by Arthur C.
There was only one seat in the section that had been reserved for the humans. In fact, Eponine may have had the only seat in the stadium. Looking around the upper deck of the arena with Richard's binoculars, Max and Patrick saw many beings leaning against, or holding on to, the sturdy vertical poles scattered throughout the terraced bleachers, but nowhere else could they find any seats.
Benjy was intrigued by the cloth bags that Archie and a few of the other octospiders were carrying. The off-white bags, all of which were identical, were about the size of a woman's purse. They hung at what might be called octospider hip level, attached over the head with a simple strap. Never before had any of the humans seen an octo with an accessory. Benjy had noticed the bags immediately and had asked Archie about them while they had been standing together at the plaza. Benjy had assumed that Archie had not understood his question at that time, and Benjy had in fact forgotten it himself until they reached the stadium and he saw the other similar bags.
Archie was uncharacteristically vague in his explanation of the purpose of the bag. Nicole had to ask the octospider to repeat his colors before she told Benjy what had been said. "Archie says it's equipment he might need to protect us in an emergency."
"What kind of equipment?" Benjy asked, but Archie had already moved several meters away and was talking with an octospider in an adjacent section.
The humans were separated from the other species both by two strips of taut metal rope around the tops and bottoms of the vertical poles on the outside of their enclave, and by their octospider protectors (or "guards," as Max called them), who stationed themselves in the empty area between the different species. Beside the humans on the right was a group of several hundred of the aliens with the six flexible arms, the same creatures who had built the staircase under the rainbow dome. On the left and below the human clan, on the other side of a large empty area, were as many as a thousand brown, chunky, iguanalike animals with long, tapered tails and protruding teeth. The iguanas were the size of domestic cats.
What was immediately obvious was that the entire stadium was rigidly segregated. Each species was sitting with its own kind. What's more, except for the "guards," there were no octospiders on the upper deck. All fifteen thousand of the octos (Richard's estimate) who were present as spectators were sitting in the lower deck.
"There are several reasons for the segregation," Archie explained, with Ellie translating for everyone else. "First, what the Chief Optimizer says is going to be broadcast in thirty or forty languages simultaneously. If you look carefully, you'll see that each special section has an apparatus—here's yours, for example, what Richard calls a speaker—that presents what's being said in the language of that species. We have been working with the Chief Optimizer's text for days, preparing the proper translations. Since all the octos, including the various morphs, can understand our standard language of color, they're all down on the lower deck, where there is no special translation equipment.
"Let me show you what I'm talking about. Look over there." Archie extended a tentacle. "Do you see that group of striped crabs? See the two large vertical wires on that table at the front of their section? When the Chief Optimizer starts to speak, those wires will activate and present what is being said in their antenna language."
Far below them, over the top of what would have been a sunken field in an Earth stadium, a vast cover with colored stripes was suspended from stanchions attached to the bottom sections of the lower deck.
"Can you read what it says?" Ellie asked her. father.
"What?" said Richard, still stunned by the magnitude of the spectacle.
"There's a message on the cover," Ellie said, pointing downward. "Read the colors."
"So there is." Richard read very slowly. "Bounty means food, water, energy, information, balance, and… What's the last word?"
"I would translate it as 'diversity,'" Ellie said.
"What does the message mean?" Eponine asked.
"I guess we're going to find out."
A few minutes later, after Archie had told the humans that another reason for the species segregation was to confirm the octospiders' census statistics, the field cover was rolled up on two long, thick poles by two pairs of giant black animals. The pairs started on opposite sides of the middle of the arena and then moved toward the ends of the stadium, wrapping the cover around their poles to unveil the entire field.
Simultaneously, an additional cluster of fireflies descended from far above the stadium so that all the spectators could clearly see not only the abundance of fruits, vegetables, and grains stacked in hundreds of piles on both ends of the field, but also the two collections of diverse beings that were in separate regions on the floor of the arena, on either side of its middle. The first group of aliens was walking around in a large circle on a normal dirt surface. They were attached to each other by some kind of rope. Next to them was a large pool of water, in which another thirty or forty species, also connected to each other, were swimming in a second large circle.
In the absolute center of the field was a raised platform, empty except for some scattered black boxes, with ramps descending in the direction of the two adjacent regions. As everyone watched, four octospiders broke from the circle in the swimming pool and climbed the ramp onto the platform. Another four octospiders left the group walking on the dirt surface and joined their colleagues. One of these eight octos then stood up on a box in the middle of the platform and began to speak in color.
"We have gathered here today…" The voice from the speaker startled the humans. Little Nikki began to cry. At first it was extremely difficult for them to understand what they were hearing, for each syllable was stressed exactly the same and, although carefully pronounced, the sounds were not quite right, as if they were made by someone who had never heard a human speak. Richard was flabbergasted. He immediately abandoned his attempt to use his own real-time translator and bent down to study the octospider device.
Ellie borrowed Richard's binoculars so that she could follow the colors more readily. Even though she had to guess at some of the words because of the strip pieces outside her visible range, it was easier for her to watch than to concentrate fully on what was coming out of the octospider audio equipment.
