The daggie in the image: human-shaped, spry, clad in a shell like an ancient knight, with a gaping mouth full of quills. The daggie turned to the viewer and cocked his head. His eyes sparkled with understanding, perhaps amusement. This was Ougwo, male in every aspect, captured from Ouphao’an’s memories. The view of Ougwo panned down to his—
“Really!” Caulie shut off the recording. She wasn’t being puritanical, or at least, not just that. This passage in notebook BA02 was an embarrassing peek into an intimate moment that Ouphao’an had held dear. Although they were a thousand years in the past and exotically inhuman, Ougwo had been a real person. Ouphao’an’s love for him had been real. Her despair had been palpable in the never-ending moan.
Out of everything, Ouphao’an’s moans were the least strange. Caulie had heard similar in her own mind in moments when she was most alone—at Jephia’s parties, for instance, or at faculty meetings, or during a lecture when she noticed two students flirting.
She reset her thoughts with practiced firmness. Why had Jephia flagged this passage? Knowing her friend, it could have been simple prurience . . .
Caulie resumed the recording. The image playing under the textual glyphs panned down to Ougwo’s waist. What it revealed wasn’t a reproductive organ, thank goodness. Ougwo was cradling a handful of eggs covered in slime. The daggie male took a step and plastered them against the wall of a cave . . . their abode? Their nursery? The eggs stuck. Ougwo turned to her and tilted his head again with something that read as very human pride. The image faded.
Why do aliens have to be so weird? Caulie followed a link embedded in a footnote to the translation. Jephia’s note:
The eggs are extant at the dig, but not hatched. She didn’t survive long after this memory of Ougwo. Two year average incubation period. One year with soft shells and daily visits to keep them moist. One year with hard shells in stasis.
Egg-laying was an anytime kind of thing, though it did require a mate. The eggs would fully harden after perhaps a year, but it would be another year before they hatched into the tiny soft crabs of early-stage daggies. If Caulie remembered her research, the throat-me of two mated daggies would rarely succumb to a mating contest if there were eggs that required daily attention. Once the shells turned hard, the parents barely acknowledged them until it was time to help them hatch.
Now Caulie understood. With this passage in notebook BA02, Jephia had established a timeline. Ouphao’an, at the height of her adult health, had engaged in reproduction with her lover. A year or more later, some stress or conflict had triggered the throat-me cycle and Ougwo had died. Less than a year after that, Ouphao’an herself had died and the eggs had gone untended.
Ouphao’an had died within a few years of this notebook, at the apex of her understanding and power over the Pollution. If there were answers anywhere, it would be in notebook AB02, the grimoire of the sorceress.
Caulie turned to the beginning of the notebook and left the translation on maximum smoothing. The first passage glowed on-screen:
It is Summer Solstice and the intemperate fatty creatures [Tachba] want to hold a dance. None of them know what to do, only that they want to do it. Rather than parceling out thought to solve a problem, they fall immediately and always into dispute, then bloodshed. Limbs and bodies are scattered in the courtyard below the window. When I move to consume their remnants, they make a racket.
The Tachba who speaks to me [Subject A3311, elsewhere called “Lala”] requests that I provide a time window so they can organize their dance.
I am tetchy with Lala because she never reminds me of her gender.
I [make sounds at her] but she doesn’t obey. She merely vomits across my shell, and then becomes cross when I am cross. The bravos [Tachba males] appear at the door, because Lala’s crossness has an auditory component. The bravos are always so fast and confusing! They attack like frightened children, but I can’t catch them to kill them. I finally remember to [make sounds at them] and we all turn [thoughtful] together.
All except Lala, and this is when I remember she is female. She is no longer cross with me. She is sad to see how her men have turned [thoughtful].
“I have coal,” Shanter announced, jolting Caulie out of her focus. He stomped the frost off his boots before leaning a lattice of boards and old blankets across the opening. “All it took was a long string of threats repeated over and over. Like a wandering minstrel-meh. Story of my life, la, to always be asking and never belong.”
“Mmm.” She scrolled through the screens, following the daggie’s narrative. It began merely as a daily log of complaints about the Tachba. Caulie could sympathize, but more interesting were the tantalizing hints: making sounds at people, turning them thoughtful. Caulie was generating questions, opening loops but closing some too. A few. She was almost sure of it. She had to let her subconscious mind work—
Shanter continued with maximal noise and jostling. “So I begged some coal and stole some stew. I’ll burn the coal to heat the stew! So clever-meh, it’s almost like I planned it.”
“Stop,” Caulie finally snapped. “Stop talking, Shanter. There’s something here, I almost have it.”
Happily, he shut up. Caulie read the next passage that Jephia had highlighted. The software annotated the daggie’s dual perspective to distinguish the thoughts of its body from the default voice of the throat-me:
The Tachba who are not mine [i.e., specific enemies, or a Tachba population external to her domain] do not wish peace for me. They are slow to approach because my mountains make the way difficult, but they provide continuing pressure. I oddly wish my female Tachba would be even more productive than they are. I [body] have stopped eating the meat-fat [Tachba children], and asked Ougwo to do the same, though he considers them a delicacy and sneaks meals at night. He and I increasingly fall into conflict and I worry what this means for our future.
