by Allen Steele
Kyra and Sandy saw them almost the same moment Sean did, and Sandy yelped in alarm before Sean was able to stop her. “Quiet!” he snapped, raising a hand to shush her. “Just be calm. They may not mean us any harm.” But it was hard to miss the fact that the creatures riding in the middle of each boat held javelin-like weapons, or that it looked as if they were ready to hurl them at the slightest provocation.
Another sound brought his attention back to the village. Other creatures were coming out of the mounds. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, swarmed from the holes along the ramps, moving quickly upon four legs; the purpose of the strange steps he’d noticed earlier was now apparent. Many of them carried the same weapons as those on the boats, and as they rushed toward the wharf, the staccato clicking of their jaws filled the humid air.
“This is impossible.” Kyra’s voice was low, and her eyes were wide, but she didn’t seem to be afraid as much as fascinated.
Sean glanced at her. “Why? Because this place is inhabited?”
“No.” Staring at the creatures, she shook her head. “I recognize these things . . . and they’re supposed to be extinct.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
ANDROMEDA TURNED TO SEE A HJADD STANDING BEHIND HER.
Resembling a shell-less tortoise standing upright on its hind legs, heshe wore a togalike outfit embroidered with intricate designs and a translator disk suspended by a slender chain from around hisher long neck. The hjadd wasn’t wearing any breathing apparatus, though, and it wasn’t until Andromeda caught her faint reflection from a transparent pane between them that she realized heshe was standing inside an enclosed booth.
“Greetings, Captain Carson.” The hjadd raised hisher left hand, six webbed fingers spread apart. As heshe spoke, the croaks, grunts, and whistles of hisher natural voice emerged from the translator as a gender-neutral, Anglo-speaking human voice. “Many apologies if I have startled you. It was not my intent to do so.”
The hell it wasn’t, Andromeda thought. The hjadd had a tendency to sneak up on people unannounced. But she forced a smile as she raised her own left hand. “Not a bit . . . just a little surprised, that’s all.”
A long, stuttering hiss from the lipless beak that Andromeda recognized as the hjadd equivalent of laughter. “Then you will forgive me for making an unexpected appearance,” heshe said. “I arrived just a little while before you did.” The hjadd gestured to the transparent barrier between them. “It gave our hosts time to provide this enclosure so that I would not have to wear an environment suit as my people do when visiting your world. The danui are inscrutable, but they are also capable of common courtesy.”
“If you say so.” Andromeda dropped her pack to the platform floor, then stepped a little closer to the booth. “I was under the impression that we were going to be meeting one of them. Instead . . .”
“Instead, you found me.” One of hisher heavy-lidded eyes winked at her. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sashatasma Jahd Sa-Fhadda, and I am my people’s Prime Emissary to tanaash-haq . You may call me Jahd.”
Andromeda started to nod; remembering that the gesture had an opposite meaning for the hjadd, she stopped herself. “Obviously, you already know who I am,” she said, and Jahd’s head swung back and forth upon hisher neck. She turned to D’Anguilo and Zeus. “Then let me introduce my companions. This is . . .”
“Dr. Thomas D’Anguilo, formerly of the University of New Florida and currently an executive vice president of Janus, and Zeus Brandt, your chief petty officer.” Again, the sibilant hiss. “There is little we do not know about your ship or its crew and passengers, Captain. In fact, we have been closely monitoring your mission ever since you entered this system.” Independent of each other, Jhad’s eyes swung toward D’Anguilo and Zeus. “Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to meet you both.”
“Likewise,” Zeus said quietly, his tone distrustful.
D’Anguilo tactfully cleared his throat. “The message sent to us . . . Captain Carson, I mean . . . led us to believe that we would be meeting with the danui. Why are you here? Are the danui coming, too?”
The serrated fin on the back of Jahd’s head lifted slightly; a sign of agitation, if Andromeda’s knowledge of hjadd emotional responses was correct. “The danui will not be attending. They have asked my people to act as intermediaries between your race and them, at least for the time being. Whether or not they will allow you to meet with one of their representatives will depend on the outcome of this meeting.”
“Of course. I understand.” D’Anguilo shared a glance with Andromeda. “The danui do have a certain reputation for shyness.”
Andromeda wasn’t satisfied. “When my ship entered this system and approached Hex . . . tanaash-haq, that is . . .”
“Tanaash—haq is what we call this world, just as Hex is what you have come to call it.” Again, Jahd’s head went back and forth. “Every race here has its own name for this place.”
“Whatever you say.” Andromeda impatiently shook her head, not caring how the Prime Emissary interpreted the gesture. “Our first attempts to make contact were ignored, and subsequent attempts were met with text messages in your language. Are you saying that you’ve been . . . ah, intermediaries . . . all along?”
“The danui asked us to speak with you because our race has the longest history of communication with your own.” Jahd’s head rose a little higher upon hisher neck. “You probably would not have learned about this place for quite some time had it not been for the nord. They told your people about tanaash-haq before the danui were ready to reveal it themselves. That is unfortunate, but when the danui found out that it had happened, their emissary to the Talus requested that we act as . . . ‘go-betweens,’ as I understand your term for our role.”
