The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  He turned quite red, pressed his lips tightly together, controlling himself with obvious (and surprising) effort, then took a deep breath, and said, “The general will have a fit.”

  The surrender was so abrupt that I hid my face behind my cup, catching up to capitulation. My unfamilial brother was ordinarily willing to risk almost everything to get his way. Either he’d been promised a bonanza for this job, or it was one that could further his career or, more likely, both.

  When the pause threatened to become strained, I asked, with careful disinterest, “By general, you mean General Manager Brandt of ESC? He gave you the assignment?”

  “No, of course not. This kind of thing doesn’t require involvement at his level. It’s an Earth Enterprises contract, jointly manned by ESC and PPI, and it came through the Enterprises’ Contract Division, man named Eigverst. He said hold the requirements down or the general would have a fit.”

  “And you’ll clear the details with him?”

  “No,” he said with an accustomed sneer. “Not if you’re going. In that case, you can fight out the damned dog question with Eigverst. My requirements list is on my desk—combine it with yours and cover all the details.”

  Which was, of course, what he needed me for. Paul regarded detail and routine as beneath him. Our rent was double what others paid simply because of the extra services he demanded from tower catering and housekeeping. He could not function unless he had someone else to take care of his day-to-day living.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said with the slight frown it took to suppress a triumphant grin, for I would indeed take care of it, right at the top with Gainor Brandt himself. He’d be ecstatic!

  Paul was staring at me with a dissatisfied expression. I spoke quickly, before he had a chance to start pawing the ground again. “If we’re going to be gone up to three years, I have shopping to do. Where will we be living?”

  “In the PPI compound,” he said grudgingly. “ESC has a screened installation on an island just offshore, but one can’t very well do linguistics from inside a screen. If one can do linguistics in this case at all!”

  If? Paul never said if. “What makes you doubtful? Are the natives shy?”

  He shrugged, forefinger stroking the side of his nose as he did unconsciously when he was uncertain about something. “I asked for everything they have on these creatures, but it’s clear no one knows what they are. All the ESC people know is what they see. Here’s the cube, take a look for yourself.”

  The wall screen opened to display a stretch of vaguely green meadow or lawn. Forms moved about on it, flame-shaped, slender, round-bottomed cones that flickered at their tips with frondlike extrusions. The upper half of each cone sparkled with points of light, like sequins. I pointed, questioningly.

  “Eyes, maybe,” said Paul. “Light reflecting off the lenses.”

  “A hundred eyes?”

  He shrugged. “Nobody knows for sure. There are some striated sections below that could conceal mouths or noses. The flat places could be tympani, maybe ears.”

  The forms circled the meadow, one at a time, a line of dancers, flailing the fronds at their tops as they went by. They were of different colors, wearing veils of some filmy material that swirled around them.

  “Skirts?” I asked, rising to get a closer look.

  “Moss. It grows on them. See that belt around their middles? It’s a kind of…bark, maybe. Or cartilage. Local greenery grows on it and hangs down. They shed bits of it; it’s been picked up and analyzed, of course, and it’s the same stuff that grows on the trees.”

  The light grew stronger as we watched.

  “Moonrise,” said Paul, as the pictured forms, together with their dancing floor, suddenly rose into the air and vanished in an explosion of soft light. He closed the wall. “There are several more dance sessions recorded, all very much alike. We still know almost nothing about them after almost ten years of observation on the moss world…”

  I cringed and staggered.

  He stepped toward me, crying “What’s the matter?”

  I sagged witlessly into a chair, shivering in sudden cold. “No…nothing, Paul. We’ve been talking about a planet and moon of Garr’ugh 290. But you just now said, moss world. Is this planet…? Of course. It’s in the same system as the jungle planet, isn’t it?” I should have known. I really should have known the jungle world was in Garr’ugh 290, but I hadn’t.

