“Pianhmar… what a beautiful name, isn’t it?”
“The people of the past,” said Susanna. “I like our translation better.”
“Why, yes. I agree. Human translation of Ree’hd has something very magical about it. Charismatic is the word, I think. I always think of the Ree’hd as ‘the people who gain spiritual strength from the air.’ It’s a bit of a mouthful, I suppose, but no more than some of the old non-interLing tongues of Earth.”
He’s dodging the issue, thought Zeitman, but as if he had heard, Maguire went on, “The Pianhmar. Have you ever seen them—Zeitman? Susanna?”
“There are no such things,” said Susanna, glancing at Zeitman. “Figments of mythology. Legends. And not very interesting legends at that. There are no representations of them in the Ree’hd culture.”
“Legends.” Maguire worked that one over in his mind for a while. The tides, complicated movements and dangerous when not predicted, were rising. They might rise slowly for an hour and then rapidly for five minutes, trapping the group on their exposed ledge among the memories of the fishing commune. Maguire led the way to higher ground. Zeitman stayed at the water’s edge for a while, trying to decide just why Maguire should be so unforthcoming about the Pianhmar. Could it be that he had never actually seen them? That he had found they were a myth? Then how to account for his obvious teleporting ability? And could anything that was so taken for granted among the Ree’hd, and so basically a part of their culture, be, in fact, mythological? Certainly it was not impossible for a myth to become a way of life, but only on the edges of culture. Saint Nick, Dragons, Bogie men and Giants in the Earth, all different types of legend, all just peripheral: the cultures that held them in fear or reverence were not dependent upon them. God, of course, was a different matter. All gods, by their nature, were integral with the culture that worshipped them. But the Pianhmar were not gods, nor revered as such. Not revered at all. They were just… assumed.
Zeitman rose and followed the other two up on to a higher ledge and along that ledge to reach an overhang where he found Maguire holding Susanna’s hand very tightly, and worrying her very much.
“Nice-feeling girl,” said Maguire, grinning broadly. “Do I look old and unattractive to you, Zeitman?” Yes, thought Zeitman. Maguire looked far older than a few days previously when they had been together on the Realta. His hair was white, dirty, his face was covered in the stubble of days. His eyes, white and unseeing, were rimmed with folds of flesh, the make-up of stress and strain. Only his grin remained young. Wild and hungry, to put it romantically.
“We don’t change, do we?” said Maguire. “Men, I mean. It’s seven hundred years since I danced a bedside bolero… that was on my way to Ree’hdworld the first time I came here. It was a long journey in those days, very long, and the major shipping lines had just started running ship-mates, girls and boys both, available to passengers for free. That was some journey. You know, I forgot all manner of things in those few weeks… I forgot Iylian—my wife—I forgot being blind, I forgot depression. You know what? I could have stayed on that ship, indulging myself, and just forgetting that the Universe existed. But the A and E man, the Associations and Escape man on board, said I was being irresponsible, and they booted me off when I got here anyway. That was a long time ago, and I’m damn glad I landed here. I found Iylian again, and I found sight, for what it was worth. The Pianhmar were a real turning point for me. In the first instance for something very small: for all my life I’d been hoping for a glimpse of colour… colour, Zeitman. Think about it. Colour… reds, blues, whatever. When I was with the Pianhmar they let me see colour and I didn’t like it. Green, blue or red, a mountain is still a mountain, and that’s what I could see anyway.”
He stopped and let go of Susanna’s hand, smiling as he did so, and rubbing his eyes as if he had just risen from sleep.
When he looked back at Zeitman his eyes were the same pearl-white orbs, blind, yet full of expression. “I don’t have to see colour any more, not if I don’t want to.”
“How do you see me, Maguire? What sort of images?”
“I’m just aware of you, what you’re doing, the expression on your face. There’s no colour in it, but there’s much more. Wind currents round your face, static electricity in your hair, your eyebrows, moving systems deeper within you, giving a shape to your body. There’s an alarm clock thundering away down there somewhere. I have a sort of X-ray view of you… both of you.”
