Brightness Reef Page 4

  Lorrek wrapped his eyestalks, and Nelo needed no rewq to read the old g'Kek's silent laughter. "Serenity is good," he agreed dryly, coughing behind a hand.

  He braced the elevator cage, first for the heavy traeki to shuffle aboard. Then Lorrek rolled in, his left wheel wobbling from untreatable degenerative axle disease. Nelo pulled the signal rope, calling an operator far below to start the weight-driven winch.

  "Has anything been learned about the Stranger's identity?" Lorrek asked while waiting.

  "Not that I heard. Though I'm sure it's just a matter of time."

  So far, even merchant traders had failed to recognize the unconscious man, implying he came quite a distance, perhaps from the coast settlements or even The Vale. No one in Dolo knew Melina, either, when she arrived long ago, with a letter of introduction and a baby on her hip. The Slope is a bigger place than we're used to thinking.

  The g'Kek sighed. "We must resolve soon whether it will better serve the patient to send him on, now that he's stabilized, to be examined in-"

  The cage shuddered, then dropped swiftly, cutting Lorrek off midsentence.

  Ah well, Nelo thought, watching the car vanish steadily below moss-heavy branches. That'd explain the shouting. Sara wouldn't want her pet sent to specialists in Tarek Town-even if she does complain about disrupted work.

  Would she ever learn? The last time Sara's nurturing instincts took over-succoring a convalescing bookbinder, in Biblos-it led to a love affair that ended in tragedy, scandal, and alienation from her guild. Nelo hoped the cycle wasn't repeating.

  Even now she could win it all back-both her position and marriage to a respected sage. True, I never liked that sour-pussed Taine, but he offers a more secure life than she'd have had with that frail lover of hers.

  Anyway, she can still do math while making me some grandkids.

  The little chimp plunged into the house first. Sara's voice called from shadows, "Is that you, Prity? It's been nothing but interruptions, but I think I finally whipped that integral. Why don't you look it ov-"

  There was a flat sound. A large bundle, landing on a table.

  "Ah, the paper. Wonderful. Let's see what the old man sent us this time."

  "Whatever the old man sends is good enough for one who don't pay for it," Nelo groused, shuffling while his eyes adapted. Through the gloom, he saw his daughter rise from a desk covered with notebooks and obscure symbols. Sara's round face spread with a smile he always thought beautiful, though it might have helped if she'd taken more after her mother.

  My looks and Melina's wild brains. Not a blend I'd wish on a sweet lass.

  "Father!" She hurried over to embrace him. "You gave me a start."

  Her black hair, cut like a boy's, smelled of pencil dust and Pzora's unguents.

  "No doubt." He frowned at the shambles of her quarters, worse now with a mattress by her desk. A jumble of texts, some bearing emblems of the great Biblos trove, lay amid notes on the "new direction" her research had taken, combining mathematics and linguistics, of all things.

  Prity took one of Sara's papers and perched on a stool. The chimp worked her lower lip, scanning one line of symbols at a time, silent collaborator in an arcane art Nelo would never understand.

  He glanced toward the sleeping porch, where sunlight spread across a blanket, outlining two large feet.

  "With both of the lads gone, I thought I'd come see how you're doing."

  "Well, I'm all right, as you can see." She gestured, as if the firetrap of a treehouse were a model of home-tending. "And I have Prity to take care of me. Why, I even recall to eat, most days!"

  "Well . . ." he muttered. But Sara had taken his arm and was gently maneuvering him toward the door. "I'll come visit tomorrow," she vowed, "when Lorrek and old Stinky want me out of the way. We'll go to Belonna's for a nice meal, hm? I'll even wear a clean gown."

  "Well-that'd be fine." He paused. "Just remember, the elders will assign you help, if all this gets to be too much fuss and work."

  She nodded. "I know how this looks to you, Father. 'Sara's gone obsessive again,' right? Well don't worry. It's not like that, this time. I just think this place is ideal for preventing infection of those horrid wounds-"

  A low moan floated from the back of the house. Sara hesitated, then held up a hand. "I'll be a moment."

  Nelo watched her hasten toward the shuttered porch, then he followed, drawn by curiosity.

