If it was trying to provoke Ruslan, it failed. He had long ago come to terms with his status. The alien’s comment was interesting in and of itself. The Myssari did not keep pets. It suggested that this being’s species did.
“I am alive. If I were a pet, would I be out and about, exploring this place at night? Unless our respective kinds differ extensively on the definition of a pet, you know that if that was my status I would not be permitted to go out on my own.” For obvious reasons, he did not add that had they known about it the Myssari would surely have prevented his late afternoon excursion.
The alien appeared (or at least to Ruslan’s mind appeared) confused. He pressed his advantage.
“Why is it awkward for me to have seen you?”
“Because I should not be here,” the alien murmured.
Ruslan shrugged. “According to you, I should not be here, either. So we have something in common.”
Again the alien paused before the wide mouth parted once more. “I am thinking, ssish, that you are attempting irony. If so, that would be two things we have in common. They are not enough to keep me from killing you. But your existence, if you are truly a human, is. Most valuable information to take back with me that will become worthless if I kill you.”
Though the alien’s Myssarian was far from perfect, Ruslan felt sure enough of its meaning to comment. “Now who’s being ironic?”
The sounds of breaking branches interrupted the alien’s intended reply. With another long, appraising stare, the strange biped took the measure of the self-proclaimed human standing helplessly before it. The muzzle of the hand weapon held steady. So did Ruslan’s return gaze and respiration. Then the alien pivoted on its remarkably flexible legs to vanish in a thrashing of underbrush and camouflage. Ruslan exhaled heavily.
San’dwil was first at his side. The anxious base commander was followed seconds later by Kel’les and a clutch of concerned Myssari. All except Ruslan’s friend and minder were armed. While the others spread out to search the surrounding vegetation for threats, San’dwil and Kel’les confronted the human.
“What happened?” Kel’les’s small round mouth was flexing so fast it appeared that it was actually vibrating. “You were missed. When you could not be found, there was confusion, then some panic. Destructive energy was detected in this sector and confusion was multiplied.”
“I wanted to go for a walk.” A relieved Ruslan was by now far calmer than the still-apprehensive Myssari. “Without supervision. Without handlers.” At the look on Kel’les’s face, he added quickly, “Nothing personal. My kind needs occasional privacy, and I’ve had very little of it since we left Myssar.”
Kel’les was only partially mollified. “Bac’cul and Cor’rin are beside themselves, as was I. This might once have been a civilized world but it is a dangerous place now. You could have been killed.”
“Twice,” Ruslan agreed without hesitation. Both Myssari eyed him uncertainly.
“Would you care to explain the specific numerality of your response?” his friend inquired.
Turning, Ruslan pointed at the tunnel of broken vegetation that now extended back through the wood. “I was on my way back to base when something big and knobby and full of teeth tried to make a meal of me. I can’t be certain, but I think it must have been following me for some time. I probably had less than a minute to live when this funny-shaped specter arrived and shot it twice. Didn’t kill it, I don’t think, but drove it off. The shooter admitted he shot only to protect himself, not to save me. He was about to shoot me, too.”
Kel’les indicated his incomprehension. “Why did he not?”
“I’m not sure.” Ruslan thought back to the confrontation. Though it felt as if the entire episode had taken place hours ago, only minutes had passed. In his mind’s eye he could still see the alien standing before him, weapon upraised, pondering how to proceed. “You arrived before he could come to a considered decision, I think.” A thin, humorless smile creased his face. “Maybe he’s a conservationist, like you. Maybe he thought that if he shot me, you’d pursue him. Maybe he simply enjoyed our brief conversation.”
San’dwil’s outrage was barely constrained. “We will find out who is responsible. Someone out operating on their own, without official permission. Whoever it is should be commended for saving your life, but at the same time…”
Realizing the confusion, Ruslan hastened to clarify. “It wasn’t a Myssari.”
Kel’les’s tone was sufficient to convey his puzzlement. “Not Myssari? How can you be certain?”
Ruslan turned to his friend. “I suppose it could have been Myssari. As long as it was an underweight, out-of-shape, multiple-amputee Myssari with a serious cephalic condition and terrible grammar.”
San’dwil was not amused. “Describe it. Leave out no detail.”
The human nodded tersely. “My recollection won’t be perfect. I remember the weapon he kept pointed at me better than anything else.”
“Describe that as well.”
San’dwil and Kel’les listened silently while Ruslan recounted the encounter. When he had finished, it was his minder who spoke first.
“A Vrizan!” The intermet’s shock was unconfined.
San’dwil’s tone was grim. “A scout. Sent to spy on our work here.”
“It will be better if you do not tell your…” Ruslan remembered the alien’s words. “I should not be here.” On reflection and mindful of San’dwil’s observation, he was more surprised than ever that the intruder had not shot him on the spot.
“Why would anyone want to spy on a base engaged in xenoarcheology?”
Turning back toward the camp, the commander allowed himself to fully exhale. “Come away from this dark and dangerous place and I will explain things to you.” He glanced at Kel’les. “Are you also ignorant of the relevant facts?”
