The Candle of Distant Earth

  At least there was no furniture for him to trip over. Having circled half the oval hall, he found himself nearly back where he had started, close to his friends but at the far right-hand end of the line of adjudicators. He fancied he could feel hot breath on his back and saw-edged teeth clamping down on his skull and spine. He could not linger. Having no time to think, he acted.

  He ran straight toward the nearest Tuuqalian.

  Busily manipulating a pair of enigmatic devices, it eyed him in surprise, both eyestalks rising upward and as far away as possible from his small but determined onrushing form. The two adjudicators nearest the one Walker was rapidly approaching shifted their position for a better view. Meanwhile, Walker’s pursuer had extended all four upper tentacles in an attempt to bring him down.

  Darting behind the nearest adjudicator, Walker saw that his risky guess had been correct. Not having challenged him, they did not interfere. They did, however, try to get out of his way. Had there been two or three of them, they might have managed it. But filled with a dozen of the huge creatures, the dais was too crowded. No matter how hard his pursuer tried to envelop the human in its questing tentacles, Walker managed to dart nimbly behind one or two of his hunter’s colleagues.

  How long could this go on? he wondered wildly. Was there some kind of time limit, or was the contest expected to continue until one or the other combatant fell? Noticing that one of the adjudicators had set its recorder, or whatever the device was, down beside its lower limbs while it worked intently on a second device, Walker nipped in and picked up the instrument before its startled owner could react. The Tuuqalian-sized device was comfortingly heavy in his palm. It was no gun, but it was solid and well-made. Though he’d played linebacker and not quarterback, he’d always had a good arm. Winded now, his expression grim, he turned to face his pursuer.

  Tentacles waving, jaws clashing, the challenger came roaring toward him, forcing a path through the milling adjudicators. Evidently it either had not seen Walker pick up the small device, or did not care that the human had done so. Without giving his pursuer a chance to reflect on possibilities, Walker took aim and hurled the apparatus as hard as he could. It struck the oncoming Tuuqalian solidly in its right eye before bouncing off and landing on the floor.

  Immediately, the hulking alien halted, its lower limbs scrambling to bring it to a stop. All four grasping tentacles reached up and over to cradle the bruised eye, which had retracted completely into the ocular recess on the same side of the Tuuqalian’s body. Several fellow adjudicators rushed to aid their injured colleague.

  The others, who heretofore had been milling about indifferently while working with their own individual instrumentation, now proceeded to cluster around Walker. Their massive, menacing forms towered over him.

  Well, it had been a good run, he told himself. It wasn’t as if he and his friends knew Earth’s location and were about to embark on the homeward journey tomorrow. At least George might still make it. He hoped the dog would remember him fondly, and how Walker had sacrificed himself, albeit without having been given a choice, to satisfy the demands of the Tuuqalians and thereby allow his friends to gain access to Tuuqalian scientific knowledge.

  It struck him that no one was striking him. The assembly of Tuuqalians who had gathered around him were, in fact, making noises that his implanted translator insisted on deciphering not as threats or curses, but as compliments. The majority of the comments were directed not at him, but to one another.

  “Well rendered…,” one was saying. “Intelligent decision, to run and not try to stand its ground…unusually well-balanced for a creature with only two such spindly limbs and no tail.” Walker, who was proud of the effort he had expended in the weight room while in college and who had subsequently worked hard to maintain as much of an aging football player’s physique as he could, had never before heard his legs referred to as “spindly.” The comments and observations continued.

  “Excellent manipulative digit to ocular coordination…demonstrated courage by running in among us not knowing what our individual reactions might be…clear ability to make use of ordinary objects as weaponry…”

  It went on in that vein for a while. If nothing else, it gave him time to catch his breath. None of it made any sense. One minute he was being chased around the hall by one of their number whose apparent intent was to do him grievous bodily harm, and the next they were all standing around praising his flight and paltry counterattack. His confusion only deepened when the one who had challenged him approached anew. The eye he had struck was darkened, but Tuuqalian oculars were apparently as tough as the rest of their massive bodies.

  “Nothing but sensible and effective reactions. I thank you,” it rumbled.

  If it hadn’t been embedded inside his head, Walker would have tapped his translator to make sure it was still working. “You’re thanking me?” he mumbled as an excited George ran up to rejoin him. “For hitting you in the eye?”

  The orb in question described a small circle on the end of its strong, flexible stalk. “Admirable inspiration! As was your darting and weaving. You have more than satisfied the final requirement.” All four upper tentacles crossed one another in front of the huge, hirsute body to form a precise geometric pattern. “Allow me to be the first to formally welcome you and your companions to Tuuqalia.” Having delivered the official welcome that Walker and his friends had been so anxiously seeking, it turned away from him to resume chatting with its fellow adjudicators.

  “You all right?” He became aware that George was squinting up at him.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. More emotionally exhausted than anything else.” Walker gazed at the gathering of huge Tuuqalians. All seemed completely at ease now. No further questions were directed his way, nor was there any indication revenge would be sought for the injury he had inflicted on one of their own. With George at his side, he tottered down the slight slope to rejoin his waiting companions. “Otherwise, just a little a dazed, I guess. What just happened here?”

