The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Never mind,” I said. “You’re the diplomat, some of the time, anyhow, what do you want to say to them?”

  “Tell them we know the Orskimi have plotted against them.”

  Unfortunately, the ’pute wasn’t an automatic model. We had automatic ones, but they were six times as heavy. Gainor couldn’t remember the codes for common speech or Derac, so I had to look them up. I whispered them in, then said what Gainor had said, in my most ingratiating voice. Not that tone of voice mattered. The Derac responded with the most dreadful gagging, coughing, vomiting noises one might imagine. Nonetheless, the ’pute at top volume silenced them.

  One of them stood, licking his jaws with an extremely long and sinuous tongue, and bellowed in my direction.

  The ’pute bellowed at me on his behalf:

  “You think we stupid? We not stupid. We know Orskis bad. We kill all them Orskis.”

  That response made me remember what Paul had had to say about Derac shipclan vocabulary and understanding, so I revised what I had been going to say next. Fewer, shorter words.

  “We help you fight Orskis,” I said, both mendaciously and telegraphically. “Why you take us prisoner?”

  They talked among themselves, the ’pute translating bits and pieces, “Eat them, right? They meat? Not for eating? Why not for eating? Who said do it? We don’t do what he says, he’s not even our clan.” This last by what looked like an elder among them, perhaps one who had reached midlife and was going through the morono-pause. Pinning a modest faith on that assessment, I directed the ’pute toward him.

  “Orski long time keep female Derac from male Derac, tell lies to Derac, try to keep Derac weak. Humans find out. Humans want to help Derac. Humans fight Orski. Why you catch us?”

  The ’pute translated a subsequent Derac conversation which was in all respects a duplicate of the former Derac conversation. Finally, the older one—I had become convinced he was an older one—told the others to leave us chained up but not to eat us. That decision resulted in an argument during which every Derac present asserted a pressing need to eat us, because they had been sent to Moss in such a hurry, no one had given them supplies.

  One of the warriors chained quite close to me whispered, “We’ve got food supplies back at the cliffs. Tell them we’ll give them food.”

  I did. Another argument. Human food wasn’t fit to eat. It wasn’t bloody enough, we never let it rot enough, most of the smell was gone.

  “If you’re hungry now, you don’t want to wait for us to rot, do you?” I said, with some anger. They were really just too stupid for words. “The human food will fill your bellies until you can dine on Orski flesh. Orski flesh rots very fast and smells very much.”

  Though it was obvious to me that the Orskim exoskeletons indicated both limited palatability and little likelihood of decomposition prior to desiccation, the Derac decided that what I said made sense. I suggested a few of them go with a few of the human warriors to get the food. When they had the food, they would bring it back to the others and let us humans go. My suggestion met with general approval after only another half hour’s discussion in which not more than one hundred different words were used, jointly, by all the participants.

  While the Derac wrangling continued, I turned off the translation speaker, though not the ear, long enough to tell the Mountain warriors that the rest of our party had gone on along the edge of the plateau and it might be a good idea to join up with them and stay clear until matters sorted themselves out.

  A dozen Derac unchained a score of the prisoners, chivvied them back along the trail, and were immediately followed by every blessed Derac in the group. I asked the ’pute for a translation of the recent talk, and learned that none of them trusted any of the rest of them to bring the food back, so they all intended to stick together. After they had eaten, maybe they would come back and let us loose, or maybe they’d just go back to the battle.

  So, there we were, a dozen or so warriors, Gainor and I, shackled to various trees. Gainor’s weapons and those of the warriors were lying about, some of them within reach, but all of them were designed to affect flesh, in or out of armor, and none of them were designed to cut or melt steel. Gainor and I were still wearing our locators, and presumably, some of the people we had left with the boys back at the cliffs would eventually come looking for us, or Sybil would be bringing Gavi…right into the oncoming Derac. Oh, very fine, I told myself. Excellent.

