All Fall Down

by Don Sakers

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  All Fall Down

  by Don Sakers

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  Science Fiction

  * * *

  Fictionwise, Inc.

  www.Fictionwise.com

  Copyright ©1987 by Don Sakers

  First published in Analog, May 1987

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  In the quiet night of this eternal wood, I lift my soul to the stars in the waves of the Inner Voice. I sing, as the Hlutr have sung since the beginnings of life. My roots are deep in the lush soil of this world that now, after the fashion of the Humans, we call Amny. My limbs rise high into the fresh, clear air, reaching for the dim radiance of the distant stars in lieu of the vanished sun. And I sing.

  Answering voices come from the sky and beyond: a chorus of my brethren on a million worlds. Most of them are Hlutr, for we alone of all the races have mastered the mystery of the Inner Voice. In this way, as in our physical stature, we stand above all other creatures; in this way, we do our duty to the Universal Song. For how could there be a Song, without the Hlutr to sing...?

  I sing, and this should be pleasure. I seek the communion of my race, the oneness that comes through the Inner Voice and lifts us all far beyond the various worlds we inhabit. The animal races, however mobile, are bound by their very nature, bound in space to one particular location; only the plants, seemingly sessile, have truly transcended all boundaries. This night, I sing, and in my song I seek to become one with the Universal Song.

  This should be a pleasure. Yet too soon, before I am even begun, a discord intrudes. It begins faintly, a mere hint of the song gone wrong, and I turn my soul away from it in my attempt to fly the night. Yet the discord is still there, on the worlds of the Hlutr and in the empty spaces where only our dormant spores drift; in the oceans and the clouds, spoiling their wet happy melodies, in the soil and the turf, poisoning their deep restful peace.

  It is the Humans.

  I know, my brothers, that many of you do not agree with me. Many of you, I know, do not see them as I do, these sons and daughters of Terra with their machines and their Thrones and their ever-continuing raucous jabber. Most of you do not concern yourselves with the Humans. Many of you feel that they are not truly sapient, that they do not have enough sense of the Inner Voice to cause any discord in its melodies. You are wrong. I live in their midst, not a dozen Hlutr-lengths from one of their cities, not eight hundred parsecs from one of their most populated worlds, and I know: this dissonance I feel comes from them.

  Still more of you, my siblings, feel that the Humans are sapient and feel a special compassion for them, silly and weak as they are. You may remember our dealings with them, and our strange brother who left Amny and went to the world where the Humans live. I think of him always as “The Traveller,” for he went places where Hlutr seldom go.

  The last remnants of his carcass stand yet, in the clearing only a Hlut-length or so from me. He had been specially-bred for his mission, and he burned out his stunted life in a very short time. But his memory lives on, in all of us. It comes through our roots from the wet ground, it descends on us in the summer winds, and it echoes yet in the waves of the Inner Voice. We will never forget the Traveller ... and I least of all. I was his Teacher; I bear some of the responsibility for his mission, for making him what he was. Sometimes, when I look to the lonely blackness of interstellar space, or when I contemplate the grand sweep of time, I feel that he is near, and I can almost hear his whisper. It is a sad whisper, a lost sound as he entreats us on behalf of those strange folk he came to love—as if a Hlut could truly love any of the Little Ones.

  You remember our decision, in that time of judgement and the appeal of the Traveller. We spared Man, when we could have eliminated him from the Universal Song like the violent blight he sometimes seems. This was the will of the Hlutr, and this was my will too and yet at times I wonder.

  What did we know of Humans, then? Few enough of us had paid any attention to them. We had a few flashes of the Inner Voice, the knowledge we gained from the poor children of Nephestal, and the ravings of our misshapen brother.

  It is so different now. We have lived with Humans on ten thousand worlds, for twice a thousand of their years. There is still little exchange between our folk, but some of us Elders have watched Man carefully, have listened to the song of his soul. And while we have found beauty, ever have we also found discord.

