Last Shadow (9781250252135)

by Card, Orson Scott

  The Yachachiyruna were all still gathered near the edge of the woods. “We don’t have to send them off yet,” said Peter.

  “They’ll take some getting used to,” said Wang-Mu.

  “And they eat what humans eat. They’ll have to be taken to the human colonists on each world. Or maybe they’ll all go to the same world. There may be only one breeding population of the Engineers.”

  “Wherever they go,” said Wang-Mu, “that colony will have the best designed and built and maintained machinery.”

  “Remember that the Formics do fine with metalwork,” said Peter. “But yes, there will be advantages to having Quechua-speaking Engineers living in the trees. Has to be a world with branchy trees.”

  Jane and her companions leapt to a place near the Yachachiyruna, but Peter put his arm around Wang-Mu and said, “I know you’re not tired at all, and I know you wish we knew where our raven and kea friends were sent. But for right now, our baby is very tired, and she won’t nap till you get to sleep.”

  “Nonsense,” said Wang-Mu. “The baby sleeps on its own schedule. Not she, not he. It, till we know. We don’t want anybody to think we’re hoping for one sex more than the other.”

  They detoured to the barracks, inside their own room. “Did we have breakfast?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “Yes,” said Peter, “but a nice combination of lunch and supper would be nice about now. Let me call the mess hall and ask if they can send something over.”

  By the time the food arrived, they were both asleep. Anticipating this, the cooks had prepared meals that could wait outside the door of their room until morning.

  * * *

  At the forest’s edge, Ruqyaq asked Jane, “Can we stay here?”

  “No,” said Jane.

  “You think the Lusitanians won’t accept us?”

  “They probably will,” said Jane. “But there are no trees you can swing on or nest in. They are all the surviving remnants of dead pequeninos. Every tree is sacred here.”

  “Ah,” said Ruqyaq. “Those are stories I would like to hear.”

  “We may bring you back for a visit from time to time.”

  “I assume that we’re too naked to be tolerated by most of the humans.”

  “This is a good Catholic colony,” said Jane. “So are all the others.”

  “How dressed do we need to be? Loincloths are easy, and they don’t interfere with our mobility very much, but it’s hard for us to put on shirts and take them off.”

  “Covering your private parts would be a very good start,” said Jane. “And if the women among you could cover their breasts, that would also help.”

  “Then may we stay a few days, while we get cloth and needles and thread to make our coverings?”

  Jane grinned. “I’m not your ruler, you know. I’m just your bus driver.”

  “Oh, you’re our ruler, like it or not,” said Ruqyaq. “We knew it was only a matter of time before the Folk decided they didn’t need us so much anymore. They’d either kill us or they’d keep us underground, where they could control us.”

  “They do understand, don’t they, that if we wanted to harm them, they couldn’t keep us out of their caverns,” said Jane.

  “Maybe they think, because the underground world is so vast, that they could hide from you,” said Ruqyaq.

  “They probably could,” said Jane. “But not forever. Fortunately, we’re not interested in Nest anymore, now that those willing to emigrate have left the place.”

  “I’m afraid for our brothers and sisters,” said Ruqyaq. “I did my best to explain what you are and what you can do, but either they don’t fear the Folk as much as I do, or they fear you more than they should.”

  “Everyone chooses and then lives with the choice,” said Jane. “Most people regret most of their choices—at least a little.”

  Sprout walked up to Ruqyaq. “When you leave Lusitania, I won’t have any more of your stories.”

  “Foolish boy,” said Ruqyaq. “Jane will show you where I am, and then you can come to me whenever you want. What does distance mean to you?”

  23

  Cincinnatus: I don’t want to be here anymore.

  Jane: We have a nice array of brand-new colony worlds you can reside on.

  Cincinnatus: I have little to contribute when the primary object is mere survival.

  Jane: It’s hard to think of a world where most people aren’t constantly engaged in exactly that project.

