BLOOM
I
The city of Voosla was allegedly approaching her landfall, but Awb could scarcely credit it. There was too much dark on the horizon.
Wherever there was habitable ground there were people, and even more than food-crops the folk cultivated plants which, after sundown, either glowed of their own accord or gave back the light they had basked in earlier. Troqs who had taken to caves for refuge in desert regions where houses would not grow, squimaqs who eked out their existence around the poles where darkness could last for half a year-they knew that trying to manage without luminants was to risk being driven into dreamness as certainly as by starvation, if not so quickly.
And indeed, throughout the voyage until now, there had always been distant glimmerings: nothing like as bright, of course, as the lights of the city, but discernible with even a crude telescope like Awb's, which he had made himself and was very proud of. Thilling the picturist had ceded him a couple of lenses too worn for fixing perfect images, and fitted into a tube they afforded a view of the strange northern coasts they were paralleling.
However, they also showed, much too plainly for comfort, that blank gap on the edge of an otherwise populous continent. There was something so eerie about it that it made his weather-sense queasy. He found himself longing for the familiar scenery of the tropics which, since his budding, the city had never previously left.
To think that one new moon ago he had been beside himself with excitement at the prospect of this journey to the intended site of the World Observatory...!
Swarming along the branchways in search of distraction, he shortly discovered that a crowd had gathered on the lookout platform at the prow, including most of the delegation from the University of Chisp. Their chief, Scholar Drotninch, was conferring with Mayor Axwep.
Awb also found it disturbing to have so many foreigners traveling with them. Voosla was by no means a large city, and he knew all her inhabitants at least by sight. Before this trip he had been used to meeting strangers, if at all, by ones and twos, not scores together. Still, the scientists were polite enough, and some-like Thilling-were positively friendly, so he decided to chance a rebuff and draw close enough to overhear.
And was considerably reassured by an exchange indicating that he was not alone in worrying about this unnaturally lightless shore.
“Amazing, isn't it?”-from Drotninch. “Last time I came up here, this was the brightest spot for padlonglaqs.”
To which Axwep: “The city's growing fractious, as though she senses something amiss. Could be a taint in the water; we're well into the estuarial zone. I'd be inclined to hold off until sunrise. It won't mean too much of a delay, and it'll give us a chance to feed and rest the musculators. I can send a pitchen ahead to explain why we aren't landing at once.”
Drotninch pondered, and one could almost scent her indecision... but, like most landlivers nowadays, she coated her torso with neutralizing perfumes. It had become a mark of good manners, and those-as Awb knew from his few visits to shore-were far from a luxury in the overcrowded conditions of a fixed city. Life at sea, in his view, was superior; if Axwep noted an accumulation of combat-stink she needed only to consult her weather-sense about what course to set and let a fresh breeze calm things down.
Finally the scholar signed agreement, and Axwep issued the necessary orders. The group dispersed, some to tend the musculators, others to prepare the pitchen. Slowly, owing to her colossal bulk, the city ceased to thrash the water. The group of interlinked junqs around which she was built exuded relief, for even in calm weather they disliked being brought near land, perhaps owing to some ancestral fear of being stranded on a beach or dashed against rocks. Not, naturally, that they could do anything against the resistless force of the musculators.
When it was uncaged the pitchen seemed equally unhappy, as though it too were alarmed by the dark shore, but that was fanciful nonsense, since it did not depend on sight-indeed it possessed no eye, and reacted solely to magnetic fields, like the ancient northfinders which had died off during the Northern Freeze. When it was dropped overside with Axwep's message tied to its claws, it set out obediently enough for the place it had been conditioned to regard as home, leaving patches of phosphorescence to mark each of its leaps. Watching it go, Awb reflected what a benefit its kind had proved to be, especially since they had been modified to follow canals and winding inland channels as well as pursuing a direct course across open water. He wished he knew who had been the first to domesticate pitchens, but during the Age of Multiplication people had been much more concerned with staying alive and sane than with keeping records of who invented what.
“That's much better!” said a she'un's voice behind him, and he lowered reflexively as Thilling swarmed down an adjacent branchway with, as ever, her image-fixer at the ready. “Maybe now I'll get the chance to cut a few new lenses! I've lost count of how many got spoiled when a wave disturbed me while I was trimming them, and I do so want to catch everything that happens when we go ashore... And what's wrong with you, young'un? You seem worried.”
“I never saw a coast so dark before!” Awb blurted.
“Hmm! I did! Once I was sent to cover an epidemic on Blotherotch- went in with a medical team looking for the causative organism, assigned to picture the victims for future reference. Some of the folk there had turned so dreamish, they imagined they could prolong their lives by eating luminants, and they'd absolutely stripped the area. It was ghastly. Still, we got away safely, and now we're all immune against that disease. On the other claw...”
She hesitated. Greatly daring, he prompted her.
“Oh, I was only going to say: we've discovered cures for so many disorders including infertility, it seems incredible there should be a brand-new one, least of all one that can afflict an entire countryside- people and animals and plants as well!”
“Is that really what we can look forward to finding?”
“You're asking me? I never set pad here, haven't even had a sight of the nervograp messages that got through before the link failed. Phrallet must know more about those than I do; doesn't she tell you anything?”
“As little as possible,” Awb muttered. He was always embarrassed when someone mentioned his budder, who flaunted her five bud-scars in a manner most people regarded as indecent and seemed to think that because Axwep only had four she had the better claim to be Voosla's mayor.
“Well, you should pester her more,” Thilling said, loading a sensitive sheet into her fixer. As much to herself as him, she added, “I wish I'd had tune to graft a new lens on this thing, because I'm sure there's a saltwater blister somewhere, but with dawn so close I'll have to make do... Keep your eye skinned, young'un. If what I've been told is reliable, we should be in for a treat. Look yonder, where I'm pointing.”
Awb complied, but still all he could make out, even with his telescope, was a vague patch of black-on-blacker. In the south-east the first hint of dawn was coloring the air, not nearly enough as yet to dun the Arc of Heaven, let alone the Major Cluster. There was a bank of dense cloud to the north, veiling any aurora there might be, and that surprised him, for visibility in this region was reputed the best in the hemisphere; why else choose it for the World Observatory?
On the other claw, no place on the planet was immune from what happened next. A streak of yellow light slashed out of the east, and at its tip a fireball exploded, scattering trails of luminance across a quarter of the welkin. Caught by surprise, Thilling uttered a curse.
“That's spoiled my leaf good and proper! Young'un, keep looking, and warn me if I'm apt to miss anything!”
Hastily she threw away the sheet she had been mounting in the fixer, and peeled another from the stack.
By this time Awb was beginning to guess at what she meant. The flash of the meteor had revealed something outlined against the northern clouds. He had had too brief a glimpse to make out details, but there was only one thing it could be: Fangsharp Peak, on top of which the observatory was being grown. Of course, since it was so much higher than the surrounding land, it was bound to catch the sun's rays first. So-
“Quick!” he cried, suddenly aware that all about them the branchways were alive with folk scrambling to seek a vantage point and watch the unique spectacle. Barely in time Thilling leveled her fixer.
The sky grew brighter, though the land and sea remained virtually featureless. The world paused in expectation. And there it came!
On the very crest of the mountain, so high above them that it looked as though a huge and jagged rock were floating in mid-air, a single shaft of sunlight rested.
It was the most awe-inspiring event that Awb had ever seen. Without intention, he found himself counting his own pulsations to find out how long the sight would last: three, four, five, six-
It was over, and the sky was turning daytime blue, and he could see the whole mountain. Its flanks were scarred where the natural vegetation had been stripped away in favor of what would be needed to support the observatory. Guide-cables for construction floaters swooped down to either side. A passenger-carrying floater, five bladders glistening, was descending slowly from the top. Awb had never seen one so close; usually they passed over at pressure-height, mere sparkles to the unaided eye.
Axwep and Drotninch returned to the lookout platform, and waited along with everybody else until full daylight also overspread the shore, revealing a stark, discolored mass of shriveled foliage.
“That's worse than what we were warned to expect,” muttered Thilling as she stored away her exposed sheets. Awb was about to reply, when-
“Look!” somebody screamed.
On the top of the peak something was moving. No: the top of the peak itself was moving! It was cracking apart, it was shedding chunks of rock, it was tilting, it was sliding and rasping and collapsing and slamming down with horrible slowness in an inexorable paradigm of disaster. The guide-cables snapped, the passenger floater leapt up the air like a frightened pitchen taking off from a wave-top, the new plants on the mountainside vanished in a cloud of dust and boulders, so all at once that Awb could not take everything in.
The avalanche subsided into a monstrous scree, blocking a canal that led from the base of the mountain to the shore along which, presumably, rubble had been carried to create the sheltering mole now visible between the city and the land, the first stage in preparation for a full-scale harbor. All the seafarers stood transfixed with horror as the dawn breeze carried off the dust.
But from the shore, incurious and dull as mere animals, most of them sickly and with their mantles ulcerated, a few natives gazed at the city before dismissing it as incomprehensible and setting off to seek food in the shallows.
What Awb found most appalling, as he strove to hold his telescope steady, was that not a single one among them made for the scene of the catastrophe, to find out whether anybody lay in need of help.
II
“Of course we know what happened,” said Lesh, so weary she could scarcely flex her mantle, let alone stand upright. “It's another of the unforeseen disasters that bid fair to wreck our project! Without our noticing, a pumptree shoot invaded a slanting crevice and expanded there, turning the crevice into a crack and the crack into a split. Finally it sprang a leak. Water by itself might not have made the rock slide, but mixed with nice greasy sap-smash! You can see the way it must have gone quite clearly from the air. But what we now have to find out is why. Pumptrees simply aren't supposed to act like that!”
She was the resident chief designer for the observatory project. She and a couple of assistants had been all dark on the mountain-top investigating reports of irregular pulsation in the pumptrees. About the time Voosla hove in sight they had concluded the trouble was due to nothing worse than irritation caused by the topsoil they were carrying in the form of slurry, which necessarily contained a trace of sand and gravel. The roots of the toughtrees which would eventually form a foundation for the large telescopes needed more nutriment than they could extract from bare rock, at least if they were to grow to usable size in less than a score of years. Besides, the intention was to keep the peak in more or less its original form, and toughtrees certainly did erode rock, given time.
Down below there was plenty of rich fertile dirt, and it had seemed like a brilliant shortcut to mix it with water and render it liquid enough for pumptrees to transport it upward. This was not entirely a new technique; something similar had been attempted recently in desert-reclamation.
So Lesh and her companions had remounted their floater, to take advantage of the coolness of the gas in its bladders before sunshine increased its buoyancy and obliged them to have it hauled down, and that lucky chance had spared their lives. In fact, as things had turned out, everybody was safely accounted for, except perhaps a few natives, and they were so stupid they could rarely be taught to answer their names. Still, the harm done was severe enough.
“It's set us back years!” Lesh mourned.
“Well, I did warn in my original report, when the site was first surveyed, that there must be something amiss in this area!” That was from Drotninch's elderly colleague Byra, hunching forward.
“You didn't lay much stress on the point, then,” Drotninch countered. “As I recall, you concluded that 'the abnormalities found fall within a range of normal variation comparable to that in the Lugomannic Archipelago!' “
Other voices were instantly raised. Awb recognized Phrallet's-trust her to poke a claw in, he thought morosely-but none of the others. It was dark again now, and even though a few luminants had been brought from Voosla it was hard to make out anybody's features, here on the gritty beach beside the unfinished mole.