“Peeper,” said Susanna. Maguire nodded. “In a way I am.”
Zeitman: “Tell us about Iylian.”
“Iylian. My beautiful wife. I was so anxious to find sight that I left her for space and she grew old very quickly. Every time I returned to her I could feel the age in her body, while I remained young—I was travelling in space, and ageing only weeks to her years. The trouble was, I always forgot her when I was chasing a dream—a drug to restore sight or a so-called magic valley on a world where men never managed to establish a colony. I found nothing to give me vision, and eventually I returned in time to see her die, and suddenly I felt terribly alone, even though I had many friends on many worlds. I hadn’t finished burying her before I was called for a mission on a world I’d only ever heard about in cheap newsfacs— Ree’hdworld. There was a race of beings, they told me, who—if they existed at all—would not allow the contact of a man with sight, and all their attempts at contact had led to the explorer being found dead some months after his attempt. They needed a blind man, a man who could see everything except light, and they had heard of me. I agreed to go. I thought I would make contact and leave and continue my search for sight, but I found sight with the Pianhmar. Strange how things work out.”
“Where did you find them?” asked Zeitman. He was aware that he had to keep Maguire talking. The tides had risen very high, and the on-shore wind carried salt spray up and over the huddled group of humans.
“Where did I find them? I couldn’t really tell you. By a river, beneath a night sky I couldn’t perceive, high in the mountains where the air was bitter. There was ice on that river, and the turf was crisp and one night, as I lay in my body sack, thinking about Iylian, and missing her, I became aware of six shapes standing in a circle around me. Maguire, they said in my mind. Maguire, what have you come for? And I told them and they accepted me, and took me even higher into the mountains. They were very old, very deep into their devolution. I suppose if I’d come two hundred years later they’d have been gone completely… or almost. They had lived on the world for thousands, perhaps millions, of years. They had accomplished what they were to accomplish, achieved the totality of their lives, and they were evolving out, returning to the biosphere. Slowly, gradually, individual by individual. Devolving.”
“What did they seem like?” asked Susanna. “Were they like the mock-up in Terming?”
“Never seen the statues?”
Zeitman said, “We’ve looked for the burial statues, of course, but we’ve never found one. The Ree’hd themselves model a burrow statue, a guardian spirit, I suppose, on the attitude of the Pianhmar statues as you described them. But we’ve never found anything that is convincingly pre-Ree’hd.”
Maguire turned to Susanna and reached out to find her hand again. She allowed him to take it, but cast a despairing glance at Zeitman who forced himself not to react. “And you, Susanna… I suspect you still remain unconvinced about the Pianhmar.”
Susanna said she was. Zeitman had heard her argument a hundred times before, from many different sources-so many times that he became irritated with it and with her, and even with whoever else might be voicing that same argument. Yes, he thought to himself, there are no cultural artifacts to be found, nothing, at least, that could be proven not to be early Ree’hd. The Ree’hd lived along the rivers and by the sea, and their spheres left the huge inland tracts free of influence. There, in the jungle, in the highlands, were the Rundii, semi-sentient (but was that strictly true now?), primitive of language, custom and practice. Like t
he Ree’hd yet unlike them—part of the same stock, certainly. To many people it seemed obvious that the Rundii were at the end of their civilized period, having never achieved a civilization greater than barbarism. Zeitman had many times heard the statement, delivered dogmatically and with authority from someone who could know nothing of what he talked about, that the Rundii were the Pianhmar in a stage of cultural ignorance. It was nonsense. It had to be. The fossil evidence was poor, some might say inconclusive since Ree’hdworlder bones did not undergo the necessary changes for an extensive survival in the earth, and the remains dated back only a few thousand years. Nevertheless, better men than Zeitman had shown how what little there was could be interpreted as three subspecies existing concurrently, and probably radiating from the same stock. Zeitman also knew that the remains interpreted as Pianhmar remains were arguably nothing of the kind. There were, however, no Rundii remains in the mountainous areas that were known with certainty to have been the fabled haunt of the Pianhmar, whereas in the mountain areas within the Rundii spheres, the remains of their development were plain to see.
