Brightness Reef u-4

by David Brin

  “Build me a dream house, oh my dear,

  fourteen stories high.

  Basement, kitchen, bedroom, bath,

  I’ll love you till I die.”

  Jomah and the others all stopped what they were doing to stare at the Stranger, who rocked back and laughed.

  He’s getting better at this, Sara thought. Still, it seemed eerie whenever the star-man came up with the verse to some song, perfectly apropos to what was going on at the time.

  With a glitter in his eye, the Stranger waited till the other players were engrossed once more in their own stacks. Then he nudged Jomah, covertly pointing out a game piece ready to draw from the reserve box. The boy stared at the rare torus called Runner, trying so hard to stifle a yelp of joy that he coughed, while the dark alien patted him on the back.

  Now how did he know that? Do they play Tower of Haiphong, among the stars? She had pictured space-gods doing — well, godlike things. It was encouraging to think they might use games with simple pieces — hard, durable symbols of life.

  Of course, most games are based on there being winners… and losers.

  The audience hissed appreciatively as the bard finished her epic and left the low platform to accept her reward, a steaming cup of blood. Too bad I missed the end, Sara thought. But she would likely hear it again, if the world lasted beyond this year.

  When no one else seemed about to take the stage, several urs stretched and started drifting toward the nearest tent flap, to go outside and check their animals, preparing for tonight’s trek. But they stopped when a fresh volunteer abruptly leaped up, clattering hooves on the dais. The new storyteller was Ulgor, the tinker who had accompanied Sara ever since the night the aliens passed above Dolo Village. Listeners regathered around as Ulgor commenced reciting her tale in a dialect even older than the one before.

  Ships fill your thoughts right now,

  Fierce, roaming silently.

  Ships fill your dreams right now,

  Far from all watery seas.

  Ships cloud your mind-scape now,

  Numberless hordes of them.

  Ships dwarf your mind-scape now,

  Than mountains, vaster far.

  A mutter of consternation. The caravan chief corkscrewed her long neck. This was a rare topic, widely thought in poor taste, among mixed-races. Several hoon-ish pilgrims turned to watch.

  Ships of the Urrish-ka

  Clan of strong reverence.

  Ships of the Urrish host.

  Clan bound for vengeance!

  Bad taste or no, a tale under way was sacrosanct till complete. The commander flared her nostril to show she had no part in this breach, while Ulgor went on evoking an era long before urs colonists ever set hoof on Jijo. To a time of space armadas, when god-fleets fought over incomprehensible doctrines, using weapons of unthinkable power.

  Stars fill your thoughts right now.

  Ships large as mountain peaks,

  Setting stars quivering,

  With planet-sized lightings.

  Sara wondered — why is she doing this? Ulgor had always been tactful, for a young urs. Now she seemed out to provoke a reaction.

  Hoon sauntered closer, air sacs puffing, still more curious than angry. It wasn’t yet clear that Ulgor meant to dredge up archaic vendettas — grudges so old they made later, Jijo-based quarrels with qheuens and men seem like tiffs over this morning’s breakfast.

  On Jijo, urs and boon share no habitats and few desires. No basis for conflict. It’s hard to picture their ancestors slaughtering each other in space.

  Even the Tower of Haiphong game was abandoned. The Stranger watched Ulgor’s undulating neck movements, keeping tempo with his right hand.

  Oh ye, native listeners

  So-smugly ignorant,

  Planet-bound minds, dare you

  Try to conceive?

  Of planet-like holes in space,

  In which dwell entities,

  That planet-bound minds like yours

  Cannot perceive?

  Several hoon umbled relief. Perhaps this wasn’t about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs. Some space-epics told of awesome vistas, or sights baffling to modern listeners, reminders of what the Six had lost, but might regain someday — ironically, by forgetting.

  Cast back your dread-filled thoughts,

  To those ships, frigidly,

  Cruising toward glory’s gate,

  Knowing not destiny.

