by David Brin
It is said that the great Zang are patient. The debt falls due in several hundred thousand years, yet so deep is the usury that the glaver race, and all its beloved clients, were hopelessly forfeit.
Glavers had but one thing left to trade, a precious thing they might yet sell, providing they could find the right path.
That thing was themselves.
—Collected Fables of Jijo’s Seven, Third Edition. Department of Folklore and Language, Biblos. Year 1867 of Exile.
Asx
The plunder ship soon departed as it came, amid a storm of whirling fragments of our poor, shattered forest. A tornado leaned in its wake, as if Jijo’s own ghostly hand were reaching, clasping, trying to restrain it.
Alas, this departure was no cause for joy, for the crew vowed an early return. Surety of this promise squatted near the steaming scar where the ship had lain — a black cube, half an arrowflight wide, featureless save where a ramp led to a gaping hatch.
Nearby, two frail cloth pavilions had been transplanted from Gathering, at the request of star-gods who had stayed behind when their ship departed. One to serve as a place of liaison, and a large tent for “examining specimens.” Already a small foray party of star-humans worked under that canopy, feeding dark mysterious machines with samples of Jijoan life.
Shock still throbbed throughout the Commons. Despite unity-entreaties by their sages, the many septs and clans cleaved, each seeking shelter among its own kind. Emissaries darted among these cloistered groups, parleying in hushed secrecy. All save the youngest of the Six, whose envoys were rebuffed.
For the moment no one, not even the traeki, wants to speak to humans.
Sara
Around midafternoon, the river spilled into canyon country. As if remembering some urgent errand, the water hastened through a terrain of thorny scrub, clinging to eroded slopes. Sara recalled these badlands from childhood fossil-hunting trips with Dwer and Lark. Those had been good times, despite the heat, stale food, and gritty dust. Especially when Melina used to come along, before the final lingering illness that took her away, leaving Nelo an old man.
Their mother’s soft accent used to grow stronger, Sara recalled, the farther south they traveled. The open sky never seemed to cause her any dread.
In contrast, the crew of the Hauph-woa grew restless with each southward league, especially after the morning’s episode of inept piracy, by the shattered bridge. Clearly the hoon sailors would prefer tying up for the rest of the day under some rocky shelter. The captain reminded them, with a farty blat from his violet sac, that this was no leisurely dross run but an urgent mission for the Commons.
A prevailing west wind normally filled the sails of craft climbing upstream. In places where the river’s current pushed strongest, trusty hoon operators offered winch tows from cleverly camouflaged windmills-shaped like upright eggbeaters — that tapped the funneled breeze under cliff overhangs. But the first set of lonely vanes swept in and out of sight before anyone could emerge from the attached hut to answer their hails, and half a midura later, the overseer of the next windmill barely finished a rumbling courtesy-preamble before the river hauled the Hauph-woa beyond range.
Like the tug of time, Sara thought. Pulling you into the future before you’re ready, leaving behind a wake of regrets.
If only life let you catch a friendly tow rope now and then, to climb back into the past, offering a chance to change the flow of your own life-stream.
What would she do, with the last year or two to live over again? Could any amount of foresight have averted the sweet pain of giving her heart where it did not belong? Even with foreknowledge of Joshu’s nature, would or could she have rejected in advance all those months of heady joy, when she had pretended in her own mind that he could be hers alone?
Might any amount of prophecy have helped save his life?
An image came to her, unbeckoned and unwelcome out of memory. Recollection of the very day she fled Biblos Citadel, clutching her books and charts, rushing home to that treehouse overlooking Dolo Dam, to drown herself in study.
