Marooned on Eden

by Robert L. Forward

  "And a terrific place to sleep!" Carmen purred, and curled even more tightly into her own nest.

  DISTURBING

  I was feeling most upset. Until now, the season had been progressing smoothly. The jookeejook were safe in their pens and loaded with ripe fruit, the thook barrier around the tribal compound was thick and tightly sprung, and everyone in the tribe was contentedly busy with their carving, or weaving, or teaching the children how to pict and view and hunt. Even the Toojook tribe on the northern part of the island had been keeping their distance. But now, intruders were disturbing my people's territory—and one of my eyes was late . . .

  The mi-day darkness was fast approaching. All my eyes but one were back in their nests tucked underneath my fronds, feeding me the views they had gathered, while their tired bodies in turn rested and fed on the nourishment teats inside the nests. When the darkness came and my last eye had not yet returned, I was forced to realize that it had been lost. I activated a replacement nest, but it would be many days before I would have my full complement of six again. With darkness upon me, and new views to add to my worldview, I put away the sharp blackglass knife I had been using to cut a notch around one end of a log for a fishing raft I had been making, closed up my fronds, and retired into my mind to contemplate my worldview with its now disturbing features.

  As any tribal chief should do, I first viewed the periphery of the thook barrier around the tribal compound. All was secure. I replayed the exits and entrances of the members of the tribe through the three gates. All were now safe inside the barrier except the two young stronglimbs, Beefoof and Haasee, who had taken their fishing nets east to Sulphur Lake some days ago. They had been successful, for already some of their gatherers had returned with armloads of fish wrapped in watersoaked peethoo leaves, then had scampered off again to Sulphur Lake for more. Watching the view of the fresh fish being brought in reminded me that I was hungry, and I sent one of my gatherers off to the tribal fishtank for my midday meal.

  I continued my viewing, going in the general direction of the southern beach. Something flickered near the base of a tall boobaa tree as I viewed past. I returned my view to the boobaa tree and looked carefully all the way around it in an old view. Despite being alone, without the protective help of others of its kind surrounding it, the tree was doing well. I would need, however, to send someone to prune back the choker vines climbing the trunk. Up under the fronds at the top of the tall smooth trunk were a number of boobaa fruits, slowly ripening. I switched to a later view, and the fruits were gone!

  Down at the bottom of the tree, one of my eyes had recorded a view that showed a strange creature picking up the boobaa fruits that were now lying on the ground. The later views showed nothing, neither creature nor fruit—both had disappeared in an instant. Amazed, I stepped the worldview backward in time until I found the one glance from the eye that had contained the view of the strange intruder.

  The creature had only four limbs, and its fronds, instead of being long, blue-green leaves branching up into a decent canopy, were short, curly brown threads drooping down over a bulbous swelling at the top of the trunk. Two of its eyes were in their nests, with the rest out probably gathering views, although I couldn't see the empty nests—most likely hidden under the drooping brown canopy. The mouth opening was in a strange place. Instead of being low on the trunk where the gatherers could get to it, it was up near the eye-nests above a constriction in the trunk.

  The most amazing part of the view was that the strange creature, instead of standing on three limbs and picking up the boobaa fruit with its fourth limb, was balanced on only two limbs, while using the other two limbs to pick up fruit. I half expected to see in the next view that the creature had fallen flat on its mouth, but the next view showed nothing, for my eye had flown past. Now severely disturbed, I went on through my worldview, erasing old views, condensing multiple views of stationary scenes, and updating the worldview with new scenes as my eyes continued to feed me the views they had collected.

  My gatherer returned, climbed one of my limbs into my mouth, and placed a fresh lakefish in my crop. I lowered my mouth apron, and contentedly ground away with my gizzard at the still flopping flesh, swallowing the juices and bits of flesh with pleasure, while my gatherer fed itself from one of the teats in my mouth.

