Chapter Eleven
There was very little daylight left by the time the alpha-scanner picked up the archaeological site. For nearly an hour the skimmer had been shaken by mountain winds and sleeting rain, driving across the tangled, colourful land below. Ballantyne was fascinated by the jungle and repeatedly pointed out the bulky forms that moved within and across the vegetation. From the skimmer it was impossible to tell which of the meat-eating animals each passing shape was, but to Zeitman there was a passing interest merely in the fact of their presence. It was only the second time he had journeyed into this most violent of the continent’s spheres.
Susanna pointed to the flickering scanner and Zeitman turned the skimmer to fly low over the jungle to where steeply sloping cliffs rose above the land. A gorge through the cliffs, a hair-raising run of the gauntlet through up-draughts and between waving plants that slapped and grasped at the tiny vehicle as if they were aware of its passing and were reaching for food. And then they were out and into the start of a deep valley that shimmered purple and red as the rain evaporated and the filtered sun set the air alight.
Only the specifically human-life readings told Zeitman where to look for the camp, and even as they hovered above the site it was impossible to distinguish any human or artificial features below. The whole site was covered by a cryptic water-proofing beneath which, presumably, Kawashima was still digging.
Zeitman touched down at the edge of the tangled undergrowth that formed a sudden and uninviting wall behind and around the clearing. As he switched off the motor he saw a figure appearing from beneath the tent. He was muddy and half naked, a short, fat man, and for a moment Zeitman didn’t recognize Kawashima. When he realized who it was he was glad that the man had a smile on his face.
Kawashima waved as Zeitman stepped from the skimmer, then looked up into the sky. He turned back and called something that Zeitman didn’t catch. A moment later the canvas covering retracted silently and the work-site was exposed.
It was a shallow excavation but Zeitman saw that this was because much of the excavated earth had been pushed back into the hole. Three impassive Ree’hd squatted by the pit, idly rubbing the dirt from their limbs. They were adolescents and were probably a far more effective excavation machine than the compact robot that Zeitman might have used. Seeing them made Zeitman uneasy, for it was an indication of how callous the Ree’hd from Terming had become. Zeitman knew of no Ree’hd from any commune who could have been induced to come to this sphere, let alone excavate for a sign of the dead. It wasn’t necessarily fear on their part, it was respect.
Then Zeitman’s attention was taken by the tarpaulin-covered object nearly a man’s height, placed a short distance away. Kawashima turned to follow Zeitman’s gaze and his grin grew even broader. “Will this make me famous, Zeitman?” he shouted.
“I imagine,” said Zeitman. “It’s certainly the discovery of the millenium.”
Kawashima bowed, then extended his hand which Zeitman grasped briefly. They looked at each other for a moment, and Kawashima said, “I guess I owe you an apology. I feel bounteous today! I apologize for my behaviour. Forget it ever happened.”
“It never happened,” said Zeitman, with a laugh. Kawashima’s manner amused him. “You seem to have been expecting us.”
“I was. You know the man without eyes? Maguire? He said he would tell you to come. I was grateful. I wanted a man who shares my love and belief in the Pianhmar to be here with me. I’m glad you’ve come.”
It was difficult to tell whether Kawashima was playing false. Did he really value nothing but the fame of being the discoverer of the first Pianhmar artifact? If so it was certainly not “love” that he shared in common with Zeitman.
Behind him Ballantyne coughed, not by way of a hint, but a genuine racking cough, and Zeitman turned to see him staring at blood on the palm of his hand. He wiped the trace on his trouser leg and looked at Zeitman with an expression of despair. Not knowing what to say, Zeitman introduced him to Kawashima, and then presented Susanna.
Kawashima seemed delighted with the girl, and she with him. “Are you oriental?” he asked. Susanna shook her head. “Dominion.”
“Ah. Shame. You look oriental… I thought you might have been from Japan, from Earth.” He let go of her hand and looked at the covered statue. “Wait until they hear this on Earth, Zeitman. A university post for sure! What I have always dreamed about.”
