Fall of the White Ship Avatar

by Brian Daley

  "From a distance is how we're gonna do it," Alacrity said. "Preferably by intelsat."

  "That would be nice," Paloma answered, "if it were possible. But we've got to do it accurately, and that may mean getting uncomfortably close, because if we haven't got our facts right the first time, those beauties will probably never listen to us again."

  Floyt gave Alacrity a hand down from the last tree. "We don't have a lot of time," Alacrity said yet again.

  By late afternoon they'd finished a fair perimeter of marked trees, pretty well using up the scent in the foreleg paw pads as far as Alacrity could tell. All three were dirty, tired, hungry, and thirsty despite water stops and intermittent foraging of berries and other things okayed by Paloma's data. They were also sweaty and increasingly rank. Floyt had been fantasizing about a sylvan bathing scene, jungle-romance style, finding a pool or a safe, deep part of the little river that wound through the middle of the valley, until Paloma mentioned sliver-worms, stingfish, and similar noxious life forms liable to be prowling any stretch of deep water not claimed by the gawks. A sponge bath began to sound grand.

  Invictus was getting lower. They could hear the cavorting and eructations of gawks happily traipsing around in an environment where little could harm them unless they were badly injured or sick.

  Well, maybe not completely happily, Alacrity thought. They're smart enough to know something's wrong. All we've gotta do is get them to admit it and then believe we have the answer. Good luck …

  "We'll have more time for food gathering tomorrow, now that the Walls of Jericho are finished," Paloma said. "I wouldn't mind a little more to eat, but I really don't feel like stumbling around in the dark, especially with drillbugs."

  Just then a scare-flare gargled somewhere and another replied, from across the valley. They tended to become active around dusk. "It certainly seems an advisable time to draw the wagons into a circle," Floyt declared.

  The gawklegs were starting up their droning again; they sometimes did it by day, but always in the evening, Paloma's info said. The kicker was, the droning wasn't simple animal herd sounds; it was a blend of recitation and something a lot like prayer.

  The three moved back to camp quickly. They checked carefully, but the former den was still empty. Alacrity supposed that the fire ring with its ash might have something to do with that. The new occupants used short branches as rakes, pulling out debris and loose dirt. Then they refloored it with leaves and heaped more to the side to use as covers. The den didn't smell so much rank as oily. To Alacrity, scare-flare scent was redolent of old machine parts.

  Then they built up the fire, readied plenty of wood, and each made a last commo with nature while the others did sentinel duty. Alacrity gently detached the drop-netting from his brolly and hung it across the mouth of the cave, weighting the bottom and filling in gaps with dirt.

  As the fire burned down, they waited for the next drillbug onslaught. The night came on. "Maybe the fire's keeping them back from the overhang, or they're someplace else?" Alacrity speculated.

  But just then a miniature hydra shape, then another, bumped the netting. As if that was a signal to relax, the three settled down in the crawlspace cave to watch. Paloma dug into her pouch and came up with a sweetspeck dispenser.

  "I was saving it for a morale booster," she explained, and carefully flicked a tiny flavored dot onto each man's palm. The sweetspecks tasted wonderful; they dissolved in moments, but the taste lingered. Stomachs growled like gawks' droning.

  There was no swarming of drillbugs, just assaults from roving individuals and small groups. Alacrity guessed that the smoke and heat of the fire were masking the humans' scent and body warmth. It was full dark before a ringwing zipped through the firelight, taking a drillbug on the fly.

  After another half hour Floyt volunteered to go out and test the air. His fire was burning low and he couldn't bear the idea of watching it go out. "Just another caveman," he muttered.

  The drillbugs had again disappeared. According to Paloma's data, they fed on fruits and plant sap when there was no blood source available, and didn't much like spending time in the air. Alacrity and Paloma joined Floyt by the fire and they went back to talk of the gawklegs' recruitment drive.

  "I've been thinking about it," Alacrity said, tossing a length of wood on the fire carelessly. Floyt frowned and rearranged everything more to his high standards in fire esthetics. "And I have an idea," Alacrity went on.

