Echoes In Time # with Sherwood Smith

by Andre Norton

  "I am learning," she said. "I learn slowly, and there is much to be learned. I think… I know there is something important here."

  "Continue to learn," Gordon replied. Then he paused, and she heard him drinking water. They were evidently all thirsty, and their appetites had diminished.

  Then he went on to talk about his college days, and how much he'd enjoyed discovering archaeology. They buried their real communication in long innocuous talks, but Saba found that she enjoyed these talks just the same.

  At first he'd talked generalities, but gradually, as they found similar areas of interest, he'd become more personal.

  "It was the discovery of paradigm that hooked me in," he said. "Oh, I'd heard about worldview and 'Weltanschauung' and so forth all during high school, but it was that visceral understanding that other cultures saw the universe through utterly different metaphors that fascinated me."

  "Yes," Saba said. "I was lucky—I saw it early, because my parents came from such vastly different backgrounds." She described riding across the plains of Ethiopia with her father, a doctor, to visit the different peoples. And then there came a new culture to learn, when she moved to the capital city to begin her advanced education. "But that is what brought me to my studies, the expression of paradigm through music."

  "Music," Gordon mused. "It was on the periphery of my attention when I was growing up."

  "It was a part of life for me," Saba said. "Music stitched together the…" Inadvertently a Yilayil word came to mind, along with image—color—but she reverted to English. "The fabrics of meaning." As she said it, she frowned. "Fabric"— so inadequate! And so she whistle/hummed her idea, using the outside-time tense she'd been struggling to comprehend, and it came closer to expressing the image.

  Gordon drew in a deep breath—she could hear it. "I'm not sure I understand," he said finally. "I perceive each word separately, but the verb—"

  "It's part of my lessons," Saba said, thinking that—even if they were overheard, which they must assume to be the case—this conversation could not possibly endanger anyone.

  Then she remembered the time, and sat up suddenly, dizzily, staring at her watch. "Ah, I am late," she said. "But I enjoyed our discussion."

  "Until later, then," Gordon responded, and clicked off.

  Saba rose slowly, testing her strength, her sense of gravity. At Gordon's insistence, she was now using full doses of medication. She worked to time the hours of their strongest effect with her lessons, so she could be as clearheaded as possible when she was trying to learn the alien language in all its nuances.

  * * *

  SHE PULLED ON her robe, and stepped outside her room. Pausing, she looked at the blank wall adjacent. Why did they have her alone on a corridor? The wall, a dead end, intrigued her subconscious mind. In her dreams, Katarina often came through it, like a ghost.

  Sometimes Katarina sang, old chants out of Saba's childhood that the Russian probably never had even heard: the polyphonic edho of the Dorze; Eritrean songs, echoing two thousand years of history from the long-ago kingdom of Axum; even the songs of the mysterious Afar, who shun all foreigners.

  It was the polyphonic edho that Saba most often heard, wreathing through the never-ceasing music of the Yilayil. So different to the ears, but the brain insisted on finding connecting points.

  She sighed, and walked down to the teaching chamber, where she found Zhot—no longer green—pacing back and forth.

  As always, he began without preamble.

  "All peoples have part of brain where sensory organs connect, where the senses happen first," Zhot said.

  Saba nodded, puzzled at the new direction the lesson was taking. So they would not work on the computer, then?

  "We will talk about vision," Zhot continued—again, as if reading her mind. It was eerie, how often their thoughts paralleled—even when she was having the most difficulty comprehending him. "What do your people call the brain part where vision happens?"

  That, at least, she could answer, for she had studied neurology for a time in her efforts to plumb the mysteries of music's universal effect on humans. "The visual cortex."

  "And if this is destroyed, no vision, yes?"

  She nodded again.

  "Do you understand ***?" Zhot whistle-trilled a complex phrase.

  Sight denied but body affirms perception? She shook her head, confused. Her head panged, colors and even tastes flitting through her consciousness. She dismissed them as irrelevant, and grasped at the words that came with them.

