Brightness Reef

by David Brin

I should warn Bloor. His people shouldn't wear rewq. If it lets me spot them, it might help robots, too.

  Another swirl caught his eye, flashing bitterly from the far end of the Glade, standing out from the prevailing mood like a fire burning on an ice-field. There was no mistaking a flare of acrid hate.

  Finally he made out a shaggy snakelike neck, rising from the profile of a small centaur. Rewq-mediated colors, like a globe of distilled loathing, obscured the head itself.

  The wearer of that distant, powerful symbiont suddenly seemed to notice Lark's focused regard. Shifting her attention from aliens and sages, she turned to face Lark directly. Across a crowd of shifting, sighing citizens, they watched each other's colors. Then, in unison each pulled back their rewq.

  In clear light, Lark met her unblinking stare-the ur-rish leader of the zealot cause. A rebel whose malice toward invaders was stronger than Lark had realized. With those three fierce eyes turned his way, Lark needed no symbiont to translate the zealot's feelings toward him.

  Under the late afternoon sun, her neck twisted and she snarled an urrish smile of pure, disdainful contempt.

  The pilgrimage commenced at dusk, with long forest shadows pointing toward a hidden mountain pass. Twelve twelves of chosen citizens represented all the Commons, along with two star-humans, four robots, and one tall ancient being whose shambling gait hinted great strength under glossy white robes.

  Judging by his so-humanlike smile, Ro-kenn seemed to find delight in countless things, especially the rhythmic chanting-a blending of vocal contributions from all races-as the assembly set out past steaming vents and sheer clefts, weaving its slow way toward the hidden oval Valley of the Egg. The Rothen's long-fingered hands stroked slim-boled welpal trees, whose swaying resonated with emanations from that secret vale. Most humans would hear nothing till they got much closer.

  In Lark's heart, dark feelings churned. Nor was he alone. Many, especially those farthest from Ro-kenn's cheerful charisma, still felt uneasy about guiding strangers to this sacred place.

  The procession marched, rolled, and slithered, wending higher into the hills. Soon the heavens glittered with formations of sparkling lights-brittle bright clusters and nebulae-divided by the dark stripe of the Galactic disk. If anything, the sight reinforced the starkly uneven order of life, for tonight's guests would shortly cross those starscapes, whether they departed in peace or betrayal. To them, Jijo would become another quaint, savage, perhaps mildly interesting spot they had visited once in long, deified lives.

  The last time Lark came up this way-so earnest about his self-appointed mission to save Jijo from invaders like himself-no one had any thought of starships cruising Jijo's sky.

  Yet they were already up there, preparing to land.

  What is more frightening? The danger you already dread, or the trick the universe hasn't pulled on you yet? The one to make all prior concerns seem moot.

  Lark hoped none of this gloom carried into his letter to Sara, which he had finished in a hurried pencil scrawl by the headwaters of the Bibur after the Rothen emerged. The kayak pilot added Lark's note to a heavy bundle from Bloor, then set off in a flash of oars, speeding down the first set of spuming rapids in a pell-mell rush toward Biblos, two days' hard rowing away.

  On his way back to rendezvous with the other heretics, he had stopped to watch the alien aircraft glide out of its dark tunnel like a wraith, rising on whispering engines. Lark glimpsed a small human silhouette, hands and face pressed against an oval window, drinking in the view. The figure looked familiar . . . but before he could raise his pocket ocular, the machine sped away, eastward, toward a cleft where the largest moon was rising above the Rimmer Range.

  Now, as the evening procession entered a final twisty canyon leading to the Egg, Lark tried putting temporal concerns aside, preparing for communion. It may be my last chance, he thought, hoping this time he might fully take part in the wholeness others reported, when the Egg shared its full bounty of love.

  Drawing his right arm inside his sleeve, he grasped the rocky flake, despite its growing heat. A passage from the Scroll of Exile came to mind-an Anglic version, modified for Earthlings by one of the first human sages.

