Howling Stones

by Alan Dean Foster

  Her simple home commanded a panoramic view of the terraced hillside, the surrounding green-clad mountains, and the village below. From such heights, the magnificent waterfall that tumbled into the narrow inlet beneath the village was a mere distant trickle.

  There was nothing different or striking about the sparse, clean, artfully decorated structure. It sat on short stone legs and looked out on several smaller outlying buildings that were used variously for storage and hygiene.

  The sacred stone was kept in a small rear room of its own, atop a wonderfully carved and fluted pedestal of richly polished, dark purple metaria wood that spiraled up from the floor like an amethyst whirlpool. As near as Pulickel could tell, the stone was not guarded, alarmed, rigged, fastened, or otherwise protected from intruders.

  Ascela confirmed this by simply reaching out and picking it up. Any youngster could have done it.

  It wasn’t quite what Pulickel had expected. Uncarved and apparently unworked, the head-size, irregularly shaped lump of dark greenish glass hinted at a volcanic origin. Flung out by some ancient eruption, the stone might have come from any of a number of highly visible peaks that poked their dead or dormant crowns above the islands of the archipelago.

  Ascela held it out for his inspection. One end was slightly flattened while the other exhibited several sharp edges where the material had been cut or fractured. There were hints of multiple inclusions within the material, no doubt other minerals that had formed in the course of the eruption. As a specimen it was interesting but hardly revelatory.

  He watched as she turned it slowly in her hands. “This helps you to predict the weather?”

  Ascela’s long fingers twisted. “When it becomes necessary.”

  “That’s nice.” Having been invited in, the disappointed xenologist struggled to show interest. Now that he was actually seeing one of the fabulous sacred stones of Parramati mythology, he was distinctly underwhelmed. “The other stones all look pretty much like this one?”

  “All the ones I’ve seen.” Fawn was watching him closely. “Shapes and sizes differ, but I think they’re all fashioned from the same favored material.”

  “That figures.” He turned back to the big person who was their hostess. “Thank you for showing me the stone. We have to go now.”

  “You see how they avoid fighting among themselves.” Fawn was explaining as they exited the simple but sturdy structure and started back down the mountainside. “Since different families ‘control’ different stones, it forces cooperation on them. The masters of the fishing stones need the help of the masters of the growing stones, who need the help of the masters of the weather stones, who often consult the masters of the healing stones, and so on. You can steal a stone, but not the generationally accumulated knowledge of how to use it. So you cooperate. That’s the beauty of the setup. The Parramati aren’t so much pacific as they are sensible.”

  “It’s a good system that obviously contributes to a more stable culture than is to be found on many of the island groups.” He was staring southward, where billowing cloud masses were gathering. Several were starting to show dark undersides.

  “Of course, if you’re going to lay claim to the position of tribal meteorologist, it doesn’t hurt to live near the highest point on the island so that you can see approaching weather before anyone else.” He smiled knowingly. “It’s my guess that the Parramati are more than just secure in their kusum; I suspect they can number some intuitively clever individuals among their tribe, as well. I wonder if old Ascela would be quite so good a weather predictor, stone notwithstanding, if she lived at the base of the village waterfall instead of up on the ridge.”

  A trio of Parramati youngsters came hopping past them, clearing several of the broad stone steps with each bound. “Do you know if the stones were found locally, or have the Parramati acquired them through trade?”

  “I don’t know.” They were almost at the bottom of the slope now, nearing the village, and she gestured. “I see Jorana chatting with Khoseavu and Uremila, two other big persons. Why don’t we ask them?”

  He considered. “Then they’re not reticent on the subject?”

  “Not if you’re polite and respectful.”

  “I’m always polite and respectful.”

  “I’ll bet,” she observed cryptically as they descended the last of the stone steps and headed for the trio of big persons.

  7

  Pulickel wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the line of dark clouds: sheeting rain, driving wind, perhaps some isolated bursts of hail. At the very least, a vigorous downpour. In addition, he allowed as how his normal expectations might also be unexpectedly modified by unfamiliar local geologic and oceanographic conditions.

  Yet despite Fawn’s best efforts at describing a mastorm, the sheer suddenness and fury of it still took him aback. He’d weathered violent thunderstorms before. Even bucolic Denpasar, back on Earth, lay within the equatorial cyclone belt and was subject to annual extremes of weather.

  It was the speed rather than the violence that dazed him. The sky darkened from clear blue to coal black in less than a minute, as if he were watching a many-times speeded-up vit. Gentle breezes metamorphosed into roaring winds capable of snapping sizable trees off at their roots. Rain fell not in sheets but in torrents, so heavy it completely obscured the view out the station’s ports. Frequent lightning silhouetted the forest in tones of damp, diffuse gray. So thunderous was the downpour on the station’s roof that he feared for its structural integrity.

  “How do you prepare for these?”

  Fawn was kneeling on a couch, resting her forearms on its padded back while staring out at the deluge. “You don’t. Whenever they catch you, you just try to get under cover and stay there till it stops.” She looked back at him and grinned. “That is, unless you have the chance to ask Ascela or another weather person what they think the day is going to be like.”

