisoned ship had filled with humans
and Rothen, pressing eagerly against the gold barrier. Yet, from the outside no
motion was seen. Those within were as still as statues, like wax effigies,
depicting people with worried expressions. Only
when Lark and the other swimmers turned away, averting their gaze, did the
"statues" change, shifting positions at incredible speed. According
to Ling's terse explanation, scribbled on her wax board, the captives lived in
a QUANTUM SEPARATED WORLD. She added something about COGNIZANCE INTERFERENCE BY
ORGANIC OBSERVERS and seemed to think that explained it. But Lark failed to see
why not-looking should make any difference. No doubt Sara would understand
better than her brother, the backwoods biologist. I used to tease her that the
books she loved best were filled with useless abstractions. Concepts noJijoan
would need again. Guess it just shows how little I knew. To Lark
the whole thing smacked of a particularly inconvenient kind of magic, as if the
capricious goddess, Ifni, had invented the gold barrier to test the patience of
mortals. Fortunately,
their micro-traeki rings provided the human swimmers with all the air they
needed. When pressurized supplies ran out, the little toruses unfolded great
feathery fans that waved through the lake water like lazy wings, sieving fresh
oxygen for Lark and the others to breathe. Another impressive feature of the
ever-adaptable ringed ones. Combined with the skink-skin wet suits and rewqs,
it made the swimmers look like bizarre sea monsters to those inside the bubble.
Finally, though, the prisoners set up an electronic message plaque that flashed
words through the translucent barrier in shining Anglic letters. WE MUST
MAKE COMMON CAUSE, they sent. So far,
Lark's idea had been fruitful. Unlike at tragic Dooden Mesa, these prisoners
had been sealed within an airtight hull that, kept the golden liquor from
swamping their bodies and life-support machinery. Moreover, the chill lake
carried away enough heat so their idle engines did not broil them. They were
surrounded, enmeshed in strange time. But they were alive. When
Lark stared at one of the Rothen masters, he easily made out the creature's
facade. Rewq-generated colors divided its charismatic features, so noble in
human terms, into two parts, each with its own aura. Across the upper half lay
a fleshy symbiont beast, shaped to provide the regal brow, high cheeks and
trademark stately nose. A gray deadness told that some kind of synthetic lens
insert lay over the Rothen's eyeballs, and the fine white teeth were
artificially capped. It's an
impressive disguise, he thought. Yet even without masks the Rothen were
remarkably humanoid, a resemblance that no doubt originally spurred their
cunning plan to win over some impressionable Earthlings back in the frantic,
naive days soon after contact, turning those converts into a select tribe of
loyal aides-the Daniks. If handled right, it would let the Rothen pull quite a
few capers using human intermediaries to do the dirty work. And if Daniks were
caught in the act, Earth would get the blame. All
told, those inside the trapped ship had a destiny they deserved. Lark might
have voted to leave them till Jijo reclaimed their dross. Only now an even
greater danger loomed, and there was no other place to turn for allies against
the Jophur. The
captives inside the shell seemed eager enough. The last line of their message
expressed this. GET US
OUT OF HERE! Floating
in the gentle current, Lark saw Rann, the tall Danik leader, write on his wax
board. WE MAY
HAVE A WAY. YOU MUST PREPARE A FORMULA. Lark
grabbed for the board, but Ling got there first, snatching the stylus right out
of Rann's meaty hand. Surprise, then anger, flared across the part of his face
visible between the rewq and breathing ring. But the big man was outnumbered,
and knew that Jeni Shen had lethal darts in her underwater crossbow. The
militia sergeant watched from a vantage point where her vigilance would not
interfere with the time-jerked conversation. Ling
replaced Rann's message with another. HOW DO
YOU SUGGEST WE DO THAT? She
slung the sign's strap over her neck so the board rested against her back,
message outward. At her nodded signal, Rann and Lark joined her turning around.
A spooky feeling swarmed Lark's spine as he imagined a flurry of activity
taking place behind them. Without observers peering at them, the Rothen-Danik
crew were liberated from frozen time, free to read Ling's message, deliberate,
and shape a reply. I never
read much physics, Lark thought. But something feels awful screwy about how
this works. The
swimmers let momentum carry them around. Only a few duras passed before they
faced the hatch once more, but most of the Rothen and human figures had moved
in that narrow moment. The electric placard now glimmered with new writing. PREFERRED
METHOD: DESTROY THE JOPHUR. Bubbles
burst past Lark's breathing tube as he choked back a guffaw. Ling glanced his
way, conveying agreement with a shake of her head. The second half of the
message was more serious. OTHER
POSSIBILITY: OFFER JOPHUR WHAT THEY WANT. BUY OUR
FREEDOM! Lark
scanned the crowded statues, where many human faces wore expressions of desperation.
He could not help feeling moved as they pleaded for their lives. In a way it's
not their fault. Their ancestors made a stupid deal on their behalf, just as
mine did. People must have been both crazed and gullible in those days, right
after Earthlings first met Galactic culture. It took
effort to harden his heart, but Lark knew he must. Again, Rann tried for the
big writing tablet, but Ling wrote fiercely. WHAT
CAN YOU OFFER US, IN RETURN? On
seeing her message, Lark and Rann both stared at her. But Ling seemed unaware
that her words carried a personal as well as general meaning. They turned
again, giving the prisoners a chance to read and react to Ling's demand. While
sweeping the slow circle, Lark glanced toward her, but living goggles made
direct eye contact impossible. Her rewq-mediated aura conveyed grim resolve. Lark
expected to find the captives in turmoil, upset by Ling's implied secession.
Then he realized. They only see us when our backs are turned. They may not even
know it's Rann and Ling out here, after all! WHATEVER
WE HAVE. That
was the frank answer, arrayed in shining letters. Ling's next message was as
straight to the point. RO-KENN
RELEASED QHEUEN AND HOON PLAGUES. MAYBE OTHERS. CURE THEM, OR ROT. At this
resumed accusation, Rann nearly exploded. Strangled anger echoed in his
pharynx, escaping as bubbles that Lark feared might carry his curses all the
way to the far surface of the lake. The starman tried to grab the message
board, briefly struggling with Ling. But when Lark made slashing motions across
his throat, Rann glanced back as Jeni approached from the ship's curved flank,
brandishing her deadly bow, accompanied by two strong young qheuens. Rann's
shoulders slumped. He went through the next turning time sweep mechanically.
Lark heard a low, grating sound, and knew the big Danik was grinding his teeth. Lark
expected protestations of innocence from the imprisoned starfarers, and sure
enough, when they next looked, the signboard proclaimed- PLAGUES,
WE KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH. But
Ling was adamant to a degree that clearly surprised Rann. Using forceful
language, she told the captives-her former friends and comrades-to answer
truthfully next time, or be abandoned to their fate. That
brought grudging admission, at last. RO-KENN
HAD OPTIONS, HIS
CHOICE TO USE SUCH MEANS. GET US
OUT. WE CAN
PROVIDE CURES. Lark
stared at the woman next to him, awed by the blazing intensity of her rewq
aura. Till that moment, she must have held a slim hope that it was all a
mistake . . . that Lark's indictment of her Rothen gods had a flaw in it
somewhere. That there was some alternative explanation. Now
every complicating what-if vanished. The flame of her anger made Rann's seem
like a pale thing. While
both Daniks fumed, each for different reasons, Lark took the wax board, wiped
it, and wrote a reply. PREPARE
CURES AT ONCE. BUT THERE IS MORE. WE MUST HAVE ONE MORE THING. It made
sense that the Jophur used this weird weapon- pouring chemically synthesized
time-stuff over their enemies. It suited their racial genius for manipulating
organic materials. But in their contempt, the master rings had forgotten
something. They
have cousins on Jijo, who are loyal to the Six. True,
local traekis lacked ambitious natures, and were unschooled in advanced
Galactic science. Regardless, a team of talented local pharmacists had analyzed
the substance-a viscous, quasi-living tissue-by taste alone. Without
understanding its arcane temporal effects, they managed to secrete a
counteragent from their gifted glands. Unfortunately,
it was no simple matter of applying the formula, then rubbing away the golden
cocoon surrounding the Rothen ship. For one thing, the antidote was miscible
with water. Applying it under a lake presented problems. But
there was a possible way. At Dooden Mesa, they found that the old mule spider's
preservation beads could be pushed against the golden wall and made to merge
with it, flowing into the barrier like stones sinking in soft clay. Lark
had more beads brought from the ancient treasure hoard of the being Dwer called
One-of-a-Kind. Agile, fiveclawed blues pushed several egg-shaped objects
against the section of wall he indicated, opposite the hatch. These beads had
been hollowed out and turned into bottles, stoppered at one end with plugs of
traeki wax. Within each could be seen machines and other relics of the Buyur
era, gleaming like insects caught in amber. Only now those relics seemed to
float inside, sloshing in a frothy foam. At
first there were few visible results to the qheuens' effort. The water
resonated with bumps and clanks, but no merging occurred. Lark scribbled a
command. EVERYBODY
DON'T LOOK! Ling
nodded vigorously. When earlier experiments were performed at the devastated
g'Kek settlement, there had not been observers on the inside. No living ones,
that is. Here, the scene was being watched, in a weird alternating manner, by
people on both sides of the enclosure. Perhaps the unsymmetrical quantum effects
meant that nothing would happen while people observed. It took
a while to make those within the ship understand that they should turn around,
as well. But soon all the Rothen and humans on both sides swiveled away. Young
qheuens pushed blindly, with vision cupolas drawn inside their horny shells.
This has got to be the strangest way to get anything done, Lark thought,
staring across a suffocated landscape, once the Festival Glade of the Commons
of Six Races. All his life, teachers and leaders said if you want a job to go
well, pay attention to what you are doing. But this reversed way of
acting-where inattention was a virtue- reminded him how some Nihanese mystics
in the Vale practiced "Zen arts" such as archery while blindfolded,
cultivating detachment and readiness for the Path of Redemption. Again
he glanced at Ling, the star-voyaging biologist. Her aura still seethed, though
now in cooler shades. She's declared an end to her old allegiance. Does she
have a new one yet? Other than revenge, that is? He wished they could go
somewhere private-and dry-to talk, without the guarded gamesmanship of their
earlier conversations. But Lark wasn't sure she'd want the same thing. Just
because his allegations had proved right, that did not mean she should bless him
for smashing her childhood idols. After
counting a long interval. Ling nodded and they turned around again. Rann
grunted satisfaction, and Lark felt his heart race. The
beads had penetrated most of the way into the glowing cage! Hardworking blues
bubbled satisfaction, then hurried toward the boo grove, fetching air from
their makeshift snorkel. Lark
wrote a message to those inside the Rothen airlock. EVERYBODY
CLEAR OUT BUT 2 SMALL HUMANS. WEAR AIR SUPPLY. BRING CURES! When
next he and his companions turned back toward the lock, it was nearly empty.
Two women stood on the other side. Petite, though even through their
swimcoverings he saw well-developed figures-buxom and wasp-waisted. Clearly,
they must have taken advantage of the same cosmetic biosculpting that had made
Ling, and the late Besh, so striking. It's a different universe out there,
where you can design yourself like a god. Lark
swam to where the tip of a mule capsule protruded from the Jophur barrier. Most
of the bead lay deep inside. At its far end the makeshift bottle's hole was
plugged by a thick wax seal. From
his thigh pouch Lark drew a tool provided by one of Lester Cambel's techie
assistants. A can opener the fellow called it. "Our
problem is to deliver dissolving fluid into contact with the barrier, but not
lake water," the tech had explained. "Our answer is to use the new
traeki fluid to hollow out some mule beads. Then we coat these cavities with
neutral wax, and refill them with more of the antidote fluid. The hole is
plugged, so we have a sealed vessel-" "I
see you left an old Buyur machine inside," Lark had observed. "The
fluid won't affect it, and we need the machine inside. It doesn't matter what
it did in Buyur days, so long as we can signal-activate it to move again,
pulling a string attached to the plug. When the plug goes pop!-the contents
pour into contact with the Jophur wall.' It's foolproof." Lark
wasn't so sure. There was no telling if clever, homemade electrical devices
would work underwater, surrounded by time-warped fields. Here goes everything,
he thought, squeezing the activator. To his
relief, the Buyur device began moving right away . . .
unfolding an appendage, all coiled and springy like a shambler's tail. I
wonder what you used to do. he pondered, watching the machine writhe and gyre.
Arc you aware enough to puzzle over where you are? Where your masters have
gone? Do you have an internal clock, to know half a million years have passed?
Or did time stop for you inside the bead? The
coiled arm flailed as the machine sought to right itself, yanking a cord
attached to the stopper at the far end. The plug slipped, caught, then slipped
some more. It was
hard to follow events in the region of "quantum separated time."
Things seemed to happen in fits and starts. Sometimes effect seemed to precede
cause, or he saw the far side of a rotating object while closer parts remained
somehow obscured. It was a strange, sideways manner of seeing that reminded
Lark of "Cubist" artworks, depicted in an ancient book his mother
loved borrowing from the Biblos Archive. Finally,
the stopper slid free. At once reddish foam spread from the nozzle of the
makeshift bottle, where its contents met the golden wall. Lark's heart pounded,
and he felt his amulet, the fragment of the Holy Egg, react with growing heat.
His left hand clawed at the skink-skin wrappers, but could not gain entry to
grab the vibrating stone. So, like an itch that could not be scratched, he
endured the palpitation as his breastbone was rubbed from both sides. Grunts
of satisfaction escaped Rann as the foamy stain spread, eroding the Jophur
barrier from within. The widening hole soon met a neighboring
"bottle," embedded in the wall near the first. In moments, fresh
supplies of dissolving fluid gushed. The material of the barrier seemed to
shiver, as if it were alive. As though in pain. Waves of color rippled around
the growing cavity, as his rewq tried reading strange emotions. So
fixed was everyone on the process, for long intervals no one looked beyond, to
the airlock and its two inhabitants, until a stray current tugged Lark aside.
Lacking outside observers, the Danik women must have experienced time's passage
in a somewhat linear fashion. They looked tense, hunching away from the red
foam, crouching near the airlock's sealed inner door as the bubble slowly
approached. Fear showed through their transparent face masks. No one knew what
would happen when the hissing effervescence broke through. It was
also getting closer to Lark's side of the wall. He backpedaled toward the
others . . . only to find they had retreated farther still. Ling grabbed his
arm. Apparently,
if they succeeded in making a tunnel, it would be wide in the middle but
awfully narrow at both ends. Also, the wall material wasn't solid, but a very
viscous liquid. Fresh toporgic could already be seen slumping toward the wound.
Any passage was bound to be temporary. If we
didn 't estimate right . . . if the two ends open in the wrong order . . . we
might have to start all over again. There are more bottles of fluid, back at
the cave. But how many times can we try? Yet he
could not talk himself out of feeling pride. We're
not helpless. Faced with overwhelming power, we innovate. We persevere. The realization
was ironic confirmation of the heresy he had maintained all his adult life. We
aren't meant for the Path of Redemption. No matter how hard we try, we'll never
tread its road to innocence. That is
why our kind should never have come to Jijo. We're
meant for the stars. We simply don't belong here. THE OLD
MAN DID NOT KNOW WHICH WAS THE SADdest sight. At
times he wished the boat had capsized during that wretched, pell-mell running
of the rapids so he would not have lived to see such things. It took
half a day of hard labor at the oars to climb back upstream to Dolo Village. By
the time they reached the timber pile that had been the town dock, all the
young rowers were exhausted. Villagers rushed down a muddy bank to help them
drag the boat ashore, and carried Ariana Foo to dry ground. A stout hoon
ignored Nelo's protests, picking him up like a baby, until he stood safely by
the roots of a mighty garu tree. Many
survivors milled listlessly, though others had formed work gangs whose first
task was collecting dross. Especially bodies. Those must be gathered quickly
and mulched, as required by sacred law. Nelo
saw corpses gathered in a long row-mostly human, of course. Numbly he noted the
master carpenter and Jobee the Plumber. Quite a few craft workers lay muddy and
broken along a sodden patch of loam, and many more were missing, carried
downstream when the lake came crashing through the millrace and workshops. Tree
farmers, in contrast, had suffered hardly a loss. Their life on the branch tops
did not expose them when the dam gave way. No one
spoke, though stares followed the papermaker as Nelo moved down the line,
allowing a wince or a grunt when he recognized the face of an- employee, an
apprentice, or a lifelong friend. When he reached the end, he did not turn but
kept walking in the same direction, toward what had been the center of his
life. The
lake was low. Maybe the flood didn't destroy everything. Disorientation
greeted Nelo, for it seemed at first he was transported far from the village of
his birth. Where placid water once glistened, mudflats now stretched for most
of a league. A river poured through the near side of his beloved dam. To
local qheuens, dam and home were one and the same. Now the hive lay sliced open,
in cross section. The collapse had sheared the larva room in half. Teams of
stunned blue adults struggled to move their surviving grubs to safety, out of
the harsh sunlight. With
reluctant dread, Nelo dropped his gaze to where the famed paper mill had been,
next to a graceful power wheel. Of his
house, his workshops, and pulp vats, nothing more remained than foundation
stumps. The
sight tore his heart, but averting his gaze did not help. Just a short distance
downstream Nelo saw more blue qheuens working listlessly by the shore, trying
to extricate one of their own from a net of some kind. By their lack of haste,
one knew the victim must be dead, perhaps trapped in the shallows and drowned. Unhappily,
he recognized the corpse, an older female- Log Biter herself--by markings on
her shell. Another lost friend, and a blow to everyone along the upper Roney
who valued her good wisdom. Then he
recognized the trap that had pinned her down long enough to smother even a blue
qheuen. It was a tangle of wood and metal wires. Something from Nelo's own
home. Melina
's precious piano, that I ordered built at great cost. A moan
escaped his throat, at last. In all the world, he had but one thing left to
live for-the hope, frail as it was, that his children were safe somewhere, and
would not have to see such things. But
where was somewhere? What place could possibly be safe, when starships could
plunge from the sky, blasting five generations' work in a single instant? Words
jarred him from dour thoughts of suicide. "I
didn't do this, Nelo." He
turned to see another human standing nearby. A fellow craftsman, almost his own
age. Henrik the Exploser, whose young son had accompanied Sara and the Stranger
on their journey to far lands. At first, Henrik's words confused Nelo. He had
to swallow before finding the strength to reply. "Of
course you didn't do it. They say a skyship came-" The
exploser shook his head. "Fools or liars. Either they have no sense of
timing, or else they were in on it." "What
do you mean?" "Oh,
a ship passed overhead all right, and gave us a look-over. Then it went on its
way. 'Twas most of a midura later that a gang of 'em came down, farmers mostly.
They knocked the seals off some of my charges, under one of the piers of the
dam, and laid a torch against it." Nelo
blinked. "What did you say?" He stared, then blinked again. "But
who . . . ?" Henrik
had a one-word answer. "Jop." i^arj THE
EXPLORERS EMERGED TRIUMPHANT, RESURFACing from the chill lake into the cave,
having brought back almost everything they sought. But bad news awaited them. Fatigue
lay heavily on Lark, while helpers stripped the diving gear and toweled him
off. Tense
sadness filled the voice of the human corporal, reporting what had happened in
Lark's absence. "It
hit our grays all at once-wheezing up lots of bubbly phlegm. Then a couple of
young blues got it, too. We sent 'em to a pharmacist topside, but word says the
plague is getting worse up there. There may not be much time." Attention
turned to the Danik women who had just barely escaped from the trapped ship.
They still looked woozy from their experience-starting with a blast of
highpressure water that had burst into the airlock when the fissure broke
through at last. After that came a hurried, nightmarish squeeze through the
briefly dilated opening, squirming desperately before the tunnel could close
and immure their bodies in liquid time like the poor g'Keks of Dooden Mesa. Watching
quantum-shifted images of that tight passage nearly unnerved Lark. Instead of
two human figures, they looked like jumbled body parts, writhing through a tube
that kept shifting around them. One woman he briefly saw with her insides on
the outside, offering unwanted knowledge about her latest meal. Yet
here they were, alive in front of him. Overcoming residual nausea, the two
escapees kept their side of the bargain, setting to work right away on a small
machine they had brought along. In exchange for a cure, Jijoans would help more
of their crew mates break out of the trapped ship, then coordinate joint action
against the Jophur-no doubt something quite desperate, calling for a pooling of
both groups' slim knowledge and resources, plus a generous dollop of Ifni's
luck. This
whole enterprise had been Lark's idea . . . and he gave it the same odds as a
ribbit walking unscathed through a ligger's den. "Symptoms?"
asked the first woman, with hair a shade of red Lark had never seen on any
Jijoan. "Don't
you know already what bug it is?" Jeni Shen demanded. "A
variety of pathogens were kept in stock aboard the research station,"
answered the other one, a stately brunette who seemed older than any other
Danik Lark had seen. She looked a statuesque forty, and might be two centuries
old. "If
Ro-kenn did release an organism from that supply," she continued, "we
must pin down which one." Even
having stripped off his rewq, he had no trouble reading fatalistic reluctance
in her voice. By helping solve the plague, she was in effect confessing that
Ro-kenn had attempted genocide . . . and that their ship routinely carried the
means for such a crime. Perhaps, like Ling, she had been in the dark about all
that till now. Only utter helplessness would have forced the Rothen to reveal
so much to their human servants, as well as to the sooners of Jijo. From
the look on Rann's face, the tall star warrior disagreed with the decision, and
Lark knew why. It goes
beyond mere morality and crimes against Galactic law. Our local qheuens and
hoons have relatives out there, among the stars. If word of this gets out,
those home populations might declare vendettas against the Rothen. Or else,
with this evidence, Earth might file suit to reclaim the Danik population group
that the Rothen have kept secreted away for two centuries. Of
course that assumes Earth still lives. And there's still law in the Five
Galaxies. Rann
clearly felt the risk too great. Ship and crew should have been sacrificed to
keep the secret. Tough
luck, Rann, Lark thought. Apparently your fellow spacers would rather live. While
Ling described the disease that ravaged Uthen before her eyes, Lark overheard
Rann whisper impatiently to Toy.;
Cho*^ "If
we are to get the others out, it must be a complete job! There are weapons to
transfer, and supplies. The traeki formula must be duplicated aboard ship, in
order to make a durable passageway-" Jeni
interrupted sharply. "After
we verify a cure, starman. Or else your compadres and their master race can sit
in their own dung till Jijo grows cold, for all we care." Colorful,
Lark thought, smiling grimly. Soon
the machine was programmed with all the relevant facts. "Many
hoons are showing signs of a new sickness, too," Ling reminded. "We'll
get to that," said the redhead. "This will take a min or two." Lark
watched symbols flash across the tiny screen. More computers, he mulled
unhappily. Of course it was a much smaller unit than the big processor they
used near Dooden Mesa. This "digital cognizance" might be shielded by
geologic activity in the area, plus fifty meters of solid rock. But can
we be sure? The
device issued a high-pitched chime. "Synthesis
complete," said the older Danik, taking a small, clear vial from its side,
containing a greenish fluid. "This is just two or three doses, but that
should suffice to test it. We can mass-produce more aboard the ship. Which
means we'll need a permanent channel through the barrier, of course." Clearly,
she felt her side now had a major bargaining chip. Holding up the tube with
three fingers, she went on. "Now might be a good time to discuss how each
group will help the other, your side with manpower and sheer numbers, and our
side providing-" Her
voice cut off when Ling snatched the capsule from her grasp, swiveling to put
it in Jeni Shen's hand. "Run,
" was all Ling said. Jeni
took off with a pair of excited noor beasts yapping at her heels. • •
• Any
return to the imprisoned ship would have to wait for dawn. Even a well-tuned rewq
could not amplify light that was not there. Ling
wanted to keep the two rescued Daniks busy producing antidotes against every
pathogen listed in the little Library, in case other plagues were loose that no
one knew about, but Lark vetoed the idea. Since the Dooden disaster, all
computers made him nervous. He wanted this one turned on as little as possible.
Let the Rothen produce extra vaccines inside their vessel and bring them out
along with ? other supplies, he said, if and when a new tunnel wasj made. Ling
seemed about to argue the point, but then her| lips pressed hard and she
shrugged. Taking one of the I lanterns, she retreated to a corner of the cave,
far from Rann and her former comrades. . Lark
spent some time composing a report to the High!, Sages, requesting more bottles
of the traeki dissolving fluid' and describing the preliminary outlines of an
alliance be-f tween the Six Races and their former enemies. Not that he, had
much confidence in such a coalition. They
promise weapons and other help, he wrote. But I urge caution. Given
Phwhoon-dau's description of the Rothen as Galactic "petty criminals,
" and the relative ease with which they were overwhelmed, we should prefer
almost any advantageous deal that can be worked out with the Jophur, short of
letting them commit mass murder. Insurrection
ought to be considered a last resort. The
sages might find his recommendation odd, since his own plan made the Rothen
alliance possible in the first place. But Lark saw no contradiction. Unlocking
a door did not mean you had to walk through it. He just believed in exploring
alternatives. There
was little to do then but wait, hoping news from the medics would be happy and
swift. The party could not even light a fire in the dank cavern. "It's
cold," Ling commented when Lark passed near her niche. He had been looking
for a place to unroll his sleeping bag . . . not so close he'd seem intrusive,
yet nearby in case she called. Now he paused, wondering what she meant. Was
that an invitation? Or an accusation? The
latter seemed more likely. Ling might have been much better off remaining
forever in the warmth of hightech habitats, basking in the glow of a messianic
faith. "It
is that," he murmured. "Cold." It was
hard to move closer. Hard to expect anything but rejection. For months, their
relationship had been based on a consensual game, a tense battle of wits that
was part inquisition and part one-upmanship . . . with moments of intense,
semierotic flirting stirred in. Eventually he won that game, but not through
any credit of his own. The sins of her Rothen gods gave him a weapon out of
proportion to personal traits either of them possessed, leaving him just one
option-to lay waste to all her beliefs. Ever since, they had labored together
toward shared goals without once trading a private word. In
effect, he had conquered her to become Jijo's ally, only to lose what they had
before. Lark
did not feel like a conqueror. "I
can see why they call you a heretic," Ling said, breaking the
uncomfortable silence. Either
out of shyness or diffidence, Lark had not looked at her directly. Now he saw
she had a book open on her lap, with one page illuminated by the faint beam of
her glow lamp. It was the Jijoan biology text he had written with Uthen. His
life's work. "I
... tried not to let it interfere with the research," he answered. "How
could it not interfere? Your use of cladistic taxonomy clashes with the way
Galactic science has defined and organized species for a billion years." Lark
saw what she was doing, and felt gladdened by it. Their shared love of biology
was neutral ground where issues of guilt or shame needn't interfere. He moved
closer to sit on a stony outcrop. "I
thought you were talking about my Jijoan heresy. I used to be part of a
movement"-he winced, remembering his friend Harullen-"whose goal was
to persuade the Six Races to end our illegal colony ... by voluntary
means." She
nodded. "A virtuous stance, by Galactic standards. Though not easy for
organic beings, who are programmed for sex and propagation." Lark
felt his face flush, and was grateful for the dim light. "Well,
the question is out of our hands now," he said. "Even if Ro-kenn's
plagues are cured, the Jophur can wipe us out if they like. Or else they'll
hand us over to the Institutes, and we'll have the Judgment Day described in
the Sacred Scrolls. That might come as a relief, after the last few months. At
least it's how we always imagined things would end." "Though
your people hoped it wouldn't happen till you'd been redeemed. Yes, I know
that's yourJijoan orthodoxy. But I was talking about a heresy of science-the
way you and Uthen organized animal types in your work-by species, genus,
phylum, and so on. You use the old cladistic system of pre-contact Earthling
taxonomy." He
nodded. "We do have a few texts explaining Galactic nomenclature. But most
of our books came from Earth archives. Few human biologists had changed over to
Galactic systematics by the time the Tabernacle took off." "I
never saw cladistics used in a real ecosystem," Ling commented. "You
present a strong argument for it." "Well,
in our case it's making a virtue out of necessity. We're trying to understand
Jijo's past and present by studying a single slice of time-the one we're living
in. For evidence, all we have to go on are the common traits of living animals
. . . and the fossils we dig up. That's comparable to mapping the history of a
continent by studying layers of rocks. Earthlings did a lot of that kind of
science before contact, like piecing together evidence of a crime, long after
the body has grown cold. Galactics never needed those interpolative techniques.
Over the course of eons they simply watch and record the rise and fall of
mountains, and the divergence of species. Or else they make new species through
gene-splicing and uplift." Ling
nodded, considering this. "We're taught contempt for wolfling science. I
suppose it affected the way I treated you, back when . . . well, you
know." If that
was an apology, Lark accepted it gladly. "I
wasn't exactly honest with you either, as I recall." She
laughed dryly. "No, you weren't." Another
silence stretched. Lark was about to talk some more about biology, when he
realized that was exactly the wrong thing to do. What had earlier served to
bridge an uncomfortable silence would now only maintain a reserve, a neutrality
he did not want anymore. Awkwardly, he moved to change the subject. "What
kind of . . ." He swallowed and tried again. "I have a brother, and a
sister. I may have mentioned them before. Do you have family . . . back at
..." He let
the question hang, and for a moment Lark worried he had dredged a subject too
painful and personal. But her relieved look showed Ling, too, wanted to move
on. "I
had a baby brother," she said. "And a share daughter, whose
up-parents were very nice. I miss them all very much." For the
next midura, Lark listened in confusion to the complex Danik way of life on
far-off Poria Outpost. Mostly, he let Ling pour out her sadness, now that even
her liberated crew mates were like aliens to her, and nothing would ever be the
same. Later,
it seemed wholly natural to stretch his sleeping bag next to hers. Divided by
layers of cloth and fluffy torg, their bodies shared warmth without touching.
Yet, in his heart, Lark felt a comfort he had lacked till now. She
doesn 't hate me. It was
a good place to start. The
second dive seemed to go quicker, at first. They had a better knack for
underwater travel now, though several human volunteers had to fill in for blue
qheuens who were sick. About
the illness, recent word from topside was encouraging. The vaccine samples
seemed to help the first few victims. Better yet, the molecules could be
traeki-synthesized. Still, it was too soon for cheers. Even in the event of a
complete cure, there were problems of distribution. Could cures reach all the
far-flung communities before whole populations of qheuens and hoons were
devastated? Back at
the Rothen ship, they found the airlock already occupied by crew members
wearing diving gear-three humans and a Rothen-along with slim crates of
supplies. Like wax figures, they stood immobile while Lark and Ling trained new
assistants in the strange art they had learned the day before. Then it was time
to begin making another tunnel through the golden time-stuff. Again,
they went through turnaround sweeps, letting those inside the hatch prepare.
Again, volunteers swam close with mule preservation beads that had been
hollowed and turned into bottles for the special dissolving fluid. Once more,
the actual act of embedding had to take place in a shroud of nescience, without
anyone watching directly. Nothing happened the first few tries . . . until Jeni
caught one of the new helpers peeking, out of curiosity. Despite watery
resistance, she smacked him so hard the sound traveled as a sharp crack. Finally,
they got the hang of it. Six beads lay in place, at varying distances inside
the barrier. As yesterday, Lark applied the "can opener," turning on
an ancient Buyur machine, which in turn pulled a wax plug, setting in motion a
chain reaction to eat a gap through the viscous material. He backed up,
fascinated again by creepy visions as the red foam spread and a cavity began to
form. Someone
abruptly tapped his shoulder. It was
Jeni, the young militia sergeant, urgently holding a wax board. WHERE
IS RANN? He
blinked, then joined Ling in a shrug. The tall Danik leader had been nearby
till a moment ago. Jeni's expression was anguished. Lark wrote on his own
board. WE'RE
NOT NEEDED NOW. LING AND I WILL LOOK NORTH. SEND OTHERS SOUTH, EAST. YOU STAY. Grudgingly,
Jeni accepted the logic. Lark's job was largely done. If the tunnel opened as
planned, another batch of escapees would wriggle through and Jeni must
coordinate moving them and their baggage back to the caves. With a
nod, Ling assented. They headed off together, kicking hard. United, they should
be a match for Rann if he put up a fight. Anyway, where would the big man go?
It wasn't as if he had much choice, these days. Still,
Lark worried. With a head start, Rann might reach the lakeshore and make good
an escape. He could cause mischief, or worse, be caught and questioned by the
Jophur. Rann was tough, but how long could he hold out against Galactic
interrogation techniques? Ling
caught his arm. Lark turned to follow her jabbing motion up toward the surface
of the lake. There he saw a pair of nippers, waving slowly at the end of two
strong What's
he doing up there? Lark wondered as they propelled after the absconded Danik.
Getting close, they saw Rann had actually broached the surface! His head and
shoulders were out of the water. Is he taking a look at the [Jophur ship? We
all want to, but no one dared. \ Lark felt acutely the shadow of the giant
vessel as they kicked upward. For the first time, he got a sense of its |
roughly globular shape and mammoth dimensions, comIpletely blocking the narrow
Festival Glade, creating this 'lake with its bulk. Having grown up next to a
dam, Lark had a sense of the pressure all this water exerted. There would be an
awful flood when the ship took off, returning to its home among the stars. The
tube in his mouth squirmed disconcertingly. The traeki air ring struggled as
they rose upward, hissing and throbbing to adapt to changing pressure. But Lark
was more worried about Rann being spotted by the Jophur. With
luck, the skink skins will make him look like apiece of flotsam . . . which is
what he'll feel like once I'm through with him! Lark felt a powerful wrath
build as he reached to seize the big man's ankle. The leg
gave a startled twitch . . . then kicked savagely, knocking his hand away. Ling
tugged Lark's other arm, pointing a second time. Rann
had an object in front of him-the Rothen minicomputer! He was tapping away at
the controls, even as he tread water. Bastard!
Lark thrust toward the surface, grabbing for the device, no longer caring if
his mere body happened to be visible from afar. Rann might as well have been
waving a searchlight while beating a drum! As soon
as Lark broke through, the starman aimed a punch at him-no doubt a
well-trained, expert blow, if delivered on dry land. Here, watery reaction
threw Rann off balance and the clout glanced stingingly off Lark's ear, Amid a
shock of pain, he sensed Ling erupt behind her former colleague, throwing her
arms around his neck. Lark took advantage of the distraction, planting his feet
against Rann's chest and hauling back until the computer popped free of the big
man's grasp. Alas,
that wasn't enough to end the danger. The screen was still lit. He cried to
Ling: "I don't know how to turn the damned thing off!" She had
troubles of her own, with Rann's powerful arms reaching around to pummel and
yank at her. Lark realized the Danik must be put out of commission, and
quickly. So with both hands he raised the computer as high as he could-and
brought it down hard on Rann's crew cut. Without
leverage, it struck less forcefully than he hoped, but the blow pulled Rann's
attention away from Ling. The
second impact was better, giving a resounding smack. Rann groaned, slumping in
the water. Unfortunately,
the jolt did not break the durable computer, which kept shining, even after
Lark landed a final blow. Rann
floated, arms spread wide, breathing shallowly but' noisily from his traeki
ring. Ling thrashed toward Lark, gasping as she threw an arm over his shoulder
for support. Finally, she reached out to stroke a precise spot on the
computer's case, turning it off. That's
better . . . though it's said. Galactics can trace digital cognizance, even
when a machine is unpowered. Lark
closed the cover, letting the machine drop from his grasp. He needed both hands
to hold Ling. Especially
when a new, umbral shadow fell across them causing her body to stiffen in his
arms. Suddenly,
things felt very cold. Tremulously,
they turned together, looking up to see what had come for them. Dwer THAT
NIGHT WAS AMONG THE STRANGEST OF Dwer's life, though it started in the most
natural way- bickering with Rety. "I
ain't goin' there!" She swore. "No
one asked you to. When I start downhill, you'll take off the other way. Go half
a league west, to that forested rise we passed on the way here. I saw good game
signs. You can set snares, or look for clamette bubbles on the beach. They're
best roasted, but you oughtn't trust a fire-" "I'm
supposed to wait for you, I s'pose? Have a nice meal ready for the great
hunter, after he finishes takin' on the whole dam' universe,
single-handed?" Her
biting sarcasm failed to mask tremors of real fear. Dwer didn't flatter himself
that Rety worried about him. No doubt she hated to face being alone. Dusk
fell on the dunes and mudflats, and mountains so distant they were but a jagged
horizon cutting the bloated sun. Failing light gave the two of them a chance at
last to worm out from the sand, then slither beyond sight of the crashed ships.
Once safely over the verge, they brushed grit out of clothes and body crevices
while arguing in heated whispers. "I'm
telling you, we don't haveta do anything! I'm sure Kunn had time to holler for
help before he went down. The Rothen ship was due back soon, and musta heard
him. Any dura now it's gonna swoop down, rescue Kunn, and pick up its prize.
All we gotta do then is stand and shout." Rety
had been thinking during the long, uncomfortable wait. She held that the
fighter craft full of untraeki rings was the very target Kunn had been looking
for, dropping depth bombs to flush his prey out of hiding. By that logic, the
brief sky battle was a desperate lashing out by a cornered foe. But Kunn got
his own licks in, and now the quarry lay helpless in the swamp, where frantic
efforts at repair had so far failed to dislodge it. Soon,
by Rety's reasoning, the Rothen lords would come to complete the job, taking
the untraeki into custody. The Rothen would surely be pleased at this success.
Enough to overlook Dwer's earlier mistakes. And hers. It was
a neat theory. But then, why did the untraeki ship attack from the west,
instead of rising out of the water where Kunn dropped his bombs? Dwer was no
expert on the way star gods brawled among themselves, but instinct said Kunn
had been caught with his pants down. "In
that case, what I'm about to try should put me in good with your friends,"
he told Rety. "If
you survive till they come, which I doubt! Those varmints down there will spot
you, soon as you go back over the dune." "Maybe.
But I've been watching. Remember when a herd of bog stompers sloshed by,
munching tubers torn up by the crash? Large critters passed both hulls and were
ignored. I'm guessing the guard robots will take me for a crude native
beast-" "You
got that right," Rety muttered. "-and
leave me alone, at least till I'm real close." "And
then what? You gonna attack a starship with your bow and arrows!" Dwer
held back from reminding Rety that his bow once seemed a treasure to her-a
prize worth risking her life to steal. "I'm
leaving the arrows with you," he said. "They have steel tips. If I
take 'em, they'll know I'm not an animal." "They
should ask me. I'd tell 'em real fast that you're-" "wife,
enough!" The
reedy voice came from Rety's tiny urrish "husband," who had been
grooming her, flicking sand grains with his agile tongue. "have
sense, wife! brave boy make ship eyes look at him so you and me can get away!
all his other talk-talk is fake stuff, nice-lies to make us go be safe. be good
to brave boyman! least you can do!" While
Rety blinked at yee's rebuke, Dwer marveled. Did all urrish males treat their
wives this way, chiding them from within the heavy folds of their brood
pouches? Or was yee special? Did some prior mate eject him for scolding? "Iz'
at true, Dwer?" Rety asked. "You'd sacr'fice yourself for me?" He
tried reading her eyes, to judge which answer would make her do as she was
told. Fading light forced him to guess. "No,
it's not true. I do have a plan. It's risky, but I want to give it a try." Rety
watched him as carefully as he had scanned her. Finally, she gave a curt laugh. "What
a liar. yee's right about you. Too dam' decent to survive without someone to
watch over you." Huh?
Dwer thought. He had tried telling the truth, hoping it would convince her to
go. Only Rety reacted in a way he did not expect. "It's
decided then," she affirmed with a look of resolve he knew too well.
"I'm coming along, Dwer, whichever way you head. So if you want to save
me, we better both get on west." "This
ain't west!" she whispered sharply, half a midura later. Dwer
ignored Rety as he peered ahead through the swampy gloom with water sloshing
past his navel. Too bad we had to leave yee behind with our gear, he thought.
The little urrish male provided his "wife" with a healthy dose of
prudence and good judgment. But he could not stand getting wet. Soon,
Dwer hoped Rety's survival instincts would kick in and she'd shut up on her
own. They
were nearly naked, wading through the reedy marsh toward a pair of rounded
silhouettes, one larger-its smooth flanks glistening except where a sooty stain
marred one side. The other lay beyond, crumpled and half-sunk amidships. Both
victor and vanquished were silent under the pale yellow glow of Passen, Jijo's
smallest moon. Colonies
of long-necked wallow swans nested in the thickets, dozing after a hard day
spent hunting through the shallows and tending their broods. The nearest raised
spear-shaped heads to blink at the two humans, then lowered their snouts as
Dwer and Rety waded on by. Mud
covered Dwer and the sooner girl from head to toe, concealing some of their
heat sign with steady evaporation. According to ancient lore, that should make
the patrolling guard machine see them as smaller than they really were. Dwer
also took a slow, meandering route, to foster the impression of foraging
beasts. Slender
shapes with luminous scales darted below the water's surface, brushing Dwer's
thighs with their flicking tails. A distant burst of splashing told of some
nocturnal hunter at work among the clumps of sword-edged grass. Hungry things
moved about in this wet jungle. Rety seemed to grasp this, and did not speak
again for some time. If only
she knew how vague Dwer's plan was, Rety might howl loud enough to send all the
sleeping waterfowl flapping for the sky. In fact, he was working from a hunch.
He wanted to have a closer look at the untraeki ship . . . and to check out his
impression of this swamp. In order to test his idea, he needed to attain a
particular frame of mind. What
was I thinking about, that day when I first contacted-or hallucinated-the voice
of One-of-a-Kind? It
happened some years ago. He had been on his first solo trek over the Rimmers,
excited to be promoted from apprentice to master hunter, rilled with a spirit
of freedom and adventure, for now he was one of the few Sixers licensed to roam
wherever he wished, even far beyond the settled Slope. The world had seemed
boundless. And yet
... And
yet, he still vividly recalled the moment, emerging from a narrow trail through
the boo forest-a cathedral aisle as narrow as a man and seemingly high as a
moon. Suddenly, the boo just stopped, spilling him onto a bowlshaped rocky
expanse, under a vast blue sky. Before Dwer lay a mule lake, nestled in the
mountain's flank, surrounded by fields of broken stone. What he
felt during that moment of disorienting transition was much more than welcome
release from a closed space. A sense of opening up seemed to fill his mind,
briefly expanding his ability to see-especially the tumulus of Buyur ruins.
Abruptly, he beheld the ancient towers as they must have stood long ago,
shimmering and proud. And for an instant, Dwer had felt strangely at home. That
was when he first heard the spider's voice, whispering, cajoling, urging him to
accept a deal. A fair trade. With its help, Dwer might cease living, but he
would never die. He could become one with the glorious past, and join the
spider on a voyage into time. Now,
while sloshing under starlight through a murky bog, Dwer tried again for that
feeling, that opening sensation. He could tell from the texture of this
place-from its smell and feel-that mighty spires had also pierced the sky, only
here they were much grander than at any mountain site. The job of demolition
was far advanced-little remained to tear down or erase. Yet somehow he knew
what stood where, and when. Here a
row of pure-white obelisks once greeted the sun, both mystical and pragmatic in
their mathematically precise alignment. Over
there, Buyur legs once ponderously strode down a shopping arcade, filled with
exotic goods. Near
that translucent fountain, contemplative Buyur minds occupied themselves with a
multitude of tasks beyond his reckoning. And through the sky passed commerce
from ten thousand worlds. Down
the avenues were heard voices . . . not just of Buyur, but a myriad of other
types of thinking beings. Surely
it was a glorious time, though also fatiguing for any planet whose flesh must
feed such an eager, busy civilization. After a million years of heavy use, Jijo
badly needed rest. And the forces of wisdom granted it. All the busy voices
moved on. The towers tumbled and a different kind of life took over here, one
dedicated to erasing scars-a more patient, less frenzied type of being. . . . Yes?
Who . . . goes . . . ? Words
slithered through Dwer's mind, hesitantly at first. Who
calls ... rousing me from . . . drowsy musing? Dwer's
first urge was to dismiss it as merely his imagination. Had not his nervous
system been palped and bruised from carrying the robot across icy streams?
Delusions would be normal after that battering, followed by days of near
starvation. Anyway, his habitual defense against Oneof-a-Kind had been to
dismiss the mule spider's voice as a phantasm. Who is
a phantasm? I, a being who serenely outlasts empires? Or you, a mayfly, living
and dying in the time it takes for me to dream a dream? Dwer
held off acknowledging the voice, even casually. First he wanted to be sure.
Wading cautiously, he sought some of the vines he had glimpsed earlier, from
the dune heights. A nearby hummock seemed likely. Despite covering vegetation,
it had the orderly outlines of some ruined structure. Sure enough, Dwer soon
found his way blocked by cables, some as thick as his wrist, all converging on
the ancient building site. His nose twitched at the scent of dilute corrosive
fluids, carried by the twisted vines. "Hey,
this is a mule swamp! We're walkin' right into a spider!" Dwer
nodded, acknowledging Rety's comment without words. If she wanted to leave, she
knew the way back. Spiders
were common enough on the Slope. Youngsters went exploring through mule dens,
though you risked getting acid burns if you weren't careful. Now and then, some
village child died of a foolish mistake while venturing too deep, yet the
attraction held. High-quality Buyur relics were often found where vine beasts
slowly etched the remains of bygone days. Folk
legends flourished about the creatures, whose bodies were made up by the vines
themselves. Some described them talking to rare members of the Six, though Dwer
had never met anyone else who admitted that it happened to them. He especially
never heard of another mule spider like One-of-a-Kind, who actively lured
living prey into its web, sealing "unique" treasures away in coffins
of hardening jell. You met
that one? The mad spider of the heights? You
actually shared thoughts with it? And escaped? How
exceptionally interesting. Your
mind patterns are very clear for an ephemeral. That is
rare, as mayflies go. . . . How singular you are. Yes,
that was the way One-of-a-Kind used to speak to him. This creature was
consistent. Or else Dwer's imagination was. The words
returned, carrying a note of pique. You
flatter yourself to think you could imagine an entity as sublime as myself!
Though I admit, you are intriguing, for a transitory being. So you
need verification of my objective reality? How might I prove myself? Rather
than answer directly, Dwer kept his thoughts reserved. Languidly, he
contemplated that it would be interesting to see the vines in front of him
move. As if
at your command? An amusing concept. But why
not? Come
back in just five days. In that brief time, you will find all of them shifted
to new locales! Dwer
chuckled contemptuously, under his breath.
Not quickly enough, my wanton friend? You have seen a mule being move
faster? Ah, but
that one was crazed, driven mad by isolation, high altitude, and a diet of
psidrenched stone. It grew unwholesomely obsessed with mortality and the nature
of time. Surely you do not expect such undignified haste from me? Like
One-of-a-Kind, this spider could somehow tap Dwer's human memory, using it to
make better sentences-more articulate speech-than he ever managed on! his own.
But Dwer knew better than to bandy words. Instead, he willed himself to turn
around. I Wait!
You intrigue me. The conversations our kind share among ourselves are so
languid. Torpid, you might say, featuring endless comparisons of the varied
dross we eat. The slowtalk grows ever more tedious as we age. . . . Tell
me, are you from one of the frantic races who have lately settled down to a
skittering life beyond the mountains? The ones who talk and talk, but almost
never build? Behind
Dwer, Rety murmured, "What's goin' on!" But he only motioned for her
to follow him away from the mule cords. All
right! On a whim, I'll do it. I shall move for you! I'll
move as I have not done in ages. Watch me, small flickering life-form. Watch this! Dwer
glanced back, and saw several vines tremble. The tremors strengthened, dura
after dura, tightening and releasing till several of the largest bunched in a
knotty tangle. More duras passed . . . then one loop popped up out of the
water, rising high, dripping like some amphibious being, emerging from its
watery home. It was
confirmation, not only of the spider's mental reality, but of Dwer's own sane
perception. Yet he quashed all sense of acknowledgment or relief. Rather, Dwer
let a feeling of disappointment How across his surface thoughts. A fresh
shoot of lesser boo moves that much, in the course of a day's growth, he
pondered, without bothering to project the thought at the spider. You
compare me to boo? Boo? Insolent
bug! It is you who are a figment of my imagination! You may be nothing but an
undigested bit of concrete, or a piece of bad steel, perturbing my dreams. . .
. No,
wait! Don't leave yet. I sense there is something that would convince you. Tell me
what it is. Tell me what would make you acknowledge me, and talk awhile. Dwer
felt an impulse to speak directly. To make his wishes known in the form of a
request. But no. His experience with One-of-a-Kind had taught him. That mule
beast might have been mad, but it clearly shared some properties of personality
with its kind. Dwer
knew the game to play was "hard to get." So he let his idea leak out
in the form of a fantasy ... a daydream. When Rety tried to interrupt again, he
made a slashing motion for quiet while he went on picturing what a spider might
do to convince him it was real. The sort of thing Dwer would find impressive. The
mule being's next message seemed intrigued. Truly? And why
not? The new
dross to which you refer already had me concerned. Those great heaps of refined
metal and volatile organic poisons-I have not dealt with such purified essences
in a very long time. Now you
worry that the dross might fly away again, to pollute some part of Jijo beyond
reach of any mule being? You fear it may never be properly disposed of? Then
worry no more, my responsible little ephemeral! It will be taken care of. Just
leave it to me. Alvin I WAS
RIGHT! THE PHUVNTHUS ARE EARTHLINGS! I haven't figured out the little
amphibians yet, but the big six-legged creatures? They are dolphins. Just like
the ones in King of the Sea or The Shining Shore . . . only these talk and
drive spaceships! How uttergloss. And
there are humans. Sky
humans! Well, a
couple of them, anyway. I met
the woman in charge-Gillian is her name. Among other things, she said some nice
words about my journal. In fact, if they ever succeed in getting away from
here, and returning to Earth, she promises to find an agent for me and get it
published. Imagine
that. I can't wait to tell Huck. There's
just one favor Gillian wants in return. E.wasx OH, HOW
THEY PREVARICATE! • Is this what it means to take the Downward Path? Sometimes
a citizen race decides to change course, rejecting the destiny mapped out for
it by patron and clan. The Civilization of the Five Galaxies allows several
traditional avenues of appeal, but if all other measures fail, one shelter
remains available to all-the road that leads back, from starfaring sapience to
animal nature. The route to a second chance. To start over again with a new
patron guiding your way. This
much I/we can understand. But must that path have an intermediate phase,
between citizen and dumb beast? A phase in which the half-devolved species
becomes lawyers'. Their
envoys stand before us now, citing points of Galactic law that were handed down
in sacred lore. Especially verbose is the g'Kek emissary. Yes, My rings, you
identify this g'Kek as Vubben-a "friend and colleague" from your days
as Asx the traeki. Oh, how that sage-among-sooners nimbly contorts logic,
contending that his folk are not responsible for the debt his kind owes our
clan, by rule of vendetta. A debt of extinction. The
senior Priest-Stack aboard our ship insists we must listen to this nonsense,
for form's sake, before continuing our righteous vengeance. But most of the
Polkjhy crew stacks side with our Captain-Leader, whose impatiencewith-drivel
steams with each throbbing pulse of an angry mulching core. Finally, the
Captain-Leader transmits a termination signal to Me,us. To faithful Ewasx. "ENOUGH!"
I interrupt Vubben in loud tones of Oailie decisiveness. All four of his
eyestalks quail in surprise at my harsh resonance. "YOUR
CONTENTIOUS REASONINGS ARE BASED ON INVALID ASSUMPTIONS." They
stand before us/me, frozen silent by our rebuke. A silence more appropriate to
half animals than all that useless jabber. Finally, the qheuen sage,
Knife-Bright Insight, bows her blue-green carapace and inquires: "Might we ask what assumptions you
refer to?" Our
second cognition ring performs a writhing twitch that I must overcome with
savage pain jolts, preventing the rebellious ring's color cells from flashing
visibly. Be thou restrained, I command, enforcing authority over our component
selves. Do not try to signal your erstwhile comrades. The effort will
accomplish nothing. The
minirebellion robs Me of resources to maintain a pontifical voice. So when I next
speak aloud, it is in more normal tones. Yet the message is no less severe. "Your
faulty assumptions are threefold," I answer the thoughtful blue qheuen. "You
assume that law still reigns in the Five Galaxies. "You assume that we
should feel restrained by procedures and precedents from the last ten million
years. "But above all, your most defective assumption is that we
should care." Dwer IT WAS
NOT ENOUGH SIMPLY TO COAX THE MULC beast. Dwer had to creep close and
supervise, for the spider had no clear concept of haste. Dwer
could sense its concentration, shifting fluids and gathering forces from a
periphery that stretched league after league, along the Rift coast. The sheer
size of the thing was mind-boggling, far greater than the mad little alpine
spider that nearly consumed Dwer and Rety. This titan was in the final stages
of demolishing a vast city, the culmination of its purpose, and therefore its
life. Millennia ago, it might have ignored Dwer, as a busy workman disregards
the corner scratchings of a mouse. Now boredom made it responsive to any new
voice, offering relief from monumental ennui. Still,
Dwer wondered. Why was
I able to communicate with One-of-a-Kind? And now this spider, as well? We are
so different-creatures meant for opposite sides of a planet's cycle. His
sensitivity, if anything, had increased . . . perhaps from letting the Danik
robot conduct force fields down his spine. But the original knack must be
related to what made him an exceptional hunter. Empathy.
An intuitive sense for the needs and desires of living things. The
Sacred Scrolls spoke darkly of such powers. Psitalents. They were not
recommended for the likes of the Six, who must cringe away from the great
theater of space. So Dwer never mentioned it, not to Sara and Lark, or even
Fallen, though he figured the old chief scout must have suspected. Have I
done this before? He mused on how he coaxed the spider into action. I always
thought my empathy was passive. That I listened to animals, and hunted
accordingly. But have I been subtly
influencing them, all along? When I shoot an arrow, is it my legendary aim that
makes it always strike home? Or do I also nudge the flight of the bush quail so
it dodges into the way of the shaft? Do I make the taniger swerve left, just as
my stone is about to strike? It made
him feel guilty. Unsporting. Well?
What about right now? You're famished. Why not put out a call for nearby fish
and fowl to gather round your knees for plucking? Somehow,
Dwer knew it did not work that way. He
shook his head, clearing it for matters close at hand. Just ahead, rounded
silhouettes took uneven bites out of the arching star field. Two sky boats,
unmoving, yet mysterious and deadly as he drew near. He swished a finger
through the water and tasted, wincing at some nasty stuff leaking into the fen
from one or both fallen cruisers. Now
Dwer's sensitive ears picked up noise coming from the larger vessel. Clankings
and hammerings. No doubt the crew was working around the clock to make repairs.
Despite Rety's assurances, he had no faith that the new day would see a Rothen
starship looming overhead to claim both its lost comrades and long-sought prey.
The opposite seemed rather more likely. Either
way, he had a job to do. Till I
hear otherwise from the sages, I've got to keep acting on Danel Ozawa's orders. He said
we must defend Jijo. Star
gods don't belong here, any more than sooners do. Less, in fact. The cry
of a mud wren made Dwer slide his torso lower in the water. Rety's
mimicked call came from a lookout point on a Buyur ruin near the dunes. He
scanned above the reeds, and caught sight of a glimmering shape-a patrol robot
sent out by the stranded untraekis, returning from its latest search spiral. The
mule spider read his concern and expressed curiosity. More
dross? Maintaining
aloof reserve, Dwer suggested the creature concentrate on its present task,
while he worried about flying things. Your
memories assert one of these hovering mechanisms slew my brother of the
highlands. Mad he may have been, but his job was left undone by that untimely
end. Now who will finish it? A fair
enough question. This time, Dwer formed words. If we
survive this time of crisis, the sages will have a mule bud planted in the old
one's lake. It's our way. By helping get rid ofBuyur remains, each generation
of the Six leaves Jijo a little cleaner, making up for the small harm we do.
The scrolls say it may ease our penance, when judges finally come. But don't worry about this robot now. You
have a goal to focus on. Over there, in that hull of the larger ship, there is
a rip, an opening. ... Dwer
felt hairs on his neck prickle. He crouched low while the unmistakable tingle
of gravitic fields swept close. Clearly this was a more powerful robot than the
unit he nearly defeated back at the sooner village. That one still cowered in a
hole under the sand, while he and Rety took on its enemies. He
hunched like an animal, and even tried thinking like one as the humming
commotion passed, setting the tense surface of the water trembling like a
qheuen drum. Dwer closed his eyes, but an onslaught of images assailed him.
Sparks flew from an urrish forge. Stinging spray jetted over a drowned village.
Starlight glinted off a strange fish whose noorlike mouth opened in a wry grin.
... The
creepy force receded. He cracked his eyelids to watch the slab-sided drone move
east down a line of phosphorescent surf, then vanish among the dunes. More
vines now clustered and writhed around the base of the larger sky boat,
bunching to send shoots snaking higher. This whole crazy idea counted on one
assumption-that the ship's defenses, already badly damaged, would be on guard
against "unnatural" things, like metals or energy sources. Under
normal conditions, mere plants or beasts would pose no threat to a thick-hulled
vessel. In
here? The
spider's query accompanied mental images of a jagged recess, slashed in the
side of the untraeki vessel . . . the result of Kunn's riposte, even as his air
boat plunged in flames. The visual impression reaching Dwer was tenuous as a
daydream, lacking all but the most vague visual details. Instead, he felt a
powerful scent of substance. The spider would not know or care how Galactic
machines worked, only what they were made of-and which concocted juices would
most swiftly delete this insult to Jijo's fallow peace. Yes, in
there, Dwer projected. And all over the outside, as well. Except
the transparent viewing port, he added. No sense warning the creatures by
covering their windows with slithering vines. Let them find out in the morning.
By then, with Ifni's luck, it would be too late. Remember-he
began. But the spider interrupted. I know.
I shall use my strongest cords. Mule
monofiber was the toughest substance known to the Six. With his own eyes, Dwer
had seen one rare loop of reclaimed filament pull gondolas all the way to the
heights of Mount Guenn. Still, a crew of star gods would have tools to cut even
that staunch material. Unless they were distracted. Time
passed. By moonlight the marsh seemed alive with movement-ripples and jerky
slitherings-as more vines converged on a growing mass surrounding the ship.
Snakelike cables squirmed by Dwer, yet he felt none of the heartsick dread that
used to come from contact with One-of-a-Kind. Intent is everything. Somehow, he
knew this huge entity meant him no harm. At
uneven intervals, Rety used clever calls to warn him of the guard robot's
return. Dwer worried that it might find the cowardly Danik machine, hiding
under the sand. If so, the alerted Jophur might emerge, filling the bog with
blazing artificial light. Dwer
moved slowly around the vessel, taking its measure. But as he counted
footsteps, his thoughts drifted to the Gray Hills, where Lena Strong and Jenin
Worley must be busy right now, uniting Rety's old band with surviving urrish
sooners, forging a united tribe. Not an
easy task, but those two can do it, if anyone can. Still,
he felt sad for them. They must be lonely, with Danel Ozawa gone. And me,
carried off in the claws of a Rotben machine. They must think I'm dead, too. Jenin
and Lena still had Ozawa's "legacy" of books and tools, and an urrish
sage to help them. They might make it, if they were left alone. That was Dwer's
job-to make sure no one came across the sky to bother them. He knew
this scheme of his was farfetched. Lark would surely have thought of something
better, if he were here. But I'm
all there is. Dwer the Wild Boy. Tough luck for Jijo. The
spider's voice caught him as he was checking the other side of the grounded
cruiser, where a long ramp led to a closed hatch. In
here, as well? His
mind filled with another image of the vessel's damaged recess. Moonlight shone
through a jagged rent in the hull. The clutter of sooty machinery seemed even
more crowded as vine after vine crammed through, already dripping caustic
nectars. But Dwer felt his attention drawn deeper, to the opposite wall. Dim
light shone through a crack on that side. Not pale illumination, but sharp,
blue, and synthetic, coming from some room beyond. The
ship probably isn't even airtight anymore. Too bad
this didn't happen high in the mountains. Traeki hated cold weather, A glacier
wind would be just the thing to send whistling through here! No, he
answered the spider. Don't go into the lighted space. Not yet. The
voice returned, pensively serious. This
light . work? it
could interfere with my Dwer
assented. Yeah. The light would interfere, all right. Then he thought no more
of it, for at that moment a trace of movement caught his eye, to the southeast.
A dark figure waded stealthily, skirting around the teeming mound of mule
vines. Rety!
But she's supposed to be on lookout duty. This was no time for her
impulsiveness. With a larger moon due to rise in less than a midura, the two of
them had to start making their getaway before the untraeki woke to what was
happening. With
uncanny courtesy, mule cables slithered out of his path as he hurried after the
girl, trying not to splash too noisily. Her apparent objective was the other
crashed ship, the once-mighty sky steed Kunn had used to drop bombs into the
Rift, chasing mysterious prey. From the dunes, Dwer and Rety had seen the sleek
dart overwhelmed and sent plunging to the swamp, its two human passengers taken
captive. That
could happen to us, too. More than ever, Dwer regretted leaving behind Rety's
urrish "husband," her conscience and voice of good sense. About
the interfering light. I thought
you would like to know. It is
being taken care of. Dwer
shrugged aside the spider's mind touch as he crossed an open area, feeling
exposed. Things improved slightly when he detoured to take advantage of two
reedcovered hummocks, cutting off direct sight of the untraeki ship. But the
robot guardian still patrolled somewhere out there. Lacking a lookout, Dwer had
just his own wary senses to warn him if it neared. While
wading though a deeper patch, floundering in water up to his armpits, he felt a
warning shiver. I'm
being watched. Dwer
slowly turned, expecting to see the glassy weapons of a faceless killer. But no
smooth-sided machine hovered above the reedy mound. Instead, he found eyes
regarding him, perched at the knoll's highest point, a ledge that might have
been the wall of a Buyur home. Sharp teeth grinned at Dwer. Mudfoot. The
noor had done it again. Someday,
I'll get even,or the times you 've scared me half to death. Mudfoot
had a companion this time, a smaller creature, held between his paws. Some
recent prey? It did not struggle, but tiny greenish eyes seemed to glow with
cool interest. Mudfoot's grin invited Dwer to guess what this new friend might
be. Dwer
had no time for games. "Enjoy yourselves," he muttered, and moved on,
floundering up a muddy bank. He was just rounding the far corner, seeking Rety
in the shadows of the Rothen wreck, when a clamor erupted from behind. Loud
bangs and thumps reverberated as Dwer crouched, peering back at the large
vessel. This
side appeared undamaged-a glossy chariot of semidivine star gods, ready at an
instant to leap into the sky. But
then a rectangular crack seamed its flank above the ramp, releasing clots of
smoke, like foul ghosts charging into the night. The
interference is taken care of. The
spider's mind touch seemed satisfied, even proud. Dark figures spilled through
the roiling soot, then down the ramp, wheezing in agony. Dwer counted three
untraeki . . . then two shambling biped forms, leaning on each other as they
fled the noxious billows. What
followed nauseated Dwer-solitary doughnut shapes, slithering traeki rings shorn
from the waxy moorings that once united them as sapient beings. One large torus
burst from the murk, galloping on pulsating legs without guidance or direction,
trailing mucus and silvery fibers as it plunged off the ramp into deep water.
Another hapless circle bumped along unevenly,-staring in all directions with
panicky eye patches until surging black vapors overtook it. I have
not acted thus-with such vigor and decisiveness-since the early days, when
stillanimate Buyur servant machines sometimes tried to hide and reproduce amid
the ruins, after their masters departed. Back then, we were fierce, we mule
agents of deconstruction, before the long centuries of patient erosion set in. Now do
you see how efficient my kind can be, when we feel a need? And when we have a
worthy audience? Now will you acknowledge me, O unique young ephemeral? Dwer
turned and fled, kicking spray as he ran. The
Rothen scout boat was a wreck, split in the middle, its wings crumpled. He
found an open hatch and clambered inside. The metal deck felt chill and alien
beneath his bare feet. The
interior lacked even pale moonlight, so it took time to find Rety in a far
corner, taking treasures from a cabinet and stuffing them in a bag. What's she
looking for? Food? After all the star-god poisons that've spilled here since
the crash? "There's
no time for that," he shouted. "We've got to get out of here!" "Gimme
a dura," the girl replied. "I know it's here. Kunn kept it on one o'
these shelfs." Dwer
craned his head back through the hatch to look outside. The robot guardian had
reappeared, hovering over the stricken untraeki vessel, shining stark light on
the survivors mired below. As the thick smoke spread out, Dwer whiffed
something that felt sweet in the front of his mouth, yet made the back part
gag. Abmptly,
a new thing impacted the senses-sound. A series of twanging notes shook the
air. Lines stretched across the water as hundreds of cables tautened,
surrounding the skycraft like the tent lines of a festival pavilion. Some vines
snapped under the strain, whipping across the landscape. One whirling cord
sliced through a surviving stack-of-rings, flinging upper toruses into the
swamp while the lower half lurched blindly. Other survivors beat a hasty
retreat, deeper into the bog. The
robot descended, its spotlight narrowing to a slender, cutting beam. One by
one, straining mule cables parted under the slashing attack. But it was too
little, too late. Something or somebody must already have undermined the muck
beneath the ship, for it began sliding into a slimy crypt, gurgling as a muddy
slurry poured in through the hatch. "Found
it!" Rety cried, rare happiness invading her voice. She joined Dwer at the
door, cradling her reclaimed prize. Her metal bird. Since the first time he
laid eyes on it, the thing had gone through a lot of poking and prodding, till
it could hardly be mistaken for a real creature anymore, even in dim light.
Another damned robot, he thought. The Ifni-cursed thing had caused Dwer more
trouble than he could count. Yet to the sooner girl it was an emblem of hope.
The first harbinger of freedom in her life. "Come
on," he muttered. "This wreck is the only shelter hereabouts. The
survivors'll be coming this way. We've got to go." Rety
had only agreeable smiles descending back into the swamp. She followed his
every move with the happy compliance of one who had no further need to rebel. Dwer
knew he ought to be pleased, as well. His plan had worked beyond all
expectation. Yet his sole emotion was emptiness. Maybe
it's on account of I've been wounded, beat up, exhausted, and starved till I'm
too numb to care. Or
else, it's that I never really enjoyed one part of hunting. The
killing part. They
retreated from both ruined sky boats to the nearest concealing thicket. Dwer
was trying to select a good route back to the dunes, when a voice spoke up. "Hello.
I think we ought to talk." Dwer
was grateful to the mule spider. He owed it the conversation it desired, and
acknowledgment of its might. But, he felt too drained for the mental effort.
Not now, he projected. Later, I promise, if I survive the night. But the
voice was persistent. And Dwer soon realized- the words weren't echoing inside
his head, but in the air, with a low, familiar quality and tone. They came from
just overhead. "Hello?
Humans in the swamp? Can you hear me?" Then
the voice went muffled, as if the speaker turned aside to address someone else. "Are
you sure this thing is working?" it asked. Bewildered,
and against his better judgment, Dwer found himself answering. "How
the hell should I know what's working, an' what ain't? Who on Jijo are
you?" The
words returned more clearly, with evident eagerness. "Ah!
Good. We're in contact, then. That's great." Dwer
finally saw where the words were coming from. Mudfoot squatted just above,
having followed to pester him from this new perch. And the noor had his new
companion-the one with green eyes. Rety
gasped, and Dwer abruptly realized-the second creature bore a family
resemblance to Rety's bird! "All
right," Dwer growled, his patience wearing thin with Mudfoot's endless
games. "We're footprints, unless you tell me what's goin' on." The
creature with green eyes emitted a low, rumbling sound, surprising for one so
small. Dwer blinked, startled by the commonplace resonance of a hoonish umble. "Hr-r-rm
. . . Well, for starters, let me introduce myself. "The
formal name my folks gave me is Hph-wayuo- "But
you can call me Alvin." PART
SEVEN A
PARABLE "MASTER,"
THE STUDENT ASKED. "The Universe is so complex, surely the creator could
not have used volition alone to set it in '• motion. In crarting His design,
and in commanding the angels to carry out His will, He must have used
computers. The
great savant contemplated this for several spans belore replying in the
negative. YOU are
mistaken. No reality can oE '• modeled completely by a calculating engine .
that is contained within and partalcing of i that same reality. Ood did not use
a com' puter to create the world. Me used mathematics. The
student pondered this wisdom for a long time, then persisted in his argument. That
may have been the case when it came to envisioning and creating the world, '
A,laster--and to foreseeing future consequences in revealed destiny--but what
of maintenance' The cosmos is a vast, intricate network of decisions, (choices
are made every femtosecond, and living beings win accordingly, or else lose. How can
the creators assistants carry out these myriad local branchings, unless they
use computer models' But
once again, the great savant turned his gaze away in rebuke. "It
is Ifni, the chief deputy, who decides such things. But she has no need for
elaborate tools for deciding local events. "In
the Creator's name she runs the world by using dice. Kaa THE
SUBSEA HABITAT FELT CROWDED AS FIVE DOLphins gathered before a small holo
display, watching a raid unfold in real time. Images of the distant assault
were blurry, yet they stirred the heart. While
Brookida, Zhaki, and Mopol jostled near Kaa's left side, he felt more acutely
aware of Peepoe on his right- fanning water with her pectorals in order to keep
one eye aimed at the monitor. Her presence disturbed his mental and hormonal
equilibrium-especially whenever a stray current brushed her against him. To
Kaa, this ironically proved the multiple nature of his sapient mind-that the
individual he most desired to see was the same one he dreaded being near. Fortunately,
the on-screen spectacle offered distraction-transmitted by a slender fiber
strand from a spy camera located hundreds of kilometers away, on a sandy bluff
overlooking the Rift. Banks of heavy clouds glowered low, making twilight out
of day. But with enhanced contrast, an observer could just make out shadows
flicking beneath blue water, approaching the shore. Abruptly,
the line of surf erupted armored figures--six-legged monsters with horizontal
cylinders for bodies, flared widely at the back-charging past the beach then
through a brackish swamp, firing lasers as they came. Three slim flying robots
accompanied the attackers, still dripping seawater as they swooped toward the
surprised foe. The
enemy encampment was little more than a rude fabric tent propped against the
lee side of a shattered spaceship. A single hovering guardian drone shrieked,
rising angrily as it sighted the new arrivals . . . then became a smoldering
cinder, toppling to douse in the frothy swamp. Jophur survivors could only
stand helpless as the onslaught swept over them. Eye cells throbbed unhappily
atop tapered sap rings, staring in dazed wonder, unable to grasp this
humiliation. August beings, taken prisoner by mere dolphins. By the
youngest race of the wolfling clari of Terra. Kaa felt good, watching his crew
mates turn the tables on those hateful stacks of greasy doughnuts. The Jophur
alliance had been relentless in pursuing Streaker across the star lanes. This
small victory was almost as satisfying as that other raid, on Oakka World,
where resolute action took an enemy base from behind, releasing Streaker from
yet another trap. Only
that time I didn't have to watch from afar. I piloted the boat to pick up
Engineer D'Anite, dodging fire all the way. In
those days, he had still been "Lucky" Kaa. Alongside
Peepoe and the others, he watched Lieutenant Tsh't gesture right and left with
the metal arms of her walker unit, ordering members of the raiding party to
herd their captives toward the shore, where a whalelike behemoth erupted from
the surf, spreading mighty jaws. Despite
thick clouds, the raiders had to make this phase brief to avoid detection. One
Jophur captive stumbled in the surf. Its component rings throbbed, threatening
to split their mucusy bindings. Mopol chittered delight at the enemy's
discomfiture, thrashing his flukes to splatter the habitat's low ceiling. Peepoe
sent Kaa a brief sonar click, drawing attention to Mopol's behavior. * See
what I mean? * she remarked in clipped Trinary. Kaa
nodded agreement. All trace of illness was gone, replaced by primal exultation.
No doubt Mopol longed to be on the raid, tormenting the tormentors. Peepoe was
naturally irked to have come all this way, driving a one-dolphin sled through
unfamiliar waters where frightening sound shadows lurked, just to diagnose a
case of kingree fever. The name had roots in an Anglic word-malingering.
Dolphin spacers knew many clever ways to induce symptoms of food poisoning, in
order to feign illness and avoid duty. "I
thought-t so from the beginning," Kaa had told her earlier. "It was
Makanee's choice to send a nurse, just in case." That
hardly mollified Peepoe. "A
leader's job is to motivate," she had scolded. "If the work is hard,
you're supposed to motivate even harder." Kaa
still winced from her chiding. Yet the words also provoked puzzlement, for
Mopol had no apparent reason to fake illness. Despite his other faults, the
crewfin wasn't known for laziness. Anyway, conditions at this outpost were more
pleasant than back at Streaker, where you had to breathe irksome oxy-water much
of the time, and struggle for sleep with the weird sonic effects of a
high-pressure abyss surrounding you. Here, the waves felt silky, the prey fish
were tasty, while the task of spying was varied and diverting. Why should Mopol
pretend illness, if it meant being cooped up in a cramped habitat with just old
Brookida for company? On-screen,
half a dozen bewildered Jophur were being ushered aboard the submarine, while
onshore Lieutenant Tsh't consulted with two native humans draped in muddy
rags-a young man and an even younger girl-who looked quite tattered and
fatigued. The male moved with a limp, clutching a bow and quiver of arrows
while his companion held a small broken robot. Brookida
let out a shout, recognizing a spy probe of his own design, fashioned months
ago to send ashore, snooping in the guise of a Jijoan bird. The
young man pointed toward a nearby dune and . spoke words the camera could not
pick up. Almost at | once, the three Earthling war drones darted to surround r
that hillock, hovering cautiously. Moments later, sand spilled from a hole and
a larger robot emerged, visibly scarred from past violent encounters.
Hesitantly, it paused as if unsure whether to surrender or self-destruct.
Finally, the damaged machine glided to the beach, where two more humans were
being carried on stretchers by dolphin warriors in exo-suits. These men were
also mud-splashed. But under a grime coating, the bigger one wore garments of
Galactic manufacture. The captive robot took a position next to that man,
accompanying him aboard the sub. Last
to board were Tsh't and the two walking humans. The young man held back for a
moment, awed by the ' entry hatch, gaping like the jaws of some ravenous beast.
But the girl radiated delight. Her legs could barely carry her fast enough
through the surf as she plunged inside. Then
only Lieutenant Tsh't remained, staring down at a small creature who lounged
indolently on the beach, grooming its sleek fur, pretending it had all the time
in the world. Through her exo-suit speakers, Tsh't addressed the strange being. "Well?
If you're coming, this is your lassst chance." Kaa
still found it hard to reconcile. For two weeks he had spied on hoonish sailing
ships operating out of "Wuphon Port, and watched as tiny figures scampered
across the rigging. Not once did he associate the fuzzy shapes with tytlal-a Galactic
client species whose patrons, the Tymbrimi, were Earth's greatest friends. Who
could blame me? With hoons they act like clever animals, not sapient beings.
According to the journal of the young hoon adventurer Alvin, Jijoans called the
creatures noor beasts. And noor never spoke,
But the one on the beach had! And with a Tymbrimi accent, at that. Could
six races live here all this time without knowing that another band of sooners
were right in their midst'! Could tytlal play dumb the entire time, without
giving themselves away? The small creature seemed complacently willing to out
wait Tsh't, perhaps testing dolphin patience . . . until abruptly a new voice
broke in, coming from the sub's open hatch. The camera eye swung that way,
catching in its held a tall figure, gangly and white, with scaly arms and a
bellowslike organ throbbing below its jaw, emitting a low, resonant hum. Alvin,
Kaa realized. The young author of the memoir that had kept Kaa up late several
nights, reading about the strange civilization of refugees. He must
be "umbling" at the tytlal. In
moments the sleek creature was seen perched atop the lieutenant's striding
exo-suit, as Tsh't hurried aboard. Its grinning expression seemed to say, Oh,
well. If you positively insist . . . The
hatch swung shut and the sub backed away swiftly, sinking beneath the waves.
But the images did not stop. Left
alone at last, Streaker's little scout robot turned its spy eye back toward the
field of dunes. Sandy terrain swept past as it sought a vantage point-some
ideal site to watch over two blasted wrecks that had once been small
spacecraft, but now lay mired by mud and embraced by corrosive vines. No
doubt Gillian Baskin and the ship's council were deeply interested in who might
next visit this place of devastation. THE INITIAL EXERCISES ARE COMPLETE. A WARM
TINgling pervades her floating body, from tip to toes. Now Gillian is ready for
the first deep movement. It is Narushkan-"the starfish"-an outreach
of neck, arms, and legs, extending toward the five planar compass points. Physique
discipline lies at the core of weightless yoga, the way Gillian learned it on
Earth, when she and Tom studied Galactic survival skills from Jacob Demwa.
"Flesh participates in everything we do," the aged spy master once
explained. "We humans like to think we're rational beings. But feelings
always precede reason." It is a
delicate phase. She needs to release her tense body, allowing the skin itself
to become like a sensitive antenna. Yet she cannot afford a complete letting
go. Not if it means unleashing the grief and loneliness pent up inside. Floating
in a shielded nul-gee zone, Gillian lets her horizontal torso respond to the
tug of certain objects located outside of the suspension tank, elsewhere in the
ship, and beyond. Their influence penetrates the walls, making her sensitized
nerves throb and twitch. "Articles
of Destiny"-that was how an enigmatic Old One described such things,
during Streaker's brief visit to the Fractal System. She
never got to meet the one who spoke those words. The voice came a great
distance, far across that gargantuan edifice of spiky hydrogen ice. The Fractal
System was one huge habitat, as wide as a solar system, with a tiny red sun
gleaming in its heart. No pursuer could possibly find Streaker in such a vast
place, if sanctuary were given. "Your
ship carries heavy freight, "the voice had said. "As fate-laden a
cargo as we ever detected." "Then
you understand why we came, "Gillian replied as Streaker's lean hull
passed jutting angles of fantastic crystal, alternating with planet-sized
hollows of black shadow. The ship seemed like a pollen grain lost in a giant
forest. "Indeed.
We comprehend your purpose. Your poignant request is being considered. Meanwhile,
can you blame us for refusing your invitation to come aboard in person? Or even
to touch your vessel's hull? A hull so recently stroked by dire light? "We
who dwell here have retired from the ferment of the Five Galaxies. From fleets
and star battles and political intrigues. You may or may not receive the help
you seek- that has yet to be decided. But do not expect glad welcome. For your
cargo reawakens many of the hungers, the urgencies, and irksome obsessions of
youth." She
tried to play innocent. "The importance of our cargo is overrated. We'll
hand it over gladly, to those who prove impartial and wise." "Speak
not so.'" the speaker scolded. "Do not add temptation to the poisons
you already bring in our midst!" "Poisons?" "You
carry blessings in your hold . . . and curses." The voice concluded,
"We fear what your presence will do to our ancient peace." As it
turned out, Streaker's time of sanctuary lasted just a few slim weeks before
convulsions began to shake the Fractal System, sending awful sparks crackling
along an immense structure built to house quadrillions. Crystal greenhouses, as
wide as Earth's moon, blew apart, exposing sheltered biomass to hard vacuum.
Jupiter-sized slivers cracked loose, diffuse as cardboard, though glittering
with lighted windows. Like icicles knocked by a violent wind, these tumbled,
then collided with other protrusions, exploding into hurricanes of silent dust.
Meanwhile; a cacophony of voices swarmed- The
poor wolfling children . '. . we must help the Terrans. . . . No!
Erase them so we may return to quiet dreaming. . . . Objection!
Let us instead squeeze them for what they know. . . . Yes.
Then we'll share the knowledge with our younger brethren of the Awaiter
Alliance. . . . No! The
Inheritors . . . The
Abdicators! . . . Gillian
recalls marveling at the unleashed storm of pettiness. So much
for the vaunted detachment of old age. But
then, when all seemed lost, sympathetic forces briefly intervened. This
icy realm is not the place you seek. Advice
you need, dispassionate and sage. Seek it from those who are older and wiser,
still. Where
tides curl tightly, warding off the night. Hurry, youngsters. Take this chance.
Flee while you can. • •
• Abruptly,
an escape path opened for the Earth vessel-a crevice in the vast maze of
hydrogen ice, with starspeckled blackness just beyond. Streaker had only
moments to charge through ... an egress too sudden and brief for Emerson
D'Anite, who had already set forth in a brave, desolate sacrifice. Poor
Emerson. Fought over by resentful factions until his scout craft was swallowed
by enfolding light. All of
this comes back to Gillian, not in sequence, but whole, timeless, and entire as
she recalls that one phrase- "Articles
of Destiny." Immersed
in a trance state, she can feel those tugging objects. The same ones that
caused so much trouble in the Fractal System. They
stroke her limbs-the limbs of Narushkan-not with physical force, but with awful
import of their existence. Abruptly,
Narushkan gives way to Abhusha-"the pointer"-and her left hand
uncurls toward a massive cube-a portable branch of the great Galactic Library,
squatting in a cool mist, two corridors away. With fingers of thought, Gillian
traces one of its gemlike facets, engraved with a rayed spiral symbol. Unlike
the minimally programmed units that wolfling upstarts could afford, this one
was designed to serve a mighty starfaring clan. Had Streaker returned home with
this prize alone, her costly voyage might be called worthwhile. Yet the cube
seems least among Streaker's cargoes. Abhusha
shifts to her right hand, turning palm out, like a flower seeking warmth to
counter the Library's ancient cold. Toward
youth; the antithesis of age. Gillian
hears her little servant, Kippi, move about her private sanctum, straightening
up. The Kiqui amphibian, a native of waterlogged Kithrup, uses all six agile
limbs impartially while tidying. A cheerful music of syncopated chirps and
trills accompanies his labor. Kippi's surface thoughts prove easy to trace,
even with Gillian's limited psi-talent. Placid curiosity fills the presapient
mind. Kippi seems blithely unaware that his young race is embroiled in a great
crisis, spanning five galaxies. ## What
comes next?-I wonder what? ## What comes? ## What comes next?-I hope it's
something good. Gillian
shares that fervent wish. For the sake of the Kiqui, Streaker must find a
corner of space where Galactic traditions still hold. Ideally some strong,
benevolent star lineage, able to embrace and protect the juvenile amphibian
race while hot winds of fanaticism blow along the starry lanes. Some
race worthy to be their patrons . . . to help them . . . as humans never were
helped . . . until the Kiqui can stand on their own. She had
already given up hope of adopting the Kiqui into Terra's small family of
humans, neo-dolphins, and neo-chimps, the initial idea, when Streaker quickly
snatched aboard a small breeding population on Kithrup. Ripe presapient species
were rare, and this one was a real find. But right now Earthclan could hardly
protect itself, let alone take on new responsibilities. Abhusha
shifts again, transmuting into Poposh as one of Gillian's feet swarms with
prickliness, sensing a new presence in the room. Smug irony accompanies the
intruder, like an overused fragrance. It is the Niss Machine's spinning
hologram, barging into her exclusive retreat with typical tactlessness. Tom had
thought it a good idea to bring along the Tymbrimi device, when this ill-fated
expedition set forth from Earth. For Tom's sake-because she misses him
so-Gillian quashes her natural irritation with the smooth-voiced artificial
being. "The
submarine, with our raiding party aboard, is now just hours from returning with
the prisoners, "the Niss intones. "Shall we go over plans for
interrogation, Dr. Buskin? Or will you leave that chore to a gaggle of alien
children?" The insolent machine seems piqued, ever since Gillian
transferred to Alvin and Huck the job of interpreting. But things are going
well so far. Anyway, Gillian already knows what questions to ask the human and
Jophur captives. Moreover,
she has her own way to prepare. As old Jake used to say, "How can one
foresee, without first remembering?" She needs
time alone, without the Niss, or Hannes Suessi, or a hundred nervous dolphins
nagging at her as if she were their mother. Sometimes the pressure feels
heavier than the dark abyss surrounding Streaker's sheltering mountain of dead
starships. To answer
verbally would yank her out of the trance, so Gillian instead calls up Kopou,
an empathy glyph. Nothing fancy-she lacks the inbuilt talent of a Tymbrimi-just
a crude suggestion that the Niss go find a corner of cybernetic space and spend
the next hour in simulated self-replication, till she calls for it. The
entity sputters and objects. There are more words. But she
lets them wash by like foam on a beach. Meanwhile Gillian continues the
exercise, shifting to another compass point. One that seems quiet as death. Abbusha
resumes, now reaching toward a cadaver, standing in a far corner of her office
like a pharaoh's mummy, surrounded by preserving fields that still cling after
three years and a million parsecs, keeping it as it was. As it had been ever
since Tom wrested the ancient corpse from a huge derelict ship, adrift in the
Shallow Cluster. Tom
always had a knack for acquiring expensive souvenirs. But this one took the
cake. Herbie.
An ironic name for a Progenitor ... if that truly was its nature . . . perhaps
two billion years old, and the cause of Streaker's troubles. Chief
cause of war and turmoil across a dozen spiral arms. We
could have gotten rid of him on Oakka World, she knew. Handing Herbie over to
the Library Institute was officially the right thing to do. The safe thing to
do. But
sector-branch officials had been corrupted. Many of the librarians had cast off
their oaths and fell to fighting among themselves-race by race, clan by
clan-each seeking Streaker's treasure for its own kind. Fleeing
once again became a duty. No one
Galactic faction can be allowed to own your secret. So
commanded Terragens Council, in the single longrange message Streaker had
received. Gillian knew the words by heart. To show
any partiality might lead to disaster. It
could, mean extinction for Earthclan. Articles
of Destiny tug at her limbs, reorienting her floating body. Facing upward,
Gillian's eyes open but fail to see the metal ceiling plates. Instead, they
look to the past. To the
Shallow Cluster. A phalanx of shimmering globes, deceptively beautiful, like
translucent moons, or floating bubbles in a dream. Then
the Morgran ambush . . . fiery explosions amid mighty battleships, as numerous
as stars, all striving for a chance to snare a gnat. To
Kithrup, where the gnat fled, where so much was lost, including the better part
of her soul. Where
are you, Tom? Do you still live, somewhere in space and time? Then
Oakka, that green betraying place, where the Institutes failed.' And the
Fractal System, where Old Ones proved there is no age limit on perfidy. Herbie
seems amused by that thought. "Old
Ones? From my perspective, those inhabitants of a giant snowfiake are mere
infants, like yourself!" Of
course the voice comes from her imagination, putting words in a mouth that
might have spoken when Earth's ocean was innocent of any life but bacteria . .
. when Sol's system was half its present age. Gillian
cracks a smile and Abhusba transforms into Kuntatta-laughter amid a storm of
sleeting vacuum rays. Soon,
she must wrestle with the same quandary-how to arrange Streaker's escape one
more time, just ahead of baying hounds. It would take a pretty neat trick this
time, with a Jophur dreadnought apparently already landed on Jijo, and
Streaker's hull still laden with refractory soot. It
would take a miracle. How did
they follow MS? she wonders. It seemed a per feet hideout, with all trails to
Jijo quantum collapsed but one, and that one passing through the atmosphere of
a giant carbon star. The sooner races all did it successfully, arriving without
leaving tracks. What did we do wrong? Recrimination
has no place in weightless yoga. It
spoils the serenity. Sorry,
Jake, she thinks. Gillian sighs, knowing this trance is now forfeit. She might
as well emerge and get back down to business. Perhaps the Hikahi will bring
useful news
from its raid on the surface. I'm
sorry, Tom. Maybe a time will come when I can clear my mind enough to hear you
... or to cast a piece of myself
to wherever you have gone. Gillian
won't let herself imagine the more likely probability-that Tom is dead, along
with Creideiki and all the others she was forced to abandon on Kithrup, with
little more than a space skiff to convey them home again. The
emergence process continues, drawing meditation en-forms back into their
original abstractions, easing her toward the world of unpleasant facts. And yet
. . . In the
course of preparing to exit, Gillian abruptly grows aware of a fifth tug on her
body, this one stroking the back of her neck, prickling her occipital
vertebrae, and follicles along the middle of her scalp. It is familiar. She's
felt it before, though never this strong. A presence, beckoning not from
nearby, or even elsewhere in the ship, but somewhere beyond Streaker's scarred
hull. Somewhere else on the planet. There
is a rhythmic, resonant solidity to the sensation, like vibration in dense
stone. If only
Creideiki were here, he could probably relate to it, the way he did with those
poor beings who lived underground on Kithrup. Or else Tom might have figured
out a way to decipher this thing. And
yet, she begins to suspect this time it is something different. Correcting her
earlier impression, Gillian realizes- It is
not a presence on this world, or beneath it, but something of the planet. An
aspect of Jijo itself. Narusbkan
orients her like the needle of a compass, and abruptly she feels a strange,
unprovoked commotion within. It takes her some time to sort out the impression.
But recognition dawns at last. Tentatively-like
a long-lost friend unsure of its welcome-hope sneaks back into her heart,
riding on the stony cadence. wasx BBRUPTLY
COMES NEWS. TOO SOON FOR YOU RINGS to have interpreted the still-hot wax. So
let me relate it directly. WORD OF
DISASTER! WORD OF CALAMITY! Word of ill-fated loss, just east beyond this range
of mountain hills. Our grounded corvette-destroyed! Dissension
tears the Polkjhy crew. Chem-synth toruses vent fumes of blame while loud
recriminations pour from oration rings. Could
this tragedy be the work of the dolphin prey ship, retaliating against its
pursuers? For years its renown has spread, after cunning escapes from other
traps. But it
cannot be. Long-range scans show no hint of gravitic emanations or energy
weapons. Early signs point to some kind of onboard failure. And
yet, clever wolflings are not to be underrated. I/we can read waxy memories
left by the former Asx-historical legends of the formative years of the Jijoan
Commons, especially tales of urrish-human wars. These stories demonstrate how
both races have exceptional aptitudes for improvisation. Until
now, we thought it was coincidence-that there were
Earthling sooners here, that the Rothen had human servants, and the prey ship
also came from that wolfling world. The three groups seem to have nothing in
common, no motives, goals, or capabilities. But
what if there is a pattern? I/we
must speak of this to the Captain-Leader ... as soon as higher-status stacks
pause their ventings and let us get a
puff in edgewise. Prepare,
My rings. Our first task will surely be to interrogate the prisoners. Tsk't WHAT AM
I GOING TO DO? She fretted over her predicament as the submarine made its way
back to the abyssal mountain of dead starships. While other members of the
Hikabi team exulted over their successful raid, looking forward to reunion with
their crew mates on the Streaker, Tsh't anticipated docking with a
rising sense of dread. To
outward appearances, all was well. The prisoners were secure. The young
adventurers, Alvin and Huck, were debriefing Dwer and Rety-human sooners who
had managed somehow to defeat a Jophur corvette. Once Hikabi leveled its plunge
below the thermocline, Tsh't knew she and her team had pulled it off-striking a
blow for
Earth without being caught. The
coup reflected well on the mission commander, Some
might call Tsh't a hero. Yet disquiet churned her sour stomach. Ifni
must hate me. The worst of all possible combinations of events has caught me in
a vise. "Wait
a minute," snapped the female g'Kek, who had assumed the name of an
ancient Earthling literary figure. As her spokes vibrated with agitation, she
pointed one eyestalk at the young man whose bow and arrows lay across his
knees. "You're saying that you walked all the way from the Slope to find
her hidden tribe . . . while she flew back home aboard the Dakkin sky boat
..." The
human girl, Rety, interrupted. "That's
Danik, you dumb wheelie. And what's so surprisin' about that? I had Kunn an'
the others fooled down to their scabs, thinkin' I was ready to be one of 'em.
O' course I was just keepin' my eyes peeled fer my first chance to ..." Tsh't
had already heard the story once through, so she paid scant attention this
time, except to note that "Huck" spoke far better Anglic than the
human child. Anyway, she had other matters on her mind. Especially one of the
prisoners lying in a cell farther aft ... a captive starfarer who could reveal
her deepest secret. Tsh't
sent signals down the neural tap socketed behind her left eye. The mechanical
walker unit responded by swiveling on six legs to aim her bottle-shaped beak
away from the submarine's bridge. Unburdened by armor or lifesupport equipment,
it maneuvered gracefully past a gaggle of dolphin spectators. The fins seemed
captivated by the sight of two humans so disheveled, and the girl bearing scars
on her cheek that any Earth hospital could erase in a day. Their rustic accents
and overt wonder at seeing real live dolphins seemed poignantly endearing in
members of the patron race. The two
seemed to find nothing odd about chatting with Alvin and Huck, though, as if
wheeled beings and Anglicspeaking hoons were as common as froth on a wave.
Common enough for Rety and Huck to bicker like siblings. "Sure
I led Kunn out this way. But only so's I could find out where the bird machine
came from!" Rety stroked a miniature urs, whose long neck coiled
contentedly around her wrist. "And my plan worked, didn't it? I found
you!" Huck
reacted with a rolling twist of all four eyestalks, a clear expression of doubt
and disdain. "Yes, though it meant revealing the Earthship's position,
enabling your Danik pilot to target its site from the air." "So?
What's yer point?" From the door, Tsh't saw the male human glance at the
big adolescent hoon. Dwer and Alvin had just met, but they exchanged
commiserating grins. Perhaps they would compare notes later, how each managed
life with such a "dynamic" companion. Tsh't
found all the varied voices too complicated. It feels like a menagerie aboard
this tub. The argument raged on while Tsh't exited the bridge. Perhaps
recordings would prove useful when Gillian and the Niss computer analyzed every
word. Preparations were also under way to interrogate the Jophur survivors
using techniques found in the Thennanin,Library cube-sophisticated data from a
clan that had been fighting Jophur since before Solomon built his temple. Tsh't
approved ... so far. But Gillian will also want to question Kunn. And she knows
her own kind too well to be fooled. The
Hikahi was a makeshift vessel, built out of parts salvaged from ancient hulks
lining the bottom of the Rift. Tsh't passed down corridors of varied substance,
linked by coarsely welded plates, until she reached the cell where two human
prisoners were held. Unfortunately, the guard on duty turned out to be
Karkaett, a disciple of former I Captain Creideiki's keeneenk mental training
program. I Tsh't couldn't hope to send Karkaett off on some errand and have him
simply forget. Any slip in regulations would be remembered. "The
doughnuts are sedated," the guard reported. "Also, we z-zapped the
damaged Rothen battle drone and put it in a freezer. Hannes and I can check its
memory store later." "That-t's
fine," she replied. "And the tytlal?" Karkaett
tossed his sleek gray head. "You mean the one that talks? Isolated in a
cabin, as you instructed. Alvin's pet is just a noor, of course. I assume you
didn't mean to lock her up, t-too." Actually,
Tsh't wasn't sure she grasped the difference between a noor and a tytlal. Was
it simply the ability to talk? What if they all could, but were good at keeping
it secret? Tytlal were legendary for one trait-going to any length for a joke. "I'll
see the human prisoners now," she told the guard. Karkaett
transmitted a signal to open the door. Following rules, he accompanied her
inside, weapons trained on the captives. Both
men lay on cots with medical packs strapped to their arms. Already they seemed
much improved over their condition in the swamp, where, coughing and desperate
for breath, they had clutched a reed bank, struggling to keep their heads above
water. The younger one looked even more grubby and half-starved than Rety-a
slightly built young man with wiry muscles, black hair, and a puckered scar
above one eye. Jass, Rety had identified him-a sooner cousin, and far from her
favorite person. The
other man was much larger. His uniform could still be recognized beneath the
caked filth. Steely gray eyes drilled Tsh't the moment she entered. "How
did you follow us toJijo?" That
was what Gillian would surely ask the Danik voyager. It was the question Tsh't
feared most. Calm
down, she urged herself. The Rothen only know that someone sent a message from
the Fractal System. They can't know who. Anyway,
would they confide in their Danik servants? This poor fellow is probably just
as bewildered as we are. Yet
Kunn's steady gaze seemed to hold the same rocksolid faith she once saw in the
Missionary . . . the disciple who long ago brought a shining message-of-truth
to the small dolphin community of Bimini-Under, back when Tsh't was still a
child gliding in her mother's slipstream wake. "Humans
are beloved patrons of the neo-dolphin race, it's true," the proselytizer
explained, during one secret meeting, in a cave where scuba-diving tourists
never ventured. "Yet, just a few centuries ago, primitive men in boats
bunted cetaceans to the verge of extinction. They may act better today, but who
can deny their new maturity is fragile, untested? Without meaning disloyalty,
many neo-fins feel discomfort, wondering if there might not be something or
somebody greater and wiser than humankind. Someone the entire clan can turn to,
in dangerous times." "You
mean God?" one of the attending dolphins asked. And the Missionary
responded with a nod. "In
essence, yes. All the ancient legends about divine beings who intervene in
Earth's affairs . . . all the great teachers and prophets . . . can be shown to
have their basis in one simple truth. "Terra
is not just an isolated forlorn world-home to bizarre wolflings and their crude
clients. Rather, it is part of a wonderful experiment. Something I have come
from afar to tell you about. "We
have been watched over for a very long time. Lovingly guarded throughout our
long time of dreaming. But soon, quite soon, it will be time to waken." Kaa MOPOL'S
FEVER SHOWED NO SIGN OF RETURNING. In fact, he seemed quite high in spirits
when he left the next morning, swimming east with Zhaki, resuming their
reconnaissance of Wuphon Port. "You
see? All he needed was a stern talking-to," Peepoe explained with evident
pride. "Mopol just had to be reminded of his duty." Kaa
sensed the implied rebuke in her words, but chose to ignore it. "You
have a persuasive bedside manner," he replied. "No
doubt they teach it in medical school." In
fact, he was quite sure that Mopol's recovery had little to do with Peepoe's
lecture. The half-stenos male had agreed too readily with everything the young
nurse said, tossing his mottled gray head and chittering "Yessss!"
repeatedly. He and
Zhaki are up to something, Kaa thought, as he watched the two swim off toward
the coastal hoon settlement. "I
need to be heading back to the ship soon," Peepoe said, causing Kaa to dip
his narrow jaw. "But
I thought you'd stay a few days. You agreed to come see the volcano." Her
expression seemed wary. "I don't know. . . . When I left, there was talk
of shifting Streaker to another hiding place. Searchers were getting too damned
c-close." Not
that moving the ship a few kilometers would make much difference, if Galactic
fleets already had her pinned. Even hiding under a great pile of discarded
starcraft would not help, once pursuers had the site narrowed down close enough
to use chemical sniffers. Earthling DNA would lure them, like male moths to a
female's pheromones. Kaa
shrugged by twisting his flukes. "Brookida
will be disappointed. He was so looking forward to showing off his collection
of dross from all six sooner races." Peepoe
stared at Kaa, scanning him with penetrating sound till she found the wryness
within. Her
blowhole sputtered laughter. "Oh,
all right. Let's see this mountain of yours. Anyway, I've been aching for a
swim." As
usual, the water felt terrific. A little saltier than Earth sea, but with a
fine mineral flavor and a gentle ionic oiliness that helped it glide over your
skin. The air's rich oxygen level made it seem as if you could keep going well
past the horizon. It was
a far friendlier ocean than on Kithrup or Oakka, where the oceans tasted
poisonously foul. Friendlier, that is, unless you counted the groaning sounds
that occasionally drifted from the Midden, as if a tribe of mad whales lived
down there, singing ballads without rhyme or reason. According
to Alvin's Journal, their chief source on Jijo, some natives believed that
ancient beings lived beyond the continental shelf, fierce and dangerous. Such
hints prompted Gillian Baskin to order the spying continued. So long
as Streaker doesn't need a pilot, I might as well play secret agent. Anyway,
it's a job Peepoe might respect. Beyond
all that, Kaa relearned how fine it was to cruise in tandem with another strong
swimmer, jetting along on powerful fluke strokes, building momentum each time
you plunged, then soaring through each upper arc, like flying. The true peak of
exhilaration could never be achieved alone. Two or more dolphins must move in
unison, each surf-riding the other's wake. When done right, surface tension
nearly vanished and the planet merged seamlessly, from core to rock, from sea
to sky. And
then . . . to bitter-clear vacuum? A modern poet might make that extrapolation,
but it never occurred to natural cetaceans-not even species whose eyesight
could make out stars-not until humans stopped hunting and started teaching. They
changed us. Showed us the universe beyond sun, moon, and tides. They even turned
some of us into pilots. Wormhole divers. I guess that makes up for their
ancestors' crimes.
Still, some things never change. Like the semierotic stroke
of whitecaps against flesh, or the spume of hot breath meeting air. The raw,
earthy pleasure of this outing offered much that he felt lacking aboard
Streaker. It also made a terrific opening to courtship. Assuming she thinks the
same way I do. Assuming I can start winning her esteem. They were approaching
shore. He could tell by the echoes of rock-churned surf up ahead. A
mist-shrouded mountain could be glimpsed from the top of each forward leap.
Soon they would reach the hidden cave where his spy equipment lay. Then Kaa
must go back to dealing with Peepoe in awkward, inadequate words. I wish
this could just go on without end, he thought. A brief touch of sonar, and he
knew Peepoe felt the same. She, too, yearned for this moment of primitive
release to last. Kaa's
sonic sense picked out a school of pseudo-tunny, darting through nearby shoals,
tempting after a pallid breakfast of synthi flesh. The tunny weren't quite in
their path-it would mean a detour. Still, Kaa squirted a burst of Trinary. * In
summer sunlight, * Fish
attract like edible *
Singularities! * Kaa
felt proud of the haiku-impulsive, yet punning as it mixed both space- and
planet-bound images. Of course, free foraging was still not officially
sanctioned. He awaited Peepoe's rejection. *
Passing an abyss, or bright reef, * Or
black hole-what sustains us? * Our
navigator! * Her
agreement filled Kaa's pounding heart, offering a basis for hope. Peepoe's
strong, rhythmic strokes easily kept pace alongside as he angled toward a
vigorous early lunch. Sooners I'VE
BEEN ABOARD A FLYING MACHINE BEFORE, HE told himself. I'm no simple nature
child, astonished by doors, metal panels, and artificial light. This
place should not terrify me. The
walls aren't about to close in. His
body wasn't convinced. His heart raced and he could not rest. Lark kept experiencing
a disturbing impression that the little room was getting smaller. He knew
it must be an illusion. Neither Ling nor Rann showed outward concern over being
crushed in a diminishing space. They were used to hard gray surfaces, but the
metal enclosure seemed harsh to one who grew up scampering along the branch-top
skyways of a garu forest. The floor plates brought a distant vibration,
rhythmic and incessant. Lark
suddenly realized what it reminded him of-the machinery
of his father's paper mill-the grinders and pulping hammers-designed to crush
scrap cloth into a fine
white slurry. That pounding noise used to drive him away into the wilderness,
on long journeys seeking living things to study. "Welcome
to a starship, sooner," Rann mumbled, nursing both a headache and a grudge
after their fight in the lake. "How do you like it?" All
three human prisoners still wore their damp underwear, having been stripped of
their tools and wet suits. For some reason, the Jophur let them keep their rewq
symbionts, though Rann had torn his off, leaving red welts at his temples where
the crumpled creature had had no time to withdraw its feeding suckers. At
least no one had been injured during the swift capture, when a swarm of tapered
cone beings swept down from the mammoth ship, each Jophur riding its own
platform of shimmering metal. Suspensor fields pressed the lake, surrounding
the human swimmers between disklike watery depressions. Hovering robots
crackled with restrained energy-one even dived beneath the surface to cut off
escape-crowding the captives toward one of the antigravity sleds, and then to
prison. To
Lark's surprise, they were put in the same cell. By accounts from Earth's dark
ages, it used to be standard practice to separate prisoners, to break their
spirits. Then he realized. If
Jophur are like traeki, they can't quite grasp the notion of being alone. A
solitary traeki would be happy arguing among its rings till the Progenitors
came home. "They
are probably at a loss, trawling through their database for information about
Earthlings,'* Ling explained. "Till recently, there wasn't much
available." "But
it's been three hundred years since contact!" "That
may seem long to us, Lark. But Earth was minor news for most of that time-a
back-page sensation. By now the first detailed Institute studies of our
homeworld have barely made it through the sector-branch Library, on
Tanith." "Then
why not . . ." He sought a word she had used several times. "Why not
upload Earthling books. Our encyclopedias, medical texts, self-analyses . . .
the knowledge we spent thousands of years accumulating about ourselves?" She
lifted her eyes. "Wolfling superstitions. Even we Daniks
are taught to think that way." She glanced at Rann. "It took your thesis,
Lark-the one you wrote with Uthen-to convince me things might be
different." Though
flushed at the compliment, Lark reined in his imagination. He tried not to let
his eyes drop to her nearly bare figure. Skimpy underclothes would not hide his
physical arousal. Besides, this was hardly the time. "I
still find their attitude hard to credit. The Galactics would rather wait
centuries for a formal report on us?" "Oh,
I'm sure the great powers-like the Soro and Jophur-got access to early drafts. And
they've urgently sought more data since the Streaker crisis began. Their
strategic agencies almost certainly kidnapped and dissected some humans, for
instance. But they could hardly update every star cruiser with illicit data.
That would risk contaminating the onboard Library cubes. I'd have to guess this
crew has been improvising-not a skill much encouraged in Galactic
society." "But
humans are known for it. Is that why your ship came to Jijo? Improvising an
opportunity?" Ling
nodded, rubbing her bare shoulders. "Our Rothen for . . ." She
paused, then chose another phrasing. "The Inner Circle received a message.
A time-drop capsule, tuned for pickup by anyone with a Rothen cognition
wave." "Who
sent it?" "Apparently, a secret believer living among the crew of the
dolphin ship. Or one desperate enough to break from Terragens orders, and
summon help from a higher source." "A
believer . . ." Lark mused. "In the Danik faith, you mean. But Daniks
teach that humans are the secret recipients of Rothen patronhood." "And
by tradition, that means a dolphin crew could also call on Rothen help, in case
of dire need . . . which those poor creatures surely face." "Like
running to your grandparents, if your own folks can't handle a problem.
Hrm." Lark
had already picked up parts of the story. How the first dolphin-crewed starship
set forth on a survey mission, assigned to check the accuracy of the small
planetary branch Earth had received from the Library Institute. Most civilized
clans simply accepted the massive volumes of information stored by past
generations, especially concerning far corners of space, where little profit
could be gained by exploration. It was
supposed to be routine. A shakedown cruise. But then, somewhere off the beaten
track, Earthship Streaker confronted something unexpected-a discovery that made
the great alliances crazy. Clues to a time of transition, perhaps, when ancient
verities of the known galaxies might abruptly change. "It
is said that when this happens, just one race in ten shall make the passage to
a new age, " the hoonish High Sage, Phwhoon-dau, had explained one night
by a campfire, just after the fall of Dooden Mesa, drawing on his deep readings
of the Biblos Archive. "Those bent on surviving into the next long phase
of stability would naturally want to learn as much as possible. Hr-r-r-rm. Yes,
even a sooner can understand why this Eartbling ship found itself in
trouble." "A
dolphin Danik." Lark marveled. "So this . . . believer sent a secret
message to the Rothen. . . ." "To
is the wrong word. You might better use at. In fact, nothing in Anglic
adequately describes the skewed logic of communicating by time drop." Ling
kept running her fingers through her hair. It had grown since the Battle of the
Glade, and was still tangled from their long dive under the lake. "But
yes, the message from the dolphin believer explained where the Streaker ship
was-in one of the hydrogen-ice habitat zones where many older races huddle
close to stellar tides, after retiring from active Galactic affairs. "More
important-it hinted where the Earthship commander next planned to flee."
Ling shook her head. "It turned out to be a clever version of the Sooner
Path. A difficult passage, uncomfortably close to fiery Izmunuti. No wonder you
Six were left undetected for so long." "Hr-rm,"
Lark umbled contemplatively. "Unlike our ancestors, you let yourselves be
followed." This
drew a reaction from Rann, sullenly holding his aching head in the opposite
corner of the cell. "Fool.
We did no such thing!" the tall Danik muttered sourly. "Are you
saying we cannot easily repeat any feat accomplished by a gaggle of cowardly
sooners?" "Putting
insults aside, I agree," Ling said. "It seems unlikely we were
followed. That is, not the first time our ship came to Jijo." "What
do you mean?" Lark asked. "When
our comrades left us-four humans and two Rothen, with the job of doing a
bioassay on Jijo-I thought the others were going to cruise nearby space, in
case the dolphin ship was hiding on some nearby planetoid. But that was not
their aim at all. "Their
real intent was to go find a buyer." Lark frowned in puzzlement. "A
Buyur'i But aren't they extinct? You mean the Rothen wanted to hire one as a
guide, to come back to Jijo and-" "No
... a buyer!" Ling laughed, though it was not a happy sound. "You
were right about the Rothen, Lark. They live by bartering unusual or illicit
information, often using human Daniks as agents or intermediaries. It was an
exciting way of life . . . till you made me realize how we've been used."
Ling's expression turned dark. Then she shook her head. "In
this case, they must have realized Jijo was worth a fortune to the right
customer. There are life-forms on this planet whose development seems ahead of
schedule, rapidly approaching presapience. And there are the Six Races. Surely
someone would pay to know about such a major infestation of criminal sooners
... no offense." "None
taken. And of course, the clue to the dolphin ship was worth plenty. So . .
." He blew an airy sigh through j his nostrils, like a disgusted urs.
"Your masters decided to sell us all." Ling
nodded, but her eyes bored into Rann. "Our patrons sold us all." ; The big
Danik did not meet her gaze. He pressed both hands against his temples,
emitting a low moan that seemed half from pain and half disgust at her treason.
He turned toward the wall, but did not touch the oily surface. "After
all we've seen, you still think the Rothen are patrons of humanity?" Lark
asked. Ling
shrugged her shoulders. "I cannot easily dismiss the evidence I was shown
while growing up-evidence dating back thousands of years. Anyway, it might
explain our bloody, treacherous history. The Rothen lords claim it's because
our dark souls kept drifting from the Path. But maybe we are exactly what they
uplifted us to be. Raised to be shills for a gang of thieves." "Hrm.
That might relieve us of some of the responsibility. Still, I'd rather be
wolflings, with ignorance our only excuse." Ling
nodded, lapsing into silence, perhaps contemplating the great lie her life had
revolved around. Meanwhile, Lark found a new perspective on the tale of
humanity. It went beyond a dry litany of events, recited from dusty tomes in
the Biblos Archive. The
Daniks claim that we bad guidance all along . . . that Moses, Jesus, Buddha,
Fuller, and others were teachers in disguise. But if we were helped-by the
Rothen or anybody else-then our helpers clearly did a lousy job. Like a
problem child who needs open, honest, personal attention, we could have used a
lot more than a few ethical nostrums. Vague bints like, "Have faith "
and "Be nice to each other." Moralizing platitudes aren't enough to
guide a rowdy tyke . . . and they sure did not prevent dark ages, slavery, the
twentieth-century Holocaust, or the despots of the twenty-first. All
those horrors reflect as poorly on the teacher as the students. Unless . . . Unless
you suppose we actually did it all alone . . . Lark
was struck by the same feeling as when he and Ling spoke beside the mule
spider's lake. His mind filled with an image of poignant, awful beauty. A
tapestry spanning thousands of years-human history seen from afar. A tale of
frightened orphans, floundering in ignorance. Of creatures smart enough to
stare in wonder at the stars, asking questions of a night that never answered,
except with terrifying silence. Sometimes,
from desperate imaginations, the silence provoked roaring hallucinations,
fantastic rationalizations, or self-serving excuses for any crime the strong
might choose to commit against the weak. Deserts widened as men ignorantly cut
forests. Species vanished as farmers burned and plowed. Wars spread ruin in the
name of noble causes. Yet,
amid all that, humanity somehow began pulling together, learning the arts of
calmness, peering forward in time, like a neglected infant teaching itself to
crawl and speak. To
stand and think. To walk
and read. To care . . . and then become a loving parent to others. The
kind of parent poor orphans never had. Born on a refuge world whose crude
safety had vanished, imprisoned in the bowels of an alien starship, Lark
nevertheless felt drawn away from worrying about his own fate, or even the six
exile clans of Jijo. After all, on the vast scale of things, his life hardly
mattered. The Five Galaxies would spin on, even if every last Earthling
vanished. Yet he
found his heart torn by the tragic story of Homo sapiens, the self-taught
wolflings of Terra. It was a bittersweet tale, pulling from his reluctant eyes
trickles of tart brine that tasted like the sea. The
voice was familiar . . . horrifyingly so. "Tell
us now." When
all three humans kept silent, the Jophur interrogator edged closer, towering
over them. Anglic words hissed from atop the swaying stack of fatty rings,
accompanied by liquid burblings and mucusy pops. "Explain
to us; why did you transmit the signal that led to your capture? Did you
sacrifice yourselves in order to buy time for unseen comrades? Those we most
eagerly pursue?" It had
introduced itself as "Ewasx," and part of Lark's horror lay in
recognizing torus markings of the former traeki High Sage, Asx. One major
difference appeared at the bottom of the'stack, where a new, agile
torus-of-legs let the composite being move about more quickly than before. And
silvery fibers now laced the doughy tubes, leading up to a glistening young
ring that had no apparent features or appendages. Yet Lark sensed it was the
chief thing turning the old traeki sage into a Jophur. "We
detected a disturbance in the toporgic time field, imprisoning the Rothen
vessel below the lake," it said. "But these tremors were well within
noise variance levels, and our leaders were otherwise too busily engaged to
investigate. However, we/i now clearly discern what you were trying to
accomplish with this trick." The
declaration left Lark unsurprised. Once alerted, the mighty aliens would
naturally pierce his jury-rigged scheme for letting Daniks out of the trapped
vessel. He only hoped thatJeni Shen, andJimi, and the others made it out before
hunter robots swarmed around the Rothen time cocoon, then through the network
of caves. while
all three humans kept silent, Ewasx continued. "The
chain of logic is apparent, revealing a persistent effort on the part of you
sooners to divert us from our main purpose on this world. "In
short, you have been attempting to distract us." Now
Lark looked up, baffled. He shared a glance with Ling. What is
the Jophur talking about? "It
began several Jijo rotations ago," Ewasx went on. "Although no other
crew stack thought it unusual, , was perplexed when the High Sages acceded so
swiftly to our Captain-Leader's demand. I did not expect Vubben and Lester
Cambel to obey so quickly, revealing the coordinates of the chief g'Kek
encampment." Lark
spoke at last. "You mean Dooden Mesa." He
still felt guilty over how a stray computer resonance betrayed the secret
colony's location. Apparently, Ewasx thought the transmission had been made on
purpose. "Dooden
Mesa, correct. The timing of the signal now seems too convenient, too out of
character. Memory stacks inherited from Asx indicate a disgusting level of interspecies
loyalty among the mongrel races of Jijo. Loyalty that should have delayed
compliance with our demand. Normally the sages would have dithered, in hopes of
evacuating the g'Keks before giving in." "Why
did you have to wait for a signal at all?" Lark asked. "If you've got
memories from Asx, you knew all along where Dooden was! Why bother asking the
High Sages?" For the
first time, Lark saw signs of what might be called an
emotional response. Uneven ripples coursed several Ewasx rings, as if they were
writhing from unpleasant sensations within. When it spoke next, the voice
seemed briefly
labored. "Reasons
for incomplete data retrieval access are not your
concern. Suffice it to say that the immurement of Dooden Mesa was gratifying to
our Polkjhy Ship Commanders . . . yet I/we nursed brooding reservations within
this stack of restless rings. The timing seemed too convenient." "What
do you mean?" "I mean that the signal came just as we were about to launch
our remaining corvette to succor another, which had made a forced landing
beyond the mountains. That mission was postponed on learning where the chief
g'Kek hideout lay. The corvette was outfitted with toporgic, to attack our
sworn feud enemies, lest any escape that nest of wheeled
vipers." Lark
caught Rann glancing at Ling, meaningfully. Beyond the
mountains. The Daniks had sent Kunn's scout vessel out that way, just before
the Battle of the Glade. And now the Jophur reported losing a corvette in the
same direction? Not
lost. A forced landing. Still, they have strange priorities. Vengeance before
rescue. "After
dealing with Dooden Mesa, there were other delays. Then, just as we were
resuming preparations to send i aid to our grounded cousins, this new distraction
came about. I refer to your activity below the lake. You cleverly found some
rude way to vibrate the toporgic seal around the Rothen ship. We ignored this
at first, since mere soon ers could never actually penetrate the cocoon-" Another
tremor crossed the creature's rings, though this time the voice did not pause. "Soon,
however; there came a distraction we could not ignore. The appearance of three
humans at the surface of the lake, deep within our perimeter! This event
triggered alarms, concentrating our attention for a lengthy period. "I/we
are now quite certain that was your intent all along." Lark stared in
astonishment. Just
after they were captured, he and Ling had speculated in whispers about Rann's
betrayal, swimming to the surface and using the portable computer to blatantly
attract Jophur attention. Ling had illuminated a likely motive. "Rann
is more loyal to our masters than I ever imagined. He knows the Six Races
possess evidence that can blow the lid off the grand Rothen deception. Helping
our crew mates escape the trapped ship would just make matters worse, by
exposing more Daniks to your arguments, Lark. Your evidence of genocide and
other wrongs. Like me, they might be converted away from our lords. "Before
allowing that to happen, Rann would rather let the Jophur wipe out everybody,
and leave our crew sealed forever. At least that way the Rothen home clan might
be safe." Ling's
explanation had rocked Lark. But this one from Ewasx was weirder still. "You're
saying we . . . uh, vibrated the golden shell around the submerged ship . . .
in order to attract your attention? And when that didn't work, we swam up to
the surface to make even more noise, trying to draw your gaze our way?" As he
said the words, Lark realized in surprise that the scenario made more sense
than what had actually happened! In comparison, it did seem improbable that
primitive sooners would find a way to pierce the toporgic trap ... or that a
Danik would betray his crew mates in order to keep them buried forever. There
was just one logical problem. "But
. . ." he went on. "But why would we be desperate enough to do such a
thing? What aim could make such a sacrifice worthwhile?" The
Jophur emitted an aggravated sigh. "You
know perfectly well what aim. However, in order to establish a clear basis for
interrogation, I will explain. "I/we
know your secret," it told Lark. "You
must certainly be in communication with the Earthling ship." Alvin THE
DOLPHINS HAVEN'T GIVEN A NAME TO THIS | mountain of abandoned starships. This
heap of discards I from a lost civilization, moldering at the bottom of the
Midden. Huck
wants to call it Atlantis. But for once I find her suggestion lacking
imagination. I
prefer that mythical place described so hauntingly by the great Clarke. The
Seven Suns. Where my namesake found ancient relics long forgotten by titans who
had moved on, leaving their obsolete servants behind. Remnants
of a mighty past, now lost between the city and the stars. We
don't spend much time together anymore. We four from Wuphon Port. We four
comrades and adventurers. We've gone off in different directions, led by our
own obsessions. Ur-ronn
spends her time where you'd expect-in the engine room, eagerly learning about
the hardware of a starship and getting thick as thieves with Hannes Suessi. I
get an impression these dolphins aren't as good at delicate hand-eye work as an
urs, so Suessi seems glad to have her around. It's
also the driest place aboard this waterlogged cruiser. Still, I figure Ur-ronn
would spend time down there even if it meant sloshing through knee-deep slush.
It's where a smith belongs. Suessi
hoped we might offer clues toward ridding Streaker's hull of a thick carbon
coating. Oral traditions speak of star soot, weighing down each sneakship that
reached Jijo after passing close by Izmunuti. But I never heard of a clan
trying to remove it. Why would our ancestors bother, since they scuttled their
arks soon after arriving? Anyway,
why not just refurbish one of the old hulks lying under the Midden, and use it
to make an escape? Ur-ronn
says Suessi and Dr. Baskin considered the idea. But the ships are junk, after
all. If the wrecks could fly well, wouldn't the Buyur have taken them along? For
helping the engineers, Ur-ronn hopes to get some cooperation in return . . .
fulfilling the assignment we were given when our little homemade Wuphon's Dream
first dropped to the sea by Terminus Rock. Uriel had asked us to find a hidden
cache-equipment to help the High Sages deal with intruding starships. Now
that we know more about those invaders-a Rothen cruiser, followed later by a
Jophur battleship-it seems unlikely that cache would help against forces so
godlike and lofty. Anyway, Uriel and our parents must have given us up for
dead, ever since the air hose tore away from Wuphon's Dream. Still,
Ur-ronn's right. An oath is an oath. I can
see why Dr. Gillian Baskin prefers we don't contact our folks. But I must
persuade her to try. Pincer-Tip
spends most of his time with the Kiqui-those six-limbed amphibians we once
thought to be masters of this ship. Instead, they are something even more
revered in the Five Galaxies-honest-to-goodness presapient beings. Pincer seems
to have an affinity for them, since his red qheuen race is also adapted to live
where waves meet a rocky coast. But that may just begin to cover Pincer's
attraction to them. He
talks of building a new bathy to explore the Midden. Not just this mound of
dead starcraft, but some of the vast jumbled cities, filled with wonders
discarded by the departing Buyur. Clearly
he enjoyed his brief stint as captain of Wuphon's Dream. Only this time he
hopes for a new crew. Agile, . obedient, water-loving Kiqui may be ideal,
compared to a too-tall hoon, a prolix g'Kek, and a hydrophobic urs. Maybe
Pincer still hopes to find real monsters. Huck
refuses to believe anything important can take place without her. As soon as we
returned with Lieutenant Tsh't, she got involved in the serious business of
questioning the Jophur prisoners, taken from the wrecked scoutship. According
to spy and adventure novels, the art of interrogation has a lot to do with
language trickery. Fooling the other guy into blurting out something he never
intended. That's just the kind of stuff Huck thinks she's oh so clever at. So
what if Jophur are different from traeki. She expected to break their obstinate
silence and get them talking. So
imagine her shock when she rolled into their chamber and the very sight of her
sent them into a fit, throwing themselves against the restraining field trying
to get at her! The room filled with a stench of pure hatred. Strangely
enough, that proved useful! For the Jophur abruptly lost their sullen muteness
and started babbling. Mostly, their GalTwo and GalFive utterance streams were
steeped with fuming anger. But soon the sneaky Niss Machine popped in, making
insinuations and smooth-voiced hints.
. . . Huck
turned all four eyestalks to stare at the whirling hologram
when it suggested the Jophur might be given this tasty g'Kek, if they
cooperated! Soon, mixed among the vengeance vows and retribution exclamatives
were bits of useful information, such as the name of their ship and the rank of
its Captain-Leader. And one further crucial fact. Although their battlecruiser
is a giant compared to outmatched Streaker, the Jophur ship came to Jijo alone. Huck
says she knew all along that the Niss was bluffing about handing her over. In
fact, she claimed a triumph, as if it
had been her plan all along. I knew
better 'than to comment on the green sweat coating her eye hoods. After the
interview, she needed a bath. • •
• Unlike
the others, I can't banish all doubt. Have we
chosen the right side? Oh,
there seem to be good reasons for throwing our fate in with these fugitives.
Humans are members of the Six, and that makes the dolphins sort of cousins, I
guess. And it's true that Streaker seems more like one of our sooner sneakships
than those arrogant dreadnoughts, up in the Rimmer Range. Anyway, I was brought
up reading Earthling tall tales. My sentiments are drawn to the underdog. Still,
I must keep at least one mental corner detached and uncommitted. My loyalty
lies ultimately with family, sept, and clan . . . and with the High Sages of
the Commons of Jijo. Among
the four of us, someone must remember our true priorities. A time may come when
they clash with our hosts'. How
have I kept busy all this time? For one
thing, I've been learning to skim the ship's database, extracting historical
summaries of what's taken place since the Great Printing. The distilled tale is
a treat to a born info hound like me. And
yet, I still can't get that big, mist-shrouded cube out of my mind. Sometimes I
hanker to sneak into that cold room and ask questions of the Branch Library-a
storehouse so great that the Biblos Archive might as well be a primer for a
two-year old. On our
way back from the surface I got to know Rety-the irascible, proud human girl
whose illegal tribe of savages would have shaken the Commons with a sensational
scandal, in normal times. I also talked to Dwer the Hunter, who I recall
visiting Wuphon, a few years back. Dwer chatted about his adventures while
Physician Makanee treated his wounds, till he fell into exhausted slumber. Soon
Rety collapsed, too, with her little "husband" curled alongside, a
slim urrish head draped across her chest. For the
most part, my job has been to umble. Yeah,
that's right. To umble for a noor. My own
pet, Huphu, doesn't know what to make of the newcomer-the one called Mudfoot.
On first spying him, ; she
hissed . . . and he hissed back, exactly like a regular noor. It was such a
normal reaction that I started to doubt my own memory. Did I really hear and
see Mudfoot tails! My
assigned task is to keep him happy till he decides to talk
again. I guess
I owe these people-Gillian Baskin and Tsh't and the
dolphins. They
saved us from the abyss . . . though maybe we wouldn't
have fallen at all, if it hadn't been for their interference. They
fixed my broken back . . . though it was injured when
they smashed Wuphon's Dream. They
turned a mere adventure into an epic ... but won't let us go home for fear we'd
tell the tale. All
right, dammit. I'll umble for the silly noor. He preens and acts starved for
sound anyway, after months with just humans
for company. Up
close I can sense a difference in him. I used to glimpse the same thing now and
then, in the eyes of a few [ strange noor lounging on the Port Wuphon
docks. I A sleek
arrogance. A kind
of lazy smugness. The
impression that he's in on a great joke. One you won't figure out till there's
egg all over your face. QUERY,INTERROGATIVE: Is
there similarity between their behavior and the way you misled Me? The way
you rings have blurred so many of the waxy memories we coinherited from Asx? The way
our union oscillates between grudging cooperation and intermittent passive
resistance? It is
enough to provoke unpleasant questions. DON'T
YOU LIKE BEING PART OF OUR MUCHIMPROVED SHARED WHOLE? OUR AMBITIOUS ONENESS? Yes,
the majority of you claim gladness to be part of a great Jophur entity, instead
of a tepid traeki melange. But can I/we really be sure that you,we love Me,us? The
question is, in itself, a possible symptom of madness. What naturally cojoined
Jophur would allow itself to entertain such doubts? The Polkjhy Priest-Stack
predicted this hybridization experiment would fail. The priest foretold it would
be useless to impose a master torus onto traeki rings already set in their
ways. A
metaphor floats upward, along abused trails of halfmolten wax. Are you
trying to make a comparison, O second ring-of cognition? Ah,
yes. I/we see it. Forging
a noble Jophur out of disparate traeki cells might seem like trying to tame a
herd of wild beasts. It is an apt analogy. Too bad
the metaphor does nothing to help solve My, our problem. PIw wasx HE
HUMAN CAPTIVES SEEM OBDURATE, MY RINGS, refusing to answer questions. Or else
they obfuscate with blatant lies. WHAT
SECRETS LIE BURIED in the melted areas? What memories did the traeki High Sage
purposely destroy, during those stressful moments before Asx was converted? I,
we can tell, important evidence once glimmered in those layers that lined our
common core. Something Jophur were not meant to know. But
know it we/i shall. I must! SUGGESTION: Perhaps
we can tear information out of these recently seized
humans. The
ones bearing the name attributes Lark, Ling, and Rann. \ REBUTTAL: The
Priest-Stack vents frustrated steam, upset to learn how
little data about Earthlings is contained in our ship- , board Library. We have
many detailed prescriptions for I truth serums or coercion drugs effective
against other races and species who are foes of the Great Jophur, but the
archives carry no record of any substance that is humanspecific. Our Library
clearly needs updating, despite the '. fact that it is a relatively new unit,
less than a thousand ' years
old. One
tactician stack, assigned to our shipboard planning staff,
proposed that we use interrogation techniques designed against Tymbrimi. Those
devil tricksters are close allies of Earthlings, and appear similar in ways
that go beyond bipedal locomotion. Trying out that suggestion, we tried
projecting psi-compulsion waves at the prisoners, tuned to Tymbrimi empathic
frequencies. But the
humans seemed deaf to the pulses, showing no reaction
at all. Meanwhile,
the Captain-Leader vents irate fumes-acrid vapors
that send all off-duty personnel fleeing from its presence. What is
the cause of such rancor, My rings? Recent
news from beyond the nearby hills. Bitter news confirming our fears. Disaster
to the east. AT
LAST, our remaining corvette reached the site where its twin fell silent, two
days ago. Aboard the Polkjhy, I/we all stared in dismay at relayed images of
devastation. Hull
wreckage lay sunk beneath swampy waters-the son of marshland morass where a
traeki might find it pleasant to wallow while contemplating wax drippings,
windblown rain swept the area while searchers scanned for survivors, but all
they found were remnants-mostly singleton rings, reverting to a feral animal
state, instinctively gathering nests of rotting vegetation, as if they were no
more than primitive pretraeki. Several
of these surviving toruses were harvested. By scraping their cores, we managed
to download a few blurry memory tracks. Enough to suggest that dolphins did
this deed, emerging from the sea to play havoc with our brethren. HOW
WERE THEY ABLE TO DO THIS? The
downed corvette had reported defense systems functional at a forty percent
level. More than adequate, if concentrated against just such a sortie by the
desperate Earthling quarry. Even amid a lightning-charged thunderstorm, it
should not have been possible for the cornered prey to mount a surprise attack.
Yet, not even an alarm signal escaped our grounded boat before it was
mysteriously overwhelmed. Again,
doubts rise to disturb us. The wolflings are said to be primitives, not much
more capable than the sooner savages whose coward ancestors settled this world.
Yet these same Earthers have sent all Five Galaxies into turmoil, repeatedly
escaping mighty fleets sent after them. Perhaps
it was a mistake for our Polkjhy ship commune to take on this mission alone,
with just our one mighty battlecruiser to seize destiny for our kind. SCENT
RUMORS SPREAD THROUGH POLKJHY NOW, alleging the Captain-Leader was deficiently
stacked. Subversive pheromones suggest that flawed decision-processing toruses
brought us to this unsavory state. Our commander was blinded by obsession with
vengeance on the g'Kek, ignoring higher priorities. Furious
to find mutinous molecules wafting through the air ducts, our Captain-Leader
seeks to overwhelm them with his own chemical outpourings-a steamy concoction
of smoldering rejection. Perfumes of domineering essence flood all decks. What is
it now, My ring? Ah. Our
second torus-of-cognition has come up with another metaphor, this time
comparing the Captain-Leader to the skipper of a hoonish sailboat, who tries
shouting down his worried crew, using a loud voice to substitute for real leadership. Very
interesting, My ring-making parallels between alien behavior and Jophur ship
politics. Such insights make this irksome union seem almost worthwhile. Unless
. . . Surely you do not ALSO apply this metaphor to your own master ring? Do not
provoke Me. Be warned. It would be a mistake. OUR
PROBLEM REMAINS. Unlike
the tactician stacks, I/we do not attribute wolfling success against our
corvette to anomalous technology, or luck. The timing was too coincidental. I
am convinced the dolphins knew exactly the right moment to attack, when our
attention was diverted by events close by. CONCLUSION:
The savage races MUST be in communication with the Earthship! The
captive humans deny knowing of any contact with the dolphin ship. They claim
their activities at the lake surface were strictly a manifestation of
interhuman dominance struggles, having nothing to do with the prey ship. They
must be lying. Ways must be found to increase their level of cooperation. (If
only I could lace their apelike cores with silvery fibers, the way a master
ring shows other components of a stack how to cooperate in joyful oneness!) We
must, it seems, fall back on classic, barbarous interrogation techniques. Shall
we threaten the humans with bodily damage? Shall we assail them with
metaphysical torment? Overruling My,our expertise, the Captain-Leader has
decided on a technique that is known to be effective against numerous
warm-blooded races. We shall use atrocity. sara TRAEKI
UNGUENTS FILLED HER SINUSES WITH PLEASant numbness, as if she'd had several
glasses of wine. Sara felt the chemicals at work, chasing pain, making room for
herself to reemerge. A day
after rejoining the world, she let Emerson push her wheelchair onto the stone
veranda at Uriel the Smith's sanctuary, watching dawn break over a phalanx of
royal peaks, stretching north and east. West of the mountains, dusty haze muted
the manicolored marvel of the Spectral Plow, and the Plain of Sharp Sand
beyond. The
view helped draw Sara's attention from the handheld mirror on her lap-lent her
by Uriel-which she had examined all through breakfast. Jijo's broad vista made
clear Emerson's quiet sermon. The
world is bigger than all our problems. Sara
handed the looking glass over to the starman, who performed sleight-of-hand
motions, causing it to vanish up one sleeve of his floppy gown. Emerson grinned
when Sara laughed out loud. What's
the point in dwelling on my stitches and scrapes, she thought. Scars won't
matter in the days to come. Any survivors will scratch their living from the
soil. Pretty women won't have advantages. Tough ones will. Or was
this complacence another result of chemicals in her veins? Potions tailored by
Tyug, master alchemist of Mount Guenn Forge. Jijo's traekis had learned a lot
about healing other races while qheuens, urs, hoons, and men fought countless
skirmishes before the Great Peace. In recent years, texts from Biblos helped
molecule maestros like Tyug supplement practical lore with fresh insights,
using Anglic words like peptide and enzyme, reclaiming some of the knowledge
their settler ancestors had abandoned. Only
not by looking it up in some Library. Earthling texts served as a starting
point. A basis for fresh discoveries. Which
illustrated her controversial thesis. Six Races climbing back upward, not via
Redemption's Path, the route their forebears used . . . but on a trail all our
own. Other
examples filled the halls behind this stony para- ! pet, in workshops and labs
where Uriel's staff labored near lava heat, wresting secrets from nature.
Despite her suffer- | ing, Sara was glad to see more evidence on Mount Guenn
that Jijoan civilization had begun heading in new directions. Until
starsbips came.
\ Sara winced, recalling
what they had witnessed last ' night,
from this same veranda. She and her friends were being regaled at a feast under
the Stars, celebrating her recovery. Hoonish sailors from the nearby seaport
boomed [ festive ballads and Uriel's apprentices cavorted in an intricate dance
while diminutive husbands perched on their backs, mimicking each twist and
gyre. Gray qheuens, their broad chitin shells embellished with gemstone
cloisonne, sculpted wicked impromptu caricatures of the party guests, using
their adroit mouths to carve statuettes of solid stone. Even
Uigor was allowed to take part, playing the violus, drawing rich vibrato tones
as Emerson joined in with his dulcimer. The wounded starman had another
unpredictable outburst of song, each verse pouring whole from some
recessed memory. "In
a cottage of Fife, lived a man and wife, who, believe me, were comical folk; For to
people's surprise, they both saw with their eyes, and their tongues moved
whenever they spoke!" Then,
as the feast was hitting its stride, there came a rude interruption. Staccato
flashes lit the northwest horizon, outlining the distant bulk of Blaze
Mountain, drawing everyone to the balcony rim. Duras
passed before sounds arrived, smeared by distance to murmuring growls. Sara
pictured lightning and thunder-like the storm that had drenched the badlands
lately, drumming at her pain-soaked delirium. But then a chill coursed her
spine, and she felt glad to have Emerson nearby. Some apprentices counted
intervals separating each flash from its long-retarded echo. Young
Jomah voiced her own thoughts. "Uncle,
is Blaze Mountain erupting?" Kurt's
face had been gaunt and bleak. But it was Uriel who answered, shaking her long
head. "No,
lad. It's not an erufshun. I think ..." She
peered across the poison desert. "I
think it is Ovoon Town." Kurt
found his voice. The words were grim. "Detonations.
Sharp. Well-defined. Bigger than my guild could produce." Realization
quenched all thought of revelry. The biggest city on the Slope was being razed,
and they could only watch, helplessly. Some prayed to the Holy Egg. Others
muttered hollow vows of vengeance. Sara heard one person explain
dispassionately why the outrage was taking place on a clear night-so the
violence would be visible from much of the Slope, a demonstration of
irresistible power. Awed by
the lamentable spectacle, Sara had been incapable of coherent thought. What
filled her mind were images of mothers-hoonish mothers, g'Kek mothers, humans,
and even haughty qheuen queens-clutching their children as they abandoned
flaming, collapsing homes. The visions stirred round her brain like a cyclone
of ashes, till Emerson gave her a double dose of traeki elixir. Dropping
toward a deep, dreamless sleep, she had one last thought. Thank
God that I never accepted Sage Taine's proposal of marriage. . . . I might have
had a child of my own by now. This is
no time . . . to allow so deep a love. Now, by
daylight, Sara found her mind functioning as it had before her accident-rapidly
and logically. She was even able to work out a context for last night's
calamity. fop and Dedinger will preach we should never have had cities in the
first place. They'll say the Galactics did us a favor by destroying Ovoom Town. Sara
recalled legends her mother used to read aloud, from books of folklore covering
many pre-contact Earthling traditions. Most Earth cultures told sagas of some
purported golden age in the past, when people knew more. When they had more
wisdom and power. Many
myths went on to describe angry gods, vengefully toppling the works of prideful
mortals, lest men and women think themselves worthy of the sky. No credible
evidence ever supported such tales, yet the story seemed so common it must
reflect something deep and dour within the human psyche. Maybe
my personal heresy was always a foolish dream, and my notion of
"progress" based on concocted evidence. Even if Uriel and others had
begun to embark on a different path, the point seems moot now. Dedinger
proved right, after all. As in
those legends, the gods have resolved to pound us down. Confirmation
of the outrage came later by semaphore-the same system of flashing mirrors that
had surprised Sara days ago, when a stray beam caught her eye during the steep
climb from XL Using a code based on simplified GalTwo, the jittering signal
followed a twisty route from one Rimmer peak to the next, carrying clipped
reports of devastation by the River Gentt. Then, a
few miduras later, an eyewitness arrived, swooping out of the sky like some
fantastic beast of fable, landing on Uriel's stone parapet. A single human
youth emerged beneath shuddering wings, unstrapping himself after a daring
journey across the wide desert, skimming from one thermal updraft to the next
in a feat that would have caused a sensation during normal times. But
heroism and miraculous deeds are routine during war, Sara thought, as crowds
gathered around the young man. His limbs trembled with exhaustion as he peeled
off the rewq that had protected his eyes above the Spectral Flow. He gave the
Smith a militia salute when Uriel trotted out of the workshop grottoes. "Before
attacking Ovoom Town, the Jophur issued a two-part ultimatum," he
explained in a hoarse voice. "Their first demand is that all g'Keks and
traekis must head to special gathering zones." Uriel
blew air through her nostril fringe, a resigned blast, as if she had expected
something along these lines. "And
the second fortion of the ultinatun?" She had
to wait for her answer. Kepha, the horsewoman from Xi, arrived bearing a glass
of water, which the pilot slurped gratefully, letting streams run down his
chin. Most urrish eyes turned from the unpleasant sight. But Uriel stared
patiently till he finished. "Go
on," she prompted again, when the youth handed the empty glass back to
Kepha with a smile. "Um,"
he resumed. "The Jophur insist that the High Sages must give up the
location of the dolphin ship." "The
dolphin shif?" Uriel's hooves clattered on the flagstones. "We heard
vague stories of this thing. Gossif and conflicting hints told vy the Rothen.
Have the Jophur now revealed what it's all avout?" The
courier tried to nod, only now Tyug had come forward, gripping the youth's head
with several tentacles. He winced as the traeki alchemist secreted ointment for
his sun- and windburns. "It
seems . . . Hey, watch it!" He pushed at the adamant tendrils, then tried
ignoring the traeki altogether. "It
seems these dolphins are the prey that brought both the Rothen and the Jophur
to Galaxy Four in the first place. What's more, the Jophur say the sages must
be in contact with the Earthling ship. Either we give up its location, or face
more destruction, starting with Tarek Town, then lesser hamlets, until no
building is left standing." Kurt
shook his head. "They're bluffin'. Even Galactics couldn't find all our
wood structures, hidden under blur cloth." The
courier seemed less sure. "There are fanatics everywhere who think the end
is here. Some believe the Jophur are agents of destiny, come to set us back on
the Path. All such fools need do is start a fire somewhere near a building and
throw some phosphorus on the flame. The Jophur can sniff the,signal using their
rainbow finder." Rainbow
finder . . . Sara pondered. Oh, he means a spectrograph. Jomah
was aghast. "People would do that?" "It's already happened in a
few places. Some folks have taken their local explosers hostage, forcing them
to set off their charges. Elsewhere, the Jophur have established base camps,
staffed by a dozen stacks and thirty or so robots, gathering nearby citizens
for questioning." His tone was bleak. "You people don't know how
lucky you have it here." Yet
Sara wondered. How could the High Sages possibly give in to such demands? The
g'Kek weren't being taken off-planet in order to restore their star-god status.
As for the traeki, death might seem pleasant compared with the fate planned for
them. Then
there was the "dolphin ship." Even the learned Uriel could only
speculate if the High Sages truly were in contact with a bunch of fugitive
Terran clients. Perhaps
it was emotional fatigue, or a lingering effect of Tyug's drug, but Sara's
attention drifted from the litany of woes recited by the pilot. When he
commenced describing the destruction and death at Ovoom, Sara steered her
wheelchair to join Emerson, standing near the courier's glider. The
starman stroked its lacy wings and delicate spars, beaming with appreciation of
its ingenious design. At first Sara thought it must be the same little flier
she had seen displayed in a Biblos museum case-the last of its kind, left over
from those fabled days just after the Tabernacle arrived, when brave aerial
scouts helped human colonists survive their early wars. Over time, the art had
been lost for lack of high-tech materials. But
this machine is new! Sara
recognized g'Kek weaving patterns in the fine fabric, which felt slick to the
touch. "It
is a traeki secretion," explained Tyug, having also abandoned the crowd
surrounding the young messenger. The alchemist shared Emerson's preference for
physical things, not words. "i/we
sample-tasted a thread. The polymer is a clever filamentary structure based on
mule fiber. No doubt it will find other uses in piduras to come, as our varied
schemes converge." There
it was again. Hints of a secret stratagem. A scheme no one had yet explained,
though Sara was starting to have suspicions. "Forgive
us/me for interrupting your contemplation, honored Saras and Emersons,"
Tyug went on. "But a scent message has just activated receptor sites on
my,our fifth sensory torus. The simplified meaning is that Sage Purofsky
desires your presences, in proximity to his own." Sara
translated Tyug's awkward phrasing. In
other words, no more goofing off. It's time to get back to work. Back to
Uriel's den of mysteries. Sara
saw that the Smith had already departed, along with Kurt, leaving Chief
Apprentice Urdonnol to finish debriefing the young pilot. Apparently, even such
dire news was less urgent than the task at hand. Calculating
problems in orbital mechanics, Sara pondered. , still don't see bow that will
help get us out of this fix. She
caught Emerson's eye, and with some reluctance he turned away from the glider.
But when the star voyager bent over Sara to tuck in the corners of her lap
blanket, he made eye contact and shared an open smile. Then his strong hands
aimed her wheelchair down a ramp into the mountain, toward Uriel's fantastic
Hall of Spinning Disks. I feel
like a g'Kek, rolling along. Perhaps all humans should spend a week confined
like this, to get an idea what life is like for others. It made
her wonder how the g'Kek used to move about in their "natural"
environment. According to legend, those were artificial colonies floating in
space. Strange places, where many of the assumptions of planet-bound existence
did not hold. Emerson
skirted ruts countless generations of urrish hooves had worn in the stone
floor. He picked up the pace when they passed a vent pouring fumes from the
main forge, keeping his body between her and waves of volcanic heat. In fact,
Sara was almost ready to resume walking on her own. But it felt strangely
warming to wallow for a time in their reversed roles. She had
to admit, he was good at it. Maybe he had a good teacher. Normally,
Prity would have been the one pushing Sara's chair. But the little chimp was
busy, perched on a high stool in Uriel's sanctuary with a pencil clutched in
one furry hand, drawing arcs across sheets of ruled graph paper. Beyond Prity's
work easel stretched a vast underground chamber filled with tubes, pulleys, and
disks, all linked by gears and leather straps-a maze of shapes whirling on a
timber frame, reaching all the way up to a vaulted ceiling. In the sharp glare
of carboacetylene lanterns, tiny figures could be seen scurrying about the
scaffolding, tightening and lubricating-nimble urrish males, among the first
ever to find useful employment outside their wives' pouches, earning a good
income by tending the ornate "hobby" of Uriel the Smith. When
Sara first saw the place, squinting through her fever, she had thought it a
dream vision of hell. Then a wondrous thing happened. The spinning glass shapes
began singing to her. Not in
sound, but light. As they turned, rolling their rims against one another,
narrow beams reflected from mirrored surfaces, glittering like winter moonbeams
on the countless facets of a frozen waterfall. Only there was more to it than
mere gorgeous randomness. Patterns. Rhythms. Some flashes came and went with
the perfect precision of a clock, while others performed complex, wavelike
cycles, like rolling surf. With the fey sensitivity of a bared subconscious,
she had recognized an overlapping harmony of shapes. Ellipses, parabolas,
catenaries ... a nonlinear serenade of geometry. It's a
computer, she had realized, even before regaining the
full faculties of her searching mind. And for the first time since departing
her Dolo Village tree house, she had felt at home. It is
another world. My
world. Mathematics. aae HE
MIGHT HAVE STAYED DOWN LONGER. BUT AFTER three or four miduras, the air in his
leg bladders started growing stale. Even a full-size blue qheuen needs to
breathe at least a dozen times a day. So by the time filtered sunlight
penetrated to his murky refuge, Blade knew he must abandon the cool river
bottom that had sheltered him through the night's long firestorm. He fought the
Gentt's current, digging all five claws into the muddy bank, climbing upward
till at last it was possible to raise his vision cupola above the water's
smeary surface. It felt
as if he had arrived at damnation day. The
fabled towers of Ovoom Town had survived the deconstruction age, then half a million
years of wind and rain. Vanished were the sophisticated machines' that made it
a vibrant Galactic outpost. Those had been taken long ago by the departing
Buyur, along with nearly every windowpane. Yet, even despite ten thousand
gaping openings, the surviving shells had been luxury palaces to the six exile
races-providing room for hundreds of apartments and workshops-all linked by
shrewd wooden bridges, ramps, and camouflage lattices. Now
only a few jagged stumps protruded through a haze of dust and soot. Sunshine
beat down from a glaring sky, showing how futile every cautious effort at
concealment had been. Picking
his way along the riverbank, now cluttered with blocks of shattered stone,
Blade encountered a more gruesome kind of debris-bodies floating in back eddies
of the river, along with varied dismembered parts . . . biped limbs, g'Kek
wheels, and traeki toruses. In the qheuen manner, he did not wince or
experience revulsion while claw-stepping past the drifting corpses, but hoped
that someone would organize a collection of the remains for proper mulching.
Little was gained by maundering over the dead. Blade felt more disturbed by the chaos at the docks, where
several collapsing spires had fallen across the riverside piers and warehouses.
Not a single ship or coracle appeared untouched. Pausing
to watch one crew of disconsolate hoons examine their once-beautiful craft,
Blade felt a brief surge of hope when he recognized the ship, and saw its
gleaming wooden hull had survived intact! Then he realized-all the masts and
rigging were gone. Bubbles of disappointment escaped three of five leg vents. Just
yesterday, Blade had booked passage aboard that vessel. Now he might as well
toss the paper ticket from his moisture pouch to join the other flotsam
drifting out to sea. Much of that dross had been alive till last night, when
the starry sky lit up with the spectacle of a Galactic god ship, arriving well
ahead of its own shock wave, announcing its sudden arrival instead with a blare
of braking engines. Then it glided a complacent circle above Ovoom Town, as
gracefully imperturbable as a fat, predatory fish. The sight had struck Blade
as both beautiful and terrible. , At last, an amplified voice boomed forth,
declaring a ritual ultimatum in a dense, traekilike dialect of Galactic Two. Blade
had already been through too many adventures to stand and gawk. The lesson
taught by experience was simple--when someone much bigger and nastier than you
i starts making threats, get out! He barely listened to the roar' of alien
words as he joined an exodus of the prudent. Rac- • ing toward the river, Blade
made it with kiduras to spare, j Even
when ten meters of turbulent brown liquid layi overhead, he could not shut out
what followed. Searing blasts, harsh flashes, and screams, Especially
the screams. Now, under the sun of a new day, Blade found all the concept
facets of his mind overwhelmed by a scene of havoc. The biggest population
center on the Slope, a once vibrant community of art and commerce, lay in
complete ruins. At the center of devastation, buildings had not simply been
toppled, but pulverized to a fine dust that trailed eastward, riding the
prevailing breeze. Had
similar evil already befallen Tarek Town, where the pleasant green Roney met
the icy Bibur? Or Dolo Village, whose fine dam sheltered the prosperous hive of
his aunts and mothers? Though Blade had grown up near humans, he now found that
stress drove Anglic out of his mind. For now, the logic of his private thoughts
worked better in Galactic Six. My
situation-it seems hopeless. To
Mount Guenn-there is no longer a path by ocean ship. With
Sara and the others-I cannot now rendezvous. So much
for my promise . . . So much for my vow. Other
qheuens were rising out of the water nearby, their cupolas bobbing to the
surface like a scattering of corks. Some venturesome blues had already reached
the ruined streets ahead of Blade, offering their strong backs and claws to
assist rescue parties, searching through the rubble of fallen towers for
survivors. He also saw a few reds and several giant grays, who must have
somehow survived the night of horrors without a freshwater refuge. Some
appeared wounded and all were dust-coated, but they set to work alongside hoons,
humans, and others. A
qheuen feels uneasy without a duty to fulfill. Some obligation that can be
satisfied, like a scratched itch, through service. On the original race
homeworld, gray matrons used to exploit that instinct ruthlessly. But Jijo had
changed things, promoting a different kind of fealty. Allegiance to more than a
particular hive or queen. Seeing
no chance that he could accomplish his former goal and catch up with Sara,
Blade consciously rearranged his priority facets, assigning himself a new
short-term agenda. Corpses
meant nothing to him. He was unmoved by the dead majority of Ovoom Town. Yet he
roused his bulk, pumping five legs into rapid motion, rushing to help those
left with a spark of life. Survivors
and rescuers picked through the wreckage with exaggerated care, as if each
overturned stone might conceal danger. Like
most settlements, this one had been mined by a chapter of the Explosers Guild,
preparing the city for deliberate razing if ever the long-prophesied Judgment
Day arrived. But when it finally came, the manner was not as foreseen by the
scrolls. There were no serene, dispassionate officials from the great
Institutes, ordaining evacuation and tidy demolition, then weighing the worth
of each race by how far it had progressed along the Path of Redemption. Instead
there had poured down an abrupt and cruelly impartial cascade of raging flame,
efficient only at killing, igniting some of the carefully placed charges that
the explosers had reverently tended for generations . . . and leaving others
smoldering like booby traps amid the debris. When
the explosers' local headquarters blew up, a huge fireball had risen so high
that it briefly licked the underbelly of the Jophur corvette, forcing a hurried
retreat. Even now, several miduras after the attack, delayed blasts still
rocked random parts of town, disrupting mercy efforts, setting rubble piles
tottering. Matters
improved when urrish volunteers from a nearby caravan galloped into town. With
their sensitive nostrils, the urs sniffed for both unexploded charges and
living flesh. They proved especially good at finding unconscious or hidden
humans, whose scent they found pungent. Miduras
of hard labor merged into a blur. By late afternoon, Blade was still at it, straining
on a rope, helping clear the stubborn obstruction over a buried basement. The
rescue team's ad hoc leader, a hoonish ship captain, boomed out rhythmic
commands. "Hr-r-rm,
now pull, -friends' . . . Again, it's coming! . . . And again'." Blade staggered
as the stone block finally gave way. A pair of nimble lorniks and a lithe
chimpanzee dived through the exposed opening, and soon dragged out a g'Kek with
two -smashed wheel rims. The braincase was intact, however, and all four
eyestalks waved a dance of astounded gratitude. The survivor looked young and
strong. Rims could be repaired, and spokes would reweave all by themselves. But
where will he live until then? Blade wondered, knowing that g'Keks preferred
city life, not the nearby jungle where many of Ovoom's citizens had fled. Will
it be a world worth rolling back to, or one filled with Jophur-designed viruses
and hunter robots, programmed to satisfy an ancient vendetta? The
work crew was about to resume its unending task when a shrill cry escaped the
traeki who had been assigned lookout duty, perched on a nearby rubble pile with
its ring-of-sensors staring in all directions at once. "Observe!
All selves, alertly turn your attentions in the direction indicated!" A pair
of tentacles aimed roughly south and west. Blade lifted his heavy carapace and
tried bringing his cupola to bear, but it was dust-coated and he had no water
to clean it. If only qheuens had been blessed with better eyesight. By
Ifni, right now I'd settle for tear ducts. An
object swam into view, roughly spherical, moving languidly above the forested
horizon, as if bobbing like a cloud. Lacking any perspective for such a strange
sight, Blade could not tell at first how big it was. Perhaps the titanic Jophur
battleship had come, instead of dispatching its little brother! Were the Jophur
returning to finish the job? Blade remembered tales of Galactic war weapons far
worse than the corvette had used last night. Weapons capable of melting a
continent's crust. A mere river would prove no refuge, if the aliens meant to
use such tools. But no.
He saw the globelike surface ripple in an unsteady breeze. It appeared to be
made of fabric, and much smaller than he had thought. Two
more globelike forms followed the leader into view, making a threesome convoy.
Blade instinctively switched organic filters in his cupola, observing them in
infrared. At once he saw that each flying thing carried a sharp heat glow
beneath, suspended by cables from the globe itself. Others
standing nearby-those with sharper eyesight- passed through several reactions.
First anxious dread, then puzzlement, and finally a kind of joyful wonder they
expressed with shrill laughter or deep, umbling tones. | "What is it?" asked a
nearby red qheuen, even more ' dust-blind
than Blade. "I
think-" Blade began to answer. But then a human cut in,
shading his eyes with both hands. "They're
balloons! By Drake and Ur-Chown . . . they're
hot air balloons!" A short
time later, even the qheuens could make out shapes hung beneath the bulging
gasbags. Urrish figures standing in wicker baskets, tending fires that
intermittently flared with sudden, near-volcanic heat. Blade then realized who
had come, as if out of the orange setting sun. The
smiths of Blaze Mountain must have seen last night's calamity from their nearby
mountain sanctum. The smiths were coming to help succor their neighbors. It
seemed blasphemous, in a strange way. For the Sacred Scrolls had always spoken
of doom arriving from the fearsome open sky. Now it
seemed the cloudless heavens could also bring virtue. HE WAS
TOO BUSY NOW TO FEEL RACKED WITH conscience pangs. As commotion at the secret
base neared a fever pitch, Lester had no time left for wal- | lowing in guilt.
There were slurry tubes to inspect-a pipe- i line threading its meandering way
through the boo forest, ' carrying noxious fluids from the traeki synthesis
gang to tall, slender vats where it congealed into a paste of chemically
constrained hell. Lester
also had to approve a new machine for winding league after league of strong
fiber cord around massive j trunks of greatboo, multiplying their strength a
thousand-fold. Then
there was the matter of kindling beetles. One of his assistants had found a new
use for an old pest-a dangerous, Buyur-modified insect that most Sixers grew up
loathing, but one that might now solve an irksome technical problem. The idea
seemed promising, but needed more tests before being incorporated in the plan. Piece
by piece, the scheme progressed from Wild-Eyed Fantasy all the way to Desperate
Gamble. In fact, a local hoonish bookie was said to be covering bets at only
sixty to one against eventual success-the best odds so far. Of
course, each time they overcame a problem, it was replaced by three more. That
was expected, and Lester even came to look upon the growing complexity as a
blessing. Keeping busy was the only effective way to fight off the same images
that haunted his mind, replaying over and over again. A
golden mist, falling on Dooden Mesa. Only immersion in work could drive out the
keening cries of g'Kek citizens, trapped by poison rain pouring from a Jophur
cruiser. A
cruiser he had carelessly summoned, by giving in to his greatest
vice-curiosity. "Do
not blame yourself Lester," Ur-Jah counseled in a dialect of GalSeven.
"The enemy would have found Dooden soon anyway. Meanwhile, your research
harvested valuable information. It helped lead to cures for the qheuen and
hoonish plagues. Life consists of trade-offs, my friend." Perhaps.
Lester admitted things might work that way on paper. Especially if you assumed,
as many did, that the poor g'Kek were doomed anyway. That
kind of philosophy comes easier to the urrish, who know that only a fraction of
their offspring can or should survive. We humans wail for a lifetime if we lose
a son or daughter. If we find urs callous, it's good to recall how absurdly
sentimental we seem to them. Lester
tried to think like an urs. He failed. Now
came news from the commandos who so bravely plumbed the lake covering the Glade
of Gathering. Sergeant Jeni Shen reported partial success, freeing some Daniks
from their trapped ship . . . only to lose others to the Jophur, including the
young heretic sage, Lark Koolhan. A net loss, as far as Lester was concerned. What
might the aliens be doing to poor Lark right now? I never should have agreed to
his dangerous plan. Lester realized, he did not have the temperament to be a
war leader. He could not spend people, like fuel for a fire, even as
a price for victory. When
all this was over, assuming anyone survived, he planned
to resign from the Council of Sages and become the most reclusive scholar in
Biblos, creeping like a specter past dusty shelves of ancient tomes. Or else he
might resume his old practice of meditation in the narrow Canyon of the
Blessed, where life's cares were known to vanish under a sweet ocean of
detached oblivion. It
sounded alluring-a chance to retreat from life. But for now, there was simply
too much to do. The
council seldom met anymore. Phwhoon-dau,
who had made a lifelong study of the languages and ways of fabled Galactics,
had responsibility for negotiating with the Jophur. Unfortunately, there seemed
little to haggle about. Just futile pleading for the invaders to change their
many-ringed minds. Phwhoondau sent repeated entreaties to the toroidal aliens,
protesting that the High Sages knew nothing about the much-sought "dolphin
ship." Believe
us, O great Jophur lords, the hoonish sage implored. We have no secret channel
of communication with your prey. The events you speak of were all unrelated . .
. a
series of coincidences. But the Jophur were too angry to believe it. In
attempting to negotiate, Phwhoon-dau was advised by Chorsh, the new traeki
representative. But that replacement for Asx the Wise had few new insights to
offer. As a member of the Tarek Town Explosers Guild, Chorsh was a valued
technician, not an expert on distant Jophur cousins. What Chorsh did have was a
particularly useful talent-a summoning
torus. Shifting summer winds carried the traeki's scent message all over the
Slope-a call from Chorsh to all qualified ring stacks. Come .
. . come now to where you,we are needed.
. . . Hundreds
of them already stood in single file, a chain of fatty heaps that stretched on
for nearly a league, winding amid the gently bending trunks of boo. Each
volunteer squatted on its own feast of decaying matter that work crews kept
stoked, like feeding logs to a steam engine. Chuffing and smoking from
exertion, the chem-synth gang dripped glistening fluids into makeshift troughs
made of split and hollowed saplings, contributing to a trickle that eventually
became a rivulet of foul-smelling liquor. Immobile
and speechless, they hardly looked like sentient beings. More like tall, greasy
beehives, laid one after another along a twisty road. But that image was
deceiving. Lester saw swathes of color flash across the body of one nearby
traeki-a subtle interplay of shades that rippled first between the stack's
component rings, as if they were holding conversations among themselves. Then
the pattern coalesced, creating a unified shape of light and shadows at the
points that lay nearest to the traeki's neighbors, on either side. Those
stacks, in turn, responded with changes in their own surfaces. Lester
recognized the wavelike motif-traeki laughter. The workers were sharing jokes,
among their own rings and from stack to stack. They
are the strangest of the Six, Lester thought. And yet we understand them . . .
and they, us. I doubt
even the sophisticates of the Five Galaxies can say the same thing about the
Jophur. Out there, none of their advanced science could achieve what we have
simply by living next to traeki, day in and day out. It was
pretty crude humor, Lester could tell. Many of these workers were pharmacists,
back in their home villages all over the Slope. The one nearest Lester had been
speculating about alternative uses of the stuff they were making-perhaps how it
might also serve as a cure for the perennial problem of hoonish constipation .
. . especially if accompanied by liberal applications of heat. . . . At
least that was how Lester interpreted the language of color. He was far from
expert in its nuances. Anyway, these workers were welcome to a bit of
rough-edged drollery. Their hard labor lasted day in, day out, and still
production lagged behind schedule. But
more traeki arrived with each passing midura, following the scent trail emitted
by their sage. Now we
have to hope that the Jophur are too advanced and urbane to use the same
technique, and trace our location by reading the winds. The
qheuen sage, Knife-Bright Insight, bore all the duties of civil administration
on her broad blue back. There
were refugees to relocate, food supplies to organize, and militia units to
dispatch, quashing outbreaks of civil war among the Six. One clear success came
lately in subduing foreign plagues, duplicating the samples Jeni Shen brought
from the Glade Lake, then using a new network of glider couriers to distribute
vaccines. Yet
despite such successes, the social fabric of the Commons continued dissolving.
News arrived telling of sooner bands departing across the official boundaries
of the Slope, seeking to escape the doom threatened for the Six Races. The
Warril Plain was aflame with fighting among hot-tempered urrish clans. And more
bad news kept rolling in. Recent
reports told of several hives of Gray Queens declaring open secession from the
Commons, asserting sovereignty over their ancient domains. Spurred by the
devastation of Ovoom Town, some rebel princesses even rejected their own
official High Sage. "We
accept no guidance from a mere blue, " came word from one gray hive,
snubbing Knife-Bright Insight and resurrecting ancient bigotry. "Come
give us advice when you have a real name." Of course no red or blue qheuen
ever used a name, as such. It was cruel and haughty to mention the handicap,
inherited from ancient days and other worlds. Worse,
rumors claimed that some gray hives had started negotiating with the Jophur on
their own. A
crisis can tear us apart, or draw us together. Lester
checked on the mixed team of qheuens and hoons who were erecting spindly
scaffolding around selected spires of greatboo. Only a small fraction of the
designated trunks had been trimmed and readied, but the crews were getting
better at their unfamiliar task. Some qheuens brought expertise learned from
their grandmothers, who in olden times used to maintain fearsome catapults at
Tarek Town, dominating two rivers until a great siege toppled that ancient
reign. So much
activity might be detectable by prying sky eyes. But taller trunks surrounded
each chosen one, drowning the tumult in a vast sea of Brobdingnagian grass. Or so
we hope. Guiding
the work, urrish and human craft workers pored over ancient designs found in a
single rare Biblos text, dating from pre-contact days, dealing with an obscure
wolfling technology that no Galactic power had needed or used for a billion
years. Side by side, men and women joined their urs colleagues, adapting the
book's peculiar concepts, translating its strange recipes to native materials
and their own cottage skills. Conditions
were spartan. Many volunteers had already suffered privation, hiking great
distances along steep mountain trails to reach this tract of tall green
columns, stretching like a prairie as far as any eye could see. All
recruits shared a single motive-finding a way for the Commons of Six Races to
fight back. Amid
the shouting throng, it was Ur-Jah who brought order out of chaos, galloping
from one site to the next, making sure the traeki synthesists had food and raw
material, and that every filament was wound tight. Of all the High Sages,
Ur-Jah was most qualified to share Lester's job of supervision. Her pelt might
be ragged with age and her brood pouches dry, but the mind in that narrow skull
was sharp-and more pragmatic than Lester's had ever been. Of the
High Sages, that left only Vubben. Judicious
and knowing. Deep in perception. Leader of a sept that had been marked long ago
for destruction by foes who never forgot, and never gave up. Among Jijo's exile
races, Vubben's folk had been first to brave Izmunuti's stiffening winds,
seeking Jijo's bright shoal almost two thousand years ago. The
wheeled g'Kek-both amiable and mysterious. Neighborly,
if weird. Elfin
but reliable. Faceless,
yet as open as a book. How
lessened the universe would be without them! Despite
their difficulty on rough trails, some g'Kek had made it to this remote
mountain base, laboring to weave fabric, or applying their keen eyes to the
problem of making small parts. Yet their own sage was nowhere in sight. Vubben
had gone south, to a sacred place dangerously near the Jophur ship. There, he
was attempting in secret to commune
with Jijo's highest power. Lester
worried about his wise friend with the squeaky axles,
venturing down there all alone. But someone
has to do it. Soon
we'll know if we have been fools all along ... or if we've put our faith in
something deserving of our love. lallon
la "
DOMAIN OF BLINDING WHITENESS MARKED THE border of the Spectral Flow, where that
slanting shelf of radiant stone abruptly submerged beneath an ocean of
sparkling grains. North of this point commenced a different kind of desert-one
that seemed less hard on the brain and eyes, but just as unforgiving. A desert
where hardy lifeforms dwelled. Dangerous
life-forms. The
escaped heretic's footprints transformed as they crossed the boundary. No
longer did they glow, each with a unique lambency of oil-slick colors, telling
truths and lies. Plunging ahead without pause, the tracks became mere
impressions on the Plain of Sharp Sand-indentations that grew blurrier as gusty
winds stroked the dunes--revealing only that someone recently came this way, a
humanoid biped, favoring his left leg with a limp. Fallen
could tell one more thing-the hiker had been in an awful hurry. "We
can't follow anymore," he told his young companions. "Our mounts are
spent, and this is Dedinger's realm. He knows it better than we do." Reza
and Pahna stared at the sandy desert, no less dismayed than he. But the older
one dissented-a sturdy redhead with a rifle slung over her shoulder. "We
must go on. The heretic knows everything. If he reaches his band of ruffians,
they'll soon follow him back to Xi, attacking us in force. Or else he might
trade our location to the aliens. The man must be stopped!" Despite
her vehemence, Fallen could tell Reza's heart was heavy. For several days they
had chased Dedinger across the wasteland they knew-a vast tract of laminated
rock so poisonous, a sliver under the skin might send you into thrashing fever.
A place almost devoid of life, where daylight raised a spectacle of unlikely
marvels before any unprotected eye-waterfalls and fiery pits, golden cities and
fairy dust. Even night offered no rest, for moonbeams alone could make an
unwary soul shiver as ghost shadows flapped at the edge of sight. Such were the
terrible wonders of the Spectral Plow-in most ways a harsher territory than the
mundane desert just ahead. So harsh that few Jijoans ever thought to explore
its fringes, allowing the secret of Xi to remain safe. Reza
was right to fear the consequences, should Dedinger make good his
escape-especially if the fanatic managed to reforge his alliance with the
horse-hating clan of urrish cultist's called the Urunthai. The fugitive should
have succumbed to the unfamiliar dangers of the Flow by now. The three pursuers
had expected to catch up with him yesterday, if not the day before. It's my
fault, Fallen thought. , was too complacent. Too deliberate. My old bones can't
take a gallop and I would not let the women speed on without me. Who
would guess Dedinger could ride so well after so little practice, driving his
stolen horse with a mixture of care and utter brutality, so the poor beast
expired just two leagues short of this very boundary? Even
after that, his jogging pace kept the gap between them from closing fast
enough. While the Illias preserved their beloved mares, the madman managed to
cross ground that should have killed him first. We are
chasing a strong, resourceful adversary. I'd rather face a hoonish ice hermit,
or even a Gray Champion, than risk this fellow with his back cornered against a
dune. Of course Dedinger must eventually run out of reserves, pushing himself
to the limit. Perhaps the man lay beyond the next drift, sprawled in exhausted
stupor. Well,
it did no harm to hope. "All
right." Fallen nodded. "We'll go. But keep a sharp watch. And be
ready to move quick if I say so. We'll follow the trail till nightfall, then
head back whether he's brought down or not." Reza
and Pahna agreed, nudging their horses to follow. The animals stepped onto hot
sand without enthusiasm, laying their ears back and nickering unhappily.
Color-blind and unimaginative, their breed was largely immune to the haunting
mirages of the Spectral Plow, but they clearly disliked this realm of glaring
brightness. Soon, the three humans removed their rewq symbionts, pulling the
living veils from over their eyes, trading them for urrish-made dark glasses
with polarized coatings made of stretched fish membranes. Ifni,
this is a horrid place, Fallen thought, leaning left in his saddle to make out
the renegade's tracks. But Dedinger is at home here. In
theory, that should not matter. Before ceding the position to his apprentice,
Dwer, Fallen had been chief scout for the Council of Sages-an expert who
supposedly knew every hectare of the Slope. But that was always an
exaggeration. Oh, he had spent some time on this desert, getting to know the
rugged, illiterate men who kept homes under certain hollow dunes, making their
hard living by spear hunting and sifting for spica granules. But I
was much younger in those days, long before Dedinger began preaching to the
sandmen, flattering and convincing them of their righteous perfection. Their
role as leaders, blazing a way for humanity down the Path of Redemption. I'd be
a, fool to think I still qualify as a "scout" in this terrain. Sure
enough, Fallen was taken by surprise when their trail crossed a stretch of
booming sand. The
fugitive's footprints climbed up the side of a dune, following an arc that
would have stressed the mounts to follow. Fallon decided to cut inside of
Dedinger's track, saving time and energy . . . but soon the sandy surface
ceased cushioning the horse's hoofbeats. Instead, low groans echoed with each
footfall, resonating like the sound of tapping on a drum. Cursing, he reined
back. As an apprentice he once took a dare to jump in the center of a booming
dune, and was lucky when it did not collapse beneath him. As it was, he spent
the next pidura nursing an aching skull that kept on ringing from the
reverberations he set off. After
laborious backtracking, they finally got around the obstacle. Now
Dedinger knows we're still after him. Fallon chided himself. Concentrate,
dammit! You have experience, use it! Fallon
glanced back at the young women, whose secret clan of riders chose him to spend
pleasant retirement in their midst, one of just four men dwelling in Xi's
glades. Pahna was still a lanky youth, but Reza had already shared Fallen's bed
on three occasions. The last time she had been kind, overlooking when he fell
asleep too soon, They
claim experience and thoughtfulness are preferable traits in male
companions-qualities that make up for declining stamina. But I wonder if it's a
wise policy. Wouldn 't they be better off keeping a young stallion like Dwer
around, instead? Dwer
was far better equipped for this kind of mission. The lad would have brought
Dedinger back days ago, all tied up in a neat package. Well,
you don't always have the ideal man on hand for every job. I just hope old
Lester and the sages found a good use for Dwer. His gifts are rare. Fallon
had never been quite the "natural" that his apprentice was. In times
past, he used to make up for it with discipline and attention to detail. He had
never been one to let his mind wander during a hunt. But
times change, and a man loses his edge. These days, he could not help drifting
away to the past. Something i always reminded him of other days, his past was
so filled with riches. 'Oh,
the times he used to have, running across the steppe with Ul-ticho, his plains
hunting companion whose grand life was heartbreakingly short. Her fellowship
meant more to Fallon than any human's, before or since. No one else understood
so well the silences within his restless heart. Ul-ticho,
he glad you never saw this year when things,oil i apart. Those times were
better, old friend. Jijo was ours, and even the sky held no threat you and I
couldn't handle. Dedinger's
tracks still lay in plain sight, turning the rim of a great dune. The marks
grew steadily fresher, and his limp grew worse with every step. The fugitive
was near collapse. Assuming he kept going, it would be a half midura, at most,
before the mounted party caught him. And still some distance short of the first
shelter well. Not bad. We may pull this off yet. Assumptions are a luxury that
civilized folk can afford. But not
warriors or people of the land. In those staggered footprints, Fallon read a
reassuring story, and so violated a rule that he used to pound into his
apprentice. They
were riding in the same direction as the wind, so no scent warned the animals
before they turned, slanting down to the shadowed north side of the dune.
Abruptly, a murmur of voices greeted them-shouts, filled with wrath and danger.
Before Fallen's blinking eyes could adjust to the changed light, he and the
women found themselves staring down the shafts of a dozen or more cocked
arbalests, all aimed their way, held by grizzled men wearing cloaks, turbans,
and membrane goggles. Now he
made out a structure just ahead, shielded from the elements, made of piled
stones. Fallon caught a belated sniff of water. A new
well? Built since I last came here as a young man!\ Or did
I forget this one? More likely, the desert men never told the visiting chief
scout all their secret sites. Far better, from their point of view, to let the
High Sages think their maps complete, while holding something in reserve. Lifting
his hands slowly and carefully away from the pistol at his belt, Fallon now saw
Dedinger, sunburned and shaking as he clutched devoted followers-who tenderly
poured water over the prophet's broken lips. We came
so close, The
hands holding Dedinger right now should have been Fallen's. They would have
been, if only things had gone just a little differently. I'm
sorry, Fallon thought, turning in silent apology to Reza and Pahna. Their faces
looked surprised and bleak. I'm an old man . . . and I let you down. Net elo THE
BATTLE FOR DOLO VILLAGE INVOLVED LARGER issues, but the principal thing decided
was who would get to sleep indoors that night. Most of
the combatants were quite young, or very old. In
victory, the winners took possession of ashes. In
defeat, the losers marched forth singing. Aided
by a few qheuen allies, the craft workers started the fight evenly matched
against the fanatical followers ofJop the Zealot. Both sides were angry,
determined, and poorly armed with sticks and cudgels. Every man, woman, and
qheuen of fighting age was away on militia duty, taking the swords and other
weapons with them. Even so, it was a wonder no one died in the melee.
Combatants swelled around the village meeting tree in a sweaty, disorderly
throng, pushing and flailing at men who had been their neighbors and friends,
raising a bedlam that blocked out futile orders by leaders of both sides. It
might have gone on till everyone collapsed in hoarse exhaustion, but the
conflict was abruptly decided when one side got unexpected reinforcements. Brown-clad
men dropped- from the overhanging branches of the garu forest, where gardens of
luscious, protein-rich moss created a rich and unique niche for agile human
farmers. Suddenly outflanked and outnumbered, Jop and his followers turned and
fled the debris-strewn valley. "The
zealots went too far," said one gnarled tree farmer, explaining why his
people dropped their neutrality to intervene. "Even if they had an excuse
to blow up the dam without guidance from the sages . . . they should've warned
the poor qheuens first! A murder committed in the name of reverence is still a
crime. It's too high a toll to pay for following the Path." Nelo
was still catching his breath, so Ariana Foo expressed thanks on the craft
workers' behalf. "There has already been enough blood spilled down the
Bibur's waters. It is well past time for neighbors to care for one another, and
heal these wounds." Despite
confinement to her wheelchair, Ariana had been worth ten warriors during the
brief struggle, without ever aiming or landing a blow. Her renowned.status as
the former High Sage of human sept meant that no antagonist dared confront her.
It was as if a bubble of sanity moved through the mob, interrupting the riot,
which resumed again as soon as she had passed. The sight of her helped the
majority of farmers decide to come down off the garu heights and assist. ; No one
pursued Jop's forces as they retreated on canoes and makeshift rafts to the
Bibur's other bank, re-forming on a crest of high ground separating the river
from a vast | swamp. There the zealots chanted passages from the Sacred
Scrolls, still defiant. Nelo
labored for breath. It felt as if his ribs were half torn loose from his side,
and he could not tell for some time which pains were temporary, and which were
from some fanatic's baton Or quarterstaff. At least nothing seemed broken, and
he grew more confident that his heart wasn't about to burst out of his chest. So,
Dolo has been won back, he thought, finding little to rejoice over in the
triumph. Log Biter was dead, as well as Jobee and half of Nelo's apprentices.
With his paper mill gone, along with the dam and qheuen rookery, the battle had
been largely to decide who would take shelter in the remaining dwellings. A
makeshift infirmary was set up surrounding the traeki pharmacist, on a stretch
of leaf-covered loam. Nelo spent some time sewing cuts with boiled thread, and
laying plaster compresses on bruised comrades and foes alike. The
task of healing and stitching was hardly begun when a messenger dropped down
from the skyway of rope bridges that laced the forest in all directions. Nelo
recognized the lanky teenager, a local girl whose swiftness along the
branch-top ways could not be matched. Still short of breath, she saluted Ariana
Foo and recited a message from the commander of the militia base concealed some
distance downriver. "Two
squads will get here before nightfall," she relayed proudly. "They'll
send tents and other gear by tomorrow morn . . . assuming the Jophur don't blow
the boats up." It was
fast action, but a resigned murmur was all the news merited. Any help now was
too little, and far too late to save the rich, united community Dolo Village
had been. No wonder Jop's people had been less tenacious, more willing to
retreat. In their eyes, they had already won. The
Path of Redemption lies before us. Nelo
walked over to sit on a tree stump near the town exploser, whose destructive
charges were commandeered and misused by Jop's mob. Henrik's shoulders slumped
as he stared over the Bibur, past the shattered ruins of the craft shops, at
the zealots chanting on the other side. Nelo
wondered if his own face looked as bleak and haggard as Henrik's. Probably
not. To his own great surprise, Nelo found himself in a mood to be
philosophical. "Never
have seen such a mess in all my days," he said, with a resigned sigh.
"I guess we're gonna have our hands full, rebuilding." Henrik
shook his head, as if to say, It can't be done. This,
in turn, triggered a flare of resentment from Nelo. What business did Henrik
have, wallowing in self-pity? As an exploser, his professional needs were
small. Assisted by his guild, he could be back in business within a year. But
even if Log Biter's family got help from other qheuen hives, and held a
dam-raising to end all dam-raisings, it would still be years before a
waterwheel, turbine, and power train could convert lake pressure into
industrial muscle. And that would just begin the recovery. Nelo figured he
would devote the rest of his life to building a papery like his former mill. Was
Henrik ashamed his charges had been misused by a panicky rabble? How could
anyone guard against such times as these, when all prophecy went skewed and
awry? Galactics had indeed come to Jijo, but not as foreseen. Instead, month
after month of ambiguity had mixed with alien malevolence to sow confusion
among the Six Races. Jop represented one reaction. Others sought ways to fight
the aliens. In the long run, neither policy would make any difference. We
should have followed a third course-wait and see. Go on
living normal lives until the universe decides what to do with us. Nelo wondered
at his own attitude. The earlier shocked dismay had given way to a strange
feeling. Not numbness. Certainly not elation amid such devastation. I bate
everything that was done here. . . .
and yet ... And
yet, Nelo found a spirit of anticipation rising within. He could already smell fresh-cut timber and
the pungency of boiling pitch. He felt the pulselike pounding of hammers
driving joining pegs, and saws spewing dust across the ground. In his mind were
the beginnings of a sketch for a better workshop. A better mill. All my
life I tended the factory my ancestors left me, making paper in the
time-honored way. It was a pride ful place. A noble calling. But it
wasn't 'mine. Even if
the original design came from settlers who stepped off the Tabernacle, still
wearing some of theil mantle as star gods, Nelo had always known, deep inside-I
could do a better job. Now,
when his years were ripe, he finally had a chance to prove it. The prospect,
was sad, daunting . . . and thrilling. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was
how young it made him feel. "Don't
blame yourself, Henrik," he told the exploser, charitably. "You watch
and see. Everything'll be better'n ever." But the
exploser only shook his head again. He pointed across the river, where Jop's
partisans were now streaming toward the northeastern swamp, carrying canoes and
other burdens on their backs, still singing as they went. "They've
got my reserve supply of powder. Snatched it from the warehouse. I couldn't
stop 'em." Nelo
frowned. "What
good'll it do 'em? Militia's coming, by land and water. Jop can't reach
anywhere else along the river that's worth blowing up." "They
aren't heading along the river," Henrik replied, and Nelo saw it was true. "Then
where?" he wondered aloud. Abruptly,
Nelo knew the answer to his own question, even before Henrik spoke. And that
same instant he also realized there were far more important matters than
rebuilding a paper mill. "Biblos,
" the exploser said, echoing Nelo's thought. The papermaker blinked
silently, unable to make his brain fit around the impending catastrophe.
