Brightness Reef u-4 Page 10

  Then there are those who like the practice simply because it feels good, and makes for excellent art.

  —Cultural Patterns of the Slope, by Ku-Phuhaph Tuo, Ovoom Town Guild of Publishers, Year-of-Exile 1922

  Asx

  Who would have imagined that a robot might display surprise? Yet did we not discern an unmistakable yank, a twitch, in response to Vubben’s manifest lie? An impromptu falsehood, contrived out of sudden necessity by Ur-Jah and Lester, whose quick wits do their hot-blooded tribes proud?

  The first scrolls — a mere ten kilowords, engraved on polymer bars by the original g’Kek pioneers — warned of several ways that doom might fall from heaven. New scrolls were added by glaver, hoon, and qheuen settlers, first jealously hoarded, then shared as the Commons slowly formed. Finally came human-sept and its flooding gift of paper books. But even the Great Printing could not cover all potentialities.

  Among likely prospects, it was thought the Galactic Institutes charged with enforcing quarantine might someday find us. Or titanic cruisers of the great patron clans would descry our violation, if/when the glaring eye, Izmunuti, ceased spewing its wind of masking needles.

  Among other possibilities, we pondered what to do if a great globe-ship of the hydrogen-breathing Zang came to one of our towns, dripping freezing vapors in wrath over our trespass. These and many other contingencies we discussed, did we not, my rings?

  But seldom this thing which had come to pass — the arrival of desperados.

  If malefactors ever did come to Jijo, we reasoned, why should they make themselves known to us? With a world to sieve for riches, would they even deign to notice the hovels of a few coarse savages, far devolved from ancient glory, clumped in one small corner of Jijo’s expanse?

  Yet here they have come into our midst with a boldness that terrifies.

  The robot emissary contemplated Vubben’s proclamation for ten duras, then responded with a single terse interrogation.

  “Your presence on this world, it is a (query) accident?”

  Do you recall, my rings, the brief thrill that coursed our linking membranes? The robot’s masters were set aback! Against all reason or proportionality of force, the initiative was ours, for a moment.

  Vubben crossed two eyestalks in a gesture of polite aloofness.

  “Your question, it insinuates doubt.

  “More than doubt, it suggests grave assumptions about our nature.

  “Those assumptions-might they lay upon our ancestors’ necks a shackling suspicion?

  “(Query) suspicion of heinous crimes?”

  How resilient was Vubben’s misdirection. How like the web of a mulc-spider. He denies nothing, tells no explicit lie. Yet how he implies!

  “Forgiveness for (unintended) insults, we implore,” the machine ratcheted hastily. “Descendants of castaways, we take you for. An ill-fated vessel, your ancestors’ combined ship must have been. Lost on some noble errand, this we scarcely doubt.”

  Now they were the liars, of that we had no doubt at all.

  Dwer

  Leaving the craggy Rimmer range, Dwer led Rety and the others into that region of undulating hills, gently slanting toward the sea, that was called the Slope. The domain of the Six.

  Dwer tried getting his mysterious young prisoner to talk about herself. But his first efforts were answered in morose monosyllables. Clearly, Rety resented the fact that he could tell so much from her appearance, her animal-skin clothes, her speech and manner.

  Well, what did you expect? To sneak over the mountains and walk into one of our villages, no questions asked?

  Her burn scar alone would mark her for attention. Not that disfigurement was rare on the Slope. Accidents were common, and even the latest traeki unguents were crude medicine by Galactic standards. Still, people would notice Rety anywhere she went.

  At meals, she gaped covetously at the goods he drew from his backpack. His cup and plate, the hammered aluminum skillet, his bedroll of fleecy hurchin down — things to make life a bit easier for those whose ancestors long ago forsook the life of star-gods. To Dwer there was a simple beauty in the woven cloth he wore, in boots with shape-treated tree sap soles, even the elegant three-piece urrish fire-starter — all examples of primitive cunning, the sort his wolfling ancestors relied on through their lonely isolation on old Earth. Most people took such things for granted on the Slope.

  But to a clan of sooners — illegal squatters living jealous and filthy beyond the pale — they might seem marvels, worth any risk to steal.

