“Every race does, though as I said before the Oomemians are prudes. It is, however, difficult to convey meanings even with the assistance of translators. Scatology does not travel well between individuals whose physical points of reference are quite different in construction. Sometimes one person’s joke is another’s anatomical impossibility. This renders many devoid of humor or meaning.”
“That’s cool,” Kerwin told him, nodding toward his little brother. “He also has neither humor nor meaning.”
Seeth was looking around. “If I can find something portable and heavy, I’m gonna bust you in the teeth.”
“Please, forebearance and restraint. We have no time for extended personal squabbling.” They’d reached the rim of the dropshoot. It was as black as a country well on a moonless night.
Taking Izmir by an extruded limb, Rail swung the Astarach through the air. Izmir hung in the center of the dropshoot field, waiting for them to follow. Apparently he was also capable of neutralizing or otherwise somehow defying the field. Another potentially useful talent? Kerwin didn’t know and didn’t want to spend the time considering. He was much more interested in finding out who the real human beings were.
Rail jumped into the field and began to descend. His human companions followed, while Izmir spiraled lazily around them, circling, rotating on various individual axes, babbling incessantly and incomprehensibly.
They didn’t descend all the way. That would have dropped them into the service and maintenance levels, Rail explained. It seemed to Kerwin that they ended up mighty close, however.
Lighting at these depths was entirely artificial. No sunlight penetrated from the distant surface. He studied their fellow urban spelunkers with interest.
They didn’t appear poor or downtrodden as much as they did secretive. Everyone here talked in whispers and murmurs. Despite the fact that the street Rail led them out into was as spacious as any they’d encountered higher up, the pedestrians hugged the walls and made obvious efforts to avoid the light.
“A lot of those who live and work here do so to avoid notice,” Rail explained unnecessarily. “They’re here so they can avoid attention.”
“This is sure the place for it,” Kerwin commented.
“I don’t like it.” Miranda’s voice was firm, like the rest of her. “It’s icky.”
“Sweetthing, you sure have a way with words.” Seeth clucked his tongue in mock amazement. “Boy, if I had that command of vocabulary there’s no telling what I could do.”
“You think you’re so smart, mister street punk? I’ll bet you don’t even have a credit card, much less a platinum one.”
“You’re right, bright eyes, I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have a gasoline card. I don’t have a draft card. My wallet’s as bare as old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Except for this, of course.” He excavated a handful of mixed alien currency.
Rail’s eyes bugged. “Where did you get that?”
“Song and dance.” Seeth looked smug. “Me and my idiot brother jived some of the local yokels out of a few spindles and cubes and spools. Don’t even know how well we did.”
“From the looks of what you hold in your hand, well enough.” Seeth repocketed the money. “I did not know you two were brothers, though now I admit to being able to see the similarities.”
“Say what?”
“He means that our bone structure and like that are similar,” Kerwin told him while uneasily watching an alien the size of a small hippo duck to clear the ceiling. Small oval eyes peered challengingly back at him, and he was glad when the creature had disappeared, even though it hadn’t looked anything like an Oomemian.
This wouldn’t be a good place to be lost and broke, he decided.
When it seemed like they’d walked halfway around the planet, Rail turned into a large, commodious store whose shelves, support and containment fields and ceiling were stocked with an assortment of unrecognizable goods. The place was fascinating nonetheless.
Miranda tried to examine something that resembled a bejeweled purse and received a mild electric shock for the attempt. The proprietor had been assisting a customer who was all eyes and mouth. Now he shuffled over to greet them. A four-foot-long neck rose from a two-foot-high body mounted on six legs. It enabled him to peer easily over the thin plastic counter, but not reach it with his hands, which were attached to three-foot-long arms. Except for a pair of long ears fringed at the edges, the head looked horsey. The ears twitched incessantly as he talked.
“Yess? Ssomething I can help you with?”
Miranda stood sucking on her knuckles. “That thing bit me.”