—black banners flapping in a zephyr that blew past the castle’s heavy roof-of-stone…
—murmur-kites, tugging at their tether strings, moaning their warbling lament during the mulching ceremony for Joshu and the other plague victims…
—a tall, fair-skinned woman, newly come by boat from far-off Ovoom Town, standing by Joshu’s bier, performing a wife’s duty, laying on his brow the wriggling . torus that would turn mortal flesh into gleaming, crystal dust…
—the poised, cool face of Sage Taine, rimmed by a mane of hair like Buyur steel, approaching to graciously forgive Sara’s year-long indiscretion… her “fling” with a mere bookbinder… renewing his offer of a more seemly union…
—her last sight of Biblos, the high walls, the gleaming libraries, with forest-topped stone overhead. A part of her life, coming to an end as surely as if she had died.
The past is a bitter place, said the Scrolls. Only the path of forgetfulness leads ultimately to redemption.
A sharp, horrified gasp was followed by a clatter and crash of fallen porcelain.
“Miss Sara!” an aspirated voice called. “Come quickly, please. All of you!”
She hurried from the starboard rail to find Pzora puffing in agitation, ers delicate arms-of-manipulation reaching out imploringly. Sara’s heart leaped when she saw the Stranger’s pallet empty, blankets thrown in disarray.
She spied him, backed between three barrel-caskets of human dross, clutching a jagged pottery shard. The wounded man’s eyes gaped, wide and wild, staring at the traeki pharmacist.
He’s terrified of Pzora, she realized. But why?
“Do not fear,” she said soothingly in GalSeven, stepping forward slowly. “Fear is inappropriate at this time.”
Eyes showing white above the irises, his gaze swung from her to Pzora, as if unable to picture the two of them in the same frame, the same thought.
Sara switched to Anglic, since some coastal human settlements used it almost exclusively.
“It’s all right. It is. Really. You’re safe. You’ve been hurt. Terribly hurt. But you’re getting better now. Really. You’re safe.”
Some words prompted more reaction than others. He seemed to like “safe,” so she repeated it while holding out her hand. The Stranger glanced anxiously at Pzora. Sara moved to block his view of the traeki, and some tension diminished. His eyes narrowed, focusing on her face.
Finally, with a resigned sigh, he let the jagged sliver fall from trembling fingers.
“That’s good,” she told him. “No one’s going to harm you.”
Though the initial flood of panic was over, the Stranger kept glancing toward the Dolo Village pharmacist, shaking his head with surprise and evident loathing.
“Bedamd… bedamd… bedamd…”
“Now be polite,” she chided, while sliding a folded blanket behind his head. “You wouldn’t be taking a nice boat trip to Tarek Town without Pzora’s unguents. Anyway, why should you be afraid of a traeki? Who ever heard of such a thing?”
He paused, blinked at her twice, then commenced another pathetic attempt to speak.
“A-jo… A-joph… j-j-jo-joph…”
Frustrated, the Stranger abruptly stopped stammering and shut his mouth, squeezing his lips in a tight, flat line. His left hand raised halfway to the side of his head- toward the bandage covering his horrible wound — then stopped just short, as if touching would make his worst fears real. The arm dropped and he sighed, a low, tremulous sound.
Well, he’s awake at least, Sara thought, contemplating a miracle. Alert and no longer feverish.
The commotion attracted gawkers. Sara called for them to move back. If a traeki could set off hysteria in the wounded man, what about the sight of a qheuenish male, with sharp clambering spikes up and down each leg? Even these days, there were humans who disliked having other members of the Six close by.
So the next sound was the last thin
g Sara expected to hear—
Laughter.
The Stranger sat up, eyeing the gathered passengers and crew. He gaped at Jomah, the exploser’s son, who had climbed Blade’s broad back, clasping the head-cupola jutting from the qheuen’s blue carapace. Blade had always been gentle and popular with the kids of Dolo, so Sara thought little of it. But the Stranger sucked breath, pointed, and guffawed.
He turned and saw a sailor feeding tidbits to a favorite noor, while another hoon patiently let Prity, the chimpanzee, perch on his broad shoulder for a better view. The Stranger let out a dry, disbelieving cackle.
