Brightness Reef

by David Brin

  When next she looked up, yee had the lantern cradled in both arms, bowing with forelegs bent.

  "good brave wife! no wife ever like yee's amazing wife!"

  This time Rety could not hold it in. She covered her mouth with both hands, yet her escaping laughter bounced off the fluted walls. Combed by stalactites, it came back as a hundred soft echoes of her joy to be alive.

  The sage was pondering her bird.

  He peered at it, wrote on a notepad, then poked it with some shiny tool.

  Rety seethed. The gold-green machine was hers. Hers! She had pursued it from the southern marshes to the Rimmers, rescued it from a greedy mule-spider, won it with her sweat, suffering, and dreams. She would choose who, if anybody, got to study it.

  Anyway, what was a savage shaman going to achieve with his crude glass lenses and such? The tools lying near the bird might have impressed the old Rety, who thought Dwer's hunting bow was so great. But all that changed after meeting Besh, Rann, and the other star-humans. Now she knew-despite all his airs, Lester Cambel was just like Jass or Bom, or any of the other idiots back in the Gray Hills. Stupid braggarts. Bullies. Always taking things that didn't belong to them.

  Under the bright flare of a mirrored oil lamp, Cambel flipped through a book. Its pages crackled, as if they had not been turned in a very long time. Rety couldn't make out much from her vantage point, perched on a cleft high up one craggy cavern wall. Not that she could read, anyway. Most of each page seemed to be taken up with drawings with lots of little crisscrossing lines. Nothing much resembled a bird.

  Come on, yee, she thought, restlessly. I'm countin' on you!

  She was taking a big risk. The little male had assured her he could handle it, but what if he got lost while sneaking around to the other side? Or forgot his lines? Rety would be furious if the little guy wound up getting hurt!

  Cambel's assistant stood up and left the chamber, perhaps on some brief errand, or else to retire for the night. Either way, this was a perfect time! Come on, yee!

  After so long writhing through dark passages, always fearful the little candle would go out, Rety found the cool brilliance of the sage's lamp harsh to the eyes. With reluctance she had blown out her own light while creeping the last few meters, lest its glow draw attention. Now she regretted it. What if I have to retreat the way I came? She couldn't willingly face that path again. But as a last resort, if someone were chasing her . . . ?

  Too bad she had no way to restart the candle. Maybe I should've learned to use one of those "match" things the Slopies boast about. She had been too awed by the sudden burst of flame to pay close attention when Dwer, and later Ur-Jah, tried showing how they worked. It was all the fault of Jass and Bom, of course, who didn't like womenfolk controlling fire on their own.

  But fire's just fine for scaring or burning women, ain't it? she pondered angrily, touching her face. Maybe I'll come back someday, Jass. Maybe I'll bring another kind of fire.

  Rety reentered her favorite fantasy, flying off to live with the sky-humans on their home star. Oh, at first she'd start out as a sort of pet or mascot. But just give her time! She'd learn whatever it took in order to rise up, until she became so important . . .

  So important that some great Rothen prince would put a ship-& fleet of ships!-at her command, to go with her back to Jijo.

  It was fun picturing the look on Jass's smug handsome face, when the sky over the Gray Hills went dark at noon, and then her words booming from above-

  "you wise mister human sir?"

  The tiny voice shook her back to the present. She sought down below-and spied yee trotting nervously near the leg of Lester Cambel's chair.

  "Hm? What was that?" Cambel asked, yee jumped as the chair scraped back, pushed by the sage, who peered about in confusion.

  "message for wise human! message from wise grandma urs, Ur-Jah!"

  Now Cambel looked down, first amazed, then quizzically intrigued.

  "Yes, small one? And how did you get down here past the guard?"

  "guard he look out for danger, look right past yee. is yee danger?"

  The tiny urs laughed, mimicking Rety's own nervous giggle. She hoped Cambel didn't recognize the similarity.

  The sage nodded, gravely. "No, I suppose not. Unless someone gets you angry, my friend, which I'll strive not to do. So now, what's this about a message at this time of night?"

  yee did a little dance with his hooves and lifted both arms dramatically, "urgent time for talk-talk, look at dead birdie later! go Ur-Jah now. now!"

