by Uhura's Song
The singing lasted long into dusk. In the fading light, with a last few quiet songs, the Sivaoans began to drift away into their tents. Uhura could just make out Jinx climbing into the trees a few yards into the forest; although she had free use of Catchclaw's tent during the day she apparently slept in a swagger-lair like an adolescent. Others made quietly for the trees as well, including Brightspot and Evan. Some few adults stopped to comment on Evan's peculiar style of climbing.
As Uhura put away her joyeuse, Captain Kirk paused to remind her that the rest of the crew would be in the new shelter. "Get some sleep, Lieutenant," he added. "We'll need all our wits about us tomorrow." He said it as if he expected something different to happen the next day, but Uhura knew he was only trying to lift her spirits.
When he had gone, Rushlight said, "I don't read your peoples' smells very well, Lieutenant Uhura, but from what Jinx tells me, I'd think you were unhappy. Should I have let you sing? I didn't mean to push you aside, you know. I only thought you deserved a rest."
"Thank you, Rushlight- it's not quite that- although singing always makes me feel better." She did not want to press the issue, so she said nothing more.
"Come then," he said, rising and taking her wrist with his tail, "you will sing as softly with me as you would alone, to lift your spirits. There are a great many songs that we may not sing in public; perhaps I will find a song to cheer a bard."
As they walked toward his tent, he said, "Your captain smells of anticipation. Is he so different from you that his anticipation distresses you? I ask because I have no way of knowing the range of variation of your people; I mean no offense."
"Anticipation?" she said. "You're right about my nose, Rushlight. I thought he was only being cheerful to keep up my morale; he's quite good at that. In other circumstances, I would have believed him."
"You may believe him now, if Brightspot's observations are accurate. And they usually are. He hopes for something good to come- and soon."
"I also hope for something good to come...."
He gestured her into his tent and touched the small round object stitched into the fabric. Light sprang from it, a clear muted light good enough to read by. He said, "Something good has already come."
Uhura shook her head. She sat down on the soft pile of usefuls beside the banked fire, drew her knees up and stared into the embers.
"You don't believe me," said Rushlight. "You'll see: When two bards meet in one camp, the world can be changed. You have come farther than any bard I ever met. Between us, we will change many worlds."
She smiled sadly at him. "I want to believe that, Rushlight, but I'm not even allowed to speak of the changes I hope for."
"Then sing," he said quietly. "There are no restrictions on song."
"Is that true?!" A sudden wild hope sprang up in her.
"Of course. Even with your poor memory, you must recall how it happened when you first entered our camp. When you sang, we all knew you for a bard. Winding Path also took you for a nursing mother, but we have come to understand otherwise...." She nodded and he went on, "You spoke of things that- are not often spoken of- but Winding Path didn't cuff you."
"I assumed that was because we were so strange to him that he didn't dare."
Rushlight looped his tail. "Winding Path dares a great deal. No, Lieutenant Uhura, not even Winding Path would dare cuff a bard or a nursing mother. We have a saying. Without children and song, there is no future. You may sing what you like; the only penalty you risk is being asked to leave the camp."
Uhura said, "But that's the same penalty as for speaking."
He sat beside her, his tail wreathed about his toes, and took up his stringed instrument once more. "I will not ask you to leave the camp, Lieutenant Uhura. Not for singing."
Like Jinx, Uhura thought. Then, They're all trying to find a way to help us! As difficult as it is for them, they're all trying!
She took up her joyeuse and adjusted the little instrument to Eeiauoan tuning. Start simply, she thought, and aloud she said, "I'll sing for you in the Old Tongue, Rushlight. My accent may be strange to you, but I think you will understand."
She began the version of "The Ballad of CloudShape" that she loved best, remembering, as she sang, the night so many years ago that Sunfall had taught it to her, and an afternoon in her quarters when she sang it to Captain Kirk. She wondered if she were breaking Sunfall's code of balladry, but Uhura had never heard Sunfall mention the kind of promise that she'd had to make to Rushlight concerning his songs. Eeiauoan song was for everyone to sing, like Earthsong. The only restriction Sunfall had placed on the Old Tongue songs was that she not sing them before a Eeiauoan. This afternoon she had carefully reminded herself that these people were not Eeiauoans. She had sung her teaching song for Jinx, and again for Catchclaw, at Wilson's request. Neither had recognized the song, nor knew the missing verse that held the cure for the Long Death....
When she came to the end of the ballad, she realized that Rushlight was staring at her with widened eyes. She had never seen that kind of look from a Sivaoan before. His nictitating membranes slid briefly across his eyes. When they slid back, his pupils had contracted to their normal size. But, as he continued to stare, they began once more to widen.
"What is it...?" she began.
Immediately, he looped his tail around her wrist. The grip was tight but reassuring. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said quickly, "I swear it in Old Tongue. You don't know what you've sung, do you?" His ears flicked back in his amazement. "You truly don't know!"
She shook her head.
