Infinity's Shore (60 page)

I
'VE BEEN ABOARD A FLYING MACHINE BEFORE
, HE told himself.
I'm no simple nature child, astonished by doors, metal panels, and artificial light.

This place should not terrify me.

The walls aren't about to close in.

His body wasn't convinced. His heart raced and he could not rest. Lark kept experiencing a disturbing impression that the little room was getting
smaller.

He knew it must be an illusion. Neither Ling nor Rann showed outward concern over being crushed in a diminishing space. They were used to hard gray surfaces, but the metal enclosure seemed harsh to one who grew up scampering along the branch-top skyways of a garu forest. The floor plates brought a distant vibration, rhythmic and incessant.

Lark suddenly realized what it reminded him of—the machinery of his father's paper mill—the grinders and pulping hammers—designed to crush scrap cloth into a
fine white slurry. That pounding noise used to drive him away into the wilderness, on long journeys seeking living things to study.

“Welcome to a starship, sooner,” Rann mumbled, nursing both a headache and a grudge after their fight in the lake. “How do you like it?”

All three human prisoners still wore their damp underwear, having been stripped of their tools and wet suits. For some reason, the Jophur let them keep their rewq symbionts, though Rann had torn his off, leaving red welts at his temples where the crumpled creature had had no time to withdraw its feeding suckers.

At least no one had been injured during the swift capture, when a swarm of tapered cone beings swept down from the mammoth ship, each Jophur riding its own platform of shimmering metal. Suspensor fields pressed the lake, surrounding the human swimmers between disklike watery depressions. Hovering robots crackled with restrained energy—one even dived beneath the surface to cut off escape—crowding the captives toward one of the antigravity sleds, and then to prison.

To Lark's surprise, they were put in the same cell. By accounts from Earth's dark ages, it used to be standard practice to separate prisoners, to break their spirits. Then he realized.

If Jophur are like traeki, they can't quite grasp the notion of being alone. A solitary traeki would be happy arguing among its rings till the Progenitors came home.

“They are probably at a loss, trawling through their database for information about Earthlings,” Ling explained.

“Till recently, there wasn't much available.”

“But it's been three hundred years since contact!”

“That may seem long to us, Lark. But Earth was minor news for most of that time—a back-page sensation. By now the first detailed Institute studies of our homeworld have barely made it through the sector-branch Library, on Tanith.”

“Then why not …” He sought a word she had used several times. “Why not
upload
Earthling books. Our encyclopedias, medical texts, self-analyses … the knowledge
we spent thousands of years accumulating about ourselves?”

She lifted her eyes. “
Wolfling superstitions.
Even we Daniks are taught to think that way.” She glanced at Rann. “It took your thesis, Lark—the one you wrote with Uthen—to convince me things might be different.”

Though flushed at the compliment, Lark reined in his imagination. He tried not to let his eyes drop to her nearly bare figure. Skimpy underclothes would not hide his physical arousal. Besides, this was hardly the time.

“I still find their attitude hard to credit. The Galactics would rather wait centuries for a formal report on us?”

“Oh, I'm sure the great powers—like the Soro and Jophur—got access to early drafts. And they've urgently sought more data since the
Streaker
crisis began. Their strategic agencies almost certainly kidnapped and dissected some humans, for instance. But they could hardly update every star cruiser with illicit data. That would risk contaminating the onboard Libraiy cubes. I'd have to guess this crew has been improvising—not a skill much encouraged in Galactic society.”

“But humans are known for it. Is that why your ship came to Jijo? Improvising an opportunity?”

Ling nodded, rubbing her bare shoulders. “Our Rothen lor …” She paused, then chose another phrasing. “The Inner Circle received a message. A time-drop capsule, tuned for pickup by anyone with a Rothen cognition wave.”

“Who sent it?”

“Apparently, a secret believer living among the crew of the dolphin ship. Or one desperate enough to break from Terragens orders, and summon help from a higher source.”

“A believer …” Lark mused. “In the Danik faith, you mean. But Daniks teach that
humans
are the secret recipients of Rothen patronhood.”

“And by tradition, that means a dolphin crew could also call on Rothen help, in case of dire need … which those poor creatures surely face.”

“Like running to your grandparents, if your own folks can't handle a problem. Hrm.”

Lark had already picked up parts of the story. How the
first dolphin-crewed starship set forth on a survey mission, assigned to check the accuracy of the small planetary branch Earth had received from the Library Institute. Most civilized clans simply accepted the massive volumes of information stored by past generations, especially concerning far corners of space, where little profit could be gained by exploration.

It was supposed to be routine. A shakedown cruise. But then, somewhere off the beaten track, Earthship
Streaker
confronted something unexpected—a discovery that made the great alliances crazy. Clues to a time of transition, perhaps, when ancient verities of the known galaxies might abruptly change.

“
It is said that when this happens, just one race in ten shall make the passage to a new age
,” the hoonish High Sage, Phwhoon-dau, had explained one night by a camp-fire, just after the fall of Dooden Mesa, drawing on his deep readings of the Biblos Archive. “
Those bent on surviving into the next long phase of stability would naturally want to learn as much as possible. Hr-r-r-rm. Yes, even a sooner can understand why this Earthling ship found itself in trouble
.”

“A dolphin Danik.” Lark marveled. “So this … 
believer
sent a secret message to the Rothen.…”

“To is the wrong word. You might better use
at.
In fact, nothing in Anglic adequately describes the skewed logic of communicating by time drop.” Ling kept running her fingers through her hair. It had grown since the Battle of the Glade, and was still tangled from their long dive under the lake.