So Kawashima was not yet aware of the situation. Zeitman glanced at Ballantyne, wondering how to let the man know to keep quiet, but Ballantyne had interpreted the situation and indicated that he understood.
They walked towards the excavation. “It’s been raining a lot,” said Kawashima. “Makes things difficult. The water seeps along the top of the soil, though it doesn’t seem to penetrate downwards too far. That makes things nice for digging, but how it drains I don’t know. Anyway, soil water or no, this statue is in remarkably good condition. As far as I can see it might have been buried yesterday. Hope it wasn’t,” he added with a laugh.
They had gathered about the covered statue and now Kawashima unveiled it with a dramatic gesture. Susanna’s surprise was the only surprise that registered, but all Zeitman could hear was the stammering of his heart; he stared back through time at a Pianhmar.
The statue was indeed undamaged by its centuries of immersion in the clay-like soil of this part of the continent. There were still patches where the clinging matrix had not been washed away, but the details were there for Zeitman’s eager eyes to distinguish.
It would have been larger than a Ree’hd, when standing. Physically it was almost the same, but there was a cranial ridge running from left to right, and the lateral eyes were far more dorsal. The song lips were not lips at all, rather they seemed to have been horny ridges surrounding a tiny gash that would have been difficult to manipulate into many shapes. Probably, then, the Pianhmar had been less dependent upon song and sound. Zeitman had heard from more than one Ree’hd that the Pianhmar had communicated by thoughts, but like all the facts he heard from the Ree’hd he had to ask how did they know? And they only said, they knew.
But they may well have been right on this point. In which case the mind-arts were better developed on Ree’hdworld than even the mind-killing ability. And perhaps the Ree’hd were latent (or disguised) telepaths themselves.
It was impossible to tell the colouring of the body, of course, though Zeitman, as he scrutinized the statue closely, imagined he could tell there was a wider and narrower sexual skin than the Ree’hd possessed. The legs seemed the same, but there were ridges of the contractile tissue that showed a different patterning to the ridges of a Ree’hd. By the signs, difficult to interpret as they were, the Pianhmar had been bandier than the Ree’hd, but had been able to crouch with far more comfort; and possibly they could have moved sideways with speed, though if there were any advantage in this Zeitman didn’t know it.
He walked around the statue and ran his fingers down the horny knobs that covered the back. Another difference. But it was quite apparent that the Ree’hd and the beasts that this stone idol had been fashioned after were the same stock.
So three species had arisen in the millions of years the Ree’hd claimed they had been in existence, and perhaps among the scanty fossils that lay in the museum in Terming were, in fact, many more relics of Pianhmar, wrongly classified as Ree’hd or Rundii. Perhaps. But three species was what fascinated Zeitman. The Pianhmar, rising to great heights culturally, scientifically, and then vanishing, and during all this time (according, again, to the fossil record) the Ree’hd and the Rundii were eking out their existence as wild animals. Relating it anthropomorphically, which Zeitman liked to do, though only for fun, it was as if Cro-Magnon man had existed alongside twenty-second century man for a thousand years, untouched, unchanged, and not just for the few hundred that in fact they had existed (until the novelty of primitive man in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries had become too much to resist). Man had eliminated li
ving pre-history, which was no reason the Pianhmar should have done the same. They had existed contemporaneously for many millenia. And that was an astonishing bit of alien demography.
Susanna was now fully converted to the Pianhmar. She also seemed converted to Kawashima and asked him pointed and perceptive questions, and generally pleased him greatly. She was helping scrub the mud from his back, something he was obviously enjoying very much, and Zeitman noticed Ballantyne standing a little way away, watching, seeming sick and unhappy. There was a great blue shadow over the man’s left cheek where he had banged his face leaving the skimmer. Zeitman felt a great sympathy for the man, who knew he was dying and knew that it wouldn’t be long.