In any case, he was too worn out to care. So much had happened, he was half-convinced he had wandered into dreamness and would recover to be told he was suffering from fever and delirium. He wanted to have imagined what he had witnessed today, the stench of shock and misery exuded by the people working here as they surveyed the rain of years of effort. At his age he had scarcely begun to conceive ambitions, let alone put them into practice, and he had been stabbed to the pith on realizing how trivial an oversight could cause such a calamity. That vast mound of shattered rock blocking the canal; that dismal garland of carefully tended plants now dangling over the new precipice so high above; those tangled cables which only yesterday had guided massive loads up and down Fangsharp Peak...
Too many images, too much emotion. He let his mind wander and made no attempt to follow the discussion.
Then, unexpectedly, he heard Axwep's boom of authority, and reflex snatched his full attention, just as though they were in mid-ocean with a line-squall looming.
“Now that's enough of this wrangling!” the mayor rasped. “I thought we were bringing cool-minded scientists here! I'd like to see a bunch like you put in charge of a city when one of her incorporated junqs turns rogue and has to be shed because you can't kill her without attracting sharqs or feroqs! Fancy trying to keep your musculators working when rogue ichor's leaking through the circulation, hmm? If you can't cling to your drifting wits when you're not even in danger of your lives, it's a poor lookout for your project anyhow! So shut up, will you? And that goes for you as well, Phrallet! I don't care how much of the voyage you spent chatting up our guests while I was busy running Voosla-you can't possibly know enough about the problem to discuss it. Even Drotninch hasn't been here for two years, remember.”
The direct insult provoked Phrallet to a reeking fury, and she rose to full height in a way that proved she had worked little, if at all, during the bright-time; none of the others present had pressure left to match her. For an instant she imagined she was at an advantage.
Then, suddenly, she realized that those nearest her were all landlivers, perfumed against such a naked show of emotion, and they were shuffling away from her in distaste. With a muttered curse she stormed back to the city, splashing loudly off the end of the mole.
And good riddance, Awb thought. He had long wished that something of the sort might happen. Of course, like everyone else, he would have hoped to love his budder... but did she like him? Had she liked any of her offspring? True, it was a custom in every floating city to trade off young'uns to communities where, for some reason, the fertility treatment had not properly taken, or been counteracted in emergency, but she never stopped boasting about what splendid bargains she had struck for her four eldest... all of whom were she'uns.
Awb's mantle clenched around him. So were three of Axwep's-and they were still in the city, one studying, two working on the secondary plants. The mayor didn't object to their presence. But Phrallet could all too easily have seen her buds as potential rivals, and that would explain so much, so much!
Oh, if only he had been budded to somebody like Thilling! But the picturist must be sterile; she had no bud-scars at all.
A faint idea hovered at the edge of his awareness, in that dim zone where memory, imagination and reason blurred together. He was far too tired to pursue it, though, and turned his mind back to the discussion. Axwep was presiding over it now, directing its course like a commander of old at the bragmeets recounted in ancient legend.
She was saying: “So when you first came here, and heard about peculiar plants and deformed animals, you found no actual evidence, correct?”
“The nearest reports,” Byra confirmed, “were from several padlonglaqs away. The local vegetation displayed some unusual features, but that's often the way with modified Gveestian secondaries, isn't it?”
“What about the natives? I haven't seen much of them, but they strike me as very peculiar indeed!”
Axwep's thrust went home. Byra broke off in confusion. But Drotninch spoke up bluffly.
“It was regarded by the Council of the Jingfired as a great advantage that the folk hereabouts were unlikely to protest at our intrusion!”
There was a murmur of approval from the assembled scientists, growing restive at the mayor's intervention.
“I thought so too,” Lesh said suddenly. “But now I don't. Oh, it's very well for you lot to argue in such terms, comfortable at home in Chisp! What do you think it's been like for us, though, surrounded by people we can't even talk to? It's been preying on my pith, I tell you straight, and I don't think I'm the only one.”
Seizing her chance, Axwep said, “Can you relate the loss of your luminants to any particular event? Or the failure of your nervograps? After all, when you first arrived everything seemed normal except for the people. What did you do that might have-oh, I don't know!-imported a new infection from beyond the hills, say?”
There was a pause. Lesh said at last, with reluctance, “Well, I have wondered about...”
“Go on!”
“Well, we do require a lot of fresh water, you know, and we were running short the winter before last, because it freezes so hard around here, and one of our aerial surveys noted that a stream just the other side of the local watershed was still free of ice. So last spring we tapped it with some quick-growing cutinates, and by the end of the summer we had a good supply. It's lasted through the winter exactly as we planned. But in any case, what could that have to do with the sudden blight we've suffered? We're all trained personnel, and we have the most modern medical knowledge, and-”
“Nobody's told me,” Axwep cut in, “but I'll wager that the local folk have long been accustomed to collecting food from beyond the watershed. Correct?”
“Ah... Yes, I believe so.”
“Because the vegetation there is lusher, or better to eat, or superior in some other way? Or don't you know?”
“I already told you: some of the Gveestian secondaries are unfamiliar, but we're on the edge of a climatic boundary, so I suppose the cold-”
“It's time to stop supposing and start thinking,” murmured a soft voice at Awb's side, and Thilling settled close to him. “No need to explain what's going on. I can guess, even though it's taken me until now to get all my images developed. They practically tell the story by themselves... Say, wasn't it Phrallet I sensed passing me on the way here? What's with her? She was reeking!”
Awb summed up the reason, and Thilling clacked her mandibles in sympathy.
“It's not going to be much fun for you on Voosla for the foreseeable future, is it?”
That was it. That was the hint he needed to complete the idea which had been so elusive before. Even though life at sea was preferable, life anywhere in company with so foul-tempered a budder...
“Do you spend most of your time on land?” Awb whispered.
“No more than I can help. I like to travel, I'm good at what I do and get plenty of commissions. Why?”
“Would you accept me as an apprentice?”
“Hmm! I don't know about that! But”-quickly before he let his mantle slump-”you can help me on shore until Phrallet gets over her present mood. Then we'll see. Fair?”
“I can't thank you enough!”
“Then please me by keeping quiet for a bit. Oh, if there were a bit more light...! But this sort of thing needs to be fixed in sound, really. You should be listening: all these recriminations about who betrayed Lesh and her chums by not exploring the far side of the watershed properly!”
Awb composed himself and did his best to concentrate. But all he could think of was how suddenly the blight must have struck if a mere two years before experienced investigators like Drotninch and Byra had found nothing in this area to worry them.
III
Finally a weak conclusion was reached. After the extent of the damage had been assessed, so a report could be sent back to Chisp, an expedition must cross the watershed and test the plants there for infective organisms, even though none had been found over here.
So much could have been agreed straightaway, in Awb's view, but everybody was so overwrought, making decisions seemed like excessively hard work. He was as affected as anyone else. He felt he ought to be doing something, if only getting better acquainted with the observatory site, but it was still dark, and what could he learn without adequate luminants? Voosla carried seed of a recently developed type that rooted immediately in a shellful of soil and could be carried around draped over a pole, lasting for up to half a score of darks, exactly the kind of thing that was called for in a crisis like this. But nobody had expected a crisis, so none of them had been planted in advance, and even if they were forced now it would be days before they ripened.
In the end he remained inert, pondering a mystery that had often troubled him before.
Why was it that, when the world was generally calm by dark, it was always harder to analyze and act on important memories? Surely the opposite should have been true! Yet it never was. While the sun was down, memories lurked on the edge of consciousness like dormant seeds, only to burst out when there was so much else going on that one would have expected them to be smothered. Oh, they were accessible enough at a time like now... but they didn't seem to connect to activity.
Awb had been puzzled about this for a long time, for a reason he suspected people from fixed cities would not appreciate. Incomprehensibly, though, when he mentioned it to people on Voosla-Tyngwap the chief librarian, for example, who had custody of not only the city's history and navigation records, but also data concerning all the shores she had touched-they missed the point of his question too, brushing him aside with some casual reference to the light-level or the local air-pressure.
Which manifestly could have nothing to do with what he was trying to figure out!
Even though cities like Voosla were commanded by experienced weather-guessers, storms sometimes broke out unexpectedly across their course, perhaps precipitated by a meteor; nobody could forecast those, but the sparks they shed through the upper air did often seem to provoke foul weather. If such a thing happened in the dire middle of the dark, the people's response was as prompt and efficient as by day, and they were quite well able to put off their usual time for rest and reflection. But they never seemed to need to make it up later! Physical exhaustion due to lack of pressure was one thing; it demanded food and drink and that was enough. Mental exhaustion was something else; it gathered in the lower reaches of the mind, and eventually burst out in altered form. Take Phrallet as an example. What she had done this dark, by intervening in the scientists' debate without knowing the facts, was typical of her excessive need to be active, vocally or otherwise. It didn't render her unattractive to males, but her fellow she'uns didn't like her much, and as for the status accorded to mere males ever since it had been established that originally they had been parasitical on females and used them simply to bear their buds...!
Well, only the fact that inbreeding rapidly led to deformity had prevented cities like Voosla, and probably fixed cities as well, from reducing males to simple tokens, like certain lower animals whose symbiosis must go back so far in the history of evolution that even the finest modern techniques could not recover a single independently viable male cell. Luckily-from Awb's point of view-it had early been shown, in the light of Gveest's pioneering work (and he was male and some said had betrayed his kind!), that species lacking the constant chemical renewal due to symbiosis were precisely those most vulnerable to climatic change. Where were the snowbelongs of yesterday, hunted to extinction as soon as the Great Thaw overtook them? Where were the canifangs, pride of the earliest bioscientists-not that they called themselves by any such name in that far past? They had been deliberately made to specialize, and they died out. The list was long: northfinders, hoverers, fosq, dirq, some exploited by folk for their own ends, some simply unable to compete when their range was invaded by a more vigorous rival or even a rash of Gveest's new plants!
Beyond them, too, according to the latest accounts, there had been ancestral creatures without names, which pastudiers labeled using Ancient Forbish, receding to the very dawn of time.
Did they think? Did they reason? Certainly they left no message for the future, which was a mark of the folk; as long ago as the age of legendary Jing, means had been found to warn posterity about the menace looming in the sky. Without such aids, probably the Age of Multiplication would have proved a disaster-
No, not necessarily, Awb corrected himself. Eventually the truth could have been rediscovered. But perhaps there would have been less reason to go in search of it, and by the time it was once more chanced on it might have been too late: the sun might be being drawn inexorably into some new star, up there in the Major Cluster... He tipped his eye in search of it, and was astonished to realize that it was nowhere to be seen; the sky was blue, and everybody was dispersing to daylight duties.
What was Thilling apt to think of him if he stayed here mooning? Hastily he scrambled to his pads and set out after her. It was a vast effort to catch up, since his pressure yesterday had been so badly lowered, but he struggled on, reminding himself that all effort was made the more worthwhile by knowing how the ancestors had dedicated their lives to the survival of descendants they could never meet.
The first part of the bright was spent in making a careful record of the damage caused by the landslide, and Awb followed Thilling from place to place carrying bulky light-tight packs of the sensitized sheets she still referred to as “leaves” in memory of a more primitive technology. For the first time he gained a proper impression of the complexity of the work that had gone into creating the site for the observatory. Planning it must have been even harder than, say, founding a new fixed city, what with digging the canal to carry broken rock and make the mole, stringing the floater-cables, supplying food and accommodation for the workers, all of whom had had to be recruited at a distance and were used to a high standard of living. Several times he heard it vainly wished that the natives could have been enlisted, but today, again, they went about their own animal business, apparently incapable even of wondering about this intrusion into their placid world. If any of them had indeed been killed by the landslide, they showed no signs of grief.
