Bowl of Heaven (15 page)

He’d have to talk this through with Howard when they had the chance.

He had seen flying frogs leap from stream levels to high branches, flapping short distances on webbed legs. The predators of the high sky hovered long before they dived, able to sustain their altitude with big, slow-flapping wings. The insects here were bigger, too, for some reason, though with the same many-legged gaits as on Earth. This was indeed a different place—and how different, how truly alien, they could not fully know yet.

Plus, the smart bird aliens. Was he being narrow-minded at first, thinking smart birds unlikely? But of course, these were huge birdlike ones … and he had not seen any fly. Maybe they resembled ostriches who gave up flying and gained technology.

Howard held up a hand, pointed, hunkered down—they were getting better at hand signals.

Along a narrow stony beach lay some long reddish brown things like bulging crocodiles, lounging in the perpetual noon. They grunted as they moved. Their bodies were long and scaly, with a short, blunt snout. A lazy yawn showed many serrated yellow teeth.

“Those are for tearing chunks out of big prey,” Cliff whispered. “Our crocs dine on small fish, chickens, small pigs. These eat bigger things.”

“Let’s give them plenty room,” Irma said.

Aybe pointed. “But what’s—?”

It rose out of the deeper dark water. A long neck uncurled upward with strands of weeds dripping from its flat, rubbery mouth. The brown eyes gleamed with wet curiosity as it looked at them, mildly interested but taking its slow time.

“An herbivore,” Cliff said, awed. “Like a…”

“Dinosaur,” Howard supplied. “What the hell kind of place
is
this?”

“Convergent evolution?” But that seemed unlikely, and he stepped back as the thing rose like a slippery mountain—dark with a white belly, legs like pillars, long slick neck and tiny head. “It
is
. It’s a … dinosaur,” Cliff said, a chill running through him. “From Earth. Has to be.”

Irma said, “The aliens, they stopped at Earth?”

“Must’ve sent ships, anyway. They must’ve picked up some of our—Earth’s—ecology,” Howard said as if entranced, eyes rapt, prophesying. “Like we were doing, bringing species alone in sleepstate—only more so.”

“It’s interested in us,” Aybe said, taking a step backwards.

“How do we know it’s not a meat eater?” Irma said.

“We don’t.” Terry turned to leave.

“Their native ecology here must been overrun with alien species. So … Cliff? It’s too good, this place, too like Earth. That’s why. They imported Earth life.”

“Maybe. Maybe,” Cliff said, grimacing. “Reassuring, isn’t it? If that’s the explanation.”

Irma backed away, too. “Let’s go.”

Cliff smiled. “Don’t miss the lesson. We can eat some things here, and it can eat us.”

“Y’know,” Irma said, “they could’ve just hauled some dinosaur eggs and other life here on ships, passing by our solar system, a long time ago.”

Cliff nodded, eyeing the massive, slow shape with fascination. It grunted. “So the Earth forms could’ve taken over parts of the Cupworld, and lasted this long.”

The huge thing sluggishly waded toward them, pausing to rip reeds and lily pads from the water and gulp them down. A muddy reek came from it on the soft wind. It was slow but steady, and Cliff motioned them to back away. “It’s a herbivore, I’d say, but interested in us.”

“Not for eating, though,” Howard said, “so why—?”

“If it steps on you, what’s the difference?” Aybe was moving faster, towing a grunting Howard by his belt.

They got away from there. Irma led the way, in case some predator moved to block their exit. None did. They faded back into the forest.

Cliff now felt apprehensive. He realized that they had been taking this place as a pseudo-Earth, and indeed in many ways it was—but that also meant it held forms that summoned up in them ancient fears. None of them had seen dinosaurs except in movies, but the sight of one tapped also into a deep reservoir of primate vigilance.

Aybe said, “Now we know the trajectory of the Cupworld better. We extrapolated a naïve straight-line trajectory and folded in star motion, too. It may have been near Earth over sixty million years ago.”

“What’s ‘near’ mean?” Irma asked.

Aybe rolled his eyes as he calculated, adjusted his hat, shrugged. “Say, five light-years. How old was that dino back there, Cliff?”

“Maybe a hundred million years ago. I don’t recall the classification or the dates real well. I’m a field biologist.” Abruptly he laughed. “Didn’t think at the time I’d have any use for those paleontology classes.”

