Brightness Reef u-4

by David Brin

  Oh no. Sara backed away, hoping to leave before the furry sphere unrolled. If the messenger found no one home, it would simply reenter the tube and report the fact to whoever sent it.

  But the ball uncoiled swiftly and a tiny mouselike form scrambled up the box to see her, squeaking delight over achieving the purpose bred into it by the ancient Buyur — to deliver brief messages via a network of cross-linked tunnels and vines. With a sigh, Sara put out her hand, and the courier spat a warm pellet into her palm. The pill squirmed.

  Suppressing distaste, she raised the little symbiont — a larger cousin of a parrot tick — and let it writhe inside her ear.

  Soon, as she feared, it began speaking with the voice of Sage Taine.

  “Sara, if this reaches you, I’d like to talk before you go… It is essential to clear up our misunderstanding.”

  There came a long pause, then the voice hurried on.

  “I’ve thought about it and have lately come to believe that this situation is largely my fau—”

  The message stopped there. The record bug had reached its limit. It began repeating the message over again, from the beginning.

  Fault? Was “fault” the word you were about to say?

  Sara tipped her head until the bug realized it wasn’t wanted anymore and crawled out of her ear. Taine’s voice grew distant, plaintive, as she tossed the bug back to the furry little messenger, who snatched it, tweaking it between sharp jaws, making the bug receptive for Sara’s reply.

  I’m sorry, she almost said aloud. I should have made allowances. You were tactless, but meant well, in your haughty way.

  I should have been honored by your proposal, even if you first made it out of a sense of duty.

  I reacted badly when you renewed the offer at Joshu’s funeral.

  A month ago, I was thinking about finally saying yes. There are worse lives on the Slope than the one you offered.

  But now everything had changed. The aliens had seen to that. Dwer had what it would take in the new era to come. He’d thrive and sire generations of fine hunter-gatherers, if an age of innocence really was at hand.

  And if it’s death the aliens have in mind for us? Well, Dwer will fool them, too, and survive.

  That thought made Sara poignantly glad.

  Either way, what use will Jijo have for intellectuals like us, Taine?

  The two of them would soon be more equal than ever, alike in useless obsolescence, before the end.

  Sara said nothing aloud. The messenger ball gave a stymied squeak. It popped the bug into one cheek, then reentered the tube, vanishing into the maze-work of conduits that laced Biblos like a system of arteries and veins.

  You’re not the only one. Sara cast a thought after the frustrated creature. There’s more than enough disappointment to go around.

  The Gopher was already putting on steam when Sara hurried to the dock. Ariana Foo waited nearby, the twilight shrouding her wheelchair so that she resembled some human–g’Kek hybrid.

  “I wish I could have a few more days with him,” she said, taking Sara’s hand.

  “You’ve done wonders, but there’s no time to spare.”

  “The next kayak pilot may bring vital news—”

  “I know. And I’d give anything to hear from Lark. But that reasoning will only take us in circles. If something urgent happens, you can send a galloper after us. Meanwhile I have … a feeling that we’d better hurry.”

  “More dreams?”

  Sara nodded. For several nights her sleep had been disturbed by ill-defined impressions of alpine fire, then watery suffocation. It might just be a return of the claustrophobia she felt years ago, as a youthful newcomer under the overhanging roof-of-stone. Or else maybe her nightmares echoed something real. An approaching culmination.

  Mother believed in dreams, she recalled. Even as she drilled into Lark and me a love of books and science, it was Dwer whom she heeded, whenever he woke with those powerful visions, back when he was little — and then the week before she died.

  The steam packet hissed, its boilers straining. Two dozen donkeys thumped and whinnied, tethered at the stern alongside sealed crates of books.

  Contrasting strangely, a different sound came from the ship’s bow. Delicate, melodic music consisting of parallel chains of halting notes, somewhat twangy. Sara tilted her head.

  “He’s getting better fast.”

