The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “The Phain wouldn’t do a thing like that,” I said, firmly. “Did you ask them?”

  “No. It wouldn’t have been tactful to ask. But the subject was discussed in the presence of several Phaina at IC level, and they said they had foreseen the happening but had been unable to avert it.”

  “Avert it how?”

  “That was the point they didn’t wish to discuss. We got the impression they’d issued some kind of warning to Holme’s World, but no warning was found in the records.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “When I was on Phain, you thought I carried a warning to the Earth ambassador. Did you have any record of it besides my memory of it?”

  He looked startled. “That was years ago, Jewel!”

  “So was Holme’s World, years ago. All I’m saying is, perhaps the warning wasn’t official. Maybe it didn’t go through official channels.”

  He went on staring at me, his face gone blank, his eyes focused on something I couldn’t see. Eventually, he snapped back into the present, saying, almost casually, “Not for the first time, I wish we knew more about the Zhaar.”

  “My mother obtained a translation of ancient Martian by way of the Zhaar language. It was done by a worker in some special IC archives.”

  He sighed heavily. “You’re speaking of the Archives of the elder races. I happen to believe that the elder races have neither departed nor gone extinct. They simply don’t want to be bothered with the politics and maneuvering we younger races seem to find necessary. They’ve lived long enough to know what works for them, individually and collectively, and they have no interest in wasting their time reinventing systems they know aren’t useful.”

  For some reason, the subject was making me extremely itchy. I said in an irritated tone, “So, if they’re not extinct, one of them might have wiped out the people on Holme’s World.”

  “That’s possible. All we know is, something vanished every person on it except one little girl of nine and her pet, whatever it was. Sybil was brought back to Earth. When she was twelve, she joined the ESC preparatory corps. She’s a twenty-year veteran and a driven woman so far as interspecies relations goes. Abe Durrow’s been her partner for most of that time. Except for one another, they’re both loners, the kind of people who gravitate to ESC. They tend to be a little odd, but they’re perfectly trustworthy…”

  I gave him a look.

  He flushed. “That is, those who aren’t a member of Botrin Prime’s clan! Tell the people on Moss check your credentials with my office, and don’t tell them anything until they’ve done so. I want them to know that discretion is essential and ordered from this office.”

  The file-prints popped out of the desk slot, already assembled in a self-disposing burn-book. He handed it to me, saying, “The captains of any ESC ships in the area will be told to offer all possible assistance. As for this, learn and let dispose promptly, particularly if your brother is still going through your belongings.”

  “Paul hasn’t done that since I first came back from Baja, though he used to do it all the time when we were children. As though he thought I knew something he didn’t or had something he didn’t. I don’t think he does it now, which doesn’t mean he won’t if he feels like it.”

  “Strange worlds can exacerbate neurosis—if that’s what we can call it. Be careful around him. We’ll be in touch before you go, and if you need anything, just call me!”

  From Gainor’s office, I went directly to the sanctuary, where I found Adam looking somewhat better than the last time I’d seen him. “More bad news?” he asked as I approached.

  “You tell me. Just listen for a minute.” Taking his grudging nod for consent, I went on. “My brother Paul is being sent to Moss as attaché for linguistics to the Chief Emergence Compliance Officer of PPI.”

  “Who’s the CECO?”

  “The planetary commander of PPI, a man named Drom. Paul wants me to go along, as usual, hostess duties, catering, laundry…” I made a disgusted face.

  Adam aped my grimace, lips drawn back from very white teeth. “What does that have to do with…”

  “ The dogs’?” I asked, putting the words in quotes. “The big dogs are going along. Housing on Moss is what we’d call luxurious in terms of natural space. Security will be more relaxed than here. I’m also taking three trainers.”

  He said doubtfully, “Three of us and six dogs is a lot. Have you room for us all?”

