Forgotten Worlds

by D. Nolan Clark

  “Consensus,” Archie said. “They agree among themselves that a thing needs to be built, say a lamp or a picture of a landscape. Then whoever happens to be handy at the moment just goes and does it. As for what they get out of it, well, the Choir will remember the one who did the work, and think fondly of her. If the thing she built was especially grand, then she’ll be lauded for their effort. Then, the next time something needs deciding, her opinion will be especially sought after. Prestige is the incentive, you see, not some abstract coinage.”

  Valk didn’t see it at all. “What if one of them, a, uh—”

  “Chorister,” Lanoe suggested. “That’s what you call a member of a choir.”

  Valk nodded. “What if a chorister can’t work? If they’re injured, or just not as skilled as the others?”

  “Ah, but there’s great prestige in being kind to the less fortunate. A sick chorister will find all of her neighbors queuing up for the chance to bring her comfort and aid.”

  “No money,” Valk said, knowing he was repeating himself. “So what holds them together? Religion?”

  “Consensus,” Archie replied. “No gods, nothing like that. They have a certain spiritual belief in their purpose in the universe. And they hold a distinct reverence for harmony. It’s the key to understanding everything about them. They are a choir, you see, and a choir must be in harmony to be effective. They strive to maximize unity.”

  “What about … what about law? You say they don’t have any leaders, but then how do they resolve their differences? Do they ever sue each other? What about crime? Do they punish each other?”

  “Consensus.” It was beginning to sound to Valk like Archie was reciting a script that he’d memorized. Or perhaps like a sales pitch. “Disputes are moderated by the entire city at once, everyone’s voice added to the whole. Crime happens, of course, though no one can ever get away with a thing if everyone else is listening to their every thought. Petty crime is met by communal shaming. Crimes of passion or extremity, so to speak—violence—is punished by consensual decree. Typically the loss of prestige is enough to prevent a reoccurrence.”

  “Huh.” Valk tried to think. “What about war?”

  Archie shrugged. “Consensus,” he said. “They argue among themselves. Work things out, correct misunderstandings, hear out all grievances.”

  “They don’t have war,” Lanoe said, looking at Archie intently, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Well, it was a hard thing for a soldier to accept. There was more to it than that, though. If the Choir didn’t fight, if they didn’t have weapons—that might limit how useful they could be in his crusade against the Blue-Blue-White.

  “Not … as such,” Archie said. “Imagine heated debates that go on for weeks, with every side shouting down the other. It gets spirited, but it never quite reaches the level of violence. In their ancient history they scrapped like devils, they tell me. But none of them has so much as lifted a stick against her sisters, not for a very long time.”

  “Sisters,” Valk said. “You keep referring to them as ‘she.’ What about the males of the species. Are they any different?”

  Archie laughed. “The choristers are all female. The tall ones, the … the sapient ones you saw back there, all of the choristers you’ll talk to in the city.”

  “So how do they reproduce?” Lanoe asked. “Without males, I mean. Do they just, I don’t know, bud off or something?”

  “Oh, they have males. You’ve seen those, too. The little ones.”

  Lanoe’s eyes went wide. “You mean—the bugs that crawl on them? Those things?”

  “They don’t grow any bigger than that, and their brains never develop. They’re no smarter than spiders,” Archie said. “The females carry them around. They kind of … collect them. When they want to have a baby, they always have a few males around, ready to … you know.”

  Lanoe clearly wanted more information on that, but Valk had thought of something else. “You said they don’t fight wars, okay, I guess that’s possible. But what if one of them goes crazy? Starts attacking people in the street, or decides she’s the one and true queen of the Choir?” He wanted to know how a species of telepaths could handle an individual with deranged patterns of thought. Their instability could infect the entire city. They must have some mechanism for coping.

  “Let me guess,” Lanoe said. “Consensus.”

