Howling Stones (37 page)

He had been here before.

On the fringes, on the edge, on the half-safe periphery only, he sensed. This time penetration was different, deeper, darker. He had traveled to the place where thrived the worst nightmares of childhood, the threat of oblivion, purgatory, and damnation.

They had sent him here, he realized as he tried to shrink
back inside himself. The alien engineers had put him on course to this place, perhaps shunting the ovoid onto another tunnel. He’d been wondering what made them so uneasy, so apprehensive of visitation.

Beware what questions you formulate, he thought feebly, for you may get answers.

Bringing up his knees, he drew himself into a tight fetal ball with his soul in the center. Only the faint pink glow that emanated from the capsule walls kept him sane, gave him something to focus on. Though the tunnel that had brought him to this place remained intact, even the burning plasma of its substance was overwhelmed and subdued by the monstrous, invasive darkness that seemed to be everywhere and everything. While his senses fed him perceptions he didn’t want, his mind conjured images he was unable to banish.

Something was out there
. A formless form, it was growing curious about the microscopic intrusion in its midst. He wanted to scream but feared provoking more intimate attention. He was also afraid that when he opened his mouth nothing would emerge. While the composition of the Presence remained unknown to him, he had no doubt as to its active nature.

It was Evil.

His mind shrank from confrontation, from contemplation. Once there might have been stars in this place. Suns, planets, people not unlike humans or seni or even alien mega-engineers. All gone now, all vanished; beaten down, overwhelmed, smothered by the darkness that occupied this space. There was only one of it, he sensed, and it was everywhere.

It wanted more. It wanted totality, and was relentless in its search for pathways and conduits to other places. Tunnels, Pulickel told himself. It possessed no directing intelligence, no mindful purpose. It was a disease, a cosmotic
pathogen, aimless and blind as a bacterium, and it had to be isolated. Vaster than imagination, it relentlessly consumed galaxies, whole universes, engulfing them like trophies, snuffing out the light of stars and intelligence, leaving behind not so much as a breath of interstellar hydrogen to begin the life-reaction anew.

This, Pulickel knew, was what the engineers were so afraid of. They had used the tunnels to flee. He understood.

Perhaps his understanding triggered some mental-mechanical subset of a kind he could not understand, or possibly it had all been carefully timed. The engineers could not only build: they were also capable of compassion. They would show him this thing, but they would not leave even one intelligent being to it. To do so would have been to violate their own rationale for existence.

Besides which, the dead could not lead by example.

A mindless gibbering Something reached out to flay his soul, but he was already beyond its reach. The ovoid was moving again, carrying him away from that place of aversion and loathing, picking up speed as it fled. The doors of his mind, which had shut tight in self-defense, began to reopen. Cold sweat plastered shirt and shorts to his skin.

He’d been exposed to only an insignificant portion of It, he knew, for a minuscule length of time, and that was too much.

It felt as if days had passed, but in reality it had been only minutes. He’d returned full of questions to the universe of the engineers, and had received one answer too many. Now he wanted only to get away, to go home. Home was Earth, but Senisran would do. Anyplace there was light and life would do.

Did universes bicker? he wondered. Oblivious and indifferent to what he thought of as life, did light do battle with the darkness? He’d always thought of the cosmos as
a fractious place, but never before as a sinister one. The physical revelations and technological enlightenment for which he had embarked on his present journey seemed suddenly inconsequential.
Everything
seemed suddenly inconsequential.

Careful, he told himself. That way lies the lassitude that leads to madness.

Not long after he determined that he was likely to survive the experience, he found himself returned. Plainly visible through the transparent walls, agitated Parramati rushed the emerging ovoid. Many were armed. Towering above them, Fawn was borne along in their midst.

Moving, the capsule stopped. Sealed, it opened. Trying to rise, he found that he couldn’t move. So tightly had he balled himself up that his legs had cramped in position.

“Help me,” he heard himself say. It was a pale shadow of his normal voice, but his voice it was. He was astonished at how relieved he was to hear it.

