Fire in the Sky tst-1

by Jo Clayton

  Tryben touched the sensor then and stepped back.

  The sky was a brilliant blue, cloudless, the forested hills a dark nubbly green. The flier was a black bug diving through and through and through that column of smoke, each swing wilder and wobblier than the one before-until, finally, the flier looped completely over and went racing down down down-this time not turning, apparently no attempt to bring the nose up-down and down until it smacked into the earth.

  He stopped the movement, left the image pinned in that moment. “When he saw that, Skambil slapped his intakes shut and went on bottle and scrub. The flier was on fire and the smoke got so thick he thought for a while the whole forest was going to go. He hung about until the worst of the burn was finished, then went closer to inspect the scene.” He ticked his claw against the plaque and the play moved forward again.

  The techs’ flier was a heap of twisted, blackened metal in the center of a large meadow filled with interconnected pergolas, the lattices thick with ancient vines whose leaves for the most part concealed the ground beneath them. Where it’d crashed, the columns and horizontal latticework were broken; Hunnar could see large fibrous brown lumps in grassy nests-near the wreck they were almost completely burned to ash, but deep in the shadows they were only charred and smoking.

  Tryben tapped at the sensor plaques with the tips of his claws. The image of one of the more intact lumps enlarged, filled the frame. “You can see those things are tended with considerable effort and care. Look how the grass is woven around the base there, not just grown but trained into place. The vines on the pergola have a combination of flowers and ornamental fruits, but there is no debris on the ground. There are possibly several hundred of the lumps there and each one is like this one. We don’t know what they are, but they seem to be important to the locals.”

  He switched the scene to the worst of the burned areas. Wisps of greasy smoke were still rising from the lumps. “You will recall how the techs took their flier repeatedly through that smoke. It seems reasonable to me that the smoke is the vector for those… mmm… substances the medics found. As to their source, I’d say it was either those lumps or the vines. I suggest you haul in your pet and ask him some questions. I’ll get back to the med techs and make sure they keep their mouths shut.”

  6

  Shaking so uncontrollably he could barely walk, Ilaцrn shuffled into the room. Without being told, he seated himself in the probe chair and waited passively as Hunnar locked down his arms and legs. When the crown was lowered about his head and he felt the faint tickle as the fields began their mapping, he shuddered, licking his lips.

  “Open your eyes. Tell me about that”

  When Ilaцrn realized what the image was, he moaned and for the first time in months tried to fight the probe. He knew well enough it was futile, but he tried.

  “What is that place? Answer in words, cho.”

  “Sleeping Ground.” Ilaцrn was shivering and sobbing as he spoke; the urge to babble was almost irresistible, but he shut his teeth on the words that wanted to come pouring out.

  All of it was there where Hunnar could see it, he knew that, he’d seen flakes of earlier sessions. Hunnar made him watch them to grind the lesson in that there was nothing Ilaцrn could hide from the Chave. The Ykkuval didn’t need the questions, but they focused attention and made him form his thoughts in the Chandavasi tongue; more than that, they were another twist of the knife and Hunnar enjoyed that.

  “Tell me the meaning.”

  “When Denchok feel their time pressing on them, they go to the Sleeping Grounds.”

  “To die?”

  ‘hewn writhed in the chair, fighting the restraints; blood oozed from his scalp and trickled past his ears, his eyes shut tight, tears squeezing out and mixing with the blood. His mouth spoke, and he couldn’t stop it. “To change. They eat the melodach and grow the husk around themselves, and when it is finished, they sleep until the change is complete and the Eolt is born.”

  “You mean those things that walk around like mobile gardens, they turn into the jellies?” There was a tension in Hunnar’s voice that Ilaцrn felt even through his distress.

  “Yu… yuh… YES.”

  “Open your eyes, look at the image.”

  Again the dark flier dived at the smoke column, passed through it and through it, looped up and crashed.

  “Why? What got to them?”