Zeitman led Ballantyne into the large tent that Kawashima had erected for living quarters. Ballantyne stretched out on a soft mattress and sighed with relief. He closed his eyes and smiled, lifted a hand and signalled thanks.
Outside, Kawashima was clean and dry, and robed warmly in a blue gown. He watched Zeitman approach and looked past him to the tent. “He all right?”
“He won’t live through the night,” said Zeitman. “And I think he knows it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kawashima, glancing at Susanna who was pale and solemn. “A good friend?”
She shook her head. “A survivor we picked up on our way here. His ship crashed.”
“He was trying to land illegally,” deduced Kawashima instantly.
Changing the subject Zeitman said loudly, “A triumph, Kawashima. A triumph.”
Kawashima bowed and smiled. “For all of us, Zeitman. For all of us.”
Zeitman took Susanna’s arm and led her back to the statue. “I hope you’re a confirmed believer in the Pianhmar now?”
She smiled, and nodded. “I’m totally converted. Harry was telling me that this was probably buried in the individual’s favourite spot. There aren’t any remains below.”
“In this soil wouldn’t they have decayed completely anyway?”
“No, no.” Kawashima knelt and reached up a handful of the light-brown dirt. “We’ve dug Ree’hd remains out of this type of soil. They’re very brittle and crystalline, but they seem to survive. I don’t understand the chemical reactions, but I think the calcium in their ‘bones’ forms a harder crystal with the minerals in the soil around. But we’ve found no bones, and I don’t think we will. It’s like the life-holes of the coastal Ree’hd. They chip a depression in a rock, usually below sea level, and that’s all they do. The body can be dropped off somewhere for convenience, but the important remains are the depression in the rock, and the memory. I think it’s lovely. But frustrating.”
“Very,” agreed Zeitman. “And what about tools? Any around?”
Kawashima shook his head. There had been nothing but the statue. They all turned again to look at it. All eyes closed, it seemed very much at peace. In this way it differed slightly from the miniature versions that the Ree’hd left in their deserted burrows.
“It could almost be asleep,” said Susanna. “It’s very realistic.”
Kawashima said, “Do you believe in Universal Axioms, Zeitman?”
Zeitman considered the question for a moment, then said, “Some.”
“So do I,” Kawashima continued.
“Forgive my ignorance,” said Susanna politely, “but… Universal Axiom?”
“It’s a bit of a joke, really,” said Kawashima. “A Universal Axiom is a cultural ethic that seems to hold true of primitive species anywhere in the Universe. Since Man, Ree’hd and Rundii are the only real intelligences after the dolphins of Earth vanished into extinction it isn’t hard to find ethics in common. People write deliberately ridiculous papers on these Axioms, but often there is a considerable amount of truth in what is written.
“The point I was going to make was that there’s an Axiom I believe in thoroughly, but it can’t be proved. I think technologically advanced beings lose so much identity that their self-presentations either become unconsciously blurred, or laboriously detailed. Art forms during man’s technological renaissance contradicted their own ethic. Hand paintings showed, and show, an increasing tendency towards ‘essence’; at the same time there was, and is, a huge craze for photography, for capturing oneself in explicit detail. I mean, look at the holodyne things— moving photographs.
“The Axiom might be true, but the reasoning I’ve given might not be. Here… this statue, I think, represents the work of a race that has lost its self-identity. It needs to present itself in detail to assure a correct after-life. The Ree’hd, fascinating creatures, are exactly the opposite. When they are creating for a positive purpose, such as protecting spirits, they go for detail, yes. But in presenting themselves to history… well, a hole in the ground. They seem to be quite satisfied that memory of each individual will last for all time without pictures or statues. It’s an opposing ethic to the Pianhmar.”
“How about the Rundii?” asked Susanna. Susanna’s conversion to real interest in Ree’hdworld was satisfying to Zeitman in a selfish sort of way; she now represented a potentially far stronger prop for him during the next few weeks.
“The Rundii,” said Kawashima, “present a problem. They have no real cultural development, but they understand fire and I have seen them use it. They have no obvious self-expression and I… I still doubt that they are truly self-aware.”
