“Probly.” They watched while Chief Purple filled his containers and screwed on the tops. One of his men took the containers and put them in the shiny wagon while Chief Purple climbed onto the driver’s seat. One of the other men mounted the saddled lead horse. Men boiled out of the cave, a dozen mounting onto horses, the others getting into the other vehicles by twos and threes. Coyote had seen guns before; the people at the Place of Power had had guns; most of these men were carrying long guns. Chief Purple stood up on the wagon seat to talk at them. A speech, Coyote decided. He was making a speech. His voice was loud, and it carried well.
“Had enough of these blasted fish people tryin’ to change humans t’suit theirselves. ’Nuf a’ these female boss Artemisians. ’Nuf a’ all of ’em. We’re goin’ to the heart of ’em, the place they do the changin’! We gotta poison that’ll spread! Goin’ to the heart of ’em and kill ’em all. Poison the water where those fish children live, t’ones south a’ here, t’ones west a’ here. Then we’ll get a ship, cross over t’that Tinkywa place, an’ kill t’ones there. No more a’ this turnin’ humin bein’s inta fish. Alla Edgers ’r comin’. Meetin’ us at Big Mountain!”
There was a ragged assent from the men. Many of those on horseback were leading saddled but riderless horses.
Bear said, “Somma them horses prob’ly belonged to somma those dead people the fish blew up.”
Coyote grunted an agreement, then asked, “Where’s Big Mountain?”
Bear snorted. “Alla mountains ’re big. Wouldn’t call ’em mountains if they wasn’t big.”
Chief Purple jerked his head at the man on the lead horse, who kicked the horse and its companion into movement. The wagon moved off, headed eastward. The cars and trucks fell in behind it, the dust of their going drifting eastward, as though following them.
Coyote mused, “Why’s there a rider on that front horse?” Receiving no answer, he mused a moment more and nodded to himself. “ ’Cause it’s too far out in front for the driver to see what’s there, I guess.”
“T’other one, he’s finished playin’ dead,” said Bear, indicating the driver that Chief Purple had left on the ground. The man crawled over to a rock and pulled himself up, shaking his head, then started walking around, kicking at nothing, talking, his voice getting louder and louder. A light breeze brought his words: “Rather die than be put in one a’ those fish things. What kinda person’d wanta be put in there? Nobody! Nosir, damn it, nobody! Crazy idjits, how many they gonna kill afore they stop it? Think they’re gonna live f’rever? Two hunnert years! Who’s had any chil’ren anytime recent? Who’s gonna be left in two hunnert years? Nobody much lef’ now but that idjit n’ people he’s bought. Oh, Gold King, he’s one for buyin’ he is. Thinks he c’n buy livin’ f’rever. T’hell’th it! I say, t’hell’th it!”
Eventually wearying of this, he went into the cave, emerged holding a burning stick that he threw at the activator wagon as he dived down behind a rock. “Duck,” said Bear. The truck blew up like the almost-fish had. None of the debris reached as far as Bear and Coyote. Satisfied, at least for the moment, the man went back into the cave. They continued to watch. After some time he reemerged, leading a saddle horse and followed by a dog. He stood looking around himself for a long moment before mounting and riding off southward, out of Artemisia, away from the direction the Gold King had gone.
Coyote stood up and shook himself. “Let’s look around inside n’ then go back to Abasio.”
Below him, there was a tremor and a roar, fire spouted from the cave entrance. Bear watched the flames die, then nodded to himself. “Let’s not look around inside,” he said. “No tellin’ what else he’s got goin’ off down there. Let’s just go back to Abasio.”
Chapter 14
The Official Arrival of Balytaniwassinot
THE SHORE OF THE NEW LAKE BECAME NOTICEABLY longer over the next few hours. The mess left by the cleanup crew was not cleaned up. After a time spent idly deploring the mess, Abasio took the ul xaolat from his pocket, pushed what he assumed was the proper button, and asked, “Can you clean up that mess down there? Remove all devices, material, everything, and return it to its pristine state? Without using power that any other person may be in desperate need of?”