The minder glanced sharply at Ruslan, then back at the commander. “My companions and I were given a realistic overview, but it is reasonable to assume certain details were missed.”
“Then it will be useful for you to listen as well.”
Around them the armed Myssari continued to spread out. Searching for the intruding Vrizan, Ruslan told himself as he stepped over a root rising a thumb’s length above the ground and running perfectly parallel to it. He hoped that if they found anything it would be only the alien scout and not the enraged, wounded carnivore.
“In the absence of any other nearby intelligences,” San’dwil was saying, “this section of the galactic arm was once dominated entirely by your kind. That you warred among yourselves is a concept so alien to our culture that our xenosociologists are still trying to unravel its reality. Eventually this constant interspecies fighting led to the development of the Aura Malignance and the consequent extermination of your species.” He paused, staring at Ruslan. “Near extermination,” he corrected himself.
They were through the worst of the brush now and back among the clean, disinfected confines of the camp. Espying the returnees, several Myssari gestured in their direction. Ruslan knew they were not pointing at his companions. He had both upset and inconvenienced his hosts and was feeling increasingly bad about it.
“I know all that.”
“Now that human civilization has gone,” San’dwil continued, “this quadrant of the galaxy offers many uninhabited worlds that are hospitable to other species. I naturally include the Myssari among them.”
“Naturally.” Ruslan’s careful monotone carried no accusations.
“The Vrizan are particularly competitive and highly expansionist. There are other species interested in the old worlds of humankind as well. The Combine has laid its claim to Treth. So have the Vrizan. There will be debate, discussion, and most probably diatribe. Eventually the matter will be settled. The Combine may acquire rights to Treth while conceding those of another world to the Vrizan. Meanwhile eac
h side seeks in whatever way possible to cement its respective claims.”
Ruslan had a sudden thought. “Who has the rights to Seraboth?”
“The Combine.” Kel’les did not wait for the commander to reply. Ruslan felt oddly comforted to hear that the Myssari would maintain control of the world of his birth, though for all he knew of the Vrizan they might have proven themselves better caretakers than his hosts. Though not, he told himself, more polite.
“You said that competing claims would be settled ‘in whatever way possible.’ Although I have only one personal experience to go on, I assume this includes armed conflict as a means of resolving disputes?”
San’dwil looked away, clearly uncomfortable. He answered but did not dispute. “Negotiation is better.” Two arms spread out to encompass the totality of the base. “My group here is focused on science, not territorial acquisition. I would prefer it remain so.” His attention returned to his guest. “It is quite possible the Vrizan are unaware of your existence. Returning to his superiors with such news would be the second most important thing the Vrizan scout—spy—could do.”
Ruslan frowned. “What would be the most important thing?”
“Returning with you.” San’dwil emphasized each word.
“So maybe that’s why he didn’t shoot me. I’m potentially valuable to them as well.”
“An unparalleled scientific asset.” Kel’les was first through the door to the building that contained their living quarters. “Now that the Vrizan know you exist and are here on Treth, they may try by other means to make contact with you. If they cannot take you by force, they may try to induce you to cooperate with them.”
Ruslan smiled as he was enveloped by the warmer air of the building’s interior. “You’ve already given me anything I could want, including your efforts to try and find old Earth. There’s nothing the Vrizan could offer that would surpass that.”
Unless by some chance the Vrizan know its location, he thought.
“We are here to carry out scientific research and studies on the history and culture of humankind.” San’dwil was drifting away. He had a report to compose. “I personally do not wish to be drawn into even the slightest of violent conflicts. We will leave all discussions concerning informal encounters to the appropriate components of the system.”
Another thought, this one considerably wilder than its predecessors, entered Ruslan’s mind. “What if I, as the last human, claim Treth? Then it will go neither to the Vrizan nor the Myssari.”
Ambling on three legs, San’dwil was about to turn a corner and head up another corridor. “In a contest between ethicality and numbers, numbers invariably win. I am very much afraid that to prevail with such a claim, there would need to be considerably more than one of you…however enthusiastic you may prove to be.”
5
From the first day he had arrived on Myssar, Ruslan had been asked to explain something, or elaborate on something, or identify a missing element of human history or culture, be it physical, philosophical, or verbal. While his hosts had managed to decipher the necessary codes and now had available to them the entire bulk of knowledge that had been stored on Seraboth, there were still times and places where Ruslan, with the simple everyday knowledge of an ordinary human, was able to save time and resources by merely pointing at something and saying, “This is what this does,” or “It’s intended for that purpose.” He knew perfectly well and had long since accepted that he was as much an explicatory shortcut as he was a specimen.
This inherent facility, this basic uncomplicated essence of extant humanness, made his presence even more valuable on Treth, whose Myssari researchers did not have instant access to all the information that had been garnered from Seraboth’s storage facilities. While specialists processed his wish and did their best to find any reference to the actual spatial location of Earth, there was a steady stream of experts in other fields confronting him with impatient requests.
“What is this?”