  Archie looked away. “Mental illness. It’s … well. It’s a tricky subject. It’s …”

  Perhaps he would have said more. Instead, his face fell and his eyes quivered in their sockets and for a moment his head flared with microwave emissions.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence. The Choir must have been listening to their conversation the whole time. Listening, and waiting to jump in if Archie said something they didn’t want said.

  When he came back, he didn’t finish his thought. Instead he looked at both of them and smiled. “Almost there,” he told them. “We’re expected.”

  Archie led them into a tower at the edge of the commercial street, a tall, round structure with a spiral ramp inside that took them past four floors, each of them completely open to view. Inside choristers were busy with various tasks—on the lowest level Lanoe saw them measuring fluids into jars, taking scrupulous care to get exactly the same amount in each container. The next floor up was—he thought—a sculptor’s studio, where a pair of choristers worked with hot tools, carving pieces of stone. He had no idea what was being done on the third floor. It seemed to involve a group of choristers standing in a circle and chirping at each other. Were they sharing a funny joke? Planning a party? Communing with the spirit of consensus?

  The fourth floor, and their destination, seemed to be office space. Broad windows let in a little radiance from the lighthouse towers dotted around the city, revealing a room full of stools and horseshoe-shaped desks. Like all the other rooms he’d seen, it took up the entirety of the level, but there was only one chorister present. He realized he’d never seen one of them alone before. She looked like all the others, of course—he wondered if he would ever be able to tell them apart, and what that said about him.

  The chorister was surrounded by displays that floated in the air, with no minder or emitter surface visible. The displays were 2-D only, but they wrapped around her like a cylinder, various images and screens moving in and out as she reached for them with her four claws. As they came up the ramp, she reached out behind her and dismissed all of the displays, then climbed off her stool to come toward them, lifting all four arms in greeting.

  “This is Water-Falling-from-a-Height,” Archie said, once they’d caught their breath from climbing up the ramp. Valk, of course, wasn’t affected at all, damn him. “Or just call her Water-Falling; she’s fine with that.”

  “Pleased to … meet you,” Lanoe said. Four floors wouldn’t normally have winded him, but the Choir were half again as tall as humans, which meant he’d climbed the equivalent of six human stories.

  Water-Falling held out one of her claws.

  “She’s heard about the human custom of shaking hands,” Archie said. “She wonders if you’d be willing …?”

  Lanoe looked down at her hand, twice the size of one of his. Four wicked, armored claws coming together to a single point. It looked like if he put his hand in there he would get a stump back.

  He hadn’t come all this way to be timid. He stuck out his hand and the claws closed around it. He braced himself for the moment when she crushed his fingers, but it never came. Instead he felt that the insides of her claws were lined with dozens of round, velvety pads, which gave her a soft and precise grip. She lifted her claw once, then dropped it again, letting go.

  “You’re a braver man than I am,” Valk whispered.

  Lanoe ignored him.

  “Water-Falling is one of the most eminent members of the Choir,” Archie said. “She gained an enormous amount of respect a while back when one of the city’s towers collapsed, with thirty-three choristers still inside. No f
atalities, thank goodness.”

  “She helped rescue them?” Lanoe asked.

  “She organized the relief effort, making sure the injured all had adequate medical care and new housing, and she wrote a song of mourning for the building that was lost. Ever since she’s been famous for devoting herself to civil service. When you asked if you could talk to their leader, they discussed what that would even mean. Water-Falling volunteered to meet with you one-on-one—something the Choir would normally never do—and act as a sort of spokeswoman.”

  Lanoe smiled and nodded. The Choir had no leaders, no hierarchy, he’d heard that several times now. All choristers were equal, in every way. Though when you put out a call for an important task, it seemed some of them volunteered faster than others.

  Interesting.

  “She’s happy to speak with you, answer your questions, make suggestions about how talks should proceed, all that sort of thing,” Archie said. “Just pretend I’m not here, right? Right. Just treat me like a translator.”

  Lanoe had to admit he felt much more comfortable talking to a single being, rather than an entire species at once. Even if he knew it was an illusion. Anything he said to this Water-Falling would be rebroadcast to the rest of the Choir, in real time.

