The library answers my queries with a simulacrum of Kayya Trnas, who among the Daamin is accorded the t.i.tle of the greatest scholar of Mankind. No matter that Kayya Trnas pa.s.sed from the Universal Song Human centuries ago. The library remembers her. Small, white-furred and red-eyed, Kayya Trnas perches on a table and recites.

"The Human called Darineb Khria was born in the first century of Terra's s.p.a.ce Age...about twenty-seven seventies of Sebya years ago. He rose to prominence in early studies of genetics, and was the first to isolate several important Human gene combinations, including that controlling eidetic memory. Khria died in the Terran year 2069 CE."

I shake my host's head. "You have chosen the wrong information. I wish to know about-"

"Wait," the ghost says. "Khria's body was frozen in liquid nitrogen at the time of his death. In the Terran year TE 348, twenty-three seventies of Sebya years ago, his body was taken to the Human world Borshall, where his brain was salvaged and placed in a mechanical sh.e.l.l. Darineb Khria survived the dissolution of the Terran Empire and reappears periodically in Human history, notably on the worlds Terexta, Dunsinane, Neordan and Gotlan. He took a key role in the Gotlanian War of AD 3041-43, as well as the destruction of BDA Tr#ska in AD 4635."

"Please summarize the story." I am not well enough acquainted with Human history; the names and dates are merely random sounds to me.

"In the past few centuries, Khria has built up a shadowy kingdom of Human worlds: by a combination of political influence, economic might and religious authority, he has effectively become the ruler of over fifty planets. Few even suspect that Khria is their ruler; he prefers to act invisibly. Daamin scholars have projected Khria's ambition, and foresee a gradual expansion of territory along with consolidation of forces. We expect that Khria will seek to forcibly expand his dominion by AD 6000, beginning with biological and economic attacks on the Aetorian League. Khria's primary disadvantage is lack of access to sophisticated Human laboratory instruments for genetic surgery; such instruments are under the control of the Human states of Credix and Borshall."

Ah, then, my fears are reality. "Khria has come to Sebya," I say, my host's voice sounding thin and powerless in the library chamber. There is no use telling the library- neither the Daamin nor the Free Peoples can act quickly enough to prevent Khria from finding what he seeks.

Only I can do that.

Thanking my host, I return my essence to my Sebya hillside.

Shadows are long in the forest and the settlement. Most Humans are having their ritual evening meal. It is not hard for me to find Darineb Khria; his metal sh.e.l.l floats in a small garden where my leaves blossom amid a stone fountain.

Now I use a technique which my brother the Human-watcher has taught me. I take firm control of those parts of my body that protrude into Khria's garden, and I vibrate the leaves and stems quickly, so that they create a whispering echo of Human voice.

"Darineb Khria, you and I must speak."

Khria's lenses turn immediately in my direction. No trace of surprise escapes his mind. "I've wondered when you would take notice." He comes closer. "I can read the Hlutr First Language, if you would rather speak to me that way."

"An odd talent for a Human," I answer with the shifting colors of the First Language.

"I am not an ordinary Human," he says. "Welcome to my garden." He chuckles. "Although it seems you've been here longer than I have. Er...how should I address you? 'Brother' or 'Sister' do not seem appropriate."

"You converse with an Elder of the Hlutr. I am the oldest on this planet."

"As you will, Elder. I thought I detected Hlutr workmanship in the genetic structure of the natives. A fine job you've done with them, fine indeed."

"Since you know of us, Darineb Khria, you know how little your flattery means."

"I meant no offense, Elder."

"I take offense, Khria. I take offense at your arrogance. I take offense at your desire to use the secret power of the Dawn People. I take offense at your animal aggression and your thirst for power."

"And I suppose you want to stop me. Elder, I think you underestimate me. I have nearly three thousand years of experience, and abilities that even the Hlutr lack."