  Prity was wiping the injured stranger's brow, while his dark hands trembled outward, as if warding off something deadly. Livid scars laced the man's arms, and yellow fluid leaked through a gauze dressing near his left ear. The last time Nelo had seen the man, his skin was ashen with a pallor of approaching death. Now the eyes, with near-black irises, seemed to flame with awful passion.

  Sara took the wounded man's hands, speaking insistently, trying to soothe the abrupt fit. But the outsider clutched her wrists, clamping down so hard that Sara cried out. Nelo rushed to her side, plucking vainly at the strong fingers gripping his daughter.

  "Ge-ge-ge-dow" the stranger stammered, yanking Sara toward the floor.

  At that moment, the sky cracked open.

  A savage roar blew in the shutters, knocking pottery off kitchen shelves. The entire garu tree leaned, as if a great hand shoved it, knocking Nelo off his feet. With ringing ears, father and daughter clutched floor planks as the tree swung over so far, Nelo glimpsed the ground through a gaping window. More crockery spilled. Furniture slid toward the open door. Amid a storm of swirling paper, Prity shrieked, and the wide-eyed stranger howled in harmony.

  Nelo managed one dumbfounded thought. Could it be another quake?

  The garu whipped them back and forth like beads in a rattle, for a terrifying interval that felt like eternity-and must have lasted all of a minute.

  Amazingly, the house clung to its cleft between two branches. Vibrations thrummed along the tree's abused spine as the wail in Nelo's skull abated at last, trailing to numbed silence. Reluctantly, he let Sara help him rise. Together, they joined the Stranger, who now clutched the windowsill with bone-white knuckles.

  The forest was a maelstrom of dust and fluttering leaves. No trees had toppled, much to Nelo's surprise. He sought the great dam. and found that it held, thank God. The paper mill appeared intact.

  "Look!" Sara gasped, pointing above the forest toward the southeast sky.

  A thin white trail showed where, high overhead, the air had been riven by something titanic and fast-something that still sparkled in the distance as they glimpsed it streak past the valley's edge, toward the white-tipped peaks of the Rimmer Range. So high and so fleet it seemed-so arrogantly untimid-Nelo did not have to speak his dread aloud. The same fear lay in his daughter's eyes.

  The Stranger, still tracking the distant, dwindling glitter, let out a foreboding sigh. He seemed to share their anxiety, but in his weary face there was no hint of surprise.

  Asx

  DO YOU RECALL, MY RINGS, HOW THE ROTHEN ship circled thrice over the Glade of Gathering, blazing from its hot descent, chased by the roaring protest of a cloven sky? Stroke the wax-of-memory, and recollect how mighty the vessel seemed, halting dramatically, almost overhead.

  Even the human tribe-our finest tech-crafters- stared in the round-eyed manner of their kind, as the great cylinder, vast as a glacier, settled down just ninety arrowflights away from the secret sacred hollow of the Holy Egg.

  The people of the Six Races came before us, moaning dread.

  "Oh, sages, shall we flee? Shall we hide, as the law demands?"

  Indeed, the Scrolls so command us.

  Conceal your tents, your fields, your works and very selves. For from the sky shall come your judgment and your scourge.

  Message-casters asked--"Shall we put out the Call? Shall villages and burghs and herds and hives be told to raze?"

  Even before the law was shaped-when our Commons had not yet congealed out of sharp enmities- even then our scattered outcast bands knew where danger lay. We exi
les-on-Jijo have cowered when survey probes from the Galactic Institutes made cursory audits from afar, causing our sensor-stones to light with warning fire. At other times, shimmering globe-swarms of Zang fell from the starry vault, dipping to the sea, then parting amid clouds of stolen vapor. Even those six times when new bands of misfits settled on this desert shore, they went ungreeted by those already here, until they burned the ships that brought them. "Shall we try to hide?"

  Recall, my rings, the confused braying as folk scattered like chaff before a whirlwind, tearing down the festival pavilions, hauling dross from our encampment toward nearby caves. Yet amid all this, some were calm, resigned. From each race, a few understood. This time there would be no hiding from the stars.

  Among the High Sages, Vubben spoke first, turning ah eyestalk toward each of us.

  "Never before has a ship landed right in our midst. Clearly, we are already seen."

  "Perhaps not, " Ur-Jah suggested in hopeful Galactic Seven, stamping one hoof. Agitated white fur outlined her flared urrish nostril. "They may be tracking emanations of the Egg! Perhaps if we hide swiftly ..."

