Other groups would come this way during festival, seeking harmony patterns. But this company was different-its mission more grave.

Shapes loomed at them. Gnarled, misgrown trees spread twisted arms, like clutching specters. Oily vapors merged and sublimed. The trail turned sharply to avoid dark cavities, apparently bottomless, echoing mysteriously. k.n.o.bs of wind-scoured rock teased form-hungry agents of the mind, stoking the wanderers' nervous antic.i.p.ation. Would the next twisty switchback, or the next, bring it into sight-Jijo's revered Mother Egg?

Whatever organic quirks they inherited, from six worlds in four different galaxies, each traveler felt the same throbbing call toward oneness. Lark paced his footsteps to a rhythm conveyed by the rewq on his brow.

I've been up this path a dozen times. It should be familiar by now. So why can't I respond?

He tried letting the rewq lay its motif of color and sound over the real world. Feet shuffled. Hooves clattered. Ring nubs swiveled and wheels creaked along a dusty trail pounded so smooth by past pilgrims that one might guess this ritual stretched back to the earliest days of exile, not a mere hundred or so years.

Where did earlier folk turn, when they needed hope?

Lark's brother, the renowned hunter, once took him by a secret way up a nearby mountain, where the Egg could be seen from above, squatting in its caldera like the brood of a storybook dragon, lain in a sheer-sided nest. From that distant perspective, it might have been some ancient Buyur monument, or a remnant of some older denizens of Jijo, aeons earlier-a cryptic sentinel, darkly impervious to time.

With the blink of an eye, it became a grounded star-ship-an oblate lens meant to glide through air and ether. Or a fortress, built of some adamantine essence, light-drinking, refractory, denser than a neutron star. Lark even briefly pictured the sh.e.l.l of some t.i.tanic being, too patient or proud to rouse itself over the attentions of mayflies.

It had been disturbing, forcing him to rethink his image of the sacred. That epiphany still clung to Lark. Or else it was a case of jitters over the speech he was supposed to give soon to a band of fierce believers. A sermon calling for extreme sacrifice.

The trail turned-and abruptly spilled into a sheer-walled canyon surrounding a giant oval form, a curved shape that reared fantastically before the pilgrims, two arrowflights from end to end. The pebbled surface curved up and over those gathered in awe at its base. Staring upward, Lark knew.

It couldn't be any of those other things I imagined from afar.

Up close, underneath its ma.s.sive sheltering bulk, anyone could tell the Egg was made of native stone.

Marks of Jijo's fiery womb scored its flanks, tracing the story of its birth, starting with a violent conception, far underground. Layered patterns were like muscular cords. Crystal veins wove subtle dendrite paths, branching like nerves.

Travelers filed slowly under the convex overhang, to let the Egg sense their presence, and perhaps grant a blessing. Where the immense monolith pressed into black basalt, the sixty began a circuit. But while Lark's sandals sc.r.a.ped gritty powder, chafing his toes, the peacefulness and awe of the moment were partly spoiled by memory.

Once, as an arrogant boy of ten, an idea took root in his head-to sneak behind the Egg and take a sample.

It all began one jubilee year, when Nelo the Papermaker set out for Gathering to attend a meeting of his guild, and his wife, Melina the Southerner, insisted on taking Lark and little Sara along.

"Before they spend their lives working away at your paper mill, they should see some of the world."

How Nelo must have later cursed his consent, for the trip changed Lark and his sister.

All during the journey, Melina kept opening a book recently published by the master printers of Tarek Town, forcing her husband to pause, tapping his cane while she read aloud in her lilting southern accent, describing varieties of plant, animal, or mineral they encountered along the path. At the time, Lark didn't know how many generations had toiled to create the guidebook, collating oral lore from every exile race. Nelo thought it a fine job of printing and binding, a good use of paper, or else he would have forbidden exposing the children to ill-made goods.

Melina made it a game, a.s.sociating real things with their depictions among the ink lithographs. What might have been a tedious trip for two youngsters became an adventure outshadowing Gathering itself, so that by the time they arrived, footsore and tired, Lark was already in love with the world.

The same book, now yellow, worn, and obsolete thanks to Lark's own labors, rested like a talisman in one cloak-sleeve. The optimistic part of my nature. The part that thinks it can learn.

As the file of pilgrims neared the Egg's far side, he slipped.a hand into his robe to touch his other amulet. The one he never showed even Sara. A stone no larger than his thumb, wrapped by a leather thong. It always felt warm, after resting for twenty years next to a beating heart.

My darker side. The part that already knows.

The stone felt hot as pilgrims filed by a place Lark recalled too well.

It was at his third Gathering that he finally had screwed up the nerve-a patrician artisan's son who fancied himself a scientist-slinking away from the flapping pavilions, ducking in caves to elude pa.s.sing pilgrims, then dashing under the curved shelf, where only a child's nimble form might go, drawing back his sampling hammer. ...