"Lieutenant Uhura, please!" His manner was so urgent it was almost as frightening as Stiff Tail's anger. "Do you have permission to sing that song in public? Tell me in Old Tongue!"
Having already thought it through, she didn't have to hesitate. She switched to Old Tongue instantly and said, "Yes, I have permission to sing 'The Ballad of CloudShape' in public. I've done so many times. I even translated it into my language to sing for Captain Kirk and the others on the Enterprise."
An enormous relief seemed to wash over him. Then he stood and turned his back to her for a long moment. His tail shivered with- excitement? Uhura could not be sure what he was feeling, but she was no longer afraid. When he turned back, he said softly, "Lieutenant Uhura, 'The Ballad of CloudShape' was created by one of the greatest bards our world ever knew." He watched her closely. "You don't know the origin of the song, do you?"
"No," she said, "I only know the song. I don't even know the name of the"- she narrowly avoided saying Eeiauoan- "one who created it."
"Her name was Sunfall to-Ennien."
Uhura let out a small involuntary gasp, and he dropped to his knees beside her once again. "You recognize the name," he said, "and yet you don't know that is her song?"
Uhura shook her head and said, carefully, "It may be I learned the song from- a descendant of Sunfall to-Ennien." That would be one explanation for the similarity of names.
"Will you give me leave to sing the song in public?"
Uhura knew the look of someone wanting something with every fiber of his being, yet Evan said these people must acknowledge the Eeiauoans to help them. She said, "I'm very sorry, Rushlight. It's not mine to give. It is a song of- that people I am forbidden to name."
"I see," he said. He stood again and walked away, his tail dragging the ground. There was nothing she could say to console him. She had no wish to hurt him, but she had done the only thing she could think of to help Sunfall....
His tail lifted slightly, and he turned. "Now I will sing you a bard's song, Lieutenant Uhura." He seemed to mean something particular by the phrase. When she inquired, he explained, "Another song to be sung only between bards, never in public." He took up his instrument and swiftly tuned it.
She felt compelled to reiterate her Old Tongue promise about the sanctity of his songs, but he stopped her before she could speak. "Say nothing. Listen," he said, and he began to sing in a very quiet voice, so low she had to lean
toward him to hear.
He sang for a long time, not a single song but a cycle; the tune now angry and dissonant, now sad and pleading and finally ending with mingled chords of sadness and hope.
Uhura knew she had to remember every word, every detail. She concentrated so hard that, when he laid aside his lute, she was startled by the movement.
He asked if she had understood. Between her knowledge of the Old Tongue and the language lessons the children were giving her, she had not missed much. What little she had not understood he patiently explained.
Then he said, slowly and distinctly, "You may not sing that song before anyone but another bard."
She could not miss his careful emphasis but, to show him she understood, she repeated the words: "I promise, Rushlight. I will never sing this song before anyone but another bard."
Without warning, he bristled, his fur standing out in spikes. "Your memory!" he said.
She knew he feared the loss of his attempt. She said in Old Tongue, "My memory is not as bad as you think, Rushlight. It would take me a dozen hearings or more before I could sing your songs, but I promise you I will never forget the content."
"Good," he said, his whiskers quivering with relief. "Now we'll dream on it. Tomorrow, when your voice is rested, I'll ask you to sing me what other songs you know in the Old Tongue." He rose, touched the light; it went out, leaving only the dull warmth of the embers.
Uhura slipped off her boots and wrapped herself in darkly patterned usefuls against the night's chill. With so much to think about and understand, she lay awake in the shadows for a long time before her eyes finally closed in sleep, to dream of an ancient world and a bard called Sunfall to-Ennien....
It was a night that should have been dark.... Sunfall to-Ennien stood at the edge of the city and stared out longingly into the forests of her childhood, lit and changed to fantastic shapes by the Mad Star's light. When she could bear no more, she looked down at the shifting of her own shadow and thought, Shadow by night, that's what I've become- what we've all become. So changed and changing that we can no longer share the forests of the world. We're leaving camp.
It seemed so trivial a thing, to fold a tent and move on, but the camp they would leave was Sivao itself. Leave, move on, you've done enough harm here.
But where would they find a welcome?
Well, too late to wonder that. They'd already agreed, out of shame for the fifteen kinds of plants that would never grow in the world again, the four kinds of animals no child would ever learn to hunt. Out of shame for the death they'd found in their cities, as if they'd created it and carried it into the deepest forest like some horrifying song. The death stopped now, gorged full on rotting flesh, and those few remaining victims could be cured by Thunderstroke's treatment- but nothing could cure their shame. So they had agreed to go. She wished for some other solution but saw only the flickering shadow of a predator, the ship that stood ready in the center of the city. Its flight would destroy much of what her people had built. The forest would, long years from now, reclaim the rest, hiding it from sight, though not from memory.
