A half meter away, the second lichen cover raised itself and proved to be a squat little boy, younger than the one Colley had caught before, and strikingly like the adult male. It, too, moved its head left and right – even faster – then also quickly reached into its garment, pulled out something, and began to chew on it.
“Hello!” Ay’r said softly, without moving. He slowly turned his wrist toward the two, not wanting to frighten off the curious duo, but wanting to tune in to any language they might possess through the Universal Gal. Lex. translator. He had to admit that, standing there, looking him over so obviously and chewing their dried mushrooms so busily, they looked anything but easily frightened.
“Wal-oo-lol!” the elder said in a high voice.
Was that hello? Wasn’t his wrist piece working?
“Hello!” he said again, as softly as possible.
“Oo-lol-oo,” the younger one said in an even higher-pitched voice.
Those were their names! Ay’r was sure of it. He pointed to each of them and repeated the words they had said, and then said his first name and pointed to himself. He added quickly, “Stranger. No harm to Wal-oo-lol. No harm to Oo-lol-oo. Visitor. Come now. Go soon. No harm.”
“Stranger! No harm to Oo-lol-oo. Come now. Go soon,” the elder repeated quickly and in that curious, almost birdlike combination of high-pitched voice and jerky rapid avian head gestures, emphasized by spitting out his bit of mushroom – for now that’s what Ay’r was certain it was – and reaching quickly for another piece in his garment, which he promptly got into his mouth and began to chew. “Mushroom-Eaters no harm!”
“Mushroom-Eaters! That’s who you are!”
“Lichen-covered, crawling Mushroom-Eaters,” the younger cheeped almost in a trill, spitting out his bit of mushroom and replacing it with another piece.
’Dward saw what was happening, but he slowly approached, and as soon as Ay’r sensed him, ’Dward backed off, sat down, and watched from a distance. The other four travelers began to watch, but only P’al came nearer and finally took up a position behind Ay’r.
Ay’r was having to utilize all of his Spec. Eth. training to continue to enlarge on the conversation with the Mushroom-Eaters – not only to ensure their intentions and an untroubled night, but also for information. These two seemed alert enough, yet their language skills – and apparently also their conceptual abilities – were far more primitive than any other Drylander he had yet encountered. Ay’r had to fall back on his studies of the N’Kiddim to try to comprehend the Mushroom-Eaters’ universe.
“Ask them about the observatory!” P’al said. “Ask them if we’re on the right road.”
“How can I?” Ay’r snapped irritably, “We’ve not yet gotten to an understanding of any concept even close to buildings or roads.”
“You mean they don’t know where they are?” ’Dward asked.
“What they seem to understand best is fungi: the different varieties, where they grow best, whether they’re good to eat or not.”
“Mycophages,” P’al said abstractly. Then, suddenly, “Ser Kerry, I recall something on mycophagic cultures from my perusal of some Species Ethnology texts during the period when you and Mer Clark were in cryostasis. An early colony upon Algenib Terce. They were more sophisticated of course, but ...”
“I remember!” Ay’r said. “Their worldview was perceived of completely in terms of the sizes, textures, and shapes and growing seasons related to their fungi. Only when Spec. Eth.s shared their food ...”
He looked at the two in front of him. They were emissaries, also explorers, the child probably brought along because, although primitive, these Mycophages had already learned that Ay’r and his group didn’t harm children; and so they supposed that adults were safe as long as children were present. Interesting ... Delphinids believed the same thing.
As did Bella=Arth.s. In fact of all the species, only early Metro.-Terran Humes hadn’t believed that, but had warred upon infants as well as adults. What a wondrous piece of work is Hume, Ay’r recalled hearing quoted in some Ed. & Dev. seminar. Wondrous, all right! Was Humeity’s infanticide part of that wonder? Or of that wondrous adaptability that had allowed the species to dominate the galaxy?
“I’ll have to eat some of that mushroom they’re chewing on,” he said to P’al. “I suspect it contains an alkaline substance that will induce mental euphoria or some similar state. But it’s the only way I’ll be able to understand them and communicate fully.”
