by David Brin
Harullen resumed. “There is another on the trail. One whose stone-hard lineage is belied by disorderly foot-haste.”
One whose what is what? Lark puzzled. Sometimes the way other races used Anglic left him confused. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing the chaotic human language had become so popular on Jijo.
Soon he also felt ground-tremors, tickling the soles of his feet. A five-beat vibration even more familiar than Harullen’s earlier footsteps. Similar to that rhythmic beat, yet simpler, less aristocratic, a pace too hurried and eager to waste time on etiquette or show.
Another armored form burst into view, trailing twigs and leaves.
Like Harullen, Uthen the Taxonomist was dressed for pilgrimage — in a carelessly draped, once-white rag that flapped behind him like somebody’s old bedsheet. His carapace was a slightly deeper shade of slate than his disdainful cousin’s. Like Harullen, Uthen wore a new rewq, which might explain his stumbling progress, twice veering off the path as if distracted by swarms of buzzing insects. Lark peeled his own reluctant symbiont back from his eyes. He needed no help reading his colleague’s excitement.
“Lark-ark, Harullen-en,” Uthen stammered out several vents, in unmatched timbres. Harullen scornfully turned his cupola while the newcomer caught his breath.
“Come quickly, both of you. They’ve come out!”
“Who’s come—?” Lark began, before realizing that Uthen could mean but one thing.
He nodded. “Just give me a dura.”
Lark ducked back under the tent flap, fumbled for his own pilgrimage robe, then paused by the writing desk. He snatched the unfinished letter from under the folio and slid it into a sleeve, along with a sharpened pencil. Ink was more elegant and wouldn’t smudge. Still, Sara wouldn’t give a damn, so long as the letter got there and contained the latest news.
“Come on!” Uthen urged, impatiently, when Lark reemerged. “Hop aboard and let’s hoof it!” The gray qheuen scientist dipped one end of his shell to the ground. This time, Harullen groaned annoyance. Sure, kids did it all the time, but it wasn’t dignified for an adult gray — especially one with ancestry like Uthen’s — to go around carrying a human on his back. Still, they would move faster now, toward the Meadow of Concealed Aliens, hurrying to see the wonder that had emerged.
If anything, Ling understated when she called them beautiful.
Lark had never envisioned anything quite like them. Not when leafing through ancient picture books, or reading pre-Contact works of space fiction. Not even in his dreams.
In the vernacular of Jijo’s exiled tribes, it was common to call all Galactics “star-gods.” Yet here, strolling a forest clearing, were beings that seemed all but literally worthy of the name, so exquisite were they to behold. Lark could stand it only for moments at a stretch, then had to look away lest his eyes fill with tears and his chest begin to ache.
Ling and the other forayer humans formed a guard of honor around their noble patrons, while vigilant robots hovered. Occasionally, one of the tall stoop-shouldered Rothen crooked a finger, beckoning Rann or Besh to lean upward and explain something, like children called on to recite, gesturing at a nearby tree, one of the tent-pavilions, a herd of spline beasts, or a shy infant g’Kek.
Crowds gathered. Proctors of Gathering, armed with red-dyed sticks, kept people from pressing too close, but there seemed small likelihood of a shameful outburst. Hardly anyone even whispered, so thick was the atmosphere of awe.
The effect seemed greatest on the humans present, most of whom stared with hushed wonderment and bewildered familiarity. Rothen were humanoid to an uncanny degree, with high noble foreheads, wide sympathetic eyes, eloquent noses, and droopy, soft-fringed eyebrows that seemed to purse with sincere, attentive interest in anyone or everything they encountered. Nor were these parallels coincidental, Lark supposed. Physical and emotional affinities would have been cultivated during the long process of uplift, tens of thousands of years ago, when Rothen experts tinkered and modified a tribe of graceless but promising apes back on Pliocene Earth, altering them gradually into beings almost ready for the stars.
That assumed these creatures really were humanity’s long-hidden patrons, as Ling claimed. Lark tried to retain an attitude of cautious neutrality but found it hard in the face of such evidence. How could this race be any other than humankind’s lost patrons?
