by David Brin
With a few hours still to go before dusk, and a leaden heat still pressing outside, tinkers and pack-handlers gathered around a storyteller, accompanying her recital with foot-stamps and switched braided tails. Even after gaining books and printing, urs still loved the oral tradition, its extravagance and impromptu variations. When the bard's chant reached the Battle of Znunir Trading Post, elongated heads swayed together. Triplet eyes stared past the poet toward times gone by.
So the traitor cavalry scattered
Willing slaves, the cowards were driven
Into the trap Uryutta had fashioned
Tumbling screaming through Deep Stink Crevasse
There to mix sulfurous death smells
With their own dry-pouch, death-fearing rankness.
Listeners hissed contempt for gutless renegades. Sara pulled out her notebook and took notes on the antiquated storytelling dialect, already devolved from GalTwo, long before humans came.
Then wheeled Uryutta, ready to confront
The dread footmen of gray qheuen matrons
Males in armor, males with weapons
Of sharp-edged hardwood, flashing so brightly
And clattering claws, keen to tear hide,
Poised now to flay us in shreds for their mothers.
This time the urs listeners vented repeated low grunts, marking respect for a tough foe, a sound humans first heard the third generation after arriving, when Earthlings won their own place in the pre-Commons chaos.
Now is the time! Our chief gives the signal.
Bring forth the weapons, tools newly fashioned.
Bring forth the longsticks, come forth you strongbacks.
Stab now to miss, but stab hard below!
Bear now the burden. Bear it, you strongbacks!
Heave! Claws a-flashing, over they go!
At first Sara had trouble following the action. Then she understood Uryutta's combat innovation--using "long-sticks," or rods of boo, to tip over the invincible qheuen infantry. Urrish volunteers served as living fulcrums, braving snapping" claws and crushing weight while their fellows heaved, toppling one qheuen after another.
Despite the ecstatic song of vengeful slaughter, Sara knew the historical Uryutta's victories had been shortlived, as qheuens adjusted their tactics. It took a later breed of heroes--the warrior smiths of Blaze Mountain--to finally drive gray tyrants off the high plains. And still the queens thwarted the rising Commons, until humans brought new-old skills to the art of war.
Not all the urs were celebrating past glories. The caravan chief and her aides knelt on a peko-skin rug, planning the next trek. From their gestures over a map, they clearly meant to skip the next oasis and make a hard dash for the foothills by sunrise.
Oh, my aching feet, Sara thought.
The chief raised her conical head, hissing as one human pilgrim neared a tent flap.
"Got to go," explained Jop, the Dolo tree farmer.
"What, leaking again? Are you ill?"
Jop had spent most of the journey immersed in a copy of the Scroll of Exile, but now he seemed affable. He laughed. "Oh, no. I jest drank too much lovely spring water. Time to give it back to Jijo. That's all."
While the flap was briefly up, Sara glimpsed bubbles in the pond again. Blade was back under, soaking for the next hard march. Was he also blocking out the storyteller's victory paean over defeated qheuens?
The flap fell, and Sara looked around the pavilion-shelter.
Kurt the Exploser used a compass to draw loopy arcs on sheets of graph paper, growling over his labors, making a papermaker's daughter wince as he crumpled one sheet after another in frustration. Nearer to Sara, Prity also drew abstract figures, more economically, in a patch of sand. Pulling at her furry chin, she consulted a topology text Sara had brought from Biblos.
My, what an intellectual caravan, Sara observed sardonically. A would-be priest, a designer of things that go bang, a geometrical chimpanzee, and a fallen mathematician, all hurrying toward possible destruction. And that just begins our list of oddities.
Over to the left, the Stranger had set aside his dulcimer to watch Kurt's nephew, young Jomah, play a game of Tower of Haiphong with a red-qheuen salt peddler, a pair of Biblos librarians, and three hoonish pilgrims. The contest involved moving colored rings over a hexagonal array of posts, stuck in the sand. The goal was to pile a stack of rings on your Home Post in the right order, largest at the bottom, smallest on top. In the advanced game, where ring colors and patterns signified traeki attributes, one must wed various traits to form an ideal traeki.
