“Putting insults aside, I agree,” Ling said. “It seems unlikely we were followed. That is, not the first time our ship came to Jijo.”
“What do you mean?” Lark asked.
“When our comrades left us — four humans and two Rothen, with the job of doing a bioassay on Jijo — I thought the others were going to cruise nearby space, in case the dolphin ship was hiding on some nearby planetoid. But that was not their aim at all.
“Their real intent was to go find a buyer.”
Lark frowned in puzzlement. “A Buyur? But aren’t they extinct? You mean the Rothen wanted to hire one as a guide, to come back to Jijo and—”
“No … a buyer!” Ling laughed, though it was not a happy sound. “You were right about the Rothen, Lark. They live by bartering unusual or illicit information, often using human Daniks as agents or intermediaries. It was an exciting way of life … till you made me realize how we’ve been used.” Ling’s expression turned dark. Then she shook her head.
“In this case, they must have realized Jijo was worth a fortune to the right customer. There are lifeforms on this planet whose development seems ahead of schedule, rapidly approaching presapience. And there are the Six Races. Surely someone would pay to know about such a major infestation of criminal sooners … no offense.”
“None taken. And of course, the clue to the dolphin ship was worth plenty. So …” He blew an airy sigh through his nostrils, like a disgusted urs. “Your masters decided to sell us all.”
Ling nodded, but her eyes bored into Rann. “Our patrons sold us all.”
The big Danik did not meet her gaze. He pressed both hands against his temples, emitting a low moan that seemed half from pain and half disgust at her treason. He turned toward the wall, but did not touch the oily surface.
“After all we’ve seen, you still think the Rothen are patrons of humanity?” Lark asked.
Ling shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot easily dismiss the evidence I was shown while growing up — evidence dating back thousands of years. Anyway, it might explain our bloody, treacherous history. The Rothen lords claim it’s because our dark souls kept drifting from the Path. But maybe we are exactly what they uplifted us to be. Raised to be shiils for a gang of thieves.”
“Hrm. That might relieve us of some of the responsibility. Still, I’d rather be wolflings, with ignorance our only excuse.”
Ling nodded, lapsing into silence, perhaps contemplating the great lie her life had revolved around. Meanwhile, Lark found a new perspective on the tale of humanity. It went beyond a dry litany of events, recited from dusty tomes in the Biblos Archive.
The Daniks claim that we had guidance all along … that Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Fuller, and others were teachers in disguise. But if we were helped — by the Rothen or anybody else — then our helpers clearly did a lousy job.
Like a problem child who needs open, honest, personal attention, we could have used a lot more than a few ethical nostrums. Vague hints like,“Have faith” and “Be nice to each other.” Moralizing platitudes aren’t enough to guide a rowdy tyke … and they sure did not prevent dark ages, slavery, the twentieth-century Holocaust, or the despots of the twenty-first.
All those horrors reflect as poorly on the teacher as the students. Unless…
Unless you suppose we actually did it all alone…
Lark was struck by the same feeling as when he and Ling spoke beside the mulc spider’s lake. His mind filled with an image of poignant, awful beauty. A tapestry spanning thousands of years — human history seen from afar. A tale of frightened orphans, floundering in ignorance. Of creatures smart enough to stare in wonder at the stars, asking questions of a night that never answered, except with terrifying silence.
Sometimes, from desperate imaginations, the silence provoked roaring hallucinations, fantastic rationalizations, or self-serving excuses for any crime the strong might choose to commit against the weak. Deserts widened as men ignorantly cut forests. Species vanished as farmers burned and plowed. Wars spread ruin in the name of noble causes.
Yet, amid all that, humanity somehow began pulling together, learning the arts of calmness, peering forward in time, like a neglected infant teaching itself to crawl and speak.
To stand and think.
To walk and read.
To care … and then become a loving parent to others.
The kind of parent poor orphans never had.
Born on a refuge world whose crude safety had vanished, imprisoned in the bowels of an alien starship, Lark nevertheless felt drawn away from worrying about his own fate, or even the six exile clans of Jijo. After all, on the vast scale of things, his life hardly mattered. The Five Galaxies would spin on, even if every last Earthling vanished.
Yet he found his heart torn by the tragic story of Homo sapiens, the self-taught wolflings of Terra. It was a bittersweet tale, pulling from his reluctant eyes trickles of tart brine that tasted like the sea.
The voice was familiar … horrifyingly so.
“Tell us now.”
When all three humans kept silent, the Jophur interrogator edged closer, towering over them. Anglic words hissed from atop the swaying stack of fatty rings, accompanied by liquid burblings and mucusy pops.
“Explain to us; why did you transmit the signal that led to your capture? Did you sacrifice yourselves in order to buy time for unseen comrades? Those we most eagerly pursue?”
It had introduced itself as “Ewasx,” and part of Lark’s horror lay in recognizing torus markings of the former traeki High Sage, Asx. One major difference appeared at the bottom of the stack, where a new, agile torus-of-legs let the composite being move about more quickly than before. And silvery fibers now laced the doughy tubes, leading up to a glistening young ring that had no apparent features or appendages. Yet Lark sensed it was the chief thing turning the old traeki sage into a Jophur.
“We detected a disturbance in the toporgic time field, imprisoning the Rothen vessel below the lake,” it said. “But these tremors were well within noise variance levels, and our leaders were otherwise too busily engaged to investigate. However, we/I now clearly discern what you were trying to accomplish with this trick.”
The declaration left Lark unsurprised. Once alerted, the mighty aliens would naturally pierce his jury-rigged scheme for letting Daniks out of the trapped vessel. He only hoped that Jeni Shen, and Jimi, and the others made it out before hunter robots swarmed around the Rothen time cocoon, then through the network of caves.
While all three humans kept silent, Ewasx continued.
“The chain of logic is apparent, revealing a persistent effort on the part of you sooners to divert us from our main purpose on this world.
“In short, you have been attempting to distract us.”
Now Lark looked up, baffled. He shared a glance with Ling.
What is the Jophur talking about?
“It began several Jijo rotations ago,” Ewasx went on. “Although no other crew stack thought it unusual, I was perplexed when the High Sages acceded so swiftly to our Captain-Leader’s demand. I did not expect Vubben and Lester Cambel to obey so quickly, revealing the coordinates of the chief g’Kek encampment.”
Lark spoke at last. “You mean Dooden Mesa.”
He still felt guilty over how a stray computer resonance betrayed the secret colony’s location. Apparently, Ewasx thought the transmission had been made on purpose.
“Dooden Mesa, correct. The timing of the signal now seems too convenient, too out of character. Memory stacks inherited from Asx indicate a disgusting level of interspecies loyalty among the mongrel races of Jijo. Loyalty that should have delayed compliance with our demand. Normally the sages would have dithered, in hopes of evacuating the g’Keks before giving in.”
“Why did you have to wait for a signal at all?” Lark asked. “If you’ve got memories from Asx, you knew all along where Dooden was! Why bother asking the High Sages?”
For the first time, Lark saw signs of what might be called an emotional response. Uneven ripples coursed several Ewasx rings, as if they were writhing from unpleasant sensations within. When it spoke next, the voice seemed briefly labored.