The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Keff, can we talk?" Carialle asked in his ear.

  "Not now, Cari," Keff muttered. "Is it an emergency?"

  "No. I wanted to discuss my findings of this evening with you."

  "Not now, please." Keff breathed out loud as Plenna ran her teeth along the tendon at the side of his neck.

  Crossly, Carialle gave him a burst of discordant noise in both aural implants. He winced slightly but refused to let her distract him from Plennafrey. His thumbs ran down into the young woman's bodice, brushed over hard nipples and soft, pliant flesh. He bent his head down to them.

  Plennafrey moaned softly. "Carialle won't watch us, will she?"

  "No," Keff said reassuringly. He bumped the control with his elbow and the cabin hatch slid aside. "Her domain ends at my door. Pray, lady, enter mine!"

  In the circle of his arm, Plenna tiptoed into Keff's cabin.

  "It is like you," she said. "Spare, neat, and very handsome. Oh, books!" She picked one off the small shelf by his bed and lightly fingered the pages. "Of course, I cannot read it." She glanced up at Keff with a bewitching dimple at the corner of her mouth. Her eye was caught by the works of art hanging on the walls. "Those are very good. Haunting. Who painted them?"

  "You're standing in her," Keff said, grinning. "Carialle is an artist."

  "She is wonderfully talented," Plenna said, with a decided nod. "But I like you better."

  There was only one answer Keff could give. He kissed her.

  * * *

  At the end of their lovemaking, Keff propped himself up on his elbow to admire Plennafrey. Her unbound hair tumbled around her white shoulders and breast like black lace.

  "You're so lovely," Keff said, toying with a stray strand. "I will feel half my heart wrenched away when I have to go."

  "But why should I not come with you to your world?" Plenna asked, her fingers tracing an intricate design on his forearm.

  "Because I'm in space eighty percent of my life," Keff said, "and when I'm planet-side I'm seldom near civilization. My usual job is first contact with alien species. It's very strange and full of so many dangers I couldn't even describe them all to you. You wouldn't be happy with the way I live."

  "But I am not happy here now," Plenna said plaintively, clasping her hands together in appeal. "If you take me with you, I would cede my claim of power to Brannel and keep my promise to him. There is nothing here to hold me; no family, no friends. I would be glad to learn about other people and other worlds."

  "Yes, but . . ."

  She touched his face, and her eyes searched his. "We suit one another, do we not?"

  "Yes, but . . ."

  She silenced him with a kiss.

  "Then please consider it," she said, cuddling into his arms. Keff crushed her close to him, lost in her scent, lost in her.

  * * *

  In the early morning hours, Carialle monitored her exterior movement sensors until she heard sounds of life from the marshy area downhill from her bluff. She let down her ramp and sent her two servo robots forth into the pink light of dawn. The boxy units disappeared through the break in the brush and over the edge of the ridge. Carialle, idly noting a half dozen spy-eyes hovering at a hundred meters distant, heard clunks and high-pitched squawking as they reached their goal. In a little while, the servos returned to view, herding before them a pair of globe-frogs. The amphibioids tried to signal their indignation, but had to keep paddling on the inside of their plastic spheres before the boxes bumped into them from behind. With some effort, the servos got their quarry up the ramp. Carialle shut the airlock door and pulled up her ramp behind them.

  As the frogs entered the main cabin, Carialle hooked into the IT, calling up all the examples of sign language that she and Keff had managed to record over the last few days.

  "Now, little friends," she said, "we're going to see if that sign you made was a fluke or not." She manifested the picture of another frog on the side screen at their level, like them but with enough differences of color and configuration to make sure they knew it was a stranger. "Let's chat."

  A few hours later, Keff's door opened, and the brawn emerged, yawning, wearing only uniform pants. Plenna, wrapped in his bathrobe, followed him, trailing a lazy finger down his neck.

  "Good morning, young lovers," Carialle said brightly. "We have guests."