  And now the Humans disturb Hlutr meditation.

  I live more slowly, allowing night to blossom into day, day to fade to night, and the planet to move forward in its orbit. Usually this helps, for Humans are ephemeral and their disturbance does not last long. They cannot live slower than their accustomed rate.

  Now, though, I find no peace in living slowly. The Human cacophony builds rather than subsiding, and with each swift-passing day it grows worse. Soon all space cries with their boiling thoughts, their impertinent distress, their anguish. Soon the noise overwhelms the communion of the Hlutr, it stirs eddies in the waves of the Inner Voice, in brings violence to our quiet galaxy. Humans are screaming, Humans are dying, Humans are afraid and worst of all, their little ones are crying.

  I hear you wonder, my brothers and sisters: what is happening? You cast your thoughts outward, appealing ... you who live on the worlds of Man open your senses, drinking in the sights and sounds of their tiny lives. Are they killing each other in yet another of their wars? Are they staining the stars with their blood, in a mad series of pogroms?

  The answer comes, voiced by one of us who trembles at the magnitude of his news. A disease is taking Mankind, a disease that Human medical ability cannot reverse. In two short Human years, it has become a plague that engulfs half the galaxy and brings certain death to all it touches. Human lives are threatened, Human civilization totters, Human agony disturbs even the song of the Hlutr.

  Is it any wonder that they cry?

  And now the question comes, as I knew it would—whispered anonymously on the waves of the Inner Voice, spoken secretly to the winds of Amny, welling up from the soil with the memories of the Traveller: what should the Hlutr do?

  I ask you, my brethren—why should the Hlutr do a thing?

  Compassion, says the memory of the Traveller, the one who came to love these Humans.

  In the name of compassion, then, should we turn away from Hlutr tradition? When have we ever stirred ourselves to prevent the deaths of any ephemerals? But a few seasons ago as the Hlutr count time, the great lizards roamed Amny; when the swamps dried up and the ice came, when diseases took them by their millions ... did we interfere then? When the subtle, beautiful fishes died, leaving the oceans to the coarser beasts who succeeded them ... did we put forth our power to save them?

  Not just on Amny, but on a million worlds in all the long history of the Hlutr race—how often have we stood between ephemerals and their fates? And how often have our attempts met with defeat? The vanished Coruma, the lost children of Lavarren, the lovely singing trees of the Mehbis Cluster: all gone, forever.

  You remember better than I, my brothers, my Elders. The Hlutr have watched many races die, watched with compassion; but we have not interfered. It is not our way. Should we do so now?

  We have pled for interference before, you say. In ones and twos, some of you have asked for this or that race to be spared. Some of you have tried, in defiance of the
will of the Hlutr—and all have failed.

  Why should we try now?

  There is among us here on Amny a youngster, barely a sapling; she stands near the old Human settlement, at the place where they still bring their disturbed children, their adults with defective brains. This we do for the Humans ... we care for their insane and their defectives, we comfort them with soothing projections of the Inner Voice.

  The sapling calls for us now. Her message comes through the First Language, on waves of color racing through the Hlutr grove; it comes in the gentle soughing of the Second Language, a muted sound like the distant sea. “Elders,” she tells us, “A Human calls for you."

  “For us?"

  “He uses the old equipment, and speaks to me in pidgin First Language on luminous screens. He asks to address our Elders."

  I tremble in the wind. Is there no end to Human audacity? First they shatter the peace of Hlutr meditation; now one of them demands an audience?

  Compassion, Brother, the memory of the Traveller tells me.

  Sooner or later I must deal with the Humans; I decide it will be now. “Send him,” I tell the sapling.

  Before the man arrives, he is heralded by the other Hlutr. Broad waves of contrasting color move through their leaves and across their trunks, and when he enters my glade he is accompanied by the swishing of a million Hlutr leaves.

  He is a small creature, even for a Human; his sparse fur is ashen and his artificial hide a dirty white. He stops before my trunk, then raises equipment designed to generate lights that mock the First Language.