She could stay if she wished: A bard would be welcomed in any camp. Wish it she might, but she knew she would go- for the same reason she had come to the city in the first place- because her songs were needed here as much as they were in the forest. They'd be needed still more on the journey, still more on another world. So she said good-bye in her own way, with a last song, and turned to go.
And saw All Loops. He stood with his back to her, in song's range, his tail uncharacteristically trailing the ground. She waited silently as he composed himself. When at last he was able to face her, his eyes, his tail were pleading. "Your songs," he said.
That too had been a difficult decision, but it was the only hope she could hold out to her people in their exile. She said, with great sadness, "From bard to bard, All Loops, for remembrance of me." There, she had done it; her songs would be remembered only by the bards, never to be sung in public. Still using the ritual words, as old as any tradition she knew, she said, "Until such day as that one bard will come to my camp. On that day, I will free all my songs."
And now the ancient words took on a different meaning. That was all she had to offer her people in their exile, that her songs would be theirs alone until they could be reunited with someone from their homeworld. They'd no longer need them then- such reunion could only mean their shame and exile had ended. They'd have new, joyous songs to sing.
All Loops seemed to understand, even to accept, her decision. He stood quietly for a moment, then he said, "Neither of us will live to see that day, Sunfall...."
She arched her whiskers. She knew. She also knew he was making no renewed plea.
He wrapped his tail around her waist and said, "Sunfall to-Ennien, I give you all my songs - to be Freed wherever you make camp at last. You and the others may have need of them."
She didn't trust herself to speak. Instead she curled her tail around him. Then, in unspoken agreement, they released each other. All Loops walked silently into the forest. Sunfall turned and walked toward the heart of the city and the great ship that waited there. She did not dare look back, for her heart looked ahead.
Evan Wilson stirred restlessly at the snatches of angry sound that leapt from deep in the forest. She propped herself up on one elbow, desperate to blink the sleep from her eyes and shake the confusion from her head. Chilled, she pulled the useful tighter around her.
She was alone. The realization brought her abruptly awake and to her knees; just as quickly, her phaser was in her hand.
The sounds were louder now but no more understandable- an argument? It sounded too complex for something that simple, and Brightspot's absence made her extremely wary.
She edged to the side of the swagger-lair and peered out. She couldn't see anything, either. To make the jump to the access branch would be risky in the dark, but to stay here- where she was expected to be- was riskier. She trusted Brightspot, but not Brightspot's absence.
She eased silently toward the outflung branch that was her only handhold, paused to clip her phaser to her belt. As she did, a tail shot down from above and slapped across her mouth- Brightspot's tail!
Looking up, she saw Brightspot clinging to a limb above the swagger-lair. Then she remembered seeing the gesture used to hush noisy children. She nodded and the tail flicked away.
Soundlessly, Brightspot dropped her head until it was directly above Evan's ear. "Wait here," said Brightspot in a very low voice. "You're too noisy in branches."
Evan nodded a second time, and Brightspot scrambled to another branch, making no noise that Evan could detect, and leapt into the darkness.
Watchful, phaser back in hand, Evan waited nearly two full hours by her internal clock while the noises in the forest continued in fits and starts. The argument or threats at last died down to a mutter, and the mutter came closer.
Brightspot reappeared as quietly as she had gone. A thrust of her tail sent Evan deeper into the swagger-lair; then she rolled neatly over the edge of the roof to land without a sound beside Evan. She knocked Evan on her side and, again, slapped her tail across Evan's mouth.
The muttering party passed directly beneath them. Evan Wilson was able to pick out a few words among those in range and translatable: "Stupid fools. Stupid, stubborn fools." It was Catchclaw's voice. "Humans don't know enough to squawk when they're hurt; Sivaoans don't know enough to stop squawking when the hurt's over." Then, just before she passed out of range once more: "You'll be sorry, Stiff Tail. This time you've stuck your tail into a slicebill nest, see if you haven't."
Several others passed beneath, but Evan heard nothing else. At last, Brightspot released her shoulders; they both sat up. Brightspot said quietly, "It's okay to talk now if we're quiet.... You didn't fight me when I pushed you over."
"It's your world, Brightspot. If there's trouble, I have to rely on your judgment. Sometimes you have to trust people. Now, what's going on? Are my friends in danger?"
Brightspot flicked her ears back. "Of course not! I just didn't want them to catch me listening in! How else am I going to find out what's going on around here?" That last was almost plaintive. "You're not angry because I eavesdropped on the adults, are you?"
"I'm not your mother," Evan said, "and in my book you're old enough to take your own chances. Did you learn anything?"
"You said you trust me," Brightspot said. "I have to think and put things together. I have to talk to- somebody. What happened is nothing that will hurt you, I swear in the Old Tongue, but I have to know more about it before I tell you how it happened. Can you wait?"
Evan Wilson thought about that. "Brightspot," she said, at last, "I can wait a lifetime for the answers to all my questions. But there are people on another world who cannot afford the time. I ask only that you consider them as well. They are my responsibility."