The tiny screen went blank for a moment before words appeared: At last, someone sensible. Yes. Things on the beach began to disappear. Rails vanished a bit at a time. Equipment vanished, also a bit at a time. Scars made by burning something or other vanished. Tracked sand erupted in tiny volcanoes and subsided, smooth. By the time the sun dropped toward the mountains in the west, everything looked just as nature plus an earthquake would have left it.
Precious Wind grinned and pointed at the device. “Xulai told you about it, did she?”
Abasio made a face at the thing while saying, “Thank you, Bung Quai.” They resumed sitting in reasonable patience halfway up the mountain, waiting for Coyote and Bear.
Abasio heard a sound. “What is that?” he asked no one in particular. The others listened. The sound was a variable hum with an occasional plunk-plunk noise. They could not tell what direction it was coming from. The hum went on, rising and falling in pitch as though something mechanical might be trying to remember a tune. The plunks grew more frequent. Another hour passed and Precious Wind pointed out toward the lake, where bubbles were boiling up from the waters below. As though air were being pumped into the water. Or a cavern had been uncovered.
“Something hollow there and the water just reached it?” Abasio offered.
“Somehow I think not,” said Deer Runner, pointing.
Out in the center of the new lake something very large emerged. The bubbles that had accompanied it stopped. Hum was replaced with whir. The thing came toward the shore, came farther toward, reached, rolled up on, an almost spherical thing, four men high and wide, dark-blue-blackish-greenish: flattened on the bottom. It had four wheels, two close together at one edge of the flat side, and two across from them, farther apart. It appeared to have no openings or features whatsoever. Intragalactic modules were not known for their looks.
While the watchers on the hillside stared in total incomprehension, ruminations continued inside the emergent thing. The arrival had been planned and had happened, but the arrival had not happened as planned. That fact had preoccupied the occupant of the intragalactic module, IGM, for most of the last three days.
The occupant, Balytaniwassinot, also known as “Fixit,” operator of the IGM, was a galactic sector agent, GSA, who had not intended to cause an earthquake when it had officially arrived some days ago. There had been several prearrivals of both agent and module that had occurred covertly, unassumingly, some centuries ago. So long as they never learned about those previous visits, a great many persons in higher-up galactic supervisory positions (HUGSUPs) could continue filling their working time with harmless self-admiration. They also knew nothing about the dream interventions Balytaniwassinot had created, which was also a good thing. What they did not know of, they could not investigate. What they did not investigate, they could not recriminate. Dream interventions were Balytaniwassinot’s own invention, and the agent intended to keep them strictly to itself. Putting a thing or idea or person in someone’s dreams was an excellent way of planting familiarity with that thing or idea or person in someone’s unconscious mind. By this time, Abasio should know all about Lom and Plethrob and the sea planet Squamutch, which would greatly reduce the time he would need to become assured of their reality.
The intragalactic module was equipped with an automatic log. The agent also carried a log that it wore at all times except when sleeping. If it removed the log at any other time, it screamed at him. Both logs were “required.” Either or both of them constantly recorded every breath, blink, twitch, fart, belch, action, and uttered word of the module occupant. If an agent did anything at all, the log would record it. Later, an inspector would look at
this log, perhaps to barely glance, perhaps to intensely scrutinize. Therefore, in the current situation, it was absolutely necessary that the log report only items confirming that the IGM had just arrived on Earth for the very first time! Actually, a short time earlier, agent and module had—as on numerous previous occasions—landed unseen and unheralded, done what was needed, then departed, meanwhile expunging all log entries concerning the matter. Like the dream interventions, the expunging methods were of the agent’s own invention. No one but Balytaniwassinot would have been capable of figuring out the single, albeit extremely complicated way in which official logs could be expunged without leaving any sign at all of the expungement.