“So why all the mystery?” Andromeda asked. “Why not simply tell us what we’d find when we got here and what we should expect?”
“The danui have their reasons,” Jahd said. “You’ll learn them soon enough . . . if they want you to do so.”
“But why . . . ?”
Another hiss. “So many questions, Captain . . . and yet you fail to ask the most obvious one.” Jahd raised hisher left hand again, this time to beckon toward the broad window at the edge of the platform. “What is this place, and why were you directed to come here? I would think you would want to know that.”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell us,” Zeus said dryly.
The fin rose again. “So I shall,” Jahd replied, hisher left eye flickering toward him, “but you first must learn the history of tanaash-haq.”
Heshe turned toward the window. “Hex is very old,” heshe continued. “By your reckoning, the danui started building it nearly five thousand years ago, after a natural calamity occurred within their solar system. The orbit of its outermost planet became unstable because of the close passage of a transient body . . . a rogue planet that briefly entered the system from interstellar space . . . and began to spiral inward toward its sun. The transient is long gone, but the destabilized planet is still here.”
“The gas giant in close orbit around the sun,” D’Anguilo said.
Jahd’s head made a sideways movement. “That is correct. Its inward migration began tens of thousands of years ago and was detected early by ancient danui astronomers. The danui are an old and wise race . . . one of the oldest and wisest in the galaxy . . . and they quickly realized that, as this outer planet began to move through the system, it would perturb the orbits of the inner planets, including their own. In time, massive climate changes would render their world uninhabitable, and their race would perish.”
“So why didn’t they just move?” Andromeda asked. “Or maybe they didn’t know how to build starships,” she added, trying to answer her own question.
“When the crisis began, the danui had not yet achieved the technology for interstellar travel. Even if they had, it would not have made any difference. The nearest system with a planet habitable by their species is almost a hundred light-years away . . . and their
s was a large race even then, with a population of over seven billion. They could not relocate, and so they were forced to seek another solution.”
Jahd raised his hand toward the vast array of hexagons visible through the window. “This is it . . . tanaash-haq, an effort to which the entire danui race committed itself. For more than five thousand years, they have been creating a new world from the remains of their old one and its neighbors.”
“The entire race?” Andromeda stared at the emissary. “They all worked on this?”
“They have a reputation as engineers . . .” D’Anguilo began.
“They are superlative engineers, yes,” Jahd said. “Yet they also have an interesting cultural trait. Although they are reclusive and frequently uncommunicative, they are also capable of focusing their attention completely upon one particular problem, working on it obsessively until they achieve a solution.”
“We have something like that in our own race,” D’Anguilo said. “We call it Asperger’s syndrome. Among our kind, it’s usually considered an affliction.”
Once again, the stuttering hiss of hjadd laughter. “For the danui, this same trait was important to their survival. No one knows exactly how they achieved this, for the danui have kept their technological secrets to themselves; but the fact remains that their entire race worked in concert for millennia to construct a world that could survive the destabilization of their solar system. Indeed, their efforts continue to this day.”
“Hex isn’t finished yet?” Zeus asked.
Jahd didn’t look at him, but instead continued to gaze through the window. “Nothing as vast as this could ever be finished. Many of the hexagons are mere shells, built for the sole purpose of maintaining structural integrity. Others are complete habitats, but as yet unoccupied. Like your own habitat, they await the arrival of races who do not yet know about this world.”
“We’ve been wondering about that,” Andromeda said. “Our habitat looks very much like Coyote. It has many of the same plants and animals. Did you . . . the hjadd, I mean . . . have a hand in this?”
“We did, yes.” Jahd turned away from the window. “Shortly after your race made contact with my own, the danui asked us whether we thought humankind might be suitable candidates for a colony here. By then, we had begun trading with your race and discovered that your people have a certain promise. We told the danui that your kind were potential colonists, and so they asked us to quietly collect specimens of your plant and animal life so that a habitat could be prepared for your eventual arrival.” One of hisher eyes twitched toward her. “The nord let you know about tanaash-haq before we or the danui had a chance to do so, but that is of little consequence. Your habitat was finished by then.”
“I see.” Andromeda thought about it for a moment. “So the things we were asked to bring with us? Crops, seeds . . . ?”
“Not for their consumption, but for your own,” Jahd said. “There are six modules in your habitat—you call them biopods—five of which are habitable. Only the one you have visited so far is complete. The others have yet to be thoroughly planted. Those you will need to finish yourselves.”
“What about the sixth?”
“A biogenesis module, meant for creation and reclamation of natural resources . . . atmosphere, water, soil, and so forth. As in all of the habitats, nothing is allowed to go to waste. Microassemblers in the soil constantly break down dead organic matter and other waste material and transfer it via underground arteries to the biogenesis module, where it is restructured as usable material.”
“I’d love to see that,” D’Anguilo said.
“Unfortunately, you may not. One of the conditions that the danui impose upon their guests is that we refrain from trying to enter or explore those modules. Like their engineering secrets, they do not wish to share their knowledge of ecopoiesis.”
“Eco . . . what?” Zeus asked.
