Nafai nodded, suddenly serious. But Luet was not impressed. She knew that he understood, intellectually, that it was a bad idea for him to keep trying to be nice to Elemak. Just yesterday Luet had tried to explain it to him again, and he had interrupted her and explained it right back. “Elemak doesn’t see my eagerness to give him authority as trust or kindness, he sees it as condescension and gloating, I know. But it’s not gloating and it’s not condescension, Luet. I really do admire his abilities and I trust him to do an excellent job of whatever he’s doing. I can’t help wanting to reach out to him.”
“From your end it looks like reaching out,” Luet explained, patiently—for the fiftieth time, she was sure. “From his end it’s more like rubbing in.”
Nafai knew that he should simply remain silent on any issue regarding Elemak, but he couldn’t stand it. “Then everybody will think I’m sulking or that I don’t want him to do anything. I really do want him to do things, and so I have to say so, don’t I? So everybody knows there’s no hard feelings.”
“Can’t you just trust me?” said Luet. “Can’t you just trust me and shut up?”
He had given her his solemn vow—again—that he would say nothing to or about Elemak’s role in the community. And here he was in this meeting, not a day since the last time she had pleaded with him and he had remade his promise to her, doing exactly what he had vowed not to do.
Volemak was taking the meeting back to its main subject. “Anyway, we won’t have just one person working with the diggers. We have to have as many different perspectives as possible—even as we work to raise crops and get food and seeds stored away for the dry season. All of this is just a preamble, though. This meeting is Shedemei’s. I assume this means she has a report on digger and angel biology, and that’s as good a starting place as any.”
“It’s not really a report,” said Shedemei. “It’s more like a list of questions. The initial scan showed that like all the other animals and plants we’ve examined since we arrived, the diggers and angels show only the normal sorts of evolutionary changes from their ancestors of forty million years ago. Diggers were a species of field rat common in southern Mexico, and angels were a common species of bat. The genetic variation is on the order of only five percent from the original in both cases. It will be ages before we can even begin to examine the fossil record, but here you can see how the digger body has changed to be able to support a heavier head and the hands have evolved for grasping big heavy tools—while not losing the raw power of digging, climbing, and, I must add, killing with no tools at all.”
She switched from the rat and digger skeletons on the computer display to the bat and angel skeletons. “The angels had a more complex job—to retain flight, support a heavier brain, and develop the manual strength to use tools. Their compromise is to keep the use of their feet as strong hands. Standing on one foot, these hip joints give them enough rotation to swing a hand axe. But their arms, which in bats have only vestigial hands, have evolved back into good manual instruments. They can’t bear much weight, and as we learned through an unfortunate incident, the arms break easily enough in a strong grasp. So the hands aren’t used for gross physical activities. Rather they’re used for very delicate, fine work.”
She sat and regarded them steadily.
Luet finally realized what she was indicating. “You mean that the statues down in the digger city were made by the angels?”
“The digger hand is simply incapable of doing the fine work you described,” said Shedemei. “I’ve tested the diggers when they were semi-conscious. They can’t do work that doesn’t require a lot of force. When you sculpt in soft clay, you have to be very restrained, press only so hard. The diggers are incapable of that. They would mash the clay to a pulp.”
“Perhaps,” said Issib, “you’ve only been examining soldiers and manual laborers.”
“Did you notice any dimorphism underground?” Shedemei asked Nafai and Oykib.
“None,” said Nafai.
“And they admitted that they didn’t make the sculptures themselves,” added Oykib.
“But those are their gods,” said Chveya. “Gods which they worship by offering the bones of dead baby angels to them. It seems a little incongruous.”
“Yes, it does,” said Shedemei. “But that strikes at the heart of the most important questions. The first one is, Why did two intelligent species develop virtually in each other’s laps like this, without one destroying the other? According to the records in the library, several sentient species evolved along with humans from the same stock—robusts and heidelbergs, they called them—but the erects essentially erased the robusts, and the moderns wiped out the heidelbergs.”
“Might have absorbed them,” Issib corrected.
“However it happened,” said Shedemei, “where the moderns went, there were no more robusts, heidelbergs, or erects. So why do both angels and diggers survive?”
“Because they don’t compete for resources?” asked Chveya.
“My good student,” said Shedemei with a smile. “But the diggers do eat the angels’ young. And worship the statues they make. So it’s not the same as, for instance, octopuses and eagles, which simply don’t compete in any way. The angels are prey to the diggers. And yet they survive.”
“Art lovers,” said Nafai.
It sounded like another wisecrack and Luet was ready to poke him, but Shedemei answered as if it were a serious suggestion. “I think you’re right, Nafai. I think there’s something biological here, and the sculptures are involved. Didn’t you say, Oykib, that you’ve learned that the statues are always associated with mating and breeding in their worship?”
Oykib blushed and looked furtively at his wife, then at Nafai.
“Don’t be shy about it, Okya,” said Volemak. “Nafai felt it was wise to tell the rest of us about what you can do. Not everybody—just the people in this room. No reason to make everybody else paranoid about their prayers.”
