Outies

by Pournelle, J. R.

  Enheduanna grasped the manna-eyed one, clenched her gripping hand in the small of its back, then pushed backwards on its torso. It was amazingly flexible. She grasped its face, and moved it side-to-side. It was shocking how its head could swivel. It was no wonder it needed to drink already. Water dribbled from its eyes. She turned to the other. Unprompted, it leaned: backwards, then forwards, then swiveled at the hips (poorly), then at the neck (amazingly). Enheduanna reached over, and pinched its loose skin. It stayed motionless. Enheduanna pinched harder. Still nothing. Enheduanna reached to pinch with the gripping hand—and the creature blurted “Hold!”

  Angered, Enheduanna stepped forward, but with one swift movement the creature raised its hands to its throat, twiddled with its fingers—and whipped the skin away, repeating “Hold!” Then, swiftly, before Enheduanna could react, the creature put one hand to its midline, and pulled. More of its skin peeled away, revealing—pink skin, the same color as its face and hands. Enheduanna reached and pinched that skin, and the creature flinched. The skin felt odd: smooth, dry, nearly hairless, warm.

  Laurel was shivering. Asach at least had eaten and drunk on the march, but this was the first opportunity there’d been to share with Laurel the meager day’s-worth of rations that Asach had packed away three mornings ago. Those gone, there was nothing left to offer but some warmth. Asach didn’t dare part with the cloak. While the others stared, (presumably aghast, but how would you know?) Asach peeled out of vest and tunic, re-donned the vest and cloak, and walked to Laurel. A Warrior still held one arm in a death-grip. Asach turned to the white, and, enunciating very clearly, said, “Please ask it to let her go for a minute.”

  The white did not respond. Asach pointed to the Warrior’s hand, then, grasping Laurel’s other arm, mimed, and said, “Let. Go.” It took three repetitions of this little acting out, but the white responded with a chickadee-trill—and the Warrior released its grip.

  Gently, Asach said to Laurel: “You’re going into shock. Put this on. Tastes like crap, but I think that water will help in a little while.”

  Laurel stood mute, still shaking. With infinite tenderness, Asach helped her into the tunic, took her by the hand, and whispered: “Laurel, I think it’s going to be really important that we show some backbone.”

  At this, Laurel turned her head slowly, dumbly, away, releasing Asach’s hand.

  “Laurel?”

  Silence.

  “Laurel?”

  Laurel croaked, barely audibly: “He is not a Faceless God! May we turn our Gaze from those who refuse to See, praying fervently that they may not remain Blind.”

  Asach sighed. Some were harder to fix than others. “OK, kiddo. Have it your way.” Asach would have given just about anything for a dose of Collie Orcutt right about then. “When we get back, you can tell it to your uncle.” He’d have been a lot more useful. “Come on, then.”

  For all her shunning words, Laurel fell in step behind Asach. The Warriors looked to the white. Enheduanna barked. They fell into a cordon, fore, aft, and sides, but kept their hands to themselves.

  Enheduanna remarked this: it was no longer clear, which was the owner; which was the cattle. Enheduanna also remarked: it knew one word, but when it made that word, it Spoke. Enheduanna remarked: Not imitated, Spoke. Nothing else would ever have stopped a Warrior.

  As they neared, the city seemed to swell with light. Laurel actually flashed a look at Asach, spitting: “You see! The angels have borne us to their city of light!”

  It was not walled, precisely, but as the scale became apparent, it was clear that no entrances penetrated the lowest few meters. Instead, the lower surface was a polished green, darkened nearly to black, slick as glass. There were indeed other paths, all spiraling in to intersect at the one major entrance that offered admittance to the mound. Flanking that were two largish cave-like openings, with rows of laterite benches in their forecourts, and white shapes flickering in the rooms within.

  There was a fair amount of traffic now, of differing shapes and sizes. There were heavy Porters, carrying enormous baskets filled with dried reed-cakes. There were whispers of light that streaked past them chittering just on the edge of hearing. There were smaller, brown versions of the white who led them. And flanking the forecourts were ranks of Warriors. Laurel gasped as a new shape trundled toward them, dense and peering like an enormous mole.

