Brightness Reef

by David Brin

  Of course one might suggest that such facile answers simply beg the question, but it's unwise to suggest it too loudly. Some august Galactics do not take it kindly when you point out their inconsistencies.

  Finally, there is one cult--the Affirmers--who hold the view that the Progenitors must have self-evolved on some planet, boot-strapping to full sapiency all by themselves--a prodigious, nigh-impossible feat. One might imagine that the Affirmers would be more friendly to Earthlings than most of the more fanatical alliances. After all, many Terrans still believe our race did the very same thing, uplifting ourselves in isolation, without help from anyone.

  Alas, don't expect much sympathy from the Affirmers, who see it as arrogant hubris for mere wolflings to make such a claim. Self-uplift, they maintain, is a phenomenon of the highest and most sacred order--not for the likes of creatures like us.

  --A Pragmatist's Introduction to Galactology,

  by Jacob Demwa, reprinted from the original by

  Tarek Printers Guild, Year-of-Exile 1892.

  Dwer

  IT DID NO GOOD TO SHOUT OR THROW STONES AT the glavers. The pair just retreated to watch from a distance with blank, globelike eyes, then resumed following when the human party moved on. Dwer soon realized there would be no getting rid of them. He'd have to shoot the beasts or ignore them.

  "You have other things to keep you busy, son," Danel Ozawa ruled.

  It was an understatement.

  The clearing near the waterfall still reeked of urs, donkey, and simla when Dwer warily guided Danel's group across the shallow ford. From then on, he borrowed a tactic from the old wars, reconnoitering each day's march the night before, counting on urrish diurnal habits to keep him safe from ambush-though urs were adaptable beings. They could be deadly even at night, as human fighters used to find out the hard way.

  Dwer hoped this group had lazy habits, after generations of peace.

  Rising at midnight, he would scout by the light of two smaller moons, sniffing warily each time the trail of hoofprints neared some plausible ambuscade. Then, at dawn, he would hurry back to help Danel's donkey train plod ahead by day.

  Ozawa thought it urgent to catch up with the urrish band and negotiate an arrangement. But Dwer worried. How does he expect they'll react? Embracing us like brothers? These are criminals. Like Rety's band. Like us.

  The spoor grew fresher. Now the urs were just a week ahead of them, maybe just a few days.

  He began noting othertraces. Soft outlines in the sand. Broken stone flakes. Fragments of a moccasin lace. Smudged campfires more than a month old.

  Rety's band. The urs are heading straight for the heart of their territory.

  Danel took the news calmly. "They must figure as we did. The human sooners know a lot about life in these hills. That's valuable experience, whether it can be bought, borrowed-"

  "Or tortured out of 'em," Lena Strong finished, whetting one of her knives by the evening's low red coals. "Some urrish clans used to keep human prisoners as drudges, before we broke 'em of the habit."

  "A habit they learned from the queens. There's no call to assume slavery is a natural urs behavior. For that matter, back on Old Earth humans used to-"

  "Yeah, well, we still have a problem," Dwer interrupted. "What to do when we catch up."

  "Right!" Lena inspected the knife-edge. "Do we pounce fast, taking the urs all bunched together? Or do it hoon-style-picking them off one at a time."

  Jenin sighed unhappily. "Oh, Lena. Please stop." She had been cheerful throughout the journey, until hearing all this talk of fighting. Jenin had joined this trek in order to be a founding mother of a new race, not to hunt down beings who had once been her neighbors.

  Dwer's heart felt the same pain as Jenin, though his pragmatic side agreed with Lena.

  "If we have to, I'd rather do it fast," he muttered, glancing at the donkey carrying their most secret, unspeakable "tools."

  "It shouldn't come to that," Danel insisted. "First let's ascertain who they are and what they want. Perhaps we can make common cause."

  Lena snorted. "Send an emissary? Give away our presence? You heard Dwer. There's over a dozen of 'em!"

  "Don't you think we should wait for the second

  group, then?" Jenin asked. "They were supposed to be right behind us."

  Lena shrugged. "Who knows how long they'll take? Or if they got lost? The urs could find us first. And there's the human tribe to consider."