  “This is strictly confidential, Adam. Don’t whisper it to anyone, not even the other trainers. We’ve been working on a canine econiche on the moon. It’s called Treasure.”

  His eyes widened. “Moss has a moon? How possible is the econiche?”

  “Oh, if this mission to Moss lasts a year or so, 90 percent likely.”

  “Prey animals?”

  “They started seeding the moon quite some time ago, as soon as it was bought. One of General Brandt’s little projects. It’s been in the works for years now.”

  He gave me a long, weighing look. “You and he are…?”

  I smiled, shaking my head. “He and I aren’t. Never were. When I met him I was eighteen, and he was well over twice that. He and I are coconspirators and friends, I guess. Which is also not for mentioning, Adam. Paul has no idea I know Gainor Brandt at all, much less that I know him well; it would annoy him immensely if he knew. Paul is frighteningly temperamental and when he’s annoyed, he interferes, sometimes destructively. He’s also very good at his work, and I’m…inured to him. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be stupid where he’s concerned.”

  “Well then, assuming I’m one of those you intend to take, I approve. And my brother, Frank. You will take Frank.”

  I grinned at him. “You, and Frank, and Clare.”

  Despite himself, he smiled. “A good time for everyone to have a vacation. Does Paul know about…”

  “What Paul mustn’t know,” I said warningly, “would fill a black hole.”

  THE DAYS BEFORE DEPARTURE: CONTINUED

  My friend, Margaret Olcot, was the last surviving descendant of Horgan Olcot, 2053–2130, a founder of the ark movement. Horgan had devoted his life and great fortune to preserving earth fauna anywhere he could, his success made possible first by the “discovery” of mankind by starfarers in 2085 and subsequently by Earth’s acquisition of gravitic-repulsion, grav-rep, space travel. Olcot purchased small, out-of-the-way planets and moons, listed them in the star registers as “freight transfer sites,” and adapted them for selected earthian fauna while protecting the indigenous species, or, if the planets were lifeless, terraformed them for earth fauna and flora alone. Meantime, he convinced Earthers who owned exempt estates to put their acres in perpetual trust for the growth of earthian flora.

  As the IGI-HFO people had not yet attacked private arboretums, Mag Olcot still had her forty acres of trees, including two giant redwoods. Her little forest was surrounded on two sides by an algae factory, on the third by a desalinization plant, and on the fourth by the heaving surface of the virtually tideless porridge that had once been the Pacific Ocean, long since rendered incapable of supporting any animal life much larger than a bacterium through its function as sewer and oxygenator to our human race.

  Margaret had been my dear friend for years. I couldn’t go without replying to her liaison offer or saying good-bye, so I dropped in on her a couple of days before we were to leave.

  “So you’ve decided to go with Paul,” Margaret said, when I had explained myself. “I confess, I did hope you’d take me up on my offer.”

  “You know why I didn’t, Mag.”

  “Of course I know,” she said. “You’re doing the only possible thing, as I am also. Let’s go walk on the beach. It may be our last chance…”

  We walked on the beach, our usual ritual, eyes fixed on the sand at our feet. Only when some great upheaval took place on the ocean bottom did waves wash up on this tiny strip of sand, painting it green for a while. Just then it was almost clean, and halfway along, Margaret dropped
to her knees. “Oh, look, Jewel. A whole one!”

  I knelt, regarding the shell in the sand with awed wonder, a tiny spiral of ivory the size of the tip of my little finger, curled and knobbed, rarer than gold. When I reached out for it, Mag’s tears fell on my hand.

  I whispered, “Don’t, Mag.”

  She tried to smile, unsuccessfully. “I can’t help it. I have one of Joram II’s ocean vistas in my bedroom. I know the feeling it gives you, the strange smell, the surprise of spray, the unexpected winds and shifting colors…When I see one of these, it’s almost as though I’m there, that the place is real. Then I pick it up, and I know what’s in my hand is all that’s left…” She turned away hastily, wiping her face on the hem of her shirt.

