“We’re-glad-to-see-you’re-all-right-but-now-shut-up-and-get-over-here.”
Few other citizens of the Slope could squeeze all that into a single GalThree word-blat. Not that skill excused her rudeness.
“Hr-rm. The-same-to-you-I’m-sure, oh-obsessed-being-too-transfixed-to-offer-decent-courtesy,” I replied in kind.
Shuffling forward, I noted how my companions were transformed. Ur-ronn’s pelt gleamed, Huck’s wheels were realigned, and Pincer’s carapace had been patched and buffed smooth. Even Huphu seemed sleek and content.
“What is it?” I began. “What’re you all staring …”
My voice trailed off when I saw where they stood — on a balcony without a rail, overlooking the source of both the pale glow and the chill haze. A cube — two hoon lengths on a side, colored a pale shade of brownish yellow — lay swathed in a fog of its own making, unadorned except by a symbol embossed on one face. A spiral emblem with five swirling arms and a bulbous center, all crossed by a gleaming vertical bar.
Despite how far the people of the Slope have fallen, or how long it’s been since our ancestors roamed as star gods, that emblem is known to every grub and child. Inscribed on each copy of the Sacred Scrolls, it evokes awe when prophets and sages speak of lost wonders. On this frosted obelisk it could only mean one thing — that we stood near more knowledge than anyone on Jijo could tally, or begin to imagine. If the human crew of sneakship Tabernacle had kept printing paper books till this very day, they could have spilled only a small fragment of the trove before us, a hoard that began before many stars in the sky.
The Great Library of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies.
I’m told moments like these can inspire eloquence from great minds.
“J-j-jeez,” commented Pincer.
Ur-ronn was less concise.
“The questions …,” she lisped. “The questions we could ask …”
I nudged Huck.
“Well, you said you wanted to go find something to read.”
For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, our little wheeled friend seemed at a loss for words. Her stalks trembled. The only sound she let out was a gentle keening sigh.
Asx
If only we/i had nimble running feet,
i/we would use them now, to flee.
If we/i had burrowers’ claws,
i/we would dig a hole and hide.
If we/i had the wings,
i/we would fly away.
Lacking those useful skills, the member toruses of our composite stack nearly vote to draw permanently, sealing out the world, negating the objective universe, waiting for the intolerable to go away.
It will not go away.
So reminds our second torus of cognition.
Among the greasy trails of wisdom that coat our aged core, many were laid down after reading learned books, or holding lengthy discussions with other sages. These tracks of philosophical wax agree with our second ring. As difficult as it may be for a traeki to accept, the cosmos does not vanish when we turn within. Logic and science appear to prove otherwise.
The universe goes on. Things that matter keep happening, one after another.
Still, it is hard to swivel our trembling sensor rings to face toward the mountain dreadnought that recently lowered itself down from heaven, whose bulk seems to fill both valley and sky.
Harder to gaze through a hatchway in the great ship’s flank — an aperture broad as the largest building in Tarek Town.
Hardest to regard the worst of all possible sights — those cousins that we traeki fled long ago.
Terrible and strong — the mighty Jophur.
How gorgeous they seem, those glistening sap rings, swaying in their backlit portal, staring without pity at the wounded glade their vessel alters with its crushing weight. A glade thronging with half-animal felons, a miscegenous rabble, the crude descendants of fugitives.
Exiles who futilely thought they might elude the ineludable.
Our fellow Commons citizens mutter fearfully, still awed by the rout of the smaller Rothen ship — that power we had held in dread for months — now pressed down and encased in deadly light.
Yes, my rings, i/we can sense how some nearby Sixers — the quick and prudent — take to their heels, retreating even before the landing tremors fade. Others foolishly mill toward the giant vessel, driven by curiosity, or awe. Perhaps they have trouble reconciling the shapes they see with any sense of danger.
As harmless as a traeki, so the expression goes. After all, what menace can there be in tapered stacks of fatty rings?
Oh, my/our poor innocent neighbors. You are about to find out.
Lark
THAT NIGHT HE DREAMED ABOUT THE LAST TIME HE saw Ling smile — before her world and his forever changed.
It seemed long ago, during a moonlit pilgrimage that crept proudly past volcanic vents and sheer cliffs, bearing shared hope and reverence toward the Holy Egg. Twelve twelves of white-clad celebrants made up that procession — qheuens and g’Keks, traekis and urs, humans and hoons — climbing a hidden trail to their sacred site. And accompanying them for the first time, guests from outer space — a Rothen master, two Danik humans, and their robot guards — attending to witness the unity rites of a quaint savage tribe.
He dreamed about that pilgrimage in its last peaceful moment, before the fellowship was splintered by alien words and fanatical deeds. Especially the smile on her face, when she told him joyous news.
“Ships are coming, Lark. So many ships!
“It’s time to bring you all back home.”
Two words still throbbed like sparks in the night. Rhythmically hotter as he reached for them in his sleep.
… ships …
… home …
… ships …
… home …
One word vanished at his dream touch — he could not tell which. The other he clenched hard, its flamelike glow increasing. Strange light, pushing free of containment. It streamed past flesh, past bones. A glow that clarified, offering to show him everything.
Everything except …
Except now she was gone. Taken away by the word that vanished.
Pain wrenched Lark from the lonely night phantasm, tangled in a sweaty blanket. His trembling right hand clenched hard against his chest, erupting with waves of agony.
Lark exhaled a long sigh as he used his left hand to pry open the fingers of his right, forcing them apart one by one. Something rolled off his open palm—
It was the stone fragment of the Holy Egg, the one he had hammered from it as a rebellious child, and worn ever since as penance. Even as sleep unraveled, he imagined the rocky talisman throbbing with heat, pulsing in time to the beating of his heart.
