The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Why would we want to fix our females?”

  “Because…” The captain struggled to remember why that was. “Because our females don’t have any minds at all. If we’re going to share a planet with them, they need some sense, you know, language, brains. R’ragh learned that female humans are smart, like the males, but in a different way, and having both kinds of wisdom directed at a problem increases the likelihood of its being solved. R’ragh told us we need to change our females so they think.”

  “We think!” objected one of the listeners.

  “We all think like us, and we have to go to other races if we need our thinking checked, as R’ragh did to the Orski. What R’ragh wanted us to do is to buy some human females and pay the Orskimi to take their brains apart and use their DNA to splice to ours to make females who talk and think.”

  “That’s forbidden technology,” said someone, somberly. “They use Zhaar cells to do that splicing. The Zhaar were shape changers, and it takes shape changer cells to do what you’re talking about.”

  “True,” Gahcha responded. “But some exceptions can be made.”

  “Why buy human women? Why not just…take them?”

  “Because then the humans would accuse us of what they call abduction or slavery, and it’s against their laws. You can’t just take someone and cut them apart, not according to human law…”

  “What do we care for human law!”

  Through gritted teeth, Gahcha said, “We have to seem to care because human law is registered with the Interstellar Planetary Protection Institute! IPPI even made a fuss about the shipclan taking one of those Mossen creatures. Our brethren had to claim they found it already dead. Which it was, by the time they were finished with it.”

  “Your son Tachstucha told you about Garr’ugh 290, did he?” asked a lounger. “That’s where he’s assigned?”

  “Yes, but he was here for mating. He spent three days over on the breeding ground and left this morning to rejoin his group on Moss.”

  “I’ve heard all this many times,” said Ghetset, his voice so closely approaching the yowl mode that all the lizards in the circle began to raise their fins. “I personally don’t see why we’re waiting until we get these females. If we’re going to conquer the humans, let’s get at it! If we’re going to take over the galaxy, let’s get started!”

  “Well,” muttered the life captain, licking his teeth insultingly, “if you go off starting things without a proper foundation, they will fail. As soon as we have the human women, we will give them to the Orskimi, the Orskimi will tell us how long the project will take, and THEN we will begin the war. It’s all planned and agreed to.” The captain raised his dorsal fin, livid with bile, and whipped his tail so that it cast sand toward Ghetset, who barely blinked in time to avoid being blinded.

  “Once we have our women changed, we’ll need new worlds to live on, and the best planets available for us are the ones the humans have,” trumpeted Gahcha. “The Ocpurats live in water, the Tharstians prefer light gravity, the others like things heavier or more methane in the atmosphere. No, the best planets for us are human planets, or Orskim ones.”

  “We sold most of them to the humans,” objected a lesser lizard, one at the far, shady side of the plot. “And to the Orskimi.”

  “Everyone knows that,” the captain asserted. “So, we’ll have to take them back.”

  “Why don’t we just rent them?” asked Ghetset, irrepressibly.

  “Humans don’t have space to rent because it was never revealed to them they should eat their young! They multiply like mold, until the area is contaminated, then they move and do it over again. Sharing a planet with humans would be impossible. We have to eliminate them entirely and take their planets. Then we’ll breed up our strength and do the same to the Orskimi.”

  The captain stretched his snout high in the air and gaped, a signal that the topic was closed and he wished to meditate. Around him there was a murmur of…what? Agreement? Gahcha opened one eye to see bodies contentedly relaxed, faces innocently gaped toward the sun. He reflected what a pleasure it was to know that his colleagues, by and large, seemed to think his plan was a good idea. By the time he told the story a few more times, they’d think they’d thought it up themselves. Oh, he hoped he lived long enough to see the galaxy free of humans! Free of Orskimi, too, of course, though he imagined that might take longer.

  We learned all this, of course, since I could not be writing of it otherwise, only because others were intent upon listening to the Derac. We were later to be grateful that these folk were friendly, if not with all Earthers, at least with Gainor Brandt.