  Dwer wondered, was this the only time? Perhaps Rety was just the first to get caught. Some thefts blamed on noors might be the fault of other robbers, sneaking over the mountains from a far-off hermit tribe.

  Was that your idea? To swipe the first worthwhile thing you came across and scoot home to your tribe, a hero?

  Somehow, he figured more than that must be involved. She kept peering around, as if looking for something in particular. Something that mattered to her.

  Dwer watched Rety lead the captive glaver by a rope tied to her waist. The girl’s saucy gait seemed meant to defy him, or anyone else who might judge her. Between clumps of grimy hair, he was nauseated to see puckered tracks made by borer bees, a parasite easily warded off with traeki salve. But no traekis lived where she came from.

  It forced uncomfortable thoughts. What if his own grandparents had made the same choice as Rety’s? To flee the Commons for whatever reason, seeking far reaches to hide in? Nowadays, with war-and war’s refugees — a thing of the past, sooners were rather rare. Old Fallon had found only one squatter band in many years roaming across half a continent, and this was Dwer’s first encounter.

  What would you do if you were raised that way, scraping for a living like animals, knowing a land of wealth and power lay beyond those mountains to the west?

  Dwer had never thought of the Slope that way before. Most scrolls and legends emphasized how far the six exile races had already fallen, not how much farther there was yet to go.

  That night, Dwer used tobar seeds to call another clock teet, not because he wanted an early wakeup, but to have the steady, tapping rhythm in the background while he slept. When Mudfoot yowled at the burst of aroma, covering his snout, Rety let out a soft giggle and her first smile.

  He insisted on examining her feet before bed, and she quietly let him treat two blisters showing early signs of infection. “We’ll have healers look you over when we reach Gathering,” he told her. Neither of them commented when he kept her moccasins, tucking them under his sleeping roll for the night.

  As they lay under a starry canopy, separated by the dim campfire coals, he urged Rety to name a few constellations, and her curt answers helped Dwer eliminate one momentous possibility — that some new group of human exiles had landed, destroying their ship and settling to brute existence far from the Slope. Rety couldn’t realize the importance of naming a few patterns in the sky, but Dwer erased one more pinprick of worry. The legends were the same.

  At dawn Dwer awoke sniffing something in the air — a familiar odor, almost pleasant, but also nervous — a sensation Lark once explained mysteriously as “negative ions and water vapor.” Dwer shook Rety awake and hurriedly led the glaver under a rocky overhang. Mudfoot followed, moving like an arthritic g’Kek, grumbling hatred of mornings with every step. They all made it to shelter just as a sheet-storm hit-an undulating curtain of continuous rain that crept along the mountainside from left to right, pouring water like a translucent drapery that pummeled everything beneath, soaking the forest, one wavy ribbon at a time. Rety stared wide-eyed as the rainbow-colored tapestry swept by, drenching their campsite and ripping half the leaves off trees. Obviously she had never witnessed one before.

  The trek resumed. Perhaps it was a night’s restful sleep, or the eye-opening start to the day. But Rety now seemed less sullen, more willing to enjoy sights like a meadow full of bumble flowers — yellow tubes, fringed with black fuzz, which rode the steady west wind, swooping and
buzzing at the end of tether-stems. Rety’s eyes darted, enthralled by the antic dance of deception and pollination. The species did not exist in the stagnant weather shadow beyond the Rimmers, where a vast plain of poison grass stretched most of the way to the Gray Hills.

  Just getting here across all that was an accomplishment, Dwer noted, wondering how she had managed it.

  As alpine sheerness gave way to gentler foothills, Rety gave up hiding her fierce curiosity. She began by pointing and asking — “Are those wooden poles holding up your backpack? Don’t they make it heavy? I’ll bet they’re hollow.”

  Then — “If you’re a hunter, where’s the rest of your stalking gang? Or do you always hunt alone?”

  In rapid succession more questions followed. “Who made your bow? How far can you hit somethin’ the size of my hand?

  “Did you live in one place the whole time you were little? In a… house? Did you get to hold on to stuff you wanted to keep, ’stead of leavin’ it behind when you moved?

