"Have it your own way. I don't see any cure from your latest brainstorm of appealing to aliens, Lieutenant."

Saburo clenches his fists, but says nothing.

The woman dismisses him with a wave. "Here we have gathered in one room, the greatest expert databases in the Imperium and beyond. The Universities of Skapton, Prakis and Credix itself are tied into our network. We have the wisdom of the ancients, in the form of the programs they left us. This convention has brought together the greatest resources of medicine in recorded history "

"And you'll still be running your simulations and consulting the ancients when the last of you drops dead from the Plague!" Saburo takes the arm of my operative, draws her toward the door. "Come on, I should have known better than to stop here."

As the door slams shut behind us, the Human doctors begin again their comparison of the results of mindless computer programs.

No wonder they are dying.

On the way to Eironea, we pa.s.s warships Saburo tries to explain to me why Humans have been killing one another, but I cannot comprehend. We Hlutr are all one tribe, since the time of the Great Schism more than a billion years ago...we do not fight among ourselves for territory, nor do we seek vain power. The Hlutr are united in the songs we sing and the Universal Song of which all are part; even when we disagree (as some of you, my brothers and sisters, disagree with me about helping the Humans), we do so without rancor, malice or violence.

And what need have the Hlutr to fight with the other orders? When they menace us, they are dealt with; otherwise, the Hlutr conquer as they have always conquered, in the slow yet inexorable fashion of the plant kingdom. Why should we fight?

"Your warships sit idle, Saburo. Why do they not fight?" For though ships from both sides challenge us as we pa.s.s, there is no hostility along a border that stretches for a kilopa.r.s.ec in every direction.

He manipulates his keyboard, stares into a small screen, then shrugs. "The Death. They've declared a truce for the duration."

"Yours are a strange folk, Saburo."

Now he does a thing which convinces me that none of the Wise will ever understand Humans, a thing that makes me withdraw for a time to my quiet grove and the fresh dew of a misty Amny dawn.

He laughs.

In due time we come to Eironea, and reluctantly I return from Amny. Your attention is on me now, brothers and sisters, and on this strange journey which has become my mission. Some of you sing of our obligation to save the Humans; others sing that we must maintain the precious Hlutr detachment that has served us since the far-off days of the Pylistroph, when Life was but a dream in the Scattered Worlds.

And others...others breathe a different opinion, born of smothering hatred and cold revenge. These Hlutr rejoice at the Death, and would have us hurry it along so that Humans can be wiped out once and for all.

Have you forgotten, brethren, that once the Hlutr swore to aid Mankind in his quest for maturity, his fulfillment of his potential? Saburo may succeed, despite us- Humanity may survive the Death without Hlutr aid. Will you then have us slay the survivors, cast this people out from the Universal Song? Would you have the Hlutr forsworn before the stars and the sacred melodies?

What the Hlutr do, we shall do in full agreement. Nay, my brothers and sisters: for now, Man will make his own destiny, and the Hlutr...the Hlutr will watch.

Our ship enters normal s.p.a.ce, and we drop toward verdant Eironea. The Hlutr of this world, who live mainly in rich, wet tropical forests, sing me welcome and concern in the Inner Voice. Theirs is a song tinged with despair; the Death has come to Eironea, and Humans have died: seventy times itself four times and more of them. Ten times that many are near death, and their despondency shakes the planet. These Hlutr are fond of their Humans; they cry sadness to the unfeeling stars at the pa.s.sing of their Little Ones.

We land on an untenanted field near one of their great cities, as the sun climbs slowly toward zenith and shadows pool beneath buildings. A drawn Human face appears on the wall: the commander of our ship.

"We're down, sir. If it's all the same to you...er...the crew has voted to remain shipboard. Your cabin connects directly to the main airlock; we'd appreciate it if you'd...."

Saburo raises a quivering hand. "I understand, Commander. Rest a.s.sured that we'll remain in our sealed area of the ship."

"Very good, sir." The face disappears.

With a heavy sigh, Saburo stands. "Come with me," he says.

"What is our destination?"

"The Library." His tread his heavy, his body stooped like a tree that has seen too many harsh winters.

I can do nothing but follow.

There in the empty streets of the city Shiau Shi on the planet Eironea, Saburo tells me what the Humans have done. Let me share this with you, brethren, for it is a marvelous thing.

