by David Brin
“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.”
Ewasx
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 wolfling 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?
Is that also why some of you keep trying to tune in so-called 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 HORSERIDING 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 blind spot 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 nee
d 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 if 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 with 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. Ulgor, 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 Ulgor’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 Ulgor 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 female-to-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.