  If the first bard had been ardent, chanting bloody glory, Ulgor was coolly charismatic, entrancing listeners with her bobbing head and singsong whistle, evoking pure essences of color, frost, and fear. Sara put her notebook down, spellbound by vistas of glare and shadow, by vast reaches of spacetime, and shining vessels more numerous than stars. No doubt the yarn had grown in retelling, countless times. Even so, it filled Sara’s heart with sudden jealousy.

  We humans never climbed so high before our fall. Even at our greatest, we never possessed fleets of mighty starships. We were wolflings. Crude by comparison.

  But that thought slipped away as Ulgor spun her rhythmic chant, drawing out glimpses of infinity. A portrait took shape, of a great armada bound for glorious war, which fate lured near a dark region of space. A niche, mysterious and deadly, like the bitter hollows of a mulc-spider’s lair. A place wise travelers skirted, but not the admiral of this fleet. Steeped in her own invincibility, she plotted a course to fall on her foes, dismissing all thought of detour.

  Now from one black kernel,

  Spirals out fortune’s bane,

  Casting its trap across,

  Throngs of uneasy stars…

  Several hoon umbled relief. Perhaps this wasn’t about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs.

  With a sudden jerk, Sara’s attention was yanked back to the present by a hard tug on her right arm. She blinked. Prity gripped her elbow, tight enough to grow painful — until Sara asked — “What is it?”

  Letting go, her chim consort signed.

  Listen. Now!

  Sara was about to complain — That’s what I was doing, listening — then realized Prity did not mean the story. So she tried to sift past Ulgor’s mesmerizing drone… and finally picked up a low mutter coming from outside the pavilion.

  The animals. Something’s upsetting them.

  The simlas and donkeys had their own camouflaged shelter, a short distance away. Judging from a slowly rising murmur, the beasts weren’t exactly frightened, but they weren’t happy, either.

  The Stranger also noticed, along with a couple of librarians and a red qheuen, all of them backing away, looking around nervously.

  By now the caravan chief had joined the crowd of rising-falling urrish heads, lost in a distant place and time. Sara moved forward to nudge the expedition leader — carefully, since startled urs were known to snap — but all at once the chiefs neck went rigid of its own accord, anxious tremors rippling her tawny mane. With a hiss, the urs matron roused two assistants, yanking a third back to reality with a sharp nip to the flank. All four stood and began trotting toward the tent flap—

  —then skittered to a halt as phantom shapes began rising along the shelter’s western edge — shadowy centauroid outlines, creeping stealthily, bearing spiky tools. A dismayed screech escaped one of the caravan-lieutenants, just before chaos exploded on all sides.

  The audience burst into confusion. Grunts and whistling cries spilled from stunned pilgrims as the tent was ripped in a dozen places by flashing blades. War-painted fighters stepped through the gaps, leveling swords, pikes, and arbalests, all tipped with bronze-colored Buyur metal, driving the churned mass of frightened travelers back toward the ash pit at the center.

  Prity’s arms clasped Sara’s waist while young Jomah clung to her other side. She wrapped an arm around the boy, for whatever comfort it might offer.

  Urrish militia? she wondered. These warriors looked nothing like the dun-colored cavalry that performed showy maneuvers for Landing Day fest
ivals. Slashes of sooty color streaked their flanks and withers. Their weaving, nodding heads conveyed crazed resolve.

  A caravan-lieutenant bolted toward the stand where weapons were kept, mostly to ward off liggers, khoo-bras, or the occasional small band of thieves. The trail boss shouted in vain as the young urs dove for a loaded arbalest — and kept going, toppling through the stand and skidding along a trail of sizzling blood. She tumbled to a stop, riddled with darts, at the feet of a painted raider.

  The expedition leader cursed the intruders, deriding their courage, their ancestry, and especially her own complacency. Despite rumors about trouble in far corners of the plains, peacetime habits were hard to break, especially along the main trail. Now her brave young colleague had paid the price.

  “What do you want?” she demanded in GalTwo. “Do you have a leader? Show her (criminal) muzzle, if she dares to speak!”

