by David Brin
To Rety’s best recollection, there once had been a man named Drak — or Drake — a hero mightier and bolder than any human before or since. Once, when Earthlings were still new on Jijo, a giant urrish chieftain fought Drak in a wrestling match. For three days and nights they grappled, pounding and tearing at each other, making the ground shake, drying up rivers, ripping all the countryside between a fiery mountain and the sea, till both volcano and ocean vanished in curling steam. When the clouds finally cleared, a bright region glowed from horizon to horizon with all the colors one could paint by mixing urrish and human blood.
Then, out of the smoke and mist, two heroes strode forth — he missing an arm and she a leg — leaning on each other, inseparable from that day forth.
While there would be more wars between the tribes, from that day forth all were fought with honor, in memory of Drak and Ur-choon.
“watch!” the little urs called.
The boy faked a leftward lean, then planted his right foot and heaved. Snorting dismay, the urs could not keep her greater weight from pivoting over his hip, sailing head-over-withers to crash into the nearby stream. There came a shrill sigh as she floundered, slipping in the mud. Finally, the blue qheuen surfaced behind her, using one clenched foot to give a helpful shove. With a grateful cry, the middling dove into the sand, raising plumes of dust.
“hee! go roll in hot ash, silly hinney! sand too slow! hair gonna rot!”
Rety gazed down at the tiny urs. It was no baby, as first she thought. Somewhere she recalled hearing that urrish newborns stayed in their mothers’ pouches for a few months, then were spilled by the dozen into tall grass to fend for themselves. Anyway, infant urs couldn’t talk.
It must be a male! Rety saw that its throat and muzzle looked unlike a female’s, lacking the flashy neck colors or pendulous cloven lip, which explained why it could speak Anglic sounds a female could not.
Back in the arena, the boy crouched for a third round, but the urrish youth lowered her head, conceding. The human raised a red-streaked arm in victory, then helped guide the limping loser off the playing field. Meanwhile, two new contestants flexed and stretched, while helpers trussed their handicapped limbs.
Wistfully, Rety watched the human kids, joking with friends from the other septs. She wondered how the boy had managed to get just slightly singed by the coals-but could not bring herself to approach with questions. They might only laugh at her unkempt hair, her uncouth speech, and her scars.
So forget ’em, anyway, she thought bitterly. All the dry heat and smoke was making her face itch. In any case, she had important business. An item to retrieve from her tent before dark. Something to use as down payment on a ticket away from here, to a place none of these big handsome kids would ever see, despite all their pride and skill and strutting around. A place where no one from her past would bother her. That was lots more important than watching savages play violent games with fire and water.
“Look, I gotta go,” she told the little urrish male, rising to her feet and looking around. “I think the nasty ol’ noor’s gone away, so you can be off now too.”
The tiny creature peered at her, his tail and muzzle drooping. Rety cleared her throat.
“Um, can I drop you off somewhere? Isn’t your — uh — wife prob’ly worried about you?”
The dark eyes glittered sadly. “Uf-roho need yee no more, pouch home now full of slimy newbrats. push yee out. right-pouch still husband-full, yee must find new pouch, or grass burrow to live/die in. but no sweet grass in mountain! just rocks!”
That last was sung mournfully. It sounded like an awful thing to do to a helpless little guy, and Rety felt mad just thinking about it.
“this nice pouch, this one.” He crooned a strange reverberating melody, surprisingly low for a creature so small. Rety’s skin tingled where he lay closest.
“yee serve new wife good, do good things she want.”
Rety stared at him, dazed to think of what he offered. Then she burst out laughing, leaning on a tree, guffawing till her sides hurt. Through clouded eyes, she saw that yee seemed to laugh too, in his own fashion. At last she wiped her face and grinned. “Well, you done one thing for me, already. Ain’t chortled so good in I dunno how long.
“An” you know what else? Come to think of it, there is somethin’ you might be able to do. Somethin’ that’d make me even happier.”
“yee do anything! new wife feed yee. yee make wife happy!”
