This Gulf of Time and Stars

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Wider at the back, that head, framed by two pairs of eyes set on fleshy cones, the front pair a quarter the size of the rear. Thick finger-like cilia covered where Morgan guessed would be a mouth.

  The ankles and wrists of all three were wrapped with cloth patterned in complex symbols, while belts around their thin middles supported longknives identical to that at Destin’s side.

  Speaker.

  The one sitting astride. It wore a white sash from right shoulder to left hip, ending in tasseled braids that hung to its dangling foot. On that sash was a pendant.

  Putting a hand on his shoulder, Destin pressed down. Stay, that meant. Morgan sank with the pressure into a comfortable squat, nodding.

  Her eyes darted to the foliage around them, back and forth, up and down, then she looked at him and tapped her knife hilt.

  Things in the bushes, Morgan interpreted. Lovely. He gave his wrist the tiny twist to drop a throwing blade into his hand and showed her its grim shine.

  Destin grinned, putting a finger to her throat. There was a great deal to like about the First Scout.

  She dropped over the platform. The Human watched her take her post by Sona’s Council.

  White-robed, standing with their Speaker centermost, they formed a line between their people and what approached.

  Morgan couldn’t help but admire their courage.

  Odon spoke, his tone formal. We see you.

  After bobbing its head twice, sharply, the Tikitik sent its mount splashing to the dock. They’d waited to be acknowledged by the Om’ray Speaker, Morgan noted. Why? Good manners between such different neighbors? Or simple prudence, by those considered “not-real.”

  The beast crouched at a command, sinking into the water to allow the Tikitik Speaker to step onto the dock, then rose, water dripping from its hair like rain. The eyes of the two Tikitik still mounted swiveled to lock on the Om’ray.

  The Tikitik Speaker darted toward Odon with such speed Morgan tensed, fearing an attack, but it stopped short of the Om’ray. Though twice his height, the low hanging neck brought the Tikitik’s face to the same level. Eyes turned on their cones.

  Providing multiple images or differing information?

  A three-fingered hand stretched out toward the Om’ray Speaker’s pendant but didn’t quite touch. “@#$%# $#@#%^^^” A guttural voice, differently pitched, but the same language as far as Morgan could tell.

  Confirmed when the comlink, after a slight delay, rendered: Where is the other one?

  As if it knew about Sira, but how—

  “#$@%>”

  From behind.

  Morgan turned, slowly, tightening his grip on the little throwing knife. I think you know, whispered the ’link.

  He shared the platform with another Tikitik, the textured black and soft gray of its knobby skin superb camouflage. This one wore a black sash, narrow and with its excess secured to a low belt so as not to impede movement. The fabric around its wrist was red, marked with symbols, the largest being a wavy pair of lines above three widening circles. It squatted at seeming ease, knees over its head, neck outstretched. All four eyes bent to regard him, the movement making a meaty sound. Do you not?

  No obvious weakness, Morgan calculated. Longer reach—he’d seen the speed—and at home in the trees as he was not, to come up on him like this.

  Only Speakers communicated with other races, and they wore pendants. Did this Tikitik want to trick him into breaking that rule?

  As if he cared. Look what’s come to visit, he sent Sira, sharing an image of the creature. Morgan smiled. “I’m new here. Who are you?”

  The head bobbed, then the body moved with that blinding speed, the alien winding up so close he could smell the faint spice of its warm breath. The cilia around its mouth worked the air between them as if tasting his. Not Om’ray, it concluded.

  That again?

  Before he could reply, the Tikitik eased back. It uttered a soft husky bark the translator didn’t try to render.

  Then a word it did.

  Human.

  Chapter 43

  A THOUGHT TRAVELER!

  The naming came with incoherent torrent of images and emotions. I staggered as if struck; felt Jacqui’s hands steady me.

  Aryl—but she was frantic and wouldn’t stop. I shielded myself against her until all that could pass was DANGERDANGERDANGER!

  Shaking myself free, I followed my link to Morgan and pushed . . .