  Rety feared his vehemence would rouse suspicion. But the balding human put down his tools at once and stood up. "Well then, let's go."

  Rety's hopes soared, then sank as Cambel lifted the bird with both hands.

  No! Put it down!

  As if prodded by her tense mental urging, the sage paused, shook his head, and put the machine back, picking up his notebook instead.

  "Lay on, Macduff," he said to yee, motioning with a sweep of one arm.

  "great sage says what?" the small urs tilted his head.

  "I said . . . oh, never mind. An obscure allusion. Guess I'm just tired. Shall I carry you, sir?"

  "no! yee lead wise human, walk this way! this way!" and he scampered off eagerly, pausing impatiently and backtracking several times as the sage followed ploddingly behind.

  When they both had vanished up the tunnel leading toward the main entrance, Rety wasted no time slithering down the crumbly, slanting limestone wall till she tumbled bottom-first onto the floor of the laboratory cave. She scrambled up and hurried to the table where her bird lay, headless as it had been ever since the fight with the alien robot.

  Its breast lay spread open like a carcass at a feast, exposing innards like none Rety had ever seen, glittering like jewels. What did the stinker do, gut it like a herd chick? She fought to check her rage. Rann might not pay if the fools have ruined it by mucking inside!

  She looked closer. The opening was too clean to have been hacked with a knife. In fact, when she hesitantly touched the bird's ribcage, it seemed to roll smoothly around the line where it was still connected-like the hinged door she had seen on a big cabinet, and marveled at, while visiting the forayers' medical tent.

  I see. You just close it like . . . this.

  She lifted the smaller section through an arc, till it swung shut with a decisive click.

  Now Rety regretted her haste. There was no more chance to look closer at the little flashings inside. Oh, well. None of my biznis, anyway, she thought, and plucked up her prize. At least I don't pretend I'm any-thin ' but a sooner an' a savage.

  Though not forever. Once I get off Jijo, I'll learn. I'll learn all right!

  The bird was heavier than she recalled. Briefly, her heart felt full. She had her treasure back! She crammed the heavy bird-thing into her pouch, bypassing the books strewn across the table as she hurried off, following the same path yee and Lester Cambel had taken, an easy stand-up trail leading toward the outside world.

  The way was lit by little lamps, hanging from a thin boo pipe stapled to the hall. Tiny flames flickered an eerie blue color, leaving wide pools of shadow in between. Dim light also spilled from several side chambers, now mostly empty of workers as it was nighttime outside. One cell, however, seemed to blaze with bulky lanterns. Before tiptoeing past, Rety warily eyed two human occupants-who were luckily turned away, murmuring with low voices. Drawings of the star-gods, their aircraft, and other tools lay tacked on a dozen or so easels. The cube-shaped station-which Rety had never seen unburied-lay revealed in fine detail, more grand than some shattered Buyur site. Yet it seemed minute next to the monstrous tube depicted on the next sketch, floating above the forest.

  My starship, she mused, though cowed by the thought of boarding the huge vessel when it returned for the forayers. She must remember to hold her chin up that day and show no fear.

  The artists had caught Rann's distant amused gaze, and Kunn's sharp hunter's glare as he adjusted the claw arm of
a hovering robot. The pale intensity of Besh balanced Ling's dusky half-cynical expression. Rety knew they were only drawings, like the ones some old grandpas used to scratch on a cliff overlooking the wintering cave, back in the Gray Hills. Still, the lifelike accuracy seemed spooky and magical. The Slopies are studying the star-men. What could it mean?

  Rety almost tripped in her haste to get away. Whatever they're planning, it won't come to much. She set her mind back to getting out of this place and making the rendezvous, in time.

  The mustiness began to lift and the harsh echoes softened. Soon she heard voices ahead . . . Lester Cambel trading words with a second human. Rety tiptoed to the next bend and peered around. The human sage could be seen talking to the cave guard, who looked down at yee with a chagrined expression.

  "Privacy wasps may stop the tiniest robots," Cambel said. "But what about something the size of this little fellow?"

