The screen before Banner flickered to life. Flandry could see it over her shoulder if he leaned down and forward. She laid her palms on two plates in the arms of her chair. What sensations came to her from them, she would interpret as perceptions of the world beyond these walls. She had told him that by now they seemed almost like the real thing.
“Yewwl,” she called low, and added words in a purring, ofttimes mewing or snarling language unknown to him. A vocalizer circuit transformed them into sounds that were clear to a Ramnuan, whose mouth and throat were not made like hers. “Ee-yah, Yewwl.”
Flandry must content himself with what was in the screen. That was remarkably clear, given the handicaps under which the system labored. Colors, perspectives, contours did appear subtly strange, until he remembered that the apparatus tried to duplicate what alien eyes saw, as they did.
A hand lifted into sight—Yewwl’s, perhaps raised in surprise when the message came. It was probably the most humanoid thing about her, the thumb and four fingers laid out very similarly to his. They were short, though, their nails were sharp and yellow, the entire hand was densely muscular, and tan fur covered it.
She was indoors, doubtless in a ranch house belonging to a family of her clan. Furnishing was simple but handsome. On a couch in view sat a pair of natives who must be kinfolk, male and female. No matter how many pictures he had studied while traveling, Flandry focused his whole attention on them.
They were both bipeds who would stand slightly over a meter. Extreme stockiness might have seemed grotesque, were it not clear that their build was what enabled them to move gracefully. The feet were four-toed, clawed, big even in proportion. The lower torso was nearly rigid for support, the high pelvic girdle making it impossible to bend over—not a good idea on Ramnu anyhow—and requiring them to squat instead. This also forced the young to be born tiny, after a short gestation; male and female both had pouches on the belly to protect an infant till it had developed further. These and the genitalia did not come to Flandry’s vision, for the beings happened to be dressed in garments vaguely resembling hospital gowns, decking the front, the most convenient if you had vanes in back. Fur grew everywhere, save for footsoles and the insides of the hands.
The head was round. Its face could be called either blunt-muzzled or platyrrhine and prognathous; the jaw was heavy and had a chin, the brow swelled lofty. The mouth was wide, thin-lipped for the sucking of blood and juices and for the feeding of infants; yellow fangs bespoke a carnivore, though not an obligate one. The ears sat far up, pointed and mobile. The eyes were beautiful—big, golden, variable of pupils, adaptable to night. The whole countenance made Flandry recall, the least bit, a Terran lynx.
From the back, under the shoulders, sprang the extensors. The female had brought hers around in front, making a sort of cloak; perhaps she was cold, in this gathering ice age. The male had spread his when reacting to Banner, as if readying for a glide. From behind his neck, the membranes of the vanes stretched thinly furred, nearly a meter on either side, to the ends of the extensors: thence downward, semicircularly, to the buttocks. Flandry knew they were attached along the entire back, above the spine. They were no simple flaps of skin, they were muscular tissue, heavily vascularized, their nerve endings providing a great deal of sensory input, their complex ripplings and attitudes providing a body language that humans would never really be able to interpret.
As Flandry watched, the male relaxed, lowered his extensors till the vanes hung in folds behind him, and settled himself alertly. Belike Yewwl had told her companions what was occurring.
Flandry stole a look at Banner’s face. It was intent with the desperation of this hour, but it was likewise rapt; she had gone beyond him. She barely whispered what she said. When she stopped to listen, she alone heard.
The view in the screen shifted jerkily, then changed, changed, changed. Yewwl had jumped to her feet, was pacing—might be cursing or yelling, for all he could tell. The message she got had carried a shock.
Flandry and Banner had planned it together, but today he must merely guess how matters went. What she was asking was fearsome.
In the end, when she had blanked the screen and disconnected herself, she slumped, eyes closed, breathing hard, shivering. Sweat stood forth on a pale visage.
Flandry cupped her cheeks between his hands. “How are you?” he asked, half afraid.
