It is so different now. We have lived with Humans on ten thousand worlds, for twice a thousand of their years. There is still little exchange between our folk, but some of us Elders have watched Man carefully, have listened to the song of his soul. And while we have found beauty, ever have we also found discord.

And now the Humans disturb Hlutr meditation.

I live more slowly, allowing night to blossom into day, day to fade to night, and the planet to move forward in its...o...b..t. Usually this helps, for Humans are ephemeral and their disturbance does not last long. They cannot live slower than their accustomed rate.

Now, though, I find no peace in living slowly. The Human cacophony builds rather than subsiding, and with each swift-pa.s.sing day it grows worse. Soon all s.p.a.ce cries with their boiling thoughts, their impertinent distress, their anguish. Soon the noise overwhelms the communion of the Hlutr, it stirs eddies in the waves of the Inner Voice, in brings violence to our quiet galaxy. Humans are screaming, Humans are dying, Humans are afraid and worst of all, their little ones are crying.

I hear you wonder, my brothers and sisters: what is happening? You cast your thoughts outward, appealing...you who live on the worlds of Man open your senses, drinking in the sights and sounds of their tiny lives. Are they killing each other in yet another of their wars? Are they staining the stars with their blood, in a mad series of pogroms?

The answer comes, voiced by one of us who trembles at the magnitude of his news. A disease is taking Mankind, a disease that Human medical ability cannot reverse. In two short Human years, it has become a plague that engulfs half the galaxy and brings certain death to all it touches. Human lives are threatened, Human civilization totters, Human agony disturbs even the song of the Hlutr.

Is it any wonder that they cry?

And now the question comes, as I knew it would- whispered anonymously on the waves of the Inner Voice, spoken secretly to the winds of Amny, welling up from the soil with the memories of the Traveller: what should the Hlutr do?

I ask you, my brethren why should the Hlutr do a thing?

Compa.s.sion, says the memory of the Traveller, the one who came to love these Humans.

In the name of compa.s.sion, then, should we turn away from Hlutr tradition? When have we ever stirred ourselves to prevent the deaths of any ephemerals? But a few seasons ago as the Hlutr count time, the great lizards roamed Amny; when the swamps dried up and the ice came, when diseases took them by their millions...did we interfere then? When the subtle, beautiful fishes died, leaving the oceans to the coa.r.s.er beasts who succeeded them...did we put forth our power to save them?

Not just on Amny, but on a million worlds in all the long history of the Hlutr race- how often have we stood between ephemerals and their fates? And how often have our attempts met with defeat? The vanished Coruma, the lost children of Lavarren, the lovely singing trees of the Mehbis Cl.u.s.ter: all gone, forever.

You remember better than I, my brothers, my Elders. The Hlutr have watched many races die, watched with compa.s.sion; but we have not interfered. It is not our way. Should we do so now?

We have pled for interference before, you say. In ones and twos, some of you have asked for this or that race to be spared. Some of you have tried, in defiance of the will of the Hlutr- and all have failed.

Why should we try now?

There is among us here on Amny a youngster, barely a sapling; she stands near the old Human settlement, at the place where they still bring their disturbed children, their adults with defective brains. This we do for the Humans...we care for their insane and their defectives, we comfort them with soothing projections of the Inner Voice.

The sapling calls for us now. Her message comes through the First Language, on waves of color racing through the Hlutr grove; it comes in the gentle soughing of the Second Language, a muted sound like the distant sea. "Elders," she tells us, "A Human calls for you."

"For us?"

"He uses the old equipment, and speaks to me in pidgin First Language on luminous screens. He asks to address our Elders."

I tremble in the wind. Is there no end to Human audacity? First they shatter the peace of Hlutr meditation; now one of them demands an audience?

Compa.s.sion, Brother, the memory of the Traveller tells me.

Sooner or later I must deal with the Humans; I decide it will be now. "Send him," I tell the sapling.

Before the man arrives, he is heralded by the other Hlutr. Broad waves of contrasting color move through their leaves and across their trunks, and when he enters my glade he is accompanied by the swishing of a million Hlutr leaves.

He is a small creature, even for a Human; his spa.r.s.e fur is ashen and his artificial hide a dirty white. He stops before my trunk, then raises equipment designed to generate lights that mock the First Language.

The memories of the Traveller have prepared me; I bend my lower limbs to the ground, and I vibrate their leaves in controlled patterns, far faster than usual. The technique is difficult even for an Elder like myself, with full control over my body. We use it to communicate with the lesser orders in their own familiar languages. I do not intend to set the Human at ease; rather, I wish to show him the abilities of the Hlutr from the very beginning.

"Who are you, Human?"