Like the Daamin, the Kreen and the happy children of grand Aveth.e.l.l, Humans gathered together in one place all their knowledge of the Universal Song. This was in the days of their great Empire, fifteen hundred years ago. Once, every Human world, settlement or starship in the Galaxy could access this knowledge; today, only a few outposts remain in contact with the central Library. Eironea is one of them. Here, in the care of a devoted priesthood, the machinery is available to all who need it. Through the political upheavals of nearly seventy Human generations, Eironea has remained free, unconquered and neutral, guarding its precious treasure.

The network of transit capsules is not working, and no autotaxis answer Saburo's summons, so our ship gives birth to a small vehicle and we travel in this metal sh.e.l.l. Humans watch us as we pa.s.s, hidden in their buildings or behind directional signs and structural members; the few whom we catch in the open scurry for cover as soon as they see us.

The Temple of Knowledge soars above us as we disembark; Saburo secures the small vehicle and leads me into the large structure. Works of Human art line the walls and fill display cases, but our footsteps echo in empty halls and when Saburo makes his way to a row of waiting computer terminals, their screens remain dark.

I sense another Human presence behind us, and turn to see a pale, emaciated woman dressed in a tattered frock. Her long hair is the black of s.p.a.ce, and her eyes hold Springtime green.

"If you're here to consult the Grand Library," she says in a thin voice, "I'm sorry, but you won't have any success."

"The machinery doesn't work?" Saburo asks.

"It works fine. There's no one at the other end to answer." She spreads her arms, a sapling opening to the sun. "The Library staff was. .h.i.t hard by the Death; we last heard from them months ago." Her lips form a weak smile. "Come to my quarters, I'll give you some tea. We might as well be comfortable." She introduces herself as we follow. "I am Yee Bair. And you?"

"Doctor Alex Saburo. My companion is the Teacher. Do...did you work here?"

"At the Temple? Goodness, no. I was a frequent customer." She pauses to cough. "After the Death hit and the priests either died or moved away, I figured, why not move in? It's a lot nicer than my two-room flat, and I have plenty of time for my work."

Something sings in her, just the briefest flash of an incomplete melody in the Inner Voice. "Your work?" I ask.

"I'm an artist." She pauses before a closed door, presses her palm against it and it slides open. "Here, look."

Yee Bair makes pictures with light- raw, vibrant pictures that distort reality as seen through Human eyes. Some of her works are tame, gentle scenes of towers, s.p.a.ceports and lounging Human beings. Others feature scenes of the Death, and they breathe with the fear, anguish and defiance that radiate from Human worlds in these terrible times.

"You're a genius," Saburo says.

In spite of myself, I nod. "You give form and definition to a bit of the Universal Song. Your work ranks with the greatest of your people."

"These were early attempts," she says, pointing out the tame visions. "Before...." she does not finish, but busies herself with the tea.

This is the mystery, brothers and sisters, that we have faced before and will face again in a thousand different races. We, whose only artform is the substance of the Universal Song itself- we cannot capture its essence in the way that these Little Ones, these animals, can. We who are masters of creation are also its prisoners; we cannot step beyond it to create things that cannot be, to see things that cannot exist. We who never know the fullness of despair that these creatures feel, will also never know the urge that pushes them beyond despair's limits. The ecstacy and the pain of a Hlut in the final death-blast, imposing the will of our folk on the malleable genetics of reality- this is the closest we poor Hlutr can approach the emotion that Yee Bair feels whenever she picks up her light-wand.

Should the Hlutr cry then for Humans, as they face the terror of the Death- or should Humans cry for us?

Human pain rips across the Universal Song, and for a moment my Human brain aches with that plaintive cry. Somewhere, nearer than ever, a Human child is crying as none has ever cried before. Soon, no Hlut will be able to ignore that cry.

Saburo gives a noiseless whistle of awe, and my attention is drawn to Yee Bair's current work.

She has given form to this child's cry that echoes from star to star.

It is a scene almost as the Hlutr might see it, a million colors overlaid one atop the other, a jagged slice of vision that oozes with raw pain. Human eyes and brain must study the picture to see what it represents, but I know even as I glance at it. A Human boy-child wails, surrounded by the dead bodies of seven times seventy Human adults. Behind him, dimly seen, are the figures of other races who watch the Human tragedy: the wise Daamin, the sad sons of Metrin, the compa.s.sionate Iaranori who even now struggle to bring relief where they can...and the Hlutr, proud and tall in our distant sympathy. And beyond us, even the cold unfeeling stars rain tears of light on the child. The picture brings tears to my borrowed Human eyes, as they cry it represents could not.