  “S sss smoke. Hu HUSK!” The pressure was too strong. He babbled, betraying his sioll, betraying his harp, his people. “They must have been ripe, nearly ripe, ready to wake and fly, when the husk is green the dreams are few, when it cracks and the Eolt fly free you can fly with them, the sioll bond is set then, the pairing is complete, the music blends, burn the husk and breathe the smoke and fly…” He started to sing, his voice cracking with the pain that racked him.

  “Be quiet.”

  The flood cut off. Hunnar didn’t need the pain circuits any longer to control Ilaцrn, though sometimes he played with them for the pleasure of it. He didn’t do that today. More important things on his mind, thought wretchedly. He’s angry. Why? And worried. Why? And greedy. Chel Dй, the husk… He’d seen enough of the Chave to understand dimly what was going on in Hunnar’s mind. They murder us for their games, what will they do when there’s profit in it?

  4. Warnings

  1

  Maorgan sat on the roof with his harp between his knees and watched the strangers enter Dumel Alsekum. It was a noisy entrance.

  The tracktruck clanked along, its trailer bumping and sashaying along the road. It was a house on treads, a huge box with tinted glass in the windows. Inside he could see the driver, the Scholar and her company, and blocky forms of crates packed in with them.

  Glois sat proud as a teseach atop the canvas covering the baggage in the trailer, Utelel kneeling beside him, leaning on his shoulder whispering at him. The rest of their band were scattered over the canvas behind them, waving and shouting at the young Fiors and Meloach who came running from the fields and lanes, the lot of them talking loud and long enough as they welcomed their friends and cousins home to make the two Eolts drifting above the tracktruck pulse darker with irritation.

  Around the Meeting House the Denchok and the older Fior came to doors and windows or out into the street to stand watching, others stayed in shadow, uncertain how to take this invasion.

  Melech’s speaking tentacle brushed Maorgan’s cheek, settled against his neck. *Change is on us, sioll. We’ve drifted in a dream for a thousand and a thousand years and now it’s time to wake.*

  Maorgan grunted. “And about as welcome as any other waking time. It’s sweeter to stay warm and drowsy under the covers.”

  Laughter came along the tentacle and filled Maorgan with Melech’s warmth.

  “It’s too pleasant a day for listening to glagairh, but I suppose we have to go.” He wrinkled his nose, crossed his hands on the top of the harpcase and leaned over them, watching the Fior Teseach and the Keteng Metau come from the Meeting House and walk toward the tracktruck. “That pair. Guarantee it’s going to be a boring session knotting knots and pricking ayids. Omudht Tes Ruaim is a pris with pleats in his soul.”

  *And Metau Chachil is a match to him.*

  A sigh tickled down with the words. *The Meruu of the

  Eolts want word for word, so you are right, go we must and listen.*

  “Is that what Mer-Eolt Lebesair came to say? Or has more news come across from Melitoh?”

  *Both, sioll. Xe didn’t say-but from xe’s comport, I do think more song has been brought and it is something evil*

  Another sigh and Melech sank lower until xe’s grasping cilia brushed Maorgan’s hair. *Xe came to tell me there will be a Klobach. Thee ingathering has begun. T’ Meruu want the mesuch harper there if you and I agree it’s wise.*

  “I wondered when you didn’t say anything, sioll.” *I was considering Lebesair’s song and how temeroum it was.*

  “What size are the holes and how many?”
<
br />   *Large enough to float through and many indeed.*

  “Sounds like secrets to me and that’s a bad omen. Chel Dй grant the Meruus don’t start down that road.” He touched thumb to ring finger in the avert sign, then got to his feet and walked along the Harper’s Way that circled the roof of the Meeting House, heading for the stairs that led down to the Center, the inner court where the meeting was set.

  The Eolt Melech dropped xe’s graspers to the roof holds and pulled xeself after xe’s sioll.