In all the years since, no one ever mentioned the scar, evidence of his sacrilege. It shouldn't be noticeable among countless other scratches marring the surface up close. Yet even a drifting mist didn't hide the spot when Lark filed by.

Should he still be embarra.s.sed by a child's offense, after all these years?

Knowing he was forgiven did not erase the shame.

The stone grew cooler, less restive, as the procession moved past.

Could it all be illusion? Some natural phenomenon, familiar to sophisticates of the Five Galaxies? (Though toweringly impressive to primitives hiding on a forbidden world.) Rewq symbionts also came into widespread use a century ago, offering precious insight into the moods of other beings. Had the Egg brought them forth, as some said, to help heal the Six of war and discord? Or were they just another quirky marvel left by Buyur gene-wizards, from back when this galaxy thronged with countless alien races?

After poring through the Biblos archives, Lark knew his confusion was typical when humans puzzled over the sacred. Even the great Galactics, whose knowledge spanned time and s.p.a.ce, were riven by clashing dogmas. If mighty star-G.o.ds could be perplexed, what chance had he of certainty?

There's one thing both sides of me can agree on.

In both his scientific work and the pangs of his heart, Lark knew one simple truth-We don't belong here.

That was what he told the pilgrims later, in a rustic amphitheater, where the rising sun surrounded the Egg's oblate bulk with a numinous glow. They gathered in rows, sitting, squatting, or folding their varied torsos in attentive postures. The qheuen apostate, Harullen, spoke first in a poetic dialect, hissing from several leg vents, invoking wisdom to serve this world that was their home, source of all their atoms. Then Harullen tilted his gray carapace to introduce Lark. Most had come a long way to hear his heresy.

"We're told our ancestors were criminals," he began with a strong voice, belying his inner tension. "Their sneakships came to Jijo, one at a time, running the patrols of the great Inst.i.tutes, evading wary deputy globes of the Zang, hiding their tracks in the flux of mighty Izmunuti, whose carbon wind began masking this world a few thousand years ago. They came seeking a quiet place to perform a selfish felony.

"Each founding crew had excuses. Tales of persecution or neglect. All burned and sank their ships, threw their G.o.dlike tools into the Great Midden, and warned their offspring to beware the sky.

"From the sky would come judgment, someday-for the crime of survival."

The sun crept past the Egg's bulk, stabbing a corner of his eye. He escaped by leaning toward his audience.

"Our ancestors invaded a world that was set aside after ages of hard use. A world needing time for its many species, both native and artificial, to find restored balance, from which new wonders might emerge. The civilization of the Five Galaxies has used these rules to protect life since before half of the stars we see came alight.

"So why did our ancestors flout them?"

Each g'Kek pilgrim watched him with two eyestalks raised far apart and the other two tucked away, a sign of intense interest. The typical urrish listener pointed her narrow head not toward Lark's face but his midriff, to keep his center of ma.s.s in view of all three black slits surrounding her narrow snout. Lark's rewq highlighted these signs, and others from hoon, traeki, and qheuen.

They're with me so far, he saw.

"Oh, our ancestors tried to minimize the harm. Our settlements lie in this narrow, geologically violent zone, in hopes that volcanoes will someday cover our works, leaving no evidence behind. The sages choose what we may kill and eat, and where to build, in order to intrude lightly on Jijo's rest.

"Still, who can deny harm is done, each hour we live here. Now rantanoids go extinct. Is it our fault? Who knows? I doubt even the Holy Egg can tell."

A murmur from the crowd. Colors flowed in the rewq veil over his eyes. Some literalistic hoon thought he went too far. Others, like the g'Kek, were more comfortable with metaphor.

Let their rewq handle the nuances, Lark thought. Concentrate on the message itself.

"Our ancestors pa.s.sed on excuses, warnings, rules. They spoke of tradeoffs, and the Path of Redemption. But I'm here to say that none of it is any good. It's time to end the farce, to face the truth.

"Our generation must choose.

"We must choose to be the last of our kind on Jijo."

The journey back skirted dark caves, exhaling glistening vapors. Now and then, some deep natural detonation sent echoes rolling from one opening, then another, like a rumor that dwindled with each retelling.

Rolling downhill was easier for the g'Keks. But several traeki, built for life in swampy fens, chuffed with exertion as they twisted and turned, striving to keep up. In order to ease the journey, hoonish pilgrims rumbled low atonal music, as they often did at sea. Most pilgrims no longer wore their exhausted rewq. Each mind dwelled alone, in its own thoughts.

Legend says it's different among machine intelligences, or the Zang. Group minds don't bother with persuasion. They just put their heads together, unify, and decide.

