Quintessence

by David Walton

  This is how it's supposed to work, she thought, forming the words in her mind.

  Yes, came the immediate reply. An idea more than a word, but her mind translated it to English. Here, among the stars, with life in your blood, we can be kin.

  An image appeared in her mind of a crowd of tamarins gathering in the woods and pressing close, touching tails. She knew without being told that this was Chichirico's experience of returning to his tribe. In the space of a moment, Chichirico summarized the story of the previous night, as clear as if it were her own memory.

  His return had divided the tribe, some happy to see him, others angry. He had re- formed the bond with his memory family, but this meant strange and confusing memories— Catherine's—were now mixed with their own. A few of them resented this alien incursion into their family's memory life, some so much that they abandoned the family and began a new one.

  Catherine tried to send an image back, a picture of the bones of the original settlers scattered in the diamond- walled church, as a way of asking what had happened to them. She had never seen the bones or the church, so it was driven entirely by her imagination and other people's descriptions, but Chichirico seemed to understand. He sent her back an answering image that was so strong, it swept her up inside it.

  SHE was a tamarin. A red tamarin, but not Chichirico. A female from his memory family. She was climbing through the forest upside down, using the hooks on her hind legs. The branches were covered with dead brown curls that smelled like honey and crunched as she moved. Catherine was struck by how different the sounds were than in an English forest. There were birdcalls, but they were unfamiliar screeches and wet gurgling noises. The rustling of animals in the treetops was muted by the dense mossy foliage, and when the wind blew, the layers of dead foliage rattled.

  Catherine—or rather, the tamarin whose memories she was reliving— missed Chichirico. She had been his friend and lover. She understood why he had chosen to go with the ship. The hairless ones were like weak infants in some ways, but in other ways they were strong, and more of them would come. If the hairless ones allied with them, it would make them that much stronger against their enemies.

  It was an accepted practice to give over a son of one tribe to another tribe, to bond with them. The two tribes gained a new connection with each other and were more likely to keep the peace.

  So far, the gray tamarins had dominated trade with the hairless ones. The jewelry, ornaments, and clothing were rare and different than anything they could make, and they became symbols of rank and status among them. More importantly, though, were the metal knives and axes that could cut wood quickly and stay sharp, the traps and snare wires that could be used to catch game, and kettles to carry and boil water. The hairless ones also showed them how to brew alcohol, which had an even more dramatic effect on the tamarins than it did on them. The grays guarded their nearly exclusive access jealously, and traded with other tamarins deeper in the island, becoming more powerful and influential among the other tribes. They used this influence to expand their own territory and push others away from long- established hunting grounds.

  After Chichirico went with them, the balance of trade had changed, and the red tamarins were given preference. The grays must have decided that the best way to keep their power was to exterminate the hairless ones and take all the goods for themselves. As she crept closer to the village, she heard the sounds of their guns firing. By the time she reached the clearing, it was too late. The hairless ones had made their last stand in the church with their useless guns. As far as she could tell, not a single gray tamarin had been so much as scratched. The hairless ones were all dead.

  The grays raced through the village, snatching up clothes and tools and guns. They had been welcomed into the village as traders and friends, but they left it as killers.

  The vision faded, and Catherine was once again in her dim cabin on the ship with Chichirico. She shuddered at the memory of the bloody corpses, still warm as the gray tamarins looted their possessions.

  Are the grays still strong? she asked.

  In this part of the island, they are. They have had many children and taken many sons of other tribes. Many other tribes pay them tribute.

  What about your tribe?

  Chichirico looked proud. My tribe does not enslave itself to others.

  What does your chief think about us being here?

  He is dead.

  Dead? You have no leader?

  The position passes to his oldest living son.

  Who is his oldest living son?

  Chichirico gazed at her with somber eyes. I am.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  JOHN Marcheford mobilized a team to remove the bones from the church and scrub the pews and floors until the bloodstains were gone. They cleared some land beyond the palisade to use as a graveyard. It was impossible to separate the bones into those belonging to individuals, so they buried them all together and left a gold marker with the name of their ship and the date.

  Sinclair hated funerals, but he knew he had to attend. Marcheford preached from Psalm 103: "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more."

  The words disturbed him. How was it supposed to be comforting to remind everyone that their lives were short? Sinclair could see the void again, expanding, devouring the distillery. He thought of John Gibbs's atomist theory, that the whole material world was nothing but tiny specks floating through nothingness. He hated it. It made existence seem so . . . tenuous. What if the specks just drifted away? For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. . . .

  One of the first expeditions he planned to make, once they were settled, was to the westernmost edge of the island. He wanted to do it, but his stomach twisted at the thought. He feared he would peer over the edge and find that the whole world was just a thin crust hanging precariously over the infinite, empty void.

