Anvil of Stars

The ferry crossed the harbor quickly and the tunnels loomed, making sounds such as Odysseus might have heard approaching Scylla and Charybdis. The light of Leviathan fell behind the headland now, and murky shadow surrounded them, broken by the white luminosity of their ferry. Ariel’s face appeared ghostly, shadows of cheeks, chin, and nose rising across her eyes.

“Are we going in there?” Paola asked.

“Yes,” Salamander answered. “We will dock at the second tunnel from your left. Transportation will arrive soon. Within the station, there are type individuals of some of the beings occupying our system. They will speak with you.”

“Martin,” Paola said, “I think the Brothers are having problems.”

Martin looked at Eye on Sky and Silken Parts, both shivering within their suits. Strong Cord seemed fine, sliding beside his companions with solicitous sounds, squirks and clatters. “What’s wrong?” Martin asked.

“This is what is seen when disassembled,” Eye on Sky said, voice harsh and uneven. “This is the cave of youth on the shore, where young come together as braids after cords fight.”

“Paola, what do you know about this?”

“Something about adulthood rituals… Nothing in their literature that I’ve found. Maybe it’s deep memory.”

“It is intimate,” Strong Cord said. “Difficulty buried in minds of cords. I we are disturbed, but we we more disturbed.”

“Salamander, some of us are having problems,” Martin said.

“How may we help?” Salamander’s voice asked.

“Can you block off the view, cover us?” Martin asked. A white canopy rose from the disk like a pleated piece of paper and unfolded over them, blocking the sky but not the view ahead.

Eye on Sky’s trembling stopped. Silken Parts continued to shiver for a few more seconds, then writhed spasmodically and became still, again in control.

What else can go wrong? Martin faced the immense tunnel openings without the Brothers’ deep-seated concerns, but also without any enthusiasm. This entire journey seemed calculated to overawe, and despite Eye on Sky’s agreement to this journey, that said nothing good about their hosts. Rather than manufacture comfortable surroundings, they seemed to want to test their guests—

Test. Gather information about reactions to strenuous conditions. The Killers had done that on Earth with even less mercy.

The disk bumped gently against the edge of the dock. A ramp smoothed out to join with the disk.

“You may walk by yourselves,” Salamander’s voice informed them. Eye on Sky went first, skeletal white suit rippling. Paola followed, then Martin, and finally all stood on the hard dark gray surface.

The disk sank beneath the fast thick waves. No way back—is that the meaning? Is there any meaning, or just insensitivity to aliens whose psychology they know nothing about?

The tunnel’s ceiling hung over them like the edge of a black void. The floor beneath advanced into shadow.

Silken Part’s dark cords became part of the obscurity beyond; his suit seemed to stand by itself, moving like a cartoon spook. Ariel stepped closer. “I think we should get back to the ship in a couple of hours,” she said to Martin.

A tiny simulacrum of a bishop vulture—Frog or Salamander—appeared in the tunnel, perfect in every detail. Martin adjusted his focus to learn whether the image was floating deep back in the tunnel, or nearby, and found it was only a meter from his face, a few centimeters in size. Surprised, Ariel dodged the simulacrum as if it were an insect. She straightened in her suit with a pained expression.

“Salamander, we need to be back in our ship within two hours,” Martin said. The simulacrum grew larger, like an object seen in a zoom lens. Martin heard Salamander’s voice from that direction.

“The meetings will last only twenty minutes this first time,” it said. “You will be returned to your ship after that, and other meetings will be planned.”

A bright red circle appeared deep in the tunnel. “Please move toward the circle. You will see,” Salamander assured them.

The three Brothers slithered ahead, apparently recovered from their initial difficulties.

At first, Martin could see nothing beyond their immediate surround. The six of them—and Salamander’s floating image—were clearly visible. As his eyes grew accustomed, he made out more and more, seeing first an uncertain wave-like motion on the distant walls, then shades and details.

The walls churned. Blocky shapes crawled up in lines like geometric slugs, deflected by obstacles that extruded into their paths. Near the edge of the floor, splashing, sucking sounds told him that water flowed either in hidden gutters or through deep channels beneath.

“What is it?” Paola asked. Martin had no answer. The red circle grew. Spots of dim green and blue light appeared on the walls, moving with the blocky shapes but not issuing from them.

“What are those?” Paola asked.

“Living machines that process and store chemicals made in the seas,” Salamander said. “The seas are factories. There is much traditional industry on this world.”

The red circle faded. “You may stop now,” Salamander said.

This is it. They’ll kill us now, then dissect the ship at leisure, torturing, misleading, learning what they can.

Walls lifted from the floor around them, bright blue like clear sunny skies on Earth, and a kind of music played, without melody but very pleasant.

“You will meet first with four representatives,” Salamander announced. The simulacrum vanished and Salamander entered, full sized, through a door in a luminous wall.

“Is this your physical form?” Eye on Sky asked, head cords splayed wide, the eyes on each cord glittering.

“This is my form,” Salamander said. “Individuals are not limited to single bodies. There are many versions of myself working. This is true of nearly all the type individuals you will meet.”

Safety in numbers. No sense attacking—you can’t kill us all, we have copies, backups stashed everywhere.

Martin pretended to be impressed, but in fact the children had been told about this early in their voyage, along with other facts about advanced technological species.

The surprise was that, given their abilities, the inhabitants of these worlds still had physical form at all.

Their hosts fit few norms.

“Are you prepared to meet with these representatives?”

“Yes,” Martin said.

“Yes,” Eye on Sky said.

Martin felt a sting of anticipation.

Through the door came a being with two elephantine legs, two three-jointed arms emerging from a barrel chest, and a small, eyeless head. Despite having seen it in still images before, Martin’s throat tightened and his heart-rate increased. The creature stood at least three meters high, well adapted to this kind of gravity, moving with a curious waddle like the gait of a fat human combined with the ponderous grace of an elephant. It wore no clothing and carried no equipment.

Salamander walked beside the thick-legged elephantoid, striding on four limbs, bat-like, crest rising and falling.

The door widened and a tube of fluid pushed through, forming a cube beside the elephantoid. Within the cube floated two creatures, elongated, shark-shaped, with broad wing-like fins along their sides. Their heads were pointed, sensory organs arranged in rings back from the snout. Fins just behind the head ended in radiances of finger-like tentacles. Martin had assumed these creatures were related; their appearance in the same field seemed to support that opinion. The cube of water arranged its passengers beside the others.

Last to enter was a second bishop vulture. The door closed. To Martin, the assembly seemed hasty at best, not what he would have expected for a historic moment; not a first meeting with a newly arrived race of intelligent beings, more like a gathering of executives to iron out business matters.