It occurs to me that maybe Huphu thinks the little traeki is being used as bait at the end of a really big fishing line! Maybe Huphu's curious what we're trying to catch.

That, in turn, brings to mind Pincer's wild tales of "monsters" in the deep. Neither he nor Huck has mentioned a word about it since we arrived, each for his or her own reasons, I guess. Or am I the only one who hasn't forgotten, amid all the recent excitement?

Wuphon's Dream descends below the cliff face, and we rush near the edge to keep her in sight. Qheuens don't like heights and react by hunkering down, sc.r.a.ping their abdomens, clutching the ground. That's where I go too, lying p.r.o.ne and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my courage to slide forward. Huck, on the other hand, just rolls up to the stony rim, teeters with her pusher legs jutting back for balance, then sticks two of her eyestalks over as far as they'll go.

What a girl. So much for g'Keks being cautious, High-K beings. Watching her, I realize I can't do any less, so I creep my head over the rim and force my eyelids apart.

Looking west, the ocean is a vast carpet stretching to a far horizon. Pale colors dominate where the sea covers only a few cables' depth of continental shelf. But a band of dark blue-gray tells of a canyon, stabbing our way from the giant planetary scar called the Midden. That deep-deep gorge pa.s.ses almost directly under our aerie, then drives on farther east, splitting the land like a crack in the clinker boards of a doomed ship. The far sh.o.r.e is just a hundred or so arrowflights away, but rows of razor-sharp crags and near-bottomless ravines parallel the Rift, making it a daunting barrier for anyone wishing to defy the Law.

I'm no scientist; regrettably, I don't have the mind for it. But even I can tell the jagged spires must be new, or else wind and surf and rain would've worn them down by now. Like Mount Guenn, this is a place where Jijo is actively renewing itself. (We felt two small quakes since setting up camp here.) No wonder some think Terminus Rock a sacred spot.

The surf is a crashing, spuming show elsewhere, but here the sea settles down mysteriously-gla.s.sy smooth. A slight out-tow draws gently away from the cliff. Ideal conditions for our experiment-//"they're reliable. No one ever thought to make soundings in the Rift before, since no dross ships ever come this way.

Wuphon's Dream drops lower, like a spiderfly trailing twin filaments behind her. It gets hard to tell exactly how far she is from the surface. Huck's eyestalks are spread as far apart as possible, trying to maximize depth perception. She murmurs.

"Okay, here we go, into the drink . . . now"

I hold my breath, but nothing happens. The big drums keep feeding out cable and hose. The bathy gets smaller.

"Now!" Huck repeats.

Another dura pa.s.ses, and Wuphon's Dream is still dry.

"Sure is a long way down-own-own," Pincer stutters.

"You can say that again," adds Ur-ronn, stamping nervously.

"But please don't," Huck snaps, showing pique. Then in GalSix- "Reality merges with expectation when-"

It serves her right-a splash cuts Off whatever deep insight she was about to share. The big drums' song slows and deepens as I stare across the vast, wet stillness where the Dream vanished.

roomble-doom-doomble-oom-roomble-doom-doom-ble . . .

It sounds like the world's biggest hoon. One who never has to take a break or a breath. Based on that umble, the big derrick would've won the t.i.tle of Honorary Captain of the South if it came to a vote then and there.

Huphu is all the way out at the end of the deployer crane, back arched with pleasure. Meanwhile, someone counts off.

"One cable, forty . . .

"One cable, sixty . . .

"One cable, eighty ...

"Two cables!

"Two cables, twenty . . ."

The chant reminds me of Mark Twain's tales of river pilots on the romantic Mississippi, especially one scene with a big black man-human up at the bow of the Delta Princess, swinging a weight on a line, calling out shoals in a treacherous fog, saving the lives of everyone aboard.

I'm an ocean hoon. My people sail ships, not sissy boats. Still, those were among my father's favorite tales. And Huck's too, back when she was a little orphan, toddling around on her pusher legs, four eyes staring in lost wonder as Dad recited tales set on a wolfling world that never knew the stifling wisdom of Galactic ways. A world where ignorance wasn't exactly n.o.ble, but had one virtue-it gave you a chance to see and learn and do things no one else had ever seen or learned or done before.

Humans got to do that back on Earth.

And now we're doing it here!

Before I even know I'm doing it, I sit up on my double-fold haunches, rock my head back, and belt out an umble of joy. A mighty, rolling hoot. It resounds across the mesa, strokes the grumbling equipment, and floats over the serrated stones of the Great Rift.

For all I know, it's floating out there still.

Sunshine spills across calm waters at least twenty cables deep. We imagine Wuphon's Dream, drifting ever downward, first through a cloud of bubbles, then a swollen wake of silence as the light from above grows dimmer and finally fails completely.

"Six cables, sixty ...

"Six cables, eighty . . .

"Seven cables!"

When we go down, this is where we'll turn on the eik lights and use the acid battery to send sparks up the hawser, telling those above that all is well. But Ziz has no lights, or any way to signal. The little stack is all alone down there-though I guess no traeki ever feels entirely lonely. Not when its rings can argue endlessly among themselves.