  "Honestly, sir. I can't imagine how he got past-"

  Cambel waved off the apology. "There was no harm done this time, son. It's mostly their contempt that protects us-their confidence we have nothing worth spying on. Just be more careful from now on, eh?"

  He patted the young man's arm and turned to follow as yee hurried outside. The path seemed brightly lit by moonshine, piercing through gently waving forest branches. Still clearly perplexed, the guard set his jaw and gripped his weapon-a kind of pole with a sharp-looking knife-thing at one end-standing with legs slightly apart, in the center of the entrance. When the scrape of Cambel's footsteps faded, Rety counted twenty duras, then made her own move. Faking calm, she sauntered toward the young guard, who swiveled when she was close.

  Rety gave a smile and an easygoing wave. "Well, guess I'm all done for the night." She yawned, sidling past his bulk, sensing his startled indecision. "Boy I'll tell ya, that science sure is hard work! Well, g'night."

  Now she was outside, gratefully inhaling fresh mountain air and trying not to break into a run. Especially when he shouted-"Hey, stop right there!"

  Swiveling around but continuing to walk backward down the path, Rety delayed him a few more seconds by grinning broadly. "Yeah? You need somethin'?"

  "What . . . who are you-?"

  "Got something here I figure the sage'd want to be seein'," she replied with deceptive truthfulness, patting her belt pouch and still backing away.

  The guard started toward her.

  With a joyful shout, Rety spun about and took off into the forest, knowing pursuit was hopeless at this point. He had lost his chance, the stinker! Still, she was kind of glad that he tried.

  yee met her where they had agreed, by the log bridge, halfway to the place where she was to join Rann. On spying her, the little urs yelped and seemed to fly into her arms.

  He was less pleased on trying to burrow into his accustomed place, only to find a cold hard object taking up the pouch. Rety tucked him into the folds of her jacket, and after a moment he seemed to find that acceptable.

  "yee tell wife, yee see-"

  "We did it!" Rety chortled gleefully, unable to contain the rush of an adventure so well closed. The chase had been a perfect way to finish, leaping and laughing as she ran through the forest, leaving the big oaf to flounder in the dark while she circled around, then slinked right past the noisy guard on her way back to the Glade.

  "You were great, too," she told yee, sharing credit. "Would've been harder to do it without you." She hugged his little body till he complained with a series of short grunts. "Did you have any trouble getting away from Cambel?" she asked.

  "wiseman human no problem, yee get 'way good, but then-"

  "Great, then it's over. We better go now, though. If Rann has to wait, he may not be in as good a mood

  "-but then yee see something on way to meet wife! whole herd of urs . . . qheuens . . . hoons . . . men ... all going sneak-sneak in dark, carry big boxes!"

  Rety hurried down a side trail leading toward the rendezvous point. "Hm-hm? Do tell? Prob'ly one of those silly pilgrim things, headin' up to pray to that big rock they think is a god." She had only contempt for the superstitions of planet-grubbing sooners. To her, all the talk she'd heard about the Slopies' fabulous "Egg" was

  just more scare-you-in-the-dark stuff, like those tales of ghosts and huge beasts and spirit glavers that were common campfire fare back in the Gray Hills, especially since Jass and Bom took over. Whenever times were hard, the hunters would argue into the night, seeking some reason why the prey animals might be angry, and ways to appease them.

  "herd of sneakers not go holy rock!" yee protested, "head wrong way! no white robes, no sing-songs! just sneak-sneak, I say! sneak with boxes to 'nother cave!"

  Rety's interest was almost piqued, yee sure seemed to think it important. . . .

  But just then the trail turned to overlook the little valley where the sky-humans dwelled. Moonlight spilled across pavilions that seemed strangely less well camouflaged now, in the vivid dimness.

  A soft hum warbled from the west, and a glint drew her eye as a glistening teardrop shape floated into view, folding away two delicate wings as it descended. Rety felt a tingle, recognizing the small flying boat of the forayers, returning from another mysterious expedition. She watched, transfixed, as the lovely thing settled gracefully to the valley floor. A hole opened, swallowing it into the ground.

  Excitement filled Rety's lungs, and her heart felt light.

