Stirred by this distress too strong for her mind to bear, I sung to her in the Second Language and the Inner Voice. Be calm, my Little One.

She stopped, wonderment blossoming on her face. And she looked directly at me, her intense dark eyes meeting my multicolored leaves. The waves of Inner Voice that she projected, changed pitch; distress receded and was replaced by gentle annoyance and rising awe. Hands on hips, she said, "Trees don't talk."

Hlutr are not trees, I sang. And now a tinge of my own wonderment answered hers...for she understood.

Little eyes wide, Chiriga Ho sat at my roots, and begged me to tell her more of the Hlutr.

Artist that I am, even I cannot sing but a fraction of Hlutr history in a lazy Inse afternoon- and long before the afternoon was past, Chiriga had to depart. But she was back again before nightfall, and stayed until she was yawning. By the time the sun settled below the horizon, Chiriga and I had entwined our songs- the first of many such links we would make- and she could be with me even though her body was half a kilometer away in her bed. Her loneliness was over, and she clung to our narrow thread of contact like a vine to its nourishing host.

Chiriga Ho had at last found a friend.

Summer became Autumn, as Inse retreated from the sun and the silvery bridge of the Galaxy began to rise later and later in the night. My fellow Hlutr were busy with the slow change of season, directing the migrations of winged animals and the shedding of leaves.

And in that long Autumn, I came to love Chiriga Ho.

I loved her most for her strength. All Inse saw the determination that she brought to her schoolwork, to her daily exercises, to every corner of her life- but none saw the hidden strength that I could see within her mind. This was the strength that moved reluctant limbs despite constant pain, the courage that faced each new day of derision and humiliation with calm determination and impossible hope.

We Hlutr are strong by nature; but ours is the strength of time, the eternal gentle pressure by which plants crack solid stone in only a few centuries. Chiriga did not have the luxury of time; her might was an idomitable will. Nothing could stand in her way: not pain, nor distance, nor even the disapproval of her fellow Humans. Through that Autumn I saw more of Chiriga's strength than she had ever shown any living ent.i.ty. This little Human taught me things I had never suspected, things that the Hlutr had never told me; I could not but love her.

It was a lonely time for Chiriga and her folk. Less than twenty seventies of them remained; the rest had long since moved to more hospitable worlds. The first snows buried a domed garden, and before it was dug out a second storm struck- even from half a kilometer, the sound of the dome's cracking disturbed the animals that huddled around and within my roots for warmth.

Nearly a third of Chiriga's people left after the dome broke. Chiriga sat with me in the night, and we watched a few ancient shuttle ships taking the Humans away from Inse.

"One day," she said, "All of us will go. One day you'll see the last Human leave Inse."

I hope that will never happen, Little One.

Yet the Winter wore on, the hardest and coldest winter in Human centuries. Thick Hlutr bark and Hlutr inner warmth protected me and my brethren even as ice coated us; our roots went deep into boiling underground lakes and brought heat to the surface. We did what we could to shelter the other little lives around us: grubs and worms and tiny burrowing creatures crawled between my roots, and I allowed the boring insects to enter my very body. Winged beasts huddled where they could, in crooks and elbows that offered some small protection from the wind. Even the lesser trees pulled close, turning themselves to the Hlutr they way they turned to follow the sun.

Plants went dormant, larger animals hibernated where they could and died where they could not. But for Chiriga's folk, there was no help.

I did what I could, and all of us helped. Confined to their settlement, hungry and lonely, the Humans were ripe for despair. We Hlutr could give them neither food nor warmth nor freedom- but we could sing to them in the Inner Voice, and give them back their will to live.

Chiriga helped. With a music-sythesizer she found in an abandoned storeroom and her clear, strong voice, she sang and danced for her people. She could hear the Hlutr song, and she conveyed the quintessence of its meaning to her folk. And for a time, the song seemed to help them.

It did not last.

