Howling Stones (20 page)

“One thing is immediately obvious. The sacred stones are not stones at all. They may look like stones and feel like stones and behave like stones ninety-nine percent of the time, but they are not rock. They are devices, individual components that when joined in specific combinations have remarkable consequences. What is your take on this?”

“I haven’t thought about it much. The whole business is so unbelievable that I’ve spent most of my time working to convince myself that it actually happened. Up to now my main concern has been convincing you.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m convinced.” He indicated the now-empty corner of the room where the recording had played itself out. “Whatever you saw, it wasn’t the result of some clever Parramati sleight-of-hand. It was real. The stones contain some kind of stored energy, or …” His voice trailed away.

“Or what?” she prompted him.

“Or I don’t know.” He spoke to what he did know, or what he thought he knew based on what he’d seen. “It’s clear that single stones have no power to affect their surroundings. They only function in combination. You saw them change shape. The natives don’t even need to know how to fit the stones together. The appropriate adaptive mechanism is inherent in the devices themselves.”

“How do you program a rock?”

“I told you; I don’t think they’re rocks. For all we
know, their internal composition may be as malleable as their shape.”

She found herself nodding agreement. “I tried to take a closer look at these. Their internal structure is complex. My first thought was of fracture lines, cleavage planes, and weathered striations.…”

“Naturally,” he commented approvingly.

“But obviously there’s more to it than that.”

“What about their composition?”

She pondered. “You saw the recording. These two look just like all the other sacred stones. It’s that same volcanic-glassy material we’ve seen before. For what it’s worth, they didn’t feel any more ductile than they look. Smooth and hard, both of them.”

“We can freeze and enlarge individual segments of the recording.”

Her energy restored, she rose and began pacing the room. “I know, but they were throwing off so much light it’s going to be damn hard to manage a good look inside. I don’t know how much structure we’ll be able to see.”

He smiled encouragingly. “I’m pretty good at manual enhancement procedures. We’ll give it a try, anyway.” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “It could be an entirely natural phenomenon, but the more I see of it and the more you tell me, the more inclined I am to think of these stones as machines. As things that were made, not formed.”

“But who? What species?”

“What species indeed?” he murmured. “Either the Parramati have fallen to their present circumstances from a great height, or else—” He stared evenly at her. “—some other race has called this world home at some unguessable time in the unimaginable past.”

“In the absence of any large-scale ruins, I think we have to incline to the latter.”

“Will
you be still?” Her endless pacing was making him nervous.

She plopped herself into a lab chair and threw her long legs over one plastic arm. This did not make him less nervous so much as it changed the nature of his unease.

“What kind of civilization manufactures devices like the stones but leaves no other sign of its presence, much less its passing? No buildings, no tools, no mines or other marks on the earth.”

“There’s a lot of erosion here,” he pointed out. “Wind, rain, the sea.”

She was less than convinced. “You’re reaching, Pulickel.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“No crumbling towers, no ruins, no corroding subaqueous constructions: nothing but the stones.” She made a face. The woman was a ferocious attacker of puzzles, Pulickel knew.

“The stone, the whole stone, and nothing but the stone. I wonder if weather stones let you manipulate storms.” He half grinned, because he was only half joking.

Based on what she’d seen on the mountainside, Fawn was ready to entertain the most outrageous speculation. “Hell, how do we know? Maybe the weather stones are responsible for the mastorms.”

He frowned. “I don’t think so. The mastorms cause too much damage. I admit that in light of such a discovery it isn’t easy to be restrained, but let’s not get carried away here.”

“Get carried away?” She threw him a don’t-make-me-laugh look. “We have found what may be the final relics of an unknown, technologically advanced civilization, of unknown potential, and you tell me not to get carried away?”

Under her enthusiastic assault he backtracked slightly. “All right. You can get carried away a
little
.”