"Eight cables!"

Someone brings a jar of wine for me and some warm simla blood for Ur-ronn. Huck sips pungent galook-ade from a long curvy straw, while Pincer sprays his back with salt water.

"Nine cables!"

This experiment's only supposed to go to ten, so they begin gently increasing pressure on the brake. Soon they'll reverse the drums to bring Wuphon's Dream back to the world of air and light.

Then it happens-a sudden tw.a.n.g, like a plucked vio-lus string, loud as thunder.

The deployer chief cries- "Release the brake!"

An operator leaps for a lever . . . too late as bucking convulsions. .h.i.t the derrick, like backlash on a fishing pole when a big one gets away. Only this recoil is ma.s.sive, unstoppable.

We all gasp or vurt at the sight of Huphu, a small black figure clinging to the farthest spar as the crane whips back and forth.

One paw, then another, loses its grip. She screams.

The tiny noor goes spinning across s.p.a.ce, barely missing the hawser's cyclone whirl amid a frothing patch of sea. Staring in helpless dismay, we see our mascot plunge into the abyss that already swallowed Ziz, Wuphon's Dream, and all the hopes and hard work of two long years.

XVI. THE BOOK OF THE SLOPE.

Legends The urs tell of a crisis of breeding.

Out among the stars, they were said to live longer than they do on Jijo, with spans much enhanced by artificial means. Moreover, an urs never stops wanting a full pouch, tenanted either with a husband or with brooding young. There were technical ways to duplicate the feeling, but to many, these methods just weren't the same.

Galactic society is harsh on over-breeders, who threaten the billion-year-old balance. There is constant dread of another wildfire-a conflagration of overpopulation, like one that burned almost half the worlds in Galaxy Three, a hundred or so million years ago.

Especially, those species who reproduce slowly, like hoon, seem to have a deep-set fear of "low-K" sp.a.w.ners, like urs.

Legend tells of a conflict over this matter. Reading between the lines of ornate urrish oral history, it seems the bards must be telling of a lawsuit-one judged at the higher levels of Galactic society.

The urs lost the suit, and a bitter war-of-enforcement that followed.

Some of the losers did not wish to settle, even then. They turned one ship toward forbidden s.p.a.ces, there to search for a wild prairie they could call home.

A place to hear the c.l.i.tter-clatter of myriad little urrish feet.

Asx A STRANGE MESSAGE HAS COME ALL THE WAY from Tarek Town, sent by Ariana Foo, emeritus High Sage of human sept.

The exhausted urrish runner collapsed to her knees after dashing uphill from the Warril Plain, so spent that she actually craved water, raw and undiluted.

Center now, my rings. Spin your ever-wavering attention round the tale of Ariana Foo, as it was read aloud by Lester Cambel, her successor. Did not the news send vaporous wonder roiling through my/our core-that a mysterious injured outlander showed up one day near the Upper Roney? A stranger who might possibly be some lost comrade of the star-G.o.d visitors who now vex our shared exile! Or else, she speculates, might he be one who escaped these far-raiding adventurers? Could his wounds show evidence of shared enmity?

Ariana recommends we of the Council cautiously investigate the matter at our end, perhaps using truth-scryers, while she performs further experiments at Biblos., The forayers do seem to have other interests, beyond seeking pre-sentient species to ravish from Jijo's fallow peace. They feign nonchalance, yet relentlessly query our folk, offering rewards and blandishments for reports of "anything strange."

How ironic those words, coming from them.

Then there is the bird.

Surely you recall the metal bird, my rings? Normally, we would have taken it for yet another Buyur relic, salvaged from the entrails of a dead-dying mule-spider. Yet the sooner girl swears she saw it move! Saw it travel great distances, then fight and kill a Rothen machine!

Was that not the very evening the forayers buried their station, as though they were now fearful of the dread sky?

Our finest techies examine the bird-machine, but with scant tools available they learn little, save that energies still throb within its metal breast. Perhaps the contingent Lester has sent east-to ingather the human sooner band according to our law-will find out more.

So many questions. But even with answers, would our dire situation change in the least?

Were there time, i would set my/our varied rings the task of taking up different sides and arguing these mysteries, each question pouring distinct scents to coat our moist core, dripping syllogisms like wax, until only truth shines through a lacquered veneer. But there is no time for the traeki approach to problem solving. So we sages debate in the dry air, without even rewq to mediate the inadequacies of language. Each day is spent buying futile delays in our destiny.

As for Ariana's other suggestion, we have employed truth-scryers during discussions with the sky-humans. According to books of lore, this pa.s.sive form of psi should be less noticeable than other techniques.

"Are you seeking anybody in particular? This we asked, just yesterday. Is there a person, being, or group we should look for in your name?"

Their leader-the one answering to the name-label Rann-seemed to grow tense, then recovered swiftly, confidently, smiling in the manner of his kind.

"It is always our desire to seek strangeness. Have you observed strange things?"