  Red lights chased around the walls and formed an arrow pointing down at the two globe-frogs huddled together in the corner nearest the airlock corridor. Keff goggled.

  "But how did they get past Plenna's barrier? She told me she warded the area. Any intrusion should have set off an alarm."

  "We're protected against magic only," Plenna said, eyeing the marsh creatures with distaste. "Not vermin."

  "They aren't vermin and they're aware you don't like them," Carialle said indignantly. "We've been exchanging compliments."

  On her main screen she displayed an expanded image of the small creatures staring at a strange-looking frog on the wall.

  "That's my computer-generated envoy," Carialle explained. "Now, watch." The image made a gesture, to which the native creatures responded with a similar movement. As the complexity and number of signs increased, the frogs became excited, bumping into one another to respond to their imaginary host.

  Keff watched the data string, glancing once in a while at the frogs.

  "Monkey see monkey do," Keff said, shaking his head. "They observed the Ozrans making signs and copied them. This little performance is without meaning."

  "Beasts Blatisant," Carialle countered. Keff grimaced. "Keff, I didn't make a subjective judgment on the frequency and meaning of these symbols. Check IT's function log. Read the vocabulary list."

  When Keff lifted his eyes from the small readout screen, they were shining.

  "Who'd have thought it?" he said. "Cari, all praise to your sharp wits and powers of observation."

  Plennafrey had been listening carefully to the IT box's translation of Carialle's and Keff's conversation. She pointed to the frogs.

  "Do you mean they can talk?" she asked.

  "More than that," Keff said. "They may be the founders of your civilization." Plenna's jaw dropped open, and she stared at the two amphibioids. "Your belt buckle—may I borrow it?"

  The belt flew out of Keff's room and smacked into Plenna's hands. She started to extend it to him, then withdrew it. "What for?" she asked.

  "To see if they know what to do with it. Er, take it off the belt. It's too heavy for them." Obligingly, Plenna detached the buckle and handed it to him.

  Very slowly, Keff walked to where the frogs stood. They waited passively within their globes, kicking occasionally at the water to maintain their positions and watching him with their beady black eyes. Keff hunkered down and held out the buckle.

  Wearing a startled expression on its peaky face, the larger frog met his eyes. Immediately, the case opened, splitting into two halves, splashing water on the cabin floor, and the frog stretched out for the power item. Its skinny wrist terminated in a long, sensitively fingered hand which outspread was as large as Plennafrey's. The ends of the digits slid into the five apertures. There was a nearly audible click.

  "It is connected to the Core of Ozran," Plennafrey said softly.

  The water that had been inside the plastic ball gathered around the frog's body as if still held in place by the shell. Thus sheltered, the amphibioid rose on surprisingly long, skinny legs and made a tour of the cabin. Its small face was alive with wonder. Keff directed it to the astrogation tank showing the position of Ozran and its sun. The frog looked intelligently into the three-dimensional star map, and studied the surrounding control panels and keyboards. Then it returned to Keff.

  "Help us," it signaled.

  "You win, lady dear. Here're your Ancient Ones," Keff said, turning to Plennafrey with a flourish. "They were among you all the time." The young magiwoman swallowed.

  "I . . ." She seemed to have trouble getting the words out. "I do not think that I can respect frogs."


  * * *

  Chaumel was more philosophical when confronted by the facts.

  "I refuse to be surprised," he said, shaking his head. "All in the space of a day or so, my whole life is thrown into confusion. The fur-faces turn out to be our long-lost brothers and we have cousins in plenty among the stars ready to search us out. Some of them live inside boxes. Why should we not discover that the Ancient Ones exist under our noses in the swamps?"

  "Try talking to one of them," Keff urged him. Doubtfully, Chaumel looked at the three globe-frogs Keff and Plenna had brought to his stronghold. They were rolling around the great room, signing furiously to one another over an artifact or a piece of furniture.

  "Well . . ." Chaumel said, uneasily.

