by Jo Clayton
“The diamond-shaped continent just coming into view,” Lylunda said. “The one that crosses the equator. I set him down by that freshwater lake near the north-em tip of the diamond. Western edge of the water.”
For a moment longer the nameless world at 87950 KLD MLYD 3 turned massively in the screen, the land areas a paisley pattern of dull browns and ochers with the occasional splash of dark purple. Then the screen was resorbed into Tigatri’s substance.
Aleytys’ voice came through the grill. “Thank you, Lylunda. That will be sufficient, I believe. Shadow, will you come to the Bridge, please?”
4
The mobile Abra stood at the left edge of the screen that took up the whole front wall of the Bridge, his golden non-skin shimmering palely in its light.
Aleytys sat in a massive swivel chair, her hair a brilliant splotch of color against the black molding that supported her head. “Abra, expand the image of the western shore of that lake. Scan for mobile life, set up a cell for each instance, whether it’s bipedal, Taalav, or other.”
She’s looking a lot better Shadith thought. Not so tired and drawn. Working over Luna was good for her. Wolff and Grey are abrading her soul, I think. If she feels she has to stay. for Lilai, she better make sure Grey finds Hunts for her. And I can’t say anything. Nothing worse than friends getting on your back about things you can’t change. Spla!
The screen divided into small cells like spreading soap bubbles, and images began to appear in them-a few adult Taalav and some juvenile forms moving rather feebly about, some worms and armored beetles. The main screen showed the survival pod, a flikit sitting beside it. And a large object made from interlaced crystal threads.
Aleytys flicked a finger at it. “Abra, can Tigatri see into that?”
Another cell opened. In it, the cocoon’s layers peeled back, the image shivering and hesitating as the resonances of the crystal threads interfered with the probe. Finally, a body appeared, the face clear enough to be recognizable.
“Send that to Lylunda, Abra. Just the one cell. Got it? Good. Luna, do you recognize the man?”
“Prangarris.” The voice that came through the grill had a dry edge to it. It was obvious Lylunda didn’t appreciate her isolation from what was happening. “That’s him, all right. He dead?”
Abra spoke. “Sensors indicate he has been dead for more than a year, Luna. There ’is evidence of several aneurysms in the brain that seem to have burst about the same time. He died within minutes of the event. The body has been preserved by the cold and the spun crystal.”
“So much for Prangarris and his plans.”
Shadith clicked her tongue. “What a dreary place. Looks like the Taalav are as dead as he is. The Kliu won’t be getting much for their coin. Luna, did Prangarris ever say why he chose it?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Lylunda’s voice sounded again. “Mostly because no one in his right mind would try to settle it. At least, that’s what he said. And he laughed when I agreed with him.”
5
Shadith rubbed at her nose. “Lee, could we do a circuit with Tigatri scanning surface for more signs of Taalav? I’d like to be sure we’ve found them all.”
“Abra, if you will…”
It was a desolate world, large land masses separated by narrow, sinuous oceans that were ocher and crimson vegetable stews; there were several volcanoes in the process of erupting, spewing huge clouds of matter into the atmosphere, further cutting down the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. The seas were the world’s repositories of strong color; on the land only a few colored lichens and mosses broke the dull monotone of mud, stone and coarse sand.
When they were stationary once again above the pod site, Shadith grimaced. “Maybe the Taalav like it. When I go down there, I’ll ask them.”
6
Shadith eased herself into the frame that was supposed to help the exoskeleton support her body so she could cope with the complicated language of the Taalav, with her breathing and the precise control of her voice. Because too many stilters might frighten the arrays into hiding and keep them from answering the song query, Aleytys was waiting a short distance off in the lander.
When Shadith was settled, she looked round. Neither array was anywhere in sight, not even infants and juveniles, but according to Tigatri and her own sense, they were within reach of her voice. She sucked in a lungful of the cold, thick air, ran through a series of vocalizations to help set her up for what she thought could become a long and difficult bargaining session.
Greet you of the new From tied-to-old-land
land
I, Singer No-harm offered wanted
Who stand on your Their song I offer.
land
She cleared her throat, drank from the stem of the waterbottle.
Silence all round. She swept the area with her outreach. The Taalav stayed hidden and she could feel a feeble startlement mixed with anger and distrust.
She sang again:
Tied-to-old-land If ours thrive
I, named Shadow I hear and repeat for you
Sing for the old-land Let them be.
this song
Warning Truth and trust
I, named Shadow offer with open hands
Sing to you-of-the-new- Death comes.
land
The Two-Mouthed swarm, disturbed nest
thieves
I, named Shadow sing warning run here, run there
Burn, fire and more search out the-new-land
fire
She continued singing for around ten minutes, amplifying the warning, saying she had not come to take them against their will, though she would mourn their deaths if such were their choice.
She dropped into silence and waited.
And waited.
She could feel two adult Taalav circling warily about her, edging in closer…
When one of them finally appeared, moving into view around a pile of lichened rock, she was appalled. It looked sick and mean, the once bright cherry hood mottled with black and khaki, the large eyes of the headbeast filmy and oozing mucus. Around it was a dull aura of anger/resentment/hate that was thick enough to stain the air.
