by Ivan Cat
Tlalok reddened out the dissenting flickers in his pack and then they bowed, too. Arrou descended warily. The others made a clearing around the tree and he dropped into it, distrusting and unspeaking.
No-pacts did not know the way, Tlalok remembered. They were taken young. Stolen from Radiance. Orphaned by blank-one avarice. Fettered and stunted by blank-one oppression. Bonded by hideous obscenity to blank-ones. Enslaved and doomed to die without Pact, but made dependent on the very monsters who would kill them.
And now cast off like garbage.
At the whim of those same blank-ones. They had no heart, no shame. The no-pact would die. He did not know the way. Did not know the light. Could not shine the Clash of Radiance. No, his survival was impossible. He could not even feed himself when the island went dormant. This no-pact Arrou knew nothing of these things. The blank-one's gift of abandonment was not freedom. Without belonging and knowing, it was a sentence of unfulfilled death as surely as was enslavement at their hands.
What arrogant cruelty.
<
Truly, it would be easy to despise this stunted one—as it was easy for Tlalok to despise himself. <
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Tlalok's pack murmured dissent at the blasphemy.
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Jenette. That was a female blank-one name, Tlalok remembered. That would be the name of the one who had tried to speak with his pack. And Karr, that had to be the name of the male blank-one, the one who had taken the life of his beloved Lleeala. Tlalok rose from his bowed position to full height, which was much larger than Arrou, and rumbled, <
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Tlalok balked at the hated word. <
Arrou nodded sadly, blank-one fashion. <
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Arrou nodded again.
Tlalok hoped that he was making progress. He pursed alternating teeth in the age old gesture of unity—or conspiracy. <
<
"Urrrr!" More hated words. Domestics! Ferals! More blank-one lies. <
Arrou looked down. <
But Tlalok would not let Arrou off that easily. <
Arrou closed his eyes, shivering. Ghostly remembrances of the Clash of Radiance peeked from his glowbuds. <
<
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The pack shifted, ill at ease.
Leaning closer, Tlalok whispered, in the vile human tongue. "Arrou, Tlalok can help you. Tlalok knows you. Tlalok was once no-pact, a ... domestic." The despicable word seared his tongue, but he had to get through to Arrou. "Tlalok was just like you."
"Then Tlalok knows," Arrou said, meeting his gaze. "Choice made. Long ago."
Tlalok chuffed in frustration. This was the true horror of the blank-ones. With freedom in his teeth, Arrou chose to run back to his fetters. Arrou was powerless to do otherwise because he was force bonded to the blank-one female. The female would have to die—as Tlalok's blank-one had accidentally died—or Arrou would always spurn Tlalok's offer. And even if the blank-one female did die, then it would still not be over. With shame, Tlalok remembered his sorrow at the death of his blank-one. Tlalok remembered the suicidal mourning, the desire to wink out his Radiance, one glowbud at a time, until none remained and the shadow world took him. Only Lleeala had saved Tlalok from such a passing.
It was of no use. Tlalok was wasting his heartbeats. Tlalok had known it all along, but he had hoped....
Tlalok turned away, dismissive.
The rest of his pack followed his lead and headed for the jungle.
<
Tlalok stopped. <
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Tlalok became grim. <
Tlalok looked up at the sky. Soon the Burning Heart would be upon them. There would be many more Clashes of Radiance and many more Tears, and all because of the blank-ones.
<
And with that, his pack pulled paddleboards and larger boats from the undergrowth and, using the thrashings of a bush-peeper entwined in a vine ball to distract sharkworms, they paddled off to the southwest, away from the island that they had tried to tend and defend for so many years, toward the distant glow on the horizon.
XV
Pilot Academy transcript from visual recording, planet Solara, 6.17.3533.
Document status: CLASSIFIED.
File: Consecration.
(Lindal Karr, aged nineteen subjective years, marches up the aisle of the High Solaran Assembly Hall, Station 1, in geosynchronous orbit. Academy staff fill the low gravity seats on his right, Solaran planetary officials those on his left. Realistic effigies of his father and mother from the Planet of Industry sit in the front row. He spares them no glance; his duty precludes self-pity. Live-broadcast pickups follow his steps up to a broad stage. Lightning-troops in black and silver flank a robed figure in crimson and gold. Karr stops before the figure, his back to the assembly. A hush falls over the hall.)
High Praetor: Citizen Solarans, this day we gather to confirm a new Pilot on the path of High Duty and Destiny, and to affirm our personal dedication to the Spread of Humanity, as manifest in the candidate before us. (Places his hand on Karr's shoulder.) The candidate is ready?
Karr: Yes.
High Praetor: Then repeat after me. I, Lindal Karr....
Karr: I, Lindal Karr....
High Praetor: Being of sound will and focused mind....
Karr: Being of sound will and focused mind... do solemnly swear... to execute my Duty... to safeguard my fugueship ... without question or reservation ... to the fullest of my abilities... and obeying no other authority other than Duty ... forsaking all other concerns, personal, professional, or moral....
High Praetor: As long as you both shall live.
Karr: As long as we both shall live.
