“At the time,” she said, “we considered this to be some kind of plague that would affect only people on Cantardene. We were shortly disabused of this idea when several humans in transit to Chottem from bondslave planets farther into Mercan space were also slain by the ghyrm. Since that time we have bent all our resources toward discovering what the ghyrm are and where they come from. Thus far, we have had virtually no success in answering the latter question.”
She went on to tell us what her people had learned about the ghyrm. It was not a bacterium or virus, it was an organism that could take various shapes or appear to do so. Genetically, it was all one creature, and perhaps it had been cloned, though it appeared and acted differently in different circumstances or, possibly, when directed by some outside agency. It could take over a person or invade a small area and move rapidly from person to person to wipe out all human life as it had done on Cranesroost, where Settlements Two, Five, and Six were wiped out.
We students were not the only ones who exclaimed at this. Evidently, almost no one in the room had known about Cranesroost. The speaker asked us to put on the viewers, which we did. Silence fell. Someone, somewhere, turned them on.
The technology was beyond anything I had experienced. I actually became the person on Cranesroost. I was a settlement captain who knew all about the place. The settlement lay just within a hillside grove of miraculous trees, huge as cathedral towers and as bulky, effective barriers to wind and the worst of weather. Just outside the grove, the glittering sand of the lakeside sloped toward silver water, placid in moonlight, riffling recurrently as though from something breathing on the farther shore, perhaps something very large, one titanic arm pillowing its head as relaxed lips puffed, and puffed, and puffed, touching the quivering surface with the gentlest of exhalations.
I was the captain of the settlement, standing at the edge of the lake near a roost of cranes that appeared almost real in this quiet light. I knew the children had built them out of bits of wood and pipe, an evocation of times long gone, a time when cranes really lived, danced, mated, hatched, brought forth young. Seeing them in the moonlight, I, the captain, almost believed in them, or something like them. The Cranesroost settlement had seen birds, or things like birds. They didn’t fly, but they ran very fast, and they ate the fishy things in lakes as cranes no doubt had done. We settlers called them fishers and hadn’t learned much about them yet, for winter was pressing, and shelter had to come first. Observing birds would no doubt be a pleasant pastime in later years.
Unknown things were worrisome, the captain thought, even though the Gentherans gave the planet a good bill of health. There were native creatures, yes, some of them poisonous but none of them ferocious or sneaky or particularly intelligent, being more of the “I’ll leave you alone, you leave me alone” variety. The captain relied on this when he had sent the scouting team out early that morning, but if there was nothing dangerous out there, they should have been back.
So he stood watch, waiting for three men and one woman who trekked around the lake to the north. Their orders had been to go as far as they could go by noon, then turn around and come back by suppertime. Suppertime was over hours ago. Suppertime was a dimming memory.
“Captain?”
“Who?”
“Me, sir. Gruder.”
“I haven’t seen a thing, Gruder.”
“This isn’t like Kath.”
The captain snorted. “It isn’t like any of them. You should be getting some sleep.”
“The little one keeps waking, asking for his ma. I keep telling him she’ll be home in the morning. Do we send out a search party, or not?”
“I don’t know. I thought four of them was enough to be safe, you know. Four pairs of eyes. Eight strong legs and arms.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know what to think. Maybe they saw something a little farther off and kept going after noon. Then, coming back, the dark caught up to them. Maybe they’re lying up there along the bank, just waiting for light.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Let’s, and if they did, damn ’em, they can stand watch for the next hundred nights. Worrying us like this…what’s that?”
“Where?”
“Down there, north. Along the lakeside. I saw light, fire. Like a torch. See it, there it goes again!”
We watched, nearly hypnotized as the one spark was repeatedly occluded by trees, then steadied, became two, then four, moving slowly in a line along the shore. The captain sighed. “I guess they got tired. Decided to rest before they made the trip back. Or maybe they’re carrying something. Go on back to bed, Gruder. She won’t be here for another hour, at least.”
The other man yawned widely, took a deep, relieved breath, and returned to his cabin, one of the first ones built, the nearest to being finished. In the little paddock alongside the house a goat bleated, briefly disturbed in her rest. The captain stayed where he was, though he sat down on a stump to rest his legs. The sparks continued their arc around the edge of the lake, growing in brightness, then disappearing behind the nearer trees and emerging again, four of them, bright as stars.
“Welcome,” he said at last, when the missing four stumble up from the shore.
“Captain?” said Kath.
“Yes. And Gruder’s been up, too, waiting for you. Where in the hell did you all get to?”
“Brought you a present,” said Kath. “Something we found.” She approached, holding something out in one hand. We all peered at it.
“What’s that? Beads? On a thong or a thread? Now who in heaven’s name put that together on this world?”
Kath shrugged as I took it