Rety shook her head, amazed once more at the twists and turns life seemed to push on the unwary. If her new idea worked out, this could turn out to be an awfully lucky break.
“Do you have something for me?”
Rann held out his enormous hand. In the dim twilight, with the yellow boo rustling nearby, Rety stared at the man’s calloused fingers, each like her wrist. His craggy features and massive torso — so much greater than the biggest boy-wrestler playing Drake’s Dare that day — made her feel callow, insignificant.
Rety wondered — Are all men like this, out there among the stars?
Could I ever trust anyone with hands like those, to have a husband’s power over me?
She had always thought she’d rather die than marry.
Yet now she had a husband, purring next to her belly. Rety felt yee’s warm tongue on her hand as she stroked his silky neck.
Rann seemed to note her ironic smile. Did it make her seem more confident?
She reached past yee to pluck a slender object, fluffy at one end, pointy-hard at the other, and laid the feather on Rann’s open palm. Puzzled, he drew forth an instrument to shine at it from several sides, while her mind still cycled round-and-round the events leading to this moment, when her hopes hung in the balance.
On her way here, Rety had passed other members of the Six, each waiting alone by some landmark along Rann’s regular evening stroll. As instructed, no one spoke or made eye contact, though Rety spied observers — a g’Kek, two hoons, and a human — taking notes from a distance.
Rety didn’t give a damn what they told Lester Cambel about her “treason.” After tonight, the sages wouldn’t make plans for her anymore.
On arriving at the yellow boo, she had waited nervously, petting yee and biting her fingernails. A few duras before Rann appeared, a soft whine announced one of the mighty robots — eight-sided, intimidating — and a wave of horrid memory recalled another floating monster, firing savagely into the mulc-spider’s lair… and Dwer’s strong arms yanking her out of the path of a searing beam, holding her fiercely against falling, sheltering her with his body.
Rety bit her lip, quashing any thought, any memory, that might shake her resolve. Now was no time to go sappy and soft. That was what the sages wanted.
As she had done countless times back home — making herself stand up to Jass despite horrid punishments — she had stopped cowering from the dark robot, standing straight, forcing her chin out.
You can’t harm me, she projected defiantly. You wouldn’t dare!
But an unwelcome thought fizzed up from below.
One of these killed the bird.
The bird fought it and died.
A surge of guilt nearly made her spin around and flee. But then the robot had swerved aside, vanishing into the night, and Rann took its place, holding out his massive hand.
“Do you have something for me?” he had asked, smiling till Rety handed over the feather.
Now she watched him grow excited as he played instruments over the souvenir, once her prize possession. Pressing lips together, she bore down to reinforce her resolve.
Hell yes, I have somethin’ for you, Mister Star-Man. Somethin’ I bet you want pretty bad.
The point is-you better have somethin’ for me, too!
XV.THE BOOK OF THE SEA
The Path takes time, so time you must dearly buy.
When the lawful seek you — hide.
When they find you — be discreet.
When you are judged — do not quail.
What you have tried to do is rightly banned.
But there is a beauty in it, if done well
On this, most agree.
—The Scroll of Redemption
Alvin’s Tale
I’ve got my Anglic dictionary and usage guide with me right now, so I’m going to try an experiment. To capture some of the drama of what happened next, I’m going to try my narrative skill in present tense. I know it’s not used in many of the Old Earth stories I’ve read, but when it’s done right, I think it lends a buff sense of immediacy to a story. Here goes.
I left off with little Ziz — the traeki partial we all witnessed being vlenned a week ago, on the day Gybz turned erself into Tyug and forgot all about starships — slithering its way from pen to derrick, where we were about to test the bathy for the first time. Ziz had spent the last week voring a rich feed-mix and had grown a lot. Still, it made a pretty short stack. Nobody expects miracles of strength or brilliance from a half-pint traeki that barely reaches my bottom set of knees.
Ziz follows Tyug’s scentomone trail almost to the edge of the cliff, where you can stare straight down into the Great Midden as it takes a sharp hook, stabbing the continent with a wound so deep and wide, our ancestors chose it as a natural boundary for settler life on Jijo.
