Remnant Population (13 page)

Things! Ornaments, seed-eater!

Ornaments. It had ornaments hanging on it, ornaments it changed from day to day. What did that mean? A way of counting, a way of responding to the weather? Who could tell? Worth watching, worth learning from. If more came, they would know more about them.

And so much else to learn from. All those tools, containers, fasteners, noisy boxes, picture boxes. They had drummed to an agreement that no one would touch or handle the obvious triggers except for those the monster demonstrated and offered to them: the light, the water. Hot boxes, cold boxes.

If it had not been for the monster’s ornaments, they might have believed monsters cared only for boxes:

they lived in boxes, kept things in boxes, cooked food in hot boxes, kept food in cold boxes, had pictures and noises in boxes. Some of the People carved boxes of bone or wood, or made them of the skins of grasseaters. But sacks and gourds were more comfortable to travel with. Only those who chose to live in permanent nest grounds had big boxes.

That picture box. It is like the birds seeing.

?

The bird, the high bird — higher and higher. Things look small, but the bird sees far.

That high?

The flying monsters scarred the sky. What if they actually cut through it? That far up, they could see all the world at once.

A flurry of arguments about the shape of the world, recapitulating every theory known to the People. The world was flat. The world was not flat, but round like a gourd. It was not round like a gourd, but a rough lump like a stone. No, like the root the burrowers preferred: the gods had hidden the shape there to show that it was sacred. The arguments died down when the eldest, ignoring them, swept a clear space on the ground. They all understood that, and gathered around.

Grass laid in a careful pattern reproduced the gullies between the boxes; the whole array less than a handspan across. The eldest crouched, one eye close to the pattern, then stood, slowly. They watched, saying nothing. So much was obvious; it had been agreed already. Birds seeing, high seeing, makes small, sees far. So?

Now the eldest swept an arm around, snapped a finger-click, swept the arm again. Estimate! Heads cocked. The young hunter crouched, trying it himself. Here, the monster-box-nests. Here the gullies. So — a grass-joint wide, and when on the braced toes, so much less — then — they knew already the conversion from distance to familiar sizes. So many paces, so hard a throw, to hit the darting burrower. So hard a run, if the grasseaters have that much start. No word for such long distances, but a conversion — that was easy enough.

Less than a days run across the grassland, more than a days travel in the too-tall trees. Eyes widened. A day’s run UP? They peered into the blue sky, at the puffy clouds. How far then were clouds? How large? Estimates came as effortlessly as breath: if that is a sprint at top speed, then the cloud is larger than five grass-eaters, but if it would take a handspan of sunturning, then it is… it is the size of a hill. Someone named the hill, and someone else argued for another hill.

Some monster thing up there watching, a monster bird with big eyes. It would have to have big eyes, to see so much, and in the dark. They had seen that the picture moved in the dark as well. The picture itself was never dark.

A picture, the eldest reminded, is a made thing. The choice of the maker, if it is to be light or dark.

A maker up there? A monster still in waiting?

It watches what we do with this monster. It will learn from us as we learn from it.

It knows we killed the monsters.

A shiver through them all. The monsters had been wrong, had been thieving nest-burners, but… if the monsters could walk UP that far, and stay and watch, perhaps… Nests first! said the fierce young one who would soon require a nesting ground. Lose nests, lose People. Comforting murmurs. Nests will be. Will find nests. A nest for you, for the younglings. Always nests.

Nests…

Nest here. The brashest of them looked around at the monster boxes. Right hand drumming, no agreement. The brashest twisted a neck suddenly too thick for the straps of the travel harness, and looked away. Sorry. No offense meant. Sorry.

The eldest stretched, one long arm after another. Enough now. Relax. Safe here. Rest. One by one they settled. The eldest opened a stoppered gourd and removed the whistler. The brashest stretched fingers. A few slow notes, up and down. Someone shook the gourd, and seeds and beads shivered, danced, made a rhythm. Long toes curled, tapped on the dirt. Another whistler, wavering at first until the tones met, clasped fingers, and danced together. Now the voices. Good hunting, good hunting. New hunting, new hunting. The music curled around familiar patterns, engulfing new learning, shaping it to the arch and spring of the known. Monster, monster, dancing, dancing. Monster, monster, boxes, boxes.

