by James Gunn
“This music—these sounds, whatever they are—is one more clue to add to the evidence from Nepenthe,” Asha said. “When we have enough, we may be able to come to a conclusion.”
* * *
The long, seemingly interminable voyage between nexus points brought no breakthroughs to the enigmas that were Nepenthe and Centaur. The Pedia reported periodically that it lacked sufficient information to make deductions, and tensions between travelers developed, as they always did between people of different origins and temperaments forced to associate for extended periods. Asha and Riley could not be divided, but even Adithya and Tordor began to bicker over small matters like food and cleanliness and odors and manners of communication or its other side, silence.
Finally, however, a new solar system appeared in the control-room window that served multiple purposes of viewscreen, navigation, and control. It was a remarkably familiar system with a G0 sun, an orbiting collection of icy comets, failed worlds, and assorted rocks, several gas giants, two of them with rings and all with dozens of satellites, and three Earth-sized planets, one of them a little cold, another much too hot, and a third just about right. It even had oceans, continents, and islands, and the oceans were liquid. The only thing that kept Asha, Riley, and Adithya from thinking that they might have returned to their home system was that the world had only two small, insignificant moons. “Like Mars,” Riley said. “Or like Mars before the terraforming sent them hurtling into the planet.”
“The natives of this world,” Tordor said, “are a lot like you as well.”
“Humanoids?” Asha said.
“Remarkably similar,” Tordor said. “Deceptively so. Lemnia even has a breathable atmosphere and tolerable microbes and viruses. It almost makes a person believe in convergent evolution.”
“That similar conditions produce similar results?” Adithya said.
“But then one realizes that among the billions of planets in the galaxy, some will inevitably produce species that resemble each other, and some, with almost identical conditions, will bring forth creatures that share almost no features,” Tordor said. “And in the billions of galaxies that make up the universe, it is almost inevitable that some species will be identical, even down to their histories.”
“You speak in riddles,” Adithya said.
“I didn’t know you were a philosopher,” Asha said, “as well as a military leader.”
“We grazers have a long time to think about how the universe was created and how it evolved into the complex system we observe today,” Tordor said.
“To ruminate, so to speak,” Riley said. “But you said these people—”
“They called themselves Lemnians,” Tordor said. He did not, of course, say “Lemnians,” but that is how the Dorian gutturals got translated.
“You said that they were ‘deceptively’ like humans.”
“They are a congenial species,” Tordor said. “The Federation doesn’t have many Lemnians in its Galactic Center—their system is isolated out here on the fringes of our spiral arm, and they do not always send representatives—but they have always been solid and reliable for thousands of long-cycles.”
“Unlike humans,” Riley said.
“Exactly. But this is another world that has fallen suddenly silent,” Tordor said.
“Then I think it is my turn to check this out,” Asha said. “The conditions are within my range of tolerance, and the circumstances are not threatening but they may require some social skills.”
“You imply my social skills are deficient?” Riley said. Asha understood that he was joking, but it was true—his experience growing up on Mars and serving in the human/Federation war had not included a necessity to get along with anything but official orders, and he had not even been good at that.
“You’ve never had to adjust your behavior to the expectations of others, or even to understand their expectations,” Asha said.
“That doesn’t apply to me,” Adithya said.
“That’s true,” Asha said, “and you will have your opportunity when you get a little more experience, but this time I want you to monitor the Pedia’s reports and to be ready to assist if that is called for.” She placed the second medallion around Adithya’s neck as if she were conferring an award, and turned to the control-room window to begin their descent to the Lemnian world below.
* * *
Lemnia was as Earth-like as Tordor had described. Asha stood in a field of something like clover, breathing air scented with the odors of growing vegetation, though tinged with hints of exotic, even alien herbs, enjoying the feeling of a spring day under a benign morning sun. It was enough to make a space traveler question her commitment to a life of off-planet exploration. And then the Lemnians descended upon her on the wings of creatures that resembled giant birds.
The birds were like pigeons grown to the size of winged horses and the Lemnians sat upon them in what looked like makeshift saddles fashioned out of cloth. Together, birds and Lemnians, they seemed unthreatening but organized, like well-trained cavalry and their mounts. There were seven of each, and the riders dismounted lithely and surrounded her while the birds eyed the clover as if trying to discover edible insects.
The Lemnians wore nothing but trousers with legs cut off at the calf, apparently needing no protection except from contact with their saddles. They were obviously mammalian, although their breasts were lower on their bodies. They were remarkably humanoid, as Tordor had said, but a little off in proportions and limb joints as if they had been put together by an impressionist artist; their heads were hairless with eyes, nose, and mouth in the proper place, but the eyes were too large, the nose too small, and the mouth too wide. Their skin was a pleasing copper color, and they had a distinctive smell to them, acrid but not altogether unpleasant.