The creature smiled, showing thick, squarish teeth. “All of our expenssive goodss are protected. I can unlock it for you if you wissh a closser look.”
Rail stepped forward. “My friends are not familiar with certain modern devices.”
“Modern devicess?” The owner looked confused. “Thiss sstore iss two hundred yearss old.”
“What kind of place is this, anyway?” Kerwin asked him. Rail replied before the proprietor could.
“The nearest equivalent on your world would be a second-hand shop. A pawn shop, I think is how you call it, though the analogy doesn’t quite hold.” He turned back to the horsey-head. “I need to speak with Yirunta.”
“He’ss in the back.” The proprietor eyed them curiously out of naturally bulging eyes. “I’ll go get him. Who sshall I ssay iss here?’”
“He’ll know me.” Rail smiled.
The six-legged giraffe-thing turned, then halted in his tracks. Izmir the Astarach had assumed the exact size and shape of a complex modern sculpture that rested against the far wall. The only difference between them was that the original was jet black while Izmir had selected a bright cobalt blue, except for black bands that rotated rapidly around his exterior. The shop owner was fascinated.
“You would not want to sell that mimic, would you? It is a wonderful toy. Or is it a free individual?” The proprietor peered harder, as unable to decide that intriguing question as Rail and his human companions had been. “I cannot tell what it is.”
“Neither can anyone else,” Rail told him, “but it doesn’t matter. Whether who or it, he’s not for sale.”
“Should you ever reconsider...” The giraffe-thing vanished into a back room.
Meanwhile Seeth, Kerwin and Miranda walked through the mass of what probably passed for junk on Nedsplen, any portion of which would have been priceless on Earth. Well, maybe not priceless. As Rail pointed out, junk was junk no matter its world of origin.
Eventually a massive, bulky shape trundled out of the back room. Across his eyes he wore a pair of elaborate magnifying glasses with built-in programs for determining the true age of antiques, the clarity and origin of gems, and various other useful bits and scraps of knowledge. A dealer’s tool. His attire was less imposing: silvery pants and matching tank top.
“Arthwit Rail! Heavens, but it’s been a long time.”
“Too long. Good to see you again, Yirunta.” The Prufillian and the human being embraced while Seeth and Kerwin gaped at the newcomer. Not Miranda. She could have cared less, engrossed as she was in her intense examination of the shop’s stock of bracelets and necklaces.
Yirunta pulled back from his old friend. “Now what brings you...?” At which point he caught sight of the shop’s other occupants. “Oh my heavens; good gracious. Cro-Magnons.” He looked back at his friend. “I know you’ve been involved in some pretty disreputable goings-on, Arthwit, but really! Cro-Magnons?”
Rail looked away. “It was unavoidable. They saved my life.”
“Did they? Well, I suppose even a Cro-Magnon is capable of the occasional, isolated civilized act, no matter what the histories say. What do you mean, saved your life? Why was it in danger, pray tell?”
“Because of that.” Rail gestured toward Izmir, who had abandoned his sculpture in favor of imitating a floor fan, complete to the intricate motion of its interwoven blades.
“The Oomemians value him highly. Highly enough to put out a general alarm for him and myself when I borrowed him.”
“Borrowed, huh? You always were a great borrower, Arthwit. Only this time, may we assume, you have sort of overborrowed?”
“That’s about the extent of it. I had run to the world of my friends here, and after they saved me from the Oomemians I felt something of a sense of responsibility toward them. Had I left them behind, the Oomemians would have killed them. Besides which, things happened too fast for careful contemplation of possible alternatives.”
“I guess they’re harmless enough, surely.” Yirunta was gazing thoughtfully at Kerwin. He moved down the counter. “I must say they are somewhat less gruesome in person than in the texts. Not much, though. The basics are still present; the puny features, the shrunken skull, the attenuated skeletal and muscular structure.”
“You’re no pretty-boy yourself, Jack,” said Seeth.