Shortly after leaving-in-order-to-rearrive, the logs were allowed to record the new approach. The sensors said there were people gathered nearby who would see the module as it landed or shortly after descent, therefore a witnessed initial arrival should occur without problems. The protocol absolutely required that all initial arrivals be witnessed by local inhabitants; that the arrival be recorded (including statements made by the arriving official in the local language, offering friendship, brotherhood, trade contracts, voting rights, or whatever other inclusive word seemed appropriate), and that copies of that recorded arrival be provided simultaneously to all planetary population groups. In cases where modules had made contact without a properly witnessed initial arrival, whole planetary populations had fallen prey to rumors of invasion from space.
This arrival would have been properly witnessed IF the module’s automatic landing sequence had not considered the surface to be landed upon as a solid part, when in fact the solid part was actually below a liquid part. Either the charts were wrong or something out there had been modified. OR, which Balytaniwassinot gravely suspected, it was piloting an improperly programmed module! Balytaniwassinot’s usual module was being refitted, and this one had been offered as a temporary replacement.
When arriving on any NEW planet, any properly programmed IGM automatically engaged the “analysis of landing site” series before setting down. This planet, Earth, was considered to be NEW—that is, new to sector scrutiny, though it was far from new to Balytaniwassinot. IF the “analysis of landing site” had been engaged, it would have detected water where no water had previously been, and there would have been no crash. Instead, the module had plunged loudly through the water and into the fabric of the world, occasioning a considerable quake. The module seemed to be undamaged, but there had been damage to the local fabric, which had to be repaired to prevent further subsidence. IGMs were not routinely equipped for repair while submerged; it had taken a good deal of both time and originality, during which the module had been invisible underwater. The people, persons, local inhabitants who were needed to make this a witnessed initial arrival had meantime dispersed. Dispersed completely! Leaving no sign they had been here where there had been a considerable clutter of persons and equipment before!
When Balytaniwassinot had first arrived on Earth a long, long time ago, the planet had indeed been NEW to galactic visits. At that time ten or twelve hundred years ago, Earth had not been listed. Since it had been unlisted, it had also been unscheduled for inspection, evaluation, or analysis. When Balytaniwassinot/Fixit had happened upon the solar system, Self was merely taking a little side trip, an unscheduled dawdle, an unauthorized wander. It was notable that even on that occasion, very shortly after being hired, Fixit had already figured out how to fiddle the logs. Indeed, if it had not figured out how to fiddle the logs, Self would not have accepted the job. Some creatures, Self told itself, were simply not designed to accept supervision.
So, on that long-ago first visit, without authorization or any previous information, Fixit had landed to do a preliminary analysis only to have the analysis forced upon it. Fixit was new to the job, a neophyte, but it had taken only a glance to learn that the planet was all wrong and getting wronger by the hour. The dominant race had largely wiped out all other creatures. The world had overheated. Something called a Big Kill had been or still was going on, and it was eliminating most of the dominant species. Since members of this dominant species (beings that were mostly myth-driven and incapable of analytical thought) were the source of the world’s wrongness, their reduction in numbers was probably not a bad thing.
But, the longer Fixit stayed, the more of the dominant species it met, the more troubled it became. If the remainder of the dominant species had been uniformly wrong, any galactic officer making an evaluation would have done its duty and would have immediately eliminated the species, notifying the Supreme Council it had done so. That officer would in all probability also have received a bonus or upgrade in pay or position.
But the species, what was left of it, was not uniformly wrong, and Balytaniwassinot was not just any galactic officer. Balytaniwassinot felt the members of the species who were not wrong did not deserve elimination. Though in the minority, they had bao and were therefore worth considerable effort. Besides, Self’s pride got in the way. At that time Self was still young. No one in authority had ordered Fixit to save those of Earth who had bao, a task that would require great amounts of time and ingenuity. Given the cost, it was unlikely anyone in authority would have done so. However . . . one might attempt it on the sly.