In a clearing, Irma automatically moved to their right flank and said, “Y’know, Earth wasn’t in the same place in the galaxy hundred million years ago. So Cupworld might’ve been following some different trajectory, not just some straight line from Earth to here.”

Howard said, “Right. Stars move a lot in that time.”

Irma kept a wary eye out, whispering, “Face it, we don’t have a clue what these aliens—the smart ones, I mean—are doing. Touring the galaxy on a slow boat? What kind of mind does that?”

“A slow mind,” Terry said. Cliff had noted that the man didn’t say much. When he did, it was well thought out. “Maybe an immortal one?”

“As a biologist,” Cliff said, “I kinda doubt that anything lives forever. Once you stop reproducing, the force of natural selection stops working. Traits that gave you short-term benefits come back to haunt you.”

Irma said, “But if you have biotech galore—?”

“All bets are off,” Cliff admitted. “Maybe the Builders—that’s what I call them, the ones who made all this—lived pretty damn near forever. But Cupworld has been on its way for at least millions of years. Maybe even sixty million—that’s when the dinosaurs died.”

This sobered them all as they made their way upslope, keeping their eyes on the surrounding forest. Cliff recalled a training hike into the Ecuadorian rain forests he had taken while he worked on his doctorate. The instructor had told them that the three weeks they spent upriver of the Amazon would be “meet-yourself experiences,” and that seemed to capture a deep truth. Exploring made you know yourself better, like it or not.
Self-knowledge is usually bad news.…

Without warning, a leathery thing the size of a greyhound came at the point man, Aybe. It ran quick and sure, as if it had preyed on something that looked like them before. Aybe shot it at a one-meter range, blowing a laser hole in its forehead. The big yellow eyes of the thing fluttered and it fell, kicking, rasping out a last breath. It looked like a reptilian dog, scaly and tough, with thick haunches and a powerful set of clamping jaws.

They stared at it. “Good shot,” Terry said.

Irma said brightly, “Let’s make a fire, roast up big chunks of meat.”

Cliff worried about detection, but didn’t stop them from gathering wood. Their amino acid scans had shown the basic same as Earth, and DNA had the same structure too. Maybe they were universal? An old folk song about moonshine cooking rang in his mind.
Don’t use green or rotten wood, they’ll get you by the smoke.…
“Don’t use fresh fallen branches,” he called out. “Look for dried-out ones.” Terry looked scornful at this, but others nodded. They had uneven woodland skills. Cliff still had to remind them often not to talk so much, a rule every field biologist knows.

Around the campfire—carefully set under dense leafy boughs, to capture and spread the billowing gray stink, which was nearly transparent—they set into the fresh roasted haunch meat with gusto. Terry wished for a good red wine to go with it, got some laughs.

They ate but were not sleepy. So they pushed on, looking for a safe water source, a spot with clear fields of fire. Nobody wanted to spend a sleep time in trees. But what was the alternative? Cliff was still wrestling with the problem of what to do, but he had to shush them after the meal, and that made him worry more. Leadership was a bitch, he decided. More like being a schoolmarm …

“Look, we’ve got to remember one big fact: These creatures don’t have any natural caution about us,” Cliff said as they made their way up a steep slope under spreading canopy trees of fat emerald fronds.

Aybe said, “Doesn’t that mean they’ll be easy to hunt?”

Cliff gave him a wry look. “Sure. But it also means the predators have no reason to fear us. Remember that.”

FIFTEEN

Memor decided to isolate her prisoners from the vast species
richness of the World. Her Undermind provided the idea, and she instantly knew it was correct. She had watched the logics working in their moist, blue green connections, and understood the entire thought-chain.

The World’s wealth would stun them, surely. The blue green abundance would prove shameful to such primitives. They might even commit group suicide, humiliated beyond tolerance. Their cages she ordered made hospitable, but nothing more.

Further, her underlings saw that these small creatures found every avenue of escape blocked. Isolation was best, both for them and for scientific study. It was simple to devise transport to put them tens of millions of miles from natural air, water, vegetation, the ripe bounty of the World. Ancient records said something of the sort had worked well against the last invaders, rendering them compliant. Then again, she had to feed them.

She had found a good solution. The greenhouse was a series of verdant ledges set near the World’s axis of rotation and thrust. The Jet burned a searing injunction in its sky, pointing back at the Star. Sunny and mild, this was a unique preserve, a rightful richness that fed the Astronomers and gave them restful grounds for strolling and contemplation.