  “He has motivation,” the sage replied. “I expected him to choose a simpler instrument, like a flute or violus. But he pulled the dulcimer off the museum shelf and seemed to draw some deep satisfaction out of counting its strings. It’s simple to learn, and he can sing along, when a tune spills out of memory. Anyway, he’s fit for a journey, so” — she took a deep breath, looking weary and old — “give Lester and the other High Mucketies my regards, will you? Tell them to behave.”

  Sara bent to kiss Ariana’s cheek. “I’ll do that.” The retired sage gripped her arm with unexpected strength. “Safe journey, child. Ifni roll you sixes.”

  “Safe house,” Sara returned the blessing. “May she roll you long life.”

  Ariana’s chimp aide pushed her upslope, toward the comfort of an evening fire. It was becoming a habit for Sara to doubt she would ever see someone again.

  The captain gave the order to cast off, guiding his precious boat gingerly away from the camouflage shelter. Jop and Ulgor joined Sara at the rail, along with several morose-faced librarians, appointed to carry precious volumes to uncertain safety in the wilderness. Soon the churning shove of the paddle wheels settled to a reassuring rhythm, working with the Bibur’s current to turn them downstream.

  The spaceman played along with focused monomania. Hunched over a small, wedgelike instrument, he hammered its strings with two small curved mallets, faltering often but radiating passion. The music laced through bittersweet memory as Sara watched the mighty fortress slip by, with its many-windowed halls. The stone canopy seemed to hover like a patient fist of God.

  I wonder if I’ll ever be back.

  Soon they passed the westernmost edge of laser-cut stone — the mulching grounds. There were no banners today, or mourners, or busy little subtraekis consuming flesh, preparing white bones for the sea. But then, amid the dusky gloom, she did spy a solitary figure overlooking the river. Tall and straight-backed, with a sleek mane of silver-gray, the human leaned slightly on a cane, though he seemed far from frail. Sara’s breath caught as the Gopher swept by.

  Sage Taine nodded — a friendly, even ardent display for such a diffident person. Then, to Sara’s surprise, he lifted an arm, in a gesture of unadorned goodwill.

  At the last moment she gave in, raising her own hand. Peace, she thought.

  Biblos fell behind the chugging steamboat, swallowed by gathering night. Nearby, the Stranger’s voice broke in, singing words to a song about a voyage of no return. And while she knew the lyrics expressed his own sense of loss and poignant transition, they also rubbed, both sweetly and painfully, against conflicts in her own heart.

  For I am bound beyond the dark horizon,

  And ne’er again will I know your name…

  XXIII. THE BOOK OF THE SEA

  g’Kek roller, can you stand and gallop across the heavy ground?

  Traeki stack, can you weave a tapestry, or master the art of fire?

  Royal qheuen, will you farm the forest heights? Can you heal with your touch?

  Hoonish sailor, will you endure the plains, or spin along a cable, stretched up high?

  Urrish plainsman, would you sail to sea, or sift fine pages out of slurried cloth?

  Human newcomer, do you know this world? Can you weave, or spin, or track Jijo’s song?

  Will all or any of you follow in the trail blazed by glavers?

  The Trail of Forgiveness through oblivion?

  If you do, save room to remember this one thing —

  You were one part of a union greater than its parts.

  —The Scroll of the Egg (unofficial)

 
; Alvin’s Tale

  I didn’t begrudge my position crammed way back, far from the window. At least not during the long descent down the cliff face with the sea looming ever-closer, closer. After all, I’d seen this part before and the others hadn’t. But once we hit water, and my friends started cooing and oohing over what they saw through the bubble up front, I started getting a little resentful. It also put me in a bind as a writer, faced with having to describe the descent later, to my readers. At best I could see a bare patch of blue over the backs of my compeers.

  Looking back on it, I suppose I could solve the problem, in several ways.

  First, I could lie. I mean, I haven’t decided whether to turn this story into a novel, and according to Mister Heinz, fiction is a kind of lying. In a later draft I might just write in a window aft. That way my character could describe all sorts of things I only heard about from the others. Or else I could pretend I was up front all along. In fiction, you can be captain if you want to be.

