Far-Seer qa-1

by Robert J. Sawyer

  "They must; they move in circular paths. The farthest apparent distance from the planet indicates the radius of that circular path."

  N’ovato was quick. She nodded. "And the rings are circular, the particles within them must be moving in their own circular paths."

  Afsan thumped his tail over the back of the bench. "Egg-shells! Think about it: I know from my observations that the farther out a moon is from a planet, the slower it moves in its circular path."

  "All right."

  "And the farther out a planet is from the sun, the slower it moves in its circular path. Kevpel revolves around the sun faster than our planet, the Face, does, and the Face revolves around the sun faster than more distant Bripel does."

  "All right."

  "So: the particles on the inside of the ring must travel faster than the particles on the outside. It couldn ’t be a solid ring: the stress between the inside parts wanting to move quickly and the outside parts wanting to move slowly would tear it apart."

  Novato closed her eyes, struggling with the concept. "I’m not sure I understand."

  "Do you have more paper?" Afsan asked.

  "Yes. There." She pointed across the room. Afsan got up, retrieved a leaf and a piece of charcoal, and returned to the bench, sitting even closer to Novato than he had been before.

  "See," he said, sketching a solid circle in the middle of the page. "This is a planet." Novato nodded. He made a dot. "Well, here’s an object moving around it in a tight circle. That object could be a particle in a ring, or it could be a moon, like the one we live on. Well, let’s say it takes one day to rotate around the planet." She nodded again. "Now, here’s an object farther out, moving around the planet in a looser circle. Again, it could be a more distant moon, or it could be a particle in the ring that’s farther out. Say this more distant one takes two days to move around the central planet." He drew the paths of the two objects, so that his planet now had two concentric circles around it.

  "So there’s a difference in the, the force, that makes the object swing around the planet, right?" said Novato. "The closer the object, the faster it wants to move in its path."

  "Exactly."

  She reached over, took the charcoal stick from his hand. "But a moon isn’t a point; not when seen through a far-seer, that’s for sure. It’s a sphere."

  Afsan’s turn to look somewhat lost. "Yes?"

  "Well, don’t you see?" She drew overtop of the two dots Afsan had made to represent his two different particles, making them into fat circles. Then she pointed with an extended claw. "The inner edge of a moon is closer to the planet that it rotates around than the outer edge is. The inner edge wants to move quickly; the outer edge wants to move slowly."

  "But a moon is a solid object."

  "Right," said Novato.

  "So it can only move at one speed."

  "Perhaps it splits the difference," said Novato. "If the inner edge wants to take one day to revolve around the planet and the outer edge wants to take two, then the whole thing does it in one and a half days."

  "That makes sense," said Afsan. "Really, for most moons it wouldn’t be any big deal. Take a distant moon, say one like Slowpoke that takes a hundred days or so to revolve around its planet. Well, maybe the inner side wants to take ninety-nine days and the outer side wants to take a hundred and one. That’s only a one percent variation, nothing major."

  "True," said Novato.

  "And, of course, those moons that are farther out rotate on their own axes at different rates than they revolve around the planet. So it’s not like the same side is always going slower. The stress of going too fast or too slow is evened out over the whole thing."

  "What’s this about rotation rates?" said Novato.

  "Well, the moon we’re on always keeps the same side toward the Face of God. That’s why the Face of God is never visible from Land. So the part with Land on it is always moving around the Face of God faster than it really wants to. And the pilgrimage point, directly beneath the Face, and on the other side of our world from Land, is always moving slower than it wants to."

  "Ah, okay," said Novato. "So the stress does not get evened out."

  "No," said Afsan. "I guess not. Not really. Yes, over the whole sphere, the difference is split. But some parts are always rotating faster than they want to, and others are always rotating slower than they want to."

  "Is this normal? For a moon to always keep the same side toward the planet it revolves around?"

  "It’s normal for moons that are close to their planet, yes. In our system, nine of the thirteen moons seem to always keep the same side facing in. Excuse me: ten of the fourteen moons; I keep forgetting to count us."