  Cincinnatus: You dragged me here, me and my children. Then you sent me off to retrieve my wife, who never really loved me and hadn’t changed her mind. You’ve sent me hither and yon and you know what? I liked my life better on the Herodotus.

  Jane: The ship is still in perfect condition, and it would be fairly simple to restock the supplies. Say the word and I’ll send you up.

  Cincinnatus: With my children.

  Jane: If they choose.

  Cincinnatus: Nobody wants the twins. They’re very clever but also quite malicious and they egg each other on. My task will be to keep flying at relativistic speeds until we come to a world that we want to live on, at a time when they’ve matured enough to be tolerable.

  Jane: That sounds like an excellent plan.

  Cincinnatus: And Thulium will make the voyage—

  Jane: If she chooses to go with you.

  Cincinnatus: She’s eight years old and I’m her father.

  Jane: If she chooses.

  Cincinnatus: I have already chosen for her. She’s a minor child.

  Jane: No sir. She’s an extremely important child, a major child, and she has in her the power to go wherever she wants, at any time she chooses. How will you get her on that spaceship and keep her there if she doesn’t want to go?

  —Transcript of conversation: Jane Ribeira and Cincinnatus Delphiki as quoted in Plikt, Leguminidae

  Brussels Delphiki thought of himself as Sprout, most of the time, and thought of his little brother Delft by the nickname Blue. It was a convention born aboard the Herodotus, when their whole world consisted of the three children of the Giant and their seven children, the cousins. Sprout had always felt overwhelmed by the sheer energy of the others. Both he and Blue were of a quieter disposition. Not necessarily introverted, but lacking the need that the other cousins seemed to share—the need to insert themselves into every conversation, every argument, as if they had proof that no conversation was real or important until they had contributed to it—or mocked it.

  Sprout just listened. He formed his opinions, but rarely voiced them when the whole circus was going on, everybody outshouting everybody else, the interior of the ship echoing with every spat or frolic. Later, in the quiet of Carlotta’s family compartment, Sprout would tell his comments on the arguments of the day to his mother, while Blue listened, tucked under her arm.

  If Blue spoke, it was only to echo what Sprout had already said. Every now and then Sprout would take him to task for it. “You have ideas of your own, Blue. You have no need to echo mine.”

  “I do if you’re right.”

  “I’m not always right, Blue.”

  “If you don’t think you’re right, then why do you say it?” asked Blue.

  It was such a reasonable question that Sprout gave up and let Blue be his little echo as much as he wanted.

  But now and then Blue noticed something and said something that reminded Sprout: The boy had a brain in his head, and he saw things through his own eyes.

  So on a particularly sunny but not-too-hot day, as they walked across Bird Meadow, as they now called the place beyond the fence where all the birds had gathered before dispersing to five different worlds and seven different continents, Sprout decided to tell Blue something he had been thinking for several days now.

  “I don’t think I want to be called Sprout anymore,” said Sprout.

  “It’s your name.”

  “My name is Brussels Delphiki,” said Sprout.

  “You were named for a city on Earth,” said Blue. “As
was I. The nicknames are better.”

  “Brussels is easy to say, and it was the capital of a country,” said Sprout. “Delft is hard for a lot of people to say—I bet the Portuguese speakers here on Lusitania will turn it into, I don’t know, Del-ee-fee-chee Delphiki.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what they do with my name,” said Blue. “So I’ll stick with Blue, thanks very much.”

  Not an echo today. That was good. “But if I really want to be called Brussels, will you call me that?”

  Blue was very quiet for a while.

  Then he stopped walking and pointed over toward the trees they were approaching. “Is that a raven?” Blue asked.

  Sprout looked where he was pointing. “I don’t see it.”

  “Big and black and shiny. In the sunlight it was as if lots of other colors were trying to escape from it. A black hole of a bird.”

  “Sounds like a raven,” said Sprout.

  “Then it’s a raven.”

  “They all left Lusitania,” said Sprout.

  “Then this is a robot raven that stayed behind to keep us company,” said Blue, the little smartass.

