The Candle of Distant Earth

  Almost, Walker decided. No doubt there were still formalities to be concluded. Hopefully, they would not involve anything as intimidating as those they had been forced to deal with on Tuuqalia, or as complex as those they had adapted to on Niyu.

  First impressions certainly hinted at a different approach. As they emerged from the shuttle, their formal arrival on K’erem being thoroughly documented by the ever present Niyyuuan media, Walker and his friends were greeted by—nothing. Not only was no crowd or group present to welcome one of their own back to the communal fold, there was not even a single official present to direct them to the proper office. Bemused, Walker glanced upward. Though an unseen, unsensed field of some kind kept the fine mist that was falling from entering the landing facility, the air within was still noticeably cool and damp. Optimum climate for a K’eremu, he knew, drawing his lightweight clothing a little tighter around him. Of his friends, only he felt a chill. Braouk and George both came equipped with their own built-in insulation. Still, he was not alone in his climatic sensitivity. Both the hairless Niyyuu and short-furred Iollth were similarly affected.

  Scuttling to the fore, Sque called back to him and, by inference, to the rest of the landing party as well. “Please wait here a moment. It is necessary that I deal with the formalities.”

  Halting halfway between the shuttle and a vitreous gray bulge in the nearest wall, she generated from her speaking tube a sequence of perfectly tuned whistles accompanied by a stream of bubbles. A portal appeared in the bulge. Slowly radiating concentric rings of force rippled through the material as the gap widened, reminding Walker of the effect he used to produce as a child by dropping a slice of apple into a bowl of hot cereal. As a first indication of the stature of K’eremu science, the expanding doorway was pretty impressive.

  Another K’eremu, only the second he had ever seen, scurried through the opening and moseyed forward to halt directly in front of Sque. Multiple appendages rose and touched, stroked and gripped, executing an intricate pantomime that would have put the most complex human handshake to shame. After several minutes of this, while Walker and the other visitors watched with interest, the newly arrived K’eremu pivoted and retreated back the way it had come. Sque returned to her companions.

  “We can move along now.”

  Walker gaped at her. Behind him, Sobj-oes and the rest of the waiting Niyyuu and Iollth looked uncertain.

  “That’s it?” he mumbled. “What about formal immigration procedures? Registration? Signifying that we’re here only for peaceful purposes?”

  “Everything has been taken care of,” she assured him genially. Leaning the upper portion of her body slightly to her right, she directed her attention to Sobj-oes and the rest of the scientific compliment. “I will initiate proceedings to place you in touch with your superiors here. Meanwhile facilities, of a sort, will be made ready to accommodate you.” Her eyes shifted back to Walker, George, and Braouk. “Amenities for travelers are limited. K’erem knows many visitors, but for some reason they do not choose to linger.”

  Walker let his gaze rove over the unadorned landing area, defunct of life, much less any kind of formal greeting. Overhead, the gray and cloudy sky continued to weep cold damp on a barren surface landscape. “Maybe it’s the enthusiastic welcome they get.”

  “Or maybe it’s the balmy weather,” George added distastefully. “This I can get at home in March. If it’s like this here all year round…”

  “The climate today is most salubrious,” Sque countered, slightly miffed. A pair of tentacles beckoned. “If you will all follow me, your immediate needs will be seen to.”

  They shuffled across the flat white landing surface. There was little of the excited conversation that normally accompanied touchdown on a new world. Something about the surroundings served to mute casual chatter. The atmosphere in the landing area was not morbid, just gloomy. As gloomy as the perpetually dank weather, Walker decided. He was happy for Sque, who had been returned to her home, but under the circumstances and that leaden sky above, it was hard to be happy for anyone else.

  While contact between Sobj-oes’s team of astronomers and their K’eremu counterparts (not “superiors,” as Sque had so casually claimed) was initiated, their many-limbed companion of the past years invited them to accompany her on her return to her own personal dwelling. Having nothing else to do, and loathe to be left alone at the glum port facility, Walker and his friends agreed.

