“Nothing,” said Kaani. “Over time, another species will develop sufficient intelligence to use Manna. I’m sure humans will survive - many evolutionary dead-ends hang on for millions of years.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Seb, wondering if sarcasm was detectable. Kaani’s glare confirmed that it was.
“And Baiyaan?” he said.
“Exiled,” said Bok.
There was silence around the table now.
“Those in favor of Baiyaan’s actions. Vote.”
Baiyaan finally stirred, his long, thin fingers pointing up. Seb raised his hand. He looked around the table. No one else had moved.
After a few seconds, Baiyaan dropped his hand, and Seb did the same.
“Against Baiyaan. Vote.”
Kaani’s hand went up immediately. Bok, unhurried as always, raised his own giant hand next.
Everyone turned to look at Fypp.
Chapter 12
In the short time Seb had known her, Fypp had proven to be someone who seemed to revel in causing consternation, keen to provoke a reaction. Easily bored, playful, a trickster. Occasional flashes of information hinting at her real age and experience came from Seb’s interaction with her Manna, and it was a confusing picture.
After being asked to vote, she turned and stepped out of the cabin so that—so she claimed—she could “have a little think, away from you stiffs.” Colorful juggling balls appeared in her hands, and she spent a few minutes struggling to coordinate keeping all three moving. She squealed when she finally achieved it.
Seb heard an odd cracking sound from across the table. Kaani was grinding her teeth.
The surreality of the situation somehow made the importance of the decision for which they were all waiting seem less important. Seb slowly became aware that this was because he was feeling the effects of Fypp’s Manna more keenly than that of any of the other T’hn’uuth.
Fypp was a being of such power that Seb was only able to comprehend a fraction of the information her Manna provided. The sensation reminded Seb of a conversation with a guitarist he’d once listened to in a restaurant in Greece. Seb and Mee had both loved his playing, and had sat in on a couple of numbers, much to the guitarist’s pleasure. After the gig, they had spoken for a while in broken French, the only common language they could find, as neither Seb nor Mee spoke any Greek and the guitarist only knew a few English words. The experience had been frustrating and fascinating in equal measure. Seb had finally, triumphantly, turned to Mee and said,
“See? Musicians can communicate in any language. Anatol is just going to fetch a CD by his favorite songwriter for me.”
When, a few minutes later, Anatol had returned with a pair of socks and a cheese grater, Mee had laughed so hard, so long and so loudly that the owner of the restaurant had asked them to leave.
Seb wondered if the patchy communication he detected from Fypp was deliberate. How much could a being billions of years old have in common with its fellow T’hn’uuth, let alone him? For all he knew, he could be perceiving just the tiniest fraction of Fypp, the rest of her—dark, impenetrable, impossibly complex—forever beyond his comprehension.
Or she could just be senile, of course.
Fypp had mastered the art of juggling three balls now and was moving on to machetes. Five of them. Then seven. Soon the air was filled with gleaming metal, and Fypp’s hands and arms were a blur of speed.
“PLEASE.” The shout came from Kaani who was standing now. Fypp paid no attention for a few seconds, then threw each machete higher on her next round of juggling, until all of them were in the air far above her. Then she walked back to the cabin.
Seb watched the machetes fall. The first one hit the ground with a wholly unexpected slapping sound. Seb looked more closely at the silvery object on the floor, which was now jerking and twitching in a strangely familiar way. Within seconds, as all the other machetes hit the ground with a spattering reminiscent of fat raindrops on a tin roof, Seb saw they had turned into fish. Big, silver fish, as long as his arm, wriggling and gasping for a few seconds, then diving into the ground itself, which accepted them like liquid.
Fypp didn’t even turn to look at her creations, just jumped lightly into the room and regarded Kaani with a petulant expression.
“Don’t rush me,” she said. “I’d kinda hoped, during the seven thousand years since I last saw you, you might have learned a little patience.”
Kaani didn’t reply, just waited for Fypp to announce her decision.
“Well, okay,” she said. “But you won’t like it.”