Issib grinned maliciously. “We, of course, are the ones who are so perfect of heart that we don’t mind being spied on.”
“What Issya is trying to say,” said Volemak, “is that we accept that some of us have the ability to learn things that others might wish kept secret. But you’ve shown such remarkable discretion throughout your childhood and on into adulthood that we aren’t afraid of you.”
“I am,” said Chveya. “That’s the only reason I let you get me pregnant.”
“Veya,” Luet remonstrated. Did the girl have to be so crude?
“Anyway, Oykib, is that right?” said Shedemei.
“Yes,” he said. “Some of the…worshipful thoughts…they’re downright pornographic. I mean, the way they think of the statues. We’ve seen how most of them were worn down until some of them were just lumps. They worship by rubbing the statues all over themselves.”
“That’s very helpful,” said Shedemei. “That’s not a behavior I’ve seen in rats or any other rodent. Have you ever seen anything about that in your studies?”
“You’re the biologist, Shedya,” said Hushidh. “If you haven’t seen it, you can count on it that we haven’t.”
“As long as we’re on the subject of who knows what,” said Luet, “I’d like to know why I’m here. I mean, Shedya’s husband isn’t here, and Aunt Rasa isn’t here, so we’re not doing this in couples or anything. Shuya and Veya are both needed for understanding the diggers and angels because they can see things that language can’t convey. Oykib’s method is different, but the result is the same. Nafai is the one with the cloak, who has his face on a sculpture down in the digger city. Issib can’t work in the fields and he’s good at language and nobody handles the Index better than he does, so he’ll be vital for research and conversation. Why am I here?”
“Feeling a little insecure, my love?” asked Nafai with mock solicitude.
“You’re here,” said Volemak, “because you’re you. Not everybody has to have a specialization for what I have in mind. And you commun
icate with the Oversoul better than anyone.”
“Not when you use the Index,” said Luet. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Shut up, Lutya,” said Hushidh cheerfully. “Your self-doubt is wasting everyone’s time.”
“Be patient,” said Volemak. “I’m making my point, and you’ll understand.” He took Shedemei’s illustrations off the display and replaced them with a map of the immediate area. “Here we are,” he said, “and here are the diggers. And way up here are the angels. Take a wild guess which culture we’ll come to understand best.”
“Especially if they get into a kidnapping mood again,” said Issib.
“I think that this can lead to an unfortunate outcome,” said Volemak. “First, we’d no doubt become closer to the species we know the best, and that might be a serious mistake. Second, and perhaps more important, the angels would certainly assume that we were closer to the diggers, and therefore they would be suspicious of everything we did. Perhaps hostile. You see the problem?”
Issib nodded. “You want some of them to go up and live among the angels.”
“That sounds so final,” said Nafai. This time Luet did poke him.
“Not some of them, Issya,” said Volemak. “Some of you.”
Issib looked angry. “Not me,” he said. “Not the chair.”
Luet understood. He had hated those years in the wilderness when he had been physically helpless except when in his floating chair. To have Hushidh have to lift him and carry him and help him with his bodily needs—it was bad enough when his children were little, but now it would be an unbearable humiliation. Here in the vicinity of the ship his magnetic floats worked just as they had in the city of Basilica, giving him nearly normal physical freedom. He was not about to give that up.
“Hear me out,” said Volemak. “I’ve thought this through very carefully, and if you listen reasonably you’ll agree with my conclusions. First, I don’t think we should send very many to the angels, because we need most of our strength here, working the fields and establishing the colony. So I’m sending only two couples and their small children. I can’t send Shedemei, because she has to be here, using the instruments in the ship. But I need to send somebody who is as methodical as she is, and as familiar with the library. That points to you, Issib.”
“It points to anybody here and half the people not here,” said Issib.
“Chveya and Hushidh both have roughly the same ability,” said Volemak, “and that ability is indispensable. So one stays here, and one goes there.”
“Oykib is the most valuable one for learning languages,” said Issib. “Send him up there.”
“I need Oykib down here,” said Volemak. “I want him learning the digger language alongside Elemak.”
Luet understood, as she was sure everyone else did—it would not be healthy if Elemak were the only interpreter they had. Volemak didn’t want to say it outright, but Elemak could not be wholly trusted. And the way he’d been acting since the night of the kidnapping, he might not accept the assignment to work with the diggers anyway.
“Besides,” said Volemak, “the diggers know Oykib.”
“They know Nafai, too,” said Issib.
“Don’t fight me on this, Issya,” said Volemak. “Nafai they see as a god. Therefore it’s very important that they not see too much of him. Let them worship the clay head and leave the man himself a mystery.”
“In other words,” said Nafai, “nobody who knows me could worship me.”
“That’s pretty much it,” said Volemak.
“I worship you,” Luet said, too sweetly.
Nafai smiled sweetly back.
“As for your loathing for the chair,” said Volemak, “Nafai and I are pretty sure we can install a relay somewhere on that peak. It overlooks the angels’ valley as well as the whole canyon approach. I think your magnetics will work there.”
“Unless I walk behind a tree,” said Issib.