  While I enjoyed my mid-day repast, I continued my journey southward through my worldview. The further I viewed, the more confused and disturbed I became. Drastic changes were taking place in the scenery in no time at all. Many sections of the worldview made no sense. A peethoo tree viewed from the north looked perfectly normal, its large sponge-like leaves sprouting from massive branches supported along their length by slender support trunks that dropped down to the ground. Yet, a view from the east showed the same section of the same peethoo tree as devastated. The slender support trunks had been cut off at the base, the main branch had fallen, and the larger of the leaves had been stripped. It was the same branch—but viewed from different directions it looked completely different. I finally realized that the view showing the damage had been viewed by one of my eyes at a slightly later time than the view showing no damage. There must have been a whirlwind for so much damage to have occurred in such a short time.

  I continued on south, looking through my worldview for more signs of whirlwind damage. I finally saw the missing peethoo support trunks and leaves. They were being used to make a structure, somewhat like a storage shed, but larger. In one corner of the structure was the missing boobaa fruit. But the rest of the view was highly confusing, with objects appearing and disappearing from one glance of my eye to the next. There were more of the strange four-limbed creatures, and they kept appearing and disappearing.

  Finally, two of them stayed in one place long enough that I was able to look at a series of views over time. What I viewed was most amazing! Somehow, the creatures managed to balance on just two limbs and didn't fall down! It must have been difficult though, for their other two limbs were in constant jerky motion, while their mouths were moving all the time.

  All of them had only two eyes, and the eyes were always in their nests. I was forced to conclude that they only had two eyes, and those eyes never left their nests. They also seemed to have no gatherers, but instead gathered things themselves. Despite their deficient and deformed bodies, it was obvious that these creatures were intelligent beings. They wore clothing of many different colors, with a weave so fine that the threads were just barely visible in my worldview. The two that were standing together were trimming the missing peethoo support trunks to a uniform length. One of them had a standard blackglass knife, although of very crude construction, while the taller one with the yellow vine down the side of its head had a knife with a shiny luster unlike anything I had ever seen. If these creatures used tools, they were certainly not animals, and lacking gatherers to do their talking, the low growling noises coming from their rapidly moving mouths no doubt was conversation between the two creatures.

  My attention was next drawn to a circle of stones in the sand. Nearby was a pile of broken sticks from dead trees that had lost their battles and had been sucked dry. Both the circle of stones and the pile of sticks were new, for my worldview showed nothing but sand the previous time one of my eyes had surveyed that section of territory. I updated my worldview and looked with care at the scene. There was a fire in the center of the stones, kept alive by the occasional addition of dried sticks by one of the strange four-limbed creatures. My body twitched in sympathy as I watched the all-devouring yellow horror licking at the fractured bodies of its prey. Despite the fact that the fire was safely fenced in by stones, I was sincerely glad that we were deep in the rainy season and everything was soaking wet. These strangers must be intelligent indeed to be able to control fire! I must arrange to meet with them and learn how they are able to do that.

  I then expanded my view so I could see what the strange creature was doing with the fire. It was holding a stick over the fire. Impaled on that stick
were a few chunks of something. The creature pulled one of the chunks off the stick and raised it to its naked mouth. I moved my view closer and expanded it more so I could find out what the chunk was made of. With revulsion and horror I recognized the triple-jointed structure of meat and bone, and the few still-unplucked blue-green pinfeathers on the skin . . .

  The creature was eating one of my eyes!

  I was so nauseated by the view that I could no longer keep down my midday meal. Although there was still plenty of juice left in the lakefish in my crop, I regurgitated what was left and one of my gatherers took the juicy ball away. The jookeejooks would feed well today.

  The midday darkness was soon over, and my eyes fluttered nervously about their nests, eager to resume their viewing. I was resolved to learn more about these strangers. I generated scanning paths for four of my eyes that would cover the territory to the south where the strangers resided. The paths were designed to be high in the sky so these eyes would not be caught by the strangers. One by one, I fed a simplified updated worldview into their brains, along with the scanning path that each was to follow. They took a last nourishing sip from their nest-teat and flew off. I kept one eye in its nest to serve me until the replacement eye opened.

