by David Brin
It had been years since Rety last called the old woman “Mama.” She wasn’t tempted to resume now.
With her back straight, she walked past the chefs and their grisly work. Inside, though, she wavered.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come back here. Why mix with these ghosts when she could be in the aircraft, relishing victory over her lifelong enemy? The punishment being executed on Jass seemed rightful and good, now that she didn’t have to face his agony up close. That contradiction made Rety nervous, as if something were missing. Like trying to use moccasins without laces.
“wife! there you are, wife! bad wife, to leave yee alone so long!”
Several clansmen scurried out of the way, making room for a four-legged creature, galloping past their ankles like some untouchable, all-powerful being. Which the little urrish male was, in a sense, since Rety had loudly promised horrors to anyone laying a hand on her “husband.”
yee leaped into her arms, squirming with pleasure even as he scolded.
“wife leave yee alone too long with female foes! they offer yee soft, warm pouch, temptresses!”
Rety flared jealousy. “Who offered you a pouch! If any of those hussies—”
Then she saw he was teasing. Some of the tension in her shoulders let go as she laughed. The little critter was definitely good for her.
“relax, wife,” he assured her. “just one pouch for yee. go in now?”
“In now,” she replied, unzipping the plush hip bag Ling had provided, yee dove inside, wriggled around, then stuck out his head and long neck to peer at her.
“come now, wife, visit Ul-Tahni. that sage ready talk now.”
“Ah, is she? Well now, isn’t that awfully nice of her.”
Rety didn’t relish going to see the leader of the out-landers. But Kunn had given her a job, and now was as good a time as any.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s hear what the hinney has to say.”
Dwer
The urs, it appeared, had done the small human expedition a favor. In receiving death and devastation, they had left a warning.
A tale of callous murder was clear to read through the dawn light — in seared and shattered trees, blackened craters, and scattered debris, pushed by a gusty, dry wind. The violence that took place here — just a few days ago by Dwer’s estimate — must have been brief but horrible.
The plateau’s terraced outlines were still visible after ages of softening by erosion and vegetation. It was a former Buyur site, going back to the last race licensed to use this world — legal residents dwelling in heavenlike towers, who went through their daily lives unafraid of the open sky.
Dwer traced the terror that recently fell upon this place. All too vividly he pictured the panicked urrish settlers, rearing and coughing with dread, coiling their long necks, with slim arms crossed to shield their precious pouches as the ground around them exploded. He could almost hear their screams as they fled the burning encampment, down a steep trail leading into a narrow defile — where human footprints swarmed in abruptly from both sides, tracked by crude moccasins, mingling with urrish hooves chaotically.
He picked up shreds of home-twisted twine and leather cord. From countless signs, Dwer pictured ropes and nets falling to trap the urs, taking them prisoner.
Couldn’t they tell they were being herded? The aircraft aimed off to the sides and all around, to drive them. So why didn’t the urs scatter instead of clumping in a mass to he caught?
Several patches of sticky sand gave him an answer. The overall intent might have been capture, but the flying gunner had few qualms about enforcing the round-up with a corpse or two.
Don’t judge the urs too harshly. Do you know how you’ll react when lightning bolts start falling all around? War is messy, and we’re all out of practice. Even Drake never had to cope with anything like this.
“So, we’re facing an alliance between the human sooners and the aliens,” Lena concluded. “Kind of changes things, don’t it?”
Danel Ozawa wore a bleak expression. “This entire region is compromised. Whatever fate befalls the Slope will now surely happen here, as well. Whether by plague, or by fire, or hunting their victims one at a time with machines — they’ll scourge the area as thoroughly as back home.”
Danel’s task had been to carry a legacy into the wilderness — both knowledge and fresh genes to invigorate the human tribe already living here — to preserve something of Earthling life in case the worst came to pass. It was never a joyous enterprise, more like the mission of a lifeboat captain in some ancient tale about a shipwreck. But at least that endeavor had been based on a slim hope. Now his eyes lacked all trace of that emotion.
