by Tanith Lee
And all through that derisann desert unit, I traipsed around behind those machines, with the pet at my heels. They drilled and sawed and nothing was found. They clipped and buzzed and inched up the terraces, and drew a complete blank.
“It’s definitely a foundation,” he muttered all over us, till I felt quite sorry for his embarrassment.
5
It went on and on, unit after unit. A bird-plane with covered-in window spaces flew out to us from Four BEE bringing supplies. The females cogitated sullenly. He was proving unobtainable, and they were pretty bored with his ideas by now.
And then, one evening, just as he was going practically zaradann with frustration, one of the machines gave a great hoot and a heave, and the rock floor gave way, and smash, crash, boom, down it fell into a vast underground chamber underneath. When the sand and gravel cleared, we pounded up and found we’d discovered a storeroom or something. At least Assule said that’s what it was, though I don’t really think he knew, but was just guessing.
The machines lowered other machines into the cavity to send us up pictures of what it was like, and very uninspiring it was too. The search lasted for ages, and eventually they unearthed this one shard of ancient pottery stuff that was actually, according to the Glar, breakable. So he wouldn’t let us go anywhere remotely near it, and the robots took it back to the ship to investigate it.
It was quite late when Assule came howling into the saloon, screaming about an inscription.
“It’s an old desert proverb,” he croaked, holding on to one of the females for support. She smirked. “Yes, yes, it is. You can just make it out. Look at this three-dimensional reproduction machine number nine has made.”
“What’s it mean?” we asked. It was unintelligible and blurred, and in another language, though one or two words sort of looked a little familiar, here and there.
“Ah,” said the Glar. He sat down and gave us another lecture on the nomadic peoples before he told us. What the inscription actually said was:
DO NOT BITE THE SUN, TRAVELER,
YOU WILL BURN YOUR MOUTH.
According to Assule, this was their way of saying be sure you stay in the shade where you can and wear your oosha—which is a sort of desert man’s sun hat thing—and carry enough water. In other words, the sun is a dangerous enemy; don’t take risks or you’ll get hurt.
But somehow there was another significance in the words for me. They haunted me all night, and I didn’t sleep. I went to sit in the T. Tower, and they haunted me there too.
Don’t bite the sun, don’t bite the sun—my mouth burned me.
6
Next morning Assule was much better, or worse, depending on how you looked at it. His confidence had been restored. He strutted and preened himself all over the place, and even allowed himself to have a half-interest in one of the three females. It was rather engaging, watching her trying to coax him off to some cave or other, when all he wanted to do was tell her about this terribly old tribe who used to eat each other, ceremoniously, of course, when the ponka herds got low.
“Now that we’ve made a start,” he deigned to say to me as we ate third meal, “we’ll find all sorts of levels under the site, I’ve no doubt. Weapon rooms, for example.”
Oh, it really could have been interesting.
Well, it could.
I mean, I’ve got this thing about ruins and citadels and weapons and dragons and exotic intrigues and so on. But Assule soon made it seem as though we were listening to him reprogramming one of his floating floors or something.
Anyhow, the machines went on digging and churning and crashing, and found absolutely nothing at all. Once there was this boom, and we rushed off to see what it was, but it was just some power charge or other exploding.
I began to feel claustrophobic about the site and wanted to rush out into the desert and roll around like the pet kept doing, but I felt a bit agoraphobic too, so didn’t. I actually thought the pet might run off and leave me for its native element, but it always came back. I got used to seeing it scampering across the rock fells and dunes, mottled with loose grains, sneezing and honking happily and then leaping into my arms and scattering sand in every direction.
Things were tense now. It wasn’t our silly insignificant tenseness, either, it was sand tenseness and mountain-and-sky tenseness. Assule informed us that it was the desert waiting for the rain. He felt it too, you see, but the females didn’t. They looked blank and I could see the thought: Oh, well, you have to put up with these terribly attractive males who go batty now and then.
Another plane came out with supplies, and one of the females actually gave in and elected to go home on it. The other two glared at each other to see who would be next. A little later one of them, the more typical of the two, took me aside among the rocks.
“You know, dear,” she tweeted, “I really can’t understand what a little Jang girl like you sees out here to make her stay.”
“Oh, it’s Assule,” I said.
“Assule?” she queried, shocked.
“Oh yes.” I smiled. “I know he couldn’t go on without me.”
“Well!” she started.
“Oh, it may sound vain, I know,” I said, sweet and sorrowing, “but when you’ve known him as long as I have…”
“Known him as long as—?”
“Shared his ups and downs…”
“Ups and downs—?”
“Been his support and comforter in times of stress…”
“Comforter—?”
“You realize that he needs you, really needs you, just for the odd word of encouragement, you know, just the occasional warm embrace,” I finished up, watching her control her impending hysteria.
“He’s your maker,” she suddenly accused, seeking a reasonable explanation and a way around what I’d said.
I looked affronted.
“Certainly not,” I snapped.
Poor woman. She went white around the nose and her eyes gave off sparks as I strolled away.
