The Howling Stones

by Alan Dean Foster

  Without warning, the plasma tunnel began to con­strict around them, until it was no wider than the ovoid itself. This must be how a corpuscle in a capillary feels, Pulickel imagined. And then, as the tunnel walls drew tight, so at last did the cosmos.

  They were surrounded by stars. Ordinary, normal ­looking, unremarkable stars. Sol‑types and red giants, white dwarfs and binaries, they were clearly visible through the blazing walls of the tunnel. They swam in a sea of coruscating nebulae, and Pulickel wanted to reach out and kiss each and every one of them. Instant confla­gration aside, it would have taken him quite a while.

  More stars were visible than any of them had ever seen at any one time in a crystal‑clear night sky or from an orbiting platform. So many stars that they crowded the nebulae for living space and threatened to eliminate the blackness of space in which they swam. Enough stars to make the middle of the Milky Way look empty and un­populated. You could skip from star to star, hop from system to system, Fawn thought. Or such was the impres­sion the sight created.

  A new sensation rippled through them: one of progres­sive deceleration. Curving to their right, the attenuated plasma tunnel carried them toward a yellow sun sur­rounded by a ring of matter and energy that coexisted in a state foreign to either xenologist's experience. Out past this striking system they flew, curving sharply above another star that boasted an entourage of no less than twenty planets plus assorted moons and comets and as­teroids. Half these worlds were linked by lesser versions of the energy tunnel through which they were traveling.

  Still another system, arrayed around a black hole or­bited by strange fan‑shape objects whose mouths pointed toward the gravitational monster in their midst, drawing upon its energy, sucking up collapsed matter and feeding it to a world the size of Jupiter. There it was molded and shaped, energy bending energy into a bridge that spanned a galaxy. This galaxy.

  Pulickel and Fawn had already decided that they had abandoned one in favor of another, but they didn't know the half of it.

  Proceeding down the tunnel at speeds that had dwindled from the impossible to the merely incredible, they passed structures so immense and overawing as to leave them bereft of superlatives. How could they be expected to re­late to an entirely artificial world built, as it were, from matter up?

  There was one individual fabrication so grandiose in the conception, so breathtaking in its execution, that it was difficult to believe in its existence. As the tunnel passed through a portal the size of lo, they found them­selves confronted by a star that had been entirely en­globed by an artificial structure. On its inner surface lived unknown beings in their quadrillions, warmed and nurtured by their captive star. The ovoid passed quickly through its orbit and out an opening on the far side of the englobement.

  New tunnels hove into view, passing close to a pulsar to boost their cargoes between the multitudinous stars at ever more incredible velocities. Here were suns enough, planets enough, for individuals who might desire it to have a whole world unto themselves. Desire company, and the plasma tunnels could bring it to you in less than a ‑day.

  Above one world someone or something was trac­ing abstract designs in the planet's upper atmosphere, us­ing its ionosphere for a canvas. Elsewhere stellar winds were focused through hollow moons, resulting in true music of the spheres. It was a universe of wonders and enchantments.

  It was also very far from home.

  Once, a ship passed close. Or was it a planet, fitted out with engines and powered out of orbit, vacationing from one sun to the next? Pulickel couldn't be sure and size gave no clue. The scale of values and comparisons on which he relied for such things had long since crumbled to dust.

  A smaller speeding artifact came near enough for as­tonished faces to be seen staring back at the occupants of the ovoid. Anything but godlike visages of authority and power, they conveyed a certain shyness rather than om­nipotence. Black and gray wraiths, hairless and wide­ eyed, they left in their wake a sense of startled surprise at the nature of the ovoid's passengers.

  Fawn felt a wrenching dislocation, as if they had sud­denly reversed direction and picked up speed. Sooner than they had left them behind, they were once again sur­rounded by hundreds of the dazzlingly effulgent tunnels. She fought to recover her internal equilibrium.

  "What happened there? It felt like someone pulled the floor out from under us!"