  There was none of the excitement and anticipation that had accompanied their similar recent visit to the home province on Tuuqalia of Braouk’s extended family. Though the interior of the cargo vehicle that was provided for the journey was sparse and thoroughly utilitarian, they had no choice in the matter of transportation. It was the only mover that could accommodate someone of Walker’s size—never mind Braouk. As they accelerated outward from the port, following one of the guidance signals that passed for a major transport vector, the Tuuqalian consoled himself by transforming the sights into saga. Needless to say, the stanzas he composed in the course of their journey were notable for their somberness, though they did no more than accurately reflect the dim and overcast terrain through which they were traveling.

  Sque, at least, finally showed some signs of excitement. Her abode, she had learned, had not been disturbed during her absence, nor had it been given over to another. It should be, she told them, just as she had left it on the night when she had been abducted by the Vilenjji. Soon they would have the opportunity to experience real K’eremu hospitality.

  “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?” George ventured—but only loud enough for Walker to overhear.

  His friend hushed him. “It’s not Sque’s fault that she is the way she is. The K’eremu, her people—they’re just not an outgoing type. Not like the Tuuqalia, or the Niyyuu.”

  “What,” the dog countered, “just because they’re conceited, arrogant, self-centered, balled-up bunches of slime?”

  Leaning over, Walker put a cautioning hand on his friend’s snout. “They’re the conceited, arrogant, self-centered, balled-up bunches of slime we’re going to have to rely on to help us find a way home. Don’t forget that.”

  Shaking off the human’s hand, George let out a resigned snort. “Much as I’d like to, I guess I can’t.” Standing up on his hind legs, he rested his forepaws on the transparent inner wall of the transport. “What a depressing chunk of rock. I bet there isn’t a decent place to bury a bone within a dozen parsecs of this place.”

  At least they weren’t confined to the cargo carrier for very long. Sque’s habitat lay little more than half a day’s travel from the port where they had set down. As they approached the shadowed, churning sea, cool lights began to emerge from the surrounding landscape, shining from within the depths of homes built into the raw rock, or constructed of material that matched their surroundings so closely it was impossible to tell excavation from artifice. As their vehicle started to slow it also began to descend a gentle grade leading toward a small cove and the water beyond. Eventually, it halted not far from the shoreline itself. A visibly energized Sque bade them disembark. As they did so, everything suddenly changed.

  The sun came out. And lit an amethyst sky.

  Lips parted, Walker gaped at his abruptly transformed surroundings. So did George and Braouk, when the Tuuqalian finally succeeded in squeezing his bulk out of the transport. Sque had advanced a short distance down an artistically winding path before she noticed that her companions were lingering behind as if stunned senseless.

  “What is the matter with you all?” Impatient and perplexed, she scuttled back to rejoin them. “What are you all staring at like a bunch of paralyzed dreepses?”

  Head tilted back, Walker simply nodded slowly without lowering his gaze to look at her. “The sky here. The color—it’s not blue. It’s—lavender.”

  “Lilac-like,” agreed Braouk euphoniously. For once, he and the human were equally in tune with what they were looking at.

  Silver
y-metallic eyes glanced upward from beneath protective ridges of cartilage, eying the appearance of the first gaps between clouds. “Ah—I understand now. What is normal for me is apparently quite new to you. I will endeavor to explain in a manner sufficiently simple for your rustic minds to comprehend.”

  She proceeded to do so, but while the Vilenjji implants performed effectively with ordinary speech, and coped adequately with the occasional colloquialism, their programming for any language was not heavy with scientific terminology. Still, Walker managed to grasp the basic concepts. Something to do with K’erem’s sun being different than those of their own homeworlds. As a consequence, more violet light entered the atmosphere of K’erem than that of Earth or Tuuqalia. She proceeded to add something about shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies, and violet light scattering more than blue, after which the lecture descended into details of optics and physics that were not only beyond the ability of his implant to translate smoothly and effectively, but beyond his capability to understand in any case.

  It did not matter. He had understood enough. And no special knowledge was required to appreciate the beauty of a sky that was tinted amethyst instead of turquoise.