It was a few hours before Inse's slow dawn. Our sister planet, a great gas giant which the Humans call Eaun, was settling peacefully toward the western horizon. All at once the preternatural stillness was interrupted by a sullen groan deep in the rocks of the valley. Far below, relentless movements of Inse's crust had formed the valley; now rocks slipped against one another as balanced tensions were released. Mountains and valley shook, trees cracked and tumbled...and then the land was quiet again. For a time.

Chiriga's people woke in panic, and were just calming themselves when a slight skittering sound began at the north end of the valley. It continued, growing louder, and by the time the Humans managed to stumble to their observation screens, the sound had become an echoing roar that completely filled the night.

Half the mountainside, it seemed, came tumbling down upon the Human settlement, as irresistable as the onslaught of a Summer storm.

In the end only a few lives were lost. The damage to the settlement was much greater.

"The avalanche buried our last deep-mining installation," Chiriga told me. "Without that...we have nothing to trade." She pressed her forehead against my frozen bark. Our shrunken sun was still climbing up from the horizon. "In eighty hours it'll be night- the Manager wants everyone gone by then. Borshall is sending a transport, and it's supposed to be here by noon."

Where will you go?

"Mother says we have family on New Sardinia. The Manager's going to give us our shares of the Inse Company, and in Borshallan sols, so we won't have money problems for a while."

It will be lonely without you, Chiriga Ho.

"I'll miss you very much." She stood for a long moment, hugging as much of my trunk as he little arms could embrace, shivering all the time. Then she said, "I'll try to sing with you, even when I'm on New Sardinia."

I shot her an encouraging note in the Inner Voice, but I had no hope that a Human, even one as talented as Chiriga, could make herself heard across pa.r.s.ecs of empty s.p.a.ce. Only the Hlutr could do that.

So it came that as night approached, I lifted all my leaves to heaven and watched the last of the shuttles sail upward, carrying the last Human to live on Inse. I followed Chiriga's mental song as long as I could, while night fell and her ship moved outward from the sun- then there was a distortion of the song as the ship pa.s.sed into the mysterious tachyon phase, and she was gone.

That very night, at the depth of Inse's coldest Winter in centuries, the Ice Dancers came out to play.

We know little about them; they appear only when the cold is so severe that even Hlutr find it difficult to live, when carbon dioxide snow falls on mountain slopes and water is hard as rock. Then, while airborne bacteria retreat into spores and even the viruses are crystallized, when the Hlutr live slowly just to survive the night- then the Ice Dancers frolic, moving through the night in their slow saraband. Listening hard, one can almost catch a hint of their stately song, one is within reach of the meaning of their odd, brief lives...then morning comes, and they are gone like the snows that evaporate upon the hillside.

Let me tell you about loneliness, my brothers and sisters.

You do not feel it, you in whole forests of Hlutr, who busy yourselves with watching and directing the ecology of whole worlds. You who sing with the rest of us whenever you wish, you who taste the very presence of life surrounding you. How can you know what it is like to be an Artist, to stand solitary in a valley with only the distant sight of a few hillside Hlutr to keep you company? How can you know what it is like to lack the power to change life?

Since the long-lost days of Paka Tel, there have been Hlutr like me- and since those days, the rest of you have shunned us. Even in your pity and compa.s.sion you set us apart, so that we can never completely enter the society of Hlutr. You rely on us to keep the tales of Hlutr history, you expect us to sustain the eternal Hlutr symphony in the Inner Voice.

And the Inner Voice gives us an escape from our loneliness. Worlds away, there are other Hlutr Artists, others who live as we do and understand the peculiar polyphony that we bring to the Universal Song.

I never expected to hear from Chiriga after she left Inse. And indeed, it took her more than half a revolution: on a late-Summer evening I had cast my mind into endless s.p.a.ce and was singing with my fellows, when I heard the trace of a melody I recognized. Weak, distant and unpracticed, it was Chiriga nevertheless.

Little One, I sang in delight, reaching forth toward her with all my will.

Artist! Her glee warmed me more than the midday sun on my widespread leaves. It's been six years. I...I thought I'd never sing with you again.

I am glad to find you. How fare you? What has happened in your life?

I am on New Sardinia. I've been training at the Ramatiad Conservatory.