  Pulickel swallowed several times, working to clear the rising gorge from his throat. "Maybe somebody did."

  "The gods saw us." Having long since resigned herself to whatever fate had in store for them, Ascela wasn't overly concerned. Jorana gestured agreement.

  "They didn't look much like gods to me," Pulickel countered. "They were small, and kind of skinny. Builders yes, engineers certainly, perhaps miracle‑workers even, but gods? I don't think so."

  "I know what happened." Fawn squeezed her eyes shut, blinked once, and shook her head. "Somebody just pulled our superstring."

  He summoned up his usual subdued smile. "I wouldn't doubt it. I wonder what they're going to do with us now that they've seen us?"

  It didn't take long to find out. There was a renewed sense of slowing. Their tunnel took a sharp turn away from the mass of fiery filaments, which vanished rapidly behind them. This was followed by an interval of utter blackness.

  Not long thereafter, the ovoid stopped. Light slowly returned to the interior. Not light from a million stars, or a thousand blazing plasma tunnels, but a softer illumina­tion. Moonlight, supplemented by the flickering dance of torches and lanterns.

  The ovoid was oozing its way out of the green mass. They were back.

  Through the transparent walls they could see a joyous mob of Parramati leaping and hopping toward them. And when the far end of the elliptical capsule evaporated, they could hear them, as well.

  Behind him, Fawn Seaforth was speculating on their unexpected return., "They sent us back. Reprogrammed the egg, or threw us into reverse, or whatever was neces­sary. But they sent us back." Rolling onto hands and knees, she prepared to exit in Pulickel's wake. "I have a feeling we weren't supposed to be where we were, sort of like a kid who borrows the family transport and goes for a run without first asking permission."

  "I disagree." Emerging from the ovoid, he fought to make sense of what they'd seen. "I think the process was automatic from beginning to end."

  Pushing past him, the jubilant Parramati surrounded Ascela and Jorana, embracing them exuberantly. There was much clasping of hands and rubbing of snouts. Ears bent forward to catch the travelers' every bark while sensitive nostrils sniffed for signs of foreign roads. Swallowed by the howling stones, the two big persons had been given up for lost. Their return, alive and in apparent good health, was cause for more than ordinary celebration.

  Congratulations were passed on to the humans, as well. Pulickel dimly heard Jorana explaining that they had visited the abode of the gods, seen many wonders, and traversed the preeminent road. It was a miraculous place, the Torrelauapan big person avowed, but not for Parramati. Torrelau, Mallatyah, and the rest of the islands were better. None disputed him, there being little merit in trying to remonstrate with an eyewitness.

  What it ultimately proved, of course, was that those who hewed to the ways of kusum would always have miracles and wonders at their beck and call, to enhance their lives and confound their enemies.

  A hand clutched at Pulickel's shoulder, one with five familiar fingers instead of three long, double‑jointed ones. Fawn was looking down at him and smiling.

  "How did that compare to the trip you made with the transportation stones? At least this time nobody came back comatose."

  "Completely different. This time I felt like something was in control, that it wasn't random jumping from place to place." He looked past her, to the glowing green bulk. Its radiance had not diminished. "These howling stones assemble themselves into some kind of station or termi­nus. It's one tiny part of the incredible transportation sys­tem we saw. Those hundr
eds of tunnels‑many if not all of them must begin and end with terminals just like or similar to this." Excitement shone in his eyes.

  She was nodding slowly. "Tunnels or highways, it's all the same. Thousands of them, all leading ... where?"

  "We can find out." His tone was urgent, eager. "Make a map, learn the routings."

  Her eyes widened. "Whoa, let's back up a step. We still don't know for certain that someone built these."

  "Of course we do. We even saw some of the builders."

  "We saw aliens. We don't know that they were the originators of the tunnel system, or that the builders even still exist. You don't have to be an engineer to find your way around on public transport."