  Finally, Sprout saw it. And it was definitely not a robot. “Dog!” he said, loudly enough that the bird could hear.

  The raven flew toward them, like an arrow. And close behind came another raven, a little smaller.

  “Dog is a stupid name for a bird,” said Blue.

  “As Blue and Delft are stupid names for a boy,” said Sprout.

  The first raven came to rest on the grass about two meters in front of them. The second raven alighted on Sprout’s shoulder.

  “Are you Phoenix?” Sprout asked, and the bird on his shoulder said, “Yes.”

  “Dog, Phoenix,” said Sprout, “I thought you went when the others left, a week ago.”

  “Nine days,” said Blue.

  “Arbitrary constructs,” said Phoenix. “You humans and your calendars.”

  “You pay attention to the years,” said Sprout.

  “We pay attention to spring, summer, autumn, winter,” said Phoenix. “Those have something to do with survival. The Stark names for days are weird, tied to Norse gods, and the Portuguese speakers on Lusitania call the days, ‘Second market, Third market,’ and so on. We don’t have markets, or gods.”

  “Those names all had historical reasons,” said Sprout. “What do you call the days?”

  “Yesterday, today, tomorrow,” said Phoenix. “And sometimes, ‘Remember that day when we…?’”

  Sprout turned to Dog the Raven. “Madam Dog, leader of the Raven Council, why are you here instead of being on a new world with your people?”

  “There’s enough food here to feed two ravens.”

  “What, seeds?” said Sprout. “The amaranth is ripe, yes, but what about when winter comes?”

  “We’ll move indoors with you,” said Dog, “and take sandwiches from your lunch trays in the mess hall.”

  “That would work,” murmured Blue.

  “One mating pair is not enough to start a viable breeding population,” said Sprout.

  Phoenix answered first. “I’m a male and Dog is a female but we have never mated. We’re partners because we both speak human languages well.”

  “Well, if you never mate,” said Sprout, “the whole problem of a viable breeding population goes away.”

  “Laying eggs,” said Dog, “is tedious. It takes a lot out of me. But if I want to raise a brood or two, Phoenix will do.”

  “I’m honored,” said Phoenix.

  “Really,” said Sprout. “Why didn’t you go with your people?”

  Phoenix fluttered off Sprout’s shoulder and came to ground ten centimeters away from Dog. The size difference was very plain. Dog must be older than Phoenix, and Phoenix must be fairly young. Not a full adult.

  Then Sprout realized what the birds were signaling. “Let’s sit down, Blue, and hear what Dog and Phoenix have to say.”

  Even after they were all seated, Dog preened a while before she finally began to speak. “Sprout, you are one of the wisest of the humans, and one most open to learning new things.”

  Sprout accepted the salutation without false modesty.

  “Blue,” said Dog, “you are like your brother, though not yet as accomplished. You are both patient and willing to listen. Will you hear my tale?”

  Sprout wondered, briefly, whether Ruqyaq learned his storytelling patterns from the ravens, or the ravens learned them from him.

  “Please tell us,” said Blue.

  Sprout simply kept his gaze focused on Dog the Raven.

  “There is a reason why I was able to hear the voice of the Hive Queen in my mind, when I first came to this world,” said Dog.

  Then she waited.

  Sprout thought over what she had said, and replied, “Is it because ravens already talk to each other mind to mind, without words?”

  Dog nodded her head, as did Phoenix.

  “So when the Hive Queen looked for sentient life, using the method the Queens have always used,” said Sprout, “she found you to be a viable partner in conversation.”

  “From her,” said Dog, “I learned that this connection of the minds, of the heart—”

  “The aiúa,” said Blue.

  Sprout look at him in surprise.

  “I know about it,” said Blue, testily.

  “I learned that the connection could reach infinitely far,” said Dog, “and yet take no time at all. Like the way you Travelers fly.”

  “So you’re still in contact with all the ravens, on all seven continents?” asked Blue.