Jenin protested, “Well, didn’t you just say the sooners and aliens were allies against the urs? The star-gods wouldn’t turn on the tribe now, would they?”
She stopped as the others looked at her, their expressions answering better than words.
Jenin paled. “Oh.”
Moments later, she lifted her chin once more.
“Well, they still don’t know we exist, right? So why don’t we just leave, right now? The four of us. What about north, Dwer? You’ve been up that way before. Let’s go!”
Danel kicked some debris left by the urs’ riotous flight and the looting that followed. He pointed to a narrow cleft in the rocks. “We can build a pyre over there.”
“What are you doing?” Jenin asked, as Dwer led the donkeys where the sage indicated and began unloading their packs.
“I’ll set the grenades,” Lena said, prying open a container. “We’d best add some wood. I’ll gather these broken crates.”
“Hey! I asked you guys — what’s going on?”
Danel took Jenin’s arm while Dwer hauled a portion of their supplies to one side — food and clothing plus a few basic implements, none containing any metal. Left behind in a stack were all the books and sophisticated tools they had taken from the Slope.
The sage explained.
“We brought this legacy in order to maintain some minimal semblance of human culture in exile. But four people can’t establish a civilization, no matter how many books they have. We must prepare for the likelihood that all of this must be destroyed.”
Clearly the prospect gnawed at Ozawa. His face, already haggard, now seemed sliced by pain. Dwer averted his gaze, concentrating on the work at hand, separating only supplies helpful to a small party of fugitives on the run.
Jenin chewed on the news and nodded. “Well, if we must live and raise families without books, I guess that just puts us ahead of schedule, no? A bit farther along the Path of—”
She stopped. Danel was shaking his head.
“No, Jenin. That is not the way things will be.
“Oh, we four might as well try to survive. But even if we did make it to some far-off valley, beyond reach of whatever demise the aliens have planned, it’s unlikely we’d adapt to a strange ecosystem in time. Rety told us that her band lost half its first generation to accidents and allergic reactions. That’s typical for sooner groups, till they learn what’s safe to eat or touch. It’s a deadly, trial-and-error process. Four just isn’t enough.”
“I thought—”
“And that leaves out the problem of inbreeding—”
“You can’t mean—”
“But even if we could solve all of those dilemmas, it still wouldn’t work, because we aren’t going to start a band of fallen savages, spiraling into ignorance, even if the scrolls give that fate all sorts of fancy names. Human beings never came to Jijo for the Path of Redemption.”
Dwer looked up from his work. Lena halted as well, holding a thick tube with a clockwork fuse at one end. Up to that point, Ozawa had been explaining what Dwer already knew. But now silence reigned. No one was going to move or speak until the sage explained.
For a second time, Danel Ozawa sighed deeply.
“The secret is passed on to a few, each generation. But I see no point in concealing it from yo
u three, whom I now think of as kin, as family.
“Some of the other five races were appalled when we built Biblos. The Great Printing seemed to imply we had no intention of ever forgetting. Our founders did some smooth talking to explain the flood of books. A temporary measure, they called it. A way to help all races live in enough comfort to concentrate on developing their souls, till we’re spiritually ready to move on down the Path.
“Officially, it’s the long-term goal of each of the Six. But the Tabernacle founders never meant their descendants to devolve down to speechless proto-humans, ready for some race of star-gods to adopt and uplift.”
The sage paused until Dwer finally broke in. “Then why are we here?”
Danel shrugged. “Everyone knows that each race had ulterior motives. Those forbidden to breed at home sought a place where they can have offspring as they please. Or take the g’Keks, who tell of persecutors, hounding them throughout the star lanes.”
“So humans came to Jijo because folks on Earth weren’t sure they’d survive?”