  It was left to Braouk to explain. “Enriching ennobling sagas, since Tuuqalian civilization’s beginnings, we create. Reverential tales and inspiring stories. After thousands of years of composition, even the most inventive composers among us have difficulty imagining new themes, new subjects, new visualizations worthy of their efforts. Seeks fresh inspiration, for ideas and composition, every Tuuqalian. New stimulation can, be difficult to obtain, and recognize.” Upper tentacles gestured meaningfully. “I am sure you can understand, friend Marcus, that when such presents itself, it is eagerly seized upon.”

  Walker remained doubtful. “I’m still not sure I understand…”

  “You,” George cut in. “The whole challenge and chase thing—stimuli.” The dog nodded in the direction of the milling adjudicators, some of whom had begun to depart but all of whom continued conversing animatedly among themselves. “No wonder the one you hit in the eye thanked you. Not only will he—I think it was a he—get inspired to compose from chasing you, you provided an additional and unexpected incentive when you fought back so effectively.”

  “Then it was all a sham.” Surrounded by his companions, a worn-out Walker stood mumbling to himself. “Just a charade designed to provide new material for saga-spinning.”

  Braouk eyed his friend gravely, one eye hovering on either side of the human’s head. “Your palpable fear, was while being chased, most inspiring. It will no doubt provide the basis for many stirring overtures.”

  Settling his attention on one eye, Walker regarded the Tuuqalian hesitantly. “Then I was never in any real danger?”

  “No.”

  “What would have happened if I’d just stood still and waited? If I hadn’t run or resisted?”

  “Nothing,” Braouk admitted. “You and the others would have been granted the access to Tuuqalia that you seek. But many here today to pass judgment on you would have gone away disappointed.”

  “Disappointed, hell!” Walker blurted abruptly. “I was scared to death
! I thought that thing, the one who had challenged me, was going to tear me to pieces!”

  “Yours was not, the only inspirational source, here today,” Braouk replied blithely. “The one who was chosen to challenge you was not only fortunate in being so selected, but played his part well. An eye can heal of its own accord, but the shock of your response provided inspiration that is rare. Ours is a civilized world, wherein the unforeseen is always a delight, because it is so uncommonly encountered.”

  “You could have told me,” Walker grumbled. “You might have warned me.”

  “Did I not say that everything would be all right?” Both eyes drew back, a gesture that made focusing on the Tuuqalian easier mentally if not physically.

  “It’s hard to trust anyone’s opinion, Braouk, even yours, when you’ve just been challenged to combat by something ten times your size.”

  Edging closer, the Tuuqalian placed a comradely tentacle thick as a tree root around Walker’s shoulders. “If I had explained fully, and you had been made aware in advance of the purpose of the challenge, would you have reacted similarly? Would you have run as hard and fast as you did? Would you have fought back, to the point of lightly injuring your challenger?”

  Braouk had him there, Walker had to admit. “No, of course not. I probably wouldn’t have done anything.”

  “Doing nothing is, a poor foundation for, saga-writing.” Like a lazy anaconda, the tentacle slid slowly off his shoulders. “Now, not only will you be able to visit Tuuqalia and confer with our astronomers and other scientists, your name and presence will go down in contemporary saga-telling.”

  “I’m so pleased,” Walker commented dryly.

  “Ask him if you’re entitled to royalties.” George nudged his friend irreverently.

  “I’ll settle for being alive and in one piece.” He took a deep breath, finally at ease.

  “I knew it all along.”

  “What?” He turned in the direction of the familiar mocking voice.

  Sque scrambled forward. “You are all of you blind as cave-dwelling zithins. The signs were present for anyone to see, and to interpret correctly.” She blew a single, disdainful bubble. “If any of you had taken the time to study the body language of the one Tuuqalian in our midst, you would have been able to apply that knowledge to the understated movements of the rank of adjudicators.” One tentacle tip cleaned the linear surface of a steel-gray eye. “To anyone who had troubled to do so, interpreting the gestures and tentacle twitches that were rampant among those deigning to pass judgment on us would have been a simple matter.”

  “I’ve got a gesture you could try to interpret,” Walker groused. “If you had some idea what was going to happen, why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you warn me?”

  While the one tentacle tip continued with its eye cleaning, a different pair gestured in Braouk’s direction. “My rationale for not doing so was similar, if not identical to, that of our overlarge friend. I could see no purpose in intervening in a custom that was so clearly important to those locals whose ultimate opinion would decide whether or not we would find assistance here. Also, even had I expressed my opinion to you, it would not have changed anything. The challenge would still have been issued, and would still have had to be met.”