  Floyt sighed. "Just when things were getting restful."

  Chapter 11

  Middle-Of-The Food-Chain Blues

  "I make it fifty of them in this group," Floyt insisted.

  He was quite comfortable stretched out on his stomach, where he'd been for two hours; he'd learned a hunter's stoic patience from Alacrity and Paloma. He no longer reacted to or worried about midges, for example, and as a result they seemed less interested in him.

  "And I'm telling you it's more like seventy-five," Alacrity repeated. "Just count the number you see in the area we measured off by those trees and multiply by—"

  "See here, Alacrity, I understand the procedure and I'm not blind."

  "Oh, forget it!" They were on a boulder low on the valley's side, less than two hundred meters from where some gawklegs were grazing. As they watched, one cow reared and shied away abruptly from something in the grass, trailed by her calf. The men saw a flash of green and gunmetal and knew she'd almost stumbled on a scare-flare. The two species usually gave one another wide berth; a gawkleg could, of course, trample one of the predators to pulp, but if the scare-flare got its sting into a vulnerable area, a gawk could become quite ill, though death was unlikely.

  The scare-flare sprang away through the high lichen-grass. Alacrity shifted his weight. "We already know all we have to. I say it's time to talk to those ladder-legs again. Today. Now."

  Floyt shook his head. "We should try for one more count, closer in." He rose a centimeter or two and eased back off the boulder, moving cautiously, circling to get closer to the valley floor. He moved with an ease acquired over long days of stalking, knowing the local dangers.

  Floyt had learned other things, as well, like banging out his boots before putting them on, no matter how short a time he'd had them off, and how to blow his nose with his fingers and other facts of outdoor hygiene that Scagway Scanlon and his ilk had somehow never gotten around to mentioning.

  Alacrity resignedly trailed after. They kept track of the wind to make sure the gawklegs didn't pick up their scent. The two came down onto the open stretch and stalked toward a good vantage point, one from which they'd have a good view of the gawks and still be fairly safe. Then a sudden, minute sound came to them both, a tiny shifting of weight among branches only meters away, as twigs and leaves rustled against tough hide.

  They both froze, turning their heads slowly, slowly, quick motion being a sure way to draw attention and be spotted, or attacked.

  A gawkleg was watching them from ten meters away. It couldn't possibly have crept up on them through the foliage, given its size and horns and weight. This one was a male, one of the smallest of the adults, whom Paloma had named Nosey.

  Floyt's first thought, after total shock and just as he began casting about for the nearest tree, was But they don't stalk or lie in wait! Gawks just don't do this kind of thing!

  But then, Nosey wasn't like the rest of his kind. He was quick, but too small to compete in the bull battles and so, as a nonbreeding male, had little status in the herd. He was curious, even eccentric, always rooting around and prying into this and that.

  Alacrity grabbed Floyt's arm just as Floyt was about to bolt. "Don't you get it, Ho? He's observing us!"

  Nosey watched them steadily, rocking from side to side as gawks did when passing time, a sort of contemplative sway, except that Nosey hadn't done it while he was waiting to get a better look at them.

  Alacrity must be right, Floyt realized, not daring to speak, because Nosey isn't taking off or using us as doormats. And that
is something new under this particular sun. He nodded, to show he understood.

  Men and gawkleg stood there in tableau, dappled by the shade, until Nosey let out an oinking belch. It was muted for a gawk, not doing much more than stirring the men's hair and carrying a strong gust of herbivore-breath to them. Then the gawk turned ponderously, bending a small fractal sapling, and trotted away.

  * * * *

  "There's no record here of a gawk ever doing anything like that," Paloma concluded, scanning her data as Floyt operated the linked proteuses. She scratched a leaf-mite bite on her arm; all three had them from their bedding, but the bites were preferable to shivering through the long nights.

  They were sitting on the ledge in front of the den, eating wheyberries that had just gone green and ripe. The gawks were droning and bellowing in the afternoon light. "That doesn't change the fact that it happened," Alacrity reminded her.

  "Here's something from back when the first human research group became isolated and started allying with the gawks," Floyt said, pointing out a bit of info he'd projected with the holofeature.