"The militia . . . can they cut 'em off?" "Doubtful.
But even if they do, it's not Jop alone that has me worried." He
turned to show his eyes for the first time, and they held bleakness. "I'll
bet Jop's bunch ain't the only group heading that way, even as we speak." Rety THE
MORE SHE LEARNED ABOUT STAR GODS, THE less attractive they seemed. I None of 'em is half as smart as a dung-eating
glaver, she thought, while making her way down a long corridor toward the
ship's brig. It must come from using all those computers and smarty-ass
machines to cook your food, make your air, tell you stories, kill your enemies,
tuck you in at night, and foretell your future for you. Count on 'em too much,
and your brain stops working. Rety
had grown more cynical since those early days when Dwer and Lark first brought
her down off the Rimmer Mountains, a half-starved, wide-eyed savage, agog over
the simplest crafts produced on the so-called civilized Slope-all the way from
pottery to woven cloth and paper books. Of course that awe evaporated just as
soon as she sampled real luxury aboard the Rothen station, where Kunn and the
other Daniks flattered her with promises that sent her head spinning. Long
life, strength and beauty . . . cures for all your, aches and scars . . . a
clean, safe place to live under the' protection of our Rothen lords . . . and
all the wonders that come with being a lesser deity, striding among the stars.
There she had met the Rothen patrons of humankind. Her
patrons, they said. Gazing on the benevolent faces of Ro-kenn and Ro-pol, Rety
had allowed herself to see wise, loving parents-unlike those she knew while
growing up in a wild sooner tribe. The Rothen seemed so perfect, so noble and
strong, that Rety almost gave in. She very nearly pledged her heart. But it
proved a lie. Whether or not they really were humanity's patrons did not matter
to her at all. What counted was that the Rothen turned out to be less mighty
than they claimed. For that she could never forgive them. What
use was a protector who couldn't protect? For
half a year, Rety had fled one band of incompetents after another-from her
birth tribe of filthy cretins to the Commons of Six Races. Then from the
Commons to the Rothen. And when the Jophur corvette triumphed over Kunn's
little scout boat, she had seriously contemplated heading down to the swamp
with both hands upraised, offering her services to the ugly ringed things. Now
wouldn't that have galled old Dwer! At one
point, while he was floundering in the muck, talking to his crazy mule-spider
friend, she had actually started toward the ramp of the grounded spaceship,
intending to hammer on the door. Surely the Jophur were like everybody else,
willing to deal for information that was important to them. At a
critical moment, only their stench held her back-an aroma that reminded her of
festering wounds and gangrene . . . fortunately, as it turned out, since the
Jophur also proved unable to defend themselves against the unexpected. So I
got to just keep looking for another way off this mud ball. And who cares what
Dwer thinks of me? At least I don't make fancy excuses for what I do. Rety's
tutor had been the wilderness, whose harsh education taught just one lesson-to
survive, at all cost. She grew up watching as some creatures ate others, then
were eaten by Something stronger still. Lark referred to the "food
chain," but Rety called it the who-kills mountain. Every choice she made
involved trying to climb higher on that mountain, hoping the next step would
take her to the top. So when
the Jophur were beaten and captured by mythical dolphins, it seemed only
natural to hurry aboard the submarine and claim sanctuary with her "Earth
cousins." Only now look where I am, buried under a trash heap at the
bottom of the sea, hiding with a bunch of chattering Eartbfish who have every
monster and star god in space chasing them. In
other words, back at the bottom of the mountain again. Doomed always to be
prey, instead of the hunter. Craxf I
sure do got a knack for picking 'em. There
were a few small compensations. For one
thing, dolphins seemed to hold humans in awe-the same kind as the Daniks had for
their Rothen patrons. Furthermore, the Streaker crew considered Rety and Dwer
"heroes" for their actions in the swamp against the Jophur sky boat.
As a result, she had free run of the ship, including a courtesy password that
let her approach a sealed entrance to the Streaker's brig. For a
brief time both airlock doors were closed, and she knew guards must be
examining her with instruments. Prob'ly checkin' my innards, to see if I'm
smugglin' a laser or something. Rety took a breath and exhaled deeply, washing
away her body's instinctive panic over confinement in a cramped metal space.
It'll pass . . . it'll pass. . . . That
trick had helped her endure years of frustration in her feral tribe, whenever
defeat and brutality seemed to press in from all sides. Don't
react like a savage. If others can stand living in boxes, you can, too ... for
a little while. The
second hatch opened at last, showing Rety a ramp that dropped steeply to a
chamber that was flooded, chesthigh, with water. Ugh. She
disliked the mixed compartments making up a large part of this weird
vessel-half-immersed rooms that were spanned above by dry catwalks, allowing
access to both striding and swimming beings. The liquid felt warm as Rety
sloshed downslope, reminding her of volcanic springs back home in the Gray
Hills, but with an added fizzy quality that left trails of tiny bubbles
wherever she moved. Feigning relaxed confidence, Rety approached the guard
station, where two sentries were assisted by a globular robot whose whirring
antennae watched her acutely. One of the dolphins rode a six-legged walker
unit-without the bug-eyed body armor-enabling it to stride about dry areas of
the ship. The other "fin" wore just a tool harness, using languid
motions of his flippers to face a set of monitor displays. "May
we help you, missss?" the latter one asked, with a tail splash added for
punctuation. "Yeh.
I came to question Kunn an' Jass again. I figure I'll get more out of 'em if I
try it alone." The
guard focused one eye back at her with a dubious expression. The first attempt
had not gone well, when Rety accompanied Lieutenant Tsh't to interrogate the
human prisoners. They had been groggy and unhelpful, still wearing bandages and
medic pacs for their various injuries. While the dolphin officer tried grilling
Kunn about matters back in the Five Galaxies, Rety endured a hot glare of
hatred from her cousin Jass, who murmured the word traitor and spat on the
floor. Who 'd
you figure I betrayed, Joss? she had wondered, eyeing him coldly until his
stare broke first. The Daniks!' Even Kunn isn 't surprised I switched sides,
after the way he treated me. Or do
you mean I've turned against our home clan? The band of grubby savages that
birthed me, then never showed me a day's kindness since? Before
looking away, his eyes showed it was personal. She had arranged for Jass to be
seized, tormented, and pressed into service as Kunn's guide. His being locked
in this metal cage was also her doing. That
thought cheered her up a bit. You gotta admit, Jass, I finally made an
impression on you. But
soon things are gonna get even worse. I'm
gonna make you grateful. Meanwhile,
Kunn told Tsh't that the siege of Earth went on, though eased somewhat by a
strange alliance with the Thennanin. "But
to answer your chief question, there has been no amnesty call by the
Institutes. Several great star clans have blocked a safe-conduct decree to let
your ship come home." Rety
wasn't sure what that meant, but clearly the news was bitter to the dolphins. Then a
new voice intruded from thin air, where a spinning abstract figure suddenly
whirled. "Lieutenant,
please recall instructions. Have the prisoner explain how his vessel tracked us
to this world." Rety
recalled seeing a tremor course down the dolphin's sleek gray flank, perhaps
from irritation over the machine's snide tone. But Tsh't snapped her jaw in a
gesture of submission, and sent her walker unit looming closer to Kunn's bunk.
The human star voyager had nowhere to retreat as her machine pressed close,
threateningly. Rety recalled sweat popping out on the Danik warrior's brow,
giving lie to his false air of calm. Having watched him intimidate others, she
was pleased to see the tables turned. Then it
happened. Some piece of equipment failed, or else the lieutenant's walker took
a misstep. The right front ankle abruptly snapped, sending the dolphin's great
mass crashing forward. Only
lightning reflexes enabled Kunn to scramble out of the way and avoid being
crushed. By the time guards arrived to help Tsh't untangle herself, the dolphin
officer was bruised, angry, and in no humor to continue the interview. But I'm
ready now, Rety thought later, as one of the brig wardens prepared to escort
her down a narrow passage with numbers etched on every hatch. I've got a plan .
. . and this time Kunn and Joss better do as I say. "Are
you sure you want-t to do this now, miss?" the guard asked. "It's
night cycle and the prisoners are asleep." "That's
just how I want 'em. Groggy an' logy. They may blab more." In
fact, Rety hardly cared if Kunn named the admirals of all the fleets in the
Five Galaxies, Her questions would only serve as cover for communication on
another level. She had
been busy in the room the Streakers assigned her-a snug chamber once occupied
by a human named l Dennie Sudman, whose clothes fit her pretty well. Pictures I
on the wall portrayed a young woman with dark hair, who I was said to have gone
missing on some foreign planet years ago, along with several human and dolphin
crew mates. On her cluttered desk Dennie had left a clever machine that spoke
in a much friendlier manner than the sarcastic Niss. It seemed eager to assist
Rety, telling her all about the Terran ship and its surroundings. I've studied
the passages leading from this jail to the OutLock. I can name what kind of
skiffs and star boats they keep there. And most important, these Earthfish
trust me. My passwords should let us out. All I
need is a pilot . . . and someone strong and mean enough to do any fighting, if
we run into trouble. And
luck. Rety had carefully timed things so there was little chance of running
into Dwer along the way. Dwer
knows not to trust me . . . and I can't be sure that bothJass and Kunn together
would be enough to bring him down. Anyway,
all else being equal, she'd rather Dwer didn't get hurt. Maybe
I'll even think about him now and then, while I'm livin' high on some far
galaxy. There
wasn't much else about Jijo that she planned on remembering. Dwer I DON'T
BELONG HERE," HE TRIED TO EXPLAIN. "AND neither does Rety. You've got
to help us get back." "Back where?" The woman seemed honestly
perplexed. "To that seaside swamp, with toxic engine waste and dead Jophur
rings for company? And more Jophur surely on the way?" Once
again, Dwer was having trouble with words. He found it difficult to concentrate
in these sealed spaces they called "starship cabins," where the air
felt so dead. Especially this one, a dimly lit chamber filled with strange
objects Dwer could not hope to understand. Lark or
Sara would do fine here, but I feel lost. I miss the news that comes carried on
the wind. It
didn't help settle his nerves that the person sitting opposite him was the most
beautiful human being Dwer had ever seen, with dark yellow hair and abiding
sadness in her pale eyes. "No,
of course pot," he answered. "There's another place where I'm needed.
. . . And Rety, too." Fine lines crinkled at the edges of her eyes.
"The young hoon, Alvin, wants to let his parents know he's alive, and
report to the urrish sage who sent the four of them on their diving mission.
They want help getting home." "Will
you give it?" "How
can we? Aside from putting our own crewfolk in danger, and perhaps giving our
position away to enemies, it seems unfair to endanger your entire culture with
knowledge that's a curse to any who possess it. "And
yet ..." She
paused. Her scrutiny made Dwer feel like a small child. "Yet,
there is a reticence in your voice. A wariness about your destination that
makes me suspect you're not talking about going home. Not to the tranquil peace
you knew among friends and loved ones, in the land you call the Slope." There
seemed little point in trying to conceal secrets from Gillian Baskin. So Dwer
silently shrugged. "The
girl's tribe, then," the woman guessed. "Rety's folk, in the northern
hills, where you were wounded fighting a war bot with your bare hands." He
looked down, speaking in a low voice. "There's
. . . things that still need to be done there." "Mm.
I can well imagine. Obligations, I suppose? Duties unfulfilled?" Her sigh
was soft and distant sounding. "You see, I know how it is with your kind.
Where your priorities lie." That
made him look up, wondering. What did she mean by that? There was resigned
melancholy in her face . . . plus something like recognition, as if she saw
something familiar in him, wakening affectionate sadness. "Tell
me about it, Dwer. Tell me what you must accomplish. "Tell
me who depends on you." Perhaps
it was the way she phrased her question, or the power of her personality, but
he found himself no longer able to withhold the remaining parts of the story.
The parts he had kept back till now. -about
his job as chief scout of the Commons, seeing to it that no colonist race moved
east of the Rimmers-sparing the rest of Jijo from further infestation.
Enforcing sacred law. -then
how he was ordered to break that law, guiding a mission to tame Rety's savage
cousins-a gamble meant to ensure human survival on Jijo, in case the Slope was
cleansed of sapient life. -how
the four of them-Darnel Ozawa, Dwer, Lena, andJenin-learned the Gray Hills were
no longer a sanctuary when Rety guided a Danik sky chariot to her home
tribe. -how
Dwer and the others vowed to gamble their forfeit lives to win a chance for the
sooner tribe . . . four humans against a killer machine ... a gamble that
succeeded, at great cost. "And
against all odds, I'd say," Gillian Baskin commented. She turned her head,
addressing the third entity sharing the room with them. "I
take it you were there, as well. Tell me, did you bother to help Dwer and the
others? Or were you always a useless nuisance?" After
relating his dour tale, Dwer was startled by a sudden guffaw escaping his own
gut. Fitting words! Clearly, Gillian Baskin understood noor. Mudfoot
lay grooming himself atop a glass-topped display case. Within lay scores of
strange artifacts, backlit and labeled like treasures in the Biblos Museum.
Some light spilled to the foot of another exhibit standing erect nearby-a
mummy, he guessed. When they were boys, Lark once tried to scare Dwer with
spooky book pictures of old-time Earth bodies that had been prepared that way,
instead of being properly mulched. This one looked vaguely human, though he
knew it was anything but. At
Gillian's chiding, Mudfoot stopped licking himself to reply with a panting
grin. Again, Dwer imagined what the look might mean. Who,
me, lady? Don't you know I fought the whole battle and saved everybody's skins,
all by myself? After
his experience with telepathic mule spiders, Dwer did not dismiss the
possibility that it was more than imagination. The noor showed no reaction when
he tried mind speaking, but that proved nothing. Gillian
had also tried various techniques to make the noor talk-first asking Alvin to
smother the creature with umble songs, then keeping Mudfoot away from the young
hoon, locking it instead in this dim office for miduras, with only the ancient mummy
for company. The Niss Machine had badgered the noor in a high-pitched dialect
of GalSeven, frequently using the phrase dear cousin. "Danel
Ozawa tried talkin' to it, too," Dwer told Gillian. "Oh?
And did that seem strange to you?" He
nodded. "There are folktales about talking noor . . . and other critters,
too. But I never expected it from a sage." She
slapped the desktop. "I
think I get it." Gillian
stood up and began pacing-a simple act that she performed with a hunter's
grace, reminding him of the prowl of a she-ligger. "We
call the species tytlal, and where I come from, they talk a blue streak. They
are cousins of the Niss Machine, after a fashion, since the Niss was made by
our allies, the Tymbrimi." "The
Tymb ... I think I heard of 'em. Aren't they the first race Earth contacted,
when our ships went out-" Gillian
nodded. "And a lucky break that turned out to be. Oh, there are plenty of
honorable races and clans in the Five Galaxies. Don't let the present crisis
make you think they're all evil, or religious fanatics. It's just that most of
the moderate alliances have conservative mind-sets. They ponder caution first,
and act only after long deliberation. Too long to help us, I'm afraid. "But
not the Tymbrimi. They are brave and loyal friends. Also, according to many of
the great clans and Institutes, the Tymbrimi are considered quite mad." Dwer
sat up, both intrigued and confused. "Mad?" Gillian
laughed. "I guess a lot of humans would agree. A legend illustrates the
point. It's said that one day the Great Power of the Universe, in exasperation
over some Tymbrimi antic, cried out, 'These creatures must be the most
outrageous beings imaginable!' "Now,
Tymbrimi like nothing better than a challenge. So they took the Great Power's
statement as a dare. When they won official patron status, with license to
uplift new species, they traded away two perfectly normal client races for the
rights to one presapient line that no one else could do anything with." "The
noor," Dwer guessed. Then he corrected himself. "The tytlal." "The
very same. Creatures whose chief delight comes from thwarting, surprising, or
befuddling others, making the Tymbrimi seem staid by comparison. Which brings
us to our quandary. How did they get to Jijo, and why don't they speak?" "Our
Jijo chimpanzees don't speak either, though your Niss-thing showed me moving
pictures of them talking on Earth." "Hmm.
But that's easily explained. Chims were still not very good at it when the
Tabernacle left, bringing your ancestors here. It would be easy to suppress the
talent at that point, in order to let humans pretend . . ." Gillian
snapped her fingers. "Of course." For a moment, her smile reminded
Dwer of Sara, when his sister had been working on some abstract problem and
abruptly saw the light. "Within
a few years of making contact with Galactic civilization, the leaders of Earth
knew we had entered an incredibly dire phase. At best, we might barely hang on
while learning the complex rules of an ancient and dangerous culture. At
worst-" She shrugged. "It naturally seemed prudent to set up an
insurance policy. To plant a seed where humanity might be safe, in case the
worst happened." Her
expression briefly clouded, and Dwer did not need fey sensitivity to
understand. Out there, beyond Izmunuti, the worst was happening, and now it
seemed the fleeing Streaker had exposed the "seed," as well. That's
what Danel was talking about, when he said, "Humans did not come to Jijo
to tread the Path of Redemption. " He meant we were a survival stash . . .
like the poor g'Kek. "When
humans brought chimps with them, they naturally downplayed pans intelligence.
In case the colony were ever found, chims might miss punishment. Perhaps they
could even blend into the forest and survive in Jijo's wilderness, unnoticed by
the judges of the great Institutes." Gillian
whirled to look at Mudfoot. "And that must be what the Tymbrimi did, as
well! They, too, must have snuck down to Jijo. Only, unlike glavers and the other
six races, they planted no colony of their own. Instead, they deposited a
secret cache ... of tytlal." "And
like we did with chimps, they took away their speech." Dwer shook his
head. "But then . , ." He pointed to Mudfoot. Gillian's
eyebrows briefly pursed. "A hidden race within the race? Fully sapient
tytlal, hiding among the others? Why not? After all, your own sages kept
secrets from the rest of you. If Danel Ozawa tried speaking to Mudfoot, it
means someone must have already known about the tytlal, even in those early
days, and kept the confidence all this time." Absently, she reached out to
stroke the noor's sleek fur. Mudfoot
rolled over, presenting his belly. "What
is the key?" she asked the creature. "Some code word? Something like
a Tymbrimi empathy glyph? Why did you talk to the Niss once, then clam
up?" And why
did you follow me across mountains and deserts? Dwer added, silently,
enthralled by the mystery tale, although the complexity combined with his
ever-present claustrophobia to foster a growing headache. "Excuse
me," he said, breaking into Gillian's ruminations. "But can we go
back to the thing I came here about? I know the problems you're wrestling with
are bigger and more important than mine, and I'd help you if I could. But I
can't see any way to change your star-god troubles with my bow and arrows. "I'm
not asking you to risk your ship, and I'm sorry about being a pest. . . . But
if there's any way you could just let me . . . well ... try to swim ashore, I
really do have things I've got to do." That
was when the tytlal rolled back onto his feet, wearing a look of evident
surprise on his narrow face. Spines that normally lay hidden in the fur behind
his ears now stood in stiff bristles. Moreover, Dwer felt sure he glimpsed
something take shape briefly, in the air above Mudfoot. A ghostly wisp, less
than vapor, which seemed to speak of its own accord. So do
I, it said, evidently responding to Dwer's statement. Things
to do. Dwer
rubbed his eyes and would gladly have dismissed the brief specter as another
imagining ... another product of the pummeling his nervous system had gone
through. Only
Gillian must have noted the same event. She blinked a few times, pointed at the
now-worried expression on Mudfoot's face . . . and burst out laughing. Dwer
stared at her, then found himself breaking up, as well. Till that moment, he
had not yet decided about the beautiful Earthwoman. But anyone who could set
Mudfoot back like that must be all right. Rety AS THE
GUARD ESCORTED HER TO THE CAPTIVES' cell, she eyed several air-circulation
grates. Schematics showed the system to be equipped with many safety valves,
and the ducts were much too small for prisoners to squeeze through. But not
for a little urrish male, armed with borrowed laser cutters. Rety's
plan was chancy, and she hated sending her "husband" into the maze of
air pipes. But yee seemed confident that he would not get lost. "this
maze no worse than stinky passages under the grass plain, "he had sniffed
while examining a holographic chart, "it easier than dodging through root
tunnels where urrish grubs and males must scurry, when we have no sweet wife
pouch to lie in." yee curled his long neck in a shrug, "don't you
worry, wife! yee take tools to locked-up men. we do this neat!" That
would be the critical phase. Once Kunn and Jass were beyond the brig airlock,
all the other obstacles should quickly fall. Rety felt positive. Two
prison cells had red lights glaring above reinforced hatches. The far one, she
knew, contained Jophur rings that had been captured in the swamp. The little
g'Kek named Huck was helping the Niss Machine interrogate those captives. Rety
had racked her brain to come up with a way they might fit her plan, but finally
deemed it best to leave them where they were. This
Streaker ship won't dare chase us, once we get a star boat outside . . . but
the Jophur ship might. Especially if those rings had a way to signal their crew
mates. As the
guard approached Kunn's cell, Rety fondled a folded scrap of paper on which she
had laboriously printed instructions, sounding out the words letter by letter,
stretching her newborn literacy to the limit. She knew it must look wrong, but
no one could afford to be picky these days. KUN I
KAN GIT U OF UV HIR WANT TU GO? So went
the first line of the note she planned slipping him, while pretending to ask
questions. If the Danik pilot understood and agreed to the plan, she would
depart and set yee loose to worm his small, lithe body through Streaker's
dueling system. Meanwhile Rety had selected good places to set fires-in a ship
lounge and a cargo locker-to distract the Streaker crew away from this area
while Kunn used smuggled tools to break out. If all went well, they could then
dash for the OutLock, steal a star boat, and escape. There's
just one condition, Kunn. You gotta agree that we get away from here. Away from
these Farthers, away from Daniks and Rothens and Jophur monsters and all that
crap. Away from Jijo. Rety
felt sure he'd accept. Anyway, if he orJass give me any trouble, they'll find
they're dealin' with a different Rety
now. The guard maneuvered his walker unit carefully in the narrow hallway. The
gangly machine had to bend in order for him to bring a key against the door
panel. Finally, it slid aside. Rety glimpsed two bunks within, each supporting
a blanket-covered 'human form. "Hey,
Kunn," she said, crossing the narrow distance and nudging his shoulder.
"Wake up! No more delayin' or foolin' now. These folks want t'know how you
followed 'em. . . ." The
blanket slipped off, revealing his shock of glossy hair, but there was no
tremor of movement. They
must have him doped, she thought. , hope he's not too far under. This can't
wait! Rety
shook harder, rolling Kunn toward her- And
jumped back with a gasp of surprise. The
Danik's face was purple. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and his tongue had
swollen to fill his mouth. The dolphin guard chattered a dismayed squeal in the
instinctive animal language of his kind. Rety struggled with shock. She had
grown up with death, but it took all her force of will to quash the horror
rising in her gorge. Somehow,
she made herself turn toward the other bunk. sara "Ob,
Doctor Faustus was a good man, He whipped his scholars now and then; When he
whipped them he made them dance, Out of Scotland into France, Out of France,
and into Spain, Then he whipped them back again!" Emerson's
song resonated through the Hall of Spinning Disks, where dust motes sparkled in
narrow shafts of rhythmic light. Sara
winced at the violent lyrics, but the starman clearly enjoyed these outbursts,
gushing from unknown recesses of his scarred brain. He laughed, as did a crowd
of urrish males who followed him, clambering through the scaffolding of Uriel's
fantastic machine, helping him fine-tune each delicate part. The little urs
cackled at Emerson's rough humor, and showed their devotion by diving between
whirling glass plates to tighten a strap here, or a pulley there, wherever he
gestured with quick hand signs. Once an
engineer, always an engineer, Sara thought. At times, Emerson resembled her own
father, who might go I silent for days while tending his beloved paper mill,
drawing more satisfaction from the poetry of pulping hammers and rollers than
the white sheets that made literacy possible on a barbaric world. A
parallel occurred to her. Paper
suited the Six Races, who needed a memory storage system that was invisible,row
space. But Uriel's machine has similar traits-an analog computer that no
satellite or spaceship can detect, because it uses no electricity and has no
digital cognizance. Above all, Galactics would never imagine such an ornate
contraption. And yet
it was beautiful in a bizarre way. No wonder she had dreamed shapes and
equations when her eyes first glimpsed this marvel through cracks in her
delirium. Each i time a disk turned against a neighbor's rim, its own axle'
rotated at a speed that varied with the radial point of contact. If that radius
shifted as an independent variable, the rotation changed in response,
describing a nonlinear function. It was a marvelously simple concept . . . and
hellishly hard to put into practice without years of patient trial and error, Uriel
first saw the idea in an old Earth book-a quintes sentially wolfling concept,
briefly used in an old-time Amero-Eurasian war. Soon after, humans discovered
digital computers and abandoned the technique. But here on Mount Guenn, the
urrish smith had extended it to levels never seen before. Much of her
prodigious wealth and passion went into making the concept work. And
urrish haste. Their lives are so short, Uriel must have feared she'd never
finish before she died. In that case, what would her successor do with all
this? An
array of pillars, arches, and boo scaffolding held the turning shafts in proper
alignment, forming a threedimensional maze that stretched away from Sara,
nearly filling the vast chamber. Long ago, this cavity spilled liquid. magma
down the mountain's mighty flanks. Today itj throbbed with a different kind of
creative force. Light
rays played a clever role in the dance of mathematics. Glancing off selected
disks, pulselike reflections fell onto a stretch of black sand that had been
raked smooth across the floor. Each flash affected the grains, causing a slight
spray or rustle. Hillocks grew wherever glimmers landed most often. Uriel
even found a use for lightning crabs, Sara marveled. On
Jijo, some shorelines were known to froth during electrical storms, as these
tiny creatures kicked up sand in frenzied reaction. We thought it might be
static charges in the air, making them behave so. But clearly it is light. I
must tell Lark about this, someday. And
Sara realized something else. The crabs
may be another Buyur gimmick species. Bioengineered servants, reverted to
nature, but keeping their special trait, even after the gene meddlers left. Whatever
their original function, the crabs now served Uriel, whose hooves clattered
nervously as the sandscape swirled under a cascade of sparkling light.
Individual flashes mattered little. It was the summed array over area and time
that added up to solving a complex numerical problem. Near Uriel, the little
chimp, Prity, perched on a high stool with her drawing pad. Prity's tongue
stuck out as she sketched, copying the sand display. Sara had never seen her
little assistant happier. Despite
all this impressive ingenuity, the actual equations being solved were not
profound. Sara had already worked out rough estimates, within a deviance of ten
percent, by using a few simple Delancy approximations. But Lester Cambel needed
both precision and accuracy under a wide range of boundary conditions,
including atmospheric pressure varying with altitude. For that, machine-derived
tables offered advantages. At
least now I understand what it's all for. In her mind, she pictured bustling
activity beneath the towering stems of a boo forest, throngs of workers
laboring, the flow of acrid liquids, and discussions in the hushed, archaic
dialect of science. They
may be crazy-Lester especially. Probably the effort will backfire and make the
aliens more vicious than ever. Dedinger would look at this-along with all the
semaphores, gliders, balloons, and other innovations-and call it the
futile thrashing of the damned. Yet the
attempt is glorious. If they pull it off, I'll know I was right about the Six.
Our destiny was not foretold by the scrolls, or Dedinger's orthodoxy ... or
Lark's, for that matter. It was
unique. Anyway,
if we're to be damned, I'd rather it be for trying. Just
one thing still puzzled her. Sara shook her head and murmured aloud. "Why
me?" Kurt,
the Tarek Town exploser, had acted as if this project desperately needed Sara,
for her professional expertise. But Uriel's machine was already nearly
functional by the time the party arrived from Xi. Prity and Emerson were
helpful at making the analog computer work, and so were books Kurt hand-carried
from Biblos. But Sara found herself with little to contribute. "I
only wish I knew why Uriel asked for me." Her
answer came from the entrance to the computer vault. "Is
that truly the only thing you wish to understand? But that one is easy, Sara.
Uriel did not ask for you at all!" The
speaker was a man of middling stature with a shock of white hair and a stained
beard that stood out as if he were constantly thunderstruck. Kawsh leaves
smoldered in his pipe, a habit chiefly indulged in by male hoons, since the
vapors were too strong for most humans. Politely, Sage Purofsky stood in the
draft of the doorway, and turned away from Sara when exhaling. She
bowed to the senior scholar, known among his peers as the best mind in the
Commons. "Master,
if Uriel doesn't need my help, why was I urged to come? Kurt made it sound
vital." "Did
he? Vital. Well, I suppose it is, Sara. In a different way." Purofsky's
eyes tracked the glitter of rays glancing off spinning disks. His gaze showed
appreciation of Uriel's accomplishment. "Math must pay its way with useful
things," the sage once said. "Even though mere computation is like
bashing down a door because you cannot find the key." Purofsky
had spent his life in search of keys. "It was I who sent for you, my
dear," the aged savant explained after a pause. "And now that you're
recovered from your ill-advised spill down a mountainside, I think it's high
time that I showed you why." It was
still daytime outside, but a starscape spread before Sara. Clever lenses
projected glass photoslides onto a curved wall and ceiling, recreating the
night sky in a wondrous planetarium built by Uriel's predecessor so that even
poor urrish eyesight might explore constellations in detail. Sage Purofsky wore
stars like ornaments on his face and gown, while his shadow cast a man-shaped
nebula across the wall. "I
should start by explaining what I've been up to since you left Biblos . . . has
it really been more than a year, Sara?" "Yes,
Master." "Hmm.
An eventful year. And yet ..." He
worked his jaw for a moment, then shook his head. "Like
you, I had grown discouraged with my former field of study. At last, I decided
to extend the classical, precontact geometrodynamic formalisms beyond the state
they were in when the Tabernacle left the solar system." Sara
stared. "But
I thought you wanted to reconcile pre-contact Earth physics with Galactic
knowledge. To prove that Einstein and Lee had made crude but correct
approximations . . . the way Newton preapproximated Einstein." That in
itself would have been a daunting task-some might say hopeless. According to
reports brought by the Tabernacle, space-time relativity was ill regarded by
those alien experts hired by the Terragens Council to teach modern science to
Earthlings. Galactic instructors disdained as superstition the homegrown
cosmology humans formerly relied on-the basis of crude star probes, crawling
along at sublight speeds. Until the Earthship Vesarius fell through an
undetected hyperanomaly, ending humanity's long isolation, Einstein's heirs had
never found a useful way to go t faster-although some methods had been recorded
in the | Galactic
Library for over a billion years. After
contact, humans scrimped to buy some thirdhand hyperships, and the old
mathemetric models of Hawking, > Purcell, and Lee fell by the wayside. In
trying to show validity for pre-contact physics, Purofsky had taken on a
strange, perhaps forlorn, task. , "I had some promising results at
first, when I restated the !' Serressimi
Exalted Transfer ShUnt in terms compatible with old-fashioned tensor
calculus." "Indeed?"
Sara leaned forward in her chair. "But how did you renormalize all the
quasi-simultaneous infinities? You'd
almost have to assume-" But the
elder sage raised a hand to cut her off, unwilling to be drawn into details. "Plenty
of time for that later, if you're still interested. For now let's just say that
I soon realized the futility of that approach. Earth must by now have
specialists who understand the official Galactic models better than I'll ever
hope to. They have units of the Great Library, and truly modern ' computer
simulators to work with. Suppose I did eventually manage to demonstrate that
our Old Physics was a decent, if limited, approximation? It might win something
for pride, showing that wolflings had been on the right track, on our own. But
nothing new would come of it." Purofsky
shook his head. "No, I decided it was time to | go for broke. I'd plunge
ahead with the old space-time I approach, and see if I could solve a problem
relevant to Jijo-the Eight Starships Mystery." Sara
blinked. "You mean seven, don't you? The question of why so many sooner
races converged on Jijo within a short time, without getting caught? But isn't
that settled?" She pointed at the most brilliant point on the wall.
"Izmunuti started flooding nearby space with carbon chaff twenty centuries
ago. Enough to seed the hollow hail and change our weather patterns, more than
a light-year away. Once the storm wrecked all the watch robots left in orbit by
the Migration Institute, sneakships could get in undetected." "Hr-rm
. . . yes, but not good enough, Sara. From wall inscriptions found in a few
Buyur ruins, we know two transfer points used to serve this system. The other
must have collapsed after the Buyur left." "Well?
That's why the Izmunuti gambit works! A single shrouded access route, and the
great Institutes not scheduled to resurvey the area for another eon. It must be
a fairly unique situation." "Unique.
Hrm, and convenient. So convenient, in fact, that I decided to acquire fresh
data." Purofsky
turned toward the planetarium display, and a distant expression crossed his
shadowed face. After a few duras, Sara realized he must be drifting. That kind
of absentmindedness might be a prerogative of genius back in the cloistered
halls of Biblos, but it was infuriating when he had her keyed up so! She spoke
in a sharp tone. "Master!
You were saying you needed data. Is there really something relevant you can see
with Uriel's simple telescope?" The
scholar blinked, then cocked his head and smiled. "You know, Sara ... I
find it striking that we both spent the last year chasing unconventional
notions. You, a sideline into languages and sociology-yes, I followed your work
with interest. And me, thinking I could pierce secrets of the past using coarse
implements made of reforged Buyur scrap metal and melted sand. "Did
you know, while taking pictures of Izmunuti, I also happened to snap shots of
those starships? The ones causing so much fuss, up north? Caught them entering
orbit . . . though my warning didn't reach the High Sages in time."
Purofsky shrugged. "But to your question. Yes, I managed to learn a few
things, using the apparatus here on Mount Guenn. "Think
again about Jijo's unique conditions, Sara. The collapse of the second transfer
point . . . the carbon flaring of Izmunuti . . . the inevitable attractiveness
of an isolated, shrouded world to sooner refugees. "Now
ponder this-how could beings with minds as agile as the Buyur fail to notice
advance symptoms of these changes, about to commence in nearby space?" "But
the Buyur departed half a million years ago! There PART
EIGHT ILLEGAL
RESETTLEMENT OF FALLOW WORLDS has been a predicament in the Five ; Galaxies for
as (ar back as records exist. There are many causes ror this recurring problem,
but its most enduring basis is the paradox of Reproductive Logic. \-,KC_-!AI\Iv^
beings from countless diverse worlds tend to share one common trait-sellpropagation.
In some species, this maniiests as a conscious desire to have onspring. Among
other races, individuals respond to crude instinctive drives ior either sex or
xim, and spare little active attention to the consequences. However
different the detailed mechanisms may be, the net enect remains the same. left
to their own inclinations, organic liteforms will reproduce their kind in
numbers exceeding the replacement rate. (_,ver periods of time that are quite
brici \by stellar standards, the resulting population increase can iwiitly
overburden the carrying capacity or any selt-sustaintng ecosystem. (SEE:
AJ TACHED SORTED EXAMPLES.) Species
do this because each tecund in may not have been any symptoms back then. Or
else they were subtle." "Perhaps.
And that's where my research comes in. Plus your expertise, I hope. For I
strongly suspect that spacetime anomalies would have been noticeable, even back
then." "Space-time
. . ." Sara realized his use of the archaic Earth-physics term was
intentional. Now it was her turn to spend several silent duras staring at a
blur of stars, sorting implications. "You're
. . . talking about lensing effects, aren't you?" "Sharp
lass," the sage answered approvingly. "And if I can see them-" "Then
the Buyur must have, and foreseen-" "Like
reading an open book! Nor is that all. I asked you here to help confirm
another, more ominous suspicion." Sara
felt a frisson, climbing her spine like some insect with a million ice-cold
feet. "What
do you mean?" Sage
Purofsky briefly closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his gaze seemed alight
with fascination. "Sara,
I believe they planned it this way, from the very start." dtvidual
is the direct descendant of a long chain of successful reproducers. Simply
stated; those who lack traits that enable breeding do not become ancestors.
Traits that encourage reproduction are the traits that get reproduced. To the
best of our knowledge, this evolutionary imperative extends even to the
eco-matrix of hydrogen-based liie-iorms that shares real space in parallel with
our oxygen-breathing civilisation. As for the Third Urder-autonomous
machines--only the relentless application or stringent saleguards has prevented
these nonorganic species From engaging in exponential reproduction, threatening
the basts of all life in the Five Galaxies. For the
vast majority of nonsaplent animal species in natural ecosystems, this tendency
to overbreed is kept in check by starvation, predation, or other limiting
tactors, resulting in quasi-stable states of pseudo-equilibrium, However,
presaplent llfe-forms often use their newfound cleverness to eliminate
competition and indulge in orgiastic breeding Iren^ies, followed by
overutilizatlon of resources. left for too long without proper guidance, such
species can bring about their own ruin through ecological collapse. This is
one of the Seven Reasons why naive life-forms cannot self-evolve to fully
competent sapience. The paradox of Reproductive Logic means that short-term
self-interest will always prevail over long-range planning, unless wisdom is
imposed trom the outside by an adoptive patron line. The
duty of a patron is to make certain that its client race achieves conscious
control over its sell-replicating drives, before it can be granted adult
status. And yet, despite such precautions, even lully ranked cillsen species
have been known to engage in breeding spasms, especially during intervals when
lawlul order temporarily breaks down. (SEE REF: "TIMES OF C,HANOE. } Hasty,
spasmodic episodes of colonisation,exploitation have lett entire galactic ?ones
devastated in their wake. By law,
the prescribed punishment (or races who perpetrate such eco-holocausts can be
complete extinction, down to the racial rootstock. IN
comparison, illegal resettlement of lallow worlds is a problem of
moderate-level criminality, lenalties depend on the degree of damage done, and
whether new presapient lorms salely emerge From the process. Nevertheless,
it is easy to see how the laradox of Keproductive L,ogtc applies here, as well.
L,r else why would Individuals and species sacrifice so much, and risk severe
punishment, in order to dwell in feral secrecy on worlds where they do not
belong' OVER
the course of tens of millions of years, only one solution has ever been lound
for this enduring paradox. I his solution consists of the continuing
application of pragmatic foreslght In the Interests of the common good. In
other words--civilisation. -from A
Galactographic tutorial for Ignorant Vmlning terrans, a special publication of
the library Institute of the Five Galaxies, year 42 EC, in partial satisfaction
of the debt obligation of 35 EC Kaa THEY
MADE LOVE IN A HIDDEN CAVE, NESTLED BEneath seaside cliffs, while tidal
currents pounded nearby, shooting spume fountains high enough to rival the
craggy promontories. At
last! Booming echoes seemed to shout each time a I' wave dashed against the
bluffs, as if everything leading up I to that moment had been prelude, a mere
transport of moj mentum across the vast ocean, passed from one patch of salt
water to the next. As if a wave may only become real by spending itself against
stone. Rolling
echoes reverberated in the sheltered cave. That's me, Kaa thought, listening to
the breakers cry out their brief reification. As a coast fulfills a tide, he
now felt completed by contact with another. Water
sloshed through his open mouth, still throbbing with their passion. The secret
pool had her flavor. Peepoe
rolled along Kaa's side, stroking with her pectoral fins, making his skin
tingle. He responded with a brush of his tail flukes, pleased at how she
quivered with unguarded bliss. This postcoital affection had even deeper
meaning than the brief glory dance of mating. It was like .the difference
between mere need and choice. * Can
the burning stars * Shout
their joy more happily * Than
this simple fin? * His
Trinary haiku came out as it should, almost involuntarily, not mulled or
rehearsed by the frontal lobes that human gene crafters had so thoroughly
palped and reworked during neo-dolphin uplift. The poem's clicks and squeals
diffracted through the cave's grottoes at the same moment they first resonated
in his skull. Peepoe's
reply emerged the same way, candidly languid, with a natural openness that
brooked no lies. *
Simplicity is not * Your
best-known trait, dear Kaa. * Don't
you feel Lucky? * Her
message both thrilled and validated, in a way she must have known he'd
treasure. I have my nickname back, Kaa
mused happily. All
would have been perfection then-a flawless moment-except that something else
intruded on his pleasure. A tremor, faint and glimmering, like the sound shadow
made by a moray eel, passing swiftly in the night, leaving fey shivers in its
wake. Yes,
you have won back your name, whispered a faint voice, as if from a distant
seaquake. Or an iceberg, groaning, a thousand miles away. But to
keep it, you will have to earn it. When
Kaa next checked the progress of his spy drone, it had nearly reached the top
of the Mount Guenn funicular. At the
beginning, Peepoe's decision to stay with him had been more professional than
personal, helping Kaa pilot the special probe up a hollow wooden monorail that
climbed the rutted flank of an extinct volcano. While the bamboolike track was
a marvel of aboriginal engineering, Kaa found it no simple matter guiding the
little robot past sections filled with dirt or debris. He and Peepoe wound up
having to camp in the cave, to monitor it round the clock, instead of returning
to Brookida and the others. A fully autonomous unit could have managed the
journey on its own, but Gillian Baskin had vetoed sending any machine ashore
that might be smart enough to show up on Jophur detectors. A
moment of triumph came as the camera eye finally emerged from the rail, passed
through a camouflaged station, then proceeded down halls of chiseled stone,
trailing its slender fiber comm line like a hurried spider. Kaa had it crawl
along the ceiling-the safest route, offering a good view of the native
workshops. Other
observers tuned in at this point. From the Streaker, Hannes Suessi and his
engineering chiefs remarked on the spacious chambers where urrish and qheuen
smiths tapped ominous heat from lava pools, dipping ladles into nearby pits for
melting, alloying, and casting. Most questions were answered by Ur-ronn, one of
the four young guests whose presence on the Streaker posed such quandaries.
Ur-ronn explained the forge in thickly accented Anglic, revealing tense reserve.
Her service as guide was part of a risky bargain, with the details still being
worked out. "I
do not see Uriel at the hearths." Ur-ronn's voice came tinnily from Kaa's
receiver. "Ferhafs she is ufstairs, in her hovvy roon." Uriel's
hobby room. From the journal of Alvin Hphwayuo, Kaa envisioned an ornately
useless toy gadget of sticks and spinning glass, something to hypnotize away
the ennui of existence on a savage world. He found it puzzling that a leader of
this menaced society would spare time for the arty Rube Goldberg contraption
Alvin had described. Ur-ronn
told Kaa to send the probe down a long hall, past several mazelike turns, then
through an open door into a dim chamber . . . where at last the fabled
apparatus came into view. Peepoe
let out an amazed whistle. *
Advance description *
Leaves the unwary stunned by *
Serendipity! * Yeah,
Kaa agreed, staring at a vaulted chamber that would have been impressive even
on Earth, rilled with crisscrossing timbers and sparkling lights. Alvin's
account did the place injustice, never conveying the complex unity of all the
whirling, spinning pans-for even at a glance one could tell that an underlying
rhythm controlled it all. Each ripple and turn was linked to an elegant,
ever-changing whole. The
scene was splendid, and ultimately baffling. Dim figures could be glimpsed
moving about the scaffolding, making adjustments-several small, scurrying
shapes and at least one bipedal silhouette that looked tentatively human. But
Kaa could not even judge scale properly because most of the machine lay in deep
shadows. Moreover, holovision had been designed to benefit creatures with two
forward-facing eyes. A panel equipped with sono-parallax emitters would have
better suited dolphins. Even
the normally wry Hannes Suessi was struck silent by this florid, twinkling
palace of motion. Finally,
Ur-ronn cut in. "I see Uriel! She is second fron the right, in that groiif
standing near the chinfanzee." Several
four-footed urs nervously watched the machine whirl, next to a chimp with a
sketchpad. Random light pulses dappled their flanks, resembling fauns in a
forest, but Kaa could tell that gray-snouted Uriel must be older than the rest.
As they watched, the chimp showed the smith an array of abstract curves,
commenting on the results with hand signs instead of words. "How
we gonna do this, Streaker?" Kaa asked. "Just barge in and start
t-talking?" Until
lately, it had seemed best for all concerned thai Streaker keep her troubles
separate. But now events made a meeting seem inevitable-even imperative. "Let's
listen before announcing ourselves," Gillian Baskin instructed. "I'd
rather conditions were more private." In
other words, she preferred to contact Uriel, not a whole crowd. Kaa sent the
robot creeping forward. But before any urrish words became audible, another
speaker interrupted from Streaker's end.
"Allow me this indulgence, " fluted the refined voice of the
Niss Machine. "Kaa, will you again focus the main camera on Uriel's
contraption? I wish to pursue a conjecture. " When
Gillian did not object, Kaa had the probe look at the expanse of scaffolding a
second time. "Note
the stretch of sand below, " the Niss urged. "Neat piles accumulate
wherever light falls most frequently. These piles correlate with the drawings
the chimpanzee just showed Uriel. ..." Kaa's
attention jerked away, caught by a slap of Peepoe's tail. "Someone's
c-coming. Peripheral scanner says approaching life signs are Jophur!" Despite
objections from the Niss, Kaa made the probe swivel around. There, framed in
the doorway, they saw a silhouette Streaker's crew had come to loathe--like a
tapered cone of greasy doughnuts. Gillian
Baskin broke in. "Calm down, everyone. . . . I'm sure it's just a
traeki." "Of
course it is," confirmed Ur-ronn. "That stack is Tyug." Kaa
recalled. This was the "chief alchemist" of Mount Guenn Forge.
Uriel's master of chemical synthesis. Kaa brushed reassuringly against Peepoe,
and felt her relax a bit. According to Alvin's journal, traeki were docile
beings quite unlike their starfaring cousins. So he
was caught completely off guard when Tyug turned a row of jewel-like sensor
patches upward, toward the tiny spy probe. Thoughtful curls of orange vapor
steamed from its central vent. Then the topmost ring bulged outward . . . . . .
and abruptly spewed a jet of flying objects, swarming angrily toward the camera
eye! Kaa and the others had time for a brief glimpse of insects-or some local
equivalent-creating a confusing buzz of light and sound with their compound
eyes and fast-beating wings. A horde of blurry creatures converged, surrounding
Kaa's lenses and pickups. Moments
later, all that reached his console was a smear of dizzying static. Gillian A
MAGNIFIED IMAGE FLOATED ABOVE THE Conference table-depicting a small creature,
frozen in flight, whose wings were a rainbow-streaked haze, painful to the eye.
By contrast, the Niss Machine's compact mesh of spiral lines seemed drab and
abstruse. A strain of pique filled its voice. "Might
any of you local children be able to identify this bothersome thing for
us?" The
words were polite enough, though Gillian winced al its insolent manner, j Fortunately,
Alvin Hph-wayuo showed no awareness of being patronized. The young hoon sat
near his friends, throbbing his throat sac in the subsonic range for both noor
beasts, one lounging on each broad shoulder. To the machine's sardonic
question, Alvin nodded amiably, a hu man gesture that seemed completely
unaffected. "Hrm.
That's easy enough. It is a privacy wasp." "Gene-altered
toys of the Buyur," lisped Ur-ronn. "A well-known nuisance." Buck's
four eyestalks waved, peering at the image "Now I see how they got their
name. They normally move so fast, I never got a good look before. It looks kind
of like a tiny rewq, with the membranes turned into wings." Hannes
Suessi grunted, tapping the tabletop with his prosthetic left arm. "Whatever
the origins of these critters, it seems Uriel was armed against the possibility
of being spied upon. Oui probe's been rendered useless. Will she now assume
thatil! was sent by the Jophur?" Ur-ronn
shrugged, an uncertain twist of her long neck "Who
else? How would Uriel have heard of you guys . . . I unless the Jophur
thenselves sfoke of you?" Gillian
agreed. "Then she may destroy the drone, unless we make it speak Anglic
words right away. Niss, can you | and Kaa get a message through?" "We
are working to accomplish that. Commands rise from the control console, but the
bedlam given off by these so-called wasps appears to swamp all bands, thwarting
confirmation. The probe may be effectively inoperable." "Damn.
It would take days to send another. Days we don't have." Gillian turned to
Ur-ronn. "This might make our promise hard to keep." She
hated saying it. Part of her had looked forward to meeting the legendary smith
of Mount Guenn. By all accounts, Uriel was an individual of shrewdness and
insight, whose sway on Jijoan society was notable. "There
is another off-shun," Ur-ronn suggested. "Fly there in ferson." "An
option we must set aside for now," replied Lieutenant Tsh't. "Since
any aircraft sent beyond these shielding waters
would be detected instantly, by the enemy battle ship-p." The
dolphin officer lay on the cushioned pad of a sixlegged walker. Her long, sleek
body took up the end of the conference room farthest from the sooner youths,
her left eye scanning the members of the ship's council. "Believe it or
not-t, and despite our disappointment over the loss of Kaa's probe, there are
other agenda items left to cover." Gillian
understood the lieutenant's testy mood. Her report on the apparent suicide of
the two human prisoners had left many unanswered questions. Moreover,
discipline problems were also on the rise, with a growing faction of the
dolphin crew signing what they called the "Breeding Petition." Gillian
had tried boosting morale by getting out and talking to the dolphins, listening
to their concerns, encouraging them with a patron's touch. Tom had the knack,
like Captain Creideiki. A joke here, a casual parable there. Most
fins grew more inspired and devoted the worse things got. I don't
have the same talent, I guess. Or else this poor crew is just tired after all
the running. Anyway,
the best workers were all outside the ship now, in gangs that labored round the
clock, while she spent hours closeted with the Niss Machine, eliminating one
desperate plan after another. At
last, one of her schemes seemed a bit less awful than the rest. "Tasty,
" the Niss had called it. "Though a rash gamble. Our escape from
Kithrup had more going for it than this ploy." Ship's
Physician Makanee raised the next agenda item, Unlike Tsh't, the elderly
dolphin surgeon did not like to ride around strapped to a machine. Naked,
except for a small tool harness, she took part in the meeting from a clear tube
that ran along one wall of the conference room. Makanee's body glistened with
tiny bubbles from the oxygen-packed fluid that filled Streaker's waterways. "There
is the matter of the Kiqui," she said. "It must be settled,
especially if we are planning to move the ship-p." Gillian
nodded. "I'd hoped to consult about this matter with-" She glanced at
the staticky display from Kaa's lost spy probe, and sighed. "A final
decision must wait, Doctor. Continue preparations and I'll let you know." Hannes
Suessi next reported on the state of Streaker's hull. "Weighed
down like this, she'll be as slow as when we carried around that hollowed-out
Thennanin cruiser, wearing it like a suit of armor. Slower, with all the
probability arrays gummed up by carbon gunk." "So
we must consider transferring to one of the wrecks I. outside?" ; That
would be hard. None had the modifications that made Streaker usable by an
aquatic race. The
mirrored dome containing Suessi's brain and skull nodded. "I
have crews preparing the best of the drossed starships." A chuckle' then
escaped the helmet speaker vent. "Cheer up, everybody! With Ifni's luck,
some of us may yet make it out of here." Perhaps,
Gillian thought. But if we get away from theJijo system, where will we go?
Where else can we run? The
meeting broke up. Everyone, including the sooner kids, had jobs to do. And
Dwer Koolhan will be waiting in my quarters, asking again for passage ashore.
Or to swim, if necessary. To go
back to a savage place where he's needed. Ambivalence
filled her. Dwer was hardly more than a boy. Still, in all the years since
Streaker'was forced to abandon Tom on Kithrup, this was the first time she felt
anything like physical attraction to another. Naturally.
I've always been a sucker for hero types. It
brought to mind the last time she had felt Tom's touch-one final night together
on a metal island, set amid a poison sea. The night before he flew away on a
solarpowered glider, determined to mislead great battle fleets, thwart mighty
foes, and make an opening for Streaker to get away. Gillian's left thigh still
tingled, from time to time . . . the site of his last loving squeeze as he lay
prone on the flimsy little aircraft, grinning before taking off. "I'll
be back before you know it," Tom said-a metaphysically strange expression,
when you thought about it. And she often had. Then he
was gone, winging north, barely skimming the waves, just above the contrary
tides of Kithrup. I
should never have let him go. Sometimes you have to tell a hero that enough is
enough. Let
someone else save the world. As
Gillian made ready to leave the conference room, she saw Alvin, the young hoon,
trying to collect both noors. The female was his longtime pet, to all
appearances a bright nonsapient being, probably derived from natural tytlal
rootstock, dating from before their species' uplift. The Tymbrimi must have
stockpiled a gene pool of their beloved clients here on Jijo, as insurance in
case the worst happened to their clan. A wise precaution, given the number of
enemies they've made. As for
the other one, Mudfoot, Dwer's bane and traveling companion across half a
continent, scans of his brain showed uplift traces throughout. A race
hidden within a race, retaining all the traits the Tymbrimi worked hard to
foster in their clients. In other
words, the tytlal were true sooners, another wave of illegal settlers, but
guarded by added layers of camouflage. So disguised, they might even escape
whatever ruin lay in store for the relatives of Alvin, Huck, Ur-ronn, and
Pincer. But
that can't be the whole story. Caution isn 't a paramount trait in Tymbrimi, or
their clients. They wouldn't go to so much trouble just to hide. Not unless it
was part of something bigger. Alvin
had trouble gathering Mudfoot, who ignored the boy's umble calls while
wandering across the conference table, poking a whiskered nose into debris from
the meeting. Finally, the tytlal stood up on his hind legs to peer at the
frozen projection last sent by Kaa's probe, the image of a privacy wasp.
Mudfoot purred with curiosity. "Niss,"
Gillian said in a low voice. With an
audible pop, the pattern of whirling, shifting lines came into being nearby. "Yes,
Dr. Baskin? Have you changed your mind about hearing my tentative conjectures
about Uriel's intricate device of spinning disks?" "Later,"
she said, and gestured at Mudfoot. Gillian now realized the tytlal was peering
past the blurry display of the privacy wasp, at something in the scene beyond. "I'd
like you to do some enhancements. Find out what that little devil is looking
at." She did
not add that she had detected something on her own. Something only a
psi-sensitive would notice. For the second time, a faint presence could be
felt-vague and ephemeral-floating ever so briefly above Mudfoot's agitated
cranial spines. She could not be sure, but whatever it was had a distinctly
familiar flavor. Call it
Essence of Tymbrimi. Kaa THERE
WAS NO MORE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE CAVE. The probe appeared to be dead. Even if
it came back to life, any conversation with the natives would be handled from
Streaker's end. Meanwhile, it was past time to return to the habitat. Kaa had a
team he had not seen in days. A human
couple might have paused before exiting the little grotto, looking around to
imprint the site of their first lovemaking. But not dolphins. Neo-fins
experienced nostalgia, just like their human patrons, but they could store
sonar place images in ways humans had to mimic with recording devices.
Streaking outside, joining Peepoe under bright sunshine, Kaa knew the two of
them could revisit the cave anytime they chose, simply by bringing their arched
foreheads together-re-creating its unique echoes in that ancient gulf of memory
some called the Whale Dream. It felt
good to dash across the wide sea again, with Peepoe's lithe body sharing every
kick and leap in perfect unison. Motion equaled joy after any long confinement
to machinery and closed spaces. On the
outward trip, their swim had been exquisite, but tempered by a taut, sexual
tension. Now there were no secrets, no conflicting desires. Most of the return
journey was spent in silent bliss-like a simple mated pair from presapient
days, free of the gifts and burdens of uplift. Finally,
with the habitat drawing near, Kaa felt his mind slip reluctantly back into
Anglic-using rhythms. Compelled to speak, he used the informal click-squeal
dialect fins preferred while swimming. "Well,
here it comes," he sonar-cast during the underwater phase of their next
splash-and-surge cycle. "Back to home and family . . . such as they
are." "Family?"
she replied skeptically. "Brookida, perhaps. As for Mopol and Zhaki,
wouldn't you rather be related to a penguin?" Is my
opinion of them so obvious? After breaching for air, Kaa tried making light of
things with a joke. "Oh,
I give those two some credit. With luck, they won't have set the ocean on fire
while we're gone." Peepoe
laughed, then added, "Do you think they'll be jealous?" Good
question. Dolphins could not conceal interpersonal matters like humans, with
their complex games of emotional deceit. By sonar-scanning each other's
viscera, one seldom had to guess who slept with whom. Envy
wouldn't be a problem if I established clear authority from the start, both as
an officer and as senior-ranking male. Unfortunately,
chain of command was a recent, humanimposed concept. Underneath, bull dolphins
still felt ancient drives to jostle over status and breeding rights. In
fact, Peepoe's choice might reinforce Kaa's position atop the little local hierarchy.
Though I shouldn't need help. Not if I were a real leader. "Jealous."
He pondered, thrusting harder with his flukes, till his beak pushed their
shared shock wave, drawing her along in his wake. "Those two are highly
sexed, so maybe they will be. But at least this way Zhaki and Mopol should stop
bothering you with hopeless propositions." The
young males had made relentless crude suggestions toward Peepoe from the first
day she arrived, even brushing lewdly against her until Kaa had to rebuke them.
While it was true that dolphins had a far different scale of tolerance for such
behavior than humans-and Peepoe was capable of taking care of herself-in this
case the pair were so persistent that Kaa had to dish out tail whacks to make
them back off. "Hopeless?"
Peepoe asked in a teasing tone. "Now you're making assumptions. How do you
know I'm monogamous? Maybe a little harem would suit me fine." Kaa
spread his jaws and aimed a nip at her nearest pectoral fin ... slow enough for
her to slip aside, laughing, before his teeth snapped. "Good,"
she commented. "Pacific Tursiops go in for that kinky stuff. But I prefer
a nice and conservative Atlantean. You're
from Miami-Under, no? Born into an old-fashioned line marriage, I bet." Kaa
grunted. Even the sonar-based dialect of Anglic wasn't easy while speeding at
full throttle. "One
of the Heinlein family variants," he conceded. "The style works
better for dolphins than humans. Why? You looking for a line to marry
into?" "Mnn.
I'd rather start a new one. Always hankered to be the founding matriarch of a
nice little lineage-if the masters of uplift allow it." That
was the eternal Big If. No neo-dolphin could legally breed without permission
from the Terragens Uplift Board. Despite the unusual freedoms humans had given
their clients-voting rights and the trappings of citizenship-Earthclan was
still bound by ancient Galactic law. Improve
your clients, went the basic code of uplift. . . . Or lose them. "You
gotta be kidding," he answered. "If any of us Streaker fins ever do
make it home somehow from this crazed voyage, we'll never face another sapiency
exam from the masters. We may be sterilized on the spot, for all the trouble we
caused. Or else we're heroes, and it'll be sperm-and-seed donations for the
rest of our lives, fostering almost the whole next neo-fin generation. "Either
way, it won't be cozy family life for any of us. Not ever." He
hadn't expected it to come out that way, with an edge of ironic bitterness. But
Peepoe must have seen he was telling the truth. She continued keeping pace
alongside, but her silence told Kaa how much it stung. Great.
Everything felt so fine . . . this wonderful water, the fish we snatched for
breakfast, our lovemaking. Would it have hurt to let her stay in denial for a
while, dreaming of happy endings? Holding on to the fantasy that we might yet
go home, and lead normal lives? "Kaa!"
Brookida's cry made the tiny habitat reverberate. "I'm glad you're back.
Did your mission go well? Wait till you hear what I discovered by correlating
passive seismic echo scans from here to Streaker's sssite. I fed the raw data
into one of Charles Dart's old programs to get tomography images of the
subcrustal zone!" All that, on a single breath. It was what humans would
call a "mouthful." "That's
great, Brookida. But to answer your question, our mission didn't go as well as
we hoped. In fact, we have orders to pack everything up and break camp. Gillian
and Tsh't plan to move the ship." Brookida
shook his mottled gray head. "Won't that risk giving away Streaker's
position?" "The
site's already compromised. Dr. Baskin suspects the Jophur may be
p-preoccupied, but that can't last." It had
been Kaa's mission to find out what the sooners knew about such things. Perhaps
Uriel the Smith had some idea what the Jophur were up to. No one had blamed Kaa
for the failure-not out loud. But he knew the ship's council -was disappointed. I
warned them to send someone better trained at spying. He
looked around. "Where are the others?" Brookida
let out a warbled sigh. "Off
joyriding on Peepoe's sled. Or else vandalizing the fishing nets of local hoons
and qheuens." Damn!
Kaa cursed. He had ordered Zhaki and Mopol to stay within a kilometer of the
dome, and restrict themselves to monitoring spy eyes already in place at Wuphon
Port. Above all, they were supposed to avoid direct contact with the sooners. "They
got bored," Brookida explained. "Now that Streakerhas Alvin and other
local experts aboard, our team is a bit redundant. It's why I've been tracing
the subduction-zone magma flows. My first chance since Kithrup to test out an
idea I had, based on Charles Dart's old research. You recall those strange
beings who lived deep under Kithrup's crust? The ones with the weird,
unpronounceable species name?" Peepoe
spoke up. "You mean the Karrank-k%?" She did a creditable job of
expressing the doubleaspirated slide tone at the end, sounding like a steam
kettle about to explode. "Yes,
quite. Well, I'd been wondering what kind of ecosystem could support them down
there. And it got me thinking . . ." Brookida
halted. Then all three dolphins whirled around as the wall segment behind them
began emitting a low, scraping hum. The grating vibration hurt Kaa's jaw. Soon,
the entire habitat groaned to a rasping sonic frequency Kaa recognized. It's a
saser! Someone's attacking the dome! "Harnesses!" At his
shouted command, they all dived toward the rack where heavy-duty tool kits were
hung, ready for use. Kaa streaked through the open end of his well-worn
apparatus, and felt its many control surfaces slide smoothly into place. A
control cable snaked toward the neural tap behind his left eye. Robotic arms
whirred as he jerked the harness free of its rack. Peepoe's unit popped loose
just half an instant later. A rough
rectangle crept across the opposite wall, above and below the waterline,
glowing hot. "They're
cutting through!" Peepoe cried. "Breathers!"
Kaa shouted. From the back of his harness, a hose swarmed over his blowhole,
covering it with a moist kiss and tight seal. A blast of canned air tasted even
more tinny than the recycled stuff within the dome. Kaa sent a neural command
activating his torch cutter and saser, tools that could second as weapons in
close combat. . . . But
they didn't respond! "Peepoe!"
He shouted. "Check your-" "I'm
helping Brookida!" she cut in. "His harness is stuck!" Kaa
slashed the water with his flukes, squealing a cry of frustration. With no
better options, he interposed his body between theirs and the far wall . . . .
. . which abruptly collapsed in a wave of pummeling froth. Gillian I HAVE
DISCOVERED SEVERAL THINGS OF INTEREST," the Niss Machine told Gillian,
after she wakened from a brief induced sleep. "The first has to do with
that wonderfully ostentatious native machine, built and operated by the urrish
tinkerer, Uriel." Sitting
in her darkened office, she watched a recorded holo image of wheels, pulleys,
and disks, whirling in a flamboyant show of light and action. Not far from
Gillian, the ancient cadaver, Herbie, seemed to regard the same scene. A trick
of shadows made the enigmatic, mummified face seem amused. "Let
me guess. Uriel created a computer." The
Niss reacted with surprise. Its spiral of meshed lines tightened to a knot. "You
knew?" "I
suspected. From the kids' reports, Uriel wouldn't waste time on anything
useless or abstract. She'd want to give her folk something special. The one
thing her founding ancestors absolutely had to throw away." "Possession
of computers. Good point. Dr. Baskin. Uriel could aim no higher than to be like
Prometheus. Bringing her people the fire of calculation." "But
without digital cognizance," she pointed out. "An undetectable
computer." "Indeed.
I found no reference to such a thing in our captured Galactic Library unit. So
I turned to the precontact 2198 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There I
learned about analog computation with mechanical components, which actually had
a brief ascendancy on Earth, using many of the same techniques we see in
Uriel's hall of spinning glass!" "I
remember hearing about this. Maybe Tom mentioned it." "Did
he also mention that the same thing can be achieved using simple electronic
circuits? Networks of resistors, capacitors, and diodes can simulate a variety
of equations. By interconnecting such units, solutions can be worked out for
limited problems. "It
provokes one to consider the military potential of such a system. For instance,
operating sneak-attack weapons without digital controls, using undetectable
guidance systems." The
Niss holo performed a twist that Gillian interpreted as a shrug. "But
then, if the notion were feasible, it would have found its way into the Library
by now." There
it was again. Even Tymbrimi suffered from the same all-pervading
supposition-that anything worth doing must have been done already, over the
course of two billion years. The assumption nearly always proved true. Still,
wolfling humans resented it. "So,"
Gillian prompted. "Have you figured out what Uriel is trying to
compute?" "Ah,
yes." The line motif spun contemplatively. "That is, perhaps. "Or
rather . . . no, I have not." "What's the problem?" The Niss
showed spiky irritation. "My
difficulty is that all the algorithms used by Uriel are of Terran origin." Gillian
nodded. "Naturally.
Her math books came from the so-called Great Printing, when human learning
flooded this world, most of it in the form of pre-contact texts. A mirror image
of what Galactic society did to Earth. On Jijo, we were the ones to unleash an
overpowering wealth of knowledge, engulfing prior beliefs." Hence
also Gillian's recent, weird experience-debating the literary merits of Jules
Verne with a pair of distinctly unhuman youngsters named "Alvin" and
"Huck," whose personalities had little in common with the stodgy
Galactic norm. The
Niss agreed, bowing its tornado of laced lines. "You grasp my difficulty,
Doctor. Despite Tymbrimi sympathy toward Earthlings, my makers were uplifted as
Galactic citizens, with a shared tradition. While details of my programming are
exceptional, I was designed according to proven principles, after eons of
Galactic experience refining digital computers. These precepts clash with
Terran superstitions- " Gillian
coughed behind her hand. The Niss bowed. "Forgive.
I meant to say, Terran lore." "Can
you give an example?" "I
can. Consider the contrast between the word,concepts discrete and continuous. "According
to Galactic science, anything and everything can be accomplished by using
arithmetic. By counting and dividing, using integers and rational fractions.
Sophisticated arithmetic algorithms enable us to understand the behavior of a
star, for instance, by partitioning it into ever-smaller pieces, modeling those
pieces in a simple fashion, then recombining the parts. That is the digital
way." "It
must call for vast amounts of memory and raw computing power." "True,
but these are cheaply provided, enough for any task you might require. "Now
look back at pre-contact human wolflings. Your race spent many centuries as
semicivilized beings, mentally ready to ask sophisticated questions, but
completely • lacking access to transistors, quantum switches, or binary '
processing. Until your great savants, Turing and Von Neumann, finally expressed
the power of digital computers, \ generations of mathematicians had to cope by
using pencil and paper. "The
result? A mix of the brilliant and the inane. Abstract differential analysis
and cabalistic numerology. Algebra, astrology, and geometrical topology. Much
of this amalgam was based on patently absurd concepts, such as j continuity, or
aptly named irrational numbering, or the astonishing notion that there are
layered infinities of the divisibly small." Gillian
sighed an old frustration. "Earth's
best minds tried to explain our math, soon after contact. Again and again we
showed it was self-consistent. That it worked." "Yet
it accomplished nothing that could not be outmatched in moments by calculating
engines like myself. Galactic seers dismissed all the clever equations as
trickery and shortcuts, or else the abstract ravings of savages." She
acceded with a nod. "This
happened once before, you know. In Earth's twentieth century, after the Second
World War, the victors quickly split into opposing camps. Those experts you
mentioned-Turing and von Whoever-they worked in the west, helping set off our
own digital revolution. "Meanwhile,
the east was ruled by a single dictator, I think his name was Steel." "Accessing
the Britannica . . . You mean 'Stalin? Yes, I see the connection. Until his
death, Stalin obstructed Russo-Soviet science for ideological reasons. He
banished work on genetics because it contradicted notions of communist
perfectibility. Moreover, he quashed work on computers, calling them
'decadent.' Even after his passing, many in the east held that calculation was
crude, inele- gant . . . only good for quick approximations. For truth, one
needed pure mathematics." "So
that's why many practitioners in the Old Math still come from Russia."
Gillian chuckled. "It sounds like yet another
inverted image of what happened to Earth, after contact." The
Niss pondered this for a moment. "What
are you implying, Doctor? That Stalin was partly right? That you -Terra ns were
right? That you were onto something the rest of the universe bos missed?" "It
seems unlikely, eh? And yet, isn't that slim possibility the very reason why
your makers assigned you to this ship?" Again,
the meshed lines whirled. "Point
well taken, Dr. Baskin." Gillian
stood up to start moving her body through a series of stretching exercises. The
brief sleep period had helped. Still, there were a hundred problems to address. "Look,"
she asked the Niss Machine. "Is there some point where all this is
heading? Haven't you a clue what problem Uriel is trying to solve?" She
gestured toward the recorded image of pulleys, leather straps, and spinning
disks. "In
a word. Doctor? No. "Oh,
I can tell that Uriel is modeling a set a,simultaneous differential
equations-to use old wolfling terminal- '• ogy. The range of numerical values
being considered I appears to be simple, even trivial. I could outcalculate her
so-called computer with a mere one quadrilliontb of my processing power." "Then
why don't you?" "Because
to me the problem first calls for unlocking the code of a lost language. I need
an opening, a Rosetta stone, after which all should be instantly clear. "In
short, I need help from an Earthling, to suggest what the expressions might be
for." Gillian
shrugged. "Another
tough break, then. We've plumb run out of mathematicians aboard this crate.
Creideiki and Tom both used to play with the Old Math. I know Charles Dart
dabbled, and Takkata-Jim. . . ." She
sighed. "And Emerson D'Anite. He was the last one who could have helped
you." Gillian
moved toward her reference console. "I suppose we can scan the personnel
files to see if there's anyone else-" "That
may not be necessary," the Niss cut in. "It might be
possible to access one of the experts you already mentioned. " Gillian
blinked, unable to believe she heard right. "What
are you talking about?" "You
assigned me another problem-to find out what the feral-sapient tytlal named
'Mudfoot' was staring at, after the council meeting. To achieve that, I
enhanced the spy camera's last scene, before the privacy wasps closed in. "Please
watch carefully, Doctor." The big
display now showed the final clear picture sent by the lost probe. Gillian
found it physically painful to watch the insect's beating wings, and felt
relief when the Niss zoomed toward a corner of the field, pushing the privacy
wasp off-screen. What ballooned outward was a section of the ornate contraption
of Uriel the Smith-a marvel of pure ingenuity and resourcefulness. I did
take one course in the Old Math, before heading to medical school. I could try
to help. The Niss can supply precontact texts. All it wants is insight. Some
wolfling intu- ition . . . Her
thoughts veered, distracted by the vivid enhancement. Looming around her now
was a maze of improvised scaffolding, filled with shadows that were split, here
and there, by glaring points of light. All
this incredible activity must add up to something important. Gillian
saw the apparent goal sought by the Niss-a set of shadows that had the soft
curves of life-forms, precariously balanced in the crisscrossing trusswork.
Some figures were small, with snakelike torsos and tiny legs, brandishing tools
with slim, many-jointed hands. Miniature
urs, she realized. The maintenance crew? A
larger silhouette loomed over these. Gillian gasped when she saw it must be
human! Then she recalled. Of
course. Humans are among Uriel's allies, and skilled technicians. They're also
good climbers, perfect to help keep things running. The
Niss must now be straining its ability to enhance the grainy image. The rate of
magnification slowed, and remaining shadows peeled grudgingly before the
onslaught of computing power. But soon she knew the human was male, from the
shape of neck and shoulders. He was pointing, perhaps indicating a task for the
little urs to perform. Gillian
saw that he had long hair, brushed left over a cruel scar. For an instant she
stared at the puckered wound in his temple. A
moment later, the image clarified to show a smile. Recognition
hit like a blast of chill water. "My
God ... It can't be!" The
Niss crooned, expressing both satisfaction and intrigue. "You
confirm the resemblance? "It
does appear to be engineer Emerson D'Anite. "Our
crew mate whom we thought killed by the Old Ones, back at the Fractal System. "He
whose scout vessel was enveloped by a globe of devouring light, as the Streaker
made its getaway, fleeing by a circuitous route toward Jijo." The
Tymbrimi machine shared one trait with its makers, a deep love of surprise.
That pleasure it now expressed in a hum of satisfaction. "You
ask frequently how anyone could have,allowed us to this forlorn corner of the
universe. Dr. Baskin. "I
believe the question just acquired new levels of cogency. " Kaa HE
NEVER GOT TO PUT UP MUCH OF A FIGHT. How could he, with all his weapons
sabotaged from , the start? Besides, Kaa wasn't sure he could bring him- '<
self to harm one of his own kind. Clearly,
the assailants who attacked the dome had fewer scruples. The
ruined habitat lay far below, its pieces strewn across ' the continental shelf.
Along with Peepoe and Brookida, Kaa barely dodged being pinned by the
collapsing walls, j escaping the maelstrom of metal and froth only to face the
gun barrels of well-armed captors. Herded to the surface, he and the others
panted in nervous exhaustion under the ) waning afternoon sun. ! In
contrast, Mopol's sleek form rested almost languidly atop the speed sled that
Peepoe had brought from Streaker's hiding place, governing the engines and
armaments with impulses sent down his neural tap. Swimming nearby-wearing a
fully charged tool harness-Zhaki explained the situation. "It's
like this, p-pilot-t. . . ." He slurred the words in his eagerness.
"The three of you are gonna do what we sssay, or else." Kaa
tossed his head, using his lower jaw to splash water at Zhaki's eye. * Silly
threats from one * Who's
watched too many movies! * Just
say it, fool. Now! * Mopol
hissed angrily, but Peepoe laughed at Zhaki's predicament. To continue his
menacing speech now would be an act of obedience to Kaa's command. It was a
minor matter-not exactly a logical checkmate. But Kaa felt it valuable to
recover even a little initiative. "We
..." Zhaki blew air and tried again. "Mopol and I are resigning from
the Streaker crew. We're not going back-k, and you can't make us." So
that's what it's about, Kaa thought. "Desertion!"
Brookida sputtered indignantly. "Letting your crew mates down when they
need you mossst!" Mopol
let out a skirl of rejection. "Our
legal term of ssservice ended almossst two years ago." "Right-t,"
Zhaki agreed. "Anyway, we never signed on for this insanity . . . fleeing
like wounded mullet across the galaxies." "You
plan to go sooner," Peepoe fluted, her voice bemused. "Living wild,
in this sea." Mopol
nodded. "Some were already talkin' about it, before we left-t the ship.
This world's a paradise for our kind. The whole crew oughta do it!" "But
even if they don't-t," Zhaki added, "we're gonna." Then he
added a haiku for emphasis. * Six
or seven clans * Did
this already, on shore. * We
have precedent! * Kaa
realized there was nothing he could do to change their minds. The sea would
answer his best arguments with its fine mineral smoothness and the enticing
echoes of tasty fish. in time, the deserters would come to miss the comforts of
civilized life, or grow bored, or realize there are dangers even on a world
without big predators. The water had a faint, prescient choppiness, and Kaa
wondered if either of the rebel fins had ever been outside during a truly
vicious storm. But
then, hadn 't other waves of settlers faced the same choice? The g'Keks,
qbeuens, and even human beings? "The
Jophur may make it hard on you," he told them. "We'll
take our chancess." "And
if you're caught by the Institutes?" Brookida asked. "Your presence
here would be a crime, reflecting badly on-" Mopol
and Zhaki laughed. Even Kaa found that argument easy to dismiss. Humans and
chimps were already on Jijo. If Earthclan suffered collective punishment for
that crime, a few dolphins living offshore could hardly make things worse. "So,
what do you plan to do with us?" Kaa asked. "Why,
nothing much-ch. You and Brookida are free to swim back to your precious
Gillian Basssskin, if you like." "That
could take a week!" Brookida complained. But Kaa struggled against
involuntary spasms in his harness arms, set off by Zhaki's implication. Before
he could unstrangle his speech centers, Peepoe expressed his dread. "Jussst
Kaa and Brookida? You're insisting that I stay?" Mopol
chittered assent with such glee that it came out sounding more like gutter
Primal Delphin than Trinary. "That's
the p-plan," Zhaki confirmed. "We'd make a poor excuse for a c-colony
without at least one female." Kaa
abruptly saw their long-term scheme. Mopol's spell of malingering sickness had
been meant to draw one of Makanee's nurses out here from the ship. Most were
young females, with Peepoe the best catch of all. "Will
you add kidnap-ping to the crime of desertion?" she asked, sounding as
fascinated as fearful. Kaa's
blood surged hot as Zhaki flipped around to streak past Peepoe, gliding along
her belly, upside down. "You
won't call it that-t after a while," Zhaki promised, leaving a trail of
bubbles as he rolled suggestively. "In time, you'll c-call this your
luckiessst day." At that
point, Kaa reached the limit of his endurance. With a lashing of flukes, he
charged- • •
• There
was a blank time after that . . . and some more that went by all in a
haze-half-numb and half-pained. Drifting,
Kaa was sustained by instinct as his body performed the needed motions. Staying
upright. Kicking to bring his blowhole above the watery surface. Breathing.
Submerging once again. Allowing his unraveled self to knit slowly back
together. "C-come
on now, my boy," the helper told him. "It'sss only a bit
farther." Dutifully,
Kaa swam alongside, doing as he .was told. You learned this at an early age . .
. when injured, always obey the helper. It might be your mother, or an auntie,
or even some older male in the pod. Someone always was the helper ... or else
the sea would claim you. In
time, he recalled this helper's name-Brookida. He also began recognizing the
peculiar lap and texture of littoral water, not far from shore. Kaa even
recalled part of what put him in this condition ... a state so dazed that all
speech thoughts were driven from his mind. There
had been a fight. He had charged against harsh odds, hoping to take his enemies
by surprise ... by the sheer audacity of the attack. It took
just one blast of concentrated sound to knock him in a double flip, with
tremors shaking every muscle. Paralyzed, he distantly sensed the two male foes
move off . . . taking his love with them. "You
feeling better now?" Brookida asked. The older dolphin cast a sonar sweep
through Kaa's innards, checking on his progress. Some mental clouds were
parting. Enough to recall a few more facts. The shattered habitat- not worth
revisiting. The hopelessness of pursuing a speed sled, even one burdened with
three passengers, since night was soon approaching. Both
arms of his harness twitched as his rattled brain sent spasmodic commands down
the neural link. Kaa managed to lift his head a bit, the next time he breathed,
and recognized the shape of nearby coastal hills. Brookida was herding him
closer to the native fishing town. "Mopol
and Zhaki wrecked the cables and transmittersss, back at the dome. But-t I
figure we can find the lines leading to the spy drones in Wuphon Port, tap into
those, and contact the ship-p." Some
order was slipping into Kaa's chaotic thoughts. Enough to comprehend a bit of
what the old fin said. This return of sapiency left him with mixed
feelings-relieved that the loss was not permanent, plus regretful longing for
the simplicity that must now go away, replaced by urgent, hopeless needs. Trinary
came back more easily than Anglic. * We
must pursue the- * Spawn
of syphilitic worms, * While
their sound spoor's fresh! * "Yes,
of course. I agree. How awful for Peepoe, poor lass. But first let's contact
Streaker. Maybe our crew mates can help." Kaa
hearkened to the sense in that. One of the first principles of human legality
that dolphins clearly understood was that of a posse, which had analogies in
natural cetacean society. When an offense is committed against the pod, you can
call for help. You should not face trouble alone. He let
Brookida lead him to the site where fiber cables from the onshore spy eyes all
converged below. Booming surf reminded Kaa unhappily of this morning's
lovemaking. The sound made him squeal a Primal protest, railing against the
unfairness of it all. To find a mate and lose her on the same day. The
water tasted of qheuens and hoons . . . plus wooden planks and tar. Kaa rested
at the surface, sifting his mind back together while Brookida dived down to
establish the link. A saser
. . . Zhaki -shot me with a saser beam. Dimly
he realized that Zhaki might have saved his life. If that bolt hadn't stopped
him, Mopol would surely have fired next, using the more powerful unit on the
sled. But
saved me. . . . for what? Ifni
tell me . . . what's the point? Kaa
didn't figure he still had his nickname anymore. A few
hours . . . now it's gone again. She took it with her. Brookida
surfaced next to him, sputtering elation, having achieved quick success. "Got
it-t! Come on, Kaa. I've got Gillian on the line. She wants to talk to
you." Sometimes
life is filled with choices. You get to select which current to ride, which
tide to pull your destiny. Other
times leave you torn . . . wrenched apart . . . as if two orcas had a grip on
you, one biting hard on your flukes while the other plays tug-of-war with your
snout. Kaa
heard the order. He understood it. He
wasn't at all sure he could obey. "I'm
sorry about Peepoe, " Gillian Baskin said, her voice crackling over the
makeshift comm line, conveyed directly to Kaa's auditory nerves. "We'll
rescue her, and deal with •the deserters, when opportunity permits. Believe me,
it's a high priority. "But
this other task is crucial. Our lives may depend on it, Kaa." The human
paused. "I
want you to bead straight into Wuphon Harbor. "It's
time one of us went to town." DO NOT
SQUIRM SO! Instead you should exult in this recovery of something so important.
The Egg. Sooners
wasx MY
RINGS, IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED. Rejoice! Your master torus has ultimately
managed to recover some of the fatty memories you,we/i had thought forever
lost! Those valuable recall tracks that were erased when brave-foolish Asx
melted the wax! That
act of wrong loyalty stymied the usefulness of this hybrid ring stack for much
too long. Some of the Polkjhy crew called us/me a failed experiment. Even the
CaptainLeader questioned this effort . . . this attempt to convert a wild
traeki into our loyal authority on Jijoan affairs. Admittedly,
our/my expertise about the Six Races has been uneven and fitful. Mistakes were
made despite, because of our advice. BUT NOW
I/WE HAVE REACQUIRED THIS SECRET! This conviction that once filled the mulch
center of the diffuse being called Asx. Deep
beneath the melted layers, a few memory tracks remained. So far,
we have seen only insolence from the sooner races-delays and grudging cooperation
with the survey teams we send forth. No
voluntary gathering of g'Kek vermin at designated collection points. No
migration of traeki stacks for appraisal-and-conversion. Swarms
of supervised robots have begun sifting the countryside for groups of g'Kek and
traeki, herding them toward enclosures where their numbers can be concentrated
at higher density. But this task proves laborious and inefficient. It would be
far more convenient if the locals were persuaded to perform the task on their own. 'Worse,
these fallen beings still refuse to admit any knowledge of the Earthling prey
ship. IT
PROVES DIFFICULT TO COERCE GREATER COOPERATION. Attacks
on population centers are met with resignation and dispersal. Their
dour religion confounds us with stoic passivity. It is hard to deprive hope
from a folk that never had much. BUT NOW
WE HAVE A NEW TARGET! One
more meaningful to the Six Races than any of their campsite villages. A target
to convince them of our ruthless resolve. We already
knew something of this Great Egg. Its throbbing radiations were an irritant,
disrupting our instruments, but we dismissed it as a geophysical anomaly.
Psi-resonant formations exist on some worlds. Despite local mythology, our
onboard Library cube can cite other cases. A rare phenomenon, but understood. Only
now we realize how deeply this stone is rooted in the savages' religion. It is
their central object of reverence. Their "soul." How
amusing. How pathetic. And how very convenient. Vubben THE
LAST TIME HIS AGED WHEELS HAD ROLLED | along this dusty trail, it was in the
company of twelve I twelves of white-robed pilgrims-the finest eyes, minds, and
rings of all six races-winding their way past sheer cliffs and steam vents in a
sacred quest to seek guidance from the Holy Egg. For a time, that hopeful
procession had made the canyon walls reverberate with fellowship vibrations-the
Commons united and at peace. Alas,
before reaching its goal, the company fell into a maelstrom of fire, bloodshed,
and despair. Soon the sages and their followers were too busy with survival to
spend time meditating on the ineffable. But during the weeks since, Vubben
could never shake a sense of unfinished business. Of something vital, left
undone. Hence
this solitary return journey, even though it brought his frail wheels all too
near the Jophur foe ship. Vubben's axles and motive spindles throbbed from the
cruel climb, and he longingly recalled that a brave qheuen had volunteered to
carry him all the way here, riding in comfort on a broad gray back. But he
could not accept. Despite creakiness and age, Vubben had to come alone. At last
he reached the final turn before entering the Nest. Vubben paused to catch his
breath and smooth his ruffled thoughts in preparation for the trial ahead. He
used a soft rag to wipe green sweat off all four eye hoods and stalks. It is
said thatg'Kek bodies could never have evolved on a planet. Our wheels and
wbiplike limbs better suit the artificial worlds where our star-god ancestors
dwelled, before they gambled a great wager, won their bet, and lost everything. He
often wondered what it must have been like to abide in some vast spinning city
whose inner space was spanned by countless slender roadways that arched like ribbons
of spun sugar. Intelligent paths that would twist, gyre, and reconnect at your
command, so the way between any two points could be just as straight or
deliciously curved as you liked. To live where a planet's grip did not press
you relentlessly, every dura from birth till death, squashing your rims and
wearing away your bearings with harsh grit. More
than any other sooner race, the g'Kek had to work hard in order to love Jijo.
Our refuge. Our purgatory. Vubben's
eyestalks contracted involuntarily as the Egg once again made its presence
known. A surge of tywush vibrations seemed to rise from the ground. The
sporadic patterning tremors had grown more intense, the nearer he came to the
source. Now Vubben shivered as another wave front stroked his tense spokes,
making his brain resound in its hard case. Words could not express the
sensation, even in Galactic Two or Three. The psi-effect provoked no images or
dramatic emotions. Rather, a feeling of expectation seemed to build, slowly but
steadily, as if some longawaited plan were coming to fruition at long last. The
episode peaked . . . then passed quickly away, still lacking the coherence he
hoped for. Then
let us begin in earnest, Vubben thought. His motor spindles throbbed, helped
along by slender pusher legs, as both wheels turned away from the sunset's
dimming glow, toward mystery. The Egg
loomed above, a rounded shelf of stone that stretched ahead for half an
arrowflight before curving out of sight. Although a century of pilgrimages had worn
a trail of packed pumice, it still took almost a midura for Vubben to roll his
first circuit around the base of the ovoid, whose mass pressed a deep basin in
the flank of a dormant volcano. Along the way, he raised slender arms and
eyestalks, lofting them in gentle benediction, supplementing his mental
entreaty with the language of motion. Help
your people. . . . Vubben urged, seeking to atune his thoughts, harmonizing
them with the cyclical vibrations. Rise
up. Waken. Intervene to save us. . . . Normally,
an effort at communion involved more than one suppliant. Vubben would have
merged his contribution with a hoon's patience, the tenacity of a qheuen, a
traeki's selfless affinity, plus that voracious will to know that made the best
urs and humans seem so much alike, But such a large group might be detected
moving about close to the Jophur. Anyway, he could not ask others to risk being
caught in the company of a g'Kek. With
each pass around the Egg, he sent one eye wafting up to peer at Mount Ingul,
whose spire was visible beyond the crater's rim. There, Phwhoon-dau had
promised to station a semaphore crew to alert Vubben in case of any approaching
threat-or if there were changes in the tense standoff with the aliens. So far,
no warnings were seen flashing from that western peak. But he
faced other distractions, just as disturbing to his train of thought. .
Loocen hovered in the same western quarter of the sky, with a curve of bright
pinpoints shining along the moon's crescent-shaped terminator, dividing sunlit
and shadowed faces. Tradition said those lights were domed cities. The
departing Buyur left them intact, since Loocen had no native ecosystem to
recycle and restore. Time would barely touch them until this fallow galaxy and
its myriad star systems were awarded to new legal tenants, and the spiral arms
once more teemed with commerce. How
those lunar cities must have tempted the first g'Kek exiles, fleeing here,row
their abandoned space habitats, just a few sneak jumps ahead of baying lynch
mobs. Feeling safe at last, after passing through the storms of Izmunuti, those
domes would have enticed them with reminders of home^ A promise of low gravity
and clean, smooth surfaces. But
such places offered no reliable, long-term shelter against relentless enemies.
A planet's surface was better for fugitives, with a life-support system that
needed no computer regulation. A natural world's complex mossiness made it a
fine place to hide, if you were willing to live as primitives, scratching a subsistence
like animals. In
fact, Vubben had few clues of what passed through the original colonists'
minds. The Sacred Scrolls were the only written records from that time, and
they mostly ignored the past, preaching instead how to live in harmony on Jijo,
and promising salvation to those following the Path of Redemption. Vubben
was renowned for skill at reciting those hallowed texts. But in truth, we sages
stopped relying on the scrolls a century ago. He
resumed the solitary pilgrimage, commencing his fourth circuit just as another
tywush wave commenced. Vubben now felt certain the cycles were growing more
coherent. Yet there was also a feeling that much more power lay quiescent, far
below the surface-power he desperately needed to tap. Hoon and
qheuen grandparents passed on testimony that the patterns were more potent in
the last days of Drake the Younger, when the Egg was still warm with birth
heat, fresh from Jijo's womb. Compelling dreams used to flood all six races
back then, convincing all but the most conservative that a true revelation had
come. Politics
also played a role in the great orb's acceptance. Drake and Ur-Chown made eager
proclamations, interpreting the new omen in ways that helped consolidate the
Commons. "This
stone-of-ivisdom is Jijo's gift, a portent, sanctifying the treaties and
ratifying the Great Peace, " they declared, with some success. From then
on, hope became part of the revised religion. Though in deference to the
scrolls, the word itself was seldom used. Now
Vubben sought some of that hope for himself, for his race, and all the Six. He
sought it in signs that the great stone might be stirring once again. I can
feel it happening! If only the Egg rouses far enough, soon enough. But the increasing activity seemed to follow
its own pace, with a momentum that made him feel like an insect, dancing next
to some titanic being. Perhaps,
Vubben suspected, my presence has nothing to do with these changes. What
happens next may not involve me at all. BLade THE
WINDS WERE BLOWING HIM THE WRONG WAY. ' No real surprise there. Weather
patterns on the Slope had been contrary for. more than a year. Anyway,
metaphorically, the Six Races were being buffeted by gales of change. Still, at
the end of a long, eventful day, Blade had more than enough reason to curse the
stubbornly perverse breeze. By late
afternoon, slanting sunshine combed the forests and boo groves into a panorama
of shadows and light. The Rimmers were a phalanx of giant soldiers, their
armored shells blushing before the lowering sun. Below, a vast marsh had given
way to prairie, which in turn became forested hills. Few signs of habitation
could be seen from his great height, though Blade was handicapped by a basic
inability to look directly down. The chitinous bulk of his wide body blocked
any direct view of the ground. How I
would love, just once in my life, to see what lies below my own feet! His
five legs weren't doing much at the moment. The claws dangled over open space,
snapping occasionally in reflex spasms, trying futilely to get a grip on the
clear air, Even more disconcerting, the sensitive feelers around his mouth had
no earth or mud to brush against, probing the many textures of the ground.
Instead, they, too, hung uselessly. Blade felt numb and bare in the direction a
qheuen least liked being exposed. That
had been the hardest part to get used to, after takeoff. To a qheuen, life's
texture is determined by its medium. Sand and salt water to a red. Freshwater
and mud to a blue. A world of stony caverns to imperial grays. Although their
ancestors had starships, Jijo's qheuens seemed poor candidates for flight. As open
country glided majestically past, Blade pondered being the first of his kind in
hundreds of years to soar. Some
adventure! It will be worth telling Log Biter and the other matrons about, when
I return to that homey lodge behind Dolo Dam. The grubs, in their murky den,
will want to hear the story at least forty or fifty times. If only
this voyage would get a little less adventurous, and more predictable. I hoped
to be communicating with Sara by now, not drifting straight toward the enemy's
toothy maw. Above
Blade's cupola and vision strip, he heard valves open with a preliminary
hiss-followed by a roaring burst of heat. Unable to shift or turn his suspended
body, he could only envision the urrish contraptions in a wicker basket
overhead, operating independently, using jets of flame to replenish the hot-air
bag, keeping his balloon to a steady altitude. But not
a steady heading. Everything
was as automatic as the smiths' technology allowed, but there was no escaping
the tyranny of the wind. Blade had just one control to operate-a cord attached
to a distant knife that would rip the balloon open when he pulled, releasing
the buoyant vapors and dropping him out of the sky at a smooth rate-so the
smiths assured-fast, but not too fast. As pilot, he had one duty, to time his
plummet so it ended in a decent-sized body of water. Even
arriving at a fair clip, no mere splash should harm his armored, disklike form.
If a tangle of rope and torn fabric pinned his legs, dragging him down, Blade
could hold his breath long enough to chew his way free and creep ashore. Nevertheless,
it had been hard to convince the survivors' council, ruling over the ruins of
Ovoom Town, to let him try this crazy idea. They naturally doubted his claim
that a blue qheuen should be their next courier. But too
many human boys and girls have died in recent days, rushing about in flimsy
gliders. Urrish balloonists have been breaking necks and legs. All I have to do
is crash into liquid and I'm guaranteed to walk away. Today's crude
circumstances make me an ideal aviator! There
was just one problem. While hooking Blade into this conveyance, the smiths had
assured him the afternoon breeze was reliable this time of year, straight up
the valley of the Gentt. It should waft him all the way to splashdown at
Prosperity Lake within a few miduras, leaving more than enough time to dash at
a rapid qheuen gait and reach the nearest semaphore station by nightfall. His
packet of reports about conditions at ravaged Ovoom would then slide into the
flashing message stream. And then Blade could finally scratch his lingering
duty itch, restoring contact with Sara as he had vowed. Assuming she was at
Mount Guenn, that is. Only
the winds changed, less than a midura after takeoff. The promised quick jaunt
east became a long detour north. Toward
borne, he noted. Unfortunately, the enemy lay in between. At this rate he'd be
shot down before Dolo Village ever hove into view. To make
matters worse, he was starting to get thirsty. This
situation-it is ridiculous, Blade grumbled as sunset brought forth stars. The
breeze broke up into rhythmic, contrary gusts. Several times, these bursts
raised his hopes by shoving the balloon toward peaks where he spied other
semaphore stations, passing soft flashes down the mountain chain. There was
apparently a lot of message activity tonight, much of it heading north. But
whenever some large lake seemed about to pass below the bulging gasbag, another
hard gusset blew in, pushing him at an infuriating angle, back over jagged
rocks and trees. Frustration only heightened his thirst. If this
keeps up, I'll be so dehydrated that I'd dive fora little puddle. Blade
soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the
tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would
recognize-the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of
Six Races gathered to celebrate--and mourn-another year of exile. For some time
after the sun was gone, Loocen's
bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected
the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded
urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another
jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor. Then
Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became
little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all
alone with his imagination, speculating how theJophur were going to deal with
him. Would
there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the
cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with
scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon
making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often
described in garish Earthling novels? Worst
of all, he pictured a "tractor beam," seizing and dragging him down
to torment in some Jophur-designed hell,
The cord-should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the
secret of hot-air balloons? Qheuens
never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked
up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could
be blamed as bad influences. Blade's legs now contracted, quivering as a
calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents. Right'
We mustn't allow this "technology" to fall into the wrong hands ...
or rings. Why, theJophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us! The
upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter-echoes that
cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting
from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his
grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo's dark embrace. , only
hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross. . . . At that
moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the
narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but
again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He
peered at the pale shine. Could
it be . . . ? The
soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off
yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just
a little time to[ estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess
the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mule spider's
acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem. The
glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural
body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality
that- Ifni
and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship! He
stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing so huge, I thought it was
part of the landscape. Worse,
he measured his course and heading. Soon,
I'll be right on top of it. If
anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach. At
once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate. This is
better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that
pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold,
personal gesture toward God. The
point seemed apropos then, and even more so now When faced with casual
extinction by an omnipotent force, i sometimes the only option left to a poor
mortal is to go out" with defiance. That
proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including
sexual. So Blade made i virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present
himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible. Look
THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, wav- ( ing his sensor feelers
suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up
reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his
insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be
killed in anger, not as an afterthought. Waves
of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was
provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I
am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared. Log
Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose. As the
wind pushed him toward the battleship-a thing so huge it rivaled nearby
mountains-all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin
carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did
not find amusing. Then,
to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been
longing for-a lake. A. large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning
the Festival Glade .under hectares of cool snowmelt. If they
don't shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me,
I might yet reach . . . But how
could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him
pinned by star-god instruments. Sure
enough, the tingling of Blade's exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as
if they were being stroked- then stung-by a host of squirming shock worms. Not
a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts,
causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through
mud at armored prey. The
feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he
recalled. Electromagnetic . . . I'm being scanned! Each time he panted breath
through a leg vent, another dura passed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship
must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for? Then a
new thought occurred to Blade. I'm being scanned . . . but can they see me? If
only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays
tended to be better at abstractions-the reason why they took real names-Blade
knewg he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course. Let's
see. In human novels, they speak of "radar" . . radio waves sent out
to bounce of,distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for
instance. But you
only get a good echo if it's something radio mill bounce off. Metal, or some
other hard stuff. \ Blade
quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part,
featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random
directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain
cloud! Now, if
only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon's
height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night ... The
tingling peaked . . . then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked
Blade's underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief
came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink. Now?
Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away? Water
beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust fromt his vent pores. Yet he held
back. Even if his sudden plum, met from the sky didn't draw attention, he would
land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter,
presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had
missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been
programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was. Anyway,
the water gave him a strange feeling. There were flickerings under the
surface-eerie flashes that reinforced his decision to hold back. Each
passing dura ratified the choice, as a separation slowly increased between
Blade and the giant dreadnought, reappearing behind him as a dark curve with
glimmering highlights, divided about a third of the way up by a rippling,
watery line. It made him feel distinctly creepy. Abruptly,
a pinpoint of brilliance flared from the side of the globe ship, seeming to
stab straight toward him. Here it
comes, Blade thought. But the
flaring light was no heat ray. No death beam, after all. Instead, the pinpoint
widened. It became a glowing rectangular aperture. A door. A
mighty big door, Blade realized, wondering what could possibly take up so much
room inside a mammoth star cruiser. Apparently-another
star cruiser. From
the gaping hangar, a sleek cigar shape emerged with a low hum, moving gradually
at first, then accelerating toward Blade. All
right then. Not extinction. Capture. But why send that big thing after me? Perhaps
they saw his obscene gesture, and understood better than he expected. Once
more, Blade readied the rip cord. At the last moment, he would plummet from
their grasp ... or else they'd shoot him as he fell. Or hunter robots would
track him, underwater or overland. Still, it seemed proper to make the effort.
At least I'll get a drink. Again,
night vision gave him trouble. Estimating the corvette's rate of closure proved
futile. In frustration, Blade's thoughts slipped from Anglic and into the
easier grooves of Galactic Six. This
specter of terror-I have seen it before. This thing I saw last-as it burned
down a city. A city of felons-of sooners-my people. His
legs flexed spasmodically as the ship rushed toward him without slowing ...
What the- . . .
and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air. Blade
felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One
anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the
balloon was sucked after the skyship's wake. The
world passed in a blur, teaching him what real Hying was about. Then
the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and passenger with contempt, or
else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the
Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed
air. Vubben AFTER A
TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the
tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts.
Another midura passed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation
deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae
passed overhead. Twinkling abode of the gods, As he
rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of
Vubben's eyes-a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his
trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the
flicker as coded speech. It took
more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it, JOPHUR
SMALLSHIP,DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING
TOWARD EGG. The message
repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a
farther peak, and realized that other semaphore stations must be relaying the
message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite
grasping its significance. Instead,
he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward-an
impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and
pitched like some undulating sea. It was
not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again,
growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension
bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking
without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes
hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for
maximum parallax. The
moment came back to him whole-not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its
splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo's
rough orb. Amid
the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He
was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a massive object from the west. A
deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from
the Glade. Leisurely-according
to those aboard, that is. Somehow,
Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees,
scraping and penetrating Jijo's soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew
intuitive things about the crew within-multiringed entities, far more
self-assured and unified than traeki. Strange
rings. Egotistical and driven. Determined
to wreak havoc. Blade THE
BALLOON'S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONing, he realized. Or else the fuel tank
was running low. Either
way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering
sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently. Finally,
they halted altogether. The
lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the spaceship's
wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pass,
toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade's last chance to pull the rip
cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a
comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik. And I
am the flea. Assuming
he survived when a forest giant snatched him from the sky, someone might hear
his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a
tree? The
phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness-a contradiction in terms-like a
swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki. This
appears to be the year for contradictions. A
branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that
his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still,
he expected another impact at any moment. Instead,
the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a
sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion! And
heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below. Of
course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you 're in
geyser country. The
balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft. The
Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage
Track. The
path leading to the Egg. Blade's
body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it" might
have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never
mattered which way he was "facing." So Blade was ready when the
object he sought came into view. There
it is! The
corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a
searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the
Nest. What is
it planning to do? He
recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum
terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again? But
surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg! Blade
had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now
crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center.
Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity. Finally,
in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense
of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of
moments, and he somehow knew they weren't coming from the Jophur. Indeed,
whatever had just happened-a psi-insult or failed communication-it seemed to
anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight
narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed
down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow ... a staccato series of
crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke
billowed from the point of impact. A
shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade's vents and his legs tightened
spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will
take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more. Of
course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg
into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the
slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six. Blade
urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time. Lark THREE
HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite
different ways. Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superstitious thrill
he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images
seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should
recognize-the Rimmer mountains, for instance-possessed a slippery quality. Odd
perspective foldings conveyed far more than you'd see through a window the same
size . . . especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg. "Your
obstinacy-joint and particular-brought yowl people to this juncture, " the
tall stack of rings said. "Destroying
mere towns did not sway you, since your socalled Sacred Scrolls preach
the,utility of tangible assets. "But
now, observe as our corvette strikes a blow atyow true underpinnings." A
glaring needle struck the Egg. Almost at once, waves of pain engulfed Lark's
chest. Falling back with a cry, he tore at his clothes, trying to fling away
the stone amulet hanging from a thong around his neck. Ling tried to help, but
could not grasp the meaning of his agony. The
ordeal might have killed him, but then it ended as suddenly as it began. The
cutting ray vanished, leaving a smoking scar along the Egg's flank. Ewasx
burbled glad exhalations about "a signal" and "gratifying
surrender." Lark
bunched the fabric of his undershirt around the Egg fragment, wrapping it to
prevent contact with his skin. Only then did he notice that Ling had his head
on her lap, stroking his face, telling him that everything was going to be all
right. Yeah,
sure it is, Lark thought, recognizing a well-meant lie. But the gesture, the
warm contact, was appreciated. As his
eyes unblurred, Lark saw Rann looking his way, The big Danik had cool disdain
in his eyes. Scorn that Lark would react so to the superficial wounding of
rock. Contempt that Ling would soil her hands on a native. And derision that
the Six Races would give in so easily, surrendering to the Jophur in order to
salvage a mere lump of psi-active stone. Rann had already proved willing to
sacrifice himself and all his comrades, to protect his patron race. Clearly, he
thought any lesser courage unworthy. Go kiss
a Rothen 's feet, Lark thought. But he did not speak aloud. The
corvette had turned away from the Egg. Its transmission now showed the camera
gaining altitude, sweeping above dark ridgelines. The
country was familiar. Lark ought to recognize it. Lester
Cambel . . . They're heading straight toward tester . . . and the boo forest. .
. . So. The
sages had chosen to give up whatever mystery project kept them so busy at their
secret base-the work of months-just in order to safeguard the Egg. It
shouldn 't be surprising. It is our holy site, after all. Our prophet. Our
seer. And
yet, he was surprised. In fact,
it was the last thing he would have expected. BlaJ,
aae SILENTLY,
BLADE URGED HIS WINDBLOWN VEHICLE onward, hoping to arrive in time. . . . To do
what? To distract the Jophur for a few duras while they burned him to a cinder,
giving the Egg just that much respite before the main assault resumed? Or
worse, to float on by, screaming and waving his legs, trying futilely to
attract attention from beings who thought him no more important than a cloud? Frustration
boiled. Combat hormones triggered autonomic reactions, causing his cupola to
pull inward, taking the vision strip down beneath his carapace, leaving just a
smooth, armored surface above. That
instinct response might have made sense long ago, when presentient qheuens
fought their battles claw to claw in seaside marshes, on the distant planet
where their patrons later found and uplifted them. But now it was a damned
nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady
rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering
gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and
restore sight. His
vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part
of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things. The
balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time, | widening his field of
view. ' And the
Jophur ship was gone! But . .
. where . . . ? Blade
wondered if it might be right below, in his blind spot. That provoked a surging
fantasy. He saw himself slashing the balloon and dropping onto the cruiser from
above! Landing with a thump, he would scoot along the top until he reached some
point of entry. A hatch thai could be forced, or a glass window to smash. Once
aboard, in close quarters, he'd show them. . . . Oh,
there it is. The
heroic dream image evaporated like dew when he' spied the corvette, diminishing
rapidly, heading roughly northwest. Could
it have already finished off the Egg? Scanning nearer at hand, he spied the
great ovoid at last, some distance in the opposite direction. It lay in full
view now, a savage burn scarring one flank. The stone glowed along that jagged,
half-molten line, casting ocher light across jumbled debris lining the bottom of
the Nest. Still, the Egg looked relatively intact. Why did
they leave before finishing the job? He tracked the corvette by its glimmer of
reflected starlight. I Northwest. It's
beading northwest. Blade tried to think. That's
where home is. Dolo Village. Tarek Town. And Biblos, he then realized, hoping
he was wrong. Things might have just gone from bad to worse. wasx THE
THREAT WORKED, MY RINGS! | Now our
expertise is proven. Our/my worth is vindi-' I cated before' the Captain-Leader
and our fellow crew stacks. As I/we predicted, just as our bomber began slicing
at their holy psychic rock, a signal came! It was
the same digital radiance they used last time, to reveal the g'Kek city. Thus,
the savages attempt once more to placate us. They will do anything to protect
their stone deity. OBSERVE
THE HUMAN CAPTIVES, MY RINGS! ONE OF them-the local male whom we,Asx once knew
as Lark Koolhan-quailed and moaned to see the "Egg" under attack,
while the other two seemed unaffected. Thus, a controlled experiment showed
that I/we were right about the primitives and their religion. Now the
female comforts Lark as our cruiser speeds away from the damaged Egg, toward
the signal-emanation point. What
will they offer us, this time? Something as satisfying as the g'Kek town, now
frozen with immured samples of hated vermin? The
chief-tactician stack calculates that the sooners will not sacrifice the thing
we desire most-the dolphin ship. Not yet. First they will try buying us off
with lesser things. Perhaps their fabled archive-a pathetic trove of primitive
lore, crudely scribed on plant leaves or some barklike substance. A paltry
cache of lies and superstitions that simpletons dare call a library. You
tremor in surprise, O second ring-of-cognition? You did not expect Me to learn
of this other thing treasured by the Six Races? Well be
assured, Asx did a thorough job of melting that particular memory. The
information did not come from this reforged stack. Did you
honestly believe that our Ewasx stack was the only effort at intelligence
gathering ordained by the Captain-Leader? There have been other captives, other
interrogations. It took
too long to learn about this pustule of contraband Earthling knowledge-this
Biblos-and the exact location remained uncertain. But now we/i speculate.
Perhaps Biblos is the thing they hope to bribe us with, exchanging their
archive for the "life" of their Holy Egg. If that
is their intent, they will learn. We will burn the books, but that won't
suffice. NOTHING WILL SUFFICE. In the
long mn, not even the dolphin ship will do. Though it will make a good start. aae NORTHWEST.
WHAT TARGET MIGHT ATTRACT THE aliens' attention that way? Nearly
everything I know or care about, Blade concluded. Dolo Village, Tarek Town, and
Biblos. As pale
Torgen rose behind the Rimmer peaks, he watched the slim ship glide on, knowing
he would lose sight of it long before the raider arrived at any of those I
destinations. Blade no longer cared where the contrary winds blew him, so long
as he did not have to watch destruction rain down on the places he loved. A chain
of tiny, flickering lights followed the cruiser as scouts stationed on mountain
peaks passed reports of its progress. He deciphered a few snatches of GalTwo,
and saw they weren't words, but numbers. Wonderful.
We are good at describing and measuring our downfall. With
combat hormones ebbing, Blade grew more aware of physical discomfort. Nerves
throbbed where one of the urrish hooks had ripped away skin plates, exposing
fleshy integuments to cold air. Thirst gnawed at him, making Blade wish he were
a hardy gray. The
balloon passed beyond the warm updraft and stopped climbing. Soon the descent
would resume, sending him spinning toward a landscape of jagged shadows. Wait a
aura. Blade
tried to focus his vision strip, peering at the distant Jophur vessel. Has it
stopped? Soon he
knew it had. The ship was hovering again, casting its search beam to scan the
ground below. Was I
wrong? The next target may not be Biblos or Tarek, after all. But . .
. there's nothing here! These bills are wilderness. Just a useless tract of
boo- He was
staring in perplexity when something happened to the mountain below the
floating ship. Reddish flickers erupted, like marsh gas lit by static charges,
at the swampy border of a lake. Sparklike ripples seemed to spread amid the
dense stands of towering boo. What
are the Jophur doing now? he wondered. What weapon are they using? The
flickers brightened, flaring beneath scores of giant greatboo stems. The ship's
searchlight still roamed, as if bemused to find slender tubes of native
vegetation emitting fire from their bottoms . . . then starting to rise. The
first thunder reached Blade as he realized. It's
not the fophur at all! It's- The
corvette finally showed alarm, starting to back away. Its beam narrowed to a
slicing needle, sweeping through one rising column. An
instant later, the entire northwest was alight. Volley after volley of blazing
tubes jetted skyward in a roar that shook the night. Rockets,
Blade thought. Those are rockets! The vast majority missed their apparent
target. But accuracy seemed of no concern, so dense was the missile swarm. The
retreating corvette could not blast them fast enough before three in a row made
glancing blows. Then a
fourth projectile struck head-on. The warhead failed, but sheer momentum
crumpled one section of starship hull, tossing it spinning. Other
warheads kept going off ahead of schedule, or tumbling to explode on the
ground, filling the night with brilliant, fruitless incandescence. So great was
the wastage that it looked as if the Jophur ship might actually limp away. Then a
late-rising rocket took off. It turned, and with apparent deliberation, drove
itself straight through the groaning corvette. A
dazzling explosion ripped its belly open, cleaving the skyship apart. Blade had
to spin a different part of his half blinded visor around to witness the two
halves plummet, like twin cups filled with fire, to the forest floor. More
dross to clean up. Blade observed, as fires spread across several
mountainsides. But his body was content to live in the moment, shrieking
celebration whistles from all his breathing vents, competing with the gaudy
fireworks to shout at the stars. With
qheuen vision, he could witness the corvette's destruction while also following
as most of the missiles continued their flight-those that did not veer off course,
or explode on their own. Dozens still thrust noisily into the upper sky,
spouting red, flickering tails. Blade
screamed even louder when they finished their brief arc and turned back toward
Jijo, plummeting like hail toward Festival Glade. Only they
soon found the way blocked by fierce tongues of fire. Lester and his companions
had to retreat, back past sheltered work camps whose blur-cloth canopies were
ablaze, where vats of traeki paste exploded one after another . . . along with
some of the traeki themselves. Other figures could be seen fleeing through the
clots of smoke as all the labor of months, spent creating a hidden center of
industry, was consumed in a roiling maelstrom. "There
is no way out," the urs sighed. "Then
save yourself. I command it!" Lester
pushed her resisting flank, repeating the order until the corporal let out a
moan and plunged toward a place where the flames seemed least intense. An urs
just might survive the passage. Lester knew better than to try. Alone
with his young assistant, he huddled in the center of the clearing, holding one
of her trembling wheels. "It's
all right," he told her, between hacking coughs. "We did what we set
out to do. "All
things come to an end. "Now
it all lies with Ifni." THE
FOREST ERUPTED IN FLAME AROUND LESTEE. Failed missiles crashed back amid the
secret launching sites, setting off explosions of withering heat and igniting
tall columns of boo. South, a searing glow told where the shattered spaceship
fell. Still, Lester held fast to the clearing where he and a g'Kek assistant
had come to watch the flickering sky. An
urrish corporal galloped to report. "Fires surround us. Sage, you must
flee!" But
Lester stayed rooted, peering at the fuming heavens. His voice was choked and
dry. ( "I
can't see! Did any make it to burnout? Are they on their way?" The
young g'Kek answered, all four eyes waving upward. "Many
flew true, O sage," she answered. "Several score are airborne. Your
design was valid. Now there's nothing j more to do. It^s time to go." Reluctantly,
Lester let himself be pulled away from the clearing, into the planned escape
route through the boo. i Lark THE
EARLIER HOLOSCENES HAD BEEN CONFUSING, but these new images left Lark stunned,
breathless, confused. He had no way to grasp the blazing spectacle . . . mighty
tubes of boo, their bottoms explosing in flame . . . scores of them, jetting
upward like a swarm of angry fire bees. The
distant camera veered as the corvette struggled to evade a volley of makeshift
rockets. The view lurched so suddenly, Lark's stomach reeled and he had to look
away. The
others seemed just as amazed. Ling laughed aloud, clapping both hands, while
Rann's face mixed astonishment with dismay. Then what's happening must be good.
Lark allowed a spark of hope to rise within. Ewasx,
the Jophur, vented gurgling sounds, along with snatches of Galactic Two. . treacherous unexpected "Outrageous
. . unforeseen!" Tremors
shook its composite body, quivering from the peak down to its basal segment.
Most of the elderly, waxy toroids were familiar to Lark. Once, they composed a
friend, a sage, wise and good. But a newcomer had taken over-a glistening young
collar, black and featureless, without appendages or sensory organs. Both
Ling and Rann cried out. But when Lark turned around, the holoscene was all
white-a blank slate. "The
corvette," Ling explained, her voice awed. "It's been
destroyed!" A
shrill sigh escaped the Jophur. The tremors turned into convulsions. Ewasx
is having some kind of fit, Lark thought. Should I attack now? Strike the
master ring with all my might? Ling
was babbling excitedly about "the other rockets-" But Lark had
decided, striding toward the shuddering Jophur. His sole weapons were his
hands, but so what? , Lester,
you pulled off a fantastic wolfling trick. Asx \ would have been proud of you. Just as
old Asx would have wanted me to do this. He
brought back a fist, aimed at the shivering master ring. Someone
seized his arm, holding it back in a fierce grip. Lark
swiveled, cocking his other fist at Rann. But the bullheaded Danik only shook
his head. "What
will it prove? You'd just make them angry, native boy. We remain trapped here,
at their mercy." "Get
out of my way," Lark growled. "I'm gonna free my traeki friend." "Your
friend is long gone. If you kill a master ring, the whole stack dissolves! I
knowthis, young savage. I've put it in practice." Lark
was angry enough to turn his attack on the burly Danik. Sensing it, Rann
released Lark and stepped back,, raising both hands in a combatant's
stance. I Yeah, Lark thought,
dropping to a crouch. You're a stargod soldier. But maybe a savage knows some
tricks you don't. '• "Stop
it, you two!" Ling shouted. "We've got to get ready-" She cut
off as a chain of low vibrations throbbed the metal floor-mighty forces at
work, growling elsewhere in the vast ship. "Defensive
cannon," Rann identified the din. "But what could they be
firing-?" "The
rockets!" Ling replied. "I told you, they're coming this way!" Realization
dawned on Rann, that sooners might actually threaten a starship. He cursed,
diving for a corner of the cell. Lark
allowed Ling to lead him as the battleship shivered, its weapons firing
frantically. A mutter of distant detonations crept closer as they held each
other. The moment had a heady vividness, a hormonal rush, mixing the pleasure
of Ling's touch with sharp awareness of onrushing death. Yet
Lark found himself hoping, praying, that the next few moments would end his
life. Come
on. You can do it, Lester. Finish the job! The
fragment of the Egg lay against his chest, where its last outburst had left seething
weals. He clutched the stone amulet with his free hand, expecting throbbing
heat. Instead, Lark felt an icy cold. A brittleness that breath would shatter. PART
NINE FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN WE'RE
ALL FEELING rattier down right now. Suessi called trom the second dross pile
where his work crew Just had an accident. They were trying to clear the area
around an old Buyur ore-hauler when a subsea quake hit. The surrounding heap of
Junk ships shifted and an ancient hulk came rolling down on a couple of .
workers--Satima and Sup-peh. Neither of them had time to do more than stare at
the onrushing wall before it crushed them. • JO we keep getting winnowed down ^ where it hurts most. Our
best colleagues-- ' i the skilled and dedicated-inevitably pay the price. Then
there s leepoe, everyone's delight. A
terrible loss, kidnapped by Zhaki and his pal. If only I could get my hands on
that pair! I had
to lie to poor Kaa, though. Vve cannot spare time to go hunting across the ocean
IOT leepoe. That
doesn t mean she [I be abandoned. Friends will win her treedom, someday. This I
vow. but our
pilot won't be one of them. Alas, I leap' i\.aa will never see her again. MAKANEE.
finished her autopsies of Kunn and Jass. The prisoners apparently look poison
rather than answer our questions. Tsht blames herself for not searching the
Danik agent more caretully, but who would have tigured Kunn would be so worried
about our amateur grilling' And did
he really have to take the hapless native boy with him' Retys cousin could
hardly know secrets worth dying for. Kety
hersell can shed no light on the matter. Without anyone to interrogate, she
volunteered to help luesst, who can certainly use a hand. ,viakanee recommends
work as good therapy for the poor kid, who had to see those gruesome bodies
hrsthand I
wonder. What secret was Kunn trying to protect' Normally, I'd drop everything
to puwie it out. but too much is going on as we prepare to make our move. Anyway,
from the Jophur prisoners we know the Kothen ship is irrelevant. We have more
immediate concerns. 1 HL,
Library cube reports no progress on that symbol--the one with nine spirals and
eight ovals. I he unit is now silting its older hies, a job that gets harder
the lurther back it goes. In
compensation, the cube has Hooded me with records of other recent sooner
outbreaks --secret colonies established on (allow worlds. It
turns out that most are quickly discovered by guardian patrols of the Institute
or ,Viigration. Jijo is a special case, with limited access and the nearby
shrouding of Ismunuti. Atso, this time an entire galaxy was declared tallow,
making inspection a monumental task.
., I
wondered--why set aside a whole galaxy, when the basic unit of ecological recovery
is a planet, or at most a solar system' The
cube explained that much larger areas of space are usually quarantined, all. at
once. Oxygen-breathing civilization evacuates an entire sector or spiral arm,
ceding it to the parallel culture of hydrogen breathers--those mysterious
creatures sometimes generically called 2,ang. this helps keep both societies
separated in physical space, reducing the chance of triction. It also
helps the quarantine. The ^ang are unpredictable, and olten ignore minor incursions,
but they can be herce it large numbers of oxy-sapients appear where they don t
belong. We
detected what must have been ^ang ships, belore diving past Igmunuti. I guess
they took us for a minor incursion, since they left us alone. The
wholesale trading of sectors and ?ones makes more sense now. Still, t pressed
the [-,lbrary cube. Has an
entire galaxy ever been declared oH-limits before' The answer surprised me. Not for
a very long time ... at least one hundred and tiny million years. Now,
where have I heard that number before! Wt^Kh,
told there are eight orders of sapience and quasisapience. Uxy-lite is the most
vigorous and blatant--or as lorn put it, strutting around, acting like we own
the place. In (act, though, I was surprised to learn that hydrogen breathers
far outnumber oxygen breathers. But ^ang and their relatives spend most of
their time down in the turbid layers of Jovian-type worlds. Jome
say this is because they tear contact with oxy-types. Others say they could crush
us anytime, but have never gotten around to it. perhaps they will, sometime in
the next molllion years. The
other orders are Machine, ,Viemetic, Quantum, Hypotlietical, Ketired, and
Transcendent. why am I pondering this now' Well,
our plans are in motion, and soon Streaker will be, too. Its likely that in a
lew Jays well be dead, or else taken captive. With luck, we (nay buy something
worthwhile with our lives. But our chances of actually getting away seem
vanishingly small. And yet
. . . what U we do manage it' After all, the Jophur may get engine trouble at
just the right moment. [hey might decide were not worth the eilort. The sun
might go nova. In that
case, where can JtreaKer go next' We've
tried seeking Justice from our own oxy-culture--the civilisation of the Five
Galaxies--but the Institutes proved untrustworthy. We tried the Old Ones, but
those members of the Ketired Larder proved less impartial than we hoped. In a
universe rilled with possibilities, there remain hall a dozen other
quasi-sapient orders out there. Alien in both thought and substance. Kumored to
be dangerous. What
have we got to lose" Kaa CLEAMING
MISSILES STRUCK THE WATER WHENEVER he surfaced to breathe. The spears were
crude weapons-hollow wooden shafts tipped with slivers of volcanic glass-but
when a keen-edged harpoon grazed his Hank, Kaa lost half his air in a reflexive
cry. The harbor- now a cramped, exitless trap-reverberated with his agonized
moan. The
hoonish sailors seemed to have no trouble moving around by torchlight, rowing
their coracles back and forth, executing complex orders shouted from their
captains' bulging throat sacs. The water's tense skin reverberated like a
beaten drum as the snare tightened around Kaa. Already, a barrier of porous
netting blocked the narrow harbor mouth. Worse,
the natives had reinforcements. Skittering sounds announced the arrival of
clawed feet, scampering down the rocky shore south of town. Chitinous forms
plunged underwater, reminding Kaa of some horror movie about giant crabs. Red
qbeuens, he realized, as these new allies helped the hoon sailors close off
another haven, the water's depths. Ifni!
What did Zhaki and Mopol do to make the locals so mad at the mere sight of a
dolphin in their bay? How did they get these people so angry they want to kill
me on sight? Kaa
still had some tricks. Time and again he misled the hoons, making feints,
pretending sluggishness, drawing the noose together prematurely, then slipping
beneath a gap in their lines, dodging a hail of javelins. My
ancestors had practice doing this. Humans taught us lessons, long before they
switched from spears to scalpels. Yet he
knew this was a contest the cetacean could not win. The best he could hope for
was a drawn-out tie. Diving
under one hoonish coracle, Kaa impulsively spread his jaws and snatched the
rower's oar in his teeth, yanking it like the tentacle of some demon octopus.
The impact jarred his mouth and tender gums, but he added force with a hard
thrust of his tail flukes. The
oarsman made a mistake by holding on-even a hoon could not match Kaa, strength
to strength. A surprised bellow met a resounding splash as the mariner, struck
salt water far from the boat. Kaa released the oar and kicked away rapidly. That
act would not endear him to ' the hoon. On the other hand, what was there left
to lose? I Kaa had quite given up on his mission-to make contact with the
Commons of Six Races. All that remained was | fighting for survival. I
should have gone after Peepoe, instead. The
decision still bothered Kaa with nagging pangs of guilt. How could he obey
Gillian Baskin's orders-no matter how urgent-instead of striking off across the
dark sea, chasing after the thugs who had kidnapped his mate and love? What did
duty matter-or even his oath to Terra-compared with that? After
Gillian signed off, Kaa had listened as the sun set, picking out distant echoes
of the fast-receding speed sled, still faintly audible to the northwest. Sound
carried far in Jijo's ocean, without the myriad engine noises that made Earth's
seas a cacophony. The sled was already so far away-at least a hundred klicks by
then-it would seem forlorn to follow.
But so what? So the odds were impossible? That never mattered to the
heroes one found in storybooks and holosims! No audience ever cheered a
champion who let mere impossibility stand in the way. Maybe
that was what swayed Kaa, in an agonized moment. The fact that it was such a
cliche. All the movie heroes-whether human or dolphin-would routinely forsake
comrades, country, and honor for the sake of love. Relentless
propaganda from every romantic tale urged him to do it. But
even if I succeeded, against all odds, what would Peepoe say after I rescued
her? I know
her. She'd call me a fool and a traitor, and never respect me again. So it
was that Kaa found himself entering Port Wuphon as ordered, long after
nightfall, with all the wooden sailboats shrouded beneath camouflage webbing
that blurred their outlines into cryptic hummocks. Still hating himself for his
decision, he had approached the nearest wharf, where two watchmen lounged on
what looked like walking staffs, beside a pair of yawning noor. By starlight,
Kaa had reared up on his churning flukes to begin reciting his memorized speech
of greeting . . . and barely escaped being skewered for his trouble. Whirling
back into the bay, he dodged razor-tipped staves that missed by centimeters. "Wait-t-t!"
he had cried, emerging on the other side of the wharf. "You're mak-ing a terrible
mistake! I bring news from your own lossssst ch-ch-children! F-from Alvi-
" He
barely escaped a second time. The hoon guards weren't listening. Darkness
barely saved Kaa as growing numbers of missiles hurled his way. His big
mistake was trying a third time to communicate. When that final effort failed,
Kaa tried to depart . . . only to find belatedly that the door had shut. The
harbor mouth was closed, trapping him in a tightening noose. So much
for my skill at diplomacy, he pondered, while skirting silently across the
bottom muck . . . only to swerve when his sonar brushed armored forms ahead,
approaching with scalloped claws spread wide. Add
that to my other failures . . . as a spy, as an officer . . . Mopol and Zhaki
would never have antagonized the locals so, with senseless pranks and mischief,
if he had led them properly. . . .
and as a lover. . . . In
fact, Kaa knew just one thing he was good at. And at this rate, he'd never get
another chance to ply his trade. A
strange, thrashing sound came from just ahead, toward the bottom of the bay. He
nearly swung around again, dodging it to seek some other place, dreading the
time when bursting lungs would force him back to the surface. . . . But
there was something peculiar about the sound. A softness. A resigned, melodious
sadness that seemed to fill the water. Curiosity overcame Kaa as he zigzagged,
casting sonar clicks through the murk to perceive- A hoon! But
what was one of them doing down here? Kaa
nosed forward, ignoring the growing staleness of his air supply, until he made
out a tall biped amid clouds of churned-up mud. Diffracted echoes confirmed his
unbe- \ lieving eyes. The creature was undressing, carefully re- ' moving
articles of clothing, tying them together in a string. Kaa
guessed it was a female, from the fact that it was a bit smaller and had only a
modest throat sac. Is it
the one I pulled overboard? But why doesn 't she swim back to the boat? I
assumed . . . Kaa was
struck by a wave of image-rupture alienation- a sensation all too familiar to
Earthlings since contactwhen some concept that had seemed familiar abruptly
made no sense anymore. Hoons
can't swim! The
journal of Alvin Hph-wayuo never mentioned this. In fact, Alvin implied that his
people passionately loved boats and the sea. Nor were they cavalier about their
lives, but mourned the loss of loved ones even more deeply than a human or
dolphin would. Kaa suddenly knew he'd been fooled by Alvin's writings, sounding
so much like an Earth ' kid, never mentioning things that he simply assumed. Aliens.
Who configure? He
stared as the hoon tied the string of clothes around her left wrist and held
the other end to her mouth, calmly exhaling her last air, inflating a
balloonlike fold of cloth. It floated upward, no more than two meters, stopping
far short of the surface. She's
not signaling for help, he fathomed as the hoon sat down in the mud, humming a
dirge. She's making sure they can drag the bottom and retrieve her body. Kaa
had read Alvin's account of death rituals the locals took quite seriously. By now
his own lungs burned fiercely. Kaa deeply regretted that the breather unit on
his harness had burned out after Zhaki shot him. He
heard the qheuens approaching from behind, clacking their claws, but Kaa sensed
a hole in their line, confident he could streak past, just out of reach. He
tried to turn . . . to seize the brief opportunity. Oh,
hell, he sighed, and kicked the other way, aiming for the dying hoon. It took
some time to get her to the surface. When they broke through, her entire body
shook with harsh, quivering gasps. Water jetted from nostril orifices at the
same time as air poured in through her mouth, a neat trick that Kaa kind of
envied. He
pushed her close enough to throw one arm over a drifting oar, then he whirled
around to peer across the bay, ready to duck onrushing spears. None
came. In fact, there seemed a curious absence of boats nearby. Kaa dropped his
head down to cast suspicious sonar beams through his arched brow-and confirmed
that all the coracles had backed off some distance. A moon
had risen. One of the big ones. He could make out silhouettes now , . . hoons
standing in their rowboats, all of them turned to face north ... or maybe northwest.
The males had their sacs distended, and a steady thrumming filled the air. They
Seemed oblivious to the sudden reappearance of one of their kind from a brush
with drowning. I'd
have thought they'd be all over this area, dropping weighted ropes, trying to
rescue her. It was another example of alien thinking, despite all the Terran
books these hoons had read. Kaa was left with the task of shoving her with the
tip of his rostrum, a creepy feeling coursing his spine as he pushed the
bedraggled survivor toward one of the docks. More
villagers stood along the wharf, their torches flickering under gusts of
stiffening wind. They seemed to be watching ... or listening ... to something. A
dolphin can both see and hear things happening above the water's surface, but
not as well as those who live exclusively in that dry realm. With his senses
still in an uproar, Kaa could discern little in the direction they faced, Just
the hulking outline of a mountain. The
computerized insert in his right eye flexed and turned until Kaa finally made
out a flickering star near the mountain's highest point. A star that throbbed,
flashing on and off to a staccato rhythm. He could not make anything of it at
first . . . though the cadence seemed reminiscent of Galactic Two. "Ex-x-xcuse
me . . ." he began, trying to take advantage of the inactivity. Whatever
else was happening, this seemed a good chance to get a word in edgewise.
"I'm a dolphin . . . cousin to humansss . . . I've been sssent with-th a
message for Uriel the-" The
crowd suddenly erupted in a moan of emotion that made Kaa's sound-sensitive jaw
throb. He made out snatches of individual speech. "Rockets!"
one onlooker sighed in Anglic. "The sages made rockets!" Another
spoke GalSeven in tones of wonder. "One small enemy spaceship destroyed .
. . and now the big one is targeted!" Kaa
blinked, transfixed by the villagers' tension. Rockets?
Did I hear right? But- Another
cry escaped the crowd. "They
plummet!" someone cried. "They strike!" Abruptly,
the mountain-perched star paused its twinkling bulletin. 'All sound seemed to
vanish with it. The hoons stood in dead silence. Even the oily water of the bay
was hushed, lapping softly against the wharf. The
flashing resumed, and there came from the crowd a moan of shaken
disappointment. "It
survives, exists. The mother battleship continues, went the GalTwo mutter of a
traeki, somewhere in the crowd. "Our
best effort has failed. "And now comes punishment." Sooners THE
MOMENT LARK PRAYED FOR NEVER CAME. THE walls did not shatter, torn by
native-made warheads or screaming splinters of greatboo. Instead, the sound of
detonations remained distant, then diminished. The floorthrobbing vibration
ofJophur defense guns changed tenor now that the element of surprise was gone,
from frantic to complacent, as if the incoming missiles were mere nuisances. Then
silence fell. It was over. He let
go of the Egg fragment, and released Ling, as well, Lark pulled his knees in,
wrapped both arms around them, and rocked miserably. He had never felt so
disappointed to be alive. "Woorsh,
that was close!" Ling exhaled, clearly savoring survival.
Not that Lark blamed her. She might still nurse hopes of escape, or of being
swapped in some Galactic prisoner exchange. All this might become just another
episode in her memoirs. An episode, like me, he thought. The clever jungle boy
she once met on Jijo. His old
friend Harullen might have seen a bright side to this failure. Now the angered
Jophur might extinguish all sapient life on the planet, not only their g'Kek
blood enemies. Wouldn't that fit in with Lark's beliefs? His heresy? The Six
Races don't belong here, but neither do they deserve annihilation. I wanted us
to do the right thing peacefully, honorably, and of our own accord. Without
violence. All this burning of forests and valleys. "Look!" He
glanced at Ling, who had stood up and was pointing at Ewasx. The ring stack
still quaked, but one torus in the middle was undergoing full-scale
convulsions. Throbbing indentations formed on opposite sides, distending its
round shape. Both
men joined Ling, staring with unbelieving eyes as the dents deepened and spread
into circular bulges, straining outward until a sheer membrane was all that restrained
them. The Jophur's basal legs started pumping and Hexing. The
humans jumped back when Ewasx abruptly skittered across the floor, first toward
the armored door, then away again, zigging and zagging three times before
finally sagging back down, like a heap of flaccid tubes. The
middle ring continued to throb and swell. "What
is it doing?" Ling asked in awe. Lark
had to swallow before answering. "It's
vienning. Giving birth, you'd say. Traekis don't do this often, 'cause it
endangers the union of the stack. Mostly they bud embryos and let 'em grow in a
mulch pile, on their own." Rann
gaped. "Giving birth? Here?" Clearly, he knew more about killing
Jophur than about the rest of their life cycle. Lark
realized-the catatonia of Ewasx was not caused simply by the surprise rocket
attack. That shock had trig- gered a separate convulsion just waiting to
happen. Membranes
started tearing. One of the new rings, almost the size of Lark's head and
colored a deep shade of purple, began writhing through. The other was smaller
and crimson, emerging through a mucusy pustule, trailing streamers of rank,
oily stuff. Both infant toruses slithered down the flanks of the parent stack,
then across the metal floor, seeking shadows. "Lark,
you'd better have a look at this," Ling said. He
could barely yank his gaze away from the nauseating, bewitching sight of the
greasy newborns. Upon stumbling over to join Ling, he found her pointing
downward. "When
it ran back and forth, a dura ago ... it left this trail on the floor." So
what? he thought. Lark saw smears, like grease stains on the metal plating.
Traeki often do that. Then he
blinked, recognizing Anglic letters. One, two,' three . . . four of them. REWQ "What
the . . . ?" Rann puzzled aloud. ' Lark
raised a hand to his forehead, where his rewq symbiont lay waiting for its next
duty while supping lightly | from his veins. At a touch, it swarmed over his
eyes, recast- j ing the colors in the room. \ At
once, everything changed. Till that moment, the stillquivering flanks of the
Jophur had seemed a mottled jumble of distorted shades. But now, rows of
letters could be I seen, crisscrossing several older rings. ' lark,
the first series began, one ring opens doors. use it. rejoin the six. . . . A
squeal of pain interrupted from Lark's right, unlike any shouted by a mammal.
He whirled, and cried, "Stop!" Rann
stood over one of the newly vienned rings, his foot raised to stomp on it a
second time. The small creature shook, bleeding waxy fluids from a rent along
one flank. "Why?"
the Danik demanded. "You sooners signed our death warrants with that crude
missile attack. We might as well get in some of our own." Ling
confronted her former colleague hotly. "Fool! Hyp- j ocrite! You stopped
Lark earlier, and now do this? Don't you want to get out of here?" She
bent over the quivering ring and reached toward it nervously, tentatively. Lark
turned back toward the ring stack . . . the corn-, posite being that had
somehow managed to become Asx again, in a strange, limited way. The letters
were already fading as he read the second line. Give
other to Phwhoon-dau,Lester. he,you, they must This
time, the scream was human. Ling! He spun around and rushed to her aid. She
held the little wounded torus in one hand while the other clawed over her
shoulder at Rann. The male Danik throttled her from behind, his forearm around
her throat, closing her windpipe, and possibly her arteries. Rann
heard Lark's irate bellow and swiveled lightly, using Ling's body as a shield
while he kept choking her. Rann's face was contorted with pleasure as Lark
feinted right, then launched himself at the star warrior's other side. There
was no time for finesse as they all toppled together, a grappling mass of arms
and legs. It
might have been an even match, if Ling hadn't passed out. But when her body
slumped, insensate, Lark had to face Rann's trained fury alone. He managed to
get a few blows in, but soon had his hands full just preventing the Rothen
agent from striking a vital spot. Finally, in desperation, he threw his arms
around Rann, seizing his broad torso in a wrestler's embrace. His
opponent felt confident enough to spare some strength for taunts. "Darwinist
savage , . ." Rann jeered, close to Lark's ear. ". . . devolved ape
..." Lark
managed an insult of his own- "The
. . . Rothen . . . are . . . pigs. ..." Rann
snarled and tried to bite his ear. Lark swung his head aside just in time, then
slammed it back into Rann's face, breaking his lip. Abruptly,
a stench seemed to swell around their heads, filling Lark's nostrils with a
cloying, sickening tang. For an instant he wondered if it was the Danik's body
odor. Or else the smell of death. Rann
managed to free a hand and used it to pummel Lark's side. But the pain seemed
distant, and the blows vague, unsteady. Vision wavered as the awful smell
increased . . . and Lark grew aware that his opponent was being affected, as
well. More
so. In
moments, Rann's iron grip let go and the man collapsed away from him. Lark
backed up, gasping. Through a haze of wavering consciousness, he noted the
source of the stench. The wounded traeki ring had climbed onto Rann's shoulder
and was squirting yet another dose of some noxious substance straight into the
star god's face. | Should
. . . make it . . . stop, now. Lark thought. An | excess might not just knock
Rann out, but kill him. j Life
had priorities, though. Fighting exhaustion and the' tempting refuge of sleep,
Lark rolled over to seek Ling,', hoping enough life still lingered to be coaxed
back into the world. Blade Dia ".
. . THE MOST EFFECTIVE WARHEADS WERE THE ones tipped with toporgic capsules,
filled with traeki formula type sixteen an' powdered Buyur metal. Kindle
beetles were useful in settin' off the solid rocket cores. A lot of the ones
that didn't use beetles either fizzled or blew up on their launchpads. . .
." Blade
listened to the young human recite her report to an urrish telegraph operator,
whose keystrokes became fast-departing beams of light. Jeni Shen winced as a
pharmacist applied unguents to her singed skin. Her face was soot-covered and
the left side of her jerkin gave off smoldering fumes. Jeni's voice was dry as
slate and it must have been painful for her to speak, but the recitation
continued, nonstop, as if she feared this mountaintop semaphore station might
be the first target of any Jophur retaliation. ".
. . Observers report that the best targeting happened, in rockets that had
message-ball critters aboard. Usin' 'ern that way was just a whim of
Phwhoon-dau's, so there weren't many. But it seemed to work. Before everything
blew up, Lester said we should reexamine all the Buyur critters we know about,
in case they have other uses. . . ." i The
stone hut was crowded. The missile assault, and subsequent fires, had sent
refugees pouring through the passes. Blade was forced to wade through the tide
offugi lives in order to reach this militia outpost, where he might make a
report of his adventure. He
found the semaphore already tied up with frenzied news-about the successful
downing of the last Jophur corvette . . . and then the failure of a single
rocket even to dent the mother ship. That night of soaring hopes crashed
further when casualties became known, including at least one of the High Sages
of the Six. Yet a
low level of elation continued. Bad news was only expected. But a taste of
victory came amplified by sheer surprise. Blade
recalled vividly the fiery plummet of both burning halves of the ruined
starship, setting off firestorms. I'm glad it only landed in boo, he thought.
According to the scrolls, Jijo's varied ecosystems weren't equal. Greatboo was
a trashy alien invader-like the Six themselves. The planet was not badly
wounded by tonight's conflagration. Me
neither, Blade added, wincing as a g'Kek medic tried to set one of his broken
legs. "Just
cut it off," he told the doctor. "The other one, too." "But
that will leave you with just three," the g'Kek complained. "How will
you walk?" "I'll
manage. Anyway, new ones grow back faster if you cut all the way to the bud.
Just get it over with, will you?" Fortunately,
he had managed to land on two legs spread apart at opposite sides of his body.
That left a tripod of them to use, dragging himself from the fluttering tangle
of fabric and gondola parts. The moonlit mountainside had been rocky and steep,
a horrid place for a blue qheuen to find himself stranded on a chill night. But
the beckoning glimmer of flashed messages, darting from peak to peak,
encouraged him to limp onward until he reached this sanctuary. So,
I'll be able to tell Log Biter my tale, after all. Maybe I'll even write about
it. Nelo should provide backing for a small print run, since half of my story
involves his daughter. . . . Blade
knew his mind was drifting from thirst, pain, and lack of sleep. But if he
rested now he would lose his place in line, right after Jeni Shen. The station
commander, hearing of his balloon adventure, had given him a priority just
after the official report on the rocket attack. I
should be flattered. But in fact, the rockets are used up. Even if there are
some left, the element of surprise is gone. They'll never succeed against
theJophur again. But my
idea's not been tried yet. And it'd work! I'm living proof. The
smiths of Blaze Mountain have got to be told. So he
sat and fumed, half listening to Jeni's lengthy, i jargon-filled report, trying
to be patient. When
the amputation began, Blade's cupola withdrew instinctively, shielding his eye
strip under thick chitin, preventing him from looking around. So he tried
pulling his mind back to the time when he briefly flew through the sky . . .
the first of his kind to do so since the sneakship came, so long ago. But a
qheuen's memories aren't strong enough to use as a bulwark against pain. It took
three strong hoons to keep the leg straight enough for the medic to do it
cleanly, Lark n SECOND
STENCH MET HIM WHEN HE WAKED. The first one had smothered cloyingly. When it
filled I Ithe little room, the world erased under a blanket of sweet pungency. The new
smell was bitter, tangy, repellent, cleaving the insensate swaddling of
unconsciousness. There was no transitory muzziness or confusion. Lark jerked
upright while his body convulsed through a series of sharp sneezes. All at once
he knew the cell, its metal floor and walls, the cramped despair of this place. A
greasy doughnut shape-purple and still covered with mucus-sent a final stream
of misty liquid jetting toward his face. Lark gagged, backing away. "I'm
up! Cut it out, dung eater!" The
room wavered as he turned, searching ... and found Ling close behind, wheezing
at the effort of sitting up. Livid marks showed where Rann had throttled her,
nearly taking her life. Lark
turned again, scanning for his enemy. In
moments, he spied the Danik agent's bare feet, jutting from beyond the rotund
bulk of Ewasx. Ewasx?
Or is it still Asx? The
ring stack shivered. Trails of waxy pus trickled from twin wounds on either
side, where the vienned rings had made their escape. I could
try to find out. . . . Try talking to- But
Lark saw an orderliness to the trembling toruses. A systematic rhythm. Almost
regimented. Warbling sounds escaped the speaking vent. "H-h-h-alt,
humans, . . . I/WE COMMAND . . . obedience. ..." The
voice wavered unevenly, but gained strength with each,passing dura. Ling
met his eyes. There was instant rapport. Asx had gone to a lot of trouble to
provide gifts. Time to give them a try. "STOP
THAT!" Ewasx adjured. "You are required to ... desist. ..." Fortunately,
the Jophur's limbs were still locked in rigor. The lowermost set shivered with
resistance when the master ring tried to make them move. Asx is
still fighting for us, Lark realized, knowing it could not last. "Use
the purple one," he told Ling, who cradled the larger newborn torus.
"Asx said it opens locks." She
lifted her eyes doubtfully, but presented the ring to a flat plate beside the
door. They had seen Ewasx touch it whenever the Jophur wanted to leave the
cell. Meanwhile, Lark used his frayed shirt as a sling to carry the smaller,
crimson traeki. The one cruelly injured by Rann. The one Lark was supposed to
deliver to the High Sages-an impossible task, even if the mangled thing
survived. A moan
echoed from behind Ewasx. It was the Danik warrior, rousing at last. Come on!
Lark urged silently, though Ling almost surely had never used such a key to
force a lock. The
purple ring oozed a clear fluid from pores near the plate. Clickety sounds
followed, as the door mechanism seemed to consider. ... Then,
with a faint hiss, it opened! He
hurried through with Ling, ignoring bitter Jophur curses that followed them
until the portal shut again. "Where
now?" Ling asked. "You're
asking me?" He laughed. "You said Galactic ships are
standardized!" She
frowned. "The Rothen don't have any battlecruisers like this beast.
Neither does Earth. We'd be lucky to glimpse one from afar . . . and even
luckier to escape after seeing it." Lark
felt spooky, standing half-naked in an alien passageway filled with weird
aromas. A Jophur might enter this stretch of corridor at any moment, or else a
war robot, come to hunt them down. - The
floor plates began vibrating, low at first, but with a rising mechanical
urgency. "Just
guess," he urged, trying to offer an encouraging smile. Ling
answered with a shrug. "Well, if we keep going in one direction, sooner or
later we're bound to reach hull, Come on, then. Standing still is the worst
thing we can do," The
hallways were deserted. Occasionally,
they hurried past some large chamber and glimpsed Jophur forms within, standing
before oddly curved instrument stations, or mingled in swaying groups,
communing with clouds of vapor. But the stacks rarely moved. As a biologist,
Lark could not help speculating. They're
descended from sedentary creatures, almost sessile. Even with the introduction
of master rings, they'd retain some traeki ways, like preferring to work in one
place, relatively still. Lark
found it bizarre, striding past closed doors for more than an arrowflight-then
another, and a third-using their passkey ring to open armored hatches along the
way, meeting no one. Asx must have taken this into account, giving us even odds
of reaching an airlock and . . . Lark
wondered. And
then what? If there are sky boats or hover plates, Ling might understand their
principles, but how will she operate controls made for Jophur tentacles? Maybe
we should just head for the engine room. Try to break some machinery. Cause
some inconvenience before they finally shoot us down. Ling
picked up the pace, a growing eagerness in her steps. Perhaps she sensed
something in the thickness of the armored doors, or the subtly curved wall
joins, indicating they were close. The
next hatch slid aside-and without warning they suddenly faced their first
Jophur. Ling
gasped and Lark's knees almost failed him. He felt an overpowering impulse to
spin around and run away, though it was doubtless already too late. The thing
was bigger than Ewasx, with component rings that shimmered a glossy,
extravagant health he had never seen on a Jijoan traeki. The way
Rann compares to me, Lark thought numbly. During
that brief instant, his companion lifted the purple ring, aiming it like a gun
at the big Jophur. A
stream of scent vapor jetted toward the stack. It
hesitated . . . then raised up on a dozen insectoid legs and sidled past the
two humans, proceeding down the hall. Lark
stared after it, numbly. What
was that? A recognition signal? A forged safeconduct pass? He
could imagine that Asx-wherever the traeki sage had concealed a sliver of self-must
have observed all the chemical codes a Jophur used to get around the ship. What
Lark could not begin to picture was what kind of consciousness that implied.
How could one deliberately hide a personality within a personality, when the
new master ring was in charge, pulling all the strings? The
Jophur rounded a corner, moving on about its business. Lark
turned to look at Ling. She met his eyes and together they both let out a hard
sigh. The
airiock was filled with machinery, though no boats or hover plates. They closed
the inner door and hurried to the other side, applying the trusty passkey ring,
eager to see blue sky and smell Jijo's fresh wind. If they were lucky, and this
portal faced the lake, it might even be possible to leap down to the water.
Surviving that, their escape could be cut off at any point, once they passed
into the Jophur defense perimeter. But none of that seemed to matter right now.
The two of them felt eager, indomitable. Lark
still cradled the injured red ring, wondering what the sages were supposed to
do with it. Perhaps
Asx expects us to recruit commandos and return with exploser bombs, using these
rings to gain entry. . . . His
thoughts arrested as the big hatch rolled aside. Their first glimpse was not of
daylight, but stars. An
instant's shivering worry passed through his mind before he realized-this was
not outer space, but nighttime in the Rimmers. A flood of bracing, cool air
made Lark instantly ebullient. I could never leave Jijo, he knew. It's my home. A pale
glow washed out the constellations where a serrated border crossed the sky--the
outline of eastern mountains. It would be dawn soon. A time of hopeful
beginnings? Ling
held out her free hand for Lark to take as they strode to the edge and looked
down. "So
far, so good," she said, and he shared her gladness at the sight of
glinting moonlight, sparkling on water. "It's still dim outside. The lake
will mask our heat sign. And this time there will be no computer cognizance to
give us away." Nor
convenient breathing tubes, to let us stay safe underwater, he almost added,
but Lark didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm. "Let's
see if there's anything we can use to get down to the lake, without having to
jump," Ling added. Together they inspected the equipment shelves lining
one wall of the airiock, until she cried out excitedly. "I found a
standard cable reel! Now if only I can figure out the altered controls
..." While
Ling examined the metal spool, Lark felt a change in the low vibration that had
been growling in the background ever since they escaped their prison cell. The
resonance began to rise in pitch and force, until it soon filled the air with a
harsh keening. "Something's happening," he said. "I think-"
Just then the battleship took a sudden jerk, almost knocking them both to the
floor. Ling dropped the cable, barely missing her foot. A
second noise burst in through the open door of the airiock. An awful grinding
din, as if Jijo herself were complaining. Lark recognized the scraping of metal
against rock. "Ifni!"
Ling cried. "They're taking off!" Helping
each other, fighting for balance, they reached the outer hatch and looked down
again, staring aghast at a spectacle of pent-up nature, suddenly unleashed. Well,
so much for jumping in the lake, he thought. The Jophur ship was rising
glacially, but the first few dozen meters were crucial, removing the dam that
had drowned the valley under a transient reservoir. At once, the Festival Glade
was transformed into a roiling tempest. Submerged trees tore loose from their
sodden roots. Stones fell crashing into the maelstrom as mud banks were
undermined. While the battlecruiser climbed complacently, a vast flood of murky
water and debris rushed downstream, pummeling everything in its path, pouring
toward distant, unsuspecting plains. Too
late, Lark realized. We were too late making our escape. Now we're trapped
inside. As if
to seal the fact, a light flashed near the open hatch, which began to close. An
automatic safety measure, he figured, for a starship taking off. Lark barely
suppressed an overpowering temptation to dive through the narrowing gap,
despite the deadly chaos waiting below. Ling
squeezed his hand fiercely as they caught a passing glimpse of something shiny
and round-shouldered-a slick, elongated dome, uncovered by retreating waters.
Even under pale predawn light, they recognized the Rothen-Danik ship, still
shut within a prison of quantum time. Then
the armored portal sealed with a boom and hiss, cutting off the
all-too-fleeting breeze. Trapped inside, they stared at the cruel hatch. "We're
heading north," Lark said. It was the one last thing he had noticed,
watching the ravaged valley pass below. "Come
on," Ling answered pragmatically. "There must be someplace to hide
aboard this bloated ship." Ncl CLO STILL A
FEW LEAGUES SHORT OF THEIR GOAL, THE zealots realized they were surrounded.
They spent the night huddled in the marsh, counting the campfires of regiments
loyal to the High Sages. Squeezed between militia units from Biblos and Nelo's
pursuing detachment, the rebels surrendered at first light. There
was little ceremony, and few weapons for the rabble to give up. Most of their
fanatical ardor had been used up by the hard slog across a quagmire where
mighty Buyur towers once reared toward the sky. Already bedraggled, Jop and his
followers marched in a ragged column toward the Bibur, enduring taunts from
former neighbors. "Go
ahead an' look!" Nelo pushed the tree farmer toward a bluff where everyone
could look across the wide river at shimmering cliffs, still immersed in dawn's
long shadows. Oncoming daylight revealed a vast cave underneath, chiseled
centuries ago by the Earthship Tabernacle. Two dozen huge pillars supported the
Fist of Stone, hovering like a suspended sentence, just above a cluster of
quaint wooden buildings, each fashioned to resemble some famed structure of
Terran heritage-such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and the
Main Library of San Diego, California. "The
Archive stands," Nelo told his enemy. "You wanted to bring the Fist
crashing down, but it ain't gonna happen. And in a couple o' years I'll be
makin' paper again. It was all for nothin', Jop. The lives you wasted, and the
property. You achieved nothing." Nelo
saw Jop's bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaphore station, set up
directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket
attack, the destruction of one Jophur ship, and the rumored damage of another.
Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night's distant
"thunderstorm" had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races,
taking vengeance for the poor g'Kek. A few
older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single
battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win. Nelo
refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by
handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at
night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana's name on the
single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into
getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes
waited. And
sleep, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had
in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away,
leaving him a virile warrior of long ago. Leaning
against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while,
his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill. Our
first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right,
this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power
output. As long as I'm
at Biblos, I might as well look.into copying some designs. . . . Nelo's
head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dob shouted his name. The lad
had been reading last night's semaphore messages, affixed on the wall of the
relay post. "I
just saw your daughter's name," the young man told him. "She's on
Mount Guenn!" Nelo
took three jerky steps forward ... as Jop did exactly the same thing. The
farmer's expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted
with Nelo's joy at hearing that one of his children lived. Sara!
The papermaker's mind whirled. In the name of the founders, how did she find
herself on Mount Guenn? He
hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of
Dwer and Lark, as well! At that
moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaphore hut.
While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo's message,
the receiver burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper
covered with hurried scrawls. "Mess
. . . mess . . ." She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently. "Message
from lookouts," she cried. "The Jophur . . , i the Jophur ship is
coming this way!"
i It did
not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that. A haze
of suspended dust accompanied its passage above forest or open ground, but when
the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went
Ominously still. The glassy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow. Keep
going, Nelo prayed. Just pass us by. Keep going. . . . But the
great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum
directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive. Now it
was Nelo's turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pass overJop's face.
Someone must've snitched, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries,
establishing outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information.
Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this
place. No
slashing rays fell from the mighty battleship. No rain of bombs, taking
vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before. Instead,
a few small portals opened in its side. About two dozen robots descended,
fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they
turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos. A
second wave emerged from the great ship, floating down more slowly on wide
plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like
stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet. Even
before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the space
dreadnought began moving again, turning its massive bulk to head back the way
it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining altitude at an accelerating pace.
By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had
climbed above the highest clouds. Crowds
gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite shore. Biblos still lay
immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they
passed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters. After
that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through
binoculars, to relate what was' happening. "Each
Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use
the front door . . . but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go
in that way. "They're
all inside now . . . and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens . . .
there's a g'Kek . . . his left wheel is smoking. I think he's been shot." The
crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could
do. "I
see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They've got rifles .
. . the new kind with muletipped bullets. They're running toward the Science
Building! "They're
splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides
at once." Nelo
clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered
why the great battleship would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the
center ofJijoan intellectual life. I guess
the cruiser bad other matters to attend to. Anyway, it'll be back to pick up
their foray party. There
was one hope. Maybe there are some rockets left after last night. Perhaps
they'll catch the cruiser, before it can return. There
was always that hope-though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a
second time. Across
the river he could see a flood of refugees-scholars, librarians, and
students-pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren't
many g'Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared doomed to stay
within, destined for different fates, both of them unpleasant. He
wondered, What do the aliens want with our Library? To check out some books and
take 'em back home to read? In
fact, that bizarre notion made sense. I'll
bet the rocket attack made 'em realize we have trick up our sleeve. Suddenly
they're interested in what we know, and how we know it. They'll scan our books
to find out what other nasty surprises we might come up with. Something
was happening in the shadowed cave. Distant popping sounds carried across the
river, doubtless from within the Hall of Science. "They're
coming out!" the captain announced. His grip on the binoculars stiffened.
"The rifle squads . . . they're in retreat . . . dragging their wounded,
trying to cover each other. They're ..." He
lowered the glasses. The officer's eyes were bleak and he stood silently,
completely overcome. A
corporal gently took the binoculars and resumed reporting. "Dead,"
was the first word she said. "I
see dead soldiers. They're all down." A hush
settled over the crowd. Across the Bibur nothing I seemed to be moving anymore,
except an occasional ' sharp-edged machine shape, flitting underneath the Fist
of Stone. The
explosers . . . Nelo wondered. Why didn't they set off their charges? The
greatest secret of the Six Races. The most secure fortress of humankind on
Jijo. Biblos had been captured in a matter of duras. Its treasured archive lay
in the tight grip of Jophur invaders. wasx IS IT
SETTLED THEN, MY RINGS? HAVE WE ROOTED out the last corners of your clandestine
resistance? Can we assume there will be no more episodes of surreptitious
rebellion? The
Priest-Stack threatened to dismantle us/me after the last embarrassment, when
you silly rings foolishly,cleverly managed to perform a vienning without your
master torus knowing. The priest aimed to scrape every drip trail of waxy
memory lining our core, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the pair of
wolfling vermin you (briefly, mutinously) released into our glorious Polkjhy
ship. But
then the stack in change of psychological tactics reported telemetry showing
that Lark and Ling almost surely departed the ship when instruments showed an
airiock hatch anomalously opening. Humans
are good with water. No doubt they imagined themselves safe after entering the
lake, never suspecting that they were about to be swept downstream into a
vortex of ruin when our majestic Polkjhy took off! The
droll appropriateness of this fate-the dramatic irony-so pleased the
Captain-Leader that a ruling was made, overturning the Priest-Stack's desire.
For the time being, then, our/my union is safe. DO NOT
COUNT ON CONTINUED TEMPERANCE, FORGIVENESS, MY RINGS! Forgiveness for what, you ask? Now you
worry Me. Is the shared wax so badly melted? Did the Asx personality so damage
us, with its second attempt at suicide-by-amnesia? Must I provide memory of
recent events through the demi-electronic processes of the master torus? Very
well, My rings, I shall do so. Then we will begin again, restoring the
expertise that made us useful to the Jophur cause. Together
we watched while a party from our ship took possession of the so-called Library
used by the savage Six Races. Though it contains a pathetically small amount of
bit-equivalent data, this is the source,font of their wolfling trickery. Feral
scheming that has cost us dearly. A fine
thing happened when we/i caught sight of those crude buildings made from sliced
trees, sheltered in an artificial cave. Many hidden waxy trails resonated with
sudden recognition! Accessing these recovered tracks, we were able to tell the
Captain-Leader many secrets of this trove of pseudo-knowledge. Secrets Asx had
meant to render inaccessible. ; Slowly,
we regain our former reputation and esteem, Does that make you glad, My rings? How
gratifying to feel your agreement come so readily now! That brief rebellion,
followed by a second suicide amnesia, appears to have left you more docile than
before. No longer sovereign traeki rings, but parts of a greater whole. Now
regard! Leaving a force behind to secure Biblos, our Polkjhy turns to its main
task. Too long have we let ourselves be diverted/delayed. There will be no more
negotiating with Rothen sneak thieves. No more dickering with savage races.
Those six will meet their varied fates from land forces already scattered
across the Slope. As for
Polkjhy, we cruise toward that continental cleft, that ocean abyss. Estimated
locale of the dolphin ship. IT IS
DECIDED. THE ROTHEN HAD THE RIGHT IDEA, AFTER ALL. We'll
bombard the depths, putting the fugitive Earthlings ' in peril. To preserve
their lives, they will have no choice but to rise up and surrender. Until
now, the Captain-Leader preferred patience over rash action. We did not want to
destroy the very thing we seek! Not before learning its secrets. Since no
competing clan or fleet has come to Jijo, we appeared to have a wealth of
time.
' But
that was before we lost both corvettes. Before postponements stretched on and
on. Now we
are resolved to take the chance! With
depth bombs ready in great store, we plunge toward the zone known as the Rift. WHAT IS
THIS? ALREADY? DETECTORS BLARE. IN THE
WATERS AHEAD OF US-MOTION! Joyous hunt lust fills the bridge. It must be the
prey, giving away their location as they scurry in search of a new hiding
place. Then
remote perceptors cry out upsetting news. No single ship is making the
vibrations we detect. THERE
ARE SCORES OF EMISSION SITES . . . HUNDREDS! Sara EMERSON
SEEMED CHEERFUL DURING THE LONG ride down from Mount Guenn, pressing his face
against the warped window of the little tram, gazing at the sea. How would he
feel if he knew whom we were meeting? Sara wondered as the car zoomed down
ancient lava flows, swifter than a galloping urs. Would
he be ecstatic, or try to jump out and flee? Far below, a myriad bright sun
glints stretched from the surf line all the way to a cloud-fringed western
horizon. Jijo's waters seemed placid, but Sara still felt daunted by the sight.
A mere one percent ripple in that vastness would erase every tree and
settlement along the coast. The ocean's constancy proved the ample goodness of
this life world-a nursery of species. I
always hoped to see this, before my bones went to the Midden as dross. I just
never figured I'd come by horseback, across the Spectral Flow, over a volcano .
. . and finally by fabulous cable car, all toward confronting creatures out of
legend. Sara
felt energized, despite the fact that nobody on Mount Guenn had slept much
lately. n Uriel
had finished using her analog computer barely in time. Just miduras after
sending the ballistics calculations north, semaphore operators reported
breathless news about the consequences. Stunning
rocket victories. Discouraging
rocket failures. Forest
fires, dead sages, and the Egg-wounded, silent, possibly forever. Flash
floods below Festival Glade, leaving countless dead or homeless. Nor was
that all. Throughout the night, tucked amid other tidings from across the
Slope, came clipped summaries of events bearing hard on Sara. Elation
surged when she learned of Blade's unqheuenish aerial adventures. Then her
father's report triggered overpowering images of the destruction of Dolo
Village, forcing her to seek a place to sit, burying her head in her hands.
Nelo lived-that was something. But others she had known were gone, along with
the house she grew up in. Lark
and Dwer . . . we dreamed what it might be like when the dam blew. But I never
really thought it could happen. Waves
of sorrow kept Sara withdrawn for a time, till someone told her an urgent
message had come, addressed specifically for her, under the imprimatur of a
former High Sage of the Six. Ariana
Foo, Sara realized, scanning the brief missive, Ifni, who cares about the
dimensions of the ship that crashed Emerson into the swamp? Does it matter what
kind of chariot he used, when he was a star god? He's a wounded soul now.
Crippled. Trapped on Jijo, like the rest of us. Or was
he? After
so many shocks that eventful night, Sara was just lying down for a blotting
balm of sleep when events close at hand rocked Uriel and her guests. I At
dawn, the captains of Wuphon Port sent word of a monster in their harbor. A
fishlike entity who, after some misunderstandings, claimed relatedness to human
beings. Moreover, the creature said it
bore a message for the smith. Uriel
was overjoyed. "The
little sneak canera that scared us so ... the device came fron the Earthling
ship! Perhaps the Jophur have not found us, after all!" That
mattered. The sky battleship was said to be on the move, perhaps heading in
their direction. But Uriel could not evacuate the forge with several projects
still under way. Her teams had never been busier. "I'll
go see the Terran at once," the smith declared. There
was no lack of volunteers to come along. Riding the first tram, Sara watched
Prity flip through Emerson's wrinkled sketchpad, lingering over a page where
sleek figures with finned backs and tails arched ecstatically through .
crashing waves. An image drawn from memory. "They
look other than I imagined," commented Uriel, curling her long neck past
the chimp's shoulder. "Till now, I only knew the race from descripshuns in
books." "You
should read the kind with pictures in 'em." Kurt the Exploser laughed,
nudging his nephew. But Jomah kept his face pressed to the window next to
Emerson, taking turns pointing at features of the fast-changing landscape.
Ever-cheerful, the starman showed no awareness of what this trip was about. Sara
knew what tugged her heart. Beyond all other worries and pangs, she realized,
It may be time for the bird to fly back to his own kind. Watching
the robust person she had nursed from the brink of death, Sara saw no more she
could offer him. No cure for a ravaged brain, whose sole hope lay back in the
Civilization of the Five Galaxies. Even with omnipotent foes in pursuit, who
wouldn't choose that life over a shadow existence, huddling on a stranded shore? The
ancestors, that's who. The Tabernacle crew, and all the other sneakships. Sara
recalled what Sage Purofsky said, only a day ago. "There are no accidents,
Sara. Too many ships came to Jijo, in too short time." "The
scrolls speak of destiny, " she had replied. "Destiny!" The sage
snorted disdain. "A word made up by people who don't understand how they
got where they are, and are blind to where they're going." ' "Are you
saying you know how we got here, Master?" Despite
all the recent commotion and tragedy, Sara found her mind still hooked by
Purofsky's reply. "Of
course I do, Sara. It seems quite clear to me. "We
were invited." E. wasx FOOLS!"
THE CAPTAIN-LEADER DECLARES. "ALL BUT one of these emanations must come
from decoy torpedoes, tuned to imitate the emission patterns of a starship. It
is a standard tactical ruse in deep space. But such artifice cannot avail if we
linger circumspectly at short range! "Use
standard techniques to sift the emanations. "FIND
THE TRUE VESSEL WE SEEK!" Ah, My
rings. Can you discern the colors swarming down the glossy flanks of our
Captain-Leader? See how glorious, how lustrous they are. Witness the true
dignity of Jophur wrath in its finest form. Such
indignation! Such egotistic rage! The Oailie would be proud of this commander
of ours, especially as we all hear impossible news. THESE
ARE NOT DECOY DRONES AT ALL. The
myriad objects we detect . . . moving out of the Rift toward open ocean . . .
EVERY ONE OF THEM IS A REAL STARSHIP! The
bridge mists with fearful vapors. A great fleet of ships! How did the Earthers
acquire such allies? Even
our Polkjhy is no match for this many. We will
be overwhelmed! Dwer I AM
SORRY," GILLIAN BASKIN TOLD HIM. "THE Decision came suddenly. There
was no time to arrange a special ride to shore." She
seemed irked, as if his request were unexpected. But in fact, Dwer had asked
for nothing else since his second day aboard this vessel. The two
humans drifted near each other in a spacious, water-filled chamber, the control
center of starship Streaker. Dolphins flew past them across the spherical room,
breathing oxygen-charged fluid with lungs that had been modified to make it
almost second nature. At consoles and workstations, they switched to bubble
domes or tubes attached directly to their blowholes. It seemed as strange an
environment as Dwer had ever dreamed, yet the fins seemed in their element. By
contrast, Dwer and Gillian wore balloonlike garments, seeming quite out of
place. "I'm
not doing any good here," he repeated, hearing the words narrowly
projected by his globe helmet. "I got no skills you can use. I can hardly
breathe the stuff you call air. Most important, there are folks waiting for me.
Who need me. Can't you just cut me loose in some kind of a boat?" Gillian
closed her eyes and sighed-a brief, eerie set of clicks and chuttering moans.
"Look, I understand your predicament," she said in Anglic. "But
I have over a hundred lives to look after . . . and a lot more at stake, in a
larger sense. I'm sorry, Dwer. All I can hope is that you'll understand." He knew
it useless to pursue the matter further. A dolphin at one of the bridge
stations called for attention, and Gillian was soon huddled with that fin and
Lieutenant Tsh't, solving the latest crisis. The
groan of Streaker's engines made Dwer's head itch-a residual effect, perhaps,
of the way his brain was palped and bruised by the Danik robot. He had no proof
things would really be any better if he found his way back to shore. But his
legs, arms, and lungs all pined for wilderness-for wind on his face and the
feel of rough ground underfoot. A
ghostly map traced its way across the bridge. The realm of dry land was a
grayish border rimming both sides of a submerged canyon-the Rift-now filled
with moving lights, dispersing like fire bees abandoning their hives. So it
seemed to Dwer as over a hundred ancient Buyur vessels came alive after half a
million years, departing the trash heap where they were consigned long ago. The
tactic was familiar. Many creatures used flocking to confuse predators. He
approved the cleverness of Gillian and her crew, and wished them luck. But I
can't help them. I'm useless here. She ought to let me go. Most of
the salvaged ships were under robotic control, programmed to follow simple sets
of instructions. Volunteers rode a few derelicts, keeping close to Streaker,
performing special tasks. Rety had volunteered for one of those teams,
surprising Dwer and worrying him at the same time. She
never does anything unless there's an angle. If he
had gone along, there might have been a chance to veer the decoy close to
shore, and jump off. . . . But no,
he had no right to mess up Gillian's plan. Dammit,
I'm used to action! I can't handle being a passive observer. But
handle it he must. Dwer
tried to cultivate patience, ignoring an itch where the bulky suit would not
let him scratch, watching the lights disperse-most heading for the mouth of the
Rift, spilling into the vast oceanic abyss of the Great Midden itself. "Starship
enginesss!" The gravities detector officer announced, thrashing her tail
flukes in the water, causing j bubbles in the supercharged liquid. "P-passive
detectors show Nova class or higher it'sss following the path of the Riff ft. .
. ." wasx REALIZATION
EMERGES, ALONG WITH A STENCH OF frustration. The
vast fleet of vessels that we briefly feared has proved not to be a threat,
after all. They are not warships, but decommissioned vessels, long ago
abandoned as useless for efficient function. Nevertheless,
they baffle and thwart our goal/mission. A blast of leadership pheromones cuts
through the disappointed mist. "TO
WORK THEN," our Captain-Leader proclaims. "WE ARE SKILLED, WE ARE
MIGHTY. SO LET US DO YOUR/OUR JOBS WELL. "PIERCE
THIS MYSTERY. FIND THE PREY. WE ARE JOPHUR, WE SHALL PREVAIL." Dwer B
GLITTERING LIGHT ENTERED THE DISPLAY ZONE, much higher and much larger than any
of the others, and cruising well above the imaginary waterline. That
must be the battleship, he thought. His mind tried to come up with an image.
Something huge and terrible. Clawed and swift. Suddenly,
the detection officer's voice went shrill. "They're dropping
ordnance!" Sparks began falling from the big glow. Bombs, Dwer realized.
He had seen this happen before, but not on such a profuse scale. Lieutenant
Tsh't shouted a warning. "All handsss, prepare for shock waves!" Sara HOONISH
WORK CREW SWARMED OVER THE TRAM after the passengers debarked, filling the car
with stacks of folded cloth. Teams had been sending the stuff up to the forge
since dawn, stripping every ship of its sails. But the urrish smith hardly
glanced at the cargo. Instead, Uriel trotted off, leading the way down to the cove
with a haughty centauroid gait. The
dense, salty air of sea level affected everybody. Sara kept an eye on Emerson,
who sniffed the breeze and commented in song. "A
storm is a-brewin' You can bet on it tonight. A blow is a-stewin' So you better
batten tight." The
khutas and warehouses of the little port were shaded by a dense lattice of
melon vines and nectar creepers, growing with a lush, tropical abundance
characteristic of southern climes. The alleys were deserted though. Everyone
was either working for Uriel or else down by the bay, where a crowd of hoons
and qheuens babbled excitedly. Several hoons-males and females with beards of
seniority-knelt by the edge of a quay, conversing toward the water, using
animated gestures. But the town officials made way when Uriel's party neared. Sara
kept her attention on Emerson, whose expression stayed casually curious until
the last moment, when a sleek gray figure lifted its glossy head from the
water. The
starman stopped and stared, blinking rapidly. He's
surprised, Sara thought. Could we be wrong? Perhaps he has nothing to do with
the dolphin ship. Then
the cetacean emissary lifted its body higher, thrashing water with its tail. "Sssso,
it's true. . . ." the fishlike Terran said in thickly accented Anglic,
inspecting Emerson with one eye, then the other. "Glad
to see you living, Engineer D-D'Anite. Though it hardly seems possible, after
what we saw happen to you back at the Fractal world. "I
confessss, I can't see how you followed us to this whale-forsaken planet." Powerful
emotions fought across Emerson's face. Sara read astonishment, battling surges
of both curiosity and frustrated despair. "K-K-K-" The
dismal effort to speak ended in a groan. "A-ah-ahh
..." The
dolphin seemed upset by this response, chuttering dismay over the human's
condition. But
then Emerson shook his head, seeking to draw on other resources. At last, he
found a way to express his feelings, releasing a burst stream of song. "How
quaint the ways of paradox! At common sense she gaily mocks! We've quips and
quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox!" Gillian THE
ULTIMATUM BLANKETED ALL ETHERIC WAVElengths-a scratchy caterwauling that filled
Streaker's bridge, making the oxy-water fizz. Streams of bubbles swelled and
popped with each Galactic Four syntax phrase. Most
neo-dolphin crew members read a text translation prepared by the Niss Machine.
Anglic letters and GalSeven glyphs flowed across the main holo screen. HEAR
AND COMPREHEND OUR FINAL COMMAND,OFFER! • •
• Gillian
listened for nuance in the original Jophur dialect, hoping to glean something
new. It was the third repetition since the enemy dreadnought began broadcasting
from high in the atmosphere. "YOU
WHOM WE SEEK-YOU HAVE PERFORMED CLEVER MANEUVERS, WORTHY OF RESPECT. AT THIS
JUNCTURE, WE SHALL NO LONGER WASTE BOMBS. WE SHALL CEASE USELESSLY INSPECTING
DECOYS." The
change in tactics was expected. At first, the foe had sent robots into the
lightless depths, to examine and eliminate reactivated Buyur ships, one by one.
But it was a simple matter for Hannes Suessi's team to fix booby traps. Each
derelict would self-destruct when a probe approached, taking the automaton
along with it. The
usual hierarchy of battle was thus reversed. Here in the Midden, big noisy
ships were far cheaper than robots to hunt them. Suessi had scores more ready
to peel off from widely separated dross piles. It was doubtful the Jophur could
spend drones at the same rate. There
was a downside. The decoy ships were discards, in ill repair when abandoned,
half a million years ago. Only the incredible hardiness of Galactic manufacture
left them marginally useful, and dozens had already burned out, littering the
Midden once more with their dead hulks. "FAILING
TO COERCE YOU BY THAT MEANS, WE ARE NOW PREPARED TO OFFER YOU GENEROUS TERMS.
..." This
was the part Gillian paid close attention to, the first couple of times it
played. Unfortunately, Jophur "generosity" wasn't tempting. In
exchange for Streaker's data, charts, and samples, the Captain-Leader of the
Greatship Polkjhy promised cryonic internment for the crew, with a guarantee of
revival and free release in a mere thousand years. "After the present
troubles have been resolved." In
other words, the Jophur wanted to have Streaker's secrets . . . and to make
sure no one else shared them for a long time to come. While
the message laid out this offer, Gillian's second-in command swam alongside. "We've
managed to c-come up with most of the suppliesss the local wizard asked
for," Tsh't reported. One of the results of making contact with the
Commons of Six Races had been a shopping list of items desperately wanted by
the urrish smith, Uriel. "Several
decoy ships are being diverted close to shore, as you requested. Kaa and his
new t-team can strip them of the stuff Uriel wants, as they swing by." The
dolphin lieutenant paused. "I suppose I needn't add that this increases
our danger? The enemy might detect a rhythm in these movementsss, and target
their attention on the hoonish seaport-t." "The
Niss came up with a swarming pattern to prevent that," Gillian answered.
"What about the crew separation? How are Makanee's preparations coming
along?" Tsh't
nodded her sleek head. Taking a break from the laborious, underwater version of
Anglic, she replied in Trinary. *
Seasons change the tides, * That
tug us toward our fates, * And
divide loved ones . .'. * To
which she added a punctuating coda: "'.
. . forever. ... * Gillian
winced. What she planned-least awful of a dozen grievous options-would sever
close bonds among a crew that had shared great trials. An epic journey
Earthlings might sing about for ages to come. Providing
there are still Earthlings, after the Time of Changes. In
fact, she had no choice. Half of Streaker's neo-dolphin complement were showing
signs of stress atavism-a decay of the faculties needed for critical thought.
Fear and exhaustion had finally taken their toll. No client race as young as
Tursiops amicus had ever endured so much for so long, almost alone. It's
time to make the sacrifice we all knew would someday come. The
chamber still vibrated with Jophur threats. Coming from some other race, she
might have factored in an element of bluster and bravado, but she took these
adversaries precisely at their word. The
holo display glowed with menacing letters "We'll
slip in to shore between the fourth and fifth decoys . . . about eight hours
from now." Gillian
glanced at Pincer, his reddish carapace covered with oxy-water bubbles, the
qheuen visor spinning madly, taking in everything with the avidness of
adolescence. The local youths should be glad about what was about to happen.
And so will Dwer Koolhan. I hope this pleases him . . . though it's not quite
what he wanted. Gillian
admitted to herself she would miss the young man who reminded her so much of
Tom. "All
right, then," she told Tsh't. "Let's take the kids home." WE ARE
THE ONLY GALACTIC WARSHIP IN THIS REGION. NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU. NOR
WILL ANY COMPETITORS DISTRACT US, AS HAPPENED ON OTHER OCCASIONS. WE CAN
AFFORD TO WAIT YOU OUT, INVESTIGATING AND ELIMINATING DECOYS FROM SAFE RANGE,
OR ELSE, IP NECESSARY, THIS NOBLE SHIP WILL FORGO SOLE HONOR AND SEND FOR HELP
FROM THE VAST JOPHUR ARMADA. DELAY
MERELY INCREASES OUR WRATH. IT AUGMENTS THE HARM WE SHALL DO TO YOUR TERRAN
COUSINS, AND THE OTHER SOONERS WHO DWELL ILLICITLY ON FORBIDDEN LAND. ... Gillian
thought of Alvin, Huck, and Ur-ronn, listening in a nearby dry cabin-and
Pincer-Tip, who represented them on the bridge, darting to and fro with flicks
of his red claws. We
already drew hell down on the locals, when the, Rothen somehow tracked us to
Jijo. There must be a way to spare them further punishment on our account. Soon it
will be time to end this. Gillian
turned back to Tsh't. "How much longer before it's our turn?" "• The
lieutenant communed with the tactics-and movement officer. arl TOGETHER,
THEY PROVED ONLY HALF-BLIND, Stumbling down the musty corridors of a vast alien
ship filled I with hostile beings. Ling knew more than he did about starships,
but Lark was the one who kept them from getting completely lost. For one
thing, there were few symbols on the walls, so their knowledge of several
Galactic dialects proved almost useless. Instead, each closed aperture or
intersection seemed to project its own, unique smell, effective at short range.
As a Jijoan, Lark could sniff some of these and dimly grasp the simplest
pheromone indicators-about as well as a
bright human four-year-old might read street signs in a metropolis. One
bitter tang reminded him of the scent worn by traeki proctors at Gathering
Festival, when they had to break up a fight or subdue a belligerent drunk. SECURITY,
the odor seemed to say. He steered Ling around that hallway. She had
a goal, however, which was one up on him. With his head full of fragrant
miasmas, Lark gladly left the destination up to her. No doubt any path they chose
would eventually lead to the same place-their old prison cell. Three
more times, they encountered solitary Jophur. But puffs from the purple ring
caused them to be ignored. Doors continued sliding open on command. The gift
from Asx was incredible. A little too good, in fact. I can't
believe this trick will work for long, he thought as they hurried deeper into
the battleship's heart. Asx probably expected us to need it for a midura or so,
just till we made it outside. Once the crew was alerted about escaped
prisoners, the ruse must surely fail. The Jophur would use countermeasures,
wouldn't they? Then he
realized. Maybe
there's been no alert. The Jophur may assume we already fled the ship! Perhaps. Still,
each encounter with a gleaming ring stack in some dank passage left him feeling
eerie. Lark had lived among traeki all his life, but till this moment he never
grasped how different their consciousness must be. How strange for a sapient
being to look right at you and not see, simply because you gave off the right
safe-conduct aroma. . . . At the
next intersection, he sniffed all three corridor branches carefully, and found
the indicator Ling wanted- a simple scent that meant LIFE. He pointed, and she
nodded. "As
I thought. The layout isn't too different from a type seventy cargo ship. They
keep it at the center." "Keep
what at the center?" Lark asked, but she was already hurrying ahead. Two
human fugitives, bearing their only tools-she cradling the wounded red traeki
ring, while he carried the. purple one. When
the next door opened, Ling stepped back briefly from a glare. The place was
more brightly lit than the normal dim corridors. The air smelled better, too.
