I swallowed the scream and collapsed on a fallen trunk, staring wet-faced as the woman in the shell came closer, holding out a hideous hand, which she pulled off to show the human hand beneath.
“That is you in picture, not? You look more old. I watched you setting up camp. I thought I would look again being sure. But then, you were hearing voices. I misremember picture being so loud…”
The woman spoke clearly but slowly, as though considering each oddly accented word before she uttered it, as people did who had been reared in the far colonies where dialects of common speech were spoken. Her olive-skinned face was crowned with dark hair braided in a high coronet. She had dark eyes, a wide mouth, and a beaky though shapely nose with the nostrils widely flared in excitement. The rest of her was bound and corseted in tough shell, some kind of exoskeleton with a row of extra legs hanging at either side.
Adam thrust his head and shoulders across the trunk, beneath my arm, a low growl in his throat, the fur on his neck up. I stroked him absently, murmuring, “It’s all right, all right.”
“What’s that?!” demanded the stranger.
“Just a dog,” said I. “My dog.”
The woman shook her head in wonder. “I have not seen dog. We are told of dog, of course. One of six faithful Earthian friends, not? Cat, dog, horse, cow, sheep, goat. So legends say.”
“Where did you get that album?” I demanded, pointing at the device in the woman’s hand. “Those are pictures of our celebration, Witt’s and mine. That thing in your hand is our photo album.” My voice rose. “Where did you get it?”
“Shhh,” said the other, maneuvering the clumsy shell so that she could sit beside me. “I will also sit. This is wonderful enough sitting and acquainting, not? Coincidence, not? I found thing here”—an emphatic down gesture of both hands—“in one of these caverns, along this wall”—fingers pressed together, both hands making pecking motions along the wall. “…It is mine some time now…” Hands pressed to the carapace over her chest. “…Yours, I know”—a sweeping gesture toward me—“but I found it, so thought it mine.” Her hands relaxed in her lap. “I thought maybe it was celebration of new year, not unlike ours. But you say it is something else? What is pastry for?”
“Our wedding cake. An old custom. We still call it that, even though they aren’t really weddings anymore.”
“Ah. We have wedding pastry, but ours are ring-shaped buns with sweet filling.” Gavi searched my face, put out a gentle finger to touch the corners of my mouth, the lids of my eyes, as though to reassure herself I was real. “So you wedded this man…?”
“My husband, Witt, was never on this planet,” I said. “He disappeared! Where is he?” It came out almost angrily, as a demand.
“How long ago?” the woman asked. “How long he went away?”
“Oh, long, long ago. Twelve years ago he disappeared on Jungle.”
“Where is Jungle?” asked the other, hands raised, palms up, denoting doubt.
“The next planet in, toward the sun.”
“There are two planets between us and sun. Ruby and Emerald.” Her hands spun in orbits, her fingers darted, spelling.
“Then Jungle must be what you call Emerald,” I said. “It’s a green world. My husband was there, with an exploration team. And he disappeared along with ten other men, and they’ve never been seen since, and he had that photo album with him. How did it get here?”
“Have not one thought concerning it,” said the other, still peering closely into my face. “My name is Gavi Norchis, thank you.”
“I am Jewel Delis, with the Planetary Protection installation here.”
“Ah, our world needs protection? I did not know. I am of Abyssians”—wide gesture, up, ending with index finger pointing high—“people of Night Mountain.”
“ ’Shish,” said Adam. “Ais shish.”
I nodded. “Right, Adam. The Hessing spaceships, up on the plateau. Those were your people?”
Gavi stared at the dog. “He talks?”
“They speak words they can manage to enunciate. Their genetic makeup was manipulated to create speech centers in the brain without changing the anatomy much. Once they have the speech center, they can invent words for both intra-and interspecies communication. Like their word for redmoss.” I growl-yelped, “Rrr-igh.”
“A warning-pain combination,” said Gavi Norchis.