“Kuh,” said the creature when it came in the kitchen. Ofelia grinned. So it could remember. She had thought it would. They were not stupid, after all. She went to the cooler and opened it. The creature came to stand beside her. Ofelia scraped some of the frost off the inside of the freezer section with her fingernail and showed it to the creature. It sniffed, its eyes disconcertingly focussed on her instead of the frost.

She felt the shock of its tongue on her finger before she realized it — she had been looking back at its eye, not at her finger. The dry rasp startled her; she felt the air gusting out of her, and jerked her hand away. Its eyelid blinked; it too pulled back with a little burst of air that felt warm on her hand. Warm. Warm-blooded. She had known that. She had felt the heat of their bodies against hers that stormy night. But she had not been so aware of the warmth of their breath. Her hand was across her mouth before she knew it; she could only think of the smell of her own breath, how it might offend. That breath, its breath, had an odd smell, but it wasn’t bad.

It was looking at her now, at her finger. Its tongue came out again, and licked what she had to think of as lips. Not so soft and mobile as human lips, but not like the skin of its face. Browner… a purplish brown on this one. The tongue, too, was darker than the bright pink of human tongues. It had felt stiffer, dryer, than a child’s tongue.

Now, as she watched, the creature reached into the cooler and scraped off some of the frost with its talon. It licked that off with quick little strokes of its tongue. Then it scraped up another lump, and reached toward Ofelia, holding its hand in front of her mouth.

What did it mean? Ofelia looked from the hard dark fingernail with its coating of melting frost, to the golden-brown eyes, and back. Did it expect
her
to lick
its
finger? It moved the finger closer to her lips. She swallowed, watching the first drop of water ooze down from the cap of frost.

Courtesy overcame caution. She put out her tongue and touched it gingerly to the frost. Cold, of course. Under the frost, her tongue felt the hard, smooth surface of the nail — talon — whatever it was. Like her own nail; her tongue felt nothing disgusting, only a hard smooth surface topped with cold. “Kuh,” the creature uttered.

“Kuh,” Ofelia agreed. Her children had liked to eat the frost in the freezer; most children did, in hot weather. She turned away, found a shallow bowl and a wooden spoon, and scraped more of the frost into the bowl. She handed it to the creature, who took it and stood there as if it had no idea what to do next. At least it couldn’t expect her to lick its fingers if they were all engaged in holding the bowl. Perhaps it didn’t even know the frost would melt into water.

Meanwhile, the cool air was chilling her feet and ankles, and the open door wasted electricity. “Don’t stand in the door,” Ofelia said, and gently nudged the creature away so that she could close it. It moved back, holding the bowl but not looking at the frost. Instead it watched her. She wished it wouldn’t. She had had enough for the moment. She poked her finger into the bowl. “Cold,” she said. “You can eat all this, if you want.”

It turned its head, then set the bowl on the table, and picked up another finger-tip of frost. She watched as its tongue came out — dark, yes, and more bristly than human tongues, and dryer — and licked at the frost. It looked at Ofelia. She sighed, and took a fingerful of frost she didn’t particularly want, just to be polite. If that’s what it had meant. It dipped another fingerful, and licked it dry, then paused. That must be what it had meant. Take turns. Did it think she was trying to poison it, or was it being polite? She had no idea. The cold felt good in her mouth, better than she remembered. She let the frost melt on her tongue, trickle down the sides of her mouth.

The last of the frost had melted before they had taken many turns. The creature dipped its finger in the water and touched it to the long protrusion she now thought of as its nose, above the mouth. Then again, to touch the lids of each eye. It pushed the bowl a little towards her. Ofelia, frowning, put her own finger in the cold water. She didn’t know what the gestures meant; she was half afraid to copy them, but she was also afraid not to copy them. What was she saying, if she touched water to her nose, to her eyelids? It would be something about smelling, something about seeing… but what? She put her wet finger on her nose, then on her eyelids.