Moreover there were mounts and draftimals to provide for, the musculators and cutinates, the floaters themselves constantly in need of the right nourishment to replenish the light gas in their bladders... Awb knew perfectly well that when they first joined Voosla the people from Chisp had occasionally had difficulty finding their way around on her numerous levels, but he couldn't help feeling that, if they were accustomed to places like this, they ought to have found so small a city comparatively simple.
When the sun was at its highest-not very high in these latitudes, of course-Lesh gathered her companions on the top of the scree caused by the landslide, and started working out how long it might take to clear away. Already draftimals were dragging musculators towards it, along with grabbers and scoopers.
This spot afforded a splendid prospect of the area including the bay where Voosla was lying, minus her giqs, all of which had been detached and were now spread as far as the horizon. Delighted, Thilling used up her stock of sheets in fixing a view in each direction, returned them to their pack, and asked Awb to take them back to the city and bring replacements. Nervously, because he had no wish to encounter Phrallet, but equally none to disappoint Thilling, he complied.
It took him a long time to regain the shore because the usual branchways were decaying, like so much of the vegetation on this blighted coast, and he had to stay on the ground most of the way. The stink of rotting foliage was all-pervasive, and he wondered how the people working here could bear it.
Coming in sight of the sea again, he discovered that a strange briq had entered the bay. She must have been just around the western headland when he looked before, because she was of a type by no means speedy, the broad northern breed called variously smaq or luqqra much in favor for carrying bulky freight. Voosla had crossed a number of them during the couple of brights prior to landfall.
As she touched the side of the city, Axwep came to greet her commander, and by the tune Awb arrived they were deep in conversation.
“There's somebody who can probably tell us,” the mayor said, interrupting herself. “Awb! Do you know where Lesh is?”
“When I left, she was on top of the rockpile trying to work out how long it will take to clear,” Awb called back.
“Will you be going back there?”
“Yes, I'm on an errand for Thilling.”
“Then you can carry a message. Come here. This is Eupril; she's from the quarry down-coast which we passed the dark before last.”
Awb remembered that being pointed out to him, at a spot where luminants grew normally. He had never seen a quarry, but he knew about such places where specially developed microorganisms were used to break up rock and concentrate valuable elements to enrich poor soil, or even to extract metals. In ancient times, it was said, the folk had employed fire for similar purposes: however, during the Age of Multiplication fire had fallen out of use except for very special purposes, because most burnable substances were far too valuable for other applications. Most people nowadays were terrified of it. Sometimes, far out at sea, one could smell smoke on the wind, and the Vooslans would mutter sympathy for the poor landlivers whose homes and crops were going up in flames.
“I don't suppose it'll do much good,” Eupril said sardonically. She was thickset, with the forceful voice of one used to calling over long distances, rather like Axwep. “I've warned and warned those people that they picked a bad site for this observatory of theirs. We surveyed it when we first came up here, and though there were a lot of useful minerals we decided against prospecting further. We didn't like the look of the natives, nor what we found the other side of the ridge. People who won't listen make my pith ache, you know? Of course, when we saw a chunk had fallen off the mountain, we thought we'd better come and see if they needed help. We have no other way of finding out. Used to have a nervograp link, but it went bad on us.”
“From the same blight that's spoiling everything else?” Awb suggested.
“Now that's the other reason I'm here,” Eupril said. “We have news for Lesh. It's not a blight. It's a poison.”
“How can you be sure?” Axwep demanded. “I mean, I know the people here haven't been able to isolate a causative organism yet, but there's a lot of talk about germs you can't see even with the best microscope, that go through the finest filters and can still do damage-”
“We're sure,” Eupril cut in. “Who'd know better than a concentration specialist? Matter of fact, we've been worrying about something of the sort ever since they warned us they were going to tap water from beyond the ridge and discharge it here, because there's a current that follows the coast and washes right down to our place. Still, they claimed it was only going to be for a year or two, and a bit of extra fresh water might conceivably have been an advantage, because we use a lot of cutinates and even with our best salt-precipitators they tend to wear out pretty quickly. So we didn't raise as much objection as we should have, what with the delay involved in sending a delegation to Chisp and the rigid attitude of the Jingfired. Everybody knows they think they're incapable of making a mistake, hm? Bunch of arrogant knowalls, that lot!”
She shrugged with her entire mantle. “Anyway, nothing much happened last year, so we more or less stopped worrying. This season, though, our concentration-cultures have started to die off, and our cutinates are developing blisters like we never saw before, and just the other day we finally traced the problem. Of course we thought it was disease at first. It's not. It's definitely a poison that's coming to us in solution, in the water, and even diluted as it is when it reaches the quarry it's deadly dangerous. We don't have anything that can resist it. Our toughest precipitators turn black and rot within a month.”
Stunned, Awb said, “Mayor, I think this is something Lesh ought to hear personally. I mean, I couldn't possibly repeat such an important message and be sure of getting all the details right.”
“That's not the message,” said Axwep with gentle irony. “The message I meant was simply a request to get here as quickly as she can. I'm sure you can manage to relay that much!”
“Probably not,” said a harsh voice, and Phrallet appeared, swarming along the nearest slanting branchway. “Even if he is of my own budding, I wouldn't trust him to find his way from one side of Voosla to the other!”
Furious, Awb reared back, holding up the pack of image-sheets like a shield. “Thilling trusts me!” he blurted. “She sent me to bring a fresh batch of these for her!”
“Instead of which you're standing about gossiping?”
“But-!”
It was no good. All his life he had found it impossible to get his budder to take him seriously. Clamping his mandibles tight shut, he muttered an apology to Axwep, who seemed mildly amused-a reaction calculated to irritate Phrallet still further-and hastened in the direction of Thilling's bower.
IV
The first thing Axwep asked Lesh when the latter returned to Voosla- annoyed at the interruption even though Awb had done his utmost to explain its reason-was whether water was still being drawn from beyond the ridge; if so, the city should be moved.
“All our cutinates got crushed by the rockfall,” was her curt reply. “They're not pumping anything right now, and in fact I'm not sure they'll survive. Now what's all this about, Eupril?”
The concentration expert sighed. “Oh, I know you suspect our people of wanting to drive you away because we have designs on this site for our own purposes, but that's untrue and unfair! I came with proof of the danger you're in. Carry on like you're doing, and those toughtrees you're planting on the peak will turn as rotten as everything else. Then what will become of your telescopes?”
“Proof? Let's see it!” Lesh snapped.
“I'd rather present the evidence in proper order. You're supposed to have a ripe bunch of experts here now, or so Axwep tells me. Maybe some of them will be a bit less-ah-emotionally committed. Let them be the judges.”
For a second it seemed that Lesh was going to yield to rage; then, resignedly, she slumped to four-fifths height.
“Very well, I'll send for Drotninch and the rest. But where are we going to get the water we need if we can't take it from across the ridge?” With sudden optimism: “Maybe from the sea! You can let us have some of your salt-precipitators!”
“They're dead or dying,” Eupril answered. “We've had to order fresh stock, and it'll be months before we have any to spare.”
Thilling, never one to miss important news, had accompanied Lesh back to the city, and stood beside Awb listening keenly. Now, however, she muttered, “This could go on for ages. Come with me. You said you'd like to be my apprentice, so let's see if you can learn to trim a lens while I develop the images I've caught so far.”
Excited, he followed her down into the very core of the city, where the junqs fretted and throbbed, dreamlost perhaps in visions of their ancestral freedom. Here a small dark bower had been assigned to the picturist, which she could make entirely light-tight. Judging by the stink of juices and concentrates which blew from it when she finished work, it must be very unpleasant in there. Awb began to have second thoughts. But he willingly accepted the blade she gave him, and paid total attention when she demonstrated how to cut loose the full-grown lenses that bulged from the plants she had hung to nearby branches.
“Here are the measurements for a mid-range lens,” she said. “Try this kind first. If you spoil one I shan't mind. If you spoil two, I'll be disappointed. If three-well, I'll probably part you torso from mantle! Understood?”
Awb signed yes.
“Get on with it, then. Go back where there's better light. And take your time. I may not be through with this lot before sundown.”
And indeed the sun was touching the horizon when she rejoined him. He had completed two of the lenses, and the second was flawless as near as he could tell, but he waited on her verdict nervously.
“Hmm! Very good!” she pronounced, surprised and pleased. “More than I can say about the one I have on the fixer at the moment. I mean, look at these, will you?”
She flourished a selection of the sheets she had exposed in the morning. Awb examined them. To his untutored eye they appeared satisfactory, and he said so.
“No, look again! Here, here, here!”-each time with a jab of her claw. “There's a blur, there's a smear, there's a streak... At first I thought the fixer must be leaking light, but I've checked and doublechecked. I suppose there must be a blister in the lens, but I can't locate it.”
Awb ventured, “But then wouldn't the blurs always reappear in the same place? And these don't.”
Taken aback, she said, “Give those back to me... Hmm! I wonder if it could have to do with the angle of incidence of the light-No, that wouldn't fit either. And most of the early ones, come to think of it, are all right. It's only from about the point where we climbed up the rockfall that I started having trouble. Maybe a wind-blown drop on the lens, but I was careful to shield it... Oh, I can't figure it out, unless...” She fixed him with a stern glare. “You didn't drop the leaf-pack by any chance?”
“No, I promise I didn't!” Awb cried, recoiling in alarm. “And if I had, surely the damage would show on one edge or one corner?”
“Ah... Yes, of course it would. I'm sorry.” Thilling clattered her mandibles in confusion. “This makes no sense at all, you know. It's as though some trace of light-very bright light-got through the pack-wrap, and...”
“A fault in the making,” Awb offered.
“I suppose so.” All of a sudden she sounded weary. “But I never had trouble with my supplier before. I've been trying not to arrive at that conclusion, because if all the leaf-packs I have with me are faulty, I might as well not have come.”
Startled to find himself in the unprecedented situation of having to reassure an adult, Awb said, “Please, you're making too much of this. As far as I could tell, those images were fine until you pointed out the flaws. Nobody is likely to notice what worries you so much, except maybe another picturist.”
“I suppose you're right,” Thilling sighed. “Let's go and eat something. I've had enough for one bright, or even two.”
Because the scientists were still arguing, Axwep had suggested that Lesh and her senior colleagues, along with Eupril and some of her companions, should eat this evening on Voosla, where the food was better than on shore. However, although she made it clear that she could not repeat the invitation regularly, because any floating city was in a delicate balance with its inhabitants and the best efforts of the giqs could never gather as much nourishment as she collected for herself in open water, there were some who instantly accused the mayor of wasting public resources. Wasn't it bad enough to have brought these scores of passengers all this way?-that was their cry, and they took no account of the fact that Voosla had been specially replanted with new high-yielding secondary growths developed at the University of Chisp, which would continue paying her back long after the return voyage.
Prominent among those who complained, of course, was Phrallet. Axwep had finally lost patience with her, and ordered that she be forbidden access to the prime food zone. Tagging along behind Thilling, Awb managed to steal in and join the company, hoping desperately as he nibbled a bit here and a bit there that his budder would not get to hear.