The problem as Balytaniwassinot saw it was: Separate the part of the population who are myth-driven from that part who are bao-driven. Myth-driven persons believe they are immortal, god-governed, god-shaped, that the universe was constructed just for their use. They also perceive that their directive deity drives them not through reason, but through reward and punishment, like livestock.
Bao-driven people do not believe they are immortal or that they are shaped like god or that the universe or any world in it was made for their use. Therefore, those who are bao-driven should be willing to change shape, disvow ownership of the planet, and refuse to be motivated by threat or reward that is contrary to reason.
That was it. Problem and solution. Mankind could be given the choice of turning into something else. Balytaniwassinot spent considerable time thinking about what that something else should be and was influenced, to some extent, by recent visits to aqueous planets in the Yugrit sytem. That would take care of the actuality. Balytaniwassinot would have to take care of the paperwork! And the paperwork would have to go back to a time before Balytaniwassinot had been born!
Starting from that point, the best solution Balytaniwassinot could devise required a few very brief time trips back a thousand Earth years or so from that time. Modules were equipped for time travel. Time travel was seldom if ever approved in areas that were interdependent as a time-line change on one world might have an adverse effect upon a linked world, setting up a chain reaction. However, Earth had had only one extra-system contact with a world part called Lom, on Ocalcalcalip, and though there had been some information shared subsequently, there had been no further physical involvement. Changing the past on this planet after that contact would not affect the other planet. Once the initial shove was given, the plan would require interim adjustments to keep it moving in the right direction, but if successful, the bao-driven population would be saved.
The first thing to be done was to create an Order to Exterminate Species and get it into the files a very long time ago. The dominant species had already given grounds for extermination and, indeed, was already exterminating itself, so the file would merely establish that galactic officers may have put a finger in the pie. So to speak. All those killing machines and wars and so forth, in fact anything the dominant species had done, would be presumed to have happened in accordance with the extermination order. All such orders were required to “seem” natural to the planet’s history, so that part would be easy.
Then to save the members of the dominant race that did not deserve extermination, there would have to be some kind of exception made. Balytaniwassinot studied the species. It watched them. It looked at the things
they had done and not done. Eventually, it drafted an Amendment Resolution.
Amendment Resolution below, voted unanimously by Galactic Supreme Council preliminary to carrying out the order:
Re: Mankinds. Order Exterminate Species (WmQr988856082). Remarkable talents shown by a minority of this species indicate the possible presence of bao: individuals possessing bao are invariably exempt from Orders to Exterminate Species. To identify those individuals with bao, present individual mankinds with an extermination problem solvable only through bao, allowing those with bao to survive.
Getting the papers into the files was no problem. All agents spend an apprentice century. Balytaniwassinot had spent its apprentice century as a file clerk. The files were foolproof. Everything was entered five times in five different ways, but Balytaniwassinot knew them all. First some documentation to establish that this planet had been listed before. Then the OES defining it as a plague species, and dated long enough ago that no one remained in office who might have known about it. And finally, the Amendment Resolution allowing interference to protect those with bao. All of it long enough ago that no one would be surprised to have forgotten about it. To Galactic Officer Balytaniwassinot, the planet was NEW. Self imagined its surprise when it dug into the files and found the planet wasn’t new at all. What a shock it would be! Tsk-tsk. And again, tsk.
However, the intervention had to have happened way back when. It expunged all reference to the planet from the logs, then (as he told himself later, to get it moving before Self lost its nerve) Self returned to Earth and made a millennial jump back, at which time several preliminary tasks were accomplished.
First: The pathetic, half-dead little world spirit of Earth was encouraged (covertly) to send a plea for help to the world part Lom on Ocalcalcalip. Actually, Self had had to bribe the Earth World Spirit. Self had promised to send her somewhere else that did not have mankinds or anything resembling mankinds on it. Poor thing had done nothing but grieve over her poor world for centuries, and she had earned a long vacation.
Fish Tails Page 69