In that moment of revealed strain, one of our scryers claimed to catch something-a brief flash of color. A dark shade of gray, like the hue of a Great Qheuen's carapace. Only this surface seemed more supple, with a lissome litheness that undulated nimbly, free of adornment by hair, scale, feather, or torg.

The glimpse ended quickly. Still the scryer felt an a.s.sociation-with water.

What else did she describe, my rings, during that scant fey moment?

Ah, yes. A swirl of bubbles.

Scattered in formations, numerous as stars.

Bubbles growing into globes the size of Jijo's moons. Glistening. Ancient. Ageless.

Bubbles filled with distilled wonder . . . sealed in by time.

Then nothing more.

Well and alas, what more could be asked? What are we but amateurs at this kind of game? Phwhoon-dau and Knife-Bright Insight point out that even this slim "clue" might have been laid, adroitly, in the scryer's thoughts, in order to distract us with a paradox.

Yet at times like these, when our rewq and the Holy Egg seem to have abandoned us, it is such slender stems that offer wan hope to the drowning.

In her message, Ariana promised to send another kind of help. An expert whose skill may win us leverage with our foes, perhaps enough to make the invaders willing to bargain.

Oh, Ariana, how we/i have missed your wily optimism! If fire fell from heaven, you would see a chance to bake pots. If the entire Slope shuddered, then sank into the Midden's awful depths, you would find in that event cause to cry out-opportunity!

Sara DESPITE URGENT ORDERS TO HIDE BY DAY, THE steamship Gopher broke her old record, bolting upstream from Tarek Town, against the Bibur's springtime flood, boilers groaning as pistons beat their casings, an exuberance of power unsurpa.s.sed by anything else on Jijo, save her sister ship, the Mole. Mighty emblems of human technology, they were unapproachable even by clever urrish smiths, laboring on high volcanoes.

Sara recalled her own first ride, at age fifteen, newly recruited to attend advanced studies in Biblos and fiercely proud of her new skills-especially the knack of seeing each clank and chug of the growling steam engine in terms of temperatures, pressures, and pounds of force. Equations seemed to tame the hissing brute, turning its dismaying roar into a kind of music.

Now all that was spoiled. The riveted tanks and pulsing rocker-arms were exposed as primitive gadgets, little more advanced than a stone ax.

Even if the star-G.o.ds leave without doing any of the awful things Ariana Foo predicts, they have already harmed us by robbing us of our illusions.

One person didn't seem to mind. The Stranger lingered near the puffing, straining machinery, peering under the rockers, insisting with gestures that the engine chief open the gear box and let him look inside. At first, the human crew members had been wary of his antics; but soon, despite his mute incapacity with words, they sensed a kindred spirit.

You can explain a lot with hand motions, Sara noted. Another case of language adapting to needs of the moment-much as each wave of Jijoan colonists helped reshape the formal Galactic tongues they had known, culminating when humans introduced half a million texts printed mostly in Anglic, a language seemingly built out of chaos, filled with slang, jargon, puns, and ambiguity.

It was a warped mirror image of what had happened back on Earth, where billion-year-old grammars were pushing human culture toward order. In both cases the driving force was a near monopoly on knowledge.

That was the obvious irony. But Sara knew another- her unusual theory about language and the Six-so heretical, it made Lark's views seem downright orthodox.

Maybe it is past time I came back to Biblos, to report on my work . . . and to confront everything I'm afraid of- The Stranger seemed happy, engrossed with his fellow engineers and closely observed by Ariana Foo from her wheelchair. So Sara left the noisy engine area, moving toward the ship's bow, where a thick mist was cleaved by the Gopher's headlong rush. Tattered breaks in the fog showed dawn brightening the Rimmer peaks, south and east, where the fate of the Six would be decided.

Won't Lark and Dwer be surprised to see me!

Oh, they'II probably yell that I should have stayed safe at home. I'll answer that I have a job to do, just as important as theirs, and they shouldn't be such gender-menders. And we'll all try hard not to show how happy we are to see each other.

But first, Sage Foo wanted this side trip to check her notion about the Stranger, despite Sara's instinct to protect the wounded man from further meddling.

Those instincts have caused me enough trouble. Is it not time to temper them with reason?

One ancient text called it "nurturing mania," and it might have seemed cute when she was a child, nursing hurt creatures of the forest. Perhaps it would have posed no problem, if she followed the normal life path of Jijoan women, with children and a fatigued farmer-husband tugging at her, demanding attention. What need, then, to sublimate maternal instincts? What time for other interests, without all the labor-saving tools tantalizingly described in Terran lore? Plain as she was, Sara felt certain she would have been successful at such a modest life and made some simple, honest man happy.

If a simple life was what I wanted.

Sara tried to shrug the wave of introspection. The cause of her funk was obvious.

Biblos. Center of human hopes and fears, focus of power, pride, and shame, the place where she once found love-or its illusion-and lost it. Where the prospect of a "second chance" drove her off in panicked flight. Nowhere else had she felt such swings of elation and claustrophobia, hope and fear.

Will it still be standing when we round the final bend?