The green gaze opened as she tilted her head back. “Oh, I’m all right,” she said faintly.
“She—will she—”
The woman nodded. “Yes. She doesn’t understand much of what it’s about. How could she? But if nothing else, out of loyalty, she’ll believe her oath-sister, that this has to be done before her country can be saved.” A sigh. “May that be true.”
He would have tried to comfort her, but time lashed him. “Shall we have her flitted to Mount Gungnor?”
“No.” Banner’s self-possession returned fast. She straightened; her tone briskened. “No point in that. In fact, it’d be counterproductive. Best she proceed overland, sending messengers out on either side to ask other leaders if they’ll meet her along the way. She has to persuade them to go along with the idea, you see, and with her in person. Else she’d be a single individual arriving at the Volcano, who could speak for her immediate family at best. Whereas, leading a delegation from what amounts to the whole of Kulembarach, and maybe a couple of neighbors’ clans as well—do you see?”
Flandry frowned. “How long will this take?”
“M-m. . . . Three or four Terran days, I’d guess. She’s fairly close to the mountain, and Ramnuans can travel fast when they want to.”
Flandry clicked his tongue. “You’re cutting it molecular fine. The Duke can’t be much further behind us than that. Allowing a short while for him to decide on Hermes what to do, and getting an expedition here from there—”
“It can’t be helped, dear.” Banner rose. “I’ll monitor Yewwl closely, of course, and urge her to keep moving. Furthermore, you know some of my younger colleagues have links like mine, to different individuals, through a wide territory. None are anything like as close as this relationship; but we can make contact, we can request them to pass the word on and to rendezvous with Yewwl if possible. We can scarcely explain why, either to those colleagues or their subjects. But I think several will oblige, out of curiosity and friendship. That should help.”
“Well, you’re the expert,” he said reluctantly. “As for myself meanwhile, I’m a master of the science and art of heelcooling.”
She chuckled. “You’ll be busy aplenty if I know you, studying maps and data banks, talking to people, laying contingency plans. And . . . we do want some time in between for ourselves, don’t we?”
He laughed and caught her to him. Last night-watch had not been spectacular, but in its manyfold ways it had been good, as liking deepened with intimacy. He was a little old for the spectacular, anyway.
VIII
Yewwl fared north from the house by Lake Roah in company, as befitted a ranking matron of the clan on her way to meet with her peers on the Volcano. She and certain of her retainers had been visiting her oldest son—he and his sister her last surviving children—and his family; they had discussed combining their ranches, now that her husband and youngsters were gone. He rode off at her side, followed by half a dozen of his own hands. His wife would manage the place in his absence . . . perhaps better than in his presence, Yewwl thought tartly, for Skogda was an over-impulsive sort.
Before leaving, they dispatched couriers to homesteads that were not too far off. These went afoot, or aglide when possible, faster than onsars. Yewwl’s party was mounted, since there was no point in arriving ahead of a quorum. Besides, it suited her dignity and she would need that at her goal, antagonistic to her as many of the Seekers were. Her route she laid out to pass by some more households, where she requested the heads to come along. All did. These stops were brief, and otherwise they made none, so progress was rapid. Eventually folk and onsars woul
d have to sleep, but they could keep moving without rest for most of a day or night, and often did.
Thus Yewwl came to the Volcano, in the ancient manner of her people. The Kulembarach dzai’h’ü—“clan,” humans called it, for lack of a better word that they could pronounce—was showing by the number of its representatives present that most of it would support her, once news of her intent had spread throughout the territory. That was to be expected. Not only were its members her kin, in various degrees; she took a foremost role, her opinions carried weight, in the yearly moot, when leaders of households gathered to discuss matters of mutual concern (and to trade, gossip, arrange marriages and private ventures, play games, revel, make Oneness). Moreover, two from different territories, Arachan and Raava, had joined the group.
