The Candle of Distant Earth

by Alan Dean Foster

  Once the initial contact confusion had been cleared up, he found himself abashed at hearing of the effect he and his friends had had on the locals. Setting down with the intent of only asking a few questions, they had inadvertently terrified the entire population. The reason for this had all been explained by the native called Yoracc the Historian. In turn, researchers among the Niyyuu were able to reconfirm that they knew nothing of the species the locals referred to as the Iollth. From the time the Niyyuuan craft had first entered the Hyff system, it had all been a case of mistaken identity, compounded by the fact that the Hyfft were not space-traversing and knew nothing of sentient species save those that had visited their world.

  With everything now clarified, a wave of relief had spread swiftly around the planet. Inquisitiveness had replaced alarm. The immensely relieved Hyfft now wished to learn everything there was to know about their genial visitors. There were to be presentations, feasts, official welcomings. Everyone wanted to greet the travelers, to show them the hospitality of the Hyfft, and to meet them in person. At the very least, Walker realized, they would have no trouble refreshing their ships’ stores here. Spared the expected devastation and destruction, their new hosts were almost embarrassingly eager to please.

  While expansive by Hyfftian standards, the terminal’s interior ceilings were barely high enough to allow Braouk to stand without bending. Even so, he had to watch where he walked. If he grew forgetful, there were always Sque’s insults to remind him. The Hyfft were as fascinated by her as by the Tuuqalian who carried her. Choosing to interpret their curiosity as appropriate adoration, the K’eremu was correspondingly content.

  As for Walker and George, they found themselves surrounded by chattering Hyfft. So fast did their hosts talk that both sides had to be reminded to wait for their respective translating devices to catch up. It was during one of the brief interludes in these ongoing friendly interrogations that Sobj-oes managed to make her way through the crowd of Niyyuu and now welcoming local dignitaries to confront man and dog. Her great yellow-golden eyes were shining and her neck frill was not only fully erect, but flush with blood. Visibly, she was more than a little excited about something.

  She wasted no time in sharing the cause. “Is great news for yous, friends Marcus and George.” Turning slightly, she gestured with one limber arm at the milling mob of chattering sentients. “Was long odds to find place where one of yous kind was known. Came this way hoping. Now hopes is confirmed. This indeed region of space where mention of Tuuqalia was sourced. Now we find world where Tuuqalian species has actually visited. I have made acquaintance of local called Ussakk. Is astronomer like myself. He will arrange meeting with others of his kind. With luck, may actually be able generate a vector between this system and that of yous companion Braouk!” Her frill bobbed up and down with her excitement. “Is this not great news?”

  “Yeah, great.” Somehow, George was unable to muster the same degree of enthusiasm that was being exhibited by the Niyyuuan astronomer. “I don’t suppose they’ve ever heard of Earth?”

  All four of Sobj-oes’s tails drooped as one. “Are only just beginning to converse with these people. Do not be so quick to give up hope. Must provide what details we have of yous home and yous kinds to local scientific establishment.” Looking over the top of the crowd, an effortless task for any tall Niyyuu, she located Braouk and the tentacle-waving Sque. “Needs to do same for the K’eremu. Relax your frills and…hope that best possible news may yet be forthcoming.”

  In lieu of an immediate response to their promising inquiries, what was forthcoming was the kind of hospitality Walker and his companions had not experienced since their sojourn on Seremathenn. As soon as word spread around the planet that the arriving starships were crewed not by plundering Iollth but by friendly travelers, one of whom was a member of a species whose trading ancestors had actually called at Hyff long ago, the collective sigh of relief was almost strong enough to perturb the atmosphere. What ensued was a battle (a courteous one, of course, this being the Hyfft) among different regions and Overwatches to see who would be allowed to play host to the visitors.