The [enemy Tachba] are sapping my numbers. Using detestable mathematics, I understand that my own Tachba herd is dwindling. I [throat-me] try to ignore this fact, but I [body] have latched onto the idea that haste and tenacity might bring a solution sooner. I [throat-me] think this is counterintuitive, but I [body] am relentless.
I [body] work at a fevered pitch, while I [throat-me] consider the Tachba dancing in the courtyard. I have permitted them their solstice celebration. In return, they have let me give it a name. Because we may not see another solstice, I have named it Oeongom [the putting away of a valuable thing].
The female Tachba are dressed in clean flaxen dresses; the cloth is bleached white and their movements are beautiful. The percussive sound from the male drummers causes these females to leap and caper. The celebration has progressed for only three days but it already reaches a pitch of sexual excitement. Had I known the celebration would be so brief I would have given permission sooner.
That said, the rumpus has created complications. Everything Tachba entails at least some frustration. I have learned that Tachba females in estrus create [the unlocking sound], and this weakens my dominion over my mountain herds. The Oeongom celebration plays identically in every settlement, with similar results. Everywhere, the drumming, dancing, and the elemental components of carnal attraction degrade my signal, and I am weakest at the borders of my domain where I need the most strength.
Caulie’s hands shook as she accessed the index and searched “female unlocking sound.” A stoneware bowl of stew sat by her knee, steaming. She knew she should eat, if only to please Shanter, but there it was:
Using detestable mathematics I [body] have systematically proven to myself [throat-me] that Tachba female voices change during the locking and unlocking process. The sounds modulate lower and access the odd mechanism of the throat.
Lala, my Tachba assistant, claims to be unaware of these sounds, even though I have confirmed she is female. She says it is common for females to speak and males to obey, so much so that female children can teach even the most intemperate male children. She says the methods of control are unre
liable, however. It is a “teaching magic” that few women fully master.
Caulie was already familiar with the dynamic between female and male Tachba. It was a mutualism almost on the level of the daggies’ bodies and throat-me. Among the Tachba, one side provided administration, the other side provided action, and though it was a wildly imperfect system, it had sustained them for millennia. What Caulie had never seen in Haphan research was a mention of the “odd mechanism” of the throat. It implied an almost mechanical source for the female ability to influence the males. Jephia had annotated the passage:
“Mechanism of the throat” is possibly the human voice box? But this is not supported by surrounding text, and usage elsewhere is also inconsistent.
Still, Caulie didn’t alter her search. She was converging on the unlocking sound, she was sure of it. The next search result was stored by itself on an otherwise empty sheet of memory glass:
I am gratified but also vexed. So much effort wasted in my home village on the coast. Then in the mountains, so much progress.
If the marauding Tachba had not razed my village, freed our livestock, and then given them weapons, Ougwo and myself would never have fled to the mountains. In turn, we would have never found this mountain subspecies of Tachba, who have revealed the unlocking sound of the Superimposition [daggie term for Pollution, or Twisting] . . .
Revealed the unlocking sound? Had Ouphao’an already made her discovery? Maybe the search results had jumped Caulie over the crucial passage. Or worse, what if Ouphao’an had never recorded her discovery in the notebook at all? To be able to unlock the Pollution and fully control it—the daggie wasn’t likely to forget that, so why write it down? Caulie held back a surge of anxiety. I’m so close! She flipped to the next search result.
I [throat-me and body] have successfully accessed my Tachba livestock using [the unlocking sounds]. I have adjusted the Superimposition to pursue a multi-generation breeding program. Detestable mathematics, applied to genetic inheritance, has revealed the course for maximal genetic change, and they shall grow more controllable with every batch. They will also grow more irascible and intemperate, but that is a small price to pay for the added food and protection.
I [body] tell myself [throat-me] that we will not benefit from our breeding program. I [throat-me] am not so sure. I may be blind to the passage of time, but I am very wise in other ways. The breeding program will run its course unsupervised to the future benefit of someone, if not myself.
The final search result:
The dissection of Lala revealed the mechanics of the [female unlocking sound]. The rest now falls effortlessly into place. It is a biological control interface that is analogous to logic rings.
Yes. Logic rings, simple automation software. The [Antecessors] who originally created the Superimposition used logic rings for all their advanced tools, and the Tachba were no exception.
The answer is at hand.
I must plumb my [archives] for information from before colonization. Though I lost my library when we fled our village, I [body] saved some notebooks and I [throat-me] am sure to uncover something useful. When we colonized Grigory IV, we used logic rings ourselves in many of our technical artifacts.
Caulie reread the passage. Logic rings. The Haphans used a human equivalent of logic rings to manage the complexity of automated systems. They were increasingly rare on Grigory IV, but still the primary interface for advanced embedded technology, some of which still functioned in the colony. Certain software programs on Caulie’s tablet, for example, or the temperature controls for her apartment in Falling Mountain.
