Xeelee Redemption

by Baxter, Stephen

  ‘Which is,’ Jophiel muttered as he discussed this with Asher, ‘what we’re likely to find locked up in this Library of theirs. Generations of gossip.’

  ‘Yes, but how rich all this is,’ Asher said, with a kind of fond enthusiasm in her voice. ‘I mean, look around. Here we are in a world like a bowl of dust, the people with nothing but animal skins and bits of wood. Their origins almost forgotten. Yet their cultural life is so complex, so colourful. Like a cloud of light over all their heads. That’s humanity for you. It was just the same on the ships, of course. Environments that were even more deprived, in many ways, and Chinelo’s generation were evolving their own intricate culture in response, right under the noses of the adults.’

  Jophiel smiled. ‘I remember. Graffiti in the corners. The bracelets and necklets they made out of bits of waste—’

  ‘Well, I don’t recall that stuff,’ Michael Poole broke in grumpily. ‘And all the gossip in the world about whose aunt is marrying whose uncle isn’t going to get us any closer to the Xeelee.’

  Despite this impatience, however, Poole kept a polite smile on his face through all this complicated manoeuvring, and Jophiel felt obscurely proud of him for that.

  The meeting ended with a still more elaborate round of farewells, with all the visitors touching heads one at a time with all their hosts, and a slow, almost regretful departure.

  A little further along the river bank, they crossed yet another band’s territory, and had to go through the same ritual all over again. But Wina and their guides seemed relaxed; evidently they had factored all this delay into their estimate of a day’s march to the Library.

  It was well past the middle of the day by the time they reached the Great River itself. It was wide, sluggish, tinged red with dust.

  Jophiel knew from the hasty aerial surveys they had made that this was an impressive enough waterway, kilometres wide here – draining a continent, a veritable Mississippi twenty-five thousand light years from the frozen relic of the original. And there was some traffic on the slow-moving water, Jophiel saw: canoes, and larger vessels made up of many canoes bolted together, like multiple-hull catamarans. Their occupants seemed to be dredging up a kind of water-adapted grass, as well as setting out nets for fish. The river-borne folk waved to the walkers as they passed, without any territorial challenges. Evidently the river was seen as a common good, shared by all. During times of peace anyhow.

  And there was wildlife here, as Jophiel might have expected, close to the water.

  Asher pointed out some detail. ‘Those swimming mammals by the bank.’

  ‘They look like otters. They’re rats, aren’t they?’

  ‘And those are big, long-legged rabbits on the far bank, taking a drink. Those wading birds with the bright crests—’

  ‘Chickens.’

  ‘And those trees by the water, a little like banyans, look like a variant of willow. The Gourd carried a parkland ecohab. Turn all that out onto a dusty plain, leave it to adapt for a few thousand years—’

  ‘And this is the result.’

  After tracking the river a while, Jophiel sensed they were approaching the sea; he thought he heard the deeper rumble of a more massive body of water, smelled salt in the air. He never got to see the ocean, however. There was no horizon on this table-top of a landscape, but the mist in the air limited visibility. And before the ocean came into view the path, well trodden, veered away from the river bank and cut directly across the landscape.

  Soon they came to a rise in the land, like a ridge or an earthwork, heaped-up rusty dirt two or three times Jophiel’s own height. Jophiel could see it followed a broad circle, like the wall of a crater; he guessed the diameter was a couple of kilometres, maybe more. Evidently one of the features that had looked so common, and prominent, viewed from the air.

  The trail they now followed converged on a circular track, heavily worn, that looped around the exterior of the earthwork. They trudged along this. More tracks trailed in from the wider landscape to join this perimeter; this was evidently a common destination point.

  The villagers bunched up closer together as they walked on. They had all fallen silent now, villagers and crew alike, as if through some shared perception. Jophiel knew that his template, Michael Poole, had never been swayed much by intuition, by feelings about places and situations. But Jophiel did sense a general unease.