  The memories of the Traveller have prepared me; I bend my lower limbs to the ground, and I vibrate their leaves in controlled patterns, far faster than usual. The technique is difficult even for an Elder like myself, with full control over my body. We use it to communicate with the lesser orders in their own familiar languages. I do not intend to set the Human at ease; rather, I wish to show him the abilities of the Hlutr from the very beginning.

  “Who are you, Human?"

  He bows. “I am Doctor Alex Saburo, of the Credixian Imperial Navy."

  This tells me little. His name is a sound, nothing else. His title indicates one who is accorded knowledge and wisdom, as Humans know it. As for his affiliation, not even the Ancients of Nephestal are able to keep track of ever-changing Human political systems.

  “Why do you come before me?"

  “To ask for help."

  Up close, it is easy to read these creatures through the Inner Voice. The tenor of his emotions matches his voice: firmly controlled, yet aware that he stands in the presence of a vastly superior being.

  Emotions, but their minds are not coherent enough to project thoughts. “Ask, then,” I say.

  “The Death,” he said, spreading his upper limbs. “We can do nothing to stop it. It's infected half the Galaxy, and it's entered the Imperium. In another year it'll have spread to every Human world.” His control wavers, and I glimpse emotional storms beneath the surface of this man's mind.

  “So you come to the Hlutr for help. Why?"

  “Where else would I turn, Your Greatness?"

  “You may address me as ‘Teacher.’”

  “Our medical science cannot cope with the plague, Teacher. I know that the Hlutr have the ability to modify the very genetic code itself; I know that your Elders have the intelligence to analyze the Plague and perhaps stop it."

  So the Universal Song mocks me, my brethren. I cannot evade the question that is whispered in the night: Should Hlutr help Humans?

  I appeal to my own Elders for a decision, and they are strangely silent. It is I who began this thing, two millennia ago when I prepared the Traveller to judge Humanity, when I came before the Elders to say that we needed to know more of the children of Earth. Now it is I who must decide whether we will spare Mankind in this time of crisis.

  Although the Traveller's memories beat strongly within me, how can I say yes? How can I throw off geological ages of Hlutr tradition, all for the sake of a brutish creature who thinks himself grand because he can disturb our meditations? How can I justify saving this people, when we have allowed so many others to perish?

  The man is waiting for an answer; and suddenly, I have one for him. “You ask much of me, Doctor Alex Saburo. Perhaps too much.” I tell him of our traditions. I tell him of the Coruma, the Lavarren, the Mehbis folk. I tell him that all living creatures—yes, even the Hlutr—meet death, that it is part of the Universal Song. In the end, my twigs ache from making such precise vibrations for so long.

  “Teacher, I have heard that the Hlutr value life. Old tales tell of their compassion for all Little Ones. For the sake of that compassion, won't you help us?"

  “We are compassionate ... but you do not know what you ask. You Humans occupy over twelve thousand worlds; within one year, all will be stricken with your Death. You ask that we create a defense, then that we sacrifice ourselves to spread that defense on all your planets...?"

  “The sacrifice would be great—but without it, my civilization, perhaps my entire race, will die."

  “The sacrifice is greater than you think.” I groped in the vast collective Hlutr memory for the Human words I needed. “You think we Hlutr can synthesize genetic material without effort. Know then, Doctor Alex Saburo, that when a Hlut makes new DNA and RNA, that Hlut dies—violently, in a bursting that spreads the new material on all the winds. Even if we can save your people, to do so means that many times twelve thousand Hlutr must perish in agony."

  A brief torrent of anger, quickly suppressed, flashes forth in the Inner Voice. “I had not thought,” he says, “that the Hlutr were so selfish."

  “We have our duty to the Universal Song. If that melody declares that Humans must pass away, we cannot gainsay it."