Several big persons squeezed into the ovoid. Their arms and hands were not strong enough to lift him, but they used their powerful hind legs to gently push him out the aperture.

“Pulickel? You can get up now.” Fawn was there, staring down at him with a mixture of mistrust and concern. When she saw that he couldn’t move, her misgivings vanished. “He’s alive but there’s something wrong with him,” she said to Ascela, who stood close at hand. As the Parramati bent to assist her colleague, she carefully removed his pistol from its holster.

They carried him away from the terminal and over to the edge of the meadow. With her support and that of the attendant natives, the errant xenologist slowly regained the use of his limbs.

Behind and around them, the chanting had resumed. Not quite a dirge, it rode on a cadence that was noticeably
slower than what had gone before. Boosted by his fellows, a big person from Mallatyah stood atop the glowing green terminal. As the others looked on, he removed a large center stone from the summit and passed it down to waiting hands.

The piercing shaft of emerald light winked out. Near the base, the glassy ovoid sank back into the interior. One by one, the howling stones were detached from the remarkable structure they had formed and were distributed among the gathering, like a sugar cube being dissembled by ants. The resonant whine that had filled the meadow and reverberated through the surrounding trees faded to silence.

The Goggelai was over.

Clouds masked the moon, enhancing the importance of lanterns and torches. Fawn eyed her colleague reproachfully. “Think you can walk?”

Bending, he massaged his thighs. “I hope so. I’d like to walk. How do I look?”

She squinted in the intermittent light. “Like you’ve been through hell.”

“Something like that.” He looked behind him. “I see that they’re taking the terminal apart. Good.”

“Good?” She frowned in confusion. “That’s not what you were saying a little while ago. What made you change your mind?”

Haunted eyes gazed back at her. “Being through hell. I will explain later, as best I can. There’s a lot to explain. I got answers to questions, but they weren’t the ones I wanted to ask.” Turning, he started purposefully toward the shrinking mound that had been the terminal. “This is taking too long. Let’s help them.”

She hesitated. “That may not be such a good idea. A number of them want to kill you. A few would like to kill me, as well.”

He nodded understandingly. “They can’t hurt me. I’ve already died. If they don’t do anything to me, I am certain they will not harm you.”

She moved to join him. “You’re very sure of yourself. What happened to you in there?”

“A minor epiphany. I’m pretty sure I’m the same person I was when I left, but I believe that the basic model has suffered some improvements.”

They were not allowed to join in the dismantling. Before they could reach the remnants of the terminal, they were surrounded by a cluster of excited big persons.

“Do not try to talk to us again. We do not wish an alliance, a treaty, with either you or the AAnn,” the leader of the group declared loudly.

Pulickel’s response was an apologetic smile. “I know. We won’t try to force one on you anymore.” Fawn looked at him sharply but he ignored her. “You must do as kusum dictates, and we will abide by that.”

Clearly his response was not the one they had been expecting. Gradually weapons were put up and much soft barking ensued. It was Jorana who finally spoke.

“Be warned.
You
know the stones, but if any others of your kind come to study them, we will throw them into the deep sea.”

The stones, Pulickel wondered, or any newcomers? He hoped to avoid either eventuality. It was evident that the stones could be studied only with the aid and acquiescence of the Parramati. Any further attempts to push the issue would result in the loss to science of the stones and all they represented. He wanted very much to learn more about them. He just didn’t want to use them to go traveling.

He’d done enough of that.

The cluster of armed Parramati wavered. Pulickel jumped on their indecision. “I promise that if you let us
go, neither I nor F’an will speak of this night to
our
big persons. No others will come—at least, not for a long time. Let us stay and learn the ways of kusum. Isn’t that what you want?”

“We never tried to prevent it,” Jorana responded. “It was only that you and the shiny-skinned ones thought you knew better, that your ways were superior.” Flashing, slitted eyes came close to examine the xenologist’s face. “I see that you now know otherwise.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Pulickel replied, “but I do know that certain roads are meant to be avoided. F’an and I must follow our own kusum, but that does not mean we cannot learn from yours.

