Starfarers (59 page)

“Oh, a translation, adapted for humans, of course. But we heard it in Hrrochan. Later we sold reproduction rights on Feng Huang, Harbor, and Maia for good sums.” Defensively, because he was young, his ideals vulnerable: “Why not? Bringing it to them was a service.”

“Of course. We dealt in information, too, in
Argosy
. It wasn’t that kind, though, at least not often.”

“They’re wonderfully musical and poetical everywhere on Brent, as far as we’ve seen. Maybe that’s due to the nature of their speech. If we can get the Susuich to trust us—That cultural treasure their religion keeps hoarded—”

“Yes, I heard.”

“I’m sorry, Dau. I don’t mean to be patronizing. I’m tired, my skull’s empty, I babble about whatever sounds hopeful.”

“I’m glad you do,” he said. “It keeps me going.”

They drew closer.

Nothing untoward happened. He was bashful and she was
wise. After a while their clothes were dry enough to don. Yet those hours lived always within them. Long afterward, when he was the newly chosen captain of
Fleetwing
, he would order an energy gun to engrave her name on a loose asteroid, a memorial among the stars.

Night fell. Chill deepened. The fire wavered, but heat radiated from its bed and the stones beyond. The humans dozed.

A cry roused them—not a shout, a triumphant skirling, like the pipes of ancient warriors bound into battle. They jerked awake and stumbled forth. A full moon had risen over the eastern steeps. Its light flickered and flared on the river. A creature like a gigantic snake, head high, surged downstream, coil upon coil swinging to and fro to drive it onward. Half a dozen Brentans rode on its back. When they saw the pair on the shore they and their mount swept into the shallows. They sprang off.

Vodra beckoned at the shelter. One who must be some kind of physician went inside. His night vision was superior to hers. When he came out, another interpreted for him: “We shall care for Ri here until he is ready for carrying elsewhere. He will live and regain health. You have done well.”

A third, with a bronze armlet that seemed to betoken authority, touched a fourth and spoke. The interpreter said: “As for you two, K’hraich will now guide you. When you reach Ai, you may enter the Abode of Songs.”

Earth shone
in the viewscreen as the brightest among the stars, lapis lazuli, with Luna a nearby point of tarnished gold. To Nansen in his command center, it was as if nothing had changed, as if he had never been away. Observation of them and their sister planets gave the exact time span. A few
millennia were not enough for chaos to change their orbits beyond calculation.

Lives—of humans, civilizations, dreams—went faster. The length of recorded history had—what? tripled?—through how many births and agings and deaths, end to end, since last he beheld his world?

Envoy
would not get there for another day. How slowly it passed. Already, though, her crew spent most of their waking hours at duty stations, straining to discern and understand and keep guard against whatever the unknown might cast at them. Only Nansen was idled. The captain must hold himself ready to decide and command. But nothing happened except reports, and thus far the data were sparse. It was a lonely feeling. Silence pressed in on him.

Dayan’s voice broke it, urgent over the intercom. “Hold. Another signal just registered. It goes on.”

“I have it, too,” said Yu. “Here’s a visual.” The display appeared for Nansen also. To him it was like previous ones, shifting waveforms, a graphical equivalent rendered by a computer as an aid to study.

Dayan sighed. “The same kind as the rest.”

Sundaram repeated his earlier judgment: “No language. A stereotyped code.”

“Signals between robots,” Yu agreed. Radio and laser beams that
Envoy
chanced to intercept along her path.

Strange. Shouldn’t the technology be far advanced, undetectable by mere antennae? Or maybe this ought not to be surprising.

“Is everything in Solar space robotic?” wondered Mokoena. She spoke from Sundaram’s workroom. On the return voyage she had learned sufficient linguistics to become his assistant.

Nansen harked back to telescopic glimpses of a few asteroids and Mars as the ship moved inward. “Off Earth, evidently yes,” he said. “And minimal.”
Industries, settlements, human presence growing when we left, the germs of whole new nations—empty now, abandoned, one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Mokoena’s tone shuddered. “What of Earth itself?” Their transmissions ahead had drawn no response.

