“Think what such cataclysmic change would do to a developing but still primitive society. Famine, death from exposure, the near instant destruction of familiar food supplies. Sea travel obliterated, cutting off intercontinental and interisland communication. A drastic reduction in population—which explains the extent of these cities compared to the size of present Tran communities.
“It explains, Hunnar, why your people retain no memory of your warm weather ancestors. Survival would be more than enough to occupy every mobile minute of the dazed remnants of that hot climate civilization. How to make a fire, how to cook food, those would be the important things to hand down to shivering children. Not history. Given the frequency of the warm-cold weather cycle, you never have the chance to catch your racial breath.”
“No ice—free-flowing water for oceans?” Hunnar’s expression showed both horror and disbelief, as if someone had proved unequivocally that the world was flat.
“No ice,” said Ethan slowly. “And probably no real winds to speak of, either. Rain instead of snow and ice particles—-good-water-falling-from-the-sky,” he translated awkwardly, remembering that the Tran had no word for rain.
“No ice.” Hunnar seemed unable to pass beyond that incredible concept. “One could fall all the way through to the center of the world.”
“Water can support you, Hunnar, though not as well as ice.” Ethan forbore trying to describe what swimming was.
“The more reason for this confederation.” September brought them back to the present, back from speculations future and past. “If this information can be conveyed back to a few Commonwealth bureaucrats in the right agencies, it could mean a change so big and important here that—well, I can’t put into words what it would mean to your people, Hunnar.
“More o’ less, it’d mean that the next time your world warms up and you develop a nice, burgeoning society, get yourselves growing good and proper, then when it turns cold again, Commonwealth technology will be there to help you cope. Assumin’ the Commonwealth stands. I don’t make predictions for any government. They’ve got a disconcertin’ way o’ self-destructing.
“And you’d be able to develop a true planetary society for the first time, gain a continuity of racial development and history your world’s knocked down every time its gotten started.
“But it won’t do anybody any good unless we get this knowledge to Commonwealth authorities and show them there’s a world here cryin’ out for associate status and some honest recognition.”
XVI
IT WAS SEVERAL DAYS before they broke into the Assembly. The impressive domed chamber was buried beneath a huge slide. That unstable ground made Ethan and several others reluctant to enter, despite the apparent stability of the intact ceiling. Williams and Eer-Meesach could not be restrained, however. They were followed by others, reluctantly, into the largest enclosed space they’d found on Tran-ky-ky.
Built of stone and metal so solid that it supported the cumulative weight of dirt, rock and structures above it, the dome was filled with engravings and mosaics which proved conclusively most of William’s assumptions.
“You were not entirely correct, my friend.” Eer-Meesach ran a gnarled finger across one wall bas-relief. “The yellowish grass does not drive out the pika-pina but rather is a warm weather variety of it, as the Golden Saia are warm weather versions of us Tran.”
Williams was examining the carvings, nodding slowly in agreement. “Probably the nutrients concentrated in the pika-pina and pedan are moved landward and help to revive the dormant grasslands.”
“But what are these?” The elderly wizard indicated a profusion of small carvings, each different from the next. Remnants of ancient dyes still clung to the bare stone.
“Do you not remember them from the land of the Saia?” said Elfa. She turned to Ethan. “What did you call them?”
“Flowers.” He walked over, avoiding rocks and broken stone which littered the floor. “So the pika-pina flowers before it gives way to the grasses. Milliken, maybe every creature that flies, swims or chivans on Tran-ky-ky has both cold-and hot-climate varieties. That creature on the wall over there, isn’t that a stavanzer?”
“No,” Hunnar insisted from nearby. “Those strange things on its front—”
“Gills!” Ethan shouted it. “The stavanzer does look vaguely like a beached whale. Dormant gills don’t show themselves until the oceans turn to water. A stavanzer could never support its own weight on land.”
“I’m sure,” added Williams, “that the creature could exist as an amphibian for as long as was necessary to complete the transition to a watery existence.”