  Even inside the heavily insulated installation he had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the heavy drumming of the rain. “And these blow in how often?”

  She considered. “They’re fairly regular but unfortunately fall short of being predictable. What you’ve got is a miniature supercell. The clouds coil themselves into a frenzy, go crazy for a little while, and then the whole meteorological business just unwinds and the sun comes back out.” She gave a little shrug. “Meteorology is another of my nonspecialties. If the mechanism responsible is half as impressive as the consequences, there’s a dissertation in it for someone. But not me.” She glanced down at her chronometer.

  “Their saving grace is that they never last long. I give this one another fifteen minutes, max.”

  He turned away from the arc of windows and blinked. Lightning was now flashing frequently enough to have a strobing effect. In response to his query Fawn assured him that everything was properly grounded and shielded, both inside and out.

  “Besides,” she added with a grin, “Ascela has told me that my house is under the protection of her weather stone and immune from serious damage.”

  A wind-tunnel strength gust of wind rattled the triple-paned windows and he flinched involuntarily. “Some protection!”

  “Consider what it might be like without it,” she argued. “Consider, also, that the houses of Torrelauapa, though they’re constructed wholly of woven matting over vine-bound frames, never seem to suffer any serious damage from these storms.”

  He looked at her sharply. “I’ve seen analogous primitive structures survive worse weather than this. It’s a matter of simple but sound engineering, not magic.” The windows shook again.

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment.” She looked away, back out at the storm. “Still, it’s amazing when you consider that all their intricate garden trellis- and latticework manages to survive intact, as well. So do those of the other villages.”

  He strove to make himself sound stern. “I saw the sacred, magic ‘weather stone.’ It’s a rock, plain and s
imple.”

  She replied without looking at him. “Didn’t the Curies say something similar?”

  Together they watched the mastorm rage. After a while he commented, “You said that Ascela is willing to talk about the history and use of the weather stone.”

  She nodded. “Frequently. The problem lies in acquiring sufficient cultural referents to understand her. Most of what she says has to do with kusum, not meteorology.”

  “I think it would be useful to know more about the life and work of a stone master.”

  She eyed him speculatively. “With an eye toward persuading her to accept Commonwealth teachings on the subject of weather, and thereby endorsing a formal alliance with same?”

  He pursed his lips. “The possibility has suggested itself.”

  “Pulickel, right from the start I suspected you might be guilty of intelligence. But I never imagined you being devious.”

  “It’s nothing of the sort,” he protested indignantly. “I merely seek opportunity wherever it presents itself.” A slight smile parsed his fine, delicate features. “See, it’s part of my kusum.”

  For fully five minutes the wind held at one hundred and twenty kph, with gusts topping out at over one-sixty. From the first blast of the brief, wild, mad storm to the last, twelve centimeters of rain fell at the station gauge.

  Throughout it all a small part of him, usually shunted aside, was screaming, shouting, declaiming at him that while an intense, even romantic tempest was raging outside, he was restricting his conversation with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen to matters of meteorology and native culture. This overlooked and largely ignored portion of himself grumbled insistently about why, instead of wondering at the way the storm was rattling the station, he did not put his arm around her shoulders and put aside the matter of local weather conditions entirely. The notion, as thoroughly as the reality, stayed buried deep inside him.

  They remained apart, separately contemplating the mastorm, which by now had begun to dissipate as rapidly as it had first burst upon the island.

  Unlike the humanx station on Torrelau, the more extensive AAnn complex on Mallatyah consisted of half a dozen interconnected buildings. Prefabricated and ferried in by hevilift skimmers, they had been buried in sandy soil facing a small, curving beach. Only the upper third of each structure showed above the gently undulating loam, while the passageways and subsidiary modules that connected them lay completely beneath the surface.

  The complex faced a sheltered lagoon that lay on the northeast side of the island, protected from the main thrust of prevailing mastorms. Higher ground would have been safer still, but contrary to AAnn preferences and architectural aesthetics. No AAnn would choose to live in jungle when an expanse of clean, open sand was available. Indeed, following the installation of critical structures, the first secondary project had been the construction of recreational facilities in and about the traditional sloping pit.

  Proximity to the sea did not bother the servants of the Emperor. While no match for humans in the water, they were infinitely better swimmers than the thranx, and particularly enjoyed wading in the sandy, tepid shallows. Aside from the isolation, the atmosphere at Mallatyah base was nearly homelike.

  At any given time the installation might be occupied by a dozen or more specialists and technicians, whose combined efforts were directed toward inveigling the resident Parramati into signing a formal treaty of alliance with the Empire. Their natural impatience demanded even more restraint in negotiations with the locals than that required by Fawn Seaforth and Pulickel Tomochelor. The uniquely diffuse nature of the Parramati hierarchy had driven more than one AAnn contact specialist to distraction.

  Only the comparatively pleasant ambiance of the site made assignment to Mallatyah station tolerable for any length of time, provided one ignored the uncomfortably high humidity. As for the resident jungle, it had been razed to a respectable distance around the complex.