  He looked momentarily stricken, angry at himself for not having taken this into account. Even through my giddiness, I saw his annoyance. He never liked to overlook things or be taken by surprise.

  He said, “The same system as Jungle, yes. I’m sorry. I’d just…forgotten that’s where…where that was.”

  I took a deep breath. “No one ever mentioned the system name when it happened. Everyone said the rock world, the jungle world, the moss world: descriptions, not names.”

  “They’re names now,” he admitted. “Stone, Jungle, and Moss. Moss has a moon called Treasure, but it’s been sold off already…”

  I said, in a reasonably calm voice, “I should have realized the systems were one and the same.” To stop my lips trembling, I pressed the almost empty cup against them, telling myself I would not cry. “Do we know anything about the physiology of…what are they called?”

  “The PPI people call them the Mossen. The Derac, who discovered the system, say they found a dead one and dissected it. Knowing the Derac, no one can be sure whether they really found it or more likely hunted and killed it. If they killed it, everyone would love to know how they got close enough. Since we and the Derac don’t communicate directly, they gave us a copy of the recorded dissection process with the comments of the butchers…”

  “Butchers?” I asked.

  “My translation.” He made a face. “The Derac have no scientists, they certainly have no anatomists. The only Derac who systematically cut things up are the butchers who share out the meat and hides in shipclans. ESC and PPI couldn’t get within striking distance of a live Mossen until they started dancing, after which it didn’t seem politic to try and catch one. In any case, they’ve never even seen a dead one, so they’re grateful for the information, though it’s too crude to be genuinely helpful.”

  “I wonder why they have so many eyes.”

  “We don’t know they are eyes. The butchery film shows a network under the skin that’s connected to all of the lenses, if they’re lenses. It’s been suggested that different ones perceive different things: color perhaps, or motion, or distance. The creatures have to perceive their surroundings somehow; they don’t go bumping into things or one another.”

  “And they move how?”

  “We don’t know. Some think they might do it like starfish used to do, or sea urchins. A whole slew of little footsies rippling along under their skirts. We say ‘think,’ because the Derac tell us the body they examined wasn’t complete.”

  “And the PPI claims they have speech! If they have speech, then they qualify as a protected race.” This was really the important point. Any race with speech qualified as a protected race.

  Paul frowned. “If they have speech. That judgment was made on extremely shaky evidence. They have no history of exploration or trade; they have no possessions, no technology; they don’t need dwellings, and their clothing—if that’s what it is—grows itself. From what the embassy says, they’re a lovely, mostly sweet-smelling population of…totally enigmatic creatures that PPI claims desire to emerge from solitude, God knows why.”

  “Well, if we can’t talk to them, how do we know that?” I demanded.

  “PPI received a written message crudely and briefly written on bark with colored sap. Supposedly, that is. For some unknown reason, the place has become a favorite posting for PPI staffers on preretirement duty, so the installation has a larger staff than one would expect, a staff that’s spent several years talking, posting notices, writing things down. The assumption is that the Mossen have heard human speech and deciphered enough
of both speech and writing to create a written message saying something like, ‘We desire knowing outside people.’”

  “That would indicate a primitive people, at best.”

  He laughed. “If they’re a people at all! Which is why they need me. PPI Central can’t make up its mind. The Derac contingent is becoming increasingly belligerent. They want the certification done and over with! And ESC is getting itchy. They want to leave the planet since they finished their survey of the moss part over a year ago.”

  “There’s another part?”

  “Two continent-sized, very high plateaus with an ecology totally different from the mossy part. The one unusual, not to say weird, thing the orbital surveyors reported on the plateaus was a group of Earther ships dating back some centuries, Hargess-Hessing ships, from the shape of them.”

  I pricked up my ears. “Didn’t that stimulate some interest?”

  “It might have, if the ships had been found sooner in the process, or if they’d crashed there more recently, but the certification process is far advanced, and the ships are centuries old. ESC hasn’t done any more than peek at the plateaus because the contract specifies a joint survey after certification, and PPI can’t move toward certification so long as the question of peoplehood is unanswered.”