He bows. "I am Doctor Alex Saburo, of the Credixian Imperial Navy."

This tells me little. His name is a sound, nothing else. His t.i.tle indicates one who is accorded knowledge and wisdom, as Humans know it. As for his affiliation, not even the Ancients of Nephestal are able to keep track of ever-changing Human political systems.

"Why do you come before me?"

"To ask for help."

Up close, it is easy to read these creatures through the Inner Voice. The tenor of his emotions matches his voice: firmly controlled, yet aware that he stands in the presence of a vastly superior being.

Emotions, but their minds are not coherent enough to project thoughts. "Ask, then," I say.

"The Death," he said, spreading his upper limbs. "We can do nothing to stop it. It's infected half the Galaxy, and it's entered the Imperium. In another year it'll have spread to every Human world." His control wavers, and I glimpse emotional storms beneath the surface of this man's mind.

"So you come to the Hlutr for help. Why?"

"Where else would I turn, Your Greatness?"

"You may address me as 'Teacher.'"

"Our medical science cannot cope with the plague, Teacher. I know that the Hlutr have the ability to modify the very genetic code itself; I know that your Elders have the intelligence to a.n.a.lyze the Plague and perhaps stop it."

So the Universal Song mocks me, my brethren. I cannot evade the question that is whispered in the night: Should Hlutr help Humans?

I appeal to my own Elders for a decision, and they are strangely silent. It is I who began this thing, two millennia ago when I prepared the Traveller to judge Humanity, when I came before the Elders to say that we needed to know more of the children of Earth. Now it is I who must decide whether we will spare Mankind in this time of crisis.

Although the Traveller's memories beat strongly within me, how can I say yes? How can I throw off geological ages of Hlutr tradition, all for the sake of a brutish creature who thinks himself grand because he can disturb our meditations? How can I justify saving this people, when we have allowed so many others to perish?

The man is waiting for an answer; and suddenly, I have one for him. "You ask much of me, Doctor Alex Saburo. Perhaps too much." I tell him of our traditions. I tell him of the Coruma, the Lavarren, the Mehbis folk. I tell him that all living creatures yes, even the Hlutr meet death, that it is part of the Universal Song. In the end, my twigs ache from making such precise vibrations for so long.

"Teacher, I have heard that the Hlutr value life. Old tales tell of their compa.s.sion for all Little Ones. For the sake of that compa.s.sion, won't you help us?"

"We are compa.s.sionate...but you do not know what you ask. You Humans occupy over twelve thousand worlds; within one year, all will be stricken with your Death. You ask that we create a defense, then that we sacrifice ourselves to spread that defense on all your planets...?"

"The sacrifice would be great- but without it, my civilization, perhaps my entire race, will die."

"The sacrifice is greater than you think." I groped in the vast collective Hlutr memory for the Human words I needed. "You think we Hlutr can synthesize genetic material without effort. Know then, Doctor Alex Saburo, that when a Hlut makes new DNA and RNA, that Hlut dies- violently, in a bursting that spreads the new material on all the winds. Even if we can save your people, to do so means that many times twelve thousand Hlutr must perish in agony."

A brief torrent of anger, quickly suppressed, flashes forth in the Inner Voice. "I had not thought," he says, "that the Hlutr were so selfish."

"We have our duty to the Universal Song. If that melody declares that Humans must pa.s.s away, we cannot gainsay it."

He is an odd creature, in whom pa.s.sion and reason can coexist, each as forceful as the other. Now he touches my trunk, and the warmth of his hand surprises me and moves me in a way his words have not. "If you wish, Doctor Alex Saburo, the Hlutr can offer your people counsel. We can help you prepare for the Death, can make it easier for you to meet your end. We have done this for others."

"No." His denial is strong. "I thank you then, Elder, and I beg your permission to leave. There is little time."

That should be the end of it- yet it is not. "What will you do, Human?"

"I'll seek an answer. Somewhere, someone must have the knowledge that will help me to end the Death. As long as I can, I'll keep searching." He turns, and begins the slow walk away from my grove.

There is an outcry from some of my brethren, a gentle protest that falls from the stars like cold Autumn rain. From within me, where the memory of the Traveller lives, there is a stronger objection.

Brothers and sisters, how can I yield to you? How can I deny our traditions? You are but a few- and when the Hlutr act, they must act in agreement.

How, you ask me, can I ignore the pain?

"Wait, Alex Saburo."

If for nothing more than the sake of the Traveller, whose spirit gnaws at me, I make the Human an offer. "I will go with you."

"B-but how? I will travel beyond this world, to planets where the Death has. .h.i.t."

