by John Brunner
Nonetheless Fifthorch spent as much time as he was spared from his apprenticeship at the general trade of glassworking, plunging and basking around the northern shore, and perforce Tenthag tagged along. He did not really like Fifthorch, but there was no alternative; he so hated being fussed over and petted by the old'uns.
Eventually, they all assumed, he would fall into the standard pattern of the island's folk, and were its population to die out, someone else would take it over. That was the way it had been since time immemorial, and even though a few stars might turn color, life down here was not expected to alter very much. The age of changes seemed to be long past, bar the occasional shift of weather.
It did sometimes puzzle Tenthag why, if nothing was to change worth mentioning, there should be so many relics of a different past lying just off shore. But when he tried to talk about this to the old'uns they were always busy with something else, and if he voiced his private anxieties to Fifthorch, the latter mocked him, quoting what he had been told by his own father, who despised the Jingtexts.
"The form of now is permanent," he would insist. "If there were changes in the past, it must have been because what passed for people then were only animals. We were set here by the Evolver to use and exploit the lower orders. Now we know how to do it—we have gorborangs to catch fish for us, we have kyqs to ride on when we put to sea, we eat enough to let us tell reality from dreamness, we live a proper life that must not be disturbed! And nothing can, and nothing will, disturb it!"
Thereat, becoming bored, he would propose a diving expedition, and— not wanting to seem ungracious, nor to become bored himself—Tenthag would once more risk the effect of salty water on his tegument.
He relished the experience of plunging through the ocean shallows, as his ancestors must once have plunged through air from branch to branch of forests now lost beneath the waves, but he could never quite rid himself of awareness of what nightly he saw marked out on the sky. Since he quit infancy and was able to erect himself and raise his eye to the zenith, he had been fascinated by those brilliant spots and streaks ... and started to wonder why his elders never paid them any attention except when there were unusual displays, and seemed almost to welcome the dull season—regardless of its storms—when clouds closed over land and sea alike. Did not the Jingtexts refer to changes which...?
But "change" and "Jingtext" were incompatible, they said, one necessarily contradicting the other. If a scripture spoke of change, it must be taken metaphorically, as parable. The year of his birth, when two stars turned to blue, was dated in the manner of a nickname.
And so it went, with Tenthag defeated at all turns, until the year whenafter the world could never be the same.
II
It wasn't kyqs that year which swam into the bay as soon as the spring hail died away, but junqs and briqs far grander than ever had been seen before at Neesos. Moreover, they arrived without the slightest warning.
Led by Ninthag and his deputy, Thirdusk, the folk assembled on the shore in mingled wonder and apprehension. Even the People of the Sea did not boast such magnificent steeds, so finely caparisoned with secondary life-forms. Who could these strangers be?
Very shortly the explanation spread, and generated universal amazement. Those who had come hither were not any sort of common trader, though prepared to pay for what they took; they hailed from a city far to the south, called Bowock, and they went by a name whose roots were drawn from Ancient Forbish, "archeologists"—which some of the more learned of the folk patronizingly rendered into today's speech for the commonalty, making it "pastudiers."
What they wanted, they declared, was to explore the underwater ruins, and they would offer either food and tools for the privilege, or new kinds of seed and animal-stock, or something abstract known as "credits" which allegedly would give the folk of Neesos privileges in return if ever they were to visit Bowock. Since nobody from here in living memory had voyaged further than the horizon, the latter were turned down at once, but the rest appealed, and a bargain was struck with which the majority of the folk were in agreement. What little wariness remained soon melted when the newcomers exclaimed over the fineness of the local glass and ordered magnifiers, microscopes and new lenses for a strange device used to find relative positions, hence distances otherwise impossible to measure. These they exchanged for the right to deepwater fish caught from their junqs and briqs.
Almost the sole person who continued to grumble about this intrusion was Fifthorch, because the strangers had occupied his favorite area for swimming.