  As you can appreciate, our situation, while it had not yet become truly life-threatening, was continuing to deteriorate. The next thing we heard was a monstrous twittering, like a flock of enormous crickets, all sawing away. There were crickets in several of my Joram wall views, and these noises might have been made by giants of the species.

  “Orski,” said Gainor, through his teeth.

  I looked up the translation code for Orski-speak and entered it in the ’pute, ready to talk when the next creatures arrived, which they did immediately, from above. One minute I was sitting there, rehearsing what I was going to say, and the next instant I was grabbed from above by six horny, segmented feet, and hauled into the air, an escalation which was stopped only by the length of my chain. All around the little clearing, people were being tugged between chains and feet, until finally a twittered order came. “Put them down.”

  “Yes,” I cried. “Please put us down.”

  The ’pute twittered the request with my own panicky inflection, and we were, accordingly, dropped the last few feet. I rose unsteadily to my feet, saying:

  “We welcome the Orskimi. We join with them in our abhorrence of the invidious Derac, who have gone in that direction, only a few moments ago.” I tried desperately to remember if Orskim culture had a deity one could invoke.

  Gainor saved me the trouble. “May we wish you success in your Great Work,” he cried. “The invidious Derac have among them some of our people. We give great reward to those who free our people from bondage.”

  The ’pute burst into speech. “We, Orskim righteous followers of the plans laid by our ancestors, have come to take the preeminence formerly held by the Zhaar. That great people departed from this galaxy. Now, we, Orskim achievers of the Great Work, will rule in their stead.”

  “You will, indeed,” cried Gainor. “But, as it is written by your own historians, in the interim you need allies, and we are your allies.”

  “Besides,” I interrupted, “the Zhaar have returned, so it will be necessary to kill them first in order to rule the galaxy. You must report this at once to your officers!”

  A brief confusion preceded the abrupt departure of the Orskim, half of them in pursuit of the Derac and the other half flying away through the forest at top speed, leaving us still shackled to our trees.

  “How did you know that, about what was written?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what they’ve written,” he said. “But neither do these guys. They’re warriors, not priests.”

  “If you’re both so clever,” muttered one of the Day Mountain warriors, “maybe you can figure out how to get us out of here.”

  The suggestion received no reply, for from behind the chained warriors came a flash of light, followed at once by others, left and right, then by others still, as far as we could see into the trees. We heard a howl, then another, then a whole chorus of them, a cacophony of yelps, snarls, great chest-rumbling growls. I thought of Behemoth, first, but then I smelled them on the wind. Not dogs. Not dogs at all. Zhaar. Zhaar who didn’t care what race they killed, or enslaved. Zhaar who had it in for me personally for bilking them of their prey in Splendor.

  They came through us and past us at top speed, hides shining, plumed tails streaming. One or two of them made a quick reconnaissance around us, seeing that we were chained. Another one or two took a quick sniff, perhaps identifying us. When they came to me, they stopped, howled, as if in question, and received a delighted howl in reply. The ’pute didn’t translate. Not that it needed to, as I could pretty well figure out the content. Unl
ike the Phaina’s translator, this one had never been designed to decipher odors. I had the odor organ in my pack, but I couldn’t play it. In any case, what would I say?

  What would I say? Just because the Zhaar spoke in odors now didn’t mean they didn’t understand language!

  “Gainor, the Orskimi lied when they said the Zhaar are finished,” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “The Orskimi say they govern the galaxy, that the Zhaar grew weak and powerless and are no more, that the Zhaar are nothing, of no regard. Why did they say that if it isn’t true?”

  “That is what they said,” Gainor bellowed. “The Orskimi told us they would kill all the Zhaar who may be left….”

  A look of pure astonishment went across the faces of the nearest Zhaar, then they streamed away from us, toward the thick of the battle. Through the trees more and more doors were glittering. They batted open and shut, like Earth eyes blinking. Somehow the Zhaar had managed to perforate the membrane between our worlds until it was permeable as a sponge, and I wished most fervently for the Phaina, or better yet, for her whole race. Surely, there would be something they could do.