(A golden lanyard hangs over Karr's shoulder. A tiny, dingy sphere—a miniature representation of the Planet of Industry—dangles from the end. The High Praetor severs the cord with a ceremonial dagger and seals the miniature world in a tiny box. He gives it to Karr, a symbol of what is lost and what is gained.)
High Praetor: So it is spoken, so it shall be done.
(At a motion from the Praetor, Major Vidun and Dr. Uttz flank Karr. They pin shooting-star badges to his epaulets.) Pilot Lindal Karr, having graduated the Pilot Academy at Solara with high honors, I present to you the fugueship—Long Reach! (A panel slides back revealing the void outside. Long Reach hangs above Solara's tan and gray continents. Karr steps up to the window. From this moment on he belongs only to the ship. He has left the sphere of human concern behind. The fugueship is his ticket out and he cannot wait to leave.)
The lifter flew through a blanket of still, hot fog. The only clue to the orbiter's motion was the scrolling of things across the ocean below—things Karr did not want to look at.
"Does this planet have sea serpents?" he asked.
"No," Jene
tte said from her perch back on the crawler, where she had been brooding all morning. "No animal forms larger than Khafra."
Karr slowed the lifter as a sinuous shape appeared out of the mist ahead, floating in the mirror-like water. It was a few yards thick, charred and knobbly on one side and fleshy pink on the other. They were nearing the location where his ship must have impacted. A lump grew in Karr's throat and he sped up again.
The smothering humidity stuck Karr's uniform to his neck, but that wasn't the only unpleasant atmosphere that morning. A sharp smack resounded behind Karr as Jenette drove a petite fist into the palm of a petite hand, yet again. It wasn't hard for Karr to guess what she was sulking about.
"It's your own fault," he observed.
"I gave him his freedom," Jenette retorted.
Karr tried to focus on his memory of Arrou waving pathetically for them to come back, and not the fleshy shapes in the water. "He didn't seem very happy about it."
"Well, at least he'll be alive, won't he?"
"I don't understand."
"Of course not," Jenette sneered. "You're an outworlder. How could you understand?"
The lifter passed over another long strip of flesh.
"What's eating you anyway?" Karr complained. "You made a choice. Live with it."
"What's eating me?" Jenette repeated. "That's funny. Wouldn't you like to know—Mr. Blood and Guts?"
"I acted as required," Karr said, with an accusing look back. "The actions of certain individuals forced my hand."
"Your hand seemed happy enough pulling the trigger on your fancy gun."
"You would rather have been torn limb from limb?"
"That's not the point and you know it."
"In the future, leave me out of any misguided, suicidal plans that you might come up with, okay?"
Jenette's expression soured even further and she tugged guiltily at the fastenings to her boots. Then she pounded her fists, again. "This planet is such a hellhole!"
Karr didn't understand the woman at all. The New Ascension climate was well within tolerable norms, if a bit warm, and the colors of the local sky and flora were pleasing, unlike some of the nerve-jangling worlds he had seen. Ferals aside, it seemed like a nice place for habitation. "I would have planted a colony here," he decided.
"And you would have been in error," Jenette retorted, "because that's how the original Pilots and colonists thought and they were all wrong. They didn't know anything about Scourge and not in their wildest nightmares did they even imagine Sacrament—but now we know and it's too late to change our minds, too late for us and too late for the Khafra!"
Jenette had been tight-lipped all morning, so her tirade caught Karr's attention, and one word in particular stood out. Just the way she said it sent chills down Karr's neck. Scourge. Visions of dead planets popped into his head: war worlds, famine worlds, disaster worlds, ghost worlds. Karr and Long Reach had planted them all— and then listened to the pathetic transmissions pleading for evac. Evac that could not come. With a sinking feeling, Karr realized where he was.
"This is a plague world...."
Jenette would not meet his eyes, which was all the answer he needed, but she vindictively filled him in on all the details.
"Scourge. Chorea vermiculoum. It's a living pathogen, microscopic worms." She shivered. "There is a different substrain for every living thing on this planet: plants, animals, sea creatures, even us. Our scientists think the strain that attacks humans is a mutation of the strain found in Khafra. And it's the reason why there are no sea serpents, by the way; no creature larger than Khafra has evolved biological strategies to deal with Scourge." Jenette outlined how Ferals formed into pair bonds to exchange immune venom and how humans had short-circuited that relationship to extend their own survival.
"Pathogens, microscopic worms," Karr repeated. "How do I get off this planet?"
"That's what I've been asking myself for twenty-three years!"
Jenette's teenage body slumped, defeatedly. "But you don't have to worry. You're a Pilot."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Scourge doesn't like fugue," Jenette explained. "No one died in the first six months after planetfall. Until then we still had traces of fugue in our bodies from transit."
It made awful sense to Karr. Fugue was an extremely potent immune substance. Scourge would probably still infect Karr, but fugue would suspend its life functions before it could do him any harm. And, thanks to his Pilot's regimen of dosing up, Karr had thousands of times more fugue in his bloodstream than any ex-dreamer colonists. More than enough to last a lifetime, he guessed. "So you and Arrou were due for your, what did you call it, Sacrament?"
