Arkwright (40 page)

“Enough.” Kaile raised her fores in protest. “You tell us these things and ask that we believe them, but you offer no proof.” She cast an angry glare at Nathan. “Perhaps you've managed to fill their minds with lies—”

“We're not lying,” Nathan said, his voice flat and steady.

“—but I refuse to accept what you're saying on your word alone. Prove it!”

No one said anything for a moment. Then Benjam stood up. “Then I'll give you proof. Something that's been here since the beginning of our history, which we've long accepted as evidence that life began out there.”

“And you'll also see what caused that light you saw in the sky,” Nathan added. Marilyn opened her mouth as if to object, but he shook his head. “No, she needs to see this. It's the only way.”

“Follow me,” Benjam said, and then he dropped to all fours and began to walk toward the door.

 

9

Another path, this was on the far end of town, led uphill into the dense forest at the base of the mountains. As Benjam led the group through the black woodlands, Nathan picked up where he'd left off in the meeting hall.

“First Town was the original colony, and for the first few years—um, sixyarn—it was the only settlement. During this time, the Teachers nurtured the hundred children who'd been gestated and born aboard
Galactique
 … building shelters for them, providing them with food from the mockapples, roseberries, and vine melons that they cultivated, and educating them as they raised them from infancy to childhood. It helped a great deal that Eos has very short seasons. Unlike Earth, your winters last only three weeks, and the equatorial region is relatively mild.”

“Have you ever seen snow?” Marilyn asked.

Sanjay and Kaile shook their heads. “What's that?” Sanjay asked.

“It's … um…”

“Don't interrupt,” Nathan said to Marilyn. She grinned and became silent, and he went on. “The colony was approaching self-sufficiency when an unforeseen occurrence happened, one that changed everything … your sun, Calliope, underwent a variable phase.”

“Calliope is what's known as a red dwarf.” As Russell spoke, he turned to walk backward on his curiously shaped hinds. Sanjay was amazed by the improbable and yet so casual movement, but Russell didn't seem to notice the way he stared at him. “They're generally smaller and cooler than Earth's sun, but every now and then—a few thousand years or so—they tend to spontaneously enter phases in which they grow hotter and brighter due to solar prominences—”

“Russell.” Again, Nathan was concerned that Sanjay and Kaile wouldn't understand him.

“No, don't stop,” Sanjay said. “I think I understand what you're saying.”

“You do?” Russell said. Sanjay nodded, and after a moment, Kaile reluctantly did, as well. “All right, then. Anyway, when Calliope started to undergo one of these variable phases,
Galactique
detected the change that was about to occur—”

“Of course she did,” Kaile said. “Gal knows all and sees all.”

Marilyn sighed, shook her head. “Please try to understand … Gal isn't a deity. It's a machine.” Seeing the confused expression on the young woman's face, she tried again. “It's like a tool, just far more complicated than anything you've ever seen. One of the things it can do is think and reason for itself, just as you can.”

“This tool has a mind?” Even Aara was startled by this revelation.

“Of a sort, yes.” This time, Russell made a stronger effort to speak in terms the islanders could understand. “Not exactly like your own, but … yes, it can observe, gather facts, and make its own decisions.
Galactique
also provided the Teachers with information and instructions, just as it provided the Transformers with their own instructions.”

“Unfortunately, it can also make mistakes.” Nathan had become pensive. He walked with his head down, gazing at the ground as he spoke. “When it saw that Calliope was entering a variable phase, it calculated the probable effects upon the planetary climate and realized that severe storms—typhoons, we call them—would occur in this region. The colonists were still quite young, and the settlement had been established in a coastal area that would probably experience high winds, flooding, perhaps even forest fires.”

“The Great Storm,” Sanjay said.

“We know all about that.” A vindicated smile appeared on Kaile's face. “This was when Gal separated those who believed in her and took them to Providence, leaving behind those who'd sinned.”