  "Hush, husband," she told yee when he complained of being ignored. "We got some tradin' and dickerin' to do.

  "Now's when we'll see if they pay what they promised."

  Asx

  MY RINGS, YOU NEED NOT MY WEAKLY FOCUSED musings to inform you. Surely all of you must feel it, deep within each oily torus core? The Egg. Slowly, as if rising from a deep torpor, it wakens!

  Perhaps now the Commons will be filled once more with comity, with union of spirit, with the meshed resolve that once bound jointly our collective wills.

  Oh, let it be so!

  We are so fractured, so far from ready. So far from worthy.

  Oh, let it be so.

  Sara

  THE STACKS WERE INFESTED WITH POLISHER BEES, and the music rooms thronged with hungry, biting parrot fleas, but the chimps on the maintenance staff were too busy to fumigate for minor pests.

  While taking some air in the west atrium, Sara watched several of the hairy workers help a human librarian pack precious volumes into fleece-lined crates, then seal them with drippings from a big red candle. Gobbets of wax clung to the chimps' matted fur, and they complained to each other with furtive hand signs.

  This is not correct, Sara interpreted one worker's flurry of gestures and husky grunts. In this intemperate haste, we are making regrettable errors.

  The other replied, How true, my associate! This volume of Auden should not go in among Greek classics! We shall never get these books properly restacked when this crisis finally blows over, as surely it must.

  Well, perhaps she was generous in her mental translation. Still, the chimps who labored in these hallowed halls were a special breed. Almost as special as Prity.

  Overhead towered the atrium of the Hall of Literature, spanned by bridges and ramps that linked reading rooms and galleries, all lined with shelves groaning under the weight of books, absorbing sound while emitting a redolence of ink, paper, wisdom, and dusty time. Weeks of, frantic evacuation, hauling donkey-loads to faraway caves, had not made a dent in the hoard-still crammed with texts of every color and size.

  Sage Plovov called this hall-dedicated to legend, magic, and make-believe-the House of Lies. Yet Sara always felt this place less burdened by the supremacy of the past than in those nearby structures dedicated to science. After all, what could Jijo's savages ever add to the mountain of facts brought here by their godlike ancestors? A mountain said to be like a sand grain next to the Great Galactic Library. But the tales in this hall feared no refutal by ancient authority. Good or bad, great or forgettable, no work of literature was ever provably "false."<
br />
  Plovov said-"It's easy to be original when you don't have to care whether you're telling the truth. Magic and an arise from an egomaniac's insistence that the artist is right, and the universe wrong."

  Of course, Sara agreed. On the other hand, she also thought Plovov was jealous.

  When humans came to Jijo, the effect on the other five races must have been like when Earth met Galactic culture. After centuries with just a handful of engraved scrolls, the urs, g'Kek, and others reacted to the flood of paper books with both suspicion and voracious appetite. Between brief, violent struggles, nonhumans devoured Terran fables, dramas, and novels. When they wrote stories of their own, they imitated Earthly forms- like ersatz Elizabethan romances featuring gray-shelled queens, or Native North American legends recast for ur-rish tribes.

  But lately, a flowering of new styles had also started emerging, from heroic adventures to epic poems set in strange meters and rhymes, unraveling the last shreds of order from dialects of GalSeven, and even GalTwo. Printers and binders had as many orders for new titles as reprints. Scholars debated what it all might mean-an outbreak of heresy? Or a freeing of the spirit?

  Few dared use the term renaissance.

  All of which may end in a matter of days or weeks, Sara pondered glumly. News from the Glade-brought by a kayak pilot braving the Bibur rapids-showed no change in the sages' grim appraisal of the alien gene-raiders, or their intent.

  Well, Bloor should be there by now. Sara's plan might not dissuade the sky-humans from genocide, but a folk as helpless as the Six must be willing to try anything.

  Including Ariana's crazy notion. Even if it's cruel.

  The voice of the elderly sage carried from the chamber behind Sara.

  "There now, dear. You've struggled long enough with that one. Let's see what you can make of this nice book. Have you ever seen symbols and words like these before?"

  Sighing, Sara turned around to reenter the Children's Wing.