The creature grunted, and walked out of the kitchen without looking back. Now what? Had she insulted it, or was it running off to tell its friends what she had done? She went to the door to see. It hopped over the fence between the lane and the garden and started down the lane. Now she could see that the highstepping stride was mostly on the toes, with the heel knob touching down only occasionally. Ofelia shrugged to herself. She had raised bread to eat today; she didn’t have to worry about the creatures all the time. She cut herself several slices off one loaf and ate. It was good, from the hard crust to the soft, yielding inner crumb.

Were the creatures like bread? She had touched them several times now, and she still wasn’t sure. Their skin — if it was skin — felt harder than hers, but no harder than the calluses she remembered on feet and hands. Were they soft inside? Were their muscles as soft as human muscles, or hard like their skin? Did their shape come from bones in the middle or the hard skin on the outside? She found herself looking at her bread with new attention. Her science lessons had been a long way back, and no one had seemed to care much whether she really understood living things. A special class understood that, just as a special class understood spaceships or government. What they cared about, all they really cared about, was that she learned to do what she was told and not make messes. Even when Humberto insisted that they both take night classes to qualify as colonists, the instructors had not cared whether she understood the machines she was taught to tend and repair. Follow the instructions, she was told. Follow the diagrams. It’s no harder than making a dress from a pattern, one of them told her. Even homemakers like you can do that. She had clenched herself around the pain of his scorn and proved that she could, indeed, follow the diagram accurately.

Of living things she remembered scattered words and images: cells, with skins called membranes around them, endoskeletons like humans and exoskeletons like flies. Cells were round or oval, with more round shapes inside. They looked rather like the holes in the bread, except smaller. She remembered watching a cube presentation of dissection, the way the instructor’s knife slit the trembling rat up the belly, the oozing blood that made the boys in class snicker and say cruel things. Some girls had looked away, but she had seen the intricate tangle of intestines, the bright pink lungs, the little dark red pulsing heart. She had felt her heart pulsing, the first time she had really noticed it, and imagined someone looming over her with a huge knife ready for her belly. And it had happened, but not to her, when her childhood friend had needed her belly opened to have her child. Donna had never forgiven her for not coming to the hospital to visit; Donna had guessed that it was something more than packing to leave. But the creatures here and now — she made herself quit sending mental apologies to Donna, who had probably died by now, on that distant world where they had been childhood friends — these creatures fit none of the categories she had been taught. She knew she had not learned them all; in her school children had been taught only the biology they needed, that of the living things immediately around them, a small selection of the original rich Terran biology.

These were not plants, she was sure. So they were animals: insects, fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians. They weren’t insects, because insects didn’t have warm breath. They weren’t fish, because they lived on land and breathed air. They might be amphibians, though they didn’t look much like frogs or toads, and she could not tell if they laid eggs. Birds? Birds had feathers and wings, beaks and not mouths. People raised flightless birds for meat, but even those had feathers and small wings. She had seen them. These creatures had no feathers, and no wings; they had mouths, with teeth. Reptiles? Reptiles had scales, were not hot-breathed, were much smaller. Mammals? Mammals had hair and gave milk: she saw no hair on them, and nothing that looked like breasts.

On other worlds where animal life had been found, people had made new classifications, but Ofelia knew only that they existed. She had no idea what they were, or what features had been used to make them. She didn’t know what their cells looked like or their blood (could she even call it blood if she saw it? Or were they dry inside? No, because their mess had been wet.)

Ofelia chewed her bread slowly, trying to pull out of her memory information that had not been stored securely in the first place. It was a long time before she realized she could probably find more information in the computer tutorials.