Before the others could comment or stop him, Ay’r made an elaborate gesture of reaching into his own garment and coming up with something to eat, which he put to his lips. As one, the two Mycophages spat theirs out and reached rapidly for fresh pieces to chew. Ay’r then showed his garment empty, his hand empty, his mouth empty.
The smaller one understood first, and tentatively offered a piece of the mushroom from its own garment. Well, that was a start: they understood the concept of giving. But as Ay’r reached for it, Oo-lol-oo drew back his hand quickly, and Ay’r had to reach quickly to catch the mushroom before it touched the ground. He then put it where his imaginary garment sack was, reached for it, and put it into his mouth. In reaction, the two nodded their heads rapidly with what he assumed was approval.
Musk and bitterness immediately filled his mouth from the nibble.
As he chewed, Ay’r felt the bitterness turn to salt on his tongue, quickly dulling those taste buds, and become sweet, yet still rich and musky. He took another nibble and continued to eat, all the while trying to imitate the Mycophages’ head gestures. Speaking low to P’al he said, “Some sort of procaine or psilocaine, given the way it’s numbing my mouth.”
“Expect a sudden onslaught of the drug,” P’al suggested, just as Ay’r felt some inhibitor-receptor somewhere in his brain reverse action suddenly. It sounded almost like an internal snap. snap. Then light flooded in sharply. Ay’r closed his eyes in a perfectly useless reaction. When he opened them again he could see clearly, yet everything, including the now-smiling Mycophages, had a particular aura or glow to it. The succulents glowed only a little, and only at their edges, but the lichen covering glimmered unevenly, and with more evident energy. Even more uneven, even jaggedly irregular, was the glow surrounding the two Mycophages, and when Ay’r turned to look at ’Dward, the youth’s head was in the midst of a mass of jagged thorny halo. P’al’s aura was a bit less jagged.
Ay’r recognized that he was seeing some kind of life force emanation, but at the same time, a thought force: the more temperate P’al showed up calmer than the adolescent ’Dward.
He began describing it, but P’al asked him to speak more slowly. P’al sounded awfully slow himself, and Ay’r couldn’t understand why such simple concepts were so difficult for the highly intelligent P’al to understand, when he heard a new voice.
“You understand quickly, visitor. Now that we understand each other, you may tell us what your purpose is here in our hills.”
Ay’r looked at the adult but he wasn’t the speaker. It was the younger of the two. The reason Ay’r had heard their voices as so high-pitched before must be related to the speed at which they spoke.
“Our purpose is to find the Recorder in his observatory,” Ay’r said. “We aren’t certain we’re on the right road.”
Behind him, Ay’r could vaguely make out P’al and ’Dward droning on about something.
“It was the right road, but now it appears ...” Ay’r stopped.
The Mycophage child said, “Once the road ran this way. But mountain slides blocked it. You must go around another way.”
“Tonight we’ll rest here. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. You are our guests. Eat any mushrooms you may find.”
“This male is your father?”
“Yes, but I am spokesman. Note that although he isn’t aged, he already begins to be dull and insipid. It’s an effect of too many years of eating the drug. We younger ones lead the tribe, make its decisions, deal with
visitors. Some visitors once came this way, before you. Long ago, in my father’s father’s youth,” Oo-lol-oo said. “To visit the Recorder. We live near the observatory. Ours is a scouting party. We heard you coming from a long way off.”
“They’re good folk, I think,” Wal-oo-lol said. “This one said he meant no harm to you.”
“Yes, Begetter.” The more-alert younger Mycophage was courteous to his slower-witted parent. “They’re good folk.”
“And they seek the Recorder?”
“Yes, Begetter. Tonight they’ll stay here. Tomorrow the younger ones and I will lead them to the Recorder.”
Both continued to chew and spit out the mushrooms.
“How long does the effect of the mushroom last?” Ay’r asked.
“Not long. A few minutes. Keep what I gave you. Use it tomorrow when we meet again. It will aid communication during the travel time.”
The younger Mycophage spat a final time and gestured to his father. Both bent their heads so the lichen cover obscured their faces, then dropped slowly to their knees, hands, and elbows. What had seemed a fluid motion when Ay’r hadn’t been under the influence of the mushroom was now clearly a series of discrete motions.