“Again, you're only half-right.” As Nathan said this, Sanjay could tell that he was trying to be patient. “It wasn't a matter of who'd sinned and who hadn't.
Galactique
determined that the odds of survival would be increased if the colony was divided, with half of the children sent elsewhere while the other half remained here to protect the settlement. So it instructed the Teachers to build boats to take fifty children to the nearby island, whose western coast
Galactique
calculated would be less vulnerable to storm surges from the east, where they would remain until the variable phase came to an end and the climate restabilized.”

“My ancestors were among the fifty who stayed here.” Benjam walked slowly, turning his head to Kaile and Sanjay. “They were given a Teacher and one of the Transformers, just as your ancestors were, and then they relocated to higher ground away from the beach—the place where First Town stands today.”

“It was supposed to be only temporary,” Marilyn said, “but then—”

“We're here,” Benjam said.

The path came to an end in a clearing where the slope was level and only chest-high grass and clumps of dreamer's weed grew. From its center rose a tall object, off white and partially covered with vines, that Sanjay first took to be a large, tooth-shaped boulder tilted slightly to one side. As they walked a little closer, he saw that it wasn't a natural object at all. Darkened on the bottom, tapering upward as a conical shape with mysterious markings along its sides, it had a round opening midway up, a rope ladder dangling from it.

Whatever it was, clearly it had been made by human fores.

“This is where it all began.” Benjam stopped and stood erect. “This is the craft in which all our ancestors were brought down to the surface.”

Nathan pointed to dark-blue markings along its upper surface, just visible through the clinging vines. “See?
G
 …
A
 …
L
…” He shrugged. “The rest got rubbed off some way or another.”

“Probably atmospheric friction during entry and landing,” Russell said. “Sun and rain too. Still, it's in amazing condition, considering how long it's been here.”

Walking a little closer, Sanjay rose on his hinds to peer in the direction Nathan was pointing. All he saw was something that looked like a snail, something that looked a little like a harpoon tip, and a right angle. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You can't see that?” Marilyn asked. “How can you not—” Then she stopped and stared at him. “Oh, my god. You can't read, can you?”

“No,” Benjam said quietly. “For the islanders, Inglis—what they call English—is entirely a phonetic language, with no written counterpart.” He regarded Sanjay and Kaile with a pitying expression. “The children who were sent to Providence lost their ability to read and write when their Teacher was disabled and they lost communications with
Galactique
. It's the main reason their understanding of history became diluted by myth.”

“Oral history.” Marilyn nodded with sudden understanding. “Unwritten, malleable, and all too easy to be misunderstood. Everything they know, or they think they know, has been—”

“What are you saying?” Sanjay glared at them, annoyed by their condescension but also confused. “Are you trying to tell us that everything the Deacons have told us is … is…?”

“Wrong,” Nathan said, finishing his thought for him. “I'm sorry, but that's what we've been trying to explain.” Stepping past Benjam, he slowly walked through the high grass, approaching the craft as respectfully as if it was a shrine. “You wanted proof,” he said over his shoulder to Kaile. “Well, here it is. Want to come closer and see?”

Kaile hesitated. Then, visibly shaken but nonetheless curious, she followed Nathan and Benjam, walking on her hinds so that she could see the craft more clearly. Sanjay and Aara fell in behind her, with Russell and Marilyn following them. As the group made its way across the clearing, Nathan continued.

“When our ship arrived a few weeks ago—that's the light your mother saw, Sanjay—one of the first things we did was rendezvous with
Galactique
and access its memory … talk to it, if you will. We learned a lot of what had happened here over the last hundred and sixty years—sixyarn, I mean—but there were still some mysteries that remained unsolved until we came here and made contact with Benjam and his people.”

“By then, I'd been told the truth, as well,” Aara said quietly, looking at Sanjay. “Like everyone who's been exiled here, the first thing that I learned was how wrong the Disciples are. Our whole history, everything we know…” Her voice trailed off.

