The Companions

  “It surprises me they keep it secret,” Adam said. “If it’s such a big thing, one would expect it to be discussed, all the details recounted…”

  “Oh, they are discussing,” said Gavi. “Over and over. This one was at the battle, he is saying this happened. Chief Such-such was almost dead, key was used, bright light came, chieftain was gone. That one was at the battle, he is saying ‘No bright light, nothing happened, except body was gone.’ This one saw the door open, that one didn’t. This one saw something inside Splendor, that one says there is no seeing inside Splendor. What is being true, what is being false? Who can tell?”

  “Well, some few things are probably true,” I said. “There really is a key. It opens something. There is a where, there. Some people or bodies of people can go into that where. And there are beings or inhabitants in that place…”

  “And the place isn’t in normal space,” said Adam. “Obviously.”

  Gavi looked thunderstruck. “If that is so, then I saw it! That was place I am seeing inside the rock. That place.”

  “Yes,” I agreed with her. “It may have been.”

  We took our leave of her and started back to the installation, emitting our message continuously as we went.

  Where Walking Sunshine went, words came fragrant through the forest, scented sermons, odorous orations, redolent rodomontades, syllable on scented syllable proclaiming the beauty of the World. The morning message might call attention to the scented blooms on the zibber trees. The afternoon message might remind one of the moist smell of mosses beneath a fall. Lately, the words had grown annoyed, irritated. Sharp smells protested the unresponsive creatures, men! In the forest north of the lake, following the trail the humans had made toward the battle place, Walking Sunshine sniffed the words with some concern, worried over their content, for (blasphemous as it would be to put it into smells) Walking Sunshine knew something the World did not.

  Such a thing was unsmelled of! For any creature to presume it knew more than the World knew was heretical, disorderly, unwillogish, and being unwillogish took some doing, for willogs were a widely differentiated lot.

  Nonetheless, Walky had come to the realization of a great oddity. Although humans could sense odors—badly, but they could do it—when words were sent to them, they did not smell the words. Conversely, though humans spoke words, the World neither heard nor heeded the words the humans spoke. Badly needed was a creature who could both talk and emit! An interspeaker! Though there might not be time for an interspeaker to do any good, for even then, new words came marching, not merely the constant trickle of them that was usual, but great chains of them, everywhere. Strong words emitting across mosses, reeking along ramparts, venting along valleys, stinking beside streams; they ripened, rose up, and exploded in showers of seeds from which new talkers sprang up in tens, dozens, and scores where only one had been before, all to grow the same messages that were jiggling here and bouncing there, multiplying as they went.

  “Rottenness, rottenness to be rooted out, to be extirpated, removed from the circles of this world that the tranquillity, the long quietude of Moss be not disturbed.

  “Is this not the footstool of heaven? Is this not the gateway to paradise? Is it fitting this monstrosity should continue, this moving creature that will not talk and will not listen, this thing called man? Is it fitting, this green toothy thing that burns the forests?”

  Walky had never encountered a dilemma before. He had taken the word from men, who often argued about dilemmas, and the concept had been difficult for Walky to enfold. On the one hand, the World was the World. On the other hand, givers of such great gifts as eyes and ears should not be destroyed. Walky’s willog soul denied this order of destruction. Its willog sap ran warmly at sensing these words. What thanks would that be for the gift of color? For the sound of bells. For the miracle of singing! Walky had grown three voices in three separate registers in order to try it for itself! Walky sounded lovely, simply lovely!

  Walking Sunshine knew what response it would receive if this argument were put into words. Willogs could use their own words, of course. When they wrote poetry, they used their own words, but one could never use words that contradicted the wisdom of the World. Walky had told all the creatures to grow ears! Had that contradicted messages already received? Walky shivered all over as it thought back over its history. Surely, surely it had learned something, sometime that would be of help in this terrible predicament.

  Though, on further thought, perhaps his words were not a contradiction of the World’s words. Not really. Ears did not contradict noses. Ears were simply facts. Things the World should know about. Eyes were facts. So were voices. Something had to be done to let the World know what was true and factual, but what could it be?

  In the Derac camp, the warriors were preparing for an assault.

  “Clean armor,” said one to another, who passed the word on, “Clean armor.” The throaty gasps ricocheted around the wide and blackened clearing as groups of warriors set themselves to the task. Clean armor would be followed by other readiness commands, the series of commands that was always uttered in the days before battle. The heavy armament was due to arrive that day, along with the last clan-ship of warriors. In two days, three at the latest, they would attack the humans by marching down the west side of the lake and around it to the south, to fall upon the encampment from the south. No one would expect it, not from that direction. No one would see them until they had their teeth in the throats of the humans. Battle day was a day all the Derac were looking forward to. There was no meat on this planet at all, and they were heartily sick of eating rations.

  The commander of the last shipload of Derac to arrive had said something about an aged one coming in the final ship. Usually aged ones did not leave their G’Tachs.

  “Why is an aged one coming here?’ asked one of the warriors, busy polishing his sword.

  “To give us a talk,” said the nearest Derac. That particular group had arrived in the last ship, and they had picked an unburned spot at the edge of the forest to work, because it was shadier. “Sometimes they do that, give us a talk if there’s something special they want us to do.”