“I would much like to see these things you call ‘ghuls’.” Hunnar took a knife from his belt, handed it handle-first to Williams. “Go and kill a stavanzer and I will help you do the looking inside.” Laughter human and Trannish resounded in the chamber, producing echoes that were anything but eerie.
A week later the Slanderscree was filled with a cargo as unusual as it was diverse. There were hundreds of kilos of carvings, artifacts, sections of mosaic and wall. Enough proof of Tran-ky-ky’s erratic history both sociological and climatological to convince the stubbornest bureaucrat or Landgrave of The Truth.
September and Ethan were once again discussing the Tran’s future and history as the last of the cargo was secured in the spaces within the deck.
“Likely in the Saia mode all the Tran lived together on a few continents, lad,” the giant said. “Raisin’ a new civilization until the cold wiped it out, forcing ’em to disperse to the islands to survive. The harsher the climate, the more territory it generally takes to support folks.
“Now that we can prove they all used to live together and cooperate, it ought to be easier to get ’em to do it again.” He punctuated the comment with a reverberant grunt.
When they produced the evidence many days later, back in the steaming lands, the Golden Saia accepted the unarguable with typical lack of visible emotion. Their words betrayed their true excitement. Here was proof of most of their legends, solidified with a knowledge hitherto unsuspected. Listening to the legend-spinners, Williams and Eer-Meesach were able to fill in portions of the history that silent stone and walls had been unable to tell.
In contrast to their difficult ascent of the canyon, returning was mostly a matter of keeping the ship on a single heading. Motive power was no longer a problem, not with the wind off the plateau shoving insistently at their stern.
On reaching the edge of the ice, the captain brought the ship to a halt, whereupon Hunnar and a small group of sailors chivaned off toward Moulokin. They were expected to return with shipwrights, cranes and tools to aid in removing the wheels and axles and to help speed the installation of the five massive duralloy skates.
Their arrival in that busy shipbuilding city provoked a good deal of surprise. Neither the Landgrave Lady K’ferr, minister Mirmib, nor any of the others who knew where the Slanderscree had gone ever expected to see her crew again. They were certain the spirits of the dead who lived in the great high desert would claim the healthy bodies of the sailors for their own, to enable them to wander the spirit lands in more corporeal form.
Sir Hunnar’s hurried, none-too-precise explanations of what they’d uncovered created more confusion than enlightenment. He finally gave up trying to explain something he didn’t fully comprehend himself.
The following day he returned to the landlocked Slanderscree, accompanied by a large party of craftsmen from the city’s yards. Eer-Meesach provided a better explanation of their discoveries. Thus assured of old friends and a new heritage, they set to work making the great raft iceworthy again.
“What of the fleet from Poyolavomaar?” Ethan hesitantly interrupted the chief of the Moulokinese work crews.
The burly Tran left the final installation of a duralloy runner to his colleagues. “They remained a ten-day after your departure to the land of the Golden Saia, Sir Ethan, thence departed themselves. There have been but few ships p
ut in to Moulokin since. None report sighting them, though two mentioned a large number of runner tracks extending northeastward.”
“Toward Poyolavomaar.” Ethan couldn’t quite convince himself that mad Rakossa and Ro-Vijar of Arsudun had conceded so quickly, despite this evidence to the contrary.
“ ’Tis so. Nor have any of our own vessels seen signs of them, though two still search further out to make certain they have truly taken their leave. ’Tis safe I think to say that, finding you not here, they betook themselves elsewhere.”
“I doubt that.” Ethan looked around to see who agreed with his own private opinion. Teeliam Hoh watched the repositioning of the fore portside runner, while the crew leader watched Teeliam. Her thoughts, though, were not on the delicate operation taking place over the side.
“Tonx Rakossa would not leave me alive while he remains so. While I live free, his thoughts will be on naught else.”
“Maybe he and Ro-Vijar had an argument,” Ethan half-joked, “and he lost.”
“I hope not.”