  At last they came to a break in the wall, a wide gap. There was nothing like a gate. Within the enclosure, Jophiel could see a kind of pyramid: a roughly finished, four-sided heap, standing on heavily trodden ground at the centre of the big circular earthwork.

  The group started to move through the gap in the wall.

  And Asher brushed Jophiel’s hand, creating consistency-protocol warning tingles. ‘Look around,’ she muttered. ‘At the wall itself.’

  The sides of the cutting through which they passed were quite steep slopes, earth bound together by coarse grass; the earth was so dry it was almost like a sand dune, Jophiel thought.

  A sand dune from which bones protruded. He recoiled. Then he forced himself to look more closely.

  Skulls, ribs, joints. Some of them smashed, perhaps by animals seeking marrow. Jophiel had an absurd image of one of those big, tough-looking chicken descendants pecking angrily at this ossuary.

  His companions reacted too. Chinelo gaped in horror. Asher glared, as if affronted. The villagers kept their heads down, as if in respect, as they passed through the bank.

  By now Jophiel was pretty sure he knew what they were encountering. And so did Michael Poole, he saw, glancing over at his template.

  ‘Uncle George Poole,’ Jophiel said. ‘More murky secrets from the family archive.’

  Poole nodded curtly. ‘This is a ring cemetery.’

  ‘I know what that means,’ Harris said to the two of them. ‘This isn’t just some Poole family secret, you know. The biologists and ecologists have studied the phenomenon ever since the days of your “Uncle George”.’

  Chinelo frowned. ‘Studied what? What is this place?’

  Harris glared at the Pooles, and turned to Chinelo. ‘This is a hive, Chinelo. A hive of people. Don’t let it . . . upset you. This is all quite characteristic. Unfortunately. As you said, Michael, this earthwork is a ring cemetery. They just haul out the bodies of the dead and dump them when they get far enough out, more or less equidistantly from the central structures. So you get this ring of corpses around the centre. Just as the insects do. The ants. And some animals, the mole rats. Evidently the human versions do the same, if you give them room.’

  Chinelo stared at him. ‘But all those bodies, heaped up. How many people can be in there? The pyramid’s not that big. I mean . . . Even in five thousand years—’

  ‘There may be more people in there than you think,’ Harris said gently.

  ‘We can’t be sure what we’ll find in there,’ Poole muttered. ‘The account George Poole left of the incident in Rome, back in the twenty-first century – of the very first of these hives, the first to be discovered anyhow – is still the most complete. But that was a very young system. There were a couple of near-misses on Mars before the Recovery-Era colonisation waves opened that world up properly. We don’t know how the social structures and the rest will have evolved across five thousand years, if undisturbed—’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘Halt!’

  ‘Stop walking! Go back! Go back!’

  The cries they heard now were hastily translated by their systems from a language not unlike the villagers’.

  The group halted, bunching up. Jophiel saw they had nearly come through the barrier of bones and earth.

  But the way was blocked now by a thin line of maybe twenty individuals. All had shaven scalps, and the sexes were hard to differentiate, though Jophiel had the impression there were more females than males. They were dressed in shapeless, colourle
ss smocks of some vegetable weave. They seemed old to Jophiel, their skin wrinkled and spotted, their postures stooped. But they all held weapons of some sort, spears, clubs, even a few bows and arrows. They could put up a fight if necessary, Jophiel saw.

  He made out more of these elderly guards coming out to join those at the barrier. Rushing, as best they could.

  Chinelo’s hand went to her blaster.

  Wina touched her arm. ‘No. They will not harm us. They only mean to protect the Library. See, already our elders go forward to name us, our people, our reason for coming. They expect us, you see. We sent runners from the village while we waited for you to be ready.’

  Chinelo took her hand off her weapon. ‘They have good discipline,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear an alarm being raised. Yet here they all are, this big number.’

  ‘Not discipline,’ Harris said. ‘Not in the manner you mean. They just react, and follow each other’s lead. They swarm. They are less like a trained military formation than – than antibodies, clustering around a wound.’