Pzora seemed more entranced by the storyteller than the game. Sara had never heard of a traeki taking offense at Tower of Haiphong, even though it mimicked their unique mode of reproduction.
"See here?" the boy explained the game to the Stranger. "So far I got swamp flippers, a mulching core, two memory rings, a Sniffer, a Thinker, and a Looker."
The star-human showed no sign of frustration by Jomah's rapid speech. He watched the apprentice ex-ploser with an expression of intelligent interest--perhaps he heard Jomah's warbling voice as something like musical notes.
"I'm hoping for a better base, to let my traeki move around on land. But Horm-tuwoa snatched a walker torus I had my eye on, so it looks like I'm stuck with flippers."
The hoon to the boy's left crooned a low umble of gratification. You had to think fast, playing Tower of Haiphong.
"Build me a dream house, oh my dear,
fourteen stories high.
Basement, kitchen, bedroom, bath,
I'll love you till I die."
Jomah and the others all stopped what they were doing to stare at the Stranger, who rocked back and laughed.
He's getting better at this, Sara thought. Still, it seemed eerie whenever the star-man came up with the verse to some song, perfectly apropos to what was going on at the time.
With a glitter in his eye, the Stranger waited till the other players were engrossed once more in their own stacks. Then he nudged Jomah, covertly pointing out a game piece ready to draw from the reserve box. The boy stared at the rare torus called Runner, trying so hard to stifle a yelp of joy that he coughed, while the dark alien patted him on the back.
Now how did he know that? Do they play Tower of Haiphong, among the stars? She had pictured space-gods doing--well, godlike things. It was encouraging to
think they might use games with simple pieces--hard, durable symbols of life.
Of course, most games are based on there being winners . . . and losers.
The audience hissed appreciatively as the bard finished her epic and left the low platform to accept her reward, a steaming cup of blood. Too bad I missed the end, Sara thought. But she would likely hear it again, if the world lasted beyond this year.
When no one else seemed about to take the stage, several urs stretched and started drifting toward the nearest tent flap, to go outside and check their animals, preparing for tonight's trek. But they stopped when a fresh volunteer abruptly leaped up, clattering hooves on the dais. The new storyteller was Ulgor, the tinker who had accompanied Sara ever since the night the aliens passed above Dolo Village. Listeners regathered around as Ulgor commenced reciting her tale in a dialect even older than the one before.
Ships fill your thoughts right now,
Fierce, roaming silently.
Ships fill your dreams right now,
Far from all watery seas.
Ships cloud your mind-scape now,
Numberless hordes of them.
Ships dwarf your mind-scape now,
Than mountains, vaster far.
A mutter of consternation. The caravan chief corkscrewed her long neck. This was a rare topic, widely thought in poor taste, among mixed-races. Several hoon-ish pilgrims turned to watch.
Ships of the Urrish-ka
Clan of strong reverence.
Ships of the Urrish host.
Clan bound for vengeance!
Bad taste or no, a tale under way was sacrosanct t
ill complete. The commander flared her nostril to show she had no part in this breach, while Ulgor went on evoking an era long before urs colonists ever set hoof on Jijo. To a time of space armadas, when god-fleets fought over incomprehensible doctrines, using weapons of unthinkable power.
Stars fill your thoughts right now.
Ships large as mountain peaks,
Setting stars quivering,
With planet-sized lightings.
Sara wondered--why is she doing this? Ulgor had always been tactful, for a young urs. Now she seemed out to provoke a reaction.
Hoon sauntered closer, air sacs puffing, still more curious than angry. It wasn't yet clear that Ulgor meant to dredge up archaic vendettas--grudges so old they made later, Jijo-based quarrels with qheuens and men seem like tiffs over this morning's breakfast.
On Jijo, urs and boon share no habitats and few desires. No basis for conflict. It's hard to picture their ancestors slaughtering each other in space.