  “She says that you should sit,” Archie told them.

  Lanoe looked around and saw nothing but the high stools the Choir used. He perched atop one, his feet dangling in the air. Valk was at least able to get his toes on the floor. “Thank you for meeting with us,” he said.

  The castaway’s face jumped, and his eyes started to glaze over. Lanoe wondered if he would ever get used to that. “She says you’re very welcome. She says that she has already drafted an agenda for your visit here, and she wants to make sure you’re comfortable with it. She’s especially worried that she’s packed too many things into the day. There’s going to be a visit to the water reservoir, that’s really a sight worth seeing, and a banquet this evening where you’ll have a chance to sample Choir foods. There will be entertainment, there will … ah, well …”

  Lanoe glanced over at Valk, but the big pilot was just nodding, going along with this. Lanoe tried to fight down his impatience.

  “Well, the entertainment might be a sticking point, er. They’ve planned for you to observe a performance of …” Archie coughed. “Lovemaking.”

  That got Lanoe’s attention. “I’m sorry? What?”

  “It’s … what they do for fun, of an evening,” Archie said. The left side of his face had flushed with embarrassment. The right side looked like it was paralyzed. Clearly he was in communion with the Choir, but there was still some human bashfulness there, too. Water-Falling wasn’t just talking through him, she was telling him what to say. “No blasted privacy, you see. They do everything out in the open. Even … sex. I’ve, well, seen it, and it is quite diverting. A cross between a sporting match and a bit of ballroom dancing. The exchange of males is rather an involved ceremony, as reproduction is a rare event among the Choir.”

  “I think,” Lanoe said, “we might skip that. Unless they’ll be offended if we don’t go.”

  “It’s already been scheduled, is the thing, and if they have to change their plans now—”

  Lanoe silenced him with a look. Then he leaned forward until he nearly toppled off his stool. “In fact,” he said, addressing Water-Falling directly, “I’m not sure we have time for any of these events. I’d really like to get talking about why we’re here. About the message you sent.”

  If Water-Falling was offended by his abruptness, he had no way to tell. She made a gesture he couldn’t understand at all—lifting two of her claws to her head while the other two hung loose at her sides.

  Lanoe didn’t wait for a translation. Sometimes, he thought, the direct approach was better. Hell, for most of his life, the direct approach had been the only one he’d ever tried. “I didn’t come all this way for a cultural exchange. I came because I was promised help with fighting the Blue-Blue-White. Yes? The alien drones that attacked our planet Niraya, who’ve wiped out every intelligent species in the galaxy. Except the Choir, and us. You do know what I’m talking about? Big damned jellyfish, like to make their drones do their killing for them? Sound familiar?”

  “Oh, yes,” Archie said. A tremor ran through the left side of his body. “Oh, indeed. The Choir know all about the Blue-Blue-White.”

  Lanoe nodded. “Honestly, I was very much surprised to find the Choir here. My associate, Tannis Valk, was able to gain access to the computer that directed the alien drones. He learned a great deal about our common enemy. About the worlds they’ve devastated. He never found any mention of a species like the Choir.”

  Water-Falling slumped sideways on her stool. Lanoe didn’t know how to read that.

  “There’s a good reason for that,” Archie told him. “A long time ago, the Blue-Blue-White attacked the Choir. You saw their old planet out there, beyond the portal.”

  “We found evidence of that attack,” Lanoe confirmed.

  “I don’t doubt it. The—the jellyfish, as you call them, sent exactly two hundred and twenty-five of their killer drones down to the surface. The Choir weren’t prepared for an attack like that. There were perhaps a billion living choristers at the time, but every single one of them died in the space of a few weeks. The Blue-Blue-White slaughtered every living animal on that planet, everything bigger than a paramecium. They kept at it, working day and night, until the job was complete.”

  Archie was crying, Lanoe saw. Tears rolled down his cheek as he told the story. Lanoe figured he must be plugged into the Choir’s emotional state, and it seemed he was feeling their loss and regret.