  “I get mournful, too,” I said brusquely, swallowing my own tears and willing myself not to jump into her emotional river after her. Easy to drown there. Seductive. One of the things people like us warned ourselves against, wasting time and energy grieving over the irretrievably lost while there were still some that could be saved.

  I stood up, brushing the sand from my trousers and blinking against the wind. “Come on, now. Let’s make some tea.”

  “What was that thing your mother quoted about the sea?” she asked. “…beneath my eyes the sorrows…”

  I recited it:

  “Our coats are as thin as mist, our heels are horn,

  Beneath our eyes old sorrows build their nest

  and peck at us where we are torn and tender,

  reproaching us as shore birds…”

  “As shore birds,” she repeated. “And it was supposedly written by whom?”

  “Well, the original was written on Mars fifty thousand or so years ago, and Matty paid some linguistic expert at IC Archives to translate it into common speech. Of course, by the time the thing had been translated five times, whether it was still close in meaning to the original is anybody’s guess.”

  “There were really shore birds on Mars?”

  “There are fossil remnants of sea creatures, yes.”

  She mused, “Fossils. I studied paleontology, did you know that?”

  “Yes, Mag, you’ve told me, but never why you did.”

  “No reason on Earth, obviously. No place left to discover anything here. I was just interested in us, trying to find out why we do the stupid things we do. According to the experts, we really were stupid for millions of years, all of us habilises and ergasters and Heidlebergenses. I’ve told you this before!”

  “Tell me again. It’s interesting.”

  “Well, our ancestors got to the point they could build fires and make some rather nice chipped flint tools, but basically, they weren’t that much smarter than the rest of the fauna. Then, fifty thousand years ago, we…bloomed. No one has ever learned why. We started making better tools, painting marvelous animals in caves, dressing ourselves up in beads and ornaments. From that point on, there was no stopping us. I’ve often wondered if we wouldn’t have been happier if we’d just stayed what we were, a slightly brighter animal…”

  “Come, Mag. You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. Animals aren’t mean. They’re dumb, sometimes, and they kill, of course, but they aren’t mean. When we bloomed, we learned to be mean! We even choose up sides and kill our own kind!” She sniffed, wiping her eyes. “You will go to services with me tonight, won’t you? It’s Midsummer Roll Call and Memorial…”

  I stopped dead. “I’d forgotten! Ever since this trip came up, I’ve been so involved getting things ready that I’ve forgotten everything else.”

  Margaret opened the door and ushered me in. “You ought to come. It may be…it may be the last time we see one another, Jewel.”

  I would not be maudlin! “Margaret, you’ve got a good thirty years ahead of you, probably more.”

  “But not here.” Margaret stopped as a cat emerged from hiding to wind itself between her ankles. As I leaned to pet it, three others came from behind the furniture.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “My quadruped friends are scheduled to go out with a group of others next week. The dispersal committee has a large moon with atmosphere, a little less than Earth gravity, well grown up in vegetation and young forests, including some Earth trees, but it had no fauna at all. It’s been populated with over five hundred species of insects, over one hundred species of small rodents and birds, including raptors. They’re balancing the ecosystem now, and cats are to be included as predators.”

  “You’ll miss them,” I said blankly.

  “I’m not willing to live, missing them. I’m going with them.”

  I gaped at her. “Leaving Earth? Permanently?”

  “I turned fifty last month. That made me eligible. With the new law, there’s nothing left here for any of us arkers, Jewel. Every friend I’ve spoken to intends to leave Earth in the near future. It’ll be a general exodus of the arkers. Some families I know are unable to afford to go, but they’re sending their children. If there aren’t enough arker planets to hold us, then we’ll have to find some new ones. Shiela’s going. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “No,” I said. “We’ve had little time to talk recently, but how can millions of arkists…?”