“What? But you’ve said …”
She stared at him, cold cat-eyes dark as the waters beneath the ice sea. “If he should be slain by someone unknown, far from here, if he should perish before we again meet, then I will be barred the delicious opportunity of killing him myself.” She spoke calmly, as if discussing the most ordinary, obvious thing in the world.
“Of course. I should’ve thought of that.”
She continued to stare at him, her head cocked slightly to one side. “You fancy you know us, do you not, Sir Ethan?”
“Know you?” Ethan felt glad of the expression-distorting face mask and the goggles behind. “Teeliam, I’ve lived among you for more than a year now.”
“ ’Tis true then, you indeed believe you know us. I’ve seen it in your gestures, in the way you converse with your companions from this distant land of Sofold. But you do not understand us. When I spoke of killing the Thing, it showed in your body and your way of forming words.
“You are …” she paused, half-smiled, “much too civilized, in the sense I believe you use that term. For all that you have shared with such as the magnificent Sir Hunnar and my good friend Elfa, they are still not part of you, nor you of them. They are part of me and this world. You will never change that.” There was pride in her tone, and a hint of arrogance.
“Perhaps not.” He knew better than to argue with such a recalcitrant customer. “I can only try to help as best I can, the people I’ve come to care for so strongly.”
Teeliam grunted noncommitally, chivaned away. Ethan was unable to tell whether she was voicing a deeply felt opinion, or if such challenge and gruffness were traits forced upon her by the actions of Rakossa. The results might simply have made her resentful of anyone who happened to be happy or optimistic.
Or male.
Still, he considered her words apart from their emotion-charged source. How well did he know any Tran? He counted Elfa, Hunnar, and many others his friends. But he had to admit there were occasions when he could not puzzle out their reasoning, or they his. Might they be doomed to exist forever as psychological pen-pals, able to communicate but only across a vast mental sea of alienness? So indeed he might not know them as well as he thought. As to never getting to know them, that he hoped was the brash opinion of one used to dealing only in absolutes.
Of one thing he was certain. Despite Teeliam’s insistence, contact with and membership in the Commonwealth would change the Tran, and their world. It had happened to other primitive peoples. Several had already risen to coequal status with human and thranx, and had been raised to full membership within the government. Others were working hard. Perseverance coupled with safe and benevolent supervision by the government and the United Church would aid any less sophisticated society in making the transition to a modern space-traversing technology with as little pain as possible.
That there sometimes was pain he could not deny, even to himself. That pain would be lessened considerably as soon as they returned to Brass Monkey and conveyed news of their discovery to the proper authorities—doing so took precedence over adding new states to the Trannish confederation. He had no doubt they could swing wide around Poyolavomaar and return to Arsudun uncontested.
He lost a mental step. What could they do, what should they do, on reaching the distant humanx outpost? Who could they report to? He was still unsure of Jobius Trell’s exact involvement with Calonnin Ro-Vijar. There was a possibility that Trell was operating directly with the Landgrave of Arsudun. September seemed to think so, but they had no firm proof.
Not that he was inclined to shrug off the giant’s opinions. More than once September had hinted that he was used to dealing with a higher echelon of power than was Ethan, that analyzing the motives and actions of power-wielders was not new to him.
Consider that Trell was the Resident Humanx Commissioner, that he had knowledge of every aspect of outpost operation. Brass Monkey had a few peace-forcers, stationed there more to protect the natives from the humanx than vice versa. Were they in league with Trell, or with Ro-Vijar directly? And what about the customs handlers, or the portmaster Xenaxis, not to mention the computers and processors?
Who within the modest complement stationed at the outpost could they entrust with such a momentous set of discoveries? Who could not only record and preserve such information against a possibly hostile bureaucracy, but could also transmit that knowledge to incorruptibles offplanet, where they would quickly become so widely disseminated that neither Trell nor anyone else could conceal them?
He took the problem to September. The giant was sitting on the frozen shoreline, his white hair blending into the background of sea and land.