<
Archives of the Consortium, Report on the Attempted Recolonization of 3245.12 after the failure of the Sims Bancorp Ltd. colony and the subsequent loss of license
.> Study of documents entered in evidence by Sims Bancorp at the time of the hearings indicated that the failure of their colony might have been due, in part, to a poor choice of location. Subsequent follow-up was certainly a factor, in that losses resulting from climatic conditions were not replaced, but had the colony been planted appropriately, it might have made at least moderate progress. According to meteorological records, recurrent cyclonic sea-storms with associated flooding caused loss of life, loss of livestock, loss of equipment (boats, other vehicles) and crop failures. For this reason, Zeoteka O.S. chose to place its newly licensed colony in the North Temperate Zone, close to but not in the flood plain of a river (see attached charts and scan data.) It was believed that weathersat data indicated the site chosen for the colony’s shuttle field had not been flooded in the 42 years of observation.

The colony insertion followed standard practice as specified in the 14
^th
edition of the Unified Field Manual.

Captain Gian Vasoni, commanding the cargo vessel
Ma Jun Vi
, logged several days’ observation. Clearance of the Sims Bancorp tropical colony had been completed on schedule; that colony site was clearly visible on broadband scanning. Infrared spectra indicated that the powerplant had not been properly shut down, but there was no activity indicative of remnant population. Sims Bancorp has claimed that by their records the plant was shut down, but that there were native animals in the region which might, in the intervening time, have accidentally turned it on: the abandoned machines had not been destroyed because there was believed to be no intelligent native life (see original survey data).

Captain Vasoni authorized survey shuttle flights to provide current data about the proposed colony site. The flights recorded data similar to that of the original survey. Temperature, humidity, gas mix, were all within limits. There were small herds or bands of wild animals moving nearby but none within five kilometers of the planned shuttle field. Nor was there any sign of purposeful activity that would have suggested the presence of intelligent, let alone hostile, life forms to nonspecialist personnel. No xenotechnologist or equivalent was available for consultation.

Upon completion of the required survey flights, Captain Vasoni then authorized the retrieval of colonists’ capsules, and the first unmanned landings of heavy equipment robotics. Site preparation proceeded normally, and the first shuttle flights containing colonists landed uneventfully. As the facility was extended, and assembly of the prefab shelters began, the ground controller reported the sudden appearance of massed wildlife to the east (sunrising).

The massed wildlife initially appeared to be a stampede of some kind, perhaps frightened by the noise of the shuttles. The ground controller fired smoke cartridges to deter the wildlife. It became apparent that the wildlife were hostile, and were attacking the landing party. It is not known for certain what weapons were used (see attached military analysis) but some of them were definitely projectile and explosive. One shuttle was lost on the parking pad to a projectile which exploded on impact with sufficient force to breach the fuel tanks and explode the fuel. It is assumed that this was not an aimed hit; whatever these creatures are, they could not have had experience with shuttles before. Captain Vasoni quite properly refused to send additional support to the ground party. Court records show that Captain Vasoni had no resources for a military ground action, nor experienced personnel with which to conduct it. Moreover, Captain Vasoni realized that the actions of the putative wildlife reflected possible intelligence as defined in Section XXXII, Subsection 14, of the General Treaty on Space Exploration and Development, and that the regulations governing Alien Contact now superseded all others. Unfortunately, those colonists already on the ground were overrun by the creatures, with great loss of life. Captain Vasoni faced considerable resistance aboard ship to abandoning the personnel on the ground; it became necessary to avert a mutiny by forceful means.

Because of the delay resulting from loss of personnel in both the attempted landing and the mutiny, and the delay caused by lengthy adjudication, the full story of this tragic affair has only now come to the attention of the Bureau of Alien Affairs. Clearly it is imperative that we send an experienced Contact team to assess the native (?) culture and its technological level. Since the Sims Bancorp colony left behind a number of advanced devices prohibited on non-treaty worlds, we must be concerned with the fate of that equipment. What little data we have suggests that the native (?) intelligent (?) culture responsible for the recent debacle is a social nomad living in one region only, and herding the local equivalent of grass-eating cattle. Since neither grow in the tropics, it may not yet have found the Sims Bancorp site. But if it should, and if that powerplant is indeed functional (as Captain Vasoni’s data suggest) then we have a crisis. Such an aggressive, hostile species must not be handed advanced technology too soon.