Susanna believed in the legend theory, that the Pianhmar were invented to act the role of gods. Why, she argued, should a god need to be something greater than the race that had invented it? That was a specifically human version, the super-being with absolute control, to whom all would return at the end of life. To the Ree’hd a god seemed to be something that reflected the greatness of the past, a lie to impress, a form of self-delusion or perhaps a means of impressing foreigners. Never mind what we are, look where we’ve been. So: the Pianhmar—reflections of the Ree’hd as a great race, long gone, still revered. Zeitman had tried to point out that the Pianhmar were not revered, but that particular criticism was not particularly relevant.
Susanna stood unshakingly by her feelings, while Zeitman tried harder to understand how a race such as the Pianhmar could vanish so completely.
Maguire had listened to Susanna’s argument and seemed impressed. When she had mentioned the lack of traces he had shaken his head. Now he said, “What is it they say? You can’t see the stars for the Universe.” He turned to Zeitman. “How apt, don’t you think?”
Zeitman felt a strange chill. In Maguire’s eyes was an expression Zeitman could not have conceived of. Blank white, they nevertheless radiated encouragement. Zeitman said, “I’m right then?”
Maguire shrugged. “Of course.”
“What’s that all about?” Susanna was annoyed at missing the implications.
Zeitman held a finger to his lips. After all, his ideas were wild at this stage, and there was much he didn’t understand. But he knew, with absolute certainty, that the Pianhmar had existed. There was no single element of doubt left within him.
“Are you saying that there are Pianhmar remains?” Susanna was insistent. Before Maguire could reply, or not reply… before he could make any motion, Zeitman said, “I have to admit that it’s strange the Pianhmar left nothing in the way of pots and pans.”
“You’re thinking human again. I agree that this is a very Earth-like world, and the Ree’hd are fairly predictable, as are many of the non-intelligent cultures—well, I shouldn’t say non-intelligent—semi-intelligent, I think that covers it. It’s a meaningless expression anyway. You might predict pots and pans but it all depends on how temporary things could be made to be. And anyway, the Pianhmar were a space-travelling race.”
Zeitman reacted with remarkable calm. He queried Maguire’s statement and Maguire answered irritably, “Why should I be kidding? Look, either believe me or don’t believe me, but don’t just select what you want to believe. The Pianhmar travelled space a lot; they’ve left their marks on many worlds. Think about it. Check your history books, your stories of the early probe groups, the robot monitors that virtually catalogued every blade of para-grass on a world and micro-stored it in the libraries of the Solar System. Look and see how many artifacts of inexplicable origins have been picked up. It’s thousands. It’s so many that no one gives a damn any more. It’s so many that when the sole intelligence was found in our Galaxy it got an estimated hour and a half of media coverage on Earth at first. That’s going way back, of course. In the thousand years since, I suppose there have been many mentions, and your tourist trade tells you that a lot of people are interested still; but when Ree’hdworld was put on the map it was a ‘surprise surprise’ reaction. ‘That elusive ol’ intelligence has cropped up at last, and guess what, viewers, it’s all primitive and muddy.’ Terrible lack of appreciation.”
“So we do have Pianhmar remains, but from other worlds.”
“Sure we do. Thousands of them—shapes carved in stone, guardians, little statues, scattered across a newly visited world, the normal debris of living, metal containers, crystal shards, all manner of remains. The Ree’hdworlders could have been used to explain every artifact ever found in the Galaxy, but when Earth saw how lowly they were, that air of mystery came back. Human beings need a sense of mystery, so the Ree’hd were not considered as being the originators of those traces. Anyway, they’d have been close but not close enough. It wasn’t the Ree’hd, it was their predecessors.”
“Prove they are what you say they are,” said Susanna, obviously not impressed by Maguire’s story.
“I can’t.”
“And there won’t be any to be found now, I suppose. On Ree’hdworld I mean.”