It was a bit of a nuisance, though. I had been toying with the idea of going home and now I’d have to stick it out to the bitter end. Couldn’t have Glar Assule prancing around, all happiness and joy, without his little support and comforter, could I?
But the desert was making me feel really strange. I kept on having dreams about being a desert woman, in an oosha and long dark veil, trucking across the wastes, by burning day and black night, the odd volcano my scarlet lamp. Sometimes I had this child with me, pale-faced and anxious.
“Maker,” it kept saying, “where’s the next watering place?” And I knew it would die on me if we didn’t get to one quickly, and I didn’t know where the watering place was or even how to recognize it. And then the dream would sort of slip and we’d both be lying there flat out, our faces in the sand, with this huge orange fire ringing around the sky above us and a voice pounding and pounding out:
“Don’t bite the sun. Don’t bite the sun.”
And then the site was invaded.
Oh, it could have been a laugh, really, if any of us had had a shred of humor left that morning.
There we were at first meal on the rock, Assule, the two females, who now studiously avoided me, myself, and the pet. I looked up from a plate of fried root-bread and honey, and what should I see, ho-ho, but this tawny, furry face staring at me from around a rock. The pet barked. Yes, it was one of those again, the long-eared purposeful ones with ski-feet. It flipped these ears around, twitched its antennae, and sort of went “Fpmf” down its nose.
“Assule, what’s that?” I started to ask, when suddenly they were on us. I suppose it was the smell of cooked food that brought them. They’d probably been traveling for units across the sand, following their furry noses. The females screamed as great elongated feet came down splat in the root-bread and tawny paws flailed among the opal-wine.
&nbs
p; “Are they dangerous?” I tried to ask Assule, while I attempted not to be trampled into the honey.
“Come on!” Assule yelled, and we rushed out of it and back to the sand-ship, leaving the rugs, the meal, the machines, everything, at the mercy of those great feet and ridiculous ears.
We staggered into the T. Tower, turned on Zoom Scanners, and stared. We had a perfect view of the citadel foundations positively dripping furry bodies. They were devouring the food, slurping up the wine, and going “Fpmf!” all over the place. Pretty soon they began to eat the rugs, spreading honey on them first, I might add.
“I just hope they don’t get at the machines,” Assule just hoped, but they did.
They were really very intelligent, in a zaradann sort of way. They had a lovely time finding out how everything worked, then dismantling it. They rode machine number eight down the terraces, clinging on all over it and bomping the sides with their feet; they rolled clear when it finally pitched over and smashed to bits in the sand.
Assule had, by this time, set up a background music of steady wailing. I kept trying to find out what the animals were, and he seemed to think I was awful for still wanting to know. I suppose it was too much, really.
About noon some of the wild activity quieted. They lay around the site, sleeping it off.
“I just hope they don’t spot the sand-ship,” Assule started off again, and sure enough it was the signal for furry paw pointing, “fmpf”-ing, and a general pound in our direction.
“Oh! Oh!” screamed the two females.
“Please be calm,” snapped Assule, suddenly deciding to be calm himself for a change. “We’re quite safe. I’ll activate the shock wall.”
He played around with some red dials and things marked: For purposes of defense only. Unauthorized use punishable by fine—which was a pretty obsolete injunction, since no one gets fined for anything anymore, though the Committee probably wishes they would. Apparently it worked. There was a sort of shimmer in the air around the ship suddenly, and as soon as the ski-feet made furry contact, they jumped about five yards high and keeled over, looking utterly blissful.
“It won’t kill them, will it?” I implored.
Assule didn’t throttle me, surprisingly.
“No,” he said, “something smaller would be killed, yes, but they are simply stunned. I don’t believe in damaging these interesting species unnecessarily.”
I felt relieved, and really, they looked ever so happy as they reeled off the shock wall. They kept on trying for about three splits; I think some of them only did it to have an Essential Experience. You could see them inspecting their fallen comrades’ ecstatic faces first and almost weighing things up, thinking, well, it looks like fun, and then rushing into the wall, ears and fur flying. In the end, though, they went off and had a “fpmf” talk about the situation, came back and carefully towed the casualties (?) out of shock range, then picked them up over their backs and went leaping away across the sands.
The females started going swoony, saw Assule wasn’t taking any notice, and gave up.
We waited about twenty splits to be on the safe side, deactivated the wall, and wandered out to the site. According to Assule, there was no chance of their coming back. Apparently they never return to the scene of one of their raids; in fact they’ll go miles out of their way to avoid it, once their extraordinarily strong smell-powers tell them they’re getting near. It seemed to point to a sort of guilt complex, as far as I could see, but Assule more or less told me not to be a floop when I said so.
And the site was drumdik. Oh, the utter, unqualified abandoned mess of it all. For once the females and I joined forces in trying to stop Assule from going completely zaradann. It wasn’t much good, though. He went roaring around the rock turrets, dabbing at honey and chewed rugs on the machines, cradling broken robots, and screaming at intact robots to mend everything. Actually, once he stopped getting in their way, the robots from the ship made a very good job of it. Machine number eight was the only failure, and they had to scrap it.