“The relay consists of four installations so that there’s always a parallax,” said Nafai. “It would have to be a very big tree.”
“If the magnetics work, I’ll do it,” said Issib.
“You’ll do it anyway,” said Volemak. “You’ll just be angrier if you’re in the chair. But think of this as the consolation prize. You get the Index.”
“So there we’ll be,” said Nafai. “The four of us. The brothers who married the sisters.”
“I’ll still be useless,” said Luet, trying to sound dispassionate, but failing.
“No more so than Nafai,” said Volemak. “And no less. The angels aren’t going to be as impressed by the glowing skin as the diggers were. Their first exposure to us was an act of wanton violence. Even with Hushidh and Issib to counsel you, it’s going to take some delicate maneuvering to get them to accept you in the first place. Yasai and Padarok have assured me that our injured angel made no offer of violence. But that doesn’t mean that the others are necessarily peaceable. After all, they are a sentient species. If humans and diggers are any example of what that means, we can anticipate that they have just as many murderous tendencies as we have.”
“Then let’s just wipe ’em all out,” said Nafai.
Everyone looked at him in horror.
“That was a joke,” he said.
“Try not to make jokes like that with the angels,” said Volemak.
Nafai looked disgusted. “When I’m responsible for something, I don’t make stupid jokes,” he said. Then he grinned. “But this is your meeting.”
“I appreciate your supportive attitude,” said Volemak. “Now does anyone have anything else?”
“I do,” said Shedemei. “This is especially for the four of you who are going up to the angels, but it’s really for everybody who works with the diggers, too. You have to notice everything. Not just the way that they’re different from us, but the ways that they’re the same, too. You have to make a note of it immediately, every single thing you notice, because the longer you wait to write it down, the more you’ll be accustomed to their way of doing things and so the more likely you are to stop noticing it. Issib has the Index, and I have the computers here on the ship—we should be making reports every night.”
“When do we do all this?” asked Oykib.
“The work with the diggers starts immediately,” said Volemak. “But until we can take a healthy—or at least not dying—angel back up to his people, we aren’t going back up that canyon. So for now, the four of you will take shifts with this poor busted-up fellow. Spend as much time with him as Shedemei thinks advisable. Make a friend out of him, if you can.” Then he glowered at them all. “And you will make sure that you never take this fellow anywhere that he even might run into Elemak. Elya will have access to the ship as always, but I’ll ask him to stay off the deck where Shedemei is helping the angel recuperate. That should do the job.”
Shedemei had only one thing to add. “I especially want to know anything that has to do with sex. Reproduction and survival—those are the two key forces that drive evolution. I won’t understand their biology or their culture until I know what is imperative for their mating, breeding, sustenance, and defense. Somehow those sculptures play a role for both cultures.”
“Art is life,” Nafai intoned. “And life is art.”
Luet poked him again, as hard as she could. He yelped. She hoped it left a bruise.
As the meeting broke up, Shedemei and Issib spent a few moments looking in detail at the scans and charts of the digger and angel bodies. “I was going to bring this up for the whole group,” Shedemei said, “but the meeting went a different way. I didn’t know what Volemak was planning, and all that matters is that you be aware of this so you can watch for an explanation when you’re up the canyon with the angels.”
“I haven’t agreed to go,” said Issib.
Shedemei looked at him blankly.
“Yes, well, show me anyway,” said Issib.
“Here,” she said. “In the digger males. And here, in our one angel, al
so a male.”
“I don’t know what it is you’re pointing at.”
“Neither do I,” said Shedemei. “But it’s a tiny organ, maybe a gland, I’m not sure at all of the function. But it isn’t present in humans, and it isn’t present in any other species I’ve scanned.”
“So, they’re different.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Shedemei. “Biological diversity come through branching. There are two ways that creatures can have similar organs. One is that they have a common ancestor. The other is through convergent evolution—similar pressures in the environment caused them to develop similar strategies to counter it. Now, if they have the identical organ because of a common ancestor, there should be evidence of it in all the other species that diverged from the same source at the same time. But there isn’t, Issib. No other species of rat or bat or any other rodent or related animal has anything remotely like this structure in this location or even near it. I’m talking about now and I’m talking about forty million years ago, when the oldest biological database on the ship was put together. It’s not there.”
“Convergent evolution, then.”
“But except in the case of skeletal and muscular structure, convergent evolution only gets you organs with similar functions. There’s no particular reason why they should have the same location.”
“Unless it has to do with male reproduction and just above the scrotum is the only location that would work,” said Issib.
“Exactly. So what I need you to look for, and what I’ll be looking for down here, is a reason for these two species, and only these two species, to have this organ. When you think about it, why should the two sentient species on Earth have this particular similarity?”
“Because it’s related to their intelligence?” asked Issib.
“That has to be the first thought,” said Shedemei. “But then, we haven’t had a chance to look at females. They’re intelligent, too—but if they lack this structure—”
“Or one that has an analogous function—”
“You see the mystery,” said Shedemei. “This organ came from somewhere and has some function, and it exists only in the two intelligent species, and may exist only in the males. It may have to do with intelligence. It may have to do with sex, given the location.”
Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 23