You are singing for Humans? The way you did during the Winter here on Inse?

I felt her pa.s.sion...and her distress, that she could not fulfill it. I'm trying. I...I know I can sing better. Somehow I just haven't been able to capture the feeling I had then. Maybe I'm too old.

Nonsense, Little One. My song, too, has been diminished since you left. Let us join our Inner Voices once more, and give the Universe the sweetest melodies it has ever heard.

So we sang, brothers and sisters, sang to the glory of the Universal Song and to the joy of finding one another again. And no matter what you believe about Human ability with the Inner Voice, our song was the sweetest heard in ages. Hlutr Artists on twice-seventy worlds heard us, and stopped their own songs to listen.

Under my tutelage, Chiriga soon left her Human teachers behind. New Sardinia is the world of art, of color and music and the poetry of life. My Little One sang for the Humans, and the best of them could merely sit astonished to hear such beauty.

Human art, my Elders, was suffused with the same despair that had struck their economy, their science and their politics. Death, pain, disease, and disaster were the themes of Human song, Human drama, Human literature. Now Chiriga stood before these men and women, singing the essential Hlutr theme of joy, of coexistence, of the wonder of the Universal Song. And for a moment, the Humans believed; I felt the glimmer in their minds.

Is this why you stopped us? Because together, Chiriga and I were bringing life back to Mankind? Then I weep for you, for you are truly deaf to the Universal Song.

In her thirtieth year, Chiriga returned to Inse.

She came in her own starship, purchased with the profits from her recent tour of the Sardinian League. Some Human buildings were still standing, and she set her crew to work refurbishing them. Then, wrapped in her warmest clothes, she came alone to see me.

You have grown, Little One. In truth, Chiriga was barely over a meter tall, and would never be taller; her head was too large and her limbs too narrow. She had always been aware of her deformities, and now they rose again in her consciousness...but now her voice and music had transcended them and made her a star on seventies of Human worlds.

Thank you. You're looking well too, Artist. She hugged my trunk, and as usual her arms did not go even a fraction of the distance around. It's so good to see you again.

It is late afternoon, and all around me trees have begun to shed their leaves. Why have you come back here, Chiriga? Winter is coming on, you know.

I know. I came back because Inse is my home. She sighed. I'm a great success. I've toured the Sardinian League and the Metrinal Union, my recordings are selling as far away as Geled and Kertora. I can afford to live anywhere I want to...and Inse is where I want to live.

I welcome you. We can sing together; the forests will echo our song.

d.a.m.n it! She pounded her fist against my bark. Why did I have to be born Human?

Whatever do you mean, Little One?

Her mind seethed with anger and frustration. You taught me to sing with the Inner Voice. And now I've gone about as far as a Human can. But I've heard the Hlutr song unadulterated, and I know that I'll never be able to match it.

You can. We can. If you wish, Chiriga, I will teach you.

The other Hlutr say that I'll never be able to sing in your style. I've talked to them on every world I've visited.

Then they are wrong. And we will prove them wrong.

As soon as her house was rebuilt, Chiriga sent her crew away. Then, through the long cold winter, she learned to sing in the Hlutr style.

No, my brethren, it was not easy. Not easy for me, and worse for Chiriga. A sapling Hlut learns the Inner Voice just as it drinks water from the ground or nutrients from the air. Chiriga had to work, and work hard. Yet she was not afraid to struggle, and her very alieness gave her insights foreign to the Hlutr.

The Hlutr song is the song of Life- and Life is the music of the Universe. Together, Chiriga and I explored the dimensions of the Universal Song. Pressure waves which gather the stuff of old, dead suns to make new third-, fourth-and fifth-generation stars and planets that will someday be home to new forms of life. The ceaseless progression of seasons on a million worlds. Rain, which brings microscopic bits of meteoric dust from throughout the Galaxy. The soft soughing of Hlutr deep in thought, a soundless sound that permeates s.p.a.ce. The sweep of Hlutr history itself, from our almost-forgotten origins on Paka Tel through our colonization of the Galactic Halo, and on to the Great Schism, the days of grand Aveth.e.l.l when the two branches of Hlutr were briefly united, and the present happy days when we stand peacefully dreaming in the suns of the Scattered Worlds.