  Nothing miraculous happened, however, which gave me time to wonder which of our various enemies would come back for us first. Derac? Orskimi? Zhaar? Or maybe Dame Cecelia would think up something else.

  As it turned out, it was none of the above. I felt the shackle on my leg seized by something, looked down, saw two woody roots growing through it, looked up into a spread of bright leaves that sparkled against the sun, and heard the shackle part with a shriek of tortured metal.

  “Walky,” I cried. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

  “I am glad to find you at this time,” it crowed. “So many battles going on, such excitement, disturbance, and tumult. The World is quite overcome! Whole communities are fleeing all this fire and confusion. Luckily, I found you at first try!”

  “How did you know to look?”

  “When the great battle began this morning, I was already down from the height, where I thought it best to stay, rather than go where you were and be bombarded. I was waiting at foot of plateau for someone, anyone, and behold, there was Jewel coming down with a great many others, including Gainor Brandt—How are you, sir? Well, I hope.—and, thinking perhaps you would not want our acquaintance to be known to all these people, I went aside into the woods while you people went on to the little, what is it called, fortress? Where the children keep the supplies so well guarded?

  “At that very time, I received a message from World, and that took a little time to take care of. When I returned, you had gone, so I waited, listening, and soon Gavi Norchis is there, talking to Sybil, and I learn you have followed after the warriors of the Mountains.

  “Such adventuring! Such great turmoil, upheaval, and commotion! So, I set out to find you, and suddenly are Derac alligators here, there, and everywhere with warriors of the Mountains, so, I am pausing, quite still, and they go on by. I summon willogs from vicinity and tell them to go at once to protect warriors and your people, then I proceed on my way. No sooner have I moved than I see Orskim come flying, climbing, walking, great bugs, many legs, wings, many arms with weapons, very warlike ugly—though I long to send roots into a few dead ones to find out if there are useful parts! Again, I let them go by, summon more willogs, then I came on, and here you are.

  “Excuse me, please, while I break the manacles, restraints, shackles, fetters, and chains that bind your fellow humans.”

  He did so, seeming to enjoy the task. The warriors, without even taking time to talk it over, gathered up their weapons and ran back along the trail after the Orskimi who were chasing the Derac who were looking for food. As Walky broke Gainor’s bonds, he remarked, “Gavi Norchis is on her way. I gave her small, young willog to guide her along, off the trail, so as not to encounter anyone.”

  I thanked him, as did Gainor, and since we’d had nothing to eat since noon, and not much then, we dug out some rations and awaited Gavi’s arrival. Walky settled itself beside me, remarking, “World is wanting to know who is cause of this battle?”

  Gainor and I looked at each other. He shrugged.

  “The battle began between the Derac and the Orskimi,” I said. “The cause of the fray was that the Orskimi tricked the Derac into attacking humans in order to start a Derac-human war so the Orskimi could take advantage of it to conquer the worlds of both peoples. The Derac tried to start the war at the battleground, as you know, but they were prevented from doing so by…willogs, mostly. The Orskimi don’t know about willogs, so they blame the Derac.”

  All Walky’s branches were nodding, up down, up down, as it processed the information.

  It said, “Orskimi were doing a bad thing, this bad thing was the first bad thing even though other bad things followed, so Orskimi are to blame.”

  Gainor said, gravely, “No, that wouldn’t be the first bad thing. The Orskimi became capable of doing this bad thing only because the Zhaar gave them the technology, long, long ago.”

  “Then that was the first bad thing.”

  “That would be the earliest bad thing anyone can remember,” Gainor agreed.

  “Both Zhaar and Orskimi are to blame,” Walky said, firmly. “Then, World wants to know, who is responsible for ships coming down on top of Mountain if this is separate from the other bad thing.”

  I sighed. “It’s a separate bad thing. The woman who…owns the ships wanted to hurt me, and she ordered the ships to set down there because I was underneath them.”