“But yes, the message from the dolphin believer explained where the
Streaker
ship was—in one of the hydrogen-ice habitat zones where many older races huddle close to stellar tides, after retiring from active Galactic affairs.

“More important—it hinted where the Earthship commander next planned to flee.” Ling shook her head. “It turned out to be a clever version of the Sooner Path. A difficult passage, uncomfortably close to fiery Izmunuti. No wonder you Six were left undetected for so long.”

“Hr-rm,” Lark umbled contemplatively. “Unlike our ancestors, you let yourselves be followed.”

This drew a reaction from Rann, sullenly holding his aching head in the opposite corner of the cell.

“Fool. We did no such thing!” the tall Danik muttered sourly. “Are you saying we cannot easily repeat any feat accomplished by a gaggle of cowardly sooners?”

“Putting insults aside, I agree,” Ling said. “It seems unlikely we were followed. That is, not the
first
time our ship came to Jijo.”

“What do you mean?” Lark asked.

“When our comrades left us—four humans and two Rothen, with the job of doing a bioassay on Jijo—I thought the others were going to cruise nearby space, in case the dolphin ship was hiding on some nearby planetoid. But that was not their aim at all.

“Their real intent was to go find a buyer.”

Lark frowned in puzzlement. “A
Buyur?
But aren't they extinct? You mean the Rothen wanted to hire one as a guide, to come back to Jijo and—”

“No … a
buyer!
” Ling laughed, though it was not a happy sound. “You were right about the Rothen, Lark. They live by bartering unusual or illicit information, often using human Daniks as agents or intermediaries. It was an exciting way of life … till you made me realize how we've been used.” Ling's expression turned dark. Then she shook her head.

“In this case, they must have realized Jijo was worth a fortune to the right customer. There are life-forms on this planet whose development seems ahead of schedule, rapidly approaching presapience. And there are the Six Races. Surely someone would pay to know about such a major infestation of criminal sooners … no offense.”

“None taken. And of course, the clue to the dolphin ship was worth plenty. So …” He blew an airy sigh through his nostrils, like a disgusted urs. “Your masters decided to sell us all.”

Ling nodded, but her eyes bored into Rann. “Our patrons sold us all.”

The big Danik did not meet her gaze. He pressed both hands against his temples, emitting a low moan that seemed half from pain and half disgust at her treason. He turned toward the wall, but did not touch the oily surface.

“After all we've seen, you still think the Rothen are patrons of humanity?” Lark asked.

Ling shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot easily dismiss the evidence I was shown while growing up—evidence dating back thousands of years. Anyway, it might explain our bloody, treacherous history. The Rothen lords claim it's because our dark souls kept drifting from the Path. But maybe we are exactly what they uplifted us to be. Raised to be shiils for a gang of thieves.”

“Hrm. That might relieve us of some of the responsibility. Still, I'd rather be wolflings, with ignorance our only excuse.”

Ling nodded, lapsing into silence, perhaps contemplating the great lie her life had revolved around. Meanwhile, Lark found a new perspective on the tale of humanity. It went beyond a dry litany of events, recited from dusty tomes in the Biblos Archive.

The Daniks claim that we had guidance all along … that Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Fuller, and others were teachers in disguise. But if we were helped—by the Rothen or anybody else—then our helpers clearly did a lousy job.

Like a problem child who needs open, honest, personal attention, we could have used a lot more than a few ethical nostrums. Vague hints like,“Have faith” and “Be nice to each other.” Moralizing platitudes aren't enough to guide a rowdy tyke … and they sure did not prevent dark ages, slavery, the twentieth-century Holocaust, or the despots of the twenty-first.

All those horrors reflect as poorly on the teacher as the students. Unless…

Unless you suppose we actually did it all alone…

Lark was struck by the same feeling as when he and Ling spoke beside the mulc spider's lake. His mind filled with an image of poignant, awful beauty. A tapestry spanning thousands of years—human history seen from afar. A tale of frightened orphans, floundering in ignorance. Of creatures smart enough to stare in wonder at the stars, asking questions of a night that never answered, except with terrifying silence.

Sometimes, from desperate imaginations, the silence provoked roaring hallucinations, fantastic rationalizations,
or self-serving excuses for any crime the strong might choose to commit against the weak. Deserts widened as men ignorantly cut forests. Species vanished as farmers burned and plowed. Wars spread ruin in the name of noble causes.

Yet, amid all that, humanity somehow began pulling together, learning the arts of calmness, peering forward in time, like a neglected infant teaching itself to crawl and speak.

To stand and think.

To walk and read.

To care … and then become a loving parent to others.

The kind of parent poor orphans never had.

Born on a refuge world whose crude safety had vanished, imprisoned in the bowels of an alien starship, Lark nevertheless felt drawn away from worrying about his own fate, or even the six exile clans of Jijo. After all, on the vast scale of things, his life hardly mattered. The Five Galaxies would spin on, even if every last Earthling vanished.

Yet he found his heart torn by the tragic story of
Homo sapiens
, the self-taught wolflings of Terra. It was a bittersweet tale, pulling from his reluctant eyes trickles of tart brine that tasted like the sea.

The voice was familiar … horrifyingly so.

“
Tell us now
.”

When all three humans kept silent, the Jophur interrogator edged closer, towering over them. Anglic words hissed from atop the swaying stack of fatty rings, accompanied by liquid burblings and mucusy pops.

“Explain to us; why did you transmit the signal that led to your capture? Did you sacrifice yourselves in order to buy time for unseen comrades? Those we most eagerly pursue?”