When the two august visitors were introduced to the assembled High Sages, Lark drew comfort from the serene expressions of Vubben, Phwhoon-dau, and the others, none of whom wore rewq for the occasion. Even Lester Cambel remained composed — at least on the outside — when presented to Ro-kenn and Ro-pol, whose names Rann proclaimed for all to hear.
By human standards, Ro-kenn appeared to be male. And though Lark tried not to be overly influenced by analogies, the more delicate-featured Ro-pol struck him as possibly female. The crowd murmured when the two smiled — revealing small white teeth — conveying apparent pleasure at the meeting. Ro-pol’s grin creased in ways that might even be called dimples. The word merry tempted Lark, as a way to describe the slighter Rothen’s cheerful mien. It wouldn’t be hard to like a face like that, so warm, open, and filled with understanding.
It makes sense, Lark thought. If the Rothen really are our patrons, wouldn’t they have ingrained us with similar esteem patterns?
Nor were Earthlings alone affected. After all, the Six Races had a lot of experience with each other. You didn’t have to be a qheuen to sense the charisma of a stately queen, so why shouldn’t an urs, or hoon, or g’Kek sense this potent humanoid magnetism? Even without rewq, most of the nonhumans present seemed caught up in the prevailing mood — hope.
Lark recalled Ling’s assurance that the forayer mission would succeed without incident, and Jijo’s Commons needn’t be changed in any but positive ways. “It will all work out,” she had said.
Ling had also told him the Rothen were special beings, even among high Galactic clans. Operating in deliberate obscurity, they had quietly arranged for Old Earth to lie fallow, off the colonization lists, for half a billion years, an accomplishment with implications Lark found hard to imagine. Needing no fleets or weapons, the Rothen were influential, mystical, mysterious — in many ways godlike even compared with those beings whose vast armadas thundered across the Five Galaxies. No wonder Ling and her peers thought themselves above so-called “laws” of migration and uplift, as they sifted Jijo’s biosphere for some worthy species to adopt. No wonder she seemed fearless over the possibility of being caught.
The newly cave-fledged rewq also appeared dazzled, ever since the tall pair emerged from the buried research station. The one on Lark’s brow trembled, casting splashy aurae around the two Rothen till he finally had to peel it back.
Lark tried to wrest control over his thoughts, reclaiming a thread of skepticism.
It may be that all advanced races learn to do what the Rothen are doing now — impressing those beneath themon the ladder of status. Perhaps we’re all extra-susceptible on account of being primitives, having no other experience with Galactics.
But skepticism was slippery as the Rothen emissaries conversed with the sages in voices that seemed warm, compassionate. A robot amplified the discourse for all to hear.
“We two now express grateful and respectful honors for your hospitality,” Ro-kenn said in a very prim, grammatically perfect GalSixish.
“Furthermore, we now express regret for any anxiety our presence may have generated among your noble Commons,” Ro-pol added. “Only of late have we come to realize the depth of your unease. Overcoming our natural reticence — our shyness, if you will — we now emerge to soothe your quite unwarranted fears.”
Again, whispers of tentative hope from the crowd — not an easy emotion for Jijoan exiles.
Ro-kenn spoke again.
“Now we express joy and appreciation to have been invited to attend your sacred rites. One of us shall accompany you on this eve, to witness the wonderment inherent in, and remarkably expres
sed by, your renowned and Holy Egg.”
“Meanwhile,” Ro-pol continued, “the other of us shall withdraw to contemplate how best to reward your Commons for your pains, your worries, and your hard sequestered lives.”
Ro-pol appeared to muse on the problem for a moment, choosing her words.
“Some gift, we foresee. Some benefaction to help you through the ages ahead, as each of your cojoined races seeks salvation down the long, courageous path known as Return-to-innocence.”
A murmur coursed the ranks of onlookers — pleasure at this surprising news.
Now each of the sages took turns making a welcoming speech, starting with Vubben, whose aged wheels squeaked as he rolled forward to recite from one of the oldest scrolls. Something apropos about the ineffable nature of mercy, which drifts upward from the ground when least expected, a grace that cannot be earned or even merited, only lovingly accepted when it comes.