  2

  The main part of Dumel Alsekum was laid out as an infinity sign with the Meeting House at the twist point. In one node the horses were low and rounded with an organic look as if they were grown rather than built and roofs that glittered in the sunlight, panels of translucent material that could be slid aside to let in the full force of the sun. In the other the style of building was more angular, walls built with a mellow ocher brick and wood with the gleam of pale bronze; the roofs were rough shakes with a crannied thready texture as if they were cut from bark rather than the wood itself. Moss grew in patches across these roofs, the dark rich green starred with small yellow blooms. Ketengs lived in the first node, Fior in the second. Despite this separation in the living quarters, Shadith saw children of both species playing together, the adults working together in the fields, standing together in the streets. She was pleased to see this, but couldn’t help wondering where the catch was; the history of Cousin interactions with intelligent non-Cousins was on the whole bloody and depressing.

  The Yarak driver stopped at the edge of the village. No, Shadith thought, Dumel. That was what the Bйluchar called a village. Dumel was the settlement, ordumel the manufactories and farms attached to it. She touched her fingers lightly to her temple; the translator had settled down, the blinding ache was gone, all she had now was a twinge or two when she ran into a spate of slang like the shouts of those children outside.

  The driver twisted around to speak to Aslan.

  “Scholar, if you want me to take you to the Hostel, I’ll have to go round outside this place. The streets are too narrow for the track.”

  “Wait here a moment. We’re supposed to be met by local officials. Once we’re out, you make your way round and wait. There’s maneuvering to do before that’s settled. I hope you brought something to pass the time since we probably won’t get in till sundown, if then.”

  He flashed his pointed teeth at her in a broad, dangerous grin, his orange-brown eyes shutting to furry slits. His mask was a sketch of mahogany fur only a few shades darker than the rest of a pelt that was shaggier than the neat plush on Goлs Koraka and the other highborn and there was no white on his face. “How it goes,” he said. “Rush till you’re rubbed down to hide, then sit around and listen to your fur grow while the big chods talk.”

  Aslan chuckled, clicked her tongue. “Hush now. Two of those chods are coming toward us.” She pushed her chair around so she was facing the others. “Dune, Shadow and I will see if we can light a fire under them and clear the way for you to start getting settled in.”

  Duncan Shears was a small wiry man with droopy eyelids that lent a mild and sleepy look to his round face, a man given to hoarding words. Now he simply nodded, settled down in his seat, and turned slightly so he could look through the offside window of the track’s cabin and watch the maneuvering of the locals as they moved in staring circles about the tracktruck.

  Shadith swung down and followed Aslan to meet the Bйluchar, a Denchok and a Fior walking side by side, looking curiously alike though they were from different species.

  Denchok. In Bйlucharis it meant settled and caretaker and middle term, the three meanings blended in a way she didn’t know enough yet to understand. Meloach were the children. That term was easier, it meant beginning and herd and opening bud. Eolt seemed to have only one meaning, being the generic name given to the intelligent floaters.

  This Denchok had broad plump shoulders and grey-green skin like the bark of a willow tree. Unlike the Meloach, xe had no symbiote moss, rather a weaving of thready lichen that spread about the middle of xe’s stocky sexless body and looked like brittle gray-green spiderwebs. Watching xe move brought to mind the march of a dead tree trunk weathered and old. Xe wore no clothing, merely a bronze chain about xe’s short thick neck, a medallion dangling from the lowest link with worn symbols engraved on its oval.

  The Fior was a plumpish man with a neatly trimmed white beard and mustache that framed thick red lips. He wore tight trousers and a tunic of deeply textured cloth that was a stylized echo of the Denchok’s lichen web. He, too, had a bronze chain and medallion.

  The Denchok stopped a few steps from Aslan. Fingering xe’s medal with broad stumpy fingers, xe said, “I am the Metau Chachil. I speak for the Denchok.”

  (Shadith murmured a translation into Aslan’s ear, added, “Local pol. Context fringes-xe’s elected to the post, not born into it.”)

  “And I am the Teseach Ruaim. I speak for the Fior.” The Teseach’s voice was a silver tenor that might have been crafted to charm birds from the sky.

  (“Different word, same connotation,” she whispered.)

  Turn and turn about, dancing their voices through the phrases, of the welcome speech with a practiced ease, the Teseach and the Metau welcomed their visitors to Dumel Alsekum.