  "Hey, how'd you find that?" Paloma answered her own question. "Oh, that's right; accessing was your specialty, hmm? What's it say?"

  "Rather what we might have supposed. Gawklegs assumed that swaying, peaceful mode in talking to humans, just as they do when they're doing their droning. Not that any of them have talked to a human in a while, except us."

  "What it boils down to," Alacrity said slowly, "is Nosey was treating us like kin. Or, at least, neutrals—not enemies."

  "So?" Paloma prompted. "He's only one young male and not a very important one at that. In fact, some of the dominant bulls seem to have it in for him."

  "So maybe he's just the errand boy," Alacrity reasoned. "Maybe they're all curious, and we can finesse 'em."

  Floyt, unconvinced, shook his head, feeling that some sort of contact had taken place when Nosey stared at them.

  "All right now, Alacrity." Floyt got back to more fundamental matters. "Don't you think it's time for you to let us in on your idea? How do we treat with them without being flattened by some three-ton isolationist?"

  "The only smart way, of course. Like I said: from a distance."

  "Sure," Paloma cut in, "only the volume of my proteus doesn't go loud enough for the gawks to hear a translation at anything like a safe remove, and neither does yours or Hobie's."

  "Ahem." Alacrity looked a little tentative. "Well, yeah, that's true … as long as somebody's wearing the proteus."

  That took a second to sink in. Then Paloma clapped a protective hand over her jeweled instrument/bracelet. "I will not risk having this thing tromped on or eaten up! It cost me too dearly, and besides, it contains things I just won't sacrifice. Toss your own bloody proteus out into the middle of those honking bloody tanks!"

  Alacrity was elaborately disingenuous. "Gee, I thought your heart went out to them."

  "That's all right, Paloma." Floyt stopped her as she was about to sail into Alacrity, at least verbally. "Your proteus isn't compatible with mine or Alacrity's for commo, remember? And this will require a conversation, not a recorded message."

  He looked to his friend. "And I know you're not about to hazard your own. But what about the things I've stored in my data files, Alacrity? They're as important to me as yours are to you."

  Alacrity was nodding vigorously. "I never said they weren't. But we can transfer it all over into mine for safekeeping. Mine's got megastorage galore; that one the Earthservice issued you—it's just not as much of a loss."

  Floyt was slipping off his proteus, exhaling deeply. "You're right; you win."

  Alacrity took it and began matching with his own for the transfer. "When we get out of this we'll get you a new one, I swear. Something really top end, good as mine or better."

  He hesitated. "Or at least, good as we can afford."

  Floyt barked a laugh. "You're hedging! Now I know you're confident we'll make it!"

  * * * *

  "Curnutie! Wouldn't you think they'd move a little faster? Even grazing?" Paloma fumed under her breath at the distant gawklegs. She popped another ripe green wheyberry into her mouth.

  "They move fast enough when they want to do the Antarian Handkerchief Dance on somebody's spinal column," Alacrity agreed softly.

  Sure enough, the main herd of gawk was wandering in the general direction of the tree in which Floyt's proteus had been secured, but the approach had taken most of the day, with a lot of reversing field and digression. As the three humans watched, a scare-flare showed its webbed mantle, scuttling out of the way as a dominant bull backed from it in swift reverse. That started a general repositioning away from the wired fractal tree.

  When Alacrity selected the tree at the edge of the grazing area that morning, he'd figured the herd would be in the vicinity fairly soon; they ate huge amounts of vegetation and moved almost constantly. Now he swore in a whisper at the perversity of all species that hadn't evolved to the level of civilization where there were saloons and taxi stands.

  "Maybe what we need's a little come-hither," Floyt reasoned, shifting his whittled toothpick and trying to readjust his Inheritor's belt so that it didn't dig into him as he lay on the great-girthed limb where they'd been perched all day. "What about that sound they make when they get romantic?"

  "Give it a try, Alacrity," Paloma said, groaning and stirring uncomfortably on blistered, convoluted bark, vigilant against any more of the biting and stinging things that inhabited it. "Anything's better than this."