  THE GREAT HIGHLANDS

  At this point, it may be appropriate to introduce some of the people I would later meet on Moss, as there is nothing at all intriguing to say about our voyage to that planet. Grav-rep voyages are indistinguishable from one another: One takes one’s soma and one sleeps; one then wakes, attends to sanitary matters, eats something tasteless, returns to one’s bunk, takes additional soma, and sleeps again. Though I did not learn of them until later, far more interesting events were occurring on the planet toward which we were headed.

  On Moss, if one left the PPI compound and walked eastward across the cushioned country in a steady but unhurried pace, one would come within a couple of days to the foot of a plateau, one of the two that soar upward from the more or less level plains of the mosslands. Even prior to landing, ESC had established that the monolith making up this outcropping extended all the way through the planet, emerging on the other side as another plateau of roughly equal size and altitude. Both escarpments rose sheer from the floor of the forest, greenly mossed and lichened at their bases, emerging darkly from that coating about half a kilometer above and ascending thence in bare, black, crystalline facets of basalt to the notched rim of the ramparts, often invisible behind the windblown spray that masked the massif poles of the world.

  In its earliest embodiment, the gargantuan column had been the core of a volcano on an enormous rocky planet with a very hot core, a much lighter mantle and crust, and little or no water. This protoplanet had circled Garr’ugh 290’s sun just inside the orbits of the gas and ice giants until it was struck by a fast-moving and extremely massive body of rock and ice from outside the system. The resultant fragments that were not thrown out of the system or inward to the sun were spread widely in a thick belt of rubble that eventually coalesced into three planets and one moon.

  The results were Stone, made up almost entirely of heavier, core material, too small and too close to the sun to retain an atmosphere; Jungle, a mixture of core, mantle, and so much water that it developed both oceans and a thick, dripping atmosphere; and Moss, largest of the three, which aggregated both rock and ice into one heavy little moon and, more or less spherically around the roughly cylindrical chunk of the former volcano, into a planet from which the volcanic ends protruded like enormous flat ears.

  As part of the huge protoplanet, the cylinder had not been disproportionate. Skewered through this smaller world, however, it was incredible: a continuous chunk of rock, the ends forming circular plateaus with diameters one-twelfth the circumference of the planet, so tugged this way and that with each circuit of the heavy little moon that friction from the ceaseless stresses heated its central mass. Deeply buried water picked up this heat and moved it through cracks in the monolith to the surfaces of the two mesas, where it emerged as boiling springs, explosive geysers, and myriad simmering pools.

  Despite these steaming flows, the heights were both cooler and wetter than the lowlands. Copious rainfall accumulated in sizable lakes, overflowed into streams, and ran outward to the rimrock. Some rivers on the lee arc of the highlands spurted clear of the precipitous walls to fall thousands of feet, as from great milky spigots in the sky, while on the weather side, violent winds vaporized the plunging waters into wavering veils wafting gently onto the mosslands below.

  The plateau varied from miles-deep central glaciers to temperate edges, from
pockets of deep and fertile soil to badlands of cracked ridges and scraggy peaks, many furred by dwarfed trees whose roots stubbornly penetrated every fissure. Many plants on the heights were found only there, including ubiquitous oval shields, like giant liverworts, that overgrew the derelict ships so completely they would never have been noticed except for the weak but persistent “downed ship” signals eventually picked up by an ESC orbiter. Aside from making one brief stop to record the presence of the hulks and to drop a few automatic data-gatherers, however, ESC had let the place alone.

  The data-gatherers, called “fish,” recorded the presence of shiny, crablike creatures both atop the mesas and in the mist lands at their feet, but no attempt was made to collect specimens or determine what kind of creatures they actually were. The contracts held by ESC and PPI mentioned the highlands only as a postscript: areas to be mapped if and when the planet was found to be habitable and, even then, only after the lowlands had been fully surveyed.