I nodded. “If they follow their usual pattern, rrr-igh may become their general term for anything dangerous on the planet, or maybe for any dangerous thing that lies in one place. They will add other elements to specify which dangerous thing it is, depending on how many varieties of danger there are.”
“Is wonderful,” she cried. “Was not aware dogs talk.” Her hands went to her head, then away, fingers fluttering, miming no thoughts.
“Do all your people talk with their hands?”
Gavi looked at her hands as though unaware of their existence. “Ah. Silent talk, for when we must not be overheard. It becomes habit. Especially when using…old language.”
“Are you descended from the people in those ships?”
She folded her hands, making much of the act as she gave me a sly look from the corner of her eyes. “Yes. We were on way to Hidden Garden, Planet Jardinconnu, our new world. On way, we went aside looking for Splendor, and anomaly caught us. We had not one idea how getting back, and ships were damaged, so could only stay here. Two shiploads stayed on Night Mountain, two shiploads trekked over to Day Mountain. Our people claim half of world, other half belongs to Day Mountain.”
“Whai?” asked Adam.
The woman regarded him with interest and some confusion. “He is asking of me…?”
I said, “Why. Why does half belong to you and half to them?”
“Because, Planet Forêt is sending out one Hargess cousin and one Hessing cousin for heading new colony. Much rivalry. Hargess chief wanting boss-ship of this world; so is Hessing chief. Both men fighting great duel, both now longtime dead, so we could as you might say…”
“Reunite?”
“Be one people, not? No good. Small customs piled for long time become mountain of tradition, now too late backening and restarting. Menfolk place much value on…warlikeness?”
“Belligerence?” suggested I.
“Strut, you know. Like roosters.” She smiled secretly to herself. “Very important for male pride.”
“Nobody knew you were here,” I cried. “There’s no sign of you except the ships.”
“We hide,” said Gavi. “Ah. Here are more of dogs.”
Clare, Veegee, and Titan had come through the moss forest to sit down near Adam, thoughtfully regarding the shell-clad woman.
I asked, “You hide? Why?”
“Because we do not want being harvested,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “You are here only short time, not long enough knowing much about mosslands. Come! Nearby is pleasant cavern. We can build sit-talk-fire, keep warm, avoid harvesters.” She looked the question at us, head cocked.
Adam nodded, so did the other dogs, who returned the way they had come. Within moments they returned with their kindred, each of the dogs carrying a puppy by the head.
“Little ones!” cried Gavi. “Tiny ones!”
“I’ll get the floater,” said I, rising.
Gavi Norchis came with me. “We had floaters. But they were stopping much time ago. No machines now, except Medical Machines, from ships. Those we keep working.”
“How do you live?” asked I, dazed. It had occurred to me that I might be dreaming, for the encounter had the dimension and aspect of dream. None of it seemed real. I stooped to gather our blankets.
“As people lived before machines,” Gavi answered, taking the other end of a blanket to help fold it. “So our wisewomen say. We gardening where is good soil, plentiful rain, high up, over places where is heat. Warm soil making up for cold air. We living inside warm rock, where hot springs keeping us comfortable. We spin clothing from thread mosses, made, s
o wisewomen say, for that purpose. We come down from top for shearing thread trees, when thread has grown long but before it grows thick, except we take some thick thread, also, for making armor lining.”
“Who harvests you?” asked I, piling the blankets in the back of the floater.
“Who is knowing but God, and perhaps not He. Great mystery. Harvesters coming in bright light, so much light we cannot see, and when they are going, some of us are going as well, but only here, in low places. If watchful, if in armor, we see light coming and crouch down, arms and legs tight, look like crab, and light goes over us, not touching us.” Gavi placed her load of blankets in the floater, climbed in beside me and pointed: “That way.”