The song of Life is one of endless variety and overwhelming intricacy. Everything, lifeless or not, is a part of everything else. The bacteria who drift in clouds around us, drawn by our body warmth and the scent of food, are as important to the Universal Song as the Ancients of Nephestal in congress together in their forever-dreams, as important as the Eldest Herself in the Secluded Realm. Only Hlutr can appreciate how Earth's flowers called dandelions led to Mankind's expansion into the Galaxy, how tiny legless worms brought about the fall of the vast Dorascan Empire, how the slightest breeze on a long-ago hilltop on legendary Maela Gres brought about the Seed Vessels that brought life into the Scattered Worlds.

Even at the present moment, all the thoughts and emotions of all the living creatures in the Galaxy come together in the Universal Song- a Song which changes every mind it touches, slightly or greatly, for good or ill. This is the Song of the Hlutr, and this is the Song I learned with Chiriga.

By the time Spring came to frigid Inse, the time of learning was over. Chiriga summoned her crew and her starship, and she left. But this time, she took me with her. She took me in spirit, for the Inner Voice link between us was now so strong that kilopa.r.s.ecs of distance were no barrier. And she took me in substance, a green-growing sprig of my own body in a dish of rich Inse soil. This small bit of myself, barely more than an ordinary nonsapient plant, went with Chiriga to keep her company and remind her of her true home.

She sang and danced on five hundred worlds. And everywhere she sang the Song- sang to the past glories of Terra's sons and daughters, sang to the future they could have. From New Sardinia she moved westward, in the direction of lost Terra. Her ship, armed with powerful weapons and escorted by a convoy of military vessels, pa.s.sed into the wild, lawless region known as the Transgeled. On planet after planet, settlement after settlement, Chiriga gave her concerts. Worlds that had never heard of New Sardinia welcomed her...settlements on which Terra was a forgotten legend listened to her songs of the past. And wherever she pa.s.sed, she touched a few minds.

The Hlutr know, as no other creature does, that great events spring from small actions. Each of us, from the smallest saplings to the continent-spanning Eldest, grows from the tiniest seed. Our power, our privilege and our curse is that we change the destinies of races by adjusting the atoms and molecules of heredity. So Chiriga brought about change: with every mind she touched and every soul she inspired, the decline of Humanity slowed in almost imperceptible degree. She sang, she danced, and then she moved on to the next world.

Human starships travel at many times the speed of light; but Human politics creates barriers even more firm than lightspeed, and a tour of five hundred worlds took Chiriga nearly ten Human years- five Inse seasons. She reached as far as Geled, a direct successor of the legendary Terran Empire, before she turned back toward home.

Chiriga came home in high summer. Her dwellings needed repair, and as soon as that task was complete she sent her starship away. It would return when she wished it. Hardly had the ship left Inse, then Chiriga was at my trunk.

Time has not aged you at all, I said, after I had bent my limbs to take a good look at her and breathe the fragrance of her presence.

Thank you. I don't know if it's the music, or if I'm actually learning to live more slowly as you Hlutr do.

For a moment we stood next to one another, Human and Hlut together in the warm sun. I was aware of grubs beneath my roots, insects in my branches and Chiriga's quiet melancholy. I had felt this sadness growing during her trip, but her silent emotions told me that we would not sing of it until she returned to Inse.

I'm rich, you know, she said. In trade goods alone we brought back a million sols, not to mention fees for my performances and reproductions. She shrugged. I'm investing it all in Borshall's research labs. We need to get science moving again.

You are sad, Little One.

My people are dying. Th-they're turning their backs on life.

This happens to all organisms, Chiriga. Growth is followed by stagnation.

And I'm not sure there's ever going to be another growth cycle. She ran her hand lightly down my trunk. Artist...I feel the Hlutr working against me.

Against you?