  “Billions, actually. Enough that their dues have been used to purchase yet a few more ‘worthless’ planets with no natural resources at all except sunlight and soil and water, and what more do we need than that? There’s no life left on this world. Hordes, yes. Hives for swarms. Anthills for ants…no, termites. What did the high priestess call us last Memorial? ‘Pallid dwellers in a spiritual darkness’? Except for you and a few other friends, I won’t miss anything. Earth gravity, maybe. It’s the only thing we haven’t ruined.”

  “But, if I’d said yes to your offer…?”

  “I’d still have planned to go, but I’d have stayed a while longer to turn over the estate to you.”

  “The estate!”

  “If I die out there, this is yours.” She gestured at the surrounding foliage. “The trees are worth preserving for the seeds, even if there are no birds to nest in them. It won’t be any trouble. A man lives here and takes care of the place, collects the seeds in the proper season and ships them out. It’ll be here, give you something to look forward to. Getting away from Paul…Oh, Jewel, please come to temple, tonight! It’s our cadre.”

  I could only nod, overcome.

  Our Temple of Remembrance, one of some thousand such temples around the world, was some distance outside the urb on a former chemical dump site so heavily and deeply polluted that it had had to be encapsulated. A couple of centuries back the movement had purchased the buried encapsulation and set the temple on top of it with plenty of room to park flits that came in from hundreds of miles away. No one building could house the millions of arkist members who lived in the nearer urbs, so Midsummer services began weeks before actual midsummer and extended weeks afterward, one service for each cadre of members, with only enough time between services for one cadre to depart before the next one arrived. The identichip detectors were set to reject anyone not of the cadre, and security guards were numerous, as were the shrieking protesters with their incessant “Iggy-huffo, iggy-huffo,” and their battery of signs bearing Evolun Moore’s fiercely frowning image.

  Roll Call was conducted over a chorus of small animal sounds and children’s voices, though not, I thought, so many of either as I had heard in the past. Arkists usually brought their children and grandchildren, and many people, including Margaret, brought pets to receive the blessing. The children would go home with their parents. The pets would either leave Earth in the next few days or be compassionately killed by their grieving owners, many of them those same children. During the processional, we cadre members used the datalinks at each seat to enter our own names, the names of absent members, members who had died, and those who had had children born. Names on the Solidarity Wall lighted up in blue as they were reported present, in green if they were
reported absent, or were moved to the Memorial Wall for those who had departed.

  The dancers danced, the choir sang, both magnificently. It was traditional during Remembrance for the orchestra to play and the choir to sing the rollicking “Litany of Animals” for the children in the audience. I’d loved it as a child when Matty used to bring me to Temple. I still loved it.

  “Elemental, monumental, fine phantasmic elephants;

  Hairless hippopotami, huddled close as spoons;

  Riotous rhinoceri, roistering on grasslands;

  Tiny tender tarsiers, eyes like moons!”

  As each animal was mentioned, its likeness appeared on the great Wall of Remembrance, and the singing went on through several nonalphabetized alphabets of animals, from the awl-nosed aardvark to the zebra and zebu. The children in the row behind us were singing. Mag and I were singing. For a moment, it was dream childhood again, when we had thought all the creatures were real, not merely memories on wall vistas.

  The blessing, a sober one, was delivered by the High Priestess, who, coincidentally, asked a particular blessing on dogs, “for millennia of interspecies friendship.” At the end of the service the names of the departed were illuminated with rainbow lights while the choir and congregation sang “Unto Grass,” which always made me cry, as much for the loss of grass itself as for the many who had died trying to keep things growing. No one on Earth would ever again go into grass, and the thought of being broken down into constituent elements in a recycling plant did not evoke the quiet acceptance many of us had felt when we planned to achieve the same end through natural means. It was all in the hows, I thought. The whats are inevitable, but we should be able to choose our hows.

  As the congregation was leaving, I heard my name called and turned to see my former sister in-law, Myra, working her way through the departing flow.