Finding herself next to one of Eupril's fellow quarry-workers, whom she had seen earlier but not spoken with, Thilling said, “What's all this about a poison, then? Why can't it be a disease? Name of Thilling, by the way.”
“Name of Hy,” said the other. “Well, it's because of the way it acts in living tissue, of course. Ever hear of a disease organism that simply killed the cells around it, without spreading, or reseeding itself at a distant site? Oh, we've carried out all the tests we're equipped for, and we even managed to get our claws on the corpses of some of the natives. They don't seem to care about their dead, just leave 'em to rot. And in every single case we've found necrotic tissue, either in the digestive tract or quite often in the nerve-pith, and if you take the dead center-excuse me!-and triturate it and apply microscopic drops to a suitable test medium, like the partly flayed rind of a cutinate... Well, what would you expect to see?”
Thilling frowned with her entire mantle “A whole series of infection-sites, obviously.”
“That's exactly what we thought. Wrong. One and only ever one new patch of necrosis. The rest is unaffected.”
Chomping solemnly, Thilling pondered that awhile. At last she heaved a sigh.
“It doesn't sound any more like a poison than a disease, in that case, does it? Still, it's not my specialty, so I have to take your word. But I always thought poisons worked by spreading throughout the system.”
Awb was glad to hear her say that; it meant his own main question was likely to be answered.
“So they do, for the most part. I've been dealing with poisons much of my life, because you never know, when you feed new ore to a concentration-culture, whether it's going to survive on it. But I never saw the like before: a poison so lethal that a particle too small to see with a microscope can kill cells over and over. It doesn't dissolve, it doesn't disperse, it just sits there and kills cells!”
“Thilling!”
They all turned, to find Drotninch approaching.
“You are coming with us to check out this hot stream tomorrow, aren't you? Yes? Good! We're going to leave at first bright. Lesh is working out how many mounts can be spared. Will you need a whole one for your equipment?”
With a wry twist of her mantle Thilling answered, “Not a whole one. I have a volunteer helper now.”
V
Slowly the expedition wound its way up the narrow trail cut to facilitate laying of the cutinate pipeline. It had remained alarmingly clear of overgrowth, though Lesh said it had not been recut this spring. It was as though the surrounding plants, both Gveestian and natural, had bowed away from it.
The air was comfortably calm, and since the morning of the city's arrival there had been scarcely a cloud in the sky, let alone the threat of a storm. Nonetheless Thilling's weather-sense was reacting queasily. She did her best to convince herself it was because of her unpremeditated decision to accept Awb as an apprentice. Taking on someone from so utterly different a background, and with such an awful budder to hint at how he might turn out in the long term... Had it been wise?
Just to complicate matters, Phrallet was a member of the party. Whether out of misplaced ambition, because she fancied she might make a better impression on this trip than usually at home on Voosla, or out of jealousy of Awb, or simply out of bad temper because of what Axwep had said to her last dark, she had insisted on coming along. Drotninch, who had gotten to know her slightly during the voyage, was no more in favor than was Thilling; however, Axwep was glad of the chance to be rid of her for a while, and she possessed sufficient charm as regarded strangers for Lesh to say with a shrug, “Why not? We can always do with an extra set of claws, and a volunteer is better than a draftee.”
Thilling's view was that she was apt to be more of a nuisance than a help. And she was equally dubious about Awb. She still could not quite rid herself of the suspicion that her images might have been spoiled by his carelessness. Moreover she was moderately certain that his ambition to spend his future in light-tight bowers reeking of chemicals was due less to a genuine interest in the work than to the fact that if he became Voosla's first official picturist he would always have an excuse to shut himself away from his budder.
Still, there was little point in speculating. Determinedly she forced her attention back to the country they were traversing, only to find that the view made her more worried than ever.
From the canal which carried waste and usable rock to the new harbor, irrigation ditches had been ichored off for the crops that fed the workforce. So much was normal; so much was sensible economy.
Yet the point in time at which the crops began to fail coincided with the failure of the nervograp links to the outside world, and in turn followed the first use of water from beyond the watershed. How was it that supposedly rational people could have overlooked the connection? They definitely had! Even in the light of what Eupril and Hy reported, Lesh was still obstinately hoping to find that the water-supply had nothing to do with the-the blight, the poison, whatever it might ultimately prove to be.
Now, fixing images of the true extent of the devastation in the morning shadow of Fangsharp Peak, Thilling started to wonder whether those who had been living here for two or three years might not already be affected, already be on the way to matching the miserable mindless natives.
Then she noticed something else even more alarming as the mounts wound in single file up and over the ridge. During the first part of the bright, the beasts had too much sense to browse off the nearby foliage, sere and discolored as it was. About noon, however, when presumably they were starting to thirst, the one carrying among other loads her own equipment did begin to help itself now and again from the nearest branches. But the leaves were wilting, and the rind of the cutinates whose line they were following was patched with suppurating black.
She glanced at Awb, laboring along behind her under the burden of her spare image-fixer and a spare lens-plant, and realized that he too appeared uneasy. But neither Lesh nor Drotninch seemed concerned. Why not?
Well, perhaps she was worrying overmuch. She strove to make herself believe so.
Night fell late in these latitudes, and was short. They crossed the watershed before they lacked enough light to wait for tomorrow's dawn. The chance to rest was welcome; they all needed to accumulate pressure for the next stage of the journey. But Thilling was dismayed anew when she realized that Lesh, who had been responsible for organizing the expedition, expected everybody, and the mounts too, to subsist off the local plants because, as she said, “it would only be for a day or two.” This was enough to startle even Drotninch and Byra, and a furious argument broke out in which-predictably-Phrallet was prominent.
True, there were plenty of edible secondary growths of the kind which that far-sighted genius Gveest had modified to provide for the folk during their traumatic population explosion. Possibly, as Lesh was now claiming, the planners of the observatory project had seeded them deliberately to furnish an emergency resource for the workers. More likely they had arrived of their own accord; their spawn was designed to drift on the wind and displace natural rivals when it settled. But those which grew close to the path were so unwholesome both in appearance and in odor...
Even though she had no luminants, and as yet only a shred of moon was visible, very close to the horizon, Thilling slipped away to a spot where a few cautious bites convinced her the food was safe, or at least safer. Glancing up on hearing a noise nearby, she was amazed to discover that Awb was here already. Good for him!
But he was tensing as though afraid of being reprimanded, and small wonder, for that was certainly how Phrallet would have reacted. Suddenly full of sympathy for this young'un, Thilling said sharply, “All right, keep your pith from boiling! What made you come this way?”
“I just didn't like the smell of what the mounts were eating,” he muttered.
“Nor do I. I think that worn-out old nag they assigned to us is going to rot in her pad-marks before we get where we're going... By the way!”
“Yes?”
“I'm sorry I accused you of dropping my leaf-packs. I've been watching you all this bright, and I'm satisfied that you've been taking great care of my gear. I'm also convinced that there's something in what Eupril says about poison. When you're through eating, come and set up my dark-bower. I expect all today's images to be faulty.”
“Do you want them, then?” Awb countered in confusion.
“What I mostly want is to do Drotninch and Byra in the eye because I have an eye that they don't. If I'd been here with the original expedition that chose the observatory site-! But never mind that. I sense something's bothering you. Out with it!”
“Are you really going to spend all dark developing your-uh- leaves?”
“And why not?”
“Well, I'd have thought...” Awb shifted uncomfortably from pad to pad. “You know-review today into memory, build up pressure for tomorrow...” He subsided, more at a loss than ever.
“Oh, there's plenty of time for that while you're waiting for images to develop-”
It was her turn to break off, gazing at him with astonishment in the faint starshine. “Are you trying to tell me you've never been educated in dark-use?”
“I don't know what you mean!”
“Oh, dear!” Seizing a clump of funqi, she settled beside him. “It's no news to me that cities like Voosla are behind the times, but this is incredible.”
“Sorry to appear so ignorant,” Awb muttered resentfully.
“Oh, I don't mean to be matronizing, I promise. But... Look, young'un, I just took it for granted that you must have your own version of dark-use training. I mean, I know the People of the Sea are contemptuous of landlivers who can't move to avoid bad weather or follow the best seasons, and the rest of it, and what's more I know they can turn to in mid-dark and cope with gales and storms, so... Well, surely we have to exploit all the time at our disposal if we're to meet the challenge of the future, right? You know what I mean by that, at least?”
“Of course!”
“That's a mercy... Oh, I'm starting to sound like Phrallet, and I'm ashamed. She's anti-male, by the rude way she treats you, and I'm not. I admit I'm sterile, and the fertility treatment won't take in me, but that's neither here nor there. Just makes me wonder about those it took in much too well! But I sense you have a whole branchful of questions, so I'll see if I can answer them without being told what they are.”
She filled her mantle for a long speech; he heard the hiss.
“Why shan't I mind if my images are faulty? Because I think the faults may teach us something we never knew before. Why am I appalled that you haven't been trained in proper dark-use? Because I don't hail from where you think I do. You believe I'm from Chisp, don't you?”
“I-ah-I did assume...”
“Eat your assumptions, then. I was budded in the Lugomannic Archipelago.”
“Where Gveest discovered the cure for infertility?” Awb burst out, and was instantly horrified at himself, because she had just mentioned her own sterility. But her only reaction was mild amusement.
“More to the point: where someone you never heard of, called Pletrow, realized after she'd finally had the bud of her own which she longed for that in order to cope with the consequences of Gveest's success there had to be a means of exploiting dark-time, instead of squandering it.”
Exuding fascination, Awb hunched forward. “I've always resented that myself! I mean, one never really stops thinking, does one? It's just that by dark it always seems so much harder to make action match intention!”
He added self-excusingly, “I envy you the fact that you're going to spend this dark doing something constructive, you see. I don't know how.”
For a long while Thilling remained indecisive. Should she broach her most precious secret to this chance-met stranger? Yet the magnitude of the catastrophe that was set fair to overwhelm the great observatory was daunting, and the need for the information it could supply was so urgent. Could she confront the insights she was burdened with entirely alone?
No: she could not. She needed to confide in someone, and none of the scientists from Chisp was right to share her private anxiety. At least Awb had fought back against the handicap of being Phrallet's bud...
She said after a small eternity, “Then I must teach you how to liberate consciousness from concern with digestion. That's the first of the mental exercises Pletrow developed for the Jingfired.”
“You mean you.?” Awb's pressure failed him.
“Yes, I do mean!” Already she was half regretting her admission. “But if you so much as hint that you're aware of the fact, I'm bound by oath to leak you. Understood?”
Fervently he echoed, “Understood!”
“Very well, then. Now there's one other thing I ought to ask you. But I'm not going to. If you're the person I think and hope you are, you'll work it out yourself.”
“Does it have to do with why Lesh doesn't want to consider any other site for the observatory?”
“Very indirectly I suppose it does. We all hope to bequeath some achievement to the future... No, that's not what I want you to say. Think it over. In the meantime, what about setting up my dark-bower for me?”
VI
Was Thilling truly one of the legendary Jingfired?
That question haunted Awb as the party wended its way down from the crest of the ridge, still following the line chosen for the cutinates, either side of which the trees were stunted and their secondary growths pale and sickly. The stink of decay in the air was worse than where they had started from because it was older, as though even storms could not disperse it. Its impact was unnerving; one heard fewer voices raised to normal pitch, more murmurs of apprehension and more cries from unseen creatures in the overgrowth.
