Washen said, “River,” and the cavern was suddenly flooded with illusions. Sculpted light was focused on every open eye, and sounds were driven into the ears and teased the vestibular systems. Suddenly Amund felt like a bird. Towering white clouds stood in an otherwise azure sky, and below him, the exuberant vegetation was every shade of blue. What looked like a dark blue river was pinned to the valley floor. Save for those colors, that could be any earthly jungle. But when he dropped low over the river, the water ceased to be water. The quivering dark surface was more gelatin than fluid. Capable of motion in any direction, this river was pushing upstream, and it was far larger than the trickles flowing through the Highlands or even the Earth’s famous rivers. Flexible trunks that weren’t trees lined the nearest shoreline, a canopy of arms or tentacles pushing toward the sky. Except those weren’t arms and they weren’t tentacles. Amund was reminded of sea anemones. That’s what these were. Gigantic terrestrial anemones. And against every expectation, the boy was thinking how interesting and how pretty everything was.
Curiosity was an indulgence at best, a hazard at the worst. The Highlands couldn’t have survived two generations if its citizens chased every sweet question. But long history and his culture didn’t matter. All at once, Amund was intensely, selfishly curious.
The captain’s voice returned.
“The Great Ship is a beggar too,” Washen said. “Our hull is covered with telescopes that beg the Milky Way for light and radio noise. My ship never stops studying local planets and the distant ones too. And between the telescopes are enough antennae to shout at those worlds, begging to be heard and to be answered by any mind with the means and the desire.
“What you’re seeing here is a fresh transmission. Where-the-rivers-live sent these images along with explanatory texts and certain diplomatic overtures. This world is six billion years old and clever. Commensalism is the norm. Unrelated species have woven themselves into unified bodies. The native genetics have found a very stable point where there’s no boundary between the forest and the river. What you see is one creature, and, as it happens, this entity controls the central watershed of the wettest continent. Rather like our Amazon does. Except this river is longer than the Amazon, and it extends far beyond the continent. Which is another marvel, and if you want to see where the living water flows, don’t close your eyes for more than a moment.”
Amund clamped his eyes shut.
A foolish, incurious reflex, and he didn’t know why he did it. Perhaps the eyes were thinking for him. Opening them again, he discovered that the spell had been broken, the living river was lost, and he had nothing to see but his lover staring at nothing, her gaze spellbound, shameful. Everyone but Amund was happily trapped inside that other world. And nobody else understood. That machine-infused captain had one goal for her day, and she knew just what to say to them and just what to show to them.
The boy had suffered enough. Slip home, close his door, and pretend to sleep or eat or accomplish any other human task. That’s what he was planning to do. Except his legs had a different opinion. Instead of taking him home, they found the quickest stairs, carrying him toward the captain and her fine voice and that very pretty face—the polished face of a beautiful marble statue dedicated to some ancient, unreachable deity.
Washen’s voice continued to sing out.
“Serving as a captain, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet multitudes,” she boasted. “Species from very strange worlds, and species from worlds unnervingly similar to the Earth. And every point between. But this realm, Where-the-rivers-live, is like nothing else. It’s fresh and it’s wondrous, and on the basis of novelty alone, I would invite a trickle of any river into the Great Ship. I would build a habitat where their nature and beauty could thrive. And if the creature didn’t have the resources to afford passage? I’d pay its way. That’s how interesting these creatures are to me.
“But there isn’t any need for charity. Where-the-rivers-live happens to be the only inhabited world inside a solar system rich with potential. This transmission came with an offer. In exchange for passage on the Great Ship and certain new technologies, the living rivers will grant us full possession of two hot planets and two cold moons. Four worlds, each of which can be terraformed, and any one of which can become a home for humans.”
She said the local word for “humans.” That was a critical detail. Or she was careless, which seemed very unlikely. By then, Amund had reached the cavern floor. Elders and the high faithful were crowded around the captain. A few of them had stopped watching the show, but they continued to stare at their guest, mindlessly smiling and nodding. Most of the audience remained lost in the astonishments. But of course nothing they saw had to be real. Everything was a lie. That possibility ambushed Amund, frightening him and making him angrier than ever. Which was rather pleasant. The boy enjoyed being enraged by the one-sided nature of this mess. An immortal machine had marched into their little cave to tell them a ridiculous story, forcing them to watch invented lights and invented sounds, and this was such an easy trick for a god, making stupid little humans believe in any preposterous world.
But why would Washen lie?
To embarrass Amund’s people, obviously.
That paranoid idea was exactly what he needed. Rage gave him courage, and courage
