Reaching up with the activated stylus, he drew. When he was done, he turned to face the expectant multitude. If anyone had any objections, either aesthetic or personal, to the mustache and beard he had drawn on his face, they kept these to themselves.
He sensed approval. There was only one more thing to do to complete the ceremony. There remained the business of bestowing on this inducted oddity a proper name. The task fell to the female Elder Xeerelu. As she approached him, Flinx perceived her ambiguity. He contented himself with the belief that she now disliked him somewhat less than previously.
“We welcome you as a creative ssentient,” she hissed simply, “as one of uss, to the Tier of Ssaiinn, Flinx LLVVRXX. May the footsstepss from your hunting be wet with blood, your accession swift, your family prossperouss, and your art dazzling to the mind and heart.”
Something struck him hard on the back and he whirled around—only to see Hiikovuk, one of the younger artists, striking him respectfully with open palm, claws retracted. Soon he was being warmly pummeled from all sides. Chraluuc joined in, battering him as enthusiastically as any of the others. Methodically, courteously, they beat the art off him, until he once more stood naked among them, flushed (a condition that they found attractive), and sweaty (a condition that even those who liked him most assuredly did not).
Responding to the physical fusillade of congratulations as best he could, he excused himself before he suffered any serious injury and hurried back to his room. Pip was waiting for him, airborne and anxious. Letting himself into the makeshift shower they had fashioned for him, he washed and scoured away the remnants of the ritual. Only when the last daub of motile paint, the last grain of electrostatically charged sand, had been scrubbed off did he allow himself to relax a little and reflect on the ordeal he had just undergone.
So I am one of them now, he reflected thoughtfully. As much as it was possible for a softskin to become AAnn. And not just AAnn, but an artist, respected for what he could create as much as for who he was. At that moment, in that place, he found that he did not miss others of his kind. Wasn't he supposed to? Landing in his lap as he sat on the edge of his bed of smoothed, heated sand, Pip recognized him as both tired and conflicted. Since there was nothing she could do about either, she curled up and promptly went to sleep.
I should do the same, he told himself. Though quite aware that something exceptional had just taken place, he did not feel any different. Whether he felt more AAnn or not he was not yet able to say for certain.
Not a bad life to look forward to, he decided as he lay down on the warm, sterilized sand. An artist among friends. He certainly could survive as such, at least until this or that memory returned that might dictate he should be and do otherwise.
If any such remembrance ever did return, he reminded himself.
Several weeks passed, during which time he occupied himself with coming to terms with his new status and in striving to improve what seemed to him a wholly inadequate ability to draw. It was mid-morning of a fine sunny day marred only by a few high clouds when Chraluuc interrupted his work.
“I have ssomething to sshow you,” she told him. Though her expression remained unchanged and her tone formal, he could sense the excitement within her. “It wass felt that it wass time.”
“Time for what?” Setting aside the small landscape he had been working on, he rose to join her.
Yellow eyes glistened. “To introduce you to The Confection.”
Pip riding his shoulder, he allowed himself to be led out of the room. “Sounds tasty,” he quipped.
“It iss. But not in the way you are thinking. Remember that we of the Tier are defined by what we do.”
So it was some kind of artwork, he decided as they ascended the access ramp and emerged into the hot sunshine of morning. That didn't rule out the possibility that food was involved. He had come to enjoy the daily menus that were prepared in the Tier's kitchen, though the meat-heavy diet forced him to exercise regularly and to seek out wild fruits and nuts to supplement the almost exclusively carnivorous bill of fare.
They passed the floating obelisk of the air sculptor Giivet and the dancing garden on which Chraluuc herself had collaborated. The sprayed paving of the walkway they were taking dissolved into loose gravel mixed with sand. The Tier's complex receded behind them. If there was food to be had out here, it would have had to have been hauled out on somebody's leathery back, he reflected.