  I suppose in the last analysis, Dame Cecelia did own the ships, though there was undoubtedly a huge corporate structure of some kind between her and the responsibility for what “her” ships did.

  “So this person is doing a bad thing not only to you and all the people there, but also to her own people on the ships?” Walky sounded thoroughly confused.

  “This person does bad things all the time,” I said, with some vehemence. “She is so powerful, no one can control her.”

  “What is this person’s name?”

  “Dame Cecelia Hessing. She is part of a powerful family, the Hessing-Hargess clan. They own many ships, they have a mercenary fleet, they have enormous businesses upon many worlds.”

  “Good,” said Walky. “This is the very thing the World wants to know.”

  It stood beside me in companionable silence while Gainor and I finished our lunch. As we put things away, we heard the hum of a little floater. It came slowly through the trees, carrying Gavi and a vociferous sapling, who was soon introduced to me as Brightleaf.

  Gavi hugged me and greeted Gainor, turning to Walky to declaim, “We have to stop this. The whole middle of the plateau is on fire! The ships in the sky won’t let the ships on Night Mountain take off. They just keep firing at them.”

  “We have bigger trouble than that,” I told her. “The Zhaar are loose on Moss.”

  She stiffened, and her face turned ashen. “How many?”

  “Lots,” I said. I thought hundreds at least, maybe thousands, with who knew how many more in the edge of Splendor, in reserve.

  “I wish there were somewhere we could go to observe the fighting,” Gainor said.

  “Someplace high up?” asked Walky. “If so, we can have a high-up place not far from here. We will need to go carefully, quietly, not to get involved in this fracas, commotion, disturbance, uproar, or to-do.”

  I couldn’t think of a height anywhere near the area of the fighting. I’d seen the area both from the ship and from the top of the plateau, and all I could remember was flatness broken by the occasional grove of tall trees. That’s all we saw as we went, that’s all we saw until we bumped into a low mound we hadn’t even seen.

  “Camouflage,” said Walky. “I did not understand the concept until I learned the word. When the World extrudes its eyes, they are camouflaged not to be much noticed by others. This is one of the World’s eyes which we will get on top of. The World will not mind.”

  I had no idea what it was made of.
It was a quite substantial flat-topped mound, every inch of it clad in mosses that matched whatever one might be seeing from any conceivable angle. We were no sooner situated than the mound began to grow. It went upward at steady speed, at least as fast as tower lifts. As we rose, we saw that we were at the center of concentric circles of trees, circle after circle after circle, on and on past the limit of our sight. Once we could see the whole extent of the battle, the mound we were upon stopped rising. Gainor took some time setting up his tracking system and adjusting it, allowing us to see the battle through the fish-eyes.

  Both Derac and Orskim were overmatched by the Zhaar, who were bigger, stronger, and faster. Derac and Orski weapons did not seem to touch them. The battleground, starting at the east side and working toward the west, was littered with the bodies of Orskim and Derac, but at most, half a dozen dead Zhaar.

  “What will they do when they have killed all those two bad peoples?” Walky asked.

  “They’ll come after us,” I said. “Me particularly. And Gavi, and old Oskar. Where is Oskar? I haven’t even thought of him since we’ve been back.”

  Gainor said, “We have him stashed on one of our ships, up there. Whatever information he may have about the Zhaar is too important to risk losing. Also, he was in a lot of pain, and we can give him better medical attention on the ship.”

  “I wish we had a power source,” I said. “Gavi could be sending out soothing odors, right now. Something to calm them down. I wish we could broadcast the odor organ over a wide area.”

  Walky shivered all over. “But you can. The trees down there are relayers. From here to the first circle of trees is the distance of message, then it is copied and goes on to the next circle, and on, and on, the circles growing bigger and bigger, until they go around world like a belt, then smaller again to another place like this one.”

  I couldn’t quite understand. “You mean that from this height, and I presume others like it, messages may be sent that are broadcast immediately? Then why in the name of all that’s holy do we need all that business of growing words, and letting them ripen, and watching them dance?”