  Naturally, it affected the appearance of everything through which they resumed walking: the rocky, uneven landscape, the hardscrabble native vegetation, even the paved path that worked its winding way down toward the sea. Only when they reached the terminus of the walkway did his attention turn from lavender sky to the purple-hued foam that crested the occasional wave, and to the strange creatures that frolicked along the shore.

  More than anything else, the majority of them resembled half-drowned bats. But they were not mammals, and the wing-like projections that extended from their backs had not evolved with flight in mind. Fist-sized and highly active, they scurried back and forth, plowing the dark sand with flexing undershot scoops that were more like tapering shovels than beaks. Bipedal, their muscular little legs drove them forward through and across the sand. Their communal hissing as they plowed the narrow beach sounded more like a swarm of bees than a flock of birds.

  “Tepejk,” Sque pointed out almost affectionately. “Nice to see them again. Young K’eremu are often told to approach life like the tepejk.” A trio of tentacles rose and pointed. “Notice the pitch and design of their limbs. They cannot back up; they can only drive, drive forward. To reverse course they must turn completely around. Their legs are designed to enable them to scour the sand that hides their food, tiny silicaceous lifeforms.” Turning to her left, she beckoned for them to follow. “Come. Home awaits.”

  A smaller side path led along the beachfront, past several lights shining from the interior of what appeared to be a low bluff. Sque’s abode lay at the end of the winding route. Despite the ease and expertise with which it blended perfectly into the surrounding terrain, she did not have to tell her friends where to stop. All three of them recognized it. Walker sucked in his breath sharply.

  The entrance was an exact duplicate of her living quarters on board the Vilenjji capture ship.

  “I can see what you are all thinking,” she told them, studying the diversity of faces. “You may already have noted that my home lies at the very end of this larger community space.” Turning, she gestured up the beach. “Unable to sleep one night, I was out wandering. The Vilenjji abduction took place far enough away from my home to preclude detection. As all of you know, our former captors were quite skilled at their nefarious activities.”

  Walker gestured back the way they had come. “That must have been quite a walk. It looks like there are multiple residences scattered all through this section of coast.”

  “Too distant to overhear, or to notice.” Her limbs lowered to her base. “Then too, as you should know by now, K’eremu tend to keep to themselves, and to mind their own business. Needless to say, there was no crowd present to witness my abduction.”

  Flowing easily over the wave-worn rocks that lined both sides of the access path, she worked her way down to the beach, scattering feeding tepejk from her path. Her companions followed without effort. George began to trot up the shoreline, holding his nose close to the ground, sniffing out the details of yet another alien world. Braouk settled himself among the larger boulders, not wanting to coat his bristle-like fur with sand. Only Walker felt comfortable sitting down and letting his backside sink slightly into the cool, moist surface. Walker, and his ten-limbed female friend.

  “Home.” The way even the perpetually acerbic K’eremu hissed the word brought a lump to Walker’s throat. How many times had he uttered the English equivalent silently, to himself? At last, and against seemingly impossible odds, Sequi’aranaqua’na’senemu had come home. Squatting nearby, the Tuuqalian Broullkoun-uvv-ahd-Hrashkin composed with silent ferocity, adding to the extension of his monumental ongoing saga that was intended to describe their travels and adventures. Up the beach, George was now digging at the dark, faintly mauve sand in an attempt to expose something small and vigorous that was frantically burrowing in the opposite direction.

  Home, Walker mused. Would he and George ever see it? Or were they doomed to be travelers forever, visitors to worlds wondrous but alien, welcoming but unfamiliar? Could Sque’s people really do as she claimed? Much K’eremu oratory was backed by accomplishment, he knew. But not all. The K’eremu were arrogant but brilliant—Sque was proof enough of that. Yet, they did not know everything. They were not omniscient. He did not really care whether they were or not.

  He cared only if they could find Earth.