Along the bottom of the valley, where they were bound, ran a watercourse formed by the confluence of three streams half a day's journey to the east. It was the middle one which remained so warm during the worst of winter that it could keep the whole river free of ice. Nobody had explored it to the source, but presumably it must rise where there was hot rock of the sort well known on other continents, that created geysers or pools of bubbling-hot mud.
An earth dam had been built to make an artificial lake for the cutinates to draw from. Now and then they could glimpse the sunlight gleaming on its surface, wherever the vegetation had died back sufficiently.
That was disturbingly often.
Byra announced loudly, “This is far worse than what I recall from my first visit! If things had been this bad then I'd have argued strongly against choosing this site.”
“I thought the Jingfired didn't make mistakes like that,” was Lesh's snappish response. Close enough behind to overhear the exchange, Awb whispered to Thilling:
“Is she one of-?”
“Of course not!”-with contempt. “She's enjoyed giving herself the sort of airs she thinks might suit one of us ever since the first time she was assigned to a foreign survey team. She carries it off well enough to mislead the ignorant, but she's never dared to make the claim outright.
One of the reasons I was sent here was to make sure about that. It's all right, though: it's a bit of harmless vanity, no more.”
“What do you think about Eupril's attitude towards the Jingflred?” Awb risked.
Thilling gave a soft chuckle. “The more people who feel that way about us, the better we can achieve our aim.”
Confused, Awb said, “But I always thought-”
She cut short his words. “The real Jingfired, young'un, are never who you think they are. You have to know.”
And she hurried up a convenient branch to fix another image from the treetops.
Awb found himself wishing they didn't have to rely on mounts, for it would have been quicker and more pleasurable to swarm along branchways in the ancient fashion instead of padding along on the ground. Away from the water's edge, and away from these discolored cutinates, the overgrowth mostly smelled normal despite its peculiar tint, so-
His thoughts came to a squeaking halt.
Why weren't there any people in this valley?
Where else on the entire globe was there such lush terrain without a city, a town, even a hamlet?
This is what the world must have looked like before the Age of Multiplication.
The thought struck him so forcibly that he uttered it aloud. Some of those within hearing responded as though he had chanced on a profound truth.
But not all. Phrallet was close beside Byra; she had moved in to offer comfort after Lesh made mock of her. Now she turned and said loudly, “Ah, that's my youngest bud making noises again! I wish I'd had another she'un that I could have traded off to benefit Voosla, but who wants a he'un, particularly a useless lazy one like Awb?”
Clack: Awb's mandibles rattled as he rose in fury to maximum height, heedless of Thilling's gear which he was carrying. There was no case on record of a budling fighting his budder, but after that-I
Except, amazingly-
(As the pheromones mingled in the taut still air with what the rotting plants exuded, but far fiercer...)
Clackonclackonclackonclack: and abruptly climaxing-
“SHUT UP!”
It was Drotninch, fuming with chemical proof of the reason why she had been chosen to lead the university team.
“I don't want to hear any more arguments until we get to the lake and have something solid to argue about! In the meantime, save your pressure for moving your pads!”
Phrallet slanted her mantle as though to puff a blast of combat-stink directly at Drotninch, but Lesh, Thilling and even Byra signaled a warning of the consequences. She subsided, still angry, and let the rest of the party go by, falling in right at the end. As Awb sidled past, she glowered with her whole mantle, but said nothing.
He was indescribably relieved.
The sun was just at the zenith when they emerged on a flat bare outcrop of rock overlooking the artificial lake. The water-level was a little below maximum, as could be judged from the mud along the banks, some of which was a curious yellow color. There were automatic spillways to cope with the rise due to a spring thaw: a dense mat of small but coarse-stemmed plants along the top of the dam, designed to float upward and lift their root-masses just enough for the surplus to spill over without letting the dam erode.
At least, there should have been. In fact, the plants were decaying like everything else in the vicinity, and the mud along the banks was actually bare, whereas ordinarily it would have been fledged with shoots sprung from the riverside vegetation.
“Have you noticed,” Byra said after a pause, “that you can tell at a glance which of the trees have taproots long enough to reach the river? They're dying off. Look!”
In a dull voice Lesh said, “So they must be sucking up the poison, if that's what it actually is.”
“And the state of these cutinates!” Byra went on as she clambered over the edge of the rock and gingerly descended to the waterside. She prodded the nearest, and its rind yielded, soft as rotting funqus. A swarm of startled wingets took to the air, shrilling their complaint at being disturbed. Awb, with the quick reflexes of youth, snatched one as it shot past, and bent his eye to examine it.
“How long since you sent anyone to check out the cutinates?” Drotninch demanded of Lesh.
“As soon as the snow melted,” was the muttered reply. “I was assured that everything was in order. At any rate the spillways were working properly, and above the water-level the cutinates looked pretty much all right.”
“You didn't haul their ends to the surface and-?” The scholar broke off. “No, I don't imagine you'd have seen the need if they were still pumping normally. Were they?”
“Oh, they've been functioning fine. Though, now that I've seen the state they're in, I'm surprised they haven't burst at a score of places.”
“So am I... Well, before we disturb anything else we'd better fix some images. Thilling!”
“Just a moment,” the picturist called back. “Awb, can I take a look at that winget?”
He surrendered it gladly. “Do you know if it's a regular local species?” he demanded. “I don't recognize it, but then I've never been so far north before.”
“I have, and it's not,” Thilling answered grimly. “It's deformed. Its body has tried to-well-double, hasn't it? Byra, I think you should see this right away!”
As she hastened toward the biologist, Phrallet drew close to Awb.
“Do anything to get yourself well in with the folk from Chisp, won't you? Eat any sort of dirt they throw at you! I did my best to be friendly, but I'm leaked if I'm going to bother anymore. I never met such a rude, bossy bunch.”
Surprised at his own audacity, Awb said, “Maybe they just reflect your own attitude back at you.”
“Why, you-!” Phrallet swelled with renewed anger.
“Awb!” The shout was from Thilling. “Bring those leaves we developed last night, will you?”
“Coming!” Awb responded, mightily flattered.
And Phrallet, luckily, did not dare to follow, but remained seething by herself.
Taking the image-pack, Thilling said, “I was just explaining that I don't expect any images I fix here to be of the usual quality. You haven't seen these yet, nor has anyone else, but... Well, look at this one, for example, which was taken right next to the cutinates where there was a leak most probably caused when the top fell off Fangsharp Peak. Notice all those blurs and streaks?”
“It's as though the poison can attack your image-fixer too!” Awb exclaimed.
Passing the picture around, Thilling said dryly, “I shan't argue. I reached the same conclusion. I shall of course try fixing more images here, but like I said I don't expect them to be much good.”
“But how-?” Drotninch began, and interrupted herself. “Now I'm going against my own orders, aren't I? We'll wait until we have something to discuss. Lesh, if you'd...”
Briskly she issued orders to each of the party, pointedly ignoring Phrallet until, conquering her annoyance, the latter advanced to ask if she could help too. She was sent to fetch samples of the dead plants from the top of the dam, while Byra set up a microscope to examine them with, and Awb followed Thilling to the best points of vantage for general images, before descending to the lake for close-ups of the bare mud and ruined cutinates.
Very shortly after there was a cry from Phrallet, in her usual bad-tempered tone.
“That was a foul trick to play on me! You did it deliberately, didn't you?”
The others stared in astonishment as she fled back from the dam without the samples she had been asked to collect.
“What in the world is wrong?” Drotninch demanded.
“It's hot! The top of the dam is hot! Oh, my poor pads! And the water isn't just warm, it's steaming! Look!”
“Why, so it is! But I promise I hadn't noticed. By dark I would have, but-Well, you didn't notice either, did you?”
The pressure taken out of her by that awkward fact, Phrallet subsided, grumbling. Regretting his earlier rudeness, for she was bound to seek revenge for it eventually, Awb muttered a word of apology to Thilling and himself hurried to the side of the dam. Cautiously he lowered to minimum height and began to probe the area, reporting in a loud voice.
“There must be water seeping around the end of the dam here-the subsoil is marshy. But it's definitely warm, and I don't understand why. All the roots are dead but they're still meshed together. And the top of the dam...”
He moved on, half a padlong at a time. “Yes, it's very warm, and very hard, too. Completely dried out, almost as hard as rock.” He rapped it with one claw. “And there's this funny yellow mud; it's building up in layers. And-Ow! That is hot!” He recoiled in surprise.
“I think you'd better come away,” Thilling shouted, and he was just about to comply when there was an unexpected commotion.
The mount that carried Thilling's equipment, which she had dismissed as an old nag, uttered a noise between a grunt and a scream, lost all her pressure, and measured her length on the ground.
VII
That nightfall none of the party had much maw for food. Byra had carried out a cursory examination of the dead mount, and what her microscope revealed exactly matched the description Eupril had given of the way the poison affected cutinates and precipitators at the quarry. The certainty that at least some of it must be at work in their own bodies took away all appetite.
While Thilling occupied herself developing the day's images, not calling on Awb for help, the rest of them lay up on the branches of the nearest healthy trees, as though being clear of the ground could offer them security in the dark, like their remotest ancestors. Of course, if any of the local animals had been as altered as that mutated winget... But the Freeze, the Thaw, and the greed of the half-starved folk who had exploded across the world during the Age of Multiplication had combined to exterminate almost all large predators, and turned avoidance of animal food among the folk themselves from a moral choice into a necessity. Even fish nowadays was in short supply, more valuable to nourish cities than their citizens.
Awb thought of having to ingest the flesh of the mount whose stench drifted up to him, and shuddered.
As though the trembling of the branch he clung to had been a signal, Byra said suddenly, “What I don't understand is how there can be burns without fire.”
“I thought you Jingfired knew all about everything,” came the sour riposte from Phrallet.
“I never said I was Jingfired!” Byra snapped. “If I was, do you think I'd be here? They have too much sense!”
In the startled pause that followed, Awb found time to wonder why she had chosen this of all moments to disclaim the pose she had-according to Thilling-long adopted, and also whether Thilling herself...
But there was no time to ponder such matters. Perceptibly desperate to avoid moving the observatory to another site, Lesh was saying, “We've got to isolate this stuff! Once we know precisely what it is-”
“Isolate it?” countered Drotninch. “When it can kill any concentration-culture it comes up against? You heard what Eupril said, and the folk at the quarry have only been dealing with a trace of it, diluted over and over.”
“Well, there are filters, aren't there?”
“Filters will trap everything above a certain size. In fact I'm beginning to wonder whether that may account for the dam being so hot.”
“Next you show us how to light a fire underwater,” muttered Phrallet.
“Any moment now,” Byra promised, “I'm going to-”
“Byra!” Drotninch said warningly. But it was too dark and their pressure was too low for combat-stink; the keener note of simple fear predominated, and was compelling them gradually towards cooperation, much as it must have bonded their ancestors into forming tribes and eventually communities.
Awb shuddered again, but this time with awe and not disgust. It was amazing to be participating in so ancient an experience. Of course, something similar happened now and then at sea, when a storm assailed the city, but then wind and spray carried off the pheromones, and the decision to work together was dictated by reason.
How much was left of the primitive in modern folk? He must ask Thilling. If she were truly one of the Jingfired, she would certainly be able to answer such a question.
But the argument was continuing. Sullenly, as though not convinced that the others wanted to hear, Byra was saying, “It was the heat of the water that made me start thinking along these lines. Now I've realized what the tissue-damage in that poor mount reminded me of. I've got a scar where some young fool shone a burning-glass on my mantle when I was a budling. Instead of just comforting me, my budder made me turn even that silly trick to account. She dissected out a tiny scrap of tissue and showed me the way the heat had ruptured the cells. I noticed just the same effect in the mount. Of course, the damage is deep inside, instead of just on the surface.”