The stars....

I touch Yee Bair's arm. "These are the stars of Eironea's sky, no?"

"Yes." Of course they are. How could one who is so attuned to the waves of the Inner Voice, avoid hearing that call of agonized loneliness? And hearing it, how could she not know from whence it came?

"Show me...show Saburo...where those star-groupings lie."

Why am I doing this thing? Brothers, sisters, what is the fate of one Human child to me? Some of you ask me that question, and I cannot but wonder with you. Yet others- the voice of the dead Traveller among them, he who knew Humans better than any of us- others sing to me that a Little One is in pain, and the Hlutr must answer. If only to still the pain with a merciful stroke. This is our way, our purpose, our duty since the first Hlut raised itself above the soil of forgotten Paka Tel.

Yee Bair describes the area of the sky, and Saburo relates it to galactic charts in his computer terminal. When he is done, he looks at me, his face filled with questions.

"Take us there, Saburo."

"Why?"

I ask myself the same thing, brethren, and receive no answer save that which I know already: a Little One is crying. "It is in the Universal Song," I tell Saburo, hoping that will content him. And it does.

We share tea with Yee Bair, then return to the ship. Saburo must be desperate, his last chance flown away in the empty halls of the Temple; he gives orders quickly, and soon we are climbing from green Eironea into the black of endless s.p.a.ce.

On the way, Saburo coughs a few times, then turns away from me.

"Tell me of the Death. How does it come upon your people, and what do they feel when it strikes?"

Eironea is far behind, the crying Human child still lost in the stars ahead of us. Saburo looks up from his computer and frowns.

"Sometimes it comes quickly, and death follows in a few days. In other cases it can take months to develop. The symptoms vary: coughing, headaches, difficulty breathing, swelling in the joints then pneumonia, vitamin deficiency, nerve disfunction- if the patient lives long enough, total disruption of the immune system and advanced malnutrition."

"None escape?"

"Some who caught it nearly two years ago, at the beginning, are still alive...but still infected and still showing symptoms. We've never had a case of someone exposed to the disease who didn't catch it, or anyone who recovered from it once infected."

"And your science cannot prevent the spread?"

"That fool Melus was right about one thing- it's a prionbased disease. No DNA. We haven't even been able to isolate the infectious agent, much less counter it." His hands twist hopelessly in his lap. "As long as our doctors continue to play with computer programs left over from the ancients, we'll never make any progress."

I look out at the swiftly-moving stars, and I listen to the eddies of the Inner Voice as it moves between the worlds. And I wonder. Where did this plague come from?

Some say that it is a natural outgrowth of evolutionary systems that contain Humans. A variant of diseases known to Mankind even before he ventured off his home planet. This is indeed possible; Life's ingenuity knows no bounds, and other such diseases have developed in the long course of Galactic history.

Others say that the Death was artificially engineered as a weapon against these people- either by Humans them-selves, or by one of the malevolent races of the Galactic Core. This theory, too, has its antecedants; this will not be first time a promising race has died in biological suicide...or been victim of the Gathered Worlds.

Some even say- although not in words- that the Death was started by the Hlutr. I have sung the question in the Inner Voice, casting suspicions out into the starry night, but I have received no answer. No one admits, and yet....

One cannot but have suspicions. The Death is said to have started on Laxus, a planet not too far from the very Earth upon which these Humans sprang. The very Earth on which the last descendants of their own Hlutr choked to death on Human poisons. Often I have contemplated the infinitely sad story of the Redwoods, often I have wondered at their stunted lives: only a shadow of what they could be, what their distant ancestors had been; blind, dumb, all but deaf; hearing only the barest echoes of the Inner Voice, while all around them ranged the awesome and beautiful symphony of the Hlutr singing each to the others. The Redwoods were not Hlutr, at best they were only a kind of degenerate Hlutr kin, leftovers from a damaged line that had never been able to sing the Inner Voice. Their minds, what minds they had, must have been twisted beyond all recognition; their pitiful short lives must have been an agony.

And the Traveller within me whispers at these times: although they did not know it, did Humans do a merciful thing when they allowed the Redwoods to die?

And we Hlutr what is the course of mercy for us? To allow death, or to deny it? Even if it is a death that some of us might have caused...?