  I activated one of my gatherers and it scampered out of my mouth to my storage shed and soon returned with a tablet of moist writing clay. After the gatherer had returned to its teat and was connected back into me, I used its front claws to inpict a proclamation to the tribe, for I would be away many days.

  "I, Seetoo, Chief of all the Keejook, am leaving on a journey to Circle Bay on the south shore to meet with the strangers who have appeared there. In my absence, you shall heed Tookee as you would me."

  I had the gatherer place the pictotablet on Proclamation Rock and whistle a call to the tribe. Each member of the tribe sent an eye over to read the message. Beefoof and Haasee would get the message later in the day when they sent one of their eyes in this direction to update their worldviews of the trail back to the tribal compound and the scenes inside the compound thookwall.

  I stumped my way to my storage shed and used my nested eye to look carefully at what I had stored there. Balancing on three limbs, I used the roots on my other three limbs to pull out those things that I would take on my journey. I took out my travel net and tied it to my fronds so it hung conveniently at my side. This would be a long journey, lasting many days, so I packed my travel net carefully. Dried fruits and meats, wrapped in waterproof feebook leaves, lined the bottom of the net for those days when the efforts of my gatherers were not sufficient to supply my needs. On top, for use during the first few days of travel, were fresh fruits and steaks from the latest jookeejook slaughter. It would have been nice to top off my food supply with a fresh fish, but after a single day of travel, the taste of the fish would no longer be appealing to my gizzard.

  I added some pictotablets, for often strangers from other tribes could understand written pictographs better than the local dialect of the whistles from one's gatherers. For presents to give to the strangers, I selected some gold baubles strung on a piece of tentacle-twine, some strings of pretty peekoo-shell beads, and some of the better blackglass knives that Weehoob had flaked. If the blackglass knife the stranger had been using was typical of their tribal knife-maker, they would certainly be impressed with Weehoob's work.

  I added some mouth aprons. I would have to teach these strangers that unless one was a seedling, it was impolite to eat in the presence of others with an uncovered mouth. The mouth aprons were made of the finest white cloth with designs of crawler vines woven with purple threads that had been dyed with the new color extract the weaver Hoonee had obtained from soaking peekoo shells in the gastric juices of lakefish.

  By the time I finished filling my travel net, Tookee had made his way across the compound so we could converse, gatherer to gatherer. Tookee was still grinding his mid-day meal, so his mouth apron was lowered. From behind his mouth apron Tookee's gatherer whistled a greeting.

  "I am honored that once again you have chosen me to act in your place, Chief Seetoo. I promise to take good care of the tribe in your absence. Would you like for some of the younger stronglimbs to accompany you on your journey to meet the strangers?"

  "No, Tookee, that would not be wise. A single person approaching a group of many persons must of necessity have peaceful intentions—but many persons approaching could be interpreted as an attack. Although these strangers have injured me by killing and eating one of my eyes, which is normally considered an act of warfare, they are so different from us, in both physical form and behavior, that I must excuse their actions as being due to a lack of knowledge of our customs. It is obvious to me that they are quite intelligent, and know much that we do not know. We could learn much from them. I will go alone, but please have some of the tribe keep an eye or two on me during my journey . . ."

  "It will be done, Chief Seetoo."

  " . . .and make sure the teacher Teeloot keeps Peebeek working on his pictographs. It is fine that the seed of the Chief is an accomplished stronglimb in wrestling and running, but he must also be literate. The pictograph on the last tablet of his I saw when I visited the school were so distorted that I could hardly tell his selfsign from the scratches of a jookeejook."