Unexpectedly, she turned off the main path onto an even narrower trail that led down into a steep-sided canyon whose entrance was hidden from above. Instead of sandstone banded taupe and umber, they found themselves in an isolated fragment of Karst terrain. Rain and running water had carved the dark gray stone into an array of shapes as fanciful as they were lethal. Every rock, every pillar and pinnacle, was sharp-edged and bladed. It was as if they were hiking through a forest of ancient weapons.
“Thiss iss a favorite place,” she told him. “It hass been sso ever ssince the Tier ssettled on, and in, thiss part of Jasst.”
Studying the lancet-like hoodoos and grimacing limestone goblins that now surrounded them, Flinx could understand why. Whereas humans favored shapes that were soft and rounded, the AAnn gravitated to the jagged and prickly.
The canyon narrowed until it was barely wide enough for a single individual to pass through without turning sideways. Abruptly, it dropped away. A ladder, that most functional and basic appliance common to nearly every bipedal species, bridged the gap between canyon's end and the floor of the slightly wider chasm beyond.
At the base of the ladder, the rift widened significantly. There appeared to be no other way in or out of the rocky cleft other than by air. But arriving by aircar, Flinx saw immediately, would remove all the romance from the place. The bottom of the chasm was covered in soft white sand that had drifted in from surrounding dunes and hollows. Somehow finding a footing in the shifting surface, red-crowned baloovots and upward-curling sendesuff bushes reached for the life-giving sunlight. Other than a mature keevut that scurried on multiple legs into a sheltering crack in the weathered limestone, the chasm was devoid of movement. He remarked on the dearth of wildlife in such a protected place.
Leading him across the sand, Chraluuc indicated the spiky crowns of the heavily eroded rocks. “Mosst Jasstian fauna avoid thiss place. Making a ssafe landing down here would tax the sskillss and luck of the mosst agile flier. One wrong turn, one missguess of the wind, and they would find themsselves plunging to earth with punctured air bladderss.”
Tilting his head back slightly, Flinx was able to see the truth of her remark. For a lifting, bladder-supported Jastian flier, achieving the safety and solitude of the inner chasm would be akin to trying to land in the center of a gigantic pincushion. Pip would have no trouble doing so, nor would most Terran birds, but a windblown keelmot or a douvum, for example, would be risking their continued survival by coming anywhere near the place. That explained the prevalence of uneaten ripe berries on the branches of the sendesuff.
Come to think of it, he mused, a single Terran hawk or eagle would be emperor of the skies here, able to maneuver effortlessly around and through the free-floating, air-bladder-supported local life-forms. For some reason—a newly recurring memory, perhaps—he had the feeling that the AAnn looked upon themselves as the hawks and the Vssey as the slow-moving, ungainly potential prey.
But not the members of the Tier, he reminded himself. They were different. They had set themselves apart.
Something new drew his attention, and he strained to see past a sheer-walled, gray-faced bend in the limestone ahead. “Is that music I'm hearing?”
She gestured second-degree concurrence. “Mussic, yess— and ssomething elsse. Ssomething more.”
“Like what?” On his shoulder Pip was alert to, but not agitated by, the rising volume.
“You will ssee. And hear.”
Rounding a second bend was like passing through a door. The intricate, convoluted wall of harmony that struck him as t
hey turned the corner was harsh to his human ears, but not painfully so. He felt he had heard worse. In any event, any discomfort he might have felt was erased by the sight that met his eyes.
The chasm widened briefly before dropping off into a larger canyon beyond. Flocks of gaily colored flumeeji, their oblong airsacs fully inflated and their bulging eyes scanning the riverbed below, drifted past, heading northward. Cutting through the comparatively soft limestone deposit, the now-vanished stream that had cut the sandy chasm down which he and Chraluuc were walking had left in its wake a soaring limestone arch. Long-dead stalactites hung from the underside of the arch—and that wasn't all.