  "Rety's old band."

  "Right. Want to let them get killed or enslaved? Just on account of we're too scared to-" •

  "Lena!" Danel cut her off. "That will do for now. We'll see what's to be done when the time comes. Meanwhile, poor Dwer should get some sleep. We owe him whatever rest he can get."

  "That ain't half what he's owed." Lena muttered, causing Dwer to glance her way, but in the pre-moonrise dimness, he could make out only shadows.

  "G'night all," he said, and slipped away to seek his bedroll.

  Mudfoot looked up from the blanket, chuttering testily over having to move. The creature did help warm things up at night, which partly made up for its vexing way of licking Dwer's face while he slept, harvesting perspiration from his forehead and lip.

  Dwer lay down, turned over-and blinked in surprise at two pairs of giant round eyes, staring back at him from just three meters away.

  Jeekee glavers.

  Normally, one simply ignored the placid creatures. But he still couldn't shake the memory of that pack of them, clustered greedily around a dead gallaiter.

  He tossed a dirt clod vaguely their way. "Go on! Get!"

  Just as vaguely, the pair turned and sauntered off. Dwer glanced at Mudfoot.

  "Why not make yourself a hit useful and keep those pests away?"

  The noor just grinned back at him.

  Dwer pulled the blanket over his chin, trying to settle down. He was tired and ached from sore muscles and bruises. But slumber came slowly, freighted with troubling dreams.

  He woke to a soft touch, stroking his face. Irritably, he tried to push the noor away.

  "Quit it, furball! Lick a donkey turd, if you want salt so bad."

  After a surprised pause, a hushed voice answered.

  "Reckon I never been welcomed to a man's bed half so sweetly."

  Dwer rolled onto an elbow, rubbing one eye to make out a blurred silhouette. A woman.

  "Jenin?"

  "Would you prefer her? I won the toss, but I'll fetch her if you like."

  "Lena! What-can I do for you?"

  Dwer made out a white glint-her rare smile.

  "Well, you could invite me in from the cold." Her voice sounded soft, almost shy.

  Lena was buxom and sanguinely female, yet soft and shy were two words Dwer had never linked with her before. "Uh-sure. . . ." Am I still dreaming? he wondered as she slid alongside, strong hands working to loosen his clothes. Her smooth skin seemed to blaze with ardent heat.

  I must be. The Lena I know never smelled this good.

  "You're all knotted up," she commented, kneading his neck and back with uncanny, forceful accuracy. At first, Dwer's gasps came from released muscle strain. But Lena somehow also made each jab or digging twist of her calloused fingers seem feminine, erotic.

  She got halfway through the massage before Dwer passed his limit of self-control and turned over to gently but resolutely reverse their positions, taking her beneath him, repaying her vitality with a vigor that welled from weeks of pent-up" tension. Hoarded worry and fatigue seemed to explode into the air, into the forest, into her as she clutched and sighed, pulling him closer.

  After .she slipped away, he pondered muzzily--Lena thinks I may die, since my job is to be up front in any fight. This might be the last . . . the only chance. . . .

  Dwer drifted into a tranquil, dreamless repose-a slumber so blank and relaxing that he actually felt rested by the time another warm body slid into the bedroll next to him. By then, his unconscious had worked it out, crediting the women w
ith ultimate pragmatism.

  Danel will probably be around later, so it makes sense to use whatever I have to give, before it's gone.

  It wasn't his place to judge the women. Theirs was the harder job, here in the wilderness. His tasks were simple-to hunt, fight, and if need be, to die. Theirs was to go on, whatever it took.

  Dwer did not even have to rouse all the way. Nor did Jenin seem offended that his body performed but half awake. There were all sorts of duties to fulfill these days. If he was going to keep up, he would simply have to catch what rest he could.

  Dwer woke to find it already a midura past midnight. Though he felt much better now, he had to fight a languid lethargy to get dressed and check his gear-the bow and quiver, a compass, sketch pad, and hip canteen-then stop by the dim coals to pluck the leaf-wrapped package Jenin left for him each night, the one decent meal he would eat while away.