  “Surely there’s been enough time to have done more exploration.”

  He made a face. “What Interstellar Coalition calls ‘intrusive’ exploration and survey cannot be done until native people have been consulted. Native people can’t be consulted until we know if there are any. As a result, the only exploration and survey has been ‘nonintrusive,’ the kind of survey work that can be done by orbiters and airborne observers.”

  “So what has PPI done in all this time?”

  He threw up his hands. “It’s followed orders. It’s been nonthreatening and passive while learning whatever can be learned, letting the natives take the lead. So far all the natives have done is dance rather frequently in areas near the PPI compound, which is all very pretty but totally unrevealing as to linguistics. The only hard evidence is the written message that precipitated the request for a linguist.”

  The door opened, and one of Paul’s concubines skipped in, half-naked and in full body paint. “Ouw, Pau-wie, din know y’ad comp’ny.”

  “Poppy, I told you to get back in your case!” Paul growled impatiently.

  I accepted the interruption as a chance to get away. I headed for the door, saying, “It’s all right, Poppy. You come in and make Pau-wie happy. I was just leaving.” I patted the conc’s behind as I passed him-her-or-it, eliciting a chortle that covered three octaves.

  In my own space, with the door locked, I sat down to make a list of things I would have to do before leaving on a three-year contract. There was not a doubt in my mind that I would go to Moss, and to its moon, Treasure. The opportunity had come too serendipitously to be refused.

  THE ORSKIMI

  While I was making plans for our mission to Moss, something consequential was taking place in quite another direction, on quite another planet: the home world of the Orskimi.

  That planet was known as E’Sharmifant, “ancestral home.” In the capital city of that world, as in all cities of the Orskimi, dawn was greeted by a mass shrilling that rose above the hives to fill the morning air with a pulsating tremor signifying unity, purpose, and dedication. The clamor stopped as abruptly as it had begun and was succeeded by a profound silence dedicated to remembrance of those who had perished while pursuing the purposes of the people. The silence eased only gradually into the normal clatter of morning: wings buzzing as groups flew from one place to another; feet scraping their way into centers of commerce, religion, warfare, or intelligence. As on every early morning, some few directed their steps toward the mortuary complex, which stood upon a low hill at the center of the city and was surmounted by the Temple of Eternal Memory.

  This vast pile, assembled by mercenaries from another world in a time so ancient that it was almost forgotten even by the Orskimi themselves, was furnished mostly with shadows. Each corner held its quota of dust and darkness into which futile, gray light oozed from high, hooded openings, the nostrils of the temple, exhaling incense smoke that never quite masked the odor of death.

  Some of the dying lay on pallets in the sacred portico, lax limbed, ashen plated, breath faltering, dimmed eyes focused, if at all, on the top of the processional stairs. The servants of purpose would mount those stairs, and those brought here to die watched for them intently, even impatiently, so long as they had the strength for either intensity or impatience. Even these last longings waned before the end, a little seeping away with each breath, until, when the awaited ones came at last, the dying barely stirred at the sound of the bell, the chanting voices, the horny rustle of scraping footsteps, growing louder as the climbers ascended.

  Those who still watched saw first the tall plumes of the High Priest’s headdress, followed by the chitinous ridges of his forehead, glowing scarlet above great faceted eyes. The six arms of the upper body angled outward, each bearing one of the ritual implements: the censer, the bandage, the knife, the shears, the saw, and the retractor.

  “Oh, ye upon the doorstep of death,” shrieked the High Priest, as he set his forefeet within the temple door, “prepare for thy final agony.” Left and right triple legs made clicking triplets, whikalap-whikalap, as he came across the portico to the altar, the sound echoed by the footfalls of the ritual surgeons, the fire masters, the litter bearers with their quiet burden. Outside in the tall growths, several species of chitterers fell quiet at the High Priest’s cry. In the low growths a family of howlers, their cousins, did likewise. Silence brooded. Smoke wafted.