Stronger than glass, lighter than quartz, a host of crystalline structures that were as complex in execution as they were beautiful to look at grew from beneath the arch. Others sprang from opposite sides of the chasm or thrust upward from its bed. Most, though not all, of the motifs, were abstract in design. There were blades and barbs, spirals and spikes, globes within globes, and mad, sweeping runs of glassine color that resembled nothing so much as unkempt hair. The patterns and devices reflected not only AAnn tradition but AAnn moods. As a human, he could respond to the physical beauty of the art even without being able to appreciate the emotional overtones.
Wherever the sun struck the tinted, shimmering surfaces, colored light exploded in all directions. It was as if someone had taken a shipload of sapphires, warped them into a thousand new shapes, combined the results with a load of transparent glue, and flung them all in the direction of the chasm's end, hoping some of it would stick.
As for the complementary music, it sprang from a trio of instruments. Though the devices themselves were unfamiliar to him, Flinx recognized two of the three players as fellow artisans of the Tier. All three paused in their playing to look up at the newcomers while one waved a greeting with her tail. Its flower-like terminus resting on the ground before her, the apparatus she was holding was twice her height and equipped with numerous fingerholes and tabs.
“That iss a vourak.” Chraluuc led him toward the players, all of whom were seated on rock or bare sand. “All of the instrumentss that are ussed in creating The Confection are wind insstrumentss. The interlace resspondss better to the vibrationss they generate than to the vibrato of sstringss or the thump of percussion.”
“Interlace?” On his shoulder, Pip was alert and attentive. She liked music.
“Watch.” Chraluuc stopped.
The trio of musicians resumed their playing. As the sonorous piping of the vourak and the other instruments rose in volume, so did particulate matter from the vast reservoir that had accumulated at the bottom of the chasm. While Flinx looked on in fascination, the twisting streams of levitated sand flowed through a single large mechanism that was set in place against the far wall of the narrow gorge. They emerged transformed from spouts on the top.
“Insside,” Chraluuc explained, “the ssand iss ssubjected to heat and pressure that transsformss it into a ceramossilicate compossite. A range of trace mineralss are added to create different colorss. As you can ssee, at pressent the artisstss are working with purple.”
Indeed, three thin streams of deep color twirled upward from as many issuing spouts. As Flinx watched, they danced and coiled in perfect time to the music that was being played by the artisans. Certain notes caused a bit of one dancing stream or another to impact on the already immensely elaborate creation that lined the arch, walls, and floor of the chasm's terminus. The nearest analogy he could think of to what he was seeing was a growing, evolving, three-dimensional stained-glass window. At the same time, it was being fashioned not by hand or program but by sound as the streams of intensely colored material were manipulated and put in place by the music being played by the highly focused trio.
“It's beautiful,” he finally thought to murmur.
“The Confection iss a creation of the entire Tier, an expression of all that we believe we can accomplissh. Everyone participatess in itss fabrication. At the same time, working on it iss very relaxing. Thiss iss one thing that we do when we are not working within our own individual fieldss, with our own chossen media.” She gestured in the direction of the alien fabulosity. “When it iss finisshed, we will find another ssuitable place, another natural frame, and make another. And another, and another, until all the land around the central complex iss itsself transsformed into a unified work of art. Truly, none of thosse of uss currently working on it will live long enough to ssee thiss come to fruition, but ssuch iss often the casse with great art that iss rendered on a large sscale and iss the product of mass collaboration.”
“Wonderful wonderful!” Flinx was unable to take his eyes off it. The amalgam of natural setting, the dancing jets of chromatically colored sand, the steady stream of alien music, and the sparkling, shimmering Confection itself were mesmerizing.
Taking one of his soft hands in her leathery, scaled one, she drew him forward. “And as a member of the Tier, it iss incumbent upon you, too, Flinx, to contribute to the creation of The Confection.”
“Me?” He allowed himself to be led toward the slope where the three player/sculptors were sitting in front of a small building that was used as a temporary shelter. “I'm no musician, Chraluuc. I can't play any of the instruments of my kind, much less one of yours.”