  We drift, rudderless, down the stream of time,

  betrayed by the ancestors who left us here,

  blind to much that was hard-learnt by other ages,

  fearful of light and the law,

  but above all, anxious in our hearts

  that there might be no God,

  no Father,

  no heavenly succor,

  or else that we are already lost to Him,

  to fate,

  to destiny.

  Where shall we turn, in banished agony,

  with our tabernacle lost,

  and faith weighed down by perfidy?

  What solace comes to creatures lost in time?

  One source of renewal,

  never fails.

  With rhythms long,

  its means are fire and rain,

  ice and time.

  Its names are myriad.

  To poor exiles it is home.

  Jijo.

  The passage ended on a strange note of combined reverence and defiance.

  If God still wants us, let him find us here.

  Till then, we grow part of this,

  our adopted world.

  Not to hinder, but to serve Her cyclic life.

  To sprout humble goodness out of the foul seed of crime.

  Not long after that scroll gained acceptance in the human sept, one winter's day, ground tremors shook the Slope. Trees toppled, dams burst, and a terrible wind blew. Panic swept from mountains to sea amid reports that Judgment Day had come.

  Instead, bursting through a cloud of sparkling dust, the Egg appeared. A gift out of Jijo's heart.

  A gift which must be shared tonight-with aliens.

  What if they achieved what he had always failed? Or worse, what if they reacted with derisive laughter, declaring that the Egg was a simple thing that only yokels would take seriously-like fabled Earth-natives worshipping a music box they found on the shore?

  Lark struggled to push out petty thoughts, to tune himself with the basso rumble of the hoon, the qheuens' calliope piping, the twanging spokes of the g'Keks, and all of the other contributions to a rising song of union. He let it take over the measured pace of his breathing, while warmth from the stone fragment seemed to swell up his hand and arm, then across his chest, spreading relaxed detachment.

  Close, he thought. A tracery of soft patterns began taking shape in his mind. A weblike meshing of vague spirals, made up partly of images, partly of sound.

  It's almost as if something is trying to-

  "Is this, not exciting?" a voice broke in from Lark's right, splitting his concentration into broken shards. "I believe I can feel something now! It's quite unlike any psi phenomenon I have experienced. The motif is highly unusual."

  Ignore her, Lark thought, clinging to the patterns. Maybe she'll go away.

  But Ling kept talking, sending words clattering up avenues that could not help hearing them. The harder he tried holding on, the quicker detachment slipped away. Lark's hand now clenched a clammy ball of rock and twine, warm with his body heat alone. He let go in disgust.

  "We picked up some tremors on instruments several days ago. The cycles have been rising in strength and complexity for some time."

  Ling seemed blithely unaware of having done anything wrong. That, in turn, made Lark's simmering resentment seem both petty and futile. Anyway, her beauty by moonlight was even more unnerving than usual, cutting through his anger to a vulnerable loneliness within.

  Lark sighed. "Aren't you supposed to be guarding your boss?"

  "Robots do the real guarding-as if we have anything to fear. Ro-kenn gave Rann and me permission to look around while he talks to your sages, preparing them for what's about to happen."

  Lark stopped so suddenly, the next pilgrim in line had to stumble to avoid him.
He took Ling's elbow. "What are you talking about? What's about to happen?"

  Ling's smile carried a touch of the old sardonicism.

  "You mean you haven't guessed by now? Oh, Lark. Think about the coincidences.

  "For two thousand years sooners of various races lived on this world, squabbling and slowly devolving. Then humans came and everything changed. Though you started few and helpless, soon your culture became the most influential on the planet.

  "Then, just a few generations after your arrival, a miracle suddenly erupts out of the ground, this spirit guide you all revere."

  "You mean the Egg," he said, brow furrowing.

  "Exactly. Did you really think the timing accidental? Or that your patrons had forgotten you?"

  "Our patrons." Lark frowned. "You mean . . . you're implying the Rothen knew all along-"

  "About the voyage of the Tabernacle? Yes! Ro-kenn explained it to us this morning, and now everything makes sense! Even our own arrival on Jijo is no accident, dear Lark. Oh, our mission is partly to seek deserving presapients, to join our clan. But more than that, we came for you. Because the experiment is finished!"