Less cloying with meanings he could not comprehend. Lark's first impression was
of a large chamber, filled with color. "As
I hoped," Ling said, nodding. "The layout's standard. We may actually
have a chance." "A
chance for what?" She
turned back to look into the vault, which Lark now saw to be quite vast, filled
with a maze of crisscrossing support beams ... all of them draped with varied
types of vegetation. "A
chance to survive," she answered, and took his hand, drawing him inside. A
jungle surrounded them, neatly organized and regimented. Tier after tier of
shelves and platforms receded from view, serviced by machines moving slowly
along tracks. Arrayed on this vast network there flourished a riot of living
forms, broad leaves and hanging vines, creepers and glistening tubers. Water
dripped along some of the twisted green cables, and the two of them rushed to
the nearest trickle, lapping eagerly. Now
Lark understood the meaning of the aroma symbol that had led them here. In the
middle of hell, they had found a small oasis. At that moment, it felt like paradise. HE DID
NOT LIKE GOING DOWN TO THE WATER. THE harbor was too frenzied. It
hardly seemed like a joyous reunion to see Kaa and other friends again. He
recognized good old Brookida, and Tussito, and Wattaceti. They all seemed glad
to see him, but far too busy to spend time visiting, or catching up. Perhaps
that was just as well. Emerson felt ashamed. Shame that he could not greet them
with anything more than their names . . . and an occasional snippet of song. Shame
that he could not help them in their efforts- hauling all sorts of junk out of
the sea, instructing Uriel's assistants, and sending the materials up by tram
to the peak of Mount Guenn. Above
all, he felt shame over the failure of his sacrifice, back at that immense
space city made of snow-that fluffy metropolis, the size of a solar
system-called the Fractal System. Oh, it
seemed so noble and brave when he set forth in a salvaged Thennanin scout,
extravagantly firing to create a diversion and help Streaker escape. With his
last glimpse- as force fields closed in all around him-he had seen the beloved,
scarred hull slip out through an opening in the vast shell of ice, and prayed
she would make it. Gillian,
he had thought. Perhaps she would think of him, now. The way she recalled her
Tom. Then
the Old Ones took him from the little ship, and had their way with him. They
prodded and probed. They made him a cripple. They gave him forgetfulness. And
they sent him here. The
outlines are still hazy, but Emerson now saw the essential puzzle. Streaker
had escaped to this forlorn planet, only to be trapped. More hard luck for a
crew that never got a break. But . .
. why . . . send . . . me . . . here? That
action by the Old Ones made no sense. It seemed crazy. Everyone
would be better off if he had died, the way he planned. The
whole population of the hoonish seaport was dashing about. Sara seemed
preoccupied, spending much of her time talking rapidly to Uriel, or else
arguing heatedly with the gray-bearded human scholar whose name Emerson could
not recall. Often a
messenger would arrive, bearing one of the pale' paper strips used for
transcribing semaphore bulletins Once, the urrish courier came at a gallop,
panting and clearly shaken by the news she bore. An eruption of dismayed babble
swelled as Emerson made out a single repeated word-"Biblos." Everyone
was so upset and distracted, nobody seemed to mind when he indicated a wish to
take the tram back up to Uriel's forge. Using gestures, Sara made clear that he
must come back before sunset, and he agreed. Clearly i something was going to
happen then. Sara made sure Prity went along to look after him. Emerson
didn't mind. He got along well with Prity. They were both of a kind. The little
chim's crude humor, expressed with hand-signed jokes, often broke him up. Those
fishie things are cousins? she signaled at one point, referring to the busy,
earnest dolphins. , was hoping they tasted good! Emerson
laughed. Earth's two client-level races had an ongoing rivalry that seemed
almost instinctive. During
the ride upslope, he examined some of the machinery Kaa and the others had
provided at Uriel's request. Most of it looked like junk-low-level Galactic
computers, ripped out of standard consoles that might be hundreds or millions
of years old. Many were stained or slimy from long immersion. The melange of
devices seemed to share just one trait-they had been refurbished enough to be
turned on. He could tell because the power leads were all wrapped in tape to
prevent it. Otherwise, it looked like a pile of garbage. He
longed to squat on the floor and tinker with the things. Prity shook her head
though. She was under orders to prevent it. So instead Emerson looked out
through the window, watching distant banks of dense clouds roll ominously
closer from the west. He
fantasized about running away, perhaps to Xi, the quiet, pastoral refuge hidden
in a vast desert of color. He would ride horses and practice his music . . .
maybe fix simple, useful tools to earn his keep. Something to help fool himself
that his life still had worth. For a
while he had felt valued here, helping Uriel get results from the Hall of
Spinning Disks, but no one seemed to need him anymore. He felt like a burden. It
would be worse if he returned to Streaker, a shell. A fragment. The chance of a
cure beckoned. But Emerson was smart enough to know the prospects weren't
promising. Captain Creideiki once had an injury like his, and the ship's doctor
had been helpless to correct such extensive damage to a brain. Perhaps
at home, though . . . On Earth . . . He
painted the blue globe in his mind, a vision of beauty that ached his heart. Deep
inside, Emerson knew he would never see it again. The tram docked at last. His
mood lifted for a little while, helping Uriel's staff unload cargo. Along with
Prity, he followed the urs and qheuens down a long, twisty corridor toward a
flow of warm air. At last they reached a big underground grotto-a cave with an
opening at the far end, facing north. Hints of color gleamed far beyond,
reminding him of the Spectral Flow. Workers
scurried about. Emerson saw g'Kek teams busy sewing together great sheets of
strong, lightweight cloth. He watched urs delicately adjust handmade valves as
gray qheuens bent lengths of pipe with their strong claws. Already, breaths of
volcanically heated air were flowing into the first of many waiting canopies,
creating bulges that soon joined together, forming a globe-ended bag. Emerson
looked across the scene, then back at the salvaged junk the dolphins had
donated. Slowly,
a smile spread across his face. To his
great satisfaction, the urrish smiths seemed glad when he silently offered to
lend a hand. Kaa THE
SKIES OPENED AROUND NIGHTFALL, LETTING down both rain and lightning. The
whale sub Hikahi delayed entering Port Wuphon until the storm's first stinging
drizzle began peppering the wharves and huts. The sheltered bay speckled with
the impact of dense droplets as the submersible glided up a slanted coastal
shelf toward an agreed rendezvous. Kaa
swam just ahead, guiding her through the narrow channel, between jagged shoals
of demicoral. No one I would have denied him the honor. , am still chief pilot,
he thought. With or without my nickname. The
blunt-nosed craft mimicked his long turn around the . sheltering headland,
following as he showed the way with powerful, body-arching thrusts of his tail.
It was an older piloting technique than wormhole diving, not highly technical.
But Kaa's ancestors used to show human sailors the ,' way home in this manner,
long before the oldest clear I memory of either race. "Another
two hundred meters, Hikahi, "he projected using sonar speech. "Then a
thirty-degree turn to port. After that, it's three hundred and fifty meters to
full stop." The
response was cool, professional. "Roger.
Preparing for debarkation." Kaa's
team-Brookida and a half-dozen neo-fins who had come out earlier to unload
Uriel's supplies-moored the vessel when it reached the biggest dock. A small
crowd of dignitaries waited on the pier, under heavy skies. Umbrellas sheltered
the urrish delegates, who pressed together in a shivering mass, swaying their
long necks back and forth. Humans and hoons made do with cloaks and hats, while
the others simply ignored the rain. Kaa was
busy for a time, giving instructions as the helmsman fine-tuned her position,
then cut engines. Amid a froth of bubbles, the Hikahi brought her bow even with
the wharf. Clamshell doors opened, like a grinning mouth. Backlit
by the bright interior, a single human being strode forward. A tall female
whose proud bearing seemed to say that she had little left to lose-little that
life could take from her-except honor. For a long moment, Gillian Baskin looked
on the surface of Jijo, inhaling fresh air for the first time in years. Then
she turned back toward the interior, beckoning with a smile and an extended
arm. Four
silhouettes approached-one squat, one gangly, one wheeled, and the last
clattering like a nervous colt. Kaa knew the tall one, although they had never
met. Alvin, the young "humicking" writer, lover of Verne and Twain,
whose journal had explained so much about the strange mixed culture of sooner
races. A moan
of overjoyed release escaped those waiting, who flowed forward in a rush. So-embraced
by their loved ones, and pelted by rain- the adventurous crew of Wuphon's Dream
finally came home. There
were other reunions . . . and partings. Kaa
went aft to help Makanee debark her patients. Streaker's chief physician seemed
older than Kaa remembered, and very tired, as she supervised a growing throng
of neo-dolphins, splashing and squealing beyond the Hikahi's starboard flank.
While some appeared listless, others dashed about with antic, explosive energy.
Two nurses helped Makanee keep the group herded together at the south end of
the harbor, using occasional low-voltage discharges from their harnesses to
prevent their patients from dashing off. The devolved ones wore nothing but
skin. Kaa
counted their number-forty-six-and felt a shiver of worry. Such a large
fraction of Streaker's crew! Gillian must be desperate indeed, to contemplate
abandoning them here. Many were probably only experiencing fits of temporary
stress atavism, and would be all right if they just had peace and quiet for a
time. Well,
maybe they'll get it, on Jijo, he thought. Assuming this planet sea turns out
to be as friendly as it looks. And \ assuming the Galactics leave us alone. In
becoming Jijo's latest illegal settler race, dolphins had an advantage over
those who preceded them. Fins would not need buildings, or much in the way of
tools. Only the j finest Galactic detectors might sieve their DNA resonance out
of the background organic stew of a life world, and just at close range. ; There
are advantages, he admitted. This way, some of) our kind may survive, even if
Earth and her colonies don't. And if dolphins are caught here, so what? Haw ,
could we Terragens get into any more trouble than we' already are? ' Kaa had
read about local belief in Redemption. A species that found itself in trouble
might get a second chance, returning to the threshold state, so that some new
patron might adopt and guide them to a better destiny. Tursiofs amicus was less
than three hundred years old as a toolusing life-form. Confronted by a
frolicking mob of his own kind-former members of an elite starship crew, now
screeching like animals-Kaa knew it shouldn't take fins long to achieve
"redemption." He felt
burning shame. Kaa
joined Brookida, unloading Makanee's pallet of supplies. He did not want to
face the nurses, who might reproach him for "losing" Peepoe. At least
now there's a chance to find her. With our own colony in place, I can serve
Makanee as a scout, patrolling and exploring . . . in time I'll catch up with
Zhaki andMopol. Then we'll have a reckoning. The aft
hatch kept cycling after the last dolphin was through. Excited squeaks
resonated across the bay as another set of emigres followed Makanee to an
assembly point, on a rocky islet in the middle of the harbor. Eager six-limbed
amphibian forms, with frilly gill fringes waving about their heads.
Transplanted from their native Kithrup, the Kiqui would not qualify as sooners,
exactly. They were already a ripe, presapient life-form-a real treasure, in
fact. It would have been good to bring them home to Earth in triumph and lay a
claim of adoption with the Galactic Uplift Institute. But now Gillian clearly
thought it better to leave them here, where they had a chance. According
to plan, the dolphin-Kiqui colony would stay in Port Wuphon for a few days,
while a traeki pharmacist analyzed the newcomers' dietary needs. If necessary,
new types of traeki stacks would be designed to create symbiotic supplements.
Then both groups would head out to find homes amid islands offshore. I'm
coming, Peepoe, Kaa thought. Once we get everyone settled, nothing on Jijo or
the Five Galaxies will keep me from you. A happy
musing. Yet another thought kept nagging at him. Gillian
isn 't just stripping the ship of nonessential personnel. She's putting
everyone ashore she can spare . . . for their own safety. In
other words, the human Terragens agent was planning something desperate . . .
and very likely fatal. Kaa had an uneasy feeling that he knew what it was. Alvin I GUESS
REUNIONS CAN BE KIND OF AWKWARD, EVEN when they're happy ones. Don't
get me wrong! I can't imagine a better moment than when the four of us-Huck,
Ur-ronn, Pincer, and me-stepped out of the metal whale's yawning mouth to see
the hooded lanterns of our own hometown. My senses were drenched with
familiarity. I heard the creaking dross ships and the lapping tide. I smelled
the melon canopies and smoke from a nearby cookstove-someone making chubvash
stew. My magnetic earbones tickled to the familiar presence of Mount Guenn,
invisible in the dark, yet a ^ powerful influence on the hoonish
shape-and-location i sense. Then
there came my father's umble cry, booming from the shadows, and my mother and
sister, rushing to my arms. . • I
confess, my first reaction was hesitant. I was glad to be home, to see and
embrace them, but also embarrassed by the attention, and a little edgy about
moving around without a cane for the first time in months. When there came a
free moment, I bowed to my parents and handed them a package, wrapped in
complex folds of the best paper I could find on the Streaker, containing my
baby vertebrae. It was an important moment. I had gone away a disobedient
child. Now I was returning, an adult, with work to do. My
friends' homecomings were less emotional. Of course Huck's hoonish adoptive
parents were thrilled to have her back from the dead, but no one expected them
to feel what my own folks did after giving up their only son for lost, months
ago. Pincer-Tip
touched claws briefly with a matron from the qheuen hive, and that was it for
him. As for
Ur-ronn., she and Uriel barely exchanged greetings. Aunt and niece had one
priority-to get out of the rain. They fled the drizzle to a nearby warehouse,
swiftly immersing themselves in some project. Urs don't believe in wasting
time. Does it
make me seem heartless to say that I could not give complete attention to my
family? Even as they clasped me happily, I kept glancing to see what else was
going on. It will be up to me-and maybe Huck-to tell later generations about
this event. This fateful meeting on the docks. For one
thing, there were other reunions. My new
human friend, Dwer Koolhan, emerged from the Hikahi, a tall silhouette, as
sturdy looking as a preteen hoon. When he appeared, a shout pealed from the
crowd of onlookers, and a young woman rushed to him, her arms spread wide. Dwer
seemed stunned to see her . . . then equally enthused, seizing her into a
whirling hug. At first, I thought she might be some long-separated lover, but
now I know it is his sister, with adventures of her own to recount. The
rain let up a bit. Uriel returned, wearing booties and a heavy black waterproof
slicker that covered all but the tip of her snout. Behind came several hoons,
driving a herd of ambling, four-footed creatures. Glovers. At least two dozen
of the bulge-eyed brutes swarmed down the pier, their opal skins glistening. A
few carried cloth-wrapped burdens in their grasping tails. They did not
complain, but trotted toward the opening of the whale sub without pause. This
part of the transaction, I did not--and still do not--understand. Why Earthling
fugitives would want glavers is beyond me. Gillian
Baskin had the hoons carry out several large crates in exchange. I had seen the
contents and felt an old hunger rise within me. Books.
There were hundreds of paper books, freshly minted aboard the Streaker. Not a
huge amount of material, compared with the Galactic Library unit, or even the
Great Printing, but included in the boxes were updates about the current state
of the Five Galaxies, and other subjects Uriel requested. More than enough
value to barter for a bunch of grub-eating glavers! Later,
I connected the trade with the dolphins and Kiqui who also debarked in Wuphon
Harbor, and I realized, There's more to this deal than meets the eye. Did I
mention the tall prisoner? As everybody moved off to the great hall for a
hurried feast, I looked back and glimpsed a hooded figure being led down the
pier toward the submarine, guarded by two wary-looking urs. It was a biped, but
did not move like a human or hoon, and I could tell both hands were tied.
Whoever the prisoner was, he vanished into the Hikahi in a hurry, and I never
heard a word about it. The
last reunion took place half a midura later, when we were all gathered in the
town hall. According
to a complex plan worked out by the Niss Machine, the whale sub did not have to
depart for some time, so a banquet was held in the fashion of our Jijoan
Commons. Each race claimed a corner of the hexagonal chamber for its own food
needs, then individuals migrated round the center hearth, chatting, renewing
acquaintance, or discussing the nature of the world. While Gillian Baskin was
engrossed in deep conversation with my parents and Uriel, my sister brought me
up to date on happenings in Wuphon since our departure. In this way I learned
of school chums who had marched north to war, joining militia units while we
four adventurers had childish exploits in the cryptic deep. Some were dead or
missing in the smol-' dering ruins of Ovoom Town. Others, mostly qheuens, had
died in the plagues of late spring. The
hoonish disease never had a chance to take hold here in the south. But before
the vaccines came, one ship had been kept offshore at anchor-in
quarantine-because a sailor showed symptoms. Within
a week, half the crew had died. Despite
the gravity of her words, it was hard to pay close attention. I was trying to
screw up my courage, you see Somehow, I must soon tell my family the news they
would least want to hear. Amid
the throng, I spotted Dwer and his sister huddled near the fire, each taking
turns amazing the other with tales about their travels. Their elation at being
reunited was clearly muted by a kind of worry familiar to all of usconcern
about loved ones far away, whose fates were still unknown. I had a sense that
the two of them knew, as I did, that there remained very little time. Not far
away I spied Dwer's noor companion, Mudfoot-the one Gillian called a
"tytlal"-perched on a rafter, communing with others of his kind. In
place of their normal, devil-may-care expressions, the creatures looked somber.
Now we Six knew their secret-that the tytlal are a race hidden within a race,
another tribe of sooners, fully alert and aware of their actions. Might some
victims of past i pranks now scheme revenge on the little imps? That seemed the
least of their worries, but I wasted no sympathy on them. Welcome
to the real world, I thought. Tyug
squatted in a corner of the hall, furiously puffing away. Every few duras, the
traeki's synthi ring would pop out another glistening ball of some substance
whose value the Six Races had learned after long experience. Supplements to,
keep glavers healthy, for instance, and other chemical wonders that might serve
Gillian's crew, if some miracle allowed them to escape. If Tyug finished soon,
Uriel hoped to keep her alchemist. But I would lay bets that the traeki meant
to go along when the Earthhngs de-' parted. The
occasion was interrupted when a pair of big hoons wearing proctors' badges
pushed through leather door strips into the feasting hall, gripping the arms of
a male human I had never seen before. He was of middle height for their kind,
with a dark complexion and an unhappy expression. He wore a rewq on his
forehead, and hair combed to hide a nasty scar near his left ear. A small chimp
followed close behind, her appearance rueful. I
wasn't close enough to hear the details firsthand, but later I pieced together
that this was a long-lost crew mate of the Streakers, whose appearance on Jrjo
had them mystified. He had been on Mount Guenn, helping Uriel's smiths work on
some secret project, when he suddenly up and tried to escape by stealing some
kind of flying machine! As the
guards brought him forward, Gillian's face washed with recognition. She smiled,
though he cringed, as if dreading this meeting. The dark man turned left to
hide his mutilation, but Gillian insistently took his hands. She
expressed pleasure at seeing him by leaning up to kiss one cheek. Perhaps
later I'll learn more about where he fits in all this. But time is short and I
must close this account before the Hikahi sets sail to rejoin the
dolphin-crewed ship. So \ let me finish with the climax of an eventful
evening. I A
herald burst in. His vibrating sac boomed an alert umble. "Come!
Come and see the unusual!" Hurrying
outside, we found the rain had stopped temporarily. A window opened in the
clouds, wide enough for \ Loocen to pour pale, liquid luminance across a flank
of \ Mount Guenn. Swathes of brittle stars shone through, including one deep
red, cyclopean eye. In
spite of this lull, the storm was far from over. Lightning flickered as clouds
grew denser still. The west was, one great mass of roiling blackness amid a
constant back-; ground
of thunder. In miduras, the coast was really going to get hit. People
started pointing. Huck rolled up near my right leg and gestured with all four
agile eyestalks, directing my' gaze toward the volcano. At
first, I couldn't tell what I was seeing. Vague, ghostlike shapes seemed to bob
and flutter upward, visible mostly as curved silhouettes that blocked sporadic
stars. Sometimes lightning caused one of the objects to glow along a rounded
flank, revealing a globelike outline, tapered at the bottom. They seemed big,
and very far away. I
wondered if they might be starships. "Balloons,"
Huck said at last, her voice hushed in awe "Just like Around the World in
Eighty Days\" Funny.
Huck seemed more impressed at that moment than she ever had been aboard
Streaker, by all the glittering consoles and chattering machines. I stared at
the flotilla of fragile gasbags, wondering what kind of volunteers were brave
enough to pilot them on a night like this, surrounded by slashing electricity,
and with ruthless foes prowling higher still. We watched as scores wafted from
Mount Guenn's secret caves. One by one, they caught the stiff west wind and
flowed past the mountain, vanishing from sight. I
happened to be standing near Gillian Baskin so know
what the Earthwoman said when she turned to Urie the Smith. "All
right. You kept your side of the bargain. Now it'' time to keep ours." PflBHEII Vuboen SMASHED
UP. Wheels torn or severed. His braincase leaking lubricant. ,Viotivator
spindles shredded and discharging slowly into the ground. ' Vubben
lies crumpled next to his deity, reeling lire drain away. That he
still lives seems remarkable. When the Jophur corvette slashed brutally at the
Holy Egg, he had been partway around the great stones Hank, almost on the other
side. But the moatlike channel of the Nest (unneled explosive heat like a
river, outracing his Iruttless enort at retreat. Now
Vubben lies in a heap, aware of two tacts. Any
surviving glxeks would need a new High lay. And
something else. the bgg still lives. He
wonders about that. Why didnt the Jophur (inish It on' Surely they had the
power. perhaps
they were distracted. perhaps
they would be back. Or
else, were they subtly persuaded to 30 away The t,gg s patterning rhythms seem
subdued, and yet more clear than ever. He ponders whether it might be an
artilact of his approaching death. Or perhaps his irayed spindles--draped
across the stony race--are picking up vibrations that normal senses could not. crystalline
lucidity calls him, but Vubben reels restrained by the tenacious hold of lite.
I hat was what always kept sages and mystics From mlly communing with the
sacred ovoid, he now sees. A,iortal beings--even traeki--have to care about
continuing, or else the game of existence cannot properly be played. But the
caring is also an Impediment. It biases the senses. AAakes you receptive to
noise. Me lets
go of the impediment, with a kind of gladness. Surrender clears the way,
opening a path that he plunges along, like a youth just released from training
wheels, spinning ecstatically down a swooping ramp he never knew beiore, whose
curves change in dellghtiulty ominous ways. Vuboen
leels the world grow transparent around him. And with blossoming clarity, he
begins to perceive connections. In
legend, and in human lore, gods were depicted speaking to their prophets, and
those on the verge of death. But the great stone does not vocalise. Psio words
come to Vubben, or even images. )4t he finds himself able to trace the Lggs
torm, its vibrating unity. l_ike a runnel, it draws him down, toward the bowels
of Jt)o. rhat is
the first surprise. From its shape alone, the Six s\aw assumed the L,gg was
sell-contained, an oval stone birthed out of Jijo's inner heat, now wholly part
of the upper world. Apparently it still maintains links to the world below.
Vubben s da^ed mind beholds the realm beneath the Slope . . . not as a pic!,ure
but in its gestalt, as a vast domain threaded by dendritic patterns or lava
heat, like branches of a magma (orest, iceding and maintaining a growing
mountain range The
forest roots sink into [(queried pools, unimaginably deep and broad-measureless
chambers where molten rock strains under the steady grinding or an active
planet. ,et, even
here the pattern tormations persist. Vubben hnds himselt ama?ed by their
revealed source. ,
Dross! Deep
beneath the Slope, there plunges a great sheet of heavier stone ... an oceanic
plate, shoving hard against the continent and then diving deeper still,
dragging eons-old basalt down to rejoin slowly convecting mantle layers. The
process is not entirely mysterious to Vubben. He has seen illustrations in
Biblos texts. As it scrapes by, the plunging ocean plate leaves behind a scum,
a irothy mix of water and light elements . . . . . .
and also patterns. latterns
or dross! Or ancient buildings, implements, machines, all discarded long ago,
ages before the Buyur won their leasehold on this world. Deiore even their
predecessors. I he
things themselves are long gone, melted, smeared out, their atoms dispersed by
pressure and heat. Yet somehow a remnant persists. The magma does not quite
rorget. Uross
Is supposed to be cleansed, Vubben thinks, shocked by the Implications. When we
dump our bones and tools in the Midden, it should lead to burial and
purihcation by Jijo's lire. I here isn t supposed to be anything lelt! And yet
. . . who is he to question, it Jijo chooses to remember something of each
tenant race that abides here (or a while, availing itseli of her resources, her
varied liie-iorrns, then departing according to Galactic law' Is that
what you are' tie Inquires or the Holy h-gg. A distillation or memory The
crystallised essence of species who came oelore, and are now extinct' j\
transcendent thought, yet it makes him sad. Vubben s own unique race verges on
annihilation. He yearns ror some kind of preservation, some reluge From
oblivion. But in order to leave such a remnant, sophonts must dwell for a long
time on a tectonic world. for
most of its sapiency period, his kind had lived in space. ] hen you don t care
aoout us living oelngs, after all, he accuses the Lgg. ,ou are like that craved
mule spider of the hills, your lace turned to the past. . .,Again,
there is no answer in word or image. What Vubben (eels instead is a further
extension of the sense of connectedness, now sweeping upward, through channels
of friction heat, climbing against slow cascades of moist, superheated rode,
until his mind emerges in a cool dark kingdom--the seas deep, most private
place. I he
,vildden. Vubben (eels around him the great dross piles of more recent
habitation waves. Lven here, amid relics of the Buyur; the Lgg
seems linked. Vubben senses that the graveyard of ancient instrumentalities has
been disturbed, Heaps of archaic refuse still quiver from some [ate intrusion. There
is no anger over this. iNor anything as overt as Interest. But he does sense a
reaction, like some prodigious reflex. I he
sea is involved. Disturbance in the dross piles has provoked shifts in the
formation of waves and tides. Of heat and evaporation. Like a sleeping giant,
responding heavily to a tiny itch. A massive storm begins rolling both the
surface and the ocean floor, sweeping things back where they belong. Vubben
has no idea what vexed the ,Vildden so. perhaps the Jophur. Or else the end or
dross shipments from the lix Kaces' Anyway, his thoughts are coming more slowly
as death swarms in from the extremities. Vvorldly concerns matter less with
each passing dura. Jtill,
he can muster a few more cogencies Is that all we are to you' he inquires of
the planet, An itch' tic
realises now^that l_)rake and Ur-Ohown had pulled a fast one when they
announced their revelation, a century ago. The Lgg is no god, no conscious
being. Ko-kenn was right, calling
it a particle of psi-active stone, more compact and well ordered
than the Spectral Flow. A distillation that had proved helpful
in uniting the Six Races. Useful
in many ways ... but not worthy of prayer. We sensed what we desperately wanted
to sense, because tfi. alternative
was unacceptable--to face the fact that ive sooners a alone.
We always were alone. That
might have been Vibben's last thought. But at the final moment there comes
something else. A glimmer of meaning that merges with his waning neuronic
flashes. In that narrow moment, he leels a wave of overwhelming certainty. More
layers lie beneath the sleeping strata. Layers that are aware. Layers
that know. Despair
is not his final companion. Instead, there comes in rapid succession--
expectation . . . satisfaction . . . awareness of an ancient plan, patiently
unfolding. Kaa CAN'T-T
YOU USE SOMEBODY ELSE?" "Who else? There is no one." "What
about Karkaett-t?" "Suessi
needs him to help nurse the engines. This effort will be hopeless unless they
operate above capacity." Hopeless;
Kaa used to think it such a simple word. But like the concept of infinity, it came
freighted with a wide range of meanings. He slashed the water in frustration.
Ifni, will you really trap me this way? Dragging me across the universe again,
when all I want to do is stay? Gillian
Baskin knelt on the quay nearby, her raincoat glistening. Distant lightning
flashes periodically lit up the bay, revealing that the Hikahihad already
closed her clamshell doors, preparing to depart. "Besides,"
Gillian added. "You are our chief pilot. Who could be as well
qualified?" Gratifying
words, but in fact Streaker used to have a better pilot, by far. "Keepiru
ought to've stayed with the crew, back on Kithrup-p. I should have been the one
who went on the skiff with Creideiki." The
woman shrugged. "Things happen, Kaa. I have confidence in your ability to
get us off this world in one piece." And
after that? He chuttered a doubt-filled raspberry. Everyone knew this would be
little more than a suicide venture. The odds had also seemed bad on Kithrup,
but at least there the eatee battle fleets'chasing Streaker had been
distracted, battling each other. Fleeing through that maelstrom of combat and
confusion, it proved possible to fool their pursuers by wearing a disguise-the
hollowed-out shell of a Thennanin dreadnought. All that ploy took was lots of
skill . . . and luck. Here in
Jijo space there was no sheltering complexity. No concealing jumble of warfare
to sneak through. Just one pursuer-giant and deadly-sought one bedraggled prey. For the
moment, Streaker was safe inJijo's sea, but what chance would she have once she
tried to leave? "You
don't have to worry about Peepoe," Gillian said, ' reading the heart of
his reluctance. "Makanee has some solid fins with her. Many are Peepoe's
friends. They'll scan relentlessly till they find Zhaki and Mopol, and make
them let her go. "Anyway,"
the blond woman went on, "isn't Peepoe better off here? Won't you use your
skill to keep her safe?" Kaa
eyed Gillian's silhouette, knowing the Terragens agent would use any means to
get the job done. If that meant appealing to Kaa's-sense of honor ... or even
chivalry . . . Gillian Baskin was not too proud. "Then
you admit it-t," he said. "Admit
what?" "That
we're heading out as bait, nothing elsssse. Our aim is to sacrifice
ourselves." The human
on the quay was silent for several seconds, then lifted her shoulders in a
shrug. "It
seems worthwhile, don't you think?" Kaa
pondered. At least she was being honest-a decent way for a captain to behave
with her pilot. A whole
world, seven or eight sapient races, some near extinction, and a unique
culture. Can you see giving up your life for all that? "I
guesss so," he murmured, after a pause. Gillian
had won. Kaa would abandon his heart on Jijo, and fly out to meet death with
open eyes. Then he
recalled. She had made exactly the same choice, long ago. A decision that still
must haunt her sleep, though it could have gone no other way. Yet it
surprised Kaa when Gillian slipped off the stone quay, entering the water next
to him, and threw her arms around his head. Shivers followed her hands as she
stroked him gratefully. "You
make me proud," she said. "The crew will be glad, and not just
because we have the best pilot in this whole galaxy." Kaa's
flustered confusion expressed itself in a sonar interrogative, casting puzzled
echoes through the colonnade of a nearby pier. Gillian wove her Trinary reply
through that filtered reverberation, binding his perplexity, braiding a sound
fabric whose texture seemed almost like a melody. * Amid
the star lanes, *
Snowballs sometimes thrive near flame. . . . * Don't
you feel Lucky? * Rety THE
DOLPHIN ENGINEER SHOUTED AT HER FROM the airlock of the salvaged dross ship. -
"C-come on, Rety! We gotta leave now, t-to make the rendezvous!" Chuchki
had reason to be agitated. His walker unit whined and jittered, reacting to
nervous signals sent down his neural tap. It was cramped in the airlock, which
also held the speed sled to carry them from this ghost ship back to Streaker.
Providing all went according to plan. Only I ain't part of the plan anymore,
Rety thought. Stepping in front of Chuchki, with the sill of the hatch between
them, she removed the tunic they had given her, as an honorary member of the
crew. At first the gesture had pleased Rety-till she saw the Terrans were just
another band of losers. Rely
tossed the garment in the airlock. "Tell
Dr. Baskin an' the others thanks, but I'll be makin' my own way from here on.
Good luck. Now scram." Chuchki
stared at first, unable to move or speak. Then servos whirred. The walker
started to move. "Hit
the button, yee!" Rety shouted over her left shoulder. Back in
the control room, her little "husband" pressed a lever triggering the
airlock's emergency cycle. The inner hatch slid shut, severing Chuchki's wail
of protest. Soon, a row of purple lights showed the small chamber rilling with
water as the outer door opened. A few
duras later, she heard engine noise-the nowfamiliar growl of the speed sled
that had brought the two of them here-ebbing with distance as the machine fled.
She ordered the outer door closed and locked against the possibility that
Chuchki might try something "heroic." Some still thought of her as a
child, and many dolphins also had a mystical attachment to their human patrons. But
I'll be just fine. A lot better off than those fools, in fact. Several
low, squat hallways led away from the lock, but only one was lit by a string of
glow bulbs. Following this trail, she made her way back toward the control
room, sometimes lingering to stroke a panel or gaze into a chamber filled with
mysterious machines. For the last few days she had looked over this salvaged
starship-once a Buyur packet boat, according to Chuchki. Though a mess, it was
one of the "best" recovered derelicts, capable of life support as
well as full engine maneuvering, owing its remarkable state to the Midden's
chill, sterile waters. Durable Galactic machines might lie there unchanged
forever, or until Jijo sucked them underground. It's
mine now, she mused, surveying her prize. I've got my own starship. Of
course it was still a hunk of dross. All odds were against her getting anywhere
in this moving scrap pile. But the
odds always had been against her, ever since she was born into that filthy
tribe of savages, so proud of their sickly ignorance. And especially since she
realized she'd rather be whipped for speaking up than be a slave to some bully
with rotting teeth and the mind of a beast. Rety
had suffered some disappointments lately. But now she saw what each of the
setbacks had in common. They all came about because of trusting others-first
the sages of the Commons, then the Rothens, and finally a ragtag band of
helpless Earthlings. But all
that was in the past. Now she was back doing what she did best-relying on
herself. The
control room spanned roughly thirty paces in width, featuring about a dozen
wide instrument consoles. All were dark, except one jury-rigged station
festooned with cables and makeshift bypass connections. Lights blazed across
that panel. On the floor nearby, a portable holosim display revealed a staticky
map of the ancient vessel's surroundings, a dart-shaped glow threading its way
through a maze of ridges at the bottom of the great ocean. Most of
the decoy ships cruised with simple autopilots, but a few moved more flexibly,
crewed by volunteer teams, making adjustments to the swarm pattern planned by
the Niss Machine. In this effort, Rety's intelligence and agile hands had been
helpful to Chuchki, making up for her lack of education. She felt justified in
having earned her starship. "hi
captain!" Her
sole companion pranced on the instrument console, each footstep barely missing
a glowing lever or switch. The little urrish male greeted her with a shrill
ululation. "we
did, it! like pirates of the plains! like in legends of the battle aunties! now
we free. no more noor beasts, no more yuckity ship full of water-loving
fish!" Rety
laughed. Whenever loneliness beckoned, there was always yee to cheer her up. "so
where to now, captain?" the diminutive creature asked, "shake free of
Jijo? head someplace good and sunny, for a change?" She
nodded. "That's
the i.dea. Only we gotta be patient a little while longer." First
Streaker must collect Chuchki and other scattered workers. Rety had an
impression that the Earthlings were waiting for events to happen onshore. But
after hearing the Jophur ultimatum she knew-Gillian Baskin would soon be forced
to act. I
helped them, she rationalized. An' I won't interfere with their plan . . .
much. But in
the long run, none o' that'll matter. Everybody knows they're gonna get roasted
when they try to get away. Or else
thejophur'll catch 'em, like a ligger snatchin' up a gallaiter faun. Nobody
can blame me for tryin' to find my own way out of a trap like that. And if
someone did cast blame her way? Rety laughed at the thought. In that
case, they can try to out,art a traeki, for all I care. This ship is mine, and
there's notbin' anybody can do about it! She was getting away from Jijo-one way
or another. Dwer THE
NIGHT SKY CRACKLED. At random intervals his hair abruptly stood on end. Static
electricity snapped the balloon's canopy with a basso boom, while pale blue
glows moved up and down the rope cables, dancing like frantic imps. Once, a
flickering ball of greenish white followed him across the sky for more than a
midura, mimicking each rise, fall, or sway in the wind. He could not tell if it
was an arrowflight away, or several leagues. The specter only vanished when a
rain squall passed between, but Dwer kept checking nervously, in case it
returned. Greater
versions of the same power flashed in all directions-though from a safe
distance, so far. He made a habit of counting kiduras between each brilliant
discharge and the arrival of its rumbling report. When the interval grew short,
thunder would shake the balloon like a child's rag doll. Uriel
had set controls to keep Dwer above most of the gale ... at least according to
the crude weather calculations of her spinning-disk computer. The worst fury
took place below, in a dense cloud bank stretching from horizon to horizon. Still,
that only meant there were moonlit gaps for his frail craft to drift through.
Surrounding him towered the mighty heat engines of the storm-churning
thunderheads whose lofty peaks scraped the boundaries of space. Though
insanely dangerous, the spectacle exceeded anything in Dwer's experience-and
perhaps even that of any star god in the Five Galaxies. He was tempted to climb
the rigging for a better view of nature's majesty. To let the tempest sweep his
hair. To shout back when it bellowed. But he wasn't free. There were duties
unfulfilled. So Dwer did as he'd been told, remaining huddled in a wire cage
the smiths had built for him, lashed to a wicker basket that dangled like an
afterthought below a huge gasbag. The metal enclosure would supposedly protect
him from a minor lightning strike. And
what if a bolt tears the bag instead? Or ignites the fuel cylinder? Or ... Low
clicks warned Dwer to cover his face just half a dura before the altitude
sensor tripped, sending jets of flame roaring upward, refilling the balloon and
maintaining a safe distance from the ground. Of
course, "safe" was a matter of comparison. "In
theory, this vehicle should convey you welt past the Rinner Range, and then
veyond the Poison Plain," the smith had explained. "After that, there
should ve an end to the lightning danger. You can leave the Faraday cage and guide
the craft as we taught you." As they
taught me in half a rushed midura, Dwer amended, while running around preparing
one last balloon to launch. All the
others were far ahead of him-a flotilla of flimsy craft, dispersing rapidly as
they caught varied airstreams, but all sharing the same general heading. East,
driven by near-hurricane winds. Twice he had witnessed flares in that
direction, flames that could not have come from lightning alone. Sudden
outbursts of ocher fire, they testified to some balloon exploding in the
distance. Fortunately,
those others had no crews, just instruments recovered from dross ships. Dwer
was the only Jijoan loony enough to go flying on a night like this. They
needed an expendable volunteer. Someone to observe and report if the trick is
successful. Not
that he resented Uriel and Gillian. Far from it. Dwer was suited for the job.
It was necessary. And the voyage would take him roughly where he wanted to go. Where
I'm needed. To the
Gray Hills. What
might have happened to Lena and Jenin in the time he'd spent as captive of a
mad robot, battling Jophur in a swamp and then trapped with forlorn Terrans at
the bottom of the sea? By now, the women would have united the urrish and human
sooner tribes, and possibly led them a long way from the geyser pools where
Danel Ozawa died. It might take months to track them down, but that hardly
mattered. Dwer had his bow and supplies. His skills were up to the task. All I
need is to land in roughly the right area, say within a hundred leagues . . .
and not break my neck in the process. I can hunt and forage. Save my traeki
paste for later, in case the search lasts through winter. Dwer
tried going over the plan, dwelling on problems he could grasp-the intricacies
of exploring and survival in wild terrain. But his mind kept coming back to
this wild ride through an angry sky . . . or else the sad partings that
preceded it. For a
time, he and Sara had tried using words, talking about their separate
adventures, sharing news of friends living and dead. She told what little she
knew about Nelo and their destroyed hometown. He described how Lark had saved
his life in a snowstorm, so long ago that it' seemed another age. Hanging
over the reunion was sure knowledge that it must end. Each of them had places
to go. Missions with slim chance of success, but compelled by duty and
curiosity. Dwer had lived his entire adult life that way, but it took some
effort to grasp that his sister had chosen the same path, only on a vaster scale. He
still might have tried talking Sara out of her intention-perhaps suicidal-to
join the Earthlings' desperate breakout attempt. But there was something new in
the way she carried herself-a lean readiness that took him back to when they
were children, following Lark on fossil hunts, and Sara was the toughest of
them all. Her mind had always plunged beyond his comprehension. Perhaps it was
time for her to stride the same galaxies that rilled ha thoughts. • "Remember
us,'when you're a star god," he had told her,' before their final embrace. Her
reply was a hoarse whisper, "Give my love to Lark and ..." Sara
closed her eyes, throwing her arms around him. ". . . and to Jijo." They
clung together until the urrish smiths said it was the last possible moment to
go. When
the balloon took off, Mount Guenn leaped into view around him, a sight unlike
any he ever beheld. Lightning made eerie work of the Spectral Flow, sending
brief flashes of illusion dancing across his retinas. Dwer
watched his sister standing at the entrance of the cave, a backlit figure. Too
proud to weep. Too strong to pretend. Each knew the other was likely heading to
oblivion. Each realized this would be their last shared moment. I'll
never know if she lives, he had thought, as clouds swallowed the great volcano,
filling the night with flashing arcs. Looking up through a gap in the overcast,
he had glimpsed, a corner of the constellation Eagle. Despite
the pain of separation, Dwer had managed a smile. It's
better that way. From
now until the day I die, I'll picture her out there. Living in the sky. Alvin AS IT
TURNED OUT, I DIDN'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN things to my parents. Gillian and Uriel
had already laid it out, before it was time to depart. The Six
Races should be represented, they explained. Come what may. Furthermore,
I had earned the right to go. So had my friends. Anyway,
who was better qualified to tell Jijo's tale? Mu-phauwq and Yowg-wayuo had no
choice but to accept my decision. Was Jijo any safer than fighting the Jophur
in space? Besides, I had spine-molted. I would make my own decisions. Mother
turned her back to me. I stroked her spines, but she spoke without turning
around. "Thank
you for returning from the dead," she murmured. "Honor us by having
children of your own. Name your firstborn after your great-uncle, who was
captain of the Auph-Vuhoosh. The cycle must continue." With
that, she let my sister lead her away. I felt both touched and bemused by her
command, wondering how it could ever be obeyed. Dad,
bless him, was more philosophical. He thrust a satchel in my arms, his entire
collection of books by New Wave authors of Jijo's recent literary revival-the
hoon, urs, and g'Kek writers who have lately begun expressing themselves in
unique ways on the printed page. "It's to remind you that humans are not
in complete command of our culture. There is more than one line to our harmony,
my son." "I
know that, Dad," I replied. "I'm not a complete humicker." He
nodded, adding a low umble. "It
is told that we hoons were priggish and sour, before our sneakship came to
Jijo. Legends say we had no word for 'fun.' "If
that is true-and in case you meet any of our stodgy cousins out there-tell them
about the sea, Hph-wayuo! Tell them of the way a sail catches the wind, a sound
no mere engine can match. "Teach
them to taste the stinging spray. Show them all the things that our patrons
never did. "It
will be our gift-we happy damned-to those who know no joy in heaven." Others
had easier leave-takings. Qheuens
are used to sending their males out on risky ventures, for the sake of the
hive. Pincer's mothers did emboss his shell with some proud inlay, though, and
saw him off in good style. Urs care
mostly about their work, their chosen loyalties, and themselves. Ur-ronn did
not have to endure sodden sentimentality. Partly because of the rain, she and
Uriel made brief work of their good-byes. Uriel probably saw it as a good
business transaction. She lost her best appren, tice, but had adequate
compensation. Uriel
seemed far more upset about losing Tyug. But there was no helping it. The
Earthers need a traeki. And not just any traeki, but the best alchemist we can
send. No pile of substance balls can substitute. Besides, it will be good luck
for all races to be along. Huck's
adoptive parents tried to express sorrow at her parting, but their genuine
fondness for her would not make them grieve. Hoons are not humans. We cannot
transfer the full body bond to those not of our blood. Our affections run
deeper, but narrower than Earthlings'. Perhaps that is our loss. So the
five of us reboarded as official representatives, and as grown-ups. I had
molted and Pincer showed off his cloisonne. Ur-ronn did not preen, but we all
noticed that one of her brood pouches was no longer virgin white, but blushed a
fresh shade of blue as her new husband wriggled and stretched it into shape. Huck
carried her own emblem of maturity-a narrow wooden tube, sealed with wax at
both ends. Though humble looking, it might be the most important thing we
brought with us from the Slope. Huphu
rode my shoulder as I stepped inside the whale sub. I noted that the
tytlal-style noor, Mudfoot, had also rejoined us, though the creature seemed
decidedly unhappy. Had he been exiled by the others, for the crime of letting
their ancient secret slip? Or was he being honored, as we were, with a chance
to live or die for Jijo? Sara
Koolhan stood between her chimp and the wounded starman as the great doors
closed, cutting us off from the wharf lanterns, our village, and the thundering
sky. "Well,
at least this is more comfortable than the last time we submerged, inside a
dumb old hollow tree trunk," Huck commented. Pincer's
leg vents whistled resentfully. "You want comfy? Poor little g'Kekkie want
to ride my back, an' be tucked into her beddie?" "Shut
up, you two," Ur-ronn snapped. "Trust Ifni to stick me with a bunch
of ignoranuses for conpanions." Huphu
settled close as I umbled, feeling a strange, resigned contentment. My friends'
bickering was one unchanged feature of life from those naive days when we were
youngsters, still dreaming of adventure in our Wuphon's Dream. It was nice to
know some things would be constant across space and time. Alas,
Huck had not mentioned the true difference between that earlier submergence and
this one. Back
then, we sincerely thought there was a good chance we'd be coming home again. This
time, we all knew better. wasx ARLARMS
BLARE! INSTRUMENTS CRY OUT SIRENS OF danger! Behold,
My rings, how the Captain-Leader recalls the robots and remote crew stacks who
were engaged in probing the deep-sea trench. Greater
worries now concern us! For
days, cognizance detectors have sieved through the deep, trying to separate the
prey from its myriad decoys. It even occurred to us/me that the Earthling ship
may not be one of the moving blips at all! It might be sheltering silently in
some dross pile. In operating the swarm by remote control, they might bypass
all the normal etheric channels, using instead their fiendish talent at
manipulating sound. I/we
are/am learning caution. I did not broach this possibility to the
Captain-Leader. Why did
I refrain? A datum has come to our attention. Those in power often ask for the
"truth," or even the best guesses of their underlings. But in fact,
they seldom truly wish to hear contradiction. Anyway,
the tactics stacks estimated improved odds at sifting for the quarry. Only one
more day, at worst. We of the Polkjhy could easily afford the time. Until
we detected disturbing intruders. Interlopers that could only have come from
the Five Galaxies! "THERE
ARE AT LEAST SIX SIXES OF THEM!" So
declares the cognizance detector operator. "Hovering, almost stationary,
no more than fifteen planetary degrees easterly. One moment they were not
there. The next moment, they appeared!" The
etherics officer vents steam of doubt. "I/we perceive nothing, nor have
our outlying satellites. This provokes a reasonable hypothesis: that your
toruses are defective, or else your instruments." But routine checks
discover no faults in either. "They may have meme-suborned our
satellites," suggests one tactician stack. "Combining this with excellent
masking technology-" "Perhaps,"
interrupts another. "But gravities cannot be fooled so easily. If there
are six sixes of ships, they cannot be larger than hull type sixteen. No match
for us, then. We can annihilate the entire squadron, forthwith," "Is
that why they operate in stealth?" inquires the Captain-Leader, puffing
pheromones of enforced calm into the tense atmosphere. "Might they be
lingering, just beyond line of sight, while awaiting reinforcements?" It is a
possibility we cannot ignore. But, lacking corvettes, we must go investigate
ourselves. Reluctantly,
gracefully, the Polkjhy turns her omnipotence around, heading toward the
ghostly flotilla. If they are scouts for an armada-perhaps the Soro or Tandu,
our mortal foes-it may be necessary to act swiftly, decisively. Exactly the
kind of performance that best justifies the existence of master rings. Others
must not be allowed to win the prize! As we move ponderously eastward, a new
thought burbles upward. A streak of wax, secreted by our oncerebellious second
torus-of-cognition. What is it, My ring? You
recall how the savage sooners called to our corvette, not once, but twice,
using minute tickles of digital power to attract our attention? The
first time, they used such a beacon to bribe us with the location of a g'Kek
hideout. The
second time? Ah, yes. It was a lure, drawing the corvette to a trap. VERY
CLEVER, MY RING! Ah, but
the comparison does not work. There
are many more sources, this time. They
are stronger, and the cognizance traces have spoor patterns typical of starship
computers. | But
above all, My poor ring, did you not hear our detection officer stack? These
signals cannot come from benighted sooners. THEY
FLY! Sara GRAVITIGSS!" The
detection officer thrashed her flukes. "Movement signs! The large emitter
departss its stationary hover position. Jophur battleship now moving east at
two machsss. Ten klickss altitude." Sara
watched Gillian Baskin absorb the news. This was j according to plan, yet the
blond Earthwoman showed' hardly any reaction. "Very good," she
replied. "Inform me of any vector change. Decoy operator, please engage
swarming program number four. Start the wrecks drifting upward, slowly." The
water-filled chamber was unlike any "bridge" Saa had read about in
ancient books-a Terran vessel, controlled from a room humans could only enter
wearing breathing masks. This place was built for the convenience of dolphins.
It was their ship-though a woman held command. A musty
smell made Sara's nose itch, but when her hand raised to scratch, it bumped the
transparent helmet, star-i tling her for die fiftieth time. Fizzy liquid
prickled Sara's bare arms and legs with goose bumps. Yet she had no mental space
for annoyance, fear, or claustrophobia. This place was much too strange to
allow such mundane reacl tions. Streaker's
overall shape and size were still enigmas. Her ' , one glimpse of the
hull-peering through a viewing port : while the whale sub followed a
searchlight toward its hurried rendezvous-showed a mysterious, studded
cylinder, like a giant twelk caterpillar, whose black surface seemed to drink
illumination rather than reflect it. The capacious airlock was almost deserted
as Kaa and other dolphins debarked from the Hikahi, using spiderlike walking
machines to rush to their assigned posts. Except for the bridge, most of the
ship had been pumped free of water, reducing weight to a minimum. The
walls trembled with the rhythmic vibration of engines-distant cousins to her
father's mill, or the Tarek Town
steamboats. The familiarity ran deep, as if affinity flowed in Sara's blood. "Battleship
passing over Rimmer mountains. Departing line-of-sight!" "Don't
make too much of that," Gillian reminded the crew. "They still have
satellites overhead. Maintain swarm pattern four. Kaa, ease us to the western
edge of our group." "Aye,"
the sturdy gray pilot replied. His tail and fins wafted easily, showing no sign
of tension. "Suessi reports motors operating at nominal. Gravities charged
and ready." Sara
glanced at a row of screens monitoring other parts of the ship. At first, each
display seemed impossibly small, but her helmet heeded subtle motions of her
eyes, enhancing any image she chose to focus on, expanding it to 3-D clarity.
Most showed empty chambers, with walls still moist from recent flooding. But
the engine room was a bustle of activity. She spied "Suessi" by his
unique appearance-a torso of wedgelike plates topped by a reflective dome,
encasing what remained of his head. The arm that was still human gestured
toward a panel, reminding a neo-fin operator to make some adjustment. That
same arm had wrapped around Emerson after the Hikahi docked, trembling while
clutching the prodigal starman. Sara had never seen a cyborg before. She did
not know if it was normal for one to cry.
Emerson and Prity were also down there, helping Suessi with their nimble
hands. Sara spied them laboring in the shadows, accompanied by Ur-ronn, the
eager young urs, fetching and carrying for the preoccupied engineers. Indeed,
Emerson seemed a little happier with work to do. After all, these decks and
machines had been his life for many years. Still, ever since the reunion on the
docks, Sara had not seen his accustomed grin. For the first time, he seemed
ashamed of his injuries.
\ These
people must be hard, up to need help from an ape, an urrish blacksmith, and a
speechless cripple. The other youngsters from Wuphon were busy, too. Running
errands and tending the glaver herd, keeping the creatures calm in j strange
surroundings. I'm
probably the most useless one of all. The Egg only knows what I'm doing here. Blame
it on Sage Purofsky, whose cosmic speculations justified her charging off with
desperate Earthlings. Even if his reasoning holds, what can I do about the
BuyurpW. Especially if this mission is suicidal- The
detection officer squealed, churning bubbles with her flukes. "Primary
gravities source decelerating! Jophur ship nearing estimated p-position of
mobile observer." Mobile
observer, Sara thought. That would be Diver. She
pictured him in that frail balloon, alone in the wide sky, surrounded by
nature's fury, with that great behemoth streaking toward him. Keep
your head down, little brother. Here it comes. Dwer WITH
THE RIMMERS BEHIND HIM AT LAST, THi' storm abated its relentless buffeting
enough to glimpse some swathes of stars. The gaps widened. In time Dwer spied a
pale glow to the west. Gray luminance spread across a vast plain of waving
scimitar blades. Dwer
recalled slogging through the same bitter steppe months ago, guiding Danel,
Lena, and Jenin toward the Gray Hills. He still bore scars from that hard
passage, when knifelike stems slashed at their clothes, cutting any exposed
flesh. This
was a better way of traveling, floating high above. That is, if you survived
searing lightning bolts, and thunder that loosened your teeth, and terrifying
brushes with mountain peaks that loomed out of the night like giant claws,
snatching at a passing morsel. Maybe
walking was preferable, after all. He
drank from his water bottle. Dawn meant it was time to get ready. Dormant
machines would have flickered to life when first light struck the decoy balloons,
electric circuits closing. Computers, salvaged from ancient starships, began
spinning useless calculations. The
Jophur must be on the move, by now. He
reached up to his forehead and touched the rewq he had been given, causing it
to writhe over his eyes. At once, Dwer's surroundings shifted. Contrasts were
enhanced. All trace of haze vanished from the horizon, and .he was able to look
close to the rising sun, making out the distant glimmers of at least a dozen
floating gasbags, now widely dispersed far to the east, tiny survivors of the
tempest that had driven them so far. Dwer
pulled four crystals from a pouch at his waist and jammed them into the gondola
wickerwork so each glittered in the slanted light. A hammer waited at his
waist, but he left it there for now, scanning past the decoys, straining to see
signs of the Gray Hills. I'm
coming, Jenin. I'll be there soon, Lena. I've just got a few more obstacles to
get by. He tried to picture their faces, looking to the future rather than dwelling
on a harsh past. Buried in his backpack was a sensor stone that would come
alight on midwinter's eve, if by some miracle the High Sages gave the all
clear. If all the starships were gone, and there was reason to believe none
would return. By then Dwer must find Lena and Jenin, and help them prepare the
secluded tribe for either fate destiny had in store-a homecoming to the
Slope, or else a life of perpetual hiding in the wilderness. Either
way, it's the job I'm trained for. A duty I know how to fulfill. He
found it hard to settle his restless mind, though. For some reason Dwer thought
instead about Rety, the irascible sooner girl who had chosen to stay with the
Streaker crew, No surprise there; she wanted nothing in life more than to leave
Jijo, and that seemed the most likely, if risky, way. But
Dwer's mind roamed back to their adventure together-as captives of the Danik
robot, when Dwer used to carry the machine across rivers by wearing it like a
hat, conducting its suspensor fields through his own throbbing nervous system.
. . . All at
once he realized. The recollection was no accident.; No
random association. It was
a warning. Creepy
shivers coursed his spine. Eerily familiar. ; "Dung!"
he cried out, swiveling to the west--just in time to spy a tremendous object,
blue and rounded, like a demon's face, soar past the Rimmer peaks and hurtle
silently toward him, outracing sound. It was
like watching the onrush of an arrow, aimed i straight at your nose. In moments
the starship grew from a' mere speck, burgeoning to fill the world Dwer
shut his eyes, bracing for erasure. ...
l Kiduras
passed, two for each racing heartbeat. After twenty or so, the gondola was
struck by a wall of sound, shaking him like thunder But
sound was all. No impact.| It must
have missed me! He
forced an eye open, turning around . . . . . .
and spied it to the east, bearing toward the decoy balloons. Now he
could tell, the behemoth moved at a higher altitude. The imminent collision had
been a mirage. It never came within a league of him, or gave Dwer any notice. But it
can't miss the decoys, he thought. They're in open view. Blade,
his childhood qheuen playmate, had reported that balloons seemed transparent to
Jophur instruments, But that was at night. It's almost broad daylight now.
Surety they see the gasbags by now. Or
maybe not. Dwer recalled how excited the balloon concept made the Niss Machine,
which understood a lot about Jophur ways. Perhaps Gillian Baskin knew what she
was doing. The
idea was to get the Jophur confused. To send them searching around for supposed
enemy ships they could detect only vaguely. Sure
enough, the space titan decelerated ponderously, descending in a long spiral
around the general area. An aura of warped air seemed to bend all light passing
within half a radius of the tremendous globe. The rewq made clear this was a
shield of some sort-apparent grounds for the Jophur assumption of
invincibility. Dwer
reached for the hammer at his waist . . . and waited. L^an WE
WANTED TO MAKE LOVE AGAIN. Who wouldn't, after the way Ling had writhed and
clutched at him, with animal-like cries that belied her background as an urbane
sky god? He, too, had felt a seismic quake of passion. Ardor that reached out
of something wild within . . . followed by a release that was blissfully free
of any sapient thought. Despite
their dire circumstance, trapped in a ship filled with mortal enemies, Lark
felt fine. Better than he had since- Since
ever. Somehow, this climax did not leave him in a state of lassitude, but
filled with energy, a postcoital animation he had never experienced before. So
much for my vow of celibacy, he thought. Of course, that vow had been for the
sake of Jijo. And we're not on Jijo anymore. He
reached for Ling. But she stopped him with an upraised hand, sitting up, her
breasts still glistening with their commingled sweat. Ling's
eyes were distant. Her ears twitched, listening. A jungle surrounded
them-supported by lattice scaffolding that filled a chamber larger than the
artificial cave of Biblos. A maze of fantastic, profusely varied vegetation
nearly filled the cavity. In this far corner, apparently illtended by the
maintenance drones, the two fugitive hominids had built a nest. Ling, the
trained spatiobiologist, had no trouble spotting several types of fruits and
tubers to eat. They might live weeks or months this way ... or perhaps the rest
of their lives. Unless the universe intruded. Which
it did, of course. "They've
turned on their defensive array," she told him. "And I think they're
slowing down." "How
can you tell?" Lark listened, but could make out no difference in the mesh
of interlacing engine sounds, more complex than the verdant jungle. Ling slipped
into the rag of a tunic that was her sole remaining garment. "Come
on," she said. With a
sigh, he put on his own torn shirt. Lark picked up the leather thong holding
his amulet-the fragment of the Holy Egg he had chipped off as a child. For the
first time in years, he considered not slipping it on. If the ship had left i
Jijo, might that make him free at last from the love-hate | burden? "Come
on!" Ling was already scooting along the lat-' ticeway, heading toward the
exit. In a torn cloth sling, she carried the wounded red torus-one of the
traeki rings i provided by Asx. He
slipped the thong around his neck and reached for the crude sack that contained
the purple ring and their few other possessions. "I'm
on my way," he murmured, clambering out of the nest, wondering if they
would ever be back. Ling
had her bearings now. With Lark to sniff scent indicators at tunnel
intersections, and the purple ring serving as a passkey, they had little
trouble hurrying "north" up the ship's axis. Twice they sped along by
using antigravity drop tubes. Lark's stomach did somersaults as his bodyi went
careening up a jet-black tunnel. The landings were always soft, though. Even
better, they did not meet a single Jophur or robot along the way, "They're
at battle stations," she explained. "Here. Their control room should
be just below this level. If I'm right, there should be an observers' gallery.
..." Lark
smelled an oddly familiar aroma, much like the fragrance traeki used when they
referred to Biblos. Ling
pointed to a rare written symbol inscribed on the wall. She crowed. "I was
right!" Lark
had seen the glyph before-a rayed spiral with five swirling arms. Even Jijo's
fallen races knew what it stood for. The Great Galactic Library. Symbol for both
patience and knowledge. "Hurry!"
Ling said as he applied the purple ring to the entrance plate. The barrier slid
open, giving access to a dim chamber whose sole illumination came through a
broad window, directly opposite the door. It took just a few strides to cross
over and stare through the glass at a bright gallery below. A chamber filled
with Jophur. There
were scores of the tapered stacks. Taller and more slickly perfect than any
Jijoan traeki, they squatted next to instrument stations, many of them
surrounded by flashing panels and lighted controls. At the very center, one
gleaming torus pile perched on a raised dais, surveying the labors of the crew. "A
lot of big ships have observation decks, like the one we're in," Ling
explained in a low voice. "They're for when legates from any of the great
Institutes come aboard-say on an inspection tour. Most of the time, though,
they just contain a watcher." "A
what?" She
gestured to her left, where Lark now saw a roughly man-sized cube with a single
dark lens in the middle, looking over the Jophur control room. "It's
a WOM ... or Write-Only Memory. A witness. Any capital ship from a great clan
is supposed to carry one, especially if engaged in some major venture. It takes
a record that can then be archived in deep storage so later generations may
learn from the experience of each race, after a certain time period
expires." "How
long?" Ling
shrugged. "Millions of years, I guess. You hear about watchers being sent
for storage, but I've never known of a WOM being read during the present epoch.
I guess when you put it that way, it kind of sounds like a contradiction in
terms. A typical Galactic hypocrisy. Or maybe I don't grasp some subtlety of
the concept." You and
me, both, Lark thought, dismissing the watcher from his mind, like a slab of
stone. "Look,"
he said, pointing toward one end of the Jophur headquarters chamber.
"Those big screens show the outside! Seems we just passed over the
Rimmers." "Toward
the sun." Ling nodded. "Either it's morning or-" "Nothing
on the Slope looks like that prairie. That's poison grass. So it is morning and
that's east." "See
the clouds," Ling commented. "They're breaking up, but it must've
been some stor-" She stopped, blinking. "Hear that? The Jophur are
excited. Maybe I can adjust these knobs and-" Sound
abruptly boomed through the observation deck. A screech and ratchet of accented
GalTwo. ".
. . COMMANDED TO CORRECT THE DISSONANCE, DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN YOUR VARIED
REPORTS,JUSTIFY THIS PATTERNED SEARCH! EXPLAIN REASONS WW , WE SHOULD NOT
RETURN TO OUR PRIMARY MISSIONSIFTING FOR THE WOLFLJNG CRAFT.'" Lark
saw the Jophur on the central dais gesticulate along with these word glyphs, so
perhaps that one was in command. If only I had a weapon, he mused. But the
glasslike barrier was probably too strong for anything as crude as a Jijoan axe
or rifle. "We/icannot
recommend departing this area until w verify,rebuke the possibility of foe
ships,smallships, "replied a nearby stack, using a less imperious version
of the same dialect. "Starship cognizances hover nearby, undetectabk on
any other band! But how can that be? Flight without gravities? The Jophur,
great and mighty, must have,pierce this secret, for safety's sake," Another
ring stack edged forward, and Lark felt a shiver of recognition. That awkward
pile of ragged toruses had once been the former traeki High Sage, though its
speech held none of the unassuming gentleness of Asx. "I/we
offer this wisdom-that the scent indicators we pursue have all the stink of an
elaborate ruse! Recall the flame-tube weapons that the savage sooners used
against our corvette, Now our comrades in the captured Biblos Archive report
they have identified the wolfling trick as 'rockets.' Contradicting the tactics
officer, I/we must point out that these rockets flew quite successfully without
gravities! I/we further maintain that-" Another
stack interrupted. "Localization!
One of the nearby cognizance sites has remained active long enough to verify
its location." The
commander vented compact clots of purple vapor. "PROCEED
ON ATTACK VECTOR,PREPARE A CAPTURE BOX FOR SEIZURE OF SOURCE, WHETHER IT IS A
SOPHISTICATED STAR ENEMY OR ANOTHER SOONER RUSE, WE SHALL SECURE IT FOR LATER
INSPECTION, THEN RETURN TO OUR PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE." The
ring piles reacted more swiftly than Lark had ever witnessed traeki move,
setting to work in a whirl of base feet and flailing tendrils. Soon the outside
monitors showed clouds and prairie rushing by in a blur, depicted in many
spectral bands. On some displays, flashing concentric circles closed in. "Targeting
brackets-" Ling explained. But the circles seemed to contain nothing. Only
open space. Lark's
right hand drifted under his shirt, stroking the sliver of the Egg. "I
feel ..." Ling
tugged his arm. "Look at the far left screen!" He
squinted, and began to make out something small and round. A ghostly shape,
depicted as nearly transparent. Blur cloth, he realized, recognizing the
effects of that specialized g'Kek weaving. All at once Lark understood. The
Jophur were streaking toward an object that was invisible to nearly all their
sensors, because it was made of nothing but air and fabric plaited to smear
light. If only
his rewq had not lapsed into exhausted hibernation! The hazy globe loomed
larger, even as Lark's heart beat faster. His amulet throbbed in response. "What
is it?" Ling wondered, perplexed. Before
he could answer, without warning, all the forward viewing screens abruptly went
black. One
Jophur let out a shrill wail. Several vented colored steam. The commander
flexed and blared. "HOSTILITIES
ALERT! ROBOTIC DEFENSE! ALL STATIONS PREPARE FOR THE DRAWBA- " Gillian DETONATION!"
Streaker's detection officer shouted excitedly. "One I of our proximity
bombs just went off, almost on t-top of the Jophur!" The
bridge filled with neo-dolphin cheers. "Maybe that got the
bastardss," someone chittered hopefully. Gillian
called for quiet. "Keep
it down, everyone. That firecracker won't do more than scratch their
paint." She took a deep breath. It was the crucial moment of decision, for
commitment to the plan. "Launch
the swarm!" she ordered. "Get us up, Kaa. Exactly the way we
planned." "Aye!"
The pilot's back showed momentary waves of tension as he sent commands down his
neural tap. Streaks responded instantly, engines ramping up to full power for
the first time in almost a year. The sound was thrilling, though the act would
surely give them away once Jophur sensors recovered. Telemetry
showed the motivators running well. Gillian glanced at viewers showing the
engine room. Hannes Suessi darted back and forth, checking the work of his
well-trained crew. Even Emerson D'Anite seemed engrossed, running his long,
dark hands over the prime resonance console, his old duty station during so
many; other rough scrapes. Speech seemed hardly relevant an this point, when
physical insight and tactile skill mattered most. Perhaps
this time, too, the ship would hear Emerson's rich baritone victory yell. If the
repairs all worked. If we get full use out of the spare parts we mined from
discarded wrecks. If the decoys run as planned. If the enemy does what we hope
. . . if . . . if... Overhead,
the stress crystal dome of the control room changed color. The jet black of the
abyss faded rapidly as Streaker aimed upward, lightening to a royal blue, then
a clear pale green. The engine's roar changed tone as Jijo's ocean reluctantly
let go its heavy grasp. Streaker
blew out of the sea with explosive force, already traveling faster than a
bullet, trailed by a spoor of superheated steam. From
submarine, back to ship of space. Here we go again. Go, old
girl. Go! • Rety WAKENED
FROM A HALF-MILLION-YEAR SLEEP, THE ancient wreck clattered and shrieked.
Forced into furious effort, it howled, like some beast screaming in agony. Rety
screamed back, pressing both hands over her ears. Harsh fists seemed to pummel
her against the arching pillar where she had tied herself down. With each
shake, strips of rope and electrical cable dug into her skin. From
Rety's belt pouch, yee's head waved toward her face. "wife!
wife don't cry! don't worry, wife!" But the piping words were lost amid a
maelstrom of sound. Soon his calls merged into a wail, an urrish ulula tion. Overwhelmed
with dread of being trapped, Rety tore at the straps with her nails, struggling
for release. She never noticed the transition from water to air. The little
holosim display showed whitecaps stretching to a sandy shore, then the tops of
clouds. Crawling
across the hard metal floor, Rety toiled toward the airlock, seeing only a
narrow tunnel through a haze of pain. wasx THE
EFFECTS START TO WEAR OFF. | I emerge from stun state, blind and alone. More
duras I pass before I coalesce My sense of oneness. Of purpose. Sending
trace signals down the tendrils of control, I reestablish rapport with
subservient rings. Soon I have access to their varied senses, staring in all
directions with eye buds that flutter and twitch. HELLO,
MY RINGS. Report now and prepare for urgent movement. Clearly we have
experienced-and survived- an episode of the Drawback. The
what? Truly,
you do not know, My rings? You have no experience of the chief disadvantage of
the Oailie gift? Certain
weapons exist which can render us Jophur insensate for a time, forcing us to
rely on robotic protection for the duration of that brief incapacity. What
incapacity? you ask. I/we
look around. We are no longer near the CaptainLeader, but stand instead at the
main control panel, our tendrils wrapped around the piloting wheels. WHAT
ARE WE DOING? I
command the tendrils to draw back, and they obey. Viewscreens show a blur of
high-speed motion as the Polkjhy races across a landscape of jagged, twisty
canyons, unlike anything our memory tracks recall from the Slope. Inertial
indicators show us racing east, ever farther from the sea. Away from the prey. Other
stacks are beginning to stir, as their master rings rouse from the Drawback.
Hurriedly, I send our basal torus in motion, taking us away from the pilot
station. We scurry around behind the Captain-Leader, who is just now rousing
from torpor. In all
likelihood others will assume that our sophisticated robotic guardians-programmed
to serve,protect during a Drawback interlude-had good reason to send Polkjhy
careening in this unfavorable direction. Feigning innocence, I/we watch as the
pilot stacks resume control, arresting this headlong flight, preparing to
regain altitude once more. MY
RINGS, WHAT WAS YOUR AIM? WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH WHILE YOUR MASTER
TORUS WAS INCAPACITATED? TO SEND US CRASHING INTO A MOUNTAIN, PERHAPS? The
robots would not have allowed that. But diverting the course of Polkjhy-that
was in your power, no? I
perceive we are not finished learning the arts of cooperation. Gillian THRILLING
AS IT WAS TO BE MOVING AGAIN, GILLIAN knew this wasn't the same old Streaker.
It ran sluggishly for a snark-class survey ship. The nearby landmass receded
with disheartening slowness compared with the rabbitlike agility she used to
show. Suessi's motors weren't at fault. It was the damned carbon-carbon
coating, sealing Streaker's hull under countless tons of dead weight, clogging
the probability flanges and gravities radiators, costing valuable time to gain
orbital momentum. Minutes of vulnerability. Gillian
glanced at the swarm display. A scatter of bright dots showed at least twenty
decoys out of the water, with a dozen more now rising from their ancient
graves, screaming joy-or agony-over this unwonted mass resurrection. Groups of
bait ships speared away in different directions, disbanding according to preset
plans, though empty of life. All
empty, except one. Gillian
thought of the human girl, Rety, self-exiled aboard one of those glimmering
lights. Would it have been better to break into her hijacked ship? Or try to
seize control of the computer, reprogramming it to bring Rety ashore? The
Niss didn't think either effort would succeed in the slim time allowed. Anyway,
Alvin and Huck had convinced Gillian
not to try. "We
know what you Earthlings are trying to do with this breakout attempt," the
young g'Kek had said. "And
yet you volunteered to come?" "Why
not? We risked the Midden in a hollow tree trunk. All sooners know life is
something you just borrow for a while. Each person must choose how to spend it. "All
our families and all our septs depend on your venture, Dr. Baskin. This Rety
person selected her destiny. Let her follow it." As
Streaker gradually accelerated, Gillian turned to the ' dolphin in charge of
psi-ops. "Let me know when you get anything at all from the
observer," she ordered. "No
sssignal yet-t," the fin answered. "It'sss well past due, if you ask
me." "No
one asked," Gillian snapped. Without
wanting to, she glanced at the Jijoan mathematician, Sara Koolhan, whose
brother took off in a hot-air balloon, knowing that if the gale did not get
him, the Jophur probably would. Sara floated in a swarm of bubbles, watching
intently. But behind the visor of her breathing helmet, Gillian saw a single
soft tear, running down the young woman's cheek. Gillian
did not need more guilt. She tried hard to think pragmatically. I just
wish the boy hadn't died for nothing. We're going to have to decide ... She
checked the swarm monitors. . . . in moments. . . . Dwer THE
DAZZLING BLAST JOLTED HIS REWQ, CAUSING IT to retreat, almost comatose. But the
creature served its purpose, saving Dwer's eyes. Except for a few purple spots,
vision soon returned almost to normal. There'll
be a shock wave, he thought. After the abuse of last night and morning, he
wondered if the balloon would survive another shaking. Dwer
readied his hammer over the row of crystals, each jammed into the wicker
gondola. He peered east, trying to figure out which message to send. All the
decoy balloons were gone-no surprise there. But
dammit, where's the Jophur ship? Dwer
could not act without data, so he held on and rode out the explosion's booming
echo when it came rolling by, flattening the serrated grass of the Venom Plain. The
balloon survived. Solid urrish workmanship. Picking up binoculars, he sought
again for the Jophur, scanning the horizon. Could
it have been blown up by the aerial mine? Gillian Baskin had thought the
prospect nearly impossible. No weapon in Streaker's arsenal could pierce the
defense of such a dreadnought, even with the element of surprise. But it might
be possible to inconvenience the enemy for a crucial time. Finally,
he made out the distant glint. In fact, the ship seemed to be receding^. He had
the illusion that it was heading toward the rising sun. Dwer
hesitated over the message crystals. There were only four. None of the prearranged
codes toek in this possibility . . . that the foe would flee the scene. Not
upward toward space, or west back to the Midden, or even standing still, but
away from any chance to spy the Earthling ship! If I
don't send anything, they'll think I'm dead. He thought of Sara, and was
tempted to smash all the crystals, just to reassure her. But
then they might make a wrong decision, and she might die instead of me. Because
of me. By now,
squadrons of salvaged decoy spaceships would be heading out beyond Jijo's
atmosphere, spiraling toward orbit and beyond. Gillian Baskin had to decide
which group to go with. Dwer's signal was supposed to help. Frustration
locked him in a rigor of indecision. Raising the binoculars once more, he found
theJophur ship again, a bare pinpoint near the horizon. Then he
noticed something. The
distant dot ... it had stopped receding. Instead, it seemed to hover beyond a
range of craggy highlands. The
Gray Hills, Dwer realized. If only I can give the right signal, I'll be able to
start descending in time to land where I want! The
glittering pinpoint hesitated, then began to move again. Dwer soon confirmed-it
was growing larger. The Jophur were heading back this way! Now I
know what to send, he thought with satisfaction. Dwer raised the hammer and
brought it smashing down on the second crystal. That instant, his back swarmed
with a curious tingling. The feeling came and left quickly. His
duty done at last, Dwer reached for the gasdischarge rope. The battleship was
going to pass close again, and the only way he had to maneuver was to lose
height. Easy
does it, he thought. Let her down slowly. Might as well reach the foothills
before you have to . . . The
great ship loomed rapidly, then streaked westward while gaining altitude,
missing him by hundreds of arrowflights. Alas,
this time it did not ignore Dwer. As it
hurried by, the mighty blue globe dropped a tiny speck. A minuscule dot that
arced away and then dropped rapidly, glittering as it came. Dwer did not have
to know much about Galactic technology to recognize a missile when he saw one. Gillian
mentioned that I might attract attention when it signaled. Dwer sighed,
watching the fleck turn a gentle curve and : then plunge straight toward him. Ah,
well, he thought, picking up his prize possession- the bow made for him by the
master carvers of Ovoom Town,
in honor of his skill as tracker for the Commons of Six Races. When
the explosion came, it was unlike anything he expected. Gillian THAT'S
IT!" SHE CRIED OUT, GLAD OF THE NEWS. Even more elated was Sara, who let
out an urrishsounding yelp, on learning that her brother yet lived. The signal
also confirmed Gillian's best guess. The Jophur had been slow reacting, but
they were doing as she hoped. '"They
are predictable," commented the Niss, whose whirling hologram passed
through oxy-water bubbles unperturbed. "The delay only means we get more
of a head start." Gillian
agreed, but in her thoughts added: We'll
need ten times this much of a lead, in order to make it all the way. Aloud,
she told the pilot: "Punch
us out of here, Kaa. Stay with swarm number two. Put us second from the front
of the pack." The
pilot shouted, "Aye!" Soon
the low, driving harmonies of the motivators notched upward in pitch. Gillian
glanced at the engineroom display. Morale seemed high among Suessi's crewfen.
As she watched, Emerson D'Anite threw his head back to sing. Gillian only
picked up a fragment, though the lyrics had Emerson's coworkers in stitches. "Jijo
.JiJo . . . It's off to war we go!" Even
suffering from brain affliction, his puns were terrible. It was good to have
some of the old Emerson back again. External
displays showed the planet swiftly receding, a gentle blue-brown globe, swathed
in a slim envelope of life-giving weather. Numerous sharp-bordered green
patches testified to where some metropolis once stood, before the site was
scoured and seeded. Whether now covered with swamp, forest, or prairie, the
regions still showed regular outlines that would take eons to erase. Earth
has such scars, she thought. In even greater abundance. The difference is that
we were ignorant and didn't know better. We had to learn the hard way how to
manage a world, by teaching ourselves. Gillian
glanced at Sara, whose eyes bore pain and wonder, watching her homeworld
diminish to a small orb-the first of her sooner line to look down at Jijo, ever
since her ancestors fled here, centuries ago. A place
of refuge. A sanctuary for Earthlings and others. They all meant to bunker
down, cowering away from the cosmos, each race redeeming its heritage in its
own peculiar way. Then we
brought the universe crashing in on them. She
watched Lieutenant Tsh't move among the crewfen at their dome consoles,
encouraging them with bursts of sonar, always checking for lapses of attention.
The meticulous supervision hardly seemed necessary. Not one of the elite bridge
staff had ever shown a trace of stress atavism. All were guaranteed high uplift
classifications when they got home. If we
get home. If
there is still a home, waiting for us. In
fact, everyone knew the real reason why half the crew had been left behind on
Jijo, along with the Kiqui and copies of Streaker's records. We
don't have much of a chance of escaping . . . but it might be possible to draw
the universe away from Jijo. Diverting its attention. Making it forget the
sooners, once again. It
would take skill and luck just to achieve that sacrifice. But if successful,
what an accomplishment! Preventing the extinction of the g'Kek, or the unwanted
transformation of the traeki, or the discovery and blame that would befall
Earth, if human sooners were exposed here. If this
works, we'll have a complete cache of Earthlings on Jijo-humans, chimps, and
now dolphins, too. A safety reserve, in case the worst happens at home. That
seems worthwhile. A result worth paying for. ' Of
course, like everything in the cosmos, it would come at a price. They
had passed Loocen-the moon still glittering with abandoned cities-and
accelerated about a million kilometers beyond when the detection officer
declared: "Enemy
cruiser leaving atmosphere! Vectoring after swarm number one!" The
spatial schematic showed a speck rising from Jijo, larger and brighter than any
other, lumbering to accelerate its titanic, mass. We
could outrun you, once, Gillian thought. We still can . . . for a while. Even
handicapped by the irksome carbon sheathing, Streaker would spend some time increasing
the gap between her and the pursuing battleship. Newtonian inertia must drag
down the heavier Jophur-that is, until it reached speeds adequate for
level-zero hyperdrive. Then
the speed advantage would start to shift. If only
a transfer point were nearer. Gillian shook her head, and kept on wishing. If only
Tom and Creideiki were here. They'd get us away without much trouble, I bet. I
could retire to sick bay with confidence, treating dolphins for itchy-flake and
spending my copious free time contemplating the mysteries of Herbie. In a
moment of decision, she had elected to take along the billion-year-old mummy,
despite the high likelihood Streaker would be destroyed in a matter of hours or
days. She could not part with the relic, which Tom had fought so hard to snatch
from a fleet of ghost ships in the Shallow Cluster-back in those heady days
before the whole Civilization of the Five Galaxies seemed to turn against
Streaker. Back
when the naive crew expected gratitude for their epochal discovery. Never
surprise a stodgy Galactic, went a Tymbrimi saying. Unless you're prepared with
twelve more surprises in your pocket. Good
advice. Unfortunately,
her supply of tricks was running low. There
were, in fact, only a few left. The
Sages THE
LATEST GROUP OF PILGRIMS UNDERSTOOD more now, about the Holy Egg. More
than Drake and Ur-Chown knew, when they first stared at the newly emerged
wonder, glowing white-hot from its fiery emergence. Those two famed heroes
conspired to exploit the Egg for their own religious and political purposes,
declaring it an omen. A harbinger of unity. A god. Now the
sages have printouts provided by the dolphin ship. The report, downloaded from
a unit of the Great Galactic Library, calls the Egg-a psi-active geomorph. A
phenomenon observed on some life worlds whose tectonic restoration processes
are smoothly continuous, where past cycles of occupation and renewal had
certain temporal and technologic traits . . . Phwhoon-dau
contemplated this as the newly reassembled Council of Sages approached the
sacred site, walking, slithering, and rolling toward the place they had all
separately been heading when they heard Vubben's dying call. In
other words, the Egg is a distillation, a condensation of Jijo's past. All the
dross deposited by the Buyur . . . and those who came before . . . has combined
to contribute patterns. Patterns
that somehow wove their way through magma pressure and volcanic heat. To the
south, these spilled forth chaotically, to become the Spectral Flow. But here,
conditions permitted coalescence. A crystalline tip consisting of pure memory
and purpose. At last
he understood the puzzle of why every sooner race settled on the Slope, despite
initial jealousies and feuds, We were
summoned. Some
said this knowledge would crush the old ways, and Phwhoon-dau agreed. The
former faith-founded in the Sacred Scrolls, then modified by waves of heresy-
would never be the same. The
basis of the Commons of Six Races had changed. But the basis survived. A
re-formed Council of Six entered the scarred canyon circle, where they spent a
brief time contemplating the charred remains of their eldest member, a jumble
of frail nerves and fibers, plastered against the Egg's pitted, sooty flank. They
buried Vubben there-the only sage ever so honored. Then began their work. Others
would join them soon. A re-formed council meant re-formed duty. At last
we know what you are, Phwhoon-dau thought silently, leaning back to regard the
Egg's great curving mass. But
other questions remain. Such as . . . why? Rety THE
CONTROLS REFUSED TO RESPOND! "Come on!" she shouted, slamming the
holosim box with the palm of her hand, then jiggling more levers. Not that Rety
had much idea what she'd do if she gained mastery over the decoy vessel. At
first, the stunning views of Jijo and space sent her brain reeling. It was all
so much bigger than she ever imagined. Since then, she had left the big visual
holo turned off, while continuing to fiddle with other panels and displays. Wisdom
preached that she ought to leave the machinery alone . . . and finally, Rety
listened. She forced herself to back away, joining yee at her small stack of
supplies, smuggled off the sled when Chuchki wasn't looking. She stroked her
little husband while munching a food-concentrate bar, pondering the situation. Every
salvaged decoy ship had been programmed to head out-by a variety of
routes-toward the nearest "transfer point." From there, they would
jump away from, fallow Galaxy Four, aiming for distant, traffic-filled lanes
where oxygen-breathing life-forms teemed. That
was good enough for Rety, providing she then found a way to signal some passing
vessel, i This
old ship may not be worth much, but it oughta pay my passage to their next
stop, at least. What
would happen next remained vague in her mind, Getting some kind of job, most
likely. She still had the little teaching machine that used to belong to Dennie
Sudman, so learning those jabber-talk alien languages shouldn't be too hard. I'll
find a way to make myself useful. I always have. t Of
course, everything depended on making it to the | transfer point. Gillian
prob'ly set things up so the decoys'll try to lure the t Jophur. Maybe they
give off some sort of light or noise to t make 'em think there are dolphins
aboard. That
might work for a while. The stinky rings'll chase around, losin' time while
checkin' things out. But
Rety knew what would happen next. Eventually, the Jophur gods would catch on to
the trick. They'd figure out what to look for, and realize which ship was the
real target, Suppose
by then they've torn apart half the decoys. That still leaves mefitty-fitty
odds. Which is Ifni times more than I'd have aboard old Streaker. Once they
figure which one ': she is,
they'll leave the rest of us decoys alone to go about ' our business. At
least that was the overall idea. Ever since she had found Kunn and Jass, dead
in their jail cells, Rety knew she must get off the Earthling ship as fast as
possible and make it on her own. I'd
better be able to send out a signal, when we pop into a civilized galaxy, she
thought. Is'pose it'll take more than just shining a light out through a
window. Guess I better study some more about radio and that hyperu'ave stuff.
'• As
wonderful and patient as the teaching unit was, Rety did not look forward to
the drudgery ahead . . . nor to relying on the bland paste put out by the
ancient food processor, once her supply of Streaker food ran out. The machine
had taken the sample of fingernail cuticle she gave it, and after a few moments
put out a substance that tasted exactly like cuticle. Chirping
tones interrupted her thoughts. A light flashed atop the holosim casing. Rety
scooted over to the machine. "Display on!" A 3-D
image erupted just above the floor plates. For a time, she made little sense of
the image, which showed five small groups of amber points spiraling away from a
tiny blue disk. It took moments to realize the dot was Jijo, and the decoy
swarms had already left the planet far behind. The separation between the
convoys also grew larger, with each passing dura. One dot
lagged behind, brighter than the others, gleaming red instead of yellow. It
crept toward one of the fleeing swarms as she watched. That
must be the Jophur ship, she realized. Squinting closer, she saw that the big
dot was trailed by a set of much tinier crimson pinpricks, almost too small to
see, following like beads on a string. The red
symbol accelerated, slowly closing the distance to its intended prey. Boy, I
pity whoever's in that swarm, when the stink rings catch up with 'em. It took
Rety a while longer to fathom the unpleasant truth. That
swarm was the one that contained her own ship. The Jophur were coming for her
first. My
usual luck, she complained, knowing better than to think the universe cared,. Dwer EVERYTHING
CHANGED. One
moment, he had been surrounded by sky. Mountains, clouds, and prairies
stretched below his wicker gondola. The urrish balloon bulged and creaked
overhead. From
the high northwest, a glittering object fell toward him, like a stoop raptor,
unstoppable once it has chosen its prey. That's
me, he thought, feeling transfixed, like a grass mouse who, caught in the open,
knows there is no escape, and so has little choice but to watch the terrible
beauty of Death on the wing. Death
came streaking toward him. He felt
an explosion, a shrill brilliance . . . . . .
and found himself here. A
gilded haze surrounded Dwer as he took stock. I'm
alive. The
sensations of a young, strong body accompanied irksome itches and the sting of
recent scrapes. His clothes were as they had been. So was the gondola, for that
matter-a basket woven out of dried river reeds-its contents undamaged. The
same could not be said of the balloon itself. The great gasbag lay collapsed in
a curved heap of blur cloth, its upper half apparently cleaved off. Remnant
folds lay spread across the interior of what Dwer came to realize must be a
prison of some sort. A
spherical jail. He now saw it clearly. A sphere whose inner surface gave off a
pale, golden light, confusing to the | eye at first. • "Huh!" To
Dwer's surprise, his principal reaction was intrigue. In those final moments,
as the missile fell, he had bid farewell to life. Now each added moment was
profit. He could spend it as he chose. He
decided on curiosity. Dwer
clambered out of the basket and eased his moccasins onto the gold surface. He
half expected it to be slick, but the material instead clung to his soles, so
that he had to pull with some effort each time he took a step. After a few
tentative strides, he came to yet another startling revelation. "Down"
is wherever I happen to be standing! From Dwer's new position, it looked as if
the gondola was tilted almost sideways, about to topple onto him. He squatted,
looking down at the "floor" between his legs, riding out the expected
wave of disorientation. It wasn't too bad. I'll
adapt. It'll be like learning to ice-walk across a glacier. Or probing face
caves at the end of a rope, dangling over the Desolation Cliffs. Then he
realized something. Looking down, he saw more than just a sticky golden
surface. Something glittered beneath it. Like a dusting of tiny diamonds.
Gemstones, mixed with dark loam. He
leaned closer, cupping hands on both sides of his eyes to keep out stray light. All at
once Dwer fathomed; the diamonds were stars. Lark CROUCHING
BEHIND AN AROMATIC OBELISK, TWO humans had an unparalleled chance to view
events in the Jophur control room. Lark
would much rather they had stayed in the quiet, safe "observation
chamber." Towering
stacks of sappy toruses loomed nearby, puffing steam as each Jophur worked at a
luminous instrument station. The density of smells made Lark want to gag. It
must be worse for Ling, who hadn't grown up near traeki. Yet she seemed
enthralled to be here. Well,
this was a terrific idea, he groused mentally, recalling the impulse that had
sent them charging into a pit of foes. Hey,
look! The Jophur seem stunned, Let's rush down from this nice, safe hiding
place and sabotage their instruments while they're out! Only
the Jophur didn't stay out long enough. By the time he and Ling made it halfway
across the wide control room, several ring piles abruptly started puffing and
swaying as they roused from their torpor. While machine voices reported status
to their reviving masters, the two humans barely managed to leap behind this
cluster of spirelike objects, roughly the shape of idealized Jophur, but twice
as tall and made of some moist, fibrous substance. Lark
dropped down to the floor. All he wanted was tc scrunch out of sight, close his
eyes, and make objective reality go away. Responding
to his racing heartbeat, the purple ring twitched in its cloth bag. Lark put
his hand on it and the thing eventually calmed down. "I
think I can tell what's going on!" Lark
glanced up the twin, tanned columns of Ling's legs, and saw that she was
leaning around one of the soggy pillars, staring at the Jophur data screens.
Reaching up, he seized her left wrist and yanked her down. She landed on her
bare bottom beside him. "Make
like vermin," was his advice. On matters of concealment and survival, Ling
had a lot to learn from a Jijoan I sooner. ' "Okay,
brother rat." She nodded with surprising cheerfulness, then went on
eagerly. "Some of their screens are set to spectra I can't grok. But I
could tell we're in space now, racing toward Izmunuti." A wave
of nausea struck Lark-a sensation akin to panic Unlike his siblings, who used
to talk and dream about starflight when they were little, he had never wanted
to leave Jijo. The very thought made him feel sick. Sensing his discomfort,
Ling took his head and stroked it, but that did not stop her from talking,
describing a complex hunt through j space that Lark failed to visualize, no
matter how he tried • "Apparently
there must have been a fleet of ships on or near Jijo," she explained.
"Though I can't imagine how they got there. Maybe they came snooping from
Izmunuti and the Jophur are chasing them away. Anyway, the mystery fleet seems
to have split into five groups, all of them heading separately for the flare
star. And from there to the transfer point, I suppose. "There's
also a couple of small objects trailing behind this ship . . . connected to it,
as far as I can tell, by a slender force string. I don't know what their
purpose is. But give me time. . . ." Lark
wanted to laugh out loud. He would give Ling the world. The universe! But right
now all he really wanted was their nest. Their little green hideaway, where
sweet fruits dangled within reach and no one could find them. Lark
was starting to push the vertigo away at last, when a noise blared from across
the room. "What's
that?" he asked, sitting up. He did not try to stop Ling from rising
partway and peering around for a look. "Weapons
release," she explained. "The Jophur are firing missiles at the
nearest squadron. They must be pretty confident, because they sent just one for
each ship." Lark
silently wished the new aliens luck, whoever they were. If any of them got
away, they might report what they saw to the Galactic Migration Institute.
Although Jijo's Six Races had lived in fear of the law for two thousand years,
the intervention of neutral judges would be far better than any fate the Jophur
planned to mete out, in private. "The
small ships are trying evasive maneuvers, but it's doing no good," Ling
said. "The missiles are closing in." Rety SHE
CURSED THE DROSS SHIP, FOR NOT GIVING HER control. She
cursed Gillian Baskin and the dolphins, for putting her in a position where she
had no choice but to escape from their incompetence into this impossible trap. She
cursed the Jophur for sending missiles after this decoy flotilla, instead of
expertly finding the right prey. Above
all, Rety swore an oath at herself. For in the end, she had no one else to
blame. Her
teaching unit explained the symbols representing those deadly arrows, now
clearly visible in the display, catching up fast. One by
one, the ships behind hers met their own avenging predators. Surprisingly, the
amber pinpoints did not snuff out, -but turned crimson instead. Each then
drifted backward, toward a meeting with the big red dot. The
Jophur did not swallow their captives. That would take too much time. Instead,
they were snagged at the end of a chain-like a tadpole's tail-that waved behind
the mighty ship. Rety
wondered. Maybe they don't want to kill, after all. Maybe they just want
prisoners! If so,
Rety would be prepared. She held yee with one arm, and the teaching unit with
the other, setting it to begin teaching her Galactic Two-Jophur dialect. When
her own missile arrived, Rety was calmer than she expected. "Don't
worry, yee," she said, stroking her little husband. "We'll find
somethin' they want, an' make a deal. Just you wait an' see." With
desperate confidence, she held on as the ancient Buyur vessel suddenly quivered
and shook. In moments, the motors' grating drone cut off ... and then so did
the downward tug of the deck beneath her. In its place, a gentler pull seemed
to draw her toward the nose of the disabled ship. The
lights went out. But Rety could see a bit. Stepping and sliding carefully along
the slanted floor and walls, she followed the source of illumination to an
unobstructed viewing port, where she peered outside and saw a world of pale
yellow dawn. yee
commented dryly, "beats being dead, i guess." Rety
agreed. "I guess." Then she shrugged. "At
least we'll see, one way or t'other." Gillan I FOUND A LIBRARY REFERENCE. THEY ARE CALLED
capture boxes, "the Niss explained. "This weapon offers a I clever
solution to the Jophur dilemma." "How do you figure?" Gillian
asked. "We
thought we had them in an awkward situation, where they must come close and
inspect every decoy in order to find us. A cumbersome, time-consuming process.
1 "But this way, the Jophur need
only get near enough to | dispatch special missiles. They can then move on,
dragging a string of captives behind them." "Won't
all that additional mass slow them down?" asked Kaa, the pilot. "Yes;
and that works in our favor. Alas, not enough to make up for the advantage this
technique gives them." Gillian
shook her head. "Too bad we didn't know about this in time to incorporate
it in our plans." The
Niss answered with a defensive tone. "Great clans can access weaponry
files spanning a billion years of Galactic history." Silence
reigned on the bridge, until Sara Koolhan spoke, her voice transposed by the
amplifying faceplate of her helmet. "What
happens if we get caught by a missile?" "It creates a field related
to the toporgic cage your Six Races found enveloping the Rothen ship. Of course
that one was meters thick, and missiles cannot carry that much pseudo-material.
The chief effect of a capture box is to suppress digital cognizance." Sara
looked confused, so Gillian explained. "Digital computers are detectable
at a distance, and can be suppressed by field-effect technologies. A principal
reason why organic life-forms dominate the Five Galaxies, instead of machines. "Unfortunately,
this means our decoys can be disabled easily, by enclosing them in a thin shell
of warped spacetime." "Indeed,
it seems an ideal weapon to use against resurrected starships lacking crews.
TheJopbur may be malign and limited in many ways, but they do not lack for
skill or reasoning power." Sara
nodded. "You mean the method won't work as well against Streaker?" "Exactly,"
Gillian said. "We'll prepare our computers to stand a temporary shutdown
without inconvenience-" "Speak
for yourself," the Niss muttered. "As
soon as the capture box surrounds us, organic crew members can use simple took
to dissolve it from the inside. Estimated period of shutdown, Niss?" The
hologram whirled. "I
wish we had better data from the expedition the sooners sent to the Rothen
vessel. They reported major quantum effects from a toporgic layer meters thick. "But
the Jophur missiles will cast thin bubbles. If prepared, crews should burst us
free in mere minutes." A happy
sigh escaped Kaa and several dolphins. But then the Niss Machine went on. "Unfortunately,
when we pop the bubble, it will alert the Jophur which captured vessel contains
living prey. After that, our restored freedom will be brief, indeed." Dwer THE
STUFF FELT STRANGE. IT SEEMED TO REPEL HIS hand slightly, until he got within a
couple of centimeters. Then it pulled. Neither effect was overwhelming. He
could yank his hand back fairly easily. He
could not quite place why it was eerily familiar. Dwer walked all the way
around his circular cage, stopping on occasion to bend down and examine the
starscape beyond. He recognized most of the constellations, except for one
patch that had always been invisible from the Slope. So that's what the
southern sky is like. Undimmed by dust or atmosphere, the entire Dandelion
Cluster lay before him, a vast unwinking spectacle. It would be even more
fantastic without the filmy golden barrier in the way. Thank
Ifni for that barrier, he reminded himself. There is no air out there. In one
direction lay a tremendously bright star he did not recognize at first. Then he
knew ... it was the sun, much diminished, and getting smaller all the time. In the
opposite direction lay Izmunuti's fierce eye. The red glare grew more
pronounced, until he began to make out an actual disk. Yet he realized it must
still be farther away than the sun. Izmunuti was said to be a giant among
stars. In time
he noticed other objects. Not stars or nebulae, but gleaming dots. At first
they all seemed rather distant. But over the course of a midura, they drew ever
closer, rounded shapes that revealed themselves more by their glimmering rims,
occulting the constellations, than for any brightness they themselves put out. One of
them-a rippled sphere on the side toward Izmunuti-had to be a starship. It
loomed larger with each passing dura. Soon he recognized it as the behemoth
that had twice crossed the sky over the Poison Plain, shaking his hapless
balloon with each passage, When
Dwer crossed his prison to peer through the membrane on the other side, he saw
a line of yellowish globes, even closer than the starship. Their color made him
realize, They're other captives, like me. Pressing
close to the barrier, a tingle coursed his scalp and spine. He felt
similarities to when the Danik robot sent its fields through his body, changing
his nervous system in permanent, still-uncertain ways. Well, I
was unusual even before that. For instance, no one else I know ever talked to a
mule spider. . . . Dwer yanked
his head back, recalling at last what this stuff reminded him of. The fluid
used by the mad old spider of the mountains-One-of-a-Kind-to seal its victims
away, storing its treasured collections against the ravages of time. Months
back, a coating of that stuff had nearly smothered him, until he escaped the
spider's trap. A
strange sensation came over Dwer. An odd idea. I could talk to spiders, not
just in the mountains, but the one in the swamp, too. I
wonder if that means ... Once
again, he put his hand against the golden material, pushing through the initial
resistance, pressing his fingertips ahead. The resistance was springy. The
material seemed adamant. But
Dwer let his mind slide into the same mode of thinking that used to open him to
communion with mule beings. Always before, he had felt that the spider was the
one doing most of the work, but now he realized, It's my own talent. My own
gift. And by the Holy Egg, I think I can- Something
gave way. Resistance against his fingertips suddenly vanished and they slipped
through, as if penetrating some greasy fluid. Abrupt
cold struck the exposed hand, plus a feeling as if a thousand vampire ants were
trying to drink his uncovered veins through straws. Dwer jerked back his arm
and it popped out, the fingers red and numb, but mostly undamaged. The membrane
flowed back instantly, never leaving an opening to space. Lucky
me, he thought. When
Dwer next checked, the starship had grown to mammoth size. A great bull beast,
bearing down on him rapidly, with a hunter's complacent confidence. I'm a
fish on a line. It's reeling me in! On the
other side, the captive globes bobbed almost touching, like toy balloons
gathered along an invisible string. The separating distances diminished rapidly. Dwer
sat and thought for a while. Then he
started gathering supplies. The
Sages PHWHOON-DAU
LED THE NEW SEXTET, COMMENCing the serenade with a low, rolling umble from his
resonating throat sac. Knife-Bright
Insight followed by rubbing a myrliton drum with her agile tongue, augmenting
this with syncopated calliope whistles from all five leg vents. Ur-Jah
then joined in, lifting her violus against a fold in her long neck, raising
stringed harmonies with the double bow. After
that, by seniority, the new sages for traeki, human, and g'Kek septs added
their own contributions, playing for a great ovoid-shaped chunk of wounded
stone. The harmonies were rough at first, but soon they melded into the kind of
union that focused the mind. So far,
the assembly was unexceptional. Other groups of six had performed for the Egg,
over the course of a hundred years. Some of them more gifted and musical. Only
this time things were fundamentally different. It was no group of six, after
all. Two
other Jijoan types were present. The
first was a glaver. The
devolved race always had an open invitation to participate, but it was
centuries since any glaver took part in rituals of the Commons-long before
Earthlings arrived, and certainly before the coming of the Egg. But
glavers had been acting strangely for months. And today, a small female came
out of the brush and began slogging up the Pilgrimage Path, just behind
Phwhoondau, as if she had the same destination in mind. Now her huge eyes glistened
as the music swelled, and strange mewling noises emerged from her grimaced
mouth. Sounds vaguely reminiscent of words. With her agile forked tail, she
waved a crude rattle made of a stretched animal skin, with stones shaking
inside. Not
much of an instrument, but after all, her kind were out of practice. What
must it take, Phwhoon-dau pondered, to draw them back from the bliss
a,Redemption's Path? Lounging
on a nearby boulder, an eighth creature paused licking himself now and then to
survey the proceedings. The noor-tytlal had two blemishes on an otherwise
jetblack pelt-white patches under each eye-adding to its natural expression of
skeptical disdain, j The
sages were not fooled. It had arrived just after the I others, gaunt,
bedraggled, and tired, having run hard for several days. Only urgency, not
complacent inquisitiveness could have driven a noor to strive so. The
creature's mobile ears flicked restlessly, and pale, spiky hairs waved behind
the skull, belying its air of feigned nonchalance. Now the
secret was out. Everyone knew these were clients of the legendary Tymbrimi.
Moreover, their patrons had given the tytlal a hoon as uniquely personal as
music, Phwhoon-dau
noticed a soft agitation start to form above the insouciant creature, as if a
pocket of air were thickening, and beginning to shimmer. The sages altered
their harmony to resonate with the throbbing disturbance, helping it grow as a
look of hesitant surprise spread across the sleek, noorlike face. Reluctant
or not, he was now part of the pattern. Part of
the Council of Eight. In the
narrow, resonant confines of the Egg's abode, they made their art, their music. And
soon, another presence began to make itself known. best speed of pursuit, our tactics
stacks compute that all but the very last convoy should be in reach before the
storms of Izmunuti are near. To help
speed progress, the Captain-Leader has ordered that the string of captive ships
be reeled in closer behind us. When robots can board them, we will be able to
cast aside the decoys, one by one. Now the
detections stack reports data arriving from Jijo, the planet behind us. "More
digital cognizance traces,More engine signs!" But the Captain-Leader rules
that this is but a futile attempt to distract us from our pursuit. The
Earthling vessel may have left salvaged wrecks behind, to turn themselves on
after a timed delay. Or else living confederates have acted on Jijo to set off
this ruse. It does not matter. Once the fleeing vessels are in tow, we will be
in between the Earthers and Izmunuti. Things
would be very different if there were more than one route in or out of this
system. But matters are quite convenient for one capital ship to blockade Jijo
effectively. There
will be no more breakouts. That
much is true. Yet, i/we hesitate to point out that this may not yet be the end.
Indeed, the wolflings may have sent us on a "wild-goose chase,"
pursuing only robot ships while they use this respite to cache themselves in
new hiding places, deep beneath Jijo's confused waters. They may even abandon
their vessel, taking their vital information ashore, where we will only find it
by slay-sifting the entire ecosystem! The
Priest-Stack will not permit so extreme a violation of Galactic law, of course.
If such a drastic policy proves necessary, the priest may have to be
dismantled, and the watcher-observer destroyed. Then we would be committed
irrevocably. In case of failure, we would be labeled bandits and bring shame
upon the clan. How is
it possible even to contemplate such measures? Because all auguries show, with
growing certainty, that a Time of Changes has already commenced upon the Five
Galaxies. Hence all the desperate activity by so many great clans. Cwasx BEHOLD,
MY RINGS, HOW WELL THE CHASE PROgresses! Already
one fugitive convoy is liquidated, its component vessels enjoined to our train
of captives. While this growing impediment slows the Polkjhy from engaging her If the
Institutes are indeed about to fall, there will be no one to investigate crimes
committed on this world. DO NOT
TREMBLE SO, MY RINGS. Have I not assured you, repeatedly, that the mighty
Jophur are fated to prevail? And that you,I am destined to be useful toward
that end? Crime
and punishment need not be considerations, if we are the ones who will make the
new rules. Anyway,
it may not prove necessary to return to Jijo. If the prey ship truly lies
before us, the high ambitions of our alliance may soon be within tentacle
reach. We near
the second convoy. And now missiles spring forth. WITH
THE MIGHTY STARSHIP LOOMING CLOSER ON one side, he had to wait in frustration
while the yellow beads clustered on the other, coming together with
disheartening slowness. His preparations made, Dwer raced back and forth to
check each direction. In
time, he learned a technique to make each crossing go much quicker--kicking off
from the wall and flying straight across the open interior. The
Jophur vessel impended, mammothly immense. When its dark mass blocked nearly
half the starscape, a door of some sort opened in its curved flank and several
tiny octagonal shapes emerged, floating toward Dwer's prison. He
recognized the silhouettes. Battle
robots. They
took their time drifting closer, and he realized there was still a large span
to cross. At least twenty arrowflights. Still, only duras remained until they
arrived. On
returning to the rear of the prison sphere, he breathed a sigh of relief. The
captive bubbles were touching now! Yellow spheres, they ranged widely in size,
but none was anywhere near as large as the battleship. Most were much larger
than his own little ball. Dwer
sought the place where his bubble touched the second in line. A low drumming
sound carried through each time the surfaces pressed together. He
zipped up the coverall the Streaker crew had given him-a fine garment that
covered all but his feet, hands, and head. It had never occurred to him to ask
for more. But
right now space gloves and a helmet would be nice. No
matter. The next time the spheres touched, he concentrated for the right frame
of mind, and made his move. SHE
LEFT THE CONTROL ROOM WHEN HER SKIN started puckering from too much exposure to
fizzy water. Anyway, there seemed no point hanging around. The same news could
be had in her comfortable suite--once the home of a great Earthling sage named
Ignacio Metz. Sara
dried herself and changed into simple shipboard garments, snug pants and a
pullover shirt that posed no mystery even to an unsophisticated sooner. They
were wonders of softness and comfort nevertheless. When
she asked the room to provide a tactical display, vivid 3-D images burst forth,
showing that the Jophur dreadnought had once again chosen the wrong decoy
swarm, and was just finishing firing missiles. Meanwhile, its string of earlier
victims merged with the red glow, as if it were gobbling them one by one. At her
voice command, the viewscreen showed Streaker's goal, the red giant star,
magnified tremendously, the whirling filamentary structure of its inflamed
chromosphere extending beyond the width of any normal solar system. Izmunuti's
bloated surface seethed, sending out tongues of ionized gas, rich with the
heavy elements that made up Sara's own body. Purofsky
thinks the Buyur had ways to meddle with a star. Even
without that awesome thought, it was a stirring sight to behold. Past those
raging fires had come all the sneakships that deposited their illicit seed on
Jijo, along with the varied hopes of each founding generation. Their
aspirations had ranged from pure survival, for humans and g'Keks, all the way
to the hoonish ancestors who apparently came a long way in order to play hooky. All
those hopes will come crashing down, unless Streaker can make it to Izmunuti's
fires. Sara
still had no idea how Gillian Baskin hoped to save Jijo. Would she let the
enemy catch up and then blow this ship up, in order to take the Jophur out, as
well? A brave
ploy, but surely the enemy would be prepared for that, and take precautions. Then
what? It
seemed Sara would find out when the time came. She
felt bad about the kids-Huck, Alvin, and the others. But they were adults now,
and volunteers. Anyway,
the sages say it's a good omen for members of all six races to be present when
something vital is about to happen. Sara's
own reasons for coming went beyond that. Purofsky
said one of us had to take the risk-either him or me-and go with Streaker, on
the slim chance that she makes it. One of
us should try to find out if it's true. What we figured out about the Buyur. All her
life's work, in mathematical physics and linguistics, seemed to agree with
Purofsky's conclusion. Jijo
was no accident. Oh, if
she delved into psychology, she might find other motives underlying her
insistence on being the one to go. To
continue taking care of Emerson, perhaps? But the
wounded starman was now with those who loved him. Shipmates he had risked death
alongside, many times before. After overcoming initial shame, Emerson had found
ways to be useful. He did not need Sara anymore. No one
really needs me. Face
it. You^re going out of curiosity. Because
you are Melina's child. Because
you want to see what happens next. Dwer IT WAS
A GOOD THING HE REMEMBERED ABOUT AIR. There would be none on the other side. By
twisting through the barrier, writhing, and making his body into a hoop, Dwer
managed to create a tunnel opening from his prison sphere into the next. A
brief hurricane swiftly emptied the atmosphere from his former cell until the
pressure equalized. He then pushed through, letting the opening close behind
him. Dwer's
ears popped and his pulse pounded. The trick had severely diluted the available
air, taking him from near-sea-level pressure to the equivalent of a mountaintop
in just half a dura. Speckles danced before his eyes. His body would not last
long at this rate. There
was another reason to hurry. As he departed the sphere containing the balloon
remnants, he had seen shadows touch beyond the far side. Jophur robots. Come to
inspect their first captive. His
gear had settled against the golden surface of his new cell. Dwer grabbed the
makeshift pack and moved toward the only possible place of refuge-the nose of
the imprisoned starship. It
looked nothing like the massive Jophur vessel, but resembled a pair of spoons,
welded face-to-face, with the bulbous end forward. Fortunately, the enclosure
barely cleared the ship, fore and aft. A bank of dim windows nearly touched the
golden surface. And
there's a door! Dwer
gathered strength, flexed his legs, and launched toward the beckoning airlock.
He sailed across the gap and barely managed to snag a protruding bracket with
the tip of his left hand. If this
takes some kind of secret code, I'm screwed. Fortunately,
the dolphin work crews had a standard procedure for entering and converting
Buyur wrecks. He had accompanied them on some trips, lending a hand. Dwer was
glad to see the makeshift locking mechanism still in place, set to work in a
fashion that even a Jijoan hunter might understand. To open
. . . turn knob. Dwer's
luck held. It rotated. If
there's air inside, the wind will blow out. If there's none, I'll be blown in .
. . and die. He had
to brace his feet against the hull and pull in order to get the hatch moving.
Vision narrowed to a tunnel and Dwer knew he was just duras away from blacking
out. . . . A
sudden breeze rushed at him, whistling with force from the ship's
interior. ! Stale
air. Stinky, stale, dank, wonderful air. Gillian I have
read in Earth lore about cetaceans and their glorious Whale Dream. What music
might we make, when these strange beings add their voices to our chorus? And
after that, who knew? Lorniks, chimps, and zookirs? The Kiqui creatures the
dolphins brought from far away? A melange of vocalizations, then. Perhaps a
civilization worthy of the name. All
that lay ahead, a glimmering possibility, defying all likelihood or reason. For
now, the council was made of those who had earned their place by surviving on
Jijo. Partaking of the world. Raising offspring whose atoms all came from the
renewing crust of their mother planet. This trait pervaded the musical harmony
of the Eight. We inhale
Jijo, with each and every breath. So
Phwhoon-dau umbled in the deep, rolling vibrations of his throat sac. We
drink her waters. At death, our loved ones put us into her abyss. There we join
the patterned rhythms of the world: THE BAD
NEWS WAS NOT EXACTLY UNANTICIPATED, Still, she had hoped for better. As the
Jophur ship finished adding another swarm of decoys to its prison chain, the
cruiser shifted its attention elsewhere, accelerating to pursue the next chosen
group, Soon
the truth became clear. Streaker's
luck had just run out. Well,
they chose right this time, she thought. It had to happen, sooner or later. Streaker
was square in the enemy's sights, with seven mictaars of hyperspace yet to
cross before reaching safety. The
Sages THERE
ARE OTHERS ON JIJO NOW, PHWHOON-DAU thought, knowing that even eight would not
be enough for long. In time, the new dolphin colonists must be invited to join. The
presence that joined them was at once both familiar and awesome. The council
felt it throb in each note of the flute or myriiton. It permeated the clatter
of the glaver's rattle, and the wry empathy glyphs of the tytlal. For
generations, their dreams had been brushed by the Egg. Its soft cadences repaid
each pilgrimage, helping to unite the Commons. But
during all those years, the sages had known. It only sleeps. We do not know
what will happen when it wakes. Was the
Egg only rousing now because the council finally had its missing parts? Or had
the cruel Jophur ray shaken it from slumber? Phwhoon-dau
liked to think that his old friend Vubben was responsible. Or
else, perhaps, it was simply time. The
echoes steadily increased. Phwhoon-dau felt them with his feet, reverberating
beneath the surface, building to a crescendo. An accretion of pent-up power. Of
purpose. Such
energy. What will happen when it is liberated? His sac pulsed with umbles,
painful and mightier than he ever produced before. Phwhoon-dau
envisioned the mountain caldera blowing up with titanic force, spilling lava
down the tortured aisles of Festival Glade. As it
turned out, the release came with nothing more physical than a slight trembling
of the ground. And yet
they all staggered when it flew forth, racing faster than the speed of thought. The
Slope TO
NELO-STANDING IN THE RUINS OF HIS PAPER mill, exhausted and discouraged after a
long homeward slog-it came as a rapid series of aromas. The
sweet-sour odor of pulped cloth, steaming as it poured across the drying
screens. The
hot-vital skin smell of his late wife, whenever her attention turned his way
after a long day spent pouring herself into their peculiar children. The
smell of Sara's hair, when she was three years old . . . addictive as any drug. Nelo
sat down hard on a shattered wall remnant, and though the feelings passed
through him for less than a kidura, something shattered within as he broke down
and wept. "My
children . . ." Nelo moaned. "Where are they?" Something
told him they were no longer of his world. To
Fallen-staked down and spread-eagled in an underground roul shambler's lair,
waiting for death-the sensation arrived as a wave of images. Memories, yanked
back whole. The
mysterious spike trees of the Sunrise Plain, farther east than anyone had
traveled in a century. Ice
floes of the northwest, great floating mountains with snowy towers, sculpted by
the wind. The
shimmering, teasing phantasms of the Spectral Flow . . . and the oasis of Xi,
where the gentle Illias had invited him to live out his days, sharing their
secrets and their noble horses. Fallen
did not cry out. He knew Dedinger and his fanatics were listening, just beyond
this cave in the dunes. When the beast returned home, they would get no
satisfaction from the former chief scout of the Commons. Still,
the flood of memory affected him. Fallen shed a single tear of gratitude. A life
is made whole only in its own eyes. Fallen looked back on his, and called it
good. To
Uriel-interrupted in a flurry of new projects-the passing wave barged through
as an unwelcome interruption. A waste of valuable time. Especially when all her
apprentices laid down their tools and stared into space, uttering low, reverent
moans, or sighs, or whinnies. Uriel
knew it for what it was. A blessing. To which she had a simple reply. So
what? She
just had too much on her mind to squander duras on things that were out of her
control. In
GalTwo she commented, dryly. "Glad
I am, that you have finally decided. Pleased that you, O long-lived Egg, have
deigned to act, at last. But forgive me if I do not pause long to exult. For
many of us, life is far too short." To
Ewasx-moments later and half a light-year away-it came as a brief, agonizing
vibration in the wax. Ancient wax, accumulated over many jaduras by the
predecessor stack-an old traeki sage. Involuntary
steam welled up the shared core of the stack, bypassing the master ring to waft
as a compact cloud from the topmost opening. Praised
be destiny. . . . Other
ring stacks drew away from Ewasx, unnerved by the singular aromatics, accented
with savage traces of Jijoan soil. But the
senior Jophur Priest-Stack responded automatically to the reverent smoke,
bowing and adding: Amen
... even
had to quash an urge to go chasing after the damned stone! Leave
it, and good riddance, he thought, and nodded to Ling. "Right,
let's go." Dwer LARK,
YOUR HAND!" He
trembled, fighting to control the fit that came suddenly, causing him to snatch
the amulet from around his neck. He clutched the stone tight, even when it
began to burn his flesh. Crouched
behind a set of strange obelisks-their only shelter in the spacious Jophur
control room-Lark dared not cry out from pain. He fought not to thrash about as
Ling used both hands to pry at his clenched fist. At last, the stone sliver
fell free, tumbling across his lap to the floor, leaving a stench of singed
flesh. Even now, the heat kept building. They tried backing away, but the
stone's temperature continued rising until a fierce glow made it hard to see. "No!"
Lark whispered harshly as Ling dived toward the blaze, reaching for the thong.
To his surprise, enough was still attached for her to grab a loop and whirl it
once, then twice around her head, as if slinging a piece of flaming sun. She let
go, hurling Lark's talisman in an arc across the busy chamber, toward the
center of the room. Dismayed
whistles ensued, accompanied by waves of aromatic stench so overpowering, Lark
almost gagged. "Why
the hell did you-" he began, but Ling tugged his arm. "We
need a distraction. Come on, now's our chance!" Lark
blinked, amazed by the power of habit. He was actually angry at her for
throwing away his amulet, and INSIDE
THE DECOY SHIP, HE COLLAPSED ON THE deck and retched, heaving up what little
remained in his stomach. Midway
through that unpleasant experience, another, completely different kind of
disorientation abruptly swept over Dwer. For a moment, it seemed as if
One-of-a-Kind were inside his head, trying to speak again. The strange, heady
sensation might have been almost affable, if his body weren't racked with
nausea. It
ended before he had a chance to appraise what was happening. Anyway, by then he
figured he had wasted enough time. The
Jophur won't take long picking through my little urrish balloon. They'll start
on this bubble next. In full
gravity, it might have been impossible to climb along the full length of the
captured ship and reach the aft end. But Dwer took advantage of conditions as
he found them, and soon taught himself to fly. THEY
WERE DASHING DOWN A SMOKE-FILLED HALL|way, chased by angry shouts and
occasional bolts of I shimmering lightning, when an abrupt detonation rocked
the floor plates. A wall of air struck the two humans from behind, knocking
them off their feet. We've
had it, he thought, figuring it must be a weapon, used by the pursuers. Glancing
over his shoulder, however, Lark saw the robots suddenly turn and head the
other way! Into a noisome storm of roiling black soot pouring out of the
control room. "Do
you think . . . ?" he began. Ling
shook her head. "Jophur are tough. I doubt they were more than knocked
around by the explosion." Well,
he thought. It was only a little piece of rock. He felt
its absence acutely. Lark
helped her up, still wary of returning robots. "I
guess now they know we're here." They
resumed running. But a few duras later, Ling burst out in laughing agreement. "Yeah,
I guess now they do." Gillian RPSI-DISTURBANCE
WAS DETECTED, EMANATING briefly from the planet. Soon after that, the detection
officer announced a change on the tactics screen. "Will
you looka that-t!" Gillian
saw it. The Jophur configuration was shifting. The bright red disk seemed to
shimmer for a moment. Its "tail" of tiny crimson pinpoints, which had
been bunching ever closer to the mother ship, now flexed and began to float
away. "It
appears the enemy has jettisoned all the decoys they captured. I can only
conclude that they figured out bow to scan them quickly and eliminate dross
ships from consideration. The decoys will now drift independently toward
Izmunuti, while the battleship, free of drag, will catch up with us much
faster." Gillian's
hopes, which had lifted when the psi-wave came, now sank lower than ever. "We'd
better get ready for our last stand," she said in a low voice. From
the dolphins there was an utter absence of sonar clicks, as if none of them
wanted to reify the moment, to make it real by reading it in sound. "Wait-t
a minute," Kaa announced. "The Jophur's decelerating! Coming about to
retrieve the jettisoned string!" "But
. . ." Gillian blinked. "Could they have dropped it by
accident?" The
Niss hologram whirled, then accepted the possibility with an abstract nod. "A
hypothesis presents itself. The psi-wave we detected was far too weak to have
any effect on a war cruiser . . . unless it was direct-causative." "Explain." "It might have served as a trigger
that-either by accident or design-precipitated the release of potentialities
already in place . . . say, aboard the Jophur ship." "In
other words, the wave might have affected them after all. Maybe it set off
events that disrupted-" "Indeed.
If this caused the Jophur to lose their control over their string of capture
boxes, they would certainly go back and retrieve them, even at the cost of some
delay. Because they would suspect the string's release was the intended purpose
of the psi-wave." "In
other words, they'll be even more eager to check every box. Hmm." Gillian
pondered, then asked: "Has
their intercept time been delayed much?" Kaa
thrashed his flukes. "A
fair amount. Not-t enough, however. We'll make it to the Izmunuti corona, but
the enemy will be close enough to follow easily with detectorsss. The plasma
won't make any a-ppreciable difference." Gillian
nodded. "Well, things are a little better. And a trick or two to make the
odds better still." The
dolphins snickered knowingly and went back to work, emanating confident clicks.
Gillian's last remark was exactly the sort of thing Tom would have said in a
situation like this. In
fact, though, Gillian did not know if her scheme was even worthy of the name. sara THEY
SAID THAT A PSI-WAVE HAD COME FROM JIJO, but Sara didn't feel a thing. Not
surprising. Of Melina's three children, it always seemed that Dwer had some fey
sensitivity, while she, the logical one, possessed none. Till recently, Sara
had little interest in such matters. But
then she wondered. Might this be what Purofsky said we should, look out for? Sitting
at the stateroom's worktable, Sara addressed the portable computer. "About
that psi-wave-do we have a fix on its hypervelocity?" "Only
a rough estimate. It traveled at approximately two mictaars per midura." Sara
tried to work out the timing in her head, translating it in terms she knew
better, such as light-years. Then she realized the machine could do it for her
graphically. "Show
me." A holo
took shape, portraying her homeworld as a blue dot in the lower left quadrant.
Streakerwas a yellow glimmer to the upper right, accompanied by other members
of decoy swarm number two. Meanwhile a crimson convoy- the Jophur ship and its
reclaimed captives-resumed hot pursuit. The computer
put down an overlay, depicting a crosshatching of lines that Sara knew to be
wave vectors in level-zero hyperspace. The math was simple enough, but it took
her some time to figure out the rich, three-dimensional representation. Then
she whistled. "That's
not inverse square. It's not even one-over-R. It was directional!" "A
well-conserved, directional wave packet, resonating on the first, third^ and
eighth bands of-" The
computer lapsed into psi-jargon that Sara could not follow. For her, it was
enough to see that the packet was aimed. Its peak had passed right over both
Streaker and its pursuer. The
coincidence beggared belief. It meant that some great power on Jijo had known
precisely where both ships were, and- Sara
stopped herself. Don't
leap to the first conclusion that comes to mind. What if we weren 't the beam's
objective at all? What if
we just happened to be along its path, between Jijo and . . . She
leaped to her feet. "Show
me Izmunuti and the transfer point!" The
display changed scale, expanding until Streaker-was shown just over halfway to
the supposed safety of the fiery red giant. And
beyond it, a folded place. A twist in reality's fabric. A spot where you go, if
you want to suddenly be very far away. ' Although
computer graphics were needed to make it out clearly, the transfer point was no
invisible nonentity. Izmunuti bulged in its direction, sending ocher streamers
toward the dimple in space. "When
will the psi-wave reach Izmunuti?" "It
has already arrived." Sara
swallowed hard. "Then
show me estimated ..." She dredged memory for words she had read, but
seldom used. "Show me likely hyperdeflection curves, as the psi-wave hits
the red giant. Emphasize meta-stable regions of ... um, inverted energy
storage, with potential for . . . uh, stimulated emission on those bands you
were talking about." Sara's
face flickered as manicolored lines and curves reflected off her forehead and
cheekbones. Her
eyes widened, briefly showing white all the way around the irises. She mouthed
a single word, without managing to form a voice. Then
Sara clutched for a nearby pad of paper-no better than the premium stock her
own father produced-and scrawled down two lines of coordinates. Gillian
Baskin answered her urgent call, though the older woman looked harassed and a
little irked. "Sage Koolhan, I really don't have time-" "Oh yes
you do," Sara told her sternly. "Meet me in your office in forty
duras. You are definitely gonna want to hear this!" Rety A YOUNG
WOMAN SAT IN A LOCKED ROOM, ALL alone in her universe, until someone knocked. In fact
she was not entirely alone-r-yee was with her. Moreover, the knock wasn't at
the door, but rapped loudly on the window below her feet. Still, the element of
eerie surprise was there. Rety jumped back, scurrying away from the sound,
which grew louder with each hammerlike stroke. "it
comes from over heref'yee wailed, pointing with his long neck. Rety
saw at once the pane he meant. A silhouetted figure squatted below the window,
backlit by the golden haze surrounding her useless ship. The figure was
distorted, distended, with a grossly bulbous head. An arm turned, holding a
blunt object, and swung forward, striking the crystal once again. This
time, tiny cracks spread from the point of impact. "enemy
foe coming in!" Visions
of space monsters filled Rety, but not with fear. She wasn't about to give up
her domain to some invader- Jophur, robot, or whatever. Another
blow struck the same spot. Clearly it would take several more for the assailant
to seriously damage the window. Emboldened to see what she was up against, Rety
scooted toward the shadowy figure. After the next impact, she pressed close to
the glass and peered outside. Things
were blurry at first. Then the creature seemed to notice her presence and
leaned forward as well. Rety glimpsed what looked like a billowing dome of
clear fabric. A makeshift helmet, she realized. And
within that protective bubble . . . "Yah!"
she cried out, twitching reflexively away, more set back than if she'd seen a
monster or ghost. When
Rety went back for another look, the figure on the other side started making
frantic gestures, pointing toward the side of the ship. "Oh,
yeah," she sighed. "I did lock the airlock, didn't I?" Rety
nodded vigorously so the visitor could see, and started scurrying along the
canted walls to reach the jimmied door. Rety removed the pry bar she had
slipped in place, to keep Chuchki from returning. The
airlock cycled slowly, giving Rety time to wonder if her eyes had deceived her.
Perhaps this was just a ruse from some mind-reading creature, seeking to gain
entrance by sifting her brain for images from her past. . . . The
inner door opened at last, and Dwer Koolhan tumbled through, tearing at the
balloonlike covering he had been using as a crude life-support system. His face
was rather blue by the time Rety helped him cut the taped fastenings, scavenged
from material found on other decoy vessels during his long journey down the
captive string. The young hunter gasped deep breaths while Rety stepped back
and stared. Finally, he recovered enough to roll aside, lifting his head to
meet her unbelieving gaze. "I
... should've known . . . it'd be you," Dwer murmured in a resigned voice. At the
exact same moment, Rety muttered: "Ifni!
Ain't I ever gonna be rid o' you?" asx WE MUST
WEIGH TRADE-OFFS AND OPTIONS. As Izmunuti commences to roil with an atmospheric
storm, our tactics stack declares that we have lost valuable time. Three
target swarms flee ahead of our majestic Polkjhy. The
first will enter the storm just as we catch up. We will
reach the second as it passes through maximum hyperbolic momentum change. And the
third? It will
make it to the transfer point, with time enough to jump into the next higher
level of hyperspace. The
sabotage attack on our control room has thus created serious problems, out of
proportion to the damage done to our Captain-Leader, whose incapacity should not
last long. Meanwhile, however, tactics has come up with a plan. WE
SHALL JETTISON THE CAPTURE BOXES DRAGGING AT OUR WAKE. They
are now on course for Izmunuti. If the prey ship lies within one of the glowing
traps, it must reveal itself soon, or risk immolation. THUS
FREED, OUR POLKJHY WILL ACCELERATE DIRECTLY FOR THE TRANSFER POINT! In this
manner we will be able to interpose ourselves between the prey ship and its
escape path. There will be some backlash from such rapid maneuvering, but the result
should be an end to all hope for the Earthlings, whichever swarm they are
hiding in. Their subsequent activities should enable us to detect which ship is
sapient-guided and which operate on mere automatic programs. Hunt
scents fill our bridge, eagerness for the approaching conclusion to this great
endeavor. It will be most gratifying for Polkjhy to achieve conquest of the
Earthlings without having to call for help from the great clan. To succeed
where battle fleets have failed-this will be glorious! BUT NOW
TO OUR ASSIGNED TASK, MY RINGS! There
are vermin loose on our fine dreadnought. Our damaged,soot-stained bridge was
dishonored in full view of the librarian,watcher. The
vermin roust be found. I/we am the one called upon as qualified to give chase,
by virtue of our/my experience with human types. Our
first recourse, My rings? Collect the remaining human prisoner! The one called
Rann. He will
help us find his former colleagues. He is already so inclined. REJOICE,
MY RINGS! In this
way we will prove useful, avoiding disassembly. If successful, this master torus has been promised a fine reward. Quiver
in anticipation, My rings! As Polkjhy chases certain victory through space, we
pursue another hunt within. Emerson ENGINES
SING TO HIM IN A LANGUAGE HE STILL Understands. When he
works the calibrators, it seems almost as if he were his old self. Master of
machines. Boy mechanic. The man
who makes starships fly. Then
something reminds him. A written status report flashes, or a robot voice runs
down a list of parameters. Prity can't interpret for him-sign language cannot
translate subtleties of hyperwave transformatics. Emerson's
crew mates respect his efforts. They are pleased and surprised by his ability
to help. But, he
now realizes, they are also humoring him. Things
will never be the same. His long shift
ends. Suessi orders him to take a break. So he goes up to the hold with Prity
and visits the glavers, sensing something in common with the simple creatures,
nearly as speechless as himself. Alvin
and Huck trade insults and witticisms in Anglic, his own native tongue, but he
can only follow the general tone of camaraderie. They are kind, but here, too,
Emerson finds no solace. He
searches for Sara, and finds her at last in the plotting room, surrounded by
Gillian's staff. Fiery representations of a bloated giant star fill the center
of the room, with varied orbits plotted through its flaming shell. Some paths
slip close, using slingshot arcs to fling Streaker toward the transfer point-a
twisted funnel in space. The tactics look challenging, even to a pilot like
Kaa. Yet that approach is the obvious one. No
doubt the enemy expects just such a maneuver. Other
orbits make no sense, skirting the red giant to strike away from the bolt-hole.
Farther from the only way to exit this dangerous part of a forbidden galaxy. Letting
the enemy reach the transfer point first would seem suicidal. On the
other hand, at the rate the Jophur battleship is catching up, Streaker will
have little choice. Perhaps Sara and Gillian plan to head for deep space and
hide amid the seared rocks that were planets, before Izmunuti burgeoned and
consumed its children. Emerson
watches Sara, immersed in work. No one seems to note the presumption-of a
Jijo-born savage directing the endeavors of starfaring sophisticates. At times
like these, an idea can count for much more than experience. The
incongruity makes him smile at last, recovering some of his good mood. His
accustomed optimism. After
all, what have the odds ever mattered before? There
is an observation dome tucked behind the bridge, accessible only by a twisty
ladder with rungs set much too close together. The small room is a leftover
from whatever race once owned Streaker, before Earthclan bought the hull,
converting it for dolphin use. It takes some agility to worm into the
odd-shaped cubby. Emerson's secret place. At one
end, a thick bubble of adamantine quartz provides a view outside, where the
starry vault is bare, unimpeded, nearly surrounding him with everlasting night
Izmunuti is occulted by the ship's bow, but vast sweeps of the local spiral arm
sparkle like diamonds. Globular clusters are like diatoms, phosphorescent on a
moonlit sea, Since waking on Jijo, he never expected to experience this again.
The naked confrontation. Mind and universe. It
pours through him, a surfeit of beauty. Too much. Agonizing, Of
course, Emerson spent half a year learning about all kinds of pain, until it
became a sort of friend. His ally at dislodging memories. And as he ponders
stellar fire, it happens again. He
recalls the stench, just after he crashed into Jijo, clothes aflame, quenching
the blaze in murky water, dimly aware of having recently fought a battle. A
diversion-a sacrifice to win escape for his friends. But
that wasn't the truth. It was a planted
cover story. Actually,
the Old Ones took him from that old Thennanin fighter. They probed and palped
him. Over a period of days, weeks, they reamed his mind, then shoved him in a
little capsule. A tube that squeezed . . . Emerson
moans, recalling how that passage ended in a blazing plummet down to Jijo and
the horrid swamp where Sara found him. He
envisions the Old Ones. Or one faction of them. Cold eyes. Hard voices,
commanding him to forget. To forget . . . and yet, sentenced to live. I . . .
know . . . your . . . lie. . . . The
command fights back. For a moment, the pain is greater than he ever knew. Pain
that is elemental, like the black vacuum surrounding him. Like
sleeting cosmic rays. Like
all the myriad quantum layers propping up each quark and every lepton in his
shaken frame. Through
it all, his eyes can barely focus, squinting past distilled anguish, turning
countless stars into slanting needles. But
then, out of those jagged motes there comes a shape. Weaving, thrashing . . .
zigging, zagging. Swimming,
he now realizes. Pushing toward him, as if upstream, against the swell of a
strong tide. A shape from memory, but instead of bringing more woe, this
recollection sweeps all agony before it. Pushed by stalwart flukes, a soothing
current washes over him. A
dolphin's face swims into focus. Captain
. . .. . . Creideiki ..., It is a
scarred face, deeply wounded behind the left eye. A wound too much like
Emerson's to be coincidence. The
explanation encircles him in sound. *
Crooks and foul liars, *
Lacking imagination, *
Cruelly steal ideas! * Emerson
comprehends the Trinary haiku at once. The Old Ones must have read his mind
somehow and learned of Creideiki's injury. It seemed to fit their needs, so
they copied it in their captive human. What better way to release him, yet be
certain he would tell no tales? But
that still left open the question of why? Why release him at all, if it meant
consignment to a twilight existence? What
motive could they have? All
good time in The
phrase brings a smile, for he grasps it in a way he might never have before. A
simple, purified meaning. good time Emerson
looks back across the galaxies, now cleansed free of pain. Pain be now
recognizes to have been illusion, all along. The product of an exaggerated
sense of self-importance that his enemies used against him. In
fact, the ocean of night is too vast, too busy to be involved in his agony. An
evolving universe can hardly be bothered with the problems of a single
individual, a member of one of the lower orders of sapient life. And why
should it? What a
privilege it is, to exist at all! On the great balance sheet, he owes the
cosmos everything, and it owes him nothing. Emerson
manages to share a final moment of communion with his captain and comrade-not
caring whether the grinning dolphin is a ghost, a mirage, or some miraculous
true image. Knowing only that Creideiki's lesson is true. There
is no setback-no wound or blow of cruel fate-that cannot be turned into a song. For an
instant, Emerson can sense music in every ray of starlight. * When
the winter's Typhoon pounds you, * Onto
sand grains,Sharp and gleaming', * And
creation All-conspiring, *
Breaks you on a Time of Changes, * At
the moment When breath falters, * And
your lifeblood Pours out streaming, * Cast
around that Bright reef, dear friend, * For a
gift to Grant another, * For
some way to Repay forward, * All
the favors You were given. * For
in good time *
Prospects glitter * Far
along Infinity's Shore. * THE END
OF PART TWO Infinity's
Shore David
Brin (Back
of Jacket) For the
fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of
genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of
sapient beings. Now the human settlers
of Jijo and their alien neighbors must take heroic--and
terrifying--choices. A scientist must
turn against the benefactors she's been trained to love. A heretic must rally
believers for a cause he never shared.
And four youngsters find that what started as a simple
adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them
to the dark abyss of mystery.
Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last
on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge.
Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies
first spawned intelligence--a secret that could mean salvation for the planet
and its inhabitants. . . or their ultimate annihilation. Streaker [Five
Jaduras Earlier] Kaa * What
strange fate brought me, *
Fleeing maelstroms of winter, * Past
five galaxies? * * Only
to find refuge, * On a
forlorn planet (nude!) * In
laminar luxury! * SO HE
THOUGHT WHILE PERFORMING SWOOPING rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with
exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh. Dappled
sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of
floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flat-jawed fish,
moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the
instinctive urge to give chase. Maybe
later. For
now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the
greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the
green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each
time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on
Oakka. There wasn't enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter. This
sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the
ship would give you a toxic dose of hard metals. In
contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa
of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on
far-off Earth. He
tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne,
safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe failed. One
paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world. Sound. -a
beating of tides rising up the continental shelf-a complex rhythm tugged by
three moons, not one. -an
echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp
texture. -an
occasional distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself. -the
return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike
creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways. -above
all, the engine hum just behind him ... a cadence of machinery that had filled
Kaa's days and nights for five long years. And
now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty. *
Relent, Kaa, tell us, * In
exploratory prose, * Is it
safe to come? * The
voice chased Kaa like a fluttering, sonic conscience. Reluctantly, he swerved
around to face the submarine Hikahi, improvised from ancient parts found strewn
across this planet's deep seafloor-a makeshift contraption that suited a crew
of misfit fugitives. Clamshell doors closed ponderously, like the jaws of a
huge carnivore, cycling to let others emerge in his wake ... if he gave the all
clear. Kaa
sent his Trinary reply, amplified by a saser unit plugged into his skull,
behind his left eye. * If
water were all * We
might be in heaven now. * But
wait! I'll check above! * His
lungs were already making demands, so he obeyed instinct, flicking an upward
spiral toward the glistening surface. Ready or not, Jijo, here I come! He
loved piercing the tense boundary of sky and sea, flying weightless for an
instant, then broaching with a splash and spume of exhalation. Still, he
hesitated before inhaling. Instruments predicted an Earthlike atmosphere, yet
he felt a nervous tremor drawing breath. If
anything, the air tasted better than the water! Kaa whirled, thrashing his tail
in exuberance, glad Lieutenant Tsh't had let him volunteer for this-to be the
first dolphin, the first Earthling, ever to swim this sweet, foreign sea. Then
his eye stroked a jagged, gray-brown line, spanning one horizon, very close. The
shore. Mountains. He
stopped his gyre to stare at the nearby continent--inhabited, they now knew.
But by whom? There
was not supposed to be any sapient life on Jijo. Maybe
they're just hiding here, the way we are, from a hostile cosmos. That
was one theory. At
least they chose a pleasant world, he added, relishing the air, the water, and
gorgeous ranks of cumulus hovering over a giant mountain. I wonder if the fish
are good to eat. * As we
await you, *
Chafing in this cramped airlock, *
Should we play pinochle? * Kaa
winced at the lieutenant's sarcasm. Hurriedly, he sent back pulsed waves. *
Fortune smiles again, * On
our weary band of knaves. *
Welcome, friends, to Ifni's Shore. * It
might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of chance and destiny, capricious
Ifni, who always seemed ready to plague Streaker's company with one more
surprise. Another unexpected calamity, or miraculous escape. But Kaa
had always felt an affinity with the informal patron deity of spacers. There
might be better pilots than himself in the Terragens Survey Service, but none
with a deeper respect for fortuity. Hadn't his own nickname been
"Lucky"? Until
recently, that is. From
below, he heard the grumble of clamshell doors reopening. Soon Tsh't and others
would join him in this first examination of Jijo's surface-a world they
heretofore saw only briefly from orbit, then from the deepest, coldest pit in
all its seas. Soon, his companions would arrive, but for a few moments more he
had it to himself-silken water, tidal rhythms, fragrant air, the sky and
clouds. . . . His
tail swished, lifting him higher as he peered. Those aren't normal clouds, he
realized, staring at a great mountain dominating the eastern horizon, whose
peak wore shrouds of billowing white. The lens implanted in his right eye
dialed through a spectral scan, sending readings to his optic nerve-revealing
steam, carbon oxides, and a flicker of molten heat. A
volcano, Kaa realized, and the reminder sent his ebullience down a notch. This
was a busy part of the planet, geologically speaking. The same forces that made
it a useful hiding place also kept it dangerous. That
must be where the groaning comes from, he pondered. Seismic activity. An interaction
of miniquakes and crustal gas discharges with the thin overlaying film of sea. Another
flicker caught his notice, in roughly the same direction, but much closer-a
pale swelling that might also have been a cloud, except for the way it moved,
flapping like a bird's wing, then bulging with eagerness to race the wind. A sail,
he discerned. Kaa watched it jibe across the stiffening breeze-a two-masted
schooner, graceful in motion, achingly familiar from the Caribbean seas of
home. Its bow
split the water, spreading a wake that any dolphin might love to ride. The
zoom lens clarified, magnified, until he made out fuzzy bipedal forms, hauling
ropes and bustling around on deck, like any gang of human sailors. . . .
Only these weren't human beings. Kaa glimpsed scaly backs, culminating in a
backbone of sharp spines. Swathes of white fur covered the legs, and froglike
membranes pulsated below broad chins as the ship's company sang a low, rumbling
work chant that Kaa could dimly make out, even from here. He felt
a chill of unhappy recognition. Hoons!
What in all Five Galaxies are they doing here? Kaa
heard a rustle of fluke strokes-Tsh't and others rising to join him. Now he
must report that enemies of Earth dwelled here. Kaa
realized grimly-this news wasn't going to help him win back his nickname
anytime soon. She
came to mind again, the capricious goddess of uncertain destiny. And Kaa's own
Trinary phrase came back to him, as if reflected and reconverged by the
surrounding alien waters. *
Welcome . . . *
Welcome . . . *
Welcome to Ifni's Shore . . . * Sooners
Tkaat
ranger EXISTENCE
SEEMS LIKE WANDERING THROUGH A vast chaotic house. One that has been torn by
quakes and fire, and is now filled with bitter, inexplicable fog. Whenever he
manages to pry open a door, exposing some small corner of the past, each
revelation comes at the price of sharp waves of agony. In
time, he learns not to be swayed by the pain. Rather, each ache and sting
serves as a marker, a signpost, confirming that he must be on the right path. His
arrival on this world-plummeting through a scorched sky-should have ended with
merciful blankness. What luck instead hurled his blazing body from the pyre to
quench in a fetid swamp? Peculiar
luck. Since
then, he has grown intimate with all kinds of suffering, from crass pangs to
subtle stings. In cataloging them, he grows learned in the many ways there are
to hurt. Those
earliest agonies, right after the crash, had screeched coarsely from wounds and
scalding burns-a gale of such fierce torment that he barely noticed when a
motley crew of local savages rowed out to him in a makeshift boat, like sinners
dragging a fallen angel out of the boggy fen. Saving him from drowning, only to
face more damnations. Beings
who insisted that he fight for his broken life, when it would have been so much
easier just to let go. Later,
as his more blatant injuries healed or scarred, other types of anguish took up
the symphony of pain. Afflictions
of the mind. Holes
gape across his life, vast blank zones, lightless and empty, where missing
memories must once have spanned megaparsecs and life years. Each gap feels
chilled beyond numbness-a raw vacancy more frustrating than an itch that can't
be scratched. Ever
since he began wandering this singular world, he has probed the darkness
within. Optimistically, he clutches a few small trophies from the struggle. Jijo is
one of them. He
rolls the word in his mind-the name of this planet where six castaway races
band together in feral truce, a mixed culture unlike any other beneath the
myriad stars. A
second word comes more easily with repeated use- Sara. She who nursed him from
near death in her tree house overlooking a rustic water mill . . . who calmed
the fluxing panic when he first woke to see pincers, claws, and mucusy ring
stacks-the physiques of hoons, traekis, qheuens, and others sharing this rude
outcast existence. He
knows more words, such as Kurt and Prity . . . friends he now trusts almost as
much as Sara. It feels good to think their names, the slick way all words used
to come, in the days before his mangling. One
recent prize he is especially proud of. Emerson
. . . It is
his own name, for so long beyond reach. Violent shocks had jarred it free, less
than a day ago-shortly after he provoked a band of human rebels to betray their
urrish allies in a slashing knife fight that made a space battle seem
antiseptic by comparison. That bloody frenzy ended with an explosive blast,
shattering the grubby caravan tent, spearing light past Emerson's closed lids,
overwhelming the guardians of reason. And
then, amid the dazzling rays, he had briefly glimpsed ... his captain! Creideiki
. . . The
blinding glow became a luminous foam, whipped by thrashing flukes. Out of that
froth emerged a long gray form whose bottle snout bared glittering teeth. The
sleek head grinned, despite bearing an awful wound behind its left eye . . .
much like the hurt that robbed Emerson of speech. Utterance
shapes formed out of scalloped bubbles, in a language like none spoken by
Jijo's natives, or by any great Galactic clan. * In
the turning of the cycloid, * Comes
a time to break for surface. * Time
to resume breathing, doing. * To
rejoin the great sea's dreaming. * Time
has come for you my old friend. * Time
to wake and see what's churning. ... * Stunned
recognition accompanied waves of stinging misery, worse than any fleshy woe or
galling numbness. Shame
had nearly overwhelmed him then. For no injury short of death could ever excuse
his forgetting Creideiki ... Terra .
. . The
dolphins . . . Hannes
. . . Gillian
. . . How
could they have slipped his mind during the months he wandered this barbarian
world, by boat, barge, and caravan? Guilt
might have engulfed him during that instant of recollection . . . except that
his new friends urgently needed him to act, to seize the brief advantage
offered by the explosion, to overcome their captors and take them prisoner. As dusk
fell across the shredded tent and torn bodies, he had helped Sara and Kurt tie
up their surviving foes-both urrish and human-although Sara seemed to think
their reprieve temporary. More
fanatic reinforcements were expected soon. Emerson
knew what the rebels wanted. They wanted him. It was no secret that he came
from the stars. The rebels would trade him to sky hunters, hoping to exchange
his battered carcass for guaranteed survival. As if
anything could save Jijo's castaway races, now that the Five Galaxies had found
them. Huddled
round a wan fire, lacking any shelter but tent rags, Sara and the others
watched as terrifying portents crossed bitter-cold constellations. First
came a mighty titan of space, growling as it plunged toward nearby mountains, bent
on awful vengeance. Later,
following the very same path, there came a second behemoth, this one so
enormous that Jijo's pull seemed to lighten as it passed overhead, filling
everyone with deep foreboding. Not
long after that, golden lightning flickered amid the mountain peaks-a bickering
of giants. But Emerson did not care who won. He could tell that neither vessel
was his ship, the home in space he yearned for . . . and prayed he would never
see again. With
luck, Streaker was far away from this doomed world, bearing in its hold a trove
of ancient mysteries-- perhaps the key to a new galactic era. Had not
all his sacrifices been aimed at helping her escape? After
the leviathans passed, there remained only stars and a chill wind, blowing through
the dry steppe grass, while Emerson went off searching for the caravan's
scattered pack animals. With donkeys, his friends just might yet escape before
more fanatics arrived. . . . Then
came a rumbling noise, jarring the ground beneath his feet. A rhythmic cadence
that seemed to go- taranta
taranta taranta
taranta The
galloping racket could only be urrish hoofbeats, the I expected rebel
reinforcements, come to make them prisoners once again. Only,
miraculously, the darkness instead poured forth allies-unexpected rescuers,
both urrish and human-who brought with them astonishing beasts, Horses. Saddled
horses, clearly as much a surprise to Sara as they were to him. Emerson had
thought the creatures were extinct on this world, yet here they were, emerging
from the "• night as if from a dream. So
began the next phase of his odyssey. Riding southward, fleeing the shadow of
these vengeful ships, hurrying toward the outline of an uneasy volcano. Now he
wonders within his battered brain-is there a plan? A destination? Old
Kurt apparently has faith in these surprising saviors, but there must be more
to it than that. Emerson
is tired of just running away. He
would much rather be running toward. In time
Emerson recalls how to ease along with the sway of the saddle. And as sunrise
lifts dew off fan-fringed trees near a riverbank, swarms of bright bugs whir
through the slanted light, dancing as they pollinate a field of purple blooms.
When Sara glances back from her own steed, sharing a rare smile, his pangs seem
to matter less. Even fear of those terrible starships, splitting the sky with
their angry engine arrogance, cannot erase a growing elation as the fugitive
band gallops on to dangers yet unknown. Emerson
cannot help himself. It is his nature to seize any possible excuse for hope. As
the horses pound Jijo's ancient turf, their cadence draws him down a thread of
familiarity, recalling rhythmic music quite apart from the persistent dirge of
woe. tarantara,
tarantara tarantara,
tarantara Under
insistent stroking by that throbbing sound, something abruptly clicks inside.
His body reacts involuntarily as unexpected words surge from some dammed-up
corner of his brain, attended by a melody that stirs the heart. Lyrics pour reflexively,
an undivided stream, through lungs and throat before he even knows 'that he is
singing. "Though
in body and in mind, We are
timidly inclined, And
anything but blind, To the
danger that's behind- {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!] {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!]" While
his steed bounds ahead, new aches join the background music of his life-raw,
chafed thighs and a bruised spine that jars with each pounding hoofbeat. taranta,
taranta, taranta-tara taranta,
taranta, taranta-tara Guilt
nags him with a sense of duties unfulfilled, and he grieves over the likely
fate of his new friends on Jijo, now that their hidden colony has been
discovered. And yet . . . {tarantara,
tarantara] {tarantara!] His
friends grin-this has happened before. "Yet,
when the danger's near, We
manage to appear, As
insensible to fear, As
anybody here, As
an-y-bo-dy here!" Sara
laughs, joining the refrain, and even the dour urrish escorts stretch their
long necks to lisp along. "Yet,
when the danger's near, We
manage to appear, As
insensible to fear, As
anybody here, As
anybody here!" {tarantara,
tarantara) {tarantara!}" PART
ONE EACH OF
THE SOONER RACES making up the Commons of Jijo tells its own unique story,
passed down from generation to generation, explaining why their ancestors
surrendered godlike powers and risked terrible penalties to reach this far
place--skulking in sneakships past Institute patrols, robot guardians, and Zang
globules. Seven waves of sinners, each coming to plant their outlaw seed on a
world that had been declared off limits to settlement. A world set aside to
rest and recover in peace, but for the likes of us. The
g'Kek arrived first on this land we call the Slope between misty mountains and
the sacred sea-hall a million years alter the last legal tenants--the
Buyur--departed Jijo. Why did
those g'Kek founders willingly give up their former lives as star-traveling
gods and citizens of the Five Galaxies?
Why choose Instead to dwell as fallen primitives, lacking the comforts
of technology, or any moral solace but for a few engraved platinum scrolls? Legend
has it that our g'Kek cousins fled threatened extinction, a dire punishment for
devastating gambling losses. But we cannot be sure. Writing was a lost art
until humans came, so those accounts may be warped by passing time. What we
do know is that it could not have been a petty threat that drove them to
abandon the spacefaring life they loved, seeking refuge on heavy Jijo, where their
wheels have such a hard time on the rocky ground. With four keen eyes, peering
in all directions at the end of graceful stalks, did the g'Kek ancestors see a
dark destiny painted on galactic winds? Did that first generation see no other
choice? perhaps they only cursed their descendants to this savage life as a
last resort. NOT
long after the g'Kek, roughly two thousand years ago, a party of traeki dropped
hurriedly from the sky, as if tearing pursuit by some dreaded foe. wasting no
time, they sank their sneakship in the deepest hollow of the sea, then settled
down to be our gentlest tribe. What
nemesis drove them from the spiral lanes? Any
native Jijoan glancing at those familiar stacks of tatty toruses, venting
fragrant steam and placid wisdom in each village or the Slope, must find it
hard to imagine the traeki having enemies. In
time, they confided their story. The foe they fled was not some other race, nor
was there a deadly vendetta among the star gods of the Five Galaxies. Rather,
it was an aspect of their own selves. Certain rings--components of their
physical bodies- had lately been modified in ways that turned their kind into
formidable beings. Into Jophur, mighty and feared among the noble Galactic
clans. It was
a fate those traeki founders deemed unbearable. SO they chose to become lawless
refugees--sooners on a taboo world--in order to shun a horrid destiny. The
obligation to be great. It is
said that glavers came to Jijo not out of fear, but seeking the Path of
Redemption--the kind of innocent oblivion that wipes all slates clean. In this
goal they have succeeded far better than anyone else, showing the rest of us
the way, if we dare follow their example. Whether
or not that sacred track will also be ours, we must respect their
accomplishment--transforming themselves from cursed fugitives into a race of
blessed simpletons. As starfaring immortals, they could be held accountable for
their crimes, including the felony of invading Jijo. But now they have reached
a refuge, the purity of ignorance, Free to start again. Indulgently,
we let glavers root through our kitchen middens, poking under logs for insects.
Once mighty intellects, they are not counted among the sooner races of Jijo
anymore. They are no longer stained with the sins of their forebears. QHEUENS
were the first to arrive filled with wary ambition. Led by
fanatical, crablike gray matrons, their first-generation colonists snapped all
five pincers derisively at any thought of union with Jijo's other exile races.
Instead, they sought dominion. That
plan collapsed in time, when blue and red qheuens abandoned historic roles of
servitude, drifting off to seek their own ways, leaving their frustrated gray
empresses helpless to enforce old feudal loyalties. Our
tall hoonish brethren inhale deeply, whenever the question arises-"Why are
you here?" They fill their
prodigious throat sacs with low meditation umbles. In rolling tones, hoon
elders relate that their ancestors fled no great danger, no oppression or unwanted
obligations. When
why did they come, risking frightful punishment if their descendants are ever
caught living illegally on Jijo? The
oldest hoons on Jijo merely shrug with frustrating cheerfulness, as if they do
not know the reason, and could not bothered to care. Some do
refer to a legend, though. According to that slim tale, a Galactic oracle once
offered a starfaring hoonish clan a unique opportunity, if they dared take it.
An opportunity to claim something that had been robbed from them, although they
never knew it was lost. A precious birthright that might be discovered on a
forbidden world. But for
the most part, whenever one of the tall ones pulls his throat sac to sing about
past times, he rumbles a deep, Joyful ballad about the crude rafts, boats, and
seagoing ships that hoons invented from scratch, soon alter landing on Jijo.
Things their humorless star cousins would never have bothered looking up in the
all-knowing Galactic Library, let alone have deigned to build. LEGENDS
told by the fleet-footed urrish clan imply that their foremothers were rogues,
coming to Jijo in order to breed-escaping limits Imposed in civilised parts of
the Five Galaxies. With their short
lives, hot tempers, and prolific sexual style, the urs founders might have gone
on to fill Jijo with their kind . . . or else met extinction by now, like the
mythical centaurs they vaguely resemble. But
they escaped both of those traps. Instead, alter many hard struggles, at the
forge and on the battlefield, they assumed an honored place in the commons of
Six Races. With their thundering herds, and mastery of steel, they live hot and
hard, making up for their brief seasons in our midst. Finally
two centuries ago, Earthlings came, bringing chimpanzees and other treasures.
But humans greatest gift was paper. In creating the printed trove of Biblos,
they became lore masters to our piteous commonwealth of exiles. Printing and education changed tile on the
Slope, so that later generations of castaways dared to study their adopted
world, their hybrid civilisation, and even their own selves. As for
why humans came all this way--breaking Galactic laws and risking everything,
Just to huddle with other outlaws under a fearsome sky--their tale is among the
strangest told by Jijo's exile clans. -from
An Ethnography of the Slope, by Dorti Chang-Jones and Huph-alch-Huo Sooners
Alvin I HAD
NO WAY TO MARK THE PASSAGE OF TIME, Lying dazed and half-paralyzed in a metal
cell, listening to the engine hum of a mechanical sea dragon that was hauling
me and my friends to parts unknown. I guess
a couple of days must have passed since the shattering of our makeshift
submarine, our beautiful Wuphon's Dream, before I roused enough to wonder, What
next? Dimly,
I recall the sea monster's face as we first saw it through our crude glass
viewing port, lit by the Dream's homemade searchlight. That glimpse lasted but
a moment as the huge metal thing loomed toward us out of black, icy depths. The
four of us--Huck, Pincer, Ur-ronn, and me--had already resigned ourselves to
death . . . doomed to crushed oblivion at the bottom of the sea. Our expedition
a failure, we didn't feel like daring subsea adventurers anymore, but like
scared kids, voiding our bowels in terror as we waited for the cruel abyss to
squeeze our hollowed-out tree trunk into a zillion soggy splinters. Suddenly
this enormous shape erupted toward us, spreading jaws wide enough to snatch
Wuphon's Dream whole. Well,
almost whole. Passing through that maw, we struck a glancing blow. The
collision shattered our tiny capsule. What
followed still remains a painful blur. I guess
anything beats death, but there have been moments since that impact when my
back hurt so much that I just wanted to rumble one last umble through my
battered throat sac and say farewell to young Alvin Hph-wayuo- junior linguist,
humicking writer, uttergloss daredevil, and neglectful son of Mu-phauwq and
Yowg-wayuo of Wuphon Port, the Slope, Jijo, Galaxy Four, the Universe. But I stayed
alive. I guess
it just didn't seem hoonish to give up, after every thing my pals and I went
through to get here. What if I was sole survivor? I owed it to Huck and the
others to carry on, My
cell--a prison? hospital room?--measures just two meters, by two, by three.
Pretty skimpy for a hoon, event one not quite fully grown. It gets even more
cramped whenever some six-legged, metal-sheathed demon tries to squeeze inside
to tend my injured spine, poking with what, I assume (hope!) to be clumsy kindness.
Despite their efforts, misery comes in awful waves, making me wish desperately
for the pain remedies cooked up by Old Stinky--our traeki pharmacist back home. It
occurred to me that I might never walk again . . . or see my family, or watch
seabirds swoop over the dross ships, anchored beneath Wuphon's domelike shelter
trees. I I tried
talking to the insecty giants trooping in and out of my cell. Though each had a
torso longer than my dad is tall--with a flared back end, and a tubelike shell
as hard as Buyur steel--I couldn't help picturing them as enormous phuvnthus,
those six-legged vermin that gnaw the walls of wooden houses, giving off a
sweet-tangy stench. These
things smell like overworked machinery. Despite, my efforts in a dozen Earthling
and Galactic languages, they seemed even less talkative than the phuvnthus Huck
and I used to catch when we were little, and train to perform in a miniature
circus. I
missed Huck during that dark time. I missed her quick g'Kek mind and sarcastic
wit. I even missed the way she'd snag my leg fur in her wheels to get my
attention, if I stared too long at the horizon in a hoonish sailor's trance. I
last glimpsed those wheels spinning uselessly in the sea dragon's mouth, just
after those giant jaws smashed our precious Dream and we spilled across the
slivers of our amateur diving craft. Why
didn't I rush to my friend, during those bleak moments after we crashed? Much
as I yearned to, it was hard to see or hear much while a screaming wind shoved
its way into the chamber, pushing out the bitter sea. At first, I had to fight
just to breathe again. Then, when I tried to move, my back would not respond. In
those blurry instants, I also recall catching sight of Ur-ronn, whipping her
long neck about and screaming as she thrashed all four legs and both slim arms,
horrified at being drenched in vile water. Ur-ronn bled where her suede colored
hide was pierced by jagged shards-remnants of the glass porthole she had
proudly forged in the volcano workshops of Uriel the Smith. Pincer-Tip
was there, too, best equipped among our gang to survive underwater. As a red
qheuen, Pincer was used to scampering on five chitin-armored claws across salty
shallows-though our chance tumble into the bottomless void was more than even
he had bargained for. In dim recollection, I think Pincer seemed alive ... or
does wishful thinking deceive me? My last
hazy memories of our "rescue" swarm with violent images until I
blacked out ... to wake in this cell, delirious and alone. Sometimes
the phuvnthus do something "helpful" to my spine, and it hurts so
much that I'd willingly spill every secret I know. That is, if the phuvnthus
ever asked questions, which they never do. So I
never allude to the mission we four were given by Uriel the Smith-to seek a
taboo treasure that her ancestors left on the seafloor, centuries ago. An
offshore cache, hidden when urrish settlers first jettisoned their ships and
high-tech gadgets to become just one more fallen race. Only some dire emergency
would prompt Uriel to violate the Covenant by retrieving such contraband. I guess
"emergency" might cover the arrival of alien robbers, plundering the
Gathering Festival of the Six Races and threatening the entire Commons with
genocide, Eventually,
the pangs in my spine eased enough for me to rummage through my rucksack and
resume writing in this tattered journal, bringing my ill-starred adventure up
to date. That raised my spirits a bit. Even if none of us survives, my diary
might yet make it home someday. Growing
up in a little hoonish village, devouring human adventure stories by Clarke and
Rostand, Conrad and Xu Xiang, I dreamed that people on the Slope would someday
say, "Wow, that Alvin Hph-wayuo was some storyteller, as good as any
old-time Earther." This
could be my one and only chance. So I
spent long miduras with a stubby charcoal crayon clutched in my big hoon fist,
scribbling the passages that lead up to this one-an account of how I came to
find myself in this low, low state. -How
four friends built a makeshift submarine out of skink skins and a carved-out
garu log, fancying a treasure hunt to the Great Midden. -How
Uriel the Smith, in her mountain forge, threw her support behind our project,
turning it from a half-baked dream into a real expedition. -How we
four snuck up to Uriel's observatory, and heard a human sage speak of starships
in the sky, perhaps bringing foretold judgment on the Six Races. -And
how Wuphon's Dream soon dangled from a pole near Terminus Rock, where the
Midden's sacred trench passes near land. And Uriel told us, hissing through her
cloven upper lip, that a ship had indeed landed up north. But this cruiser did
not carry Galactic magistrates. Instead another kind of criminal had come,
worse even than our sinner ancestors. So we
sealed the hatch, and the great winch turned. But on reaching the mapped site,
we found that Uriel's cache was already missing! Worse-when we went looking for
the damned thing, Wuphon's Dream got lost and tumbled off the edge of an
undersea cliff. Flipping
back some pages, I can tell my account of the journey was written by someone
perched on a knife-edge of harrowing pain. Yet, there is a sense of drama I
can't hope to match now. Especially that scene where the bottom vanished
beneath our wheels and we felt ourselves fall toward the real Midden. Toward
certain death. Until
the phuvnthus snatched us up. So,
here I am, swallowed by a metal whale, ruled by cryptic silent beings, ignorant
whether my friends still live or if I am alone. Merely crippled, or dying. Do my
captors have anything to do with starship landings in the mountains? Are
they a different enigma, rising out of Jijo's ancient past? Relics of the
vanished Buy ur perhaps? Or ghosts even older still? Answers
seem scarce, and since I've finished recounting the plummet and demise of
Wuphon's Dream, I daren't waste more precious paper on speculation. I must put
my pencil down, even if it robs my last shield against loneliness. All my
life I've been inspired by human-style books, picturing myself as hero in some
uttergloss tale. Now my sanity depends on learning to savor patience. To let
time pass without concern. To live
and think, at last, just like a hoon. ASX YOU MAY
CALL ME ASX. You,
manicolored rings, piled in a high tapered heap, venting fragrant stinks,
sharing the victual sap that climbs our common core, or partaking in memory
wax, trickling back down from our sensory peak. you,
the rings who take up diverse roles in this shared body, a pudgy cone nearly as
tall as a hoon, as heavy as a blue qheuen, and slow across the ground like an
aged g'Kek with a cracked axle. you,
the rings who vote each day whether to renew our coalition. From
you rings i/we now request a ruling. Shall we carry on this fiction? This
"Asx"? Unitary
beings-the humans, urs, and other dear partners in exile-stubbornly use that
term, Asx, to signify this loosely affiliated pile of fatty toruses, as if
we/i truly had a fixed name, not a mere
label of convenience. Of
course unitary beings are all quite mad. We traeki long ago resigned ourselves
to living in a universe filled with egotism. What we
could not resign ourselves to-and the reason for our exile here on Jijo-was the
prospect of becoming the most egotistical of all. Once,
our/my stack of bloated tubes played the role of a modest village pharmacist,
serving others with our humble secretions, near the sea bogs of Far Wet
Sanctuary. Then others began paying us/me homage, calling us "Asx,"
chief sage of the Traeki Sept and member of the Guiding Council of the Six. Now we
stand in a blasted wasteland that was formerly a pleasant festival glade. Our
sensor rings and neural tendrils recoil from sights and sounds they cannot bear
to perceive. And so we are left virtually blind, our component toruses buffeted
by the harsh fields of two nearby starships, as vast as mountains. Even
now, awareness of those starships fades away. ... We are
left in blackness. • •
• What
has just happened! Be
calm, my rings. This sort of thing has transpired before. Too great a shock can
jar a traeki stack out of alignment, causing gaps in short-term memory. But
there is another, surer way to find out what has happened. Neural memory is a
flimsy thing. How much better off we are, counting on the slow/reliable wax. Ponder
the fresh wax that slithers down our common core, still hot-slick, imprinted
with events that took place recently on this ill-fated glade, where once gay
pavilions stood, and banners flapped in Jijo's happy winds. A typical festival,
the annual gathering of Six Races to celebrate their hundred-year peace. Until- Is this
the memory we seek? Behold
... a starship comes to Jijo! Not sneaking by night, like our ancestors. Not
aloofly, like a mysterious Zang globule. No, this was an arrogant cruiser from
the Five Galaxies, commanded by aloof alien beings called Rothen. Trace
this memory of our first sight of Rothen lords, emerging at last from their
metal lair, so handsome and noble in their condescension, projecting a majestic
charisma that shadowed even their sky-human servants. How glorious to be a star
god! Even gods who are "criminals" by Galactic law. Did
they not far outshine us miserable barbarians? As the sun outglows a tallow
candle? But we
sages realized a horrifying truth. After hiring us for local expertise, to help
them raid this world, the Rothen could not afford to leave witnesses behind. They
would not leave us alive. No,
that is too far back. Try again. What
about these other livid tracks, my rings? A red flaming pillar erupting in the
night? An explosion, breaking apart our sacred pilgrimage? Do you recall the
sight of the Rothen-Danik station, its girders, twisted and smoking? Its cache
of biosamples burned? And most dire-one Rothen and a sky human killed? By
dawn's light, foul accusations hurled back and forth between Ro-kenn and our
own High Sages. Appalling threats were exchanged. No,
that still took place over a day ago. Stroke wax that is more recent than that. Here we
find a broad sheet of terror, shining horribly down our oily core. Its
colors/textures blend hot blood with cold fire, exuding a smoky scent of
flaming trees and charred bodies. Do you
recall how Ro-kenn, the surviving Rothen master, swore vengeance on the Six
Races, ordering his killer robots forward? "Slay
everyone in sight! Death to all who saw our secret revealed!" But
then behold a marvel! Platoons of our own brave militia. They spill from
surrounding forest. Jijoan savages, armed only with arrows, pellet rifles, and
courage. Do you now recall how they charged the hovering death demons . . . and
prevailed! The wax
does not lie. It happened in mere instants, while these old traeki rings could
only stare blankly at the battle's awful ruin, astonished that we/i were not
ignited into a stack of flaming tubes. Though
dead and wounded lay piled around us, victory was clear. Victory for the Six
Races! Ro-kenn and his god-' like servants were disarmed, wide-eyed in their
offended surprise at this turn of Ifni's ever-tumbling dice. Yes, my
rings, i know this is not the final memory. It took place many miduras in the
past. Obviously something must f have happened since then. Something dreadful. Perhaps
the Danik scout boat came back from its survey trip, carrying one of the fierce
sky-human warriors who worship Rothen patron masters. Or else the main Rothen
starship may have returned, expecting a trove of bio-plunder, only to find
their samples destroyed, their station ruined, and comrades taken hostage. That
might explain the scent of sooty devastation that now fills our core. But no
later memories are yet available. The wax has not congealed. To a
traeki, that means none of it has really happened. Not
yet. Perhaps
things are not as bad as they seem. It is a
gift we traeki reacquired when we came to Jijo. A talent that helps make up for
the many things we left behind, when we abandoned the stars. A gift
for wishful thinking. Rety THE
FIERCE WIND OF FLIGHT TORE DAMPNESS FROM her streaming eyes, sparing her the
shame of tears running down scarred cheeks. Still, Rety could weep with rage,
thinking of the hopes she'd lost. Lying prone on a hard metal plate, clutching
its edge with hands and feet, she bore the harsh breeze as whipping tree
branches smacked her face and caught her hair, sometimes drawing blood. Mostly,
she just held on for dear life. The
alien machine beneath her was supposed to be her loyal servant! But the cursed
thing would not slow its panicky retreat, even long after all danger lay far
behind. If Rety fell off now, at best it would take her days to limp back to
the village of her birth, where less than a midura ago there had been a brief,
violent ambush. Her
brain still roiled. In just a few heartbeats her plans had been spoiled, and it
was all Dwer's fault! She
heard the young hunter moan, held captive by metal arms below her perch. But as
the wounded battle drone fled recklessly onward, Rety turned away from Dwer's
suffering, which he had only brought on himself, trekking all the way to these
filthy Gray Hills from his safe home near the sea-the Slope-where six
intelligent races lived at a much higher level of ignorant poverty than her own
birth clan of wretched savages. Why would slopies hike past' two thousand
leagues of hell to reach this dreary wasteland? What
did Dwer and his pals hope to accomplish? To conquer Rety's brutish relatives? He
could have her smelly kinfolk, for all she cared! And the band of urrish
sooners Kunn subdued with fire from his screeching scout boat. Dwer was welcome
to them all. Only, couldn't he have waited quietly in the woods till after Rety
and Kunn finished their business here and flew off again? Why did he have to
rush things and attack the robot with her aboard? I bet
he did it out of spite. Prob'ly can't stand knowing that I'm the one Jijo
native with a chance to get away from this pit hole of a planet. Inside,
Rety knew better. Dwer's heart didn't work that way. But
mine does. When he
groaned again, Rety muttered angrily, "I'll make you even sorrier, Dwer,
if I don't make it off this mudball 'cause of you!" So much
for her glorious homecoming. At
first it had seemed fun to pay a return visit, swooping from a cloud-decked sky
in Kunn's silver dart, emerging proudly to amazed gasps from the shabby
cousins, who had bullied her for fourteen awful years. What a fitting climax to
her desperate gamble, a few months ago, when she finally found the nerve to
flee all the muck and misery, setting forth alone to seek the fabled Slope her
greatgrandparents had left behind, when they chose the "free" life as
wild sooners. Free of
the sages' prying rules about what beasts you may kill. Free from irky laws about
how many babies you can have. Free from having to abide neighbors with four
legs, or five, or that rolled on humming wheels. Rety snorted contempt for the
founders of her tribe. Free
from books and medicine. Free to live like animals! Fed up,
Rety had set out to find something better or die trying. The
journey had nearly killed her-crossing icy torrents and parched wastes. Her
closest call came traversing a high pass into the Slope, following a mysterious
metal bird into a mule spider's web. A web that became a terrifying trap when
the spider's tendrils closed around her, oozing golden drops that horribly
preserved. ... Memory
came unbidden--of Dwer charging through that awful thicket with a gleaming
machete, then sheltering her with his body when the web caught fire. She
recalled the bright bird, glittering in flames, treacherously cut down by an
attacking robot just like her "servant." The one now hauling her off
to Ifni-knew-where. Rety's
mind veered as a gut-wrenching swerve nearly spilled her overboard. She
screamed at the robot. "Idiot!
No one's shooting at you anymore! There were just a few slopies, and they were
all afoot. Nothing on Jijo could catch you now!" But the
frantic contraption plunged ahead, riding a cushion of incredible god force. Rety
wondered, Could it sense her contempt? Dwer and two or three friends, equipped
with crude fire sticks, had taken just a few duras to disable and drive off the
so-called war bot, though at some cost to themselves. Ifni,
what a snarl. She pondered the sooty hole where Dwer's surprise attack had
ripped out its antenna. How'm I gonna explain this to Kunn? Rety's
adopted rank as an honorary star god was already fragile. The angry pilot might
simply abandon her in these hills where she had grown up, among savages she
loathed. I won't
go back to the tribe, she vowed. I'd rather join wild glavers, sucking bugs off
dead critters on the Poison Plain. It was
all Dwer's fault, of course. Rety hated listening to the young fool moan. We're
heading south, where Kunn flew off to. The robot must be rushin' to report in
person, now that it can't farspeak anymore. Having
witnessed Kunn's skill at torture, Rety found herself hoping Dwer's leg wound
would reopen. Bleeding to death would be better by far. The
fleeing machine left the Gray Hills, slanting toward a tree-dotted prairie.
Streams converged, turning the brook into a river, winding slowly toward the
tropics. The
journey grew smoother and Rety risked sitting up again. But the robot did not
take the obvious shortcut over water. Instead, it followed each oxbow curve,
seldom venturing past the reedy shallows. The
land seemed pleasant. Good for herds or farming, if you knew how, and weren't
afraid of being caught. It brought
to mind all the wonders she had seen on the Slope, after barely escaping the
mule spider. Folk there had all sorts of clever arts Rety's tribe lacked. Yet,
despite their fancy windmills and gardens, their metal tools and paper books,
the slopies had seemed dazed and frightened when Rety reached the famous
Festival Glade. What
had the Six Races so upset was the recent coming of a starship, ending two
thousand years of isolation. To
Rety, the spacers seemed wondrous. A ship owned by unseen Rothen masters, but
crewed by humans so handsome and knowing that Rety would give anything to be
like them. Not a doomed savage with a scarred face, eking out a life on a taboo
world. A
daring ambition roused . . . and by pluck and guts she had made it happen! Rety
got to know those haughty men and women-Ling, Besh, Kunn, and Rann-worming her
way into their favor. When asked, she gladly guided fierce Kunn to her tribe's
old camp, retracing her earlier epic journey in a mere quarter day, munching
Galactic treats while staring through the scout boat's window at wastelands
below. Years
of abuse were repaid by her filthy cousins' shocked stares,' beholdinng her
transformed from grubby urchin to Rety, the star god. If only
that triumph could have lasted. • •
• She
jerked back when Dwer called her name. Peering
over the edge, Rety saw his windburned face, the wild black hair plastered with
dried sweat. One buckskin breech leg was stained ocher brown under a makeshift
compress, though Rety saw no sign of new wetness. Trapped by the robot's
unyielding tendrils, Dwer clutched his precious hand-carved bow, as if it were
the last thing he would part with before death. Rety could scarcely believe she
once thought the crude weapon worth stealing. "What
do you want now?" she demanded. The
young hunter's eyes met hers. His voice came out as a croak. "Can
I ... have some water?" "Assumin'
I have any," she muttered, "name one reason I'd share it with
you!" Rustling
at her waist. A narrow head and neck snaked out of her belt pouch. Three dark
eyes glared-two with lids and one pupilless, faceted like a jewel. "wife
be not liar to this one! wife has water bottle! Yee smells its
bitterness." Rety
sighed over this unwelcome interruption by her miniature "husband." "There's
just half left. No one tol' me I was goin' on a trip!" The
little urrish male hissed disapproval, "wife share with this one, or bad
luck come! no hole safe for grubs or larvae!" Rety
almost retorted that her marriage to yee was not real. They would never have
"grubs" together. Anyway, yee seemed bent on being her portable
conscience, even when it was clearly every creature for herself. I never
should've told him how Dwer saved me from the mule spider. They say male urs
are dumb. Ain't it my luck to marry a genius one? "Oh
... all right!" The
bottle, an alien-made wonder, weighed little more than the liquid it contained.
"Don't drop it," she warned Dwer, lowering the red cord. He grabbed
it eagerly. "No,
fool! The top don't pull off like a stopper. Turn it till it comes off. That's
right. Jeekee know-nothin' slopie." She
didn't add how the concept of a screw cap had mystified her, -too, when Kunn
and the others first adopted her as a provisional Danik. Of course that was
before she became sophisticated. Rety
watched nervously as he drank. "Don't
spill it. An' don't you dare drink it all! You hear me? That's enough, Dwer.
Stop now. Dwer!" But he
ignored her protests, guzzling while she cursed. When the canteen was drained, Dwer smiled at her through cracked
lips. Too
stunned to react, Rety knew--she would have done exactly the same. Yeah,
an inner voice answered. But I didn't expect it of him. Her
anger spun off when Dwer squirmed, tilting his body toward the robot's headlong
rush. Squinting against the wind, he held the loop cord in one hand and the
bottle in the other, as if waiting for something to happen. The flying machine
crested a low hill, hopping over some thorny thickets, then plunged down the
other side, barely avoiding several tree branches. Rety held tight, keeping yee
secure in his pouch. When the worst jouncing ended she peered down again . . .
and rocked back from a pair of black, beady eyes! It was
the damned noor again. The one Dwer called Mudfoot. Several times the dark,
lithe creature had tried to clamber up from his niche, between Dwer's torso and
a cleft in the robot's frame. But Rety didn't like the way he salivated at yee,
past needle-sharp teeth. Now Mudfoot stood on Dwer's rib cage, using his
forepaws to probe for another effort. "Get
lost!" She swatted at the narrow, grinning face. "I want to see what
Dwer's doin'." Sighing,
the noor returned to his nest under the robot's flank. A flash
of blue came into view just as Dwer threw the bottle. It struck watery shallows
with a splash, pressing a furrowed wake. The young man had to make several
attempts to get the cord twisted so the canteen dragged with its opening
forward. The container sloshed when Dwer reeled it back in. I'd've
thought of that, too. If I was close enough to try it. Dwer
had lost blood, so it was only fair to let him drink and refill a few more
times before passing it back up. Yeah.
Only fair. And he'll do it, too. He'll give it back full. Rety
faced an uncomfortable thought. You
trust him. He's
the enemy. He caused you and the Daniks heaps of trouble. But you 'd trust Dwer
with your life. She had
no similar confidence in Kunn, when it came time to face the Rothen-loving stellar
warrior. Dwer
refilled the bottle one last time and held it up toward her. "Thanks, Rety
... I owe you." , Her
cheeks flushed, a sensation she disliked. "Forget it. Just toss the cord." He
tried. Rety felt it brush her fingertips, but after half a dozen efforts she
could never quite hook the loop. What happens if I don't get it back! The
noor beast emerged from his narrow niche and took the cord in his teeth.
Clambering over Dwer's chest, then using the robot's shattered laser tube as a
support, Mudfoot slithered closer to Rety's hand. Well, she thought. If it's
gonna be helpful ... As she
reached for the loop, the noor sprang, using his claws as if her arm were a
handy climbing vine. Rety howled, but before she could react, Mudfoot was
already up on top, grinning smugly. Little
yee let out a yelp. The urrish male pulled his head inside her pouch and drew
the zipper shut. Rety
saw blood spots well along her sleeve and lashed in anger, trying to kick the
crazy noor off. But Mudfoot dodged easily, inching close, grinning appealingly
and rumbling a low sound, presenting the water bottle with two agile forepaws. Sighing
heavily, Rety accepted it and let the noor settle down nearby-on the opposite
side from yee. "I
can't seem to shake myself loose of any of you guys, can I?" she asked
aloud. Mudfoot
chittered. And from below, Dwer uttered a short laugh-ironic and tired. IT WAS
A LONELY TIME, CONFINED IN GNAWING PAIN to a cramped metal cell. The distant,
humming engine reminded me of umble lullabies my father used to sing, when I
came down with toe pox or itchysac. Sometimes the noise changed pitch and made
my scales frickle, sounding like the moan of a doomed wooden ship when it runs
aground. Finally
I slept . . . . . . then wakened in terror to find that a pair of metalclad,
six-legged monsters were tying me into a contraption of steel tubes and straps!
At first, it looked like a pre-contact tenure device I once saw in the
Dore-illustrated edition of Don Quixote. Thrashing and resisting accomplished
nothing, but hurt like bloody blue blazes. Finally,
with some embarrassment, I realized. It was no instrument of torment but a
makeshift back brace, shaped to fit my form and take weight off my injured
spine. I fought to suppress panic at the tight metal touch, as they set me on
my feet. Swaying with surprise and relief, I found I could walk a little,
though wincing with each step. "Well
thanks, you big ugly bugs," I told the nearest of the giant phuvnthus.
