Brightness Reef (23 page)

Of the Six, only a hoon or human could make it this high in a snowfall, and no hoon would let himself get into that much of a hurry.

Hey, you! Don’t go up through the boo! There’s danger thataway!

Dwer’s voice produced only a croak, barely loud enough to rouse the noor, causing Mudfoot to lift its head.

Hey, fool. Can’t you see our trail in the grass and snow? It’s like a Buyur highway out there! Are you blind?

The figure plowed right on by, disappearing into the dark cathedral-like aisle between twin walls of vaulting boo. Dwer slumped, hating himself for his weakness. All I had to do was shout. That’s all. Just a little shout.

Glassy-eyed, he watched more flakes fill the runnel in the grass, slowly erasing all signs leading to this rocky cleft. Well, you wanted to hide, wasn’t that the idea?

Perhaps the four of them would never be found.

Dwer lacked the strength to feel irony.

Some hunter. Some mighty hunter. . .

The Stranger

It will take some getting used to, this curious unlikely voyage, rushing along in a wooden boat that glides down rocky canyons, swooping past high stone walls, giving a sense of incredible speed. Which is odd, since he knows he used to travel much, much faster than this . . . though right now it’s hard to recall exactly how.

Then there are his fellow passengers, a mixture of types he finds amazing to behold.

At first, several of them had filled him with raw terror—especially the squishy thing, looking like a stack of phlegmy doughnuts piled up high, venting complex stinks that scrape-tickled his nose and tongue. The mere sight of its corrugated cone wrenched feelings of blank horror—until he realized that something was quite different about this particular Joph—

His mind refuses to bring forth the epithet, the name, even though he trolls and sifts for it.

Words refuse to come easily. Most of the time, they do not come at all.

Worse, he cannot speak or form ideas, or comprehend when others send shaped-sounds toward him. Even names, the simplest of labels, refuse to rest within his grasp but wriggle off like slippery things, too angry or fickle to bear his touch.

No matter.

He resolves to wait, since there is no other choice. He even manages to hold back revulsion when the doughy cone-creature touches him, since healing seems its obvious intent, and since the pain always lessens a bit, each time it ivraps oily tendrils round his throbbing head.

In time, the contact becomes oddly pleasant.

Anyway, she is usually there, speaking to him gently, filling the tunnel-view of his attention with her smile, providing an excuse for frail optimism.

He doesn’t recall much about his former life, but he can dimly remember something about the way he used to live . . . not so much a philosophy as an attitude—

If the universe seems to be trying to destroy you, the best way to fight back is with hope.

Scrolls

In order to be blessed,

And to bring redemption,

Forgetfulness cannot come at random.

Aspects of oblivion

Must come in the right order.

First must come detachment from the driving

need

To coerce the material world,

Or to shape other beings to your needs.

To be shaped is your goal.

First by nature,

And later by hands and minds

Wiser than your own.

The Scroll of Promise

Alvin’s Tale

SO THERE WE WERE, WAY UP IN THE THIN, DRY AIR atop Mount Guenn, surrounded by heat and dust and sulfury smells from Uriel’s forge, and what does Gybz the Alchemist want to talk to us about?

The traeki tells us we’re being sent to a different kind of hell.

But hold on, Alvin. Spin the yarn the way an old-time human storyteller would. Describe the scene, then the action.

Gybz concocts recipes for metal and glass in a grimy workshop, quite unlike Uriel’s prim, spotless hall of spinning disks. Mineral powders spill across stained wooden shelves and earthenware jars stink with noxious liquids. One slit window overlooks a northern vista stretching all the way down to a splash of painful color that could only be .the Spectral Flow, which means the chamber is about as high as you can get without tumbling into Mount Guenn’s simmering caldera.

Below the window, flies swarmed over a pile of nicely aged kitchen mulch. I hoped we weren’t interrupting Gybz at dinner.

The four of us-Huck, Pincer, Ur-ronn, and me-had come up to the alchemy lab at the command of Uriel, the great blacksmith, ruler of this fortress of industry perched on Jijo’s trembling knee. At first I figured she sent us away just to get rid of some irritating youngsters, while she conferred with a human sage over how to improve her beloved mobile of gears, pulleys, and whirling glass. The chief assistant, Urdonnol, muttered disapproval while shepherding us up a long ramp to the traeki’s mixing room. Only our pal Ur-ronn seemed cheerful, almost ebullient. Huck and I exchanged a glance, wondering why.