  Novato looked puzzled. "But the stress must be significant if you are close to your planet. I mean, we don’t take long at all to rotate around the Face of God."

  "We take exactly one day, of course."

  "Of course," she said. "That’s not long. And the world’s a big place."

  "Indeed," said Afsan. "Based on how long it took the Dasheter to make its voyage, I’d say the world has a diameter of about ten or eleven thousand kilopaces."

  "Well, doesn’t that mean that there’s a big difference between the speeds that the Land side and the pilgrimage-point side want to move at?"

  "Yes, I guess it does." Silence for a few moments while both thought. Then Afsan continued. "In fact, I bet there’s a point at which a moon would be so close to the planet it revolves around that the stress between inside and outside would be too much. The difference in the desired speeds of movement would be enough to tear the moon apart."

  "Leaving rubble," said Novato. "Wait a beat." She turned, staring off into space. "Wait a beat. How about this? The particles that make up a ring are the rubble left behind from a moon that moved too close to the planet it revolved around. What we see now as the ring around Kevpel might once have been the innermost moon of Kevpel. And the ring around Bripel might have once been the innermost moon of Bripel."

  Afsan’s jaw dropped open; his tail swished in agitation. ’’But the Face of God has no ring around it."

  "True."

  "And we are the innermost moon of the Face of God."

  "We are?"

  "We are."

  "Vegetables. That doesn’t sound good." But a moment later she brightened. "But look, not every planet has a ring. I’ve seen no signs of one around Davpel — and I can clearly see its phases — or around Gefpel. Now, Carpel and Patpel are too small and dim to show any detail, even in my big far-seer, but there’s no reason to think they might have rings, either."

  "No."

  "Besides, Afsan, Land isn’t breaking up. It’s as solid as can be."

  Afsan gestured at the cracks in the temple walls. "Is it? The ancients used to find it worth their while to build temples such as this. Now we’re lucky if a building will stand for a few tens of kilodays."

  "Yes, but…"

  "And the volcanism, the landquakes, the riverquakes…"

  "You’re jumping to conclusions, Afsan. Look, Land has been here since time began. It’ll be here for a long time to come. Besides, if we’re right about the origin of the rings around Kevpel and Bripel — if — well, then, there are moons that travel in tight circles around them, as well. I’m sure we could work out how close a moon has to be before it’s in danger of breaking up."

  Afsan nodded mild concession. "You’re right, of course." The intellectual stimulation of being here with Novato had excited him. Such a lively mind she had! He looked at her and clicked his teeth in a good-natured gesture. She clicked back, and he realized that Novato must have been thinking much the same thing about him. For it was a heady atmosphere, full of startling revelations and incredible discoveries.

  And in that moment, Afsan understood that although he’d already been through a series of rites of passage — leaving his home Pack of Carno, starting a profession, undertaking his first hunt, receiving his hunter’s tattoo, completing his pilgrimage to the Face
of God — there was still one rite of passage he had not yet completed.

  It was unusual for a female to go into estrus outside of the mating season, but great excitement could cause it. Afsan’s nostrils flared slightly at the first whiff of the scent coming off Novato, the chemical that unlocked the drive in the male. His claws extended in response to the unexpected stimulus, then slowly relaxed into their pockets at the tips of his fingers as his own body recognized what the pheromones were signaling.

  His dewlap went from being a flaccid sack waggling beneath his muzzle to a puffed ruby balloon, almost as big as the dome of his cranium.

  Novato turned and looked at Afsan, sitting closer than normal territorial instinct would allow.

  Afsan was embarrassed. His body was reacting in unexpected and, he feared, inappropriate ways. But Novato, sweet, beautiful Novato, bobbed her head twice, slowly, deliberately, in concession.

  Energy surged through Afsan and he rose. At the same ume, Novato fell to her knees, propping up her torso with her arms.