His claim is so ludicrous that I am almost convinced he is unsane. "Three thousand of your years ago I stood on this hillside and directed the evolution of the Dawn People. Ten thousand times three thousand years ago I stood here, before your race had yet arisen. Three billion years ago, before the Pylistroph had spread life to these Scattered Worlds, the Hlutr stood tall in the soil of lost Paka Tel and pondered the mysteries of life. What can you possibly do that the Hlutr cannot?"

"I have computers that can simulate new genetic patterns and carry them over thirty thousand generations in the course of an afternoon. They can look at your Dawn People and unravel three million years of Hlutr meddling to show me their original ancestor. They can guess at what you're headed toward."

His words stop me for a moment. The grand work of the Hlutr, that which Khria dismisses as "meddling," must needs be slow. It proceeds with the speed of drifting continents, with the gradual development of organism after organism. Thus are the Hlutr so long-lived, that we may do this work.

"Your computers produce visions," I say. "Without the Hlutr to show you how, you cannot make those visions real. And I will not allow you to have that knowledge. You have nothing to offer me, Khria."

"I can give you eternal life."

"Eternal life? You, a Human, speak to a Hlut about immortality? I have lived over a thousand times your tiny span already."

"And you will die. Tomorrow, a million years from now, ten million...it doesn't matter. Because ultimately you will die. Life grows dearer as it grows longer, no? And death hurts more."

"So it is written in the Universal Song. All die, Khria. Not even the Hlutr can change that fact."

"I don't doubt that Hlutr can't do anything about it- else you'd have made yourselves immortal a billion years ago. I also don't doubt that some of your Elders are hard at work on the problem. It would take you ten million generations to do the work, even if you knew what you were working toward."

"Eternal life is a fable."

"You're mistaken. I've run the simulations on a Muspel Three Thousand; you can inspect my results if you like. A super-powerful Hlut, able to shrug off the worst forest fire, able to regenerate almost instantly, capable of unlimited growth on any organic base. It could live through a supernova by sporing: each spore retains the full consciousness of the organism. Reconstructive DNA is quadruply-redundant to eliminate risk of mutation-based damage, and the organism would have complete control over all biochemical processes down to the molecular level. Currently your body structure cannot last beyond three billion years at an absolute maximum: my new Hlut would have a lifespan that starts at six billion."

"Whatever you have designed, it cannot bring immortality to any of us now alive." I am distracted by the attention of Hlutr Elders, a phantom wildwood on the frontiers of my mind. And I know, although none of them admit it, that part of what Khria says is truth. Certain Hlutr have contemplated the type of creature Khria describes.

Perhaps some have even made experiments in that direction. Possibly the Hlutr of the Gathered Worlds, sundered from us since the time of the Great Schism, have proceeded further.

The wind of s.p.a.ce whispers with knowledge that should not come to me, from the brooding mind of the Eldest Herself. She alone in the Scattered Worlds survives from the era before the Great Schism; She alone knows the full story of Hlutr experiments upon the Hlutr form. Could it be possible that the Eldest, on Her island in the Secluded Realm, might be a product of those investigations? If Khria is right, She is nearing the limit of Her time in the Universal Song does this explain Her sudden interest?

She does not speak, does not sing an opinion into the quiet music of the Inner Voice. Perhaps She has been watching all along, as She watches all programs that might lead to the successor race.

Khria answers me with a snort. "Would I offer what I can't deliver? Your genetic structure, your memories- your consciousness- can be integrated into the new design. A timeless moment of sleep, and then you awake as a creature that cannot die."

"You cannot deliver this thing yet. And without the Hlutr method of altering genetics, your new immortal creature will remain an image in the electronics of your machines."

"There you have me," he admits. "You need my computers and my concepts...but I need your ability and your billions of years of experience in using it. Otherwise, I'd have to do the job one bit at a time, and it would take longer than the Hlutr have been in existence." A winged insect, Terran lifeform, buzzes for a moment around Khria's metal casing. With the speed of Summer sunshine, he strikes with a mechanical arm, and the insect falls dead to the ground.

"There you have it," Khria says. "You can help me, and gain eternal life. Or you can try to stop me, and wind up dead...sooner or later, no matter how you try to avoid it."

"You know what answer I must make."