We found out when Gybz shuffled ers mottled, conical bulk around from behind a workbench. Words bubbled from a speaking tube that puckered the third-from-the-top ring.

“Bright youths of four races, be made welcome! Sublime news for you, it is an honor to relate. A decision to approve your expedition, this has occurred. Your endeavor to reach, visit, explore the nearest reaches of the Upper Midden, this you may attempt.”

Gybz paused, venting puffs from a purple synthi ring. When the traeki resumed, it was in warbling, uneven Anglic, with a voice that sounded strained.

“The attempt will have . . . the full backing of Mount Guenn Forge. As evidence of this support, behold-your completed window!”

The Master of Mixes gestured with a wraparound tentacle toward a wooden crate near the wall, with its cover removed. Amid drifts of fine sawdust, there gleamed a curved pane of thick glass, flawless to the eye.

Pincer-Tip danced excitedly, his red-clawed feet noisy on the stone floor. “Beautiful-iful!”

Gybz agreed. “It has been treated with proper coatings-for clear vision in the planned environment.”

Ur-ronn snaked her long neck around to inspect the bubble-pane.

“This last phase was delicate. Thank you, Gyfz, for the exquisite coatings!”

Ur-ronn turned to explain to Huck and me, “After months of delay, Uriel suddenly agreed just three days ago to allow the casting. And since the results were good on the first try, she will let this count toward a kun-urul”

That was urrish plains dialect for a master work. One qualifying the maker for craftsman status. It would take Ur-ronn a long way toward fulfilling her ambitions.

None of the rest of us have started professions, or even decided what we want to do, I thought, a little jealously.

On the other hand, urs have to hurry. They don’t get that much time.

I glanced at Urdonnol, who was Ur-ronn’s top rival as Uriel’s heir. I didn’t need a rewq to read her annoyance with all this fuss over what she called a “childish hobby”-the making of an experimental deep diving craft.

You should know better, I thought, feeling a bit sorry for Urdonnol. Uriel also has a useless pastime, that room full of spinning disks. Ur-ronn’s project shares thatjust-for-the-hell-of-it quality. It’s a similarity between them that goes beyond mere kin-scent.

To Ur-ronn, then, this had also been a smart career move. I felt happy for our friend.

“The glass was tested to withstand hydrostatic pressures exceeding those at fifty cords depth,” she commented with evident satisfaction. “And when you add the lanterns and other gear Uriel is kindly lending us-“

“Us?” Huck cut in, breaking the mood. She spun to face Ur-ronn with three outthrust eyes. “What you mean us, honky? You’re volunteering to come along, then?”

Ur-ronn’s narrow head snapped back, staring at Huck. Then her neck slumped in an S-curve.

“I will .
 
. . if I can.”

“Huck!” I chided. It was mean to rub Ur-ronn’s nostril in her limitations. I could hear Huck’s spokes vibrate with tension.

Gybz interrupted with another venting, this time pungent like rusty metal.

“If possible, an urrish presence will be called for.” The traeki seemed short of breath. “But even if that proves impossible, fear not. A member from Mount Guenn shall . . . accompany this bold undertaking ... to its deepest depths.”

I had trouble following Gybz’s halting, accented Anglic. Huck and I shared a confused look.

“It is i/we . . . who shall part-wise accompany . . . this august group,” Gybz explained, wheezing through the topmost ring. With that, the traeki showed us something none of us expected, shuffling around to expose an oozing blister on its far side, halfway up the fleshy stack. It was no normal swelling, where the traeki might be making another tentacle or readying chemicals for the mill. A crack split the swollen zone, exposing something slick and wriggly within.

Staring, I realized-the traeki was vlen-budding before our eyes!

While the crevice widened, the Master of Mixes seemed to flutter. A complex gurgle of vaguely sickening noises accompanied something that began to emerge, slithering through the opening, then sliding down the traeki’s sloping flank, trailing loose fibers behind it.