  Presently, a disgruntled group of techs were cleaning up from the previous night’s mastorm, gathering debris and dumping it in tagalong carryalls for later disposal. Two of the partially buried buildings had suffered minor damage, which another crew was engaged in actively repairing.

  It wasn’t the mess that discouraged them so much as the depressing regularity of the brief, intense weather disturbances. They occurred year-round, regardless of whether it was the dry or wet season, and the danger they presented prevented anyone from ever relaxing fully. This was more emotionally than physically taxing. Besides, the need to continuously do repair and clean-up work cut into time better spent on research and social diplomacy.

  Essasu RRGVB was as frustrated as any of those under his command. While no anticipator of miracles and fully cognizant of the special problems establishing formal alliance with the locals entailed, he still felt that the pace of progress was too slow. It was further frustrating to know that according to the reports he had received, the single human female the Commonwealth had assigned to Torrelau was doing no worse than his entire staff.

  And now it appeared that the human delegation to the Parramat archipelago had just been doubled.

  He couldn’t understand it. Aside from having a smooth, bare epidermis instead of shiny scales, the seni looked far more like the AAnn than they did humans. Both species possessed long snouts, vertical instead of round pupils, large feet, and tails. A seni would fit into an AAnn space-suit far more readily than a human, provided the gear was proportionately downsized to fit their much smaller stature. Compared to the average human, the AAnn looked positively senilike.

  Yet so far, physical similarities had not proved an advantage in negotiations. A few contact specialists were crediting the locals with unexpected sophistication in their dealings with both sets of offworlders, but Essasu refused to countenance it. As far as he was concerned, the Parramati were simply showing the stubbornness of the true primitive.

  And as if the recalcitrance of the natives wasn’t frustrating enough, there were these damnable, damaging recurrent storms to deal with. He’d found himself wondering on more than one occasion how the single human female managed to keep her far more exposed installation operating efficiently in the face of the periodic tempests. It couldn’t be the basic design. Other, unknown factors had to be at work.

  Not that discovering them was a priority. It was merely a cause for puzzlement. A sibilant hiss emerged from between his teeth, his kinds’ analog of a chuckle. Perhaps she has mastered a weather stone, he thought amusedly. The hiss faded. Offered the opportunity, it would give him great pleasure to gift the human with a different sort of stone—preferably one dropped from a great height.

  None of which he betrayed during their occasional exchanges of communications, which were invariably conducted in an air of stiff politeness if not outright courtesy. From the first contact she’d shown herself to be indifferent to subtle sarcasm and insult. This suggested a lack of sophistication that immediately placed her beneath his serious notice. Her presence was an irritation to be tolerated—until it could be properly cleansed.

  About the new human he knew little save that he was a highly regarded specialist come all the way from Earth itself. That suggested a more worthy opponent. Like all his kind, Essasu liked nothing more than a good fight, be it physical or verbal. As soon as time permitted he would have to call this new human and test him. It would be intolerable to have to kill him before learning what sort of person he was.

  The humans couldn’t be allowed to succeed, of course. If they somehow managed to secure a formal treaty of alliance before his people did, it would mean an end to any hope of personal advancement or promotion. His family name would be extended, a form of syllabic mortification. And that would be the least of his abasement.

  He wasn’t worried. His team would succeed long before the humans. The AAnn had superiority in numbers, resources, everything. It was only a matter of time. Patience was one of the hardest things for an AAnn to master, but to his credit, Essasu was trying.r />
  He imagined the human female’s soft, scaleless neck beneath his fingers, the sharpened points of his claws digging into the flesh, the thick red blood spurting. It helped him to relax.

  Turning, he peered out through the long, narrow window set just above ground level. Beyond the down-sloping sand he could see the pale blue of the lagoon, backed by azure sky and a few isolated clouds. Within the office it was pleasantly hot and dry. Buried in the ceiling, dehumidifiers hummed efficiently, working around the clock to give the station’s living quarters the desiccated feel of the deserts of home.

  The door rustled insistently. With a rueful hiss, he turned from the window to face the portal as it parted to admit Piarai, his first assistant.

  “The damage is not too bad. The nye grumble, but we have suffered far worse storms.”

  “Bad enough.” Essasu curled up in the bowl-shape lounge that fronted his work pillars. “They should have placed the installation entirely under ground.”

  Piarai responded with a gesture indicative of third-degree commiseration accompanied by overtones of second-degree understanding.

  “There was no precedent for it.” The second-in-command did not add an honorific. The difference in rank was not enough to require it, and Essasu was not yet of the nobility—though everyone who worked under him knew of his aspirations. Truly, these differed little from their own.

  Anyway, at a posting as obscure and isolated as Mallatyah, protocol tended to suffer.

  “That is so,” Essasu agreed. “Unless we suffer more severe damage, we cannot properly request reconstruction. So we are forced to chew constant irritation.” He squirmed in the lounge, enjoying the feel of the gritty surface against his back.

  Loungeless, the first assistant squatted. “What do you think of the new human?”

  “I prefer not to think of him. What I do think is that it is time we did something about the humanx presence here. If we can do nothing about the weather, perhaps we can remove a more tractable irritation.” His eyes glittered, the slitted pupils narrowing.