  He is an odd creature, in whom passion and reason can coexist, each as forceful as the other. Now he touches my trunk, and the warmth of his hand surprises me and moves me in a way his words have not. “If you wish, Doctor Alex Saburo, the Hlutr can offer your people counsel. We can help you prepare for the Death, can make it easier for you to meet your end. We have done this for others."

  “No.” His denial is strong. “I thank you then, Elder, and I beg your permission to leave. There is little time."

  That should be the end of it—yet it is not. “What will you do, Human?"

  “I'll seek an answer. Somewhere, someone must have the knowledge that will help me to end the Death. As long as I can, I'll keep searching.” He turns, and begins the slow walk away from my grove.

  There is an outcry from some of my brethren, a gentle protest that falls from the stars like cold Autumn rain. From within me, where the memory of the Traveller lives, there is a stronger objection.

  Brothers and sisters, how can I yield to you? How can I deny our traditions? You are but a few—and when the Hlutr act, they must act in agreement.

  How, you ask me, can I ignore the pain?

  “Wait, Alex Saburo."

  If for nothing more than the sake of the Traveller, whose spirit gnaws at me, I make the Human an offer. “I will go with you."

  “B-but how? I will travel beyond this world, to planets where the Death has hit."

  I do not know, my brethren, why I agree to do a thing that the Hlutr seldom do. Perhaps I, too, am overly fond of these Humans. Perhaps I want to find something in them that would be worth the death of a hundred thousand Hlutr. Perhaps I am simply reluctant to waste all the time I have spent studying them. “The Human children on yonder hill are mentally defective, yet they are strongly sensitive to the Hlutr Inner Voice. One of them shall become my operative. It shall accompany you, and I will see what it sees, hear what it hears, and communicate with you through its mouth. I will also sing with my brethren and my Elders, and perhaps ... perhaps we can find a way to help you."

  He is flabbergasted; both the power and the mercy of the Hlutr are beyond him. “Go back to the sanitarium,” I tell him. “My operative will greet you there."

  “I
... thank you, Teacher."

  His words are echoed by the voice of the Traveller within: Thank you.

  * * * *

  The body is awkward, soft, confining. Through its limited senses, I perceive a truncated world: vision spans merely one octave, and the threshold of hearing is far above the quiet susurrus of the Hlutr Second Language. The Human chemical senses show more promise, yet the body does not know how to properly interpret them.

  There is no mind, no awareness of identity. If such ever existed, it is buried too deeply for even the Hlutr to find. Although it wears an animal body, the creature's soul is more like the lesser plants. It has life, it responds to its environment, but it has no volition. Until I animate it.

  Motion, that is the most difficult thing. The Hlutr move slowly—swaying with the wind, making tiny ovals in sympathy with the yearly movement of the sun, pulsing our rhythms of growth and life with the music of the Inner Voice. We are not accustomed to the rush of animal motion, and it takes me a time to become comfortable as the new body walks.

  I have not animated a body for Human millennia ... not since I attended conferences of the Free Peoples of the Scattered Worlds in borrowed Avethellan form. Slowly, the process comes back to me, and I am more confident. The raucous Human voices do not sound so harsh, the claustrophobic Human rooms begin to seem less close.

  While I am adjusting to the change, Alex Saburo leads me to a transport capsule, and in minutes I am in the Human city. Confusion and disharmony fill my senses, and I simply withdraw my attention from the body. I sing with the winds, I feel the happy touch of flying beasts upon my limbs, I dig my roots in the cool earth and inhale nutrients from the brisk air. In time, Saburo and my operative reach the spaceport; after a few moments of disorientation they have left the surface of Amny and are speeding out into the dark, peaceful gulfs of space.

  Now at last I can return to the body, can begin to bring my Human operative completely under control. I concentrate, matching my time sense to the fast, inflexible Human metabolism. The world of my experience narrows in concentric circles, until I bid temporary farewell to grove, earth and winds and open my eyes on a small spacecraft lounge. I am upon a divan before a wall that mimics the sight of naked space; Saburo sits next to me, watching instruments in his lap. When I stir, he looks up.