  "Experiment?" He felt an involuntary disorientation.

  "An arduous trial for your small branch of humanity, castaway and forgotten-or so you thought-on a savage world. It sounds harsh, but the road of uplift is hard when a race is destined for the heights our patrons plan for us."

  Lark's mind whirled. "You mean our ancestors were meant to sneak down to Jijo? As part of an ordeal that's supposed to ... transform us somehow? The Egg was-is-part of some Rothen scheme-"

  "Design," Ling corrected, a kind of elation invading her voice. "A grand design, Lark. A test, which your folk passed brilliantly, I'm told, growing stronger, smarter, and more noble even as this awful place tried to grind you down.

  "And now the time has come to graft this successful offshoot back onto the main trunk, helping all of humanity to grow, thrive, and better face the challenges of a dangerous universe."

  Her grin was joyful, exuberant.

  "Oh, Lark, when I spoke to you last, I thought we might be taking a few human castaways with us, when we go.

  "But now the news is pure and grand, Lark.

  "Ships are coming. So many ships!

  "It is time to bring you all back home."

  Asx

  ASTONISHMENT! This news bellows through our waxy cavities, driving out the Egg's pattern/resonance with acrid vapors of surprise.

  we/i/we/i/we . . . cannot coalesce as Asx. Nor contemplate these tidings with any sense of unity.

  The worst rumors of recent months-spread by irredentist urrish chiefs and bitter gray queens-claimed that humans might abandon Jijo, departing with their sky-cousins, leaving the other five to fester and be damned.

  Yet even that dark fantasy left one solace to the rest of us.

  One comfort.

  The Egg.

  Now, we are told--

  (disbelieve it!)

  (but how?)

  --that the holy ovoid was never ours! Only humans', all along! Its dual purpose-to guide Earthlings toward greatness while at the same time soothing, domesticating we other Five!

  Taming the other septs, in order to keep humans safe during their brief stay on Jijo.

  Now this is topped by insulting "kindness," as Ro-kenn says the Egg will be left as a parting gift. Left as a token, a trifle,

  a gratuity for our pains. Left to shame us all!

  Pause, my rings. Pause. Ensure fairness. Stroke vapors across the wax drippings. Remember.

  Did not Lester Cambel seem as dismayed as the rest of us?

  Did not all the sages resolve to conceal this news? Lest rumors do great harm?

  It is useless. Even now, eavesdropping citizens rush off, dispersing exaggerated versions of what they overheard, casting a poison up and down the chain of pilgrims, shattering the rhythms that had been uniting us.

  Yet from the majestic Rothen, we sense cheerful un-awareness that anything is wrong!

  Is this what it means to be a god? To know not what harm you do?

  Ripples of infection spread along the twisty trail. The worship-chant breaks apart, dissolving into many twelves of muttering individuals.

  Now, from my/our highest peak, we perceive another disturbance, propagating from the front of the procession! The two disruptions meet like waves on a storm-tossed lake, rolling through each other in a great spume of noise.

  "The way is blocked," a galloping messenger cries, hastening back with word. "A rope barrier bars the path, with a banner upon it!"

  NO INFIDEL DESECRATION

  KEEP SKY FILTH AWAY

  JIJO WILL NOT BE MOCKED!

  This can only be the work of zealots.

  Frustration spins round our core. The fanatics chose a fine time to make their gesture!

  We sages must go see. Even Vubben makes haste, and my basal segments labor to keep up. Ro-kenn strides with graceful ease, seeming unperturbed.

  And yet, my rings, is this variance we observe, in Ro-kenn's aura? Through our rewq, we sense discrepancy between parts of his face, as if the Rothen's outward calm masks a canker of seething wrath.

  Can rewq read so much from an alien form we just met, this very day? Is it because i have one of the few older rewq, surviving from earlier days? Or do we notice this because traeki are tuned to perceive disunity of self?

  Ahead-the defiant banner.

  Above-perched on cliffs, shouting youths brandish foolish (but brave!) weapons.