  "Go on," Keff said. With a few waves of his hands, Keff got their attention and signed to them to return to him. Once or twice the "courtiers" turned all the way over, trying to negotiate over the slick floor, but the biggest maintained admirable control of his sphere.

  After the initial attempts at communication, Keff had let Carialle's two subjects go, asking them to send back one of their leaders. Within an hour, a larger frog speckled with yellow to show its great age had come up the ramp, rolling inside a battered case. A pair of smaller, younger frogs, guards or attendants, hurtled up behind it. The first amphibioid rolled directly over to Plenna and demanded her belt buckle. For his imperious manner as well as his great size, Keff and Carialle had dubbed him the Frog Prince. From the two symbols with which he designated his name, Keff decided he was called something like Tall Eyebrow.

  "I'm sure it loses something in the translation," he explained.

  Chaumel knelt and made a few signs of polite greeting. He was unsure of himself at first, but grew enthusiastic when his courtesies were returned and expanded upon.

  "These are not trained creatures," he said with delight. "It really understands me."

  "Tall just said the same thing about you," Keff noted, amused.

  "It has feet. What are the globes for?"

  "Ozran used to have much higher humidity," Keff said. "The frogs' skins are delicate. The shells protect them from the dry air."

  "We cannot tell the other mages about them until we have negotiated the 'cease-fire,'" Chaumel told him seriously. "Already Nokias regrets that he said he will cooperate. He suspects Ferngal of sending those spy-eyes the other night and I have no reason to doubt him. If we present them with speaking animals who need bubbles to live, they will think we are mad, and the whole accord will fall apart."

  Neither Keff nor Carialle, listening through the implant contacts, argued the point.

  "It's too important to get them to stop using power," Keff said "It goes against my better judgment, but it'll help the frogs' case if we don't try to make the mages believe too many impossible things before breakfast."

  * * *

  During the successive weeks, the brawn and the two magifolk traveled to each mage's stronghold to convince him or her to join with them in the cause of environmental survival.

  Keff spent his free time, such as remained of it, divided between Plennafrey in the evenings and the frogs in the early morning. He had to learn another whole new language, but he had never been so happy. His linguistic skills were getting a good, solid workout. Carialle's memory banks began to fill with holos of gestures with different meanings and implications.

  Since the mages had always used the signs as sacred or magical communion, Keff had to begin all over again with the frogs on basic language principles. The mages had employed only a small quantity of gestures that had been gleaned from the Old Ones in their everyday lives, giving him a very limited working vocabulary. Chaumel knew only a few hundred signs, Plenna a few dozen. Keff used those to build toward scientific understanding.

  Mathematical principles were easy. These frogs were the five-hundredth generation since the life-form came to this world. That verified what Keff had been coming to believe, that none of the three dominant life-forms who occupied Ozran were native to it.

  Knowledge of their past had been handed down by rote through the generations. The frogs had manufactured the life-support bubbles with the aid of the one single item of power that remained to them. The other devices had all been borrowed, and then stolen by the Flat Ones, by whom Keff understood them to mean the Old Ones.

  For a change, IT was working as well as he had always hoped it would. An optical monitor fed the frogs' gestures into the computer, and the voice of IT repeated the meaning into Keff's implant and on a small speaker for the benefit of the others. Keff worked out a simple code for body language that IT used to transcribe the replies he spoke out loud. Having to act out his sentence after he said it made the going slow, but in no time he picked up more and more of the physical language so he could use it to converse directly.

  He was however surprised at how few frogs were willing to come forward to meet with the Ozrans and help bridge the language barrier. The Frog Prince assured him it was nothing personal; a matter of safety. After so many years, they found it difficult to trust any of the Big Folk. Keff understood perfectly what he meant. He was careful never to allude to the frogs when on any of his many visits to the mages' strongholds.