  “There were a few survivors—those choristers who were out in space at the time of the attack, crews of starships who were out on missions of peaceful outreach. They came home as soon as they could, but it was already too late—the world was already dead. Their grief overwhelmed them—so many voices silenced. So many notes missing from the harmony. Many of them took their own lives, rather than face living in a galaxy that held this kind of horror. Those who were able to pull themselves together managed to rebuild. They put their planet back together piece by piece. Cremated the dead, repaired their cities. Got on with life.

  “For generations, they lived with that story. It made them fearful of the world beyond their sky. They clung close to each other, and spurned all other species, and their hearts grew cold. But they did what they had to. They started down the long road to recovery, to learning to trust the future.

  “Until the Blue-Blue-White came back.

  “There were no starship crews flung across the galaxy, this time. The Choir had closed itself off, isolated themselves. They put up a brave fight—they’d developed many new weapons in the intervening years—but the alien drones had changed. They had developed new weapons, and there were so many more of them, the second time. They kept coming, wave after wave after wave of them. In the end it was too much.

  “After the second massacre, there were only twelve of them left. Twelve survivors, in the entire universe.”

  Lanoe thought of the statues he’d seen back on the planet, the ones that opened the portal to the Choir’s city. The twelve statues there. He’d thought of them as a piece of sculpture, a work of art. But they must be more than that, he realized—they were a monument.

  “It was clear to the twelve that the nightmare would never end. They knew there were other fleets out there, other legions of drones waiting to sterilize the planet a third time if they tried to rebuild.”

  “They must have wanted revenge,” Lanoe suggested. “They must have wanted to fight back.”

  “Perhaps,” Archie told him. “But think about it this way. If your entire population—the entire future of your species—came down to twelve individuals. Would you want to start picking fights?

  “No, they needed to survive, first. So they hid themselves away. They built this city, and the bubble of wormspace around it. Like rats hiding
in the walls of the galaxy, they cut themselves off from sunlight. From fresh air. They learned how to recycle every drop of water, every particle of food. How to survive in a place never meant for habitation, a place that should have been antithetical to life. Because they had to. Even now, there are only a few thousand of us. All descendants of those twelve. Painfully aware of just how close we came to disappearing from the galaxy, like so many other species have.”

  Lanoe noted how Archie’s speech had changed—how he’d gone from talking about the Choir as “they” to “us.” He figured Water-Falling’s passions must be riding high, that she was expressing herself so intently now that Archie was lost in the translation.

  “The Blue-Blue-White don’t have any records of us, you say. Good. The Blue-Blue-White don’t bother memorializing the species they’ve wiped out. If they think we’re extinct—good.

  “The Choir remembers the Blue-Blue-White very well. The Choir will never be able to forget them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lanoe said. “If I came off as aggressive, or harsh—”

  “Water-Falling was not offended,” Archie said. “Others were.”

  “I’m … sorry? What?”

  “You’ve forgotten already, haven’t you? This is the problem with speaking face-to-face. The problem is that you aren’t. Every word you say, M. Lanoe—every gesture, every time you roll your eyes—is spoken to the entirety of the Choir at once. Some of them were deeply hurt by your insinuative manner. Others applauded your desire to get down to business. A small minority found your remarks funny. In general, the trend is toward forgiveness. For now.”

  Lanoe clamped his mouth shut before he could say anything more.

  A green pearl appeared in the corner of his vision. Valk, sending him a private message:

  Boss, if your plan was to antagonize the locals, I’d say you’re off to a great start.

  Valk watched Archie’s head while Lanoe was talking to the chorister. He was fascinated by the complex ripples, the ever-changing side-lobe emissions of the microwaves flowing in and out of the castaway’s head. The waves weren’t strong enough to cook the man’s brains from the inside out, but there was enough power there that Valk could trace them as they propagated through the city, touching the antenna brains of choristers all around them, on the floors below, in the buildings next door.