"Don't be too hasty. I'll give you time to consider. You can find me when you need me, I'm sure." Khria turns, and in a moment he is gone.

My mind whirls without direction, and I pull my awareness back to my steady place on the mountain. My roots drive deep into soil and rock, and I feel their comforting tension even as confusion makes me sway and shiver.

My brethren on other worlds sense my emotions, and they withdraw their attention. Even the Eldest turns Her thoughts away from me, so I am left on my own in swift-falling night.

I watch the stars, and I ponder.

More than three-quarters of a Hlutr lifetime spent guiding the Dawn People along their path toward a goal they cannot begin to imagine. So much longer to go before that goal is in sight. So many possible wrong turnings; perhaps the children of Sebya will never become the successors we long for. Other hopes have died before, in nuclear fire or ecological catastrophe.

If the Dawn People fail, I will have to die with them.

If they do not fail, I will never live long enough to see their triumph.

And Khria offers eternal life.

With Khria's improvements, the Hlutr race would never pa.s.s from the Universal Song. We would never need successors. The Galaxy would never be bereft of the compa.s.sionate Hlutr song, the guiding Hlutr mind.

And what of Khria...of the damage he would do with his knowledge of Hlutr genetic techniques?

How long would Khria himself live?

I know the answer as soon as the question frames itself: Khria could live forever. The cunning Human machines have sustained his consciousness far beyond the lifespan of Human flesh already; as long as his mechanisms have energy, they will continue to keep him alive.

Should the future, then, be an everlasting battle between Khria and the Hlutr, a battle for the destiny of races yet unborn? Or will long life and the power of the Hlutr bring wisdom? Can my brothers and sisters teach Darineb Khria the ways that have served us so well throughout our history?

I imagine becoming Khria's partner for eternity... struggling against his animal instincts at first, but finally bringing him to full knowledge and understanding of the Universal Song. Galactic years will pa.s.s like fast-flying Autumn clouds. Together, Khria and I will give the boon of eternal life to all my brothers and sisters. We will improve the Dawn People, and send them out into the Scattered Worlds as our agents. Peace will come to these troubled stars. Perhaps we will even send them into the Galactic Core, and heal the Great Schism that still keeps Scattered and Gathered Worlds apart.

I catch myself in these imaginings, and I am shocked. Shocked that an Elder of the Hlutr could allow herself to be tempted by a Human. Amazed that the Human has found anything that would tempt me.

What would Krhia's gift mean, what would it do to the Hlutr? We are long-lived, yes, but only the most naive of Little Ones would imagine that we therefore do not know the importance of death, nor the brevity of life.

Life is our memorial, the thriving life of the Scattered Worlds. Life itself is our immortality, the life of generations unconceived. Would we struggle so hard in the service of life, if we were ourselves immortal?

Does the nature of the Hlutr race itself rest on my decision?

You, Little Ones, recall me to myself. You are my responsibility, your welfare my most important trust. Let Khria promise me eternal life and the entirety of the Universal Song, I cannot accept if it means that the Dawn People will be mistreated.

My roots reach deep into the heart of the mountain, and my branches cling vinelike to the walls of many corridors and rooms far below the Human settlement. The daily cycle of artificial day and dark gives my pale leaves the light they need, and my strong roots carry sustenance from the good soil and air of the mountainside. I turn my attention to them, and soon I have located Khria in a private office nearly a Hlut-length beneath the surface.

"Hear me, Darineb Khria," I say in the Human tongue.

Khria is unsurprised. "Yes?"

"The Dawn People must not be harmed. You will not take them from their homes and you will not cut them apart in your laboratories."

"If I agree, you will help me?"

"You will have the knowledge you need. When next a Dawn Person dies the natural death, you shall have the body to examine."

"That could take years."

"The creature who offers eternal life is concerned with a delay of several short years?"

He chuckles. "All right. My people can't get into your forest. Stop keeping them out."

"Recall your hunters and I will order the Hlutr to dissolve their curtain."