  Having stopped digging, George had backed slightly away from the excavation he had made and was barking challengingly at the hole. Walker squinted in the dog’s direction. A pair of weaving feelers had emerged from the cavity and were fluttering at the dog’s face. Sensibly, George kept his distance, but continued to bark. His four-legged friend wanted to get home as badly as he did, Walker felt, but the dog’s one-day-at-a-time approach to their situation allowed him to avoid much of the stress that plagued Walker daily.

  That’s the secret, he told himself. Dig holes, and don’t worry so much about what tomorrow may or may not bring. But hard as he tried, he couldn’t do it. Unfortunately for him, he was a human, and not a dog.

  Nearby, Sque lolled in the metronomic wash of the sea, more at ease than he had ever seen her. It began to rain, a heavy mist that aspired to drizzle. Bubbles formed and drifted free from the tip of her speaking tube.

  “Excellent. All that was needed to complete my homecoming was for the weather to turn good again.”

  Walker blinked up at the clammy precipitation, wiping moisture from his eyes. Like hands coming together, the clouds had closed in again, shutting out what had been a briefly glorious purple sky.

  “I’m happy for you, Sque,” he told her, “but as you know, the rest of us prefer to be out of this kind of weather instead of out in it.”

  A stream of small bubbles burst from her speaking organ. “I know, yes, I know. Bright sunshine and enervating dryness, that’s what you three crave. Desiccation and dehydration.” She heaved herself out of the centimeter-deep water. “Let it not be said that I was a poor host. We will retire within.”

  Sque’s dwelling was thankfully larger inside than had been her makeshift abode on board the Vilenjji vessel, though Walker still had to enter on hands and knees and once inside sit on the floor with his head bent to avoid hitting it on the ceiling. George experienced no such difficulty, but there was no way Braouk could be accommodated. Supplied by Sque with a remarkably thin and light but thoroughly waterproof sheet of some glossy fabric, the Tuuqalian sat outside and contentedly compiled stanzas. The chill and dark that would have bothered Walker, and to a lesser extent George, did not affect him.

  While the Vilenjji had successfully duplicated the exterior of Sque’s home, they had never been inside. The interior was far different from the minimalist décor Walker remembered from the capture ship. In sharp contrast to the rough-hewn, natural coastal setting outside, the int
erior was lined with instrumentation and devices whose surfaces betrayed a silken texture. Soft light emanated from several locations within the dwelling, their purposes unknown. There were also what appeared to be works of art. All were multidimensional. There was nothing resembling a painting or sketch.

  There were only two rooms, she informed them. A central, ovoidal living area, and a smaller storage chamber beyond. Everything she—a sophisticated, highly intelligent K’eremu—needed was in this one room and could be accessed by touch or voice command. To prove it, she brought forth several slick-sided mechanical shapes that emerged like gold-hued polyps from the lower portion of one wall.

  “What do those do?” George sniffed cautiously of one of the metallic blobs.

  “Kitchen,” she told them brusquely. She could not smile, of course, but in an unmistakable gesture of the kind of affection she could not quite voice, one tendril snaked out to gently caress Walker’s leg. “Don’t you think, after all we have been through together, that it is about time that I cooked something for you?”

  Consigned to Sque’s care until some notification of progress came from Sobj-oes’s busy scientific team, Walker found himself worrying about Braouk. He need not have bothered. As it developed, the big Tuuqalian did not mind spending all his days and nights outside the residence that was too small to admit him. With the bolt of glossy material provided by Sque to help shield him from the rain, he was quite at home beneath a large rocky overhang nearby. As for the temperature, it was often much colder during wintertime on the plains that were his natural home. He passed the days composing. When it was time to eat the food the synthesizer in Sque’s home churned out for her guests, the Tuuqalian would hunch low near the entrance to receive his own massive portion, and also to chat with his friends.

  Since Sque herself showed no inclination whatsoever to entertain her visitors, and in fact kept to herself as much as possible, and Braouk was preoccupied with his saga-spinning, Walker and George were left to themselves to wander the stony slopes that surrounded Sque’s abode, and to explore the narrow beach of dark sand that fronted the cove like a necklace of unpolished hematite.