  ‘Regina’s three rules,’ Poole said. ‘Remember, Jophiel?’

  Jophiel nodded reluctantly. ‘Listen to your sisters. Do that, and you swarm. I read about this stuff. I never thought we’d get to see it. I think we’re being allowed through . . .’

  The guards had backed off to form a kind of corridor, through which the visiting party would have to walk to reach the pyramid. But the guards kept hold of their weapons, and were silently watchful.

  The group moved forward.

  ‘Ugh,’ Chinelo whispered. ‘They smell of milk. And they’re all so old.’

  ‘Sacrificing the elderly,’ Harris murmured. ‘Another trick adapted from the animals and insects. If an attack comes, block it with the bodies of the old, the worn down, the useless.’ He shook his head. ‘Lethe. I’m supposed to be a doctor now—’

  Poole murmured, ‘It’s tough for all of us. There’s nothing you can do for them. We just have to get through this.’

  Asher said, ‘Certainly we’re learning a lot about High Australia, that such places as this exist – and in quantity. We saw many of these ring features from the air, remember.’

  Chinelo stared at them all. ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Hives?’

  ‘All in good time,’ Jophiel said. ‘I think we all just want to be sure.’

  After perhaps twenty minutes of very slow walking they approached the central structure.

  Jophiel saw that the pyramid wasn’t built of anything like concrete or brick, still less the more advanced technologies of Earth before the Xeelee. It seemed to consist of little but heaped-up stone, big red sandstone boulders that must have been quarried from what passed for bedrock on this cupworld. Stone that was smoothed over by what looked like heat-hardened mud, as Mars red as the rest of the landscape. And, here and there, Jophiel made out the marks of the fingers that must have done the smoothing, and maintained it, over millennia.

  Now more people came out to greet them. Mostly female again, Jophiel saw, most dressed in garments that were just as plain as the guards’ – one-piece tunics tied at the waist – but cleaner and of a better quality. They were all silent, but they all smiled, a little nervously, Jophiel thought.

  And they bunched together like frightened sheep before these strangers, the Cauchy crew.

  The First Slaver elders advanced with their baskets of food, meat and fruit and roots, and the girls and women took these with nods of gratitude.

  ‘So,’ Poole said. ‘With these gifts the plains folk are paying. But for what?’

  ‘Stories,’ Wina said, when she had puzzled out what seemed to be a clumsy translation of the question. ‘Our stories, that we’d forget if we didn’t tell. Stories of the days gone by, and the people who went before. When I die, my children will come here and sing of my life, my loves, the battles I fought. And the Library will remember it for ever, and sing of me to my children’s children when they come in their turn.’ She grinned. ‘Already my aunt, that lady over there, is telling of how I brought down the Ghost-woman. Though I regret that sincerely. Here.’ She handed out baskets of fruit, like heavy apples, to Poole, Harris. ‘The Librarians like fruit.’

  Asher nodded. ‘And in return—’

  ‘They will let you in.’ She pointed at an entrance, dark. ‘Through there. You are special visitors. Newcomers. The Librarians will want to learn of your battles, so they may sing them to your children in future. Sometimes people choose to stay. A few boys, mostly girls. Well, there is plenty of food. You see, people stay for the food. Just don’t touch anything. Or anybody. Don’t steal anything.’

  Poole grinned. ‘Thank you, Wina. Come on, Harris, Jophiel. Asher, you stay outside. And try to figure out if there is anything useful here.’ He looked at the doorway and tensed. ‘Let’s get this done.’

  ‘Keep turning right,’ Wina murmured. ‘That’s the way to the birthing pools. Well, that’s what my grandmother told me. On the other hand, the last time she went in there she never came out again.’

  57

  The pyramid was a place of narrow shafts, cut low through the stone, wide enough for two or three of them to pass side by side, if they ducked beneath the low ceilings.