Kaani half rose from her chair, shaking her head. Fypp winked at her.
“I abstain,” she said.
The sound that came from Kaani then was something truly alien and disquieting. Seb looked at the witch and was disturbed to see what could only be described as glitches in her appearance. The effect was similar to early experiments with inserting single frame advertisements into movies - where the word “Thirsty?” would show up for less than a twentieth of a second, followed a few seconds later by the words “Buy a Coke.” Only Kaani wasn’t promoting soda, she was—Seb guessed— letting glimpses of her true physical nature show.
He saw something that looked like a long purple rope, crackling with energy. Then it was gone, and Kaani’s hard, wizened face and body was back. Then it was the rope again, this time seeming to slide in and out of existence, shorter or longer each time. Then Seb felt Bok’s Manna interact with Kaani’s and she became the wrinkled, pointy-hatted crone again.
“You have been alone too long,” said Bok. “You forget yourself. You need to spend time around organic life again, leave your stellar explorations for a while.”
“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,” said Kaani, but her tone was more controlled, and her eyes were lowered.
Seb was fascinated by the implications of this meeting. Fypp had last seen Kaani seven thousand years ago? What did the T’hn’uuth spend their lives doing? Could a T’hn’uuth die in any other way than at the hands of its peers? How could a being as old as Kaani be so impatient? Could unimaginable longevity lead to a lack of empathy, rather than the opposite? Part of him wanted to spend time with these creatures, ask questions, find out where his own life might be heading. But he knew he was only half-accepted by the other T’hn’uuth. They had evolved, he had been created. He wondered if he would ever be able to fill the gaps in his knowledge. If he even wanted to. And, more importantly than any questions he might have, the fate of Baiyaan was hanging in the balance. Seemingly at the whim of Fypp, who, right at this moment, was picking her nose again.
“Fypp,” said Bok and his slow, deep, measured tones. If an iceberg could speak, it would sound like Bok. “Please vote.”
“I abstained,” said Fypp. “I’m not doing it just to make Kaani mad. Partly, I am, of course, but that’s not the only reason.”
She sighed, her head shaking slightly. The gesture made her look like an old woman until she tilted her head and blew a kiss at Seb. She came back to the table and sat down.
“I don’t want a boring argument about philosophy, theology, metaphysics or any of that crap, okay? Just want to get that straight before I start. Also, don’t interrupt. I’ve had far more intelligent, and surprising, conversations with myself than I’m ever going to get with you four. So shut up for a minute or two.”
She looked round the table. No one spoke.
“Good. There are civilizations where religion has flourished beyond the point at which the scientific method becomes prevalent, but they are rare indeed. I can only think of two hundred and thirty-four. Earth is the most fascinating because of the diversity. Somehow, this backwater has managed to spawn tens of thousands of religions. Most are variations on the biggies: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism. I’ve read their texts. Yada yada yada, boring, boring, boring. They write stuff down years after the event, get bits wrong, contradict themselves, then everyone ties themselves in knots trying to make it fit i
nto the same kind of logical framework they see in science. When it won’t, everybody gets upset. Predictable, stupid, blinkered. I wouldn’t have wasted five minutes on the humans if it weren’t for the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching.”
Seb spoke before thinking.
“The way that you can name is not the true way,” he said. “Or something like that.”
“No interruptions,” said Fypp, handing him a banana and crossing her arms. She waited until he started eating it before continuing.
“Still, the toddler is right,” she said. “Reality cannot be conceptualized. Only experienced. True, baseline, ground of everything Reality, that is. Not anything that humans, the Rozzers, the Gyeuk or even we, can grasp. If it can be named, it is not The Way.
“If you want to spend a few hundred thousand years pursuing the nature of reality, be my guest. But I can save you the trouble. I’ve done it. And every path leads to a paradox, a mystery, a riddle. A joke. So you either have to laugh, or go insane.”