Lark let the neophyte rewq slip back over his eyes. The Rothen pair remained immersed in a nimbus of confused colors, so while Vubben droned on, he turned and scanned the assembled onlookers.
Of course rewq offered no magic window to the soul. Mostly, they helped make up for the fact that each race came equipped with brain tissue specifically adapted for reading emotional cues from its own kind. Rewq were most effective when facing another rewq-equipped being, especially if the two symbionts first exchanged empathy hormones.
Is that why the sages aren’t wearing theirs now? In order to protect secret thoughts?
From the throng he picked up ripples of fragile optimism and mystical wonder, cresting here and there with spumelike waves of near-religious fervor. There were other colors, however. From several dozen qheuens, hoon, urs, and men — proctors and militia guards — there flowed cooler shades of duty. Refusal to be distracted by anything short of a major earthquake.
Another glittering twinkle Lark quickly recognized as a different kind of duty, more complex, focused, and vain. It accompanied a brief reflection off a glass lens. Bloor and his comrades at work, Lark guessed. Busy recording the moment.
Lark’s symbiont was working better now. In fact, despite its lack of training, it might never again be quite this sensitive. At this moment almost every rewq in the valley was the same age, fresh from caves where they had lately mingled in great piles, sharing unity enzymes. Each would be acutely aware of the others, at longer than normal range.
I should warn Bloor. His people shouldn’t wear rewq. If it lets me spot them, it might help robots, too.
Another swirl caught his eye, flashing bitterly from the far end of the Glade, standing out from the prevailing mood like a fire burning on an ice-field. There was no mistaking a flare of acrid hate.
Finally he made out a shaggy snakelike neck, rising from the profile of a small centaur. Rewq-mediated colors, like a globe of distilled loathing, obscured the head itself.
The wearer of that distant, powerful symbiont suddenly seemed to notice Lark’s focused regard. Shifting her attention from aliens and sages, she turned to face Lark directly. Across a crowd of shifting, sighing citizens, they watched each other’s colors. Then, in unison each pulled back their rewq.
In clear light, Lark met her unblinking stare — the urrish leader of the zealot cause. A rebel whose malice toward invaders was stronger than Lark had realized. With those three fierce eyes turned his way, Lark needed no symbiont to translate the zealot’s feelings toward him.
Under the late afternoon sun, her neck twisted and she snarled an urrish smile of pure, disdainful contempt.
The pilgrimage commenced at dusk, with long forest shadows pointing toward a hidden mountain pass. Twelve twelves of chosen citizens represented all the Commons, along with two star-humans, four robots, and one tall ancient being whose shambling gait hinted great strength under glossy white robes.
Judging by his so-humanlike smile, Ro-kenn seemed to find delight in countless things, especially the rhythmic chanting — a blending of vocal contributions from all races — as the assembly set out past steaming vents and sheer clefts, weaving its slow way toward the hidden oval Valley of the Egg. The Rothen’s long-fingered hands stroked slim-boled welpal trees, whose swaying resonated with emanations from that secret vale. Most humans would hear nothing till they got much closer.
In Lark’s heart, dark feelings churned. Nor was he alone. Many, especially those farthest from Ro-kenn’s cheerful charisma, still felt uneasy about guiding strangers to this sacred place.
The procession marched, rolled, and slithered, wending higher into the hills. Soon the heavens glittered with formations of sparkling lights — brittle bright clusters and nebulae — divided by the dark stripe of the Galactic disk. If anything, the sight reinforced the starkly uneven order of life, for tonight’s guests would shortly cross those starscapes, whether they departed in peace or betrayal. To them, Jijo would become another quaint, savage, perhaps mildly interesting spot they had visited once in long, deified lives.
The last time Lark came up this way — so earnest about his self-appointed mission to save Jijo from invaders like himself — no one had any thought of starships cruising Jijo’s sky.
Yet they were already up there, preparing to land.
What is more frightening? The danger you already dread, or the trick the universe hasn’t pulled on you yet? The one to make all prior concerns seem moot.