  The tent flap nearest the oasis lifted, and a burly urrish warrior entered, painted in jagged patterns that made it hard to grasp her outline. The raider chieftain high-stepped delicately over the lieutenant’s bloody trail, cantering to a halt just before the caravan commander. Surprisingly, both of her brood-pouches were full, one with a husband whose slim head peered under the fighter’s arm. The other pouch was blue and milk-veined, bulging with unfledged offspring.

  A full matron was not usually prone to violence, unless driven by duty or need.

  “You are not one to judge our (praiseworthy) daring,” the raider captain hissed in an old-fashioned, stilted dialect. “You, who serve (unworthy) client/masters with too-many or too-few legs, you are not fit to valuate this band of sisters. Your sole choice is to submit (obsequiously), according to the (much revered) Code of the Plains.”

  The caravan chief stared with all three eyes. “Code? Surely you do not mean the (archaic, irrelevant) rituals that old-time (barbaric) tribes used, back when—”

  “The code of war and faith among (noble, true-to-their-nature) tribes. Confirmed! The way of our (much revered) aunts, going back generations before (recent, despicable) corruption set in. Confirmed! Once again, I ask/demand — do you submit?”

  Confused and alarmed, the caravan chief shook her head, human style, blowing air uncertainly like a hoon. With a low aspiration, she muttered in Anglic,

  “Hr-r-r. Such jeekee nonsense for a grownuf adult to kill over—”

  The raider sprang upon the merchant trader, wrapping their necks, shoving and twining forelegs till the caravan chief toppled with a groan of agony, wheezing in shock. Any Earthly vertebrate might have had her spine snapped.

  The raider turned to the pilgrims with her head stretched far forward, as if to snap anyone in reach. Frightened prisoners pressed close together. Sara tightened her grip on Jomah, pushing the boy behind her.

  “Again I ask/demand — who will (unreservedly) submit, in the name of this (miserable excuse for a) tribe?”

  A dura passed. Then out of the circle staggered a surviving lieutenant — perhaps pushed from behind. Her neck coiled tightly, and her single nostril flared with dread as she stumbled toward the painted harlequin. Trembling, the young urs crouched and slowly pushed her head along the ground till it rested between the raider’s forehooves.

  “Well done,” the corsair commented. “We shall make a (barely acceptable) plainsman of you.

  “As for the rest, I am called UrKachu. In recent (foolish) days I was known as Lord High Aunt of Salty Hoof Clan, a useless, honorary title, bereft of (real) power or glory. Now banished from that (ungrateful) band, I co-lead this new company of cousin-comrades. United, we resurrect one of the (great, lamented) warrior societies — the Urunthai!”

  The other raiders raised their weapons, bellowing a piercing cry.

  Sara blinked surprise. Few humans grew up ignorant of that name, fearsome from bygone days.

  “This we have done because (so-called) aunts and sages have betrayed our glory race, falling into a (reviled) human trap. A scheme of extermination, planned by alien criminals.”

  From an abstract corner of her mind, Sara noted that the raider was losing control over her tailored, old-fashioned GalTwo phrasing, giving way to more modern tones, even allowing bits of hated Anglic to slip in.

  The other raiders hissed supportive counterpoint to their leader’s singsong phrasings. UrKachu leveled her head toward the pilgrims, twisting and searching, then stopped before a tall, dark human male — the Stranger.

  “Is this he? The star-demon?”

  The spaceman smiled back, as if not even bloody murder could break his good humor. This, in turn, seemed to set the painted urs back momentarily.

  “Is this the (selected, sought-after) one?” UrKachu went on. “Sky-cousin to those two-legged devils we have lived among for (long-suffering) generations?”

  As if trying to perceive a new form of life, the crippled star-alien flipped the veil of his new rewq over his eyes, then off again, comparing perspectives on the urrish marauder. Perhaps, with meaning robbed from words, he found some in the riot of emotion-laden colors.

  A new voice spoke up, as smooth and coolly magnetic as the warrior chief was fiery-fierce, answering from behind the mass of huddled pilgrims.

  “This is the one,” Ulgor assured, emerging from the tight-packed, sweaty crowd, stepping toward UrKachu. Like the Stranger, she showed no trace of fear.