  No one at PPI or ESC thought the highlands would be worth anything except for mining, and not even that until the planet Stone, which was of much the same geological structure, had been reduced to gravel. Then, too, it was possible something inimical had happened to the people in the ships. The “fish” showed no survivors, no cleared lands, no roads, buildings, walls, or canals, no herds of animals grown for meat, milk, or hides, and, aside from the vulcanism, no evidence of the higher temperatures that usually betrayed the presence of human settlements. Even after the ships were found, no one supposed a human colony, and since the ships had certainly been human, no one supposed a colony of any other sort either.

  Gavi Norchis, Chosen Ritual Mistress of the First Slumber, set her harp upon the stone floor of the bridal chamber and bowed to the Lord and Lady of this night: Lynbal, Chief Larign’s son and Quynis, Chief Quilac’s daughter.

  “The song awaits your pleasure,” she sang. “Deep into the rainbow lights of being, as you shall choose.”

  “Red,” said the Lord, a trifle impatiently. “The red of appetite and conquest.” He handed her a blood-colored capsule.

  Gavi took it and bowed low. “And the Lady?” she inquired.

  “Blue,” whispered the girl. “The blue of peace and tranquillity, the softness of cloud.” She, too, held out a capsule, this one blue as the sky.

  Gavi found this disappointing. Both of them had taken their words directly from the Book of Colors. Doing so often indicated a lack of imagination but, in this case, more likely betrayed a deficiency of involvement. Looking at the Lady of the Night, Gavi was convinced of the latter. Poor little starveling girl. No more flesh on her than on a spider. Well, if tonight went well, she would fatten, her hair would shine, her eyes glow. Gavi often achieved that much with less attractive brides.

  “As you choose,” said Gavi, beckoning to her chair holder, Squint, who slipped forward with the stool, unfolding it beside the harp, placing the backrest and armrests as she had directed him, setting the candlesticks at either side, the scent table between them, then darting back to obtain the red and the blue candle chimneys from the Chest of Lights. His own low stool was already set beside his drums.

  Gavi went on: “And the harmonizing principle?”

  Most couples to be wedded said something like “Love,” or “Forever,” or “Union.” These two merely looked at one another, a curious look, half-longing, half-forlorn. “What say you, Slumber Mistress?” the chief’s son said at last. “What do you recommend?”

  “You will leave it in my hands,” she said firmly, not as a question.

  “Surely,” murmured the Lady. The Lord assented with a brusque nod.

  “Share the waters of the night,” she said, offering the goblet, ready prepared upon the table.

  They sipped it, alternately, three sips each. Quite enough for the purpose. There was enough easepod in it to set them free from any embarrassment in bathing with one another.

  “Bathe now,” and she gestured at the curtains hiding the bed, softly made, and the warm bath, already drawn. “Remember that you must immerse yourselves entirely, including your heads.”

  Gavi had already inspected bed and curtains, finding them appropriate for her service, and she had covertly added her own secret substance to the bath. Privately, she called the substance “nothing,” for it erased extraneous odors from whatever source, letting the thing bathed in it emerge with only its own intrinsic aroma. No matter how perfumed, a body bathed in “nothing” would smell only of itself, and the imprinting which would take place tonight would take place unimpeded by any former imprint of any other person’s odor. After tonight, these two would desire only one another.

  The two young people went silently through the curtains, and while the silence gathered, Gavi went to the scent chest to select from among the hundred or so materials there. Her chairholder-apprentice had already started the first burner-board by filling the channel that connected all the oblong scent pots with a length of slowfuse.

  “Attend me,” she said, as he crouched beside her. “Veilroot in the first and second cup, to dim self-consciousness and wipe out either intention or apprehension. Tonight we are allotting two full cups to veilroot, for the Lady of the Night is only a girl, given by others, without love or even attraction to guide her. Veilroot is what?”

  “A smoke scent,” he answered promptly.