“In order to prevent any further calamities, I’m going to get the robots to rig up a shock wall all around the site,” Assule told me, over the row of banging and repairing, “around the site and the ship. A radius of about—” And he quoted some vast area or other. I was barely listening.
“Look, Assule,” I said, “now’s our chance to prove we’re better than the machines.”
“What?”
“No, listen,” I persisted, ignoring his horrified indignation, “while they’re out of action at least let’s try to find something ourselves.”
“Certainly not,” said Assule. “I’ve told you, machinery is best.”
“Well,” I said, “they don’t seem to have found much so far.”
“Please don’t forget the pottery shard with the inscription. Of course, no doubt you think that very little in your untutored Jang fashion.”
“Look,” I said, “I’m just as interested as you are, honestly, but really that machine fell right down into your storeroom, or whatever it is. It could have smashed and buried all sorts of valuable relics, if there’d been any more than the one we found.”
“I find your attitude offensive,” Assule glowered. It was just like talking to a lump of rock.
“Talking to you is just like talking to a lump of rock,” I said.
Assule went pompous.
“You will apologize,” Assule told me.
“Oh, for goodness sake,” I snapped, “I’m not going to apologize for stating a fact. And while we’re at it, I unapologize for the other time.”
And then I really got mad at him and made that Jang sign again.
Without waiting to watch him go into automatic combustion, I turned around, leaving even my bee, and stalked off.
Right off the site.
Away from the sand-ship.
Into the desert.
7
I’d heard of people doing that, walking off in fury and not realizing where they were going. Thinta told me I once made her so angry with my stealing habits that she walked right into the pool without taking any oxygen, and nearly ended up in Limbo.
When I realized, I found I didn’t know where I was or anything. There was no sign of the site or the ship, nor a sound of all that noisy repair work that had still been going on when I left. There was just sand and more sand, glittering, and a horizon of black crags and impending sunset. I had this moment of absolute, icy panic. I was lost. Then I had this second moment of absolute, icy panic. Oxygen! I’d had my usual four tablets this morning, which would last me till tomorrow, but after that, what then? Oh, I really got in a state.
Then I had a thought. Turn around and follow my own footsteps back through the sand, that’s what I’d do. Which is what I did, and I was really getting elated when they suddenly stopped in a fresh drift. There are always little sand winds eddying around, and this one had really made a nice job of losing me. I climbed a rock spire and looked around in every direction, but saw nothing but rainbow glitter on the smooth and unmarked dunes.
And then I did see something, and this thing was moving. Oh no, I gasp-thought, the ski-feet are after me. I wondered what ghastly furry death they would condemn me to. Then I saw that this thing was a solitary thing, and much much smaller than a ski-foot, and it was streaking toward me over the faceless desert. The pet! Wonderful! It must have followed me, leaving its own track of six fresh paw marks, which we would now follow back to the ship. Calling and honking, we bounded to meet each other. The pet leaped into my arms and kissed me passionately on the nose and ears.
“Oh, ooma,” I gasped, “clever, derisann ooma!”
And holding it nestled close, furry and comforting, I started back along its track.
And then, of course, this sand storm had to start, didn’t it?
I was so scared. You couldn’t see or breathe or a
nything. I got my transparent tunic off and wrapped it around my face. I could glimpse things that way through the embroidery and the sand, and I could just breathe slightly too, and with the oxygen tablets it was enough. I tried to protect the pet, but it burrowed into my skin and seemed all right. I suppose it had weathered storms before. Its fur fluffed up around it too, in added protection. There was no point in going on and, besides, my bare parts were being nastily stung, so I got us into the lee of the nearest bit of rock and cowered down into the sand there and waited.
I’ll never forget the sound of that sand wind. I think I’ll hear it all my life.
* * *
—
Visibility cleared eventually and I dug us out; we stood there and stared around us. Well, if I was lost before, I was really lost now. I redonned my tunic and began aimlessly walking. Every so often I’d sort of choke out to the pet: “It’s no use, why bother?” and slump down. And then I’d get fierce with myself and say, “But I’ll never find it if I sit here, and I might if I walk on.” And on I’d go until the next choke and slump.
It was very dark and still. The stars were out. And there was this colossal feeling of waiting. The pet kept lifting up its head and sniffing.
Then this roaring started, somehow near yet far away all at once. I wondered in vague hysterics if there were still dragons in these parts, or if the ski-feet developed new and particularly awful personalities at night. But it was only thunder, in fact. And soon there were blinding green flashes of lightning to go with it.
“The rain,” I said to the pet, my sunken heart going down to about my kneecaps, but the pet just looked thrilled and wriggled until I let it go. It dashed about and rolled in the sand.
“Well, I’m glad you’re pleased,” I said.
In its good old desert units I imagined the rain was a big event; even though I didn’t know anything about it, I’d worked out it only happened every three vreks, from what Assule said.