"But you might've warned me first." I
expected no answer, but one of them turned its armored torso-with a humped back
and wide flare at the rear-and tilted toward me. I took the gesture as a polite
bow, though perhaps it meant something different to them. They
left the door open when they exited this time. Slowly,
cringing at the effort, I stepped out for the first time from my steel coffin,
following as the massive creatures stomped down a narrow corridor. I
already figured I was aboard a submarine of some sort, big enough to carry in
its hold the greatest hoonish craft sailing Jijo's seas. Despite
that, it was a hodgepodge. I thought of Frankenstein's monster, pieced together
from the parts of many corpses. So seemed the monstrous vessel hauling me to
who-knows-where. Each time we crossed a hatch, it seemed as if we'd pass into a
distinct ship, made by different artisans ... by a whole different
civilization. In one section, the decks and bulkheads were made of riveted
steel sheets. Another zone was fashioned from some fibrous substance-flexible
but strong. The corridors changed proportions-from wide to painfully narrow.
Half the time I had to stoop under low ceilings . . . not a lot of fun in the
state my back was in. Finally,
a sliding door hissed open. A phuvnthu motioned me ahead with a crooked
mandible and Entered a dim chamber much larger than my former cell. My
hearts surged With joy. Before me stood my friends! All of them-alive! They
were gathered round a circular viewing port, staring at inky ocean depths. I
might've tried sneaking in to surprise them, but qheuens and g'Keks literally
have "eyes in the back of their heads," making it a challenge to
startle Huck and Pincer. (I have
managed it, a couple of times.) When
they shouted my name, Ur-ronn whirled her long neck and outraced them on four
clattering hooves. We plunged into a multispecies embrace. Huck
was first to bring things back to normal, snapping at Pincer. "Watch
the claws, Crab Face! You'll snap a spoke! Back off, all of you. Can't you see
Alvin's hurt? Give him room!" "Look
who talks," Ur-ronn replied. "Your left wheel just squished his toes,
Octopus Head!" I
hadn't noticed till she pointed it out, so happy was I to hear their testy,
adolescent whining once more. "Hr-rm.
Let me look at you all. Ur-ronn, you seem so much . . . drier than I saw you
last." Our
urrish buddy blew a rueful laugh through her nostril fringe. Her pelt showed
large bare patches where fur had sloughed after her dousing. "It took our hosts
a while to adjust the humidity of my guest suite, but they finally got it
right," she said. Her torso showed tracks of hasty needlework-the
phuvnthus' rough stitching to close Ur-ronn's gashes after she smashed through
the glass port of Wuphon's Dream. Fortunately, her folk don't play the same
mating games as some races. To urs, what matters is not appearance, but status.
A visible dent or two will help Ur-ronn show the other smiths she's been
around. "Yeah.
And now we know what an urs smells like after actually taking a bath,"
Huck added. "They oughta try it more often." "
You should talk? With that green eyeball sweat-" "All
right, all right!" I laughed. "Just stopper it long enough for me to
look at you, eh?" Ur-ronn
was right. Huck's eyestalks needed grooming and she had good reason to worry
about her spokes. Many were broken, with new-spun fibers just starting to lace
the rims. She would have to move cautiously for some time. As for
Pincer, he looked happier than ever. "I
guess you were right about there being monsters in the deep," I told our
red-shelled friend. "Even if they hardly look like the ones you
descr-" I
yelped when sharp needles seemed to lance into my back, clambering up my neck
ridge. I quickly recognized the rolling growl of Huphu, our little noor-beast
mascot, expressing gladness by demanding a rumble umble from me right away. Before
I could find out if my sore throat sac was up to it, Ur-ronn whistled from the
pane of dark glass. "They turned on the searchlight again," she
fluted, with hushed awe in her voice. "Alvin, hurry. You've got to
look!" Awkwardly
on crutches, I moved to the place they made for me. Huck stroked my arm.
"You always wanted to see this, pal," she said. "So gaze out
there in wonder. "Welcome
to the Great Midden," Asx HERE IS
ANOTHER MEMORY, MY RINGS. AN EVENT that followed the brief Battle of the Glade,
so swiftly that war echoes still abused our battered forest canyons. Has the
wax congealed enough yet? Can you stroke-and sense the awesome disquiet, the
frightening beauty of that evening, as we watched a harsh, untwinkling glow
pass overhead? Trace
the fatty memory of that spark crossing the sky, brightening as it spiraled
closer. No one
could doubt its identity. The
Rothen cruiser, returning for its harvest of bio-plunder, looted from a fragile
world. Returning
for those comrades it had left behind. Instead
of genetic booty, the crew will find their station smashed, their colleagues
killed or taken. Worse,
their true faces are known! We castaways might testify against them in Galactic
courts. Assuming we survive. It
takes no cognition genius to grasp the trouble we faced. We six fallen races of
forlorn Jijo. As an
Earthling writer might put it-we found ourselves in fetid mulch. Very ripe and
very deep. Sara THE
JOURNEY PASSED FROM AN ANXIOUS BLUR INTO something exalting . . . almost
transcendent. But not
at the beginning. When
they perched her suddenly atop a galloping creature straight out of mythology,
Sara's first reaction was terrified surprise. With snorting nostrils and huge
tossing head, the horse was more daunting than Tarek Town's stone tribute to a
lost species. Its muscular torso flexed with each forward bound, shaking Sara's
teeth as it crossed the foothills of the central Slope by the light of a pale
moon. After
two sleepless days and nights, it still seemed dreamlike the way a squadron of
the legendary beasts came trotting into the ruined Urunthai campsite,
accompanied by armed urrish escorts. Sara and her friends had just escaped
captivity-their former kidnappers lay either dead or bound with strips of
shredded tent cloth-but she expected reenslavement at any moment. Only then,
instead of fresh foes, the darkness brought forth these bewildering saviors. Bewildering
to everyone except Kurt the Exploser, who welcomed the newcomers as expected
friends. While Jomah and the Stranger exclaimed wonder at seeing real life
horses, Sara barely had time to blink before she was thrust onto a saddle. Blade
volunteered to stay by the bleak fire and tend the wounded, though envy filled
each forlorn spin of his blue cupola. Sara would trade places with her qheuen
friend, but his chitin armor was too massive for a horse to carry. There was
barely time to give Blade a wave of encouragement before the troop wheeled back
the way they came, bearing her into the night. Pounding
hoofbeats soon made Sara's skull ache. I guess
it beats captivity by Dedinger's human chauvinists, and those fanatic Urunthai.
The coalition of zealots, volatile as. an exploser's cocktail, had joined
forces to snatch the Stranger and sell him to Rothen invaders. But they
underestimated the enigmatic voyager. Despite his crippling loss of speech, the
starman found a way to incite urs-human suspicion into bloody riot. Leaving
us masters of our own fate, though it couldn't last. Now
here was a different coalition of humans and centauroid urs! A more cordial
group, but just as adamant about hauling her Ifni-knew-where. When
limnous Torgen rose above the foothills, Sara got to look over the urrish
warriors, whose dun flanks were daubed with more subtle war paint than the
garish Urunthai. Yet their eyes held the same dark flame that drenched urs'
souls when conflict scents fumed. Cantering in skirmish formation, their slim
hands cradled arbalests while long necks coiled, tensely wary. Though much
smaller than horses, the. urrish fighters conveyed formidable craftiness. The
human rescuers were even more striking. Six women who came north with nine
saddled horses, as if they expected to retrieve just two or three others for a
return trip. But
there's six of us. Kurt and Jomah. Prity and me. The Stranger and Dedinger. No
matter. The stern riders seemed indifferent about doubling up, two to a saddle. Is that
why they're all female? To keep the weight down? While
deft astride their great mounts, the women seemed uneasy with the hilly terrain
of gullies and rocky spires. Sara gathered they disliked rushing about strange
trails at night. She could hardly blame them. Not one
had a familiar face. That might have surprised Sara a month ago, given Jijo's
small human population. The
Slope must be bigger than she thought. Dwer
would tell stories about his travels, scouting for the sages. He claimed he'd
been everywhere within a thousand leagues. Her
brother never mentioned horse-riding amazons. Sara
briefly wondered if they came from off-Jijo, since this seemed the year for
spaceships. But no. Despite some odd slang, their terse speech was related to
Jijoan dialects she knew from her research. And while the riders seemed
unfamiliar with this region, they knew to lean away from a migurv tree when the
trail passed near its sticky fronds. The Stranger, though warned with gestures
not to touch its seed pods, reached for one curiously and learned the hard way. She
glanced at Kurt. The .exploser's gaunt face showed satisfaction with each
league they sped southward. The existence of horses was no surprise to him. We're
told our society is open. But clearly there are secrets known to a few. Not all
explosers shared it. Kurt's nephew chattered happy amazement while exchanging
broad grins with the Stranger . . . Sara
corrected herself. With
Emerson. . . . She
peered at the dark man who came plummeting from the sky months ago, dousing his
burns in a dismal swamp near Dolo Village. No longer the near corpse she had
nursed in her tree house, the star voyager was proving a resourceful
adventurer. Though still largely mute, he had passed a milestone a few miduras
ago when he began thumping his chest, repeating that word-Emerson-over and
over, beaming pride over a feat that undamaged folk took for granted. Uttering
one's own name. Emerson
seemed at home on his mount. Did that mean horses were still used among the god
worlds of the Five Galaxies? If so, what purpose might they serve, where
miraculous machines did your bidding at a nod and wink? Sara
checked on her chimp assistant, in case the jouncing ride reopened Prity's
bullet wound. Riding with both arms clenched round the waist of a horsewoman,
Prity kept her eyes closed the whole time, no doubt immersed in her beloved
universe of abstract shapes and forms-a better world than this one of sorrow
and messy nonlinearity. That
left Dedinger, the rebel leader, riding along with both hands tied. Sara wasted
no pity on the scholar-turnedprophet. After years preaching militant orthodoxy,
urging his desert followers toward the Path of Redemption, the ex-sage clearly
knew patience. Dedinger's hawklike face bore an expression Sara found
unnerving. Serene
calculation. The
tooth-jarring pace swelled when the hilly track met open ground. Soon Ulashtu's
detachment of urrish warriors fell behind, unable to keep up. No
wonder some urs clans resented horses, when humans first settled Jijo. The
beasts gave us mobility, the trait most loved by urrish captains. Two
centuries ago, after trouncing the human newcomers in battle, the 'original
Urunthai faction claimed Earthlings' beloved mounts as war booty, and
slaughtered every They
figured we'd be no more trouble, left to walk and fight on foot. A mistake that
proved fatal when Drake the Elder forged a coalition to hunt the Urunthai, and
drowned the cult's leadership at Soggy Hoof Falls. Only,
it seems horses weren't extinct, after all. How could a clan of horse-riding
folk remain hidden all this time? And as
puzzling-Why emerge now, risking exposure by rushing to meet Kurt? It must
be the crisis of the starships, ending Jijo's blessed,cursed isolation. What
point in keeping secrets, if Judgment Day is at hand? Sara
was exhausted and numb by the time morning pushed through an overcast sky. An
expanse of undulating hills stretched ahead to a dark green marsh. The
party dismounted at last by a shaded creek. Hands aimed her toward a blanket,
where she collapsed with a shuddering sigh. Sleep
came laced with images of people she had left behind. Nelo,
her aged father, working in his beloved paper mill, unaware that some conspired
its ruin. Melina,
her mother, dead several years now, who always seemed an outsider since
arriving in Dolo long ago, with a baby son in her arms. Frail
Joshu, Sara's lover in Biblos, whose touch made her forget even the overhanging
Fist of Stone. A comely rogue whose death sent her spinning. Dwer
and Lark, her brothers, setting out to attend festival in the high Rimmer
glades . . . where starships were later seen descending. Sara's
mind roiled as she tossed and turned. Last of
all, she pictured Blade, whose qheuen hive farmed crayfish behind Dolo Dam.
Good old Blade, who saved Sara and Emerson from disaster at the Urunthai camp. "Seems
I'm always late catching up," her qheuen friend whistled from three leg
vents. "But don't worry, I'll be along,Too much is happening to
miss." Blade's
armor-clad dependability had been like a rock to Sara. In her dream, she
answered. "I'll
stall the universe . . . keep it from doing anything interesting until you show
up." Imagined
or not, the blue qheuen's calliope laughter warmed Sara, and her troubled
slumber fell into gentler rhythms. The sun
was half-high when someone shook Sara back to the world-one of the taciturn
female riders, using the archaic word brekkers to announce the morning meal.
Sara got up gingerly as waves of achy soreness coursed her body. She
gulped down a bowl of grain porridge, spiced with unfamiliar traeki seasonings,
while horsewomen saddled mounts or watched Emerson play his beloved dulcimer,
filling the pocket valley with a sprightly melody, suited for travel. Despite
her morning irritability, Sara knew the starman was just making the best of the
situation. Bursts of song were a way to overcome his handicap of muteness. Sara found
Kurt tying up his bedroll. "Look,"
she told the elderly exploser, "I'm not ungrateful to your friends. I
appreciate the rescue and all. But you can't seriously hope to ride horses all
the way to ... Mount Guenn." Her tone made it sound like one of Jijo's
moons. Kurt's
stony face flickered a rare smile. "Any better suggestions? Sure, you
planned taking the Stranger to the High Sages, but that way is blocked by angry
Urunthai. And recall, we saw two starships last night, one after the other,
headed straight for Festival Glade. The Sages must have their hands and
tendrils full by now." "How
could I forget?" she murmured. Those titans, growling as they crossed the
sky, had seared their image in her mind. "You
could hole up in one of the villages we'll pass soon, but won't Emerson need a
first-rate pharmacist when he runs out of Pzora's medicine?" "If
we keep heading south we'll reach the Gentt. From there a riverboat can take us
to Ovoom Town." "Assuming
boats are running . . . and Ovoom still exists. Even so, should you hide your
alien friend, with great events taking place? What if he has a role to play?
Some way to help sages and Commons? Might you spoil his one chance of goin'
home?" Sara
saw Kurt's implication-that she was holding Emerson back, like a child refusing
to release some healed forest creature into the wild. A swarm
of sweetbec flies drifted close to the starman, hovering and throbbing to the
tempo of his music, a strange melody. Where did he learn it? On Earth? Near some
alien star? "Anyway,"
Kurt went on, "if you can stand riding these huge beasts awhile longer, we
may reach Mount Guenn sooner than Ovoom." "That's
crazy! You must pass through Ovoom if you go by sea. And the other way around
is worse-through the runnel canyons and the Vale." Kurt's
eyes flickered. "I'm told there's a ... more direct route." "Direct?
You mean due south? Past the Gentt lies the Plain of Sharp Sand, a desperate
crossing under good conditions-which these aren't. Have you forgotten that's
where Dedinger has followers?" "No,
I haven't forgotten." "Then,
assuming we get past the sandmen and flame dunes, there comes the Spectral
Flow, making any normal desert seem like a meadow!" Kurt
only shrugged, but clearly he wanted her to accompany him toward a distant
simmering mountain, far from where Sara had sworn to take Emerson. Away from
Lark and Dwer, and the terrible attraction of those fierce starships. Toward a
starkly sacred part of Jijo, renowned for one thing above all-the way the
planet renewed itself with flaming lava heat. Alvin MAYBE
IT WAS THE COMPRESSED ATMOSPHERE WE breathed, or the ceaseless drone of
reverberating engines. Or it could have been the perfect darkness outside that
fostered an impression of incredible depth, even greater than when our poor
little Wuphon's Dream fell into the maw of this giant metal sea beast. A single
beam- immeasurably brighter than the handmade eik light of our old
minisub-speared out to split the black, scanning territory beyond my wildest
nightmares. Even the vivid imagery of Verne or Pukino or Melville offered no
preparation for what was revealed by that roving circle as we cruised along a
subsea canyon strewn with all manner of ancient dross. In rapid glimpses we saw
so many titanic things, all jumbled together, that- Here I
admit I'm stumped. According to the texts that teach Anglic literature, there
are two basic ways for a writer to describe unfamiliar objects. First is to
catalog sights and sounds, measurements, proportions, colors-saying this object
is made up of clusters of colossal cubes connected by translucent rods, or that
one resembles a tremendous sphere caved in along one side, trailing from its
crushed innards a glistening streamer, a liquidlike banner that somehow defies
the tug of time and tide. Oh, I
can put words together and come up with pretty pictures, but that method
ultimately fails because at the time I couldn't tell how far away anything was\
The eye sought clues in vain. Some objects-piled across the muddy
panorama-seemed so vast that the huge vessel around us was dwarfed, like a
minnow in a herd of behmo serpents. As for colors, even in the spotlight beam,
the water drank all shades but deathly blue gray. A good hue for a shroud in
this place of icy-cold death. Another
way to describe the unknown is to compare it to things you 'already recognize .
. . only that method proved worse! Even Huck, who sees likenesses in things I
can't begin to fathom, was reduced to staring toward great heaps of ancient
debris with all four eyestalks, at an utter loss. Oh,
some objects leaped at us with sudden familiarity- like when the searchlight
swept over rows of blank-eyed windows, breached floors, and sundered walls.
Pushed in a tumbled mound, many of the sunken towers lay upside down or even
speared through each other. Together they composed a city greater than any I
ever heard of, even from readings of olden times. Yet someone once scraped the
entire metropolis from its foundations, picked it up, and dumped it here,
sending all the buildings tumbling down to be reclaimed the only way such
things can be reclaimed-in Mother Jijo's fiery bowels. I
recalled some books I'd read, dating from Earth's Era of Resolution, when
pre-contact humans were deciding on their own how to grow up and save their,
homeworld after centuries spent using it as a cesspit. In Alice Hammett's
mystery The Case of a Half-Eaten Clone, the killer escapes a murder charge,
only to get ten years for disposing of the evidence at sea! In those days,
humans made no distinction between midden trenches and ocean floor in general.
Dumping was dumping. It felt
strange to see the enormous dross-scape from two viewpoints. By Galactic law,
this was a consecrated part of Jijo's cycle of preservation-a scene of devout
caretaking. But having grown up immersed in human books, I could shift
perspectives and see defilement, a place of terrible sin. The
"city" fell behind us and we went back to staring at bizarre shapes,
unknown majestic objects, the devices of star-god civilization, beyond
understanding by mere cursed mortals. On occasion, my eyes glimpsed flickerings
in the blackness outside the roving beam-lightninglike glimmers amid the ruins,
as if old forces lingered here and there, setting off sparks like fading
memories. We
murmured among ourselves, each of us falling back to what we knew best. Ur-ronn
speculated on the nature of materials, what things were made of, or what
functions they once served. Huck swore she saw writing each time the light
panned over a string of suspicious shadows. Pincer. insisted every other object
must be a starship. The
Midden took our conjectures the same way it accepts all else, with a patient,
deathless silence. Some
enormous objects had already sunk quite far, showing just their tips above the
mire. I thought-This is where Jijo's ocean plate takes a steep dive under the
Slope, dragging crust, mud, and anything else lying about, down to magma pools
that feed simmering volcanoes. In time, all these mighty things will become
lava, or precious ores to be used by some future race of tenants on this world. It made
me ponder my father's sailing ship, and the risky trips he took, hauling crates
of sacred refuse, sent by each tribe of the Six as partial payment for the sin
of our ancestors. In yearly rituals, each village sifts part of the land,
clearing it of our own pollution and bits the Buyur left behind. The
Five Galaxies may punish us for living here. Yet we lived by a code, faithful
to the Scrolls. Hoonish
folk moots chant the tale of Phu-uphyawuo, a dross captain who one day saw a
storm coming, and dumped his load before reaching the deep blue of the Midden.
Casks and drums rolled overboard far short of the trench of reclamation,
strewing instead across shallow sea bottom, marring a site that was changeless,
unrenewing. In punishment, Phu-uphyawuo was bound up and taken to the Plain of
Sharp Sand, to spend the rest of his days beneath a hollow dune, drinking
enough green dew to live, I but not sustain his soul. In time, his heart spine
was ground to dust and cast across a desert where no water might wash the
grains, or make them clean again. But
this is the Midden, I thought, trying to grasp the wonder. We're the first to
see it. Except
for the phuvnthus. And whatever else lives down here. I found
myself tiring. Despite the back brace and crutches, a weight of agony built
steadily. Yet I found it hard to tear away from the icy-cold pane. Following
a searchlight through suboceanic blackness, we plunged as if down a mine shaft,
aimed toward a heap of jewels-glittering objects shaped like needles, or squat
globes, or glossy pancakes, or knobby cylinders. Soon there loomed a vast
shimmering pile, wider than Wuphon Bay, bulkier than Guenn Volcano. "Now,
those are definitely ships!" Pincer announced, gesturing with a claw.
Pressed against the glass, we stared at mountainlike piles of tubes, spheres,
and cylinders, many of them studded with hornlike protrusions, like the quills
of an alarmed rock staller. "Those
must be the probability whatchamacallums starships use for going between
galaxies," Huck diagnosed from her avid reading of Tabernacle-era, tales. "Probability
flanges,"Ur-ronn corrected, speaking Galactic Six. In matters of
technology, she was far ahead of Huck or me. "I think you may be
right." Our
qheuenish friend chuckled happily as the searchlight zeroed in on one
tremendous pile of tapered objects. Soon we
all recognized the general outlines from ancient texts-freighters and courier
ships, packets and cruisers- all abandoned long ago. The
engine noise dropped a notch, plunging us toward that mass of discarded
spacecraft. The smallest of those derelicts outmassed the makeshift phuvnthu
craft the way a full-grown traeki might tower over a herd-chick turd. "I
wonder if any of the ancestor vessels are in this pile," Huck contemplated
aloud. "You know, the ones that brought our founders here? The Laddu 'kek
or the Tabernacle" "Unlikely,"
Ur-ronn answered, this time in lisping Anglic. "Don't forget, we're in the
Rift. This is nothing vut an offshoot canyon of the Nidden. Our ancestors
likely discarded their shifs in the nain trench, where the greatest share of
Buyur trash went." I
blinked at that thought. This, an offshoot? A minor side area of the Midden? Of
course she was right! But it presented a boggling image. What staggering
amounts of stuff must have been dumped in the main trench, over the ages!
Enough to tax even the recycling power of Jijo's grinding plates. No wonder the
Noble Galactics set worlds aside for ten million years or more. It must take
that long for a planet to digest each meal of sapient-made things, melting them
back into the raw stuff of nature. I
thought of my father's dross ship, driven by creaking masts, its hold filled
with crates of whatever we exiles can't recycle. After two thousand years, all
the offal we sooners sent to the Midden would not even show against this single
mound of discarded starships. How
rich the Buyur and their fellow gods must have been to cast off so much wealth!
Some of the abandoned vessels looked immense enough to swallow every house,
khuta, or hovel built by the Six Races. We glimpsed dark portals, turrets, and
a hundred other details, growing painfully aware of one fact-those shadowy
behemoths had been sent down here to rest in peace. Their sleep was never meant
to be invaded by the likes of us. Our
plummet toward the reef of dead ships grew alarming. Did any of the others feel
we were heading in awful fast! "Maybe
this is their home," Pincer speculated as we plunged toward one twisted,
oval ruin, half the size of Wuphon Port. "Maybe
the phuvnthus are made of, like, parts of old machines that got dumped
here," Huck mused. "And they kind of put themselves together from
whatever's lying around? Like this boat we're on is made of all sorts of
junk-" "Perhaps
they were servants of the Buyur-" Ur-ronn interrupted. "Or a race
that lived here even vefore. Or a strain of nutants, like in that story-" I cut in.
"Have any of you considered the simplest idea? That maybe they're just like us?" When my
friends turned to look at me, I shrugged, human style. "Maybe
the phuvnthus are sooners, too. Ever stop to think of that?" Their
blank faces answered me. I might as well have suggested that our hosts were
noor beasts, for all the sense my idea made. Well, I
never claimed to be quick-witted, especially when racked with agony. We
lacked any sense of perspective, no way to tell how close we were, or how fast
we were going. Huck and Pincer murmured nervously as our vessel plunged toward
the mountain-of-ships at a rapid clip, engines running hard in reverse. I think
we all jumped a bit when a huge slab of corroded metal moved aside, just duras
before we might have collided. Our vessel slid into a gaping hole in the
mountain of dross, cruising along a corridor composed of spaceship hulls,
piercing a fantastic pile of interstellar junk. ASX READ
THE NEWLY CONGEALED WAX, MY RINGS. See how folk of the Six Races dispersed,
tearing down festival pavilions and bearing away the injured, fleeing before
the Rothen starship's expected arrival. Our
senior sage, Vubben of the g'Kek, recited from the Scroll of Portents a passage
warning against disunity. Truly, the Six Races must strive harder than ever to
look past our differences of shape and shell. Of flesh, hide, and torg. "Go
home," we sages told the tribes. "See to your lattice screens. Your
blur-cloth webs. Live near the ground in Jijo's sheltered places. Be ready to
fight if you can. To die if you must." The
zealots,' who originally provoked this crisis, suggested the Rothen starship
might have means to track Rokenn and his lackeys, perhaps by sniffing our
prisoners' brain waves or body implants. "For safety, let's sift their
bones into lava pools!" An
opposing faction called Friends of the Rothen demanded Ro-kenn's release and
obeisance to his godlike will. These were not only humans, but some qheuens,
g'Keks, hoons, and even a few urs, grateful for cures or treatments received in
the aliens' clinic. Some think redemption can be won in this lifetime, without
first treading the long road blazed by glavers. Finally,
others see this chaos as a chance to settle old grudges. Rumors tell of anarchy
elsewhere on the Slope. Of many fine things toppled or burned. Such
diversity! The same freedom that fosters a vivid people also makes it hard to
maintain a united front. Would things be better if we had disciplined order,
like the feudal state sought by Gray Queens of old? It is
too late for regrets. Time remains only for improvisation-an art not well
approved in the Five Galaxies, we are told.
Among poor savages, it may be our only hope. Yes, my
rings. We can now remember all of that. Stroke
this wax, and watch the caravans depart toward plains, forests, and sea. Our
hostages are spirited off to sites where even a starship's piercing scrutiny
might not find them. The sun flees and stars bridge the vast territory called
the Universe. A realm denied us, that our foes roam at will. Some
remain behind, awaiting the ship. We
voted, did we not? We rings who make up Asx? We volunteered to linger. Our
cojoined voice would speak to angry aliens for the Commons. Resting our basal
torus on hard stone, we passed the time listening to complex patterns from the
Holy Egg, vibrating our fatty core with strange shimmering motifs. Alas,
my rings, none of these reclaimed memories explains our current state, that
something terrible must have happened? Here,
what of this newly congealed waxy trail? Can you perceive in it the glimmering
outlines of a great vessel of space? Roaring from the same part of the sky
lately abandoned by the sun? Or is
it the sun, come back again to hover angrily above the valley floor? The
great ship scans our valley with scrutinizing rays, seeking signs of those they
left behind. Yes, my rings. Follow this waxy memory. Are we about to rediscover
the true cause of terror? Lark SUMMER
PRESSED HEAVILY ACROSS THE RIMMER Range, consuming the unshaded edges of
glaciers far older than six exile races. At intervals, a crackling static
charge would blur the alpine slopes as countless grass stems wafted skyward,
reaching like desperate tendrils. Intense sunshine was punctuated by bursts of
curtain rain- water draperies that undulated uphill, drenching the slopes with
continuous liquid sheets, climbing until the mountaintops wore rainbow crowns,
studded with flashes of compressed lightning. Compact
reverberations rolled down from the heights, all -the way to the shore of a
poison lake, where fungus swarmed over a forty-hectare thicket of crumbling
vines. Once a mighty outpost of Galactic culture, the place was now a jumble of
stone slabs, rubbed featureless by abrading ages. The pocket valley sweltered
with acrid aromas, as caustic nectars steamed from the lake, or dripped from
countless eroding pores. The
newest sage of the Commons of Jijo plucked yellow moss from a decaying cable,
one of a myriad of strands that once made up the body of a
half-million-year-old creature, the mule spider responsible for demolishing
this ancient Buyur site, gradually returning it to nature. Lark had last seen
this place in late winter-searching alone through snow flurries for the
footprints of Dwer and Rety, refugees from this same spider's death fury.
Things had changed here since that frantic deliverance. Large swathes of mule
cable were simply gone, harvested in some recent effort that no one had
bothered explaining when Lark was assigned here. Much of what remained was
coated with this clinging moss. "Spirolegita
cariola." He muttered the species name, rubbing a sample between two
fingers. It was a twisted, deviant cariola variety. Mutation seemed a specialty
of this weird, astringent site. I
wonder what the place will do to me-to all of us-if we stay here long. He had
not asked for this chore. To be a jailor. Just wearing the title made him feel
less clean. A chain
of nonsense syllables made him turn back toward a blur-cloth canopy, spanning
the space between slablike boulders. "It's
a clensionating sievelator for refindulating excess torg. . . ." The
voice came from deep shade within-a strong feminine alto, though somewhat
listless now, tinged with resignation. Soft clinking sounds followed as one
object was tossed onto a pile and another picked up for examination. "At
a guess, I'd say this was once a glannis truncator, probably used in rituals of
a chihanic sect . . . that is, unless it's just another Buyur joke-novelty
device." Lark
shaded his eyes to regard Ling, the young sky-born scientist and servant of
star-god Rothen, in whose employ he had worked as a "native guide"
for many weeks . . . until the Battle of the Glade reversed their standing in a
matter of heartbeats. Since that unexpected victory, the High Sages had
assigned her care and custody to him, a duty he never asked for, even if it
meant exalted promotion. Now I'm
quite a high-ranking witch doctor among savages, he thought with some tartness.
Lord High Keeper of Alien Prisoners. And
maybe executioner. His mind shied from that possibility. Much more likely, Ling
would be traded to her Danik-Rothen comrades in some deal worked out by the
sages. Or else she might be rescued at any moment by hordes of unstoppable
robots, overpowering Lark's small detachment of sword-bearing escorts like a
pack of santi bears brushing aside the helpless buzzing defenders of a
zil-honey tree. Either
way, she'll go free. Ling may live another three hundred years on her homeworld,
back in the Five Galaxies, telling embroidered tales about her adventure among
the feral barbarians of a shabby, illicit colony. Meanwhile, the best we fallen
ones can hope for is bare survival. To keep scratching a living from poor tired
Jijo, calling it lucky if some of the Six eventually join glavers down the Path
of Redemption. The trail to blissful oblivion. Lark
would rather end it all in some noble and heroic way. Let Jijo's Six go down
defending this fragile world, so she might go back to her interrupted rest. That
was his particular heresy, of course. Orthodox belief held that the Six Races
were sinners, but they might mitigate their offense by living at peace on Jijo.
But Lark saw that as hypocrisy. The settlers should end their crime, gently and
voluntarily, as soon as possible. He had
made no secret of his radicalism . . . which made it all the more confusing
that the High Sages now trusted him with substantial authority. The
alien woman no longer wore the shimmering garb of her Danik star clan-the
secretive band of humans who worshiped Rothen lords. Instead she was outfitted
in an illfitting blouse and kilt ofJijoan homespun. Still, Lark found it hard
to look away from her angular beauty. It was said that sky humans could buy a
new face with hardly a thought. Ling claimed not to care about such things, but
no woman on the Slope could match her. Under
the wary gaze of two militia corporals, Ling sat cross-legged, examining relics
left behind by the dead mule spider-strange metallic shapes embedded in
semitransparent gold cocoons, like archaic insects trapped in amber. Remnants
of the Buyur, this world's last legal tenants, who departed half a million
years ago when Jijo went fallow. A throng of egglike preservation beads lay
scattered round the ashen lakeshore. Instead of dissolving all signs of past
habitation, the local mule spider had apparently chosen relics to seal away.
Collecting them, if Lark believed the incredible story told by his half
brother, Dwer. The
luminous coatings made him nervous. The same substance, secreted from the
spider's porous conduits, had nearly smothered Dwer and Rety, the wild sooner
girl, the same night two alien robots quarreled, igniting a living morass of
corrosive vines, ending the spider's long, mad life. The gold stuff felt queer
to touch, as if a strange, slow liquid sloshed under sheaths of solid crystal. "Toporgic,
" Ling had called the slick material during one of her civil moments.
"It's very rare, but I hear stories. It's said to be a pseudo-matter
substrate made of organically folded time.". Whatever
that meant. It sounded like the sort of thing Sara might say, trying to explain
her beloved world of mathematics. As a biologist, he found it bizarre for a
living thing to send "folded time" oozing from its far-flung
tendrils, as the mule spider apparently had done. Whenever
Ling finished examining a relic, she bent over a sheaf of Lark's best paper to
make careful notes, concentrating as if each childlike block letter were a work
of art. As if she never held a pencil before, but had vowed to master the new
skill. As a galactic voyager, she used to handle floods of information,
manipulating multidimensional displays, sieving data on this world's complex
ecosystem, searching on behalf of her Rothen masters for some biotreasure worth
stealing. Toiling over handwritten notes must seem like shifting from starship
speeds to a traeki's wooden scooter. It's a
steep,all-one moment a demigoddess, the next a hostage of uncouth sooners. All
this diligent note taking must help take her mind off recent events-that
traumatic day, just two leagues below the nest of the Holy Egg, when her home
base exploded and Jijo's masses violently rebelled. But Lark sensed something
more than deliberate distraction. In scribing words on paper. Ling drew the
same focused satisfaction he had seen her take from performing any simple act
well. Despite his persistent seething anger, Lark found this worthy of respect. There
were folk legends about mule spiders. Some were said to acquire odd obsessions
during their stagnant eons spent chewing metal and stone monuments of the past.
Lark once dismissed such fables as superstition, but Dwer had proved right
about this one. Evidence for the mule beast's collecting fetish lay in
countless capsules studding the charred thicket, the biggest hoard of Galactic
junk anywhere on the Slope. It made the noxious lakeshore an ideal site to
conceal a captured alien, in case the returning starship had instruments
sifting Jijo for missing crew mates. Though
Ling had been thoroughly searched, and all possessions seized, she might carry
in her body some detectable trace element-acquired growing up on a far Galactic
world. If so, all the Buyur stuff lying around here might mask her presence. There
were other ideas. Ship
sensors may not penetrate far underground, one human techie proposed. Or
else, suggested an urrish smith, a nearby lava flow may foil alien eyes. The
other hostages-Ro-kenn and Rann-had been taken to such places, in hopes of
holding on to at least one prisoner. With the lives of every child and grub of
the Six at stake, anything seemed worth trying. The job Lark had been given was
important. Yet he chafed, wishing for more to do than waiting for the world to
end. Rumors told that others were preparing to fight the star criminals. Lark
knew little about weapons-his expertise was the natural flux of living species.
Still, he envied them. A
burbling, wheezing sound called him rushing to the far end of the tent, where
his friend Uthen squatted like an ash-colored chitin mound. Lark took up a
makeshift aspirator he had fashioned out of boo stems, a cleft pig's bladder,
and congealed mule sap. He pushed the nozzle into one of the big qheuen's leg
apertures and pumped away, siphoning phlegmy fluid that threatened Uthen's
ventilation tubes. He repeated the process with all five legs, till his partner
and fellow biologist breathed easier. The qheuen's central cupola lifted and
Uthen's seeing stripe brightened, "Th-thank
you, L-Lark-ark ... I am-I am sorry to be so-be so-to be a burden-en-en.
..." Emerging
uncoordinated, the separate leg voices sounded like five miniature qheuens,
getting in each other's way. Or like a traeki whose carelessly stacked oration
rings all had minds of their own. Uthen's fevered weakness filled Lark's chest
with a burning ache. A choking throat made it hard to respond with
cheerful-sounding lies. "You
just rest up, claw brother. Soon we'll be back in the field . . . digging fossils
and inventing more theories to turn your mothers blue with embarrassment." That
brought a faint, gurgling laugh. "S-speaking-king of heresies ... it looks
as if you and Haru . . . Haru . . . Harullen-ullen, will be getting your
wish." Mention
of Lark's other gray qheuen friend made him wince with doubled grief. Uthen
didn't know about his cousin's fate, and Lark wasn't about to tell him. "How
do you mean?" "It
seems-eems the raiders-raiders found a way to rid Jijo of at least one of the
S-S-Six P-p-pests. ..." "Don't
say that," Lark urged. But Uthen voiced a common thought. His sickness
baffled the g'Kek medic resting in the next shelter, all four eyes curled in
exhaustion. The malady frightened the militia guards. All knew that Uthen had
been with Lark in the ruined Danik station, poking among forbidden things. "I
felt sorrow when-hen zealots-lots blew up the alien base." Uthen's
carapace shuddered as he fought for breath. "Even when the Rothen tried to
misuse our Holy Egg . . . sending false dreams as wedges-edges ... to drive the
Six Races apart-part. . . . Even that did not justify the . . .
inhospitable-able murder of strangers." Lark
wiped an eye. "You're more charitable than most." "Let
me finish-ish. I was-as going to say that now we know what the outsiders were
up to all along-long . . . something worse than dreams. Designing-ing bugs to
bring us down-own-own." So,
Uthen must have overheard the rumors-or else worked it out for himself. Biological
warfare. Genocide. "Like
in War of the Worlds" It was one of Uthen's favorite old novels.
"Only with the roles reversed." Lark's
comparison made the gray qheuen laugh-a raspy, uneven whistle. "I
... always-ways did identify . . . with those . . . with those poor Martians-ans-ans.
..." The
ribbon eye went foggy, losing the light of consciousness as the cupola' sank.
Lark checked his friend's breathing, and found it no worse. Uthen was simply
tired. So
strong, he thought, stroking the rigid shell. We
picture grays as toughest of the tough. But cbitin won't slow a laser ray. Harullen
found that out. Death came to Uthen's cousin during the brief Battle of the
Glade, when the massed militia of Six Races barely overcame Ro-kenn's robot
assassins. Only the advantage of surprise had carried that day. The aliens
never realized that savages might have books showing how to make rifled
firearms-crude, but potent at short range. But
victory came late for Harullen. Too dedicated or obstinate to flee, the heretic
leader spent his last frenzied moments whistling ornate pleas for calm and
reason, crying in five directions at once, beseeching everyone to lay down
their arms and talk things over-until Harullen's massive, crablike body was
cleaved in uneven parts by a killer drone, just before the machine was itself
blown from the sky. There
will be mourning among the gray matrons of Tarek Town, Lark thought, resting
both arms across Uthen's broad shell, laying his head on the mottled surface,
listening to the strained labor of his friend's phlegmy breathing, wishing with
all his heart that there was more he could do. Irony
was but one of many bitter tastes in his mouth. I always figured, if the end
did come, that qheuens would be the last to go. Emerson JIJO'S
COUNTRYSIDE FLOWS RAPIDLY PAST THEM now, as if the mysterious horsewomen fear
any delay might turn faint hope to dust. Lacking
speech, Emerson has no idea where they are riding in such a hurry, or why. Sara
turns in her saddle now and then, to give an encouraging smile. But
rewq-painted colors of misgiving surround her face-a nimbus of emotion that he
can read the way he used to find meaning in letters on a data display. Perhaps
he should find her qualms unnerving, since he depends on her guidance in this
strange, perilous world. Yet Emerson
cannot bring himself to worry. There are just too many other things to think
about. Humidity
closes in as their caravan veers toward a winding river valley. Dank aromas
stir memories of the swamp where he first floundered after the crash, a
shattered cripple, drenched in agony. But he does not quail. Emerson welcomes
any sensation that might trigger random recall- a sound, a chance smell, or
else a sight around the next bend. Some
rediscoveries already float across a gulf of time and loss, as if he has missed
them for quite a while. Recovered names connect to faces, and even brief
snatches of isolated events. Tom
Orley ... so strong and clever. Always a sure eye for trouble. He brought some
back to the ship, one day. Trouble
enough for Five Galaxies. Hikahi
. . . sweetest dolphin. Kindest friend. Dashing off to rescue her lover and
captain . . . never to be seen again. Toshio
... a boy's ready laughter. A young man's steady heart. Where is he now? Creideiki
. . . captain. Wise dolphin leader. A cripple like himself. Briefly,
Emerson wonders at the similarity between Creideiki's injury and his own. . . .
But the thought provokes a searing bolt of pain so fierce that the fleeting
thought whirls away and is lost. Tom . .
. Hikahi . . . Toshio ... He repeats the names, each of them once attached to
friends he has not seen for . . . well, a very long time. Other
memories, more recent, seem harder to reach, more agonizing to access. Suessi
. . . Tsh't . . . Gillian ... He
mouths each sound repeatedly, despite the tooth jarring ride and difficulty of
coordinating tongue and lips. He does
it to keep in practice-or else how will he ever recover the old handiness with
language, the skill to roll out words as he used to, back when he was known as
such a clever fellow . . . before horrid holes appeared in both his head and
memory. Some
names come easy, since he learned them after waking on Jijo, delirious in a
treetop hut. -Prity,
the little chimp who teaches him by example. Though mute, she shows flair for
both math and sardonic hand speech. -Jomah
and Kurt . . . sounds linked to younger and older versions of the same narrow
face. Apprentice and master at a unique art, meant to erase all the dams,
towns, and houses that unlawful settlers had built on a proscribed world.
Emerson recalls Biblos, an archive of paper books, where Kurt showed his nephew
well-placed explosive charges that might bring the cave down, smashing the
library to dust. If the order ever came. -The
captive fanatic, Dedinger, rides behind the explosers, deeply tanned with
craggy features. Leader of human rebels with beliefs Emerson can't grasp,
except they preach no love of visitors from the sky. While the party hurries
on, Dedinger's gray eyes rove, calculating his next move. Some
names and a few places-these utterances have meaning now. It is progress, but
Emerson is no fool. He figures he must have known hundreds of words before he
fell, broken, to this world. Now and again he makes out snatches of half
meaning from the "wab-wah" gabble as his companions address each
other. Snippets that tantalize, without satisfying. Sometimes
the torrent grows tiresome, and he wonders-might people be less inclined to
fight if they talked less? If they spent more time watching and listening? Fortunately,
words aren't his sole project. There is the haunting familiarity of music, ?nd
during rest stops he plays math games with Prity and Sara, drawing shapes in
the sand. They are his friends and he takes joy from their laughter. He has
one more window to the world. As
often as he can stand it, Emerson slips the rewq over his eyes ... a masklike
film that transforms the world into splashes of slanted color. In all his prior
travels he never encountered such a creature-a species used by all six races to
grasp each other's moods. If left on too long, it gives him headaches. Still he
finds fascinating the auras surrounding Sara, Dedinger, and others. Sometimes
it seems the colors carry more than just emotion . . . though he cannot pin it
down. Not yet. One
truth Emerson recalls. Advice drawn from the murky well of his past, putting
him on guard. Life
can be full of illusions. PART
TWO ?
LEGENDS TELL OF MANY PRECIOUS TEXTS that were lost one bitter evening, during
an unmatched disaster some call the Night of the (ghosts, when a quarter of the
Diblos Archive burned. Among the priceless volumes that vanished by that cruel
winters twilight, one tome reportedly showed pictures of Buyur-the mighty race
whose lease on Jijo expired five thousand centuries ago. Scant
diary accounts survive from witnesses to the calamity, but according to some
who browsed the Xenoscience Collection be, lore It burned, the Buyur were squat
beings, vaguely resembling the bullfrogs shown on page ninety-six of C^,earys
C-'uiae to lerres' trial L,iK-rorms, though with elephantine legs and sharp,
forward-looking eyes. They were said to be master shapers or useful
organisms,and had a reputation for prodigious wit. But
other sooner races already knew of that much about the Buyur, both from oral
traditions and the many clever servant organisms that nit about Jijo's forests,
perhaps still looking for departed masters. Beyond these few scraps, we have
very little about the race whose mighty civilisation thronged this world for
more than a million years. HOW
could so much knowledge be lost in a single night' Today it seems odd. Why
weren't copies of such valuable texts printed by those first-wave human
colonists, before they sent their sneakship tumbling to ocean depths' Why not
place duplicates all over the Mope, safeguarding the learning against all
peril' In our
ancestors defense I recall what tense times those were, before the Great Peace
or the coming of the bgg. The live sapient races already present on Jijo
(.excluding glavers, had reached an edgy balance by the time starship
tabernacle slinked past l^munutts dusty glare to plant Earthlings illicitly,
the latest wave of criminal colonists to plague a troubled world. In those
days, combat was frequent between urrtsh clans and haughty qheuen empresses,
while hoonlsh tribes skirmished among themselves in their ongoing ethical
struggle over traeki civil rights. The nigh Sages had little inlluence beyond
reading and interpreting the Speaking Scrolls, the only documents existing at
the time. Into
this tense climate dropped the latest Invasion of sooner relugees, who found an
unused eco-niche awaiting them. But human colonists were not content simply to
take up tree tarming as another clan of illiterates. Instead, they used the
tabernacles engines one last time before sinking her. With those godlike torces
they carved Diblos fortress, then toppled a thousand trees, converting their
pulp into ireshly printed books. The act
so astonished the Other five, It nearly cost human settlers their lives.
Outraged, the queens of larek town laid siege to the vastly outnumbered
Carthlings. Others, equally offended by what seemed heresy against the Scrolls,
held back only because the priest sages refused sanctioning holy war. That
narrow vote gave human leaders time to bargain, to cajole the ditlerent tribes
and septs with practical advice from books, bribing them with useful things.
Spoke cleats (or g'Kek wheels. Better sails for hoonish captains. And, for
urrish smiths, the long-sought knack of brewing clear glass. How
things had changed Just a few generations later, when the new breed of scholar
sages gathered to aihrm the Great peace, scribing their names on fresh paper
and sending copies to each hamlet on the Slope. Reading became a common habit,
and even writing is no longer viewed as sin. An
orthodox minority still objects to the clatter of printing presses, they
piously Insist that literacy fosters memory, and thus attachment to the same
conceits that got our spacefaring ancestors in trouble. Surely, they claim, we
must cultivate detachment and forgetfulness in order to tread the lath of
Redemption. perhaps
they are right. Out lew these days seem in a hurry to lollow glavers down that
blessed trail. 1'Jot yet. first, we must prepare our souls. And
wisdom, the New Sages declare, can be nurtured from the pages of a book. from
forging the peace, a Historical ,VIeditation-Umble, by Homer ,wph-puthtwaoy Streakers
Kaa STRANDED,
BY UNYIELDING FATE, ON IFNI'S SHORE.
Stranded, like a beached whale, barred from ever going home. Five
ways stranded- First,
cut off from Earth by hostile aliens bearing a death grudge toward Terrans in
general, and the Streaker crew in particular, though Kaa never quite understood
why. Second,
banished from Earth's home galaxy, blown off course, and off-limits, by a
caprice of hyperspace-though many on the crew still blamed Kaa, calling it
"pilot's error." Third,
starship Streaker taking refuge on a taboo world, one scheduled to have a
respite from sapient minds. An ideal haven, according to some. A trap, said
others. Fourth,
when the vessel's weary engines finally ceased their labors, depositing the Streaker
in a realm of ghosts, deep in this planet's darkest corner, far from air or
light. And
now, this, Kaa thought. Abandoned, even by a crew of castaways! Of
course Lieutenant Tsh't didn't put it that way, when she asked him to stay
behind in a tiny outpost with three other volunteers for company. "This
will be your first important command, Kaa. A chance to show what you're made
of." Yeah,
he thought. Especially if I'm speared by a hoonish harpoon, dragged onto one of
their boats, and slit open. That
almost happened yesterday. He had been tracking one of the native sailing
craft, trying to learn its purpose and destination, when one of his young
assistants, Mopol, darted ahead and began surfing the wooden vessel's rolling
bow wake ... a favorite pastime on Earth, where dolphins frequently hitched
free rides from passing ships. Only here it was so dumb, Kaa hadn't thought to
forbid it in advance. Mopol
offered that lawyerly excuse later, when they returned to the shelter.
"B-besides, I didn't do any harm." "No
harm? You let them see you!" Kaa berated. "Don't you know they
started throwing spears into the water, just as I got you out of there?" Mopol's
sleek torso and bottle beak held a rebellious stance. "They never saw a
dolphin before. Prob'ly thought we were some local kind of fish." "And
it's gonna stay that way, do you hear?" Mopol
grunted ambiguous assent, but the episode unnerved Kaa. A while
later, dwelling on his own shortcomings, he worked amid clouds of swirling bottom
mud, splicing optical fiber to a cable the submarine Hikahi had laid, on its
return trip to Streaker's hiding place. Kaa's newly emplaced camera should let
him spy more easily on the hoon colony whose sheltered docks and camouflaged
houses lay perched along the nearby bay. Already he could report that hoonish
efforts at concealment were aimed upward, at shrouding their settlement against
the sky, not the sea. That might prove important information, Kaa hoped. Still,
he had never trained to be a spy. He was a pilot, dammit! Not
that he ever used to get much practice during the early days of Streamer's
mission, languishing in the shadow of Chief Pilot Keepiru, who always got the
tough, glamorous jobs. When Keepiru vanished on Kithrup, along with the captain
and several others, Kaa finally got a chance to practice his skill-for better
and worse. But now
Streaker's going nowhere. A beached ship needs no pilot, so I guess I'm
expendable. Kaa
finished splicing and was retracting the work arms of his harness when a flash
of silver-gray shot by at high speed, undulating madly. Sonar strafed him as
waves of liquid recoil shoved his body. Clickety dolphin laughter filled the
shallows. * Admit
it, star seeker! * You
did not bear or see me, *
Sprinting from the gloom! * In
fact, Kaa had known the youth was approaching for some time, but he did not
want to discourage Zhaki from practicing the arts of stealth. "Use
Anglic," he commanded tersely. Small
conical teeth gleamed in a beam of slanted sunshine as the young Tursiops swung
around to face Kaa. "But
it's much easier to speak Trinary! Sometimes Anglic makes my head hurt." Few
humans, listening to this exchange between two neo-dolphins, would have
understood the sounds. Like Trinary, this underwater dialect consisted mostly
of clipped groans and ratchetings. But the grammar was close to standard
Anglic. And grammar guides the way a person thinks-or so Creideiki used to
teach, when that master of Keeneenk arts lived among the Streaker crew, guiding
them with his wisdom. Creideiki
has been gone for two years, abandoned with Mr. Orley and others when we fled
the battle fleets at Kithrup. Yet every day we miss him-the best our kind
produced. When
Creideiki spoke, you could forget for a while that neo-dolphins were crude,
unfinished beings, the newest and shakiest sapient race in the Five Galaxies. Kaa
tried answering Zhaki as he imagined the captain would. "The
pain you feel is called concentration. It's not easy, but it enabled our human
patrons to reach the stars, all by themselves." "Yeah.
And look what good it did them," Zhaki retorted. -Before
Kaa could answer, the youth emitted the need-air signal and shot toward the
surface, without even performing a wariness spiral to look out for danger. It
violated security, but tight discipline seemed less essential as each Jijoan
day passed. This sea was too mellow and friendly to encourage diligence. Kaa let
it pass, following Zhaki to the surface. They exhaled and drew in sweet air,
faintly charged with distant hints of rain. Speaking Anglic with their
gene-modified blowholes out of the water called for a different dialect, one
that hissed and sputtered, but sounded more like human speech. "All
right-t," Kaa said. "Now report." The
other dolphin tossed his head. "The red crabs suspect nothing. They
f-fixate on their crayfish pensss. Only rarely does one look up when we c-come
near." "They
aren't crabs. They're qheuens. And I gave strict orders. You weren't to go near
enough to be seen!" Hoons
were considered more dangerous, so Kaa had kept that part of the spy mission
for himself. Still, he counted on Zhaki and Mopol to be discreet while
exploring the qheuen settlement at the reef fringe. , guess I was wrong. "Mopol
wanted to try some of the reds' delicaciesss, so we'd pulled a diversion. I
rounded up a school of those green-finned fishies-the ones that taste like
Sargasso eel-and chased 'em right through the q-qheuen colony! And guess what?
It turns out the crabs have pop-up nets they use for jussst that kind of: luck!
As soon as the school was inside their boundary, they whipped those things up-p
and snatched the whole swarm!" "You're
lucky they didn't snag you, too. What was Mopol doing, all this time?" "While
the reds were busy, Mopol raided the crayfish pens." Zhaki chortled with
delight. "I saved you one, by the way. They're delisssh." Zhaki
wore a miniharness fastened to his flank, bearing a single manipulator arm that
folded back during swimming. At a neural signal, the mechanical hand went to
his seamed pouch and drew out a wriggling creature, proffering it to Kaa. What
should I do? Kaa stared at the squirmy thing.
Would accepting it only encourage Zhaki's lapse of discipline? Or would
rejection make Kaa look stodgy and unreasonable? "I'll
wait and see if it makes you sick," he told the youth. They weren't
supposed to experiment on native fauna with their own bodies. Unlike Earth,
most planetary ecosystems were mixtures of species from all across the Five
Galaxies, introduced by tenant races whose occupancy might last ten million
years. So far, many of the local fishoids turned out to be wholesome and tasty,
but the very next prey beast might have its revenge by poisoning you. "Where
is Mopol now?" "Back
doing what we were told," Zhaki said. "Watching how the red crabs
interact with hoonsss. So far we've seen 'em pulling two sledge loads toward
the port, filled with harvested ssseaweed. They came back with cargoes of wood.
You know . . . ch-chopped tree trunks." Kaa
nodded. "So they do trade, as we suspected. Hoons and qheuens, living
together on a forbidden world. I wonder what it means?" "Who
knows? If they weren't mysterious, they wouldn't be eateesss. C-can I go back
to Mopol now?" Kaa had
few illusions about what was going on between the two young spacers. It
probably interfered in their work, but if he raised the issue, Zhaki would
accuse him of being a prude, or worse, "jealous." If only
I were a real leader, Kaa thought. The lieutenant should never have left me in
charge. "Yes,
go back now," he said. "But only to fetch Mopol and return to the
shelter. It's getting late." Zhaki
lifted his body high, perched on a thrashing tail. * Yes,
oh exalted! * Your
command shall be obeyed, * As
all tides heed moons. * With
that, the young dolphin did a flip and dived back into the sea. Soon his dorsal
fin was all Kaa saw, glinting as it sliced through choppy swell. Kaa
pondered the ambiguous insolence of Zhaki's last Trinary burst. In
human terms-by the cause-and-effect logic the patron race taught its dolphin
clients-the ocean bulged and shifted in response to the gravitational pull of
sun and moon. But there were more ancient ways of thinking, used by cetacean
ancestors long before humans meddled in their genes. In those days, there had
never been any question that tides were the most powerful of forces. In the
old, primal religion, tides controlled the moon, not vice versa. In
other words, Zhaki's Trinary statement was sassy, verging on insubordination. Tsh't
made a mistake, Kaa mused bitterly, as he swam toward the shelter. We should
never have been left here by ourselves. Along
the way, he experienced the chief threat to his mission. Not hoonish spears or
qheuen claws, or even alien battlecruisers, but Jijo itself. One
could fall in love with this place. The
ocean's flavor called to him, as did the velvety texture of the water. It
beckoned in the way fishlike creatures paid him respect by fleeing, but not too
quick to catch, if he cared to. Most
seductive of all, at night throbbing echoes penetrated their outpost
walls-distant rhythms, almost too low to hear. Eerie, yet reminiscent of the
whale songs of home. Unlike
Oakka, the green-green world-or terrible Kithrup-this planet appeared to have a
reverent sea. One where a dolphin might swim at peace. And
possibly forget. Orderly
dolphin whose frailty had grown as Streaker fled ever farther from home. Brookida's
samples had been taken when the Hikahi followed a hoonish sailboat beyond the
continental shelf, to a plunging abyssal trench, where the ship had proceeded
to dump its cargo overboard! As casks, barrels, and chests fell into the murk,
a few were snagged by the submarine's gaping maw, then left here for analysis
as the Hikahi returned to base. Brookida
had already found what he called "anomalies," but something else now
had the aged scientist excited. "We
got a message while you were out. Tsh't picked up something amazing on her way
to Streaker\" 'Kaa.
nodded. "I was here when she reported, remember? They found an ancient
cache, left by illegal settlers when-" "That's
nothing." The old dolphin was more animated than Kaa had seen Brookida in
a long time. "Tsh't
called again later to say they rescued a bunch of kids who were about to
drown." Kaa
blinked. "Kids?
You don't mean-" "Not
human or fin. But wait till you hear who they are . . . and how they came to be
d-down there, under the sea." Brookida
was waiting when Kaa cycled through the tiny airlock, barely large enough for
one dolphin at a time to pass into the shelter-an inflated bubble, half-filled
with water and anchored to the ocean floor. Against one wall, a lab had been
set up for the metallurgist geologist, an el Sooners
Alvin A FEW
SCANT DURAS BEFORE IMPACT, PART OF THE wall of debris ahead of us began to
move. A craggy slab, consisting of pitted starship hulls, magically slipped
aside, offering the phuvnthu craft a long, narrow cavity. Into it
we plummeted, jagged walls looming near the glass, passing in a blur, cutting
off the searchlight beam and leaving us in shadows. The motors picked up their
frantic backward roar . . . then fell away to silence. A
series of metallic clangs jarred the hull. Moments later the door to our
chamber opened. A clawed arm motioned us outside. Several
phuvnthus waited-insectoid-looking creatures with long, metal-cased torsos and
huge, glassy-black eyes. Our
mysterious saviors, benefactors, captors. My
friends tried to help me, but I begged them off. "Come
on, guys. It's hard enough managing these crutches without YOU all crowding
around. Go on. I'll be right behind." At the
intersection leading back to my old cell, I moved to turn left but our six-legged
guides motioned right instead. "I need my stuff," I told the nearest
phuvnthu-thing. But it gestured no with
a wave of machinelike claws, barring my path. Damn, I
thought, recalling the notebook and backpack I had left behind. I figured I'd be
coming back. A
twisty, confused journey took us through all sorts of hatches and down long
corridors of metal plating. Ur-ronn commented that some of the weld joins
looked "hasty." I admired the way she held on to her professionalism
when faced with awesome technology. I can't
say exactly when we left the sea dragon and entered the larger
base,camp,city,hive, but there came a time when the big phuvnthus seemed more
relaxed in their clanking movements. I even caught a snatch or two of that
queer, ratcheting sound that I once took for speech. But there wasn't time for
listening closely. Just moving forward meant battling waves of pain, taking one
step at a time. At last
we spilled into a corridor that had a feel of permanence, with pale, off-white
walls and soft lighting that seemed to pour from the whole ceiling. The
peculiar passage curved gently upward in both directions, till it climbed out
of sight a quarter of an arrowflight to either side. It seemed we were in a
huge circle, though what use such a strange hallway might serve, I could not
then imagine. Even
more surprising was the reception committee! At once we faced a pair of
creatures who could not look more different from the phuvnthus-except for the
quality of having six limbs. They stood upright on their hind pair, dressed in
tunics of silvery cloth, spreading four scaly webbed hands in a gesture I
hopefully took to mean welcome. They were small, rising just above my upper
knees, or the level of Pincer's red chitin shell. A frothy crown of moist,
curly fibers topped their bulb-eyed heads. Squeaking rapidly, they motioned for
us to follow, while the big phuvnthus retreated with evident eagerness. We four
Wuphonites consulted with a shared glance ... then a rocking, qheuen-style
shrug. We turned to troop silently behind our new guides. I could sense Huphu
purring on my shoulder, staring at the little beings, and I vowed to drop my
crutches and grab the noor, if she tried to jump one of our hosts. I doubted
they were as helpless as they looked. All the
doorways lining the hall were closed. Next to each portal, something like a
paper strip was pasted to the wall, always at the same height. One of Huck's
eyestalks gestured toward the makeshift coverings, then winked at me in Morse
semaphore. SECRETS
UNDERNEATH! I
grokked her meaning. So our hosts did not want us to read their door signs.
That implied they used one of the alphabets known to the Six. I felt the same
curiosity that emanated from Huck. At the same time, though, I readied myself
to stop her, if she made a move to tear off one of the coverings. There are
times for impulsiveness. This was not one of them. A door
hatch slid open with a soft hiss and our little guides motioned for us to
enter. Curtains
divided a large chamber into parallel cubicles. I also glimpsed a dizzying
array of shiny machines, but did not note much about them, because of what then
appeared, right in front of us. We all
stopped in our tracks, facing a quartet of familiarlooking entities-an urs, a hoon,
a red qheuen, and a young g'Kek! Images
of ourselves, I realized, though clearly not reflections in a mirror. For one
thing, we could see right through the likenesses. And as we stared, each figure
made beckoning motions toward a different curtained nook. After
the initial shock, I noticed the images weren't perfect portraits. The urrish
version had a well groomed pelt, and my hoonish counterpart stood erect,
without a back brace. Was the difference meaningful? The hoonish caricature
smiled at me in the old-fashioned way, with a fluttering throat sac, but no
added grimace of mouth and lips that Jijoan hoons had added since humans came. "Yeah
right," Huck muttered, staring at the ersatz g'Kek in front of her, whose
wheels and spokes gleamed, tight and polished. "I am so sure these are
sooners, Alvin." I
winced. So my earlier guess was wrong. There was no point rubbing it in. "Hr-rm
. . . shut up, Huck." "These
are holographic Projections," Ur-ronn lisped in Anglic, the sole Jijoan
language suitable for such a diagnosis. The words came from human books,
inherited since the Great Printing. "Whatever
you s-say," Pincer added, as each ghost backed away toward a different
curtained cell. "What d-d-do we do now?" Huck
muttered. "What choice do we have? Each of us follows our own guy, and see
ya on the other side." With an
uneven bumping of her rims, she rolled after the gleaming g'Kek image. A
curtain slid shut after her. Ur-ronn
blew a sigh. "Good water, you two." "Fire
and ash," Pincer and I replied politely, watching her saunter behind the
urrish cartoon figure. The
fake hoon waved happily for me to enter the cubby on the far right. "Name,
rank, and serial number only," I told Pincer. His
worried-"Huh?"-aspirated from three leg vents in syncopation. When I
glanced back, his cupola eye still whirled indecisively, staring in all
directions except at the translucent qheuen in front of him. A
hanging divider closed between us. My
silent guide in hoonish form led me to a white obelisk, an upright slab,
occupying the center of the small room. He pantomimed stepping right up to it,
standing on a small metal plate at its base. When I did so, I found the white
surface soft against my face and chest. No sooner were my feet on the plate
than the whole slab began to tilt . . . rotating down and forward to become a
table, with my own poor self lying prone on top. Huphu scrambled off my
shoulders, muttering guttural complaints, then yowled as a tube lifted up from
below and snaked toward my face! I guess
I could have struggled, or tried to flee. But to what point? When colored gas
spilled from the tube, the odor reminded me of childhood visits to our Wuphon
infirmary. The House of Stinks, we kids called it, though our traeki pharmacist
was kindly, and always secreted a lump of candy from an upper ring, if we were
good. ... As
awareness wavered, I recall hoping there would be a tasty sourball waiting for
me this time, as well. "G'night,"
I muttered, while Huphu cluttered and wailed. Then things kind of went black
for a while. Asx STROKE
THE FRESH-PLOWING WAX, MY RINGS, .streaming hot with news from real time. Here,
trace this ululation, a blaring cry of dismay, echoing round frosted peaks,
setting stands of mighty greatboo a-quivering. Just
moments earlier, the Rothen ship hovered majestically above its ruined station,
scanning the Glade for signs of its lost spore buds, the missing members of its
crew. Angry
the throbbing vessel seemed, broody and threatening, ready to avenge. Yet
we/i remained in place, did we not, my rings? Duty rooted this traeki stack in
place, delegated by the Council of Sages to parley with these Rothen lords. Others
also lingered, milling across the trampled festival grounds. Curious onlookers,
or those who for personal reasons wished to offer invaders loyalty. So we/i
were not alone to witness what came next. There were several hundred present,
staring in awe as the Rothen starship probed and palped the valley with rays,
sifting the melted, sooty girders of its ravaged outpost. Then
came that abrupt, awful sound. A cry that still fizzes, uncongealed, down our
fatty core. An alarm of anguished dread, coming from the ship itself! Yes? You are
brave, my rings. . . . Behold
the Rothen ship-suddenly bathed in light! Actinic
radiance pours onto it from above . . . cast by a new entity, shining like the
blazing sun. It is
no sun, but another vessel of space! A ship unbelievably larger than the slim
gene raider, looming above it the way a full-stacked traeki might tower over a
single, newly vienned ring. Can the
wax be believed? Could anything be as huge and mighty as that luminous
mountain-thing, gliding over the valley as ponderous as a thunderhead? Trapped,
the Rothen craft emits awful, grating noises, straining to escape the titanic
newcomer. But the cascade of light now presses on it, pushing with force that
spills across the vale, taking on qualities of physical substance. Like a solid
shaft, the beam thrusts the Rothen ship downward against its will, until its
belly scours Jijo's wounded soil. A
deluge of saffron color flows around the smaller cruiser, covering the Rothen
craft in layers-thickening, like gobs of cooling sap. Soon the Rothen ship lies
helplessly encased. Leaves and twigs seem caught in midwhirl, motionless beside
the gold-sealed hull. And
above, a new power hovered. Leviathan. The
searing lights dimmed. Humming
a song of overpowering might, the titan descended, like a guest mountain dropping
in to take its place among the Rimmers. A stone from heaven, cracking bedrock
and reshaping the valley with its awful weight. Rety Rety
never believed Kunn's people came across vast space just to teach some critters
how to blab. Then
what was the real reason? And what were they afraid of? RETY
THOUGHT ABOUT HER BIRD. THE BRIGHT bird, so lively, so unfairly maimed, so like
herself in its .stubborn struggle to overcome. All her
adventures began one day when Jass and Born returned from a hunting trip
boasting about wounding a mysterious flying creature. Their trophy-a gorgeous
metal feather-was the trigger she had been waiting for. Rety took it as an
omen, steadying her resolve to break away. A sign that it was time, at last, to
leave her ragged tribe and seek a better life. I guess
everybody's looking for something, she pondered, as the robot followed another
bend in the dreary river, meandering toward the last known destination of
Kunn's flying scout craft. Rety had the same goal, but also dreaded it. The
Danik pilot would deal harshly with Dwer. He might also judge Rety, for her
many failings. She
vowed to suppress her temper and grovel if need be. Just so the starfolk keep
their promise and take me with them when they leave Jijo. They
must! I gave 'em the bird. Rann said it was a clue to help the Daniks and their
Rothen lords search . . . Her thoughts stumbled. Search
for what? They
must need somethin' awful bad to break Galactic law by sneakin' to far-off
Jijo. Rety never
swallowed all the talk about "gene raiding"- that the Rothen
expedition came looking for animals almost ready to think. When you grow up
close to nature, scratching for each meal alongside other creatures, you soon
realize everybody thinks. Beasts, fish . . . why, some of her cousins even
prayed to trees and stones! Rety's
answer was-so what? Would a gallaiter be less smelly if it could read? Or a
wallow kleb any less disgusting if it recited poetry while rolling in dung? By
her lights, nature was vile and dangerous. She had a bellyful and would gladly
give it up to live in some bright Galactic city. The
robot avoided deep water, as if its force fields needed rock or soil to push
against. When the river widened, and converging tributaries became rivers
themselves, further progress proved impossible. Even a long detour west offered
no way around. The drone buzzed in frustration, hemmed by water on all sides. "Rety!"
Dwer's hoarse voice called from below. "Talk to it again!" "I
already did, remember? You must've wrecked its ears in the ambush, when you
ripped out its antenna thing!" "Well
... try again. Tell it I might . . . have a way to get across a stream." Rety
stared down at him, gripped by snakelike arms. "You
tried to kill it a while back, an' now you're offerin' to help?" He
grimaced. "It beats dying, wandering in its clutches till the sun burns
out. I figure there's food and medicine on the flying boat. Anyway, I've heard
so much about these alien humans. Why should you get all the fun?" She
couldn't tell where he stopped being serious, and turned sarcastic. Not that it
mattered. If Dwer's idea proved useful, it might soften the way Kunn treated
him. And me,
she added. "Oh,
all right," Rety
spoke directly to the machine, as she had been taught. "Drone
Four! Hear and obey commands! I order you to let us down so's we can haggle
together about how to pass over this here brook. The prisoner says he's got a
way mebbe to do it." The
robot did not respond at first, but kept cruising between two high points,
surveying for any sign of a crossing. But finally, the humming repulsors
changed tone as metal arms lowered Dwer, letting him roll down a mossy bank.
For a time the young man lay groaning. His limbs twitched feebly, like a
stranded fish. More
than a little stiff herself, Rety hoisted her body off the upper platform,
wincing at the singular touch of steady ground. Both legs tingled painfully,
though likely not as bad as Dwer felt. She got down on her knees and poked his
elbow. "Hey,
you all right? Need help gettin' up?" Dwer's
eyes glittered pain, but he shook his head. She put an arm around his shoulder
anyway as he struggled to sit. No fresh blood oozed when they checked the
crusty dressing on his thigh wound. The
alien drone waited silently as the young man stood, unsteadily. "Maybe
I can help you get across water," he told the machine. "If I do, will
you change the way you carry us? Stop
for breaks and help us find food? What d'you say?" Another
long pause-then a chirping note burst forth. Rety had learned a little Galactic
Two during her time as an apprentice star child. She recognized the upward
sliding scale meaning yes. Dwer
nodded. "I can't guarantee my plan'll work. But here's what I suggest." It was
actually simple, almost obvious, yet she looked at Dwer differently after he
emerged from the stream, dripping from the armpits down. Before he was halfway
out, the robot edged aside from its perch above Diver's head. It seemed to
glide down the side of the young hunter's body until reaching a point where its
fields could grip solid ground. All the
way across the river, Dwer looked as if he wore a huge, eight-sided hat,
wafting over his head like a balloon. His eyes were glazed and his hair stood
on end as Rety sat him down. "Hey!"
She nudged him. "You all right?" Dwer's
gaze seemed fixed far away. After a few duras though, he answered. "Um
... I ... guess so." She
shook her head. Even Mudfoot and yee had ceased their campaign of mutual deadly
glares in order to stare at the man from the Slope. "That
was so weird!" Rety commented. She could not bring herself to say
"brave," or "thrilling" or "insane." He
winced, as if messages from his bruised body were just now reaching a dazed
brain. "Yeah ... it was all that.
And more." The
robot chirruped again. Rety guessed that a triple upsweep with a shrill note at
the end meant-That's enough resting. Let's go! She
helped Dwer onto a makeshift seat the robot made by folding its arms. This
time, when it resumed its southward flight, the two humans rode in front with
Mudfoot and little yee, sharing body heat against the stiff wind. Rety
had heard of this region from those bragging hunters, Jass and Born. It was a
low country, dotted with soggy marshes and crisscrossed by many more streams
ahead. Alvin I WOKE
FEELING WOOZY, AND HIGH AS A CHIMP that's been chewing ghigree leaves. But at
least the agony was gone.. The
soft slab was still under me, though I could tell the awkward brace of straps
and metal tubes was gone. Turning my head, I spied a low table nearby. A
shallow white bowl held about a dozen familiar-looking shapes, vital to hoon
rituals of life and death. Ifni! I
thought. The monsters cut out my spine bones! Then I
reconsidered. Wait.
You're a kid. You've got two sets. In fact, isn't it next year you're supposed
to start losing your first . . . I
really was that slow to catch on. Pain and drugs can do it to you. Looking
in the bowl again, I saw all my baby vertebrae. Normally, they'd loosen over
several months, as the barbed adult spines took over. The accident must have
jammed both sets together, pressing the nerves and hurrying nature along. The
phuvnthus must have decided to take out my old verts, whether the new ones were
ready or not. Did
they guess? Or were they already familiar with hoons? Take
things one at a time, I thought. Can you feel your toe hooks? Can you move
them? I sent
signals to retract the claw sheaths, and sensed the table's fabric resist as my
talons dug in. So far so good. I
reached around with my left hand, and found a slick bulge covering my spine,
tough and elastic. Words
cut in. An uncannily smooth voice, in accented Galactic Seven. "The
new orthopedic brace will actively help bear the stress of your movements until
your next-stage vertebroids solidify. Nevertheless, you would be well advised
not to move in too sudden or jerky a manner." The
fixture wrapped all the way around my torso, feeling snug and comfortable,
unlike the makeshift contraption the phuvnthus provided earlier. "Please
accept my thanks," I responded in formal GalSeven, gingerly shifting onto
one elbow, turning my head the other way. "And my apologies for any
inconvenience this may have cause-" I
stopped short. Where I had expected to see a phuvnthu, or one of the small
amphibians, there stood a whirling shape, ghostly, like the holographic
projections we had seen before, but ornately abstract. A spinning mesh of
complex lines floated near the bed. "There
was no inconvenience." The voice seemed to emerge from the gyrating image.
"We were curious about matters taking place in the world of air and light.
Your swift arrival-plummeting into a sea canyon near our scout vessel-seemed as
fortuitous to us as our presence was for
you." Even in
a drugged state, I could savor multilevel irony in the whirling thing's
remarks. While being gracious, it was also reminding me that the survivors of
Wuphon's Dream owed a debt-our very lives. "True,"
I assented. "Though my friends and I might never have fallen into the
abyss if someone had not removed the article we were sent to find in more
shallow waters. Our search beyond that place led us to stumble over the
cliff." The
pattern of shifting lines took a new slant of bluish, twinkling light. "You
assert ownership over this thing you sought? As your property?" Now it
was my turn to ponder, wary of a trap. By the codes laid down in the Scrolls,
the cache Uriel had sent us after should not exist. It bent the spirit and
letter of the law, which said that sooner colonists on a forbidden world must
ease their crime by abandoning their godlike tools. It made me glad to be
speaking a formal dialect, forcing more careful thought than I might have used
in our local patois. "I
assert ... a right to inspect the item . . . and reserve an option to make
further claims later." Purple
swirls invaded the spinning pattern, and I could almost swear it seemed amused.
Perhaps this strange entity already had pursued the same line of questioning
with my pals. I may be articulate-Huck says no one can match me in GalSeven-but
I never claimed to be the brightest one in our gang. "The
matter can be discussed another time," the voice said. "After you tell
us of your life, and recent events in the upper world." This
triggered something in me ... call it the latent trading instinct that lurks in
any hoon. A keenness for the fine art of dickering. Carefully, tenderly, I sat
up, allowing the supple back brace to take most of the strain. "Hr-r-rm.
You're asking us to give away the only thing we have to barter-our story, and
that of our ancestors. What do you
offer in exchange?" The
voice made a pretty good approximation of a rueful hoonish rumble. "Apologies.
It did not occur to us that you would look at it that way. Alas, you have
already told us a great deal. We will now return your information store. Please
accept our contrition over having accessed it without expressed
permission." A door
slid open and one of the little amphibian creatures entered the cubicle,
bearing in its four slim arms my backpack! Better
yet, on top lay my precious journal, all battered and bent, but still the item
I most valued in the world. I snatched up the book, flipping its dog-eared
pages. "Rest
assured," the spinning pattern enounced. "Our study of this document,
while enlightening, has only whetted our appetite for information. Your
economic interests are undiminished." I
thought about that. "You read my journal?" "Again,
apologies. It seemed prudent, when seeking to understand your injuries, and the
manner of your arrival in this realm of heavy wet darkness." Once
again, the words seemed to come at me with layers of meaning and implications I
could only begin to sift. At the time, I only wanted to end the conversation as
soon as possible, and confer with Huck and the others before going any further. "I'd
like to see my friends now," I told the whirling image, switching to
Anglic. It
seemed to quiver, as if with a nod. "Very
well. They have been informed to expect you.
Please follow the entity standing at the door." The
little amphibian attended while I set foot on the floor, gingerly testing my
weight. There were a few twinges, just enough to help me settle best within the
support of the flexible body cast. I gripped the journal, but glanced back at
my knapsack and the bowl of baby vertebrae. "These
items will be safe here," promised the voice. I hope
so, I thought. Mom and Dad will want them . . . assuming that I ever see
Mu-phauwq, and Yowg-wayuo again . . . and especially if I don't. "Thank
you." The
speckled pattern whirled. "It
is my pleasure to serve." Holding
my journal tight, I followed the small being out the door. When I glanced back
at the bed, the spinning projection was gone. ASX HERE IT
IS, AT LAST. THE IMAGE WE HAVE SOUGHT, now cool enough to stroke. Yes, my
rings. It is time for another vote. Shall we remain catatonic, rather than face
what will almost certainly be a vision of pure horror? Our
first ring of cognition insists that duty must take precedence, even over the
natural traeki tendency to flee unpleasant subjectivities. Is it
agreed? Shall we be Asx, and meet reality as it comes? How do you rule, my
rings? stroke
the wax. . . . follow
the tracks. . . . see the
mighty starship come. ... Humming
a song of overwhelming power, the monstrous vessel descends, crushing every
remaining tree on the south side of the valley, shoving a dam across the river,
filling the horizon like a mountain. Can you
feel it, my rings? Premonition. Throbbing our core with acrid vapors? Along
the starship's vast flank a hatch opens, large enough to swallow a small
village. Against
the lighted interior, silhouettes enter view. Tapered
cones. Stacks
of rings. Frightful
kin we had hoped never again to see. Sara SARA
LOOKED BACK FONDLY AT LAST NIGHT'S WILD ride, for now the horses sped up to a
pace that made her bottom feel like butter. And to
think, as a child I wished I could gallop about like characters in storybooks. Whenever
the pace slackened, she eyed the enigmatic female riders who seemed so at home
atop huge, mythological beasts. They called themselves Illias, and their lives
had been secret for a long time. But now haste compelled them to travel openly. Can it
really be just to get Kurt the Exploser where he wants to go? Assuming
his mission is vital, why does he want my help? I'm a theoretical mathematician
with a sideline in linguistics. Even in math, I'm centuries out of date by
Earth standards. To Galactics I'd be just a clever shaman. Losing
altitude, the party began passing settlements-at first urrish camps with buried
workshops and sunken corrals hidden from the glowering sky. But as the country
grew more lush, they skirted dams where blue qheuen hives tended lake-bottom
farms. Passing a riverside grove, they found the "trees" were
ingeniously folded masts of hoonish fishing skiffs and khuta boats. Sara even
glimpsed a g'Kek weaver village where sturdy trunks supported ramps, bridges,
and swaying boardwalks for the clever wheeled clan. At
first the settlements seemed deserted as the horses sped by. But the chick
coops were full, and the blur canopies freshly patched. Midday isn't a favorite
time to be about, especially with sinister specters in the sky. Anyone rousing
from siesta glimpsed only vague galloping figures, obscured by dust. But
attention was unavoidable later, when members of all six races scurried from
shelters, shouting as the corps of beasts and riders rushed by. The grave
Illias horsewomen never answered, but Emerson and young Jomah waved at
astonished villagers, provoking some hesitant cheers. It made Sara laugh, and
she joined their antics, helping turn the galloping procession into a kind of
antic parade. When
the mounts seemed nearly spent, the guides veered into a patch of forest where
two more women waited, dressed in suede, speaking that accent Sara found
tantalizingly familiar. Hot food awaited the party-along with a dozen fresh
mounts. Someone
is a good organizer, Sara thought. She ate standing up-a pungent vegetarian
gruel. Walking helped stretch kinked muscles. The
next stage went better. One of the Illias showed Sara a trick of flexing in her
stirrups to damp the jouncing rhythm. Though grateful, Sara wondered. Where
have these people lived all this time? Dedinger,
the desert prophet, caught Sara's eye, eager to discuss the mystery, but she
turned away. The attraction of his intellect wasn't worth suffering his
character. She preferred spending her free moments with Emerson. Though
speechless, the wounded starman had a good soul. Villages
grew sparse south of the Great Marsh. But traeki flourished there, from tall
cultured stacks, famed for herbal industry, all the way down to wild quintets,
quartets, and little trio ring piles, consuming decaying matter the way their
ancestors must have on a forgotten homeworld, before some patron race set them
on the Path of Uplift. Sara
daydreamed geometric arcs, distracting her mind from the heat and tedium,
entering a world of parabolas and rippling wavelike forms, free of time and
distance. By the time she next looked up, dusk was falling and a broad river
flowed to their left, with faint lights glimmering on the other bank. "Traybold's
Crossing." Dedinger peered at the settlement, nestled under camouflage
vines. "I do think the residents have finally done the right thing . . .
even if it inconveniences wayfarers like us." The
wiry rebel appeared pleased. Sara wondered. Can he
mean the bridge? Have local fanatics torn it down, without orders from the
sages? Dwer,
her well-traveled brother, had described the span across the Gentt as a marvel
of disguise, appearing like an aimless jam of broken trees. But even that would
not satisfy fervent scroll thumpers these days. Through
twilight dimness she spied a forlorn skeleton of charred logs, trailing from
sandbar to sandbar. Just
like at Bing Hamlet, back home. What is it about a bridge that attracts
destroyers? Anything
sapient-made might be a target of zealotry, these days. The
workshops, dams, and libraries may go. We'll,allow glavers into blessed
obscurity. Dedinger's heresy may prove right, and Lark's prove wrong. She
sighed. Mine was always the unlikeliest of all. Despite
captivity, Dedinger seemed confident in ultimate success for his cause. "Now
our young guides must spend days trying, to hire boats. No more rushing about,
postponing Judgment Day. As if the explosers and their friends could ever have
changed destiny." "Shut
up," Kurt said. "You
know, I always thought your guild would be on our side, when the time came to
abandon vanities and take redemption's path. Isn't it frustrating, preparing
all your life to blow up things, only to hold back at the crucial moment?" Kurt
looked away. Sara
expected the horsewomen to head to a nearby fishing village. Hoonish coracles
might be big enough to ferry one horse at a time, though that slow process
would expose the Illias to every gawking citizen within a dozen leagues. Worse,
Urunthai reinforcements, or Dedinger's own die-hard supporters, might have time
to catch up. But to
her surprise, the party left the river road, heading west down a narrow track
through dense undergrowth. Two
Illias dropped back, brushing away signs of their passage. Could
their settlement lie in this thicket? But
hunters and gleaners from several races surely went browsing through this area.
No secret horse clan could remain hidden for more than a hundred years! Disoriented
in a labyrinth of trees and jutting knolls, Sara kept a wary eye on the rider
in front of her. She did not relish wandering' lost and alone in the dark. Gaining
altitude, the track finally crested to overlook a cluster of evenly spaced
hills-steep mounds surrounding a depression filled with dense brush. From their
symmetry, Sara thought of Buyur ruins. Then
she forgot about archaeology when something else caught her eye. A flicker to the
west, beckoning from many leagues away. The
mountain's wide shoulders cut a broad wedge of stars. Near
its summit, curved streaks glowed red and orange. Flowing
lava. Jijo's
blood. A
volcano. Sara
blinked. Might they already have traveled to- "No,"
she answered herself. "That's not Guenn. It's Blaze Mountain!' "If
only that were our destination, Sara. Things'd be simpler." Kurt spoke
from nearby. "Alas, the smiths of Blaze Peak are conservative. They want
no part of the hobbies and pastimes that are practiced where we're
headin'." Hobbies?
Pastimes? Was Kurt trying to baffle her with riddles? "You
can't still reckon we're going all the way to-" "To
the other great forge? Aye, Sara. We'll make it, don't fret." "But
the bridge is out! Then there's desert, and after that, the Spec . . ." She
trailed off as the troop turned downward, into the thorn brake between the
hills. Three times, riders dismounted to shift clever barriers that looked like
boulders or tree trunks. At last, they reached a small clearing where the
guides met and embraced another group of leatherclad women. There was a
campfire . . . and the welcome aroma of food. Despite
a hard day, Sara managed to unsaddle her own mount and brush the tired beast.
She ate standing, doubtful she would ever sit again. I
should check Emerson. Make sure he takes his medicine. He may need a story or a
song to settle down after all this. A small
figure slipped alongside, chuffing nervously. No-Go-Hole-
Prity motioned with agile hands. Scary-Hole. Sara
frowned. "What
hole are you talking about?" The
chimp took Sara's hand, pulling her toward several Illias, who were shifting
baggage to a squat, boxy object. A
wagon, Sara realized. A big one, with four wheels, instead of the usual two.
Fresh horses were harnessed, but to haul it where? Surely not through the
surrounding thicket! Then
Sara saw what "hole" Prity meant-gaping at the base of a cone hill.
An aperture with smooth walls and a flat floor. A thin glowing stripe ran along
the tunnel's center, continuing downhill before turning out of sight. Jomah
and Kurt were already aboard the big wagon, with Dedinger strapped in behind, a
stunned expression on his aristocratic face. For
once Sara agreed with the heretic sage. Emerson
stood at the shaft entrance and whooped, like a small boy exploring a cave
first with his own echoes. The starman grinned, happier than ever, and reached
for her hand. Sara took his while inhaling deeply. Well, I
bet Dwer and Lark never went anywhere like this. I may yet be the one with the best story to tell. I FOUND
MY FRIENDS IN A DIM CHAMBER WHERE frigid fog blurred every outline. Even
hobbling with crutches, my awkward footsteps made hardly a sound as I approached
the silhouettes of Huck and Ur-ronn, with little Huphu curled on Pincer's
carapace. All faced the other way, looking downward into a soft glow. "Hey,
what's going on?" I asked. "Is this any way to greet-" One of
Huck's eyestalks swerved on me. "We're-glad-'to-see-you're-all-right-but-now-shut-up
and-get-over-here." Few
other citizens of the Slope could squeeze all that into a single GalThree
word-blat. Not that skill excused her rudeness. "Hr-rm.
The-same-to-you-I'm-sure, oh-obsessed-beingtoo-transfaxed-to-qffer-decent-courtesy,"
I replied in kind. Shuffling
forward, I noted how my companions were transformed. Ur-ronn's pelt gleamed,
Huck's wheels were realigned, and Pincer's carapace had been patched and buffed
smooth. Even Huphu seemed sleek and content. "What
is it?" I began. "What're you all staring . . ." My
voice trailed off when I saw where they stood-on a balcony without a rail,
overlooking the source of both the pale glow and the chill haze. A cube-two
hoon lengths on a side, colored a pale shade of brownish yellow-lay swathed in
a fog of its own making, unadorned except by a symbol embossed on one face. A
spiral emblem with five swirling arms and a bulbous center, all crossed by a
gleaming vertical bar. Despite
how far the people of the Slope have fallen, or how long it's been since our
ancestors roamed as star gods, that emblem is known to every grub and child.
Inscribed on each copy of the Sacred Scrolls, it evokes awe when prophets and
sages speak of lost wonders. On this frosted obelisk it could only mean one
thing-that we stood near more knowledge than anyone on Jijo could tally, or
begin to imagine. If the human crew of sneakship Tabernacle had kept printing
paper books till this very day, they could have spilled only a small fragment
of the trove before us, a hoard that began before many stars in the sky. The
Great Library of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies. I'm
told moments like these can inspire eloquence from great minds. "J-j-jeez,"
commented Pincer. Ur-ronn
was less concise. "The
questions . . . ," she lisped. "The questions we could ask ..." I
nudged Huck. "Well,
you said you wanted to go find something to read." For the
first time in all the years I've known her, our little wheeled friend seemed at
a loss for words. Her stalks trembled. The only sound she let out was a gentle
keening sigh. Asx If only
we/i had nimble running feet, i/we
would use them now, to flee. If we/i
had burrowers' claws, i/we would dig a bole and hide. If we/i
had the wings, i/we would fly away. Lacking
those useful skills, the member toruses of our composite stack nearly vote to
draw permanently, sealing out the world, negating the objective universe,
waiting for the intolerable to go away. It will
not go away. So
reminds our second torus of cognition. Among
the greasy trails of wisdom that coat our aged core, many were laid down after
reading learned books, or holding lengthy discussions with other sages. These
tracks of philosophical wax agree with our second ring. As difficult as it may
be for a traeki to accept, the cosmos does not vanish when we turn within.
Logic and science appear to prove otherwise. The
universe goes on. Things that matter keep happening, one after another. Still,
it is hard to swivel our trembling sensor rings to face toward the mountain
dreadnought that recently lowered itself down from heaven, whose bulk seems to
fill both valley and sky. Harder
to gaze through a hatchway in the great ship's flank-an aperture broad as the
largest building in Tarek Town. Hardest
to regard the worst of all possible sights-those cousins that we traeki fled
long ago. Terrible
and strong-the mighty Jophur. How
gorgeous they seem, those glistening sap rings, swaying in their backlit
portal, staring without pity at the wounded glade their vessel alters with its
crushing weight. A glade thronging with half-animal felons, a miscegenous
rabble, the crude descendants of fugitives. Exiles
who futilely thought they might elude the ineludable. Our
fellow Commons citizens mutter fearfully, still awed by the rout of the smaller
Rothen ship-that power we had held in dread for months-now pressed down and
encased in deadly light. Yes, my
rings, i/we can sense how some nearby Sixers- the quick and prudent-take to
their heels, retreating even before the landing tremors fade. Others foolishly
mill toward the giant vessel, driven by curiosity, or awe. Perhaps they have
trouble reconciling the shapes they see with any sense of danger. As
harmless as a traeki, so the expression goes. After all, what menace can there
be in tapered stacks of fatty rings? Oh,
my,our poor innocent neighbors. You are about to find out. i^arl THAT
NIGHT HE DREAMED ABOUT THE LAST TIME HE saw Ling smile-before her world and his
forever changed. It
seemed long ago, during a moonlit pilgrimage that crept proudly past volcanic
vents and sheer cliffs, bearing shared hope and reverence toward the Holy Egg.
Twelve twelves of white-clad celebrants made up that processsion-qheuens and
g'Keks, traekis and urs, humans and hoons-climbing a hidden trail to their
sacred site. And accompanying them for the first time, guests from outer
space-a Rothen master, two Danik humans, and their robot guards-attending to
witness the unity rites of a quaint
savage tribe. He
dreamed about that pilgrimage in its last peaceful moment, before the
fellowship was splintered by alien words and fanatical deeds. Especially the
smile on her face, when she told him joyous news. "Ships
are coming, Lark. So many ships! "It's
time to bring you all back home." Two
words still throbbed like sparks in the night. Rhythmically hotter as he
reached for them in his sleep. . . .
ships ... . . .
home ... . . .
ships . . . . . .
home ... One
word vanished at his dream touch-he could not tell which. The other he clenched
hard, its flamelike glow increasing. Strange light, pushing free of
containment. It streamed past flesh, past bones. A glow that clarified,
offering to show him everything. Everything
except . . . Except
now shewas gone. Taken away by the word that vanished. Pain
wrenched Lark from the lonely night phantasm, tangled in a sweaty blanket. His
trembling right hand clenched hard against his chest, erupting with waves of
agony. Lark
exhaled a long sigh as he used his left hand to pry open the fingers of his
right, forcing them apart one by one. Something rolled off his open palm- It was
the stofle fragment of the Holy Egg, the one he had hammered from it as a
rebellious child, and worn ever since as penance. Even as sleep unraveled, he
imagined the rocky talisman throbbing with heat, pulsing in time to the beating
of his heart. Lark
stared at the blur-cloth canopy, with moonlight glimmering beyond. I
remain in darkness, on Jijo, he thought, yearning to see once more by the
radiance that had filled his dream. A light that seemed about to reveal distant
vistas. Ling
spoke to him later that day, when their lunch trays were slipped into the tent by
a nervous militiaman. "Look,
this is stupid," she said. "Each of us acting like the other is some
kind of devil spawn. We don't have time for grudges, with your people and mine
on a tragic collision course." Lark
had been thinking much the same thing, though her sullen funk had seemed too
wide to broach. Now Ling met his eyes frankly, as if anxious to make up for
lost time. "I'd
say a collision's already happened," he commented. Her
lips pressed a thin line. She nodded. "True.
But it's wrong to blame your entire Commons for the deeds of a minority, acting
without authority or-" He
barked a bitter laugh. "Even when you're trying to be sincere, you still
condescend, Ling." She
stared for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Your sages effectively
sanctioned the zealots' attack, post facto, by keeping us prisoner and
threatening blackmail. It's fair to say that we're already-" "At
war. True, dear ex-employer. But you leave out our own casus belli." Lark
knew the grammar must be wrong, but he liked showing that even a savage could
also drop a Latin phrase. "We're fighting for our lives. And now we know
genocide was the Rothen aim from the start." Ling
glanced past him to where a g'Kek doctor drew increasing amounts of nauseating
fluid from the air vents of a qheuen, squatting unconscious at the back of the
shelter. She had worked alongside Uthen for months, evaluating local species
for possible uplift. The gray's illness was no abstraction. "Believe
me, Lark. I know nothing of this disease. Nor the trick Ro-kenn allegedly
pulled, trying to broadcast psi influentials via your Egg." "Allegedly?
You suggest we might have the technology to pull off something like that, as a
frame-up?" Ling
sighed, "I don't dismiss the idea entirely. From the start you Jijoans
played on our preconceptions. Our willingness to see you as ignorant
barbarians. It took weeks to learn that you were still literate! Only lately
did we realize you must have hundreds of books, maybe thousands!" An
ironic smile crossed his face, before Lark realized how much the expression
revealed. "More
than that? A lot more?" Ling stared. "But where? By Von Daniken's beard-how?" Lark
put aside his meal, mostly uneaten. He reached over to his backpack and drew
forth a thick volume bound in leather. "I can't count how many times I
wanted to show you this. Now I guess it doesn't matter anymore." In a
gesture Lark appreciated, Ling wiped her hands before accepting the book,
turning the pages with deliberate care. What seemed reverence at first, Lark
soon realized was inexperience. Ling had little practice holding paper books. Probably
never saw one before, outside a museum. Rows of small type were punctuated by
lithographed illustrations. Ling exclaimed over the flat, unmoving images. Many
of the species shown had passed through the Danik research pavilion during the
months she and Lark worked side by side, seeking animals with the special
traits her Rothen masters desired. "How
old is this text? Did you find it here, among all these remnants?" Ling
motioned toward a stack of artifacts preserved by the mule spider, relics of
the long-departed Buyur, sealed in amber cocoons. Lark
groaned. "You're still doing it, Ling. For Ifni's sake! The book is written in Anglic." She
nodded vigorously. "Of course. You're right. But then who-" Lark
reached over and flipped the volume to its title page. fl
PHVLOGENEIIC INTERDEPENDENCE PROFILE OF ECOLOGICRL SYSTEMS ON THE JIJO lN SLOPE "This
is part one. Part two is still mostly notes. I doubt we'd have lived long
enough to finish volume three, so we left the deserts, seas, and tundras for
someone else to take on." Ling
gaped at the sheet of linen paper, stroking two lines of smaller print, below
the title. She looked at him, then over toward the dying qheuen. "That's
right," he said. "You're living in the same tent with both authors.
And since I'm presenting you with this copy, you have a rare opportunity. Care
to have both of us autograph it? I expect you're the last person who'll get the
chance." His
bitter sarcasm was wasted. Clearly she didn't understand the word autograph.
Anyway, Ling the biologist had replaced the patronizing alien invader. Turning
pages, she murmured over each chapter she skimmed. "This
would have been incredibly useful during our survey!" "That's
why I never showed it to you." Ling
answered with a curt nod. Given their disagreement over the rightness of gene
raiding, his attitude was understandable. Finally,
she closed the volume, stroking'the cover. "I am honored by this gift.
This accomplishment. I find I cannot grasp what it must have taken to create
it, under these conditions, just the two of you. ..." "With
the help of others, and standing on the shoulders of those who came before.
It's how science works. Each generation's supposed to get better, adding to
what earlier ones knew. . . ." His
voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying. Progress?
But that's Sara's apostasy, not mine! Anyway,
why am I so bitter? So what if alien diseases wipe out every sapient being on
Jijo? Weren't you willing to see that as a blessing, a while ago? Didn't it
seem an ideal way to swiftly end our illegal colony? A harmful invasion that
should never have existed in the first place? Over
the course of Uthen's illness, Lark came to realize something-that death can
sometimes seem desirable in abstract, but look quite different when it's in
your path, up close and personal. If
Harullen the Heretic had lived, that purist might have helped Lark cling to his
belief in Galactic law, which for good reason forbade settlements on fallow
worlds. It was our goal to atone for our ancestors' egotistical sin. To help
rid Jijo of the infestation. But
Harullen was gone, sliced to bits by a Rothen robot, and now Lark grappled with
doubts. I'd
rather Sara were right. If only I could see nobility here. Something worth
enduring. Worth fighting for. I don't
really want to die. Ling
pored through the guidebook again. Better than most, she could appreciate the
work he and Uthen spent their adult lives creating. Her professional esteem
helped bridge the chasm of their personalities. "I
wish I had something of equal value to give you," she said, meeting his
eyes again. Lark
pondered. "You
really mean that?" "Of
course I do." "All
right then, wait here. I'll be right back." At the
rear of the shelter, the g'Kek physician indicated with twined eyestalks that
Uthen's condition was unvaried. Good news, since each change till now had been
for the worse. Lark stroked his friend's chitin carapace, wishing he could
impart comfort through the gray's stupor. "Is
it my fault you caught this bug, old friend? I made you go with me into the
station wreckage, rummaging for alien secrets." He sighed. "I can't
make up for that. But what's in your bag may help others." He
lifted Uthen's private satchel and took it back to Ling. Reaching inside, he felt several slablike
objects, cool to the touch. "Earlier,
we found something that you might help me learn to read. If you meant your
promise." He put
one of the flat lozenges in her hand-pale brown and smooth as glass, with a
spiral shape etched on each face. Ling
stared at it for several duras. When she looked up, there was something new in
her countenance. Was it respect for the way he had cornered, her? Trapping her
with the one other trait they shared-a compelling sense of honor? For the
first time since they met, Ling's eyes seemed to concede that she was dealing
with an equal. ASX CALM
DOWN, MY RINGS. NO ONE CAN FORCE YOU to stroke wax against your will. As
traeki we are each of us sovereign, free not to recall intolerable memories
before we are ready. Let the
wax cool a little longer-a majority of rings demands-before we dare look again. Let the
most recent terror wait. But our
second cognition ring demurs. It insists-we/i should delay no longer
confronting the dread news about Jophur, our terrible cousins, arriving on
Jijo. Our
second ring of cognition reminds us of the Quandary of Solipsism-the riddle
that provoked our traeki founders to flee the Five Galaxies. Solipsism.
The myth of the all-important self. Most
mortal sapient beings hold this conceit, at one level or another. An individual
can perceive others by sight, touch, and empathy, yet still reckon them as mere
figments or automatons. Caricatures, of little importance. Under
solipsism, the world exists for each solitary individualist. Examined
dispassionately, it seems an insane concept. Especially to a traeki, since none
of us can thrive or think alone. Yet egotism can also be useful to ambitious
creatures, driving their single-minded pursuit of success. Madness
seems essential in order to be "great." Terran
sages knew this paradox from their long isolation. Ignorant and lonely, humans
wallowed in one bizarre superstition after another, frantically trying concepts
that no uplifted species would consider for even a dura. According to wolfling
tales, humans wrestled endlessly with their own overpowering egos. Some
tried suppressing selfness, seeking detachment. Others subsumed personal ambition in favor of a greater
whole-family, religion, or a leader. Later
they passed through a phase in which individualism was extolled as the highest
virtue, teaching their young to inflate the ego beyond all natural limits or
restraint. Works from this mad era of the self are found in the Biblos Archive,
with righteous, preening rage flowing across every page. Finally,
just before contact, there emerged another approach. Some of
their texts use the word maturity. We
traeki-newly uplifted from the pensive swamps of our homeworld-seemed safe from
achieving greatness, no matter how many skills our patrons, the blessed Poa,
inserted in our rings. Oh, we found it pleasant to merge in tall, wise stacks.
To gather learned wax and travel the stars. But to our patrons' frustration, we
never found appealing the fractious rivalries that churn the Five Galaxies.
Frantic aspiration and zeal always seemed pointless to our kind. Then
the Poa brought in experts. The Oailie. The Oailie pitied our handicap. With
great skill, they gave us tools for achievement. For greatness. The Oailie gave
us new rings- Rings of power. Rings of self-centered glory. Rings that turned
mere traeki into Jophur. Too late, we and the Poa learned a lesson-that
ambition comes at a cost. We
fled, did we not, my rings? By a
fluke, some traeki managed to shuck these Oailie "gifts," and escape. Only a
few wax-crystal remembrance cells survive from those days. Memories laced with
dread of what we were becoming. At the
time, our ancestors saw no choice but flight. And yet
... a pang of conscience trickles through our inner core. Might
there have been another way? Might
we have stayed and fought somehow to tame those awesome new rings? Futile as
our forebears' exodus now seems . . . was it also wrong' Since
joining the High Sages, this traeki Asx has pored over Terran books, studying
their lonely, epochal struggle-a poignant campaign to control their own deeply
solipsistic natures. A labor still under way when they emerged from Earth's
cradle to make contact with Galactic civilization. The
results of that Asx investigation remain inconclusive, yet i/we found
tantalizing clues. The
fundamental ingredient, it seems, is courage. Yes, my
rings? Very
well then. A majority has been persuaded by the second ring of cognition. We/i
shall once again turn to the hot-new-dreadful waxy trail of recent memory. Glistening
cones stared down at the confused onlookers who remained, milling on the
despoiled glade. From a balcony high a-flank the mountain ship, polished stacks
of fatty rings dripped luxuriously as they regarded teeming savages below-we
enthralled members of six exile races. Shifting
colors play across their plump toruses-shades of rapid disputation. Even at a
great distance, i/we sense controversy raging among the mighty Jophur, as they
quarrel among themselves. Debating our fate. Events
interrupt, even as our dribbling thought-streams converge. Near. At last
we have come very near the recent. The present. Can you
sense it, my rings? The moment when our dreadful cousins finished arguing what
to do about us? Amid the flashing rancor of their debate, there suddenly
appeared forceful decisiveness. Those in command-powerful ring stacks whose
authority is paramount-made their decree with stunning confidence. Such
assuredness! Such certainty! It washed over us, even from six arrowflights
away. Then
something else poured from the mighty dreadnought. Hatchet
blades of infernal light. Emerson HE HAS
NEVER BEEN ESPECIALLY FOND OF HOLES. This one both frightens and intrigues
Emerson. It is a strange journey, riding a wooden wagon behind a four-horse
team, creaking along a conduit with dimpled walls, like some endless stretched
intestine. The only illumination-a faintly glowing stripe-points straight ahead
and behind, toward opposite horizons. The
duality feels like a sermon. After departing the hidden forest entrance, time
became vague-the past blurry and the future obscure. Much like his life has
been ever since regaining consciousness on this savage world, with a cavity in
his head and a million dark spaces where memory should be. Emerson
can feel this place tugging associations deep within his battered skull.
Correlations that scratch and howl beyond the barriers of his amnesia. Dire
recollections lurk just out of reach. Alarming memories of abject, gibbering
terror, that snap. and sting whenever he seeks to retrieve them. Almost
as if, somehow, they were being guarded. Strangely,
this does not deter him from prodding at the barricades. He has spent much too
long in the company of pain to hold it in awe any longer. Familiar with its
quirks and ways, Emerson figures he now knows pain as well as he knows himself. Better,
in fact. Like a
quarry who turns at bay after growing bored with running-and then begins
hunting its pursuer-Emerson eagerly stalks the fear scent, following it to its
source. The
feeling is not shared. Though the draft beasts pant and their hooves clatter,
all echoes feel muffled, almost deathlike. His fellow travelers react by
hunching nervously on the narrow bench seats, their breath misting the chill
air. Kurt
the Exploser seems a little less surprised by all this than Sara or Dedinger,
as if the old man long suspected the existence of a subterranean path. Yet, his
white-rimmed eyes keep darting, as if to catch dreaded movement in the surrounding
shadows. Even their guides, the taciturn women riders, appear uneasy. They must
have come this way before, yet Emerson can tell they dislike the tunnel. Tunnel. He
mouths the word, adding it proudly to his list of recovered nouns. Tunnel. Once
upon a time, the term meant more than a mere hole in the ground, when his job
was fine-tuning mighty engines that roamed the speckled black of space. Back
then it stood for ... No more
words come to mind. Even images fail him, though oddly enough, equations stream
from some portion of his brain less damaged than the speech center. Equations
that explain tunnels, in a chaste, sterile way-the sort of multidimensional
tubes that thread past treacherous shoals of hyperspace. Alas, to his
disappointment, the formulas lack any power to yank memories to life. They do
not carry the telltale spoor of fear. Also
undamaged is his unfailing sense of direction. Emerson knows when the
smooth-walled passage must be passing under the broad river, but no seepage is
seen. The tunnel is a solid piece of Galactic workmanship, built to last for
centuries or eons-until the assigned time for dismantling. That
time came to this world long ago. This place should have vanished along with
all the great cities, back when Jijo was lain fallow. By some oversight, it was
missed by the great destroyer machines and living acid lakes. Now
desperate fugitives use the ancient causeway to evade a hostile sky, suddenly
filled with ships. While
still vague on details, Emerson knows he has been fleeing starships for a very
long time, along with Gillian, Hannes, Tsh 't, and the crew of Streaker. Faces
flicker, accompanying each name as recall agony makes him grunt and squeeze his
eyelids. Faces Emerson pines for . . . and desperately hopes never to see
again. He knows he must have been
sacrificed somehow, to help the others get away. Did the
plan succeed? Did Streaker escape ahead of those awful dreadnoughts? Or has he
suffered all of this for nothing? His
companions breathe heavily and perspire. They seem taxed by the stale air, but
to Emerson it is just another kind of atmosphere. He has inhaled many types
over the years. At least this stuff
nourishes the lungs . . . . . . unlike the wind back on the green-green world,
where a balmy day could kill you if your helmet failed. ... And his
helmet did fail, he now recalls, at the worst possible time, while trying to
cross a mat of sucking demiveg, running frantically toward- Sara
and Prity gasp aloud, snapping his mental thread, making him look up to see
what changed. At a
brisk pace the wagon enters a sudden widening of the tunnel, like the bulge
where a snake digests its meal. Dimpled walls recede amid deep shadows, where
dozens of large objects dimly lurk-tubelike vehicles, corroded by time. Some
have been crushed by rock falls. Piles of stony debris block other exits from
the underground vault. Emerson
lifts a hand to stroke a filmy creature riding his forehead, as lightly as a
scarf or veil. The rewq trembles at his touch, swarming down to lay its filmy,
translucent membrane over his eyes. Some colors dim, while others intensify.
The ancient transit cars seem to shimmer like specters, as if he is looking at
them not through space, but time. It is almost possible to imagine them in
motion, filled with vital energies, hurtling through a network that once
girdled a living, global civilization. The
horsewomen sitting on the foremost bench clutch their reins and peer straight
ahead, enclosed by a nimbus of tension made visible by the rewq. The film shows
Emerson their edgy, superstitious awe. To them, this is no harmless crypt for
dusty relics, but a macabre place where phantoms prowl. Ghosts from an age of
gods. The
creature on his brow intrigues Emerson. How does the little parasite translate
emotions-even between beings as different as human and traeki-and all without
words? Anyone who brought such a treasure to Earth would be richly rewarded. To his
right, he observes Sara comforting her chimpanzee aide, holding Prity in her
arms. The little ape cringes from the dark; echoless cavern, but the rewq's
overlaid colors betray a fringe of deceit in Prity's distress. It is partly an
act! A way to distract her mistress, diverting Sara from her own claustrophobic
fears. Emerson
smiles knowingly. The hues surrounding Sara reveal what the unaided eye already
knows-that the young woman thrives on being needed. "It's all right,
Prity," she soothes. "Shh. It'll be all right." The phrases are
so simple, so familiar that Emerson understands them. He used to hear the same
words while thrashing in his delirium, during those murky days after the crash,
when Sara's tender care helped pull him back from that pit of dark fire. The
vast chamber stretches on, with just the glowing stripe to keep them from
drifting off course. Emerson glances back to see young Jomah, seated on the
last bench with his cap a twisted mass between his hands, while his uncle Kurt
tries to explain something in hushed tones, motioning at the distant ceiling
and walls-perhaps speculating what held them up ... or what explosive force it
would take to bring them crashing down. Nearby, with fastened hands and feet,
the rebel, Dedinger, projects pure hatred of this place. Emerson
snorts annoyance with his companions. What a gloomy bunch! He has been in spots
infinitely more disturbing than this harmless tomb . . . some of them he can
even remember! If there is one sure truth he can recall from his former life,
it is that a cheerful journey goes much faster, whether you are in deep space
or the threshold of hell. From a
bag at his feet, he pulls out the midget dulcimer Ariana Foo had given him back
at the Biblos Archive, that ornate hall of endless corridors stacked high with
paper books. Not bothering with the hammers, he lays the instrument on his lap
and plucks a few strings. Twanging notes jar the others from their anxious
mutterings to look his way. Though
Emerson's ravaged brain lacks speech, he has learned ways to nudge and cajole.
Music comes from a different place than speech, as does song. Free
association sifts the shadowy files of memory. Early drawers and closets,
undammed by the traumas of later life. From some cache he finds a tune about
travel down another narrow road. One with a prospect of hope at the end of the
line. It
spills forth without volition, as a whole, flowing to a voice that's
unpracticed, but strong. "I've
got a mule, her name is Sal, Fifteen
miles down the Erie Canal. She's a
good old worker and a good old pal, Fifteen
miles down the Erie Canal. We've
hauled some cargo in our day, Filled
with lumber, coal, and hay, And we
know every inch of the way, From
Albany to Buffalo-o-o. ..." Amid
the shadows, they are not easily coaxed from their worries. He too can feel the
weight of rock above, and so many years. But Emerson refuses to be oppressed.
He sings louder, and soon Jomah's voice joins the refrain, followed tentatively
by Sara's. The horses' ears flick. They nicker, speeding to a canter. The
subterranean switching yard narrows again, walls converging with a rush. Ahead,
the glowing line plunges into a resuming tunnel. Emerson's
voice briefly falters as a flicker of memory intrudes. Suddenly he can recall
another abrupt plunge . . . diving through a portal that opened into jet vacuum
blankness . . . then falling as the universe converged on him from all sides to
squeeze. . . . And
something else. A row
of pale blue eyes. Old
Ones . . . But the
song has a life of its own. Its momentum pours unstoppably from some cheerful
corner of his mind, overcoming those brief, awful images, making him call out
the next verse with a vigor of hoarse, throaty defiance. "Low
bridge, everybody down! Low
bridge! 'Cause we're comin' to a town. And you
I'll always know your neighbor, Always
know your pal, If you
ever navigate along the Erie Canal." His
companions lean away from the rushing walls. Their shoulders press together as
the hole sweeps up to swallow them again. PART
THREE ONCE A LENGTHY
EPISODE of colonization finally comes to an end, subduction recycling Is among
the more commonly used methods for clearing waste products on a llle
world. Where natural cycles of plate
tectonics provide a powerful indrawing force, the planets own hot convection
processes can melt and remix elements that had been rationed into tools and
civilised implements. materials that might otherwise prove poisonous or
intrusive to new-rising species are thus removed from the (allow environment,
as a world eases into the necessary dormant phase. What
happens to these refined materials, alter they have been drawn in, depends on
mantle processes peculiar to each planet. Certain convection systems turn the
molten substance into high-purity ores. borne become lubricated by water seeps,
stimulating the release or great liquid magma spills, ,et another result can be
sudden expulsions of volcanic dust, which richly coat the planet and can later
be traced in the refractory-metal enrichment of thin sedimentary layers. Each of
these outcomes can result in perturbations of the local biosphere, and
occasional episodes of extinction. However, the resulting enrichment fccunJity
usually proves benehcial enough to compensate, encouraging development of new
presapient species. . . .from A. Oalactograpfuc Tutorial for Ignorant Voiding
Tsrrans, a. special publication of the Library Institute of the Five Galaxies,
year 42 EC, in partial satisfaction of the debt obligation of 35 t,C Hannes SUESSI
FELT NOSTALGIC ABOUT BEING HUMAN. NOW and then, he even wished he were still a
man. Not that he was ungrateful for the hoon the Old Ones had granted him, in
that strange place called the Fractal System, where aloof beings transformed
his aged, failing body into something more durable. Without their gift, he
would be stone dead-as cold as the giant corpses surrounding him in this dark
ossuary of ships. The
ancient vessels seemed peaceful, in dignified repose. It was tempting to
contemplate resting, letting eons pass without further care or strife. But
Suessi was much too busy to spare time for being dead. "Hannes,"
a voice crackled directly to his auditory nerve. "Two
minutes, Hannes. Then I think-k we'll be ready to resume cut-t-ting." Shafts
of brilliant illumination speared through the watery blackness, casting bright
ovals toward one curved hull segment of the Terran starship Streaker. Distorted
silhouettes crisscrossed the spotlight beams-the long undulating shadows of
workers clad in pressurized armor, their movements slow, cautious. This
was a more dangerous realm than hard vacuum. Suessi
did not have a larynx anymore, or lungs to blow air past one if he had. Yet he
retained a voice. "Standing
by, Karkaett," he transmitted, then listened as his words were rendered
into groaning saser pulses. "Please
keep the alignment steady. Don't overshoot." One
shadow among many turned toward him. Though cased in hard sheathing, the
dolphin's tail performed a twist turn with clear body-language meaning. Trust me
. . . do you have any choice? Suessi
laughed-a shuddering of his titanium rib cage that replaced the old, ape-style
method of syncopated gasps. It wasn't as satisfying, but then, the Old Ones did
not seem to have much use for laughter. Karkaett
guided his team through final preparations while Suessi monitored. Unlike some
others in Streaker's crew, the engineering staff had grown more seasoned and
confident with each passing year. In time, they might no longer need the
encouragement-the supervising crutch- of a member of the patron race. When that
day came, Hannes would be content to die. I've
seen too much. Lost too many friends. Someday, we'll be captured by one of the
eatee factions pursuing us. Or else, we'll finally get a chance to turn ourselves
in to some great Institute, only to learn Earth was lost while we fled
helter-skelter across the universe. Either way, I don't want to be around to
see it. The Old
Ones can keep their Ifni-cursed, immortality. Suessi
admired the way his well-trained team worked, setting up a specially designed
cutting machine with cautious deliberation. His audio pickups tracked low
mutterings-keeneenk chants, designed to help cetacean minds concentrate on
explicit thoughts and tasks that their ancestral brains were never meant to
take on. Engineering thoughts-the kind that some dolphin philosophers called
the most painful price of uplift. These
surroundings did not help-a mountainous graveyard of long-dead starcraft, a
ghostly clutter, buried in the kind of ocean chasm that dolphins traditionally
associated with their most cryptic cults and mysteries. The dense water seemed
to amplify each rattle of a tool. Every whir of a harness arm resonated queerly
in the dense liquid environment. Anglic
might be the language of engineers, but dolphins preferred Trinary for
punctuation-for moments of resolution and action. Karkaett's voice conveyed
confidence in a burst phrase of cetacean haiku. *
Through total darkness * Where
the cycloid's gyre comes never . . . * Behold-decisiveness!
f The
cutting tool lashed out, playing harsh fire toward the vessel that was their
home and refuge . . . that had carried them through terrors unimaginable.
Streaker's hull- purchased by the Terragens Council from a third-hand ship dealer
and converted for survey work-had been the pride of impoverished Earthclan, the
first craft to set forth with a dolphin captain and mostly cetacean crew, on a
mission to check the veracity of the billion-year-old Great Library of the
Civilization of the Five Galaxies. Now the
captain was gone, along with a quarter of the crew. Their mission had turned
into a calamity for both Earthclan and the Five Galaxies. As for Streaker's
hull- once so shiny, despite her age-it now lay coated by a mantle of material
so black the abyssal waters seemed clear by comparison. A substance that drank
photons and weighed the ship down. Oh, the
things we've put you through, dear thing.
This was but the latest trial for their poor ship. Once,
bizarre fields stroked her in a galactic tide pool called the Shallow Cluster,
where they "struck it rich" by happening upon a vast derelict fleet
containing mysteries untouched for a thousand eons. In other words, where
everything first started going wrong. Savage
beams rocked her at the Morgran nexus point, where a deadly surprise ambush,
barely failed to snare Streaker and her unsuspecting crew. Making
repairs on poisonous Kithrup, they ducked out almost too late, escaping mobs of
bickering warships only by disguising Streaker inside a hollowed-out Thennanin
cruiser, making it to a transfer point, though at the cost of abandoning many
friends. Oakka,
the green world, seemed an ideal goal after that-a sector headquarters for the
Institute of Navigation. Who was better qualified to take over custody of their
data? As Gillian Baskin explained at the time, it was their duty as Galactic
citizens to turn the problem over to the great institutes-those august agencies
whose impartial lords might take the awful burden away from Streaker's tired
crew. It seemed logical enough-and nearly spelled their doom. Betrayal by
agents of that "neutral" agency showed how far civilization had
fallen in turmoil. Gillian's hunch saved the Earthling company-that and a
daring cross-country raid by Emerson D'Anite, taking the conspirators' base
from behind. Again,
Streaker emerged chastened and worse for wear. There
was refuge for a while in the Fractal System, that vast maze where ancient
beings gave them shelter. But eventually that only led to more betrayal, more
lost friends, and a flight taking them ever farther from home. Finally,
when further escape seemed impossible, Gillian found a clue in the Library unit
they had captured on Kithrup. A syndrome called the "Sooner's Path."
Following that hint, she plotted a dangerous road that might lead to safety,
though it meant passing through the licking flames of a giant star, bigger than
Earth's orbit, whose soot coated Streaker in layers almost too heavy to lift. But she
made it to Jijo. This
world looked lovely, from orbit. Too bad we had only that one glimpse, before
plunging to an abyssal graveyard of ships. Under
sonar guidance by dolphin technicians, their improvised cutter attacked
Streaker's hull. Water boiled into steam so violently that booming echoes
filled this cave within a metal mountain. There were dangers to releasing so
much energy in a confined space. Separated gases might recombine explosively.
Or it could make their sanctuary detectable from space. Some suggested the risk
was too great . . . that it would be better to abandon St reaker and instead
try reactivating one of the ancient hulks surrounding them as a replacement. There
were teams investigating that possibility right now. But Gillian and Tsh't
decided to try this instead, asking Suessi's crew to pull off one more
resurrection. The
choice gladdened Hannes. He had poured too much into Streaker to give up now.
There may be more of me in her battered shell than remains in this cyborg body. Averting
his sensors from the cutter's actinic glow, he mused on the mound of cast-off
ships surrounding this makeshift cavern. They seemed to speak to him, if only
in his imagination. We,
too, have stories, they said. Each of us was launched with pride, flown with
hope, rebuilt many times with skill, venerated by those we protected from the
sleeting desolation of space, long before your own race began dreaming of the
stars. Suessi
smiled. All that might have impressed him once- the idea of vessels millions of
years old. But now he knew a truth about these ancient hulks. You
want old? he thought. I've seen old. I've
seen ships that make most stars seem young. The
cutter produced immense quantities of bubbles. It screeched, firing ionized
bolts against the black layer, just centimeters away. But when they turned it
off at last, the results of all that eager destructive force were
disappointing. "That-t's
all we removed?" Karkaett asked, incredulously, staring at a small patch
of eroded carbon. "It'll take years to cut it all away, at-t this
rate!" The
engineer's mate, Chuchki, so bulky she nearly burst from her exo-suit,
commented in awed Trinary. *
Mysteries cluster *
Frantic, in Ifni's shadow-^ * Where
did the energy go! * Suessi
wished he still had a head to shake, or shoulders to shrug. He made do instead
by emitting a warbling sigh into the black water, like a beached pilot whale. * Not
by Ifni's name, * But
her creative employer- *I wish
to God I.knew. * Gillian IT
ISN'T EASY FOR A HUMAN BEING TO PRETEND she's an alien. Especially
if the alien is a Thennanin. Shrouds
of deceitful color surrounded Gillian, putting ersatz flesh around the lie,
providing her with an appearance of leathery skin and a squat bipedal stance.
On her head, a simulated crest rippled and flexed each time she nodded. Anyone
standing more than two meters away would see a sturdy male warrior with armored
derma and medallions from a hundred stellar campaigns-not a slim blond woman
with fatigue-lined eyes, a physician forced by circumstances to command a
little ship at war. The
disguise was pretty good by now. It ought to be. She had been perfecting it for
well over a year. "Gr-phmph
pitith," Gillian murmured. When
she first started pulling these charades, the Niss Machine used to translate
her Anglic questions into Thennanin. But now Gillian figured she was probably
as fluent in that Galactic dialect as any human alive. Probably even Tom. It
still sounds weird though. Kind of like a toddler making disgusting fart
imitations for the fun of it. At
times, the hardest part was struggling not to break out laughing. That would
not do, of course. Thennanin weren't noted for their sense of humor. She
continued the ritual greeting. "Fhishmishingul
parfful, mph!" Chill
haze pervaded the dim chamber, emanating from a sunken area where a
beige-colored cube squatted, creating its own wan illumination. Gillian could
not help thinking of it as a magical box-a receptacle folded in many
dimensions, containing far more than any vessel its size should rightfully
hold. She
stood at a lipless balcony, masked to resemble the former owners of the box,
awaiting a reply. The barredspiral symbol on its face seemed slippery to the
eye, as if the emblem were slyly looking back at her with a soul far older than
her own. "Toftorph-ph
parffuL Fhishfingtumpti parfffui" The
voice was deeply resonant. If she had been a real Thennanin, those undertones
would have stroked her ridge crest, provoking respectful attentiveness. Back
home, the Branch Library of Earth spoke like a kindly human grandmother,
infinitely experienced, patient, and wise. "I
am prepared to witness," murmured a button in her ear, rendering the
machine's words in Anglic. "Then I will be available for
consultation." That
was the perpetual trade-off. Gillian could not simply demand information from
the archive. She had to give as well. Normally,
that would pose no problem. Any Library unit assigned to a major ship of space
was provided camera views of the control room and the vessel's exterior, in
order to keep a WOM record for posterity. In return, the archive offered rapid
access to wisdom spanning almost two billion years of civilization, condensed
from planet scale archives of the Library Institute of the Civilization of Five
Galaxies. Only
there's a rub, Gillian thought. Streaker
was not a "major ship of space." Her own WOM units were solid, cheap,
unresponsive-the only kind that impoverished Earth could afford. This lavish
cube was a far greater treasure, salvaged on Kithrup from a mighty war cruiser
of a rich starfaring clan. She
wanted the cube to continue thinking it was on that cruiser, serving a
Thennanin admiral. Hence this disguise. "Your
direct watcher pickups are still disabled," she explained, using the same
dialect. "However, I have brought more recent images, taken by portable
recording devices. Please
accept-and-receive this data now." She
signaled the Niss Machine, her clever robotic assistant in the next room. At
once there appeared next to the cube a series of vivid scenes. Pictures of the
suboceanic trench that local Jijoans called the "Midden"-carefully
edited to leave out certain things. We're
playing a dangerous game, she thought, as flickering holosims showed huge
mounds of ancient debris, discarded cities, and abandoned spacecraft. The idea
was to pretend that the Thennanin dreadnought Krondor's Fire was hiding for
tactical reasons in this realm of dead machines . . . and to do this •without
showing Streaker's own slender hull, or any sign of dolphins, or even revealing
the specific name and locale of this planet. If we
make it home, or to a neutral Institute base, we'll be legally bound to hand
over this unit. Even under anonymous seal, it would be safest for it to know as
little as we can get away with telling. Anyway,
the Library might not prove as cooperative to mere Earthlings. Better to keep
it thinking it was dealing with its official lease-holders. Ever
since the disaster at Oakka, Gillian had made this her chief personal project,
pulling off a hoax in order to pry data out of their prize. In many ways, the
Library cube was more valuable than the relics Streaker had snatched from the
Shallow Cluster. In
fact, the subterfuge had worked better than expected. Some of the information won so far might prove critically useful
to the Terragens Council. Assuming
we ever make it home again . . . Ever
since Kithrup, when Streaker lost the best and brightest of her crew, that had
always seemed a long shot, at best. In one
particular area of technology, twenty-second-century humans had already nearly
equaled Galactic skill levels, even before contact. Holographic
imagery. Special-effects
wizards from Hollywood, Luanda, and Aristarchus were among the first to dive
confidently into alien arts, undismayed by anything as trivial as a billionyear
head start. Within mere decades Earthlings could say they had mastered a single
narrow field as well as the best starfaring clans- Virtuosity
at lying with pictures. For
thousands of years, when we weren't scratching for food we were telling each
other fables. Prevaricating. Propagandizing. Casting illusions. Making movies. Lacking
science, our ancestors fell back on magic. The
persuasive telling of untruths. Still
it seemed a wonder to Gillian that her Thennanin disguise worked so well.
Clearly the "intelligence" of this unit, while awesome, was of a
completely different kind than hers, with its own limitations. Or else
maybe it simply doesn 't care. From
experience, Gillian knew the Library cube would accept almost anything as
input, as long as the show consisted of credible scenes it had never witnessed
before. So Jijo's abyss flashed before it-this time the panoramas came over
fiber cable from the western sea, sent by Kaa's team of explorers, near the
settled region called the Slope. Ancient buildings gaped-drowned, eyeless, and
windowless-under the scrutiny of probing searchlight beams. If anything, this
waste field was even greater than the one where Streaker took refuge. The
accumulated mass of made-things collected by a planetary culture for a million
years. Finally,
the cascade of images ceased. There
followed a brief pause while Gillian waited edgily. Then the beige box commented. "The
event stream remains disjointed from previous ones. Occurrences do not'take
place in causal-temporal order related to inertial movements of this vessel. Is
this effect a result of the aforementioned battle damage?" Gillian
had heard the same complaint-the very same words, in fact-ever since she began
this ruse, shortly after Tom brought the'captured prize aboard Streaker . . .
only days before he flew away to vanish from her life. In
response, she gave the same bluff as always. "That
is correct. Until repairs are completed, penalties for any discrepancies may be
assessed to the Krondor's Fire mission account. Now please prepare for
consultation." This
time there was no delay. "Proceed
with your request," Using a
transmitter in her left hand, Gillian signaled to the Niss Machine, waiting in
another room. The Tymbrimi spy entity at once began sending data requisitions,
a rush of flickering light that no organic being could hope to follow. Soon the
info flow went bidirectional-a torrential response that forced Gillian to avert
her eyes. Perhaps, amid that flood, there might be some data helpful to
Streaker's crew, increasing their chances of survival. Gillian's
heart beat faster. This moment had its own dangers. If a starship happened to
be scanning nearby-perhaps one of Streaker's pursuers-onboard cognizance
detectors might pick up a high level of digital activity in this area. But
Jijo's ocean provided a lot of cover, as did the surrounding mountain of
discarded starships. Anyway, the risk seemed worthwhile. If only
so much of the information offered by the cube weren't confusing! A lot of it
was clearly meant for starfarers with far more experience and sophistication
than the Streaker crew. Worse,
we're running out of interesting things to show the Library. Without fresh
input, it might withdraw. Refuse to cooperate at all. That
was one reason she decided yesterday to let the four native kids come into this
misty chamber and visit the archive. Since Alvin and his friends didn't yet
know they were aboard an Earthling vessel, there wasn't much they could give
away, and the effect on the Library unit might prove worthwhile. Sure
enough, the cube seemed bemused by the unique sight of an urs and hoon, standing
amicably together. And the existence of a living g'Kek was enough, all by
itself, to satisfy the archive's passive curiosity. Soon afterward, it
willingly unleashed a flood of requested information about the varied types of
discarded spaceships surrounding Streaker in this underwater trash heap,
including parameters used by ancient Buyur control panels. That
was helpful. But we need more. A lot more. I guess
it won't be long until I'm forced to pay with real secrets, Gillian
had some good ones she could use ... if she dared. In her office, just a few
doors down, lay a mummified cadaver well over a billion years old. Herbie. To get
hold of that relic-and the coordinates where it came from-most of the fanatic,
pseudo-religious alliances in the Five Galaxies had been hunting Streaker since
before Kithrup. Pondering
the chill beige cube, she thought- I'll
bet if I showed you one glimpse of of' Herb, you 'd have a seizure and spill
every datum you've got stored inside. Funny
thing is . . . nothing would make me happier in all the universe than if we'd
never seen the damned thing. As a
girl, Gillian had dreamed of star travel, and someday doing bold, memorable
things. Together, she and Tom had planned their careers-and marriage-with a single
goal in mind. To put themselves at the very edge, standing between Earth and
the enigmas of a dangerous cosmos. Recalling
that naive ambition, and how extravagantly it was fulfilled, Gillian very
nearly laughed aloud. But with pressed lips she managed to keep the bitter,
poignant irony bottled inside, without uttering a sound. For the
time being, she must maintain the dignified presence of a Thennanin admiral. Thennanin
did not appreciate irony. And they never Sooners
ASX YOU MIGHT
AS WELL GET USED TO IT, MY RINGS. The piercing sensations you feel are My
fibrils of control, creeping down our shared inner core, bypassing the slow,
old-fashioned, waxy trails, attaching and penetrating your many toroid bodies,
bringing them into new order. Now
begins the lesson, when I teach you to be docile servants of something greater
than yourselves. No longer a stack of ill-wed components, always quarreling,
paralyzed with indecision. No more endless voting over what beliefs shall be
held by a fragile, tentative ('. That
was the way of our crude ancestor stacks, meditating loose, confederated
thoughts in the odor-rich marshes of Jophekka World. Overlooked by other star
clans, we seemed unpromising material for uplift. But the great, sluglike Poa
saw potential in our pensive precursors, and began upraising those unlikely
mounds. Alas,
after a million years, the Poa grew frustrated with our languid traeki natures. "Design
new rings for our clients," they beseeched the clever Oailie, "to boost,
guide, and drive them onward." The
Oailie did not fail, so great was their mastery of genetic arts. WHAT
WAS THEIR TRANSFORMING GIFT? New,
ambitious rings. Master
rings. LIKE
ME. Will
they break their promise, once we've shared all we know? Maybe
they'll fake the answers. (How could we tell?) Or
perhaps they'll let us talk to the cube all we want, because they figure the
knowledge won't do us any good, since we're never going home again. On the
other hand, let's say it's all open and sincere. Say we do get a chance to pose
questions to the Library unit, that storehouse of wisdom collected by a
billion-year-old civilization. What on
Jijo could we possibly have to say? Alvin THIS IS
A TEST. I'M TRYING OUT A BURNISH-NEW WAY of writing. If you
call this "writing"-where I talk out loud and watch sentences appear
in midair above a little box I've been given. Oh,
it's uttergloss all right. Last night, Huck used her new autoscribe to fill a
room with words and glyphs in GalThree, GalEight, and every obscure dialect she
knew, ordering translations back and forth until it seemed she was crowded on
all sides by glowing symbols. Our
hosts gave us the machines to help tell our life stories, especially how the
Six Races live together on the Slope. In return, the spinning voice promised a
reward. Later,
we'll get to ask questions of the big chilly box. Huck
went delirious over the offer. Free access to a memory unit of the Great
Library of the Five Galaxies! Why, it's
like telling Cortes he could have a map to the Lost Cities of Gold, or when the
legendary hoonish hero Yuqwourphmin found a password to control the robot
factories of Kurturn. My own nicknamesake couldn't have felt more awe, not even
when the secrets of Vanamonde and the Mad Mind were revealed in all their
fearsome glory. Unlike
Huck, 'though, I view the prospect with dark worry. Like a detective in some
old-time Earth storybook, I gotta ask-where's the catch? I've
just spent a midura experimenting. Dictating text. Backing up and rewriting.
The autoscribe sure is a lot more flexible than scratching away with a pencil
and a ball of guarru gum for an eraser! Hand motions move chunks of text like
solid objects. I don't even have to speak aloud, but simply will the words,
like that little tickle when you mutter under your breath so's no one else can
hear. I know it's not true mind reading-the machine must be sensing muscle
changes in my throat or something. I read about such things in The Black Jack
Era and Luna City Hobo. But it's unnerving anyway. Like
when I asked to see the little machine's dictionary of Anglic synonyms! I
always figured I had a good vocabulary, from memorizing the town's copy of
Roget's Thesaurus'. But it turns out that volume left out most of the Hindi and
Arabic cognate grafts onto the English-Eurasian rootstock. This tiny box holds
enough words to keep Huck and me humble ... or me, at least. My pals
are in nearby rooms, reciting their own memoirs. I expect Huck will rattle off
something fast-paced, lurid, and carelessly brilliant to satisfy our hosts.
Ur-ronn will be meticulous and dry, while Pincer will get distracted telling
breathless stories about sea monsters. I have a head start because my journal
already holds the greater part of our personal story-how we four adventurers
got to this place of weirdly curved corridors, far beneath the waves. So I
have time to worry about why the phuvnthus want to know about us. It
could just be curiosity. On the other hand, what if something we say here
eventually winds up hurting our kinfolk, back on the Slope? I can hardly
picture how. I mean, it's not like we know any military secrets-except about
the urrish cache that Uriel the Smith sent us underwater to retrieve. But the
spinning voice already knows about that. In my
cheerier moments I envision the phuvnthus letting us take the treasure back,
taking us home to Wuphon in their metal whale, so we seem to rise from the dead
like the fabled crew of the Hukuph-tau . . . much to the surprise of Uriel,
Urdonnol, and our parents, who must have given us up for lost. Optimistic
fantasies alternate with other scenes I can't get out of my head, like
something that happened right after the whale sub snatched Wuphon's Dream out
of its death plunge. I have this hazy picture of bug-eyed spiderthings stomping
through the wreckage of our handmade vessel, jabbering weird ratchety speech,
then jumping back in mortal terror at the sight of Ziz, the harmless little
traeki five-stack given us by Tyug the Alchemist. Streams
of fire blasted poor Ziz to bits. You got
to wonder what anyone would go and do a mean thing like that for. effortless
and easily corrected. It encourages running off at the mouth, when good old
pencil and paper meant you had to actually think in advance what you were going
to sa- Wait a
minute. What was that? There
it goes again. A faint booming sound . . . only louder this time. Closer. I don't
think I like it. Not at all. Ifni!
This time it set the floor quivering. The
rumble reminds me of Guenn Volcano back home, belchin' and groanin', making
everybody in Wuphon wonder if it's the long-awaited Big 0-Jeekee sac-rot! No
fooling this time. Those
are explosions, getting close fast! Now
comes another noise, like a zookir screeching its head off 'cause it sat on a
quill lizard. Is that
the sound a siren makes? I always wondered- Gishtuphwayo!
Now the lights go dim. The floor jitters- What is
Ifni-slucking going on! Dwer I might
as well get to work. How to
begin my story? Call me
Alvin. ... No. Too
hackneyed. How about this opening? Alvin
Hph-wayuo woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant . . . Uh-uh.
That's hitting too close to home. Maybe I
should model my tale after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Here we are, castaways
being held as cordial prisoners in an underwater world. Despite being female,
Huck would insist she's the heroic Ned Land character. Ur-ronn would be
Professor Aronnax, of course, which leaves either Pincer OR me to be the comic
fall guy, Conseil. So when
are we going to .finally meet Afewo? Hmm.
That's a disadvantage of this kind of writing, so THE
VIEW FROM THE HIGHEST DUNE WASN'T Promising The Danik scout craft was at least
five or six leagues out to sea, a tiny dot, barely visible beyond a distinct
line where the water's hue changed from pale bluish green to almost black. The
flying machine cruised back and forth, as if searching for something it had
misplaced. Only rarely, when the wind shifted, did they catch the faint rumble
of its engines, but every forty or so duras Dwer glimpsed something specklike
tumble from the belly of the sleek boat, glinting in the morning sun before it
struck the sea. Ten more duras would pass after the object sank- then the
ocean's surface bulged with a hummock of roiling foam, as if an immense monster
suffered dying spasms far below. "What's
Kunn doing?" Dwer asked. He turned to Rety, who shaded her eyes to watch
the distant flier. "Do you have any idea?" The
girl started to shrug her shoulders, but yee, the little urrish male, sprawled
there, snaking his slender neck to aim all three eyes toward the south. The
robot rocked impatiently, bobbing up and down as if trying to signal the
distant flier with its body. "I
don't know, Dwer," Rety replied. "I reckon it has somethin' to do
with the bird." "Bird,"
he repeated blankly. "You
know. My metal bird. The one we saved from the mule spider." "
That bird?" Dwer nodded. "You were going to show it to the sages. How
did the aliens get their hands-" Rety
cut in. "The
Daniks wanted to know where it came from. So Kunn asked me to guide him here,
to pick up Jass, since he was the one who saw where the bird came to shore. I
never figured that'd mean leavin' me behind in the village. . . ." She bit
her lip. "Jass must've led Kunn here. Kunn said somethin' about 'flushin'
prey.' I guess he's tryin' to get more birds." "Or
else whoever made your bird, and sent it ashore." "Or
else that." She nodded, clearly uncomfortable. Dwer chose not to press for
details about her deal with the star humans. As
their journey south progressed, the number of marshy streams had multiplied,
forcing Dwer to "carry" the robot several more times before he finally
called a halt around dusk. There had been a brief confrontation when the combat
machine tried intimidating him to continue. But its god weapons had been
wrecked in the ambush at the sooner camp, and Dwer faced the robot's snapping
claws without flinching, helped by a strange detachment, as if his mind had
somehow grown while enduring the machine's throbbing fields. Hallucination or
not, the feeling enabled him to call its bluff. , With
grudging reluctance that seemed lifelike, the robot gave in. By a small fire,
Dwer had shared with Rety the donkey jerky in his pouch. After a moment's
hesitation, Rety brought out her own contribution, two small lozenges sealed in
wrappers that felt slick to the touch. She showed Dwer how to unwrap his, and
guffawed at the look on his face when intense, strange flavors burst in his
mouth. He laughed, too, almost inhaling the Danik candy the wrong way. Its
lavish sweetness won a place on his List of Things I'm Glad I Did Before Dying. Later,
huddled with Rety on the banked coals, Dwer dreamed a succession of fantastic
images far more potent than normal-perhaps an effect of "carrying"
the robot, conducting its ground-hugging fields. Instead of crushing weight, he
fantasized lightness, as if his body wafted, unencumbered. Incomprehensible
panoramas flickered under closed eyelids . . . objects glimmering against dark
backgrounds, or gassy shapes, glowing of their own accord. Once, a strange
sense of recognition seized him, a timeless impression of loving familiarity. The
Egg, his sleeping consciousness had mused. Only the sacred stone looked
strange-not an outsized pebble squatting in a mountain cleft, but something
like a huge, dark sun, whose blackness outshone the glitter of normal stars. Their
journey resumed before dawn, and featured only two more water crossings before
reaching the sea. There the robot picked them up and streaked eastward along
the beach until it reached this field of dunes-a high point to scan the strange
blue waters of the Rift. At
least Dwer thought it was the Rift-a great cleft splitting the continent. I
wish I still had my telescope, he thought. With it he might glean some idea
what the pilot of the scout ship was trying to accomplish. Flushing
out prey, Rety said. If that
was Kunn's aim, the Danik star warrior could learn a thing or two about hunting
technique. Dwer recalled one lesson old Fallon taught him years ago. No
matter how potent your weapon, or whatever game you're after, it's never a good
idea to be both beater and shooter. If there's just one of you, forget driving
your quarry. The
solitary hunter masters patience, and silently learns the ways of his prey. That
approach had one drawback. It required empathy. And the better you learn to
feel like your prey, the greater the chance you may someday stop calling it
prey at all. "Well,
we settled one thing," Rety commented, watching the robot semaphore its
arms wildly at the highest point of the dune, like a small boy waving to
parents who were too far away to hear. "You must've done a real job on its
comm gear. Even the short range won't work, on line-o'-sight." Dwer
was duly impressed. Rety had learned a lot during her stint as an adopted
alien. "Do
you think the pilot could spot us by eye, when he heads back toward the village
to pick you up?" Dwer asked. "Maybe
. . . supposin' he ever meant to do that. He may forget all about me when he
finds what he wants, and just zip west to the Rothen station, to report." Dwer
knew that Rety had already lost some favor with the sky humans. Her voice was
bitter, for aboard that distant flying dot rode Jass, her tormentor while
growing up in a savage tribe. She had arranged vengeance for the bully. But now
Jass stood at the pilot's elbow, currying favor while Rety was stuck down here. Her
worry was clear. What if her lifelong enemy won the reward she had struggled
and connived for? Her ticket to the stars? "Hmm.
Well, then we better make sure he doesn't miss us when he cruises by." Dwer
wasn't personally anxious to meet the star pilot who had blasted the poor
urrish sooners so unmercifully from above. He fostered no illusion of gentle
treatment at Kunn's hands. But the scout boat offered life and hope for Rety.
And perhaps by attracting the Danik's attention he could somehow prevent the
man's quick return to the Gray Hills. Danel Ozawa had been killed in the brief
fight with the robot, but Dwer might still buy time for Lena Strong and the
urrish chief to work out an accord with Rety's old band . . . beating a stealthy
retreat to some place where star gods would never find them. A delaying action
could be Dwer's last worthwhile service. "Let's
build a fire," the girl suggested, gesturing toward the beach, littered
with driftwood from past storms. "I
was just about to suggest that," Dwer replied. She
chuckled. "Yeah, right! Sure you were." Sara AT
FIRST THE ANCIENT TUNNEL SEEMED HORRID and gloomy. Sara kept imagining a dusty
Buyur tube car coming to life, an angry phantom hurtling toward the little horse-drawn
wagon, bent on punishing fools who disturbed its ghostly domain. Dread clung
fast for a while, making each breath come short and sharp between rapid
heartbeats. But
fear has one great enemy, more powerful than confidence or courage. Tedium. Chafed
from sitting on the bench for miduras, Sara eventually let go of the dismal
oppression with a long sigh. She slipped off the wagon to trot alongside-at
first only to stretch her legs, but then for longer periods, maintaining a
steady jog. After a
while, she even found it enjoyable. I guess
I'm just adapting to the times. There may be no place for intellectuals in the
world to come. Emerson
joined her, grinning as he kept pace with longlegged strides. And soon the
tunnel began to lose its power over some of the others, as well. The two wagon
drivers from the cryptic Illias tribe-Kepha and Nuli-grew visibly less tense
with each league they progressed toward home. But
where was that?, Sara
pictured a map of the Slope, drawing a wide arc roughly south from the Gentt.
It offered no clue where a horse clan might stay hidden all this time. How
about in some giant, empty magma chamber, beneath a volcano? What a
lovely thought. Some magical sanctuary of hidden grassy fields, safe from the
glowering sky. An underground world, like in a pre-contact adventure tale
featuring vast ageless caverns, mystic light sources, and preposterous
monsters. Of
course no such place could form under natural laws. But might the Buyur-or some
prior Jijo tenant-have used the same forces that carved 'this tunnel to create
a secret hideaway? A place to preserve treasures while the surface world was
scraped clean of sapient-made things? Sara chuckled at the thought. But she did
not dismiss it. Sometime
later, she confronted Kurt. "Well,
I'm committed now. Tell me what's so urgent that Emerson and I had to follow
you all this way." But the
exploser only shook his head, refusing to speak in front of Dedinger. What's
the heretic going to do? Sara thought. Break his bonds and run back to tell the
world? The
desert prophet's captivity appeared secure. And yet it was disconcerting to see
on Dedinger's face an expression of serene confidence, as if present
circumstances only justified his cause. Times like
these bring heretics swarming . . . like privacy wasps converging on a gossip.
We shouldn 't be surprised to see fanatics thriving. The
Sacred Scrolls prescribed two ways for Jijo's illegal colonists to ease their
inherited burden of sin-by preserving the planet, and by following the Path of
Redemption. Ever since the days of Drake and Ur-Chown, the sages had taught
that both goals were compatible with commerce and the comforts of daily life.
But some purists disagreed, insisting that the Six Races must choose. We
should not be here, proclaimed Lark's faction. We sooners should use birth
control to obey Galactic law, leaving this fallow world in peace. Only then
will our sin be healed. Others
thought redemption should take higher priority. Each
clan should follow the example of glavers, preached Dedinger's cult, and the
Urunthai. Salvation and renewal come to those who remove mental impediments and
rediscover their deep natures. The
first obstacle to eliminate-the anchor weighing down our souls-is knowledge. Both
groups called today's High Sages true heretics, pandering to the masses with
their wishy-washy moderation. When dread starships came, fresh converts
thronged to purer faiths, preaching simple messages and strong medicine for fearful
times. Sara
knew her own heresy would not attract disciples. It seemed ill matched to
Jijo-a planet of felons destined for oblivion of one sort or another. And yet .
. . Everything
depends on your point of view. So
taught a wise traeki sage. we/i/you
are oft fooled by the obvious. BIN
URRISH COURIER CAME RUSHING OUT OF THE forest of tall, swaying great boo. Could
this be my answer already? Lark
had dispatched a militiaman just a few miduraS ago, with a message to Lester
Cambel in the secret refuge of the High Sages. But no.
The rough-pelted runner had galloped up the long path from Festival Glade. In
her rush, she would not even pause for Lark to tap the vein of a tethered
simla, offering the parched urs a hospitable cup of steaming blood. Instead,
the humans stared amazed as she plunged her fringed muzzle into a bucket of
undiluted water, barely shuddering at the bitter taste. Between
gasping swallows, she told dire news. As
rumored, the second starship was titanic, squatting like a mountain, blocking
the river so a swamp soon formed around the trapped Rothen cruiser, doubly
imprisoning Ling's comrades. Surviving witnesses reported seeing familiar
outlines framed by the battleship's brightly lit hatchway. Corrugated cones. Stacks
of rings, luxuriously glistening. Only a
few onlookers, steeped in ancient legends, knew this was not a good sign, and
they had little time to spread a warning before torrid beams sliced through the
night, mowing down everything within a dozen arrowflights. At
dawn, brave observers peered from nearby peaks to see a swathe of shattered
ground strewn with oily smudges and bloody debris. A defensive perimeter,
stunned observers suggested, though such prudence seemed excessive for
omnipotent star gods. "What
casualties?" asked Jeni Shen, sergeant of Lark's militia contingent, a
short, well-muscled woman and a friend of his brother, Dwer. They had all seen
flickering lights in the distance, and heard sounds like thunder, but imagined
nothing as horrible as the messenger related. The urs
told of hundreds dead . . . and that a High Sage of the Commons was among those
slaughtered. Asx had been standing near a group of curious spectators and
confused alien lovers, waiting to parley with the visitors. After the dust and
flames settled, the traeki was nowhere to be seen. The
g'Kek doctor tending Uthen expressed the grief they all felt, rolling all four
tentacle-like eyes and flailing the ground with his pusher leg. This
personified the horror. Asx had been a popular sage, ready to mull over
problems posed by any of the Six Races, from marriage counseling to dividing
the assets of a bisected qheuen hive. Asx might "mull" for days,
weeks, or a year before giving an answer-or several answers, laying out a range
of options. Before
the courier departed, Lark's status as a junior sage won him a brief look at
the drawings in her dispatch pouch. He showed Ling a sketch of a massive oval
ship of space, dwarfing the one that brought her to this world. Her face
clouded. The mighty shape was unfamiliar and frightening. Lark's
own messenger-a two-legged human-had plunged into the ranks of towering boo at
daybreak, carrying a plea for Lester Cambel to send up Ling's personal Library
unit, so she might read the memory bars he and Uthen had found in the wrecked
station. Her
offer, made the evening before, was limited to seeking data about plagues,
especially the one now sweeping the qheuen community. "If
Ro-kenn truly was preparing genocide agents, he is a criminal by our own
law." "Even
a Rothen master?" Lark had asked skeptically. "Even
so. It is not disloyal for me to find out, or else prove it was not so. "However,"
she had added, "don't expect me to help you make war against my crew mates
or my patrons. Not that you could do much, now that their guard is raised. You
surprised us once with tunnels and gunpowder, destroying a little research
base. But you'll find that harming a starship is beyond even your best-equipped
zealots." That
exchange took place before they learned about the second vessel. Before word
came that the mighty Rothen cruiser was reduced to a captive toy next to a true
colossus from space. While
they awaited Cambel's answer, Lark sent his troopers sifting through the burned
lakeshore thicket, gathering golden preservation beads. Galactic technology had
been standardized for millions of years. So there just might be a workable
reading unit amid all the pretty junk the magpie spider had collected. Anyway,
it seemed worth a try. While
sorting through a pile of amber cocoons, he and Ling resumed their game of
cautious question-and-evasion. Circumstances had changed-Lark no longer felt as
stupid in her presence-still, it was the same old dance. Starting
off, Ling quizzed him about the Great Printing, the event that transformed
Jijo's squabbling coalition of sooner races, even more than the arrival of the
Holy Egg. Lark answered truthfully without once mentioning the Biblos Archive.
Instead he described the guilds of printing, photocopying, and especially
papermaking, with its pounding pulp hammers and pungent drying screens, turning
out fine pages under the sharp gaze of his father, the famed Nelo. "A
nonvolatile, randomly accessed, analog memory store that is completely invisible
from space. No electricity or digital cognizance to detect from orbit."
She marveled. "Even when we saw books, we assumed they were
handcopied-hardly a culture-augmenting process. Imagine, a wolfling technology
proved so effective . . . under special circumstances." Despite
that admission, Lark wondered about the Danik attitude, which seemed all too
ready to dismiss the accomplishments of their own human ancestors-except when
an achievement could be attributed to Rothen intervention. It was
Lark's turn to ask a question, and he chose to veer onto another track. "You
seemed as surprised as anybody, when the disguise creature crawled off of
Ro-pol's face." He
referred to events just before the Battle of the Glade, when a dead Rothen was
seen stripped of its charismatic, symbiotic mask. Ro-pol's eyes, once warm and
expressive, had bulged lifeless from a revealed visage that was sharply
slanted, almost predatory, and distinctly less humanoid. Ling
had never seen a master so exposed. She reacted to Lark's question cautiously. "I
am not of the Inner Circle." "What's
that?" Ling
inhaled deeply. "Rann and Kunn are privy to knowledge about the Rothen
that most Daniks never learn. Rann has even been to one of the secret Rothen
home sites. Most of us are never so blessed. When not on missions, we dwell
with our families in the covered canyons of Poria Outpost, with just a hundred
or so of our patrons, Even on Poria, the two races don't mix daily." "Still,
not to know something so basic about those who claim to be-" "Oh,
one hears rumors. Sometimes you see a Rothen whose face seems odd ... as if
part of it was, well, put on wrong. Maybe we cooperate with the deception by
choosing at some level not to notice. Anyway, that's not the real issue, is
it?" "What
is the real issue?" "You
imply I should be horrified to learn they wear symbionts to look more humanoid.
To appear more beautiful in our eyes. But why shouldn't the Rothen use
artificial aids, if it helps them serve as better guides, shepherding our race
toward excellence?" Lark
muttered, "How about a little thing called honesty?" "Do
you tell your pet chimp or zookir everything? Don't parents sometimes lie to
children for their own good? What about lovers who strive to look nice for each
other? Are they dishonest? "Think,
Lark. What are the odds against another race seeming as gloriously beautiful to
human eyes as our patrons appear? Oh, part of their attraction surely dates
back to early stages of uplift, on Old Earth, when they raised our apelike
ancestors almost to full sapiency, before the Great Test began. It may be
ingrained at a genetic level . . . the way dogs were culled in favor of craving
the touch of man. "Yet,
we are still unfinished creatures. Still crudely emotional. Let me ask you.
Lark. If your job were to uplift flighty, cantankerous beings, and you found
that wearing a cosmetic symbiont would make your role as teacher easier,
wouldn't you do it?" Before
Lark could answer an emphatic no, she rushed ahead. "Do
not some members of your Six use rewq animals for similar ends? Those symbionts
that lay their filmy bodies over your eyes, sucking a little blood in exchange
for help translating emotions? Aren't rewq a vital part of the complex
interplay that is your Commons?" "Hr-rm."
Lark throat-umbled like a doubtful hoon. "Rewq
don't help us lie. They are not themselves lies." Ling
nodded. "Still, you never faced a task as hard as the Rothens'-to raise up
creatures as brilliant, and disagreeable, as human beings. A race whose
capability for future majesty also makes us capricious and dangerous, prone to
false turns and deadly errors." Lark
quashed an impulse to argue. She might only dig in, rationalizing herself into
a corner and refusing to come out. At least now she admitted that one Rothen
might do evil deeds-that Ro-kenn's personal actions might be criminal. And who
knows? That may be all there is to it. The scheming of a rogue individual.
Perhaps the race is just as wonderful as she says. Wouldn 't it be nice if
humanity really had such patrons, and a manifest greatness waiting, beyond the
next millennium? Ling
had seemed sincere when she claimed the Rothen ship commander would get to the
bottom of things. "It's
imperative to convince your sages they must release the hostages and Ro-pol's
body, along with those 'photograms' your portraitist took. Blackmail won't work
against the Rothen-you must understand this. It's not in their character to
respond to threats. Yet the 'evidence' you've gathered could do harm in the
long run." That
was before the stunning news-that the Rothen ship was itself captured, encased
in a prison of light. Lark
mused over one of the mule spider's golden eggs while Ling spoke for a while
about the difficult but glorious destiny her masters planned for impulsive,
brilliant humanity. "You
know," he commented. "There's something screwy about the logic of
this whole situation." "What
do you mean?" Lark
chewed his lip, like an urs wrestling with uncertainty. Then he decided-it was
time to bring it all in the open. "I
mean, let's put aside for now the added element of the new starship. The Rothen may have feuds you
know nothing about. Or it may be a different gang of gene raiders, come to rob
Jijo's biosphere. For all we know, magistrates from the Galactic Migration
Institute have brought Judgment Day as foretold in the Scrolls. "For
now, though, let's review what led to the Battle of the Glade-the fight that
made you my prisoner. It began when Bloor photo'd the dead Ro-pol without her
mask. Ro-kenn went livid, ordering his robots to kill everyone who had seen. "But
didn't you once assure me there was no need to delete local witnesses to your
team's visit? That your masters could handle it, even if oral and written
legacies survive hundreds or thousands of years, describing a visit by human
and Rothen gene raiders?" "I
did." "But
you admit gene raiding is against Galactic law! I know
you feel the Rothen are above such things. Still, they don't want to be caught
in the act. "Let's
assume credible testimony, maybe even photos, finally reach Migration Institute
inspectors next time they visit Jijo. Testimony about you and Rann and Kunn.
Human gene raiders. Even I know the rule-'police your own kind'-prevails in the
Five Galaxies. Did Ro-kenn explain how the Rothen would prevent sanctions
coming down on Earth?" Ling
wore a grim expression. "You're saying he played us for fools. That he let
me spread false assurances among the natives, while planning all along to strew
germs and wipe out every witness." Obviously
it was bitter for her to say it. Ling
seemed surprised when Lark shook his head. "That's
what I thought at first, when qheuens fell sick. But what I now imagine is
worse yet." That
got her attention. "What could be worse than mass murder?
If the charge is proved, Ro-kenn will be hauled off to the home sites in dolor
chains'. He'll be punished as no Rothen has been in ages." Lark
shrugged. "Perhaps. But stop and think a bit. "First,
Ro-kenn wasn't relying on disease alone to do the job. "Oh,
he probably had a whole library of bugs-infectious agents used in past wars in
the Five Galaxies. No doubt starfaring qheuens long ago developed
countermeasures against the germ raging through Uthen's lymph pipes right now.
I'm sure Ro-kenn's concoctions will kill a lot more of us." Ling
started to protest, but Lark forged ahead. "Nevertheless,
I know a thing or two about how pestilence works in natural ecosystems. It
would be a complete fluke for even a string of diseases to wipe out every
member of the Six. Random immunities would stymie the best-designed bugs.
Furthermore, the sparser the population got, the harder it would be to reach
and infect dispersed survivors. "No,
Ro-kenn needed something more. A breakdown of the Commons into total war! A war
that could be exploited, pushed to the limits. A stmggle so bitter that each
race would pursue its victims to the farthest corners of Jijo, willingly
helping to spread new parasites in order to slay their foes." He saw
Ling struggle to find a way around his logic. But she had been present when Ro-kenn's psi-recordings were
played-sick dream images, meant to incite fatal grudges among the Six. Those
present weren't fooled because they were forewarned, but what if the messages
had been broadcast as planned . . . amplified through the compelling wave forms
of the Holy Egg? "I
will tell of this, back home," she vowed in a low, faint voice. "He
will be punished." "That's
gratifying," Lark went on. "But I'm not finished. You see, even by
combining plagues with war, Ro-kenn could never guarantee annihilation of all
six races, or eliminate the off chance that credible testimony might be passed
down the generations-perhaps stored in some cave-to finally reach Institute
prosecutors. On the other hand, he could influence which race or sept would be
left standing at the end, and which would perish first. There is one, in
particular, whose fate he knows well how to manipulate. That one is Homo
sapiens. "The
way I see it, Ro-kenn's plan had several parts. First, he had to make sure
Earthlings were hated. Second, he must weaken the other five races by releasing
diseases that could then be blamed on humans. But the ultimate goal was to make
sure humans went extinct on Jijo. He didn't give a damn if others left a few
survivors to tell the tale." Ling
stared. "What good would that do? You said testimony might be passed
down-" "Yes,
but with Earthlings on Jijo only a hated memory, all history will tell is that
once upon a time a ship full of humans came down, stole genes, and tried to
kill everybody. No one will bother emphasizing which humans did these things. "In
the future-perhaps only a few centuries, if someone plants an anonymous
tip-Galactic judges would arrive and hear that people from Earth did these
dreadful things. Earth will bear the full brunt of any sanctions, while the
Rothen get off scot-free." Ling
was silent for a long moment, working her way through his logic. Finally, she
looked up with a broad grin. "You
had me worried a minute, but I found the defect in your reasoning!" Lark
tilted his head. "Do tell." "Your
diabolical scenario just might make sense, but for two flaws- "First-the
Rothen are patrons of all humanity. Earth and her colonies, while presently
governed by Darwinist fools on the Terragens Council, still represent the vast
majority of our gene pool. The Rothen would never let harm come to our
homeworld. Even in the current galactic crisis, they are acting behind the
scenes to ensure Earth's safety from the enemies besetting her." There
it was again ... a reference to dire events happening megaparsecs away. Lark
yearned to follow that thread, but Ling continued with her argument. "Second-let's
say Ro-kenn wanted all blame shifted to humans. Then why did he and Ro-pol
emerge from the station and show themselves? By walking around, letting artists
sketch them and scribes take down their words, weren't they jeopardizing the
Rothen to the same eyewitness accounts you say could damage Earth?" Ling
seemed ready to accept that her immediate boss might be criminal or insane, but
with bulwarks of logic she defended her patron race. Lark had mixed feelings
about demolishing such faith. He, too, had his heresies. "I'm
sorry, Ling, but my scenario still stands. "Your
first point only has validity if it is true that the Rothen are our patrons. I
know that's the central premise around which you were raised, but believing
does not make it so. You admit your people, the Daniks, are small in number,
live on an isolated outpost, and see just a few. Rothen. Putting aside mythic
fables about ancient visitors and Egyptian pyramids, all you really have is
their word regarding a supposed relationship with our race. One that may simply
be a hoax. "As
for your second point, just look back at the way events unfolded. Ro-kenn
surely knew he was being sketched when he emerged that evening, using his
charisma on the crowd and planting seeds of dissension. After living so long
together, all six races are affected by each other's standards of beauty, and
the Rothen were indeed beautiful! "Ro-kenn
may even have known we had the ability to
etch our drawings onto durable plates. Later, when he saw Bloor's first
set of photographic images, he hardly batted an eye. Oh, he pretended to dicker
with the sages, but you and I could both tell he was unafraid of the 'proof
being used to blackmail him. He was only buying time till the ship returned.
And it might have worked-if Bloor hadn't uncovered and recorded Ro-pol's
corpse, bare and unmasked. That's when Ro-kenn went hysterically murderous,
ordering a massacre!" "I
know." Ling shook her head. "It was madness. But you must understand.
Disturbing the dead is very serious. It
must have pushed him over the edge-" "Over
the edge, my left hind hoof! He knew exactly what he was doing. Think, Ling.
Suppose someday Institute observers see photos showing humans, and a hunch of
very humanlike beings nobody ever heard of, committing crimes on Jijo. Could
such crude pictures ever really
implicate the Rothen? "Perhaps
they might, If that's what Rothen looked like. But
till Bloor shot Ro-pol's naked face, our crude images posed no threat to Rothen
security. Because in a century or two those facial disguise symbionts won't
exist anymore, and no one alive will know that Rothen ever looked like that." "What
are you talking about? Every Danik grows up seeing Rothen as they appear with
symbionts on. Obviously there will be people around who know . . ." Her
voice faded. She stared at Lark, unblinking. "You can't mean-" "Why
not? After long association with your people, I'm sure they've acquired the necessary means. Orsce humans are of no
further use as front men for their schemes, your 'patrons' will simply use a
wide spectrum of tailored viruses to wipe out every Danik, just as they planned
to eliminate humans on Jijo. "For
that matter, once they've tested it on both our peoples, they'll be in a good
position to sell such a weapon to Earth's enemies. After all, once our race
goes extinct, who will protest our innocence? Who will bother to look for other
suspects in a series of petty felonies that were committed, all over the Five
Galaxies, by groups of bipeds looking a lot like-" "Enough!"
Ling shouted, standing suddenly, spilling gold cocoons from her lap. She backed
away, hyperventilating. Unrelenting, he stood and followed. "I've thought
about little else since we left the Glade. And it all makes sense. Even down to
the way the Rothen won't let your kind use neural taps." "I
told you before. It's forbidden because the taps might drive us mad!" "Really?
Why do the Rothen themselves have them? Because they're more highly
evolved?" Lark snorted. "Anyway, I hear that nowadays humans
elsewhere use them effectively." "How
do you know what humans elsewhere-" Lark hurriedly cut her off. "The
truth is, the Rothen can't risk letting their pet humans make direct
mind-computer links, because someday one of you Daniks might bypass sanitized
consoles, draw on the Great Library directly, and figure out how you've been
pawns-" Ling
backed away another pace. "Please, Lark ... I don't want to do this
anymore." He felt
an impulse to stop, to take pity. But he quashed it. This had to come out, all
of it. "I
must admit it's quite a scam, using humans as front men for gene theft and
other crimes. Even two centuries ago, when the Tabernacle departed, our race
had a vile reputation as one of the lowest-ranking citizen tribes in the Five
Galaxies. So-called wolflings, with no ancient clan to stand up for us. If
anybody gets caught, we'll make perfect patsies. The Rothen scheme is clever.
The real question is, why would any humans let themselves be used that way?
"History may hold the answer, Ling. According to our texts, humans
suffered from a major inferiority complex at the time of contact, when our
primitive canoe-spacecraft stumbled onto a towering civilization of star gods.
Your ancestors and mine chose different ways of dealing with the complex, each
of them grasping at straws, seeking any
excuse for hope. "The
Tabernacle colonists dreamed of escaping to some place out of sight of bureaucrats and mighty Galactic clans-a
place to breed freely and fulfill the old romance of colonizing a frontier. In
contrast, your Danik forebears rushed to embrace a tall tale they were told by
a band of smooth talkers. A flattering fable that indulged their wounded pride,
promising a grand destiny for certain chosen humans and their descendants , . .
providing they did exactly as they were told. Even if it meant raising their
children to be shills and sneak thieves in service to a pack of galactic gangsters." Tremors
rocked Ling as she held up one hand, palm out, at the end of a rigid arm, as if
trying physically to stave off any more words. "I
asked . . . you to stop," she repeated, and seemed to have trouble
breathing. Pain melted her face. Now
Lark did shut up. He had gone too far, even in the name of truth. Raggedly,
trying to maintain some remnant of her dignity, Ling swiveled and strode off to
the acrid lake that lay below a boulder field of tumbled Buyur ruins. Does
anybody like having their treasured worldview torn away? Lark mused, watching
Ling hurl stones into the caustic pond. Most of us would reject all the proof
in the cosmos before considering that our own beliefs might be wrong. But the
scientist in her won't let her dismiss evidence so easily. She has to face
facts, like them or not. The
habit of truth is bard to learn, and a mixed blessing. It
leaves no refuge when a new truth comes along that hurts. Lark
knew his feelings were hardly a testament to clarity. Anger
roiled, mixed with shame that he could not hold on to the purity of his own
convictions. There was childish satisfaction from upsetting Ling's former smug
superiority . . . and chagrin at finding such a motive smoldering inside. Lark
enjoyed being right, though it might be better, this time, if he turned out to
be wrong. Just
when I had her respecting me as an equal, and maybe starting to like me, that's
when I have to go stomping through her life, smashing idols she was raised to
worship, showing off the bloodstained hands of her gods. You may
win an argument, boy. You may even convince her. But could anyone fully forgive
you for doing something like that? He
shook his head over how much he might have just thrown away, all for the torrid
pleasure of harsh honesty. Wasx DO NOT BE AFRAID, MY LESSER PARTS. The
sensations you feel may seem like coercive pain, but they convey a kind of love
that will grow dear to you, with time. I am part of you now, one with you. I
will never do anything to cause us harm, so long as this alliance serves a
function. Go ahead,
stroke the wax if you wish, for the old ways of memory still have lesser uses
(so long as they serve My purpose). Play over recent images so we may recall
together events leading to our new union. Re-create the scene perceived by Asx,
staring up in awe, watching the great Jophur warship, Polkjhy, swoop from the
sky, taking the pirates captive, then landing in this tortured valley. Poor,
loosely joined, scatterbrained Asx-did you,we not stare in tremulous fear? Yes, I
can stroke another driving motivation. One that kept you admirably unified,
despite swirling dread. It was a cloying sense of duty. Duty to the not-self
community of half beings you call the Commons. As Asx,
your stack planned to speak for the Commons. Asx expected to face star-traveling
humans, along with creatures known as "Rothen." But then Jophur forms
were seen through our ship ports! After
some hesitation, did you not turn at last and try to flee? How
slow this stack was before the change! When knives of fire lanced forth from this mighty vessel, how did you react
to the maelstrom of destruction? To hot ravening beams that tore through wood,
stone, and flesh, but always spared this pile of aged rings? Had you then
possessed the bright new running legs we now wear, you might have thrown
yourselves into that roaring calamity. But Asx was slow, too slow even to
shelter nearby comrades with its traeki
bulk. All
died, except this stack. ARE YOU
NOT PROUD? The
next ray from the ship seized this multistriped cone, lifting it into the night
air, sweeping the fatty rings toward doors that gaped to receive them. Oh, how
well Asx spoke then, despite the confusion! With surprising coherence for a
stack without a master, tapping waxy streaks of eloquence, Asx pleaded, cajoled,
and reasoned with the enigmatic creatures who peered from behind glaring
lights. Finally,
these beings glided forward. The starship's hold filled with Asx's ventings of
horrified dread. How
unified you were, My rings! The testimony of the wax is clear. At that moment,
you were one as never before. United
in shared dismay to see those cousin toroids your ancestors sought to escape,
many cycles ago. We Jophur, the mighty
and fulfilled. Dwer THE
ROBOT PROVED USEFUL AT HEAPING DRIFTwood onto the seaside shoulder of a high
dune overlooking the Rift. Without rest or pause, it dumped a load then
scurried for more, in whatever direction Rety indicated with an outstretched
arm. The Danik machine seemed willing to obey once more-so long as her orders
aimed toward a reunion with Kunn. Such
single-minded devotion to its master reminded Dwer of Earth stories about
dogs-tales his mother read aloud when he was small. It struck him odd that the
Taber- nacle colonists brought horses, donkeys, and chimps, but no canines. Lark or
Sara might know why. That
was Dwer's habitual thought, encountering something he didn't understand. Only
now it brought a pang, knowing he might never see his brother and sister again. Maybe
Kunn won't kill me outright. He might bring me borne in chains, instead, before
the Rothens wipe out the Six Races to cover their tracks. That
was the terrible fate the High Sages foresaw for Jijo's fallen settlers, and
Dwer figured they ought to know. He recalled Lena Strong musing about what
means the aliens might use to perform their genocide. With gruesome relish,
Lena kept topping herself during the long hike east from the Rimmer Range.
Would the criminal star gods wash the Slope with fire, scouring it from the
glaciers to the sea? Would they melt the ice caps and bring an end by drowning?
Her morbid speculations were like a fifth companion as Dwer guided two husky
women and a lesser sage past a thousand leagues of poison grass all the way to
the Gray Hills, in a forlorn bid to safeguard a fragment of human civilization
on Jijo. Dwer
had last glimpsed Jenin, Lena, and Danel during the brief fight near the huts
of Rety's home clan. This same robot cut poor Danel down with lethal rays,
instants before its own weapons pod was destroyed. Indeed,
the battle drone was no dog to be tamed or befriended. Nor would it show
gratitude for the times Dwer helped it cross rivers, anchoring its fields to
ground through the conduit of his body. Mudfoot
was hardly any better a comrade. The lithe noor beast swiftly grew bored with
wood-gathering chores, and scampered off instead to explore the tide line,
digging furiously where bubbles revealed a buried hive of sand clamettes. Dwer
looked forward to roasting some . . . until he saw that Mudfoot was cracking
and devouring every one, setting none
aside for the humans. As
useful as a noor, he thought, quashing stings of hunger as he hoisted another
bundle of twisty driftwood slabs, digging his moccasins into the sandy slope. Dwer
tried to remain optimistic. Maybe
Kunn will feed me, before attaching the torture machines. yee
stood proudly atop the growing woodpile. The diminutive urrish male called
directions in a piping voice, as if mere humans could never manage a proper
fire without urrish supervision. Rety's "husband" hissed
disappointment over Dwer's poor contribution-as if being wounded, starved, and
dragged across half of Jijo in a robot's claws did not excuse much. Dwer
ignored yee's reprimand, dumping his load then stepping over to the dune's
seaward verge, shading his eyes in search of Kunn's alien scoutship. He
spied it far away, a silvery bead, cruising back and forth above the deep blue
waters of the Rift. At intervals, something small and shiny would fall from the
slender spacecraft. An explosive, Dwer supposed, for about twenty duras after
each canister struck the water, the sea abruptly frothed white. Sometimes a
sharp, almost musical tone reached
shore. According
to Rety, Kunn was trying to force something-or somebody-out of hiding. I hope
you miss, Dwer thought . . . though the star pilot might be in a better mood
toward prisoners if his hunt went well. "I
wonder what Jass has been tellin' Kunn, all this time," Rety
worried aloud, joining Dwer at the crest. "What if they become pals?" Dwer
waited as the robot dropped another cargo of wood and went off for more. Then
he replied. "Have
you changed your mind? We could still try to escape. Take out the robot. Avoid
Kunn. Go our own way." Rety
smiled with surprising warmth, "Why, Dwer, is that a whatchamacallum? A
proposal What'll we do? Make our own little sooner clan, here on the wind
barrens? Y'know I already have one husban' and I need his p'rmission to add
another." Actually,
he had envisioned trying to make it back to the Gray Hills, where Lena and
Jenin could surely use a hand. Or else, if that way seemed too hard and Rety
rigidly opposed returning to the tribe she hated, they might strike out west
and reach the Vale in a month or two, if the foraging was good along the way. Rety
went on, with more edge in her voice. "B'sides,
I still have my eye set on an apart'mint on Poria Outpost. Like the one Besh
an' Ling showed me a picture of, with a bal-co-ny, an' a bed made o' cloud
stuff. I figure it'll be just a bit more comfy than scratchin' out the rest of
my days here with savages." Dwer
shrugged. He hadn't expected her to agree. As a "savage," he had
reasons of his own for going ahead with the bonfire to attract Kunn's
attention. "Well,
anyway, I don't suppose the bot would let its guard down a second time." "It
was lucky to survive doin' it around you once." Dwer
took a moment to realize she had just paid him a compliment. He cherished its
uniqueness, knowing he might never hear another. The
moment of unaccustomed warmth was broken when something massive abruptly
streaked by, so fast that its air wake shoved both humans to the ground. Dwer's
training as a tracker let him follow the blurry object . . . to the top of a
nearby dune, which erupted in a gushing spray of sand. It was
the robot, he realized, digging with furious speed. In a
matter of heartbeats it made a hole that it then dived within, aiming its
remaining sensor lens south and west. "Come
on!" Dwer urged, grabbing his bow and quiver. Rety paused only to snatch
up a wailing, hissing yee. Together they fled some distance downslope, where
Dwer commenced digging with both hands. Long
ago,. Fallen the Scout had taught him-If you don't know what's happening in a crisis,
mimic a creature who does. If the robot felt a sudden need to hide, Dwer
thought it wise to follow. "Ifni!"
Rety muttered. "Now what in hell's he doin'?" She was
still standing-staring across the Rift. Dwer yanked her into the hole beside
him. Only when sand covered most of their bodies did he poke his head back out
to look. The
Danik pilot clearly felt something was wrong. The little craft hurtled toward
shore, diving as it came. Seeking cover, Dwer thought. Maybe it can dig
underground, like the robot. Dwer
started turning, to spot whatever had Kunn in such a panic, but just then the
boat abruptly veered, zigzagging frantically. From its tail bright fireballs
arced, like sparks leaping off a burning log. They flared brightly and made the
air waver in a peculiar way, blurring the escaping vessel's outlines. From
behind Dwer, streaks of fierce light flashed overhead toward the fleeing boat.
Most deflected through warped zones, veering off course, but one bypassed the
glowing balls, striking target. At the
last moment, Kunn flipped his nimble ship around and fired back at his
assailants, launching a return volley just as the unerring missile closed in. Dwer
shoved Rety's head down and closed his eyes. The
detonations were less Jijo-shattering than he expected-a series of dull
concussions, almost anticlimactic. Looking
up with sand-covered faces, they witnessed both winner and loser in the brief
battle of god chariots. Kunn's
boat had crashed beyond the dune field, plowing into a marshy fen. Smoke boiled
from its shattered rear. Circling
above, the victor regarded its victim, glistening with a silvery tint that
seemed less metallic than crystal. The newcomer was bigger and more powerful
looking than the Danik scout. Kunn
never stood a chance. Rety
muttered, her voice barely audible. "She
said there'd turn out to be someone stronger." Dwer
shook his head. "Who?" "That
smelly old urs! Leader o' those four-legged sooners, back in the village pen.
Said the Rothen might be a-feared of somebody bigger. So she was right."
"urs smelly?" yee objected, "you wife should talk?" Rety
stroked the little male as yee stretched his neck, fluting a contented sigh. The
fallen scout boat. rocke'd from a new explosion, this one brightly framing a
rectangle in the ship's side. That section fell and two bipeds followed,
leaping into the bog, chased by smoke that boiled from the interior. Staggering
through murky water, the men leaned on each other to reach a weedy islet, where
they fell, exhausted. The
newcomer ship cruised a wary circle, losing altitude. As it turned, Dwer saw a
stream of pale smoke pouring from a gash in its other side. A roughness to the
engine sound grew steadily worse. Soon, the second cruiser settled down near
the first. Well,
it looks like Kunn got in a lick of his own.
Dwer wondered-Now why should that make me feel glad? Alvin BONE-RATTLING
CONCUSSIONS GREW MORE TERRIfying with each dura, hammering our undersea prison
refuge, sometimes receding for a while, then returning with new force, making
it hard for a poor hoon to stand properly on the shuddering floor. Crutches
and a back brace didn't help, nor the little autoscribe, fogging the room with
my own projected words. Stumbling through them, I sought some solid object to
hold, while the scribe kept adding to the mob of words, recording my frantic
curses in Anglic and GalSeven. When I found a wall stanchion, I grabbed for
dear life. The clamor of reverberating explosions sounded like a giant, bearing
down with massive footsteps, nearer . . . ever nearer. . . . Then,
as I feared some popping seam would let in the dark, heavy waters of the Midden
... it abruptly stopped. Silence
was almost as disorienting as the jeekee awful noise. My throat sac blatted
uselessly while a hysterical Huphu clawed my shoulders, shredding scales into
torglike ribbons. Fortunately, hoon
don't have much talent for panic. Maybe
our reactions are too slow, or else we lack imagination. As I
was gathering my wits, the door hatch opened and one of the little
amphibian types rushed in, squeaking a
few rapid phrases in simplified GalTwo. A
summons. The spinning voice wanted us for another powwow. "Perhaps
we should share knowledge," it said when the four of us (plus Huphu) were
assembled. Huck
and Pincer-Tip, able to look all ways at once, shared meaningful glances with
Ur-ronn and me. We were pretty rattled by the recent booming and shaking. Even
growing up next to a volcano had never prepared us for that! The
voice seemed to come from a space where abstract lines curled in tight patterns, but I knew that was an illusion.
The shapes and sounds were projections, sent by some entity whose real body lay
elsewhere, beyond the walls. I kept expecting Huphu to dash off and tear away a
curtain, exposing a little man in an emerald carnival suit. Do they think we're
rubes, to fall for such a trick? "Knowledge?"
Huck sneered, drawing three eyes back like coiled snakes. "You want to
share some knowledge? Then tell us what's going on! I thought this place was
breaking up! Was it a quake? Are we being sucked into the Midden?" "I
assure you, that is not happening," came the answer in smooth-toned
GalSix. "The source of our mutual concern lies above, not below." "Explosions,"
Ur-ronn muttered, blowing through her snout fringe and stamping a hind hoof.
"Those weren't quakes, but underwater detonations. Clean, sharp, and very
close. I'd say soneone up there doesn't like you guys very much." Pincer
hissed sharply and I stared at our urrish friend, but the spinning voice
conceded. "That
is an astute guess." I
couldn't tell if it was impressed, or just sarcastic. "And
since our local guild of explosers could hardly achieve such feats, this
suggests you have other, powerful foes, far greater than we feevie Six." "Again,
a reasonable surmise. Such a bright young lady." "Hr-rm,"
I added, in order not to be left out of the sardonic abuse. "We're taught
that the simplest hypothesis should always be tried first. So let me
guess-you're being hunted by the same folks who landed a while back in the
Festival Glade. Those gene raiders Uriel got word about before we left. Is that
it?" "A
goodly conjecture, and possibly even true . . . though it could as easily be
someone else." "Someone
else? What're you say-ay-aying?" Pincer-Tip demanded, raising three legs
and teetering dangerously on the remaining two. His chitin skin flared an
anxious crimson shade. "That the eatees-tees-tees on the Glade might not
be the only ones? That you've got whole passels of enemies?" Abstract
patterns tightened to a tornado of meshing lines as silence reigned. Little
Huphu, who had seemed fascinated by the voice from the very start, now dug her
claws in my shoulder, transfixed by the tight spiral form. Huck
demanded, in a hushed tone. "How
many enemies have you guys got?" when the voice spoke again, all sardonic
traces were gone. Its tone seemed deeply weary. "Ah,
dear children. It seems that half of the known sidereal universe has spent
years pursuing us." Pincer
clattered his claws and Huck let out a low, mournful sigh. My own dismal
contemplation-umble roused Huphu from her trancelike fixation on the whirling
display, and she chittered nervously. Ur-ronn
simply grunted, as if she had expected this, vindicating her native urrish
cynicism. After all, when things seem unable to get any worse, isn't that when
they nearly always do? Ifni has a fertile, if nasty imagination. The goddess of
fate keeps shaving new faces on her infinite-sided dice. "Well,
I guess this means-hrm-m-that we can toss out all those ideas about you
phuvnthus being ancient Jijoans, or native creatures of the deep." "Or
remnants of cast-off Buyur machines," Huck went on. "Or sea monsters." "Yeah,"
Pincer added, sounding disappointed. "Just another bunch of crazy
Galactics-tic-tics." The
swirling patterns seemed confused. "You would prefer sea monsters'"' "Forget
it," Huck said. "You wouldn't understand." The
patterns bent and swayed. "I
am afraid you may be right about that. Your small band of comrades has us
terribly perplexed. So much that a few of us posed a sly scenario-that you were
planted in our midst to sow confusion." "How
do you mean?" "Your
values, beliefs, and evident mutual affection contribute to undermining
assumptions we regarded as immutably anchored in the nature of reality. "Mind
you, this confusion is not wholly unpleasant. As a thinking entity, one of my
prime motives might be called a lust for surprise. And those I work with are
hardly less bemused by the unforeseen marvel of your fellowship." "Glad
you find us entertaining," Huck commented, as dryly sarcastic as the voice
had been. "So you guys came here to hide, like our ancestors?" "There
are parallels. But our plan was never to stay. Only to make repairs, gather
stores, and wait in concealment for a favorable window at the nearest transfer
point." "So
Uriel and the sages may be wrong about the ship that came to the Glade? Being a
gang of gene raiders-that could just be a cover story. Are you the real cause
of our troubles?" "Trouble
is synonymous with being a metabolizing entity. Or else why have you young
adventurers sought it so avidly? "But
your complaint has merit. We thought we had eluded all pursuit. The ship that
landed in the mountains may be coincidental, or attracted by a confluence of
unlucky factors. In any event, had we known of your existence, we would have
sought shelter somewhere off-planet instead, perhaps in a dead city on one of
your moons, though such places are less convenient for effecting repairs.