Nathan continued to speak. “One of the worst effects—in fact, probably the single worst effect—of Calliope's variable phase was the enormous electromagnetic surge that occurred during its peak.” He glanced over his shoulder at Sanjay and Kaile. “I know you're not going to understand this, so I'll try to make it simple. Stars like Calliope emit more than just heat and light. They also cast other forms of radiation that you can't hear, see, or feel but that are present, anyway. The radiation became so intense that it not only destroyed
Galactique
's ability to … um, talk to the Teachers and the Transformers but also the islanders' ability to communicate with those who stayed on the mainland.”

“We didn't lose our Teacher the way you did,” Benjam explained, “because it took shelter within this craft, which has adequate shielding to resist against this intense radiation. So we still had the means by which to learn the things we needed to know, including our history and origins. But our Transformer was destroyed, as well as the high-gain antenna. Those had been built up and couldn't be deconstructed in time.”

“Almost all electrical technology was lost,” Russell said. “Except for the emergency radio beacon. That was inside the lander, where it runs off a nuclear power cell. Once we learned its frequency from
Galactique,
we were able to use it to figure out where this colony was located.”

“That's the light you saw, Kaile,” Aara said.

She said nothing. By then, the group had reached the landing craft. It was over forty rods tall, and Sanjay could now see that it was made entirely of metal, its paint chipped and faded with age. The opening midway up its flank was a hatch from which a ladder made of woven vine and bambu had been draped.

“The children who'd been taken to Providence remained there,” Benjam said. “Their Teacher and Transformer ceased to function, and they lost contact with those who'd been left behind. By the time the Great Storm finally ended four yarn later, they'd come to believe everyone there was dead. Without a Teacher to lead them, much of their knowledge was lost. They couldn't even cross the channel without risking being killed by monarchs.”

“What we call great white sharks back on Earth,” Marilyn added. “Like everything else, they've been adapted to provide Eos with a diverse ecosystem. Unfortunately, they also became a barrier between the two colonies.”

“So the colony on Providence formed its own culture,” Benjam continued, “without the benefit of written language or history or even science. In time, their children and children's children came to believe in Gal, but here”—he laid a fore against the lander's hull—“we didn't lose those things. Before our own Teacher ceased to function, it taught our grandparents all that we needed to know. By the time they were ready to build boats and try to restore contact with those who lived on island, the Disciples had made anything contrary to the Word of Gal—
Galactique
's final instructions to the island colony, passed down by word of mouth over the yarns, all the time being reinterpreted and misunderstood—an act of heresy. Even trying to come over could get us killed. All we could do was stay away and accept those your people banished. Do you see?”

“Yes,” Sanjay said.

“No,” Kaile said. “All I see is something left to us by Gal. It could be anything but what you say it is.”

“Kaile…” Aara shook her head, more disappointed than angry. “Everything they've told you is true.”

“If you still don't believe us, go in and see for yourself.” Benjam tugged at the bottom of the ladder. “Here … climb up and look.”

Sanjay didn't hesitate. Taking the ladder from him, he grasped the rungs with his fores and carefully began to climb upward. As Nathan took the ladder to follow him, Sanjay paused to look back down. Kaile was still standing on the ground; when she caught his eye, she reluctantly began to scale the ladder herself.

The compartment on the other side of hatch was dark. As Sanjay crawled through the hatch, he found that he could see very little. There was a gridded metal floor beneath his fores and hinds and some large oval objects clustered along the circular walls, but that was almost all he could make out. Nathan came in behind him, and Sanjay was startled by a beam of light from a small cylinder he'd pulled from his pocket. But this was nothing compared to the shock he felt when the bright circle fell upon an object on the far side of the compartment.

“A Teacher!” Kaile had just entered the craft. She crouched beside the open hatch, staring at what Nathan's light revealed.