Even half-conscious, she knew something important. He could not sing unless the words were stored deep within, beyond the scarred part of his brain. It meant she must have touched him, when their roles were reversed.
Not all the unguents in the world — nor the cool beauty of mathematics — could do as much for Sara. What finally called her back was knowing someone missed her, when she was gone.
Ewasx
THERE WAS AN ENJOYABLE SENSE OF IMPORTANCE TO our task, was there not, My rings? There we stood, this stack of shabby-looking, retread toruses, deputized with a noble job — explaining to envoys of six races the new order of life on this world.
FIRST — they should not hope for great judges to come from those Institutes who mediate among ten thousand starfaring races. Passions run too high, throughout the Five Galaxies. Institute forces have withdrawn, along with timid, so-called moderate clans, a dithering, ineffectual majority. Only great religious alliances show nerve nowadays, battling over which way the Galactic wheels shall turn during a time of changes.
WE ARE YOUR JUDGES, I told the ambassadors. Out of kindness, we the Polkjhy crew have volunteered to serve as both posse and jury, chastening the seven races who invaded this world’s fallow peace.
To demonstrate this benevolence, we have delayed by many days the important work that originally brought us here, even though it means leaving our comrades to make their own repairs in that eastern swamp, while our remaining corvette tours the Slope, photographing and recording evidence. It also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the irresistible majesty of our power. We did this by destroying egregious structures that sooners should not use, if their goal truly is racial redemption.
IT IS NOTED THAT YOU WERE NOT MUCH HELP IN THIS WORK, MY RINGS. (Accept these reproaching jolts, as tokens of loving guidance.) Asx melted many memories, before capture and conversion, yet we/I did recall certain abominations. We gained credit, for instance, by helping target the Bibur River steamboats, and a refinery tower in Tarek Town, an edifice called the Palace of Stinks.
DON’T WORRY. In time, we of the Polkjhy will find all pathetic objects-of-sin prized by headstrong sooners. We shall help erase the flagrant hypocrisy of tool use among those who chose the Downward Path!
SECOND comes our unstoppable demand for justice. The High Sages showed surprising good sense by swiftly emitting a call, soon after our last meeting. A flicker of computer cognizance, leading our corvette to Dooden Mesa. But this token gesture will not suffice for long. We want every living member of the g’Kek race accounted for. That should not be too hard. Stranded on a roadless planet, they are singularly immobile beings.
“Please do not destroy our wheeled brethren,” the envoys entreat. “Let the g’Kek seek holy shelter down Redemption’s Path. For is it not said that all debts and vendettas stop, once innocence is resumed?”
At first we see this as yet more lawyerly blather. But then, surprisingly, our senior Priest-Stack agrees! Moreover, that august pile makes an unusual, innovative suggestion—
HERE IS THE QUESTION posed by the Priest-Stack: What kind of revenge on the g’Kek would transcend even extinction?
ANSWER: to see the g’Kek race become once again eligible for adoption, and for their new patrons to be Jophur! In their second sequence of uplift, we might transform them as we see fit — into creatures their former selves would have disdained!
Vengeance is best when executed with imagination. This justifies bringing a priest along. Indeed, that stack variety has uses.
Of course this daring plan carries complications. It means refraining from informing the Five Galaxies about this sooner infestation. Instead, our Jophur clan must keep it secret, tending Jijo like our own private garden.
SO WE BECOME CRIMINALS, under Galactic law. But that hardly matters. For those laws will change, once our alliance assumes leadership during the next phase of history.
Especially if the Progenitors have indeed returned.
THIRD comes opportunity for profit. Perhaps the Rothen gene raiders were onto something. Jijo seems exceptionally rich for a fallow world. (The Buyur were good caretakers who left the planet filled with biopossibilities.) Might the Rothen have discovered a likely presentient race already? One ripe for uplift? Should we have bought off the gene raiders so we might have access to their data, instead of sealing them away in time?
REJECT THE NOTION. They are known blackmailers and double-crossers. We will bring in our own biologists to survey Jijo.
AND WHO KNOWS? Perhaps we might accelerate the sooner races along the path they seek! Glavers are already far progressed toward innocence. Hoons, urs, and qheuens have living star cousins who might object if we adopt too soon. But that may change as battle fires burn across the galaxies. As for human wolflings, at last word their homeworld was under siege, in desperate straits.
Perhaps those on Jijo are already the sole remnant of their kind.
THAT LEAVES OUR TRAEKI RELATIVES TO CONSIDER. The rebel stacks who came here sought to reject the gift of the Oailie — the specialized rings that give us purpose and destiny. It is wrenching to see traeki stumbling about like our pathetic ancestors. Such ungainly beings, so placid and unambitious! We should at once commence a program to create master rings in large quantities. Once converted, our cousins will be ideal instruments of dominance and control, able to knowledgeably run this planet for us without further cost to the clan.
ALL THESE CONCERNS SEEMED PARAMOUNT. Yet from the start, some members of the crew chafed at talk of vengeance, or profit, or redemption. Even the fate of local traeki seemed unimportant, compared with the matter that brought the Polkjhy here in the first place.
Hints by the Rothen that they knew the whereabouts of the missing prey ship.
The prey ship carrying news of the Progenitors’ return.
DROP ALL OTHER CONCERNS AT ONCE! these stacks insisted. Send the remaining corvette east! Do not wait for the first boat’s crew to make repairs on their own. Fetch and interrogate the human-slaves-of-Rothen. Search deep-water places where the prey ship might be hiding. Delay no longer!
But our Captain-Leader and Priest-Stack agreed that a few more days would not matter. Our hold on this world is total. The prey cannot escape.
Lark
PALE DAYLIGHT PENETRATED THE LAKE TO WHERE A few drowned trees wafted their branches, as if to a gusting breeze. The rewq over his eyes helped him see, amplifying the dim glow, but Lark found the resulting shadows creepy, adding to a feeling that none of this could possibly be real.
Working underwater alongside Rann and Ling, he took part in an odd ritual, communicating with the trapped inhabitants of the preservation bubble. Since the process began, the hatchway of the imprisoned ship had filled with humans and Rothen, pressing eagerly against the gold barrier. Yet, from the outside no motion was seen. Those within were as still as statues, like wax effigies, depicting people with worried expressions.
Only when Lark and the other swimmers turned away, averting their gaze, did the “statues” change, shifting positions at incredible speed.
According to Ling’s terse explanation, scribbled on her wax board, the captives lived in a QUANTUM SEPARATED WORLD. She added something about COGNIZANCE INTERFERENCE BY ORGANIC OBSERVERS and seemed to think that explained it. But Lark failed to see why not-looking should make any difference. No doubt Sara would understand better than her brother, the backwoods biologist. I used to tease her that the books she loved best were filled with useless abstractions. Concepts no Jijoan would need again. Guess it just shows how little I knew.
To Lark the whole thing smacked of a particularly inconvenient kind of magic, as if the capricious goddess, Ifni, had invented the gold barrier to test the patience of mortals.
Fortunately, their micro — traeki rings provided the human swimmers with all the air they needed. When pressurized supplies ran out, the little toruses unfolded great feathery fans that waved through the lake water like lazy wings, sieving fresh oxygen for Lark and the others to breathe. Another impressive feature of the ever- adaptable ringed ones. Combined with the skink-skin wet suits and rewqs, it made the swimmers look like bizarre sea monsters to those inside the bubble. Finally, though, the prisoners set up an electronic message plaque that