Authorization 86.2110. Alien Contact, Secondary. Team Leader: Vasil Likisi. Mission definition: assess for

1. intelligence

2. social organization

3. technological level

4. hostility index.

If suitable, attempt to gain level one agreement to the General Treaty. At all events, secure Sims Bancorp colony powerplant and other prohibited technology.

“It was stupid from start to finish. I don’t care what they said, I’ll bet Sims knew all about it — they were pissed enough to be losing the license.”

“It’s not in any of their internal datastream. I say they didn’t know, and the critters just hit I-critical about the time the first survey was done.”

“Poppycock. They had to know. Unless no one reviewed the weathersat’s recordings — look — there — you can’t call
that
undisturbed ground.”

Kira Stavi sat back and listened to the bickering. Vasil Likisi, experienced team leader her left little toe. Vasil Likisi corporate bootlicker was more like it. Vasil holding forth about Sims… and hadn’t he once worked for ConsolVaris, one of Sims’ minor acquisitions? She looked at the display instead of getting into the argument that Vasil clearly wanted to have with Ori… Ori could handle it. And the display had its interest. Although it had no legend, she knew from experience that the purple and yellow streaks were enhanced-contrast thermal-emission spectra. Regular streaks and blobs, too regular entirely. Vasil was right about that, at least.

Ori brought up the point she would have, the point he had tried to bring up before. “Is it possible that we’re seeing a species at emergence?”

“Impossible,” Vasil huffed. “It’s those clods at Sims—”

“I don’t see why it’s impossible.” Ori’s voice didn’t go up, but he had not been intimidated by Vasil, and he made that clear. “Just because we’ve never observed it before doesn’t mean it can’t happen. In theory, it has to happen sometime.”

“The odds—”

“Make no difference now. What matters is what is.” Ori could never leave out his Pelorist tags. Vasil went redder, if possible. Kira decided it was time to cool things off.

“What about the thermal source at the old Sims site? Are we quite sure that doesn’t imply illegal occupancy?” Vasil scowled, but held his peace when Ori turned to her. “They said not.” Ori rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It did surprise Captain Vasoni, but there was no organized movement. He did look for that. Here—” He touched the display, and it shifted location, then scale. The shuttle field’s original outline had blurred already — tropical vegetation, Kira reminded herself, could do that in a short time. Buildings still crisply upright — well, they would have made them stout in the first place. A cluster of hotdots here, labeled sheep, and another near the river, labeled cattle. Those were the right size, and temperature, and perhaps livestock could survive without human care that long. “Has anyone asked the vets?”

“Oh yes. And the original herd sizes. That’s well within possible limits. They won’t survive another decade without care, but they’re well below the carrying capacity of their pasture, and they can forage in the village gardens as well.”

“We have one hotspot in the village itself,” Vasil said, but more calmly. “Vasoni wasn’t scanning it the whole time, so we can’t be sure it’s the same one, but whatever it is isn’t human. Wrong patterns. The Sims colonists reported a treeclimbing, dexterous species in the nearby forest, which came into the settlement at first. If it were Terran, it would be a monkey. The experts think this is one of those. It’s smaller than the big fellows up north.”

“Mmm.” Kira wasn’t convinced. “Anyone check the personnel list of the Sims pickup?” “As well as we can. The colony database they brought with them could have been doctored, of course, but they claim to have accounted for everyone. A few of the elderly died in transit, as you’d expect. We could confirm if Vasoni had had the sense to get a fine-grain visual of the old colony beforehand, but by the time he realized he needed one, he had a mutiny to deal with.”

“Well, then.” Kira hoped to get them back on the real problem, the aliens. “Any ideas on where these folks would fit on the Varinge Scale?”

That brought them back all right. Scowls from both, sighs, the sort of thing that made her wonder why she stayed in the service at all. Teamwork, ha!

“No artifacts,” said Vasil. “We don’t even know if they have metal.”