Not wanting to lose his only friend, or what passed for one, Tenthag dutifully agreed with him, even though his pith wasn't in it. He was fascinated by the newcomers, above all because, for people concerned with the past, they had so many new gadgets and inventions at their disposal. They had set up a mainland base, where they were necessarily treating with the folk of the town the Neesans' ancestors had fled from— though time had healed most of the old wounds—and made some sort of connection with it to carry news faster than the swiftest briq could swim. A cable like a single immensely long nerve-strand had been laid along the sea-bed between the two places, and covered over with piles of rock carefully set in place by divers wearing things called air-feeders: ugly, bulging, parasitical organisms bred from a southern species unknown, and unhappy, in these cool northern seas, which somehow kept a person alive underwater. Also they had means to lift even extremely heavy objects, using some substance or creature that contracted with vast force.
Such matters, though, the Bowockers were secretive about. To those who asked for information concerning them they named an impossibly high price. Anyway, there was scant need for such devices here.
Otherwise they were not unfriendly, and came ashore by dark to chat, share food and otherwise socialize; a few of them knew songs and tales, or played instruments, and became tolerably popular. Inevitably, too, there were pairings, but none resulted in a bud, although Tenthag desperately hoped they might. He was tired of being the permanently youngest.
The same problem apparently beset Bowock, though. Now and then the divers, ashore to recover from the toll exacted by their work, would grow confidential after sampling the powerful local araq, and admit that at home there were too few buds to keep up the population, despite contacts with other cities and the People of the Sea. Some went so far as to wonder aloud what they were doing all this for, if in a few score-of-score years there might be no one left to enjoy the knowledge. But they kept on regardless.
What precisely the knowledge was that they hoped to garner from the broken fragments they brought up, the folk of Neesos could not imagine. Little organic material resisted the erosion of salt water; tides and currents had scattered what did endure, like blades, lenses and the burnt-clay formers used to compel houseplants to grow into the desired shape. Within a couple of months most people stopped wondering, and treated the strangers as a familiar feature of the locality.
Tenthag was almost the only exception.
Nonetheless, the day came when some most exciting discovery was made—to judge by the noisy celebrations the pastudiers spent a whole dark in—and shortly afterwards a single rider arrived mounted on a sea-beast such as nobody had ever sighted in these latitudes before. She was unbelievably swift in the water, casting up a snout-wave that broke in rainbow spray, and nearly as large as the smaller junqs, but with a tiny saddle and virtually no secondary plants. She had an appetite of her own, though, and a huge one. Cast loose to browse in the next bay to where the pastudiers were working, she gulped and chomped and gobbled and gulped again the whole dark long. When they were asked about her, the strangers said she was an unpithed porp, specially bred for high-speed travel.
The idea of a porp, even a tame one, in the local waters was not calculated to appeal to the folk of Neesos. Schools of such creatures were reputed to strip vast areas clear of weed and drive away the sorts of fish the folk depended on. However, the Bowockers promised that she would leave again at da
wn, carrying important news. What kind of news, they as usual declined to say.
By now there was a feeling among the folk that they should be entitled to a share in the pastudiers' discoveries, and Fifthorch's parents were among the loudest with complaints, although they personally did nothing to cultivate the visitors' acquaintance and laid all the responsibility on Ninthag and Thirdusk. The night when the porp was feeding, Tenthag grew sufficiently irritated by Fifthorch's automatic repetition of his father's arguments to counter them with some of Ninthag's. The result was a quarrel, and the older boy went storming off.
Alone in the dark, under the bright-sown canopy which was as ever shedding sparkling starlets, Tenthag turned despondently towards the beach. He was so lost in a mix of imagination, memory and dream that he was startled when a female voice addressed him.
"Hello! Come to admire my porp? I understand you people don't tame any sea-creatures but kyqs, right?"