"Agreed." He speaks to a communication device, then waits. Soon word comes to me from all corners of the forest the Humans are returning to their homes. In turn, I tell my brothers and sisters to relax efforts to keep Humans away.

"The curtain is fallen, Khria."

"Good. Let's talk specifics, then. Before I can continue my research, I need to see the complete life cycle of the Dawn People. From the beginning."

I consult my brethren. "White Rocks Tribe is returning to their grove for a birthing ceremony. It will take place in three of your days. You may witness."

"Fine. We're decided, then? You'll help me, and I'll give you immortality."

"I will help you." My brother who watches the Humans gives me the words I need. "The White Rocks grove is at the source of the northernmost branch of the great river that flows through the Forest. When you enter the forest, the song of the Hlutr will guide you."

"I'll be there." He moves to the door and makes a motion with his artificial arms. "Meanwhile, we can both ponder what we're going to do with the rest of our lives. Good night, Elder." With that he withdraws, and the closing door hides him from my sight.

I am alone beneath the starry sky. All Sebya surrounds me; the song of the world echoes in my roots, my tall branches, my thick solid trunk. Sebya pulses in the eternal rhythms, moving under the influence of the moons, the sun and its fellow planets. The surface crawls with life, from free-floating viruses to tiny organisms huddling upon grains of sand to the great reptiles and fish that live in the ocean depths. Ceaselessly the symphony of life continues through the night, each creature's voice blending with all others to produce a clear and awesome music.

I wonder how that song will be changed, as Hlutr become truly immortal and the Dawn People near their maturity. Sebya is my home, and for we who abide here, it is the only truly perfect world in the Galaxy. In this new future, we will have the power to make of Sebya whatever we choose. In the past, biological detours have set back our work...the golden fish, the over-enthusiastic diatoms who almost poisoned the atmosphere, the digging beetles who still survive in the deepest regions of the southern jungles. No more. With the aid of Khria's computers we will be able to adjust Sebya's ecology in single generations. At last the world will know peace and as time pa.s.ses, we will bring that peace to all the Scattered Worlds.

No Hlut ever contemplates in isolation; the winds of air and s.p.a.ce carry our thoughts and feelings ever outward to our brethren. My brother, the one who studies Humans, whispers doubts in the night. Elder, this course is far from certain. The Ancients of Nephestal believe that Khria is faithless and merely seeks power for his own ends. How can we be sure that he will not hinder us?

I do not answer, for I do not know what to say. There is no surety. Khria has hidden his inner feelings from us. Humans are alien enough, and we have great difficulty reading their intentions...and Khria is something still more foreign. A Human brain lives within those circuits, but one might as well try to read the feelings of a piece of ice or a rock. I believe that the Hlutr can change Darineb Khria, and I have nothing more than that belief.

Yet like my brother, I doubt the wisdom of the course I have chosen.

And beyond me, the Hlutr Elders beyond the sky say nothing. A few of them watch like lonely sentries scanning the horizon for smoke that will herald the approach of forest fire; they watch, and that is all.

Too soon, the day of the birthing ceremony comes.

We have given the Dawn People a three-stage life cycle. They begin as saplings, then in Autumn of their thirteenth year they breed with their mature brethren. The Spring of their fourteenth year is the Birthing Ceremony: as the next generation of saplings emerge from the soil, the parent lifts her roots and takes her first steps as an adult.

Each Autumn for the next eleven years adults return to their grove for breeding; then during his twenty-fifth year a Dawn Person begins the quick, happy process of disintegration. To ease the burden of death, in his last year a Dawn Person develops a heightened sensitivity to the Inner Voice- at the end, each Dawn Person is at one with the community of Hlutr and completely content.

Later, when their culture has stabilized, we will add another stage onto their life cycle: instead of death, the Dawn People will have full command of their biological powers, and will enter fully into the magnificent life of the Hlutr.

Today is Birthing Day for the White Rocks tribe; today their saplings rise above the soil, and today their new adults take their first steps. It is a day of exultation, and the Hlutr sing happiness throughout the forest. I am far from the White Rocks grove, but my brothers and sisters there show me everything I must know. The sun rises red and enormous in the east, dispelling mists that hang in the branches.