“But so are the blemishes on Thilling's leaves!” Awb burst out. “They happen right inside a light-tight pack, or inside the fixer!”
Once again there was a pause during which he had time to feel dismayed by his own boldness. Byra ended it by saying, “Phrallet, I can't for the life of me understand why you think your budling is unworthy of you. I'd be proud if one of my young'uns had come up with a point like that.”
Set to grow angry again, Phrallet abruptly realized she was being indirectly complimented, and made no answer.
Drotninch, less tactfully, said, “Going back to where we were just now: you can very well have heat without fire, or at least without flame. Using a burning-glass is something else, because we assume the sun to be made of fire fiercer than what we can imitate down here. But if you rub something long and hard enough, it gets warm, and likewise air if you compress it with a bellower. Don't you know about that sort of thing on Voosla, Phrallet?” She sounded genuinely curious.
“You should know better than to ask”-unexpectedly from Lesh. “The People of the Sea did study heat and even flame at one time, using substances that protected their junqs and briqs from feeling the effect. But it was hard to keep a fire alight at sea, and eventually they lost interest because they didn't have any ore to melt, or sand for glass, and they could always trade for what they needed.”
“That's right!” Phrallet agreed, and it was plain she was relaxing at long last.
Drotninch rattled her mandibles. “This gives me an idea. Do you think there's enough burnable material around here to start up a-what do they call it?-a furnace?”
“What for?” Byra countered.
“Well, in olden times they used fire to separate metal from ore, didn't they? Even if we can't use a concentration-culture, we might get at this poison using heat.”
“Hmm! I'm inclined to doubt it,” Byra said. “We don't yet know whether it's a simple substance, for one thing.”
“If it weren't, and a very rare one, surely we'd have encountered it before?”
“Maybe we have,” Lesh suggested. “Or at any rate its effects. I've never really believed that hot rock-let alone actual volcanoes-can be accounted for by saying that there's a leak from the core of the planet. For one thing the core must be too hot; for another, the magma would have to rise for many padlonglaqs, and I can't envisage channels for so much lava remaining open under the enormous pressures we know must exist down there.”
“What does this have to do with-?” Drotninch had begun to say, when there was a rustle of foliage and Thilling arrived to join them.
Parting the leaves revealed that the new moon was rising, a narrow crescent, just about to disappear again as it crossed the Arc of Heaven.
“I wish we'd had time to force some of those special luminants Voosla brought,” said the picturist as she settled in a vacant crotch. “Or that the moon were nearer full, or something. I spend too much of my working life in total darkness to be comfortable by mere starlight. It's not so bad if your maw is full, but... Any of you manage to eat anything tonight?”
They all signed negative.
“Me neither. Never mind that, though. What annoys me most is that I can't examine my images properly before dawn. But I'm sure they're going to be full of smears and blurs again, and it isn't my fault. Any explanations?”
Drotninch summarized the discussion so far.
“Awb hit on that idea, did he?” Thilling said with approval. “I agree: he's a credit to his budder, and I'm glad I decided to take him on as my apprentice. Sorry I didn't ask you to help out this time, by the way, young'un, but you realize I have to be score-per-score certain that any flaws in the images are due to me, or some outside force. All right?”
“Yes, of course,” Awb answered, trying not to swell with pride, and realizing this was just the kind of attitude he would have expected one of the true Jingfired to display.
“What I'm going to do tomorrow,” Thilling resumed, “is a pure gamble, but if I'm right in my guess, then... But wait a moment. My new apprentice is pretty quick on the uptake, so let's ask him. Awb, in my position, what would you do?”
Awb's pulsations seemed to come to a complete halt. Here in the dark his mind felt sluggish, and with his maw empty the problem was worse yet. Struggling with all his mental forces, fighting to distinguish what he could rationally justify from what was seeping up from wild imagination or even the utterly logic-free level of dreamness, he reviewed everything he had been told at the observatory site, and what he had seen on the way, and what Thilling had had time to teach him...
The silence stretched and stretched. Eventually, reverting to her usual mood, Phrallet said, “Not much use asking him, was it? Now if you'd asked me-”
“But I didn't,” said the picturist with point. “Well, young'un?”
That insult from his budder had been like dawn breaking inside his mind. Awb said explosively, “Take some of your leaves and just lay them around the dam, see what shows on them without being put in a fixer!”
“Well, well, well!” Thilling said. “You got it! It looks as though that's the only way to detect the effects of the poison short of letting something be killed by it. I like Byra's idea that it's a kind of burning, I like the idea that it may have something to do with hot rocks and volcanoes, and I don't like the idea that it's getting to my insides without my being able to sense it. But that's about all we'll be able to do on this trip, isn't it, Drotninch?”
“I'm afraid so,” the scholar confirmed. “We'll have to bring safe food not only for ourselves but for the mounts on our next visit, and someone is going to have to travel all the way to the headwaters of the warmest stream, and one way and another I'm not sure we can tackle the job properly before next year. And-Lesh-you know what I'm going to have to say next, don't you?”
“The work we've done at the observatory has gone for nothing,” was the bitter answer. “It will have to be sited somewhere else.”
She clenched her mantle tight around the branch she lay on, like a mariner preparing for a gale. They left her alone with her thoughts. But it was with deliberate loudness that Drotninch continued, “Still, one all-important purpose has been served. We have found something totally new on our own planet, which we sometimes imagine to have been exhaustively explored. It's well for us to be reminded now and then that the unforeseen can break out under our very pads. If we don't keep that constantly in mind, what's going to become of us when we venture into space?”
Very softly, and for Awb alone, Thilling said, “Spoken like one of the Jingfired...! Think about that, young'un. You still haven't told me what I'm most waiting to hear.”
She stretched out and parted the overhanging leaves, and they all gazed up, except for Lesh, at the beautiful and terrifying fires of the Major Cluster, where since tune immemorial new stars had, slowly and implacably, crept into view.
VIII
“Might as well use my entire stock of leaves on this,” Thilling told Awb as dawn broke. “If anything more important turns up during the trip, I shan't want to know... We'll time the job by the sun; every score degrees it moves, we bring in one batch of 'em. Leave the bower set up so I can develop them as they come in.”
Still baffled by the implied question the picturist expected him to answer, Awb helped her to lay out unexposed sheets by groups of five along the dam. But he found himself far more fascinated by what was happening in and on the lake. It was impossible to see more than a padlong below the surface, but here and there bubbles rose, and drifts of steam puffed up, and peculiar pale blue water-walkers scuttled hither and thither, avoiding the hottest spots but far more active than their cousins on cool rivers. As soon as Thilling let him go, he gathered up a few and offered them to Byra, who was packing every available container with specimens of flora and fauna.
“Where from exactly?” she demanded. “Near the dam? But how far from it?”
Why, she was a worse precisian than Axwep trying to balance Voosla's food-and-people accounts! But Awb preserved a courteous meekness.
“Between four and five padlongs from the thickest part of the yellow mud, where the bubbles rise most often.”
“Hmm! That'll do very well! One thing I must give you, young'un: you have a keen eye on you. Yesterday that mutated winget, now this lot... What I'd really like to find, though, is a thriving root-mass of the spillway plants. We need some clue to resistance against this poison. Without that I don't know what we'll do.”
But could any resistance be found to it among the folk? What if the only possible adjustment they could make in this region was the one adopted by the natives, able to feed and breed but nothing more?
However, Awb kept such thoughts to himself. After all, the scientists did have behind them the resources of one of the planet's greatest centers of knowledge.
It was time to take Thilling the first batch of exposed leaves. When he delivered them, she said, “Drotninch wants you to collect samples of the yellow mud. She's going to load one of the mounts with it. I told her to make sure it's the one furthest from my stuff.”
“How did yesterday's images come out?” Awb inquired.
“What makes you think they came out at all?” Thilling countered sourly, but fanned a quarter-score of them for his inspection. All were weirdly streaked and smeared.
“What am I looking at?” Awb whispered.
“Something scarcely any eye has seen before,” was the muttered answer. “The telescopes they meant to build on Fangsharp Peak were supposed to gather so much light from such faint sources, no one could possibly sit and register it. So they planned to make them deliver their light to sheets like these, using astrotropes whose growth is controllable to a laqth of a clawide to keep the image steady. Oh, the effort they've wasted on breeding those 'tropes!”
“You sound as though the observatory is never going to be built, not here, not anywhere!” Awb cried.
“Maybe it won't. Because the only time I saw patternless faults like these on an unexposed image-leaf...”
She shook her mantle, returning the sheets to their pack. “It makes common-type sense, doesn't it, to grow observatories on mountain-tops? There are four or five such, and I'm an advisor to the one near Chisp. They called me in because even when they're using the finest leaves things go wrong. There are smudges, there are blurs, there are distortions. Often they spoil a whole dark's work, especially when the telescope is aimed at the Major Cluster.”
“What causes them?” Awb clenched his claws.
“We think it's tiny particles of matter blasted out from the new stars forming so far away. And they carry with them something of the terrible stellar heat. At any rate, they burn their way into the leaves. But I never imagined that something at the bottom of a valley... Hmm!”
As though struck by sudden insight, she turned back to the dark-bower, intent on developing the latest sheets.
“Go get Drotninch's mud-samples,” she ordered. “But remember to time the next lot of leaves, too.”
Awb hastened to comply. At least, down by the dam, he could be sure of avoiding Phrallet, who still seemed to harbour the suspicion that her heat-sore pads were owed to some sinister plot by Drotninch and the other scientists.
But there was something amiss.
He fought the knowledge for a long while, digging up the yellow mud, collecting the rest of the leaves at proper intervals and bringing them to the dark-bower, making himself as useful as he could to everybody.
Then, tiny as a falling star viewed through the wrong end of a spyglass, a spark crossed his eye.
Puzzled, he looked for more, but found only a red trace across his field of vision, rather as though he had gazed too long at something very bright but very narrow, like-
Like what? There was nothing it was like at all.
Simultaneously he became aware of a sensation akin to an itch, except that it wasn't one. It was just as annoying, but he couldn't work out where it was, other than very vaguely. And whoever heard of an itch in red-level pith, anyway? Determinedly he went on with his work, and shortly was rewarded by spotting another mutated water-walker, not blue this time, but pure white.
He dived after it and trapped it in his mandibles, and bore it to Byra in triumph.
Standing by as she inspected it under the microscope, he heard her say irritably, “Stop fidgeting, young'un! You look as though a mustiq got under your mantle... Oh, this is even more ridiculous than the last one! I don't see how it can survive, let alone reproduce itself!”
He scarcely noticed the last comment. A mustiq under his mantle? Yes, that was a little like it. He'd been twitching without realizing until he had his attention drawn to it. He was pulsating out of rhythm with himself; instead of the normal ratios between mantle-ripple, gut-shift, breath-drawing, ichor-peristalsis and eye-flick which he was accustomed to, in the perfect proportions of bass, third, fifth, seventh and octave, he was shuddering as though about to burst.
Having his maw empty for so long, for the first time in his life, was proving to be a very odd experience indeed.
Yet if hunger were the sole explanation (and surely he hadn't gone without for long enough?)-
Oh, NO!
POISONED???