  For most of his adult life he had traveled alone, relishing peace and solitude. Yet, he had to admit the attractions of being part of a team, a community. Perhaps, under Ozawa's guidance, they might come to feel like family.

  Would that take some of the bitter sting out of recalling the life and loved ones they had left behind, in the graceful forests of the Slope?

  Dwer was about to head off, following the urrish track farther in the direction of the rising moons, when a soft sound made him pause. Someone was awake and talking. Yet he had passed both women, snoring quietly and (he liked to imagine) happily. Dwer slipped the bow off his shoulder, moving toward the low speech sounds, more curious .than edgy. Soon he recognized the murmured whisper.

  Of course it was Danel. But who was the sage talking to?

  Beyond the bole of a large tree, Dwer peered into a small clearing where satiny moonlight spilled over an unlikely pair. Danel was kneeling low to face the little black creature called Mudfoot. Dwer couldn't make out words, but judging from tone and inflection, Ozawa was trying to ask it questions, in one language after another.

  The noor responded by licking itself, then glancing briefly toward Dwer,' standing in the shadows. When Ozawa switched to GalTwo, Mudfoot grinned-then twisted to bite an itch on one shoulder. When the beast turned back, it was to answer the sage with a gaping yawn.

  Danel let out a soft sigh, as if he had expected to fail but felt it worth an effort.

  What effort? Dwer wondered. Was the sage seeking magical aid, as ignorant lowlanders sometimes tried to do, treating noor like sprites in some fairy tale? Did Ozawa hope to tame Mudfoot, the way hoon sailors did, as agile helpers on the river? Few nonhoon had ever managed that feat. But even if it worked, what use was one noor assistant? Or would Dwer's next assignment-after dealing with urrish sooners and then Rety's band-be to run back and collect more of Mudfoot's kind?

  That made no sense. If by some miracle the Commons survived, word would be sent calling them all home. If the worst happened, they were to stay as far from the Slope as possible.

  Well, Danel will tell me what he wants me to know. I just hope this doesn't mean he's gone crazy.

  Dwer crept away and found the urrish trail. He set off at a lope that soon strained forward, pulling him with unwilled, eagerness to see what lay beyond the next shadowy rise. For the first time in days, Dwer felt whole and strong. It wasn't that all worries had vanished. Existence was still a frail, perilous thing, all too easily lost. Still, for this narrow stretch of time he pounded onward, feeling vibrantly alive.

  Rety

  THE DREAM ALWAYS ENDED THE SAME WAY, JUST before she woke shivering, clutching a soft blanket to her breast.

  She dreamed about the bird.

  Not as it appeared the last time she had seen it--headless, spread across Rann's laboratory bench in the buried station--but as she recalled first glimpsing the strange thing. Vivid in motion, with plumage like glossy forest leaves, alert and lustrous in a way that seemed to stroke her soul.

  As a child she had loved to watch native birds, staring for hours at their swooping dives, envying their freedom of the air, their liberty to take wing, leaving their troubles far behind. Then one day Jass returned from a long journey to the south, bragging about all the beasts he had shot. One had been a fantastic flying thing that they took by surprise as it emerged from a tidal marsh. It barely got away after an arrow tore one wing, flapping off toward the northwest, leaving behind a feather harder than stone.

  That very night, risking awful punishment, she stole the stiff metal fragment from the tent where the hunters snored, and with a pack of stolen food she ran off, seeking this fabled wonder for herself. As luck had it, she guessed right and crossed its path, spotting the fluttering creature as it labored onward with short, gliding bounds. In a throat-catching instant of recognition, Rety knew the bird was like her--wounded by the same man's taste for senseless violence.

  Watching it hop-glide ever westward, never resting, she knew they shared one more trait. Persistence.

  She wanted to catch up with it, to heal it, talk to it. To learn its source of power. To help it reach its goal. To help find its home. But even disabled, the bird soon outdistanced her. For a heart-aching time, she thought she had lost it forever . . .

  At that point of harsh emotion, without transition, the dream shifted to another scene. Suddenly, the bird was right in front of her, closer than ever, fluttering inside a jeweled cage, dodging a mist of golden, cloying drops . . . then cowering away from searing knives of flame!