  “I didn’t know if it would work for us—none of us is as mighty as the Queen,” said Dog. “So I let them all go, and waited here to discover if I could stay in contact with them.”

  “Can you?” asked Blue.

  “Yes,” said Dog.

  “So you’re still head of the Raven Council?” asked Sprout.

  “I’m the representative of the ravens to the Travelers and the Geneticists. Other Council members serve as ambassadors to the keas on their world, and to the humans and Formics and pequeninos. We have had to expand the Council, so that every liaison is represented, and all our knowledge can be pooled.”

  “But it condemns you to isolation,” said Blue.

  “It keeps anybody from challenging you for leadership,” said Sprout.

  Dog the Raven made a gruff, raucous sound—not the cawing of a crow, but it would certainly pass for laughter. “I am at the center for now,” said Dog, “but I won’t live forever. Still, the liaison with the Travelers is the most important position of all, because you Travelers are the only ones who can save us if one or another of our colonies should be in danger of failing.”

  “I’m not a Traveler,” said Blue.

  “I don’t think Jane intends to have a lot of traffic between the worlds,” said Sprout. “Not that way.”

  “She’s still transporting food and other supplies from Lusitania to all the human colonies,” said Dog. “It will cost her nothing if a raven or two wants to hitch a ride.”

  “Jane doesn’t want anybody to be a prisoner,” said Blue.

  “A wise boy,” said Phoenix. “He should be allowed to breed.”

  Dog turned to Phoenix and said, “Humans let anybody breed.”

  “Oh,” said Phoenix.

  “And these two are so young they can’t inseminate the eggs of the human female.”

  “Oh,” said Phoenix. “I just thought they were small, like me.”

  So Phoenix wasn’t necessarily younger. Just small for a raven.

  “Dog the Raven,” said Sprout, “I honor you for your sacrifice in remaining here. But when we’re sure we’ve resolved the matter of the descolada, it’s unlikely that all the Detourists—the Travelers, as you call us—will remain on one world.”

  “It will be interesting to see what the Council asks me to do, if I’m still alive at that time.”

  “How old are you now?” asked Blue.


  “Wild ravens on Earth rarely lived to be twenty years old,” said Dog. “But during the voyage, as we bred for intelligence and speech, we also achieved ever greater ages. I am already twenty years old—Earth years—and expect to live at least ten more years, and possibly twenty.”

  To Sprout it seemed unthinkable, to look forward to so brief a life. But then, anyone could die at any time, so anyone who counted on a full lifespan was delusional. You die when you die. Till then you live.

  “I’m content with whatever life I get,” said Dog. “Laying eggs shortens the lifespan of females, yet the species must go on, and I am expected to breed.”

  “As long as you remain on a world with almost no other birds,” said Blue, “you must be lonely.”

  “We ravens are usually content to journey two by two. We change partnerships, but there’s a human saying, ‘Two is good company, three is crowded.’”

  “So you don’t usually flock,” said Sprout.

  “We do, when there’s a need,” said Dog. “Two ravens can’t mob a hawk and make it go away.”

  “And there’s something worse than being alone, or just the two of us,” said Phoenix.

  “What’s that?” asked Dog.

  “We might be forced to be the only ravens among a population of keas,” said Phoenix.

  The two ravens made their gronk-gronk sound.

  “They’d have our feathers off us in ten minutes,” said Phoenix.

  “But I miss them,” said Dog.

  “Me too, the stupid clowns,” said Phoenix.

  “Do they talk mind-to-mind, the way you ravens and the Hive Queen can?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Dog. “And not all ravens are equally adept at it.”

  “How are the colonies doing?” asked Sprout.

  “They’re all eating well,” said Dog. “The Travelers chose well, sending us to worlds bountiful with insects, grubs, worms, nuts, and seeds.”

  “Any predators?” asked Blue.

  “Three of our seven colonies are on worlds with hawks and falcons, but we’re smarter than they are, and we’re bigger than other corvids. Hawks quickly learn to leave ravens alone. We’re not their prey—not when there are small mammals and fish to be had.”