  In the end, unable to decide among several deserving locales, the authorities used precedence as an out, and chose to house the visitors where they had landed, on the outskirts of Therapp. Conscious of the honor that had been bestowed upon them, the inhabitants of the city and its surrounding agricultural provinces threw themselves into the opportunity to show off their region. Not at the expense of others, however. To have done so would have been distinctly un-Hyfftian.

  A goods warehouse was immediately cleared and proper accommodations, insofar as the Hyfft understood them, were thrown together with an efficiency and skill that left the visitors more than a little impressed. It was necessary to adapt the warehouse because, with the exception of the single K’eremu and one lone dog, none of the visitors could squeeze through the opening of a Hyfftian warren even by bending.

  Nothing seemed to faze their hosts, Walker marveled as he considered the results of their hasty efforts. Not even a need to fashion temporary furniture to accommodate not one but five different body plans.

  When their makeshift quarters were ready, it was left to Walker and his friends to decide, in concert with Commander-Captain Gerlla-hyn and his staff, if they should actually make use of them.

  “The decision whether linger here or not rest with yous,” he told Walker and his friends. “This yous journey. I and my crews charged with conveying yous where and when yous desire. We will comply with your decision in this matter.”

  George was all for continuing on as soon as possible. So was Sque, who thought no more of the accommodating Hyfft than she did of any species that had the misfortunate to be not-K’eremu. But Braouk found himself rather taken by their eager, would-be hosts, not to mention their ability to tolerate and even enjoy his interminable recitations. As for Walker, he confessed to taking pleasure from just walking on solid ground again, beneath a clear and open sky (if one that was a bit more yellow than usual) instead of the hard, cold ceiling of a ship corridor.

  Furthermore, it was clear that their hosts were eager for them to stay awhile. They were almost painfully grateful that the visitors were something, anything, other than Iollth, and wished to have the chance to express those feelings. From years of trading on the Exchange, Walker was nothing if not sensitive to the need of others to express gratitude. He considered.

  There was no rush to be on their way. Earth, K’erem, and certainly Tuuqalia would not change their positions—assuming the Niyyuuan astronomers led by Sobj-oes and her Hyfftian counterparts could actually locate any of them.

  The scientists needed time to do their work. Despite Gerlla-hyn’s assertions, Walker suspected that if polled, the Niyyuuan crews of the three ships would have voted en mass for the interstellar equivalent of shore leave.

  “I think it would be a good thing all around if we stayed here awhile,” he told the Commander-Captain.

  Gerlla-hyn’s verbal acknowledgement of Walker’s response was terse and formal—but from the way his frill erected and his tails coiled, Walker knew that the Commander-Captain was as pleased as anyone by the human’s decision.

  It was two days later, after they had been installed in their hastily but stylishly modified temporary quarters, that Walker encountered Sque sitting alone in the rain outside the building. Since even Hyfftian commercial-industrial areas were artfully landscaped, there were tri-trunked tree things and a peculiar reddish-gold brush all around. Woven more than excavated, a small stream caressed the northern edge of the warehouse boundary. That was where he found the K’eremu.

  She was sitting in the shallow stream, letting it flow over her ten limbs, her upper body erect and clear of the cooling, moistening water. She did not even care if it carried industrial effluents or agricultural runoff. Under the dark sky, her maroon skin glistened almost black. Closed when he appeared, her recessed, silvery eyes opened at his approach. Even today’s selection of
the brightly colored bits of metal and ceramic that decorated her person seemed unusually subdued.

  Making his way carefully down the slick side of the embankment, he halted just beyond the edge of the lapping water and crouched, the better to bring himself closer to eye level with her.

  “What do you want?” Her tone, as conveyed through the Vilenjji implant in his head, struck him as even more bitter than usual. There were overtones, he thought, of depression.

  “Just checking on you,” he replied. “This is a new world, after all.”

  “A harmless world,” she hissed. “While of moderate intelligence, the inhabitants are inoffensive to the point of banality. I am in no danger here.” She did not thank him for his concern. Nor, knowing her as well as he did now, did he expect her to.