“Until tomorrow,” Ay’r said.
“Ttthhheeeeyyy’rrrre gggggoooonnnne!” he heard P’al say.
Ay’r tried to tell P’al what he and the Mycophages had talked about and that all was well, but it was some time before the mushroom drug wore off, and he could tell all.
“Father will be amused to hear that the children rule,” ’Dward said. He clapped Ay’r on the shoulder and hugged him, saying, “This is a wonderful adventure. I hope it never ends.”
“Over this last rise lies our village and the observatory,” Oo-lol-oo instructed.
The Mycophage was riding atop Colley, his small body held in place by Ay’r. It had taken Ay’r some persuasion earlier to get Oo-lol-oo even to go near the coleopteroid, but like any child, once he’d been hoisted up and had ridden a bit, he enjoyed it thoroughly.
Their journey had taken all morning and most of the afternoon, since they had to retrace a good portion of the path of steep gullies they had taken the previous day before turning through what seemed to be a completely unmarked path – nothing but a sward of succulents – to arrive at a spot that the Mycophage pointed out was directly behind the escarpment where they had camped for the night.
Unfortunately for the Ib’rs, clouds had rolled in shortly after sunset, so they had not seen the wonders of a clear sky in darkness. Fatigued from the drug in the mushroom he had eaten, Ay’r had begun to sleep heavily minutes after eating supper, but he had awakened once during the night. From his position inside Colley’s wingfold, with Oudma curled up close to him, he had looked up and seen what appeared to be two high, distant lights attempting to break through the cloud cover and had thought they must be Pelagia’s moons, before he had sunk back into slumber. He had mentioned this to Oo-lol-oo the next morning, and the Mycophage had assured Ay’r they would have clear skies and plenty of moonlight this night.
The observatory had been built on a promontory that jutted out substantially from the land, a spot selected by the original Cyber-guardians sent by the Aldebaran Five for its freedom from most weather. Already the travelers and their Mycophage guides had threaded through deep crevasses separating two of the triple peaks and had reached a high cliffside ocean environment far brighter in coloring and growth, the dull-colored succulents sparser, with pale lichen now dominating along with tall, thin-stalked, tufted grass. There was a true breeze, the first Ay’r could recall feeling on Dryland, and even the briny hint of the sea.
The site had been chosen for more than its weather and its distance from other Humes; it had also been selected for its inaccessibility. It was only when the three coleopteroids ascended the “last rise” and reached what seemed to be a final blank-walled ridge, behind which lay nothing but sky and, far off, the deeper blue of ocean, that Ay’r realized how inaccessible it was.
Already several of the younger Mycophages had sped through the tufted grass ahead toward the ridge and began disappearing somehow through its middle.
Ay’r and Oudma were the first to approach and see how the ridge separated into two overlapping sections with just enough room between for a single Colley to pass through. This slot could be closed or defended easily if need be. Beyond, the path opened and angled down several meters.
Before them lay a flat platform shaped like an elongated rhomboid, its point over the ocean. The two sides closest to the entry were set against steeply sloping mountainsides, and Ay’r could just make out long horizontal rock ledges where the slopes almost touched the ground, under which galleries of a sort had been carved out, either by nature or by Hume, and into which the younger Mycophages who had accompanied them now scurried, while others – elders and women – ventured out to see the visitors.
But it was the object at the far end of the promontory that immediately grabbed Ay’r’s attention. It seemed at first glance a rock, an enormous chunk of palely gleaming semiprecious stone, cut and faceted on all sides, so natural that it seemed part of its setting. Only when Colley came closer did Ay’r realize that it must be the observatory, which must have been designed by intelligent Cybers millennia ago when they had first arrived upon Pelagia – constructed of giant blocks of polished mica, quartzite, chalcedony, even jasper and topaz found at hand or quarried nearby.
Only when he had dismounted Colley and walked right up to it, did Ay’r notice that the enormous jewel construction grew out of – or was somehow set into – a foundation stone that rose out of the oceanside edge of the platform itself – a giant, irregular, vertically soaring column of granite. The observatory rested atop and around the column a good ten meters off the ground, its bulk cantilevered over the ocean. Its opaque faceted walls reflected sunlight. Some kind of webbed ladder rose from beneath and disappeared into an aperture almost directly below its center. Oo-lol-oo said that was how they would enter. He seemed hesitant and admitted that he had been inside only once. But he was leader of the Myco.-folk and it was his duty to introduce the guests.
