by Ben Jeapes
End of story.
The light faded away and there was only darkness where previously Julia’s imagination told her there had been dispossessed populations, natural catastrophes, epic battles and slaughter, and yet there had only been one Rustie, some fires and a clever use of shadows.
“Is that it?” Peter said.
“Arm Wild,” said Julia, “if we stand up and clap our hands together vigorously, will it cause offence?”
“It will not,” Arm Wild said. So she did, standing up and clapping furiously until her hands were sore. “Your own hands. I see.”
Julia was bewildered by Peter’s lack of reaction. “Come on, Pete, don’t say you weren’t impressed,” she said.
He shrugged. “It was all right.”
All right! Julia fumed. She shouldn’t blame the poor boy – raised on Mars, of all places, and growing up in an artificial, high-tech environment. He couldn’t appreciate what he had just seen – a low-tech virtual reality. As far as she could tell, the spotlight at the start had been the only artificial effect: the rest had just been fire and shadows. But the effect, the effect!
Lights came up to illuminate the whole area and once more the theatre was just a rocky bowl. Julia felt the same sense of let-down as at the end of a human play, when the show is over and the auditorium is just a large room again. Leaf Ruby was climbing down from its ledge, head first, as nimble as a monkey. When it reached the bottom it trotted towards them.
“Leaf Ruby says it is elated you enjoyed the performance,” said Arm Wild. “I have told it that the noise caused by your actions indicates appreciation, the louder the better.”
“Tell Leaf Ruby I have never seen anything like it,” Julia said. “Tell him ... it ... whatever that I’m amazed, impressed ... you get the idea.”
And she was. She could only guess at the power of Leaf Ruby’s verbal delivery but the light show alone was enough to stun a human crowd. The first thing that her cross-cultural institute would do would be to study Rustie fulltalk and see how, if at all, its devices could be applied to humans.
Arm Wild said passed the message on. “It thanks you and hopes to talk to you some more, but meanwhile has business to attend to.”
They strolled slowly out of the amphitheatre and back towards the town, enjoying the movement in their limbs: amazingly, the performance had taken nearly two hours. Julia poured coffees from her backpack for herself and Peter and they sipped at them as they walked.
“Did Leaf Ruby write the show?” Julia asked.
“No. The original was written shortly after the events described, commissioned by the Senior of the Alpine clan.”
“But the interpretation was Leaf Ruby’s?”
“The performance was a reflection of Leaf Ruby’s native talent,” Arm Wild said, which Julia took as a ‘yes’.
“But why did the Alpine clan join in?” Peter said. “It didn’t sound like they had any interest at all.”
“They and the Bay Coast clan were of the same nation,” Arm Wild said: a fact that must have been self-explanatory to the Rusties. “The Peninsula clan were alone, cut off from their own nation by the fires.”
“There were a lot of nations, once?”
“There were many.”
Four hundred years, Julia thought. Four hundred years ago it had been 1749: the United States was still an impossible dream; Handel was writing the Firework Music; the British were carving out their Indian empire. It thrilled her that while all that had been going on, these events too had been happening, unguessed at and unknowable on Earth yet all too real and made solid by that evening’s show.
“Why did the Peninsula clan accept their defeat so readily?” she asked. “Their Seniors were all put to death and they meekly accepted new Seniors from a foreign clan being imposed on them.”
“Because it was the inclination of the greater whole,” Arm Wild said. “No pride would ever resent its Senior. The concept is, excuse me, entirely alien.”
“Very democratic,” said Peter.
“No, not democratic,” Arm Wild said. “As I understand democracy, the minority may give in to the majority but they will continue to harbour their private opinions and resentments, and take action upon them. With us, the minority is ... the concept is so clear to me, it is hard to describe ... the minority is absorbed. The majority also changes, however. Both sides meet each other halfway and there is an overall change. There is no dissension.”
“Weird!” said Julia.
“It is our way,” Arm Wild said. Another Rustie trotted up to them and spoke to Arm Wild. He turned to the two humans. “Web More asks if you would like to witness a quickening.”
“A quickening?” Peter said.
“An important moment for the pride,” said Arm Wild. “It has made enquiry and they say you are welcome to observe. An invitation like this is a gesture of friendship.”
“Just observe?” said Julia.
“Just that. You could hardly participate.”
“Why, thank you,” Julia said, “we’d love to.”
“Always wanted to see a quickening,” Peter said, glancing at Julia. She shrugged back at his enquiring expression. She didn’t know what one was, either.
Arm Wild led them to where a crowd of Rusties was gathering by one of the fires. The two humans were tall enough to stand at the back and see what was happening. There was a space in the middle of the crowd and a Rustie stood there, alone. Julia wondered if they were going to see some kind of trial.
“That is Air Quiet, the initiator,” Arm Wild said. Julia nodded as though that meant something.
The crowd parted to let another Rustie through. It walked over to Air Quiet and the two stood, facing each other.
“Wood Merry, the quickener.”
