“That is dangerous,” admitted Dweller.
“Why? Why dangerous?” asked Drinker.
“Dangerous because of ancient oracle!” cried Dweller in Pain. “All Quaatar know when seven roads are walked at once, Quaatar end. Frossians too, most likely. And K’Famir. This oracle goes far, far back in history of great Quaatar race.”
Darkness nodded ponderously. “This is why we look for copies. We found more! One Mar Gar Et in Fajnard. One Mar Gar Et on Tercis, where Gentherans were seen! That’s four.”
“Four can’t do anything,” said Dweller.
Darkness said sulkily, “The Mar Gar Et that got away on Cantardene knows about ghyrm. If she talks to Gentherans, she’ll tell!”
Dweller laughed, a fume of smoke and licking blue flame. “Even if she tells Gentherans everything, I say, again, again, it doesn’t matter! Five copies, six copies, doesn’t matter. It’s too late to help the humans, because very soon there will not be any humans. There are enough ghyrm piled up on Cantardene that we can start dropping them on Earth right after we test them on B’yurngrad.”
Our substance became rigid and manifested a foggy mass rather like a huge ear.
“B’yurngrad is our test. We will drop enough ghyrm to kill every human there. If one of your Mar Gar Ets is on B’yurngrad, there will be one less copy. When B’yurngrad is dead, we scoop up the ghyrm and take them to Earth.”
Our muttering little form eased away, losing shape, losing substance, becoming nothing. Ongamar and I felt solid soil beneath our feet, looked up to see the sky, the building where we were all staying at the academy.
“You will be going to B’yurngrad almost immediately,” said Mr. Weathereye in a strange, far-off voice. “Perhaps I will see you there.”
“Where did he go?” asked Ongamar in a strangled voice.
“God knows,” I said, then surprised myself with a blat of nervous laughter. The episode had been ridiculous, but I was sweating, my teeth were clenched, my stomach felt as though I had swallowed an anvil. Ongamar was gray, shuddering, tottering. I took her arm to support her, and she leaned as though to hold me up. Perhaps I needed it. So propped, we entered the building and found the common room where Flek and Jaker were with Mar-agern and Margaret. Gloriana, Falija, and Bamber Joy arrived almost immediately. Margaret provided us with cups of strong coffee—from the new coffee plantations on the Southern Isles—and we made halting conversation while we waited for Ferni. When he arrived, I introduced Ongamar, adding, “Mr. Weathereye says she has vital information.”
“He thinks so,” Ongamar said. “I have seen ghyrm being made, and he thinks I should tell you about it.”
Then she told us a story. It was obviously one she had told before, for she told it without hesitation, almost matter-of-factly, while giving us far greater detail than I, for one, felt was necessary. Several of us had to leave the group to stand breathing deeply in the open window.
“That’s why the genetic match,” cried Flek. “They’re made from human beings.”
“Assuming the little creatures I saw were a kind of human, yes,” Ongamar agreed.
“At least the ghyrm bodies are,” said Ferni.
“Is there anything to them but bodies?” Caspor asked.
Flek said, “Something, yes. Something that processes information, remembers, reports. Not a brain, exactly. More of a computer with only one program.”
“So if the flesh is mostly human,” said Jaker, “where does it get its motivation? That has to come from somewhere else.”
I asked, “Ongamar, did you ever detect anything from your parasite that felt human?”
She considered. “Not really, no. If I delayed giving it what it wanted, it punished me. I suppose humans might have that reaction, but the ghyrm was that way all the time. It wanted blood and pain, only that. It didn’t eat, smell, touch, or look at anything else. It wasn’t interested in anything else. If it had been human, surely it would have…wanted some variety, wouldn’t it?”
We spoke of this for some time. I did not want to discuss the other thing. I did not want to think about the other thing, but finally we ran out of anything more to say about the ghyrm, and I could not hesitate any longer. I told them what the cabal planned to do, first on B’yurngrad, then on Earth. “When they have killed every human on B’yurngrad, the Mercans will scoop the ghyrm up and repeat the process on Earth itself.”
There was a long, deadly silence before Flek cried, “But that’s ludicrous. This cabal—it sounds like monsters out of a fairy story! Shadowy beings of total terror. Surely they have families, children that they care about. No living thing could be that…that uncaring. That bloodthirsty.”
“You would not say that if you had been there,” said Ongamar harshly. “If there was anything but cruelty inside the K’Famir on Beelshi, it didn’t show. And they don’t care about their own families. Their women are for amusement or breeding; their daughters are for sale or disposal; their sons are turned into copies of their fathers. Living creatures are valued only for their usefulness, and if they aren’t useful for anything else, they become useful for the young males to use in perfecting their skills of torture in their malehood schools.”
“But we don’t understand why,” I said, sounding plaintive even to myself. “We feel we need to understand why.”
Margaret responded. “Naumi, I strongly suspect they don’t need a why. When one considers violence and cruelty, the whys seem to get lost. During my studies on Earth, I had to watch accounts of human history, and I can’t count how many times I saw and heard some human cry out, ‘But why do they want to kill us?’ People of one color killing another. People of one religion killing those who followed another. People of one language killing those who spoke another. Sometimes just people rioting, killing anyone, because they couldn’t stand the lives they had…”
“We don’t do that,” cried Flek, obviously distressed.
Margaret said, “You personally may not, but