“And our ship leaves in less than ten days, and we won’t learn anything more until we come out of FTL at the beacon and can strip it. Vasoni did have sense enough to put a permanent watch on the area.” Kira looked at the rest of the list. A specialist in linguistics, of course, though so far the record of the alien linguistics staff was something below encouraging. By picking alternates with slightly different specialties, they could cover a fairly broad range of biology, technology assessment, linguistics, anthropology… but something this important really needed a larger team. Particularly when the team leader was a political appointee who had used his degree, such as it was, in corporate and government service. The problem was the capacity of the transport vessel. No one wanted to waste the time it would have taken for an ordinary ship to crawl inward from the jump point to the planet they wanted… which meant squeezing them into a military ship that could make the inward transit in days, not months. And that meant putting up with a military presence. Kira wondered what the others thought about that. After all, these things had killed the colonists, all of them, so they were certainly dangerous. The military could protect them. On the other hand, the military tended to think they were in charge of things, even when they weren’t. This was supposed to be a scientific and diplomatic mission. They all loved the coolers, Ofelia discovered, especially the frost that formed on the freezing compartment walls. Twice she came into her kitchen to find the cooler door open, and one of them scraping away with its horny fingernail, while a second held the bowl. The first time, the one holding the bowl dropped it, exactly like a guilty child, when she came in; they both bobbed a little, and sidled out. The second time — was this a different pair? — they both stared at her coolly and went right on eating frost until she pushed them aside and shut the door firmly. The difference in reaction struck her as very human: some recognized rules to observe, even as they broke them, and some didn’t care. She was glad she had disconnected the coolers in nearly all the other houses. She would have to have spent all her time checking cooler doors. It wasn’t just the waste of electricity; it was the wear and tear on cooler motors. At least they didn’t mess with the motors. She had managed to convince them — how, she wasn’t sure — that they must not take things apart. They did turn the lights on and off, and the water, but that did no harm. She had worried that they might start up some of the vehicles down by the shuttle field, but they hadn’t. Perhaps those vehicles wouldn’t work now anyway, sitting out in the storms all this time. She had not tried to start them since… she couldn’t quite remember. Before the creatures came, anyway.

Perhaps that was why they hadn’t experimented.

They were not as bad as children, really. Endlessly curious, as children were, but unlike children they understood limits. The worst was not being able to settle to her own pursuits any more without being aware of their curiosity and attention. When she tried to paint beads, one of them was sure to stick a talon into the different paints; when she tried to string beads, a large beaky head hung over the work, watching. When she crocheted, one of them would reach to feel the yarn, “helping” by taking it off the ball and holding it slack. She had no way to explain that she needed the slight tension against the ball to gauge the tension of her stitches. If she tried to work on the log, they clustered in the door, watching as the words scrolled across the screen.

That was like having children around, never being allowed to settle to anything in peace. When she knew someone watched her, noticing her choice of colors, textures, shapes, stitches, words, she could not concentrate. Even when the creatures didn’t interrupt intentionally, their very interest was an interruption. She tried to get them involved in projects of their own, as she would have with children. If only they would settle to something, then she could get on with her own activities. She offered dull beige beads from the fabricator for them to paint, bits of cloth and colored yarn. But although they would twine the yarn into twists and curls, and even dip the beads in color, they would not settle to any of it. Just when she thought they were engrossed, so that she could mutter to herself as she worked out what she wanted to do next, there they would be again. Clustered around, hanging over her. Watching. Outside, it wasn’t so bad. In the open, they didn’t seem quite as large; she didn’t feel their presence as overpowering. She grew used to having one of them in the garden with her, eager for the slimerods she tossed it. They no longer knocked down the corn, or trampled the ruffled leaves of gourds and squash. They followed her as she made her regular tour of the meadows to check the sheep and cattle. Eventually the animals grew used to them, and quit shying away. It could be almost companionable, walking along on a breezy day with one or two of them. She found herself talking to them quite naturally, and imagining the meanings of the grunts and squawks she got in return.