The two stood facing each other, engaged in some silent communion. Then their graspers reached out and twined around one another. Julia frowned as a thought struck her-
The Rusties reared up on their hind legs, their graspers still entwined and now their forehands grasped each other’s shoulders.
“Oh my god ...” she whispered, as she realised. She heard Peter gulp. The crowd of Rusties was clustering around the couple into a tight knot, shuffling and murmuring amongst themselves. Some were hopping up and down on all fours. The two at the centre pulled themselves towards each other into a tight embrace.
The crowd’s excitement was palpable and the typical Rustie smell was strong in the air. After about a minute, Air Quiet and Wood Merry backed off from each other, untwining and letting go. They dropped down to all fours and walked away from each other without a backwards glance.
Julia and Peter stood staring at where the scene had been. Peter was round eyed and slack jawed; Julia felt an enormous grin spread over her face.
“A very satisfactory quickening,” Arm Wild said.
“Wham bam, thank you ma’am,” Julia murmured. If she had just seen what she thought she had seen, it lacked her idea of romance.
Peter cleared his throat. Julia glanced at him and even though it was dark, she was certain he was blushing. “Arm Wild,” he said, “w-was that a ... a m-mating?”
“A mating?” Arm Wild was silent for a moment. “If I comprehend my translator properly, I infer it was what you would call a mating. We would call it a quickening. Our reproductive cycle was mentioned in the information pack.”
“Ah ...” Julia glanced at Peter, who still seemed slightly dazed. “You’ll have to refresh our memory.”
“It is very simple. When the pride needs a new member, one of its number will initiate a foetus, a clone of the initiator. When it has reached a certain stage of growth, it requires quickening – the genetic input of a different pride member. After that it will grow to term as a genetically individual First Breed. You were not aware of this?”
“We didn’t get that far in the pack,” Peter said. He seemed to have his voice back again. “Sorry. Mating ... quickening ... whatever you call it, it’s a bit more private for us.”
“That was not the impression I gained from Earth’s entertainment channels,” Arm Wild said.
“Well, it would be if you’d watched the ones on Mars.”
Julia smothered a giggle.
“I was of course cognoscent that humans had a different approach but I have never seen it done in the flesh,” Arm Wild said. “Would you two care-”
“No!” they said together.
“-to attend the naming ceremony for the child?”
They felt foolish. “Um ... the naming ceremony?” Peter said.
“In five months, when the child is born,” Arm Wild said. “It is customary for witnesses at the quickening to attend.”
They looked at each other. Julia looked back at the Rustie.
“We’d be honoured, if we’re still on the Roving in five months time,” said Julia.
“Five months, no problem,” Peter agreed.
“Excellent,” said Arm Wild.
“Who decides the name?” Julia asked.
“No one decides. Air Quiet is the initiator and Wood Merry the quickener, so the child will be Air Merry. The child does not of course know that, so must be informed, at the ceremony.”
“Your young are born able to talk?” said Julia.
“In a limited sense – bodytalk only – but yes, we can surely communicate. Excuse me, I am being called.”
Julia looked after Arm Wild as the Rustie walked away . “Fascinating,” she said.
Peter wiped his brow. “Unexpected,” he agreed. “Public mating ...”
“Quickening,” Julia corrected, with a grin. “You know, Pete, I’m finally beginning to wonder just how accurate all our preconceptions about them have been. These creatures are aliens, pure and simple, and we’ve always known that, but we still think of them as four-legged humans. Even if we don’t trust them, even if we assume they’re up to something, we still ascribe human characteristics. But they live in prides, they’re hermaphrodites, they breed to order ... look at the Peninsula clan, quietly accepting defeat like that. We don’t know the first thing about the way the Rustie mind works. Our species are so different that we just can’t assume anything about them. Anything at all.”
Julia’s aide sounded, startling her. It was a connection with the rest of the world, the tiresome and tedious world of humans and the Royal Space Fleet and the rest of it that she had almost forgotten.
“Julia Coyne,” she said.
“Three hours, Jules.” Adrian Nichol sounded irritatingly cheerful that he was about to come down and take her back to that world. She checked the time: yes, it was shortly before seven in the evening, Capital time. Later than that in the highlands, being further east. “I’m on my way down now.”
*
Adrian could see the highlands clearly from his position in Sharman, five miles up. They were on the Roving’s dark side but they were this side of the planet’s curve and they stood out clearly on radar. Sharman had mapped out the contours on the first journey and now a red trace on the display showed the optimum course for him to take to pick up his passengers. The autopilot had already picked up on it.
A fiery streak blazed past the viewports and erupted into a fireball a mile ahead of him. Adrian yelped and hauled at the stick to avoid the explosion, and something large and dark flashed over Sharman. Radar showed nothing but by the light of the Roving’s big moon he caught the shape of a landing boat circling around him. He thought he caught a glimpse of circular insignia on the wings, before he was dazzled by the flare of the intruder’s exhausts.
“Pull up and return to orbit,” said a voice in his earphones. A human voice, as far as he could tell. And the design of the boat that he had glimpsed was human too.
“Who are you?” Adrian shouted.
“Irrelevant. Pull up and return to orbit.”