  “Like what?” asked the first, a somewhat younger warrior, with far less experience.

  “Like if they want us to kill all the females first.”

  “There aren’t any human females here.”

  “Oh, yes there are. They look like the males, that’s all.”

  “If they look alike, how do we know which ones to kill first?”

  “Jabucha says we just kill them all very fast, that way we’re sure to have done the females as quick as anything. Nobody can tell which were first and which were next.”

  “Can we eat them? The females?”

  “I suppose so. Nobody has said we can’t.”

  Behind the warriors, at the edge of the forest, a particular copse took note of what was being said. The copse was indignant. These toothy ones had contributed nothing! They had burned the forest and reburned it every time someone tried to get closer to learn about them. They slept in their ships, with the doors locked. They wouldn’t share the pattern of their eyes or ears. It had been very difficult to learn their language because they did not help by writing things. They did not share anything! A fungus upon them, the copse thought to itself, emitting the spores that would guarantee an itchy mold on the newcomers to match the one suffered by those who had arrived earlier.

  Humans should be warned about this battle, this attack. They should be told, loudly, firmly, in words! So thinking, the copse faded, sapling by sapling, back into the forest, creeping away unseen, until it was far enough that Walking Sunshine could begin to roll, quickly, toward the battleground where it knew the humans would be. There, at the battleground, it would announce itself as interspeaker for the World.

  We pushed the floater hard to get back to the PPI installation as soon as we could. We didn’t make it by dark, so we rubbed Gavi’s monster-off stuff on us, slept lightly
, and rose very early to make the installation shortly after noon. I linked ESC and said I was on the way, please get yourselves together, and when my little boat arrived at the pier, Sybil was awaiting me inside the lock. We said very little on the way to the lab, where the others were gathered. The story didn’t take long to tell.

  “The World wants us to move,” Gainor repeated the gist of what I’d said. “It wants us to do that immediately, it has lost patience with us. And you’ve told it we would.”

  “I’ve emitted Gavi’s message all the way back here, and the scent organ is still poofing away on the meadow. We put it at the edge of the forest, hoping there are sniffers in there. I assume with only forty some odd PPI staffers left, moving won’t take any great time.”

  “We can make a start today,” he said. “Enough to indicate a good faith effort.” He grinned to himself. “And won’t the Derac be surprised when they find we’re gone.”

  “You think they’re planning to attack us?”

  “Certain of it. Probably within the next few days. We’ve spotted their scouts at various places along the eastern edge of the lake, no doubt laying out the attack route. You think the World is planning to attack them?”

  I shrugged. It was entirely possible. I couldn’t imagine Moss would tolerate all that burn off and scarring, all that buildup of troops. I unrolled Gavi’s map.

  “Here’s the place on the plateau Gavi picked for us to set down, destroying no gardens and infringing on no tribal lands. Naturally, we don’t let on she gave it to us.”

  Gainor walked me back to the pier. “What are you going to tell Paul?”

  “Same old story,” I said. “Invent an old codger out in the moss who claims to be able to translate. Tell Paul what he said. I’ve got a word-for-word translation that Gavi dictated to me, plus a more idiomatic translation. Gavi says there are almost no Mossen words that cannot be conveyed by natural smells on this world except a few Derac, human, and machine smells they’ve borrowed from us recently.”

  “Almost?”

  “She said ‘almost,’” I affirmed. “She said there are a few language smells that she herself has never smelled, not from anything here on Moss. She says, however, that doesn’t mean they’re not a natural smell somewhere else.”

  “Did you ask her which ones?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did, Gainor. She found a few on the odor organ and noted them down for me. One is a kind of cinnamon–burned sugar smell. Another is a dark, sulfur rot smell. It’s in my report.”

  “Very well,” he said, patting my hand. “Tell your group to get packed, and I’ll tell PPI they’ll be lifted first, with their equipment. We’ll do Paul and his equipment next and leave you and the dogs until last. That’ll give you time to talk to them and work out a plan for moving them.”

  I went to Paul’s quarters first. He was deeply involved, with several machines running, and it took a few moments to get his attention. When I gave him the story, he took the papers I gave him with only a trace of his usual sneering reluctance. After looking at them for a few moments, however, he said, “Right, right. Of course. Yes, this is on the right track.” He stabbed at a word with a forefinger, shaking his head. “Not completely accurate here, I don’t think, but the next bit is fine. Good. Good. Leave it with me.” And he turned back to his work.

  “They want to move you, Paul.”

  “Fine, fine. Whenever.”

  He was accomplishing something, which meant he would be making no trouble for anyone for a time, at least. Since Gainor would already have communicated with the PPI installation, I went to the trainers and dogs next. Adam had already told them what had happened; I had only to let them know what Gainor planned to do.

  “He’s leaving us for last,” I said.

  “Wan see,” said Behemoth. “See war.”

  I looked uncertainly at Adam, who flushed a little and said, “Behemoth wants to go to the place where the war is going to be fought. I mentioned the business about…you know, the dogs.”

