Apparently, the sages didn't agree. They thought fate might yet be diverted, or at least modified somehow.

Lester Cambel and his aides are making plans, Dwer realized the next morning as he met the two humans again, this time by the sh.o.r.e of the forest-shrouded mountain lake. Even the dam wore trees, softening its graceful outline, helping root the structure firmly to the landscape. Stretched out on an elegant wooden bench, Dwer sipped a cool drink from a goblet of urrish gla.s.s as he faced the two envoys who had been sent all the way to see him.

Clearly the leaders of Earthling-Sept were playing a complex, multilayer game-balancing species self-interest against the good of the Commons as a whole. Bluff, open-faced Lena Strong seemed untroubled by this ambivalence, but not Danel Ozawa, who explained to Dwer the varied reactions of other races to the invaders being human.

I wish Lark had stayed. He could have made sense of all this. Dwer's mind still felt woozy, even after a night's restoring sleep.

"I still don't get it. What are human adventurers doing out here in Galaxy Two? I thought Earthlings were crude, ignorant trash, even in their own little part of Galaxy Four!"

"Why are we here, Dwer?" Ozawa replied. "Our ancestors came to Jijo just decades after acquiring star drive."

Dwer shrugged. "They were selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Willing to endanger the whole race just to find a place to breed."

Lena sniffed, but Dwer kept his chin raised. "Nothing else makes sense."

Our ancestors were self-centered scoundrels-Lark had put it one day.

"You don't believe the stories of persecution and flight?" Lena asked. "The need to hide or die?"

Dwer shrugged.

"What of the g'Keks?" Ozawa asked. "Their ancestors claimed persecution. Now we learn their race was murdered by the Inheritors' Alliance. Does it take genocide to make the excuse valid?"

Dwer looked away. None of the g'Keks he knew had died. Should he mourn millions who were slaughtered long ago and far away?

"Why ask me?" he murmured irritably. "Can anything I do make a difference?"

"That depends." Danel leaned"forward. "Your brother is brilliant but a heretic. Do you share his beliefs? Do you think this world would be better off without us? Should we die out, Dwer?"

He saw they were testing him. As a top hunter, he'd be valuable to the militia-if he could be trusted. Dwer sensed their eyes, watching, weighing.

Without doubt, Lark was a deeper, wiser man than anyone Dwer knew. His arguments made sense when he spoke pa.s.sionately of higher values than mere animal reproduction-certainly more sense than Sara's weird brand of math-based, what-if optimism. Dwer knew firsthand about species going extinct-the loss of something beautiful that would never be recovered.

Maybe Jijo would be better off resting undisturbed, according to plan.

Still, Dwer knew his own heart. He would marry someday, if he found the right partner, and he would sire as many kids as his wife and the sages allowed, drinking like a heady wine the love they gave, in return for his devotion.

"I'll fight, if that's what you're askin'," he said in a low voice, perhaps ashamed to admit it. "If that's what it takes to survive."

Lena grunted with a curt, satisfied nod. Danel let out a soft sigh.

"Fighting may not be necessary. Your militia duties will be taken up by others."

Dwer sat up. "Because of this?" He motioned toward the bandages on his feet and left hand. Those on the right were already off, revealing that the middle finger was no longer the longest, a disconcerting but noncrippling amputation, healing under a crust of traeki paste. "I'll be up and around soon, good as ever."

"Indeed, I am counting on it." Ozawa nodded. "We need you for something rather arduous. And before I explain, you must swear never to inform another soul, especially your brother."

Dwer stared at the man. If it were anyone else, he might have laughed scornfully. But he trusted Ozawa. And much as Dwer loved and admired his brother, Lark was without any doubt a heretic. "It's for the good?" he asked.

"I believe so," the older man said, in apparent sincerity.

Dwer sighed unhappily. "All right then. Let's hear what you have in mind."

Asx THE ALIENS DEMANDED TO SEE CHIMPANZEES, I then marveled over those we brought before them, as I if they had never seen the like before. "Your chimps do not speak! Why is that?"

Lester proclaims mystification. Chimpanzees are capable of sign language, of course. But have other traits been added since the Tabernacle fled to Jijo?

The invaders seem unimpressed with Lester's demurral, and so are some of our fellow Sixers. For the first time, i/we sense something hidden, deceitful, in the manner of my/our human colleague. He knows more than he tells. But our skittish rewq balk at revealing more.

Nor is this our sole such worry. Qheuens refuse to speak further regarding lorniks. Our g'Kek cousins reel from the news that they are the last of their kind.- And all of us are appalled to witness alien robots returning to base laden with ga.s.sed, sleeping glavers, kidnapped from faraway herds for a.n.a.lysis under those once-gay pavilions we lent our guests.

"Is this the return of innocence, promised in the Scrolls?" Ur-Jah asks, doubt dripping like fumes from her lowered snout. "How could a blessing arise out of base crime?"

If only we could ask the glavers. Is this what they wanted, when they chose the Path of Redemption?

Lark WELL, LOOK WHO IT IS. I'M SURPRISED YOU HAVE the nerve to show your face around here."