  “If you grew up by a river, did you ever see any hoon? What’re they like? I hear they’re tall as a tree, with noses long as your arm.

  “Are the trikki really tricky? Are they made of tree sap? Do they eat garbage?

  “Do noors ever slow down? I wonder why Buyur made ’em that way.”

  Other than her habit of turning Buyur into a singular proper name, Dwer couldn’t have phrased the last question any better himself. Mudfoot was a perpetual nuisance, getting underfoot, chasing shrub critters, then lying in ambush somewhere along the path, squeaking in delight when Dwer failed to pick him out of the overhanging foliage.

  I could shake you easily, if I didn’t have a glaver and a kid in tow, Dwer thought at the grinning noor. Yet he was starting to feel pretty good. They would make quite an entrance at Gathering, sure to be the talk of the festival.

  Over lunch, Rety used his cooking knife to prepare a scrub hen he had shot. Dwer could barely follow her whirling hands as the good parts landed in the skillet with a crackling sizzle, while the poison glands flew to the waste pit. She finished, wiping the knife with a flourish, and offered it back to him.

  “Keep it,” Dwer said, and she responded with a hesitant smile.

  With that he ceased being her jailor and became her guide, escorting a prodigal daughter back to the embrace of clan and Commons. Or so he thought, until some time later, during the meal, when she said — “I really ha’ seen some of those before.”

  “Seen some of what?”

  Rety pointed at the glaver, placidly chewing under the shade of a stand of swaying lesser-boo.

  “You thought I never saw any, ’cause I feared she’d bite. But I seen ’em, from afar. A whole herd. Sneaky devils, hard to catch. Took the guys all day to spear ’un. They taste awful gamey, but the boys liked it fine.”

  Dwer swallowed hard. “Are you saying your tribe hunts and eats glavers?”

  Rety looked back with brown eyes full of innocent curiosity. “You don’t on this side? I’m not surprised. There’s easier prey, an’ better eatin’.”

  He shook his head, nauseated by the news.

  Part of him chided — You were willing to shoot this particular glaver down, stone dead, if it crossed over the pass.

  Yes, but only as a last resort. And I wouldn’t eat her!

  Dwer knew what people called him — the Wild Man of the Forest, living beyond the law. He even helped nurse the mystique, since it meant his awkward speech was taken for something more manly than shyness. In truth, killing was the part of any hunt he did as capably and swiftly as possible, never with enjoyment. Now, to learn people beyond the mountains were devouring glavers! The sages would be appalled!

  Ever since surmising that Rety came from a sooner band, Dwer had known his duty would be to guide a militia expedition to round up the errant clan. Ideally, it would be a simple matter of firm but gentle ingathering, resettling lost cousins back into the fold of the Commons. But now, Rety had unknowingly indicted her tribe with another crime. The Scrolls were clear. That which is rare, you shall not eat. That which is precious, you must protect. But, above all — You may not devour what once flew between the stars.

  Irony was ashen in Dwer’s mouth. For after the sooners were brought back for trial, his job then would be to collect every glaver living east of the Rimmers — and slaughter those he could not catch.

  Ah, but that won’t make me a bad person… because I won’t eat them.

  Rety must have sensed his reaction. She turned to stare at the nearby stand of great-boo, its young shoots barely as thick as her waist. The tubelike green shafts swayed in rippling waves, like fur on the belly of the lazy noor, dozing by her foot.

  “Are they gonna hang me?” the girl asked quietly. The scar on her face, which was muted when she smiled, now seemed stretched and livid. “Old Clin says you slopies hang sooners when you catch “em.”

  “Nonsense. Actually, each race handles its own—”

  “The old folks say it’s slopie law. Kill anyone who tries to make a free life east o’ the Rimmers.”

  Dwer stammered, suddenly awash in irritation, “If— if you think that, why’d you come all this way? To— to stick your head in a noose?”

  Rety’s lips pressed. She looked away and murmured low. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  Dwer repented his own flash of temper. In a gentler tone, he asked… “Why don’t you try me? Maybe… I might understand better than you think.”