" That
part I had trouble believing. I'm just an ignorant savage, but from the classic
scientific romances I grew up reading, I could picture working in some lunar
ghost town like my nicknamesake, waking mighty engines that had slept for ages.
What kind of starfaring beings would find darkness and salt water more
"convenient" than clean vacuum? We
lapsed into moody silence, unable to stay outraged at folks who accept
responsibility so readily. Anyway, weren't they fellow refugees from Galactic
persecution? Or from
justice, came another, worried thought. "Can
you tell us why everyone's so mad at you?" I asked. The
spinning figure turned into a narrow, whirling funnel whose small end seemed
diminished and very far away. "Like
you, we delved and probed into unvisited places, imagining ourselves bold
explorers. . . . ," the voice explained in tones of boundless sadness.
"Until we bad the misfortune to find the very thing we sought. Unexpected
wonders beyond our dreams. "Breaking
no law, we planned only to share what we had found. But those pursuing us
abandoned all pretense of legality. Like giants striving over possession of a
gnat, they war lustily, battling each other for a chance to capture us! Alas,
whoever wins our treasure will surely use it against multitudes." Again,
we stared. Pincer unleashed awed whispers from all vents at once. "Tr-tr-treasure-ure-ure
. . . ?" Huck
wheeled close to the spinning pattern. "Can you prove what you just
said?" "Not
at this time. Not without putting your people in more danger than they already
are." I
recall wondering-what could be more dangerous than the genocide Uriel had
spoken of, as one likely outcome of contact with gene raiders? "Nevertheless,
"the voice continued, "it may prove possible to improve our level of
mutual confidence. Or even help each other in significant ways." Sara SUPPOSE
THE WORLD'S TWO MOST CAREFUL OBservers witnessed the same event. They would
never agree precisely on what had happened. Nor could they go back and check.
Events may be recorded, but the past can't be replayed. And the
future is even more nebulous-a territory we make up stories about, mapping
strategies that never go as planned. Sara's
beloved equations, derived from pre-contact works of ancient Earth, depicted
time as a dimension, akin to the several axes of space. Galactic experts
ridiculed this notion, calling the relativistic models of Einstein and others
"naive." Yet Sara knew the expressions contained truth. They had to.
They were too beautiful not to be part of universal design. That
contradiction drew her from mathematics to questions of language-how speech
constrains the mind, so that some ideas come easily, while others can't even be
expressed. Earthling
tongues-Anglic, Rossic, and Nihanic-seemed especially prone to paradoxes,
tautologies, and "proofs" that sound convincing but run counter to
the real world. But
chaos had also crept into the Galactic dialects used byJijo's other exile
races, even before Terran settlers came. To some Biblos linguists, this was
evidence of devolution, starfaring sophistication giving way to savagery, and
eventually to proto-sapient grunts. But last year another explanation occurred
to Sara, based on pre-contact information theory. An insight so intriguing that
she left Biblos to work on it. Or was
I just looking for an excuse to stay away? After
Joshu died of the pox-and her mother of a stroke-research in an obscure field
seemed the perfect refuge. Perched in a lonely tree house, with just Prity and
her books for company, Sara thought herself sealed off from the world's
intrusions. But the
universe has a way of crashing through walls. Sara glanced
at Emerson's glistening dark skin and robust smile, warmed by feelings of
affection and accomplishment. Aside from his muteness, the starman scarcely
resembled the shattered wreck she had found in the mule swamp near Dolo and
nursed back from near death. Maybe I
should quit my intellectual pretensions and stick with what I'm good at. If the
Six Races fell to fighting among themselves, there would be more need of nurses
than theoreticians. So her
thoughts spun on, chaotically orbiting the thin glowing line down the center of
the tunnel. A line that never altered as they trudged on. Its changelessness
rebuked Sara for her private heresy, the strange, blasphemous belief that she
held, perhaps alone among all Jijoans. The
quaint notion of progress. Out of
breath after another run, she climbed back aboard the wagon to find Prity
chuffing nervously. Sara reached over to check the little chimp's wound, but
Prity wriggled free, clambering atop the bench seat, hissing through bared
teeth as she peered ahead. The
drivers were in commotion, too. Kepha and Nuli inhaled with audible sighs. Sara
took a deep breath and found her head awash with contrasts. The bucolic smell
of meadows mixed with a sharp metallic tang . . . something utterly alien. She
stood up with the backs of her knees braced against the seat. Was
that a hint of light, where the center stripe met its vanishing point? Soon a
pale glow was evident. Emerson nipped his rewq over his eyes, then off again. "Uncle,
wake up!" Jomah shook Kurt's shoulder. "I think we're there!" But the
glow remained vague for a long time. Dedinger muttered impatiently, and for
once Sara agreed with him. Expectation
of journey's end made the tunnel's remnant almost unendurable. The
horses sped without urging, as Kepha and Nuli rummaged beneath their seats and
began passing out dark glasses. Only Emerson was exempted, since his rewq made
artificial protection unnecessary. Sara turned the urrishmade spectacles in her
hand. I guess
daylight will seem unbearably bright for a time, after we leave this hole.
Still, any discomfort would be brief until their eyes readapted to the upper
world. The precaution seemed excessive. At last
we'll find out where the horse clan hid all these years. Eagerness blended with
sadness, for no reality-not even some god wonder of the Galactics-could compare
with the fanciful images found in pre-contact tales. A
mystic portal to some parallel reality? A kingdom floating in the clouds? She
sighed. It's probably just some out-of-the-way mountain valley where
neighboring villagers are too inbred and ignorant to know the difference
between a donkey and a horse. The
ancient transitway began to rise. The stripe grew dim as illumination spread
along the walls, like liquid trickling from some reservoir, far ahead. Soon the
tunnel began taking on texture. Sara made out shapes. Jagged outlines. Blinking
dismay, she realized they were plunging toward sets of triple jaws, like a
giant urrish mouth lined with teeth big enough to spear the wagon whole! Sara
took her cue from the Illias. Kepha and Nuli seemed unruffled by the serrated
opening. Still, even when she saw the teeth were metal-corroded with flaking
rust-Sara could hardly convince herself it was only a dead machine. A huge
Buyur thing. She had
never seen its like. Nearly all the great buildings and devices of the
meticulous Buyur had been hauled to sea during their final years on Jijo,
peeling whole cities and seeding mule spiders to eat what remained. So why
didn't the deconstructors carry this thing away? Behind
the massive jaws lay disks studded with shiny stones that Sara realized were
diamonds as big as her head. The wagon track went from smooth to bumpy as Kepha
maneuvered the team along a twisty trail through the great machine's gullet,
zigzagging around the huge disks. At once
Sara realized- This is
a deconstructor! It must have been demolishing the tunnel when it broke down. I
wonder why no one ever bothered to repair or haul it away. Then
Sara saw the reason. Lava. Tongues
and streamlets of congealed basalt protruded through a dozen cracks, where they
hardened in place half a million years ago. It was caught by an eruption. Much
later, teams of miners from some of the Six Races must have labored to clear a
narrow path through the belly of the dead machine, chiseling out the last
stretch separating the tunnel from the surface. Sara saw marks of crude
pickaxes. And explosives must have been used, as well. That could explain the guild's
knowledge of this place. Sara
wanted to gauge Kurt's reaction, but just then the glare brightened as the team
rounded a final sharp bend, climbing a steep ramp toward a maelstrom of light. Sara
fumbled for her glasses as the world exploded with color. Swirling
colors that stabbed. Colors that
shrieked. Colors
that sang with melodies so forceful that her ears throbbed. Colors
that made her nose twitch and skin prickle with sensations just short of pain.
A gasping moan lifted in unison from the passengers, as the wagon crested a
short rise to reveal surroundings more foreign than the landscape of a dream. Even
with the dark glasses in place, each peak and valley shimmered more pigments
than Sara could name. In a daze, she sorted her impressions. To one side
protruded the mammoth deconstructor, a snarl of slumped metal, drowned in
ripples of frozen magma. Ripples that extended to the far horizon-layer after
layer of radiant stone. At last
she knew the answer to her question.
Where on the Slope could a big secret remain hidden for a century or
more? Even
Dedinger, prophet of the sharp-sand desert, moaned aloud at how obvious it was. They
were in the last place on Jijo anyone would go looking for people. The
very center of the Spectral Flow. PART
FOUR FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN I WISH
I COULD introduce myself to Alvin. I feel I already know the lad, from reading
his Journal and eavesdropping on conversations among his mends. Their
grasp of twenty-third-century Anglic idiom is so perfect, and their eager
enthusiasm so dllierent from the hoons and urs I met before coming to Jijo,
that half the time I almost forget I'm listening to aliens. that is, it I
ignore the weird speech tones and inflecttons they take for granted. Then
one of them comes up with a burst of eerily skewed logic that reminds me these
arent just human kids alter all, dressed up in Halloween suits to look like a
crab, a centaur, and a squid on a wheelchair. passing the time, they wondered
vand I could not blame them,, whether they were prisoners or guests in this
underwater refuge. Speculation led to a
wide-ranging discussion, comparing various tamous captives of literature. Among
their intriguing perceptions-Ur-ronn sees Richard II as the story of a
legitimate business takeover, with Dolingbroke as the kings authentic
apprentice. The red
qheuen, I incerlip, maintains that the hero of the leng Ho chronicles was kept
in the emperors harem against his will, even though he had access to the bight
Hundred Beauties and could leave at any time. finally, Huck declared It
frustrating that Shakespeare spent so little time dealing with Macbeths evil
wile, especially her attempt to escape sin by iinding redemption in a
presapient state. [luck
has ideas for a sequel, describing the ladys reuplilt from the tallow
condition. Iner ambitious work would be no less than a morality tale about
betrayal and destiny in the Five Galaxies! Beyond
these singular insights, I am struck that here on Jijo an illiterate community
of castaways was suddenly Hooded with written lore provided by human settlers.
What an ironic reversal of Larths situation, with our own native culture nearly
overwhelmed by exposure to the Great Galactic Library. Astonishingly, the Six Kaces
seem to have adapted with vitality and confidence, if tluck and Alvin are at
all representative. I wish their experiment well. Admittedly,
I still have trouble understanding their religion. the concept of redemption
through devolution is one they seem to take for granted, yet its attraction
eludes me. to my surprise, our ships
doctor said she understands the
concept, quite well. Every
dolphin grows up tee ling the call, Makanee told me. In sleep, our minds still
roam the vast songscape of the Whale Dream. It beckons us to return to our
basic nature, whenever the stress of sapiency becomes too great. This
dolphin crew has been under pressure for three long years. Makanees tfait must
care for over two dozen patients who are already redeemed, as a Jijoan would
put it. These dolphins have reclaimed their basic nature all right. In other
words, we have lost them as comrades and skilled colleagues, as surely as it
they died. Makanee
fights regression wherever she finds symptoms, and yet she remains
philosophical. She even otters a theory to explain why the idea revolts me so. She put
it something like so-- 1
L,Ktiy\l S you humans dread this lite avenue because your race had to work for
sapiency, earning it for yourself the
hard way across thousands of bleak generations. We
tins-and these urs and qheuens and noons, and every other Galactic clan--all
had the gitt handed to us by some race that came before. you can t expect us to
hold on to it quite as tenaciously as you, who had to struggle so desperately
for the same prize. The
attraction of this so-called Redemption lath may be a bit like ditching school.
There s something alluring about the notion of letting go, shucking the
discipline and toil of maintaining a rigorous mind. It you slack off, so what'
YOM descendants will get another chance. A fresh start on the upward road of
uplift, with new patrons to show you the way. I asked
Makanee it she found that part of it especially appealing. The
idea of new patrons. Would dolphins be better off with ditlerent sponsors than
Homo sapiens' She
laughed and expressed her answer in deliclously ambiguous Trinary. *When
winter sends ice* *growling
across northern seas* *Wimps
love the gull stream!* Makanees
comment made me ponder again the question of human origins. On
Earth, most people seem willing to suspend Judgment on the question of whether
our species had help from genetic meddlers, before the age of science and then
contact. Stubborn Darwinists still present a strong case, but few have the guts
to insist Galactic experts are wrong when they claim, with eons of experience,
that the sole route to sapiency is Uplift.
Many terran citizens take their word (or it. So the
debate rages--on popular media shows and in private arguments among humans,
dolphins, and chims-about who our absent patrons might have been. At last count
there were six dozen candidates-from luvalllans and L"ethani all the way
to Sun Ghosts and time travelers from some bizarre (Nineteenth Dimension. While a
few dolphins do believe in missing patrons, a majority are like Makanee. I hey
hold that we humans must have done it ourselves, struggling against darkness
without the slightest Intervention by outsiders. How did
Chaplain Creideiki put it, once" Oh yes. 1 Hr,Kt
are racial memories, lorn and Jill. Recollections that can be accessed through
deep keeneenk meditation. One particular image comes down from our dreamlike
legends--of an apelike creature paddling to sea on a tree trunk, proudly
proclaiming that he had carved it, all by himself, with a stone ax, and
demanding congratulations from an indifferent cosmos. Now I
ask you, would any decent patron let its client act in such a way a manner that
made you look so ridiculous' INO.
From the beginning we could tell that you humans were being raised by amateurs.
Dy yourselves. AT
least thats how I remember Creidelki's remark, lorn found it hilarious, but I
recall suspecting that our captain was withholding part of the story. There was
more, that he was saving for another time. Only
another time never came. Even as
we dined with Creideiki that evening, Streaker was wriggling her way by an
obscure back route into the Shallow duster. A day
or two later, everything changed. It is
late and I should finish these notes. Try to catch some sleep. Mannes
reports mixed results from engineering, lie and l\arkaett found a way to remove
some of the carbon coating from Streaker's hull, but a more thorough job would
only wind up damaging our already weak Ranges, so that's out for now. On the
other hand, the control parameters I hoaxed out or the Library cube enabled
Suessi's crew to bring a couple or these derelict dross starships back to lire!
They re still Junk, or else the Buyur would have taken them along when they
lett. Out immersion in icy water appears to have made little difference since
then. perhaps some use might be found for one or two of the hulks. Anyway, it
gives the engineers something to do. We need
distraction, now that Streaker seems to be trapped once more. Galactic cruisers
have yet again chased us down to a far corner or the universe, coveting our
lives and our secrets. How? I've
pondered this over and over. How did they follow our trail? The
course past l?munuti seemed well hidden. Others made successful escapes this
way before. The ancestors of the Six Races, for instance. It
should have worked. ACROSS
this narrow room, I stare at a small figure in a centered spotlight. My closest
companion since lorn went away. Herbie. Our
prize from the Shallow cluster. Bearer
of hopes and evil luck. Was
there a curse on the vast fleet of translucent vessels we discovered at that
strange dip in space? When Tom lound a way through their shimmering fields and
snatched Herb as a souvenir, did he bring back a Jinx that will haunt us until
we put the damned corpse back in its billion-year-old tomb! I used
to find the ancient mummy entrancing. Its hint of a humanoid smile seemed
almost whimsical. But
I've grown to hate the thing, and alt the space this discovery has sent us
Heeing across. I'd
give it all to have Tom back. To make the last three years go away. To recover
those innocent old days, when the rive Galaxies were merely very, very
dangerous, and there was still such a thing as home. B-BUT
YOU SAID HOONS WERE OUR ENEMIESSS!" Zhaki's tone was defiant, though his
body posture- head down and flukes raised-betrayed uncertainty. Kaa took
advantage, stirring water with his pectoral fins, taking the firm upright
stance of an officer in the Terragens Survey Service. "Those
were different hoons," he answered. "The NuDawn disaster happened a
long time ago." Zhaki
shook his bottle snout, flicking spray across the humid dome. "Eatees are
eateesss. They'll crush Earthlings any chance they get, just like the Soro and
Tandu and all the other muckety Galactics-cs!" Kaa
winced at the blanket generalization, but after two years on the run, such
attitudes were common among the ranks. Kaa also nursed the self-pitying image
of Earth against the entire universe. But if that were true, the torment would
have ended with annihilation long ago. We have
allies, a few friends . . . and the grudging sympathy of neutral clans, who
hold meetings debating what to do about a plague of fanaticism sweeping the
Five Galaxies. Eventually, the majority may reach a consensus and act to
reestablish civilization. They may even penalize our murderers . . . for all
the good it will do us. "Actually,"
said Brookida, turning from his workbench in the far corner of the cramped
shelter. "I would not put the hoon in the same category as our other
persecutors. They aren't religious radicals, or power-hungry conquerors.
Sourpuss bureaucrats-that's a better description. Officious sticklers for
rules, which is why so many enter service with Galactic Institutes. At NuDawn
they were only enforcing the law. When human settlers resisted-" "They
thought they were being invaded!" Zhaki objected. "Yessss."
Brookida nodded. "But Earth's colony hadn't heard about contact, and they
lacked equipment to hear Galactic inquiries. When hoonish officials came to
give a ritual last warning, they met something not in their manuals ... armed
trespassersss. Barbarians with no Galactic language. Mistakes followed.
Military units swarmed in from Joph-" "This
has nothing to do with our present problem." Kaa interrupted Brookida's
history lecture. "Zhaki, you must stop cutting the local hoons' fishing
netsss! It draws attention to us." "Angry
attention," Brookida added. "They grow wary against your
dep-p-predations, Zhaki. Last time, they cast many spears." The
young dolphin snorted. * Let
the whalers throw! * As in
autumn storms of old- * Waves
come, two-legs drown! * Kaa
flinched. Moments ago, Zhaki was eager to avenge humans who had died on a lost
colony, back when dolphins could barely speak. Now the irate youth lumped all
bipeds together,, dredging up a grudge from days before men and women became
caretakers of Earth. There was no arguing with a mind that worked that way.
Still, it was Kaa's job to enforce discipline. * If
you repeat this act, * No
harpoon will sting your backside * Like
my snapping teeth! * It
wasn't great haiku-not poetical Trinary like Captain Creideiki used to dazzle
his crew with, Grafting devoted loyalty from waves of gorgeous sound. But the
warning rocked Zhaki. Kaa followed up, projecting a beam of intense sonar from
his brow, piercing Zhaki's body, betraying fear churnings within. When in
doubt, he thought, fall back on the ancestors' ways. "You
are dismisssssed," he finished. "Go rest. Tomorrow's another long
day." Zhaki
swerved obediently, retreating to the curtained alcove he shared with Mopol. Alas,
despite this brief success, Kaa also knew it would not last. Tsh't
told us this was an important mission. But I bet she assigned us all here
because we're the ones Streaker could most easily do without. That
night he dreamed of piloting. Neo-dolphins
had a flair for it-a precocious talent for the newest sapient species in all
Five Galaxies. Just three hundred years after human geneticists began modifying
natural bottlenose dolphins, starship Streaker was dispatched in a noble
experiment to prove the skill of dolphin crews. The Terragens Council thought
it might help solidify Earth's shaky position to become known as a source of
crackerjack pilots. "Lucky"
Kaa had naturally been pleased to be chosen for the mission, though it brought
home one glaring fact. I was
good . . . but not the best. In half
slumber, Kaa relived the terrifying ambush at Morgan, a narrow escape that
still rocked him, even after -all this time. Socketed
in his station on the bridge, helpless to do anything but go along for the
ride, as Chief Pilot Keepiru sent the old Snark-class survey ship through
maneuvers a Tandu fighter ship would envy, neatly evading lurk mines and snare
fields, then diving back into the Morgan maelstrom, without benefit of guidance
computation. The
memory lost no vividness after two long years. Transit
threads swarmed around them, a dizzying blur of dimensional singularities. By a
whim of cerebral evolution, trained dolphin pilots excelled at picturing the
shimmering space-time clefts with sonar imagery. But Kaa had never rushed through
such a tangle,A tornado of knotted strands. Any shining cord, caught at the
wrong angle, might burl the ship back into normal space with the consistency of
quark stew ... . . .
Yet somehow, the ship sped nimbly from one thread to the next, Keepiru escaped
the pursuers, dodged past the normal trade routes, and finally brought Streaker
to a refuge Captain Creideiki chose. Kithrup,
where resources for repairs could be found as pure isotopic metal, growing like
coral in a poison sea . . . . . .
Kithrup, homeworld of two unknown races, one sinking in an ancient wallow of
despair, and the other hopeful, new ... . . .
Kithrup, where no one should have been able to follow ... . . .
But they did. Galactics, feuding and battling insanely overhead . . . . . .
And soon Keepiru was gone, along with Toshio, Hikahi, and Mr. Orley . . . . . .
and Kaa learned that some wishes were better not coming true. He
learned that he did not really want to be chief pilot, after all. In the
years since, he has gained experience. The escapes he piloted-from Oakka and
the Fractal System- were performed well, if not as brilliantly. Not
quite good enough to preserve Kaa's nickname. I never
heard anyone else say they could do better. All in
all, it was not a restful sleep. Zhaki
and Mopol were at it again, before dawn, rubbing and squealing beyond a slim
curtain they nearly shredded with their slashing tails. They should have gone
outside to frolic, but Kaa dared not order it. "It
is typical postadolescent behavior," Brookida told him, by the food
dispenser. "Young males grow agitated. Among natural dolphins, unisex play
ceases to be sufficient as youths turn their thoughts to winning the
companionship of females. Young allies often test their status by jointly
challenging older males." Of
course Kaa knew all that. But he could not agree with the "typical"
part. I never acted that way. Oh sure, I was an obnoxious, arrogant young fin.
But I never acted intentionally gross, or like some reverted animal. "Maybe
Tsh't should have assigned females to our team." He pondered aloud. "Wouldn't
help," answered the elderly metallurgist. "If those two schtorks
weren't getting any aboard ship, they wouldn't do any better here. Our
fern-fins have high standards." Kaa
sputtered out a lump of half-chewed mullet as he laughed, grateful for
Brookida's lapse into coarse humor- though it grazed by a touchy subject among
Streaker's crew, the petition to breed that some had been circulating and
signing. Kaa changed
the subject. "How goes your analysis of the matter the hoons dumped
overboard?" Brookida
nodded toward his workbench, where several ribboned casks lay cracked open.
Bits of bone and crystal glittered amid piles of ashen dust. "So
far, the contents confirm what the hoonish boy wrote in his journal." "Amazing.
I was sure it must be a fake, planted by our enemies." Transcripts of the
handwritten diary, passed on by Streaker's command, seemed too incredible to
believe. "Apparently
the story is true. Six races do live together on this world. As part of
ecology-oriented rituals, they send their unrecyclable wastes-called dross-to
sea for burial in special disposal zones. This includes parts of their
processed bodies." "And
you found-" "Human
remainsss." Brookida nodded. "As well as chimps, hoons, urs . . . the
whole crowd this young 'Alvin' wrote about." Kaa was
still dazed by it all. "And
there are ... J-Jophur." He could hardly speak the word aloud. Brookida
frowned. "A matter of definition, it seems. I've exchanged message queries
with Gillian and the Niss Machine. They suggest these so-called traeki might
have the other races fooled as part of an elaborate, long-range plot." "How
could that be?" "I
am not sure. It would not require that every traeki be in on the scheme. Just a
few, with secret master rings, • and the hidden equipment to dominate their
fellow beings. I cannot quite fathom it. But Gillian has questioned the
captured Library unit. And that seems a possssible scenario." Kaa had
no answer for that. Such matters seemed so complex, so far beyond his grasp,
his only response was to shiver from the tip of his rostrum all the way down to
his trembling tail. They
spent another day spying on the local sooners. The hoonish seaport, Wuphon,
seemed to match the descriptions in Alvin's journal . . . though more crude and
shabby in the eyes of beings who had seen the sky towers of Tanith and bright
cities on Earth's moon. The hoons appeared to pour more lavish attention on
their boats than their homes. The graceful sailing ships bore delicate carving
work, down to proud figureheads shaped like garish deities. When a
vessel swept past Kaa, he overheard the deep, rumbling sounds of singing, as
the sailors boomed evident joy across the whitecaps. It's
hard to believe these are the same folk Brookida described as passionless
prigs. Maybe there are two races that look alike, and have similar-sounding
names. Kaa made a mental note to send an inquiry in tonight's report. Hoons
weren't alone on deck. He peered at smaller creatures, scrambling nimbly over
the rigging, but when he tried using a portable camera, the image swept by too
fast to catch much more than a blur. Streaker
also wanted better images of the volcano, which apparently was a center of
industrial activity among the sooner races. Gillian and Tsh't were considering
sending another independent robot ashore, though earlier drones had been lost.
Kaa got spectral readings of the mountain's steaming emissions, and discovered
the trace of a slender tramway, camouflaged against the rocky slopes. He
checked frequently on Zhaki and Mopol, who seemed to be behaving for a change,
sticking close to their assigned task of eavesdropping on the red qheuen
colony. But
later, when all three of them were on their way back to base, Mopol lagged
sluggishly behind. "It
must-t have been some-thing I ate," the blue dolphin murmured, as
unpleasant gurglings erupted within his abdomen. Oh
great, Kaa thought. I warned him a hundred times not to sample local critters
before Brookida had a chance to test them! Mopol
swore it was nothing. But as the water surrounding their shelter dimmed with
the setting sun, he started moaning again. Brookida used their tiny med
scanner, but was at a loss to tell what had gone wrong. NOMINALLY,
SHE COMMANDED EARTH'S MOST Famous spaceship-a beauty almost new by Galactic
standards, just nine hundred years old when the Terragens Council purchased it
from a Puntictin used-vessel dealer, then altered and renamed it Streaker to
show off the skills of neo-dolphin voyagers. Alas,
the bedraggled craft seemed unlikely ever again to cruise the great spiral
ways. Burdened by a thick coat of refractory stardust-and now trapped deep
underwater while pursuers probed the abyss with sonic bombs-to all outward
appearances, it seemed doomed to join the surrounding great pile of ghost
ships, sinking in the slowly devouring mud of an oceanic ravine. Gone
was the excitement that first led Tsh't into the service. The thrill of flight.
The exhilaration. Nor was there much relish in "authority," since she
did not make policies or crucial decisions. Gillian Baskin had that role. What
remained was handling ten thousand details . . . like when a disgruntled cook
accosted her in a water-filled hallway, wheedling for permission to go up to
the realm of light. "It'ssss
too dark and c-cold to go fishing down here!" complained Bulla-jo, whose
job it was to help provide meals for a hundred finicky dolphins. "My harvesst
team can hardly move, wearing all that pressure armor. And have you seen the
so-called fish we catch in our nets? Weird things, all sspiky and
glowing!" Tsh't
replied, "Dr. Makanee has passed at least forty common varieties of local
sea life as both tasty and nutritious, so long as we sssupplement with the
right additives." Still,
Bulla-jo groused. "Everyone
favors the samples we got earlier, from the upper world of waves and open air.
There are great schools of lovely things swimming around up-p there." Then
Bulla-jo lapsed into Trinary. * Where
perfect sunshine * Makes
lively prey fish glitter * As
they flee from us! * He
concluded, "If you want fresh f-food, let us go to the surface, like you
p-promised!" Tsh't
quashed an exasperated sigh over Bulla-jo's forgetfulness. In this early stage
of their Uplift, neo-dolphins often perceived whatever they chose, ignoring
contradictions. J do it
myself, now and then. She
tried cultivating patience, as Creideiki used to teach. "Dr.
Baskin canceled plans to send more parties to the sunlit surface," she
told Bulla-jo, whose speckled flanks and short beak revealed ancestry from the
stenos dolphin line. "Did it escape your notice that gravitic emissions
have been detected, cruising above this deep fissure? Or that someone has been
dropping sonic charges, seeking to find usss?" Bulla-jo
lowered his rostrum in an attitude of obstinate insolence. "We can g-go
naked . . . carry no tools the eatees could detect-ct." Tsh't
marveled at such single-minded thinking. "That
might work if the gravities were far away, say in orbit, or passing by at high
altitude. But once they know our rough location they can cruise low and slow,
ssseeking the radiochemical spoor of molecules in our very blood.
Surface-swimming fins would give us away." Irony
was a bittersweet taste to Tsh't, for she knew something she had no intention
of sharing with Bulla-jo. They are going to detect us, no matter how many
precautions Gillian orders. To the
frustrated crew member, she had only soothing words. "Just
float loose for a while longer, will you, Bulla-jo? I, too, would love to chase
silvery fish through warm waters. All may be resolved sh-shortly." Grumpy,
but mollified, the messmate saluted by clapping his pectoral fins and swimming
back to duty . . . though Tsh't knew the crisis would recur. Dolphins disliked
being so far from sunlight, or from the tide's cycloid rub against shore.
Tursiops weren't meant to dwell so deep, where pressurized sound waves carried
in odd, disturbing ways. It is
the realm of Physeter, sperm whale, great-browed messenger of the ancient dream
gods, who dives to wrestle great-armed demons. The
abyss was where hopes and nightmares from past, present, and future drifted to
form dark sediments-a place best left to sleeping things. We
neo-fins are superstitious at heart. But what can you expect, having humans as
our beloved patrons? Humans, who are themselves wolflings, primitive by the
standards of a billion-year-old culture. This
she pondered while inhaling deeply, filling her gill lungs with the air-charged
fluid, oxy-water, that filled most of Streaker's residential passages-a
genetically improvised manner of breathing that nourished, but never
comfortably. One more reason many of the crew yearned for the clean, bright
world above. Turning
toward the Streaker's bridge, she thrust powerfully through the fizzing liquid,
leaving clouds of effervescence behind her driving flukes. Each bubble gave off
a faint pop! as it hiccuped into existence, or merged back into supercharged
solution. Sometimes the combined susurration sounded like elfin applause-or
derisive laughter-following her all over the ship. At
least I don't fool myself, she thought. I do all right. Gillian says so, and
puts her trust in me. But I know I'm not meant for command. Tsh't
had never expected such duty when Streaker blasted out of Earth orbit,
refurbished for use by a neodolphin crew. Back then-over two years ago, by
shipclock time-Tsh't had been only a junior lieutenant, a distant fifth in line
from Captain Creideiki. And it was common knowledge that Tom Orley and Gillian
Baskin could step in if the need seemed urgent ... as Gillian eventually did,
during the crisis on Kithrup. Tsh't
didn't resent that human intervention. In arranging an escape from the Kithrup
trap, Tom and Gillian pulled off a miracle, even if it led to the lovers'
separation. Wasn't
that the job of human leaders and heroes? To intercede when a crisis might
overwhelm their clients? But
where do we turn when matters get too awful even for humans to handle? Galactic
tradition adhered to a firm-some said oppressive-hierarchy of debts and
obligations. A client race to its patron. That patron to its sapience benefactor
. . . and so on, tracing the great chain of uplift all the way back to the
legendary Progenitors. The same chain of duty underlay the reaction of some
fanatical clans on hearing news of Streaker's discovery-a fleet of derelict
ships with ancient, venerated markings. But the
pyramid of devotion had positive aspects. The uplift cascade meant each new
species got help crossing the dire gap dividing mere animals from starfaring
citizens. And if your sponsors lacked answers, they might ask their patrons. And
so on. Gillian
had tried appealing to this system, taking Streaker from Kithrup to Oakka, the
green world, seeking counsel from impartial savants of the Navigation
Institute. Failing there, she next sought help in the Fractal Orb-that huge icy
place, a giant snowflake that spanned a solar system's width-hoping the
venerable beings who dwelled there might offer wise detachment, or at least
refuge. It
wasn't Dr. Baskin's fault that neither gamble paid off very well. She had the
right general idea, Tsh't mused. But Gillian remains blind to the obvious. Who is
most likely to help, when you're in trouble and a lynch mob is baying at your
tail? The
courts? Scholars
at some university? Or your
own family? Tsh't
never dared suggest her idea aloud. Like Tom Orley, Gillian took pride in the
romantic image of upstart Earthclan, alone against the universe. Tsh't knew the
answer would be no. So,
rather than flout a direct order, Tsh't had quietly put her own plan into
effect, just before Streaker made her getaway from the Fractal System. What
else could I do, with Streaker pursued by horrid fleets, our best crew members
gone, and Earth under siege? Our Tymbrimi friends can barely help even
themselves. Meanwhile, the Galactic Institutes have been corrupted and the Old
Ones lied to us. We had
no choice. . . . I
had no choice . . . It was
hard concealing things, especially from someone who knew dolphins as well as
Gillian. For weeks since Streaker arrived here, Tsh't half hoped her disobedience
would come to nought. Then
the detection officer reported gravitic traces. Starcraft engines, entering
Jijo space. So,
they came after all, she had thought, hearing the news, concealing satisfaction
while her crew mates expressed noisy chagrin, bemoaning that they now seemed
cornered by relentless enemies on a forlorn world. Tsh't
wanted to tell them the truth, but dared not. That good news must wait. Ifni
grant that I was right. Tsh't
paused outside the bridge, filling her gene-altered lungs with oxy-water.
Enriching her blood to think clearly before setting in motion the next phase of
her plan. There
is just one true option for a client race, when your beloved patrons seem
overwhelmed, and all other choices are cut off. May the
gods of Earth's ancient ocean know and understand what I've done. And
what I may yet have to do. Sooners
Nelo ONCE, A
BUYUR URBAN CENTER STRETCHED BEtween two rivers, from the Roney all the way to
the faroff Bibur. Now the
towers were long gone, scraped and hauled away to distant seas. In their place,
spiky ferns and cloudlike voow trees studded a morass of mud and oily water.
Mule-spider vines laced a few rounded hummocks remaining from the great city,
but even those tendrils were now faded, their part in the demolition nearly
done. To
Nelo, this was wasteland, rich in life but useless to any of the Six Races,
except perhaps as a traeki vacation resort. What am
I doing here? he wondered. I should he back in Dolo, tending my mill, not prowling
through a swamp, keeping a crazy woman company. Behind
Nelo, hoonish sailors cursed low, expressive rumblings, resentful over having
to pole through a wretched bog. The proper time for gleaning was at the start
of the dry season, when citizens in high-riding boats took turns sifting the
marsh for Buyur relics missed by the patient mule beast. Now, with rainstorms
due any day, conditions were miserable for exploring. The muddy channels were
shallow, yet the danger of a flash flood was very real. Nelo faced the elderly
woman who sat in a wheelchair near the bow, peering past obscuring trees with a
rewq over her eyes. "The
crew ain't happy, Sage Foo," he told her. "They'd rather we waited
till it's safe." Ariana
Foo answered without turning from her search. "Oh, what a great idea. Four
months or more we'd sit around while the swamp fills, channels shift, and the
thing we seek gets buried in muck. Of course, by then the information would be
too late to do any good." Nelo
shrugged. The woman was retired now. She had no official powers. But as former
High Sage for all humans on Jijo, Ariana had moral authority to ask anything
she wanted-including having Nelo leave his beloved paper mill next to broad
Dolo Dam, accompanying her on this absurd search. Not
that there was much to do at the mill, he knew. With commerce spoiled by panic
over those wretched starsbips, no one seems interested in buying large orders. "Now
is the best time," Ariana went on. "Late in dry season, with water
levels low, and the foliage drooping, we get maximum visibility." Nelo
took her word. With most young men and women away on militia duties, it was
mostly adolescents and oldtimers who got drafted into the search party. Anyway,
Nelo's daughter had -been among the first to find the Stranger from Space in
this very region several months ago, during a routine gleaning trip. And he
owed Ariana for bringing word about Sara and the boys-that they were all I
right, when last she heard. Sage Foo had spent time with Nelo's daughter,
accompanying Sara from Tarek Town to the Biblos Archive. He felt
another droplet strike his cheek . . . the tenth since they left the river,
plunging into this endless slough. He held his hand under a murky sky and
prayed the real downpours would hold off for a few more days. Then
let it come down! The lake is low. We need water pressure for the wheel, or
else I'll have to shut down the mill for lack of power. His
thoughts turned to business-the buying and gathering of recycled cloth from all
six races. The pulping and sifting. The pressing, drying, and selling of fine
sheets that his family had been known for ever since humans brought the
blessing of paper to Jijo. A
blessing that some called a curse. That radical view now claimed support from
simple villagers, panicked by the looming end of days- A shout
boomed from above. "There!"
A wiry young hoon perched high on the mast, pointing. "Hr-r ... It must be
the Stranger's ship. I told you this had to be the place!" Wyhuph-eihugo
had accompanied Sara on that fateful gleaning trip-a duty required of all
citizens. Lacking a male's throat sac, she nevertheless umbled with some verve,
proud of her navigation. At
last! Nelo thought. Now Ariana can make her sketches, and we can leave this
awful place. The crisscrossing mule cables made him nervous. Their boat's
obsidiantipped prow had no trouble slicing through the desiccated vines. Still
it felt as if they were worming deeper into some fiendish trap. Ariana
muttered something. Nelo turned, blinking. "What
did you say?" The old
woman pointed ahead, her eyes glittering with curiosity. "I
don't see any soot!" "So?" "The
Stranger was burned. His clothes were ashen tatters. We thought his ship must
have come down in flames-perhaps after battling other aliens high over Jijo.
But look. Do you see any trace of conflagration?" The
boat worked around a final voow grove, revealing a rounded metal capsule on the
other side, gleaming amid a nest of shattered branches. The sole opening
resembled the splayed petals of a flower, rather than a door or hatch. The
arrival of this intruder had cut a swathe of devastation stretching to the
northwest. Several swamp hummocks were split by the straight gouge, only partly
softened by regrown vegetation. Nelo
had some experience as a surveyor, so he helped take sightings to get the
ship's overall dimensions. It was small-no larger than this hoonish boat, in
fact-certainly no majestic cruiser like the one that clove the sky over Dolo
Town, sending its citizens into hysteria. The rounded flanks reminded Nelo of a
natural teardrop, more than anything sapient-made. Two
pinpoints of moisture dotted his cheek and forehead. Another struck the back of
his hand. In the distance, Nelo heard a sharp rumble of thunder. "Hurry
closer!" Ariana urged, flipping open her sketchpad. Murmuring
unhappily, the hoons leaned on their poles and oars to comply. Nelo
stared at the alien craft, but all he could think was dross. When Sixers went
gleaning through Buyur sites, one aim was to seek items that might be useful
for a time, in a home or workshop. But useful or not, everything eventually
went into ribboned caskets to be sent on to the Great Midden. Thus colonists
imagined they were helping cleanse Jijo-perhaps doing more good than harm to
their adopted world. "Ifni!"
Nelo sighed under his breath, staring at the vehicle that brought the Stranger
hurtling out of space. It might be tiny for a starship, but it looked hard as
blazes to move by hand. "We'll
be in for a hell of a job draggin' this thing out of here, let alone gettin' it
down to sea." Again,
off to the south, the sound of thunder boomed. from the too-timid Poa,
completing the final stages of our Uplift. Those
same Oailie who designed new master rings to focus and bind our natures. Without
rings like Me, how could our race ever have become great and feared among the
Five Galaxies? AND
YET, even as I learn to integrate your many little selves into our new whole, I
am struck by how vivid are these older drippings that I find lining our inner
core! Drippings that date from before My fusion with your aged pile of rings.
How lustrous clear these memories seem, despite their counterpointing
harmonies. I confess, existence had intensity and verve when you,we were merely
Asx. PERHAPS
this surprise comes because I,Myself am so young, only recently drawn from the
side of our Ship Commander-from that great one's very own ring-of-embryos. Yes,
that is a high heritage. So imagine the surprise of finding Myself in this
situation! Designed for duties in the dominion caste, I am wedded, for
pragmatic reasons, to a haphazard heap of rustic toruses, ill educated and
filled with bizarre, primitive notions. I have been charged to make the best of
things until some later time, when surgery-of-reconfiguration can be performed- AH.
THAT DRAWS A REACTION FROM SOME OF YOU? Our second ring of cognition, in
particular, finds this notion disturbing. Fear
not, My rings! Accept these jolts of painful love soothing, to remind you of
your place-which is not to question, only to serve. Be assured that the
procedure I refer to is now quite advanced among the mighty Jophur. When a ring
is removed for reassembly in a new stack, often as many as half of the other
leftover components can be recovered and reused as well! Of course, most of you
are elderly, and the priests may decide you carry other-race contaminations,
preventing incorporation into new mounds. But accept this pledge. When the time
comes, I, your beloved master ring, shall very likely make the transition in
good health, and take fond memories of our association to My glorious new
stack. I know
this fact will bring you all great satisfaction, contemplating it within our
common core. wasx WE
JOPHUR ARE TAUGHT THAT IT IS TERRIBLE TO BE traeki-a stack lacking any central
self. Doomed to a splintered life of vagueness and blurry placidity. ALL SING
PRAISES to the mighty Oailie, who took over PATHEDRAL-LIKE
STILLNESS FILLED THE BOO Forest-a dense expanse of gray-green columns, towering
Uto support the sky. Each majestic trunk had a girth like the carapace of a
five-clawed qheuen. Some stretched as high as the Stone Roof of Biblos. Now I
know how an insect feels, scuttling under a sea of pampas grass. Hiking
along a narrow lane amid the giant pillars, Lark often could reach out his arms
and brush two giant stems at the same time. Only his militia sergeant seemed
immune to a sense of confinement infecting travelers in this strange place of
vertical perspectives. Other guards expressed edginess with darting eyes that
glanced worriedly down crooked aisles at half-hidden shadows. "How
far is it to Dooden Mesa?" Ling asked, tugging the straps of her leather
backpack. Perspiration glistened down her neck to dampen the Jijoan homespun
jerkin she wore. The effect was not as provocative as Lark recalled from their
old survey trips together, when the sheer fabric of a Danik jumpsuit sometimes
clung to her biosculpted figure in breathtaking ways. Anyway,
I can't afford that, now that I'm a sage. The promotion brought only unpleasant
responsibilities. "I
never took this shortcut before," Lark answered, although he and Uthen
used to roam these mountains in search of data for their book. There were other
paths around the mountain, and the wheeled g'Keks nominally in charge of this
domain could hardly be expected to do upkeep on such a rough trail. "My
best guess is we'll make it in two miduras. Want to rest?" Ling
pushed sodden strands from her eyes. "No. Let's keep going." The
former gene raider seemed acutely aware of Jeni Shen, the diminutive sergeant,
whose corded arms cradled her crossbow like a beloved child. Jeni glanced
frequently at Ling with hunter's eyes, as if speculating which vital organ
might make a good target. Anyone could sense throbbing enmity between the two
women-and that Ling would rather die than show weakness before the militia
scout. Lark
found one thing convenient about their antagonism. It helped divert Ling's ire
away from him, especially after the way he earlier used logic to slash her
beloved Rothen gods. Since then, the alien biologist had been civil, but kept
to herself in brooding silence. No one
likes to have their most basic assumptions knocked
from under them-especially by a primitive savage. Lark
blew air through his cheeks-the hoonish version of a shrug. "Hr-rm.
We'll take a break at the next rise. By then we should be out of the worst
boo." In
fact, the thickest zone was already behind them, a copse so dense the monstrous
stems rubbed in the wind, creating a low, drumming music that vibrated the
bones of anyone passing underneath. Traveling single file, edging sideways
where the trunks pressed closest, the party had watched for vital trail marks,
cut on one rounded bole after the next. I was
right to leave Uthen behind, he thought, hoping to convince himself. Just hold
on, old friend. Maybe we'll come up with something. I pray we can. Visibility
was hampered by drifting haze, since many of the tall boo leaked from water
reserves high above, spraying arcs of fine droplets that spread to saturate the
misty colonnade. Several times they passed clearings where aged columns had
toppled in a domino chain reaction, leaving maelstroms of debris. Through
the fog, Lark occasionally glimpsed other symbols, carved on trunks beyond the
trail. Not trail marks, but cryptic emblems in GalTwo and GalSix . . .
accompanied by strings of Anglic numbers. Why
would anyone-go scrawling graffiti through a stand of greatboo? He even
spied dim figures through the murk-once a human, then several urs, and finally
a pair of traeki- glimpsed prowling amid rows of huge green pillars. At least
he hoped the tapered cones were traeki. They vanished like ghosts before he
could tell for sure. Sergeant
Shen kept the party moving too fast to investigate. Lark and his prisoner had
been summoned by two of the High Sages-a command that overruled any other
priority. And despite the difficult terrain, recent news from the Glade of
Gathering was enough to put vigor in their steps. Runners
reported that the Jophur dreadnought still blocked the sacred valley, squatting
complacently inside its swathe of devastation, with the captive Rothen ship
doubly imprisoned nearby-first by a gold cocoon, and now a rising lake as well.
The Jophur daily sent forth a pair of smaller vessels, sky-prowling daggers,
surveying the Slope and the seas beyond. No one knew what the star gods were
looking for. Despite
what happened on the night the great ship landed-havoc befalling Asx and others
on the Glade-the High Sages were preparing to send another embassy of brave
volunteers, hoping to parley. No one asked Lark to serve as an envoy. The Sages
had other duties planned for him. Humans
weren't the only ones to cheat a little, when their founding generation came to
plant a taboo colony on forbidden Jijo. For
more than a year after it made landfall, the Tabernacles crew delayed sending
their precious ship to an ocean abyss. A year spent using god tools to cut
trees and print books . . . then storing the precious volumes in a stronghold
that the founders carved beneath a great stone overhang, protected by high
walls and a river. During those early days-especially the urrish and qheuen wars-Biblos
Fortress served as a vital refuge until humans grew strong enough to demand
respect. The
Gray Queens also once had such a citadel, sculpted by mighty engines when they
first arrived, before their sneakship fell beneath the waves. The Caves of
Snood, near present-day Ovoom Town, must have seemed impregnable. But. that
maze of deep-hewn caverns drowned under a rising water table when blue and red
workers dropped their slavish maintenance duties, wandering off instead to seek
new homes and destinies, apart from their chitin empresses. Dooden
Mesa was the oldest of the sooner ramparts. After Tarek Town, it formed the
heart of g'Kek life on Jijo, a place of marvelous stone ramps that curved like
graceful filigrees, allowing the wheeled ones to swoop and careen through a
swirl of tight turns, from their looms and workshops to tree-sheltered
platforms where whole families slept with their hubs joined in slowly rotating
clusters. Under an obscuring blur-cloth canopy, the meandering system resembled
pictures found in certain Earthling books about pre-contact times-looking like
a cross between an "amusement park" and the freeway interchanges of
some sprawling city. Ling's
face brightened with amazed delight when she regarded the settlement, nodding as
Lark explained the lacy pattern of narrow byways. Like Biblos, Dooden Rampart
was not meant to last forever, for that would violate the Covenant of Exile.
Someday it all would have to go- g'Kek elders conceded. Still, the wheeled ones
throbbed their spokes in sinful pride over their beloved city. Their home. While
Ling marveled, Lark surveyed the busy place with fresh poignancy. This
their only home. Unless
the Rothen lied, it seems there are no more g'Kek living among the Five
Galaxies. If they
die on Jijo, they are gone for good. Watching
youngsters pitch along graceful ramps with reckless abandon, streaking round
corners with all four eyestalks flying and their rims glowing hot, Lark could
not believe the universe would let that happen. How could any race so unique be
allowed to go extinct? With
the boo finally behind them, the party now stood atop a ridge covered with
normal forest. As they paused, a zookir dropped onto the path from the branches
of a nearby garu tree-all spindly arms and legs, covered with white spirals of
fluffy torg. Treasured aides and pets of the g'Kek, zookirs helped make life
bearable for wheeled beings on a planet where roads were few and stumbling
stones all too many. This
zookir squinted at the party, then scampered closer, sniffing. Unerringly, it
bypassed the other humans, zeroing in on Lark. Trust a
zookir to know a sage-so went a folk saying. No one had any idea how the
creatures could tell, since they seemed less clever than chimps in other ways.
Lark's promotion was recent and he wore the new status of "junior
sage" uncomfortably, yet the creature had no trouble setting him apart. It
pressed damp nostrils against his wrist and inhaled. Then, cooing satisfaction,
it slipped a folded parchment in Lark's hand. MEET US
AT THE REFUGE-That was all it said. RPAIR
OF HIGH SAGES WAITED IN A NARROW CANyon, half a league away. Lester Cambel and
Knife-Bright Insight, the blue qheuen whose reputation for compassion made her
a favorite among the Six. Here,
too, the paths were smooth and well suited for g'Keks, since this was part of
their Dooden Domain. Wheeled figures moved among the meadows, looking after
protected ones who lived in thatched shelters beneath the trees. It was a
refuge for sacred simpletons-those whose existence promised a future for the
Six Races-according to the scrolls. , Several
of the blessed ones gathered around Knife-Bright | Insight, clucking or mewing in debased versions of Galac- i tic tongues. These were hoons and urs, for
the most part, though a red qheuen joined the throng as Lester watched, and
several traeki stacks slithered timidly closer, burbling happy stinks as they
approached. Each received a loving pat or stroke from Knife-Bright Insight, as
if her claws were gentle hands. Lester
regarded his colleague, and knew guiltily that he could
never match her glad kindness. The blessed were superior beings, ranking above
the normal run of the Six. Their simplicity was proof that other races could
follow the example of glavers, treading down the Path of Redemption. It
should fill my heart to see them, he thought. Yet I
hate coming to this place. Members
of all six races dwelled in simple shelters underneath the canyon walls, tended
by local g'Keks, plus volunteers from across the Slope. Whenever a qheuen, or
hoon, or urrish village found among their youths one who had a knack for
innocence, a gift for animal-like naivete, the lucky individual was sent here
for nurturing and study. There
are just two ways to escape the curse bequeathed to us by our ancestors, Lester
thought, struggling to believe. We could do as Lark's group of heretics
want-stop breeding and leave Jijo in peace. Or else we can all seek a different
kind of oblivion, the kind that returns our children's children to
presentience. Washed clean and ready for a new cycle of uplift. Thus they may
yet find new patrons, and perhaps a happier fate. So
prescribed the Sacred Scrolls, even after all the compromises wrought since the
arrival of Earthlings and the Holy Egg. Given the situation of exile races,
living here on borrowed time, facing horrid punishment if,when a Galactic
Institute finds them here, what other goal could there be? But I
can't do it. I cannot look at this place with joy. Earthling values keep me
from seeing these creatures as lustrous beings. They deserve kindness and
pity-but not envy. It was
his own heresy. Lester tried to look elsewhere. But turning just brought to
view another cluster of "blessed." This time, humans, gathered in a
circle under a ilhuna tree, sitting cross-legged with hands on knees, chanting
in low, sonorous voices. Men and women whose soft smiles and unshifting eyes
seemed to show simplicity of the kind sought here . . . only Lester knew them
to be liars! Long
ago, he took the same road. Using meditation techniques borrowed from old
Earthling religions, he sat under just such a tree, freeing his mind of worldly
obsessions, disciplining it to perceive Truth. And for a while it seemed he
succeeded. Acolytes bowed reverently, calling him illuminated. The universe
appeared lucid then, as if the stars were sacred fire. As if he were united
with all Jijo's creatures, even the very quanta in the stones around him. He
lived in harmony, needing little food, few words, and even fewer names. Such
serenity-sometimes he missed it with an ache inside. But
after a while he came to realize-the clarity he had found was sterile
blankness. A blankness that felt fine, but had nothing to do with redemption.
Not for himself. Not for his race. The
other five don't use discipline or concentration to seek simplicity. You don't
see glavers meditating by a rotten log full of tasty insects. Simplicity calls
to them naturally. They live their innocence. When
Jijo is finally reopened, some great clan will gladly adopt the new glaver
subspecies, setting them once more upon the High Path, perhaps with better luck
than they bad the first time. But
those patrons won't choose us. No noble elder clan is looking for smug Zen
masters, eager to explain their own enlightenment. That is not a plainness you
can write upon. It is simplicity based on individual pride. Of
course the point might be moot. If the Jophur ship represented great Institutes
of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies, these forests would soon throng with
inspectors, tallying up two thousand years of felonies against a fallow world.
Only glavers would be safe, having made it to safety in time. The other six
races would pay for a gamble lost. And if
they don't represent the Institutes? The
Rothen had proved to be criminals, gene raiders. Might the Jophur be more of
the same? Murderous genocide could still be in store. The g'Kek clan, in
particular, were terrified of recent news from the Glade. On the
other hand, it might be possible to cut a deal. Or else maybe they'll just go
away, leaving us in the same state we were in before. In that
case, places like this refuge would go back to being the chief hope for tomorrow
... for five races out of the Six. Lester's
dark thoughts were cut off by a tug on his sleeve. "Sage
Cambel? The . . . um, visitors you're, ah, expecting ... I think . . -." It was
a young human, broad-cheeked, with clear blue eyes and pale skin. The boy would
have seemed tall- almost a giant-except that a stooped posture diminished his
appearance. He kept tapping a corner of his forehead with the fingertips of his
right hand, as if in a vague salute. Lester
spoke gentle words in Anglic, the only language the lad ever managed to learn. "What
did you say, Jimi?" The boy
swallowed, concentrating hard. "I
think the . . . um . . . the people you want t'see ... I think they're here . .
. Sage Cambel." "Lark
and the Danik woman?" A
vigorous nod. "Um,
yessir. I sent 'em to the visitors' shed ... to wait for you an' the other
Great Sage. Was that right?" "Yes,
that was right, Jimi." Lester gave his arm a friendly squeeze.
"Please go back now. Tell Lark I'll be along shortly." A broad
grin. The boy turned around to run the way he came, awkward in his eagerness to
be useful. There
goes the other kind of human who comes to this place, Lester thought. Our
special ones . . . The
ancient euphemism tasted strange. At
first sight, it would seem people like Jimi fit the bill. Simpler minds.
Innocent. Our ideal envoys to tread the Path. He
glanced at the blessed ones surrounding Knife-Bright Insight-urs, hoons, and
g'Keks who were sent here by their respective races in order to do that. To
lead the way. By the
standards of the scrolls, these ones aren 't damaged. Though simple, they
aren't flawed. They are leaders. But no one can say that of Jimi. All sympathy
aside, he is injured, incomplete. Anyone can see that. We can
and should love him, help him, befriend him. But he
leads humanity nowhere. Lester
signaled to his blue qheuen colleague, using an urslike shake of his head to
indicate that their appointment had arrived. She responded by turning her visor
cupola in a quick series of GalTwo winks, flashing that she'd be along shortly. Lester
turned and followed Jimi's footsteps, trying to shift his thoughts back to the
present crisis. To the problem of the Jophur battleship. Back to urgent plans
he must discuss with the young heretic and the woman from the stars. There was
a dire proposal-farfetched and darkly dangerous-they must be asked to accept. Yet, as
he passed by the chanting circle of meditating humans-healthy men and women who
had abandoned their farms, families, and useful crafts to dwell without work in
this sheltered valley-Lester found his contemplations awash with bitter
resentment. The words in his head were unworthy of a High Sage, he knew. But he
could not help pondering them. Morons
and mediators, those are the two types that our race sends up here. Not a true
"blessed" soul in the lot. Not by the standards set in the scrolls.
Humans almost never take true steps down redemption's path. Ur-Jah and the
others are polite. They pretend that we, too, have that option, that potential
salvation. But we
don't. Our lot is sterile. With or
without judgment from the stars-the only future humans face on Jijo is
damnation. Dwer SMOKE
SPIRALED FROM THE CRASH SITE. IT WAS against his better judgment to sneak
closer. In fact, now was his chance to run the other way, while the Danik robot
cowered in a hole, showing no further interest in its prisoners. And if
Rety wanted to stay? Let
her! Lena and Jenin would be glad to see Dwer if he made the long journey back
to the Gray Hills. That should be possible with his trusty bow in hand. True,
Rety needed him, but those up north had better claim on his loyalty. Dwer's
senses still throbbed from the din of the brief battle, when the mighty Danik scoutship
was shot down by a terrifying newcomer. Both vessels lay beyond the next dune,
sky chariots of unfathomable power . . . and Rety urged him to creep closer
still! "We
gotta find out what's going on," she insisted in a harsh whisper. He gave
her a sharp glance, demanding silence, and for once she complied, giving him a
moment to think. Lena
and Jenin may be safe for a while, now that Kunn won't be returning to plague
them. If the Daniks and Rothens have enemies on Jijo, all the star gods may be
too busy fighting each other to hunt a little band in the Gray Hills. Even
without guidance from Danel Ozawa, Lena Strong was savvy enough to make a
three-way deal, with Rety's old band and the urrish sooners. Using Danel's
"legacy," their combined tribe might plant a seed to flourish in the
wilderness. Assuming the worst happened back home on the Slope, their combined
band might yet find its way to the Path. Dwer
shook his head. He sometimes found it hard to concentrate. Ever since letting
the robot use his body as a conduit for its fields, it felt as if voices
whispered softly at the edge of hearing. As when the crazy old mule spider used
to wheedle into his thoughts. Anyway,
it wasn't his place to ponder destiny, or make sagelike decisions. Some things
were obvious. He might not owe Rety anything. She may deserve to be abandoned
to her fate. But he couldn't do that. So,
despite misgivings, Dwer nodded to the girl, adding with emphatic hand motions
that she had better not make a single sound. She replied with a happy shrug
that seemed to say, Sure . . . until I decide otherwise. Slinging
his bow and quiver over one shoulder, he led the way forward, creeping from one
grassy clump to the next, till they reached the crest of the dune. Cautiously
they peered through a cluster of salty fronds to stare down at two sky
vessels-the smaller a smoldering ruin, half submerged in a murky swamp. The
larger ship, nestled nearby, had not escaped the fracas unscarred. It bore a
deep fissure along one flank that belched soot whenever the motors tried to
start. Two men
lay prostrate on a marshy islet, barely moving. Kunn
and Jass. Dwer
and Rety scratched a new hole to hide in, then settled down to see who-or
what-would emerge next. They
did not wait long. A hatch split the large cylinder, baring a dark interior.
Through it floated a single figure, startlingly familiar-an eight-sided pillar
with dangling arms-close cousin to the damaged robot Dwer knew all too well.
Only this one gleamed with stripes of alternating blue and pink, a pattern Dwer
found painful to behold. It also
featured a hornlike projection on the bottom, aimed downward. That must be what
lets it travel over water, he thought. If the robot is similar, could that mean Kunn's
enemies are human, too? But no,
Danel had said that machinery was standard among the half a million starfaring
races, changing only slowly with each passing eon. This new drone might belong
to anybody. The
automaton neared Kunn and Jass, a searchlight playing over their bodies, vivid
even in bright sunshine. Their garments rippled, frisked by translucent
fingers. Then the robot dropped down, arms outstretched. Kunn and Jass lay
still as it poked, prodded, and lifted away with several objects in its pincers. A
signal must have been given, for a ramp then jutted from the open hatch,
slanting to the bog. Who's going to go traipsing around in that stuff? Dwer
wondered. Are they going to launch a boat? He
girded for some weird alien race, one with thirteen legs perhaps, or slithering
on trails of slime. Several great clans had been known as foes of humankind,
even in the Tabernacles day, such as the legendary Soro, or the insectlike
Tandu. Dwer even nursed faint hope that the newcomers might be from Earth, come
all this vast distance to rein in their criminal cousins. There were also
relatives of hoons, urs, and qheuens out there, each with ships and vast
resources at their command. Figures
appeared, twisting down the ramp into the open air. Rety
gasped. "Them's traekis!" Dwer
stared at a trio of formidable-looking ring stacks, with bandoliers of tools
hanging from their toroids-of-manipulation. The tapered cones reached muddy
water and settled in. Abruptly, the flipper legs that seemed awkward on the
ramp propelled them with uncanny speed toward the two survivors. "But
ain't traekis s'posed to be peaceful?" They
are, Dwer thought, wishing he had paid more attention to the lessons his mother
used to give Sara and Lark. Readings from obscure books that went beyond what
you were taught in school. He reached back for a name, but came up empty. Yet
he knew a name existed. One that inspired fear, once-upon-a-time. "I
don't-" he whispered, then shook his head firmly. "I don't think
these are traeki. At least not like anyone's seen here in a very long
while." Alvin THE
SCENE WAS HARD TO INTERPRET AT FIRST. HAZY blue-green images jerked rapidly,
sending shivers down my still-unsteady spine. Huck and Pincer seemed to catch
on more quickly, pointing at various objects in the" picture display,
sharing knowing grunts. The experience reminded me of our trip on Wuphon's
Dream, when poor Alvin the Hoon was always the last one to grok what was going
on. Finally,
I realized-we were viewing a faraway locale, back in the world of sunshine and
rain! (How
many times have Huck and I read about some storybook character looking at a
distant place by remote control? It's funny. A concept can be familiar from
novels, yet rouse awe when you finally encounter it in real life.) Daylight
streamed through watery shallows where green fronds waved in a gentle tide.
Schools of flicking, silvery shapes darted past-species that our fishermen
brought home in nets, destined for the drying racks and stewpots of hoonish
khutas. The
spinning voice said there were sound "pickups" next to the moving
camera lens, which explained the swishing, gurgling noises. Pincer shifted his
carapace, whistling a homesick lament from all five vents, nostalgic for the
tidal pens of his red qheuen rookery. But Ur-ronn soon had quite enough,
turning her sleek head with a queasy whine, made ill by the sight of all that
swishing water. Slanting
upward, the surf grew briefly violent. Then water fled the camera's eye in
foamy sheets as our viewpoint emerged onto a low sandscape. The remote unit
scurried inland, low to the ground. "Normally,
we would send a drone ashore at night. But the matter is urgent. We must count
on the land's hot glare to mask its emergence." Ur-ronn let out a sigh,
relieved to see no more liquid turbulence. "It
forces one to wonder," she said, "why you have not sent sleuthy
agents vefore." "In
fact several were dispatched to seek signs of civilization. Two are long
overdue, but others reported startling scenes." "Such
as?" Huck asked. "Such as hoon mariners, crowing wooden sailing ships
on the high seas." "Hr-rr
. . . What's strange about that?" "And
red qheuens, living unsupervised by grays or blues, beholden to no one, trading
peacefully with their hoonish neighbors." Pincer
huffed and vented, but the voice continued. "Intrigued, we sent a
submarine expedition beyond the Rift. Our explorers followed one of your dross
ships, collecting samples from its sacred discharge. Then, returning to base,
our scout vessel happened on the urrish 'cache' you were sent to recover.
Naturally, we assumed the original owners must be extinct." "Oh?"
Ur-ronn asked, archly. "Why is that?" "Because
we had seen living hoon! Who would conceive of urs and hoon cohabiting
peacefully within a shared volume less broad than a cubic parsec? If hoon
lived, we assumed all urs on Jijo must have died." "Oh,"
Ur-ronn commented, turning her long neck to glare at me. "Imagine
our surprise when a crude vessel plummeted toward our submarine. A hollowed-out
tree trunk containing-" The
voice cut off. The remote unit was in motion again. We edged forward as the
camera eye skittered across sand mixed with scrubby vegetation. "Hey,"
Ur-ronn objected. "I thought you couldn't use radio or anything that can
ve detected from sface!" "Correct." "Then
how are you getting these Pictures in real tine?" "An
excellent question, coming from one with no direct experience in such matters.
In this case, the drone needs only to travel a kilometer or so ashore. It can
deploy a fiber cable, conveying images undetectably." I
twitched. Something in the words just spoken jarred me, in an eerie-familiar
way. "Does
it have to do with the exflosions?" Ur-ronn asked. "The recent attack
on this site vy those who would destroy you?" The
spinning shape contracted, then expanded. "You
four truly are quick and imaginative. It has been an unusual experience
conversing with you. And I was created to appreciate unusual experiences." "In
other words, yes," Huck said gruffly. "Some
time ago, a flying machine began sifting this sea with tentacles of sound.
Hours later, it switched to dropping depth charges in a clear effort to
dislodge us from our mound of concealing wreckage. "Matters
were growing dire when gravitic fields of a second craft entered the area. We
picked up rhythms of aerial combat. Missiles and deadly rays were exchanged in
a brief, desperate struggle." Pincer
rocked from foot to foot. "Gosh-osh-osh!" he sighed, ruining our pose
of nonchalance. "Then
both vessels abruptly stopped flying. Their inertial signatures ceased close to
the drone's present location." "How
close?" Ur-ronn asked. "Very
close," the voice replied. Transfixed,
we watched a hypnotic scene of rapid motion. An ankle-high panorama of scrubby
plants, whipping past with blurry speed. The camera eye dodged clumps of saber
fronds, skittering with frantic speed, as the drone sought height overlooking a
vast marshy fen. All at
once, a glint of silver! Two glints. Curving flanks of- That
was when it happened. Without
warning, just as we had our first thrilling glimpse of crashed flyships, the
screen was abruptly filled by a grinning face. We
rocked back, shouting in surprise. I recoiled so fast, even the high-tech back
brace could not save my spine from surging pain. Huphu's claws dug in my
shoulder as she trilled an amazed cry. The
face bared a glittering, gleeful display of pointy teeth. Black, beady eyes
stared at us, inanely magnified, so full of feral amusement that we all groaned
with recognition. Our
tiny drone pitched, trying to escape, but the grinning demon held it firmly
with both forepaws. The creature raised sharp claws, preparing to strike. The
spinning voice spoke then-a sound that flew out, then came back to us through
the drone's tiny pickups. There were just three words, in a queerly accented
form of GalSeven, very high-pitched, almost beyond a hoon's range. "Brother,
" the voice said quickly to the strange noor. "Please
stop." wasx WORD
COMES THAT WE HAVE LOST TRACK OF A Corvette! Our
light cruiser sent to pursue an aircraft of the Rothen bandits. Trouble
was not anticipated in such a routine chore. It raises disturbing questions.
Might we have underestimated the prowess of this brigand band? You,
our second ring-of-cognition-you provide access to many memories and thoughts
once accumulated by our stack, before I joined to become your master ring.
Memories from a time when we,you were merely Asx. You
recall hearing the human gene thieves making preposterous claims. For instance,
that their patrons-these mysterious "Rothen"-are unknown to Galactic
society at large. That the Rothen wield strong influence in hidden ways. That
they scarcely fear the mighty battle fleets of the great clans of the Five
Galaxies. We of
the battleship Polkjhy heard similar tall tales before arriving at this world.
We took it all for mere bluff. A pathetic cover story, attempting futilely to
hide the outlaws' true identity. BUT
WHAT IF THE STORY IS TRUE? No one
can doubt that mysterious forces do exist-ancient, aloof, influential. Might we
have crossed fates with some cryptic power, here in an abandoned galaxy, far
from home? OR TAKE
THE IDEA MORE BROADLY. Might such a puissant race of cloaked ones stand
secretly behind all Terrans, guiding their destiny? Protecting them against the
fate that generally befalls wolflihg breeds? It would explain much strangeness
in recent events. It could also bode ill for our Obeyer Alliance, in these
dangerous times. BUT NO!
Facts do not support that fear. You
primitive, rustic rings would not know this, so let Me explain. NOT
LONG AGO, the Polkjhy was contacted by certain petty data merchants,
unscrupulous vermin offering news for sale. Through human agents, these
"Rothen" approached us-the great and devout Jophur-because our ship
happened to be on search patrol nearby. Also, they calculated Jophur would pay
twice as much for the information they wanted to sell. -ONCE
for clues to find the main quarry we seek, a missing Earth vessel that ten
thousand ships have pursued for years, as great a prize as any in the Five
Galaxies- -AND A
SECOND TIME for information about the ancestor-cursed g'Kek, a surviving
remnant who took refuge here many planet cycles ago, thwarting our righteous,
extinguishing wrath. The
Rothen and their henchmen hoped to reap handsome profit by selling us this
information, added to whatever genetic scraps they might steal from this unripe
world. The arrangement must have seemed ideal to them, for both sides would be
well advised to keep the transaction secret forever. Is that
the behavior of some great, exalted power? One risen above trivial mortal
concerns? Would
deity-level beings have been so rudely surprised by local savages, who
vanquished their buried station with mere chemical explosives? Did
they prove so mighty when we turned our rings around half circle in an act of
pious betrayal, and pounced upon their ship? Freezing it in stasis by means of
a not unclever trick? No,
this cannot be a reasonable line of inquiry, My rings. It worries me that you
would waste our combined mental resources pursuing a blind pathway. , This
digression-IS IT YET.ANOTHER VAIN EFFORT TO ( DISTRACT ME FROM THE NARROWNESS
OF PURPOSE ' THAT IS MY PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE STACK? I Is that
also why some of you keep trying to tune in socalled guidance ^patterns from
that silly rock you call a "Holy
Egg"? Are
these vague, disjointed efforts aimed at yet another rebellion? HAVE
YOU NOT YET LEARNED? Shall I
demonstrate, once again, why the Oailie made My kind, and named us "master
rings"? LET US
drop these silly cogitations and consider alternative explanations for the
disappearance of the corvette. Perhaps, when our crew hunted down the scout
boat of the Rothen, they stumbled onto something else instead? Something
more powerful and important, by far? . . . ? Is this
true? You truly have no idea what I am hinting at? Not
even a clue? Why, most of the inhabitants of the Five Galaxies-even the
enigmatic Zang-know of the ship we seek. A vessel pursued by half the armadas
in known space. You
have indeed lived in isolation, My rustic rings! My primitive subselves. My
temporary pretties, who have not heard of a ship crewed by half-animal
dolphins. How
very strange indeed. Sara WITHOUT
DARK GLASSES PROVIDED BY THE HORSE riding Illias, Sara feared she might go
blind or insane. A few stray glints were enough to stab her nerves with
unnatural colors, cooing for attention, shouting dangerously, begging her to
remove the coverings, to stare . . . perhaps losing herself in a world of
shifted light. Even in
sepia tones, the surrounding bluffs seemed laden with cryptic meaning. Sara
recalled how legendary Odysseus, sailing near the fabled Sirens, ordered his
men to fill their ears with wax, then lashed himself to the mast so he alone
might hear the temptresses' call, while the crew rowed frantically past bright,
alluring shoals. Would
it hurt to take the glasses off and stare at the rippled landscape? If
transfixed, wouldn't her friends rescue her? Or might her mind be forever
absorbed by the panorama? People
seldom mentioned the Spectral Flow--a blindspot on maps of the Slope. Even
those hardy men who roamed the sharp-sand desert, spearing roul shamblers
beneath the hollow dunes, kept awed distance from this poison landscape. A
realm supposedly bereft of life. Only
now Sara recalled a day almost two years ago, when her mother lay dying in the
house near the paper mill, with the Dolo waterwheel groaning a low background
lament. From outside Melina's sickroom, Sara overheard Dwer discussing this
place in a low voice. Of
course her younger brother was specially licensed to patrol the Slope and
beyond, seeking violations of the Covenant and Scrolls. It surprised Sara only
a little to learn he had visited the toxic land of psychotic colors. But from
snippets wafting through the open door, it sounded as if Melina had also seen
the Spectral Flow-before coming north to marry Nelo and raise a family by the
quiet green Roney. The conversation had been in hushed tones of deathbed
confidentiality, and Dwer never spoke of it after. Above all, Sara was moved by
the wistful tone of her dying mother's voice. "Dwer
. . . remind me again about the colors. ..." The horses did not seem to
need eye protections, and the two drivers wore theirs lackadaisically, as to
stave off a well-known irritation rather than dire peril. Relieved to be out of
the Buyur tunnel, Kepha murmured to Nuli, sharing the first laughter Sara had
heard from any Illias. She
found her thoughts more coherent now, with surprise giving way to curiosity.
What about people and races who are naturally color-blind? The effect must
involve more than mere frequency variations on the electromagnetic spectrum, as
the urrish glasses probably did more than merely darken. There must be some
other effect. Light polarization? Or psi? Emerson's
rewq satisfied his own need for goggles. But Sara felt concern when he peeled
back the filmy symbiont to take an unprotected peek. He winced, visibly
recoiling from sensory overflow, as ir a hoonish grooming fork had plunged into
his eye. She started toward him-but that initial reaction was brief. A moment
later the starman grinned at her, an expression of agonized delight. Well,
anything you can do-she thought, nudging her glasses forward. . . . Her
first surprise was the pain that wasn't. Her irises adjusted, so the sheer
volume of illumination was bearable. Rather,
Sara felt waves of nausea as the world seemed to shift and dissolve ... as if
she were peering through layer after layer of overlapping images. The
land's mundane topography was a terrain of layered lava flows, eroded canyons,
and jutting mesas. Only now that seemed only the blank tapestry screen on which
some mad g'Kek artist had embroidered an apparition in luminous paint and
textured thread. Each time Sara blinked, her impressions shifted. -Towering
buttes were fairy castles, their fluttering pennants made of glowing shreds of
windblown haze. ... -Dusty
basins became shimmering pools. Rivers of mercury and currents of blood seemed
to flow uphill as merging swirls of immiscible fluid. . . . -Rippling
like memory, a nearby cliff recalled Buyur architecture-the spires of Tarek
Town-only with blank windows replaced by a million splendid glowing lights. . .
. -Her
gaze shifted to the dusty road, with pumice flying from the wagon wheels. But on
another plane it seemed the spray made up countless glittering stars. . . . -Then
the trail crested a small hill, revealing the most unlikely mirage of all ...
several narrow, fingerlike valleys, each surrounded by steep hills like ocean
waves, frozen in their spuming torrent. Underneath those sheltering heights,
the valley bottoms appeared verdant green, covered with impossible meadows and
preposterous trees. "Xi,"
announced Kepha, murmuring happily in that accent Sara found eerily
strange-familiar . . . . . .
and she abruptly knew why! Surprise
made Sara release the glasses, dropping them back over her eyes. The
castles and stars vanished . . . . . .
but the meadows remained. Four-footed shapes could be seen grazing on real
grass, drinking from a very real stream. Kurt
and Jomah sighed. Emerson laughed and Prity clapped her hands. But Sara was too
astonished to utter a sound. For now she knew the truth about Melina the
Southerner, the woman who long ago came to the Roney, supposedly from the
far-off Vale, to become Nelo's bride. Melina the happy eccentric, who raised
three unusual children by the ceaseless drone of Dolo Dam. Mother
. . . Sara thought, in numb amazement. This must have been your home. The
rest of the horsewomen arrived a few miduras later with their urrish
companions, dirty and tired. The Illias unsaddled their faithful beasts before
stripping off their riding gear and plunging into a warm volcanic spring,
beneath jutting rocks where Sara and the other visitors rested. Watching
Emerson, Sara verified that one more portion of his battered brain must be
intact, for the spaceman's eyes tracked the riders' nude femininity with normal
male appreciation. She
squelched a jealous pang, knowing that her own form could never compete with
those tanned, athletic figures below. The
starman glanced Sara's way and flushed several shades darker, so sheepishly
rueful that she had to laugh out loud. "Look,
but don't touch," she said, with an exaggerated waggle of one finger. He
might not grasp every word, but the affectionate admonishment got through. Grinning,
he shrugged as if to say, Who, me? I wouldn 't think of it! The
wagon passengers had already bathed, though more modestly. Not that nakedness
was taboo elsewhere on the Slope. But the Illias women behaved as if they did
not know-or care-about the simplest fact all human girls were taught about the
opposite sex. That male Homo sapiens have primitive" arousal responses
inextricably bound up in their optic nerves. Perhaps
it's because they have no men, Sara thought. Indeed,
she saw only female youths and adults, tending chores amid the barns and
shelters. There were also urs, of Ulashtu's friendly tribe, tending their
precious simla and donkey herds at the fringes of the oasis. The two sapient
races did not avoid each other-Sara glimpsed friendly encounters. But in this
narrow realm, each had its favored terrain. Ulashtu
knew Kurt, and must have spent time in the outer Slope. In fact, some Illias
women also probably went forth, now and then, moving among unsuspecting
villagers of the Six Races. Melina
had a good cover story when she came to Dolo, arriving ivith letters of
introduction, and baby Lark on her hip. Everyone assumed she came from
somewhere in the Vale. A typical arranged remarriage. It
never seemed an issue to Nelo, that his eldest son had an unknown father.
Melina subtly discouraged inquiries into her past. But a
secret like this . . . With
Ulashtu's band came a prisoner. Vigor, the urrish tinker who befriended Sara
back at Dolo, only to spring a trap, leading to captivity by Dedinger's
fanatics and the reborn Urunthai. Now their roles were reversed. Sara noted
Vigor's triplet eyes staring in dismay at the astonishing oasis. How the
Urunthai would hate this place! Their predecessors seized our horses to destroy
them all. Urrish sages later apologized, after Drake the Elder broke the
Urunthai. But how can you undo death? You
cannot. But it is possible to cheat extinction. Watching fillies and colts
gambol after their mares below a bright rocky overhang, Sara felt almost happy
for a time. This oasis might even remain unseen by omniscient spy eyes of alien
star lords, confused by the enclosing land of illusion. Perhaps Xi would survive
when the rest of the Slope was made void of sapient life. She saw
Uigor ushered to a pen near the desert prophet, Dedinger. The two did not
speak. Beyond
the women splashing in the pool and the grazing herds, Sara had only to lift
her eyes in order to brush a glittering landscape where each ripple and knoll
pretended to be a thousand impossible things. The country of lies was a name
for the Spectral Flow. No doubt a person got used to it, blanking out
irritating chimeras that never proved useful or informative. Or else, perhaps
the Illias had no need of dreams, since they lived each day awash in Jijo's
fantasies. The
scientist in Sara wondered why it equally affected all races, or how such a
marvel could arise naturally. There's no mention of anything like it in Biblos.
But humans only had a sprinkling of Galactic reference material when the
Tabernacle left Earth. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon, found on many
worlds. But how
much more wonderful if Jijo had made something unique! She
stared at the horizon, letting her mind free-associate shapes out of the
shimmering colors, until a mellow female voice broke in. "You
have your mother's eyes, Sara." She
blinked, drawing back to find two humans nearby, dressed in the leather
garments of Illias. The one who had spoken was the first elderly woman Sara had
seen here. The
other was a man. Sara
stood up, blinking in recognition. "F-Fallon?" He had
aged since serving as Dwer's tutor in the wilderness arts. Still, the former
chief scout seemed robust, and smiled broadly. A
little tactlessly, she blurted, "But I thought you were dead!" He
shrugged. "People assume what they like. I never said I'd died." A Zen
koan if she ever heard one. But then Sara recalled what the other person said.
Though shaded against the desert's glow, the old woman seemed to partake of the
hues of the Spectral Flow. "My
name is Foruni," she told Sara. "I am senior rider." "You
knew my mother?" The
older woman took Sara's hand. Her manner reminded Sara of Ariana Foo. "Melina
was my cousin. I've missed her, these many years-though infrequent letters told
us of her remarkable children. You three validate her choice, though exile must
not have been easy. Our horses and shadows are hard to leave behind." "Did
Mother leave because of Lark?" "We
have ways of making it likely to bear girls. When a boy is born we foster him
to discreet friends on the Slope, taking a female child in trade." Sara
nodded. Exchange fostering was a common practice, helping cement alliances
between villages or clans. "But
Mother wouldn't give Lark up." "Just
so. In any event, we need agents out there, and Melina was dependable. So it
was done, and the decision proved right . . . although we mourned, on hearing
of her loss." Sara
accepted this with a nod. "What
I don't understand is why only women?" The
elder had deep lines at the corners of her eyes, from a lifetime of squinting. "It
was required in the pact, when the aunties of Urchachkin tribe offered some
humans and horses shelter in their most secret place, to preserve them against
the Urunthai. In those early days, urs found our menfolk disquieting-so strong
and boisterous, unlike their own husbands. It seemed simpler to arrange things
on a femaleto-female basis. "Also,
a certain fraction of boys tend to shrug off social constraints during
adolescence,' no matter how carefully they are raised. Eventually, some young
man would have burst from the Illias realm without adequate preparation- and
all it would take is one. In his need to preen and make a name, he might spill
our secret to the Commons at large." "Girls
act that way, too, sometimes," Sara pointed out. "Yes,
but our odds were better this way. Ponder the young men you know, Sara. Imagine
how they would have behaved." She
pictured her brothers, growing up in this narrow oasis. Lark would have been
sober and reliable. But Dwer, at fifteen, was very different than he became at
twenty. "And
yet, I see you aren't all women. ..." The
senior rider grinned. "Nor are we celibates. From time to time we bring in
mature males-often chief scouts, sages, or explosers-men who already know our
secret, and are of an age to be calm, sensible companions . . . yet still
retain vigor in their step." Fallen
laughed to cover brief embarrassment. "My step is no longer my best
feature." Foruni
squeezed his arm. "You'll do for a while yet." Sara
nodded. "An urrish-sounding solution." Sometimes a group of young
urs, lacking the means to support individual husbands, would share one, passing
him from pouch to pouch. The
senior rider nodded, expressing subtleties of irony with languid motions of her
neck. "After many generations, we may have become more than a bit urrish
ourselves." Sara
glanced toward Kurt the Exploser, sitting on a smooth rock studying carefully
guarded texts, with both Jomah and Prity lounging nearby. "Then
you sent the expedition to fetch Kurt because you want another-" "Ifni,
no! Kurt is much too old for such duties, and when we do bring in new partners
it is with quiet discretion. Hasn't Kurt explained to you what this is all
about? His role in the present crisis? The reason why we gambled so much to
fetch you all?" When
Sara shook her head, Poruni's nostrils flared and she hissed like an urrish
auntie, perplexed by foolish juniors. "Well,
that's his affair. All I know is that we must escort you the rest of the way as
soon as possible. You'll rest with us tonight, my niece. But alas, family
reminiscence must wait till the emergency passes ... or once it overwhelms us
all." Sara
nodded, resigned to more hard riding. "From
here . . . can we see-?" Fallen
nodded, a gentle smile on his creased features. "I'll
show you, Sara. It's not far." She
took his arm as Foruni bade them return soon for a feast. Already Sara's nose
filled with scents from the cook- fire. But soon her thoughts were on the path
as they crossed narrow,' miraculous meadows, then scrublands where simlas
grazed, and beyond to a steepening pass wedged between two hills. Sunlight was
fading rapidly, and soon the smallest moon, Passen, could be seen gleaming near
the far west horizon. She
heard music before they crested the pass. The familiar sound of Emerson's
dulcimer, pinging softly ahead. Sara was loath to interrupt, yet the glow drew
her-a shimmering lambency rising from Jijo, filling a vista beyond the
sheltered oasis. The
layered terrain seemed transformed in pearly moonlight. Gone were the garish
colors, yet there remained an extravagant effect on the imagination. It took an
effort of will in order not to go gliding across the slopes, believing in false
oceans and battlements, in ghost cities and starscapes, in myriad phantom
worlds that her pattern-gleaning brain Grafted out of opal rays and shadows. Fallon
took Sara's elbow, turning her toward Emerson. The
starman stood on a rocky eminence with the dulcimer propped before him, beating
its forty-six strings. The melody was eerie. The rhythm orderly, yet impossible
to constrain, like a mathematical series that refused to converge. Emerson's
silhouette was framed by flickering fire as he played for nature's maelstrom. This
fire was no imagining-no artifact of an easily fooled eye. It rippled and
twisted in the far distance, rimming the broad curves of a mighty peak that
reared halfway up the sky. Fresh
lava. Jijo's
hot blood. The
planet's nectar of renewal, melted and reforged. Hammering
taut strings, the Stranger played for Mount Guenn, serenading the volcano while
it repaid him with a halo of purifying flame. PART
FIVE A
PROPOSAL FOR A USEFUL TOOL,STRATEGY BASED ON OUR EXPERIENCE ON JIJO: IT HAS
BEEN NEARLY A MILLENNIUM SINCE A LARGE OUTBREAK OF TRAEKINESS WAS FOUND. These
Hare-ups used to be Frequent embarrassments, where stacks or hapless rings were
round languishing without even a single master torus to guide them. But no word
of such an occurrence has come within the memory of living wax. The
reaction of our lollijhy ship to this discovery on Jijo was disgusted
loathing. HOWEVER, LET US NOW PAUSE
and consider how the Great Jophur League might learn,benerit from this
experiment. Never belore have cousin rings dwelled in such intimacy with other
races Although polluted,contaminated, these traeki have also acquired waxy
expertise aoout urs, hoon, and qheuen sapient lilc-torms--as well as human
wolflings and gis-ek vermin. MOREOVER,
the very traits that we Jophur find repellent in traeki-natural rings--their
lack of locus, sell, or ambition--appear to enable them to achieve empathy with
unitary beings! The other five races of Jijo trust these ring stacks. They
confide secrets, share confidences, delegate some traekts with medical
tasl<s and even powers of llle continuation,cessation. IMAGINE
THIS POSSIBILITY SUPPOSE WE ATTEMPT A RUSE. INTENTIONALLY
we might create new traeki and arrange for them to escape the loving embrace of
our noble clan. Genuinely believing they are in (light From oppressive master
rings, these stacl<s would be induced to seek shelter among some of the
races we call enemies. Next
suppose that, using this knack of vacuous empathy, they make Iriendships among
our toes. As generations pass, they become trusted comrades. At
which point we arrange for agents to snatch-to harvest--some of these rogue
traeki, converting them to Jophur exactly as we did when Asx was translormed
into Ewasx, by applying the needed master rings. Would
this not give us quick expertise about our toes' GKAN 1
L,U, this L,wasx experiment has not been a complete success. The old traeki,
Asx, managed to melt many waxy memories beiore completion of metamorphosis. The
resulting partial amnesia has proved inconvenient. Yet,
this does not detract From the value of the scheme-to plant empathic spies in
our enemies midst. Jples who are believable because they think they are true
triends! Nevertheless, with the hoon of master rings, we can reclaim lost
brethren wherever and whenever we hnd them. Makanee THERE
WERE TWO KINDS OF PUPILS IN THE WIDE, wet classroom. One
group signified hope-the other, despair. One was illegal-the other, hapless.
The first type was innocent and eager. The second had already seen and heard
far too much. # good
fish . . . # goodfisb, goodfish . . . # good-good FISH.' # Dr.
Makanee never used to hear Primal Delphin spoken aboard the Streaker. Not when
the keeneenk master, Creideiki, used to hold the crew rock steady by his
unwavering example. Nowadays,
alas, one commonly picked up snatches of old-speech-the simple, emotive
squealing used by unaltered Tursiops in Earth's ancient seas. As ship
physician, even Makanee sometimes found herself grunting a snatch phrase, when
fmstrations crowded in from all sides . . . and when no one was listening. Makanee
gazed across a broad chamber, half-filled with water, as students jostled near
a big tank at the spinward end, avid to be fed. There were almost thirty
neo-dolphins, plus a dozen six-armed, monkeylike figures, scrambling up the
shelf-lined walls, or else diving to swim agilely with webbed hands. Just half
the original group of Kiqui survived since they were snatched hastily from
far-off Kithrup, but the remaining contingent seemed healthy and glad to frolic
with their dolphin friends. I'm
still not sure we did the right thing, taking them along. Neo-dolphins are much
too young to take on the responsibilities of patronhood. A pair
of teachers tried bringing order to the unruly mob. Makanee saw the younger
instructor-her former head nurse, Peepoe-use a whirring harness arm to snatch
living snacks from the tank and toss them to the waiting crowd of pupils. The
one who uttered the Primal burst-a middleaged dolphin with listless
eyes-smacked his jaw around a blue thing with writhing tendrils that looked
nothing like a fish. Still, the fin crooned happily while he munched. #
Goodfish . . . good-good-good! # Makanee
had known poor Jecajeca before Streaker launched from Earth-a former
astrophotographer who loved his cameras and the glittering black of space. Now
Jecajeca was another casualty of Streaker's long retreat, fleeing ever farther
from the warm oceans they called home. This
voyage was supposed to last six months, not two and a half years, with no end
in sight. A young client race shouldn't confront the challenges we have, almost
alone. Taken
in that light, it seemed a wonder just a quarter of the crew had fallen to
devolution psychosis. Give it
time, Makanee. You may yet travel that road yourself. "Yes,
they are tasty, Jecajeca," Peepoe crooned, turning the reverted dolphin's
outburst into a lesson. "Can you tell me, in Anglic, where this new
variety of 'fish' comes from?" Eager
grunts and squeaks came from the brighter half of the class, those with a
future. But Peepoe stroked the older dolphin with sonar encouragement, and soon
Jecajeca's glazed eye cleared a bit. To please her, he concentrated. "F-f-rom out-side . . . Good s-s-sun . . . good wat-t-ter . . ." Other
students offered raspberry cheers, rewarding this short climb back toward what
he once had been. But it was a slippery hill. Nor was there much a doctor could
do. The cause lay in no organic fault. Reversion
is the ultimate sanctuary from worry. Makanee
approved of the decision of Lieutenant Tsh't and Gillian Baskin, not to release
the journal of Alvin the Hoon to the crew at large. If
there's one thing the crew don't need right now, it's to hear of a religion
preaching that it's okay to devolve.
Peepoe finished feeding the reverted adults, while her partner took care
of the children and Kiqui. On spying Makanee, she did an agile flip and swam
across the chamber in two powerful fluke strokes, resurfacing amid a burst of
spray. "Yesss,
Doctor? You want to see me?" Who
wouldn 't want to see Peepoe? Her skin shone with youthful luster, and her good
spirits never flagged, not even when the crew had to flee Kithrup, abandoning
so many friends. "We
need a qualified nurse for a mission. A long one, I'm afraid." Ratcheting
clicks spread from Peepoe's brow as she pondered. "Kaa's
outpost. Is someone hurt-t?" "I'm not sure. It may be food poisoning
... or else kingree fever." Peepoe's
worried expression eased. "In that case, can't Kaa take care of it
himself? I have duties here." "Olachan
can handle things while you are away." Peepoe
shook her head, a human gesture by now so ingrained that even reverted fins
used it. "There must be two teachers. We can't mix the children and Kiqui
with the hapless ones too much." Just
five dolphin infants had been born to crew members so far, despite a growing
number of signatures on the irksome Breeding Petition. But those five
youngsters deserved careful guidance. And that counted double for the
Kiqui-presentients who appeared ripe for uplift by some lucky Galactic clan who
won the right to adopt them. That laid a heavy moral burden on the Streaker
crew. "I'll
keep a personal eye on the Kiqui . . . and we'll free the kids' parents from
duty on a rotating basis, to join the creche as teachers' aidesss. That's the
best I can do, Peepoe." The
younger dolphin acquiesced, but grumbled. "This'll turn out to be a wild
tuna chase. Knowing Kaa, he prob'ly forgot to clean the water filters." Everyone
knew the pilot had a long-standing yearning for Peepoe. Dolphins could
sonar-scan each other's innards, so there was no concealing simple, persistent
passions. Poor
Kaa. No wonder he lost his nickname. "There
is a second reason you're going," Makanee revealed in a low voice. "I
thought so. Does it have to do with gravitic signals and depth bombsss?" "This
hideout is jeopardized," Makanee affirmed. "Gillian and Tsh't plan to
move Streaker soon." "You
want me to help find another refuge? By scanning more of these huge junk piles,
along the way?" Peepoe blew a sigh. "What else? Shall I compose a
symphony, invent a star drive, and dicker treaties with the natives while I'm
at it?" Makanee
chuttered. "By all accounts, the sunlit sea above is the most pleasant
we've encountered since departing Calafia. Everyone will envy you." When
Peepoe snorted dubiously, Makanee added in Trinary- *
Legends told by whales * Call
one trait admirable- *
Adaptability! * This
time, Peepoe laughed appreciatively. It was the sort of thing Captain Creideiki
might have said, if he were still around. Back in
sick bay, Makanee finished treating her last patient and closed shop for the
day. There had been the usual psychosomatic ailments, and inevitable accidental
injuries from working outside in armored suits, bending and welding metal under
a mountainous heap of discarded ships. At least the number of digestive
complaints had gone down since teams with nets began harvesting native food.
Jijo's upper sea teemed with life, much of it wholesome, if properly
supplemented. Tsh't had even been preparing to allow liberty parties outside .
. . before sensors picked up starships entering orbit. Was it
pursuit? More angry fleets chasing Streaker for her secrets? No .one should
have been able to trace Gillian's sneaky path by a nearby supergiant whose
sooty winds had disabled the robot guards of the Migration Institute. But the
idea wasn't as original as we hoped. Others came earlier, including a rogue
band of humans. I guess we shouldn't be surprised if it occurs to our pursuers,
as well. Makanee's
chronometer beeped a reminder. The ship's council-two dolphins, two humans, and
a mad computer-was meeting once more to ponder how to thwart an implacable
universe. There
was a sixth member who silently attended, offering fresh mixtures of
opportunity and disaster at every turn. Without that member's contributions,
Streaker would have died or been captured long ago. Or
else, without her, we'd all be safe at home. Either
way, there was no escaping her participation. Ifni,
capricious goddess of chance. Hannes IT WAS
HARD TO GET ANYTHING DONE. DR. BASKIN kept stripping away members of his
engine-room gang, assigning them other tasks. He
groused. "It's too soon to give up on Streaker, I tell you!" "I'm
not giving her up quite yet," Gillian answered. "But with that
carbonite coating weighing the hull down-" "We've
been able to analyze the stuff, at last. It seems the stellar wind blowing off
Izmunuti wasn't just atomic or molecular carbon, but a ftind of star soot made
up of tubes, coils, spheres, and such." Gillian
nodded, as if she had expected this. "Buckyballs.
Or in GalTwo-" Pursed lips let out a clicking trill that meant container
home for individual atoms. "I did some research in the captured Library
cube. It seems an interlaced mesh of these microshapes can become
superconducting, carrying away vast amounts of heat. You're not going to peel
it off easily with any of the tools we have." "There
could be advantages to such stuff." "The
Library says just a few clans have managed to synthesize the material. But what
good is it, if it makes the hull heavy and seals our weapons ports so we can't
fight?" Suessi
argued that her alternative was hardly any better. True, a great heap of
ancient starships surrounded them, and they had reactivated the engines of a
few. But that was a far cry from finding a fit replacement for the Snark-class
survey craft that had served this crew so well. These
are ships the Buyur didn 't think worth taking with them, when they evacuated
this system! Above
all, how were dolphins supposed to operate a starship that had been built back
when humans were learning to chip tools out of flint? Streaker was a marvel of
clever compromises, redesigned so beings lacking legs or arms could move about
and get their jobs done-either striding in six-legged walker units, or by
swimming through broad flooded chambers. Dolphins
are crackerjack pilots and specialists. Someday lots of Galactic clans may hire
one or two at a time, offering them special facilities as pampered
professionals. But few races will ever want a ship like Streaker, with all the
hassles involved. Gillian
was insistent. "We've
adapted before. Surely some of these old ships have designs we might use." Before
the meeting broke up, he offered one last objection. "You
know, all this fiddling with other engines, as well as our own, may let a trace
signal slip out, even through all the water above us." "I
know, Hannes." Her eyes were grim. "But speed is crucial now. Our
pursuers already know roughly where we are. They may be otherwise occupied for
the moment, but they'll be coming soon. We must prepare to move Streaker to
another hiding place, or else evacuate to a different ship altogether." So,
with resignation, Suessi juggled staff assignments, stopped work on the hull,
and augmented teams sent out to alien wrecks-a task that was both hazardous and
fascinating at the same time. Many of the abandoned derelicts seemed more
valuable than ships impoverished Earth had purchased through used vessel
traders. Under other circumstances, this Midden pile might have been a terrific
find. "Under
other circumstances," he muttered. "We'd never have come here in the
first place." Sooners
Emerson WHAT A
WONDERFUL PLACE! Ever
since glorious sunset, he had serenaded the stars and the growling volcano . .
. then a crescent of sparkling reflections on the face of the largest moon.
Dead cities, abandoned in vacuum long ago. Now
Emerson turns east toward a new day. Immersed in warm fatigue, standing on
heights protecting the narrow meadows of Xi, he confronts the raucous invasion
of dawn. Alone. Even
the horse-riding women keep inside their shelters at daybreak, a time when
glancing beams from the swollen sun sweep all the colors abandoned by night,
pushing them ahead like an overwhelming tide. A wave of speckled light.
Bitter-sharp, like shards of broken glass. His
former self might have found it too painful to endure-that logical engineer who
always knew what was real, and how to classify it. The clever Emerson, so good
at fixing broken things. That one might have quailed before the onslaught. A
befuddling tempest of hurtful rays. But now
that seems as nothing compared with his other agonies, since crashing on this
world. In contrast to having part of his brain ripped out, for instance, the
light storm could hardly even be called irritating. It feels more like the
claws of fifty mewling kittens, setting his callused skin a-prickle with
countless pinpoint scratches. Emerson
spreads his arms wide, opening himself to the enchanted land, whose colors
slice through roadblocks in his mind, incinerating barriers, releasing from
numb imprisonment a spasm of pent-up images. Banded
canyons shimmer under layer after lustrous layer of strange images. Explosions
in space. Half-drowned worlds where bulbous islets glimmer like metal
mushrooms. A house made of ice that stretches all the way around a glowing red
star, turning the sun's wan glow into a hearth's tamed fire. These
and countless other sights waver before him. Each clamors for attention,
pretending to be a sincere reflection of the past. But most images are
illusions, he knows. A
phalanx of armored damsels brandishes whips of forked lightning against
fire-breathing dragons, whose wounds bleed rainbows across the desert floor.
Though intrigued, he dismisses such scenes, collaborating with his rewq to edit
out the irrelevant, the fantastic, the easy. What
does that leave? A lot,
it seems. From
one nearby lava field, crystal particles reflect tart sunbursts that his eye
makes out as vast, distant explosions. All sense of scale vanishes as mighty
ships die in furious battle before him. Squadrons rip each other. Fleet
formations are scythed by moving folds of tortured space. True.' He
knows this to be a real memory. Unforgettable. Too exquisitely horrible to let
go, this side of death. So why
was it lost? Emerson
labors to fashion words, using their rare power to lock the recollection back
where it belongs. I . . .
saw ... this . . . happen. I . . .
was . . . there. He-turns
for more. Over in that direction, amid a simple boulder field, lay a galactic
spiral, seen from above the swirling wheel. Viewed from a shallow place where
few spatial tides ever churn. Mysteries lay in that place, undisturbed by waves
of time. Until
someone finally came along, with more curiosity than sense, intruding on the
tomblike stillness. Someone
. . . ? He
chooses a better word. . . .
We . . . Then, a
better word, yet. . . .
Streaker! A
slight turn and he sees her, traced among the stony layers of a nearby mesa. A
slender caterpillar shape, 'studded by the spiky flanges meant to anchor a ship
to this universe ... a universe hostile to everything Streaker stood for. He
stares nostalgically at the vessel. Scarred and patched, often by his own hand,
the hull's beauty could only be seen by those who loved her. . . .
loved her . . . Words
have power to shift the mind. He scans the horizon, this time for a human face.
One he adored, without hope of anything but friendship in return. But her image
isn't found in the dazzling landscape. Emerson
sighs. For now, it is enough to sort through his rediscoveries. A single
correlation proves especially useful. If it hurts, then it must be a real
memory. What
could that fact mean? The
question, all by itself, seems to make his skull crack with pain! Could
that be the intent? To prevent him from remembering? Stabbing
sensations assail him. That question is worse! It must never be asked! Emerson
clutches his head as the point is driven home with hammerlike blows. Never,
ever, ever . . . Rocking
back, he lets out a howl. He bays like a wounded animal, sending ululations
over rocky outcrops. The sound plummets like a stunned bird . . . then catches
itself just short of crashing. In a
steep, swooping turn, it comes streaking back . . . as laughter'. Emerson
bellows. He
roars contempt. He
brays rebellious joy. Through
streaming tears, he asks the question and glories in the answer, knowing at
last that he is no coward. His amnesia is no hysterical retreat. No quailing
from traumas of the past. What
happened to his mind was no accident. Hot
lead seems to pour down his spine as programmed inhibitions fight back.
Emerson's heart pounds, threatening to burst his chest. Yet he scarcely
notices, facing the truth head-on, with a kind of brutal elation. Somebody
. . . did . . . this. . . . Before
him, looming from the fractured mesa, comes an image of cold eyes. Pale and
milky. Mysterious, ancient, deceitful. It might have been terrifying-to someone
with anything left to lose. Somebody
. . . did . . . this ... to ... me! With
fists clenched and cheeks awash, Emerson sees the colors melt as his eyes fill
with liquid pain. But that does not matter anymore. Not
what he sees. Only
what he knows. The
Stranger casts a single cry, merging with the timeless hills. A shout
of defiance. THEY
SHOW COURAGE. You were right about that, My rings. We Jophur had not expected
anyone to approach so soon after the Polkjhy slashed an area of twenty korech
around our landing site. But now a delegation comes, waving a pale banner. At
first, the symbolism confuses our Polkjhy communications staff. But this
stack's very own association rings relay the appropriate memory of a human
tradition-that of using a white flag to signify truce. WE
INFORM THE CAPTAIN LEADER. That exalted stack appears pleased with our service.
My rings, you are indeed well informed about vermin! These worthless-seeming
toruses, left over from the former Asx, hold waxy expertise about human ways
that could prove useful to the Obeyer Alliance, if a prophesied time of change
truly has come upon the Five Galaxies. The
Great Library proved frustratingly sparse regarding the small clan from Earth.
How ironic then, that we should find proficient knowledge in such a rude,
benighted world as this Jijo. Knowledge that may help our goal of extinguishing
the wolflings at long last. What?
You quiver at the prospect? In
joyful anticipation of service? In expectation that yet another enemy of our
clan shall meet extinction? No.
Instead you shudder, filling our core with mutinous fumes! My
poor, polluted rings. Are you so infested with alien notions that you actually
hold affection for noisome bipeds? And for vermin g'Kek survivors we are sworn
to erase? Perhaps
the poison is too rife for you to be suitable, even with useful expertise. The
Oailie were right. Without master rings, all a stack can become is a pile of
sentimental traeki. THE
TALL STAR LORD WAS NO LESS IMPOSING IN A homespun shirt and trousers than in
his old black-andsilver uniform. Rann's massive arms and wedgelike torso
tempted one to imagine impossible things . . . like pitting him against a fully
grown hoon in a wrestling match. That
might take some of the starch out of him. Lark pondered. There's nothing
fundamentally superior about the guy. Underlying Rann's physique and smug
demeanor was the same technology that had given Ling the beauty of a goddess. ,
might be just as strong-and live three hundred years-if I weren't born in a
forlorn wilderness. Rann
spoke Anglic in the sharp Danik accent, with bur- ring undertones like his
Rothen overlords. "The
favor you ask is both risky and impertinent. Can you offer one good reason why
I should cooperate?" Watched
by militia guards, the star lord sat cross-legged in a cave overlooking Dooden
Mesa, where camouflaged ramps blended with the surrounding forest under
tarpaulins of cunning blur cloth. Beyond the g'Kek settlement, distant ridges
seemed to ripple as vast stands of boo bent their giant stems before the wind.
In the grotto's immediate vicinity, steam rose from geothermal vents,
concealing the captive from Galactic instruments-or so the sages hoped. Before
Rann lay a stack of data lozenges bearing the sigil of the Galactic Library,
the same brown slabs Lark and Uthen found in the wrecked Danik station. "I
could give several reasons," Lark growled. "Half the qheuens I know
are sick or dying from some filthy bug you bastards released-" Rann
waved a dismissive hand. "Your
supposition. One that I deny." Lark's
throat strangled in anger. Despite every point of damning evidence, Rann
obstinately rejected the possibility of Rothen-designed genocidal germs.
"What you suggest is quite preposterous, " he said earlier. "It
is contrary to our lords' kindly natures." Lark's
first response was amazement. Kindly nature? Wasn't Rann present when Bloor,
the unlucky portraitist, photographed a Rothen face without its mask, and
Rokenn reacted by unleashing fiery death on everyone in sight? It did
Lark no good to recite the same point-by-point indictment he had laid out for
Ling. The big man was too contemptuous of anything Jijoan to heed a logical
argument. Or else
he was involved all along, and now sees denial as his best defense. Ling
sat miserably on a stalagmite stump, unable to meet her erstwhile leader in the
eye. They had come seeking Rann's help only after she failed to read the
reclaimed archives with her own data plaque. "All
right," Lark resumed. "If justice and mercy won't persuade you, maybe
threats will!" Harsh
laughter from the big man. "How
many hostages can you spare, young barbarian? You have just three of us to
stave off fire from above. Your intimidation lacks conviction." Lark
felt like a bush lemming confronting a ligger. Still, he leaned closer. "Things
have changed, Rann. Before, we hoped to trade you back to the Rothen ship for
concessions. Now, that ship and your mates are sealed in a bubble. It's the
Jophur we'll negotiate with. I suspect they'll care less about visible wear and
tear on your person, when we hand you over." Rann's
face was utterly blank. Lark found it an improvement. Ling
broke in. "Please.
This approach is pointless." She stood and approached her Danik colleague.
"Rann, we may have to spend the rest of our lives with these people, or
share whatever fate the Jophur dish out. A cure may help square things with the
Six. Their sages promise to absolve us, if we find a treatment soon." Rann's
silent grimace required no rewq interpretation. He did
not savor the absolution of savages. "Then
there are the photograms," Ling said. "You are of the Danik Inner
Circle, so you may have seen the true Rothen face before. But I found it a
shock. Clearly, those photographic images give Jijo's natives some leverage. In
loyalty to our mast ... to the Rothen, you must consider that." "And
who would they show their pictures to?" Rann chuckled.
Then he glanced at Lark and his expression changed. "You would not
actually-" "Hand
them over to the Jophur? Why bother? They can crack open your starship any time
they wish, and dissect your masters down to their nucleic acids. Face it, Rann,
the disguise is no good anymore. The Jophur have their mulch rings wrapped
tightly around your overlords." "Around
the beloved patrons of all humanity!" Lark
shrugged. "True or not, that changes nothing. If the Jophur choose, they
.can have the Rothen declared anathema across the Five Galaxies. The fines may
be calamitous." "And
what of your Six Races?" Rann answered hotly. "Each of you are
criminals, as well. You all face punishment-not just the humans and others
living here, but the home branches of each species, elsewhere in space!" "Ah."
Lark nodded. "But this we have always known. We grow up discussing the
dour odds. The guilt. It colors our distinctly pleasant outlook on life."
He smiled sardonically. "But I wonder if an optimistic fellow like
yourself, seeing himself part of a grand destiny, can be as resigned to losing
all he knows and loves." At
last, the Danik's expression turned dark. "Rann,"
Ling urged. "We have to make common cause." He
glared at her archly. "Without Ro-kenn's approval?" "They've
taken him far away from here. Even Lark doesn't know where. Anyway, I'm now
convinced we must consider what's best for humanity ... for Earth ...
independent of the Rothen." "There
cannot be one without the other!" She
shrugged. "Pragmatism, then. If we help these people, perhaps they can do
the same for us." The big
man snorted skepticism. But after several duras, he brushed the stack of data
lozenges with his toe. "Well, I am curious. These aren't from the station
Library. I'd recognize the color glyphs. You already tried to gain
access?" Ling
nodded. "Then
maybe I had better have a crack at it." He
looked at Lark again. "You
know the risk, as soon as I turn my reader on?" Lark
nodded. Lester Cambel had already explained. In all probability, the digital
cognizance given off by a tiny info unit would be masked by the geysers and
microquakes forever popping under the Rimmers. Yet, to
be safe, every founding colony, from g'Keks and glavers to urs and humans, sent
their sneakships down to the Midden. Not a single computer was kept. Our
ancestors must have thought the danger very real. "You
needn't lecture a sooner about risk," he told the big man. "Our lives
are the floating tumble of Ifhi's dice. We know it's not a matter of winning. "Our
aim is to put off losing for as long as we can." They
were brought meals by Jimi, one of the blessed who dwelled in the redemption
sanctuary-a cheerful young man, nearly as large as Rann but with a far gentler
manner. Jimi also delivered a note from Sage Cambel. The embassy to the Jophur
had arrived at Festival Glade, hoping to contact the latest intruders. The
handwritten letter had a coda: Any
progress? Lark
grimaced. He had no way of telling what "progress" meant in this
case, though he doubted much was being made. Ling
helped load beige slabs into Rann's data plaque- returned for this purpose.
Together, the Daniks puzzled over a maze of sparkling symbols. Books
from pre-Tabernacle days described what it was like to range the digital
world-a realm of countless dimensions, capabilities, and correlations, where
any simulation might take on palpable reality. Of course mere descriptions
could not make up for lack of experience. But I'm not like some fabled
islander, befuddled by Captain Cook's rifle and compass. I have concepts, some
math, a notion of what's possible. At
least, he hoped so. Then he
worried-might the Daniks be putting on an act? Pretending to have difficulty
while they stalled for time? There
wasn't much left. Soon Uthen would die, then other chitinous friends. Worse,
new rumors from the coast told of hoonish villagers snuffling and wheezing,
their throat sacs cracking from some strange ailment. Come
on,he urged silently. What's so hard about using a fancy computer index to look
something up? Rann
threw down a data slab, cursing guttural phonemes of alien argot. "It's
encrypted!" "I
thought so," Ling said. "But I figured you, as a member of the
Inner-" "Even
we of the circle are not told everything. Still, I know the outlines of a
Rothen code, and this is different." He frowned. "Yet familiar
somehow." "Can
you break it?" Lark asked, peering at a maze of floating symbols. "Not
using this crude reader. We'd need something bigger. A real computer." Ling
straightened, looking knowingly at Lark. But she left the decision up to him. Lark
blew air through his cheeks. "Hr-rm.
I think that might be arranged." . A mixed
company of militia drilled under nearby trees, looking brave in their
fog-striped war paint. Lark saw only a few burly qheuens, though-the
five-clawed heavy armor of Jijoan military might. As one
of the few living Jijoans ever to fly aboard an alien aircraft and see their
tools firsthand, Lark knew what a fluke the Battle of the Glade had been-where
spears, arbalests, and rifles prevailed against star-roaming gods. That freak
chance would not be repeated. Still, there were reasons to continue training.
It keeps the volunteers busy, and helps prevent a rekindling of old-time feuds.
Whatever happens-whether we submit with bowed heads to final judgment, or go
down fighting-we can't afford disunion. Lester
Cambel greeted them under a tent beside a bubbling hot spring. "We're
taking a risk doing this," the elderly sage said. "What
choice do we have?" In
Lester's eyes, Lark read his answer. We can
let Uthen and countless qheuens die, if that's the price it takes for others to
live. Lark
hated being a sage. He loathed the way he was expected to think-contemplating
trade-offs that left you damned, either way you turned. Cambel
sighed. "Might as well make the attempt. I doubt the artifact will even
turn on." At a
rough log table, Cambel's human and urrish aides compared several gleaming
objects with ancient illustrations. Rann stared in amazement at the articles,
which had been carried here from the shore of a far-off caustic lake. "But
I thought you discarded all your digital-" "We
did. Our ancestors did. These items are leftovers. Relics of the Buyur." "Impossible.
The Buyur withdrew half a million years ago!" Lark
told an abbreviated version of the story-about a crazy mule spider with a collecting
fetish. A creature fashioned for destruction, who spent millennia sealing
treasures in cocoons of congealed time. Laboring
day and night, traeki alchemists had found a formula to dissolve the golden
preservation shells, spilling the contents back into the real world. Lucky for
us these experts happened to be in the area, Lark thought. The tiredlooking
traekis stood just outside, venting yellow vapor from chem-synth rings. Rann
stroked one reclaimed object, a black trapezoid, evidently a larger cousin to
his portable data plaque. "The
power crystals look negentropic and undamaged. Do you know if it still
works?" Lark
shrugged. "You're familiar with the type?" "Galactic
technology is fairly standard, though humans didn't exist, as such, when this
thing was made. It is a higher-level model than I've used, but . . ." The
sky human sat down before the ancient artifact, pressing one of its jutting
bulges. The
device abruptly burst forth streams of light that reached nearly to the canopy.
The High Sage and his team scrambled back. Urrish smiths snorted, coiling their
long necks while human techs made furtive gestures to ward off evil. Even
among Cambel's personal acolytes-his bookweaned "experts"-our
sophistication is thin enough to scratch with a fingernail. "The
Buyur mostly spoke Galactic Three," Rann said. "But GalTwo is close
to universal, so we'll try it first." He
switched' to that syncopated code, uttering clicks, pops, and groans so rapidly
that Lark was soon lost, unable to follow the arcane dialect of computer
commands. The star lord's hands also moved, darting among floating images. Ling
joined the effort, reaching in to seize ersatz objects that had no meaning to
Lark, tossing away any she deemed irrelevant, giving Rann working room. Soon
the area was clear but for a set of floating dodecahedrons, with rippling
symbols coursing each twelve-sided form. "The
Buyur were good programmers," Rann commented, lapsing into GalSix.
"Though their greatest passion went to biological inventions, they were
not slackers in the digital arts." Lark
glanced at Lester, who had gone to the far end of the table to lay a pyramidal
stack of sensor stones, like a hill of gleaming opals. Tapping one foot
nervously, the sage kept wary vigil, alert for any spark of warning fire. Turning
farther, Lark found the mountain cleft deserted. The militia company had
departed. No one
with sense would remain while this is going on. Rann
muttered a curse. "I
had hoped the machine would recognize idiosyncrasies in the encryption, if it
is a standard commercial cypher used widely in the Five Galaxies. Or there may
be quirks specific to some race or alliance. "Alas,
the computer says it does not recognize the cryptographic approach used in these
memory slabs. It calls the coding technique . . . innovative." Lark
knew the term was considered mildly insulting among the great old star clans. "Could
it be a pattern developed since the Buyur left Jijo?" Rann
nodded. "Half an eon is a while, even by Galactic standards." Ling
spoke, eagerly. "Perhaps it's Terran." The big
man stared at her, then nodded, switching to Anglic. "That
might explain the vague familiarity. But why would any Rothen use an Earther
code? You know what they think of wolfling technology. Especially anything
produced by those unbelieving Terragens-" "Rann,"
Ling cut in, her voice grown hushed. "These slabs may not have belonged to
Ro-kenn or Ro-pol." "Who
then? You deny ever seeing them before. Neither have I. That leaves ..." He
blinked, then pounded a heavy fist on the wooden slats. "We must crack
this thing! Ling, let us commence unleashing the unit's entire power on finding
the key." Lark
stepped forward. "Are you sure that's wise?" "You
seek disease cures for your fellow savages? Well, the Jophur ship squats on the
ruins of our station, and our ship is held captive. This may be your only
chance." Clearly,
Rann had another reason for his sudden zeal. Still, everyone apparently wanted
the same thing-for now. Lester
looked unhappy, but he gave permission with a nod, returning to his vigil over
the sensor stones. We're
doing it for you, Uthen, Lark thought. Moments
later, he had to retreat'several more steps as space above the prehistoric computer
grew crowded. Innumerable glyphs and signs collided like snowflakes in an
arctic blizzard. The Buyur machine was applying prodigious force of digital
intellect to solving a complex puzzle. As Rann
worked-hands darting in and out of the pirouetting flurry-he wore an expression
of simmering rage. The kind of resentful anger that could only come from one
source. Betrayal. A
midura passed before the relic computer announced preliminary results. By then
Lester Cambel was worn out. Perspiration stained his tunic and he wheezed each
breath. But Lester would let no one else take over watching the sensor stones. "It
takes long training to sense the warning glows," he explained. "Right
now, if I relax my eyes in just the right way, I can barely make out a soft
glow in a gap between two of the bottommost stones." Long
training? Lark wondered as he peered into the fragile pyramid, quickly making
out a faint iridescence, resembling the muted'flame that licked the rim of a
mulching pan when a dead traeki was boiled, rendering the fatting rings for
return to Jijo's cycle. Cambel
went on describing, as if Lark did not already see. "Someday,
if there's time, we'll teach you to perceive the passive resonance, Lark. In
this case it is evoked by the Jophur battleship. Its great motors are now
idling, forty leagues from here. Unfortunately, even that creates enough
background noise to mask any new disturbance." "Such
as?" "Such
as another set of gravitic repulsors . . . moving this way." Lark nodded
grimly. Like a rich urrish trader with two husbands in her brood pouches, big
starships carried smaller ships-scrappy and swift-to launch on deadly errands.
That was the chief risk worrying Lester. Lark
considered going back to watch the two Daniks work, invoking software demons in
quest of a mathematical key. But what good would he do staring at the
unfathomable? Instead, he bent close to the stones, knowing each flicker to be
an echo of titanic forces, like those that drove the sun. For a
time he sensed no more than that soft bluish flame. But then Lark began
noticing another rhythm, matching the mute shimmer, beat by beat. The source
throbbed near his rib cage, above his pounding heart. He slid
a hand into his tunic and grabbed his amulet- a fragment of the Holy Egg that
hung from a leather thong. It was warm. The pulselike cadence seemed to build
with each passing dura, causing his arm to vibrate painfully. What
could the Egg have in common with the engines of a Galactic cruiser? Except
that both seem bent on troubling me till I die? From
far away, he heard Rann give an angry shout. The big Danik pounded the table,
nearly toppling the fragile stones. Cambel
left to find out what Rann had learned. But Lark could not follow. He felt pinned
by a rigor that spread from his fist on up his arm. It crossed his chest, then
swarmed down his crouched legs. "Uh-huhnnn
..." y-t M u . . _ He
tried to speak, but no words came. A kind of paralysis robbed him of the will
to move. Year
after year he had striven to achieve what came easily to some pilgrims, when
members of all Six Races sought communion with Jijo's gift-the Egg, that
enigmatic wonder. To some it gave a blessing-guidance patterns, profound and
moving. Consolation for the predicament of exile. But
never to Lark. Never the sinner. Until
now. But instead of transcendent peace, Lark tasted a bitter tang,
like molten metal in his mouth. His eardrums scraped, as if some massive rock
were being pushed through a tube much too narrow. Amid his confusion, gaps in
the sensor array seemed like the vacuum abyss between planets. The gemstones
were moons, brushing each other with
ponderous grace. Before
his transfixed eyes, the silken flame grew a minuscule swelling, like a new
shoot budding off a rosebush. The new bulge moved, detaching from its parent,
creeping around the surface of one stone, crossing a gap, then moving gradually
upward. It was
subtle. Without the heightened sensitivity of his seizure,
Lark might not have noticed. Something's coming. But he
could only react with a cataleptic gurgle. Behind Lark came more sounds of
fury-Rann throwing a tantrum over some discovery. Figures moved around the I
outraged alien . . . Lester and the militia guards. No one paid
Lark any mind. Desperately,
he sought the place where volition resides. The
center of will. The part that commands a foot to step, an eye to shift, a voice
to utter words. But his soul seemed captive to the discolored knob of fire,
moving languidly this
way. Now
that it had his attention, the flicker wasn't about to let him go. Is this
your intent? he asked the Egg, half in prayer and half censure. You
alert me to clanger . . . then won't let me cry a warning? Did
another dura pass-or ten?-while the spark drifted around the next stone? With a
soft crackle it crossed another gap. How many more must it traverse before
reaching the top? What sky-filling shadow would pass above when that happened? Suddenly,
a huge silhouette did loom into Lark's field of view. A giant, globelike shape,
vast and blurry to his fixed, unfocused gaze. The
intruding object spoke to him. "Uh
. . . Sage KoolKan? . . . You all right, sir?" Lark
mutely urged the intruder closer. That's it, Jimi. A bit more to the left . . . With
welcome abruptness, the flame vanished, eclipsed by the round face of Jimi the
Blessed-Jimi the Simpleton-wearing a worried expression as he touched Lark's
sweat-soaked brow. "Can
I get ya somethin', Sage? A drink o' water mebbe?" Freed
of the hypnotic trap, Lark found volition at last . . . waiting in the same
place he always kept it. "Uhhhh
. . ." Stale
air vented as he took gasping breath. Pain erupted up and down his crouched
body, but he quashed it, forcing all his will into Grafting two simple words. ".
. . ever'body . . . out!" E THEY
ACT QUICKLY ON THEIR PROMISES, DO THEY not, my rings? Do you
see how soon the natives acquiesced to our demands? You
seem surprised that they moved so swiftly to appease us, but ,expected it. What
other decision was possible, now that their so-called sages understand the way
things are? Like
you lesser rings, the purpose of other races is ultimately to obey. HOW DID
THIS COME ABOUT? you ask. Yes,
you have My permission to stroke old-fashioned wax drippings, tracing recent
memory. But I shall also retell it in the more efficient Oailie way so that we
may celebrate together an enterprise well concluded. WE
BEGIN with the arrival of emissaries-one from each of the savage tribes,
entering this shattered valley on foot and wheel, shambling like animals over
the jagged splinters that surround our proud Polkjhy. Standing
bravely beneath the overhanging curve of our gleaming hull, they took turns shouting
at the nearest open hatch, making pretty speeches on behalf of their rustic
Commons. With surprising eloquence, they cited relevant sections of Galactic
law, accepting on behalf of their ancestors full responsibility for their
presence on this world, and requesting courteously that we in turn explain our
purpose coming here. Are we
official inspectors and judges from the Institute of Migration? they asked. And
if not, what excuse have we for violating this world's peace? Audacity!
Among the crew of the Polkjhy, it most upset our junior Priest-Stack, since now
we seem obliged to justify ourselves to barbarians. "Why
Did We Not Simply Roast This Latest Embassy, Like The One Before It?" To
this, our gracious Captain-Leader replied: "It
Costs Us Little To Vent Informative Steam In The General Direction Of
Half-Devolved Beings. And Do Not Forget That There Are Data Gleanings We
Desire, As Well! Recall That The Scoundrel Entities Called Rothen Offered To
Sell Us Valuable Knowledge, Before We Righteously Double-Crossed Them. Perhaps
That Same Knowledge Might Be Wrung From The Locals At A Much Smaller Price,
Saving Us The Time And Effort Of A Search." Did not
the junior Priest-Stack then press its argument? "Look
Down At The Horrors! Abominations! They Commingle In The Shadow Of Our Great
Ship-Urrish Forms Side By Side With Noons? Poor Misguided Traeki Cousins
Standing Close 'To Wolfling Humans? And There Among Them, Worst Of All ...
G'keks! What Can Be Gained By Talking With Miscegenists? Blast Them Now!" • •
• AH, MY
RINGS, would not things be simpler for us/me, had the Captain-Leader given in,
accepting the junior priest's advice? Instead, our exalted commander bent
toward the senior Priest-Stack for further consultation. That
august entity stretched upward, a tower of fifty glorious toruses, and
declared- "I/we
Concede That It Is A Demeaning Task. But It Harms Us Little To Observe The
Appropriate Forms And Rituals. "So
Let Us Leave The Chore To Ewasx. Let The Ewasx Stack Converse With These
Devolved Savages. Let Ewasx Find Out What They Know About The Two Kinds Of Prey
We Seek" So it
was arranged. The job was assigned to this makeshift, hybrid stack. An
appointment to be a lowly agent. To parley with half animals. In this
way, i/we learned the low esteem by which our Jophur peers regard us. BUT
NEVER MIND THAT NOW. Do you recall how we took on our apportioned task, with
determined aplomb? By gravity plate, we dropped down to the demolished forest,
where the six envoys waited. Our ring of association recognized two of
them-Phwhoon-dau, stroking his white hoonish beard, and Vubben, wisest of the
g'Kek. This pair shouted surprised gladness at first, believing they beheld a
lost comrade-Asx. Then,
realizing their mistake, all six quailed, emitting varied noises of dismay.
Especially the traeki in their midst-our,your replacement among the High
Sages?- who seemed especially upset by our transformation. Oh, how that stack
of aboriginal toruses trembled to perceive our Jophurication! Would its
segmented union sunder on the spot? Without a master ring to bind and guide
them, would the component rings tear their membranes and crawl their separate
ways, returning to the feral habits of our ancestors? Eventually the six representatives recovered enough to listen. In
simple terms, I explained Polkfhy's endeavor in this far-off system. WE ARE
NOT OF THE MIGRATION INSTITUTE, I/we told them, although we did invoke a clause
of Galactic law to self-deputize and arrest the Rothen gene raiders. There will
be few questions asked by an indifferent cosmos, if, when we render judgment on
them . . . or on criminal colonists. To whom
will savages appeal? BUT
THAT NEED NOT BE OUR AIM. This I
added, soothingly. There are worse villains to pursue than a hardscrabble pack
of castaways, stranded on a forbidden reef, seeking redemption the only way
they can. OUR
CHIEF QUEST is for a missing vessel crewed by Earthling dolphins. A ship sought
by ten thousand Heels, across all Five Galaxies. A ship carrying secrets, and
perhaps the key to a new age. I told
the emissaries that we might pay for data, if local inhabitants help shorten
our search. (Yes,
My rings-the Captain-Leader also promised to pay those Rothen rascals, when their
ship hailed ours in jump space, offering vital clues. But those impatient fools
gave away too much in their eagerness. We made vague promises, dispatching them
for more proof . . . then covertly followed, before a final deal was signed!
Once they led us to this world, what further purpose did they serve? Rather
than pay, we seized their ship. (True,
they might have had more data morsels to sell. But if the dolphin ship is in
this system, we will find it soon enough.) (Yes,
My rings, our memory core appears to hold no waxy imprints of a "dolphin
ship. "But others on Jijo might know something. Perhaps they kept data
from their traeki sage. Anyway, can we trust memories inherited from Asx, who
slyly remelted many core drippings? (So we
must query the Jijoan envoys, using threats and rewards.) While
the emissaries pondered the matter of the dolphin ship, I proceeded to our
second requirement. Our goal of long-delayed justice! YOU MAY
FIND THIS ADDITIONAL REQUEST UNPLEASANT, OR DISLOYAL. BUT YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.
YOU MUST BEND TO THE IMPLACABILITY OF OUR WILL. THE SACRIFICE WE DEMAND IS
ESSENTIAL. DO NOT THINK OF SHIRKING! The
hoon sage boomed a deep umble, inflating his throat sac. "We are unclear
on your meaning. What must we sacrifice?" To this
obvious attempt at dissembling, I replied derisively, adding rippling emphasis
shadows across our upper rings. YOU
KNOW WHAT MUST BE GIVEN UP TO US. SOON WE WILL EXPECT A TOKEN PORTION. A DOWN
PAYMENT TO SHOW US THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. With
that, I commanded our ring-of-manipulators to aim all our tendrils at the aged
g'Kek. Toward
Vubben. This
time, their reactions showed comprehension. Some former Asx rings shared their
revulsion, but I clamped down with electric jolts of discipline. The
intimidated barbarians retreated, taking with them the word of heaven. We did
not expect to hear from the agonized sooners for a day or two. Meanwhile, the
Captain-Leader chose to send our second corvette east to help the other unit
whose selfrepairs go too slowly, stranded near a deepwater rift. (A candidate
hiding place for the missing Earthling ship!) Once,
we feared that dolphins had shot down our boat, and Polkjhy itself must go on
this errand. But our tactician stack calculated that the Rothen scout simply
got in a lucky shot. It seems safe to dispatch a smaller vessel. Then,
just as our repair craft was about to launch, we picked up a signal from these
very mountains! What else could it be, but the Jijoan envoys, responding to
My,our demands! The
corvette was diverted north, toward this new emission. And lo!
Now comes in its report. A g'Kek settlement-a midget city of the demon
wheels-hidden in the forest! Oh, we
would have found it anyway. Our mapping has only just begun. Still, this
gesture is encouraging. It shows the Six (who will soon be five) possess enough
sapient ability to calculate odds, to perceive the inevitable and minimize
their losses. What,
My rings? You are surprised? You expected greater solidarity from your vaunted
Commons? More loyalty? Then
live and learn, My waxy pretties. This is just the beginning. i^arl TEARS
COVERED THE CHEEKS OF THE AGED HUMAN sage as he ran through the forest.
"It's my fault. . . ." he murmured between gasping breaths. "All
my fault,. . . I never should've allowed it ... so near the poor g'Kek.
..." Lark
heard Cambel's lament as they joined a stampede of refugees, swarming down
narrow aisles between colossal shafts of boo. He had to catch Lester when the
sage stumbled in grief over what they all had witnessed, only duras ago. Lark
caught the eye of a hoonish militiaman with a huge sword slung down his back.
The burly warrior swept Lester into his arms, gently hauling the stricken sage
to safety. For
those fleeing beneath the boo, that word-safety- might never be the same. For
two thousand years, the ramparts of Dooden Mesa offered protection to the
oldest and weakest sooner race. Yet no defense could stand against the sky
cruiser that swept over that sheltered valley, too soon after Lark's shouted
warning. Some refugees-those with enough nerve to glance back-would always
carry the image of that awful ship, hovering like a predator over the graceful
ramps, homes, and workshops. It must
have been drawn by the Buyur computer-by its "digital resonance." Once
over the mountain, the aliens could not help noticing the g'Kek settlement in
the valley below. ".
. . we were too near the poor g'Kek ..." Driven
by a need for answers-and a lifelong curiosity about all things Galactic-Cambel
had allowed Ling and Rann to drive the machine at full force, deciphering the
mystery records. It was like waving a lure above this part of the Rimmers,
calling down an ill wind. Some of
those running through the forest seemed less panicky. Fierce-eyed Jeni Shen
kept herd on her militia team, so Rann and Ling never had a chance to dodge
left or right, slipping away through the boo. As if either Danik had any place
to go. Their faces looked as dismayed as anybody's. Lark's
ears still rang from when the Jophur ship cast beams of aching brilliance,
tearing apart the frail canopy of blur cloth, laying Dooden Mesa bare under a
cruel sun. Teeming wheeled figures scurried futilely, like a colony of hive
mites in a collapsed den. The
beams stopped, and something even more dreadful fell from the floating nemesis. A
golden haze. A flood of liquid light. Lark's
nerve had failed him at that point, as he, too, plunged into the boo, fleeing a
disaster he had helped wreak. You
aren 't alone, Lester. You have company in hell. Dwer MUDFOOT
SEEMED CRAZIER THAN EVER. Blinking past a cloud of buzzing gnats, Dwer watched
the mad noor crouch over some helpless creature he had caught near the shore,
gripping his prey in both forepaws, brandishing sharp teeth toward whatever
doomed beast had unluckily strayed within reach. Mudfoot showed no interest in
two sooty spaceships that lay crippled, just beyond the dune. Why
should he care? Dwer thought. Any Galactics who glimpse him will just shrug
of,another critter of Jijo. Enjoy your meal, Mudfoot. No squatting under hot
sand for you! Dwer's
hidey-hole was intensely uncomfortable. His legs felt cramped and grit eagerly
sought every body crevice, Partial shade was offered by his tunic, propped up
with two arrows and covered with sand. But he had to share that narrow shelter
with Rety-an uncomfortable fit, to say the least. Worse, there was a kind of
midge, no larger than a speck, that seemed to find human breath irresistible.
One by one, the insectoids drifted upslope to the makeshift cavity where Dwer
and Rety exposed their faces for air. The bugs fluttered toward their mouths,
inevitably being drawn inside. Rety coughed, spat, and cursed in her Gray Hills
dialect, despite Dwer's pleas for silence. She's
not trained for this, he thought, trying for patience, During his
apprenticeship, Master Fallen used to leave him in a hunting blind for days on
end, then sneak back to i observe. For each sound Dwer made, Fallen added
another midura, till Dwer learned the value of quiet. "I
wish he'd quit playin' with his food," Rety muttered, glaring downslope at
Mudfoot. "Or else, bring some up for us." Dwer's
belly growled agreement. But he told her, "Don't think about it. Try to
sleep. We'll see about sneaking away come nightfall." For
once, she seemed willing to take his advice. Sometimes, Rety seemed at her best
when things were at their worst. At this
rate, she'll be a saint before it's all over. He glanced left, toward the
swamp. Both alien ships lay grounded in a seaside bog, just two arrowflights
away. It made the two humans easy targets if they budged. Nor had he any
guarantee this would change at night. I hear
tell that star gods have lenses that pick out a warm body moving in the dark,
and other kinds to track metal and tools. Getting
away from here might not be easy, or even possible. There
wasn't much to say for the alternatives. It would have been one thing to
surrender to Kunn. As a Danik adoptee, Rety might have swayed the human star
pilot to spare Dwer's life. Perhaps. But the
newcomers who shot down Kunn's little scout . . . Dwer felt his hackles rise
watching tapered stacks of glistening doughnuts inspect their damaged ship,
accompanied by hovering robots. Why be
afraid? They look like traeki, and traeki are harmless, right? Not
when they come swooping from space, throwing lightning. Dwer
wished he had listened more closely to holy services as a child, instead of
fidgeting when the Sacred Scrolls were read. Some excerpts had been inserted by
the ringed ones, when their sneakship came-passages of warning. Not all stacks
of fatty rings were friendly, it seemed. What was the name they used? Dwer
tried to recall what word stood for a traeki that was no traeki, but he came up
blank. Sometimes
he wished he could be more like his brother and sister-able to think deep
thoughts, with vast stores of book learning to call upon. Lark or Sara would
surely make better use of this time of forced inaction. They would be weighing
alternatives, listing possibilities, formulating some plan. But all
I do is doze, thinking about food. Wishing I had some way to scratch. He
wasn't yet desperate enough to walk toward that silver ship with hands raised.
Anyway, the aliens and their helpers were still fussing over the smoke-stained
hull, making repairs. As he
nodded in a drowsy torpor, he fought down one itch in particular, a prickly
sensation inside his head. The feeling had grown ever since he first gave the
Danik robot a "ride" across a river, using his body to anchor its
groundhugging fields. Each time he collapsed on the opposite bank, waking up
had felt like rising from a pit. The effect grew stronger with every crossing. At
least I won't have to do that again. The robot now cowered under a nearby dune,
useless and impotent since Kunn's ship was downed and its master taken. Dwer's
sleep was uneasy, disturbed first by a litany of aching twinges, and later by
disturbing dreams. He had
always dreamed. As a child, Dwer used to jerk upright in the dark, screaming
till the entire household roused, from Nelo and Melina down to the lowest chimp
and manservant, gathering round to comfort him back to sweet silence. He had no
clear memory of what nightmares used to terrify him so, but Dwer still had
sleep visions of startling vividness and clarity. Never
worth screaming over, though. Unless
you count One-of-a-Kind. He
recalled the old mule spider of the acid mountain lake, who spoke words
directly in his mind one fateful day, during his first solo scouting trip over
the Rimmer Range. -the
mad spider, unlike any other, who tried all kinds of deceit to charm Dwer into
its web, there to join its "collection." -the
same spider who nearly caught Dwer that awful night when Rety and her
"bird" were trapped in its maze of bitter vines . . . before that
vine network exploded in a mortal inferno. Restlessly,
he envisioned living cables, the spider's own body, snaking across a tangled
labyrinth, creeping ever nearer, closing an unstoppable snare. From each
twisting rope there dripped heavy caustic vapors, or liquors that would freeze
your skin numb on contact. Around
Dwer, the sand burrow felt like a ropy spiral of nooses, drawing tight a snug
embrace that was both cloying and loving, in a sick-sweet way. No one
else could ever appreciate you as much as I do, crooned the serenely patient
call of One-of-a-Kind. We share a destiny, my precious, my treasure. Dwer
felt trapped, more by a languor of sleep than by the enveloping sand. He
mumbled. "Yer
just . . . my . . . 'magination. . . ."
A crooning, dreamlike laugh, and the mellifluous voice rejoined- So you
always used to claim, though you cautiously evaded my grasp, nonetheless. Until
the night I almost had you. "The
night you died!" Dwer answered. The words were a mere rolling of his
exhaled breath. True.
But do you honestly think that was an ending? My kind is very old. I myself bad
lived half a million years, slowly etching and leaching the hard leavings of
the Buyur. Across those ages, thinking long thoughts, would I not learn
everything there is to know about mortality? Dwer
realized-all those times he helped the Danik robot cross a stream, conducting
its throbbing fields, somehow must have changed him inside. Sensitized him. Or
else driven him mad. Either way, it explained this awful dream. His
eyes opened a crack as he tried to waken, but fatigue lay over Dwer like a
shroud, and all he managed was to peer through interleaved eyelashes at the swamp
below. Till
now, he had always stared at the two alien ships- the larger shaped like a
silvery cigar, and the smaller like a bronze arrowhead. But now Dwer regarded
the background. The swamp itself, and not the shiny intruders. They
are just dross, my precious. Ignore those passing bits of "made
stuff," the brief fancies of ephemeral beings. The planet will absorb
them, with some patient help from my
kindred. Distracted
by the ships, he had missed the telltale signs. A nearby squarish mound whose
symmetry was almost hidden by rank vegetation. A series of depressions, like
grooves filled with algae scum, always the same distance apart, one after
another, extending into the distance. It was
an ancient Buyur site, of course. Perhaps a port or seaside resort, long ago
demolished, with the remnants left for wind and rain to dissolve. Aided
by a wounded planet's friend, came the voice, with renewed pride. We who
help erase the scars. We who
expedite time's rub. Over
there. Between the shadows of his own eyelashes, Dwer made out slender shapes
amid the marsh plants, like threads woven among the roots and fronds, snaking
through the muddy shallows. Long, tubelike outlines, whose movement was
glacially slow. But he could track the changes, with patience. Oh,
what patience you might have learned, if only you joined me! We would be one
with Time now, my pet, my rare one. It
wasn't just his growing vexation with the irksome dream voice-that he knew to
be imagined, after all. Dawning realization finally lent Dwer the will to shake
off sleep. He squeezed his eyelids shut hard enough to bring tears and flush
away the stickiness. Alert now, he reopened them and stared again at the faint
twisty patterns in the water. They were real. "It's
a mule swamp," he muttered. "And it still lives." Rety
stirred, commenting testily. "So?
One more reason to get out of this crakky place." But
Dwer smiled. Emerging from the fretful nap, he found his thoughts now taking a
sharp turn, veering away from a victim's apprehension. In the
distance, he still heard the noor beast bark and growl while toying with his
prey-a carnivore's privilege under nature's law. Before, Mudfoot's behavior had
irritated Dwer. But now he took it as an omen. All his
setbacks and injuries-and simple common sense-seemed to, demand that he flee
this deadly place, crawling on his belly, taking Rety with him to whatever
hideout they could find in a deadly world. But one
idea had now crystallized, as clear as the nearby waters of the Rift. I'm not running away, he decided. I don't
really know how to do that. A
hunter-that was what he had been born and trained to be. Alvin ALL
RIGHT, SO THERE WE WERE, WATCHING FARAWAY events through the phuvnthus' magical
viewer, when the camera eye suddenly went jerky and we found ourselves staring
into the grinning jaws of a giant noor! Hugely magnified, it was the vista a
fen mouse might see-its last sight on its way to being a midday snack. Huphu
reacted with a sharp hiss. Her claws dug in my shoulder. The
spinning voice, our host, seemed as surprised as we. That whirling
hologram-thing twisted like the neck of a confused urs, nodding as if it were
consulting someone out of sight. I caught murmurs that might be hurried Anglic
and GalSeven. When
the voice next spoke aloud, we heard the words twice, the second time delayed
as it came back through the drone's tiny pickups. The voice used accented
GalSix, and talked to the strange noor. Three words, so high-pitched I barely
understood. "Brother,
" the voice urged quickly. "Please stop." And the
strange noor did stop, turning its head to examine the drone from one side to
the other. True,
we hoons employ noor beasts as helpers on our boats, and those learn many words
and simple commands. But that is on the Slope, where they get sour balls and
sweet umbles as pay. How would a noor living east of the Rimmers learn Galactic
Six? The
voice tried again, changing pitch and timbre, almost at the limit of my hearing
range. "Brother,
will you speak to us, in the name of the Trickster?" Huck
and I shared an amazed glance. What was the voice trying to accomplish? One of
those half memories came back to me, from when our ill-fated Wuphon's Dream
crashed into the openmawed phuvnthus whale ship. Me and my friends were thrown
gasping across a metal deck, and soon after I stared through agonized haze as
six-legged monsters tromped about, smashing our homemade instruments underfoot,
waving lantern beams, exclaiming in a ratchety language I didn't understand.
The armored beings seemed cruel when they blasted poor little Ziz, the
five-stack traeki. Then they appeared crazy upon spying Huphu. I recall them
bending metal legs to crouch before my pet, buzzing and popping, as if trying
to get her to speak. And now
here was more of the same! Did the voice hope to talk a wild noor into
releasing the remote-controlled drone? Huck winked at me with two waving g'Kek
eyes, a semaphore of amused contempt. Star gods or no, our hosts seemed prize
fools to expect easy cooperation from a noor. So we
were more surprised than anyone-even Pincer and Ur-ronn-when the on-screen
figure snapped its jaws, frowning in concentration. Then, through gritted teeth
came a raspy squeak . , . answering in the same informal tongue. "In
th' nam o' th' Trickst'er . . . who th' hell'r you.'!" My
healing spine crackled painfully as I straightened, venting an umble of
astonishment. Huck sighed and Pincer's visor whirled faster than the agitated
hologram. Only Huphu seemed oblivious. She licked herself complacently, as if
she had not heard a blessed thing. "What
do you jeekee, Ifni-slucking turds think you're doing!" Huck wailed. All
four eyes tossed in agitation, showing she wa&more angry than afraid. Two
hulking, sixlegged phuvnthus escorted her, one on each side, carrying her by
the rims of her wheels. The
rest of us were more cooperative, though reluctant. Pincer had to tilt his red
chitin shell in order to pass through some doorways, following as a pair of
little amphibian creatures led us back to the whale ship that brought us to
this underwater sanctuary. Ur-ronn trotted behind Pincer, her long neck folded
low to the ground, a pose of simmering dejection. I
hobbled on crutches behind Huck, staying out of reach of her pusher leg, which
flailed and banged against corridor walls on either side. "You
promised to explain everything!" she cried out. "You said we'd get to
ask questions of the Library!" Neither
the phuvnthus nor the amphibians answered, but I recalled what the spinning
voice had said before sending us away. "We
cannot justify any longer keeping four children under conditions that put you
all in danger. This location may be bombed again, with greater fury. Also, you
now know much too much for your own good." "What
do we know?" Pincer had asked, in perplexity. "That noors can
talk-alk-alk?" The
hologram assented with a twisting nod. "And other things. We can't keep
you here, or send you home as we originally intended, since that might prove
disastrous for ourselves and your families. Hence our decision to convey you to
another place. A goal mentioned in your diaries, where you may be content for
the necessary time." "Wait!"
Huck had insisted. "I'll bet you're not even in charge. You're prob'ly
just a computer ... a thing. I want to talk to someone else! Let us see your
boss!" I
swear, the whirling pattern seemed both surprised and amused. "Such
astute young people. We had to revise many assumptions since meeting the four
of you. As I am programmed to find incongruity pleasant, let me thank you for
the experience, and sincerely wish you well." I
noticed, the voice never answered Huck's question. Typical
grown-up, I thought. Whether hoonish parents or alien contraptions . . .
they're all basically the same. Huck
settled down once we left the curved hallway and reentered the maze of
reclaimed passages leading to the whale ship. The phuvnthus let her down, and
she rolled along with the rest of us. My friend continued grumbling remarks
about the phuvnthus' physiology, habits, and ancestry, but I saw through her
pose. Huck had that smug set to her eyestalks. Clearly,
she felt she had accomplished something sneaky and smart. Once
aboard the whale ship, we were given another room with a porthole. Apparently
the phuvnthus weren't worried about us memorizing landmarks. That worried me,
at first. Are
they going to stash us in another salvaged wreck, under a different dross pile,
in some far-off canyon of the Midden? In that case, who'll come get us if they
are destroyed? The
voice mentioned sending us to a "safe" place. Call me odd, but I
hadn't felt safe since stepping off dry land at Terminus Rock. What did the
voice mean about it being a site where we already "wanted to go"? The
whale ship slid slowly at first through its tunnel exit, clearly a makeshift
passage constructed out of the hulls of ancient starcraft, braced with rods and
improvised girders. Ur-ronn said this fit what we already knew-the phuvnthus
were recent arrivals on Jijo, possibly refugees, like our ancestors, but with
one big difference. They
hope to leave again. I
envied them. Not for the obvious danger they felt, pursued by deadly foes, but
for that one option they had, that we did not. To go. To fly off to the stars,
even if the way led to certain doom. Was I naive to think freedom made it all
worthwhile? To know I'd trade places with them, if I could? Maybe
that thought laid the seeds for my later realization. The moment when everything
suddenly made sense. But hold that thought. Before
the whale ship emerged from the tunnel, we caught sight of figures moving in
the darkness, where long shadows stretched away from moving points of sharp,
starlike light. The patchiness of brilliance and pure darkness made it hard, at
first, to make out very much. Then Pincer identified the shadowy shapes. They
were phuvnthus, the big six-legged creatures whose stomping gait seemed so
ungainly indoors. Now, for the first time, we saw them in their element,
swimming, with the mechanical legs tucked away or used as flexible work arms.
The broad flaring at the back ends of their bodies now made sense-it was a
great big flipper that propelled them gracefully through dark waters. We had
already speculated that they might not be purely mechanical beings. Ur-ronn
thought the heavy metal carapace was worn like a suit of clothes, and the real
creatures lay inside horizontal shells. They
wear them indoors because their true bodies lack legs, I thought, knowing also
that the steel husks protected their identities. But why, if they were born
swimmers, did they continue wearing the coverings outside? We
glimpsed light bursts of hurtful brilliance-underwater welding and cutting.
Repairs, I thought. Were they in a battle, before fleeing to Jijo? My mind
filled with images from those vivid space-opera books Mister Heinz used to
disapprove of, preferring that we kids broaden our tastes with Keats and Basho.
I yearned to get close and see the combat scars . . . but then the sub entered
a narrow shaft, cutting off all sight of the phuvnthu vessel. Soon,
we emerged into the blackness of the Midden. A deep chill seemed to penetrate
the glass disk, and we backed away . . . especially since the spotlights all
turned off, leaving the outside world vacant, but for an occasional blue
glimmer as some sea creature tried to lure a mate. I lay
down on the metal deck to rest my back, feeling the thrum of engines vibrate
beneath me. It was like the rumbling song of some godlike hoon who never needed
to pause or take a breath. I filled my air sac and began to umble counterpoint.
Hoons think best when there is a steady background cadence-a tone to serve as a
fulcrum for deliberation. I had a
lot to think about. My
friends eventually grew bored with staring at the bleak desolation outside.
Soon they were all gathered around little Huphu, our noorish mascot, trying to
get her to speak. Pincer urged me to come over and use bosun umbles to put her
in a cooperative mood, but I declined. I've known Huphu since she was a pup,
and there's no way she's been playing dumb all that time. Anyway, I had seen a
difference in that strange noor on the beach, the one that spoke back to the
spinning voice in fluent GalSix. Huphu never had that glint in her eyes . . . . . .
though as I reflected, I felt sure I'd seen the look before-in just a few noor
who lounged on the piers in Wuphon, or worked the sails of visiting ships.
Strange ones, a bit more aloof than normal. As silent as their brethren, they
nevertheless seemed more watchful somehow. More evaluating. More amused by all
the busy activity of the Six Races. I never
gave them much thought before, since a devilish attitude seems innate to all
noor. But now perhaps I knew what made them different. Though
noor are-often associated with hoons, they didn't come to Jijo with us, the way
chimps, lorniks, and zookirs came with human, qheuen, and g'Kek sooners. They
were already here when we arrived and began building our first proud rafts. We
always assumed they were native beasts, either natural or else some adjusted
species, left behind by the Buyur as a practical joke on whoever might follow.
Though we get useful work out of them, we hoon don't fool ourselves that they
are ours. Eventually,
Huck gave up the effort, leaving Pincer and Ur-ronn to continue coaxing our
bored mascot. My g'Kek buddy rolled over beside me, resting quietly for a time.
But she didn't fool me for a kidura. "So
tell me," I asked. "What'd you swipe?" "What
makes you think I took anything?" She feigned innocence. "Hr-rrm.
How 'bout the fakey way you thrashed around, back there in the hall-a tantrum
like you used to throw when you were a leg skeeter, till our folks caught on.
After we left the curvy hallway, you stopped all that, wearing a look as if
you'd snatched the crown jewels under old Richelieu's nose." Huck
winced, a reflex coiling of eyestalks. Then she chuckled. "Well, you got
me there, d'Artagnan. Come on. Have a look at what I got." With
some effort, I raised up on my middle stretch of forearm while Huck rolled
closer still. Excitement hummed along her spokes. "Used
my pusher legs. Kept banging 'em against the wall till I managed to snag one of
these." Her
tendril-like arm unfolded. There, held delicately between the tips, hung a
narrow, rectangular strip of what looked like thick paper. I reached for it. "Careful,
it's sticky on one side. I think a book called it adhesive tape. Got a bit
crumpled when I yanked it off the wall. Had to pry some gummy bits apart. I'm
afraid there's not much of an impression left, but if you look closely . .
." I
peered at the strip-one of the coverings we had seen pressed on the walls,
always at the same height, to the left of each doorway in the curved hall,
surely masking label signs in some unknown language. "You
wouldn't happen to've been looking when I ripped it off, were you?" Huck
asked. "Did you see what it said underneath?" "Hr-r.
Wish I had. But I was too busy avoiding being kicked." "Well,
never mind. Just look real carefully at this end. What d'you see there?" I
didn't have Huck's sensitivity of vision, but hoons do have good eyes. I peered
at what seemed a circular pattern with a gap and sharp jog on the right side.
"Is it a symbol?" "That's
right. Now tell me-in what alphabet?" I
concentrated. Circles were basic ingredients in most standard Galactic codes.
But this particular shape seemed unique. "I'll
tell you my yirrt impression, though it can't be right." "Go
on." "Hr-rm
... it looks to me like an Anglic letter. A letter G, to be specific." Huck
let a satisfied sigh escape her vent mouth. All four eyestalks waved, as if in
a happy breeze. "That
was my impression, too." We
clustered round the viewport when the hull began creaking and popping,
indicating a rapid change of pressure. Soon the world outside began to brighten
and we knew the sub must be on final approach. Beyond the glass, sunshine
streamed through shallow water. We all felt a bit giddy, from changing air
density, I guess. Pincer-Tip let out hissing shouts, glad to be back in a
familiar world where he would be at home. (Though lacking the comforts of his
clan rookery.) Soon water slid off the window in dripping sheets and we saw our
destination. Tilted
obelisks and sprawling concrete skeletons, arrayed in great clusters along the
shore. Huck let out a warbling sigh. Buyur
ruins, I realized. These must be the scrublands south of the Rift, where some
city sites were left to be torn down by wave and wind alone. The
voice read my journal and knew about our interest in coming here. If we must be
quarantined, this would be the
place. The
cluster of ancient sites had been Huck's special goal, before we ever stepped
aboard Wuphon's Dream. Now she bounced on her rims, eager to get ashore and
read the wall inscriptions that were said to be abundant in this place.
Forgotten were her complaints over broken phuvnthu promises. This was a more
longstanding dream. One of
the six-limbed amphibians entered, gesturing for us to move quickly. No doubt
the phuvnthus were anxious to get us ashore before they could be spotted by
their enemies. Huck rolled out after Pincer. Ur-ronn glanced at me, her long
head and neck shaking in an urrish shrug. At least she must be looking forward
to an end to all this water and humidity. The countryside ahead looked
pleasantly dry. But it
was not to be. This
time I was the mutinous one. "No!"
I planted my feet, and my throat sac boomed. "I
ain't movin'." My
friends turned and stared. They must have seen hoonish obstinacy in the set of
my limbs as I gripped the crutches. The amphibian fluttered and squeaked
distress. "Forget
it," I insisted. "We are not getting off!" "Alvin,
it's all right-ight," Pincer murmured. "They promised to leave us
lots of food, and I can hunt along the shore-" I shook
my head. "We
are not going to be cast aside like this, exiled for our own Ifni-slucking
safety, like a bunch of helpless kids. Sent away from where things are
happening. Important things!" "What're
you talking about?" asked Huck, rolling back into the cabin, while the
amphibian fluttered and waved its four arms vainly. Finally, a pair of big
phuvnthus came in, their long horizontal bodies metal-clad and slung between
six stomping steel legs. But I refused to be intimidated. I pointed at the
nearest, with its pair of huge, black, glassy eyes, one on each side of a
tapered head. "You
call up the spinning voice and tell him. Tell him we can help. But if you
people turn us away, putting us ashore here won't do any good. It won't shut us
up, 'cause we'll find a way back home, just as fast as we can. We'll head for
the Rift and signal friends on the other side. We'll tell 'em the truth about
you guys!" Ur-ronn
murmured, "What truth, Alvin?" I let
out a deep, rolling umble to accompany my words. "That
we know who these guys are." Sara IN THE
LODGE OF A HORSE CLAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT to see lariats, bridles, and saddle
blankets hanging on the walls. Maybe a guitar or two. It seemed strange to find
a piano here in Xi. An
instrument much like the one back home in Dolo Village, where Melina used to
read to her children for hours on end, choosing obscure books no one else
seemed eager to check out from the Biblos Archive-some crinkly pages wafting
aromas from the Great Printing, two hundred years before. Especially books of
written music Melina would prop on the precious piano Nelo had made for her as
part of the marriage price. Now, in
the great hall of the Illias, Sara ran her hands along white and black keys,
stroking fine tooth traces left by expert qheuen wood-carvers, picturing her
mother as a little girl, raised in this narrow realm of horses and mindscraping
illusions. Leaving Xi must have been like going to another planet. Did she feel
relief from claustrophobic confinement, passing through the Buyur tunnel for a
new life in the snowy north? Or did Melina long in her heart for the hidden
glades? For the visceral thrill of bareback? For the pastoral purity of life
unconstrained by men? Did she
miss the colors that took each dream or nightmare, and spread its secret
panorama before your daylight gaze? Who
taught you to play the piano, Mother? Sitting with you on this very bench, the
way you used to sit beside me, trying to hide your disappointment in my awkward
fingers? A folio
of sheet music lay atop the piano's polished surface. Sara flipped through it,
recalling ancient compositions that used to transfix her mother for duras at a
stretch, rousing young Sara's jealousy against those dots on a page. Dots
Melina transformed into glorious harmonies. Later,
Sara realized how magical the melodies truly were. For they were repeatable. In
a sense, written music was immortal. It could never die. The
typical Jijoan ensemble-a sextet including members from each sooner
race-performed spontaneously. A composition was never quite the same from one
presentation to the next. That trait appealed especially to blue qheuens* and
hoons, who, according to legend, had no freedom to innovate back in ordered
Galactic society. They expressed puzzlement when human partners sometimes
suggested recording a successful piece in traeki wax, or writing it down. Whatever
for?they asked. Each moment deserves its own song. A
Jijoan way of looking at things, Sara acknowledged. She
laid her hands on the keys and ran through some scales. Though out of practice,
the exercise was like an old friend. No wonder Emerson also drew comfort from
tunes recalling happier days. Still,
her mind churned as she switched to some simple favorites, starting with
"Fur Elise." According
to Biblos anthropology texts, most ancient cultures on Earth used to play music
that was impulsive, just like a Jijoan sextet. But shortly before they made
their own way into space, humans also came up with written forms. We
sought order and memory. It must have seemed a refuge from the chaos that
filled our dark lives. Of
course that was long ago, back when mathematics also had its great age of
discovery on Earth. Is that a common thread? Did I choose math for the same
reason Melina loved this instrument? Because it lends predictability amid
life's chaos? A
shadow fell across the wall. Sara drew back, half rising to meet the brown eyes
of Foruni, aged leader of the horse-riding clan. "Sorry
to disturb you, dear." The gray-headed matriarch motioned for Sara to sit.
"But watching you, I could almost believe it was Melina back home with us,
playing as she did, with such intensity." "I'm
afraid I don't look much like my mother. Nor do I play half as well." The old
woman smiled. "A good parent wants her offspring to excel-to do what she
could not. But a wise parent lets the child select which excellence. You chose
realms of deep thought. I know she was very proud." Sara
acknowledged the kindness with a nod, but took small comfort from aphorisms. If
the choice really were mine, don't you think I'd have been beautiful, like
Melina? A dark woman of mystery, who amazed people with many graceful talents? Mathematics
chose me . . . it seized me with cool infinities and hints at universal truth.
Yet whom do I touch with my equations? Who looks at my face and form with
unreserved delight? Melina
died young, but surrounded by those who loved her. Who will weep over me, when
I am gone? The
Illias leader must have misunderstood Sara's frown. "Do
my words disturb you?" Foruni asked. "Do I sound like a heretic, for
believing that generations can improve? Does it
seem an odd belief for a secret tribe that hides itself even from a
civilization of exiled refugees?" Sara
found it hard to answer. Why
were Melina's children so odd, byJijoan standards? Although Lark's heresy seems
opposite to mine, we share one thread-rejecting the Path of Redemption. The
books Mother read to us often spoke of hope, drawn from some act of rebellion. To the
Illias leader, she replied, "You and your urrish friends rescued horses,
back when they seemed doomed. Your alliance foreshadowed that of Drake and
Ur-Chown. You are a society of dedicated women, who carefully choose your male
companions from the best Jijo has to offer. Living in splendid isolation, you
see humanity at its best-seldom its more nasty side. "No,
it does not surprise me that the Illias are optimists at heart." Foruni
nodded. "I am told that you, in your investigations of language theory,
reached similar conclusions." Sara
shrugged. "I'm no optimist. Noj; personally. But for a while, it seemed
that I could see a pattern in the evolution of Jijo's dialects, and in all the
new literary activity taking place across the Slope. Not that it matters
anymore, now that aliens have come to-" The old
woman cut in. "You don't think we are destined to be like glavers, winning
our second chance by passing through oblivion?" "You
mean what might have happened, if starships never came? I argued with Dedinger
about this. If Jijo had been left alone, I felt there was the possibility of .
. ." Sara
shook her head and changed the subject. "Speaking
of Dedinger, have you had any luck finding him?" Foruni
winced unhappily. "It's been just a short while since he broke out of the
pen where he was kept. We never imagined he would prove so resourceful, knowing
how to saddle and steal a horse." "He
had time to learn by observing." "I
see that we were naive. It's a long time since we kept prisoners in XL "Unfortunately,
the tracks do not lead back to the tunnel, where we might have trapped him in
the narrow darkness. Instead, the wily ligger spawn struck out across the
Spectral Flow." Sara
tried picturing a man alone on horseback, crossing a vast desert of poison
stone and cutting light. "Do you think he can make it?" "You
mean can we catch him before he dies out there?" It was Foruni's turn to
shrug. "Fallen is not as spry as he was, but he departed a midura ago with
some of our most able young riders. The fanatic should be back in care soon,
and we'll watch him more closely-" Foruni
stopped, midsentence, glancing down at her hand. An insect had landed, and was
sniffing at a vein. Sara recognized a skeeter-a blood-sucking irritant familiar
across the Slope. Skeeters were slow and easily smacked, but for some reason
Foruni refrained. Instead, she let the vampire wasp leisurely insert a narrow
tube and take its meal. When finished, it proceeded to perform a little dance,
one filled with jerky, beckoning motions. Sara
stared, fascinated. Skeeters seldom survived landing on a human long enough to
do this. Come
with me, it seemed to say with each swing of its tiny abdomen and tail. Come
with me now. Sara
realized, it must be another remnant servant beast of the vanished Buyur. A
useful messenger, if you knew how to use it. Foruni
sighed. "Alas, dear cousin, it's time for you to go. You and Kurt and the
others must hurry to where you're needed most." Needed?
Suessi wondered. In times like these, what could a person like me possibly be
needed for? The
journey south resumed, this time on horseback. They used the ancient Buyur
transit tunnel at first, where the failed deconstructor left its demolition
unfinished. But soon it lay cracked open for stretches, like the spent larval
casing of a newly fledged qheuen, leaving a dusty cavity or else a pit filled
with water. Thereafter they had to ride in the open, awash in the luminous
tides of the Spectral Flow. The Illias provided hooded cloaks. Still, it felt
as if the colors were probing the reflective garments for some gap to worm
their way inside. Kurt and
Jomah rode ahead with Kepha, their guide. The elderly exploser leaned forward
in his saddle, as if that might get them to their goal quicker. Then came
Prity, on a donkey more suited for her small form. Emerson
seemed strangely subdued, though he smiled at Sara from time to time. He wore
the rewq constantly, though from his ever-turning head, Sara gathered the filmy
symbiont was doing more than just softening the colors. It must be adjusting,
translating them. Sometimes, the starman stiffened in the saddle . . . though
whether from pain, surprise, or exaltation, Sara could never be quite sure. Taking
up the rear was Uigor, the urrish traitor. Wisely, she had not tried to break
across the poison plain with her erstwhile ally, Dedinger. Guarded by two of
her own kind from the Xi colony, Uigor swung her head in growing eagerness as
the party neared Mount Guenn. Urrish nostrils flared at scents of smoke and
molten rock, as the volcano loomed to fill the southern sky. Sara
felt surprisingly good. The saddle was a tool her body had mastered. When the
going grew steep and riders dismounted to lead the horses by hand, her legs
were suffused with waves of comfortable warmth, with strength still in reserve. So, a
hermit math potato can manage to keep up, after all. Or is this euphoria an
early sign of altitude sickness? They
were mounting one of countless knee hills along the sloping volcano, when
suddenly all three urs bolted forward, hissing excitement and trailing clouds
of pumice, forgetting their separate roles as they jostled toward the next
outlook. Outlined against the sky, their long heads swept in unison, from left
to right and back again. Finally,
winded from the climb, she and Emerson arrived to find a mighty caldera spread
before them . . . one of many studding the immense volcano, which kept rising
to the southeast for many more leagues. Yet
this crater had the urs transfixed. Steamy exhalations rose from vents that
rimmed the craggy circle. Cautiously, Sara removed her sunglasses. The basalt
here was of a coarser, less gemlike variety. They had entered a different realm. "This
was the site of the first forge," Uigor announced, her voice tinged with
awe. She tilted her muzzle to the right, and Sara made out a tumble of stone
blocks, too poorly shaped to have been laser-cut by the Buyur, and now
long-abandoned. Such tumbled shelters were handhewn by the earliest urrish
seeker smiths who dared to leave the plains pursuing lava-borne heat, hoping to
learn how to cast the fiery substance of Jijoan bronze and steel. In its day,
the venture was fiercely opposed by the Gray Queens, who portrayed it as
sacrilege-as when humans much later performed the Great Printing. In
time, what had been profane became tradition. "They
must've found conditions better, on high," Jomah commented, for the' trail
continued steadily upslope. An urrish guard nodded. "Vut it was fron this
flace that early urs exflorers discovered the secret way across the Sfectral
Flow. The Secret of Xi." Sara
nodded. That explained why one group of urs conspired to thwart another-the
powerful Urunthai-in their plan to make horses extinct when humanity was new on
Jijo. The smiths of those days cared little for power games played by high
aunties of the plains tribes. It did not matter to them how Earthlings smelled,
or what beasts they rode, only that they possessed a treasure. Those
books the Earthlings printed. They have secrets of metallurgy. We must share,
or be left behind. So it
was not a purely idealistic move-to establish a secret herd in Xi. There had
been a price. Humans may be Jijo's master engineers, but we stayed out
ofsmithing, and now I know why. Even
after growing up among them, Sara still found it fascinating how varied urs
could be. Their range of personalities and motives-from fanatics to pragmatic
smiths- was as broad as you'd find among human beings. One more reason why
stereotypes aren't just evil, but stupid. Soon
after they remounted, the trail followed a ridgeline offering spectacular views.
The Spectral Flow lay to their left, an eerie realm, even dimmed to -sepia
shades by distance and dark glasses. The maze of speckled canyons spanned all
the way to a band of blazing white-the Plain of Sharp Sand. Dedinger's home,
where the would-be prophet was forging a nation of die-hard zealots out of
coarse desert folk. Sandmen who saw themselves as humanity's vanguard on the
Path of Redemption. In the
opposite direction, southwest through gaps in the many-times-folded mountain,
Sara glimpsed another wonder. The vast ocean, where Jijo's promised life
renewal was fulfilled. Where Melina's ashes went after mulching. And Joshu's.
Where the planet erased sin by absorbing and melting anything the universe sent
it. The
Slope is so narrow, andJijo is so large. Will star gods judge us harshly,or
living quiet careful lives in one corner of a forbidden world? There
was always hope the aliens might just finish their business and go away,
leaving the Six Races to proceed along whatever path destiny laid out for them. Yeah,
she concluded. There are two chances that will happen-fat and slim. The
trek continued, more often dismounted than not, and the view grew more
spectacular as they moved east, encompassing the southern Rimmer Range. Again,
Sara noted skittishness among the urs. In spots the ground vented steaming
vapors, making the horses dance and snort. Then she glimpsed a red glimmer,
some distance below the trail-a meandering stream of lava, flowing several
arrowflights downslope. Perhaps
it was fatigue, thin air, or the tricky terrain, but as Sara looked away from
the fiery trail, her unshielded eyes crossed the mountains and were caught
unready by a stray flash of light. Sensitized by her time in Xi, the sharp
gleam made her cringe. What is
that? The
flash repeated at uneven intervals, almost as if the distant mountaintop were
speaking to her. Then
Sara caught another, quite different flicker of motion. Now
that must'be an illusion, she thought. It has to be . . . yet it's so far from
the Spectral Flow! It
seemed . . . she could almost swear . . . that she saw the widespread wings of
some titanic bird, or dragon, wafting between- It had
been too long since she checked her footing. A stone unexpectedly turned and
Sara tripped. Throwing her weight desperately the other way, she
overcompensated, losing her balance completely. Uttering
a cry, Sara fell. The
gritty trail took much of the initial impact, but then she rolled over the
edge, tumbling down a scree of pebbles and jagged basalt flakes. Despite her
tough leather garments, each jab lanced her with fierce pain as she desperately
covered her face and skull. A wailing sound accompanied her plunge. In a
terrified daze Sara realized the screamer was not her, but Prity, shrieking
dismay. "Sara!"
someone yelled. There were scrambling sounds of distant, hopeless pursuit. In
midtumble, between one jarring collision and the next, she glimpsed something
between blood-streaked fingers-a fast-approaching rivulet winding across the
shattered landscape. A liquid current that moved languidly, with great
viscosity and even greater heat. It was the same color as her blood . . . and
approaching fast. Nel elo HRIANA
FOO SPENT THE RETURN BOAT JOURNEY mulling over her sketches of the tiny space
pod that had brought the Stranger to Jijo. Meanwhile, Nelo fumed over this
foolish diversion. His workmen would surely not have kept to schedule. Some
minor foul-up would give those louts an excuse to lie about like hoons at
siesta time. Commerce
had lapsed during the crisis, and the warehouse tree was full, but Nelo was
determined to keep producing paper. What would Dolo Village be without the
groaning waterwheel, the thump of the pulping hammer, or the sweet aroma that
wafted from fresh sheets drying in the sun? While
the helmsman umbled cheerfully, keeping a steady beat for the crew poling the
little boat along, Nelo held out a hand, feeling for rain. There had been drops
a little earlier, when disturbing thunder pealed to the south. The
marsh petered out as streamlets rejoined as a united river once more. Soon the
young people would switch to oars and sweep onto the gentle lake behind Dolo
Dam. The
helmsman's umble tapered, slowing to a worried moan. Several of the crew leaned
over, peering at the water. A boy shouted as his pole was ripped out of his
hands. It does seem a bit fast, Nelo thought, as the last swamp plants fell
behind and trees began to pass by rapidly. "All
hands to oars!" shouted the young hoon in command. Her back spines, still
fresh from recent fledging, made uneasy frickles. "Lock them down!" Ariana
met Nelo's eyes with a question. He answered with a shrug. The
boat juttered, reminding him of the cataracts that lay many leagues downriver,
past Tarek Town, an inconvenience he only had to endure once, accompanying his
wife's dross casket to sea. But
there are no rapids here! They were erased when the lake filled, centuries ago! The
boat veered, sending him crashing to the bilge. With stinging hands, Nelo
climbed back to take a seat next to Ariana. The former High Sage clutched the
bench, her precious folio of drawings zipped shut inside her jacket. "Hold
on!" screamed the young commander. In dazed bewilderment, Nelo clutched
the plank as they plunged into a weird domain. A realm that should not be. So Nelo
thought, over and over, as they sped down a narrow channel. On either side, the
normal shoreline was visible-where trees stopped and scummy water plants took
over. But the boat was already well below that level, and dropping fast! Spume
crested the gunnels, drenching passengers and crew. The latter rowed furiously
to the hoon lieutenant's shrill commands. Lacking a male's resonating sac, she
still made her wishes known. "Backwater-left
. . . backwater-left, you noor-bitten ragmen! . . . Steady . . . Now all ahead!
Pull for it, you spineless croakers! For your lives, pull!" Twin
walls of stone rushed inward, threatening to crush the boat from both sides.
Glistening with oily algae, they loomed like hammer and anvil as the crew rowed
frantically for the narrow slot between, marked by a fog of stinging white
spray. What lay beyond was a mystery Nelo only prayed he'd live to see. Voices
of hoons, qheuen, and humans rose in desperation as the boat struck one cliff a
glancing blow, echoing like a door knocker on the gateway to hell. Somehow the
hull survived to lunge down the funnel, drenched in spray. We
should be on the lake by now, Nelo complained, hissing through gritted teeth.
Where did the lake go! They
shot like a javelin onto a cascade where water churned in utter confusion over
scattered boulders, shifting suddenly as fresh debris barricades built up or
gave way. It was an obstacle course to defy the best of pilots, but Nelo had no
eyes for the ongoing struggle, which would merely decide whether he lived or
died. His numbed gaze lifted beyond, staring past the surrounding mud plain
that had been a lake bed, down whose center rushed the River Roney, no longer
constrained. A river now free to roll on as it had before Earthlings came. The dam
. . . The dam . . . A moan
lifted from the pair of blue qheuens, lent for this journey by the local hive.
A hive whose fisheries and murky lobster pens used to stretch luxuriously
behind the dam wherein they made a prosperous home. Remnants of the pens and
algae farms lay strewn about as the boat swept toward the maelstrom's center. Nelo
blinked, unable to express his dismay, even with a moan. The dam
still stood along most of its length. But most wasn't a word of much use to a
dam. Nelo's heart almost gave way when he saw the gap ripped at one end . . .
the side near his beloved mill. "Hold
on!" the pilot cried redundantly, as they plunged for the opening. And the
waterfall they all heard roaring violently just ahead. PART
SIX FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN MY
DECISION may not be wholly rational. For all
I know, Alvin may die blurting in order to avoid exile, he may have no I idea
who we are. Or
perhaps he really Has surmised the truth. yuter all, dolphins are mentioned in
' many of the earth books he's read. Even . wearing a mlly armored, six-legged
walker unit, a tins outline can be recognised it you look in tne right way.
Once tne idea occurred to him, Alvins fertile imagination would cover the rest. As a
precaution, we could Intern the kids much larther south, or in a subsea I
habitat. That might keep them sale and silent. , Isnt suggested as much, before
I ordered the ; lUKaM to turn around and bring them back. I admit
I'm biased. I miss ,Win and his pals. 11 only the fractious races of the Five
Galaxtes could have a camaraderie like theirs. ' ,Anyway, they are grown-up enough to choose their own late. Wfc,Vb had a report trom Makanees nurse. On
her way by sled to check on a sick member of Kaas team, Repoe spotted two more
piles of Junked spacecratt, smaller than this one, but suitable should we have
to move Streaker soon. Hannes dispatched crews to start preparatory work. ,xgain,
we must rely on the same core group of about liity skilled crewten. I he
reliable ones, whose concentration remains untlagged atter three stresslul
years. Those who arent frightened by superstitious rumors of sea monsters
lurking amid the dead Buyur machines. AJ for
our pursuers--weve seen no more gravitic signatures or Hying cratt, east of the
mountains. That may be good news, but the respite makes me nervous. Iwo small
spacecraft cant be the whole story. Sensors detect some great brute of a ship,
about (ive hundred klicks northwest. Is this vast cruiser related to the two
vessels that (ell near here? They
must surely realise that this region is of interest. It seems creepy they haven
t followed up. .As it they are confident they have all the time in the world. 1 \~\L,
NISS Machine managed to exchange Just a few more words with that so-called noor
beast that our little drone encountered ashore. But the creature keeps us on
tenterhooks, treating the little scout robot like its private toy, or a prey
animal to be teased with bites and scratches. )4t it also carries it about in
its mouth, careful not to get tangled in the hber cable, letting us have briet,
tantalising views of the crashed sky boats. We had
assumed that noor were simply devolved versions of tytlal . . . of little
interest except as curiosities. But if some retain the power of speech, what
else might they be capable or? .At first I thought the Niss AAachine would be
the one oest
qualthed to handle this contusing encounter. .Alter all, the noor is its
cousin, in a manner of speaking. But
family connections can Involve sibling rivalry, even contempt. Maybe the
lymbrlmt machine is simply the wrong spokesman. One
more reason I'm eager to bring ,Win back. AMID
all this, I had time to do a bit more research on Herbie. I wish
there were some way to guess the isotopic input profiles, before he died, but
chemical raeemi?atlon analyses of samples taken from the ancient mummy appear
to show considerably less temporal span than was indicated by cosmic-ray track
llistories of the hull lorn boarded, in the Shallow (cluster. In
other words, Heroic seems younger than the vessel lorn round him on. I hat
could mean a number of things. AAlght
Herb simply be the corpse of some previous grave robber, who slinked aboard
Just a few million years ago, Instead of one to two billion' Or
could the discrepancy be an enect of those strange Holds we (ound in the
Shallow (cluster, surrounding that Heet of ghostly starcraft, rendering them
nearly invisible, perhaps the outer hulls of those huge, silent ships
experienced time dinerently than their contents. It
makes me wonder about poor Lieutenant ,achapa-Jean, who was killed by those
same fields, and whose body had to be lett behind. AAight some future
expedition someday recover the well-preserved corpse of a dolphin and go
rushing around the universe thinking they have the recovered relic of a
progenitor' yVllstaking
the youngest sapient race for the oldest. What a Joke that would be. A Joke
on them, and a Joke on us. llerbie
never changes. Yet I swear I sometimes catch him grinning. OUR stolen Galactic Library unit gets queer
and opaque at times. It I werent in disguise, the big cube probably woutdnt
tell me anything at all. L,ven decked out as a Thennanin admiral, I itnd the
lilbrary evasive when shown those symbols that lorn copied aboard the derelict
ship. One
glyph looks like the emblem worn by every Library unit in known space--a great
spiral wheel. Only instead or hve swirling arms rotating around a common
center, this one has nine: And
eight concentric ovals overlie the stylized galactic helix, making it resemble
a bulls-eye target. I never
saw anything like it before. when I press for answers, our purloined archive says
the symbol ... is very old . . . and that its use is ... memetically
discouraged. Whatever
that means. At risk
of humanising a machine, the unit seems to get grumpy, as it it dislikes being
contused. Ive seen this before. lerragens researchers rind that certain subject
areas make libraries touchy, as ii they hate having to work hard by digging in
older riles. . . . Or maylie thats an excuse to avoid admitting there are
things they dont know. It
reminds me of discussions lorn and I used to have with Jake l-)emwa, when wed
all sit up late trying to make sense of the universe. Jake
had a theory-that Galactic history, which purports to go back more than a
billion years, is actually only accurate to about one hundred and titty
million. With each
eon you go lurther back than that, he said, what were told has an
ever-increasing Havor of a carerutly concocted (able. Oh,
there's evidence that oxygen-breathing stanarers have been around ten times as
long. Jurely some of the ancient events recorded
in oiiicial annals must be authentic. But much has also been painted over. It s a
chilling notion. The great Institutes are supposed to be dedicated to truth and
continuity, tlow, then, can valid tniormatlon be memetically discouraged: Yes,
this seems a rather abstract obsession, at a time when Streaker--and now
Jijo--races dire and immediate threats. Yet I can t help thinking it all comes
together here at the bottom of a planetary graveyard, where tectonic plates
melt history Into ore. We are
caught in the slowly grinding gears of a machine more vast than we imagined. Marines ftT
TIMES HANNES SUESSI ACUTELY MISSED HIS nyoung friend Emerson, whose uncanny
skills helped 11 make Streaker purr like a compact leopard, prowling the trails
of space. Of
course Hannes admired the able fins of his engineroom gang-amiable, hardworking
crew mates without a hint of regression in the bunch. But dolphins tend to
visualize objects as sonic shapes, and often set their calibra, tions
intuitively, based on the way motor vibrations sounded. A helpful technique,
but not always reliable. Emerson
D'Anite, on the other hand- Hannes
never knew anyone with a better gut understanding of quantum probability
shunts. Not the arcane hyperdimensional theory, but the practical nuts and
bolts of wresting movement from contortions of wrinkled spacetime. Emerson was
also fluent in Tursiops Trinary . . . better than Hannes at conveying complex
ideas in neodolphins' own hybrid language. A useful knack on this tub. Alas,
just one human now remained belowdecks, to help tend abused motors long past
due for overhaul. That
is-if one could even call Hannes Suessi human anymore. Am I
more than I was? Or less? He now
had "eyes" all over the engine room-remote pickups linked directly to
his ceramic-encased brain. Using portable drones, Hannes could supervise
Karkaett and Chuchki far across the wide chamber ... or even small crews
working on alien vessels elsewhere in the great underwater scrap yard. In this
way he could offer advice and comfort when they grew nervous, or when their
bodies screamed with cetacean claustrophobia. Unfortunately,
cyborg abilities did nothing to prevent loneliness. You
should never have left me here alone, Hannes chided Emerson's absent spirit.