“The crass, crude method of communication,” Yirunta concluded.
“But—but you’re a Neanderthal,” Kerwin sputtered.
That’s exactly what Rail’s friend was. The massive upper body and arms, the sloping forehead and prognathous jaw, the presence of considerable body hair all identified Yirunta immediately. Only the jeweler’s glasses, now pushed back to rest on the low forehead, seemed out of place.
“What else would I be? At least everyone knows what everyone is here.” He turned back to Rail. “Pray say, have they made any progress at all?”
“I wasn’t on a sociology field trip. I really couldn’t tell you. It seemed like a pretty primitive business, this Earth. That’s why I went there. Place is still classified as uninhabited, you know.”
“Poor old Earth.” Yirunta was shaking his head sadly. “Every so often I get the urge—never seen the place, of course. No human has for thousands of years. That was part of the deal.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Kerwin was gesturing anxiously. “What do you mean, no human’s seen it? What about my friends and I?”
Yirunta pursed thick lips. “I suppose in your own minds you count yourselves as human, but then you can’t help that. You’re prisoners of a long-established historical socio-cultural fixation.”
Kerwin was getting tired of this fellow’s condescending attitude, friend of Rail’s or not. “Fixation, hell. We’re the superior species. You’re the ones who became extinct, not us.”
“Became extinct.” Yirunta laughed delicately. “How droll. You Cro-Magnons always were amusing in your clumsy way. We didn’t become extinct, young primitive. We left. Moved. Changed our address. Took up new residence.”
Kerwin frowned. “I don’t follow you.”
“Well, that was the idea, of course. You really don’t know what happened? No, of course you don’t. How could you? Living on a proscribed world you wouldn’t have access to your true history. Well now, I’ve been out of school for quite a while, but I’ll try to bring you up to date a bit.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Rail put in worriedly. “What happens when I return them to their home?”
“No one will believe them,” said Yirunta easily. “That’s a traditional Cro-Magnon trait and one that I doubt has changed. They tend not to believe anything unless they’re responsible for it themselves.” He looked back at Kerwin. “The story is a simple one, cousin. You correct me if I slip anywhere, Arthwit.”
“Not me. I don’t know much Prufillian history, much less that of the outer regions.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep it as simple as possible.”
“Just tell it straight, beetle-breath, and we’ll muddle through somehow,” Seeth assured him.
“Very well. As was true of many worlds where intelligence developed, the primitive Earth was under observation for some time by the Isotat.”
“Always nice to be popular,” Seeth commented.
“Whoa,” said Kerwin. “Who are these Isotat? Have we passed any of them in the streets?”
Yirunta smiled, an extraordinary explosion of lips and teeth. “No one has ever seen an Isotat. Not a Prufillian, not an Oomemian, no one. We’ve only seen their moon-sized ships. No one knows where their home world is, or, indeed, if they even still bother with one. They may have dispensed with planetary life in favor of a nomadic existence aboard their immense vessels, which are considerably faster than any other known mode of transportation. Sometimes they tell us things. Such conversations are always one way. They do not respond in any way to queries or questions. They are friendly but aloof, concerned yet distant.
“The only occasions on which they are known to interfere in the affairs of another sentient race is when they choose to assist developing species that are on the verge of achieving civilization. They are either curious, empathetic, or both.
“Anyway, as the story goes, in studying Earth they naturally observed the burgeoning conflict between human beings such as my people—Neanderthals, if you will—and your ancestral Cro-Magnons. Apparently this was most unusual, two offshots of the same common simian ancestor developing intelligence almost simultaneously. The Isotat determined that the Neanderthals were likely to be wiped out by the more primitive but far more aggressive and numerous Cro-Magnons.”
“You really consider yourselves the superior branching,” Kerwin said.
“Oh, gracious no—we didn’t consider ourselves anything of the kind. We aren’t subject to racial conceits like you Cro-Magnons. I imagine our ancestors weren’t, either. As to who is the superior, you’d have to consult the Isotat and that, of course, is quite impossible.