  Even the rain here was agreeable, he decided. Warm and refreshing; not cold, not stinging. “Enjoying the water?” he asked conversationally.

  Since she could not twist her upper body far enough around, she had to turn to face him, her limbs utilizing the purchase they held on the smooth rocks that lined the bottom of the manicured stream.

  “I would have preferred to remain by the local sea. But it is best we all stay together. More important for you than for me.”

  “I agree,” he said, hoping to mollify her. One hand gestured at the stream. “What are you doing? Just moistening up?”

  She looked away from him. “I am lamenting. Quietly. Or at least, I was until you showed up.”

  “Sorry,” he told her, genuinely apologetic. “What’s wrong?”

  This time when she looked back over at him, her horizontal pupils had expanded to their fullest extent. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” From her tone, it was apparent that his comment had finally exceeded even her capacity for sardonic reply. Nevertheless, she tried.

  “I am alone, lost with and wholly dependent upon inferior beings. I have none to engage in intelligent discourse with, none with whom to debate issues of real importance. Never again will I be enfolded in the soothing, damp embrace of K’erem.”

  Her manifest misery was so palpable that had it been expressed by anyone other than the redoubtable Sque, Walker would have been moved to tears. As a visual expression of sympathy, they would have been ineffective in the rain anyway.

  “This doesn’t sound like you, Sque. Well, not entirely like you. You’ve always shown so much confidence in our chances, even when it seemed we were going to be stuck on Seremathenn for the rest of our lives.”

  Alien though they were, those metallic gray eyes could still convey the emotion that lay behind them. “And you’ve thought all along that I believed that. Lesser lifeforms are so easily deceived.” Her tentacles stirred sand from the streambed. “Such expressions of sanguinity as I may have declaimed over the past years were for your benefit, and that of your companion and that saga-spinning oaf of a Tuuqalian. Since you have all been necessary to my survival, it was necessary that I keep your own feeble, faltering spirits up.” She looked away, down the stream that did not lead to home.

  “I have from the beginning never been anything other than realistic about our chances. I believe you yourself, in your simple, uncomplicated way, are equally aware of that reality.”

  He refused to be disheartened by her despair. He knew nothing of other K’eremu, but this one, at least, he knew was subject to wild mood swings. Rather than go on the defensive, he tried as best he could to raise her spirits.

  “Essentially, then, every expression of hope you’ve put forth has been for our benefit. I’m surprised you’d be so concerned for our mental welfare, even if such efforts were self-centered at heart.”

  “I am equally surprised,” she retorted. “It is a sign of my advancing weakness in the face of utter despondency. I am losing my true K’eremu nature.” Tilting back her head and upper body in a single, supple curve, she regarded the benign but leaden sky. Rain fell in her open eyes, but did not affect her. “I will never get home. You will never get home. It is possible, just possible, that the Tuuqalian will get home—if these chittering, chattering, childlike natives with mild pretensions to intelligence can actually coordinate their primitive science with that of the only slightly less primitive Niyyuu. But you and I? We will never see our respective homeworlds again, except in dreams.”

  They were both silent then, the only sound the tap-patter of gentle rain falling on and around them, plinking out piccolo notes in the mild flow of the stream. After several minutes of mutual contemplation of time, selves, and the alien yet comforting elements, Walker rose from his crouch, scrambled and slid down into the shallow brook, and sat down alongside the startled Sque. When he reached out an arm toward her—a heavy, human, inflexible, bone-supported arm—she started to flinch back. He waited until she was ready. Then he let his arm come down. Since she had no shoulders, and her upper body was one continuous smooth shape from head to lower torso, he let it rest against the place where two of her ropy limbs joined to her body. She did not move it away.

  Later, two more of her own appendages writhed around and came to rest atop his wet, hirsute arm. He did not move them away.