Eventually the adults tuned their ears somewhat to the cadence and pronunciation of the alien voice and caught most of what was being said. The octospider Chief Optimizer indicated that all was well in their bountiful realm and that the continued success of their complex and diverse society was reflected in the variety of foods found on the field. "None of this bounty," the speaker said, "could have been produced without strong interspecies cooperation."
Later in his brief message the Chief Optimizer handed out kudos for exceptional performance. Several specific species were singled out—for example, production of the honeylike substance had apparently been outstanding, for a dozen hovering fireflies spotlighted the snout-nosed beetle section for a few moments. About three fengs into the speech, the humans grew tired of the strain of listening to the strange voice and stopped following the speech altogether. The group was therefore surprised when the fireflies appeared over their heads and they were introduced to the alien multitudes. Thousands of strange eyes were aimed in their direction for half a nillet.
"What did he say about us?" Max asked Ellie, who had continued to translate the colors. Max had been talking to Eponine during the most recent part of the Chief Optimizer's speech.
"Just that we were new in the domain and that they were still learning about our capabilities. Then there were some numbers that must have been some way of describing us. I didn't understand that part."
After another two species were briefly introduced, the Chief Optimizer started summarizing the main points of his speech. "Mommy, Mommy." Nikki's terrified scream suddenly overpowered the alien voice. Somehow, while the adult humans were absorbed with the speech and the spectacle surrounding them, Nikki had climbed over the lower barrier around their section and en
tered the open space separating them from the iguana creatures. The octospider Hercules, who had been patrolling that area, had apparently not noticed her either, for he was unaware that one of the iguanas had stuck its head in the gap between the two metal ropes around its section and grabbed Nikki's dress with its sharp teeth.
The terror in the child's voice momentarily paralyzed everyone but Benjy. He acted instantly, leaping over the barrier, rushing to Nikki's aid, and smashing the iguana creature in the head with all his strength. The startled alien let go of Nikki's dress. Pandemonium ensued. Nikki raced back to her mother's arms, but before Hercules and Archie could reach Benjy, the enraged alien had forced itself through the gap and jumped upon Benjy's back. He screamed from the intense pain of the iguana's teeth in his shoulder and began to flail about, trying to shake the creature off. A few seconds later the creature dropped to the ground, completely unconscious. Two green spots were clearly visible where the creature's tail joined the rest of its body.
The entire incident had occurred in less than a minute. The speech had not been interrupted. Except in the immediate surrounding sections, there had been no notice of the event. But Nikki was hopelessly frightened, Benjy was seriously injured, and Eponine had started having a contraction. Below them, the angry iguanas were straining against their metal ropes, disregarding the threats of the ten octospiders who had now moved into the space between the two species.
Archie told the humans that it was time for them to leave. There was no argument. Archie escorted them out of the stadium in a hurry, with Ellie carrying her sobbing daughter and Nicole frantically rubbing antiseptic taken from her medical bag into Benjy's wound.
Richard rose up on his elbows when Nicole came into the bedroom. "Is he all right?" Richard asked.
"I believe so," Nicole said with a heavy sigh. "I'm still worried that there may be poisonous chemicals in that creature's saliva. Dr. Blue has been very helpful. He has explained to me that the iguanas have no toxic venom, but he agrees we must watch out for some kind of allergic reaction in Benjy. The next day or two will tell us whether or not we have a problem."
"And the pain? Has it subsided?"
"Benjy refuses to complain. I think that he is actually quite proud of himself—as well he should be—and doesn't want to say anything that would detract from his moment as the hero of the family."
"What about Eponine?" Richard said after a brief silence. "Is she still having contractions?"
"No, they've stopped temporarily. But if she delivers in the next day or so, Marius will not be the first baby whose birth was induced by adrenaline."
Nicole started to undress. "Ellie's taking it the hardest. She says that she is a terrible mother and that she will never forgive herself for not keeping a closer eye on Nikki. A few minutes ago she even sounded like Max and Patrick. She was wondering aloud if maybe we should all go back to New Eden and take our chances with Nakamura. 'For the children's sake,' she said."
Nicole finished undressing and climbed into bed. She kissed Richard lightly and put her hands behind her head. "Richard," she said, "there is a very serious issue here. Do you think the octospiders would even permit us to return to New Eden?"
"No," he said after a pause. "At least not all of us."
"I'm afraid I agree with you," Nicole said. "But I don't want to say so to the others. Maybe I should bring the question up with Archie again."
"He'll try to evade it, as he did the first time."
They lay together holding hands for several minutes. "What are you thinking about, darling?" Nicole asked when she noticed that Richard's eyes were still open.
'Today," he said. "Everything that happened today. I'm going back over it in my mind, scene by incredible scene. Now that I'm old and my memory isn't as good as it once was, I try to use refresh techniques."
Nicole laughed. "You're impossible," she said. "But I love you anyway."