“Gosh-osh-osh-osh-osh . . .” Pincer repeated in turn from each leg-vent, his sensor strip spinning frantically. Urdonnol edged away nervously while Huck rolled back and forth, torn between curiosity and revulsion. I felt sharp, biting sensations as little Huphu, our noor beast mascot, scrambled up my back and onto my shoulder, growling anxiously. Half-consciously I stroked her sleek pelt, rumbling an umble that must have sounded more confident than I felt.

Glistening with slime, the thing landed on the floor with a plopping sound and lay almost still, ripples coursing around its quadruple torus of miniature rings. Meanwhile, realignments quivered under the flaccid skin of the traeki parent.

“Not to ... be concerned,” a somewhat altered voice burbled from the oration peak of the old stack of rings, “i/we adjust . . . reconfigure.”

Reassuring words, but everyone knows vlenning is a dangerous time for a traeki, when the unity of the former stack is challenged and sometimes fails. For that reason, most of them reproduce externally, growing new rings singly, in pens, or buying them from expert breeders, exchanging and swapping for the full set of traits they want in an offspring. Still, vlenning has advantages, I hear. Mister Heinz claims to have witnessed several, but I bet he never saw a four-tier bud emerge like this, already stacked and moving on its own!

“This newly detached self may be addressed-for the time being—as Ziz. To that word-phrase it might answer, if engraved training patterns take hold. After performing its function with merit, it may then return for augmentation as a candidate for full life. Meanwhile, it is schooled ... to serve your quest, coming with traits you may require.”

“I don’t know.” Ur-ronn’s head swayed an oval of confusion. “Do you mean—“

Huck muttered, “Gybz, what are we supposed to—“

The traeki. cut in.

“i/we no longer answer to that name. Our rings vote among ourselves now. Please do not speak or interfere.”

We fell silent, watching in awe as the creature literally wrestled with itself, within itself. A rippling seemed to rise from the base segment all the way up, terminating in a belch of yellow vapor. Waves flowed back and forth, crosswise as well as vertical. This went on for many duras, while we feared Gybz was about to tear erself apart.

Finally, the tremors lessened, then faded away. The traeki sensory organs refocused. Words bubbled from the puckered speech mouth, in a voice transformed.

“It is decided.

“Provisionally, you may call us/me Tyug and have good odds that this stack will answer..”

Another pulse of throbbing.

“That i will answer. Please inform Uriel that this thing is done. Furthermore, tell her that my/our major skill cores seem to be intact.”

Only then did I realize what had been at risk during the vlenning. The Master of Mixes is a vital member of Uriel’s team. If Gybz—if Tyug—failed to remember all of its tricks of the trade, Mount Guenn alloys might not shine or cut as well, or decay so completely with the passage of time.

Foolish me. I’d been worried the whole time about the poor traeki’s life.

Huphu slithered down my back and approached the new-formed traeki half-entity, which was already gathering an array of flipperlike feet under its bottommost segment, waving clumsy tentacles from its stubby top ring. The noor sniffed suspiciously, then settled back with a satisfied trill.

Thus Huphu was first to welcome Ziz-newest member of our band.

Now if only we had a human kid, we’d be a true six.

Omens can be good things, as any sailor knows. Luck is uttergloss. Fickle, but a damn sight better than the alternative.

I had a feeling we were going to need all of Ifni’s help we could get.

Legends

Among qheuens it is said that fleeing to Jijo was not as much a matter of survival as of culture.

There is dispute among the legends that have been passed down by the armored ones, since their landing on Jijo over a thousand years ago. Grays, blues, and reds each tell their own versions of events before and after their sneakship came.

Where they agree is that it all began in Galaxy One where the sept found itselt in trouble with its own alliance.

According to our surviving copy of Basic Galactic Socio-Politics, by Smelt, most starfaring races are members of clans—a relationship based on the great chain of uplift. For example, Earthclan is among the smallest and simplest, consisting of humans and their two clients—neo-chimps and neo-dolphins. If the patrons who supposedly raised up Homo sapiens are ever found, it could link Earthlings to a vast family stretching back ages, possibly even as far back as the Progenitors, who began the uplift cycle a billion years ago.