  Or maybe I should rewrite it from Pincer’s point of view. After all, it was his boat, more than any of ours. And he had the best view of what happened next. That would mean having to write believably from a qheuen’s perspective. Not as alien as a traeki’s, I suppose. Still, maybe I’m not ready to take on that kind of a challenge, just yet.

  All of this assumes I live to do a rewrite, or that anyone else survives who I’d care to have read my tale. Anyway, for now, this semitruthful journal style will have to do, and that means telling what I really saw, felt, and heard.

  The deploying drums transmitted a steady vibration down the hawser. The fresh air inlet hissed and gurgled by my left ear, so it was hardly what I had pictured as a serene descent into the silent deep. Now and then, Ur-ronn would gasp — “What was that?” — and Pincer identified some fish, piscoid, or skimmer — creatures a hoon usually saw dead in a net-catch, and an urs likely never glimpsed at all. Still, there were no monsters of fantasy. No faery minarets of undersea cities, either. Not so far.

  It got dark pretty fast as we dropped. Soon all I made out were little streaks of phosphor that Tyug had smeared in vital spots around the cabin, such as the tips of my motor cranks, the depth gauge, and the ballast release levers. With nothing to do, I catalogued the odors assailing me from my friends. Familiar aromas, but never quite so pungent as now. And this was just the beginning.

  A reason to be glad no human came along, I thought. One of many problems contributing to friction between urs and Earthlings had been how each race smelled to the other. Even today, and despite the Great Peace, I don’t figure either sept would much enjoy being cooped up in an oversized coffin with the other for very long.

  Ur-ronn started calling out depths from the pressure-bladder gauge. At seven cables she turned a switch, and the eik light came on, casting twin beams into cool, dark waters. I expected those in front to resume their excited exclamations, but apparently there was less to see at this depth. Pincer identified something only every few duras, in a voice that seemed disappointed.

  We all tensed at nine cables, since trouble had struck there the first time. But the milestone passed uneventfully. It should, since Uriel had inspected every hoof of the hawser personally.

  At eleven and a half cables, a sudden chill swept the cabin, causing fog briefly to form. Every hard surface abruptly went damp and Huck cranked up the dehumidifier. I reached out to touch the garuwood hull, which seemed markedly cooler. Wuphon’s Dream turned and tilted slightly, facing a new tug, no longer the same languid downward drift. From soundings, we had known to expect a transition to a deep frigid current. Still, it was unnerving.

  “Adjusting ballast for trim,” Huck announced. Closest to dead center, she used Uriel’s clever pumps to shift water among three tanks till the spirit levels showed an even keel. That would be vital on reaching bottom, lest we topple over at the very moment of making history.

  I thought about what we were doing. In Galactic terms, it was consummately primitive, of course. Earth history makes for much more flattering comparisons — which may be one reason we four find it so attractive. For instance, when Jules Verne was writing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, no human had ever gone as far down into the oceans of Terra as we were heading today. We savages of Jijo.

  Huck shouted — “Look! Is that something down below?”

  Those eyes of hers. Even peering past Pincer and Ur-ronn, she had glimpsed bottom first. Ur-ronn turned the eik beams and soon the three of them were back at it again, driving me crazy with oohs, ahs, and k-k-k-k wonderment clicks. In frustration I turned the crank, making the rear wheels thrash till they yelled at me to quit, and agreed to describe what they saw.

  “There’s a wavy kind of plant,” Pincer said, his voice no longer stuttering. “And another kind that’s all thin and skinny. Don’t know how they live, with no light getting down here. There’s lots of that kind, sort of waving about. And there are snaky trails in the mud, and some kind of weird fishes dodging in and out of the skinny plants…”

  After a bit more of that, I would’ve gladly gone back to wonderment clicks. But I kept quiet.

  “…And there are some kurtle crabs — bright red and bigger than any I ever seen before! And what’s that, Ur-ronn, a mudworm? You think so? What a mud-worm!… Hey, what’s that thing? Is that a dro—”

  Ur-ronn interrupted, “Half a cavle to bottom. Signaling the surface crew to slow descent.”