She snorted. “That’s better. But you’re right. If the weather stones were capable of anything like that the Parramati would surely use them to prevent storm damage to their villages. Although—” She turned suddenly thoughtful. “—if you think about it, considering the ferocity of your average mastorm, the Parramati communities really
don’t
incur that much damage.”

Placing both clenched hands together, he leaned his chin against them. “One’s imagination reels. I wonder, for example, what a health stone does in proper combination with another? Can it cure a revavuaa bite? Heal necrotic tissue?”

She laughed; a little unsteadily, he thought. “Why think small? Maybe it can resurrect the dead.” Her expression turned sober. “You’re right; I’m getting carried away. Plenty of Parramati die, of everything from drowning to old age. Whatever the health stones do, they don’t convey any special protection against natural demise.”

“They appear to utilize the stones only on special occasions. It seems reasonable to assume that whatever energy powers them is finite. If as we suspect they are ancient, then restricting their use may be a way of preserving their useful life. Perhaps letting them lie fallow, as it were, allows the devices to recharge somehow.” He eyed her hard. “You realize that we must now redirect our efforts here.”

She nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. This alters all priorities. We can still work on the treaty, but only in the context of researching this much more important discovery.” As she speculated, she thrust both long legs straight toward the ceiling and commenced a sequence of exercises in place. He found himself speculating, as well.

“Obviously, the first thing we need to do is try to get
hold of a stone for detailed study. That’s not going to be easy. No stone master will consent to it. Too much kusum at risk.”

“We have to be careful,” he declared. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Putting the wrong stones together might have unpleasant consequences. Or no consequences at all. Native traditional knowledge would be a great help in our studies.”

Legs up, legs down. Legs up, legs down. She spoke as she exercised. “We already know that the Parramati will do nothing that they feel compromises kusum. Letting me witness the ceremony in the field shows how far we’ve come in gaining their trust, but we’ve still a long ways to go before anyone offers to tutor you or me in the ways of stone mastering. Nor do I see anyone letting us stick a stone in a spectroscope or a matrix disseminator.”

Rising, Pulickel walked to the nearest window and stared out at the surrounding riot of color that was the tropical Torrelauan forest. Thousands of new specimens lay there, just out of reach, waiting only to be collected and classified. But the only type that interested him now was one to which they would be denied access. He turned abruptly.

“If the Parramati won’t lend us a stone or two, then we’ll just have to borrow them.”

That brought Seaforth’s legs down. She gawked at him. “Pulickel, are you talking about stealing a stone? First of all, if the Parramati find out, that’ll be the end of our work here. Work, hell; it’ll mean the end of the station. The AAnn will have a clear field. As far as any kind of treaty goes, the Commonwealth will have to forget about it. You know the Parramati. They’ll never trust us again.”

“Not if they don’t find out,” he snapped. “I’ll handle this myself. If something does go wrong, you can tell
them that you had nothing to do with it, that you were against it from the inception, that it was all my idea, and that I did it on my own. Which happens to be the truth.”

“Damn right it is,” she complained.

“If this fails, you can have me replaced. That ought to mollify any outraged Parramati.”

“They may not accept that explanation. Yours
or
mine.”

“We’ll make sure that when I’m carrying out this little bit of fieldwork the Parramati know your whereabouts. They’ll see that you’re not helping me, that you’re not involved in my efforts. They may be suspicious, but I think they’ll accept your protestations of innocence.” He straightened. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because this is going to come off. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

Seaforth was chewing on her lower lip. “I don’t, but I don’t much like your idea, either. I wonder if we shouldn’t clear it with Ophhlia first.”

“Sure. Send them the recording. You think that after reviewing that they’ll let us proceed in a quiet, studious manner? As soon as that recording’s integrity has been verified, a hundred researchers will descend on Torrelau and the other islands of the archipelago. They’ll be accompanied by armed peaceforcers. Lest the AAnn get wind of what’s happened and try to muscle in, heavy weapons will accompany the research teams. So much for the easygoing, pastoral Parramati lifestyle. You want to see that happen?”