She sighed. No. Not that. They just...don't care. I cast my song out into the night, and it is all but swallowed up in the silence of the Great Ones. Why?

The Hlutr...feel that your folk have pa.s.sed their prime. They feel, as you fear, that this stagnation is the end.

It isn't!

I know, Little One. But my brothers and sisters do not listen to me.

We must make them listen. Together.

Little One, you do not know what you ask.

I can sing the Hlutr Song. I've spent the last ten years doing that.

Yes. And you have done things no Human ever tried. Were it not for the others, your songs would already have turned the tide. I quiver gently even though the sun is warm. But you have sung to Humans. To join the councils of the Hlutr, you would have to sing across the s.p.a.ce of Human decades.

She nodded, and the courage that radiated from that frail body could have lit stars, so powerful it was. I can do it. Rest breaks and sleep periods won't matter- they'll be just momentary interruptions to the Great Ones. Between us, I know we can convince them to stop ignoring Humanity. All we need is the slightest bit of their attention, the barest notes of their song.

I did not have the strength of Chiriga, for I could not deny her this dream. She would die at this task, I was sure- yet she would spend her life no other way. Yes, Chiriga. Go home and gather your strength. Tomorrow we sing.

The next day, we began our song. It started easily enough; Chiriga sat at my roots with a flower in her lap and breathed slowly. The fragrance filled her consciousness and mine, and together we raised our Inner Voices in the song. One day a flower, the next a stone, then perhaps just the gentle rush of air. Of such things is the Hlutr song made.

We developed a singing pattern that matched our different perceptions of time. Chiriga came to me every morning through the long lazy summer, and until late afternoon we sang together. Then for the rest of the day Chiriga was free while I continued the main melody of the song, building on whatever elements we'd added that day. This chopping up into daily segments was not at all the way a Hlut would sing- but the steady, leisurely progression of theme was not at all a Human method. The method worked for us, and worked so well that when winter finally came Chiriga was able to stay indoors without missing her daily contributions.

Humans will not credit what I say, and Hlutr will not understand: Chiriga spent the next three Inse years, over a quarter of a Human century, at work on our song. She did not sing every day, for what creature besides a Hlut could have such devotion- but she sang every moment she could, and when she missed days for illness, exhaustion or her increasingly-rare Human concerts, I kept up the song in her own voice. Three Inse Winters pa.s.sed, three lovely Inse summers. And in that time, brothers and sisters, you started to listen to us.

At first your attention was furtive: the Artists and the younger Hlutr listened, then turned to their own work. Soon I noticed a few Elders hearing our melodies, then a few more...and soon some spoke in the councils of the Hlutr, saying that perhaps we should cherish Humanity more.

Voices came from Amny, from Credix, from Sebya and Taglierre, from the very heart of the Secluded Realm. Mankind has always had his friends among the Hlutr, and now they dared to speak, dared to echo our song.

My brothers and sisters of Inse, you are a cold lot, cold as the carbon dioxide snows and the rock-hard ice. You are not cruel, but your souls have been touched by a frigid wind that froze whatever compa.s.sion you were born with. When you could no longer ignore me, when you could no longer discredit me or ridicule me, when you could no longer avoid answering my arguments- then you imprisoned me.

Chiriga was offworld, teaching a promising cla.s.s of youngsters on New Sardinia, when you struck. You had contemplated your action well, you knew exactly what to do: the invisible curtain you spun about me was of impeccable weave. And now, brethren of Inse, I can sing only to you.

I know why you have done this to me...because Chiriga and I dared to defy your notions of propriety. That we create art together, fusing Human and Hlutr songs, disturbs you. That we defy the will of the Hlutr by attempting to renew the flagging spirits of the Human race, is the ultimate crime for which you cannot forgive me.

Chiriga's mind is closed to me. The other Hlutr do not hear my Inner Voice. And although I sing alone in the gathering dusk of another Inse Winter, still I sing...for I can do nothing else.

You tell me that Chiriga will never come back, that your curtain will keep Humans away from Inse forever. I do not believe you. And so I wait, singing, for the deliverance that will surely come my way.