  “There!” she cried, pointing, “There! You see, there’s one! There’s a True Angel!”

  “Please, explain. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “And His angels will cover your wastes with manna, making green fields of desert and Heaven of barren worlds. We have been waiting, for so many years. We knew, that if we were faithful, and prayed, He’d send His angels to rescue our fields. And there’s one.”

  Asach peered at this new variety of creature. “Your fields?” The marshland extended in all directions as far as the eye could see.

  “Yes, our fields. We’re only five miles from Butterfield station.”

  “But what do you mean? What fields? We’re in the middle of a river delta.”

  Laurel was emphatic. “No. I know exactly where we are. We’re south of the seep at Ocotillo Wells. We’re east of Butterfield station. This was all desert last year.”

  “Last year? Surely you mean last gathering.”

  “No! Early last year! Well, OK, nearly two years ago, but still! Now do you believe?”

  Asach thought: well, maybe some massive irrigation project could be done in a year, but… “But surely this was here.” Asach’s hands spread to take in the city. The extent of the glass-and-stone construction was massive, and deep. It looked accreted over centuries.

  But Laurel was shaking her head. “No, no, no! I’m a Seer. It’s my job to know every route into and out of Swenson’s Mountain.” She stopped abruptly. Flushed. “I mean, His Eye. When the time approaches, I re-ride every route, checking whether His Eye awakes. Last month, I skirted past here, and saw an Angel, and saw that they had come.”

  Asach groaned. “Just in time for the Revelation.”

  “Yes!” nodded Laurel emphatically.”

  Asach began another question, but Enheduanna shouted “Hold!” pulling them up so abruptly that the Warriors behind nearly ran them down. The hissing started again.

  Asach shifted focus to the traffic at the tables. Every Porter stopped at one or another of them. Whites came out to inspect every load. Their fingers clacked; they removed part of each; they reached into buckets beside the tables, scooped a gob of something, smacked it onto the container, stamped the gob with a carved stone sigil, and conveyed the reserved goods inside. The operation was efficient. Laurel stared, openly. She’d grown up on New Utah. She’d been to Bonneville. She could count. Simultaneously, she and Asach blurted:

  “It’s a tithe house!” “It’s a customs house!”

  Then Enheduanna chirped, and Warriors closed in, and began pulling at their clothes. Laurel screamed. Asach shouted “Hold! Hold!” but this time there was no effect. In a moment of sheer stupidity, Asach physically shoved between Laurel and a Warrior, and furiously disrobed. Laurel gasped. Enheduanna barked. The Warriors backed off as Asach let the last article of clothing drop. Then, before the others could react, Asach snatched up the vest, shouting “One!” while holding up one finger, and laid it on the bench. Then the trousers, “Two!” and two fingers. Then the belt, the underwear, the socks, the boots. Finally the cloak. Holding it as a screen, Asach hissed to Laurel: “Strip!” She shook her head emphatically: no. Asach hissed again: “Do it! If you don’t, they’ll do it for you! I won’t look! I swear! I’ll hold up the cloak!” The Accountant examined the articles of clothing piled upon the table.

  Trembling, Laurel peeled, her eyes riveted on her own feet. When she’d done, Asach wrapped the cloak around her, then repeated the counting-clothes performance, buck-naked in the sun. The Accountant ceased twisting a boot to watch them. Frantically, Asach scanned the ground; spotted a small, white
pebble; shouted “One!” and made a scratch-mark on the counter. “Two!” This time two scratch-marks, and underneath the numeral two. “Three!” And so on, until ten, when Asach circled all that had gone before, made one more mark, then wrote the digits: the one, the zero. The Accountant looked down at the table; up at Asach. Reached forward, seizing Asach’s wrist with its gripping hand. Asach did not resist. Pulled Asach’s hand forward, palm-to palm with its own. The sizes were not vastly different—save for the Accountant’s second opposable thumb, located where Asach had no digits at all. With its second hand, it placed the pebble into Asach’s arrested one; guided it to the counter beside the “10.” Forced Asach to make two more marks, then let go. Without hesitation, Asach wrote “12,” then offered the pebble to the accountant. The Accountant quickly scratched a glyph that looked like—two hands, clasped, edge on. Asach reached for the pebble. The accountant paused, then handed it over. Asach circled the twelve, circled the glyph, then drew a line to the ten and dropped the pebble. Holding up both hands, Asach said: “Base ten!” Reaching forward, cautiously, but firmly, Asach took the Accountant’s hands: “Base twelve!” Then pointed to the numerals again: “Ten! Twelve!” and the glyph: “Twelve!”