  "No, but somebody keeps those tunnels functional. Somebody lives on that spherical artificial platform facing the enclosed sun, and somebody builds and operates starships the size of worlds. Or planiforms worlds into starships. If not the original builders, then who?"

  She made a face. "Ask me another simple one."

  "Leap of faith, remember? Sometimes you just have to accept, even in science." He was puzzled by her tenta­tiveness. "These beings englobe stars and tap black holes for power. They string tubes of supercharged plasma between star systems, probably between galaxies, and maybe between adjoining universes. They're for real, and we have to make contact with them."

  She smiled wanly. "Excuse me if I don't feel up to monkeying with anything like that. I'm a field xenolo­gist; not a philosopher, metaphysician, or theoretical physicist."

  "Same here," he retorted. "I just like to see what lies over the next mountain." He was looking past her now. "All those stars, all those systems! There could have been a thousand intelligent races out there."

  "A million," she added somberly.

  "Yes, a million‑and we only saw the one. Don't tell me you didn't get the feeling that they reacted to our presence."

  "Reacted to it," she murmured, "by turning us around and getting rid of us."

  "The engineers." Pulickel was insistent. "The builders. I know they didn't look like much, but that doesn't mean anything."

  "So I've been told."

  He missed her sarcasm entirely. "But why a terminus here? And why abandon it who knows how long ago, along with the other stones? It's almost as if they wanted to break connections with this system, or this part of the galaxy, permanently."

  Extracting a drink cylinder from her pack, Fawn snapped the tip open. It chilled immediately and she downed half the contents in a series of long swallows, then looked long and hard at her colleague. "A reasonable interpretation of the evidence. Think about it."

  He turned away to eye the perfect, unpolluted night sky of Senisran. "But that still doesn't explain why this world?"

  She brooded. "Maybe Senisran isn't the only one with connections. Maybe if you know where and how to look, howling stones can be found on other worlds within the Commonwealth."

  He gestured sharply at the amorphous structure from which the cryptic emerald radiance continued to emanate powerfully. "Nobody's ever found anything like this."

  "You mean nobody's ever reported finding anything like this," she corrected him. "That's not the same thing as knowing for a fact that nothing like it has ever been found." She waved at the star‑speckled but uninformative heavens. "There could be howling stones scattered across half the Arm without humans or thranx or AAnn or any of the other sentient races knowing about them." After draining the drink cylinder, she tucked the empty con­tainer back in her pack.

  "There are a lot of tribes and clans right here on Senis­ran, and of them all only the Parramati have access to and knowledge of the stones. And that probably by accident. Who knows? This may be the beginning of the discovery of sacred stones throughout the Commonwealth."

  His voice fell. "You're mocking me."

  "Nothing of the sort. Just being realistic." She looked back at the glowing green terminal, or whatever it was. "Maybe I'm just not ready to rethink everything I know about natural law."

  Before he could respond, Ascela hopped in between them. The Torrelauapan big person regarded them both. "We have made a decision. All the big persons of all the islands, resolving together. Jorana and I have told them of what we have seen and experienced, and a conclusion has been reached."

  Fawn brightened at this return to reality. "You mean you're going to accept the treaty?"

  Ascela peered up at her. "You have already been told: we make no treaties with anyone. This is not about treaties. Our kusum has just proven its superiority to all other ways of knowing and of acting. Commanding such knowledge frees us from any need to concern ourselves with your technology or that of the shiny‑skinned AAnn.

  "There will be no treaties. No one will be allowed to come and dig in our islands. We readily forgo any bene­fits this might have brought to us." The seriousness of her pronouncement was confirmed by her careful inflection.

  "You have seen how the stones are tied to our kusum and how kusum relies for support on the stones. There will be no more demonstrations. The howling stones will be removed and returned to their places of rest through­out the islands."

  "No, you can't do that!" Seeing the look in the eyes of the two big persons and interpreting it correctly, an agi­tated Pulickel struggled to compose himself. "I mean, you need to think this through carefully. If the howl­ing stones are disassembled, next time they may not fit together properly. Or the source of their energy could disappear."