All this Asha noted in a single survey as she stood in their midst, unmoving, as they surrounded her and began touching her clothing—a simple spacer’s orange coverall—and then prodding at her with their six-fingered hands. “I’m a person like you,” she said, knowing they would not understand but beginning the process of socialization that might lead to communication. They twittered among themselves, like the birds they used for transportation, and then twittered at her, as if they, too, recognized the function of vocalization in creating connection.
The medallion said nothing, though she was aware that the Pedia was analyzing the language, as she was. The Pedia was not customarily reserved in its interactions, but apparently it was aware that the Lemnians might be tempted to remove something that made sounds. As it was, the Lemnians fingered the medallion before they allowed it to remain around her neck.
“I’m a representative of the Federation,” Asha said, in an unthreatening tone, using Galactic Standard in the hope that some linguistic memory might linger, “here to discover why Lemnia has fallen out of contact.” They might not understand her words, even in Galactic Standard, but they might recognize its purpose.
They twittered among themselves again and then one of them took Asha’s hand and tugged her toward a nearby bird, which crouched to the ground at their approach. The Lemnian indicated that Asha should get astride the creature, and when Asha hesitated, pulled more strongly toward the bird until Asha threw her leg over the bird’s back, and the Lemnian swung itself up behind Asha and twittered at their mount. With labored effort under the double load, the bird lifted itself and took a couple of steps before launching itself into the air with a great fluttering of wings, followed by the other Lemnians on their birds. They turned together, like a flock, and headed into the rising sun. It was a unique and disturbing experience for Asha, as she soared with aliens through an alien sky, with an alien wind blowing past her, and an alien landscape flowing past hundreds of empty meters below. She clutched the edge of the cloth that served as a saddle, was grateful for the Lemnian arm around her waist, and hoped that she would not fall off.
By the time they reached their destination, Asha had become accustomed to soaring th
rough the air supported only by flapping wings and held in place by the arm of the Lemnian behind her. Their destination was a city of soaring spires surrounded by smaller buildings and then larger, flatter structures, like warehouses or manufacturing sites, on the outskirts. Except for the means of transportation, it resembled a modern city on any civilized world, perhaps with superior taste in architecture and city planning.
Their destination was one of the taller structures in the center of the city. The birds landed, with their passengers, on the building’s flat top, and when their passengers, including Asha, had descended, the birds walked into cages placed around the periphery of the rooftop. Cage doors slid shut behind them, and the birds began to peck at troughs of food: insects or large worms or grain, Asha couldn’t make out which before she was hustled by the entire seven Lemnians toward a door set into a structure in the center of the roof. The door slid aside as they approached, the Lemnians formed a protective guard around Asha, three in front, one on each side, and two behind, and they descended lighted stairs into the building.
They went down several flights of stairs before they arrived at another door, which one of the Lemnians had to touch before it slid aside, and they moved as a group into a hallway with some kind of cloth covering over the floor, not quite a rug with nap to it but more than a thin covering, perhaps like the saddles on the birds. And then they were at another door that slid open, Asha was pushed through into a dark space, with a twittering from the Lemnians, ceiling panels began to glow, and the door slid shut behind her. She took stock of her situation. She was alone on an alien world with aliens who could not understand her. She looked around at what seemed to be living accommodations. The walls had pictures on them, paintings perhaps, although they changed as she looked at them and the scenes they depicted were strange, like a familiar scene observed through a distorting window. There was something in the middle of the room that looked like a bed, something beside it that resembled a chair, a doorway to another room that might be a bathroom or a kitchen—she would find out later—and a door to the hallway through which she had entered that had no handle or apparent way to open it.
“I want to speak to someone,” she said. Perhaps the room was wired for sound, and whoever was listening would understand her need to communicate even if they did not understand what she was saying.
“You can speak to me,” the medallion said.
“I know that,” Asha said. “But I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Someone might be listening or watching who might not appreciate or understand Pedias. In any case, you need to focus on analyzing the language.”
“That may take some time. But if you want to unlock the door, try putting me in contact with it. Usually these closures have some electronic switch buried inside that senses the approach of authorized personnel. I am smarter than any automated relay.”
“Not yet,” Asha said. “We need to wait until we can communicate.”
“The people on the ship are concerned about your welfare and are asking if you need help,” the Pedia said.
“Tell them I’m fine,” Asha said. “There’s nothing here I can’t handle.” She hoped that was true. And she could always call for help as long as the Lemnians did not recognize what the medallion was or take a liking to it as a decoration.
But what she did not say was the question that had bothered her from her first encounter with the Lemnians: where were all the males?
CHAPTER TWELVE
The open doorway led to what was both a restroom and a kitchen. Apparently the Lemnians did not make the kind of distinctions between physical functions that humans did. On a shelf were grains stored in canisters and liquids that came out of a tap. Asha sampled them gingerly and, when they produced nothing more than mild intestinal upsets that her body soon handled, satisfied her limited hunger and thirst with occasional bites and swallows. She spent one lengthy period of several hours resting on the raised pallet that served as a bed. The room had no window, so she did not know whether the Lemnian day had turned into night, but her internal clock told her that it had not yet been half an Earth day since the red sphere had landed her on Lemnia, though it felt that a lot had happened.