  She was good to look at, even after days in the wilds, though her hair was more matted than windblown and with smudges on her face instead of makeup. That made it that much more frustrating to Alacrity that she'd kept him at arm's length, showing him no more cordiality than she did Floyt. She'd continued to pull her weight, though, and treat them both as teammates, even sharing her few remaining sweetspeck candies.

  Alacrity checked to make sure the gain on his proteus was set to max. Floyt's cheap instrument's reproduction might be far from ambient—distorted, in fact—but they were hoping for the best. The hookup seemed adequate when they'd tested it at the cave.

  Alacrity fiddled with his heavy black-green wrist-torc of a proteus and began transmitting the lowing, curious sounds that preceded many gawkleg exchanges and nonverbal interactions. It was B-flat, a sound the cows, in particular, made when they wanted a little attention. It was a synthesized, amplified lure.

  Floyt gripped his shoulder and pointed; Nosey had his head up, at his usual place on the outskirts of the herd, looking straight at the tree where the proteus was fastened.

  The undersize gawk male trotted for the tree as Alacrity sent another call echoing from Floyt's proteus. A few of the herdmembers watched indifferently.

  Nosey moved up close to the tree. The humans knew enough about gawkleg body language to see that he was neither belligerent nor aroused, but simply inquisitive. The gawks, being an intelligent species, demonstrated a fair degree of curiosity, but Nosey much more so than the rest. The runty nonbreeding male spoke to the sound-source in his language, and the hookup sent a translation back through Alacrity's proteus, using the linguistic program copied from Paloma's data files, giving a running translation.

  "I find this puzzling. How can a tree be in need of sexual easement? You smell all wrong," Nosey told the tree.

  "Yes. That is, you're right," Alacrity responded.

  Nosey snorted, the loud blast taking a little longer to reach them through the open air than it did through the proteus hookup. He dug in a hoof to fling a bucketsize hunk of soil arcing back into the air. "So, this is some (untranslatable white noise) of the two-leggers, then?"

  "A what? Try again."

  "A trick, a boogum of the—humans. Those three who have come are humans, aren't they? I notice this voice comes from a strange, shiny fruit up there in the branches. I have never seen one like that before, but it looks tasty."

  "It's not, it's not!" Alacrity ha
stened. Nosey huffed a strange sound that the proteus rendered as laughter.

  "Well, what do you know?" Paloma chuckled. "He's clowning on us."

  "The Verities tell us that the humans could speak to us once," the thing said. "Is that who's speaking through this horny tree? Humans?"

  "You're smart," Alacrity conceded. "What's your name?"

  The thing huffed and snorted, but there wasn't much of the body-english the gawks often used among themselves. The hookup translated, "I have a name, Meadowbreeze, but my use-name has gotten to be Poke-snout."

  "Oh. What're the Verities?"

  "Lore/History/Law/Legend." (The proteus did a surprisingly good job of overlapping it, to make the castaways understand that the Verities were all that.) "Haven't you heard us recite and discuss the Verities?"

  Nosey/Pokesnout made the dirgelike droning the humans had listened to every night since their arrival. The century-old linguistic program turned it into "The First Ones called to the Herd, and the First Ones were the Light, and the First Ones gave to the Herd a smaller Light of their own, in each and every one … "

  Precursors! Alacrity wanted to hear more about that but Pokesnout was already on to other things. "Question! What do you want? It better be no danger to the herd! This skulking about and talking through trees makes no sense to me."

  "I guess that's no surprise," Alacrity responded, wondering just how the program would translate it. "But you heard what we tried to say to the herd leaders?"

  "We all did. This Long Trek that you have in mind for yourselves is more arduous than you know. But it will be interesting. You will see many strange things. That is intriguing."

  "Good, because we want you and the others of the herd to carry us."

  Pokesnout snuffled and honked laughter. "Say more; I hope to hear all I can before the others make you part of the ground."

  Alacrity covered the sound pickup with his hand. "We got a droll one here." To the pickup, he added, "You wouldn't like to go?"