Taken aback, he glanced around and spotted the person who had spoken: a she'un only some half-score years his senior, relaxing in a pit in the sand.
This was the rider who had made so spectacular an entry into the bay? But by comparison with the monstrous beast she rode, she was puny! Even erect, she would be a padlong below him, and he was not fully grown.
"We—uh—we don't know much about them," he forced out as soon as enough pressure returned to his mantle. "Certainly taming porps is a new idea to us."
"Oh, where I come from there's never any shortage of new ideas! Our only problem is finding time to put them all into practice. Are you going anywhere, or would you like to talk awhile? I'm Nemora of the Guild of Couriers, in case you hadn't guessed. And you are—?"
"Tenthag," he answered, feeling his courage grow. "And ... Well, yes, I'd love to talk to you!"
"Then make yourself comfortable," she invited. "You've eaten, drunk, and so on?"
"Thank you, yes. We feed well here, and all the better"—he thought of the compliment barely in time—"because of the Bowockers who bring us deepwater fish."
"Yes, normally you only work the shallows, I believe. Well, here's something from my homeland which may tempt you even if you're not hungry. Try some yelg; it's standard courier ration, but I have more than enough for this trip because my lovely Scudder is so quick through the water."
What she offered was unfamiliar but delicious, and within moments he felt all temptation to slip into dreamness leave him. He was in full possession of himself.
"I hope I'm not keeping you from your friends," he said.
"Friends? Oh, you mean the archeologists! No, I don't know them. Anyhow, they're too busy to be bothered with a mere courier. They hadn't finished preparing their reports and packaging what they've found, because they figured I wouldn't be here until tomorrow. But, like I said, Scudder is the record-breaking type ... Oh, there goes a beauty!"
A wide and brilliant streak had crossed the sky, to vanish behind low cloud on the eastern horizon. For a moment it even outshone the Major Cluster, let alone the Arc of Heaven.
"There isn't much to do when you're a courier," she said musingly, "except to watch the weather and the sky. Yet I wouldn't trade my job for anyone's."
"I don't believe I ever heard of the Guild of Couriers before," Tenthag admitted.
"Really?" She turned to him in surprise. "I thought we'd pretty well covered the globe by now—but come to think of it they did warn me I was going to a very isolated area. Well, essentially what we do is keep people in touch with one another over distances that nervograps can't span, and transport bulky items which briq and junq trade would delay or damage. That's why I'm here, of course: they found what they were looking for, and the relics are extremely fragile. But you must know about that."
"I'm afraid they don't talk to us about what they're doing," Tenthag muttered. "Not even to the old'uns, let alone someone of my age."
"Oh, that's absurd! I'll have to mention it when I get home. We couriers have strict instructions from the Order of the Jingfired to maximize trade in information. The Guild was originally founded to spread news of the musculator ... but I sense you aren't following my meaning."
By now Tenthag was emitting such a pheromone-load of incomprehension he was embarrassed. Nemora, in contrast, exuded perfect self-confidence and, impressed by her tact, he was shortly able to respond.
"The word is new to me," he confessed. "Same as—what was it you said?—nervograp?"
"Hmm! No wonder you still only hunt the shallows! But you must have seen the musculators working here, and you could trade something for a brood-stock. They say you make good glass, and—Oh. Never tell me these 'friends' of mine have bought your entire supply for much less useful goods!"
"I believe," Tenthag answered, quoting what he had heard from Fifthorch, "they've commissioned a whole summer's output."
"For supposedly dedicated students of the past, they're far too mercenary, then. I'll report that, definitely. Well, a musculator is what you get when you breed a particular type of shore-living creature for nothing but strength—not even mobility, nothing else except the power to contract when one end is in fresh water and the other in salt. You feed it a few scraps, you can breed from it in turn, and you use it for—oh—pumping water where it's needed, lifting heavy weights, hauling a load across a mountain gorge where mounts can't go, and things like that. And a nervograp ... But there's one in operation between here and the mainland, isn't there?"