5
Max was agitated. "I, for one, do not want to stay in this place one minute longer than necessary. I no longer trust them. Look, Richard, you know damn well I'm right. Did you see how fast Archie took that tube thing out of his bag when the alien iguana jumped on Benjy's back? And he didn't hesitate a second to use it. Pffft was all I heard, and presto, that lizard was either dead or paralyzed. He would have done the same thing to one of us if we had misbehaved."
"Max, I think you're overreacting," Richard said.
"Am I? And is it another overreaction that the entire scene yesterday reinforced in my mind just how powerless we are?"
"Max," Nicole interrupted, "don't you think this is a discussion that we should have at another time, when we're not so emotional?"
"No," Max replied emphatically. "I do not. I want to have it now, this morning. That's why I asked Nai to feed the children breakfast in her house."
"But surely you're not suggesting that we should leave at this moment, when Eponine is due any minute," Nicole said.
"Of course not," Max said. "But I think we should get our butts out of here as soon as she is able to travel. Jesus, Nicole, what kind of life can we have here anyway? Nikki and the twins are now scared shitless. I bet they won't be willing to leave our zone again for weeks, maybe not ever. And that doesn't even address the bigger question of why the octospiders have brought us here in the first place. Did you see all those creatures in that stadium yesterday? Didn't you get the impression that all of them work for the octospiders in one way or another? Isn't it likely that we too will soon be occupying some niche in their system?"
Ellie spoke for the first time since the conversation started. "I have always trusted the octospiders," she said. "I still do. I do not believe they have some kind of diabolical plot to integrate us into their overall scheme in a way that is unacceptable to us. But I did learn something yesterday, or I should say I relearned something. As a mother, it is my responsibility to provide for my daughter an environment in which she can flourish and have a chance to be happy. I no longer think that's possible here in the Emerald City."
Nicole looked at Ellie with surprise. "So you would like to leave too?" she said.
"Yes, Mother."
Nicole glanced around the table. She could tell from Eponine's and Patrick's expressions that they agreed with Max and Ellie. "Does anyone know how Nai feels about this subject?" she inquired.
Patrick blushed slightly when Max and Eponine looked at him, as if he were expected to answer. "We talked about it last night," he said at length. "Nai has been convinced, for some time, that the children have too narrow a life isolated here in our own zone. But she is also worried, especially after what happened yesterday, that there are significant dangers to the children if we try to live freely in the octospider society."
"I guess that settles it," Nicole said with a shrug. "I will talk to Archie about our leaving at the first opportunity."
Nai was a good storyteller. The children loved the school days when she would dispense with the planned activities and simply tell them stories instead. She had been telling the children both Greek and Chinese myths, in fact, the first day that Hercules had appeared to observe them. The children had given the octospider his name after he had helped Nai move the furniture in the room into a different configuration.
Most of the stories that Nai told had a hero. Since even Nikki still had some memory of the human biots in New Eden, the children were more interested in stories about Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, and Benita Garcia than they were in historic or mythical characters with whom they had had no personal involvement.
On the morning after Bounty Day, Nai explained how, during the last phases of the Great Chaos, Benita Garcia used her considerable fame to help the millions of poor people in Mexico. Nikki, who had inherited the compassion of her mother and grandmother, was moved by the story of Benita's courageous defiance of the Mexican oligarchy and the American multinational corporations. The little girl proclaimed that Benita Garcia was her hero.
"Heroine," the always precise Kepler c
orrected. "And what about you, Mother?" the boy said a few seconds later. "Did you have a hero or heroine when you were a little girl?"
Despite the fact that she was in an alien city on an extraterrestrial spacecraft at an unbelievable distance away from her hometown of Lamphun in Thailand, for an extraordinary fifteen or twenty seconds Nai's memory transported her back to her childhood, and she saw herself clearly, in a simple cotton dress, walking barefoot into the Buddhist temple to pay homage to Queen Chamatevi. Nai could also see the monks in their saffron robes, and she believed that for a moment she could even smell the joss in the viharn in front of the temple's principal Buddha.
"Yes," she said, quite moved by the power of her flashback, "I did have a heroine… Queen Chamatevi of the Haripunchai."
"Who was she, Mrs. Watanabe?" Nikki said. "Was she like Benita Garcia?"
"Not exactly," Nai began. "Chamatevi was a beautiful young woman who lived in the Mons kingdom in the south of Indochina over a thousand years ago. Her family was rich and closely connected to the king of the Mons. But Chamatevi, who was exceedingly well educated for a woman of that time, longed to do something different and unusual. Once upon a time, when Chamatevi was nineteen or twenty years old, a soothsayer visited—"
"What's a soothsayer, Mother?" Kepler asked.
Nai smiled. "Someone who predicts the future, or at least tries to," she answered.
"Anyway, this soothsayer told the king that there was an ancient legend saying that a beautiful young Mons woman of noble birth would go north through the jungles to the valley of the Haripunchai and unite all the warring tribes of the region. This young woman, the soothsayer continued, would create a kingdom whose splendor would equal the Mons', and she would be known in many lands for her outstanding leadership. The soothsayer told this story during a feast at the court, and Chamatevi was listening. When the story was completed, the young woman came forward to the king of the Mons and told him that she must be the woman in the legend.