This was important. The Lord of the Volcano could not act on behalf of the clans together, when just a single one had speakers present. But if Zh of Arachan and Ngaru of Raava raised no objection, he could, if he saw fit, accede to the wish of Kulembarach—in a matter like this, which presumably would involve no major commitment of everybody else.
Hard though the band traveled, day was drawing to an end when they reached the mountain. From the trail which wound up its flank, Yewwl saw far across the plain beneath, aglow in long red sun-rays. Clouds, banked murky toward the northeast, told of a storm that would arrive with the early dusk . . . but by then, she remembered, or soon after, she would be on the distant side of it, in lands where full night would have fallen . . . if she could carry out this first part of Banner’s enigmatic plan. . . .
Cold streamed downward from the snows which covered the upper half of Mount Gungnor, and which yearly lay thicker. Moltenness laired underneath; steam from fumaroles blew startlingly white against yellow evening overcast and black smoke from the crater. A stream flowed out of a place where melt water had formed a spring. It cascaded down the slopes in noise and spray. The Golden Tide colored it, and drifted in streamers on muttering breezes. Yewwl could smell and taste the pungency of the life-bestower on every breath; what weariness was in her dropped away.
Because of that potent substance, the lower sides of the mountain were not bare. Their darkness was crusted with color, tiny plants that etched a root-hold for themselves in the rock, and above them buzzed equally minute flying things, whose wings glittered. Yet those had become few, and Yewwl saw more brown patches, frost-killed, across the reaches than there had been when last she was here. Rounding a shoulder that had barred her view northward, she saw the Guardian range rearing over the horizon, and it shimmered blue with the Ice.
The same curve in the trail brought her out onto a plateau which jutted ledge-like from the steeps. This was her goal. A turf of low nullfire, lately gone sere, decked the top of it; hoofbeats, which had rung on the way up, now padded. Boldly near the precipice edge reared the hall that the clans had raised for the Lords of the Volcano to inhabit, in that wonderful age when the land suddenly redoubled its fertility and folk grew in number until they needed more than their kin-moots to maintain law. The building was of stone, long and broad, shale-roofed. Flanking the main door were six weather-worn statues, the Forebears of each clan. A seventh, spear in hand, faced outward at the end of the rows. It stood for the chosen family, bred out of all the clans, from which the successive Lords were elected. It stood armed, peering over the cliff, as though to keep ward against those little-known people, beyond the territories, whose ways were not the ways of the clans.
The Lord and his household lived by hunting, not ranching: for the country around the foot of the mountain was of course incredibly rich, or had been. However, just as had happened elsewhere, a small settlement of sedentary artisans had grown up. From one of the half-timbered cottages clustered nearby, Yewwl heard the clamor of iron being forged; from another came the hum of a loom-wheel; from a third drifted the acrid odors of tanning leather. These died out as persons grew aware of visitors and emerged to see.
Ere long someone also left a building which stood by itself at the far end of the plateau. It was oldest by centuries, much like the hall but the stone of it made smooth-edged, the carvings blurred, by untold rains, gritty winds, acid fumes—even in this thin air. Changeless, a great, faceted crystal caught the light where it was inset above the entrance. It proclaimed this a sanctuary of the College. Here, as in houses they owned elsewhere, the Seekers of Wisdom kept books, instruments, ceremonial gear, mysteries.
At first, those who stepped out, male and female, were those who lived there, together with their children. They numbered ten adults. Half were young, initiates studying for higher orders, meanwhile acting as caretakers, copyists, handlers of routine College business. The rest were aging; they lacked the gifts needed to attain an upper degree, and were resigned to that. Yewwl had no quarrel with any of these; in truth, she seldom encountered them.
But then a different figure trod from inside, male, clad throat to feet in a white apron, bearing a gilt harp under his left arm and a bronze chaplet on his brows. Across a kilometer, Yewwl knew him. Her vanes snapped wide. She bristled. A hiss went between her fangs.
Skogda brushed a vane of his across hers. The play beneath the skin said: I am with you, Mother, whatever may happen. What alarms you?