During her frantic search through notebook BA02, she had only hoped to understand the nature of the sorceress’s control over the Pollution. She had never expected to find that she was already using the methods outlined. That brought the notion of full control much closer. Unnervingly close. There was only one final secret to uncover: the unlocking sounds.
Chapter 19
When Caulie finally lowered her tablet, she was sweltering. She had covered herself in blankets and Shanter had piled more upon her, but the rock walls were perfect insulation that rendered the blankets unnecessary. The coal fire Shanter had built to heat their food made the bunker a veritable sauna.
Food? Something about a bowl of stew.
She groped around near her knee. The bowl was cold, but only as cold as the stifling bunker. It was simple fare—some kind of loose, overcooked meat or a luxuriously soft vegetable suspended in a porridge stock that had been thickened with root starch. As a people, the Tachba preferred food that wasn’t crunchy or chewy, and this was a constant source of academic wonderment among the Haphans. This particular stew was soft enough to be spooned into an infant.
She made quick, noisy work of the bowl, but Shanter passed up the chance to comment. He was sitting upright, in profile to her, staring at the fire.
“Should I ask what kind of stew that was?”
He didn’t turn. “It’s called ‘battle smear.’”
“That’s a no.” She wriggled out of her blankets but, upon smelling herself, pulled one back on and shifted closer to Shanter. “Why aren’t you asleep?”
Something like a scowl crossed his face. “Do you wish me to sleep, ma’am?”
“Well, no. It’s just that after the day we had, I’d expect you to be tired.”
He shrugged, still staring at the coals. “When sleep wants me, it-taking me. Besides, what if I misjudge an expectation? What if I believe I’m expected to be needed, but it turns out I’m expected to be tired instead?”
She checked his face. She had to stoop all the way forward, her cheek nearly at the floor, to see past the hood of his coat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’re upset.”
“I’m Polluted,” he said. “I cannot be upset. Neither can I be too cheerful, because I believe we are still in danger. I believe it, or the Pollution does. Either way, same result. So I’m thinking small and waiting for my next instruction.”
“How very robotic of you,” she said, a little provoked. There was a bitterness in his words that she didn’t like to hear, not from him.
“I can’t be sad either,” he continued, his eyes glowing from the fire. “At least, I can’t be sad for long. After the sadness is washed away by you-know-what, all that’s left is my face giving the appearance of sadness. That, and a few leftover scrapings of battle smear in my head that tell me, ‘Here was once some honest misery, hope you loved it while you had it.’ But who can love misery? That would be a degree of madness, wouldn’t it? We can only miss the misery when it’s gone.”
She studied him. Had she missed a social cue, as always? She didn’t want to steer him by asking questions, but he was already falling silent. She settled for prompting him in the Haphan style: “I’ve heard that term before. ‘Thinking small.’”
“If you think a little too much this way, a little too much that way, the Pollution takes over with clumsy fingers. Your thoughts are no longer yours, they become owned by someone else. The owner knows everything but doesn’t care about you. The owner is impatient and wants to move on. So you think small, like you’re threading a needle in your mind, and you can sometimes stay yourself. You stick to small thoughts that can stay yours. You get a little sadness, you get a little joy.”
“I’m sorry,” Caulie whispered. “It’s really everywhere, isn’t it? The Pollution.”
He nodded. “When it’s all around us and wrapped in every strand of thought, it’s easier to picture as a woman. Pretty Polly.”
“I know about her, too.” The Antecessors had wired the Pollution into everything, even the libido, as Caulie had learned by testing nerve clusters in her lab. It had a palpable female aspect, and maybe that was how the Tachba women held such leverage. To keep him talking, she asked, “She’s not an all-the-time thing?”
“There’s the common Pollution that intrudes on daily life. But then there’s the other version, the fully awake version that thrives on danger. The Pollution
was made for combat, that’s its purpose. Good luck keeping yourself under control when it takes over. You hardly have to think at all. You don’t have to be a person anymore and Pretty Polly is everywhere. La, sometimes it seems the world is painted with her. The light in the air is stained with her. The mountain stones. The smell of these burning coals. Your cheek resting on my knee.”
Caulie sat up self-consciously.
“Shanter,” she said. “When you came in with the coal and the food, I snapped at you and said, ‘Stop.’ It was the stop order.”
She saw he didn’t want to agree, which would embarrass her, but he also wouldn’t lie. “I locked down, me.”
“You were only talking nonsense, and then suddenly you didn’t have control.”
“Which it was only a moment or two.” His eyes were glistening.
“I wasn’t thinking when I said that.” Caulie hoped he would look at her, but he didn’t turn. “I was cruel and unaware. I’m sorry? I should be more careful.”
“It matters not at all.” He shrugged. “It will be one thing or another. It will always be something, and it will always happen.”
“Maybe that’s true, but it shouldn’t come from me. I’m the foremost expert on the Pollution, or so I’m told.” She brushed some dust off his shoulder. “I think it must feel claustrophobic at times.”
“It does, it really does.” He fell quiet. As she watched, a dimple appeared in his cheek, though his lips hardly moved. “But what does ‘claustrophobic’ mean?”
What the Thunder Said Page 16