Why Why Why Why
Shadow Singer trust not/trust you who speak
We the betrayed land-tied, taken, stolen by you/
kind
Listen should who die (this/place) starve (this/
we place)
(Woven around this, asides that commented on her likeness to Prangarris, the deep distrust of the singer, her smell, the inadequacy of her true-speech, and other things that once again were too subtle for the translator in her head to catch).
It was a passionate outcry, all the more so because the Taalav’s voice was weak from hunger and worn to a thread from coping with the bitterness of this world, breaking and wavering on some of the more difficult harmonies.
In the exchange that followed, Shadith discovered just how brutal life had been for the arrays that Prangarris had brought here. The sun was the wrong color, the Taalav sang to her, there were things in the water that did grief to the littles so they grew weak and died, the food plants that Prangarris had brought withered and died and the food the arrays found here was not complete. Prangarris fed them liquid supplements which helped them live, but something went wrong inside him and he was gone. They couldn’t get into his place and reach the supplements, so they starved. Slowly. The food they could find kept them just enough alive to feel the agony of that slow dissolution. This was a bad place, so many things were wrong here. We die, the Taalav sang to her, we rot here and die.
Shadith sang to the Taalav: I will call to you a healer. This person will give you strength and health again, adults and littles alike. This person need only touch you to heal. Will you trust enough to allow this?
The Taalav brooded in silence for several minutes, its eyes dropping shut, its body sagging in the cradle of its legs. Finally it sang: For the good of the newplacepeople, this pers
on before you-stilter/singer will allow the touch.
When Aleytys left the flier and came toward Shadith, the Taalav stirred, gave out a flare of desperate hope. Its eyes were fixed on the healer’s bright red hair. Shadith thought about the cherry hood of healthy Taalav adults and understood. The Gestalt must be thinking, ah! an adult at last.
Will you permit? Aleytys sang.
Shadith.kept her face carefully blank. Lee couldn’t carry a tune if you gave her a universal gripper. Her voice wasn’t unpleasant but she had no grasp of the relationship of the tones and her approximations were enough off to make any singer wince.
She watched Aleytys set hands on the head and body of the Taalav, close her eyes, and begin work. For a while nothing seemed to be happening; then a healthy crimson crept back into the hood and the head’s eyes brightened. When Aleytys stepped away, the Taalav’s lively cheerfulness was back. The difference in its emanations was astonishing. And when it sang its gratitude, the harsh dissonances had vanished from the speech.
The other adults and the littles of the arrays came from hiding, scuttling and wriggling and slithering. Shadith watched Aleytys take up the tiny head forms and body forms, hold them in her hands until the distressing feebleness was gone, then set them down to run and play about the feet of the adults. It was as if they were reborn and reinfused with the stock of happiness that this world had sucked out of them. With a whine of servos, Lee knelt and began passing her hands across the wormforms that were also part of the Gestalt.
While she worked, the sun moved past zenith and a cold wind rose off the lake, bringing with it the rancid, sickening smell of rotten vegetation.
Even with the exo and the frame supporting her, exhaustion dragged at Shadith and she didn’t want to think about how Aleytys felt; she told herself it was like the struggle to keep Lylunda alive, it reminded Lee of her strength where forces on Wolff conspired to remind her of her weaknesses.
Shadith sang a soft query to call the first Taalav from its contemplation of the healing. You have strength now, she sang to it, and you’ve seen our good will. If you stay here, the Curl Ears will surely find you and kill you. Do you want to go back where you came from? I will take you there if you ask it. Or there is another world that you can visit that might prove better for you than this. Will you risk that?
We went with One-bump ’Garrs, the Taalav sang, we had no choice, it took us, gathered us as we gather fruits from the grony bushes, yet we went with a certain willingness for we wished a new place, a free place that would be ours alone. We understood that the Curl Ears looked on us as beasts and harvested our histories because they were pleasant to look upon and their songs were prized. We thought One-bump ’Garrs was weak and alone and we could escape its hand easily enough when there was room to run. We did not understand that places could be more deadly than Kadbeasts. This person looks on your good will and accepts that. This person feels whole for the first time in many days. Yet, this person has learned fear of new things and it is hard to contemplate the choice youstilter/singer offer. Must this person choose?
I-Stilter/singer don’t understand. How possible that you-of-the-new-land could be returned and not-returned at the same time?
This person would look upon the new world, yet if the new land is bad also, this person would go back to the tie-land.
I see, Shadith sang. Yes, that is sensible. The sun’s color will be wrong on this new world also, but it will be warmer and, I think, more hospitable. She glanced at. Aleytys, sang: The healer is nearly finished with its work. Will you call your folk of-the-new-land together and come with us?
7
The hold in Harskari’s Tiauchi had been set to a proper gravity and the light provided was a close approximation of that on Pillory. The arrays left the flier with twitters of excitement and pleasure; they’d expected to have to suffer the same primitive conditions they had endured in Lylunda’s Dragoi.