Mature Dawn People stand about the grove already; the young ones, three or four times the height of the older adults, are scampering about and the atmosphere is one of holiday. Some of the oldest Dawn People stand next to Hlutr; they are perhaps only twice the height of a Human and they have little interest in Birthing. Their concerns lie more with the melodies of the Universal Song; their minds have the texture of a young Hlut who has just beginning to be skilled with the Inner Voice.

Khria arrives in a skyship of silver and white, accompanied by twice seven other Humans, men and women whose dull minds project only dumb obedience to their leader. Such devotion is completely alien to the Hlutr; we are all free individuals, and we all follow our own will. If there is unity in the Galactic community of Hlutr, it is the agreement of equals and not the domination of a few.

The younger Dawn People adults are afraid of Khria and his followers, and they draw back uneasily to the edges of the glade. A few of the saplings, only a year or two old, quiver gently and are comforted by the song of the older adults. And my folk raise the Inner Voice in a melody of rea.s.surance. The Humans are here as guests, they will not harm you.

As the sun climbs and its rays touch the shorter Dawn People, the birthing ceremony begins. It begins with song; the Dawn People sing with trunk and branch and Inner Voice, giving form as best they can to the ethereal music of the Universal Song. Each tribe has its own song, a song that changes slowly across the generations. Each song was given to a tribe's ancestors by an individual Hlut. By contemplating the particulars of that song, we Hlutr know the progress of each tribe and can decide what actions are best taken next to guide the Dawn People along their path. If Khria but knew the meaning of those songs, he would have half his answer already.

In response to the sun and the song, buried seedlings reach for the open air. To Khria and his companions, this part of the ceremony must be tedious; it is fully two Human hours before the first seedling breaks soil. Dawn People elders are there at once, taking care to avoid shadowing the new sprout. A tiny shoot of intense green and white, it gives a triumphant cry of discovery and then goes about the business of growing.

More seedlings break soil now, and they are welcomed and cherished as much as the first. Several young adults have their favorites already, and they stand proudly by them or bend to brush fallen leaves away. In due time, the adults will leave- any seedlings who emerge tomorrow, or the days after, will be greeted by their sessile cousins.

The first stage of the birthing ceremony is started; new adults, who traditionally wait until after the first seedlings arise, are now free to take their first steps.

The song builds, and the entire tribe sways in time with it: young adults, elders, juveniles and seedlings all together. The oldest juveniles, those in their fourteenth year, rock back and forth with increasing violence; their roots groan and their leaves fall with each swing. Soon it is as if a great storm sweeps through the grove, and sixteen soon-to-be adults are at the center of that maelstrom.

Then it comes, with the sickening crack of splitting bark, with the flutter of frightened birds, with the awful cry of all the Dawn People and the Hlutr who cherish them. For one single instant this Spring afternoon is split by a scream like a brilliant flash of sunlight, and sixteen Dawn People shed their childhood bodies, lift their roots, and step forward.

I wonder what it is like, to pull free of the nurturing ground and walk away, to leave half your substance behind to dissolve into nutrients for your younger cousins. Suddenly to start living faster, so fast that for the rest of your days you will need to consume animals and other plants in order to feed your struggling body. This the Hlutr will never truly know. For even as we have heard the Dawn People sing their experience in the Inner Voice, time and again for ten thousand generations, yet there is always something they hold back. Each race, each individual, has a unique core of being that can never be shared with another, and this experience, the sublime transformation of the Dawn People, falls within that core. We have given them a life cycle known to no other race since time began; only when they have reached maturity will they come to realize that we have also given them the seeds of a tremendous and dreadful racial loneliness.

We Hlutr have been alone: we have never been able to share the essence of the experience that makes us Hlutr, our command of the stuff of life. Now, we are making our successors, who will understand and share that feeling. In the twilight of the Hlutr race, we will no longer be alone.

But the Dawn People...they will have to wait until they create their successors, whom the Hlutr cannot begin to imagine, before their isolation will end.