I parked outside the cavern. Its narrow opening led into a wider, sand-floored area with a half circle of fire-blackened stones marking a hearth against a cracked and darkened wall. A small supply of moss chunks and dried wood lay against the wall. Gavi carried it to the fireplace, suggesting to the dogs that they might gather what wood they could find nearby in the forest. Several of them promptly did so, dragging in some sizable branches, which Gavi broke up and added to the pile before covering the entry with a blanket hung over a use-polished sapling trunk mounted above it. She lighted the fire with a striker, flint and steel, a device obviously handmade.
Other evidences of long habitation stood about. A water jar in a niche. A pile of stones that had probably been removed from the otherwise comfortable sand floor. We gathered around the warming flame as Gavi pointed out the features of the cavern.
“Small waterfall outside when it rains. Take water jar out, fill it, bring it back in. Deeper inside cave is good warmwall. Always we look for warmwall, warmfloor, warm place. We can sleep there. Fire is only for pretty and light, for seeing by. Near warmwall is small hot-water place, big enough for bath, not good to drink. You do not want sleeping outside in moss. Still are moss demons out there. Some of our animals turning to demons, that is how we know.”
“Moss-demons?” I asked. “What is that?”
“You have people doing redmoss?” asked Gavi. “I know you must do, yes, for you know of it. So you know they lie on moss, moss eats them, all but bones. Then, later, moss uses bones for shaping new thing that is rising up in likeness of that person, having that person’s voice, everything. Nighttime it comes hunting for more persons. It says sweetly to your ears and your nose, it is lying down on you, and in morning, nothing, no more person, not even bones. Just one more demon, or maybe bigger demon, full of two people. You must trap them, burn them. Our people were burning one that had six people in it.”
“How did you know?” asked I.
“It was talking to us. All six voices, six names, six sets of people it was crying to us, ‘Do not burn, please do not burn.’ We were burning it anyway, but that was long long ago.”
I poked the fire with a stick, considering. This could be campfire talk, scary stories, not greatly different from those Joram used to tell. “I was talking to the people back at camp about this business of predators attracting prey. Predators don’t evolve attractants unless there’s something attractable in the environment. So, before people came, what did redmoss eat?” I half expected Gavi would take time to invent something, but the response came immediately.
“Willogs.” Gavi poked the fire in her turn. “You have likely not seen willogs. We chased them south of where you are.”
“Plant or animal?”
“World says maybe half and half. Sometimes willog ups roots for walking around, grows long branches, thin like whips, for catching things it will eat. Catches them, wraps them, holds them until they die, then drops them on ground and runs lots of little rootlets inside them. Other times willog roots itself and grows a long time in one place, talks to itself, talks to word maker, talks to other things, makes poems, declaims in sounds, becomes point of interest.”
“Willogs make sounds?” I said, feeling a chill. “In the forest?”
“When first we were coming to planet, we were living down here, where is warmer. Some of us were going into redmoss. Some, willogs ate. So, we were moving up, high, into the caves, but we were keeping watch on willogs. Somehow they were learning sounds from our people. We were not staying in the moss long enough for them to learn much. When we chase them away, they can only make a few words, sounds like bells, like children playing…”
So there was more than one intelligence on Moss. “We haven’t seen any…” I faltered
“Oh, no. Sneaky things, willogs.” She paused, thoughtfully. “I was saying something…”
“About the redmoss eating willogs, and then the willogs became moss demons?”
“Sometimes. If redmoss had crabs in it, new thing is being part willog, part crab. If redmoss had birds in it, new thing is part bird. Cannot fly. Bird bones very fragile, do not last when redmoss eats bird, so few bones for building on. Sometimes willog demons living like…do you have flat pastries, made on…a metal plate made hot on fire?”
“Pancakes, yes. On a griddle.”
“Griddle, yes. Sometimes willogs are young, have few bones, redmoss eats them, makes demons squirming on ground like pancake. If combination works, sometimes willog becoming new thing that is living for long time.”
I looked around to see how my fellow travelers would react to her words, only to find they had more or less fallen asleep around the fire. Only Behemoth lay at attention, eyes fixed on the two of us. I asked, “And if the redmoss had a person in it when it ate the willog?”