  The Accountant listened carefully. Then, cautiously, made the same hand-gesture, indicating first the numerals. “Ten!” it said. “Twelve!” Then, very slowly, it indicated the glyph, leaning forward toward Asach “Ten!”

  “Yes!” said Asach, “Ten, base twelve.”

  Assured, the Accountant moved rapidly, holding forth one of its hands. “Base six,” then seizing Asach’s two hands, “base ten.” It grabbed the pebble, made six chalk marks, then wrote one-zero. “Base six,” it said. Then made ten chalk marks; wrote one-zero. “Base ten,” it said.

  Asach made a huge sigh of relief. “Can we get dressed now?”

  The Accountant said to Enheduanna, “You can inform the Protector that this one knows advanced mathematics. I have recorded it as entire. The other one—the shrieking one, with manna-colored eyes—I have recorded it as anathema. Let me know if that assessment changes. For the record.”

  Enheduanna swept one arm, indicating of course. “Give me a Protector’s Runner.”

  “Supplied.”

  As the Runner streaked ahead, a path opened for the entourage, now ordered triple-file with Enheduanna at the head, followed by Asach, Laurel, and the senior hand leader, with two ranks of Warriors either side. The Warriors adopted an odd, half-turned, outward-facing, click-step-click-step-click-step gait with gripping arms extended that Asach presumed was some sort of formal march. It had the effect of making each rank a moving, living barrier fence. Sandwiched as they were inside the formation, it was difficult to see much. Laterite pathways led to gaping openings; pockets of green filled most blank spaces between the lumpy mounds.

  Then, at one turning, in a glimpse Asach saw a team of brown workers engaged in creating additional space. The process looked more like a complicated mining operation than home-building. One pair excavated earth. Another packed some kind of powdered coating onto the freshened wall. A third employed a series of mirrors and lenses to vitrify the tunnel mouth. A different team spread the newly-excavated clay as guttered paths, then used reflectors with a rolling, tunnel-like contraption to dry, pre-heat, and bake it to brick in place. Smaller versions of the mole-like one packed earth into baked depressions with narrow drain-grooves adjoining the gutters. The entire operation seemed slow and labor intensive. On the other hand, Asach reflected on the legions of stone cutters, brick-makers, transporters, house-builders, and landscapers that would be required to achieve the same purpose, and concluded that for the scale it was extremely efficiently organized. It also made Laurel’s assertions more plausible.

  They were shortly to find themselves incarcerated in the end result of such an operation. The room was domed, the ceiling high. Rosy baked-earth steps, hard as concrete, rough-polished like travertine, led them downward into a glassy space, its swirled rainbow-green-black walls slick and hard as tile or thick obsidian. There was no join at the floor: it appeared that it, too, had been vitrified, then overlain with more warm-colored laterite. Windows ringed the uppermost reaches, giving the feeling of a cathedral cupola. The room was chilly. Laurel huddled in the warmth of the sun’s rays.

  “Honey, I need the cloak for a minute. We may not have much time.”

  Laurel did not respond.

  Asach gently peeled away the garment, warm from its days soaking in the sun, and quickly set up the transmitter. There was no way to know direction, let alone azimuth. There was no external power source. That meant short message, multiple burp, and hope something got through. The line-of-sight angle out of the windows was bad. There was no telling what the glass was made of, or how it would refract the beam. There was nothing to stand on. Asach composed the message. Minimum words, one precedence character, one encryption character, one validation character.

  “Laurel, I need you to do something for me.”

  The girl just sat, immobile, sullen.

  “Laurel, ‘It is the duty of every island to give aid and support to the Seers, that they may be of aid to all pilgrims.’ Right now, I’m it. I’m your only island. I am trying to help you. I’m trying to help your Uncle Collie. I’m even trying to help Agamemnon.”