  "Blindsight!" she exclaimed. "They deny sight, indeed cannot see, but can sometimes grasp objects, tell their shapes."

  "Yes! This is true for all sentients with this brain damage. And they do not trust what they perceive, do not believe they perceive, call it guessing," Zhot continued, more excited than she had ever seen him, "for they have no sensations to anchor perception."

  Her momentary satisfaction at her understanding him ebbed as she realized she had no idea why they were discussing blindsight. A wave of weakness washed over her, and she swayed in her chair, suddenly dizzy.

  "Only a little more," Zhot said, in the first concessions to her condition she had ever known from him.

  "I apologize," Saba said. "I discover that I am hungry." She thought longingly of the bluish cheese pudding that was often served, and her stomach growled. She suspected, from its effect on her metabolism, that it was pure protein.

  "We talk, then eat," Zhot said. "Your people have legends of those among you who see the future, yes?" he continued.

  "Yes. It is very rare, and not to be depended on."

  "No more than blindsight," said Zhot, his tail swishing beneath his robes. The sight made more colors flit across Saba's vision, and dizziness dissolved the edges of her vision. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on his words. "For we who live in time have no sensory organ for time, and so no sensations to anchor the perception of time. Do you understand?"

  "I—I…" She paused, a sudden onslaught of weariness— dizziness—washing through her mind. She fought vertigo, opened her eyes. They stung. The fever was back—already. "Think, listen, taste," Zhot said. "Now we eat." Taste, eat. Everything seemed connected by some inner meaning. Saba tried to penetrate it, but the malaise made it impossible, and she gratefully followed Zhot to the refectory to join the other beings for the morning meal.

  * * *

  DAWN WAS GRAYING the gathering clouds when Ross slipped out of the Jecc transport and jogged back to the Nurayil dorm. Now that the adventure was over, his emotions were mixed: excitement at action, at discovery, laced with guilt. He knew he ought to have communicated. Eveleen would be angry. As she had a right to be.

  Still, this rational acceptance of his culpability didn't make the prospect of facing the music any easier.

  When he reached the dorm building, some of the beings they shared it with were already descending to go off to whatever it was they did during the daylight hours. He moved quickly between them, running up the ramp. He was not even tempted to go directly to work. Better to confront her now, and get it over with.

  He reached their cell, and opened the door.

  He wasn't sure what he expected to find except an angry wife. What he saw was Eveleen and Gordon sitting cross-legged on the floor, each working at his or her laptop, food beside them. He saw the bluish stuff that tasted kind of like cheesecake, and swallowed a couple times. He was suddenly ravenous.

  But he turned his attention from the food to his wife's assessing brown eyes. He met that gaze—and he saw her grin.

  "Well," she said, "since I didn't get to share your adventure, how about a detailed report?"

  "Of course," he said. "Ah, you're not mad? Not that I'd blame you."

  Gordon said nothing, only smiled slightly.

  Eveleen said, "Oh, I wasn't mad once I'd made sure you were all right."

  "What?" Ross demanded.

  Eveleen's smile sharpened a little at the corners. "Misha showed me the way to the Jecc
caves. I got a good peek, but not much more."

  Ross drew in a slow breath. "You—"

  "Went out to make sure you were okay," Eveleen said slowly. "Just as you would have done, had I been the one to skip out. We'll have to talk about that, but later. We all have to get to work. Sit down, have some breakfast. I take it the Jecc didn't feed you?"

  "Oh, they tried, but I just pretended. The stuff they like would make a squirrel happy, but it was too close to nuts and gravel for my taste. Or what looked like gravel."

  Ashe sat back, his brows lifted slightly. "You thought there was something important to pursue—enough so that you avoided our orders. I'm here to follow up on whatever it was you discovered."

  Ross sat down, knowing that Gordon's mild manner was deceptive. It was as much of a reprimand as Gordon was going to make—but it was enough.

  "I'm not sure," Ross said, "but I think there is something."