He blinked in puzzled surprise at the sight of the g’Kek scriven-dancer, Fakoon, who had spun over to rest wheels between Pzora and the urrish tinker, Ulgor. Fakoon ogled the injured human with a pair of waving eyestalks, turning the other two toward his neighbors as if to ask — “What’s going on?”
The Stranger clapped hands like a delighted child, laughing uproariously as tears flowed tributaries down his dark, haggard cheeks.
Asx
It was as if a century’s enlightenment by our Holy Egg — and all the earlier hard work to establish the Commons — were forgotten in the aftermath. Few rewq could be seen anywhere, as suspicion-poisons drove them off our brows to sulk in moss-lined pouches, leaving us to rely on mere words, as we had done in ages past, when mere words often led to war.
my/our own folk brought samples of recent noxious rumors, and i laid our base segment over/upon the vileness, letting its vapors rise up our central core, bringing distasteful understanding of these odious thoughts—
—our human neighbors are not trustworthy anymore, if they ever were.
—they will sell us out to their gene-and-clan cousins in the foray party.
—they lied with their colorful tale of being poor, patronless wolflings, scorned among the Five Galaxies.
—they only feigned exile, while spying on us and this world.
Even more bitter was this gossipy slander
—they will depart soon with their cousins, climbing to resume the godlike life our ancestors forsook. Leaving us to molder in this low place, cursed, forgotten, while they roam galaxies.
That was the foulest chattering stench, so repugnant that i/we vented a noisome, melancholy steam.
The humans… might they really do that? Might they abandon us?
If/when that happened, night would grow as loathsome as day. For we would ever after have to look up through our darkness and see what they had reclaimed.
The stars.
Lark
The forayer biologist made him nervous. I Ling had a way of looking at Lark — one that kept him I befuddled, feeling like a savage or a child.
Which he was, in comparison, despite being older in duration-years. For one thing, all his lifetime of study wouldn’t fill even one of the crystal memory slivers she dropped blithely into the portable console slung over her one-piece green coverall.
The dark woman’s exotic, high cheekbones framed large eyes, a startling shade of creamy brown. “Are you ready, Lark?” she asked.
His own pack held four days’ rations, so there’d be no need to hunt or forage, but this time he would leave behind his precious microscope. That treasure of urrish artifice now seemed a blurry toy next to the gadgets Ling and her comrades used to inspect organisms down to the level of their constituent molecules. What could we tell them that they don’t already know? he pondered. What could they possibly want from us?
It was a popular question, debated by those friends who would still speak to him, and by those who turned their backs on any human, for being related to invaders.
Yet the sages charged a human — and a heretic at that — to guide one of these thieves through a forest filled with treasure. To begin the dance of negotiating for our lives.
The Six had one thing to offer. Something missing from the official Galactic Library entry on Jijo, collated by the Buyur before they departed. That thing was recent data, about how the planet had changed after a million fallow years. On that, Lark was as “expert” as a local savage could be.
“Yes, I’m ready,” he told the woman from the starship.
“Good, then let’s be off!’’ She motioned for him to lead.
Lark hoisted his pack and turned to show the way out of the valley of crushed trees, by a route passing far from the cleft of the Egg. Not that anyone expected its existence to stay secret. Robot scouts had been out for days, nosing through the glens, streams, and fumaroles. Still, there was a chance they might mistake the Egg for just another rock formation — that is, until it next started to sing.
Lark’s chosen path also led away from the canyon where the innocents had been sent — the children, chimpanzees, lorniks, zookirs, and glavers. Perhaps the plunderers’ eyes weren’t omniscient, after all. Maybe precious things could be hidden.
Lark agreed with the sages’ plan. Thus far.
Clots of spectators normally gathered at the valley rim to watch the black cube drink sunlight without reflections or highlights. When the two humans reached those heights, one group of urrish onlookers backed away nervously, hooves clattering like pebbles on hard stone. They were all young unbrooded females with empty mate pouches. Just the sort to have an itch for trouble.