“Erannda,” she told him, and pointed her ears at the senior Seeker. “Ill luck that he’s not exacting hospitality from a homestead afar.” She willed the tension out of her muscles. “I’ll not let him check me. He’ll try, but he can’t sing away the truth.”
Inwardly, she wondered: Truth? I dare not speak truth myself, what little of it I grasp. To hear the real purpose of my mission would bewilder them utterly. The Lord would refuse to act, in a matter so weird and dangerous, without first holding a full assembly of clan-heads; and most of my own following would agree he was right.
By law and custom he would be, too. (Maybe the most baffling and disturbing thing about the star-folk is the way they submit their wills, their fates, to the will of others, whom they may never even have met. That is, if I have discerned what Banner has tried over the years to explain to me. Sometimes I have hoped I am mistaken about this.)
But by the time a full assembly can be gathered, it would be too late. Banner said we likeliest have less than a day to do what must be done . . . whatever that is, beyond my part in it. Else a wrong will happen, and the star-folk will not be able to drive the Ice back.
I do not understand, really. I can only keep faith with my oath-sister, who has asked for my help.
But Banner, will you help me in turn? I’ll need you to strengthen my wits against Erannda’s. Banner, send your voice back into my head. Soon. Please.
Meanwhile, she would not quail. “Come!” she cried, and her body added: Come in style! She straightened to present her jeweled leather breastplate. She displayed her vanes at full. She drew her knife and held the blade on high. Her foot-claws pricked the extensors of her onsar, and the gait of the beast became a rapid swing. Behind her, drawing haughtiness from her, thundered two score of householders and retainers.
The cottage dwellers stood humbly aside. Useful though they were, their sort could not claim the respect due a hunter, herder, or Seeker; for they did not kill their own food, nor did they range freely about.
Yewwl’s band drew rein outside the hall. Skogda winded the horn that announced their coming. Echoes flew shrill through the evening. It would have been improper for the Lord of the Volcano to come forth, as if out of curiosity, before he got such a call. Now he did. A scarlet cloth, wrapped around brow and neck, streamed down his front to the ground. He carried a spear, which he gravely dipped and left thrust in the turf, a sign of welcome.
His family and servants were at his back, less impressive. They were not numerous, either, for none but he, his wife, and their offspring dwelt here, together with servants. The rest of his kin were below the mountain, save for those who had chosen to join the College or to be adopted into a clan. They were the people from whom an assembly would choose his succe
ssor, after his death.
Yewwl thought the last election could well have gone differently. Wion was not the keenest-minded person alive. He did get good advice from his wife, better than from the College which was supposed to supply him with councillors. She was a female of Arrohdzaroch. But she could not sit beside him at the meeting. The ancestors had decided that the Lord of the Volcano must always be male, to counterbalance the preponderance of females who took the initiative in household and clan affairs.
Erannda was approaching. Yewwl dismounted. “May you ever be swift in the chase,” she greeted Wion formally. “We are come on behalf of many more, to lay for them and ourselves a demand upon your stewardship.”
Oil lamps brightened the meeting room in the hall, bringing frescos to vivid life. An iron stove at either end held outside chill at bay. Lamps, stoves, maps, medicines, windmills, printing, water-powered machinery . . . above all, knowledge of this world and its universe, and an eagerness to learn more . . . how much had the star-folk given!
Else the chamber was not changed from of old, nor were the procedures. Wion sat on a dais between carven beasts, confronting two rows of tiered benches for the visitors. Whoever would speak raised an arm, was recognized by the Lord of the Volcano, and stepped or glided down to stand before him. This being much less than a full assembly, everyone was close in and matters went faster than usual.
Yewwl addressed them: “I need not relate how cold, hunger, and suffering range across our country in advance of the Ice, and how these can but worsen, and most of us die, as it moves onward. We have talked of what we might do. Some would flee south, some would stay and become hunters entirely, some have still other ideas in pouch. But any such action will cost us heavily at best. Have we no better hope?
Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga Page 10