September was not moving, simply staring motionless at the sheet of snow-dusted white where it ran up against the walls of the canyon. It was unusual to see him in such a reflective, downright pensive mood.
“Still in the egg?” The thranx phrase had long since entered the burgeoning roster of interspecies colloquialisms.
“Mmmm? Oh, hello, young feller-me-lad.” How oddly quiet he was, Ethan thought, as he turned his attention back to the ice. “No, not in the egg.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“My brother. Leastwise, the man who was my brother once.”
“You mentioned him before, a long time ago.” Ethan sat down alongside the mountainous form. “You said, ‘I had a brother, once.’ I didn’t understand what you meant by ‘once.’ ”
September’s mouth relaxed into a grin. He was watching the antics of two furry beetle-sized creatures. They were performing a miniature ice-ballet, skittering smoothly about where the shore met the frozen river.
“I suppose technically we’re still brothers. Once born one, I guess you’re stuck with it. Haven’t seen him in twenty, twenty-five years. I’ve done a lot of growin’ up since then. Sometimes wonder if he has, though I doubt it.”
“If you haven’t seen him, then how do you know he hasn’t, as you say, done any growing up?”
“You don’t understand, feller-me-lad. Sawbill, he was born bad.” Long minutes of quiet passed. September raised his gaze from skate-bugs to skating clouds racing overhead. “Got himself into a rotten, stinking business much too soon. That’s a part of it.”
“What kind of business?” September hardly ever talked about himself, and then always in his joking manner. To find him both loquacious and introspective was rare enough that Ethan forgot his original reason for seeking out the big man and probed on.
“He dug too deeply into … well, put it brief, he trained himself to become an emoman.”
Ethan knew of the men and women and thranx who sold emotions. Their status was only marginally legal, and what they sold was usually best left hidden away in the darker sections of hospitals. Commonwealth law guaranteeing so much freedom kept them from being closed down, though it could not prevent the occasional killing of one who grew too bold, or remained in one place too long. The socia
l side-effects of their profession being what they were, few chose it as a life’s work. An emoman (or woman) rarely grew rich. There were other satisfactions to the profession, however, which induced a few to practice it. That gave rise to the saying that the most likely candidate for an emoman’s trade was himself.
“There was a girl,” September continued, rushing the words as if anxious to be rid of them. “There’s always a girl.” He chuckled in a bitter, bad-tasting sort of way. “I was interested in her, too much so. I was very young then. Sawbill was also interested in her… as a customer, and in other ways.
“We argued, we fought. I thought… anyhow, Sawbill sold her something he shouldn’t have. She wanted it—it’s a free galaxy. But he shouldn’t have done it. She was—repressed, I think’s the best way o’ puttin’ it. What Sawbill sold her made her unrepressed. Anyways, she overdosed herself. She—” his expression twisted horribly, “became somethin’ less than human but more than dead. Voluntarily turned herself into a commodity. Not a lynx or somethin’ decent like that, but something lower, beneath vileness, who—” He stopped, unable to continue.
Ethan wondered if he dared say anything. Finally he spoke as softly, gently as he could. “Maybe if you could find her now. She might’ve changed, tossed what she was engulfed by, and you could—”
“Lad, I said she overdosed herself. She didn’t follow instructions. Happens all the time to those who make use of an emoman’s merchandise.” There was a mountainous sadness in his voice.
“When Sawbill finally stopped supplyin’ her, she hunted up others who would. I can’t find her because she’s dead, lad. To me and most o’ the worlds, anyway. She just sort of got eaten away from the inside. Not physically. That I might’ve been able to cope with. The body did just fine, ’til it got used up too. By the time that started, her mind was long gone.” He turned his attention back to the ice.
“I hope she’s dead, Ethan. Should’ve done her a great kindness and killed her myself. I couldn’t, but as I told you, I was very young then. Everything Sawbill did was perfectly legal. He was always very careful about that. Probably still is, whatever he’s doing.”