He peeled apart from himself, much like the brollicans that teachers on Voosla grew excited about when they chanced across a shoal of them so large the city had no time to eat the lot before a few could be salvaged for educational purposes. For scores-of-scores of years they had been providing real-time evidence for symbiosis, the phenomenon that underlay the folk's modern predicament.
Coevolution... said something from the deep red level of his consciousness, but everyone knew that that level didn't deal in speech, only in hunger and breeding-need and the repair of vital organs.
(But who had told him that was true? Maybe someone would come along to tell him different, like Thilling! Maybe the exercises she had promised him, concerning dark-use, didn't refer only to outside-dark but inside-dark as well...)
In the distance, though very close in time, like right now:
“Help!” (It was Byra's voice.) “Drotninch, Thilling, Phrallet, anybody! Awb's gone dreamish!”
Dreamish? Me? Me...?
But he didn't know who he was any longer. There wasn't a “myself” controlling the physical envelope known as Awb. There was a muddle of memory and imagination, a chaotic slew of information and sensory input, and what trace of identity did remain-thanks to his having been budded on a small but wealthy city, where no one in living memory had gone dreamish through simple hunger-was capable of no more than observation: as it were, “So this is what must have happened to our poor ancestors who multiplied themselves without making provision for proper nourishment! I'm amazed they ever clawed their way back out of the mental swamp they fell in, regardless of Gveest's best efforts, or the Jingfired's!”
Then even that last vestige of himself dissolved, and his pith started to react as though he were his own remotest forebear, assailed by predatory gigants and striking out at random in the faint hope that at least his body might block one monster's maw and choke it to death.
It took three of them to subdue his violent flailing.
Late that dark Thilling lay in a tree-crotch well away from the dam, which her images had convinced her was the chief source of danger, while the scientists wrangled among themselves. Awb had been temporarily quieted; Lesh had dispatched two of her assistants to find fruit and funqi from which nourishing juices could be extracted, at a safe distance from the lake, and herself administered a calmative from the first-aid pack she had brought. It was to be hoped that his youth and slightness of build accounted for his extreme vulnerability to-to whatever had afflicted him. At any rate the rest of them seemed to be in fair shape, with the exception, Thilling reflected cynically, of Phrallet, who was on the verge of hysteria. She kept saying over and over, “We must get out of here! We must go back at once! Who knows what damage is being wrought in our very pith? My pads are still hurting, you know!”
And when she found her companions ignoring that line of argument, she tried cajolement: “If only for the sake of my youngest budling, we must go back! Oh, I know I'm sometimes hard on him, but really I do care for him, and if he dies because of this...”
At which the others simply turned their backs in the most insulting fashion possible. So for some while now she had been sulking, which at least allowed the rest of them to debate the core of the problem.
Drotninch was saying, “I'm coming around to the conclusion that we not only have to deal with the poison per se, but also with its effects on living organisms, including disease germs. You know there's a theory that the New Star triggered off the latest round of female mimicry, the one which made so many of us too like males to bud anymore. Given what Thilling has told us about the resemblance between what she finds on her image-sheets and what happens when sheets are exposed at high altitude-”
Lesh cut in. “I've heard that theory, and to me it smacks of the rankest astrological superstition!”
Byra said heavily, “There's only one way of settling the matter. We're going to have to study this poison in vivo. Right now, of course, we only have one subject: Awb. But it's beyond a doubt that some at least of the same effect must be working in all of us.”
Rousing from her apathy, Phrallet shouted, “What do you want us to do-stay here until we all collapse the way he did? You must be out of your pith! Anyway, I won't let you treat a budling of mine like a laboratory animal!”
Doing her best to disregard the interruption, Byra went on, “We can extrapolate from cutinates to some extent, of course, and I've taken samples from the mount that died, and with luck the rest of them will have been affected-”
“With luck?” Lesh echoed sardonically. “When I need every mount and draftimal I can lay claws on to rescue my expensive equipment from the observatory site? You're not killing any of my beasts for your researches, I'm afraid! In any case, mounts aren't enough like us, are they?”
Sighing, Byra admitted as much. “We'll have to rely on what we can learn by studying Awb, then, and since of course we all hope he'll make a quick recovery, that may not be very much. Still, we can call for volunteers who've been in the area since the project started, and that may help.”
“You can get all the specimens you need,” Phrallet said. “Why haven't you thought it through? If studying the poison in a living person means saving our lives-I mean Awb's life-you could just kidnap a few of the natives. They're worthless for anything else, aren't they?”
Thilling clenched her mantle in horror. Surely this group of civilized scientists must reject so hideous a notion out of claw? But no! To her infinite dismay she realized they were taking it seriously. Byra said after a pause, “It would certainly be very useful.”
And Lesh chimed in: “We have plenty of nets! I'll get my staff on the job the moment we return!”
In that moment Thilling realized that she despised Phrallet more completely than anyone she had ever met or even heard of.
And what would Awb say when he learned that his life had been spared at such revolting cost?
But perhaps he would care no more than his budder.
IX
How everything had changed in three-score years! Not least, of course, thanks to the mutated diseases the workers from the abandoned World Observatory had carried away with them. Thilling shivered as she reflected on how vast a mystery those mutations had then seemed, how simple the explanation had proved to be once it was properly attacked...
Why was it that so many people declined to pay attention to such matters? Here in the crowded branchways of Voosla-a city transformed and twice enlarged since she last set pad on her-she knew without needing to be told that anyone she accosted at random would be as likely as not to dismiss her scientific knowledge out of claw, as totally irrelevant to their own concerns.
In the distant past, when there had been religions, it must have been similar for a traveler from afar; how had Jing reacted to those who honestly believed that the Arc of Heaven was the Maker's Sling, and shed meteors on the world as a warning of divine retribution? And here she was, under orders to confront a teacher whom his followers regarded as fit to be mentioned alongside Jing himself, even though he encouraged them to despise the greatest discoveries and inventions of his own lifetime.
If only the Jingfired had picked on someone else for this mission... But their old acquaintance had tipped the balance; Thilling was forbidden to disobey.
She had no difficulty in locating the venue of Awb's daily meeting, of course. Scores-of-scores of people were making for it, so she simply let herself be carried along.
It was, she must admit, a considerable achievement for a mere male to have got himself regarded as his city's most outstanding bud, granted the use of the handsome open bower at the very center of Voosla which was normally reserved for public debates on matters of policy. She imagined it was seldom so packed for one of those. It was with relief that she noticed, as she made herself comfortable in an inconspicuous crotch, that she was not the only person present with the traces of old age on her mantle, though the vast majority of the attendance consisted of young'uns chattering away like piemaqs.
But they fell silent the instant Awb appeared: plumper than Thilling remembered, his mantle deeply grooved, his eye-like her own-less keen. Yet his voice was tremendously improved, and at his first utterance she felt she understood at least a little of what drew folk to him.
Persuasive or not, however, what he said was totally repugnant to her. He taught that no “proper” relationship, with one's community, even with one's budder or budlings-let alone the commensality of all living things-could be established without prior comprehension of oneself. Sometimes he urged people to starve in the midst of plenty, like the ancient sacerdotes; sometimes he expounded on ideas drawn from dream-ness, as though they warranted equal treatment with rational knowledge; frequently he declared that those who sought means to escape the planet were actually fleeing from true awareness of themselves.
And all this, Thilling thought bitterly, because of the load of guilt he had carried ever since he learned that Phrallet's monstrous scheme to kidnap those mindless northern natives and experiment on their living bodies had saved his life... but not her own.
He spoke freely enough about his illness and recovery; what he never mentioned, according to her briefing-nor did he prove the contrary today-was the self-sacrifice of Drotninch and Eupril and Lesh, who had each in her respective way struggled to make sense of the heat arising in that yellow mud, and in less than a generation revolutionized the folk's understanding of matter. Above all, their legacy offered clues to the processes that lit the stars.
Because of them, and their successors, the chemistry of other elements than woodchar was at long last being studied thoroughly. The ancient use of fire had been resuscitated; brilliant young minds had been brought to bear on the questions posed by metal, glass, rock, plain ordinary water! A whole new universe of knowledge had been opened up. And did Awb care? Not by any clue or sign he gave!
Of course he did still hew to his belief that life among the People of the Sea was inherently superior to life on shore. To this fact he modestly attributed his remarkable success in treating deranged landlivers, whose behavior was sometimes dangerously abnormal even though the most delicate analyses revealed nothing amiss in their nerve-pith or ichor. More cynical, Thilling thought of the cleansing ocean breezes that bore away intrusive pheromones. Sea-travel had been regarded as beneficial long before Awb's reputation converted Voosla into the most sought-after of floating cities, in demand to touch at every continent in the course of every year. And she was sure Awb himself must be aware of that fact.
But if she were to mention it to those around her, would they be interested? Would they believe her? Most likely not. Awb and his disciples seemed to be set on creating a generation of young folk who cared as little for the past as for the future. Neither the study of history nor planning for the salvation of the species could attract them. They were assured that they need only study themselves, and all would be well, for ever and ever...
The meeting had assembled before sundown. Darkness overtook it while Awb was still answering questions. Suddenly Thilling noticed that something was distracting the crowd, and everyone was glancing upward. Copying their example, she realized why. There was a small yellow comet in the sky, but that was commonplace; what had drawn their gaze was a meteor storm, a horde of bright brief streaks coming by scores at a time.
She thought for a moment about challenging Awb to deny that that was a reminder of the doom the planet faced, another promise of the dense gas-cloud the sun was drifting towards. But she lacked the courage.
She remained meekly where she was until he was done, and then- equally meekly-made her way towards him, surrounded by a gaggle of his admirers. Most were young she'uns, doubtless hoping for a bud from so famous a teacher.
In old age her own sterility had become a source of gall to Thilling; she strove not to let it prey on her pith.
There was little chance, though, of actually reaching Awb in this small but dense throng, for everyone was respectfully lowering as they clustered about him, leaving no gaps for passage. Hating to make herself conspicuous, but seeing no alternative, she did the opposite and erected to full height... such as it was at her age.
“Awb, it's Thilling! Do you remember me? We used to know each other many years ago!”
There was a startled pause, and all eyes turned on her. A whiff of hostility reached her-how dare this old'un claim acquaintance with the master? But then Awb replied, in a gruffer and lower voice than when addressing the crowd.
“I remember you. Wait until the rest have gone.”
And he dismissed them with gentle shooing motions of his mantle. Disappointed but compliant, they wandered off.
When they were alone but for two thick-set individuals who appeared to be his permanent attendants, his age-dimmed eye surveyed her from crest to pad.
“Oh, yes. It is the same Thilling in spite of the time that's passed. Your voice has changed, but so has mine, I imagine... Tell me, are you still subject to your delusion about being able to recruit people to the Jingfired?”
Delusion?
For an instant Thilling, who had devoted her entire life to the cause she regarded as the greatest in history, wished she might hurl herself bodily at him, shred his mantle with claws and mandibles before his companions could prevent her. But she conquered the impulse, as she had overcome so many before, and a gust of wind dispersed her betraying anger-stink.
With careful effort she said, “Why do you call it a delusion?”
He stiffened back, again examining her curiously. “Hmm! Persistent, I gather! Well, if you've come for help, I might perhaps-”
“You haven't answered my question. As once, long ago, you failed to answer another.”
Missing the allusion, he countered, “Does it really call for an answer? But for the sake of an old friendship, I'll offer one.”
Friendship? Is that what he calls it now? When he begged to be made my apprentice, and ran away as soon as he knew his budder was dead and couldn't plague him anymore?