She was still reluctant. “You argue persuasively, Pulickel. You always do. But I still don’t like it.”

He turned slightly from her. “You think I do? I’m a xenologist, not a sneak thief. But viable alternatives elude me. We can’t do a proper study of the stones without a specimen or two. What do you think a team from Ophhlia will do? They’ll acquire the necessary research material by whatever means necessary. Maybe it’s a Hobson’s
choice, but I prefer thievery to coercion.” He did his best to cast the proposal in a benevolent light.

“When we’ve completed our studies, or at least acquired enough material to work with, I’ll return the stones. The Parramati will be none the wiser and their way of life, their kusum, will be minimally impacted, if at all. Isn’t that better than subjecting them to an armed scientific invasion? Subjected to that kind of pressure, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them throw every one of the sacred stones into the deep ocean. That sort of thing has happened before. Many primitives will destroy their culture before they surrender it to force.”

Fawn thought of Jariill and Ululiapa and the reverence with which they had handled their stones. “It would be terrible,” she agreed tentatively, “if the stones and the knowledge they represent were to be lost.”

“Exactly.”

“So by stealing a couple of stones you’re actually doing the Parramati a service.”

He beamed at her, his teeth white against his dark-olive complexion. “That’s right.”

She shook her head, her tone sardonic. “I’m not sure that you chose the right profession, Pulickel. Okay, I’ll buy your reasoning, but I still don’t want any part of this.”

“Excellent. It’s my intention that you do not. You’ll stay well out of it. We’ll retain the stones for the absolute minimal amount of time necessary to learn what we’re dealing with and then I will return them.”

“It better be minimal,” she declared. “Sacred stones don’t just go missing. Their absence will be noted immediately and the Parramati will start looking for them.”

“I know. We should be able to acquire enough basic information in a couple of days to give us something to
work with. Three days at most. After that we can process readings instead of the actual stones.”

Looking resigned, she swung her feet back onto the floor and stared at him. “You’ve admitted that you’re not trained as a thief. How are you going to steal a stone?”

“No Parramati would think of making off with one, would they?”

“Of course not. The penalty would be ostracism and exile. If the stone was important enough, maybe even death. No villager would think of touching a stone without permission from its master, much less the family or clan responsible for it. No stone master will even touch another master’s stone. It would be an appalling violation of kusum and an invasion of personal space.”

“So they’re looked after and cared for but not really guarded.”

She conceded the point reluctantly. “That’s right.”

He brightened. “Then all I have to do is wait until everyone in the vicinity is off working in the fields, or fishing, or visiting relatives; then walk into the appropriate longhouse, pick up the stone, stick it in my backpack, and leave. Without being seen, of course. There’s no guard to battle, no traps to avoid. Kusum is protection enough.”

“I suppose you’re right. But how do you plan to carry this off without being seen?”

“By no means are all the stones kept in the larger villages. We know of many stone masters who live in family-size communities, or even isolated and alone. Those are the ones I will “borrow” from. Not only will it improve my chances, it will greatly reduce the likelihood of my being seen.”

She rose and moved to the nearest table, began idly fingering the wrist recorder. “You probably won’t be able to acquire the kind of stones we’d most like to study.”

He shrugged. “It’s the nature and operating methodology of the stones we need to learn, not the specific individual functions. The how more so than the what. I’ll be perfectly happy with a couple of growing stones or water stones. As for trying them in combination, what’s the worst that could happen?”

She turned to stare back at him. “I don’t know, Pulickel. I suppose that depends on the type of stones you bring back.”

“We must have at least two. Three or four would be better. That would allow us to experiment with a number of different combinations. After we have exhaustively analyzed their internal structure and composition, of course.” He smiled expectantly. “Then we are agreed?”

She hesitated before letting out a long, heartfelt sigh. “In the absence of any viable alternatives, I suppose so.”