Gavi shrugged. “Never happened. Long, long ago, we chase willogs away from Night Mountain. We told them staying away or we burning them all. So, no willogs here falling into moss with persons in it.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, hundreds years ago, I am guessing. Before Day Mountain people went away. Too much trouble, willogs. First one thing, then another thing. Good poets, though.”
“A hundred years or more,” I marveled.
Gavi nodded. “We had chronometers on ships. Some still working. Now we measure years by sun. A year on Moss is having days less than year on Earth, but Moss day is longer. Time of year about same. Jardinconnu had long years but no wintertime, books say. Good for growing flowers.”
“You said the willogs caught things to eat? What things?”
“Our animals. Goats. Cats. Some of us before we were knowing about them.”
“What did they eat before you got here?”
Gavi furrowed her brow, stroked her jaw with one finger, puzzled. “I am not knowing. Never asked.”
“You’ve never seen any fauna, any animals, birds, fish?”
“Are being small birds, yes. Fishes, yes. Crabs. Mouses. We are thinking they were being on our ships when we came.”
I took a deep breath. “Well! Will you introduce me to your people?”
Gavi shook her head, very seriously. “I think it is being wiser not.”
“Why is that?”
She accompanied herself with hand gestures once more. “My people are fighting evermore, this tribe against that tribe.” Hands darted at one another, inflicting blows. “Every ten, twenty years, Night Mountain tribes put away fighting each other, join together to have big battle against united tribes of Day Mountain. They fight for key…”
“What key?”
“Key to Splendor.” Hands raised in adoration, invocation.
“What? To Splendor? There really is a Splendor?”
Gavi’s eyes shifted away, then back, looking earnestly into mine. “So chiefs say. Other people say it is only symbol, but important to chiefs! For making strut, you know? Wartime is coming very soon. Already preparations are making. So, I am introducing you, one chief may keep you, sell you to your people for weapons for using against other chief. Or, chief could try using you some other way, probably nasty. They do not want you here. We have peace with Moss. We stay where we are, planet leaves us alone. So, my people are staying hidden hoping you will go away…”
That terribly si
ncere look, directly into my face told me at once that she was lying. Or perhaps, merely withholding part of the truth. I kept my eyes fixed on hers, smiling only slightly, skeptically, letting her see it. She flushed, glancing around at the others. Even Behemoth had his head down, his eyes closed. She murmured, “There is another place here. Separate. The night I am finding your album, I was being wakened by voices. Looking through crack in stone, I am seeing people, legs only, but people legs, not walking. I am hearing man’s voice saying ‘It was along here, right here.’ I am hearing another voice saying, ‘How could you be so stupid. I have told you a thousand times.’
“The legs were not walking. They floated…”
“Where was this?” I asked, almost in a whisper.
“In the rock. Inside the rock. When morning was coming, there was only rock, but I was not having dream! I was seeing it! I was! And I was thinking, this is Splendor, this place. To get there, one must be having key, so…”
“A spatial anomaly,” I breathed. “We all know there’s one here, close by. The Derac fell through it. Your ships fell through it. And your chiefs fight over it?”
“When your people are arriving, down by the big lake, my people, both Mountains, are deciding there is nothing here making your people stay very long. Many dangers, nothing valuable. My people think we let you alone, you will go soon, but if your people are knowing about us, you will not go, and our planet will be visited so all the worlds know what only our chiefs know. Chiefs do not want visitings. That is why I will not tell them of you.”
I marshaled my thoughts, wanting to be as truthful with her as possible.
“I’m not sure I want to tell our people about you, either. Not all of them, at any rate. Some of what you’ve told me is valuable; I’ll have to pass it on some way, but I can do it without mentioning you. I’m what is called an arkist, a preservationist. I brought the dogs as a preservation effort, an experiment to see if they can survive and reproduce on their own. This isn’t the place we intend them to live, but this world is very similar to the place we planned for them, and we needed to see how they adapt to this kind of environment.