  At that, Laurel began sobbing. Great, racking sobs, like to tear her heart from her chest.

  “It’s just so hard. So hard. I’ve lost everyone. And now—oh, poor Agamemnon.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  She shook her head. “No. He’ll be left, hobbled, for my return. Only…only…”

  She was broken in grief.

  Asach walked over, physically pulling her to her feet, Laurel a rag doll hanging by her arms.

  “Come on then! On your feet, girl! Help me send a message of revelation. And an instruction for Agamemnon.” It was a blatant lie, but they were running out of time.

  Laurel smeared her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.

  “Hold this.” Asach handed her the transmitter cowl. Laurel nodded.

  “Come here. Climb on my shoulders.” Asach squatted down, facing the wall.

  “Good, now, on three, I’m going to stand. Then, you stand too. Then I want you to do this: Point the middle of that low out the window, then say now. Then point it middling out the window, and say now again. Then high. Can you do that?”

  Laurel nodded.

  “Good. Show me.”

  Laurel demonstrated. Around the room Asach sidled, three bursts per stopping point, approximately every fifteen degrees. The cloak was depleted. It would need hours to recharge. Asach had just finished packing everything away; re-wrapping the girl with aquamarine eyes, when the door opened. Two Warriors stepped inside. Then, down the steps, with a bearing unmistakable in any species, strode the biggest, whitest Motie that Asach had ever seen. Meaning, bigger than Ivan, the only Master in the newsreels. It entered alone.

  Damn, thought Asach. Where are the Mediators? The Newsreels all show Mediators who learn fluent Anglic in no time. But there was just the big white one.

  Blaine Institute, New Caledonia

  The Blaine Institute for Advanced Motie Studies had found itself in more-or-less constant uproar during the year since Sinbad’s explosive return from the Mote System with a Khanate fleet on its tail. After defeat, the Khanate had thrown their lot in with the Traders, and to ensure that they no longer posed a threat, the genetically modified C-L worm was pumping anti-maturation hormones into the digestive tract of every Khanate member. Whether Bury’s will had cemented, or thrown a spanner into, the Motie trading alliance that now policed the blockade still remained to be seen.

  But with their lines now doomed, would the Khanate remain true? Unless the Institute could engineer a way to regulate the worm: to make it possible for Moties to reproduce at will, instead of at necessity, there seemed little hope that the Mote System could ever be stabilized. With the worm, Moties could live out a natural li
fespan—whatever that proved to be—but at the cost of becoming sterile. Without the worm, Moties had to breed or die. Their alternatives were at present stark indeed.

  The only beneficiaries were Motie Mediators. Diplomats; linguists; social engineers, those brown-and-white crosses between Masters and Engineers were sterile anyway, and as such doomed to radically truncated lives. With the worm, they might gain the advantage of actually living long enough to become elder statesmen. Yet even among Mediators, the assessment was universal: to a Master, the C-L solution was anathema.

  So, the Blaines’ immediate take on Barthes’ New Utah business was: theoretically interesting, but not of immediate concern. However much the Founder’s-Era frieze might look like Moties, it was centuries old, and the accompanying historical report was very clear. It described an indigenous animal, not some space-borne infiltrating wave from Mote Prime. Sadly, an apparently extinct animal, as well. Had there been an immediate danger to the Empire, given their voracious reproductive rates, Moties would already have overrun the planet. Just to clarify this enigmatic message from the past, there was no point in diverting any Naval vessel from the blockades, where there were definitely Motie vessels—some days, hundreds of them—attempting to break through to human space.

  Of course, any input that might bear on Motie reproductive physiology was important. After the Accession talks, one way or another, they would get a copy of all the historical data on Swenson’s Apes now “classified” in the True Church archives. Until then, while C-L work continued around the clock, a couple of bright graduate students played with the implications for various models of convergent evolution and panspermia.

  They tried sending to Barthes, but received no reply, which was unsurprising. So they sent a courier via the next outbound ship, and settled in to wait.

  Then Quinn’s terse communication arrived, and all Heaven broke loose.