Zeyd avoided the worst inference. “A limited economy. Not necessarily impoverished. It could recycle with high efficiency to support a small, stable population.” Machinery purred around his words. For his part, he had qualified himself for second engineer, not expert but able to take routine off Yu’s hands.

“Like Tahir,” she said. “People who have turned their backs on space.”

Nansen looked past Earth to the stars. They shone cold and remote. None of the rare traces of travel had seemed to touch Sol, coming or going.

Dayan’s dispassion cracked. “Why the devil don’t we make directly for where the last starships are?”

“Earth is the mother world,” Sundaram said gently.

“Yes,” Mokoena added. “Don’t you care to know what she’s become?”

“And we promised we would come back,” Nansen finished.

To eyes
watching from polar orbit, the planet danced from day to night and back to dawn, agelessly beautiful. Still were the oceans a thousand shades of blue, burnished under the sun, starlit and moonlit after dark. Still did land masses sprawl, green, tawny, dun, in their familiar shapes. Cloud dappled the whole with fleeces and great swirls. The ice caps reached farther than formerly; snowfields ruled over most mountains. But this had merely enriched the temperate zones and mildened the tropics. In the cold valley of the glacial cycle, technics held global winter at bay.

Subtle arts, Nansen thought when he studied the instrument readouts. More carbon dioxide and methane than he once breathed—not that he’d notice the difference—and doubtless the concentration was well controlled. However, that couldn’t be the whole story; the factors and interactions
that make climates are millionfold. If a cybernetic system maintained this balance, it could not simply measure physical quantities and compute how much of what should be increased or decreased. It must be integrated with the ecology, the entire living world; for life is itself a geological force.

Installations seen on Luna and in Earth orbit strengthened his impression of a system complex, powerful, and self-sufficient. Though none aboard
Envoy
could tell what those domes, dishes, towers, lattices, and less nameable structures were for, she picked up indications of solar energy collected and beamed to chosen Earthside locations that varied minute by minute; and there appeared to be a widespread, buried electrical network, coupled to nodal points where buildings clustered aboveground.

Otherwise they saw something like an Eden. It was no single garden. Down from tundra and taiga swept wind-billowing steppes; boreal forest yielded to broadleaf woods and these to jungle; wings stormed above marshes and along seashores; plantations and croplands mingled in, not as conquerors but as parts of a planetary whole. Habitation was in scattered villages and a few small, compact cities. Traffic between was thin and largely aerial. No galaxies of illumination clustered on the dark side, though Nansen speculated that lighting was designed to minimize sky glow.

Alone in the command center, he heard Yu report yet another fruitless attempt at making contact. “Again, nothing.”

“I wish we had the Holont trick in our hardware,” snapped Dayan. “Give their damned electronics a good shaking.”

“Patience,” Mokoena advised. “We can’t expect their equipment to be compatible with ours, can we?”

“We can expect some technical wit,” Dayan retorted. “And even some provision for our return.”

“After eleven thousand years?” gibed Zeyd.

“Keep trying,” Nansen said.

Abruptly the formlessness in his outercom screen coalesced into a face.

Dayan whooped. “Transmission from the ground! They’ve figured our system out!”

“What breed of human is that?” breathed Mokoena.

Nansen stared. The head was both long and wide, the features male but beardless, skin amber, shoulder-length hair reddish black, nose thin, lips full, eyes big and violet. The mouth opened. Musical syllables resounded.

“More to the point,” Sundaram asked, awe in his tone, “what language is that?”

“Over to you, Ajit,” Nansen said for them all.

It went
quickly. A few computer-generated pictures and diagrams established the fact of
Envoy
’s journey and the approximate date of her departure from Sol. Then it was a matter of trying out ancient languages lying in scholarly databases. When this brought forth Chinese, Sundaram explained that English was the mutual tongue aboard. Presently he could call his shipmates to join him in the common room. They sat, in their various degrees and ways of tension, before the big screen they had used for entertainments. Dayan had reprogrammed the system for two-way transmission.