The towering bulk of Terminus Rock casts a long morning shadow, but Wupbon’s Dream, our pride and joy, dangles just beyond, shimmering in a blaze of sunlight. Instead of slithering up the ramp to the sealed cabin hatch, Ziz glides into a little cage mounted under the bulb window, in front of eighteen heavy ballast stones. As it passes Tyug, Ziz and the full-size traeki exchange puffs of vapor in a language no other member of the Six is equipped to even try to understand.
The cage closes. Urdonnol whistles a call, and gangs of hoon and qheuens set to work, first swinging the bathy gently away, then lowering it toward the sea, unreeling both the taut hawser and the double hose. The drums turn to a slow steady beat, singing over and over—
rumble-dum-dumble-um-rumble-dum-dumble-um…
It draws us. Hoon all over the mesa — even protestors — get caught up in the pulselike cadence of joyful labor. A rhythm of teamwork, sweat, and a job under way.
Being the only noor present, Huphu seems to think it her duty to scamper like a wild thing, taking perches high on the derricks like they’re ship masts, arching her back and stretching as if the umble is being sung just for her, a physical hand petting her back, stroking the bristles on her head. Her eyes sparkle, watching our bathy dip lower and lower with Ziz visible as a single tentacle dangling from the wire cage.
It occurs to me that maybe Huphu thinks the little traeki is being used as bait at the end of a really big fishing line! Maybe Huphu’s curious what we’re trying to catch.
That, in turn, brings to mind Pincer’s wild tales of “monsters” in the deep. Neither he nor Huck has mentioned a word about it since we arrived, each for his or her own reasons, I guess. Or am I the only one who hasn’t forgotten, amid all the recent excitement?
Wuphon’s Dream descends below the cliff face, and we rush near the edge to keep her in sight. Qheuens don’t like heights and react by hunkering down, scraping their abdomens, clutching the ground. That’s where I go too, lying prone and screwing up my courage to slide forward. Huck, on the other hand, just rolls up to the stony rim, teeters with her pusher legs jutting back for balance, then sticks two of her eyestalks over as far as they’ll go.
What a girl. So much for g’Keks being cautious, High-K beings. Watching her, I realize I can’t do any less, so I creep my head over the rim and force my eyelids apart.
Looking west, the ocean is a vast carpet stretching to a far horizon. Pale colors dominate where the sea covers only a few cables’ depth of continental shelf. But a band of dark blue-gray tells of a canyon, stabbing our way from the giant planetary scar called the Midden. That deep-deep gorge passes almost directly under our aerie, then drives on farther east, splitting the land like a crack in the clinker boards of a doomed ship. The far shore is just a hundred or so arrowflights away, but rows of razor-sharp crags and near-bottomless ravines parallel the Rift, making it a daunting barrier for anyone wishing to defy the Law.
I’m no scientist; regrettably, I don’t have the mind for it. But even I can tell the jagged spires must be new, or else wind and surf and rain would’ve worn them down by now. Like Mount Guenn, this is a place where Jijo is actively renewing itself. (We felt two small quakes since setting up camp here.) No wonder some think Terminus Rock a sacred spot.
The surf is a crashing, spuming show elsewhere, but here the sea settles down mysteriously — glassy smooth. A slight out-tow draws gently away from the cliff. Ideal conditions for our experiment — if they’re reliable. No one ever thought to make soundings in the Rift before, since no dross ships ever come this way.
Wuphon’s Dream drops lower, like a spiderfly trailing twin filaments behind her. It gets hard to tell exactly how far she is from the surface. Huck’s eyestalks are spread as far apart as possible, trying to maximize depth perception. She murmurs.
“Okay, here we go, into the drink… now!”
I hold my breath, but nothing happens. The big drums keep feeding out cable and hose. The bathy gets smaller.
“Now!” Huck repeats.
Another dura passes, and Wuphon’s Dream is still dry.
“Sure is a long way down-own-own,” Pincer stutters.
“You can say that again,” adds Ur-ronn, stamping nervously.