“On any planet in the Matriarchy, this place would be considered a wonder,” Alli Clark told ’Harles, as they followed Ay’r up the shaky ladder. Because of the rocklike solidity of the outside of the observatory, Ay’r had expected to ascend into darkness. Instead, he stepped into a chamber so filled with light of so many differing tints and levels of brightness, coming in at so many different angles and crossing one another in complex and evershifting polygons of floating light, that Ay’r was disoriented, dazzled.
When the others had all come up, they stood in a long, brightly lit chamber that seemed to run the entire length of the observatory, divided into two levels: the one upon which they stood was a meter below an encircling higher ledge. A series of steps rose to the higher level, along which Ay’r made out what seemed to be a triple series of lines running its full length, as though it were scored or stained by some object.
While he allowed his eyes to adjust to the changing, multicolored light, Ay’r saw large objects built into this lower platform, the functions of which he couldn’t make out – they might be closed-up consoles containing almost anything. Slowly, however, he was able to see out through the jeweled walls, and it was now obvious exactly what the Cyber-builders had intended: the entire edifice was transparent from within: Ay’r could see details of the rope ladder and the ground below his feet, the sun above his head, the ocean in the distance. It was like being inside an enormous all-seeing eye.
Oo-lol-oo scampered up and approached a dark object at the farthest end. He appeared to be speaking. After a minute, he scurried back and reported, “The Recorder will see you soon. He asks that you become comfortable.”
“Sit here.” The Mycophage child looked around, and finding one of the longer, more rectangular consoles, he tapped its side. In an instant a lid opened up, revealing a long seat. He went about touching mor
e consoles, until another sofa-seat, a low table, and even a Cyber food-and-drink center were opened and ready to be used. Such furnishings could be found in starport lounges all over the galaxy, and so were not entirely unfamiliar to Ay’r and his companions. P’al and Alli Clark showed the Ib’r family how to use them, and naturally ’Dward was completely fascinated and wanted to know every detail of the mechanisms.
With everyone else involved, Ay’r caught Oo-lol-oo just as he was about to vanish down the ladder and out of the building.
“I’ll return with other leaders shortly,” the Mycophage said.
“May I get a closer look at the Recorder?” Ay’r asked, unsure whether the Recorder was Hume or Cyber, male or female.
“Yes, but don’t disturb him.”
Ay’r quietly walked to the edge of the lower platform and, making pains not to disturb the Recorder, went up the stairs and along the platform until he was a few meters away.
The Recorder, a Hume male, was half-seated, half-standing in a construction of either flexible matte-colored metal or of some dense multiester alloy that had preceded the use of Plastro. It held the Recorder’s body in what Ay’r recognized as the standard Hume-in-comfort-and-security position long ago found to be best for long-term use. The Recorder’s thin torso and legs suggested either that he needed to use the “chair” because of some physical deformity, or that he had used it for so long that his limbs had atrophied. His apparel was a single-piece overall in synthetic cloth of non-reflective dark blue commonly seen in PVNs detailing the lives of Humes of the early Matriarchy era.
He seemed to be concentrating on a spot outside the observatory, somewhere over the wide expanse of ocean, and Ay’r noted that his facial features weren’t unlike those of most of the Drylanders Ay’r and his companions had encountered: flaxen hair and pale skin that aged and wrinkled easily. His eyes would probably be like theirs – blue or gray – but they were covered by a visor that appeared to arise out of the chair itself and half encircled the Recorder’s head with thick panes of multihued lenses tilted at odd angles, similar to the external shape of the observatory. Both of his long, thin arms were attached by bracelet manacles of the same shape and prismatic material to fixed arms of the “chair,” with enough give for the fingers to tap freely and rapidly upon what looked to Ay’r like an electronic strip. Attached to the strip on the left was a narrow electronic screen that Ay’r recognized as an old-fashioned “Cyber-mate.”
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