She spent her time working on her memory of the Lemnians’ vocalizations, trying to match the twitters to the actions that had accompanied them, and when she allowed herself to slip into slumber it was to allow her unconsciousness to put together information that her awake mind did not quite accomplish. Still, when the door opened and two Lemnians entered the room, she had not yet mastered any of the meanings of the twitters they directed at her. Those twitters had, however, to be instructions to come with them to wherever they were going to take her, and, as she followed them out of the door and down the hallway in the opposite direction from the one she had entered, she began to sense a meaning, a difference between twitters and the tone in which they were spoken.
When a door at the end of the hallway slid open for them as they approached, Asha twittered at her escorts in what she hoped was a statement that she would enter the room without their help. They turned to stare at her with expressions that she could not yet identify and then shoved her through the door. It slid shut behind her.
The room was larger than the one she had occupied and clearly intended for an office rather than living quarters. It had a table inset with transparent panels. Other panels occupied spaces on the walls. They were all dark, as if the sources that had provided information to them had stopped working or the energy that fueled them had broken down. Benches lined each side of the room. A Lemnian sat behind the desk. Her body was heavier than those of the bird-riders who had first encountered Asha, and her coppery skin had a few lines in it. She smelled a bit more acrid than the bird-riders.
The official, if that was what she was, twittered at her. There was a question embedded in the statement, something like “What are you doing here?” Or, since she still wasn’t sure she wasn’t only guessing, she responded in Galactic Standard. “I’m here as a representative of the Federation.”
The person behind the desk made a facial expression that may have been dislike or distrust and replied, in halting Galactic Standard, as if it were a language being recalled from childhood, “And what is the Federation?”
“The Galactic Federation,” Asha began and then hesitated. Either the official was testing her or she had forgotten a great deal. “The Galactic Federation is an organization of different species in this arm of the galaxy.”
“You speak in riddles, using words that have no meaning. Like ‘galaxy’ and ‘arm.’”
“If you have forgotten—” Asha began.
“I have forgotten nothing but this wretched language,” the official said, “which comes off the tongue in a barbarous manner.”
“Let us begin again,” Asha said. “I am Asha, a visitor to your world, come to find out more about your people and your way of life.”
“What part of Lemnia are you from? And what are your reasons for coming here? You are not like any Lemnian I have ever seen. Were you born deformed? Or all your people like you?”
“I came from off this world,” Asha said, “and where I came from people are much like me, with variations in size, color, and gender.” She was a bit tired of standing before this—what, immigration officer? Jailer? Governor?—like a petitioner or a criminal. But she was not going to lose the advantage of height by sitting on one of the benches.
“What does that mean, ‘off this world’?”
“I came down in a ship.”
“A sailing ship?”
“A spaceship.”
“That has no meaning. You came from the sky?”
“Yes,” Asha said. “I came from the sky.”
“Like the other sky people?” the official said.
“There were others?”
“The gods came back.”
“Gods?” The Lemnians had retreated into ancient superstitions.
“Gods,” the Lemnian repeated. She seemed to think for a
moment. “You mentioned gender. That is another word that has no meaning.”
“Where I came from, from the sky,” Asha said, “there are males and females, each kind essential to the process of creating new people—babies who grow up into adults. And that brings me to a question I’ve been wanting to ask.”
“Yes?”
“Where are your males?”
“We have no males,” the Lemnian said. It seemed like the termination of a conversation, an interview, or an interrogation, whatever it had been. And Asha wasn’t sure if she had passed or failed.
Behind her the door slid open and the two younger Lemnians entered, summoned by a means Asha had not noticed. Asha shook off their hands, turned, and went back down the corridor to the door from which she had left less than half an hour before. It opened in front of her and she went through into the room that seemed much smaller now. The door slid shut behind her.
“Is it time now to call for help?” the Pedia said.
“Not yet,” Asha said. “First we need to do a little exploring. These people have forgotten a great deal, but I think they know something they are hiding.”
* * *
She waited an hour before she applied the medallion to the door. It clicked and swung open. The corridor outside was empty. She moved slowly and quietly down the hallway. There were closed doors on each side. She put her ear to each one but heard no sound from the room behind the door until she reached the door to a room from which she heard a moan or groan. She applied the medallion to the door.
“Do you think this is wise?” the Pedia said.
“We need information,” Asha said softly. “Don’t make any noise.”
The door clicked and slid open. The room behind was dark. Asha heard a twitter, then a burst of twitters, a little lower in pitch than any she had heard before. As she entered the room, ceiling panels glowed and then brightened. The room was almost identical to the one in which she had been imprisoned, but the raised pallet in the center had been replaced by a padded table. On the table, held down by straps, was a Lemnian, and not only a Lemnian but a male Lemnian. She could tell he was male because he was naked and his genitalia were exposed. They were not quite human genitalia but recognizable. He was looking at her with an expression that she thought might be a mixture of surprise and apprehension.