I do not know, my brethren, why I agree to do a thing that the Hlutr seldom do. Perhaps I, too, am overly fond of these Humans. Perhaps I want to find something in them that would be worth the death of a hundred thousand Hlutr. Perhaps I am simply reluctant to waste all the time I have spent studying them. "The Human children on yonder hill are mentally defective, yet they are strongly sensitive to the Hlutr Inner Voice. One of them shall become my operative. It shall accompany you, and I will see what it sees, hear what it hears, and communicate with you through its mouth. I will also sing with my brethren and my Elders, and perhaps...perhaps we will can find a way to help you."

He is flabbergasted; both the power and the mercy of the Hlutr are beyond him. "Go back to the sanitarium," I tell him. "My operative will greet you there."

"I...thank you, Teacher."

His words are echoed by the voice of the Traveller within: Thank you.

The body is awkward, soft, confining. Through its limited senses, I perceive a truncated world: vision spans merely one octave, and the threshold of hearing is far above the quiet susurrus of the Hlutr Second Language. The Human chemical senses show more promise, yet the body does not know how to properly interpret them.

There is no mind, no awareness of ident.i.ty. If such ever existed, it is buried too deeply for even the Hlutr to find. Although it wears an animal body, the creature's soul is more like the lesser plants. It has life, it responds to its environment, but it has no volition. Until I animate it.

Motion, that is the most difficult thing. The Hlutr move slowly- swaying with the wind, making tiny ovals in sympathy with the yearly movement of the sun, pulsing our rhythms of growth and life with the music of the Inner Voice. We are not accustomed to the rush of animal motion, and it takes me a time to become comfortable as the new body walks.

I have not animated a body for Human millennia...not since I attended conferences of the Free Peoples of the Scattered Worlds in borrowed Aveth.e.l.lan form. Slowly, the process comes back to me, and I am more confident. The racous Human voices do not sound so harsh, the claustrophobic Human rooms begin to seem less close.

While I am adjusting to the change, Alex Saburo leads me to a transport capsule, and in minutes I am in the Human city. Confusion and disharmony fill my senses, and I simply withdraw my attention from the body. I sing with the winds, I feel the happy touch of flying beasts upon my limbs, I dig my roots in the cool earth and inhale nutrients from the brisk air. In time, Saburo and my operative reach the s.p.a.ceport; after a few moments of disorientation they have left the surface of Amny and are speeding out into the dark, peaceful gulfs of s.p.a.ce.

Now at last I can return to the body, can begin to bring my Human operative completely under control. I concentrate, matching my time sense to the fast, inflexible Human metabolism. The world of my experience narrows in concentric circles, until I bid temporary farewell to grove, earth and winds and open my eyes on a small s.p.a.cecraft lounge. I am upon a divan before a wall that mimics the sight of naked s.p.a.ce; Saburo sits next to me, watching instruments in his lap. When I stir, he looks up.

"Teacher?" He asks.

"I am here, Saburo." My voice...my Human voice...sounds hollow in Human ears.

"We'll be shifting into tachyon phase in a moment," he says. "We've been under way for just under two hours; it's almost ten hours since we left your grove."

I shake my head. The animal att.i.tude toward time is very hard for Hlutr to grasp. Everything is impatience, everything is motion. We who count time by the movement of stars and the seasons of slow Hlutr life, we have difficulty binding ourselves to rigid Human concepts of interval. "I have the Human body under control now," I a.s.sure him. "I long to experience your tachyon drive. It is a thing that Hlutr seldom endure: to travel nearly as fast as the waves of the Inner Voice can move."

"Will you be able to maintain communication with...your host?"

"I feel confident that I can do so. Our minds are much more flexible than you believe." Indeed, the change comes even as we talk; the Human ship twists in a direction totally unknown to Hlutr, but I do not lose contact with my operative. My awareness has taken root in the alien animal brain cells, and it will not be dislodged easily.

"What is our destination?"

Saburo sighs. "First, to Taglierre, to stop in at the Credixian Medical a.s.sociation convention. I don't expect them to have any more leads than they did when I was there last week." He spreads his hands. "After that, I guess it's on to Eironea to consult with the Grand Library."

"I do not know these places."

"We're flying to Galactic West; from Amny, roughly in the direction of the constellation called Aurick's Tower." He touches a few keys on a panel, and the wall shows Amny's night sky. He points toward a particular grouping of stars. "Here."

Nodding comes almost as easily to me as the azure hue by which the Hlutr signal a.s.sent. We move in the direction of sad, bright Dorasc. Even now I hear the song of my brothers and sisters on Dorasc's starbright plains, and I sing with them. The song is distorted: in part because of the tremendous speed at which the vehicle moves, but in part also because of the wails of a billion Human voices. And somewhere, between here and distant Dorasc, the cry of a single Human child cuts across the harmony of the Inner Voice like thunder across a peaceful Summer afternoon.