“But please don’t,” Huck snaps, showing pique. Then in GalSix — “Reality merges with expectation when—”
It serves her right — a splash cuts off whatever deep insight she was about to share. The big drums’ song slows and deepens as I stare across the vast, wet stillness where the Dream vanished.
roomble-doom-doomble-oom-roomble-doom-doom-ble…
It sounds like the world’s biggest hoon. One who never has to take a break or a breath. Based on that umble, the big derrick would’ve won the title of Honorary Captain of the South if it came to a vote then and there.
Huphu is all the way out at the end of the deployer crane, back arched with pleasure. Meanwhile, someone counts off.
“One cable, forty…
“One cable, sixty…
“One cable, eighty…
“Two cables!
“Two cables, twenty…”
The chant reminds me of Mark Twain’s tales of river pilots on the romantic Mississippi, especially one scene with a big black man-human up at the bow of the Delta Princess, swinging a weight on a line, calling out shoals in a treacherous fog, saving the lives of everyone aboard.
I’m an ocean hoon. My people sail ships, not sissy boats. Still, those were among my father’s favorite tales. And Huck’s too, back when she was a little orphan, toddling around on her pusher legs, four eyes staring in lost wonder as Dad recited tales set on a wolfling world that never knew the stifling wisdom of Galactic ways. A world where ignorance wasn’t exactly noble, but had one virtue — it gave you a chance to see and learn and do things no one else had ever seen or learned or done before.
Humans got to do that back on Earth.
And now we’re doing it here!
Before I even know I’m doing it, I sit up on my double-fold haunches, rock my head back, and belt out an umble of joy. A mighty, rolling hoot. It resounds across the mesa, strokes the grumbling equipment, and floats over the serrated stones of the Great Rift.
For all I know, it’s floating out there still.
Sunshine spills across calm waters at least twenty cables deep. We imagine Wuphon’s Dream, drifting ever downward, first through a cloud of bubbles, then a swollen wake of silence as the light from above grows dimmer and finally fails completely.
“Six cables, sixty…
“Six cables, eighty…
“Seven cables!”
When we go down, this is where we’ll turn on the eik lights and use the acid battery to send sparks up the hawser,
telling those above that all is well. But Ziz has no lights, or any way to signal. The little stack is all alone down there — though I guess no traeki ever feels entirely lonely. Not when its rings can argue endlessly among themselves.
“Eight cables!”
Someone brings a jar of wine for me and some warm simla blood for Ur-ronn. Huck sips pungent galook-ade from a long curvy straw, while Pincer sprays his back with salt water.
“Nine cables!”
This experiment’s only supposed to go to ten, so they begin gently increasing pressure on the brake. Soon they’ll reverse the drums to bring Wuphon’s Dream back to the world of air and light.
Then it happens — a sudden twang, like a plucked vio-lus string, loud as thunder.
The deployer chief cries — “Release the brake!”
An operator leaps for a lever… too late as bucking convulsions hit the derrick, like backlash on a fishing pole when a big one gets away. Only this recoil is massive, unstoppable.
We all gasp or vurt at the sight of Huphu, a small black figure clinging to the farthest spar as the crane whips back and forth.
One paw, then another, loses its grip. She screams.
The tiny noor goes spinning across space, barely missing the hawser’s cyclone whirl amid a frothing patch of sea. Staring in helpless dismay, we see our mascot plunge into the abyss that already swallowed Ziz, Wuphon’s Dream, and all the hopes and hard work of two long years.
XVI. THE BOOK OF THE SLOPE
Legends
The urs tell of a crisis of breeding.
Out among the stars, they were said to live longer than they do on Jijo, with spans much enhanced by artificial means. Moreover, an urs never stops wanting a full pouch, tenanted either with a husband or with brooding young. There were technical ways to duplicate the feeling, but to many, these methods just weren’t the same.
Galactic society is harsh on over-breeders, who threaten the billion-year-old balance. There is constant dread of another “wildfire” — a conflagration of overpopulation, like one that burned almost half the worlds in Galaxy Three, a hundred or so million years ago.