The ship shudders, and comes out of tachyon phase in the shadow of a huge banded gas giant.

"What now?" Saburo says.

The Commander answers, his face appearing ghostly over the magnificent view. "Refueling stop, sir. Settlement called Kef. Hope you don't mind- it's the only place on our charts that has a treaty with the Imperium."

"Carry on." Saburo turns to me. "I hope you don't mind."

"No." I reach out, calling for Hlutr- there are none in this planetary system, none for sevens of pa.r.s.ecs. We move, and a shrunken sun rises over the orange limb of the gas giant; light glitters briefly from a narrow ring of ice particles.

No brothers, no sisters- only the pulse of nearby Human life, a distant echo that might be some form of developing plant life on a rocky worldlet close to the sun...and the slow, incomprehensible hum that comes from the crystalline Talebba, a race whose existence Humans do not even suspect. The Talebba go their own way, living out their geological lifespans in planetary rings, asteroid belts and the clouds of primordial stuff that hide from stellar heat out where s.p.a.ce is nearly flat and their own sun but another bright star. Now and again one of them dies, flaming, as it topples toward the inner system; occasionally one of these survives long enough to impact on a planet, and possibly create a new race of rocklike intelligences to succeed it.

I do not greet the Talebba of this system. To do so, I would have to live nearly as slowly as they do, and to them Galactic Years are like the days and nights to other creatures.

Saburo is consulting his computer; he grins. "Kef is a settlement in orbit around this gas giant, and something of a leader in local trade. I'm hoping they'll have charts that might help you locate whatever you're on the track of."

"I do not know." The Inner Voice is, for the moment, undisturbed. The song of the Hlutr sounds in lonely splendor, untouched by the cry of Humanity. The child is sleeping...or dead.

"There," he points, and Kef swings into view, It is an untidy thing, a construct of gla.s.s, metal and light that resembles a bird's nest as much as it does a s.p.a.ceship or Human city. Around the whole a.s.sembly is a ring of violent red, so bright that it hurts my Human eyes. Suddenly a loud klaxon rings, making both Saburo and I start.

"What is it?" Saburo says.

The Commander replies, "We're getting a transmission on the emergency band. I'll put it on your screen."

The Human face that greets us is gaunt and wild-eyed. "Turn back," the man croaks through dry lips. "Docking permission is denied."

"We are a ship of the Credixian Navy, on a refueling stop."

"For your own sake, keep away. Do not pa.s.s our circle of quarantine. Don't you understand? We've all caught the Death."

Saburo shakes his head. "We've already been exposed. We just need fuel, and a look at your charts."

"No." The face is sad, but hard with unbending determination as strong as Hlutr bark. "There's hydrogen enough in the atmosphere of the gas giant you're a military ship, you can refuel with ramscoops. You can tie your navicomp into our central computer if you think our charts will be of any use to you. Just stay away."

"I don't understand. If you're already infected, how do you think we can make it worse?"

The man shakes his head. "By carrying this thing elsewhere. We all took a vow, destroyed our ships, set up the circle to warn others off." His eyes plead with Saburo as his hollow voice cannot. "We're ready to die...but we're not going to take the rest of the Galaxy with us. Go away, please before you tempt us too far."

Saburo nods, touches the intercom. "Take us into a dive, Commander. We'll skim the atmosphere and then get on our way." He turns back to the man from Kef. "I understand. We're leaving. G-G.o.ds be with you."

"G.o.ds be with us all." The image fades, and red-ringed Kef falls behind us until it is lost in the stars.

"The poor fools," the Commander says.

Tight-lipped, Saburo shakes his head, but says nothing. Soon we are in tachyon phase again.

Certain of my brethren sing the courage of Kef in the Inner Voice, determined that such heroism should not be lost to the Universal Song. And who am I to deny them? More and more Hlutr join this song, more and more regard me and the progress of my journey; not just saplings and adults, but Elders as well. And now, for the first time, I feel the chill touch of the attention of the Eldest of all, from Her vast island in the Secluded Realm. As yet, She pays only the slightest heed, just a hint of scrutiny.

This matter is becoming far more important, my brothers and sisters, than I ever intended.

Now, as if aware of the presence of so many Hlutr minds, the Human child shrieks again, splintering the ma.s.s concentration of the Inner Voice. For all that this cry tears at my soul, I welcome it: I am not too late to help.

If I can help at all....