Even the Tower of Haiphong game was abandoned. The Stranger watched Ulgor's undulating neck movements, keeping tempo with his right hand.
Oh ye, native listeners
So-smugly ignorant,
Planet-bound minds, dare you
Try to conceive?
Of planet-like holes in space,
In which dwell entities,
That planet-bound minds like yours
Cannot perceive?
Several hoon umbled relief. Perhaps this wasn't about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs. Some space-epics told of awesome vistas, or sights baffling to modern listeners, reminders of what the Six had lost, but might regain someday--ironically, by forgetting.
Cast back your dread-filled thoughts,
To those ships, frigidly,
Cruising toward glory's gate,
Knowing not destiny.
If the first bard had been ardent, chanting bloody glory, Ulgor was coolly charismatic, entrancing listeners with her bobbing head and singsong whistle, evoking pure essences of color, frost, and fear. Sara put her notebook down, spellbound by vistas of glare and shadow, by vast reaches of spacetime, and shining vessels more numerous than stars. No doubt the yarn had grown in retelling, countless times. Even so, it filled Sara's heart with sudden jealousy.
We humans never climbed so high before our fall. Even at our greatest, we never possessed fleets of mighty starships. We were wolflings. Crude by comparison.
But that thought slipped away as Ulgor spun her rhythmic chant, drawing out glimpses of infinity. A portrait took shape, of a great armada bound for glorious war, which fate lured near a dark region of space. A niche, mysterious and deadly, like the bitter hollows of a mule-spider's lair. A place wise travelers skirted, but not the admiral of this fleet. Steeped in her own invincibility, she plotted a course to fall on her foes, dismissing all thought of detour.
Now from one black kernel,
Spirals out fortune's bane,
Casting its trap across,
Throngs of uneasy stars . . .
Several hoon umbled relief. Perhaps this wasn't about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs.
With a sudden jerk, Sara's attention was yanked back to the present by a hard tug on her right arm. She blinked.
Prity gripped her elbow, tight enough to grow painful-- until Sara asked--"What is it?"
Letting go, her chim consort signed.
Listen. Now!
Sara was about to complain--That's what I was doing, listening--then realized Prity did not mean the story. So she tried to sift past Ulgor's mesmerizing drone . . . and finally picked up a low mutter coming from outside the pavilion.
The animals. Something's upsetting them.
The simlas and donkeys had their own camouflaged shelter, a short distance away. Judging from a slowly rising murmur, the beasts weren't exactly frightened, but they weren't happy, either.
The Stranger also noticed, along with a couple of librarians and a red qheuen, all of them backing away, looking around nervously.
By now the caravan chief had joined the crowd of rising-falling urrish heads, lost in a distant place and time. Sara moved forward to nudge the expedition leader--carefully, since startled urs were known to snap--but all at once the chiefs neck went rigid of its own accord, anxious tremors rippling her tawny mane. With a hiss, the urs matron roused two assistants, yanking a third back to reality with a sharp nip to the flank. All four stood and began trotting toward the tent flap--
--then skittered to a halt as phantom shapes began rising along the shelter's western edge--shadowy centauroid outlines, creeping stealthily, bearing spiky tools. A dismayed screech escaped one of the caravan-lieutenants, just before chaos exploded on all sides.
The audience burst into confusion. Grunts and whistling cries spilled from stunned pilgrims as the tent was ripped in a dozen places by flashing blades. War-painted fighters stepped through the gaps, leveling swords, pikes, and arbalests, all tipped with bronze-colored Buyur metal, driving the churned mass of frightened travelers back toward the ash pit at the center.
Prity's arms clasped Sara's waist while young Jomah
clung to her other side. She wrapped an arm around the boy, for whatever comfort it might offer.
Urrish militia? she wondered. These warriors looked nothing like the dun-colored cavalry that performed showy maneuvers for Landing Day festivals. Slashes of sooty color streaked their flanks and withers. Their weaving, nodding heads conveyed crazed resolve.