She broke off for a moment to blow two pink gum bubbles, one out of each nostril. Instead of popping, they deflated rapidly and fell onto her face. Fypp made a loud snorting sound, and the two pink sticky threads disappeared into her nose.
“Or both,” she said. “So, here’s my problem. I have no desire to shake up the way the universe functions. The Rozzers have acted as creators and midwives for billions of years. Their methods work. Species come and go, but there is no wholesale mutual annihilation any more. Species that might lead us down that road are not allowed to come to maturity. The Rozzers have been doing this before even I became T’hn’uuth. I am disinclined to interfere.”
Seb could tell that Kaani was itching to speak, but—so far—had managed to stop herself. Fypp had noticed too, and was obviously enjoying Kaani’s discomfort.
“However,” said Fypp, “I think Baiyaan’s onto something here. When you take away the words and the concepts, humanity might, occasionally, be coming face to face with something we have yet to fully encounter. Baiyaan believes what he has seen on Earth will eventually transform the human race in a new way.”
Bok raised a hand like a nervous first-grader. Fypp nodded, and he spoke.
“This part of Baiyaan’s claims troubles me. It seems nebulous. I find the argument unconvincing. Where is the evidence? We are asked to change the way life develops because of…what? A feeling? An intimation which cannot be adequately expressed in concepts or words? I am sorry, but, despite my sympathy for Baiyaan’s undoubted sincerity, I cannot adopt this position. Our decisions must be empirical. I require facts, testing, evidence.”
Fypp smiled at this. “That’s always been your way, Bok. To be fair, it’s always been the way of the T’hn’uuth. We have the luxury of unlimited time in which to formulate opinions. But taking the long view sometimes prevents us seeing what’s under our own noses. We are becoming creatures who act in predictable ways, follow predictable patterns of behavior, just like the species from which we broke away when we evolved into T’hn’uuth. Did you know that some Hindu creation stories see reality as a dance?”
Bok shook his huge granite-like head.
“Well, my undoubtedly light-footed friend, there is more than one way to dance. And a dancer—of any ability—who loves their art will tell you that true dancing occurs not when she concentrates on the technical processes involved, but when she empties herself sufficiently that the dance comes into being through her. Each time as if it is the first.”
“We danced on my planet,” said Bok. “Our dances, as I recall, were quite unlike what you are describing.”
Seb tried to imagine the giant dancing. It was a struggle. Then he remembered that Bok had referred to his species of origin as water-dwellers. He might take on a very different aspect in his natural element.
“You sound as if your inclination is to vote with Baiyaan,” said Bok.
“Don’t mistake my research into the issues as bias,” said Fypp.
Bok’s expression was entirely unreadable, Kaani was outwardly calm, but her knuckles were white. Baiyaan was as enigmatically there as he always was, his Manna signature open, trusting. Detached. Seb, by contrast, felt sure his own confusion and fear on behalf of Baiyaan showed on his face, in his body language and was threaded through every Manna interaction he made. He knew this whole conversation was just a macro-level representation of a complex series of exchanges occurring between all of them simultaneously.
He felt a very strong urge for a big glass of neat single malt. Something peaty. Something that tasted of home. Something normal. A glass appeared in front of him. He didn’t pick it up.
Fypp spoke again.
“What is it the founders of these religions discovered, that cannot be put into words to enable others to easily follow them? Are they unsolvable puzzles because they are The Way, and The Way that can be named is not the true Way? It’s a paradox, a riddle.”
Fypp smiled at them. A big, impossible to fake, ain’t this fun? grin.
“I like it,” she said. “So how can I vote against Baiyaan?”
Seb found his voice. “Then will you vote for him?”
Fypp sat back and, reaching into the depths of her robes, produced a loop of string which she dangled from her fingers. She started to make a cat’s cradle. She tried to loop the end of the string over her pinky while grasping three strands in the middle. She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated. Suddenly, she pulled her hands apart, displaying what appeared to be, to Seb’s eyes at least, a knotted mess.
“How about that?” she said. “Oh, come on. It looks exactly like a Frutmurkle in its robes of office. Really? No one? I’m disappointed.”