"A way of signaling?"
"Ah, you know about that, at least. That's much newer than musculators, of course—in fact, so new that we're still stringing them overland between cities, and I think this is the first-ever underwater connection. I hope it's being done in time, that's all. We've got to link up everybody on the planet if we're ever to get away."
There followed a long baffled silence. Reacting to it, Nemora said eventually, "I'm sorry about that. I was just so stunned to realize you had no idea what I'm referring to. Aren't the Jingtexts available on Neesos?"
"Not many people can read them," Tenthag muttered. "I've never been allowed even to study the language of them."
"But this is awful!" She erupted out of her sitting-pit in a single graceful surge, and Tenthag had his first chance to see her entire. He was embarrassed all over again. She was perfectly lovely, and there was no way he could hide the exudate that signaled his reaction. Luckily she took it as a compliment.
"Hold that for a while, young'un!" she commanded. "There are some things more important than pairing, you know! You really haven't been told that our sun and all its planets are being drawn into the Major Cluster, and if we don't escape we shall wind up fueling a celestial fire? My goodness, how old are you?"
He had to answer frankly, though he could have wished to pretend he was older. Lying was pointless with anybody who had a weather-sense as acute as Nemora's ... and would not someone who piloted a porp single-clawed across great oceans have been selected for precisely that talent?
"I was born in the year called Two-red-stars-turn-blue."
"Then you really ought to be better informed! Why did they turn blue?"
"People here don't pay much attention to the sky," he said defensively.
"That's obvious! Well, the answer is this." Padding up and down, so that her mantle rippled in curves it almost hurt him to watch, she launched into the sort of lecture he had always dreamed of being given by someone older and wiser than himself. "The fixed lights in the sky are suns like ours, but far away. We have records showing that some of them, the nearest, are moving apart; this proves that we're approaching them. I don't mean the ones that move visibly. They're planets like ours, revolving around our sun, and the ones that spill out of the sky are just odd lumps of nothing much which heat up when they fall into our air. But there are too many of them for comfort. We think we're drawing closer to a volume of space where there are so many of these lumps that some must be very big indeed, big as the nubs of comets, and if one of them falls on a city, or even in mid-oc
ean—! And eventually we think our whole world may be drawn into a sun and go up in another star-turned-blue. The more fuel you put on a fire, the hotter it gets, right? And we don't want to be burned!"
Once more there was a period of silence, but this time it was for reflection. Tenthag felt as though he had been afflicted with acute mental indigestion, but what Nemora had said made excellent sense. Besides, how could someone as ignorant as himself challenge her?
He wanted to ask another million questions, but suddenly one became more urgent than any other. He said faintly, recalling what he had heard about the Bowocker divers, "Just now you told me there were some things more important than pairing. But suppose we don't breed, and there aren't enough people left when we find out how to—what did you say?—escape? In any case, I don't see how we could! First we'd have to learn to fly like cloudcrawlers, and then..."
Speech failed him; he sat dumbstruck.
With a deep chuckle she dropped beside him, so close their mantles touched.
"There are people working on means to fly better than cloudcrawlers," she murmured. "One of these days I hope to carry the news of somebody's success in that endeavor. But you're perfectly correct. There must be people to enjoy the benefit of what we're doing now. Would you like to pair with me? I guess it may be your first time, and they do say a first tune can be fruitful."
When she departed after dawn, she left behind a transformed Tenthag, who knew beyond a doubt what he wanted to make of his life. To the dark with glassworking! He was determined to be like Nemora: a courier.
III
Later Tenthag concluded ruefully that if he'd realized how much he had to learn, he would probably have changed his mind. Life on Neesos had not prepared him for the complexity of the modern world, and particularly not for Bowock with its eleven score-of-scores of people, its houses every one of which was different (for the city itself served as a biological laboratory and experimental farm), and its ferment of novelty and invention.