A caravan-lieutenant bolted toward the stand where weapons were kept, mostly to ward off liggers, khoo-bras, or the occasional small band of thieves. The trail boss shouted in vain as the young urs dove for a loaded arbalest--and kept going, toppling through the stand and skidding along a trail of sizzling blood. She tumbled to a stop, riddled with darts, at the feet of a painted raider.
The expedition leader cursed the intruders, deriding their courage, their ancestry, and especially her own complacency. Despite rumors about trouble in far corners of the plains, peacetime habits were hard to break, especially along the main trail. Now her brave young colleague had paid the price.
"What do you want?" she, demanded in GalTwo. "Do you have a leader? Show her (criminal) muzzle, if she dares to speak!"
The tent flap nearest the oasis lifted, and a burly urrish warrior entered, painted in jagged patterns that made it hard to grasp her outline. The raider chieftain high-stepped delicately over the lieutenant's bloody trail, cantering to a halt just before the caravan commander. Surprisingly, both of her brood-pouches were full, one with a husband whose slim head peered under the fighter's arm. The other pouch was blue and milk-veined, bulging with unfledged offspring.
A full matron was not usually prone to violence, unless driven by duty or need.
"You are not one to judge our (praiseworthy) daring, " the raider captain hissed in an old-fashioned, stilted dialect. "You, who serve (unworthy) client/masters with too-many or too-few legs, you are not fit to valuate this band of sisters. Your sole choice is to submit (obsequiously), according to the (much revered) Code of the Plains."
The caravan chief stared with all three eyes. "Code? Surely you do not mean the (archaic, irrelevant) rituals that old-time (barbaric) tribes used, back when--"
"The code of war and faith among (noble, true-to-their-nature) tribes. Confirmed! The way of our (much revered) aunts, going back generations before (recent, despicable) corruption set in. Confirmed! Once again, I ask/demand--do you submit?"
Confused and alarmed, the caravan chief shook her head, human style, blowing air uncertainly like a hoon. With a low aspiration, she muttered in Anglic,
"Hr-r-r. Such jeekee nonsense for a grownuf adult to kill over--"
The raider sprang upon the merchant trader, wrapping their necks, shoving and twining forelegs till the caravan chief toppled with a groan of agony, wheezing in shock. Any Earthly vertebrate might have had her spine snapped.
The raider turned to the pilgrims with her
head stretched far forward, as if to snap anyone in reach. Frightened prisoners pressed close together. Sara tightened her grip on Jomah, pushing the boy behind her.
"Again I ask/demand--who will (unreservedly) submit, in the name of this (miserable excuse for a) tribe?"
A dura passed. Then out of the circle staggered a surviving lieutenant--perhaps pushed from behind. Her neck coiled tightly, and her single nostril flared with dread as she stumbled toward the painted harlequin. Trembling, the young urs crouched and slowly pushed her head along the ground till it rested between the raider's forehooves.
"Well done," the corsair commented. "We shall make a (barely acceptable) plainsman of you.
"As for the rest, I am called UrKachu. In recent (foolish) days I was known as Lord High Aunt of Salty Hoof Clan, a useless, honorary title, bereft of (real) power or glory. Now banished from that (ungrateful) band, I co-lead this new company of cousin-comrades. United, we resurrect one of the (great, lamented) warrior societies--the Urunthai!"
The other raiders raised their weapons, bellowing a piercing cry.
Sara blinked surprise. Few humans grew up ignorant of that name, fearsome from bygone days.
"This we have done because (so-called) aunts and sages have betrayed our glory race, falling into a (reviled) human trap. A scheme of extermination, planned by alien criminals."
From an abstract corner of her mind, Sara noted that the raider was losing control over her tailored, old-fashioned GalTwo phrasing, giving way to more modern tones, even allowing bits of hated Anglic to slip in.
The other raiders hissed supportive counterpoint to their leader's singsong phrasings. UrKachu leveled her head toward the pilgrims, twisting and searching, then stopped before a tall, dark human male--the Stranger.