  “Correct. So we put it directly in the cup. It is slow to act but persistent in effect. The effect will last throughout twelve cups and perhaps more. We put hungerstem, also a smoke scent, in cup three, filling only the first quarter of the cup.”

  She watched as he placed the powdered herb in the cup and packed it neatly against the leading edge, where the fuse would burn first.

  “That’s it, a clean edge, made with the knife. Hungerstem is quick to act at first, but will diminish in effect if continued, so we want only enough to stir their senses. Cup four will be fireseed, which is?”

  “An oil, to be heated.”

  “Correct. Fill cup four with hot-burn number three, which you will mix with one-third holdfast root, put an oil cap on it filled with fireseed oil, and here, between cups three and four, add a short length of quickfuse. Hunger and fire should follow one another at once, without pause.”

  “Do I take the other fuse out?” he whispered.

  “If you attempt to splice the fuse, you may create a discontinuity. Simply lay the quickfuse on top and pack it firmly down with the stylus. It will ignite from the slowfuse below it and run rapidly to the next cup; the other fuse beneath it will burn more slowly, but it doesn’t matter. The fuses are as nearly odorless as craft can make them, and neatness in a scent board is not a measure of its efficacy.”

  She watched him closely, gratified to see that he followed instructions correctly, without elaboration. When he began to fill the cups, she went on, “In almost every case with young people, fireseed requires tempering, which is why we have added holdfast root. Cup five also will be one-third holdfast with fireseed oil above.”

  “Will they take so long?” he asked, astonished. Squint had done the night dance a number of times, and it had never taken him that long!

  “Taking not long enough would be the problem, leaving her unfulfilled, and she must be fulfilled…”

  He flushed, not having considered this.

  “…So, then we place another length of quickfuse under cup six, half-filled with tempestweed, which is?”

  “A smoke scent.”

  “Correct. And the quickfuse runs to powdered gum of ecstasy—this is the dried sap of the little jar tree, Squint, not the big jar tree, ever!—followed by sleepflower oil for five full cups, seven through eleven, which means?”

  “The gum is a smoke scent, then we need hot burn under the oil pans.”

  “Very good. The final cup is one half-filled with wake-vine, making the twelve. Now, important! Here are the capsules they gave me, blue and red. Empty them into a work dish. Add neutral spirits to make a small atomizer full, mark it i
nto thirds, and place it on a stand beside the curtain, the nozzle extended into their private place. When the burn reaches the tempestweed cup, rise from your drums and squeeze the first third of the mist into the room.”

  “And what are the capsules, Mistress?”

  “They are the essence of each of them, the unconscious longings, the single most important ingredient.” This was false, or at best misleading, but she had no intention of revealing all her secrets to an apprentice, certainly not a new apprentice. “It is not burned or heated as an oil, but blown as a mist. Be sure you test the bulb for leaks before setting up! While I start with this board, make two more boards, the same as this, to be followed by a short board of sleeproot only. I will take them through their joy three times this night. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Mistress, but why three?”

  She sighed. He was a good boy, but he lacked either intuition or the power of observation. “Because she is a virgin girl, because an heir is needed before the people go to war, and because the chief’s soothsayers mark this night as the most propitious within the next three cycles. For these important reasons, we were chosen over the Lord’s objection,”

  “Why did the Lord object?”

  Lord Lynbal’s demeanor should have told him this. Gavi frowned slightly, “Think of his manner, boy! He believes he can set any woman on fire. He believes it because he is Lord and chief’s son, and because no woman has told him otherwise!”

  Squint flushed again, “Will the Lord and Lady remember this, Mistress?”

  “They will remember it always, though differently.”

  The Lord would remember with disbelief and wonder, the Lady with thankfulness and joy. Though the chief’s son had to beget an heir before he could make a chief’s battle journey to the Other Mountain, he might have rejected her work if he had realized how efficacious it would be. It did not matter now, however, what he thought or what he might have rejected. Gavi’s presence meant the end had been foreordained.