  Some of the Orskimi who lay dying here had been born on this world and lived out their lives here; others were residents of far worlds who had been brought from great distances to die here, for this was the sole place in the Orskim Empire equipped to transfer the memories of the departing into the minds of the young. Orskimi were six-armed, six-legged, armored in chitin, capable of making brief flights, capable of walking forever, eaters of any organic matter—no matter how foul others might find it—even capable of regenerating arms that might be lost. However, what was about to be removed from these dying members of the race had to be preserved, for it would not grow back.

  One of the old ones lying in the temple had been there for several days. The somber vault reeked of formic acid and fungus, some from this Orski’s body, some from the bodies of the pallid klonzi who squirmed feebly upon the drying carcass. Though klonzi were so long-lived that some families removed them from the dying and used them thereafter as a remembrance, the klonzi on this body were too old to be useful. When the old one died, they would begin a shrill screaming, so high-pitched that few ears could hear it. This screaming would continue alternately with spells of panting until the parasitic creatures fell away from the dead one, curled into shivering rings on the floor, and gave up life.

  At the IC, among the diplomats and strategists, it was said that klonzi had once been an independent and intelligent race, now modified by Orskimi to be body scavengers who crawled on Orskim body armor, eating away the dried or injured cells. Their brains were too compressed to hold the idea of escape, much less rebellion. Long ago, it was also said, Orskimi had had only six extremities until they had captured another six-legged race, also independent and intelligent. Now that race served as the hinder part of each Orski, furnishing locomotion. On Earth it was said that each Orski, when hatched, was fixed onto the body of one of the locomotors, the locomotor’s brain having been removed. Certain nerve connections were then made and by the time the Orski was ready to walk, it had full control over the creature that helped move it. Such things, it was said, were common among the Orskimi as they had been common to the Zhaar, when that evil race had ruled the galaxy.

  No Orski commented on these allegations. Let the other races say what they would, Orskimi knew the truth, and what was said made no difference. Now
that the Zhaar had gone, Orskimi intended to take their place of power. So the Orskimi themselves acknowledged.

  The priest went to the altar, the fire masters to the pit of burning, the surgeons to the creature nearest death. As the priest laid down the symbolic tools in their ritual positions, the surgeons laid theirs on the worktable near at hand. The priest waved a censer and bowed toward the surgeon. The surgeon poised a knife at the base of the dying one’s skull and thrust it down. This severed the connection between the memory node and the balance of the mind. Now the old one remembered nothing, thought nothing. He merely was. When the saw began cutting through his dorsal plate, the old one screamed at the pain.

  “Do they always do that?” asked a troubled young assistant.

  “Always,” said the surgeon, who was manipulating the heavy shears at the bottom of the skull shell while his assistants retracted the stiff dorsal shell to the sides. “Of course it is painful. There are many nerves attached to the dorsal surface. There will be even more pain as we cut into the head shell.”

  “Can’t you give iki some of the drugs we use to ease pain?” asked the same youngster.

  “Doing so runs the risk of corrupting the memory,” said the priest. “The node is still connected through a nutrient duct. That duct will be influenced by any drug owki might use. In any case, this honored one does not know that iki is in pain. Iki’s body shrieks, but it is a mindless shrieking. Since the memory can no longer be affected by what is felt by the body, using anesthetic would gain us nothing.”

  “The Orskimi do not waste materials,” said an assistant surgeon to the students around him. “On the battlefield, if one is beyond repair, the physician makes the same cut we have just made, separating memory from the body. We do not give precious drugs to relieve pain. Only those destined for continuing are given such things in order that their memories not be clouded by trauma when the time comes for them to go. If this one had been injured a year ago, iki would have received pain medication, to prevent a memory of agony. Such memory might adversely influence later decisions.”