“But they have a language, they talk…” said Susanna.
“They talk at people. It’s often a defensive reaction—highly specialized, yes, but unprovoked communication is what is necessary for it to be used as a criterion of intelligence and self-awareness.”
Zeitman was a little confused by Kawashima’s insistence on an old idea. “What about the curiosity you mentioned?”
“I’m not convinced.”
“What about the Rundii language—the real language, they have.”
“Signs, sounds—basic, primitive. A cat has as much.”
Should he mention his encounter with the Rundii? The feeling of confusion, of awareness he had received from them? No. Kawashima would argue—he was not the sort of man to put any faith in “feelings.”
Zeitman remained silent, watching dusk fall, waiting for the wind and wondering whether it would come to this vantage point in the mountains.
Maguire had certainly started something! A change of thinking and attitude in Terming was a foregone conclusion now, and the Pianhmar statue would cause a great upheaval when they showed it for the first time. A legend dispelled, and a new history required.
Maguire had shown the way to that and he seemed to be intent on doing a lot of way-showing. It couldn’t be (could it?) that he was in some way involved with what was happening on Ree’hdworld? No. If anything Maguire was a consequence of what was happening…
The Pianhmar active suddenly for the first time in hundreds of years; the Ree’hd becoming angry with the human presence on their world; the Rundii becoming aware—all at the same time, all in a very short time. Coincidence was impossible—there was a link, and Maguire was close to that link.
Where was Maguire? And why wouldn’t he be still for more than a few hours?
Chapter Twelve
There, where the river made a sudden turn to the south, a tree-form, sprawled across the water, lifeless. And a few yards from the river’s edge, a fire, burning fiercely: a beacon.
The land was in almost total darkness and the fire, small and obviously to be short-lived, burned bright in her eyes. She could see a stooped figure quite close by, and it seemed that he looked up towards her, the firelight making his lateral eyes shine. She could tell it was not Urak, but she couldn’t recognize the Ree’hd at all. A feeling of apprehension overwhelmed her relief and she circled lower.
She landed badly, with the left vane caught on some high vegetation, preventing the skimmer from lying flat on the ground. Hardly aware of this she made her way to the fire, looking into the darkness all about for a sign of movement. The Ree’hd was gone when she arrived, and a small pile of dr
ied husks suggested that the creature had stayed merely to feed the inadequate fire.
She was cold despite her layers of clothing. Her body felt dead, in a metabolic trough. It was a few hours from sunrise and she needed to close her eyes and sleep. Crouching near the fire she absorbed some of its heat, but this close to the crackling blaze she could not hear if anything was in the bush around her. And here, in the Rundii sphere that lay closest to the Ree’hd community, there were night creatures that might attack in panic or because they were hungry. The fear-of-stranger instinct had long since passed from these lands.
Where did she start to search for Urak? With her belt-light at full illumination she could only see a distance of thirty yards or so; thereafter everything was a two dimensional vision of black and grey, a frightening wall of indistinct features. The river was a noisy gushing some way to the east, but there was no moonlight sparkle; there were too many clouds.
Crouching by the fire Kristina opened her mind and called Urak. Nothing came to her that she could construe as a reply, and she opened her eyes and stared into the greyness.
She had never before felt so helpless. All ingenuity seemed to have vapourized, all intuition deserted her. She realized that she was counting on Urak appearing from the darkness and taking her in his arms, leading her from the darkness to a place of warmth and light where she could look at him again, and see that he was not going to sacrifice his fife, and that he had decided to stay with her in the world they both knew…
Her eyes began to close. She jerked awake at some subconscious sound and shivered. After nearly an hour the isolation grew intolerable and she walked back to the skimmer. Through a break in the clouds Dollar Moon was throwing light upon the river and with every shadow that passed across the shining surface, her heart jumped and her awareness desperately tried to fashion a Ree’hd shape from what she secretly knew was just a moving animal, or a piece of floating vegetation.
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