  I replaced my royal-red frond ribbon with a clean new one, and tied it in place with the bow hanging down my back. I then donned a clean white mouth-apron with the crest of the Tribal Chief embroidered in royal-red thread. Leaving my spear in its rack, I strapped on my belt-scabbard that held my favorite blackglass eating knife and stumped my way to the exit.

  As I approached the thook barrier, I had my gatherer whistle, "Open for Chief Seetoo." Obediently the thorny coils curled back from the path, and I stumped through, the coils rolling back into place as I passed. The Daylight God was setting as I went down the trail to the south and the clouds in the sky were glowing a royal red. As darkness set in, my eyes fluttered back to me along the trail from the south and settled one by one into their nests. With my worldview fresh, I moved with confidence along the darkening trail through the forest. My replacement eye had opened, and although it would not develop wings for a number of days more, it was already useful for scanning the dark path ahead so I could correlate its view with my worldview and keep to the center of the path.

  I came to a clearing where a lava flow from the Great Mountain Hoolkoor had flowed through the forest, killing all in its path. By now, the Nightlight God had opened its eye nearly all the way, and though it was hidden behind the thin, high, cloud cover, there was enough light with which to see. I looked up in the sky to check the positions of all the gods. Off to the right were the eyes of Groundshaker and Oceanriser, also fully open. It would be sixsix plus four days before the eye of Oceanriser grew large and glared down from the center of Nightlight's eye, whistling insults at the Great Mountain Hoolkoor, while Groundshaker went around to the back side where it could use its spear to poke the irritable Hoolkoor from behind. Together, the two would annoy Hoolkoor until it regurgitated a terrible flood of burning lava from its crop, spreading death and destruction over the forest. At the same time, the oceans would rise and flood the lowlands with salty water. I would want to be back safe in the tribal compounds before that time came.

  Since the last lava flow had been only twosix days ago, the crusted surface was still hot. I sent out my gatherers to collect peethoo leaves and soak them in a nearby stream. They placed them, three at a time, in front of me, and I ran as fast as I could go over the steaming leaves. By the time I finally reached the other side, Oceanriser had moved in front of Nightlight and its shadow was traveling across the giant lobe, its eyelid slowly closing as morning approached.

  Exhausted from my rapid trip across the lava, I rested on all six limbs for a while, while one of my gatherers dropped jookeejook fruits in my crop and I slurped down the good juices and regurgitated the seeds. The winds arose, and clouds gathered. The rain fell in refreshing torrents from the sk
y. As I lifted three of my legs to continue on my journey to the south, I could hear the rain sizzling on the hot crust behind me.

  When morning came, the Daylight God was hidden by the clouds, but my eyes were anxious to be on their way. I sent out three of them to update the view to the south, since no doubt the fast-moving strangers had made many more changes since I had last viewed the territory they occupied. One of my eyes was sent back along the trail to view the tribal compound and check on the lake where Beefoof and Haasee were fishing, since, as Chief, I was still responsible for the welfare of the tribe. The fifth eye was sent ahead along the trail to look for fruit or game, while the new replacement eye served to view my way along the shadowed path through the forest.

  The fifth eye returned shortly. It had found a wild jookeejook. After identifying it, it had circled the jookeejook to view it from all sides and had returned to its nest. I looked at that portion of my worldview containing the wild jookeejook as the eye fed me the images.

  The jookeejook was eating a small tentacle from a keekoo tree, while some distance away, a large and dangerous tentacle writhed impotently at the end of its thread. The jookeejook had discovered the tentacle-thread running along the ground before the tentacle-thread had noticed the jookeejook was there. The jookeejook had placed itself safely at a distance, then sent one of its gatherers to rush up to the thread and use its sharp digging claws to sever it. This activated the thread, which made the keekoo tree, some distance away, pump nutrients down the thread, causing a tentacle to start forming at the point where the thread had been cut. But before the tentacle got large and powerful enough to attack the jookeejook and its gatherers, the jookeejook had sent in another gatherer to cut the thread again, between the tree and the growing tentacle at the end.