“Ecopoiesis.” D’Anguilo glanced over his shoulder at him. “The transformation of dead worlds into living ones. Terraforming, in other words.” He looked at Andromeda. “I was right. Hex is a geophysical superintelligence . . . a big smart object, to use an old term.”
“I’m sure you’re dying to tell us what you mean by that,” Andromeda said.
Zeus snorted behind his hand, and even Jahd responded by raising hisher fin, but D’Anguilo seemed oblivious to her sarcasm. “It comes from twentieth-century science fiction. ‘Big dumb objects’ . . . alien structures found in space that don’t seem to have any immediate use or purpose.” He nodded toward the window. “Hex is sort of like that, only it’s not dumb. There’s an intelligence behind it, and a purpose.”
“You are correct, Dr. D’Anguilo.” Jahd’s head moved back and forth in an affirmative. “In many ways, tanaash-haq is as much a living organism as you or me. Its habitats could be considered to be akin to individual cells, functional on their own yet necessarily supported by those around them. Just as our bodily functions . . . respiration, circulation, and so forth . . . are not the result of conscious, deliberate actions, so Hex maintains itself.”
“And its purpose?” Andromeda asked. “I understand that the danui built this place to preserve their own race. But why are all the others races here, too?”
Another hiss. “The danui will have to explain that to you themselves, once you are allowed to meet them.”
“So I take it that they’re going to let us do that?”
“They will . . . but first, they wanted me to show you this place.” Jahd’s eyes swiveled toward the window. “As an object lesson, so to speak.”
Heshe pointed toward the empty space beyond the window. “This was once occupied by the morath habitat. Like yourselves, the morath were invited to establish a colony on tanaash-haq, under the terms imposed by the danui. One of those stipulations is that the races here must respect the right of others to live in peace, without fear of hostile actions from their neighbors. That is one of the reasons why no weapons may be brought to tanaash-haq, although some races are allowed to fashion their own for the purpose of hunting native animals within their own habitats.”
“That must have been difficult for the morath,” D’Anguilo said. “They’re not known to be a pleasant people.”
Andromeda nodded. She had never been to the morath homeworld, located in the HD130322 system, but a fellow merchant marine captain who had traveled there had once told her that the natives were suspicious of outsiders, even those with whom they regularly traded. They were one of the few races in the Talus that had not embraced Sa’Tong, and it showed in their behavior.
Jahd’s fin lifted slightly. “No, they are not. Nevertheless, they are a starfaring race, and so the danui wanted to establish relations with them by letting them settle here. That was a mistake. Not long after they came to tanaash-haq, the morath learned that one of the adjacent hexagons was inhabited by the kua’tah, a race whom they disliked and distrusted. This was not an acceptable situation, so they decided to launch an invasion of the kua’tah habitat.”
“Why?” D’Anguilo’s eyes widened. “I mean, it’s not as if there’s not enough room here for everyone.”
Jahd’s right eye turned toward him. “You are correct, Dr. D’Anguilo. There was no reason for the morath to want to take control of the kua’tah habitat except that they did not like the notion of a rival living so close to them. They fashioned weapons from the native materials of their habitat and made plans to use the transportation system as a means of laying siege upon the kua’tah. Before they could accomplish this, the danui learned of their intentions and settled the issue themselves.”
Jahd extended a hand toward the tram platform beside them. “This node once led to the morath habitat.” Heshe then turned toward the window. “As you can plainly see, there is nothing here. All six of their modules were jettisoned by the danui, without warning or chance for appeal.”
Andromeda stared at the emissary, not knowing what to say. D’Anguilo was at a loss for words as well; his mouth hung open i
n shock. Only Zeus was able to speak. “How many people . . . I mean, morath . . . lived here?”
“Nearly a million.”
“How many survived?”
“Only those few aboard a ship that was docked within this node at the time. The danui ordered it to leave at once, and the morath vessel was allowed to remain in orbit above tanaash-haq so that its crew might observe the modules as they fell into the sun.”
Andromeda felt horror grip at her heart. “The danui jettisoned the habitat toward the sun?”
“Yes.” Jahd’s fin rose to its full height as heshe turned to look straight at her. “It took nearly three months for the modules to complete their fall, but their inhabitants perished before then. My people dispatched one of our own vessels to witness the end of the morath colony, and we listened to their radio transmissions until we could hear them no more.”
“And you did nothing to save them?”
“No.” Jahd’s head bobbed up and down on hisher neck. “The danui would not allow it even though many races . . . my own among them . . . offered to come to their rescue. The danui wanted the destruction of the morath habitat to serve as an example to any other race that might consider making war upon its neighbors.” Heshe paused. “Theirs was a horrible death that no one here has ever forgotten.”
Andromeda suddenly understood. “That’s why the danui asked us to come here,” she said quietly. “They want us to see what happens to guests who disobey their rules.”
“Yes.” Jahd’s fin lowered back against hisher head. “Although your race has had a peaceful coexistence with the other Talus races, we are aware that humans have a long and violent past. So you should know that, if you accept the danui’s invitation to settle here, you must respect their mandate that all of this world’s inhabitants must live together in peace, and that if you don’t . . .”