“The Pianhmar destroyed all their remains, I believe. Yes. You’re right. There are none to be found here. But your colleague, Kawashima, is rinding something right now, something very interesting.”
“How do you know?”
“I found him unearthing what you’d call a burial statue. Would that be artifact enough for you, Susanna? A real, whole, life-sized burial statue, intact and unsullied by the passage of time? And there are others to find, one or two others; but frankly I don’t see the point. When you’ve seen one burial statue you’ve seen them all.” He laughed. “Are you breathless, Zeitman?”
Zeitman nodded slowly, comprehension filtering through the confusion in his head. “You told him where to look, of course…”
“What if I did? Would you like to see it? It’s the genuine product, probably nine hundred years old. Take my advice, Zeitman—fly up there as soon as you can. You won’t regret the experience.”
“You’ll tell me where to go?”
“I’ll come with you,” said Maguire. “I’ll travel conventionally for once.”
They waded through the ice-cold water that now covered the lower ledges, and scrambled back up the pathway towards the burrows. Susanna gained on the two men until she was a long way ahead. Maguire stopped, suddenly, stared at her for a moment, then looked at Zeitman. “This world is in danger, Zeitman. It’s in danger because humans cannot think like non-humans… like Susanna with her artifacts. You’re coming to an understanding of this world and very soon you’ll be ready to become a part of it, like I am. And when you’re at that stage you’ll understand why we have to get Terming and all that goes with it, off this world, and fast! Believe me, Zeitman, this is one hell of a world to be a part of, and for a few humans it promises a veritable haven.”
Susanna shouted to them, and they continued to climb. Zeitman found himself thinking of Kristina, and how near she was to him, and yet how far; and how, when he needed her strength more than anything else in the world, it was more inaccessible to him than it had ever been.
Chapter Nine
Kristina, flying low over the broken hills behind the burrows, spotted Dan Erlam’s approach from the east. His skimmer, with its characteristic black and yellow striping, was instantly recognizable and she sent a hailing pulse towards him to attract his attention. She touched down a hundred yards from her burrow entrance and watched as Erlam performed an elegant left-hand spiral and nosed his skimmer to the dry earth, close enough to her own vehicle for the downthrust of his jets to send her short hair bristling. Erlam dropped through the undercarriage of his skimmer and opened the neck of his clo
ak. He came up to Kristina who greeted him with a short kiss and a big smile. She looked him up and down with pointed disapproval. “You won’t be able to walk soon.”
“I’ll roll,” he replied, and she laughed.
“And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“My displeasure,” said Erlam in deep, paternalistic overtones. “I’d have been out sooner, but I have a city to keep in order, and entropy insists on increasing.” He took her by the arm and they walked up the sloping river-bank towards the burrow entrance.
“Nice place you have here,” he said as usual, chuckling at his own joke. They were inside and seated on the odoriferous flooring and Erlam was making a great show of his discomfort at the alienness of the living conditions.
“I’ve decorated the walls,” said Kristina pointedly. “Bet you didn’t even notice.”
Erlam scanned the scratched walls of the burrow and saw the pin-woman figure amongst a yard of Ree’hd inscriptions. In the flickering light of the lamp the figure seemed to dance and writhe.
“Your sign?”
Kristina affirmed. “My sign, Dan. I am now a Ree’hd. You may cease to impart to me terrestrial courtesies. I no longer desire them. Just don’t ask me to sing first thing in the morning.”
“No, Kristina, I shan’t ask you to sing.”
Kristina’s smile faded as she stared at the solemn features of the city father. “So serious Dan. Why?”
Erlam stared at her and felt an unaccustomed heat in his face. How difficult it was with Kristina, now that she was so convinced of her increasing alienness. She was not attractive, not by Erlam’s standards, but then Erlam was not so much interested in looks as in finding someone to share his excessive personality. Kristina, he had always felt, was his ideal. He had once lost her to Zeitman without her even realizing he was in the running for her affections. When Zeitman had left Ree’hdworld Erlam had compensated for his sorrow at the loss of a friend with the thought that now Kristina was again available.
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