“Only a few memberss of the Tier have mussical training, Flinx. We are artisstss, not mussicianss. But for the ssake of The Confection, we have learned. We practice.” She gestured third-degree reassurance; almost a contradiction in terms. “You, too, will have time to practice, and to learn—and to contribute. There iss no hurry.” As she gazed up at The Confection, a dazzle of ambient color danced in her eyes.
Pausing in their playing and sculpting, the trio greeted the visitors and listened attentively as Chraluuc explained her purpose in bringing the softskin to witness their work. To Flinx's dismay, all three expressed enthusiasm at the possibility of his participation. Compelled to choose among the instruments whose sounds were linked to the sophisticated mechanisms that produced and applied the brightly colored sand to the ever-growing Confection, he settled on the yoult. It was the smallest and simplest of the three, though one would never know it by the sounds that emerged following his first attempts.
Following the inevitable good-natured hissing and tail-slapping, Chraluuc and the others proceeded to instruct him in the use of the sculpting instrument. Not that finger, he was told repeatedly. Use your thumb. Apply the base of the left palm, so. Compensatory movements were designed on the spot to offset the fact that he only had five fingers on each hand instead of the usual six. At least, he thought to himself as he struggled with the yoult's dynamic fingering, none of the instruments was played with the tail.
When, after hours of instruction and feeble attempts, he at last managed to generate a simple melodic line and raise a trickle of bright violet particles from the palette of ceramosilicate, his companions applauded his effort with approving hisses. When just before sunset he managed to sustain a tonality long enough to actually induce a handful of the material to fuse to the crest of a curving six-sided tower that protruded from the wall of the chasm, he felt a sense of accomplishment that surpassed any praise they could lavish upon him. The feeling lasted until all five returned to the main complex, hiking back in the dark along a trail lit by light generated by their own sandals.
More congratulations were to be had when others were informed of the new acolyte's first successful work on The Confection. He accepted them all with quiet good grace, as he had come to do whenever a compliment was directed his way. Choosing not to linger following the communal evening meal, he retired to his tiny room.
It was all so very strange, he reflected as he lay on the sleeping sand that conformed to the contours of his body even as it warmed him against the night air. He had by now recalled enough to know that the reptiloids were sworn enemies of both the thranx and humankind. Yet these had saved his life, taken him in, and made him one of them—albeit not without some
objection and controversy. Thus far, no one had tried to eat him, though he had on occasion caught aimed in his direction one or two less than sociable emotions. He was confused. The kindness of the Tier did not square with his memories.
Of course, they were social outcasts among their own kind, devoted as they were to something besides the immutable Imperial AAnn expansion. What more natural than that they should accept even an obnoxious amnesiac softskin as one of their own? He thought about it, let it worry him entirely too much. They had even allowed him to participate in their most important project, the creation of The Confection that would eventually constitute the crowning achievement of their Tier. He had been accepted. He was one of them. Truly.
Except that he was not. No matter how accepted he felt, no matter how completely he blended into the ways and workings of the Tier of Ssaiinn, he would always be a softskin, an outsider among outsiders. Worse, deprived of so much of his memory, he could not even be himself.
Rolling over onto his side, he stared through the dim light that filtered into the room from a high window at the stexrex arrangement Chraluuc had fashioned for him. In the faint moonlight, the tiny blue-and-yellow blossoms expanded and contracted slowly, as if breathing. The sight soothed him. Something about plants and growing greenery always did. He didn't think the feeling was anything exceptional.
The stexrex did, but was unable to give form or voice to its opinion.
11
In the depths of the simple living quarters that had become much more than merely a place of dwelling, QylElussab perused the news floating in the air before one disenchanted eye and brooded. The other eye was twisted around to contemplate the camouflaged, hidden compartment that held sophisticated electronics and undemanding explosives. Despite all that had happened, no significant public debate had emerged regarding the extensive AAnn presence on Jast. Was everything for naught? Was the body of the Vsseyan public really that uninterested in the unhurried but measured takeover of their world by the scaled bipeds? Could no one else see the sinister future that loomed over them all?