The forayer woman's grin seemed at once both sly and teasing. She peeled off elastic gloves, turning from a glaver on a lab bench with wires in its scalp. There were several of the big trestle tables, where human, g'Kek, and urrish workers bent under cool, bright lamps, performing rote tasks they had been taught, helping their employers test animals sampled from sundry Jijoan ecosystems.

Lark had dropped his backpack by the entrance. Now he picked it up again. "I'll go if you want."

"No, no. Please stay." Ling waved him into the laboratory shelter, which had been moved to a shielded forest site the very night Lark last saw the beautiful intruder, the same evening the black station buried itself under a fountain of piled dirt and broken vegetation. The basis for both actions was still obscure, but Lark's superiors now thought it must have to do with the violent destruction of one of the interlopers' robots. An event his brother must have witnessed at close hand.

Then there was the testimony of Rety, the girl from over the mountains, supported by her treasure, a strange metal machine, once shaped like a Jijoan bird. Was it a Buyur remnant, as some supposed? If so, why should such a small item perturb the mighty forayers? Unless it was like the tip of a red qheuen's sh.e.l.l, innocuous at first sight, poking over a sand dune, part of much more than it seemed? The "bird" now lay in a cave, headless and mute, but Rety swore it used to move.

Lark had been ordered back down to the Glade before his brother could confirm the story. He knew he shouldn't worry. Danel Ozawa was qualified to tend Dwer's wounds. Still, he deeply resented the recall order.

"Will you be needing me for another expedition?" he asked Ling.

"After you abandoned me the last time? We found human tracks when we finally got to where our robot went down. Is that where you rushed off to? Funny how you knew which way to go."

He shouldered his pack. "Well, if you don't need me, then-"

She swept a hand before her face. "Oh, never mind. Let's move on. There's plenty of work, if you want it."

Lark glanced dubiously at the lab tables. Of Jijo's Six, all three of the races with good hand-eye coordination were employed. Outside, hoons and qheuens also labored at the behest of aliens whose merest trinkets meant unimaginable wealth to primitive savages. Only traeki were unseen among the speckled tents, since the ringed ones seemed to make the raiders nervous.

Sepoy labor. That was the contemptuous expression Lena Strong had used when she brought Lark new orders at Tooth-Slice Shavings' Dam. An old Earth term, referring to aborigines toiling for mighty visitors, paid in beads.

"Oh, don't look so sour." Ling laughed. "It would serve you right if I put you to work staining nerve tissue, or shoveling the longsnout pens. . . . No, stop." She grabbed Lark's arm. All signs of mockery vanished. "I'm sorry. There really are things I want to discuss with you."

"Uthen is here." He pointed to the far end of the tent, where his fellow biologist, a large male qheuen with a slate gray carapace, held conference with Rann, one of the two male forayers, a tall ma.s.sive man in a tight-fitting uniform.

"Uthen knows incredible detail about how different species relate to each other." Ling agreed with a nod. "That's not easy on a planet that has had infusions of outsider species every twenty million years or so, for aeons. Your lore is impressive, given your limitations."

Had she any idea how far Jijoan "lore" really went? So far, the sages had not released his detailed charts, and Uthen must be dragging all five feet, cooperating just enough to stay indispensable. Yet the aliens seemed easily impressed by sketchy glimmers of local ac.u.men, which only showed how insultingly low their expectations were.

"Thanks," Lark muttered. "Thanks a lot."

Ling sighed, briefly averting her dark eyes. "Crampers, can't I say anything right, today? I don't mean to offend. It's just . . . look, how about we try starting from scratch, all right?" She held out a hand.

Lark looked at it. What was he expected to do now?

She reached out with her left hand to take his right wrist. Then her right hand clasped his. . "It's called a handshake. We use it to signify respect, amicable greeting, or agreement."

Lark blinked. Her grip was warm, firm, slightly moist.

"Oh, yes . . . I've rea-heard of it."

He tried to respond when she squeezed, but it felt so strange, and vaguely erotic, that Lark let go sooner than she seemed to expect. His face felt warm.

"Is it a common gesture?"

"Very common, I hear. On Earth."

You hear? Lark leaped on the pa.s.sing phrase and knew it had begun again-their game of hints and revelations, mutual scrutiny of clues and things left unsaid.

"I can see why we gave it up, on Jijo," he commented. "The urs would hate it; their hands are more personal than their genitals. Hoons and qheuens would crush our hands and we'd squash the tendrils of any g'Kek who tried it." His fingers still felt tingly. He resisted an urge to look them over. Definitely time to change the subject.

"So," Lark said, trying for a businesslike tone of equality, "you've never been to Earth?"

One eyebrow raised. Then she laughed. "Oh, I knew we couldn't hire you for just a handful of biodegradable Loys. Don't worry, Lark; you'll be paid in answers-some answers-at the end of each day. After you've earned them."

Lark sighed, although in fact the arrangement did not sound unsatisfactory.

"Very well, then. Why don't you tell me what it is you want to know."