Lark hoped none of this gloom carried into his letter to Sara, which he had finished in a hurried pencil scrawl by the headwaters of the Bibur after the Rothen emerged. The kayak pilot added Lark’s note to a heavy bundle from Bloor, then set off in a flash of oars, speeding down the first set of spuming rapids in a pell-mell rush toward Biblos, two days’ hard rowing away.
On his way back to rendezvous with the other heretics, he had stopped to watch the alien aircraft glide out of its dark tunnel like a wraith, rising on whispering engines. Lark glimpsed a small human silhouette, hands and face pressed against an oval window, drinking in the view. The figure looked familiar… but before he could raise his pocket ocular, the machine sped away, eastward, toward a cleft where the largest moon was rising above the Rimmer Range.
Now, as the evening procession entered a final twisty canyon leading to the Egg, Lark tried putting temporal concerns aside, preparing for communion. It may be my last chance, he thought, hoping this time he might fully take part in the wholeness others reported, when the Egg shared its full bounty of love.
Drawing his right arm inside his sleeve, he grasped the rocky flake, despite its growing heat. A passage from the Scroll of Exile came to mind — an Anglic version, modified for Earthlings by one of the first human sages.
We drift, rudderless, down the stream of time,
betrayed by the ancestors who left us here,
blind to much that was hard-learnt by other ages,
fearful of light and the law,
but above all, anxious in our hearts
that there might be no God,
no Father,
no heavenly succor,
or else that we are already lost to Him,
to fate,
to destiny.
Where shall we turn, in banished agony,
with our tabernacle lost,
and faith weighed down by perfidy?
What solace comes to creatures lost in time?
One source of renewal,
never fails.
With rhythms long,
its means are fire and rain,
ice and time.
Its names are myriad.
To poor exiles it is home.
Jijo.
The passage ended on a strange note of combined reverence and defiance.
If God still wants us, let him find us here.
Till then, we grow part of this,
our adopted world.
Not to hinder, but to serve Her cyclic life.
To sprout humble goodness out of the foul seed of crime.
Not long after that scroll gained
acceptance in the human sept, one winter’s day, ground tremors shook the Slope. Trees toppled, dams burst, and a terrible wind blew. Panic swept from mountains to sea amid reports that Judgment Day had come.
Instead, bursting through a cloud of sparkling dust, the Egg appeared. A gift out of Jijo’s heart.
A gift which must be shared tonight — with aliens.
What if they achieved what he had always failed? Or worse, what if they reacted with derisive laughter, declaring that the Egg was a simple thing that only yokels would take seriously — like fabled Earth-natives worshipping a music box they found on the shore?
Lark struggled to push out petty thoughts, to tune himself with the basso rumble of the hoon, the qheuens’ calliope piping, the twanging spokes of the g’Keks, and all of the other contributions to a rising song of union. He let it take over the measured pace of his breathing, while warmth from the stone fragment seemed to swell up his hand and arm, then across his chest, spreading relaxed detachment.
Close, he thought. A tracery of soft patterns began taking shape in his mind. A weblike meshing of vague spirals, made up partly of images, partly of sound.
It’s almost as if something is trying to—
“Is this, not exciting?” a voice broke in from Lark’s right, splitting his concentration into broken shards. “I believe I can feel something now! It’s quite unlike any psi phenomenon I have experienced. The motif is highly unusual.”
Ignore her, Lark thought, clinging to the patterns. Maybe she’ll go away.
But Ling kept talking, sending words clattering up avenues that could not help hearing them. The harder he tried holding on, the quicker detachment slipped away. Lark’s hand now clenched a clammy ball of rock and twine, warm with his body heat alone. He let go in disgust.
“We picked up some tremors on instruments several days ago. The cycles have been rising in strength and complexity for some time.”
Ling seemed blithely unaware of having done anything wrong. That, in turn, made Lark’s simmering resentment seem both petty and futile. Anyway, her beauty by moonlight was even more unnerving than usual, cutting through his anger to a vulnerable loneliness within.