You were an engineer, not a secret agent or star pilot! You had no business
traipsing off, doing heroic deeds. There
were specialists for such tasks. Streaker had been assigned several
"heroes" when she first set out-individuals with the right training
and personalities, equipping them to face dangerous challenges and improvise
their way through any situation. Unfortunately,
those qualified ones were gone-Captain Creideiki, Tom Orley, Lieutenant Hikahi,
and even the young midshipman Toshio-all used up in that costly escape from
Kithrup. I guess
someone had to fill in after that, Hannes conceded. In
fact, Emerson pulled off one daring coup on Oakka, the green world, when the
Obeyer Alliance sprang a trap while Gillian tried to negotiate a peaceful
surrender to officials of the Navigation Institute. Not
even the suspicious Niss Machine reckoned that neutral Galactic bureaucrats
might betray their oaths and violate Streaker's truce pennant. It wasn't
supposed to be possible. If not for Emerson's daring trek across Oakka's
jungle, taking out a Jophur field-emitter station, Streaker would have fallen
into the clutches of a single fanatic clan-the one thing the Terragens Council
said must not occur, at any cost. But you
let one success go to your head, eh? What were you thinking? That you were
another Tom Orley? A few
months later you pulled that crazy stunt, veering a jury-rigged Thennanin
fighter through the Fractal System, firing recklessly to "cover" our
escape. What did that accomplish, except getting yourself killed? He
recalled the view from Streaker's bridge, looking across the inner cavity of a
vast, frosty structure the size of a solar system, built of condensed primal
matter. A jagged, frothy structure with a pale star in its heart. Emerson's
fighter swerved amid the spiky reaches of that enormous artifact, spraying
bright but useless rays while claws of hydrogen ice converged around it. Foolish
heroism. The Old Ones could have stopped Streaker just as easily as they stopped
you, if they really wanted to. They
meant to let us get away. He
winced, recalling how Emerson's brave, futile "diversion" ended in a
burst of painful light, a flicker against the immense, luminous fractal dome.
Then Streaker fled down a tunnel between dimensions, thread-gliding all the way
to forbidden Galaxy Four. Once there, her twisty path skirted the trade winds
of a hydrogen-breathing civilization, then plunged past a sooty supergiant
whose eruption might at last cover the Earthship's trail. Others
came toJijo in secret before us, letting Izmunuti erase their tracks. It
should have worked for us, too. ' But
Hannes knew what was different, this time. Those
others didn't already have a huge price on their heads. You could buy half a
spiral arm with the bounty that's been offered for Streaker, by several rich,
terrified patron lines. Hannes
sighed. The recent depth-charge attack had been imprecise, so the hunters only
suspected a general area of sea bottom. But the chase was on again. And Hannes
had work to do. At
least I have an excuse to avoid another damned meeting of the ship's council.
It's a farce, anyway, since we always wind up doing whatever Gillian decides.
We'd be crazy not to. Karkaett
signaled that the motivator array was aligned. Hannes used a cyborg arm to
adjust calibration dials on the master control, trying to imitate Emerson's
deft touch. The biomechanical extensions that replaced his hands were marvelous
gifts, extending both ability and life span- though he still missed the tactile
pleasure of fingertips. The Old
Ones were generous . . . then they robbed us and drove us out. They gave life
and took it. They might have betrayed us for the reward ... or else sheltered
us in their measureless world. Yet they did neither. Their
agenda ran deeper than mere humans could fathom. Perhaps everything that
happened afterward was part of some enigmatic plan. Sometimes
I think humanity would've been better off just staying in bed. Tsh't SHE
TOLD GILLIAN BASKIN WHAT SHE THOUGHT OF the decision. "I
still do not agree with bringing those young sooners back here." The
blond woman looked back at Tsh't with tired eyes. Soft lines at the corners had
not been there when Streaker started this voyage. It was easy to age during a
mission like this. "Exile
did seem best, for their own good. But they may be more useful here." "Yesss
. . . assuming they're telling the truth about hoons and Jophur sitting around
with humans and urs, reading paper books and quoting Mark Twain!" Gillian
nodded. "Farfetched, I know. But-" "Think
of the coincidence! No sooner does our scout sub find an old urrish cache than
these so-called kids and their toy bathysphere drop in." "They
would have died, if the Hikahi didn't snatch them up," pointed out the
ship's physician, Makanee. "Perhaps.
But consider, not long after they arrived here, we sensed gravitic motors
headed straight for this rift canyon. Then someone started bombing the abyssss!
Was that a fluke? Or did spies lead them here?" "Calling
bombs down on their own heads?" The dolphin surgeon blew a raspberry.
"A simpler explanation is that one of our explorer robots got caught, and
was traced to this general area." In
fact, Tsh't knew the four sooner children hadn't brought Galactics to the Rift.
They had nothing to do with it. She was herself responsible. Back
when Streaker was preparing to flee the Fractal System, heading off on another
of Gillian's brilliant, desperate ploys, Tsh't had impulsively sent a secret
message. A plea for help from the one source she felt sure of, revealing the
ship's destination and arranging a rendezvous at Jijo. Gillian
will thank me later, she had thought at the time. When our Rothen lords come to
take care of us. Only
now, images from shore made clear how badly things went wrong. Two
small sky ships, crashed in a swamp . . . the larger revealing fierce,
implacable Jophur. Tsh't
wondered how her well-meant plan could go so badly. Did the Rothen allow
themselves to be followed? Or was my message intercepted? Worry
and guilt gnawed her gut. Another
voice entered the discussion. Mellifluous. Emanating from a spiral of rotating
lines that glowed at one end of the conference table. "So
Alvin's bluff played no role in your decision, Dr. Baskin?" "Is
he bluffing? These kids grew up reading Melville and Bickerton. Maybe he
recognized dolphin shapes under those bulky ,exo-suits. Or we may have let
hints slip, during conversation." "Only
the Niss spoke to them directly," Tsh't pointed out, thrusting her jaw
toward the whirling hologram. It
replied with unusual contrition. "Going
over recordings, I concede having used terms such as kilometer and hour . . .
out of shipboard habit. Alvin and his friends might have correlated this with
their extensive knowledge ofAnglic, since Galactics would not use wolfling
measurements." "You
mean a Tymbrimi computer ccan make mistakesss?" Tsh't asked, tauntingly. The
spinning motif emitted a low humm they all now recognized as the philosophical
umbling sound of a reflective hoon. "Flexible
beings exhibit an ability to learn new ways," the Niss explained. "My
creators donated me to serve aboard this ship for that reason. It is why the
Tymbrimi befriended you Earthling rapscallions, in the first place." The
remark was relatively gentle teasing, compared with the machine's normal,
biting wit. "Anyway,"
Gillian continued, "it wasn't Alvin's bluff that swayed me." "Then
what-t?" Makanee asked. The
Niss hologram whirled with flashing speckles, and answered for Gillian. "It
is the small matter of the tytlal . . . the noor beast who speaks. It has
proved uncooperative and uninformative, despite our urgent need to understand
its presence here. "Dr.
Baskin and I now agree. "We
need the children for that reason. Alvin, above all. "To
help persuade it to talk to us." Sooners
Emerson HE
BLAMES HIMSELF. HIS MIND HAD BEEN ON FARaway places and times. Distracted, he
was slow reacting when Sara fell. Till
that moment, Emerson was making progress in the struggle to put his past in
order, one piece at a time. No easy task with part of his brain missing-the
part that once offered words to lubricate any thought or need. Hard-planted
inhibitions fight his effort to remember, punishing every attempt with savagery
that makes him grunt and sweat. But the peculiar panoramas help for a while.
Ricocheting colors and half-liquid landscapes jar some of the niches where
chained memories lie. One
recollection erupts whole. An old one, from childhood. Some neighbors had a big
German shepherd who loved to hunt bees. The dog
used to stalk his quarry in a very uncanine man- ner, crouching and twitching
like some ridiculous ungainly cat, pursuing the unsuspecting insect through
flower beds and tall grass. Then he pounced, snapping powerful jaws around the
outmatched prey. As a
boy, Emerson would stare in amazed delight while outraged buzzing echoed behind
the shepherd's bared teeth, followed by a vivid instant when the bee gave up
protesting and lashed with its stinger. The dog would snort, grimace, and
sneeze. Yet, brief pain came mixed with evident triumph. Bee hunting gave
meaning to his gelded suburban life. Emerson
wonders, why does this metaphor resonate so strongly? Is he the dog, overriding
agony to snatch one defiant memory after another? Or is
he the beef Emerson
recalls just fragments about the haughty entities who reamed his mind, then
sent his body plummeting to Jijo in fiery ruin. But he knows how they regarded
his kind-like insects. He
pictures himself with a sharp stinger, wishing for a chance to make the Old
Ones sneeze. He dreams of teaching them to hate the taste of bees. Emerson
lays hard-won memories in a chain. A necklace with far more gaps than pearls.
Easiest come events from childhood, adolescence, and years of training for the
Terragens Survey Service. . . . Even
when the horse caravan departs the land of stabbing colors to climb a steep
mountain trail, he has other tools to work with-music, math, and hand signs
that he trades with Prity, sharing jokes of ultimate crudity. During rest
breaks, his sketchpad helps tap the subconscious, using impatient slashes and
curves to draw free-form images from the dark time. Streaker
. . . The
ship takes form, almost drawing itself-a lovingly rendered cylinder with
hornlike flanges arrayed in circuits along its length. He draws her
underwater--surrounded by drifting seaweed-abnormal for a vessel of deep space,
but it makes sense as other memories fill in. Kithrup
. . . That
awful worid where the Streaker came seeking shelter after barely escaping a
surprise ambush, learning that a hundred fleets were at war over the right to
capture her. Kitbrup.
A planet whose oceans were poison . . . but a useful place to make repairs,
since just half a dozen crew members had legs to stand on. The rest-bright,
temperamental dolphins-needed a watery realm to work in. Besides, it seemed a
good place to hide after the disaster at ... Morgran
. . . A
transfer point. Safest of the fifteen ways to travel from star to star. Simply
dive toward one at the right slope and distance, and you'd exit at some other
point, far across the stellar wheel. Even the Earthling slowboat Vesarius had
managed it, though quite by accident, before humanity acquired the techniques
of Galactic science. Thinking
of Morgran brings Keepiru to mind, the finest pilot Emerson ever knew-the
show-off!-steering Streaker out of danger with flamboyance that shocked the
ambushers, plunging her back into the maelstrom, away from the brewing space
battle . . . . . .
like the other battle that developed weeks later, over Kithrup. Fine,
glistening fleets, the wealth of noble clans, tearing at each other, destroying
in moments the pride of many worlds. Emerson's hand flies as he draws exploding
arcs across a sheet of native paper, ripping it as he jabs, frustrated by
inability to render the gorgeous savagery he once witnessed with his own eyes.
. . . Emerson
folds the drawings away when the party remounts, glad that his flowing tears
are concealed by the rewq. Later,
when they face a steaming volcano caldera, he abruptly recalls another basin,
this one made of folded space . . . the Shallow Cluster ... Streaker's last
survey site before heading for Morgran-a place empty of anything worth noting,
said the Galactic Library. Then
what intelligence or premonition provoked Captain Creideiki to head for such an
unpromising site? Surely,
in all the eons, someone else must have stumbled on the armada of derelict
ships Streaker discovered there- cause of all her troubles. He can envision
those silent arks now, vast as moons but almost transparent, as if they could
not quite decide to be. This
memory hurts in a different way. Claw marks lie across it, as if some outside
force once pored over it in detail-perhaps seeking to read patterns in the
background stars. Retracing Streaker's path to a single point in space. Emerson
figures they probably failed. Constellations were never his specialty. His
intrigued detachment is cut short by a frightened yell. Yet, for an instant
Emerson remains too distant, too slow to turn. He does not see Sara tumble off
the path. But Prity's scream tears through him like a torch thrust into
cobwebs. Sara's
name pours from his throat with involuntary clarity. His body finally acts,
leaping in pursuit. Hurtling
down the jagged talus slope, he flings eloquent curses at the universe, defying
it-daring it-to take another friend. "Emerson,
you don't have to go." His
head jerks as those words peel from a memory more recent than Morgran or
Kithrup, by many months. Emerson
pans the land of fevered colors, now seen from high above. At last he finds her
face in rippling glimmers. A worried face, burdened with a hundred lives and
vital secrets to preserve. Again she speaks, and the words come whole, because
he never stored them in parts of the brain meant for mundane conversation. Because
everything she said to him had always seemed like music. "We
need you here. Let's find another way." But
there was no other way. Not even Gillian's sarcastic Tymbrimi computer could
suggest one before Emerson climbed aboard a salvaged Thennanin fighter,
embarking on a desperate gamble. Looking
back in time, he hopes to see in Gillian's eyes the same expression she used to
have when bidding Tom farewell on some perilous venture. He sees
worried concern, even affection. But it's not the same. Emerson
frees his gaze from the torment-colored desert, turning east toward less
disturbing vistas. Far-off mountains offer respite with natural undulating
shapes, softened by verdant green forests. Then,
from one^tall peak, there comes a glittering flash! Several more gleam in
series. A rhythm that seems to speak. . . . Raan THE
SERGEANT'S FACE WAS STREAKED WITH CAMOUflage. Her black hair still bore flecks
of loam and grass from worming through crevices and peering between brambles.
Yet Lark had never seen Jeni Shen look better. People
thrive doing the thing they were born,or. InJeni's case, that's being a
warrior. She'd rather have lived when the elder and younger Drakes were
fashioning the Great Peace out of blood and fire than during the peace itself. "So
far, so good," the young militia scout reported. Blurcloth overalls made
it hard to trace her outline amid stark lantern shadows. "I
got close enough to watch the emissaries reenter the valley, bringing the
sages' reply to the Jophur. A couple of guard robots swooped in to look them
over, especially poor Vubben, sniffing him from wheel rims to eyestalks. Then
all six ambassadors headed down to the Glade, with the bots in escort."
Jeni made slanting downward motions with her hands. "That leaves just one
or two drones patrolling this section of perimeter! Seems we couldn't ask for a
better chance to make our move." "Can
there be any question?" added Rann. The tall starfarer leaned against a
limestone wall with arms folded. The Danik was unarmed, but otherwise Rann
acted as if this were his expedition. "Of course we shall proceed. There
is no other option." Despite
Rann's poised assurance, the plan was actually Lark's. So was the decision
whether to continue. His would be the responsibility, if three-score brave
lives were lost in the endeavor ... or if their act provoked the Jophur into
spasms of vengeful destruction. We
might undermine the High Sages at the very moment when they have the Galactic
untraekis calmed down. On the
other hand, how could the Six Races possibly pay the price the Jophur were
demanding? While the sages tried to negotiate a lower cost, someone had to see
if there was a better way. A way not to pay at all. Anxious
eyes regarded him from all corners of the grotto-one of countless steamy
warrens that laced these hills. Ling's gaze was among the most relentless,
standing far apart from Rann. The two star lords had been at odds since they
worked to decode those cryptic data slabs-that awful afternoon when Rann cried
"treason!" then a dread gold mist fell on Dooden Mesa. Each sky human
had a different reason to help this desperate mission. Lark
found little cheer in Jeni's report. Only one or two drones left. According to
Lester Cambel's aides, the remaining robots could still probe some distance
underground, on guard against approaching threats. On the plus side, this
terrain was a muddle of steam vents and juttering quakes. Then there were the
subtle patterning songs put out by the Holy Egg-emanations that set Lark's
stone amulet trembling against his chest. They
all watched, awaiting his decision-human, urs, and hoon volunteers, plus some
qheuens who weren't yet sick. "All
right." Lark nodded. "Let's do it." A
terse, decisive command. Grinning, Jeni spun about to forge deeper into the
cavern, followed by lantern bearers. What
Lark had meant to say was, Hell no! Let's get out of here. I'll buy a round of
drinks so everyone can raise a glass for poor Uthen. But if
he mentioned his friend's name, he might sob the wrenching grief inside. So
Lark took his place along the twisty column of figures stooping and shuffling
through the dim passage, lit by glow patches stuck to the walls. His
thoughts caromed as he walked. For instance, he found himself wondering where
on the Slope all six races could drink the same toast at the same time? Not
many inns served both alcohol and fresh simla blood, since humans and urs
disdained each other's feeding habits. And most traeki politely refrained from
eating in front of other races. I do
know one bar in Tarek Town . . . that is, if Tarek hasn't already been
smothered by a downpour of golden rain. After Dooden, the Jophur may go for the
bigger towns, where so many g'Kek live. It
makes you wonder why the g'Kek came toJijo in the first place. They can only travel
the Path of Redemption if it is paved. Lark
shook his head. Trivia.
Minutiae. Brain synapses keep firing, even when your sole concern is following
the man in front of you . . . and not slamming your skull on a stalactite. When
they glanced at him, his followers saw a calm, assertive pose. But within, Lark
endured a run-on babble of words, forever filling his unquiet mind. I
should be mourning my friend, right now. I
should be hiring a traeki undertaker, arranging a lavish mulching ceremony, so
Uthen's polished carapace can go in style to join the bones and spindles
ofhisforemothers, lying under the Great Midden. It's my
duty to pay a formal visit to the Gray Queens, in that dusty hall where they
once dominated most of the Slope. The Chamber of Ninety Tooth-Carved Pillars,
where they still make pretenses at regal glory. But how could I explain to
those qheuen matrons how two of their brightest sons died-Harullen, sliced
apart by alien lasers, and Uthen, slain by pestilence? Can I
tell those ashen empresses their other children may be next? Uthen
had been his greatest friend, the colleague who shared his fascination with the
ebb and flow of Jijo's fragile ecosystem. Though never joining Lark in heresy,
Uthen was the one other person who understood why sooner races should never
have come to this world. The one to comprehend why some Galactic laws were
good. I let
you down, old pal. But if I can't perform all those other duties, maybe I can
arrange something to compensate. Justice. Debris
littered the floor of the last large cavern, strewn there during the Zealots'
Plot, when a cabal of young rebels used these same corridors to sneak
explosives under the Danik research station, incinerating Ling's friend Besh
and one of the Rothen star lords. Repercussions still spread from that event,
like ripples after a large stone strikes a pond. The
Jophur battleship now lay atop the station wreckage, yet no one suggested using
the same method of attack a second time. Assuming a mighty starcraft could be
blown up, it would take such massive amounts of exploser paste that Lark's team
would still be hauling barrels by next Founders' Day. Anyway, there were no
volunteers to approach the deadly space behemoth. Lark's plan meant coming no
closer than several arrowflights. Even so, the going would be hard and fraught
with peril. "From
here on, the way's too close for grays," Jeni said. Urrish
partisans peered down a passage that narrowed considerably, coiling their long
necks in unison, sniffing an aroma their kind disliked. The
gray qheuens squatted while others unstrapped supplies from their chitin backs.
Given enough time, the big fellows might widen the corridor with their digging
claws and diamond-like teeth, but Lark felt better sending them back. Who knew
how much time they had, with plague spreading on Jijo's winds? Was it a
genocide bug? Ling had found supporting evidence on decoded data wafers, though
Rann still denied it could be of Rothen origin. The
glowering starman was obsessed with a different wafer-gleaned fact. There
had been a spy among the station's staff of outlaw gene raiders. Someone who
kept a careful diary, recording every misdemeanor performed by the Rothen and
their human servants. An
agent of the Terragens Council! Apparently,
Earth's ruling body had an informant among the clan of human fanatics who
worshiped Rothen lords. He
wanted badly to quiz Ling, but there was no time for their old question game.
Not since they fled the Dooden disaster along with Lester Cambel's panicky
aides, plunging through a maze of towering boo. New trails and freshcut trunks
had flustered the breathless fugitives until they spilled into an uncharted
clearing, surprising a phalanx of traeki who stood in a long row, venting noxious
vapors like hissing kettles. Galloping
squads of urrish militia then swarmed in to protect the busy traeki, nipping at
ankles, as if the humans were stampeding simlas, driving Cambel's team away
from the clearing, diverting them toward havens to the west and south. Even
after finally reaching a campsite refuge, there had been no respite to discuss
far-off Galactic affairs. Ling spent her time with the medics, relating what
little she had learned from the spy's notes about the qheuen plague. Meanwhile,
Lark found himself surrounded by furious activity, commanding an ever-growing
entourage of followers. It goes
to show, desperate people will follow anyone with a plan. Even
one as loony as mine. Hoonish
bearers took up the grays' burdens, and the caravan was off again. Half a dozen
blue qheuens took up the rear, so young their shells were still moist from
larval fledging. Though small for their kind, they still needed help from men
with hammers and crowbars, chiseling away limestone obstructions. Lark's scheme
counted on these adolescent volunteers. He
hoped his farfetched plan wasn't the only one at work. There
is always prayer. Lark
fondled his amulet. It felt cool. For now the Egg was quiescent. At a
junction the earlier zealot cabal had veered left, carrying barrels of exploser
paste to a cave beneath the Rothen station. But Lark's group turned right. They
had less distance to cover, but their way was more hazardous. Jimi
the Blessed was among the burly men helping widen the path, attacking an
obstruction with such fury Lark had to intervene. "Easy,
Jimi! You'll wake the recycled dead!" That
brought laughter from the sweaty laborers, and booming umbles from several
hoonish porters. Brave hoons. Lark recalled how their kind disliked closed
places. The urs, normally comfortable underground, grew more nervous with each
sign of approaching water. None of
them were happy to be approaching the giant star cruiser. The Six
Races had spent centuries cowering against The Day when ships of the Institutes
would come judge their crimes. Yet, when great vessels came, they did not bear
high-minded magistrates, but thieves, and then brutal killers. Where the Rothen
and their human stooges seemed crafty and manipulative, the Jophur were
chilling. They
demand what we cannot give. We
don't know anything about the "dolphin ship" they seek. And we'd
rather be damned than hand over our g'Kek brothers. So
Lark, who had spent his life hoping Galactics would come end the illegal colony
on Jijo, now led a desperate bid to battle star gods. Human
literature has been so influential since the Great Printing. It's full of
forlorn causes. Endeavors that no rational person would entertain. He and
Ling were helping each other descend a limestone chute, glistening with seepage
and slippery lichen, when word arrived from the forward scouts. "Water
just ahead." That
was the message, sent back by Jeni Shen. So,
Lark thought. I was right. Then he
added- So far. The
liquid was oily and cold. It gave off a musty aroma. None of which stopped two
eager young blues from creeping straight into the black pool, trailing
mule-fiber line from a spool. Hoons with hand pumps kept busy inundating air
bladders while Lark steeled himself to enter that dark, wet place. Having
second thoughts? Jeni
checked his protective suit of skink membranes. It might ward off the chill,
but that was the least- of Lark's worries. I can
take cold. But there bad better be enough air. The
bladders were an untested innovation. Each was a traeki ring, thick-ribbed to
hold gas under pressure. Jeni affixed one to his back, and showed him how to
breathe through its fleshy protrusion-a rubbery tentacle that would provide
fresh air and scrub the old. You
grow up depending on traeki-secreted chemicals to make native foods edible, and
traeki-distilled alcohol to liven celebrations. A traeki pharmacist makes your
medicine in a chem-synth ring. Yet you're revolted by the thought of putting
one of these things in your mouth. It
tasted like a slimy tallow candle. Across
the narrow chamber, Ling and Rann adjusted quickly to thisJijoan novelty. Of
course they had no history to overcome, associating traekis with mulch and
rotting garbage. "Come
on," Jeni chided in a low voice that burned his ears. "Don't gag on
me, man. You're a sage now. Others are watchin'!" He
nodded-two quick head jerks-and tried again. Fitting his teeth around the tube,
Lark bit down as she had taught. The burst of air did not stink as bad as
expected. Perhaps it contained a mild relaxant. The pharmacist designers were
clever about such things. Let's
hope their star-god cousins don't think of this, as well. That
assumption underlay Lark's plan. Jophur commanders might be wary against direct
subterranean assault. But where the buried route combined with water, the
invaders might not expect trouble. The
Rothen underestimated us. By Ifni and the Egg, the Jophur may do the same. Each
diver also wore a rewq symbiont to protect the eyes and help them see by the
dim light Of hand-carried phosphors. Webbed gloves and booties completed the
ensemble. Ling's
tripping laughter made him turn around, and Lark saw she was pointing at him as
she guffawed. "You
should talk," he retorted at the ungainly creature she had become, more
monstrous than an unmasked Rothen. Hoons paused from laying down cargo by the
waterline, and joined in the mirth, umbling good-naturedly while their pet
noors grinned with needlelike teeth. Lark
pictured the scene up above, past overlying layers of rock, in the world of
light. The Jophur dreadnought squatted astride the mountain glen, thwarting the
glade stream in its normal seaward rush. The resulting lake now stretched more
than a league uphill. Water
seeks its own level. We must now be several arrowflights from shore. That's a
long way to swim before we get to the lake itself. It
couldn't be helped. Their goal was hard to reach, in more ways than one. Bubbles
in the pool. One qheuen cupola broached the surface, followed by another. The
young blues crawled ashore, breathing heavily through multiple leg vents,
reporting in excited GalSix. "The
way to open water-it is clear. Good time-this we made. To the target-we shall
now escort you." Cheers
lifted from the hoons and urs, but Lark felt no stirring. They weren't the ones who would have to go
the rest of the way. Water
transformed the cavities and grottoes. Flippers kicked up clouds of silt,
filling the phosphor beams with a myriad of distracting speckles. Lark's trusty
rewq pulled tricks with polarization, transforming the haze to partial clarity.
Still, it took concentration to avoid colliding with jagged limestone outcrops.
The guide rope saved him from getting lost. Cave
diving felt a lot like being a junior sage of the Commons-an experience he
never sought or foresaw in his former life as a scientist heretic. How
ungainly swimming humans appeared next to the graceful young qheuens, who
seized the rugged walls with flashing claws, propelling themselves with uncanny
agility, nearly as at-home in freshwater as on solid ground. His
skin grew numb where the skink coverings pulled loose. Other parts grew hot
from exertion. More upsetting was the squirmy traeki tentacle in his mouth,
anticipating his needs in unnerving ways. It would not let him hold his breath,
as a man might do while concentrating on some near-term problem, but tickled
his throat to provoke an exhalation. The first time it happened, he nearly
retched. (What if he chucked up breakfast? Would he and the ring both
asphyxiate? Or would it take his gift as a tasty, predigested bonus?) Lark
was so focused on the guide rope that he missed the transition from stony
catacombs to a murky plain of sodden meadows, drowned trees, and drifting
debris. But soon the silty margins fell behind as daylight transformed the
Glade of Gathering-now the bottom of an upland lake-giving commonplace shapes
macabre unfamiliarity. The
guide rope passed near a stand of lesser boo whose surviving stems were tall
enough to reach the surface, far overhead. Qheuens gathered around one tube,
sucking down drafts of air. When sated, they spiraled around Lark and the
humans, nudging them toward the next stretch of guide rope. Long
before details loomed through the silty haze, he made out their target by its
glow. Rann and Ling thrashed flippers, passing Jeni in their haste. By the time
Lark caught up, they were pressing hands against a giant slick sarcophagus, the
hue of yellow moonrise. Within lay a cigarshaped vessel, the Rothen ship, their
home away from home, now sealed in a deadly trap. The two
starfarers split up, he swimming right and she left. By silent agreement, Jeni
accompanied the big man- despite their size difference, she was the one more
qualified to keep an eye on Rann. Lark kept near Ling, watching as she moved
along the golden wall. Though
he had more experience than other Sixers with Galactic god machines, it was his
first time near this interloper whose dramatic coming so rudely shattered
Gathering Festival, many weeks ago. So magnificent and terrible it had seemed!
Daunting and invincible. Yet now it was helpless. Dead or implacably
imprisoned. Tentatively,
Lark identified some features, like the jutting anchors that held a ship
against quantum probability fluctuations . . . whatever that meant. The
self-styled techies who worked for Lester Cambel were hesitant about even the
basics of starcraft design. As for the High Sage himself, Lester had taken no
part in Lark's briefing, choosing instead to brood in his tent, guilt-ridden
over the doom he helped bring on Dooden Mesa. Despite
the crowding sense of danger, Lark. discovered a kind of spooky beauty,
swimming in this realm where sunlight slanted in long rippling shafts, filled
with sparkling motes-a silent, strangely contemplative world. Besides,
even wrapped in skink membranes, Ling's athletic body was a sight to behold. They
rounded the star cruiser's rim, where a sharp shadow abruptly cut off the sun.
It might be a cloud, or the edge of a mountain. Then he realized- It's
the jophur ship. Though
blurred by murky water, the domelike outline sent shivers down his back.
Towering mightily at the lake's edge, it could have swallowed the Rothen vessel
whole. A
strange thought struck him. First
the Rothen awed us. Then we saw their "majesty" cut down by real
power. What if it happens again? What kind of newcomer might overwhelm the
fophur''A hovering mountain range? One that throws the whole Slope into night?
He pictured successive waves of "ships," each vaster than
before, matching first the moons, then all Jijo, and- why not?-the sun or even
mighty Izmunuti! Imagination
is the most amazing thing. It lets a groundhugging savage fill his mind with
fantastic unlikelihoods. Churning
bubbles nearly tore the rewq off his face as Ling sped up, kicking urgently.
Lark hurried after . . . only to arrest himself moments later, staring. Just
ahead, Ling traced the golden barrier with one hand, just meters from a gaping
opening. A hatchway, backlit by a radiant interior. Several figures stood in
the portal-three humans and a Rothen lord, wearing his appealing symbiotic
mask. The quartet surveyed their all-enclosing golden prison with instruments,
wearing expressions of concern. Yet,
all four bipeds seemed frozen, embedded in crystal time. Up
close, the yellow cocoon resembled the preservation beads left by that alpine
mule spider, the one whose mad collecting fetish nearly cost Dwer and Rety
their lives, months back. But this trap was no well-shaped ovoid. It resembled
a partly melted candle, with overlapping golden puddles slumped around its
base. The Jophur had been generous in their gift of frozen temporality, pouring
enough to coat the ship thoroughly. Like at
Dooden Mesa, Lark thought. It
seemed an ideal way to slay one's enemies without using destructive fire. Maybe
the Jophur can't risk damaging Jijo's ecospbere. That would be a major crime
before the great Institutes, like gene raiding and illegal settlement. On the
other hand, the untraeki invaders hadn't been so scrupulous in scything the
forest around their ship. So perhaps the golden trap had another purpose. To
capture, rather than kill? Perhaps the g'Kek denizens of Dooden Mesa might yet
be rescued from their shimmering tomb. That
had been Lark's initial thought, three days ago. In hurried experiments, more
mule-spider relics were thawed out, using the new traeki solvents. Some of the
preserved items had once been alive, birds and bush creepers that long ago fell
into the spider's snare. All
emerged from their cocoons quite dead. Perhaps
the Jophur have better revival methods, Lark thought at the time. Or else they
don't mean to restore their victims, only to preserve them as timeless
trophies. Then,
night before last, an idea came to Lark in the form of a dream. The
hivvern lays its eggs beneath deep snow, which melts in the spring, letting
each egg sink in slushy mud, which then hardens all around. Yet the ground softens
again, when rainy season comes. Then the bivvern larva emerges, swimming free. When he
wakened, the idea was there, entire. A
spaceship has a sealed metal shell, like the hivvern egg. The Rothen ship may
be trapped, but its crew were never touched. Those
within may yet live. And now
proof stood before him. The four in the hatchway were clearly aware of the
golden barrier surrounding their ship, examining it with tools at hand. Just
one problem-they did not move. Nor was there any sign they knew? they were
being observed from just a hoon's length away. Treading
water, Ling scrawled on her wax-covered note board and raised it for Lark to
see. TIME
DIFFERENT INSIDE. He
fumbled with his own board, tethered to his waist. TIME
SLOWER? Her
answer was confusing. PERHAPS. OR ELSE
QUANTIZED. FRAME-SHIFTED. His
perplexed look conveyed more than written words. Ling wiped the board and
scratched again. DO
EXACTLY AS I DO. He
nodded, watching her carefully. Ling swished her arms and legs to turn away
from the ship. Imitating her, Lark found himself looking across the poor
wounded Glade. All the trees had been shattered by ravening beams, left to
submerge under the rising lake. Turbid water made everything hazy, but Lark
thought he saw? bones mixed among the splinters. Urrish ribs and hoonish
spines, jumbled with grinning human skulls. Not the way bodies ought to be
drossed. Not respectful of the dead, or Jijo. Perhaps
theJophur will let us seed a mule spider in this new lake, he mused. Something
ought to be done to clean up the mess. He was
jarred by Ling's nudge. TURN BACK NOW, her wax board said. Lark copied her
maneuver again . . . and stared in surprise for a second time. They
had moved!' As
before, statues stood in the hatchway. Only now their poses were all changed!
One human pointed outward wearing an amazed look. Another seemed to peer
straight at Lark, as if frozen in midrealization. They
did all this while we were turned away? Time's flow within the golden shell was
stranger than he could begin to comprehend. THIS
MAY TAKE SOME DOING, Ling Wrote. Lark
met her eyes, noting they held tense, hopeful irony. He
nodded. You
could say that again. I SPENT
MOST OF THE RETURN TRIP WITH MY NOSE buried in my journal, reviewing all the
things that I've seen and heard since Wuphon's Dream plunged below Terminus
Rock. Pincer kindly chewed my pencil to a point for me. Then I lay down and
wrote down the section before this one. What
began as a guess grew into reinforced conviction. Concentration
also diverted attention from nervous anticipation and the pain in my slowly
healing spine. My friends tried wheedling me, but I lapsed into hoonish
stubbornness, refusing to confide in them. After all, the phuvnthus had gone to
great lengths to hide their identity. The
spinning voice said it was to protect us. Maybe that was just patronizing
glaver dreck. Typical from grown-ups. But what if he told the truth? How can I
risk my friends? When
the time comes, I'll confront the voice alone. SHE
DRIFTED IN A CLOUD OF MATHEMATICS. All around her floated arcs and conic
sections, glowing, as though made of enduring fire. Meteors streaked past,
coruscating along paths smoothly ordained by gravity. Then
more stately shapes joined the frolicking figures and she guessed they might be
planets whose routes were elliptical, not parabolic. Each had its own reference
frame, around which all other masses seemed to move. Rising,
falling ... Rising,
falling ... The
dance spoke of a lost science she had studied once, in an obscure text from the
Biblos Archive. Its name floated through her delirium-orbital mechanics-as if
managing the ponderous gyres of suns and moons were no more complex than
maintaining a windmill or waterwheel. Dimly,
Sara knew physical pain. But it came to her as if through a swaddling of musty
clothes, like something unpleasant tucked in a bottom pantry drawer. The strong
scent of traeki unguents filled her nostrils, dulling every agony except one .
. . the uneasy knowledge-I've been harmed. Sometimes
she roused enough to hear speech . . . several lisping urrish voices . . . the
gruff terseness of Kurt the Exploser ... and one whose stiff, pedantic
brilliance she knew from happier days. Purofsky.
Sage of mysteries . . . But
what is he doing here? . . .
and where is here? • At one
point she managed to crack her eyelids in hopes of solving the riddle. But Sara
quickly decided she must still be dreaming. For no place could exist like the
one she witnessed through a blurry haze-a world of spinning glass. A universe
of translucent saucers, disks and wheels, tilting and rolling against each
other at odd angles, reflecting shafts of light in rhythmic bursts. It was
all too dizzying. She closed her eyes against the maelstrom, yet it continued
in her mind, persisting in the form of abstractions. A
sinusoidal wave filled her mental foreground, but no longer the static shape
she knew from inked figures in books. Instead, this one undulated like ripples
on a pond, with time the apparent free variable. Soon
the first wave was joined by a second, with twice the frequency, then a third
with the peaks and troughs compressed yet again. New cycles merged, one after
another, combining in an endless series-a transform- whose sum built toward a
new complex figure, an entity with jagged peaks and valleys, like a mountain
range. Out of
order . . . chaos . . . Mountains
brought to mind the last thing Sara had seen, before spilling off the volcano's
narrow path, tumbling over sharp stones toward a river of fire. Flashes
from a distant peak . . . long-short, short-long, medium-short-short . . . Coded
speech, conveyed by a language of light, not unlike GalTwo . . . Words
of urgency, of stealth and battle . . . Her
mind's fevered random walk was broken now and then by soft contact on her
brow-a warm cloth, or else a gentle touch. She recognized the long, slender
shape of Prity's fingers, but there was another texture as well, a mans contact
on her arm, her cheek, or just holding her hand. When he
sang to her, she knew it was the Stranger . . . Emerson ... by his odd accent
and the way the lyrics flowed, smoothly from memory, as a liquid stream,
without thought to any particular word or phrase. Yet the song was no oddly
syncopated Earthling ballad, but a Jijoan folk ballad, familiar as a lullaby.
Sara's mother sang it to her, whenever she was ill-as Sara used to murmur it to
the man from space, soon after he crashed on Jijo, barely clinging to life. "One
comes from an umbling sac, a song for you to keep, Two is for a pair of hands,
to spin youhappy sleep, Three fat rings will huff and puff out clouds of happy
steam, Four eyes wave and dance about, to watch over your dream, Five claws will
carve your new hope box, all without a seam,
Six will bring you flashing hooves to cross the prairie plain, Seven is
for hidden thoughts, waiting in the deep, But eight comes from a giant stone,
whose patterns gently creep." Even
half-conscious, she knew something important. He could not sing unless the
words were stored deep within, beyond the scarred part of his brain. It meant
she must have touched him, when their roles were reversed. Not all
the unguents in the world-nor the cool beauty of mathematics-could do as much
for Sara. What finally called her back was knowing someone missed her, when she
was gone. wasx many
days the important work that originally brought us here, even though it means
leaving our comrades to make their own repairs in that eastern swamp, while our
remaining corvette tours the Slope, photographing and recording evidence. It
also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the irresistible majesty of our
power. We did this by destroying egregious structures that sooners should not
use, if their goal truly is racial redemption. IT IS
NOTED THAT YOU WERE NOT MUCH HELP IN THIS WORK, MY RINGS. (Accept these
reproaching jolts, as tokens of loving guidance.) Asx melted many memories,
before capture and conversion, yet we/i did recall certain abominations. We
gained credit, for instance, by helping target the Bibur River steamboats, and
a refinery tower in Tarek Town, an edifice called the Palace of Stinks. DON'T
WORRY. In time, we of the Polkjhy will find all pathetic objects-of-sin prized
by headstrong sooners. We shall help erase the flagrant hypocrisy of tool use
among those who chose the Downward Path! THERE
WAS AN ENJOYABLE SENSE OF IMPORTANCE TO our task, was there not, My rings?
There we stood, this stack of shabby-looking, retread toruses, deputized with a
noble job-explaining to envoys of six races the new order of life on this
world. FIRST-they
should not hope for great judges to come from those Institutes who mediate
among ten thousand starfaring races. Passions run too high, throughout the Five
Galaxies. Institute forces have withdrawn, along with timid, so-called moderate
clans, a dithering, ineffectual majority. Only great religious alliances show
nerve nowadays, battling over which way the Galactic wheels shall turn during a
time of changes. WE ARE
YOUR JUDGES, I told the ambassadors. Out of kindness, we the Polkjhy crew have
volunteered to serve as both posse and jury, chastening the seven races who
invaded this world's fallow peace. To
demonstrate this benevolence, we have delayed by SECOND
comes our unstoppable demand for justice. The High Sages showed surprising good
sense by swiftly emitting a call, soon after our last meeting. A flicker of
computer cognizance, leading our corvette to Dooden Mesa. But this token
gesture will not suffice for long. We want every living member of the g'Kek
race accounted for. That should not be too hard. Stranded on a roadless planet,
they are singulariy immobile beings. "Please
do not destroy our wheeled brethren," the envoys entreat. "Let the
g'Kek seek holy shelter down Redemption's Path. For is it not said that all
debts and vendettas stop, once innocence is resumed?" At
first we see this as yet more lawyerly blather. But then, surprisingly, our
senior Priest-Stack agrees! Moreover, that august pile makes an unusual,
innovative suggestion- HERE IS
THE QUESTION posed by the Priest-Stack: What
kind of revenge on the g'Kek would transcend even extinction? ANSWER:
to see the g'Kek race become once again eligible for adoption, and for their
new patrons to be Jophur\ In
their second sequence of uplift, we might transform them as we see fit-into
creatures their former selves would have disdained! Vengeance
is best when executed with imagination. This justifies bringing a priest along.
Indeed, that stack variety has uses. Of
course this daring plan carries complications. It means refraining from
informing the Five Galaxies about this sooner infestation. Instead, our Jophur
clan must keep it secret, tending Jijo like our own private garden. SO WE
BECOME CRIMINALS, under Galactic law. But that hardly matters. For those laws
will change, once our alliance assumes leadership during the next phase of
history. Especially
if the Progenitors have indeed returned. THIRD
comes opportunity for profit. Perhaps the Rothen gene raiders were onto
something. Jijo seems exceptionally rich for a fallow world. (The Buyur were
good caretakers who left the planet filled with biopossibilities.) Might the
Rothen have discovered a likely presentient race already? One ripe for uplift?
Should we have bought off the gene raiders so we might have access to their
data, instead of sealing them away in time? REJECT
THE NOTION. They are known blackmailers and double-crossers. We will bring in
our own biologists to survey Jijo. AND WHO
KNOWS? Perhaps we might accelerate the sooner races along the path they seek!
Glavers are already far progressed toward innocence. Hoons, urs, and qheuens
have living star cousins who might object if we adopt too soon. But that may
change as battle fires burn across the galaxies. As for human wolflings, at
last word their homeworld was under siege, in desperate straits. Perhaps
those on Jijo are already the sole remnant of their kind. THAT
LEAVES OUR TRAEKI RELATIVES TO CONSIDER. The rebel stacks who came here sought
to reject the gift of the Oailie-the specialized rings that give us purpose and
destiny. It is wrenching to see traeki stumbling about like our pathetic
ancestors. Such ungainly beings, so placid and unambitious! We should at once
commence a program to create master rings in large quantities. Once converted,
our cousins will be ideal instruments of dominance and control, able to
knowledgeably run this planet for us without further cost to the clan. ALL
THESE CONCERNS SEEMED PARAMOUNT. Yet from the start, some members of the crew
chafed at talk of vengeance, or profit, or redemption. Even the fate of local
traeki seemed unimportant, compared with .the matter that brought the Polkjhy
here in the first place. Hints
by the Rothen that they knew the whereabouts of the missing prey ship. The
prey ship carrying news of the Progenitors' return. DROP
ALL OTHER CONCERNS AT ONCE! these stacks insisted. Send the remaining corvette
east! Do not wait for the first boat's crew to make repairs on their own. Fetch
and interrogate the human-slaves-of-Rothen. Search deepwater places where the
prey ship might be hiding. Delay no longer! But our
Captain-Leader and Priest-Stack agreed that a few more days would not matter.
Our hold on this world is total. The prey cannot escape. PALE
DAYLIGHT PENETRATED THE LAKE TO WHERE A few drowned trees wafted their
branches, as if to a gusting breeze. The rewq over his eyes helped him see, amplifying
the dim glow, but Lark found the resulting shadows creepy, adding to a feeling
that none of this could possibly be real. Working
underwater alongside Rann and Ling, he took part in an odd ritual,
communicating with the trapped inhabitants of the preservation bubble. Since
the process began, the hatchway of the imprisoned ship had filled with humans
and Rothen, pressing eagerly against the gold barrier. Yet, from the outside no
motion was seen. Those within were as still as statues, like wax effigies,
depicting people with worried expressions. Only
when Lark and the other swimmers turned away, averting their gaze, did the
"statues" change, shifting positions at incredible speed. According
to Ling's terse explanation, scribbled on her wax board, the captives lived in
a QUANTUM SEPARATED WORLD. She added something about COGNIZANCE INTERFERENCE BY
ORGANIC OBSERVERS and seemed to think that explained it. But Lark failed to see
why not-looking should make any difference. No doubt Sara would understand
better than her brother, the backwoods biologist. I used to tease her that the
books she loved best were filled with useless abstractions. Concepts noJijoan
would need again. Guess it just shows how little I knew. To Lark
the whole thing smacked of a particularly inconvenient kind of magic, as if the
capricious goddess, Ifni, had invented the gold barrier to test the patience of
mortals. Fortunately,
their micro-traeki rings provided the human swimmers with all the air they
needed. When pressurized supplies ran out, the little toruses unfolded great
feathery fans that waved through the lake water like lazy wings, sieving fresh
oxygen for Lark and the others to breathe. Another impressive feature of the
ever-adaptable ringed ones. Combined with the skink-skin wet suits and rewqs,
it made the swimmers look like bizarre sea monsters to those inside the bubble.
Finally, though, the prisoners set up an electronic message plaque that flashed
words through the translucent barrier in shining Anglic letters. WE MUST
MAKE COMMON CAUSE, they sent. So far,
Lark's idea had been fruitful. Unlike at tragic Dooden Mesa, these prisoners
had been sealed within an airtight hull that, kept the golden liquor from
swamping their bodies and life-support machinery. Moreover, the chill lake
carried away enough heat so their idle engines did not broil them. They were
surrounded, enmeshed in strange time. But they were alive. When
Lark stared at one of the Rothen masters, he easily made out the creature's
facade. Rewq-generated colors divided its charismatic features, so noble in
human terms, into two parts, each with its own aura. Across the upper half lay
a fleshy symbiont beast, shaped to provide the regal brow, high cheeks and
trademark stately nose. A gray deadness told that some kind of synthetic lens
insert lay over the Rothen's eyeballs, and the fine white teeth were
artificially capped. It's an
impressive disguise, he thought. Yet even without masks the Rothen were
remarkably humanoid, a resemblance that no doubt originally spurred their
cunning plan to win over some impressionable Earthlings back in the frantic,
naive days soon after contact, turning those converts into a select tribe of
loyal aides-the Daniks. If handled right, it would let the Rothen pull quite a
few capers using human intermediaries to do the dirty work. And if Daniks were
caught in the act, Earth would get the blame. All
told, those inside the trapped ship had a destiny they deserved. Lark might
have voted to leave them till Jijo reclaimed their dross. Only now an even
greater danger loomed, and there was no other place to turn for allies against
the Jophur. The
captives inside the shell seemed eager enough. The last line of their message
expressed this. GET US
OUT OF HERE! Floating
in the gentle current, Lark saw Rann, the tall Danik leader, write on his wax
board. WE MAY
HAVE A WAY. YOU MUST PREPARE A FORMULA. Lark
grabbed for the board, but Ling got there first, snatching the stylus right out
of Rann's meaty hand. Surprise, then anger, flared across the part of his face
visible between the rewq and breathing ring. But the big man was outnumbered,
and knew that Jeni Shen had lethal darts in her underwater crossbow. The
militia sergeant watched from a vantage point where her vigilance would not
interfere with the time-jerked conversation. Ling
replaced Rann's message with another. HOW DO
YOU SUGGEST WE DO THAT? She
slung the sign's strap over her neck so the board rested against her back,
message outward. At her nodded signal, Rann and Lark joined her turning around.
A spooky feeling swarmed Lark's spine as he imagined a flurry of activity
taking place behind them. Without observers peering at them, the Rothen-Danik
crew were liberated from frozen time, free to read Ling's message, deliberate,
and shape a reply. I never
read much physics, Lark thought. But something feels awful screwy about how
this works. The
swimmers let momentum carry them around. Only a few duras passed before they
faced the hatch once more, but most of the Rothen and human figures had moved
in that narrow moment. The electric placard now glimmered with new writing. PREFERRED
METHOD: DESTROY THE JOPHUR. Bubbles
burst past Lark's breathing tube as he choked back a guffaw. Ling glanced his
way, conveying agreement with a shake of her head. The second half of the
message was more serious. OTHER
POSSIBILITY: OFFER JOPHUR WHAT THEY WANT. BUY OUR
FREEDOM! Lark
scanned the crowded statues, where many human faces wore expressions of desperation.
He could not help feeling moved as they pleaded for their lives. In a way it's
not their fault. Their ancestors made a stupid deal on their behalf, just as
mine did. People must have been both crazed and gullible in those days, right
after Earthlings first met Galactic culture. It took
effort to harden his heart, but Lark knew he must. Again, Rann tried for the
big writing tablet, but Ling wrote fiercely. WHAT
CAN YOU OFFER US, IN RETURN? On
seeing her message, Lark and Rann both stared at her. But Ling seemed unaware
that her words carried a personal as well as general meaning. They turned
again, giving the prisoners a chance to read and react to Ling's demand. While
sweeping the slow circle, Lark glanced toward her, but living goggles made
direct eye contact impossible. Her rewq-mediated aura conveyed grim resolve. Lark
expected to find the captives in turmoil, upset by Ling's implied secession.
Then he realized. They only see us when our backs are turned. They may not even
know it's Rann and Ling out here, after all! WHATEVER
WE HAVE. That
was the frank answer, arrayed in shining letters. Ling's next message was as
straight to the point. RO-KENN
RELEASED QHEUEN AND HOON PLAGUES. MAYBE OTHERS. CURE THEM, OR ROT. At this
resumed accusation, Rann nearly exploded. Strangled anger echoed in his
pharynx, escaping as bubbles that Lark feared might carry his curses all the
way to the far surface of the lake. The starman tried to grab the message
board, briefly struggling with Ling. But when Lark made slashing motions across
his throat, Rann glanced back as Jeni approached from the ship's curved flank,
brandishing her deadly bow, accompanied by two strong young qheuens. Rann's
shoulders slumped. He went through the next turning time sweep mechanically.
Lark heard a low, grating sound, and knew the big Danik was grinding his teeth. Lark
expected protestations of innocence from the imprisoned starfarers, and sure
enough, when they next looked, the signboard proclaimed- PLAGUES,
WE KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH. But
Ling was adamant to a degree that clearly surprised Rann. Using forceful
language, she told the captives-her former friends and comrades-to answer
truthfully next time, or be abandoned to their fate. That
brought grudging admission, at last. RO-KENN
HAD OPTIONS, HIS
CHOICE TO USE SUCH MEANS. GET US
OUT. WE CAN
PROVIDE CURES. Lark
stared at the woman next to him, awed by the blazing intensity of her rewq
aura. Till that moment, she must have held a slim hope that it was all a
mistake . . . that Lark's indictment of her Rothen gods had a flaw in it
somewhere. That there was some alternative explanation. Now
every complicating what-if vanished. The flame of her anger made Rann's seem
like a pale thing. While
both Daniks fumed, each for different reasons, Lark took the wax board, wiped
it, and wrote a reply. PREPARE
CURES AT ONCE. BUT THERE IS MORE. WE MUST HAVE ONE MORE THING. It made
sense that the Jophur used this weird weapon- pouring chemically synthesized
time-stuff over their enemies. It suited their racial genius for manipulating
organic materials. But in their contempt, the master rings had forgotten
something. They
have cousins on Jijo, who are loyal to the Six. True,
local traekis lacked ambitious natures, and were unschooled in advanced
Galactic science. Regardless, a team of talented local pharmacists had analyzed
the substance-a viscous, quasi-living tissue-by taste alone. Without
understanding its arcane temporal effects, they managed to secrete a
counteragent from their gifted glands. Unfortunately,
it was no simple matter of applying the formula, then rubbing away the golden
cocoon surrounding the Rothen ship. For one thing, the antidote was miscible
with water. Applying it under a lake presented problems. But
there was a possible way. At Dooden Mesa, they found that the old mule spider's
preservation beads could be pushed against the golden wall and made to merge
with it, flowing into the barrier like stones sinking in soft clay. Lark
had more beads brought from the ancient treasure hoard of the being Dwer called
One-of-a-Kind. Agile, fiveclawed blues pushed several egg-shaped objects
against the section of wall he indicated, opposite the hatch. These beads had
been hollowed out and turned into bottles, stoppered at one end with plugs of
traeki wax. Within each could be seen machines and other relics of the Buyur
era, gleaming like insects caught in amber. Only now those relics seemed to
float inside, sloshing in a frothy foam. At
first there were few visible results to the qheuens' effort. The water
resonated with bumps and clanks, but no merging occurred. Lark scribbled a
command. EVERYBODY
DON'T LOOK! Ling
nodded vigorously. When earlier experiments were performed at the devastated
g'Kek settlement, there had not been observers on the inside. No living ones,
that is. Here, the scene was being watched, in a weird alternating manner, by
people on both sides of the enclosure. Perhaps the unsymmetrical quantum effects
meant that nothing would happen while people observed. It took
a while to make those within the ship understand that they should turn around,
as well. But soon all the Rothen and humans on both sides swiveled away. Young
qheuens pushed blindly, with vision cupolas drawn inside their horny shells.
This has got to be the strangest way to get anything done, Lark thought,
staring across a suffocated landscape, once the Festival Glade of the Commons
of Six Races. All his life, teachers and leaders said if you want a job to go
well, pay attention to what you are doing. But this reversed way of
acting-where inattention was a virtue- reminded him how some Nihanese mystics
in the Vale practiced "Zen arts" such as archery while blindfolded,
cultivating detachment and readiness for the Path of Redemption. Again
he glanced at Ling, the star-voyaging biologist. Her aura still seethed, though
now in cooler shades. She's declared an end to her old allegiance. Does she
have a new one yet? Other than revenge, that is? He wished they could go
somewhere private-and dry-to talk, without the guarded gamesmanship of their
earlier conversations. But Lark wasn't sure she'd want the same thing. Just
because his allegations had proved right, that did not mean she should bless him
for smashing her childhood idols. After
counting a long interval. Ling nodded and they turned around again. Rann
grunted satisfaction, and Lark felt his heart race. The
beads had penetrated most of the way into the glowing cage! Hardworking blues
bubbled satisfaction, then hurried toward the boo grove, fetching air from
their makeshift snorkel. Lark
wrote a message to those inside the Rothen airlock. EVERYBODY
CLEAR OUT BUT 2 SMALL HUMANS. WEAR AIR SUPPLY. BRING CURES! When
next he and his companions turned back toward the lock, it was nearly empty.
Two women stood on the other side. Petite, though even through their
swimcoverings he saw well-developed figures-buxom and wasp-waisted. Clearly,
they must have taken advantage of the same cosmetic biosculpting that had made
Ling, and the late Besh, so striking. It's a different universe out there,
where you can design yourself like a god. Lark
swam to where the tip of a mule capsule protruded from the Jophur barrier. Most
of the bead lay deep inside. At its far end the makeshift bottle's hole was
plugged by a thick wax seal. From
his thigh pouch Lark drew a tool provided by one of Lester Cambel's techie
assistants. A can opener the fellow called it. "Our
problem is to deliver dissolving fluid into contact with the barrier, but not
lake water," the tech had explained. "Our answer is to use the new
traeki fluid to hollow out some mule beads. Then we coat these cavities with
neutral wax, and refill them with more of the antidote fluid. The hole is
plugged, so we have a sealed vessel-" "I
see you left an old Buyur machine inside," Lark had observed. "The
fluid won't affect it, and we need the machine inside. It doesn't matter what
it did in Buyur days, so long as we can signal-activate it to move again,
pulling a string attached to the plug. When the plug goes pop!-the contents
pour into contact with the Jophur wall.' It's foolproof." Lark
wasn't so sure. There was no telling if clever, homemade electrical devices
would work underwater, surrounded by time-warped fields. Here goes everything,
he thought, squeezing the activator. To his
relief, the Buyur device began moving right away . . .
unfolding an appendage, all coiled and springy like a shambler's tail. I
wonder what you used to do. he pondered, watching the machine writhe and gyre.
Arc you aware enough to puzzle over where you are? Where your masters have
gone? Do you have an internal clock, to know half a million years have passed?
Or did time stop for you inside the bead? The
coiled arm flailed as the machine sought to right itself, yanking a cord
attached to the stopper at the far end. The plug slipped, caught, then slipped
some more. It was
hard to follow events in the region of "quantum separated time."
Things seemed to happen in fits and starts. Sometimes effect seemed to precede
cause, or he saw the far side of a rotating object while closer parts remained
somehow obscured. It was a strange, sideways manner of seeing that reminded
Lark of "Cubist" artworks, depicted in an ancient book his mother
loved borrowing from the Biblos Archive. Finally,
the stopper slid free. At once reddish foam spread from the nozzle of the
makeshift bottle, where its contents met the golden wall. Lark's heart pounded,
and he felt his amulet, the fragment of the Holy Egg, react with growing heat.
His left hand clawed at the skink-skin wrappers, but could not gain entry to
grab the vibrating stone. So, like an itch that could not be scratched, he
endured the palpitation as his breastbone was rubbed from both sides. Grunts
of satisfaction escaped Rann as the foamy stain spread, eroding the Jophur
barrier from within. The widening hole soon met a neighboring
"bottle," embedded in the wall near the first. In moments, fresh
supplies of dissolving fluid gushed. The material of the barrier seemed to
shiver, as if it were alive. As though in pain. Waves of color rippled around
the growing cavity, as his rewq tried reading strange emotions. So
fixed was everyone on the process, for long intervals no one looked beyond, to
the airlock and its two inhabitants, until a stray current tugged Lark aside.
Lacking outside observers, the Danik women must have experienced time's passage
in a somewhat linear fashion. They looked tense, hunching away from the red
foam, crouching near the airlock's sealed inner door as the bubble slowly
approached. Fear showed through their transparent face masks. No one knew what
would happen when the hissing effervescence broke through. It was
also getting closer to Lark's side of the wall. He backpedaled toward the
others . . . only to find they had retreated farther still. Ling grabbed his
arm. Apparently,
if they succeeded in making a tunnel, it would be wide in the middle but
awfully narrow at both ends. Also, the wall material wasn't solid, but a very
viscous liquid. Fresh toporgic could already be seen slumping toward the wound.
Any passage was bound to be temporary. If we
didn 't estimate right . . . if the two ends open in the wrong order . . . we
might have to start all over again. There are more bottles of fluid, back at
the cave. But how many times can we try? Yet he
could not talk himself out of feeling pride. We're
not helpless. Faced with overwhelming power, we innovate. We persevere. The realization
was ironic confirmation of the heresy he had maintained all his adult life. We
aren't meant for the Path of Redemption. No matter how hard we try, we'll never
tread its road to innocence. That is
why our kind should never have come to Jijo. We're
meant for the stars. We simply don't belong here. THE OLD
MAN DID NOT KNOW WHICH WAS THE SADdest sight. At
times he wished the boat had capsized during that wretched, pell-mell running
of the rapids so he would not have lived to see such things. It took
half a day of hard labor at the oars to climb back upstream to Dolo Village. By
the time they reached the timber pile that had been the town dock, all the
young rowers were exhausted. Villagers rushed down a muddy bank to help them
drag the boat ashore, and carried Ariana Foo to dry ground. A stout hoon
ignored Nelo's protests, picking him up like a baby, until he stood safely by
the roots of a mighty garu tree. Many
survivors milled listlessly, though others had formed work gangs whose first
task was collecting dross. Especially bodies. Those must be gathered quickly
and mulched, as required by sacred law. Nelo
saw corpses gathered in a long row-mostly human, of course. Numbly he noted the
master carpenter and Jobee the Plumber. Quite a few craft workers lay muddy and
broken along a sodden patch of loam, and many more were missing, carried
downstream when the lake came crashing through the millrace and workshops. Tree
farmers, in contrast, had suffered hardly a loss. Their life on the branch tops
did not expose them when the dam gave way. No one
spoke, though stares followed the papermaker as Nelo moved down the line,
allowing a wince or a grunt when he recognized the face of an- employee, an
apprentice, or a lifelong friend. When he reached the end, he did not turn but
kept walking in the same direction, toward what had been the center of his
life. The
lake was low. Maybe the flood didn't destroy everything. Disorientation
greeted Nelo, for it seemed at first he was transported far from the village of
his birth. Where placid water once glistened, mudflats now stretched for most
of a league. A river poured through the near side of his beloved dam. To
local qheuens, dam and home were one and the same. Now the hive lay sliced open,
in cross section. The collapse had sheared the larva room in half. Teams of
stunned blue adults struggled to move their surviving grubs to safety, out of
the harsh sunlight. With
reluctant dread, Nelo dropped his gaze to where the famed paper mill had been,
next to a graceful power wheel. Of his
house, his workshops, and pulp vats, nothing more remained than foundation
stumps. The
sight tore his heart, but averting his gaze did not help. Just a short distance
downstream Nelo saw more blue qheuens working listlessly by the shore, trying
to extricate one of their own from a net of some kind. By their lack of haste,
one knew the victim must be dead, perhaps trapped in the shallows and drowned. Unhappily,
he recognized the corpse, an older female- Log Biter herself--by markings on
her shell. Another lost friend, and a blow to everyone along the upper Roney
who valued her good wisdom. Then he
recognized the trap that had pinned her down long enough to smother even a blue
qheuen. It was a tangle of wood and metal wires. Something from Nelo's own
home. Melina
's precious piano, that I ordered built at great cost. A moan
escaped his throat, at last. In all the world, he had but one thing left to
live for-the hope, frail as it was, that his children were safe somewhere, and
would not have to see such things. But
where was somewhere? What place could possibly be safe, when starships could
plunge from the sky, blasting five generations' work in a single instant? Words
jarred him from dour thoughts of suicide. "I
didn't do this, Nelo." He
turned to see another human standing nearby. A fellow craftsman, almost his own
age. Henrik the Exploser, whose young son had accompanied Sara and the Stranger
on their journey to far lands. At first, Henrik's words confused Nelo. He had
to swallow before finding the strength to reply. "Of
course you didn't do it. They say a skyship came-" The
exploser shook his head. "Fools or liars. Either they have no sense of
timing, or else they were in on it." "What
do you mean?" "Oh,
a ship passed overhead all right, and gave us a look-over. Then it went on its
way. 'Twas most of a midura later that a gang of 'em came down, farmers mostly.
They knocked the seals off some of my charges, under one of the piers of the
dam, and laid a torch against it." Nelo
blinked. "What did you say?" He stared, then blinked again. "But
who . . . ?" Henrik
had a one-word answer. "Jop." i^arj THE
EXPLORERS EMERGED TRIUMPHANT, RESURFACing from the chill lake into the cave,
having brought back almost everything they sought. But bad news awaited them. Fatigue
lay heavily on Lark, while helpers stripped the diving gear and toweled him
off. Tense
sadness filled the voice of the human corporal, reporting what had happened in
Lark's absence. "It
hit our grays all at once-wheezing up lots of bubbly phlegm. Then a couple of
young blues got it, too. We sent 'em to a pharmacist topside, but word says the
plague is getting worse up there. There may not be much time." Attention
turned to the Danik women who had just barely escaped from the trapped ship.
They still looked woozy from their experience-starting with a blast of
highpressure water that had burst into the airlock when the fissure broke
through at last. After that came a hurried, nightmarish squeeze through the
briefly dilated opening, squirming desperately before the tunnel could close
and immure their bodies in liquid time like the poor g'Keks of Dooden Mesa. Watching
quantum-shifted images of that tight passage nearly unnerved Lark. Instead of
two human figures, they looked like jumbled body parts, writhing through a tube
that kept shifting around them. One woman he briefly saw with her insides on
the outside, offering unwanted knowledge about her latest meal. Yet
here they were, alive in front of him. Overcoming residual nausea, the two
escapees kept their side of the bargain, setting to work right away on a small
machine they had brought along. In exchange for a cure, Jijoans would help more
of their crew mates break out of the trapped ship, then coordinate joint action
against the Jophur-no doubt something quite desperate, calling for a pooling of
both groups' slim knowledge and resources, plus a generous dollop of Ifni's
luck. This
whole enterprise had been Lark's idea . . . and he gave it the same odds as a
ribbit walking unscathed through a ligger's den. "Symptoms?"
asked the first woman, with hair a shade of red Lark had never seen on any
Jijoan. "Don't
you know already what bug it is?" Jeni Shen demanded. "A
variety of pathogens were kept in stock aboard the research station,"
answered the other one, a stately brunette who seemed older than any other
Danik Lark had seen. She looked a statuesque forty, and might be two centuries
old. "If
Ro-kenn did release an organism from that supply," she continued, "we
must pin down which one." Even
having stripped off his rewq, he had no trouble reading fatalistic reluctance
in her voice. By helping solve the plague, she was in effect confessing that
Ro-kenn had attempted genocide . . . and that their ship routinely carried the
means for such a crime. Perhaps, like Ling, she had been in the dark about all
that till now. Only utter helplessness would have forced the Rothen to reveal
so much to their human servants, as well as to the sooners of Jijo. From
the look on Rann's face, the tall star warrior disagreed with the decision, and
Lark knew why. It goes
beyond mere morality and crimes against Galactic law. Our local qheuens and
hoons have relatives out there, among the stars. If word of this gets out,
those home populations might declare vendettas against the Rothen. Or else,
with this evidence, Earth might file suit to reclaim the Danik population group
that the Rothen have kept secreted away for two centuries. Of
course that assumes Earth still lives. And there's still law in the Five
Galaxies. Rann
clearly felt the risk too great. Ship and crew should have been sacrificed to
keep the secret. Tough
luck, Rann, Lark thought. Apparently your fellow spacers would rather live. While
Ling described the disease that ravaged Uthen before her eyes, Lark overheard
Rann whisper impatiently to Toy.;
Cho*^ "If
we are to get the others out, it must be a complete job! There are weapons to
transfer, and supplies. The traeki formula must be duplicated aboard ship, in
order to make a durable passageway-" Jeni
interrupted sharply. "After
we verify a cure, starman. Or else your compadres and their master race can sit
in their own dung till Jijo grows cold, for all we care." Colorful,
Lark thought, smiling grimly. Soon
the machine was programmed with all the relevant facts. "Many
hoons are showing signs of a new sickness, too," Ling reminded. "We'll
get to that," said the redhead. "This will take a min or two." Lark
watched symbols flash across the tiny screen. More computers, he mulled
unhappily. Of course it was a much smaller unit than the big processor they
used near Dooden Mesa. This "digital cognizance" might be shielded by
geologic activity in the area, plus fifty meters of solid rock. But can
we be sure? The
device issued a high-pitched chime. "Synthesis
complete," said the older Danik, taking a small, clear vial from its side,
containing a greenish fluid. "This is just two or three doses, but that
should suffice to test it. We can mass-produce more aboard the ship. Which
means we'll need a permanent channel through the barrier, of course." Clearly,
she felt her side now had a major bargaining chip. Holding up the tube with
three fingers, she went on. "Now might be a good time to discuss how each
group will help the other, your side with manpower and sheer numbers, and our
side providing-" Her
voice cut off when Ling snatched the capsule from her grasp, swiveling to put
it in Jeni Shen's hand. "Run,
" was all Ling said. Jeni
took off with a pair of excited noor beasts yapping at her heels. • •
• Any
return to the imprisoned ship would have to wait for dawn. Even a well-tuned rewq
could not amplify light that was not there. Ling
wanted to keep the two rescued Daniks busy producing antidotes against every
pathogen listed in the little Library, in case other plagues were loose that no
one knew about, but Lark vetoed the idea. Since the Dooden disaster, all
computers made him nervous. He wanted this one turned on as little as possible.
Let the Rothen produce extra vaccines inside their vessel and bring them out
along with ? other supplies, he said, if and when a new tunnel wasj made. Ling
seemed about to argue the point, but then her| lips pressed hard and she
shrugged. Taking one of the I lanterns, she retreated to a corner of the cave,
far from Rann and her former comrades. . Lark
spent some time composing a report to the High!, Sages, requesting more bottles
of the traeki dissolving fluid' and describing the preliminary outlines of an
alliance be-f tween the Six Races and their former enemies. Not that he, had
much confidence in such a coalition. They
promise weapons and other help, he wrote. But I urge caution. Given
Phwhoon-dau's description of the Rothen as Galactic "petty criminals,
" and the relative ease with which they were overwhelmed, we should prefer
almost any advantageous deal that can be worked out with the Jophur, short of
letting them commit mass murder. Insurrection
ought to be considered a last resort. The
sages might find his recommendation odd, since his own plan made the Rothen
alliance possible in the first place. But Lark saw no contradiction. Unlocking
a door did not mean you had to walk through it. He just believed in exploring
alternatives. There
was little to do then but wait, hoping news from the medics would be happy and
swift. The party could not even light a fire in the dank cavern. "It's
cold," Ling commented when Lark passed near her niche. He had been looking
for a place to unroll his sleeping bag . . . not so close he'd seem intrusive,
yet nearby in case she called. Now he paused, wondering what she meant. Was
that an invitation? Or an accusation? The
latter seemed more likely. Ling might have been much better off remaining
forever in the warmth of hightech habitats, basking in the glow of a messianic
faith. "It
is that," he murmured. "Cold." It was
hard to move closer. Hard to expect anything but rejection. For months, their
relationship had been based on a consensual game, a tense battle of wits that
was part inquisition and part one-upmanship . . . with moments of intense,
semierotic flirting stirred in. Eventually he won that game, but not through
any credit of his own. The sins of her Rothen gods gave him a weapon out of
proportion to personal traits either of them possessed, leaving him just one
option-to lay waste to all her beliefs. Ever since, they had labored together
toward shared goals without once trading a private word. In
effect, he had conquered her to become Jijo's ally, only to lose what they had
before. Lark
did not feel like a conqueror. "I
can see why they call you a heretic," Ling said, breaking the
uncomfortable silence. Either
out of shyness or diffidence, Lark had not looked at her directly. Now he saw
she had a book open on her lap, with one page illuminated by the faint beam of
her glow lamp. It was the Jijoan biology text he had written with Uthen. His
life's work. "I
... tried not to let it interfere with the research," he answered. "How
could it not interfere? Your use of cladistic taxonomy clashes with the way
Galactic science has defined and organized species for a billion years." Lark
saw what she was doing, and felt gladdened by it. Their shared love of biology
was neutral ground where issues of guilt or shame needn't interfere. He moved
closer to sit on a stony outcrop. "I
thought you were talking about my Jijoan heresy. I used to be part of a
movement"-he winced, remembering his friend Harullen-"whose goal was
to persuade the Six Races to end our illegal colony ... by voluntary
means." She
nodded. "A virtuous stance, by Galactic standards. Though not easy for
organic beings, who are programmed for sex and propagation." Lark
felt his face flush, and was grateful for the dim light. "Well,
the question is out of our hands now," he said. "Even if Ro-kenn's
plagues are cured, the Jophur can wipe us out if they like. Or else they'll
hand us over to the Institutes, and we'll have the Judgment Day described in
the Sacred Scrolls. That might come as a relief, after the last few months. At
least it's how we always imagined things would end." "Though
your people hoped it wouldn't happen till you'd been redeemed. Yes, I know
that's yourJijoan orthodoxy. But I was talking about a heresy of science-the
way you and Uthen organized animal types in your work-by species, genus,
phylum, and so on. You use the old cladistic system of pre-contact Earthling
taxonomy." He
nodded. "We do have a few texts explaining Galactic nomenclature. But most
of our books came from Earth archives. Few human biologists had changed over to
Galactic systematics by the time the Tabernacle took off." "I
never saw cladistics used in a real ecosystem," Ling commented. "You
present a strong argument for it." "Well,
in our case it's making a virtue out of necessity. We're trying to understand
Jijo's past and present by studying a single slice of time-the one we're living
in. For evidence, all we have to go on are the common traits of living animals
. . . and the fossils we dig up. That's comparable to mapping the history of a
continent by studying layers of rocks. Earthlings did a lot of that kind of
science before contact, like piecing together evidence of a crime, long after
the body has grown cold. Galactics never needed those interpolative techniques.
Over the course of eons they simply watch and record the rise and fall of
mountains, and the divergence of species. Or else they make new species through
gene-splicing and uplift." Ling
nodded, considering this. "We're taught contempt for wolfling science. I
suppose it affected the way I treated you, back when . . . well, you
know." If that
was an apology, Lark accepted it gladly. "I
wasn't exactly honest with you either, as I recall." She
laughed dryly. "No, you weren't." Another
silence stretched. Lark was about to talk some more about biology, when he
realized that was exactly the wrong thing to do. What had earlier served to
bridge an uncomfortable silence would now only maintain a reserve, a neutrality
he did not want anymore. Awkwardly, he moved to change the subject. "What
kind of . . ." He swallowed and tried again. "I have a brother, and a
sister. I may have mentioned them before. Do you have family . . . back at
..." He let
the question hang, and for a moment Lark worried he had dredged a subject too
painful and personal. But her relieved look showed Ling, too, wanted to move
on. "I
had a baby brother," she said. "And a share daughter, whose
up-parents were very nice. I miss them all very much." For the
next midura, Lark listened in confusion to the complex Danik way of life on
far-off Poria Outpost. Mostly, he let Ling pour out her sadness, now that even
her liberated crew mates were like aliens to her, and nothing would ever be the
same. Later,
it seemed wholly natural to stretch his sleeping bag next to hers. Divided by
layers of cloth and fluffy torg, their bodies shared warmth without touching.
Yet, in his heart, Lark felt a comfort he had lacked till now. She
doesn 't hate me. It was
a good place to start. The
second dive seemed to go quicker, at first. They had a better knack for
underwater travel now, though several human volunteers had to fill in for blue
qheuens who were sick. About
the illness, recent word from topside was encouraging. The vaccine samples
seemed to help the first few victims. Better yet, the molecules could be
traeki-synthesized. Still, it was too soon for cheers. Even in the event of a
complete cure, there were problems of distribution. Could cures reach all the
far-flung communities before whole populations of qheuens and hoons were
devastated? Back at
the Rothen ship, they found the airlock already occupied by crew members
wearing diving gear-three humans and a Rothen-along with slim crates of
supplies. Like wax figures, they stood immobile while Lark and Ling trained new
assistants in the strange art they had learned the day before. Then it was time
to begin making another tunnel through the golden time-stuff. Again,
they went through turnaround sweeps, letting those inside the hatch prepare.
Again, volunteers swam close with mule preservation beads that had been
hollowed and turned into bottles for the special dissolving fluid. Once more,
the actual act of embedding had to take place in a shroud of nescience, without
anyone watching directly. Nothing happened the first few tries . . . until Jeni
caught one of the new helpers peeking, out of curiosity. Despite watery
resistance, she smacked him so hard the sound traveled as a sharp crack. Finally,
they got the hang of it. Six beads lay in place, at varying distances inside
the barrier. As yesterday, Lark applied the "can opener," turning on
an ancient Buyur machine, which in turn pulled a wax plug, setting in motion a
chain reaction to eat a gap through the viscous material. He backed up,
fascinated again by creepy visions as the red foam spread and a cavity began to
form. Someone
abruptly tapped his shoulder. It was
Jeni, the young militia sergeant, urgently holding a wax board. WHERE
IS RANN? He
blinked, then joined Ling in a shrug. The tall Danik leader had been nearby
till a moment ago. Jeni's expression was anguished. Lark wrote on his own
board. WE'RE
NOT NEEDED NOW. LING AND I WILL LOOK NORTH. SEND OTHERS SOUTH, EAST. YOU STAY. Grudgingly,
Jeni accepted the logic. Lark's job was largely done. If the tunnel opened as
planned, another batch of escapees would wriggle through and Jeni must
coordinate moving them and their baggage back to the caves. With a
nod, Ling assented. They headed off together, kicking hard. United, they should
be a match for Rann if he put up a fight. Anyway, where would the big man go?
It wasn't as if he had much choice, these days. Still,
Lark worried. With a head start, Rann might reach the lakeshore and make good
an escape. He could cause mischief, or worse, be caught and questioned by the
Jophur. Rann was tough, but how long could he hold out against Galactic
interrogation techniques? Ling
caught his arm. Lark turned to follow her jabbing motion up toward the surface
of the lake. There he saw a pair of nippers, waving slowly at the end of two
strong What's
he doing up there? Lark wondered as they propelled after the absconded Danik.
Getting close, they saw Rann had actually broached the surface! His head and
shoulders were out of the water. Is he taking a look at the [Jophur ship? We
all want to, but no one dared. \ Lark felt acutely the shadow of the giant
vessel as they kicked upward. For the first time, he got a sense of its |
roughly globular shape and mammoth dimensions, comIpletely blocking the narrow
Festival Glade, creating this 'lake with its bulk. Having grown up next to a
dam, Lark had a sense of the pressure all this water exerted. There would be an
awful flood when the ship took off, returning to its home among the stars. The
tube in his mouth squirmed disconcertingly. The traeki air ring struggled as
they rose upward, hissing and throbbing to adapt to changing pressure. But Lark
was more worried about Rann being spotted by the Jophur. With
luck, the skink skins will make him look like apiece of flotsam . . . which is
what he'll feel like once I'm through with him! Lark felt a powerful wrath
build as he reached to seize the big man's ankle. The leg
gave a startled twitch . . . then kicked savagely, knocking his hand away. Ling
tugged Lark's other arm, pointing a second time. Rann
had an object in front of him-the Rothen minicomputer! He was tapping away at
the controls, even as he tread water. Bastard!
Lark thrust toward the surface, grabbing for the device, no longer caring if
his mere body happened to be visible from afar. Rann might as well have been
waving a searchlight while beating a drum! As soon
as Lark broke through, the starman aimed a punch at him-no doubt a
well-trained, expert blow, if delivered on dry land. Here, watery reaction
threw Rann off balance and the clout glanced stingingly off Lark's ear, Amid a
shock of pain, he sensed Ling erupt behind her former colleague, throwing her
arms around his neck. Lark took advantage of the distraction, planting his feet
against Rann's chest and hauling back until the computer popped free of the big
man's grasp. Alas,
that wasn't enough to end the danger. The screen was still lit. He cried to
Ling: "I don't know how to turn the damned thing off!" She had
troubles of her own, with Rann's powerful arms reaching around to pummel and
yank at her. Lark realized the Danik must be put out of commission, and
quickly. So with both hands he raised the computer as high as he could-and
brought it down hard on Rann's crew cut. Without
leverage, it struck less forcefully than he hoped, but the blow pulled Rann's
attention away from Ling. The
second impact was better, giving a resounding smack. Rann groaned, slumping in
the water. Unfortunately,
the jolt did not break the durable computer, which kept shining, even after
Lark landed a final blow. Rann
floated, arms spread wide, breathing shallowly but' noisily from his traeki
ring. Ling thrashed toward Lark, gasping as she threw an arm over his shoulder
for support. Finally, she reached out to stroke a precise spot on the
computer's case, turning it off. That's
better . . . though it's said. Galactics can trace digital cognizance, even
when a machine is unpowered. Lark
closed the cover, letting the machine drop from his grasp. He needed both hands
to hold Ling. Especially
when a new, umbral shadow fell across them causing her body to stiffen in his
arms. Suddenly,
things felt very cold. Tremulously,
they turned together, looking up to see what had come for them. Dwer THAT
NIGHT WAS AMONG THE STRANGEST OF Dwer's life, though it started in the most
natural way- bickering with Rety. "I
ain't goin' there!" She swore. "No
one asked you to. When I start downhill, you'll take off the other way. Go half
a league west, to that forested rise we passed on the way here. I saw good game
signs. You can set snares, or look for clamette bubbles on the beach. They're
best roasted, but you oughtn't trust a fire-" "I'm
supposed to wait for you, I s'pose? Have a nice meal ready for the great
hunter, after he finishes takin' on the whole dam' universe,
single-handed?" Her
biting sarcasm failed to mask tremors of real fear. Dwer didn't flatter himself
that Rety worried about him. No doubt she hated to face being alone. Dusk
fell on the dunes and mudflats, and mountains so distant they were but a jagged
horizon cutting the bloated sun. Failing light gave the two of them a chance at
last to worm out from the sand, then slither beyond sight of the crashed ships.
Once safely over the verge, they brushed grit out of clothes and body crevices
while arguing in heated whispers. "I'm
telling you, we don't haveta do anything! I'm sure Kunn had time to holler for
help before he went down. The Rothen ship was due back soon, and musta heard
him. Any dura now it's gonna swoop down, rescue Kunn, and pick up its prize.
All we gotta do then is stand and shout." Rety
had been thinking during the long, uncomfortable wait. She held that the
fighter craft full of untraeki rings was the very target Kunn had been looking
for, dropping depth bombs to flush his prey out of hiding. By that logic, the
brief sky battle was a desperate lashing out by a cornered foe. But Kunn got
his own licks in, and now the quarry lay helpless in the swamp, where frantic
efforts at repair had so far failed to dislodge it. Soon,
by Rety's reasoning, the Rothen lords would come to complete the job, taking
the untraeki into custody. The Rothen would surely be pleased at this success.
Enough to overlook Dwer's earlier mistakes. And hers. It was
a neat theory. But then, why did the untraeki ship attack from the west,
instead of rising out of the water where Kunn dropped his bombs? Dwer was no
expert on the way star gods brawled among themselves, but instinct said Kunn
had been caught with his pants down. "In
that case, what I'm about to try should put me in good with your friends,"
he told Rety. "If
you survive till they come, which I doubt! Those varmints down there will spot
you, soon as you go back over the dune." "Maybe.
But I've been watching. Remember when a herd of bog stompers sloshed by,
munching tubers torn up by the crash? Large critters passed both hulls and were
ignored. I'm guessing the guard robots will take me for a crude native
beast-" "You
got that right," Rety muttered. "-and
leave me alone, at least till I'm real close." "And
then what? You gonna attack a starship with your bow and arrows!" Dwer
held back from reminding Rety that his bow once seemed a treasure to her-a
prize worth risking her life to steal. "I'm
leaving the arrows with you," he said. "They have steel tips. If I
take 'em, they'll know I'm not an animal." "They
should ask me. I'd tell 'em real fast that you're-" "wife,
enough!" The
reedy voice came from Rety's tiny urrish "husband," who had been
grooming her, flicking sand grains with his agile tongue. "have
sense, wife! brave boy make ship eyes look at him so you and me can get away!
all his other talk-talk is fake stuff, nice-lies to make us go be safe. be good
to brave boyman! least you can do!" While
Rety blinked at yee's rebuke, Dwer marveled. Did all urrish males treat their
wives this way, chiding them from within the heavy folds of their brood
pouches? Or was yee special? Did some prior mate eject him for scolding? "Iz'
at true, Dwer?" Rety asked. "You'd sacr'fice yourself for me?" He
tried reading her eyes, to judge which answer would make her do as she was
told. Fading light forced him to guess. "No,
it's not true. I do have a plan. It's risky, but I want to give it a try." Rety
watched him as carefully as he had scanned her. Finally, she gave a curt laugh. "What
a liar. yee's right about you. Too dam' decent to survive without someone to
watch over you." Huh?
Dwer thought. He had tried telling the truth, hoping it would convince her to
go. Only Rety reacted in a way he did not expect. "It's
decided then," she affirmed with a look of resolve he knew too well.
"I'm coming along, Dwer, whichever way you head. So if you want to save
me, we better both get on west." "This
ain't west!" she whispered sharply, half a midura later. Dwer
ignored Rety as he peered ahead through the swampy gloom with water sloshing
past his navel. Too bad we had to leave yee behind with our gear, he thought.
The little urrish male provided his "wife" with a healthy dose of
prudence and good judgment. But he could not stand getting wet. Soon,
Dwer hoped Rety's survival instincts would kick in and she'd shut up on her
own. They
were nearly naked, wading through the reedy marsh toward a pair of rounded
silhouettes, one larger-its smooth flanks glistening except where a sooty stain
marred one side. The other lay beyond, crumpled and half-sunk amidships. Both
victor and vanquished were silent under the pale yellow glow of Passen, Jijo's
smallest moon. Colonies
of long-necked wallow swans nested in the thickets, dozing after a hard day
spent hunting through the shallows and tending their broods. The nearest raised
spear-shaped heads to blink at the two humans, then lowered their snouts as
Dwer and Rety waded on by. Mud
covered Dwer and the sooner girl from head to toe, concealing some of their
heat sign with steady evaporation. According to ancient lore, that should make
the patrolling guard machine see them as smaller than they really were. Dwer
also took a slow, meandering route, to foster the impression of foraging
beasts. Slender
shapes with luminous scales darted below the water's surface, brushing Dwer's
thighs with their flicking tails. A distant burst of splashing told of some
nocturnal hunter at work among the clumps of sword-edged grass. Hungry things
moved about in this wet jungle. Rety seemed to grasp this, and did not speak
again for some time. If only
she knew how vague Dwer's plan was, Rety might howl loud enough to send all the
sleeping waterfowl flapping for the sky. In fact, he was working from a hunch.
He wanted to have a closer look at the untraeki ship . . . and to check out his
impression of this swamp. In order to test his idea, he needed to attain a
particular frame of mind. What
was I thinking about, that day when I first contacted-or hallucinated-the voice
of One-of-a-Kind? It
happened some years ago. He had been on his first solo trek over the Rimmers,
excited to be promoted from apprentice to master hunter, rilled with a spirit
of freedom and adventure, for now he was one of the few Sixers licensed to roam
wherever he wished, even far beyond the settled Slope. The world had seemed
boundless. And yet
... And
yet, he still vividly recalled the moment, emerging from a narrow trail through
the boo forest-a cathedral aisle as narrow as a man and seemingly high as a
moon. Suddenly, the boo just stopped, spilling him onto a bowlshaped rocky
expanse, under a vast blue sky. Before Dwer lay a mule lake, nestled in the
mountain's flank, surrounded by fields of broken stone. What he
felt during that moment of disorienting transition was much more than welcome
release from a closed space. A sense of opening up seemed to fill his mind,
briefly expanding his ability to see-especially the tumulus of Buyur ruins.
Abruptly, he beheld the ancient towers as they must have stood long ago,
shimmering and proud. And for an instant, Dwer had felt strangely at home. That
was when he first heard the spider's voice, whispering, cajoling, urging him to
accept a deal. A fair trade. With its help, Dwer might cease living, but he
would never die. He could become one with the glorious past, and join the
spider on a voyage into time. Now,
while sloshing under starlight through a murky bog, Dwer tried again for that
feeling, that opening sensation. He could tell from the texture of this
place-from its smell and feel-that mighty spires had also pierced the sky, only
here they were much grander than at any mountain site. The job of demolition
was far advanced-little remained to tear down or erase. Yet somehow he knew
what stood where, and when. Here a
row of pure-white obelisks once greeted the sun, both mystical and pragmatic in
their mathematically precise alignment. Over
there, Buyur legs once ponderously strode down a shopping arcade, filled with
exotic goods. Near
that translucent fountain, contemplative Buyur minds occupied themselves with a
multitude of tasks beyond his reckoning. And through the sky passed commerce
from ten thousand worlds. Down
the avenues were heard voices . . . not just of Buyur, but a myriad of other
types of thinking beings. Surely
it was a glorious time, though also fatiguing for any planet whose flesh must
feed such an eager, busy civilization. After a million years of heavy use, Jijo
badly needed rest. And the forces of wisdom granted it. All the busy voices
moved on. The towers tumbled and a different kind of life took over here, one
dedicated to erasing scars-a more patient, less frenzied type of being. . . . Yes?
Who . . . goes . . . ? Words
slithered through Dwer's mind, hesitantly at first. Who
calls ... rousing me from . . . drowsy musing? Dwer's
first urge was to dismiss it as merely his imagination. Had not his nervous
system been palped and bruised from carrying the robot across icy streams?
Delusions would be normal after that battering, followed by days of near
starvation. Anyway, his habitual defense against Oneof-a-Kind had been to
dismiss the mule spider's voice as a phantasm. Who is
a phantasm? I, a being who serenely outlasts empires? Or you, a mayfly, living
and dying in the time it takes for me to dream a dream? Dwer
held off acknowledging the voice, even casually. First he wanted to be sure.
Wading cautiously, he sought some of the vines he had glimpsed earlier, from
the dune heights. A nearby hummock seemed likely. Despite covering vegetation,
it had the orderly outlines of some ruined structure. Sure enough, Dwer soon
found his way blocked by cables, some as thick as his wrist, all converging on
the ancient building site. His nose twitched at the scent of dilute corrosive
fluids, carried by the twisted vines. "Hey,
this is a mule swamp! We're walkin' right into a spider!" Dwer
nodded, acknowledging Rety's comment without words. If she wanted to leave, she
knew the way back. Spiders
were common enough on the Slope. Youngsters went exploring through mule dens,
though you risked getting acid burns if you weren't careful. Now and then, some
village child died of a foolish mistake while venturing too deep, yet the
attraction held. High-quality Buyur relics were often found where vine beasts
slowly etched the remains of bygone days. Folk
legends flourished about the creatures, whose bodies were made up by the vines
themselves. Some described them talking to rare members of the Six, though Dwer
had never met anyone else who admitted that it happened to them. He especially
never heard of another mule spider like One-of-a-Kind, who actively lured
living prey into its web, sealing "unique" treasures away in coffins
of hardening jell. You met
that one? The mad spider of the heights? You
actually shared thoughts with it? And escaped? How
exceptionally interesting. Your
mind patterns are very clear for an ephemeral. That is
rare, as mayflies go. . . . How singular you are. Yes,
that was the way One-of-a-Kind used to speak to him. This creature was
consistent. Or else Dwer's imagination was. The words
returned, carrying a note of pique. You
flatter yourself to think you could imagine an entity as sublime as myself!
Though I admit, you are intriguing, for a transitory being. So you
need verification of my objective reality? How might I prove myself? Rather
than answer directly, Dwer kept his thoughts reserved. Languidly, he
contemplated that it would be interesting to see the vines in front of him
move. As if
at your command? An amusing concept. But why
not? Come
back in just five days. In that brief time, you will find all of them shifted
to new locales! Dwer
chuckled contemptuously, under his breath.
Not quickly enough, my wanton friend? You have seen a mule being move
faster? Ah, but
that one was crazed, driven mad by isolation, high altitude, and a diet of
psidrenched stone. It grew unwholesomely obsessed with mortality and the nature
of time. Surely you do not expect such undignified haste from me? Like
One-of-a-Kind, this spider could somehow tap Dwer's human memory, using it to
make better sentences-more articulate speech-than he ever managed on! his own.
But Dwer knew better than to bandy words. Instead, he willed himself to turn
around. I Wait!
You intrigue me. The conversations our kind share among ourselves are so
languid. Torpid, you might say, featuring endless comparisons of the varied
dross we eat. The slowtalk grows ever more tedious as we age. . . . Tell
me, are you from one of the frantic races who have lately settled down to a
skittering life beyond the mountains? The ones who talk and talk, but almost
never build? Behind
Dwer, Rety murmured, "What's goin' on!" But he only motioned for her
to follow him away from the mule cords. All
right! On a whim, I'll do it. I shall move for you! I'll
move as I have not done in ages. Watch me, small flickering life-form. Watch this! Dwer
glanced back, and saw several vines tremble. The tremors strengthened, dura
after dura, tightening and releasing till several of the largest bunched in a
knotty tangle. More duras passed . . . then one loop popped up out of the
water, rising high, dripping like some amphibious being, emerging from its
watery home. It was
confirmation, not only of the spider's mental reality, but of Dwer's own sane
perception. Yet he quashed all sense of acknowledgment or relief. Rather, Dwer
let a feeling of disappointment How across his surface thoughts. A fresh
shoot of lesser boo moves that much, in the course of a day's growth, he
pondered, without bothering to project the thought at the spider. You
compare me to boo? Boo? Insolent
bug! It is you who are a figment of my imagination! You may be nothing but an
undigested bit of concrete, or a piece of bad steel, perturbing my dreams. . .
. No,
wait! Don't leave yet. I sense there is something that would convince you. Tell me
what it is. Tell me what would make you acknowledge me, and talk awhile. Dwer
felt an impulse to speak directly. To make his wishes known in the form of a
request. But no. His experience with One-of-a-Kind had taught him. That mule
beast might have been mad, but it clearly shared some properties of personality
with its kind. Dwer
knew the game to play was "hard to get." So he let his idea leak out
in the form of a fantasy ... a daydream. When Rety tried to interrupt again, he
made a slashing motion for quiet while he went on picturing what a spider might
do to convince him it was real. The sort of thing Dwer would find impressive. The
mule being's next message seemed intrigued. Truly? And why
not? The new
dross to which you refer already had me concerned. Those great heaps of refined
metal and volatile organic poisons-I have not dealt with such purified essences
in a very long time. Now you
worry that the dross might fly away again, to pollute some part of Jijo beyond
reach of any mule being? You fear it may never be properly disposed of? Then
worry no more, my responsible little ephemeral! It will be taken care of. Just
leave it to me. Alvin I WAS
RIGHT! THE PHUVNTHUS ARE EARTHLINGS! I haven't figured out the little
amphibians yet, but the big six-legged creatures? They are dolphins. Just like
the ones in King of the Sea or The Shining Shore . . . only these talk and
drive spaceships! How uttergloss. And
there are humans. Sky
humans! Well, a
couple of them, anyway. I met
the woman in charge-Gillian is her name. Among other things, she said some nice
words about my journal. In fact, if they ever succeed in getting away from
here, and returning to Earth, she promises to find an agent for me and get it
published. Imagine
that. I can't wait to tell Huck. There's
just one favor Gillian wants in return. E.wasx OH, HOW
THEY PREVARICATE! • Is this what it means to take the Downward Path? Sometimes
a citizen race decides to change course, rejecting the destiny mapped out for
it by patron and clan. The Civilization of the Five Galaxies allows several
traditional avenues of appeal, but if all other measures fail, one shelter
remains available to all-the road that leads back, from starfaring sapience to
animal nature. The route to a second chance. To start over again with a new
patron guiding your way. This
much I/we can understand. But must that path have an intermediate phase,
between citizen and dumb beast? A phase in which the half-devolved species
becomes lawyers'. Their
envoys stand before us now, citing points of Galactic law that were handed down
in sacred lore. Especially verbose is the g'Kek emissary. Yes, My rings, you
identify this g'Kek as Vubben-a "friend and colleague" from your days
as Asx the traeki. Oh, how that sage-among-sooners nimbly contorts logic,
contending that his folk are not responsible for the debt his kind owes our
clan, by rule of vendetta. A debt of extinction. The
senior Priest-Stack aboard our ship insists we must listen to this nonsense,
for form's sake, before continuing our righteous vengeance. But most of the
Polkjhy crew stacks side with our Captain-Leader, whose impatiencewith-drivel
steams with each throbbing pulse of an angry mulching core. Finally, the
Captain-Leader transmits a termination signal to Me,us. To faithful Ewasx. "ENOUGH!"
I interrupt Vubben in loud tones of Oailie decisiveness. All four of his
eyestalks quail in surprise at my harsh resonance. "YOUR
CONTENTIOUS REASONINGS ARE BASED ON INVALID ASSUMPTIONS." They
stand before us/me, frozen silent by our rebuke. A silence more appropriate to
half animals than all that useless jabber. Finally, the qheuen sage,
Knife-Bright Insight, bows her blue-green carapace and inquires: "Might we ask what assumptions you
refer to?" Our
second cognition ring performs a writhing twitch that I must overcome with
savage pain jolts, preventing the rebellious ring's color cells from flashing
visibly. Be thou restrained, I command, enforcing authority over our component
selves. Do not try to signal your erstwhile comrades. The effort will
accomplish nothing. The
minirebellion robs Me of resources to maintain a pontifical voice. So when I next
speak aloud, it is in more normal tones. Yet the message is no less severe. "Your
faulty assumptions are threefold," I answer the thoughtful blue qheuen. "You
assume that law still reigns in the Five Galaxies. "You assume that we
should feel restrained by procedures and precedents from the last ten million
years. "But above all, your most defective assumption is that we
should care." Dwer IT WAS
NOT ENOUGH SIMPLY TO COAX THE MULC beast. Dwer had to creep close and
supervise, for the spider had no clear concept of haste. Dwer
could sense its concentration, shifting fluids and gathering forces from a
periphery that stretched league after league, along the Rift coast. The sheer
size of the thing was mind-boggling, far greater than the mad little alpine
spider that nearly consumed Dwer and Rety. This titan was in the final stages
of demolishing a vast city, the culmination of its purpose, and therefore its
life. Millennia ago, it might have ignored Dwer, as a busy workman disregards
the corner scratchings of a mouse. Now boredom made it responsive to any new
voice, offering relief from monumental ennui. Still,
Dwer wondered. Why was
I able to communicate with One-of-a-Kind? And now this spider, as well? We are
so different-creatures meant for opposite sides of a planet's cycle. His
sensitivity, if anything, had increased . . . perhaps from letting the Danik
robot conduct force fields down his spine. But the original knack must be
related to what made him an exceptional hunter. Empathy.
An intuitive sense for the needs and desires of living things. The
Sacred Scrolls spoke darkly of such powers. Psitalents. They were not
recommended for the likes of the Six, who must cringe away from the great
theater of space. So Dwer never mentioned it, not to Sara and Lark, or even
Fallen, though he figured the old chief scout must have suspected. Have I
done this before? He mused on how he coaxed the spider into action. I always
thought my empathy was passive. That I listened to animals, and hunted
accordingly. But have I been subtly
influencing them, all along? When I shoot an arrow, is it my legendary aim that
makes it always strike home? Or do I also nudge the flight of the bush quail so
it dodges into the way of the shaft? Do I make the taniger swerve left, just as
my stone is about to strike? It made
him feel guilty. Unsporting. Well?
What about right now? You're famished. Why not put out a call for nearby fish
and fowl to gather round your knees for plucking? Somehow,
Dwer knew it did not work that way. He
shook his head, clearing it for matters close at hand. Just ahead, rounded
silhouettes took uneven bites out of the arching star field. Two sky boats,
unmoving, yet mysterious and deadly as he drew near. He swished a finger
through the water and tasted, wincing at some nasty stuff leaking into the fen
from one or both fallen cruisers. Now
Dwer's sensitive ears picked up noise coming from the larger vessel. Clankings
and hammerings. No doubt the crew was working around the clock to make repairs.
Despite Rety's assurances, he had no faith that the new day would see a Rothen
starship looming overhead to claim both its lost comrades and long-sought prey.
The opposite seemed rather more likely. Either
way, he had a job to do. Till I
hear otherwise from the sages, I've got to keep acting on Danel Ozawa's orders. He said
we must defend Jijo. Star
gods don't belong here, any more than sooners do. Less, in fact. The cry
of a mud wren made Dwer slide his torso lower in the water. Rety's
mimicked call came from a lookout point on a Buyur ruin near the dunes. He
scanned above the reeds, and caught sight of a glimmering shape-a patrol robot
sent out by the stranded untraekis, returning from its latest search spiral. The
mule spider read his concern and expressed curiosity. More
dross? Maintaining
aloof reserve, Dwer suggested the creature concentrate on its present task,
while he worried about flying things. Your
memories assert one of these hovering mechanisms slew my brother of the
highlands. Mad he may have been, but his job was left undone by that untimely
end. Now who will finish it? A fair
enough question. This time, Dwer formed words. If we
survive this time of crisis, the sages will have a mule bud planted in the old
one's lake. It's our way. By helping get rid ofBuyur remains, each generation
of the Six leaves Jijo a little cleaner, making up for the small harm we do.
The scrolls say it may ease our penance, when judges finally come. But don't worry about this robot now. You
have a goal to focus on. Over there, in that hull of the larger ship, there is
a rip, an opening. ... Dwer
felt hairs on his neck prickle. He crouched low while the unmistakable tingle
of gravitic fields swept close. Clearly this was a more powerful robot than the
unit he nearly defeated back at the sooner village. That one still cowered in a
hole under the sand, while he and Rety took on its enemies. He
hunched like an animal, and even tried thinking like one as the humming
commotion passed, setting the tense surface of the water trembling like a
qheuen drum. Dwer closed his eyes, but an onslaught of images assailed him.
Sparks flew from an urrish forge. Stinging spray jetted over a drowned village.
Starlight glinted off a strange fish whose noorlike mouth opened in a wry grin.
... The
creepy force receded. He cracked his eyelids to watch the slab-sided drone move
east down a line of phosphorescent surf, then vanish among the dunes. More
vines now clustered and writhed around the base of the larger sky boat,
bunching to send shoots snaking higher. This whole crazy idea counted on one
assumption-that the ship's defenses, already badly damaged, would be on guard
against "unnatural" things, like metals or energy sources. Under
normal conditions, mere plants or beasts would pose no threat to a thick-hulled
vessel. In
here? The
spider's query accompanied mental images of a jagged recess, slashed in the
side of the untraeki vessel . . . the result of Kunn's riposte, even as his air
boat plunged in flames. The visual impression reaching Dwer was tenuous as a
daydream, lacking all but the most vague visual details. Instead, he felt a
powerful scent of substance. The spider would not know or care how Galactic
machines worked, only what they were made of-and which concocted juices would
most swiftly delete this insult to Jijo's fallow peace. Yes, in
there, Dwer projected. And all over the outside, as well. Except
the transparent viewing port, he added. No sense warning the creatures by
covering their windows with slithering vines. Let them find out in the morning.
By then, with Ifni's luck, it would be too late. Remember-he
began. But the spider interrupted. I know.
I shall use my strongest cords. Mule
monofiber was the toughest substance known to the Six. With his own eyes, Dwer
had seen one rare loop of reclaimed filament pull gondolas all the way to the
heights of Mount Guenn. Still, a crew of star gods would have tools to cut even
that staunch material. Unless they were distracted. Time
passed. By moonlight the marsh seemed alive with movement-ripples and jerky
slitherings-as more vines converged on a growing mass surrounding the ship.
Snakelike cables squirmed by Dwer, yet he felt none of the heartsick dread that
used to come from contact with One-of-a-Kind. Intent is everything. Somehow, he
knew this huge entity meant him no harm. At
uneven intervals, Rety used clever calls to warn him of the guard robot's
return. Dwer worried that it might find the cowardly Danik machine, hiding
under the sand. If so, the alerted Jophur might emerge, filling the bog with
blazing artificial light. Dwer
moved slowly around the vessel, taking its measure. But as he counted
footsteps, his thoughts drifted to the Gray Hills, where Lena Strong and Jenin
Worley must be busy right now, uniting Rety's old band with surviving urrish
sooners, forging a united tribe. Not an
easy task, but those two can do it, if anyone can. Still,
he felt sad for them. They must be lonely, with Danel Ozawa gone. And me,
carried off in the claws of a Rotben machine. They must think I'm dead, too. Jenin
and Lena still had Ozawa's "legacy" of books and tools, and an urrish
sage to help them. They might make it, if they were left alone. That was Dwer's
job-to make sure no one came across the sky to bother them. He knew
this scheme of his was farfetched. Lark would surely have thought of something
better, if he were here. But I'm
all there is. Dwer the Wild Boy. Tough luck for Jijo. The
spider's voice caught him as he was checking the other side of the grounded
cruiser, where a long ramp led to a closed hatch. In
here, as well? His
mind filled with another image of the vessel's damaged recess. Moonlight shone
through a jagged rent in the hull. The clutter of sooty machinery seemed even
more crowded as vine after vine crammed through, already dripping caustic
nectars. But Dwer felt his attention drawn deeper, to the opposite wall. Dim
light shone through a crack on that side. Not pale illumination, but sharp,
blue, and synthetic, coming from some room beyond. The
ship probably isn't even airtight anymore. Too bad
this didn't happen high in the mountains. Traeki hated cold weather, A glacier
wind would be just the thing to send whistling through here! No, he
answered the spider. Don't go into the lighted space. Not yet. The
voice returned, pensively serious. This
light . work? it
could interfere with my Dwer
assented. Yeah. The light would interfere, all right. Then he thought no more
of it, for at that moment a trace of movement caught his eye, to the southeast.
A dark figure waded stealthily, skirting around the teeming mound of mule
vines. Rety!
But she's supposed to be on lookout duty. This was no time for her
impulsiveness. With a larger moon due to rise in less than a midura, the two of
them had to start making their getaway before the untraeki woke to what was
happening. With
uncanny courtesy, mule cables slithered out of his path as he hurried after the
girl, trying not to splash too noisily. Her apparent objective was the other
crashed ship, the once-mighty sky steed Kunn had used to drop bombs into the
Rift, chasing mysterious prey. From the dunes, Dwer and Rety had seen the sleek
dart overwhelmed and sent plunging to the swamp, its two human passengers taken
captive. That
could happen to us, too. More than ever, Dwer regretted leaving behind Rety's
urrish "husband," her conscience and voice of good sense. About
the interfering light. I thought
you would like to know. It is
being taken care of. Dwer
shrugged aside the spider's mind touch as he crossed an open area, feeling
exposed. Things improved slightly when he detoured to take advantage of two
reedcovered hummocks, cutting off direct sight of the untraeki ship. But the
robot guardian still patrolled somewhere out there. Lacking a lookout, Dwer had
just his own wary senses to warn him if it neared. While
wading though a deeper patch, floundering in water up to his armpits, he felt a
warning shiver. I'm
being watched. Dwer
slowly turned, expecting to see the glassy weapons of a faceless killer. But no
smooth-sided machine hovered above the reedy mound. Instead, he found eyes
regarding him, perched at the knoll's highest point, a ledge that might have
been the wall of a Buyur home. Sharp teeth grinned at Dwer. Mudfoot. The
noor had done it again. Someday,
I'll get even,or the times you 've scared me half to death. Mudfoot
had a companion this time, a smaller creature, held between his paws. Some
recent prey? It did not struggle, but tiny greenish eyes seemed to glow with
cool interest. Mudfoot's grin invited Dwer to guess what this new friend might
be. Dwer
had no time for games. "Enjoy yourselves," he muttered, and moved on,
floundering up a muddy bank. He was just rounding the far corner, seeking Rety
in the shadows of the Rothen wreck, when a clamor erupted from behind. Loud
bangs and thumps reverberated as Dwer crouched, peering back at the large
vessel. This
side appeared undamaged-a glossy chariot of semidivine star gods, ready at an
instant to leap into the sky. But
then a rectangular crack seamed its flank above the ramp, releasing clots of
smoke, like foul ghosts charging into the night. The
interference is taken care of. The
spider's mind touch seemed satisfied, even proud. Dark figures spilled through
the roiling soot, then down the ramp, wheezing in agony. Dwer counted three
untraeki . . . then two shambling biped forms, leaning on each other as they
fled the noxious billows. What
followed nauseated Dwer-solitary doughnut shapes, slithering traeki rings shorn
from the waxy moorings that once united them as sapient beings. One large torus
burst from the murk, galloping on pulsating legs without guidance or direction,
trailing mucus and silvery fibers as it plunged off the ramp into deep water.
Another hapless circle bumped along unevenly,-staring in all directions with
panicky eye patches until surging black vapors overtook it. I have
not acted thus-with such vigor and decisiveness-since the early days, when
stillanimate Buyur servant machines sometimes tried to hide and reproduce amid
the ruins, after their masters departed. Back then, we were fierce, we mule
agents of deconstruction, before the long centuries of patient erosion set in. Now do
you see how efficient my kind can be, when we feel a need? And when we have a
worthy audience? Now will you acknowledge me, O unique young ephemeral? Dwer
turned and fled, kicking spray as he ran. The
Rothen scout boat was a wreck, split in the middle, its wings crumpled. He
found an open hatch and clambered inside. The metal deck felt chill and alien
beneath his bare feet. The
interior lacked even pale moonlight, so it took time to find Rety in a far
corner, taking treasures from a cabinet and stuffing them in a bag. What's she
looking for? Food? After all the star-god poisons that've spilled here since
the crash? "There's
no time for that," he shouted. "We've got to get out of here!" "Gimme
a dura," the girl replied. "I know it's here. Kunn kept it on one o'
these shelfs." Dwer
craned his head back through the hatch to look outside. The robot guardian had
reappeared, hovering over the stricken untraeki vessel, shining stark light on
the survivors mired below. As the thick smoke spread out, Dwer whiffed
something that felt sweet in the front of his mouth, yet made the back part
gag. Abmptly,
a new thing impacted the senses-sound. A series of twanging notes shook the
air. Lines stretched across the water as hundreds of cables tautened,
surrounding the skycraft like the tent lines of a festival pavilion. Some vines
snapped under the strain, whipping across the landscape. One whirling cord
sliced through a surviving stack-of-rings, flinging upper toruses into the
swamp while the lower half lurched blindly. Other survivors beat a hasty
retreat, deeper into the bog. The
robot descended, its spotlight narrowing to a slender, cutting beam. One by
one, straining mule cables parted under the slashing attack. But it was too
little, too late. Something or somebody must already have undermined the muck
beneath the ship, for it began sliding into a slimy crypt, gurgling as a muddy
slurry poured in through the hatch. "Found
it!" Rety cried, rare happiness invading her voice. She joined Dwer at the
door, cradling her reclaimed prize. Her metal bird. Since the first time he
laid eyes on it, the thing had gone through a lot of poking and prodding, till
it could hardly be mistaken for a real creature anymore, even in dim light.
Another damned robot, he thought. The Ifni-cursed thing had caused Dwer more
trouble than he could count. Yet to the sooner girl it was an emblem of hope.
The first harbinger of freedom in her life. "Come
on," he muttered. "This wreck is the only shelter hereabouts. The
survivors'll be coming this way. We've got to go." Rety
had only agreeable smiles descending back into the swamp. She followed his
every move with the happy compliance of one who had no further need to rebel. Dwer
knew he ought to be pleased, as well. His plan had worked beyond all
expectation. Yet his sole emotion was emptiness. Maybe
it's on account of I've been wounded, beat up, exhausted, and starved till I'm
too numb to care. Or
else, it's that I never really enjoyed one part of hunting. The
killing part. They
retreated from both ruined sky boats to the nearest concealing thicket. Dwer
was trying to select a good route back to the dunes, when a voice spoke up. "Hello.
I think we ought to talk." Dwer
was grateful to the mule spider. He owed it the conversation it desired, and
acknowledgment of its might. But, he felt too drained for the mental effort.
Not now, he projected. Later, I promise, if I survive the night. But the
voice was persistent. And Dwer soon realized- the words weren't echoing inside
his head, but in the air, with a low, familiar quality and tone. They came from
just overhead. "Hello?
Humans in the swamp? Can you hear me?" Then
the voice went muffled, as if the speaker turned aside to address someone else. "Are
you sure this thing is working?" it asked. Bewildered,
and against his better judgment, Dwer found himself answering. "How
the hell should I know what's working, an' what ain't? Who on Jijo are
you?" The
words returned more clearly, with evident eagerness. "Ah!
Good. We're in contact, then. That's great." Dwer
finally saw where the words were coming from. Mudfoot squatted just above,
having followed to pester him from this new perch. And the noor had his new
companion-the one with green eyes. Rety
gasped, and Dwer abruptly realized-the second creature bore a family
resemblance to Rety's bird! "All
right," Dwer growled, his patience wearing thin with Mudfoot's endless
games. "We're footprints, unless you tell me what's goin' on." The
creature with green eyes emitted a low, rumbling sound, surprising for one so
small. Dwer blinked, startled by the commonplace resonance of a hoonish umble. "Hr-r-rm
. . . Well, for starters, let me introduce myself. "The
formal name my folks gave me is Hph-wayuo- "But
you can call me Alvin." PART
SEVEN A
PARABLE "MASTER,"
THE STUDENT ASKED. "The Universe is so complex, surely the creator could
not have used volition alone to set it in '• motion. In crarting His design,
and in commanding the angels to carry out His will, He must have used
computers. The
great savant contemplated this for several spans belore replying in the
negative. YOU are
mistaken. No reality can oE '• modeled completely by a calculating engine .
that is contained within and partalcing of i that same reality. Ood did not use
a com' puter to create the world. Me used mathematics. The
student pondered this wisdom for a long time, then persisted in his argument. That
may have been the case when it came to envisioning and creating the world, '
A,laster--and to foreseeing future consequences in revealed destiny--but what
of maintenance' The cosmos is a vast, intricate network of decisions, (choices
are made every femtosecond, and living beings win accordingly, or else lose. How can
the creators assistants carry out these myriad local branchings, unless they
use computer models' But
once again, the great savant turned his gaze away in rebuke. "It
is Ifni, the chief deputy, who decides such things. But she has no need for
elaborate tools for deciding local events. "In
the Creator's name she runs the world by using dice. Kaa THE
SUBSEA HABITAT FELT CROWDED AS FIVE DOLphins gathered before a small holo
display, watching a raid unfold in real time. Images of the distant assault
were blurry, yet they stirred the heart. While
Brookida, Zhaki, and Mopol jostled near Kaa's left side, he felt more acutely
aware of Peepoe on his right- fanning water with her pectorals in order to keep
one eye aimed at the monitor. Her presence disturbed his mental and hormonal
equilibrium-especially whenever a stray current brushed her against him. To
Kaa, this ironically proved the multiple nature of his sapient mind-that the
individual he most desired to see was the same one he dreaded being near. Fortunately,
the on-screen spectacle offered distraction-transmitted by a slender fiber
strand from a spy camera located hundreds of kilometers away, on a sandy bluff
overlooking the Rift. Banks of heavy clouds glowered low, making twilight out
of day. But with enhanced contrast, an observer could just make out shadows
flicking beneath blue water, approaching the shore. Abruptly,
the line of surf erupted armored figures--six-legged monsters with horizontal
cylinders for bodies, flared widely at the back-charging past the beach then
through a brackish swamp, firing lasers as they came. Three slim flying robots
accompanied the attackers, still dripping seawater as they swooped toward the
surprised foe. The
enemy encampment was little more than a rude fabric tent propped against the
lee side of a shattered spaceship. A single hovering guardian drone shrieked,
rising angrily as it sighted the new arrivals . . . then became a smoldering
cinder, toppling to douse in the frothy swamp. Jophur survivors could only
stand helpless as the onslaught swept over them. Eye cells throbbed unhappily
atop tapered sap rings, staring in dazed wonder, unable to grasp this
humiliation. August beings, taken prisoner by mere dolphins. By the
youngest race of the wolfling clari of Terra. Kaa felt good, watching his crew
mates turn the tables on those hateful stacks of greasy doughnuts. The Jophur
alliance had been relentless in pursuing Streaker across the star lanes. This
small victory was almost as satisfying as that other raid, on Oakka World,
where resolute action took an enemy base from behind, releasing Streaker from
yet another trap. Only
that time I didn't have to watch from afar. I piloted the boat to pick up
Engineer D'Anite, dodging fire all the way. In
those days, he had still been "Lucky" Kaa. Alongside
Peepoe and the others, he watched Lieutenant Tsh't gesture right and left with
the metal arms of her walker unit, ordering members of the raiding party to
herd their captives toward the shore, where a whalelike behemoth erupted from
the surf, spreading mighty jaws. Despite
thick clouds, the raiders had to make this phase brief to avoid detection. One
Jophur captive stumbled in the surf. Its component rings throbbed, threatening
to split their mucusy bindings. Mopol chittered delight at the enemy's
discomfiture, thrashing his flukes to splatter the habitat's low ceiling. Peepoe
sent Kaa a brief sonar click, drawing attention to Mopol's behavior. * See
what I mean? * she remarked in clipped Trinary. Kaa
nodded agreement. All trace of illness was gone, replaced by primal exultation.
No doubt Mopol longed to be on the raid, tormenting the tormentors. Peepoe was
naturally irked to have come all this way, driving a one-dolphin sled through
unfamiliar waters where frightening sound shadows lurked, just to diagnose a
case of kingree fever. The name had roots in an Anglic word-malingering.
Dolphin spacers knew many clever ways to induce symptoms of food poisoning, in
order to feign illness and avoid duty. "I
thought-t so from the beginning," Kaa had told her earlier. "It was
Makanee's choice to send a nurse, just in case." That
hardly mollified Peepoe. "A
leader's job is to motivate," she had scolded. "If the work is hard,
you're supposed to motivate even harder." Kaa
still winced from her chiding. Yet the words also provoked puzzlement, for
Mopol had no apparent reason to fake illness. Despite his other faults, the
crewfin wasn't known for laziness. Anyway, conditions at this outpost were more
pleasant than back at Streaker, where you had to breathe irksome oxy-water much
of the time, and struggle for sleep with the weird sonic effects of a
high-pressure abyss surrounding you. Here, the waves felt silky, the prey fish
were tasty, while the task of spying was varied and diverting. Why should Mopol
pretend illness, if it meant being cooped up in a cramped habitat with just old
Brookida for company? On-screen,
half a dozen bewildered Jophur were being ushered aboard the submarine, while
onshore Lieutenant Tsh't consulted with two native humans draped in muddy
rags-a young man and an even younger girl-who looked quite tattered and
fatigued. The male moved with a limp, clutching a bow and quiver of arrows
while his companion held a small broken robot. Brookida
let out a shout, recognizing a spy probe of his own design, fashioned months
ago to send ashore, snooping in the guise of a Jijoan bird. The
young man pointed toward a nearby dune and . spoke words the camera could not
pick up. Almost at | once, the three Earthling war drones darted to surround r
that hillock, hovering cautiously. Moments later, sand spilled from a hole and
a larger robot emerged, visibly scarred from past violent encounters.
Hesitantly, it paused as if unsure whether to surrender or self-destruct.
Finally, the damaged machine glided to the beach, where two more humans were
being carried on stretchers by dolphin warriors in exo-suits. These men were
also mud-splashed. But under a grime coating, the bigger one wore garments of
Galactic manufacture. The captive robot took a position next to that man,
accompanying him aboard the sub. Last
to board were Tsh't and the two walking humans. The young man held back for a
moment, awed by the ' entry hatch, gaping like the jaws of some ravenous beast.
But the girl radiated delight. Her legs could barely carry her fast enough
through the surf as she plunged inside. Then
only Lieutenant Tsh't remained, staring down at a small creature who lounged
indolently on the beach, grooming its sleek fur, pretending it had all the time
in the world. Through her exo-suit speakers, Tsh't addressed the strange being. "Well?
If you're coming, this is your lassst chance." Kaa
still found it hard to reconcile. For two weeks he had spied on hoonish sailing
ships operating out of "Wuphon Port, and watched as tiny figures scampered
across the rigging. Not once did he associate the fuzzy shapes with tytlal-a Galactic
client species whose patrons, the Tymbrimi, were Earth's greatest friends. Who
could blame me? With hoons they act like clever animals, not sapient beings.
According to the journal of the young hoon adventurer Alvin, Jijoans called the
creatures noor beasts. And noor never spoke,
But the one on the beach had! And with a Tymbrimi accent, at that. Could
six races live here all this time without knowing that another band of sooners
were right in their midst'! Could tytlal play dumb the entire time, without
giving themselves away? The small creature seemed complacently willing to out
wait Tsh't, perhaps testing dolphin patience . . . until abruptly a new voice
broke in, coming from the sub's open hatch. The camera eye swung that way,
catching in its held a tall figure, gangly and white, with scaly arms and a
bellowslike organ throbbing below its jaw, emitting a low, resonant hum. Alvin,
Kaa realized. The young author of the memoir that had kept Kaa up late several
nights, reading about the strange civilization of refugees. He must
be "umbling" at the tytlal. In
moments the sleek creature was seen perched atop the lieutenant's striding
exo-suit, as Tsh't hurried aboard. Its grinning expression seemed to say, Oh,
well. If you positively insist . . . The
hatch swung shut and the sub backed away swiftly, sinking beneath the waves.
But the images did not stop. Left
alone at last, Streaker's little scout robot turned its spy eye back toward the
field of dunes. Sandy terrain swept past as it sought a vantage point-some
ideal site to watch over two blasted wrecks that had once been small
spacecraft, but now lay mired by mud and embraced by corrosive vines. No
doubt Gillian Baskin and the ship's council were deeply interested in who might
next visit this place of devastation. THE INITIAL EXERCISES ARE COMPLETE. A WARM
TINgling pervades her floating body, from tip to toes. Now Gillian is ready for
the first deep movement. It is Narushkan-"the starfish"-an outreach
of neck, arms, and legs, extending toward the five planar compass points. Physique
discipline lies at the core of weightless yoga, the way Gillian learned it on
Earth, when she and Tom studied Galactic survival skills from Jacob Demwa.
"Flesh participates in everything we do," the aged spy master once
explained. "We humans like to think we're rational beings. But feelings
always precede reason." It is a
delicate phase. She needs to release her tense body, allowing the skin itself
to become like a sensitive antenna. Yet she cannot afford a complete letting
go. Not if it means unleashing the grief and loneliness pent up inside. Floating
in a shielded nul-gee zone, Gillian lets her horizontal torso respond to the
tug of certain objects located outside of the suspension tank, elsewhere in the
ship, and beyond. Their influence penetrates the walls, making her sensitized
nerves throb and twitch. "Articles
of Destiny"-that was how an enigmatic Old One described such things,
during Streaker's brief visit to the Fractal System. She
never got to meet the one who spoke those words. The voice came a great
distance, far across that gargantuan edifice of spiky hydrogen ice. The Fractal
System was one huge habitat, as wide as a solar system, with a tiny red sun
gleaming in its heart. No pursuer could possibly find Streaker in such a vast
place, if sanctuary were given. "Your
ship carries heavy freight, "the voice had said. "As fate-laden a
cargo as we ever detected." "Then
you understand why we came, "Gillian replied as Streaker's lean hull
passed jutting angles of fantastic crystal, alternating with planet-sized
hollows of black shadow. The ship seemed like a pollen grain lost in a giant
forest. "Indeed.
We comprehend your purpose. Your poignant request is being considered. Meanwhile,
can you blame us for refusing your invitation to come aboard in person? Or even
to touch your vessel's hull? A hull so recently stroked by dire light? "We
who dwell here have retired from the ferment of the Five Galaxies. From fleets
and star battles and political intrigues. You may or may not receive the help
you seek- that has yet to be decided. But do not expect glad welcome. For your
cargo reawakens many of the hungers, the urgencies, and irksome obsessions of
youth." She
tried to play innocent. "The importance of our cargo is overrated. We'll
hand it over gladly, to those who prove impartial and wise." "Speak
not so.'" the speaker scolded. "Do not add temptation to the poisons
you already bring in our midst!" "Poisons?" "You
carry blessings in your hold . . . and curses." The voice concluded,
"We fear what your presence will do to our ancient peace." As it
turned out, Streaker's time of sanctuary lasted just a few slim weeks before
convulsions began to shake the Fractal System, sending awful sparks crackling
along an immense structure built to house quadrillions. Crystal greenhouses, as
wide as Earth's moon, blew apart, exposing sheltered biomass to hard vacuum.
Jupiter-sized slivers cracked loose, diffuse as cardboard, though glittering
with lighted windows. Like icicles knocked by a violent wind, these tumbled,
then collided with other protrusions, exploding into hurricanes of silent dust.
Meanwhile; a cacophony of voices swarmed- The
poor wolfling children . '. . we must help the Terrans. . . . No!
Erase them so we may return to quiet dreaming. . . . Objection!
Let us instead squeeze them for what they know. . . . Yes.
Then we'll share the knowledge with our younger brethren of the Awaiter
Alliance. . . . No! The
Inheritors . . . The
Abdicators! . . . Gillian
recalls marveling at the unleashed storm of pettiness. So much
for the vaunted detachment of old age. But
then, when all seemed lost, sympathetic forces briefly intervened. This
icy realm is not the place you seek. Advice
you need, dispassionate and sage. Seek it from those who are older and wiser,
still. Where
tides curl tightly, warding off the night. Hurry, youngsters. Take this chance.
Flee while you can. • •
• Abruptly,
an escape path opened for the Earth vessel-a crevice in the vast maze of
hydrogen ice, with starspeckled blackness just beyond. Streaker had only
moments to charge through ... an egress too sudden and brief for Emerson
D'Anite, who had already set forth in a brave, desolate sacrifice. Poor
Emerson. Fought over by resentful factions until his scout craft was swallowed
by enfolding light. All of
this comes back to Gillian, not in sequence, but whole, timeless, and entire as
she recalls that one phrase- "Articles
of Destiny." Immersed
in a trance state, she can feel those tugging objects. The same ones that
caused so much trouble in the Fractal System. They
stroke her limbs-the limbs of Narushkan-not with physical force, but with awful
import of their existence. Abruptly,
Narushkan gives way to Abhusha-"the pointer"-and her left hand
uncurls toward a massive cube-a portable branch of the great Galactic Library,
squatting in a cool mist, two corridors away. With fingers of thought, Gillian
traces one of its gemlike facets, engraved with a rayed spiral symbol. Unlike
the minimally programmed units that wolfling upstarts could afford, this one
was designed to serve a mighty starfaring clan. Had Streaker returned home with
this prize alone, her costly voyage might be called worthwhile. Yet the cube
seems least among Streaker's cargoes. Abhusha
shifts to her right hand, turning palm out, like a flower seeking warmth to
counter the Library's ancient cold. Toward
youth; the antithesis of age. Gillian
hears her little servant, Kippi, move about her private sanctum, straightening
up. The Kiqui amphibian, a native of waterlogged Kithrup, uses all six agile
limbs impartially while tidying. A cheerful music of syncopated chirps and
trills accompanies his labor. Kippi's surface thoughts prove easy to trace,
even with Gillian's limited psi-talent. Placid curiosity fills the presapient
mind. Kippi seems blithely unaware that his young race is embroiled in a great
crisis, spanning five galaxies. ## What
comes next?-I wonder what? ## What comes? ## What comes next?-I hope it's
something good. Gillian
shares that fervent wish. For the sake of the Kiqui, Streaker must find a
corner of space where Galactic traditions still hold. Ideally some strong,
benevolent star lineage, able to embrace and protect the juvenile amphibian
race while hot winds of fanaticism blow along the starry lanes. Some
race worthy to be their patrons . . . to help them . . . as humans never were
helped . . . until the Kiqui can stand on their own. She had
already given up hope of adopting the Kiqui into Terra's small family of
humans, neo-dolphins, and neo-chimps, the initial idea, when Streaker quickly
snatched aboard a small breeding population on Kithrup. Ripe presapient species
were rare, and this one was a real find. But right now Earthclan could hardly
protect itself, let alone take on new responsibilities. Abhusha
shifts again, transmuting into Poposh as one of Gillian's feet swarms with
prickliness, sensing a new presence in the room. Smug irony accompanies the
intruder, like an overused fragrance. It is the Niss Machine's spinning
hologram, barging into her exclusive retreat with typical tactlessness. Tom had
thought it a good idea to bring along the Tymbrimi device, when this ill-fated
expedition set forth from Earth. For Tom's sake-because she misses him
so-Gillian quashes her natural irritation with the smooth-voiced artificial
being. "The
submarine, with our raiding party aboard, is now just hours from returning with
the prisoners, "the Niss intones. "Shall we go over plans for
interrogation, Dr. Buskin? Or will you leave that chore to a gaggle of alien
children?" The insolent machine seems piqued, ever since Gillian
transferred to Alvin and Huck the job of interpreting. But things are going
well so far. Anyway, Gillian already knows what questions to ask the human and
Jophur captives. Moreover,
she has her own way to prepare. As old Jake used to say, "How can one
foresee, without first remembering?" She needs
time alone, without the Niss, or Hannes Suessi, or a hundred nervous dolphins
nagging at her as if she were their mother. Sometimes the pressure feels
heavier than the dark abyss surrounding Streaker's sheltering mountain of dead
starships. To answer
verbally would yank her out of the trance, so Gillian instead calls up Kopou,
an empathy glyph. Nothing fancy-she lacks the inbuilt talent of a Tymbrimi-just
a crude suggestion that the Niss go find a corner of cybernetic space and spend
the next hour in simulated self-replication, till she calls for it. The
entity sputters and objects. There are more words. But she
lets them wash by like foam on a beach. Meanwhile Gillian continues the
exercise, shifting to another compass point. One that seems quiet as death. Abbusha
resumes, now reaching toward a cadaver, standing in a far corner of her office
like a pharaoh's mummy, surrounded by preserving fields that still cling after
three years and a million parsecs, keeping it as it was. As it had been ever
since Tom wrested the ancient corpse from a huge derelict ship, adrift in the
Shallow Cluster. Tom
always had a knack for acquiring expensive souvenirs. But this one took the
cake. Herbie.
An ironic name for a Progenitor ... if that truly was its nature . . . perhaps
two billion years old, and the cause of Streaker's troubles. Chief
cause of war and turmoil across a dozen spiral arms. We
could have gotten rid of him on Oakka World, she knew. Handing Herbie over to
the Library Institute was officially the right thing to do. The safe thing to
do. But
sector-branch officials had been corrupted. Many of the librarians had cast off
their oaths and fell to fighting among themselves-race by race, clan by
clan-each seeking Streaker's treasure for its own kind. Fleeing
once again became a duty. No one
Galactic faction can be allowed to own your secret. So
commanded Terragens Council, in the single longrange message Streaker had
received. Gillian knew the words by heart. To show
any partiality might lead to disaster. It
could, mean extinction for Earthclan. Articles
of Destiny tug at her limbs, reorienting her floating body. Facing upward,
Gillian's eyes open but fail to see the metal ceiling plates. Instead, they
look to the past. To the
Shallow Cluster. A phalanx of shimmering globes, deceptively beautiful, like
translucent moons, or floating bubbles in a dream. Then
the Morgran ambush . . . fiery explosions amid mighty battleships, as numerous
as stars, all striving for a chance to snare a gnat. To
Kithrup, where the gnat fled, where so much was lost, including the better part
of her soul. Where
are you, Tom? Do you still live, somewhere in space and time? Then
Oakka, that green betraying place, where the Institutes failed.' And the
Fractal System, where Old Ones proved there is no age limit on perfidy. Herbie
seems amused by that thought. "Old
Ones? From my perspective, those inhabitants of a giant snowfiake are mere
infants, like yourself!" Of
course the voice comes from her imagination, putting words in a mouth that
might have spoken when Earth's ocean was innocent of any life but bacteria . .
. when Sol's system was half its present age. Gillian
cracks a smile and Abhusba transforms into Kuntatta-laughter amid a storm of
sleeting vacuum rays. Soon,
she must wrestle with the same quandary-how to arrange Streaker's escape one
more time, just ahead of baying hounds. It would take a pretty neat trick this
time, with a Jophur dreadnought apparently already landed on Jijo, and
Streaker's hull still laden with refractory soot. It
would take a miracle. How did
they follow MS? she wonders. It seemed a per feet hideout, with all trails to
Jijo quantum collapsed but one, and that one passing through the atmosphere of
a giant carbon star. The sooner races all did it successfully, arriving without
leaving tracks. What did we do wrong? Recrimination
has no place in weightless yoga. It
spoils the serenity. Sorry,
Jake, she thinks. Gillian sighs, knowing this trance is now forfeit. She might
as well emerge and get back down to business. Perhaps the Hikahi will bring
useful news
from its raid on the surface. I'm
sorry, Tom. Maybe a time will come when I can clear my mind enough to hear you
... or to cast a piece of myself
to wherever you have gone. Gillian
won't let herself imagine the more likely probability-that Tom is dead, along
with Creideiki and all the others she was forced to abandon on Kithrup, with
little more than a space skiff to convey them home again. The
emergence process continues, drawing meditation en-forms back into their
original abstractions, easing her toward the world of unpleasant facts. And yet
. . . In the
course of preparing to exit, Gillian abruptly grows aware of a fifth tug on her
body, this one stroking the back of her neck, prickling her occipital
vertebrae, and follicles along the middle of her scalp. It is familiar. She's
felt it before, though never this strong. A presence, beckoning not from
nearby, or even elsewhere in the ship, but somewhere beyond Streaker's scarred
hull. Somewhere else on the planet. There
is a rhythmic, resonant solidity to the sensation, like vibration in dense
stone. If only
Creideiki were here, he could probably relate to it, the way he did with those
poor beings who lived underground on Kithrup. Or else Tom might have figured
out a way to decipher this thing. And
yet, she begins to suspect this time it is something different. Correcting her
earlier impression, Gillian realizes- It is
not a presence on this world, or beneath it, but something of the planet. An
aspect of Jijo itself. Narusbkan
orients her like the needle of a compass, and abruptly she feels a strange,
unprovoked commotion within. It takes her some time to sort out the impression.
But recognition dawns at last. Tentatively-like
a long-lost friend unsure of its welcome-hope sneaks back into her heart,
riding on the stony cadence. wasx BBRUPTLY
COMES NEWS. TOO SOON FOR YOU RINGS to have interpreted the still-hot wax. So
let me relate it directly. WORD OF
DISASTER! WORD OF CALAMITY! Word of ill-fated loss, just east beyond this range
of mountain hills. Our grounded corvette-destroyed! Dissension
tears the Polkjhy crew. Chem-synth toruses vent fumes of blame while loud
recriminations pour from oration rings. Could
this tragedy be the work of the dolphin prey ship, retaliating against its
pursuers? For years its renown has spread, after cunning escapes from other
traps. But it
cannot be. Long-range scans show no hint of gravitic emanations or energy
weapons. Early signs point to some kind of onboard failure. And
yet, clever wolflings are not to be underrated. I/we can read waxy memories
left by the former Asx-historical legends of the formative years of the Jijoan
Commons, especially tales of urrish-human wars. These stories demonstrate how
both races have exceptional aptitudes for improvisation. Until
now, we thought it was coincidence-that there were
Earthling sooners here, that the Rothen had human servants, and the prey ship
also came from that wolfling world. The three groups seem to have nothing in
common, no motives, goals, or capabilities. But
what if there is a pattern? I/we
must speak of this to the Captain-Leader ... as soon as higher-status stacks
pause their ventings and let us get a
puff in edgewise. Prepare,
My rings. Our first task will surely be to interrogate the prisoners. Tsk't WHAT AM
I GOING TO DO? She fretted over her predicament as the submarine made its way
back to the abyssal mountain of dead starships. While other members of the
Hikabi team exulted over their successful raid, looking forward to reunion with
their crew mates on the Streaker, Tsh't anticipated docking with a
rising sense of dread. To
outward appearances, all was well. The prisoners were secure. The young
adventurers, Alvin and Huck, were debriefing Dwer and Rety-human sooners who
had managed somehow to defeat a Jophur corvette. Once Hikabi leveled its plunge
below the thermocline, Tsh't knew she and her team had pulled it off-striking a
blow for
Earth without being caught. The
coup reflected well on the mission commander, Some
might call Tsh't a hero. Yet disquiet churned her sour stomach. Ifni
must hate me. The worst of all possible combinations of events has caught me in
a vise. "Wait
a minute," snapped the female g'Kek, who had assumed the name of an
ancient Earthling literary figure. As her spokes vibrated with agitation, she
pointed one eyestalk at the young man whose bow and arrows lay across his
knees. "You're saying that you walked all the way from the Slope to find
her hidden tribe . . . while she flew back home aboard the Dakkin sky boat
..." The
human girl, Rety, interrupted. "That's
Danik, you dumb wheelie. And what's so surprisin' about that? I had Kunn an'
the others fooled down to their scabs, thinkin' I was ready to be one of 'em.
O' course I was just keepin' my eyes peeled fer my first chance to ..." Tsh't
had already heard the story once through, so she paid scant attention this
time, except to note that "Huck" spoke far better Anglic than the
human child. Anyway, she had other matters on her mind. Especially one of the
prisoners lying in a cell farther aft ... a captive starfarer who could reveal
her deepest secret. Tsh't
sent signals down the neural tap socketed behind her left eye. The mechanical
walker unit responded by swiveling on six legs to aim her bottle-shaped beak
away from the submarine's bridge. Unburdened by armor or lifesupport equipment,
it maneuvered gracefully past a gaggle of dolphin spectators. The fins seemed
captivated by the sight of two humans so disheveled, and the girl bearing scars
on her cheek that any Earth hospital could erase in a day. Their rustic accents
and overt wonder at seeing real live dolphins seemed poignantly endearing in
members of the patron race. The two
seemed to find nothing odd about chatting with Alvin and Huck, though, as if
wheeled beings and Anglicspeaking hoons were as common as froth on a wave.
Common enough for Rety and Huck to bicker like siblings. "Sure
I led Kunn out this way. But only so's I could find out where the bird machine
came from!" Rety stroked a miniature urs, whose long neck coiled
contentedly around her wrist. "And my plan worked, didn't it? I found
you!" Huck
reacted with a rolling twist of all four eyestalks, a clear expression of doubt
and disdain. "Yes, though it meant revealing the Earthship's position,
enabling your Danik pilot to target its site from the air." "So?
What's yer point?" From the door, Tsh't saw the male human glance at the
big adolescent hoon. Dwer and Alvin had just met, but they exchanged
commiserating grins. Perhaps they would compare notes later, how each managed
life with such a "dynamic" companion. Tsh't
found all the varied voices too complicated. It feels like a menagerie aboard
this tub. The argument raged on while Tsh't exited the bridge. Perhaps
recordings would prove useful when Gillian and the Niss computer analyzed every
word. Preparations were also under way to interrogate the Jophur survivors
using techniques found in the Thennanin,Library cube-sophisticated data from a
clan that had been fighting Jophur since before Solomon built his temple. Tsh't
approved ... so far. But Gillian will also want to question Kunn. And she knows
her own kind too well to be fooled. The
Hikahi was a makeshift vessel, built out of parts salvaged from ancient hulks
lining the bottom of the Rift. Tsh't passed down corridors of varied substance,
linked by coarsely welded plates, until she reached the cell where two human
prisoners were held. Unfortunately, the guard on duty turned out to be
Karkaett, a disciple of former I Captain Creideiki's keeneenk mental training
program. I Tsh't couldn't hope to send Karkaett off on some errand and have him
simply forget. Any slip in regulations would be remembered. "The
doughnuts are sedated," the guard reported. "Also, we z-zapped the
damaged Rothen battle drone and put it in a freezer. Hannes and I can check its
memory store later." "That-t's
fine," she replied. "And the tytlal?" Karkaett
tossed his sleek gray head. "You mean the one that talks? Isolated in a
cabin, as you instructed. Alvin's pet is just a noor, of course. I assume you
didn't mean to lock her up, t-too." Actually,
Tsh't wasn't sure she grasped the difference between a noor and a tytlal. Was
it simply the ability to talk? What if they all could, but were good at keeping
it secret? Tytlal were legendary for one trait-going to any length for a joke. "I'll
see the human prisoners now," she told the guard. Karkaett
transmitted a signal to open the door. Following rules, he accompanied her
inside, weapons trained on the captives. Both
men lay on cots with medical packs strapped to their arms. Already they seemed
much improved over their condition in the swamp, where, coughing and desperate
for breath, they had clutched a reed bank, struggling to keep their heads above
water. The younger one looked even more grubby and half-starved than Rety-a
slightly built young man with wiry muscles, black hair, and a puckered scar
above one eye. Jass, Rety had identified him-a sooner cousin, and far from her
favorite person. The
other man was much larger. His uniform could still be recognized beneath the
caked filth. Steely gray eyes drilled Tsh't the moment she entered. "How
did you follow us toJijo?" That
was what Gillian would surely ask the Danik voyager. It was the question Tsh't
feared most. Calm
down, she urged herself. The Rothen only know that someone sent a message from
the Fractal System. They can't know who. Anyway,
would they confide in their Danik servants? This poor fellow is probably just
as bewildered as we are. Yet
Kunn's steady gaze seemed to hold the same rocksolid faith she once saw in the
Missionary . . . the disciple who long ago brought a shining message-of-truth
to the small dolphin community of Bimini-Under, back when Tsh't was still a
child gliding in her mother's slipstream wake. "Humans
are beloved patrons of the neo-dolphin race, it's true," the proselytizer
explained, during one secret meeting, in a cave where scuba-diving tourists
never ventured. "Yet, just a few centuries ago, primitive men in boats
bunted cetaceans to the verge of extinction. They may act better today, but who
can deny their new maturity is fragile, untested? Without meaning disloyalty,
many neo-fins feel discomfort, wondering if there might not be something or
somebody greater and wiser than humankind. Someone the entire clan can turn to,
in dangerous times." "You
mean God?" one of the attending dolphins asked. And the Missionary
responded with a nod. "In
essence, yes. All the ancient legends about divine beings who intervene in
Earth's affairs . . . all the great teachers and prophets . . . can be shown to
have their basis in one simple truth. "Terra
is not just an isolated forlorn world-home to bizarre wolflings and their crude
clients. Rather, it is part of a wonderful experiment. Something I have come
from afar to tell you about. "We
have been watched over for a very long time. Lovingly guarded throughout our
long time of dreaming. But soon, quite soon, it will be time to waken." Kaa MOPOL'S
FEVER SHOWED NO SIGN OF RETURNING. In fact, he seemed quite high in spirits
when he left the next morning, swimming east with Zhaki, resuming their
reconnaissance of Wuphon Port. "You
see? All he needed was a stern talking-to," Peepoe explained with evident
pride. "Mopol just had to be reminded of his duty." Kaa
sensed the implied rebuke in her words, but chose to ignore it. "You
have a persuasive bedside manner," he replied. "No
doubt they teach it in medical school." In
fact, he was quite sure that Mopol's recovery had little to do with Peepoe's
lecture. The half-stenos male had agreed too readily with everything the young
nurse said, tossing his mottled gray head and chittering "Yessss!"
repeatedly. He and
Zhaki are up to something, Kaa thought, as he watched the two swim off toward
the coastal hoon settlement. "I
need to be heading back to the ship soon," Peepoe said, causing Kaa to dip
his narrow jaw. "But
I thought you'd stay a few days. You agreed to come see the volcano." Her
expression seemed wary. "I don't know. . . . When I left, there was talk
of shifting Streaker to another hiding place. Searchers were getting too damned
c-close." Not
that moving the ship a few kilometers would make much difference, if Galactic
fleets already had her pinned. Even hiding under a great pile of discarded
starcraft would not help, once pursuers had the site narrowed down close enough
to use chemical sniffers. Earthling DNA would lure them, like male moths to a
female's pheromones. Kaa
shrugged by twisting his flukes. "Brookida
will be disappointed. He was so looking forward to showing off his collection
of dross from all six sooner races." Peepoe
stared at Kaa, scanning him with penetrating sound till she found the wryness
within. Her
blowhole sputtered laughter. "Oh,
all right. Let's see this mountain of yours. Anyway, I've been aching for a
swim." As
usual, the water felt terrific. A little saltier than Earth sea, but with a
fine mineral flavor and a gentle ionic oiliness that helped it glide over your
skin. The air's rich oxygen level made it seem as if you could keep going well
past the horizon. It was
a far friendlier ocean than on Kithrup or Oakka, where the oceans tasted
poisonously foul. Friendlier, that is, unless you counted the groaning sounds
that occasionally drifted from the Midden, as if a tribe of mad whales lived
down there, singing ballads without rhyme or reason. According
to Alvin's Journal, their chief source on Jijo, some natives believed that
ancient beings lived beyond the continental shelf, fierce and dangerous. Such
hints prompted Gillian Baskin to order the spying continued. So long
as Streaker doesn't need a pilot, I might as well play secret agent. Anyway,
it's a job Peepoe might respect. Beyond
all that, Kaa relearned how fine it was to cruise in tandem with another strong
swimmer, jetting along on powerful fluke strokes, building momentum each time
you plunged, then soaring through each upper arc, like flying. The true peak of
exhilaration could never be achieved alone. Two or more dolphins must move in
unison, each surf-riding the other's wake. When done right, surface tension
nearly vanished and the planet merged seamlessly, from core to rock, from sea
to sky. And
then . . . to bitter-clear vacuum? A modern poet might make that extrapolation,
but it never occurred to natural cetaceans-not even species whose eyesight
could make out stars-not until humans stopped hunting and started teaching. They
changed us. Showed us the universe beyond sun, moon, and tides. They even turned
some of us into pilots. Wormhole divers. I guess that makes up for their
ancestors' crimes.
Still, some things never change. Like the semierotic stroke
of whitecaps against flesh, or the spume of hot breath meeting air. The raw,
earthy pleasure of this outing offered much that he felt lacking aboard
Streaker. It also made a terrific opening to courtship. Assuming she thinks the
same way I do. Assuming I can start winning her esteem. They were approaching
shore. He could tell by the echoes of rock-churned surf up ahead. A
mist-shrouded mountain could be glimpsed from the top of each forward leap.
Soon they would reach the hidden cave where his spy equipment lay. Then Kaa
must go back to dealing with Peepoe in awkward, inadequate words. I wish
this could just go on without end, he thought. A brief touch of sonar, and he
knew Peepoe felt the same. She, too, yearned for this moment of primitive
release to last. Kaa's
sonic sense picked out a school of pseudo-tunny, darting through nearby shoals,
tempting after a pallid breakfast of synthi flesh. The tunny weren't quite in
their path-it would mean a detour. Still, Kaa squirted a burst of Trinary. * In
summer sunlight, * Fish
attract like edible *
Singularities! * Kaa
felt proud of the haiku-impulsive, yet punning as it mixed both space- and
planet-bound images. Of course, free foraging was still not officially
sanctioned. He awaited Peepoe's rejection. *
Passing an abyss, or bright reef, * Or
black hole-what sustains us? * Our
navigator! * Her
agreement filled Kaa's pounding heart, offering a basis for hope. Peepoe's
strong, rhythmic strokes easily kept pace alongside as he angled toward a
vigorous early lunch. Sooners I'VE
BEEN ABOARD A FLYING MACHINE BEFORE, HE told himself. I'm no simple nature
child, astonished by doors, metal panels, and artificial light. This
place should not terrify me. The
walls aren't about to close in. His
body wasn't convinced. His heart raced and he could not rest. Lark kept experiencing
a disturbing impression that the little room was getting smaller. He knew
it must be an illusion. Neither Ling nor Rann showed outward concern over being
crushed in a diminishing space. They were used to hard gray surfaces, but the
metal enclosure seemed harsh to one who grew up scampering along the branch-top
skyways of a garu forest. The floor plates brought a distant vibration,
rhythmic and incessant. Lark
suddenly realized what it reminded him of-the machinery
of his father's paper mill-the grinders and pulping hammers-designed to crush
scrap cloth into a fine
white slurry. That pounding noise used to drive him away into the wilderness,
on long journeys seeking living things to study. "Welcome
to a starship, sooner," Rann mumbled, nursing both a headache and a grudge
after their fight in the lake. "How do you like it?" All
three human prisoners still wore their damp underwear, having been stripped of
their tools and wet suits. For some reason, the Jophur let them keep their rewq
symbionts, though Rann had torn his off, leaving red welts at his temples where
the crumpled creature had had no time to withdraw its feeding suckers. At
least no one had been injured during the swift capture, when a swarm of tapered
cone beings swept down from the mammoth ship, each Jophur riding its own
platform of shimmering metal. Suspensor fields pressed the lake, surrounding
the human swimmers between disklike watery depressions. Hovering robots
crackled with restrained energy-one even dived beneath the surface to cut off
escape-crowding the captives toward one of the antigravity sleds, and then to
prison. To
Lark's surprise, they were put in the same cell. By accounts from Earth's dark
ages, it used to be standard practice to separate prisoners, to break their
spirits. Then he realized. If
Jophur are like traeki, they can't quite grasp the notion of being alone. A
solitary traeki would be happy arguing among its rings till the Progenitors
came home. "They
are probably at a loss, trawling through their database for information about
Earthlings,'* Ling explained. "Till recently, there wasn't much
available." "But
it's been three hundred years since contact!" "That
may seem long to us, Lark. But Earth was minor news for most of that time-a
back-page sensation. By now the first detailed Institute studies of our
homeworld have barely made it through the sector-branch Library, on
Tanith." "Then
why not . . ." He sought a word she had used several times. "Why not
upload Earthling books. Our encyclopedias, medical texts, self-analyses . . .
the knowledge we spent thousands of years accumulating about ourselves?" She
lifted her eyes. "Wolfling superstitions. Even we Daniks
are taught to think that way." She glanced at Rann. "It took your thesis,
Lark-the one you wrote with Uthen-to convince me things might be
different." Though
flushed at the compliment, Lark reined in his imagination. He tried not to let
his eyes drop to her nearly bare figure. Skimpy underclothes would not hide his
physical arousal. Besides, this was hardly the time. "I
still find their attitude hard to credit. The Galactics would rather wait
centuries for a formal report on us?" "Oh,
I'm sure the great powers-like the Soro and Jophur-got access to early drafts. And
they've urgently sought more data since the Streaker crisis began. Their
strategic agencies almost certainly kidnapped and dissected some humans, for
instance. But they could hardly update every star cruiser with illicit data.
That would risk contaminating the onboard Library cubes. I'd have to guess this
crew has been improvising-not a skill much encouraged in Galactic
society." "But
humans are known for it. Is that why your ship came to Jijo? Improvising an
opportunity?" Ling
nodded, rubbing her bare shoulders. "Our Rothen for . . ." She
paused, then chose another phrasing. "The Inner Circle received a message.
A time-drop capsule, tuned for pickup by anyone with a Rothen cognition
wave." "Who
sent it?" "Apparently, a secret believer living among the crew of the
dolphin ship. Or one desperate enough to break from Terragens orders, and
summon help from a higher source." "A
believer . . ." Lark mused. "In the Danik faith, you mean. But Daniks
teach that humans are the secret recipients of Rothen patronhood." "And
by tradition, that means a dolphin crew could also call on Rothen help, in case
of dire need . . . which those poor creatures surely face." "Like
running to your grandparents, if your own folks can't handle a problem.
Hrm." Lark
had already picked up parts of the story. How the first dolphin-crewed starship
set forth on a survey mission, assigned to check the accuracy of the small
planetary branch Earth had received from the Library Institute. Most civilized
clans simply accepted the massive volumes of information stored by past
generations, especially concerning far corners of space, where little profit
could be gained by exploration. It was
supposed to be routine. A shakedown cruise. But then, somewhere off the beaten
track, Earthship Streaker confronted something unexpected-a discovery that made
the great alliances crazy. Clues to a time of transition, perhaps, when ancient
verities of the known galaxies might abruptly change. "It
is said that when this happens, just one race in ten shall make the passage to
a new age, " the hoonish High Sage, Phwhoon-dau, had explained one night
by a campfire, just after the fall of Dooden Mesa, drawing on his deep readings
of the Biblos Archive. "Those bent on surviving into the next long phase
of stability would naturally want to learn as much as possible. Hr-r-r-rm. Yes,
even a sooner can understand why this Eartbling ship found itself in
trouble." "A
dolphin Danik." Lark marveled. "So this . . . believer sent a secret
message to the Rothen. . . ." "To
is the wrong word. You might better use at. In fact, nothing in Anglic
adequately describes the skewed logic of communicating by time drop." Ling
kept running her fingers through her hair. It had grown since the Battle of the
Glade, and was still tangled from their long dive under the lake. "But
yes, the message from the dolphin believer explained where the Streaker ship
was-in one of the hydrogen-ice habitat zones where many older races huddle
close to stellar tides, after retiring from active Galactic affairs. "More
important-it hinted where the Earthship commander next planned to flee."
Ling shook her head. "It turned out to be a clever version of the Sooner
Path. A difficult passage, uncomfortably close to fiery Izmunuti. No wonder you
Six were left undetected for so long." "Hr-rm,"
Lark umbled contemplatively. "Unlike our ancestors, you let yourselves be
followed." This
drew a reaction from Rann, sullenly holding his aching head in the opposite
corner of the cell. "Fool.
We did no such thing!" the tall Danik muttered sourly. "Are you
saying we cannot easily repeat any feat accomplished by a gaggle of cowardly
sooners?" "Putting
insults aside, I agree," Ling said. "It seems unlikely we were
followed. That is, not the first time our ship came to Jijo." "What
do you mean?" Lark asked. "When
our comrades left us-four humans and two Rothen, with the job of doing a
bioassay on Jijo-I thought the others were going to cruise nearby space, in
case the dolphin ship was hiding on some nearby planetoid. But that was not
their aim at all. "Their
real intent was to go find a buyer." Lark frowned in puzzlement. "A
Buyur'i But aren't they extinct? You mean the Rothen wanted to hire one as a
guide, to come back to Jijo and-" "No
... a buyer!" Ling laughed, though it was not a happy sound. "You
were right about the Rothen, Lark. They live by bartering unusual or illicit
information, often using human Daniks as agents or intermediaries. It was an
exciting way of life . . . till you made me realize how we've been used."
Ling's expression turned dark. Then she shook her head. "In
this case, they must have realized Jijo was worth a fortune to the right
customer. There are life-forms on this planet whose development seems ahead of
schedule, rapidly approaching presapience. And there are the Six Races. Surely
someone would pay to know about such a major infestation of criminal sooners
... no offense." "None
taken. And of course, the clue to the dolphin ship was worth plenty. So . .
." He blew an airy sigh through j his nostrils, like a disgusted urs.
"Your masters decided to sell us all." Ling
nodded, but her eyes bored into Rann. "Our patrons sold us all." ; The big
Danik did not meet her gaze. He pressed both hands against his temples,
emitting a low moan that seemed half from pain and half disgust at her treason.
He turned toward the wall, but did not touch the oily surface. "After
all we've seen, you still think the Rothen are patrons of humanity?" Lark
asked. Ling
shrugged her shoulders. "I cannot easily dismiss the evidence I was shown
while growing up-evidence dating back thousands of years. Anyway, it might
explain our bloody, treacherous history. The Rothen lords claim it's because
our dark souls kept drifting from the Path. But maybe we are exactly what they
uplifted us to be. Raised to be shills for a gang of thieves." "Hrm.
That might relieve us of some of the responsibility. Still, I'd rather be
wolflings, with ignorance our only excuse." Ling
nodded, lapsing into silence, perhaps contemplating the great lie her life had
revolved around. Meanwhile, Lark found a new perspective on the tale of
humanity. It went beyond a dry litany of events, recited from dusty tomes in
the Biblos Archive. The
Daniks claim that we bad guidance all along . . . that Moses, Jesus, Buddha,
Fuller, and others were teachers in disguise. But if we were helped-by the
Rothen or anybody else-then our helpers clearly did a lousy job. Like a
problem child who needs open, honest, personal attention, we could have used a
lot more than a few ethical nostrums. Vague bints like, "Have faith "
and "Be nice to each other." Moralizing platitudes aren't enough to
guide a rowdy tyke . . . and they sure did not prevent dark ages, slavery, the
twentieth-century Holocaust, or the despots of the twenty-first. All
those horrors reflect as poorly on the teacher as the students. Unless . . . Unless
you suppose we actually did it all alone . . . Lark
was struck by the same feeling as when he and Ling spoke beside the mule
spider's lake. His mind filled with an image of poignant, awful beauty. A
tapestry spanning thousands of years-human history seen from afar. A tale of
frightened orphans, floundering in ignorance. Of creatures smart enough to
stare in wonder at the stars, asking questions of a night that never answered,
except with terrifying silence. Sometimes,
from desperate imaginations, the silence provoked roaring hallucinations,
fantastic rationalizations, or self-serving excuses for any crime the strong
might choose to commit against the weak. Deserts widened as men ignorantly cut
forests. Species vanished as farmers burned and plowed. Wars spread ruin in the
name of noble causes. Yet,
amid all that, humanity somehow began pulling together, learning the arts of
calmness, peering forward in time, like a neglected infant teaching itself to
crawl and speak. To
stand and think. To walk
and read. To care . . . and then become a loving parent to others. The
kind of parent poor orphans never had. Born on a refuge world whose crude
safety had vanished, imprisoned in the bowels of an alien starship, Lark
nevertheless felt drawn away from worrying about his own fate, or even the six
exile clans of Jijo. After all, on the vast scale of things, his life hardly
mattered. The Five Galaxies would spin on, even if every last Earthling
vanished. Yet he
found his heart torn by the tragic story of Homo sapiens, the self-taught
wolflings of Terra. It was a bittersweet tale, pulling from his reluctant eyes
trickles of tart brine that tasted like the sea. The
voice was familiar . . . horrifyingly so. "Tell
us now." When
all three humans kept silent, the Jophur interrogator edged closer, towering
over them. Anglic words hissed from atop the swaying stack of fatty rings,
accompanied by liquid burblings and mucusy pops. "Explain
to us; why did you transmit the signal that led to your capture? Did you
sacrifice yourselves in order to buy time for unseen comrades? Those we most
eagerly pursue?" It had
introduced itself as "Ewasx," and part of Lark's horror lay in
recognizing torus markings of the former traeki High Sage, Asx. One major
difference appeared at the bottom of the'stack, where a new, agile
torus-of-legs let the composite being move about more quickly than before. And
silvery fibers now laced the doughy tubes, leading up to a glistening young
ring that had no apparent features or appendages. Yet Lark sensed it was the
chief thing turning the old traeki sage into a Jophur. "We
detected a disturbance in the toporgic time field, imprisoning the Rothen
vessel below the lake," it said. "But these tremors were well within
noise variance levels, and our leaders were otherwise too busily engaged to
investigate. However, we/i now clearly discern what you were trying to
accomplish with this trick." The
declaration left Lark unsurprised. Once alerted, the mighty aliens would
naturally pierce his jury-rigged scheme for letting Daniks out of the trapped
vessel. He only hoped thatJeni Shen, andJimi, and the others made it out before
hunter robots swarmed around the Rothen time cocoon, then through the network
of caves. while
all three humans kept silent, Ewasx continued. "The
chain of logic is apparent, revealing a persistent effort on the part of you
sooners to divert us from our main purpose on this world. "In
short, you have been attempting to distract us." Now
Lark looked up, baffled. He shared a glance with Ling. What is
the Jophur talking about? "It
began several Jijo rotations ago," Ewasx went on. "Although no other
crew stack thought it unusual, , was perplexed when the High Sages acceded so
swiftly to our Captain-Leader's demand. I did not expect Vubben and Lester
Cambel to obey so quickly, revealing the coordinates of the chief g'Kek
encampment." Lark
spoke at last. "You mean Dooden Mesa." He
still felt guilty over how a stray computer resonance betrayed the secret
colony's location. Apparently, Ewasx thought the transmission had been made on
purpose. "Dooden
Mesa, correct. The timing of the signal now seems too convenient, too out of
character. Memory stacks inherited from Asx indicate a disgusting level of interspecies
loyalty among the mongrel races of Jijo. Loyalty that should have delayed
compliance with our demand. Normally the sages would have dithered, in hopes of
evacuating the g'Keks before giving in." "Why
did you have to wait for a signal at all?" Lark asked. "If you've got
memories from Asx, you knew all along where Dooden was! Why bother asking the
High Sages?" For the
first time, Lark saw signs of what might be called an
emotional response. Uneven ripples coursed several Ewasx rings, as if they were
writhing from unpleasant sensations within. When it spoke next, the voice
seemed briefly
labored. "Reasons
for incomplete data retrieval access are not your
concern. Suffice it to say that the immurement of Dooden Mesa was gratifying to
our Polkjhy Ship Commanders . . . yet I/we nursed brooding reservations within
this stack of restless rings. The timing seemed too convenient." "What
do you mean?" "I mean that the signal came just as we were about to launch
our remaining corvette to succor another, which had made a forced landing
beyond the mountains. That mission was postponed on learning where the chief
g'Kek hideout lay. The corvette was outfitted with toporgic, to attack our
sworn feud enemies, lest any escape that nest of wheeled
vipers." Lark
caught Rann glancing at Ling, meaningfully. Beyond the
mountains. The Daniks had sent Kunn's scout vessel out that way, just before
the Battle of the Glade. And now the Jophur reported losing a corvette in the
same direction? Not
lost. A forced landing. Still, they have strange priorities. Vengeance before
rescue. "After
dealing with Dooden Mesa, there were other delays. Then, just as we were
resuming preparations to send i aid to our grounded cousins, this new distraction
came about. I refer to your activity below the lake. You cleverly found some
rude way to vibrate the toporgic seal around the Rothen ship. We ignored this
at first, since mere soon ers could never actually penetrate the cocoon-" Another
tremor crossed the creature's rings, though this time the voice did not pause. "Soon,
however; there came a distraction we could not ignore. The appearance of three
humans at the surface of the lake, deep within our perimeter! This event
triggered alarms, concentrating our attention for a lengthy period. "I/we
are now quite certain that was your intent all along." Lark stared in
astonishment. Just
after they were captured, he and Ling had speculated in whispers about Rann's
betrayal, swimming to the surface and using the portable computer to blatantly
attract Jophur attention. Ling had illuminated a likely motive. "Rann
is more loyal to our masters than I ever imagined. He knows the Six Races
possess evidence that can blow the lid off the grand Rothen deception. Helping
our crew mates escape the trapped ship would just make matters worse, by
exposing more Daniks to your arguments, Lark. Your evidence of genocide and
other wrongs. Like me, they might be converted away from our lords. "Before
allowing that to happen, Rann would rather let the Jophur wipe out everybody,
and leave our crew sealed forever. At least that way the Rothen home clan might
be safe." Ling's
explanation had rocked Lark. But this one from Ewasx was weirder still. "You're
saying we . . . uh, vibrated the golden shell around the submerged ship . . .
in order to attract your attention? And when that didn't work, we swam up to
the surface to make even more noise, trying to draw your gaze our way?" As he
said the words, Lark realized in surprise that the scenario made more sense
than what had actually happened! In comparison, it did seem improbable that
primitive sooners would find a way to pierce the toporgic trap ... or that a
Danik would betray his crew mates in order to keep them buried forever. There
was just one logical problem. "But
. . ." he went on. "But why would we be desperate enough to do such a
thing? What aim could make such a sacrifice worthwhile?" The
Jophur emitted an aggravated sigh. "You
know perfectly well what aim. However, in order to establish a clear basis for
interrogation, I will explain. "I/we
know your secret," it told Lark. "You
must certainly be in communication with the Earthling ship." Alvin THE
DOLPHINS HAVEN'T GIVEN A NAME TO THIS | mountain of abandoned starships. This
heap of discards I from a lost civilization, moldering at the bottom of the
Midden. Huck
wants to call it Atlantis. But for once I find her suggestion lacking
imagination. I
prefer that mythical place described so hauntingly by the great Clarke. The
Seven Suns. Where my namesake found ancient relics long forgotten by titans who
had moved on, leaving their obsolete servants behind. Remnants
of a mighty past, now lost between the city and the stars. We
don't spend much time together anymore. We four from Wuphon Port. We four
comrades and adventurers. We've gone off in different directions, led by our
own obsessions. Ur-ronn
spends her time where you'd expect-in the engine room, eagerly learning about
the hardware of a starship and getting thick as thieves with Hannes Suessi. I
get an impression these dolphins aren't as good at delicate hand-eye work as an
urs, so Suessi seems glad to have her around. It's
also the driest place aboard this waterlogged cruiser. Still, I figure Ur-ronn
would spend time down there even if it meant sloshing through knee-deep slush.
It's where a smith belongs. Suessi
hoped we might offer clues toward ridding Streaker's hull of a thick carbon
coating. Oral traditions speak of star soot, weighing down each sneakship that
reached Jijo after passing close by Izmunuti. But I never heard of a clan
trying to remove it. Why would our ancestors bother, since they scuttled their
arks soon after arriving? Anyway,
why not just refurbish one of the old hulks lying under the Midden, and use it
to make an escape? Ur-ronn
says Suessi and Dr. Baskin considered the idea. But the ships are junk, after
all. If the wrecks could fly well, wouldn't the Buyur have taken them along? For
helping the engineers, Ur-ronn hopes to get some cooperation in return . . .
fulfilling the assignment we were given when our little homemade Wuphon's Dream
first dropped to the sea by Terminus Rock. Uriel had asked us to find a hidden
cache-equipment to help the High Sages deal with intruding starships. Now
that we know more about those invaders-a Rothen cruiser, followed later by a
Jophur battleship-it seems unlikely that cache would help against forces so
godlike and lofty. Anyway, Uriel and our parents must have given us up for
dead, ever since the air hose tore away from Wuphon's Dream. Still,
Ur-ronn's right. An oath is an oath. I can
see why Dr. Gillian Baskin prefers we don't contact our folks. But I must
persuade her to try. Pincer-Tip
spends most of his time with the Kiqui-those six-limbed amphibians we once
thought to be masters of this ship. Instead, they are something even more
revered in the Five Galaxies-honest-to-goodness presapient beings. Pincer seems
to have an affinity for them, since his red qheuen race is also adapted to live
where waves meet a rocky coast. But that may just begin to cover Pincer's
attraction to them. He
talks of building a new bathy to explore the Midden. Not just this mound of
dead starcraft, but some of the vast jumbled cities, filled with wonders
discarded by the departing Buyur. Clearly
he enjoyed his brief stint as captain of Wuphon's Dream. Only this time he
hopes for a new crew. Agile, . obedient, water-loving Kiqui may be ideal,
compared to a too-tall hoon, a prolix g'Kek, and a hydrophobic urs. Maybe
Pincer still hopes to find real monsters. Huck
refuses to believe anything important can take place without her. As soon as we
returned with Lieutenant Tsh't, she got involved in the serious business of
questioning the Jophur prisoners, taken from the wrecked scoutship. According
to spy and adventure novels, the art of interrogation has a lot to do with
language trickery. Fooling the other guy into blurting out something he never
intended. That's just the kind of stuff Huck thinks she's oh so clever at. So
what if Jophur are different from traeki. She expected to break their obstinate
silence and get them talking. So
imagine her shock when she rolled into their chamber and the very sight of her
sent them into a fit, throwing themselves against the restraining field trying
to get at her! The room filled with a stench of pure hatred. Strangely
enough, that proved useful! For the Jophur abruptly lost their sullen muteness
and started babbling. Mostly, their GalTwo and GalFive utterance streams were
steeped with fuming anger. But soon the sneaky Niss Machine popped in, making
insinuations and smooth-voiced hints.
. . . Huck
turned all four eyestalks to stare at the whirling hologram
when it suggested the Jophur might be given this tasty g'Kek, if they
cooperated! Soon, mixed among the vengeance vows and retribution exclamatives
were bits of useful information, such as the name of their ship and the rank of
its Captain-Leader. And one further crucial fact. Although their battlecruiser
is a giant compared to outmatched Streaker, the Jophur ship came to Jijo alone. Huck
says she knew all along that the Niss was bluffing about handing her over. In
fact, she claimed a triumph, as if it
had been her plan all along. I knew
better 'than to comment on the green sweat coating her eye hoods. After the
interview, she needed a bath. • •
• Unlike
the others, I can't banish all doubt. Have we
chosen the right side? Oh,
there seem to be good reasons for throwing our fate in with these fugitives.
Humans are members of the Six, and that makes the dolphins sort of cousins, I
guess. And it's true that Streaker seems more like one of our sooner sneakships
than those arrogant dreadnoughts, up in the Rimmer Range. Anyway, I was brought
up reading Earthling tall tales. My sentiments are drawn to the underdog. Still,
I must keep at least one mental corner detached and uncommitted. My loyalty
lies ultimately with family, sept, and clan . . . and with the High Sages of
the Commons of Jijo. Among
the four of us, someone must remember our true priorities. A time may come when
they clash with our hosts'. How
have I kept busy all this time? For one
thing, I've been learning to skim the ship's database, extracting historical
summaries of what's taken place since the Great Printing. The distilled tale is
a treat to a born info hound like me. And
yet, I still can't get that big, mist-shrouded cube out of my mind. Sometimes I
hanker to sneak into that cold room and ask questions of the Branch Library-a
storehouse so great that the Biblos Archive might as well be a primer for a
two-year old. On our
way back from the surface I got to know Rety-the irascible, proud human girl
whose illegal tribe of savages would have shaken the Commons with a sensational
scandal, in normal times. I also talked to Dwer the Hunter, who I recall
visiting Wuphon, a few years back. Dwer chatted about his adventures while
Physician Makanee treated his wounds, till he fell into exhausted slumber. Soon
Rety collapsed, too, with her little "husband" curled alongside, a
slim urrish head draped across her chest. For the
most part, my job has been to umble. Yeah,
that's right. To umble for a noor. My own
pet, Huphu, doesn't know what to make of the newcomer-the one called Mudfoot.
On first spying him, ; she
hissed . . . and he hissed back, exactly like a regular noor. It was such a
normal reaction that I started to doubt my own memory. Did I really hear and
see Mudfoot tails! My
assigned task is to keep him happy till he decides to talk
again. I guess
I owe these people-Gillian Baskin and Tsh't and the
dolphins. They
saved us from the abyss . . . though maybe we wouldn't
have fallen at all, if it hadn't been for their interference. They
fixed my broken back . . . though it was injured when
they smashed Wuphon's Dream. They
turned a mere adventure into an epic ... but won't let us go home for fear we'd
tell the tale. All
right, dammit. I'll umble for the silly noor. He preens and acts starved for
sound anyway, after months with just humans
for company. Up
close I can sense a difference in him. I used to glimpse the same thing now and
then, in the eyes of a few [ strange noor lounging on the Port Wuphon
docks. I A sleek
arrogance. A kind
of lazy smugness. The
impression that he's in on a great joke. One you won't figure out till there's
egg all over your face. QUERY,INTERROGATIVE: Is
there similarity between their behavior and the way you misled Me? The way
you rings have blurred so many of the waxy memories we coinherited from Asx? The way
our union oscillates between grudging cooperation and intermittent passive
resistance? It is
enough to provoke unpleasant questions. DON'T
YOU LIKE BEING PART OF OUR MUCHIMPROVED SHARED WHOLE? OUR AMBITIOUS ONENESS? Yes,
the majority of you claim gladness to be part of a great Jophur entity, instead
of a tepid traeki melange. But can I/we really be sure that you,we love Me,us? The
question is, in itself, a possible symptom of madness. What naturally cojoined
Jophur would allow itself to entertain such doubts? The Polkjhy Priest-Stack
predicted this hybridization experiment would fail. The priest foretold it would
be useless to impose a master torus onto traeki rings already set in their
ways. A
metaphor floats upward, along abused trails of halfmolten wax. Are you
trying to make a comparison, O second ring-of cognition? Ah,
yes. I/we see it. Forging
a noble Jophur out of disparate traeki cells might seem like trying to tame a
herd of wild beasts. It is an apt analogy. Too bad
the metaphor does nothing to help solve My, our problem. PIw wasx HE
HUMAN CAPTIVES SEEM OBDURATE, MY RINGS, refusing to answer questions. Or else
they obfuscate with blatant lies. WHAT
SECRETS LIE BURIED in the melted areas? What memories did the traeki High Sage
purposely destroy, during those stressful moments before Asx was converted? I,
we can tell, important evidence once glimmered in those layers that lined our
common core. Something Jophur were not meant to know. But
know it we/i shall. I must! SUGGESTION: Perhaps
we can tear information out of these recently seized
humans. The
ones bearing the name attributes Lark, Ling, and Rann. \ REBUTTAL: The
Priest-Stack vents frustrated steam, upset to learn how
little data about Earthlings is contained in our ship- , board Library. We have
many detailed prescriptions for I truth serums or coercion drugs effective
against other races and species who are foes of the Great Jophur, but the
archives carry no record of any substance that is humanspecific. Our Library
clearly needs updating, despite the '. fact that it is a relatively new unit,
less than a thousand ' years
old. One
tactician stack, assigned to our shipboard planning staff,
proposed that we use interrogation techniques designed against Tymbrimi. Those
devil tricksters are close allies of Earthlings, and appear similar in ways
that go beyond bipedal locomotion. Trying out that suggestion, we tried
projecting psi-compulsion waves at the prisoners, tuned to Tymbrimi empathic
frequencies. But the
humans seemed deaf to the pulses, showing no reaction
at all. Meanwhile,
the Captain-Leader vents irate fumes-acrid vapors
that send all off-duty personnel fleeing from its presence. What is
the cause of such rancor, My rings? Recent
news from beyond the nearby hills. Bitter news confirming our fears. Disaster
to the east. AT
LAST, our remaining corvette reached the site where its twin fell silent, two
days ago. Aboard the Polkjhy, I/we all stared in dismay at relayed images of
devastation. Hull
wreckage lay sunk beneath swampy waters-the son of marshland morass where a
traeki might find it pleasant to wallow while contemplating wax drippings,
windblown rain swept the area while searchers scanned for survivors, but all
they found were remnants-mostly singleton rings, reverting to a feral animal
state, instinctively gathering nests of rotting vegetation, as if they were no
more than primitive pretraeki. Several
of these surviving toruses were harvested. By scraping their cores, we managed
to download a few blurry memory tracks. Enough to suggest that dolphins did
this deed, emerging from the sea to play havoc with our brethren. HOW
WERE THEY ABLE TO DO THIS? The
downed corvette had reported defense systems functional at a forty percent
level. More than adequate, if concentrated against just such a sortie by the
desperate Earthling quarry. Even amid a lightning-charged thunderstorm, it
should not have been possible for the cornered prey to mount a surprise attack.
Yet, not even an alarm signal escaped our grounded boat before it was
mysteriously overwhelmed. Again,
doubts rise to disturb us. The wolflings are said to be primitives, not much
more capable than the sooner savages whose coward ancestors settled this world.
Yet these same Earthers have sent all Five Galaxies into turmoil, repeatedly
escaping mighty fleets sent after them. Perhaps
it was a mistake for our Polkjhy ship commune to take on this mission alone,
with just our one mighty battlecruiser to seize destiny for our kind. SCENT
RUMORS SPREAD THROUGH POLKJHY NOW, alleging the Captain-Leader was deficiently
stacked. Subversive pheromones suggest that flawed decision-processing toruses
brought us to this unsavory state. Our commander was blinded by obsession with
vengeance on the g'Kek, ignoring higher priorities. Furious
to find mutinous molecules wafting through the air ducts, our Captain-Leader
seeks to overwhelm them with his own chemical outpourings-a steamy concoction
of smoldering rejection. Perfumes of domineering essence flood all decks. What is
it now, My ring? Ah. Our
second torus-of-cognition has come up with another metaphor, this time
comparing the Captain-Leader to the skipper of a hoonish sailboat, who tries
shouting down his worried crew, using a loud voice to substitute for real leadership. Very
interesting, My ring-making parallels between alien behavior and Jophur ship
politics. Such insights make this irksome union seem almost worthwhile. Unless
. . . Surely you do not ALSO apply this metaphor to your own master ring? Do not
provoke Me. Be warned. It would be a mistake. OUR
PROBLEM REMAINS. Unlike
the tactician stacks, I/we do not attribute wolfling success against our
corvette to anomalous technology, or luck. The timing was too coincidental. I
am convinced the dolphins knew exactly the right moment to attack, when our
attention was diverted by events close by. CONCLUSION:
The savage races MUST be in communication with the Earthship! The
captive humans deny knowing of any contact with the dolphin ship. They claim
their activities at the lake surface were strictly a manifestation of
interhuman dominance struggles, having nothing to do with the prey ship. They
must be lying. Ways must be found to increase their level of cooperation. (If
only I could lace their apelike cores with silvery fibers, the way a master
ring shows other components of a stack how to cooperate in joyful oneness!) We
must, it seems, fall back on classic, barbarous interrogation techniques. Shall
we threaten the humans with bodily damage? Shall we assail them with
metaphysical torment? Overruling My,our expertise, the Captain-Leader has
decided on a technique that is known to be effective against numerous
warm-blooded races. We shall use atrocity. sara TRAEKI
UNGUENTS FILLED HER SINUSES WITH PLEASant numbness, as if she'd had several
glasses of wine. Sara felt the chemicals at work, chasing pain, making room for
herself to reemerge. A day
after rejoining the world, she let Emerson push her wheelchair onto the stone
veranda at Uriel the Smith's sanctuary, watching dawn break over a phalanx of
royal peaks, stretching north and east. West of the mountains, dusty haze muted
the manicolored marvel of the Spectral Plow, and the Plain of Sharp Sand
beyond. The
view helped draw Sara's attention from the handheld mirror on her lap-lent her
by Uriel-which she had examined all through breakfast. Jijo's broad vista made
clear Emerson's quiet sermon. The
world is bigger than all our problems. Sara
handed the looking glass over to the starman, who performed sleight-of-hand
motions, causing it to vanish up one sleeve of his floppy gown. Emerson grinned
when Sara laughed out loud. What's
the point in dwelling on my stitches and scrapes, she thought. Scars won't
matter in the days to come. Any survivors will scratch their living from the
soil. Pretty women won't have advantages. Tough ones will. Or was
this complacence another result of chemicals in her veins? Potions tailored by
Tyug, master alchemist of Mount Guenn Forge. Jijo's traekis had learned a lot
about healing other races while qheuens, urs, hoons, and men fought countless
skirmishes before the Great Peace. In recent years, texts from Biblos helped
molecule maestros like Tyug supplement practical lore with fresh insights,
using Anglic words like peptide and enzyme, reclaiming some of the knowledge
their settler ancestors had abandoned. Only
not by looking it up in some Library. Earthling texts served as a starting
point. A basis for fresh discoveries. Which
illustrated her controversial thesis. Six Races climbing back upward, not via
Redemption's Path, the route their forebears used . . . but on a trail all our
own. Other
examples filled the halls behind this stony para- ! pet, in workshops and labs
where Uriel's staff labored near lava heat, wresting secrets from nature.
Despite her suffer- | ing, Sara was glad to see more evidence on Mount Guenn
that Jijoan civilization had begun heading in new directions. Until
starsbips came.
\ Sara winced, recalling
what they had witnessed last ' night,
from this same veranda. She and her friends were being regaled at a feast under
the Stars, celebrating her recovery. Hoonish sailors from the nearby seaport
boomed [ festive ballads and Uriel's apprentices cavorted in an intricate dance
while diminutive husbands perched on their backs, mimicking each twist and
gyre. Gray qheuens, their broad chitin shells embellished with gemstone
cloisonne, sculpted wicked impromptu caricatures of the party guests, using
their adroit mouths to carve statuettes of solid stone. Even
Uigor was allowed to take part, playing the violus, drawing rich vibrato tones
as Emerson joined in with his dulcimer. The wounded starman had another
unpredictable outburst of song, each verse pouring whole from some
recessed memory. "In
a cottage of Fife, lived a man and wife, who, believe me, were comical folk; For to
people's surprise, they both saw with their eyes, and their tongues moved
whenever they spoke!" Then,
as the feast was hitting its stride, there came a rude interruption. Staccato
flashes lit the northwest horizon, outlining the distant bulk of Blaze
Mountain, drawing everyone to the balcony rim. Duras
passed before sounds arrived, smeared by distance to murmuring growls. Sara
pictured lightning and thunder-like the storm that had drenched the badlands
lately, drumming at her pain-soaked delirium. But then a chill coursed her
spine, and she felt glad to have Emerson nearby. Some apprentices counted
intervals separating each flash from its long-retarded echo. Young
Jomah voiced her own thoughts. "Uncle,
is Blaze Mountain erupting?" Kurt's
face had been gaunt and bleak. But it was Uriel who answered, shaking her long
head. "No,
lad. It's not an erufshun. I think ..." She
peered across the poison desert. "I
think it is Ovoon Town." Kurt
found his voice. The words were grim. "Detonations.