  She lifted her tail…

  And Afsan mounted her from the rear, his penis slipping out of the folds that normally protected it, feeling cool and hard in the open air.

  He worked his hips, maneuvering by instinct.

  She was perhaps as much as half again his age; half again his size, but the union worked — oh, how it worked! — as Afsan and she moved in a rhythm that matched the pounding of their hearts, the pulsing of his sex organ, the puffing of his dewlap…

  Until…

  Until…

  Until his seed was released within her, his mind exploding with a delight only previously imagined, a delight held for heartbeat after heartbeat, Novato beneath him hissing quietly in pleasure…

  And then, finally, he withdrew, his energy spent, her pheromones shifting to a more neutral character, his dewlap deflating, but hanging loosely open to help dissipate his body heat.

  He climbed off her, stepped back into a relaxed tripod stance, catching his breath. She stretched out, belly down on the stone floor of her workshop, her eyes half closed, each breath taking longer to come than the one before.

  Afsan slid to the floor beside her, his tail loosely wrapping around hers. He was exhausted; soon they both slept.

  The world might be coming to an end.

  But they’d worry about that tomorrow.

  *25*

  And, indeed, tomorrow did come — too soon for Afsan’s tastes, even though he woke well after dawn. Wab-Novato had already risen, apparently some time ago, and was hard at work adjusting the lenses on another far-seer.

  He lay there, eyes open, watching her across the room. She was not that much older than him, really. Only a few kilodays. Still, she had her work here; Afsan’s job required him to return to Capital City.

  Finally Afsan pushed off his belly, rising to his feet.

  Novato dipped her muzzle in his direction. "Good morning."

  Afsan returned the gesture. "Good morning."

  And then there was silence. Did she know it had been his first coupling? Did she regret having done it? Think about it?

  He swallowed. Did she want to do it again?

  I’ll miss her, Afsan thought. And with that, he realized there was no need for discussion. Their roles — hers here, his there — were immutable.

  "I’m expected back in Capital City," Afsan said. "I’ve got to head out this morning."

  Novato looked up. "Of course."

  Afsan started for the door. He hesitated, though, after a step or two. "Novato?"

  "Yes?"

  "I cast a shadow in your presence."

  She looked up. "We cast shadows in each other’s presence, Afsan. And when we’re together, there is light everywhere and no shadows fall at all."

  Afsan felt his heart soar. He bowed deeply, warmed to every corner of his body.

  "I have a present for you," said Novato. She picked up the far-seer she’d been working on and brought it over to him.

  Afsan’s tail swished in delight. "I’ll treasure it," he said.

  "As I will always treasure our time together," she replied.

  If he’d had to walk the entire way, allowing time for sleeping and hunting and a little sight-seeing, it would have taken Afsan forty days to reach Carno. He managed it in twenty-three. For the first seven days, he rode with a caravan of traders whose wares included brass buttons, needles for sewing leather, and equipment for tanning hides. But Afsan had take his leave of them when their path diverged from his intended course.

  The next ten days, he walked alone, thinking. His mind was constantly full of calculations. He stopped every few kilopaces and pulled out his writing leather and strings of beads to work through the more complex math.

  Each evening, he used his new far-seer to observe the other moons, the rings around Kevpel, the secrets of the night.

  It became clear that what he and Novato had feared was the truth. The world they were on was much, much closer to the Face of God than was any other moon in this system or any other moon around any other planet Afsan could see.

  He felt a small temblor one night and an aftershock the next day.

  The numbers suggested it; the quaking ground confirmed it. The world was indeed unstable, would indeed break up at some point in the not too distant future. He’d have to consult palace library to check records of increasing landquake frequency and severity and to confirm his memory of the strength of rocks, but it seemed as though the differential forces acting on the near and far sides of this moon would tear it asunder within perhaps twenty generations.

  It did not make for a pleasant journey.

  On the eighteenth day, he walked across a new bridge of cut stone that spanned the river marking the border between Jam’toolar and Arj’toolar.