  Sharp electric sparks broke the cabin’s darkness as she touched a contact key, sending coded impulses from our battery up an insulated strand, woven through the hawser. It took a few duras for the rumbling grumble of the deploying drums to change pitch as the brakes dug in. Wuphon’s Dream jerked, giving us all a start. Huphu’s claws raked my shoulder.

  The descent slowed. It was specially agonizing for me, not knowing how much farther bottom lay, when we’d make contact, or with how much force. Naturally, nobody was confiding in good old Alvin!

  “Hey, fellas,” Pincer resumed, “I think I just saw—”

  “Adjusting trim!” Huck announced, peering with one eye at each of the spirit levels.

  “Refocusing the lights,” Ur-ronn added. “Ziz shows one yellow tentacle to starvoard. Current flowing that direction, five knots.”

  Pincer murmured — “Fellas? I thought I just saw… oh, never mind. Bottom appears to slope left, maybe twenty degrees.”

  “Turning forward wheels to compensate,” Huck responded. “Alvin, we may want a slow rearward crank on the driver wheels.”

  That jerked me out of any resentful mood. “Aye-aye,” I said, turning the zigzag bar in front of me, causing the rear set of wheels to rotate. At least I hoped they were responding. We wouldn’t know for sure till we hit the ground.

  “Here it comes,” Huck announced. And then, apparently recollecting her missed estimates during the trial run, she added — “This time for sure. Brace yourselves!”

  When I write about all this someday from these notes, perhaps I’ll describe sudden billows of mud as we plowed into the ocean floor, gouging a long furrow, sending vegetation tumbling and blind subsea creatures fleeing in panic. Maybe I’ll throw in fierce saltwater spray from a blown seal or two, tightened frantically by the heroic crew, in the nick of time.

  What I probably won’t admit in print is that I couldn’t even tell the exact moment when our wheels touched down. The event was, well, more than a bit murky. Like sinking a probe fork into the rind of a shuro fruit and not being quite sure whether you’ve speared the core nut yet.

  “Murky” also described the scene around us as slime-swirls spiraled, slowly settling to reveal a dead-black world, except down twin corridors of dazzling blue cast by the eiks. What I could see of those narrow tunnels snowed a slanting plain of mud, broken here and there by pale slim-stemmed “plants” that needed no sunlight to thrive, though I couldn’t begin to guess what else they lived on. Their leaves or fronds seemed to wave back and forth, as if in a breeze. No animal life moved in our b
eams, which wasn’t that surprising. Wouldn’t we top-dwellers hide if some weird vessel plunged into our midst from above, casting forth both noise and a searing gaze?

  Forcing the comparison, I wondered if any suboceanic locals thought their judgment day had just come.

  With her telegraph key, Ur-ronn pulsed the message everyone above waited to hear. We are down, she sent. All is well.

  Yes, it lacks the poetic imagery of flags planted, eagles landed, or infinitives boldly split. I shouldn’t complain. Not all urs are born to recite epic sagas on demand. Still, I think I’ll change it in rewrite — if I ever get the chance, which right now seems pretty unlikely.

  Again, sparks jumped the tiny gap, this time without Ur-ronn touching it. A reply from above.

  Welcome news. Proceed.

  “Ready, Alvin?” Pincer called back. “All ahead, one quarter.”

  I responded — “Ahead one quarter, aye, Captain.”

  My back and arm muscles flexed. The crank seemed reluctant at first. Then I felt the magnetic clutch take hold — a strange sense of attachment to once-living g’Kek parts that I tried not thinking about. The special mud treads worked as I felt resistance. Wuphon’s Dream shuddered forward.

  I concentrated on maintaining a steady pace. Pincer shouted steering instructions at Huck while holding Uriel’s map for reference. Ur-ronn correlated our bearing with her compass. The hawser and air hose resumed transmitting the distant rumble of deployer drums, unreeling more tether so we might wander ever farther from safety. The confined space resonated with my deep work umble, but no one complained. The sound wrapped itself around me till I felt encircled by hoonish shipmates, making the cramped confinement more bearable. Like a ship far at sea, we were all alone, dependent on Ifni’s luck and our own resourcefulness to make it home again.