  When the funeral ended, Catherine and Stephen Parris waved and caught his eye. Parris suggested privacy, so they walked away from the crowd. "Catherine saw Chichirico again last night," he said.

  "He was a son of the chief," Catherine said. "The chief and his older sons all died fighting the grays, and Chichirico's younger brother Tanakiki has been leading the tribe. Now that Chichirico is back, he's supposed to be the chief. But after all the time he's spent with humans, a lot of the reds don't even want him in the tribe, never mind as their leader. The others think his connection to us will finally give them the power to defeat the grays."

  Sinclair groaned. "We haven't even moved in yet, and we're already embroiled in their politics."

  "What should we do?" Parris said.

  "Don't make deals with any of them. Maintain a fair trade with all, as much as we can."

  "Won't that just make them all angry?"

  "Maybe. But we can't please them all, either. The trick is not to make any of them angry enough to kill us."

  DIAMOND homes were far easier to make than the normal variety. Walls of packed mud, hastily erected, could be transformed into immovable, beautiful ramparts by ladling water from the ponds over them. New houses sprang up in days.

  Sinclair gave Parris his pick, and he selected one of the nicest original homes near the church. At Catherine's request, Blanca continued to live with them and shared a room with Catherine. Catherine, however, barely spent two minutes inside. She flitted from place to place across the settlement, eager that no one should learn anything about the new world without her knowing it first.

  When Parris began to make exploratory forays into the forest, he brought her with him. Her excitement over new discoveries was infectious. Every day they found something new. A bird that nested inside solid rock to keep its young from predators. A jet- black lizard that grew bristly hair every night to insulate its body, then shed it every afternoon before basking in the blazing evening sun. Many animals changed color or coat between morning and evening
to protect against the dramatic temperature swings.

  As the weeks went by, the settlement turned from a huddle of frightened passengers to a thriving town. Two- and three- story houses were everywhere, larger than most had lived in at home. Red tamarins visited in small groups, but the grays never did. The reds showed the settlers which plants were good to eat and which were dangerous, in return for tools and other manufactured goods from Eu rope. A few people began to learn their language and engage them in trade.

  Matthew Marcheford rarely left the settlement, but Parris and Catherine brought back specimens of what ever animals they could catch. It turned into a rivalry between her and Matthew to think up practical ways to use their unique qualities. Parris wasn't sure of which of them he was more proud.

  They found a tiny rodent that they named a Samson mouse, because it made its den by piling up rocks three times its size. Catherine made a pair of Samson gloves with its hide and teeth that allowed men to lift objects far heavier than themselves.

  Matthew, however, discovered that the fruit of the mimicry tree could be induced to grow into other kinds of trees when planted, and soon the colony had groves of priceless cinnamon, nutmeg, and sandalwood trees, as well as apples, pears, and oranges. If they ever solved the problem of getting their treasures home, Horizon would make England the richest nation on earth.

  Other colonists became interested in their work and began to make discoveries of their own. Accidents were common. Parris decided to form a Quintessence Society to share discoveries and regulate experimentation. Gibbs and Kecilpenny were two of the first to join.

  Sinclair didn't object to the Society, but he refused to participate, preferring to perform his experiments alone. It was typical of an alchemist, but aggravating. The way to expand understanding was with open communication, not with secrecy, and the nonparticipation of the colony's governor meant the Society could only suggest rules for safe experimentation, not regulate them.

  The most wonderful of the Society's successes— discovered by Catherine this time— was a use for the sand tortoise beyond roasting it in its shell. The creature ate sand, which seemed impossible— what nourishment could it find? But two months after their first meal of tortoise, she found a corkscrew organ on the tortoise's neck that actually transformed the sand into something very much like grain on the way down its throat. The grain turned out to be nutritious for humans, too, and delicious. If the corkscrew— a bony spiral with a speck of quintessence not unlike the ironfish skull— was removed from a dead tortoise, it still worked. Soon their tables were laden with breads and cakes made entirely from sand.

  "We've come full circle," Parris said at a meeting of the new Society.

  "What do you mean?" Gibbs said.

  They met in the church, now free of blood and bones, which doubled as a meeting place for any kind of colony business. The basic design of the architecture was simple— more like a large barn than a cathedral— but there was no denying the majesty of the high diamond walls and roof, refracting the sunlight into a thousand intersecting colored beams. Parris stood at the front, moderating conversation, while the rest sat loosely scattered in the front pews.

  "We're all eating sand," he said. "Chelsey's expedition must have done the same thing. They stocked the ship for the return journey with food made from sand. Only it transformed back again on the way, including what was already in their bodies."