  * * *

  On his knees at the end of another dusty row of roots, Brannel observed Keff and Plennafrey returning to the silver ship. Scraping away at the base of a wilted plant as long as he dared, he waited for Keff to keep Carialle's promise and come get him. It seemed funny they couldn't see him, but perhaps they hadn't looked his way when he was standing up. He knew he could go up to the door and be admitted, but he was reluctant to do so until asked as they seemed disinterested in asking him. Weighing the question of waiting or not waiting, he pushed his gathering basket into the next row and started digging through the clay-thick soil for more of the woody vegetables.

  His thoughts were driven away by a stunning blow to the side of the head. Brannel fell to the earth in surprise. Alteis stood over him, waving a clump of roots from his basket, spraying dirt all over the place. Some of it was on Brannel's head. A female with light brown fur stood beside the old leader, her eyes flashing angrily.

  "You're in the wrong row, Brannel!" Alteis exclaimed. "This is Gonna's row. You should go that way." He pointed to the right and waited while Brannel picked up his gear and moved.

  "Your mind in the mountains?" Fralim chortled from his position across the field. What traces of long-term memory the others retained came from rote and repetition, and they had been witness to Brannel's peculiarities and ambitions since he was small. Everyone but his mother scorned the young male's hopes. "We saw the Mage Keff and the Magess Plennafrey fly into the tower. You planning to set yourself up with the mages?" He cackled.

  Another worker joined in with the same joke he had been using for twenty years. "Gonna shave your face and call yourself Mage, Brannel?'

  Brannel was stung. "If I do, I'll show you what power the overlords wield, Mogag," he said in a voice like a growl. Alteis walked up and slapped him in the head again.

  "Work!" the leader said. "The roots won't pull themselves."

  The others jeered. Brannel worked by himself until the sun was just a fingertip's width above the mountain rim at the edge of the valley. Any time, food would arrive, and he would be able to sneak away. Perhaps, if no one was looking, he might go now.

  It was his bad luck that Alteis and his strapping son were almost behind him. Fralim yanked him back by the collar and seat of his garment from the edge of the field, and plunked him sprawling into his half-worked row.

  "Stay away from that tower," Alteis ordered him. "You have duties to your own folk."

  Moments crept by like years. Brannel, fuming, finished his day's chores with the least possible grace. As soon as the magess kept her promise to teach him, he would never return to this place full of stupid people. He would study all day, and work great works of magic, like the ancestors and the Old Ones.

  At the end of the day, he hung b
ack from the crowd hurrying toward the newly materialized food. With Alteis busy doing something else, there was no one watching one discontented worker. Brannel sneaked away through the long shadows on the field and hurried up to the ship.

  As he reached the tall door, it slid upward to disgorge Magess Plennafrey and Keff on her floating chair.

  "Oh, Brannel!" Mage Keff said, surprised. "I'm glad you came up. I am sorry, but we've got to run now. Carialle will look after you, all right?" Before Brannel could tell him that nothing was "all right," the chair was already wafting them away. "See you later!" Keff called.

  Brannel watched them ascend into the sky, then made his way toward the heart of the tower.

  Inside, Magess Carialle was doing something with a trio of marsh creatures.

  "Oh, Brannel," she said, in an unconscious echo of Keff. "Welcome. Have you eaten yet?" A meal was bubbling in the small doorway even before he had stopped shaking his head. "I promised you a peep at the tapes. Will you sit down in the big chair? I've got to keep doing another job at the same time, but I can handle many tasks at once."

  Keff's big chair turned toward him and, at that direct invitation, Brannel came forward, only a little uneasy to be alone in the great silver cylinder without any other living beings. Marsh creatures didn't count, he thought, as he ate his dinner, and he wasn't sure what Carialle was.

  Though she didn't seem to eat, in deference to his appetite, Magess Carialle had prepared for him a meal twice the size of the one he had eaten last time. Each dish was satisfying and most delicious. With every bite he liked the thought less and less of returning to raw roots and grains. He was nearly finished eating when the big picture before him lit up and he found himself looking into the weird green face of an Old One. He stopped with a half-chewed mouthful.

  "Here's the first of the tapes, starting at the point we left off last time," Carialle's voice said.