heartbeats.
But fear has one great enemy, more powerful than confidence or courage.
Tedium.
Chafed from sitting on the bench for miduras, Sara eventually let go of the dismal oppression with a long sigh. She slipped off the wagon to trot alongside — at first only to stretch her legs, but then for longer periods, maintaining a steady jog.
After a while, she even found it enjoyable.
I guess I’m just adapting to the times. There may be no place for intellectuals in the world to come.
Emerson joined her, grinning as he kept pace with long-legged strides. And soon the tunnel began to lose its power over some of the others, as well. The two wagon drivers from the cryptic Illias tribe — Kepha and Nuli — grew visibly less tense with each league they progressed toward home.
But where was that?
Sara pictured a map of the Slope, drawing a wide arc roughly south from the Gentt. It offered no clue where a horse clan might stay hidden all this time.
How about in some giant, empty magma chamber, beneath a volcano?
What a lovely thought. Some magical sanctuary of hidden grassy fields, safe from the glowering sky. An underground world, like in a pre-contact adventure tale featuring vast ageless caverns, mystic light sources, and preposterous monsters.
Of course no such place could form under natural laws.
But might the Buyur — or some prior Jijo tenant — have used the same forces that carved this tunnel to create a secret hideaway? A place to preserve treasures while the surface world was scraped clean of sapient- made things?
Sara chuckled at the thought. But she did not dismiss it.
Sometime later, she confronted Kurt.
“Well, I’m committed now. Tell me what’s so urgent that Emerson and I had to follow you all this way.”
But the exploser only shook his head, refusing to speak in front of Dedinger.
What’s the heretic going to do? Sara thought. Break his bonds and run back to tell the world?
The desert prophets captivity appeared secure. And yet it was disconcerting to see on Dedinger’s face an expression of serene confidence, as if present circumstances only justified his cause.
Times like these bring heretics swarming … like privacy wasps converging on a gossip. We shouldn’t be surprised to see fanatics thriving.
The Sacred Scrolls prescribed two ways for Jijo’s illegal colonists to ease their inherited burden of sin — by preserving the planet, and by following the Path of Redemption. Ever since the days of Drake and Ur-Chown, the sages had taught that both goals were compatible with commerce and the comforts of daily life. But some purists disagreed, insisting that the Six Races must choose.
We should not be here, proclaimed Lark’s faction. We sooners should use birth control to obey Galactic law, leaving this fallow world in peace. Only then will our sin be healed.
Others thought redemption should take higher priority.
Each clan should follow the example of glavers, preached Dedinger’s cult, and the Urunthai. Salvation and renewal come to those who remove mental impediments and rediscover their deep natures.
The first obstacle to eliminate — the anchor weighing down our souls — is knowledge.
Both groups called today’s High Sages true heretics, pandering to the masses with their wishy-washy moderation. When dread starships came, fresh converts thronged to purer faiths, preaching simple messages and strong medicine for fearful times.
Sara knew her own heresy would not attract disciples. It seemed ill matched to Jijo — a planet of felons destined for oblivion of one sort or another. And yet …
Everything depends on your point of view.
So taught a wise traeki sage.
we/i/you are oft fooled by the obvious.
Lark
AN URRISH COURIER CAME RUSHING OUT OF THE forest of tall, swaying greatboo.
Could this be my answer already?
Lark had dispatched a militiaman just a few miduras ago, with a message to Lester Cambel in the secret refuge of the High Sages.
But no. The rough-pelted runner had galloped up the long path from Festival Glade. In her rush, she would not even pause for Lark to tap the vein of a tethered simla, offering the parched urs a hospitable cup of steaming blood. Instead, the humans stared amazed as she plunged her fringed muzzle into a bucket of undiluted water, barely shuddering at the bitter taste.
Between gasping swallows, she told dire news.
As rumored, the second starship was titanic, squatting like a mountain, blocking the river so a swamp soon formed around the trapped Rothen cruiser, doubly imprisoning Ling’s comrades. Surviving witnesses reported seeing familiar outlines framed by the battleship’s brightly lit hatchway. Corrugated cones. Stacks of ring’s, luxuriously glistening.
Only a few onlookers, steeped in ancient legends, knew this was not a good sign, and they had little time to spread a warning before torrid beams sliced through the night, mowing down everything within a dozen arrowflights.
At dawn, brave observers peered from nearby peaks to see a swathe of shattered ground strewn with oily smudges and bloody debris. A defensive perimeter, stunned observers suggested, though such prudence seemed excessive for omnipotent star gods.
“What casualties?” asked Jeni Shen, sergeant of Lark’s militia contingent, a short, well-muscled woman and a friend of his brother, Dwer. They had all seen flickering lights in the distance, and heard sounds like thunder, but imagined nothing as horrible as the messenger related.
The urs told of hundreds dead … and that a High Sage of the Commons was among those slaughtered. Asx had been standing near a group of curious spectators and confused alien lovers, waiting to parley with the visitors. After the dust and flames settled, the traeki was nowhere to be seen.
The g’Kek doctor tending Uthen expressed the grief they all felt, rolling all four tentacle-like eyes and flailing the ground with his pusher leg. This personified the horror. Asx had been a popular sage, ready to mull over problems posed by any of the Six Races, from marriage counseling to dividing the assets of a bisected qheuen hive. Asx might “mull” for days, weeks, or a year before giving an answer — or several answers, laying out a range of options.
Before the courier departed, Lark’s status as a junior sage won him a brief look at the drawings in her dispatch pouch. He showed Ling a sketch of a massive oval ship of space, dwarfing the one that brought her to this world. Her face clouded. The mighty shape was unfamiliar and frightening.
Lark’s own messenger — a two-legged human — had plunged into the ranks of towering boo at daybreak, carrying a plea for Lester Cambel to send up Ling’s personal Library unit, so she might read the memory bars he and Uthen had found in the wrecked station.
Her offer, made the evening before, was limited to seeking data about plagues, especially the one now sweeping the qheuen community.
“If Ro-kenn truly was preparing genocide agents, he is a criminal by our own law.”
“Even a Rothen master?” Lark had asked skeptically.
“Even so. It is not disloyal for me to find out, or else prove it was not so.
“However,” she had added, “don’t expect me to help you make war against my crew mates or my patrons. Not that you could do much, now that their guard is raised. You surprised us once with tunnels and gunpowder, destroying a little research base. But you’ll find that harming a starship is beyond even your best-equipped zealots.”
That exchange took place before they learned about the second vessel. Before word came that the mighty Rothen cruiser was reduced to a captive toy next to a true colossus from space.