Sharp. Well-defined. Bigger than my guild could produce." Realization
quenched all thought of revelry. The biggest city on the Slope was being razed,
and they could only watch, helplessly. Some prayed to the Holy Egg. Others
muttered hollow vows of vengeance. Sara heard one person explain
dispassionately why the outrage was taking place on a clear night-so the
violence would be visible from much of the Slope, a demonstration of
irresistible power. Awed by
the lamentable spectacle, Sara had been incapable of coherent thought. What
filled her mind were images of mothers-hoonish mothers, g'Kek mothers, humans,
and even haughty qheuen queens-clutching their children as they abandoned
flaming, collapsing homes. The visions stirred round her brain like a cyclone
of ashes, till Emerson gave her a double dose of traeki elixir. Dropping
toward a deep, dreamless sleep, she had one last thought. Thank
God that I never accepted Sage Taine's proposal of marriage. . . . I might have
had a child of my own by now. This is
no time . . . to allow so deep a love. Now, by
daylight, Sara found her mind functioning as it had before her accident-rapidly
and logically. She was even able to work out a context for last night's
calamity. fop and Dedinger will preach we should never have had cities in the
first place. They'll say the Galactics did us a favor by destroying Ovoom Town. Sara
recalled legends her mother used to read aloud, from books of folklore covering
many pre-contact Earthling traditions. Most Earth cultures told sagas of some
purported golden age in the past, when people knew more. When they had more
wisdom and power. Many
myths went on to describe angry gods, vengefully toppling the works of prideful
mortals, lest men and women think themselves worthy of the sky. No credible
evidence ever supported such tales, yet the story seemed so common it must
reflect something deep and dour within the human psyche. Maybe
my personal heresy was always a foolish dream, and my notion of
"progress" based on concocted evidence. Even if Uriel and others had
begun to embark on a different path, the point seems moot now. Dedinger
proved right, after all. As in
those legends, the gods have resolved to pound us down. Confirmation
of the outrage came later by semaphore-the same system of flashing mirrors that
had surprised Sara days ago, when a stray beam caught her eye during the steep
climb from XL Using a code based on simplified GalTwo, the jittering signal
followed a twisty route from one Rimmer peak to the next, carrying clipped
reports of devastation by the River Gentt. Then, a
few miduras later, an eyewitness arrived, swooping out of the sky like some
fantastic beast of fable, landing on Uriel's stone parapet. A single human
youth emerged beneath shuddering wings, unstrapping himself after a daring
journey across the wide desert, skimming from one thermal updraft to the next
in a feat that would have caused a sensation during normal times. But
heroism and miraculous deeds are routine during war, Sara thought, as crowds
gathered around the young man. His limbs trembled with exhaustion as he peeled
off the rewq that had protected his eyes above the Spectral Flow. He gave the
Smith a militia salute when Uriel trotted out of the workshop grottoes. "Before
attacking Ovoom Town, the Jophur issued a two-part ultimatum," he
explained in a hoarse voice. "Their first demand is that all g'Keks and
traekis must head to special gathering zones." Uriel
blew air through her nostril fringe, a resigned blast, as if she had expected
something along these lines. "And
the second fortion of the ultinatun?" She had
to wait for her answer. Kepha, the horsewoman from Xi, arrived bearing a glass
of water, which the pilot slurped gratefully, letting streams run down his
chin. Most urrish eyes turned from the unpleasant sight. But Uriel stared
patiently till he finished. "Go
on," she prompted again, when the youth handed the empty glass back to
Kepha with a smile. "Um,"
he resumed. "The Jophur insist that the High Sages must give up the
location of the dolphin ship." "The
dolphin shif?" Uriel's hooves clattered on the flagstones. "We heard
vague stories of this thing. Gossif and conflicting hints told vy the Rothen.
Have the Jophur now revealed what it's all avout?" The
courier tried to nod, only now Tyug had come forward, gripping the youth's head
with several tentacles. He winced as the traeki alchemist secreted ointment for
his sun- and windburns. "It
seems . . . Hey, watch it!" He pushed at the adamant tendrils, then tried
ignoring the traeki altogether. "It
seems these dolphins are the prey that brought both the Rothen and the Jophur
to Galaxy Four in the first place. What's more, the Jophur say the sages must
be in contact with the Earthling ship. Either we give up its location, or face
more destruction, starting with Tarek Town, then lesser hamlets, until no
building is left standing." Kurt
shook his head. "They're bluffin'. Even Galactics couldn't find all our
wood structures, hidden under blur cloth." The
courier seemed less sure. "There are fanatics everywhere who think the end
is here. Some believe the Jophur are agents of destiny, come to set us back on
the Path. All such fools need do is start a fire somewhere near a building and
throw some phosphorus on the flame. The Jophur can sniff the,signal using their
rainbow finder." Rainbow
finder . . . Sara pondered. Oh, he means a spectrograph. Jomah
was aghast. "People would do that?" "It's already happened in a
few places. Some folks have taken their local explosers hostage, forcing them
to set off their charges. Elsewhere, the Jophur have established base camps,
staffed by a dozen stacks and thirty or so robots, gathering nearby citizens
for questioning." His tone was bleak. "You people don't know how
lucky you have it here." Yet
Sara wondered. How could the High Sages possibly give in to such demands? The
g'Kek weren't being taken off-planet in order to restore their star-god status.
As for the traeki, death might seem pleasant compared with the fate planned for
them. Then
there was the "dolphin ship." Even the learned Uriel could only
speculate if the High Sages truly were in contact with a bunch of fugitive
Terran clients. Perhaps
it was emotional fatigue, or a lingering effect of Tyug's drug, but Sara's
attention drifted from the litany of woes recited by the pilot. When he
commenced describing the destruction and death at Ovoom, Sara steered her
wheelchair to join Emerson, standing near the courier's glider. The
starman stroked its lacy wings and delicate spars, beaming with appreciation of
its ingenious design. At first Sara thought it must be the same little flier
she had seen displayed in a Biblos museum case-the last of its kind, left over
from those fabled days just after the Tabernacle arrived, when brave aerial
scouts helped human colonists survive their early wars. Over time, the art had
been lost for lack of high-tech materials. But
this machine is new! Sara
recognized g'Kek weaving patterns in the fine fabric, which felt slick to the
touch. "It
is a traeki secretion," explained Tyug, having also abandoned the crowd
surrounding the young messenger. The alchemist shared Emerson's preference for
physical things, not words. "i/we
sample-tasted a thread. The polymer is a clever filamentary structure based on
mule fiber. No doubt it will find other uses in piduras to come, as our varied
schemes converge." There
it was again. Hints of a secret stratagem. A scheme no one had yet explained,
though Sara was starting to have suspicions. "Forgive
us/me for interrupting your contemplation, honored Saras and Emersons,"
Tyug went on. "But a scent message has just activated receptor sites on
my,our fifth sensory torus. The simplified meaning is that Sage Purofsky
desires your presences, in proximity to his own." Sara
translated Tyug's awkward phrasing. In
other words, no more goofing off. It's time to get back to work. Back to
Uriel's den of mysteries. Sara
saw that the Smith had already departed, along with Kurt, leaving Chief
Apprentice Urdonnol to finish debriefing the young pilot. Apparently, even such
dire news was less urgent than the task at hand. Calculating
problems in orbital mechanics, Sara pondered. , still don't see bow that will
help get us out of this fix. She
caught Emerson's eye, and with some reluctance he turned away from the glider.
But when the star voyager bent over Sara to tuck in the corners of her lap
blanket, he made eye contact and shared an open smile. Then his strong hands
aimed her wheelchair down a ramp into the mountain, toward Uriel's fantastic
Hall of Spinning Disks. I feel
like a g'Kek, rolling along. Perhaps all humans should spend a week confined
like this, to get an idea what life is like for others. It made
her wonder how the g'Kek used to move about in their "natural"
environment. According to legend, those were artificial colonies floating in
space. Strange places, where many of the assumptions of planet-bound existence
did not hold. Emerson
skirted ruts countless generations of urrish hooves had worn in the stone
floor. He picked up the pace when they passed a vent pouring fumes from the
main forge, keeping his body between her and waves of volcanic heat. In fact,
Sara was almost ready to resume walking on her own. But it felt strangely
warming to wallow for a time in their reversed roles. She had
to admit, he was good at it. Maybe he had a good teacher. Normally,
Prity would have been the one pushing Sara's chair. But the little chimp was
busy, perched on a high stool in Uriel's sanctuary with a pencil clutched in
one furry hand, drawing arcs across sheets of ruled graph paper. Beyond Prity's
work easel stretched a vast underground chamber filled with tubes, pulleys, and
disks, all linked by gears and leather straps-a maze of shapes whirling on a
timber frame, reaching all the way up to a vaulted ceiling. In the sharp glare
of carboacetylene lanterns, tiny figures could be seen scurrying about the
scaffolding, tightening and lubricating-nimble urrish males, among the first
ever to find useful employment outside their wives' pouches, earning a good
income by tending the ornate "hobby" of Uriel the Smith. When
Sara first saw the place, squinting through her fever, she had thought it a
dream vision of hell. Then a wondrous thing happened. The spinning glass shapes
began singing to her. Not in
sound, but light. As they turned, rolling their rims against one another,
narrow beams reflected from mirrored surfaces, glittering like winter moonbeams
on the countless facets of a frozen waterfall. Only there was more to it than
mere gorgeous randomness. Patterns. Rhythms. Some flashes came and went with
the perfect precision of a clock, while others performed complex, wavelike
cycles, like rolling surf. With the fey sensitivity of a bared subconscious,
she had recognized an overlapping harmony of shapes. Ellipses, parabolas,
catenaries ... a nonlinear serenade of geometry. It's a
computer, she had realized, even before regaining the
full faculties of her searching mind. And for the first time since departing
her Dolo Village tree house, she had felt at home. It is
another world. My
world. Mathematics. aae HE
MIGHT HAVE STAYED DOWN LONGER. BUT AFTER three or four miduras, the air in his
leg bladders started growing stale. Even a full-size blue qheuen needs to
breathe at least a dozen times a day. So by the time filtered sunlight
penetrated to his murky refuge, Blade knew he must abandon the cool river
bottom that had sheltered him through the night's long firestorm. He fought the
Gentt's current, digging all five claws into the muddy bank, climbing upward
till at last it was possible to raise his vision cupola above the water's
smeary surface. It felt
as if he had arrived at damnation day. The
fabled towers of Ovoom Town had survived the deconstruction age, then half a million
years of wind and rain. Vanished were the sophisticated machines' that made it
a vibrant Galactic outpost. Those had been taken long ago by the departing
Buyur, along with nearly every windowpane. Yet, even despite ten thousand
gaping openings, the surviving shells had been luxury palaces to the six exile
races-providing room for hundreds of apartments and workshops-all linked by
shrewd wooden bridges, ramps, and camouflage lattices. Now
only a few jagged stumps protruded through a haze of dust and soot. Sunshine
beat down from a glaring sky, showing how futile every cautious effort at
concealment had been. Picking
his way along the riverbank, now cluttered with blocks of shattered stone,
Blade encountered a more gruesome kind of debris-bodies floating in back eddies
of the river, along with varied dismembered parts . . . biped limbs, g'Kek
wheels, and traeki toruses. In the qheuen manner, he did not wince or
experience revulsion while claw-stepping past the drifting corpses, but hoped
that someone would organize a collection of the remains for proper mulching.
Little was gained by maundering over the dead. Blade felt more disturbed by the chaos at the docks, where
several collapsing spires had fallen across the riverside piers and warehouses.
Not a single ship or coracle appeared untouched. Pausing
to watch one crew of disconsolate hoons examine their once-beautiful craft,
Blade felt a brief surge of hope when he recognized the ship, and saw its
gleaming wooden hull had survived intact! Then he realized-all the masts and
rigging were gone. Bubbles of disappointment escaped three of five leg vents. Just
yesterday, Blade had booked passage aboard that vessel. Now he might as well
toss the paper ticket from his moisture pouch to join the other flotsam
drifting out to sea. Much of that dross had been alive till last night, when
the starry sky lit up with the spectacle of a Galactic god ship, arriving well
ahead of its own shock wave, announcing its sudden arrival instead with a blare
of braking engines. Then it glided a complacent circle above Ovoom Town, as
gracefully imperturbable as a fat, predatory fish. The sight had struck Blade
as both beautiful and terrible. , At last, an amplified voice boomed forth,
declaring a ritual ultimatum in a dense, traekilike dialect of Galactic Two. Blade
had already been through too many adventures to stand and gawk. The lesson
taught by experience was simple--when someone much bigger and nastier than you
i starts making threats, get out! He barely listened to the roar' of alien
words as he joined an exodus of the prudent. Rac- • ing toward the river, Blade
made it with kiduras to spare, j Even
when ten meters of turbulent brown liquid layi overhead, he could not shut out
what followed. Searing blasts, harsh flashes, and screams, Especially
the screams. Now, under the sun of a new day, Blade found all the concept
facets of his mind overwhelmed by a scene of havoc. The biggest population
center on the Slope, a once vibrant community of art and commerce, lay in
complete ruins. At the center of devastation, buildings had not simply been
toppled, but pulverized to a fine dust that trailed eastward, riding the
prevailing breeze. Had
similar evil already befallen Tarek Town, where the pleasant green Roney met
the icy Bibur? Or Dolo Village, whose fine dam sheltered the prosperous hive of
his aunts and mothers? Though Blade had grown up near humans, he now found that
stress drove Anglic out of his mind. For now, the logic of his private thoughts
worked better in Galactic Six. My
situation-it seems hopeless. To
Mount Guenn-there is no longer a path by ocean ship. With
Sara and the others-I cannot now rendezvous. So much
for my promise . . . So much for my vow. Other
qheuens were rising out of the water nearby, their cupolas bobbing to the
surface like a scattering of corks. Some venturesome blues had already reached
the ruined streets ahead of Blade, offering their strong backs and claws to
assist rescue parties, searching through the rubble of fallen towers for
survivors. He also saw a few reds and several giant grays, who must have
somehow survived the night of horrors without a freshwater refuge. Some
appeared wounded and all were dust-coated, but they set to work alongside hoons,
humans, and others. A
qheuen feels uneasy without a duty to fulfill. Some obligation that can be
satisfied, like a scratched itch, through service. On the original race
homeworld, gray matrons used to exploit that instinct ruthlessly. But Jijo had
changed things, promoting a different kind of fealty. Allegiance to more than a
particular hive or queen. Seeing
no chance that he could accomplish his former goal and catch up with Sara,
Blade consciously rearranged his priority facets, assigning himself a new
short-term agenda. Corpses
meant nothing to him. He was unmoved by the dead majority of Ovoom Town. Yet he
roused his bulk, pumping five legs into rapid motion, rushing to help those
left with a spark of life. Survivors
and rescuers picked through the wreckage with exaggerated care, as if each
overturned stone might conceal danger. Like
most settlements, this one had been mined by a chapter of the Explosers Guild,
preparing the city for deliberate razing if ever the long-prophesied Judgment
Day arrived. But when it finally came, the manner was not as foreseen by the
scrolls. There were no serene, dispassionate officials from the great
Institutes, ordaining evacuation and tidy demolition, then weighing the worth
of each race by how far it had progressed along the Path of Redemption. Instead
there had poured down an abrupt and cruelly impartial cascade of raging flame,
efficient only at killing, igniting some of the carefully placed charges that
the explosers had reverently tended for generations . . . and leaving others
smoldering like booby traps amid the debris. When
the explosers' local headquarters blew up, a huge fireball had risen so high
that it briefly licked the underbelly of the Jophur corvette, forcing a hurried
retreat. Even now, several miduras after the attack, delayed blasts still
rocked random parts of town, disrupting mercy efforts, setting rubble piles
tottering. Matters
improved when urrish volunteers from a nearby caravan galloped into town. With
their sensitive nostrils, the urs sniffed for both unexploded charges and
living flesh. They proved especially good at finding unconscious or hidden
humans, whose scent they found pungent. Miduras
of hard labor merged into a blur. By late afternoon, Blade was still at it, straining
on a rope, helping clear the stubborn obstruction over a buried basement. The
rescue team's ad hoc leader, a hoonish ship captain, boomed out rhythmic
commands. "Hr-r-rm,
now pull, -friends' . . . Again, it's coming! . . . And again'." Blade staggered
as the stone block finally gave way. A pair of nimble lorniks and a lithe
chimpanzee dived through the exposed opening, and soon dragged out a g'Kek with
two -smashed wheel rims. The braincase was intact, however, and all four
eyestalks waved a dance of astounded gratitude. The survivor looked young and
strong. Rims could be repaired, and spokes would reweave all by themselves. But
where will he live until then? Blade wondered, knowing that g'Keks preferred
city life, not the nearby jungle where many of Ovoom's citizens had fled. Will
it be a world worth rolling back to, or one filled with Jophur-designed viruses
and hunter robots, programmed to satisfy an ancient vendetta? The
work crew was about to resume its unending task when a shrill cry escaped the
traeki who had been assigned lookout duty, perched on a nearby rubble pile with
its ring-of-sensors staring in all directions at once. "Observe!
All selves, alertly turn your attentions in the direction indicated!" A pair
of tentacles aimed roughly south and west. Blade lifted his heavy carapace and
tried bringing his cupola to bear, but it was dust-coated and he had no water
to clean it. If only qheuens had been blessed with better eyesight. By
Ifni, right now I'd settle for tear ducts. An
object swam into view, roughly spherical, moving languidly above the forested
horizon, as if bobbing like a cloud. Lacking any perspective for such a strange
sight, Blade could not tell at first how big it was. Perhaps the titanic Jophur
battleship had come, instead of dispatching its little brother! Were the Jophur
returning to finish the job? Blade remembered tales of Galactic war weapons far
worse than the corvette had used last night. Weapons capable of melting a
continent's crust. A mere river would prove no refuge, if the aliens meant to
use such tools. But no.
He saw the globelike surface ripple in an unsteady breeze. It appeared to be
made of fabric, and much smaller than he had thought. Two
more globelike forms followed the leader into view, making a threesome convoy.
Blade instinctively switched organic filters in his cupola, observing them in
infrared. At once he saw that each flying thing carried a sharp heat glow
beneath, suspended by cables from the globe itself. Others
standing nearby-those with sharper eyesight- passed through several reactions.
First anxious dread, then puzzlement, and finally a kind of joyful wonder they
expressed with shrill laughter or deep, umbling tones. | "What is it?" asked a
nearby red qheuen, even more ' dust-blind
than Blade. "I
think-" Blade began to answer. But then a human cut in,
shading his eyes with both hands. "They're
balloons! By Drake and Ur-Chown . . . they're
hot air balloons!" A short
time later, even the qheuens could make out shapes hung beneath the bulging
gasbags. Urrish figures standing in wicker baskets, tending fires that
intermittently flared with sudden, near-volcanic heat. Blade then realized who
had come, as if out of the orange setting sun. The
smiths of Blaze Mountain must have seen last night's calamity from their nearby
mountain sanctum. The smiths were coming to help succor their neighbors. It
seemed blasphemous, in a strange way. For the Sacred Scrolls had always spoken
of doom arriving from the fearsome open sky. Now it
seemed the cloudless heavens could also bring virtue. HE WAS
TOO BUSY NOW TO FEEL RACKED WITH conscience pangs. As commotion at the secret
base neared a fever pitch, Lester had no time left for wal- | lowing in guilt.
There were slurry tubes to inspect-a pipe- i line threading its meandering way
through the boo forest, ' carrying noxious fluids from the traeki synthesis
gang to tall, slender vats where it congealed into a paste of chemically
constrained hell. Lester
also had to approve a new machine for winding league after league of strong
fiber cord around massive j trunks of greatboo, multiplying their strength a
thousand-fold. Then
there was the matter of kindling beetles. One of his assistants had found a new
use for an old pest-a dangerous, Buyur-modified insect that most Sixers grew up
loathing, but one that might now solve an irksome technical problem. The idea
seemed promising, but needed more tests before being incorporated in the plan. Piece
by piece, the scheme progressed from Wild-Eyed Fantasy all the way to Desperate
Gamble. In fact, a local hoonish bookie was said to be covering bets at only
sixty to one against eventual success-the best odds so far. Of
course, each time they overcame a problem, it was replaced by three more. That
was expected, and Lester even came to look upon the growing complexity as a
blessing. Keeping busy was the only effective way to fight off the same images
that haunted his mind, replaying over and over again. A
golden mist, falling on Dooden Mesa. Only immersion in work could drive out the
keening cries of g'Kek citizens, trapped by poison rain pouring from a Jophur
cruiser. A
cruiser he had carelessly summoned, by giving in to his greatest
vice-curiosity. "Do
not blame yourself Lester," Ur-Jah counseled in a dialect of GalSeven.
"The enemy would have found Dooden soon anyway. Meanwhile, your research
harvested valuable information. It helped lead to cures for the qheuen and
hoonish plagues. Life consists of trade-offs, my friend." Perhaps.
Lester admitted things might work that way on paper. Especially if you assumed,
as many did, that the poor g'Kek were doomed anyway. That
kind of philosophy comes easier to the urrish, who know that only a fraction of
their offspring can or should survive. We humans wail for a lifetime if we lose
a son or daughter. If we find urs callous, it's good to recall how absurdly
sentimental we seem to them. Lester
tried to think like an urs. He failed. Now
came news from the commandos who so bravely plumbed the lake covering the Glade
of Gathering. Sergeant Jeni Shen reported partial success, freeing some Daniks
from their trapped ship . . . only to lose others to the Jophur, including the
young heretic sage, Lark Koolhan. A net loss, as far as Lester was concerned. What
might the aliens be doing to poor Lark right now? I never should have agreed to
his dangerous plan. Lester realized, he did not have the temperament to be a
war leader. He could not spend people, like fuel for a fire, even as
a price for victory. When
all this was over, assuming anyone survived, he planned
to resign from the Council of Sages and become the most reclusive scholar in
Biblos, creeping like a specter past dusty shelves of ancient tomes. Or else he
might resume his old practice of meditation in the narrow Canyon of the
Blessed, where life's cares were known to vanish under a sweet ocean of
detached oblivion. It
sounded alluring-a chance to retreat from life. But for now, there was simply
too much to do. The
council seldom met anymore. Phwhoon-dau,
who had made a lifelong study of the languages and ways of fabled Galactics,
had responsibility for negotiating with the Jophur. Unfortunately, there seemed
little to haggle about. Just futile pleading for the invaders to change their
many-ringed minds. Phwhoondau sent repeated entreaties to the toroidal aliens,
protesting that the High Sages knew nothing about the much-sought "dolphin
ship." Believe
us, O great Jophur lords, the hoonish sage implored. We have no secret channel
of communication with your prey. The events you speak of were all unrelated . .
. a
series of coincidences. But the Jophur were too angry to believe it. In
attempting to negotiate, Phwhoon-dau was advised by Chorsh, the new traeki
representative. But that replacement for Asx the Wise had few new insights to
offer. As a member of the Tarek Town Explosers Guild, Chorsh was a valued
technician, not an expert on distant Jophur cousins. What Chorsh did have was a
particularly useful talent-a summoning
torus. Shifting summer winds carried the traeki's scent message all over the
Slope-a call from Chorsh to all qualified ring stacks. Come .
. . come now to where you,we are needed.
. . . Hundreds
of them already stood in single file, a chain of fatty heaps that stretched on
for nearly a league, winding amid the gently bending trunks of boo. Each
volunteer squatted on its own feast of decaying matter that work crews kept
stoked, like feeding logs to a steam engine. Chuffing and smoking from
exertion, the chem-synth gang dripped glistening fluids into makeshift troughs
made of split and hollowed saplings, contributing to a trickle that eventually
became a rivulet of foul-smelling liquor. Immobile
and speechless, they hardly looked like sentient beings. More like tall, greasy
beehives, laid one after another along a twisty road. But that image was
deceiving. Lester saw swathes of color flash across the body of one nearby
traeki-a subtle interplay of shades that rippled first between the stack's
component rings, as if they were holding conversations among themselves. Then
the pattern coalesced, creating a unified shape of light and shadows at the
points that lay nearest to the traeki's neighbors, on either side. Those
stacks, in turn, responded with changes in their own surfaces. Lester
recognized the wavelike motif-traeki laughter. The workers were sharing jokes,
among their own rings and from stack to stack. They
are the strangest of the Six, Lester thought. And yet we understand them . . .
and they, us. I doubt
even the sophisticates of the Five Galaxies can say the same thing about the
Jophur. Out there, none of their advanced science could achieve what we have
simply by living next to traeki, day in and day out. It was
pretty crude humor, Lester could tell. Many of these workers were pharmacists,
back in their home villages all over the Slope. The one nearest Lester had been
speculating about alternative uses of the stuff they were making-perhaps how it
might also serve as a cure for the perennial problem of hoonish constipation .
. . especially if accompanied by liberal applications of heat. . . . At
least that was how Lester interpreted the language of color. He was far from
expert in its nuances. Anyway, these workers were welcome to a bit of
rough-edged drollery. Their hard labor lasted day in, day out, and still
production lagged behind schedule. But
more traeki arrived with each passing midura, following the scent trail emitted
by their sage. Now we
have to hope that the Jophur are too advanced and urbane to use the same
technique, and trace our location by reading the winds. The
qheuen sage, Knife-Bright Insight, bore all the duties of civil administration
on her broad blue back. There
were refugees to relocate, food supplies to organize, and militia units to
dispatch, quashing outbreaks of civil war among the Six. One clear success came
lately in subduing foreign plagues, duplicating the samples Jeni Shen brought
from the Glade Lake, then using a new network of glider couriers to distribute
vaccines. Yet
despite such successes, the social fabric of the Commons continued dissolving.
News arrived telling of sooner bands departing across the official boundaries
of the Slope, seeking to escape the doom threatened for the Six Races. The
Warril Plain was aflame with fighting among hot-tempered urrish clans. And more
bad news kept rolling in. Recent
reports told of several hives of Gray Queens declaring open secession from the
Commons, asserting sovereignty over their ancient domains. Spurred by the
devastation of Ovoom Town, some rebel princesses even rejected their own
official High Sage. "We
accept no guidance from a mere blue, " came word from one gray hive,
snubbing Knife-Bright Insight and resurrecting ancient bigotry. "Come
give us advice when you have a real name." Of course no red or blue qheuen
ever used a name, as such. It was cruel and haughty to mention the handicap,
inherited from ancient days and other worlds. Worse,
rumors claimed that some gray hives had started negotiating with the Jophur on
their own. A
crisis can tear us apart, or draw us together. Lester
checked on the mixed team of qheuens and hoons who were erecting spindly
scaffolding around selected spires of greatboo. Only a small fraction of the
designated trunks had been trimmed and readied, but the crews were getting
better at their unfamiliar task. Some qheuens brought expertise learned from
their grandmothers, who in olden times used to maintain fearsome catapults at
Tarek Town, dominating two rivers until a great siege toppled that ancient
reign. So much
activity might be detectable by prying sky eyes. But taller trunks surrounded
each chosen one, drowning the tumult in a vast sea of Brobdingnagian grass. Or so
we hope. Guiding
the work, urrish and human craft workers pored over ancient designs found in a
single rare Biblos text, dating from pre-contact days, dealing with an obscure
wolfling technology that no Galactic power had needed or used for a billion
years. Side by side, men and women joined their urs colleagues, adapting the
book's peculiar concepts, translating its strange recipes to native materials
and their own cottage skills. Conditions
were spartan. Many volunteers had already suffered privation, hiking great
distances along steep mountain trails to reach this tract of tall green
columns, stretching like a prairie as far as any eye could see. All
recruits shared a single motive-finding a way for the Commons of Six Races to
fight back. Amid
the shouting throng, it was Ur-Jah who brought order out of chaos, galloping
from one site to the next, making sure the traeki synthesists had food and raw
material, and that every filament was wound tight. Of all the High Sages,
Ur-Jah was most qualified to share Lester's job of supervision. Her pelt might
be ragged with age and her brood pouches dry, but the mind in that narrow skull
was sharp-and more pragmatic than Lester's had ever been. Of the
High Sages, that left only Vubben. Judicious
and knowing. Deep in perception. Leader of a sept that had been marked long ago
for destruction by foes who never forgot, and never gave up. Among Jijo's exile
races, Vubben's folk had been first to brave Izmunuti's stiffening winds,
seeking Jijo's bright shoal almost two thousand years ago. The
wheeled g'Kek-both amiable and mysterious. Neighborly,
if weird. Elfin
but reliable. Faceless,
yet as open as a book. How
lessened the universe would be without them! Despite
their difficulty on rough trails, some g'Kek had made it to this remote
mountain base, laboring to weave fabric, or applying their keen eyes to the
problem of making small parts. Yet their own sage was nowhere in sight. Vubben
had gone south, to a sacred place dangerously near the Jophur ship. There, he
was attempting in secret to commune
with Jijo's highest power. Lester
worried about his wise friend with the squeaky axles,
venturing down there all alone. But someone
has to do it. Soon
we'll know if we have been fools all along ... or if we've put our faith in
something deserving of our love. lallon
la "
DOMAIN OF BLINDING WHITENESS MARKED THE border of the Spectral Flow, where that
slanting shelf of radiant stone abruptly submerged beneath an ocean of
sparkling grains. North of this point commenced a different kind of desert-one
that seemed less hard on the brain and eyes, but just as unforgiving. A desert
where hardy lifeforms dwelled. Dangerous
life-forms. The
escaped heretic's footprints transformed as they crossed the boundary. No
longer did they glow, each with a unique lambency of oil-slick colors, telling
truths and lies. Plunging ahead without pause, the tracks became mere
impressions on the Plain of Sharp Sand-indentations that grew blurrier as gusty
winds stroked the dunes--revealing only that someone recently came this way, a
humanoid biped, favoring his left leg with a limp. Fallen
could tell one more thing-the hiker had been in an awful hurry. "We
can't follow anymore," he told his young companions. "Our mounts are
spent, and this is Dedinger's realm. He knows it better than we do." Reza
and Pahna stared at the sandy desert, no less dismayed than he. But the older
one dissented-a sturdy redhead with a rifle slung over her shoulder. "We
must go on. The heretic knows everything. If he reaches his band of ruffians,
they'll soon follow him back to Xi, attacking us in force. Or else he might
trade our location to the aliens. The man must be stopped!" Despite
her vehemence, Fallen could tell Reza's heart was heavy. For several days they
had chased Dedinger across the wasteland they knew-a vast tract of laminated
rock so poisonous, a sliver under the skin might send you into thrashing fever.
A place almost devoid of life, where daylight raised a spectacle of unlikely
marvels before any unprotected eye-waterfalls and fiery pits, golden cities and
fairy dust. Even night offered no rest, for moonbeams alone could make an
unwary soul shiver as ghost shadows flapped at the edge of sight. Such were the
terrible wonders of the Spectral Plow-in most ways a harsher territory than the
mundane desert just ahead. So harsh that few Jijoans ever thought to explore
its fringes, allowing the secret of Xi to remain safe. Reza
was right to fear the consequences, should Dedinger make good his
escape-especially if the fanatic managed to reforge his alliance with the
horse-hating clan of urrish cultist's called the Urunthai. The fugitive should
have succumbed to the unfamiliar dangers of the Flow by now. The three pursuers
had expected to catch up with him yesterday, if not the day before. It's my
fault, Fallen thought. , was too complacent. Too deliberate. My old bones can't
take a gallop and I would not let the women speed on without me. Who
would guess Dedinger could ride so well after so little practice, driving his
stolen horse with a mixture of care and utter brutality, so the poor beast
expired just two leagues short of this very boundary? Even
after that, his jogging pace kept the gap between them from closing fast
enough. While the Illias preserved their beloved mares, the madman managed to
cross ground that should have killed him first. We are
chasing a strong, resourceful adversary. I'd rather face a hoonish ice hermit,
or even a Gray Champion, than risk this fellow with his back cornered against a
dune. Of course Dedinger must eventually run out of reserves, pushing himself
to the limit. Perhaps the man lay beyond the next drift, sprawled in exhausted
stupor. Well,
it did no harm to hope. "All
right." Fallen nodded. "We'll go. But keep a sharp watch. And be
ready to move quick if I say so. We'll follow the trail till nightfall, then
head back whether he's brought down or not." Reza
and Pahna agreed, nudging their horses to follow. The animals stepped onto hot
sand without enthusiasm, laying their ears back and nickering unhappily.
Color-blind and unimaginative, their breed was largely immune to the haunting
mirages of the Spectral Plow, but they clearly disliked this realm of glaring
brightness. Soon, the three humans removed their rewq symbionts, pulling the
living veils from over their eyes, trading them for urrish-made dark glasses
with polarized coatings made of stretched fish membranes. Ifni,
this is a horrid place, Fallen thought, leaning left in his saddle to make out
the renegade's tracks. But Dedinger is at home here. In
theory, that should not matter. Before ceding the position to his apprentice,
Dwer, Fallen had been chief scout for the Council of Sages-an expert who
supposedly knew every hectare of the Slope. But that was always an
exaggeration. Oh, he had spent some time on this desert, getting to know the
rugged, illiterate men who kept homes under certain hollow dunes, making their
hard living by spear hunting and sifting for spica granules. But I
was much younger in those days, long before Dedinger began preaching to the
sandmen, flattering and convincing them of their righteous perfection. Their
role as leaders, blazing a way for humanity down the Path of Redemption. I'd be
a, fool to think I still qualify as a "scout" in this terrain. Sure
enough, Fallen was taken by surprise when their trail crossed a stretch of
booming sand. The
fugitive's footprints climbed up the side of a dune, following an arc that
would have stressed the mounts to follow. Fallon decided to cut inside of
Dedinger's track, saving time and energy . . . but soon the sandy surface
ceased cushioning the horse's hoofbeats. Instead, low groans echoed with each
footfall, resonating like the sound of tapping on a drum. Cursing, he reined
back. As an apprentice he once took a dare to jump in the center of a booming
dune, and was lucky when it did not collapse beneath him. As it was, he spent
the next pidura nursing an aching skull that kept on ringing from the
reverberations he set off. After
laborious backtracking, they finally got around the obstacle. Now
Dedinger knows we're still after him. Fallon chided himself. Concentrate,
dammit! You have experience, use it! Fallon
glanced back at the young women, whose secret clan of riders chose him to spend
pleasant retirement in their midst, one of just four men dwelling in Xi's
glades. Pahna was still a lanky youth, but Reza had already shared Fallen's bed
on three occasions. The last time she had been kind, overlooking when he fell
asleep too soon, They
claim experience and thoughtfulness are preferable traits in male
companions-qualities that make up for declining stamina. But I wonder if it's a
wise policy. Wouldn 't they be better off keeping a young stallion like Dwer
around, instead? Dwer
was far better equipped for this kind of mission. The lad would have brought
Dedinger back days ago, all tied up in a neat package. Well,
you don't always have the ideal man on hand for every job. I just hope old
Lester and the sages found a good use for Dwer. His gifts are rare. Fallon
had never been quite the "natural" that his apprentice was. In times
past, he used to make up for it with discipline and attention to detail. He had
never been one to let his mind wander during a hunt. But
times change, and a man loses his edge. These days, he could not help drifting
away to the past. Something i always reminded him of other days, his past was
so filled with riches. 'Oh,
the times he used to have, running across the steppe with Ul-ticho, his plains
hunting companion whose grand life was heartbreakingly short. Her fellowship
meant more to Fallon than any human's, before or since. No one else understood
so well the silences within his restless heart. Ul-ticho,
he glad you never saw this year when things,oil i apart. Those times were
better, old friend. Jijo was ours, and even the sky held no threat you and I
couldn't handle. Dedinger's
tracks still lay in plain sight, turning the rim of a great dune. The marks
grew steadily fresher, and his limp grew worse with every step. The fugitive
was near collapse. Assuming he kept going, it would be a half midura, at most,
before the mounted party caught him. And still some distance short of the first
shelter well. Not bad. We may pull this off yet. Assumptions are a luxury that
civilized folk can afford. But not
warriors or people of the land. In those staggered footprints, Fallon read a
reassuring story, and so violated a rule that he used to pound into his
apprentice. They
were riding in the same direction as the wind, so no scent warned the animals
before they turned, slanting down to the shadowed north side of the dune.
Abruptly, a murmur of voices greeted them-shouts, filled with wrath and danger.
Before Fallen's blinking eyes could adjust to the changed light, he and the
women found themselves staring down the shafts of a dozen or more cocked
arbalests, all aimed their way, held by grizzled men wearing cloaks, turbans,
and membrane goggles. Now he
made out a structure just ahead, shielded from the elements, made of piled
stones. Fallon caught a belated sniff of water. A new
well? Built since I last came here as a young man!\ Or did
I forget this one? More likely, the desert men never told the visiting chief
scout all their secret sites. Far better, from their point of view, to let the
High Sages think their maps complete, while holding something in reserve. Lifting
his hands slowly and carefully away from the pistol at his belt, Fallon now saw
Dedinger, sunburned and shaking as he clutched devoted followers-who tenderly
poured water over the prophet's broken lips. We came
so close, The
hands holding Dedinger right now should have been Fallen's. They would have
been, if only things had gone just a little differently. I'm
sorry, Fallon thought, turning in silent apology to Reza and Pahna. Their faces
looked surprised and bleak. I'm an old man . . . and I let you down. Net elo THE
BATTLE FOR DOLO VILLAGE INVOLVED LARGER issues, but the principal thing decided
was who would get to sleep indoors that night. Most of
the combatants were quite young, or very old. In
victory, the winners took possession of ashes. In
defeat, the losers marched forth singing. Aided
by a few qheuen allies, the craft workers started the fight evenly matched
against the fanatical followers ofJop the Zealot. Both sides were angry,
determined, and poorly armed with sticks and cudgels. Every man, woman, and
qheuen of fighting age was away on militia duty, taking the swords and other
weapons with them. Even so, it was a wonder no one died in the melee.
Combatants swelled around the village meeting tree in a sweaty, disorderly
throng, pushing and flailing at men who had been their neighbors and friends,
raising a bedlam that blocked out futile orders by leaders of both sides. It
might have gone on till everyone collapsed in hoarse exhaustion, but the
conflict was abruptly decided when one side got unexpected reinforcements. Brown-clad
men dropped- from the overhanging branches of the garu forest, where gardens of
luscious, protein-rich moss created a rich and unique niche for agile human
farmers. Suddenly outflanked and outnumbered, Jop and his followers turned and
fled the debris-strewn valley. "The
zealots went too far," said one gnarled tree farmer, explaining why his
people dropped their neutrality to intervene. "Even if they had an excuse
to blow up the dam without guidance from the sages . . . they should've warned
the poor qheuens first! A murder committed in the name of reverence is still a
crime. It's too high a toll to pay for following the Path." Nelo
was still catching his breath, so Ariana Foo expressed thanks on the craft
workers' behalf. "There has already been enough blood spilled down the
Bibur's waters. It is well past time for neighbors to care for one another, and
heal these wounds." Despite
confinement to her wheelchair, Ariana had been worth ten warriors during the
brief struggle, without ever aiming or landing a blow. Her renowned.status as
the former High Sage of human sept meant that no antagonist dared confront her.
It was as if a bubble of sanity moved through the mob, interrupting the riot,
which resumed again as soon as she had passed. The sight of her helped the
majority of farmers decide to come down off the garu heights and assist. ; No one
pursued Jop's forces as they retreated on canoes and makeshift rafts to the
Bibur's other bank, re-forming on a crest of high ground separating the river
from a vast | swamp. There the zealots chanted passages from the Sacred
Scrolls, still defiant. Nelo
labored for breath. It felt as if his ribs were half torn loose from his side,
and he could not tell for some time which pains were temporary, and which were
from some fanatic's baton Or quarterstaff. At least nothing seemed broken, and
he grew more confident that his heart wasn't about to burst out of his chest. So,
Dolo has been won back, he thought, finding little to rejoice over in the
triumph. Log Biter was dead, as well as Jobee and half of Nelo's apprentices.
With his paper mill gone, along with the dam and qheuen rookery, the battle had
been largely to decide who would take shelter in the remaining dwellings. A
makeshift infirmary was set up surrounding the traeki pharmacist, on a stretch
of leaf-covered loam. Nelo spent some time sewing cuts with boiled thread, and
laying plaster compresses on bruised comrades and foes alike. The
task of healing and stitching was hardly begun when a messenger dropped down
from the skyway of rope bridges that laced the forest in all directions. Nelo
recognized the lanky teenager, a local girl whose swiftness along the
branch-top ways could not be matched. Still short of breath, she saluted Ariana
Foo and recited a message from the commander of the militia base concealed some
distance downriver. "Two
squads will get here before nightfall," she relayed proudly. "They'll
send tents and other gear by tomorrow morn . . . assuming the Jophur don't blow
the boats up." It was
fast action, but a resigned murmur was all the news merited. Any help now was
too little, and far too late to save the rich, united community Dolo Village
had been. No wonder Jop's people had been less tenacious, more willing to
retreat. In their eyes, they had already won. The
Path of Redemption lies before us. Nelo
walked over to sit on a tree stump near the town exploser, whose destructive
charges were commandeered and misused by Jop's mob. Henrik's shoulders slumped
as he stared over the Bibur, past the shattered ruins of the craft shops, at
the zealots chanting on the other side. Nelo
wondered if his own face looked as bleak and haggard as Henrik's. Probably
not. To his own great surprise, Nelo found himself in a mood to be
philosophical. "Never
have seen such a mess in all my days," he said, with a resigned sigh.
"I guess we're gonna have our hands full, rebuilding." Henrik
shook his head, as if to say, It can't be done. This,
in turn, triggered a flare of resentment from Nelo. What business did Henrik
have, wallowing in self-pity? As an exploser, his professional needs were
small. Assisted by his guild, he could be back in business within a year. But
even if Log Biter's family got help from other qheuen hives, and held a
dam-raising to end all dam-raisings, it would still be years before a
waterwheel, turbine, and power train could convert lake pressure into
industrial muscle. And that would just begin the recovery. Nelo figured he
would devote the rest of his life to building a papery like his former mill. Was
Henrik ashamed his charges had been misused by a panicky rabble? How could
anyone guard against such times as these, when all prophecy went skewed and
awry? Galactics had indeed come to Jijo, but not as foreseen. Instead, month
after month of ambiguity had mixed with alien malevolence to sow confusion
among the Six Races. Jop represented one reaction. Others sought ways to fight
the aliens. In the long run, neither policy would make any difference. We
should have followed a third course-wait and see. Go on
living normal lives until the universe decides what to do with us. Nelo wondered
at his own attitude. The earlier shocked dismay had given way to a strange
feeling. Not numbness. Certainly not elation amid such devastation. I bate
everything that was done here. . . .
and yet ... And
yet, Nelo found a spirit of anticipation rising within. He could already smell fresh-cut timber and
the pungency of boiling pitch. He felt the pulselike pounding of hammers
driving joining pegs, and saws spewing dust across the ground. In his mind were
the beginnings of a sketch for a better workshop. A better mill. All my
life I tended the factory my ancestors left me, making paper in the
time-honored way. It was a pride ful place. A noble calling. But it
wasn't 'mine. Even if
the original design came from settlers who stepped off the Tabernacle, still
wearing some of theil mantle as star gods, Nelo had always known, deep inside-I
could do a better job. Now,
when his years were ripe, he finally had a chance to prove it. The prospect,
was sad, daunting . . . and thrilling. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was
how young it made him feel. "Don't
blame yourself, Henrik," he told the exploser, charitably. "You watch
and see. Everything'll be better'n ever." But the
exploser only shook his head again. He pointed across the river, where Jop's
partisans were now streaming toward the northeastern swamp, carrying canoes and
other burdens on their backs, still singing as they went. "They've
got my reserve supply of powder. Snatched it from the warehouse. I couldn't
stop 'em." Nelo
frowned. "What
good'll it do 'em? Militia's coming, by land and water. Jop can't reach
anywhere else along the river that's worth blowing up." "They
aren't heading along the river," Henrik replied, and Nelo saw it was true. "Then
where?" he wondered aloud. Abruptly,
Nelo knew the answer to his own question, even before Henrik spoke. And that
same instant he also realized there were far more important matters than
rebuilding a paper mill. "Biblos,
" the exploser said, echoing Nelo's thought. The papermaker blinked
silently, unable to make his brain fit around the impending catastrophe.
"The militia . . . can they cut 'em off?" "Doubtful.
But even if they do, it's not Jop alone that has me worried." He
turned to show his eyes for the first time, and they held bleakness. "I'll
bet Jop's bunch ain't the only group heading that way, even as we speak." Rety THE
MORE SHE LEARNED ABOUT STAR GODS, THE less attractive they seemed. I None of 'em is half as smart as a dung-eating
glaver, she thought, while making her way down a long corridor toward the
ship's brig. It must come from using all those computers and smarty-ass
machines to cook your food, make your air, tell you stories, kill your enemies,
tuck you in at night, and foretell your future for you. Count on 'em too much,
and your brain stops working. Rety
had grown more cynical since those early days when Dwer and Lark first brought
her down off the Rimmer Mountains, a half-starved, wide-eyed savage, agog over
the simplest crafts produced on the so-called civilized Slope-all the way from
pottery to woven cloth and paper books. Of course that awe evaporated just as
soon as she sampled real luxury aboard the Rothen station, where Kunn and the
other Daniks flattered her with promises that sent her head spinning. Long
life, strength and beauty . . . cures for all your, aches and scars . . . a
clean, safe place to live under the' protection of our Rothen lords . . . and
all the wonders that come with being a lesser deity, striding among the stars.
There she had met the Rothen patrons of humankind. Her
patrons, they said. Gazing on the benevolent faces of Ro-kenn and Ro-pol, Rety
had allowed herself to see wise, loving parents-unlike those she knew while
growing up in a wild sooner tribe. The Rothen seemed so perfect, so noble and
strong, that Rety almost gave in. She very nearly pledged her heart. But it
proved a lie. Whether or not they really were humanity's patrons did not matter
to her at all. What counted was that the Rothen turned out to be less mighty
than they claimed. For that she could never forgive them. What
use was a protector who couldn't protect? For
half a year, Rety had fled one band of incompetents after another-from her
birth tribe of filthy cretins to the Commons of Six Races. Then from the
Commons to the Rothen. And when the Jophur corvette triumphed over Kunn's
little scout boat, she had seriously contemplated heading down to the swamp
with both hands upraised, offering her services to the ugly ringed things. Now
wouldn't that have galled old Dwer! At one
point, while he was floundering in the muck, talking to his crazy mule-spider
friend, she had actually started toward the ramp of the grounded spaceship,
intending to hammer on the door. Surely the Jophur were like everybody else,
willing to deal for information that was important to them. At a
critical moment, only their stench held her back-an aroma that reminded her of
festering wounds and gangrene . . . fortunately, as it turned out, since the
Jophur also proved unable to defend themselves against the unexpected. So I
got to just keep looking for another way off this mud ball. And who cares what
Dwer thinks of me? At least I don't make fancy excuses for what I do. Rety's
tutor had been the wilderness, whose harsh education taught just one lesson-to
survive, at all cost. She grew up watching as some creatures ate others, then
were eaten by Something stronger still. Lark referred to the "food
chain," but Rety called it the who-kills mountain. Every choice she made
involved trying to climb higher on that mountain, hoping the next step would
take her to the top. So when
the Jophur were beaten and captured by mythical dolphins, it seemed only
natural to hurry aboard the submarine and claim sanctuary with her "Earth
cousins." Only now look where I am, buried under a trash heap at the
bottom of the sea, hiding with a bunch of chattering Eartbfish who have every
monster and star god in space chasing them. In
other words, back at the bottom of the mountain again. Doomed always to be
prey, instead of the hunter. Craxf I
sure do got a knack for picking 'em. There
were a few small compensations. For one
thing, dolphins seemed to hold humans in awe-the same kind as the Daniks had for
their Rothen patrons. Furthermore, the Streaker crew considered Rety and Dwer
"heroes" for their actions in the swamp against the Jophur sky boat.
As a result, she had free run of the ship, including a courtesy password that
let her approach a sealed entrance to the Streaker's brig. For a
brief time both airlock doors were closed, and she knew guards must be
examining her with instruments. Prob'ly checkin' my innards, to see if I'm
smugglin' a laser or something. Rety took a breath and exhaled deeply, washing
away her body's instinctive panic over confinement in a cramped metal space.
It'll pass . . . it'll pass. . . . That
trick had helped her endure years of frustration in her feral tribe, whenever
defeat and brutality seemed to press in from all sides. Don't
react like a savage. If others can stand living in boxes, you can, too ... for
a little while. The
second hatch opened at last, showing Rety a ramp that dropped steeply to a
chamber that was flooded, chesthigh, with water. Ugh. She
disliked the mixed compartments making up a large part of this weird
vessel-half-immersed rooms that were spanned above by dry catwalks, allowing
access to both striding and swimming beings. The liquid felt warm as Rety
sloshed downslope, reminding her of volcanic springs back home in the Gray
Hills, but with an added fizzy quality that left trails of tiny bubbles
wherever she moved. Feigning relaxed confidence, Rety approached the guard
station, where two sentries were assisted by a globular robot whose whirring
antennae watched her acutely. One of the dolphins rode a six-legged walker
unit-without the bug-eyed body armor-enabling it to stride about dry areas of
the ship. The other "fin" wore just a tool harness, using languid
motions of his flippers to face a set of monitor displays. "May
we help you, missss?" the latter one asked, with a tail splash added for
punctuation. "Yeh.
I came to question Kunn an' Jass again. I figure I'll get more out of 'em if I
try it alone." The
guard focused one eye back at her with a dubious expression. The first attempt
had not gone well, when Rety accompanied Lieutenant Tsh't to interrogate the
human prisoners. They had been groggy and unhelpful, still wearing bandages and
medic pacs for their various injuries. While the dolphin officer tried grilling
Kunn about matters back in the Five Galaxies, Rety endured a hot glare of
hatred from her cousin Jass, who murmured the word traitor and spat on the
floor. Who 'd
you figure I betrayed, Joss? she had wondered, eyeing him coldly until his
stare broke first. The Daniks!' Even Kunn isn 't surprised I switched sides,
after the way he treated me. Or do
you mean I've turned against our home clan? The band of grubby savages that
birthed me, then never showed me a day's kindness since? Before
looking away, his eyes showed it was personal. She had arranged for Jass to be
seized, tormented, and pressed into service as Kunn's guide. His being locked
in this metal cage was also her doing. That
thought cheered her up a bit. You gotta admit, Jass, I finally made an
impression on you. But
soon things are gonna get even worse. I'm
gonna make you grateful. Meanwhile,
Kunn told Tsh't that the siege of Earth went on, though eased somewhat by a
strange alliance with the Thennanin. "But
to answer your chief question, there has been no amnesty call by the
Institutes. Several great star clans have blocked a safe-conduct decree to let
your ship come home." Rety
wasn't sure what that meant, but clearly the news was bitter to the dolphins. Then a
new voice intruded from thin air, where a spinning abstract figure suddenly
whirled. "Lieutenant,
please recall instructions. Have the prisoner explain how his vessel tracked us
to this world." Rety
recalled seeing a tremor course down the dolphin's sleek gray flank, perhaps
from irritation over the machine's snide tone. But Tsh't snapped her jaw in a
gesture of submission, and sent her walker unit looming closer to Kunn's bunk.
The human star voyager had nowhere to retreat as her machine pressed close,
threateningly. Rety recalled sweat popping out on the Danik warrior's brow,
giving lie to his false air of calm. Having watched him intimidate others, she
was pleased to see the tables turned. Then it
happened. Some piece of equipment failed, or else the lieutenant's walker took
a misstep. The right front ankle abruptly snapped, sending the dolphin's great
mass crashing forward. Only
lightning reflexes enabled Kunn to scramble out of the way and avoid being
crushed. By the time guards arrived to help Tsh't untangle herself, the dolphin
officer was bruised, angry, and in no humor to continue the interview. But I'm
ready now, Rety thought later, as one of the brig wardens prepared to escort
her down a narrow passage with numbers etched on every hatch. I've got a plan .
. . and this time Kunn and Joss better do as I say. "Are
you sure you want-t to do this now, miss?" the guard asked. "It's
night cycle and the prisoners are asleep." "That's
just how I want 'em. Groggy an' logy. They may blab more." In
fact, Rety hardly cared if Kunn named the admirals of all the fleets in the
Five Galaxies, Her questions would only serve as cover for communication on
another level. She had
been busy in the room the Streakers assigned her-a snug chamber once occupied
by a human named l Dennie Sudman, whose clothes fit her pretty well. Pictures I
on the wall portrayed a young woman with dark hair, who I was said to have gone
missing on some foreign planet years ago, along with several human and dolphin
crew mates. On her cluttered desk Dennie had left a clever machine that spoke
in a much friendlier manner than the sarcastic Niss. It seemed eager to assist
Rety, telling her all about the Terran ship and its surroundings. I've studied
the passages leading from this jail to the OutLock. I can name what kind of
skiffs and star boats they keep there. And most important, these Earthfish
trust me. My passwords should let us out. All I
need is a pilot . . . and someone strong and mean enough to do any fighting, if
we run into trouble. And
luck. Rety had carefully timed things so there was little chance of running
into Dwer along the way. Dwer
knows not to trust me . . . and I can't be sure that bothJass and Kunn together
would be enough to bring him down. Anyway,
all else being equal, she'd rather Dwer didn't get hurt. Maybe
I'll even think about him now and then, while I'm livin' high on some far
galaxy. There
wasn't much else about Jijo that she planned on remembering. Dwer I DON'T
BELONG HERE," HE TRIED TO EXPLAIN. "AND neither does Rety. You've got
to help us get back." "Back where?" The woman seemed honestly
perplexed. "To that seaside swamp, with toxic engine waste and dead Jophur
rings for company? And more Jophur surely on the way?" Once
again, Dwer was having trouble with words. He found it difficult to concentrate
in these sealed spaces they called "starship cabins," where the air
felt so dead. Especially this one, a dimly lit chamber filled with strange
objects Dwer could not hope to understand. Lark or
Sara would do fine here, but I feel lost. I miss the news that comes carried on
the wind. It
didn't help settle his nerves that the person sitting opposite him was the most
beautiful human being Dwer had ever seen, with dark yellow hair and abiding
sadness in her pale eyes. "No,
of course pot," he answered. "There's another place where I'm needed.
. . . And Rety, too." Fine lines crinkled at the edges of her eyes.
"The young hoon, Alvin, wants to let his parents know he's alive, and
report to the urrish sage who sent the four of them on their diving mission.
They want help getting home." "Will
you give it?" "How
can we? Aside from putting our own crewfolk in danger, and perhaps giving our
position away to enemies, it seems unfair to endanger your entire culture with
knowledge that's a curse to any who possess it. "And
yet ..." She
paused. Her scrutiny made Dwer feel like a small child. "Yet,
there is a reticence in your voice. A wariness about your destination that
makes me suspect you're not talking about going home. Not to the tranquil peace
you knew among friends and loved ones, in the land you call the Slope." There
seemed little point in trying to conceal secrets from Gillian Baskin. So Dwer
silently shrugged. "The
girl's tribe, then," the woman guessed. "Rety's folk, in the northern
hills, where you were wounded fighting a war bot with your bare hands." He
looked down, speaking in a low voice. "There's
. . . things that still need to be done there." "Mm.
I can well imagine. Obligations, I suppose? Duties unfulfilled?" Her sigh
was soft and distant sounding. "You see, I know how it is with your kind.
Where your priorities lie." That
made him look up, wondering. What did she mean by that? There was resigned
melancholy in her face . . . plus something like recognition, as if she saw
something familiar in him, wakening affectionate sadness. "Tell
me about it, Dwer. Tell me what you must accomplish. "Tell
me who depends on you." Perhaps
it was the way she phrased her question, or the power of her personality, but
he found himself no longer able to withhold the remaining parts of the story.
The parts he had kept back till now. -about
his job as chief scout of the Commons, seeing to it that no colonist race moved
east of the Rimmers-sparing the rest of Jijo from further infestation.
Enforcing sacred law. -then
how he was ordered to break that law, guiding a mission to tame Rety's savage
cousins-a gamble meant to ensure human survival on Jijo, in case the Slope was
cleansed of sapient life. -how
the four of them-Darnel Ozawa, Dwer, Lena, andJenin-learned the Gray Hills were
no longer a sanctuary when Rety guided a Danik sky chariot to her home
tribe. -how
Dwer and the others vowed to gamble their forfeit lives to win a chance for the
sooner tribe . . . four humans against a killer machine ... a gamble that
succeeded, at great cost. "And
against all odds, I'd say," Gillian Baskin commented. She turned her head,
addressing the third entity sharing the room with them. "I
take it you were there, as well. Tell me, did you bother to help Dwer and the
others? Or were you always a useless nuisance?" After
relating his dour tale, Dwer was startled by a sudden guffaw escaping his own
gut. Fitting words! Clearly, Gillian Baskin understood noor. Mudfoot
lay grooming himself atop a glass-topped display case. Within lay scores of
strange artifacts, backlit and labeled like treasures in the Biblos Museum.
Some light spilled to the foot of another exhibit standing erect nearby-a
mummy, he guessed. When they were boys, Lark once tried to scare Dwer with
spooky book pictures of old-time Earth bodies that had been prepared that way,
instead of being properly mulched. This one looked vaguely human, though he
knew it was anything but. At
Gillian's chiding, Mudfoot stopped licking himself to reply with a panting
grin. Again, Dwer imagined what the look might mean. Who,
me, lady? Don't you know I fought the whole battle and saved everybody's skins,
all by myself? After
his experience with telepathic mule spiders, Dwer did not dismiss the
possibility that it was more than imagination. The noor showed no reaction when
he tried mind speaking, but that proved nothing. Gillian
had also tried various techniques to make the noor talk-first asking Alvin to
smother the creature with umble songs, then keeping Mudfoot away from the young
hoon, locking it instead in this dim office for miduras, with only the ancient mummy
for company. The Niss Machine had badgered the noor in a high-pitched dialect
of GalSeven, frequently using the phrase dear cousin. "Danel
Ozawa tried talkin' to it, too," Dwer told Gillian. "Oh?
And did that seem strange to you?" He
nodded. "There are folktales about talking noor . . . and other critters,
too. But I never expected it from a sage." She
slapped the desktop. "I
think I get it." Gillian
stood up and began pacing-a simple act that she performed with a hunter's
grace, reminding him of the prowl of a she-ligger. "We
call the species tytlal, and where I come from, they talk a blue streak. They
are cousins of the Niss Machine, after a fashion, since the Niss was made by
our allies, the Tymbrimi." "The
Tymb ... I think I heard of 'em. Aren't they the first race Earth contacted,
when our ships went out-" Gillian
nodded. "And a lucky break that turned out to be. Oh, there are plenty of
honorable races and clans in the Five Galaxies. Don't let the present crisis
make you think they're all evil, or religious fanatics. It's just that most of
the moderate alliances have conservative mind-sets. They ponder caution first,
and act only after long deliberation. Too long to help us, I'm afraid. "But
not the Tymbrimi. They are brave and loyal friends. Also, according to many of
the great clans and Institutes, the Tymbrimi are considered quite mad." Dwer
sat up, both intrigued and confused. "Mad?" Gillian
laughed. "I guess a lot of humans would agree. A legend illustrates the
point. It's said that one day the Great Power of the Universe, in exasperation
over some Tymbrimi antic, cried out, 'These creatures must be the most
outrageous beings imaginable!' "Now,
Tymbrimi like nothing better than a challenge. So they took the Great Power's
statement as a dare. When they won official patron status, with license to
uplift new species, they traded away two perfectly normal client races for the
rights to one presapient line that no one else could do anything with." "The
noor," Dwer guessed. Then he corrected himself. "The tytlal." "The
very same. Creatures whose chief delight comes from thwarting, surprising, or
befuddling others, making the Tymbrimi seem staid by comparison. Which brings
us to our quandary. How did they get to Jijo, and why don't they speak?" "Our
Jijo chimpanzees don't speak either, though your Niss-thing showed me moving
pictures of them talking on Earth." "Hmm.
But that's easily explained. Chims were still not very good at it when the
Tabernacle left, bringing your ancestors here. It would be easy to suppress the
talent at that point, in order to let humans pretend . . ." Gillian
snapped her fingers. "Of course." For a moment, her smile reminded
Dwer of Sara, when his sister had been working on some abstract problem and
abruptly saw the light. "Within
a few years of making contact with Galactic civilization, the leaders of Earth
knew we had entered an incredibly dire phase. At best, we might barely hang on
while learning the complex rules of an ancient and dangerous culture. At
worst-" She shrugged. "It naturally seemed prudent to set up an
insurance policy. To plant a seed where humanity might be safe, in case the
worst happened." Her
expression briefly clouded, and Dwer did not need fey sensitivity to
understand. Out there, beyond Izmunuti, the worst was happening, and now it
seemed the fleeing Streaker had exposed the "seed," as well. That's
what Danel was talking about, when he said, "Humans did not come to Jijo
to tread the Path of Redemption. " He meant we were a survival stash . . .
like the poor g'Kek. "When
humans brought chimps with them, they naturally downplayed pans intelligence.
In case the colony were ever found, chims might miss punishment. Perhaps they
could even blend into the forest and survive in Jijo's wilderness, unnoticed by
the judges of the great Institutes." Gillian
whirled to look at Mudfoot. "And that must be what the Tymbrimi did, as
well! They, too, must have snuck down to Jijo. Only, unlike glavers and the other
six races, they planted no colony of their own. Instead, they deposited a
secret cache ... of tytlal." "And
like we did with chimps, they took away their speech." Dwer shook his
head. "But then . , ." He pointed to Mudfoot. Gillian's
eyebrows briefly pursed. "A hidden race within the race? Fully sapient
tytlal, hiding among the others? Why not? After all, your own sages kept
secrets from the rest of you. If Danel Ozawa tried speaking to Mudfoot, it
means someone must have already known about the tytlal, even in those early
days, and kept the confidence all this time." Absently, she reached out to
stroke the noor's sleek fur. Mudfoot
rolled over, presenting his belly. "What
is the key?" she asked the creature. "Some code word? Something like
a Tymbrimi empathy glyph? Why did you talk to the Niss once, then clam
up?" And why
did you follow me across mountains and deserts? Dwer added, silently,
enthralled by the mystery tale, although the complexity combined with his
ever-present claustrophobia to foster a growing headache. "Excuse
me," he said, breaking into Gillian's ruminations. "But can we go
back to the thing I came here about? I know the problems you're wrestling with
are bigger and more important than mine, and I'd help you if I could. But I
can't see any way to change your star-god troubles with my bow and arrows. "I'm
not asking you to risk your ship, and I'm sorry about being a pest. . . . But
if there's any way you could just let me . . . well ... try to swim ashore, I
really do have things I've got to do." That
was when the tytlal rolled back onto his feet, wearing a look of evident
surprise on his narrow face. Spines that normally lay hidden in the fur behind
his ears now stood in stiff bristles. Moreover, Dwer felt sure he glimpsed
something take shape briefly, in the air above Mudfoot. A ghostly wisp, less
than vapor, which seemed to speak of its own accord. So do
I, it said, evidently responding to Dwer's statement. Things
to do. Dwer
rubbed his eyes and would gladly have dismissed the brief specter as another
imagining ... another product of the pummeling his nervous system had gone
through. Only
Gillian must have noted the same event. She blinked a few times, pointed at the
now-worried expression on Mudfoot's face . . . and burst out laughing. Dwer
stared at her, then found himself breaking up, as well. Till that moment, he
had not yet decided about the beautiful Earthwoman. But anyone who could set
Mudfoot back like that must be all right. Rety AS THE
GUARD ESCORTED HER TO THE CAPTIVES' cell, she eyed several air-circulation
grates. Schematics showed the system to be equipped with many safety valves,
and the ducts were much too small for prisoners to squeeze through. But not
for a little urrish male, armed with borrowed laser cutters. Rety's
plan was chancy, and she hated sending her "husband" into the maze of
air pipes. But yee seemed confident that he would not get lost. "this
maze no worse than stinky passages under the grass plain, "he had sniffed
while examining a holographic chart, "it easier than dodging through root
tunnels where urrish grubs and males must scurry, when we have no sweet wife
pouch to lie in." yee curled his long neck in a shrug, "don't you
worry, wife! yee take tools to locked-up men. we do this neat!" That
would be the critical phase. Once Kunn and Jass were beyond the brig airlock,
all the other obstacles should quickly fall. Rety felt positive. Two
prison cells had red lights glaring above reinforced hatches. The far one, she
knew, contained Jophur rings that had been captured in the swamp. The little
g'Kek named Huck was helping the Niss Machine interrogate those captives. Rety
had racked her brain to come up with a way they might fit her plan, but finally
deemed it best to leave them where they were. This
Streaker ship won't dare chase us, once we get a star boat outside . . . but
the Jophur ship might. Especially if those rings had a way to signal their crew
mates. As the
guard approached Kunn's cell, Rety fondled a folded scrap of paper on which she
had laboriously printed instructions, sounding out the words letter by letter,
stretching her newborn literacy to the limit. She knew it must look wrong, but
no one could afford to be picky these days. KUN I
KAN GIT U OF UV HIR WANT TU GO? So went
the first line of the note she planned slipping him, while pretending to ask
questions. If the Danik pilot understood and agreed to the plan, she would
depart and set yee loose to worm his small, lithe body through Streaker's
dueling system. Meanwhile Rety had selected good places to set fires-in a ship
lounge and a cargo locker-to distract the Streaker crew away from this area
while Kunn used smuggled tools to break out. If all went well, they could then
dash for the OutLock, steal a star boat, and escape. There's
just one condition, Kunn. You gotta agree that we get away from here. Away from
these Farthers, away from Daniks and Rothens and Jophur monsters and all that
crap. Away from Jijo. Rety
felt sure he'd accept. Anyway, if he orJass give me any trouble, they'll find
they're dealin' with a different Rety
now. The guard maneuvered his walker unit carefully in the narrow hallway. The
gangly machine had to bend in order for him to bring a key against the door
panel. Finally, it slid aside. Rety glimpsed two bunks within, each supporting
a blanket-covered 'human form. "Hey,
Kunn," she said, crossing the narrow distance and nudging his shoulder.
"Wake up! No more delayin' or foolin' now. These folks want t'know how you
followed 'em. . . ." The
blanket slipped off, revealing his shock of glossy hair, but there was no
tremor of movement. They
must have him doped, she thought. , hope he's not too far under. This can't
wait! Rety
shook harder, rolling Kunn toward her- And
jumped back with a gasp of surprise. The
Danik's face was purple. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and his tongue had
swollen to fill his mouth. The dolphin guard chattered a dismayed squeal in the
instinctive animal language of his kind. Rety struggled with shock. She had
grown up with death, but it took all her force of will to quash the horror
rising in her gorge. Somehow,
she made herself turn toward the other bunk. sara "Ob,
Doctor Faustus was a good man, He whipped his scholars now and then; When he
whipped them he made them dance, Out of Scotland into France, Out of France,
and into Spain, Then he whipped them back again!" Emerson's
song resonated through the Hall of Spinning Disks, where dust motes sparkled in
narrow shafts of rhythmic light. Sara
winced at the violent lyrics, but the starman clearly enjoyed these outbursts,
gushing from unknown recesses of his scarred brain. He laughed, as did a crowd
of urrish males who followed him, clambering through the scaffolding of Uriel's
fantastic machine, helping him fine-tune each delicate part. The little urs
cackled at Emerson's rough humor, and showed their devotion by diving between
whirling glass plates to tighten a strap here, or a pulley there, wherever he
gestured with quick hand signs. Once an
engineer, always an engineer, Sara thought. At times, Emerson resembled her own
father, who might go I silent for days while tending his beloved paper mill,
drawing more satisfaction from the poetry of pulping hammers and rollers than
the white sheets that made literacy possible on a barbaric world. A
parallel occurred to her. Paper
suited the Six Races, who needed a memory storage system that was invisible,row
space. But Uriel's machine has similar traits-an analog computer that no
satellite or spaceship can detect, because it uses no electricity and has no
digital cognizance. Above all, Galactics would never imagine such an ornate
contraption. And yet
it was beautiful in a bizarre way. No wonder she had dreamed shapes and
equations when her eyes first glimpsed this marvel through cracks in her
delirium. Each i time a disk turned against a neighbor's rim, its own axle'
rotated at a speed that varied with the radial point of contact. If that radius
shifted as an independent variable, the rotation changed in response,
describing a nonlinear function. It was a marvelously simple concept . . . and
hellishly hard to put into practice without years of patient trial and error, Uriel
first saw the idea in an old Earth book-a quintes sentially wolfling concept,
briefly used in an old-time Amero-Eurasian war. Soon after, humans discovered
digital computers and abandoned the technique. But here on Mount Guenn, the
urrish smith had extended it to levels never seen before. Much of her
prodigious wealth and passion went into making the concept work. And
urrish haste. Their lives are so short, Uriel must have feared she'd never
finish before she died. In that case, what would her successor do with all
this? An
array of pillars, arches, and boo scaffolding held the turning shafts in proper
alignment, forming a threedimensional maze that stretched away from Sara,
nearly filling the vast chamber. Long ago, this cavity spilled liquid. magma
down the mountain's mighty flanks. Today itj throbbed with a different kind of
creative force. Light
rays played a clever role in the dance of mathematics. Glancing off selected
disks, pulselike reflections fell onto a stretch of black sand that had been
raked smooth across the floor. Each flash affected the grains, causing a slight
spray or rustle. Hillocks grew wherever glimmers landed most often. Uriel
even found a use for lightning crabs, Sara marveled. On
Jijo, some shorelines were known to froth during electrical storms, as these
tiny creatures kicked up sand in frenzied reaction. We thought it might be
static charges in the air, making them behave so. But clearly it is light. I
must tell Lark about this, someday. And
Sara realized something else. The crabs
may be another Buyur gimmick species. Bioengineered servants, reverted to
nature, but keeping their special trait, even after the gene meddlers left. Whatever
their original function, the crabs now served Uriel, whose hooves clattered
nervously as the sandscape swirled under a cascade of sparkling light.
Individual flashes mattered little. It was the summed array over area and time
that added up to solving a complex numerical problem. Near Uriel, the little
chimp, Prity, perched on a high stool with her drawing pad. Prity's tongue
stuck out as she sketched, copying the sand display. Sara had never seen her
little assistant happier. Despite
all this impressive ingenuity, the actual equations being solved were not
profound. Sara had already worked out rough estimates, within a deviance of ten
percent, by using a few simple Delancy approximations. But Lester Cambel needed
both precision and accuracy under a wide range of boundary conditions,
including atmospheric pressure varying with altitude. For that, machine-derived
tables offered advantages. At
least now I understand what it's all for. In her mind, she pictured bustling
activity beneath the towering stems of a boo forest, throngs of workers
laboring, the flow of acrid liquids, and discussions in the hushed, archaic
dialect of science. They
may be crazy-Lester especially. Probably the effort will backfire and make the
aliens more vicious than ever. Dedinger would look at this-along with all the
semaphores, gliders, balloons, and other innovations-and call it the
futile thrashing of the damned. Yet the
attempt is glorious. If they pull it off, I'll know I was right about the Six.
Our destiny was not foretold by the scrolls, or Dedinger's orthodoxy ... or
Lark's, for that matter. It was
unique. Anyway,
if we're to be damned, I'd rather it be for trying. Just
one thing still puzzled her. Sara shook her head and murmured aloud. "Why
me?" Kurt,
the Tarek Town exploser, had acted as if this project desperately needed Sara,
for her professional expertise. But Uriel's machine was already nearly
functional by the time the party arrived from Xi. Prity and Emerson were
helpful at making the analog computer work, and so were books Kurt hand-carried
from Biblos. But Sara found herself with little to contribute. "I
only wish I knew why Uriel asked for me." Her
answer came from the entrance to the computer vault. "Is
that truly the only thing you wish to understand? But that one is easy, Sara.
Uriel did not ask for you at all!" The
speaker was a man of middling stature with a shock of white hair and a stained
beard that stood out as if he were constantly thunderstruck. Kawsh leaves
smoldered in his pipe, a habit chiefly indulged in by male hoons, since the
vapors were too strong for most humans. Politely, Sage Purofsky stood in the
draft of the doorway, and turned away from Sara when exhaling. She
bowed to the senior scholar, known among his peers as the best mind in the
Commons. "Master,
if Uriel doesn't need my help, why was I urged to come? Kurt made it sound
vital." "Did
he? Vital. Well, I suppose it is, Sara. In a different way." Purofsky's
eyes tracked the glitter of rays glancing off spinning disks. His gaze showed
appreciation of Uriel's accomplishment. "Math must pay its way with useful
things," the sage once said. "Even though mere computation is like
bashing down a door because you cannot find the key." Purofsky
had spent his life in search of keys. "It was I who sent for you, my
dear," the aged savant explained after a pause. "And now that you're
recovered from your ill-advised spill down a mountainside, I think it's high
time that I showed you why." It was
still daytime outside, but a starscape spread before Sara. Clever lenses
projected glass photoslides onto a curved wall and ceiling, recreating the
night sky in a wondrous planetarium built by Uriel's predecessor so that even
poor urrish eyesight might explore constellations in detail. Sage Purofsky wore
stars like ornaments on his face and gown, while his shadow cast a man-shaped
nebula across the wall. "I
should start by explaining what I've been up to since you left Biblos . . . has
it really been more than a year, Sara?" "Yes,
Master." "Hmm.
An eventful year. And yet ..." He
worked his jaw for a moment, then shook his head. "Like
you, I had grown discouraged with my former field of study. At last, I decided
to extend the classical, precontact geometrodynamic formalisms beyond the state
they were in when the Tabernacle left the solar system." Sara
stared. "But
I thought you wanted to reconcile pre-contact Earth physics with Galactic
knowledge. To prove that Einstein and Lee had made crude but correct
approximations . . . the way Newton preapproximated Einstein." That in
itself would have been a daunting task-some might say hopeless. According to
reports brought by the Tabernacle, space-time relativity was ill regarded by
those alien experts hired by the Terragens Council to teach modern science to
Earthlings. Galactic instructors disdained as superstition the homegrown
cosmology humans formerly relied on-the basis of crude star probes, crawling
along at sublight speeds. Until the Earthship Vesarius fell through an
undetected hyperanomaly, ending humanity's long isolation, Einstein's heirs had
never found a useful way to go t faster-although some methods had been recorded
in the | Galactic
Library for over a billion years. After
contact, humans scrimped to buy some thirdhand hyperships, and the old
mathemetric models of Hawking, > Purcell, and Lee fell by the wayside. In
trying to show validity for pre-contact physics, Purofsky had taken on a
strange, perhaps forlorn, task. , "I had some promising results at
first, when I restated the !' Serressimi
Exalted Transfer ShUnt in terms compatible with old-fashioned tensor
calculus." "Indeed?"
Sara leaned forward in her chair. "But how did you renormalize all the
quasi-simultaneous infinities? You'd
almost have to assume-" But the
elder sage raised a hand to cut her off, unwilling to be drawn into details. "Plenty
of time for that later, if you're still interested. For now let's just say that
I soon realized the futility of that approach. Earth must by now have
specialists who understand the official Galactic models better than I'll ever
hope to. They have units of the Great Library, and truly modern ' computer
simulators to work with. Suppose I did eventually manage to demonstrate that
our Old Physics was a decent, if limited, approximation? It might win something
for pride, showing that wolflings had been on the right track, on our own. But
nothing new would come of it." Purofsky
shook his head. "No, I decided it was time to | go for broke. I'd plunge
ahead with the old space-time I approach, and see if I could solve a problem
relevant to Jijo-the Eight Starships Mystery." Sara
blinked. "You mean seven, don't you? The question of why so many sooner
races converged on Jijo within a short time, without getting caught? But isn't
that settled?" She pointed at the most brilliant point on the wall.
"Izmunuti started flooding nearby space with carbon chaff twenty centuries
ago. Enough to seed the hollow hail and change our weather patterns, more than
a light-year away. Once the storm wrecked all the watch robots left in orbit by
the Migration Institute, sneakships could get in undetected." "Hr-rm
. . . yes, but not good enough, Sara. From wall inscriptions found in a few
Buyur ruins, we know two transfer points used to serve this system. The other
must have collapsed after the Buyur left." "Well?
That's why the Izmunuti gambit works! A single shrouded access route, and the
great Institutes not scheduled to resurvey the area for another eon. It must be
a fairly unique situation." "Unique.
Hrm, and convenient. So convenient, in fact, that I decided to acquire fresh
data." Purofsky
turned toward the planetarium display, and a distant expression crossed his
shadowed face. After a few duras, Sara realized he must be drifting. That kind
of absentmindedness might be a prerogative of genius back in the cloistered
halls of Biblos, but it was infuriating when he had her keyed up so! She spoke
in a sharp tone. "Master!
You were saying you needed data. Is there really something relevant you can see
with Uriel's simple telescope?" The
scholar blinked, then cocked his head and smiled. "You know, Sara ... I
find it striking that we both spent the last year chasing unconventional
notions. You, a sideline into languages and sociology-yes, I followed your work
with interest. And me, thinking I could pierce secrets of the past using coarse
implements made of reforged Buyur scrap metal and melted sand. "Did
you know, while taking pictures of Izmunuti, I also happened to snap shots of
those starships? The ones causing so much fuss, up north? Caught them entering
orbit . . . though my warning didn't reach the High Sages in time."
Purofsky shrugged. "But to your question. Yes, I managed to learn a few
things, using the apparatus here on Mount Guenn. "Think
again about Jijo's unique conditions, Sara. The collapse of the second transfer
point . . . the carbon flaring of Izmunuti . . . the inevitable attractiveness
of an isolated, shrouded world to sooner refugees. "Now
ponder this-how could beings with minds as agile as the Buyur fail to notice
advance symptoms of these changes, about to commence in nearby space?" "But
the Buyur departed half a million years ago! There PART
EIGHT ILLEGAL
RESETTLEMENT OF FALLOW WORLDS has been a predicament in the Five ; Galaxies for
as (ar back as records exist. There are many causes ror this recurring problem,
but its most enduring basis is the paradox of Reproductive Logic. \-,KC_-!AI\Iv^
beings from countless diverse worlds tend to share one common trait-sellpropagation.
In some species, this maniiests as a conscious desire to have onspring. Among
other races, individuals respond to crude instinctive drives ior either sex or
xim, and spare little active attention to the consequences. However
different the detailed mechanisms may be, the net enect remains the same. left
to their own inclinations, organic liteforms will reproduce their kind in
numbers exceeding the replacement rate. (_,ver periods of time that are quite
brici \by stellar standards, the resulting population increase can iwiitly
overburden the carrying capacity or any selt-sustaintng ecosystem. (SEE:
AJ TACHED SORTED EXAMPLES.) Species
do this because each tecund in may not have been any symptoms back then. Or
else they were subtle." "Perhaps.
And that's where my research comes in. Plus your expertise, I hope. For I
strongly suspect that spacetime anomalies would have been noticeable, even back
then." "Space-time
. . ." Sara realized his use of the archaic Earth-physics term was
intentional. Now it was her turn to spend several silent duras staring at a
blur of stars, sorting implications. "You're
. . . talking about lensing effects, aren't you?" "Sharp
lass," the sage answered approvingly. "And if I can see them-" "Then
the Buyur must have, and foreseen-" "Like
reading an open book! Nor is that all. I asked you here to help confirm
another, more ominous suspicion." Sara
felt a frisson, climbing her spine like some insect with a million ice-cold
feet. "What
do you mean?" Sage
Purofsky briefly closed his eyes. When he reopened them, his gaze seemed alight
with fascination. "Sara,
I believe they planned it this way, from the very start." dtvidual
is the direct descendant of a long chain of successful reproducers. Simply
stated; those who lack traits that enable breeding do not become ancestors.
Traits that encourage reproduction are the traits that get reproduced. To the
best of our knowledge, this evolutionary imperative extends even to the
eco-matrix of hydrogen-based liie-iorms that shares real space in parallel with
our oxygen-breathing civilisation. As for the Third Urder-autonomous
machines--only the relentless application or stringent saleguards has prevented
these nonorganic species From engaging in exponential reproduction, threatening
the basts of all life in the Five Galaxies. For the
vast majority of nonsaplent animal species in natural ecosystems, this tendency
to overbreed is kept in check by starvation, predation, or other limiting
tactors, resulting in quasi-stable states of pseudo-equilibrium, However,
presaplent llfe-forms often use their newfound cleverness to eliminate
competition and indulge in orgiastic breeding Iren^ies, followed by
overutilizatlon of resources. left for too long without proper guidance, such
species can bring about their own ruin through ecological collapse. This is
one of the Seven Reasons why naive life-forms cannot self-evolve to fully
competent sapience. The paradox of Reproductive Logic means that short-term
self-interest will always prevail over long-range planning, unless wisdom is
imposed trom the outside by an adoptive patron line. The
duty of a patron is to make certain that its client race achieves conscious
control over its sell-replicating drives, before it can be granted adult
status. And yet, despite such precautions, even lully ranked cillsen species
have been known to engage in breeding spasms, especially during intervals when
lawlul order temporarily breaks down. (SEE REF: "TIMES OF C,HANOE. } Hasty,
spasmodic episodes of colonisation,exploitation have lett entire galactic ?ones
devastated in their wake. By law,
the prescribed punishment (or races who perpetrate such eco-holocausts can be
complete extinction, down to the racial rootstock. IN
comparison, illegal resettlement of lallow worlds is a problem of
moderate-level criminality, lenalties depend on the degree of damage done, and
whether new presapient lorms salely emerge From the process. Nevertheless,
it is easy to see how the laradox of Keproductive L,ogtc applies here, as well.
L,r else why would Individuals and species sacrifice so much, and risk severe
punishment, in order to dwell in feral secrecy on worlds where they do not
belong' OVER
the course of tens of millions of years, only one solution has ever been lound
for this enduring paradox. I his solution consists of the continuing
application of pragmatic foreslght In the Interests of the common good. In
other words--civilisation. -from A
Galactographic tutorial for Ignorant Vmlning terrans, a special publication of
the library Institute of the Five Galaxies, year 42 EC, in partial satisfaction
of the debt obligation of 35 EC Kaa THEY
MADE LOVE IN A HIDDEN CAVE, NESTLED BEneath seaside cliffs, while tidal
currents pounded nearby, shooting spume fountains high enough to rival the
craggy promontories. At
last! Booming echoes seemed to shout each time a I' wave dashed against the
bluffs, as if everything leading up I to that moment had been prelude, a mere
transport of moj mentum across the vast ocean, passed from one patch of salt
water to the next. As if a wave may only become real by spending itself against
stone. Rolling
echoes reverberated in the sheltered cave. That's me, Kaa thought, listening to
the breakers cry out their brief reification. As a coast fulfills a tide, he
now felt completed by contact with another. Water
sloshed through his open mouth, still throbbing with their passion. The secret
pool had her flavor. Peepoe
rolled along Kaa's side, stroking with her pectoral fins, making his skin
tingle. He responded with a brush of his tail flukes, pleased at how she
quivered with unguarded bliss. This postcoital affection had even deeper
meaning than the brief glory dance of mating. It was like .the difference
between mere need and choice. * Can
the burning stars * Shout
their joy more happily * Than
this simple fin? * His
Trinary haiku came out as it should, almost involuntarily, not mulled or
rehearsed by the frontal lobes that human gene crafters had so thoroughly
palped and reworked during neo-dolphin uplift. The poem's clicks and squeals
diffracted through the cave's grottoes at the same moment they first resonated
in his skull. Peepoe's
reply emerged the same way, candidly languid, with a natural openness that
brooked no lies. *
Simplicity is not * Your
best-known trait, dear Kaa. * Don't
you feel Lucky? * Her
message both thrilled and validated, in a way she must have known he'd
treasure. I have my nickname back, Kaa
mused happily. All
would have been perfection then-a flawless moment-except that something else
intruded on his pleasure. A tremor, faint and glimmering, like the sound shadow
made by a moray eel, passing swiftly in the night, leaving fey shivers in its
wake. Yes,
you have won back your name, whispered a faint voice, as if from a distant
seaquake. Or an iceberg, groaning, a thousand miles away. But to
keep it, you will have to earn it. When
Kaa next checked the progress of his spy drone, it had nearly reached the top
of the Mount Guenn funicular. At the
beginning, Peepoe's decision to stay with him had been more professional than
personal, helping Kaa pilot the special probe up a hollow wooden monorail that
climbed the rutted flank of an extinct volcano. While the bamboolike track was
a marvel of aboriginal engineering, Kaa found it no simple matter guiding the
little robot past sections filled with dirt or debris. He and Peepoe wound up
having to camp in the cave, to monitor it round the clock, instead of returning
to Brookida and the others. A fully autonomous unit could have managed the
journey on its own, but Gillian Baskin had vetoed sending any machine ashore
that might be smart enough to show up on Jophur detectors. A
moment of triumph came as the camera eye finally emerged from the rail, passed
through a camouflaged station, then proceeded down halls of chiseled stone,
trailing its slender fiber comm line like a hurried spider. Kaa had it crawl
along the ceiling-the safest route, offering a good view of the native
workshops. Other
observers tuned in at this point. From the Streaker, Hannes Suessi and his
engineering chiefs remarked on the spacious chambers where urrish and qheuen
smiths tapped ominous heat from lava pools, dipping ladles into nearby pits for
melting, alloying, and casting. Most questions were answered by Ur-ronn, one of
the four young guests whose presence on the Streaker posed such quandaries.
Ur-ronn explained the forge in thickly accented Anglic, revealing tense reserve.
Her service as guide was part of a risky bargain, with the details still being
worked out. "I
do not see Uriel at the hearths." Ur-ronn's voice came tinnily from Kaa's
receiver. "Ferhafs she is ufstairs, in her hovvy roon." Uriel's
hobby room. From the journal of Alvin Hphwayuo, Kaa envisioned an ornately
useless toy gadget of sticks and spinning glass, something to hypnotize away
the ennui of existence on a savage world. He found it puzzling that a leader of
this menaced society would spare time for the arty Rube Goldberg contraption
Alvin had described. Ur-ronn
told Kaa to send the probe down a long hall, past several mazelike turns, then
through an open door into a dim chamber . . . where at last the fabled
apparatus came into view. Peepoe
let out an amazed whistle. *
Advance description *
Leaves the unwary stunned by *
Serendipity! * Yeah,
Kaa agreed, staring at a vaulted chamber that would have been impressive even
on Earth, rilled with crisscrossing timbers and sparkling lights. Alvin's
account did the place injustice, never conveying the complex unity of all the
whirling, spinning pans-for even at a glance one could tell that an underlying
rhythm controlled it all. Each ripple and turn was linked to an elegant,
ever-changing whole. The
scene was splendid, and ultimately baffling. Dim figures could be glimpsed
moving about the scaffolding, making adjustments-several small, scurrying
shapes and at least one bipedal silhouette that looked tentatively human. But
Kaa could not even judge scale properly because most of the machine lay in deep
shadows. Moreover, holovision had been designed to benefit creatures with two
forward-facing eyes. A panel equipped with sono-parallax emitters would have
better suited dolphins. Even
the normally wry Hannes Suessi was struck silent by this florid, twinkling
palace of motion. Finally,
Ur-ronn cut in. "I see Uriel! She is second fron the right, in that groiif
standing near the chinfanzee." Several
four-footed urs nervously watched the machine whirl, next to a chimp with a
sketchpad. Random light pulses dappled their flanks, resembling fauns in a
forest, but Kaa could tell that gray-snouted Uriel must be older than the rest.
As they watched, the chimp showed the smith an array of abstract curves,
commenting on the results with hand signs instead of words. "How
we gonna do this, Streaker?" Kaa asked. "Just barge in and start
t-talking?" Until
lately, it had seemed best for all concerned thai Streaker keep her troubles
separate. But now events made a meeting seem inevitable-even imperative. "Let's
listen before announcing ourselves," Gillian Baskin instructed. "I'd
rather conditions were more private." In
other words, she preferred to contact Uriel, not a whole crowd. Kaa sent the
robot creeping forward. But before any urrish words became audible, another
speaker interrupted from Streaker's end.
"Allow me this indulgence, " fluted the refined voice of the
Niss Machine. "Kaa, will you again focus the main camera on Uriel's
contraption? I wish to pursue a conjecture. " When
Gillian did not object, Kaa had the probe look at the expanse of scaffolding a
second time. "Note
the stretch of sand below, " the Niss urged. "Neat piles accumulate
wherever light falls most frequently. These piles correlate with the drawings
the chimpanzee just showed Uriel. ..." Kaa's
attention jerked away, caught by a slap of Peepoe's tail. "Someone's
c-coming. Peripheral scanner says approaching life signs are Jophur!" Despite
objections from the Niss, Kaa made the probe swivel around. There, framed in
the doorway, they saw a silhouette Streaker's crew had come to loathe--like a
tapered cone of greasy doughnuts. Gillian
Baskin broke in. "Calm down, everyone. . . . I'm sure it's just a
traeki." "Of
course it is," confirmed Ur-ronn. "That stack is Tyug." Kaa
recalled. This was the "chief alchemist" of Mount Guenn Forge.
Uriel's master of chemical synthesis. Kaa brushed reassuringly against Peepoe,
and felt her relax a bit. According to Alvin's journal, traeki were docile
beings quite unlike their starfaring cousins. So he
was caught completely off guard when Tyug turned a row of jewel-like sensor
patches upward, toward the tiny spy probe. Thoughtful curls of orange vapor
steamed from its central vent. Then the topmost ring bulged outward . . . . . .
and abruptly spewed a jet of flying objects, swarming angrily toward the camera
eye! Kaa and the others had time for a brief glimpse of insects-or some local
equivalent-creating a confusing buzz of light and sound with their compound
eyes and fast-beating wings. A horde of blurry creatures converged, surrounding
Kaa's lenses and pickups. Moments
later, all that reached his console was a smear of dizzying static. Gillian A
MAGNIFIED IMAGE FLOATED ABOVE THE Conference table-depicting a small creature,
frozen in flight, whose wings were a rainbow-streaked haze, painful to the eye.
By contrast, the Niss Machine's compact mesh of spiral lines seemed drab and
abstruse. A strain of pique filled its voice. "Might
any of you local children be able to identify this bothersome thing for
us?" The
words were polite enough, though Gillian winced al its insolent manner, j Fortunately,
Alvin Hph-wayuo showed no awareness of being patronized. The young hoon sat
near his friends, throbbing his throat sac in the subsonic range for both noor
beasts, one lounging on each broad shoulder. To the machine's sardonic
question, Alvin nodded amiably, a hu man gesture that seemed completely
unaffected. "Hrm.
That's easy enough. It is a privacy wasp." "Gene-altered
toys of the Buyur," lisped Ur-ronn. "A well-known nuisance." Buck's
four eyestalks waved, peering at the image "Now I see how they got their
name. They normally move so fast, I never got a good look before. It looks kind
of like a tiny rewq, with the membranes turned into wings." Hannes
Suessi grunted, tapping the tabletop with his prosthetic left arm. "Whatever
the origins of these critters, it seems Uriel was armed against the possibility
of being spied upon. Oui probe's been rendered useless. Will she now assume
thatil! was sent by the Jophur?" Ur-ronn
shrugged, an uncertain twist of her long neck "Who
else? How would Uriel have heard of you guys . . . I unless the Jophur
thenselves sfoke of you?" Gillian
agreed. "Then she may destroy the drone, unless we make it speak Anglic
words right away. Niss, can you | and Kaa get a message through?" "We
are working to accomplish that. Commands rise from the control console, but the
bedlam given off by these so-called wasps appears to swamp all bands, thwarting
confirmation. The probe may be effectively inoperable." "Damn.
It would take days to send another. Days we don't have." Gillian turned to
Ur-ronn. "This might make our promise hard to keep." She
hated saying it. Part of her had looked forward to meeting the legendary smith
of Mount Guenn. By all accounts, Uriel was an individual of shrewdness and
insight, whose sway on Jijoan society was notable. "There
is another off-shun," Ur-ronn suggested. "Fly there in ferson." "An
option we must set aside for now," replied Lieutenant Tsh't. "Since
any aircraft sent beyond these shielding waters
would be detected instantly, by the enemy battle ship-p." The
dolphin officer lay on the cushioned pad of a sixlegged walker. Her long, sleek
body took up the end of the conference room farthest from the sooner youths,
her left eye scanning the members of the ship's council. "Believe it or
not-t, and despite our disappointment over the loss of Kaa's probe, there are
other agenda items left to cover." Gillian
understood the lieutenant's testy mood. Her report on the apparent suicide of
the two human prisoners had left many unanswered questions. Moreover,
discipline problems were also on the rise, with a growing faction of the
dolphin crew signing what they called the "Breeding Petition." Gillian
had tried boosting morale by getting out and talking to the dolphins, listening
to their concerns, encouraging them with a patron's touch. Tom had the knack,
like Captain Creideiki. A joke here, a casual parable there. Most
fins grew more inspired and devoted the worse things got. I don't
have the same talent, I guess. Or else this poor crew is just tired after all
the running. Anyway,
the best workers were all outside the ship now, in gangs that labored round the
clock, while she spent hours closeted with the Niss Machine, eliminating one
desperate plan after another. At
last, one of her schemes seemed a bit less awful than the rest. "Tasty,
" the Niss had called it. "Though a rash gamble. Our escape from
Kithrup had more going for it than this ploy." Ship's
Physician Makanee raised the next agenda item, Unlike Tsh't, the elderly
dolphin surgeon did not like to ride around strapped to a machine. Naked,
except for a small tool harness, she took part in the meeting from a clear tube
that ran along one wall of the conference room. Makanee's body glistened with
tiny bubbles from the oxygen-packed fluid that filled Streaker's waterways. "There
is the matter of the Kiqui," she said. "It must be settled,
especially if we are planning to move the ship-p." Gillian
nodded. "I'd hoped to consult about this matter with-" She glanced at
the staticky display from Kaa's lost spy probe, and sighed. "A final
decision must wait, Doctor. Continue preparations and I'll let you know." Hannes
Suessi next reported on the state of Streaker's hull. "Weighed
down like this, she'll be as slow as when we carried around that hollowed-out
Thennanin cruiser, wearing it like a suit of armor. Slower, with all the
probability arrays gummed up by carbon gunk." "So
we must consider transferring to one of the wrecks I. outside?" ; That
would be hard. None had the modifications that made Streaker usable by an
aquatic race. The
mirrored dome containing Suessi's brain and skull nodded. "I
have crews preparing the best of the drossed starships." A chuckle' then
escaped the helmet speaker vent. "Cheer up, everybody! With Ifni's luck,
some of us may yet make it out of here." Perhaps,
Gillian thought. But if we get away from theJijo system, where will we go?
Where else can we run? The
meeting broke up. Everyone, including the sooner kids, had jobs to do. And
Dwer Koolhan will be waiting in my quarters, asking again for passage ashore.
Or to swim, if necessary. To go
back to a savage place where he's needed. Ambivalence
filled her. Dwer was hardly more than a boy. Still, in all the years since
Streaker'was forced to abandon Tom on Kithrup, this was the first time she felt
anything like physical attraction to another. Naturally.
I've always been a sucker for hero types. It
brought to mind the last time she had felt Tom's touch-one final night together
on a metal island, set amid a poison sea. The night before he flew away on a
solarpowered glider, determined to mislead great battle fleets, thwart mighty
foes, and make an opening for Streaker to get away. Gillian's left thigh still
tingled, from time to time . . . the site of his last loving squeeze as he lay
prone on the flimsy little aircraft, grinning before taking off. "I'll
be back before you know it," Tom said-a metaphysically strange expression,
when you thought about it. And she often had. Then he
was gone, winging north, barely skimming the waves, just above the contrary
tides of Kithrup. I
should never have let him go. Sometimes you have to tell a hero that enough is
enough. Let
someone else save the world. As
Gillian made ready to leave the conference room, she saw Alvin, the young hoon,
trying to collect both noors. The female was his longtime pet, to all
appearances a bright nonsapient being, probably derived from natural tytlal
rootstock, dating from before their species' uplift. The Tymbrimi must have
stockpiled a gene pool of their beloved clients here on Jijo, as insurance in
case the worst happened to their clan. A wise precaution, given the number of
enemies they've made. As for
the other one, Mudfoot, Dwer's bane and traveling companion across half a
continent, scans of his brain showed uplift traces throughout. A race
hidden within a race, retaining all the traits the Tymbrimi worked hard to
foster in their clients. In other
words, the tytlal were true sooners, another wave of illegal settlers, but
guarded by added layers of camouflage. So disguised, they might even escape
whatever ruin lay in store for the relatives of Alvin, Huck, Ur-ronn, and
Pincer. But
that can't be the whole story. Caution isn 't a paramount trait in Tymbrimi, or
their clients. They wouldn't go to so much trouble just to hide. Not unless it
was part of something bigger. Alvin
had trouble gathering Mudfoot, who ignored the boy's umble calls while
wandering across the conference table, poking a whiskered nose into debris from
the meeting. Finally, the tytlal stood up on his hind legs to peer at the
frozen projection last sent by Kaa's probe, the image of a privacy wasp.
Mudfoot purred with curiosity. "Niss,"
Gillian said in a low voice. With an
audible pop, the pattern of whirling, shifting lines came into being nearby. "Yes,
Dr. Baskin? Have you changed your mind about hearing my tentative conjectures
about Uriel's intricate device of spinning disks?" "Later,"
she said, and gestured at Mudfoot. Gillian now realized the tytlal was peering
past the blurry display of the privacy wasp, at something in the scene beyond. "I'd
like you to do some enhancements. Find out what that little devil is looking
at." She did
not add that she had detected something on her own. Something only a
psi-sensitive would notice. For the second time, a faint presence could be
felt-vague and ephemeral-floating ever so briefly above Mudfoot's agitated
cranial spines. She could not be sure, but whatever it was had a distinctly
familiar flavor. Call it
Essence of Tymbrimi. Kaa THERE
WAS NO MORE TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE CAVE. The probe appeared to be dead. Even if
it came back to life, any conversation with the natives would be handled from
Streaker's end. Meanwhile, it was past time to return to the habitat. Kaa had a
team he had not seen in days. A human
couple might have paused before exiting the little grotto, looking around to
imprint the site of their first lovemaking. But not dolphins. Neo-fins
experienced nostalgia, just like their human patrons, but they could store
sonar place images in ways humans had to mimic with recording devices.
Streaking outside, joining Peepoe under bright sunshine, Kaa knew the two of
them could revisit the cave anytime they chose, simply by bringing their arched
foreheads together-re-creating its unique echoes in that ancient gulf of memory
some called the Whale Dream. It felt
good to dash across the wide sea again, with Peepoe's lithe body sharing every
kick and leap in perfect unison. Motion equaled joy after any long confinement
to machinery and closed spaces. On the
outward trip, their swim had been exquisite, but tempered by a taut, sexual
tension. Now there were no secrets, no conflicting desires. Most of the return
journey was spent in silent bliss-like a simple mated pair from presapient
days, free of the gifts and burdens of uplift. Finally,
with the habitat drawing near, Kaa felt his mind slip reluctantly back into
Anglic-using rhythms. Compelled to speak, he used the informal click-squeal
dialect fins preferred while swimming. "Well,
here it comes," he sonar-cast during the underwater phase of their next
splash-and-surge cycle. "Back to home and family . . . such as they
are." "Family?"
she replied skeptically. "Brookida, perhaps. As for Mopol and Zhaki,
wouldn't you rather be related to a penguin?" Is my
opinion of them so obvious? After breaching for air, Kaa tried making light of
things with a joke. "Oh,
I give those two some credit. With luck, they won't have set the ocean on fire
while we're gone." Peepoe
laughed, then added, "Do you think they'll be jealous?" Good
question. Dolphins could not conceal interpersonal matters like humans, with
their complex games of emotional deceit. By sonar-scanning each other's
viscera, one seldom had to guess who slept with whom. Envy
wouldn't be a problem if I established clear authority from the start, both as
an officer and as senior-ranking male. Unfortunately,
chain of command was a recent, humanimposed concept. Underneath, bull dolphins
still felt ancient drives to jostle over status and breeding rights. In
fact, Peepoe's choice might reinforce Kaa's position atop the little local hierarchy.
Though I shouldn't need help. Not if I were a real leader. "Jealous."
He pondered, thrusting harder with his flukes, till his beak pushed their
shared shock wave, drawing her along in his wake. "Those two are highly
sexed, so maybe they will be. But at least this way Zhaki and Mopol should stop
bothering you with hopeless propositions." The
young males had made relentless crude suggestions toward Peepoe from the first
day she arrived, even brushing lewdly against her until Kaa had to rebuke them.
While it was true that dolphins had a far different scale of tolerance for such
behavior than humans-and Peepoe was capable of taking care of herself-in this
case the pair were so persistent that Kaa had to dish out tail whacks to make
them back off. "Hopeless?"
Peepoe asked in a teasing tone. "Now you're making assumptions. How do you
know I'm monogamous? Maybe a little harem would suit me fine." Kaa
spread his jaws and aimed a nip at her nearest pectoral fin ... slow enough for
her to slip aside, laughing, before his teeth snapped. "Good,"
she commented. "Pacific Tursiops go in for that kinky stuff. But I prefer
a nice and conservative Atlantean. You're
from Miami-Under, no? Born into an old-fashioned line marriage, I bet." Kaa
grunted. Even the sonar-based dialect of Anglic wasn't easy while speeding at
full throttle. "One
of the Heinlein family variants," he conceded. "The style works
better for dolphins than humans. Why? You looking for a line to marry
into?" "Mnn.
I'd rather start a new one. Always hankered to be the founding matriarch of a
nice little lineage-if the masters of uplift allow it." That
was the eternal Big If. No neo-dolphin could legally breed without permission
from the Terragens Uplift Board. Despite the unusual freedoms humans had given
their clients-voting rights and the trappings of citizenship-Earthclan was
still bound by ancient Galactic law. Improve
your clients, went the basic code of uplift. . . . Or lose them. "You
gotta be kidding," he answered. "If any of us Streaker fins ever do
make it home somehow from this crazed voyage, we'll never face another sapiency
exam from the masters. We may be sterilized on the spot, for all the trouble we
caused. Or else we're heroes, and it'll be sperm-and-seed donations for the
rest of our lives, fostering almost the whole next neo-fin generation. "Either
way, it won't be cozy family life for any of us. Not ever." He
hadn't expected it to come out that way, with an edge of ironic bitterness. But
Peepoe must have seen he was telling the truth. She continued keeping pace
alongside, but her silence told Kaa how much it stung. Great.
Everything felt so fine . . . this wonderful water, the fish we snatched for
breakfast, our lovemaking. Would it have hurt to let her stay in denial for a
while, dreaming of happy endings? Holding on to the fantasy that we might yet
go home, and lead normal lives? "Kaa!"
Brookida's cry made the tiny habitat reverberate. "I'm glad you're back.
Did your mission go well? Wait till you hear what I discovered by correlating
passive seismic echo scans from here to Streaker's sssite. I fed the raw data
into one of Charles Dart's old programs to get tomography images of the
subcrustal zone!" All that, on a single breath. It was what humans would
call a "mouthful." "That's
great, Brookida. But to answer your question, our mission didn't go as well as
we hoped. In fact, we have orders to pack everything up and break camp. Gillian
and Tsh't plan to move the ship." Brookida
shook his mottled gray head. "Won't that risk giving away Streaker's
position?" "The
site's already compromised. Dr. Baskin suspects the Jophur may be
p-preoccupied, but that can't last." It had
been Kaa's mission to find out what the sooners knew about such things. Perhaps
Uriel the Smith had some idea what the Jophur were up to. No one had blamed Kaa
for the failure-not out loud. But he knew the ship's council -was disappointed. I
warned them to send someone better trained at spying. He
looked around. "Where are the others?" Brookida
let out a warbled sigh. "Off
joyriding on Peepoe's sled. Or else vandalizing the fishing nets of local hoons
and qheuens." Damn!
Kaa cursed. He had ordered Zhaki and Mopol to stay within a kilometer of the
dome, and restrict themselves to monitoring spy eyes already in place at Wuphon
Port. Above all, they were supposed to avoid direct contact with the sooners. "They
got bored," Brookida explained. "Now that Streakerhas Alvin and other
local experts aboard, our team is a bit redundant. It's why I've been tracing
the subduction-zone magma flows. My first chance since Kithrup to test out an
idea I had, based on Charles Dart's old research. You recall those strange
beings who lived deep under Kithrup's crust? The ones with the weird,
unpronounceable species name?" Peepoe
spoke up. "You mean the Karrank-k%?" She did a creditable job of
expressing the doubleaspirated slide tone at the end, sounding like a steam
kettle about to explode. "Yes,
quite. Well, I'd been wondering what kind of ecosystem could support them down
there. And it got me thinking . . ." Brookida
halted. Then all three dolphins whirled around as the wall segment behind them
began emitting a low, scraping hum. The grating vibration hurt Kaa's jaw. Soon,
the entire habitat groaned to a rasping sonic frequency Kaa recognized. It's a
saser! Someone's attacking the dome! "Harnesses!" At his
shouted command, they all dived toward the rack where heavy-duty tool kits were
hung, ready for use. Kaa streaked through the open end of his well-worn
apparatus, and felt its many control surfaces slide smoothly into place. A
control cable snaked toward the neural tap behind his left eye. Robotic arms
whirred as he jerked the harness free of its rack. Peepoe's unit popped loose
just half an instant later. A rough
rectangle crept across the opposite wall, above and below the waterline,
glowing hot. "They're
cutting through!" Peepoe cried. "Breathers!"
Kaa shouted. From the back of his harness, a hose swarmed over his blowhole,
covering it with a moist kiss and tight seal. A blast of canned air tasted even
more tinny than the recycled stuff within the dome. Kaa sent a neural command
activating his torch cutter and saser, tools that could second as weapons in
close combat. . . . But
they didn't respond! "Peepoe!"
He shouted. "Check your-" "I'm
helping Brookida!" she cut in. "His harness is stuck!" Kaa
slashed the water with his flukes, squealing a cry of frustration. With no
better options, he interposed his body between theirs and the far wall . . . .
. . which abruptly collapsed in a wave of pummeling froth. Gillian I HAVE
DISCOVERED SEVERAL THINGS OF INTEREST," the Niss Machine told Gillian,
after she wakened from a brief induced sleep. "The first has to do with
that wonderfully ostentatious native machine, built and operated by the urrish
tinkerer, Uriel." Sitting
in her darkened office, she watched a recorded holo image of wheels, pulleys,
and disks, whirling in a flamboyant show of light and action. Not far from
Gillian, the ancient cadaver, Herbie, seemed to regard the same scene. A trick
of shadows made the enigmatic, mummified face seem amused. "Let
me guess. Uriel created a computer." The
Niss reacted with surprise. Its spiral of meshed lines tightened to a knot. "You
knew?" "I
suspected. From the kids' reports, Uriel wouldn't waste time on anything
useless or abstract. She'd want to give her folk something special. The one
thing her founding ancestors absolutely had to throw away." "Possession
of computers. Good point. Dr. Baskin. Uriel could aim no higher than to be like
Prometheus. Bringing her people the fire of calculation." "But
without digital cognizance," she pointed out. "An undetectable
computer." "Indeed.
I found no reference to such a thing in our captured Galactic Library unit. So
I turned to the precontact 2198 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There I
learned about analog computation with mechanical components, which actually had
a brief ascendancy on Earth, using many of the same techniques we see in
Uriel's hall of spinning glass!" "I
remember hearing about this. Maybe Tom mentioned it." "Did
he also mention that the same thing can be achieved using simple electronic
circuits? Networks of resistors, capacitors, and diodes can simulate a variety
of equations. By interconnecting such units, solutions can be worked out for
limited problems. "It
provokes one to consider the military potential of such a system. For instance,
operating sneak-attack weapons without digital controls, using undetectable
guidance systems." The
Niss holo performed a twist that Gillian interpreted as a shrug. "But
then, if the notion were feasible, it would have found its way into the Library
by now." There
it was again. Even Tymbrimi suffered from the same all-pervading
supposition-that anything worth doing must have been done already, over the
course of two billion years. The assumption nearly always proved true. Still,
wolfling humans resented it. "So,"
Gillian prompted. "Have you figured out what Uriel is trying to
compute?" "Ah,
yes." The line motif spun contemplatively. "That is, perhaps. "Or
rather . . . no, I have not." "What's the problem?" The Niss
showed spiky irritation. "My
difficulty is that all the algorithms used by Uriel are of Terran origin." Gillian
nodded. "Naturally.
Her math books came from the so-called Great Printing, when human learning
flooded this world, most of it in the form of pre-contact texts. A mirror image
of what Galactic society did to Earth. On Jijo, we were the ones to unleash an
overpowering wealth of knowledge, engulfing prior beliefs." Hence
also Gillian's recent, weird experience-debating the literary merits of Jules
Verne with a pair of distinctly unhuman youngsters named "Alvin" and
"Huck," whose personalities had little in common with the stodgy
Galactic norm. The
Niss agreed, bowing its tornado of laced lines. "You grasp my difficulty,
Doctor. Despite Tymbrimi sympathy toward Earthlings, my makers were uplifted as
Galactic citizens, with a shared tradition. While details of my programming are
exceptional, I was designed according to proven principles, after eons of
Galactic experience refining digital computers. These precepts clash with
Terran superstitions- " Gillian
coughed behind her hand. The Niss bowed. "Forgive.
I meant to say, Terran lore." "Can
you give an example?" "I
can. Consider the contrast between the word,concepts discrete and continuous. "According
to Galactic science, anything and everything can be accomplished by using
arithmetic. By counting and dividing, using integers and rational fractions.
Sophisticated arithmetic algorithms enable us to understand the behavior of a
star, for instance, by partitioning it into ever-smaller pieces, modeling those
pieces in a simple fashion, then recombining the parts. That is the digital
way." "It
must call for vast amounts of memory and raw computing power." "True,
but these are cheaply provided, enough for any task you might require. "Now
look back at pre-contact human wolflings. Your race spent many centuries as
semicivilized beings, mentally ready to ask sophisticated questions, but
completely • lacking access to transistors, quantum switches, or binary '
processing. Until your great savants, Turing and Von Neumann, finally expressed
the power of digital computers, \ generations of mathematicians had to cope by
using pencil and paper. "The
result? A mix of the brilliant and the inane. Abstract differential analysis
and cabalistic numerology. Algebra, astrology, and geometrical topology. Much
of this amalgam was based on patently absurd concepts, such as j continuity, or
aptly named irrational numbering, or the astonishing notion that there are
layered infinities of the divisibly small." Gillian
sighed an old frustration. "Earth's
best minds tried to explain our math, soon after contact. Again and again we
showed it was self-consistent. That it worked." "Yet
it accomplished nothing that could not be outmatched in moments by calculating
engines like myself. Galactic seers dismissed all the clever equations as
trickery and shortcuts, or else the abstract ravings of savages." She
acceded with a nod. "This
happened once before, you know. In Earth's twentieth century, after the Second
World War, the victors quickly split into opposing camps. Those experts you
mentioned-Turing and von Whoever-they worked in the west, helping set off our
own digital revolution. "Meanwhile,
the east was ruled by a single dictator, I think his name was Steel." "Accessing
the Britannica . . . You mean 'Stalin? Yes, I see the connection. Until his
death, Stalin obstructed Russo-Soviet science for ideological reasons. He
banished work on genetics because it contradicted notions of communist
perfectibility. Moreover, he quashed work on computers, calling them
'decadent.' Even after his passing, many in the east held that calculation was
crude, inele- gant . . . only good for quick approximations. For truth, one
needed pure mathematics." "So
that's why many practitioners in the Old Math still come from Russia."
Gillian chuckled. "It sounds like yet another
inverted image of what happened to Earth, after contact." The
Niss pondered this for a moment. "What
are you implying, Doctor? That Stalin was partly right? That you -Terra ns were
right? That you were onto something the rest of the universe bos missed?" "It
seems unlikely, eh? And yet, isn't that slim possibility the very reason why
your makers assigned you to this ship?" Again,
the meshed lines whirled. "Point
well taken, Dr. Baskin." Gillian
stood up to start moving her body through a series of stretching exercises. The
brief sleep period had helped. Still, there were a hundred problems to address. "Look,"
she asked the Niss Machine. "Is there some point where all this is
heading? Haven't you a clue what problem Uriel is trying to solve?" She
gestured toward the recorded image of pulleys, leather straps, and spinning
disks. "In
a word. Doctor? No. "Oh,
I can tell that Uriel is modeling a set a,simultaneous differential
equations-to use old wolfling terminal- '• ogy. The range of numerical values
being considered I appears to be simple, even trivial. I could outcalculate her
so-called computer with a mere one quadrilliontb of my processing power." "Then
why don't you?" "Because
to me the problem first calls for unlocking the code of a lost language. I need
an opening, a Rosetta stone, after which all should be instantly clear. "In
short, I need help from an Earthling, to suggest what the expressions might be
for." Gillian
shrugged. "Another
tough break, then. We've plumb run out of mathematicians aboard this crate.
Creideiki and Tom both used to play with the Old Math. I know Charles Dart
dabbled, and Takkata-Jim. . . ." She
sighed. "And Emerson D'Anite. He was the last one who could have helped
you." Gillian
moved toward her reference console. "I suppose we can scan the personnel
files to see if there's anyone else-" "That
may not be necessary," the Niss cut in. "It might be
possible to access one of the experts you already mentioned. " Gillian
blinked, unable to believe she heard right. "What
are you talking about?" "You
assigned me another problem-to find out what the feral-sapient tytlal named
'Mudfoot' was staring at, after the council meeting. To achieve that, I
enhanced the spy camera's last scene, before the privacy wasps closed in. "Please
watch carefully, Doctor." The big
display now showed the final clear picture sent by the lost probe. Gillian
found it physically painful to watch the insect's beating wings, and felt
relief when the Niss zoomed toward a corner of the field, pushing the privacy
wasp off-screen. What ballooned outward was a section of the ornate contraption
of Uriel the Smith-a marvel of pure ingenuity and resourcefulness. I did
take one course in the Old Math, before heading to medical school. I could try
to help. The Niss can supply precontact texts. All it wants is insight. Some
wolfling intu- ition . . . Her
thoughts veered, distracted by the vivid enhancement. Looming around her now
was a maze of improvised scaffolding, filled with shadows that were split, here
and there, by glaring points of light. All
this incredible activity must add up to something important. Gillian
saw the apparent goal sought by the Niss-a set of shadows that had the soft
curves of life-forms, precariously balanced in the crisscrossing trusswork.
Some figures were small, with snakelike torsos and tiny legs, brandishing tools
with slim, many-jointed hands. Miniature
urs, she realized. The maintenance crew? A
larger silhouette loomed over these. Gillian gasped when she saw it must be
human! Then she recalled. Of
course. Humans are among Uriel's allies, and skilled technicians. They're also
good climbers, perfect to help keep things running. The
Niss must now be straining its ability to enhance the grainy image. The rate of
magnification slowed, and remaining shadows peeled grudgingly before the
onslaught of computing power. But soon she knew the human was male, from the
shape of neck and shoulders. He was pointing, perhaps indicating a task for the
little urs to perform. Gillian
saw that he had long hair, brushed left over a cruel scar. For an instant she
stared at the puckered wound in his temple. A
moment later, the image clarified to show a smile. Recognition
hit like a blast of chill water. "My
God ... It can't be!" The
Niss crooned, expressing both satisfaction and intrigue. "You
confirm the resemblance? "It
does appear to be engineer Emerson D'Anite. "Our
crew mate whom we thought killed by the Old Ones, back at the Fractal System. "He
whose scout vessel was enveloped by a globe of devouring light, as the Streaker
made its getaway, fleeing by a circuitous route toward Jijo." The
Tymbrimi machine shared one trait with its makers, a deep love of surprise.
That pleasure it now expressed in a hum of satisfaction. "You
ask frequently how anyone could have,allowed us to this forlorn corner of the
universe. Dr. Baskin. "I
believe the question just acquired new levels of cogency. " Kaa HE
NEVER GOT TO PUT UP MUCH OF A FIGHT. How could he, with all his weapons
sabotaged from , the start? Besides, Kaa wasn't sure he could bring him- '<
self to harm one of his own kind. Clearly,
the assailants who attacked the dome had fewer scruples. The
ruined habitat lay far below, its pieces strewn across ' the continental shelf.
Along with Peepoe and Brookida, Kaa barely dodged being pinned by the
collapsing walls, j escaping the maelstrom of metal and froth only to face the
gun barrels of well-armed captors. Herded to the surface, he and the others
panted in nervous exhaustion under the ) waning afternoon sun. ! In
contrast, Mopol's sleek form rested almost languidly atop the speed sled that
Peepoe had brought from Streaker's hiding place, governing the engines and
armaments with impulses sent down his neural tap. Swimming nearby-wearing a
fully charged tool harness-Zhaki explained the situation. "It's
like this, p-pilot-t. . . ." He slurred the words in his eagerness.
"The three of you are gonna do what we sssay, or else." Kaa
tossed his head, using his lower jaw to splash water at Zhaki's eye. * Silly
threats from one * Who's
watched too many movies! * Just
say it, fool. Now! * Mopol
hissed angrily, but Peepoe laughed at Zhaki's predicament. To continue his
menacing speech now would be an act of obedience to Kaa's command. It was a
minor matter-not exactly a logical checkmate. But Kaa felt it valuable to
recover even a little initiative. "We
..." Zhaki blew air and tried again. "Mopol and I are resigning from
the Streaker crew. We're not going back-k, and you can't make us." So
that's what it's about, Kaa thought. "Desertion!"
Brookida sputtered indignantly. "Letting your crew mates down when they
need you mossst!" Mopol
let out a skirl of rejection. "Our
legal term of ssservice ended almossst two years ago." "Right-t,"
Zhaki agreed. "Anyway, we never signed on for this insanity . . . fleeing
like wounded mullet across the galaxies." "You
plan to go sooner," Peepoe fluted, her voice bemused. "Living wild,
in this sea." Mopol
nodded. "Some were already talkin' about it, before we left-t the ship.
This world's a paradise for our kind. The whole crew oughta do it!" "But
even if they don't-t," Zhaki added, "we're gonna." Then he
added a haiku for emphasis. * Six
or seven clans * Did
this already, on shore. * We
have precedent! * Kaa
realized there was nothing he could do to change their minds. The sea would
answer his best arguments with its fine mineral smoothness and the enticing
echoes of tasty fish. in time, the deserters would come to miss the comforts of
civilized life, or grow bored, or realize there are dangers even on a world
without big predators. The water had a faint, prescient choppiness, and Kaa
wondered if either of the rebel fins had ever been outside during a truly
vicious storm. But
then, hadn 't other waves of settlers faced the same choice? The g'Keks,
qbeuens, and even human beings? "The
Jophur may make it hard on you," he told them. "We'll
take our chancess." "And
if you're caught by the Institutes?" Brookida asked. "Your presence
here would be a crime, reflecting badly on-" Mopol
and Zhaki laughed. Even Kaa found that argument easy to dismiss. Humans and
chimps were already on Jijo. If Earthclan suffered collective punishment for
that crime, a few dolphins living offshore could hardly make things worse. "So,
what do you plan to do with us?" Kaa asked. "Why,
nothing much-ch. You and Brookida are free to swim back to your precious
Gillian Basssskin, if you like." "That
could take a week!" Brookida complained. But Kaa struggled against
involuntary spasms in his harness arms, set off by Zhaki's implication. Before
he could unstrangle his speech centers, Peepoe expressed his dread. "Jussst
Kaa and Brookida? You're insisting that I stay?" Mopol
chittered assent with such glee that it came out sounding more like gutter
Primal Delphin than Trinary. "That's
the p-plan," Zhaki confirmed. "We'd make a poor excuse for a c-colony
without at least one female." Kaa
abruptly saw their long-term scheme. Mopol's spell of malingering sickness had
been meant to draw one of Makanee's nurses out here from the ship. Most were
young females, with Peepoe the best catch of all. "Will
you add kidnap-ping to the crime of desertion?" she asked, sounding as
fascinated as fearful. Kaa's
blood surged hot as Zhaki flipped around to streak past Peepoe, gliding along
her belly, upside down. "You
won't call it that-t after a while," Zhaki promised, leaving a trail of
bubbles as he rolled suggestively. "In time, you'll c-call this your
luckiessst day." At that
point, Kaa reached the limit of his endurance. With a lashing of flukes, he
charged- • •
• There
was a blank time after that . . . and some more that went by all in a
haze-half-numb and half-pained. Drifting,
Kaa was sustained by instinct as his body performed the needed motions. Staying
upright. Kicking to bring his blowhole above the watery surface. Breathing.
Submerging once again. Allowing his unraveled self to knit slowly back
together. "C-come
on now, my boy," the helper told him. "It'sss only a bit
farther." Dutifully,
Kaa swam alongside, doing as he .was told. You learned this at an early age . .
. when injured, always obey the helper. It might be your mother, or an auntie,
or even some older male in the pod. Someone always was the helper ... or else
the sea would claim you. In
time, he recalled this helper's name-Brookida. He also began recognizing the
peculiar lap and texture of littoral water, not far from shore. Kaa even
recalled part of what put him in this condition ... a state so dazed that all
speech thoughts were driven from his mind. There
had been a fight. He had charged against harsh odds, hoping to take his enemies
by surprise ... by the sheer audacity of the attack. It took
just one blast of concentrated sound to knock him in a double flip, with
tremors shaking every muscle. Paralyzed, he distantly sensed the two male foes
move off . . . taking his love with them. "You
feeling better now?" Brookida asked. The older dolphin cast a sonar sweep
through Kaa's innards, checking on his progress. Some mental clouds were
parting. Enough to recall a few more facts. The shattered habitat- not worth
revisiting. The hopelessness of pursuing a speed sled, even one burdened with
three passengers, since night was soon approaching. Both
arms of his harness twitched as his rattled brain sent spasmodic commands down
the neural link. Kaa managed to lift his head a bit, the next time he breathed,
and recognized the shape of nearby coastal hills. Brookida was herding him
closer to the native fishing town. "Mopol
and Zhaki wrecked the cables and transmittersss, back at the dome. But-t I
figure we can find the lines leading to the spy drones in Wuphon Port, tap into
those, and contact the ship-p." Some
order was slipping into Kaa's chaotic thoughts. Enough to comprehend a bit of
what the old fin said. This return of sapiency left him with mixed
feelings-relieved that the loss was not permanent, plus regretful longing for
the simplicity that must now go away, replaced by urgent, hopeless needs. Trinary
came back more easily than Anglic. * We
must pursue the- * Spawn
of syphilitic worms, * While
their sound spoor's fresh! * "Yes,
of course. I agree. How awful for Peepoe, poor lass. But first let's contact
Streaker. Maybe our crew mates can help." Kaa
hearkened to the sense in that. One of the first principles of human legality
that dolphins clearly understood was that of a posse, which had analogies in
natural cetacean society. When an offense is committed against the pod, you can
call for help. You should not face trouble alone. He let
Brookida lead him to the site where fiber cables from the onshore spy eyes all
converged below. Booming surf reminded Kaa unhappily of this morning's
lovemaking. The sound made him squeal a Primal protest, railing against the
unfairness of it all. To find a mate and lose her on the same day. The
water tasted of qheuens and hoons . . . plus wooden planks and tar. Kaa rested
at the surface, sifting his mind back together while Brookida dived down to
establish the link. A saser
. . . Zhaki -shot me with a saser beam. Dimly
he realized that Zhaki might have saved his life. If that bolt hadn't stopped
him, Mopol would surely have fired next, using the more powerful unit on the
sled. But
saved me. . . . for what? Ifni
tell me . . . what's the point? Kaa
didn't figure he still had his nickname anymore. A few
hours . . . now it's gone again. She took it with her. Brookida
surfaced next to him, sputtering elation, having achieved quick success. "Got
it-t! Come on, Kaa. I've got Gillian on the line. She wants to talk to
you." Sometimes
life is filled with choices. You get to select which current to ride, which
tide to pull your destiny. Other
times leave you torn . . . wrenched apart . . . as if two orcas had a grip on
you, one biting hard on your flukes while the other plays tug-of-war with your
snout. Kaa
heard the order. He understood it. He
wasn't at all sure he could obey. "I'm
sorry about Peepoe, " Gillian Baskin said, her voice crackling over the
makeshift comm line, conveyed directly to Kaa's auditory nerves. "We'll
rescue her, and deal with •the deserters, when opportunity permits. Believe me,
it's a high priority. "But
this other task is crucial. Our lives may depend on it, Kaa." The human
paused. "I
want you to bead straight into Wuphon Harbor. "It's
time one of us went to town." DO NOT
SQUIRM SO! Instead you should exult in this recovery of something so important.
The Egg. Sooners
wasx MY
RINGS, IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED. Rejoice! Your master torus has ultimately
managed to recover some of the fatty memories you,we/i had thought forever
lost! Those valuable recall tracks that were erased when brave-foolish Asx
melted the wax! That
act of wrong loyalty stymied the usefulness of this hybrid ring stack for much
too long. Some of the Polkjhy crew called us/me a failed experiment. Even the
CaptainLeader questioned this effort . . . this attempt to convert a wild
traeki into our loyal authority on Jijoan affairs. Admittedly,
our/my expertise about the Six Races has been uneven and fitful. Mistakes were
made despite, because of our advice. BUT NOW
I/WE HAVE REACQUIRED THIS SECRET! This conviction that once filled the mulch
center of the diffuse being called Asx. Deep
beneath the melted layers, a few memory tracks remained. So far,
we have seen only insolence from the sooner races-delays and grudging cooperation
with the survey teams we send forth. No
voluntary gathering of g'Kek vermin at designated collection points. No
migration of traeki stacks for appraisal-and-conversion. Swarms
of supervised robots have begun sifting the countryside for groups of g'Kek and
traeki, herding them toward enclosures where their numbers can be concentrated
at higher density. But this task proves laborious and inefficient. It would be
far more convenient if the locals were persuaded to perform the task on their own. 'Worse,
these fallen beings still refuse to admit any knowledge of the Earthling prey
ship. IT
PROVES DIFFICULT TO COERCE GREATER COOPERATION. Attacks
on population centers are met with resignation and dispersal. Their
dour religion confounds us with stoic passivity. It is hard to deprive hope
from a folk that never had much. BUT NOW
WE HAVE A NEW TARGET! One
more meaningful to the Six Races than any of their campsite villages. A target
to convince them of our ruthless resolve. We already
knew something of this Great Egg. Its throbbing radiations were an irritant,
disrupting our instruments, but we dismissed it as a geophysical anomaly.
Psi-resonant formations exist on some worlds. Despite local mythology, our
onboard Library cube can cite other cases. A rare phenomenon, but understood. Only
now we realize how deeply this stone is rooted in the savages' religion. It is
their central object of reverence. Their "soul." How
amusing. How pathetic. And how very convenient. Vubben THE
LAST TIME HIS AGED WHEELS HAD ROLLED | along this dusty trail, it was in the
company of twelve I twelves of white-robed pilgrims-the finest eyes, minds, and
rings of all six races-winding their way past sheer cliffs and steam vents in a
sacred quest to seek guidance from the Holy Egg. For a time, that hopeful
procession had made the canyon walls reverberate with fellowship vibrations-the
Commons united and at peace. Alas,
before reaching its goal, the company fell into a maelstrom of fire, bloodshed,
and despair. Soon the sages and their followers were too busy with survival to
spend time meditating on the ineffable. But during the weeks since, Vubben
could never shake a sense of unfinished business. Of something vital, left
undone. Hence
this solitary return journey, even though it brought his frail wheels all too
near the Jophur foe ship. Vubben's axles and motive spindles throbbed from the
cruel climb, and he longingly recalled that a brave qheuen had volunteered to
carry him all the way here, riding in comfort on a broad gray back. But he
could not accept. Despite creakiness and age, Vubben had to come alone. At last
he reached the final turn before entering the Nest. Vubben paused to catch his
breath and smooth his ruffled thoughts in preparation for the trial ahead. He
used a soft rag to wipe green sweat off all four eye hoods and stalks. It is
said thatg'Kek bodies could never have evolved on a planet. Our wheels and
wbiplike limbs better suit the artificial worlds where our star-god ancestors
dwelled, before they gambled a great wager, won their bet, and lost everything. He
often wondered what it must have been like to abide in some vast spinning city
whose inner space was spanned by countless slender roadways that arched like ribbons
of spun sugar. Intelligent paths that would twist, gyre, and reconnect at your
command, so the way between any two points could be just as straight or
deliciously curved as you liked. To live where a planet's grip did not press
you relentlessly, every dura from birth till death, squashing your rims and
wearing away your bearings with harsh grit. More
than any other sooner race, the g'Kek had to work hard in order to love Jijo.
Our refuge. Our purgatory. Vubben's
eyestalks contracted involuntarily as the Egg once again made its presence
known. A surge of tywush vibrations seemed to rise from the ground. The
sporadic patterning tremors had grown more intense, the nearer he came to the
source. Now Vubben shivered as another wave front stroked his tense spokes,
making his brain resound in its hard case. Words could not express the
sensation, even in Galactic Two or Three. The psi-effect provoked no images or
dramatic emotions. Rather, a feeling of expectation seemed to build, slowly but
steadily, as if some longawaited plan were coming to fruition at long last. The
episode peaked . . . then passed quickly away, still lacking the coherence he
hoped for. Then
let us begin in earnest, Vubben thought. His motor spindles throbbed, helped
along by slender pusher legs, as both wheels turned away from the sunset's
dimming glow, toward mystery. The Egg
loomed above, a rounded shelf of stone that stretched ahead for half an
arrowflight before curving out of sight. Although a century of pilgrimages had worn
a trail of packed pumice, it still took almost a midura for Vubben to roll his
first circuit around the base of the ovoid, whose mass pressed a deep basin in
the flank of a dormant volcano. Along the way, he raised slender arms and
eyestalks, lofting them in gentle benediction, supplementing his mental
entreaty with the language of motion. Help
your people. . . . Vubben urged, seeking to atune his thoughts, harmonizing
them with the cyclical vibrations. Rise
up. Waken. Intervene to save us. . . . Normally,
an effort at communion involved more than one suppliant. Vubben would have
merged his contribution with a hoon's patience, the tenacity of a qheuen, a
traeki's selfless affinity, plus that voracious will to know that made the best
urs and humans seem so much alike, But such a large group might be detected
moving about close to the Jophur. Anyway, he could not ask others to risk being
caught in the company of a g'Kek. With
each pass around the Egg, he sent one eye wafting up to peer at Mount Ingul,
whose spire was visible beyond the crater's rim. There, Phwhoon-dau had
promised to station a semaphore crew to alert Vubben in case of any approaching
threat-or if there were changes in the tense standoff with the aliens. So far,
no warnings were seen flashing from that western peak. But he
faced other distractions, just as disturbing to his train of thought. .
Loocen hovered in the same western quarter of the sky, with a curve of bright
pinpoints shining along the moon's crescent-shaped terminator, dividing sunlit
and shadowed faces. Tradition said those lights were domed cities. The
departing Buyur left them intact, since Loocen had no native ecosystem to
recycle and restore. Time would barely touch them until this fallow galaxy and
its myriad star systems were awarded to new legal tenants, and the spiral arms
once more teemed with commerce. How
those lunar cities must have tempted the first g'Kek exiles, fleeing here,row
their abandoned space habitats, just a few sneak jumps ahead of baying lynch
mobs. Feeling safe at last, after passing through the storms of Izmunuti, those
domes would have enticed them with reminders of home^ A promise of low gravity
and clean, smooth surfaces. But
such places offered no reliable, long-term shelter against relentless enemies.
A planet's surface was better for fugitives, with a life-support system that
needed no computer regulation. A natural world's complex mossiness made it a
fine place to hide, if you were willing to live as primitives, scratching a subsistence
like animals. In
fact, Vubben had few clues of what passed through the original colonists'
minds. The Sacred Scrolls were the only written records from that time, and
they mostly ignored the past, preaching instead how to live in harmony on Jijo,
and promising salvation to those following the Path of Redemption. Vubben
was renowned for skill at reciting those hallowed texts. But in truth, we sages
stopped relying on the scrolls a century ago. He
resumed the solitary pilgrimage, commencing his fourth circuit just as another
tywush wave commenced. Vubben now felt certain the cycles were growing more
coherent. Yet there was also a feeling that much more power lay quiescent, far
below the surface-power he desperately needed to tap. Hoon and
qheuen grandparents passed on testimony that the patterns were more potent in
the last days of Drake the Younger, when the Egg was still warm with birth
heat, fresh from Jijo's womb. Compelling dreams used to flood all six races
back then, convincing all but the most conservative that a true revelation had
come. Politics
also played a role in the great orb's acceptance. Drake and Ur-Chown made eager
proclamations, interpreting the new omen in ways that helped consolidate the
Commons. "This
stone-of-ivisdom is Jijo's gift, a portent, sanctifying the treaties and
ratifying the Great Peace, " they declared, with some success. From then
on, hope became part of the revised religion. Though in deference to the
scrolls, the word itself was seldom used. Now
Vubben sought some of that hope for himself, for his race, and all the Six. He
sought it in signs that the great stone might be stirring once again. I can
feel it happening! If only the Egg rouses far enough, soon enough. But the increasing activity seemed to follow
its own pace, with a momentum that made him feel like an insect, dancing next
to some titanic being. Perhaps,
Vubben suspected, my presence has nothing to do with these changes. What
happens next may not involve me at all. BLade THE
WINDS WERE BLOWING HIM THE WRONG WAY. ' No real surprise there. Weather
patterns on the Slope had been contrary for. more than a year. Anyway,
metaphorically, the Six Races were being buffeted by gales of change. Still, at
the end of a long, eventful day, Blade had more than enough reason to curse the
stubbornly perverse breeze. By late
afternoon, slanting sunshine combed the forests and boo groves into a panorama
of shadows and light. The Rimmers were a phalanx of giant soldiers, their
armored shells blushing before the lowering sun. Below, a vast marsh had given
way to prairie, which in turn became forested hills. Few signs of habitation
could be seen from his great height, though Blade was handicapped by a basic
inability to look directly down. The chitinous bulk of his wide body blocked
any direct view of the ground. How I
would love, just once in my life, to see what lies below my own feet! His
five legs weren't doing much at the moment. The claws dangled over open space,
snapping occasionally in reflex spasms, trying futilely to get a grip on the
clear air, Even more disconcerting, the sensitive feelers around his mouth had
no earth or mud to brush against, probing the many textures of the ground.
Instead, they, too, hung uselessly. Blade felt numb and bare in the direction a
qheuen least liked being exposed. That
had been the hardest part to get used to, after takeoff. To a qheuen, life's
texture is determined by its medium. Sand and salt water to a red. Freshwater
and mud to a blue. A world of stony caverns to imperial grays. Although their
ancestors had starships, Jijo's qheuens seemed poor candidates for flight. As open
country glided majestically past, Blade pondered being the first of his kind in
hundreds of years to soar. Some
adventure! It will be worth telling Log Biter and the other matrons about, when
I return to that homey lodge behind Dolo Dam. The grubs, in their murky den,
will want to hear the story at least forty or fifty times. If only
this voyage would get a little less adventurous, and more predictable. I hoped
to be communicating with Sara by now, not drifting straight toward the enemy's
toothy maw. Above
Blade's cupola and vision strip, he heard valves open with a preliminary
hiss-followed by a roaring burst of heat. Unable to shift or turn his suspended
body, he could only envision the urrish contraptions in a wicker basket
overhead, operating independently, using jets of flame to replenish the hot-air
bag, keeping his balloon to a steady altitude. But not
a steady heading. Everything
was as automatic as the smiths' technology allowed, but there was no escaping
the tyranny of the wind. Blade had just one control to operate-a cord attached
to a distant knife that would rip the balloon open when he pulled, releasing
the buoyant vapors and dropping him out of the sky at a smooth rate-so the
smiths assured-fast, but not too fast. As pilot, he had one duty, to time his
plummet so it ended in a decent-sized body of water. Even
arriving at a fair clip, no mere splash should harm his armored, disklike form.
If a tangle of rope and torn fabric pinned his legs, dragging him down, Blade
could hold his breath long enough to chew his way free and creep ashore. Nevertheless,
it had been hard to convince the survivors' council, ruling over the ruins of
Ovoom Town, to let him try this crazy idea. They naturally doubted his claim
that a blue qheuen should be their next courier. But too
many human boys and girls have died in recent days, rushing about in flimsy
gliders. Urrish balloonists have been breaking necks and legs. All I have to do
is crash into liquid and I'm guaranteed to walk away. Today's crude
circumstances make me an ideal aviator! There
was just one problem. While hooking Blade into this conveyance, the smiths had
assured him the afternoon breeze was reliable this time of year, straight up
the valley of the Gentt. It should waft him all the way to splashdown at
Prosperity Lake within a few miduras, leaving more than enough time to dash at
a rapid qheuen gait and reach the nearest semaphore station by nightfall. His
packet of reports about conditions at ravaged Ovoom would then slide into the
flashing message stream. And then Blade could finally scratch his lingering
duty itch, restoring contact with Sara as he had vowed. Assuming she was at
Mount Guenn, that is. Only
the winds changed, less than a midura after takeoff. The promised quick jaunt
east became a long detour north. Toward
borne, he noted. Unfortunately, the enemy lay in between. At this rate he'd be
shot down before Dolo Village ever hove into view. To make
matters worse, he was starting to get thirsty. This
situation-it is ridiculous, Blade grumbled as sunset brought forth stars. The
breeze broke up into rhythmic, contrary gusts. Several times, these bursts
raised his hopes by shoving the balloon toward peaks where he spied other
semaphore stations, passing soft flashes down the mountain chain. There was
apparently a lot of message activity tonight, much of it heading north. But
whenever some large lake seemed about to pass below the bulging gasbag, another
hard gusset blew in, pushing him at an infuriating angle, back over jagged
rocks and trees. Frustration only heightened his thirst. If this
keeps up, I'll be so dehydrated that I'd dive fora little puddle. Blade
soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the
tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would
recognize-the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of
Six Races gathered to celebrate--and mourn-another year of exile. For some time
after the sun was gone, Loocen's
bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected
the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded
urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another
jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor. Then
Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became
little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all
alone with his imagination, speculating how theJophur were going to deal with
him. Would
there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the
cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with
scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon
making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often
described in garish Earthling novels? Worst
of all, he pictured a "tractor beam," seizing and dragging him down
to torment in some Jophur-designed hell,
The cord-should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the
secret of hot-air balloons? Qheuens
never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked
up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could
be blamed as bad influences. Blade's legs now contracted, quivering as a
calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents. Right'
We mustn't allow this "technology" to fall into the wrong hands ...
or rings. Why, theJophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us! The
upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter-echoes that
cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting
from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his
grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo's dark embrace. , only
hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross. . . . At that
moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the
narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but
again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He
peered at the pale shine. Could
it be . . . ? The
soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off
yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just
a little time to[ estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess
the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mule spider's
acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem. The
glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural
body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality
that- Ifni
and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship! He
stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing so huge, I thought it was
part of the landscape. Worse,
he measured his course and heading. Soon,
I'll be right on top of it. If
anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach. At
once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate. This is
better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that
pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold,
personal gesture toward God. The
point seemed apropos then, and even more so now When faced with casual
extinction by an omnipotent force, i sometimes the only option left to a poor
mortal is to go out" with defiance. That
proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including
sexual. So Blade made i virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present
himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible. Look
THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, wav- ( ing his sensor feelers
suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up
reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his
insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be
killed in anger, not as an afterthought. Waves
of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was
provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I
am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared. Log
Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose. As the
wind pushed him toward the battleship-a thing so huge it rivaled nearby
mountains-all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin
carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did
not find amusing. Then,
to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been
longing for-a lake. A. large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning
the Festival Glade .under hectares of cool snowmelt. If they
don't shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me,
I might yet reach . . . But how
could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him
pinned by star-god instruments. Sure
enough, the tingling of Blade's exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as
if they were being stroked- then stung-by a host of squirming shock worms. Not
a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts,
causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through
mud at armored prey. The
feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he
recalled. Electromagnetic . . . I'm being scanned! Each time he panted breath
through a leg vent, another dura passed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship
must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for? Then a
new thought occurred to Blade. I'm being scanned . . . but can they see me? If
only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays
tended to be better at abstractions-the reason why they took real names-Blade
knewg he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course. Let's
see. In human novels, they speak of "radar" . . radio waves sent out
to bounce of,distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for
instance. But you
only get a good echo if it's something radio mill bounce off. Metal, or some
other hard stuff. \ Blade
quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part,
featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random
directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain
cloud! Now, if
only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon's
height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night ... The
tingling peaked . . . then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked
Blade's underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief
came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink. Now?
Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away? Water
beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust fromt his vent pores. Yet he held
back. Even if his sudden plum, met from the sky didn't draw attention, he would
land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter,
presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had
missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been
programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was. Anyway,
the water gave him a strange feeling. There were flickerings under the
surface-eerie flashes that reinforced his decision to hold back. Each
passing dura ratified the choice, as a separation slowly increased between
Blade and the giant dreadnought, reappearing behind him as a dark curve with
glimmering highlights, divided about a third of the way up by a rippling,
watery line. It made him feel distinctly creepy. Abruptly,
a pinpoint of brilliance flared from the side of the globe ship, seeming to
stab straight toward him. Here it
comes, Blade thought. But the
flaring light was no heat ray. No death beam, after all. Instead, the pinpoint
widened. It became a glowing rectangular aperture. A door. A
mighty big door, Blade realized, wondering what could possibly take up so much
room inside a mammoth star cruiser. Apparently-another
star cruiser. From
the gaping hangar, a sleek cigar shape emerged with a low hum, moving gradually
at first, then accelerating toward Blade. All
right then. Not extinction. Capture. But why send that big thing after me? Perhaps
they saw his obscene gesture, and understood better than he expected. Once
more, Blade readied the rip cord. At the last moment, he would plummet from
their grasp ... or else they'd shoot him as he fell. Or hunter robots would
track him, underwater or overland. Still, it seemed proper to make the effort.
At least I'll get a drink. Again,
night vision gave him trouble. Estimating the corvette's rate of closure proved
futile. In frustration, Blade's thoughts slipped from Anglic and into the
easier grooves of Galactic Six. This
specter of terror-I have seen it before. This thing I saw last-as it burned
down a city. A city of felons-of sooners-my people. His
legs flexed spasmodically as the ship rushed toward him without slowing ...
What the- . . .
and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air. Blade
felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One
anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the
balloon was sucked after the skyship's wake. The
world passed in a blur, teaching him what real Hying was about. Then
the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and passenger with contempt, or
else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the
Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed
air. Vubben AFTER A
TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the
tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts.
Another midura passed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation
deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae
passed overhead. Twinkling abode of the gods, As he
rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of
Vubben's eyes-a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his
trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the
flicker as coded speech. It took
more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it, JOPHUR
SMALLSHIP,DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING
TOWARD EGG. The message
repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a
farther peak, and realized that other semaphore stations must be relaying the
message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite
grasping its significance. Instead,
he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward-an
impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and
pitched like some undulating sea. It was
not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again,
growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension
bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking
without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes
hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for
maximum parallax. The
moment came back to him whole-not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its
splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo's
rough orb. Amid
the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He
was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a massive object from the west. A
deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from
the Glade. Leisurely-according
to those aboard, that is. Somehow,
Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees,
scraping and penetrating Jijo's soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew
intuitive things about the crew within-multiringed entities, far more
self-assured and unified than traeki. Strange
rings. Egotistical and driven. Determined
to wreak havoc. Blade THE
BALLOON'S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONing, he realized. Or else the fuel tank
was running low. Either
way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering
sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently. Finally,
they halted altogether. The
lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the spaceship's
wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pass,
toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade's last chance to pull the rip
cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a
comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik. And I
am the flea. Assuming
he survived when a forest giant snatched him from the sky, someone might hear
his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a
tree? The
phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness-a contradiction in terms-like a
swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki. This
appears to be the year for contradictions. A
branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that
his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still,
he expected another impact at any moment. Instead,
the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a
sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion! And
heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below. Of
course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you 're in
geyser country. The
balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft. The
Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage
Track. The
path leading to the Egg. Blade's
body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it" might
have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never
mattered which way he was "facing." So Blade was ready when the
object he sought came into view. There
it is! The
corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a
searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the
Nest. What is
it planning to do? He
recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum
terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again? But
surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg! Blade
had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now
crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center.
Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity. Finally,
in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense
of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of
moments, and he somehow knew they weren't coming from the Jophur. Indeed,
whatever had just happened-a psi-insult or failed communication-it seemed to
anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight
narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed
down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow ... a staccato series of
crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke
billowed from the point of impact. A
shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade's vents and his legs tightened
spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will
take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more. Of
course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg
into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the
slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six. Blade
urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time. Lark THREE
HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite
different ways. Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superstitious thrill
he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images
seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should
recognize-the Rimmer mountains, for instance-possessed a slippery quality. Odd
perspective foldings conveyed far more than you'd see through a window the same
size . . . especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg. "Your
obstinacy-joint and particular-brought yowl people to this juncture, " the
tall stack of rings said. "Destroying
mere towns did not sway you, since your socalled Sacred Scrolls preach
the,utility of tangible assets. "But
now, observe as our corvette strikes a blow atyow true underpinnings." A
glaring needle struck the Egg. Almost at once, waves of pain engulfed Lark's
chest. Falling back with a cry, he tore at his clothes, trying to fling away
the stone amulet hanging from a thong around his neck. Ling tried to help, but
could not grasp the meaning of his agony. The
ordeal might have killed him, but then it ended as suddenly as it began. The
cutting ray vanished, leaving a smoking scar along the Egg's flank. Ewasx
burbled glad exhalations about "a signal" and "gratifying
surrender." Lark
bunched the fabric of his undershirt around the Egg fragment, wrapping it to
prevent contact with his skin. Only then did he notice that Ling had his head
on her lap, stroking his face, telling him that everything was going to be all
right. Yeah,
sure it is, Lark thought, recognizing a well-meant lie. But the gesture, the
warm contact, was appreciated. As his
eyes unblurred, Lark saw Rann looking his way, The big Danik had cool disdain
in his eyes. Scorn that Lark would react so to the superficial wounding of
rock. Contempt that Ling would soil her hands on a native. And derision that
the Six Races would give in so easily, surrendering to the Jophur in order to
salvage a mere lump of psi-active stone. Rann had already proved willing to
sacrifice himself and all his comrades, to protect his patron race. Clearly, he
thought any lesser courage unworthy. Go kiss
a Rothen 's feet, Lark thought. But he did not speak aloud. The
corvette had turned away from the Egg. Its transmission now showed the camera
gaining altitude, sweeping above dark ridgelines. The
country was familiar. Lark ought to recognize it. Lester
Cambel . . . They're heading straight toward tester . . . and the boo forest. .
. . So. The
sages had chosen to give up whatever mystery project kept them so busy at their
secret base-the work of months-just in order to safeguard the Egg. It
shouldn 't be surprising. It is our holy site, after all. Our prophet. Our
seer. And
yet, he was surprised. In fact,
it was the last thing he would have expected. BlaJ,
aae SILENTLY,
BLADE URGED HIS WINDBLOWN VEHICLE onward, hoping to arrive in time. . . . To do
what? To distract the Jophur for a few duras while they burned him to a cinder,
giving the Egg just that much respite before the main assault resumed? Or
worse, to float on by, screaming and waving his legs, trying futilely to
attract attention from beings who thought him no more important than a cloud? Frustration
boiled. Combat hormones triggered autonomic reactions, causing his cupola to
pull inward, taking the vision strip down beneath his carapace, leaving just a
smooth, armored surface above. That
instinct response might have made sense long ago, when presentient qheuens
fought their battles claw to claw in seaside marshes, on the distant planet
where their patrons later found and uplifted them. But now it was a damned
nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady
rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering
gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and
restore sight. His
vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part
of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things. The
balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time, | widening his field of
view. ' And the
Jophur ship was gone! But . .
. where . . . ? Blade
wondered if it might be right below, in his blind spot. That provoked a surging
fantasy. He saw himself slashing the balloon and dropping onto the cruiser from
above! Landing with a thump, he would scoot along the top until he reached some
point of entry. A hatch thai could be forced, or a glass window to smash. Once
aboard, in close quarters, he'd show them. . . . Oh,
there it is. The
heroic dream image evaporated like dew when he' spied the corvette, diminishing
rapidly, heading roughly northwest. Could
it have already finished off the Egg? Scanning nearer at hand, he spied the
great ovoid at last, some distance in the opposite direction. It lay in full
view now, a savage burn scarring one flank. The stone glowed along that jagged,
half-molten line, casting ocher light across jumbled debris lining the bottom of
the Nest. Still, the Egg looked relatively intact. Why did
they leave before finishing the job? He tracked the corvette by its glimmer of
reflected starlight. I Northwest. It's
beading northwest. Blade tried to think. That's
where home is. Dolo Village. Tarek Town. And Biblos, he then realized, hoping
he was wrong. Things might have just gone from bad to worse. wasx THE
THREAT WORKED, MY RINGS! | Now our
expertise is proven. Our/my worth is vindi-' I cated before' the Captain-Leader
and our fellow crew stacks. As I/we predicted, just as our bomber began slicing
at their holy psychic rock, a signal came! It was
the same digital radiance they used last time, to reveal the g'Kek city. Thus,
the savages attempt once more to placate us. They will do anything to protect
their stone deity. OBSERVE
THE HUMAN CAPTIVES, MY RINGS! ONE OF them-the local male whom we,Asx once knew
as Lark Koolhan-quailed and moaned to see the "Egg" under attack,
while the other two seemed unaffected. Thus, a controlled experiment showed
that I/we were right about the primitives and their religion. Now the
female comforts Lark as our cruiser speeds away from the damaged Egg, toward
the signal-emanation point. What
will they offer us, this time? Something as satisfying as the g'Kek town, now
frozen with immured samples of hated vermin? The
chief-tactician stack calculates that the sooners will not sacrifice the thing
we desire most-the dolphin ship. Not yet. First they will try buying us off
with lesser things. Perhaps their fabled archive-a pathetic trove of primitive
lore, crudely scribed on plant leaves or some barklike substance. A paltry
cache of lies and superstitions that simpletons dare call a library. You
tremor in surprise, O second ring-of-cognition? You did not expect Me to learn
of this other thing treasured by the Six Races? Well be
assured, Asx did a thorough job of melting that particular memory. The
information did not come from this reforged stack. Did you
honestly believe that our Ewasx stack was the only effort at intelligence
gathering ordained by the Captain-Leader? There have been other captives, other
interrogations. It took
too long to learn about this pustule of contraband Earthling knowledge-this
Biblos-and the exact location remained uncertain. But now we/i speculate.
Perhaps Biblos is the thing they hope to bribe us with, exchanging their
archive for the "life" of their Holy Egg. If that
is their intent, they will learn. We will burn the books, but that won't
suffice. NOTHING WILL SUFFICE. In the
long mn, not even the dolphin ship will do. Though it will make a good start. aae NORTHWEST.
WHAT TARGET MIGHT ATTRACT THE aliens' attention that way? Nearly
everything I know or care about, Blade concluded. Dolo Village, Tarek Town, and
Biblos. As pale
Torgen rose behind the Rimmer peaks, he watched the slim ship glide on, knowing
he would lose sight of it long before the raider arrived at any of those I
destinations. Blade no longer cared where the contrary winds blew him, so long
as he did not have to watch destruction rain down on the places he loved. A chain
of tiny, flickering lights followed the cruiser as scouts stationed on mountain
peaks passed reports of its progress. He deciphered a few snatches of GalTwo,
and saw they weren't words, but numbers. Wonderful.
We are good at describing and measuring our downfall. With
combat hormones ebbing, Blade grew more aware of physical discomfort. Nerves
throbbed where one of the urrish hooks had ripped away skin plates, exposing
fleshy integuments to cold air. Thirst gnawed at him, making Blade wish he were
a hardy gray. The
balloon passed beyond the warm updraft and stopped climbing. Soon the descent
would resume, sending him spinning toward a landscape of jagged shadows. Wait a
aura. Blade
tried to focus his vision strip, peering at the distant Jophur vessel. Has it
stopped? Soon he
knew it had. The ship was hovering again, casting its search beam to scan the
ground below. Was I
wrong? The next target may not be Biblos or Tarek, after all. But . .
. there's nothing here! These bills are wilderness. Just a useless tract of
boo- He was
staring in perplexity when something happened to the mountain below the
floating ship. Reddish flickers erupted, like marsh gas lit by static charges,
at the swampy border of a lake. Sparklike ripples seemed to spread amid the
dense stands of towering boo. What
are the Jophur doing now? he wondered. What weapon are they using? The
flickers brightened, flaring beneath scores of giant greatboo stems. The ship's
searchlight still roamed, as if bemused to find slender tubes of native
vegetation emitting fire from their bottoms . . . then starting to rise. The
first thunder reached Blade as he realized. It's
not the fophur at all! It's- The
corvette finally showed alarm, starting to back away. Its beam narrowed to a
slicing needle, sweeping through one rising column. An
instant later, the entire northwest was alight. Volley after volley of blazing
tubes jetted skyward in a roar that shook the night. Rockets,
Blade thought. Those are rockets! The vast majority missed their apparent
target. But accuracy seemed of no concern, so dense was the missile swarm. The
retreating corvette could not blast them fast enough before three in a row made
glancing blows. Then a
fourth projectile struck head-on. The warhead failed, but sheer momentum
crumpled one section of starship hull, tossing it spinning. Other
warheads kept going off ahead of schedule, or tumbling to explode on the
ground, filling the night with brilliant, fruitless incandescence. So great was
the wastage that it looked as if the Jophur ship might actually limp away. Then a
late-rising rocket took off. It turned, and with apparent deliberation, drove
itself straight through the groaning corvette. A
dazzling explosion ripped its belly open, cleaving the skyship apart. Blade had
to spin a different part of his half blinded visor around to witness the two
halves plummet, like twin cups filled with fire, to the forest floor. More
dross to clean up. Blade observed, as fires spread across several
mountainsides. But his body was content to live in the moment, shrieking
celebration whistles from all his breathing vents, competing with the gaudy
fireworks to shout at the stars. With
qheuen vision, he could witness the corvette's destruction while also following
as most of the missiles continued their flight-those that did not veer off course,
or explode on their own. Dozens still thrust noisily into the upper sky,
spouting red, flickering tails. Blade
screamed even louder when they finished their brief arc and turned back toward
Jijo, plummeting like hail toward Festival Glade. Only they
soon found the way blocked by fierce tongues of fire. Lester and his companions
had to retreat, back past sheltered work camps whose blur-cloth canopies were
ablaze, where vats of traeki paste exploded one after another . . . along with
some of the traeki themselves. Other figures could be seen fleeing through the
clots of smoke as all the labor of months, spent creating a hidden center of
industry, was consumed in a roiling maelstrom. "There
is no way out," the urs sighed. "Then
save yourself. I command it!" Lester
pushed her resisting flank, repeating the order until the corporal let out a
moan and plunged toward a place where the flames seemed least intense. An urs
just might survive the passage. Lester knew better than to try. Alone
with his young assistant, he huddled in the center of the clearing, holding one
of her trembling wheels. "It's
all right," he told her, between hacking coughs. "We did what we set
out to do. "All
things come to an end. "Now
it all lies with Ifni." THE
FOREST ERUPTED IN FLAME AROUND LESTEE. Failed missiles crashed back amid the
secret launching sites, setting off explosions of withering heat and igniting
tall columns of boo. South, a searing glow told where the shattered spaceship
fell. Still, Lester held fast to the clearing where he and a g'Kek assistant
had come to watch the flickering sky. An
urrish corporal galloped to report. "Fires surround us. Sage, you must
flee!" But
Lester stayed rooted, peering at the fuming heavens. His voice was choked and
dry. ( "I
can't see! Did any make it to burnout? Are they on their way?" The
young g'Kek answered, all four eyes waving upward. "Many
flew true, O sage," she answered. "Several score are airborne. Your
design was valid. Now there's nothing j more to do. It^s time to go." Reluctantly,
Lester let himself be pulled away from the clearing, into the planned escape
route through the boo. i Lark THE
EARLIER HOLOSCENES HAD BEEN CONFUSING, but these new images left Lark stunned,
breathless, confused. He had no way to grasp the blazing spectacle . . . mighty
tubes of boo, their bottoms explosing in flame . . . scores of them, jetting
upward like a swarm of angry fire bees. The
distant camera veered as the corvette struggled to evade a volley of makeshift
rockets. The view lurched so suddenly, Lark's stomach reeled and he had to look
away. The
others seemed just as amazed. Ling laughed aloud, clapping both hands, while
Rann's face mixed astonishment with dismay. Then what's happening must be good.
Lark allowed a spark of hope to rise within. Ewasx,
the Jophur, vented gurgling sounds, along with snatches of Galactic Two. . treacherous unexpected "Outrageous
. . unforeseen!" Tremors
shook its composite body, quivering from the peak down to its basal segment.
Most of the elderly, waxy toroids were familiar to Lark. Once, they composed a
friend, a sage, wise and good. But a newcomer had taken over-a glistening young
collar, black and featureless, without appendages or sensory organs. Both
Ling and Rann cried out. But when Lark turned around, the holoscene was all
white-a blank slate. "The
corvette," Ling explained, her voice awed. "It's been
destroyed!" A
shrill sigh escaped the Jophur. The tremors turned into convulsions. Ewasx
is having some kind of fit, Lark thought. Should I attack now? Strike the
master ring with all my might? Ling
was babbling excitedly about "the other rockets-" But Lark had
decided, striding toward the shuddering Jophur. His sole weapons were his
hands, but so what? , Lester,
you pulled off a fantastic wolfling trick. Asx \ would have been proud of you. Just as
old Asx would have wanted me to do this. He
brought back a fist, aimed at the shivering master ring. Someone
seized his arm, holding it back in a fierce grip. Lark
swiveled, cocking his other fist at Rann. But the bullheaded Danik only shook
his head. "What
will it prove? You'd just make them angry, native boy. We remain trapped here,
at their mercy." "Get
out of my way," Lark growled. "I'm gonna free my traeki friend." "Your
friend is long gone. If you kill a master ring, the whole stack dissolves! I
knowthis, young savage. I've put it in practice." Lark
was angry enough to turn his attack on the burly Danik. Sensing it, Rann
released Lark and stepped back,, raising both hands in a combatant's
stance. I Yeah, Lark thought,
dropping to a crouch. You're a stargod soldier. But maybe a savage knows some
tricks you don't. '• "Stop
it, you two!" Ling shouted. "We've got to get ready-" She cut
off as a chain of low vibrations throbbed the metal floor-mighty forces at
work, growling elsewhere in the vast ship. "Defensive
cannon," Rann identified the din. "But what could they be
firing-?" "The
rockets!" Ling replied. "I told you, they're coming this way!" Realization
dawned on Rann, that sooners might actually threaten a starship. He cursed,
diving for a corner of the cell. Lark
allowed Ling to lead him as the battleship shivered, its weapons firing
frantically. A mutter of distant detonations crept closer as they held each
other. The moment had a heady vividness, a hormonal rush, mixing the pleasure
of Ling's touch with sharp awareness of onrushing death. Yet
Lark found himself hoping, praying, that the next few moments would end his
life. Come
on. You can do it, Lester. Finish the job! The
fragment of the Egg lay against his chest, where its last outburst had left seething
weals. He clutched the stone amulet with his free hand, expecting throbbing
heat. Instead, Lark felt an icy cold. A brittleness that breath would shatter. PART
NINE FROM
THE NOTES OF GILLIAN BASKIN WE'RE
ALL FEELING rattier down right now. Suessi called trom the second dross pile
where his work crew Just had an accident. They were trying to clear the area
around an old Buyur ore-hauler when a subsea quake hit. The surrounding heap of
Junk ships shifted and an ancient hulk came rolling down on a couple of .
workers--Satima and Sup-peh. Neither of them had time to do more than stare at
the onrushing wall before it crushed them. • JO we keep getting winnowed down ^ where it hurts most. Our
best colleagues-- ' i the skilled and dedicated-inevitably pay the price. Then
there s leepoe, everyone's delight. A
terrible loss, kidnapped by Zhaki and his pal. If only I could get my hands on
that pair! I had
to lie to poor Kaa, though. Vve cannot spare time to go hunting across the ocean
IOT leepoe. That
doesn t mean she [I be abandoned. Friends will win her treedom, someday. This I
vow. but our
pilot won't be one of them. Alas, I leap' i\.aa will never see her again. MAKANEE.
finished her autopsies of Kunn and Jass. The prisoners apparently look poison
rather than answer our questions. Tsht blames herself for not searching the
Danik agent more caretully, but who would have tigured Kunn would be so worried
about our amateur grilling' And did
he really have to take the hapless native boy with him' Retys cousin could
hardly know secrets worth dying for. Kety
hersell can shed no light on the matter. Without anyone to interrogate, she
volunteered to help luesst, who can certainly use a hand. ,viakanee recommends
work as good therapy for the poor kid, who had to see those gruesome bodies
hrsthand I
wonder. What secret was Kunn trying to protect' Normally, I'd drop everything
to puwie it out. but too much is going on as we prepare to make our move. Anyway,
from the Jophur prisoners we know the Kothen ship is irrelevant. We have more
immediate concerns. 1 HL,
Library cube reports no progress on that symbol--the one with nine spirals and
eight ovals. I he unit is now silting its older hies, a job that gets harder
the lurther back it goes. In
compensation, the cube has Hooded me with records of other recent sooner
outbreaks --secret colonies established on (allow worlds. It
turns out that most are quickly discovered by guardian patrols of the Institute
or ,Viigration. Jijo is a special case, with limited access and the nearby
shrouding of Ismunuti. Atso, this time an entire galaxy was declared tallow,
making inspection a monumental task.
., I
wondered--why set aside a whole galaxy, when the basic unit of ecological recovery
is a planet, or at most a solar system' The
cube explained that much larger areas of space are usually quarantined, all. at
once. Oxygen-breathing civilization evacuates an entire sector or spiral arm,
ceding it to the parallel culture of hydrogen breathers--those mysterious
creatures sometimes generically called 2,ang. this helps keep both societies
separated in physical space, reducing the chance of triction. It also
helps the quarantine. The ^ang are unpredictable, and olten ignore minor incursions,
but they can be herce it large numbers of oxy-sapients appear where they don t
belong. We
detected what must have been ^ang ships, belore diving past Igmunuti. I guess
they took us for a minor incursion, since they left us alone. The
wholesale trading of sectors and ?ones makes more sense now. Still, t pressed
the [-,lbrary cube. Has an
entire galaxy ever been declared oH-limits before' The answer surprised me. Not for
a very long time ... at least one hundred and tiny million years. Now,
where have I heard that number before! Wt^Kh,
told there are eight orders of sapience and quasisapience. Uxy-lite is the most
vigorous and blatant--or as lorn put it, strutting around, acting like we own
the place. In (act, though, I was surprised to learn that hydrogen breathers
far outnumber oxygen breathers. But ^ang and their relatives spend most of
their time down in the turbid layers of Jovian-type worlds. Jome
say this is because they tear contact with oxy-types. Others say they could crush
us anytime, but have never gotten around to it. perhaps they will, sometime in
the next molllion years. The
other orders are Machine, ,Viemetic, Quantum, Hypotlietical, Ketired, and
Transcendent. why am I pondering this now' Well,
our plans are in motion, and soon Streaker will be, too. Its likely that in a
lew Jays well be dead, or else taken captive. With luck, we (nay buy something
worthwhile with our lives. But our chances of actually getting away seem
vanishingly small. And yet
. . . what U we do manage it' After all, the Jophur may get engine trouble at
just the right moment. [hey might decide were not worth the eilort. The sun
might go nova. In that
case, where can JtreaKer go next' We've
tried seeking Justice from our own oxy-culture--the civilisation of the Five
Galaxies--but the Institutes proved untrustworthy. We tried the Old Ones, but
those members of the Ketired Larder proved less impartial than we hoped. In a
universe rilled with possibilities, there remain hall a dozen other
quasi-sapient orders out there. Alien in both thought and substance. Kumored to
be dangerous. What
have we got to lose" Kaa CLEAMING
MISSILES STRUCK THE WATER WHENEVER he surfaced to breathe. The spears were
crude weapons-hollow wooden shafts tipped with slivers of volcanic glass-but
when a keen-edged harpoon grazed his Hank, Kaa lost half his air in a reflexive
cry. The harbor- now a cramped, exitless trap-reverberated with his agonized
moan. The
hoonish sailors seemed to have no trouble moving around by torchlight, rowing
their coracles back and forth, executing complex orders shouted from their
captains' bulging throat sacs. The water's tense skin reverberated like a
beaten drum as the snare tightened around Kaa. Already, a barrier of porous
netting blocked the narrow harbor mouth. Worse,
the natives had reinforcements. Skittering sounds announced the arrival of
clawed feet, scampering down the rocky shore south of town. Chitinous forms
plunged underwater, reminding Kaa of some horror movie about giant crabs. Red
qbeuens, he realized, as these new allies helped the hoon sailors close off
another haven, the water's depths. Ifni!
What did Zhaki and Mopol do to make the locals so mad at the mere sight of a
dolphin in their bay? How did they get these people so angry they want to kill
me on sight? Kaa
still had some tricks. Time and again he misled the hoons, making feints,
pretending sluggishness, drawing the noose together prematurely, then slipping
beneath a gap in their lines, dodging a hail of javelins. My
ancestors had practice doing this. Humans taught us lessons, long before they
switched from spears to scalpels. Yet he
knew this was a contest the cetacean could not win. The best he could hope for
was a drawn-out tie. Diving
under one hoonish coracle, Kaa impulsively spread his jaws and snatched the
rower's oar in his teeth, yanking it like the tentacle of some demon octopus.
The impact jarred his mouth and tender gums, but he added force with a hard
thrust of his tail flukes. The
oarsman made a mistake by holding on-even a hoon could not match Kaa, strength
to strength. A surprised bellow met a resounding splash as the mariner, struck
salt water far from the boat. Kaa released the oar and kicked away rapidly. That
act would not endear him to ' the hoon. On the other hand, what was there left
to lose? I Kaa had quite given up on his mission-to make contact with the
Commons of Six Races. All that remained was | fighting for survival. I
should have gone after Peepoe, instead. The
decision still bothered Kaa with nagging pangs of guilt. How could he obey
Gillian Baskin's orders-no matter how urgent-instead of striking off across the
dark sea, chasing after the thugs who had kidnapped his mate and love? What did
duty matter-or even his oath to Terra-compared with that? After
Gillian signed off, Kaa had listened as the sun set, picking out distant echoes
of the fast-receding speed sled, still faintly audible to the northwest. Sound
carried far in Jijo's ocean, without the myriad engine noises that made Earth's
seas a cacophony. The sled was already so far away-at least a hundred klicks by
then-it would seem forlorn to follow.
But so what? So the odds were impossible? That never mattered to the
heroes one found in storybooks and holosims! No audience ever cheered a
champion who let mere impossibility stand in the way. Maybe
that was what swayed Kaa, in an agonized moment. The fact that it was such a
cliche. All the movie heroes-whether human or dolphin-would routinely forsake
comrades, country, and honor for the sake of love. Relentless
propaganda from every romantic tale urged him to do it. But
even if I succeeded, against all odds, what would Peepoe say after I rescued
her? I know
her. She'd call me a fool and a traitor, and never respect me again. So it
was that Kaa found himself entering Port Wuphon as ordered, long after
nightfall, with all the wooden sailboats shrouded beneath camouflage webbing
that blurred their outlines into cryptic hummocks. Still hating himself for his
decision, he had approached the nearest wharf, where two watchmen lounged on
what looked like walking staffs, beside a pair of yawning noor. By starlight,
Kaa had reared up on his churning flukes to begin reciting his memorized speech
of greeting . . . and barely escaped being skewered for his trouble. Whirling
back into the bay, he dodged razor-tipped staves that missed by centimeters. "Wait-t-t!"
he had cried, emerging on the other side of the wharf. "You're mak-ing a terrible
mistake! I bring news from your own lossssst ch-ch-children! F-from Alvi-
" He
barely escaped a second time. The hoon guards weren't listening. Darkness
barely saved Kaa as growing numbers of missiles hurled his way. His big
mistake was trying a third time to communicate. When that final effort failed,
Kaa tried to depart . . . only to find belatedly that the door had shut. The
harbor mouth was closed, trapping him in a tightening noose. So much
for my skill at diplomacy, he pondered, while skirting silently across the
bottom muck . . . only to swerve when his sonar brushed armored forms ahead,
approaching with scalloped claws spread wide. Add
that to my other failures . . . as a spy, as an officer . . . Mopol and Zhaki
would never have antagonized the locals so, with senseless pranks and mischief,
if he had led them properly. . . .
and as a lover. . . . In
fact, Kaa knew just one thing he was good at. And at this rate, he'd never get
another chance to ply his trade. A
strange, thrashing sound came from just ahead, toward the bottom of the bay. He
nearly swung around again, dodging it to seek some other place, dreading the
time when bursting lungs would force him back to the surface. . . . But
there was something peculiar about the sound. A softness. A resigned, melodious
sadness that seemed to fill the water. Curiosity overcame Kaa as he zigzagged,
casting sonar clicks through the murk to perceive- A hoon! But
what was one of them doing down here? Kaa
nosed forward, ignoring the growing staleness of his air supply, until he made
out a tall biped amid clouds of churned-up mud. Diffracted echoes confirmed his
unbe- \ lieving eyes. The creature was undressing, carefully re- ' moving
articles of clothing, tying them together in a string. Kaa
guessed it was a female, from the fact that it was a bit smaller and had only a
modest throat sac. Is it
the one I pulled overboard? But why doesn 't she swim back to the boat? I
assumed . . . Kaa was
struck by a wave of image-rupture alienation- a sensation all too familiar to
Earthlings since contactwhen some concept that had seemed familiar abruptly
made no sense anymore. Hoons
can't swim! The
journal of Alvin Hph-wayuo never mentioned this. In fact, Alvin implied that his
people passionately loved boats and the sea. Nor were they cavalier about their
lives, but mourned the loss of loved ones even more deeply than a human or
dolphin would. Kaa suddenly knew he'd been fooled by Alvin's writings, sounding
so much like an Earth ' kid, never mentioning things that he simply assumed. Aliens.
Who configure? He
stared as the hoon tied the string of clothes around her left wrist and held
the other end to her mouth, calmly exhaling her last air, inflating a
balloonlike fold of cloth. It floated upward, no more than two meters, stopping
far short of the surface. She's
not signaling for help, he fathomed as the hoon sat down in the mud, humming a
dirge. She's making sure they can drag the bottom and retrieve her body. Kaa
had read Alvin's account of death rituals the locals took quite seriously. By now
his own lungs burned fiercely. Kaa deeply regretted that the breather unit on
his harness had burned out after Zhaki shot him. He
heard the qheuens approaching from behind, clacking their claws, but Kaa sensed
a hole in their line, confident he could streak past, just out of reach. He
tried to turn . . . to seize the brief opportunity. Oh,
hell, he sighed, and kicked the other way, aiming for the dying hoon. It took
some time to get her to the surface. When they broke through, her entire body
shook with harsh, quivering gasps. Water jetted from nostril orifices at the
same time as air poured in through her mouth, a neat trick that Kaa kind of
envied. He
pushed her close enough to throw one arm over a drifting oar, then he whirled
around to peer across the bay, ready to duck onrushing spears. None
came. In fact, there seemed a curious absence of boats nearby. Kaa dropped his
head down to cast suspicious sonar beams through his arched brow-and confirmed
that all the coracles had backed off some distance. A moon
had risen. One of the big ones. He could make out silhouettes now , . . hoons
standing in their rowboats, all of them turned to face north ... or maybe northwest.
The males had their sacs distended, and a steady thrumming filled the air. They
Seemed oblivious to the sudden reappearance of one of their kind from a brush
with drowning. I'd
have thought they'd be all over this area, dropping weighted ropes, trying to
rescue her. It was another example of alien thinking, despite all the Terran
books these hoons had read. Kaa was left with the task of shoving her with the
tip of his rostrum, a creepy feeling coursing his spine as he pushed the
bedraggled survivor toward one of the docks. More
villagers stood along the wharf, their torches flickering under gusts of
stiffening wind. They seemed to be watching ... or listening ... to something. A
dolphin can both see and hear things happening above the water's surface, but
not as well as those who live exclusively in that dry realm. With his senses
still in an uproar, Kaa could discern little in the direction they faced, Just
the hulking outline of a mountain. The
computerized insert in his right eye flexed and turned until Kaa finally made
out a flickering star near the mountain's highest point. A star that throbbed,
flashing on and off to a staccato rhythm. He could not make anything of it at
first . . . though the cadence seemed reminiscent of Galactic Two. "Ex-x-xcuse
me . . ." he began, trying to take advantage of the inactivity. Whatever
else was happening, this seemed a good chance to get a word in edgewise.
"I'm a dolphin . . . cousin to humansss . . . I've been sssent with-th a
message for Uriel the-" The
crowd suddenly erupted in a moan of emotion that made Kaa's sound-sensitive jaw
throb. He made out snatches of individual speech. "Rockets!"
one onlooker sighed in Anglic. "The sages made rockets!" Another
spoke GalSeven in tones of wonder. "One small enemy spaceship destroyed .
. . and now the big one is targeted!" Kaa
blinked, transfixed by the villagers' tension. Rockets?
Did I hear right? But- Another
cry escaped the crowd. "They
plummet!" someone cried. "They strike!" Abruptly,
the mountain-perched star paused its twinkling bulletin. 'All sound seemed to
vanish with it. The hoons stood in dead silence. Even the oily water of the bay
was hushed, lapping softly against the wharf. The
flashing resumed, and there came from the crowd a moan of shaken
disappointment. "It
survives, exists. The mother battleship continues, went the GalTwo mutter of a
traeki, somewhere in the crowd. "Our
best effort has failed. "And now comes punishment." Sooners THE
MOMENT LARK PRAYED FOR NEVER CAME. THE walls did not shatter, torn by
native-made warheads or screaming splinters of greatboo. Instead, the sound of
detonations remained distant, then diminished. The floorthrobbing vibration
ofJophur defense guns changed tenor now that the element of surprise was gone,
from frantic to complacent, as if the incoming missiles were mere nuisances. Then
silence fell. It was over. He let
go of the Egg fragment, and released Ling, as well, Lark pulled his knees in,
wrapped both arms around them, and rocked miserably. He had never felt so
disappointed to be alive. "Woorsh,
that was close!" Ling exhaled, clearly savoring survival.
Not that Lark blamed her. She might still nurse hopes of escape, or of being
swapped in some Galactic prisoner exchange. All this might become just another
episode in her memoirs. An episode, like me, he thought. The clever jungle boy
she once met on Jijo. His old
friend Harullen might have seen a bright side to this failure. Now the angered
Jophur might extinguish all sapient life on the planet, not only their g'Kek
blood enemies. Wouldn't that fit in with Lark's beliefs? His heresy? The Six
Races don't belong here, but neither do they deserve annihilation. I wanted us
to do the right thing peacefully, honorably, and of our own accord. Without
violence. All this burning of forests and valleys. "Look!" He
glanced at Ling, who had stood up and was pointing at Ewasx. The ring stack
still quaked, but one torus in the middle was undergoing full-scale
convulsions. Throbbing indentations formed on opposite sides, distending its
round shape. Both
men joined Ling, staring with unbelieving eyes as the dents deepened and spread
into circular bulges, straining outward until a sheer membrane was all that restrained
them. The Jophur's basal legs started pumping and Hexing. The
humans jumped back when Ewasx abruptly skittered across the floor, first toward
the armored door, then away again, zigging and zagging three times before
finally sagging back down, like a heap of flaccid tubes. The
middle ring continued to throb and swell. "What
is it doing?" Ling asked in awe. Lark
had to swallow before answering. "It's
vienning. Giving birth, you'd say. Traekis don't do this often, 'cause it
endangers the union of the stack. Mostly they bud embryos and let 'em grow in a
mulch pile, on their own." Rann
gaped. "Giving birth? Here?" Clearly, he knew more about killing
Jophur than about the rest of their life cycle. Lark
realized-the catatonia of Ewasx was not caused simply by the surprise rocket
attack. That shock had trig- gered a separate convulsion just waiting to
happen. Membranes
started tearing. One of the new rings, almost the size of Lark's head and
colored a deep shade of purple, began writhing through. The other was smaller
and crimson, emerging through a mucusy pustule, trailing streamers of rank,
oily stuff. Both infant toruses slithered down the flanks of the parent stack,
then across the metal floor, seeking shadows. "Lark,
you'd better have a look at this," Ling said. He
could barely yank his gaze away from the nauseating, bewitching sight of the
greasy newborns. Upon stumbling over to join Ling, he found her pointing
downward. "When
it ran back and forth, a dura ago ... it left this trail on the floor." So
what? he thought. Lark saw smears, like grease stains on the metal plating.
Traeki often do that. Then he
blinked, recognizing Anglic letters. One, two,' three . . . four of them. REWQ "What
the . . . ?" Rann puzzled aloud. ' Lark
raised a hand to his forehead, where his rewq symbiont lay waiting for its next
duty while supping lightly | from his veins. At a touch, it swarmed over his
eyes, recast- j ing the colors in the room. \ At
once, everything changed. Till that moment, the stillquivering flanks of the
Jophur had seemed a mottled jumble of distorted shades. But now, rows of
letters could be I seen, crisscrossing several older rings. ' lark,
the first series began, one ring opens doors. use it. rejoin the six. . . . A
squeal of pain interrupted from Lark's right, unlike any shouted by a mammal.
He whirled, and cried, "Stop!" Rann
stood over one of the newly vienned rings, his foot raised to stomp on it a
second time. The small creature shook, bleeding waxy fluids from a rent along
one flank. "Why?"
the Danik demanded. "You sooners signed our death warrants with that crude
missile attack. We might as well get in some of our own." Ling
confronted her former colleague hotly. "Fool! Hyp- j ocrite! You stopped
Lark earlier, and now do this? Don't you want to get out of here?" She
bent over the quivering ring and reached toward it nervously, tentatively. Lark
turned back toward the ring stack . . . the corn-, posite being that had
somehow managed to become Asx again, in a strange, limited way. The letters
were already fading as he read the second line. Give
other to Phwhoon-dau,Lester. he,you, they must This
time, the scream was human. Ling! He spun around and rushed to her aid. She
held the little wounded torus in one hand while the other clawed over her
shoulder at Rann. The male Danik throttled her from behind, his forearm around
her throat, closing her windpipe, and possibly her arteries. Rann
heard Lark's irate bellow and swiveled lightly, using Ling's body as a shield
while he kept choking her. Rann's face was contorted with pleasure as Lark
feinted right, then launched himself at the star warrior's other side. There
was no time for finesse as they all toppled together, a grappling mass of arms
and legs. It
might have been an even match, if Ling hadn't passed out. But when her body
slumped, insensate, Lark had to face Rann's trained fury alone. He managed to
get a few blows in, but soon had his hands full just preventing the Rothen
agent from striking a vital spot. Finally, in desperation, he threw his arms
around Rann, seizing his broad torso in a wrestler's embrace. His
opponent felt confident enough to spare some strength for taunts. "Darwinist
savage , . ." Rann jeered, close to Lark's ear. ". . . devolved ape
..." Lark
managed an insult of his own- "The
. . . Rothen . . . are . . . pigs. ..." Rann
snarled and tried to bite his ear. Lark swung his head aside just in time, then
slammed it back into Rann's face, breaking his lip. Abruptly,
a stench seemed to swell around their heads, filling Lark's nostrils with a
cloying, sickening tang. For an instant he wondered if it was the Danik's body
odor. Or else the smell of death. Rann
managed to free a hand and used it to pummel Lark's side. But the pain seemed
distant, and the blows vague, unsteady. Vision wavered as the awful smell
increased . . . and Lark grew aware that his opponent was being affected, as
well. More
so. In
moments, Rann's iron grip let go and the man collapsed away from him. Lark
backed up, gasping. Through a haze of wavering consciousness, he noted the
source of the stench. The wounded traeki ring had climbed onto Rann's shoulder
and was squirting yet another dose of some noxious substance straight into the
star god's face. | Should
. . . make it . . . stop, now. Lark thought. An | excess might not just knock
Rann out, but kill him. j Life
had priorities, though. Fighting exhaustion and the' tempting refuge of sleep,
Lark rolled over to seek Ling,', hoping enough life still lingered to be coaxed
back into the world. Blade Dia ".