Conical heads bobbed and hissed, lowering toward the humans, displaying triangles of serrated teeth. Lark’s shoulders tensed. The rewq in his belt pocket squirmed as it sensed rancor in the air.
“Stop that!” he warned, when Ling started pointing an instrument toward the milling urs. “Just keep walking.”
“Why? I only want to take—”
“Of that I’m sure. But now’s not a good time.”
Lark held her elbow, urging her along. From first contact he could tell she was quite strong.
A rock shot past them from behind and struck the ground ahead. An aspirated shout followed.
“Skirlssss!”
Ling started to turn in curiosity, but Lark kept her moving. Added voices joined in.
“Skirls!”
“Jeekee skirlsss!”
More stones pelted around them. Ling’s eyes showed dawning concern. So Lark reassured her, dryly, “Urs don’t throw very well. Lousy aim, even after they learned about bows and arrows.”
“They are your enemies,” she observed, quickening the pace on her own accord.
“That’s putting it too strong. Let’s just say that humans had to fight a bit for our place here on Jijo, early on.”
The urrish rabble followed, easily keeping up, shouting and stoking their nerve — until one of their own kind galloped in from the east, swerving suddenly in front of the throng. Wearing the brassard of a Proctor of Gathering, she spread her arms wide, displaying two full mating pouches and active scent glands. The mob stumbled to a halt as her head bobbed bold, aggressive circles, snapping and shooing them away from the two humans.
Law and order still function, Lark thought, with relief. Though for how much longer?
“What were they shouting at us?” Ling asked after marching farther under a canopy of fine-needled vor trees. “It wasn’t in GalSix or GalTwo.”
“Local dialect.” Lark chuckled. “Jeekee was originally a hoonish curseword, now in common use. It means smelly — as if those randy little unwed urs should talk!”
“And the other word?”
Lark glanced at her. “Insults are important to urs. Back in pioneer days, they wanted something to call us. Something humans would find both offensive and apropos. So, during an early truce, they very nicely asked our founders to tell ’em the name of an animal familiar to us. One that lived in trees and was known for being silly.”
Her eyes, taken straight on, were large and exquisite. Hardly the sort you’d expect on a pirate.
“I don’t get it,” Ling said.
“To them we’re tree-climbers. Just as they must have reminded our ancestors of horses, hinneys, grass-browsers.”
“So? I still don’t—”
&
nbsp; “So we make an effort to act really insulted, when an angry urs calls one of us a squirrel. It makes them so happy, you see.”
She looked puzzled, as if many parts of his explanation confused her. “You want to please your enemies?” she asked.
Lark sighed. “No one on the Slope has enemies anymore. Not on that kind of scale.”
That is, not until lately, he added silently. “Why?” he continued, trying to turn the interrogation around. “Are enemies common where you’re from?”
It was her turn to sigh. “The galaxies are dangerous. Humans aren’t well-liked by many.”
“So said our ancestors. It’s because humans are wolflings, right? Because we uplifted ourselves, without the help of a patron?”
Ling laughed. “Oh, that old myth!” Lark stared. “Do you… You can’t mean…?” “That we know the truth? Our origin and destiny?” She smiled, an expression of serene knowing. “Goodness, lost child of the past, you people have been away a long time. Do you mean that you have never heard of our gracious lords, the Rothen? The beloved patrons of all humankind?”
His foot caught a stone, and Ling grabbed his arm to steady him. “But we can discuss that later. First I want to talk about these — what did you call them — skirrils?”
She held out a finger adorned with a bulbous ring Lark guessed must be a recording device. It took an effort of will to switch mental tracks, suppressing his flare of curiosity about galactic issues. “What? Oh, that’s squirrels.”
“You imply they are arboreal and humanlike. Will we get to see any along the way?”
He blinked at her, then shook his head. “Um, I don’t think so. Not this trip.”