  Interlude

  SIRA APPEARED ON THE PLATFORM, hair thrashing, her expression boding ill to anything in range. The Tikitik scrambled back—

  Morgan opened his mouth—

  Too late. Sira took one look down and . . .

  Morgan found himself standing inside the Cloisters, with his Chosen. They were in a room he hadn’t seen before, no bigger than their cabin on the Fox and empty of any furnishings.

  It did, however, contain one extremely unhappy alien.

  Chapter 44

  MORGAN AND I DODGED in opposite directions as the creature bolted dizzyingly from side to side in the small room, throwing itself against walls while KEENING so loudly I wanted to cover my ears.

  The racket prevented any chance to reason with it. Aryl?

  An unhelpful confusion along with intense disapproval.

  My first Tikitik and I’d driven it mad. Huido abhorred traveling through the M’hir; it was entirely possible I’d done this alien harm in my desire not to have a conversation perched in a tree.

  We were outside?

  I shared my impression of shadows, wet wood, and that appalling too-near drop, feeling her disapproval change into amusement.

  I refused to feel guilty for preferring solid ground. Bad enough watching the gangly being rebound from yet another wall. “I’d better put it back.”

  Before I could, Morgan managed to intercept the Tikitik. He wrestled the larger being to the floor where it subsided in a curl of misery, hands pawing at its eyes.

  He took off his coat, easing it over the creature.

  The keening stopped.

  “It’s this room.” Morgan looked at me. “We need somewhere with windows.”

  Here, Aryl sent. It’s private.

  Because bringing a not-Om’ray inside a Cloisters was forbidden. I’d received that message from her already.

  And ignored it.

  I would not be bound by Om’ray rules, especially those in the category of “not helping.”

  I pushed . . .

  Interlude

  THE CLOSET-LIKE ROOM gave way to one of natural light and airy space. They were at the top of the building, Morgan realized with delight. The large white petals he’d seen from the outside formed the walls, folding inward to meet—or was it allow—a view of the sky through an irregular slice of transparent ceiling. Rows of elongated benches curved along one side, facing an open space; seating for a hundred or more.

  He dropped to his heels beside the huddled Tikitik, gently tugging on his coat. The creature resisted, clawed fingertips digging into the fabric.

  Sira joined him. Feeling her remorse, Morgan shook his head. “We need to talk to more than the Om’ray. You did the right thing.” He feigned a shudder. “Besides, things bite out there.”

  The start of a dimple. “I can speak its language,” she said. “What do I say? And don’t tell me ‘hello.’ We’re past that.”

  “True.” He was guessing, to be sure, but he’d relied on instinct in stranger circumstances. The Tikitik had been confident, arrogant even, in its own environment, one unlikely to include closed buildings. It could be, Morgan decided, that simple. “Tell it to look up. That the sky’s back.”

  She did.

  Its fingers unclenched, but he left it his coat. After a moment, cilia pushed out from under that protection, wiggled cautiously, to be followed by the tip o
f its head and two smaller eyes. Those bent sharply on their stalks to regard the ceiling.

  Unwise, Aryl sent, no doubt to them both.

  Morgan agreed with Sira’s shrug. Unwise was staking the future of those waiting below on the chance they could find food for all in three days. This was a remarkable opportunity, if they could reassure their guest.

  The Tikitik unfolded, shedding the coat. Its large eyes drank in the sky, then rotated to bear upon him.

  Then found Sira. It rose to its feet, not taking an eye from her.

  Morgan stood with it, knives loose and at the ready beneath his shirt. A small eye cocked his way for an instant, then bent to the coat, then returned to Sira.

  You shouldn’t have come back.

  Chapter 45

  CALM AND DIGNIFIED, our Tikitik, given a view of the sky; Morgan had been right, as he often was. Now he gave me a warning look I understood completely.

  How could this being know of us?

  Fair was fair. We knew something of it, too. “Thought Traveler,” I greeted, bowing my head; Aryl a grim silence in the background. “My name is Sira Morgan. This is my Chosen, Jason Morgan.”