Surely, as the species that tended the course and the health of the World, and so provided for their servant species, Astronomers deserved such cloistered wealth. Since time immemorial, the plants that grew there, the animals and birds that lived on the plants and each other, had all been deftly altered to match microgravity. Such was the wisdom of the Ancients.

In this lush paradise, Memor allowed the Invaders some small latitude. She had not stripped the Invaders of their equipment, because she didn’t know what would kill them. No doubt some of their implements, so odd and crude, were sacred to them, or used for amusement. Very well; Memor was generous.

She and the other, lesser species watched to see if the Invaders would divest themselves of their pressure suits. They did strip the wounded one, but failed to learn from the experience. For some no doubt primitive reason, the rest remained dressed for vacuum when they went to sleep.

They slept twice as long as an Astronomer would have, and all woke more or less at once. Perhaps this was a species defense mechanism?

They stripped down then to a lower layer of cloth. So scrawny! Memor doubted they were hiding anything from her. More likely they kept themselves covered as a birth control measure, taming their primordial impulses. Or perhaps they used outer coverings to control temperature in an altogether wilder environment than the World’s. Lesser species of the World had similar mechanisms, and could even use simple tools.

Memor watched carefully as they designated a toilet area, and used it in turn. No sharing. Perhaps a status ritual? They tried various bits of what Memor had set for them as food, an elaborate crescent array that would serve as a biology lecture, too. They did not eat grass or bark or water weeds, but they did eat an amazing variety of higher protein content foods. Omnivores! Memor had once wondered if they could feed themselves at all. In the World there were species that could not; they needed servants who could process and serve food. Biology had many strange flowstreams.

Some of what they had were tiny cameras. Memor watched them making records of what they saw. They spent much of their effort recording the arrays of possible food sources. When she knew they used meat, and knives, she supplied whole carcasses; they photographed these and the dressed and cooked meat, too. Plants raw and peeled. Servitors and Memor herself.

Her lessers had returned with reports on the cell cultures harvested from the Late Invaders. The Late Invaders had similar methods of genomic patterning methods. Was DNA a universal, then? Memor knew that it was not. But they could come from one of the Seed Worlds the Ancients reportedly tried to fertilize.

Memor wondered if these Late Invaders could genetically engineer tools and machines not to degrade in a biosphere. The Ancients had bequeathed enzymes to synthesize devices, so the World grew apparatus needed by the Folk.

Turning sunlight and water into machines was the Higher Way, and these Late Invaders did not seem to have mastered that pathway to greatness. They might be able to edit genes, or transplant them to another crop; such was simple. But their devices did not have the elegant cast of grown apparatuses. So they quite probably ate simple foods, too, and lived lives of primitive needs. Yet built ramscoops.

Memor pondered this and decided to try fish. She ordered admitted to their ample cage some varieties with appropriate chemistries. No need to not be generous, after all. They should be made comfortable in their final days.

SIXTEEN

Coarse, smelly, wet soil stretched away, embedded in a gray
metal mesh. You couldn’t call it the ground, Beth thought, not in almost zero gravity, not with a straight face. More like a sheet of stucco with plants growing in it. The stuff ran away from them in muddy sheets for what looked like thousands of kilometers.

She had climbed into one of the spindly, triangular trees and surveyed the landscape. The soaring fence was far off, tens of kilometers. Beth judged that it ran up as far as the plastic sky. “It’s as if they’ve imprisoned us in a dull, wet, brown Australia,” Mayra said. “Lots of room. Lots of space to hide.”

Abduss grumbled, “We’re about to starve to death, too.”

“Working on it,” his wife said, grinning.

Lau Pin said, “Let’s at least get out of these damn suits. We can do a better splint job on Tananareve.”

In the early, fractured talk the big one in charge identified itself as Astronomer—a rank, apparently. She—definitely a She, a slit wreathed by crimson feathers—used star charts and pictures to make the point, assisted by slowly pronounced words in their language of grunts, call, piping songs. The Fourth Variety of locals Beth called Porters. Like other varieties, they were feathered like flightless birds, but built more like lizards. Their limbs and toes were long and limber. In the near free fall here, they were still flightless, but they could leap long distances. The Astronomer, whose “close-name” was Memor, had shown them this right away. Beth thought this might have been some kind of display to instill submission; certainly the long, hooting calls Memor gave sounded joyous and dominant. Most of the other Astronomers wore harnesses, and used them for carrying.