  Advancing toward him, she halted at his feet, her eyes and speaking tube at the level of his waist. He felt her grip his sides with first one appendage, then another, and another, until all ten had secured a firm grip. Climbing up his front like a logger ascending toward the top of a tree, she halted only when she was eye to eye with him. Though nowhere near as strong as Braouk, he was still sturdy enough to hold his ground even with her hanging onto him. He was more startled by the unexpected intimacy than by her modest weight. She had never before touched him with anything more than a tentacle tip or two. Now, unexpectedly, she was close enough for him to see the fine gray-pink cilia inside the end of her breathing tube. Those strange, horizontal black pupils gazed deeply into his own.

  “You are my friend, Marcus Walker. We have been together for a very long time indeed. We have relied on one another to continue living. Despite your unyielding internal skeleton, your stiff and gangly movements, your awkward gestures, your deficiency of limbs, and an intelligence that even after much time spent in my company can still only properly be described as minimal, I would not let anything untoward happen to you that it was in my power to prevent.” So saying, she climbed back down off him, leaving only a faint scent of damp mustiness clinging to his clothes.

  “You should know by now, if you have learned nothing else, that I do nothing without first considering all possible ramifications. Concerning your recent problematic confrontation, I think you will admit that it has all turned out for the best.” Drawing herself up to her full four-foot height, she made a show of adjusting several of the strands of reflective metal and crystal that decorated her body.

  He stood staring at her, slightly stunned. In nearly two years of traveling together, it was the closest she had come to expressing anything deeper than wan tolerance for his existence. Sarcasm and the customary jibes about his appearance and mental capabilities aside, what she had just done and said bordered on actual affection. He hardly knew what to say.

  Perhaps she sensed his shock, or his discomfiture. “I did not bite you, and even if I had, I suspect there is nothing in my saliva capable of inflicting paralysis on a lifeform so primitively resilient. You may, as soon as you wish, confirm the reality of this observation by moving one or more of your inadequate quartet of appendages, or if the effort of coordinating the requisite muscles and organs is not too much of a strain, by speaking.”

  “I—thank you, Sque. I won’t question your motives again. Either for doing something, or for not doing anything.”

  Swelling up halfway, she exhaled a stream of aerial froth. “Does a modicum of intelligence begin to show itself? With much continued effort, you may in truth some day achieve an adequate level of common sense. At your current rate of maturation, I should estimate that you might reach that stage in only another two or three hundred of your years.” Pivoting on her central axis, she wandered over to ascend Braouk, in order to utilize him as a platform from which to address several of the remaining adjudicators.

  George had been no less taken aback by the decapod’s unanticipated affirmation. “Whataya know? The squid likes you.”

  “I never suspected,” Walker mumbled, “I never expected…”

  “Not exactly demonstrative, is she?” The dog snorted softly. “No wonder her kind don’t mate very often. Aside from conversing via casual insult, if it takes one of them two years to admit to something as low-key as ordinary friendship, think how long it must take two of them to decide to mate.”

  Ears erect and alert, he nodded in the K’eremu’s direction. She was once more comfortably ensconced on one of Braouk’s upper limbs, several of her appendages gesticulating in support of whatever edict of the moment she was currently handing down to a pair of attentive Tuuqalian adjudicators.

  Everything she had said to him was all very nice, Walker told himself. Welcome, even. But he labored under no illusions. Her admission of friendship notwithstanding, he knew that if the opportunity to return to K’erem presented itself and required that he be sacrificed to make it possible, she would not hesitate to forfeit his hopes and dreams. That was the canny, experienced trader in him talking. He did not mind admitting it to himself.

  Of them all, certainly Sque herself would have understood his caution, and no doubt approved.

  While Sobj-oes, her young colleague Habr-wec, and the rest of the Niyyuuan astronautics team joined with members of the Iollth science caste in compiling a list of formal requests for information to be presented to the Tuuqalian astronomy establishment, a relieved and exuberant Broullkoun-uvv-ahd-Hrashkin reveled not only in the sights and sounds and smells of a homeworld he thought he might never see again, but in the opportunity to share them with the companions of his Vilenjji captivity.
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  “Come with me, we are going north, this dawning!” he boomed the following morning as he lumbered into the port facilities that had been made available for the visitors’ use for the duration of their stay on Tuuqalia.

  A sleepy George looked up from his oversized pillow and barked softly before adding, “What’s ‘north’? If it isn’t something unique and special, I’m staying right here ’til it’s time to leave again.” Mumbling to himself, he rolled onto his other side. “Seen one alien world, seen ’em all.”

  He let out a sharp bark of surprise as one massive tentacle, its grip gentle as a prehensile feather, picked him up and tossed him playfully into the air. Since Braouk was some nine feet tall, rather high into the air.

  “Don’t do that!” the dog yelped. Panting hard, he cast a reproachful eye on their hulking friend as Braouk set him carefully back on his pillow. “What do you think I am—a cat?”

  As the Vilenjji implants could not translate subjects for which there was no viable counterpart, Braouk admitted that he was at a loss to answer. But his enthusiasm was undimmed.

  “To the north, lie the fabled plains, Serelth-idyr.”

  George refused to be impressed. “What’s fabled about them?”