  “Names I do not know. Intriguing.” Cilia clustered, then spread. Its voice came from somewhere within them. “Your heritage is plain,” it announced suddenly. “Descendant of Sarc and Mendolar, Parth and Serona.” An eye considered Morgan. “Human—yes. We do not forget your taste.”

  I translated that ominous phrasing for Morgan. He looked more intrigued than worried. “Sorry for the rough ride.” The comlink spouted something more like “regrets-bad-too-fast-walk” but the Tikitik grasped his meaning without difficulty.

  “It was a pleasure.” A guttural bark—a laugh. “You travel as the Vyna. I’ve been interested to experience the sensation, but not so foolish as to wish for it. You realize the Vyna use this ‘badtoofastwalk’ not only to visit other Clans without invitation but to—shall I be delicate?—remove unwanted visitors from their own.”

  Aryl supplied a rather bloodthirsty satisfaction.

  Morgan gestured to the benches. “Shall we sit?”

  Tikitik, it turned out, didn’t sit, preferring to squat so its “face” was reasonably level with mine once I took my seat. Morgan, as I might have expected, retrieved his coat and stood behind me.

  The coat being full of weaponry, the point he made wasn’t for our unwilling visitor but me. “Don’t provoke the alien” had been a regular part of our pre-trade session briefings; this time, any mistake would cost us this potentially valuable source of information.

  Unless it lied.

  It won’t lie. Grudging advice. But it won’t give away the truth for nothing.

  Understood. I settled myself, unperturbed by eyeballs that moved. Though this wasn’t Huido. This, I decided, was more like a Scat. A predator.

  Showing it weakness would be a mistake. “Yes, we’re back,” I said bluntly. “With questions. There’ve been changes on Cersi while we were away.”

  Cilia groped in my direction—tasting according to Morgan. “In you as well, Far Traveler. Your age—quite remarkable.”

  As a starting point, it seemed harmless. “How so?”

  “Our Om’ray burn faster.”

  And wasn’t. Aryl?

  Marcus said we had rapid reproduction. Sixteen-year intervals. He was surprised.

  So was I, though this would explain the multitude of generations recorded in the parches the M’hiray had brought with them. I’d assumed a longer—much longer—period of time had passed, our generations being closer to Human standard. I’d been wrong.

  “We’ve learned not to rush life,” I said evasively. To Morgan, Is such a difference even possible?

  “Life is the point.” A finger, thin and supple as well as clawed, aimed precisely at what I bore.

  It knows.

  A large eye rotated to stare at Morgan. “Not yours.” Then back at me. “Yours. Like the—”

  “Vyna. Yes, I’ve heard.” I leaned forward, wincing as my hair pulled itself back in a rude knot of aversion. “You’re right. We aren’t like the Om’ray who stayed on Cersi.” Time to press. “We’ve technology to tell us this—” I held out the pendant “—is a device to send information. A transmitter.”

  The head reared back and up. “Speaker pendants are not devices,” with scorn. “They are what sing to the Maker’s Gift. Here.” With a painful-looking motion, it tilted its head to expose the softer, gray skin of its upper throat and touched a clawtip to the tissue between its jaws. The head dropped to its normal position, eyes locked. “Any Tikitik has but to listen in order to hear the pendants being worn, no matter where in the world, just as we once heard the tokens of unChosen.”

  ‘Maker’? The Cloisters’ machine? It couldn’t be the same, yet—was it coincidence? I translated for Morgan. Aryl?

  It has nothing to do with Om’ray, she replied testily. The Tikitik call many things ‘Maker,’ including the smaller of Cersi’s moons.

  If we accept the Tikitik have such a sense and the pendants were made to take advantage of it, the transmitter must be for another audience. “Oud listen, too?” Morgan asked out loud.