Ozawa nodded. “Oh, we’d made a few friends, who helped Earth get a Library branch. And having uplifted two client races, we won low-level patron status. Still, Galactic history doesn’t offer much hope for a wolfling race like ours. We already had enemies. The Terragens Council knew Earth would be vulnerable for a long time to come.”
“So the Tabernacle crew weren’t outcasts?”
Danel ticked a thin smile. “A cover story, in case the colonists were caught, so the Council could disavow them as renegades. In fact, our ancestors were sent to find a hidden refuge for humankind.” The sage raised his hands. “But where? Despite rumors, no route is known beyond the Five Galaxies. Within them, every star is catalogued, many with lease-holders to watch over ’em. So the Terragens searched the Great Library to see what other races did in our position.
“Despite flaws, the ‘sooner’ phenomenon showed promise.”
Lena shook her head. “There’s a lot you’re leavin’ out. Like what we’re supposed to be doing here, while hiding, if our mission isn’t to go down the Path.”
“If Lester or the others know, they haven’t told me,” Danel answered. “Maybe we’re to sit tight and wait for the universe to change. Anyway, that hardly matters now. If our culture’s finished, I won’t have any part in going on as wretched fragments, whelping kids who will be no more than savage brutes.”
Jenin started to speak, but then pressed her lips.
“At least we know Earth has survived a few hundred years,” Dwer said.
“Though the forayers say there’s a crisis,” Lena noted. “With Earth in the middle of it.”
Danel looked away, his jaw set.
“Hey,” Dwer said, “aren’t the sky-humans exactly what that Terra Council wanted? To have a branch of humans off somewhere safe from whatever happens to Earth? Those guys you met back at the Glade have these Rothen characters to protect them.”
Danel exhaled. “Perhaps, though who knows if they’ll remain human under that influence? The irony of being murdered by cousins seems too much to bear.”
The sage shook himself, as if shedding cobwebs.
“Let’s prepare that pyre. If these items cannot serve a civilized tribe of exiled Earthlings, then we can at least do our duty by this world and leave no dross. Lena, set the timer to go off one day from now, if we don’t return.”
“Return?” Lena looked up from her preparations. “I thought we were giving up—”
She rocked back as the sage whirled, with some of the old fire in his eyes.
“Who said anything about giving up! What’s the matter with you three? Look at your faces. Are you going to let one little setback get you down?”
A little setback? Dwer wondered, glancing at the blast scars and shattered trees surrounding the urrish encampment. “I don’t get it. You said we can’t finish our mission.”
“So?” Danel Ozawa demanded. “We’re adaptable. We’ll switch missions! We’re not colonists anymore — so what?
“We can still be warriors.”
Rety
The prisoners lay dejected. In muddy wallows, necks drooping, already stinking after two days’ confinement in the dank pen. Thirteen urs who would have preferred the arid plateau where they had settled, till a warcraft screeched over their camp without warning, casting lightning, driving the survivors toward Jass and the other hunters^ waiting with rough ropes.
Thus Kunn had fulfilled his side of a bargain, ridding the hills of a recent, hated urrish infestation. In return, Jass was to guide Kunn to the site where he and Bom first saw the flying bird-thing. No one knew why the deal later broke down — why Jass abruptly changed his mind, preferring the robot’s caresses over giving the pilot what he wanted.
No one except Rety.
Binni used to say — why defy men, who can beat you if you make them mad? Use words to nudge and guide the brutes. Make ’em think it was their idea all along.
But I kept talking back, didn’t I?
Well, I finally tried it your way, Binni, and know what? You were right. Nothing I could do to Jass could ever hurt him like he’s hurting himself, right now.
Bom was guarding the gate to the prisoners’ pen. The burly hunter hurriedly obeyed her command to open up, not once meeting Rety’s eyes. He knew where his pal was now. Just two things kept Bom from sharing the same fate. First was his notoriously poor sense of direction. Alone, he could never find the place where he and Jass had spotted the metal bird.
The other thing was Rety’s whim. Bom’s abject cringing pleased her more than screams. This bully was scared half out of his breech-clout.