  That evening, he came upon a tributary of the Kreeb and was able to join up with a troupe of musicians traveling by raft down its winding course. They had many instruments, some with strings and intricate gold inlays, others with brass tubes and keys made from spikefrill horns. The musicians agreed to let Afsan ride with them in exchange for sharing tales of the Capital, but after the first day, the deal was modified: Afsan could ride with them so long as he didn’t try to sing along when they practiced. They took him straight to Carno, the Pack in which he was born. The rafters continued on, and Afsan bade them a safe trip.

  There would be reunions here: happy meetings with his creche-mates; tales told in the merchants’ square; a time to recover from the long voyage aboard the Dasheter; a time to decide how best to deal with Tak-Saleed upon his return to still-distant Capital City.

  In modern times, since the rise of the religion of Larsk, the world had been divided into eight provinces, each under its own governor. But the ancient Lubalite grouping of the Pack was still the principal social unit.

  According to legend, there had been five original hunt leaders, each with her own pack. Just as Tetex had done during Afsan’s first hunt, Lubal, Belbar, Katoon, Hoog, and Mekt had each used sign language to designate the members of their hunting parties. Ten fingers, ten hunters to a pack.

  Eventually each of the ten hunters in their packs had founded his or her own pack. Five original packs each with ten hunters thus gave rise to the Fifty Packs that now roamed Land.

  Actually there were many more than the fifty traditional packs these days, since subgroupings had formed, but each group knew its lineage. Carno, for instance, traced itself back to Mar-Seenuk, one of the hunters comprising Belbar’s original pack of ten.

  The term "pack" was still used to refer to any group of hunters. But "Pack," emphasized with an expansive swish of the tail, written in left-facing glyphs instead of right, referred to the whole social unit: hunters and those who plied a craft, idlers and teachers and scholars, priests and administrators, the young and the old.

  Carno was Afsan’s home Pack. His parents probably lived there still, although he did not know who they were. He suspected Pahs-Drawo was his father, for they bo
th had something of the same look about them: earholes slightly lower than the norm (or perhaps foreheads that were slightly higher) and an unusual freckling on the underside of their tails.

  But it didn’t matter. Drawo’s loyalty was to Carno as a whole. Afsan had never given much thought to the issue until after he had left and gotten to be friends with Dybo. The prince actually knew his mother (and father, although Ter-Regree had been killed in a hunt long before Afsan’s arrival in Capital City). The Family! The one group in all the world that knew its lineage, that recognized son or daughter, father and mother, grandfather and grandmother. The Family: the direct descendants of the Prophet Larsk.

  Saleed had once sarcastically referred to Afsan as "the proudest son of far Carno," but it was true, in a sense: the children were the children of the Pack, not of any individual. Old Tep-Terdog, whom Afsan obviously was not closely related to at all — he had much lighter skin than Afsan’s and eyes closer together — considered Afsan as much his son, as much his responsibility to guard and protect and educate, as did Drawo (or Rej-Serkob, the other likely candidate for being Afsan’s biological father).

  Carno, like all villages, had been based on this principle of protecting the young: at its center, farthest removed from the roaming beasts, was the creche, the communal nursery.

  In loose bands around the creche were the tents and buildings used by those who hunted only occasionally: the scholars and artisans and merchants. And at the perimeter, constantly on the move, were the Pack’s principal hunters, those responsible for the defense and feeding of everyone else.

  If Afsan had still been part of Carno when preparing to take his first hunt, his lessons would have included a tour of the creche to remind him of why Quintaglios went out and sometimes died on the hunt: to protect the future, to feed the young.

  And, if his preparations had not been so rushed back in Capital City, he would have been shown the creche there. Actually both creches there, the public one off the central town square and the royal one, used exclusively by The Family, where the eggshells of past Emperors were on display.

  But even if that had happened, it wouldn’t have been the same. The creche here in Carno was the one he had been born in, the one he had spent his early days in. He had, at best, dim memories of it. It bothered him that he’d never seen it as an adult.