  Below-Phwhoon-dau, with his booming voice, calls to them, asking them to state their demands.

  Their reply? Echoing down canyons and steam-fumaroles-a command that the aliens depart! Never to return. Or else suffer vengeance by the greatest force on Jijo.

  !?!?

  The zealots threaten the Rothen with the Egg?

  But did not Ro-kenn just claim the great ovoid as his to command?

  Across the Rothen's visage flows what i interpret as cool amusement. He calls the zealots' bluff.

  "Shall we see who has the power to back up their claims?" the star-god asks. "This night the Egg, and all Jijo, will sing our truth."

  Lester and Vubben plead for restraint, but Ro-kenn ignores them. Still smiling, he commands robots to each side of the gorge, to seize the anchor bolts holding the barrier in place. Overhead, the rebel leader stretches her long neck, keening a curse in plains dialect, invoking the sacred power of Jijo to renew. To cleanse impudent dross with fire.

  The young zealot is a fine showman, stamping her hooves, foretelling awful punishments. Our more credulous rings find it possible, for a moment, to believe-

  -to believe-

  -to believe-

  What is happening?

  What-is-happening?

  What impressions pour

  in

  now,

  faster than

  wax can melt?

  Then penetrate

  awareness,

  ring after

  ring

  in a manner that

  makes

  all events

  equal in both

  timing and

  import?

  What is happening?

  --twin lightning bolts outline many twelves of pilgrims, their shadows fleeing from white flame . . .

  --crackling metal complains . . . shattered . . . unable to fly . . . a pair of tumbling cinders . . .

  --after-image of demolition . . . two junk piles smolder . . . more dross to collect and send to sea . . .

  With other eye-patches, we/i glimpse horrified surprise on the face of Rann, the sky-human.

  --surrounding Ro-kenn, a schism of variance like a traeki sundered between one ring that is jolly and a neighbor filled with wrath . . .

  And now, though surfeited with impressions, suddenly there is more!

  --with eye-patches on the opposite side, we are first to glimpse a fiery spike . . .

  --a searing brightness climbs
the western sky . rising from the Glade of Gathering . .

  --the ground beneath us trembles . . .

  --actual sound takes a while longer to arrive, battling upward through thin air to bring us a low groan, like thunder!

  At last, the pace of events slows enough for our spinning vapors to keep up. Happenings occur in order. Not disjointed, parallel.

  Review, my rings!

  Did we perceive two robots destroyed, even as they tore down the zealots' barrier?

  Then were we dazzled by some vast explosion behind us? Toward the Glade of Gathering?

  What had been a pilgrimage of union dissolves into a mob. Small groups hurry downhill toward a dusty, moon-lit pall, left by that brief flame. Humans hang close together, for protection, clinging to their remaining hoonish and qheuenish friends, while other qheuens and many urs clatter by, aloof, scornful, even threatening in their manner.

  Ro-kenn no longer walks but rides a cushioned plate between his two remaining robots, speaking urgently into a handheld device, growing more agitated by the moment. His human servants seem in shock.

  The female, Ling, holds the arm of Lark, our young human biologist. Uthen offers a ride, and they climb aboard his broad gray back. All three vanish down the trail after Ro-kenn.

  Bravely, Knife-Bright Insight proposes similarly to carry this pile of rings, this Asx!

  Can i/we refuse? Already, Phwhoon-dau totes Vubben in his strong, scaly arms. The hoon sage lugs the g'Kek so both might hurry downhill and see what has happened.

  By majority ballot, our rings choose to accept the offer. But after several duras of jouncing qheuenish haste, there are calls for a recount! Somehow, we clamp down, managing to hang on to her horny shell, wishing we had walked.

  Time passes through a gelatin of suspense, teasing us with idle speculation. Darkness swallows wisdom. Glittering stars seem to taunt.

  Finally, at an overlooking bluff, we jostle with others for a view.

  Can you sense it, my rings?

  Unified now, in shock, i see a steaming crater, filled with twisted metal. The sanctuary where Ro-kenn and the sky-humans dwelled among us for weeks. Their buried outpost-now a fiery ruin.