  “The Oud are blind and deaf and thoroughly ignorant.” The Tikitik rose to his full height, his head awkwardly high so I had to lean back—not that I could read its expressions, but eye contact was a habit. “Why would they listen? They consider themselves to no longer need Speakers.” His head lowered, all eyes on me. “They consider themselves beyond any limits. The last time we tasted Human was the last time Oud accepted their part in the Balance. Is this why you’ve returned, Far Traveler? To see for yourselves the great hurt you did this world?”

  No! An image appeared behind my eyes, a mug smashing on a floor, the liquid within spreading like blood.

  I didn’t need to ask what it meant.

  After such dire news, any questions we had for Thought Traveler were no longer ours alone. I invited Sona’s Council and the Tikitik Speaker to join us.

  “Invited” involved disrupting the meeting already underway, a breach of custom, law, or whatever established for all I knew before the mountains rose to the west.

  Making them too old to matter, in my opinion.

  Fortunately, the shock of being ’ported silenced the Sona before they could be outraged by my breaching another: the presence of Tikitik in their Cloisters.

  The presence of Thought Traveler, meanwhile, quelled the Tikitik Speaker into a humble posture, squatting while the other stood. Comparing the two, I saw the differences in their clothing. The fabric around Thought Traveler’s wrists and across its chest was finer than that of the Speaker, the symbols more carefully applied. I judged the former older as well, if thicker knobs on the skin and more faded scars measured age in their species and not just personal history.

  Even without those clues, Thought Traveler carried himself like someone above the rest of his kind.

  Apart, Aryl corrected. They observe and carry information between factions. The ones I knew had a dangerous curiosity and didn’t hesitate to stir trouble to see what would happen.

  The Tikitiks’ eyes watched the Sona, who sat, exchanging bewildered looks, on the benches.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, seizing the initiative before Odon, who’d begun to rouse, could open his mouth. The Sona left in the jungle would know where their Council had reappeared; they’d be coming in a fury, I thought, especially Destin. “When the M’hiray left Cersi, the world was in Balance.” Use the Tikitik’s terms. “What happened afterward?”

  Nyala di Edut answered for the rest. “The past isn’t real,” she snapped. “Why would you ask?”

  I paused, dumbfounded yet again. How could the past not be real?

  Because those who die can no longer be felt, Aryl explained. Ask about Clans instead.

  Which these
Om’ray assumed we could feel for ourselves. I sent a question to Morgan, received his answer. Give to get.

  I hid a grimace. “You suspected we were different,” I told them carefully. “We are. The child, Andi, possesses what we consider an old, very rare Talent, the one all Om’ray appear to have kept: the ability to sense where others are.”

  “As you do not. I thought so!” Eand exclaimed triumphantly.

  “I do not,” I admitted. “Of the M’hiray, only Andi does. If I reach through the M’hir, yes, I can find other Om’ray, but it is not the same as your gift.” I gestured at the Tikitik. “Times change. What came before does matter. Let me show you the world as we remember it, so you can tell me how it is now. How it has changed.”

  Doubt was the least of the emotions leaking into the room, but Odon gave a slow nod.

  I shared with the Sona Aryl’s memory, her final “view” of her world as defined by Om’ray minds, speaking aloud and pointing as I did so for Morgan’s benefit and our “guests.”

  Seven Clans plus Sona, the reborn. From Sona, I pointed south to Grona, nestled at the foot of the mountains and last to see the sun each day. North, to Vyna, deeper in the mountains, smallest in number. North and east to Rayna, one of the larger Clans.

  I pointed east: Yena, Aryl’s birth Clan, came before Amna, the most populous. South of Amna, bordered by the same ocean, Pana, the next largest. They first saw the sun.

  Last, but not least, Tuana, south of Yena.

  The grimmer naming. Before Om’ray returned to Sona, Oud claimed Tuana, Pana, and Grona; the Tikitik: Yena, Amna, and Rayna. Oud, having taken Sona from the Tikitik in the distant past, intended to keep it. To restore the Balance, they prepared Tuana for the Tikitik, killing most of its population—Om’ray and Oud—in the process.