  But she withdrew once more into a cocoon of brooding silence, unresponsive as a stone.

  While Dwer hastily rinsed the cooking gear, Rety tied herself in place ahead of the glaver, even though he had said she could walk free. He found his cooking knife by the smothered coals, where she must have laid it after those sharp words.

  The gesture of rejection irked him, and he muttered gruffly, “Let’s get out of here.”

  Asx

  We had chosen to feign a small distinction between two crimes. At best a slightly lesser felony — that of accidental rather than planned colonization.

  No one could deny the obvious — that our ancestors had loosed unsanctioned offspring on a fallow world. But Vubben’s artful evasion implied an act of culpable carelessness, rather than villainy by design.

  The lie would not hold for long. When archaeological traces were sifted, forensic detectives from the Institutes would swiftly perceive our descent from many separate landings, not one mixed crew stranded by mishap on this remote shore. Moreover, there was the presence of our juniormost sept — the human clan. By their own bizarre tale, they are a wolfling race, unknown to Galactic culture until just three hundred Jijoan years ago.

  Then why even try such a bluff?

  Desperation. Plus a frail hope that our “guests” have not the skill or tools for archaeology. Their goal must be to swoop in for a quick sampling of hidden treasures. Then, covering their tracks, they would wish a swift, stealthy departure with a ship’s hold full of contraband. To this mercenary quest, our strange, forlorn colony of miscreants offers both opportunity and a threat.

  They must know we possess firsthand knowledge of Jijo, valuable to their needs.

  Alas, my rings. Are we not also potential witnesses to their villainy?

  Sara

  Nobody expected an ambush. It was the perfect place for one. Still, no one aboard the Haupb-woa had any idea of danger until it actually happened.

  A century of peace had blurred the once-jealously guarded domains of old. Urrish and g’Kek settlers were few, since the former could not raise young near water, and the latter preferred smooth terrain. Still, all types were seen crowding tiny docks when the Hauph-woa glided by, eager to share scant news.

  Alas, there had been none from downstream since that terrible spectacle crossed the sky.

  Mostly, the river folk were reacting constructively, rushing to reinforce their facade screens, cleaning the baffles of their smokestacks, or hauling boats under cover-but one forlorn tribe of traeki marsh-
dwellers had gone much further, burning their entire stilt village in a spasm of fear and fealty to the Scrolls. Pzora’s topknot shivered at the aroma of woebegone ring-stacks, floundering in the ashes. The Hauph-woa’s captain promised to spread word of their plight. Perhaps other traeki would send new basal segments for the locals to wear, making them better suited for evacuation inland. At worst, the swamp traeki could gather rotting matter, settle on top, and shut down higher functions till the world became a less scary place.

  The same could not be said for an urrish trade caravan they passed later, stranded with their pack beasts on the desolate west bank, when the panicky citizens of Bing Village blew up their beloved bridge.

  The hoonish boat crew back-pedaled with frantic haste, rowing against the current to avoid getting caught in a tangle of broken timbers and mule-fiber cables, shattered remnants of a beautiful span that had been the chief traverse for an entire region. A marvel of clever camouflage, the bridge used to resemble a jagged snag of jumbled logs. But even that apparently wasn’t enough for local orthodox scroll thumpers. Maybe they were burning it while I had my nightmare last night, Sara thought, observing charred timbers and recalling images of flame that had torn her sleep.

  A crowd,of villagers stood on the east bank, beckoning the Hauph-woa to draw near.

  Blade spoke up. “I would not approach,” the blue qheuen hissed from several leg-vents. He wore a rewq over his vision-ring while peering at the folk on shore.

  “And why not?” Jop demanded. “See? They’re pointing to a way past the debris. Perhaps they have news, as well.”

  Sure enough, there did appear to be a channel, near the shore, unobstructed by remnants of the broken bridge.

  “I don’t know,” Blade went on. “I sense that… something is wrong.”

  “You’re right avout that,” Ulgor added. “I’d like to know why they have done nothing for the stranded caravan. The villagers have voats. The urs could have veen ferried across vy now.”