  "Go on," Eveleen said. "I'll type it up as you talk."

  "I didn't put it all together until I got to the Jecc city. Because that's what it is, a little city. They are pretty handy with their fingers for building, and not just thieving. Hot and cold running water—and they like baths just as much as humans. Forget this ecologically sound but unsatisfying glue-field thing." Ross waved behind him.

  Gordon gave a faint grin, but his attitude was still one of waiting.

  "Anyway, when I got there, I saw Jecc with kids in their pouches. They don't come into the Nurayil town when they are gestating their young. I think they are biologically a lot like marsupials—the young are born helpless, and finish gestating in the pouches. But the Jecc are asexual. All that thieving comes down to the exchange of genetic material."

  "That's why our tools feel like they've been dusted with pollen?" Eveleen asked.

  "Exactly. And by playing what I thought was a game, I somehow made myself one of the gang. See, it works like this, far as I can figure: it's an honor to be stolen from, because it means someone else wants your genetic material for their offspring. But it's not just stealing, because you're expected to get the thing right back again. And you're not supposed to get caught, but if you do, you make some comment about progeny—though in the past, I think, they used to fight. But that fighting turned to ritualistic dueling by the time they got civilized—developed writing and reached for the stars. They are insatiably curious. I think they feel rejected by the rest of the beings on this world because no one participates in their thieving games."

  "But they can't expect to be exchanging genetic material with other races, can they?" Gordon asked.

  "No. I don't think it's that all the time with them, either. They also do it with new encounters, so I believe it's a kind of acceptance custom as well. A social exchange. Only no one outside of the Jecc seems to know it—or care."

  "Is that why they don't try to become harmonized?" Eveleen asked.

  "It might be a part, but here's where it gets weird. They are wary of ti[trill]kee because every generation or so, the ones here on this island seem to disappear."

  Gordon let out a long whistle—not a Yilayil whistle, but a low, American expression of "Uh oh!"

  "Oh, but that's not all of it. They seem to want to fit in, but they want to know what happened to their ancestors. For beings who don't have families the way we have them, they are very involved with their ancestors. They showed me those caves you saw. Each one makes a mosaic about its life, and accomplishments, naming its progeny. They used to have more, but now they only have one, maybe two, if their population drops in number."

  "The mosaics looked interesting."

  "Not just that," Ross said, feeling for words. "Sad, kind of. Poignant. Their ancestors didn't just stop at depicting themselves. They have special rooms that show pictures from their homeworld, and others showing their journey through space. Jecc have spread over several worlds, and they used to keep in contact—they have things not unlike those picture cubes we found on the globe ship. Remember, Gordon? That showed pictures of home?"

  "Yes," Ashe said. "Go on."

  "Well, the Jecc have these ancient message cubes, and they revere them. Play them often—I don't know what kind of energy they run off. Solar? Anyhow, here's the kicker. The Jecc in the messages are different."

  "Different? How?" Gordon asked.

  "Taller. Bigger. But the real change is the tentacles. The Jecc of the past didn't have them. And all of a sudden—if the mosaics are correct—a generation or so after they arrived here, all the offspring were born with them."

  "Tentacles," Eveleen said, looking up from her typing. "The Yilayil don't have them—they have four arms—but a lot of the other beings here all have those tentacles."

  "Those savage human types did as well, down in our time," Ross said. "Anyway, the tentacles are new, and the Jecc mourn the fact that even if they had a spaceship, because of them they could never go home again. That's what yesterday was, their Day of Lamentation. They seem to have these about once a month."

  "Mutation," Gordon said slowly, getting to his feet. "No, more than mutation. Genetic alteration. Tentacles are too much of a change to be a mutation, and on many races, at that. But alteration by whom, and to what purpose?" He frowned as he packed up his laptop. "This requires thought." He shook his head. "But later. For now, we'd better not make any overt changes in our routines, because we still don't know who is watching or listening. I'm off to work."

  He left, and Eveleen slowly and thoughtfully shut down her computer.