When she glared at the boys spitting at the prisoners, they jumped off the wall and ran. She cast curt laughter after them. The tribe-kids never used to speak to her in the old days, either.
She entered the pen.
Ul-Tahni, leader of the unlucky urs, greeted Rety with a fluid bow of her long neck. From a gray-fringed snout, she launched into a series of whistles and clicks, till Rety broke in.
“None o’ that now!” she admonished. “I don’t follow that jabber.”
Wincing, Ul-Tahni switched to Anglic.
“I afologize. Your attire deceives the eye into seeing a Galactic-level entity.”
Rety lifted her head. “You weren’t dee-seeved. That’s exactly what I am.”
I hope, she added inside. Rann and the others could change their minds before the ship returned, especially once she gave them all she had in trade. Even if the forayers kept their word, she would, in time, have to learn all those crazy languages they used among the stars.
“Again, regret for having offended. Is it true, then? You have veen adofted off Jijo’s forlorn desert into the running-clan of star creatures? What a fortunate youngling you are.”
“Yeah,” Rety agreed, wondering if the urs was being sarcastic. “So, yee says you’re ready to tell us what your bunch was doing out here, beyond the Rimmers.”
A long sigh blew the gray fringe.
“We arrived, disgracefully, to set uf a colony, freserving our kind in a secret sanctuary.”
Rety grunted. “That much is obvious. But why here? Why now?”
“It is a site already ascertained to ve ha vita vie… suitavle for sustaining Earthlings, and therefore the donkeys we rely on. You yourself testified to that fact.”
“Ah.” Ul-Tahni must have been one of the junior sages in the pavilion when Rety told her story to the High Council. “Go on.”
“As to our haste — we sought to elude the fate soon to fall on the Slofe, annihilation at the hands of star-felons.”
Rety reacted angrily. “I’ve heard that damned lie before. They’d never do a thing like that!”
Ul-Tahni rocked her head. “I stand corrected. Clearly such fine entities would not slay folk who had done them no hurt, nor cast death without warning from a cloudy sky.”
This time the sarcasm was thick. Rety glanced at a young middling urs with a n
asty burn along one flank, from the flying robot’s heat beam.
“Well, I guess it’s just your tough luck we had reason to come visit, asking directions, and found you already at war with my old family.”
“Not war. A transient discord. One we did not initiate. Naturally, your cousins were shocked to see us. Our idea was to vanquish their reflex hostility with resolute friendliness. To induce cordiality with gifts and offers of assistance.”
“Yeah, right.” Rety knew how early human settlers had been treated by urrish clans of yore. “I bet you also counted on having better weapons than any they had here.”
Again, a snorted sigh. “As your associates crushed us, using fower far greater than our own? It kindles wonder — could this chain of uneven strength ve extrafolated?”
Rety didn’t like the bemused look in those beady urrish eyes. “What do you mean?”
“A conjecture. Could there exist forces as far suferior to your new lords as they are over us? In all the wide galaxies, can one ever be sure one has chosen the right side?”
The words sent twinges up Rety’s spine, reminding her of recent disturbing dreams.
“You don’t know nothin’ about galaxies an’ such, so don’t you pretend—”
At that moment a sudden yelp cut her short, as yee popped his head out of the pouch, mewling with unease. A ripple of reaction spread among the prisoners’ husbands, who emerged howling, swinging their heads to face south. Soon the larger females followed suit, clambering to their feet.
Rety worried — was it a revolt? But no, clearly something was unnerving them.
“What d’you hear?” she demanded of yee.
“engine!” the little urs answered, corkscrewing his agile neck.
A moment later Rety sensed it too. A distant whine. She brought a hand to the bump near her ear and pressed.
“Hey, Kunn! What’s going on?”
There followed a long pause, during which the open line relayed cabin sounds — switches being thrown, motors revving. Finally, the pilot’s voice buzzed near her skull.