. . THE MOST EFFECTIVE WARHEADS WERE THE ones tipped with toporgic capsules,
filled with traeki formula type sixteen an' powdered Buyur metal. Kindle
beetles were useful in settin' off the solid rocket cores. A lot of the ones
that didn't use beetles either fizzled or blew up on their launchpads. . .
." Blade
listened to the young human recite her report to an urrish telegraph operator,
whose keystrokes became fast-departing beams of light. Jeni Shen winced as a
pharmacist applied unguents to her singed skin. Her face was soot-covered and
the left side of her jerkin gave off smoldering fumes. Jeni's voice was dry as
slate and it must have been painful for her to speak, but the recitation
continued, nonstop, as if she feared this mountaintop semaphore station might
be the first target of any Jophur retaliation. ".
. . Observers report that the best targeting happened, in rockets that had
message-ball critters aboard. Usin' 'ern that way was just a whim of
Phwhoon-dau's, so there weren't many. But it seemed to work. Before everything
blew up, Lester said we should reexamine all the Buyur critters we know about,
in case they have other uses. . . ." i The
stone hut was crowded. The missile assault, and subsequent fires, had sent
refugees pouring through the passes. Blade was forced to wade through the tide
offugi lives in order to reach this militia outpost, where he might make a
report of his adventure. He
found the semaphore already tied up with frenzied news-about the successful
downing of the last Jophur corvette . . . and then the failure of a single
rocket even to dent the mother ship. That night of soaring hopes crashed
further when casualties became known, including at least one of the High Sages
of the Six. Yet a
low level of elation continued. Bad news was only expected. But a taste of
victory came amplified by sheer surprise. Blade
recalled vividly the fiery plummet of both burning halves of the ruined
starship, setting off firestorms. I'm glad it only landed in boo, he thought.
According to the scrolls, Jijo's varied ecosystems weren't equal. Greatboo was
a trashy alien invader-like the Six themselves. The planet was not badly
wounded by tonight's conflagration. Me
neither, Blade added, wincing as a g'Kek medic tried to set one of his broken
legs. "Just
cut it off," he told the doctor. "The other one, too." "But
that will leave you with just three," the g'Kek complained. "How will
you walk?" "I'll
manage. Anyway, new ones grow back faster if you cut all the way to the bud.
Just get it over with, will you?" Fortunately,
he had managed to land on two legs spread apart at opposite sides of his body.
That left a tripod of them to use, dragging himself from the fluttering tangle
of fabric and gondola parts. The moonlit mountainside had been rocky and steep,
a horrid place for a blue qheuen to find himself stranded on a chill night. But
the beckoning glimmer of flashed messages, darting from peak to peak,
encouraged him to limp onward until he reached this sanctuary. So,
I'll be able to tell Log Biter my tale, after all. Maybe I'll even write about
it. Nelo should provide backing for a small print run, since half of my story
involves his daughter. . . . Blade
knew his mind was drifting from thirst, pain, and lack of sleep. But if he
rested now he would lose his place in line, right after Jeni Shen. The station
commander, hearing of his balloon adventure, had given him a priority just
after the official report on the rocket attack. I
should be flattered. But in fact, the rockets are used up. Even if there are
some left, the element of surprise is gone. They'll never succeed against
theJophur again. But my
idea's not been tried yet. And it'd work! I'm living proof. The
smiths of Blaze Mountain have got to be told. So he
sat and fumed, half listening to Jeni's lengthy, i jargon-filled report, trying
to be patient. When
the amputation began, Blade's cupola withdrew instinctively, shielding his eye
strip under thick chitin, preventing him from looking around. So he tried
pulling his mind back to the time when he briefly flew through the sky . . .
the first of his kind to do so since the sneakship came, so long ago. But a
qheuen's memories aren't strong enough to use as a bulwark against pain. It took
three strong hoons to keep the leg straight enough for the medic to do it
cleanly, Lark n SECOND
STENCH MET HIM WHEN HE WAKED. The first one had smothered cloyingly. When it
filled I Ithe little room, the world erased under a blanket of sweet pungency. The new
smell was bitter, tangy, repellent, cleaving the insensate swaddling of
unconsciousness. There was no transitory muzziness or confusion. Lark jerked
upright while his body convulsed through a series of sharp sneezes. All at once
he knew the cell, its metal floor and walls, the cramped despair of this place. A
greasy doughnut shape-purple and still covered with mucus-sent a final stream
of misty liquid jetting toward his face. Lark gagged, backing away. "I'm
up! Cut it out, dung eater!" The
room wavered as he turned, searching ... and found Ling close behind, wheezing
at the effort of sitting up. Livid marks showed where Rann had throttled her,
nearly taking her life. Lark
turned again, scanning for his enemy. In
moments, he spied the Danik agent's bare feet, jutting from beyond the rotund
bulk of Ewasx. Ewasx?
Or is it still Asx? The
ring stack shivered. Trails of waxy pus trickled from twin wounds on either
side, where the vienned rings had made their escape. I could
try to find out. . . . Try talking to- But
Lark saw an orderliness to the trembling toruses. A systematic rhythm. Almost
regimented. Warbling sounds escaped the speaking vent. "H-h-h-alt,
humans, . . . I/WE COMMAND . . . obedience. ..." The
voice wavered unevenly, but gained strength with each,passing dura. Ling
met his eyes. There was instant rapport. Asx had gone to a lot of trouble to
provide gifts. Time to give them a try. "STOP
THAT!" Ewasx adjured. "You are required to ... desist. ..." Fortunately,
the Jophur's limbs were still locked in rigor. The lowermost set shivered with
resistance when the master ring tried to make them move. Asx is
still fighting for us, Lark realized, knowing it could not last. "Use
the purple one," he told Ling, who cradled the larger newborn torus.
"Asx said it opens locks." She
lifted her eyes doubtfully, but presented the ring to a flat plate beside the
door. They had seen Ewasx touch it whenever the Jophur wanted to leave the
cell. Meanwhile, Lark used his frayed shirt as a sling to carry the smaller,
crimson traeki. The one cruelly injured by Rann. The one Lark was supposed to
deliver to the High Sages-an impossible task, even if the mangled thing
survived. A moan
echoed from behind Ewasx. It was the Danik warrior, rousing at last. Come on!
Lark urged silently, though Ling almost surely had never used such a key to
force a lock. The
purple ring oozed a clear fluid from pores near the plate. Clickety sounds
followed, as the door mechanism seemed to consider. ... Then,
with a faint hiss, it opened! He
hurried through with Ling, ignoring bitter Jophur curses that followed them
until the portal shut again. "Where
now?" Ling asked. "You're
asking me?" He laughed. "You said Galactic ships are
standardized!" She
frowned. "The Rothen don't have any battlecruisers like this beast.
Neither does Earth. We'd be lucky to glimpse one from afar . . . and even
luckier to escape after seeing it." Lark
felt spooky, standing half-naked in an alien passageway filled with weird
aromas. A Jophur might enter this stretch of corridor at any moment, or else a
war robot, come to hunt them down. - The
floor plates began vibrating, low at first, but with a rising mechanical
urgency. "Just
guess," he urged, trying to offer an encouraging smile. Ling
answered with a shrug. "Well, if we keep going in one direction, sooner or
later we're bound to reach hull, Come on, then. Standing still is the worst
thing we can do," The
hallways were deserted. Occasionally,
they hurried past some large chamber and glimpsed Jophur forms within, standing
before oddly curved instrument stations, or mingled in swaying groups,
communing with clouds of vapor. But the stacks rarely moved. As a biologist,
Lark could not help speculating. They're
descended from sedentary creatures, almost sessile. Even with the introduction
of master rings, they'd retain some traeki ways, like preferring to work in one
place, relatively still. Lark
found it bizarre, striding past closed doors for more than an arrowflight-then
another, and a third-using their passkey ring to open armored hatches along the
way, meeting no one. Asx must have taken this into account, giving us even odds
of reaching an airlock and . . . Lark
wondered. And
then what? If there are sky boats or hover plates, Ling might understand their
principles, but how will she operate controls made for Jophur tentacles? Maybe
we should just head for the engine room. Try to break some machinery. Cause
some inconvenience before they finally shoot us down. Ling
picked up the pace, a growing eagerness in her steps. Perhaps she sensed
something in the thickness of the armored doors, or the subtly curved wall
joins, indicating they were close. The
next hatch slid aside-and without warning they suddenly faced their first
Jophur. Ling
gasped and Lark's knees almost failed him. He felt an overpowering impulse to
spin around and run away, though it was doubtless already too late. The thing
was bigger than Ewasx, with component rings that shimmered a glossy,
extravagant health he had never seen on a Jijoan traeki. The way
Rann compares to me, Lark thought numbly. During
that brief instant, his companion lifted the purple ring, aiming it like a gun
at the big Jophur. A
stream of scent vapor jetted toward the stack. It
hesitated . . . then raised up on a dozen insectoid legs and sidled past the
two humans, proceeding down the hall. Lark
stared after it, numbly. What
was that? A recognition signal? A forged safeconduct pass? He
could imagine that Asx-wherever the traeki sage had concealed a sliver of self-must
have observed all the chemical codes a Jophur used to get around the ship. What
Lark could not begin to picture was what kind of consciousness that implied.
How could one deliberately hide a personality within a personality, when the
new master ring was in charge, pulling all the strings? The
Jophur rounded a corner, moving on about its business. Lark
turned to look at Ling. She met his eyes and together they both let out a hard
sigh. The
airiock was filled with machinery, though no boats or hover plates. They closed
the inner door and hurried to the other side, applying the trusty passkey ring,
eager to see blue sky and smell Jijo's fresh wind. If they were lucky, and this
portal faced the lake, it might even be possible to leap down to the water.
Surviving that, their escape could be cut off at any point, once they passed
into the Jophur defense perimeter. But none of that seemed to matter right now.
The two of them felt eager, indomitable. Lark
still cradled the injured red ring, wondering what the sages were supposed to
do with it. Perhaps
Asx expects us to recruit commandos and return with exploser bombs, using these
rings to gain entry. . . . His
thoughts arrested as the big hatch rolled aside. Their first glimpse was not of
daylight, but stars. An
instant's shivering worry passed through his mind before he realized-this was
not outer space, but nighttime in the Rimmers. A flood of bracing, cool air
made Lark instantly ebullient. I could never leave Jijo, he knew. It's my home. A pale
glow washed out the constellations where a serrated border crossed the sky--the
outline of eastern mountains. It would be dawn soon. A time of hopeful
beginnings? Ling
held out her free hand for Lark to take as they strode to the edge and looked
down. "So
far, so good," she said, and he shared her gladness at the sight of
glinting moonlight, sparkling on water. "It's still dim outside. The lake
will mask our heat sign. And this time there will be no computer cognizance to
give us away." Nor
convenient breathing tubes, to let us stay safe underwater, he almost added,
but Lark didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm. "Let's
see if there's anything we can use to get down to the lake, without having to
jump," Ling added. Together they inspected the equipment shelves lining
one wall of the airiock, until she cried out excitedly. "I found a
standard cable reel! Now if only I can figure out the altered controls
..." While
Ling examined the metal spool, Lark felt a change in the low vibration that had
been growling in the background ever since they escaped their prison cell. The
resonance began to rise in pitch and force, until it soon filled the air with a
harsh keening. "Something's happening," he said. "I think-"
Just then the battleship took a sudden jerk, almost knocking them both to the
floor. Ling dropped the cable, barely missing her foot. A
second noise burst in through the open door of the airiock. An awful grinding
din, as if Jijo herself were complaining. Lark recognized the scraping of metal
against rock. "Ifni!"
Ling cried. "They're taking off!" Helping
each other, fighting for balance, they reached the outer hatch and looked down
again, staring aghast at a spectacle of pent-up nature, suddenly unleashed. Well,
so much for jumping in the lake, he thought. The Jophur ship was rising
glacially, but the first few dozen meters were crucial, removing the dam that
had drowned the valley under a transient reservoir. At once, the Festival Glade
was transformed into a roiling tempest. Submerged trees tore loose from their
sodden roots. Stones fell crashing into the maelstrom as mud banks were
undermined. While the battlecruiser climbed complacently, a vast flood of murky
water and debris rushed downstream, pummeling everything in its path, pouring
toward distant, unsuspecting plains. Too
late, Lark realized. We were too late making our escape. Now we're trapped
inside. As if
to seal the fact, a light flashed near the open hatch, which began to close. An
automatic safety measure, he figured, for a starship taking off. Lark barely
suppressed an overpowering temptation to dive through the narrowing gap,
despite the deadly chaos waiting below. Ling
squeezed his hand fiercely as they caught a passing glimpse of something shiny
and round-shouldered-a slick, elongated dome, uncovered by retreating waters.
Even under pale predawn light, they recognized the Rothen-Danik ship, still
shut within a prison of quantum time. Then
the armored portal sealed with a boom and hiss, cutting off the
all-too-fleeting breeze. Trapped inside, they stared at the cruel hatch. "We're
heading north," Lark said. It was the one last thing he had noticed,
watching the ravaged valley pass below. "Come
on," Ling answered pragmatically. "There must be someplace to hide
aboard this bloated ship." Ncl CLO STILL A
FEW LEAGUES SHORT OF THEIR GOAL, THE zealots realized they were surrounded.
They spent the night huddled in the marsh, counting the campfires of regiments
loyal to the High Sages. Squeezed between militia units from Biblos and Nelo's
pursuing detachment, the rebels surrendered at first light. There
was little ceremony, and few weapons for the rabble to give up. Most of their
fanatical ardor had been used up by the hard slog across a quagmire where
mighty Buyur towers once reared toward the sky. Already bedraggled, Jop and his
followers marched in a ragged column toward the Bibur, enduring taunts from
former neighbors. "Go
ahead an' look!" Nelo pushed the tree farmer toward a bluff where everyone
could look across the wide river at shimmering cliffs, still immersed in dawn's
long shadows. Oncoming daylight revealed a vast cave underneath, chiseled
centuries ago by the Earthship Tabernacle. Two dozen huge pillars supported the
Fist of Stone, hovering like a suspended sentence, just above a cluster of
quaint wooden buildings, each fashioned to resemble some famed structure of
Terran heritage-such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and the
Main Library of San Diego, California. "The
Archive stands," Nelo told his enemy. "You wanted to bring the Fist
crashing down, but it ain't gonna happen. And in a couple o' years I'll be
makin' paper again. It was all for nothin', Jop. The lives you wasted, and the
property. You achieved nothing." Nelo
saw Jop's bitterness redouble when they reached a new semaphore station, set up
directly across the water from Biblos, where they learned about the rocket
attack, the destruction of one Jophur ship, and the rumored damage of another.
Young militia soldiers shouted jubilation to learn that last night's distant
"thunderstorm" had instead been the unleashed fury of the Six Races,
taking vengeance for the poor g'Kek. A few
older faces were grim. The militia captain warned that this was but a single
battle in a war the Commons of Jijo could hardly hope to win. Nelo
refused to think about that. Instead, he kept his promise to Ariana Foo, by
handing over her message for transmission. Light-borne signals flew better at
night, but the operator refired his lamp when he saw Ariana's name on the
single sheet of paper. While that bulletin went out, the captain looked into
getting transportation across the Bibur, where showers and clean clothes
waited. And
sleep, Nelo thought. Yet, despite fatigue, he somehow felt younger than he had
in ages, as if the tiring chase through swamplands had stripped years away,
leaving him a virile warrior of long ago. Leaning
against a tree, Nelo let his eyes close for a little while,
his mind turning back to plans for a rebuilt paper mill. Our
first job will be helping the blues put their dam back together. Do it right,
this time. Less worrying about camouflage and more about getting good power
output. As long as I'm
at Biblos, I might as well look.into copying some designs. . . . Nelo's
head jerked up when a carpentry apprentice from Dob shouted his name. The lad
had been reading last night's semaphore messages, affixed on the wall of the
relay post. "I
just saw your daughter's name," the young man told him. "She's on
Mount Guenn!" Nelo
took three jerky steps forward ... as Jop did exactly the same thing. The
farmer's expression showed the same surprise. His shock and dismay contrasted
with Nelo's joy at hearing that one of his children lived. Sara!
The papermaker's mind whirled. In the name of the founders, how did she find
herself on Mount Guenn? He
hurried over to the shed, eager to learn more. Perhaps there would be word of
Dwer and Lark, as well! At that
moment, a shout erupted from one of the operators inside the semaphore hut.
While the sender kept on clicking his key, transmitting Ariana Foo's message,
the receiver burst out through the door, a middle-aged woman waving a paper
covered with hurried scrawls. "Mess
. . . mess . . ." She ran for the militia captain, gasping urgently. "Message
from lookouts," she cried. "The Jophur . . , i the Jophur ship is
coming this way!"
i It did
not swoop or plummet. The star vessel was far too vast for that. A haze
of suspended dust accompanied its passage above forest or open ground, but when
the immense sky mountain moved ponderously over the Bibur, the waters went
Ominously still. The glassy-smooth footprint spread even wider than its shadow. Keep
going, Nelo prayed. Just pass us by. Keep going. . . . But the
great cruiser evidently had plans right here, arresting its forward momentum
directly over the river, in plain sight of the Great Archive. Now it
was Nelo's turn to glower as he glimpsed grim satisfaction pass overJop's face.
Someone must've snitched, he thought. Rumors told of Jophur emissaries,
establishing outposts in tiny hamlets, imperiously demanding information.
Sooner or later some zealot or scroll thumper would have blabbed about this
place. No
slashing rays fell from the mighty battleship. No rain of bombs, taking
vengeance for its little brother, lost the night before. Instead,
a few small portals opened in its side. About two dozen robots descended,
fluttering lazily until they reached hoon height above the water, where they
turned in formation and streaked toward Biblos. A
second wave emerged from the great ship, floating down more slowly on wide
plates of burnished black. Tapered cones rode those flat conveyances, like
stacks of glossy pancakes, each pile on its own flying skillet. Even
before the Jophur party reached the walls of the hidden city, the space
dreadnought began moving again, turning its massive bulk to head back the way
it came, roughly south by southeast, gaining altitude at an accelerating pace.
By the time Nelo lost it in the glare of the rising sun, the cruiser had
climbed above the highest clouds. Crowds
gathered at the riverbank, peering at the opposite shore. Biblos still lay
immersed in nightlike shadows. By contrast, the robots glittered till they
passed under the Fist of Stone, followed by their Jophur masters. After
that, Nelo and the others had to rely on the militia captain, peering through
binoculars, to relate what was' happening. "Each
Jophur is entering a different building, guarded by several robots. Some use
the front door . . . but one just sent its servants to smash open a wall and go
in that way. "They're
all inside now . . . and people are running out! Humans, hoons, qheuens . . .
there's a g'Kek . . . his left wheel is smoking. I think he's been shot." The
crowd murmured frustration, but there was nothing to do. Nothing anybody could
do. "I
see militia squads! Mostly humans with some urs and hoons. They've got rifles .
. . the new kind with muletipped bullets. They're running toward the Science
Building! "They're
splitting up, skirmish style, using opposite doors to sneak in from both sides
at once." Nelo
clenched his hands as he stared across the Bibur. At the same time, he wondered
why the great battleship would come all this way, yet not tarry to destroy the
center ofJijoan intellectual life. I guess
the cruiser bad other matters to attend to. Anyway, it'll be back to pick up
their foray party. There
was one hope. Maybe there are some rockets left after last night. Perhaps
they'll catch the cruiser, before it can return. There
was always that hope-though it seemed unlikely the Jophur would be fooled a
second time. Across
the river he could see a flood of refugees-scholars, librarians, and
students-pouring out of sally ports and over the battlements. There weren't
many g'Kek among the fugitives. Nor traeki. Both races appeared doomed to stay
within, destined for different fates, both of them unpleasant. He
wondered, What do the aliens want with our Library? To check out some books and
take 'em back home to read? In
fact, that bizarre notion made sense. I'll
bet the rocket attack made 'em realize we have trick up our sleeve. Suddenly
they're interested in what we know, and how we know it. They'll scan our books
to find out what other nasty surprises we might come up with. Something
was happening in the shadowed cave. Distant popping sounds carried across the
river, doubtless from within the Hall of Science. "They're
coming out!" the captain announced. His grip on the binoculars stiffened.
"The rifle squads . . . they're in retreat . . . dragging their wounded,
trying to cover each other. They're ..." He
lowered the glasses. The officer's eyes were bleak and he stood silently,
completely overcome. A
corporal gently took the binoculars and resumed reporting. "Dead,"
was the first word she said. "I
see dead soldiers. They're all down." A hush
settled over the crowd. Across the Bibur nothing I seemed to be moving anymore,
except an occasional ' sharp-edged machine shape, flitting underneath the Fist
of Stone. The
explosers . . . Nelo wondered. Why didn't they set off their charges? The
greatest secret of the Six Races. The most secure fortress of humankind on
Jijo. Biblos had been captured in a matter of duras. Its treasured archive lay
in the tight grip of Jophur invaders. wasx IS IT
SETTLED THEN, MY RINGS? HAVE WE ROOTED out the last corners of your clandestine
resistance? Can we assume there will be no more episodes of surreptitious
rebellion? The
Priest-Stack threatened to dismantle us/me after the last embarrassment, when
you silly rings foolishly,cleverly managed to perform a vienning without your
master torus knowing. The priest aimed to scrape every drip trail of waxy
memory lining our core, seeking clues to the whereabouts of the pair of
wolfling vermin you (briefly, mutinously) released into our glorious Polkjhy
ship. But
then the stack in change of psychological tactics reported telemetry showing
that Lark and Ling almost surely departed the ship when instruments showed an
airiock hatch anomalously opening. Humans
are good with water. No doubt they imagined themselves safe after entering the
lake, never suspecting that they were about to be swept downstream into a
vortex of ruin when our majestic Polkjhy took off! The
droll appropriateness of this fate-the dramatic irony-so pleased the
Captain-Leader that a ruling was made, overturning the Priest-Stack's desire.
For the time being, then, our/my union is safe. DO NOT
COUNT ON CONTINUED TEMPERANCE, FORGIVENESS, MY RINGS! Forgiveness for what, you ask? Now you
worry Me. Is the shared wax so badly melted? Did the Asx personality so damage
us, with its second attempt at suicide-by-amnesia? Must I provide memory of
recent events through the demi-electronic processes of the master torus? Very
well, My rings, I shall do so. Then we will begin again, restoring the
expertise that made us useful to the Jophur cause. Together
we watched while a party from our ship took possession of the so-called Library
used by the savage Six Races. Though it contains a pathetically small amount of
bit-equivalent data, this is the source,font of their wolfling trickery. Feral
scheming that has cost us dearly. A fine
thing happened when we/i caught sight of those crude buildings made from sliced
trees, sheltered in an artificial cave. Many hidden waxy trails resonated with
sudden recognition! Accessing these recovered tracks, we were able to tell the
Captain-Leader many secrets of this trove of pseudo-knowledge. Secrets Asx had
meant to render inaccessible. ; Slowly,
we regain our former reputation and esteem, Does that make you glad, My rings? How
gratifying to feel your agreement come so readily now! That brief rebellion,
followed by a second suicide amnesia, appears to have left you more docile than
before. No longer sovereign traeki rings, but parts of a greater whole. Now
regard! Leaving a force behind to secure Biblos, our Polkjhy turns to its main
task. Too long have we let ourselves be diverted/delayed. There will be no more
negotiating with Rothen sneak thieves. No more dickering with savage races.
Those six will meet their varied fates from land forces already scattered
across the Slope. As for
Polkjhy, we cruise toward that continental cleft, that ocean abyss. Estimated
locale of the dolphin ship. IT IS
DECIDED. THE ROTHEN HAD THE RIGHT IDEA, AFTER ALL. We'll
bombard the depths, putting the fugitive Earthlings ' in peril. To preserve
their lives, they will have no choice but to rise up and surrender. Until
now, the Captain-Leader preferred patience over rash action. We did not want to
destroy the very thing we seek! Not before learning its secrets. Since no
competing clan or fleet has come to Jijo, we appeared to have a wealth of
time.
' But
that was before we lost both corvettes. Before postponements stretched on and
on. Now we
are resolved to take the chance! With
depth bombs ready in great store, we plunge toward the zone known as the Rift. WHAT IS
THIS? ALREADY? DETECTORS BLARE. IN THE
WATERS AHEAD OF US-MOTION! Joyous hunt lust fills the bridge. It must be the
prey, giving away their location as they scurry in search of a new hiding
place. Then
remote perceptors cry out upsetting news. No single ship is making the
vibrations we detect. THERE
ARE SCORES OF EMISSION SITES . . . HUNDREDS! Sara EMERSON
SEEMED CHEERFUL DURING THE LONG ride down from Mount Guenn, pressing his face
against the warped window of the little tram, gazing at the sea. How would he
feel if he knew whom we were meeting? Sara wondered as the car zoomed down
ancient lava flows, swifter than a galloping urs. Would
he be ecstatic, or try to jump out and flee? Far below, a myriad bright sun
glints stretched from the surf line all the way to a cloud-fringed western
horizon. Jijo's waters seemed placid, but Sara still felt daunted by the sight.
A mere one percent ripple in that vastness would erase every tree and
settlement along the coast. The ocean's constancy proved the ample goodness of
this life world-a nursery of species. I
always hoped to see this, before my bones went to the Midden as dross. I just
never figured I'd come by horseback, across the Spectral Flow, over a volcano .
. . and finally by fabulous cable car, all toward confronting creatures out of
legend. Sara
felt energized, despite the fact that nobody on Mount Guenn had slept much
lately. n Uriel
had finished using her analog computer barely in time. Just miduras after
sending the ballistics calculations north, semaphore operators reported
breathless news about the consequences. Stunning
rocket victories. Discouraging
rocket failures. Forest
fires, dead sages, and the Egg-wounded, silent, possibly forever. Flash
floods below Festival Glade, leaving countless dead or homeless. Nor was
that all. Throughout the night, tucked amid other tidings from across the
Slope, came clipped summaries of events bearing hard on Sara. Elation
surged when she learned of Blade's unqheuenish aerial adventures. Then her
father's report triggered overpowering images of the destruction of Dolo
Village, forcing her to seek a place to sit, burying her head in her hands.
Nelo lived-that was something. But others she had known were gone, along with
the house she grew up in. Lark
and Dwer . . . we dreamed what it might be like when the dam blew. But I never
really thought it could happen. Waves
of sorrow kept Sara withdrawn for a time, till someone told her an urgent
message had come, addressed specifically for her, under the imprimatur of a
former High Sage of the Six. Ariana
Foo, Sara realized, scanning the brief missive, Ifni, who cares about the
dimensions of the ship that crashed Emerson into the swamp? Does it matter what
kind of chariot he used, when he was a star god? He's a wounded soul now.
Crippled. Trapped on Jijo, like the rest of us. Or was
he? After
so many shocks that eventful night, Sara was just lying down for a blotting
balm of sleep when events close at hand rocked Uriel and her guests. I At
dawn, the captains of Wuphon Port sent word of a monster in their harbor. A
fishlike entity who, after some misunderstandings, claimed relatedness to human
beings. Moreover, the creature said it
bore a message for the smith. Uriel
was overjoyed. "The
little sneak canera that scared us so ... the device came fron the Earthling
ship! Perhaps the Jophur have not found us, after all!" That
mattered. The sky battleship was said to be on the move, perhaps heading in
their direction. But Uriel could not evacuate the forge with several projects
still under way. Her teams had never been busier. "I'll
go see the Terran at once," the smith declared. There
was no lack of volunteers to come along. Riding the first tram, Sara watched
Prity flip through Emerson's wrinkled sketchpad, lingering over a page where
sleek figures with finned backs and tails arched ecstatically through .
crashing waves. An image drawn from memory. "They
look other than I imagined," commented Uriel, curling her long neck past
the chimp's shoulder. "Till now, I only knew the race from descripshuns in
books." "You
should read the kind with pictures in 'em." Kurt the Exploser laughed,
nudging his nephew. But Jomah kept his face pressed to the window next to
Emerson, taking turns pointing at features of the fast-changing landscape.
Ever-cheerful, the starman showed no awareness of what this trip was about. Sara
knew what tugged her heart. Beyond all other worries and pangs, she realized,
It may be time for the bird to fly back to his own kind. Watching
the robust person she had nursed from the brink of death, Sara saw no more she
could offer him. No cure for a ravaged brain, whose sole hope lay back in the
Civilization of the Five Galaxies. Even with omnipotent foes in pursuit, who
wouldn't choose that life over a shadow existence, huddling on a stranded shore? The
ancestors, that's who. The Tabernacle crew, and all the other sneakships. Sara
recalled what Sage Purofsky said, only a day ago. "There are no accidents,
Sara. Too many ships came to Jijo, in too short time." "The
scrolls speak of destiny, " she had replied. "Destiny!" The sage
snorted disdain. "A word made up by people who don't understand how they
got where they are, and are blind to where they're going." ' "Are you
saying you know how we got here, Master?" Despite
all the recent commotion and tragedy, Sara found her mind still hooked by
Purofsky's reply. "Of
course I do, Sara. It seems quite clear to me. "We
were invited." E. wasx FOOLS!"
THE CAPTAIN-LEADER DECLARES. "ALL BUT one of these emanations must come
from decoy torpedoes, tuned to imitate the emission patterns of a starship. It
is a standard tactical ruse in deep space. But such artifice cannot avail if we
linger circumspectly at short range! "Use
standard techniques to sift the emanations. "FIND
THE TRUE VESSEL WE SEEK!" Ah, My
rings. Can you discern the colors swarming down the glossy flanks of our
Captain-Leader? See how glorious, how lustrous they are. Witness the true
dignity of Jophur wrath in its finest form. Such
indignation! Such egotistic rage! The Oailie would be proud of this commander
of ours, especially as we all hear impossible news. THESE
ARE NOT DECOY DRONES AT ALL. The
myriad objects we detect . . . moving out of the Rift toward open ocean . . .
EVERY ONE OF THEM IS A REAL STARSHIP! The
bridge mists with fearful vapors. A great fleet of ships! How did the Earthers
acquire such allies? Even
our Polkjhy is no match for this many. We will
be overwhelmed! Dwer I AM
SORRY," GILLIAN BASKIN TOLD HIM. "THE Decision came suddenly. There
was no time to arrange a special ride to shore." She
seemed irked, as if his request were unexpected. But in fact, Dwer had asked
for nothing else since his second day aboard this vessel. The two
humans drifted near each other in a spacious, water-filled chamber, the control
center of starship Streaker. Dolphins flew past them across the spherical room,
breathing oxygen-charged fluid with lungs that had been modified to make it
almost second nature. At consoles and workstations, they switched to bubble
domes or tubes attached directly to their blowholes. It seemed as strange an
environment as Dwer had ever dreamed, yet the fins seemed in their element. By
contrast, Dwer and Gillian wore balloonlike garments, seeming quite out of
place. "I'm
not doing any good here," he repeated, hearing the words narrowly
projected by his globe helmet. "I got no skills you can use. I can hardly
breathe the stuff you call air. Most important, there are folks waiting for me.
Who need me. Can't you just cut me loose in some kind of a boat?" Gillian
closed her eyes and sighed-a brief, eerie set of clicks and chuttering moans.
"Look, I understand your predicament," she said in Anglic. "But
I have over a hundred lives to look after . . . and a lot more at stake, in a
larger sense. I'm sorry, Dwer. All I can hope is that you'll understand." He knew
it useless to pursue the matter further. A dolphin at one of the bridge
stations called for attention, and Gillian was soon huddled with that fin and
Lieutenant Tsh't, solving the latest crisis. The
groan of Streaker's engines made Dwer's head itch-a residual effect, perhaps,
of the way his brain was palped and bruised by the Danik robot. He had no proof
things would really be any better if he found his way back to shore. But his
legs, arms, and lungs all pined for wilderness-for wind on his face and the
feel of rough ground underfoot. A
ghostly map traced its way across the bridge. The realm of dry land was a
grayish border rimming both sides of a submerged canyon-the Rift-now filled
with moving lights, dispersing like fire bees abandoning their hives. So it
seemed to Dwer as over a hundred ancient Buyur vessels came alive after half a
million years, departing the trash heap where they were consigned long ago. The
tactic was familiar. Many creatures used flocking to confuse predators. He
approved the cleverness of Gillian and her crew, and wished them luck. But I
can't help them. I'm useless here. She ought to let me go. Most of
the salvaged ships were under robotic control, programmed to follow simple sets
of instructions. Volunteers rode a few derelicts, keeping close to Streaker,
performing special tasks. Rety had volunteered for one of those teams,
surprising Dwer and worrying him at the same time. She
never does anything unless there's an angle. If he
had gone along, there might have been a chance to veer the decoy close to
shore, and jump off. . . . But no,
he had no right to mess up Gillian's plan. Dammit,
I'm used to action! I can't handle being a passive observer. But
handle it he must. Dwer
tried to cultivate patience, ignoring an itch where the bulky suit would not
let him scratch, watching the lights disperse-most heading for the mouth of the
Rift, spilling into the vast oceanic abyss of the Great Midden itself. "Starship
enginesss!" The gravities detector officer announced, thrashing her tail
flukes in the water, causing j bubbles in the supercharged liquid. "P-passive
detectors show Nova class or higher it'sss following the path of the Riff ft. .
. ." wasx REALIZATION
EMERGES, ALONG WITH A STENCH OF frustration. The
vast fleet of vessels that we briefly feared has proved not to be a threat,
after all. They are not warships, but decommissioned vessels, long ago
abandoned as useless for efficient function. Nevertheless,
they baffle and thwart our goal/mission. A blast of leadership pheromones cuts
through the disappointed mist. "TO
WORK THEN," our Captain-Leader proclaims. "WE ARE SKILLED, WE ARE
MIGHTY. SO LET US DO YOUR/OUR JOBS WELL. "PIERCE
THIS MYSTERY. FIND THE PREY. WE ARE JOPHUR, WE SHALL PREVAIL." Dwer B
GLITTERING LIGHT ENTERED THE DISPLAY ZONE, much higher and much larger than any
of the others, and cruising well above the imaginary waterline. That
must be the battleship, he thought. His mind tried to come up with an image.
Something huge and terrible. Clawed and swift. Suddenly,
the detection officer's voice went shrill. "They're dropping
ordnance!" Sparks began falling from the big glow. Bombs, Dwer realized.
He had seen this happen before, but not on such a profuse scale. Lieutenant
Tsh't shouted a warning. "All handsss, prepare for shock waves!" Sara HOONISH
WORK CREW SWARMED OVER THE TRAM after the passengers debarked, filling the car
with stacks of folded cloth. Teams had been sending the stuff up to the forge
since dawn, stripping every ship of its sails. But the urrish smith hardly
glanced at the cargo. Instead, Uriel trotted off, leading the way down to the cove
with a haughty centauroid gait. The
dense, salty air of sea level affected everybody. Sara kept an eye on Emerson,
who sniffed the breeze and commented in song. "A
storm is a-brewin' You can bet on it tonight. A blow is a-stewin' So you better
batten tight." The
khutas and warehouses of the little port were shaded by a dense lattice of
melon vines and nectar creepers, growing with a lush, tropical abundance
characteristic of southern climes. The alleys were deserted though. Everyone
was either working for Uriel or else down by the bay, where a crowd of hoons
and qheuens babbled excitedly. Several hoons-males and females with beards of
seniority-knelt by the edge of a quay, conversing toward the water, using
animated gestures. But the town officials made way when Uriel's party neared. Sara
kept her attention on Emerson, whose expression stayed casually curious until
the last moment, when a sleek gray figure lifted its glossy head from the
water. The
starman stopped and stared, blinking rapidly. He's
surprised, Sara thought. Could we be wrong? Perhaps he has nothing to do with
the dolphin ship. Then
the cetacean emissary lifted its body higher, thrashing water with its tail. "Sssso,
it's true. . . ." the fishlike Terran said in thickly accented Anglic,
inspecting Emerson with one eye, then the other. "Glad
to see you living, Engineer D-D'Anite. Though it hardly seems possible, after
what we saw happen to you back at the Fractal world. "I
confessss, I can't see how you followed us to this whale-forsaken planet." Powerful
emotions fought across Emerson's face. Sara read astonishment, battling surges
of both curiosity and frustrated despair. "K-K-K-" The
dismal effort to speak ended in a groan. "A-ah-ahh
..." The
dolphin seemed upset by this response, chuttering dismay over the human's
condition. But
then Emerson shook his head, seeking to draw on other resources. At last, he
found a way to express his feelings, releasing a burst stream of song. "How
quaint the ways of paradox! At common sense she gaily mocks! We've quips and
quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox!" Gillian THE
ULTIMATUM BLANKETED ALL ETHERIC WAVElengths-a scratchy caterwauling that filled
Streaker's bridge, making the oxy-water fizz. Streams of bubbles swelled and
popped with each Galactic Four syntax phrase. Most
neo-dolphin crew members read a text translation prepared by the Niss Machine.
Anglic letters and GalSeven glyphs flowed across the main holo screen. HEAR
AND COMPREHEND OUR FINAL COMMAND,OFFER! • •
• Gillian
listened for nuance in the original Jophur dialect, hoping to glean something
new. It was the third repetition since the enemy dreadnought began broadcasting
from high in the atmosphere. "YOU
WHOM WE SEEK-YOU HAVE PERFORMED CLEVER MANEUVERS, WORTHY OF RESPECT. AT THIS
JUNCTURE, WE SHALL NO LONGER WASTE BOMBS. WE SHALL CEASE USELESSLY INSPECTING
DECOYS." The
change in tactics was expected. At first, the foe had sent robots into the
lightless depths, to examine and eliminate reactivated Buyur ships, one by one.
But it was a simple matter for Hannes Suessi's team to fix booby traps. Each
derelict would self-destruct when a probe approached, taking the automaton
along with it. The
usual hierarchy of battle was thus reversed. Here in the Midden, big noisy
ships were far cheaper than robots to hunt them. Suessi had scores more ready
to peel off from widely separated dross piles. It was doubtful the Jophur could
spend drones at the same rate. There
was a downside. The decoy ships were discards, in ill repair when abandoned,
half a million years ago. Only the incredible hardiness of Galactic manufacture
left them marginally useful, and dozens had already burned out, littering the
Midden once more with their dead hulks. "FAILING
TO COERCE YOU BY THAT MEANS, WE ARE NOW PREPARED TO OFFER YOU GENEROUS TERMS.
..." This
was the part Gillian paid close attention to, the first couple of times it
played. Unfortunately, Jophur "generosity" wasn't tempting. In
exchange for Streaker's data, charts, and samples, the Captain-Leader of the
Greatship Polkjhy promised cryonic internment for the crew, with a guarantee of
revival and free release in a mere thousand years. "After the present
troubles have been resolved." In
other words, the Jophur wanted to have Streaker's secrets . . . and to make
sure no one else shared them for a long time to come. While
the message laid out this offer, Gillian's second-in command swam alongside. "We've
managed to c-come up with most of the suppliesss the local wizard asked
for," Tsh't reported. One of the results of making contact with the
Commons of Six Races had been a shopping list of items desperately wanted by
the urrish smith, Uriel. "Several
decoy ships are being diverted close to shore, as you requested. Kaa and his
new t-team can strip them of the stuff Uriel wants, as they swing by." The
dolphin lieutenant paused. "I suppose I needn't add that this increases
our danger? The enemy might detect a rhythm in these movementsss, and target
their attention on the hoonish seaport-t." "The
Niss came up with a swarming pattern to prevent that," Gillian answered.
"What about the crew separation? How are Makanee's preparations coming
along?" Tsh't
nodded her sleek head. Taking a break from the laborious, underwater version of
Anglic, she replied in Trinary. *
Seasons change the tides, * That
tug us toward our fates, * And
divide loved ones . .'. * To
which she added a punctuating coda: "'.
. . forever. ... * Gillian
winced. What she planned-least awful of a dozen grievous options-would sever
close bonds among a crew that had shared great trials. An epic journey
Earthlings might sing about for ages to come. Providing
there are still Earthlings, after the Time of Changes. In
fact, she had no choice. Half of Streaker's neo-dolphin complement were showing
signs of stress atavism-a decay of the faculties needed for critical thought.
Fear and exhaustion had finally taken their toll. No client race as young as
Tursiops amicus had ever endured so much for so long, almost alone. It's
time to make the sacrifice we all knew would someday come. The
chamber still vibrated with Jophur threats. Coming from some other race, she
might have factored in an element of bluster and bravado, but she took these
adversaries precisely at their word. The
holo display glowed with menacing letters "We'll
slip in to shore between the fourth and fifth decoys . . . about eight hours
from now." Gillian
glanced at Pincer, his reddish carapace covered with oxy-water bubbles, the
qheuen visor spinning madly, taking in everything with the avidness of
adolescence. The local youths should be glad about what was about to happen.
And so will Dwer Koolhan. I hope this pleases him . . . though it's not quite
what he wanted. Gillian
admitted to herself she would miss the young man who reminded her so much of
Tom. "All
right, then," she told Tsh't. "Let's take the kids home." WE ARE
THE ONLY GALACTIC WARSHIP IN THIS REGION. NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU. NOR
WILL ANY COMPETITORS DISTRACT US, AS HAPPENED ON OTHER OCCASIONS. WE CAN
AFFORD TO WAIT YOU OUT, INVESTIGATING AND ELIMINATING DECOYS FROM SAFE RANGE,
OR ELSE, IP NECESSARY, THIS NOBLE SHIP WILL FORGO SOLE HONOR AND SEND FOR HELP
FROM THE VAST JOPHUR ARMADA. DELAY
MERELY INCREASES OUR WRATH. IT AUGMENTS THE HARM WE SHALL DO TO YOUR TERRAN
COUSINS, AND THE OTHER SOONERS WHO DWELL ILLICITLY ON FORBIDDEN LAND. ... Gillian
thought of Alvin, Huck, and Ur-ronn, listening in a nearby dry cabin-and
Pincer-Tip, who represented them on the bridge, darting to and fro with flicks
of his red claws. We
already drew hell down on the locals, when the, Rothen somehow tracked us to
Jijo. There must be a way to spare them further punishment on our account. Soon it
will be time to end this. Gillian
turned back to Tsh't. "How much longer before it's our turn?" "• The
lieutenant communed with the tactics-and movement officer. arl TOGETHER,
THEY PROVED ONLY HALF-BLIND, Stumbling down the musty corridors of a vast alien
ship filled I with hostile beings. Ling knew more than he did about starships,
but Lark was the one who kept them from getting completely lost. For one
thing, there were few symbols on the walls, so their knowledge of several
Galactic dialects proved almost useless. Instead, each closed aperture or
intersection seemed to project its own, unique smell, effective at short range.
As a Jijoan, Lark could sniff some of these and dimly grasp the simplest
pheromone indicators-about as well as a
bright human four-year-old might read street signs in a metropolis. One
bitter tang reminded him of the scent worn by traeki proctors at Gathering
Festival, when they had to break up a fight or subdue a belligerent drunk. SECURITY,
the odor seemed to say. He steered Ling around that hallway. She had
a goal, however, which was one up on him. With his head full of fragrant
miasmas, Lark gladly left the destination up to her. No doubt any path they chose
would eventually lead to the same place-their old prison cell. Three
more times, they encountered solitary Jophur. But puffs from the purple ring
caused them to be ignored. Doors continued sliding open on command. The gift
from Asx was incredible. A little too good, in fact. I can't
believe this trick will work for long, he thought as they hurried deeper into
the battleship's heart. Asx probably expected us to need it for a midura or so,
just till we made it outside. Once the crew was alerted about escaped
prisoners, the ruse must surely fail. The Jophur would use countermeasures,
wouldn't they? Then he
realized. Maybe
there's been no alert. The Jophur may assume we already fled the ship! Perhaps. Still,
each encounter with a gleaming ring stack in some dank passage left him feeling
eerie. Lark had lived among traeki all his life, but till this moment he never
grasped how different their consciousness must be. How strange for a sapient
being to look right at you and not see, simply because you gave off the right
safe-conduct aroma. . . . At the
next intersection, he sniffed all three corridor branches carefully, and found
the indicator Ling wanted- a simple scent that meant LIFE. He pointed, and she
nodded. "As
I thought. The layout isn't too different from a type seventy cargo ship. They
keep it at the center." "Keep
what at the center?" Lark asked, but she was already hurrying ahead. Two
human fugitives, bearing their only tools-she cradling the wounded red traeki
ring, while he carried the. purple one. When
the next door opened, Ling stepped back briefly from a glare. The place was
more brightly lit than the normal dim corridors. The air smelled better, too.
Less cloying with meanings he could not comprehend. Lark's first impression was
of a large chamber, filled with color. "As
I hoped," Ling said, nodding. "The layout's standard. We may actually
have a chance." "A
chance for what?" She
turned back to look into the vault, which Lark now saw to be quite vast, filled
with a maze of crisscrossing support beams ... all of them draped with varied
types of vegetation. "A
chance to survive," she answered, and took his hand, drawing him inside. A
jungle surrounded them, neatly organized and regimented. Tier after tier of
shelves and platforms receded from view, serviced by machines moving slowly
along tracks. Arrayed on this vast network there flourished a riot of living
forms, broad leaves and hanging vines, creepers and glistening tubers. Water
dripped along some of the twisted green cables, and the two of them rushed to
the nearest trickle, lapping eagerly. Now
Lark understood the meaning of the aroma symbol that had led them here. In the
middle of hell, they had found a small oasis. At that moment, it felt like paradise. HE DID
NOT LIKE GOING DOWN TO THE WATER. THE harbor was too frenzied. It
hardly seemed like a joyous reunion to see Kaa and other friends again. He
recognized good old Brookida, and Tussito, and Wattaceti. They all seemed glad
to see him, but far too busy to spend time visiting, or catching up. Perhaps
that was just as well. Emerson felt ashamed. Shame that he could not greet them
with anything more than their names . . . and an occasional snippet of song. Shame
that he could not help them in their efforts- hauling all sorts of junk out of
the sea, instructing Uriel's assistants, and sending the materials up by tram
to the peak of Mount Guenn. Above
all, he felt shame over the failure of his sacrifice, back at that immense
space city made of snow-that fluffy metropolis, the size of a solar
system-called the Fractal System. Oh, it
seemed so noble and brave when he set forth in a salvaged Thennanin scout,
extravagantly firing to create a diversion and help Streaker escape. With his
last glimpse- as force fields closed in all around him-he had seen the beloved,
scarred hull slip out through an opening in the vast shell of ice, and prayed
she would make it. Gillian,
he had thought. Perhaps she would think of him, now. The way she recalled her
Tom. Then
the Old Ones took him from the little ship, and had their way with him. They
prodded and probed. They made him a cripple. They gave him forgetfulness. And
they sent him here. The
outlines are still hazy, but Emerson now saw the essential puzzle. Streaker
had escaped to this forlorn planet, only to be trapped. More hard luck for a
crew that never got a break. But . .
. why . . . send . . . me . . . here? That
action by the Old Ones made no sense. It seemed crazy. Everyone
would be better off if he had died, the way he planned. The
whole population of the hoonish seaport was dashing about. Sara seemed
preoccupied, spending much of her time talking rapidly to Uriel, or else
arguing heatedly with the gray-bearded human scholar whose name Emerson could
not recall. Often a
messenger would arrive, bearing one of the pale' paper strips used for
transcribing semaphore bulletins Once, the urrish courier came at a gallop,
panting and clearly shaken by the news she bore. An eruption of dismayed babble
swelled as Emerson made out a single repeated word-"Biblos." Everyone
was so upset and distracted, nobody seemed to mind when he indicated a wish to
take the tram back up to Uriel's forge. Using gestures, Sara made clear that he
must come back before sunset, and he agreed. Clearly i something was going to
happen then. Sara made sure Prity went along to look after him. Emerson
didn't mind. He got along well with Prity. They were both of a kind. The little
chim's crude humor, expressed with hand-signed jokes, often broke him up. Those
fishie things are cousins? she signaled at one point, referring to the busy,
earnest dolphins. , was hoping they tasted good! Emerson
laughed. Earth's two client-level races had an ongoing rivalry that seemed
almost instinctive. During
the ride upslope, he examined some of the machinery Kaa and the others had
provided at Uriel's request. Most of it looked like junk-low-level Galactic
computers, ripped out of standard consoles that might be hundreds or millions
of years old. Many were stained or slimy from long immersion. The melange of
devices seemed to share just one trait-they had been refurbished enough to be
turned on. He could tell because the power leads were all wrapped in tape to
prevent it. Otherwise, it looked like a pile of garbage. He
longed to squat on the floor and tinker with the things. Prity shook her head
though. She was under orders to prevent it. So instead Emerson looked out
through the window, watching distant banks of dense clouds roll ominously
closer from the west. He
fantasized about running away, perhaps to Xi, the quiet, pastoral refuge hidden
in a vast desert of color. He would ride horses and practice his music . . .
maybe fix simple, useful tools to earn his keep. Something to help fool himself
that his life still had worth. For a
while he had felt valued here, helping Uriel get results from the Hall of
Spinning Disks, but no one seemed to need him anymore. He felt like a burden. It
would be worse if he returned to Streaker, a shell. A fragment. The chance of a
cure beckoned. But Emerson was smart enough to know the prospects weren't
promising. Captain Creideiki once had an injury like his, and the ship's doctor
had been helpless to correct such extensive damage to a brain. Perhaps
at home, though . . . On Earth . . . He
painted the blue globe in his mind, a vision of beauty that ached his heart. Deep
inside, Emerson knew he would never see it again. The tram docked at last. His
mood lifted for a little while, helping Uriel's staff unload cargo. Along with
Prity, he followed the urs and qheuens down a long, twisty corridor toward a
flow of warm air. At last they reached a big underground grotto-a cave with an
opening at the far end, facing north. Hints of color gleamed far beyond,
reminding him of the Spectral Flow. Workers
scurried about. Emerson saw g'Kek teams busy sewing together great sheets of
strong, lightweight cloth. He watched urs delicately adjust handmade valves as
gray qheuens bent lengths of pipe with their strong claws. Already, breaths of
volcanically heated air were flowing into the first of many waiting canopies,
creating bulges that soon joined together, forming a globe-ended bag. Emerson
looked across the scene, then back at the salvaged junk the dolphins had
donated. Slowly,
a smile spread across his face. To his
great satisfaction, the urrish smiths seemed glad when he silently offered to
lend a hand. Kaa THE
SKIES OPENED AROUND NIGHTFALL, LETTING down both rain and lightning. The
whale sub Hikahi delayed entering Port Wuphon until the storm's first stinging
drizzle began peppering the wharves and huts. The sheltered bay speckled with
the impact of dense droplets as the submersible glided up a slanted coastal
shelf toward an agreed rendezvous. Kaa
swam just ahead, guiding her through the narrow channel, between jagged shoals
of demicoral. No one I would have denied him the honor. , am still chief pilot,
he thought. With or without my nickname. The
blunt-nosed craft mimicked his long turn around the . sheltering headland,
following as he showed the way with powerful, body-arching thrusts of his tail.
It was an older piloting technique than wormhole diving, not highly technical.
But Kaa's ancestors used to show human sailors the ,' way home in this manner,
long before the oldest clear I memory of either race. "Another
two hundred meters, Hikahi, "he projected using sonar speech. "Then a
thirty-degree turn to port. After that, it's three hundred and fifty meters to
full stop." The
response was cool, professional. "Roger.
Preparing for debarkation." Kaa's
team-Brookida and a half-dozen neo-fins who had come out earlier to unload
Uriel's supplies-moored the vessel when it reached the biggest dock. A small
crowd of dignitaries waited on the pier, under heavy skies. Umbrellas sheltered
the urrish delegates, who pressed together in a shivering mass, swaying their
long necks back and forth. Humans and hoons made do with cloaks and hats, while
the others simply ignored the rain. Kaa was
busy for a time, giving instructions as the helmsman fine-tuned her position,
then cut engines. Amid a froth of bubbles, the Hikahi brought her bow even with
the wharf. Clamshell doors opened, like a grinning mouth. Backlit
by the bright interior, a single human being strode forward. A tall female
whose proud bearing seemed to say that she had little left to lose-little that
life could take from her-except honor. For a long moment, Gillian Baskin looked
on the surface of Jijo, inhaling fresh air for the first time in years. Then
she turned back toward the interior, beckoning with a smile and an extended
arm. Four
silhouettes approached-one squat, one gangly, one wheeled, and the last
clattering like a nervous colt. Kaa knew the tall one, although they had never
met. Alvin, the young "humicking" writer, lover of Verne and Twain,
whose journal had explained so much about the strange mixed culture of sooner
races. A moan
of overjoyed release escaped those waiting, who flowed forward in a rush. So-embraced
by their loved ones, and pelted by rain- the adventurous crew of Wuphon's Dream
finally came home. There
were other reunions . . . and partings. Kaa
went aft to help Makanee debark her patients. Streaker's chief physician seemed
older than Kaa remembered, and very tired, as she supervised a growing throng
of neo-dolphins, splashing and squealing beyond the Hikahi's starboard flank.
While some appeared listless, others dashed about with antic, explosive energy.
Two nurses helped Makanee keep the group herded together at the south end of
the harbor, using occasional low-voltage discharges from their harnesses to
prevent their patients from dashing off. The devolved ones wore nothing but
skin. Kaa
counted their number-forty-six-and felt a shiver of worry. Such a large
fraction of Streaker's crew! Gillian must be desperate indeed, to contemplate
abandoning them here. Many were probably only experiencing fits of temporary
stress atavism, and would be all right if they just had peace and quiet for a
time. Well,
maybe they'll get it, on Jijo, he thought. Assuming this planet sea turns out
to be as friendly as it looks. And \ assuming the Galactics leave us alone. In
becoming Jijo's latest illegal settler race, dolphins had an advantage over
those who preceded them. Fins would not need buildings, or much in the way of
tools. Only the j finest Galactic detectors might sieve their DNA resonance out
of the background organic stew of a life world, and just at close range. ; There
are advantages, he admitted. This way, some of) our kind may survive, even if
Earth and her colonies don't. And if dolphins are caught here, so what? Haw ,
could we Terragens get into any more trouble than we' already are? ' Kaa had
read about local belief in Redemption. A species that found itself in trouble
might get a second chance, returning to the threshold state, so that some new
patron might adopt and guide them to a better destiny. Tursiofs amicus was less
than three hundred years old as a toolusing life-form. Confronted by a
frolicking mob of his own kind-former members of an elite starship crew, now
screeching like animals-Kaa knew it shouldn't take fins long to achieve
"redemption." He felt
burning shame. Kaa
joined Brookida, unloading Makanee's pallet of supplies. He did not want to
face the nurses, who might reproach him for "losing" Peepoe. At least
now there's a chance to find her. With our own colony in place, I can serve
Makanee as a scout, patrolling and exploring . . . in time I'll catch up with
Zhaki andMopol. Then we'll have a reckoning. The aft
hatch kept cycling after the last dolphin was through. Excited squeaks
resonated across the bay as another set of emigres followed Makanee to an
assembly point, on a rocky islet in the middle of the harbor. Eager six-limbed
amphibian forms, with frilly gill fringes waving about their heads.
Transplanted from their native Kithrup, the Kiqui would not qualify as sooners,
exactly. They were already a ripe, presapient life-form-a real treasure, in
fact. It would have been good to bring them home to Earth in triumph and lay a
claim of adoption with the Galactic Uplift Institute. But now Gillian clearly
thought it better to leave them here, where they had a chance. According
to plan, the dolphin-Kiqui colony would stay in Port Wuphon for a few days,
while a traeki pharmacist analyzed the newcomers' dietary needs. If necessary,
new types of traeki stacks would be designed to create symbiotic supplements.
Then both groups would head out to find homes amid islands offshore. I'm
coming, Peepoe, Kaa thought. Once we get everyone settled, nothing on Jijo or
the Five Galaxies will keep me from you. A happy
musing. Yet another thought kept nagging at him. Gillian
isn 't just stripping the ship of nonessential personnel. She's putting
everyone ashore she can spare . . . for their own safety. In
other words, the human Terragens agent was planning something desperate . . .
and very likely fatal. Kaa had an uneasy feeling that he knew what it was. Alvin I GUESS
REUNIONS CAN BE KIND OF AWKWARD, EVEN when they're happy ones. Don't
get me wrong! I can't imagine a better moment than when the four of us-Huck,
Ur-ronn, Pincer, and me-stepped out of the metal whale's yawning mouth to see
the hooded lanterns of our own hometown. My senses were drenched with
familiarity. I heard the creaking dross ships and the lapping tide. I smelled
the melon canopies and smoke from a nearby cookstove-someone making chubvash
stew. My magnetic earbones tickled to the familiar presence of Mount Guenn,
invisible in the dark, yet a ^ powerful influence on the hoonish
shape-and-location i sense. Then
there came my father's umble cry, booming from the shadows, and my mother and
sister, rushing to my arms. . • I
confess, my first reaction was hesitant. I was glad to be home, to see and
embrace them, but also embarrassed by the attention, and a little edgy about
moving around without a cane for the first time in months. When there came a
free moment, I bowed to my parents and handed them a package, wrapped in
complex folds of the best paper I could find on the Streaker, containing my
baby vertebrae. It was an important moment. I had gone away a disobedient
child. Now I was returning, an adult, with work to do. My
friends' homecomings were less emotional. Of course Huck's hoonish adoptive
parents were thrilled to have her back from the dead, but no one expected them
to feel what my own folks did after giving up their only son for lost, months
ago. Pincer-Tip
touched claws briefly with a matron from the qheuen hive, and that was it for
him. As for
Ur-ronn., she and Uriel barely exchanged greetings. Aunt and niece had one
priority-to get out of the rain. They fled the drizzle to a nearby warehouse,
swiftly immersing themselves in some project. Urs don't believe in wasting
time. Does it
make me seem heartless to say that I could not give complete attention to my
family? Even as they clasped me happily, I kept glancing to see what else was
going on. It will be up to me-and maybe Huck-to tell later generations about
this event. This fateful meeting on the docks. For one
thing, there were other reunions. My new
human friend, Dwer Koolhan, emerged from the Hikahi, a tall silhouette, as
sturdy looking as a preteen hoon. When he appeared, a shout pealed from the
crowd of onlookers, and a young woman rushed to him, her arms spread wide. Dwer
seemed stunned to see her . . . then equally enthused, seizing her into a
whirling hug. At first, I thought she might be some long-separated lover, but
now I know it is his sister, with adventures of her own to recount. The
rain let up a bit. Uriel returned, wearing booties and a heavy black waterproof
slicker that covered all but the tip of her snout. Behind came several hoons,
driving a herd of ambling, four-footed creatures. Glovers. At least two dozen
of the bulge-eyed brutes swarmed down the pier, their opal skins glistening. A
few carried cloth-wrapped burdens in their grasping tails. They did not
complain, but trotted toward the opening of the whale sub without pause. This
part of the transaction, I did not--and still do not--understand. Why Earthling
fugitives would want glavers is beyond me. Gillian
Baskin had the hoons carry out several large crates in exchange. I had seen the
contents and felt an old hunger rise within me. Books.
There were hundreds of paper books, freshly minted aboard the Streaker. Not a
huge amount of material, compared with the Galactic Library unit, or even the
Great Printing, but included in the boxes were updates about the current state
of the Five Galaxies, and other subjects Uriel requested. More than enough
value to barter for a bunch of grub-eating glavers! Later,
I connected the trade with the dolphins and Kiqui who also debarked in Wuphon
Harbor, and I realized, There's more to this deal than meets the eye. Did I
mention the tall prisoner? As everybody moved off to the great hall for a
hurried feast, I looked back and glimpsed a hooded figure being led down the
pier toward the submarine, guarded by two wary-looking urs. It was a biped, but
did not move like a human or hoon, and I could tell both hands were tied.
Whoever the prisoner was, he vanished into the Hikahi in a hurry, and I never
heard a word about it. The
last reunion took place half a midura later, when we were all gathered in the
town hall. According
to a complex plan worked out by the Niss Machine, the whale sub did not have to
depart for some time, so a banquet was held in the fashion of our Jijoan
Commons. Each race claimed a corner of the hexagonal chamber for its own food
needs, then individuals migrated round the center hearth, chatting, renewing
acquaintance, or discussing the nature of the world. While Gillian Baskin was
engrossed in deep conversation with my parents and Uriel, my sister brought me
up to date on happenings in Wuphon since our departure. In this way I learned
of school chums who had marched north to war, joining militia units while we
four adventurers had childish exploits in the cryptic deep. Some were dead or
missing in the smol-' dering ruins of Ovoom Town. Others, mostly qheuens, had
died in the plagues of late spring. The
hoonish disease never had a chance to take hold here in the south. But before
the vaccines came, one ship had been kept offshore at anchor-in
quarantine-because a sailor showed symptoms. Within
a week, half the crew had died. Despite
the gravity of her words, it was hard to pay close attention. I was trying to
screw up my courage, you see Somehow, I must soon tell my family the news they
would least want to hear. Amid
the throng, I spotted Dwer and his sister huddled near the fire, each taking
turns amazing the other with tales about their travels. Their elation at being
reunited was clearly muted by a kind of worry familiar to all of usconcern
about loved ones far away, whose fates were still unknown. I had a sense that
the two of them knew, as I did, that there remained very little time. Not far
away I spied Dwer's noor companion, Mudfoot-the one Gillian called a
"tytlal"-perched on a rafter, communing with others of his kind. In
place of their normal, devil-may-care expressions, the creatures looked somber.
Now we Six knew their secret-that the tytlal are a race hidden within a race,
another tribe of sooners, fully alert and aware of their actions. Might some
victims of past i pranks now scheme revenge on the little imps? That seemed the
least of their worries, but I wasted no sympathy on them. Welcome
to the real world, I thought. Tyug
squatted in a corner of the hall, furiously puffing away. Every few duras, the
traeki's synthi ring would pop out another glistening ball of some substance
whose value the Six Races had learned after long experience. Supplements to,
keep glavers healthy, for instance, and other chemical wonders that might serve
Gillian's crew, if some miracle allowed them to escape. If Tyug finished soon,
Uriel hoped to keep her alchemist. But I would lay bets that the traeki meant
to go along when the Earthhngs de-' parted. The
occasion was interrupted when a pair of big hoons wearing proctors' badges
pushed through leather door strips into the feasting hall, gripping the arms of
a male human I had never seen before. He was of middle height for their kind,
with a dark complexion and an unhappy expression. He wore a rewq on his
forehead, and hair combed to hide a nasty scar near his left ear. A small chimp
followed close behind, her appearance rueful. I
wasn't close enough to hear the details firsthand, but later I pieced together
that this was a long-lost crew mate of the Streakers, whose appearance on Jrjo
had them mystified. He had been on Mount Guenn, helping Uriel's smiths work on
some secret project, when he suddenly up and tried to escape by stealing some
kind of flying machine! As the
guards brought him forward, Gillian's face washed with recognition. She smiled,
though he cringed, as if dreading this meeting. The dark man turned left to
hide his mutilation, but Gillian insistently took his hands. She
expressed pleasure at seeing him by leaning up to kiss one cheek. Perhaps
later I'll learn more about where he fits in all this. But time is short and I
must close this account before the Hikahi sets sail to rejoin the
dolphin-crewed ship. So \ let me finish with the climax of an eventful
evening. I A
herald burst in. His vibrating sac boomed an alert umble. "Come!
Come and see the unusual!" Hurrying
outside, we found the rain had stopped temporarily. A window opened in the
clouds, wide enough for \ Loocen to pour pale, liquid luminance across a flank
of \ Mount Guenn. Swathes of brittle stars shone through, including one deep
red, cyclopean eye. In
spite of this lull, the storm was far from over. Lightning flickered as clouds
grew denser still. The west was, one great mass of roiling blackness amid a
constant back-; ground
of thunder. In miduras, the coast was really going to get hit. People
started pointing. Huck rolled up near my right leg and gestured with all four
agile eyestalks, directing my' gaze toward the volcano. At
first, I couldn't tell what I was seeing. Vague, ghostlike shapes seemed to bob
and flutter upward, visible mostly as curved silhouettes that blocked sporadic
stars. Sometimes lightning caused one of the objects to glow along a rounded
flank, revealing a globelike outline, tapered at the bottom. They seemed big,
and very far away. I
wondered if they might be starships. "Balloons,"
Huck said at last, her voice hushed in awe "Just like Around the World in
Eighty Days\" Funny.
Huck seemed more impressed at that moment than she ever had been aboard
Streaker, by all the glittering consoles and chattering machines. I stared at
the flotilla of fragile gasbags, wondering what kind of volunteers were brave
enough to pilot them on a night like this, surrounded by slashing electricity,
and with ruthless foes prowling higher still. We watched as scores wafted from
Mount Guenn's secret caves. One by one, they caught the stiff west wind and
flowed past the mountain, vanishing from sight. I
happened to be standing near Gillian Baskin so know
what the Earthwoman said when she turned to Urie the Smith. "All
right. You kept your side of the bargain. Now it'' time to keep ours." PflBHEII Vuboen SMASHED
UP. Wheels torn or severed. His braincase leaking lubricant. ,Viotivator
spindles shredded and discharging slowly into the ground. ' Vubben
lies crumpled next to his deity, reeling lire drain away. That he
still lives seems remarkable. When the Jophur corvette slashed brutally at the
Holy Egg, he had been partway around the great stones Hank, almost on the other
side. But the moatlike channel of the Nest (unneled explosive heat like a
river, outracing his Iruttless enort at retreat. Now
Vubben lies in a heap, aware of two tacts. Any
surviving glxeks would need a new High lay. And
something else. the bgg still lives. He
wonders about that. Why didnt the Jophur (inish It on' Surely they had the
power. perhaps
they were distracted. perhaps
they would be back. Or
else, were they subtly persuaded to 30 away The t,gg s patterning rhythms seem
subdued, and yet more clear than ever. He ponders whether it might be an
artilact of his approaching death. Or perhaps his irayed spindles--draped
across the stony race--are picking up vibrations that normal senses could not. crystalline
lucidity calls him, but Vubben reels restrained by the tenacious hold of lite.
I hat was what always kept sages and mystics From mlly communing with the
sacred ovoid, he now sees. A,iortal beings--even traeki--have to care about
continuing, or else the game of existence cannot properly be played. But the
caring is also an Impediment. It biases the senses. AAakes you receptive to
noise. Me lets
go of the impediment, with a kind of gladness. Surrender clears the way,
opening a path that he plunges along, like a youth just released from training
wheels, spinning ecstatically down a swooping ramp he never knew beiore, whose
curves change in dellghtiulty ominous ways. Vuboen
leels the world grow transparent around him. And with blossoming clarity, he
begins to perceive connections. In
legend, and in human lore, gods were depicted speaking to their prophets, and
those on the verge of death. But the great stone does not vocalise. Psio words
come to Vubben, or even images. )4t he finds himself able to trace the Lggs
torm, its vibrating unity. l_ike a runnel, it draws him down, toward the bowels
of Jt)o. rhat is
the first surprise. From its shape alone, the Six s\aw assumed the L,gg was
sell-contained, an oval stone birthed out of Jijo's inner heat, now wholly part
of the upper world. Apparently it still maintains links to the world below.
Vubben s da^ed mind beholds the realm beneath the Slope . . . not as a pic!,ure
but in its gestalt, as a vast domain threaded by dendritic patterns or lava
heat, like branches of a magma (orest, iceding and maintaining a growing
mountain range The
forest roots sink into [(queried pools, unimaginably deep and broad-measureless
chambers where molten rock strains under the steady grinding or an active
planet. ,et, even
here the pattern tormations persist. Vubben hnds himselt ama?ed by their
revealed source. ,
Dross! Deep
beneath the Slope, there plunges a great sheet of heavier stone ... an oceanic
plate, shoving hard against the continent and then diving deeper still,
dragging eons-old basalt down to rejoin slowly convecting mantle layers. The
process is not entirely mysterious to Vubben. He has seen illustrations in
Biblos texts. As it scrapes by, the plunging ocean plate leaves behind a scum,
a irothy mix of water and light elements . . . . . .
and also patterns. latterns
or dross! Or ancient buildings, implements, machines, all discarded long ago,
ages before the Buyur won their leasehold on this world. Deiore even their
predecessors. I he
things themselves are long gone, melted, smeared out, their atoms dispersed by
pressure and heat. Yet somehow a remnant persists. The magma does not quite
rorget. Uross
Is supposed to be cleansed, Vubben thinks, shocked by the Implications. When we
dump our bones and tools in the Midden, it should lead to burial and
purihcation by Jijo's lire. I here isn t supposed to be anything lelt! And yet
. . . who is he to question, it Jijo chooses to remember something of each
tenant race that abides here (or a while, availing itseli of her resources, her
varied liie-iorrns, then departing according to Galactic law' Is that
what you are' tie Inquires or the Holy h-gg. A distillation or memory The
crystallised essence of species who came oelore, and are now extinct' j\
transcendent thought, yet it makes him sad. Vubben s own unique race verges on
annihilation. He yearns ror some kind of preservation, some reluge From
oblivion. But in order to leave such a remnant, sophonts must dwell for a long
time on a tectonic world. for
most of its sapiency period, his kind had lived in space. ] hen you don t care
aoout us living oelngs, after all, he accuses the Lgg. ,ou are like that craved
mule spider of the hills, your lace turned to the past. . .,Again,
there is no answer in word or image. What Vubben (eels instead is a further
extension of the sense of connectedness, now sweeping upward, through channels
of friction heat, climbing against slow cascades of moist, superheated rode,
until his mind emerges in a cool dark kingdom--the seas deep, most private
place. I he
,vildden. Vubben (eels around him the great dross piles of more recent
habitation waves. Lven here, amid relics of the Buyur; the Lgg
seems linked. Vubben senses that the graveyard of ancient instrumentalities has
been disturbed, Heaps of archaic refuse still quiver from some [ate intrusion. There
is no anger over this. iNor anything as overt as Interest. But he does sense a
reaction, like some prodigious reflex. I he
sea is involved. Disturbance in the dross piles has provoked shifts in the
formation of waves and tides. Of heat and evaporation. Like a sleeping giant,
responding heavily to a tiny itch. A massive storm begins rolling both the
surface and the ocean floor, sweeping things back where they belong. Vubben
has no idea what vexed the ,Vildden so. perhaps the Jophur. Or else the end or
dross shipments from the lix Kaces' Anyway, his thoughts are coming more slowly
as death swarms in from the extremities. Vvorldly concerns matter less with
each passing dura. Jtill,
he can muster a few more cogencies Is that all we are to you' he inquires of
the planet, An itch' tic
realises now^that l_)rake and Ur-Ohown had pulled a fast one when they
announced their revelation, a century ago. The Lgg is no god, no conscious
being. Ko-kenn was right, calling
it a particle of psi-active stone, more compact and well ordered
than the Spectral Flow. A distillation that had proved helpful
in uniting the Six Races. Useful
in many ways ... but not worthy of prayer. We sensed what we desperately wanted
to sense, because tfi. alternative
was unacceptable--to face the fact that ive sooners a alone.
We always were alone. That
might have been Vibben's last thought. But at the final moment there comes
something else. A glimmer of meaning that merges with his waning neuronic
flashes. In that narrow moment, he leels a wave of overwhelming certainty. More
layers lie beneath the sleeping strata. Layers that are aware. Layers
that know. Despair
is not his final companion. Instead, there comes in rapid succession--
expectation . . . satisfaction . . . awareness of an ancient plan, patiently
unfolding. Kaa CAN'T-T
YOU USE SOMEBODY ELSE?" "Who else? There is no one." "What
about Karkaett-t?" "Suessi
needs him to help nurse the engines. This effort will be hopeless unless they
operate above capacity." Hopeless;
Kaa used to think it such a simple word. But like the concept of infinity, it came
freighted with a wide range of meanings. He slashed the water in frustration.
Ifni, will you really trap me this way? Dragging me across the universe again,
when all I want to do is stay? Gillian
Baskin knelt on the quay nearby, her raincoat glistening. Distant lightning
flashes periodically lit up the bay, revealing that the Hikahihad already
closed her clamshell doors, preparing to depart. "Besides,"
Gillian added. "You are our chief pilot. Who could be as well
qualified?" Gratifying
words, but in fact Streaker used to have a better pilot, by far. "Keepiru
ought to've stayed with the crew, back on Kithrup-p. I should have been the one
who went on the skiff with Creideiki." The
woman shrugged. "Things happen, Kaa. I have confidence in your ability to
get us off this world in one piece." And
after that? He chuttered a doubt-filled raspberry. Everyone knew this would be
little more than a suicide venture. The odds had also seemed bad on Kithrup,
but at least there the eatee battle fleets'chasing Streaker had been
distracted, battling each other. Fleeing through that maelstrom of combat and
confusion, it proved possible to fool their pursuers by wearing a disguise-the
hollowed-out shell of a Thennanin dreadnought. All that ploy took was lots of
skill . . . and luck. Here in
Jijo space there was no sheltering complexity. No concealing jumble of warfare
to sneak through. Just one pursuer-giant and deadly-sought one bedraggled prey. For the
moment, Streaker was safe inJijo's sea, but what chance would she have once she
tried to leave? "You
don't have to worry about Peepoe," Gillian said, ' reading the heart of
his reluctance. "Makanee has some solid fins with her. Many are Peepoe's
friends. They'll scan relentlessly till they find Zhaki and Mopol, and make
them let her go. "Anyway,"
the blond woman went on, "isn't Peepoe better off here? Won't you use your
skill to keep her safe?" Kaa
eyed Gillian's silhouette, knowing the Terragens agent would use any means to
get the job done. If that meant appealing to Kaa's-sense of honor ... or even
chivalry . . . Gillian Baskin was not too proud. "Then
you admit it-t," he said. "Admit
what?" "That
we're heading out as bait, nothing elsssse. Our aim is to sacrifice
ourselves." The human
on the quay was silent for several seconds, then lifted her shoulders in a
shrug. "It
seems worthwhile, don't you think?" Kaa
pondered. At least she was being honest-a decent way for a captain to behave
with her pilot. A whole
world, seven or eight sapient races, some near extinction, and a unique
culture. Can you see giving up your life for all that? "I
guesss so," he murmured, after a pause. Gillian
had won. Kaa would abandon his heart on Jijo, and fly out to meet death with
open eyes. Then he
recalled. She had made exactly the same choice, long ago. A decision that still
must haunt her sleep, though it could have gone no other way. Yet it
surprised Kaa when Gillian slipped off the stone quay, entering the water next
to him, and threw her arms around his head. Shivers followed her hands as she
stroked him gratefully. "You
make me proud," she said. "The crew will be glad, and not just
because we have the best pilot in this whole galaxy." Kaa's
flustered confusion expressed itself in a sonar interrogative, casting puzzled
echoes through the colonnade of a nearby pier. Gillian wove her Trinary reply
through that filtered reverberation, binding his perplexity, braiding a sound
fabric whose texture seemed almost like a melody. * Amid
the star lanes, *
Snowballs sometimes thrive near flame. . . . * Don't
you feel Lucky? * Rety THE
DOLPHIN ENGINEER SHOUTED AT HER FROM the airlock of the salvaged dross ship. -
"C-come on, Rety! We gotta leave now, t-to make the rendezvous!" Chuchki
had reason to be agitated. His walker unit whined and jittered, reacting to
nervous signals sent down his neural tap. It was cramped in the airlock, which
also held the speed sled to carry them from this ghost ship back to Streaker.
Providing all went according to plan. Only I ain't part of the plan anymore,
Rety thought. Stepping in front of Chuchki, with the sill of the hatch between
them, she removed the tunic they had given her, as an honorary member of the
crew. At first the gesture had pleased Rety-till she saw the Terrans were just
another band of losers. Rely
tossed the garment in the airlock. "Tell
Dr. Baskin an' the others thanks, but I'll be makin' my own way from here on.
Good luck. Now scram." Chuchki
stared at first, unable to move or speak. Then servos whirred. The walker
started to move. "Hit
the button, yee!" Rety shouted over her left shoulder. Back in
the control room, her little "husband" pressed a lever triggering the
airlock's emergency cycle. The inner hatch slid shut, severing Chuchki's wail
of protest. Soon, a row of purple lights showed the small chamber rilling with
water as the outer door opened. A few
duras later, she heard engine noise-the nowfamiliar growl of the speed sled
that had brought the two of them here-ebbing with distance as the machine fled.
She ordered the outer door closed and locked against the possibility that
Chuchki might try something "heroic." Some still thought of her as a
child, and many dolphins also had a mystical attachment to their human patrons. But
I'll be just fine. A lot better off than those fools, in fact. Several
low, squat hallways led away from the lock, but only one was lit by a string of
glow bulbs. Following this trail, she made her way back toward the control
room, sometimes lingering to stroke a panel or gaze into a chamber filled with
mysterious machines. For the last few days she had looked over this salvaged
starship-once a Buyur packet boat, according to Chuchki. Though a mess, it was
one of the "best" recovered derelicts, capable of life support as
well as full engine maneuvering, owing its remarkable state to the Midden's
chill, sterile waters. Durable Galactic machines might lie there unchanged
forever, or until Jijo sucked them underground. It's
mine now, she mused, surveying her prize. I've got my own starship. Of
course it was still a hunk of dross. All odds were against her getting anywhere
in this moving scrap pile. But the
odds always had been against her, ever since she was born into that filthy
tribe of savages, so proud of their sickly ignorance. And especially since she
realized she'd rather be whipped for speaking up than be a slave to some bully
with rotting teeth and the mind of a beast. Rety
had suffered some disappointments lately. But now she saw what each of the
setbacks had in common. They all came about because of trusting others-first
the sages of the Commons, then the Rothens, and finally a ragtag band of
helpless Earthlings. But all
that was in the past. Now she was back doing what she did best-relying on
herself. The
control room spanned roughly thirty paces in width, featuring about a dozen
wide instrument consoles. All were dark, except one jury-rigged station
festooned with cables and makeshift bypass connections. Lights blazed across
that panel. On the floor nearby, a portable holosim display revealed a staticky
map of the ancient vessel's surroundings, a dart-shaped glow threading its way
through a maze of ridges at the bottom of the great ocean. Most of
the decoy ships cruised with simple autopilots, but a few moved more flexibly,
crewed by volunteer teams, making adjustments to the swarm pattern planned by
the Niss Machine. In this effort, Rety's intelligence and agile hands had been
helpful to Chuchki, making up for her lack of education. She felt justified in
having earned her starship. "hi
captain!" Her
sole companion pranced on the instrument console, each footstep barely missing
a glowing lever or switch. The little urrish male greeted her with a shrill
ululation. "we
did, it! like pirates of the plains! like in legends of the battle aunties! now
we free. no more noor beasts, no more yuckity ship full of water-loving
fish!" Rety
laughed. Whenever loneliness beckoned, there was always yee to cheer her up. "so
where to now, captain?" the diminutive creature asked, "shake free of
Jijo? head someplace good and sunny, for a change?" She
nodded. "That's
the i.dea. Only we gotta be patient a little while longer." First
Streaker must collect Chuchki and other scattered workers. Rety had an
impression that the Earthlings were waiting for events to happen onshore. But
after hearing the Jophur ultimatum she knew-Gillian Baskin would soon be forced
to act. I
helped them, she rationalized. An' I won't interfere with their plan . . .
much. But in
the long run, none o' that'll matter. Everybody knows they're gonna get roasted
when they try to get away. Or else
thejophur'll catch 'em, like a ligger snatchin' up a gallaiter faun. Nobody
can blame me for tryin' to find my own way out of a trap like that. And if
someone did cast blame her way? Rety laughed at the thought. In that
case, they can try to out,art a traeki, for all I care. This ship is mine, and
there's notbin' anybody can do about it! She was getting away from Jijo-one way
or another. Dwer THE
NIGHT SKY CRACKLED. At random intervals his hair abruptly stood on end. Static
electricity snapped the balloon's canopy with a basso boom, while pale blue
glows moved up and down the rope cables, dancing like frantic imps. Once, a
flickering ball of greenish white followed him across the sky for more than a
midura, mimicking each rise, fall, or sway in the wind. He could not tell if it
was an arrowflight away, or several leagues. The specter only vanished when a
rain squall passed between, but Dwer kept checking nervously, in case it
returned. Greater
versions of the same power flashed in all directions-though from a safe
distance, so far. He made a habit of counting kiduras between each brilliant
discharge and the arrival of its rumbling report. When the interval grew short,
thunder would shake the balloon like a child's rag doll. Uriel
had set controls to keep Dwer above most of the gale ... at least according to
the crude weather calculations of her spinning-disk computer. The worst fury
took place below, in a dense cloud bank stretching from horizon to horizon. Still,
that only meant there were moonlit gaps for his frail craft to drift through.
Surrounding him towered the mighty heat engines of the storm-churning
thunderheads whose lofty peaks scraped the boundaries of space. Though
insanely dangerous, the spectacle exceeded anything in Dwer's experience-and
perhaps even that of any star god in the Five Galaxies. He was tempted to climb
the rigging for a better view of nature's majesty. To let the tempest sweep his
hair. To shout back when it bellowed. But he wasn't free. There were duties
unfulfilled. So Dwer did as he'd been told, remaining huddled in a wire cage
the smiths had built for him, lashed to a wicker basket that dangled like an
afterthought below a huge gasbag. The metal enclosure would supposedly protect
him from a minor lightning strike. And
what if a bolt tears the bag instead? Or ignites the fuel cylinder? Or ... Low
clicks warned Dwer to cover his face just half a dura before the altitude
sensor tripped, sending jets of flame roaring upward, refilling the balloon and
maintaining a safe distance from the ground. Of
course, "safe" was a matter of comparison. "In
theory, this vehicle should convey you welt past the Rinner Range, and then
veyond the Poison Plain," the smith had explained. "After that, there
should ve an end to the lightning danger. You can leave the Faraday cage and guide
the craft as we taught you." As they
taught me in half a rushed midura, Dwer amended, while running around preparing
one last balloon to launch. All the
others were far ahead of him-a flotilla of flimsy craft, dispersing rapidly as
they caught varied airstreams, but all sharing the same general heading. East,
driven by near-hurricane winds. Twice he had witnessed flares in that
direction, flames that could not have come from lightning alone. Sudden
outbursts of ocher fire, they testified to some balloon exploding in the
distance. Fortunately,
those others had no crews, just instruments recovered from dross ships. Dwer
was the only Jijoan loony enough to go flying on a night like this. They
needed an expendable volunteer. Someone to observe and report if the trick is
successful. Not
that he resented Uriel and Gillian. Far from it. Dwer was suited for the job.
It was necessary. And the voyage would take him roughly where he wanted to go. Where
I'm needed. To the
Gray Hills. What
might have happened to Lena and Jenin in the time he'd spent as captive of a
mad robot, battling Jophur in a swamp and then trapped with forlorn Terrans at
the bottom of the sea? By now, the women would have united the urrish and human
sooner tribes, and possibly led them a long way from the geyser pools where
Danel Ozawa died. It might take months to track them down, but that hardly
mattered. Dwer had his bow and supplies. His skills were up to the task. All I
need is to land in roughly the right area, say within a hundred leagues . . .
and not break my neck in the process. I can hunt and forage. Save my traeki
paste for later, in case the search lasts through winter. Dwer
tried going over the plan, dwelling on problems he could grasp-the intricacies
of exploring and survival in wild terrain. But his mind kept coming back to
this wild ride through an angry sky . . . or else the sad partings that
preceded it. For a
time, he and Sara had tried using words, talking about their separate
adventures, sharing news of friends living and dead. She told what little she
knew about Nelo and their destroyed hometown. He described how Lark had saved
his life in a snowstorm, so long ago that it' seemed another age. Hanging
over the reunion was sure knowledge that it must end. Each of them had places
to go. Missions with slim chance of success, but compelled by duty and
curiosity. Dwer had lived his entire adult life that way, but it took some
effort to grasp that his sister had chosen the same path, only on a vaster scale. He
still might have tried talking Sara out of her intention-perhaps suicidal-to
join the Earthlings' desperate breakout attempt. But there was something new in
the way she carried herself-a lean readiness that took him back to when they
were children, following Lark on fossil hunts, and Sara was the toughest of
them all. Her mind had always plunged beyond his comprehension. Perhaps it was
time for her to stride the same galaxies that rilled ha thoughts. • "Remember
us,'when you're a star god," he had told her,' before their final embrace. Her
reply was a hoarse whisper, "Give my love to Lark and ..." Sara
closed her eyes, throwing her arms around him. ". . . and to Jijo." They
clung together until the urrish smiths said it was the last possible moment to
go. When
the balloon took off, Mount Guenn leaped into view around him, a sight unlike
any he ever beheld. Lightning made eerie work of the Spectral Flow, sending
brief flashes of illusion dancing across his retinas. Dwer
watched his sister standing at the entrance of the cave, a backlit figure. Too
proud to weep. Too strong to pretend. Each knew the other was likely heading to
oblivion. Each realized this would be their last shared moment. I'll
never know if she lives, he had thought, as clouds swallowed the great volcano,
filling the night with flashing arcs. Looking up through a gap in the overcast,
he had glimpsed, a corner of the constellation Eagle. Despite
the pain of separation, Dwer had managed a smile. It's
better that way. From
now until the day I die, I'll picture her out there. Living in the sky. Alvin AS IT
TURNED OUT, I DIDN'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN things to my parents. Gillian and Uriel
had already laid it out, before it was time to depart. The Six
Races should be represented, they explained. Come what may. Furthermore,
I had earned the right to go. So had my friends. Anyway,
who was better qualified to tell Jijo's tale? Mu-phauwq and Yowg-wayuo had no
choice but to accept my decision. Was Jijo any safer than fighting the Jophur
in space? Besides, I had spine-molted. I would make my own decisions. Mother
turned her back to me. I stroked her spines, but she spoke without turning
around. "Thank
you for returning from the dead," she murmured. "Honor us by having
children of your own. Name your firstborn after your great-uncle, who was
captain of the Auph-Vuhoosh. The cycle must continue." With
that, she let my sister lead her away. I felt both touched and bemused by her
command, wondering how it could ever be obeyed. Dad,
bless him, was more philosophical. He thrust a satchel in my arms, his entire
collection of books by New Wave authors of Jijo's recent literary revival-the
hoon, urs, and g'Kek writers who have lately begun expressing themselves in
unique ways on the printed page. "It's to remind you that humans are not
in complete command of our culture. There is more than one line to our harmony,
my son." "I
know that, Dad," I replied. "I'm not a complete humicker." He
nodded, adding a low umble. "It
is told that we hoons were priggish and sour, before our sneakship came to
Jijo. Legends say we had no word for 'fun.' "If
that is true-and in case you meet any of our stodgy cousins out there-tell them
about the sea, Hph-wayuo! Tell them of the way a sail catches the wind, a sound
no mere engine can match. "Teach
them to taste the stinging spray. Show them all the things that our patrons
never did. "It
will be our gift-we happy damned-to those who know no joy in heaven." Others
had easier leave-takings. Qheuens
are used to sending their males out on risky ventures, for the sake of the
hive. Pincer's mothers did emboss his shell with some proud inlay, though, and
saw him off in good style. Urs care
mostly about their work, their chosen loyalties, and themselves. Ur-ronn did
not have to endure sodden sentimentality. Partly because of the rain, she and
Uriel made brief work of their good-byes. Uriel probably saw it as a good
business transaction. She lost her best appren, tice, but had adequate
compensation. Uriel
seemed far more upset about losing Tyug. But there was no helping it. The
Earthers need a traeki. And not just any traeki, but the best alchemist we can
send. No pile of substance balls can substitute. Besides, it will be good luck
for all races to be along. Huck's
adoptive parents tried to express sorrow at her parting, but their genuine
fondness for her would not make them grieve. Hoons are not humans. We cannot
transfer the full body bond to those not of our blood. Our affections run
deeper, but narrower than Earthlings'. Perhaps that is our loss. So the
five of us reboarded as official representatives, and as grown-ups. I had
molted and Pincer showed off his cloisonne. Ur-ronn did not preen, but we all
noticed that one of her brood pouches was no longer virgin white, but blushed a
fresh shade of blue as her new husband wriggled and stretched it into shape. Huck
carried her own emblem of maturity-a narrow wooden tube, sealed with wax at
both ends. Though humble looking, it might be the most important thing we
brought with us from the Slope. Huphu
rode my shoulder as I stepped inside the whale sub. I noted that the
tytlal-style noor, Mudfoot, had also rejoined us, though the creature seemed
decidedly unhappy. Had he been exiled by the others, for the crime of letting
their ancient secret slip? Or was he being honored, as we were, with a chance
to live or die for Jijo? Sara
Koolhan stood between her chimp and the wounded starman as the great doors
closed, cutting us off from the wharf lanterns, our village, and the thundering
sky. "Well,
at least this is more comfortable than the last time we submerged, inside a
dumb old hollow tree trunk," Huck commented. Pincer's
leg vents whistled resentfully. "You want comfy? Poor little g'Kekkie want
to ride my back, an' be tucked into her beddie?" "Shut
up, you two," Ur-ronn snapped. "Trust Ifni to stick me with a bunch
of ignoranuses for conpanions." Huphu
settled close as I umbled, feeling a strange, resigned contentment. My friends'
bickering was one unchanged feature of life from those naive days when we were
youngsters, still dreaming of adventure in our Wuphon's Dream. It was nice to
know some things would be constant across space and time. Alas,
Huck had not mentioned the true difference between that earlier submergence and
this one. Back
then, we sincerely thought there was a good chance we'd be coming home again. This
time, we all knew better. wasx ARLARMS
BLARE! INSTRUMENTS CRY OUT SIRENS OF danger! Behold,
My rings, how the Captain-Leader recalls the robots and remote crew stacks who
were engaged in probing the deep-sea trench. Greater
worries now concern us! For
days, cognizance detectors have sieved through the deep, trying to separate the
prey from its myriad decoys. It even occurred to us/me that the Earthling ship
may not be one of the moving blips at all! It might be sheltering silently in
some dross pile. In operating the swarm by remote control, they might bypass
all the normal etheric channels, using instead their fiendish talent at
manipulating sound. I/we
are/am learning caution. I did not broach this possibility to the
Captain-Leader. Why did
I refrain? A datum has come to our attention. Those in power often ask for the
"truth," or even the best guesses of their underlings. But in fact,
they seldom truly wish to hear contradiction. Anyway,
the tactics stacks estimated improved odds at sifting for the quarry. Only one
more day, at worst. We of the Polkjhy could easily afford the time. Until
we detected disturbing intruders. Interlopers that could only have come from
the Five Galaxies! "THERE
ARE AT LEAST SIX SIXES OF THEM!" So
declares the cognizance detector operator. "Hovering, almost stationary,
no more than fifteen planetary degrees easterly. One moment they were not
there. The next moment, they appeared!" The
etherics officer vents steam of doubt. "I/we perceive nothing, nor have
our outlying satellites. This provokes a reasonable hypothesis: that your
toruses are defective, or else your instruments." But routine checks
discover no faults in either. "They may have meme-suborned our
satellites," suggests one tactician stack. "Combining this with excellent
masking technology-" "Perhaps,"
interrupts another. "But gravities cannot be fooled so easily. If there
are six sixes of ships, they cannot be larger than hull type sixteen. No match
for us, then. We can annihilate the entire squadron, forthwith," "Is
that why they operate in stealth?" inquires the Captain-Leader, puffing
pheromones of enforced calm into the tense atmosphere. "Might they be
lingering, just beyond line of sight, while awaiting reinforcements?" It is a
possibility we cannot ignore. But, lacking corvettes, we must go investigate
ourselves. Reluctantly,
gracefully, the Polkjhy turns her omnipotence around, heading toward the
ghostly flotilla. If they are scouts for an armada-perhaps the Soro or Tandu,
our mortal foes-it may be necessary to act swiftly, decisively. Exactly the
kind of performance that best justifies the existence of master rings. Others
must not be allowed to win the prize! As we move ponderously eastward, a new
thought burbles upward. A streak of wax, secreted by our oncerebellious second
torus-of-cognition. What is it, My ring? You
recall how the savage sooners called to our corvette, not once, but twice,
using minute tickles of digital power to attract our attention? The
first time, they used such a beacon to bribe us with the location of a g'Kek
hideout. The
second time? Ah, yes. It was a lure, drawing the corvette to a trap. VERY
CLEVER, MY RING! Ah, but
the comparison does not work. There
are many more sources, this time. They
are stronger, and the cognizance traces have spoor patterns typical of starship
computers. | But
above all, My poor ring, did you not hear our detection officer stack? These
signals cannot come from benighted sooners. THEY
FLY! Sara GRAVITIGSS!" The
detection officer thrashed her flukes. "Movement signs! The large emitter
departss its stationary hover position. Jophur battleship now moving east at
two machsss. Ten klickss altitude." Sara
watched Gillian Baskin absorb the news. This was j according to plan, yet the
blond Earthwoman showed' hardly any reaction. "Very good," she
replied. "Inform me of any vector change. Decoy operator, please engage
swarming program number four. Start the wrecks drifting upward, slowly." The
water-filled chamber was unlike any "bridge" Saa had read about in
ancient books-a Terran vessel, controlled from a room humans could only enter
wearing breathing masks. This place was built for the convenience of dolphins.
It was their ship-though a woman held command. A musty
smell made Sara's nose itch, but when her hand raised to scratch, it bumped the
transparent helmet, star-i tling her for die fiftieth time. Fizzy liquid
prickled Sara's bare arms and legs with goose bumps. Yet she had no mental space
for annoyance, fear, or claustrophobia. This place was much too strange to
allow such mundane reacl tions. Streaker's
overall shape and size were still enigmas. Her ' , one glimpse of the
hull-peering through a viewing port : while the whale sub followed a
searchlight toward its hurried rendezvous-showed a mysterious, studded
cylinder, like a giant twelk caterpillar, whose black surface seemed to drink
illumination rather than reflect it. The capacious airlock was almost deserted
as Kaa and other dolphins debarked from the Hikahi, using spiderlike walking
machines to rush to their assigned posts. Except for the bridge, most of the
ship had been pumped free of water, reducing weight to a minimum. The
walls trembled with the rhythmic vibration of engines-distant cousins to her
father's mill, or the Tarek Town
steamboats. The familiarity ran deep, as if affinity flowed in Sara's blood. "Battleship
passing over Rimmer mountains. Departing line-of-sight!" "Don't
make too much of that," Gillian reminded the crew. "They still have
satellites overhead. Maintain swarm pattern four. Kaa, ease us to the western
edge of our group." "Aye,"
the sturdy gray pilot replied. His tail and fins wafted easily, showing no sign
of tension. "Suessi reports motors operating at nominal. Gravities charged
and ready." Sara
glanced at a row of screens monitoring other parts of the ship. At first, each
display seemed impossibly small, but her helmet heeded subtle motions of her
eyes, enhancing any image she chose to focus on, expanding it to 3-D clarity.
Most showed empty chambers, with walls still moist from recent flooding. But
the engine room was a bustle of activity. She spied "Suessi" by his
unique appearance-a torso of wedgelike plates topped by a reflective dome,
encasing what remained of his head. The arm that was still human gestured
toward a panel, reminding a neo-fin operator to make some adjustment. That
same arm had wrapped around Emerson after the Hikahi docked, trembling while
clutching the prodigal starman. Sara had never seen a cyborg before. She did
not know if it was normal for one to cry.
Emerson and Prity were also down there, helping Suessi with their nimble
hands. Sara spied them laboring in the shadows, accompanied by Ur-ronn, the
eager young urs, fetching and carrying for the preoccupied engineers. Indeed,
Emerson seemed a little happier with work to do. After all, these decks and
machines had been his life for many years. Still, ever since the reunion on the
docks, Sara had not seen his accustomed grin. For the first time, he seemed
ashamed of his injuries.
\ These
people must be hard, up to need help from an ape, an urrish blacksmith, and a
speechless cripple. The other youngsters from Wuphon were busy, too. Running
errands and tending the glaver herd, keeping the creatures calm in j strange
surroundings. I'm
probably the most useless one of all. The Egg only knows what I'm doing here. Blame
it on Sage Purofsky, whose cosmic speculations justified her charging off with
desperate Earthlings. Even if his reasoning holds, what can I do about the
BuyurpW. Especially if this mission is suicidal- The
detection officer squealed, churning bubbles with her flukes. "Primary
gravities source decelerating! Jophur ship nearing estimated p-position of
mobile observer." Mobile
observer, Sara thought. That would be Diver. She
pictured him in that frail balloon, alone in the wide sky, surrounded by
nature's fury, with that great behemoth streaking toward him. Keep
your head down, little brother. Here it comes. Dwer WITH
THE RIMMERS BEHIND HIM AT LAST, THi' storm abated its relentless buffeting
enough to glimpse some swathes of stars. The gaps widened. In time Dwer spied a
pale glow to the west. Gray luminance spread across a vast plain of waving
scimitar blades. Dwer
recalled slogging through the same bitter steppe months ago, guiding Danel,
Lena, and Jenin toward the Gray Hills. He still bore scars from that hard
passage, when knifelike stems slashed at their clothes, cutting any exposed
flesh. This
was a better way of traveling, floating high above. That is, if you survived
searing lightning bolts, and thunder that loosened your teeth, and terrifying
brushes with mountain peaks that loomed out of the night like giant claws,
snatching at a passing morsel. Maybe
walking was preferable, after all. He
drank from his water bottle. Dawn meant it was time to get ready. Dormant
machines would have flickered to life when first light struck the decoy balloons,
electric circuits closing. Computers, salvaged from ancient starships, began
spinning useless calculations. The
Jophur must be on the move, by now. He
reached up to his forehead and touched the rewq he had been given, causing it
to writhe over his eyes. At once, Dwer's surroundings shifted. Contrasts were
enhanced. All trace of haze vanished from the horizon, and .he was able to look
close to the rising sun, making out the distant glimmers of at least a dozen
floating gasbags, now widely dispersed far to the east, tiny survivors of the
tempest that had driven them so far. Dwer
pulled four crystals from a pouch at his waist and jammed them into the gondola
wickerwork so each glittered in the slanted light. A hammer waited at his
waist, but he left it there for now, scanning past the decoys, straining to see
signs of the Gray Hills. I'm
coming, Jenin. I'll be there soon, Lena. I've just got a few more obstacles to
get by. He tried to picture their faces, looking to the future rather than dwelling
on a harsh past. Buried in his backpack was a sensor stone that would come
alight on midwinter's eve, if by some miracle the High Sages gave the all
clear. If all the starships were gone, and there was reason to believe none
would return. By then Dwer must find Lena and Jenin, and help them prepare the
secluded tribe for either fate destiny had in store-a homecoming to the
Slope, or else a life of perpetual hiding in the wilderness. Either
way, it's the job I'm trained for. A duty I know how to fulfill. He
found it hard to settle his restless mind, though. For some reason Dwer thought
instead about Rety, the irascible sooner girl who had chosen to stay with the
Streaker crew, No surprise there; she wanted nothing in life more than to leave
Jijo, and that seemed the most likely, if risky, way. But
Dwer's mind roamed back to their adventure together-as captives of the Danik
robot, when Dwer used to carry the machine across rivers by wearing it like a
hat, conducting its suspensor fields through his own throbbing nervous system.
. . . All at
once he realized. The recollection was no accident.; No
random association. It was
a warning. Creepy
shivers coursed his spine. Eerily familiar. ; "Dung!"
he cried out, swiveling to the west--just in time to spy a tremendous object,
blue and rounded, like a demon's face, soar past the Rimmer peaks and hurtle
silently toward him, outracing sound. It was
like watching the onrush of an arrow, aimed i straight at your nose. In moments
the starship grew from a' mere speck, burgeoning to fill the world Dwer
shut his eyes, bracing for erasure. ...
l Kiduras
passed, two for each racing heartbeat. After twenty or so, the gondola was
struck by a wall of sound, shaking him like thunder But
sound was all. No impact.| It must
have missed me! He
forced an eye open, turning around . . . . . .
and spied it to the east, bearing toward the decoy balloons. Now he
could tell, the behemoth moved at a higher altitude. The imminent collision had
been a mirage. It never came within a league of him, or gave Dwer any notice. But it
can't miss the decoys, he thought. They're in open view. Blade,
his childhood qheuen playmate, had reported that balloons seemed transparent to
Jophur instruments, But that was at night. It's almost broad daylight now.
Surety they see the gasbags by now. Or
maybe not. Dwer recalled how excited the balloon concept made the Niss Machine,
which understood a lot about Jophur ways. Perhaps Gillian Baskin knew what she
was doing. The
idea was to get the Jophur confused. To send them searching around for supposed
enemy ships they could detect only vaguely. Sure
enough, the space titan decelerated ponderously, descending in a long spiral
around the general area. An aura of warped air seemed to bend all light passing
within half a radius of the tremendous globe. The rewq made clear this was a
shield of some sort-apparent grounds for the Jophur assumption of
invincibility. Dwer
reached for the hammer at his waist . . . and waited. L^an WE
WANTED TO MAKE LOVE AGAIN. Who wouldn't, after the way Ling had writhed and
clutched at him, with animal-like cries that belied her background as an urbane
sky god? He, too, had felt a seismic quake of passion. Ardor that reached out
of something wild within . . . followed by a release that was blissfully free
of any sapient thought. Despite
their dire circumstance, trapped in a ship filled with mortal enemies, Lark
felt fine. Better than he had since- Since
ever. Somehow, this climax did not leave him in a state of lassitude, but
filled with energy, a postcoital animation he had never experienced before. So
much for my vow of celibacy, he thought. Of course, that vow had been for the
sake of Jijo. And we're not on Jijo anymore. He
reached for Ling. But she stopped him with an upraised hand, sitting up, her
breasts still glistening with their commingled sweat. Ling's
eyes were distant. Her ears twitched, listening. A jungle surrounded
them-supported by lattice scaffolding that filled a chamber larger than the
artificial cave of Biblos. A maze of fantastic, profusely varied vegetation
nearly filled the cavity. In this far corner, apparently illtended by the
maintenance drones, the two fugitive hominids had built a nest. Ling, the
trained spatiobiologist, had no trouble spotting several types of fruits and
tubers to eat. They might live weeks or months this way ... or perhaps the rest
of their lives. Unless the universe intruded. Which
it did, of course. "They've
turned on their defensive array," she told him. "And I think they're
slowing down." "How
can you tell?" Lark listened, but could make out no difference in the mesh
of interlacing engine sounds, more complex than the verdant jungle. Ling slipped
into the rag of a tunic that was her sole remaining garment. "Come
on," she said. With a
sigh, he put on his own torn shirt. Lark picked up the leather thong holding
his amulet-the fragment of the Holy Egg he had chipped off as a child. For the
first time in years, he considered not slipping it on. If the ship had left i
Jijo, might that make him free at last from the love-hate | burden? "Come
on!" Ling was already scooting along the lat-' ticeway, heading toward the
exit. In a torn cloth sling, she carried the wounded red torus-one of the
traeki rings i provided by Asx. He
slipped the thong around his neck and reached for the crude sack that contained
the purple ring and their few other possessions. "I'm
on my way," he murmured, clambering out of the nest, wondering if they
would ever be back. Ling
had her bearings now. With Lark to sniff scent indicators at tunnel
intersections, and the purple ring serving as a passkey, they had little
trouble hurrying "north" up the ship's axis. Twice they sped along by
using antigravity drop tubes. Lark's stomach did somersaults as his bodyi went
careening up a jet-black tunnel. The landings were always soft, though. Even
better, they did not meet a single Jophur or robot along the way, "They're
at battle stations," she explained. "Here. Their control room should
be just below this level. If I'm right, there should be an observers' gallery.
..." Lark
smelled an oddly familiar aroma, much like the fragrance traeki used when they
referred to Biblos. Ling
pointed to a rare written symbol inscribed on the wall. She crowed. "I was
right!" Lark
had seen the glyph before-a rayed spiral with five swirling arms. Even Jijo's
fallen races knew what it stood for. The Great Galactic Library. Symbol for both
patience and knowledge. "Hurry!"
Ling said as he applied the purple ring to the entrance plate. The barrier slid
open, giving access to a dim chamber whose sole illumination came through a
broad window, directly opposite the door. It took just a few strides to cross
over and stare through the glass at a bright gallery below. A chamber filled
with Jophur. There
were scores of the tapered stacks. Taller and more slickly perfect than any
Jijoan traeki, they squatted next to instrument stations, many of them
surrounded by flashing panels and lighted controls. At the very center, one
gleaming torus pile perched on a raised dais, surveying the labors of the crew. "A
lot of big ships have observation decks, like the one we're in," Ling
explained in a low voice. "They're for when legates from any of the great
Institutes come aboard-say on an inspection tour. Most of the time, though,
they just contain a watcher." "A
what?" She
gestured to her left, where Lark now saw a roughly man-sized cube with a single
dark lens in the middle, looking over the Jophur control room. "It's
a WOM ... or Write-Only Memory. A witness. Any capital ship from a great clan
is supposed to carry one, especially if engaged in some major venture. It takes
a record that can then be archived in deep storage so later generations may
learn from the experience of each race, after a certain time period
expires." "How
long?" Ling
shrugged. "Millions of years, I guess. You hear about watchers being sent
for storage, but I've never known of a WOM being read during the present epoch.
I guess when you put it that way, it kind of sounds like a contradiction in
terms. A typical Galactic hypocrisy. Or maybe I don't grasp some subtlety of
the concept." You and
me, both, Lark thought, dismissing the watcher from his mind, like a slab of
stone. "Look,"
he said, pointing toward one end of the Jophur headquarters chamber.
"Those big screens show the outside! Seems we just passed over the
Rimmers." "Toward
the sun." Ling nodded. "Either it's morning or-" "Nothing
on the Slope looks like that prairie. That's poison grass. So it is morning and
that's east." "See
the clouds," Ling commented. "They're breaking up, but it must've
been some stor-" She stopped, blinking. "Hear that? The Jophur are
excited. Maybe I can adjust these knobs and-" Sound
abruptly boomed through the observation deck. A screech and ratchet of accented
GalTwo. ".
. . COMMANDED TO CORRECT THE DISSONANCE, DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN YOUR VARIED
REPORTS,JUSTIFY THIS PATTERNED SEARCH! EXPLAIN REASONS WW , WE SHOULD NOT
RETURN TO OUR PRIMARY MISSIONSIFTING FOR THE WOLFLJNG CRAFT.'" Lark
saw the Jophur on the central dais gesticulate along with these word glyphs, so
perhaps that one was in command. If only I had a weapon, he mused. But the
glasslike barrier was probably too strong for anything as crude as a Jijoan axe
or rifle. "We/icannot
recommend departing this area until w verify,rebuke the possibility of foe
ships,smallships, "replied a nearby stack, using a less imperious version
of the same dialect. "Starship cognizances hover nearby, undetectabk on
any other band! But how can that be? Flight without gravities? The Jophur,
great and mighty, must have,pierce this secret, for safety's sake," Another
ring stack edged forward, and Lark felt a shiver of recognition. That awkward
pile of ragged toruses had once been the former traeki High Sage, though its
speech held none of the unassuming gentleness of Asx. "I/we
offer this wisdom-that the scent indicators we pursue have all the stink of an
elaborate ruse! Recall the flame-tube weapons that the savage sooners used
against our corvette, Now our comrades in the captured Biblos Archive report
they have identified the wolfling trick as 'rockets.' Contradicting the tactics
officer, I/we must point out that these rockets flew quite successfully without
gravities! I/we further maintain that-" Another
stack interrupted. "Localization!
One of the nearby cognizance sites has remained active long enough to verify
its location." The
commander vented compact clots of purple vapor. "PROCEED
ON ATTACK VECTOR,PREPARE A CAPTURE BOX FOR SEIZURE OF SOURCE, WHETHER IT IS A
SOPHISTICATED STAR ENEMY OR ANOTHER SOONER RUSE, WE SHALL SECURE IT FOR LATER
INSPECTION, THEN RETURN TO OUR PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE." The
ring piles reacted more swiftly than Lark had ever witnessed traeki move,
setting to work in a whirl of base feet and flailing tendrils. Soon the outside
monitors showed clouds and prairie rushing by in a blur, depicted in many
spectral bands. On some displays, flashing concentric circles closed in. "Targeting
brackets-" Ling explained. But the circles seemed to contain nothing. Only
open space. Lark's
right hand drifted under his shirt, stroking the sliver of the Egg. "I
feel ..." Ling
tugged his arm. "Look at the far left screen!" He
squinted, and began to make out something small and round. A ghostly shape,
depicted as nearly transparent. Blur cloth, he realized, recognizing the
effects of that specialized g'Kek weaving. All at once Lark understood. The
Jophur were streaking toward an object that was invisible to nearly all their
sensors, because it was made of nothing but air and fabric plaited to smear
light. If only
his rewq had not lapsed into exhausted hibernation! The hazy globe loomed
larger, even as Lark's heart beat faster. His amulet throbbed in response. "What
is it?" Ling wondered, perplexed. Before
he could answer, without warning, all the forward viewing screens abruptly went
black. One
Jophur let out a shrill wail. Several vented colored steam. The commander
flexed and blared. "HOSTILITIES
ALERT! ROBOTIC DEFENSE! ALL STATIONS PREPARE FOR THE DRAWBA- " Gillian DETONATION!"
Streaker's detection officer shouted excitedly. "One I of our proximity
bombs just went off, almost on t-top of the Jophur!" The
bridge filled with neo-dolphin cheers. "Maybe that got the
bastardss," someone chittered hopefully. Gillian
called for quiet. "Keep
it down, everyone. That firecracker won't do more than scratch their
paint." She took a deep breath. It was the crucial moment of decision, for
commitment to the plan. "Launch
the swarm!" she ordered. "Get us up, Kaa. Exactly the way we
planned." "Aye!"
The pilot's back showed momentary waves of tension as he sent commands down his
neural tap. Streaks responded instantly, engines ramping up to full power for
the first time in almost a year. The sound was thrilling, though the act would
surely give them away once Jophur sensors recovered. Telemetry
showed the motivators running well. Gillian glanced at viewers showing the
engine room. Hannes Suessi darted back and forth, checking the work of his
well-trained crew. Even Emerson D'Anite seemed engrossed, running his long,
dark hands over the prime resonance console, his old duty station during so
many; other rough scrapes. Speech seemed hardly relevant an this point, when
physical insight and tactile skill mattered most. Perhaps
this time, too, the ship would hear Emerson's rich baritone victory yell. If the
repairs all worked. If we get full use out of the spare parts we mined from
discarded wrecks. If the decoys run as planned. If the enemy does what we hope
. . . if . . . if... Overhead,
the stress crystal dome of the control room changed color. The jet black of the
abyss faded rapidly as Streaker aimed upward, lightening to a royal blue, then
a clear pale green. The engine's roar changed tone as Jijo's ocean reluctantly
let go its heavy grasp. Streaker
blew out of the sea with explosive force, already traveling faster than a
bullet, trailed by a spoor of superheated steam. From
submarine, back to ship of space. Here we go again. Go, old
girl. Go! • Rety WAKENED
FROM A HALF-MILLION-YEAR SLEEP, THE ancient wreck clattered and shrieked.
Forced into furious effort, it howled, like some beast screaming in agony. Rety
screamed back, pressing both hands over her ears. Harsh fists seemed to pummel
her against the arching pillar where she had tied herself down. With each
shake, strips of rope and electrical cable dug into her skin. From
Rety's belt pouch, yee's head waved toward her face. "wife!
wife don't cry! don't worry, wife!" But the piping words were lost amid a
maelstrom of sound. Soon his calls merged into a wail, an urrish ulula tion. Overwhelmed
with dread of being trapped, Rety tore at the straps with her nails, struggling
for release. She never noticed the transition from water to air. The little
holosim display showed whitecaps stretching to a sandy shore, then the tops of
clouds. Crawling
across the hard metal floor, Rety toiled toward the airlock, seeing only a
narrow tunnel through a haze of pain. wasx THE
EFFECTS START TO WEAR OFF. | I emerge from stun state, blind and alone. More
duras I pass before I coalesce My sense of oneness. Of purpose. Sending
trace signals down the tendrils of control, I reestablish rapport with
subservient rings. Soon I have access to their varied senses, staring in all
directions with eye buds that flutter and twitch. HELLO,
MY RINGS. Report now and prepare for urgent movement. Clearly we have
experienced-and survived- an episode of the Drawback. The
what? Truly,
you do not know, My rings? You have no experience of the chief disadvantage of
the Oailie gift? Certain
weapons exist which can render us Jophur insensate for a time, forcing us to
rely on robotic protection for the duration of that brief incapacity. What
incapacity? you ask. I/we
look around. We are no longer near the CaptainLeader, but stand instead at the
main control panel, our tendrils wrapped around the piloting wheels. WHAT
ARE WE DOING? I
command the tendrils to draw back, and they obey. Viewscreens show a blur of
high-speed motion as the Polkjhy races across a landscape of jagged, twisty
canyons, unlike anything our memory tracks recall from the Slope. Inertial
indicators show us racing east, ever farther from the sea. Away from the prey. Other
stacks are beginning to stir, as their master rings rouse from the Drawback.
Hurriedly, I send our basal torus in motion, taking us away from the pilot
station. We scurry around behind the Captain-Leader, who is just now rousing
from torpor. In all
likelihood others will assume that our sophisticated robotic guardians-programmed
to serve,protect during a Drawback interlude-had good reason to send Polkjhy
careening in this unfavorable direction. Feigning innocence, I/we watch as the
pilot stacks resume control, arresting this headlong flight, preparing to
regain altitude once more. MY
RINGS, WHAT WAS YOUR AIM? WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH WHILE YOUR MASTER
TORUS WAS INCAPACITATED? TO SEND US CRASHING INTO A MOUNTAIN, PERHAPS? The
robots would not have allowed that. But diverting the course of Polkjhy-that
was in your power, no? I
perceive we are not finished learning the arts of cooperation. Gillian THRILLING
AS IT WAS TO BE MOVING AGAIN, GILLIAN knew this wasn't the same old Streaker.
It ran sluggishly for a snark-class survey ship. The nearby landmass receded
with disheartening slowness compared with the rabbitlike agility she used to
show. Suessi's motors weren't at fault. It was the damned carbon-carbon
coating, sealing Streaker's hull under countless tons of dead weight, clogging
the probability flanges and gravities radiators, costing valuable time to gain
orbital momentum. Minutes of vulnerability. Gillian
glanced at the swarm display. A scatter of bright dots showed at least twenty
decoys out of the water, with a dozen more now rising from their ancient
graves, screaming joy-or agony-over this unwonted mass resurrection. Groups of
bait ships speared away in different directions, disbanding according to preset
plans, though empty of life. All
empty, except one. Gillian
thought of the human girl, Rety, self-exiled aboard one of those glimmering
lights. Would it have been better to break into her hijacked ship? Or try to
seize control of the computer, reprogramming it to bring Rety ashore? The
Niss didn't think either effort would succeed in the slim time allowed. Anyway,
Alvin and Huck had convinced Gillian
not to try. "We
know what you Earthlings are trying to do with this breakout attempt," the
young g'Kek had said. "And
yet you volunteered to come?" "Why
not? We risked the Midden in a hollow tree trunk. All sooners know life is
something you just borrow for a while. Each person must choose how to spend it. "All
our families and all our septs depend on your venture, Dr. Baskin. This Rety
person selected her destiny. Let her follow it." As
Streaker gradually accelerated, Gillian turned to the ' dolphin in charge of
psi-ops. "Let me know when you get anything at all from the
observer," she ordered. "No
sssignal yet-t," the fin answered. "It'sss well past due, if you ask
me." "No
one asked," Gillian snapped. Without
wanting to, she glanced at the Jijoan mathematician, Sara Koolhan, whose
brother took off in a hot-air balloon, knowing that if the gale did not get
him, the Jophur probably would. Sara floated in a swarm of bubbles, watching
intently. But behind the visor of her breathing helmet, Gillian saw a single
soft tear, running down the young woman's cheek. Gillian
did not need more guilt. She tried hard to think pragmatically. I just
wish the boy hadn't died for nothing. We're going to have to decide ... She
checked the swarm monitors. . . . in moments. . . . Dwer THE
DAZZLING BLAST JOLTED HIS REWQ, CAUSING IT to retreat, almost comatose. But the
creature served its purpose, saving Dwer's eyes. Except for a few purple spots,
vision soon returned almost to normal. There'll
be a shock wave, he thought. After the abuse of last night and morning, he
wondered if the balloon would survive another shaking. Dwer
readied his hammer over the row of crystals, each jammed into the wicker
gondola. He peered east, trying to figure out which message to send. All the
decoy balloons were gone-no surprise there. But
dammit, where's the Jophur ship? Dwer
could not act without data, so he held on and rode out the explosion's booming
echo when it came rolling by, flattening the serrated grass of the Venom Plain. The
balloon survived. Solid urrish workmanship. Picking up binoculars, he sought
again for the Jophur, scanning the horizon. Could
it have been blown up by the aerial mine? Gillian Baskin had thought the
prospect nearly impossible. No weapon in Streaker's arsenal could pierce the
defense of such a dreadnought, even with the element of surprise. But it might
be possible to inconvenience the enemy for a crucial time. Finally,
he made out the distant glint. In fact, the ship seemed to be receding^. He had
the illusion that it was heading toward the rising sun. Dwer
hesitated over the message crystals. There were only four. None of the prearranged
codes toek in this possibility . . . that the foe would flee the scene. Not
upward toward space, or west back to the Midden, or even standing still, but
away from any chance to spy the Earthling ship! If I
don't send anything, they'll think I'm dead. He thought of Sara, and was
tempted to smash all the crystals, just to reassure her. But
then they might make a wrong decision, and she might die instead of me. Because
of me. By now,
squadrons of salvaged decoy spaceships would be heading out beyond Jijo's
atmosphere, spiraling toward orbit and beyond. Gillian Baskin had to decide
which group to go with. Dwer's signal was supposed to help. Frustration
locked him in a rigor of indecision. Raising the binoculars once more, he found
theJophur ship again, a bare pinpoint near the horizon. Then he
noticed something. The
distant dot ... it had stopped receding. Instead, it seemed to hover beyond a
range of craggy highlands. The
Gray Hills, Dwer realized. If only I can give the right signal, I'll be able to
start descending in time to land where I want! The
glittering pinpoint hesitated, then began to move again. Dwer soon confirmed-it
was growing larger. The Jophur were heading back this way! Now I
know what to send, he thought with satisfaction. Dwer raised the hammer and
brought it smashing down on the second crystal. That instant, his back swarmed
with a curious tingling. The feeling came and left quickly. His
duty done at last, Dwer reached for the gasdischarge rope. The battleship was
going to pass close again, and the only way he had to maneuver was to lose
height. Easy
does it, he thought. Let her down slowly. Might as well reach the foothills
before you have to . . . The
great ship loomed rapidly, then streaked westward while gaining altitude,
missing him by hundreds of arrowflights. Alas,
this time it did not ignore Dwer. As it
hurried by, the mighty blue globe dropped a tiny speck. A minuscule dot that
arced away and then dropped rapidly, glittering as it came. Dwer did not have
to know much about Galactic technology to recognize a missile when he saw one. Gillian
mentioned that I might attract attention when it signaled. Dwer sighed,
watching the fleck turn a gentle curve and : then plunge straight toward him. Ah,
well, he thought, picking up his prize possession- the bow made for him by the
master carvers of Ovoom Town,
in honor of his skill as tracker for the Commons of Six Races. When
the explosion came, it was unlike anything he expected. Gillian THAT'S
IT!" SHE CRIED OUT, GLAD OF THE NEWS. Even more elated was Sara, who let
out an urrishsounding yelp, on learning that her brother yet lived. The signal
also confirmed Gillian's best guess. The Jophur had been slow reacting, but
they were doing as she hoped. '"They
are predictable," commented the Niss, whose whirling hologram passed
through oxy-water bubbles unperturbed. "The delay only means we get more
of a head start." Gillian
agreed, but in her thoughts added: We'll
need ten times this much of a lead, in order to make it all the way. Aloud,
she told the pilot: "Punch
us out of here, Kaa. Stay with swarm number two. Put us second from the front
of the pack." The
pilot shouted, "Aye!" Soon
the low, driving harmonies of the motivators notched upward in pitch. Gillian
glanced at the engineroom display. Morale seemed high among Suessi's crewfen.
As she watched, Emerson D'Anite threw his head back to sing. Gillian only
picked up a fragment, though the lyrics had Emerson's coworkers in stitches. "Jijo
.JiJo . . . It's off to war we go!" Even
suffering from brain affliction, his puns were terrible. It was good to have
some of the old Emerson back again. External
displays showed the planet swiftly receding, a gentle blue-brown globe, swathed
in a slim envelope of life-giving weather. Numerous sharp-bordered green
patches testified to where some metropolis once stood, before the site was
scoured and seeded. Whether now covered with swamp, forest, or prairie, the
regions still showed regular outlines that would take eons to erase. Earth
has such scars, she thought. In even greater abundance. The difference is that
we were ignorant and didn't know better. We had to learn the hard way how to
manage a world, by teaching ourselves. Gillian
glanced at Sara, whose eyes bore pain and wonder, watching her homeworld
diminish to a small orb-the first of her sooner line to look down at Jijo, ever
since her ancestors fled here, centuries ago. A place
of refuge. A sanctuary for Earthlings and others. They all meant to bunker
down, cowering away from the cosmos, each race redeeming its heritage in its
own peculiar way. Then we
brought the universe crashing in on them. She
watched Lieutenant Tsh't move among the crewfen at their dome consoles,
encouraging them with bursts of sonar, always checking for lapses of attention.
The meticulous supervision hardly seemed necessary. Not one of the elite bridge
staff had ever shown a trace of stress atavism. All were guaranteed high uplift
classifications when they got home. If we
get home. If
there is still a home, waiting for us. In
fact, everyone knew the real reason why half the crew had been left behind on
Jijo, along with the Kiqui and copies of Streaker's records. We
don't have much of a chance of escaping . . . but it might be possible to draw
the universe away from Jijo. Diverting its attention. Making it forget the
sooners, once again. It
would take skill and luck just to achieve that sacrifice. But if successful,
what an accomplishment! Preventing the extinction of the g'Kek, or the unwanted
transformation of the traeki, or the discovery and blame that would befall
Earth, if human sooners were exposed here. If this
works, we'll have a complete cache of Earthlings on Jijo-humans, chimps, and
now dolphins, too. A safety reserve, in case the worst happens at home. That
seems worthwhile. A result worth paying for. ' Of
course, like everything in the cosmos, it would come at a price. They
had passed Loocen-the moon still glittering with abandoned cities-and
accelerated about a million kilometers beyond when the detection officer
declared: "Enemy
cruiser leaving atmosphere! Vectoring after swarm number one!" The
spatial schematic showed a speck rising from Jijo, larger and brighter than any
other, lumbering to accelerate its titanic, mass. We
could outrun you, once, Gillian thought. We still can . . . for a while. Even
handicapped by the irksome carbon sheathing, Streaker would spend some time increasing
the gap between her and the pursuing battleship. Newtonian inertia must drag
down the heavier Jophur-that is, until it reached speeds adequate for
level-zero hyperdrive. Then
the speed advantage would start to shift. If only
a transfer point were nearer. Gillian shook her head, and kept on wishing. If only
Tom and Creideiki were here. They'd get us away without much trouble, I bet. I
could retire to sick bay with confidence, treating dolphins for itchy-flake and
spending my copious free time contemplating the mysteries of Herbie. In a
moment of decision, she had elected to take along the billion-year-old mummy,
despite the high likelihood Streaker would be destroyed in a matter of hours or
days. She could not part with the relic, which Tom had fought so hard to snatch
from a fleet of ghost ships in the Shallow Cluster-back in those heady days
before the whole Civilization of the Five Galaxies seemed to turn against
Streaker. Back
when the naive crew expected gratitude for their epochal discovery. Never
surprise a stodgy Galactic, went a Tymbrimi saying. Unless you're prepared with
twelve more surprises in your pocket. Good
advice. Unfortunately,
her supply of tricks was running low. There
were, in fact, only a few left. The
Sages THE
LATEST GROUP OF PILGRIMS UNDERSTOOD more now, about the Holy Egg. More
than Drake and Ur-Chown knew, when they first stared at the newly emerged
wonder, glowing white-hot from its fiery emergence. Those two famed heroes
conspired to exploit the Egg for their own religious and political purposes,
declaring it an omen. A harbinger of unity. A god. Now the
sages have printouts provided by the dolphin ship. The report, downloaded from
a unit of the Great Galactic Library, calls the Egg-a psi-active geomorph. A
phenomenon observed on some life worlds whose tectonic restoration processes
are smoothly continuous, where past cycles of occupation and renewal had
certain temporal and technologic traits . . . Phwhoon-dau
contemplated this as the newly reassembled Council of Sages approached the
sacred site, walking, slithering, and rolling toward the place they had all
separately been heading when they heard Vubben's dying call. In
other words, the Egg is a distillation, a condensation of Jijo's past. All the
dross deposited by the Buyur . . . and those who came before . . . has combined
to contribute patterns. Patterns
that somehow wove their way through magma pressure and volcanic heat. To the
south, these spilled forth chaotically, to become the Spectral Flow. But here,
conditions permitted coalescence. A crystalline tip consisting of pure memory
and purpose. At last
he understood the puzzle of why every sooner race settled on the Slope, despite
initial jealousies and feuds, We were
summoned. Some
said this knowledge would crush the old ways, and Phwhoon-dau agreed. The
former faith-founded in the Sacred Scrolls, then modified by waves of heresy-
would never be the same. The
basis of the Commons of Six Races had changed. But the basis survived. A
re-formed Council of Six entered the scarred canyon circle, where they spent a
brief time contemplating the charred remains of their eldest member, a jumble
of frail nerves and fibers, plastered against the Egg's pitted, sooty flank. They
buried Vubben there-the only sage ever so honored. Then began their work. Others
would join them soon. A re-formed council meant re-formed duty. At last
we know what you are, Phwhoon-dau thought silently, leaning back to regard the
Egg's great curving mass. But
other questions remain. Such as . . . why? Rety THE
CONTROLS REFUSED TO RESPOND! "Come on!" she shouted, slamming the
holosim box with the palm of her hand, then jiggling more levers. Not that Rety
had much idea what she'd do if she gained mastery over the decoy vessel. At
first, the stunning views of Jijo and space sent her brain reeling. It was all
so much bigger than she ever imagined. Since then, she had left the big visual
holo turned off, while continuing to fiddle with other panels and displays. Wisdom
preached that she ought to leave the machinery alone . . . and finally, Rety
listened. She forced herself to back away, joining yee at her small stack of
supplies, smuggled off the sled when Chuchki wasn't looking. She stroked her
little husband while munching a food-concentrate bar, pondering the situation. Every
salvaged decoy ship had been programmed to head out-by a variety of
routes-toward the nearest "transfer point." From there, they would
jump away from, fallow Galaxy Four, aiming for distant, traffic-filled lanes
where oxygen-breathing life-forms teemed. That
was good enough for Rety, providing she then found a way to signal some passing
vessel, i This
old ship may not be worth much, but it oughta pay my passage to their next
stop, at least. What
would happen next remained vague in her mind, Getting some kind of job, most
likely. She still had the little teaching machine that used to belong to Dennie
Sudman, so learning those jabber-talk alien languages shouldn't be too hard. I'll
find a way to make myself useful. I always have. t Of
course, everything depended on making it to the | transfer point. Gillian
prob'ly set things up so the decoys'll try to lure the t Jophur. Maybe they
give off some sort of light or noise to t make 'em think there are dolphins
aboard. That
might work for a while. The stinky rings'll chase around, losin' time while
checkin' things out. But
Rety knew what would happen next. Eventually, the Jophur gods would catch on to
the trick. They'd figure out what to look for, and realize which ship was the
real target, Suppose
by then they've torn apart half the decoys. That still leaves mefitty-fitty
odds. Which is Ifni times more than I'd have aboard old Streaker. Once they
figure which one ': she is,
they'll leave the rest of us decoys alone to go about ' our business. At
least that was the overall idea. Ever since she had found Kunn and Jass, dead
in their jail cells, Rety knew she must get off the Earthling ship as fast as
possible and make it on her own. I'd
better be able to send out a signal, when we pop into a civilized galaxy, she
thought. Is'pose it'll take more than just shining a light out through a
window. Guess I better study some more about radio and that hyperu'ave stuff.
'• As
wonderful and patient as the teaching unit was, Rety did not look forward to
the drudgery ahead . . . nor to relying on the bland paste put out by the
ancient food processor, once her supply of Streaker food ran out. The machine
had taken the sample of fingernail cuticle she gave it, and after a few moments
put out a substance that tasted exactly like cuticle. Chirping
tones interrupted her thoughts. A light flashed atop the holosim casing. Rety
scooted over to the machine. "Display on!" A 3-D
image erupted just above the floor plates. For a time, she made little sense of
the image, which showed five small groups of amber points spiraling away from a
tiny blue disk. It took moments to realize the dot was Jijo, and the decoy
swarms had already left the planet far behind. The separation between the
convoys also grew larger, with each passing dura. One dot
lagged behind, brighter than the others, gleaming red instead of yellow. It
crept toward one of the fleeing swarms as she watched. That
must be the Jophur ship, she realized. Squinting closer, she saw that the big
dot was trailed by a set of much tinier crimson pinpricks, almost too small to
see, following like beads on a string. The red
symbol accelerated, slowly closing the distance to its intended prey. Boy, I
pity whoever's in that swarm, when the stink rings catch up with 'em. It took
Rety a while longer to fathom the unpleasant truth. That
swarm was the one that contained her own ship. The Jophur were coming for her
first. My
usual luck, she complained, knowing better than to think the universe cared,. Dwer EVERYTHING
CHANGED. One
moment, he had been surrounded by sky. Mountains, clouds, and prairies
stretched below his wicker gondola. The urrish balloon bulged and creaked
overhead. From
the high northwest, a glittering object fell toward him, like a stoop raptor,
unstoppable once it has chosen its prey. That's
me, he thought, feeling transfixed, like a grass mouse who, caught in the open,
knows there is no escape, and so has little choice but to watch the terrible
beauty of Death on the wing. Death
came streaking toward him. He felt
an explosion, a shrill brilliance . . . . . .
and found himself here. A
gilded haze surrounded Dwer as he took stock. I'm
alive. The
sensations of a young, strong body accompanied irksome itches and the sting of
recent scrapes. His clothes were as they had been. So was the gondola, for that
matter-a basket woven out of dried river reeds-its contents undamaged. The
same could not be said of the balloon itself. The great gasbag lay collapsed in
a curved heap of blur cloth, its upper half apparently cleaved off. Remnant
folds lay spread across the interior of what Dwer came to realize must be a
prison of some sort. A
spherical jail. He now saw it clearly. A sphere whose inner surface gave off a
pale, golden light, confusing to the | eye at first. • "Huh!" To
Dwer's surprise, his principal reaction was intrigue. In those final moments,
as the missile fell, he had bid farewell to life. Now each added moment was
profit. He could spend it as he chose. He
decided on curiosity. Dwer
clambered out of the basket and eased his moccasins onto the gold surface. He
half expected it to be slick, but the material instead clung to his soles, so
that he had to pull with some effort each time he took a step. After a few
tentative strides, he came to yet another startling revelation. "Down"
is wherever I happen to be standing! From Dwer's new position, it looked as if
the gondola was tilted almost sideways, about to topple onto him. He squatted,
looking down at the "floor" between his legs, riding out the expected
wave of disorientation. It wasn't too bad. I'll
adapt. It'll be like learning to ice-walk across a glacier. Or probing face
caves at the end of a rope, dangling over the Desolation Cliffs. Then he
realized something. Looking down, he saw more than just a sticky golden
surface. Something glittered beneath it. Like a dusting of tiny diamonds.
Gemstones, mixed with dark loam. He
leaned closer, cupping hands on both sides of his eyes to keep out stray light. All at
once Dwer fathomed; the diamonds were stars. Lark CROUCHING
BEHIND AN AROMATIC OBELISK, TWO humans had an unparalleled chance to view
events in the Jophur control room. Lark
would much rather they had stayed in the quiet, safe "observation
chamber." Towering
stacks of sappy toruses loomed nearby, puffing steam as each Jophur worked at a
luminous instrument station. The density of smells made Lark want to gag. It
must be worse for Ling, who hadn't grown up near traeki. Yet she seemed
enthralled to be here. Well,
this was a terrific idea, he groused mentally, recalling the impulse that had
sent them charging into a pit of foes. Hey,
look! The Jophur seem stunned, Let's rush down from this nice, safe hiding
place and sabotage their instruments while they're out! Only
the Jophur didn't stay out long enough. By the time he and Ling made it halfway
across the wide control room, several ring piles abruptly started puffing and
swaying as they roused from their torpor. While machine voices reported status
to their reviving masters, the two humans barely managed to leap behind this
cluster of spirelike objects, roughly the shape of idealized Jophur, but twice
as tall and made of some moist, fibrous substance. Lark
dropped down to the floor. All he wanted was tc scrunch out of sight, close his
eyes, and make objective reality go away. Responding
to his racing heartbeat, the purple ring twitched in its cloth bag. Lark put
his hand on it and the thing eventually calmed down. "I
think I can tell what's going on!" Lark
glanced up the twin, tanned columns of Ling's legs, and saw that she was
leaning around one of the soggy pillars, staring at the Jophur data screens.
Reaching up, he seized her left wrist and yanked her down. She landed on her
bare bottom beside him. "Make
like vermin," was his advice. On matters of concealment and survival, Ling
had a lot to learn from a Jijoan I sooner. ' "Okay,
brother rat." She nodded with surprising cheerfulness, then went on
eagerly. "Some of their screens are set to spectra I can't grok. But I
could tell we're in space now, racing toward Izmunuti." A wave
of nausea struck Lark-a sensation akin to panic Unlike his siblings, who used
to talk and dream about starflight when they were little, he had never wanted
to leave Jijo. The very thought made him feel sick. Sensing his discomfort,
Ling took his head and stroked it, but that did not stop her from talking,
describing a complex hunt through j space that Lark failed to visualize, no
matter how he tried • "Apparently
there must have been a fleet of ships on or near Jijo," she explained.
"Though I can't imagine how they got there. Maybe they came snooping from
Izmunuti and the Jophur are chasing them away. Anyway, the mystery fleet seems
to have split into five groups, all of them heading separately for the flare
star. And from there to the transfer point, I suppose. "There's
also a couple of small objects trailing behind this ship . . . connected to it,
as far as I can tell, by a slender force string. I don't know what their
purpose is. But give me time. . . ." Lark
wanted to laugh out loud. He would give Ling the world. The universe! But right
now all he really wanted was their nest. Their little green hideaway, where
sweet fruits dangled within reach and no one could find them. Lark
was starting to push the vertigo away at last, when a noise blared from across
the room. "What's
that?" he asked, sitting up. He did not try to stop Ling from rising
partway and peering around for a look. "Weapons
release," she explained. "The Jophur are firing missiles at the
nearest squadron. They must be pretty confident, because they sent just one for
each ship." Lark
silently wished the new aliens luck, whoever they were. If any of them got
away, they might report what they saw to the Galactic Migration Institute.
Although Jijo's Six Races had lived in fear of the law for two thousand years,
the intervention of neutral judges would be far better than any fate the Jophur
planned to mete out, in private. "The
small ships are trying evasive maneuvers, but it's doing no good," Ling
said. "The missiles are closing in." Rety SHE
CURSED THE DROSS SHIP, FOR NOT GIVING HER control. She
cursed Gillian Baskin and the dolphins, for putting her in a position where she
had no choice but to escape from their incompetence into this impossible trap. She
cursed the Jophur for sending missiles after this decoy flotilla, instead of
expertly finding the right prey. Above
all, Rety swore an oath at herself. For in the end, she had no one else to
blame. Her
teaching unit explained the symbols representing those deadly arrows, now
clearly visible in the display, catching up fast. One by
one, the ships behind hers met their own avenging predators. Surprisingly, the
amber pinpoints did not snuff out, -but turned crimson instead. Each then
drifted backward, toward a meeting with the big red dot. The
Jophur did not swallow their captives. That would take too much time. Instead,
they were snagged at the end of a chain-like a tadpole's tail-that waved behind
the mighty ship. Rety
wondered. Maybe they don't want to kill, after all. Maybe they just want
prisoners! If so,
Rety would be prepared. She held yee with one arm, and the teaching unit with
the other, setting it to begin teaching her Galactic Two-Jophur dialect. When
her own missile arrived, Rety was calmer than she expected. "Don't
worry, yee," she said, stroking her little husband. "We'll find
somethin' they want, an' make a deal. Just you wait an' see." With
desperate confidence, she held on as the ancient Buyur vessel suddenly quivered
and shook. In moments, the motors' grating drone cut off ... and then so did
the downward tug of the deck beneath her. In its place, a gentler pull seemed
to draw her toward the nose of the disabled ship. The
lights went out. But Rety could see a bit. Stepping and sliding carefully along
the slanted floor and walls, she followed the source of illumination to an
unobstructed viewing port, where she peered outside and saw a world of pale
yellow dawn. yee
commented dryly, "beats being dead, i guess." Rety
agreed. "I guess." Then she shrugged. "At
least we'll see, one way or t'other." Gillan I FOUND A LIBRARY REFERENCE. THEY ARE CALLED
capture boxes, "the Niss explained. "This weapon offers a I clever
solution to the Jophur dilemma." "How do you figure?" Gillian
asked. "We
thought we had them in an awkward situation, where they must come close and
inspect every decoy in order to find us. A cumbersome, time-consuming process.
1 "But this way, the Jophur need
only get near enough to | dispatch special missiles. They can then move on,
dragging a string of captives behind them." "Won't
all that additional mass slow them down?" asked Kaa, the pilot. "Yes;
and that works in our favor. Alas, not enough to make up for the advantage this
technique gives them." Gillian
shook her head. "Too bad we didn't know about this in time to incorporate
it in our plans." The
Niss answered with a defensive tone. "Great clans can access weaponry
files spanning a billion years of Galactic history." Silence
reigned on the bridge, until Sara Koolhan spoke, her voice transposed by the
amplifying faceplate of her helmet. "What
happens if we get caught by a missile?" "It creates a field related
to the toporgic cage your Six Races found enveloping the Rothen ship. Of course
that one was meters thick, and missiles cannot carry that much pseudo-material.
The chief effect of a capture box is to suppress digital cognizance." Sara
looked confused, so Gillian explained. "Digital computers are detectable
at a distance, and can be suppressed by field-effect technologies. A principal
reason why organic life-forms dominate the Five Galaxies, instead of machines. "Unfortunately,
this means our decoys can be disabled easily, by enclosing them in a thin shell
of warped spacetime." "Indeed,
it seems an ideal weapon to use against resurrected starships lacking crews.
TheJopbur may be malign and limited in many ways, but they do not lack for
skill or reasoning power." Sara
nodded. "You mean the method won't work as well against Streaker?" "Exactly,"
Gillian said. "We'll prepare our computers to stand a temporary shutdown
without inconvenience-" "Speak
for yourself," the Niss muttered. "As
soon as the capture box surrounds us, organic crew members can use simple took
to dissolve it from the inside. Estimated period of shutdown, Niss?" The
hologram whirled. "I
wish we had better data from the expedition the sooners sent to the Rothen
vessel. They reported major quantum effects from a toporgic layer meters thick. "But
the Jophur missiles will cast thin bubbles. If prepared, crews should burst us
free in mere minutes." A happy
sigh escaped Kaa and several dolphins. But then the Niss Machine went on. "Unfortunately,
when we pop the bubble, it will alert the Jophur which captured vessel contains
living prey. After that, our restored freedom will be brief, indeed." Dwer THE
STUFF FELT STRANGE. IT SEEMED TO REPEL HIS hand slightly, until he got within a
couple of centimeters. Then it pulled. Neither effect was overwhelming. He
could yank his hand back fairly easily. He
could not quite place why it was eerily familiar. Dwer walked all the way
around his circular cage, stopping on occasion to bend down and examine the
starscape beyond. He recognized most of the constellations, except for one
patch that had always been invisible from the Slope. So that's what the
southern sky is like. Undimmed by dust or atmosphere, the entire Dandelion
Cluster lay before him, a vast unwinking spectacle. It would be even more
fantastic without the filmy golden barrier in the way. Thank
Ifni for that barrier, he reminded himself. There is no air out there. In one
direction lay a tremendously bright star he did not recognize at first. Then he
knew ... it was the sun, much diminished, and getting smaller all the time. In the
opposite direction lay Izmunuti's fierce eye. The red glare grew more
pronounced, until he began to make out an actual disk. Yet he realized it must
still be farther away than the sun. Izmunuti was said to be a giant among
stars. In time
he noticed other objects. Not stars or nebulae, but gleaming dots. At first
they all seemed rather distant. But over the course of a midura, they drew ever
closer, rounded shapes that revealed themselves more by their glimmering rims,
occulting the constellations, than for any brightness they themselves put out. One of
them-a rippled sphere on the side toward Izmunuti-had to be a starship. It
loomed larger with each passing dura. Soon he recognized it as the behemoth
that had twice crossed the sky over the Poison Plain, shaking his hapless
balloon with each passage, When
Dwer crossed his prison to peer through the membrane on the other side, he saw
a line of yellowish globes, even closer than the starship. Their color made him
realize, They're other captives, like me. Pressing
close to the barrier, a tingle coursed his scalp and spine. He felt
similarities to when the Danik robot sent its fields through his body, changing
his nervous system in permanent, still-uncertain ways. Well, I
was unusual even before that. For instance, no one else I know ever talked to a
mule spider. . . . Dwer yanked
his head back, recalling at last what this stuff reminded him of. The fluid
used by the mad old spider of the mountains-One-of-a-Kind-to seal its victims
away, storing its treasured collections against the ravages of time. Months
back, a coating of that stuff had nearly smothered him, until he escaped the
spider's trap. A
strange sensation came over Dwer. An odd idea. I could talk to spiders, not
just in the mountains, but the one in the swamp, too. I
wonder if that means ... Once
again, he put his hand against the golden material, pushing through the initial
resistance, pressing his fingertips ahead. The resistance was springy. The
material seemed adamant. But
Dwer let his mind slide into the same mode of thinking that used to open him to
communion with mule beings. Always before, he had felt that the spider was the
one doing most of the work, but now he realized, It's my own talent. My own
gift. And by the Holy Egg, I think I can- Something
gave way. Resistance against his fingertips suddenly vanished and they slipped
through, as if penetrating some greasy fluid. Abrupt
cold struck the exposed hand, plus a feeling as if a thousand vampire ants were
trying to drink his uncovered veins through straws. Dwer jerked back his arm
and it popped out, the fingers red and numb, but mostly undamaged. The membrane
flowed back instantly, never leaving an opening to space. Lucky
me, he thought. When
Dwer next checked, the starship had grown to mammoth size. A great bull beast,
bearing down on him rapidly, with a hunter's complacent confidence. I'm a
fish on a line. It's reeling me in! On the
other side, the captive globes bobbed almost touching, like toy balloons
gathered along an invisible string. The separating distances diminished rapidly. Dwer
sat and thought for a while. Then he
started gathering supplies. The
Sages PHWHOON-DAU
LED THE NEW SEXTET, COMMENCing the serenade with a low, rolling umble from his
resonating throat sac. Knife-Bright
Insight followed by rubbing a myrliton drum with her agile tongue, augmenting
this with syncopated calliope whistles from all five leg vents. Ur-Jah
then joined in, lifting her violus against a fold in her long neck, raising
stringed harmonies with the double bow. After
that, by seniority, the new sages for traeki, human, and g'Kek septs added
their own contributions, playing for a great ovoid-shaped chunk of wounded
stone. The harmonies were rough at first, but soon they melded into the kind of
union that focused the mind. So far,
the assembly was unexceptional. Other groups of six had performed for the Egg,
over the course of a hundred years. Some of them more gifted and musical. Only
this time things were fundamentally different. It was no group of six, after
all. Two
other Jijoan types were present. The
first was a glaver. The
devolved race always had an open invitation to participate, but it was
centuries since any glaver took part in rituals of the Commons-long before
Earthlings arrived, and certainly before the coming of the Egg. But
glavers had been acting strangely for months. And today, a small female came
out of the brush and began slogging up the Pilgrimage Path, just behind
Phwhoondau, as if she had the same destination in mind. Now her huge eyes glistened
as the music swelled, and strange mewling noises emerged from her grimaced
mouth. Sounds vaguely reminiscent of words. With her agile forked tail, she
waved a crude rattle made of a stretched animal skin, with stones shaking
inside. Not
much of an instrument, but after all, her kind were out of practice. What
must it take, Phwhoon-dau pondered, to draw them back from the bliss
a,Redemption's Path? Lounging
on a nearby boulder, an eighth creature paused licking himself now and then to
survey the proceedings. The noor-tytlal had two blemishes on an otherwise
jetblack pelt-white patches under each eye-adding to its natural expression of
skeptical disdain, j The
sages were not fooled. It had arrived just after the I others, gaunt,
bedraggled, and tired, having run hard for several days. Only urgency, not
complacent inquisitiveness could have driven a noor to strive so. The
creature's mobile ears flicked restlessly, and pale, spiky hairs waved behind
the skull, belying its air of feigned nonchalance. Now the
secret was out. Everyone knew these were clients of the legendary Tymbrimi.
Moreover, their patrons had given the tytlal a hoon as uniquely personal as
music, Phwhoon-dau
noticed a soft agitation start to form above the insouciant creature, as if a
pocket of air were thickening, and beginning to shimmer. The sages altered
their harmony to resonate with the throbbing disturbance, helping it grow as a
look of hesitant surprise spread across the sleek, noorlike face. Reluctant
or not, he was now part of the pattern. Part of
the Council of Eight. In the
narrow, resonant confines of the Egg's abode, they made their art, their music. And
soon, another presence began to make itself known. best speed of pursuit, our tactics
stacks compute that all but the very last convoy should be in reach before the
storms of Izmunuti are near. To help
speed progress, the Captain-Leader has ordered that the string of captive ships
be reeled in closer behind us. When robots can board them, we will be able to
cast aside the decoys, one by one. Now the
detections stack reports data arriving from Jijo, the planet behind us. "More
digital cognizance traces,More engine signs!" But the Captain-Leader rules
that this is but a futile attempt to distract us from our pursuit. The
Earthling vessel may have left salvaged wrecks behind, to turn themselves on
after a timed delay. Or else living confederates have acted on Jijo to set off
this ruse. It does not matter. Once the fleeing vessels are in tow, we will be
in between the Earthers and Izmunuti. Things
would be very different if there were more than one route in or out of this
system. But matters are quite convenient for one capital ship to blockade Jijo
effectively. There
will be no more breakouts. That
much is true. Yet, i/we hesitate to point out that this may not yet be the end.
Indeed, the wolflings may have sent us on a "wild-goose chase,"
pursuing only robot ships while they use this respite to cache themselves in
new hiding places, deep beneath Jijo's confused waters. They may even abandon
their vessel, taking their vital information ashore, where we will only find it
by slay-sifting the entire ecosystem! The
Priest-Stack will not permit so extreme a violation of Galactic law, of course.
If such a drastic policy proves necessary, the priest may have to be
dismantled, and the watcher-observer destroyed. Then we would be committed
irrevocably. In case of failure, we would be labeled bandits and bring shame
upon the clan. How is
it possible even to contemplate such measures? Because all auguries show, with
growing certainty, that a Time of Changes has already commenced upon the Five
Galaxies. Hence all the desperate activity by so many great clans. Cwasx BEHOLD,
MY RINGS, HOW WELL THE CHASE PROgresses! Already
one fugitive convoy is liquidated, its component vessels enjoined to our train
of captives. While this growing impediment slows the Polkjhy from engaging her If the
Institutes are indeed about to fall, there will be no one to investigate crimes
committed on this world. DO NOT
TREMBLE SO, MY RINGS. Have I not assured you, repeatedly, that the mighty
Jophur are fated to prevail? And that you,I am destined to be useful toward
that end? Crime
and punishment need not be considerations, if we are the ones who will make the
new rules. Anyway,
it may not prove necessary to return to Jijo. If the prey ship truly lies
before us, the high ambitions of our alliance may soon be within tentacle
reach. We near
the second convoy. And now missiles spring forth. WITH
THE MIGHTY STARSHIP LOOMING CLOSER ON one side, he had to wait in frustration
while the yellow beads clustered on the other, coming together with
disheartening slowness. His preparations made, Dwer raced back and forth to
check each direction. In
time, he learned a technique to make each crossing go much quicker--kicking off
from the wall and flying straight across the open interior. The
Jophur vessel impended, mammothly immense. When its dark mass blocked nearly
half the starscape, a door of some sort opened in its curved flank and several
tiny octagonal shapes emerged, floating toward Dwer's prison. He
recognized the silhouettes. Battle
robots. They
took their time drifting closer, and he realized there was still a large span
to cross. At least twenty arrowflights. Still, only duras remained until they
arrived. On
returning to the rear of the prison sphere, he breathed a sigh of relief. The
captive bubbles were touching now! Yellow spheres, they ranged widely in size,
but none was anywhere near as large as the battleship. Most were much larger
than his own little ball. Dwer
sought the place where his bubble touched the second in line. A low drumming
sound carried through each time the surfaces pressed together. He
zipped up the coverall the Streaker crew had given him-a fine garment that
covered all but his feet, hands, and head. It had never occurred to him to ask
for more. But
right now space gloves and a helmet would be nice. No
matter. The next time the spheres touched, he concentrated for the right frame
of mind, and made his move. SHE
LEFT THE CONTROL ROOM WHEN HER SKIN started puckering from too much exposure to
fizzy water. Anyway, there seemed no point hanging around. The same news could
be had in her comfortable suite--once the home of a great Earthling sage named
Ignacio Metz. Sara
dried herself and changed into simple shipboard garments, snug pants and a
pullover shirt that posed no mystery even to an unsophisticated sooner. They
were wonders of softness and comfort nevertheless. When
she asked the room to provide a tactical display, vivid 3-D images burst forth,
showing that the Jophur dreadnought had once again chosen the wrong decoy
swarm, and was just finishing firing missiles. Meanwhile, its string of earlier
victims merged with the red glow, as if it were gobbling them one by one. At her
voice command, the viewscreen showed Streaker's goal, the red giant star,
magnified tremendously, the whirling filamentary structure of its inflamed
chromosphere extending beyond the width of any normal solar system. Izmunuti's
bloated surface seethed, sending out tongues of ionized gas, rich with the
heavy elements that made up Sara's own body. Purofsky
thinks the Buyur had ways to meddle with a star. Even
without that awesome thought, it was a stirring sight to behold. Past those
raging fires had come all the sneakships that deposited their illicit seed on
Jijo, along with the varied hopes of each founding generation. Their
aspirations had ranged from pure survival, for humans and g'Keks, all the way
to the hoonish ancestors who apparently came a long way in order to play hooky. All
those hopes will come crashing down, unless Streaker can make it to Izmunuti's
fires. Sara
still had no idea how Gillian Baskin hoped to save Jijo. Would she let the
enemy catch up and then blow this ship up, in order to take the Jophur out, as
well? A brave
ploy, but surely the enemy would be prepared for that, and take precautions. Then
what? It
seemed Sara would find out when the time came. She
felt bad about the kids-Huck, Alvin, and the others. But they were adults now,
and volunteers. Anyway,
the sages say it's a good omen for members of all six races to be present when
something vital is about to happen. Sara's
own reasons for coming went beyond that. Purofsky
said one of us had to take the risk-either him or me-and go with Streaker, on
the slim chance that she makes it. One of
us should try to find out if it's true. What we figured out about the Buyur. All her
life's work, in mathematical physics and linguistics, seemed to agree with
Purofsky's conclusion. Jijo
was no accident. Oh, if
she delved into psychology, she might find other motives underlying her
insistence on being the one to go. To
continue taking care of Emerson, perhaps? But the
wounded starman was now with those who loved him. Shipmates he had risked death
alongside, many times before. After overcoming initial shame, Emerson had found
ways to be useful. He did not need Sara anymore. No one
really needs me. Face
it. You^re going out of curiosity. Because
you are Melina's child. Because
you want to see what happens next. Dwer IT WAS
A GOOD THING HE REMEMBERED ABOUT AIR. There would be none on the other side. By
twisting through the barrier, writhing, and making his body into a hoop, Dwer
managed to create a tunnel opening from his prison sphere into the next. A
brief hurricane swiftly emptied the atmosphere from his former cell until the
pressure equalized. He then pushed through, letting the opening close behind
him. Dwer's
ears popped and his pulse pounded. The trick had severely diluted the available
air, taking him from near-sea-level pressure to the equivalent of a mountaintop
in just half a dura. Speckles danced before his eyes. His body would not last
long at this rate. There
was another reason to hurry. As he departed the sphere containing the balloon
remnants, he had seen shadows touch beyond the far side. Jophur robots. Come to
inspect their first captive. His
gear had settled against the golden surface of his new cell. Dwer grabbed the
makeshift pack and moved toward the only possible place of refuge-the nose of
the imprisoned starship. It
looked nothing like the massive Jophur vessel, but resembled a pair of spoons,
welded face-to-face, with the bulbous end forward. Fortunately, the enclosure
barely cleared the ship, fore and aft. A bank of dim windows nearly touched the
golden surface. And
there's a door! Dwer
gathered strength, flexed his legs, and launched toward the beckoning airlock.
He sailed across the gap and barely managed to snag a protruding bracket with
the tip of his left hand. If this
takes some kind of secret code, I'm screwed. Fortunately,
the dolphin work crews had a standard procedure for entering and converting
Buyur wrecks. He had accompanied them on some trips, lending a hand. Dwer was
glad to see the makeshift locking mechanism still in place, set to work in a
fashion that even a Jijoan hunter might understand. To open
. . . turn knob. Dwer's
luck held. It rotated. If
there's air inside, the wind will blow out. If there's none, I'll be blown in .
. . and die. He had
to brace his feet against the hull and pull in order to get the hatch moving.
Vision narrowed to a tunnel and Dwer knew he was just duras away from blacking
out. . . . A
sudden breeze rushed at him, whistling with force from the ship's
interior. ! Stale
air. Stinky, stale, dank, wonderful air. Gillian I have
read in Earth lore about cetaceans and their glorious Whale Dream. What music
might we make, when these strange beings add their voices to our chorus? And
after that, who knew? Lorniks, chimps, and zookirs? The Kiqui creatures the
dolphins brought from far away? A melange of vocalizations, then. Perhaps a
civilization worthy of the name. All
that lay ahead, a glimmering possibility, defying all likelihood or reason. For
now, the council was made of those who had earned their place by surviving on
Jijo. Partaking of the world. Raising offspring whose atoms all came from the
renewing crust of their mother planet. This trait pervaded the musical harmony
of the Eight. We inhale
Jijo, with each and every breath. So
Phwhoon-dau umbled in the deep, rolling vibrations of his throat sac. We
drink her waters. At death, our loved ones put us into her abyss. There we join
the patterned rhythms of the world: THE BAD
NEWS WAS NOT EXACTLY UNANTICIPATED, Still, she had hoped for better. As the
Jophur ship finished adding another swarm of decoys to its prison chain, the
cruiser shifted its attention elsewhere, accelerating to pursue the next chosen
group, Soon
the truth became clear. Streaker's
luck had just run out. Well,
they chose right this time, she thought. It had to happen, sooner or later. Streaker
was square in the enemy's sights, with seven mictaars of hyperspace yet to
cross before reaching safety. The
Sages THERE
ARE OTHERS ON JIJO NOW, PHWHOON-DAU thought, knowing that even eight would not
be enough for long. In time, the new dolphin colonists must be invited to join. The
presence that joined them was at once both familiar and awesome. The council
felt it throb in each note of the flute or myriiton. It permeated the clatter
of the glaver's rattle, and the wry empathy glyphs of the tytlal. For
generations, their dreams had been brushed by the Egg. Its soft cadences repaid
each pilgrimage, helping to unite the Commons. But
during all those years, the sages had known. It only sleeps. We do not know
what will happen when it wakes. Was the
Egg only rousing now because the council finally had its missing parts? Or had
the cruel Jophur ray shaken it from slumber? Phwhoon-dau
liked to think that his old friend Vubben was responsible. Or
else, perhaps, it was simply time. The
echoes steadily increased. Phwhoon-dau felt them with his feet, reverberating
beneath the surface, building to a crescendo. An accretion of pent-up power. Of
purpose. Such
energy. What will happen when it is liberated? His sac pulsed with umbles,
painful and mightier than he ever produced before. Phwhoon-dau
envisioned the mountain caldera blowing up with titanic force, spilling lava
down the tortured aisles of Festival Glade. As it
turned out, the release came with nothing more physical than a slight trembling
of the ground. And yet
they all staggered when it flew forth, racing faster than the speed of thought. The
Slope TO
NELO-STANDING IN THE RUINS OF HIS PAPER mill, exhausted and discouraged after a
long homeward slog-it came as a rapid series of aromas. The
sweet-sour odor of pulped cloth, steaming as it poured across the drying
screens. The
hot-vital skin smell of his late wife, whenever her attention turned his way
after a long day spent pouring herself into their peculiar children. The
smell of Sara's hair, when she was three years old . . . addictive as any drug. Nelo
sat down hard on a shattered wall remnant, and though the feelings passed
through him for less than a kidura, something shattered within as he broke down
and wept. "My
children . . ." Nelo moaned. "Where are they?" Something
told him they were no longer of his world. To
Fallen-staked down and spread-eagled in an underground roul shambler's lair,
waiting for death-the sensation arrived as a wave of images. Memories, yanked
back whole. The
mysterious spike trees of the Sunrise Plain, farther east than anyone had
traveled in a century. Ice
floes of the northwest, great floating mountains with snowy towers, sculpted by
the wind. The
shimmering, teasing phantasms of the Spectral Flow . . . and the oasis of Xi,
where the gentle Illias had invited him to live out his days, sharing their
secrets and their noble horses. Fallen
did not cry out. He knew Dedinger and his fanatics were listening, just beyond
this cave in the dunes. When the beast returned home, they would get no
satisfaction from the former chief scout of the Commons. Still,
the flood of memory affected him. Fallen shed a single tear of gratitude. A life
is made whole only in its own eyes. Fallen looked back on his, and called it
good. To
Uriel-interrupted in a flurry of new projects-the passing wave barged through
as an unwelcome interruption. A waste of valuable time. Especially when all her
apprentices laid down their tools and stared into space, uttering low, reverent
moans, or sighs, or whinnies. Uriel
knew it for what it was. A blessing. To which she had a simple reply. So
what? She
just had too much on her mind to squander duras on things that were out of her
control. In
GalTwo she commented, dryly. "Glad
I am, that you have finally decided. Pleased that you, O long-lived Egg, have
deigned to act, at last. But forgive me if I do not pause long to exult. For
many of us, life is far too short." To
Ewasx-moments later and half a light-year away-it came as a brief, agonizing
vibration in the wax. Ancient wax, accumulated over many jaduras by the
predecessor stack-an old traeki sage. Involuntary
steam welled up the shared core of the stack, bypassing the master ring to waft
as a compact cloud from the topmost opening. Praised
be destiny. . . . Other
ring stacks drew away from Ewasx, unnerved by the singular aromatics, accented
with savage traces of Jijoan soil. But the
senior Jophur Priest-Stack responded automatically to the reverent smoke,
bowing and adding: Amen
... even
had to quash an urge to go chasing after the damned stone! Leave
it, and good riddance, he thought, and nodded to Ling. "Right,
let's go." Dwer LARK,
YOUR HAND!" He
trembled, fighting to control the fit that came suddenly, causing him to snatch
the amulet from around his neck. He clutched the stone tight, even when it
began to burn his flesh. Crouched
behind a set of strange obelisks-their only shelter in the spacious Jophur
control room-Lark dared not cry out from pain. He fought not to thrash about as
Ling used both hands to pry at his clenched fist. At last, the stone sliver
fell free, tumbling across his lap to the floor, leaving a stench of singed
flesh. Even now, the heat kept building. They tried backing away, but the
stone's temperature continued rising until a fierce glow made it hard to see. "No!"
Lark whispered harshly as Ling dived toward the blaze, reaching for the thong.
To his surprise, enough was still attached for her to grab a loop and whirl it
once, then twice around her head, as if slinging a piece of flaming sun. She let
go, hurling Lark's talisman in an arc across the busy chamber, toward the
center of the room. Dismayed
whistles ensued, accompanied by waves of aromatic stench so overpowering, Lark
almost gagged. "Why
the hell did you-" he began, but Ling tugged his arm. "We
need a distraction. Come on, now's our chance!" Lark
blinked, amazed by the power of habit. He was actually angry at her for
throwing away his amulet, and INSIDE
THE DECOY SHIP, HE COLLAPSED ON THE deck and retched, heaving up what little
remained in his stomach. Midway
through that unpleasant experience, another, completely different kind of
disorientation abruptly swept over Dwer. For a moment, it seemed as if
One-of-a-Kind were inside his head, trying to speak again. The strange, heady
sensation might have been almost affable, if his body weren't racked with
nausea. It
ended before he had a chance to appraise what was happening. Anyway, by then he
figured he had wasted enough time. The
Jophur won't take long picking through my little urrish balloon. They'll start
on this bubble next. In full
gravity, it might have been impossible to climb along the full length of the
captured ship and reach the aft end. But Dwer took advantage of conditions as
he found them, and soon taught himself to fly. THEY
WERE DASHING DOWN A SMOKE-FILLED HALL|way, chased by angry shouts and
occasional bolts of I shimmering lightning, when an abrupt detonation rocked
the floor plates. A wall of air struck the two humans from behind, knocking
them off their feet. We've
had it, he thought, figuring it must be a weapon, used by the pursuers. Glancing
over his shoulder, however, Lark saw the robots suddenly turn and head the
other way! Into a noisome storm of roiling black soot pouring out of the
control room. "Do
you think . . . ?" he began. Ling
shook her head. "Jophur are tough. I doubt they were more than knocked
around by the explosion." Well,
he thought. It was only a little piece of rock. He felt
its absence acutely. Lark
helped her up, still wary of returning robots. "I
guess now they know we're here." They
resumed running. But a few duras later, Ling burst out in laughing agreement. "Yeah,
I guess now they do." Gillian RPSI-DISTURBANCE
WAS DETECTED, EMANATING briefly from the planet. Soon after that, the detection
officer announced a change on the tactics screen. "Will
you looka that-t!" Gillian
saw it. The Jophur configuration was shifting. The bright red disk seemed to
shimmer for a moment. Its "tail" of tiny crimson pinpoints, which had
been bunching ever closer to the mother ship, now flexed and began to float
away. "It
appears the enemy has jettisoned all the decoys they captured. I can only
conclude that they figured out bow to scan them quickly and eliminate dross
ships from consideration. The decoys will now drift independently toward
Izmunuti, while the battleship, free of drag, will catch up with us much
faster." Gillian's
hopes, which had lifted when the psi-wave came, now sank lower than ever. "We'd
better get ready for our last stand," she said in a low voice. From
the dolphins there was an utter absence of sonar clicks, as if none of them
wanted to reify the moment, to make it real by reading it in sound. "Wait-t
a minute," Kaa announced. "The Jophur's decelerating! Coming about to
retrieve the jettisoned string!" "But
. . ." Gillian blinked. "Could they have dropped it by
accident?" The
Niss hologram whirled, then accepted the possibility with an abstract nod. "A
hypothesis presents itself. The psi-wave we detected was far too weak to have
any effect on a war cruiser . . . unless it was direct-causative." "Explain." "It might have served as a trigger
that-either by accident or design-precipitated the release of potentialities
already in place . . . say, aboard the Jophur ship." "In
other words, the wave might have affected them after all. Maybe it set off
events that disrupted-" "Indeed.
If this caused the Jophur to lose their control over their string of capture
boxes, they would certainly go back and retrieve them, even at the cost of some
delay. Because they would suspect the string's release was the intended purpose
of the psi-wave." "In
other words, they'll be even more eager to check every box. Hmm." Gillian
pondered, then asked: "Has
their intercept time been delayed much?" Kaa
thrashed his flukes. "A
fair amount. Not-t enough, however. We'll make it to the Izmunuti corona, but
the enemy will be close enough to follow easily with detectorsss. The plasma
won't make any a-ppreciable difference." Gillian
nodded. "Well, things are a little better. And a trick or two to make the
odds better still." The
dolphins snickered knowingly and went back to work, emanating confident clicks.
Gillian's last remark was exactly the sort of thing Tom would have said in a
situation like this. In
fact, though, Gillian did not know if her scheme was even worthy of the name. sara THEY
SAID THAT A PSI-WAVE HAD COME FROM JIJO, but Sara didn't feel a thing. Not
surprising. Of Melina's three children, it always seemed that Dwer had some fey
sensitivity, while she, the logical one, possessed none. Till recently, Sara
had little interest in such matters. But
then she wondered. Might this be what Purofsky said we should, look out for? Sitting
at the stateroom's worktable, Sara addressed the portable computer. "About
that psi-wave-do we have a fix on its hypervelocity?" "Only
a rough estimate. It traveled at approximately two mictaars per midura." Sara
tried to work out the timing in her head, translating it in terms she knew
better, such as light-years. Then she realized the machine could do it for her
graphically. "Show
me." A holo
took shape, portraying her homeworld as a blue dot in the lower left quadrant.
Streakerwas a yellow glimmer to the upper right, accompanied by other members
of decoy swarm number two. Meanwhile a crimson convoy- the Jophur ship and its
reclaimed captives-resumed hot pursuit. The computer
put down an overlay, depicting a crosshatching of lines that Sara knew to be
wave vectors in level-zero hyperspace. The math was simple enough, but it took
her some time to figure out the rich, three-dimensional representation. Then
she whistled. "That's
not inverse square. It's not even one-over-R. It was directional!" "A
well-conserved, directional wave packet, resonating on the first, third^ and
eighth bands of-" The
computer lapsed into psi-jargon that Sara could not follow. For her, it was
enough to see that the packet was aimed. Its peak had passed right over both
Streaker and its pursuer. The
coincidence beggared belief. It meant that some great power on Jijo had known
precisely where both ships were, and- Sara
stopped herself. Don't
leap to the first conclusion that comes to mind. What if we weren 't the beam's
objective at all? What if
we just happened to be along its path, between Jijo and . . . She
leaped to her feet. "Show
me Izmunuti and the transfer point!" The
display changed scale, expanding until Streaker-was shown just over halfway to
the supposed safety of the fiery red giant. And
beyond it, a folded place. A twist in reality's fabric. A spot where you go, if
you want to suddenly be very far away. ' Although
computer graphics were needed to make it out clearly, the transfer point was no
invisible nonentity. Izmunuti bulged in its direction, sending ocher streamers
toward the dimple in space. "When
will the psi-wave reach Izmunuti?" "It
has already arrived." Sara
swallowed hard. "Then
show me estimated ..." She dredged memory for words she had read, but
seldom used. "Show me likely hyperdeflection curves, as the psi-wave hits
the red giant. Emphasize meta-stable regions of ... um, inverted energy
storage, with potential for . . . uh, stimulated emission on those bands you
were talking about." Sara's
face flickered as manicolored lines and curves reflected off her forehead and
cheekbones. Her
eyes widened, briefly showing white all the way around the irises. She mouthed
a single word, without managing to form a voice. Then
Sara clutched for a nearby pad of paper-no better than the premium stock her
own father produced-and scrawled down two lines of coordinates. Gillian
Baskin answered her urgent call, though the older woman looked harassed and a
little irked. "Sage Koolhan, I really don't have time-" "Oh yes
you do," Sara told her sternly. "Meet me in your office in forty
duras. You are definitely gonna want to hear this!" Rety A YOUNG
WOMAN SAT IN A LOCKED ROOM, ALL alone in her universe, until someone knocked. In fact
she was not entirely alone-r-yee was with her. Moreover, the knock wasn't at
the door, but rapped loudly on the window below her feet. Still, the element of
eerie surprise was there. Rety jumped back, scurrying away from the sound,
which grew louder with each hammerlike stroke. "it
comes from over heref'yee wailed, pointing with his long neck. Rety
saw at once the pane he meant. A silhouetted figure squatted below the window,
backlit by the golden haze surrounding her useless ship. The figure was
distorted, distended, with a grossly bulbous head. An arm turned, holding a
blunt object, and swung forward, striking the crystal once again. This
time, tiny cracks spread from the point of impact. "enemy
foe coming in!" Visions
of space monsters filled Rety, but not with fear. She wasn't about to give up
her domain to some invader- Jophur, robot, or whatever. Another
blow struck the same spot. Clearly it would take several more for the assailant
to seriously damage the window. Emboldened to see what she was up against, Rety
scooted toward the shadowy figure. After the next impact, she pressed close to
the glass and peered outside. Things
were blurry at first. Then the creature seemed to notice her presence and
leaned forward as well. Rety glimpsed what looked like a billowing dome of
clear fabric. A makeshift helmet, she realized. And
within that protective bubble . . . "Yah!"
she cried out, twitching reflexively away, more set back than if she'd seen a
monster or ghost. When
Rety went back for another look, the figure on the other side started making
frantic gestures, pointing toward the side of the ship. "Oh,
yeah," she sighed. "I did lock the airlock, didn't I?" Rety
nodded vigorously so the visitor could see, and started scurrying along the
canted walls to reach the jimmied door. Rety removed the pry bar she had
slipped in place, to keep Chuchki from returning. The
airlock cycled slowly, giving Rety time to wonder if her eyes had deceived her.
Perhaps this was just a ruse from some mind-reading creature, seeking to gain
entrance by sifting her brain for images from her past. . . . The
inner door opened at last, and Dwer Koolhan tumbled through, tearing at the
balloonlike covering he had been using as a crude life-support system. His face
was rather blue by the time Rety helped him cut the taped fastenings, scavenged
from material found on other decoy vessels during his long journey down the
captive string. The young hunter gasped deep breaths while Rety stepped back
and stared. Finally, he recovered enough to roll aside, lifting his head to
meet her unbelieving gaze. "I
... should've known . . . it'd be you," Dwer murmured in a resigned voice. At the
exact same moment, Rety muttered: "Ifni!
Ain't I ever gonna be rid o' you?" asx WE MUST
WEIGH TRADE-OFFS AND OPTIONS. As Izmunuti commences to roil with an atmospheric
storm, our tactics stack declares that we have lost valuable time. Three
target swarms flee ahead of our majestic Polkjhy. The
first will enter the storm just as we catch up. We will
reach the second as it passes through maximum hyperbolic momentum change. And the
third? It will
make it to the transfer point, with time enough to jump into the next higher
level of hyperspace. The
sabotage attack on our control room has thus created serious problems, out of
proportion to the damage done to our Captain-Leader, whose incapacity should not
last long. Meanwhile, however, tactics has come up with a plan. WE
SHALL JETTISON THE CAPTURE BOXES DRAGGING AT OUR WAKE. They
are now on course for Izmunuti. If the prey ship lies within one of the glowing
traps, it must reveal itself soon, or risk immolation. THUS
FREED, OUR POLKJHY WILL ACCELERATE DIRECTLY FOR THE TRANSFER POINT! In this
manner we will be able to interpose ourselves between the prey ship and its
escape path. There will be some backlash from such rapid maneuvering, but the result
should be an end to all hope for the Earthlings, whichever swarm they are
hiding in. Their subsequent activities should enable us to detect which ship is
sapient-guided and which operate on mere automatic programs. Hunt
scents fill our bridge, eagerness for the approaching conclusion to this great
endeavor. It will be most gratifying for Polkjhy to achieve conquest of the
Earthlings without having to call for help from the great clan. To succeed
where battle fleets have failed-this will be glorious! BUT NOW
TO OUR ASSIGNED TASK, MY RINGS! There
are vermin loose on our fine dreadnought. Our damaged,soot-stained bridge was
dishonored in full view of the librarian,watcher. The
vermin roust be found. I/we am the one called upon as qualified to give chase,
by virtue of our/my experience with human types. Our
first recourse, My rings? Collect the remaining human prisoner! The one called
Rann. He will
help us find his former colleagues. He is already so inclined. REJOICE,
MY RINGS! In this
way we will prove useful, avoiding disassembly. If successful, this master torus has been promised a fine reward. Quiver
in anticipation, My rings! As Polkjhy chases certain victory through space, we
pursue another hunt within. Emerson ENGINES
SING TO HIM IN A LANGUAGE HE STILL Understands. When he
works the calibrators, it seems almost as if he were his old self. Master of
machines. Boy mechanic. The man
who makes starships fly. Then
something reminds him. A written status report flashes, or a robot voice runs
down a list of parameters. Prity can't interpret for him-sign language cannot
translate subtleties of hyperwave transformatics. Emerson's
crew mates respect his efforts. They are pleased and surprised by his ability
to help. But, he
now realizes, they are also humoring him. Things
will never be the same. His long shift
ends. Suessi orders him to take a break. So he goes up to the hold with Prity
and visits the glavers, sensing something in common with the simple creatures,
nearly as speechless as himself. Alvin
and Huck trade insults and witticisms in Anglic, his own native tongue, but he
can only follow the general tone of camaraderie. They are kind, but here, too,
Emerson finds no solace. He
searches for Sara, and finds her at last in the plotting room, surrounded by
Gillian's staff. Fiery representations of a bloated giant star fill the center
of the room, with varied orbits plotted through its flaming shell. Some paths
slip close, using slingshot arcs to fling Streaker toward the transfer point-a
twisted funnel in space. The tactics look challenging, even to a pilot like
Kaa. Yet that approach is the obvious one. No
doubt the enemy expects just such a maneuver. Other
orbits make no sense, skirting the red giant to strike away from the bolt-hole.
Farther from the only way to exit this dangerous part of a forbidden galaxy. Letting
the enemy reach the transfer point first would seem suicidal. On the
other hand, at the rate the Jophur battleship is catching up, Streaker will
have little choice. Perhaps Sara and Gillian plan to head for deep space and
hide amid the seared rocks that were planets, before Izmunuti burgeoned and
consumed its children. Emerson
watches Sara, immersed in work. No one seems to note the presumption-of a
Jijo-born savage directing the endeavors of starfaring sophisticates. At times
like these, an idea can count for much more than experience. The
incongruity makes him smile at last, recovering some of his good mood. His
accustomed optimism. After
all, what have the odds ever mattered before? There
is an observation dome tucked behind the bridge, accessible only by a twisty
ladder with rungs set much too close together. The small room is a leftover
from whatever race once owned Streaker, before Earthclan bought the hull,
converting it for dolphin use. It takes some agility to worm into the
odd-shaped cubby. Emerson's secret place. At one
end, a thick bubble of adamantine quartz provides a view outside, where the
starry vault is bare, unimpeded, nearly surrounding him with everlasting night
Izmunuti is occulted by the ship's bow, but vast sweeps of the local spiral arm
sparkle like diamonds. Globular clusters are like diatoms, phosphorescent on a
moonlit sea, Since waking on Jijo, he never expected to experience this again.
The naked confrontation. Mind and universe. It
pours through him, a surfeit of beauty. Too much. Agonizing, Of
course, Emerson spent half a year learning about all kinds of pain, until it
became a sort of friend. His ally at dislodging memories. And as he ponders
stellar fire, it happens again. He
recalls the stench, just after he crashed into Jijo, clothes aflame, quenching
the blaze in murky water, dimly aware of having recently fought a battle. A
diversion-a sacrifice to win escape for his friends. But
that wasn't the truth. It was a planted
cover story. Actually,
the Old Ones took him from that old Thennanin fighter. They probed and palped
him. Over a period of days, weeks, they reamed his mind, then shoved him in a
little capsule. A tube that squeezed . . . Emerson
moans, recalling how that passage ended in a blazing plummet down to Jijo and
the horrid swamp where Sara found him. He
envisions the Old Ones. Or one faction of them. Cold eyes. Hard voices,
commanding him to forget. To forget . . . and yet, sentenced to live. I . . .
know . . . your . . . lie. . . . The
command fights back. For a moment, the pain is greater than he ever knew. Pain
that is elemental, like the black vacuum surrounding him. Like
sleeting cosmic rays. Like
all the myriad quantum layers propping up each quark and every lepton in his
shaken frame. Through
it all, his eyes can barely focus, squinting past distilled anguish, turning
countless stars into slanting needles. But
then, out of those jagged motes there comes a shape. Weaving, thrashing . . .
zigging, zagging. Swimming,
he now realizes. Pushing toward him, as if upstream, against the swell of a
strong tide. A shape from memory, but instead of bringing more woe, this
recollection sweeps all agony before it. Pushed by stalwart flukes, a soothing
current washes over him. A
dolphin's face swims into focus. Captain
. . .. . . Creideiki ..., It is a
scarred face, deeply wounded behind the left eye. A wound too much like
Emerson's to be coincidence. The
explanation encircles him in sound. *
Crooks and foul liars, *
Lacking imagination, *
Cruelly steal ideas! * Emerson
comprehends the Trinary haiku at once. The Old Ones must have read his mind
somehow and learned of Creideiki's injury. It seemed to fit their needs, so
they copied it in their captive human. What better way to release him, yet be
certain he would tell no tales? But
that still left open the question of why? Why release him at all, if it meant
consignment to a twilight existence? What
motive could they have? All
good time in The
phrase brings a smile, for he grasps it in a way he might never have before. A
simple, purified meaning. good time Emerson
looks back across the galaxies, now cleansed free of pain. Pain be now
recognizes to have been illusion, all along. The product of an exaggerated
sense of self-importance that his enemies used against him. In
fact, the ocean of night is too vast, too busy to be involved in his agony. An
evolving universe can hardly be bothered with the problems of a single
individual, a member of one of the lower orders of sapient life. And why
should it? What a
privilege it is, to exist at all! On the great balance sheet, he owes the
cosmos everything, and it owes him nothing. Emerson
manages to share a final moment of communion with his captain and comrade-not
caring whether the grinning dolphin is a ghost, a mirage, or some miraculous
true image. Knowing only that Creideiki's lesson is true. There
is no setback-no wound or blow of cruel fate-that cannot be turned into a song. For an
instant, Emerson can sense music in every ray of starlight. * When
the winter's Typhoon pounds you, * Onto
sand grains,Sharp and gleaming', * And
creation All-conspiring, *
Breaks you on a Time of Changes, * At
the moment When breath falters, * And
your lifeblood Pours out streaming, * Cast
around that Bright reef, dear friend, * For a
gift to Grant another, * For
some way to Repay forward, * All
the favors You were given. * For
in good time *
Prospects glitter * Far
along Infinity's Shore. * THE END
OF PART TWO |
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