Jenette nodded, looking very sad. "He's my best friend. I couldn't let him die. That's why I tried to speak to the Ferals last night. I wanted to find a way to make peace between humans and Ferals, to stop the fighting and work together to find a cure. I don't expect you to understand, but that's why it happened. We're desperate here and that was my desperate attempt at a solution." Jenette sniffled. "You're right, it was all my fault. I'm really sorry how it worked out." Guilt-ridden, she stared into the fog. "As you saw, it was an abysmal failure. They didn't want to talk peace. And I hardly blame them, after all the Ferals humans have killed. Why would they want to talk to me?"
Karr sighed, beginning to grasp the reasons behind the fiery woman's actions. "I don't think the Ferals understood. Did you note how their light patterns change when they talk?
"Of course."
"Is it language?"
"Yes," Jenette said, a bit defensively. "Khafra language has two components, verbal and visual."
"Then I don't follow," said Karr. "Seems like trying to communicate with the verbal components only is like trying to write a message but leaving out every second word."
Jenette considered. "I never thought of it that way. I always assumed the two aspects of Khafra language overlapped enough so that one part could be understood without the other. But I guess I was wrong." She smiled sadly. "I don't suppose you can make me grow flashbuds or turn me into a Feral?"
Karr couldn't laugh. "I'm a Pilot, not a magician."
They continued flying in silence. Karr wished the oppressive fog would close in entirely so that he would not have to watch the ominous shapes in the water below.
The paddleboard was tippy on the wide ocean rollers, but every stroke brought Arrou closer to Jenette and that was all that mattered. He murmured a rhyme she had taught him, to keep time.
"Fatty Feral, puff, puff, puffs,
"Fatty eats, he snuff, snuff, snuffs,
"Fatty hunts, he roar, roar, roars,
"Fatty sleeps, he snore, snore, snores."
Arrou had been very upset when Jenette left in the heavy lifter. It had been hard for him to think. He had wanted to jump into the water thick with sharkworms and swim after her. Crazy thoughts. Luckily, Tlalok had been there. Tlalok made Arrou think about many important things. Ending Sacrament was important. The coming of the Burning Heart was important. Tlalok's offer was important—it had been very hard to turn down: the wonderful Radiance, to live a long time.... Arrou shook the memory out of his head. It was no use to fill your heart with wishes you couldn't have.
Jenette was most important.
And Karr was important, too, Arrou determined in an afterthought, because Karr had taken Jenette away from him. Jenette would never leave unless Karr made her. That was clear to Arrou. He would do anything for Jenette, and he knew Jenette felt the same way. Jenette had taken him and cared for him when he was small and none of the other humans wanted a domestic with a broken paw, and when he had been the last one in the lonely domestic nursery, she had snuck him into her room where he hid under the covers. Later, where her father found out and punished her, Jenette had slept in the nursery with Arrou, both of them curled in the straw, safe and snug. Now Jenette was risking her life to propose peace with the Ferals and try to end Sacrament. Arrou knew it was because of him, even though Jen
ette thought she kept that a secret.
It was unthinkable that Jenette would leave Arrou.
It had to be Karr's fault.
Too bad. Arrou was just beginning to like Karr and he might still have given Karr the benefit of the doubt, but Jenette always told Arrou that humans who broke their promises were bad and Karr had definitely promised to teach Arrou to fly—and had not— which made Karr bad and made Arrou doubly angry with him.
Urrr.
Too many bad thoughts. Arrou lost his paddling rhythm.
Dark thoughts were not typical for Arrou, and he didn't like them. There was always something to be dark about, he knew. It was better to be happy, even if you had to work at it. So he concentrated on paddling and getting rid of the bad thoughts.
Fortunately, the paddleboard itself made Arrou feel better. Arrou had made it all by himself and he was quite pleased with it. The boards Arrou saw Tlalok's Ferals use had not been made out of bodybag pods like in the human documentary. They were made out of layered sailtree leaves. After a little trial and error, Arrou had succeeded in pressing two living leaves together and stimulating their growth with his immune venom. Injections at key spots cause them to bind together. More venom injected at the stems caused the leaves to harden as he pressed against them, forming a shallow boat in the shape of his body. By dawn Arrou had snipped the cured hull free (careful not to damage the living tree it came off of) and trimmed the edges with his teeth. By mid-morning he had a working paddleboard.
It took a few hours to get the handle of paddling, but a little after noon, and with the help of the rhyme, Arrou was going quite fast. He got bored with the first four lines of the rhyme soon, so he experimented making up new ones.
"Fatty wants, he try, try, tries,
"Fatty dreams, he sigh, sigh, sighs,
"Fatty weeps, he cry, cry, cries,
"Fatty fights, he die, die, dies."
Arrou didn't like that batch of lines. They were too dark. And they didn't all end in sounds. The rules were that the lines had to end in sounds, but it was hard for Arrou to think of better rhymes because human words were hard to rhyme. In the end he settled for timing his strokes by humming the rhythm without words.