The groundside scene was of graceful columns and ogive windows open on a garden. A line of men in close-fitting green uniforms were perhaps an honor guard, though they bore no visible weapons. Their features were varied; races had not completely melted together. In the foreground a tall woman in a flowing, iridescent robe occupied an elevated seat. She was of the type the crew had first seen. Her coifed head bore a golden circlet from which arched two stylized wings. Beside her stood a stubby, balding man, dark white. His long tunic and flared trousers were gray, nondescript, carelessly worn. “A professor, I’ll bet,” Dayan whispered into Nansen’s ear. He tried not to smile, as solemn as they seemed on Earth.

The woman crossed hands on breast. Nansen rose, gave
her a salute, and sat down again. She spoke. When she stopped, the little man piped up. “The Unifier Areli bids peace, pax, calm, harmony,” he said. His accent made the English hard to follow.

“Thank you,” Nansen replied. “We are peaceful, too, of course. I gather that you know what our mission was.”

“I finded mention in databases. Rare. Many records lost. Most that concern
Envoy
be from
Ronai-li
—they say Kith—stories, songs of they.”

“Doesn’t even the Kith, whoever they are, remember us better?” Mokoena muttered.

The man had been translating for the woman, who sat impassive. However, perhaps he heard, for he turned back and explained, “Few, few Kith visits. Prior—lastest one, more than three hundred years in past. Near-lastest, a century more soon. Some Kith—” He Searched, found the word, and finished: “Kith folklore was collected.
Envoy
be ink.”

“But they’ve essentially forgotten us here on Earth,” Yu said.

“Eleven thousand years,” Sundaram told her. “Periods of turmoil, apparently. A great deal was inevitably lost, including from computer files.”

“If they were interested, they would have gotten it back.”

“But there are humans at other stars, are there not?” Nansen asked intently. “Some ships travel yet, don’t they? You must be in contact.”

“
Irh
, yes, news by laser.” The man shrugged, a gesture that included bridging the fingers. “From far places.” Mostly irrelevant, his tone implied. He smiled. “You have big news, no? Interested, we.”

“A novelty,” Zeyd growled aside to Mokoena. “The ship back from Punt, with pygmies to amuse Queen Hatshepsut. Are we much more significant?”

Again the man was bringing his leader(?) au courant. When his attention returned, Nansen said, “You evidently do not know our names. Allow me to introduce us. I am
Ricardo Nansen, the captain.” He didn’t give it in full. Hispanic nomenclature had frequently confused foreigners—when there was a Spanish language, a Paraguay, an
estancia
. He went around his group.

“I be Lonnor, student, expert, professional of beginning robotic period,” the man replied. Areli spoke to him. “We be—we are uncertain of biosafety,” he conveyed. “You have data, text, virtuals?”

Mokoena took the word. “Of course. Don’t worry about any diseases we might carry. We left with none and haven’t been exposed to anything we could catch, or that could infect Earth life generally.”

“Biology changed be possible.”

“M-m, yes.” She rubbed her chin. “We could be a hazard,” she said to the others. “Our
E. coli
, for example, may be exotic and dangerous now. Or there could be something that we have no immunity to. Yes, a quarantine period is needed.” To Lonnor: “I will see about sending you our complete biological and medical file, right down to the DNA.” Her teeth flashed. “And I’ll be fascinated by what you give us.” Zeyd nodded vigorously.

“Meanwhile,” Sundaram proposed, “we can exchange every kind of information.”

“We should be able to rig compatible virtual-reality sets,” Dayan added eagerly.

“Yes, yes, we hope,” Lonnor agreed. “Many future-want—will want—to meet you.”

“In person?” demanded Yu.

“No easy bring you down.” Lonnor considered. “You have vehicles for make-land?”

“I think it would be best if we don’t use our boat,” Nansen said slowly.
Our single remaining boat
“Nor should we all go at once.”

It wasn’t that anybody was likely hostile. Still, theirs was a totally foreign world; and the knowledge
Envoy
carried was beyond price. Come worst to worst, crewfolk who had stayed aboard must steer her elsewhere and reveal what she had.

Nonetheless—His gaze went to the viewscreen which Earth filled with her glory. How could he go without at least once more feeling her caress in his feet and bones, while her winds kissed him farewell?

They had
never heard of a field drive here, or apparently anywhere in the space known to man. Was that historical accident, or did the invention require a Tahirian kind of quantum mechanical insight, guided perhaps by hints the Holont gave those visitors before they fled from it and withdrew from the stars?