  "It does not matter." Ascela was unyielding. "The Goggelai is ended. We have seen the meaning of the howling stones, and that is enough. It opens the road that does not heal, or make the heart grow, or bring happi­ness. A road that gives questions but not answers holds nothing for us. Closing it will keep kusum pure." She put her face close to the xenologist's. "It was to try to show you the importance of this that the Goggelai was held."

  At a gesture from Jorana, several big persons stepped forward. It was obvious to both visiting humans what the Parramati intended to do next. They had assembled the remarkable terminal stone by stone, and they were going to break it down by employing precisely the same procedure.

  Ignoring Fawn's warning, Pulickel rushed to place himself between the advancing big persons and the green mass. His words were hurried and so his enunciation of the alien words and phrases not as polished as usual.

  "Please, you cannot do this!" He indicated the edifice behind him, the protruding cone of the ovoid. "I cannot explain its importance unless you give me some time. There are concepts that are difficult to render in your lan­guage. But I can tell you, with every fiber of my being, that this is more important than mining rights, than any treaty, than my life, or yours, or the supposed sanctity of kusum.

  "Your traditions will not be harmed by leaving this as it is, to be examined and studied. Indeed, I promise you that they will be enhanced by the knowledge that is to be gained."

  Jorana had joined the gathering line of big persons. His reply was flat. "We will begin by removing the largest stone from the top. One by one, the stone masters will take their stones back home. This is the way of kusum."

  Ascela was less brusque. "We have learned what the Goggelai had to teach us, friend Pu'il. You should have learned it, too."

  Pulickel didn't move. "You can't just destroy some­thing like this, just take it apart and throw away its prom­ise!" Behind him, the front end of the ovoid still gaped temptingly, beckoning to long‑vanished passengers.

  Standing off to one side, Fawn spoke gently. "I think we ought to listen to them, Pulickel. This‑this is almost too big."

  He shot her a challenging look. '`What are you talking about? Are you siding with these aborigines?'

  She stiffened. "Put it that way if it makes you feel more comfortable. We have no conception of the possible ramifications of continuing to use this device. Neither do the Parramati. We're dealing with something more than mere science here. This is a door to a technology we can't begin to understand. Maybe, just maybe, we're not
advanced enough, not mature enough to deal with it."

  His gaze narrowed. "Don't be oblique with me, Fawn. You know I can't stand that. What are you trying to say?" The Parramati held their ground, watching the two hu­mans, listening to their strange speech.

  "You had a bad experience with the transportation stones. Just two stones." She nodded in the direction of the softly lambent terminal. "We were lucky this time. Next try might be different. A photo‑trap is a wonderful piece of technology. They're placed all around the station to secure specimens for study. But the fauna they catch probably don't think they're such a wonderful piece of technology. They don't even know what's happened to them, or how. If we're not careful, we could find our­selves in a similar position."

  He shook his head sadly. "This is a modus for travel, not a trap! I am sorry, Fawn, but your analogy fails me. I cannot believe what I am hearing‑and from a fellow scientist, no less." He spared a quick glance for the termi­nal, as if to assure himself it was still there.

  "This discovery may change our view of the entire cosmos. It's fundamental. The tunnels may give us ac­cess not to a few new worlds but to millions. It will alter humankind's entire future."

  "Yes," she murmured, "but how? New physics are one thing. New ways of thinking are harder to cope with. We can't even keep a lasting peace with the AAnn or main­tain psychological peace among our own kind. What makes you think that we're ready to deal with hundreds, maybe thousands of new sentient species, at least one of whom is not just more advanced than we are but in­conceivably more advanced? Beings who push worlds around like cookie crumbs."

  "There's nothing magical about this." He indicated the terminal. "Once the principles are understood, we can manufacture our own and access the tunnel network with them. I have yet to hear of a piece of engineering that dedicated research couldn't break down."