  When they finished, Aslan said, “May our interaction be pleasant and fruitful.” She paused for Shadith to translate, then went on briskly, “If my associates could be guided to the living quarters that were promised us, I would be most grateful.”

  The Teseach snapped thumb against forefinger, dropped the hand on the shoulder of the youth who ran over to him. “Diroch will show you how to go. That contraption can’t come inside the Dumel, it’ll have to go round.”

  (“Nose out of joint,” Shadith murmured. “No one’s moving into his town till he and the Metau approve. You’re going to have to keep this pair sweet or they’ll make trouble every chance they see.”)

  Aslan bowed as she’d been instructed, arms crossed, the tips of her fingers resting against her shoulders. “Teach your grandmother,” she said, tucking the corners of her mouth in to keep from grinning. “Tell our friends there how profoundly appreciative we are and how we shall strive to be worthy of the honor and keep your face straight while you’re doing it, hm?”

  The Meeting Room wasn’t a room at all, but a pentagonal court at the heart of the building with grasping rods extending from the roof on the five sides, leaving the center completely open to the sky. Three Eolt floated above the court, their tentacles anchoring them to the rods; below them a collection of Fior adults and Denchok sat in witness on benches pushed against four of the sides. Near a low dais that ran across the fifth side, the Dumel scribe perched at a small desk with a tablet, stylus and inkpad. Xe was a Denchok who seemed older than the rest, xe’s crust coarser, grayer, xe’s lichen web a thick matting of closely interwoven, crinkled threads.

  The Metau and the Teseach climbed onto the dais, stood waiting beside massive chairs carved over every inch of their surface, chairs that looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. Shadith and Aslan were left standing at the foot of the steps.

  A lanky Fior with a shock of gray hair brought out folding backless chairs whose seats were pieces of heavy cloth stretched between wooden dowels. He clicked the chairs open, snapped home the cross struts, slapped at the cloth to make sure they were secure, then went to take his place on one of the benches.

  Metau Chachil and Teseach Ruaim bowed to each other then seated themselves in the chairs. Ruaim closed his hands over worn finials and leaned forward. “Sit if you please,” he said, his voice making a song of the words.

  They sat. Shadith positioned the harpcase beside her knee, wondering if she should open it, decided not yet and straightened. From the corner of one eye she could see the Fior who’d served as the Goлs’ contact. Maorgan. His harpcase, like hers, was leaning against his knee. She wondered what his harp looked like. Would it be carved like t
hose ugly chairs? What would that do to the sound?

  There was whispering in the benches, creaks and. scuffs as heavy bodies shifted position. Brushing sounds and soft exhalations came from the lattices as the Eolt shifted their holds on the horizontal rods.

  The Metau leaned forward and spoke (Shadith translating in a murmur just loud enough to reach Aslan’s ear), “We have listened to the Eolt and the Ard and have given you rooms in our Hostel, Scholar.”

  (“Given is not exactly the word,” Aslan muttered to Shadith, “seeing the size of the rent they twisted from us.”)

  Shadith smiled; she spoke to the Metau and the Teseach as if she were translating what Aslan had said, “For which we give thanks.”

  “What we wish to know is why you want it. What is your purpose here? The traders who came before the mesuch descended on us say University is subject to no one’s will, but we know this, who pays for the song can name what they want to hear.”

  Aslan nodded as she listened to Shadith’s recapitulation, then spoke slowly so the phrases could be translated into something like a coherent statement. “My purpose is knowledge, Metau, Teseach. My life-study is gathering the chronicles, songs and lifeways of different peoples, especially those on the verge of great change. All things change. A sage once said you cannot step twice in the same river. But the form of the river can be preserved and the memory of it even though it dries and dies. This is what I do. I document what might soon be erased by the press of time so that when the Wheel turns once more there will be a record of that heritage for those who wish to recapture something of what they were.”

  Ruaim leaned forward again. “If we could rid ourselves of those mesuch over there, we wouldn’t need the record; things would go back to the way they were. Can you tell us how we can do that?”