  "Because they traveled too far from the sky," Kecilpenny said. "Aristotle said quintessence radiates from the sun and stars, and here on Horizon we're almost close enough to touch them."

  "Then we're following in the footsteps of dead men," Gibbs said. "If it's the stars we need, we'll never go home."

  "Yes, we will," Matthew said. "It's just another puzzle to solve."

  "Not if quintessence really comes from the sun and the stars. What can we do about that?"

  "We just have to learn how to take the sun and the stars with us."

  There was some muttering at this, but no one could deny that Matthew and Catherine had already accomplished things that, a few months ago, no one would have thought possible.

  Parris was as proud of Matthew as if he'd been his own son. In fact, judging by the time he spent with Catherine, Matthew would be his son before long. Matthew sat at his ease among his elders in the Society, answering questions with confidence, and Parris wondered how it made his real father feel.

  John Marcheford didn't like the culture of the colony. He disapproved of the colonists' obsession with gold and diamonds and spices and their furor to bend the power of quintessence to their will. He held services in the church on Sundays, which were well attended, but he refused to live inside the settlement walls. Kecilpenny, who had been a vicar in England, performed the duties of Christian minister for the rest of the week. Marcheford built a rough house with his own hands several miles distant, where he lived alone and tried to evangelize the tamarins and reputedly had even made some converts. He had expected Matthew to go along with him, but Matthew had refused.

  This early in the day, the distant sun was still small, and the church was dim. For light, they used a jar filled with worms. They had discovered these worms living inside the beetlewood trees, gnawing tiny tunnels through the trunks. Why worms that lived inside of trees should need to give off such a blazing bright light that they needed to wrap the jar in cloth to be able to look at it at all was a mystery, but it made for a convenient source of illumination, even in the middle of the night. Kecilpenny had named them Shekinah flatworms.

  "Presentations," Parris said, interrupting casual conversation. "Who's first?" He dipped his quill in an inkpot. He could have asked someone else to scribe for the meetings, of course, but he preferred to do it himself. He didn't trust anyone else to document thoroughly enough.

  John Cole was the group's cartographer. He presented a map of the parts of Horizon they had so far explored, with different- colored dyes representing the beetlewood forest, the thicker jungles to the east, the foothills of the mountains to the north, and to the west, beyond the bay, a rocky incline leading up to the final, endless precipice: the Edge of the World. He urged explorers to keep better records of their travels, to add to the general understanding. There was little incentive for most of them to keep careful maps since, as long as they brought a beetle with them, they could always use its unerring sense of direction to find their way back to the beetlewood forest and home.

  Tobias Huddleston, who had been a bricklayer in London, presented drawings of a predatory reptile the size of an ox that could make itself light enough to float through the air. It hunted on the western plains, using the wind to drift over the large grazing mammals that cropped the grasses there. Once in position, it plummeted, crushing its prey under its new weight. Huddleston theorized— somewhat recklessly, in Parris's opinion— that they might use some part of this reptile's body to give man the ability to fly.

  Gibbs had found a toad that, unlike many Horizon animals, did not seek shelter at dusk, when the enormous sun scorched the landscape. Instead, a gland in its neck produced an oil that it spread meticulously over its whole body with its agile feet. Gibbs had extracted the oil and spread it on his own skin, reporting that it provided remarkable protection against burns and produced a cooling sensation.

  Kecilpenny made a case for mapping Aristotle's four elements— Air, Water, Earth, and Fire— to the four categories of quintessence change they had so far identified. It was a traditional scholarly argument, full of symbolic reasoning and reference to ancient writings, with no experimentation or testable criteria. It was, however, decidedly Aristotelian, and raised the old argument again: Aristotle vs. atomism. Most of the Society was in Kecilpenny's camp, but a vocal minority agreed with Gibbs.

  "What good is a theory that only explains half of what we see?" Kecilpenny said. "Perhaps the tamarins' passing through walls can be explained with atoms, but turning invisible? Light can't be made of atoms. And what about the tamarins' mind connections? Are yo
u telling us that thoughts are composed of little bits of matter?"

  "What if they are?" Gibbs said.

  Kecilpenny rolled his eyes. "The tamarins send thoughts across long distances, much farther and faster than any matter can travel."

  "So can we," Gibbs said. "With the bell- boxes." They had worked out a rudimentary alphabet with patterns of rings, and though it was slow, they could now send any message at all from one box to another.

  "That's not the same," Kecilpenny said.

  "It's very much the same. Quintessence allows two shards of bone to be paired, regardless of how small we cut them. When the atoms in one piece are altered, the state of the atoms in the other piece changes, no matter how far apart they are. That means we can alter matter to transmit complex thought."

  "In code," Kecilpenny said. "With words. It's like shouting across the room. That's not thought. Thought is something—"