  “It is the (promised) prize, recovered from far-off Dolo Town. Recently confirmed by a human sage to be one of the star-demons, not Jijo born.”

  While the pilgrims muttered dismay at Ulgor’s betrayal, UrKachu’s hooves clattered joy. “Those from space will pay (dearly) for his return. For this they may offer one thing valuable above all else — survival for some (though not all) urs on Jijo.”

  Many things suddenly made sense. The motive for this raid, as well as Ulgor’s spellbinding performance on the storytelling platform, designed to keep the caravan crew inside while the Urunthai moved stealthily into position.

  A slim shadow fell between the two urrish leaders. A new voice cut in, speaking Anglic.

  “Don’t forget friends, we’ll be demandin’ a bit more’n just that.”

  A human form stood in the torn entry. Moving away from the late-afternoon glare, it resolved as Jop, the Dolo Village tree farmer. “There’s a whole list o’ things we’ll be needin’ if they’re to get their boy back, hale and whole” — Jop glanced at the Stranger’s scarred scalp — “or as whole as the poor veg will ever be.”

  Sara realized. He went outside to signal the raiders while Vigor kept us distracted.

  A strange alliance. A human purist helping urrish fanatics who named their group after the ancient Earthling-hating Urunthai Society.

  A frail alliance, if Sara overheard rightly when UrKachu muttered sideways to Ulgor—

  “Would things not prove simpler without this one?”

  Tellingly, the painted warrior winced and shut up when Ulgor gave her leg a sharp kick, out of view of the other urs.

  Sara detached Jomah and Prity, sheltering them in the crowd before taking a step forward.

  “You can’t do this,” she said.

  Jop’s smile was grim. “And why not, little bookworm?”

  It was a victory to keep a tremor out of her voice.

  “Because he may not be one of the gene-thieves at all! I have reason to believe he may actually be an enemy of theirs.”

  Ulgor looked the Stranger up and down, nodding. “A fossivility that natters not at all. What counts is — we have goods to sell and can set a frice.”

  That price Sara could envision. For UrKachu, a return to glory days of wild warriors roaming free — not incompatible with Jop’s goal to have all the dams, machines, and books cast down, speeding humanity along the Path of Redemption.

  Neither seemed to fear the chance of renewed war, so clear was the contempt each held for the other. At the moment, it hardly mattered.

  We are in the hands of maniacs, Sara thought. Fools who will ruin us all.
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  Asx

  And now returns the Rothen ship. Back from its cryptic mission probing nearby space for some unknown god-purpose.

  Back to collect the station it left behind, and its crew of biological prospectors.

  Back to gather up a treasure-hold of purloined genes.

  Back to cover up their crime.

  Only now, that erstwhile-buried station gapes before us, a twisted ruin. One Rothen and a sky-human lie on makeshift biers, robbed of life, while the surviving visitor-invaders rage choleric, vowing retribution. If any doubted their intent before, my rings, can it be ambiguous anymore? We are bound to be punished. Only means and extent remain in doubt.

  This is what the rebel zealots desired. No more confusion. An end to hints and sweet, lying promises. Only the cleanliness of righteous opposition, however uneven our powers against those we must resist. Let us be judged, the zealots demand, by our courage and faith, not our hesitation.

  The hot, unwinking star moves across our pre-dawn sky, orbiting slowly closer, an angel — or demon — of vengeance. Do those aboard already know what has happened? Are they even now plotting the storm to come?

  The zealots argue we must seize the survivors — Ro-kenn, Ling, and Rann — as hostages for the protection of every member of the Commons. And the remaining star-man, Kunn, when his aircraft returns to its shattered base.

  Horrified, our qheuenish High Sage, Knife-Bright Insight, skewers the zealot logic.

  “You would pile one crime on another? Did they harm us, these aliens? Did they strike the first blow, with their clinics and high-paying jobs? You have slain two of them based on mere speculation of ill intent! Now you would kidnap the rest? Let us imagine that those on the ship agree to your demands, promising not to attack the Six. What is to stop them changing their minds, once the hostages go free?”