“A device for preparing food,” he would explain.
“How did it work? By burning combustibles in this chamber?”
He smiled. “It cooked by means of propagating radiation.”
“What was the source of the radiation?”
His hands rose. “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist or an engineer. One would voice a request of the machine and wait for the food preparation to be completed. I remember how to use one; I never knew how to build one.”
And so it went—with machines, tools, clothing, decorative items, construction materials—until repetition led to boredom and the feeling that while he might be helping his hosts, he was doing nothing to help himself.
Though any further unescorted strolls were now out of the question (he was watched—surreptitiously but continually), he did at least have the prospect of attendant local travel to look forward to. The desire to have him explain or expound upon new archeological finds required that he be transported to various digs around two of the nine continental land masses. After a while even those trips began to bore, one skeletal city looking much like another. The weather changed, and the topography, but not the ruins. They looked little different from those among which he had spent lonely years wandering on Seraboth.
Occasionally he would be struck by the appearance of an edifice whose design lifted it beyond the ordinary. The bridge spanning the strait that divided the two continents, a graceful, once golden and now tarnished thread of spun fibers. A still-standing tower three kilometers high that had been all but hollowed out from within and in a high wind bent like a reed. Lush fields of crimson and sapphire flowers sprouting from horizontal stems that overran an ancient airport as beautifully as if their planting had been the architects’ original intention.
It rained modestly on Treth, but enough to counterpoint melancholy and remind him of the grayness that was slowly overtaking the last of his life. Even the best efforts of Kel’les, occasionally abetted by Bac’cul and Cor’rin, failed to cheer him.
It was on such a morning that San’dwil entered the relaxation room where Ruslan and his minder were gazing out the wide, sweeping window. The visibly energized outpost commander delivered an announcement whose import to the slumping human eventually drowned out even the echoing thunder of the fast-moving storm outside.
“We have found an intact human cemetery!”
Ruslan and Kel’les regarded him calmly and without astonishment. “Many human cemeteries have been found on Seraboth,” commented the intermet.
“Too many,” added Ruslan.
San’dwil’s mouth flexed with his excitement. “Not like this. It is a cryocemetery. And when I say it is intact, I mean that the power source is still functioning.”
Ruslan sat up immediately. “Then those who were interred…?”
“Are still frozen, yes!”
Ennui fled as the human rose to his feet. “Am I…When can I see it?”
The commander was enjoying himself. “A transport awaits even as we speak. I came to get you.” He gestured in the direction of the building’s private living quarters. “Do you need to gather anything before we depart?”
“Only my expectations.” Ruslan was moving past San’dwil and heading for the portal. “Let’s go.”
Even with three legs Kel’les had to hurry to catch up to his charge. “What about Bac’cul and Cor’rin?”
“Cor’rin is already there.” San’dwil hastened to keep pace with the human. “Researcher Bac’cul is occupied elsewhere but can join us if needed.” A three-fingered hand reached out to gently squeeze Ruslan’s left shoulder. “I have not seen you this animated since you arrived on Treth, not even after your unauthorized excursion.”
Ruslan ignored the observation. His thoughts were focused on one thing and one thing only. “You said the facility is still drawing power and those interred are still frozen. Can your peo
ple activate the resurrection instrumentation?” He wanted to say restore them to life but he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the possibilities posed by the commander’s announcement.
“Such is not my area of expertise. I am hoping that by the time we arrive at the site…” He left unspoken the answer to dreams Ruslan had long since ceased to contemplate.
They were outside now and moving fast toward the open, cleared corner of the base that was reserved for transportation. Several vehicles hove into view. Most were designed to provide only ground transport, but Ruslan saw two driftecs among them. San’dwil steered him and his handler toward the nearest. In moments they were on board. As the commander had promised, the craft had only been waiting on their arrival. By the time Ruslan had settled into his liquid seat, the driftec was lifting off. Peering out the transparent wall, he could see the base recede rapidly beneath them.
Leveling out at cruising altitude, the nearly noiseless driftec headed toward the ragged line of lavender-clad mountains that formed the western horizon, accelerating hopes Ruslan had long since forgone.
* * *
—
Only the presence of a roughly cleared landing pad surrounded by temporary self-erecting structures marked the location of the find. There was no visible evidence to suggest a human presence. Where bare rock did not predominate, alien forest covered the hillside. As the driftec touched down, Ruslan gave voice to his curiosity.
“How did your people find this place?” The thickly vegetated slope into which the landing pad had been cut was unremarkable, in appearance no different from a hundred they had just flown over.
San’dwil pointed to one section of hillside that was slightly darker than the rest. “The entrance was overgrown. A routine automated survey picked up emanations that suggested the presence of functioning electronics. As we have no ongoing operations in this area, a follow-up was ordered. Located, as it is, well below the surface, the efflux was too weak to be detected by our two orbiting sensors, which is why it was not discovered before now.” His mouth flexed to indicate humor. “The follow-up proceeded with caution, as one possibility held that the emissions might emanate from a clandestine Vrizan installation.”