  With nothing better to do at the moment, George went looking for his friend. It took a while and several exchanges with busy (were they always so busy? the dog wondered) Hyfft before he was directed to a drainage canal outside the converted warehouse.

  Through the steady but tranquil drizzle he finally saw them, sitting side by side in the middle of the drainage ditch, Walker’s arm around the base of the K’eremu, a couple of Sque’s serpentine limbs lying across the man’s arm. The dog watched them for a moment, pausing only once to shake accumulated rain from his shaggy coat. Not knowing what was going on but deciding in any case not to interrupt, he turned and trotted back toward the dry shelter of the big warehouse. He would find out what it was all about later. Walker would tell him, whether he wanted to know the details or not.

  Meanwhile, if nothing else, at least the acid-tongued, barely tolerable, know-it-all ten-legs had finally discovered the one thing humans were really good for.

  Artfully efficient though they were, it still took the Hyfft several days to properly prepare an appropriate greeting for their unexpected but most welcome multi-species visitors. While the initial, hastily adapted warehouse was continuously upgraded to provide better temporary living quarters for the guests, a second structure nearby underwent feverish preparations for use as a center of celebration. Most pleased of all by these developments were the ever-active agents of the Niyyuuan media, who found kindred spirits (if not equivalent fanatics) among those Hyfft charged with relaying the details of the forthcoming gathering to the rest of their utterly engrossed society.

  Inexpressibly relieved to learn that the newcomers were neither Iollth nor allies of the anticipated marauders, and in fact had never heard of them, the population of Hyff prepared to put forth the very best of their ancient, extensive, and admirable culture. The best singers and callers were flown in from all across the multiple continents, while specialist chefs made preparations to provide the visitors with the finest local victuals their systems could tolerate. In this Walker found himself, once again, something of a minor celebrity. Nominal leader of the expedition or not, he possessed gustatory expertise that was in constant demand by those seeking to satisfy the appetites of Niyyuu, Tuuqalian, K’eremu, and canine alike. He almost forgot to request certain foods for himself.

  The Hyfft being strict vegetarians limited his input somewhat, but he was still able to surprise their hosts with some of the tricks of which the modern culinary technology he had mastered was capable. So it was that he found himself simultaneously enjoying the fruits of Hyfftian cuisine while helping to prepare it. It was more real work than had been required of him since they had left orbit around Niyu.

  He enjoyed every bit of it immensely.

  For one thing, the Hyfft were not only easy to work with, they were a delight to be around. Averaging a meter in height, with rounded furry bo
dies and darting black eyes, they reminded him of active bear cubs, though with saturnine faces, complex attire, and dexterous four-fingered hands and three-toed feet. They acceded readily to his suggestions. Nor was the exchange of culinary information exclusively one-way.

  The official festivities, which local media broadcast around the globe and contented Niyyuuan monitors recorded with barely restrained glee, began on a worldwide holiday that the current (and much relieved) planetary Delineator had just established by executive fiat. It was to continue for an entire local four-day. Work did not stop entirely, but there was no question the locals were enjoying the unprecedented celebration at least as much as the visitors. Rotating crews by thirds allowed every Niyyuuan technician, soldier, and general crewmember to enjoy a day of it while also participating in basic ground leave. It was something to see one of the slender, graceful, two-meter-tall Niyyuu loping lithely through Therapp surrounded by an aurora of adoring, awestruck locals.

  Sated with celebration, Walker and George decided to take some time to trek the city’s extensive botanical gardens. These were garlanded with a riot of alien growth that, other than containing a passing affection for the local variety of photosynthesis, were more different from the flora they were familiar with back home than a saguaro was from a sequoia. Taking the tour also allowed them to bring along their own food. After three days of nonstop ingesting of vegetable matter, no matter how superbly prepared, omnivore human and carnivore canine both craved meat. Or at least, meat products. By not attending the day’s festivities, they were able to enjoy food from their ship without offering insult to the Hyfftian population at large.