Ere I have begun to probe the nature of that dreadful cry, the ship twists again, returning to normal s.p.a.ce. Before my Human eyes is the cool, white globe of Taglierre.

Scarce two sevens of Galactic Revolutions have pa.s.sed since Hlutr seeds first came to Taglierre. In that time, the planet has grown steadily more inhospitable, slowly getting colder as it leaks its atmosphere to s.p.a.ce. Human terraformers have arrested the process, and for now Taglierre has an air blanket two-thirds as dense as Amny's and temperatures no worse than the deepest winter of my home. Yet Humans will not stay forever. Seventy times seventy Hlutr remain, proud and lonely in the tropics; within their lifetimes Taglierre will become a frozen ghost of a world.

As we jockey for an approach pattern, I greet these lofty brothers and sisters, who have the honor of presiding over the death of a world. They work their works well, as the generations progress...urging the Little Ones along, nudging them now and again when their normal evolution does not keep pace with Taglierre's dissipation. When their efforts are successful, life will survive on this globe; yet the struggle is a hard one. They sing me ritual greeting, but pay me little attention otherwise; the doings of Humans are their least concern.

Still, from their song and the eddies of the Inner Voice that lap the sh.o.r.es of this planet's waterless seas, I glimpse loneliness and despair in the once-teeming Human cities, and I know that the Hlutr are not the only ones waiting for a world to die.

"Many of your people have left Taglierre," I say to Saburo.

Discarded memories in my host's brain tell me that Saburo's wrinkled face is sad. "The Death will be here soon within weeks, probably. Everyone who can leave, has. Only military ships can land safely; the poor fools will stampede themselves trying to steal anything else."

"Why do they not prohibit travel, thus containing the disease?"

"On Taglierre? They depend on trade for food and repair parts. That world can't support a half-billion people on its own." He runs a hand through his white hair. "We've done what we can. The Imperator ordered the boundaries closed a year ago- so the Imperium escaped for a while." The ship cuts through air, leaving a brief flash like the trail of a meteorite visible to Hlutr below. "But we can't stop interstellar trade. The Death has entered the Imperium now, it's only a matter of weeks until...." He does not finish.

We settle to a desolate landing field, while cold sand blows across the empty plain.

These are Human Elders and wise ones? I came to Taglierre, my brothers and sisters, convinced that I would witness something like a council of Hlutr, all joined in the swaying and the song as they contemplate mysteries and seek for answers. Instead, I have fallen into a madhouse!

Listen to them, my fellows: "The Death is a prion-based disease; my simulations make an a.n.a.logy with the treatment of Gerstman-Straussler syndrome," says one of them, a tall and slender woman with hair the color of the Springtime sky. "Thus, your attempt to modify DNA-based antiviritics shall fail no matter what starting point you use."

"My computers," says another from a communications screen, "a.s.sure me that there are no effective prophylactic measures. We can only treat the disease after it is manifest and that treatment relies on ma.s.sive doses of general-series antiviritics."

"You are wrong," shouts a third, ludicrously holding up his computer display for all to see. "The a.n.a.logy must be to cla.s.sic toxic reactions. The only way to stop this scourge is to spread organisms capable of breaking down the toxin. I suggest that we allow our linked medicomps to write a simulation involving a gengineered variant of current antidote-antibodies."

The meeting hall, although large, is mostly empty. The doctors- the Human Elders- sit or stand near the center, each of them without exception behind a computer terminal. Saburo and I sit with a few quiet visitors on one side of the chamber. On the other are the members of the press: frightened or confident, they do not understand what the doctors say, yet they feel that these idiots will find an answer. Billions of Humans watch the proceedings through their eyes and their instruments, billions who see the doctors as wise seekers of knowledge. Am I the only one who recognizes them as fools?

No. For Saburo rises to speak.

"My G.o.d, you've been here for two months and you're still having the same arguments. Still linking your medicomps to your diagnost.i.trons and running simulation after simulation. I don't believe it."

The tall woman looks down her nose. "If it isn't Doctor Saburo. Or should I say, Lieutenant Saburo?"

"Brevet Colonel for the duration, Doctor Melus. I've never tried to hide my connection with the Navy."

"No." She smiles. "You just couldn't find any school or reputable hospital that would put up with you. So you think we're wasting our time?"

"I do. Simulations and computer a.n.a.lyses aren't going to stop the Death "

"Oh, and I suppose you will? How? Your habit of playing about with corpses hasn't yielded any results, nor have your excursions into vivisection...."

"Legitimate experimentation, if you please."