“We will report that the Parramat Archipelago is not ready for development. Requests for mining concessions will be denied and actively discouraged. We will help you maintain your kusum.”

The Parramati discussed the xenologist’s words. Though Pulickel listened intently, he was unable to decipher their overlapping dialogue. But their posture was no longer threatening, and he allowed himself to feel hopeful.

Conversation ceased and Jorana turned to face the two humans. “We will accept this if F’an will guarantee it.” The senior big person looked pointedly at Pulickel.
“She
has never broken her word to us.”

“Of course I guarantee it.” She put a hand on Pulickel’s shoulder and squeezed firmly. “I’ll keep him in line.”

Now that the tension had been released, he couldn’t repress a grin. “I believe I would like that.”

Jorana’s lips curled approvingly. “It is good that you finally recognize the truth of kusum.” A three-fingered hand reached for his own. “Now we can be friends again.”

The xenologist accepted the proffered fingers in the traditional entwined manner, having to strain his less
flexible joints to accommodate those of the far more limber seni. “I am sorry for what happened and for what I did. Sometimes if you want something badly enough, it can make you blind and dumb.”

Fatigue and the lateness of the hour led to the gradual breakup of the great gathering. Carrying their respective stones, individual big persons retired to their assigned longhouses and huts. Tomorrow, Fawn knew, the impressive armada of outriggers lined up on the beach below would once more put out to sea, swallowed up in ones and twos by the blue horizon on their way back to outlying alien islands replete with unknown mysteries and exotic names.

They slept in Torrelauapa that night. By midmorning, Pulickel avowed as how he thought he could manage the hike back to the station. Taking no chances, she monitored his vital signs at regular intervals. A couple of times he stumbled, but without injury. By the time they topped the last ridge he was near exhaustion.

“I wonder,” she hypothesized as they started down, “if the Parramati have the only correct view of existence and every other sentient species is wrong. Maybe we should all adopt their belief system.”

“Not if it means having to live by the rules of the sacred stones.” Pulickel spoke with feeling. “Learning their properties is one thing, letting them govern your existence is another.” He shook his head. “Too many surprises there.”

“If we don’t report an occasional revelation, we’ll be replaced here,” she warned him.

He wasn’t worried. “We’ll handle it. If we do things right, eventually Ophhlia authority will tire of reading pleasant nothings about the Parramat Archipelago and focus on more fertile and accommodating island groups. We’ll bore them with mildly entertaining but commercially
unviable discoveries. Meanwhile we’ll learn what we can about the stones.”

“And then?” she prompted him.

He stepped carefully over a slippery spot. “I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out.” He smiled. “Kusum will tell us how to proceed.”

She frowned at him. “You sound like a convert. What happened in there? Did you have some kind of religious experience?”

To her surprise, he took his time replying. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet if it’s quantifiable. But I will let you know if and when I figure it all out.”

He wasn’t joking, she saw. A ready quip sprang to mind, and then she remembered the expression that had been frozen on his face when they’d hauled him out of the ovoid. She decided, for now at least, to swallow the joke.

She watched him carefully all the rest of that day and into the morning of the next. By breakfast time he was nearly his usual imperturbable, infuriating self.

“How do you feel?” She picked at her reconstituted omelet.

“Worn out, dizzy, utterly drained.” He sipped at his juice. “Thoroughly ashamed of myself.”

“Forget it. The Parramati forgave you. I guess I can, too.” She waved a utensil at him. “I understand temptation. I gave in to it once. It wasn’t profession-related, but it did cost me a piece of myself.”

“Want to tell me about it?” he inquired solicitously.

“No. Let’s just say it had to do with the male need to triumph and conquer over all odds.” She didn’t look up at him.

“Don’t gender-generalize me.”

“Why not?” Now she did look up. “It’s one of those psychological components of human society that we’ll
never be able to rid ourselves of entirely. Deal with it. I’ve had to.”

“I think we should start with a growing stone,” he said calmly, changing the subject. “A small one. From its study we can hopefully extrapolate and infer a great deal.”