  Ur-Jah's voice trailed off as Lester, the human, rocked his head-a simple gesture of negation lately fashionable throughout the Commons, among those with heads.

  "At this range, our infrared signatures would be unmistakable. Their onboard library will have categorized us down to each subspecies. If they didn't know about us before entering the atmosphere, they surely do by now."

  Out of habit, we took his word for such things, about which humans oft know best.

  "Perhaps they are refugees like us!" burst forth our qheuenish sage, venting hope from all five leg-vents. But Vubben was not sanguine.

  "You saw the manner of their arrival. Was that the style of refugees, treading in fear, hiding from Izmunuti's stare? Did any of our ancestors come thus? Screaming brutishly across the sky?"

  Lifting his forward eye to regard the crowd, Vubben called for order. "Let no one leave the festival valley, lest their flight be tracked to our scattered clans and holds. But seek all glavers that have come to browse among us, and push those simple ones away, so our guilt won't stain their reclaimed innocence.

  "As for those of the Six who are here now, where the ship's dark shadow fell . . . we all must live or die as fate wills."

  i/we sensed solidification among the rings of my/our body. Fear merged into noble resignation as the Commons saw.truth in Vubben's words.

  "Nor shall we scurry uselessly," he went on. "For the Scrolls also say--When every veil is torn, cower no more. For that day comes your judgment. Stand as you are."

  So clear was his wisdom, there rose no dissent. We gathered then, tribe by tribe, did we not, my rings? From many, we coalesced as one.

  Together our Commons turned toward the ship, to meet our destiny.

  Dwer

  THE WEIRD NOOR STILL DOGGED HIS HEELS, leering down at him from tree branches, being an utter pest.

  Sometimes the sleek, black-pelted creature vanished for a while, raising Dwer's hopes. Perhaps it finally had tired of dusty alpine air, so far from the swamps where most noor dwelled.

  Then it reappeared, a grin splitting its stubby snout, perched on some ledge to watch Dwer hack through thorn-hedges and scramble over upended slabs of ancient pavement, kneeling often to check footprint traces of a runaway glaver.

  The scent was already cool when Dwer had first noticed the spoor, just outside the Glade of Gathering. His brother and the other pilgrims had continued toward sounds of gala music, floating from the festival pavilions. But alas for Dwer, it was his job to stop glavers who took a strange notion to leave the cozy lowlands and make a break for perilous freedom. Festival would have to wait.

  The noor barked high-pitched yelps, pretending to be helpful, its sinuous body streaking along at root level while Dwer had to chop and scramble. Finally, Dwer could tell they were gaining. The glaver's tired footprints lay close together, pressing the heel. When the wind changed, Dwer caught a scent. About time, he thought, gauging how little mountain remained before a cleft led to the next watershed-in effect another world.

  Why do glavers keep doing this? Their lives aren't so rough on this side, where everyone dotes on them. Beyond the pass, by contrast, lay a poison plain, unfit for all but the hardiest hunters.

  Or tourists, he thought, recalling Lena Strong's offer to pay him to lead a trip east. A journey whose sole aim was sightseeing-a word Dwer had only heard in tales from Old Earth.

  These are crazy times, he thought. Yet the "tour organizers" claimed to have approval from the sages--under certain conditions. Dwer shook his head. He didn't need idiotic ideas clouding his mind right now, with a quarry just ahead.

  The noor, too, showed signs of fatigue, though it kept snuffing along the glaver's track, then rising on its hind legs to scan with black, forward-facing eyes. Suddenly, it gave a guttural purr and took off through the montane thicket-and soon Dwer heard a glaver's unmistakable squawl, followed by the thud of running feet.

  Great, now he's spooked it!

  At last Dwer spilled from the undergrowth onto a stretch of ancient Buyur highway. Sprinting along the broken pavement, he sheathed the machete and drew his compound bow, cranking the string taut.

  Sounds of hissing confrontation spilled from a narrow side canyon, forcing Dwer to leave the old road again, dodging amid vine-crusted trees. Finally he saw them, just beyond a screen of shrubs-two creatures, poised in a showdown of sable and iridescent pale.

  Cornered in a slit ravine, the glaver was obviously female, possibly pregnant. She had climbed a long way and was pulling deep breaths. Globelike eyes rotated independently, one tracking the dark noor while the other scanned for dangers yet unseen.