It wouldn't be that easy convincing the common citizenry of the Six to go along with the new heresy. Deep instincts drove each race to reproduce as best it could. Ambition for the future was a natural trait for people like his father.

But not here, not on this world.

Lark felt encouraged by this morning's meeting. We'll convince a few this year. Then more. First we'll be tolerated, later opposed.. In the long run, it must be done without violence, by consensus.

Around noon, a mutter of voices carried up the trail- the day's first regular pilgrims, making an outward show of reverence while still chattering about the pleasures of Gathering. Lark sighted white-robed figures beyond some vapor fumaroles. The leaders called greetings to Lark's group, already returning from devotions, and began shuffling aside to give up right of way.

A crack of thunder struck as the two parties pa.s.sed alongside, slamming their bodies together and flapping their robes. Hoons crouched, covering their ears, and g'Kek eyestalks -recoiled. One poor qheuen skittered over the edge, clutching a gnarled tree with a single, desperate claw.

Lark's first thought was of another gas discharge.

When the ground shook, he pondered an eruption.

He would later learn that the noise came not from Jijo, but the sky. It was the sound of fate arriving, and the world he knew coming abruptly to an end, before he ever expected it.

Asx THOSE WITHIN THE STARSHIP INDUCED A SMALL opening in its gleaming side. Through this portal they sent an emissary, unlike anything the Commons had seen in living memory.

A robot!

my/our ring-of-a.s.sociations had to access one of its myriad moist storage glands in order to place its contours, recalling an ill.u.s.tration -we/i once perused in a human book.

Which book? Ah, thank you my self. Jane's Survey of Basic Galactic Tools. One of the rarest surviving fruits of the Great Printing.

Exactly as depicted in that ancient diagram, this floating mechanism was a black, octagonal slab, about the size of a young qheuen, hovering above the ground at about the level of my ring-of-vision, with various gleaming implements projecting above or hanging below. From the moment the hatch closed behind it, the robot ignored every earthly contour, leaving a trail where gra.s.s, pebbles, and loam were pressed flat by unseen heaviness.

Wherever it approached, folk quailed back. Just one group of beings kept still, awaiting the creature of not-flesh. We sages. Responsibility was our cruel mooring, so adamant that even my basal segment stayed rigid, though it pulsed with craven need to flee. The robot-or its masters in the ship-thus knew who had the right/ duty to parlay. It hesitated in front of Vubben, appearing to contemplate our eldest sage for five or six duras, perhaps sensing the reverence we all hold for the wisest of the g'Kek. Then it backed away to confront us all.

i/we watched in mystified awe. After all, this was a thing, like a hoonish riverboat or some dead tool left by the vanished Buyur. Only the tools we make do not fly, and Buyur remnants show no further interest in doing so.

This thing not only moved, it spoke, commencing first with a repeat of the earlier message.

"Surveying (local, unique) lifeforms, in this we seek your (gracious) help.

"Knowledge of the (local) biosphere, this you (a.s.suredly) have.

"Tools and (useful) arts, these we offer in trade.

"Confidentiality, shall we (mutually) exchange?"

Our rewq were useless-shriveling away from the intense flux of our distress. We sages nonetheless held conference. By agreement, Vubben rolled forward, his roller-wheels squeaking with age. In a show of discipline, all eyestalks turned toward the alien device, though surely oversurfeited with its frightening stimulus.

"Poor castaways, are we, "he commenced reciting, in the syncopated pops and clicks of formal Galactic Two. Although our urrish cousins find that language easiest and use it among themselves, all conceded that Vubben, the g'Kek, was peerless in his mastery of the grammar.

Especially when it came to telling necessary lies.

"Poor castaways, ignorant and stranded.

"Delighted are we. Ecstatic at this wondrous thing.

"Advent of rescue!"

Sara SOME DISTANCE BELOW DOLO VILLAGE, THE river felt its way through a great marsh where even hoon sailors were known to lose the main channel, snagging on tree roots or coming aground on shifting sandbars. Normally, the brawny, patient crew of the dross-hauler Hauph-woa would count on wind and the river's rhythmic rise-and-fall to help them slip free. But these weren't normal times. So they folded their green cloaks-revealing anxious mottles across their lumpy backbone ridges-and pushed the Hauph-woa along with poles made of lesser-boo. Even pa.s.sengers had to a.s.sist, now and then, to keep the muddy bottom from seizing the keel and holding them fast. The uneasy mood affected the ship's contingent of flighty noor, who barked nervously, scampering across the masts, missing commands and dropping lines.

Finally, just before nightfall, the captain-pilot guided the Hauph-woa's ornate prow past one last fen of droopy tallgra.s.s to Unity Point, where the river's branches reconverged into an even mightier whole. The garu forest resumed, spreading a welcome sheltering canopy over both banks. After such an arduous day, the air seemed all at once to release pa.s.sengers and crew from its moist clench. A cool breeze stroked skin, scale, and hide, while sleek noor sprang overboard to splash alongside the gently gliding hull, then clambered the masts and spars to stretch and preen.