  It took me a moment to remember. Gavi had said the words wanted to know about the four-legged creatures going somewhere. “Why there?” I asked, stupidly, only to have Behemoth give me a look. It was his don’t-be-stupid look that reminded me why there. That’s where the door to Splendor was.

  Adam said, “He wants them all to go, including the puppies.”

  “That could be dangerous,” I said. “I don’t know what weapons the Derac will use, but…”

  “Na now,” said Scramble, sounding anxious. “Affer war.”

  “When the fighting’s over,” Adam offered.

  Scramble was looking at me intently. I was reminded a little of the way Scarlet had looked at me, long ago, when I had saved her puppies from Jon Point. “You all want this?” I asked.

  Low, rumbling growl from the three male dogs. The females did not signal anything. They just sat there, looking at me.

  I thought about it. I was as curious about the place as anyone, perhaps more than most, considering its possible connection to Witt’s disappearance, and it would be very easy to find. We could get there without any trouble, so long as we didn’t get mixed up in the battle. And the Derac, so Gainor had said, would be coming down the east side of the lake, well away from where we’d be.

  “We’ll need a big floater,” I said. “We’ll have to carry food for the dogs and ourselves, plus all the pups. We’ll need to scout the area before anything happens, so we’re sure we’re safe and secure when people start fighting. If Gainor will let us, I’m willing to try.”

  Gainor proved to be out of touch, so I explained to Ornel Lethe what we wanted to do. He said he’d get the message to Gainor. Five minutes later, Sybil linked, asking if she could add herself to the party, and I said sure, I could use the help. Only after she’d gone did I remember that three pseudodogs would be along, something Sybil wasn’t supposed to know about. Well, maybe it was time she did.

  Almost immediately thereafter, an ESC ship arrived. Mechs poured out, and one set of them began taking the installation apart while another set packed up the contents of the buildings. There were eight buildings in the installation, and within an hour, four of them had been loaded on freight floaters and tugged away north by low-flying and virtually soundless mechs. In the midst of this, Gainor arrived to talk with me.

  “We’re not letting the Derac see us leaving,” he said with a wolfish grin. “Nor see where we’re going. The mechs will take the floaters to the plateau and go up via a deep canyon that’s shielded by rock from any detectors. They’ll go to the spot your friend picked out and set up everything just the way it was here. Now, what’s this about the dogs wanting to see the battle?”

  “Not the battle, Gainor. Splendor. They want to see the door to Splendor.”

  “Why?” he asked, amazed.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “But Gavi did say something about words inviting four-legged ones to go through. I didn’t tell Adam not to mention it, and even if I had, he might have done it anyhow. Behemoth is alpha dog, and that means he rules Adam, too.”

  Gainor’s eyebrows went up. “That’s interesting,” he said, whistling soundlessly through his teeth. “How long has that been going on?”

  “For some time, I gather. However, I understand their curiosity. They want to see, and so do I. We shouldn’t miss the chance.”

  “Tell them I’ve said no, not just yet, because of the Derac. After this whole Derac nonsense is over, you can all go there, if you like, and take Ornel, Abe, and Sybil with you. She says you’ve already agreed she can go along.”

  I nodded, swallowing my misgivings.

  “All right. Then you get your materials packed. We’ll go ahead and move you, like everyone else, but when the battle is over, we’ll let you have a floater to come back and see the battlefield.”

  I carried this word back to our quarters, emphasizing, as Gainor had not, the Derac heavy armaments that could make the whole area unsafe for anyone near it. Behemoth wand
ered off for a while. When he returned, he had evidently decided the plan was agreeable to him, for he sniffed my hand in passing. He usually made this gesture only when parting company.

  By that evening, the rest of the installation had been moved. The following morning, our building went after the others. By noon, Paul and I were at home once more, though in a completely different location. By that evening, the ESC fortification had been reassembled not far away, though it was separated from us by deep chasms in the rock through which steams rose like tribes of troubled ghosts, almost hiding the force fields behind them.

  “Are you sure the Derac don’t know we’re gone?” I asked Gainor, whom I encountered wandering around the installation, examining the weird jar trees and the immense liverworts.

  “We’re receiving from the fish around their base,” he said in an uninterested voice. “They’re going right ahead, preparing for battle. If they knew we were gone, surely they’d be doing something else.”

  I remembered what Paul had told me about the Derac and thought it entirely possible that Derac warriors would continue doing whatever they were doing until someone told them to stop, regardless of what might have changed in the meantime.

  “The Night Mountain warriors have reached the bottom of the plateau and are on their way to the battle,” Gainor said as he fingered a thick, juicy-looking leaf that smelled strongly of mint. “It occurred to me you might want to offer Gavi Norchis an opportunity to see what goes on there. You’re both welcome to watch the monitors in ESC.”

  “I’d make the offer if I could,” I agreed. “If I knew where to find her. She said something about following the Night Mountain warriors, and that’s likely where she is. By the way, when do the dogs and trainers get up here?”

  He turned to face me with his mouth open. “What do you mean? They came this afternoon!”

  “No,” I said. “They didn’t. Adam said they were coming in the last shift.”