But Thilling feigned composure in spite of all.
“How life has treated you, I'm unaware, though I suspect unkindly. For myself, I've forced it to treat me well, with the result that I'm now acquainted with the Councils of the Jingflred in every city on every continent and every ocean. They send embassies to me seeking advice and guidance, they anxiously await the appearance of Voosla on the horizon, they take my words and convert them into action-with what advantages to all, you may observe.” A large gesture to indicate the globe. “Not one of those people has ever mentioned you. But don't worry. I've kept your affliction secret for the most part, though I confess I may now and then have referred to it during some of my lectures, purely as an illustrative example, you understand.”
Everything came clear to Thilling on the instant. Of course! He had confused her with Byra... Her voice level, she said, “I take it you have studied Jinglore, then?”
“To some extent”-in an offclaw tone. “It does furnish a store of poetic metaphors and images, which may help us the better to understand our experience of dreamness. But that's all.”
“I regret to say you're wrong. Just as wrong as you are about my so-called 'delusion.' “ She moved so close that, had she been a total stranger, the trespass on his private space would have been an insult, and continued before the bodyguards could intervene.
“How would your followers react to the news that you who preach the need for perfect relationships rejoiced at your budder's death, or to being told how you broke your apprentice's pledge? Or to learning how you, who boast of saving the sanity of others, have become so senile as to confuse me with Byra, may she rest in peace? She too was silly enough to assume that city-bosses who call themselves Jingfired actually are so. But they're not. If your memory isn't totally wrecked, if you have any shred of conscience left, you'll recall my telling you when you pleaded to become my apprentice that it's no use trying to guess who the Jingfired actually are. You have to know.”
After that she fully expected the bodyguards to close on her and drag her away. But they hesitated; an aura of uncertainty was exuding from their master.
At long last he said, not looking at her, but towards the sky where the rain of meteors had now redoubled, “So it's come to this. A voice has spoken from my past which I can neither challenge nor deny.”
Hope leapt up in her pith. For an instant she thought she had already won.
But the hope was dashed when he relaxed with a sigh, and continued: “Such a long-lasting and intractable psychosis is probably beyond even my methods, which normally prove so successful. Still, for old friendship's sake I can at least attempt to show you where you went astray.”
He added to the attendants, “Scholar Thilling will be my guest at dinner. Apologize to those who have prior claims on my time, but meeting someone from one's younghood is a rare event. And perhaps good may come of it in the long run.”
X
If there was one thing Thilling could reluctantly admire about Awb now, it was his skill in keeping up appearances. He closed the gap between them and by embracing her contrived to transfer some of the pheromone-masking perfumes he wore on his torso, leaving the bodyguards confused.
Then he led her along the branchways to a bower where the city's finest foods were lovingly tended by experts who-so he told her- claimed to inherit their knowledge from someone who had studied under Gveest.
But if he expected to impress her by boasting, he was wrong. Nothing could more have firmed her determination than this display of the luxury Awb had attained through corrupting the minds of the younger generation. Had she not needed food to power the argument she foresaw as inescapable, she would have voiced her contempt of his tactics; as it was, she resignedly filled her maw and, confident that even yet he would never have been trained in the Jingfired's techniques of dark-use, waited until he chose to speak again.
Eventually, replete, he let himself slump on his branch and said, “So you thought you could threaten me by raking up my past, did you? That must be because you envy the course my life has taken.”
“On the contrary!” she snapped. “Thanks to the images I made on that dam banked with yellow mud, I went on to share in some of the most notable discoveries of this or any age. Have you no faintest notion what marvels lie in the secret pith of matter? Because of my skills, I was close at claw when Eupril first separated the heavy elements which break up of their own accord. I was there when Lesh-”
“It hasn't made amends for being sterile,” he cut in.
“Oh, because it was an obsession with Phrallet you think everything can be reduced to whether or not one has budded!” retorted Thilling. “Let me remind you-”
He raised a claw. “If you're going to quote Jinglore at me, be warned that others have tried without effect.”
“I have no intention of it. I was about to say that in your attempts to atone for hating Phrallet, you saw no alternative but to outdo Jing and Yockerbow and Tenthag and the other heroes of the past. You're not equipped to.”
Awb had had much practice at appearing resignedly wise. Adopting the appropriate expression, he said, “If each age is to surpass its forepadders, then some individual must respond to its unique and particular challenge. In the present epoch... Well, you see the truth all around you.”
“In other words, you think that your success in turning people inward upon themselves, making them preoccupied with their personal motives and reactions, is the response best fitted to the plight we find ourselves in?”
Awb curled his mantle into a patronizing smile.
“Very interesting,” Thilling murmured, resorting to the ultimate line of attack which the Jingfired had prepared for her. “This fits superbly with Yegbrot's studies of the effect of radioactivity on nerve-pith, which demonstrate how even temporary exposure can derange the system.”
She refrained from mentioning how much she hated Yegbrot's ruthlessness, which stemmed directly from Phrallet's original proposal. If only Awb had chosen to attack the fact that nowadays psychologists were using experimental subjects deliberately rendered mindless by pithing...
In the act of reaching for a fresh and succulent fungus he checked and twisted towards her, glaring. “How dare you accuse me of being insane?”
A breakthrough!
“But I didn't. My mission is merely to establish whether your regrettably successful attempt to distract the best of our young'uns from the branchway that alone can lead to the survival of our species is due to perversity or injury. I now conclude the latter. So you're not to blame.”
Recovering, he chuckled. “You're a classic case of the type I so often invoke in lectures: a sterile she'un determined to project a surrogate immortality on the rest of us because she can't produce her own buds. Sorry to be so blunt, but there it is. And there are many who would pay handsomely for so accurate a diagnosis from Scholar Awb!”
“Yet you sense my authority, don't you?” she countered. “Despite smearing me with that repulsive muck you wear!”
He clattered his mandibles in amusement. “The more you say, the more you support my theory that people like you at some stage lost the ability to distinguish input due to the real world from what stems out of imagination and hence ultimately dreamness. How I wish I had a way to transcribe this conversation! It would confirm-”
“You'd like a recordimal, you mean.”
“Well, out of courtesy I didn't bring one along, but if you'd permit it, certainly I-”
“Do you know who invented the recordimal?”
“No, I don't believe I was ever told,” he answered, taking care as usual to protect his ego by not admitting he might have forgotten. “Who?”
“I was at her side during its development. Byra! With whom you won't stop confusing me!”
“That,” Awb murmured, “must be because if anyone out of our group at the observatory had devised such a useful tool, I'd have expected it to be you. Sure you aren't being modest?” He settled down with the comfortable air of one who, having turned a neat compliment, was expecting to be paid in kind.
But she reacted otherwise, sure now of her ascendancy.
“Once I hoped you'd find the answer to a question I never put to you. I was hoping you might say of your own accord what I once said, like all the Jingfired-the true Jingfired!-and declare that you wanted to devote your life to ensuring that we can overcome the worst the universe can throw at us. Don't interrupt!”-as he showed signs of doing so. “I know what answer you'd give now, and it's the same you'd have given then, had you been honest enough. In your own words, you're a classic case. Yegbrot could tell me to a fraction of a clawide where particles of stumpium and sluggium have settled in your pith. But the real damage had been done already. Lesh died, Eupril died, Byra died, but to the last they fought to understand why, and to save others from the same fate! Whereas you've given up, for the sake of making over countless scores of young'uns into worshipers of Awb!”
By mustering her resources of contempt-stink, she had finally made an impression on him. He said at length, “But you seem to be claiming that I'm responsible for what Phrallet suggested. At that time, though, I was sick and mindless, remember. And I detest the cost of our recent advances in chemistry and medicine! Of course, I suppose you make out that the benefits outweigh-”
“I do not! What would we have lost if we hadn't kidnapped the natives and experimented on them? Half-a-score years at worst, until we could duplicate isolated cells, create synthetic ichor, grow pith in isolation the way we grow nervograps! But if we'd done that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? You'd have missed your chance to scorn my friends who've invented intercontinental nervograps and freight-pitchens and recordimals and now are set to outdo floaters by attaining controlled atmospheric flight, a first pad-mark on the road to space! By all their work, you're as unimpressed as by a pebble on a pathway!”
Breathing hard, she subsided, wondering whether what she had said had registered, or whether the terrible metal from the accidental stumpium pile at the river-dam had lodged in too many crucial junctions of his nerve-pith.
And also how many of his followers, when they inveighed against fumes and furnaces, were doing so because they had reason on their side rather than because the very metals that experimenters now were working with had deformed their thoughts.
Her own as well...?
The possibility was too fearful to think about. She shut it resolutely away.
Her weather-sense was signaling danger, but she put it down to feedback from the reek of tension she and Awb were generating, about which other clients of the food-bower had started to complain. At their insistence, the roof of leaves was being folded back. Perhaps, Thilling thought, she might exploit the incontrovertible reality of the sky to make Awb see sense... but discovered, even as she glanced upward, that that hope too was vain.
Across the welkin slashed a giant ball of light: vast, eye-searing, shedding lesser streaks on its way to-where? The Worldround Ocean, with a little luck, rather than dry land. Yet even there-!
Oh, so much like what the astronomers had predicted from the images she had fixed on sheet after sensitive sheet!
Preserving her pride to the last, she rose while Awb-the poor vainglorious victim of a chance mishap, who had been poisoned in his mind before he was poisoned in his pith, yet whom the future would not forgive for contaminating a later generation with his falsehoods-was still struggling to deny the reality of this event.
“The real world has one resource our minds do not,” said Thilling loudly and clearly. “It can always chasten us with a discovery we couldn't plan for, like the exploding atoms which spoiled the leaves you brought me from the dam-remember? Well, now it's curing us of arrogance again. This is a tenet of the Jingfired, Awb: not the shabby shams whom you're so proud to know, who usurp the name in cities round the world, but us, the secret ones, who work and slave and hope and always seem to find a fool like you to block our way-”
She got that far, thanks to her greater skill in dark-use, before the noise arrived: a terrible noise such as must last have been heard when the ice packs broke up after the Great Thaw, worse than the worst growling of a pack of snowbelongs when they crawled into lonely settlements in search of folk to feed their broodmass.
Already the officers of Voosla were issuing orders: cut loose from shore and who cares if we kill our musculators, get into open water at all costs and stay afloat, signal the giqs and hope to pick them up while we're under way...
It was all well and correctly done, and Axwep, had she survived, would have been proud, and even Phrallet-so thought Thilling in the grayness of uncalled-for memory-might have relented in her constant criticism.
But it was too late. Like her errand to Awb, it was far too late.
The meteor outmassed a score of Vooslas. It boiled and smashed the ocean all at once, and raised a giant wall of water round its impact point that nearly but not quite outraced the sound of its arrival. Every coast that fringed the ocean shattered under the rock-hard water-hammer; Voosla herself was carried screaming far inland in a catastrophic shambles of plants and people, which for a crazy instant made Thilling think of what it must be like to fly...
“Comet! Comet!” she heard, and moaned, “Fools!” with the last pressure in her body before the blast exploded her.
Speech ended. Thought endured longer, enough for her to think: Had it not been for Awb... No, that's unfair. When we escape to space those like him, poisoned by no fault of their own, must still be a part of us, because who can say what other poisons await us out there...?
Not Thilling; she dissolved into the dark, while steam and dust and shreds of what had been the folk and all they cherished set off on their stratospheric journey round the globe.
It was to last more than a score of years.