  There was light inside. The deeper they went the dimmer the light, Jophiel soon discovered, but it was there. It came from shafts, artfully cut through the walls.

  Artfully cut. Maybe, but Jophiel was prepared to bet that everything he saw was the product of trial and error, repeated over and over across centuries, millennia even, until the best solution was found.

  That applied to the air ducts he spotted too, he suspected. Shafts in the walls and ceilings, through which, when he passed, he could feel breezes, laden with a cloying smell of milk. As an air-conditioning system it was primitive, it was crude, but it worked – and all without any external power source, save the Galaxy-centre heat that poured down on this world through its filter of a sky, and human body heat, and convections.

  He was reminded of a family monument, Lilian Poole’s Recovery-Era Goonhilly Mound, in southern England, a conscious expansion of the design principles of a termite mound.

  Anyhow it had evidently worked for centuries.

  As was proved by the people that pressed close, as soon as they got more than a dozen paces in from the daylight. A crowd, all around them, filling the passageways: apparently mostly female, short, bald, blank-faced, eyes wide in the perpetual shade. They pushed along the corridors and practically flowed around the strangers. They were always in contact with each other, Jophiel noticed immediately, always rubbing shoulders, holding hands, whispering – even kissing softly. And at first they reacted to the newcomers too, with gentle touches – not in a hostile way, and still less sexual – just a brush of the arm, a stroke of the back.

  That all changed when one of them tried to touch Jophiel. He kept silent, as his flesh crumbled into a cloud of brilliant pixels.

  Immediately, their behaviour changed. They stopped coming so close, and instead a group of more or less permanent escorts closed up, in a tight wall so that no others could bump up against Jophiel. And as they moved on, Jophiel observed how others backed off and squirmed out of the way as they passed.

  ‘Soon they’ll all know about us,’ Chinelo said. ‘Jophiel and his consistency protocols.’

  ‘Listen to your sisters,’ Poole said. ‘That rule is mostly what governs their behaviour. If one gets alarmed, they all get alarmed. Mostly it works – and is very efficient . . . Another right turn. Let’s keep following Wina’s advice.’

  They passed a couple of chambers, big rooms cut into the rock mound, pierced by air and light shafts of their own. Here Jophiel saw huge vats of what looked like some kind of broth, itself glowing pale green – bioluminescence, perhaps, a useful trait down here. People lined up in their dozens, hundreds, bowls in their hands, to scoop up
portions of the soup, while others stirred the vats with vast wooden ladles. If this was a cookhouse, or a refectory, it was just as crowded as the corridors. The room was filled with a susurrus of soft whispers; the people here spoke constantly, but no words could be made out.

  Chinelo said, ‘So many of them. All of them underground too! You’d never have known they were all here, thousands under this pyramid.’

  Asher said, ‘And all those other pyramids too, remember, all across the cupworld. Thousands and thousands.’

  ‘That is the big advantage,’ Harris said. ‘For the genes, anyhow. The sheer numbers. This is a way of living that delivers a lot of people, all living comfortably together.’

  Chinelo thought that over. ‘Comfortable, yeah. That’s the right word. They all look comfortable. But I wouldn’t be comfortable here.’

  Poole asked, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re all the same. Doing the same thing.’

  Poole considered. ‘Good answer.’

  They passed another chamber, another big room, which seemed to be a dormitory. There were no beds, no bunks, not even blankets. Instead people were just piled up on top of each other, snuggled in, adults, children. A single big heap, a mound of humanity. Like puppies, Jophiel thought.

  Wordless, they moved on.

  Then Chinelo coughed, seemed to stagger slightly, and shook her head. ‘I’m fine . . .’

  ‘Oxygen levels are very low in here,’ Harris said, consulting a softscreen that glowed in the semi-dark. ‘Low in terms of normal human requirements. Another common characteristic. The inhabitants here will have a tolerance. Maybe they’re even able to withstand extended periods, such as minutes or hours, with no oxygen at all, if there’s a cave-in for example. Like the naked mole rats on Earth . . .’