“However, it is not always the superior form that dominates. We were far more peaceful and contemplative than you warlike simians. Where we were open and accepting, you were treacherous and clannish. Where we were truthful, you were sly and deceptive. The Isotat were quite right. Against such instinctive subterfuges we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Individually we were stronger, but in matters of war we were clearly outclassed. Besides, Cro-Magnons breed like flies.
“So it was decided that while both peoples were deserving of further development, they were not compatible. The Isotat determined that the more artistically inclined, more sensitive Neanderthals would be overwhelmed by the army-antlike precision of the Cro-Magnons.”
“Everything you say is open to debate,” Kerwin argued.
“Not the historical part, I’m afraid. The Isotat stepped in and resolved any debate before it got started. About sixty thousand years ago they brought several of their enormous vessels to Earth and resolved the conflict by simply moving all of my ancestors they could find to another empty world. I understand the original decision was to move the Cro-Magnons, but by the time the Isotat could make the necessary decision and arrange the complex logistics, there were already so many more Cro-Magnons that it was easier to move us than you.
“So you see, it was a practical business, not a question of who should have dominion over the planet that spawned us. Moving involved no actual trauma, since my ancestors and yours were too primitive to have developed the notion of Earth as home. Home was the local cave. We’ve settled in quite comfortably and qualified to join the galactic community. We regard House, the world which the Isotat gave us, as our home planet now. There’s no question of jealousy arising, no reason we should ever want to visit Earth, except on matters of anthropological curiosity. Unfortunately we can’t do even that because Earth is still classed as uninhabitable, uncivilized, unsocializable, and otherwise unsuitable for travel.” He nodded toward Rail. “But I guess he told you that much.”
“I had to. The Oomemians were on top of me and I owed these three who’d saved me an explanation.”
Yirunta nodded understandingly. “No need to worry. As I said, no one will believe them if they choose to speak of their travels upon their return home. It has happened before. The travelers are always laughed at and ridiculed.”
“What makes you think,” Kerwin said, “that th
e Isotat weren’t just handing you a line about your supposed superiority in order to get you to move?”
“They didn’t have to mention it. Remember, we’re talking tens of thousands of years ago, real primitive peoples. When the gods come down from the sky and offer to move you to Paradise, what primitive is going to resist? Of course, a few did. They were fast enough and clever enough to escape the Isotat ships. So there were a few remaining for you Cro-Magnons to beat up on. Didn’t you ever wonder why we ‘died out’ so fast?” He looked back at Rail. “I don’t suppose they’ve changed their habits yet?”
“Fractious as ever, I’m afraid,” said Rail disappointedly. “I really don’t see them becoming part of galactic culture any time soon. They’ve had atomics and fusion weapons for a while now. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Says you,” said Seeth. “We’re gonna settle our problems, you’ll see. A few changes of opinion and government in the US and USSR and we’ll get everything under control.”
“I certainly do wish you well,” said Yirunta. “Every new race has something to contribute to society. Perhaps we might even sponsor your application. You know, helping out the idiot brother, the missing-link relationship.” Seeth started to say something and Yirunta forestalled him. “Please, I am not insulting you. Merely stating the facts as I know them.”
“Well, your facts are screwed.” Seeth was only partly mollified. “I’ll bet you don’t even have rock and roll.”
Yirunta’s enormous brows drew together as he turned to Rail.
“A current form of popular music,” the Prufillian explained. “Really nothing more than a variant on earlier themes that I imagine could be traced back to their very beginnings. The younger portions of certain dominant populations now consider it an advanced form of expression. What is amusing is that they fail to realize that it is the very connection with their ancient past which gives it relevance.”
“Then I imagine we don’t have it.” Yirunta appeared curious nonetheless. “We have moved quite a way from our primitive modes of expression. I would like to hear it. Who knows what ancient feelings it might stir up?”