by David Brin
“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 mulc 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. In-numerable 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…”
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 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 danger … 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 Koolhan?… 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 crafting two simple words.
“ … ever’body … out!”
EWasx
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 I 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 Comingle In The Shadow Of Our Great Ship — Urrish Forms Side By Side With Hoons? 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 Polkjhy’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 fleets, 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 self-repairs 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.