“I- I have to pick up two crew-”
“We’ll do that.” The voice was toneless. “Pull up and return to orbit. We are armed-” As if to prove the point, another missile flew past. “-and we can enforce our orders.”
“I-” Adrian swallowed. He glanced up, picturing the attractive emptiness of orbit, then ahead into the dark, picturing his two friends waiting for him. “I understand,” he said. “Complying.” He pulled at the stick slightly and Sharman’s nose tilted up. He swallowed; then at the same time cut all power to the main engines and fired the forward thrusters. He lurched forward in his seat and the straps tightened around him as Sharman stopped dead in the air, then plummeted. As the nose came down he fired the main engines again at full power, and the boat accelerated at full thrust towards the mountains below.
There was a bellow in his earphones before he broke contact, but he ignored it. Whoever was behind him was armed, but they didn’t know the terrain. They didn’t have a map of the highlands already programmed into their flight computers, and that would surely give him the advantage.
He tried to open a comms channel: he was being jammed. So, he would just have to get there first.
*
Julia and Peter continued talking to Leaf Ruby, with Arm Wild interpreting, as they made their way back to the landing site. Leaf Ruby could not ask enough questions and though it confessed that the music played through Julia’s aide left it cold, it insisted that it be provided with an audio copy and the score of several pieces so that it could study the notation and see how it worked. It hoped it could visit Earth one day and witness some musical performances.
They were in the tree tunnel that led to the landing ground, and Arm Wild broke step and looked back at Peter. “Disregard them, Peter Kirton. They are just animals.”
Four diminutive creatures were gathered at the foot of a tree and Peter had paused next to them to watch. They looked so similar to Arm Wild and the others that Julia thought they must be young Rusties; they were certainly more like the real thing than the carvings back on the pridehall. Arm Wild’s comment intrigued her: did Rusties only gain intelligence with adulthood? No, he had already said ... She looked at them more closely. Maybe they were slightly different from Rustie babies, though the distinction wasn’t obvious. One of them, the largest, was standing on its hind legs, straining to reach what looked like some fruit overhead while the others looked on.
Peter picked the fruit and held it down to them. “Here you are, big fella,” he said. The little creature took it in its mouth – no graspers, Julia noticed – and its friends gathered round, each taking a bite from the fruit. The one holding it gulped down the remainder. With Peter now identified in their minds as a source of food they clustered round him, then froze with their ears pricked up.
Julia heard it too. The sound of boat engines, come to steal her from this wonderful place. The small creatures fled into the bushes.
Peter came over to them. “Just animals?” he said. “I’d thought they might be children.”
“Children?” Arm Wild exclaimed. He made a rumbling in his throat, which could have been laughter or swearing but either way was not translated. “Conceivably I should not be surprised: it is said that one of our contact teams on Earth had the same misunderstanding about chimpanzees and humans.”
They looked at the bushes where the small creatures had gone.
“You’re descended from them?” Peter said.
“No, and you are not descended from chimpanzees,” Arm Wild said, “but there is a close relationship. Come.”
The landing boat making the noise was approaching fast. Very fast.
- 17 -
21 May 2149
Sharman was fast and nippy, while the enemy had missiles. If those missiles were heat-seeking then the advantage, Adrian thought as the boat charged towards the ground, was probably with the enemy.
Then his fingers brushed the gold wings on his uniform. Gold wings. He was proud of those: they weren’t just handed out at random.
He had already planned his entry into the highlands – a pass that loomed dead ahead, according to radar. He had no idea if the attackers were behind him;
radar still showed nothing and Sharman wasn’t designed to combat stealth tech. He thought for a moment of the state-of-the-art detection equipment back on the old Australasia, purpose-built to pinpoint scuttlers in the depths of space ... but there was no point in wishing.
He lurched Sharman from side to side, still keeping the same heading; he was probably flying faster than the others, and was most likely making better speed than a missile could, but there was no harm in doing a bit of extra shaking off.
Then he was into the pass, hurtling through at 200 feet with the shockwave of the boat’s passing echoing off the rocky walls. Bad luck if he caused an avalanche and it fell on someone, but he hadn’t started this.
A missile hit the side of the pass behind him and he increased speed a notch, then banked as hard as he could into a side valley. G-forces pushed him into his seat but he had done worse racing flyers like this back on Mars, through the canyons that skirted the Tharsis plateau. That was where he had got his gold wings. He came out of the turn and whooped with glee.
It was easy, really. The computer had the course to the pick-up point plotted, and with every turn he took it recalculated. The difficult bit was in deciding when to override the computer, which lacked a facility for being informed it was under attack. Adrian made a mental note to get Peter to upgrade the navigation AI one day.
Now the computer was telling him to turn between two peaks, but looking ahead he could see that course would take him over a flat plateau where he would be a sitting duck for the attackers. He ignored it and turned instead into a blind valley that ended in a gentle, saddle-backed ridge. He could dart over the ridge and still not rise higher than the valley sides. Radar was picking out the ridge’s lines for him and he pulled gently back on the stick to clear it-