  Dwer cursed both of them-the glaver for drawing him on a profitless chase when he had been looking forward to festival, and the meddlesome noor for daring to interfere!

  Doubly cursed, because now he was in its debt. If the glaver had reached the plains beyond the Rimmer Range, it would have been no end of trouble.

  Neither creature seemed to notice Dwer-though he wouldn't bet against the noor's keen senses. What is the little devil doing up here? What's it trying to prove?

  Dwer had named it Mudfoot, for the brown forepaws marring an ebony pelt, from a flattish tail to whiskers that twitched all around a stubby snout. The black-furred creature kept still, its gaze riveted on the flighty glaver, but Dwer wasn't fooled. You know I'm watching, show-off. Of all species left on Jijo when the ancient Buyur departed, Dwer found noor the least fathomable, and fathoming other creatures was a hunter's art.

  Quietly, he lowered the bow and unfastened a buckskin thong, taking up his coiled lariat. Using patient, stealthy care, he edged forward.

  Grinning with jagged, angular teeth, Mudfoot reared almost to the glaver's height-roughly as tall as Dwer's thigh. The glaver retreated with a snarl, till her bony back plates brushed rock, causing a rain of pebbles. In her forked tail she brandished a stick-some branchlet or sapling with the twigs removed. A sophisticated tool, given the present state of glaverdom.

  Dwer took another step and this time could not avoid crushing some leaves. Behind the noor's pointy ears, gray spines jutted from the fur, waving independently. Mudfoot kept facing the glaver, but something in its stance said--"Be quiet, fool!"

  Dwer didn't like being told what to do. Especially by a noor. Still, a hunt is judged only by success, and Dwer wanted a clean capture. Shooting the glaver now would be to admit failure.

  Her loose skin had lost some opal luster since leaving familiar haunts, scavenging near some village of the Six, as glavers had done for centuries, ever since their innocence was new.

  Why do they do this? Why do a few try for the passes, every year?

  One might as well guess the motives of a noor. Among the Six, only the patient hoon had a knack for working with the puckish, disruptive beasts.

  Maybe the Buyur resented having to quit Jijo and left noor as a joke
on whoever came next.

  A buzzing lion-fly cruised by, under filmy, rotating wings. The panting glaver tracked it with one eye, while the other watched the swaying noor. Hunger gradually prevailed over fear as she realized Mudfoot was too small to murder her. As if to enhance that impression, the noor sat back on its haunches, nonchalantly licking a shoulder.

  Very clever, Dwer thought, shifting his weight as the glaver swung both eyes toward the hovering meal.

  A jet of sputum shot from her mouth, striking the fly's tail.

  In a flash, Mudfoot bounded left. The glaver squealed, struck out with the stick, then whirled to flee the other way. Cursing, Dwer sprang from the undergrowth. Moccasins skidded on spoiled granite, and he tumbled, passing just under the flailing club. Desperately, Dwer cast the lariat-which tautened with a savage yank that slammed his chin to the ground. Though starving and weak, the glaver had enough panicky strength to drag Dwer for a dozen meters, till her will finally gave out.

  Shivering, with waves of color coursing under her pale skin, she dropped the makeshift club and sank to all four knees. Dwer got up warily, coiling the rope.

  "Easy does it. No one's gonna hurt you."

  The glaver scanned him with one dull eye. "Pain exists. Marginally, " she crooned, in thickly slurred Galactic Eight.

  Dwer rocked back. Only once before had a captured glaver spoken to him. Usually they kept up their insentient to the last. He wet his lips and tried answering in the same obscure dialect.

  "Regrettable. Endurance suggested. Better than death."

  "Better?" The weary eye squinted as if vaguely puzzled and unsure it mattered.

  Dwer shrugged. "Sorry about the pain."

  The faint light drifted out of focus.

  "Not blamed. Dour melody. Now ready to eat."

  The flicker of intellect vanished once more under a bolus of animal density.

  Both amazed and drained, Dwer tethered the creature to a nearby tree. Only then did he take account of his own wincing cuts and bruises while Mudfoot lay on a rock, basking in the last rays of the setting sun.

  The noor couldn't talk. Unlike the glaver, its ancestors had never been given the knack. Still, its open-mouth grin seemed to say--"That was fun. Let's do it again!"