Asx EACH DAY WE STRIVE TO MEDIATE STRESS AMONG our factions, from those urging cooperation with our uninvited guests, to others seeking means to destroy them. Even my/our own sub-selves war over these options.

Making peace with felons, or fighting the unfightable.

d.a.m.nation or extinction.

And still our guests question us about other visitors! Have we seen other outsiders lately, dropping from the sky? Are there Buyur sites we have not told them about? Sites where ancient mechanisms lurk, alert, still p.r.o.ne to vigorous action?

Why this persistence? Surely they can tell we are not lying-that we know nothing more than we have told.

Or is that true, my rings? Have all Six shared equally with the Commons, or are some withholding vital information, needed by all?

That i should think such a thing is but another measure of how far we are fallen, we unworthy, despicable sooners. We, who surely have farther yet to fall.

Rety UNDER A SMALLER, SHABBIER TENT, IN A DENSE grove some secret distance from the research station, Rety threw herself onto a reed mat, pounding it with both fists., "Stinkers. Rotten guts an' rancy meat. Rotten, rotten, rotten!"

She had good reason to thrash in outrage and self-pity. That liar, Dwer, had told her the sages were good and wise. But they turned out to be horrid!

Oh, not at the beginning. At first, her hopes had shot up like the geysers back home in the steaming Gray Hills. Lester Cambel and the others seemed so kind, easing her dread over being punished for her grandparents' crime of sneaking east, over the forbidden mountains. Even before questioning her, they had doctors tend her sc.r.a.pes and burns. It never occurred to Rety to fear the unfamiliar g'Kek and traeki medics who dissolved away drops of clinging mule-fluid, then used foam to drive off the parasites that had infested her scalp for as long as she could remember. She even found it in her to forgive them when they dashed her hopes of a cure for the scars on her face. Apparently, there was a limit even to what Slopies could accomplish.

From the moment she and Lark strode into the Glade of Gathering, everyone seemed awfully excited and distracted. At first Rety thought it was because of her, but it soon grew clear that the real cause was visitors from the sky!

No matter. It still felt like coming home. Like being welcomed into the embrace of a family far bigger and sweeter than the dirty little band she had known for fourteen awful years.

At least it felt that way for a while.

Till the betrayal.

Till the sages called her once again to their pavilion and told her their decision.

"It's all Dwer's fault," she muttered later, nursing hot resentment. "Him an' his rotten brother. If only I could've snuck in over the mountains without being seen. No one would've noticed me in all this ruckus." Rety had no clear notion what she would have done after that. The oldsters back home had been murky in their handed-down tales about the Slope. Perhaps she could make herself useful to some remote village as a trapper. Not for food-Slopies had plenty of that-but for soft furs that'd keep townfolk from asking too closely where she came from.

Back in the Gray Hills, such dreams used to help her pa.s.s each grinding day. Still, she might never have found the guts to flee her muddy clan but for the beautiful bright bird.

And now the sages had taken it away from her!

"We are grateful for your part in bringing this enigmatic wonder to us," Lester Cambel said less than an hour ago, with the winged thing spread on a table before him. "Meanwhile though, something terribly urgent has come up. I hope you'll understand, Rety, why it's become so necessary for you to go back."

Back? At first, she could not bring herself to understand. She puzzled while he gabbled on and on.

Back?

Back to Ja.s.s and Bom and their strutting ways? To the endless bullying of those big, strong hunters? Always boasting around the campfire about petty, vicious triumphs that grew more exaggerated with each telling? To those wicked oafs who used fire-tipped sticks to punish anyone who dared to talk back to them?

Back to where mothers watched half their babies waste away and die? To where that hardly mattered, because new babies kept on coming, coming and coming, till you dried up and died of old age before you were forty? Back to all that hunger and dirt?

The human sage had muttered words and phrases that were supposed to sound soothing and n.o.ble and logical. But Rety had stopped listening.

They meant to send her back to the tribe!

Oh, it might be fine to see Ja.s.s's face when she strode into camp, clothed and equipped with all the wonders the Six could offer. But then where would she be? Condemned once more to that awful life.

/ won't go back. I won't!

With that resolution, Rety rolled over, wiped her eyes, and considered what to do.

She could try running away, taking shelter elsewhere. Rumors told that all was not in perfect harmony among the Six. So far, she had obeyed Cambel's request not to blab the story of her origins. But Rety wondered-might some urrish or qheuen faction pay for the information? Or invite her to live among them?

It's said the urs sometimes let a chosen human ride upon their backs, when the human's light enough, and worthy.

Rety tried to picture life among the galloping clans, roaming bold and free across the open plains with wind blowing through her hair.

Or what about going to sea with hoons? There were islands n.o.body had ever set foot on, and flying fish, and floating mountains made of ice. What an adventure that would be! Then there were the traeki of the swamps . . .

A new thought abruptly occurred to her. Another option that suddenly appeared to lie open. One so amazing to contemplate that she just lay there silently for several duras, hands unclenching at last from their tightly clutched fists. Finally, she sat up, pondering with growing excitement a possibility beyond any other ambition she had ever conceived.

The more she thought about it, the better it began to seem.

XI. THE BOOK OF THE SEA.