  Ross watched, trying to figure out what to say.

  But Eveleen forestalled him. She got to her feet and put her hands on his shoulders. She smiled up into his face.

  "How long," she asked, "do you think it would have taken for us to get thoroughly sick of each other?"

  "What?" Ross gazed at her in astonishment.

  Her eyes were narrowed in amusement—and understanding. "If we hadn't gotten whatever this illness is. How long would we have guarded one another against taking risks— meanwhile getting more and more frustrated?"

  "I—" Ross let his breath out in a whoosh. "I don't know."

  Eveleen turned away, no longer smiling. "We should have found that old transport system, Ross. You and I—weeks ago. Misha and Viktor stumbled on it only because they were looking for some kind of shelter from one of those rainstorms. That station is right near us. We should have been out, exploring, ages ago. We two are action agents, not Vera and Irina. They are communicators, analysts. But they've been finding out data, much more than we have."

  Ross sighed. "I know. It's just—"

  "You don't have to say it, because I felt exactly the same. You're used to taking action—taking risks. And when you were risking only yourself, it was perfectly all right. I know because I felt the same way. But when it came to considering your safety, I couldn't stand the thought that something might happen to you, and I meant to stay with you every minute. Keep you safe. Keep you out of harm's way."

  Ross laughed a little raggedly. "Hell, Eveleen."

  "And we didn't even talk. Just heroically did our duty as spouses—guarding each other from doing our duty as agents." She gave him a troubled look. "If we can't work this out, we shouldn't be partners. If we were on our own again, we'd have that old freedom of action. And we're both action people— you have to admit it. That's what brought us together in the first place."

  Ross said, "Don't think that."

  "But we have to," Eveleen said. "If we can't handle the emotional consequences of our jobs, then we'd be better off working separately. We have to consider it—but later. Right now, we'd better get to work. Gordon said we don't want to alter our routines any."

  Ross nodded, forcing himself to grab his share of the breakfast. He would munch it on the way, though he really didn't want to eat. Didn't want to work. Truth was, he felt heartsick. Anger would have been better than that logical calmness.

  The worst of it was, he knew she was right.

  Outside, the air was slightly co
oler, a strong breeze smelling of rain bringing some relief. Eveleen walked beside him, her profile serene, as she made light comments in Yilayil.

  Ross didn't talk. He thought about his night with the Jecc—and when they got to work, and the Jecc recommenced their little game, he thought about Eveleen.

  On the way back from work, he said, "You're right. And I promise. No more hiding. Half and half, share fair and square, as we used to say on the streets when I was a kid."

  "Share fair and square," Eveleen repeated, her eyes steady and bright with a sheen of unshed tears. "That, my dear, is real trust."

  Ross didn't respond. As always, his deepest emotions were impossible to express. He looked forward to their being alone at last, so that he could at least try.

  But when they reached the Nurayil dorm, they found Misha waiting outside their cell, pacing like a caged cat.

  A small group of Moova trundled past, but he paid them no heed. As soon as he saw them he said abruptly, "Open up."

  In mute surprise, Eveleen palmed the door open.

  As soon as they were inside, Misha said, "The flyers. They got Viktor."

  Ross looked to Eveleen. She looked back, question in her eyes.

  "What are we waiting for?" Ross said. "Let's go get him back."

  CHAPTER 24

  SABA SPENT THE day drifing in and out of consciousness.

  Gordon called her once, and then again. His worry penetrated the strange dreaming wakefulness that she couldn't seem to escape on her own. Patiently, slowly, he bade her describe—in detail—her room, her hands, courses she'd taken in university. Anything to anchor her to reality.

  But as soon as they quit conversing, she lay down again, exhausted, and the strange dreams seized her—always punctuated by Yilayil voices singing never-ending chants. Twice she rose to shut down the Yilayil computer, so that the sound would cease and she could sleep, but both times she found it dark. Was the sound coming from hidden speakers? Or— somehow—was she dreaming it, too? Except how could she dream language she only partially understood?