“Well?” said Kaani.
Fypp bundled up the string and stuffed it up the sleeve of her robes.
“Nope,” she said, “I’m still abstaining. But there is a way to settle this.”
Chapter 13
As the sun rose and the heat began to beat against the empty landscape, Cley walked in the pitiless, blighted landscape of the Parched Land. He had been walking all night without pausing. He looked neither left nor right, putting one foot in front of the other as he headed in the direction of the Last Mountain. Sopharndi had pointed toward the mountain and gently moved Cley’s head until he was looking directly at it, before gently pushing him forward. So that was the direction he walked. It did not enter his mind that this was only time since he had started walking that his mother had allowed him to go somewhere without her. It did not occur to him that the water falling from Sopharndi’s eyes and sliding down her dark cheeks meant she was upset. He did not think of her as his mother. He did not think of her at all. He did not think. The Blanks were well named.
Within the first hour of his walk, the kind of vegetation with which Cley had been surrounded all of his life—lush, green and plentiful—had disappeared. Very little grew in its place. Here and there, pathetic-looking patches of gray and yellow scrub—just shades of blue in the light of the moons—provided some contrast with the grit of the dust under his feet.
Thirty minutes brought him to the first blacktree. Towering thirty feet above him, its slender trunk and short stumpy branches offered little shade from the relentless sun. The bark of the tree was smooth and incredibly hard. The People had learned long ago that no cutting edge they had yet devised could make any impression on a blacktree.
A strangled screaming sound came from the top of the tree, and Cley stopped walking for a moment. He looked up toward the sound and—instinctively shading his eyes against the sun—he made out the distinctive blunt head and streamlined body of a lekstrall. It was smoothing its feathers with its orange beak and eyeing Cley with curiosity. The Parched Lands offered little easy sustenance to the lekstralls. The bugs they lived on in the forests were plentiful and easy to find. Out here, their chances of survival were nearly as low as that of one of the People. As if this conclusion had suddenly become clear to the lekstrall, it took one last look at Cley b
efore launching itself from the branch. It spread its wide, brown wings, beating them rapidly at first, then slowing to a soar as it spiraled up within a thermal. When it was no more than a speck in the sky, it turned back toward home and the promise of an easy meal.
Cley watched it go, then resumed his journey. He was able to follow very simple instructions and this one had been simple enough. What he would do when he reached the mountain was unclear, but Cley had no capacity for speculation. He just walked.
Chapter 14
Tradition demanded that the People would gather on the second night after an adolescent left on his or her Journey. Music would be played, wine would be consumed, any challenges would be fought out in front of the fire. Sopharndi saw two long days stretching out in front of her. Two days of moving among those who had been her community for her whole life. Friends, family, rivals, enemies. Two days of sympathy, scorn, or pity. Her strength had limits.
Before dawn, she went Katela, her Second, a taciturn woman who had watched three children die in infancy before becoming a warrior.
All warriors lived in huts on the outermost fringes of the settlement, forming a protective circle. Each carefully situated hut had another two within sight and earshot. There had been no attack by any other tribe for over a generation, but the warriors knew better than to relax their vigilance. The settlement’s location, within a loop of the river, across from Canyon Plains, protected to the West by the Devil’s Teeth mountains and to the south by the Parched Land was an enviable one, and rival tribes would displace them, given the chance. Decades of peace had allowed them to flourish. More than half of the people’s children now lived past their first few years, and close proximity to the plains and the forest meant the People’s healers could easily find the roots, leaves, herbs and flowers they needed for their poultices and potions.
Sopharndi twitched back the hide hanging across the opening of Katela’s hut. Pre-dawn light fell into the interior, revealing her Second already sitting up and reaching for her spear. She squinted at Sopharndi for a moment, then placed the spear back on the hard dirt floor. She prodded a shape under the furs beside her and there was a groan. When there was no other result, she punched the shape, producing a yelp this time, followed by a pouting face.
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