Sara thanked Prity when her a.s.sistant brought supper in a wooden bowl, then the chimp took her own meal to the side, in order to flick overboard the spicy greens that hoon chefs loved slicing into nearly everything they cooked. A trail of bubbles showed that river creatures, feeding on the sc.r.a.ps, weren't so finicky. Sara didn't mind the tangy taste, though most Earthlings wound up defecating bright colors after too many days of shipboard fare.

When Prity later brought a pair of blankets, Sara chose the plushest to tuck over the Stranger, sleeping near the main hold with its neatly stacked crates of dross. His brow bore a sheen of perspiration, which she wiped with a dry cloth. Since early yesterday, he had shown none of the lucidity so briefly displayed when the ill-omened bolide split the sky.

Sara had misgivings about hauling the wounded man on a hurried, stressful trek. Still, there was a good clinic in Tarek Town. And this way she might keep an eye on him while performing her other duty-one rudely dropped in her lap last night, after that frenzied conclave in the Meeting Tree.

Pzora stood nearby, a dark tower, dormant but ever-vigilant over the patient's condition. The pharmacist vented steamy puffs from the specialized ring that routinely performed ad hoc chemistry beyond the understanding of Jijo's best scholars or even the traeki themselves.

Wrapping her shoulders in another soft g'Kek-spun blanket, Sara turned and watched her fellow pa.s.sengers.

Jomah, the young son of Henrik, the exploser, lay curled nearby, snoring softly after the excitement of leaving home for the first time. Closer to the mast sat Jop, the bristle-cheeked delegate of Dolo's farmers and crofters, peering in the half-light at a leather-bound copy of some Scroll. Over by the starboard rail, Ulgor, the urrish tinker who had spoken at the village meeting, knelt facing a qheuenish woodcarver named Blade, one of many sons of the matriarch, Log Biter. Blade had lived for years among the sophisticated Gray Qheuens of Tarek Town, so his choice as representative of Dolo Hive seemed natural.

From a moss-lined pouch, Ulgor drew a quivering rewq symbiont, of the type suited for lean urrish heads. The trembling membrane crawled over each of her triple eyes, creating the Mask-That-Reveals. Meanwhile, Blade's rewq wrapped itself around the seeing-strip bisecting his melonlike cupola. The qheuen's legs retracted, leaving only the armored claws exposed.

The pair conversed in a b.a.s.t.a.r.d dialect of Galactic Two, at best a difficult tongue for humans. Moreover, the breeze carried off the treble whistle-tones, leaving just the lower track of syncopated clicks. Perhaps for those reasons the two travelers seemed unconcerned anyone might listen.

Maybe, as often happened, they underrated the reach of human hearing.

Or else they're counting on something called common courtesy, she thought ironically. Lately Sara had become quite an eavesdropper, an unlikely habit for a normally shy, private young woman. Her recent fascination with language was the cause. This time though, fatigue overcame curiosity.

Leave them alone. You 'II have plenty of chances to study dialects in Tarek Town.

Sara took her blanket over to a spot between two crates marked with Nelo's seal, exuding the homey scents of Dolo's paper mill. There had been little time for rest since that frenetic town meeting. Only a few miduras after adjournment, the village elders had sent a herald to wake Sara with this a.s.signment-to lead a delegation downriver in search of answers and guidance. She was chosen both as one with intimate knowledge of Biblos and also to represent the Dolo craft workers-as Jop would speak for the farmers, and Blade for the upriver qheuens. Other envoys included Ulgor, Pzora, and Fakoon, a g'Kek scriven-dancer. Since each was already billeted aboard the Hauph-woa, with business in Tarek Town, they could hardly refuse. Together with the ship's captain, that made at least one representative from all Six exile races. A good omen, the elders hoped.

Sara still wondered about Jomah. Why would Henrik dispatch the boy on a trip that promised danger, even in quiet times?

"He will know what to do, " the taciturn exploser had said, putting his son in Sara's nominal care. "Once you reach Tarek Town."

If only I could say as much for myself, Sara worried. It had been impossible to turn down this a.s.signment, much as she wanted to.

It's been a year since Joshu died-since shame and grief made a hermit of you. Besides, who is going to care that you made a fool of yourself over a man who could never be yours? That all seems a small matter, now that the world we know is coming to an end.

Alone in the dark, Sara worried.

Are Diver and Lark safe? Or has something dreadful already happened at Gathering?

She felt Prity curl up alongside in her own blanket, sharing warmth. The hoonish helmsman rumbled a crooning melody, with no words in any language Sara knew, yet conveying a sense of muzzy serenity, endlessly forbearing.

Things work out, the hoonish umble seemed to say.