Shadith introduced them to the mobile Grace who had taken on the semblance of an adult Taalav and acquired the Taalav langue from Tiauchi’s kephalos through Tigatri’s tie to Aleytys.
This place fit/not-fit desired be your
comfort
You of-the-new-land sing to Grace food and
more
Dark and light is timed what can be done will
for you
The Taalav who’d spoken first to Shadith stood beside her; it sang an acknowledgment then went silent as it looked around the hold.
The baby body forms were chasing each other over the spongy flooring, in and out of the pseudo plant forms, whistling shrilly through their long dangly noses and having a grand time. The baby heads were crawling more slowly, nudging against each other and piling into sloppy heaps for the comfort of feeling others around them. And the other, more ambiguous juvenile parts of the Gestalt were wriggling and squirming around, wrapping themselves around head forms and licking at them, getting their taste re-registered, coiling round each other, looking more or less like knots of earthworms chased out of their holes by a morning rain. The other adult gestalts were moving about, exploring the place, singing their complex songs as they commented on what they saw.
The huge dark eyes of the Taalav turned on Shadith for a moment. She sensed wondering/tentativeness/ interest/tension and understood the mix as the Taalav moved over to the mobile Grace and sang a request for open water and food.
Shadith waited until Grace sang her answer, then she stepped onto the slide flat and was transported to the living areas.
8
“Loguisse.”
The Vryhh had the fragile look Shadith remembered from the first time she’d met her, delicate bones with barely enough flesh to put padding between them and the skin, but she’d lost her aura of ancient desiccation; her dark blue eyes sparked with life and there was color in her pale face. “A fascinating species, Shadow,” she said after giving Shadith a brief nod to acknowledge the greeting. She was examining a small Taalav crystal mounted in a dagnoster envelope, plotting the intricacies in the weaving of the extruded threads. “You say these are histories?”
“So the Taalav say. Some of the crystals anyway. Some are story books. And some are just for the pleasure they give. Harskari hasn’t come across yet?”
“Not yet. She’s doing some last minute planning with Lee. Should be finished soon, we’d agreed to be gone in another hour or so. Themis tells me the Taalav are settling in quite nicely. I can see why you like them so much… Charming creatures and very intelligent. If they prosper on Storsten and agree to it, I mean to bring, more of them there; for a viable colony they need a larger breeding base. Hm. The crystals being sometimes histories, I wonder what effect a transfer of them between the two groups would have. It would be interesting to see how their society changes and develops. Both on Storsten and on Pillory.” She smiled vaguely at Shadith, then went back to her examination of the crystal.
Shadith turned to Tigatri’s Master Mobile. “Themis, arrange my transfer to Tigatri, please.”
9
“What are you going to say to Digby when you tell him you’ve quit?” Aleytys was sitting on the boulder again, swinging her feet in the garden’s stream, kicking up sprays of water and watching the drops fall back.
Shadith shifted position; a root from the tree she was leaning against was poking too assertively into her back. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t be polite or politic to tell him it was because I just didn’t trust him anymore. Though that’d be the truth. The more I learn about the e more spooked I get. How far does his reach go? That’s a lot of power he has. What happens when that face he clings to turns into a mask with nothing behind it? How does he know who he is then? What does he want? What will he do to get it? What happens when he does get it? Does he turn into something like Kell? All malice with no internal limits?”
“Heavy list of questions.” Aleytys pulled her legs up, folded them into a lotus knot. “Thinking of getting answers to them?”
“No. Not unless I have to. I
f he leaves me alone, I’ll return the favor.”
“Mm. You told Lylunda the Taalav were dead. Tell him the same thing, but that you were really unhappy about the thought of the Kliu slaughtering them. So you’ve decided to find another way of making a living. And then go play around Vrithian for a while till the whole thing cools down. What are you going to do about his ship?”
“Take it to University in tow to mine, do my talking from there. He can send someone to pick it up. I’m not going back to Spotchalls, that’s for sure. Lee, what am I going to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“You’re no help.”
Aleytys grinned sleepily at her. “Well, what kind of help were you when you were infesting my head?”
“Ah, so it’s revenge you want.” Shadith wrinkled her nose. “Having opted for mortality, I suppose I want that choice to mean something. I want people to be glad I walked through their lives. Like the Fior and Ketang of B6luchad. That was, well, satisfying, though I suppose it’s Aslan who made the big difference. But I helped.”
“See. You do know what you want.”
“But that kind of thing doesn’t put fuel in my ship or food in my belly. That’s why I signed up with Digby in the first place. I do the jobs while he takes care of logistics. Seemed like it’d be the perfect blend. Tsah!”
“While you’re on University, why not talk to Aslan? She might have some ideas.”
“I don’t think so, Lee. She’s a friend and I like her, but she’s very much into the University ethos. I’m not, and I don’t want to be.”
“Picky. Hm. A while back you said you were getting royalties off your lightsailors. I’ve started hearing about them, I do still get some of the gossip on Wolff, and word is they’re hot. You might be making more than you think. And if you could come up with some-thing else Adelaar could handle for you…”