  Frustration choked Rety, unable to give aid. Unable to save it.

  Finally, when all seemed lost, the bird did as Rety herself would have done. It lashed out with desperate strength, dying to bring down its oppressor, the agent of its torment.

  For several nights in a row the dream ended the same way, with someone's insistent arms holding her back in shameful safety while the bird fired its own head upward toward a hovering, shadowy form. A dark rival with dangling, lethal limbs.

  It seemed revenge was going to be another of those things that didn't turn out quite the same in real life as she'd imagined.

  For one thing, in her heart, Rety never reckoned on Jass taking pain so well.

  The hunter lay strapped to a couch inside the scout aircraft, his ruggedly handsome features twisting as Kunn kept the promise he had made. A promise Rety regretted a bit more each time Jass clamped back another moan, choking it behind gritted teeth.

  Who would've thought he'd turn out to be brave, she pondered, recalling all the times Jass used to brag, bluster, and harass other members of the tribe. Bullies were supposed to be cowards, or so one of the tribe's aged grandfathers used to mutter when he was sure the young hunters wouldn't hear. Too bad the old geep would never know how wrong he'd been. That battered patriarch had died during the months since Rety left these hills.

  She tried steeling her heart during the contest of wills between Kunn and Jass, one Jass was bound to lose. You want to find out where the bird came from, don't you? she asked herself. Anyway, don't Jass deserve everything he's getting? Ain't his own stubborn-headedness bringing this on himself?

  Well, in truth, Rety had played a role in stiffening the hunter's resistance, thus extending his torment. Kunn's patient, insistent questions alternated with grunts of pure glaverlike obstinacy from Jass, sweating and contorting under jolts applied by Kunn's robot partner.

  When she could take no more without getting sick, Rety silently slipped out the hatch. If anything changed, the pilot could call her on the tiny comm button the sky-humans had installed under.the skin near her right ear.

  She set off toward the campsite, trying to appear casual in case any sooners watched from the shrubby undergrowth.

  That was how she thought of them. Sooners. Savages. No different in kind from those puffed-up barbarians on the Slope, who thought themselves so civilized with their fancy books but who were still little more than half-animals, trapped on a dirty world they could never leave. To a sky-being like herself, they were all the same, whichever side of the Rimmers they led their dirt-s
cratching lives.

  She smelled the camp before reaching it. A familiar musty blend of wood smoke, excrement, and poorly tanned hides, all mixed with a sulfury pungence rising from the steam pools that always drew the tribe here this time of year-a fact that had made it easy to guide Kunn to this pocket canyon, high in the Gray Hills. Rety paused halfway to the campsite, smoothing down the sleek jumpsuit Ling had given her, soon after she became the first Jijoan to enter the underground station, that wonderland of luxuries and bright marvels. Ling had also bathed Rety, treated her scalp, and applied potions and rays to leave her feeling cleaner, stronger, even taller than before. Only the livid scar on one side of her face still marred the mirror's transformed image, and that would be tended, she was assured, when they all went "home."

  My home too, Rety mused, resuming a brisk pace until all moaning traces of the hunter's torment faded behind her. She drove out memory of Jass's squirming agony by calling to mind those images the sky-foursome had shown her-of a splendid, jewellike city, tucked inside a steep-walled valley. A city of fairy towers and floating castles, where one lucky branch of humanity lived with their beloved patrons, the wise, benevolent Rothen.

  That part didn't quite appeal to her-this business of having masters who told you what to do. Nor did the Rothen themselves, when she met the two living aboard the station, who seemed too pretty and prim, too smugly happy, by far. But then, if Ling and Besh loved them, she supposed she could get used to that idea too. Anyway, Rety was willing to do or put up with anything to reach that city of lights.

  I always knew I belonged someplace else, she thought, rounding a bend in the forest. Not here. Not in a place like this.

  Before her stretched a debris-strewn clearing dotted by half a dozen ragged shelters-animal hides thrown over rows of bent saplings-all clustered round a cook fire where soot-smudged figures hunched over a carcass. Tonight's meal. A donkey with a neat hole burned through its heart. A gift, courtesy of Kunn's handy hunter-killer robot.